AMCD Online O:-)

An apple pie filling worth savoring

2009-03-26T18:03:00.000-05:00

It was a bit of a late evening tonight with the boys, but after a quick dinner of leftovers and a couple of appointments I wanted to do something special for them. So we worked together and chopped up some apples. First I was going to make a pie out of them, then I thought about apple crisp, then I decided to dispense with the bread part altogether and we ate it like fresh applesauce. It was yummy!

Here's how it goes down:

3 cups apples, cored, peeled, and thinly sliced
3 tbsp lemon juice (balsamic vinegar is also amazing)
1/4 c sugar
pinch nutmeg
1/2 tsp cinammon
2 tbsp butter
1/2 c raisins (1 c blueberries if you've got 'em)
1 tsp flour

Heat up a big saucepan over medium heat for 2 minutes. Pour in the apples and cook, stirring frequently, for 2 minutes. Add lemon juice and cook another 30 sec. Add sugar and cook until apples are clear and soft. Sprinkle nutmeg and cinammon. Fold on the raisins, then place the butter on top and let it melt slowly. Remove from heat, sprinkle flour on top and continue folding until the apples start to stick together.

Equally good in a pie shell, under a crumb topping, or on a plate by itself.

Now I need more apples.

One WEIRD Monday

2009-01-26T18:31:00.000-06:00

I'm not sure if I want to relive this Monday again or not. It actually was a good day, though it sure did its darnedest to make a mess out of itself.

As is my normal routine, I woke up at 6AM to get the two younger boys up, dressed, fed, and ready for school. With Jordan awake, bed made and in the shower, I normally go downstairs and take a gander at the e-mail. So I come downstairs and shake the mouse to wake up the PC. Except it doesn't wake up. I hit a few keys on the keyboard, still no response. Power off and on the monitor, still nothing.

After sending Jordan out the door and getting Josh in the shower, I go downstairs and resume testing. The monitor's fine, as I plug it into my laptop and it responds. So I figure that it must be a fried video card. I try a couple of older AGP cards I have laying around, but no go. Now frustration is starting to set in. Then it hits me that it doesn't even sound like the PC is going through POST, which makes me immediately think of power supply issues. The family went through a rash of power supply issues recently, so the symptoms looked familiar.

So, I busted into our old PC that died on us last year, and pulled out the power supply. While in there, I also grabbed the 2 256MB memory sticks. I swapped out the power supply, and sure enough the computer booted happily. I then added the memory and it ran a bit happier. Anyway, I managed to get it up and running before 9AM today, which made me feel a lot better.

After all that, I needed to burn out some frustration, so I put on my workout clothes and headed over to the Y. That went well as I lifted weights and such. Then I was sitting on a mat stretching and doing ab exercises with the MP3 player blaring. Now, as some of you may already know, I am pretty well oblivious of the rest of the world when a good song's playing, so I'll happily mouth along or play some air drums or whatever. So I'm having a great time, then "Death" by White Lies comes on. Um, if you haven't heard, I'm totally smitten with this album. Anyway, I'm listening to it from the MP3 player for the first time while stretching, and I'm paying close attention to the lyrics ... and they hit me hard. I don't know why, maybe it's all the uncertainty about my job search or something else, but I actually had to choke back tears so I could continue with the workout. I know, I'm a big softie.

After a good workout, I arrived home, and one of the first things Melissa said to me was, "You can go to Coachella, silly." I had completely forgotten that she is on Facebook and can read my notes. Well, that's out of the way. Now I just have to figure out where the boys will stay, since we'll both be out of town that weekend.

Then tonight, I got to play with my two nephews. Conor, who's only three months, got to hang out on Uncle Dale's lap until he spit up some formula, and I jerked him away a bit too hard, making him cry. Bad Uncle Dale. Then his big brother Brodie climbs up on my lap, which is crazy given that he usually wealks away from me, and gives me high fives and all sorts of loves.

Now, I'm thinking that if I hadn't eaten that last brownie, I would have had a pretty darn good day. :)

Help me ...

2008-12-31T18:21:00.000-06:00

I'm spending the last few minutes of 2008 messing around with virtualizing my laptop, because I have this insane idea for running two copies of my laptop on one, and somehow getting more work done. This will also go on the resume, as I see lots of jobs looking for experience with VMWare. Umm, just nod along, non-techies. ;)

Meanwhile, Melissa is playing Neverwinter Nights on the home PC, and Jordan and Josh each have one friend over, and the four of them are all playing Wii and yelling at each other at ear-splitting volume.

Yes, this is how I'm spending NYE 2008. I think I need more of a life.

The MOG rejected post that must go somewhere

2008-12-24T07:54:00.000-06:00

~K7GobJFxSmO.mp3~

Subtitle: The post where I try for the record for the most YouTube embeds ever, and try to bring both MOG and YouTube to their knees. Muwahahahaha and apologies for some of the lousy sound or dorky fansub vids.

