Full Disclosure - Part 2

All right, so in part 1 of this I went over most of the important things I look for in relationships. This second part is where I go over things about myself. Hopefully this will help serve as a reminder to me that I'm far from perfect - and maybe help others understand me a little bit better.

Alright, let's get this started with:

Myers Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI): INTP (find your type here)

I've found a lot of interesting insight about people based on their MBTI. This doesn't tell you what type of person they are, but it does help you understand they way they tend to process things in life.

I won't even bother with my astrological sign, as I think it's complete bullshit.

Hmm... what next? How about my strengths. This isn't always easy to do for yourself, but many of my friends have been nice enough to inform me of some of my strengths (and also my flaws, coming up next). These are in no particular order...

- Smart, able to comprehend complex things
- Logical, can usually figure out a solution to a problem
- Insightful, able to see things from many different angles
- Funny, make people laugh, not afraid to look like a dork
- Easy to talk to
- Knowledgable in many different areas
- Creative
- Musically inclined
- Direct and to the point
- Honest
- Dependable, I'm there when you need me or when I say I will be
- Helpful
- Caring
- Easy-going
- Stable
- Good with computers
- Generally able to give good advice
- Trustworthy, people know that they can talk to me and I'll maintain their confidence
- More than one female has said that they feel safe when I'm around (not just girlfriends)
- Non-judgemental
- Perceptive
- Patient
- Tolerant
- Will be that one friend who will tell you the truth, even when it hurts
- Good in the kitchen
- Self-sufficient (cook, clean, iron, laundry, etc for myself)
- Good driver
- Good father
- Pretty good judge of character

Here's a list of my flaws (that I know of):

- Sometimes too direct and to the point
- Sometimes the truth isn't what somebody wants to hear and I'll say it anyway
- Don't always show how I feel
- Procrastinate a lot
- Lack initiative sometimes
- Not especially 'driven' or 'goal oriented'
- Distant and/or withdrawn at times
- Put up with some things too long
- Lack self-confidence in many areas
- Like to be in control too often
- Can be inflexible at times
- My humor can sometimes be a bit mean-spirited
- Will sometimes try avoid answering a question that I don't want to answer

General things about me:

I'm mostly an introvert, but have learned how to cope with social situations (the one thing that I can thank my evil step-mother for). If I'm lucky, I can be in a social gathering, but remain off to the side by myself and get to enjoy people-watching. I tend to do well one-on-one or in small groups. After periods of being around other people a lot, I tend to seek solitude to sort of 'recharge'. Sometimes I'll hole-up for an entire week, but at some point I come back out.

Nights are my favorite time. Having a 9-5 job has forced me to adapt to being a day person, but I do get out into the night when opportunity arrives. The beach at night is so relaxing!

The outdoors are nice and I like to go hiking and camping, especially in areas away from the city. When gas wasn't so expensive, I used to like driving down roads I've never been on before, just to see where they went.

I have a tendency to be cynical and sarcastic. Usually it comes out as a very dry sense of humor. It can also be playful ribbing and personal jibes. Some people might think I'm being rude, but I generally don't mean anything by it. If I really had a problem with something, I would just tell them directly.

My mind tends to drift (partly because I have ADD), which can sometimes make it difficult for me to stay focused on a conversation. Additionally, this tendency also means that I tend to be very random and odd to most people. My humor is often laced with innuendo and/or will come seemingly from out of nowhere. Usually this is because my brain has somehow found some round-about connection with something within my scope of view/hearing. This isn't always the case, since these odd and strange ideas can also just come out of nowhere except my imagination. Friends tell me that I'm odd/strange/weird - but not in a scary way.

Theory and abstract thinking are where my thoughts tend to dwell most of the time. Time and time again I'll find myself pondering the connections or causes of things - no matter how random, strange, mundane, or unimportant. Ideas and concepts just occur to me out of the blue sometimes. An example of this is how I learned to tie a necktie 2 different ways without ever having seen it done or tried to do - after I pictured it in my mind I borrowed one of my step dad's ties and tried it out and was amazed that my idea worked. Other things like how French onion soup became so popular or why pork is shunned/forbidden by some religions. Heck, even existential topics, with a bit of strangeness thrown in: are we just a bunch of specks of dust (or atomically small objects) floating around in a bedroom closet in some larger universe - and our lifetime is just a fraction of a second to that universe? Yeah, shit like that.

Take the last sentence of the previous paragraph into consideration for a moment. Yep, I swear. In person, I swear a lot more. There aren't very many words that I won't say, either. I do a good job around mixed company, but when I'm just relaxing with friends, I just let it flow. Some days are worse than others and it really just depends on my mood. People that eschew cussing probably won't be comfortable around me.

Okay, so there it is. I've splilled my guts, both good and bad, to the world. I might come back and add to this as stuff occurs to me

This entry just didn't know when to quit!

Full Disclosure - Part 1

[Warning: Extremely long post...]

Being single is a strange thing. We want to meet people, but we want to meet for a multitude of different reasons - a good portion of the time not for the same reasons. So what are people supposed to do?

Dating takes time and money. The end result (hell, even the starting result) may not always be what you were looking for, yet you're now out all this time and money. The process can often repeat itself over and over, with a wild variety of outcomes. This can become frustrating and discouraging for many people. This is especially true for introverts like me. But we still have to try, right?

We've all heard of these dating or matchmaking sites like eHarmony and Match.com that are supposed to help us weed out the ones that are less likely to be in sync with our wants and needs. In theory, this makes sense, but then you run into problems with people not being very honest with how they've portrayed themselves online. Misleading photos and bios that people post to make them look better or simply different than they really are - even if just slightly - might not be found out until later, after much time (and possibly money) has been spent getting to know one another online.

Yeah, yeah, I can hear some of you now... "but looks aren't everything" or "what does it matter, if you feel something for them in the end?". That's not my point. What I'm getting at is how can a future relationship expect to flourish after the intial contact and basis for those feelings is based on a lie?

I'll be honest with you: looks matter to me, to some extent. They're not all that I'm looking at, but if I'm not attracted to a woman in some physical way, chances are that I'm going to pursue it much further. To some looks really aren't that important, and that's what works for them. Lying to me about your looks or showing me only your assets is just going to reveal itself when I actually see you - and I'll be none to happy about it. Just put your best foot forward and be yourself!

The next two things that I find important are intelligence and logic. Contrary to what some may think, they do not always co-exist within the same person. Looks may get you attention, but you gotta have something behind that pretty face to hold mine for very long. I want to be able to discuss theories or unknowns with a gal... somebody that can challenge my mind, to stretch it further or in a different direction - and hopefully that I can do the same for.

Humor is something that is highly subjective and differs dramatically between individuals. A gal that "gets" my sense of humor and can laugh with/at me and that I can laugh with/at (i.e., doesn't take themselves too seriously) will likely become a friend, if nothing more is in the cards for us. Life is too short to not enjoy it!

Musical ability or interests are something that I definitely pay attention to. Music is such an influential thing. While my music interests seem to cover a very wide selection of genres and generations, there is some music that I just cannot get into. In fact, most rap/hip-hop & country make my brain hurt. There just isn't any other way I can think to put it. A gal that can sing and/or play an instrument is a turn-on, for sure.

Dependability is a rather broad term that I could probably use to apply to many traits as a whole. People that are often late, don't come through with a commitment (this applies to so many things), blow people off when something more interesting than what was originally planned comes along, don't offer to help others, gossip and back-stab, like to create drama, blah... blah... blah... generally people that consider themselves the center of the universe and don't hold true to much that they say or do. These people drive me batty - and they seem to be ever-so plentiful in Southern California these days. I don't put up with friends being like this, which means I'm definitely not going to tolerate it in a relationship.

The accumulation of things and status don't mean squat to me. If it doesn't serve a useful function, if it means having to act a specific way that's contrary to my personality in order to maintain - then it isn't for me. With rare exception, I don't tend to give frilly gifts. I don't collect "stuff". There are no "Jones' to keep up with" in my mind. If you expect flowers and jewelry all the time, you're barking up the wrong tree with me.

Know-it-alls and those who rest on their laurels don't have much of a place in my life. It doesn't matter if you didn't go to college or if you hold multiple degrees and I could care less what your title is - demonstrate to me that you know what you're talking about or doing and you'll gain my respect.

