T-shirt

I rent to pwn.

That's one of the funniest things I've seen in a while.

At least until I watch the Bill Cosby DVD I just bought Bridget.

Happy Thursday!

Presents

Got my first Christmas present on Tuesday.

You can call me Master Bruce now.

It's Christmas Time Pretty Baby

Less than a week now. Bridget and I are hurriedly moving into our new place and trying to shop for everyone at the same time. Which can be difficult with only one car. Or truck, as we have her dad's at the moment, and he is fixing our car. As I understand it, the only thing left now is fixing the rear quarter panel and putting in a new tail light. The trunk opens and closes, the bumper is reattached, all good stuff.

Back to Christmas. This is the first year that I have really, absolutely NO idea what I want for Christmas. Perhaps it's the onset of real adulthood, but in previous years there was always some THING I could point to and say "Yeah, that." It might have been a book, or books, or a video game, or... I don't know, SOMETHING.

This year... I almost feel like saying, and truly meaning, "Nothing."

******

We went to two Christmas parties this weekend, one in Lafayette and one in Lake Charles. The Lafayette one was at my friend Amanda's house, and was a lot of fun. It had been a while since I'd seen or some of my other friends, and the people that I didn't know were really cool, as well. Lots of funny conversations, some great sillyness during the white elephant exchange... good times.

The Lake Charles party was, of course, at Daisy and Joe's. We hung around, talked, ate dinner, played Hot Death UNO, and did the white elephant thing.

Anyone remember a few years back for Chrostmas I got this little gun that shot foam discs and made noises? Or at least know the type of gun I'm talking about?

Daisy's gift in the exchange was two guns and 175 of the discs. And I got it. And then, 5 mintes later, somebody got ANOTHER one. Four guns, 350 rounds (literally).

We discussed random violence, but not that much really occurred. Mostly we tried shotting them into a gift bag from about 10 feet away. Each shot is unique, so it can be difficult to make any of them. I don't think anyone got more than 1 shot out of 12 into the bag.

And then we drove home so Bridget could go to work, leaving the other revelers to their... reveling.

A great weekend.

...and now a random Chuck Norris fact

http://www.4q.cc/chuck/index.php

I love Chuck Norris. He was an absolutely fantastic fighter back in the day. But this... this is too funny. I don't know when the random odd Chuck Norris jokes started, but they will make me laugh for quite a while.

Captain Jean-Luc Picard of the U.S.S Enterprise

Captain Jean-Luc Picard of the U.S.S. Enterprise

My Christmas Wish List

Just in case you were wondering.

Free shipping even.

At Last

Robert Jordan has redeemed himself.

Knife of Dreams is the best book in the second half of the Wheel of Time, thus far. Winter's Heart was decent, at best, and only the last chapter or two truly had content. Crossroads of Twilight was an exercise in how to expand what should have been a chapter or two into an entire book.

But Book 11...

We get to see Rand do Randish things. Perrin is Perrin. Mat is bloody Mat again. And things get ACCOMPLISHED. I'm proud of you Mr. Jordan.

I think the problem the last couple of books have had is that people complained Jordan's characters were too flat, so he tried to let us see some more of their personalities other than constant braid-tugging, ear-thumbing, and forehead-knuckling. But it was BORING. I have spoken to one person who thought it wasn't - and I ask every single person who's read the series: "What did you think of Book 10?"

In this one, he does a decent job of balancing action, plot forwarding, depth of personality, plot twists, and even plot resolution. I mean, when was the last time THAT happened?

Not to say there is not braid-tugging, ear-thumbing, or forehead-knuckling. He focuses on fewer characters this time, people more central to the main story, so is more able to develop them. Some characters are almost given short shrift, even. But it is an excellent read, the most engaging this once brilliant series has given me in some time.

There were a few spots, however, that were odd. At one part, I very pointedly felt he had a character speak to the reader. I hate that. Nothing spoils suspension of disbelief for me like a character saying something that the other characters obviously know, but the reader probably does not; spread it out amongst more than one character.

At times he also forces cultural differences, such as colloquial sayings and customs, into odd places in the narrative. "Oh, yeah, don't forget, these people are different." We know, already. Notes about their accent being unusual is one thing, constantly throwing in odd fishing sayings we don't understand is totally another.

But read it. Good Book. :-)

And Mr. Jordan...

(warning:spoiler)

If you are going to publicly state that Mazrim Taim is not Demandred, plese, STOP giving me evidence to support that he IS!

Gas

I think someone siphoned my gas tank last night while I was at work.

I filled up my tank Saturday. Sunday afternoon, I still had half a tank, which is the last time I really remember seeing the gauge. This morning, I had no gas. Enough to start the car, but not enough to GO.

And I have a locking gas door.

It is possible that I have a gas leak. Which may be worse. There was no puddle beneath the car, though.

Umm... wow?

Things have been crazy around here for the past month or so - at least from my perspective. Katrina devastated New Orleans and the Gulf Coast area, but it threw the hotel into chaos. Our reservation system sunce then has been unreliable, giving inaccurate availability data for practically every day since then. We've been doing manual room counts every day, making sure we have enough rooms for everyone that was already here and for those who had reservations. FEMA and Red Cross set up a program to pay for the first 14 days of hotel charges for those affected by Katrina, which is great both from our perspective and from the guests's. Helped to lighten a lot of moods around here.

Then Rita hit, and things weren't so peachy keen. My sister came up to stay with us to avoid power outages - when Lily went through Lafayette a couple of years ago, they didn't have power for a week. Bridget told me she was coming and I said, "Yeah, great. (pause) Oh, wait." My sister has 4 kids, all under the age of 4. Ages 3, 2, 1, and 2 months, to be exact. That was going to be tumultuous, I could already tell.

Rita hit, and we lots power, at the hotel and at our house. The hotel rented a generator, thankfully, to run our computer system, and the power was only out for about 14 hours. The city actually turned off the power at 4am to avoid live downed lines in any areas. Pretty smart, I think. We still had a lot of irate guests, especially when our cable system didn't come up until the next day. People wanted to see what their homes, or at least their home area, looked like, and couldn't.

