Random Access

Thursday – 07 February 2008
I talked with briefly this morning; Bot and Bit are both doing well.

I started my morning in the SLC office, but was due to be in the AF office today. The commute was relatively uneventful… except for the snow that I ran into at Point of the Mountain.

Things have been fairly quiet around the office today. I consider this a good thing.

Workout
Today’s workout varied from Tuesday’s workout, with more of a focus on upper back:

• Leg Raises: 3 sets/20 reps
• Pull-ups: 3 sets/10 reps (2 sets unassisted; 1 set assisted @ 80 lbs)
• Bench Press: 3 sets/10 reps, 205 lbs (third set broken up into 5-and-5)
• Pull-downs (wide-grip, behind the head): 3 sets/15 reps, 100 lbs
• Reverse Deltoid Fly: 3 sets/10 reps, 75 lbs
• Dips: 3 sets/10 reps

Today’s weight: 172.6 lbs.

Stray Toasters

• I tried a couple of new-to-me tech items yesterday; I think that I like them both:
  • iGoogle
  • Spaces
• Mitt Romney is bowing out of the 2008 Republican race. It will be interesting to see how things shake out.
• New iPhone and iPod Touch Safari exploit discovered
• How much of a toy geek am I? I present Exhibit A: Action Theatre: Colossus vs. Train

  

  

  

  I actually powered up the train… and Piotr did keep it from moving.
  Colossus: 1
  Train: 0

• Speed & Angels: fighter pilot documentary
• I need to go to the Garden of Sweden soon.
• TANSTAAFL… or is there?
  I had one.
  Granted, it was left over from a manager meeting that was held here, but it was free.
• 

Namaste.

Tuesday – 05 February 2008
So far, it’s been a rather decent day. Nothing really out of the ordinary to report… other than Deacon Derek brought me a tub of spun sugar confectionery goodness as recompense for letting him jump-seat to Cedar City with me this past weekend.

Workout
Today’s workout was… abbreviated, but still decent:

• Leg Raises: 3 sets/20 reps
• Pull-ups: 3 sets/10 reps (3rd set done with 80 lbs. assistance)
• Bench press: 3 sets/10 reps, 205 lbs.
• Lateral Raises (standing, dumbbell): 3 sets/10 reps, 10 lbs.
• Curls (standing, barbell): 3 sets/10 reps, 60 lbs.

Today’s weight: 169.6 lbs.
Stray Toasters

• I stumbled upon a new-to-me site today: Top Secret Recipes.
• The name – and buy-out – game!
  • MicroHoo!
  • Yahoogle or Goohoo!

  Round and round and round it goes! Where it stops… nobody knows!

• Sam Adams: Patriot. Brewer. Homeboy.
  Jackie Chan: Martial artist. Actor. Tea maker…? When did this happen?!
• …and, speaking of beer, as seen in Cedar City, UT this past weekend:

  
  That’s right… they are passing on that whole 1¢ savings on to YOU!
  (Don’t spend it all in one place!)

• History of conjoined twins
• I have replenished my stores of Twix and Butterfinger in the AF office!
• 
• Is the GameBoy the toughest product ever made?
• What is – or was – your favorite console gaming unit?
  I love my 360, but the Sega Genesis still has a warm place in my heart…
• “Honey, have you seen my super-suit itch-free pajamas?!”

And tonight: Scion.

Namaste.

Friday – 01 February 2008
Welcome to Black History Month.

(from http://pioneer.utah.gov)

Last night, I had dinner with Land at Biaggi’s. I haven’t eaten there in… over a year. I had the Chicken Marsala entree; it was quite good and very filling. I think that I saw the waiter who waited on us the first time that and I ate there… I think. But, I’m not sure. Fortunately, we had a different waiter and he was good – he was a little slow in bringing our drinks at first, but once he got going, he was rather attentive. After dinner, I ran a few errands then headed home.

I slept in a little this morning. Not much. Just enough. And it was good. A quick stop at the SLC office and then I was on my way to AF.

Things were fairly quiet in AF. Selah.
The lunchtime workout was a repeat of Tuesday’s workout.
I weighed in today at 172.0 pounds. (Wow.)

City of Heroes: The Hand of Nefer-Tem
I put in a couple of hours in Paragon City. Not quite enough to hit Security Level 40, but it got me a good portion of the way there. I should – hopefully – be able to get there by the end of the weekend.

Next weekend is another Double XP Weekend event. Double XP == good.