Sex. Yep, I have to throw this in here. If I find a gal attractive, and I'm interested in her, I'll get to know her. Women that invest a lot of emotional commitment into sex probably won't be a good match for me. To me sex is a fun thing, a physical way to enjoy somebody in a more personal way. I dislike it when people put an arbitrary timeframe on when it will or won't happen. When the mood strikes and the timing is right, why not? It doesn't mean that I'm in love - or ever will be - just because I had sex with a woman. I'm still very good friends with some of the women I've been with in the past. While it was all fun and such, we just made better friends and I'm totally happy that we were able to go back to just being friends. The right kinda gal for me won't put sex on a pedestal and make it out to be this overly important issue. It is what it is so either do it and enjoy it or not at all (and we'll just be friends).

So there you have it, my likes and dislikes in relationships. Most of this applies to friendships, as well. I'm sure that I've missed something, but for the most part it's there. Be sure to check out part 2 of this, where I bare all about myself.

Full Disclosure - Part 2

This entry got off to a running start.

Radioactive rubber pants!

So we're all going to Hell today (it's in Michigan, by the way).

I read about a 6' 6" grandfather who turns 66 today - so he's 6-foot-6 and 66 on 6/6/06!

A remake of The Omen is being released today because of the spooky date, I suppose. I wonder if they're going to put the gross elevator death scene in this one... no wait, that was in Damien: Omen II. I had fears about elevators for a short time when I was a kid after having watched that one.

And lastly...

The "5-Second Rule" Rules! We're not all doomed today!

This entry was written by a strange guy on a strange day.

Getting into hot water here

Looking back a few blog posts I realized that I just sorta let the saga about my hot water problems go unresolved. Here's what ulimately happened:

After my last post about my water woes (haha... I just made that up!) I did manage to reach a live person at the apartment management company and she told me that they did have a water heater blow-out and that we were only down to 2 instead of the usual 3. She said that while we might run the chance of running out of hot water at peak times, we should still have plenty of hot water during off-peak hours - and I asserted that we didn't have any hot water, just warm at best. The next day I found a notice on my door that they'd need to enter my apartment the following afternoon so a plumber could check it out and I managed to get the time off so I could actually be there when they came.

That afternoon (day 6 of the ordeal) of waiting for the plumber to show up was a total waste of time - nobody showed up or even bothered to call. I wasn't very happy about that and called the apartment management to let them know about it. The following evening I found a message from the plumbers inquiring about setting up (another) time to come out. I never got around to calling them back.

Well, after a total of 8 days of cold, then luke-warm, and then warm showers, I magically started getting near-scalding water (if I turned only the hot water on). So I'm guessing either the temperature was increased (by our plumber neighbor - who was also tired of not having hot water) or they finally fixed the problem. What a pain.

This entry now enjoys virtually unlimited hot water!

Pictures and oddities

As promised, I've uploaded and posted the photo galleries from both the camping trip to Lake Isabella and of Rece getting buzzed (only looks right in Internet Explorer). I'll probably change the layout of Rece's buzzed photo page, but hey, it works for now - sorta. Enjoy!

This entry went to bed immediately after making this post.

The New Adventures of Surely, Frankly, Truly, & Seriously

Warning: Extremely long post!

This weekend was a lot of fun. Rece and I joined Christine and Sam for a camping trip up to Lake Isabella. The plan was to camp out (in tents) for a couple of nights over Memorial Day weekend.

Day 1 - Saturday, May 27th

Prior commitments prevented us from leaving until around noon-ish on Saturday. This was fine, as the traffic proved to be fairly light - especially for a holiday weekend.

We had initially planned to borrow Christine's friend's new Ford Escape (an SUV), but interestingly enough my older Ford Taurus wagon (with 98,000+ miles) ended up having more storage space for our gear. We scrapped the idea of taking the Escape and instead opted for my wagon. I was a tad bit worried that this higher-mileage vehicle might give us problems on the trip, but it proved to be just fine for the job in the end.

Of course I brought my GPS receiver and pre-planned some geocaches to find along the way. I strategically chose a few going over 'The Grapevine' (as they call it) to provide a stretch for the legs and to keep the pre-teens from revolting out of boredom. The first cache attempt wasn't much of an attempt at all. I led us up an access road to some powerline towers that turned out to be nowhere near the cache. We had to go back to the car - and still couldn't figure out where to park in order to get to it. We simply gave up on it and continued along our way.

The second cache we went after turned out to be an interesting one. It was well hidden, but it was the fact that it was extremely windy (we got sand-blasted!) and there was a hot dog vendor in what seemed like nowhere that made it so interesting. So this hot dog cart guy was there, waiting for customers in the middle of nowhere, just watching us as we attempted to find this cache. As luck would have it, he got a customer just as Sam found it. I wonder how much business this guy gets here, since the prior log in the cache also mentioned the vendor in it - and that was from a week prior... odd.

After our caching break, we pushed on down 'The Grapevine' and on (then through) Bakersfield toward the hills. The drive along the Kern river was nice. It was a small 2-lane highway with fantastic views of the river and its rapids - sometimes it's a bummer being the driver and not being able to take as much in.

The 2-lane highway opened up to 4 lanes towards the top and we discovered that it wasn't as rural as we had expected. (they had a Vons supermarket!) The area was beautiful and the lake was so blue! A little further driving (past the Vons) brought us to our campsite. It was bustling with activity, as many people obviously had the same idea to camp over the weekend.

We both (us boys and them girls) had new tents, which meant a bit of a learning curve for both parties to set up. With just a little fiddling we both got set up and then went on to cook our dinner of burgers, fresh veggies, and baked beans - OK, maybe it isn't such a good idea to have beans when you plan on sleeping in a tent later that night. This first night we had to endure some pretty rude behavior from neighboring campers - one group that blasted rap music until around 11 pm and the other that carried on loud (and drunken) conversation until at least 2 am (the last I checked my watch before managing to fall asleep).

Day 2 - Sunday, May 28th

On the morning of day 2 (Sunday) I woke up tired and a bit stiff in the joints... but since I was out camping, my mood was still happy. Christine and I went about getting the important morning stuff done (coffee) and then cooked a breakfast of sausage, eggs, toast, fruit, and potatoes - oh wait, forgot the potatoes... and the butter... and the sweetener for the coffee. Fine, off to Vons we go! Oh look, there's a coffee place... and a donut place... we'll keep that in mind in case we get lazy (which we never ended up doing, by the way). OK, so yeah, 3.5 hours later we finished eating breakfast... hmm... should we start making lunch now? Naw, let's go geocaching and check out the area.

We discovered that there was a general store not 1/2 a mile up the road from the campgrounds, which was much closer than the 6 miles to Vons, while driving to our first cache. Yep, 3 crosses on a hill... oh wait, this is a multi-cache... and we're in the wrong area to start... and Sam strained her ankle while climbing some rocks... gah! We gave up on this cache and went after another one nearby. It had a great view of the lake and we encountered a group of people at the cache location who turned out to be the people who originally hid it. We spent a little time talking with them and enjoying the beautiful day before moving on to explore.

After finding just one more cache deciding against going after a couple of others, we turned our attention to checking out downtown Kernville. This is a very cool little town, with all sorts of shops (most of which you'd expect in a tourist area) and a quaint town square. There was even a petshop that sold ice cream... anyhow... We decided to check out the museum, which turned out to be one of the most interesting and fascinating museums I've ever been to. If you ever find yourself near Kernville, this is a must see! (free to enter - but donations are welcome)

We went back to camp after our day out and made what Sam called 'Hobo Stew' which was simply a bunch of veggies and stew beef thrown in a foil pouch (that we made the night before we left) and placed over the campfire on the grill. We left them on for about an hour and spent the time drinking quite a bit and talking/laughing with some of our camp neighbors. The stew was delicious and I don't think any of us were able to actually finish them completely. Christine had quite a bit more than I did to drink that night and we spent the evening relaxing by the fire and laughing quite a bit. Eventually we all went to bed and settled in for a good night's sleep. The rude neighbors didn't make a peep this night and I was able to get in an amazing 9 hours of sleep!

Day 3 - Monday, May 29th

Christine awoke rather early and a bit hung over on Monday morning. She immediately set out upon the task of making coffee and, ultimately, breakfast. Shortly before 9, Rece woke me up and I was delighted to find that I felt well-rested and not a bit sore as I had been the morning before. As I was putting on my shoes I got a good chuckle out of one of the other neighbor's method of waking his camp-mates. He had started playing the guitar with lyrics that went something along the lines of...

