Movies and Moonbeams - July 2006

I posted previously about movies and moonbeams, a movie presentation at a public park each month in the Shreveport (and maybe Bossier) Louisiana area. I'd been talking it up as a great idea for quite a while, and finally successfully attended a show last weekend. I say successfully because we tried to attend one two months or so ago and apparently it had been rescheduled, or we went to the wrong park. Katie and I showed up just as the movie was starting and were able to find Billy, David and Jeff and set up our chairs right down front - prime time.

They showed Raiders of the Lost Ark on a huge inflatable screen. There were concessions available - waters, drinks, bags of candy, and of course... popcorn. While that's all great, the best thing about the night was the amount of people watching the show. Probably two to three hundred people (by my fingers and toes estimation at least) showed up.

I mention this as the best aspect of the show for two reasons. First, because of the amount of people there you can tell that something like this was needed - and also because I'm telling you... something like this was needed. Secondly, if you've ever watched a good action/family movie with kids around, you've probably noticed as I have that the movie becomes better. It works the same way when a group of people gets together to watch a funny show on tv... it always seems funnier/better in groups.

I wonder what they're showing next month...

House situation

In my last post I mentioned that Katie and I were looking to get a house in the near future. Well, that day is upon us. We're going to go on Friday to initiate the house building process in the legacy subdivision in North Bossier. As I understand it, we'll go and pick our lot, put a small chunk of change down then get final approval from a mortgage company. Only then will building commence.

Katie and I are both excited and very nervous about the prospect, as it means that neither of us will be able to lose our jobs any time soon. It's not like we're running around looking for ways to get fired... but you know what I mean. We've got to hold on to our jobs like a fat kid holds on to a bag of flamin' hot cheetos.

New Entry Time!!!

The month of June has been a pretty crazy month for Katie and I, as evidenced by the amount of posting I did this month (this is #1).

A few notable things occured this month.

First, Sami B and Rosa had a new baby girl. So, congratulations to them on that. I know Sami's gotta be terrified.

Secondly, Katie and I have pretty much decided on a new house in north bossier. It's a new subdivision where we'll be able to pick a lot, a floor plan and most of the colors and styles used throughout the house. It's a small house, but that's all we really need. As far as buying new versus buying a used house... it's a little bit of a premium, but we think it's fair considering the relative prices of houses in shreveport and bossier.

Lastly, Katie has decided to put off her internship class until the fall, delaying her finishing with school entirely until February. She was too stressed out with finding a place in shreveport to get all her internship hours and wouldn't have been working with the type of people that she wants to counsel... so, we talked about it and decided it wasn't that big of a deal to delay it a quarter, though we did lose the money for this quarter's tuition. I'd rather have Katie freed up for the summer to find a better position in the fall that would benefit her and the people she'd be counseling.

Those are pretty much the biggest happenings for the month. In the coming weeks, I'm going to talk to a few lenders about getting a loan for the house and will look to start the house building process shortly after.

For tonight, I'm hoping to dig into a little pizza with Katie and her sister Emma, who's staying with us for a few days.

Today's missed opportunity

I was hoping to be able to come home this afternoon and gleefully post that Katie and I are the new owners of the house next door to Taylor. I can't though, because we're not.

For a few weeks now, we've been eyeing the property next door to Taylor, which was foreclosed after a lady skipped town due to lack of money (unsubstantiated rumors, but good enough to be on my blog). We read a notice on the door that said the property would go to auction at the bossier sheriff's sale.

After a week or so of talking with the mortgage people at Katie's bank, we ended up with 85,000 in loan money (our pre-agreed maximum bid) in the hopes that with that amount we could place a winning bid at the Sheriff's sale.

So, today I took off work at 9:15 and headed over to the Bossier courthouse (10:00 every wed. in the lobby). The bidding was looking good at first. Three cars, a boat, and then the housing auction began. First house went for 40 something as best I can recall. Second house, in the 60's. Third house, the 40's again. Our house came up soon after, and the auctioneer announced that he "need an opening bid of $79,100". No soon after those words were out of his mouth, the plaintiff's (mortgage holder in this case... citi bank) representative spoke up and gave a bid of $92,000. Just like that our hopes of a house and a dog (I want a dern dog!) were crushed.

