OK So I’m sitting at the airport and it’s boring as hell. I’ve been here since 2:00pm, trying to burn up time until the plane departs at 3:46. There are mandatory shoe checks at the security checkpoints, which I find unbelievable — it takes a LONG time to take your shoes off and put them on, compared to putting your jacket in the bin. They also require that you pull your laptop out, run it through the xray shebang, and then turn it on to show them it’s real. Takes for fucking ever. One other thing. So I’m riding the escalator to Concourse B and I overhear this lady complaining that she flies all the time and she always gets the extenda-search. She was wondering if it is because she flies standby, because she knows someone who works for the airline, whatever, or maybe it’s just because she buys her tickets early. And that the terrorists buy their tickets close to the departure time so that they can avoid detection. I overheard this and turned around and asked “they do? Why would they do that instead of buying a ticket just like you and me?” She looked at me, stunned, and couldn’t answer. It’s a good question though … why draw extra attention by buying late, sneaking on, blah blah blah, when they can look just like every other traveler. John Gilmore brings up this point, and many other super great points, at his freedom oriented website, [L=http://www.papersplease.org/gilmore/]PapersPlease.org[/L]. Luckily, the plane just arrived and is deboarding. Another half hour and maybe I’ll be able to get on it, settle down with a book and try not to dance through the aisle like a monkey hopped up on meth. I forgot my camera, so no pictures, sorry. And I’m so freaking stoked it’s unbelievable.

Lots of exciting things have been going on work. Lots and lots. New customers moving in, current customers adding to and changing their setups, just lots of hustle and bustle. It’s a good time, especially the new customers part — means I may get a raise 😉 Janelle called me last … Wednesday. It was nice to hear from her again, and it was even better to hear that she is doing well for herself. None of the freaking out / self loathing / world spinning that I usually get to enjoy right after talking to her. Does that mean I’ve grown up and don’t live in the past anymore? [L=http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=balderdash]Balderdash[/L]. I went shopping this afternoon after the standard Sunday stretch of Hooters/Barnes&Noble/Best Buy. I spent money. Too much, I’m afraid, but I did come home with a ton of stuff from Old Navy … cargos, jeans, two thermal things, fleece pullover, and some pajama pants. Then we went on the hunt to find some shoes. I have a pair of Docs that I’ve had since my senior year in highschool. They died early on, but Dr. Marten’s shoe company replaced them for me free of charge. That was summer of 2000. Here it is, 5 years later, and they are just now getting to the point that I can’t justify wearing them to even semi-casual shindigs, like say … work. Because of that, I’ve been doing crazy things like polishing & buffing them to get them to last a little bit longer. Unfortunately, they just aren’t holding up anymore, so I’ve been on the lookout for a while. Now, you may think that being a boy and finding shoes is an easy proposition … not like women, where it turns out to be a $400, 10 hour searching and buying extravaganza. Well, when it comes to shoes, I’m a woman. I wear exactly one kind of not-tennis-shoe, and that is Dr Martens classic Gibson 5-eye, round tip, original sole, model # 8053ZBEN. They are generally impossible to find. We spent 2 hours searching the Chapel Hills Mall for these bad boys, and time and time again came up with the wrong shoe – a bull or strong-nosed tip , 5eye oxford, horizontal sole affair that [i]everybody[/i] carries. They look incredibly similar, but the toe & the sole are wrong – the sole I can live with, the fugly, pronounced toe? No way. Thus the search began. Foley’s. Dillard’s. Timberhome. Overland. The Buckle. Nothing. Until we hit Famous Footwear. GOLD MINE BABY! Not only did they have the exact shoe I crave, they have it in Greasy (shiney leather) AND Nappa (matte leather). So I chose the Greasy, as that’s what I prefer. Then I found out that it was buy one, get the next pair for 50% off! So I went back and got a pair of the Nappas. These things are so freaking hard to find that I -Had- to purchase two pairs. Total cost – $144. I won’t have to endure searching for another pair of these babies for 10 years. I can’t believe I’m excited about shoes, but I am. I’m going to North Dakota in a couple days. I’m so freaking stoked that I can’t describe it. I get to see Amanda. Fuck Yea. I get to meet Amanda’s friends. Awesome. I get to see her parents again, who are freakin cool. Righteous. I get to see the vast wilderness of North Dakota. *crickets* Ahhh, Amanda. I can’t wait. I want to jump for joy. But I can’t, new shoes and all. Gosh I sound like a twitterpated school boy. But I can’t wait. 😀 [b]Update @ 7:12pm[/b] – As some of you may know, Tony got into a wicked snowboarding accident and fucked up his chin/jaw pretty good. WOW++ is all I have to say … here is a pic of his stitched up chin: [L=http://rand0m.org/images/TonyWreck.jpg]Tony’s Chin[/L]. I have one question though — why can’t they attach an arm or someother prosthetic, like a sexy new chin, there? [b]Update #2 @ 7:17pm[/b] – I haven’t smoked in a while. I had one last Saturday that I bummed from YTCracker at Eden, and I couldn’t finish it. Before that … gosh, maybe 10 days? That means I’m going on 2 1/2 weeks of mostly cigarette free … I’ve never been hard at it, generally 2-3 a day, but none is just better. When I see other people smoking or smell cigarrette smoke my body and mind kind of convulse and urge for a puff. It’s hard, but for the better I guess. It’s cheaper too. 😉