Now, to refresh your memory, here is the list that I made for the first half of 2008:

Portishead - Third
Los Campesinos! - Hold On Now Youngster
The Kills - Midnight Boom
Cut Copy - In Ghost Colours
Foals - Antidotes
Ladytron - Velocifero
These New Puritans - Beat Pyramid
Sons & Daughters - This Gift
M83 - Saturdays = Youth
The Helio Sequence - Keep Your Eyes Ahead

Now, on to the list for the full year.

40. Crystal Castles

39. Like Honey - Leaves

38. Soundpool - Dichotomies & Dreamland

37. Friendly Fires

36. Darker My Love - 2

35. Correcto

34. Bauhaus - Go Away White

33. Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds - Dig! Lazarus! Dig!

32. The Faint - Fasciination

31. The Helio Sequence - Keep Your Eyes Ahead

30. Neon Neon - Stainless Style

29. Tearwave - Different Shade of Beauty

28. The Courteeners - St. Jude

27. Bloc Party - Intimacy

26. Wire - Object 47

25. The Notwist - The Devil You & Me

24. Mogwai - The Hawk Is Howling

23. The Dandy Warhols - Earth To The Dandy Warhols

22. British Sea Power - Do You Like Rock Music?

21. Sons & Daughters - This Gift

20. Death Cab For Cutie - Narrow Stairs

19. For Against - Shade Side Sunny Side

18. The Daysleepers - Drowning In An Ocean of Sound

17. M83 - Saturdays = Youth

16. Ladytron - Velocifero

15. Nine Inch Nails - The Slip

14. The Raveonettes - Lust Lust Lust

13. Longwave - Secrets Are Sinister

12. The Charlatans - You Cross My Path

11. Los Campesinos! - Hold On Now Youngster

10. Uh Huh Her - Common Reactor

9. Secret Shine - All of the Stars

8. Glasvegas

7. Foals - Antidotes

6. These New Puritans - Beat Pyramid

(MUST. SEE. LIVE. NOW.)

5. Cut Copy - In Ghost Colours

4. Portishead - Third

3. The Kills - Midnight Boom

2. The Presets - Apocalypso

1. Blackstrap - Steal My Horses And Run

(Figures, my #1 band of the year is camera-shy. Ugh.)

Questions? Glaring omissions? "You listen to THAT?!?" moments? Comment away.

So what IS your superpower?

2008-12-23T15:59:00.000-06:00

Inspired by Annie's comment on Henry's fatherhood post.

I think my superpower is my memory for obscure trivia; musical, scientific or otherwise. I'd be a great "Phone A Friend".

So what's yours? And no ladies, you cannot ALL claim "growing a person", even if it's true. Your superpower is as unique as you. Let's hear it.

My wee Wordle

2008-11-11T15:23:00.000-06:00

This is what a month's worth of listening to music has wrought. Good times! Thanks Anne.

Unfortunately, I cannot copy from my Most Played app in Winamp, so I had to save it into a playlist, do lots of manipulation in Excel, then paste into Wordle to get it to work. I'm pretty happy with it.

Yeah, so, Facebook

2008-11-10T18:17:00.000-06:00

I know, another social network; I need one of those like I need a hole in my head.

MySpace ... lies dormant, except for the semi-monthly check for messages and band updates.

MOG ... I still use pretty frequently, still do most of my writing there.

Multiply ... My most frequent place to be on the Interwebs, because the conversations here are so engrossing. I don't know how they figured out updating comments, but it's genius.

Last.fm ... I still scrobble, and that's it.

And now, Facebook. The main reason I joined was to allow me to keep in touch with my friends from church, and to keep tabs on Morgan, who has an account there. Plus, I see using my status messages as a new level of EMCD'ing. Check the current status, muwahahaha.

In fact, the reason I have an account at all is because the doofus decided he wanted an account last May, so he set one up, using MY e-mail address. It was a bit of a shock to find out I was a member of Facebook, then to realize what happened. I couldn't even get mad at him, because it was so stupid.

Anyway, I found Blair and Amber, and Jameson already found me. So hit me up if you're there. I'm not competing with Morgan for the largest group of friends, so whatever.

Please tell me I made the right choice ...

2008-11-04T09:23:00.000-06:00

No, not about the election. I feel as comfortable as I can with my choices there.

If you read my previous blog (and if you haven't, go ahead, this isn't going anywhere), I posted that I had essentially been offered a job with Cognizant Technologies, to move to Omaha, NE and work as a Windows systems administrator. They had couched it in some strange language, but that is essentially when they were doing. They had not given me a definite salary figure, but the money figure being tossed around was far above not only what I'm making now, but way above market value as I have seen it. They also offered to cover relocation, which is something I've been wanting.

