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2001.11.15 @ 08:10 PM CST
(Thursday, November 15th, 2001)
So Austin had (is having as I write this) a nice big storm. This in and of
itself is cool as I like storms. I've not written an update in quite a while,
so I have quite a bit to write about, and now seems a good opportunity.
It is now pretty quiet where I am, but there is all the water runoff to deal
with. As is usual with Austin, we have flash flooding to cope with. The
ground gets wet and then saturated so all remaining rain runs off. Shoal
Creek downtown and west of the UT campus area was flooding and keeping
people from driving down Lamar Blvd. Onion Creek in south Austin is
expected to flood and possibly prevent people from getting home or getting
places other than home. There were reported tornadoes, but I don't know
what, if any damage happened. The power is out here so I'm writing on the
laptop. My firewall and some extra of my computer hardware ran for about
two hours after the power went out about 6:00 pm. Anyway, enough about
storms. Though, it is nice to see the city dark due to lack of power. Dark
and quiet are two things I miss about the ranch.
The neighbors are at least a half mile away, and there aren't any street
lights or other houses to create light pollution.
So, on to other things (boys, September 11th, etc.)...
At the moment, boys (or more specifically a boy) is on my mind more than
September 11th and its fallout. During the last week of September, I think,
I happened to meet a cute boy at a particular sub shop in town. My gut
impression after getting food (to go that time) was that he was gay and
potentially interested in me. So next time I went by (a week or so later) I
made sure to not have some place else to go. He seemed interested enough
to at least strike up conversation while I ate (he had just finished his
shift for the day). We ended up talking for 30 to 45 minutes, before I had
to be at a meeting and he needed to head home. But, he did ask me to
exchange phone numbers. I had been trying to figure a way to get that in
the conversation and he beat me to it. So, I took that as confirmation of
some interest. I thought we implicitly decided that we'd talk that weekend
(this was on a Thursday). I ended up calling him on Friday because I
thought my message machine said it had three messages, but I only heard two
(as if I'd accidentally erased one). I didn't want to miss a call from him,
so I called and left a message. I didn't hear back, so I left one more on
Saturday. And didn't hear back on that one either.
Not having heard anything, I thought I'd see what was up. I went by the sub
shop on the following Wednesday. He was at work, and said that he'd been
sick with a cold and strep throat that weekend and that this was his first
day back at work. At the time I believed him, and I'd still like to.. We
ended up sitting outside while he had some food and nothing seemed to have
changed (i.e. interest still existed). After a bit we went back to the
other things we had to do during the day. I gave him a call on Saturday,
got voicemail, and left a message. I've not heard back yet.
So, I'm not sure what to do. I'm interested in him, but I don't want to be
annoying. I like to keep some independence when dating people, if you know
what I mean. I also, don't like to be left hanging. If he's lost my number
and erased the phone messages because he was busy at the time and thought he
had my number (or somesuch), I can understand that. But, if in reality he's not
interested, I'd be appreciative if he'd tell me. I'm not the type to freak
out or become obsessed. I can cope with that and respect his wishes. Any
relationship is a two way street after all. :)
Since he did beat me to asking for my phone number and has seemed interested
in person, I'm still hopeful, but I don't know for how much longer. I think
if I don't hear from him this weekend I'll either drop by work again or
call. I don't want to sound upset, annoyed, or such, but I'd like to
progress things a bit or get closure. So now I get to figure out how to do
that. Ideas? :)
Current music: Silence
2001.09.08 @ 03:24 AM CDT (about 999937461)
(Saturday, September 08th, 2001)
In the couple of days following my last entry, I discussed the issue with a
couple more people and came to the conclusion (useful or not) that I'm
enough of an idealist to believe that things should be better. And at the
same time I'm pragmatic enough to see all the reasons to protect oneself.
On a different front, I've sent off my resume again, and am about to dig up
and e-mail from the middle of August regarding another opportunity that I'd
like to follow up upon, even though I may have waited too long. If so, I
know there are others. :) I've also been busy the latter half of this past
week getting ready for this Sunday and next weekend. The TxIS crew (myself and one other person) are
set to do some major hardware and software upgrades for Pinky's Wireless. Their server room
should be much nicer too look at after this weekend, and the software will
be much more up to date after next. However, the up 160 days Linux server will have to be shutdown
during the server room cleanup. :(
Current music: Staind - Break the Cycle
2001.08.18 @ 06:06 PM CDT
(Saturday, August 18th, 2001)
So I'm reading Slashdot before I go
shower and hang out with some friends this evening, and I come across this article.