"It's time to wake up, so get up you fuckers...
It's time to wake up, so get up you fuckers...
Wake the fuck up you sleepy fuckers..."

The singer's voice and humor reminded me of my brother Danny a lot, as this is something he would have likely done in the same situation.

Breakfast burritos, fruit, coffee were on the menu for breakfast and it was very yummy! After eating we packed up our gear and were happy to find that we had a lot more room in the car now that we had used up most of our provisions. With a bunch of bungie cords and a cargo net, we securely strapped the tents and chairs on the roof rack of the car (something I needlessly worried about breaking free on the way up here as well). We broke camp at noon, right on schedule.

The trip back down the mountain was pleasant, with the view of the river and rapids and mountainous cliffs. At the base we stopped to admire a man-made waterfall that roared out of a hole in the side of the mountain. We then continued our journey back, stopping at the Flying-J truck stop for a bite to eat. The rest of the journey home was sedate, as we were all rather beat from camping.

After getting back to my place and unpacking, we ordered a pizza and then proceded to buzz off all of Rece's hair. He wanted it done and we finally had the time to do it. Christine took pictures of the process, which I'll post later today or tomorrow (along with the camping pictures).

This was a very fun trip to an area of California I've never been to before. The Sequoia National Forest is a beautiful place - even though the area we were camping wasn't much of a forest. My only real complaint is that the restrooms were disgusting and there simply weren't enough facilities to support a full campground. I even opted against taking a shower the entire trip because of this (one more day and I'd have started to smell pretty bad, I'm sure). Aside from that, everything was great.

I'll be posting pictures of all this in the next day or so. I'll make a post with a link to the web page when I'm done.

This entry didn't want to go back to work today.

I'm not the only one!

Finally, a reputible tech magazine has put together a list of horrible tech products. For me, the best part is that I've been trying to tell people about how bad most of these products were/are as far back as I can remember! Check it out:

PCWorld.com - The 25 Worst Tech Products of All Time

Hell, just yesterday I overheard a conversation in the office where one gal was telling another gal that AOL's free email service was great. There was little option but for me to interrupt their conversation to say, "Anything AOL sucks. Try anything BUT AOL or Hotmail unless you like lots of SPAM." Grrr...

This entry said, "Ha! Take that AOL & RealPlayer!"

Picture pages, picture pages...

As promised, I've posted some pictures from this past weekend's hike. You can find them here.

This entry went over hill, over dale...

It has begun!

Guess what this is...

That, my friends, is the empty void that used to be occupied by my drum set!

Yep, after 13 years I finally set my drums back up!

At this point I'm stuck, as I now have to pick up some parts for the set. It is in a semi-playable state as-is, but I'd like to get it cleaned up a bit and in more of a final state before I can actually start to seriously think about playing.

I'm so excited about playing! (despite the blank expression in the above picture). Okay, that's all - I just wanted to post an update about this.

This entry paradiddled into a double-stroke roll!

On global warming... again

Believe me, I'm not trying to say that global temperatures aren't rising, but I have a difficult time believing that our burning of fossil fuels is the biggest factor in it. Here's an article that argues against the commonly accepted notion that our actions are the sole reason for the global increase in temperature and says that while CO₂ levels might be a contributing factor, the sun itself is actually hotter. Nothing we do here affects the sun.

We've only recently (relative to history) been able to track changes in things like this. Such short-sighted analysis of what amounts to a blip in the timeline of the history of the planet doesn't seem right to me.

This entry doesn't believe that the sky is falling or that we're ruining the planet.

Bing! Bang! Boing!

Wow, some of these bring back early memories. This is what we had to play with when I was a kid... and we liked it!

This post was brought to by WHAM-O!

Well said: Privacy

Read this article about privacy. I think it was well said and not portrayed in a paranoid fashion, as I've seen others do. Check it out...

Wired News: The Eternal Value of Privacy

This entry was written to be read in public.

Tired and achy

This weekend turned out to be one of the busiest for me in a long time.

My dad drove down on Friday night to sleep over and catch his plane on Saturday afternoon. I gave him my bed, moved Rece to sack out on the sofa, and I took Rece's bed. I think my dad had hoped that I'd drive him to LAX (about 45-60 minutes away, depending on traffic). I knew he was coming down at some point during the weekend, but he didn't provide me with any specific timeframes ahead of time. Assuming that he didn't need my help with anything, I went ahead and planned my weekend. I felt kind of bad telling him that he should take the shuttle to the airport, but my plans for the day took me all the way up to Pasadena - and the plans involved 2 other people besides me and Rece, so I wasn't going to break them. He didn't say anything about it, but I did tell him that in the future it would be a good idea to let me know specific things like flight times and such so I can lend a hand in the future. Aside from that, we had a good time hanging out. We drove down to Newport Beach, picked up some donuts, and then walked the pier, enjoying the evening.

The plans for Saturday were for Rece and I to join Christine and her daughter Sam for a trip up to Pasadena to check out the JPL-Nasa open house. This is when they open up their otherwise very closed campus to the public and have exibits about the various projects they work on. One of Sam's friends joined us, who turned out to be pretty cool. All the exibits were interesting, albeit nerdy (which I totally loved). We got to see the Mars rover (the one they practice with on Earth), learned about the search for planets around other stars, watched a film about the recent mission to study and capture comet material, and saw a pair of 700-pound gliding robots! If you're interested in space, or have children who are, I highly recommend checking this place out the next time they hold an open house.

On Sunday we started off the day with a hike with some friends (Christine, Sam, Rana, Niki, and a dog named Sierra). It wasn't too long of a hike, but it was enough to get some exercise and just to be outdoors. I introduced Niki to geocaching (the only one of the group who didn't know what it was yet), as I was also out there to check on the geocache that I have hidden in the area. The trip only lasted about 1.5 hours, but there was a decent incline to conquer on the way back. Rece played photographer, which I'll probably get around to uploading and posting on my site this evening. Maybe Rana will send me the pictures that she took as well. After the hike we went to PCH (Pacific Coast Hot Dogs - not the highway) and chowed down... cuz that's what you do after a healthy hike - munch on some very yummy hotdogs!

After lunch, Christine, Sam, Rece, and I went to pick up our swimming outfits and then headed on down to Wild Rivers for their season pass holder preview day. Being that Sunday was forecasted to expect rain and it was overcast and also preview day, this meant practically no lines and no overcrowding. We had so much fun running (ahem, briskly walking) to each of the water slides and taking them on with reckless abandon! Rece, being the weakest swimmer and somewhat of a chicken, didn't go on all the slides we did, but he enjoyed the ones that he did go on.

I'll admit that I am totally out of shape when swimming is concerned. I suspect that I had a few lifeguards' attention when I decided to swim across the wave pool in the deep end - I must have looked like I was ready to sink from exhaustion! A simple change of stroke and adjusting my energy to work with the swells allowed me to get to the other side safely to catch my breath. One of the slides we went on was akin to being flushed down a toilet. You slide into a bowl from this chute and skim around the sides until your momentum slows and allows you to drop through a hole in the center and into a pool. In theory this would seem to be a fun idea, but the speed you're going meant experiencing a slapping sensation on your back and the possibility of being dumped into the pool at an unusual and potentially disorienting angle (just my luck, I was dumped going backwards and upside-down on my shoulder - good thing my sense of direction is good). So yeah, that ride sucked - but the rest were great!

As I mentioned ealier, it was overcast, but it was also breezy so we'd get cold standing in line. The trick was to stay in water as much as possible. The "lazy river" (as we called it) was relaxing and we got out to go sit in the hot tub to relax even more. After about a minute I looked at Christine and asked, "does it worry you that this is the murkiest water in the place?" The expression on her face indicated that she understood what I was getting at, then Sam asked, "what do you mean?" I quietly stated, "lots of people, warm water, lots of kids, murky water..." to which Sam replied, "EW!" and promptly got out. Christine and I followed suit and we decided to go on a couple more water slides. Rece, being the boy that he is, didn't seem to care and was content with remaining in the bacteria bath.

As I type this, my muscles are tired, some are a bit sore. All in all, this was very fun weekend!