Stray Toasters

• I need to replenish the Twix and Butterfinger stores in my AF desk drawer o’ goodies.
• Eric and I just figured out who one of our coworkers reminds us of: Homsar.
• The Internet may (or may not) be a series of tubes, but this is.
• With John Edwards out of the race, commentators on this morning’s Diane Rehm Show speculated as to whether we could possibly see an Obama/Clinton or Clinton/Obama ticket in the Fall…
• Microsoft wants to buy the flagging Yahoo! Interesting.
• Microsoft is also doing a webcomic: Heroes Happen Here
• Frozen Grand Central – the latest prank from Improv Everywhere.
• 
• sent me a link to this. O.o

Time to make like the cast of The Wiz (Broadway) and Ease on Down the Road.

Namaste.

Thursday – 31 January 2008
After a few post-work errands, I holed up in the apartment and waited for the MythBusters “Plane on a Conveyor Belt” episode. It was good. They did a couple of other interesting experiments, including a test to see whether cockroaches would truly be able to survive a nuclear war.

After that, I logged into City of Heroes to see if anyone from the SG was on and to try and get closer to Security Level 40. I found one SG member on, but he was helping people with the Katie Hannon task force. I looked around for a while, but didn’t find anything else that looked promising, so I logged out.

I started reading some of yesterday’s four-color goodness. Even the “low priority” reads were good. When reading a week’s comic haul, I usually read books starting with the “little-to-waning interest” group and finishing up with the “warm, happy place” books. After all, why start off big only to work your way down to “Wow… that was completely craptacular,” when you can go the other way and (usually) end on a good note.

Somewhere in the middle of reading Fantastic Four, I konked out.
For the night.
On the sofa.
Again.

I woke up about ten minutes before my alarm was set to go off.

I prepped for work in a fairly leisurely manner, including taking the time to brew a pot of coffee and to enjoy a bowl of Honeycomb before heading off to face the day. And I remembered to bring my coffee to work this morning. Go, me.

The work day hasn’t been too bad. I discovered that I needed to reconfigure one of my MCSE test machines. Oh, well. I’ll probably wind up adding (yet) another machine to that group, so that I don’t have to keep reformating and installing an OS on the secondary box.

Stray Toasters

• I stumbled upon a new webcomic last night: Looking for Group. If you’re a gamer – and if you have an eye/ear for pop culture references – you might enjoy this one.
• VideoJug – Life Explained. On film.
• PHP. I need to get back into that.
• 20×200
• By way of : Election 2008 – Issues
• There is apparently a SWAT stand-off in Utah County. Not terribly far from the south office, as the crow flies, that is.
• 
• In addition to wanting to redo Queen videos with Disney movies, I am having the urge to make a “video” for Red Sector A using my X-Men MiniMates, some LEGO minifigs and my Sentinel.
• From Apple.com: Robert J. Lang – The Art and Science of Paper Folding

And stuff.

Namaste.

Tuesday – 29 January 2008
Last night, after the ordeal of the afternoon commute – it took about 75 minutes to get from AF to SLC – thanks to post-storm, near-whiteout conditions – and finishing out my day I went home and watched the State of the Union address. I had a few things go through my mind as I was watching:

1. When GW turned his head a certain way, he reminded me of Johnny Carson.
2. I don’t get why the Peanut Gallery Congress feels the urge/need to give a standing ovation for some of the most mundane bullet point items in a speech. It reminded me more of a pep rally than a presidential speech when they did it… even though I’ve seen it many times before.
3. I wound up watching the C-Span broadcast, because I got tired of the way the networks would always try to find Senator X, Y or Z for a “reaction shot” whenever GW was applauded for a particular note – especially Senators Obama and Clinton.
4. I want to download a transcript of this speech and – over the course of the next year – see how many of the stated/proposed items come to fruition.

After the speech, I took the Hand of Nefer-Tem on a field trip to Paragon City. I hooked up with members of my SG and we took on The Council and the Circle of Thorns. Over the course of the next couple of hours, I not only racked up the points I needed to make Security Level 39, but got about… 4.2 bubbles on the way to Level 40.

I stopped playing a little before midnight. I stretched out on the couch with the intent of watching a little TV before calling it a night. I was out in less than ten minutes. I’d be willing to bet that it wasn’t even five minutes.

Next thing I know, it was 5:00 AM.
I stretched… and nodded off again.

Phone alarm. 6:15. Ignored.

I finally managed to leave the gates of The Dreaming at 8:00. I got up and started the day.

