I haven't been keeping up with my email recently, primarily because it's a giant pain in the ass to do so. As it sits right now, I have to bug Layla (and drive into Redmond) to check on the essentials and get whatever information I need for the next few...
I can't sleep at the moment. This is a serious bummer. The biggest problem is that I'm switching from a damned-late/too-much-sleep schedule to a buttass-early schedule. Invariably this will involve me not getting nearly enough sleep tonight. So tonight I write and screw around with the hope that I'll be...
I somehow missed posting this picture before. Scandalous!...
It worked! Wooooo! Thankfully, only the index file was trashed. It only took one command to fix the screwup. Amen. So, back to business....
Despite the fact that my fileserver is not actually online, I nevertheless use it to compose and backlog posts so that when I do go online, it will all be finished for me. Earlier today, I was adding a post when the entire machine stalled and rebooted of its own...
I just got back from a trip across the Sound from Seattle to Alki Park. "Park" is somewhat of a misnomer. It's really more a strip of land between the road and the waterline. At no point is it more than a hundred meters wide. But it is fantastic. The...
I spotted an ad earlier on CNN—apparantely E*Trade is now using a security system which involves a keychain toy which generates strings of digits every 60 seconds which are used in lieu of passwords. The ad says it's, "convenient and revolutionary." I agree—if, by "convenient," they mean, "pain in the...
I just heard a very conservative-looking late-60-year-old spokesman for the US Chamber of Commerce (Mr. Donahue) say the best thing on CNN today: If you remove all the illegal immigrants from this country, you'll hear a loud sucking sound from the economy. Awesome....
Liz and I tried to go to Canada today. We sortof almost made it. Here's why we didn't. Right when we came across this sign, two biker dudes rolled up next to us and one said to the other, "I think the road is closed." And then Liz said, "I...
I've had these damned screenshots lying around since I reviewed Soylent Green oh so many weeks ago. So here we go. Soylent Green. WEST SIIIIIIDE! And here are two more....
I just got done watching one of those really forced CNN weekend segments on 911 calls. It involved one of those stories where a 911 operator saved the life of a lady who had—get this—been blown up inside a Petco building. Right. The point was, the show that all this...
My temporary housing comes furnished. Looking at the rate schedule in the provided housing booklet, it looks like it's costing something around $300/month to provide me with amenities such as a bed, dresser, plates, and a vacuum cleaner that hasn't yet been used. One oddity, however, is that although the...
The weather in Seattle has been atrocious for the last few days: sunny and warm. I'll show you what I mean. Actually, this really isn't bad, but it was sortof weird moving out of New Mexico and into Seattle and finding sunnier weather here than was back south. Today, though,...
Only without the XXX. Oops. I found out two things today:My new Nokia (and possibly my old one—I haven't checked) has French predictive text. Awesome. I just sent a message in French to Will. Everything else I sent to Will over the last few days ... probably didn't get to...
Remember my post about changing time zones? Yeah. I forgot to update Movable Type. Motherfucker. So now I've got a bunch of posts with incorrect stamps. Thankfully, MT doesn't retroactively apply timestamp changes, so all my old old posts are done correctly—it's only the ones posted since I've been out...
I posted earlier about the worst car I've ever driven. Just so we don't forget what an abomination this thing is, here's another picture. Oh that's bad. Something occured to me while I was driving around today, though: the Pontiac Grand Am that I rented when I was out in...
This usually happens any time I switch timezones. I'll remember to change the time on my watch, but I'll totally forget to do so on my camera and whatever else I'm using. Thankfully, I just now got it fixed on my camera and computers. But all the shots taken up...
Liz and I went to Seattle yesterday. It was pretty damned sweet. First, we had to go to her swing dance camp so she could register for the weekend. Parking was expectedly atrocious. The camp itself is held near Capitol Hill, a place to which I had never been previously....
I didn't have a chance to write about this when it happened. So here it is now. On Tuesday (I think—it could have been Monday...whatever) I was over using Layla's internet connection when I remembered about the Craigslist/Googlemaps widget that a PhD student threw together. It's sweet. So, we started...
