Wow, what a disaster. There was a wreck and chemical spill which closed 680 South, then another wreck which closed 880 South. Oops. I couldn't get within 5 miles of my house (it took me 10 minutes to get out of the gym parking lot and I had to go north to do it) since it sits right between the two and people were trying to go from one closed freeway to the other. I ended up going north to the parents house and breaking out the bike and riding home, then to work. I did about 2.4 miles of dirt road today, bet you didn't know there was that much dirt in Fremont.... there is, if you know the right construction areas and side streets with dirt medians there is. I also did about 300 yards of sidewalk, I think that's illegal (technically). I stopped for gas to top off the tank and put in 1.5 gallons (for $3.50) so I'm still getting 68 mpg, even putting along in traffic. Not bad, not a Honda Insight, but still not bad.

I just did a review of my 1st year trading stock with Ameritrade. Total cash put into the account is $5000, total current liquidation value is $5003. So I've made nothing for the year (other than some tax write offs) but learned a lot. I never would have thought that dumping CSCO at $23 was a good move, but they went as low as $13 apparently and are only at $19 now. All my other choices that I sold off (some at a gain, some at a loss) are up past where I sold them. Oops. Anyway, I've learned that if the company was good to start with and you bought them right, you can hold on and a year later things look just so much different. Let's see what the next year brings.

Damn, finally a free moment to write. I tried it last night but the stupid pager started going off and I had to spend all my time fixing something that one of the engineers broke (but won't admit to, they claim the config files just changed on their own). Even now I've had to answer 3 emails as I tried to write the last paragraph. One guy thinks it's good to CC our department VP on every little thing so of course the idiot VP has to get involved in data migration issues. He's such an authority. Dumb-ass. Anyway, enough of that, work is still work, people are still stupid. I am still here until Jan 18, 2003.

It's been so long, where to start. I went and got my ears checked and the doc can't figure out why there is this ringing in my ears and why I can't hear things. She's scheduled me with a specialist I meet with on July 11th. Six week wait, but what can I do about it? I've lived with being partially deaf for my whole life, what's a few more weeks. People around the office are taunting me of course for wearing earplugs in the machine room but I care so little for what they think now that it hardly matters.

Kelly5 and I are on doing better, mostly, I think. We're trying to make another go at it. We're going to go see a counselor and see if the differences in opinions can be worked out. She really wants to stay with me and is making an effort to see things from my point of view. We shall see, time will tell, etc, etc. Total weight loss from the whole incident was 9 lbs (per the doctor's scale). Wow, 9lbs in one week, that's a lot of weight loss. Not a lot of water loss either as I stayed hydrated and the weight just didn't pop back on when I started eating again.

I still don't feel comfortable leaving my stuff at her house though. It's not a trust issue per se, more of a 'I feel like I'm invading her turf' issue. It's not my garage, or ours, it's hers and I'm not comfortable there. Not sure why.

Over the long (ha) weekend we painted my condo inside. It's no longer brown, it's ANSI white. Very bright in there now, almost blinding at times. The new paint along with a very complete cleaning makes the place look brand new. Leanne will be moving in next week so it's important that the place starts out looking good. It took quite a bit of doing to compress all my stuff into the one room and keep it usable (ie it's not just all jammed into the closet). I went to Target and got trash cans, hangers and all the other necessary implements of a home. I sorta feel like I've just moved in. How could I possibly have lived for two years without a soap dish?

I've started investing again, if slowly. I'm jealous of people that can make monthly investments; I want to do that. Yea, I'm doing that in my 401(k) but those are stupid funds that loose me money (for the moment) and I want to see what I can do if I have free reign over my choices (vs. the 5-6 choices they have in the 401(k) plan). I've picked the UMBIX fund for my first one. I think I understand all this fund stuff. It can't be that hard now can it?

Working out two days in a row has really tweaked my back. I'm noticing it now that I'm trying to lift stuff in the data center. Ouch. I feel old.

I didn't go to class, I couldn't get my back working in time in spite of the aspirin I took. I think I'm getting to dependent on drugs to try to fix stuff. It's not working like it used to which is what I was always afraid of in the first place (developing a tolerance and then not being able to take them in an 'emergency' and have them do anything).

I got some reading done which was nice, and some paperwork. I swear I'm missing some bills somewhere.