I headed to the SLC office to take care of a few things. Then on to the AF office… and the gym. Today’s workout was good (but a little short):

• Bench press: 3 sets/8 reps (2 sets @ 205 lbs; 1 set/7 reps @ 205 lbs, 3 reps @ 185 lbs)
• Rows (cable): 3 sets/12 reps @ 120 lbs
• Shoulder press (seated, dumbbell): 3 sets/12 reps @ 40 lbs
• Bent-over row: 3 sets/10 reps per arm @ 35 lbs
• Curls (cable): 3 sets/10 reps @ 50 lbs

And, when I did my weigh-out: 169.4 lbs, which is down from Thursday’s 169.8. I’m not necessarily trying to hit 170 lbs, but I won’t cry if I do.

The Best: I Heard It Through the Grapevine
Gladys Knight & The Pips vs. Marvin Gaye vs. Creedence Clearwater Revival vs. The California Raisins.

The song was originally performed by Gladys Knight and, shortly thereafter, by Marvin Gaye and in the nineties, it was used by the California Raisin Advisory Board (no, I didn’t make that up) to promote… well, if I really have to tell you what it was for, you should just turn off the computer now. Seriously.

In my book, it comes down like this:

1. Marvin Gaye
2. Gladys Knight & The Pips
3. The California Raisins
4. Creedence Clearwater Revival

I don’t really have anything against CCR, but I don’t particularly care for their cover of this song… hence, the Raisins knocking them out of the Number Three spot.
Stray Toasters

• I got a call from Land this afternoon. Turns out he’s still in town. We may do dinner this evening.
• Coworker DaveW mentioned The Power of Two: A Twin Triumph over Cystic Fibrosis to me this afternoon. Turns out that he grew up with the authors.
• Bug (be sure to hover over the image for “ALT” text)
• Sock Zombie: Like a Sock Monkey, but undeader
• From the “Whiskey Tango Foxtrot” file: Apple Prohibits Movie Rentals on Recent iPods
• Eight promising games for ’08
• “the return of the revenge of the son of jones”

  

• Video Games Live is coming to Utah Symphony in March. I think that this would be a lot of fun. And, I want to go.
• “Wii the people, in order to form a more perfect union…”  (Sorry.  It slipped.)
• Casas’ ballpoint pen artwork

Namaste.

MythBusters will be taking on the “Plane on a Conveyor Belt” conundrum this Wednesday.

From BoingBoing:

Last night I spoke to Adam Savage, co-host of MythBusters. He’s in Alaska, where current temperatures range between 0 to 30 degrees below zero. He just finished a test on “cabin fever” (he wouldn’t say how long he lasted before murdering his cabin mates and running out into the frozen wilderness wearning nothing but longjohns and a sleeping cap) and is now working on another episode up in the 49th state.

But the real reason I talked to him was to find out about the next episode of MythBusters (airing this Wednesday). It tackles the famous “plane on a conveyor belt problem,” that has pitted brother against brother and friend against friend for years.

To get to the bottom of the thought-problem, Adam and Jamie used a real plane, in this case a 400-lb ultralight, and a large conveyor belt. Did the plane take off? You’ll have to wait until Wednesday to find out, but Adam said even the pilot guessed wrong.

MythBusters site

I am about to do some work on a coworker’s laptop.  Since it this project could take some time, I asked for his power cord, as well.  As he begain to detangle/detach it, he came up with the following gem:

“They should come up with a wireless power cord.”

To which someone else quickly retorted:

“Batteries?”

And this would be where I note that they are both tech writers.

Wednesday – 23 January 2008
Mid-week and all’s well… if grey, gloomy and generally “blah” can be considered “well.”

I got a decent start on the morning… even after someone dialed my number at 5:45 AM. No idea who it was, because no number came up on the Caller ID. Monkeys. I was up and nominally mobile a little after 7:00 this morning and out the door, caffeinated (and bagel-laden) and in the office by 8:30. As an added bonus, the first song on Nomad’s shuffle play was Big Daddy Kane’s A Job Ain’t Nuthin’ But Work. Nice way to kick off the short commute.

Mo’ money, mo’ money, mo’ money got get made
To get paid in this trade
And I believe that I can acheive
To make ends meet like a hair weave

Survivin’ in this economy people in the world wanna be
Stayin’ in the upper class so you’re the path
The rich gets the most and the poor gets so little
And only Monie Love can make it in the middle

The work day wasn’t too chaotic. Fortunately. I was asked to check out a problem with a server… which not only was not having a problem (today), but was also in the middle of running some tests for one of our engineers. So, that got downgraded from “Put this at the top of today’s to-do list” to “Keep an eye on this.” I’m okay with that. I’ve also managed to work in some hardware testing… which means that I have been able to clear stacks of dysfunctional machinery out of my work area. I actually found some work space under all of the dreck!

