Missing in Action

Yes, a it's bad Chuck Norris movie, but also describes me as of late.

Has it really been 3 weeks?

WOW!

Work has been as busy as ever. I am having to get my employee reviews done, and 12 to 18 month goals in place. I am still interviewing people for the Oakland job. I wish I could find another perfect candidate. It's looking like I'll need to travel out there before too long to see what is wrong with that place. More trips to Des Moines are going to be needed once our budget gets final approval. That could be any day now, but I am not holding my breath.

My boss and I are discussing splitting up my department into 2. One being Software Configuration management (what I do), and Release Management. If Release Management was as simple as sending a final software product to duplication I would be okay with keeping it, but our Release Management entails being able to deploy programs to web servers internally and for clients.

I have totally geeked out . I have gone way too far on buying new "toys", so for the remainder of the month (yes, I know it ends in 10 minutes) I pledge to not spend any more money.

I have had the same inkjet printer since 1998. A few Sundays ago it was sounding like a hooker on her last trick. I had seen that this sweet little laser printer was on sale the day before, so I headed to Best Buy with my mind set on making it mine. To my surprise it was no longer on sale. I ask them to honor the previous days price, but they would not budge. Knowing that they honor doing comparative pricing I went shopping on-line and found 2 places that had it on sale for the previous day price, and in one case even cheaper. Unfortunately they do not allow comparative pricing from on-line only stores. I threatened to walk and then got them to come most of the way there. So now I have me a rockin' new printer.

I have been playing a new game (well, new to me) called City of Heroes after being pressured by Dan, one of my gaming buddies. It is an RPG (I'm not sure it qualifies as an MMO). The premise is that you are a super hero in this city taken over by thugs and villains. You decide what your name and basic types of powers you will have. I have spent a number of hours getting my hero leveling up.

My hero's name is Blastoid. I must have not been feeling well when coming up with that name. Now it sounds like a pseudonym for taking a crap. I have energy powers that kick some pretty good ass. I recently learned how to hover and shoot a bad guy from further away. I kick ass from over head.

My other additions to my geekiness expanded earlier this week when MS took me to a work event of hers this week. She works for a company that had a huge new product release this week. The company name is also abbreviated as MS (it's also her initials, so this is why I call her that). This "release party" was held at a CompUSA in south Denver Monday night from 10 p.m to 2 a.m. They had some great deals going on. One I passed on that I am regretting, but I couldn't pass up on the 250GB external hard drive for $80. That was just too good to pass on.

As we were waiting around for some give aways to happen after midnight we were hanging out in one of the less busier aisles. I was thinking about buying one of these recently, and there I saw the deal I could not afford to miss. They had dual tuner TiVos for approx $70 after a $180 rebate. I made sure I could use it with Dish Network programming, then loaded it up. I bought a wireless adapter to go with it, but for some reason I can't get that working yet.

OK, enough about me spending too much fucking money.

The kids are doing great. Kevin got excellent grades again (3 As and 3 Bs) without having to threaten him again. His days of bringing his grades out of the cellar are done it seems. Erik needs more reading and math help, but so I have been trying to work with him closer.

Recently an ex-girlfriend had made contact with me. This is one that I was very sad to lose, and I have lost her more than once before. She calls me out of the blue every so often for computer help, but this time it was not for that. She is also the one I recently had an intense sex dream about. She had said that she is sorry for the way things had turned out between us, and was laying it on thick trying to prompt me for a reunion.

This is a woman that I have a on again, off again history with. Whenever she contacts me it causes extreme butterflies in my stomach. I knew that I needed to tell her I was seeing someone, but it took me a number of days to get the courage up to send her an e-mail. There was no way I could call her back. I would have been a babbling idiot.

She replied a few days later (she doesn't get on the computer on a daily basis like most of us do). She was totally understanding, and not wanting to get in the way. She told me that no matter what she would always be my friend. We e-mailed back and forth last week just catching each other up on what is going on with various aspects of our lives.

This has my head all messed up.

Echo... stop rolling your eyes.

PS - Thanks to all of you for your concerns or curiosity about my absence. It's good to know that I am missed.

Freakin iPod Meme, but I do love to meme about music

Thank you Terry...

Ok, first off, if you don't know already, I DO NOT have an iPud. I have an MP3 player. I refuse to use a piece of hardware that uses proprietary hardware and software (except the Xbox 360, and that is mostly just for the kids... mostly). I have a Creative Labs Zen Xtra 40GB MP3 player... Yes, 40 Giga-fucking-bytes.

Sure there are now iPuds out there with 80 GB, but when I got this sucker the only thing Apple was offering was 20GB, and guess what... mine was WAY cheaper. To actually get all of my MP3s onto a device I would need about 50GB, but there are some things that I don't listen to that much. But regardless I ripped all of my CDs into MP3s.

So after much ranting, here goes the meme...

Okay, on to to the meme...
Here's the deal: 1. Open your library on your iPod. 2. Put it on Shuffle. 3. Press Play. 4. For every question, type the song that's playing. 5. When you go to a new question press the Next button. Nat interprets this as something about the story of your life, so I'll go with that.

Opening Credits: "Maybe Angels", Sheryl Crow. This means I am either an angel or an alien. You choose.

Waking Up: "Saint Joe on the School Bus", Marcy Playground. Ok, that's just creepy.

Falling In Love: "I Wouldn't Dream of It", Split Enz. That is so fitting it made me laugh my ass off. "I'm not a prince in a fairytale, looking for a foot that fits"

Fight Song: "Goin' Through Your Purse", Material Issue. That would definitely deserve a fight.

Breakup Song: "Everything's Ruined", Fountains of Wayne. I couldn't have put it better myself.

Making Up Song: "We Are The Normal", Goo Goo Dolls. Is making up is normal? "We live and we die, with no reason why"

Life's Okay Song: "Build God, Then We'll Talk", Panic! At The Disco. "there are no raindrops on roses or girls in white dresses", Such a happy song... NOT

Mental Breakdown: "Private Idaho", The B-52's. I think some friends of mine in high school thought I was having a mental breakdown when I was listening to these guys. Little did they know that I was just fucking cool.

Driving: "Get To Me", Train. Perfect...
" Well an airplane’s faster than a Cadillac
And a whole lot smoother than a camel’s back
But I don’t care how you get to me
Just get to me
Parasail or first class mail
Get on the back of a Nightingale
Just get to me I don’t care just get to me
Prokeds, mopeds take a limousine instead
They ain’t cheap but they’re easy to find
Get on the highway point yourself my way
Take a roller coaster that comes in sideways
Just get to me"

Flashbacks: "Girls...", Marshall Crenshaw. Hard to believe, but I taught myself to dance while cleaning my first apartment while in college listening to this song, and every other song on this album. I guess this would also work for the next one, but I'll do this right.

Happy Dance: "Rock You Up", The Romantics. Maybe I should have switched the last answer and this one. One of my favorite 80s rock bands. I went to many Romantics concerts. We did a happy dance whenever we heard they were coming to Colorado.

Regret: "Shiny Magazine", Jet. The song is a little fitting, but the word makes me think of a voice mail that was left for me today. My head is not on straight.

Final Battle: "Not Where It's At", Del Amitri.

I don't have my finger on the pulse of my generation
I just got my hand on my heart, I know no better location
...
Yeah, she don't want me 'cos I'm not where it's at

Death Scene: "I Walk Alone", Oleander. Holy shit, I hope not.

Final Credits: "Through Being Cool", Devo. I'm done


Just like Terry said, consider yourself tagged, if you want to be!