Power wasn't restored at our house until Tuesday afternoon. We spent the weekend at a friend's apartment and cancelled class Tuesday night to clean up the fridge and resulting mess from leaving a vacant house for several days. My sister wen home on Sunday - their power had been restored Saturday afternoon. The kids were wonderful, when the 1-year old wasn't screaming.

In other news... I will likely be closing the karate school. Attendance, and thus fees, has been attrocious. I've been paying out of pocket for a few months now. This was why we moved to a whole new location a year ago, for cheaper rent that my student base could better support, and for no utility fees. Now, I often sit through empty class periods before anyone shows up. I don't need this stress, and I don't need this money sink. I've talked thinsg over with Charlie, and I'm going to restructure to a less commercial enterprise - so I suppose "closing" is a misnomer. I want to move to a less formalized environment, one where I don't need to worry about paying hundreds of dollars a month in rent and thus don't need to worry about my student base. I'll keep a few of my adult students, and that'll be about it. Problem is finding a location. Some place that would be willing to take us in for a percentage of my student income would be perfect - then I could just charge like $10 a month and not care about anything else.

In still other news, I saw Serenity last night, and greatly enjoyed it. I would highly reccomend people watch the Firefly series first, just to get acclimated with the characters first. It isn't neccessary, but it will definitely help. Great action, great comedy, just an all around good movie. I'll probably go see it again.

In further other news, Bridget got paid! <singing>We're in the money! We're in the money</singing> But seriously, if you see me attempting to splurge, STOP ME.

Words of wisdom from a coffee shop

"All unattended children will be given two shots of espresso and a free puppy."

Okay... could you repeat that?

So, I'm reading through the World of Warcraft Warlock forums, and run across this message:

I dont like to stress the fact that the warlock rocks, but he jus does. So, for all you staff users out there, feel free to come in and post, my staff is a good one, but here is how it goes

1. post message in the room

2. LOOK IT OVER

3. dont report anything, i might get in trouble :)

and 4. Have fun!!!

Anyone else understand that? There are now 26 pages of collective WTFs on the forum.

So, just thought I'd share.

It's Official

At least to me, the pool party was a smashing success - my favorite so far, I think. Two days of nonstop fun - from 9am Friday (Hi Moose!) until 9pm Sunday (Bye Moose!). There was, of course, swimming, as well as poker, boardgames, some Munchkin (wish I had gotten in on that), and some plain nerd-dom.

I am at work, so I need to make this short. Thanks to everyone who came, and I hope everyone had as good a time as I did!

Scotty is dead

James Doohan died Wednesday. He was the Canadian who played Scottish engineer Montgomery Scott on the original Star Trek.

He's the second member of the original series to pass away - DeForest Kelley died in 1999.

Some interesting tidbits: he served in World War II, losing his right middle finger on D-Day when attacked with a machine gun. One bullet to the chest was stopped by a silver cigarette case. I thought that kind of stuff only happened in movies.

He was given an honorary degree in engineering by the Milwaukee School of Engineering after half of the students there said he had inspired them to join the field.

He suffered from Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, and fibrosis of the lungs. It was time for him to go. He'll be missed.

DnD Web comic!

Most of you guys have seen Order of the Stick before. If not, check it out, it's a hilarious little comic.

The author of that strip has another one called Five Foot Steps that is an official part of the WoTC RPGA site. Looks like it's pretty funny, too, from the player's perspective instead of the characters.

Well, yeah. That is all.

Baton Rouge

Cade was supposed to come visit this weekend. Unfortunatey, his dad got sick, and he couldn't come.

Instead, Bridget and I drove to Baton Rouge to visit him. He's come up several times, figured it was time we reciprocated.

We had a great time. Hung out, just talked, went and ate, talked some more, and went to see Batman Begins again. Was Cade and Bridget's third time each, and my second. Love that movie.

We spent the night in Baton Rouge and hung out in the Mall of Louisiana while Cade was at work. Usually Bridget can't stand shopping, even for just a few minutes, but she did very well, this day. Mostly, I think, it was because we looked for items very specifically for HER. We ended up getting her this great skirt and a pair of shoes. Looks fabulous on her. Then we ate dinner with Cade and his folks, and headed to Lafayette, where we spent the night hanging with Bridget's sister and her husband, and Bridget's cousin. Again, more fun was had, and as a side note, Psychonauts looks like a pretty cool game.

Now, we are returned home, and all is well, or as well as working every day for the rest of the week can be.

More squirrels

I think today was the squirrel's Rite of Passage or something. On the way home from work, I had FOUR squirrels stare me down as I barreled towards them. Not only that, I had this behemoth of a Ford truck right on my tail, so I couldn't really brake, or I'd be a smear on his undercarriage. All ran away at the last moment, thankfully. Just rather... odd.

Emotions and Batman

I've been particularly emotionally sensitive lately, and I don't know why. I've always been pretty emotional - I admit, I cry at those parts of movies - but lately it hasn't been taking much. And it's not even neccessarily that I will cry, it's mor of an all-around empathy. Hey, maybe I'm part Betazoid.

Naming-wise, the Betazoids really got the shaft. Klingons, Vulcans, Romulans, Ferengi, Borg... the writers couldn't come up with something better than [planet name] + oid? Come on.

Anyway...

Batman Begins rocks. Went to see it on opening day, and loved it. It's everything I hoped it would be, though it does have some corny moments. Nothing, thankfully, like the cornfest that was Batman & Robin. For those interested in seeing it, but wary because of the last films:

It's loosely based on the Batman: Year One comic book storyline.
It's NOT directed by Joel Schumacher, the guy who did the last two.
It's DARK.
It stars both Michael Caine and Morgan Freeman.
And they already have 2 more screenplays written, so if this one does well, we can see MORE well done Dark Knight movies!

Picton Castle

During the summer of 1999 I sailed on board the HMS Bounty as a volunteer crew member. It was an obsolutely fantastic time - I've considered doing it again. In fact, the Bounty next year is planning to sail up the Mississippi River. How cool would THAT be, eh?

Then I remembered another ship we ran into once at Tallships 2000 - the Picton Castle. She was a huge ship, and well crewed. And she was SAILING AROUND THE WORLD.

