The Net Monkey

[This article has been retroactively posted from my Kuro5hin Diary.]

“Not everything that can be counted counts, and not everything that counts can be counted.”
– Albert Einstein (1879-1955)

• Over the weekend I moved into my new apartment with my friend Andy. It is much larger than I remember it being, which makes for a happy me. I managed to somehow loose my cell phone while moving, but at least the cable guy showed up to get us our digital cable and Internet service, which literally made my day.
• Poopy Pants McShitty (mentioned in this diary entry) has left his contract job here to pursue better things. I think he said he was going to get his real estate license or something.
• I have reason to believe that my contract job will go past April, which is a relief. I can therefore postpone the humilation of being unemployed, again.
• I’m still pissed about loosing my cell phone. To make things just a little worse, my roommate did not call SBC to have his phone service moved to the new place. So I have no telephone service at all. On the bright side, at least I don’t have people bothering me.
• Software RAID using vinum in FreeBSD seems to work pretty well, but it doesn’t protect the / (root) partition. Deprication of the RAID isn’t seemless either, but oh well. I’m eagerly awaiting FreeBSD 5 to stablize so I can use RAIDframe.
• I found out recently from my roommate that his new boyfriend apparently owns and operates a male escort service!
• Meat and gravy is always a winning combination. The types of meat and gravy are unimportant. [drool] This is a fact and is indisputable.

[This article has been retroactively posted from my Kuro5hin Diary.]

Proxy Error: 405 Method Not Allowed

This totally sucks. I would like to SSH from my workstation here at work to my box at home so I can check my e-mail, but now I’m completely cut off.

You are my only outlet, Kuro5hin!

[This article has been retroactively posted from my Kuro5hin Diary.]

RED FIGURE: “Hi there! We’re the Mighty Mormon Power Rangers! Saying the word ‘crap’ makes the Baby Jesus cry!” ^[1]

• Here’s a photo of the building to which I’m moving on Saturday. For the first time in my life, I am going to have digital cable. Now I can waste even more time in front of the television!
• As I go through life, I am finding, even though I’m a man, this site to be incredibly relevant. (This goes out to all of the emotionally petty people in my life.)
• I’m going to be experimenting with vinum in FreeBSD tonight, as I need to setup RAID1 on what will be a new server. Here’s to me not fucking up!
• Remember the nine marines killed by Iraqi soldiers pretending to surrender? One of those nine was my age (26) and also from Indiana. He’s from an area near Warsaw, which is in the northern part of the state. Here’s an article from the Indianapolis Star.
• How about them Bulldogs? You can tell that Butler is a good school when 86% of their basketball players graduate every year while 0% (zero!) of Oklahoma’s players succeed.

CRUSADING INVESTIGATIVE REPORTER: “Oh, shit. We’d better get some help from the Jehovah’s Witness Protection Program.” ^[2]

_{1, 2 - Internet Oracularity #1304-01}

[This article has been retroactively posted from my Kuro5hin Diary.]

I’m over it.

• After a conversation with my father last night, while watching my nephew’s cub scout troup do their soapbox derby, I have reaffirmed my belief that people are way too emotional when it comes to politics (and just about anything else in life, especially romantic relationships).
• The hunter stew at Yats is good, but it gave me bad gas, and that was not so pleasant. I will not eat it again, unless there’s nothing else good on their menu (which slightly varies from day to day). I should stick with the gumbo or try something new there, and certainly stay away from anything containing a shitload of beans.
• People who don’t like spicy food are wussies.
• I’m an ESTJ and apparently fit real well with INTP’s and ISTP’s. Will you marry me?
• My contract at Cummins is going to be finished in about two weeks (possibly more, but no one knows for sure), which means I will be unemployed again. I’m waiting for IUPUI to call me for an interview. They’ve been taking months to fill a position in one of their UNIX systems groups. Of course, the longer I wait, the more I want the job because it seems to illustrate a casual, laid-back atmosphere which I know I would enjoy. They also cover 4.5 credit hours per semester — would love to get back into school and finish my degree. Those prick teases!
• I am moving to a new apartment on Saturday. The new place is about three blocks away from my current home in Indianapolis. I’m going to live with my friend Andy and his dog Gerty, which is a Boston Terrier. This dog is young and pretty hyper, but rarely barks. Andy says he has heard the dog bark about twice since he’s been taking care of her. From what I understand this is pretty common in the breed. ALL PRAISE!
• fin

[This article has been retroactively posted from my Kuro5hin Diary.]

I’m going to be travelling this weekend.

Heading to Louisville, Kentucky, to see my sister and brother-in-law. Nothing major planned, thankfully. Just warm weather, relaxation, and liquor.