Also, if you're looking for a good canned soup, I can recommend Wolfgang Puck's Vegetable and Lentil Soup. This stuff is awesome, the best canned soup I've had and comparable to a lot of restaurant soups. Low fat, high fiber, doesn't just taste like salt water. I think it's even reasonably priced (to be honest, I didn't price shop it since I was buying one can of each brand to compare).

I'm still alive, but haven't had time to update. I'll try to do one today.

Went to the gym and did about 1/3 of a workout. I'm still really tired. This being angry all the time and not eating has caused me to loose 8 lbs in the last week or so. That's not good. I don't want to loose any weight.

Kelly called at 4:37am (according to the voice mail time stamp) and said that I don't have to come pick her up at the airport tonight. Looks like last night's property retrieval mission was the right action.

Also, the neighbors dented my car, again. I'm going to write to the homeowners association and demand that they do something. In the mean time, dad doing to draft up plans to build a semi-movable barrier (movable if you happen to have a crane which is what we'll use to put it in place) that I can put between my car and theirs. It's basically going to be a big 'L' that goes between us, so I'll park on the lower part of the 'L' shape. See how it works? I'm sure the association will freak, but if they fail to act I'll have to do my own thing. I'll give them a chance first though, it's the right thing to do.

Kelly called again while I was in the data center working (so no cell coverage). Now she says she'll let me pick her up if I want to, she wants to talk. Bah. She didn't have time to talk the last few days as she had to go out partying so why should I bust my ass to try to talk now? Yes, I would be the "bigger person" for not being so petty and whatnot, but, I don't care. I don't want to have to be the bigger person. I don't want to be the one that sacrifices everything to keep things going. No way, not this time.

More building updates. Be very afraid of the dark tile in the lobby areas. It's pretty slick when dry, and if there is any water on it you'll end up on your butt so be wary of the janitor. I almost dumped myself there this morning on my way out. Now that I'm aware of it I noticed the contractors coming and going never seem to step on the dark tiles... it's like a modern day version of Raiders of the Lost Ark without the poison darts. Also, Martin Ave. doesn't have sidewalks (the road right across from us) making it pretty walker unfriendly. I wonder if "avenues" don't have sidewalks but "streets" do? Also also, they retrofited showers in. I swear the storage closet that was labeled "Storage A1.2133" for the last two weeks I've walked by it is now labeled "Women's Shower". They're about 50' from the bathrooms; looks like someone forgot to design them in and the VPs that jog got cranky and made them put some in. There must be a corresponding mens shower somewhere but I couldn't find it. Maybe I should check the map for another 'storage room'.

Class was good this morning even though I was really rusty (and tired, still haven't got a good nights sleep). After the lesson the guy that has his before mine was still there (working out on the heavy bag) and was interested in sparing with me on a weekly basis. He's a 3rd degree brown belt and pretty good from what I've seen. He says he doesn't spar much anymore but he thinks he could keep current by trying to teach me. Plus it's good practice for him to try to instruct because part of the black belt stuff is being able to teach others and lead classes and whatnot. So it's win-win, I get real sparing practice and he gets teaching practice.

No call from Kelly last night. I half expected the middle of the night drunken phone call but it didn't happen. Dad thinks I'm over reacting and planning for the worst by going to get my bike out while she's not there. Could be.

After I talked to Kelly this afternoon, I got really angry, and tired, and resentful and jealous and a host of other things.... mostly after she hung up on me. I tried to keep them in check and did a fair job, but none the less I went and got my bike tonight (riding home in the heavy wet fog, at night, in the mountains on questionable roads was not fun, nor was construction traffic on 880) and have basically said my goodbyes to Kelly's house. I'll probably start crying tonight as well; it's going to be a bad breakup. I really did love her. Too bad she's out at a party or I could call and tell her that. It's only 2:15am her time, she's probably just getting started for the night. Wonder who the guy of the day is? God, how could I have been so stupid? Why didn't my friends say anything, again? (note to self: don't count on outsiders to notice your problems, it's unreliable at best). I think I'm going to be sick.

Some day I can see myself going to sleep and then waking up on an entirely different day instead of going to sleep and waking up on the same day all the time.

Here are some pictures from the data center of my projects (now that I've cleaned up all the crap. Part of the linux wall (there is a big pole in the way so you can't see the whole thing from any one angle, just duplicate this picture 3 times and you'll have it) and the row of netapp filers all with updated F840 heads and no more 9gb disks (I migrated all the data to 36gb and 72gb disks and swapped them during the move).

