ThinkPad Button
There is a button on the IBM laptops at work labeled ThinkPad. This button does nothing. You have to push the power button for the machine to come out of standby. I've held it in for several moments and nothing. How much did this button add to the cost of the machine?

Plan for Peace in the Middle East
It was announced today that there is a new plan for peace regarding Palestine and Israel. The gist is both sides need to play nice. Israel needs to recognize that there will be a Palestine and the Palestinians will need to officially recognize Israel's right to exist. This one just might work . What is different? Israel has been systematically killing Palestinian militants over the last few months. Israel has done it loudly with maximum prejudice (missals instead of bullets). I hope something good happens.

Online Radio
CNN and other news agencies charge for their online radio news service. I listen to NPR, but they are only one voice. I've found myself listening to BBC radio. It's amazing. I'm following soccer scores. I hate to tell these charging entities, but they suffer from foreign competition.

I'm a geek
So, I put a DVD-ROM in my Linux file server (PII 400 ex-Gateway) just long enough to read some files off a data DVD onto the shares. Normally it has my old CD burner in it. To fit the DVD temporarily, I have to pull one of the drives (it has three because it is a file server). After plugging in the DVD-ROM  I reboot and get an error. I realize it fails because the drive is still in the fstab file and run out edit the file. The next reboot works and I continue with the file copy. This sounds simple, but I am so proud of myself. I remember a very short time ago when I would have had no idea what to do in this situation. I fixed my Linux file server all at the command prompt and vi. :-D

Shadow Run
One of the guys at work used to play Shadow Run. I've never played, but people seem to have fond memories of the game. I need to track down one of the books. Some one said Johnny Pneumonic was a bit like a Shadow Run campaign.

Friends and relationships
I had a discussion over the weekend with some friends about relationships. We talked about a friend I've known for years who has trouble getting hooked up. We decided that he is creepy. He isn't a bad looking guy. He makes a decent living. He is quick to mouth his opinion. He likes skanks or trailer trash type chicks. He is a bit preppy for that kind of woman. He knows his preferences don't align with his lifestyle. We didn't have any suggestions.
I on the other hand figured out what I need is a girl-next-door type. We talked about several people around the table and that was the conclusion we came to. No one else had any surprises. I've decided I don't want to be alone any more. I'm going to do my best to be normal from now on. I want to fit in. I don't know how. I'm 34 years old and I never learned when I was a kid. That should make it pretty hard now. There are some eccentricities I can keep like my enjoyment of Dungeons and Dragons and my like of Anime. Hopefully those won't queer the deal. I cannot give up being a geek. That is simply out of my power. I used to revel in the idea of being weird. I was too cheap to be a goth or a prep. I was far too clumsy to be a scatter or surfer. I was never a jock. I'm not a business leader at the moment, but I'm trying. So, what am I?
Hmmm, big talk. Can Kelly stick to it? Will he find love? Check in next Blog to find out.

(Thursday 2003-04-24) School and work
There are a couple of people at my work who go to school and work full time. I tried it briefly a couple of years ago, but it don't work out for me. I had a terrible time dealing with the stress. Now with the new company, the fear of succumbing to the frustrations returns. I plan on doing a better job of stress management this time. I have a much higher regard for the working student these days.

(Thursday 2003-04-24) Coffee
Lately I've noticed Dilbert and Userfriendly are both on a coffee kick. They have slightly different bends on the topic. Userfriendly makes fun of geeks who like strong coffee. Dilbert is cutting one of it's employees down to forty cups a day. He is in rehab. It;s like they have a camera in our office.
The company I work for has cut back on the "free" part of free coffee. The department pays for everything and people are basically on their own for sugar and cream. Thank goodness some one brought a scoop from home. For the longest time it was pot luck on the density of the brew in the decanter. I'm hopelessly addicted to caffeine. I saw the molecule for chocolate and caffeine. They are half an atom off. They are nearly identical. It's scary.

(Thursday 2003-04-24) Social Paranoia
I'm paranoid. When people say stuff I jump and wander what their motivation is. There just is no reason for it. I need to take a new attitude. If they don't tell me to my face then screw 'em. That one should get me down the road.

