New Year… New Beginning…

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*What I’m Watching or Listening to Now*
Just random stuff… nothing important…
*Random Question* OR *Random Quote*
“Dude, go f*** yourself!”
“With what?”

*Dates*B = Birthday; E = Event; W = Weekend; X = Closed

Holiday/Event Date Notes Marker
Rosh Hashanah Sept. 28 Jewish New Year X
My Dad’s Birthday Sept. 29 B
Yom Kippur Oct. 7 X
My Mom’s Birthday Oct. 19 B
My Birthday Oct. 28 31… I feel old. B

*College*
Due to recent events, most of you know I haven’t finished my degree yet, and have been really thinking about how I’m going to proceed, be it the same college or elsewhere. I hope to finish where I started, but some things are making it difficult.

*Work*
See new “Dates” area for a few details of office closings.
I have so many projects that I need to work on and finish, but I can never seem to find the time or when I do, I can’t keep my focus.

*Medical*
A few months ago I mentioned about ‘over doing it’ at the Relay for Life and have been keeping a clearer view lately of my limitations. That part has gone back to as ‘normal’ as normal can be for me these days, however I ended up with other issues that started prior to the last post I made (not sure why I didn’t mention it then). I got an infection that caused a Temporomandibular Joint problem (essentially my jaw hinge got screwed and I couldn’t open my mouth). I spent a couple of weeks where I couldn’t even open my mouth far enough to take my pills without wedging them in there and damn near choking. So I was living on bottled water, Mountain Dew, and “Protein/Nutrition Drinks” (like “Boost” and “Ensure”) which taste like shit after your 50th bottle.
On the plus side, I found myself a new doctor to replace the asshole from February. She’s great, my first appointment with her we sat and talked about EVERYTHING medical from the start of the cancer onwards and ways of either explaining and/or treating most of the issues that have risen since then. I took this new type of antibiotics to ‘fix’ my jaw and although I still can’t open my mouth fully, I am able to open it about maybe 80-90% of normal, so I can finally eat without much problems. When the doctor checked my weight (Sept. 19) I sadly dropped to about 140 lbs. (down from about 165 range prior to cancer).
Another thing that had me worried (only a little) was the mass quantity of Ibuprofen I’ve been taking the last couple months since the last doctor cut all my medications. For those that don’t know, mass quantities of NSAID’s can cause hearing loss, but more importantly liver issues and since I was taking close to the recommended max daily for a prolonged period the new doctor ran blood work to check both my kidney’s and liver which thankfully returned normal results so I haven’t fucked them up (yet).


As the title of the post states, it’s the start of a New Year (Rosh Hashana). In fact, the current date (as of writing) is the 5th of Tishrei, 5772 meaning that New Years was less than a week ago. I didn’t get to fully celebrate this year, but I plan on making up for it in a few days with Yom Kippur, which I hope to spend with a certain person so I can make the most of it. This year my birthday falls on Rosh Chodesh Cheshvan, which is the 30th of Tishrei and for those curious, my actual date of birth was the 18th of Cheshvan, 5741 (which this year would translate to November 15th in the Gregorian Calendar).
More facts my readers probably don’t care about:
The year I was born, Chanukah was Dec. 2-10, but this year it’s Dec. 20-28, in both cases that’s ’24th of Kislev’ to ‘2nd of Tevet’. Ok, I’m done with the lessons (for now)… I guess we’ll see if any of my readers comment on if this was fascinating info or I should just shut up about it.

Category: Misc.

You’ve got a time machine

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*What I’m Watching or Listening to Now*
Doctor Who (2005) – S06E08 – Let’s Kill Hitler
*Random Question* OR *Random Quote*
Melody: “I need to get out of here now…”
The Doctor: “Anywhere in particular?”
Melody: “Well let’s see… You’ve got a time machine, I’ve got a gun, what the hell, let’s kill Hitler!”

*Dates*B = Birthday; E = Event; W = Weekend; X = Closed

Holiday/Event Date Notes Marker
Closed Sept. 15-16 Meetings out of town, office is closed X
Rick’s Birthday Sept. 29 B

*College*
I’m an idiot… been too busy with shit and I missed the deadline to return for this session, so I hope I can work something out to return and finish sometime soon… Just need to get some other things in my life worked out first.

*Work*
See new “Dates” area for a few details of office closings.

*Updates/Upgrades*

Everything HTPC Logo
Project being announced tomorrow on XBMC Forums.

I’ve been meaning to write for awhile and have so much on my mind, but sadly every time I sit down to start writing I can’t seem to think or put what I need to into words. Over the last month or so things have changed a lot, some good, some bad… mostly issues with my memory getting even worse. Lately it seems that if you ask me to recall something, if I can… no matter when it actually happened, it feels like it was about a week prior to current day. The other thing that’s been messing with my head lately is the fact that for years I’ve been the type of person that has VERY vivid dreams, however the last few weeks these dreams have included someone that has been dead for over a decade, yet the dreams take place in the present or future… Each time I wake up and remember she’s no longer around kind of throws my depression in overdrive… not because she’s gone per se, but because of how lonely it reminds me that I am.

