Tag Archives: Spine

I just want to cry….

Posted on by

As soon as I’m done writing this, I’ll be working on some college work until I pass out most likely. This post might be kind of a cluster of crap since I originally had a ‘game plan’ on how I wanted to organize the post, which I planned on using that layout for the first post each month, kind of an ‘all around’ update so it had kind of a similar feel each month. Well, between the last post and this one things went from bad to worse… shit has hit the fan and it’s spraying ALL over the place…

Hell, things change so fast… between when I started to write this post and what I’m writing now, I ended up going back to the hospital and to the police station… I’ll get to the ‘normal’ stuff in a bit, but I’ll start with a few of the big ones… With all this new shit, I wont bother going into the stuff I mentioned in the last post as this one will be long enough, so I’ll do that part later.

*Medical*
A little back story to the current situation:
Back in 2006 I had a normal ‘primary care’ doctor that sent me to a different hospital to get some scans. Long story short on that part was that I ended up going to an Oncologist and was diagnosed with Cancer. About a month into my cancer treatments my primary care doctor retired so I essentially went to my Oncologist for everything and after I finished Chemotherapy is when I damaged my spine. My Oncologist ended up prescribing me my pain medication that I’ve been on for over two years now, but my ‘normal’ Oncologist ended up having his own medical problems recently and is currently in the hospital waiting on a transplant list (I wont go into deeper details for his privacy). Anyway, with the main Oncologist not able to do his work they finally got around to bringing in a new ‘main’ Oncologist. This new guy changed some policies but none of the patients were notified until they went in and were like “Um, what?”. The main new policy change states that no prescriptions will be written for pain medication if it’s not 100% cancer related, as in the person has cancer that causes pain and can not be operated on, or the patient is actively going through Chemotherapy or Radiation and even then, the medications will be as low of a dose as possible.
This new policy change wouldn’t bother me and in fact makes perfect sense with all the rampant drug abuse in the area… hell, some druggies in this area have not only resorted to robbery/theft, but it’s led to violence in some cases. I’m all for this new policy to help cut down on availability of controlled substances that people abuse like crazy, but it would have been nice for them to give people a bit of a heads up so that what happened, shouldn’t have. Now, although my spinal issues were a result of having a weakened body from Chemotherapy, it’s not actually due to cancer. For those that don’t know much about the way it works for Controlled Substances, is that you get your prescription like normal, but they NEVER have refills available on the bottle, so you have to go back and see your doctor every month to continue receiving the medication, again, this wasn’t a problem for me since I have a valid reason for having it and have the pain to warrant it. Every month I would call early the week that I would run out to give them a reminder/heads up, and normally the day before I was out I would drive the 45 miles to pick up the prescription (again, being a controlled substance Doctors can NOT phone in this style medication to help cut down on druggies making fake phones calls or whatever other scam they plan on using).
Now here’s where the new policy screwed things up, since it wasn’t technically cancer related they could no longer renew my meds and told me (four days before I was going to run out) that I had to go through my primary care or have them refer me to a pain management program since my spinal issues are going to essentially be chronic (life long). I no longer had a primary care doctor since my original one retired/quit/whatever so I was able to get a new primary care about a month ago (after the last refill though) and they are the ones that prescribed the anti-depressants I mentioned. (Backtrack a little) On Wednesday I tried to call my Oncologist and kept getting a busy signal so I went to their office and that’s when I was informed about the new policy so I drove to where my new primary care doctor was and was informed that my doctor was currently out having surgery (having it, not performing it) and that the other doctor was doing double duty since he had to cover her patients as well and they said they couldn’t fit me in for at least a week and a half, but I’m going to be out of state pretty much all of next week. I drove back to the Oncologist as quick as I could with a hope that I could explain to them that my primary care was unavailable and essentially say “Look, if you could do it this one last time, it will give me roughly two weeks after I get back to town to get my primary care to see me and either decide they were going to help or send me to an official pain management place (my Oncologist can’t send me directly to a pain management group because a ‘specialist’ can not refer a patient to another ‘specialist’ without it going through primary care anyway). I managed to make it back to my Oncologists office roughly 5-10 minutes AFTER they all left for the day so I went to the receptionist and said something like “Um, here’s the situation …. have any advice?” and they called a Patient Advocate and handed me the phone. After explaining my situation