Now, that would be MUCH cooler. So I looked her up. Thankfully, the Bounty website, which I knew, had a link to her. Unlike the Bounty, which just wants bodies to do work, the Castle charges money to be a trainee. Like, $11,000 per leg, or $36,000 for the whole trip. Now, each leg is a good 3 months long, and the whole trip is over a year... but still. That's more than I make in a YEAR.

Ah, well. Mississippi River sounds good to me.

Four and a half

Yeah. Definitely just looked at the clock and thought "It's four and a half o'clock!"

It looks like both Jay and I will be out of town this weekend, which has dire possibilities should something go wrong. I'll be much closer, as Jay will be in Florida, but 2 hours away still isn't all that accessible if I can't fix a problem over the phone.

Everything should be fine, though. I hope.

Adam

Yes, yes, I was planning on adding the Dr Pepper pictures; I did the first batch at work, and ran out of time to continue adding them, so figured I would add them with a later post. So here, given all the respect they deserve in a separate post:

Here's Adam holding the offending can. You can see the red circle on his cheek where impact occured. He still has a faint line several days later.

Better shot of the circle. The tab pattern is more noticeable in this one. Blessed by the good Dr, he was.

I have larger versions of these, plus a few more; if anyone is interested, I can email them. They're large, though. Most of the landscape shots are over a meg, and the people shots are over half a meg each.

Crash photos

So, back to the crash...

So we've stopped moving, there was a crashing of glass, and then nothing, just the light sound of the engine roaring above us. I dreaded to look, but had to know whether or not I had killed Adam. My head snapped right at the same time his snapped left and we both said "Are you all right? Yeah!"

I started reaching for my cellphone and realized, you know, maybe we should get OUT of the upside down van first. I reached for my seatbelt, realized I had broken glass everywhere below me, and tried to situate myself so I wouldn't fall on my face. At this point I realize the airbags never went off, and say so. In fact, I couldn't STOP saying what was coming into my head. I babbled about hoping my seatbelt would come undone, babbled about hoping the door would open... you get the point.

I did manage to get the door open, though it took some pushing, and I hear Adam behind me say "I'm following you!" I stepped out, a few feet below the edge of the road to an incredulous Andy. "Are you guys all right?" Behind me Adam is struggling to get through the small space we could open the door. "Yeah, yeah, shut up," he says. It takes Adam a few seconds, but we get out and practically run up onto the road. We stand there for a few more seconds, staring at the remains of my first car, before all we can do is start laughing. Adam and I hug, and I realize I should probably turn off the car. I run down, turn it off, and struggle for a minute trying to take out the keys before finally giving up.

It starts to rain at about this time, and I call Bridget and tell her I wrecked the van. Andy gives his wife directions to where we are, and they come down. I call 911, and Andy gives more directions and they send the Highway Patrol.

Andy at some point is telling us about watching our headlights disappear, and makes the comment, "You guys don't know how scared I was." Adam and I, in unison, tell him "Yes, we do!" A group hug ensues. It's about this point we notice the ring on Adam's face, and the bloody lips he gave himself protecting his face from glass.

Nothing much else eventful happened; the cop didn't even get out of his car, just told me he wouldn't file a report because then he'd have to file a charge, and all that would do is raise my insurance. The wrecker was impressed by the wreck, and then we drove home.

And, as promised, pictures; click the picture for larger versions:

This is where we initially went off the road; you can see the scrape marks starting near the top, and the tire track on the right.

The scraping is much more evident here; the night of the accident, it was quite fresh. You can see the height of the road as compared to the shoulder, also.

This is the small concrete barricade that prevented us from flying off into a gully. It was maybe 5 inches tall, but it did its job fantastically well, let me tell you. The sign was not there when we hit; you can see the fresh break in the concrete where we did hit, though.

A view all the way down the barricade. We scraped down the side of this, as witnessed by the tire track all the way down.

This is that gully we nearly ended up in. Concrete barricade, I love you. Forget Bridget; will you marry me?

We tore through some bamboo, flipped, and came to rest here, upside down, passenger side against that tree. The scattered trash probably fell from the van when the wrecker service hauled it out of the ditch.

This is a close up of the tree; you can see that most of the bark has been stripped from it. The passenger side sliding door ended up on the other side of the tree. The rear passenger tire exploded when it hit the tree.

And this, ladies and gents, is what the van looked like afterward. Doesn't look so bad from the front...

... but from the side, you can see the damage. The clump of dirt there is from the wrecker service dragging the van out of the ditch. Speaking of ditch, notice the one on top of the van?

Close up of the windshield. Yeah, that's what me and Adam were looking at when we stopped moving. Thankfully, the dashboard protected us from landing on most of it.

A view of the passenger side as they're loading it up to haul it to the junkyard. Notice that the sliding door is INSIDE the van. The wrecker service picked it up from the other side of earlier tree.

A view through the missing back window. Gives a good idea of the amount of crumpling the roof did. That's where we found most of our stuff: on the ceiling. Or thrown out various windows. Kent's CD player went out the back.

Here we are - the survivors. I'm gonna have a print of this made and framed.

I am Alive

And I am quite thankful for that.

I totalled my van Saturday night - and when I say totalled, I mean there was NOTHING salvageable from it, except perhaps the front passenger door. Adam and I were the only ones inside, thankfully, and we walked away with no major injuries. I, in fact, had only a minor abrasion from my seat belt. Adam had a few pieces of glass in his arm, and a mark left by the marauding Dr Pepper can that smacked him in the face. How do we know it was a Dr Pepper can? We could see the indentation of the tab on his face, inside of a circle.

As Rick informed me I must start...

It was a dark and stormy night. Well, not so stormy. It rained gallons for a few minutes and then cut out. We were following Andy to his house when the van started to hydroplane and drift to the right. I was trying to ease the wheel to the left to keep us from hurtling off into the darkness when the wheels left the road. We bounced around, scraped on the road, and then hit something REALLY HARD. This something was a 4 or 5 inch tall concrete barricade on the side of a bridge, which prevented us from flying into a 10 foot gully. Instead we scraped along this barricade before hurtling off into the woods. We took out a grove of bamboo, fishtailed, finally flipped, landed on the roof and slammed the passenger side of the van into a tree.

I'll post pictures and the aftermath of the wreck later.