This entry got flushed down a toilet!

Not enough funny

As I sat here waiting for the plumber to show up, I read through a few blogs that I regularly check out almost daily. For some reason I was left to ponder what to write about in my blog next. Thinking a bit further into it, I came to the realization that my blog probably isn't as funny as it used to be. This might just be my own perception, but if this is true, then it means that something is off.

Most of my friends seem to find my oddball situational comedy (sitcom!) entertaining. I can usually count on a chuckle or a laugh from something I said. There's no real pattern to it (aside from frequent innuendo) and I just say whatever pops into my head, even if it doesn't make sense. On occasion I'll just get a blank look from people, but most of the time they find it strange enough to laugh. I enjoy making people laugh and it's something that seems to just come naturally.

So why do I think my blog doesn't go into humor as often lately? Maybe I've been getting more of my "funny" out than before and just don't have much left to write about here. Maybe it's after the scare I had at work and I suspected that some of the things I write about work might possibly get me in trouble there (most likely just paranoia). Whatever it is, I hope to get myself out of this rut and explore my humorous writing side a bit more.

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That being said, found this "what (thing) are you" and as usual, it seems to describe a bit of my personality...

You Are Midnight

You are more than a little eccentric, and you're apt to keep very unusual habits. Whether you're a nightowl, living in a commune, or taking a vow of silence - you like to experiment with your lifestyle. Expressing your individuality is important to you, and you often lie awake in bed thinking about the world and your place in it. You enjoy staying home, but that doesn't mean you're a hermit. You also appreciate quality time with family and close friends.

What Time Of Day Are You?

This entry was going to tell a joke, but got heckled by the guy sitting in the back wearing leopard skin pants and sipping a Zima. Go baby, go!

Mental doodles

Yep, that's the best title I could come up with.

My hot water situation is a little better now. While I still don't have hot water, it's at least a bit warmer and I'm not walking out of the shower shivering. I spoke with the management and they said that they had a water heater blow out, but that there were still two that were operating. Apparently only one other apartment (out of 11) had called to complain about the water situation. This makes no sense to me. Stupid neighbors.

I left a message letting them know that I was still only getting minimal water temperature yesterday. Hopefully they send somebody out to get things working properly today.

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Last Thursday I went to E3. A friend of mine hooked me up with a pass to get in. My name for the day was Christopher (last name omitted). This was the first time that I'd had the option to go and I was lucky that my boss was cool about only having 4 hours notice of wanting to take the day off. There was so much to see and take in.

The "booth babes" were hot. The gadgets were cool. The game graphics were incredible!

I was lucky enough to get into a 30-person Huxley tournament. It's another one of your typical first-person shooters. We were in 2 teams of 15 and prizes were awarded to the top 5 players. I came in 5th place, which yielded some nifty swag - not to mention pride in doing so well in a game I hadn't ever played before.

---

On Saturday I went to the Renaissance Faire with Rece, my ex, and one of her girlfriends (who bought the tickets). This was the first time for me at a RenFaire. It was a total blast! If you're a "boob man" like me, this is the place to be. You'll likely never see so many women in push-up corsets in one place anywhere else! I definitely want to go back next year in full costume - no, not in a corset.

---

Sunday (Mother's Day) I got to talk with my mom for awhile. It was nice to catch up and hear that she's doing well. I worry about her sometimes, as her lifestyle doesn't seem to include much security for the future. I do envy her for being able to do what she enjoys and on her own terms, though.

This entry staggered down a path, going nowhere in particular.

Klaatu barada nikto

Read about this fellow who managed to change the display of one of those construction signs often found on the side of the road. I found it pretty funny.

---

In other news: Today makes the 3rd day in a row that I've had to take a cold shower. It seems that one of the water heaters for our apartments went out and either they haven't replaced it yet or they did something wrong when the did. I barely had enough heat to wash dishes the night before, let alone take a shower.

I was so irritated by this that I put up a sign at the mailboxes (the only place that all tenants are likely at some point during the day to be) telling people to call the management company and tell them that there's a problem.

After I put up the sign, I ran into my next-door neighbor and asked how his water situation was. Of course it was the same. I asked if he had called the landlords yet and to my astonishment he said "no". What's with people like this? Do they expect that things will get fixed all by themselves? I suggested that he give them a call so that they hear more than just my voice over and over complaining about broken things around the place. He said he would give them a call. This is the same guy that had the solar water heating pipes over his apartment leaking and dripping down on/over his balcony for a month... I'm guessing he didn't call then either, because I finally got tired of hearing a trickle of water and called - the problem got fixed within a few days.

This isn't the first time that this apartment management company has taken their time to fix something. About a year ago the water main going into the apartments broke and was gushing water at an astonishing rate (this was also a morning when showering was a problem). I called them about it before going in to work (8:00 am) and when I arrived back at home (5:15 pm), it still hadn't been fixed! About 20 minutes after I arrived, a plumbing truck pulled up and they had the problem fixed in less than 10 minutes. ARRG!

Anyhow, I'm hoping that they get this problem fixed soon!

This entry didn't need coffee in order to wake up this morning...

Who do we blame now?

I read a news story today about some drunken idiots (and I dare add that they live in the south) that got into an argument over how to use a PS2 game system. The fight ended when one of them pulled a gun on the other and shot him dead.

What I'm wondering now is which group is going to speak up first? The anti-gun crowd blaming the gun for the killing, the anti-video game crowd saying that this is another example of the violence in video games, or people against alcohol? Oh the humanity!

This entry was shot while arguing over which video game character is better: Mario or Luigi.

Operation Photo Rescue

I happened upon this website and immediately sent them an email telling them that I wanted to volunteer to help them in their efforts. I also included a sample image of what I can do (see below).

Restoring digital photos is something I seem to have a knack for and I've done it for a few friends and family members over the years. The most difficult one I was asked to restore was from one of my co-workers. His dad had passed away not too long before and he had discovered an old picture that his mother had been carrying around in her purse or wallet for years. Time and abuse had taken their toll on the picture and he asked me if I might be able to help. After a few days (during lunches at work) I was able to bring the picture back to a much better state.

Here's that picture...

(click for a larger view)

This brings back memories of some work my mom did when I was a kid. She would take real photographs and either restore them or colorize them (this was way back before personal computers). It was a way for her to use her artistic talents to restore and/or enhance photographs. Now, in the digital age, I have a chance to do the same.

Anyhow, hopefully they get back to me and find my skills useful enough to start putting me to work!

This entry was color-corrected, sharpened, blended, and rasterized.

Save the Internet!

Big communications companies are attempting to change how the Internet works at a fundamental level. What is being proposed is a multi-tiered Internet where those can afford to pay what amounts to extortion fees to telcos get preferential treatment of bandwidth (Internet traffic) and those who don't pay get whatever is left over.

The Internet is a place where anybody can create something and has an equal footing with huge corporations. It's a way for everybody to have a chance to be heard and a great method of communicating.

Network Neutrality is what the Internet currently enjoys now. Nobody gets any preferred treatment over anybody else. This needs to be maintained so that everybody has equal chance to succeed with whatever it is they want to do on the Internet.

It's a topic that's causing a lot of stir on BOTH sides of politics. When both Democrats and Republicans are making strong efforts to prevent something, chances are that it's because they're fighting against something most would consider "unconstitutional".

Back up the efforts to stop big telcos from controlling the Internet!

This entry was written while the Internet was still neutral - let's keep it that way!

High road to the Moony Temple

Quinn, his daughter Allissa, Rece and I went hiking and geocaching up in Crestline and Lake Arrowhead this past weekend. The weather was outstanding and about as good as it gets for being outdoors.

I posted photos and details on a new web page on my website. Both Quinn and I took a lot of photos, but you'll only be subjected to around 47 or so...

This entry got itself a nice sunburn while hiking!

My brain... ees no workie...

Wow! Today was a mental midget day for me. I feel dulled and uninspired... like much of my brain has shut off on me. The cool part is that my mood isn't being affected by it - I'm actually in pretty good spirits.

Was supposed to go out and join some coworkers for happy hour tonight, but just can't seem to get myself motivated to go. I guess my introvertive tendencies are ruling my decisions today. Going to a noisy bar to yack just isn't something I wanna do right now...

This entry... duh...

Performancing... it's back!