for like the 4th or 5th time for the day she asked for my phone number and said if I didn’t hear anything by 10am Thursday to call her back. I also spoke to a family member that happens to work at the hospital and asked them for advice as well. Not sure which of the two did it, but someone managed to get the office where my primary care doctor was to call me and although a few hours earlier they said they were fully booked and had nothing I was asked “Can you make it here at 8:45am?” and I was like “Sure, I’ll see you first thing in the morning”. A few hours later I realized I had an appointment to have an oil change on my car at 9am and I accidentally missed the last appointment with them because of doctors, but I figured the oil change wouldn’t change much adding another 100 or so miles on the car before I see them and since I had to be at another doctor appointment (for my back) 45 miles away at 10:30am I just went to the first doctor in the morning and called the garage while sitting in the room waiting on the doctor. It’s kind of funny, I was told that this guy probably wouldn’t write the prescription for me anyway since he’d never seen me before (I normally saw the other doctor there), but we talked for a bit and I gave him my whole history and explained about my trip next week and that’s why I was in a rush to make sure I wasn’t without my meds for a couple weeks, one of which spent out of state where I’m going to be doing a lot of walking which will aggravate my back even more. This doctor was very nice, respectful, etc. and kind of surprised me kind the random things I heard kind of freaked me out. So, the doctor filled it and said when I get back in town to schedule an appointment with the other doctor (which I already had one with her for later in the month) and we’ll get it straight on if they’re going to be responsible for the pain management or if I’ll go to an actual facility or however they do it. Anyway, I took the paper to my normal pharmacy and they didn’t have enough to fill it so I went to two other places, each with the same story, not enough on hand, so I called the phone number of a pharmacy I was at earlier in the day (after the back treatment I stopped to buy new pads for my “Tens Unit”), still have no idea why I didn’t think to ask them the first time I was there, so I ended up wasting a lot of time and about 30 miles or so worth of gas. They had enough so I drove back down there again and gave them the info but they informed me my insurance wouldn’t cover it unless I picked it up the next day so I told them I’d be back in the morning (Friday morning). Friday comes around and I picked up my meds then went home to clean and pack for my trip. The cleaning/packing didn’t last too overly long before I ended up having other shit to deal with, all the while I had forgotten that I left my pill bottle in my car. I ended up leaving to visit a friend in an area that has no cell service and hung out there for awhile (more on that later). At one point I was asked to take two of the kids to go pick up some of her stuff from the place they used to live at and on the way there I drove by an area that had enough service for me to get a text message saying my friend was in the hospital so I hurried the kids up and when we got back and took the stuff inside (thankfully they didn’t make me carry anything) I mentioned the text and said I had to go see how my friend was doing, the same two kids asked if they could go with me and I allowed it. We all made it back to town and since he wasn’t home from the hospital yet we went to Wal-Mart and goofed off a little, but once he got back he txt’d me and I was able to catch up with him to find out he got jumped by a couple guys and he told me about all of his injuries. Once I knew he was relatively ok I took the kids back home and hung out for a bit when all of a sudden I heard over a police scanner that there was an assault near my house and I recognized the info. The guy that jumped my friend went to his house to find him and since he wasn’t there the guy punched his pregnant girlfriend in the stomach and she was in the hospital. I rushed back to town again to see if she was ok and I knew that they would have moved her from the emergency room to maternity on a different floor and having been awake that long my back was already hurting so I looked for my medication while on the way only to find out that my entire pill bottle and a pack of cigarettes were missing from my car (and yes I have proof that neither of the kids stole from me, therefore it was stolen earlier in the day while I was cleaning/packing) so I went to the police station to report the theft and was told by the cop that they were too busy and I should come back in the morning. After leaving the police station I went to the hospital to check on them and the pain was so bad that I stopped at the ER myself to see if they could help and ended up explaining the entire situation a few more times before they gave me something to last me until I can get an official police statement in the morning. *Small Update* Went back to the police station at 8am and talked to a cop that treated me like I was making the whole thing up, yet didn’t really ask any relevant questions and he said “Well we can look into it but I doubt there’s anything we can do” and was going to leave it at that, I had to ask him for something/anything to give my doctor and all he gave me was a post it note, at least it had a case number on it. So, next step is to call my doctor first thing Monday and pray.