Today, I told them no thanks.

The reason I said no is because the position as described would not give me any additional opportunities for growth as a sysadmin. My responsibilities as a sysadmin would have consisted of hardware and OS, which is pretty much what my job is now. In fact, it's even less, as I manage the patching and security audits here and now.

They did inform me that they would consider fast-tracking me into project management, but to be honest (and no offense to the PM's here), that's not where I'd like to go with my career. I'm really looking to diversify my technical skills at this time; you know, get more into open-source, SQL, Exchange.

The HR person with whom I spoke was polite but clearly disappointed. I can't blame him, but I didn't want to drag it out any further if I had no real intention of taking the job.

Stil not completely sure I did the right thing though. ::sigh::

Anyone ever heard of Cognizant?

2008-10-30T17:03:00.000-05:00

Sometime last week, I got a call out of nowhere for a position in Omaha, NE, with a company called Cognizant Technologies. I schedule an interview, and end up having a brief (15 minute) technical interview. I think it goes OK; I don't know the difference between Windows 2000 DNS and Windows 2003 DNS, but I remember all the roles within Active Directory for once.

Fast forward to Tuesday. I get another call out of nowhere, this time from a project manager with the same company, telling me that I've been "accepted" for the position. Accepted?!? I'm stunned, because this is NOT the way I pictured receiving a job offer. There's no specifics about salary or anything, but he wants to send me the background screening form and a drug test. Um, okay.

Later the same day, I get another call, this time from their HR person. He at least gives me a salary range, and goes over some of the benefits. They're willing to fully pay for relocation, which is nice, and the rest of the benefits match up pretty well with where I work now. However, at this point I still have no clue what they're expecting me to do. I've not met the staff, not spoken to my soon-to-be-manager. Way too much up in the air. So I start asking for specifics on the job itself, and he can't tell me anything other than, "You know, it's Windows systems administration."

This morning, I get another call, this time from someone local, but still not the manager at the site. He's at least able to tell me how many machines, whether or not there's an on-call rotation, some of the upcoming projects, and such. It's just maintaining hardware and OS, which I do now and have really been looking to expand. Still no details about the data center and such, so I finally break down and ask for a flight for my wife and I to Omaha, so my wife can check out houses and schools and I can visit the data center and meet my teammates. He says he'll get back to me.

So, is it just me, or is there a lot of "cart before horse" happening here? Am I right to feel kinda queasy about the job?

BTW, I got an e-mail yesterday from the manager for the job in St. Louis, and they have a couple of last-minute candidates, but I'm their top candidate so far. Then again, they wouldn't pay for my on-site interview, which seems kinda chintzy. re they going to be willing to pony up the cash come job offer time, or am I going to have to fight for every little dime?

Ugh, job hunting SUX!

Thank you Microsoft!

2008-10-23T16:15:00.000-05:00

Thank you for strutting around with your big impressive software, thinking you're all big bad stuff, so hackers the world around want to find new and exciting ways to take over your OS's. Way to put a target on your backs, boys!

Thank you for opening two new security holes for every one you plug. Seriously, you guys need better stress testers.

Thank you for creating mass hysteria with your lousy out-of-cycle patch for the Server service, which of course is on EVERY Windows machine in our enterprise!

And finally, THANK YOU for releasing your critical patch on the day before our big Man Vs. Wild campout, so I get to make my two oldest boys sad by telling them that I can't take them to the campout because I have to apply patches ALL STINKIN' WEEKEND!!!

http://www.microsoft.com/technet/security/Bulletin/ms08-067.mspx

Get To Know Me!

2008-10-17T15:48:00.000-05:00

01) Are you currently in a serious relationship? - Seventeen years serious enough for ya?

02) What was your dream growing up? - Surf all day, party all night. Um, that didn't so much work out, did it? ;)

03) What talent do you wish you had? – Songwriting. People who write music that touches the soul amaze me.

04) If I bought you a drink what would it be? – Fruit punch, please! ;)

05) Favorite vegetable? – Yellow onions, sauteed in olive oil. Y. U. M!

06) What was the last book you read? – The Book of Mormon, I read a chapter a day with the kiddies. BTW, have I mentioned that I'm LDS? :D

07) What zodiac sign are you? - Cancer/Leo cusp.

08) Any Tattoos and/or Piercings? - Not a one. Used to wear clip-on earrings when I was feeling wild until a girl ripped it off my ear. OW!

09) Worst Habit? – Overeating and under-exercising; it's still an uphill battle.

10) If you saw me walking down the street would you offer me a ride? – Sure, you seem nice enough.

11) What is your favorite sport? – Football, preferably college football. Long live Saturday!

