Granted

Both events are on the calendar. I've resent the links to the calendar (which gmail apparently messed up when I used their link tool). If you didn't get the email, email me. When you view the calendar, try the Agenda tab for a summary rundown of upcoming events. Yay - it's fun.

Cheers.

DCI Classic Countdown

Since we're talkin' drum corps, I thought I'd mention that the DCI Classic Countdown is coming up pretty soon, April 26th at 7:30 to be exact. Last year it was shown down in West Jordan at Jordan Commons and the 2 years before that, it wasn't even shown in Utah!!! (it's only been around for 3 years) But this year is, oh man.....

It's in Ogden!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

That's right, Ogden. They are going to be showing it at the Newgate Tinsletown and tickets are $12.50 per person. Here's the link for more info: http://dci.org/cinema/classic/ Tickets aren't on sale yet but I'll be sure to let everybody know when they are and when it is closer to this wickedly awesome event.

So yeah, Jon, why don't you go ahead and post THAT on your little calendar!!! Please. Thanks!

Corps Encore 2007

Corps Encore will be held July 30, 2007 at the beloved Stewart Stadium. For more information, go to Corps Encore.

Speaking of nice weather

Announcing....

The Summer Games Calendar

Remember a while ago when I suggested a summer full of stuff like

Hiking
Movies
BBQ's
Road Trips
Ultimate Frisbee
Stargazing
Boating
Rock Climbing/Ice Climbing
Concerts
Dancing
Breakfast
Volleyball
Ice Skating
Firesides
Game Nights

?

Well, I've created a Google calendar to post the events to. I've emailed everyone that's a member of the blog (whose email addresses are public in blogger) a link to an HTML version of the calendar as well as an XML feed link for those who use feed readers. If you want to post events to the calendar you can email them to me or email me and request editing access to the calendar itself and I'll more than likely grant it to you (if you give me a dollar). If you didn't get the email it's because your profile doesn't contain it - just email me and I'll send you the same info.

:)

Anywho, the first two events are already posted. When I get info on Corps Encore, Saturday evening ultimate frisbee (I'm assuming that will be happening again this year), and other stuff I'll add it in a timely manner. You don't have to show up to any of the events, but if you do, it'll be awesome. I suggest that there be a volunteer-basis in-charge person for each activity so that people will know who to RSVP to for events that need that kind of thing. But whatever.

Ok, enjoy, and I look forward to seeing you all soon.

Though I may not aggree with him politically...

...John Dvorak has some of the greatest insight into the tech industry. I really do like watching his Internet show, Cranky Geeks, where he and some other tech-savvy folks discuss current and forthcoming technologies. I also like reading his columns in PC Mag, where he often rants and raves about the latest techno gizmos to grace the market.

Mr. Dvorak's latest rant is about the mobile phone industry and upon reading his little analysis, I discovered that many things really struck a chord with me. Now, I do not believe that the mobile phone industry should wither and die as he says, but I do understand the reason behind some of his glaring remarks. For instance, I do believe that mobile phones have not really increased our productivity, but rather only increased our rudeness to each other. Yes, there are perfectly legitimate times when a cell phone is very useful. I have experienced that blessing on a number of occasions. But, in a movie theater or in church, that really starts to suck! So folks, the next time you are in an airport, don't forget that it's illegal to yell "bomb." ;)

Anyhow, take it easy, y'all!

How much can you handle?

Please feel free to post times of how long you were able to endure.

Also, on an unrelated note, some people go a bit overboard.

something I found

Happy Day

Congrats, Jeff. That's awesome.

Happy Birthday to Modest and Johann (that is, to Mussorgsky and Bach).

On an unrelated note...

Tune of the day: Oh What A World by Rufus Wainwright
My co-worker had me listen to it. I blog it here purely for his use of Bolero.

And to all a good day.

Greetings to all....

Hello to all my friends!!!!
How I miss the days of naps in the band hall, and the randomness of it all.......
Just an update, Shamra and I have decided to be sealed in the Temple.
We will be sealed in the Jordan River Temple on May 12.
We are very excited for this next step in our lives, and wanted to share.
To all, a great schooling may you have!