End of a Journey

My Turn

Parking Lot

Dip Cone

RAD CHIC

Livingston, AL

SKWUREL

12 Miles

Start of a Journey

The Big Day

Well, Bridget graduates tomorrow. Today, technically. In six hours. Wow. I can't begin to describe how proud I am of her. And she's getting out with a 3.0, too. It's now physically impossible for me to get a 3.0, unless I stay and take classes JUST to raise my GPA.

I have a final to take in about 4 hours. For those I have not yet filled in, I missed my science final on Wednesday because my DAMNED ALARM CLOCK didn't go off. I have been kicking this classes ASS, and I woke up with 30 minutes left until the teacher left. To cut this rather long story short, she is letting me come take the test today in her classroom at Natchitoches Central. Bridget's graduation starts at 10am, we're going to eat right afterwards, and the teacher will be leaving at 3pm, so I'll be arriving there bright and early at 8am to take this test.

On another note, I recently lost my wireless mouse as I was transferring my computer from work back to home and had to switch back to my old IBM wired mouse. We've since found the wireless one, but I think I'm actually gong to stick to the IBM. The response is much better, and I don't have to wake it up; it's also much more comfortable to use. The wireless was kind of oddly shaped.

Ad astra per aspera

I was introduced several months ago, by a friend, to the fabulous but cancelled sci-fi show Firefly. I had heard of it before, when it was being cancelled, and it inspired a Star Trek-like fan write-in campaign.

The show was quite good; I wish I had caught it while it was on the air, and that I could have lent my viewing weight to its ratings. They are making a movie based on the show, though, in the hopes of garnering a larger audience. I am excited about it.

Which is why I feel it is my duty to show those people who are interested the new trailer for Serenity that was released today. It is in QuickTime format, so you'll need that player installed.

Enjoy!

Oh, and River: DAMN.

*UPDATE* It would appear that an unfinished version of the movie will be screened in select cities across the country on May 5th. Guys down South Carolina way... I don't know how close you are to Atlanta, but you can get tickets here for a showing in that city.

Pro Wrestling

So apparently, there's this new wrestling league, Real Pro Wrestling. They purport to be a team-based wrestling league, based on freestyle and Greco-Roman wrestling. I would be all over watching some of this, cept I don't think we get either of the channels it comes on, PAX and Fox Sports Network.

Brings back some memories, though.

Mmmm... meme...

Meme I picked up from Simo. Leave your answers in my comments.

*edit* Bah. Stupid links. It should just know what I want it to do, right?

:WHAT DO YOU THINK ABOUT MY:
Personality:
Eyes:
Face:
Hair:
Body:
Clothes:
Voice:
Humor:
Choice of music:
Mannerisms:
Family:


1. Who are you?
2. Are we friends?
3. When and how did we meet?
4. How have I affected you?
5. What do you think of me?
6. What's the fondest memory you have of me?
7. How long do you think we will be friends?
8. Do you love me?maybe as a friend.
9. Do you have a crush on me?
10. Do you know people who do?
11. Would you kiss me?
12. Would you hug me?
13. Would you do anything else to me?
14. Physically, what stands out?
15. Emotionally, what stands out?
16. Do you wish I was cooler?
17. On a scale of 1-10, how hot am I?
18. Give me a nickname and explain why you picked it.
19. Am I loveable?
20. Describe me in one word.
21. What was your first impression?
22. Do you still think that way about me now?
23. What do you think my weakness is?
24. Do you think I'll get married?
25. What makes me happy?
26. What makes me sad?
27. What reminds you of me?i
28. If you could give me anything what would it be?
29. How well do you know me?
30. When's the last time you saw me?
31. Ever wanted to tell me something but couldn't?n
32. Ever held a grudge against me but never told me?
33. Do you think I could kill someone?
34. Do you think I already have?
35. Would you ever have sex with me?
36. Are you going to post this and see what I say about you?

Livejournal Users

For those of you who are LJ users, I've been meaning to post this for a while; Bridget's cousin Rick has set up feeds of my and Bridget's blogs so they can be viewed on your friends page.

Just add aricept-feed for mine and rabbit-feed for Bridget's.

Students!

"Yes, we've got eggs and students, and eggs, bacon, and students, and students and eggs and students, and waffles with students, and..."

That's a bad paraphrase of the Monty Python skit from which email spam gets its name.

But my point is clear. We've had a drought of new students for almost a year now, and suddenly we're inundated with them. I posted about all of our new students a few days ago, and now, Tuesday, I have FIVE coming to watch classes. Possibly SIX! That's like, half the size of the school!

Now, I'm faced with that same dilemma of what o do with everyone so nobody gets bored. Although really, things seem to be working out; they either fit into my kids class very well, or my adult class. The porblem is, my kids class is all very small right now, like under age 8, so throwing a 13 year old in there isn't going to help him much, as he'll be slowed down by me having to low down for the younger kids. And in the adult class, he'd just be creamed. I'd be more inclined to throw him in with the adults of the two choices, though.

I love this stuff

The 'Classical Holy Grail' That May Re-Write the History of the World

Scientists are using infrared technology to read previously illegible documents - the largest collection of classical documents in the world. They've discovered previously unknown works by great Greek poets and playwrights, just in the first few days of examining them. Some are predicting a 20% increase in the number of great Greek and Roman documents in existence

Firefox extensions

Since I was just talking about Firefox, thought I would take a moment to talk about the extensions I use, in case people find them interesting.

Adblock - Probably the quintessential Firefox extension, Adblock does just what its name implies, blocks ads. You know, banner ads, flash ads, all those annoying things that take up screen real estate in your browser window - like that stupid iPod ad at OpenDiary.

Tabbrowser Preferences - Not as feature-full as Tab Browser Extension, but not nearly as buggy, either. Gives you more control over what can be done with the tabbed browsing of Firefox. Wish it supported Undo Close Tab, though.

StumbleUpon - This one is just fun. It randomly throws you to a page based on preferences you've set. You can vote whether you like the page or not, and it updates your preferences based on your "likes" and "dislikes". Its coolest feature, however, is the ability to easily send a page to another Stumbler, or even just email it to someone. It is for Awesome. It has reinvigorated my desire to surf, which I thought I had died some time ago.