12) Do you have a Pessimistic or Optimistic attitude? - Pessimistic. Sorry, it's true.

13) What would you do if you were stuck in an elevator with me? – Stare at my shoes unless you initiated conversation.

14) Worst thing to ever happen to you? - Tie: 1) lost sister when she was 8, 2) lost father when I was 21, freshly returned from a mission and all.

15) Tell me one weird fact about you. – I have a brain filled with trivia and a pathologival need to share that trivia whenever possible.

16) Do you have any pets? – Nut the dog, and Jeffrey the betta fish.

17) What if I showed up at your house unexpectedly? – I'd be fine, because I love surprises. Melissa, OTOH, would have a conniption fit.

18) What was your first impression of me? – Dude, you listen to some weird wild music! (Sorry Sam.)

19) Do you think clowns are cute or scary? – Scary!!!

20) If you could change one thing about how you look, what would it be? – Learn how to smile in pictures without looking like a complete tool. Ugh.

21) Would you be my crime partner or my conscience? – Conscience, as the CoaMono crew can attest. :)

22) What color eyes do you have? – Blue

23) Ever been arrested? – Yup, for driving on a suspended license. Yeah, they dragged me into the pokey for that. Crazy, huh?

24) Bottle or can soda? – Bottle

25) If you won $10,000 today, what would you do with it? – Buy a car, something that gets really good gas mileage. Then buy a good bike and let the car sit. :)

26) Favorite band to listen to when you're mad? – Ministry. YOU'VE RUN OUT OF LIES!!!

27) What's your favorite place to hang out at? – Erin's house. :D

28) Do you believe in ghosts? – Yes, I do.

29) Favorite thing to do in your spare time? – Spare time? What's that?!?

30) Do you swear a lot? – Amber thinks I do. ;P

31) Biggest pet peeve? – Knee-jerk people that fail to do research and fail to engage brain before engaging mouth.

32) In one word, how would you describe yourself? - Encumbered.

33) Do you believe/appreciate romance? – I believe in it, but sometimes wouldn't recognize it if it bit me in the tush. Ask Melissa.

34) Favourite and least favourite food? –Favorite: warm French bread; omigosh, I could eat a whole loaf without thinking about it. Least favorite: sauerkraut; BLEECH, even the look of it gives me the willies.

35) Do you believe in God? – Our Father in Heaven, Elohim, the one who created us, then created this planet upon which we try ourselves, and has prepared an eternal reward greater than anything we can imagine? THAT God? Why yes, yes I do. :D

36) Will you repost this so I can fill it out and do the same for you? – Looks like I just did, knock yerself out. :)

So why are you changing jobs?

2008-10-11T07:16:00.000-05:00

Subtitle: Globalization Hits Home

You've probably heard of this poem before; if not, its history can be found here.

"When the Nazis came for the communists,
I remained silent;
I was not a communist.

When they locked up the social democrats,
I remained silent;
I was not a social democrat.

When they came for the trade unionists,
I did not speak out;
I was not a trade unionist.

When they came for the Jews,
I remained silent;
I wasn't a Jew.

When they came for me,
there was no one left to speak out."

For years, IT companies have been sending jobs overseas. In the case of my current employer, they go to India. Now, management has been careful to tell us that they'd never send away our precious jobs, because they could never replace our precious skill set. I've never really bought it, but didn't really complain because it wasn't hitting home.

Well, BAM! It hit home this week. In our team meeting this past Thursday, we were all informed that our biggest customer is moving their equipment out of our data center, and into a data center where they can be supported by systems administrators from India. The team will be onsite next month to cross-train. Now, once again, I have been assured that MY job is safe, but there are others in my own team that will not be safe. One of our most outspoken UNIX admins even went so far as to blurt out, "So, do you want me to quit NOW?!?" Amen sister.

You know, in a way it's funny. I've been job-hunting for about three months now, and I've struggled to answer the question every potential employer asks when they look at my resume: "You've been at your current employer for a long time (16 years), why are you leaving now?" Now, I've got a really good answer.

Severe disappointment alert

2008-10-08T09:39:00.000-05:00

Those of you that know me, or have read this before, know that I've been job hunting for a while now. Recently, I had been working for some time for a position in San Diego. I grew up in Orange County, so San Diego was a VERY enticing destination, even without e-family there. ;)

I had had an initial interview that went fairly well, but then had not heard anything for two weeks. Yesterday, out of the blue, I got a call from the HR person asking to set up a technical interview for this morning. He even went so far as to confess that he had offered the position to another person who had turned them down. Weird, but their loss was my gain, so yay!

Apologies to those non-techies reading this, but I think you'll get the gist without knowing all the gritty details. It's just extra flavor to those that are technical.