Sushi Wednesday.
New Comics Day.
‘Nuff said.

Genius that I am, I left the power cord (POWER CHORD!) for Defiant at work. *sigh* This meant that – rather than go buy a (“yet another”) new one – I had to go back to the office to retrieve it. This was good on a couple of counts… as I also forgot that I needed to pick up a few things at the store, too. So, I headed to the office to find…

…neither of my badges worked on the main doors of the building. *grblsnrkx* Fortunately, I had messaged Code Monkey BB to see if he was still at work before leaving home. He was. I called him and he brought my cord down to the lobby. We chatted a bit before I took off to run some more errands and he went back upstairs to sling some more code.

After errand-running, I decided to see if was in. She was. I told her that I had her Trader Joe’s shwag with me and would drop it off, if that was alright. Not only was it alright, she asked if I’d mind lending a hand to , who had been helping her resurrect her PC – at this point they were having a problem getting her mouse to respond and needed to rejoin the PC to the wireless network.

No problem!
Piece of cake!
We’d have it back online and humming in no time!

An hour and a half later, we finally had things up and running again. Just like Tom Tom the Piper’s Son… but without the pigs.

Stray Toasters

• I had many things in the four-color hold today… and I picked up a couple new Stikfas:
  1. Alpha Male Samurai with Stallion
  2. Omega Male Black Knight
• By way of comes Gaslight Justice League, a steampunk/Victorian Era look at the JLA.
• had a few things to say about peoples’ reactions to Heath Ledger’s death.
• Today was also Sushi Wednesday for … who, along with the Sib-1 sister-unit, has been interviewing pediatricians. It sounds like it has been a feast-or-famine kind of thing.
• : has your Trader Joe’s items, as you are more likely to see her on Friday evening.
• Area 51 designated with a new name
• By way of : The Internet Party: What happens when Google’s parents leave town for the weekend?
• By way of : The 5 Most Horrifying Bugs in the World
• SR-71A… made out of LEGO. Win-Win!

I’m sure that there was probably more that I was going to add to this… but all I want to do now is save the world (if I can find a team) and read the rest of this week’s four-color haul.

Namaste.

Friday – 18 January 2008
Yesterday, I was tired. Weary. BEAT. The drive from AF to Cedar was no longer (distance-wise) than usual, but damn and a half, if it didn’t seem to take seven hours longer than usual. On the other hand, I was able to capture this shot, just as I was passing through Nephi:

Not the best picture in the world, but not too shabby for an in-phone camera. It doesn’t show incredibly well, but there was a “column” of light and cloud in the middle of it that made me take the picture.

Shortly after I got in, SaraRules and I went to dinner with Josh and Steve. It was fun… even though we had a “not as good as she could have been” waitress. She was on par with Heather, our waitress from the Christmastime Outback dining experience. At least the food and the company were good. Steve came back to SaraRules’ for a bit and we hung out with Steph, Darillyn and Vince. After things died down, I decided to call it a night. I crawled into bed and was apparently out – and I mean “OUT” – in about three minutes.

I woke up this morning and it took me about three minutes to come to the realization that today was “Friday” and not “Saturday.” Although, being Friday, it made infinitely more sense as to why SaraRules had to go into work this morning. *facepalm* Yep… genius, I am. She should be home in a few and then we’re off like a prom dress after midnight.

I didn’t think about this before, but we will be hitting a Trader Joe’s or two while we’re outside the Zion Curtain. If anyone has anything that you’d like from there, drop me a line. I’m not sure what my connectivity will be like in California, so if you want to be sure that I’ll get your request, call or text message me.

Stray Toasters

• In another first: I almost typed “Starry Toasters.”
• I told a couple of people around the office that I was taking off to California this weekend. A few of them – Tyranist in particular – asked why I chose this weekend. I told him because of the long weekend/holiday. After a moment’s reflection, he nodded… “Ah, Black Christmas. Got it.”
  (Back story: Many businesses in Utah close for 24 July, Pioneer Day. Tyranist pointed out that if I could – and usually do – refer to Pioneer Day as “Mormon Christmas,” he could refer to Martin Luther King, Jr. Day as “Black Christmas.” I agreed.)
• After seven years of solid use – and a few cases of abuse – I am replacing my digital camera. After all, I’m going on vacation – I should have a reliable camera with which I can take pictures.
• The IKEA Winter Sale ends 21 January 2008.
  I may have to see if I can squeeze in a pilgrimage to the Costa Mesa Garden of Sweden…
• Ever have a “What Would Cthulhu Do?” moment? Get some of these and maybe you’ll be a few steps closer to figuring it out.
• 
• By way of Wired: Macheads Dream of Teleporters, Holographic Sex Toys, Squidets
• 
• Paper airplane to be launched from International Space Station

And… that’s a wrap for now.

