Galaxies, Universes, and Things That Spin

New Title and Position

2010-08-02T13:56:00.001-07:00

It's an unnerving thing when you discover that you are no longer employed. Nor does the situation improve much when you make the leap from unemployment wages to being a "green pea" at a car dealership during a recession (or depression, depending on who you believe). Finally, after two and-a-half long months of extreme heat and little business, I have managed to find work again. I won't say that I've finally found a real job, because car sales IS a real job. It's just not one that I find compatible with my personality or training.
For everyone who heard from me during these two and-a-half months.
1) Thank you for the prayers and the encouragement.
2) Sorry about the attempts to get you into the dealership so that I could try to sell you something
3) Thank you for considering me for employment if you received one of my applications or resumes.

It is over, and a new stage of my life has begun. All signs point to this being a great one.

Vbama

2009-11-04T06:24:00.000-08:00

I sat down and watched the new V series last night and watched as eerily similar circumstances to our current Resident (ooh, sorry, meant "President") unfolded. The strikingly beautiful and charismatic Visitors promised hope and change in return for our devotion and resources. Did you notice the bit about choosing who would portray them in a positive light? Yes, there was one anchor that was chosen to interview them (it's too bad he didn't raise a stink about the other networks not being included) as long as he neglected to ask questions that would portray them in a negative way. Fox had about a snowball's chance to get in on that one.
Then there was the revelation that Universal Health Care would be provided to the people of Earth.
One particular dialog that caught my attention was between Father Landry (Joel Gretsch) and Father Travis (Scott Hylands): "The world's in bad shape, Father. Who wouldn't welcome a savior right now? Under the right conditions and with enough time, gratitude can morph into worship."
Whoa. Sound familiar?

Greetings from the Ether.... er... the Author

2009-10-22T17:56:00.000-07:00

Years passed, and the cosmos swirled, as cosmi often do. And as the cosmos swirled, and the stars were born, and died, and had soirees and conceived baby stars in candlelit rooms, the Book sat alone. But the Book was not forgotten-- it was merely alone.

For the Book had not a cover. Neither front nor back cover had the Book, and the Book was forsaken by others of its kind (those that had covers, anyway). And the Book gathered dust.

Until finally (and not just a little suspiciously), a breeze from an errant butterfly caused the dust to be lifted from the Book, and the Book was discovered, and gathered to its author's breast. This seemed an appropriate place to gather one's forgotten work, but once it had been held there a short while, the Book was relocated to the author's desk, then car, then back to his desk, to the nightstand, and finally back to the desk.

"Behold!" said the author, feeling a bit silly, because the word "behold" was an archaic word that fell out of usage some years ago, when Olde English begat the New English, and "begat" was forgotten as well.

"I think I shall get thee a cover!" said the author, still feeling silly, for the reasons mentioned above. And a Cover was found. And the cover was awesome, which was great, because "awesome" was a word that was indeed still in fashion. And the author owed many thanks to the artist, who had fashioned the Cover.

This great Event caused the author to consider what would happen if he were to acquire an ISBN. And it was acquired. And the first day the author sold Two Books, which was a remarkable thing, because this particular author had never sold Two Books before, much less One Book.

And so, as the Book finally found itself with Cover, and with ISBN, it too found itself a url, where those who wished to purchase the Book might find it. And the url was a nice, tidy link that looked like this https://www.createspace.com/3404888 somewhat. It was blue, which was a nice color for a link. It also had a fashionable underline, for the author hoped that this fashionable blue underline would draw attention to the Book.

I've Got a Fever

2009-08-24T10:57:00.001-07:00

The fever hit me kind of late this time around. Summer is winding down, and I'm just now starting to feen for a personal water craft, aka jet ski. More likely, this is just a case of withdrawal that has been going on now for about twelve years, since the fateful day that I sold my Yamaha Wave Raider 1100.
The cause of the problem is two-told: (1) I was not yet ready to sell it when I did, but I needed a reliable vehicle, and the Camaro was not it. Add the Yamaha to the trade, and now you're cookin'.
(2) I went geocaching on the reservoir with my friends Lee and Chris Saturday. There were numerous boats on the water, including about half a dozen PWC's kicking up spray.

Now it's all I can do to keep my mind on whatever task is at hand. I've checked out a couple of websites to price current watercraft. Is it just me, or have they become more expensive in the last few years? The one I want now is about twice as expensive as my old Raider.

