Another year older and deeper in debt

I just turned 38 the other day. Whoopie. Just another day.

Still working as a web developer. Pretty cool work, but it would be nice to be making a little more $$$. I have a butt-load of college related debt to pay off, so I don't really get to enjoy the spoils of my edumacashun.

I did pick up a 37" HDTV. It's a Westinghouse LVM-37w1 (Google it) and I'm using it as my computer monitor as well as my TV. The old Scientific Atlanta Explorer 2200 cable box didn't work very well with the new TV, and it couldn't output any HD channels, so I had to upgrade to the shiny Explorer 8300 HD. It's ok, but compared to my ReplayTV (think Tivo, but better), Scientific Atlanta could do a hell of a lot better. The standard channel guide interface is the same one they've been using for the last 10 years or more, which looks crappy on a standard def TV, imagine what it looks like on a HDTV.

The 8300 does record HD channels (which my ReplayTV couldn't do), but there are a few problems with that too. If you want to start a show (that's currently being recorded) at the beginning, you have to rewind all the way from the "live" position to the start of the show. What happened to the "Play from beginning" feature ReplayTVs have had for 6 years or more?

If you are watching a show being recorded, but you aren't at the "live" position, the show will jump to live when the recording stops. This means you have to navigate to the recorded show and fast forward to the point where you left off.

I sent these, as well as a few other, complaints to BrightHouse Networks and they gave me the standard "thanks for your input but we can't do anything about it" e-mail. If I wanted someone to take my money and ignore me, I'd get married.

Laters

Hurricane Dennis

Ok, we dodged another bullet. Hurricane Dennis skirted the bay area on its way to Pensacola. We had some high winds and some heavy rains, but overall we didn't have any problems.

New Job, New Home

Like I said earlier, I have a new job doing some web dev work. It's working out pretty good so far, but there is a lot for me to learn. It's a little weird working in such a small office. I always feel like I need to be careful what I say and do, but I guess that goes for any new job.

I also found a new apartment in Clearwater. It's only a year or so old, clean, and close to work. Maybe in a couple of years I'll be able to afford a bigger place, but for now this one is fine.

Work

Ok, I found a job!! Pay isn't great, but it'll definitely cover the bills and my enormous student loan debt. Plus, it's a web programming job, so that's cool. We'll see how it goes.

I was a little cautious about taking the job because I was given a counter-offer at my old employer, but it was a toss-up between doing embedded programming in boring old C or doing jsp, xml, sql, and a bunch of other acronyms. Not to mention the fact that I'd have to move back to Orlando. Ugh.

Now I need to find an apartment (I hate Ybor city) and try to find a girl willing to go out with me.

School's out forever

I finally f'ing graduated with my B.S. (an appropriate name) in computer science. It's been tough finding a job thanks to the way large corporations are basically running the country as a puppet government. I'm not an aluminum hat conspiracy theorist, but it's a little obvious that there are a lot of unemployed C.S. majors and big corporations are begging for H1-b visas because there aren't enough programmers. WTF??

Maybe something will come up in a month or so

Gotta love this bird !!!

http://www.i-fred.com/jokes/Parrot.htm

=====
For what shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?
--Mark 8:36

__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Yahoo! Mail - Find what you need with new enhanced search.
http://info.mail.yahoo.com/mail_250

Better than Tom Ridge's warning system

http://tinyurl.com/4la4u

=====
For what shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?
--Mark 8:36



__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Read only the mail you want - Yahoo! Mail SpamGuard.
http://promotions.yahoo.com/new_mail

Fwd: Beware of new STD

The Center for Disease Control has issued a warning about a new virulent strain of sexually transmitted disease.

This disease is contracted through dangerous and high-risk behavior. The disease is called Gonorrhea Lectim (pronounced "gonna re-elect him").

Many victims have contracted it after having been screwed for the past 4 years, in spite of having taken measures to protect themselves from this especially troublesome disease.

Cognitive sequellae of individuals infected with Gonorrhea Lectim include, but are not limited
to: Anti-social personality disorder traits; delusions of grandeur with a distinct messianic
flavor; chronic mangling of the English language; extreme cognitive dissonance; inability to incorporate new information; pronounced xenophobia; inability to accept responsibility for
actions; exceptional cowardice masked by acts of misplaced bravado; uncontrolled facial smirking; ignorance of geography and history; tendencies toward creating evangelical theocracies; and a strong propensity for categorical, all-or nothing behavior.

The disease is sweeping Washington. Naturalists and epidemiologists are amazed and baffled that this malignant disease originated only a few years ago in a Texas Bush.




