I’m sitting in my office drinking beer and eating cake. How’s that for a cush job? Went and looked at motorcycles today. Mmmm, motorcycles. They really have a catch-22 on these bad boys. You can’t ride a motorcycle without a Motorcycle License. You can’t get a Motorcycle License without having a bike and knowing how to ride it. You can’t test-drive a motorcycle unless you have a Motorcycle License. So do you buy a motorcycle on blind faith, ride it home illegally, and then attempt to get the license? Or … spend $150 and take a class. Tough situation. And another thing. The Discover Channel, err … the “Science Channel”, in all of it’s wonderous incarnations is amazing. They’ve got planes, and travelling, and nuclear stuff, and how things just work, and animals and everything. Simply incredible. I can literally watch that set of stations for 6 hours, with absolutely no problem. So interesting. Kevin D. Mitnick’s [i]The Art of Deception[/i] is rather good. I was expecting an almost manual-esque romp through how to secure your organization. Instead, I was pleasured to read real-life and fictional situations, how they worked and how to avoid these things. More of a “what if … and how” thing instead of a dry technical analysis. Although extremely unsettling, it is very good.

Went out and saw a movie last night and tonight, and then went to the perk after tonight’s movie. We were there, and saw [L=http://simla.colostate.edu/~aare/public_html/index.html]Anna-Lisa and Holly[/L], and then met some of their friends, Tyler, Tom and Phil. They were pretty cool. We also saw Beth2, but she was pretty icey. And that was that. Saw The Recruit and Dare Devil recently. Recruit was pretty good, but it seemd like it was a rehashed plot, with new people (Collin Farrell & Al Pacino). Still and enjoyable movie … I especially liked … what’s her name … I don’t know, the hot chick. Dare Devil was also good (Afleck, Garner, Duncan and Farrell), but more in an action-packed-comic-book movie way. I’d recommend seeing both — especially if you can bring a woman along. On that note, I have found out that I am hopeless when it comes to girls. Maybe I’m just a huge dork. Or Mothra. And Tony is Godzilla, what with knocking down buildings and stumbling back into the sea (inside joke). Yes, back to Mothra. You know, attracted to flame, then I blow it, and flit away, nursing my little burnt wing tips. Damn those sensitive wings! Now that I have successfully derailed that train, I would like it to be known that although I think a girl is great *sigh*, there is, once again, no chance. I got the curb drop off the other night, which is a sure sign of “just friends pal, hit the road.” Hrmph. [b]Update[/b] – Forgot to mention that I picked up Kevin Mitnick’s “Art of Deception” today from Borders up north … Didn’t see him, but amazingly, Burnz still works there! I guess he knows how to do one thing right. There was a chick named Beth there, and OMG, hottt. Oh, and I picked up a slew of networking materials so I can take some cert tests and maybe get a pay raise? Oh, and the networking for the new job … hahaha, what a joke. Those guys from back east don’t know jack. …

*sigh* I have no valentine. Happy Valentine’s Day, though, to all those wonderful people out there who also don’t have a valentine 😀 I’m tired today. I was up late writing code that mostly works (amazing) … it plots graphs and essentially logs all our traffic so we can tell how much bandwidth people are using. It’s pretty neat. Other than that, I’m irritated at “Directors” who don’t know how to do their jobs … the “IT Director” at the DoD place has been in for the past 3 days doing their thing trying to get it to work. Three days to setup a *software* firewall, a win2k AD Domain w/ 10 users, personal folders for each 10 users and a shared printer. What a fucking joke. And it’s not even trusted to the main company Forest, so the exchange passwords are separate from the local domain passwords. Guh. So … yea, that’s that. I need a (life | girlfriend | betterjob| workingcar | lot more money), but I’m too fucking tired/sissy to get any of them. I’m such a wimp. Guh at myself.

