It's So Hard, Baby!

Sometimes, the hardest part of writing a blog entry is trying to come up with an interesting title.

Ok, perhaps not. Maybe it's coming up with interesting material.. yes, that's definitely the hardest thing (and I know 'difficult' is a more suitable word to use, but 'hard' makes for a more interesting title, thus solving problem #1. So there! :P ).

For the sanity of the dedicated readership that expects to see something here every day, I offer you the following:

- News Aggregators rock, and I'm going to try to be quiet about them now.

- There is some kick ass new technologies coming out, such as ultrasound for stereos; complete pinpoint audio: Sit in bed and blow your eardrums out while your mate sleeps in complete silence. I wish I could find the link to the article. :/


SlutPuppy, out.
*poof*

Tribes, Robots, Clouds,.. and "Where the H*** are the Blogs?"

Now that I've got the iRiver set up the way I like and have a program that automatically deals with renaming files, updating the database, etc., I'm finally getting a chance to actually listen to a lot of those songs I borrowed from my ex team members. (check out RedChair Software. irivium rocks! They make versions of their software for all the major mp3 players) Now I just need to get an iSkin. The case that comes with the iRiver is very nicely made (heavy leather, high quality plastic viewing window, etc), but just *too* bulky (it's difficult to use the navigator joystick thingy with it on).

I've spent a good part of the morning listening to several "albums" from 'A Tribe Called Quest'. I like all kinds of music - from pipe organs, to country, big band/swing, jazz, rap/hip-hop, all types of pop and rock, etc.(ok, not *all* kinds, classical doesn't do much for me, opera just plain blows, and I never understood punk and death metal) .

I just do NOT understand what the fuss is/was over this band. They've got two or three basic rhythms, none of which really do anything for me, and the lead singer sounds like a lost Beastie Boy (I do however like the Beastie Boys). Oh well, at least now I know what I've been "missing".

Watched "I, Robot" last night. Overall, a very good movie. There are just *so* many holes in the story though that I wouldn't know where to start. The MV Agusta bike he rides is sweet! MV Agusta is basically a boutique builder. If ever a motorcycle I wanted, it was the original F4S. They don't make them anymore, at least not the original works of art. Speaking of a work of art... I'd gladly give up all my other bikes for the F4-1000 Tamburini. Quite possibly the sexiest beast on earth. I mean.. gold plated head bearings! Wow! The only problem is at $52,000, I'd be scared to drive it.

I had the opportunity to sit on one of these machines (I think it was a pre-production hand-built prototype) about 2 years ago. I started to drool/slober all over the tank. They made me get off of the bike, noticed the erection and told me to sit back down. I started to get back on the bike, careful not to dent the tank, and they said "No! Not on zee bike!". Bastards. Can you imagine being allowed to mount Salma or Pamela only to be told to get off of them just as you were settling in for a good ride? Argh!

Sometimes mother nature is cruel. It's Feburary, 58 degrees, but cloudy as hell and about to rain. It looks like things may be a little better tomorrow (slightly colder, but no rain).

I think I need to take a remedial grammer class. I used to write really well. I realize that I now use WAY too many parentheses. I guess it's an occupational hazard, but it does making reading a lot more difficult.

Odd, it seems that nobody is blogging this week. FeedDemon is hungry, it needs content! Feed him!

A Long, Musical Day

I went into the office today for a change. It took almost 1.5 hours to get there... surprising considering I left at 8:30. No wonder I work from home! Riding home, it was 60 degrees, and I had the iRiver pumping tunes through my Chatterbox GMRS X1; life was perfect. I could have rode for hours. Of course that means that I made it in record time: 45 minutes.

Hardly worked at all today. Class in the morning, then packed up my desk, spent a few hours trying to chase down a hub so I can move my system, stopped by and saw a lot of people and asked questions about various bits and pieces of my projects they are working on, and spent about 1-1.5 hours talking to my sometimes pseudo girlfriend. It was refreshing to sit and have a sane conversation with someone and have them be genuinely interested in what I was saying.

I thought maybe I'd be playing pool this evening, but nobody called. No matter, I got out of work late anyway (about 7pm)... and it was *so* nice riding. I may just have to take a few hours tomorrow afternoon and do it again. It's amazing how much smoother I am in the corners when my muscles aren't semi-rigid from the cold. lol!

