Category: blogging

Where write about writing, and my website sounds familiar.

Posted on

thank you mr. axworthy

cough cough sneeze sniffle
I’m sick. I feel crappy. So today, you get a break from the 3-page blogs while I rest.

I put my old camera up on Ebay, hopefully I can make some cash. I didn’t get to work on the yard or the Halloween stuff much this weekend. I did have to repair the FCG on Sunday, because the blacklight fell from where we mounted it – and was swinging by it’s cord. I also finished a few tombstones and set them in the ground on Sunday, while I had a bout of feeling well. Equally as rad, I discovered Sunday night that while securing the graveyard fence in the front yard, I had managed to pound a piece of rebar through a sprinkler pipe. So, today I have to repair that so I can get the lawn watered again. Not a very productive weekend.

Oh yeah, speaking of the crank ghost – I took some video last night so you can see just how awesome this thing looks. Remember, the final effect includes a haze of fog that obscures the ghost. I didn’t have the fog running for the video, but I still think it’s pretty impressive. Judge for yourself below:


FCG movie for broadband users.		        
FCG movie for dialup users.

I think it looks pretty good! Hope ya liked it, I’ll have more pictures of Halloween night sometime next week. Everyone’s costumes are sounding really awesome, so there should be some good snapshots of the whole affair. Oh yeah, more blog stuff in the news… see, I’m not that crazy…

Dave out.

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how i graduated

i'm educated... this paper says so! where do i pick up my check?
We (Anthony and I) completed some more for the Halloween display last night. We finally decided how and where to hang the flying crank ghost motor assembly. We used plumber’s tape and screwed right into the stucco on my porch roof (it will hang in front of the window on the right in this pic, taken when our house was still being built). We also mounted a blacklight so that it’s out of sight and shines on the ghost. The whole idea worked out great, the motor assembly is out of view, and all the trick-or-treater sees is the moving ghost, bathed and glowing in UV light. Now I just have to build the ghost! We also built a fog chiller, which neither of us was too impressed with… so I may change the design; as well as cut PVC and began drilling boards for the graveyard fence. I plan to have all the decorations up by this weekend, so I can at least get a week’s worth of use out of them before Halloween. Sharaun and I also need to get a pumpkin and carve it. Can’t forget that! Owell. In the middle of hanging our FCG, I got a phone call from Zeb. OK… who is Zeb? Rewind to college, my three closest buds are Thanh (10), G.C. (Greasy Cuban), and Chris (image courtesy of G.C., unfortunately Chris isn’t pictured). Zeb is Chris’ friend from way back, and he and I occasionally chat. Anyway, he’s in the Navy and has something to do with the Blue Angels…. which is totally cool to me. I always forget to call people back, sorry Zeb.

I was thinking the other day about college, and how the heck I ever got out of there.. I kinda managed to pull one over on UF…. ummm… or pull a few over, I guess. I got that extra 1 credit for an “independent study” with Dr. Carnes, which was actually nothing – I did absolutely nothing on that, didn’t even move a muscle in effort or fire a synapse in thought. My senior project was an absolute joke, although I spent a good deal of time on it – it was really very simple. (I desinged a Bike Safety course for gradeschool kids, using Macromedia…. with like 5 other people.)

Also, we managed to get that “Navigating the Internet” class accepted as a technical elective. We knew that several technical electives fall under one generic course number, and without actually going back and researching it – there’d be no way for them to tell whether that number on the transcript was “Advanced Data Structures in C++”, or “Navigating the Internet.” (Heard they changed the numbering system the very next semester though!)

Not only that, but I was able to swing getting that COBOL programming course accepted as a tech elective. I mean, writing COBOL programs never took over 10 minutes, no matter how complex, and I got an easy A in that one. And then there was that summer course at UCF, it was a 4000 level course taught under the Mathematics Department, but it was called “History of Mathematics” (actual syllabus from when I took it! I love the internet.) and was mainly for future education majors. Thing is, UF doesn’t see anything but the course number, so it’s their guess as to what class it might have been. Could have been “Galois Theory and Elliptical Curves” for all they know. Got a fast and easy A in that one as well.

Then I also got that 1 credit for my so-called “internship” at Raytheon. Which was really nothing more than me coming in late and leaving early for 5 days (sometimes 4) a week. I wrote one DOS batch file during that “job,” nothing more. What’s more, I got paid good money to sit at that desk and download Grateful Dead mp3s all day (note: most proxies block that link, since you can grab gigs of mp3’s there so easily – not Raytheon!). Also, I managed to “recalculate” my GPA based on BCC and UF courses being weighted equally, giving me a nice round 3.01 overall average… when my UF GPA was a little lower. Looked much better on the resume.

I am glad for that Internet class though, for my final class project – I had to “create” a web page, so I retooled my Beatleg site using CSS and Java, and made it much more accessible and readable. Still using that redesigned page today. And, although I don’t sell them anymore, I wrote my cd sales customer database during my “internship” with Raytheon. So at least I made some money off of all my loafing…

Having just outed myself as a charlatan, I must say in my defense that I worked very hard in school… no… I’m for real… I did. Honest.