welp, went and did some numbers with Corey RE: our proposed cybercafe, and it looks like it will work. woot. Stayed home and cleaned for 3 hours today, did both bathrooms. Guh. It’s the worst part of cleaning, and I spared my roommates from such a horrible plight. Fucking nasty. And then I stayed home and drank hot cocoa and ate a cheese fajita thing (memories *sigh*) … Decided not to go to the underground because of the outrageous pricing … and then at like 2:30am, James and Mike came by … wtf? So they come by, and we found out there is a party at 430 N Weber! That’s across the street. So after a vicious jager-bomb (yeeaaa jager!), we set off across the street and partied … met some nice peeps, mostly rave people … dunno how I feel about that. Amanda, Steve, James, Mike, Keen and a shitload of other people … met trina and her friend stef, a stripper named Jen (drool), our across-the-street-neighbor Jeremy and all of his house-mates. Was a good time. w3rd. Got my Fed. Tax return. w3rd. Oh, Becky wasn’t there tonight. :-/ I think I like her … ahh well, no chance. Just gotta live it up when I get the chance, I guess. [b][u]UPdate[/u][/b] — Went to Hooters today and met a girl named Holly. Man, what a catch. She loathes working there (does it on the side to bring in extra cash), and gave us a nice dissertation on why it sucks. Very eloquently worded … she’s very smart, has high self-esteem, very witty, and hates the environment that Hooters brings in — on both the employee side and on the customer side. I fell in love with her while listening to her speak. Move over little asian hotty waitress Laura, cuz Holly’s got you beat.

I am back in town after going to Utah. (applause) Thank you, thank you. It was a pretty good trip. Had a nice and pleasant 9 1/2 hour drive with my Dad (who is awesome) on Friday, and then some yummy eating that night (enchiladas — which all came home and are in the freezer. yumm). Then Saturday came, and boy was it long. Went over to the church at 8:30am and saw my Uncle Eldred. Honestly, he was the best looking corpse I’ve seen, and I’ve seen a bunch. Then everyone else came in, and it was not pleasant. They had the final viewing at 11:30am, and up until that point I had been okay. But watching them getting ready to close the casket, I just broke and sobbed and sobbed. We all went to the chapel to hear the speakers and the musical things … the congregation all stood up to sing “I Believe In Christ,” which is a very powerful hymn, and I couldn’t sing it because it really touched … I just stood there and cried. The services ended, and we all drove 3 hours up to the grave site, where they had a short ceremony, a song and a prayer, and then we drove back to Salt Lake City. What a sad day. Sunday has not been so sad — more of a white-knuckle-don’t-want-to-die sort of day. Drove across Wyoming with Dad, and the whiteout snow + 70MPH winds made for a harrowing 12 hour trip (remember it took 9 1/2 to get there). I’m still shaking because it was so scary … can’t see anything, just hoping that we don’t run off the road. We must have seen 50 car wrecks. Easily. Everywhere people were off the road, either pulled off because they couldn’t drive in the weather, or because the flew off the road, or because they had wrecked. It was a terrible drive … still gives me the chills when I think that we drove through it. So I am back. It was a pretty decent psuedo-vacation; I didn’t use a computer or worry about work once while I was gone! This new week should start up a bunch of new things … hopefully none of them are like either of the events above 😉 I’ve decided that I’m actually going to get in shape. For real this time. In a handful of ways, now that I think about it. Feel like I’m missing some things in my life, and I’m not really sure what they are, but I have some ideas. I hope everybody had a great weekend.

I noticed that in AIM v4.8.2790, if you add a buddy to your buddylist and the last character is a dot ( . ), the new buddy will be added to your list, but when you click on the normal “Online” tab and then click back on “List Setup” tab, your new buddy will magically be gone. I found this out because I read off of krempley’s site that he has a roomy who has aim, and he appended a dot onto the guys name when he typed it in. It’s probably a conspiracy. Or just a bug. Or No? Truck is busticated. Rebuilding carb when I get back on Sunday night … then selling it and A) Getting out of debt? or B) buying a motorcycle. because they’re cheap. or C) Holding out and trying to find a buildable mustang. Yes, I can still dream, thank you very much. I’m heading out of town on Thursday night / Friday morning to attend the funeral of my Uncle Eldred — takes place on Saturday morning. He passed away because a recessive tumor became malignant and progressed to full blown, widespread cancer. He was my mother’s oldest sibling, and the patriarch of the Mettmann family. He will be sorely missed. 🙁