*College*
With the crap from above and a few other things I’ve fallen a little behind in college and will be busting my ass off as much as I can up until the time I leave for my trip/vacation. I’m sorry Matt, I’m trying my best to catch up and make this up.

*Travel*
This upcoming trip is partly the cause of stress I’ve had since it put me in a time crunch for the medical stuff above and a few other things, but I think once the trip starts it will really give me a change to get some of the relaxation I need. I’m going to be spending pretty much a week out in Nevada just relaxing (and still trying to keep up or get ahead with my college work). I can’t wait until I get to leave and I just hope everything goes great (or ‘well’ at least) 🙂

*Gadgets*
Since I’ll be traveling this month and I was eligible for an upgrade with Verizon I ordered the new Droid X to replace my original Droid but they’re currently back ordered and if I remember correct they wont be shipping it until the 18th or 19th… that sucks, but still nice upgrade (although it’s not shipping for a couple weeks they already billed me the cost of the upgrade).
Got a new ‘toy’, the “Digital Entertainer Live” by Netgear, which essentially allows you to stream video and other media from the internet or a local computer directly to your TV… Sounds all well and good and after running the 2 separate 6-part updates it seemed to work great. Hell, it even played the copy of the South Park movie that the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 spaz on over the network. The only real problem(s) I found with it is that it’d be more useful in the living room to have a centralized device instead of having to jump back and forth on the game consoles to play some files that one system may not like, but since I’m not going to run that long of an Ethernet cable and the device can use a Wireless USB device I figured all is well, but the device is coded with a lock that will only allow one of three different Netgear wireless devices, none of which I have or willing to pay for since that’s bullshit to use that form of hardware lock. Anyway, after I finish writing the review I’ll probably send it back since I don’t have any good use for it in my room and like I said, not going to run that long of an Ethernet cable and no way I’m going to waste time looking online for one of the very specific Netgear Wireless device that would pretty much only be good when used with the Netgear DE-Live.
Sometime after I finish college I plan on adding a new page to the blog that’s dedicated to some of the random gadgets I own or would like to own, for example talking about some apps I really enjoy for my iPad or for use on my Android based Cell Phone (will be a Droid X by then). I also plan on adding a part to that page that is essentially hardware reviews and previews of things I either get or use for myself and/or my company.

*Birthdays*
Today (Aug. 7th) is Squirts special birthday and since she knows about how my luck has been the last couple days she understands why I did what I did. Anyway, Happy Birthday, I promise to make it up to you.

*Game Plan*
As you may have noticed lately I tend to keep the same format for the individual topic heads, well the original game plan mentioned in the last post was that the first post each month I would essentially do the same topics in the same order and just do updates about whatever I missed and the reason for it only sticking for the first post each month (although I’ll probably make it a habit) is so that I can include things like Birthdays which obviously will change often, but wont always include everyone, I’ll add them as friends/etc. remind me of their birthdays. I also plan on migrating some of the things into additional pages on the blog so that a few of the things are more organized, but that might have to wait until I’m done with college since I’m so swamped right now playing catch up because of all the crap.

*Quote of the Moment*
Quote 1: > When life gives you lemons… go fuck yourself.
Quote 2: > Why do people insist bad things come in threes? They should be more realistic and say twelve. (PQ)

*Updates/Upgrades*
I’ve sprinkled some of the intentions throughout this post but I’ll get to more later, especially the things I mentioned/hinted at in the last post.

Category: Misc. | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Betrayal? and other shit (Post Fix)

Posted on by

I’ve written three or four posts since the last one you can read on here but saved them as drafts and forgot to post them… my bad… anyway, I’m grouping them all together for this post and adding more for the hell of it…

*Birthdays*
I forgot to post back on the 14th when my brother had his birthday… He’s 32 now… not sure what else to say. 🙂

*College*
Things make me wonder if I’ve done something to piss off the college since they gave me my fourth adviser right before I started the last two classes which I know I screwed up horribly but I got an email (on the 20th) from the college telling me I have a new adviser yet again… I guess the fifth time is the charm. The canned email I got from my new adviser has the typical welcome and “I’ll be your adviser for this whole experience” which makes me wonder, I have five classes left, so at this rate, I’ll probably end up graduating with my ninth or tenth adviser… (insert sad joke). The other thing that makes me think they’re pissed at me is part of the agreement I made with them about my last two classes was when I retake the one class I have a different Professor/Instructor and they put me with the same person that pissed me off last time. Don’t get me wrong, this isn’t a situation where “Oh grow up and deal with it” applies, it’s a “this guy is a fucking asshole” applies.

