creeping up on ya

Just to make you feel old.

and the horse you rode in on...

It's been a busy past couple of days... I built a computer for Ruben so he will have something nice for the school year. In return he has promised to send Deb and I email at least 3 times a week. I figure that will last about a week, and then we'll be lucky to get mail from him once a month. It's ok though. I'll know where he lives.:)

The Indian restaurant up the street has a stuffed horse on display. Ruben couldn't help himself.. he had to ride the horse around the place. It was quite funny. He looks to be about 10 in the picture, but he's actually 15. 16 next month!

More later, continuing my upgrade to XP and hoping that my computer runs better now.

Blogger ROCKS! Revisited...

Hi Jester,

I've gone ahead and upgraded your blog to a 100-meg ftp account, here's the info:

[Secret Stuff Deleted]

I also upgraded it to BloggerPro, which has some nice features that free Blogger doesn't have (email to blog, rss feed, etc.). More details are in our knowledge base: http://help.blogger.com/

Thanks for your patience with this, and let us know if you need any further assistance!
-Eric

Again I say, That Rocks. Great customer service and a great tool. I highly recommend BLOGGER!

The Daily Blog

Well, I decided to take Blogger up on their offer to move the blog to their server to abolish all the silly publication errors I was having. I think I"ll find a new webhost when my contract renews in October. I'm just not so happy with Siteturn anymore. We'll have to see. Anyway.. so here we are at the new site. I have a few bugs to work out, and will have to correct any image errors that have occured as a result of the change. When the account is upgraded, I should be able to get my "what's hot" section working again. (It's blank at the moment.)

More later!

The Zoo

Unclemonkeyboi and I took Ruben to the San Francisco Zoo yesterday to celebrate Swampie's birthday. Had a great time as neither UMB or Ruben had been before, and everything was cool to them. The new monkey exhibit is really nice, and definitely check out the Lemur Island.

Afterwards, we went back to the Fitzgerald Marine Reserve to check out the tidepools. The tide was still pretty high when we got there, so we did some cliff climbing and exploring until the tide went out enough we could search for starfish. We didn't manage to find any.

Oh well.

It's been great having Ruben around. I almost feel like a dad. I took him back to school shopping over the weekend and everything. He called his mom today and got permission to stay here longer, and I'll be driving him back home to Oregon over Labor Day weekend. That should be fun.

More later...

Significant Events Report August 15, 2003

Finally got this report at work finished. Check it out for the robotics article, if nothing else. Those kids are great! Read the report here:
Significant Events Report August 15, 2003

Back to work...

Photo Album

I've spent several hours working on my website tonight. I start school next week, and I know that I will not get as much time to work on it during the semester. That being said, I added like six new pages to the Photo Album.

Have a look. There will be more coming. I plan to spend a lot of time on the site this weekend, tweaking and adding new pages.

Off to sleep. I have websites to create at work tomorrow.

Maybe Christian (student at work) was right today when he said I need a life. :-)

blogger rocks

Ok... I know I've commented a couple of times about problems with Blogger publishing. I sent email to customer support, and even though I'm currently a free blogger user, I got a fairly quick response, and discovered that there was a somewhat simple fix to alleviate publication problems. (For the geeks reading, I had to change my host server's FTP commands to Passive) I was even offered a complimentary upgrade to blog*spot plus. I haven't had any problems tonight, and I've made about a million changes to the blog. I've got my hot links working in separate blog files (incidentally, if you click on and *buy* the item listed at left, I get some dough... and that would be super neat of you to do so...) and it looks great!

So YAY for good customer service, and a great product. Kudos! Brava! Etc etc.

Want your own blog? Get it here.

Speaking Freely

Well, hopefully by the time this gets published (what's up with the blogger not publishing!?!?) the comments capability will be operational. Now you can read and talk back to me. I know, I'm asking for trouble.

Click on the plus sign and you can tell me what's on your mind.

I'll be waiting patiently for your response.


I'm holding my breath now...

not the only one

I don't feel like such a moron now...
Computer Infection Snarls Global Networks.

Summer Vacation

Although it's been what... 11 years since high school. I still haven't gotten over the fact that I don't get summers off. I think it should be mandatory that everyone gets their summers off to go swimming, go to the beach, just hang out with your friends and not have any responsibility. All landlords stop charging rent, banks don't require repayment, utilities are free...

I think I'm on to something here. A three-month long siesta! I wonder how much more productive we would be during the other nine months of the year, knowing we had the vacation to look forward to.

