Ploafmaster General

I've returned from New Jersey, and I had a blast...but the driving sucked.

When I get a chance (perhaps this evening?) I'll hook up the digicam to my laptop at home and post a few interesting pics I took in Manhattan (ya happy, Jake?).

I can tell you already...thank heavens this is a three day week for me...

How do you get a 24-year-old guy who typically watches Adult Swim to watch the Primetime Emmy Awards?

That's right - invite Conan O'Brien to host them.

I know where I'll be at 8 pm tonight...

Oh boy...so against my better judgement and general tech snobbery, I set up a MySpace page. I'm hoping that I'll be able to drive some more traffic here, but I've already come across two old friends, one from high school, and one from childhood. Half of me feels like I'm behind the curve here, and the other half feels like a total elitest...I'm sure I'll get over it.

Ciao,
Daniel

Yeah, I should mention that I recently changed the visual theme of my website to one of the WordPress provided themes.  I did this because I was getting really tired of my initial design and it's hideous appearance.  If I ever get to sit down and work on my new design, it'll be a miracle.

Yeah, I took down the ads.  They pretty much didn't have anything relevant for my site.

On a seperate note, I've been wicked busy lately, and since Valerie's computer died, I can only maintain my blog at work - not the best idea, so I've been slow to keep up.

Hopefully I'll have my first Apple in a few weeks and I can post more regularly.

Heh heh...yeah.  So I'd been wondering why I couldn't see the Google Ads on my page, and then it struck me...

Adblock for Firefox.  I'd been bolcking the whole Google Page Ads thingy, so I couldn't see it, even on my site.  I took that off for now so I could confirm that it works, but now all I see is a "public service" ad.  It's great to donate to Katrina relief, and all, but does this really mean that there are no relevant ads for my site?

That's wack.

So I'm expirementing with ads on my site - but feel free to ignore them.  It's for something on which I'm working with friends, and we've never used AdSense before.  So my site is the guinea pig :-)

Afghan donkey bomb plot foiled

It's really hard not to laugh at that...

Okay, so it's been a while since I've written anything, but hey - it's been a busy long weekend.

Hopefully tonight, I should be posting the pics of the refinished hardwood floors on Flickr, along with some snaps courtesy of Dave from James' bachelor shindig.

Peace, doge.

In religion and politics, people's beliefs and convictions are in almost every case gotten at second hand, and without examination.
- Mark Twain

So yeah, the king of Nepal has agreed to reinstate parliament.

Let's hope that's the last of it...

It seems the other day that Nepal's king had offered merely to share power with the people.  Well, they weren't havin' it, so they continue to protest, and the police continue to shoot.

Hurrah.

Nepal's King Steps Down

People in Nepal protested day after day, in huge numbers, despite a "shoot to kill" curfew and apparently no giving in from the king.  Today, however, the king finally caved in to the people.

Rock on, Nepal!

So April Fools' Day came and went without fanfare on Saturday.
I didn't get to play any cool tricks on anybody, and only Valerie tried to play some rather half-harted tricks on me.

Poop.

A 12 hour drive from Tallahassee to Richmond. Ugh. It was nice to see Val's sister perform at FSU, but I never expected to be this wiped out upon my return. I'll try to get my pictures up on at least Flickr by this evening - there aren't many, but man does that new camera shine. Super sharp pictures.

In other news:

Tonight I formally apply for the mortgage - I still don't have a house picked out yet, but this will be one more step out of the way.

Tomorrow, my buddy William will come with me to look at the awesome Seminary Avenue house again. He has a Class A contractor's license, I believe, and should have a much more critical eye than I.

My brother Mugs has turned into nearly as much a computer nerd as I already am; he's preparing to install Linux on his laptop so he can continue swimming in the ocean of Open Source software available. Not what you typically expect of a fellow concentrating in creative writing.

Oh yeah, go check out Yahoo's new map system - it may actually give Google a run for its money (although Google still has simplicity going for it).

So I've been trying to figure out a way to pull all the photos from a set on my Flickr account.  I want to pull the images from there rather than put them on the server, but I can't seem to figure out a simple way to accomplish this...

AAAAHHH!

You know, I realized yesterday afternoon that for the first hour or so after I work out at the gym, I feel remarkably more clear-headed.  I suppose this is one more huge incentive to keep up the exercise.  Perhaps with continued work the mental clarity will last longer.

I sure hope so :-)

Yesterday I had the longest day of work in my life. 14.25 hours, to be exact. I had to stay late to fix a problem I discovered, and it had to be fixed before midnight for reasons which would take too long to explain.

I was there until 10:15 pm.

I marveled at how quickly the extra 5.75 hours went by, especially considering the work I was doing was tedious. I guess time not only flies when you're having fun, but also when you feel the hours you should be spending at home robbed from you without your control.

It didn't really help that I came to work this morning to discover the client had changed its mind, rendering all my work useless.

Guh.

You know, as a final note, I realize that the last several posts of mine have been rather rant-ish/negative, and that's not generally my nature. I think I'll try to expound on some more positive events in my life over the next few weeks.

Oh, and go read my brother's poetry, right now.

Today I may be finding out what my salary increase is, as well as my bonus for last year...This combined with my taxes to be completed by the end of the week should allow Valerie and I to start looking for a house in earnest. No more renting!

So here I am, waiting expectantly, hoping to hear about my raise today, or tomorrow, or the next day...

UPDATE:
So I did find out what my bonus was, and my raise.  They were both pretty sweet, especially for my first year.

Then I did my taxes today, and all of that essentially disappeared.  Uncle Sam indeed.

So it appears that there will finally be some serious snow in Virginia today.  Took long enough, considering there's only about a month left of winter...

And of course, it would just figure that the serious snow comes on a weekend with no chance of getting me out of work.

Nice to see either way, though.

Bored.

I am bored.

I want to go home.

Gosh it's been a stressful week. I'm not really at liberty to say why (work related) and it's nothing that I caused, but man, has this week left me feeling used up.

Thank the Lord for the weekend. And the freakin' Superbowl. And the righteous 3-day-weekend that I'm taking as a result.

Oh, and a little update on my Ruby on Rails escapade - I'll be working with my lovely wife to develop my first real web application.  This will allow me to work through a real-world example of requirements gathering, database architecture, and programming.  Should be pretty exciting...to me at least.

So maybe every-day-posting will be a bit slow in coming, but hey - a few days between is better than a couple of months.

I suppose the major thing to report here is that after almost two years, I've finally re-strung my guitar at my wife's behest. I'm pretty happy about it, but now I have to work hard to rebuild the callouses on my left-hand finger tips. Ouch.

Other pertinent tid-bits included in this post:
1. Super Bowl XL is set; The Steelers vs. The Seahawks. Here's hopin' the Bus and his Iron City cohorts can take down the birds.
2. Next month, I start looking for a house in earnest. No more freakin' renting, God willing.
3. I've started going to the gym! I hope to need alterations to the suit I'm wearing for James' wedding in June!

So there ya have it. Maybe tomorrow?

Well, after a long hiatus, I've returned. At the suggestion of Patrick, I'm going to try to write in here every day, even if it's only in the traditional blog style of posting an interesting link.

Here's what's been going on lately:
1. My buddy Dave has temporarily moved in with my wife and I.
2. I've finally set up wireless in my apartment.
3. Mugs' baby is able to travel, and has come to visit!
4. I made lasagna, completely from scratch (noodles and sauce, too!), and it's steller!

Well, that's it for the moment. More from me later.

Ciao!