First, the technical contact calls two hours late, so I'm already on edge. Then he fires some questions at me related to command-line tools that I don't use, and was therefore unfamiliar. He asked me some Active Directory questions, which I think I was able to answer sufficiently. He asked me if I do some scripting, and then asked me a couple of questions that I couldn't answer, because I haven't managed to remember every possible WMI service provider.

When I write a VBscript, I spend a lot of time on MSDN looking up specific service providers so I get the verbiage right. I don't memorize all that. That would be like asking Amber to figure out possible interactions with two prescriptions without using any reference material.

Anyway, after 20 minutes, he was done, I was gutted, and I just knew that I wasn't getting the job. A call back to the recruiter 30 minutes later confirmed as much.

From now on though, I'm keeping my trap shut about the whats and wheres of my job serch henceforth, until the new job is located. It's too hard dealing with this garbage with just my family, without dragging the e-fam into this as well. :(

And since I had teased Todd about it, the job was supporting the game servers running Windows for Sony Online Entertainment. Argh! How much geek love would that have been?!?

And since I did some quick Google'ing after the interview:

You change an IP address from the command prompt by typing 'netsh interface ip set address [network name] [IP address] [subnet mask] [default gateway] [metric]'.
You stop a service on a remote system by typing 'sc \\[computer] stop [service]'.
The process ID would be found by returning the ProcessId value from WMI provider Win32_Process and searching on the Name value.
And you replace text using Replace([text file],[old text],[new text])
DUH!

:((

San Antonio update

2008-09-25T16:10:00.000-05:00

Short answer: nope.

Longer answer: I got an e-mail today from the recruiter there, thanking me for my patience. They felt I was a low-to-mid Level 2 sysadmin, which I suppose is fair. I have loads of experience is some things, but things most sysadmins work on constantly, like SQL Server or Exchange, I've barely touched. And I'm rusty as all get out on IIS. Anyway, they were looking for a high Level 2, so I didn't really fit what they were looking for, but would keep me in mind for something a bit lower on the food chain.

On the bright side, I did get a trip to San Antonio out of the deal, got some face-to-face interviewing experience, and have a clearer picture of my strengths and weaknesses.

Plus, I had three good interviews for other jobs. One is local, the other two are in San Diego and Pasadena. I would have greatly enjoyed San Antonio, but San Diego ... wow! :)

No more e-life tonight

2008-09-23T16:44:00.000-05:00

Well, our son Morgan was cutting the grass in our backyard and found the exposed "precious cable TV cable" with the blade, nalling it good. Of course, never mind that I told him that he could use the mower only when I was outside to watch him with the riding mower. And never mind that he's so broken up about it that he immediately ran downstairs to play Rock Band. Grrrr

So, no internet at home. I'm over at the in-laws' house on their wireless typing this.

1) I've cooled off enough now that I don't want to kill him, but it was touch and go there for a bit.
2) I get to work from the in-laws' all day tomorrow, which is always such a joy.
3) The cable guy is due between 5 and 7 tomorrow, and who knows how much this will cost.

Can I go back to Monolith NOW? Please?!? :(

See y'all tomorrow.

MOGolith 2008 is in da house!

2008-09-13T08:53:00.000-05:00

Just stopping in for a quick "Hi!" before heading out the door for the Monolith Festival.

The crew is Lizzie, Amber and Dan, Mike and his wife Heather, Mike Zero, Erin, Sam, and myself. We all got together last night with a fantastic barbecue at Erin's house; she was a wonderfully attentive host. Sam joined us with the MOGochellalith guitar (Courtnet Mae) which we all signed. Mixes and hugs were exchanged. There's a rumor that Sam and I danced slowly, but that's all it is, a rumor, with no basis in reality (until the pix come out).

Much love everyone, wish you were all here. :)

San Antonio

2008-09-03T17:43:00.000-05:00

Not that big a secret, but I've been job-hunting for about two months now. It's been a long hard slog, much like having a second job, really. Sometimes, when I'm getting callbacks and interviews, it's very gratifying. Makes you feel worthwhile, ya know? Then there are the times when you get loads of e-mails saying "Thanks but no thanks" or when you bomb an interview. That stinks, no two ways about it.

Why change now? Getting no raise two years running, while getting more and more work, but only in a limited technical scope. So I'm struggling more and more to pay bills, but my skills are eroding. Nice combo. And the trinkets they keep sending me are nice but not enough.

So, here I sit. For the first time in my life, I've been flown to a remote location to interview for a job. To be honest, I hadn't thought that I did well on the initial phone interview. I found myself hitting Google pretty heavily to brush up on questions they had asked. Then last week, they offered to fly me out to their site in San Antonio for a face-to-face interview. Oh joy!

I promise there will be more information as things happen, but right now I'm looking forward to chilling on one of the TWO queen-size beds in my hotel room, taking advantage of their high-speed Internet, and blasting Burial.

