I kept writing the 29th on everything today, hopefully no one notices. I got my eyes checked, it took them 2 hours. It was WAY to complete I thought. In the end, they figure out my eyes are a little worse, and I'm 20/30 with my current glasses and 20/200 or a little better without. I'm using the vision insurance we have with the company so the eye exam, the frames, depleted dilithium lenses, etc would have normally been $525 but with insurance it was only $175. Makes a big difference, but I have to wait a week or so for the glasses. No biggie for that savings. I also got my haircut today after the eye appointment and still made it to work by 12 (vs my normal 10:08 appearance).

Didn't get to class today because I got stuck working on trying to optimize the damn LSF server. CPU usage is 100%, it's CPU bound people. My nifty network tweaking and OS tuning won't make that CPU usage any lower. It might get us a little more throughput, but we still need a faster box. The engr VP says "buy what you need, make it work." Gotta love that. They're getting pretty fast and loose with the MS development money.

Stupid Dennis (the local one, not the Vancouver one) made me look at the stock market today. Holy crap. What happened in the last few weeks???

Sent in my assault weapon registration card. Hopefully it will get processed in time so I can get my papers to present to the SS when they ask to see them at the range.

Since I got the gear yesterday, I asked Brent (scary guy) to spar with me tonight after class to see what it's like. I had to overcome my instinct not to connect when I punched. Once is actually stopped and just took one of my jabs to his face and said 'see, you can't hurt me so punch to hit'. Oh. He went easy and only kicked me in the ribs a few times and one wheel kick to the head. My face is sorta tender, not really bruised or anything but definatly sore. Hopefully I'll toughen up. He said to come back for tomorrow's class and he'll beat up on me some more.

And it looks like Dennis is updating his page more now and it loads about 1000% faster off his home machine vs. the macguru site. Now if we can just get kenny to stop slacking... and Vareck seems to have password protected his stuff. Now I'm sure really good stuff will make it in there.

Got my sparing gear today, and picked up a duffel bag to carry it all in. It fills the trunk on the miata.

Also panicked when I got a letter from the city of SF saying I owe them for some parking ticket on 5/3/99 but it's for the bike which I sold 2/27/99 so I'll just send that in and show them it's not my problem. They did track me down here via a Colorado plate though. Tricky. I don't like that it came to Fremont, it should have gone to Pioneer.... hmm... change of address didn't kick in?

Picked up the 608 today and gave it a shakedown run. The single action trigger has some creep and a quasi-clean break which is OK, but it's not as good as the S&W (none are usually). It might clean up with more rounds through it. Double action is really heavy and long, but what do you expect rotating a 8 round cylinder the size of a garbage can? Because of the grip angle/size, it's not even close to as pointable as the Kimber and slightly worse than the Glock. Firing from the ready I had no problem dumping 8 shots in a 3" circle at 10m while taking up the double action trigger during the presentation. It will serve well and it's an excellent purchase other than the porting that makes it pretty dirty once fired. The porting works however, no muzzle flip at all.

Talked to the really 'intense' guy in class today. He's been fighting for a long time, does tournaments and everything. He showed me a few basic sparing movies and some things to work on. Very cool. After a bunch of flash card work I think I'm ready for the test. I need to memorize all the stuff a little better and get the sayings and greeting/salute thing down (we just learned them today, not really needed for this test). I've got time on the plane this weekend. Oh, and there will be sparing on test day. I'm the only guy without prior fighting knowledge (can't bring a gun or anything). Could get ugly for me.

Went to the comedy club last night for the 10pm showing. It was marginal, but the strawberry sprite was good and my waitress was cute (tipped her big, she touched me and everything).

And for the first time in history I've actually come through on one of my weird plans. I wore the soles off my rockports and actually took them in to get new soles put on. It was $38 to get done and they're good as new. Beats paying $100 for a new pair and since I don't wear them too often anymore they'll last a lot longer this time.

