My IP registration expired again and I had to manually renew it. Their notices that it's going to expire get caught in the spam filter no matter how many times I say 'this is not spam'. I would move it from my yahoo account to gmail, but I'm guessing the free DNS hosting people sell their lists to spammers which is why they get tagged all the time. I suppose I could just register a cheap .info domain and use that so it wouldn't expire on me all the time. My router is supposed to be doing updates, but it doesn't appear to work.

Working yesterday has got me confused, I thought today was Tuesday and couldn't figure out how I missed a day.

Saturday I washed and waxed and put the car away from last weekend, and then worked on the bike a bit. I removed the HID headlight assembly and went back to a regular bulb. However, I got a relay harness so instead of running power though the bike's wiring harness I've got it going directly from the battery through some relays to the bulb. This gives me full voltage to the bulb and will allow me to run a larger bulb without fear of smoking the weak stock harness. I also wired it up so that it's easy to bypass the relays and use the stock harness in case something happens. It should be within the realm of a roadside repair if needed and since I only have 1 headlight it's important to keep it running. I also installed the new side bag rack and bags:

Sunday between the conference call and going back in to do the testing I went up to the range with Don and Seth. I did OK with the 30/30, Seth did horrible with his 30-06 (trying to get it sighted in for deer season... the deer are safe) and Don was fiddling around with his AR and the red dot scope. After a bit of shooting Don and I sat at 4-corners and ate hot dogs and watched the yuppie mountain bikers (it took this one pair over 20 minutes to get ready to ride). The CHP was on site as well harassing the sport bike guys; they couldn't get them for speeding so they started handing out tickets for turn signal and license plate mounting violations. Lame.

Couple of Reno pictures. First the view from the room and then my view from the pool back up to our room, next is the high roller with her huge winnings, and last is the car chillin' in the garage (yes, I went to check on it during the day).

We were watching Kathy Griffin, my life on the D-list and the woman said "I wonder why they're not filming this and are only taking pictures???". I had to laugh at her for a while after I pointed out that uh, we were watching it on TV, there must be some cameras there. Maybe you had to be there.

At the game on Tuesday the DM was one of Dan Smith's guys from NVDA. He didn't recognize my face at all but instantly knew me when he saw my name on the roster. I reminded him not to kill me, that I still had powerful friends in the unix team. He didn't, but I like to think it's due to good play, not petty threats.

This morning I crashed rolling out of the garage area. Some dude in a black pickup (I didn't recognize) was on my side of the road as I rounded the blind corner out of the complex. I went down at maybe 5 mph, maybe, after I got on the brakes and tried to dodge the guy. He stopped in front of me and although the bike was down I managed to 'run' off it like a mountain bike crash. It took a while to get it fired back up, but other than some scratches on top of the scratches on the plastic, a shredded grip and a whacked brake lever it was OK. I hopped back on and went to work. At some point I'll want to replace that brake lever, it's probably compromised from being whacked at least twice.

Today I brought a small PC home to load FC7 and VMware to run a winXP image on to access remotely to test our product. No problem. So, my small panel is dead, won't power up at all. Um, OK, I'll just use the main one while I load it. I can't find a spare keyboard, nor mouse. OK, I'll just use the main ones... except I don't have a USB mouse nor adapter (and this little PC only does USB peripherals). So I'll install FC7 without a mouse in text mode. No big deal. Then I go to burn the FC7 DVD and realize nothing I have at home has a DVD burner in it. At least I could find an extra power cord. Guess I don't mess with computers all that much anymore.

The Reno trip was pretty good, other than the traffic hassles. The "fast" way up (through Sacto and hwy 80) took 5.5 hours instead of the 4 hours it should take thanks to lane closures, accidents and some screwup on the freeway by some water park. The "slow" way home which goes over the mountain pass on Hwy 88 which is supposed to take 5 hours took... 4.5. They're within 10 miles of each other length wise on google maps. I was pushing the car pretty hard on Hwy 88, it really doesn't make all that much power at 8000+ ft altitude, I was having trouble passing the jackholes in the Escalades. Fortunately they can't turn worth a crap. :)

Saturday afternoon I went by the pool and read for a few hours while the woman gambled. We met back for dinner (at the fair quality buffet) and then she gambled some more while I watched and tried to figure out how all the security stuff worked (which I find fascinating). We caught the 10pm comedy show and then I watched some TV while the woman went and lost some money on the slots. Sunday morning we had breakfast and then she played roulette while I checked us out, loaded crap into the car, etc. It took a while with the mass exodus from the hotel for the 11am checkout. In the end the woman came out about $70 ahead for the two days of gambling. She won consistently at roulette and lost consistently on the slots. She did play enough to get us enough comp points to get breakfast for free which was cool. She never had more than $50 of her own money in play, so a few good wins early on let her play without fear for the whole weekend. She expected to lose about $200, so any gain was just a bonus on top of the entertainment value.