Oh, and the rest of the Kelly story (I don't think I put it in here, I can't remember). Anyway, she went out with Melissa (the other SAP chick at this conference in Miami, very hot and very married) and they went to some bar. It was very crowded and they tried to steal a table from two guys that were just leaving but one of the guys stayed and ended up 'partying' with them all night. They went to various bars, dance clubs, etc until 3am when things closed then they went to the beach (she can't remember why) and then went home around 5:30am (when she called me). She doesn't remember many details except the guys name (which I forgot) and that he was like 6'4" and "really a man". Hmm... should I be worried? Something in this situation really sucks I'm sure. Maybe it's because I'm at work busting my ass and she's off partying (on the company dime) and meeting guys in bars and hanging out with them all night. Sounds like Vareck's situation all over again, does it not? I wonder where she was between bar closing and getting home? Two hours on the beach with some guy? Drunk off her ass? I wonder if Melissa was still there? I'm pretty tired right now, I'm not sure if I care.

The Montero looks good, really good (other than those nasty scratches). I washed it, waxed it, detailed the dash, put rubber protectant on the tires and trim pieces and even vacuumed the pine needles out. If I hadn't thrashed it 4x4ing it would look very respectable. Dad made me take my TV back while I was there, so I have a 27" paper weight in the front room.

More Kelly news from this afternoon. She's going out with the gang again tonight, but get this, her ex-boyfriend Cerris (sp?) will be there; he's in town for the same conference. This is the guy she always ends up sleeping with because he's so irresistible. What fun for me eh? She's thousands of miles away having a great time going out and getting drunk with her irresistible (yet married with children) ex-boyfriend. Sounds like the Evil One (tm) all over again. She swears nothing is going on but again, didn't Charlotte say nothing was going on? I need to see if dad will take me out there tomorrow to pick up my bike and bring it home, I think the end is near.

You can tell it's Sunday, Dilbert is in color.

I'm back at work again after a bad night's sleep. Around 2am Bill the maintenance guy calls to say that one of the circuits in the data center is close to overload and Ed is no where to be found. I asked if it was on fire and when he said no I put the radio down and went back to sleep. Then around 3:30am Kelly called to say hello. She just got back in (at like 5:30am her time?) from a night of partying. We didn't talk much, I was pretty out of it.

This morning I woke up at 8am and decided to ride in so I went to HMB and got the bike, had a snack then rode in. Hwy 92 to Hwy 35 (skyline) to Hwy 9 to Lawrence, to Monroe to San Tomas to Walsh then into the parking lot. Took me a while that way but it was fun. A nice tourist offered to take my picture at the rest stop since I was playing with the camera. Also, what is this weird car? A Z8? I've never seen one before.

Well, my stupid fuck coworkers are back from lunch. I can hear them yelling and being stupid even over the music and the noise canceling headphones (which rock, by the way).

The power guys are still here. "Something" is wrong with the circuits in the data center and they're all overloaded (as Bill noted at 2am). They made me shut down the whole Linux farm so they could play with the power. I left at that point to go take the bike back to HMB. Now I'm back at work waiting for power so I can bring the farm back up. I did get a chance to finally take some good pictures of the bike. Check 'em out, these are uncorrected photos. I just put the camera into 'sharp' mode and left the color balance alone (although I should have put it in high ISO mode) but hey, they're looking better. Some of them color corrected in photoshop look awesome. Try to ignore the bugs, there were lots of them in the mountains today. I also threw in those random shots from the ride in this morning at the end, they're out of time sequence but that shouldn't bother anyone.

I can't believe these fucks. I'm here busting my ass all night and they, after a 5 fucking hour dinner break go home around 11 and show up at noon and go to lunch until 1:30. Now they're sitting around watching some basketball game on TV and sleeping while the rest of us try to get things running correctly. Why even be here? Just go home, you're not doing anything but making noise and getting in the way. I guess they're just hanging around to get another free meal since now they're talking about where to go eat (they're spending $1000+ each meal going to fancy restaurants and ordering everything).