The house ended up going for $94,000, at least a $20,000 discount from market value. I'm not really sure who the person was that ended up buying it, or whether it was going to be for personal use... but that was a high price for real estate to use only as an investment (since you can't view the property until after you've bought it).

Anyways, Katie and I are pretty bummed out about it, but we're still hopeful that we'll get a good another opportunity sometime soon. If we don't get another gem like this opportunity was, we'll just wait until November when Katie gets herself a real jobby job.

Until then, puppy of my dreams... until then.

A month into marriage

Katie and I are well over a month into our marriage... and I'd like to take this time to say something to the preacher. I told you it would last.

Things are good so far, but the first weeks are not as easy as you'd think they would've been with two people who were inseperable as a dating couple. After all, two people's worth of stuff was crammed into a space designed for a tiny herd of circus clown-car clowns. Every where I look, there's Katie...touching my stuff and looking at me. She's sneaking into the bathroom while I take showers, sleeping right next to me (though she got the worst end of that deal. I smack her at night while I'm thrashing around in my sleep). I even have a feeling she's creeping around outside the bathroom door while I take poo's... just waiting to jump in there mid-squeak and ask if I've seen her hoop earings... you know the silver ones with the little dangly thingies on the bottoms of the loops... the ones you said you liked! I digress...

Though we are cramped here and are having to deal with issues that we never had even thought would cause multi-session discussions - who knew you had to put the toilet seat back down!!!???... crazy talk) - things are pretty much amazing. We're cooking for each other. We hosted a dinner function for my family on mother's day where WE (Katie) cooked! We brush our teeth together at night. We even have a small home theater system and have decreed that Saturday mornings are Saturday morning movie time.

*Reading from the book of Monkey*

And thus sayeth the couple to each other, "Thou breath reeketh in the morning. Speak not to me foul dragon breath. Point thou face toward the TV and fill thine face with hot brewed liquid and jimmy dean sausage goodness until that smell hath passed."

And lastly, since it's fresh on my mind, we're looking into the possibility of buying a house (right next door to Taylor in a Sheriff's sale this coming Wednesday *crosses fingers*).

All these things that come along with sharing money and a small apartment are new to me, the bad and the good. I'm enjoying it though. I'd rather put up with the little nit-picky arguments and the stress of being pre-approved and switching insurance and tax forms than be single/engaged again and not get to spend all this time and these experiences with Katie.

End of the Honeymoon

Right now we're in the airport in Knoxville, TN, having checked out of the berry springs lodge, returned the rental car and printed out our boarding passes for the two flights we have to board to get back to Shreveport.

We got to picnic in the great smokey mountain national park, drive to the North Carolina/Tennessee border, watch a sunrise from our balcony (10 minutes late), take a helicopter tour of part of gatlinburg, TN, and spend a lot of quality time together watching movies and snuggling up in the Berry Springs Lodge.

I've posted some of the pictures from the trip on my flickr account, though I plan to post another considerable amount of pictures from the last day and a half that didn't make it to that flickr account.

We had an amazing trip and are looking forward to getting back and starting our married life.

Lastly, Thanks to those who wished us well before or after the wedding, we appreciate your thoughts.

Today, I'm getting married.

Well, today's the big day. April 15th, 2006. It really snuck up on everyone involved in planning the wedding. It seemed so far away until recently when everyone went into scramble mode to get things done, and our schedules didn't make this last week any easier on us.

Monday we had a "farewell" dinner at Katie's mom's house, Tuesday a dinner with Billy & Emme to discuss vows, music and other general wedding items, Wednesday another "farewell" dinner for my brother and I both (since he bought a house and will be leaving in the same week as I will), and Thursday was the official run around like a mad man to get all the things done that should have been done a month ago but instead are being done two days before the wedding day, day.

Last night was a nice change in pace though. Most everything that was left to be done had been taken care of by yesterday, so we were able to relax a little more. We were able to have a nice, slow, low-stress rehearsal yesterday afternoon and managed to have a great rehearsal dinner at Macaroni grill. So, now all that's left to do is finish up with packing my things and make Katie and I official at 2.

I hope everything is going well with everyone else, and I hope today for Katie and I goes off without a... hitch... *nudge nudge*. Actually, I hope it does go off with a hitch, but enough of my corny jokes. I might make a few posts from the honeymoon spot in the Smokey Mountains, since we're supposed to have thunderstorms for three of the four days we'll be there (and on account of the killer bear). I'll put up some good pictures and may get time to talk about our wedding band fiasco.

