The Artist Formerly Known As Mental Floss Dot Info (TAFKAMFDI)

Oh no he didn't

2008-12-28T10:59:00.002-05:00

I laughed and I'm genuinely surprised that there doesn't seem to be an uproar.

Yesterday morning (Saturday 12/27) when Bill Weir was discussing the fact that their seemed to be a backlast against Caroline Kennedy as Hillary's replacement he said (paraphrased) "It just goes to show even a Kennedy isn't bulletproof". Yes he actually said bulletproof.

Funny I thought John and Bobby had proven that already.

How to spend over a grand on a 3 day weekend

2008-11-17T10:57:00.002-05:00

I like to think I'm frugal (my wife will tell you "cheap" but I digress), so spending over a grand over the course of a 3 day weekend is pain for me but here is how it went.

Friday I was supposed to go pick up a weight bench and weights for my new "gym" in the garage. This is in relation to the issues with the gym to be detailed later. Instead, my truck ended up in the shop. We rarely get rain anymore, but of course the day that we do, my window decides it will no longer roll back up. Damage done is $500.

Saturday the Maxima goes in for the 30K service. Damage is $300. we buy the NFM's "special" formula on a 2 week schedule and we drop another $125 at Target. Also on Saturday I go pick up the weight bench which is $180.

So we are over $1000 now.

So how is any of this being frugal? Well a one time $500 on a truck is far less than having a monthly car payment, especially considering how little my vehicle gets driven. A $300 charge for service to keep a car running.

$180 to buy a weight bench. This is after the gym had such piss poor "customer service" in terms of cancelling the wife's membership. Kel got pregnant about a year into our contract which was a 2 year contract on which she was the primary. We had to continue to pay to cover her when she was unable to go. Fine, we signed a contract and we'll abide by it. We go to cancel and get a thousand different answers as to who we talk to. The goal was to remove her and make me the primary thus we no longer pay for her, and I become the primary and have to pay the primary rate but I do NOT have to go back under a contract. Depending upon who you talk to this is possible. However, when all is said and done "headquarters" cancelled both memberships. The local says they have to abide by that, even after saying there was not going to be an issue. Argh, so the weight bench replaces a monthly charge for a gym that has no sense of customer service. Additionally I no longer have to pay for gas. If I use the bench for even 3 months I break even - so I can see this a frugal purchase as well.

Lastly the NFM's food of course is a requirement. No other way around it.

How about that ...

2008-09-19T05:32:00.003-05:00

Well this will make it two quarters in a row where I actually have a post.

Lil Miss is doing pretty good. She's teething pretty bad so we've been up a LOT during the night over the last two weeks. She is still asleep right now, and she slept through the night except for one short crying session. So why am I up right now? The muttleys decided they needed to go out at their usual time - a little before 6. Thanks guys. Anyhow the non furry monster weighed in at a whopping 17 pounds 15 ounces at her 6 month appointment. She was 27 inches long.

As for me, where to start. Well, on October 1st I start a new job. I'll still be with that large blue company, but as most of my readers know (all 1 of you) - I have been on a technical services contract for the last 4 - 5 years for a specific customer. On October 1st, I leave the world of technology behind and become a member of the BTIT team for them. That means I'll be a business analyst/tester. Services burned me out. The feeling that my only worth was the number of hours I worked got to me. The technology never doing what it's supposed to - got to me. The dealing with global resources with little to no skills - and management always turning a blind eye got to me. I really want to focus on building up the analysis skills and becoming a key tester. Of course now I'm hearing budget cuts - as the new guy that frightens me.

Some things from my work change that I have learned: I need to focus on getting my certification package ready, I need to find "mentors" across lines of business to have an "in", and I need to find out what I want to do (besides win Powerball that is)

It's the web

2008-06-25T17:07:00.001-05:00

It's the web folks. It's interactive if you make it such. So if you post a "quiz" make it so that I can select answers and then score them. It's not that hard really.

Today is a sad day ...

2008-05-27T06:35:00.002-05:00

Today is very sad. My home is empty except for me and the dogs. The missus has returned to work. The crotch fruit has left with the missus to be dropped off at her grandparents for "day care". It's very quiet ...

Dell catalog unsubscribe

2008-05-20T08:14:00.002-05:00

With all of the noise on the Consumerist recently about unsubscribing from Dell's catalog, I thought I would give it a try. I used the the Home and Small Business links to unnsubscribe from Direct Mail. I'll post in a few months (sure I'll remember) to let folks know if it actually got me off their lists.

You say tomato ...

2008-04-24T09:44:00.004-05:00

You say Tomato, I say the best router firmware I have ever seen.

I have had a Buffalo Tech G54 for quite a while now. Perhaps over a year.