Mouse Gestures - I learned to love both tabbed browsing and mouse gestures when I was using the Opera browser, and one of the first things I did when switching to Firefox was find a mouse gestures extension. Basically, this allows you to use mouse-shortcuts to activate certain features of the browser, like back, forward, open new tab, close tab, open new window, open link(s) in new tab... all sorts of stuff. You can map new gestures, also, and even have a gesture do something as simple as, say, open a single bookmark.

I've also started using a few new ones recently on my PortableFirefox usb key...

Bookmarks Synchronizer - I use this to keep my bookmarks consistent between my PortableFox and my regular Windows- and Linux-based Firefoxes. Set an upload site, and set to auto-update or not, and you're good to go.

WebMail Compose - allows you to compose emails in a webmail window by clicking on a mailto: link. Normally, you'd need to use an external client, like Outlook Express, or Mozilla Thunderbird. This, for a portable browser, is a great solution, as I don't have to configure a mail client for my return addresses everytime I want to mail someone from a webpage.

FireFTP - This one is not hosted at update.mozilla.org, so Firefox will not, by default, allow you to install it. It will pop up a small yellow bar at the top of the screen; click the button on the far right of it, and follow the instructions. It's an FTP client that sits in a Firefox tab - works pretty well, too, has a good bevy of features.

That's pretty much all the ones I use, actively. Let me know what you're using.

Firefox 1.0.3

For those that use it, Firefox 1.0.3 is out. It's mostly a security update, providing a number of fixes for various holes, as well as tweaking the update process.

The update process is pretty simple: in the upper right corner of the Firefox window, next to the activity icon, will appear a little red arrow. Click that, and it should start the update process.

Speed limits

Is nothing sacred anymore?

Light. Or rather, the speed of light. 3.0x10⁸ meters per second (that's 3 followed by eight zeros, or 186000 miles an hour) - the one constant in the universe, right? Tell that to these people. They slowed light down to 17 meters per second, just over 38 miles an hour.

Like, I think I can ride a bicycle faster than that.

Babies galore

Babies just seem to be everywhere, don't they?

My sister's pregnant, again, Daisy's sister just had a baby, and one of my best friends growing up just sent me a picture of her year old baby girl. First time I'd seen her. Isn't she adorable?

I worry, sometimes, that I won't get to be as big a part of these babies' lives as I would really like to. I only see my nephews a few times a year; Brodi, though, calls me Uncle Nathan now, at least, which is good for a three year old. He doesn't always call me that, of course. I'm a five hour round trip from them; an afternoon visit doesn't often come up. Even the occasional weekend trip can be difficult to arrange.

In the case of my friend, I'm almost 2000 miles away; that's definitely not in the works as an easy visit. Bottom line, I'm not really near anyone. This will eventually change, of course, after I graduate, but even then, we have no idea where I might end up teaching. Or even if I will end up teaching. Or WHEN I'll end up graduating, for that matter. These babies might be nearly grown by that time.

Friendship

Pardon me whilst I wax sentimental.

I miss friends. I have friends, don't get me wrong. My friend-landscape is so VERY different than it was just four or five years ago, though. And I miss them.

My friends used to be my life. Probably everyone's life. And actually, growing up, I didn't have that many friends near where I lived. In fact, I had like one friend that I would hang out with on a regular basis. During the summer I hung out with a TON of people near my grandmother's house. THOSE were my friends, they were the center of my life when I was young. One eventually was the best man at my wedding.

I haven't seen any of them regularly for like 6 years. Some came to my wedding, which was great. I miss them.

My mom was always upset with the amount of time I spent with my friends. "Friends come and go, but your family will always be there for you," is what she would always say. At 14, I didn't understand how I would ever NOT be friends with these people. Now I haven't spoken to many of them for years. My mom knew, though; her best friend from high school never returned her calls when my mom was in town for a week for my great-grandmother's funeral. I'm not saying any of my friends are like that, or that that is the kind of friend I am or will be... just that she knew that friends do come and go, and I hadn't had that experience yet.

My mom had a lot of friends, I thought, when I was growing up. Later she told me that she was always afraid that my dad was cheating on her, so she tried not to gather female friends. She may have been right, I don't know, it's not the kind of question I'm going to ask my dad. Kind of helps me understand the mentality my mom helds/holds on friends, though.

My first year of college I made a great group of friends - the kind you have picures of in your office and say, "Yeah, those are my college buddies." My second year most of them were gone, and by the end of the third all of them were. I cried when the last one left.

And now I have all-new friends. Great friends - that's why we're friends, right? I love them. I love hanging out with them, enjoying their company... sometimes I can't quite express that. I know, especially recently, I haven't been able to do things with them nearly as much, but I do appreciate them, even if I don't always show it.

And everyone's lives are like this, too. We have our friends growing up, elementary, middle, high school. Then we go off to college, probably make all new friends there. Then we go off into the workforce, move to a new place, make new friends there. I dislike the temporary nature relationships seem to have. I wish they would just... stay. I wish they were easier to maintain.

"Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends." - John 15:13, KJV. I remember reading that at 15 and thinking, "Wow. Do I love anyone that much?" I thought about that for weeks. That, actually, is what led me to tell a girl I loved her for the first time - and yes, I meant that in a romantic sense, as well. Ever since then I have periodically sat down to go through who I would willingly lay down my life for, and who I might only be willing to imperil my life for. Very few fall into the latter category. Do I just pick them right, or am I too giving with my life?

Wow, this was kind of rambling. Perhaps more personal than I meant it to be, too. Ah, well. See you on the flip-side.

New students!

We have just had a RUN of new students recently. First Cade's brother, then one of our regular families brought in a friend, and then I get two new students on Tuesday, and one might bring her son! I mean, that's four or 5 new students, when we haven't seen one in almost six months.

Now, the problem with new students is that they are hard to integrate with our existing students, the majority of whom are already half way through the pre-black belt rank structure. It's not so hard with adults, actually, or with young kids, but in between that... I don't want to slow them down by putting them in my children's class, or throw them in with my advanced students, or throw them in the adult class... so it's a bit of a predicament. For now, though, I'm safe..