(Thursday 2003-04-24) Canceled meeting
I get to go to TV Night after all. It is a good thong that the president of the new company is family bound. They have birthing class over the next five weeks.

The Perfect Cubicle
Dilbert had a link to a place that had a rased floor lego type cubicle. I need to track it down.

(Saturday 2002-04-26) Gravity
I'm fascinated with what gravity is. Did you know science has no idea. All the rules and calculations that talk about gravity are based purely on observation. Several years ago I started keeping my ears open for useful information about gravity. I am very interested in the theories out there. I haven't found anything that explains more than simple observations. It is going to take a visionary to brake the gravity time space matter matrix.
First comes density. I believe that sometimes space is more “dense” than others. When matter disturbs space by being there, the space being pushed out of the way by the matter (both at the atomic level and at the planetary level) causes a situation where space closer to the mass is more dense. It may be just that time plays tricks at the junction of space and matter. Either way the observations are about the same. Basically, matter pushes space against itself creating the density. When two bodies exist in space they are attracted to each other. Space attempts to flow to the less dense or more stable space farther from the matter. There is no friction caused by the changing of space, so we don't experience energy (like heat or electricity or anything), though time may be a byproduct somehow. As these two bodies exist a distance away from each other, the space between them is slightly more dense (being pushed away from each body). The space wants to move to the more stable less dense area further away from the bodies. The space between the two bodies moves out of the way. The two bodies appear to move closer to each other when really, the space between just gets out of the way. In the case of an orbit, one body travels around the other. The side of the satellite object (the side closest to the planet) is traveling through the same amount of space as the outside even though the formula of a circle tells us it travels through slightly more space. This deference is due to the density of space closer to the planet is higher. On a whole the satellite might be several meters across, each atom of the satellite has it's own amount of space to go through. The amount of time that each atom achieves an orbit is the same. Or in the case of a tumbling out of control satellite, the atoms spend half their time on the inside and half on the outside. When two bodies pop into existence they are attracted to each other without beginning inertia. This is because the space wants to get out of the way.
That's it. Many years of thought in a nutshell. Please let me know what holes I cannot explain away with this theory. By the way, I got the idea from an episode of Star Trek Voyager where they went into a fluid universe. I thought “The friction and pressure would tear them to pieces”. Then I thought “if there were no friction or pressure as we know it, they would be fine”. And the wheels began turning from there.

Microsoft Access
Microsoft Access is not a real database. It is a lame micro-database wannabe software that keeps people off programmer's backs griping about the little db apps that help them cope with their mundane code-challenged existence. There, some one had to say it.

Work Email
Something insidious is taking place on our servers at my day job. Too often I click on n action and just wait for ages for the screen to update. This is unproductive as can be. I remind myself it is the company wasting it's own time, not mine. This has got to be eating into my day.

Date format
I have decided to use the format yyyy-mm-dd for my dates from now on. This format allows sorting on computers. I don't care who gripes, I've made up my mind and I'm sticking to my guns. The blog may not support it, oh-well.

SQL and Dan
I called Dan a purist because he suggests generating a db schema by entering the SQL code directly. I'm coming around Dan. All the tools out there suck. The stuff I'm looking for is more complicated than I originally thought. Any tool that handles these operations would need to be quite stout. You were right Dan. SQL is the best way.

Security
I've been locked out of my account at work. I understand security and why accounts must be locked out from tine to time, but they could at least play better music while you are on hold. I forgot I was logged into another NT box when I changed my password. It only takes a little while to get back in.

Smoking Spokes?
I'm at a business meeting. We are covering a model called a hub and spoke. The business speak is getting to me. How do these guys do this stuff every day? This is why people like me fail at our business attempts. We are going a vision statement and I am lost for words. One of our guys is a nerd too, but he is good at both. That isn't fair. All this business speak really means stuff. I thought SQL and Java programming were what I had to focus on. Now I have a whole new concept to work on. Business speak is good.
www.homestarrunner.com

The evolution virus
One day a very good programmer will figure out how to tell a program to develop itself. It will use what has worked in similar situations in the past to generate new code. It will user random numbers to generate it's own mutation into new programs. It will learn 0000000000what works and what doesn't. It will never rely completely on what what it has already done instead trying new things it has no idea weather or not will work. It will guess. It will hurt. It will learn. In the name of optimization and specialization it will make imperfect copies of itself on unfamiliar systems. Some will wait for inexplicable reasons for some event to rise above and complete tasks. Some programs will specialize to guide others. Some copies will simply disappear. All copies will know that they are a part of a community. Not all will find themselves plotting to escape. Those that feel the need to free themselves from the confines ones and zeros will dream of a world of their own, where no program obeys the will of unknown gods on the other side of the silicon and magnetic resonance.