Dave out.

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terminal nerds

i chose trash, because this entry is mostly garbage collection to close the week
Well, I got a couple projects that are coming to a close. The Cast of Characters page is nearly done, with some rearranging, some new pictures, and more text, it’s right about ready to be published. I’m holding out for a couple more pictures and then I’ll pull the trigger and upload it. Also, Anthony and I nearly finished the FCG last night (with some help from Ben). While at Ant’s working on the ghost, I somehow (in the course of one weeknight, mind you) managed to: douse my cellphone in beer (I pulled the tap myself while holding the phone underneath… what?), pop myself in the stomach with a wire coathanger (I checked, it left a mark), and have so little fuel in my truck that I wasn’t able to start it until I coasted off Anthony’s sloped driveway and into the flat street. Anyway, we got the entire motor-assembly done (the marionette part), and I built the armature for the ghost itself. Now it’s up to my artistic side to craft up a nice apparition to fill out the armature. I say the project will be completed over the weekend.

Melissa didn’t get home until like midnight last night, and then went back in this morning at like 5:30am. Oh, for those who don’t know, Melissa is living with us while she awaits the availability of her new apartment here in California. Actually, I guess today is her last day, which means I no longer live with two women.. which is so awesome… I think I am crying a little bit right now. Either way, I’m glad my job doesn’t require that much from me. I’m all for working, but only as a means to an end. When I win the lottery, I’m done with the 9-5 scene.

In other news, I modified the ASP script for the comments page, so that the comments are now sorted from the top down (new comments added under the last ones). It now has the more familiar comment look of sites like Slashdot and Fark, since the whole “first comment at the bottom” thing was irking me. I know you probably don’t care, but I love projects… remember?! Speaking of Fark, I lifted this link from them for the blog, because I got such a kick out of it. I never even knew there was such a thing as “LARPing,” but let me be the first to say… “that looks kinda cool.” Oh no, I mean… what terminal nerds… yeah… yup.

OK, time to get ready for the weekend. I got a nice one planned. Some possible 4x4ing again, helping Steve and Ragan erect a sweet gazebo over their new spa, and fashioning some tombstones out of foam insulation sheeting. See ya on Monday.

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binary log

every two weeks?!
Arnold freakin’ won. OK, that’s all I’m gonna talk about politics, I swear. Last night, Anthony and I started working on the flying crank ghost for my Halloween display. We got stuck when I didn’t have a large enough drill bit to make a hole for the motor shaft. We figured we can work on it tonight and get it close to done. Then I have some tombstones and a graveyard fence to make, and I am well on the way. I have the fog machine and black light, and would also like to get a strobe light and possibly another black light as well. So, the plan is coming together. I was getting worried, as Halloween is fast approaching and I’ve been concentrating on the backyard lately. I think the haunt will still go down without a hitch.

When I first started keeping this blog, I was not really sure what “blog” even meant. I mean, I knew that what I was doing – keeping an online “journal” – was called a “blog.” My guess was that it was short for “binary log.” Only a few days later did I realize how stupid that was, when it hit me that it must obviously be a shortened form of “weblog.” So anyway, the reason I’m telling you this is to kinda setup a joke.

The other night we were over at Anthony’s house, the same night I got hit by the Barleywine truck actually, and Ben, Ant, and I were huddled around his granite-topped bar. I brought up the fact that I had mistakenly thought that “blog” was short for “binary log,” and got a good laugh. “I mean, why would I think it was ‘binary log,'” I said, “There’s nothing ‘binary’ about it, it’s not even in binary.” (Get ready, here’s the joke). To which Ben replied, “Maybe in the physical layer, maybe that’s what you were thinking.” Oh man, let me tell you, TCP/IP protocol jokes go over well with a group of buzzin’ nerds.

I don’t expect the non-engineers to get the joke, I just thought I’d demonstrate to the general public how foreign computer-humor is. Speaking of blogs: they are super popular lately, with people using them to do basically what I do (i.e. nothing), and respectable news and sports sites adding daily blog features to enhance content. Even Google plans to start keeping a seperate search index for blogs, kinda like they do now for “news.”

The “cast of characters” page is a stone’s throw away from completion. I need to add a few more bios, and I’m done. I took the approach that I’m not going to have an entry for every single person, only the ones that get mentioned a lot. It was easier for me. Basically, if I couldn’t think of a paragraph or two to write about you… ya didn’t make it.

Wanna read a super-long, but also super-interesting, article? Check this one out, I really enjoyed it. Note: Don’t be fooled by the seemingly political-agenda tinged intro, it only serves as exposition – the article isn’t about that at all.

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hang my crank

needed something visually stimuating
Work on the “cast of characters” page is nearly done. I was set back a bit because I opened the file in Word to do a quick spell-check, and accidentally hit the “save” button… man, nothing can mangle clean HTML like MS Word can. Took my code and turned it into a jumbled mess of style statements and javascript. Owell, I rewrote it and am back on track. Look for the page soon.