Here's a pic someone took of Jace, Jeff, and me on our respective craft (We were part of a larger group we called the "Doo Crew," even though I didn't have a Sea-Doo. The group was dominated by Sea-Doos, though, and I guess the name was inevitable.

I still want a Yamaha, though I wouldn't turn down a Sea-Doo if someone offered it to me.
Purty, ain't she? Check out this video: FX-SHO

Now you've got the fever. See you next summer on the rez.

Twitter Goes Down

2009-08-06T12:45:00.000-07:00

So. Apparently some hackers brought Twitter to its knees today. When one of my co-workers asked me why I hadn't heard it was down, my reply was "How was I supposed to know? I didn't get a Tweet."

A Haiku

2009-08-01T12:47:00.000-07:00

Toad stools in the yard
Remind me I haven't mowed.
Time to get out there.

Out of the Box - 28 July 2009

2009-07-28T07:30:00.000-07:00

Lately, it seems like there's been a lot of talk around the office of babies, which inspired this strip.
As an added bonus, I've included a video of that fellow on the left, James. I am only doing this to embarrass him. Enjoy...

Try JibJab Sendables® eCards today!

War of the Words

2009-06-02T13:24:00.000-07:00

Fan Boy

2009-05-22T06:26:00.001-07:00

Yes, I'm a fanboy. No, that's not a yamaka I'm wearing. It's my ever-widening bald spot.

Out of the Box

2009-05-21T08:32:00.000-07:00

I have begun a series of comic strips based on the "adventures" of my co-workers. Originally conceived as "The MIS Zone," and then "The IT Zone," I finally settled on "Out of the Box." In my opinion, the artwork is rather elementary, as I've had no art training. I just kind of go with it. I've been able to draw a strip semi-daily, which basically means "when I feel like it."

Thanks to Vern for inspiring fear, or the approximation of it, into James, our culinary exhibitionist. What he actually exhibits is usually the worst lunch each day. James made the mistake once of telling Vern that he could punch him whenever he said something stupid. He may be regretting that arrangement these days.

Yeah, the guy with the bald spot is me. I don't actually have OCD, but I have donated plasma.

For heaven's sake, don't get Wade riled up! He'll pedal his tail off to get his point across. And with that banana colored spandex he wears, you may wish you hadn't upset him when you cross his path.

Okay, I'm the guy with the miner's helmet down in the hole. I'm one of three geocachers in the office, but I've been doing it the longest. I don't really know who the dude with the comb-over is. He's just an extra, I guess.

I never actually witnessed the coffee grounds incident, but there are emails all the time reminding people not to wash their coffee filters out in the ice machine or some equally inane thing. The Jean-Luc Picard-looking guy is also an extra. No one like him works here. Really. Not even Rolan.

We would all rejoice if this actually happened.

James, aside from being our resident culinary specialist, is also a wooter. Woot.com exists. It is the glue that binds.

I'm anticipating an exhilarating round of golf this afternoon, which inspired this comic featuring Vern and Lee, our golfers. They plan to laugh at me while I attempt to look like a golfer.

Mission to Meridian

2009-02-19T08:34:00.000-08:00

Monday, President's Day, was spent on the road, my Blackberry tethered to my laptop, and my Garmin eTrex H dangling from my wrist. My geocaching buddy, otherwise known as yamfjr, was driving. I had the duty of selecting coordinates and plugging them into the gps.

We stopped first at a cache he had previously visited and I logged a quick find. Back on the road, we slid over the Mississippi/Alabama border and picked up an easy one so that we could each have a cache located in another state. It was a multi-function cache. You can see here what its dual-purpose was.

Our next point-of-interest was for a cache located on a back road near the border. We headed the way to find it, but found a hobo parked right on top of our coordinates in a tent. Not desiring to give away the cache location to a "muggle," or non-geocacher, we abandoned it, a bit perturbed that we had to.

We hit a rest stop/welcome center on the way back and picked up another quick find before shooting towards Meridian.

Our attempts at the Bonita Lakes were mostly foiled. By 2:00 PM we only had five finds each. Not so good. We decided to get out of the woods and hit the urban caches. This was a good idea. By the time we packed it up for the night, I'd logged a total of 22, a new personal record for one
day's searching. I'd still like to return, though, to pick up those caches in the woods.

I'd Have Drowned Already

2009-01-16T12:11:00.000-08:00

On the third try, I still can't find Noah's Ark.