In the reading I've done so far, I'm not sure how biased or not the
available information is, in that I don't know if I have a good perspective
on the non-Brian West view of the case. At this point, that isn't so much
what I feel the need to comment on. The thing that disturbs me more is the
"solution" to prevent this from happening to other people that I've seen
repeated over and over in the Slashdot comments. In short, it appears to
be: don't try and help other people, companies, whatever by telling them they
have a security problem. It is likely to get you in trouble, so it is
safer / better to just keep quiet.
I can see where one's personal livelihood is a good thing to protect. And
I know that there are several of Brian West's actions in this specific case
that can be interpreted for better or worse. However, the (rhetorical)
questions I have are: Have we gotten to he point that trying to help someone
(i.e. be a good Samaritan) is not safe? Should we really be discussing
isolating ourselves from each other as a safety measure to protect from lack
of rational thought? (Yes, I realize that's not exactly what people are
saying, but I can see it as a form of isolation; and I'm attempting to make
a point here.)
2001.08.14 @ 01:14 PM CDT
(Tuesday, August 14th, 2001)
A few geek things first...
3200x1200 total pixels will really spoil a person. I've finally set up the
8-bit color Xterminal I bought two or three months ago and have it next to
what has become my primary workstation in the house. :)
Also, dual port Ethernet cards are pretty damn sweet. The one I have is the
circuitry of a single Ethernet card twice and a PCI bridge chip so that the
host system can correctly assign resources to all the electronics on the
card. My firewall / router machine is now using one of these so that one of
its former cards can go in my mom's machine. This may not seem amusing to
some of you, but when you aren't usually in the position to afford such a
card and you end up with one for free, it can be nice. :)
On a more serious note, I think I'm about to get more serious about finding
a job. I've enjoyed the time I've spent on a relaxed schedule but I'd also
like to have a job lined up or started before I have no savings left. I've
also decided (figured out?) that I'd rather have a half-time or so job that
I can live off of so that I don't spend seemingly all day every day working
somewhere else. I'd like to have time during the (business) day to get
errands and such done without always having to rush around before or after
work or on lunch break. I'd also just like to not be working for someone
else that much. :) I don't know how this will or won't pan out, but I'll
see.
Now, before I go nap, a few links I've had mentioned to me lately that I
found interesting:
Current music: Live - Ecstatic Fanatic
2001.07.31 @ 08:35 AM CDT
(Tuesday, July 31st, 2001)
With this entry/update I've made some more tweaks to the look of the site.
The navigation bar at the top of each page is spaced out a bit more so that
its easier to read. I've also redone the older page. I now have less to do
each time I add and entry. :)
So, now I'll try not to talk about computing... :)
My last couple of weeks haven't been too busy, though my weekends have been
a different story. Two weekends ago was a trip to the lake house owned by
the grandparents of two of my friends (yes, these two are married). The
seven of us all contributed money for food and so forth. We went swimming
several times and probably all got sunburned. I find it telling that when
I was a kid SPF 15 sunscreen was the recommended strength, and at least one
of us got sunburn the first day despite wearing SPF 45 sunscreen. And
some people still think we've not damaged the environment very much?!?
So, with that out of the way, the other thing I've noticed is that I'm
beginning to not be totally lame at first person shooter games such as Quake
and Unreal. This isn't something I would have done had I not been around
this same set of friends so much. Every other weekend or so all of us or
some subset end up together with an impromptu network and computers all over
someone's floor. I'm not really sure what I think about this increasing
skill level. It makes the games more fun to play since my character is a
bit less likely to die constantly. They're just not traditionally the type
of game I've enjoyed. They're definitely not the type I play alone or bug
other people to play. :)
This past weekend was quite different. It started out Saturday evening with
a former teacher and friend's birthday dinner at the Driskill Hotel in downtown Austin.
We met for drinks around 6:00 PM and started dinner around 7:00 PM. Three
of us (including me) were in tuxedos given the occasion and the location.
The rest were in suit and tie, save the marine sergeant who joined us later
in the evening (in dress uniform). The main course was duck, which I'd not
had before, and found that I like. :) Following dinner was more
conversation in the Driskill Bar and for those interested, real Cohibas (which
I probably should have at least tried, but didn't). I had a good time.
Thanks to the birthday boy and his friend who made it all happen.
Sunday afternoon I drove to the ranch near Harper, Texas where my mom grew
up. Because she and my aunt are out of town camping and conferencing and my
brother was working I was the one to make the weekly trip. I'm glad I did.