On a positive note, Todd kind of talked me into continuing at least one of the short stories I started while in college as well as working on the novel I started almost a decade ago… I’m debating on what to do with them when I finish. He made the comparison of “That’s how Matt Damon started…” and I just laughed, cause even if someone other then myself considered this good writing, there’s no way it’d become the next “Good Will Hunting” or even a lame ass TV Movie. My ego isn’t large enough to think that anyone would give a shit about my life… “Oh, this poor guy has had a rough life… oh my god, he got cancer, even after fighting for his country…” blah… I understand there are more important people out there… some famous, some not, that have done things to actually change the world we live in and nothing in my shit life could really compare to that. In fact, if by a miracle they decided to turn my ‘novel’ into a movie, the reaction I would expect is “Wow, who wasted money on this crap? What’s so important about this asshole?” and “Um, who gives a shit?”

Anyway, since Doctor Who ended awhile ago, I’m going to finish watching the last of the PAX coverage from Destructoid before finishing the DLC for Borderlands while thinking of more to write (either here or part of the stories).

Category: Misc.

Relay for Life, the Vote, other things…

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*What I’m Watching or Listening to Now*
Mel Brooks Marathon – Spaceballs, Robin Hood: Men in Tights, Blazing Saddles, Young Frankenstein

*Random Question* OR *Random Quote*
Preston Preston: “It’s all his fault… Albert Einstein, what kind of name is that for a scientist!”
From Yahoo Serious’ “Young Einstein” (1988)

*Dates*B = Birthday; E = Event; W = Weekend; X = Closed

Holiday/Event Date Notes Marker
Independence Day July 4th Closed for the day X
Brother’s Birthday July 14th B
Relay for Life July 15th See below E

The Relay for Life was as expected this year and I got to catch up with some friends and fellow Cancer survivors. Sadly our team didn’t receive too many donations this year, so for the time being I removed the donation box from the site as I think of new ways to attempt this for next year. I was going to take some pictures at the event and post them here but I know some of the people prefer not to have their pictures taken, especially people who are still going through treatment and I wanted to respect their wishes. I have another event I’m going to soon and will attempt to get photos there to make up for it. Sadly, the butt load of Ibuprofen I took before the event didn’t last long so I was in massive pain for the last hour or two I was there, but I completed my six laps as promised before heading home. They attempted a new “Poker Run” style lap to see how the people would like it and I managed a pair of Queens, so I got my ass kicked on that one (didn’t stay for the results).

*College*
If everything goes well, I should be returning the end of August to finish up my degree and offer my sincere apologizes to Lisa and my other advisers for all the issues caused.

*Work*
See new “Dates” area for a few details of office closings.
Added two new domains into ‘the family’ in regards to a few projects that we have started and did some updates/maintenance to a few of the sub domains. Soon we’ll be adding at least two more repo’s to GitHub for projects in regards to HTPC automation and a simplistic image gallery (for showing off HTPC Library).

*Medical*
Obviously my fault, but I ‘over did it’ at the Relay for Life and my back is killing me, plus my left arm due to the way I have to walk with my cane (so my upper shoulder and my wrist/palm). I have a meeting next week to see if a new doctor would be willing to work with me and see what, if any of my complications can be resolved or lessened. I’m still searching for a ‘replacement’ psychiatrist (a.k.a. non professional that will just listen to me bitch and moan without judgment).

*Gadgets*
XBMC: Since running the Nightly installs (‘Eden’, pre-11.0) upgrade Dharma’s (10.1) Sqlite3 database (meaning you can’t downgrade) I have to figure out how I managed to bork the TV side of the Video database when I installed the July 7th Nightly. Granted, the database was the least of my problems with that version and the following 3 or 4 that I tried after, since they all made XBMC crash so damn frequent that if I wasn’t such a diehard fan I would have bailed on the entire app and tried something new. Since MediaPortal and a few others I’ve tried in the past didn’t work the way I wanted I gave the 07/10 Nightly a few days of pissing me off before trying a new one. Everything was back to great with the 07/12 and on… although the vid-database is still screwed I’m going to just deal with it until I finish with the remaining re-prep I’ve been doing on the structure. Once the restructure is done I’m going to do a complete overhaul on the server and create a step-by-step guide for many of the HTPC related pieces of software and post guides here (probably create a dedicated page for them).

*The Vote*
I know I don’t have many readers of this site, so it’d be stupid for me to assume I did much to help, but the vote I mentioned in the last post currently has Maria in first place (with 30.68% of the votes). I’m not even sure when the voting is over since I can’t read the Russian and Oleg hasn’t been around too much lately to translate for me. Anyway, for those readers that did vote, thank you.