PS: I'm still trying to find someplace close to the e-fam, but if this comes through, at a good salary, I'm taking it. Appreciation FTW!

A to Z thingy - yoink'd from Rhonda

2008-08-29T18:16:00.000-05:00

A is for age: 39. Geez Louise, I'm old.
B is for beer choice: IBC root beer, although I've pretty well avoided soda with the diet.
C is for career right now: Ready for a long-overdue change. More details as they become available.
D is for your dog's name: Nut. because she's nut brown and clearly insane.
E is for essential item you use everyday: Laptop baby!
F is for your favorite TV show at the moment: Good Eats, don't watch much else.
G is for favorite game: Neverwinter Nights
H is for hometown: San Juan Capistrano, CA, where the swallows return every spring.
I is for instrument you play: Bass guitar
J is for favorite juice: Cranberry
K is for whose butt you'd like to kick: My current boss, waiting for the change of career mentioned above.
L is for the last place you ate: Village Inn, just got back from having some pie there. Yum.
M is for marriage: Sixteen terrific years. :D
N is for your name: Dale
O is for overnight hospital stays: One, for a sleep study that found that I had sleep apnea. The weight loss made that go away, yay!
P is for people you were with today: Wife, kids. That's it, don't get out much.
Q is for quote: "When an individual is motivated by great and powerful convictions of truth, then he disciplines himself not because of demands made by the Church, but because of the knowledge within his heart" - Gordon B. Hinckley, 1910-2008 RIP
R is for biggest regret: Letting myself get so fat, and not finishing my Bachelor's degree.
S is for status: Blazing, according to MOG.
T is for time you woke up today: Six o'clock. ugh.
U is for underwear you have on now: My temple garments.
V is for vegetable you love: Onion, sauteed in EVOO with kosher salt and pepper.
W is for worst habit: Staying awake far too long when I don't have to work.
X is for x-rays you've had taken: Teeth.
Y is for yummy food you ate today: Carne asada burrito, and the afore-mentioned Village Inn pie.
Z is for zodiac sign: Leo-Cancer cusp.

Just asking ...

2008-08-04T09:23:00.000-05:00

Anyone know anyone that wants a spare ticket to Monolith Festival Saturday, 9/13? I can no longer afford to make the trip.
Ticket and fees came to $75, that's all I want back for it.
Sorry guys, I really really wanted to make it but it just can't happen.
:(((

Gigabeat RIP 02/22/2007 - 07/22/2008

2008-07-23T20:27:00.000-05:00

I posted this as a comment on Lizzie's MOG post, but though you might all want to know. I mean, sheesh! Seventeen months! I've had friendships last monger than that!

Tuesday night, I was getting ready to work out at the local YMCA, and was changing clothes, when I reached for the Gigabeat and its case. Alas, I had failed to zip up the case, because I jerked it out of my bag, and the Gigabeat flew out of the case and crashed to the floor. I ran over to retrieve it, and saw that the shell had flown open, and the LCD had stuck out. I gently put it back together and turned it back on. The LCD failed to start, but the player worked enough that it would play my current playlist.

I took it home, put it under some lights, and tried to do as much surgery as I could, but nothing worked. It boots, all the data remains thereon, but no screen so I can't change what's playing.

I've been looking around on eBay all night, but the Gigabeat model I had is fairly old now, and not readily available. I'm even considering the leap to a same-size (gulp) iPod.

There IS some good music out there!

2008-07-02T14:09:00.000-05:00

It's fun to note the people make the "what the heck?" music out on MOG, but it's refreshing to note that there are a few good people making great music and posting it on MOG.

Note: I'm not counting Ben Gibbard or ?uestLove or the like, that haven't posted in ages.

Check these out!

Our boy Henry, of course: Indio.

Erik of Denver shoegaze band A Shoreline Dream: neverChanger

Marcel of LA atmospherics Black Kites: Paper Heart

Colin Sheridan and Kaitlyn Ni Donovan of Portland dreamers The High Violets: Love Is Blinding
(Yes, it's my post, they don't post much. Yes, I'm cheating :P)

Look, I'm not gonna BS you and tell you that I've listened to every song every MOGger posts, but just wanted to show that there is something good still out there. So go on, click a red button, that song might be your life, to paraphrase. :)

Got a joke for you ...

2008-06-28T19:26:00.000-05:00

What's the difference between a good Latter-Day Saint* and a bad one?

Give up?

The temperature of the caffeine they drink!

Har de har har.

(Feel free to insert "Mormon" here)

Drama on the high seas - Girls Camp Day 4

2008-06-26T20:08:00.000-05:00

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I wonder if I've driven everyone away by these, because I can't imagine these posts being interesting for anyone but me. If you have read all four of these the whole way through, you deserve a big gold star.

