June 15, 2006

• Greetings from…

  

  Greetings, friends, conversationalists, thrill-seekers and music lovers all across the fruited plains. This is the one and only blog you need read to understand the blogging phenomena. A blog that meets and surpasses readership expectations ever time I decide to update. The definitive place to go where there’s never a dull moment, even when I don’t post.

  Okay, okay. I admit, that was just a means to set up the tone, the style of this post. Very light-hearted and fun-filled, yet serious all at the same time. This post comes direct to you from the UAH campus. It’s 0200 and I’m sitting under a tree, across from a street lamp hand-writing this post which I will transcribe for you in mere moments.

  I gotta tell ya, cigars have never tasted so good. What I smoke is a little rough on the pallet and hangs in the air. In fact, you can still smell them several days after having smoked one in my apartment. They’re good. I was afraid that the box I bought was going dry on me ’cause it’s not very humid in my apartment. In fact, the last three or four that I’ve had have been super dry. Maybe it was what I was drinking with them. But ths one’s good. It makes you feel like a man. I need to buy another box. There’s only one left. Alas, I’m sticken with that ancient Chinease disease: Fundsalow.

  MIA
  Now I know several of you probably think that I’ve been MIA (that’s Missing In Action for those of you in Juanita) for the past week. Look it, I’ve been caught up with “the business of living”. Speaking of being MIA, Emo Girl has been strangely silent for about a month now. In fact, Howton was telling me the other day the he missed her comments on my site. I do too. So let’s all show our support and leave her a “thinking of you” comment. (NOTE: No sooner do I write this then she posts.)

  Okay, so the “business of living” quote was merely an excuse for me to put a plug in for Freedomland. I can’t recommend the film enough. It’s engaging. Great filmmaking. A story well told. I was shocked to find out that it’s only getting a 4.x on IMDB. (Latest number is 4.6) But if there’s one thing that this audience knows, it’s that I have taste in film. Speaking of films, I just finished From Hell for the second time and I must say that the second viewing is much better than the first, despite knowing the twist. I wonder if subsequent viewings will be as good.

  But no, the reason that I’ve been gone for a week is due to the fact that I’ve had some personal issues I’ve been dealing with. Now is not the time or place to get into it, but I do wish to publicly thank those of you who’ve been supportive of me during this time. Due to the nature of what happened, I can’t name any names, but you know who you are and I’m grateful to you for your support. It’s unfortunate that I can’t thank each and every one of you personally here, but like I say, I greatly appreciate the support.

  Optimisim
  I do have to say though, that due to the way things turned out, it’s been a positive experience all around and as such, my spirits have been lifted. Perhaps Howton won’t get overly excited when he notices that my posts are becoming more optimistic. In fact, I’ll tell you just how optimistic I am: I’ve wanted to not just clean, but organize the place and gear up for duh duh dut, duh duh dut, duh duh dut dut da, school in the fall. More on that in just a moment. I want to finally (after being in this apartment two years) get all my books on bookshelves and open the floor up. I want to start an aquarium, but to do what I want, costs could be as high as $1200 and that’s assuming I can get the fish I without having to pay an arm and a leg. I want to get the bed outta here since I bought a futon about two months ago—yannow, it seems these days that everything happened two months ago.

  I need some bookcases. Both need to be dark wood. Needed dimensions are 42″ x 42″ for the one and the other 5′ x 3′. If you know of any some such for around $20 a piece, let me know. You get extra points if they’re so-called lawyer’s bookcases. I went thrifting for such animals the other day and from the looks that people were giving me, you’d thought I was asking them for plot on the moon. Apparently, bookcases are hard to come buy these days.

  The bed has a Sealy Posturepedic mattress with a bunky board. The frame is a cream varnish on some hardwood. I have to tell you, the mattress is geared towards people who sleep on their back. Great back support, but it’s horrible for those of us who sleep on our sides.

  School
  Well, it’s semi-official: I’m officially unofficially going to school in the fall. That is to say that I found classes to take besides the 500 level stuff and I filed for Fin Aid as well as turned in my appeal letter. So if the money gets to the school without a hitch, I’m going. But if not…just waiting on the award letter to see how much money I can get so I can budget the semester. Currently slated, the semester will be 13 hours and will be the following classes: Cal C, Digital Logic, OOP via C++, and Unix. I’ve signed up for tutors for Cal C and Digital Logic. Since I’ve seen all of the material before, this should be a perfect (read all “A’s”) semester. Of course, I need to brush the dust off my mad Calculus skilz. And I haven’t coded in a while, so I might should run back through the basics.