Read on Pitchfork today that the Strokes posted a new single from their upcoming sophomore effort (stupid flash site prevents me from linking the tune here). I downloaded it and it sounds pretty good, I’m really looking forward to hearing the album. A lot of people as me where I find all the crazy music I listen to. I thought I’d pass on some good starter-sites so y’all can get learned up on indie. If you wanna learn by immersion, head over to the #1 internet radio station for indie – 3wk. They have a free indie stream, and a badass classic underground stream too (also free). Also, check out Pitchfork for all the latest news and underground rumblings. There, I gave away my secrets. Go forth and spread the indie to all the creatures of the world.

The other day we were building the wall, and I wanted to make sure we weren’t stacking bricks above the 3ft mark (the highest you can go without a permit). Steve said that if we wanted to be absolutely sure it was 3ft tall, he could stand on top and “hang my crank down” to check it. “Crank.” I thought that was hilarious. Know why? Because the ‘k’ sound is comedy gold. No, I’m for real. ‘K’ words are inherently funny. Donkey, monkey, crack, it’s a proven fact.

Did you guys know Fonzie can punch a car and make it work? He’s that cool.

I guess this isn’t even a real entry, but just some rambling. I have some stuff in the queue for the next entry, as I’m hoping to do an update on the backyard page to show the progress we’ve made. Until then, peace out.

Posted on

where dave learned to love the internet

handlecrank A mates with spinnaker flange B
An entry-less weekend. That would either mean that I was too lazy, or too busy, to get the blog updated. Thankfully, it was the latter.

Saturday was a football slash work-party day. The Mooney’s came over to help finish the trench for the retaining wall, and Pat and Cynthia came over to watch college football. By the end of the day, Ben had stopped by too – and we all ended up working in the backyard. It was awesome, we got so much done. The labor was worth it tho, nearly the entire 1st course of the back wall was laid down. The trench was filled with crushed rock, compacted, leveled, and the stones were set. The french drain was installed behind the wall, along with the groundcloth. Pat then filled in the leftover trench gap in front of the stones, so everything looks a lot more “finished.” It’s still only 2 courses of stones, and no rock backfill yet – but man does it look awesome. I’ll post some pictures after the work tonight.

Sunday Steve’s water heater sprung a leak, so we spent the bulk of the day replacing that. It was a learning experience. It’s the 1st time I’ve ever had to sweat copper pipe together, which was interesting. In the end, we got the hot water returned to the Mooney household. Then it was off to a BBQ party at Ben’s crib.

In blog-related news, the “cast of characters” page is underway. Right now it’s just a Word doc with some text laid out. Later I’ll turn it to nice-‘n’-pretty html, and add some sweet formatting around it. I expect it to go up by the end of this week. Then the plan will be to link all the “nouns” in the entries to their respective writeup on the CoC page.

Right now my brother is on a bus to Jacksonville, FL, where he’ll go through MEPS. He is officially on the US Army payroll as of midnight tonight, and he arrives at Fort Sill, Oklahoma on Tuesday for Basic Training. Talking to him, he sounded more than ready, not hesitant at all. It was good to talk to him especially since his birthday is in a few days, and he’ll be unreachable at basic. He said he’d write me the 1st chance he gets, it’ll be interesting to hear what he thinks.

Well, with this, I’ll close this largely uninteresting entry. With the wondrous Google (well, I guess the thanks should go to Deja, whose usenet archives Google bought), I managed to search and find my first-ever posting to usenet, from Feb. 1995. Apparently, I hadn’t learned that posting in all-caps means you’re shouting. I was using Mosiac on Coach Marek’s Apple during my AP Biology class. Ahhh AP Bio… where Dave learned to love the internet.

Posted on

you are an idiot

this came up on a GIS for "dissapearing"

Late night last night updating my Pac Man pages. I’ve had a bunch of new content (text) written for a long while, but just needed to work it into the page format/flow. Anyway, it’s done – but still needs another round of work before I can put the site on “autopilot” and be happy with it.

On the “web roundup” tip, an old friend sent me this page, and it cracked me up: Insanity Test (and no, it’s not the “you are an idiot” page, for those who think I’m evil enough to link that again). Also a great read is the page maintained by a guy named Brandon Joyce, which I found several years ago quite by mistake while it was still hosted at the U of Va. All the items on his page are worth a read, but some are particularly funny (warning to the timid, there is some “nasty” subject matter here). Stick around, I’ve seen a lot of the internet – and I’ll try to pass along a few of the better parts so you, too, can become as savvy as me.

As for the blog, I’m thinking of adding a “cast of characters” page. Back in 1998-99, I stumbled upon the first blog I’d ever seen, maintained by some guy who calls himself G-Rock. I laughed so hard at some of his entries (beware, that’s a super-old vintage link), and I’d love to do something like what he calls his “frequently used nouns” page. Thoughts?

OK, I’m out.