I'm losing it!

12+ pounds and still going! I haven't really been eating much lately, which has resulted in my losing some weight over the last 2-3 months. It wasn't like I was fat, but I wasn't very happy with how heavy I had become. I'm not starving myself, not by a long shot. I've made the switch to diet soft drinks (with rare exceptions) and drink more water - plus I just don't eat unless I'm hungry. Maybe it's from using the Dorm-a-tron... I dunno.

My mood has greatly improved over the last couple of days. The previous 2 weeks were very hard for me, but things are looking up. On Monday night I felt like a reset button had been pushed in my brain, allowing me to reboot and clear up a lot of crap that's been going through my head lately. The stuff is still in my mind and I'm working through it, but I no longer feel over-emotional about it.

This weightloss and my strange over-emotional state got me thinking about something: My ex-wife, Sherise, was severely overweight for most of our marriage. In May of 2001 she underwent gastric bypass surgery. As she lost weight, she went through some very rough points emotionally - seemingly out of nowhere. What she found out was that our fat cells also end up storing whatever chemicals (hormones, drugs, etc.) were floating around in your system at the time those fat cells were stored up. This means that if you were doing drugs, you might experience a slight flashback from it, if you were depressed you might go back through similar emotions as you did back then, if you were angry, you might get aggitated for no reason, etc... once your body started to break down and burn the fat cells. I bounced this question off my friend Ted, who also went through the same surgery. He told me of how he had also gone through some similarly strange and inexplicable emotional states during his period of weightloss.

What does this have to do with the price of tea in China? Well, I've been hovering around the same weight for the last 3-5 years. A lot of that time I was in an unhappy marriage and going through a lot of garbage related to it. So what I'm hypothesizing now is that when my body reached a certain area of fat to burn off in my body, it coincided with when I started going through a lot of stuff (over the last 2 months). There's no doubt that I would have been emotionally affected by what I was going through, but I think I got a hit with a extra dose of old emotional chemicals that had been stored up in my fat while things were happening to me recently and I got pushed over the edge.

For all I know, I'm just talking out of my ass. I really don't know. The dominant logical part of my brain has trouble dealing with emotional crap, that I know. I also know myself well enough to realize when something isn't right. 2 weeks ago I took a day off from work because I just couldn't cope with things. I sobbed almost uncontrollably for 2-3 hours. That's not me. That's just not how I deal with problems. It was an emotional breakdown and it freaked me out. So I guess I'm just looking for an explanation as to why it happened, because my logical side needs it. This is about as good of an explanation as I could figure out.

Don't get me wrong. I'm not trying to say that I'm not emotional - I feel and deal with emotions like everybody else. I just know how I process things and work through them. Not being able to come to grips with my feelings threw me for a loop and scared me.

Anywho, that's my story and I'm sticking with it. Move along! There's nothing to see here!

This entry came wrapped with a nice little bow that eventually got ripped off and torn into shreds.

The Mighty Quinn is at it again

It seems that my good pal Quinn is in high spirits lately. In fact, he felt so good, that he created a new (and strange) video for your viewing pleasure! It's good to see this side of him back again!

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Maybe it's the position of the moon, maybe it's just being tainted by my half of his genetic makeup, but Rece came up with something pretty funny today. I added it to the Oddities page on my site. Check it out!

This entry was brought to you by the dried up sponges hiding under my sink.

Very, very, very...

The last couple of days were, in my mind, wonderful. I spent some time with friends and went geocaching. It's easier to learn to appreciate something when you're able to see it up close, in person, and in it's natural habitat. This smile on my face won't go away and I look forward to the days ahead. It's good to have friends that care for you so much!

This entry was brought to you by some kick-ass chocolate chip cookies!

Quinn's tale, part 2

Quinn finished writing a piece of history about himself (click here to read part 1), which as a good friend I found very interesting. It just goes to show how life can change direction so quickly and how everything can be an influence on the directions we choose to go.

This entry was brought to you by cowbell.

Speaking of new products...

Rece just finished his homework (yeah, at 8:45 pm - ahem) and it's got to be some of the funniest shit I've read from him yet! His assignment was to come up with an advertisement for 2 products (made up or otherwise). They were both funny, but the one I liked best read as follows...

New from Maybotsew Pharmaceuticals, it's the Dorm-a-tron. Here's what some one said about it. "I've tried everything, but I just couldn't keep those extra 200 pounds down, and it was starting to affect my marriage. Then I found the Dorm-a-tron. Using a new technology to help me lose weight. You just strap on the Dorm-a-tron, put on the High Voltage Helmet, turn them on, and then you can have a perfect night's sleep while you lose weight."

This entry was brought to you by a High Voltage Helmet!

Fizzle, fizzle, fizzle!

A few weeks ago (18 days, actually) I was up late and chatting with a friend online. For some strange reason I was inspired to do something silly and ended up making some audio commercials for a few interesting (and fictional) products. Out of laziness, I sort of forgot about them and that was that. Rece reminded me of them tonight while we were walking to the store, so upon my return I put them up on my web site (in the Oddities section).

Here they are for your listening pleasure:

P'Raps - A new urban-themed chocolate bar. Awww yeah...

Rhubarb Soap - When being clean just isn't enough.

YeeHaw Soda - All of the flavor, none of the crunch.

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In other news...

My buddy (The Mighty) Quinn posted a bit of history of his life. Part of it involves me, so I figured I'd link to it in case some of my friends and family might be interested.

This entry was brought you by Rhubarb Soap... 'n' shit.

Sunday closure

My mood from earlier today is a lot better. I got a lot of stuff dealt with in my mind and was afforded the chance to let go of some of the anxieties I've been dealing with lately. It does look as though sleep will not be difficult to find tonight. Thankfulness, is the main thing within me right now. Let's see if I can redirect some of this anxiety into something constructive.

This entry was brought to you by a blended mocha.

Ramblings on a Sunday morning

Had a very difficult time getting to sleep last night. So much stuff happening in my brain that I couldn't relax. Thoughts about the past sorta bringing me down a little, as this will be my first Christmas and New Years single since... well, since high school. Thoughts about the present are both happy and sad - but more happy than sad, which keeps me going. It's probably the thoughts about the future that do the most to keep my mind spinning as it has been.

Most of my life I've had this strange inner drive to move to Oregon - more specifically, the Oregon coast. The natural beauty and slower pace of life were a part of that desire, but beyond that there was something deeper that I couldn't ever explain. There wasn't a day that I didn't think about eventually moving there - it was almost like an obsession. It felt as if the idea were implanted within my DNA and I was doomed to semi-obsess over it for the rest of my life. At some point over the last 6 weeks, this inexplicable impulse suddenly stopped.

I don't remember what day it was. I didn't notice what time it was. All I know is that I've been reprogrammed. And all the dreams I had for myself and my future are no longer important or have been forgotten about. They fell away without a fight.

This revelation has me reeling, and quite frankly, I'm frightened. One would typically expect that major life changes such as this to take some time to develop as time went by. The part that scares me is that my feelings for wanting to move up there were actually getting stronger just before they disappeared. Prior to that, the urge to go there was like a fist around my heart, squeezing it tightly. Even now, I cannot explain how much or how deeply I wanted to move to Oregon. It felt ancient, as though something was there that I had to return to, but I didn't know what it was. Now it's gone.

There's now a sense of frustration about my present and future. It's uncertain. I so want some things, but can't have them, at least not yet - or maybe I never will. Where in the past, I'd just do something or say something to try and make things happen, I'm forcing myself to wait and see. It's been very hard some days, like today has been. I really need to see all I can right now and it's so hard for me to do it. Everything within me sees what it wants, but in order to be fair to myself, I have to get out there and experience things I haven't yet. It's the only way that I'll be sure of what I want to do in the future.

I talked to a friend about how I've been feeling lately and she told me that she was both happy and sad for me. It wasn't until I heard it that I realized I felt the same way: happy and sad. The happiness is definitely outweighing the sadness, but unfortunately they're doomed to be associated with the same thing for now.

This entry was yet another cryptic and vague expression of my feelings.

Cold

Mark today down in your calendar, folks. For the first time in a long time (without there being snow), I'm actually feeling cold. I have no idea why this is happening, but it's got me confused. I am never cold - even when it's freezing outside. One fact about me is that my body is always warm and highly susceptible to heat. This past summer was pretty hot, which made it miserable for me. Winter comes and my body enjoys the break from the heat - but this morning I feel cold.