*sigh* It's been one of those days...

W32.Blaster.Worm

AAArgh! I finally figured out what is wrong with my computer... (I still need a new one, but that's beside the point.) It's this stupid Blaster Worm. It infects your computer automatically, doesn't require you to open an email to get it. It then messes with all your settings, won't let you update windows, and crashes the machine. Here's some info and a fix for it. (You can see if you're infected by checking your running processes and looking for 'msblast.exe.'

Get the removal tool here:Symantec Security Response - W32.Blaster.Worm.

wonders of technology

Oy, I need a new computer. This piece of shit is going to drive me insane. I need something that is powerful enough to handle 3DStudio Max, with a decent enough sound card to run my Cakewalk projects and connect to my Korg. Unfortunately I'm dead flat assed broke this month. And I still have to buy books for class! :(

I don't ask for much, but 10,000 bucks would fix everything. Anyone have a spare 10 grand lying around? No? *sigh*


I'm off to bed. If I'm lucky, the sun will forget to rise in a few hours.

wonders never cease

I've been trying to write something on this blog regularly, but I'm pretty discouraged to discover that for some reason Blogger is having trouble with the publishing end of things. So I haven't written much lately. I'm hoping that they get things figured out soon, so I can get the hang of this.

tide pools

Went to the The Fitzgerald Marine Reserve today. What a cool place... a ton of tide pools, starfish, hermit crabs, and all kinds of creatures. If you're in the area, check it out.

The Tilden Park Adventure

Yesterday, my group at work had their annual picnic in Tilden Park, and I managed to avoid seriously injuring myself this year, thank you very much. I did get a bit of sunburn while cooking, but that's nothing compared to the 2nd degree ankle sprain last year, that involved much physical therapy and walking with a cane for 3 months...

At any rate, after the picnic, UncleMonkeyBoi and I decided to go for a hike in the ravine behind the picnic site. There's a pretty creek running through the area, and we were hoping to find some salamanders or other amphbians or reptiles hanging out. We managed to find a couple dozen California Newts (Taricha torosa) swimming and crawling along the bank of the creek. We didn't find any other species, which I found a bit strange, considering the prime habitat.

Well, when I say we didn't find any other species, I meant of amphibians or reptiles.... at the end of our hike, while crossing under a large bridge, I saw what appeared to be a naked man. UMB was a few yards ahead of me, and he confirmed, yes, it is a naked man... and he's not alone. We had managed to stumble upon a couple of guys getting it on in the woods.

Now, I think there's a bit of a voyeur in everyone... and I'm no prude by any means. I was enjoying the show for the first minute or two. The whole scene was kind of funny and observing people when they don't know you're there, makes it exciting. However, the man who was in the best 'position' to see us, spotted us. And I know he was enjoying the idea of the hikers stumbling into his little 'after work, don't tell the missus' tryst in the woods. But it became a bit creepy to me once he began making eye contact with UMB and me. We were no longer observing the situation, we had become participants in the fantasy, and I didn't want that. So I motioned to UMB to follow me, and we headed back down the hill toward the car.

We saw the guys leave in separate SUV's, presumably back to their mid-forties, mortgage, wives, car notes, and kids. I realize it's completely possible the two were unmarried and even possibly a couple that thought it would be fun to meet up after work at the park. But I think my take on the story is much more interesting.

The very act of observation changes that which is being observed....

Cool stuff...

Check out this pretty cool art and flash animation site: ARSE i Am.

Bravo!

Ok, I'll admit.. it's a bit mean, but SPECTACULAR to see real live gay men on tv!!! I'm talking of course about Boy Meets Boy and Queer Eye for the Straight Guy. So far, my gaydar has been dead on with the guys from BMB. I am making my prediction that Franklin and Wes are straight. Sean is questionable... I think he's gay, but he could just be one of those strange straight guys who give the vibe. I'm putting my money on either Matthew or Robb for the grand winner. Bon Voyage, enjoy your trip to New Zealand.

Queer Eye is just great. RobinEggBlue says I'm like Thom the decorator. He is of course just like Carson. ... only prettier. ;) It's kind of funny.. if I were to pick which one I thought was most like me it would have to be a cross between Kyan the grooming guy, and Ted, the food and wine guy.

I wish I were like Elvis Costello.

in defense of the 'f' word

I love The Smoking Gun. Leave it to them to find a legal brief that is amusing, sarcastic, and down right brilliant. Check it out at
The "F" Word.