Category: Misc.

Seriously? (and a vote for a friend)

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*What I’m Watching or Listening to Now*
Bored out of my mind and not feeling good, so was going to watch a mini marathon of the Pirates of Caribbean movies.

*Random Question* OR *Random Quote*
This was a REAL conversation I just had
Him: Are they ever going to come out with a second season of ….? (don’t remember the show mentioned)
Me: Yeah, it comes out in September I think
Him: Shit, that’s nine months away…
Me: Um, dude, that’s three months….
Him: (counting on his fingers) April, March, May, June, July, Sept….
Me: It’s the middle of freaking’ June…
Him: Oh?!? But….
Me: (cutting him off) Seriously?

*Dates*B = Birthday; E = Event; W = Weekend; X = Closed

Holiday/Event Date Notes Marker
Medical “disappearances” June 21-24 Closed/Unavailable for this time-frame (Had to add a day) X

*Work*
See new “Dates” area for a few details of office closings.
We’re extending the current Microsoft promotion for another two (2) weeks as an ‘apology’ for the fact I’m going to disappear for a week of it.

On a side note, although the current widget near the top left for the Relay for Life still says 0% raised, it appears it was broke as the donations we’ve got registered under the other tracker (supposedly it’s fixed now). I know many people have their reservations for donating to charities that do events since some of the money donated goes to running said event instead of it all going to research and I’m normally one of those people. I have no problems giving money to a charity but up until a couple years ago I would outright refuse to give during ‘event time’ for that same reason. In fact, with the exceptions of the Red Cross doing a blood drive or the Relay, I still donate directly to the charity (outside the event). I know the economy sucks, believe me, living on disability for the last couple years hasn’t been fun, but if you have the means to spare a little, click the “Donate Now” above and give a little hope and a smile to those fighting Cancer or know someone who is.

*Gadgets*
No idea why it took so long to upgrade the iPad from 4.3.2 to 4.3.3 but WOW it’s so much better, in fact about 90% of the issues I had with the Home Button being a sporadic little bitch went away. Now I just have to finish reconfiguring all my damn apps (didn’t restore a backup to start from a clean slate) and wait for iOS 5 to be official released.

*Updates/Upgrades*
Now, the “Vote for a Friend” part listed in the title… If you head on over to the Russian State TV and Radio Music Centre it will let you vote for Maria Tretyakova (listed as “Третьякова Мария, Россия” 7th from bottom). I apologize, as far as I know, the site does not provide an English version of the poll, that’s why I listed Maria’s position in the list. If you click her name, you can find a YouTube video at the bottom of her playing Piano… 🙂

Category: Misc.

How sad….

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*What I’m Watching or Listening to Now*
Playing “catch-up” on a bunch of Rev3 Shows…

*Random Question* OR *Random Quote*
As some of you know, I’ve been battling depression (among other things) for years… How sad/fucked up is it when you visit a new psychiatrist and spend an hour with them, don’t even delve into a third of the issues you need to deal with when they stop you and say “Um, my practice can’t handle the volume of issues you seem to have and you need to seek help elsewhere.” Yet more useless forms of ‘medical assistance’…. yet more reasons I want to leave the US and find somewhere that can help me… not that I could ever afford it.

*Dates*B = Birthday; E = Event; W = Weekend; X = Closed

Holiday/Event Date Notes Marker
Shavuot June 7-9 Sunset the 7th through Nightfall the 9th X
Todd’s Birthday June 9 B
Isaacs’ Birthday June 21 B
Medical “disappearances” June 22-24 Closed/Unavailable for this time-frame X

*College*
🙁

*Work*
See new “Dates” area for a few details of office closings.

*Medical*
Now I’m dealing with all the ‘normal’ medical issues and dealing with Social Security as well… Why can’t I just get better?

*Gadgets*
Don’t remember what I was going to write… Haven’t gotten anything new, but was supposed to write a review on something… don’t remember what that was either…

*Updates/Upgrades*
Anyone with my cell phone number feel free to call me, I have some electronics as well as DVD’s and Games (Playstation 3 and Xbox 360) for sale if you’re interested.

Category: Misc.

When will I learn…?

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*What I’m Watching or Listening to Now*
Body of Proof – S01E01 – Pilot
I’m only 10 minutes or so into the pilot episode and so far, it seems like it’s the Bastard child of “House” and “Bones”, which may not be a bad thing, but unless the show gets a little better I’m not sure this is going to be one I’ll continue following.

*Random Question* OR *Random Quote*
No matter how many times it happens in the past, it will continue into the future… eating while watching Bones, CSI, Criminal Minds, or any other show of that nature is a BAD idea.