Maybe a cup of coffee will help. Hmm...

This seemed like such an unusual event for me that I had to blog about it. So consider it blogged.

This entry brought to you by frosty the snowman.

PS: The spell checker for blogspot flagged the words "blog" and "blogged" as misspelled. I find that ironic.

Update: 11:27 a.m. I had a cup of coffee... now I'm back to being too hot. ARRG!

Wizards of Winter

Found this incredible video on BBspot today. You just have to see it to believe it. It's safe to open at work and in front of your family - in fact, I encourage you to show this to them! Somebody had a lot of spare time on their hands to do this one.

This entry brought to you by a bunch of blinking and flashing lights.

Google Rocks!

The folks at TipMonkies.com have put together a list of services that Google offers. While it's fairly common knowledge that Google does a lot already, I had no idea they did so much more. Check it out for yourself!

This entry was written in a small little room, with a sexy pair of chairs.

5-day weekend recap

Thanksgiving plans changed quite a bit from my original idea of cooking for my dad, his wife (not my mom), their daughter (not my sister), Rece, and myself. The prospect of actually having to clean my train wreck of an apartment, on top of being the only cook in the place, wasn't sitting too well. What did I do? Founded upon a tip from a coworker, I decided that we'd go to Mimi's Cafe and enjoy a Thanksgiving feast cooked by somebody else for a change.

This was my first Thanksgiving at a restaurant. I've been fortunate enough to have the luxury of a home-cooked Thanksgiving meal ever since I can remember. Mimi's did an excellent job of bringing the home-cooked feel to the food and it was all delicious. The best part was not having any dishes to clean when it was all over! While I still prefer the traditional Thanksgiving meal cooked by the loving hands of friends and family, it's good to know that there are other options.

Much later on Thursday night, I helped a good friend format her sister's computer and reinstalled Windows XP from scratch. Unfortunately it resulted in the loss of everything, as to be expected, but it was out of necessity, as the computer just wasn't behaving very well at all. It took at least 4-5 hours to finish the whole job (including updates and other installs), but the company was top-notch, so at least it was enjoyable.

On Friday, Rece and I joined my dad and his family for a movie. We went to see Chicken Little. It was a pretty good flick, though not a blockbuster film by any measure. The essence of the story is a sad one, really: a boy (well, a chicken - I guess that would make him a young rooster, eh?) being raised by an asshole father (a real cock) who is embarassed of his own son and doesn't support him - that is until his son does something amazing - why not show that you love him no matter what, dad? The graphics were top-notch and the humor was clean and, at times, very witty. It was rated G and deservedly so. Take your kids to the (cheaper) matinee showing and you shouldn't be disappointed.

Saturday was a fun-filled day spent with Rece. We started off riding our bikes to Radio Shack to pick up some batteries for a garage door opener, then went to Sushi Wave for lunch. I managed to get Rece to eat 2 pieces of a California roll, which is quite an accomplishment if you know how picky he can be. We spent the majority of the meal laughing, which is always a good thing. Our next stop was Baskin Robbins, where we split a pint of Oreo cookies and cream ice cream - yum! We finished off our remaining time together (before his mom came to pick him up) watching Charlie and the Chocolate Factory on DVD. It was a cute movie, entertaining enough for me to sit all the way through.

Later that evening (after Rece had departed with his mom) I went geocaching with a couple of good friends. We went out at night for three specific reasons: 1) to release my new travel bug, 2) to go hunting for a very cool night cache, and 3) to expose these geocachers to a variety of "micro caches" so that they may be able to find some on their own much easier in the future (they think they suck at finding them, but they did just fine). The night cache was very cool, requiring that we use flashlights to locate reflective markers that lead us down a path - and ultimately to the cache (which turned out to be a pretty funny container). We all had a great time.

Sunday I spent resting, by myself, being completely lazy. I didn't take a shower, I barely ate, I tinkered around on the computer, and I slept for most of the day. To steal a quote from the brilliant film, Office Space...

"I did absolutely nothing, and it was everything I thought it could be." - Peter Gibbons

Monday was a real treat! I was able to take the day off and went to Disneyland with a very special friend. It was a very slow day at the amusement park, so we were able to get on all the best rides with practically no wait at all. The newly renovated Space Mountain ride was fantastic, except maybe for the last special effect at the end - it left me feeling slightly disoriented for quite some time after.

After Disneyland we went for some down-home southern cooking at Johnny Rebs. So yummy! Our eyes were much bigger than our stomachs, which resulted in us taking about 3 pounds of leftovers home. With plenty of time left in the evening, we went out to find a couple of geocaches after leaving the restaurant.

We laughed a lot and thoroughly enjoyed our time together. The day was so perfect that I still have a huge grin on my face! I don't see how it could get any better than this!

This entry was brought to you by hypercolor shirts!

One Confused Geek

Once it happened, there was no going back. It was unexpected and developed faster than I thought possible. In a way, I feel crazy.

My brain has been so filled by the same line of thought lately that I'm nearly overwhelmed - but in a good way. Last night I freaked myself out because I couldn't seem to put my mind back in order. Having lived with ADD all my life, I've grown accustomed to having many different thoughts about so many different things all at the same time. Now, most of those different thoughts have become transfixed on just one thing. The very thought patterns of my mind seem to have been altered (poetry, for crying out loud?!). It's a wonderful, but confusing thing, really.

Now I know you're probably wondering to yourself, "self, what the hell is Gabe talking about?" This is a valid question, but one that may not ever get answered. I have my reasons for being so cryptic, so please just bear with me. There was a drive for me to get this out of my head in some fashion, so I'm posting here. This is very important to me.

This entry confused the writer about as much as it probably confused you.

Random Thoughts 11/22/05

While talking to my boss this morning, he said to me, "last night I went to get my balls drilled."

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Bleak white canvas
Deep chilled breath

Numbness of fingers
Warmth a forgotten luxury

Empty tree branches
Animals deep sleep

Winter soon comes

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I hate writing poetry (don't count on it happening again)

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My cable Internet appears to have been fixed. The connection has been dropping with regular frequency from somewhere around 11-12 in the morning until 3:30-4:00 in the afternoon for the last week. The cable guy came by this morning and tested my connections and found a bad splitter. He replaced it and it seems to be doing the trick. I can now stare at my messy living room again.

This entry was never here. Please try to forget all about it.

Turkey Day Race

I just felt like dropping in to report that I had an excellent weekend. I feel well rested and in high spirits. I'm also very relieved that this is a short work week due to turkey day.

My dad and his wife, Apple (not my step-mom) and their daughter, Jazmyn (not my sister) are supposed to come down and join Rece and I for Thanksgiving. This will be the first Thanksgiving that I'll be doing all the cooking (aside from whatever help Apple offers - she's very sweet). We'll see how it goes.

Since Sherise's relatives are being assholes, I've decided to not even bother trying to stick in there and take him to their functions. I'll let her patch things up with her family and she take Rece to their family functions herself. It's really too bad, as I got along pretty well with some of them. Such is life after divorce, I suppose.

This entry was made possible by gobble gobble!

Privacy - Done Deal

I met with HR this afternoon, by my request, to get clarification as to what it was they thought I did wrong in this matter (read previous 2 days of posts for more info). The meeting was brief, being only about 10 minutes long, and from what I was told, I'm not in trouble... I didn't do anything wrong... and that in the future I should do what I did this time: tell them to speak with HR.

Initially I was given some sort of circular argument about how I could have followed protocol better (AKA unwritten/unspoken rule not specified anywhere in our employee handbook). This didn't deter me from my pursuit of specific information, as I asked what exactly the correct protocol was. I was informed that I should refer people to HR if they feel concerned about their privacy. Once I heard this, I asked, "You mean as I did in the email that started all of this?" and, after a brief pause, was told "Yes". "So I didn't do anything wrong," I asked. "No, you didn't," she said to me.

There was no apology for having had my boss chew me out for nothing, except for being told that it probably wasn't necessary for it to have gone so far. Gee, thanks.

To me it seems that I got a knee-jerk reaction from HR... and that between this reaction and my boss's failure to ascertain what it was that I did in the first place and then to maybe stand up for me when he realized that I hadn't done anything wrong - I ended up in the hot seat for no reason. Maybe I'll just consider myself fortunate that things didn't get twisted around and end up causing me any more grief than it did.

This entry was made into a mountain from a molehill.