Easter eggs! They smell great too!

Friday night, before all the moving events of latter half weekend splendor, Ann invited people over to her house for an egg dye-ing party. It sounded pretty darn girly, so I said "count me in!", put on my best pair of lacy, pink panties and went to dye some dern eggs with the ladies.

Here are Ann, Lindsay and myself enjoying the egginess.

A few of my first eggs didn't turn out so well... especially the first one, which was just a little face with the belt around it. He was an angry karate kid. If I would've given it a little more though, I would've designed a Mr. Miyagi to go along with him. Alas, my night was not so inspired.

I did come up with two eggs that I was proud of though, included here for your viewing pleasure along with Ann's great dinosaur egg     ...    egg.

I was at an egg dyeing party. The testosterone had to come out somewhere... and their chairs looked expensive.





I free-handed this one with some food coloring pens. Edvard Munch's Scream, if you don't recognize it.





Ann's incredible dinosaur egg with waxy, bumpy goodness. A dinosaur hatched in her kitchen some time this weekend. Ted, their black lab, promptly issued a code black gas attack, and the last dinosaur died... a tragedy for michael crichton fans everywhere.

It's almost wedding time.

In less than a week Katie and I will be married... and things are getting busy over here. Every night this week we've got something else going on either directly or indirectly related to the wedding. We've got "last" family dinners and vow preparation, our weekly bible studies on Thursday, then finally a rehearsal dinner the night before the wedding. We're booked up this week.

Knowing that going into the weekend we figured Saturday and Sunday would have to be reserved for moving my junk into Katie's apartment to cohabitate with her junk. Sure enough, bright and early Saturday morning the Katie machine came over and we both packed and transported most of the day. The only thing left at the house now are my clothes, my bed and my computer - two of which aren't essential.

Look at this packing job. Not an inch of space left. We spared no crannies (crannies sounds suspiciously like grannies *snicker*) and had to special order nook sized objects to fill remaining nooks... and got all my movable possessions gone in a truck load and a car load.

By the way, yes, that's a bench with a hole in it on the left there. That's what's known as a "massage table" for giving "massages". Chris (Katie's uncle) and I picked that up in New Orleans off the curb of a chiropractic office that had severe flood damage... but I digress.

This afternoon we got around to unpacking the remaining items that were boxed up at her apartment, set up my shelves over there and re-placed all her computer paraphernalia on newly rebuilt shelves. That's pretty much been the story of the weekend... however, we did manage to get out and start looking at a few houses in bossier city. I doubt that we'll get anything until after November at the earliest, though, since we've decided that Katie will go back to school for two more quarters.

I'm looking forward to this week, and the wedding... and especially the subsequent honeymoon time. It should be great. Hopefully I can get back into the habit of posting once all of our stuff is in the same place and I'm not constantly shuttling back and forth between home and Katie's place.

Katie's bridal shower was today

This afternoon, Katie and all the ladies who she's close to got together for her bridal shower today. Nothing really to report from this end, though I'm sure Katie would have a good deal to say about all the gifts we got. You see, this is the part of the wedding where I'm not supposed to be included in things.

It's become more apparent, with events like the Katie in wedding garb picturefestravaganza, that this upcoming wedding day is solely for Katie. I'm just the guy up there on stage next to the pretty girl.

Photographer: "Excuse me, sir."

Me: "Who, Me?"

Photographer: "Yes. *waving hand back* Could you please step back a few feet. We want to get a picture of the bride."

Me: "But I'm the groom, don't we get pictures together?"

Photographer: *laughing* "You silly man. You're just here to look sadly uncomfortable around the bride's relatives.

We did get some really great stuff from the girls at the shower and I'm really appreciative of the way they've all treated us since they found out we were engaged.

She's got another shower this weekend, and a bachelorette party, so I hope things go as well next weekend as they did for her this weekend.

Congrats to Johnny B. on the birth of their first baby

Congratulations to Johnny and Tasha on their newest family member - a brand spanking new baby girl.

Taylor's puppy has arrived

Wednesday night Taylor became the proud father of a mini-Australian Shepherd. He'd been shopping for some time for the right breeder so he could get a blue merle aussie. Well, he managed to track down a breeder all the way in Washington who had a 4 month old puppy that she was willing to part with. So, Taylor immediately wet himself with glee and ran to the mail box waving his check stuffed envelope as he ran. Cash in hand, the breeder shipped the puppy to DFW airport where Taylor and a friend of his drove Wednesday night to pick up the new puppy.