Since we were coming home via Hwy 88 we stopped by my parents place for dinner. Dad looked strange, he shaved off his beard and mustache. He's had a full beard for the last 33-ish years so it's going to take a while to get used to him without it. He does look a lot younger though.

I have maybe 7 pictures from the whole weekend. There was just not a lot of stuff to take pictures of inside the casino, or the parking lot, or on the road.

Almost died on the bike today. That's never good. I'm also starving, I didn't get much in the way of lunch.

It's raining, what's up with that? It's not a real rain, it's just sorta sprinkling but it's enough to leave water on the streets and to make things very slippery. Glad I got mostly into work before it started and hopefully it will be gone by the time I go home. The bike had all sorts of dirt and grime dripping off it by the time I got to work, I guess not washing it has let some cruft build up.

Last night's game sucked ass, but at least we got through it quickly. I was home by 11pm. The other guys are going to a con this weekend, I think David is doing all 4 days. They'll level up on me since I'm not going but that can't be helped. I'm not hard core, I have other things I'm spending my time on. Gaming is supposed to be a fun distraction, not another job. :)

The woman booked our room for the Reno trip this weekend. She'll enjoy playing roulette and I'll enjoy sitting around reading with no one to bug me.

We've just been traded to engineering in a silent reorg. Guess I can't take long lunches and goof off all day now that I'm no longer part of marketing.

I started my new workout program today, and I'm wondering how sore I'll be tomorrow. It's designed by some NFL guy I don't have any idea who he is, but Mens Health gave him a pull-out poster in the mag so he must know something. The article says the workout seems too simple and for beginners but that it would kick your ass if done correctly. So far this morning I can see they weren't kidding. I told Kristen that we should go the park and measure how far I can throw a ball and then check again in 4-6 weeks to see if my shoulders are any stronger. One of the side effects of the workout is better sports performance, but I'm guessing they mean football and not archery.

After yesterday's productive day, today has been pretty lame. I did my homework, and mostly have just laid around the house all day. I did go get gas, and research hunting hearing aids (which are super cheap compared to normal ones) and sort though some junk in the garage. What a waste of a day.

OK, so I wasn't a total slug for the rest of the afternoon. While the woman watched the race I did a little research and built some 30/30 ammo using components left over from the OSU days. Primers at bi-mart were only $14/1000 according to the price tag, and I just paid $41/1000 on Saturday. My how times have changed. I hope they work, I remember the rumors back in the day that the government was requiring primer makers to make the primers degrade and go inert after 10 years so psychos couldn't stockpile supplies. I guess we'll find out how well these 12 year old components work.

I think we spent the whole day shopping. First we went to Reeds so I could check out the 'big sale' and get some loading supplies. It's still cheaper to buy powder and primers locally than pay the $20 (each) HAZMAT charge so that's what I did. Then we went to REI and used the gift card I got at the IAS event the other day to buy the woman some new flip flops. She got two pair, one in black and one in brown. She's so happy she can coordinate her flip flops with her outfits now. I found some of the zippy cargo hiking pants I wear all the time so I got two pair to replace mine that are wearing out (after only what, 7 years of use). We also found two shirts in the clearance rack that I liked. After all that I still have REI dividend credit left. Pushing all the expenses through a cash back card was a good idea.

Next up was Fry's to replace the UPS that crapped out on me. I used some the last of the Cingular rebate cash card to get that, and also found they had the replacement heads for my Sonicare toothbrush. You're supposed to swap heads every 6 months, I think I've used the last one for about 2 years now and it's a little trashed. Perhaps that's why I'm having troubles at the dentist.

Next was running a bag of old towels to the animal shelter. They take donations of towels and sheets to use in the cages to comfort the animals so the woman is all for that. I snagged a few for the garage for car drying/waxing but the dogs got 90% of our old stuff. They should be happy.