  I want to write for the paper again if I go back. Supposedly, there some contention concerning the incoming Editor-in-Chief and as of last report, there may not be a paper this year. Also, I need to track down what’s what on the Arete.

  Life
  Here’s kinda the way I envision life going: if I get those commercials written by the end of this week and pass them off to my storyboard artist, and should we actually get to shoot them and they get aired, thereby getting referrals, Blue Portal just might get off the ground. Otherwise, come October, when it comes time to renew the license, I will just let it drop. Of course, Sidewalk is September 22-24 and I don’t intend to miss it this year.

  Regardless of what happens with Blue Portal, class in the fall whilst working full time. This is doable and it will be interesting to see how this works/feels compared to past semesters. But if things are on the up and up, I’ll continue to plug away at the degree until I either finish it, get a job offer with it, or film works out. When I finish the degree, I hope to go straight to a master’s, having some company pay for it all. Mu ha ha ha ha!

  I might play the parties per Beth’s instructions, but that remains to be seen. Regardless, get the degree/decent job, find someone to settle down with and be happy paying off student loans. The idea is that I can use the CS/MA degree to get into film i.e. use it as a platform. But I don’t think I’ll find myself in a serious relationship until I’m established with the start of a so-called career. Of course, that means that the holiday season is going to suck this year.

  Filmmaking/Talk Radio
  Of course, both of these have been dreams from the get-go, not to mention finding someone to settle down with on a decent estate. I think in other posts I’ve beaten the filmmaking horse to death, so I’ll rehash the talk radio gig: buy an EV RE-20 with appropriate boom and a four channel mixer. From here, I can either Shoutcast, Podcast, or both. Of course, if I Shoutcast, I want to run my own server, which is the other piece of news:

  SysAdmin
  I need a Linux box. Recommends for distros with justification would be greatly appreciated. I’m looking at doing a $600 P4 deal, so it’d need to be x86. I’ll probably go with Red Hat/Fedora simply because that’s what UAH runs, but the feedback I’ve gotten on it leaves much to be desired. Oh the horrors! Of course, I need a router so I can hook up to the Windoze b0x3n. I’ll probably run a KVM solution for I/O. Of course, if you still want to send that Solaris b0x3n this way, Howton my address is…

  Finding the Sites
  The post title is a reference to this section. I’m thinking of taking off to a super-secret location much like I did last week and reporting on it in much the same fashion. In fact, I think I’m gonna try and do that every week between now and school. That way, when it comes time to wow the girlfriend, I’ll have the spots all picked out and look like the expert that my Dad was on this topic. Of course, you’re more then welcome to guess where it is. HINT: It is an in-State, two hour drive and I have never been there. It is in the north-east region of the State.

  2 week old News
  I’ve been so outta the loop, that I’m just now getting around to the news of June 1. Here are the highlights in no particular order:

  
  
  • June 1 was the first day of the hurricane season. Ironically enough, it was also the inauguration of Ray “School Bus” Nagin. The pull quote?

    But the central message of Nagin’s speech, perhaps not surprisingly, was not to be found in the prepared text. Rather, it came in a lengthy ad lib, in which the mayor delivered a characteristically plainspoken riff on President Kennedy’s legendary “ask not” speech, urging New Orleanians to “get off your duffs” and play an active role in the city’s recovery instead of waiting for help from the outside world.

    “This is not on President Bush,” Nagin said. “It’s not on Kathleen Blanco. It’s not on Ray Nagin. It’s on you.”

  • 

  • Hillary promised to deliver 200,000 new jobs, but New York had a net loss of 112,000. story

  • Scientists try to cover up a huge oil find in arctic story

  • Allegedly, because the INS refuses to release rules on spousal visa, it has become more difficult, if not impossible for Americans to get their significant others into the country legally, despite illegal Mexicans flowing across the border daily. info story audio

  For skinnyminnygrl
  

  Last minute thoughts
  Anyone have ideas for my links? I don’t like the underline thing. I thought about just killing the line and letting them stand as regular text, but then you don’t know that it’s there. Suggestions?

  I wonder if there is a study comparing Google users to other search engine users that would be similar to the one that Howton found comparing Xanga users to Live Journal users.

  You should read the book that I am reading. This is the first Nero Wolfe book I’ve read. The min-series was great.

  
  

  • 9:23 am
  • 16 Comments