I had forgotten how truly quiet and beautiful it is out there. 570-some-odd
acres isn't that much compared to some of the places around ours and
elsewhere in Texas, but it is definitely more than most people have access
to. So I fed the cats (and gave them some attention), checked on the wells,
and did a couple of other things. Then I headed back home. I might have
stayed the night, but my dad paged to see what I was up to and to let me
know that his parents were in town. I joined them for dinner just after
getting back to Austin.
I'm gonna have to go back out soon... I think I've been in the city without
a break for too long. And you'd think it wouldn't bother me given that I
grew up here.... But it does. :)
Current music: Digitally
Imported Radio
2001.07.07 @ 02:59 AM CDT
(Saturday, July 07th, 2001)
So a few updates...
I'm still without a job, and not sweating it. :) There are a couple of
opportunities that I'm looking into, so I may not be without a job too much
longer.
I received the quarterly or semi-annually update from a friend I hadn't
talked to in a while. He keeps track of how recently he's been in touch
with people and this reminded me that I'd not seen him or talked to him in
about six month. I wrote a lengthly, for me, update e-mail. Hello you; if
you're reading this. I've not yet heard back and hope he's doing well.
Hmm... Should I use the phone? :)
In the past week and a half I've helped get the second installment (at Reagan
High School) of the CTTC
Linux class off the ground. I was primary "make the install work and not
disrupt the other uses of the lab" guy. This involved getting Red Hat Linux 7.1 (the distribution chosen
for the class) installed on the Windows 2000 Pro machines whose NTFS
filesystems had been reduced in size. I was asked to not use a bootloader;
floppies with a kernel and syslinux are the boot method in use as a result.
So, the hurdles are: don't damage the W2KPro install, don't use a bootloader,
have a matched install on each machine. Not too big a deal right? :) Well,
it would have been much easier had the 3Com 3c905b Ethernet cards done 100BaseT-FDX
correctly enough with the Cisco Catalyst
3500 series switches that DHCP would work in Linux. W2KPro works just fine.
Go figure. I suppose there's some little problem that the W2K drivers get
around that the Linux driver doesn't. So after toying with things for a
while, I settled for forced 10BaseT-HDX because it works. :) If I use a
static IP address, all is well.... The limited research I've done since leads
me to believe that this is an issue others have seen and may be solvable; but
I didn't really have the time or energy to do so. The class will go off just
fine without 100BaseT.
I'll attempt to do some sort of updates here about how the class progresses.
The first went pretty well. We did a very brief intro to what Linux is and
to how we expect the class to function. Hopefully in the next class or two,
we'll have someone out to do the brief (or not) why Linux exists, etc. talk
and discussion. The issues/ideas behind the GNU General Public License;
the GNU Project; and free, open source,
semi-free, and non-free software (in all permutations of the definitions of
such phrases) are quite a bit to cover. I'll relay how that is covered in a
later entry as well.
I did manage to drag two friends along for the longest of the work sessions
on the Reagan install. They were great "moral support" and entertainment.
Thanks you two. You didn't have to let me trap you there until 5 AM with
the rest of us. :) Before we left that evening I was told by several
people that I'm too modest with regard to the commitment I made and time I
invested in doing the setup. I will admit to agreeing. :) But I also
enjoy weird problem solving situations. This isn't the first time I've had
people tell me that I'm too modest, so it isn't a trend.
Going back several more weeks... I was out with friends at the Forum and
Boyz Cellar here in town. Yes it does actually happen. Sometimes I can be
seen in gay bars. :) (It isn't very often.) Toward the end of the
evening, a couple of friends had a helpful conversation with me. An odd
place to do so, huh? So we chatted about self esteem and our current lack
or not thereof. See... I have a hard time believing that people can / do
find me attractive. Apparently this is unfounded. Here I go again being
modest... My thought, voiced or not, is "really?" So, as I've said before
other places; if I could just find the guy who is interested in me as much
as I am him... In the meantime, I'll be just fine living my life as it
stands. And watching the cute men I happen to see around. ;)
Hmm... I wonder if any of you out there find my ramblings interesting? Do
you even read this far? Or read this at all? :) I suppose it doesn't
matter too much... Sometimes just writing all this down is helpful, but you
knew that didn't you?
2001.06.05 @ 04:35 AM CDT
(Tuesday, June 05th, 2001)
I'm at Mojo's again and was actually hoping to get some work done for Pinky's, for whom I do system
administration work on a contract basis. (No, I didn't do the pinkys.com
web site.) *grin* However, I am unable to do said work with Mojo's DSL
connection not operating. :( In the small amount of experience I've had
with "Internet Cafe's" (not that I'd call Mojo's one), I come to the opinion
that $5 per hour isn't too expensive. Considering the amount Mojo's probably
pays for the connection, I'd guess they're making money on the deal. It is
true that it would be cheaper for me to work on stuff at home where I
already have paid 'Net access, sometimes it is better psychologically for
me to not be at home to do work.