Performancing came out with an update (version 1.2 now). Apparently they fixed the problem with being able to log in to blogger (aka blogspot), so I can resume using it to write blog entries. For those of you (probably none) that are interested, this is why the subject of Performancing went dormant for awhile. This is my first post since the update, so it's a short and simple one.

This entry is about as interesting as a paper clip.

He's not a little boy anymore

As I sit here, trying to put together my thoughts, I'm resisting tearing up - but I'm smiling. There is just so much to say that it is difficult to put it into words.

Rece is 11 now. He's a great kid, with a caring personality. He's smart and very funny. He likes what every other kid his age likes: video games, pizza, movies, riding his bike, playing with toys, etc.

Yesterday we went for a bike ride after I got off work, and we went to find a geocache. It used to be that Rece would putter out on a hill, or whine that his legs hurt - this time proved different. He kept up (and a few times led) along the ride. He did slow down quite a bit going up one hill, giving me a good enough lead ahead to stop and wait for him at the top. What caught me off-guard was when he got to the top, he waved me on and kept going - not wanting to stop and rest as he used to do. He did comment that is legs were burning a little, but not as a whine or complaint; more as just an observation. If I don't watch out, I suspect that I'm going to be the one lagging behind pretty soon!

The other day I was watching an excellent show called Coupling (the BBC version) on DVD. The subject matter is definitely mature with very quick and witty (and often complex) humor. I thought Rece was in his room playing, but as it turned out he was watching behind me. At one hilarious point, both of us burst into laughter... to which I realized that he was watching. I asked him to sit down and watch it with me. To my surprise and delight, he was able to follow the story and gags at every point, barring the strictly sexual content which he hasn't any context to associate with yet.

The fact that Rece is able to enjoy a show like that with me is both appealing and depressing, in a way. It has become apparent that his brain is no longer just occupied by toys and games and distractions as I've grown accustomed to. He has now begun to navigate the path toward becoming a man.

As a father, I'm so proud of my son - even though it means having to watch the little boy I've known for so long slowly disappear.

This entry looks back upon fond memories of Legos & Hot Wheels.

Confuse a Cat

Another tid-bit of Monty Python goodness...

This post was not, is not, will not, and will never admit to ever being confused.

10 Things I Hate About Computers in Movies & on TV

Computers are now a common item to see in homes, offices, and schools. This fact hasn't seemed to change the way they're depicted in films and on TV. In fact, computers don't do most of the things that we see them do within a movie or TV program, yet many people still seem to accept these things while watching.

I've been using computers for more than 20 years now. I'm an I.T. person who deals with fixing and operating computers on a daily basis. I use computers as a source of entertainment and information at home. I'm also one of those annoying people who seem to notice all the things wrong in a movie ("hey, that glass was empty in the last frame!"), so it is no surprise that I've chosen to put together a list of the things that bug me about computers in movies and on TV... so here goes:

1. Windows into the soul. With around a 90% market share, Microsoft Windows (one version or another) is clearly the operating system that is most likely to be found on computers no matter where you are in the world. So why is it so exceedingly rare to actually see Windows in use on a computer in a movie? Linux is great and all, which is what appears to be used most often (probably because they can get it customized to look and do whatever they want for the movie), but the truth is - most people cannot use it because they've never even seen it before!
2. Psst... what's the password? This is one area that has improved over the years. In older movies, we used to see a blank screen with 'Enter Password:' on it. It didn't seem to matter what was trying to be done, you just had to enter a password to do it. Now the password screen has been livened up a bit, but the same old problem still exists: poorly chosen passwords. It seems that computer experts and evil geniuses still haven't learned the virtues of a strong password. No matter what, it always seems to be a word from the dictionary or a name of a pet or person (or in seemingly smarter films, a highfalutin name like 'Sisyphus' might be used) or some title of a book/project, but whatever is chosen - they always seem to figure it out. What really gets me annoyed is when the password has a self-destruct mechanism that wipes out the data or does something else bad if the password is entered incorrectly too many times... see, they're smart enough to think of a system like that, but not smart enough to come up with a stronger password. It may be that a password like 'z^21R*9iB.g%u7' isn't as thought-provoking or interesting to an audience as 'KRONOS' might be. Hmm...
   
3. Backdoors galore! This computer cliché seems to almost be a thing of a past. It seems that this could have been a way of avoiding the previously mentioned password problem in shows. See, why try to figure out a password when you can get into the system using a little-known backdoor into it... which always seemed to be put there by software writers 'just in case'? Well, in this day and age we call that a security hole/vulnerability (not to mention a legal liability) and it just isn't done in the real world.
   
4. Everyone is an expert. Having "officially" worked in the I.T. field for the last 8+ years has given me some insight into the amount of computer knowledge the general population has. What I have come to learn is that most people really don't know how to do much more than operate software that they use at work and/or at home - and at a limited capacity, I might add. I'm talking about a word processor, an email client, a browser, games, maybe a photo editor, etc. Beyond that, most people just don't have the time, interest, or inclination to figure out what else their computers are capable of doing ("what, exactly, is defrag?"). The movies would have you believe otherwise. We are often led to believe that a character in a movie is able to sit down in front of a computer, that uses an operating system they've probably never seen before, with software they've never used - but somehow they intuitively know how to not only crack the password (or find the backdoor), but to then pull up the information they need, and sometimes even find useful correlating data.
5. Six degrees to Kevin Bacon. I don't know about you, but I've often wondered where this expansive super-database about people can be found (since we now know that the FBI doesn't have one) and how it can be so easy to query for exactly the data you're looking for without even knowing the database structure! Movies will try to convince you that there is this massive collection of personal data, residing somewhere out there that's accessible to almost any government agency, big corporation, or hacker. This database apparently contains everything from photos and relationships to dental and phone records... all easily accessible from one interface and in an easy to discern and understand format. It also conveniently happens to be that the character within the film knows how to use this system with ease as well.
   
6. Universally compatible. Movies and TV try to tell us that every computer is able to communicate with every other computer system out there... no matter how different or foreign. Remember the movie Independence Day? Jeff Goldblum's character has an Apple PowerBook G3 that is not only compatible with the invading aliens' computer system, but it is also able to upload a computer virus (I'll get back to these) to them that brings down their force fields, allowing our primitive weapons to take 'em out. YEAH! It's a good thing for us that alien programmers use the same programming software, language, and operating system that we humans use - yet they don't bother to use anti-virus software!
   
7. Resolution of image clarity. This is probably one of my biggest pet peeves in movies and TV: No matter how low the resolution an image or video is, regardless of how far away an object within it was; a computer can refine, adjust, tweak, restore, zoom-in, and correct it - often in near-perfect clarity. The first time I noticed (and then balked at) this was during the movie No Way Out (1987), starring Kevin Costner. They scanned a damaged Polaroid (yeah, remember those?) negative into their computer system - a behemoth that took up nearly an entire room - and it was able to recover the image perfectly. Or how about a security camera 2 blocks away that picks up a crime that ends up helping investigators catch the "perp". We've all seen what these videos look like on the news - the quality is abysmal at best. Yet time and time again in movies and on TV they process these through a computer and are able to zoom in and "enhance this area" with perfect clarity.
8. Graphic violence. So much eye-candy happens on the systems in shows. Windows and screens slide and move behind or in front of one another. The interfaces are slick and very eye-appealing, using some very cool-looking visuals. The movie Hackers really annoyed me because they made hacking/ cracking seem as though it were a cool interactive 3-D videogame where you flew in and out of graphically represented filesystems and saw other users (and hackers) floating around doing things. To most, hacking is rather dull looking - scrolling through code, running scripts, sniffing packets, and the like. What bugs me about all of this is that not only is this all happening on a system that nobody has, but the hardware requirements alone would make the system incredibly slow to use (oh - I forgot to include that computers are impossibly quick and responsive in shows... nah, no need to make another number). At this point I'm tempted to drift off into a tangent about obvious or over/mis-used CG (computer graphics) in movies, but that would take an entirely new entry to go over. I almost didn't include this one because Linux & Mac systems already do a few of these nifty visuals now - and the upcoming Windows Vista will also do a lot more (if you fork over the cash for a very fast computer with a kick-ass video card), but I'm writing this based on movies current and past. Mostly computer-fiction (CoSci?) now, but some of this stuff is definitely on the horizon.
   