=====

"Those who cast the votes decide nothing, those who count the votes decide everything." - Joseph Stalin







__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Yahoo! Mail - You care about security. So do we.
http://promotions.yahoo.com/new_mail

No more storms, please!!!

Ok, four hurricanes missed us here in the Tampa Bay area, but those same four storms reaked havoc in other parts of Florida. One right after the other. If you're really interested in seeing what happened during the Hurricane Season in 2k4, go to http://hurricane.accuweather.com/hurricane/past.asp?ocean=atlantic&year=2004

Charley?

The hurricane (Charley) completely missed us.  We had more rain the day after the storm passed than while it was reeking havoc south and east of here.  16 people died, but mainly because they didn't evacuate their trailers (no, really).

CC

Storm update (4:00 p.m.)

Fortunately for the Tampa Bay area, it looks like the storm will be going onshore south of us and headed towards Orlando.  It's winds are about 145 miles per hour, so good news for us, but bad for Sanibel Island and areas just south of Sarasota.

It hasn't really rained here at all other than a few light rain storms, but the sky is getting a little darker.

CC

Storm day

Hurricane Charley is bearing down on us.  The first major feeder band is just South of here, so within the next hour or so, it's gonna start getting bad.

I'll try to keep posting, but if the power goes out that will obviously be difficult.

CC

Running in the rain

For some reason I couldn't get into the gym here at the Apartment complex yesterday, so I had to go running outside.  It was early in the morning so it wasn't too hot, but I checked the weather RADAR (and I looked up in the sky) and figured that it would be raining within 10 minutes.  Sure enough. . .7 minutes later it stated pouring down.  Fortunately I didn't bring my MP3 player, so the only thing that got wet was me.  It rained on and off for the next 45 minutes, but I managed to get a good 4.5 mile run in.  I think my shoes are still wet though.

Bus Thoughts

I've been trying to ride the bus to school lately and it is a learning experience all its own. One thing I've learned is that 99.9% of the people that ride the bus are so poor that they can't afford a car. The other thing I've learned is that people are really fucking lazy. I see people stand in one spot for 20-30 minutes so they can ride the bus (for $1.50) just to go two blocks away. Also, let's say that someone plans on getting off the bus at point B, but someone else gets off at point A about 75 meters before B. A is so close to B that you can actually read the route numbers at stop B from stop A. Anyway, instead of getting off at A and walking the rest of the way, they force us to endure an unnecessary stop because they are too damn lazy to walk a little farther.

Ok, sure, some people can't walk that much because of heart problems or whatever, but that doesn't apply to everyone I've seen do it.

Oh the joy of public transportation.

It's been a while

I know, I know, it's been a while since I've posted a message. My blog has become a bit stagnant (like most blogs), but it's mostly because I'm either not near a computer when a thought strikes me or nothing interesting happens

Anyhoo, I've been wallowing in my own misery (again) for the last couple of months. Depressed about school (will it ever end), the lack of free time (and money), lack of a good woman (hell, I'd settle for a bad one right now) in my life, etc. A friend of mine, as well as relatives, put the blame squarely on me for my solitude. I suppose that they still don't understand that some people are just in the wrong place at the wrong time every single fucking day.

Here's a good example. I was eating at a Chik-Fil-A last night before going to a study group (I'll get back to the study group). It's pretty noisy due to two tables of kids. One of the tables clears out and I say to the really cute blonde chick in front of me "wow, it got quiet after they left." She smiles and says "now we need to get rid of the rest of them." After the other table clears out, we start talking and she doesn't want kids. I was ready to ask her to marry me right there, but I kept my cool and the conversation going. She has been having the same problem as I have of finding someone that doesn't want kids, but the inevitable "the guy I'm seeing now. . ." eventually came out. I tried to at least swap phone numbers (so she can keep me in her queue in case she gets bored with the current guy), but she didn't want to do that. I can see that it COULD cause problems if the dude found out about me, but I was heart broken. I went from "this is the one" to "my life sucks even more now" within a matter of seconds.

Sometimes I wish I were dead.

Friggin' Bible Bangers

This really happened, but for some reason, the news services took it off their web sites:

American Airlines Pilot Plugs Christianity

NEW YORK - An American Airlines pilot asked Christians on his flight to identify themselves and suggested the non-Christians discuss the faith with them, the airline said.

The case was handed over to the airline's personnel department for an investigation, spokesman Tim Wagner said Sunday.

"It falls along the lines of a personal level of sharing that may not be appropriate for one of our employees to do while on the job," he said earlier.

American's Flight 34 was headed from Los Angeles to New York's John F. Kennedy Airport on Friday when the pilot asked Christians on board to raise their hands, Wagner said.