*Dates*B = Birthday; E = Event; W = Weekend; X = Closed

Holiday/Event Date Notes Marker
Palm Sunday April 17th W
Erev Passover (Seder) April 18th Closed April 18-20 X
Passover April 19th – April 26th Normal Business April 21-26 E
Good Friday / Earth Day April 22nd X
Easter April 24th W

*College*
Still ‘on hold’ I guess… ?!?!

*Work*
See new “Dates” area for a few details of office closings.
Possible new promotion will be starting next month, more details once things get finalized (based on negotiations).

*Medical*
They figured out the issues with my jaw are due to “TMJ” (too lazy to grab a Wikipedia link right now) but essentially the hinge on the right side of my jaw is kind of ‘borked’ which beyond pisses me off since most of the time I can barely open my mouth enough to eat anything wider than a Pop-Tart… thankfully (or not; according to others) even with this limit doesn’t stop me from talking… most of the time. 😛

*Gadgets*
No new ‘gadgets’ per se, but I guess video games kind of fit here too and I’m not going to bore people listing games, but I will make this simple comment… when a game is released on both Xbox 360 and Playstation 3… it’s BULLSHIT the local Wal-Mart doesn’t carry the PS3 version half the time (or more). Our local Wal-Mart’s game selection is a fucking joke… the selection has been getting smaller and smaller for PS3, yet they maintain roughly the same quantity of PS2 games… go figure.

*Travel*
Nava invited me to spend a few days with her and her family for Passover and Adina thought that with Joseph turning 4 this June it’d be good for him to spend some time with someone that knew his father so well… It was an honor they thought I could bring justice to keeping JJ’s legacy alive for his son. Sadly, with everything that’s been going on the last few months, I don’t think I can afford to make the trip (I was supposed to arrive there on the 17th).

Category: Misc.

A “Special Edition” post…

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*What I’m Watching or Listening to Now*
Was watching “Salt” (2010) (sadly, my subtitles for the Russian didn’t work), followed by “Due Date” (2010).

*Random Question*
If the movie “Due Date” was real, since Zach’s character caused most of the ‘issues’, how much, if any, legal trouble would Robert’s character be in when everything was all said and done?

I’ve slowly been migrating to a centralized format for my blog posts and I kind of like doing it via the headings like the one above. However, as you noticed, I’m just writing this time and there’s a semi-good reason for that.

We’re almost done with the third month of the year and I have little to show for it… no ‘real’ New Year’s resolutions to speak of and even if I had them, I’d probably broken most, if not all of them by now anyway, that’s why I gave up on that tradition years ago. Hell, I’m a 30-year-old guy that has been essentially sitting on my ass for the last four years, not because of being lazy (although I am in a lot of aspects) but due to a genetic crap shoot that almost ruined my life.

It’s weird that people diagnosed with cancer tend to tell time in a different way, some count days or weeks since diagnosis, others count from official day of remission… well, as of today (2011/03/22) it was 1,513days or 216weeks 1day since I was originally diagnosed and although I’m getting healthier again, my life has changed so much that to a certain point, some aspects are over and there’s no getting any of it back.

Throughout my life I’ve only done a small handful of things I’m proud of, serving in the Navy being the largest… but there’s many things in my life that saying I’m not proud of would be a vast understatement. If you know me, even if you pretend to know me, you probably can think of a pile of things in that list, but do me a favor, don’t remind me, don’t bring any of it up with others… I want to attempt to leave the past where it should be. The largest thing screwing with me about all these thoughts I’ve had is that my memory over the last four years is spotty at best, partly from “Chemo Fog“/”Chemo Brain” and apparently some genetic things I should have had to contend with for many more years (Alzheimer’s). Over the last week couple weeks, things have been hard hitting about my life, my choices, my friends, my family… it’s getting to the point I may have to seek help again.

I just hope that if I seek out a new pyschiatrist, it will work this time, although the last time I talked with one I didn’t have as much ‘baggage’ to talk to them about and it didn’t help that the supposedly unbiased ‘doctor’ turned out to be a lacky that took one semester at a community college and was someone from the past of one of my parents. I would normally justify a comment like that with “not saying they said/did anything wrong” however there were times while talking to them they brought my parent into it when it obviously had nothing to do with them. For example, I remember one week entering their office with my left hand wrapped up in an ACE bandage or something from punching a guy that essentially attacked a female friend of mine. Instead of asking something about “How’d you hurt your hand?” they asked when the last time I saw my parents. {Before anyone gets any ideas, I’m not being specific on this idiot for a reason, and NO it has nothing to do with any form of abuse from/against anyone, last I heard that ‘psychiatrist’ was fired anyway, so whatever}

To keep the rest of this post on some form of rational flow I figured I’d go through the posts I’ve made so far this year and just do updates to crap I’ve already brought up instead of bringing up a new pile of shit that is my life.