Taylor's really excited about the puppy, along with the rest of our family, as the house has been void of puppies since Piper ran off several years ago. The dog seems attached to Taylor, likewise. He never leaves Taylor's side, and is always at his feet waiting for some attention. As taylor points out on his blog, blubbering like a newborn baby's father :), Cosmo is close to the perfect dog so far. He's extremely quiet, friendly with people, good with other dogs, and beautiful.

Here are a few of the pics I took in Longview this weekend of Taylor and the pup.

Blog problems and Overtime

There haven't been many updates to the blog recently. Two factors have contributed to this.

First, the Intermittent Server 500 error that haunted many Movable Type users is still haunting me... and I can't get my host to act quickly to investigate the problem.

Secondly, My big deadline at work is coming on August 8th and I'm behind in my work. In college this lack of progress would've been due to procrastination and general laziness. However, this time I'm actually trying. I started working on this program overhaul full time a little over three months ago, and it's no small programming task.

I've never had a real need to use the cliche 'The Devil is in the Details' before. Now I feel like I live that cliche every day. My boss believes that conforming to a state issue standard, and overhauling our system to send XML to the state should be a simple issue of slapping some code into a save "routine" (as he calls it) and transmitting XML to the DOE(ducation) from there.

It's difficult to express to someone who's not intimately involved in this project how much work is required to complete it effectively. This is the major issue behind my anxiety and a catalyst for most of the problems I've encountered in my time at work. The boss keeps saying "I expected this to be done by now", and each time my feeling of job security creeps further away. I thought, at first, that I could explain the situation to him (along with my co-project-worker) and he would see that he keeps completely oversimplifying the task. Things just don't work that way... namely because he's paying for our time here I suppose.

Anywho, we're finally getting to the point to where a school district of ours will begin testing our software early next week. The state is also working quickly when I test my XML transmissions against their validator/processing code and find errors(Yes, I'm doing their testing for them for some reason). So, we're inching closer to completion, and my weekends and nights (I've been asked to work both until deadline) are inching away.

I hope I can get back to posting regularly because it's become a nice outlet for me. The project will be done soon and the host I use should be able to figure this issue out (if they're interested in doing so). After those two things are outta the way I can get back to normalicity.

The Austin Pictures are up...

For anyone who's interested, the pictures I took in Austin (or some of the decent ones anyway) are up in the gallery.

I'll try to start going back, for my own benefit, later to add descriptions to each of the pictures while the memories are fresh. There are some pictures that probably won't make any sense later, such as the one with the state trooper leaning over a little girl in the capital.

More pictures will appear later this weekend when I head to Ruston to seize Katie's computer and recover the pictures we unloaded there this weekend. I ended up taking about 250 pictures and a few little movies this weekend, but most are junk... I'm still getting the hang of my camera and remembering what I've learned previously about taking pics with it.

Enjoy.

Engagement, Check

Katie and I are officially engaged.

I'd been secretly shopping for rings and pricing different items for a while but when I thought about how I'd like to propose, I decided Austin would be a good place to do it. So, I went and bought a ring but had to wait for it to be sent for resizing and a different setting. Friday I picked up the ring, and Saturday morning we headed out of town to Austin, where we are now.

We were sitting on the porch of the hotel where we're staying, and talking about how nice it is here and how we'd like to have a porch with a swing... and puppies and such. After talking about our future for a bit I told her that I got her something and produced the ring, which I'd been hiding in my pocket all day. I asked her to marry me and she said yes... so it's official. I'll have to post some pics of her, giddy with a ring on her finger.

Anywho, she's not stopped smiling since last night, and I'm elated about the event too. Now, we can get to planning the next step in our lives.

A big fat happy birthday goes out to the Katie today

Katie turns 23 today. Why, I remember when she was just a lass of 14 with braces from ear to ear and barely a scruff of hair on her chin. That's all changed now.

Tonight, we celebrate at Posadas in official faux-Mexican style. The waiters will most likely sing a rousing bout of Felíz cumpleaños.

I couldn't keep a secret, so she already has my present, a Canon S500 digital camera. My parents got her a little somethin' and I'm sure her family will get her some accompanying goodies.