*Medical?*
Originally written at 4am on the 21st
As I sit here in the middle of the night, trying to keep cool, I look at my pile of medicine bottles wondering when it’s going to end… when will I get my life back together, fix my back/spine and be able to walk like normal again… {pops another pain pill and another anti-depressant}
Written ‘now’
I did my follow up with my new doctor earlier this week and everything went fine, she noticed a change in my mood (for the better) but decided to double the strength of my Anti-Depressants anyway. Nothing was really said about the issues with my right arm and left leg, but oh well, my leg isn’t changing much, although my arm is getting worse. Thankfully I think it’s just like a heat rash or something else that isn’t bad, just itches like a bitch.

*Quote of the Moment* (no idea what to actually call it)
Cartman: Was it fun?
Kyle: Cartman, what kind of stupid ass question is that? Of coarse it was fun!
Jimbo: Well sure Vietnam was fun, but not like ‘going to the circus’ fun, or ‘fly fishing in Montana’ fun. No, Vietnam was more like ‘shoving shards of broken glass up your ass, then sitting in a tub of Tabasco Sauce’ fun.
Stan: Whoa

*Poetry*
Once in awhile I’m going to post a little of my poetry for your reading pleasure, leave me comments if you like.

A tear

A tear came running down my cheek.
It fell because I’m blue.
I somehow feel I let you down.
I was not strong for you.

I have tried to be a rock,
On whom you can lean.
I try to keep my eyes so dry
That a tear cannot be seen.

But yesterday I was depressed.
For the moment I was weak.
Just when I let down my guard,
A tear ran down my cheek.

The heart, that beats inside my chest,
Beats only for you, my dear.
It’s my concern for you, my love,
That’s why I shed the tear.

So please forgive me when I’m weak.
I’ll try always to be your Clown..
But occasionally I may hit bottom.
Please hold me when I’m down.

*Updates/Upgrades*
All the DNS updates are complete and both the .com and .net domains should match (with the exception of the “Project”)

Category: Misc. | Tags: , , , , , , ,

Rant(s)

Posted on by

“Explain Later…”

In regards to the last post where I said I’d explain later… I planned on explaining it, but since I wrote that post around 3am Sunday morning and got a phone call BEFORE noon in reference to being suicidal you can piss off… it’s not worth expanding on since that fuckhead will probably call them on me again. Just for the record, I’m not suicidal, I have NEVER been suicidal, and NEVER will be suicidal… sure I have many issues with depression and have gotten to the point where I had thought about it before but would NEVER act on those thoughts as I know that no matter what shit I’m dealing with, things HAVE to get better at some point, some how.

College

Let’s kind of jump to the beginning for those that don’t read my blog or those unfamiliar with online based colleges in the United States. When I was diagnosed with Cancer in Jan. 2007 they pulled me out of work and left me with nothing to do, except of all the doctor appointments… Part of the cancer treatment caused an issue known as “Chemo Fog” that pretty much destroyed my short term memory so I can’t really remember a lot of what I did for the first year or so, other than doctors, but in Sep. 2008 I decided since I still can’t work I should try college to help with the boredom and since it was after I already suffered the spinal damage a traditional “Brick and Mortar” college was out and IADT was the second online college I looked at and decided it’d be the best for me. I started working on my Associates degree in Oct. 2008. I would have graduated already but I kind of fucked up 2 classes and took 3 months off last summer for medical leave, so instead my final two classes end Oct. 2nd this year so I assume my actual graduation would be sometime in Oct. (just before my 30th birthday on Oct. 28th).
A quick refresher on how classes work at this school is that they take the typical 11 to 13 week class and compress it into 5 weeks so in this environment you screw up or get behind you’re pretty much fucked. The plus side to this however is that they alternate where you have a single class (like now) and then two classes together, back and forth.
Now let’s jump to present day, I’m almost at the end of Unit 4 (week 4) of my current class; 3D Modeling & Animation; so that will end on the 5th of June, but although I did great the first two units/weeks of class, the Professor seems to have a ‘teaching style’ that doesn’t exactly match anything I remotely call useful and even after talking to a friend that knows his way around 3D Studio Max (the software we use for this class) and reading numerous tutorials online I still can’t get a certain ‘feature’ to work that the Professor says I need to have on my current project before I’m allowed to submit it… I’m going to give it one last try than fuck it, I’ll submit without it and if he docks my grade too much I’ll just bitch because it’s bullshit.
Anyway, the ‘icing’ on the cake, once I finish this damn class (as long as I don’t fail) I’ll have a weekend off and start two of my final five classes, then a 16 day break, another class, a weekend off, then the final two classes that I mentioned above that end the beginning of Oct.

