Category: general

Where I put something when I’m too lazy to categorize it.

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how can that stuff not be interesting?

GIS for jetlag.
Back from Texas and all is well. Funny how two days flying can make you feel like you’ve been gone for a week. I was totally wiped out when I got home tonight (yes I’m writing this last night). A hot shower helped relax me, as I think a lot of my tiredness comes from just the tension associated with flying and wanting to be back home.

As for the presentation, it far exceeded my expectations. It was a large audience, and while they were inquisitive they weren’t aggressive – I think due in part to my being able to answer most questions easily. So my preparation paid off and my presenting-confidence has risen a notch with a very successful effort now under my belt. It’s good, because I’ll be in Taiwan for a week soon giving the same presentation multiple times a day. I feel much better now with today’s run having gone so well. I wasn’t really looking forward to spending another week in Taipei – but I found out that Ben will be there the same week, so at least we can have some crazy adventures in our spare time.

When I was in Houston overnight I did something I haven’t done since college. I used to put an album on each night while falling asleep. I’d usually put it on low and just listen as I fell asleep. I remember looking forward to choosing what I’d listen to each night, and then I’d put it on repeat and just let it go. Sometimes the words in the songs would influence my dreams, or the songs would work their way in somehow. Anyway, I haven’t done it in forever – mostly because I no longer have a stereo in the bedroom, and because Sharaun never really did like it. So Monday night I plugged in the laptop, set to a “I can sleep over this” volume, and queued up Not Exotic by Dolorean. A sleepy little album from an Oregon band, it’s folky hush-music is perfect to drift off to. It was still going when I woke up the next morning. Was kinda nice.

Ben made me kinda jealous the other day, he showed me the new book his reading. Something like “A peoples history of the United States.” It’s basically an account of US history from the peoples’ point of view. It’s all very “college” and highbrow, but I’ll be damned if I didn’t want to run out and get the same book so I could discuss it with him.

Anyway, it did look interesting – if huge. I love learning about history, I always have. Too bad most history classes in school manage to take all the fun out of studying history and reduce it to the ultimately boring task of memorizing dates and facts. To me history is about sentiment and feeling, atmosphere and climate of the times, and human development. How can that stuff not be interesting? That’s just the way it is. The past is interesting, the future is kinda scary but also exciting. What you know is often a source of comfort while what you don’t is often a source of discomfort. At least for me.

OK, I’ve rambled quite enough I think. Dave out.

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houston reminds me of florida

Y'all come back now, y'hear?
Houston reminds me of Florida. The landscape and the weather are Florida all the way. I’m staying in some “executive” suites place where the room is more like a little apartment than a hotel room. I’ve got a kitchen, fridge, etc. At least they have free broadband, that’s cool. Tomorrow’s my presentation – I’m ready and just want to get it through with. Then it’s another six hours of flying and I’m back in time to go to bed. Yeah.

I don’t know what it is about this room, but it makes me feel lonely. I think because it’s kind of like a little living quarters, it makes me miss Sharaun. It seems too long-term or something, glad I’m only here for one night. I shouldn’t be tired, since I slept on both legs of the flight out here this morning, but for some reason I’m sleepy right now. It’s nearly midnight Houston time, so I guess that’s a good thing since I have to be up early tomorrow. I should probably turn in and get some rest, I plan to be up early to run through my presentation one last time.

I like being up high. My room is on the fourth floor. Even when I was an apartment-dweller in college, I always wanted a place above the ground floor. To me it provides an element of safety, and I also think it’s neat to be able to “look out” over things. I’m sitting here looking at a pair of golden arches through the fog, kinda nice. I used to love the 5th floor condo we had when we first moved to Florida. Frank and I would sit out on the balcony and watch the birds dive into the waves to catch fish. Sometimes I’d look at the ships that were just dots on the horizon and wonder who was on them. High places are good thinkin’ places. Maybe that’s why gurus in cartoons are always on top of mountains. Hmmm…

Goodnight all. I did my best to come up with three paragraphs. I guess I’ve kinda stopped pre-writing blogs way ahead of time. Now it seems I mostly write day-to-day, which most likely makes these entries less and less exciting to read. I’ve got plenty of stories left, and lots of ideas to write – I guess I’ve just been busy lately. I’ll try and step it up a notch so I don’t lose my entire audience. Until then, keep reading and I’ll keep writing.

From Texas, Dave out.