So, if you see her running round Ruston looking just a little bit wiser, tell her happy birthday (and ignore the extra wrinkle).

Katie and I are heading to Austin for a few days

Today was my last day of (scheduled) work until July 11th. Our company shuts down for a week in mid-July and everyone takes a vacation, so Katie and I jumped at the opportunity to get away for a few days. After narrowing down the selection of possible cities, we decided on Austin, TX (with a day trip to San Antonio).

We're still planning things out, but it looks like we'll get to see the Capitol building, the Stevie Ray Vaughan statue (my idear), the bats in Austin, the Alamo, the 4th of July celebration in Austin, and maybe Sea World if we get a hankering. Those are the main things that attracted us to these particular cities.

Tonight, in looking around for a few more attractions, I found that there's a theater in Austin that's STILL showing muppets from space. - one of my favorite movies. We'll see how this news strikes the Katie, but I'm stoked.

We're still in the planning stages even though we leave in less than 2 days. We figure that we have a 6 hour drive (thereabouts) ahead of us, so with our Austin book we'll be able to talk about what we want to do at that time.

Our hotel supposedly has some kind of internet, so I'll consider posting some pics from there. I may just wait until I get back to post all the pics at once though... the gallery has been in need of some new pics for a while now.

Fantasy Football mock draft progress (with screenshot)

I finally got some more time to play around with the fantasy football mock draft program.

To recap, I'm making a fantasy football live mock draft program. Ideally, it will allow up to 12 people to conduct a live mock draft without having to resort to e-mail or use a pay service.

I'm a long way from finishing, and have recently enlisted the help of my brother to take over the server portion of the program. I've already set up all the connection code, and have defined a few basic commands that will be necessary for client/server interaction. He'll likely be designing/coding most of the SQL interaction and finishing the rest of the turn progression stuff.

So, what's left to do... everything basically.

• Think up a method for people to enroll in drafts
• Finish designing the GUI
• Finish coding the guts of the GUI
• Finish up the server design
• Figure out how in the world this will interact with a web page
• Decide whether to release the software for use anywhere or limit use to this or another server
• Write code to keep track of the state of the draft and advance the state.

What's done, you say? Well, only a little, but these accomplishments are nothing to sneeze at. The part I was the most worried about was the connection inner workings, and that's done thanks to a helpful open source library.

• Set up skeleton GUI
• Design DB schema
• Setup connection framework for client/server interaction

Here's a preliminary screenshot:

If anyone has any suggestions for how to fill the space at the top right, or how to improve on the interface, post a comment. I'd like to hear any ideas on how to create a better interface without cluttering it with a bunch of team buttons at the top.

Lord willing, I'll finish this thing by the time football season rolls around. However, my first big deadline at work falls on August 8th, and the month of July will probably be crunch time... so this program may not hit shelves (or my server:)) until next season.

Moving day... again.

Well, I got most of my stuff moved yesterday, but I managed to forget a few of the integral parts in my shelf system, like the little cross brace and the desk. I don't know how I managed to forget those. I just chalk it up to Murphy's Law taking effect.

So, I need to go back to Ruston today to get the few pieces I forgot and pay the electric bill. Taylor wouldn't be happy if they cut off the electricity.

A brand new car...to me

After two years of sharing a truck with my brother, I've finally got my own car. Actually, I don't have it yet since it's in Shreveport. It's been purchased though, and that's all that matters to me.

No more calling Taylor to be picked up. No more borrowing Katie's car. No more having to go pick Taylor up from the IFM. My day has finally come. I'm out of shawshank, and both Taylor and I are relieved.

The car is a 97 Honda Accord (greyish silver) with low mileage. I haven't seen it yet, but it's waiting for me to pick it up and give it some man on car lovin'. I'll probably slap an mp3 cd player in it within the first few days I have it, as some elderly lady drove it and never saw fit to install a cd player.

Anyways, it was a great deal, and the payments are/will be well within my price range once I'm gainfully employed somewheres (that is if I don't decide to go back for some kind of Master's degree).

It's not exactly what I was driving on my 23rd birthday, but what could match that? The idea of the accord is growing on me, and I'm anxious to test it out.

Matt Haughey comments on Bill Gates

Matt Haughey has an interesting point of view on Bill Gates comments last week about people who support the Creative Commons license being "communists". As someone who has been working with Creative Commons for the last few years, he decided to stop defending MS and talk a little bit more of what's been going on with MS. It's an interesting read.