Three parter… 1 Rant, 1 Not, Some Images

Conversation with a friend… (Not a rant)

I was talking to a friend of mine online late Monday night/early Tuesday morning and I talked about a local place called “The Face”. I haven’t been up there since last Aug. and told her that I would go by the end of the week to take some photos and maybe some video for her. I was supposed to have a class at 11am Tuesday and the Professor needed to cancel it 20 minutes before it was supposed to start, so I decided I’d pop a pain pill and take the long uphill hike to get her some photos.

My stupidity and my family (The Rant)

Well, for some damn reason, after going up there on and off for 20+ years I couldn’t seem to keep the trails straight so the roughly 30 minute hike took me over an hour to get up there and my legs, back, arm, and a few other places have hurt a SHIT load since. Now, where does the heading fall into this? The stupidity was going on this hike in 80-90º weather and taking way longer than it should… The family part… well, my Grandmother (on my Mom’s side) meant the world to me while she was alive (she passed in 2001) and has continued to change my life. When she passed, apparently her request was that her ashes be released at The Face, which my family honored and my Uncle took care of. Now the reason for mentioning these two things together is that I’ve been to The Face on average a few times a year and it wasn’t until the day AFTER my last visit up there that anyone bothered to tell me that my Grandmother’s ashes were up there. If I had known, it wouldn’t really change much, but I would have had a static place in mind where I could go when I just wanted to remember or be with her.
Rest In Peace Dorothy.

The Images

MySQL, PHP, IIS, AD, and a few others

So the server I talked about a few posts ago decided that although I had automatic “Windows Updates” turned off it would do them anyway and one of them managed to break the MySQL/PHP integration I had in IIS 7.5 so as I repaired that Active Directory decided to randomly lose information on two of my systems. Anyway, I’ll keep this short, since I was already running out of room on the server (it had about 4.5TB of hard drive space and 6GB of RAM) I ordered another 6TB of hard drive space and stuck another 2GB of RAM in and realized I needed a larger power supply to accommodate the extra hard drives which I picked up, but now that I have all the new hardware it no longer fits into the Server Tower Case I had everything else in, which leads me to the last rant of this post….

Best Buy

Best Buy offers two different forms of “Best Buy Cards” one with a MasterCard logo, one without. I have a card with them (the one without a MasterCard logo) and figured I might as well go to there website and order a new Case for the server… I found a really slick case I want that is mainly designed for ‘show’ but more importantly will fit ALL the hardware. I add the case to my cart and figured, what the hell, I’ll get some other random shit while I’m at it and added two other items to my cart… now here’s the reason to bitch. Out of the three items in my cart, one of them (the case) was marked internet only and the other two gave me the choice to pick them up in the store if I wanted. I decided I’d have all of it shipped to me and save me the 50+ mile drive to the closest Best Buy store, I continued through checkout and made it to the last step to find out that although they have BOTH cards listed as valid payments they do NOT except the card I have for any online purchases. I contacted the phone number on their site and asked what the suggestion was since they claim the card can only be used in store, but the case, which was my main objective, is only available online. The lady was nice although the ‘resolution’ was beyond crap.
They pretty much said to get the hardware I want/need using my Best Buy branded card I have to drive the 50+ miles to go to the store, use my card to purchase a gift card for a minimum of $5 above the total (with shipping) of the order and than ask if they will allow me to use their internet in store (which they are NOT required to do if they want to be dicks about it) to place the online order with the gift card. If they don’t allow me to use their internet in store I’d be stuck having to drive all the way home to order online since I don’t really know of any places with public internet in that area. Now, for those thinking “Why not just buy a Best Buy gift card at Walmart or some other location?” and the reason I can’t do that is because the whole point is to charge all of this hardware to the Best Buy card in the first place. Fuck it, if they don’t allow me to use their internet I guess I could just tether my iPad to my Android based cell phone in their parking lot and order it that way, but that’s not the point either… what a waste of gas… I think if I don’t find this case somewhere else, this may be the last time I buy anything from Best Buy… not that losing $5000+ a year in sales just from me would hurt their overall business, it should help one of their competitors.

