Ploafmaster General

My buddy Jake just created a new site, and while I added his link to the, "Friends of the General" section, I forgot to mention it. It's called CAUGHT IN plei·ot·ro·pism's GRASP and he has yet to post more than a greeting.

Additionally, Mugs has created a new site for his literary wares, and you can find it over at www.peripatetics.net/bjwarshaw.  Yes, that's the same location as our joint webiste (which hasn't been updated in AGES), but I decided to let him use some web space for his own personal web development.

Valerie convinced me today to see a few open houses, and while I was at first hesitant to join her, I was rather encouraged by the first home we visited.

It was helpful to see that a home in our price range could be so finished, charming, and conveniently-located as the well-kept cape through which we walked.

I look forward to checkin' out more homes over the coming weeks.

We got pre-approval on a mortgage! Now Valerie and I are receiving home listings via email, and I'll be furiously digging through news papers and online listings.

Home-ownership, here we come!

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 :-)

So on Wednesday, Valerie and I are meeting with a realtor. I'm hoping, also, to talk to a lender tomorrow and discuss pre-approval and all that jazz.

Well, I thought I had more to say on the subject, but that's really it. I'll update as I have more to tell.

I just purchased two CDs yesterday - "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band" and "Abbey Road" - both by the Beatles, of course.

Holy crap.  They are both so incredible.

While I was already familiar with about half of the songs on each, some I'd never heard, or hadn't heard in years.  Hearing each album all the way through was a treat indeed, absorbing all the innovative details of the music.  I think the next album I purchase will be the so-called, "White Album," in all of its two-disc glory.

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.

Or lasagna if you prefer.

Today I brought home-made lasagna to the office for the folks on my team, and it was a hit.  I made the pasta from scratch, I made the sauce from scratch, and man was it all delicious...

I was pleased with the food, my team was pleased with the food, and I'm once again encouraged to keep cooking.

Mmmmm...

So yesterday in the morning I finished reading The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown.  I read Angels and Demons last year, and I enjoyed it for the most part.  The ending was weak, and I felt cheated by a poorly constructed about-face in one character's personality, but I thought it was otherwise a decent book.

Then I borrowed Brown's latest from my mother-in-law.  I wasn't particularly worried about the hot-button issues in the book as I had essentially heard of them.  It would take more than a novelist to shake my faith.

It didn't take long for two realizations to dawn on me: First, I was just as drawn in by the fast pace of The Da Vinci Code as Brown's previous Robert Langdon tale.  Second, I was beginning to suspect some unfortunate similarities between the two novels.

I'll not bore you with the details, but essentially this book read like Angels and Demons in a different country with different secret societies.  The attractive girl losing a loved-one who raised her, a pre-eminent man of his field privy to controversial knowledge that seems, at least on the surface, to threaten the Catholic Church.  The suspicious law enforcement leader, with just enough detail to finger him for the bad guy until the last minute.  The close ally, built up to the reader and transformed into the real enemy based on a flimsy, misunderstood pretext.

Yes, I was offended by several assertians by the characters in the novel.  I was struck more, however, by the lack of rational thought process on the part of the characters.  It appeared as if some of the principal players took leaps of faith rivaling that of literal Creationists when it came to connecting the symbolic links of the plot.  Such loose links and flimsy ties were not limited to the development of characters' attitudes, but the very movement of the plot in most cases.

I believe I could sum up my feelings for The Da Vinci Code by saying I lost a lot of respect for Dan Brown as a writer.  He pulled a Cold Play on this one, borrowing heavily from his own previous hit single.  While a change of key and some different lyrics may result in a different song, the result is the dulling of an otherwise pleasant theme leaving me disinterested yet, strangely, dissatisfied.

You know, it was less than a year ago that I couldn't stand the taste of beer, yet a strange transformation has taken hold, allowing my taste buds to enjoy the complex flavors of good beer.

Tonight I once again savored the goodness of Rogue Hazelnut Brown ale, one of my favorite drafts served just right at Capital Ale House in Richmond.  Flavorful, malty, not too heavy, and a smell almost of caramel.

Of course, I head off to the Czech Republic in June, with full intention of sampling what many consider the finest beer in the world.

The adventure continues...

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.

Listen to the Neil Young song, "Like a Hurricane," and tell me it's great. Then I'll laugh at you until I'm hoarse.

That must have been one of the crappiest songs I've heard in 5 years.

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.

Oh my...Final Destination 2 was even worse than Final Destination.

I determined last night that as soon as Final Destination 3 hits the Byrd here in Richmond, my buddy Dave and I have to go see it.  Just to laugh.

That's all there is left to do.

Holy Crap.

Just thought I had to let that sink in a little bit. I just watched a movie that rivals Battlefield Earth for worst movie ever. That movie is Final Destination. Sweet mercy it was terrible. And now I'm subjecting myself to Final Destination 2. Thank you, USA Network.

What if this is as lame as it gets?

Tonight the NFL season ended with the Pittsburgh Steeler's victory over the Seattle Sea Hawks. While I was pretty happy to see The Bus and Bill Cower finally claim a Super Bowl win, I'm sad to see the end of the 2005 season.

Either way, it was a good night for football. I'm out.

Ciao.

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.

If you didn't already notice it in the comment to the last post, my buddy Patrick has set up a blog on his site: http://www.newbornproducts.com/blog

Check it out.  Now.  Do it!

So I just upgraded Wordpress from 1.5.whatever to 2.0 - and it took me several hours.

I think if I had explored my Dreamhost dashboard a bit more thoroughly I'd have save a load of time, but since I didn't at first, I spent a crapload of time trying to setup phpMyAdmin on my site, only to find out it was already there.

Jeepers.

Either way, I've upgraded now, and though you can't see the difference, I'm glad it's done.

My buddy Jake approached me recently about starting a traditional Celtic band - just a small group that would perform occaisonally at Rare Old Times, and Irish pub in Richmond's West End.

Considering I'm 3/8 Irish (woohoo!) and I recently restrung my guitar, this should work out quite nicely. Now I just need to go find some music...

So recently I've started completely geekin' out to Ruby on Rails. Ruby is an elegant, easy to use programming language, and Rails is framework on which Ruby is run. The whole setup, when coupled with a MySQL database, allows for some crazy rapid application development, and I'm really excited about it. In fact, I may re-build this entire site using Ruby on Rails with CSS in the near future, if Dreamhost supports Ruby...

The fact that I've actually sat down and worked on this programming stuff for the past few days is a good sign. I've been working through exercises, and I'm planning to purchase two books on the subject this evening.

That's it for now. Maybe more later...or not. I'm not really Mr. Consistent yet, so I make no promises.

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!

Yesterday, at around 6:20 pm EST, my little nephew was born to my brother Mugs and his lovely wife, Valorie!

Little Donavan Patrick Warshaw came into the world at 7lbs 9oz.!!!

Now I get to play the part of the crazy uncle...Oh ho ho...{{devlish laugh}}