Privacy - Part 2

This morning I was "talked to" by my boss regarding the email I sent out yesterday. He said that HR wanted him to express that notifiying staff about this type of thing was not my job. Yet when I asked him what I did wrong and what I should do different in the future, he had no answer. I really wish he would have stood up for me, but I guess that's not the type of guy he is - aside from that, he's a really good boss, so I can't really complain. I'm still puzzled by what HR thinks I did wrong in this matter that warranted any action at all.

It wasn't an official reprimand or warning (yet), but I did tell him that I felt that I did no wrong in this matter and would stick by it, even if it meant ultimately getting written-up for it. I've never been written up here or at any other place of employment, so if it's going to happen, at least it'll be for something based on good principle.

I've asked HR for a sit-down meeting so we could clear the air about this. We'll be meeting tomorrow afternoon. I'll post an update after that.

This entry brought to you by PORK CHOP SANDWICHES!

A Matter of Privacy

A few of the ladies that work in my office recently discovered that if they "Googled" their name, their contact information came up - often times at the top of the search. The information provided includes their name, email address, title, and direct phone number at our office. Add to it that we also display our address (the part I have no trouble with), and you have enough information to be able to harass or stalk the person from their work, then ultimately follow them home.

Two of the ladies at work have had previous encounters with a stalker, that I know of. I know one of them actually has a restraining order against her ex, who has stalked her in the past. So having their information so easily found on the web doesn't seem right.

When I first learned about management wanting to put this information on the web site, I spoke up and voiced my concern regarding privacy. At the time, I didn't even know about the stalker incidents of those 2 ladies. My pleads were ultimately ignored and we've since kept an accurate and up-to-date list of all staff members on our web site. Did I fail to mention that this was all done without notifying any of the staff?

It wasn't until the last week or two that I've been asked about why we had this information publicly available on our site by 3 of our staff members. I help maintain our site, so it wasn't unusual for them to ask me about it. Then again today, I heard of another incident where a staff member was contacted by somebody in an odd circumstance (though I don't have any of the details) by use of the information found on our web site.

To be honest, I don't see why we need this information on our web site. Most of the staff doesn't interact with the public. In fact we've been urged not to unless it is in direct relation to our position. This is to make sure that any public information is handled properly and our messaging is consistent. Some staff need to be contacted directly for various duties and functions, but the majority don't.

So today I decided to send an email out to the 5 ladies that have either voiced concern over this issue or have had situations in their lives where this might be a concern. I simply suggested that they contact our HR department and ask them to remove their name from the web site list. Apparently some of them already have and I just found out that I'm going to get "talked to" about sending this email. To me it seems like I'm going to get my ass chewed out for trying to be a nice guy and keeping an eye out for staff members. Isn't that what HR is supposed to be doing?

I'll post an update about what happens from here. Wish me luck.

This entry was made possible by Google and a concerned IT guy.

The Big D

Today I penned my name to a piece of paper; the final piece needed to officially end my marriage of 14+ years. It occurred with no conflict or words of hurt. There were no tears or ill-will. It was just over.

Technically, the divorce isn't official until the papers make it to the courthouse, which should happen within the next week or two. Having spent a few moments thinking about it, I feel as though tremendous weight has been lifted off my shoulders, though, somewhere in the back of my mind, I do feel some sense of loss.

It was just over 16 years ago that I met Sherise. She sat behind me in English class our senior year of high school. We were both very different back then. It's amazing how when I look back at the person she was back then, I get a smile on my face. She was bubbly and fun to be around. We had a blast when we were together, despite the difficulties that we each had going on in our lives. It was some of these very difficulties that probably brought us closer together.

Being young and knowing everything is a tough responsibility. The logical thing we decided upon was to get married. Sure, this made sense. We loved each other tremendously and brought so much joy to one another - so why not? A year and 1 month after our first date we were married.

The first year was alright. I can't say that it was newlywed bliss, because it wasn't. We struggled like anybody else, but we somehow managed to make it. The second year was when the weight of my decision first started to press down on me. The honeymoon was over and we just couldn't seem to get on the same page about things - important or otherwise. I stuck in there, hoping that things would eventually get better. We make it 3 years and then Sherise is pregnant. At this point I honestly felt stuck - and I do mean stuck. Due to my procrastination and my sense of obligation, I felt as though I had locked myself into the marriage.

Rece was born in September of 1994. Rece wasn't planned - I prefer to call him a "surprise". From the moment he was just a tiny lump inside Sherise, I loved him. It was this love for him that kept me hanging in there, time and time again. My dissatisfaction for my marriage was beginning to show through and I wasn't the best husband to Sherise... but I stuck in there.

Fast-forward to 1999, when Sherise and I were finally at our wit's end and managed to split up for a couple of months. It was rushed and not carried out very wisely (go figure), and I couldn't stand to see what was happening to Rece. I caved in and tried to take another stab at making it work. Church didn't help. Counseling didn't help. Self-help books didn't help... but I stuck in there.

Late 2003, I came to the realization that no matter what happened, I just didn't want to be married to Sherise any more. It was finally sticking in my mind and my will was bent towards finally ending it. Sherise didn't make it difficult for me, as she was starting to have to cope with a lot of emotional and self-actualization garbage that she had been ignoring most of her life. I won't get into everything that happened during 2004, but it was just the incentive I needed to end it.

2005... a new year... a new beginning. We finally came to the realization that it just wasn't going to work anymore and there was no going back. Sherise moved out some time in late March/ early April and started filing. I was served with the divorce papers sometime in April.

These feelings of loss come as a surprise to me. I mean, this was something that I had invested more time into than anything else in my entire life! There's a nagging sense of hurt, which is mostly just bruised pride at having failed at something so big. Don't get me wrong, I'm not down in the dumps about all this, but if I'm to be honest with myself I have to acknowledge the feelings I'm experiencing.

Today I'm looking at life more optimistically - well, as optimistic as I'll likely ever get. I'll throw myself into being a good dad. Hopefully I can help him learn to deal with life better than I did. Maybe I'll be especially lucky and he'll have learned from my mistakes.

This entry snuck up like a ninja when the writer least expected.

There's no "C" in Anaheim

Forget skydiving. Don't bother with bungie jumping or hang gliding. For a real adventure, take a ride on bus route 43 at night.

I needed to take the bus to Disneyland to meet some friends so we could watch the fireworks and hang out afterwards. Without a car, this meant riding the bus. OCTA's route 43 is a short walk from my home and requires only one bus from Costa Mesa to Anaheim. I ride the bus to work almost every workday, so I didn't think anything about taking the bus at night. My thoughts on this have changed since Saturday night.

My ex-wife dropped by to pick up Rece, so I bummed a ride from her to the shopping center where my bus stop was to pick me up at about 9:00 pm. As I began to cross the parking lot, a young guy, I'm guessing around 24, came around the corner riding a skateboard and was apparently talking to me. Having not heard what he said, I asked "Excuse me?"

He replied "No man, I don't want to have anything to do with whatever's going down here, man. I'm just a harmless white guy, man."

Assuming he thought something illegal was afoot, I explained, "Naw, bro, it's not like that. That's my ex and my kid."

Not one bit fazed by this, the guy just continued, "Oh, well I don't know about that, man, I just don't want any part of it, don't get me involved."

It was at this point that he came into close enough range (and dangerous proximity) that I was then able to observe that he was holding a large maglite flashlight, rather tightly - and with the butt-end out. I moved a couple of steps away from the direction he was rolling and flashed him the hippy peace sign, saying, "Peace and love, bro. Peace and love." He passed by without further incident, still muttering to himself.

The bus was running on time and I was happy to get off the street, considering the previous incident, only to notice a large group of 'hoodies' at the back of the bus. For those who don't know, a 'hoodie' is sometimes used in reference to the gang-banger, tattoed and hard-ass looking guys who wear hooded sweatshirts. Having gone to continuation school during high school, I knew better than to make eye contact and simply found a seat towards the front of the bus.

At the next stop, a man in a wheel chair got on the bus. The bus driver asked him how long he had waited, to which the man replied "About 45 minutes. The last bus stopped, let off people, didn't take anybody else on and drove off." Not seeming to be surprised by this, the bus driver apologized to the man for his wait and got on the radio to inform the OCTA Operations and Command Center (I made up that name).