ARRGGG!!!! I decided to try out the pepper spray I had Kenny get me. I loaded up the spare cartridge (that expires 3/2001 so I figured I should use it) and fired a few bursts out on the patio. A little red spray, that was about it. I did a total of 10 shots or so getting the hang of it (you can just keep it on an spray and pray literally). I went back in the house and washed my hands, then came back out to reload it. The residue must have still been there because the wind carried some off the fence onto me and whoa! My eyes started burning, my nose was running, my sinuses flooding, etc. Nasty, and there is nothing you can do! I can't imagine getting hit with this crap full force. At least I know it works. :)

Went to the cabin last night, all is well up there. I slept in until noon, then read for a while. Very relaxing.

I went and drove the Honda Insight, I just had to know. It drives exactly like a really really light civic would drive. I really liked it, except that it was noisy on the freeway. That's bad, the only reason I'm getting rid of the Miata is to protect my hearing so I'm afraid I'm going to have to pass (unless the GTI is just as noisy and I'm just being overly sensitive now).

Spent 2+ hours getting the sound to work. It wasn't an IRQ thing, it was something to do with 'sound acceleration' under the multimedia control panel. Never (ever) seen that one before. I turned it down one level and it works fine now. No Diablo was sorta bad, but it wouldn't play yahoo broadcast anymore. 99% of why I have a PC at home is to listen to music on it. I guess my AWE32 ISA card is getting a little twitchy in it's old age. It's got to be 6-7 years old now...?

Damn, I finally upgraded my home system with the leftover hardware I got from the last farm upgrade (now a PIII/450 w/768mb RAM but only a 4GB IDE drive) and now I can't play diablo! The sound is all munched. I can play MP3s and stuff under windows, but Diablo's sound was all mangled (cuts out all the time). I locked DMA 1&5 for ISA and IRQ 5 just like the card is using but no luck. Oh well, it should keep me from playing anymore. That might be a good thing?

I also found creative' 3D sound feature. Makes the desktop Yamahas sound way better, but makes the KEFs sound like crap. I turned it back off.

Went to lunch with the Sun guys, and Ed wanted Mexican instead of sushi. Three out of four of us that went are now feeling very badly, myself included. This is bad.

Talked to Anita (the hair chick) and it turns out her really cute friend went back to 'her really stupid ass, abusive boyfriend'. I take it that Anita didn't care for that move. Ah well, probably better for me anyway.

Went to the range to try out the .22 conversion for the glock. The first 5 rounds were a problem, but after that it worked just fine. Accurate too, shoots just a touch high but otherwise dead on left/right. That makes me think the sights are off on the other slide because with the .22 barrel and slide assembly (but the same frame/trigger) it doesn't shoot left.

The guy with the other miata in the lot is going to come home to a dead battery, his alarm keeps chirping then going off. It's been doing it for over 2 hours now.

Instructor was sick, so no lesson for me today. Even with the wood chopping all weekend, I don't think I got sufficient exercise. I'm starting to gain some flab I think. I've been allowing myself to eat more thinking that it was a lack of calorie intake that was keeping me from getting stronger (not enough calories to grow new muscle with). Guess not, I'm just gaining gut. Bummer, back to the old low-fat grind again. Although maybe that's not the answer, maybe less carbs? It's so difficult to figure this out... I did get my bill from club sport. $980 for the next year. I'm going to have to make the club sport vs. 24 hour fitness decision soon. Better check out that club next week.

The guy looked at the car and said it was the best of the ones he's looked at (looked at 3 others so far). He's going out of town for the holiday and will get back to me if he's interested. Hope it all works out.

I got my heating bill for the month, up 50% from last month. Guess that cold really is kicking in (and I'm running the heat for once). I am still sitting here wearing a jacket though, must be an old habit. I swore I just paid both power bills. I'm going to put them both on auto-pay, too many checks to write now.A

Day 2 of the parental blackout. Dad called at 6:30, mom at 7:30. I'll probably have to call them tomorrow or something to figure out what we're doing for the holiday. What a waste of time.

