The Net Monkey

Title: Indy skyline

Uploaded By: Captain Dan

Dammit! We have absolutely stunning weather today here in Indy, for the first time this year, and I’m preparing to leave for the cold, chilly mountains of Montana.

I suppose I’ll just have to be patient and wait to experience Spring when I get home.

Tomorrow after work I’m heading to Montana with my family.

Our final destination will be Big Sky, but we’re going to stop in Iowa and South Dakota along the way. On the way out we also plan to stop and pay a short visit to Mount Rushmore.

While in Montana, I plan to hit the ski slopes and try my hand at snowboarding, which is something new to me. We’ll be pretty close to Yellowstone, so a day trip down to Wyoming is definitely intended.

I should be back in Indianapolis sometime on Saturday, April 8, assuming we’re able to drive straight back. It’s a little ambitious, but I think we can do it.

I’ll be taking a ton of pictures, but I probably won’t be able to post them until after I return. I will have my laptop with me (for DVD viewing ability), but I doubt I’ll have access to any Intarwebs.

Here’s a list of my currently installed Firefox extensions.

Unless specifically noted, I use these plugins in both Windows XP (work) and Mac OS X (home).

• del.icio.us - I use del.icio.us to bookmark just about everything and the Firefox integration is pretty good now that there is an official extension.
• Google Suggest - This extension accesses the Google Suggest service when typing in the search bar. I imagine some folks will not like this because it overrides one’s ability to get type-ahead functionality on already-typed searches.
• Fasterfox - Web sites load dramatically faster with this extension enabled, as it performs many configuration tweaks within Firefox. You can override, of course. Definitely worthy.
• IE Tab (Windows Only) - Love thie extension! It allows you to embed Internet Explorer withina broser tab. I find this very useful because there are sites at work that I must access which don’t work in Firefox. Now I don’t have to open up a separate window.
• SwitchProxy - This tool allows you to easily switch between proxy servers. I find it most useful when used with Privoxy and Tor, allowing for anonymous and encrypted browsing.
• LiveLines - The one-click subscribe feature for RSS feeds is nice, but I don’t want to use Firefox as my reader. This extension will redirect the subscription action to Bloglines (or just about any other tool or service).

I hope you find these useful. What extensions do you like to use?

Title: My Scar

Uploaded By: mattbarton77

The bandages fell off (with a little help) and all I have are these three small scratches on my belly. They’re nothing more than half of an inch long. Can’t believe they are so small, to be honest.  They should fade away in to nothing in a matter of time.

I stole this one from Steph’s blog. Enjoy!

• You’ve never met any celebrities.
• Your idea of a traffic jam is ten cars waiting to pass a tractor on the highway.
• “Vacation” means driving through Amish Country or going to the State Fair.
• You’ve seen all the biggest bands ten years after they were popular.
• You measure distance in minutes.
• You know several people who have hit a deer.
• You have no problem spelling or pronouncing “Terre Haute.”
• Your school classes were cancelled because of cold.
• Your school classes were cancelled because of heat.
• You know where all the Yoders live.
• You’ve ridden the school bus for an hour each way.
• You’ve ever had to switch from “heat” to “A/C” in the same day.
• You think ethanol makes your truck “run a lot better.”
• You know what’s knee-high by the Fourth of July.
• Stores don’t have bags, they have sacks.
• You see people wear bib overalls at funerals.
• You see a car running in the parking lot at the store with no one in it no matter what time of the year.
• You end your sentences with an unnecessary preposition. Example: “Where’s my coat at?” or “Who are you gonna go with?”
• All the festivals across the state are named after a fruit, vegetable, or grain.
• De-tassling was your first job (that’s de-tassling corn for you city folk).
• Your idea of a really great tenderloin is when the meat is twice as big as the bun and accompanied only by ketchup and a dill pickle slice.
• You say catty-wumpus and kitty-corner.
• You install security lights on your house and garage and leave both unlocked.
• You think of the major four food groups as beef, pork, beer, and Jell-O salad with marshmallows.
• When asked how your trip was to any foreign, exotic place, you say, “It was different.”
• You consider being called a “Pork Queen” an honor.
• You carry jumper cables in your car.
• You know what “cow tipping” is.

I’m a little embarrassed now.