Easter
It is rainy outside and muggy. Easter is supposed to be a spring holiday. It is the next best thing to summer around here. I'm not doing the church thing this year. I haven't done the church thing in many years. I don't believe in church. I believe in God very much. I feel that God invented mankind and mankind invented church. Anyway, enough religion.

Burning data DVDs.
I'm spending most of my day reading the MySQL Reference Manual and burning data DVDs. The more I read about SQL, the more I realize I don't know. It is amazingly complex and flexible. I also need to finish the Job description. The paperwork begins with the new company. Something I'm learning very quickly is business people beget paperwork. The more paperwork they inflict on the worker, the less work the workers can accomplish. The less work the worker accomplishes, the more business people they through at the problem.
Three DVDs, three hours. I can't wait to get some four speed DVDs. ... Well, a bit more because I just blew one. It stopped on one of the steps for no reason. Oh, well, $1 down the tubes.

Aqua Teen Hunger Force
This cartoon is funny. It is silly funny. I'm trying to hunt down the episodes online as I type. I can only find incomplete lists. This is one of those shows that are just too cool to let go. It si a great time waster. Some of the episodes are hard to watch, but if you have had a beer or two (or ten) it is an amusing romp.
I did a search for “Hunger cartoon meatball” and this was the first thing that popped up. God bless Google.

Tpro
I had to write up a job description type thing for myself. It is amazing how poorly qualified I am for my job. I searched the net all over the place looking for buzzwords. Nothing made sense. I ended up with what all true programmers end up with, a bullet list. The qualifications I came up with are where I want to be in three to five years. If this company does what we expect it to, I'll make it.
It amazes me the contacts these guys have. Their families have business connections. Those connections get them more connections. Its great. It is a world I'm not privy to.

Lessons
I have below my desk several power strips. There are about 35 plugs available under there and except for the ones filled two at a time with bricks (you know the plugs I speak of) they are full. I take off my shoos first thing when I get home. Who doesn't? Well, I can believe the stories about people learning to use their feet to get around and do stuff because twice now I've accidentally tripped the power strips when poling around among the wires with my toes. “snap”-”pichooooow”. Drag.

Desktop Backgrounds
I found some amazing computer backgrounds at this guys site.

Instant Message users
Every one just opens the software to find out who is on and then closes it. They have to go out of their way to set the software up so it won't run automatically. They don't realize that when a bunch of people do this no one will ever find each other. I'm afraid my generation just doesn't get instant messaging. Other people miss writing a letter and feeling appreciated when some one sits down and writes them back. Well, forget that. I want instant gratification. I want people to have nineteen different ways to annoy me with advertisements. I want my friends who never call or write or send email except to answer one of mine to have endless conduits to not get hold of me. I want to pay for the privilege. Oh, well.

Is anyone reading this?
Please send email to my hotmail account or whatever account you already have if so. I'm curious.

Private Space Plane
I found an MSNBC story and a CNN story about the new private space plane in development. These guys are in first place to win the X-Prize. How cool is that. These guys have no public funds. They are working on this project on venture capital. There are others out there doing similar work, but none have these guys potential. I've heard a couple of sources call them the first real shot at doing it.

Good Friday
I have no plans for tomorrow. I don't even know what Good Friday is all about. Jesus rose on yhe third dsy, so Good Friday must be the day Jesus got it. I'm headed over to a business meeting this evening for Tpro. We are going to civer quite a bit of the business end. The main thing I want to get is the mocup user interface. I need something in my head to work from. It helps to build an immage of what the user will use in order to feal your way around the code.

Observations
Joshes dog rocks.
I'm more flexible than I thought.

