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 😉