Hmm... Anything else of note happen recently? I suppose not too much. I
went with several friends to the Loop 360 bridge tonight to just hang out
and be outside where the air was more clean than in the city proper. When
there weren't cars crossing the bridge (not too many at 02:00 AM), it was
pretty quiet. The moon was out even though there was quite a bit of cloud
cover, so the skies were nice to watch. And for those of you who've not
heard of or seen this bridge of which I speak, I'll try to find a picture to
share. (Now that I'm at home and posting this, I've found a picture of the
bridge.)
Current music: Soundtrack to Twin Peaks (courtesy of Mojo's)
2001.06.01 @ 06:32 AM CDT
(Friday, June 01st, 2001)
So, I didn't get things switched out as soon as I thought, but it is online
now. *grin*
My friend who was in California to do some job hunting is back in Austin
now, though he is pretty sure he'll eventually get back out there. He
decided that he'd make the move from here and on his own instead of "via" a
friend.
Now I'm off to write some perl...
Current music: Depeche Mode - Music for the Masses
2001.05.29 @ 02:18 PM CDT
(Tuesday, May 29th, 2001)
I'm about to go upload all of this. :) I've finished tweaking the layout
and moved all the data over from the old pages. I don't actually have the
weblog entry selection and rollover code done and in place yet. That should
come soon, but for now I'm doing it all by hand.
After I finish these pages, the plan it to revamp my bookmarks in a similar fashion;
an update that is even more overdue than this one. :)
2001.05.29 @ 07:01 AM CDT
(Tuesday, May 29th, 2001)
So far no changes to the page I have up publically. I'm still working on
it, really I am (in between sleep, job hunting, and consulting work). I
have a color scheme I like better and I'm working on entries, see? *grin*
So, last Wednesday another computer nerd friend of mine flew to California to
do some job hunting. He reported to me via irc that Californians aren't as
friendly as he would like. Others to whom I've mentioned this are surmising
that he's accustomed to the friendliness of people in Texas. He also
reported that the room he was supposed to be able to stay in (with a friend
of his) didn't materialize. He has been sleeping on the couch and is
somewhat annoyed about the situation. He told me last night that if the
recruiter/headhunter people don't say today that they can find him a job,
he'll probably return to Austin, rather than come back just to really move.
I can somewhat understand his thoughts... I've considered a move to
California before, but held back; mostly due to my family having land in the
Hill Country (about 2 hours west of Austin). It isn't as if I wouldn't be
able to visit, or that I do often now, but I have the ability to escape out
there away from things quite a bit more easily now than I would. My
hesitation was also due to friendships I have here. Yes, they would
continue and such a move gives excuses to travel, but it isn't quite the
same. :)
In my entry from the 19th I mentioned a boy I'd been talking to who lives
near Houston. He and I have chatted several more times and once or twice on
the phone. He let me watch as he fought with annoying Java webcam software,
which was mostly behaving itself last I saw. One might think I now have
reason to get my USB cam to work in Linux. :) We've noticed more and more
that we agree musically. We have similar living situations and both have
more computers than one person probably should.
My other entertainment this past weekend was daiquiris and games with one
of my exes, and two of his good friends. We played a bit of the old DOS
game Scorched Earth and
were more entertained by watching the computer play itself, than by
actually playing ourselves. So then we played a bit of cards, and did some
Three Man (a
dice-based drinking game). After that most of the drinking ended and
some tarot reading commenced. It was the first time I'd been read, and I
found it quite interesting. :)
Around 05:30 AM, we decided that most of us should sleep. So the ex and I
took off, but on the way to our respective cars, started a discussion about
our relationship and experiences with past ones. We noted in particular (at
least from my perspective) that we'd both had previous boyfriends with whom
communication was difficult. In my case, I've thought about the
possibilities of renewing a relationship with my "difficult" ex. Over the
4 or so years since we dated I've at times thought I'd like to try again and
at others I knew I didn't want to. I've never been able to figure out or
find out if he's interested. Maybe he doesn't know. I think my hesitance
in deciding has to do with my inability to figure out if anything would be
different in a second attempt.
Whoa! It seems I've written a long rambling entry that is actually shorter
than the first. I didn't really think I'd do that so soon. :) Anyway, I
should actually get some work done today.
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