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It was a wonderful weekend. It was really nice to get away from it all. On Saturday I had a great time at the wedding. It was really nice to see Mike and Cyn finally married. The ceremony went off without a flaw, and everyone had fun. It was also great to meet the rest of their families – they are good people. I’m really beat from the drive and am going to pass out. Check out the new photo gallery for some shots of the wedding.
Yesterday and today have been fun. I spent most of the day yesterday wandering around taking pictures and relaxing. I got some great shots and am really impressed with my new camera. I'll be posting a gallery from the trip soon after I get back.
Thanksgiving dinner was a blast! The whole crew got together and made a gigantic gormet feast. We spent a good hour and a half gorging ourselves on it. The turkey was moist and tender, and all the stuffing was amazing.
This morning I got up and headed up the slopes with Randy, Tom, and CJ. I got a some great shots of Randy snowboarding off a couple of jumps, and wandered around at the summit for a while shooting. Now that I'm back at the condo I'm glad that we have a hottub. It's really nice to sit in the hottub in the snow and just watch snowflakes melt.
More to come soon. I'm off to get wedding details set up.
So last night CJ, Hanna, and myself all drove up to Whistler for Mike and Cyn's wedding. The trip up was fairly uneventful. The border took about 45 minutes, and then it was snowing on the last leg of the journey - but we made it up safely. I’m having fun relaxing in the snow and playing with my new camera. Now that I have it I have no idea how I lived without it. It just makes taking pictures easier in general. I’ll be putting up a gallery of my whistler trip at some point when I’m not leeching off someone else’s connection.
More to come soon! I’m about to go eat some breakfast so I should probably put the tablet down and go help finish getting ready.
So today was annoying but good. My meeting after work went very well and gave me some things to think about. I also got to meet CJ and Hanna, two friends of Mike and Cyn's. I'm going to be carpooling with them on my way up and am pleased that I will not have to make the drive alone.
Right now I'm sitting on hold with Sprint waiting to get my damn phone sorted out. The phone number portability act is a great thing, but has certainly managed to create mass chaos. T-Mobile is having difficulties getting my new account set up, but have already canceled the Sprint account. Now it’s looking like I’m going to have to get it reactivated. What a pain!
So here I sit eating my lunch really wishing for a time warp. In slightly less than 24 hours from now I'll have 5 days off and I can't be happier. I've been stressed out of late, and it will be good to take a break from everything and just go up to Canada. Now I just have to make it through this afternoon, my meeting this evening, and then work tomorrow.
It's looking like I'll be headed up to Whistler on Friday so I'll have Thursday off to be lazy. I wish I could do thanksgiving dinner with my family, but driving to Walla Walla and back is out of the question. I'll probobly end up just spending the day playing video games and finishing getting this site kicked into shape.
So I'm starting to get ready for Mike and Cyn's wedding in Whistler. Luckily it looks like I'm going to get the camera that I want before I go. I sold my used ibook to my friend SkyCriesX. I got less than I paid for out of it, but it's nice that it will get more use, and I'll be able to afford a Canon 300d (the digital rebel) before I leave. On Wednesday I'm taking a half day to go get the camera, and get ready for the wedding. On Thursday I should be headed up for Thanksgiving dinner and the rest of the festvities!
*bounce bounce* I'm so excited! Now if only I didn't have to deal with work this week :/
So other than Bride of Pinbot I did pretty much nothing all weekend. It was really good for me to take some time and just relax. I spent a lot of time playing video games, and a good amount of time sleeping. I made an appearance at the party, but only stayed for a couple of hours so I could get home and get some sleep. Once I made it home I suffered a bit of insomnia, but at least it was a weekend and I could sleep in pretty late Sunday morning. I’m also starting a separate blog to track my progress and thoughts revolving classic video games. If you are interested you can check it out using the link in the left-hand sidebar to “Game Square”
Today has been a wash. It was really nice to sleep in and spend a day doing very little. I spent most of the day playing Chrono Trigger and getting set into my oldschool world. For those of you that care I just got the Masume sword and am on my quest to get it put back together.
I just had dinner with Tye. He's in town to do flood relief up in Everett. We went to eat up at Charlies and got to catch up. He said that if I can swing getting myself a 300d before he leaves he will let me borrow his 100-400mm telephoto lens. I'm jazzed about that beacuse it's a lens that costs about $1800 and there is no way I can afford that right now.