The man in the wheel chair was a nice enough fellow, so I asked him if he thought the previous bus driver had wigged out or something. He didn't know, but complained about the pain in his knee. I asked him what had happened to it and he said that he got hit by a car while crossing a street back in 1979. He then went on to tell me about getting hit by another car (while in the wheelchair) not too long ago. "You think my knee looks bad, check this out" and proceeded to pull down his sock to display a gaping wound about an inch in diameter and at least an inch deep. Fortunately I don't get grossed out easily, but the sight of this did surprise me - not to mention making me wonder why he felt the need to show it to me, a complete stranger. He got off the bus about a mile away from where he had boarded.

Not long after the wheelchair man left the bus, a gal got on, huffing from the sprint across a parking lot to catch the bus (and her physical size). She was lady-like and must have been a regular on the route, as she said "Shit, make my fat ass run through wet grass to catch you!" to the bus driver. Once boarded, she looked at the group of hoodies in the back and exclaimed, "did I get on the wrong bus or something" and sat in the front seat. About 5 minutes passed and, for what seemed like absolutely no reason, she whipped her head around looking towards the back of the bus screaming, "What the fuck did you say? You better as HELL not be talkin' 'bout me!" She continued by muttering something about today not being a good day to mess with her. I'm sure she'll make some guy very happy some day.

At the same stop the screaming lady disembarked, another woman boarded, quietly sobbing to herself. She must have been quite distraught, as her purse looked as though she had walked through a field of sprinklers. The poor thing didn't stop crying her entire trip, getting off somewhere near Disneyland. The fireworks had already started, but they did nothing to lift her spirits.

I got off the bus and made my way to the Disney Promenade and met my friends to finish watching the fireworks display. Smiley face and cube-shaped fireworks? Neat! I'll have to come back earlier some day soon, so I can watch the entire show.

OCTA's route 43 is one of their 24-hour routes. If it's this looney between 9:00 and 9:35 pm, I can't imagine how much more interesting it is through the middle of the night.

This entry brought to you by Capt Jack and his electronic orchestra.

Feeling sexy

As promised, here's a picture of me from earlier today in my costume. I ended up winning a prize (a Starbucks gift card) for "most creative". I decided to leave the costume on for the rest of the day and to wear it when I take Rece out trick or treating tonight. Hope you enjoy the photo!

Edit: I posted larger versions on my site.

This entry brought to by a weirdo transvestite.

Trick or Treat!

I just had to post about the costume that I'll be wearing to work today - it'll be total transvestite! I'll be wearing a dress, makeup (lipstick, eye shadow, and whatever else Laurie at work wants to put on my face to make me look really vamped out), a purse, and my hair will be in pigtails. The jury is still out on whether or not I'll be wearing panty hose, but we'll see when the time comes.

Trust me, there should be plenty of pictures, so check back later today or tomorrow to see.

This entry brought to you by my filthy mass of meat and hair.

Like the Weather

This morning I was listening to some music while sitting at my desk, copying files from our old server to our new one. I queued up 10,000 Maniac's Like the Weather and went into my head for a little while; thinking of days past (like when the song originally came out) and also of how much I actually enjoy the weather at this time of the year in SoCal. This summer was too hot for me, which led to my wanting to stay indoors far too much. Now that it's cooled off and there are actually clouds in the sky, the urge to get outdoors has hit.

The last 2 weekends I've gone hiking with friends and, in about a week, I'll be going out to do it again. Geocaching has provided me with an added interest in getting out on the trails and communing with nature. My body has been craving the twinge of muscle burn received by walking up inclines and over long distances. This autumn and winter, I plan to treat my body to a buffet of physical activities.

This entry brought to you by lactic acid. Feel the burn.

Screaming banshee

My friend Staci Ann sent me this e-card yesterday and I found it very entertaining. So I thought I'd drop in here and put up a link to it so y'all can check it out. So, uh, check it out!

This entry brought to you by the undead.

Do I still get to be the janitor?

It appears that I'm still in a state of flux since my divorce started. While I'm not technically divorced yet (paperwork is pending), I am separated and trying to deal with being single (with a kid). What really sucks is that by getting married at 18, I completely skipped the single adult youth stage where you figure out how to handle mature adult relationships. Not only did I really not know what I wanted in a partner, I jumped into a relationship that in hindsight I probably shouldn't have. On top of that, I ended up spending a good portion of 14 years trying to make it work. The one thing that made it all worthwhile was the birth of my son - otherwise I would have considered it a total waste of time.

So here I am at the age of 33, pretty much unprepared for the single life. I know who I am now, what I do and don't like as far as boundaries and preferences go. What I don't know is what type of woman is right for me. Who I might find attractive physically, might be bad for me relationally as far as their personality. A gal that's a great friend, may not be the right person for me in the long-term for a variety of reasons. I feel like I've been thrown a tennis ball, a bowling pin, and a chainsaw and then asked to juggle them - and I don't know how to juggle.

Most of the folks that I know seem to consider me a good person; I'd like to think so as well. What I'm dreading (and seem to have already done) is to get involved with somebody and then end up hurting them. I know this is probably what I would have had to go through back in my early adulthood, but at my age it seems a little pathetic - at least to me it does. Most single women my age already went through all that garbage and, if they've never been married (or even if they have), are looking for a man to settle down with. The prospects of dating much younger women seems shallow and not really something I'm willing to put myself through - even though it might prove to be fun for a little while.

So here I am, a divorced (with a kid) 33 year old man, not knowing exactly what I want, but knowing I want something. Now I have to try and figure out how to navigate the sea of relationships rather late in the game and I'm concerned about the clouds on the horizon and the choppy waters ahead. Man overboard?

This entry was held over a cliff and told to repent or perish.

There I was, there I was... IN the Congo...

Yesterday was a lovely day at work. We had to upgrade our servers to Windows 2003 Server and migrate services from our old Domain Controller to a different (newer - faster) one. We had an awesome consultant helping us through some of the process, which was much needed. Altogether, I worked around 13.5 hours yesterday, pretty much non-stop.

Due to me not having a car, my boss was nice enough to drop me off at my apartment. This was just after 12:30 am. So all that happened after getting into my apartment was getting out of my work clothes, throwing on a t-shirt and shorts and then straight to bed.

Back to work at 8:30 am, we had a few oddball glitches to sort out after we had our staff logging back on the network this morning. Nothing too bad, most of the problems were related to DNS issues, which was easily rectified.

The time is fast approaching when we're completely migrated off our old Novell 5.0 server. I have to say that I'll miss the dependability of it, but I won't miss being the only I.T. guy in the building who knows how to administer it. It's really too bad that Novell fell flat on it's face by clinging too tightly to their old "we are the master of company networks" thinking. They should have kept up with the way technology and networks were migrating and develop a functional administration GUI so that I.T. folks weren't so turned off by it. Such a shame.

Today was spent working non-stop again. Now I'm headed home! Woo hoo!

This entry brought to you with peanuts and lots of green corn.

It's madness, I tell you!

It's Tuesday and I'm in good spirits, despite being a little tired and it being unusually warm in my office. Hmm... I think I'll go grab a cup of coffee and adjust the thermostat. Be right back...

...that's better! Thanks for waiting.

A funny thing occurred to me a couple of days ago. It seems that I'm still stuck in the mode of shopping and cooking for 3 people. I guess that after doing it for so long, I developed a habit. I need to cut down on this, as it's a waste of money - not to mention a waste of food.

Rece is having difficulties in school. He's very smart and tests high, yet doesn't seem to be self-motivating and thus unable to be productive at school. For example, he was given an assignment that should have taken approximately 90 minutes to complete. He was given 120 minutes to complete it, but the only thing he managed to get done at all was put his name on the paper. This is extremely frustrating to me, since I don't have a clue about how to handle this. I can monitor his homework, help him practice his spelling words, answer questions when he's stuck on something, and assist him on projects when needed - but he's on his own when he's at school. How does a parent help his child to learn to be self-motivated? I seriously don't know how to handle this one and I'm frustrated at both him and myself about it.

Work is still a bit stressful lately, but I did manage to do everything I was asked to do last week. I had to put off a couple of things, but that's time-management for ya. Last night we had something strange happen on the network. For some reason we had massive traffic on the internal network that caused nearly everything to grind to a halt. We were lucky that this happened at around 4:45 pm, so staff just went ahead and left for home. After 2 and 1/2 hours of scratching our heads, my boss and I got things running right again. We never did find out what was the cause, which left us uneasy. Hopefully it was just a one-time glitch with a network switch or something. If it repeats, we'll have our hands full.