I could always add a new class, rearrange the time structure a bit... say, move all the classes up a half hour and add a fourth class, so I have classes at 5, 6, 7, and 8... that could be workable, but then I'm there a LONG time. And do students really want to be going home at 9pm?

Fat Lip

The right side of my face is the size of a watermelon. Re feels like it, at least. Bridget says my face is just normal sized.

I had more fillings done and my lower right wisdom tooth extracted. Yay for more blood tinged saliva. I'm in a foul mood right now from the procedure - I don't think I could tell you why, I'm just not a pleasant individual. So thank Bridget for putting up with me the next time you see her.

Squirrel Slayer

I'm a pretty normal person. When I see an animal in the road, I attempt to avoid it. I will brake, I will try to go around it, in general try to avoid hitting it without endangering my own life. Usually, the animal agreeably joins me on this quest to extend its life.

Until this morning. This morning, driving myself back from the hotel, I happen upon a squirrel absent-mindedly sniffing at something in the middle of my lane. I began to break, and he did not move, although he did look directly at me. So I began to move into the other lane. He seems to think this a LOVELY idea, and jaunts on over as well. I brake harder, moving back into my lane, still a good twenty feet or so from the squirrel. He, of course, dances happily back to his previous spot. I am now braking as hard as I can, thinking "Please, don't let me kill this squirrel."

I am now at a complete stop. Either I am directly atop the suicidal rodent, or he is staring at the undercarriage of my van. I watch in my side mirrors for his quick escape, and see nothing. I press on the gas, watching in my rear-view mirror for his body. There it is, lifeless in the road. Wait, no. He moves! He... twitches? His upper-body lays against the pavement while his lower-body dances across the road. I watched him move two feet or so, dragging his head, before I moved on, unwilling to see more, but knowing that in a few minutes I would be sharing his demise with you.

Fun with GIMP

Mmmm... texty.

I've always loved playing with text effects. It's my favorite part of graphics suites. The GIMP is no exception, although, again, It is hard to find out HOW to do almost anything.

This, for now, is the new layout. "What?!" you say, "This looks almost like the old one, just with new colors, and stuff." Yeah. Well, it took me HOURS aligning that menu over there. Stupid floats. Actually, it was this main section here that was giving me problems. Anyhow, I'll probably continue to fiddle with it. I'm on the crest of my CSS kick (we're studying waves in science) so I'll mess with it a bit, and then peter out, and then come back hardcore again later on.

Birthdays, Babies, and Blogs

Just got back from Lafayette, visiting with Bridget's family. Her sister and brother-in-law are down from Seattle, so we hung out and had a great time. Spent time with their grandmother in a nursing home in Houma on Friday, which was kind of sad. The visit was a good one, don't get me wrong. Bridget said, though, that it's getting to be like visiting her brother Mikey.

I can't recall what we did Saturday at all, other than lay around the house. It was a pretty lazy day. OH! We watched Army of Darkness at one point; it was Miss Gretchen's first time seeing it, which was funny to watch. Then we went and visited my mom for a few hours, discussed my brother piercing his eyebrow that day, and then went to eat at IHOP. This meal was a bit awkward, for me, because our server happened to be the only other girlfriend I've ever had. It was also here that we learned, though we didn't believe it at first, that my sister is pregnant with another little girl. This will mark her fourth in as many years.

Sunday, Easter, we skipped out on Mass, as everyone was exhausted, and Bridget and I went to my sister's for my oldest nephew's birthday, snagging my sister alone for a moment to confirm that, yes, she is pregnant, and yes, it is a girl. Brodi opened presents and was all around cute, as were Ashton and Ayla, and the party was a success, when we had to leave for Kelley's birthday party. We snagged the big 3 candle from Brodi's cake to be part of Kelley's 30, bought a 0, and then went bowling, which was a blast. Probably the best I've ever bowled. Then we went back to the house, ate a great roast beef meal, and then I drove tiredly home to serve my sentence - er, I mean shift - here at the hotel. I may have left out some minor details about late-night Wal-Mart trips and episicles, but who's keeping track?

On another note, I've been learning to use this great open source image editing program called The GIMP. It is perhaps the most user unfriendly program I've ever used, mostly because the interface is non-intuitive, although it has taken leaps forward from previous versions. Once you get used to a few minor things, though, it's actually pretty easy to use. I'm almost done with a new layout for this blog that I hope you all enjoy.

Good as new

Now that THAT'S been taken care of...

Cade's brother has started taking classes at the school. I'd never really gotten to know Matt, other than that one time on the first day of college when I talked to him for like 15 minutes before I met Cade, but I like him. Cade, of course, is already accusing him of stealing his friends. On another note, Cade's mom has also officially made it my and Kent's responsibility to try to convince Cade to move up here - his brother has an empty room at his new place, and he and his roomie could always use the help with rent. So, the obligatory - Cade, move up here!

It also seems that some people didn't realize my Jackson post was much longer than it actually was - it was so long, I hid some of it under a link. If you haven't read the whole thing, click the yellow text at the bottom of the post. It will all pop up then. I'll probably do that on other longish posts, too, unless you find it a hassle.

I also used that same little Javascript trick (same one that hides/unhides the comments) on my sidebar for the recent posts - go ahead, click it, check it out. Not needed? I'm just messing around, so let me know.

Bah

Thank you, Daisy, for pointing that out. I posted that from the computer at work, and it never seemed to go through until I logged out, back in, and then posted it. Ah, well.

In case you were wondering, the text on the Gamer Quiz post was white because I had to MAKE it white to fit the style of the old sheet. It didn't, for some odd reason, naturally. It's been fixed now.

Style sheet issues

The server that I have housed my style sheet on seems to have gone down momentarily... I'll be copying it over as an inline sheet as soon as I get the chance. For now, we'll go with one of the standard Blogger templates. Mind the gap, please.

Jackson Throwdown

We're back from the biannual throwdown seminar in Jackson, MS. This is a huge three day long seminaron various topics in the Korean martial arts, mostly Hapkido. I hurt in places I didn't used to have until this weekend. I'm also kind of sick now. If you're ever doing joint techniques, make sure to shake out your joints. Don't ask me why, I just know that when you don't, you end up sick.

