I’ll be out in Dallas, Texas this weekend to visit an old friend and attend his wedding. It should be an interesting trial run for another wedding I will attend next weekend. Being the grand socialite that I am (not) it should serve as an interesting experience for all involved.
All I hope is that: a) the wedding gifts have arrived and b) there is something to drink. Without a bit of libation I am about as talkative as a shrub at social gatherings. Fun!
After some pain, I now have all the pictures posted and available from this past weekend’s 2004 Reno Air Races.
Go take a look at the fast, cool planes.
After years of trying to fight the good fight I’m looking for another job again. It isn’t by choice, but my official search has begun in earnest this week. There are some opportunties within the company, but I will look outside as well. It bites that this decsision to look wasn’t a voluntary one, but it has to be done nonetheless.
If I could learn to be dispassionate about what I do I’m sure things would go smoother for me. Until then, I need to find something else that drives me to get up and do the daily grind. I hope that I can find that soon, else the bills really start to pile up!
I spent Saturday at the Reno Air Races and it was pretty darn cool. Seeing 5 to 10 airplanes racing head to head at over 200 mph just 300 feet off the ground is pretty hard to describe. It is just flat out amazing.
Most of the pictures I took don’t convey the sense of speed nor distance between the racers, but this is one of the best of the bunch that try: biplanes racing.
Thanks to the quick work of one of the hosting site support guys I have most of my blog back. I’m still not sure how it got deleted, but I am going through and changing all the passwords and such now. Hopefully this will cut down on incidents in the future.
Oh, and I’m going to start doing backups now, too.
It’s always a fascinating experience to hunt down and eliminate bugs. It is even more so when the bug is “no satellite info” displayed on the TiVo screen. So it was with great surprise and unhappiness that I found this message on my TV last night and no signal present on the TiVo.
I checked the usual suspects: tree branches blocking the dish, loose cables, a TiVo reboot, temperature check, etc. All of these turned up empty. Since it was late I went to bed and wondered what the problem could be.
This morning I trekked out to the cable closet at the end of the complex. There I found dozens of coax cables cut completely through. Seeing this, I decided to go pickup a cable / line tester at Fry’s. To my reserved amazement, yes, some of those cut wires were indeed mine. How did this happen? Why would someone do this?
Just a few hours after doing all of the legwork to determine this, a Comcast technician drives by. Our conversation goes like this:
After that he sped out of the parking lot faster than I’ve ever seen an installer go. Something tells me that they probably did this on purpose, since clearly there are bits of cut cable and coax ends strewn all over the closet. I think I’ll be having some words with Comcast shortly.
I am constantly reminded of the absolute neccessity to watch TV on a regular basis by watching The Daily Show. Well, at least 4 days a week anyhow. I’m amazed that so much satire and information can be packed into 22 minutes (give or take).
If you haven’t watched this gem or experienced the genius that is Jon Stewart you are missing out. Go there, watch the clips, and tune in immediately, if not sooner.
For the second straight year I had a pretty sucky 24 hours leading up to and after my birthday. I spent most of the day loading equipment, moving heavy objects, and generally sweating, working to tear down a tradeshow booth. I woke up my mom early in the morning (sorry!) and hung up on my brother. I then had to rush to check out of the hotel where I was staying and sit in the lounge for 4 hours before I could go to the airport.
Although the flight back happened on time, again I had the distinct honor to sit next to someone who could not fit completely into their assigned seating, thus spilling over into mine. He watched South Park and GI Joe DVDs for most of the flight. I just tried to catch a little sleep and listen to some music. Upon arriving a few minutes early at San Jose, in typical SJC airport style, there was no gate crew. This left us sitting in the airplane for 10 minutes while some employees were rounded up to allow us off the plane. Then I sat in the baggage area for the next 40 minutes waiting for something, anything, to come off the luggage belt.
By the time it was all over and I got home it was almost 1am. When I got up the morning of the 16th I managed to find a wasp and get stung in the ass.
Again, a stunning birthday for the record books.
I’m sure this will jinx it, but I’ve driven the 4Runner enough by now to call it fixed. It’s still the slow, top heavy, cargo hauler it has always been, but at least it is running right. I am sort of baby-ing the shifts a bit right now, but it seems to be back to normal.
Good thing, too. All this home improvement is eating into the budget. Next car stop (hopefully) is the fabled sports car. Mmmm, sports car.
I have a new found respect for electricians, builders, and those poor guys who pull cable when building a new home. I also owe a pretty large “thanks” and “yes, you told me so” to Steve. It seems that as good as hard-wired network connections are, they are a major pain to install after the home is built. Who knew?
Now its two days later, over $200 spent, countless hours burned, time researching alternatives on the net, talking to friends, and ultimately quizzing the OSH and Home Depot guys to get the job done. It is done, although not entirely to my required level of perfection, but I got most of what I was aiming for:
In the process of all of this I acquired a number of new home improvement toys, including:
I can now knock off one home improvement project. Only a dozen or so more left to go!