I know the cache is still there, because someone logged it yesterday, while I was at work thinking about where in the world it could be. I have the coordinates. The clue is permanently inscribed upon my brain. After visiting the site alone twice, I took a fellow geocacher on the third visit, but we still could not locate our treasure. I put my hands on everything within ten feet of the coordinates.

I'm running out of change for the meter.

So how about it, Round Dancer? Care to point me in the right direction?

The Rhino Graveyard

2009-01-13T11:14:00.000-08:00

Yamfjr (as he is known in certain circles) and I went hunting during lunch today to find the elusive rhino.

Sort of.

The Rhino Graveyard geocache, as posted by bone1977 & Keybdkidd, led us to
N 32° 19.208
W 090° 12.981
a cemetery, and then to a bald spot of earth. After half an hour of searching, we found the cache, 200 feet from the given coordinates.

Our treasure was nestled near the back side of the rhino pen of the Jackson Zoo. Inside the Tupperware container were a few small childrens' toys, a Boy Scout patch, and a water-soaked log. It was in a Zip-Loc baggie, which unfortunately, was not sealed. It can be hard to remember to seal them when it hasn't been raining for a while, right?

Seal em up, people.

Geocaching

2008-12-29T07:50:00.000-08:00

Today I found two geocaches while taking a break, using the Garmin eTrex H my in-laws gave me for Christmas. One cache just up the street, and the other was right in front of the building!

My first coordinates led me to the Heroes Wall (see pic) and a mostly-buried match safe that contained the rolled up log that geocachers sign when they find their treasure.

The second cache was a little more difficult to find, but was fun nonetheless.

Check out www.geocaching.com if you want to find out more about geocaching.

Biognome

2008-12-16T07:28:00.001-08:00

A doodle that I freehanded, scanned, and colored.
It is the Biognome.

Real Men Sit and Wait

2008-11-25T16:54:00.000-08:00

Once again I find myself sitting alone in a tree stand, waiting, nay, begging for the opportunity to lay eyes on the ever-elusive deer. I really don't care if it's a buck or doe. I just want to put some venison in my freezer. I'm not about the sport, you see. Sitting still in a tree for hours on end freezing off parts of my anatomy I'd rather stay put? No thanks.
Today I happen to be doing time near Sartartia, MS, courtesy of a co-worker whose family owns property here. I'm about bored out of my skull, too, although I really couldn't have asked for a prettier day.
The wife asks that if I do happen to bring home a deer, I convert some to summer sausage. Myself, I'm all about the tenderloin, though I do love to make Deer Joes out of the ground meat. Perfect on the George Foreman grill!
Perhaps I just bore too easily. Well, back to acting like a tree!

Avengers Assemble!

2008-05-06T07:20:00.001-07:00

Since moving to Brandon, the missus and I finally got to go see our first theatrical production in a darkly lit room with stadium seating. Immediately following work on Friday, we joined up with the forces of tech from MIS and caravaned to Tinseltown in Pearl, where we witnessed Iron Man beat the everliving, four-color, textured poo out of a bunch of terrorists. I was suitably impressed. So much so that we're going to go see it again tonight, it was so good. I can't wait till this comes out on DVD, so I can add it to my collection. Of course, by the time this one is released, we'll have a new television, and possibly a Blu-Ray player.

Yes, I know I'm slightly behind the technology curve, but that stuff is expensive!

There is a possibility that the first Blu-Ray movie in our collection will be Iron Man.

By the way, if you haven't sat through the movie yet, do so. And stick around until the end of the credits. You'll be glad you did.

A Limerick

2008-02-12T03:47:00.000-08:00

T’was a woman who started a bout,

lost in the first round to the lout.

Now spoiled and ashamed of her nose,

Went to a vet, specialty: those.

And went home with a handsome new snout.

Market Slump? What Market Slump?

2008-01-30T06:28:00.000-08:00

Ran into my one reader at Kroger this weekend. This post is for you, Lihwa.

The wife and I finally decided to get off our keisters and put our house up for sale. We both know the market is supposed to be real bad for sellers, but the cost of driving back and forth to Jackson every day is eating us alive.

After a rigorous cleaning and making a few minor fix-its to the home (a little paint here, a little vinyl there), we got it listed on Saturday with Vicksburg Realty, LLC with help from our realtor friend Robert Peters.