Since I won’t be able to celebrate St. Patricks Day on Monday (after-work meetings ruin everything!), I have decided to have a good time this weekend. I will drink martinis — fuck the Guiness, I’m not Irish anyway — and other faggy¹ drinks.

Unlike others, I will not participate in any bar fights, puking, sleeping on the sidewalk, or any such barbarian behavior — but I will eat a lot of salsa & chips, and will probably fart a lot.

You wouldn’t think it, but Louisville is an interesting atmosphere. My sister quoted for me a statistic which said Louisville has more restaurants per-capita than any other major city in the USA. The people seem to be cool and enjoy going out. Now that’s my kind of culture! Because I just can’t get into cooking good food for myself, and I enjoy spending quality time in a good pub.

So, anyone reading this, have a good weekend and enjoy the warm weather if you have it. It is eventually going to get a lot hotter and you will pine for autumn soon enough.

_{[1] - I’m so gay, mm’kay? (Like how that rhymes?)}

[This article has been retroactively posted from my Kuro5hin Diary.]

The guy who sits next to me at work was being a total douche earlier this morning.

This morning he got caught up in a traffic jam (and so did I since we both take the same route to work) on I-65 because a truck turned over and spilled its contents. He came into work this morning all pissed off about it — he’s already having a bad morning, as he puts it.

I wanted to talk about the huge, funny-looking pile of boxes and palettes in the grassy median, but he bitched about the people who were gawking at the accident. I don’t understand the reasons why people stress so much about anything related to driving and automobiles, especially circumstances which are entirely out of their control.

Moreover, yesterday afternoon, while driving on I-465, I was in the middle lane when two cars — one in the left lane and one in the right lane — both merged into my lane ahead of me at the exact same time. When it happened, the car on the left was closely behind the other car, but when he merged he didn’t slow down, which would have been the defensive (safest) thing to do. Instead he tailgated the other car, honked his horn, and flipped her off. The guy is aparently a fucking genius.

So why waste time getting upset about little things like that? Perhaps if the guy had been less aggressive on the road, he wouldn’t have had to cross two lanes of traffic to get to his exit? What a turd.

On a completely different note, here’s a good quote from one of my favorite movies.

“I want to impress upon you the need for extreme watchfulness.”
– Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb

If you like Peter Sellers, I suggest this film.

[This article has been retroactively posted from my Kuro5hin Diary.]

I recently found out that my parents finally have custody of my nephew, Jake.

Jake is a typical 12 year old boy who excels in math and science at school and has made the honour roll every semester since he came to live with my parnets over two years ago. He likes computers and video games, and sometimes you’ll find him actually readng a book. He also has a pet lizard named Roy. Lori, his mother, is my older sister.

I was visiting my family over the weekend and was informed by Mom and Dad that they were awarded custody of Jake. This means they can finally get him on my father’s health insurance through Pepsico, which is a huge relief. He takes regular medication for his ADHD and recently had braces put on his teeth — neither of which are cheap.

I can’t say it was an arduous battle in court. Lori didn’t fight it — she simply signed papers while she was in jail (a whole other story). She is fully aware that Jake is much better off being in a stable home, which she is completely unable to provide him. I wish I could say that Lori has been the greatest mother to Jake. She certainly loves him, but has never been able to get her life together in a way that’s allowed her to provide long-term stability for her son.

Mom and Dad learned some interesting things while enrolling Jake in school. He hadn’t attended any school, at that point, in about a year and had not actually finished the second grade. Fortunately, he was able to pick up where he finished and was promoted to the third grade. (Jake’s now finishing up his fourth grade year.) I find it sad that Jake is now two years behind in his schooling, as he was already held back a year in Kindergarten.

The family was enraged to find out Jake missed school. The people over in Wayne Township had been trying to contact Lori and told her they were not interested in going after her criminally, but simply wanted to get Jake in school. I honestly don’t understand how Lori was able to just let him not attend, especially after they literally offered her immunity. Perhaps she was afraid of conflict or unwilling to fess up to the fact that she failed her motherly duties? Of course, I’m sure that if Mom and Dad had not decided to raise Jake, eventually Lori would have been in trouble with the law due to Jake’s truancy from school.

So, finally, Mom and Dad have custody of Jake and we no longer have to concern ourselves with Lori storming into the house with police officers to take Jake away. (Keep in mind that Lori has never been barred from visiting Jake.) We weren’t terribly concerned about it, anyway, especially since Jake told his mother that he wanted to live with his grandparents, and Lori is respecting that. But in the back of our minds, we did fear that Lori would some day get a crazy idea in her head and try to take Jake back. Thankfully, the law is now on our side since she has forfeited her rights as Jake’s mother.