Category: Misc. | Tags: , , , , , , , ,

Balls

Posted on by

So, I’ve been meaning to write again for awhile, not that many read this, but for those that do, you know I’m kind of a lazy bastard when it comes to this. Boo Hoo.

The point behind this post is that after I had my last back treatment I talked with my doctor and they are going to be making a cast of my left foot/ankle (I think up to about mid-shin range) to create a new form fitting brace per-se to help my body compensate for the differences cause to my balance and ability to walk that was caused by all the spinal damage I’ve suffered in the last three years. Sadly since I didn’t write this stuff down when I got home I’ve forgotten most of the important details, but I guess I’ll find out a better overview while I’m sticking my leg into the gel/paste/whatever they’re going to use on Wed. morning. In other words, I’ll write more or at least try to explain it better later this week. (Maybe some photos if I get really bored)

Ok, it’s just after 2am my local time Tuesday morning and I have a class in just under 9 hours, but this is my first one for “Unit 2” (second week of five) and got my grades for last week. I knew I had a good feeling about this 3D class since I’m carrying a perfect grade. After I finish this class I only have 5 left until I get my degree, so I’m really happy about that and if everything goes well I’ll be finishing a couple weeks before my birthday so I’m trying to come up with a sweet ass idea to celebrate my 30th birthday since most of mine in the past have kind of sucked.

I guess for the last point of this post (for now anyway) is if I get any more ‘good comments’ on a few of the stories I wrote for school, I might try to get a hold of my previous English Professor for more inspiration on how to continue the story, since the one I’m thinking of expanding was originally going to be broke into about six parts and I’ll create a new page on the blog to use for the story as I add/edit it until it’s finished since my Professor said I should look into Copyrighting it and possibly trying to find a way to get it published in something. (I’ll obviously copyright it before I post any of it on the blog)

Later…

Category: Misc. | Tags: , , , ,

A lot of shit…

Posted on by

I've got my eye on you

So, 15 days ago on the 15th I wrote a post that got interrupted by taking my roommate to work and forgot what I was going to write about. A lot has happened since so I figured it’s after 4am and I can’t sleep, which is very typical, I’d write a mass pile of shit into one post. In the last two weeks, whenever I remembered what I wanted to write, I didn’t have the time and whenever I had the time I couldn’t remember anything. Man, I really hate my memory problems. I’ve collected a bunch of random crap I’ve wanted to toss into a post for awhile now, some to test new features, others just cause I’m THAT bored.

Um, let’s see… where to start. Earlier this month I finished the latest set of “pre-qual’s” for Microsoft and upgraded my Partnership status for myself and helped one of my technicians do the same. I’m loving some of the new benefits. I ended my last class for college on the 20th with an A and started two new classes on the 22nd and typical me; I’m fucking up left and right in one class and doing ok in the other. I think this is going to be the first class I’m in where I’ll actually be requesting the tutoring as opposed to tutoring everyone else.

On the 23rd I went to my normal back treatments and was having severe chest pains the entire drive down there. They were a little worried about hooking me up to all the equipment and I don’t blame them. Other than the pain in my chest I felt fine, but that shit just wouldn’t go away. Later that night I went to the hospital to get it checked out and they said it was stressed induced and gave me a shot of something to calm my ass down or relieve the stress, whatever… shit just made me loopy for like an hour but the pain went away shortly after, so that’s good.

I’ve finished installing and configuring the 2 new servers for my house and upgraded the rest of my computers to Windows 7 Professional (Win7 Ultimate on my main laptop). I still have some other ‘roles’ I want to add to the main server (like WDS and WSUS to name a few) but I’m going to wait until I can get my grades up in my one class without the other suffering so that it will help me overall with the stress.

Near the end of next month I’ll most likely be heading to New York City for a day or two for a couple conferences, I hope my college schedule works out so I don’t miss much there. It’ll be kind of nice and act like a mini vacation as well, so that’s good.