The pilot, whose name was not released, told the airline that he then suggested the other passengers use the flight time to talk to the Christians about their faith, Wagner said.

Passenger Amanda Nelligan told WCBS-TV of New York that the pilot called non-Christians "crazy" and that his comments "felt like a threat." She said she and several others aboard were so worried they tried to call relatives on their cell phones before flight attendants assured them they were safe and that people on the ground had been notified about the pilot's comments.

The pilot also told passengers he would be available for discussion at the end of the flight. Wagner said the pilot had just returned to work from a weeklong mission trip to Costa Rica.

Because of privacy issues, there would likely never be any announcement about what kind of punishment or reprimand the pilot may face, Wagner said. The pilot was not scheduled to fly during the weekend, he said.

#

Now, some of you may be saying "so what, he's just preaching the word of God. He isn't hurting anyone." Turn that around and say, I don't know, an Atheist were to come over the intercom and say "Christians are crazy" and that people should learn to think for themselves instead of believing in a non-existent God.

If you don't want to go to that extreme, how about an Agnostic saying "Christians are crazy because they don't know that there IS a god any more than I know that there isn't. If you are a Christian, you should listen to an Agnostic and learn to think for yourselves." That's not hurting anyone either, is it?

One more semester down

Only four more to go. This one is starting out pretty rough too. The professors aren't giving too much or too difficult information, but one of them isn't giving us enough information as to what he will expect out of our applications.

Faith vs. Theory

From m-w.com (Merriam-Webster's dictionary):

Faith -- firm belief in something for which there is no proof

Theory -- the analysis of a set of facts in their relation to one another

My Family is nuts!

Check this out:
I went to Orlando on Saturday to hang out with John and Lori. Late that evening, I notice that there's a message on my phone from mom saying that she was going to be leaving for vacation the next day. Since my battery was almost dead, I decided that I would just call her mobile phone the next day (I had my car charger only).

Since I didn't call her back that day, the next morning she calls my sister Annetta saying "I'm worried about Chris, he didn't call me back." She checks to see if I'm online (I'm not), calls my other sister Cathy, and they both try to call my cell phone (the battery is still dead). They call dad. He tries to call my cell phone (still dead). Annetta calls the Tampa police department to have them check to see if my car is at my apartment. They can't because it's a parking garage and it could be in any one of a thousand or so parking spaces spread out over three garages. She argues with the cop. The cop argues back. Annetta calls Cathy who is planning on hiring a private investigator to track me down. At this point, it's around 1:00. Tampa police have tried to call me two times (at least). My friend David in Washington, my aunt and uncle in NC, and my cousin in Tallahassee have all been contacted to see if anyone has heard from me.

I'm getting ready to leave Orlando so I plug my phone in to get it charging. There are six voicemails waiting, but before I can listen to them (I still don't know that everyone is looking for me), the phone rings. It's Cathy. She tells me that everyone is looking for me, dad calls to make sure I'm ok, the cops call to make sure I'm ok, Annetta calls to make sure I'm ok. I yell at dad and Cathy, apologize to the cop, ask Annetta what happened. After about 45 minutes I start to calm down, call David to apologize, call dad to apologize, call Cathy to apologize, leave a message for mom to call me back and explain what the hell she was thinking. By the way, I was only apologizing for yelling at them, not for being out of touch. I find out that Dad had fueled the fire by saying "Chris was complaining about getting headaches, maybe he had something wrong with him and he can't answer the phone." Cathy works with stroke victims, some of whom were incapacitated for days before someone found them (more fuel). Annetta is pretty sick with a cold and flu that makes her a little loopy, so maybe the same thing has happened to me (more fuel).

To close out the day, I made multiple calls to make sure people knew that I was appreciative but very disturbed by what happened. I said things like "how boring is my life that people always expect me to be able to answer the phone", and "you people are always complaining about how I never do anything and the one weekend I do, they call out an all points bulletin to track me down." They want me to give them points of contact because "they worry about me being so far away." My response to that is "I'm 36 fucking years old!!" They want enough control over me that will allow them to call someone to say "Go by and check on him." Of course I refused because it's a ridiculous request. If something happens, they'll find out about it eventually.

This whole incident did very little to help improve my self-esteem. Crap like this is exactly why a former psychologist asked me "why do you even talk to them?"

Ok, what's new

-- Still bored
-- Registered for classes
-- Passed my last probability test
-- 20 minutes after reinstalling Windows on my laptop, I picked up the Nimda virus (even though I was behind a firewall)
Did I mention I was still bored?