Next up was lunch (where the woman amused herself by feeding fries the baby squirrels that were hanging out by the Wendy's... they would lick the salt off them and then bury them). After my well deserved frosty, we hit the Kawasaki dealer to get some chain lube and check out the '08 KLR. They've sold out on the '08 and the dude said they would have 1 green one on Tuesday. I'm not even sure why I wanted to look other than I was there already. When my bike dies, I'll likely get a Versys. Yea, I know it's sorta ugly but it's upright, supposed to be comfy, has a fuel gauge and available hard luggage. It's a lightweight touring machine. Perfect. It's what I've turned the KLR into. Give 'em a couple years to sort the bugs out and I'll be ready to swap.

The amazing thing about the day, is that we did it all in 3 big loops. Once to the North, once to the South and once to the West. All told we drove about 60 miles round trip for all 3 trips. That's a ton of stuff done in a day with minimal driving.

After the dealership we went to half price books to sell back some books and for the woman to get more reading material for BART. While there I found a Dresden Files book I hadn't read so I snagged that. Even though it was in hardback, which I hate, it was cheaper than the paperback and will resell for more when I'm done. I won't be taking it on any trips. My German teacher also told me to look for a smaller dictionary to carry with me to look stuff up. I found this little tiny one, it's maybe 2"x3" and has the usual German->English, English->German stuff. However, what I didn't notice is that it's not a pocket German dictionary for English speakers, it's a pocket English dictionary for German speakers! Doh! So instead of the list of irregular German verbs in back, it's got the list of English irregulars. Doh again. Well, it was $2 so what do you want. I'm sure she'll get a kick out of my mistake. I should have noticed it didn't say "German Dictionary" on the front, but rather "Englisches Wörbuch". How's that for not thinking. :)

After the book store, we went home. Yea. But not for long. My parents called and said they were in town picking up my mom's sister who's visiting from Tennessee and wanted to do dinner. We left the house again and went to DSW to look for shoes for me since my casual shoes have finally worn down to where the soles are falling off. We didn't find squat, then we went to Loemans to look for crap (nada) then went to Office Max for the woman's work supplies. I got a thin binder for my D&D characters and checked out chairs but didn't see anything I liked. Then we went to the bank, and home again.

Next was dinner with the parents (Chinese at Ho Chow) and then back out again to the mall. For the woman's birthday I was going to get her new workout clothes since her pants have finally worn through and are falling apart. She didn't want to spend the money on good stuff, but the cheap stuff doesn't fit right or feel very good, so I figured I would have to do it for her. I refused to get a gift card, I was going to pick stuff I liked and would just have to have her exchange it. Instead she just went with and tried stuff on and picked out what she liked. It looks pretty good and is comfy, so she's happy.

Once back from the mall, I turned around and uncovered the Porsche and took the dead UPS to work to add to the pile of dead UPSes we already have. I could have taken the Sentra but I wanted to move the car as it's been sitting for a few weeks again. Man that thing is fun to drive. I'll leave it cooling in the garage and will recover it in the morning for another few weeks of sitting. Unless we go to Reno next weekend, I may drive it then. Probably not though, traffic will likely suck and there are a zillion cops on I80.

Hmm... they just fired an engineer. Apparently Patrick new it was coming for a while now but it wasn't supposed to happen until next week and hadn't had a chance to say anything to me (or so he said). I've locked his accounts and the IT guy will have to backup and wipe his laptop.

The guys in Israel order stuff off Amazon and whatnot a lot and have it shipped here and then whoever is going over next takes it with them. Apparently things are about 3x the price over there so it makes sense. Anyway, someone ordered a watch from LA Police Supply down in LA and had it shipped here. Along with the watch (which went over already) they included a small baton, a small pistol range bag and some 50' of parachute cord as freebies. The bean counter took the baton and gave me the bag thinking it was a small laptop case. Guess he didn't open it to see all of the pouches to hold magazines and stuff. Sweet, it's a nice little case and I don't have one for the Kimber. Not sure what to do with the cord though. It's pretty handy to have supposedly, every survival kit recipe recommends some.

Nothing much to report today. Doing lots of VMware work (which is ironic since I just went to the VMware presentation/luncheon yesterday) on both linux and XP. Otherwise it's quiet here.

I need to photocopy my homework before I fill in the sheets. I'm going to try it once without reference materials as a 'test' and then do it for real. Should be interesting to see how much I actually know. Well, interesting, or scary. Not sure which yet.