*College*
I ‘finished’ the two classes I was in (which I have to repeat again) and I’m not exactly sure what’s going on or how I’m going to proceed since there was a break last week and when I logged in yesterday for my class it says I’m not in any classes right now and if I check on my Academics Schedule where it normally lists the classes start and end date just says “Future” for start date. The last few months of college have been very stressful, with a mix of stress, lack of time from doctor appointments and other random crap going on, even to a small amount of “Van Wilder Syndrome”. The Medical section may give you a little insight to some of this.

*Work*
See new “Dates” area for a few details of office closings.
We’ve added a few more ways to donate to our team for Relay for Life before this summer’s event, but sadly the different ways we utilize don’t communicate with each other, so you’d have to add all the funds between services to get the total and none of them will be accurate (for the overall total). This is yet another reason I didn’t want to split it up, but some people seem to have issues with certain types of donations, maybe for tax reasons, personal privacy, or whatever. In any case, we will annouce the overall total sometime closer to the actual Relay which will be held July 15th.

*Medical*
I brought up a few things last post (Feb. 16) and figured I’d expand on them a bit more. At this point, I’m positive I managed to piss off at least one of the doctors as shit has gone downhill even more. Let’s run a quick timeline of the last month…

  • Feb. 13th – My regular Jan-Feb script for pain meds ran out.
  • Feb. 15th – Had appointment with the pain management clinic I mentioned in the boonies.
  • Feb. 15th – Saw my primary care to request different PM setup, promised a call in 24hr.
  • Feb. 16th – Got a call with a promise for different arrangments… they never followed through.
  • I have never taken any drugs that were not perscription and have never abused those that were…
    however, when you stop any drug this abruptly… Withdrawl is a BITCH…
  • Mar. 4th – Around this day is when I stopped popping Ibeprofun like Tic-Tacs… not because of decrease in pain, but worries for my internal orgin.

*Birthdays*Will be replaced with with “Dates” section.
Mainly due to a few jackasses bitching at me, I’m going to give up this section and only post birthdays in which there are other relevant reasons for it… a party, important age, whatever. P.S. You’re a douche Donny.

*Dates*B = Birthday; E = Event; W = Weekend; X = Closed

Holiday/Event Date Notes Marker
President’s Day February 21   X
Ash Wednesday March 9    
Daylight Savings March 13 Annoying as shit W
St. Patrick’s Day March 17    
Purim Multi Sundown March 19 through Sundown March 20 W
First Day of Spring March 20    
April Fool’s Day April 1    
Passover Multi Sundown April 18 through Sundown April 26 X

*Gadgets*
Instead of repeating what I’ve already mentioned in previous posts about the phone, iOS, etc. I’ll just point out that as I figured, I’m blowing most of my iTunes cash on apps instead of music. As of the last check I did, according to iTunes I have 19GB of apps installed on the iPad and 7.9GB installed on the ViPhone… less than 5GB of free space left on the ViPhone as well, which may make me rethink some of the memory hog apps and even removing images from the phone since I have those on the iPad as well, but I’ve had times where I’ve been out and about and wanted to show something off to realize that my iPad is home and my phone is in my pocket.

Back in January I mentioned Gelaskins and not that long ago I managed to score some sweet ones for a few of my devices. I was going to showcase them kind of like how I did the three in that post, but instead figured I’d like to their product pages to send them the traffic. For my ViPhone, iPad, Playstation 3, Xbox 360 S, and my laptop.

The new eSATA Tower is working out great and with the extra storage capacity has actually helped with some of my automation routines since it gives me a larger ‘scratch‘ area while processing. I’d cringe to think how it would have been if it was USB 2.0 or almost cry if it was still the USB 1.1 days.

*Travel*
Due to recent financial set backs, I’ve had to pretty much abaondon any hopes of travel, personal, business, pleasure, etc. for the forseeable future. 🙁 Stupid car, stupid bills, stupid me…..

*Updates/Upgrades*
For people that use WordPress for their blogs (Third Party/Private Server, not on WordPress.com) and use the Stats Plugin (version 1.8.1 or lower) and have noticed their stats are now broken on some, if not all, of their blogs, this is a known issue. If you dig around their support forums you’ll probably find posts telling you to email their support or use the contact page, which in my case, like others was kind of useless as it appears either a bot catches the message or the responder just doesn’t seem to ‘get’ what is being said and asking for more information when you’ve already given enough. Anyway, to fix this issue (at least it worked for me and was reported as working by others) is to grab the new “Jetpack” plugin by WordPress which gives you a newer version of the stats plugin (in turn fixing the issue) and many other cool features, additions. Do yourself a favor and at least check the site out if you host your own… Since I don’t host any blogs with WordPress.com directly I’m not sure what, if any, help this plugin will do for those people as it’s promoted for those that host elsewhere, so if you use their direct service and install this, bitch/praise them if it borks/fixes something. I’m going to look into it more later, but it appears if I configure all the stuff that comes with Jetpack I can probably dump some of the other plugins used and give it more of a unified feel.

