Category: Not doing things the easy way

There are no answers here…

Not that anyone expects great things out of a Cardinals fan but I just thought I would clarify what kind of answers could be found here.

The total number is Zero.

What you will get is a crap load of observations just like the one I’m about to drop on you right about…. NOW!

In 2005 I was aware of football… I understood there were 7 points for a touchdown and 3 points for a field goal. I could tell you who the West coast teams were… I knew that the Raiders were to be hated the Bronco’s loathed the Cardinals couldn’t win and that was about it. I could identify the major positions of the game but couldn’t tell you what any of them other then quarterback did. I could name the one year up to that point the Cardinals had done something in the playoffs only because I was living at NAU in the same dorm as the team the following summer and my brother was very jealous.

In 2009 I scream at the TV on a regular basis for teams I have no vested interest in other then one particular player because of a purely stats based pursuit I’ve taken up. I can tell when the Cardinals are going to run the ball vs throw the ball based on how they are lined up on the line of scrimmage. I can tell you what teams are in what divison and what their chances are of going to the playoffs. I can identify a team that is good and and team is just pretending to be good (for the most part).

Honestly it’s a little weird to basically going from knowing nothing about football to actually understanding 95% of what goes on at any given time. And I wonder why my brother calls me the rain-man of football….

I know that having a team is not a marriage I can walk away at any time and choose to follow another. But everyday Sunday in the fall and first week or two of winter there I am either cheering or screaming at tv or in the stands while watching my team The Arizona Cardinals…. whether they be up by 20 or down by 40 I’m there supporting them.

It’s always a ride… maybe not the most fun, but it’s always a ride.

Bigger faster stronger?

I don’t know if I would use those words to describe me as of late… for sure faster and somewhat stronger pretty much the same size though.

A while back I wrote about turning 30 and my new found motivation for running… Well the running went the way of the dodo about a week after that post thanks to a couple of long weeks at work and the arrival of some oppressive heat (that and a what can be described as mental block of time vs distance vs what I believe my own capabilities were). That was all at the start of July. Somewhere toward the middle of July Two unnamed individuals convinced me to come to the gym with them one Saturday morning. At worst I would lose a Saturday… That was just over a month ago and so far I’ve lost 18 mornings/evenings to that place.

So what was different then the failed attempt two years ago? First thing I did was I found a somewhat willing victim friend to go with once a week and break up the routine. Second I put down the cash for some personal training time. While I do chalk up a fair bit of this new found gym fleetingness to certain people I find the personal motivator is my own self. Though knowing if I flake out I’m down a bit of cash is surprisingly motivating as well.

It’s interesting seeing the differences between gyms this is my third one in 5 years. The Wellness center in Kingman was by far the nicest but it was also the most expensive, and they weren’t big on changing what you were doing (which changed right towards the end with one fitness trainer but I left before she could do alot for me) 24 Hour was the cheapest but also the pushiest and I just couldn’t get into it which I chalk up to a distinct lack of motivation and a case of the “fuck it’s”. The current one is probably the most frugal but it’s seems to work well with my demeanor I guess the real trick will be will I keep it up after the personal trainer and my elk hunt or is this just another flash in the pan?

Also certain other individuals need to stop enjoying Rocky Mountain air and write something anything!

Mom always said…

If you don’t have anything nice to say don’t say anything at all….

I don’t have anything nice, I don’t have anything mean, I don’t have anything to say at all other then.

Yes I will post again… no I don’t know when.

In the mean time, I suggest you read a book.

Finally!

So there is finally a App for the Blackberry that I can use to upload photo’s and blog posts to my wordpress type blog instead of relying on the old Blogger blog… SWEET!!!

Of course if I had a iPhone I would have had this functionality a year ago… I guess that’s the price I pay for having a Blackberry on a real network.

Grand Theft Auto… in a hot Ferrari

I turned 30 this last April, and I’m pretty sure it was a bigger deal for everyone around me then it was for me.   Actually the last time I made a big deal about a birthday was 21… After that I left it to the folks around me, and I have yet to be let down.

So with the thirtieth birthday came the proverbial call from my parents wishing me a happy a birthday and to know me is to know my parents (and all that should really tell you is the communication habits of my family).   This year the conversation went a little bit differently and I can’t tell you want was said (probably had something to do with the fact I was called while I was at work and dealing with a crisis du jour) but the point is something clicked in the old head that morning.

The next morning I started running… and my knees have yet to forgive me.

Well running is a loose description for what I’m doing…. it’s more like shuffling kinda fast for extended periods of time.

While breathing very heavily.

And from what I can see of my reflection in the canals in the morning it’s a pretty comical site too.

And so at 30 I once again get on the “healthy living” bandwagon… last time I got on I staid on for two years, but I was trying to impress one of the trainers at the gym (that didn’t work out so well for me) this time it’s all me.