Matt, Paulie and I went out to [L=http://www.edennightlife.com]Eden[/L] last night and had a helluva time. There aren’t many places here in the springs where you get to see superhot women dancing on tables every time you turn around. Barring stripclubs of course. Eden has it all – incredible atmosphere(s), a higher class clientele, tons of hot women and super music. Speaking of, the great YTCracker spins at Eden on Friday and Saturday nights. It was good to see him and chat for a few minutes; he is an incredible DJ and blew everyone else away. All in all, a ridiculously good time. I’ve been having crazy dreams recently. One that was just random and crazy, and another that has reoccurred maybe 5 times now. The recurring dream goes like this. I’m sitting in a library at a table, and I have my closed laptop and a big, impressive-looking, leather/brown bound book, also closed. This guy walks in wearing an atheltic gray hoodie and a black canvas/dickies style coat. He walks up and looks at me from across the table for a short time, then picks up my laptop and walks away. I get up and begin following him, greatly concerned. I can’t seem to run or anything, and neither can he; we just kind of walk. Eventually he ends up in front of a door, opens it, steps through and closes it. I arrive at the same door a few seconds later and fling it open, only to find that I am looking out onto the sky, with whispy clouds below. Then it ends. Like I said, I’ve had this dream many times in the past two weeks, and I don’t sleep well when I have it. It’s very weird. Amanda is super duper. I was going to itemize some things here, but just trust me that she’s great. We went to Sniagrab (bargains), Gart Sports discount extravaganza, yesterday and I picked up a new [L=http://www.campmor.com/images/cloth/larger/50266_l.jpg]Columbia jacket[/L] because my last one gave up the ghost when I washed it. I also got some snazzy new gloves and a hat. Oh, and some nalgia-style bottles.

Yay Sniagrab for saving me tons of money.

OK So the site has a new look that is actually an old look. The previos white/teal/red/blue had been around since April 2003, so a change was in order. I went through all the db entries and tried to find any missing posts … I restored the news posts [L=http://rand0m.org/comments.php?NewsID=258]#258[/L] and [L=http://rand0m.org/comments.php?NewsID=259]#259[/L] … had to get them from archive.org, as I had deleted them. Man, we were full of all kinds of piss and vinegar back then. I also found that posts [L=http://rand0m.org/comments.php?NewsID=28]#28[/L] & [L=http://rand0m.org/comments.php?NewsID=29]#29[/L] are missing; no amount of googling/archive searching can find them … they’re from April 2001, though, so I don’t really expect much. I kinda wish I knew what they were, but I am pretty certain they were removed with good reason. I am flying out to ND to visit Amanda for Thanksgiving, the 23rd to the 28th. I’m stoked. I just really like being around her. I also can’t wait to meet her hick friends *ducks* … This flight, alongside the NYE cruise, should give me a bunch of miles with United. Well, not enough to mean a damn. Oh well. At least I get to see the woman relatively soon, and not have to wait 9 weeks like this last (unpleasant) go around. Yay! I spent the night in Denver on Monday so I could make a noon meeting with a Denver client without issue. It sure was good to see Steve again, and it was really good to have some real talk. My presentation to the client went very smoothly … probably couldn’t have gone much better. I even got the accolade “Of all the times I’ve paid for a consultant to come in, you were by far the best investment.” I guess these years of labor finally have some value to somebody 😉 Also, this is supposedly post #500. That’s a lot. It’s numbered 500, but it’s actually the 446th post in the database. Some general stats: 500/446 News Posts 5097/5113 News Comments 1302/1645 Photo Comments 779.6KB of posts 1.54MB of comments 928.9KB of Photo Comments 19885 – Unique visitors in Oct05 303742 – Pages served in Oct05 1.041M – Hits served in Oct05 240.1GB – Bandwidth consumed – 7.74GB/day=.71mbps sustained … Looks like the glory days of this place have passed 😉