It also seems to help having music on. Maybe it's just enough distraction to keep me from over-thinking things. I may have to try hooking up the iRiver for the next track day.

It's 12:20am. Gotta grab some ZZZzzzz.

L8r world.

Good Day Sunshine

The sun does funny, very good things to me. I've been so down this past week that I've just wanted to curl up in bed and hide. I check the weather this morning.. 51 today and in the high 50's this weekend, walk outside and I'm basking in the glory of all that is yellow and bright in the sky and I'm suddenly very, VERY happy. (note to self: Buy the friggin' sunlamp that you've been talking about for 15 years. Sheesh!)

If I haven't said this already, FeedDemon rocks! I know I've talked way too much about news/feed aggregators, but I usually spend 2-3 hours a day surfing all the same sites for my update of crap I don't really need to know but read about anyway. I did it this morning in 30 minutes.

It's 11am, guess I'd better get to working for a few hours if I want to get out early and enjoy this fine day!

Traffic

Nothing to say today. Worked until 7:30pm. Watched "Traffic". I've been waiting for 2 days now to watch this.. turns out I've seen it already.

I've decided to disable the Trillian RSS plug-in and I'm using FeedDemon now. It is a dedicated news aggregator which will parse atom files as well as RSS. I now have 4 blogs, 2 forums, and a world of news to read, all in one easy-to-use program. Good stuff!

Going to bed in a few minutes. Good night, world.

Well.. I thought I was. Got paged at 10:30 with a database issue. It's 2am now, and I'm still waiting for this job to finish.

There must be a conspiracy among machines to not allow their caretakers to go into a weekend with any enjoy... if such things had souls, you might say they are jealous you are leaving them for 2 days in order to socialize with others... and while they may not be able to stop you, they can make your time away slightly miserable.

Ok, Now I *know* I'm getting tired.

Finally quit working at 4am.

Buns, Bungs, Bongs, Bangs, Blogs, Bitches, Balls

Wow! Our little blogging world has taken an intriquing turn today. First is vueaskew's seemingly envious statement about gays being more astute and observant. Then I get an email from some *guy* asking me out to dinner "and possibly drinks back at (his) place". This is someone I've never talked to in my life. Last but not least is the hilarious strap-on ranting of practicinghedonists. I'm seeing a whole different side of him now (pun intended). :)

Thought I'd found the perfect used bike, but it has the small plastic luggage instead of the big metal boxes I'm looking for. The metal boxes help prevent damage to the bike by being strong enough to hold it up. Additionally they have these metal bungs on them so that you can strap thing like tents, bedrolls, etc. *on top of*, instead of inside of the luggage, thus saving a lot of space for other necessities like food and clothing.

It must be "humpday".. feeling the need to make some bubbles (no, this has nothing to do with a lentil soup lunch and an evening soak in the hot tub!).

Must get laid soon. Let me rephrase that. I need to find a gf soon. I'm going through "extra-curricular activity" withdrawal. Vue.. help me out man. You've got all the hotties, damnit!

Geekspeak: This site is now generating atom xml files so that it can be parsed into various rss/rdp/xml formats and read by news aggregators. It's no more public than before (that is to say, if you don't know me, you aren't going to find it), but it makes catching up on all the reading so much easier. Currently I am using a Trillian plug-in, and while it's functionality is VERY limited, it does allow me to see the latest postings from about a dozen sites at a glance. Cool stuff.

Good news: I may *finally* have that stalker bitch on some charges that will stick. She's re-routed (via address change) all mail still going to my old address (including my tax forms and prescriptions) to her place. Can you say mail fraud? Can you say up to $25,000 fine and/or up to 5 years in prison?

I'm sure she'd get a small fine.. a week in county lockdown to give her time to think about all the crazy shit she's been doing for *two years* now and why it should stop.. that would be cool. Let's hope the postmaster is more interested in this stuff than the police are.

I wonder if that superbowl party is happening this weekend. We haven't heard anything definite yet and I for one, like to make sure I've got someplace to drink!

It's the little things...

