Tuesday was a horrible day for me. It brought news that a very good friend of mine passed away. I met JP years ago during my early days at AOL. When you meet this guy, you know right away that he is a crazy mother fucker. He lived life to the fullest. A lot of people like to say they live life to the fullest, but JP certainly exemplified that statement. He never missed an opportunity to have another experience. We could all learn a lot from him. I never knew a day where he was not laughing and giggling about something. He was always smiles, and good times.

JP, wherever you are, save me a seat, brah. I don’t feel like I can say goodbye… Just keep the party goin till I see you again. You are most definitely missed… A true friend, a kind soul, the life of the party… Life just won’t be the same.

JP Kramer
1967 - 2007

So, here we are at the end of the weekend again. It looks like sickness and disease decided to give us a bit of a break. Heidi and Rhys are both just about all better now, so I’m thankful for that.

I think I’m going to have at least one late night this week at Cogswell’s. Entirely by my own choice. I have to say, it’s really nice to work for a company you are proud of. It’s a really strange feeling for me, this whole “I Like My Job” thing. Even as an hourly employee at Spacely I despised having to come in for an extended work day. At Cogswell’s I’m actually more than willing to go that extra mile. So, remember kids, corporate = bad and small/medium sized company = good.

In other news, I found a neat diagramming tool. Something that can take the place of Visio if you need to do any kind of flowcharting. I’m still a very big supporter of Open Source Software, especially when it comes to productivity tools. So, if you need a flowchart and diagramming program, be sure to check out Dia. It’s built on the GTK framework, and even tho I’m not a big GTK fan, I must say Dia is good shit. I’ve always been more of a QT guy. :) But you gotta give the Gnome project props. They have Gnome (of course), Gimp, Evolution, and Dia to name a few of the better GTK apps. Oh, and there is a Windows binary, so this isn’t just some Linux Geek thing.

Well, that’s it. So begins the new week. This week, Heidi and I are going to get back on track with exercising and diet. Wish us luck!

Well, by the time I woke up this morning, all the snow had turned to ice. It’s the way of things in the desert. The soft, almost eerie smoosh of powder under your feet was replaced with a very loud and terrible crunch. The cars rolling by on the street crunched even louder with every inch as they made their way past my house in the morning. Yay, ice on the road.

Not a big deal to you New Englanders, or basically anyone from outside the tropics or the desert. But, to desert dwellers, it’s as foreign as if someone paved the road with glass. I have some experience driving in the snow. Driving the 95 in Virginia… in a Fiero… Yeah, those were the days. Or goin balls to the wall down a backroad only to find the curve is much sharper than you expected. As you sit there in your car — stalled out next to a tree in some stranger’s yard — you get a new appreciation for winter driving. The thing about that happening in Virginia was I was the guy who needed to get the experience. A member of the vast minority in that region who’d never been lucky enough to drive in the snow.

Now, imagine being the other guy. The guy who knows how to drive in the snow. No problem, right? Well, the problem is here in the desert if you are the guy who knows how to drive in the snow, you are still in the vast minority. Which means the vast majority are the guys and gals goin balls to the wall down that backroad about to hit that sharp turn. A whole city full of people who really should be locked inside their homes if it is icy out. I just flipped on Diggnation on my iPod and hit the road. Diggnation, by the way, is a flat out awesome cast! You guys rock!

To everyone’s credit, there were no accidents on the way to work this morning. It did take twice as long to get there, but still, no fender benders or anything like that. Which is saying a lot considering how many of us were on the road. That wasn’t a statement which could be said long, however, because the pileups started right about after I got to work. All in all, pretty uneventful. It’s supposed to be even colder tonight. Here’s hoping it doesn’t snow again!

Ok, here’s the view from my house this morning:

Here’s a view of the Boneyard on my way to work:

Finally here’s a couple of soccer moms trying to find the lines in the road:

Ok, just had to drop in and share a photo with you. My phone is syncing with my new desktop, so YAY more photos for the 3 of you who read this damn website. :) Here’s one of SNOW in TUCSON! By the looks of the sky and how much is coming down, tomorrow will be a FUN morning!