I have to attempt to take a power nap now since I have back treatments later today and have 2 classes tonight, so I’m going to start taking notes on one of the multiple devices I normally have with me so that I can keep my head straight since I’m stressed/preoccupied with thoughts of class and don’t remember the rest of the things I was going to put (yet again). There were a few things I do remember, but I don’t have the time to deal with writing those now, so I already took notes of those.

Wave Hello Later

Category: Misc. | Tags: , , , , , , ,

Server issues, Wiki, Akismet, and other random thoughts

Posted on by

The weather here sucks so bad I’ve precanceled my back treatments for tomorrow cause there’s no way in hell I’m going to drive an hour in this shit. On the plus side to this weather, I’ve had time to work on some of my sites and servers. The web server that hosts this site, the wiki, etc. was having some stability issues over the last week and after some emails back and forth with the guys that run it, everything has been resolved (as far as we can tell) and all the sites/domains are back to 100%.

On the topic of the wiki, since the server was having stability and speed issues I decided to change the back-end software that runs it to something that utilizes a database to see if that helps. Sadly the new software uses a different form of Wiki Syntax so it’s taking a little longer than I originally planned. You can find out a little more info about that clicking the link in the last paragraph.

Akismet, a plugin, addon, whatever the hell you want to call it, works wonders. For those that don’t know, it takes all the comments sent it and checks them for Spam links and other things to detect and combat unwanted/useless shit. If you jump to the very bottom of the page (in the footer) you’ll notice a little box that states how much spam has been detected and avoided. Sadly the software isn’t 100% accurate and has caught a few comments that it shouldn’t have, but the best part of the software is that once you’re acknowledged the poster as valid it wont bother auto-blocking them (it will still check each post, but will allow them to show if they aren’t marked as spam). I’ve had friends comment about Akismet being crap software how it misses a lot of stuff etc. and they sent me a screen shot of their control panel, practically bragging how shit it was… I took one look and just responded “You moron”. The comments listed as spam WERE spam. Spammers have gotten smart to some of the software used against them and started writing canned responses that at first glance seem valid and you allow those through… this is when they have the chance to pretty much spam the hell out of you before you notice. When you’ve written a post for example like the “Happy Holidays” post I wrote a little while back and get a comment that says something along the lines of “Wow, great post, although I don’t agree with what you’ve said or done 100% I still bookmarked your blog and plan to keep reading it later” you’d think, that’s cool, allow the comment, but if you actually read the sender/poster’s information you’d realize that the comment came from “Free Viagra, blah blah blah, for more info visit this great online pharmacy…..”.

I swear, I don’t believe in “capital punishment” (fully anyway) but I think that every found spammer should have a finger, thumb, penis, etc. fucking cut off… the first time they get caught, they get to name the body part they lose, the second time they’re caught, they take a consensus of those targeted by the spammer to vote on what that asshole loses. I forgot the rest of the point I was going to make, so oh well.

I have less than 2 hours to complete my homework, so I’ll get around to doing that and add more to the blog later. My head hurts.

Category: Misc. | Tags: , , , , ,

Life… or whatever you wanna call it!!!

Posted on by

Barely halfway into the second month of the year and it already sucks. I managed to prep some of the data for migration and one of the former external drives started throwing SMART status errors although the drive passes all diagnostics 100% so now I have to replace a 1TB internal SATA for pretty much no reason. Guess I’ll try to stick it back in it’s original enclosure and hope. (About a week after I originally tested the drive, it’s started tossing a bunch of bad sectors, that equal about 7% of the drive, so it’s a good thing I decided to replace it anyway. I have a new drive on order).

Thankfully, that waste of fucking time (a.k.a. Interface Design class) is over and I wont have to deal with that useless “Professor” anymore. She’ll never be in a spot to read this blog either, not that I’d care, but her ‘teaching’ methods are beyond fucking stupid. How can you ‘teach’ people to write/use a certain type of programming language by clicking around fucking context menus and not comprehend that the way the students view what’s going on is via the internet so that NO MATTER what kind of web conference software is used, there WILL be lag. It’s mainly because of this, that I tutored more students than any past classes.  I talked to one of the “Academics Advisers” since mine left for Medical School (Congrats Chivonne), and they’re having the “Chair of the Department” review all my work and correcting the grades that the useless bitch seemed so full of.

