Month: October 2004

I realize that my journaling has been erratic of late and this is mostly due to efforts at work and around the house… I’ve just simply been really busy.

In the work arena I’ve been given the network there, as well as the responsibility of improving the hardware compatibility lab, inventing new and better ways to test (break) things, and training everyone in things like proper test procedure, documentation, and anything else I can teach them.

It’s all very similar to the time I spent at Marianapolis teaching CompSci and working with ZeZe on the network there.

We’ve got some *really* big contracts coming up in part due to my efforts… It’s nice to be a part of something again.

Meanwhile, around the house things are settling into their proper rhythms… Except for Scales who just doesn’t seem to be getting anywhere really quick. He’s still unemployed, stays up/out all night, doesn’t get moving till 11, and seems to spend all day either playing computer games or watching TV… Not exactly the proper method for getting employed.

I took Tuesday off to get the place cleaned up: Did the dishes, took out the trash, and generally made the place feel better… This was triggered by the fact that we’d been here for a month and most of the dishes were still packed and the kitchen was a disaster. Two days later the sink was full of dishes again and the kitchen was a disaster. This sucks as Jae and I aren’t here all that much and therefore don’t make a lot of mess…

I need to talk to Scales I guess. I hate this part of the roommate thing.

I figured out the other day that right now I work about 2-3 hours a day to support Scales… I wouldn’t mind this if he was furthering himself with school or something. But that’s not in his plan either.

Kids…

Anywho, Jae is out this weekend house sitting for some friends. He took his liquid cooled monster computer with him so I’m sure I’ll see him online if I get the chance. I hope he’s got stuff to eat there…

Oh, that brings up another thing that’s going on around here… Jae’s car is fubar. So now we’re down to one car, mine, for all of the running around Jae and I need to do. Scales still doesn’t have a driver’s license so he’s a non-factor, but I assume that’ll be changing eventually too.

Well, I should get going around here and get the place cleaned up. I bought a microwave last night and need to get it set up too.

So have a great day out there folks!

Another week has flown by and here I sit watching the sun come up, enjoying a nice cup of Mr. Grey, and mentally reviewing the last week.

It actually got quite cold last night, which prompted me to crank up the fireplace and see what it can really do… It heats the house quite nicely actually. It has coils in there that connect to the hot water heating for the house, so when the fireplace is running, so is the baseboard heating. It works rather well. I guess I should go out and get more firewood this payday as it’s the main heater here and it would suck to run out.

We do have a boiler here too, but it’s about the size of a computer case and is only good for keeping the place above freezing.

Let’s see… Jae is still fighting to get a Colorado driver’s license: The levels of redundancy involved with doing the simplest of things since “Homeland Security” is astounding, really.

Jae tried to get some college classes in CompSci, but was told that he needed to prove he lives here in Littleton to get the price breaks needed to make it affordable. So off he went to get a Colorado drivers license to replace his Washington State one. He was told there that he needed two forms of ID as they can no longer accept :just: a drivers license. So after much running around to family locations he secured his birth certificate, and was the told that it wasn’t official according to the new laws, and that he needed to get a new one…

And that’s where Jae sits right now as the semester started and he’ll have to wait till next year to get into class.

Here it is, Wednesday already.

Jae is known for his ability to eat things. I know this sounds odd, but it’s true. See, he has the metabolism of a hummingbird and even though he can, and will routinely, put away a burger the size of his head from “Fat Burger” over in Aurora, he’s still probably 130 pounds soaking wet.

Well, this weekend while Carl was out and about, Jae and I decided to try out a local dinner establishment at nearby “Aspen Grove”. Enter “Ted’s Montana Grill” where we had bison burgers and Jae, who ordered this beef and bread monstrosity, was nearly forced to admit defeat.

To his credit he did eat the whole thing, but there was a few minutes there where he told me it was over and Ted’s had won. He was even forced to use a fork to eat the thing as he just couldn’t fit it all in his mouth.

Oh, the food was really, really good. 

Ahh, a weekend!

