Sun Worshipping
I almost missed today’s blog. Been a busy day so far. Here’s what I’ve got written for today.
When we were looking at buying our new house, I knew right away that if we got the house, I wanted the downstairs office. Matter of fact, I called dibs on it when we walked into the room, and I saw Pikes Peak out the window. What I wasn’t thinking was that it is the smallest room in the house, and the sun tend to come into the window in the evening times.
The small quarters are not a problem. I managed to fit my three bookshelves full of role playing books, tech manuals, fantasy books, and other misc stuff into my office. I also have my desk, desktop computer, laptop, and data CD collection in here. I also have both printers and my mini-fridge in the office. It’s a little cozy, but it’s nice to have it all in one room. If I want something that is mine, I know that it is most likely in this one room.
The thing that I don’t like about the office is the evening sun. Around 4:30 in the afternoon, it streams in on the surface of my desk, reflects off of the laminated surface of the desk, and right into my eyes. I have to close my blinds and cut off my great view from my office. Around 4:50, the sun is at enough of a different angle to no longer shine in my eyes, so I can open the blinds again. However, starting at around 5:25, the sun starts to come in directly into my eyes. I have to once again close my blinds for the remainder of the day. Once the sun goes down behind the mountains (typically 7:30ish) I can open my blinds up once again. If I remember to open them up in time, I get a great view of the sunset, though.
All-in-all, I’m happy with my office. The only thing that I would change would be to maybe make it a little bigger, so that I could fit one more bookshelf into the office. I might be able to pull that off once I get rid of my two spare desktops. That’ll free up space to move my mini-fridge, and then setup another shelf where the fridge currently is. We’ll see how it goes…
Fear
I had a conversation a while back with Jhianna where she asked me if I was ever afraid of anything. I’m not sure how we got on the topic, but it wasn’t a question out of the blue. My response to her was, “I try not to be.” I’m sure there are plenty of things out there to fear, but I do my best not to let that fear overcome my senses and reflexes to the point where I won’t react to the danger or fearful object.
You see, when I was a child, I was afraid of everything. I was afraid of my mother (no longer the case, she’s a great woman now!), my father, my mom’s boyfriends, my dad’s friends, my mom’s friends, my parents’ lifestyle choices (lots of drugs and booze, but that’s in the past.) I spent most of my childhood trying to figure out how to not be noticed. I would hide in corners, behind couches, under beds. I would basically go everywhere with a book and a flashlight. I would find the darkest, most secluded spot that I could find, and I would use my flashlight to read my book. When I was discovered, people would ask, “What you doing back there, kid!?” I would hold up my book and meekly reply, “Just reading.” That seemed to satisfy their desire to make sure that I wasn’t up to no good.
I’ve had enough fear in my life to… well…. last a lifetime. No more. I’m much more confident in my adulthood than I ever was during my childhood. I’m not afraid to try new things, read new books, make new friends, or pick up new hobbies. I approach every situation with confidence, and I hope that it shows. I’ve always hopped from job-to-job (but I hope to stop doing that with my current job choice,) but I’ve never worried about where I’m going to get my next job. I know that I have skills that are wanted out there in the world, it’s just a matter of finding that person out there that wants to pay me to use my skills.
Jhianna quoted to me from another chat window of hers, “Beosig protects me from all.” I told her, yep, that’s me, “Beosig the Protector.” She asked if she minded me having such a title. I told her that I didn’t mind at all. I’m here for my friends, and if that means protecting them from the dangers of the world, then I’m there for them. When I’m out with a crowd of people, I’m always on the lookout for their safety. Since I’m part of the group, I also look out for my safety as well because if something happened to me, who would protect everyone else?
When it comes to physical confrontations, I’m secure enough in my abilities to get out of a fight in better shape then my adversary. The only exception to this is if someone has a gun. A gun is a hugely unfair advantage in a fight, and I’ll always back away from a gun. Barring a firearm, I’ll stand up to anyone. They can have a knife, stick, baseball bat, sword, club, or just about any other weapon, and I’ll take them on if it comes down to it.
One of the more interesting (and fun!) times that I had as a protector was at an SCA event back in Andrews, TX. It was the end of the event, and we all wanted some hot pizza. We hit the only local pizza place, and pretty much took over the joint. There was a booth or two with families, a booth with some cowboys, and then the rest of us in the pizza place.
The booth of cowboys kept harassing the waitress in inappropriate ways. They were grabbing her ass, reaching for her breasts, and talking rude to her. I got tired of this, and pulled her aside to ask if she needed any help with the cowboys. Her response was, “Don’t worry. They’re always this way.” I told her that just because it was a habit, that it wasn’t acceptable behavior, and that if she wanted help making them back down, all she had to do was call out “Champion!” loudly, and we’d help out.