Monday afternoon we arrived home from work to discover that an agent from another local realty had left a message, wanting to bring a prospective buyer to look at the property. So we arranged a time when we could get the dogs out of the house.

Long story short: as of Tuesday, we've already had an offer and made a counter-offer. Only two days on the market and we're just about ready to sign a contract! I predict we'll be in another home by March 5. I just hope we're not packing boxes during the Superbowl!

New Job

2007-08-16T07:49:00.000-07:00

It's been two days since I received the call that I am the newest Network Engineer for a company in Jackson, and it still feels like a dream. It hasn't really sank in yet.

It'll be difficult leaving a job I've been in for almost 8 years, because I've made lots of friends. On top of that, it's a job I've really enjoyed.

My last day here is August 29th, and then I'll start carpooling with my wife. I'll work just across the street from her, which means lunch will probably be in her building. This new position means a whopping raise for me, which could not have come at a better time.

Yay!

Level Up!

2007-06-02T05:39:00.000-07:00

Today's the day, folks! It's the day I level up! Level 36, to be exact. It's my ding-day! Thirty-six years ago today I went from a pixel in my dad's eye to living, breathing construct. Wonder if I'll get a new power?

R.I.P.

2007-05-31T07:28:00.000-07:00

It feels like this town is dying a slow, painful death.

It hasn't been that long since our only theater closed its ticket booth for their last matinée. How could they? I saw Back to the Future there back in 1985. Of course, when you don't put any money back into the business, and fail to keep out the riffraff, this is what's going to happen. I don't miss the tiny, four-screen cinema, since I was already driving as far as Pearl to see a decent movie. That's 50 miles, people. Too see a movie.

The Vicksburg Post recently ran a story about Red Carpet Lanes, the city's only bowling alley. The 48-year-old business closed this week. According to the paper, "A steady drop in business, antiquated equipment and the old structure itself have led to the lanes' closing."

Driving by the Krystal restaurant the other day, I noticed that Krystal has been replaced by Bubba's something-or-other, which, incidentally, does not serve anything even remotely resembling Krystal Burgers, Krystal Pups, or Krystal Chiks. Why is it every time we get a decent fast food joint it either burns down or goes out of business?

I'm moving! Well, eventually. As soon as I find a job.

Somewhere else.

Congratulations!!

2007-05-02T06:13:00.000-07:00

Early this morning, our dear friends Dave and Sue welcomed into the family a new baby girl, who weighed in at 6 lbs, 8 oz. As of yet, her name has not been chosen. She could not have been given to a more deserving couple. Liz and I are thrilled for our friends, and hope to visit soon.

Congratulations!

3rd Anniversary

2007-04-30T10:17:00.000-07:00

The end of April marked the third anniversary of the popular online game City of Heroes (if I'm not careful, I'm going to have to re-theme my blog to C0H). To celebrate, the team at NCSoft threw a party at Pocket D, complete with live DJ's from w00tradio.net. VIP attendees included Positron, War Witch, Back Alley Brawler, Ex_Libris, and Lighthouse, City of Heroes game developers (Hey, Statesman! War Witch says she wants hair that bounces!)
There was dancing, bongo-playing, and costume contests (I won one for my outstanding alter-ego costume, my tux with tails), as well as trivia contests broadcast over w00tradio.
Back Alley Brawler entertained in the ring against hordes of Rikti monkeys and clones of himself. For those who wished to brave the maze, w00tradio sponsored the W00t Radio Maze of DOOOM! And for those whose interests were more outdoorsy, Positron opened up the Ski Chalet, which floated outside Pocket D, protected by a giant rotating force field.
As many as 8 Pocket D's were open at one time, to accomodate the multitudes of superheroes and villains.

So You Want to be a Comic Book Superhero?

2007-04-06T09:35:00.000-07:00

Too late. At least, it's too late for you to be a superhero in the comic book I submitted to the City of Heroes Comic Book Creator contest. You'll have to go make your own comic. Creative Labs is sponsoring the contest, which consists of taking in-game screenshots and then using them to tell a 3-7 page story in a comic book format. For those who don't have Comic Book Creator, you can get a trial copy at Hypercomics.com. And if for some weird reason you're not already playing City of Heroes, well, hie on over to plaync.com for a 14-day free trial. You'll be wearing tights and a cape in no time at all (assuming you can decide on a costume, out of the literally millions of combinations).