The one thing that I could never ever get to work for me was a reliable wireless connection from my T42p Ubuntu based laptop. I finally got around to installing Tomato last Friday. I have not had any wireless connection issues from any machine yet. Besides the linux wireless issue appearing to be fixed, some issues I had with name resolution for CIFS (Samba) appears to have been fixed as well.

Though I have yet to try the Wii I expect it should work.

The install went well with the only snafu being that I had already changed my router to use a default address of 192.168.1.1. Apparently you can not update the firmware when the default IP is anything other than the "factory default" of 192.168.11.1 on a Buffalo router. After I reset to factory defaults things went well.

The Blues

2008-03-24T16:48:00.002-05:00

Seeing this gem at ESPN about the fact that the Red Wings are going to use an AHL goalie made me realize that they left out the most important part. The Red Wings are going to replace the rest of their team with Pee Wee League players and still win.

I say this as someone who owns a St. Louis Blues Jersey and is quite disgusted with the current state of the team (and last season's team too).

Using Ubuntu 7.1 Live CD to fix a Windows issue

2008-02-27T17:59:00.002-05:00

I use WebSphere Integration Developer for work on an XP Pro platform. In addition I use the wonderful Unx Utils One of those two items created files longer than the Windows maximum of 255 characters. So I could no longer defrag, nor could I delete the offending files in Windows because I would always get a "Bad file descriptor" error.

I used the Ubuntu 7.1 CD I had laying around. Put it in the CD drive and rebooted. I chose Install/LiveCD and waited for the GUI to come up. Once in the GNOME environment, I went to Places --> Computers. Then I right clicked the disc I needed to get to and chose "Mount Volume". From there I went to a terminal and did a cd /media/disk . The mount point is displayed in the GUI. After that I was able to do a find and some manual rm -rf to clean up the offending directory and files. Then it was a matter of unmounting. Finally a reboot. Defrag worked fine now.

mmmmm bacon

2008-01-30T07:51:00.001-05:00

More comics hitting the sweet spot

2007-11-27T08:07:00.000-05:00

XKCD is awesome and today's comic is pretty accurate in describing my linux server upgrade.

And hyper death babies put the smile on for me today as well.

my quarterly post

2007-11-08T11:21:00.001-05:00

Lots of news going on
1) The missus and I are expecting a young'un at the beginning of March 2008. Young'un is expected to be of type female :)
2) I get nothing done. I have goals/etc but just can't get things done. This is very depressing
3) Work is really screwy right now. I don't know what to do especially with #1 above.
4) I have a nephew that was born in September. He lives with my parents (as do my nieces now) because my sister is a stupid junkie. I don't know how my parents do it, but I don't think I'll ever forgive her.

my monthly post

2007-08-19T07:50:00.001-05:00

Yea I don't post regularly. For the one reader out there I'm sure it's a big deal.

I think my guitar teacher has gone for good. Oh well, biggest issue I have with that is that I was having some huge issues after restringing. I took it up to Phil's Music and they fixed it up for a whopping $5. Issues were the bridge was too low, so the strings were laying on the pickups. Also because I went to a lower gauge string the neck had to have a minor adjustment.

I'm currently working on painting the foyer. All that's left is the trim, and then deciding whether or not to put another coat on. Right now, I don't think it needs one.

At work, we're actually ramping up for the upgrade. I can't believe the upgrade might actually really happen. It will be so nice to move up to the level the rest of the world runs on. The other interesting part will be to get some experience on zLinux.

I wrote out a list of "life" goals the other day - e.g. both personal and work related. I find that when I'm actually working towards something I do so much better with it.

comic

2007-07-22T08:59:00.000-05:00

Today's Get Fuzzy is dead on. Earlier this week a Dilbert was on the money as well. It's eerie when comics are so correct.

this past weekend

2007-06-18T08:17:00.000-05:00

Saturday I was just in a foul mood. I honestly don't know how Kel stands me when I get like that, because I don't like myself when I'm like that. Everything was pissing me off. I think it was a matter of a lack of sleep. Since she told me about needing to see a cardiologist because her heart rate is so low (that appointment is Wednesday) it's been weighing heavy on my mind. I try not to talk to her about it right now, so as to not add to her concerns, but I'm very scared.

I worked on the wireless for linux still no love. At least it isn't do hard lookups now.

Sunday was a little better I guess. Still didn't sleep well.

I got an ace playing disc golf but still ended up at 5 over. Oh well I just play for fun anyhow. It's a way to get out and hang out with my friends. Thinking about it that means I now have two aces at Timmons (2, 13) and two at Holmes (5, 6).

Then I went to my parent's for lunch. Taz is looking skinny - way too skinny. My dad says he eats like a horse though. Then came back home and I fell asleep on the sofa for about an hour.

Frustrated, frustrated

2007-06-13T20:29:00.000-05:00

bitch needs psychotherapy! frustrated frustrated bitch needs pyschotherapy. Ever have one of those days nee weeks when things just are f-ed up everywhere? That would be this week thus far for me.