It's a natural fact that when you put 100 women in a cramped location, that drama will happen. Us men are normally (aside from Gale our fearless leader) just not privy to all of it. This day, I got a faceful, and lived to tell the tale.

I arose at 7AM to the sound of a woman in tears. Usually, our quarters are off-limits to the womenfolk, but since we had the sweet digs, including a nice little kitchen table (and did I mention the AC?), our cabin had become home to a few meetings, and sometimes just a nice hideout for the camp leaders to get out of the way and get things done. No worries, but crying meant something bad. I dressed quickly and came out to see what was going on, and found the camp leader telling Gale how another woman had usurped her authority and changed things out from under her. With only one full day of camp left, we offered the best advice we had: continue to serve the girls, and try your best to not let them notice what's going on.

After she left, Gale and I talked it out for a bit, and we figured out that the two leaders had been butting heads for weeks, and it had carried over to camp. The meetings every evening where we correlate the enxt day's activities were not happening, so people weren't on the same page. Thankfully, I don't think most of the girls noticed, but we realized that the contention between the two leaders was most likely the source of the "dark vision" that Gale had before camp. Alas, there was nothing more to do but get back to work, so after a quick shower and breakfast, it was off to the races.

Today's big feature was a canoe trip across the lake for the fifth-year and older girls, something we've never let them do before. To pepare, we set out all 11 canoes, and cleaned them of spiderwebs and mayfly nests. I was expected to give a brief talk, so I placed my scriptures in a plastic bag and stuffed them into my backpack, along with sunblock and bug spray. We got the girls loaded into the canoes and sent them off, after giving them directions. I stayed back, and one of the leaders and I waited to make sure the girls were headed in the right direction.

Have you ever met someone that just thrives on drama, that actively seeks it everywhere she goes? We had one of the at camp. Let's call her Emily. She's in her sixth year, and she's been at the center of drama every year I've seen her. I can't imagine living that way, but that's just me. Anyway, since she's not an especially strong swimmer, we placed her in the middle of a canoe with two good swimmers, and sent them off. Sure enough, their canoe zigzags across the lake, with us slowly trailing them. I tried to give them advice, but it just wasn't working. They made it to the other side, all the while complaining that their canoe was cursed. Uh-huh.

Melissa and her helpers in the kitchen had set out a nice fancy lunch (crab salad on croissants, ooh la la), and after lunch I gave my talk. I wish it had gone better; I spoke about Rebekah at the well, and from the few words written about her (Genesis 24), some of her characteristics. I got so nervous that I failed to conclude the talk properly; I had wanted to show them that if they prepared themselves properly, that the right man would come to them, that they didn't need to worry about chasing down the right man. Not terible, but it could have been so much better.

After that, it was back out to the canoes for the trip back. One pair needed to use the ladies' room, and didn't want to squat in a bush, so they made a vapor trail to the other side of the lake; I had to haul tail just to make sure I could see them as they turned around an island in the lake. And predictably, Emily's canoe once again fell behind, as they just seemed unable to keep the canoe going straight. I tried to instruct them again, going so far as to tell them, "Paddle left! Paddle right!", but to no avail. At about the midway point, Emily reached the end of her tether, started screaming about how frustrated she was, and stopped paddling, along with the rest of the canoers. We paddled over to them, grabbed the rope at the front of their canoe, I tied it around me, and pulled them in. As we neared the shore, I heard Emily say, "We should probably help, huh?" to which I thought, "Please don't help." Hehehehe. We then pulled the canoes back onto the shore and returned to camp.

Next up for the campers were skits. In previous years, they were elaborately prepared, but this year each cabin was given a bag of props and asked to come up with something in one hour. The men's skits used to be pretty lame, but since Jim and I (both natural hams) showed up, things have gotten much better. We took our bag and managed, in one hour, to cobble together something based loosely on "The Wizard of Oz" that I wish I could find on YouTube, because it really was funny. The girls' skits were good too, although the girls often forgot to E-NUN-CI-ATE and talk to the audience. Good times were had by all.

Dinner was pizza, which led to the most unexpected beat-down I got all week. I was casually eating my salad and pizza, and decided that I was going to need a third slice, as I had a long night of tearing down canopies in my future. I had no sooner sat down with that third slice (and a mess of green beans), when I hear "ARE YOU CHEATING?!?" to my left. Stunned, I look over and see Maddie, a third-year girl who'd said maybe three words to me in her previous time, Staring me down. I had no idea how seriously the girls took my diet, sheesh! Feeling a bit guilty, I explained that I would be doing a lot more work that day, and it was just a small slice of Hawaiian pizza, and could I please have it, with puppy eyes and everything. That smoothed things over. ;)

After that, it was off to tear down canopies and put away the canoes, oh joy. The work was only interrupted by a detour to put on all my black (I'm a ninja!) and get to shoot a Nerf arrow at the leaders, who then got to attack me and beat me down. I didn't get to stick around and see the purpose of the thing, but I'm sure they tied it in nicely.