The article is located on Matt's Blog. Enjoy.

Change of hosting companies

Well, for the next 48 hours some people who see this site will be viewing it on Powweb's servers, some of you will be viewing on LiquidWeb's servers. If you're seeing this message though, you're looking at the updated site. Pat yourself on the back for all the hard work you did to get here.

The reason for the two different sites at the moment is that I've switched webhosts (the people who store my web pages on their computers). It takes about 48 hours for all the computers that make up the internet to recognize that I've changed hosts. Anywho, I've notified them, and they are in the process of switching.

As I write this, no one can read it. That's because I'm at a temporary location until the switch is complete (the blogger protection program). Any posts I make will be made permanent, but you might not see them until later. Once the site goes live again, I'll talk about my old host a little so you can steer clear. I'll also try to post a guide for switching serveres with a movable type installation without losing any data.

Strange search terms

I check my site's stats every once in a while to see what people are looking at, and what sites referred them. Well, today I was looking through the google search terms that have led people here, and I saw the phrase "bitty schram booty pics". It left me speechless.

Christmas with the family

The family took the annual trip to Dallas this year. As usual, everyone had a good time. There were no drunken brawls, no shootings or stabbings, and no heart attacks, so I have to consider the event a resounding success.

Here are a few pics of the weekend.

I had a great time this weekend, as usual. I hope everyone else enjoyed their time too. Oh, and I hope Mammaw and Pappaw can learn to use their new digital camera.

Another Christmas function

Katie decided that she was going to brave the weather last night and drive to Shreveport to have a small Christmas activity with the people in her family who are gonna be leaving soon to spend Christmas elsewhere. It was just above freezing when we left the house, and there was an expectation of rain, sleet, or snow... some kind of moisture anyways. But, she wanted to go anyway, and Taylor wanted to ride home also. I also decided to go at the last minute despite the fact that I had a programming test to finish last night.

We all set out at about 5:45 or so, and drove the hour to Shreveport through a little rain and some sleet. We dropped Taylor off, and went to the Christmas function at Katie's grandma's house. The dinner wasn't very eventful, or at least not to anyone who will read the blog. It was the usual Christmas dinner, with a few gifts being opened for those family members who would be leaving. I did, however, manage to be mixed up with Katie's ex-boyfriend for the umpteenth time, but I'm used to that. In most relationships, for the first year or so I've been referred to by the last boyfriend's name.

Anywho, we left at about 9:30 or so, and for the first time in about 4 years we got to drive in snow. It was strange, because it wasn't just little snow flurries like I'm used to seeing once a year or so. There were loads of the stuff. When it hit the ground, steam came up. The wind would blow the steam around so it looked like we were driving on a moving, marbled road.

Well, we made it home fine. Now, we can look forward to having snow on Christmas... maybe.

Christmas came early this year.

Katie and I decided to exchange presents early this year because of technical difficulties in getting a Christmas event planned for each other. I'm gonna be in Dallas for Christmas beginning as early as Christmas Eve morning. She has to stay in Ruston and work until noon on Christmas Eve. So, my idea was to just bring everything to Ruston and set it up. Well, according to her we couldn't do that... and she couldn't explain why.

I took her word for it and decided to give in and do Christmas last night with her. I gave her a few presents that I had in Shreveport. The first was a DVD player that plays Divx/MP3/DVD/VCD/PictureCD. I also had a stuffed animal there for her. We took a trip to her house so I could unwrap my present.

After trying to conceal the present and hide her tracks for a month or so, she gave me my brand new propane grill. It was stinking huge, so we couldn't very well bring it back to Ruston and do our gift exchange her. It just wouldn't have made it back in her car, and I would've probably guessed what it was before I actually got to open it.

Anywho, we got back tonight, and I gave her the last part of her present - a Beauty and the Beast DVD. Katie loves that movie, and since I bought her the DVD player, I figured it was a must have. I just didn't realize that they don't make them anymore, and that I'd have to find one on Ebay somewhere.

So, we got back in town tonight and Katie's in there watching her movie, cuddled up on the couch with her puppy dog (stuffed animal). I hope she really enjoyed the gifts. I know I enjoyed mine.

Paperwork at school... done

Yesterday I went to school to fill out my paperwork to be hired as a "research associate". Sounds prestigious, no?