Oh, and another random picture, this time of a KLR650 out on some dirt road adventure. I've made up my mind, BTW, I'm going to get the KLR650 instead of the F650GS. The KLR is a better dirt bike, the F650 a street bike. I need to be riding on dirt, not the street so I'll get the right bike for the job.

What I wouldn't give to be able to sit down, eat dinner and watch TV right now. Well actually I guess the answer is that I wouldn't give $30/month for it. I guess Kenny, Dennis, Vareck, Eric, Don, my dad, Kelley, Anne, Michele, Christina, Doug, Ed, Loc, the other Dennis, Jim, Nick and a few others were right, I am a cheap ass.

The cops are outside arresting some non-English speaking woman who just drove one of the neighbors Mercedes into a tree in front of the complex. The cop was speaking very loudly and slowly but she still wasn't getting it.... my guess is she's going away for driving without a license. There is some justice.

I have to show the car to some guy tomorrow at 7:30am but it's not washed. I call my boss and ask if he knows where one of those quarter spray car washes is. He doesn't, but he let me go to his place and wash the car... at 9:30pm. His neighborhood is really damn impressive. $1m still gets you a nice house.

Minor update 30 minutes later: they're making a horrible racket outside trying to extract that MB from the tree. Big tow truck, 3 guys, lots of chain. The cop is long gone, as is the woman.

The truck is confused I'm sure. It had an easy life in Fremont, and this weekend it found itself hauling brush, lumber, knocking stuff over, dragging logs up hill with the transfer case in low range... you know, actually working. I also went on a mini 4x4 adventure and scratched the crap out of the sides, it's just too big for trail work. Dad and I got a lot of the brush burnt down and 3 loads of wood hauled and stacked over at my place. Saturday morning I went down to the general store and treated myself to a new axe (we had been borrowing one from the neighbors). I didn't feel out of place at all in my flannel, smelling of sweat and wood smoke, driving a truck with a chainsaw in the bed standing in front of the axe section of the store picking something out. Real red neck stuff, but it's like a free workout swinging an axe all day. I probably won't even go to the gym in the morning since I basically worked out splitting and hauling stuff all weekend. That, and I can hardly move my arms. Maybe some cardio or something, but no lifting for sure.

When we got back to town dad and I went over to Anne's to do the final prisoner exchange. It went off without any problems. Case closed. I went to the coffee shop after wards to read, ponder and eat some bagels and enjoy a hot chocolate. I read for about 3 hours, then came home. It was getting crowded.

When I got home I found that Kelley had sent me some email. One of her friends moved here from CO and is staying in a hotel in Fremont for the next two months while he gets a place to live. He's got a job at some pre-IPO storage company similar to EMC (can't remember the name off hand). She wants me to show him around and be friendly and whatnot since he doesn't know anyone. That's pretty funny I think. "Hi, I'm the local Kelly, ex of the Kelley you just left in Colorado and I'm supposed to show you around"...? She says he drives a Jeep, and a 911 Porsche, and has a German Sheppard (imported from Germany) named Frodo. Somehow she thinks we'll get along well. Hell, I'm game, can't hurt to know more people.

Maybe I'm a nut, but I sold the local Dennis my new spyderco. I just wasn't digging the 4" blade as much as I thought I would and he kept offering me $50 for it. I paid $44 + shipping, so what the hell I'll sell it while I have a buyer. I'll get another Delica.... although somehow it now seems puny in comparison. Also in a fit of weirdness, I bought a Taurus Model 608 wheel gun with a 4" ported barrel and the dull stainless finish for $400. MSRP was $508 on the web site, so I figured it was a bargain. I was going to do a Titanium gun, but I couldn't figure out why I would want a small, light, 7-shot .357 since I wouldn't carry it (too wide). This new 8-shot will take my S&Ws place as my primary house gun and my range gun since S&W aren't thought very highly of any more after that little incident with Clinton and the DOJ. It was either the Taurus or another Glock 23 or 32, but I figure I'll get the glock next since I'll fire the wheel gun more (don't like chasing brass all over, I'm lazy).

Here I am trying to get out of the gun stuff yet I keep spending money. I guess I have no real hobbies anymore other than shooting and reloading. Maybe someday I'll get a TV and a DSS dish.