Bridget, Charlie, Trent, Daisy, Charlie's roommate Chris Lugo and I left Friday morning. There is a Tangsoodo seminar on Friday afternoon before the Friday sessions begin every year, and we wanted to make sure to get there in time for that and to schmooze a bit. We did lots of kicking and stretching, and had a blast.

The seminar is divied up into sessions, during which three different seminars are held. Most are offered at multiple times so you can take nearly all of them. Each session is an hour long, with a 15 minute break between each. Friday night we did Restraining Techniques, basically how to keep some one in one place while waiting for backup, and Speed Takedowns, or taking someone to the ground REALLY quickly. That one hurt. *rubs wrist* We went and ate at this hole-in-the-wall (no, not that hole in the wall) that we'd discovered last year and then crashed after talking all night. Oh, and the Hotel was... well, less than perfect.

Saturday is the main day of the seminar, starting with demonstrations by the various session instructors. We were witness to no less than 2 knockouts, a couple of kock-sillies, and lots of painful locks - again, this event focuses mainly on Hapkido.

The day's sessions started with Hip Throws, taught by this mountain of a man named Dexter Mangum. Some great tosses there that really made me want to wrestle again. After that I moved on to Effective Kicking, which involved lots of stretches and exercises to strengthen the muscles used to lift ourknees, and ways to push your foot off the floor faster. Great session, followed by a two hour lunch break.

After lunch I did some Clothing Grabs, which was actually defense againts said grabs. Some great stuff - would have been better of half the grabs didn't involve grabbing the sleeve at the wrist and my uniform sleevs didn't stop at the elbow. I managed to make up for it though. Followed that up with Reading and Writing Korean, or, as Bridget likes to call it, Storytime with Master West. It was about the reading and writing of Hangul, the Korean phonetic alphabet. No vocabulary or anything, just the sounds each character represents, and how to pronounce them etc. And then Master West, the seminar host, told some funny stories about his instructor... was a good little break.

Last session of the day we did Forms Techniques and Interpretations with Master Mac, a Tangsoodo guy we've gotten to know pretty well. Fabulous class on what techniques within forms might be. We started with basic stuff, like low block and upper block, and moved on to more complicated movements like the scissor blocks in Pyong An 3. For dinner we joined Master Mac, his daughter, and a ton of his students at a little seafood place with a decent buffet. Great food, great conversation, what more could you ask for?

Sunday is the small day, as a good number of people usually leave, although there are more sessions than on Friday night. Started off with Attacks from Behind, which involved lots of throws. Defenses against hair grabs from behind, bear hugs, headlocks, wrist grabs, all sorts of good things. Followed that with Cane Techniques, or How to Make a Man Squeal and Still Look Injured While Doing It. Objects rolled down wrists and shins HURT. Good chokes with it, too. Might need to go buy a can at some point. last session of the day was Choke Defense, during which I was knocked out - hard to describe, but suffice to say I felt a sharp pain, and I woke up on my knees. I wasn't out for more than 2 to 3 seconds, but still... I was out.

The seminar is absolutely fantastic. It's held in the spring and the fall, although we've only been able to attend in the spring. Hopefully this year we may be able to swing attending the fall one as well. Oh, and did I mention the pre-registration cost is only $65? The at the door cost is only $85, so either way, you're getting a great deal on a 3 day seminar.

This entry is REALLY long, so click here to read the rest of it.

Late in the game

As mentioned earlier, I just had my wisdom teeth out. Most people are genuinely surprised that I'm just now getting them out. I don't know when they came in - they are fully exposed, they caused me no pain, they weren't impacted or anything, so I had no reason to really take them out. Their position in my mouth made them difficult to clean well, though, and they began to rot. My first real inkling of this was when I could feel a hole in the side of my tooth.

So now that they're out, it hurts like heck. Dentist gave me a prescription for hydrocodone, and that stuff turns the pain into a distant memory, as well as sets me floating just a bit. I've taken 3 now, I think. The third one... well, they said to eat before taking them. I forgot to, for this last one. I was fine, at first... but slowly this sense of nausea built and built. Roomie gives me some chewable Pepto-Bismol tablets, I eat, I wait, I vomit. Don't you hate standing in front of the toilet, knoing that you'regoing to vomit, and you miss? Never done that? Good. Try not to.

I didn't exactly miss. Most of it got in. The rest, though, got on the floor, me, the wall. It was quite a lot, for one volley. I immediately felt better, of course. Such is the nature of things.

Anyway, I'm off to sleep now. The meds also make me drowsy.

Powerade saliva

At this moment I have next to me a large powerade bottle labeled Fruit Punch. What's in it even appears to be fruit punch. It is not, however. It is, instead, my blood-tinged saliva. Three hours ago I had my two upper wisdom teeth removed whole from my mouth - they were pretty nasty. Over the next couple of months I plan on spending a lot more money getting fillings and my lower wisdom teeth pulled.

Nitrous is good stuff. Made my face go numb. Then they gave me some bubble gum flavored gel to numb me for the real local anesthetic, delivered by needle. To the outside, I was fine. When he poked that needle into my soft palette, though, my eyes shot open, numb gums or no numb gums. That sucker HURT. Never really felt the teeth, though. Just some pressure, and the WRENCH that he stuck in there to get them out.

Spent the weekend at Bridget's parents' house, eating crawfish on Saturday and then hanging out on Sunday. Joe and Daisy came over (yay!) and we hung out some more. Twas a good weekend.

My mouth is starting to hurt. I may take one of my new pain pills.

Connection reset by peer

I've felt somewhat disconnected recently. It's hard to describe. Life just seems to be passing me by.

Went to Hackberry with Bridget's family, and had a blast. Stayed up until 7am playing poker. Bridget's family is a ton of fun. I wish we could spend more time with them.

We picked up Adam in Lafayette, after Bridget's cousin picked him up in New Orleans. We ate at Bennigan's, where my sister works - the food was great. My sister was having a rough night - she was in tears when we arrived, having been stiffed a tip on two tickets totalling about $150. So we cheered her up and left her with a nice hefty tip. I felt good, but also sad for my sister, working 2 jobs with three kids. I miss her sometimes.