I went up to the personnel office on the 4th floor of Keeny Hall to see the lady in charge of all things paperwork related. I recieved a stack of tax documents and a few other drug policy sheets and sat down to fill them out.

I had no idea what I was doing, but it typical man fashion, I put my best thinking look on my face and began to try to make sense of the documents. There were all kinds of boxes, checks, questions about things I would be withholding and exemptions I'd be claiming. So, naturally, I excused myself to the bathroom and never went back.

Not really. I actually decided that the best method of filling out these papers is the old method of "write something down... if it's wrong, they'll call me back later". So, I slapped zero's in all the boxes and check all the boxes I could see... except the marital status and sex boxes. I checked single for marital, and wrote 'yes please' beside the check boxes for sex.

After the tax documents, I had to fill out some other sworn statement about upholding the constitution of the US and the constitution of the state of Louisiana. I just sorta stared at it blankly for a little while and finally the lady sitting behind the desk prodded me to write something. This was the first inkling the lady had that I may be slightly retarded.

I moved on to the last page of paperwork and the paperwork lady received a phone call. I was sorta confused about what goes where in this page, but just started filling things out the way I wanted. As I was randomly filling things out, I could hear the paperwork woman asking "Is that Shreveport or Ruston?" She asked again "Shreveport or Ruston?" Finally, she said "Do you live in Shreveport or Ruston?", apparently becoming irritated with the person on the phone. I looked up and realized that she was no longer on the phone, and had been asking me these questions. She thought one of three things, "this kid is hard of hearing", "he's a little simple", or "he's ignoring me". None of them were good for her disposition:).

I went back and checked all the paperwork. In my last act of irritating the paperwork lady, I flipped a set of staple pages over, with the pen still in my right hand. As I turned the page, I managed to smack the pen into her wall, leaving a big blue mark. I didn't stop, or look up, but I wanted to laugh. I didn't look up, but I firmly believe she was staring at me with the most evil glare since the creation of man.

I handed her my documents, she smiled the fakest and shortest smile I'd ever seen. It was more like a facial twitch than a smile. She snatched the documents and said something "b'bye now".

She's gonna be even more irritated when she realizes that all my paperwork is filled out improperly, and half the stuff was scratched through. I would've loved to been there for that.

Blog relocation

I relocated my blog to the main directory of my site. I didn't really have any plans to design another site around the blog, so I decided to just go ahead and move it.

I didn't think about google and the people who are directed here through links. Unfortunately, I assumed that google would eventually drop the dead links from the database, and pick up the new directory. I don't know why I didn't think to alter my .htaccess file to redirect people automatically. After all, all I did was change from http://www.jojometal.com/blog to http://www.jojometal.com. The files are all the same, so it wouldn't have been a big deal to add a redirect. I just wasn't thinking, I guess.

So, if you're in a similar situation and you want to change your site structure and help ease the transition for users and search engine spiders, here's what I did to my .htaccess file to redirect any user looking for an old file to the new one (This assumes, of course, you have a text document called .htaccess in your root directory).

I added:

RedirectPermanent /blog http://www.jojometal.com

This line just means that whenever someone requests http://www.jojometal.com/blog/anyfile.htm they will be redirected to http://www.jojometal.com/anyfile.htm. The "redirect permanent" instead of redirect lets clients know that it's a permanent move. This method will redirect for any type of file in that directory, not just .htm files.

I'm still trying to find out why google's spider won't start crawling my content at jojometal.com. I know it's in the index, but it hasn't updated it in quite a while. It updated the blog directory really frequently. Hmmm...

Maybe I spoke too soon about the nintendo DS's

As far as I can tell, most stores online are sold out of the nintendo DS's. This is a good thing. Wal-mart here in Ruston has plenty of the DS's, but curiously they're sold out of the mario 64 DS games.

Prices are starting to pick up on Ebay, with the DS systems alone going for about 180+ on average. We've got two systems, two starter kits, and two games (bought later), so maybe we'll be able to make a little money after all.

For right now, I'm gonna wait until I can see whether prices really start to rise on them. I guess the only limiting factor for when to sell them will be the date by which I need to ship them in order for them to arrive by Christmas.

Anyway, I'm glad to see that sales are picking up online. I hope we can wait out other seller's impatience on Ebay, selling ours after most people have already sold their supplies.