This entry was a series of random thoughts from yours truly.

Cheese, Gromit!

On Saturday afternoon, Rece, Shannon and I went out to see Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit. I must say that I haven't laughed so hard and often at a movie since, well, heck I don't remember!

This movie is a must see for everybody! There's action, romance, comedy, innuendo, and an angry mob - what more could anybody want? A golden carrot you say? Yep, it's got that, too!

Shannon found the rabbits to be hysterical. I enjoyed the innuendo and inside jokes (for Wallace & Gromit fans). Rece enjoyed seeing "Hutch" (the character pictured on the bottom-left) act like Wallace.

Take your kids or significant other (or go by yourself!) and see this one before it leaves the theaters. It's Wallace & Gromit at their best - just more of them than ever before!

This entry brought to you by cheese!

Checking in

Since my last entry the following has happened:

• The bike I bought for Rece on his birthday was stolen - 6 days later. We'll get him another one, but I'm so mad about it getting stolen. Bastards.
• Shannon got sick with what I can only assume was the same thing I came down with. I insisted that she stay at my place so I could help take care of her. She's doing pretty good now. We both are at the tail-end of it. Just sniffles and the occasional coughing.
• My copy of Dungeon Siege 2 arrived, allowing Quinn and I to adventure online once again. The game isn't as good as we had hoped it would be, but it's still fun and an entirely new adventure, so it should hold our attention for a little while longer.
• Quinn and I are planning to go Geocaching next weekend. We haven't done much together lately, so it'll be cool to go hiking on the hunt for tupperware and ammo cans again.

So there you have it, almost 2 weeks of updates. Aren't you lucky?

This entry brought to you through the corns on my toes!

Sniffle... cough...

I've been sick for the last 4 days now, going on 5. Technically I've been fighting something off for the last month or two, but I don't think that counts, despite what Shannon tries to tell me. Denial is a wonderful and horrible thing, isn't it?

So last week, on Thursday, I start feeling really bad. Bad enough to leave work early, which I'm reluctant to do under most circumstances. It started with the aches and then moved on to a fever. It took me 3 times of using the "bundle-up-like-a-burrito-and-sweat-it-out" technique in order to break the fever, leaving me very weak and tired and still aching.

On top of all this, I was supposed to be getting things ready for Rece's birthday party. I swear, if it weren't for Shannon, it wouldn't have happened. She not only went out of her way to play nursemaid to my sick (and whiney) ass, she also dug in and helped get things organized for his party. She went way above and beyond the call of duty this time! She so rocks!

So yeah, sick... I was sick all the way through Rece's party on Sunday, but finally caved in and went to the doctor right after it was over. Feeling like crap, I called in sick on Monday and I called my boss just an hour ago to let him know that I wasn't going to be coming in Tuesday either. I feel much better, but I need to rest and let the antibiotics do what they need to do.

Sleep isn't in the cards for me at the moment, as I've been sleeping so much since this bug invaded and took over my body. At the moment, I'm a sleepless and phlegmy mess, but on the way towards recovery.

One cool thing about all of this is that my voice sounds awesome. So I've been doing all sorts of voices that I am unable to make while healthy. Hey, it keeps me entertained!

This entry brought to you by BANG BANG, you're dead!

A night at the Opera

More good news in the world of web browsers (since the release of Firefox, that is). Opera, an innovative software maker of web browsing software have finally realized the folly in charging for their web browser software. Until recently, you either had to put up with ad banners in the software or pay for the browser. I never understood why anybody would pay, when Internet Explorer, Mozilla, Netscape, and other browsers were offered for free without annoying ads. Sure the browser had many advanced features, like tabbed browsing, but after the release of Firefox, which has many of the same features - for free - I can't see how they could still expect users to pay for their browser.

I think this is a very smart move on their part. Hopefully this will up the ante in the browser market, leading to more competition and innovation.

This entry brought to you by the geek within.

A pirate's life fer me!

Surprise, surprise! Today be the Official International Talk Like A Pirate Day! Tis a wonderful day to be liken the speak of the most wickedest, dirtiest scoundrels ever to sail the high seas! Why just this weekend I fought off a pack of angry merchants. Why they be angry? I was making off with their goods and women, of course! ARRR!

Be ye a pirate? Learn your pirate name as I have...

My pirate name is:

Mad James Bonney

Every pirate is a little bit crazy. You, though, are more than just a little bit. You can be a little bit unpredictable, but a pirate's life is far from full of certainties, so that fits in pretty well. Arr!

Get your own pirate name from fidius.org.

This entry brought to you by AHRRRG, lass, shiver me timber!

Wise words

I read a poem today that sparked my mind.

How many things in our life do we do this to? How often do we take things and over-complicate them, thinking that we can do it better? I know I'm guilty of doing this many times over. Sometimes the best thing one can do is just leave things alone.

Jessica Stover's site is a cool place that I check out daily. If not for something profound or encouraging, I find humor and introspection. Check it out when you get a chance, you might be surprised.

This entry brought to you by my complicated and bewildering mind, or something.

Battle

Rece made a video this past weekend that I forgot to post about here (seeing as how some readers don't visit my site unless my blog points them there). I'm proud of his efforts and it made for a very cute and funny movie.

Rece and my dad's 3 year-old adopted daughter were playing around while my dad's wife was filming them with a digital camera. I briefly showed Rece how to edit the movies on the computer and he really got creative with the footage. The results speak for themselves:

Battle (Windows Media format)

I only made a couple minor modifications, one cut for pacing, another for funny effect, and then helped him with the credits at the end. The concept, flow and editing were all Rece's doing. I hope you enjoy it as much as I do.

This entry brought to you by The Pirate Monkeys.

Mmmm, brains...

My brain is fried. This week started off with a 3-day weekend, turned into a 4-day weekend by taking Tuesday off as well. I hit the ground running when I got to work on Wednesday (yesterday) and it hasn't stopped since! If I didn't take a break to write this, I think my head might have exploded.

I coined a new word last night: zombilingus. Not much to say about it, except that it lead to nearly uncontrollable laughter. Creating new words is fun!

This entry brought to you by Igor.

Helping others

Hurricane Katrina has done a lot of damage to areas of the south, which has spurred many people into action to help. Some of this help has been in the form of what the non-profit world calls "in-kind" gifts. These are donations of physical goods/items, typically food/toys/ clothing, to charitable organizations. The Red Cross is a wonderful organization that helps people in times of emergency, but they are not set up to take these in-kind gifts. The Red Cross can make the biggest impact by working closer to where the problem is and get the best bang for the buck to help the most people possible by taking donated money and using it to purchase necessary items locally (and/or getting help through corporate partners). So if you'd like to help, the donation of money is the best way to help people that are not local to you.

Working for Orange County United Way has given me a lot of insight into how human service charities operate, and much of it was a surprise to learn. The best way you can give, in order to have the most impact, is to give money - at least in most cases. Organizations such as Goodwill and The Salvation Army are set up to take physical items, as that is a good portion of their business (of course you can still donate money to them, too). These types of charities help more on a local level, meaning people that live in your area. Donate items to these places, but also remember that other charities/organizations exist that need your financial support as well (Boys & Girls Clubs, soup kitchens, homeless shelters, etc) - not to mention volunteers to help bring services to those that need it.

My point in writing this is is to help people understand some of the differences in charities and human service organizations. There are many people who need help, so be generous - listen to your heart. If you want to help with a disaster, do so by giving above and beyond what you already give locally - as your local community organizations still need your help.

Make giving a constant thing, not just when a disaster occurs.

This entry was written in hopes that people will
give whatever they can to help others in need.

I believe you have my stapler

Tonight I'll be watching Office Space at the local flashback feature theater. Staci Ann and I are going, possibly with a few others from our office. It should be fun.

Last year I went to see this movie and ended up winning my very own red Swingline stapler. You can see Captain Jack holding it in his log.

This entry was written while listening to the radio at a reasonable volume.

Speaking of hot...

Shannon is now enjoying some fun in the sun at Burning Man in the Black Rock Desert of Nevada. It's a trip that she's been anticipating for a long time and working towards attending for just as long. This will be her second time at this event. I hope she's having a great time. I miss her.

This entry brought to you by a bunch of desert dwelling pyromaniacs.

Hot, Hot, HOT!