Headed to the cabin tomorrow. It's going to be butt-ass cold up there. It's 32 deg now at 5:30pm and has been dipping into the 20s at night. I hope everything is OK.

I found in one of my directories a complete scan of B2 - Keep on the Borderlands, one of the modules that comes with the D&D basic set. This was the first gaming book I ever owned, way back when I was 9-10 years old. When we went on vacation to the Grand Canyon (South Rim I know now) and lake Powell I had this with me and must have read it a zillion times and came up with zillions of adventures. It's amusing to read it now as it brings back so many good memories. I linked it from the front page, just in case anyone is interested.

The .22 conversion for the glock came in today. I put it together tonight, basically it's an entire slide, barrel, recoil guide/spring and magazine. It's much lighter than the real thing of course, but it's using the lower frame (and therefore trigger) of my trusty glock 23 so it should be good for practice. They say it's life is 3000-5000 rounds before you need a new spring. Tomorrow I'll stop by the range and try it out.

I couldn't get up this morning at all, I felt really tired and very sore. Probably from the workout the morning before. So rather than fight it like normal and get myself all sick, I just slept in and skipped my workout. I got enough of one tonight in class. Phil, one of the purple belts that was teaching us whites said that I really have a lot of negative energy. That's bad, there isn't a dark side of the force for me to join.

From the look of the weather thingies on my home page, it's cold all over. It's almost freezing in Seattle and Portland and it's definatly freezing in Pioneer. I worry about the house.

Went to lunch and car shopping with Doug today. His Lexus got stuck in the snow at his Tahoe house this weekend so he thought he should get a Subaru or something. I showed him the Audi A4 Avant, he just might get one since money is no object for him really. We ate 'folaful', some weird ass deep fried green stuff in a pita. It wasn't bad, but it's still with me. I need to go home and find some dinner.

Life can't be all bad, they repaired the toilet seat in my favorite stall in the bathroom so it's usable again.

I made it to class today at 9am. I would have been there 20 minutes early but I got lost getting there from the Fremont side of the bay. The valley was foggy today so no planes were taking off from SJC. As soon as one took off at 8:50 I knew where and which way the runways were and instantly found the dojo. Lucky.

Also today (or tonight) I gave dad his car back. I couldn't take it anymore, it just wasn't me. Only gave it back 3 days early. :) I was glad to have the miata back except for the noise (the M3 is really quiet) and the fact that dad somehow managed to pop the drivers side roof release so when it rained water poured in and the car now smells like mold. First the door to the cabin, now the roof to the car. Seems to be a theme. Hopefully we'll get some sun around here and it will dry out. Oh, and putting 9 gallons of gas in dad's car? $21.15

Work, well, let's not go into it. OK, briefly, it sucked. Enough said.

Day 1 with the fancy car. First, I never thought those heated seats would be useful, but when I put my butt on that ultra-cold leather this morning when I left for the gym... yow! It takes about 1 minute to roast your butt on the high setting. I wonder what the long term effects would be on the leather having them heated/chilled like that all winter? There is massive amounts of power everywhere, shifting is almost optional which is good because I hate the shifter, it's totally vague. Everything seems to have a vague shifter compared to a miata tho, so no surprise there. The traction control kicks in a lot as well. I'm hitting my normal corner apexes at the normal speeds and when I power out of the turn, the back end gets all loose and the traction control kicks in and the car starts bucking like a rented mule. I'll have to learn not to apply so much throttle. I knew if I had a car with real power I would be in trouble.

Got email from Anne today, she says I need counseling to deal with my emotional problems. Funny, all women seem to say that after we've broken up. I wonder where it's coming from? Not Cosmo, I'm still reading that and it never says to say your ex is a mental case. (yea, I get the irony, don't need to comment on that).