Oh, by the way, it is the corn that must be knee-high by July 4, in case you didn’t know.

Title: Riflessi

Uploaded By: adblues

I am totally itching for Spring.  I can barely resist!

Title: My New Nano

Uploaded By: mattbarton77

I took the plunge, at the urging of mns, and bought an iPod Nano, in black of course, to replace my 4th generation iPod that stopped functioning a matter of two weeks ago.

As you can see, I also bought the iCondom … er, I mean, iSkin for the little fella. Now he’s all protected from any baddies who want to hurt him.

For an added bonus, there are no moving parts in this thing.  That means I’ll likely not ruin the whole iPod if I drop it, as I did with my old one.

Title: Wild Beaver Saloon

Uploaded By: mattbarton77

So, I go away on medical leave for a few days and on my way to work yesterday I find this new sign up on the Morrison Opera Place building. It is yet another bar in downtown that I will never attend, at least not on purpose.

The innuendo here is absolutely killing me.

I caught up on watching a few Netflix movies this weekend.

The first one is called Bear Cub, which is actually the English title for the film. It’s actually called Cachorro, which translates, according to Google, to puppy in Spanish. I’ve known a few guys like that. Awww.

Anyway, it isn’t your typical gay movie, to say the least. I highly recommend it if you want to see a movie that is not about coming out, AIDS, or skinny, feminine men.

The other movie I watched was Ghost in the Shell, which is this Japanese animated film. It seems to be one of the popular animes out there (and I haven’t seen many in my life) and rightfully so. It’s very cyberpunk and complex. If you dig that kind of thing, check it out.

The only other movie I have out from Netflix is Alfred Hitcock’s Notorious, which I should watch sometime today and send back so I can all fresh DVDs this coming week.

I decided that I wanted to come home yesterday.

After eating dinner with my family, I put on what I wore to work on Tuesday (since it is what I wore when I got to the hospital for my appendectomy) and proceeded to return to my condo.

It is nice to be back, but I am still feeling a little sore. I’ve switched from prescription Lortab to Aleve, which is helping me quite fine now.

I think I’m ready for work tomorrow.

Thanks to all the good wishes in the comments.  It is appreciated.

All praise be to the Lortab gods, for thou art awesome.

Last night at around 8:30 PM on Tuesday, March 14, 2006, I parted ways with my appendix. Poor little guy! I barely got to know him.

I woke up yesterday morning with a discomfort in my abdomen, mostly a bloated, gassy feeling. As the day progressed, I started feeling a bit sicker. I started rubbing around my stomach and found that it hurt when I pressed down in the lower right quadrant of my stomach area.

Remembering that my father had his appendix removed when he was my age, I went to see my doctor later that afternoon. He examined me and sent me off to have a CT scan of my abdomen. Within about thirty minutes of the scan, I was checking in to Community Hospital North for an immediate laparoscopic appendectomy.

I stayed in the hospital overnight and was discharged this morning. I’m staying the rest of the week at my parents house. My abdomen feels sore, but the pain medication is helping me. So, I am feeling very comfortable here and look forward to healing and not worrying about my job.

Thanks goes out to those of you who’ve expressed good wishes. They are appreciated.

My iPod is broken again!

I’m not sure there’s much I can do this time.  I’m debating with myself whether or not I event want to try to have it repaired since I have this urge inside my loins to just go and buy a new one, but with video.

I’ve read ing a few places that Apple might release a new iPod in time for their anniversary on April 2.  I think I’ll have to hold out for a few weeks — just to be on the safe side.

I met my new boss today at work. He seems like a laid back guy and that makes me feel quite relieved. I think he’ll fit in to our environment quite well and should provide the leadership we need to take everything to the next level.

Since I started 14 months ago, I have had five bosses: Eric (a month or two), Gary (10 months), Brad (5 weeks), Scott (1 week, pending the hiring of the new guy), and Jim (current). I think Jim is going to stay a while, thankfully. I mean, please!

I have to say that I’m feeling fairly good about work again. There are some major changes happening on the technology side that have me feelnig pretty excited. As far as my role is concerned, it seems that I may be able to focus on fewer things; essentially, I’ll be able to specialize. I think I’d like to keep my focus on our MTA’s and DNS.

We’ll see what happens.