9. The bleeping computer is making funny noises again! When was the last time text scrolled across your screen and you heard some sort of magical blipity bleep buzz sound accompany it? I'm not talking about system event sounds or when using a Flash interface on a webpage, either. I'm talking about hearing a descending zipping muted phaser sound when you zoom in on something - even the amazing Google Earth doesn't do this. The answer is most likely "never" (sorry, the voices in your head don't count). For the most part, computers are quiet things; sounds happen only when certain things occur - like to acknowledge a click, a dialog pops up, an error occurs, etc. Computers in the movies or on TV have all sorts of cool interactive sounds while they do stuff, don't they? This used to be something they could get away with when computers were a novelty and people didn't have them in their homes, but the practice of adding sounds to a computer's operations in a movie persist. I find this distracting and odd nowadays.
   
10. Diagnosis: Computer Virus. Yep, these bugs are always out there... lurking in the shadows... ready to pounce upon an unsuspecting user and cause their computer to smolder or explode in a magnificent fireball. Why is it that people seem to think that computer viruses are these extremely complex things that can cause an entire city's traffic signals to go haywire while make a building's lights turn on and off and display a dancing character that pops up on screens singing a song (don't mind the fact that there aren't even speakers on some of these computers - you still hear it, along with those strange sounds I mentioned earlier). Viruses are rather simple in nature - they delete files, cause computer system instabilities, sometimes monitor keystrokes in hopes to capture passwords or other private data, or they open a Backdoor (yes, I dismissed these earlier, but it helps illustrates why legitimate software programmers don't put them in) allowing outside intruders to do a bunch of other things to an infected computer. They won't cause your computer to overload and explode, either - unless your computer contains C-4. They're made to do very specific things and try to be as uncomplicated as possible to help avoid detection. Getting infected with one of these is no picnic, for sure, but they're not as big a deal as movies and TV tend to make them out to be... nor could they infect a system they weren't specifically designed for - like say, an alien's forcefield systems...

This entry was bleeping, flashing, twisting, and turning
before I reminded it that it wasn't on camera.

Global (not so) warming?

Read this interesting article a couple of days ago about global warming and how it has apparently stopped... as far back as 1998. Yet we continue to hear about it and how it's a very serious problem. What I'm not sure of is the validity of the author's claims or his viewpoints on politics/society or if he's one of those types of writers that will put together a story opposing a subject just to get people to read his stuff or not. He may be correct, he may not... but the article does give something to ponder.

Then today I came by another article from what appears to be a more reputable source. It is in the "Opinion" part of the "Editorial" section of the Wall Street Journal - so that might temper the ideas presented. Again, just something different to think about.

This entry brought to you by the melting polar ice caps.

... and a special appearance by Bruce Lee's cousin.

Something I watched awhile back that had me laughing so hard I was in tears. I found the video on YouTube and thought I'd share it...

This entry was filmed in FUNKAVISION.

Awesome!

Found a link to this today and got all excited. After checking out how much my blog is worth, I became even more excited!

My blog is worth $0.00.
How much is your blog worth?

This entry brought to you by an absolutely worthless blog.

Give it back!

The hour we lost this weekend... I want it back. Why do we still go through the daylight savings time change in this day and age? It had its place once, but now it is time to let it go! I often wonder how much loss of productivity businesses go through during the first day or two (or more) after we "Spring forward". Folks are just a bit more sluggish than usual, and even more so because it's a Monday. It's doubtful that the extra hour we get in the fall does anything positive, since it's just like sleeping in an hour extra on a Sunday morning.

For us night people, having to readjust to wake up even earlier (internal clock speaking) is even more of a pain. So there you have it... my daylight savings whine.

While you ponder this, check out this picture of a kid sitting in a box, wearing a bicycle helmet, eating a sesame parmesan breadstick, while snuggling with a tiki...

This entry was brought to you by a second cup of coffee.

Wonderful Wednesday Webcam Wackiness

It's no secret that I have a strange fascination with webcams. So friends and family probably weren't surprised when I told them about the one that I set up at home. Primarily it is used to keep an eye on Rece during the time period he's home after school, before I get home. He knows that it is there and can tell when it is on (the blue light on it turns on when it is active).

Aside from doing his chores when he gets home (which take less than 15 minutes or so to do), Rece has been told that he must do his homework in the living room on the sofa, which is where the webcam is set up to capture. I have informed him that his mother and I (and sometimes our friends, too) will be checking the cam to make sure he's doing his homework and not goofing off.

Of course we can't just sit at our jobs and stare at him to make sure he's staying on task, but we do check in from time to time. Occasionally we see him goofing off instead of doing his homework, and in some cases, we don't see him on the webcam at all - which is against the rules (except in regards to the aforementioned chores or when he goes to the can). At these moments we'll give him a call and remind him to get back on task.

The system seems to be working rather well now. In fact, it may be that Rece has become a bit too accustomed to the webcam being there to the point that he forgets about it completely. Why do I suspect this? Well, it may have something to do with what I caught him doing today.

While checking the webcam, I noticed that Rece wasn't doing his homework, despite having been home for over 45 minutes. Since chores and bathroom don't take him that long, I gave him a call. As it turns out, he was messing around with his hair to improve upon the style it was done in for the "Wacky Wednesday" theme at school today. I reminded him that playing around wasn't what he was supposed to be doing and that he had to "un-do" his hair, then get on to doing his homework. He acknowledged my directive and this was the result...

He did this while I was still waiting on the line. The sounds of struggle he must have been going through to remove the stuff he put in his hair were so funny, it was all I could do to keep from bursting into laughter. In fact, I did let out a few snickers, which garnered the attention of the two coworkers outside my office door. After the struggle, he returned to the sofa and started on his homework assignments.

About an hour later I checked back in on him, and was happy to see that he was on the sofa, doing his homework... wait... what the...

As you can see, he was up to his elbow doing something other than homework. This activity continuted for at least 2-3 minutes before I could stomach it no longer - I called him again. "That has got to be the most disgusting thing I've seen in a long time, dude!" I chided. "What? Oh... uh... sorry," he replied, as he glanced into the webcam, realizing what I must have meant. With a gentle reminder that he was still on the webcam and that searching for buried treasure wasn't part of his homework duties, he went back to work.

This entry was brought to you by Big Brother - he really is watching you.

No! Make it stop! NOOOO!

Stumbled upon this video on YouTube. I'm not quite sure if I should laugh my ass off or puke... or both.

This entry feels violated somehow.

A scorching case of basket ass

As odd as it may sound, it appears that Rece really enjoys going to the laundry mat. Ordinarily I do my laundry in the laundry room at my apartment complex, but last night I went to the local laundry mat with my friend Jennie (she needed to wash a large blanket/quilt/comforter/thing). Rece was with us and having himself a great time. He likes putting the quarters in the machines and starting up the dryers. He also likes playing in the rolling laundry carts quite a bit. Who would have thought a kid would like what most adults find to be dull and tiresome?

Rece was a little bummed when we eventually had to leave and asked if we could come back again sometime soon. I told him we would come back some day... and people call me strange...

This entry was accidentally thrown in with the load of reds.

Performancing, take two...

This is my second entry made using the Performancing extension for Firefox that I mentioned yesterday. While it seems to work just fine for creating new posts, it has given me trouble when I attempt to edit an existing post.

For my next trick, I'll attempt to insert a couple of images and see what this thing allows me to do with them. Here goes...

The above images should be right next to eachother, with a single space (I hit the spacebar) between them.

Ok, so the left image was inserted without any resizing. The image on the right was inserted and then resized within the Performancing screen (grab a corner). The really neat thing that I noticed right away was that the image size (in pixels) was displayed as I was resizing the image. That's a very handy tool!

I also made the image on the right a hyperlink. I was disappointed that it didn't offer a target option, so I was forced to go into the HTML edit mode and add the target="_blank" tag manually. In the editor there's a blue border around the hyperlinked image, but I don't see any border tags in HTML edit mode, so we'll see if that carries over after posting.

Alright, time to post this and see what happens...

This entry was done while bored at lunch.

Testing... 1, 2, 3...

This is my second attempt at posting to my blog using the Performancing extension for Firefox. It should allow me to post to my blog without having to actually log on to blogger/blogspot. It also has a few other blogging tools that I'll explore at a later date.

This entry took a couple of tries to post.