Speaking of family, my brother pierced his lip with a nail. When asked why, he responded, "Because I couldn't find a pin." Well, I suppose you can't argue with that. I just wish he would smarten up and go back to school. Zack has taken the whole "teenage rebellion" thing way further than I expected.

The school is... well... the school. Student population is steady. Trent is back, and he's as limber and fast as ever. A bit rusty, maybe, but we'll whip him back in to shape. We've got the big Jackson throwdown coming up, so I'm trying to get students to come with me and experience some pain and learn a few things.

I need to run to class. ~poof~

(Wow, IRC. The title is a disconnection error common to dial-up users, especially ones who don't turn off call waiting. I used to ~poof~ when leaving IRC... I use it pretty frequently in IMs now, also... ahh... the good old days.)

Some hole in the wall...

So Thursday before class I was attempting a great Prince of Persia-like feat: running along the wall. I gave it like three tries, the third of which sent me flying across the room into a roll. But I made it like 3 whole steps!

After class, when everyone was gone, I was again goofing off, jumping and pushing myself off of a different wall. Jump-push-flyyyy... Wow. Made it pretty far. Let's try again. Jump-push... well, damn. My foot is in the wall. Wait a second...

MY FOOT IS IN THE WALL?!

Sure enough, I put my foot through the wall of the conference hall. Jay was a little pissed, but not overly so. Said they would get it fixed. Course, Friday for class it was still there.

We're kind of tossing around the idea of buying Charlie's dad's truck. He said his mom would let it go pretty cheap; the "how cheap" part is what we really need to know. Has about 130,000 miles on it, '91 model year... we'll see. Gonna go over some stuff with Bridget's dad first. Would be nice to have another vehicle.

I love fountain pens

But I don't love them this much.

I did, however, just buy a Parker fountain pen. I really do like fountain pens. I had a Pilot Varsity fountain pen, basically a disposable fountain pen. When it ran out, I was sad, and looked around for a real one - fountain pens can be expensive. And no store in town carried one!

Then I found one in the campus bookstore one day when I had some free time and was just wandering around. Came with blue ink, unfortunately - I much prefer black. But it's still cool.

Portable Firefox

I'm trying out a "modded" Firefox, for lack of a better term, that is designed to be installed to and run from a portable media device, like a USB drive (what I'm using) or a CD-RW with packet writing enabled. Basically, I can now bring my browser with me anywhere - as long as there's a Windows PC there that I can use it on. It has some things disabled - like saved forms, multiple session cookies - to minimize the read/write access to the drive that it's on. I've got all of my key extensions installed, and I've added Bookmark Synchronizer so I can synch the bookmarks on it an on my home machine - pretty much everything I need. Only downside I've noticed is that it takes longer to load.

Thespian convention was Friday night; I worked at Best Western, and had a pretty slow night, overall. The fire alarm was fixed, thank goodness. Setting up the breakfast sucks, but wasn't that bad, really. I just had no idea what I was doing, and they seemed to have gone out of their way to make it difficult for me by not defrosting any OJ, or gravy, and leaving out a whole pitcher of milk for the WHOLE day. Eww.

Finished my and Bridget's taxes - getting all of our federal income taxes back, and about a third of our state taxes, so we'll be doing pretty good in a few weeks. We're doing good now, actually, since Bridget's $5000 loan check came in. Party! Kidding, of course.

Who to kill first...

Today was pretty screwed up, and I just don't know who to blame it on. Somehow, a couple of weeks ago, the conference hall was booked for today - which is specifically a violation of the contract Jay and I drew up, wherein I have exclusive rights to Tuesdays and Thursdays. Not so bad, really, since it was only going to be used from 5 to 6. I could still hold my advanced ad college classes.

Wrong, of course. They would need the room until at LEAST 7:30, which meant I could hold NO classes.

I know that all of the girls know I teach karate out there, because I've talked to most of them about it, or Jay has mentioned it to them. So why was it booked in the first place? And why did the people who booked it wait until the DAY of the event to push back the times?

I'm so aggravated right now, I can't even express it.

3,600,000

Three million six hundred thousand nickels.

That's $180,000.

It weighs 23 tons.

And somebody stole it. Disappeared from an 18 wheeler in Florida. The driver is missing too.

That's a lot of nickels. According to The Today Show  it would take a year to turn that in to cash at a rate of $500 a day. Talk about a patient thief.

Or, of course, just pay in nickels for the rest of your life.

Birthday!

Today was Bridget's birthday, and unfortunately it was not all I, or she, had hoped it would be. I had thought of planning a surprise party, but funding cut that short. My work and her school schedle kept us apart most of the day, and then a combination of lack of sleep and the changing weather put me to sleep for several hours - ancelling TKD class in the process.

To top things off, Bridget wanted a plan king cake for her birthday cake; no filling, just plain. Unfortunately, the only place in town that has king cakes at all has no plain, only strawberry with cream cheese. *sigh* But everyone is calling to wish her a happy birthday, so she seems happy.

Happy birthday Bridget!

Blah blah, oochety smoochety

I did an entry several days ago, but the internet ate it. I swear.

Things go well, here. School has started, and I think I'll enjoy my classes. I'm working some mornings at the hotel again, which means slightly more stress, but I get to hang out more with Jay. We cut up all day today. He's very different as an employer when you spend time with him.

Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time rocks. It captures the spirit of the original 2D side-scroller, and wraps it with gorgeous graphics. The camera could use some work, though.

It occurred to me earlier this evening, and this may be my favorite part of the game, that I think they used the same melody for the healing as they did in the original game.

We are nearly done with Thief 3. The story arc has been quite good. And strange. One of the city quarters is in utter chaos - people killing each other EVERYWHERE. It's tough sneaking past Hammerites waving hammers or casting spells, and city watch thrusting swords, and Pagans with swords and spells, and the random sword-wielding scoundrel on the streets. I think we just have to fight some undead and then the main baddy, and we'll be done. Sounds like fun.

Bridget, of course, would disagree and say fighting undead is NEVER fun.

Next on my list is Splinter Cell: Pandora Tomorrow, and 3rd person stealth game, so we get to sit and watch as I creep ever so slowly and silently in a modern setting.

Oh, and I fixed the guest computer at work. It had gone haywire. Yay! for me.