Tonight my friend Ian is having an Electro party. I'm pretty tired so I won't end up staying long, but I'm going to be here for at least a while. Ian has the place decked out like all hell - sparkly walls and circut board designs everywhere. I'll post some pictures tomorrow!
It's been a long week, but at least not a completely bad one. I've still been half sick and getting over my bronchitis, but for the most part I've been feeling a lot better. I've been making a point of getting a good nights sleep every night, and doing my best to keep up with work.
Wednesday and Thursday nights were the nights of the thousand ex's. On Wednesday I hung out with Dom for the first time in over 6 months. It was really good to see him, and nice to know that he's finally realized that I am not the root of all evil. We talked quite a bit about our past, and got a good chance to catch up on each others lives. It was interesting to see how we have both changed in the last couple of years.
Thursday night I did dinner with Brien. It was good to see him too, if not slightly more painful. I'm still completely in love with him, and he just doesn’t seem to have any feelings like that for me at all. We talk like best friends, he worries about my health, he is a great guy - he just does not want to even talk about our relationship or even the fact that we had one. I'm still not sure how the best way to deal with that situation is. At this point I guess it's pretty concrete that we are not going to get back together, but I'm not sure how to get over him.
On a side note I bought a Playstation styled USB gamepad yesterday so I could use it for my NES and SNES emulators. I have just one comment to make - Chrono Trigger is one of the best games ever made. I played it for almost 3 hours last night and have a suspicion that I'm going to spend most of the weekend finishing it. This will be the third or fourth time in my life that I've done a marathon Chrono Trigger session, and I think I'm richer for it!
So the antibiotics that my doctor gave me have been helping a lot. The only problem that I'm encountering now is my sleep cycles. Last night I suffered classic insomnia and cound not sleep till 6am. I got a couple of hours of sleep but have felt off kilter all day. I think I'm going to try to go to bed early tonight and hope for a good nights sleep to get me ready for my week. I have to get caught back up and keep on top of things.
So the antibiotics that my doctor gave me are starting to help. They are making me very dehydrated so I'm having to drink lots of water, but I can feel my chest starting to break up. I'm starting to cough up all sorts of nasty things. They gave me remote access at work so I'm getting caught back up on email while I lay here recovering. I really hope that this trend continues and so I'll feel 100% for my week next Monday.
If this works this will be my first moblogged post. All hail the wonder that is the smartphone!
Well the bad news is that I’m even sicker today. The good news is that I’ll be feeling better if the antibiotics that my doctor gave me start helping. He thinks I have bronchitis and told me to take the antibiotics and cough syrup he gave me for a couple of days. The cough syrup is helping a little bit already. We also talked about me not feeling healthy of late and hes going to run some tests next week.
At least it does by contrast. I am worse today than I was yesterday. I made it into work, but had to go home part way though the day so that I could rest. I ended up going to the doctor and taking a 5 hour nap and now feel slightly less crummy, but still am very tired. My friend Ryan is going to bring me some Pho then I think I'll try to go back to bed and hopefully be able to make it in to work tomorrow.
So I finally made it home today. It really sucks to be sick and still have to go to work. Dayqil made it possible to make it though the day. Now that I’m home I will switch to Nyqul and try to get a good nights sleep to knock this flu out.
I saw the insurance adjuster today. He was a real dick, but after a little bit of schmoozing and pulling a few strings I was able to get them to pay to fix the interior of my car. I still have to talk to another group within Farmers to discuss my stereo. I’m still not sure if I’m going to end up filing a renters insurance claim to get money for the stuff that was stolen out of my car. Hopefully in the next couple of days I should be getting all of the damages fixed.
On a positive note I’m pleased to announce that TypePad is very cool to use. I’ve found a layout that is Smartphone friendly, and still looks decent. I’m still getting used to their admin interface, but I’m liking the freedom that it’s given me, as well as the buttwork that it’s taken out of running a blog. If I continue to be this impressed by it I’ll move everything over and use TypePad to run giantchoad.com entirely.
I've been thinking a lot of late about a number of topics. The recent Matrix movies have helped drive this thought process along, as well as a number happenings in various friends like. I have come to the conclusion that in the United States we are facing a civil war, and the biggest one our great nation has ever faced - a war of intelligence.