My car… and a Charity

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*What I’m Watching or Listening to Now*
The South Park Movie – Bigger, Longer, and Uncut

*Quote of the Moment*
Saddam: “Let’s start by building a big statue of me, right over there where that fat kid is standing!”
Cartman: “Hey, don’t call me fat, butt fucker!” {Lightning shoots from Cartman’s hands}
Kyle: “Yeah Cartman, Do It!”
Cartman: “Damn, Shit, Respect my fucking authority”
Saddam: {Screams} “Hey, you need to watch your mouth brat!”
Cartman: “Dog shit taco”
Saddam: {Screams more} “Quick Satan, do something”
Cartman: “Try this on for size….. Blood Drips, Frozen Tampon Popsicle”
Saddam: “Hey buddy, I know I was mean before, but don’t worry, I can change!”
Satan: “Oh!”
Cartman: {Sarcastic} “Ok”
Most of the entire cast: {gasps}
Cartman: “Not…. …. Fuck, Shit, Cock, Ass, Titties, Boner, Bitch, Moth Pussy, Cock, Butthole, Barbara Streisand”
Saddam: {Screaming in agony} {To Satan:} “What are you waiting for bitch, destroy him!”
Saddam: {To Satan:} “Come on you weak stupid cum bucket, save me!”
Satan: “That’s it, I have had enough of you” {Throws Saddam into the pit of hell}

*College*
A few nights ago, I spent somewhere around 5-7 hours writing different papers for my Cultural Diversity class and I wanted to thank Nathan for being the great friend he is and keeping me on point with my homework by keeping me from getting distracted and also to bounce a couple ideas off, of things I wasn’t 100% sure if I understood or something I just read wrong apparently. Ironically chatting about stuff that wasn’t even relevant for the assignments gave me ideas that I wouldn’t have normally had. Similar to the way Hugh Laurie’s character of Gregory House gets inspiration from the oddest things on the show House. As far as my other class, I’ve finished writing the framework for my new portfolio site and have it running on my test server but don’t want to move it to the production server and main domain until I add more and tweak it out a bit more.

*Work*
Tuesday the 15th was the Survivor’s Dinner for this year’s Relay for Life but sadly due to a useless trip I had to make for a doctor’s appointment (will explain below) I wasn’t able to make it to the dinner and as far as I know it was still held on schedule.
Either way, with the Relay being 149 days away (from the time of this post) we now have two ways of donating

  • My Relay for Life personal donation page
  • Via the link near the top left of the blog. When using this link; the company “GoFundMe” which provides the service; takes a 5% cut, but the remaining 95% is collected and added manually to the personal donation page.

As many of you know, in my personal life, I’ve been trying my best to show my support to The American Cancer Society, mainly with the “Relay for Life” since I was diagnosed back in January 2007. Originally I was collecting donations via Word-of-Mouth and presenting them throughout the year, either by a check to their local office or in person at one of their events. However this year, I’ve decided to ‘step it up’ in hopes that I/we’ll be able to donate more money, more often.
If collecting donations via GoFundMe works out, we may randomly cycle through a few different charities throughout the year and possibly figure out a way for our customers to help in deciding which charities are featured.

*Medical*
There’s been non-stop medical issues, complications, doctor appointments, etc. so far this year, but thankfully once the latest few things get straightened out the rest of the way, things should calm down sometime soon. I’m pretty sure I pissed off one of my doctors last month because after I got the last refill on my medications he stated he would no longer prescribe my medications and instead I would have to see an actual pain management specialist from now on. The problem with that is by the time they were able to get me a doctor for that I was scheduled for my initial appointment 62 hours after I ran out of medication and the doctor was in a really inconvenient location that was all hills and shitty roads full of pot holes. A.) My back, stomach, and bladder can’t handle that kind of drive. B.) My car can’t handle that kind of drive. C.) Even with GPS, it’s “Boonies” enough to still get lost… and D.) You get the idea.
So after I made the drive over there today, I explained to them that I wouldn’t be able to do that, so they called my primary care doctor to inform them and I stopped there on the way home, however my doctor wasn’t in the office today so they claim someone will give me a call tomorrow to let me know what’s going on… I guess I’m going to have to continue popping Ibuprofen like tic-tac’s and pray that it keeps enough of the pain at bay, if they don’t figure something out tomorrow I’ll have to head back to the Emergency Room and see what they tell me, but probably wont help me much in the long run.
I’ve been giving it a lot of thought and may contact my back specialist to start a new round of treatments since the services they provided seemed to be the most helpful yet, granted I’ll most likely wait until I finish college so they don’t interfere with each other anymore.