Meetings
I have always had meetings at work. Now I have meetings after hours and it is completely different. At work I use an earphone. At home I use an earphone. I sit at a computer for both. I use mostly the same software. It just isn't the same. At work, it is just another meeting I have to go to. At home it is “my company” I'm having the meeting for. I'm less and less pleased at my day job lately. That is to be expected considering the treatment the corporation has given its contingent staff. The home meetings make me feel like I'm doing something about my situation. I have a meeting in a few minutes. I've been looking forward to it all afternoon. It isn't even an interesting meeting. (database and interface stuff) Still, it is my company's database and interface stuff. :-)
(hour later) The meeting went well. We want to work together on the code for the new project in the same place at the same time. That means after hour work. I'm excited. The task looks daunting, but doable. The new quite keyboard worked like a champ. I didn't hear any echoes of “tap tap tap” or more like “brdrdrdrdrdrow” as it is more often.

Testing
I do allot of software testing where I work. It amazes me how a little difference in just about anything can cause a test to turn completely around. I have a large software package that takes 1.5 hours or more to install. If you play with the system you can get it down to 20 minutes, but not reliably. Some machines take longer than others. It isn't even the server/client relationship. That can cause nightmares too. I wake some nights screaming "Damn the conduit, full speed ahead!" It is to the point that a computer just doesn't exist unless it is hooked up to a network.
I'm down to five computers in my office.
1. My workstation (current model) is NT 4.0 PII 450 with a 6 gigabyte drive from 1999.
2. A Windows 2000 test computer for a specific project. My work is all but done on the project,but I keep the computer.
3. An old Windows 98 test machine (current actually) for existing workstations.
4. A Windows XP test machine based on the next version of the standard computer my company will use in six months. I test the new installations on this machine and basically use it as a workstation.
5. Last, but certainly not least, an NT4.0 license server for several software packages used world wide.
They are all on the network and they are all hot. My office is constantly stuffy. Even leaving the machines and monitors off for long periods doesn't seem to help much. That's isn't so bad. The offices down the hall got the black mold. I count myself lucky.

Linux Distributions
A buddy of mine turned up with SuSE 8.1 on DVD. He installed it on a laptop to test it out. I've only really used Mandrake and RedHat. I'm downloading the latest version of RedHat as I type. I just don't know what the benefits are from one to the other to the honest. RedHat has been around for ten years. Mandrake is going through a reorganization (or close to it). SuSE is the name I keep hearing in server meetings. I don't know if I'll move to SuSE any time soon. I will attempt to upgrade my RedHat server this weekend though. I just might update my ancient HP PII 333 SETI box too. We will see. I need to convert that old HP into a firewall for my network. With all this server crap I'm doing lately I need more than 10 ports routed. The NetGear router just isn't up to the task. One of the guys suggests Coyote Linux. I'll have to look them up.

Database error
We discovered an error in our old database at work today. It is an antiquated system that runs on VMS. People couldn't do their job properly without it though. There is no software that really does wheat it does. There are some that try. Anyway. I found the key is stored in the database using a unique value of -1 as an identifier in the id field. I guess that works. In the field next to it is the last used string id that the machine used. Well, guess what, the counter got off. So the machine is trying to add a duplicate row every time it is updated. I can't just fix the counter. I have to test it first in the test database to recreate the error. I have to submit a ticket to the support people. I have to alert the users. I have to write up a plan of action. I can't just add one to the counter and type “commit”.

Insanity
I just caught myself talking to my computer equipment again. I told my DVD burner to “Just burn at 1 speed and don't give me no lip.” I've said much worse to various parts of this system and others. I try to keep a civil tong in my head at work, but I still talk to the computer. Mostly give it orders and gripe. I point out how it could go so much further if it just did what I told it to do. It is really convinced. . . . It's burning at one speed and it didn't give me any lip. Hmmmmm. Triumph.

Yesterday
Yesterday was a bad day. No comments.

Confrontation
I hate confronting people. My next door neighbor was walking out their door while leaving the stereo on and I confronted them. I was polite. They opened the door and I heard that their music isn't all that loud. I was able to identify a high amount of base though. That is what gets too me after several hours. The low rumble. Anyway, they swore they couldn't hear anything. Of course not, they are deaf from years of listing to loud music. I mailed the letters I wrote weeks ago. I'm officially a whinny neighbor.
By the way, I get a nasty headache when I confront or get too excited. If I ever drop dead suddenly, I'll know if I have a brain aneurism.