I hate that windows automatically reboots after it installs important stuff. I had a bunch of things open when it reset last night. I probably should figure out how to turn that off.

For once the game last night was fast, we were done on time and everything. We only had 1 melee character so I had to switch to using my dwarf tank again. I wasn't very tank like though, I got taken to -5 HP in the first round by some sort of sea lion thingy that jumped out of the river. Fortunately the druid patched me up and my character lived. It would have sucked to have lost a level, but I guess better now than later? One guy at the table had a character that had over 30 ARs (Adventure Records, the thing you get at the end of the run documenting what you did/got) but had died twice so was only 3rd level. That's a lot of work for not much gain.

Also last night the druid (aka Dr. David Li, MD) checked out the allergy meds I was using and said they were crap and he would bring me a couple of different things to try. Sweet. I'm sure there is something immoral/unethical/illegal about that, but whatever. If I figure out what works best, I wonder if I can order them off the net somehow and save vs. getting them in the states? Ah, the black market of medicine.

Ah crapstick. The laptop died, like it won't even boot at this point. I noticed it was running slower and slower and wondered what the woman had done. Somehow both the google task bar crap and the yahoo task bar in the browser had been installed and itunes was on there and running as well. WTF? I tried to un-install them (via the control panel) and when the system rebooted it came up corrupted and blue screened. It wouldn't even boot in safe mode. Damn. So I installed another drive and put XP on it which I'm running at the moment. It seems to have found my sound and video stuff OK (woohoo for an NVDA copy of XP with all of the drivers preloaded) and I got the wireless working after a bit of fiddling. Now I just need to reload all my apps. Guess I have my work cut out for me for the next few nights.

I finally broke down and took some allergy meds this morning. They're supposed to work for 24 hours, but they lasted about 7 which isn't too bad really. I was free of stuffiness but my eyes itched and my mouth tasted like I was sucking on an old iron bar. I also couldn't taste much. I won't use them all the time but I will use them when I go to class and the games so I'm not constantly blowing my nose. Depending on what I'm actually allergic too the season could be over in a month or so (grass), or run almost year round (trees). I don't see much mold so I don't think that's it.

Getting some stuff done today at work so that's good.

Friday's traffic was as bad as last week. It took over an hour to get through Tracy, and that was with me lane splitting, riding on the side of the road and eventually riding through the dirt in the construction zone. At no time was the road blocked or anything, the lanes just get small and everyone comes to a complete stop. What a pain. It should be a while now until I have to go through there again.

Saturday I got up at 5:30am and we went and got to work cleaning up the yard before it got too warm. It took about 3 hours for the three of us to load all the pine needles and tree trimmings into the trailer and load up a bunch of junk into the truck. At the dump, dad did his fast talking routine and we got off paying about 1/3 as much as we should have. The guy inspected everything, it's not like anything was hidden (it's hard to hide the fact you're towing a 20' trailer with 5' of pine needles stacked in it). I should have taken pictures. After emptying at the dump and moving a few loads between the cabin and their house, I was done and took off for home. Traffic wasn't too bad coming back, although it was dead stopped in Livermore as usual by 680.

I don't recall doing much on Saturday after getting home other than bills and housework and trying to stay up to get the woman at the airport at 10:30pm. Long day for me. Her flight was uneventful and it's good to have her back home again.

Today while the woman went to ride I went to the range with Seth. It was crowded today but lots of people were out doing the walking range and there were plenty of spots open (albeit in the sun) at the regular range. I managed to break one arrow, the screw-in tip holder thingy came out. Seth said it's fixable, just take it to the shop next time and they'll deal with it. I'm getting a lot better at the 30 yard targets, but the 50 yard stuff is still elusive to me. My bow is pretty weak though and needs a lot of elevation to get down range. Seth's bow needs about 1/2" elevation to get out to 50 yards and I'm at least 2" high at that range. Ah well, this is why we practice so I can learn what I'll really want when I buy a bow.

A big chunk of the afternoon was taken up with the valve adjustment on the bike. One of the 4 valves was out of spec by a little and after a bunch of trial and error I got it right. The adjustment process is pretty exacting, but the math on the shims wasn't working out right. I don't know what I was doing wrong, so I just kept putting in the next thicker shim until I got it where I wanted it. I hope it's right! The bike runs a lot quieter now, or so it seems, so I either got it right or now it's too tight. I've got to find a competent mechanic to take this thing to, it's really no fun to work on. It's good to know I can do it and what the process is, but I would rather not. The trick will be the 'competent' part. The dealer has proved themselves to not be that. Unless of course the engine grenades on me tomorrow in which case I can say I'm just as clueless as the dealer, but that shouldn't be the case.