I tried to get stamps from the ATM tonight but it wouldn't let me, it said I was over my daily limit of $300. That's how much I spent at the gun show today with Don. We bought so much ammo we had to borrow a hand truck to get it to the car. I got 1000x .40, 500x .357 mag, 1000x 9mm, 100x .380. It's all pretty good stuff. 50 of the .380 are those wolf Russian cheapos that don't work well in (my) Kimber. The Walther ate them OK, but we only fired 15 at the range. That little bugger hurts to shoot. I didn't buy a gun or anything like I said I was going to, nothing just jumped out and looked interesting. I shot the glock today (with the .357sig barrel in it) and did pretty well. I knocked around the idea of getting a glock 32 (like the 23 I have, but factory chambered in .357sig). No dice.

Went to dinner at the parents tonight and dad was still giving me crap about how a new car would change my life. I'm not convinced, so to prove it I told him to switch cars with me for a week and we'll see how it goes. He agreed, surprisingly enough, so now he's driving my '92 miata and I'm driving his '97 M3. So far I've found that it's hard to park because it's so big, and that all my MP3 based CDs sound like crap (too much bass).

Made it back from Pioneer. I got up there to 4" of snow on the ground and the back door left open by the parents. The house was damn cold. Ever driven a miata in the snow (on summer-only tires)? It sucks. It took me 20 minutes to get it out of the driveway. I parked at the end and it slid 6' down the bank when I got it this morning to leave (I hadn't even started it yet!). I had to get smart about how to get it out of there. Next weekend I'm taking the truck even if it does cost me $30 in gas.

Dad and I didn't get to see the Insight because I was late getting back. We checked out the GTI because it was close (and the EV1 because Saturn was right next to VW in the little auto mall). I really like the GTI, but 20/27 for mileage on super unleaded? Eeesh, not at $2.35/gal. A Subaru suddenly is starting to look pretty good, snow is nasty stuff.

Went to the International Motorcycle Show this afternoon with Jo. She was damn close to buying a R1, they had one coming in they would sell for MSRP. They're up in Petaluma (30 minutes north of SFO). They also sell Kawasaki and the guy said I could test ride a KLR650 because he was getting 22 of them this year and knew they won't all go and a demo bike will help sales. He's also going to deal, no MSRP for these things like the other dealers want. Now we're talking. I also sat on the BMW again and bugged the drones. They were actually pretty helpful, most all the booths were. Only at one did I get the sleazy sales guy feeling.

Can't believe we're getting so far into November already. The year is almost up which means I think I'm due to pay for another year at the gym. I'll start investigating a new place here next week, maybe the 24 hour fitness up the road. Club Sport is nice and all, but since I don't use any of that family-related stuff I really don't want to pay for it.

Class last night was good, but with my new belt marks I got picked on more than the other whites in the class. After I got back to work around 9pm, Jo called and wanted to go for coffee, apparently her day was as bad as mine so I wandered over to building B and we went to starchucks. Then I realized I hadn't eaten so we went to the 2am noodle place in Mountain View. It was OK, but I must admit I'm loosing my taste for the grilled chicken and rice I get at these places (I lost the taste for noodles months ago).

Dad called and said my knife order was in (I ship weapons related stuff to him so the monkeys in shipping don't panic). I got a spyderco Endura which looks exactly like my Delica (which I forgot at home yesterday, the first time in years) except the blade is 1" longer (max legal in CA). It's also got a 1" longer handle obviously which is what I wanted (easier to grip while cutting, um, boxes). Lets just hope it's not to bulky to carry the same way I do my current one.

Tonight is the HAZMAT part II training, oh joy. Four hours of chemical burn fun. We have to do drills tonight, I wish I was more motivated.

Oh hey, I finished my 14 day drug regiment this afternoon, no more pills 3 times a day! Lets just hope it doesn't come back. Loc is sick now and is wandering around the office coughing on everything and it's about 60 in the office (I'm wearing a jacket, but my hands are sore/numb) so I'm very afraid.

Also, I called my hair chick and asked if the cute friend she brought to Gary's party to meet me (I had already brought a date, oops) was still available. She said she was and would see if a meeting could be arranged. Heh heh heh.