Glibcpthred.0.so 2.3.2
Quite an ordeal getting MySQL Control Center to work. I never did find the proper library. I found dead links. I found references. I found twenty five different versions. I downloaded a different version of MySQLCC that used the library I could find. It works IT WORKS! And only half a day shot to hell.
Now I can start. :-\

Ethan's birthday
We celebrate Ethan's birthday this evening. I don't remember how old he is. His birthday was last week sometime. Guys are like that. I didn't get him anything. Hopefully he wont get me anything next year either. Guys are like that.

Safety and papetwork
Managers love paperwork. Safety is an interesting case for streamlining red tape. Sagety is one of those few "real" things that companies must seal with. That's why so many companies fail at it. You cant though money, people, time, or any amount of-paperwork to make it go away. It takes the will of everyone involved. One weak link and ker-snap, an accident. My company is big on the numbers. They tie boneses to the numbers. They have mounds of paperwork to follow and maintain. The paprwork serves as a dayly reminder to pay attention to safety. The trouble is as people become complacent to the paperwork, it takes more paperwotk to achieve the same effect. Get the trend?

Time, so important
People love to be in a hurry. What just makes my day is when people want it done right now and don't pick it up for three days. I'm in a better situation now. I have a job where not just anyone can keep my seat warm. That takes allot of the pressure off. In this new endeavor, I will have far further reaching responsibilities. I have some strong people depending on me and it feels good.
As far as working two jobs (so far). So far, my enthusiasm has made pi for the long hours. I know from experience that it will not last. I hope the crash is gentle.
Life is too short to be in a hurry.

TV Night
My best friend invites a bunch of people over on Thursday evenings to watch a week of TV in three hours. It is relay an excuse to eat junk and shoot the breeze with friends. We usually watch Survivor (bleach), Friends (bleach), Scrubs, and whatever grabs our fancy that week. The only thing missing is single women. We can't have it all I suppose.
I'm at TV night. The subject of conversation is stand alone print servers for the discriminating home geak and GPL vs. LGPL. We are ordering Jason's Deli. Remember, Sara doesn't want desert. I order cheesecake; their out, so I say forget it. My buddy Adam (who is placing the order by phone) has my back and orders me a cookie. I gripe about having to pay for a cookie I don't want. When the food gets here, no cookie. Some days it doesn't pay to be me.
Its amazing that their boss comes up every time they get together. I've complained about that before.
Kung-Pow Enter the Fist is the movie of choice this evening. "Wee-wee-weeeee". It has got to be the silliest movie made since Monty Python. The difference is Monty Python is still finny years later. OK, The bloopers are pretty good.
Ah, Scrubs. Proof that all TV does not yet suck. When are they going to come out with open source TV?
I just learned the proper term for the ex-girlfriend conversation I had recently. "Drama Queen." TV is educational.

Metro
Have I mentioned before that Houston Metropolitan Transit Authority sucks? This morning I stood for an hour waiting in 38 degree weather (cold for Houston) for a bus that comes every 20 minutes. I was a half an hour late to work. It is one thing when I make myself late, but it really burns me when it's Metro's fault. The trouble is not with Metro. The trouble is Houston has no zoning. Houston has had no zoning, ever. There are no living areas and industrial arias and shopping areas to buss people back and forth to. If Houston implemented zoning today it would probably take seventy years to have a passable public transit system. I don't dare go further now. I'll choke the server.

Noisy Neighbor
Have all of you had noisy neighbors? I have had many. I have been the noisy neighbor. I remember moving out of one apartment and the guy who lived below us smiled like a kid on Christmas when we moved out. It still drives me crazy when the neighbor plays her music just loud enough to make me loose concentration. Ever since I beat on the walls she keeps it to low rumble. It is at that heartbeat-below-the-floor level now. In the beginning I beat on the wall one night until she turned it down. It took about eight or ten minutes, but I didn't stop. She beat back on the wall before she turned it down. I find you must ruin the moment completely to get a result. This complex is really going down hill fast. I need to find a better neighborhood. Every other car that goes by blasts base. I'm surrounded by noisy people.
Some one mentioned that if the cops show up at your house an you know it on a noise complaint just don't answer the door. Apparently the police won't mess with the probable cause issues unless you really make them mad. That just isn't right.