I just noticed that there are two Saturday headings. Last night/morning the first and now later. It's almost Sunday again. I'm the last one here, everyone else left a while ago; Ed was the other last one about 11pm. I'll go home too here any minute, I'm feeling the need to get away. I might to out to half moon bay so I could ride around a little on the bike in the AM. Wonder if Kelly would mind me staying at her place while she is away? She called from Miami earlier but my phone crapped out. I have her number there and gave her a call but she had left for dinner (around 7:30pm local time). It's now what, 3:30am on the east coast? She's either out having fun or came back and went to sleep without calling, or never got the message. She's probably out dancing or something. That sucks. Hopefully she won't meet any Latin Studs (tm) while she's out there, Vareck has had enough trouble with those types as of late for all of us. She asked me if I thought she would cheat on me when she was away. I said that yes, I thought there was the possibility that she would.... obviously that didn't sit well with her. But it's true, she could easily meet some guy there and make up for her lack of a sex life with some mindless screwing. I guess if I didn't have to work so much I could have gone along and/or have more time to spend with her to try to keep her for myself. Then again, if I didn't work so much I wouldn't have the necessary $$$ to keep her anyway, so it would be a moot point. I hate relationships, someone remind me why I always end up getting in them?

Sleep, I need sleep. I've been at work for 15 hours so far today after being at work for 16 hours yesterday and the day before. How does Dennis, Kenny and the rest of those long day people do it? I've not even had dinner. All the slackers left to go goof off for a 5 hour dinner leaving me here to work on stuff. That sucked. I had some carrot sticks in the fridge but that's not food. Damn, now that I'm thinking about it I'm really hungry.

Nothing too exciting to report, just still working on the move. I need sleep, that's the main thing.

The trucks are assembling at the old building and flocks of drones in green shirts are lining up to start moving stuff. At 3pm we pull the plug on the Linux farm and the IKOS farm and start backups on the suns and the netapp boxes.

I managed to go to lunch with Kelly today; I really miss her. She's going to stay at my place tonight just in case I manage to get home sometime and actually see her alone in a comfortable place (vs. being in a cube at work). She's going to Miami for a week starting Sunday so I won't see her for a while. I'm going out to her place to stay whenever they give us a day off. That way I can sleep and maybe, just maybe, ride the bike! Speaking of the bike, on the way back from lunch today a yellow F650GS crossed in front of us at a light doing a wheelie across the intersection (at El Camino and San Thomas). It looked pretty cool, it had the hard side bags and everything. Fortunately Kelly missed it and I was on the phone so I didn't have time to point it out to her (which, although a bad idea, I would have done no doubt). It wouldn't be good for her to see people doing stupid stuff on bikes, especially one just like mine.

Couple of pictures from yesterday just to keep people amused. One is a picture of some of the Netapp crates I had to move from shipping, the other is the view out of the windows outside my cube. And, lest you think all of my photography is boring and useless, check out the 3rd picture. Nice trash can eh? Notice how in focus and well illuminated with no harsh shadows or bright reflections or anything even though it was in the shade and it was really sunny out. I'm getting the hang of the cheap camera.... or so I think. I've also found if you put it in 'sharp' mode it keeps me from having to go back in with photoshop and do it myself. Wonder why that's not the default, am I the only one that likes in-focus pictures? Too bad it goes out of sharp mode every time you turn it off.

Made it home last night at 1am, got back to work at 9:30am and managed to stop and get flowers and a card for Kelly (she brought me lunch yesterday at the new building so I had to get her something for her efforts).

People are really bitching about the free snacks being gone in the new building. Instead they have vending machines with everything priced 25 cents. I like this better, actually for a few reasons. One, we only had 3-4 choices before (and none of them healthy) and now we have 20-30 choices easy with lots of low and non-fat snacks and pretzels. Also, the little grabbers would take cases of stuff from the break room home to feed their families and whatnot so unless you got there before 9am everything was gone every day. Now there is always something available when you want it. I'll pay 25 cents for healthier choices, more choices and availability when I want it. The part I don't like? The sodas are free, but the water and juice now cost $1. That really sucks.

Another bike picture, not that anyone really cares but hey, it's my journal. Here it is (was) on the showroom floor waiting for pickup. It's sitting next to it's big brother the 1150GS. Notice they both have that 'duck bill' nose on them. The 1150GS has a really cool headlight setup as well.

Oh, and check out this nifty excel spread sheet of the linux farm layout I came up with. It's ultra confusing I know, but it makes sense when you know all the details, restrictions and time lines I'm dealing with. I really need MS Project. :)

Everyone else went to dinner except Dennis and I since apparently we're the only ones worried that things aren't going to be working. Man, this is going to suck, there are too many things going wrong too early. I didn't realize how much stuff I was slated to do. At least I got to see Kelly for a few minutes today.