I can’t say enough good things about American Express. Seriously. They rock. I have ~$3800 in credit card debt that I’ve amassed over the past 5 years, including school classes, emergency vehicle fixes, bailbondsman costs, partying, rockstaring, everything under the sun. I have APRs that range from now 9.9% all the way up to 21%. Yes, 21%. I decided tonight that I am going to fixify this, because I’m paying out like $130 a month in interest, and maybe $20 is actually going to principle. So I call up Discover and Citibank and tell them hey, I’ve got balances, I need them to be smaller. I need a lower APR, or I’m going to transfer them away so that somebody else can take (less of) my money. They all give me this song and dance, and give me crappy APRs. I reaffirm that American Express is going to take all my worries away if they don’t help me. Discover drops down to a 14.9% (acceptable), and Citibank/student credit card drops down to 15.74% … it’s still a student credit card, though, so I’m not concerned. Little do Discover & Citibank know what they’re in for. So then I call up AmEx, and I’m like whatup, I need to shuffle some bling onto my shiney new AmEx Clear card, which has a 4% life-time APR on balance transfers. Transfer over that shiz. Ba-BAM! It takes all of about 2 minutes to get it done. Now, if I continue to pay the same $130/mo, my $20 to principle has become ($130-($3900*.04/12))=$117. A sixfold increase, simply because of interest. Not to mention the ease of consolidation. Also, when I spoke to Discover and Citibank, they suck. Their reps are terrible. AmEx reps speak english clearly and actually sound -Happy- on the phone. The Citibank guy, particularly, sounded like he wanted to inflict severe injury to me, even though I went out of my way to sound chipper and be nice (so I could get on the good side = lower APR?). American Express just treats me great – with their plans, friendly representatives and good rewards, I can’t hype them up enough. American Express Clear for the win.

OK so it’s been a long time since I posted, but that shouldn’t surprise anyone. I don’t even know what’s happened in the past … three weeks. All I do know is that some have sucked and others have been OK. I am told by Corey that I am experiencing what is known as “burn out,” or when live-to-work becomes standard operating procedure. I am told this is bad. As such, I have decided to stop slaving like a pack mule on duty in the himalayas, but to instead focus on being productive while I am at work, and then … not working when I am not at work. I know that sounds like crazy talk, but sometimes revolution is necessary to incite change. OK, so Amamda (no, not Amanda, Amamda) flew into town on Saturday morning, so I’ve been ‘illin on Cloud 9 all weekend. My AIM away message even says so 😉 I’ve also not been working, since she is here, so I’m on some much needed vacation. I really can’t express with words what a good time we’ve had; it’s great that she came to visit, but it sucks that she has to leave soon :-/. Boo Leaving! Yay Amanda! Yay vacation! Yay Amanda and Vacation! Yay! So we were over at Brooklyn Bagel, or whatever it’s called this week, and there was a girl there with this huge bird dog. Then this guy comes up and sits with the girl with the dog, looks at me and says “HPI.” I kinda looked at him with this paranoid WTF look, and he says his name is Tom Harrington, used to work for one of my previous’ employers customers. Said Hi and chatted for minute. So then we’re sitting there, and lo and OFMG behold Rata Clark walks by and waves. !!! was all I could think. She has retired from PHS, encouraged me to vote, we chatted, she said I have the same face as … wow, almost 9 years ago. Holy Shit that was 9 years ago what the hell!? I’m like 01285 years old now, holy crap. Anyways, she is retired, and doing a lot of travelling with her Hubby and Anne (Bernhardt) and Anne’s SO. I had no idea that Rata was from New Zealand. I guess I didn’t pick up on these things when I was a loudmouthed little shit that she hated. She seems to like me now, though, because I’ve grown up a little. She says I’m still the same person though, and that she is pleased with that. To fill her copious amounts of spare time, she fills in as a part-time personal assistant at Shoemaker’s downtown and is there on Monday & Friday afternoons. So if you want to see Rata, there’s an easy window. 🙂 Keen had a pizzarty at his place on Saturday night and it was a great time. Met a couple new folks, re-met a couple great folks, and had a generally good night out. It was also really spooky how many people in this town went to PHS – relived a lot of memories with some folks, talked about new ones, was just a good time. I didn’t get hammered or anything, but we sure did have an enjoyable time. The bonfire thing was a definite plus. Good job Keen 😀 rand0m.org is under a redesign, which should come to fruition sometime this week. I am sure that all 6 of my readers are breathless with anticipation – no sneek previews, though. 😉 [b]edit[/b] – I forgot to mention that I stream audio throughout the workweek via shoutcast. You’ll need to point winamp at http://radio.rand0m.org:8000/listen.pls to make it happen. [b]edit2[/b] – Well, her plane left at 5pm, and the last time I saw her was about an hour ago (baaarely made the flight), and I am a sad monkey. I feel … empty. 🙁