"It's the little things that make me happy". I'm beginning to understand that. I look at my diet plan to see what's for lunch. It's a "Dinnertime" (bigger) Lean Cuisine. I check the mail and two Netflix movies have came in (we haven't had a new movie in 4-5 days - they apparently don't process on Ssat). I open them up and the first words I see are "Salma Hayek". *sigh*

It *is* the little things. A meal large enough so I don't feel hungry, and quite possibly the sexiest woman on earth arriving via my friendly postwoman all on the same day!

I don't know what this movie is about. It's "In the Time of the Butterflies" or something like that. The other one is Traffic. See, when we joined up, we were lazy, so we just started going down their (Netflix) Top 100 list and adding anything to our queue that we hadn't seen and didn't sound totally lame.

Argh, pager just went off. So now it's going to be a cold lunch.. but at least Salma is waiting for me!

Simple thing.. 30 seconds to send an email so the pager doesn't get deactivated (I was *so* tempted not to send that email!). Warm lunch after all! Now, if I could just have a smoke. The cravings are *bad* today. That kind of concerns me since I'm using the patch this time and am on the 14mg... I shouldn't be having cravings THIS badly.

I've been doing a lot of research today on this trip I have planned for next year.. I think this is a lot bigger than I originally thought. I read a journal by someone that had done it for charity. Granted, he *really* took his time doing it, but he traveled nearly 21,000 miles. Maybe there's a better way to do it:

I'm thinking that I'll go to Alaska, come south down to Las Vegas, check out the scene there, head out to southern Cali and call it a vacation... I could possibly even work remotely during the evenings and save a *lot* of vacation time.

Then, the following year, pick up in the exact spot I left off, head south (apparently flying the bike from south Panama to Ecuador is almost mandatory with all the craziness in Columbia), hit the tip of South America, then up to Brazil (Carnival?), have the bike flown back home, catch a commercial flight home, and that covers two continents. If I time it right, I could make the trip to Cali on a 3 day weekend, find someone (Gene, put in a word with Jen for me!) to crash with for the week, and leave on the following weekend.

I'd love to do this all in one fell swoop, but the reality of vacation scheduling and a not-completely-unlimited budget rears it's ugly head. I will have 5-6 weeks vacation, but getting it all at one time is going to be next to impossible. If I could work it out this way, that would give me a month in South/Latin America, which would be way cool.

I'm also wondering about the possibility of taking a ship over to Russia from Alaska.. just to say I've been there (Hmm, could even pick up a Russian bride, tell her the truth at the Canadian border. bwuhahahaha. KIDDING!).

It is *so* hard to find decent maps/directions for Alaska, especially the arctic circle and the eastern-most part. If anybody reading this has any suggestions/resources for this information, please let me know.

I've narrowed down the bike list a bit. Off the list are:
- Triumph Tiger: Footpegs too high (cramped for us tall folks), questionable reliability.
- Aprilia Caponard: Heavy and too low to the ground.

So now the list is:
- BMW R 1200/1150 GS
- BMW F650 GS Paris-Dakar
- Kawasaki KLR 650: People *love* this bike.. No, they are FANATICAL about it, but it seems to need a lot to make it truly adventure-worthy. It's cheap enough that $2000 worth of stuff it needs still puts it many $1000s below the BMWs.
- KTM 950 Adventure: KTM makes some awesome bikes, but support/parts are a major concern.. Not so much with Canada and Alaska, but with South America.
- Suzuki V-Strom 650 (aka "wee-strom") or 1000

.. Sorry if I've said most of this before about the bikes. I tend to research, ask, and go back and forth on this stuff forever. One of the joys of being a Libra. lol This is a very important decision though as my very life may depend on this bike - I'm not talking about crashes, but more about getting stuck 500 miles from nowhere in Alaska, or in some "the police won't even go outside at night" part of South America.

As someone on one of the motorcycle lists told me "They are all good bikes, sit on each of them for 45 minutes and eliminate any that are uncomfortable, test ride them and whichever one stirs your soul.

It's good to see that the "practicing hedonists" blog has finally been updated.

I'm shutting up now.. gotta save something for tomorrow.

MMmmmppphhh

That's what I feel like today... There's all this stuff swirling around in my head that REALLY wants to come out, but I can't quite string together all the synapses in the correct order to get it to my fingertips.