It was sure nice to sleep in this morning and get up when *I* felt like it… 7am. 🙂

So here I sit in the living room; sunlight streaming in from the sliding door to the porch and the big bay window, and some old Credence filling the room with happy “Loosianna” rock.

I’m realizing that I’m truly happy for the first time in a long while: No worries, not stressing over someone else’s day, not worrying about how someone else is going to pay their bills or if the guy I‘m working for is going to pay me… Jae and Carl don’t need me to do anything but pay my part of the rent and utilities so far, and things at work are better than I would have ever expected. Even Aryntha and Rai are doing well (finally, they deserve a few months of nice things after the last year of shit)…

Nice.

Anyways, I’m going to make myself a cup of “Mr. Grey” and hang out on the porch for a while. I suggest everyone stop and listen to Credence’s “Fortunate Son” today, sing along, and smile a lot.

At work everyone ends up with some sort of nickname or handle… This is due to the fact we play a lot of video games there and one needs something to put into the character creation screen, account name, or other user identity thingy… Well, we have a lot of Bills working there and out of the blue I was suddenly “pony bill” because of my hair.

I find this interesting on lots of levels. ; )

Anyways, I have to make :something: for breakfast and get on the road, so I will wish you all a great day and talk with you next time.

Ok, whew! Talk about your bad months… But all is well that ends well and the ending (or beginning actually) is turning out to be really nice.

To recap: You can read below about how I moved down from the mountains in July, after being badgered by everyone I know about how I was living too far away and no one was seeing me often enough… So, with the invite to stay at Wolf and Lyon’s place till I found a new job, I moved.

That’s when the fun began.

I admit it: I’m a monk… I prefer solitude and quiet; to write my silly stories, draw my silly pictures, compose my silly music. I’m very much a creature of random inspiration and wandering imagination and while Wolf and Lyon used to be similar, time has passed and things have changed. I’ve been a prisoner of their basement for a month and while still a little shaky, I’m flying again.

So, here I am in my own palatial abode with two roomies and imaginative and things are really looking up.

I guess that segues well into the introductions…

(Leads you over to a snoring reddish-gold dragon who is sleeping on the couch in the living room with one wing draped over his head.)

Shhh… This is Carl, a dragon by nature. He’s the power source around here as he’s got limitless energy and a super-bouncy outlook on life. He’s crashed out on the couch most likely due to a late night of talks with our other roommate and I’m trying to not wake anyone up as the computers are in the living room too… More on that later.

(You carefully step over a pile of blankets, pillows, a bean bag, and other assorted soft things and realize it’s another critter…)

That’s Jae who is, well, Jae. Jae has a lot of mousy qualities (his nest of blankets this morning is a good example) but I’m not quite sure just what sort of critter he is yet. Jae is a real source of inspiration as he’s got about the most unusual view point on everything I’ve ever seen; which makes him very good at his job at *censored*…

Oh, hehe, yes… We all work at the same place too.

So moving on to the computer comment: All of our computers are set up in one corner of the living room as we’re all into “Shadowbane” and collectively play for a few hours in the evening. It’s amazing how fun that game is with other people playing it, in the same room even.

Lets see, what else? Oh, I sold my 17” Powerbook and bought a PC as we moved in here. While I miss my Mac, I have to admit that the horsepower of this new machine is quite refreshing. It’s a 3.2Ghz EE based machine with a gig of dual channel DDR-400 ram, a 200 gig SATA hard drive, a dual layer DVD-R, and a PCI-e ATI X600 video card. It’s nice and was one third the price of the equivalent Mac tower…

Of course I got the textbook definition of “irony” after I bought the new PC… My new house is exactly 1.5 blocks from one of the Apple stores here in Colorado. :sigh:

I figure I’ll have one of the new iMac machines in a month or two though, so don’t worry about me being swayed to the dark side or something. : )

Well, the dead are beginning to rise and I have to get ready to drive across town to work. So I’ll post more later including the story about my nickname at work…

Have a great day out there!

Another quick entry here just to say I’m moved into my new house and all is well. I’ll post photos and whatnot soon, I promise.