UPDATE: The snow is now sticking to the concrete and the asphalt. I’ll grab a pic tomorrow morning of the damage. I’m sure my morning drive will be interesting too! hahahha

Heidi caught Rhys’ sinus infection. The one I just got over. Steam makes you feel much better when you are in this condition, so she decided to use our steamer thingy and a towel to find a bit of relief. I asked her, “Hey, wanna watch some TV with me?” Her response was something like this:

Ok, just thought I’d stop in here and update all three of my readers on the progress 2007 is making… Yes, that was your warning that a rant is coming.

I’ll start by stating my standard disclaimer. I understand that life is good. I have a roof over my head, a wonderful job, and food in the kitchen (much to my dismay sometimes). Blah blah blah. But, remember, it’s all relative, baby!

So, let me see if I can recap the goings on since my last update. When I last left you, I was sick as a dog, Rhys was sick, I’d been laid off, and my health insurance had been canceled… Among other things of course. Where are we now? My insurance is still canceled, I’m JUST getting over being sick, Rhys is still sick, and Heidi is sick now too. In addition to that, my ex-work AOL account is more screwed up than a Parkinsons patient after a fifth of whiskey, and my other free AOL account is in just as much turmoil. Yes, AOL is Spacely. Blah blah blah don’t give a shit. Like it was a big secret.

So, I’m trying to get my “free” account converted over to a paying account… A paying account that I will use on the “free” billing plan. This is the account my mom uses… Oh, hi mom. Get ready for some bad news. :) Anyway, I called up AOL. The IVR system asked me to tell it what my screen name was. So I say, “ABCDEFG”. Now, obviously that’s not my screenname, but it will suffice to get my point across. The IVR bitch comes back and says, “You said your screenname was JUHETFG#%$^%$@$^%$GSHF!@YFFD$#, correct?” No, I’m serious, the damn thing didn’t even get one letter correct. … NO! I’m not drunk! … Yet.

After the amazingly intelligent IVR system gives up on me, it transfers me to a human being.

AOL Guy (in such a thick Indian accent I thought I was renting a hotel room): “Thank you for calling AOL. My name is … Mike … How can I assist you?”

I swear to god he paused before saying “Mike”. I figure Mike must be short for Hashnanibabbawabidabba or something. Anyway, the gist of our conversation is Mike can’t help me without verifying the billing method I use for the account. I can’t give him the billing method on the account, because IT WAS A FREE FUCKING ACCOUNT THAT HAS NO BILLING METHOD.

After I hung up on … Mike … I called the mental midgets at the employee account security department (OPSSEC) to beg them to help me. I might as well have tried to color a fart blue, however, since I would have had much better luck accomplishing that task. Where does this leave me? Exactly where I started, only now I’m sure I have a new friend or two in the form of bleeding ulcers.

Mom, if you are reading this, no worries, I have a way figured out to keep you all setup with your precious AOL setup. Though, I will be talking to you soon to try to convince you to use a different service. One that doesn’t enjoy eating babies and sucking out the souls of good people.
AOL, you are like a seeping, sucking chest wound. Even now after I have been “healed” I still have this massive scare to remind me of why I hate you so very fucking much. Thanks for truly appreciating the 12 years of service I put in with your sorry, piece of shit company. I hope the leadership guiding that worthless, unholy, trainwreck of a service wakes up tomorrow to find rabid, mountain goats gnawing on their extremities. Yes. Those extremities! See you bastards in hell.

As if all that shit wasn’t enough to send me into a murderous rampage, my computer took a shit. A huge shit. I can’t remember if I’ve already told you guys about that crap. Well, I got a Dell. But, I tried to load XP from my collection of XP disks laying around my office and each one of them blue screened. Reigning theory is SATA drives, or lack thereof is causing it. Or perhaps the fact that the new machine is 64bit. Either way, I ordered XP 64bit and now have to wait LONGER to get my machine up and running.

I swear, too many “little things” are going wrong. I’m going to lose my mind by February at this rate. And if the neighbors don’t slap a muzzle on their furry little barking shit machines I’m gonna post a recipe I haven’t enjoyed since I lived in Korea. Ok, off to bed with me. With any luck I’ll trip and fall and meet my fate on the tip of a steak knife or something. LOL