Freezing rain, sleet, snow, then a little more freezing rain today and now it's about 25 degrees. It's not one of the really bad ice storms that has trees falling through people's roofs, but they thought it was going to be. It's just enough to make going out kinda dangerous and dumb. I think they got it worse to the South as the club cancelled their weekly party tonight.

Isn't it strange how knowing that you have to stay in makes you want to get out SO bad? I sit in this house all day, all week long, and may want to go out, but it's no big deal. Today with the roads being icy, I am just *dying* to get out of the house. I am bored out of my friggin' mind and nothing helps. Today has felt about 3 days long.

I am really looking forward to the day when I have my own hot tub. Tonight would be a perfect night for some soakin'.

I'm thinking about seeing if S&L want to come over since the party was cancelled. They've got the truck, so they might be able to make it (the roads aren't *that* bad.. I don't think). The question - How to entertain? The entertainment center is half apart and at the moment we don't have any movies we haven't seen.. yet another argument for the hot tub. I'm calling them now.

L said the roads are getting really, really bad (10 car pileup at the exit where the club is) and they are going to play it smart and stay home.. but if they get too bored, they may call later.

Looks like another boring night at home. I've played every game on the PS/2 that I like, upgraded the software on my CLT DoD site including fixing photopost, watched 2 movies, surfed until I couldn't see straight, cleaned up my email, even organized my bookmarks. What is left to do? What in the world did we all do before computers, cable and to-your-doorstep dvd rentals, and video games? I remember spending a lot of time as a child watching tv and wishing I had something better to do, but I don't remember being THIS damned bored.

To my readers (if any): Sorry if it seems like I'm bitching a lot this week. 1st week not smoking does that to a person, I guess.

I have very little positive to say, and the thoughts swirling through my mind aren't getting any closer to my fingertips, so I guess I'll stop rambling now.

Through the Vaseline-Coated Looking Glass with My Head Tilted Curiously to the Side

Hello boys and girls!

My eyes are *so* bleary. 14 hours of staring at the screen yesterday, 12 today. I don't know how people do this for 8 hours with a crappy monitor and/or with super-small text like some of my co-workers do.

I had planned on inviting S&L over tonight for a movie, but haven't heard back from the last two emails I've sent.. they might be out of town or still having computer issues. I was going to call them, but just got a call from D&M asking if we want to go out. I guess it'd be kind of rude to say no and then invite S&L over.

I know what I'm in the mood for... Either a steak or a Hardees 2/3lb Bacon Cheeseburger and a Coke. Followed by a smoke and a beer.

Instead, Hmm, let's see, what's on the menu for tonight:

- A veggie burger (which not only doesn't taste like a burger, but is the size of a cheap sausage patty)
- 2 cups mixed greens with a whopping 2 Tbsp of non-fat dressing.
- 1 cup skim milk
- 1 serving fruit of choice.

That will be followed by a craving for a smoke and a cup of hot water. Then some household chores and a cold shower.

Man, I really need to start getting out of the house at least once during the week. My outlook on things really sucks by Friday. Yup, gotta get out more often at least until spring when I can spend some quality time soaking in the sun. SAD (Seasonal Affective Disorder) seems to get worse every year. That's not entirely true, this year hasn't been too bad so far. If I make it through Feb (without sinking into the the dark abyss of depression), things will be fine.

I've got to find a way to get these dogs some exercise. I think Buddy is more depressed than I am. Sometimes I walk up and pet him and he doesn't even bother to move his eyes.

19:40 - Update on the mail issue. After going through the logs, I determined the email was never received. Skip sent another message that got through. Very strange... almost like Mindspring either deleted the mail queue or turned off the mail server. But.. thinking about this more, it was 4 days that we didn't receive mail from them, which means they've probably got a mail server that's actively receiving mail but nothing sending. Oh well. At least it's working for them now.



I'm going to watch a movie, and hopefully fall asleep and wake to a much brighter day. Let's hope that ice storms misses us!

Bumpers, Gas, and Fat

I can't get over how expensive it is to heat this house, especially as well as it retains heat. We've been here since the end of August. There was about $250 in the the tank, Next time around was nearly $600 (mostly due to the previous owner not filling it - he was unemployed), The next time, $280, this time $392. Even subtracting $300 of that $600 (of which $300 was probably our usage) and not including the $250 that was already there, that's $750 worth of gas (which is only used for heat and hot water) in 4.5 months. Considering Sept and Oct were warm, there were a few warm weeks somewhere this winter, and we were in MI with the heat off for a week, this just seems insanely expensive.

