Saturday... schamturday.

Let's see...

So after a rough week my weight basically back where I started from last week.  No I don't know why, but not particularly worried about it.

In other news, as I mentioned earlier I passed my 3rd Brown Kenpo test.  And I inexplicably found myself with a Saturday when I have no plans, no practice scheduled, nothing but an entire weekend of vacuuming dog hair.

So I had pizza and daiquiris.  First pizza since December or so.  First daiquiri since ...oh last summer maybe?

But it' 60+ degrees out (well it was) and clear blue skies, surely that's good enough excuse for consumption of large amounts of rum and fruit juice yes?  I probably should have waited for them to wear off before writing this...

hmm...

No matter.

Other micro-updates.

HIIT train sucks.  But at least it's over quick.

What sucks worse the HIIT is going into work and getting locked in an elevator when the building manager goes around and turns off the elevators in anticipation for the bar crowd.

Fortunately I have his number in my phone and I was only locked in the damn thing for about 30 minutes.

90 degrees at 30 minutes... because there is no AC when the elevator is turned off...

But that effectively ended any urge of mine to continue to work this weekend.  Hence the daiquiris.

Now, if you will excuse me... there is more chilled fruit beverage calling my name....

Fall view.

Since I provided Winter and Summer view from my desk, I thought it only appropriate to share the fall view.

I does not feel like 10 months since I started this job.

Technological defeat.

I have a desktop on my bench.

It has been a bad computer, intermittent flakiness, weird networking problems, slowness and other strangeness.  I finally took it away from the suffering user, gave them a working machine and put on my bench to be tested.

I was pleasantly surprised when the first test revealed that it had a stick of memory, which not only explained all it's weird symptoms but was an easy fix.

Check to see if it is still under warranty, and it is!   But a quick call to the vendor and they want me to run their diagnostic to verify.

No problem, I reboot into windows and... I can't log in.

Keyboard and mouse not responsive in Windows.

*Fast Forward 2 hours*  Every keyboard or mouse combination I have has stopped working on this damn machine.  They work *before* Windows boots, work in the BIOS and if I boot of CD they work fine.

I don't want to have to try and reinstall the OS with bad memory... just so I can install the diagnostic to get the memory replaced.

Sorta related... no matter how you set the BIOS it is trying to boot off the network card first.. Which is starting to make me thing bad motherboard, not bad memory.

Still stuck.  *sigh*

*unrelated... When I am stopping to think about something I frequently stare out my window at the lovely little park across the street.  Sometimes I see dogs frolicking, sometimes I see people busking, occasional couples smooching and picnickers ummm picnicking?

Today there is a woman sitting in her car, obviously crying, wiping her eyes and gesticulating wildly.   Her wild arm motions are what caught my eye but what was really strange is how red she was.  I mean... cherry tomato  red.  It's a little alarming, I can only hope it is brought on by the heightened emotional and subsequent rising blood pressure and not say... some as of yet undiagnosed pigment changing plague.

Bright. Cherry.  Red.

Weird, but now she's driven off.

Office Summer view.

I was about to e-mail a friend a link to the view out my office and realized the only picture I had was from when I started 6 months ago when everything was still covered in snow.

So here's a snow-free version for your enjoyment.

Trip Day 4

Miles Driven: 10
Mean Temperature: 77f  (Oh thank god.)

Are you 420 friendly?  Good for you, I'm not.  Not only am I not, but I am actually allergic to members of the Hops family... which include Cannabis.

Why does this matter?  Well because the office I am working at today shares a wall with a Medical Marijuana dispensary.  It didn't start off to bad, but as the day has gone on, the bathroom smells like it escaped from the 60's and the air vent blowing cold air brings the distinct smell of misery along with it.

So I'm sitting here with a pounding headache, scratchy eyes, and throat that itches like mad.  Just trying to get through this so I can be done with this and go back to the hotel room and shower.

Fortunately, workwise things are doing fine so I am likely to get out of here early.  I typing this whilst staring at a progress bar which should be the last thing I have to do here.

Trip Day 3

Day three:

Miles Driven: 266.
Mean Temperature: 95 f

Driving in the morning wasn't so bad, got to the site and in spite of there being one more computer then inventory accounted for I was able to get everything up and running with little problem.