I used Norton ghost to copy my dying hard drive onto a new disk, went from a 8gb drive to a 4gb drive. oh well, I've only got 2gb of crap on there. I tried to use Kenny's utility but couldn't get the disk written out correctly, I'm getting dumb in my old age. And get this, the wires to the power supply 'smart switch' actually frayed through vibrating against an insanely sharp edge inside the case and shorted out. The system would power up, then down, then up, then down when I physically shifted the case. I've never seen that before.

Went to San Jose BMW and checked out the F650 GS as planned (Ed drove so I didn't have to) and found something very interesting. The sales guy said yes I could demo ride it, but that I wouldn't like it. What? Turns out that the European fuel management program in the CPU can't hack the shitty CA environmentally friendly gas and it makes the bike run like crap. BMW has a fix and next week they'll get the CDROM which they load into a PC which gets plugged into the bike and the new code gets downloaded. Wonder if it's serial or USB? :) After they upgrade it, he said then I should ride it. Oh. I put my name down and snagged a new brochure. It's a 2000 brochure tho, they don't have the 2001 and the bike looks really different (not only did they go to EFI this year, but changed the body work so it's easier to fix when you drop it. It is supposed to be a dirt bike). They offer it in silver, red and yellow. I think I would choose the yellow... or red? And I would definatly get the ABS and heated grips, and probably the bigger wind screen since the stock one looks pretty small.

Also, someone mentioned that we're reaching critical mass and the company is starting to pick up lots of 'fluff'. At first this seems bad (lots of extra bodies running around not doing anything vital), but the reality is that we're hiring lots of women now, those 'executive assistant' types. Yum. There were at least 3 attractive women in the lunch room today, up from the normal 0 number. That's good. See, life is better already!

Got back from class; my instructor 'marked' my belt tonight. Basically he put some yellow bands around the end so when the other instructors see it, they know I know the basics for all the techniques I need for the next belt level. I don't know them very well, but I do know them. So does that mean I went up a level? He said they will expect more from me now.

Core routers have been down and/or flaky all day today. We have 10 or so guys from extreme networks sitting in our machine rooms scratching their collective asses and unable to fix it. It's been a pretty bad day for the engineers, they can't use them computer thingies no more so they all went over to the high school to play basketball. That and meetings, everyone is having meetings today. Fortunately I have enough of a backup network (ultra5s with quad cards plugged into various networks) to still get some stuff done, but I'm not moving a lot of data.

Been thinking a lot about that book (the Enough? one) and it's got some good ideas. I will have this all figured out in the next month or so. Things are going to be looking pretty good.

Had my private lesson tonight, learned some new stuff and again felt like a doof because I'm so unaware of how my body moves. All in good time I suppose. Doing another makeup lesson tomorrow at 8pm.

Went to the land auction this morning, man was it busy. I don't think there were any bargains to be had really, things that opened up at $500 were up to $80,000 in about a minute. Not the deals that I thought there would be. Good experience, I can now say I've been to one and know what goes on.

Started checking out solar cells on the net today. The local(Dennis) is into it (or is getting into it) so I thought I would check it out too. If it looks reasonable, I can put a solar array on the roof in pioneer and run an electric heater all the time which will reduce freezing worries in the winter. Check out www.homepower.com for all sorts of interesting reading. A home hydrogen separator and hydrogen fuel cell? Yowza, how cool would that be?

Washed/waxed the car, put the protectant on the top and rubber pieces, etc. Just the usual stuff. I had expected it to have used some oil since I switched to fully synthetic last time (and it now as 85k on the clock) but nope, none. Or at least not enough to tell.

Got to the bookstore and picked up two books on writing. There are systems to help you get stories going. My system, or lack there of, isn't working the way I wanted so time to get $28 worth of 'professional' help. I should take a writing course at the local college or something, it might be of use as well. I also got a book called When is Enough, Enough? What you can do if you never feel satisfied. It lists the signs of 'chronic dissatisfaction' which is what I have. Apparently I'm not alone. This is a good, positive step forward. I think it started with Vareck's comment "you don't want to be the richest guy in the graveyard". Last night Don mentioned that I was materialistic, even though I don't have anything. Amusing, but probably true.