Holy hell. I just saw on CNN a report stating that heavy truck traffic in the United States has increased 58% and automotive traffic has increased 41% between 1990 and 2003. That's incredible....
The "Early Out Delivery" stickers that came with my moving packet are, I have found, most humorous applied to my zone. Nevertheless, my early packages arrived today. Now, the moving company actually gave me more stickers than I had packages (and I could have asked for more), so theoretically, I...
After something like three years, I finally got a new phone. The old one has been having some serious issues for a long, long time. In specific, the "select" button and the "up" button (easily the two most operated buttons on the Nokia 3390) were busted. Additionally, my battery was...
Jarrod, John, Layla, and I all went to the Crab Pot for dinner. The idea is that for $20–$25/person, they steam up buckets of seafood and literally dump them out on the table. You then dig through everything and eat ... everything. Of course, this invariably leads to talking mullosks...
Among other things, Layla and I got lost (again) looking for the Seattle Humane Society today. Eventually, we found it. We went to look at kitties. Wooooo! Now, I had pulled up the Society's cat listings a few days prior, and noticed that most of the cats that they had...
The reason that I have titled this post as such is that I intend to quit writing about my job pretty quickly. It's important enough to me that I don't feel like compromising it, and there's enough else going on in my life that I don't think it's necessary to...
Today, I went to Ballard. Technically, I went to Seattle (so I could finally hang out and spend some time in the city), but I ended up in Ballard. Most importantly, I spent some good time just doing nothing at all. Hopefully I can get as much of this in...
I like C-SPAN. A lot. Every once in a while something superboring will be on (e.g., legislation that names post offices after politicians) but most of the time it's really interesting and relevant stuff. Today, for example, I found out that the Yucca Mountain fuel dump is going to cost...
Layla and I went to a place called the Lai Thai earlier. Mmmm Thai food. I realized two things at dinner:I'd love to learn whatever the alphabet is that's used to write Thai, even though the usefulness of it is pretty much zero, and how the hell long have I...
Won't you get down, on your shanananananakneesnanaknees shut up. Well, here's my housing. It's small but well-equipped, like a midget in porno. Aleph hasn't really eaten anything yet (good) and it looks like the blinds are all metal (also good). However, there's no obvious place to hide the toilet paper...
The reason my rental car is called the "Chevrolet Classic" is because General Motors was too lazy to pull the fucker off the lines after they had introduced its replacement. That's right—this is last year's Chevy Malibu still sold to rental car companies. And it is, without doubt, the worst...
We're passing over the suburbs south of Seattle right now and it still hasn't hit me yet, really. The land ~100 miles east of the city is surprisingly brown and looks almost like New Mexico. Odd, that. And now that we're passing over the clouds and haze, there's a rainbow...
My first-class ticket cozy has an advertisement for ameniti.com, a luxury travel service. My coach ticket snuggie from yesterday features a rather garish red-and-white spread for hotels.com. Indeed....
During a haircut I got on Friday, the barber mentioned that I have an oddly-shaped cranium. Well, that explains a lot....
I'm in Denver and I'm still not excited. Admittedly, I did get a bit nervous when I could actually see Denver upon approach, but I suspect it will be around the time that I actually spot Seattle that the adrenaline will start flowing....
Back on my plane kick, I'd like to relate how I nearly shit myself flying on the CRJ-70. Here it is. Sweet little plane, actually. It seats four across (three in first class—I got the single) and what seemed like 12 or 15 rows. My flight involved the quietest takeoff...
I just spotted a Boeing 777. These planes are big. Unbelievably big. So big that if you really know how big a 777 was, your brain would try to suffocate itself. Sorry. I saw the HGTTG movie recently. Back to the topic at hand. Anyway, the B777. The interesting thing...
There are a bunch of houses off the east end of primary at KABQ. We overflew it at around 500 ft., and this is a comparatively quick plane. It must suck when heavies fly through....
I just want to say that it looks really funny when Flight Attendant A (who is giving the safety lecture) gets ahead of Flight Attendant B (who is pantomiming "The Passenger in Peril") enough that Attendant A has to wait and Attendant B has to don the oxygen mask in...
