Category: Seriously?!

Some where in time…….

11 years….

 

11 years ago I was a senior in college seriously doubting my degree choice and deciding to stick it out merely because I was so close to being done.

 

11 years ago I thought I had found the one… I’ve since found “the one” several more times :S

 

11 years ago I was 2 months from getting a 99 tacoma… and 5 years 2 months from a 05 Tacoma….

 

11 years ago my closest friends were in the military serving their country or in college or in the case of one not even in high school yet.

 

11 years ago I had 3 roommates… one dissappeared into the ether, one married his girlfriend and another will get married in the next year.

 

11 years ago I started this “blog” because I didn’t want to study for a cobol final. Yeah that’s right Cobol.

 

That’s how Not A University rolls.

Problems that are nice to have….

So my mind has been stuck in a I.T. kind of world for the last couple of months or so, which is really sad considering what I do for a living (I work in I.T. for those of you coming in off the Google random link boat). I’ve been kicking around the idea of doing so upgrades at home to the old infrastructure, the last time I really overhauled the the desktop/laptop setup was 2007 which resulted in one shiny Santa Rosa MacBookPro and a hastily built Core2Duo desktop. Both computers have served me well for the last couple of years. As always though at about the three years mark I start to bump up to the upper limits of their capabilities… And when I say bump into the upper limits of their capabilities I’m really talking about games. I know shocker…

Ok so lets talk about the gaming situation first. I have a Xbox which may or may not red ring of death on me at any given time (for the sake of argument lets assume that my xbox is stable) In the grand pantheon of my gaming I tend to go with first person type games (Team Fortress 2, Left 4 Dead, Half Life, Battlefield, etc) on the PC I will play them on the xbox but if given the choice 9 times out of 10 I will buy them on the PC (the one time being Call of Duty:Modern Warfare2 and I gotta admit I kind of regret that decision). I always play real time strategy games on the PC (Sins of a solar empire) (I have others but I barely play them so they don’t count). So what games to I tend to play on xbox, more of the long form RPG games and platformer type games. Games that could do well on a PC but I choose to play them on my xbox because if I didn’t I would use my for 2 hours a week on Friday nights (outside of football season) for sci-fi and lets be honest all of those shows are on the internet anyway.

OK with the game front my desktop has a solid year left in it (it’s never to early to start thinking about the next major overhaul) so lets focus on the laptop side of the house. I use as Mac as my primary laptop and I have been beyond pleased with it, I consider the Mac my primary computer for all things that involve web publishing (this blog), photos, music etc…. you know all of the stereotypical Mac type things. I do occasionally play games on my Mac but I tend to choose the desktop PC for two reasons. First it’s a desktop so it has a full sized keyboard for my fat sausage like fingers, second at the end of the day it’s a laptop. I will game on a laptop, but lets be honest given the choice almost everyone is going to go with the bigger screen and keyboard every time. I larger issue with my Mac is I’ve taken it as far as I can in terms of memory and storage. Which shouldn’t be a problem, if I weren’t using VMware for some personal projects that clearly come in the category of “because I can”. I could setup vmware on my desktop too, but that’s just not good for a PC primarily used for gaming.

I know I have a rough life.

So really what I’m looking for is the new Mac book pro’s to see what they have for memory and video cards and take it from there. My guess is they won’t have less then 8GB since that’s where the current models are at and start the transition to a laptop centric life (i.e. the current desktop is the last of it’s kind in my life). The eventual plan is to have a non gaming based “server-esque” computer that could be used as a secondary computer if the need arises, but it’s primary function would be to serve as a media server and test system.

Honestly I’m already about 60% of the way there already… what do you think about the name “Starkiller” for the next mac book? (just for some reference, here is the inspiration for the current mac book pro’s name “Aluminum Falcon“)

All I see are Blue People(ish)….

I’m pretty sure there were a few people who turned blue at some point today when the Cardinals tried to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory again. My own personal musings are minor in the whole scheme of things, but seriously how do you blow a 17 point half time lead to a touchdown by the end of the game against the Lions?

I mean this is a match up I’ve written about in the past and used as a measuring stick of progress… I quote from December 8, 2002

The Lions played the Cardinals this week… the Cardinals won in Overtime… the fact the Cardinals won is a miracle… but it is only a minor miracle since they beat the Lions… The only team worse then the Cardinals.

The good news is there are now a couple of teams worse then the Cardinals. One of those teams even promised to “unleash hell in December” out side of a nice 2 minute drive not much hell has been unleashed. And the only reason I’m bringing up Black Jesus and company is I’m trying to goad a certain other blogger into posting her closet support for the Cards… Obviously she is above such trickery or she just doesn’t care. My money is on the second one.

Ok off of the football topic, I like talking about it but it’s not the playoffs and today’s win was ugly.

Don, Curtis, and I did a batch of home-brew last week. The good news is it wasn’t awful when I put into the keg yesterday. The bad news is there is still 6 weeks until it’s tapped for the Superbowl. Crap there is that football topic again.

I think I may have a new favorite topic… I wonder how much my posting is going to drop after football season?

Happy nine years of content…

Cold Cats and Hamsters on Wheels…

So as is becoming tradition a new update OS X has come out and I have upgraded at the absolute earliest moment possible. And as is tradition I am having one problem that no one else on the internet seems to be having… My DivX movies have no sound! It’s only in QuickTimeX but it’s still damn annoying. Other then that the hype is true… I got space back on my hard drive (and not just because of how the OS reports the space the install footprint is smaller), things do move faster (not much but enough to be noticeable), and it’s totally worth the $30.

Biggest difference… when I’m running VMware my MAC does not instantly kick into overdrive with the fans.

The gym continues… and I seem to be making incremental progress. Treadmill time at 15 minutes is officially “No Problem” at what for me is almost a full run. That is the biggest difference I have noticed, other little things like increasing weight and reps on machines and free weights so that provides a increased amount of motivation to keep with it. That and I bought a new toy that really makes life nice. I picked up a Moto S9 Stereo Bluetooth headset. Which in combination with the Budda Phone makes for a good combination of running, lifting, and biking. And the S9 works on any phone that has A2DP capabilities so pretty much anything that has any sort media capabilities that has come out in the last two years that isn’t named “iPhone” toss in Pandora and damn this is better then a iPod. Hell it’s better the the mythical iShit!

Pandora however is a whole other ball of wax. It seems that my favorite Pandora station seems to really like David Gilmour which is ok by me since it meets all of my requirements for “good music” but every 5th song is a bit much.

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!

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.