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another thing to work on

The boy's got the devin in 'em and it needs to come out!
I watched the collectors edition five-disc version of The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers on Friday afternoon while Sharaun was busy at a salon of some sort. The additional scenes were absolutely excellent, and really aide in conveying the spirit of the story. I wish I could’ve had Sharaun see this extended version first, as it helps to explain things much better for those who may have not read the books. Though I doubt I’ll be able to convince her to watch it again now that she’s sat through the screener version I originally downloaded. Although, she did say she really enjoyed the non-extended version. Anthony and I have talked about having an all day marathon when the last dvd set comes out. Starting in the morning and watching until the end. I heard that the Return of the King dvd cut will clock in at four and half hours, that means watching all of them in a row would amount to something like eleven hours of movie. I’m up for it, and I think it’d be an awesome experience to watch them all in sequence as a whole. I know it’s because I enjoy the story so much, but I honestly think the films are some of my favorites; ever.

I’ve found my next frivolous project.

Friday night we also played some more DDR over at Anthony’s place, and I’ve got the totally busted calf muscles to prove it. I’ve been considering downloading the game for the Xbox and then buying a couple dancepads, since that’d be the cheapest option. However, during our Friday night DDR playing, Ben managed to find a few open-source DDR emulators online. A couple seemed really good, but StepMania seemed to be the best. So, Saturday I BitTorrent’d the complete DDR mix package for StepMania. With over 1000 songs, you get a lot more variety than just having the Xbox game. All you need is a computer plugged into your TV and some dancepads. I picked up some PlayStation dancepads and ordered a PS-USB converter so I can use them on the PC with StepMania. I’ve already started on the project, because it kills two projects with one stone. Lemme explain:

I want to create a complete console emulation machine. A small computer that plugs into the TV and has joysticks and can play all the old console games from Nintendo, N64, Super Nintendo, Genesis, etc. It’s actually a relatively easy thing to do, since the emulators and ROMs for most consoles are readily available and work really well. I’ve been messing with Nintendo and Genesis emulators since college, and am really familiar with them. Cool thing is, the emulation machine and the StepMania machine mentioned above can be the same machine. Throw it all in a small-form-factor PC case and hook it up to my wireless network, and maintenance becomes a breeze. Anyway, the emulation and output-to-TV parts are already working, and I just need the PS-USB converter to make the StepMania portion work. Now all I need is a pretty frontend menu system to choose what games you wanna play, and it’s done! All in a couple days, not bad.

Well, I wrote a lot over the weekend when we got back from vacation – so I’m basically just cutting and pasting a bunch of paragraphs per day of pre-written blog. I do “proofread” it and add up-to-date stuff here and there, but for the most part it’s canned for the next couple days. Sorry this entry comes so late, but at least it’s here.

Dave out.

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time and money

money money money...
Welcome to 2004 y’alls.

I think true economic freedom, from a personal finance aspect, has a lot to do with the decoupling of time and money. For me, money and time are still tightly coupled, and very much dependent on each other. At certain times, my money situation is rosy – other times, not so rosy. We’re never really “broke” like warming-by-the-fire-in-a-trashcan broke, but we do have peaks and valleys – which are mostly dependent on time.

Sometimes spending equal amounts of money becomes either acceptable or unacceptable based on when the spending will occur. That’s the difference between going out and buying $10 worth of pizza or burritos from a restaurant for dinner, or staying home and cooking $10 worth of pasta or meat that was purchased at the grocery store. See, the stuff in the pantry or freezer at home was purchased at a time when there was $10 to spend. Whereas it may not be the best time to drop the $10 for the restaurant meal. So yes, it’s the same amount of money being used – a wash as far as the bottom line is concerned. But it still makes a difference. Even tho it’s the same total monthly/weekly/daily pool of funds – the exact time of expenditure ends up mattering.

The coupling of money and time is used to fool consumers all the time. Car salesmen use time to distort the amount of money you’ll pay over the term of a loan. People who measure money only in terms of present-day output are relieved when the salesman tells them they can lower their payments by $100 a month, even though they’ve just bought thousands more in interest over time. In some ways I envy the ignorance of people who don’t realize that less money over more time is actually a worse deal. I mean, what would it matter if I died having never paid back my school loans. Other than the weight of my conscience telling me I stole an education, a debt on my head when I’m buried and gone means little to me.

When money is no longer coupled to time, I imagine we’ll be able to spend whatever we want whenever we want. But for now, it’s still very much cyclical. As we spend these initial years of married life climbing out from under the shadow of college debt, we’re still basically living paycheck to paycheck – the paychecks are just a lot bigger than they used to be. Perhaps that’s a sign of poor budgeting or management, I’m not sure. All I know is that we’ve managed to make impressive strides in reducing debt, while still managing to have fun and maintain a nice “entertainment” budget.