I had a little trouble getting into the new building this morning. They wouldn't let me in because I didn't have a badge, only a key-fob security thingy. I've not used a badge ever, I always have just used the little fob thing but there aren't readers on the doors here, rather a real live person that looks at the badge. I had to go in as an escorted visitor until I could find my badge in my boxes of crap (14 boxes to be exact).

The week from hell has started; the move is only 4 days away. Our VP is running around being stupid (he's not paid any attention to anything until now and suddenly he feels like he has to be 'part of the process') and causing a lot of problems. Fortunately he gets bored easy so I imagine he'll be gone after a few hours.

I recovered from my flu-like sickness today, that was good. Starting Saturday night I was feverish, suffering from various 'stomach issues', etc. It passed almost completely by today. The Canadian had the same thing at the same time so I'm ruling out food poisoning since I've not eaten in the cafeteria in the last few days.

I also picked up the bike this weekend and it's safely in Kelly's garage. If I'm lucky I'll get to ride it in the next few weeks. It's an expensive door stop at this point. Looks good though:

I went nuts and spent the money on a real BMW kevlar riding jacket and pants, a new helmet (newer version of the one that I lost in the last crash) and some new gloves. That burnt up the $1000 cash back I got from BMW and then some.

You really forget how slow a T1 is until you need to move 1.6gb of data over one. Man this takes a long time.

Oh, and I found the bathroom nearest our new offices. They decided against putting showers in the new building, but to be PC the men's room has a baby changing station. How useless.

Something is 'wrong' with the local network. It's faster to transfer stuff from the remote site of the the two T1s (Dennis got the 2nd one working again) that it is to transfer it from my desktop box to a system in the next room. Jimmy says "that's some whack ghetto shit, man". Our network expert has spoken and will deal with it tomorrow. It's pretty late, he's probably got a good idea going home.

The good news (and the reason I'm still at work this late) is that I cut out at 6pm to go take my orange belt test. I passed even, so now I'm a 2nd level character, right?

I should also mention that on Sunday Kelly and I made brunch for mom for mother's day. I did all of the cutting/chopping duties (various melons, strawberries, etc for the fruit salad, mushrooms and spinach for the resoto, etc etc). It took me about two hours to do all the work while Kelly cleaned house. Then when the parents showed up she cooked the resoto while I made desert (chocolate pudding, not exactly rocket science there but it's what I wanted).

I've got my PC in my new cube now, I'm 100% out of the old building. It's freaking bright in here, I can hardly see the screen even with it turned up all the way. It's really hard on my eyes, I'll have to put a tarp over my computer area to block the overhead light since I can't turn them off or take the bulbs out (they're way too high to reach without a ladder).

Kelly called last night, her uncle died. Apparently he got into an altercation with a county sheriff in Reno and pulled a knife at which time the sheriff shot him. Killed him quickly apparently. And who says cops can't shoot? Anyway, she wasn't close to him or anything and the family knew something like this would happen because the guy was a nut, but it's still weird to hear about.

No gym today, I didn't get to sleep until late last night and felt like crap when I woke up. My shoulders are really sore, I think I lifted something wrong yesterday hauling boxes around.

Moved more crap into the new building. The cube layouts suck. The layout in building "D" (where marketing/sales/etc sits) is way better and last night Jimmy and Dennis tore their cubes apart and rebuilt them with parts stolen from building "D". I would do the same, but there aren't enough parts to do a whole cube for me. I did steal a coat hook and a small under-desk filing cabinet (two things they get we don't). I never realized how much I like my cube layout here. At least I have a place to put my white board (there are no white boards in the new building that I can see, even the beautiful people don't have them). We also don't have power to our cubes yet which makes things sorta hard.

Hey, we have power in the new building and the network is working (I'm doing this update from my Linux box in the new building). I can't get NIS working on my sun box, but it works on my Linux box. Very odd.

I'm having trouble sleeping for some reason. I ate at work (very tasty BBQ-esk chicken) then came home, unloaded the Montero of the junk I brought home from work (lots of personal stuff ended up there) and went to the driving range and hit a bucket around 9pm. At 10pm I went to the gym to relax in the hot tub which was just the ticket to relaxing. Now however I'm just sitting here looking at the screen listening to music. I should sleep, I've got to go to the gym tomorrow morning. I also should pay bills; I've got a huge stack here ready to be filled out. There has got to be a way to put more of these on auto-pay or something, I write too many checks. The odds that one of them is going to get lost (again) is pretty high.