I'm sitting in an airplane waiting to be pushed back from the gate. This is the furthest I've gotten so far on my quest to Seattle—further, in fact, than I got yesterday. So, I see this is a positive thing. I was a bit surprised when I found the plane...
Those of you who know both my AIM screenname and the license plate that I used to have on the Scirocco will likely find this humorous. Much thanks to Ashley for actually pointing it out to me, because I'm a blind bastard most of the time. Boomshakalaka....
Wow. What a day. I'm still in Albuquerque. During my trip to drop Ashley off at the airport, I had an opportunity to chat with the United desk agents. "Is my cat carrier OK?" "Why certainly. As long as you have supporting health documentation and a small water bowl, this...
Yesterday afternoon, Ashley and I went to the Coronado mall to take care of a few things. Beyond the usual mall things that I do (mope, look disinterested, etc.), I spotted this. Phoon!...
On Thursday night, James, Will, Sara, and Ashley and I went offroading at the sandbox. Ass was kicked ... mostly Will's. Overall, awesome time. Here's a photo. I don't have much else to say besides that. Enjoy....
Remember my discussion about cleaning and packing the house? Let's step back to Thursday and discuss the school side o that day. [insert wayback machine noise here] Over the last six years I've been in school, I've learned something very important about administrative staff: keep them happy, because they can...
I'm currently sitting at Albuquerque International. One of my pairs of glasses is smashed*. And, oddly I'm still not excited at all—all in good time, I'll explain some history first. * Glasses were smashed due to a woman cursing the TSA crew about the fact that she had to remove...
I'm in a bit of a rush at the moment—I'm at my folks' place posting and I haven't had a chance to shower or to get my stuff repacked for the flight, which I need to leave the house for in less than two hours. I'll fill in the details...
After the movers bolted, Will came over for the washer and dryer. This washer/dryer pair have a funny history. I originally found an ad for these posted in the mail room and the university. I ended up buying them and moving them into my then-new house on El Camino Real,...
There are two hilarious things about the movers:They're a company called S&M Moving Systems and I now have a bunch of boxes labeled "S&M," and the movers arrived in a giant blinged-out pickup truck. I'm not kidding. Photos are forthcoming, once I can offload the camera. Update: camera offloaded. Phototime!...
I'm moved. Finally. Looking back, I remember choose my move date somewhat arbitrarily. It literally came down to the fact my moving coördinator asked for a move date over the phone and caught me off guard, so I pulled one out of my ass becuase largely, it didn't matter. Thinking...
I've realized that there are some very noninsignificant hurdles impeding my illustrated and timely contribution to this journal. Specifically, I've already shot ~50 pictures today and will likely not have an opportunity to unload the camera until Saturday at the earliest. And even given the opportunity to unload, I don't...
So, officially welcome to /tmp. My fileserver (earl) is in the process of shutting down at this moment, meaning that /dev/null is completely unavailable. Do remember that I won't have fantastic internet access in Seattle before I start working, so I'm going to journal my entries by hand and then...
I've inserted this post back a week so it's obvious you all know where the new stuff begins. For those of you wanting to catch up on what's happened since /dev/null has been down, start here. Everything above this is post-/dev/null-shutdown!...
Well, folks, it's getting near that time when I'll be shutting down /dev/null for a while. I expect downtime will be approximately 1-2 months. Thankfully, Mouser is hosting a temporary journal for me at /tmp, and I'll keep updating that. So here's a quick overview of what has happened and...
The automotive scene in Socorro is very very hot....
I spent all day walking around campus today. Paperwalk, really. Twas bad. It turns out that my key debacle had not actually been cleared—I had originally guessed that the business office had declared leniency considering my state of tenuous key-depositing, but it turns out that they had actually just screwed...
Traditionally, my grades have sucked. Terribly. I got out of highschool with a 3.15—and I don't think there are any high schools in the US that are terribly difficult, so a 3.15 isn't anything special at all. I was (and, I maintain, still am) a giant giant slacker. My work...