I decided I was going to work on my vbscripting & asp skills for a while, and I figured what better place to start than rand0m.org? So I drudged up my old ASP version of the site and resurrected it — amazingly, it actually works sorta … the smileys work, but links don’t because I’m too lazy to spend an hour writing regexs. Check it out: [L=http://asp.rand0m.org]http://asp.rand0m.org[/L] Other than that, I think we’re going to open up a gaming cafe … Corey is all hot and bothered about it, which is neat … it’s not very often the HPI offices get excited about anything. *sigh* Work is still going well, but I am beginning to sense a death spiral again, which is no good. I guess that after two years, it’s time to dust off my resume, eh? [b]Update[/b] – 11:44pm [L=http://bbspot.com/News/2003/01/os_quiz.php]
Which OS are You?[/L] *sigh* So true *sigh*

Well, today was Martin Luther King, Jr. Day. What a good guy. He did so much. I think we should have more people like him. I worked on my truck a bit today, and determined that it is not my timing, nor my vacuum system, nor my vacuum-timing advance system. This pretty much narrows it down to carbuerator … I think I’ll meander it on down to one of the local auto places and have them take a look, because I’ve done run out of ideers. Went shopping today with Tony. Actually, it was more of a “get necessities from the store because i have no car” trip. Got a lot of stuff, and decided to make tacos. Mmm, tacos. While dicing up the green bell peppers and onions, I took a hearty chunk of my left index finger off. Blood was going everywhere … pretty nasty, ruined all the veggies. I can see you now, and no, not really. I just whacked off a peice of my finger … it didn’t even go all the way through, so I had this little chunk of randal finger flopping about. I didn’t even notice until I wiped my lip with my finger and felt a little dangly thing. Then I went into the kitchen and really chopped it off. heh. If I get the initiative, I’ll take a pic of my not-life-threatining wound. Having a potential spat at work … it’s my day off, and I get a phone call asking for personal assistance from someone i work with. Well … I told them that I couldn’t fix it, because our stuff sucks. Apparently that has gone over poorly, and after being told to “re-think the question and fix the problem” (on my day off), I wrote a nice little email that will undoubtedly not go over well. Maybe it’s come to jesus time? who knows.

I know that this is not what people want: a drunken update. I know that everyone is all interetesd in what I’m doing with my life, and a blah blah blah, so I’ll update with only the important things: 1. Work is good. and fun. yea. And jack is gone. Sad. :-/ 2. I am not taking classes. I am too poort. :-/ 3. I am drunk? Yes, I think so. WO! 4. The Daily Show and SouthPark are the only good tv things. 5. Yep, still single and not getting any. Sigh. **? 6. Woww, #5 really sucks. goddamn. 7. Umm. ProfiT? 8. Wow, I really like lists. Oh. We had a party, it was good. 9. I’m at a loss. 10. FUck, I forogot to write the icequeen an email. *oops* 11. jared’s site is good. http://jared.seehafer.net … nerd. heh. *INSERT FOR TORE* Tore came to town, and it was good. he has these neet DDR pads, and he’s lost some weight. I’m enviosu. But it was good. Thanks TORE! *Back TO normal programming!* 12. Tony is back!? A month of christy, and hes a roomy again. 13. Keen is drepessed because of Danielle. HAGGISH x 10. 14. My truck? YEP, still dead. Fizzuack! 15. I think I’m done. Yep, that’s what 3x Long Island Iced Teas (LIIT FOR SHORT) and a couple shots of vodka will do. Please comment below. I think I might change my color scheme. It’s 1:03AM WhEre is Keen!? Hmm … damn that #5.

We threw a big New Years Eve bash last night, and it was really good. Not a lot was happening until a bit after 10:30pm, when a handful of people showed up, including Bryce aka YTC and his wife Joleene and their crew. They brought a ton of stereo equipment and some hugeass speakers and really turned the party up. Bryce is a simply amazing DJ, and really knew how to spin it right — thanks for doin it, ytc! Around 11:30, a truckload of people showed up, including Dan Sandersly, Steve Strecker and Lindsey Burton from back in the day. The usual assortment of people started off the party, Tore, Laura, Paulie, Keen, Tony, Disco, Christine … it got pretty wild, and I got super trashed. At midnight, everybody raised their champaigne glasses and enjoyed a nice countdown. All in all, I’d say it was a really good party. Thanks to everybody who came for making it such a good throwdown. Pictures are available at [L=http://www.rand0m.org/images/nye2k2]http://www.rand0m.org/images/nye2k2[/L]