Namaste.

Tuesday – 15 January 2008
Although it won’t be observed for another six days, today is the birthday of Martin Luther King, Jr.

This morning, I managed to sleep through my alarm. Fortunately, my internal clock tends to awaken me around 8:00 AM. I got up, ready and out the door in fairly short order.

It was snowing earlier. Fairly heavily, in fact. But, you wouldn’t know it to look outside now: Blue skies with a few high clouds. “Welcome to Utah: If you don’t like the weather, wait five minutes.”

MacWorld was held this morning. Among the announcements came news of the newest Mac hotness: MacBook Air. It looks like a rather slick machine. The other announcements included:

• Updates to the iPhone software and a software developer’s kit
• Updates to the iPod Touch software
• iTunes movie rentals
• Updates to AppleTV

So, it would seem as though yesterday’s “leaked” list for the keynote address was bogus… although it did hit on a couple of items. Imagine that.

City of Heroes
Last night, after I settled in – and had a bite to eat – I paid a visit to Paragon City with the Hand of Nefer-Tem. I ran a couple of in-game errands and was soon invited to join a team for some mid-40s missions. I wasn’t about to turn down higher-level missions, so I joined the team. We fought The Council, which on the whole isn’t a “bad” thing… but The Council also tends to have Void Stalkers and Quantums hanging out with them. Voids and Quants tend to have weapons that are anathema to Kheldians – on the order of one- or two-shot kills. Fortunately, we had some heavy-hitters and good healers on the team. By the time we were done, I had earned over 500,000 XP and was only 300K away from Security Level 38. Not bad for roughly an hour’s work.

Stray Toasters

• I just had a craving for Dunkin’ Donuts. Too bad there aren’t any behind the Zion Curtain.
• Stay the Night, by Chicago
  • Bonus Question: Without looking it up, what was the band’s first/full name.
• LEGO geodesic dome
• LEGOland… this weekend… *genuflect*
• A fella really got to eat
  And a fella should eat right.
  Five will get you ten
  I’m gonna feed myself right tonight.
  I don’t want fish cakes and rye bread,
  You heard what I said.
  Waiter, please serve mine fried
  I want the frim fram sauce with the ausen fay
  With chafafa on the side.
• 
• Most users of Microsoft Windows-based systems are probably familiar with Remote Desktop and/or Remote Assistance. For those of you who aren’t, it basically allows users to “share” a computer’s desktop – with one user remotely accessing the desktop from another computer. (Mac OS offers the same thing, as do any number of VNC clients, but I digress…)As I’ve noted before, I’m studying Managing and Maintaining a Microsoft Windows Server 2003 Environment, for Exam 70-290. I’ve been going back over some things I read before Christmas and just got back to the Remote Assistance section. I came across the following passages:
  

  Remote Assistance provides a way for users to get the help they need and makes it easier and less costly for corporate help desks to assist their users.With Remote Assistance… an administrator or support representative can connect remotely to a user’s computer, chat with the user, and either view all the user’s activities or take control of the keyboard and mouse.

  It goes on to say…

  To receive remote assistance, a client must issue an invitation and send it to a particular expert. The client can send the invitation to the expert using Microsoft Windows Messenger or email, or he or she can send it as a file.

  Now, we get to the heart of the matter…

  To use the Windows Messenger service for your Remote Assistance connection, you must have the expert’s Windows Messenger user name in your contact list.

  For a successful request through email, both computers must be using a Messaging Application Programming Interface (MAPI)-compliant email client.

  As a third option, you can save the invitation as a file and transfer that file to the expert through removable storage media or as an email attachment.

  That’s right. “Removable storage media,” like a flash drive or disc. Now, correct me if I’m wrong (which, in this case, I don’t think I am) but if you’re putting on media like that, is it just going to magically “appear” at the tech’s desk? No, I think not. What does that mean?! You – or a lackey unwitting dupe coworker – have to take it to the tech.

  Granted, the expert can still use Remote Assistance to access the client machine, but doesn’t using Sneakernet to deliver the invitation kind of defeat the purpose?

• I heard a cool version of On the Good Ship Lollipop, by The Persuasions, this weekend in St. George. I think I’ll have to track down the CD it’s on.