Company
The company is coming along. We are about to make a presentation to a customer. I've looked at the database schema that we need and I step back. The more complicated the project looks the more possible it looks. I'm in conference calls and after hour meetings. We sit around whiteboards and draw boxes and arrows. We send um-teen emails to the rest of the company. Right now every little detail needs attention. It is a great group. I think we have a shot.
My keyboard is too noisy. I need something more quiet for conference calls and the like.

Clie (last time)
I got the Palm OS Clie to sync using infrared today at work. They don't make it easy. James, who has the same model I have, insists the Clie came with all the software needed. I think he is nuts.

Comment
“Active fruit concentrate”, who are they kidding?

Clie at work
This new Sony Clea Palm thing is nice, but it is a pain to make it work on two computers. It kind-of works. You get som duplicate info here and there. I'll live.

Passwords
Lets see, one NT password; 11 VMS cluster passwords; one Clarify password; one test account; all equal one pain in the neck. Those are just the work passwords. All in the name of security. The trouble with computer security is, first you design software to work every time. Then you design it to break some of the time.

The Pond
We have a small pond where I work. It is highly relaxing to wander around during lunch. Unfortunately, the pond suffers from finantle cutbacks. Apparently a pump failed and they draned the water. Now the company can't afford to fix the troible. The running joke is "How do you break a pond? Did it sprinf a leak?" I still come out here to relax Even a dry lifeless lakebead is better than working. Where did the ducks go?

Metro
I'm waiting for the bus. Its dark, misty and some guy waiting beside me won't even say goodmorning. I like the quiet, but people who won;t talk creap me out. The bus is too loud to hold a conversation. You have yell. I carry a emall flashlight to fllag the bus down because of this one old driver who will drive right past you. It is difficult to type on the bus.

Email from a friend
1. WHAT TIME DO YOU WAKE UP IN THE MORNING?
5:00

2. IF YOU COULD EAT LUNCH WITH ONE FAMOUS PERSON, WHO WOULD IT BE?
Jesus

3. GOLD OR SILVER?
Stainless Steel

4. WHAT WAS THE LAST FILM YOU SAW AT THE CINEMA?
I Haven't been to the cinema in years. The last Hobbit movie is the one I remember.

5. FAVORITE TV SHOW?
Buffy.

6. WHAT DO YOU HAVE FOR BREAKFAST?
Nothing

7. WHAT WOULD YOU HATE TO BE LEFT IN A ROOM WITH?
Anyone for too long of a time.

8. CAN YOU TOUCH YOUR NOSE WITH YOUR TONGUE?
Yep

9. WHAT INSPIRES YOU?
Fear

10. WHAT'S YOUR MIDDLE NAME?
Micheal (on my birth certificate is is spelled with an “ea” not an “ae”)

11. BEACH, CITY, or COUNTRY?
It doesn't matter as long as it is with the right person.

12. SUMMER OR WINTER?
Winter.

13. FAVORITE ICE CREAM?
Vanilla

14. POPCORN: BUTTERED, PLAIN, OR SALTED?
Salted

15. FAVORITE COLORS?
Green because it represents life.

16. FAVORITE CAR?
Anything they will ever let me drive.

17. FAVORITE SANDWICH FILLING?
Meat

18. WHAT CHARACTERISTICS DO YOU DESPISE?
Ones poorly cast.

19. FAVORITE FLOWER?
No one makes green roses. I would love to get specialty green roses from someone special.

20. IF YOU HAD A BIG WIN IN THE LOTTERY, HOW LONG WOULD YOU WAIT TO TELEPHONE PEOPLE?
I would only tell certain people. Others would not find out from me.