Came out to the car... and the dash thermometer read 103 f.  Local temp was about 95 f in the shade with no hint of wind.  I should mention, that my little SUV being of the Alaskan variety does not have A/C, so cooling is either accomplished by 2-75 (2 Windows @ 75 mph) or by closing the windows and usi
The latter is not as cooling, but means a difference between 22 mpg and 28 mpg with windows up.
ng the vents at full blast.
Wandered around aimlessly trying to find a local coffee shop that took plastic, gave up and got iced coffee from Albertson's and threw in a Gatorade for good measure.

Which was the smartest thing I ever did.

Ever.

Hit the road looking at ~2 hour drive, and went on my merry way.

About 30 minutes south of town, hit some road construction and had to come to a stop.

And wait... (finish the iced coffee)

wait..

wait...(drink the gatorade)

WAIT... (wish for another gatorade)

An hour and half later of baking on freshly poured asphalt, which I assure you was hella hotter then 95 f, we finally got moving again. I'd like to say we made good progress, but that would be a lie.  In spite of the posted speed limit of 50 mph, the lead semi insisted on going 25mph and there was no passing.  It took us another 45 minutes
to get to a point where people could begin passing...

So starving, thirsty, and super heated I arrived at Miles City 2 hours later then planned, and walked into a hotel room where they already had the A/C running at 55 f.  Shock nearly killed me.  It felt good, but a 40 degree temperature drop in a second, left me filling ill.

Not ill enough, that I didn't go out and have steak, with 4 glasses of lemonade.  Damn good steak from the Montana Chop & Rib House.  On my table less then 15 minutes from when I ordered.

Tomorrow, should be a simple install, another night in this nice little hotel room, and then friday home with a quick stop in Billings.  *fingers crossed*

I'm ready to be done with trip.

Now if you will excuse be, I have 12 bottles of gatorade calling my name from the mini-fridge.


*Edit: Blogger wouldn't accept posts last night, so this coming to you Thursday.*

Trip: Day One & Two

Day One:

Miles Driven: 386.
Mean Temperature: 86 f.

One detour because of a bridge still being out, and one road reduced to one lane from post flooding damage.


There were some interesting vistas, sadly blurred by a high overcast or I would have taken pictures.

To make up for it here is the the view outside my hotel room.

Umm... well... unless you have an personal interest in farm equipment it probably didn't excite you much.

I expected to have trouble sleeping last night, as a rowdy group of BNSF trainmen took the room next to me, but they had a 4:30am callout so actually quieted down about 9pm.

The food at the Cottonwood was strange mix of excellent and mediocre. The burger was soggy and uninspiring, but the onion rings were perfect and the ranch sauce amazing (and I don't like ranch.) The burger's shortcoming were solved by dipping it in the ranch.


Day Two:

Miles Driven: ~5.
Mean Temperature: 91 f.

Equipment installs went pretty smooth, enough that I was done by 4:00 and back in the A/C hotel room by 4:30.

Dinner tonight was Chicken Fried Steak. Ummm... yeah...

Steak was burned, as in I can taste carbon; smothered in from-the-package gravy, and onion rings were soggy.

On the plus side, I got a mini-loaf of bread that looks good and a fresh salad with the amazing ranch. Weird. I hate ranch... but I want to smear this on everything...



Tomorrow I expect to be miserable, with expected highs of 94, 2.5 hours of driving to the site, ~5 hours of work and then 2.5 of driving to the next site. Wheee...

This space *not* Intentionally left blank.

It was my intention to write here more frequently, but I find myself more often then not staring at this white space waiting for inspiration.

It's not that my life is empty, there is a lot happening. I just wonder of how much of it worth putting down on paper.

For example, I still love my new job. But a lot of my day is spent digging into the innards of OpenPGP workings, user profile management, and redundant fallback procedures for fault tolerant servers. It hardly makes for heady reading.

He brandished the mighty scroll wheel, and rolled his cursor down to the next line. His breath caught. "Certificate services are denied in non-standard port settings! How can this be?" he cried in alarm.

*Ahem* I think we will spare you all that.

I suppose the one thing of note is I will be doing a sweep of the eastern 1/2 of the state next week with new equipment installs interspersed between 17.5 hours of driving in 4 days. Thoughts of this trip are mixture of excitement and dread. On the one hand, I will be seeing parts of Montana I have not visited and meeting new people, on the other hand... 17.5 hours of driving mixed with equipment installs.