About 20 minutes later, she had enough of the cowboys, and decided to call for help. She stepped away from the table, and called out in a loud and clear voice, “Champion!” Heh. What happened next was great. Every SCA fighter (about 20 guys), and half the women (about 10 of them) instantly dropped what they were doing, stopped talking, put down their pizza, and stood up. We all looked her way, but it was the looks on the cowboys’ faces that was the best. They realized that they had just crossed a line, and there was no going back.
The baron that lead the SCA event asked everyone to please sit down, and he went over to talk to the cowboys. We were all very quiet so that we could hear his words. He quietly told the young men that respect towards women was paramount to their honor, and that if they had one ounce of respect for themselves, then they would respect others as well. If respect wasn’t instantly shown towards everyone in the restaurant, then there would be a price to pay. The baron sat down, and a few moments later, one of the cowboys headed to the waitress, and apologized to her for their actions. He said that it would never happen again.
It was a good time, and a good lesson learned by the young men in the restaurant. To this day, I keep an ear open for a lady in need of assistance, and when I hear the call, I always answer without hesitation.
Tsunami From Space
Here’s a dream that I had over the weekend. It’s a very strange one. I’m sure it means something, but I have no idea what.
I walked out of my house, and looked to the west towards the mountains. I saw a huge wave of water falling from space and washing over the Rocky Mountains. The water washed down the slopes and into my town. The odd thing wasn’t the water, but the fact that I was in my hometown back in Texas. However, the town had been moved to the town that I currently live in. I accepted this oddity in my dream, and set out to save all of the houses that I cared about back in my hometown.
I ran from house to house preparing it for the water that was coming. Since the water was coming from the west, I knew that if I shored up the houses on the western side of the house, everything would be ok. The trick was to protect the windows. If the windows were covered, then the wave would wash over the house, and leave it untouched. I ran around all of the houses that I’ve lived in, all of the houses of my loved ones, and a few places that were dear to me back home.
I found myself covering the windows with large boxes of Frosted Flakes cereal. It seemed like the perfect covering, and it was doing the job just fine. However, I was the only person doing this, and I needed help. As soon as I realized that I needed help, my little sister showed up to help me out. She was killed in 1997 by a drunk driver, and I think this is the first time that I’ve dreamed about her. I’m sure that I dreamed about her shortly after her death, but I don’t recall any of them.
Anyway, Jill and I ran around town covering windows with boxes of Frosted Flakes. We got along great, and I realized how much I miss her being around. We managed to save all of the buildings that were dear to us, but there was huge amounts of devastation. I saw in my mind’s eye a combination of the damage done by the tsunamis in Sumatra, and the flooding done by hurricane Katrina. I didn’t witness either one personally, but with the global media, I was able to view the damage done by both of those natural disasters.
I woke up to the phone ringing. It put the dream out of my mind while I talked to my friend, but as soon as I hung up, I wanted to get back to sleep. I wanted to spend more time with my sister, but I knew that it was just a dream. I got out of bed, and went about the day. However, the whole day was filled with thoughts about everyone that I miss back home.
Bomb Scare
About 10 years ago I was living in San Antonio. I worked for an ISP, and the offices were in downtown San Antonio. There were all sorts of fancy hotels, office buildings, a bus stop, and plenty of homeless people around. One night two of my coworkers were moving in together. They needed my help getting them moved in, so they stopped by the office to pick me up. This was, of course, after the Olkahoma City bombing that Timothy McVeigh did.
When they showed up, they were driving a U-Haul truck to move their stuff in. They parked it across the street in a public parking lot, came in to get me, hung out for a minute or five, and then thre three of us left to move their stuff. What we didn’t know was that President Clinton was giving a speech at a fund raiser across the street from our office.
Picture this: Secret Service all over the place. Two guys drive up in a U-Haul (like the one that McVeigh used), and they get out and walk away into the night. Yeah… The Secret Service went nuts over the truck.
When we got to the truck, we were met by dozens of agents. They were waiting for a bolt cutter to cut the lock off of the truck to see what was inside. My friend that had the key surrendered the key, so that they could get the truck open. While they were doing this, they separated the three of us, and started interrogating us. They were very polite, but they were also very firm. They didn’t abuse us, insult us, or harrass us too much. However, they did want their questions answered without any joking around.
We answered their questions to their satisfaction. Most of my answers were, “I don’t know.” They wanted to know my friends’ old addresses (never been there), their new address (hadn’t been there yet), how long they had known each other, how long I had known them, what were their names (which I did know), and so on.
In all, it wasn’t a bad experience. I never did like President Clinton, but I never wished him harm. I’m glad that we have the security that we do around the leader of our nation. It somehow made me feel a little safer.
My List
I’m a huge fan of Friends, and as a fan, I also have a “list”. Yep. It’s a list of celebrities that I can have sex with that my wife can’t get mad about. My wife claims that I don’t have a list, but I refuse to listen to her on this point.