Oh, and the cube reconfig goes on. One guy completely moved the door in his cube so his back isn't facing an open hallway and 4 of us stole small 'walls' from the pile of stuff they'll use for building D floor 2 and made little 'shields' that keep the glare from the windows off the screens. Without the little walls it was really hard to read the screen with sunlight right in your eyes. Another day of tweaking and we'll get these cubes setup right. I wonder if the building Nazis will notice?

Busy day again. The forced me to move out of my cube so now all my stuff is gone other than my computers and my 'personal effects', and phone. Man what a pain, it makes it hard to work around here when all your stuff is 2 miles from your desk. I got a whole lot of stuff done today however, more than I actually thought I would but there is still lots and lots to do.

The big fun for the day was that I finally stepped up to the plate and ordered a F650GS. Yellow with ABS and I had them add the extra large engine guard, the trunk kit (mount and a 31 L bag keyed to work off the ignition key) and the on-board computer (lots of useless functions and pretty displays to look at). BMW is giving $1000 cash back which made choking down the MSRP price less harsh. I rode their test bike and it was fun. Not a VFR at all, in fact it was sorta 'wimpy' on the street but it's not supposed to be a full on street bike. It did cruise at 70mph with little trouble and would have done more but the tester only had 300 miles on it, not out of break in yet. Here is what mine will look like minus all the goodies I tacked on:

They're installing all the extras on and it will be ready Friday or Saturday for me to take delivery of. Apparently there is a bunch of stuff they do when you pick the bike up, you sorta have to schedule when you'll come down and they'll show you how things work, make sure everything is adjusted for you, etc. Quite the production apparently. They also gave me a 'free' hat, how cool is that? (yes, I know it's not really free, but it's not on the invoice so I'm pretending it's free).

The other interesting news is that Ed took me into the parking lot for a talk today. I was pretty worried, I hadn't been complaining about anything so why does he want to talk? Anyway, he says that he's going to make me the manager of the sysadmin group in 2 months (or less) and wanted to get my input on some things (new hiring, stealing people from other groups, etc). It's very scary, I'm not ready I don't think. He also said I have to start thinking about how to train my group on the new sunfire systems. My group? I guess Kenny and Dennis are managers, why can't I play? :) Besides, he said I'll get a 10-15% raise right away. I think I'll make more then Kelly5 then... heh, heh, heh.

Dad wants to go in as a 'partner' on the cabin paying half of the mortgage and whatnot. That way it gets my monthly cash outflow down (which I want, a lot) and makes sure I don't go renting it out or something. My goal is to not have to use stock money for anything except stupid toys. I can do that no problem, unless Kelly5 wants to keep traveling around the world all the time which apparently she does. The room mate and dad's partnership (as well as my upcoming raise) should put me in good shape.

Oh, I also forgot to mention that I hit a small bucket (60) of balls at the range yesterday before I went out to HMB. I've almost got a handle on the 5 wood and I definatly can do OK with the 5 iron now. Tiger Woods I'm not, but I don't have to be. I just have to be better than Kelly.

I just realized that after tomorrow I won't be able to get email at home anymore. I'll have to move my PC to the new building tomorrow so PC anywhere will stop working. Damn, that sucks. Oh well. Tomorrow should be good in spite of that because I don't have to go to the gym nor class tomorrow! A day off, I really like that.

You know something is really wrong with the world when you have to schedule dates with your girlfriend using outlook. I just realized that all of our weekend plans (dance class, financial planning seminar, BBQ at her brothers and a brunch for mom for mother's day) were done in outlook and I actually sent out meeting requests and she actually accepted the meetings. That's turbo-geek, or really sad, I can't figure out which.

Excellent weekend, glad it turned out well. Kelly and I played golf on Sunday, after I let her drive the Montero off-road. She trashed it pretty bad, I forgot just how hard it is to go 4 wheeling with a novice. I also forgot the damn camera on the 4x4 adventure so no pictures of that.