It's like free food day. Every time I look at this SNMP code someone brings me something. First it's Patrick with a snickers bar, then it's Dan with some sushi, then Ellen pops in with some lemon wafer thingies. Glad I didn't eat the candy bar. I won't get dinner tonight though as I'll be on the road again but I should be stuffed from lunch and snacks so I shouldn't notice.

I've not been able to get a hold of the woman today which is kinda strange. You would think she would have the phone on at some point during the day.

I am fried. Tuesday night I went to the game and we were the last ones done at 11:30pm. Yesterday I went with the guys out to the game in Tracy and we were the last group done at 8pm (started at noon). Why we're always so slow I don't know, but we didn't have anyone die in either game so maybe we're just more cautious. I couldn't sleep again (with the woman out of town I don't just fall asleep in 5 minutes like I do when she is here) so this morning I woke up crazy tired. I skipped the gym (which of course makes me feel like crap) to get another 90 minutes of sleep which sorta helped but not enough. Ugh.

One interesting thing about the game yesterday was they had multiple generations of gamers at the same table. One guy had his 13-ish year old daughter playing at his side (and apparently doing quite well) which I think is interesting. I've always thought gamers sorta spontaneously converted as opposed to having gamer parents. Anyway. The other thing that was cool was that the game store had a free BBQ dinner for the players. Hot dogs (and turkey dogs), watermelon, chips, veggie snacks, etc. so we didn't have to lose a lot of time trying to find food when most the restaurants were closed for the 4th. I ate my fill of carrots and cucumber slices, the other players were confused by the non-bagged food product.

Today I've got nothing on the schedule other than cleaning the house. I want it to look better than when the woman left so she can see I'm not helpless. :) Tomorrow night I'm headed to the cabin to help finish the yard work on Saturday before coming back and picking the woman up at the airport. Sunday I need to adjust the valves on the bike (it's not overdue no doubt about it) and will likely go throw some arrows at hay bails with Seth while the woman does her horse thing. Maybe somewhere in there I'll catch up on sleep and do homework.

I know it's 'wrong' but it feels right to be ssh tunneling around our primary line to the data center(s). Since the DSL failure of the other day has scared everyone off my load balancing router and back onto sharing a single line I've got 75% of the available bandwidth to myself. Wee.

One of the founder dudes gave me the plate numbers that were on his boxster while he was living in Germany so I can have a fake plate made up for mine. It will be cool to have correct codes and numbers on my, uh, fake. :)

Kristen told me that her parents are coming to town for a visit. Damn you Southwest and your "Ding!" fares! They're coming in on a Thursday and leaving on a Monday and spending part of the weekend up at my parents. I wonder if her mother will be perpetually freaked out while visiting like she is at her home?

I saw this as someone's avatar on a KLR board, thought it was funny for some reason. Poke.

Half a year down, seems like it went by pretty fast.

Driving over the weekend was brutal. It took 4.5 hours to get up to the cabin due to traffic, and it took me 3.5 hours to get home early Sunday afternoon. That's a 2.5 hour trip without traffic, and unfortunately there is always traffic now. Stupid shits keep building more and more houses out by Tracy and the monster SUV/pickup crowd just keeps buying them up and driving back into the valley to work as if it's the best thing to do. I was hoping gas prices would push some of those beasts off the road but no luck there. It's almost impossible to lane split anymore as there just isn't room between two jacked-up suburbans for me to pass. Ugh.

Last night I fell asleep on the sofa at like 8pm and today I could barely do 25% of a workout. I'm physically tired, to be sure, but I'm also mentally drained. Kristen says it's time for my scheduled freak out. Apparently I'm good at suppressing my unhappiness for a while but then it has to come out for a while. Sigh.

I'll download pictures when I get home.

My brilliant idea only sorta works. I'm RDPing to my desktop upstairs from the laptop. It's a zillion times faster than running the browser on the laptop, but pdf files open painfully slow over the RDP link which isn't good since that's mostly what I'm doing at the moment. Bah. First the UPS in the garage dies (so Pong is unprotected!), then the batteries in the replay remote die, and now the laptop is acting up making me resort to RDP. This place is falling apart.