Had dinner with the parents tonight, they gave me an updated on what they did at my place this weekend after I left. Mostly just clearing out brush and dead stuff giving the small trees a better chance at getting big. Two weeks from now they want to go up and haul crap over to their place and do some agricultural burning. Also, I noticed dad had this big scar patch on his right elbow. I thought he might have whacked himself with the new brush clearing thingy, but apparently it was from an old football injury. He did an 'up scrape' on some guy, basically when he blocked, he raised his elbow and smashed the guy in the face up under the helmet. It knocked the helmet off and the guys teeth tore into dad's arm. Apparently playing football for the Air Force is serious stuff. So check out this wacky machine he got:

I just read Vareck's log (which he's not updating very often, much like Kenny). He's gone total herbivore now. That's almost as bad as me going Libertarian!

Don got a small show tonight, he got to see Anne and I break up. She showed up, said a few words, packed her stuff and left. It's not over completely of course, she left some stuff here and has some of my stuff (which if history is any indicator is a complete write off) but the relationship part is over. I feel, well, I'm not sure how I feel. Sad, relieved, all sorts of stuff, but not happy that I can tell.

Did OK at the range, I'm still not as good as I was during the class, but I can hit stuff. The best part of the night was we ran a 25 meter target out to 25 meters and I fired at it one handed like I used to do when competing in bullseye competition. That was with a .22 target pistol though, not a full-sized .45 auto. I thought I did pretty well, probably a 5" group (vs the 1.5" or so we were doing at 7 meters). That wouldn't win anything in a competition (where you need a 1" group at 25 meters) but hey, I'm out of practice and the gun doesn't have a 1 lb trigger like a target gun. I also did it at 25 meters left handed. Did a 6-7" group that way. I think I impressed Don. Also, I tried to buy something that wouldn't be around after SB15. I almost got a sig 229, but couldn't bring myself to do it. I just don't want any more guns. Scary. Mostly I want a .308 target rifle so I can go to the long distance range and shoot 1" groups at 200 meters. :)

Went up to Pioneer last night (had to get away from the stress of work and Anne). It was cold, but the heater worked well. I slept until 8am or so when my parents showed up. We went to eat, then got to work insulating some pipes and weather stripping and whatnot; basic wintertime preparations. Mom was clearing down timber from the yard and we got the wood stove cranked up. I hate to see all that wood I chopped being burned, it was so much work to make that huge pile! Cheaper than propane and more enjoyable (sitting by the fire vs. sitting by the heater vent). Wish I was still up there, I could use a hike.

Quite the mixed bag day really. Some really bad stuff (getting shit dumped on me, having to deal with an idiot VP, sitting here at 9:30pm trying to install Solaris 8 on a ultra 80 via a 4x CDROM that apparently isn't working right after wasting about an hour of my time, spending from 4pm-8pm in HAZMAT training for the ERT stuff) and some good stuff (got the script working for perforce integration checking, had a good talk with some of the engineers).

The weirdest thing of the day was some marketing droid sends me email saying he got a 'Orion' SGI workstation for one of the artists and they can't make it do 'that Unix stuff on the network'. Unix stuff? So, why are marketing droids specing out workstations for artists exactly? Are those graphics people supposed to use macs or something? I did hear the marketing guys get to name all the conference rooms in the new buildings. That will suck, they ones here are hard enough, anyone know where 'whistler' is? how about 'taos'? Dumb asses. What's wrong with numbers (that maybe increase as you go down the hallway, or just 'Building 1, Floor 1, Room 1' so we can find them once we book them via outlook? (Outlook meeting room reservations rock by the way, best thing to ever come out of Microsoft).

Anne and I are, well not fighting, but disagreeing on stuff. She's upset because I don't like the sofa she does, nor do I want to fill the downstairs in Pioneer with a bunch of furniture. I don't see why every room in the house has got to be full of crap, some open space to do stuff in is good too. I guess I'm just tired of having people tell me what to do.