*Birthdays*
Christina – Feb. 15

*Gadgets*
Pre-Ordered my Verizon iPhone (32GB) at 2:47am on Feb. 3rd, a full 13 minutes before the pre-order officially started and I received it on the 7th. I love Android devices, don’t get me wrong, but to me, the largest benefit to the iPhone is the fact I already have an iPod Touch (64GB 3rd Gen.) and an iPad (64GB Wifi) so I no longer have to buy a second copy of a program specific to my phone when I most likely already owned a similar app for another device.
I finally got my 4-bay eSATA RAID Tower that I plan on JBOD’ing with a few 2TB drives to add some more storage on the Media Server. Although I probably wont do a write up on the new eSATA tower, I may still get around to doing a write up on the Media Server Automation that I have setup on the Windows 7 Ultimate x64 tower. Depends on how well I can concentrate on doing it… and how lazy I feel at the time, so you never know.

*Travel*
I’ll potentially be out of town for a few days this weekend, depends on if I can get away or not, but if I can, it should be peaceful.

*Updates/Upgrades*
Got some great ideas coming up before the end of the month, will let you know details later.

Spam, Gadgets, Doctors, and College… (not in order)

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*What I’m Watching or Listening to Now*
Finished a 4 hour Smodcast Marathon and now watching the newest episode of Kevin Rose’s Foundation (Guest this week, Jeff Smith of Smule)

*Quote of the Moment*
No one means all he says, and yet very few say all they mean, for words are slippery and thought is viscous. – Henry Adams (1838 – 1918)

*College*
On Monday (2/7) I started both Cultural Diversity and my Portfolio Presentation classes, so I sent the usual email to my Professors about my medical stuff and a few other pieces of important info like I always do and they both responded the way everyone else has. For some strange reason when I logged into the campus last night to write some of my Discussion Board I noticed they changed my instructor for my Diversity class without telling me, so I shot off a new email to her as well before writing something like 5 or 6 DB’s (only required to write one for today per class). Obviously haven’t gotten anything back yet for that, but oh well, after my doctor appointment later today I’m going to visit a few people out of town and going to have them give me a hand (mainly for concentration reasons) with some of the homework before I go to class tonight.

*Work*
As most of you know, for the past few years we have been supporting the Relay for Life, held by the American Cancer Society and this year is no different. On Tuesday, February 15th the Kickoff Event starts in the Community Room of SUNY Morrisville (Norwich Campus) at 5pm with the Survivors Dinner, with the Opening Ceremony starting at 6:30pm at the Fairgrounds where they are normally held. As always, we’re trying to raise money for the event and all donations are welcome. (We donate multiple times throughout the year if you’d like to donate but can’t get the money in on time.)

*Medical*
I’ve been going through the next steps for a majority of the issues I’m dealing with now and things are going well for the most part, things are advancing but some of it slower than I’d like. As people may have noticed from prior posts, I normally don’t have any issues talking about my personal or medical issues, etc. but a majority of what I’m dealing with now, I’ll probably be vague at best if I bother to post on it since there are a few things I’d like to keep personal in my life.

*Birthdays*
No one’s name pops in my head right this second and I’m too lazy to look right now, so if your birthday is this month, let me know and I’ll add it, otherwise… :p

*Gadgets*
As of a few hours ago, Verizon and Apple have opened up their ordering systems for the new CDMA based Verizon iPhone and it requires the latest version of iTunes to be able to activate it. Since I got my 32GB Verizon iPhone back on the 7th I must say, it’s just as I thought it would be… I’m not going to go into the whole “OMG, it’s an iPhone on Verizon” or even a normal “iPhone… yay!” type crap, I’m just glad that since I already have an iPad and iPod Touch I no longer have to purchase a second copy of a program just to use it on my phone which is what I had to do on my Android based Droid X. Don’t get me wrong, I really like the Android OS, but as stated, I’m sick of buying a secondary copy of an app just to have that functionality since I most likely have something similar for my iPad/iPod. I guess it also helps that I managed to sell my Droid X to a friend of mine (with accessories) for roughly what I ended up paying for the iPhone, so it worked out great.
I’ve also got the new drives for the Media Server in and I’m just waiting on the new NAS RAID (eSATA) box to arrive (should be here by Friday) so that I can migrate some of the drives out of the tower and JBOD them into the NAS box (for power consumption reasons) but this will allow me more room for airflow in the server box as well.

*Travel*
Currently have an upcoming trip planned where details may be given later, pending on contract negotiations.

*Updates/Upgrades*
Logged in last night to check a couple things and think of a ‘game-plan’ for the current post and noticed that I had 249 spam messages from a lot of morons and a few dumb-asses. After deleting all the spam and upgrading all the plugins I started to write some code for a new project, but hit a little mental road block so I took a break and ended up writing the DB’s that I mentioned above. After the DB’s I talked with a friend on Yahoo for just a bit before starting this post and I keep getting side tracked with everything else going on. But anyway, it’s just after 6:30am so I figured I’m going to attempt a short nap and after I finish my stuff today I may write another post or add more to this one.