I'm no undergraduate.

I'm graduating this saturday. Actually, as far as I'm concerned, I'm already a graduate. There will be no more computer science classes, no more physics, and most importantly, I will never see a calculus class again. I achieved all this in just under 8 years, with a cumulative GPA of .84. Well, it wasn't quite that bad, but it was longer than 4 years with less than a 3.0 (I can thank calculus and physics for that).

Regardless of the time it's taken, or how poorly I may have done in certain subjects, I have to say that I'm elated to be done. There are only a few more things I have left to do before I can formally graduate. I have to fill out exit interview paperwork for loans, and for the computer science department, and I'm free... until I find out whether I can get into the MBA program or not.

So, off to get that other stuff done, so I can be an ex-undergraduate (sort of like an ex-convict in many ways).

Ebay Experience

Last week I bought a used NES system on Ebay for Girlfriend's birthday. Ever since one of her friends got a Nintendo, she has wanted one very badly. So, I thought that I'd snag one off Ebay and surprise her with it for her birthday.

Well, it arrived Wednesday, and of course I was excited to plug it in and try it out. Luckily, Girlfriend was on a vacation to Gulf Shores, so I could test out all the games I wanted, and get everything set up.

I put the first game in and turned the system on... and all I got was a blinking grey screen. I did the trick that I learned as a kid playing nintendo, blow in the cartridge, push the game back in the NES up and down a few times, and try it again. I tried the pushing up and down repeatedly, and even the last resort trick of pulling the cartridge out just a hair to see if it would make a better connection. I even used the cleaning kit that came with the system and cleaned both the game and the system thoroughly. Nothing I tried worked. CRAP. I just paid a lot of money for a Nintendo that doesn't even stinkin' work.

I contacted the seller, and she said that it worked when she shipped it, and that I had used shipping insurance, so it shouldn't be a problem. I wrote her back saying that though I paid for shipping insurance, the insured stamp was not on the box. She said she'd talk to the people at the post office to find out what happened. It turns out that the item was not shipped with insurance, she said because someone there messed up.

She was very helpful throughout the whole ordeal, but I ended up only getting a $16.00 refund. This didn't work out too badly though. I got to keep all the items, including system, games and controllers and got a little money back. I think I can fix the problem with a new part off of Ebay. It's just another 11 bucks. That'll cut the discount down to 5 dollars.

In the meantime, I'll have to get a replacement for it. I'm waiting on my money from Amazon.com to come in. I sold a book. It should pay for another system to be here by the time Girlfriend's birthday rolls around the 1st of July. If the new system works, and I can get the old one to work too, I'll just sell one back I think. Make a little profit, or maybe just keep one to myself. I loved the NES. There hasn't been a better system in the last 20 years (excluding of course PC's).

Gmail

Today I finally got a Gmail account, and I love it.

Google provides email service through something they call Gmail. You get 1 gigabyte of storage, and several other features such as autocomplete of addresses in the address book, conversation view of email messages, and of course the ability to check it from anywhere. However, the service won't be made public for another few months from what I understand. Well, a lot of names are being taken up, such as monkeypants@Gmail.com and wondermonkey@Gmail.com. Obviously, all the names I'd be interested in were being taken at an alarming rate. If I were to get an invitation, I could get a name before the mass public had a chance.

In addition, I think of it as a sacrifice. Members of Gmail occasionally get the opportunity to invite other people to join. I figure that I can use some of those to give to friends who want access early on, like myself. Should I be given an award or what?

Anyway, the interface is awesome, and I love it so far.

Google, you may send me my 50 invites now. I'm waiting...

John Lee Hooker

There's nothing better than a good blues song... and personally, I don't think anyone sings the blues better than John Lee Hooker.

I just heard a live version of "Crawlin' King Snake" from Nov. 9, 1976 in Chicago. I can't imagine a song being more perfect. Nice bass guitar... matching John's voice, and an audience that's as excited to hear him as I am. It just doesn't get much better than that.

6 months...

6 months ago, today, I started a new relationship. I know 6 months isn't a long time... my last serious relationship lasted 4 years or so, but things are going well. I'm gonna try to do something nice for her at dinner tonight... maybe I'll make some kind of chicken something or other. Who knows... I've got a few herbs out back I've been wanting to try out, maybe I'll get fancy and use some of those in a chicken dish. That reminds me... I better go water them.