Happy Halloween

Check out the Halloween Safety Tips that are floating around from Wil Wheaton and the guys at Fark.

Have a great night!

Boulders Golf Center - San Leandro California

I have been so busy lately, that blogging hasn't been a huge priority. I'm working on my latest contract job:

Boulders Golf Center - San Leandro California

There will be more pages to come in the near future.. if you're in the area, check it out... It's a great place. We're working with them to get some fund raisers going for the robotics program that I volunteer with. Hopefully it will work out just fine!

Off to bed. I'm tiiiiiiired. ;)

the art of steve walker

A couple of weeks ago, I was at the Castro Street Fair and noticed a booth containing prints by one of my favorite artists,
Steve Walker. I have several prints of his around my house (truth be told, they are cut out of a calendar, matted and framed... hey, I'd love to be able to spend 80 bucks on every picture, but I can't..), but as I got closer to the booth, I realized that Steve himself was in attendance. Robineggblue made the very good point that you should really support the artists that bring you joy or that you really admire. So I bought a print and Steve signed it.

I'm so glad I did it. It got a small scratch on it (almost invisible) when Unclemonkeyboi was framing it, nevertheless, it's a great thing to have.

Support your local artists.

Boing Boing: A Directory of Wonderful Things

Boing Boing: A Directory of Wonderful Things

Great site.

Jester's Resume

I told you I'd get around to posting this: Jester's Resume.

Got a job to offer? Need a contract Web Designer?

Reasonable rates....

time warp

I can't believe it's been a week since I posted last. My friend Mouth arrived in town on Thursday last week, and I've been on the go ever since, trying to get her set up with a place to live and a job.

I got my term paper back tonight. I got an A. Yay for me.

Recent shake ups at work have me worried that my job isn't very secure at the moment. I have put a lot of effort into getting my resume updated and I'll try to post it online tomorrow. Sent it out in pursuit of some contract web design work. I hope I can get something going.

until next time campers....

the worst day. ever.

It started out with Unclemonkeyboi running somewhat late for work. I offered to drive him to BART if he waited for me to take a shower. We left the house and headed for the gas station to fill up my car. I had apparently been MUCH closer to being out of gas than I thought, because we got less than half a block when the car died. After many starts and gooses and pushes from UMB, I finally got to the block where the station sits. They wouldn't loan me a gas can, so I had to pay 15 bucks for one (out of the 30 total I had to my name...) and carried the gas to the car. I managed to spill a lot of it on my while filling the car up enough to get to the station.

Finally on the road with less than 15 minutes to get UMB to work... I had given up on dropping him off at BART, he was going to be late as it was... I realized on the way that I hadn't voted in today's recall election. So I stepped on the gas, making UMB very nervous.

After dropping him off (a couple minutes late) I headed back to my polling place by the house. There, they couldn't find my name in the registrar book. So I had to fill out 3 forms explained in great detail by a woman who must have been older than Noah. Cast my ballot, only to be told that I just spent 45 minutes voting, and my vote may not count if they can't find my original registration information. Honestly.. I just got called for Jury Duty, surely they have my registration information somewhere!

So I'm now hopelessly behind schedule for the day... and decide to stop at McDonald's for a sandwich on the way to work. The moron in front of me was apparently paying for his 23.00 order in pennies and it took 15 minutes to get my food. As I pulled up to the window, the girl leans out and dumps my Mr. Pibb in my lap. This required me to go home AGAIN to change clothes.

I FINALLY get to work in time for the meeting that was planned to discuss my future in the division in light of the recent managerial changes... only to get no real answers except that there is a very good chance that I will have to report to a different supervisor. This sucks.

SO then I get work on the term paper that was due for my anthropology class tonight... on whether or not the belief in UFOs can be viewed as a religion. I end up having all sorts of problems printing it out... finally after 2 reboots get it to print... rush off to get stuck in traffic on the way, and ended up being over a half hour late for class. Have I mentioned that I had other homework due that I didn't even start?

Some where in the middle of all of this, my parents called to tell me that they lost their court case, and are now going to be held responsible for all the medical bills associated with a car accident they were involved in 3 or 4 years ago.

And.... the news of the day is that Schwarzenegger is now the governor.

I hope I go to bed tonight and wake up in Canada.

The Herps are here

I've got my herps page up on the photo album now. There are a few more that need to be photographed, but it's quite a chore. *You* try to get two house geckos and a Western Fence Lizard to sit still long enough to get a good picture of them!!! It's not easy I tell you.

My house has been taken over by the cold-blooded creatures. Not to mention the crickets, mealworms, waxworms, feeder fish and other assorted prey items that we keep around.

By the way, I'm looking for a male quadricornis chameleon if anyone knows where I can find one drop me a line...

The Infamous Rat Story...

For those that have never heard about it, or maybe are just reading my site for the first time, I'll preface this story by saying that this was written a couple of years ago, when I was taking night classes in San Francisco and working during the day full time. On the night in question, I had had a particulary rough day, and wanted nothing more than a bite to eat and to go to bed. As you'll see in the email I was sending to Swampie, it didn't work out quite that way...