My approach to personal finance is pretty simple. Pay off debts, save and invest, and most of all have fun. I’ve also decided it’s important to realize that there’s no such thing as “extra” money. “Extra” money is always balanced out by “unexpected” expenses. If you find a $100 bill, chances are you’ll lock yourself out of the house and have to pay $100 to get back in. For all the time I spend worrying and thinking about money and finances and budgets and debt, I spend way more thinking about sunshine and music and food and nothing at all. So I think I have a pretty healthy handle on the whole money thing, and I’m not too terribly obsessive.

OK I’m going to publish this without even re-reading it. Sorry if it makes no sense and sucks.

Dave out.

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great gifts all around

Off we go into the wild blue!
This blog upload comes a little later than usual, but here it is.

So, Christmas Eve. Sharaun and I exchanged presents today rather than pack all our gifts round trip to FL just to unwrap them. We both made out really well. I got the Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers extreme collectors edition, with the little Gollum figurine and all. Five dvds worth of stuff, yeehaw. I think we were both happy with the loot. Last night we tried to get into the Christmas spirit: we drove around town looking at Christmas lights, and then came back and watched both Charlie Brown Christmas specials on dvd. It was fun.

Today will be spent cleaning and packing for the trip. We leave tonight at 10 o’clock. Heard on the news that some flights from France to LA were canceled for security reasons, great. If you hear anything on the news about Delta 1124 or 329, that’s us. Hopefully the only news story will be about how the crew gave out $500 to each passenger or something. I’m sure it will be plenty uneventful, and hopefully I can get some sleep. We get into Orlando around 7:45am on Christmas morning, talk about crappy flying times – but hey, it was dirt cheap. We should be at Sharaun’s folks’ place by 9ish, and we’ll do presents then.

For Christmas gifts thus far, it’s been a great year for me. Great gifts all around. I got a flask, that’s right! A real-deal drinkin’ flask like honest-to-goodness priests carry at all times. I got some homestar runner figurines. I got an *awesome* all-in-one Namco game controller. You know the kind you plug into the AV inputs on the TV, and all it is is a joystick, but the joystick contains five classic Namco games – including Pac-Man. How awesome is that!? I got a boatload of clothes, more books in the current series I’m reading, a much-needed umbrella, and more. Plus my folks got us an awesome set of Henckel knives for the house, because our old knife set is totally busted. All in all it’s been an awesome year for both giving and getting.

Well, Merry Christmas erryone. Hope you all keep it sincerely crunk for your holiday celebrations. I know we will do our best.

Dave.

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wanna be hero

Another year down, another year gone.
Another day closer to Christmas. Worked a half day yesterday because things are so slow at work. Will probably do the same today. Hardly got a single e-mail all day, was kinda nice. We’ve still got a lot to do before we leave: pack, clean, do our Christmas Eve present thing since we’ll be in FL for the actual holiday. I’m getting excited about going back to Florida, which I still kind of consider as “home” since I did most of my growing up there. I always get a little homesick when we get out at the Orlando airport. For all the reasons I profess to not like Florida, it’s actually a great state – and I have a lot of good memories of my days there.

Yesterday my mom called me at work from her cell phone, asking if I’d felt the earthquake. I hadn’t, since it was centered too far south of here – but they did feel it there. It was kinda cool knowing a piece of big news before the news services started picking up on it. CNN and the other outlets were only about 20min behind real-time with their stories, which is pretty impressive. The US Geological pages that register seismic activity had it up instantly, which I also thought was cool. I’ve been through one or two slow rollers when we lived in Lompoc, but that’s about it. Nothing as hard hitting as a 6.4, which I’m sure is a little more scary than the lightweights I’ve weathered.

Bob asked me the other day if I was concerned traveling with the terror alert at Orange now. I guess it does make me a little more “aware” than usual, but not really nervous. That terror threat color chart seems awfully arbitrary to me, but I hope that it’s working. I guess the only real way it affects me is to just pile on imagination-fodder in my brain. See, I often have these little movies running in my head, that are sparked from what’s really going on in front of me. I run through these imagined scenarios, kind of like a “choose your own adventure” in my head.