Customizations, Opinions, and My Mood? (::Updated::)

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(::UPDATE::)
I know I said I would do the update on Monday after the doctors, but for some reason I was hyper as hell that entire day and felt very weird. Anyway, I didn’t get home until kind of late, got side tracked with schoolwork and a project, then to top it off when I finally fell asleep around 4 or 5am I pretty much slept ALL of Tuesday away. I got up once around 5:45pm when a friend stopped by and woke me up, I used that time to have a pee break, apologized to him, sending him away and going back to sleep. I got up around 4am this morning (Wed.) and have felt like hell. In fact, less then 5 minutes before signing on to update this post I was standing on my porch (can’t smoke in doors) and vomiting over the railing, no clue why, but it’s typical in my life these days.

*What I’m Watching or Listening to Now*
“Wicked Lake” (2008) – So far this is a really messed up movie… can’t really call it a ‘horror’ movie, but it’s about as far from a ‘family’ movie as you get. Since I’m working on other stuff and writing this I’m not overly paying attention, but what I’m assuming are all family members (the guys) all need to die for being this screwed in the head and the stuff they’re doing to the hotties. ::Update:: Turns out the hotties were some kind of creatures that killed all those asshole dudes. hehe.

*Quote of the Moment*
“Welcome to Mexico!”
“I’m in Mexico?”
“Well, technically you’re in Southern California, but who the fuck can tell the difference anymore?”
– From “Rise: Blood Hunter” (2007)

*College*
As I mentioned in a previous post there was a class I had taken that I failed, partly because of doctor appointments (a.k.a. lack of time), partly because of my depression screwing with my concentration and motivation, and partly because this class is a continuation of a previous one and the ‘refresher’ wasn’t exactly coming back to me, so I know what I’m doing, but I was too damn frustrated trying to remember how to do it. Anyway, the point of that is I’m in that class again and I think this time around I’m starting to remember and for some odd reason just feeling overall ‘better’ about it this time around. The only issues I’m having now is that I’ve managed to move doctor appointments mostly to a single day per week, so that day is obviously useless as far as getting work done, but the tremors in my hands (and legs) keep me frustrated enough that I can’t draw the required illustrations for my projects, hell, I can’t even trace images well enough for people to not think it was a 2 year old that did it. Class starts in 10 minutes.

*Work*
I’ll be adding (at minimum) two new projects by weeks end that should go live by the end of the month. Beta testers needed and more details will be provided to those that qualify. ::Update:: One project scraped due to time issues, but still need testers for the other one.

*Medical*
A large pile of appointments throughout the month, but thankfully I managed to stockpile a majority on Mondays and Thursdays as opposed to having them on random days/times that can screw with everything else in what I’m forced to call “My Life”.

*Birthdays*
Russ on Jan. 29th
I couldn’t find anyone that I had birthday information on in my address book, so if I missed yours let me know for next time.

*Gadgets* ::Updated::
So, Verizon finally made it’s official announcement that it’s bring the iPhone 4 to its network and once it goes on Pre-Order Feb. 3rd I’ll be ordering one of those. I mean, don’t get me wrong, I love Android OS (especially on my Droid X) but since I already have an iPod Touch and iPad I figured why be forced to by apps for Android when I probably have something that already works for the iPhone. Another incentive is that Marc broke his original Droid and doesn’t have insurance, so instead of paying a butt load to fix his (busted screen, but still works) he’s going to buy my newer Droid X and I’ll use that money to offset most of the iPhone cost. Only crap part is that the new iPhone’s wont start shipping until Feb. 10th, but at least it’s not on that joke network… *cough, cough* AT&T *cough, cough*.

From images of the Verizon iPhone compared to the AT&T version it appears there were a few changes, most notably an antenna fix (for the ‘death grip’) and the fact that it now runs on a CDMA network, but I’ve been looking at some “Gelaskins” for the device (among others) and wanted some reader opinion. All three of the images below were taken from Gelaskins website and will be removed upon their request if required (yes, I did NOT ask for permission to use the images, but at least I’m not hotlinking and wasting their bandwidth).


Some of the other Gelaskins I’m looking at for other devices may make it onto the Projects/Gadgets page, but most likely not until I purchase them (or get a nice surprise gift)

*Travel* ::Updated::
I was supposed to have two conferences this month (one in NY and one in PA) but thankfully the one in PA was rescheduled and the NY one isn’t that far of a drive, I may just say screw it and turn it into a long ass day trip instead of staying overnight. To hell with over priced hotel rooms when it’s only a 2 or 3 hour drive away. ::Update:: I managed to lose the paperwork for the NY meeting so I guess I’m not going to that one either this month… oh well, they know my medical history and it’s not like I get in trouble if I’m a no-show, they just carry on like it doesn’t matter.