If nothing goes wrong I will have ~ 2 hours to set up each site. Any longer and the time table goes out the window. Things always go wrong... so...

Weather has been... exciting, with 50 degree days followed by 6 inches of snow and 20 degree nights. I almost took my snow tires off for this trip. I'm glad I didn't. I may wait until July at this rate.

However, the early warmth has caused the Woolly Mamot.... err dog to start her shed a bit early. It's fair to say that there will be mountains of dog hair over the next few weeks. She is in otherwise good spirits, though the regular walks she goes on with the Girl have shown just how out of shape she is now that she doesn't have a 1 acre yard to cavort in every day.

I suppose the other thing of note is that I have officially hit the 1/2 point in 3rd Brown. I have learned 1/2 the techniques and 1 of the two kata. I suppose I should add a big "In theory" in the front of that. The first Kata (who's name I never remember) is at least as hard as the Green belt one (Chinese Hands) that kicked my butt.

Which reminds me... need to practice it more tonight... *sigh*

Hullo Interwebs...

This is not quite how I envisioned my return to the endless sea of electrons, but here it is.

Some minor updates, as you can consider this a post to get the old brain pumping as I get back in the swing of things.

First, my nickname for the next couple of weeks is "Pinky" although there was some discussion of making it Lefty. I have managed to remove the tip of one of my fingers. Again. Some of you may have recalled this happened with frightening regularity previously because sleep deprivation + exacto blades are a poor mix.

The upshot of this is discovered my lovely lass handles herself in a crises when there is blood involved with aplomb and alacrity. I've never had a better assistant while self ministering.

Second, dog is fine and hasn't jumped out any windows or other heroically stupid acts. Still moderately gassy, though after year with out pig ear treats both volume and potency have decreased dramatically.

Third, I received my Green belt in Kenpo. This means I am technically qualified to teach everything up-to and including Green. 3rd brown is going fast, and most of the 2nd brown techniques I learned in the Green belt kata, so these next two belts should be over and done with soon. I also have 4 ladies who would like to start official Kenpo lessons, but I have to find a place. All the dance studios and gyms I have contacted rent out at either what my hourly rate would be, or more... so I would break even or lose money renting from them.

Fourth, school is on hold. At least until next fall. More on that later.

Fifth, I got a great computer job in the mean time, started about a month and a half ago. Good pay, great location, and a great group of people to work with. It's a six month contract, but may turn into a permanent position. One that may include the flexibility to continue with school, with a guaranteed paycheck.

That's all for now, all this typing is making my finger hurt.

Sick and tired. Oh and some school and job stuff too.

I addition to having limited use of both my thumbs, I appear to be be having intermittent head cold issues. I'm not sneezing, and not coughing much but I have a sore throat and I randomly feel like me head is stuffed with wool.

This of course is being aggravated by the fact that my air-bed has leak. I thought I had tracked down and patched said leak but apparently I either didn't patch it well enough (unpossible) or I missed one... which given the acreage of the bed is not out of the realm of possibility. The bed is not normal air-mattress height, but is in fact effectively two mattresses. This increases the square footage to be searched for leaks by like 32 times. Really.

I have apparently slowed down the leaks with my patching that I can almost go 8 hours before the bed tries to swallow me whole.

Oddly enough I keep having dreams about sinking in quicksand... no wonder I'm tired.

~~~~

The design project is full swing. It is both a group and individual assignment. The group portion, which we are exploring now is that each TA section of the class has to build a 1/4 scale model of the walkway area between Cheever (architecture) and Howard (music) halls. By my calculations the scale model will be slightly smaller then my car. But, I don't actually care because in the course dividing up tasks people noticed that 1) I have nice digital camera and 2) my scale figures are badass. All those years of miniature painting have paid off.
I was assigned the task of photo-documenting the building for reference (took less then an hour) and creating the 20 little wee men and women populating the scale model. I have 18 of them done allready and they aren't due for another week and a half. I further volunteered to "help" make the various shrubbery and trees since the guy it was assigned to shows up 1 in 4 classes.

After our scale model is coplete, individually we have to design an art instillation only using 3 8'x 20' sheets of 1 inch steel and 4 6'x6'x 6" peices of wood. We then are going to build scale models of them that will fit in our bigger scale models.

Finally will will draw plan, elevation, and section drawing of our instillation.

~~~

Today was my first day at Computer Troubleshooters of Bozeman. My new boss handed me a 600mhz iBook laptop with a dead hard-drive chuckled evilly and then left.