I have no idea where Lori lives right now or what she is doing. Mom and Dad probably have an idea, but generally she goes from one friend’s house to the next, using people and getting in trouble with the law. The last time I saw or spoke to Lori was Christmas, and prior to that she had called me on the phone to ask if she could use my shower. I told her that I wasn’t going to be home (and I was literally about to leave) and did not offer to let her come over because I was afraid that something would be stolen, especially since she’s done it to me and everyone else in the past. I don’t know where she even got my telephone number.

Lori has been given numerous chances to get her life together. Mom and Dad have helped her time after time, and sometimes still do a little, but Lori’s never been able to make it last. Things will be fine for a little while (say six months to a year) and then everything just crashes and burns. She is a 39 year old woman who has yet to get her life together (and I’m her 26 year old little brother).

Thankfully, our energies are focuses on Jake, who has a chance at having a good life. I don’t know what kind of relationship he’s going to have with his mother — he’s probably seen a lot of bad things and is old enough to understand the type of person she is. Hopefully, it’ll all work out in the end, as most things seem to do.

[This article has been retroactively posted from my Kuro5hin Diary.]

I must be in a good mood.

LifeSavers

These are like the best thing ever if you want something sweet, fairly long-lasting, and not a candy bar.

mplayer

So, like, this application can play just about any video on my FreeBSD and Gentoo Linux boxes. I haven’t found a movie it won’t play yet, but I did find an interesitng bug when configuring it to use the ALSA sound drivers in Gentoo. It likes to play movies really fast (watching porno at high speed is kind of funny, if you ask me), but switching it back to OSS causes it to work as expected. It did not behave this way when playing DVD’s — only MPEG’s, AVI’s, etc.

New Tires

Driving my car is now pleasant again. Both of my rear tires, specifically the one on the left, was, as the guy at the tired shop stated, “way beyond balancing.” It was, as he put, “choppy.” So, I ended up buying two new tires and it has been smooth sailing ever since. I don’t know why I didn’t do this sooner because it has been vibrating for quite some time.

[This article has been retroactively posted from my Kuro5hin Diary.]

Is it bad to use a pen cap to clean the shit out of your ears?

Damn things itch way too much and the cap on a Bic Round Stic pen is the best way to go, if you ask me, to relieve the itching.

Oh, please, spare me the don’t-put-anything-sharper-than-your-elbow-in-your-ear shit.

[This article has been retroactively posted from my Kuro5hin Diary.]

Hello, again, Kuro5hin. It’s been a very long time since I’ve participated. How have you been? With my last diary entry being over two years old, a lot has sure happened.

In June 2001, I quit my job at CoreComm in order to start a position at Webexcellence, as their systems administrator. Things weren’t so bad, for the most part, but my frustrations and stress came to a climax in November 2002, while dealing with a server outage, when I told the customer, “I don’t get paid enough for this.” Little did I know that one of the owners of our company was there and heard me say it.

Subsequently, I was brought into a meeting with both owners on the next business day and was told they were considering firing me, basing their decision on the meeting we were having and the way I responded. I simply said, “lets just do that,” and resigned my position right there.

I absolutely regret the way it ended because it was not the way I wanted to leave the company, nor did I enjoy the significant unemployment period, but generally I am much happier not working there now.

Currently, I’m at Cummins in Columbus, Indiana, working on a project which has me packaging software using the Marimba Castanet Tuner. It isn’t the most challenging job, but it is paying better than my administrator position and it’s steady work, at least for the next month or so. I can’t complain.

Other events happened, as well. I was in a serious relationship with a man named Devin which ended in July 2001. It was only a few months later that he decided to date again, which was suprising and pretty difficult for me. In the end, I think I made a fool out of myself and eventually had to stop communicating with him (which I should have done much sooner). But it finally allowed me to move on.

The silence ended about six months later, with me coming to New York City for H2K2 (hacker conference put on by 2600 Magazine). I went with a friend and visited Devin at the photography gallery where he works. I hadn’t seen him in a year and it was absolutely wonderful to get to spend a little bit of time with him.

I wish we could be friends, but now he seems very distant and unwilling to talk about anything beyond the usual pleasantries. Oh well. I just hope he is happy with Bryan and at some point we’ll be able to have a normal conversation.

The last significant happening has been my living situation. The lease at Oaks of Eagle Creek ended in May 2001 and I decided to move back with my parents. I stayed there for about nine or ten months and then moved into a small apartment in the downtown area (Indianapolis).

I’ve been living there by myself for nearly a year now and absolutely love it. I live in a district called St. Joseph which is just northeast of downtown proper. At the end of this month, I will be moving to another apartment on the other side of I-65 in the Old Northside neighborhood (a few blocks away), but this time I’ll be in a bigger place and with a roommate, which should save me quite a bit of money. I’ll be living with my good friend, Andy, who is also wanting to save some money.

So, it has been a pretty interesting ride. How are things going with you?