Today after I went to the new building and had the cable guys get busy, I snuck over to the BMW dealer and check out a F650GS. They had the silver/blue one in the crate still in the back so I took some pictures of it (just in case I end up buying that bike). I've decided on the F650GS for sure, but I'm not sure of the color. The red sucks, it looks faded when new. That red bike I took one picture of is the same red has the 650's red. Check out how bad it looks compared to the red of the reflector on the bike behind it. It's not just my cheesy camera making it look bad, it just looks bad. Kelly5 likes the bright yellow like the one that was in the shop being fixed. The yellow one had been down on both sides (on the dirt) and all that was wrong was that it was dirty and the turn signals broke off. 8 screws and there will be new signals on it. With ABS the bike is $8600. Why wouldn't you get ABS? This afternoon I talked it over again with Kelly5 and she again gave me the green light and her support. This is cool. Tomorrow I'm going back to ride the one that was crated up and if I like it, I'll order a yellow one. Sales droid said they would have any color I wanted here by Saturday for me to pick up. Excellent, I just hope it rides well.

Work is pretty damn stressful today, just lots of move stuff happening all at once. Loc has no clue what he's doing. He's got to move two E6500s and 1.7tb of data on Friday and he's not even started loading the data yet. We're screwed, glad that's not my piece of this puzzle.

I didn't make it to class tonight. I got caught up in work stuff and didn't get done until 7:15 and class starts at 7. The test is next week, I shouldn't have missed class. I also didn't workout this morning because I couldn't get up. I've been very tired the last few days, or more likely weeks. I was going to go tonight since I missed class but again, I couldn't get the energy up. I'm doing some review of class stuff at home tonight (taking a break to type this up) which will help but isn't a real workout. Maybe tomorrow night? Kelly thinks I should start using the nose spray stuff again so try to fight off the sinus problems I'll have spending so much time in the data center (dry AC air) and because of all the stress. I think she's right on this one.

The day is going pretty well so far. I fell asleep on the floor last night for a while (until about 2am) then managed to get into bed. So much for reading a little before bed. I managed to get up at 7am and get to the driving range and hit a medium bucket (100) of balls. It was pretty muddy out there, must have rained sometime? I wasn't aware.

I then went to check out motorcycles, just because I can. Fremont Honda/Kawasaki was pretty cool, they had everything, even an CBR600F4i. I couldn't decide which was better, that or the Kawasaki ZX-6R. The F4 is fuel injected and all new, the 6R is a year old, uses carbs and still has two analog gauges which look cool (vs the digital speedometer/clock/everything and an analog tach on the F4). Sport bikes with gauges are on the way out. Too bad, I think it looks better.

Next I came home and ran some laundry and went to the pistol range and fired two boxes (100) rounds out of the Kimber and picked up some .45 and 12 gauge snap caps since I don't have any. They have these nifty aluminum ones now which are supposed to last longer. They didn't have the plastic/brass ones anymore so I went with the aluminum even though I didn't think there was anything wrong with the old style regardless of what the sales guy said. When I got home, I noticed one of my .357 caps was cracked. Hmm... maybe the sales guy was right? Na, just a fluke.

I also went to the food store and got a couple boxes of cereal (mini-wheats were 3 boxes for $5 on sale so I had to get 3), milk, and some weight watchers frozen crap. I also went to the drug store to get a card for Kelly and to have a key made for her. Yes, I'm giving her a key to my place today. Not like she would ever come over without me, it's just a symbol, or something.

People said it looked like I didn't save my entry after I finished it. Not quite it. Things were just so hectic and people were so stressed out here the other day (today not so bad) that it was just too much for me to try to go through it all again to type it out. Man this place is getting bad. Serious bad. This move is going to kill us all if we're not careful. Lots of stress and lots of short tempers are going to be the cause of some nasty disputes. Fortunately I've not actually been involved in many of the little fires that are breaking out around the office. That's nice, I don't want to be in the middle of anything.

I was going to go home, but then I forgot that I'm supposed to process a bunch of pictures for Kelly. I'll do that now. I also have these shots left in the camera. We have pictures of the cheapest gas prices in the valley (it usually costs $30 to fill the GTI now at most stations), and the front of my favorite sushi restaurant I make all the vendors take me to. Sun took me on Monday or Tuesday, I forget.