And now it’s time to save the world. Again.

Namaste.

Monday – 14 January 2008
Back in the proverbial saddle again.

I had a good weekend in Cedar City with one notable exception: The Internet in SaraRules’ complex went tits-up Friday night. In and of itself, this wasn’t a hellish thing… BUT, there was one – exactly one – thing that I was looking forward to doing this weekend that required an Internet connection: Playing City of Heroes with Perry on Saturday morning, while SaraRules was at a seminar.

No Internet = No City
*grblsnrkx*

Instead, I watched Saturday morning toonage. LSH was a rerun, as was The Batman, but it was an episode of The Batman that I hadn’t seen, so I was satisfied with that.

In the afternoon, we headed down to St. George for a bit of shopping. I hit a good sale at the Eddie Bauer outlet and found some movies I wanted at the Best Buy; SaraRules found Mouse Trap – which she hadn’t been able to find in our previous shopping excursions – at the Target. One thing about the Target: It reeked. We walked in the door and were assailed with a stench so foul that we though someone had decided to skip the whole “going to the bathroom” thing and just relieved themselves on the front carpet. It was that rank. (Turns out that it was just REALLY badly burnt popcorn from their snack counter.)

Saturday evening, we went to see Art. It was interesting to see this again… and every bit as enjoyable as the first time. The actors whom we saw perform it in the fall reprised their roles; there were a few subtle changes in their performances – a little more… personalization, if you will – despite it having been three or four months since the play was staged.

Sunday was rather low-key. We watched football and watched a couple of movies. We watched 3:10 to Yuma (the new one) and Fantastic Four (at Ms. SaraRules’ request). I enjoyed 3:10 quite a bit. It was a good, old-fashioned western. I might even be inclined to agree with the tagline that it was “…the best western since Unforgiven,” which I thoroughly enjoyed. I do want to see the original 3:10 to Yuma, for juxtaposition. FF was as fun to watch this time as it was the eleventeen times before. I picked up the “Extended Edition,” with additional footage. While not all of the added footage was “necessary,” there were a couple of parts that I think would have gone well in the U.S. theatrical release.

This morning’s commute was uneventful. The odd/notable thing was the fog that I had to drive through from just south of Scipio to Mills. Pea soup. Visibility was cut down to less than a quarter-mile – it was thick enough that all you could see was white-grey nothingness. When I got down into Scipio, visibility cleared to maybe a half-mile, but there was still thick dense fog hovering about 500 feet above the ground. By the time I got to the Mills exit, the fog had thinned enough to see blue sky… and visibility extended for a few miles.

Stray Toasters

• I plowed through more of I Am Legend (the story) this weekend.
• As I mentioned above, SaraRules picked up a copy of Mouse Trap this weekend. She, Steph and I played it Saturday night. It was rather fun, in a Rube Goldberg contraption kind of way. (And it made me covet the Tower of ROK Mania even more. *sigh*
• Harbin Ice and Snow World 2007
• Wired reports that the highlights of tomorrow’s MacWorld keynote were leaked on WikiPedia. I guess we’ll find out tomorrow how accurate this is/was.
• 
• SimCity goes free software
• For : Gonzo: the Life of Hunter S. Thompson
• US Policy Would Allow Government Access to Any Email
• I had completely spaced off the fact that the Dragonlance: Dragons of Autumn Twilight DVD goes on sale tomorrow.
• From the “Whiskey Tango Foxtrot” file: Ford Slaps Brand Enthusiasts, Returns Love with Legal Punch
• Ten Strange Keyboards

Home again, home again, jiggety-jig.
Time to get comfortable and relax.

Namaste.

Friday – 11 January 2008
Grey and overcast… and snowy… day in Utah Valley. When I drove into the AF office this morning, I was surprised to see the road leading to the office and the parking lot covered in snow. Apparently, 6 – 8 inches fell late Tuesday/early Wednesday.

The work day hasn’t been bad. After a brief stop in the SLC office, I headed to AF. Jason helped me suss out a problem with one of our servers, so that I could get it rebuilt and back online. Then some lovely Win2K3 reading. Huzzah!

Today’s workout was good. I was able to move more weight today. (I may not be able to move tomorrow.)

• Bench press: 3 sets/10 reps – 185 lbs, 205 lbs (x2)
• Cable Fly: 3 sets / 10 reps – 80 lbs, 100 lbs (x2)
• Curls (dumbbell, standing): 3 sets /10 reps, 25 lbs
• Push-ups (elevated): 3 sets / 15 reps
• Curls (dumbbell, incline bench): 3 sets/10 reps – 20 lbs
• Dips (bench): 2 sets / 25 reps
• Lateral Raises: 3 sets / 10 reps – 15 lbs.