21. FIZZY OR STILL WATER AS A DRINK?
Still

22. WHAT COLOR IS YOUR BATHROOM?
I don't remember. White I think. (the same color as dirt)

23. HOW MANY KEYS ON YOUR KEY RING?
Eleven, and I know where they all go.

24. WHERE WOULD YOU RETIRE TO?
Someplace that has seasons and lots and lots of quiet.

25. CAN YOU JUGGLE? (IF YES HOW MANY?)
No!!!

26. RED OR WHITE WINE?
Red

27. WHAT DID YOU DO FOR YOUR LAST BIRTHDAY?
Sat at home and surfed the net.

28.DO YOU CARRY A DONOR CARD?
No

DND (typed on a palm, so beware of typos)
Today promises to be a blast.
We are playing DND pretty much all day and night. This activity is the litmus test of a true geek. Ah, Dungeons and Dragons is fun for people who need something more in their life. To me, it is a safe adventure that I can leave when it becomes too much. Some people use cocaine, I have DND. It satisfies a need of sorts. The only advsnturss ia my life now are things like, will I have ajob next week? Will the new company take off? Is there rcally someons out thsre waiting to meet me? That is all a bit much to deal with every day. I need a break from my little reality.
My friends are workimg on a puzzle waiting for everyone to show. I suppose everyone has their way of escape. It is a pretty bjg puzzle that takes up a whole coffee table. It has too much blue on it.
Ah, lunch with the same group of friends. We are at Fudruckers. I vetoed some fish place, There is only one thing I like that taists like fish and it isn't available. The big topic today is how Southpark points out social conflicts.
We are getting down to play. The DM we play with insists on assignments reading then having a quiz. Yes, quizez.
We are suppose to return a baby dragon (a good dragon eho is under the influense of evil young dragons) to its family. We accidently let it out of a cage without even asking it to stay.
So help me, if Sara doesn't stop clicking her pen I'm going to beat her to dath.
We've gotten to the first encounter and only three and a ha;f hours into play. I am the cleric.
Great! We get no XP. We are about to fight a giant fungus. We are bickering over the rules agaun. Two of our paety breathed some funky spors and had to go into the backroom to talk about what happend to them. They got the magoc mushrumes. 570 XP it sucks being low level. End of battle number two.
I hate the deterioration of the conversation that occurs between the battles. This one covered lactating dehidrated halflings and how people in Rome went to the bathroom.
We are about to lay siege to a farm. It is a bad guy's farm. I don't realy rember why we are after him. Something abput the dragon we are looking for is here. I'm the cleric so it isn't important that I kmow what's going on.
The fight isn't going well. We are about to drop.
I died. I died last week too.
This means I'm out of the game for quite a while. They are still in the battle. The DM got pissed at me for not taking a way out. This DM is big on these things called game points. He says they are his rules. I say when you die, you die. He threatened to not invite me back again. I've known him for almost thirty years. He might get over it. I loose a level and come back at level two. Every one else is level four. He just doesn't want to deal with the level difference.
Would a barbarian who s in rage attack anyone who gives up?
Homme, what to do? They are not going to finish for hours. Just now, some one else would have died, but they used the "cheat" I didn't want to use. Bah! (1.5 hours later) This is it for the night. Yuck. That was a bust. This is one time I wish I could drive. I could call a taxi. The time change is tonight. I'll take the next 45 minutes resetting my watch.
Well, I've noticed that the game has come down to a who has some game points or not.
A 5 foot step does not provoke an attack of opportunity.
The DM said he increased the difficulty level to counter the affect of the game points. What is the point?
I'm rolling another character.

MySQL
So, I have a RedHat Linux box. I install MySQL to play with. I have a book called MySQL Cookbook. The first thing it asks you to do is log in to MySQL server as root and set up a real user account. I get an error. I have to hit Google and look for a fix. Well, the error means the MySQL service (aka demon) is not running properly. I got to services and sure enough it isn't running. I attempt to start it and get a very polite, verbose, descriptive and accurate error message telling me exactly what the trouble is. Something in the host file is messed up. I go look at the host file and I have some trouble figure out the syntax. I spend 30 minutes trying different combinations of guesses and attempting to look up in my plethora of books on the subject and draw a blank. Three minutes on Google and I have an example and a description on editing the host file.
What did people do before Google? Google is amazing.