Work is beyond aggravating right now. The customer just doesn't understand resource constraints. No clue. They also have no balls to push back against other applications. Why does that affect me? Well it could lead to have to work the weekend to accommodate an application in the red. How messed up is that? In a "normal" world the app in the red would have to be the ones to work the weekend, not the app not in the red. The execs meet on this tomorrow. Then the customer wants a sizing on something, but not really, but they do, but they don't want to impact the release schedule which is not possible within the next couple of weeks as we are pushing to finish up design and our testing.

Guitar has been aggravating as well. I feel like I'm getting worse (if that's even possible). And then last week, and maybe this the teacher has not been able to make it. I either don't practice enough or something.

Then there is my laptop + linux issue. Wireless works sort of. As long as I don't connect to my router (which uses WPA) everything seems to work. It's just a matter of figuring out that pesky little WPA thing. Then it's the issue of migrating all my settings over. Fortunately I just remembered about the wonderful Google browser sync app so I can use that hopefully.

What can I do to mitigate any of this?

Well for work, there's not a lot I can do - I guess I'm stuck for now. C'mon powerball :)

For guitar, well I can stick with it, and try and figure out what I'm doing wrong and just keep playing. I wish I could find a good tab program that would let me adjust the tempo for Linux.

And for the other Linux issue I am going to post on forums and see if anyone has any thoughts.

Quickie updates

2007-05-28T12:49:00.000-05:00

Made it through week one of the other lead being out (1 of 3). Went to ATL for a wedding on Saturday and bummed around in ATL Sunday.

New washer & dryer being delivered today (after the last washer decided it wanted to turn the laundry room into a wading pool).

The door mentioned in the last post was finally finished. The pewter knocker and kickplate have been attached and all is good to go.

Guitar practice is still ongoing. The teacher is a nice guy, I'm just a slow learner :) It doesn't help that I can't use all my fingers on my left hand to play. Though I will say I almost have Breaking the Law (at least the intro) down ...

Status on resolutions

2007-04-10T07:52:00.000-05:00

Here's what I've stuck to so far on my resolutions:

Financially smart for Q1 - I got it all done except for the budgeting. For Q2 I need to find some good reference on W4s and the "right way" to fill it out.

Get Body Fat %age < 20% - I've modified my eating habits and go to the gym 2 - 3 times a week. My percentage hovers around 20% still - some days it's 21% some days it's 18%.

A new meal once every 2 weeks - Been doing good with this so far - we are definitely eating some different meals.

Complete a home improvement project (nomatter how big or small) once a quarter - Yea I really really tried on this one. But the front door has whooped my ass all over the place. After it was painted it had issues. So at this point we have had to strip it, and sand it. So what would have been like a 2 hour project - escalated to a never ending project. It's ready to prime now but the weather is not cooperating.

Resolutions of 2007

2007-04-10T07:50:00.000-05:00

Wow, I really thought I had updated at least in January to post my resolutions. Apparently I did not. A friend of mine asked me why I wasn't updating here. So here's my resolutions:

Get more financially smart
Q1 - Insurance updates
Budget
Reallocate 401K
Q2 - Evaluate tax return - W4
Q3 - Check 401K setup

Get Body Fat %age < 20%

A new meal once every 2 weeks

Complete a home improvement project (no matter how big or small) once a quarter

Resolutions of '06

2006-12-23T16:50:00.000-05:00

So in 2006 my resolutions were:

Join a gym and go at least twice a week
Read a book a month - be it fiction/nonfiction/whatever - just read again
Get a physical.
Go to a cardiologist (this one came to be after my dad’s episode)
Balance my time
Get organized

So how did I do with this?

Let's see ..
I did join a gym, and I try to go twice a week, sometimes I've even gone 3 times in a week (weekends are the best because it's empty).
Uh didn't quite make it on the book thing - I have been trying to keep up w/my magazines but that book thing didn't happen.
Got the physical
Cardiologist - Never went to the cardiologist, however I started with a new family doctor and she takes a much more proactive approach than my previous one did. In March I believe it was she sent me to get some "Xray" type htings of my heart done and everything looked good. With the exercise, crestor, and food my cholesterol stays under control as do my sugars.
Balance my time - The second half of the year I probably averaged around 46 hours/week. That's much better than the beginning. Let's just see what happens in '07
Get organized -w hat does that mean. seriously ... (as in probably didn't happen).

The artist formerly known as mentalfloss.info

2006-12-23T16:16:00.001-05:00

This is a continuation of the discontinued mentalfloss.info - quite simply because I don't use the site enough to justify the cost since my preview package with 1&1 is over. I'm moving the blog here and will eventually move the photos to one of the free services. I doubt any of the 3 people who actually read mentalfloss will notice as it dies out - because it's hard to tell the difference now between it's death and the fact that it's still online because there are no updates.