I’m heading out soon and heading south. Hopefully, the drive through Beaver (NOT to be confused with “drive-thru beaver”) won’t be bad.

Stray Toasters

• I almost had The Pina Colada Song stuck in my head earlier. I headed it off at the pass with some well-timed Schoolhouse Rock!, thankfully.
• From the “Kids These Days…” file: 14-Year-Old Turns Tram System into Personal Train Set
• FBI Wiretaps Dropped Due to Unpaid Bills
• By way of Comics2Film: Gamma Blog – Capes and Costumes
• : Dawnstar will be in the new Crisis set for HeroClix.

  

• Darth Vader and Yoda in Soul Calibur IV
• 
• Penn Jillette’s video rant show
• Death on holiday (Photoshopping contest)
• Keith Giffen takes a look at One More/Brand New Day: Unfortunate Confluence of Words
• LEGO Catalog

And, with that… I’m a vapor trail.

Namaste.

Thursday – 10 January 2008
Today started with me ignoring – not “sleeping through,” just plain old-fashioned “ignoring” – the alarm this morning. The “failsafe” alarm that I program into my cell phone. The cell phone that I keep in another room so that I have to get out of bed to turn it off. The thoughts running through my head were,”It will shut off for a few minutes…” each time it sounded. Besides, the bed was warm and comfortable.

Work was good. Nothing too terrible occurred… after all, it was a Thursday. On an only nominally related note: The Minimates Wolverine that I got yesterday is about to duke it out with my Stikfas ninjas, atop one of my test systems.

After work, I ran a couple of errands and then went to visit Kate, Perry and the kids. As I was driving, called and asked if I had eaten dinner. I hadn’t, but told her of my plans. We compromised: She went and hung out with us; then she and I had dinner afterwards. We went to the newly-remodeled TGI Fridays in Sandy. The internal makeover was nice. A little less “Applebees,” a little more… Bennigan’s I guess would be the best approximation. (But, not as green.) Dinner and conversation with good company are always a good way to cap off the day.

Stray Toasters

• I believe that it is starting to snow. Again.
• Confessions: The Meanest Thing Gizmodo Did at CES
• 
• While I don’t agree with all of their choices: The Webby Awards’ 12 Most Influential Online Videos of All Time.
• Starship Troopers was an excellent book.
  The movie was definitely “check your brain at the door” fare, but it had some amusing dialogue:

  [Ace is having difficulty with throwing knives]
  Ace Levy: Sir, I don’t understand. What goods’ a knife in a nuke fight? All you have to do is press a button, sir.
  Career Sergeant Zim: Put your hand on that wall trooper. PUT YOUR HAND ON THAT WALL!
  [Zim throws a knife and hits Ace’s hand pinning it to the wall]
  Career Sergeant Zim: The enemy can not press a button… if you have disabled his hand. Medic!

• I had an… unusual… random song get stuck in my head, out of the blue: Toni Basil’s Mickey
• The Manzilian.
• I still hurt from Tuesday’s workout.
• 

Quote of the Day
From yesterday’s lunch: To conserve space and maximize the utility of serving plates, two or more orders of sushi are often put on the same plate. This was the case with rolls brought out for Laurie and Kent. Trying to determine what belonged to whom, the following came up:

Laurie: (to Kent, pointing at various rolls): This is me… so this must be you.
Casen: Sounds like my wedding night.

Hilarity ensued.

And with that…

Namaste.

Wednesday – 09 January 2008
This morning started early. 6:15 early. All things considered, that’s good for many reasons, not the least of which was that I was able to chat with Mom for a few minutes before I headed off to work. And when I stepped outside… I saw that it had snowed. And it continued to snow, intermittently, throughout the day.

The work day has been relatively quiet, allowing me to dive back into Win Server 2003 reading – which at this point includes a lot of going back and taking some notes on things I read before our Winter vacation. But, it’s proceeding apace.

Today was also Sushi Wednesday (Oh Sushi, the restaurant formerly known as Go Sushi) and Four-Color Crack Day. Due to the holidays – and some delays from Diamond – shipments for the past two weeks have been a little “off.” So much so that last week, Dr. Volt’s had two shipments: One on Wednesday (the previous week’s shipment) and one on Friday (last week’s intended shipment). Since I worked out of AF – and headed south – on Friday, I missed out on getting the second day’s haul until today. And even with the today’s new arrivals, the haul was fairly light. So, I made up for it by picking up this and this, after all…

1. It’s a John Stewart figure. (If I need to ‘splain beyond this, just stop reading now.)
2. They’re more X-Men Minimates for my “Sentinel Attacks!” scenario. ‘Nuff said.