OMG, Firefly!

Last week I ordered Firefly: the Complete Series DVD set and Serenity DVD as a package deal on Amazon for just under $38. Sweet deal. Well this sweet deal turned out to be even better for me, since I'm apparently a late-comer to the entire Firefly/Serenity scene.

Back when Firefly first aired on TV, I remember catching most of one episode (I think it was the pilot) and liking it. For whatever reason I never managed to catch it again and as it turns out the series ended up getting cancelled. So last year I see these previews for this movie named Serenity and it looks pretty good. My son and I never got around to seeing it in the theaters, but we vowed to catch it when it came out on DVD.

Back in December Rece and I went to the video store and discovered that it had been released on video, so we rented it. HOLY COW! This movie turned out to be one of the best sci-fi flicks I've seen. I mean, it ranked right up there with Star Trek: The Next Generation, in my opinion. We loved it so much that we watched all the extras (except for the commentary) and I learned about the Firefly history of the show. NO WAY! It was at this point that I realized that I must buy not only the movie, Serenity, but the entire Firefly series on DVD. Money around the time was tight because of Christmas, and then Rece's science camp tuition, etc, so buying them was out of the question. This month my expendable income was back to usual, so I ordered the set after following a digg link to the deal on Amazon.

So far I've only had time to watch the first 2 DVDs of the series and I am thoroughly impressed! How this show ended up getting cancelled, I'll never know. I've seen som pretty crappy sci-fi shows go far longer than they should have, but this great show got canned. Go figure.

Anyhow, I'm about ready to go watch some more Firefly now. I just couldn't contain my excitement about the whole thing. If you're a sci-fi fan, then do yourself a favor and check it out for yourself!

This entry was boarded by reavers and never heard from again.

I'm rain

No surprise there!

You Are Rain

You can be warm and sexy. Or cold and unwelcoming. Either way, you slowly bring out the beauty around you. You are best known for: your touch Your dominant state: changing

What Type of Weather Are You?

Delete with caution

Found this interesting article about how a man is being sued for deleting information from his laptop by a company he worked for. It seems like a circular argument to me, so I'm having difficulty understanding how this is going to play out.

A company gives you a laptop for you to work on. You sign an agreement about not using it for personal business and also that you can delete information from the hard drive when you return it. You use it for personal business anyway, the company starts to suspect as much, you delete your personal business (and go so far as to permanently wipe it) from the computer, quit your job, and return the laptop. The company then attempts to recover evidence of your personal business from the hard drive, find that it's been wiped, then because they don't have the evidence that you used it for personal business, they sue you based on the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, because you deleted possible evidence that they could have used against you - if it were even there at all. Hmm...

Part of it seems to be that the company wanted to get hold of some of his other business info/contacts, hoping to gain some knowledge to use for themselves. Anyhow, I thought it was an interesting read.

This entry was given a gag order, then it smirked, pulling out some handcuffs and a whip.

Good Night, and Good Luck

This past Friday we had a potluck lunch at work. It was themed off the Academy Awards Show, which was being held the following Sunday. Our staff was asked to bring in a dish and to come up with a name for it somehow derived from the list of Oscar nominees. As usual, I decided to bring my oriental cabbage salad, which has now become a regular dish at our company potlucks - if I don't bring it, people almost get upset with me!

I must have missed the part about naming my dish, so when I was asked at the last minute what my salad was to be called, I quickly came up with something. To accompany my salad on the buffet table, I made the following sign with the name on it...

(click image for larger version)

This entry was made possible by Nissin noodles!

100 Firefox Extensions Installed!

Found this funny link on digg this evening while surfing around the web. It just seems funny that somebody would try this. The amazing part is that it didn't slow Firefox down as much as I would have expected the guy to report it had. It really is an amazing browser!

This entry was written while waiting for a kid to finish his homework. Grrrr...

You twit. It's 'sponge', not 'plowed'!

Wow! What a week! So much has happened that I couldn't possibly cover it all. Lots of fun, lots of laughs, plenty über geekiness, a couple of nice surprises, and a lot of time spent with friends.

I got to help my best friend celebrate her birthday - twice. Her friends and family were able to surprise her with a birthday dinner 2 nights early. It was great to see her genuinely surprised and I could tell that she was touched by our efforts. On her actual birthday I took her family out to for some delicious sushi (all you can eat - YUM!), then I hung out with them for a few hours afterwards just doing whatever came next. There's no way that I can sufficiently express how much I appreciate the fact that she was born, which ultimately allowed for her to be such an important part of my life.

My life-long friend, René, was able to drop in for a visit this weekend, as well. We spent a couple of hours looking through my copies of our old junior and high school yearbooks. She's been experiencing a lot of health problems over the last 4-6 months, but she seemed to be doing much better, which was a relief to see. We had a great time spent talking and relaxing. She's been my friend since we were 14, which is the longest I've ever known anybody, outside of family. She means a lot to me and I'm so fortunate to still have her in my life after so much time has passed.

Today Rece and I went geocaching with a new friend. The three of us walked about 4 miles and found 11 geocaches in less than 3 hours. There were a lot of people on the trail, which meant that we had to be rather creative in searching for, retrieving, and then replacing the caches without attracting any attention to our actions. Stealth was the key. The variety of ways we went about accomplishing our objectives provided us with a lot of laughs and just an overall good time.

Those are just some of the highlights and I assure you that there were a lot more little moments in between that filled my week with a lot of fun and the enjoyment of time with my friends.

This entry was copied, moved, renamed, then organized alphabetically.

The one about 500 geocaches

With some help from my best friend, I achieved the 500 geocaches found mark a couple of days ago. We were out night caching (as we often tend to do) and nabbed the last 9 I needed. It feels pretty good to have gotten this far, especially since I'm not one to really care about the numbers when it comes to geocaching. It's mostly just a way for me to get out of my apartment, meet folks with similar interests, and enjoy spending time with some great people.

I also got around to hiding another cache, this one being a more out of the way/wilderness hide - like, as in you actually have to hike to it. It's in the foothills above Orange/Anaheim Hills, along some hiking/mountain biking trails. The location was found while I was out hiking with some friends from work last month. It just seemed so odd that there was a trail to this particular place, that I thought I'd hide a geocache there. I decided to call this one "Well-Defined Trail to Nowhere".

This entry was found aimlessly walking around a park in the middle of the night
holding a flashlight and staring at a strange cell phone-looking device.

In John They Trust

The Smithsonian Magazine website has a fascinating story about some South Pacific Islanders and how they worship what seems to be an American. It's interesting to read about how Americans had an effect on the spiritual beliefs within the culture when they suddenly appeared during World War II.

Their website seems to have a lot of interesting articles that I look forward to reading, as time permits. Hopefully you get something out of it, too.

This entry worships the almighty shopping cart!

Brokeback to the Future?

File this under "obviously somebody had too much time on their hands" (wait - that wouldn't fit on a file tab)...

My buddy Quinn posted a link on his blog today to a rather entertaining spoof of a trailer for a non-existent movie called Brokeback to the Future. It's pieces of movie footage from the various Back to the Future movies put together to make it look as though Doc and Marty had some sort of "relationship" other than that of Delorean-time-machine-inventor and accidental-teenage-time-traveller. Funny stuff!

This entry was brought to you by a rainbow bumper sticker.

Photos from the 2/11/06 hike

As promised, here are some of the pictures taken while hiking through Riley Park this past weekend. Click an image to view a larger version.

An Old Studebaker Wagon

Entrance to Butterfly Garden

Staci Ann & a Live Oak Tree

A Coyote in the Nature Center

Trails Climbing Up Rolling Hills

Looking Back Down at the Trail Up

Rana, Barbara, & Staci Ann

Rana, Barbara, & Gabe

The View From Horned Toad Vista Point

Thanks to Rana & Staci Ann for taking the photos!

This entry brought to you by the OCUW Hiking Crew.

Happy V.D.

This is the second Valentine's Day in a row that I haven't felt any pressure to do or give something to somebody that I didn't want to do or give on my own. It feels great!

My ex, Sherise, is the type of person that expresses her love through gifts - or "tokens of love" as she used to put it. So by her reasoning she felt loved when she was given stuff, especially when accompanied by some sort of mushy sentiment along with it. Now I'm not saying that she's wrong for being like this, not at all - it just isn't the way that I feel driven to show my affection for others. This fact didn't help in our relationship at all, as one might imagine.