AAA made a visit to the condo this morning and hauled the truck over to the shop to have the exploding water pump taken care of. This is getting to be a common view of the truck:

Last night was the golf game, but stupid me forgot the camera in the car. I remembered it on the 4th tee. Oh well, just imagine a bunch of people playing golf. They would have turned out badly anyway, there were lots of shadows and the sun was really low in the sky so the contrast would have been whacked. I did OK playing, I beat Kelly5 which is something I guess. The game is sorta fun; we'll see how it turns out. Playing is more fun the driving range, I'll give it that.

Whew, it's now 7pm and I'm home making a snack/dinner/whatever. It's been a long day. Lots of weird issues. For one, we overloaded the UPS unit for the data center. We went over 105% capacity so it went into bypass mode and we basically had no UPS at that point (or power conditioning). We're now back to running at 99.5%, much better. Yea, whatever. Basically we can't any anything new to the data center. No problem, except that I alone have 15 more systems to bring online before the move. While the UPS was off-line, the AC unit died (the main one) and the data center got up to 90+ degrees. 8 Linux boxes overheated and burnt out and they ended up shutting off all the Dell NT boxes to keep exchange from doing something bad when it crashed. Users are crying because we won't put more systems online, add more Netapp filers and several people now have said they need access to all their data and systems during the move. How does that work? Wireless and generators in the moving trucks? We did buy a few TBs of storage and a new filer to pre-move over there as well as a few E6500s. The Canadian keeps panicking about Xbox... "we can't be the reason it's late!". He keeps forgetting that the Xbox GPU thingy is like so yesterday. We've got 3 other projects more bleeding edge than that old dinosaur. :)

The other interesting thing is my Columbine info came today. The government puts out free (yes, that's where your tax money goes) info on things like the Columbine school shooting for anyone to order. I got the police report and a full CD that has audio clips (911 operator calls) and video of events (footage from inside from the security cams, heavily edited) and whatnot. After reading about what the kids (the killer guys) did, I have to say they did really well. They were bad at bomb making, but their equipment setup, planning and whatnot is actually thoughtful. They have footage of them practicing at Rampart Range (Eric and I have been there before) with the weapons they used, and in their time line they actually have time blocked off for 'gearing up'. yes, the actually realized it would take a few minutes (like 30) to strap on all the weapons, bombs, load things and get ready to roll. There are pictures of their weapons as well. One kid favored (that's what the police called it when he did most of his killing with it) the Tek 9, the other.... the sawed off double barrel 12 gauge. Yea baby, that's a killing machine. The worst part about it was the stupidity of the kids and the teachers inside. They have a recording of the 911 conversation with the teacher inside the library (where a lot of the executions took place). You can hear the gunfire for 6 minutes or so during the call. She says "they're getting closer, they're right outside" a bunch and you can hear shots getting louder. They have a map of the library. The killers were coming in one door. On the other side of the room is a huge fricking fire exit that they all went out after the killers came in and shot people. Why didn't they just run like hell in those 5 minutes they had while they were shooting elsewhere? I mean, what would you do? Sit and wait for them to find you or take a risk running (the opposite direction the gunfire is coming from, like away from the bad guys not toward them) out the damn exit? I'll have to analyze the drawings more, it just seems like they sat there waiting to die, even sheep know to run (hell, I would have be doing my best Carl Louis impersonation at the first sound of 'firecrackers').

Just got back home, again. Dad picked me up and took me to get the truck. Less than 1 day and $275 and it's back on the road again. We split the cost on the repair, we are supposed to be partners (even though I bought the truck, he is helping with repairs if not maintenance and insurance). After I brought the truck back I went back to the parents place to wash and wax the GTI (it's not been waxed in over a month) and I ended up staying and watching South Park and some show on testing military vehicles on the history channel. South Park is just stupid anymore... or maybe it was always that stupid? Who knows. The history channel thing was cool, sometimes I wish I had a TV. Sometimes.

I'm pretty tired, guess I'll run some laundry and go to bed. I don't have to go to the gym tomorrow morning, or go to a lesson or anything. Amazing. I'll probably sleep in until 7am and go into work early. I have lots of stuff to do before the move still.

Would you believe that Kelly5 actually green-lighted my "get a motorcycle" idea? Her only request? That I go the the ear doctor and get really good ear plugs as not to loose (any more) hearing. That's fair. So I've found this '97 EX500 in San Jose....

OK true, a 500 is a little on the lame side, but I miss my EX more than I miss the VFR actually. I wish I had never sold the EX. (Hell, I've even take my VFR back :)