No breeze, high temperatures, high humidity - I'm dying here! I wasn't built to withstand much heat. I can comfortably exist at 60°F, which isn't the norm for Southern California in August. This is the wrong climate for somebody like me; I need cool fresh air to breathe.

The last 3 weeks have been unusually warm. It's mostly due to the lack of an ocean breeze. The apartments where I live are usually very comfortable, not needing air conditioning for most of the year. Every so often we get these days here and there when the breeze dies down and we just get to stew in the heat. This summer we've had 3 or 4 weeks like that, which I don't recall happening in previous summers.

So I'm tired, as I don't rest well when warm. My throat feels dry, most likely due to having to sleep with the fans on (4 of them throughout the apartment). Besides that, I still feel warm most of the time. I'm not happy about this.

One day this will all be but an unpleasant memory, as I stand somewhere along the Oregon coast, enjoying a cool ocean breeze...

This entry brought to you by the Polar Bear Society.

NO phone for you!

In their infinite wisdom, the FCC has decreed that all VoIP providers must terminate service to customers that haven't responded with their acknowledgement of the inherent limitations of making 911 calls through their VoIP phone service.

To put it simply: Due to how VoIP works, it's difficult to connect customers to local 911 call centers. So in an emergency, 911 might not be as quick and easy (or at all) as it is with standard phone service. The FCC wants to make sure that all customers understand this issue. So if customers do not acknowledge that they understand this, the VoIP provider must terminate their service.

How is this supposed to make sense? What happens if one of these customers needs to call the police or the fire department? Not only will they not be able to dial (a limited) 911, but they won't be able to call anybody else! This just seems like government policy stepping on it's own toes to me.

This entry brought to you by Contessa, the common sense critter.

How long will you stare at a blank blog page?

So far, I've been staring at this thing for 7 minutes, but drawing a total blank. Maybe it's because I'm hungry.

Today I missed lunch due to a 30 minute training class (that I held) going for 45 minutes. I was supposed to go out to Souplantation with some of the guys from the office, but I was delayed just enough time to miss the boat. Not having a car sucks. My only remaining options are:

1. Walk 1/2 mile to the nearest sandwich shop
2. Purchase a pack of Ramen noodles from the break room vending machine

I don't mind walking, which is probably what I'll end up doing. It's been so muggy lately that I hope I don't work up a sweat going there and back. I just don't want to stink up the office.

This entry was written in the hopes that you'll
learn from my horrible and hideous mistakes!

Make up your mind, dummy!

Alright, all is well and groovy in my world now. Shannon and I are back together, as we were before. We're just going to take things as they come and do what needs to be done, when it needs to be done. I think that's about as generic as I can make it. We talked and talked and realized that we had similar worries and concerns, but that we really enjoyed spending time together and thought it dumb to throw that away. It's good to have her back.

So, yeah... I'm glad that's over with. Now I can go back to being my usual dorky self!

This entry brought to you by pretty pink horses with flowing purple manes.

It's alive!

Remember last week when I had trouble with hooking up a DV Camera to my computer at work? Well the good news (I failed to report last week) is that I was finally able to get it working. It took the purchase of a $200 device (that includes some very nice video editing software), but by Judas it works! I was able to capture all the video from the camera and put it on my hard drive... all 8 GB of it!

Raw AVI files sure do take up a lot of room. It's no wonder there's so much action going on with video codecs (MPG, MOV, WMV, DivX, XviD, etc) these days. Everybody is trying to figure out how to get movie files compressed enough so that they retain enough quality to be watchable, yet don't gobble up your bandwidth and/or drive space.

There are a lot of projects at work that take priority above producing a fun little video of our staff bowling - like solving the erroneous errors on our backup server, possibly setting up a PHPBB so we can have online discussions with volunteers and partner organizations, moving away from Novell to a completely Windows 2003 AD network, etc. Now that I have it ready to be played around with, I'm anxious to try my hand at some more advanced video editing!

This entry brought to you by the little Steven Spielberg
that lives inside my noggin. Sit... Stay! Good boy.

Friends with potential

That's what Shannon and I have agreed to be. It is because of this that I feel a lot better about the whole thing, though it's still painful to do (even more for her, the poor girl). We're both still shell-shocked from it all, so we aren't communicating very much right now. I'm hoping that once a little time has passed, we'll be able to start hanging out together again - enjoying the things that made us friends in the first place.

It's been only 3 days and I already miss her company.

---

Eat. My. Shorts.

I went and saw The Breakfast Club at a flashback showing last night. Jennie and her boy-toy, Karl (whom I've officially nicknamed "B.T.K." last night) joined me. It's amazing how different it feels to watch an old familiar movie on the big screen with 500 other people. It had been such a long time since I had last seen the movie in its original uncut format (in other words, not on TV) that the language and "objectionable content" felt fresh again. That movie still holds true, despite the out-dated style of clothes, music, and dancing in it.

This entry was brought to you by Bender, who
requests that you, "show Dick some respect!"

Stick a fork in it

This parting, or at least the agreement of such, was surreal, heart-wrenching, and miserable. To be fair to both of our needs, we opted for not continuing our relationship. How that will manifest itself, I'm still not entirely sure. I still feel that she's my best friend, which makes me very sad that things turned out this way. At this point it still just seems like a strange and horrible dream.

In my usual don't-spill-too-much-about-your-feelings manner, that's all I'm going to say about the whole thing.

---

In other news...

My buddy Tim just called, as I was writing the above. He's got Angels tickets and wants me to go with him to the game tonight. I could use a change of pace, so I gladly accepted.

Tim and his wife recently had a baby, so understandably we haven't been able to spend much time together. He's hysterical to be around, since we share a very similar sense of humor. Good timing, Tim.

This entry was brought to you by Folgers Crystals,
which this blog has been secretly switched with.

You fucking broke it

What the hell is wrong with me? What is it that holds me back from just feeling love and enjoying life? Why is it that when something - someone - so good comes around I can't open up? I'm not stupid, I'm not uncaring, I'm not oblivious - yet I seem to be unable to let go of "what if?".

• What if it's still too soon?
• What if things don't work out?
• What if I meet somebody else and fall for them?
• What if I'm not sure I'm ready for this yet?
  
• What if I get involved too deeply and then have a change of heart?
  
• What if I hadn't said "I love you"?
• What if I had just shut the hell up and not press for answers?
• What if I had just left well enough alone and just fallen asleep?
• What if I'm risking the loss of the best thing that's ever going to happen to me?
  

People dream of having an almost effortless relationship with somebody that is positive and uplifting. A relationship where both people want the best for the other and offer support to one another. Two people that are attracted to each other and are able to enjoy sharing that attraction. I have that with Shannon, or at least had it until last night.

This is a case of me looking something good in the face and saying that it isn't good enough. How messed up is that? What is holding me back? I fear that I've broken Shannon's heart with my honesty; She openly gave it to me and I carelessly broke it.

I need to think long and hard about things. Rece is away at camp for the week, which provides me with plenty of time to reflect and think things through. Where's the "easy" button when you need it? Bah!

This entry brought to you by an idiot with his head up his ass.

Work, damn it! WORK!

We recently purchased a new digital video camera at the office. The idea being that we can take the raw footage and make videos for a variety of uses (training, recording meetings, staff outtings, etc.). The camera is easy enough to use and does a good job of recording, plus it has a digital photo feature that allows you to also take still shots - albeit at just "good enough" quality. The only problem seems to be with trying to get the video off-loaded and onto a computer!

Wasting 2-1/2 hours trying to get the darn camera to connect to a workstation is not my idea of fun. I'm a computer guy, so hooking up a device to a computer shouldn't be a problem. I tried to connect it to a Mac, but it didn't seem to like that, so then I tried connecting it to my computer (a Windows PC) and still no dice. Trying to find info on Canon's website wasn't easy, and still did not get me any closer to making it work.

It looks like I'll be wasting more of my time dealing with this thing than my boss would like. Lucky for me, he totally understands that it isn't an issue with my skills and is being patient enough to let me work it through. I might have a new video for you to watch soon, if I can get this P.O.S. to cooperate. Wish me luck!

---

In other news, it seems that many of my co-workers have registered a profile at www.myspace.com. I've spent a little bit of time on my account there, lately, adding some content so I don't look like a total fool. Mostly it just directs people to come here and read my blog or visit my web site. I basically had an account there because other friends wanted me to check out their profiles, so now I have one and now a lot more people that I know do as well. I guess it's one of the cool things to be part of these days... whatever.