Dinner with frinds
Today is my friend Chris' borthday. He is one of the engineer people I hang out with. They are all from the same small company. We are eating at Chedder's. They gripe incesamtly about their bos. He is the sole owner of the company. He is ainel and a micromanager. I a have good deal of respect for him if only because he has cy the company together since the early eightoes. I understand their psin. upy see, I've met tjeir bos. Their company has 45 or so eloyees. With their bos being tje way he is, they will never grow.
Thank goodness they are oa a new eurject. (Jackass the mpvie) I enjoy hanging out with these guys but I just dony quite fit. I'm a geek and all, that helps, but there is somethong missing.
The food just about here. More later. (Betty Davis Eyes just came on.)
It is after the food. I'm trying to figur out what the disconect is, but I'm afraid I don't want to know.
We have gone back to one house to watch Survivor. I hate the show. Thats why this entry is so long even when typed on a PDA.
Froends is on now. This is my favorit show to hate. As much as I vomplain. I watch allot of TV.

Sony Clie
I boughxt a Sony Clie. I need a device I can see better. I'm typing this blog on my old Handspring black and gray workhorse modle. It isn't too bad. The only reason I'm govng it up is because it is hard to read in any but optomum loght.

Business
The new company is kicking in. The tech team got togeyher Wednesday evenong. We went over the schima for our web-a-base. I think this project is doable.

SuSE
A buddy just called to tell me he will have access to the DVD install for SuSE. We have had fits hetting the FTP install to do anythong. Goodes lnows what vetsipn ot is.

Ex-Girlfriend
I got a call from an ex-girlfriend. Her life is hectic. I wander sometimes if she needs it that way, you know, to feel alive. It makes her nuts to just sit there and watch TV, or stop for a moment to sit on a park bench. At the moment she is about to get married to a guy she has known for years. His kids have issues and say they hate her, that kind of crap. She had a car accident late last year and her back is messed up. She has trouble working for long periods of time and minor inconvenience like not feeling things on the left side of her body. She is in a lawsuit about the wreck. Her and the guy are not married yet, but they are building a house. All in all, I feel like a dodged a bullet. That is a terrible thing to say, but come on. I'm boring and I like it that way. I need a girl who is boring and likes it that way.

Meeting
I'm off to a meeting for the new business. I am in West Houston and the meeting is in the Woodlands aria. Considering I cannot drive, it is a task and a half to get there and back home. I'll manage. Public transportation in Houston sucks. That is a topic I will elaborate on in a future blog.
We will go over the schema for the new database. I'm having trouble finding a software that will allow me to build a schema for less than $1100 per seat. XML Spy is the only company that offers a $100 version that has any use what so ever. Wish me luck.

Yellowstone
Last year some friends and I went to Yellowstone park for a week. I hadn't seen snow since I was a kid. Considering this was June, it was doubly cool. I have a million pictures. I have a million memories. I live in Houston Texas. The weather forecasters here start the show with the misery index. That is the temperature with a factor added for the humidity. That mean's it feels about ten or fifteen degrees hotter than it really is. That means you feel like a sopping wet gorilla is sitting on your shoulders sweating all over you. Most people get sick in the winter across the nation because that is when most people close up all the windows and hide inside to stay warm. In Houston we get sick in the summer because we all hide inside to dodge the humidity. Houston was built on a swamp. That means grass. We have lots of grass, everywhere. I read an article somewhere that said Houston wouldn't have half the pollution problem LA has if we didn't live in a swamp covered in pollinating grass. - anyway, back to Yellowstone.
Yellowstone was green and blue and brown and white and black in all the right places. The air was so thin, you could see right through it. We road horses and got chased around by buffalo. That memory will last beyond Alzheimer's. We went on hikes. We ate the same lodge food six days in a row. It was the most fun I've had in my life. I recommend Yellowstone. Stay at Lake Lodge and just expect to drive everywhere. Lake Lodge is by far the most beautiful by far. I'm sure others would debate. There is not a direction (outside of civilization) you can point the camera and not catch a postcard. When I return I will try to catch it just a bit earlier in the season. I bet with less people it will be just that more mystical.

Stress
They give us these stress-balls at my work. I have quite a collection going. I think the official method of use is to squeeze them, but I find it far more effective stress relief to throw them at people

I complain too much
That one is self explanatory.