I wept.

You have to COMPLETELY dissemble EVERYTHING to get to the hard-drive. If I ever meet the designer of the laptop I will run him over with my car. Twice.

For those of you who aren't quite sure the implications of this... imagine trying to disassemble the worlds most complex wooden puzzle, with screw the size of seed beads and the screw holes are hidden inside of recesses you can only reach with a set of chop sticks.

This was slightly worse.

Other then that it was fine.

On Recovering, things you don't want to hear, lectures, and sore feet.

So I'm still sick. Daily doses of dayquil and nyquil have rendered me semi-functional through the week, but I could definitely tell when the dayquil was wearing off... My nose would start to clog, I'd start coughing, the hands would shake, I'd develop a violent twitch until I could get my next sweet sweet dose.

I don't remember the nights I took nyquil. That will be what I say in court too.

(I don't actually remember, but I did wake up in some funky positions that to the best of my knowledge I have never slept in before.)

Today was my first full day without any drugs, and although I'm still a little sick I don't feel like I'm missing half my brain.

Apparently it helps my test taking. My first pre-calc quiz I got 62% with the class average being 66%, the second one (which I don't remember taking) I got 82% with the class average being 68%.

I plan on drinking dayquil before every quiz.

~~~~~~

Things you don't want to hear from your design professor as he looks at your final proposal for the major assignment you've been working on for a month.

"If you turn it exactly as you have it now you will get a B-, if you make the changes your TA suggested... I would have to give you a D."

For the record, I did not storm out of the building and hunt down my TA to visit gross bodily harm on him.

I did spend nearly an hour with my professor one-on-one in his office working to improve the design. It means instead of a relatively easy final step I will have to do some shuffling of elements around... It will probably double the time it takes for me to complete the final.

(I may have also ghosted through the halls unsuccessfully looking to visit gross bodily harm on my TA... but I won't admit it.)


~~~~

So one of the fabulous advantages of going to a school like MSU is the visiting scholars they have and the on campus events. For example the AIA (American Institue of Architects) is the big professional organization for Architects, and the student chapter organizes events, visiting scholars, continuing ed and the like.

For example, there is a senior class called the Gypsy scholar class where approximately every two weeks a different notable architect teaches for a two week stint. SAIA got the current visiting scholar to give a presentation at 5:30 today on the importance of details.

So at the end of class our design professor asked how many of us had heard about it, with 1/10 of the class raising their hands. (I hadn't)

He then asked who was going. Maybe 5 people in a class of 60 raised their hands.

"This man is tremendously brilliant archtect and you ALL can learn a lot from him. I strongly recommend you go."

He then asked again who was now going. 12 people in a class of 60 raised their hands.

I went.

I was the only one from my class there. In fact out of the ~600 total students in the complete architecture school probably only 30 were in attendance.

He was utterly brilliant. More specifically, he blended international style with American vernacular in a balanced fashion that I have never seen accomplished before. He does a lot of remodels in the D.C. area and the historical districts have strict rules, so over the last 40 years of practice he's had to learn how to meld the two.

I'm probably the most jazzed up I've been about architecture in months.

~~~

I started my new job. Like everything else in life it seems to be a mix of bad news and good news.

Good News: Good coffee, there is very little technique-wise I have to learn. Everyone I've met or got to work with on my first day has been great.

Bad News: You get 3 free drip coffee or iced tea, Everything else you get 20% off. Considering that the actual cost of latte is like $.35 and the bulk of the cost is either capital costs or labor... I think that is pretty chincy.

Also... During my interview when I asked about pay I was told "Our barristas pay ranges from x to x+$3" depending on experience.

I am making X-$1.50 until my 90 day probationary period is up, at which point I "should" see a significant pay raise. I was also told that for employees demonstrating exceptional "Wow Factor" can have their probational period cut short.

But to put it in perspective. Right now I make almost as much in a 5 hour shift as I used to make an hour.

My monthly salary is only slightly higher then what I normally have spent on coffee in a month.

Needless to say I have mixed feelings about that.


Oh yeah... sore feet. No ergo mats for the barristas. Weird. 5 hours on hard floor is not something my feetsies are used to.

Daily Goal: Soak My feet
Weekly Goal: Re-read the pre-calc chapter I don't remember, 8am gym time, and not to cry like a little girl.