As an example: I’ll be walking along somewhere and a surly looking dude passes by me; we both continue along our ways. In my head: All of the sudden the dude pulls out a ninja sword and rushes at me, screaming about something. What do I do? Then I’ll run though all these scenarios in my head, deciding on the best course of action. Kind of like thinking of a good comeback to an insult long after it’s been said, I’ll arrive at the coolest or most heroic chain of events, and then review them like a short action flick. I do it all the time: What if a plane hit my work building? What if a bomb went off at the airport while I am walking through? What if the supermarket got robbed right now? You guys don’t even know how many times I’ve saved the day in my head, I’m like a superhero in my own mind.

With all the year-end hoopla in the media, I felt it was time for me to put my personal spin on the “best of” game. I’ve chosen the following 10 albums as my choices for best albums of 2003. The criteria I used to judge is really twofold: How much did I listen to the album (frequency and longevity), and how much do I enjoy the music (savory-ness and emotion). Without further ado, my picks for the best of 2003 (in no particular order):

  • Radiohead – Hail to the Thief
  • Death Cab for Cutie – Transatlanticism
  • Broken Social Scene – You Forgot it in People
  • Decemberists – Her Majesty the Decemberists
  • Shins – Chutes to Narrow
  • Hot Hot Heat – Make Up for the Breakdown / Knock Knock Knock EP
  • The Thrills – So Much for the City
  • Decemberists – Castaways and Cutouts
  • Postal Service – Give Up
  • Iron and Wine – Iron and Wine

There it is, with Nada Surf’s Let Go, The Unicorns’ Who Will Cut Our Hair…, and Snow Patrol’s Final Straw barely sitting outside the list. And I know I kinda cheated on the Hot Hot Heat double-pick, but I always listen to the two together – so it’s like a single album to me.

If you like good music, check some of that stuff out – it’s all tasty. 2003 was actually a really good year for music, I don’t know if it’s just that I get so much that some of it is bound to be awesome, but for whatever reasons it seemed there was a lot of excellent stuff out. Also nice, we got to see a lot of it live – as 2003 was also a great year for live shows. This year I took in: Radiohead, Modest Mouse, The Shins, Death Cab for Cutie, Nada Surf, Pedro the Lion, Explosions in the Sky, Broken Social Scene, The Stars, Beulah, John Vanderslice, Built to Spill, Hot Hot Heat, The Walkmen, Bright Eyes, The Strokes, and probably more I’m not thinking of.

Well, what started out as a blank slate ended up with some pretty decent blog content. I’m proud. Although I’m not going to all the trouble to go back and hyperlink everything, because I’m just not in the mood. As I mentioned, I’ll be trying to write every day over vacation, but it may not work out that way.

Merry Christmas all! Dave out!

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not-so-better

Yum they make you sick!
If Wednesday’s blog was one of the better ones, this is gonna be one of the not-so-better ones. I just wasn’t in a writing mood tonight, and there wasn’t much going on. I thought about writing about how much I suck at wrapping gifts, but then the inspiration left me. So here ya go, a couple straight up cut-n-pastes from the stale section of the “blog_ideas.txt” file. Woot.

Oh man, I rediscovered the greatness that is eBaum’s World last night. I’ve been to this site before, but man it’s got some hilarious stuff on there. I was laughing at the GI Joe parodies, particularly this one and this one. Stupid QuickTime movies, I hate QuickTime. Always stealin’ my file associations. If you don’t do QuickTime, you can use this awesome QT alternative (also grab the nearly all-inclusive Windows codec pack while you’re there, and never have broken vids again). What more could you want from a site? I mean, they got dudes with elephantitis of the balls, and crazy rednecks trying to drive trucks with their feet. My kinda website, you could easily kill an evening at this place.

… too bad your ass got saaaacked.

Public Service Announcement to People I Know:
People, for real now, c’mon, let’s think here for a sec. If you see a mail about some crazy teddy bear virus on everyone’s PC, check it out before you blindly forward it. That one where the stupid bunny always knows my card?, save that crap, I’ve seen it. Oh, and the ones where Bill Gates or Coke or someone is gonna give me money if I keep forwarding your idiocy onward through the internet?, you can keep that crap too. It’s fake. Yeah, that’s right. Sorry to crush your belief that some tourist’s picture was taken right before the planes hit, or that that scuba dude barely missed getting eaten by a shark. It’s all 100% fake man, every piece of internet lore you’re hemorrhaging from your inbox is pure shite. Ahh… much better.

Nice collection of moldy and musty bits I’ve been meaning to post. Hope you enjoyed them. Did I mention I suck at wrapping gifts? I did? Oh, OK.

Dave out.