Things That Must Go

Recently, I have have been busy buying a house. Along with buying a house are certain joys like getting to know the neighbors (important if you trust your home security to them), finding out where we go to church, and purchasing supplies to do modest home improvements. In my travels as of late, I have come across some startling things that I think must really be put out to pasture and never mentioned again. And now, I present a list of these annoyances for your viewing pleasure:

1. Dub+ sized rims on trucks and SUVs. What is up with a Chevy Tahoe and 26" rims with rubber bands for tires? That completely renders the SUV very un-SUV-ish.
2. People who drive with their high beam headlights on to compensate for a burned out low beam light. Come on, folks, they're not there as spare headlights. Get the freaking thing fixed!
3. Hardware stores the size of an airport. I mean, I know it's cool to be able to find just about anything under the sun there, but I hate having to use a GPS to get my bearings.
4. Unsecured wireless networks. I met my neighbors' wireless networks before I met them.
5. Construction on every single level crossing from Ogden to Nephi. Do you know how difficult it is to get to and from work?!
6. People who get into an accident during rush-hour traffic on HWY 89. Because of some jerk in a Mustang, it took me an hour and eight minutes to get from work in Kaysville to my home in Ogden the other day.
7. Rocky Anderson. He's like Tejano music: every time he opens his mouth, brain cells die and I feel stupider.
8. Comcast's willingness to connect a computer directly to a cable modem. Hello! Have you never heard of security?! That's the most dangerous way to connect a computer to the Internet because that computer has a publicly accessible IP address. Just don't do it.
9. People not watching out for motorcycles. Hey, we can use the road the same as the cars and trucks. So please, look out for motorcycles. ;)
10. Jerks who get into a turn lane behind you and then speed up and pass you. When traffic is moving along smoothly, that's just rude. I had some dude do that to me in his High and Mighty (SUV) and it made it scary for me to get into the turn lane as well.

Anyhow, I kind of had to stretch for some of those, but they are all things that irritate me. There are, however, some things that are really cool lately. For one, have you seen the late models of Yamaha Star Motorcycles? Oh, baby! Those things are awesome! And the new Harley Davidsons are beautiful, as always. :) Cadillac has some nice offerings, as does Saturn. Computers are getting cool again with multi-core machines. I'm excited about that. However, how well do most modern applications take advantage of multi-core? That remains to be discovered. I did get my domain name registered and I'm now hosting a real website. :) That's exciting news. GoDaddy is offering domain names for about $9 per year so I jumped on it. I have the server, they have the domain name.

So, with that, I will leave you and put myself in bed. It's friggen late. :)

Random thing to remember: When mounting a CD-ROM in a Linux box, it is often required to do it manually as follows

mount /mnt/cdrom

Of course, when you're done using the CD-ROM, you must unmount it:

umount /mnt/cdrom

Just in case y'all are wondering.

Capture

If you ever need a free decent captcha with image and phoenetic spelling mp3, try captchas.net

Works for me.

3/5/7

And that's not the only odd thing about yesterday.

You, Robot

Do you ever tire of calling a business or company only to be greeted by an intractable, user-hostile automated phone menu system? Well, seems that other people who have experienced the same thing have pooled their knowledge about how to circumvent the system (don't you love h4xX0r2?). That information is provided for you here. I can't personally vouch for the accuracy or usefulness of any of this information, but it certainly looks promising. So next time you have to fix an erroneous charge on your whatever bill, or find out if the thingummy that you just ordered has been shipped, or a retailer has wronged you and you want to complain to a real live human, just remember this here and see if it helps you out.

Oh, and by the way - someone else post for the game so I can post again, eh?

Also, if you haven't yet switched to the new blogger, do so so that you can post here once again.

Aaaaaand - justforfun:

Re: code font

here is text

here is code

here is text

The above block of text was created in the Edit Html tab. I just started typing and then put tags around the block of code. After the closing tag, it jumps back into the default blog font, and you don't have to wait until you're done with the entire post to go back and select the sections you want to appear in the code font - just start with the opening tag and close it when you're done and keep typing away. If you're cutting and pasting, then yeah, it's probably about the same to highlight the block and select a font from the dropdown as it would be to go back and stick in the code tags. Catch 22, no?

Blogger Has A Bug

There is a bug in the Blogger interface that I have been fighting with ever since I started blogging on it. I think that Blogger provides a wonderful service and I have really enjoyed being able to participate in it. However, this one bug just burns my hide from time to time.

The problem is that there is no way to specifically publish in the default font for whichever blog you are publishing to. Okay, that was a mouthful. Basically, what I'm saying is that everything is fine and dandy until I decide to change fonts while writing a blog. Occasionally, I want to demonstrate Linux/Unix commands or snippets of code in my blog posting. The convention for doing this is to have your commands appear in Courier font, so as to separate them from the main article. I can do that just fine. But, once I want to return to the original font of the posting, how do I do that? The problem also extends to the fact that the editor uses a specific font that may be different from what the published blog's font will be. See the problem?

I tend to feel that the editor should really have no font specified, and that there should be a "Default Blog Font" option on the Font pull-down menu. This option will allow the user to return to the default font for that particular blog if they have temporarily specified a different font.