I neglected to cover yesterday’s workout in yesterday’s post. Let me start off by saying that it hurt. A lot. Something about “not going to the gym for three weeks” comes to mind. The overall workout was light and more of a “getting back into the swing of things” routine:

• Pull-ups: 3 sets/10 reps (on the last set, the last half were done with my feet braced against the back of the Roman Chair)
• Leg raises: 3 sets/20 reps
• Dips: 3 sets/15 reps
• Bench press: 3 sets/10 reps, 135 lbs. (Like I said: “Getting back into it”)
• Nautilus Cable Fly: 3 sets/10 reps, (2 sets at 95 lbs, 1 set at 80 lbs)
• Seated dumbbell curls: 3 sets/10 reps, 25 lbs.

Like I said: It hurt. A lot. Yesterday. Today. And maybe even tomorrow.

Tonight, I think that I shall spend some quality time in Paragon City… or the Rogue Isles. I’m not quite sure “which” locale sounds more appealing.

Stray Toasters

• Rather than going to bed at a nominally reasonable hour last night, I took time to set up my LEGO train alongside the Rokenbok Factory. I’ll have to take some pics of the “new” setup at some point.
• Speaking of LEGO: SaraRules and I are looking at the feasibility of visiting LEGOland: California in a couple of weeks, while in Lost Angles.
• Yes, I know “Los Angeles” is misspelled above.
• My Favorite James Bond portrayers, in descending order:

1. Sean Connery
2. Daniel Craig
3. Pierce Brosnan
4. George Lazenby / Roger Moore (tie)
5. Timothy Dalton

• I went the high-tech route an text messaged (rather than call) my father to tell him it was snowing. Again. He asked that I keep the snow out here and not send it eastward. Again.
• Falafel.  Black Ops.   Back, Crack and Sac Wax.
• From Wired: Best Vintage Tech Commercials
• For an as-yet unexplained reason, I had the chorus from Wake Me Up Before You Go Go stuck in my head this morning.
• I’ve been spending time on the Rokenbok site. Sweet, sweet ‘bok goodness…
• I got a call from this evening; she needed help troubleshooting a computer problem. A little mental “elbow grease” and a short time later, we sussed it out.
• 
• From Reuters: Election 2008 – The Latest on the Leading Candidates
• By way of Craigslist: Halloween Observations
• PokerStars makes a Mac client.
• Yet another item to add to the Covet List.
• It’s a REALLY quiet night in Paragon City.
• Chocolate Jesus Crunchies.

*BAMF*

Monday – 07 January 2008
Home again, home again, jiggety-jig.

Remember the snow I mentioned last night? It didn’t stop until this morning. Given this, you would think that UDoT would have sent a plow or two to take care of clearing I-15 Northbound. Nope. And, if… IF… they did, it must have been in the wee hours of the night and not since. Therefore, the drive from Cedar City to Beaver – which usually takes about 35 minutes – took over an hour. *sigh* There were a couple of small patches of clear road up to Beaver, but each of them was less than a half-mile long. I should also mention that for most of the Cedar-to-Beaver trip, only one lane was decently drivable. Yay. And then there was was that driver from Nevada who decided that she could/would not be passed: When I made a go of it – on one of the rare clear stretches of two clear lanes – she sped up to pace me… until I hit the next slushy/icy patch. Monkey.

Once I got a few miles north of Beaver, you would have never known that there had been snow on the roads. Seriously. The roads were bone dry. I made up a little time, but didn’t really drop the hammer.

Work was quiet and low-key today. This was a good thing. I was asked a few questions; I gave a few answers. Not everyone went away happy, but they knew what was up.

Stray Toasters

• I’m (finally) reading Batman: The Long Halloween. It’s pretty damned good.
• Interesting mashup: Thuggy Stardust and the Hustlers from Mars
• The X-Files Are Coming Back, But They Never Left
• If you have kids, watch this video: TED Talks – Gever Tulley: 5 Dangerous Things You Should Let Your Kids Do
• LEGO pictures (clickable), by way of The Brothers Brick:
  • 
  • 
  • The next pair are for :
    • 
    • 
  • 
• Bob Staake Works in Adobe Photoshop 3.0
• World Series of Poker. Mmm…
• and Tyranist: Storm

Okay, that’s enough for now. Time to go save the world…

Namaste.