The war is brewing in between those in the US that are above average intelligence and those that are below. I've noticed this of late. The smart people all seem to have a wonderful vision for our country (or our world for that matter), but have a fairly pessimistic outlook on what they think will actually happen. The smart people are full of ideas for ways to improve our country - social programs that will aid the sick and needy, foreign policy that will help slow down the violent war machine that plagues our planet, and ways to use technology to make our lives easier.
The less than smart people seem to be focusing on more immediate goals. Their wants seem to center around what they can get in the short term rather than looking forward to the greater good – not just for the United States, but again for the entire world. A lot of this has been going on recently surrounding the Middle East. Somehow our country has decided that it needs to be the world’s police force, and push our lives and lifestyle on everyone else. This is needless to say causing quite a bit of tension and hatred towards us.
On a more internal scale our civil war has been reaching a boil recently as well. When one considers the eternal rift of class that our country has between blue collar workers and white collar workers. Obviously white collar workers work with their brains, and as a general rule make more money than a blue collar worker who uses their body and brawn. White collar workers look down on blue collar workers, and blue collar workers resent white collar workers. This is not only a problem of class, but a tear in the fabric of our country that could one day tear it apart.
There are a number of factors that will eventually decide this civil war we find ourselves in. The biggest factor that I can see presenting itself right now is breeding. Let’s face it – stupid people breed far faster than their more responsible and intelligent counterparts. This brings this entire debate down to a numbers game of sorts. Obviously we want our great country (and planet) to be a place where everyone can live together in peace and lead productive lives, but with such a sheer mass of people who are happy to screw the rest of civilization for power, personal gain, or an immediate feel good sensation I am not sure if this is going to be a possibility.
All of this does kind of bring up the question of practicality. Obviously the less than intelligent people can make an extremely valuable contribution to our society in a number of ways. If we were all scholars then who would do our dirty work? Who would grow our food (and I am not saying that farmers are not intelligent – quite the opposite in fact), act as our customer service, cook our burgers, and so on. Well this is a question that will answer itself soon enough. As machine intelligence catches up with Moore’s law, and the idea of a “robot butler” becomes something that is not so far fetched how will this sort out. What happens to someone who has neither the drive, nor intelligence to fit into a society that will eventually be “white collar only”?
Once we do get to that point what will happen? Will we all live in peace all our needs taken care of? Will we pursue intellectual and cultural perfection? Will the war escalate and turn to violence? How will today’s blue collar employees adapt to being obsolete? Will history repeat itself and massive riots ensue? Will the Matrix happen? Comments? Thoughts?
I hate being sick. Last night as I was getting ready for bed my throat started to get really sore. When I woke up this morning my throat hurt, I have body aches, and a mild headache. I stopped off to grab Dayquil (and Nyquil for this evening) at Bartells on the way to work and that's helping a little bit. Hopefully I can make it though today and then just go home and go to bed - knock this cold/flu out and be healthy for the rest of the week.
So I'm trying out TypePad. I've been doing all of my blogging up till now doing static hand coded HTML. I've found the control level nice, but it makes it a bit of a pain to do posts. I'm going to see if TypePad is worth the $8/mo to get rid of the hassle.
Well this sucks - my car was just stolen. I last drove it on Friday when I came home from work and this morning when I went down to go to work it was missing. I called the cops and they are on their way to do a report. It was recovered last night in Mercer Island, and has been vandalized. Hopefully I'll get more information soon. I'll post later to update on what was missing, and what my next steps are.
So I just got home from work and here is the full story. After I got home from work on Friday night at some point 1 or more persons broke into my car by picking the lock. They then used a screwdriver on the ignition and drive it off. The car ended up on Mercer Island, but more about that later. Sometime before 3:00 in the afternoon on Saturday when my car was found they managed to run into something (minor damage to the front bumper and windshield), take apart part of the drivers side door, crudely remove my stereo deck, bash into the trunk from the back seat using a crowbar or something, steal my 2 amps, the subwoofers, 500+ CD's, and finally burn the back seat with a bunch of cigarettes. The cops tried to contact me, but a typo happened when the guy was typing in my address when I registered the car, and they tried my neighbors 2 doors down.
Now that I have the car back I have to deal with my insurance company. They are being pretty cool about it, so I should be without my car for a couple of days, and have to pay a $500 deductible. Once I see the adjuster tomorrow it will be nice to get the car cleaned out and get back on my feet. I'll lose out on all of my CD's, and have to re-burn those that I can but that will only be a hassle.