Anyhow, if you haven't already had enough of me, you can check out my profile at:

http://www.myspace.com/gabrielt

This entry was made entirely of cheese before I ate it.
You really don't want to know what it is now.

Nothing to say

I just realized that I haven't posted anything here all week. I don't have much to say, I guess. The Mighty Quinn made a funny little thing from my dancing video. You can check it out at:

Buzzy Hill - Internet Explorer Version

Buzzy Hill - FireFox Version

This week turned out to be pretty good. I caught up with an old friend, which was very nice. Spent time with Shannon, which is always a lot fun. In fact, last weekend Shannon and I spent a good portion of it cooking food that neither of us had cooked before. Lots of very yummy stuff: spicy grilled shrimp with chipotle salsa made from scratch, salmon cakes with a curry sauce, raspberry endive salad, lentils & rice with cucumber yogurt sauce. The leftovers were incredible, too!

Rece is spending the week up in Santa Maria with my dad, so it seems a little strange at home.

Tomorrow the staff at work are going out for bowling. It was originally supposed to be a day at the beach, but was changed to bowling. Oh well.

This entry brought to you by slow-cooked bacon, cooked over a campfire.

An I Like Pie! Production

Last night I danced. Well, I don't know if you could consider it dancing, but I sure as hell did flail around my arms and stomped ferociously about! I was hanging out at work afterhours so I could install an upgrade to the backup software on a server at work (you remember I'm a computer guy, right?). I was also supposed to replace a bad hard drive and create a mirrored set for redundancy, in case one of the drives dies on us.

The backup software upgrade went without a hitch and I was able to get the nightly backup job running again only 2.5 hours later than it would have ordinarily run. The hard drive mirror business didn't go quite as planned, but it wasn't that big of a deal - I'll just do it another night next week.

Additionally, I had to upgrade the anti-virus software on the database (MS SQL 2000) server and the email (MS Exchange 2003) server. I also needed to visually verify the amount of physical RAM installed on our newest server, since it was only reporting that 3 GB of it was installed when we had ordered 4 GB (which it did have, so now I need to figure out why it's not all showing up in Windows). To make a long story short; much of my night was spent rebooting servers.

Servers aren't like your standard home or work computers - these things can take between 5 and 15 minutes to restart. This became rather boring after awhile so I decided to have fun with my boss. I ended up performing an impromptu interpretive dance, in perfect view of the video camera we have set up in the server room at the office. What it turned into was something more than I had originally anticipated.

My boss has access to all the security cameras on our network. The security setup is all digital and connects into our office network. I don't know how long it stores data, but I know that it can go back at least 2-3 days. He can also save any portion of the video as an AVI video file on his computer, which means that it can be edited in any number of ways.

This morning I came in late, due to me sleeping in after staying at the office until 11:30 pm. When I got there, I was anxious to show him my little skit. It took a few minutes for him to find it, but when he did, he nearly choked to death from laughter. After we showed the raw footage to a few other people and seeing their reactions to it, I insisted that my boss save the video so I could polish it up a bit.

It took me some time to find the right music, but I think the video came out rather well. If you'd like to check it out, you can find it on my web site in the "Oddities" section, under the title "Bored at Work" or you can simply click here to view it. Enjoy!

This entry brought to you by all the insanity within.

What about a catapult?

With Rece being out of school and this being the first summer of having to deal with keeping him occupied during the day while I'm at work, I decided that he should go to the local Boys & Girls Club. It's a cool place where kids can go and hang out, play games, do various activities and even go on fun outtings - and most of all, do it safely. The one he goes to is not far from home, so he can ride his bike there - in fact, it's on the other side of the fence from his school. Now that he's singed up as a member, he'll be able to go there after school and hang out until his mom or I get home. So this will work out rather well in the long run.

Next month Rece will be going to a 4-H Club summer camp up in the mountains for 5 days. At $190 including meals and lodging and activities, it's a steal, though I got it for $140 (I managed to get $50 off from a friend that works there). I think that he's going to have a lot of fun up there. It'll be his first summer camp and I hope that it won't be the last. When I was his age, my folks couldn't afford to send me to camp, so it's nice to be able to provide Rece with some of the things that I couldn't have when I was a kid.

Working at Orange County United Way has opened my eyes to the many organizations out there available for people to use. From food banks and homeless shelters to kids organizations that help kids stay off the streets and out of trouble. If you haven't checked any of these out for your own kids, you might consider doing so. You might also consider donating time and/or money to an organization that appeals to you. It's good for the soul.

This entry brought to you by flocks of a thousand flying monkeys throwing poo.

For the love of pea soup

Just dropping in to post a link to the photo page on my site from my recent camping trip:

Gabe's camping trip of a thousand steps with

twigs and berries and stuff, from HELL!

That title should do the trick.

This entry brought to you by my ass. Can you dig it?

18 People living in Harmony

I'm now back from my vacation and finally getting around to writing about it. What a great way to spend time at work, eh? Initially I thought I'd try to turn it into a funny story, but I couldn't put it together as such, so I'm just going to report about what happened. Hopefully it isn't too boring for the 3 or 4 of you that read my blog.

Quinn and his son Quintin joined Rece and myself on our annual camping trip to San Simeon. It's a beautiful area and the campgrounds are for easy-style camping (bathrooms and showers are available, as is a water spicket at the site). We could hear the surf and lay back and enjoy the stars while sippin a couple beers next to the campfire.

We got off to an early early start, around 6:00 am, on Monday morning. Traffic wasn't bad and we made it through L.A. before the morning rush - well, the worst of it, at least. I got a chance to introduce Quinn to a fairly new radio station that he really enjoyed until we started to lose reception. This was fine, as we were now driving along the coast, which gave us some nice views - even with the marine layer rolling in.

After stopping for breakfast, gas, and potty breaks, we arrived at San Simeon State Park, just before noon. To my delight, they had plenty of open campgrounds, so they allowed us to grab one of the better sites that usually require reservations to get. This meant being closer to the restrooms/showers and having some trees around for shade. We set up camp and realized that I had forgotten to grab a couple of things before heading out the door: the hamburger patties I made for dinner and the frozen O'Brien potatoes for breakfast. I decided to make up for it by taking us all out to Mexican food in Morro Bay.

After setting up camp we went for a walk, not only to check out the local scenery, but to make bake my arms a nice shade of red. "You're not burnt," Quinn kept trying to tell me, but I knew better. Bug repellant with SPF15 doesn't do much good against the sun, let me assure you. Upon our return and thinking of our next step, Quinn came to the conclusion that he wanted his own tent. He was planning on buying one anyhow, so we decided to use our extra time to go buy another tent (he bought 2, and I bought another - great deal). We stopped off for dinner along the way (Mexican as promised), though it wasn't anything spectacular. We finished off that evening with S'mores and hot chocolate, much to the delight of the boys.

Day 2 was nice, though a little warmer than expected. The usual morning marine layer was nowhere to be found, so the sun started heating things up earlier than usual. We enjoyed some slow (and I mean SLOW) cooked bacon with eggs, toast, fruit and some juice. It turned out that I was to serve as the camp chef for the trip, which meant that everything was cooked to my liking! YUMMY! After breakfast we went to check out the elephant seals up the coast. There were a lot more of them basking on the beach in the sun than last year when Rece and I had last visited.

It was now time for me to reveal the best part of the trip: walking along the coastal cliffs to Point San Simeon and checking out the tide pools. As I mentioned earlier, it was warmer than usual, but it wasn't too bad. A gentle ocean breeze, when combined with the shade from the pine and eucalyptus trees, kept us cool. We scrambled down the coastal cliffs when we reached the point, which provided access to the tide pools. The clean ocean air, the mist from waves crashing on the rocks, and the complete absence of anybody but our group allowed us to take it all in. Quintin was excited to see the crabs and starfish - one even managed to surprise him enough to make him yelp out loud at the sight of it. We had a good laugh at that one. Quinn seemed to really like it there. We helped clean up the place by packing out a couple of beer bottles found in the tide pools, thus inventing the beer tree. We came back to camp for lunch - BLT's from the bacon cooked up for breakfast (YUM!) - then we decided it was a good time to nap.