So I drive home at 12:30...I step in the house and put some leftover pizza in the microwave... lunch was 12 hours earlier.:P Celeste comes out of her room and informs me that she discovered a RAT in her closet earlier this evening... and it was really bothering her. (not that I blame her, but it was quite amusing) Apparently the stupid thing chewed a hole in the panel giving access to the attic and dropped down onto the shelf and couldn't get down or back up.

So while I'm checking out the access panel and determining that yes, that's where the rat came in, it appears on the upper shelf, causing Celeste to scream.

Armed with a broom and standing on a chair, I am seeking to shoo the rat out of the closet and hopefully out the front door. The rat does some amazing acrobatics, and does a bannister slide down the arm of one of Celeste's jackets, and is now buried in the mess of shoes and crap in the bottom of Celeste's closet.

One must now give pause to ask a very pertinent question.... just where oh where are the trusty children at this point? My ferocious tiger, leopard, and fierce wolf? Answer: The fierce wolf and Celeste are doing that protection shuffle... everytime Celeste would put the dog between her and the closet, Echo would get behind her legs and peer out. This lasted until i suggested that Celeste stand at the ready with the broom to push the rat into the hall as I attempted to scare the rat out of the closet...that was when Celeste decided she couldn't possibly stand on the floor.. and was perched on the futon where the dog couldn't get behind her. Prince came into the room just in time to see the rat make another frantic acrobatic manuever (still in the closet)... Prince's feet didn't touch the floor for at least 4 full steps as he made a retreat into the safety of the hallway. Zipper meanwhile got one whiff of the commotion and found someplace (no doubt HIGH off the ground) to observe. She appeared about an hour after the whole thing was over.

So if you haven't gotten a mental image yet... I'm wedged in the back corner of the closet testing each shoe for rats before tossing it in to the middle of the room. Celeste is standing on the futon tenaciously hanging on to the broom... god help the rat if she actually got a chance to swing at it... god help ME if I were within broom-range. I spook the rat who runs straight at me and then across my leg, to the little space between the sliding doors on the closet. The shoe box, that I was hoping to catch the thing in didn't move quite fast enough.:P So as I'm shining a flashlight between the doors, watching this rat run up and down the HEIGHT of the doors... (vertically), Echo, the fearless, fierce hunter that she is, suddenly realizes that there is something going on.... not only is something going on, but it's going on RIGHT WHERE I AM... so now I have a VERY excited Jack Russell Terrier doing handsprings over my head and circling the door. The rat is unfazed... it's just sitting between the doors waiting for something interesting to happen.

Now, I'm still wedged into the back corner of the closet with a flashlight trained on this stupid rat who has now caused me over 20 minutes of grief. Celeste retrieved the blow dart gun from her shelf... which is only equipped with STUN darts, unfortunately.. but I'm doing my best to hold a flashlight in the crack of the doors and aim this blowgun, I guess in hopes of STUNning the rat, while the dog is basically in hysterics. Prince, by the way, is now curled up on the other end of the futon, watching us with that little smirk on his face... you know the one I mean... the one that makes me feel like my name should be Jon Arbuckle, and I'm dumber than Odie.

So I'm smacking this rat with stun darts, which is not only NOT stunning the rat, but could perhaps actually be just slightly annoying him. I could tell it was a him by this point... we have become quite acquainted, as he's facing away from me. In a last minute desperate act, I swipe the dangerous weapon from Celeste's hands (the broom) and manage to spread the space between the doors enough to insert the handle and poke the rat... This of course sends the rat and the dog, who is now barking, into equal amounts of frenzy. The rat leaps out of the space between the doors from about 3' up, directly towards Celeste who screeches, and the dog hurdles me and makes her way over to where the rat landed. The next minute or so is kinda blurry, as I'm now laughing so hard I can't see straight... what I do recall is the dog chasing the rat under the futon under a cat who has suddenly found himself between a excessively excited dog, and a terrified rat... needless to say, Prince made the right decision and moved very quickly out of the way. There was a rather umm.. meaty... crunching sound.. and the dog had a new item to play catch with... except now... as she goes running down the hall way, Celeste and I are chasing her and telling her to drop it, in hopes that it isn't being eaten in front of us, or worse yet, bleeding all over the floor. I managed to persuade Echo to take it outside where I got her to drop the now dead rat. I got a bag and put the corpse in it... and wheeled the trash out to the dumpster.. the dog however is now even more hysterical, because she knows that there was something there.. and now she can't find it... she's retracing her steps from the door to the spot where she dropped it... over and over and over...

I get out to the dumpster with the shopping cart that we use as the trash wagon... just as I throw the bag containing the dead rat into the dumpster a small brown kitten flies out from underneath the dumpster, almost sending me into cardiac arrest.

I'm now in my room typing this and trying to enjoy the twice reheated pizza while Echo is still trying to track the rat from the closet all the way to the door and back .. again and again....thinking, umm... tastes like chicken!

And how was YOUR evening?