Having gone through the stereotypical Valentine's Day routine with Sherise for over 14 years, I can say that I'm officially done with all of the "traditional" V-Day stuff. I'll express my feelings for the gal I care about in the manner that I feel I show it best. If that isn't enough for her, then she isn't the one for me!

When I care for somebody (friend or more), I do things for them. Be it tuning up their computer, helping them move, watching their pets, listening to them talk about their life, etc. - I'm there for them. This is something I enjoy doing for them. Sure, I might give gifts when appropriate (birthdays & Christmas), but it's usually something that the person can use - preferably something they actually need. I'm reluctant to buy something for somebody when they already have pretty much all they need. There are some exceptions to this line of thinking, but it isn't the norm.

A card is what I tend to give during special days (like today). If I were romantically involved with a gal, I'd definitely take her out to dinner (or cook something special myself) and try to find something that we could do together that was fun and best suited to our relationship and personalities. It's possible that a gift might be involved, but that would depend on many different factors.

So before I come off sounding like an uncaring oaf, I hope it's clear that I'm not saying that I won't express how I feel to the people that I care for. Quite the contrary! It's just that I won't waste my time trying to express it to them in a way that feels false or completely foreign to my core personality (sensibilities?) anymore. WYSIWYG!

This entry was brought to you by geek <3.

Love Cache?

Just got home after attending a Geocaching event (gathering) named "Love Cache" (yep, it's a spin-off of the B-52's song "Love Shack" - go ahead and sing it, I won't try to stop you). Not much love for BuzzKill (my geocaching alias) to find, as the single gals in their 30's that I was told would be there by the event organizer were nowhere to be found.

That didn't stop me from getting too much unwanted attention from a 14 y/o girl, though. EESH! This is the second time that I've been at one of these geocaching events where a minor (the first one was 15) ends up giving me ga-ga eyes and hangs around trying to talk with me for a good portion of the event, while I'm doing my best to talk with the adults. It's a very uncomfortable thing, I tell ya! At least this one didn't come straight out and proposition me. (shudder)

Speaking of strange minors; a boy - I'd have to guess around 9 or 10, walked up to the table where me and 5 other (adult) geocachers were seated and announced, "I just violated a cherry!" We stared at him sorta stunned for a moment before he grinned and held up a maraschino cherry skewered by a half a dozen plastic sword toothpicks. Uhm... yeah.

The event began to thin out after the raffle was over, so I decided to say my goodbyes and go home. On my way out to my car, I passed by the flirty 14 y/o who waited until I was 10-15 feet away before telling me to "shake it". What on Earth are parents teaching their kids these days!?

This entry ended up feeling rather creeped out when it got home.

...and one gram of protein

This morning was spent hiking with some of the gals from work that I'm friends with. We (well, I) decided that we should give Thomas F. Riley Wilderness Park a try, since none of us had ever been there before. Like the rest of Orange County's parks, this was a pleasant place to visit. The weather was clear and not too warm, and the UV factor was low, so I didn't even need sunscreen. It doesn't get much better than this for a hike with some friends.

It was the shortest hike that our group has done so far (just barely over 2.5 miles), but we spent the entire time talking and laughing. Either because of our noise level or that it was just a slow day for critters, we didn't encounter much wildlife on the trail, which was a shame.

After the hike we enjoyed a potluck picnic and more laughter. For the most part the items we brought were pretty healthy, but one of the gals had brought some sinful marshmallow/cookie treats along. Out of curiosity, we looked at the ingredients on the box and were astounded not only by what was in it (3 types of sugars, partially hydrogenated oils, etc) but also by the sheer length of the ingredients list! Not surprisingly, the nutritional value of these sweet morsels was practically none, but the gal that brought them was quick to point out that at least they provided 1 gram of protein. I'm just going to leave that part of the story at that...

After the picnic a couple of us went to check out the park office and nature center. I wanted to talk to one of the rangers to see if they were open to allowing the placement of a geocache or two within the park. The ranger was very nice and told me that I could, as long as I worked with them when I go about hiding the caches.

We took some pictures, so hopefully the 2 gals with cameras will send me the pictures soon and I'll post them here.

This entry enjoyed a breath of fresh air on a lovely day.

Edit to add: Photos have been uploaded and posted here.

Geek humor

My boss just sent me the following email:

A horse walks into a bar and the bartender says

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Well, all the question marks were actually those little boxes you sometimes see when an invalid character can't be displayed. Anywho, I thought it was hella funny.

This entry was brought to you by ≲ാऊउ㰉牴ാऊउउ琼.

Edit to add: After reading this on my home computer, I see that it was partially made up of some Asian language, so you may see Asian characters instead of just question marks or boxes on your computer.

The Mystery Door

Went to lunch with a couple of the gals from work. We went to a Salvadorian pupuseria (Pupusería San Sivar) just off of Harbor and 19th Street in Costa Mesa. Very tasty food!

While we were there we noticed this door that had been covered 1/2 way up by linoleum:

What really struck us as funny was the fact that they didn't even bother to remove the "Employees Only" sign after they were finished.

This entry is for Employees Only.

Cuddles

I found my teddy bear today packed away in a box, hidden in Rece's closet. I've had this little guy since I was born. Hard to believe that I still have the thing over 33 years later! Anywho, nothing else to say about it, but that I'm happy to see him again.

This post became all warm and cuddly.

Timing is everything

Yesterday I was talking about my experience with upgrading to the newest version of Firefox (version 1.5.0.1) and how that was going.

Today I received an email from US-CERT where I've signed up on their security alert mailing list. Today I received an email warning of vulnerabilities in Mozilla products. The solution? Upgrade to Firefox 1.5.0.1.

Here's a link to the article.

So... yeah. In order to ensure that you're not susceptible to the vulnerabilities, maybe an upgrade to version 1.5.0.1 is in order.

Just an additional FYI - This installation appears to be more stable than 1.5 and I haven't experienced even one lockup or crash in the day I've been using it. Of course a day isn't really a stress test, but it's more than just blindly installing it, right?

This entry was upgraded in the nick of time.

Vindicated!

While I won't say exactly what or why (as that's just not the type of person I am), events occurred today that relieved my mind of the stress it's been under for almost a week, now.

A malicious person wronged me - even after I had earnestly tried to be nice to them and help them through what I perceived to be a very trying time for them. What was being done not only affected me directly, but could have indirectly affected the well-being of my son as well. A person with such blatant disregard for others deserves what they get for their actions... as does their accomplice.

This entry exists within the light at the end of the tunnel.

Edited to add: No, I'm not talking about my ex-wife. We're getting along just fine.

Much better!

After 30 minutes of using it - Yep, the Fasterfox extension made a big difference. If you don't already have it installed get it now! So far I haven't encountered any problems. Some of my old extensions still haven't been updated to work with 1.5.x, which is sort of a bummer, but maybe they will sometime soon.

Keeping on the theme of Firefox, I came across this interesting blog about the history of Firefox. A good read for fans of this wondeful browser.

This entry will likely be followed by a hungry lion and devoured.

Firefox 1.5.0.1 update so far...

So far the upgrade from Firefox version 1.0.7 has been OK. I have noticed what seems to be a little lag while FF renders a page, especially the images...

... wait. I just realized that the Fasterfox extension didn't go along with the upgrade. Let me try installing that and seeing if that makes a difference. I'll keep you posted.

This entry makes me want to dance a jig.

Cover me! I'm going in...

Firefox 1.5 had quite a few problems that gave me enough reason to uninstall it and reinstall version 1.0.7. Now they've released version 1.5.0.1 and it's been on my mind to check it out ever since it was released last week.

Upgrading Firefox used to be something I never thought twice about, until version 1.5 came out. The notification of an update was given and I'd just go ahead and do it. Now I'm cautious. I'm going to take the plunge today and give it a whirl. Rest assured that I'll share any problems that I encounter here. Wish me luck!

This entry wants to jump up and down like an idiot.

Change is in the air

Another cryptic message for my friends and family:

Things are brewing, change is likely, but I'm handling things just fine. Don't worry about me, I'll be just fine, if not better than before.

I want to thank all of those who have been so supportive of me lately. There's no way that I can express the extent of my gratitude!

This entry shifted in and out of the shadows as it stalked its prey.