So the weekend has been a bit of a wash. Friday night I did basically nothing. I went over to Mikba and Tigerlilly's briefly, but ended up going home to crash fairly early. Saturday morning I woke up and got motivated to go see Revolutions. Boy was that a mistake. It's a very pretty movie - great special effects, awesome cinematography, but its not the intellectual thriller that the first one was. They managed to give it a very Dragonball Z feel during the fight scenes. Gone is the choreographed fighting that seems to be a graceful and rhythmic dance. What a pity.
After watching revolutions I went and got my smartphone set up on T-Mobile so that I could get service in my home. They are the only provider that penetrates this damn building. I then spent the rest of the afternoon tweaking it's UI. The smartphone OS is cool because it's entire interface is implemented with XML (for more information click here). I've made a couple of skins by doing pixel placement in Photoshop and then tweaking the XML files to make my own layout. I'm very excited to keep playing with this, and hopefully will have a couple of the skins available for download here. Let me know if you are interested and I'll get you what I have.
Tonight I'm going over to my friend Will's house to help him get his new computer set up. It should be pretty run of the mill, but it's good that I'm seeing Will again these days. We lost contact for a while.
My parents came into town on their way through from visiting my relatives up in British Columbia. At last - the week is done! I'm glad personally, I've been not feeling well and have had a very low energy level. At least I'll get to relax this weekend. I'm planning on seeing Matrix Revolutions at the Imax on Saturday, so that should be pretty fun. If all goes well there might be a bit of party going on afterwards and that will be good because I will get to see some friends that I have been ignoring of late because of all the stress in my life.
On Wednesday morning I got a bit of bad news. My Grandma has suffered a minor heart attack and is in the hospital. My parents went up to Canada to spend time with her, and be there to support her. I wish I could have gone with them, but with work being as busy as it is, and being under this much stress I simply don't have the bandwidth, time, or energy to go up and see her.
On a final note it really hit me how old and jaded I am last night. My friend Randy was spinning a set at Aristocrats and I went down to hear it. It was a great set and I managed to bust a move for the first time in over 3 months. I sat there wearing my work clothes and sipping a martini looking out at all the party kids dancing and it struck me as to how far from that scene I've gotten. With the exception of a few friends that I have known for years I knew no one there. I almost got the feeling that I was 'the outsider' at one of the parties that a few short years ago would have been my prime environment. *sigh* My how we all change and grow.
It's been a long week and a half. Last week went by quickly, but I was half sick all week and just felt drained. I've been dealing with a slight bit of depression from daylight savings time - it's always difficult to have to drive home in the dark every night. Somehow walking out the door to darkness makes me feel tired as if I've pulled a really long day and am just getting off at 11:00 or something. I got some excellent news on Friday morning, but can't share the details of it just yet. Hopefully if things work out well I'll have some great news to share within a week. Friday was a long day given that I had a meeting in the morning, then after work had to come home and pack for my business trip over the weekend. I really wish that I could have more freetime of late. I've been so busy running around dealing with things, and being sick that I have not had as much time as I would like to myself, or to devote to my hobbies - photography in particular.
On Saturday I headed over to Eastern Washington to see my family, and be ready for a business meeting I had in Walla Walla on Monday. It was good to see my family and to catch up on what's been going on in Walla Walla. I also got to hang out with my good friend Tye and catch up on what has been going on in his life. We spent an evening playing with Photoshop CS and were both quite impressed with the new features that they have introduced.
Come Monday I woke up early and had a nice breakfast with my Mom and Merchants before my meeting. The meeting was fairly short, but it was a positive meeting and left me in a good mood for my long drive back. I managed to make it in pretty much one long haul and made it back to Seattle in time to get in most of the afternoon dealing with my e-mail from the weekend. The pass was very clear, and traffic was great given that it was a Monday morning headed West.
Tuesday was a bit of a wash for me. I have not been feeling too well and I was completely drained from my weekend. I ended up going home early and spent most of my day asleep. Today is a much better day health wise, but is being stressfull in other areas. I got a call from my parents this morning - my Grandma is very sick again and got taken to the hospital for heart problems this morning. We don't know much about what is happening, but my parents are both driving up to Canada to be with them. As soon as they get there hopefully I will have some more information about exactingly what is going on. More to come on this as information comes in.