One final thing: we finally got to relax with a late-night swim at the pool with all of the adult and girl leaders, followed by letting the girls raid the fridge and stay up late and goof off for a while. Good times. There's no way anyone got to sleep before 2AM.

Oh, and here's day 5 in a nutshell: we cleaned up, got on the bus, and made it straight home. Yay!

Ah, a good night

2008-06-26T18:37:00.000-05:00

I had planned to take the two youngest boys out to the YMCA so they could swim and I could go run, but there they were, sitting on our bed watching our DVD of "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory", looking so darn cute together, that I just didn't feel like sharing them

So we hung out together. I made us pizzas; heavy on the cheese and pepperoni for them, light on the cheese but HEAVY on the sauteed onions for me. We then squatted on the bed and watched DVD's with a bowl of Sour Patch Kids for dessert. Our choices? Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Matilda, and Big Fish. Mmm, Mara Wilson sandwiched by Tim Burton. That's how we get down. :)

Leave me alone, I'm cookin' chicken - Girls Camp Day 3

2008-06-25T12:17:00.001-05:00

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Fair warning: this is not near the fun read the others were, because for me his was not a fun day. Well, let's get to it.

My alarm woke me at 5:30 this morning, although I had no reason to wake up at that hour. I tried to get back to sleep, but only slept in fits and starts until 7, when I had to wake up. At this point, I should have realized that this would not be my day.

After a quick breakfast, it was time to set up for the big activity of the day, a small Renaissance Faire on the camp grounds. We had rented a jumping castle, dunk tank, and inflatible climbing pyramid, all of which needed to be set up and staffed. In addition, there were photo booths, jousting suits, and stations for making daisy chains. Lunch this day would also consist of chicken drumsticks, as opposed to the traditional turkey legs, so girlls needed to be staffed and about 150 drumsticks needed to be grilled.

Before camp had started, I had been asked to sit in the dunk tank. Early in the morning, this didn't look so fun, but by 10AM, the sun was shining bright and warm, and the water looked inviting. I went and changed into swim clothes, but all the other men had been asked to man the climbing pyramid, so I was handed charcoal and asked to grill the chicken.

Let me stop here and declare that I love to cook, it's one of my favorite hobbies. Ask the Coachella gang if you don't believe that. However, my least favorite method of cooking is grilling. Yes, I assure you that I'm actually a red-blooded American male, but my Y chromosome must be slightly malformed. Anyway ...

So away I went, to grill and grill and grill. While the other adults got to interact with the girls, get wet in the dunk tank, and do whatever else. I grilled. For four hours. That entire time, I was either wrestling with coals, grabbing bags of drumsticks from the kitchen, or delivering the finished drumsticks to the oven to make sure they weren't bloody. Or singeing my arm hairs reaching across the grill to flip the legs. I tried to put on a happy face when people asked me how it was going, but I'm pretty sure I failed miserably.

Next up, I had been asked to teach the third-year campers how to navigate using a compass. It's become a tradition, something I've done for four years of camp, and I enjoy it greatly. Part of the process is teaching the girls how to calculate their pace by having them walk 50 feet and divide by the number of steps. The previous night, I had placed two rebar poles out to mark the beginning and end of the course. As I took the first group to the starting point, I saw that they had been removed. I asked if anyone knew what had happened to them, and found out that an adult had been driving along in a golf cart and scratched her leg by brushing one of them. She found them and threw them away in a rage. So, there's that mystery explained. I ran and found my tape measure and we made do, but the first group was put off at that point. Several of them whined their way through the (short and simple) orienteering couse, and I got them through it as fast as possible, just to be done with them. Thank goodness, the second group actually enjoyed the process, and we laughed and joked through the entire course.

Next, it was off to the waterfront for canoeing. Usually, this is very well-attended, but this year, the third-year girls were taken to go tubing at an adjoining lake, and that made the canoeing lose a lot of its luster. In previous years, I've had six or seven canoes in the water at a time. This year, three sufficed.. I finally got to play in the water, at least, as I helped the girls get in and out of the canoes and watched to make sure they didn't get too far away. After two enjoyable hours, it was time to head back to camp, so I put away the three canoes and made sure everything was cleaned up before heading back.

Dinner was short, as I needed to help tear down everything from the Renaissance Faire and get it stowed away. Frankly, I don't really remember the rest of teh day, which is just as well. I was essentially shoved off to bed at 10PM by Gale, which figured out that I had reached the end of my tether. After a few blissful minutes of music, I was long gone, but not before fixing the alarm so it would wake me at a much more proper 7AM.