Here’s my list (in no particular order):
Some people that are close to being on my list, but didn’t quite make it:
Ajax
I’m looking to learn Ajax, but I learn better if I’m actually building a project using a new language. I think I’ve found the perfect target. I wrote a rudimentary monster database for D&D years ago. There were some serious design flaws in it, so it never really went all that far. I’ve learned from my mistakes, and I plan on writing it again (from scratch) and incorporating quite a bit of Ajax to get the job done. It should be a great project!
It’s a bit overwhelming at the moment, but all new projects usually are. I’m going to take it peice by piece and get it all done. Fortunately, a friend of mine told me about a site that had all of the monsters in XML/SQL format, so that I can easily import the data. It’s going to make things much easier for me to be able to do that. I’m looking forward to doing it!
Wish me luck. When I have a decent working prototype of the application, I’ll post the link here for all to enjoy!
PS: If you want to help, drop me a line at my email address, and we can talk it over. I’ll be writing it in PHP, and using MySQL as the data store.
Unpacking
Here’s probably my last post about moving. Been a while since I’ve posted about it, so I figure you’re not tired of it anymore. We made a bull-rush on the boxes last week, and we’re down to 1 box in the living room, and 2 boxes in the garage.
Before I can do the boxes in the garage, I have to fix the peg board that came with the house. The guy that put in the peg board didn’t do a great job. There’s very little space between the wall that it’s mounted on and the peg board. That means that the pegs won’t mount properly on the peg board. I have to take the peg board off. It’s held on by a series of screws (easy to remove), and some nails (which are in deep, going to be some work.) I plan on mounting some 2x4s to the wall, then mounting the peg board to the wall. That will give the necessary gap for hanging the pegs.
Once that is done, I can proceed with unpacking the rest of the garage. Once all of the unpacking is done, we’ll move on to taking the broken-down boxes into the attic. That will clear up enough space to put the tractor into the garage in front of Kiara’s car.
I can’t wait to get it all done.
Poker
We initiated our house Saturday night with a rousing game of poker. We managed to cram 10 people (Craing, Spice, Bobo, Jasmine, Kolvedic, Jhianna, Curt, Laura, Kiara, and myself) around a table. Curt brought over this really cool table-topper that was felt covered, and had places built into it for drinks and chips. It was really sweet. We had a good time, and I was glad I have so many friends that we can all get together and have a good time.
I had way too much to drink…. Mostly Mt. Dew and Ciclone, if memory serves…. which is probably doesn’t. I also recall a rum and coke, but I’m not sure if that was my drink or someone else’s. I think the next time I play poker, I’m going to limit myself to just a couple of beers. I know I had a good time, but I just don’t remember much of it. At least I didn’t get naked during the night. That would have been really bad.
I’m not sure who the big winner of the night was, but it wasn’t me. I was out $40 by the end of the night. I seem to recall Spice having a good pile of chips in front of her near the end of the night. She’s played poker with us for a while, and I’m not sure she’s ever had a big win night. I hope she walked away with more than she showed up with!
Live Comedy
A bunch of us (Bobo, Jasmine, Kiara, Craing, Spice, Jhianna, and myself) went out to Comedy Works Friday night. There were three acts. Two openers, and a headliner. The headliner was Craig Ferguson. He was the Scottish boss from the Drew Carey Show. More recently, he’s been hosting a late, late talk show on one of the major networks.
The two openers were pretty funny, and they warmed up the crowd nicely. I found myself laughing at almost every one of their jokes. It was good stuff. When Craig Ferguson finally got on stage, he was a bit slow to start with, but he finally got into the rythm of the show. As he got more comfortable with the crowd, he would go on side tangents away from his main act. His improv was pretty damn good, and his prepared material was even better.
There were quite a few good quotes durng the show, but my mind isn’t made to remember stuff like that. I wish I could remember some of the funnier moments, so that I could share them with you. I guess you’ll just have to take my word for the fact that it was a good show.
My only complaint of the night was that we were packed in like sardines. I expected tables and chairs, or something similar. Instead, it was rows and rows of seats that couldn’t be moved, and they were packed in there. The chairs were OK for the first hour, but by the end of the second hour of the show, I couldn’t feel my ass any more. When it was time to leave, I could barely walk. From the posture of the other people around me, I’m pretty sure that they were in the same boat as me.
Links
Here are some sites that I visit on a daily basis. Most are comics, some are blogs, some are cool pictures, some relate to my hobbies and interests. Here they are:
Calvin and Hobbes
CTRL-ALT-DEL
Dilbert
Dork Tower
FoxTrot
Full Frontal Nerdity
Garfield
Get Fuzzy
GU Comics
Irregular Web Comic
Legostar Galactica
Nodwick
Partially Clips
PvP
Questionable Content
Real Life
Order of the Stick
Tittivillus
User Friendly
Astronomy Picture of the Day
Earth Picture of the Day
Engrish
Steve Jackson Games, Daily IlluminatorClerks 2, Trainwreck
Kevin Smith’s Blob
Waiter Rant
Jhianna’s Blog
Jhianna’s Movie Reviews
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