Now, I know there's a workaround for the font problem that I'm having. Namely, one would write their entire blog without specifying a font and then go back and specify a font for those parts that need specifying. But, that feels like a workaround.

Anyhow, I just thought I'd vent a bit.

Take it easy, y'all!

Happy Birthday, George and Robert

Washington and Baden-Powell, respectively


It has been a good day so far.


When the cold of winter comes
Starless night will cover day
In the veiling of the sun
We will walk in bitter rain

But in dreams
I can hear your name
And in dreams
We will meet again

When the seas and mountains fall
And we come, to end of days
In the dark I hear a call
Calling me there,
I will go there
And back again


Wasn't that a great film?

Song of the day: Breakdown
Quote of the day: "You've been running around like a monkey on drugs all week!"
Fun activity of the day: speed dating

Is It Bad...

...to create your own Googlewhacks?

It appears that I have inadvertently created another one. I used to have the "rootisms" Googlewhack, but that is no longer the case. In fact, my current web site doesn't even show up on Google's search when you search for "rootisms."

The Googlewhack I'm talking about is "gigalizard." If you type gigalizard into Google, it returns exactly one search (i.e. a Googlewhack.) This unique search happens to be located on my web server. Unfortunately, I can't tell you all to go out and try it right away because very shortly, my site will be offline for a while amidst a move. (It's kind of hard to keep my web server server-ing when it's packed away in a moving truck. I also have to transfer my Comcast Internet connection to my new abode so that I can continue to serve web pages and host friends and family pictures.

Anyhow, take it easy, y'all. I'll see you all later.

ps: Gigalizard isn't just some random word I created and posted on a web page. If you install the "Firesomething" Firefox extension, that is one of the possible names it generates.

Laughter is just a smile with the volume turned up

Flute 11
Clarinet 10
Saxophone 12
Trumpet 27
Trombone 19
Tuba 11
Harp 10

tpt+/flt-

For a good laugh (medicine for the soul), please visit my viral video blog. The latest one just about did me in.

Happy meday

Today is the day that I'm celebrating my birthday with anyone who wants to. I'm throwing a partay at my house this evening. Come if you wish. You are welcome to bring games and/or food. There will be socializing. We will begin at about 7 pm. If you do not receive a phone call from me, please refer to this post for an invitation to the festivities. For those of you for whom this announcement was too short of notice, I give my humble appologies. Yes.... Planning ahead. I'm working on that skill. Also, anyone who wants to can meet me and Jason tomorrow at the Ice Sheet @ 6pm for skating and dinner or something afterwards. Bring a date. I will.

That is all.

Life of a Newly Minted Sysadmin

As you may or may not know, Monday I began work for a company in Kaysville called ABC Office. I am a system administrator for the company. It's actually a job that I have been looking for for quite a long time. I've been slowly getting accustomed to learning a whole new set of people's names, things about them and some things about the company. To date, my head is still swimming a bit. :)

But, the real fun in my job is what I get to do. I start off my day (I'm still learning how this all goes) by changing out the surveillance tape from the day before. I check it to make sure that it did record properly. Then, I change out the previous night's server backup tape. I have to also look at logs from the server and find out what has been going on with it. This is my first real experience with a real server running on a RAID array with a tape backup. It's all new to me and it's kind of fun. This week, of course, has really been an eye opener for me because of the newness of it all. After I do the standard morning things (with great assistance from my supervisor) I proceed to whatever she has me do next. Lately, they have needed me to scour their website for problems because they are in the process of transferring it from one ISP to another. That's kind of boring.

The other day, I had the privilege of taking apart a monitor to see if the fuse was blown in it. It turned out that the monitor was bad and needed to be gotten rid of. So, my supervisor and I went through the building and gathered up all the known bad monitors and tested them out. I must admit that I let the smoke out of one of the monitors when I plugged it it. There's a very familiar and distict smell to burning electronics. :) I also had to call the waste management facility to find out what to do with the dead monitors, since they are considered hazardous waste.

Let's see, I also got to help out with a couple of printer problems in the accounting department. I've also been setting up a script on each machine throughout the company that shuts the computer off should the user forget. Basically, you can instruct Windows to shut itself down by incorporating the following into a scheduled task:

C:\Windows\system32\shutdown.exe -s -f -t 00

Hmmm, that looks strangely familiar to the Linux/Unix way of doing it:

shutdown -h now

Needless to say, I have been having quite a good time so far. I know there will be challenges, but with good training and a level head, I can succeed. Oh yeah, I was also the one who first saw the drive fault indicator on one of the disks in the server's RAID array. So, on Friday, we get to experience changing out a disk on the server. I'm excited.

Chao!!