I love gas heat (had natural gas in the house where I grew up in MI... Heat pumps won't do the job up there), it heats fast. I don't think I'll ever have a propane gas pack again. This is nuts. This house is not *that* big, the heat is off in the basement and upstairs, with the ceiling fan keeping the heat on the first floor and the thermostat set on 68 degrees. I'm beginning to think a kerosene "jet" garage heater might be a cheaper, if more toxic solution.

This diet... it's strange. Some days I feel like I don't want to eat everything on it, other days (like today), I feel like I'm starving. I think the frozen entree I had at lunch just wasn't filling enough. Odd since it was pasta and meatballs.. you'd think it would be the most filling meal yet.

Not smoking - It's going well; or shall I say I haven't smoked? Today has been challenging. I can almost feel myself taking a "drag" off a smoke. I guess that's because it's been a stressful day. I never really noticed myself smoking much when stressed. I'm usually more of a bored smoker.. if there's nothing to do, I smoke. These cravings have caught me a little off-guard.

Work has been busy today.. 2 or 3 things to do simultaneously at the same time I'm on conference calls AND chatting (work chat) with several people.

I called Gene yesterday and invited him to go riding.. It was already going to be cutting it close with the time of day (3:30?) and him having to find the plate, get the bike, make sure it starts, and riding out here. I called about an 1.5 hours after he said he was "going now", and he said he was just leaving the house. I was concerned with it getting dark and the roads being slightly damp that it may get cold enough for some black ice (additionally, he hadn't rode in months), so I told him we'd catch up some other time.

Just as well.. I had one of, if not *the* worst ride (not including crashes) of my life. People cutting me off, pulling in front of me, objects in the road, one of which nearly threw me off the bike, and I got *really* lost. What was supposed to be a nice leisurely 90 mile ride through some twisty roads leading to the mountains ended up being over 200 miles of going through every small town in 6 or 7 counties (or at least it seemed that way).

Ok, I'm done bitching now. On to the good news:

I've got 4 motorcycle trips planned already for this year. Spring Ride, Deal's Gap, Honda Hoot, and Grand Canyon. Early next year, I'm going to get an Adventure Touring bike, most likely one of either a BMW R 1200 GS, Triumph Tiger, Suzuki SV-1000, or Aprilia Caponard. I've pretty much narrowed it down to the BMW or Triumph. I've got enough mainstream bikes, I want something with a little more character. Something that says "I may be a little ugly, but I'm so useful, I can take you anywhere" and to strangers says "you just *know* I've been around the globe, you want to touch me and soak in my worldly knowledge, don't you?".

We've found a suite of utilities that may resolve about 50% of the communication/process issues we've been having with one of our biggest internal customers. I'm working late installing it now. This is going to be awesome if we can modify it the way I think we can.

Traded oncall weeks with another team member. No oncall for me this weekend. Woo-hoo!

(note: this copy was posted on the web page. If another one shows up, it was sent via email)

Wonders of Nature?

I sit here staring out my window when I'm supposed to be working. After a week of bitterly cold weather, it's suddenly (within the last 2 hours) 52 degrees!

I watch the small bird (a robin?) outside my window taking a bath in
the ice water and wonder.. how can such a small animal that by
necessity for flight, has almost no meat/fat on it's body take a bath
in ice water and not be cold... Yet I sit here in a heated home with
slippers, socks, jeans, a heavy shirt, and a flannel shirt on, sipping
hot tea, and I'm chilled.

Is the bird cold or not? Does it have B.O. (that's "Bird Odor") so bad
that it has to take bath no matter how cold it is? Does it perhaps
think the seemingly warm weather will keep it safe even though it is
freezing it's butt off? WILL the weather keep it warm enough
until it dries?... or will this little bird take flight, turn into a
block of ice and drop like a rock?

I know they are warm blooded. I also know the feathers and plumage keep them from losing body heat as quickly as we do; but if I was to wrap myself in a nice warm quilt, soaked in ice water, and then stand in a 20 MPH wind, I wouldn't last very long. Will the bird?

Yes, today is a busy day for me.