I had the craziest dream last night. Somehow, I thought up that Janelle, the old flame from yesteryear, was seeing [L=http://www.shmoo.com/~gdead/]Bruce[/L] from the [L=http://www.shmoo.com]Shmoo Group[/L]. Except that it couldn’t be him, because this guy was at least 6’1″, and Bruce is maybe 5’10”. I don’t know what else happened, because I woke up and forgot, but that peice stuck with me. I watched West Wing last night, and something really hit me – do our Congressmen give a shit about what their constituents think? Do they vote on things based on their own politcal gains, the voice of their public at large (gleaned via polls etc), or based on the relatively few vocal folks who actually write letters / call? If it’s the first, then Wow, we’re all fucked, as every pork barrel project out there will pass and everybody is just jockying for their job. If it’s the second, then great. If it’s the third, then the extremists will inevitably run this country until the teaming masses wake up. I thought about this at length last night, and found it terribly disconcerting. Our ad goes into the [L=http://www.csbj.com]CSBJ[/L] this Friday; I am stoked. I’m also going to go see the Aristocrats sometime with Laura.

[b]Public Service Announcement[/b]: I curse too much, and you probably do too. We should all clean up our language a little bit so that when we -do- curse, it means something. I just realized this when I searched for ‘f*ck’ and it came up with 146 results, which is a full 29.55% of my posts. I think that is a little excessive. And I swear on here much less than I do in normal conversation. That’s all, carry on.

I added an RSS feed to this here website, so if you use a news aggregator, point it to http://rand0m.org/rss.xml. I’ll be redoing a couple things here and there over the next week or so, some cosmetic, a couple under the hood. Thanks to [L=http://michaelhusson.com/mark]/Mark[/L] for prodding me into action. Tore came into town this past Friday. We went to lunch at the Ritz, then met Sammi over at the Perk. That was good. Then we all split up, and reconvened at Phantom Canyon later that evening and had a splendid time. It’s fun to catch up with friends that I haven’t seen in forever — those who live 400+ miles away [i]and[/i] those who live just up the street. I went to Denver a while back to do some maintenance and to hit up a party at Craigalito’s place. Unfortunately I came out of the datacenter to find my truck with a flat tire. That sucked. I called up Steve-o, who promptly left to come to my aid with some fix-a-flat. He arrived no sooner than 2 1/2 hours later, ready to rock. Heh. I chatted with Amanda and a ton of other folks while I waited, so it was A-OK. Anyways, got back to his place, spent the weekend there, then headed down. Oh, and the new set of tires were $360.41 installed. Oof. My brother Matt, yes, the one who posted his infamous comments [L=http://rand0m.org/viewcomments.php?NewsID=419#4098]here[/L], [L=http://rand0m.org/viewcomments.php?NewsID=419#4104]here[/L], and [L=http://rand0m.org/viewcomments.php?NewsID=419#4120]here[/L] has moved here to Colorado Springs. Apparently his home was wiped out when hurricane Katrina hit the Gulf Coast, so he moved here where there is familial support. From what I’ve gathered, he is here with his wife and kid (?? unsure on that). I am sure I will know more tomorrow. Speaking of, I will be going out tomorrow morning with the family for breakfast, then for a cruise to look at the turning leaves, stopping off in Cripple Creek for dinner (damn that’s a lot of driving), then coming home. I hope there will be a lot of family to distract me from the crazy amounts of just driving. I watched “2Fast2Furious” the other night. It was fucking terrible. I watched “Closer” tonight, and aside from Natalie Portman’s fucking hot little body (HOT GRITS ANYONE!?), it was fucking terrible. Thumbs down to both. I miss having a woman. Chin up! *sigh*

[b]bigot[/b] – [i]One who is strongly partial to one’s own group, religion, race, or politics and is intolerant of those who differ.[/i] Ok, so if you call someone a bigot in a derogatory manner – aka not approving of their closed-mindedness – does that make you a bigot as well? Food for thought. And don’t worry, I don’t hate you, I just think you’re fucking crazy. [not laura]