Expect more writing on this topic as time progresses since it gives me something to write about, will hopefully keep me motivated, and who knows maybe a interesting story or two will come out of it.

Death to all but…

Ok the whole title from the song that is playing through whatever I’m using for music thing may need to stop… You have to admit that I do come up with some pretty intersting titles from time to time.

So the unfathomable has happened… I’ve found happiness…

With a cell phone

*que shock and awe*

The current phone is a Blackberry 8130 and it is the only phone that I have not wanted to throw to the trash heap with in 6 months of getting it for one reason or another.   It’s small, it’s fast, it has great audio for calls, texting and email are actually not cumbersome (most of the time).  I think the main killer app for this phone is Facebook mobile… I’m just a social networking whore though so that shouldn’t count (also the facebook mobile website is one of the better ones out there so even if the Blackberry didn’t have the mobile app facebook would be good)

What pains me is after a year of pretty much constant use the phone will die, if it’s slow or fast is up to the phone but it’s a fact it will die.

Which is where my condrum comes to play… I’m off contract with Vzw but I won’t leave them.. You know all of those commercials about how good the network is?

They are all true! (At least in the East Valley they are)

I’m 90% certain I’m going to stick with the Blackberry as a platform, I just don’t know the form factor… there is a flip pearl out there (updated version of what I have) but I’m not a fan of flip phones and it’s twice the thickness of the phone I have now.   I could bounce to a Curve it’s only slightly wider has a full keyboard and runs the same OS and hardware… which means it will be unsupported sooner rather then later.  The Storm would be a good phone if the damn interface were to be faster, but I still wouldn’t buy one since I have no love for touchscreen phones (iPhone included).   Which pretty much leaves with the 9630 (coming soon) It’s bigger then I want, but I’m willing to trade size for the upgraded features.  I just don’t know about the rest of the stuff.

I guess it’s a good thing my phone is still good and I have the extended warranty, at least I can use what I have until I can’t use it anymore!

When you can’t see what you need….

OK this one is a technology puzzle… if you don’t like the techno babble tune out now and come back after the next post.

So about a month ago we got a new VPN appliance at work and for “security” reasons we don’t use a client less model for hooking into the vpn… it’s not a secure https connection it’s called a “smart tunnel” and works with either a active x control or a java applet.   The general concept is you put in your credentials into the website which authenticates you in and starts the “smart tunnel” and then you can launch a approved application for connecting in.. In this case the approved application is Remote Desktop Connection.

That is how it is supposed to work, and it does work well in a Windows 32 bit environment.  If your using Mac OS X or 64 bit Windows your screwed.  And that is not the point of this post it’s a technical limitation of the device the vendor has not addressed but could be taken care of by the usage of a vpn client… oh wait we can’t use those for “security” reasons.

So since my two main OS of choice at home are Mac  OS X and Vista 64 (in that order) I’ve been trying to figure out a way around all of this. My current best method is to use my work laptop (XP 32 bit) as a “gateway” I remote desktop to it and then from there jump to work.  Now this works mostly ok, it’s not very elegant and if I leave my laptop at work I’m screwed.   So as a direct result I’ve been trying to come up with a better method.

I landed on the idea of using VMWare Fusion w/ my Mac this morning.

I’m using OS 10.5.6 running vmware 2.0.2 and XP 32 SP3 is the guest OS.

Now here is the weird part when I try to initiate a connection in “Unity” mode the “smart tunnel” hooks up or looks like it hooks up per usual and then the Remote Desktop Connection times out on me.  When I do the connection in it’s own dedicated window I have no problems!

Explain that one to me… unity mode is running on a VM in the background it just has the window hidden.  For as far as I can tell it’s using all of the same virtual interfaces.  It just seems odd to me.

He’s in the music business… he’s calling you DUDE!!

So about a year ago I moved to this new word press blog thingy…. and about two weeks after that I discoverd the joy/pain of upgrading your blog’s database.  That was a consequence of “rolling my own” as it would be and well since I’m a I.T. guy I surely don’t get enough of this shit at work I just rolled with it….

Many many many times as it woud turn out.  Now why am I writing about this… well it turns out that Live Journal has sucidal servers when you get a 404 page not found error.  And I found it so humerous I took a screen shot saved it to the desktop and went to load it up here.

And that’s when the problems started… because the day before I had yet another one of these upgrades that has caused “no problems” up until now.  And of course as I google for solutions and try to not blow my database tables (turns out WordPress has a really nifty export function) I discover I’m far from the only person that is having this problem.  Which leads me to be the only logical conculsion.

The internet hates wordpress….

Not God… or god… or vishnu… or theatons… no the internet hates wordpress.

So no funny picture for you… and no I’m not going to hyper link to the picture… the whole point was that I was going to craft this story around this one picture…

You know I’m going to stop now, I’m starting to sound like a damned engineer.

Oh and yes I’ve been usually quiet… I don’t know why but it may have something to do with a few games that I’ve picked up….