After the nap, we decided to take a walk on one of the trails in the park. Rece and I had walked part way along this trail in the dark last year, but since it was mainly to find a geocache and we found it (not to mention it being hella creepy), we didn't go any further. In the daytime this was a beautiful walk. There was a lot of poison oak near the trail, but not to such an extent as to not be able to walk by it with ease. We encountered a lone deer, which we spent a good amount of time admiring from only 20-30 feet away. After Quinn took a few pictures of it, we continued along our way. The trail was a lot longer than we had anticipated, yet we weren't sore or tired from the walking. Our minds were just in tune with nature and the beauty of the forest.

Upon our return and after the eating of hot dogs, we decided to cut the trip a day short (which was always an option) and head back home the next day. Quinn and I stayed up late, discussing many things of life, the stars, religion, relativism, etc. It was a good night.

Our last morning of camping started off with eggs and sausage, orange juice, and fresh brewed coffee (YUM!), followed by a leisurely time packing up of our gear. Quinn and I were very proud of how we packed the gear in the back of his truck. On the way here, the tarp wanted to bubble up from the wind, but on the way home, it barely budged. Manly men, are we.

Camping is always a fun pasttime and it is something I recommend for every family. Quinn says that he'll be returning to camp at San Simeon with the rest of his family someday. Above all else, I believe the most memorable part of the trip was when we were walking back to the truck after checking out the tide pools: A cool breeze picked up, cooling us as we hiked amongst the eucalyptus trees. A view of the beach could be seen below us. I could not help but breathe deeply as I drank in the moment of peace. Quinn, also caught up in the moment, said it all as he took in a deep breath of the salty sea air and said, "Ah, I want to take off my pants."

This entry brought to you by the manly men of
yore who know how to stand like men!

We are not afraid

Just dropping a note to post this link:

http://www.werenotafraid.com

Enough said.

This entry brought to you by the brave people of the
world who won't allow terrorism to change their lives.

A coward's day

London had trouble with al-Qaida today. While it wasn't a massive casualty event like Sept 11, 2001, it was more spread out and possibly more frightening because of it. I respect the fact that Britain isn't backing down like many other countries have done. The best way we can fight terrorism is to stand up to them and not let them change the way we live our lives.

What is it about these cowardly zealots that believe in randomly killing people? Do they really believe that what they're doing is right? I don't see how a reasonable person can have such beliefs and because they are unreasonable, I don't believe that traditional or reasonable reactions will work in dealing with them.

The "free world" has enjoyed their care-free and apathetic lifestyle for too long. It's made us soft and now that softness has been turned into a weakness. I believe it is everybody's duty to stand up and speak out whenever they see something that isn't right. They need to take action when people act suspiciously or exhibit tendancies towards violence. It doesn't mean that we have to be like the police; we should take more care to notice things around us and not just "let things slide" when they shouldn't be happening.

A simple example would be with my neighborhood, or more specifically my street. It seems that the street I live on is a popular place for what I call "RV Nomads" to park their rolling homes and camp out for up to weeks on end. Often times these people create unsavory environments that wouldn't ordinarily happen on my block. Some of these things, like prostitution or drug dealing, seem to have been transpired by these types of people, which I won't stand for. I don't live in a bad neighborhood, in fact the price for new homes in my area start in the mid $700,000's (even though I live in an apartment). So the idea of just putting up with or turning a blind eye to activities that are often linked with dangerous results isn't something I'm about to do.

This isn't me saying I'm a hero or anything, since what I do is something simple and can be done by any citizen: CALL THE POLICE AND REPORT IT. I give an RV 3 days to sit on my street (which is the legal max one can park a recreational vehicle on a street in my town) and if it isn't gone, I call the police and let them know. I do this every time without fail now. When I see something suspicious happening, I call the cops. When I hear a lady running down the street screaming and a guy following her, I call the cops. Get the picture?

I'm surprised to learn when I talk with some people that they just think it isn't their place and that they don't want to get involved. What is wrong with these people? It isn't the 3rd grade where tattling isn't "cool" to do. This is for the safety of yourself, your family and your fellow neighbors. Wouldn't it haunt you to know if the one time you thought "it isn't my place to say something" and didn't call the cops when you thought you should have and a kid gets abducted, or a teenage girl gets raped, or a young man gets killed, etc? I know I'd have a difficult time dealing with it.

Wake up people! Terrorism is one result of a complacent society that's sat around in relative luxury for decades, while ignoring a stewing cauldron of resentment. There are local problems too, that are a result of the same type of attitude. Maybe we can start the right kind of attitude in our own neighborhoods by not putting up with the bullshit. A group of neighborhoods makes a city, a group of cities make a state, a group of states make a country. Let's start where we CAN make a difference and the results will build up at higher levels as a result!

This entry was brought to you by the pissed off little voice
in Gabe's head that just couldn't be silenced anymore.

Eyes burning... eyelids drooping... sleep beacons...

Sleep didn't come easy for me last night. I took advantage of my wakefulness and talked to Shannon until... well, I don't know the time, but my "lack of sleep" gauge estimates 3:00 AM or so. It was a good talk and I think much needed. I feel good about it and think it was worth losing sleep over (har har).

We're both extremely tired today, but agreed that we shouldn't play hooky just because we were tired. The challenge, it seems, will be to make it through the rest of the workday without making an excuse to leave early. This is going to be a long day.

This entry fell asleep on the way to the office this
morning, causing a massive pileup on the 405.

Backstroke of the West

I just had to pop back in here and post a link to a funny blog that somebody put up of screenshots of a bootleg Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith DVD. The subtitles are so outrageous, they had me tearing up from laughter. Read it for yourself and see!

This reminded me of the funny subtitles on the bootleg DVD for The Two Towers a few years ago. The original site has since been taken down, but it still lives in mirrors.

This entry brought to you by The Presbyterian Church.

A day of random thoughts

Today I awoke feeling refreshed and well rested. This isn't a normal morning for me. To those around me, I seem to be what most people call "a morning person", but they would be wrong. I enjoy staying up late at night and sleeping in. There isn't much fun in waking up early, regardless of the reason - with rare exceptions, of course. So I grunt through it and put on a happy face and just make the most of it.

I've apparrently been "zinged" by a friend of mine for a comment I made to her on AIM last night. I suppose I deserved it for not being more clear about what I meant, but then again, I could just as easily have been right. There's no way to know for sure unless the situation came up, but I stand by my comment - and there is no "grudge" about it. It was interesting when I found myself reading her blog and actually blushing in embarrassment. This is a big deal for somebody who prides themselves on never getting embarrassed. Touché!

First thing this morning, I took my dad's car in to the shop to figure out what was wrong with it and was surprised at how simple, yet expensive the cost would be to fix it. The brake master cylinder needs to be replaced as well as the ignitor module. Altogether this would cost around $800-$900 to fix, around $650 of it in parts alone. Interesting. The shop I go to (Bay Auto in Costa Mesa, CA - no website, sorry) is a small shop with "old school" mechanics. They'll often tell me to start the car and listen to it and point to a part and say something like, "That part right there. You can do that one yourself for about 30 bucks." They've never been wrong, either. I'll have to visit some local junk yards to see if they have the part I need (and for cheap) to do the ignitor module - which I know I can do myself. I'll leave the brake master cylinder to somebody with the right tools and more know-how.

This weekend will be a busy one. My dad is coming out (to possibly pick up the car), I'll be doing work for a client (upgrading their antivirus software and such), and then packing and leaving for a camping trip. If it weren't for the fact that I know I'll be relaxing in the great outdoors for 3 days with my good pal Quinn, I might be annoyed at all the hustling. After camping I have the remainder of the week and following weekend to relax and recharge.

Shannon is getting geared up for her Burning Man trip. It looks like a lot of fun and she should have a blast. It's definitely not something I'd be up for doing, mainly due to the heat, but it is intriguing. She was nice enough to loan me her tent for my camping trip, since mine seems to have disappeared along with some of my other camping gear.

As I sit here typing, I hear what sounds like a cat meowing outside my office window. It's still making the noise, so I think I'll go out and investigate...

...nope, couldn't find anything and now the sound is gone. The windows are pretty thick, so it could just as easily have been a crow. I'll keep my ears open.

Jennie had a mole removed from her ass yesterday. So to celebrate, she picked Rece and I up from our place and we went to "Taco Tuesday" at El Torito Grill last night. She was itchin for a margarita and some tacos, especially after having been poked in the butt by a doctor - and who wouldn't? So we spent most of our time together talking and interjecting ass jokes throughout our conversation.

This entry brought to you by the Chickens for a Brighter
Tomorrow Project. Check your local listings.