I love tutoring the students, it gives me some pride in the fact I have the knowledge that they look up to, but some of the students tend to just be like “Hey AJ, I don’t get this project, can you show me?” and have me do their work for them practically. I have talked with those people and told them I will no longer do their work (since one had the gall to brag they got a higher grade on the work I did for them than what I earned on my own project).

Another part about tutoring, and don’t get me wrong, I enjoy tutoring most of the students, but one of them (not the ‘cheater’) has to have the same shit explained 50 times and after they finally ‘get it’ it has to be explained again the next fucking night. Thankfully, they’re starting to understand I do this because I like doing it, I’m not paid, so if I get frustrated, piss off… I’m not going to deprive the rest of the students altogether cause they can’t fucking figure it out. I mean, I understand that people have different levels of learning, different mental capabilities, etc. but this is College, so I’m not going to treat students like little kids, we’re all adults here.

And speaking of all being adults, I do apologize to one of the students that I tutor with the fact I was having a very bad night (due to my depression, etc.) and while trying to explain a few things to her, I did tend to swear a lot that night, and although I didn’t say anything derogatory about religion, race, etc. I understand and acknowledge some people of religious beliefs do not like to hear vulgarity, even when it’s just typed.

On a different note, I picked up some new hardware last week after one of my back treatments. It’ll help out in the long run, but still need to get the replacement drive. With the prices at the store I was at, a 2TB is a shit load better deal and the obvious extra space is a plus, but those guys were out of stock. Since I don’t start my new classes until next Monday (the 15th) I should be able to finish re-arranging my setup (where my servers, desktops, etc. are setup with the TV and Home Theater) tomorrow after I get home from my next back treatment. (Speaking of which, Hi Chad)

Some good news for February is I got my College Stipend earlier this month and should have both my State and Federal taxes back by Friday so I’m not as broke as normal. Things are kind of looking up since I can afford to take care of some crap I’ve been putting off for months.

Last note (from stuff I remember), I’m going to create a special post/topic about the Student Wiki where people can post comments there for topics and ideas of what we should do or add to the Wiki since I have that locked to our contributors (to help stop vandalism). I’ll post more about that later when I figure out exactly how I want to go ahead with this idea.

I got side tracked and forgot the rest of the shit I was going to write… so fuck it. I’ll write another post after I get back from my trip to Verona on Friday with some of the guys…

Category: Misc. | Tags: , , , , , , ,

Long week….

Posted on by

I pretty much finished my college work early which is a surprise, so I’ll upload when I get home. I also have a general write up at home of how I plan on redoing / changing the main network, but won’t have time to implement it for a few days. Granted it will probably take a couple days of writing new code and moving shit around to finish.

I have my normal back treatments on Tues. and Thurs. and will be traveling to Philadelphia for a day sometime soon.

I’ll be heading home sometime soon… back to another long week.

Category: Misc. | Tags: , , ,

Stress…

Posted on by

I’ve been busting my ass off with college trying to play catch up and earlier last night I managed to get fully caught up so I have time to relax. Too bad that will only last a day or two. I decided to make a new post and write about a bunch of things that have happened recently and my damn memory problems made me forget most of it. (Damn Chemo Fog)

I guess the main part of this update is that I have current intentions of changing around some of the domains and sub-domains I run and migrating some more of the sites / info over to this site so that everything is more centralized. I hope by the end of the month I’ll figure out what I’m doing exactly with the Blog Hosting that I was running since those Chinese Spammers ruined it for everyone else.

Personal Side:

  • Started second ‘set’ of back treatments last week and will continue to do them twice a week for the next 10+ weeks (94 mile round trip each time).
  • As I’ve mentioned in the past with my medical problems, I went through Chemotherapy and lost all the hair on my body. Prior to Chemo I was a blond and afterward the hair on my head grew back dark. The point, I dyed my hair on Thursday and I’m blond again.

College Related:

  • Classes are a pain (like normal)
  • I should have my degree around Oct. of this year (unless I have to move classes around or take medical leave again).
  • We have a new contributor to our Student Wiki.

Projects and Gadget Related:

  • Verizon finally ‘helped’ me with the complaints I’ve had for months, so I’m getting a new Droid tomorrow.
  • Jen bought me a new 3rd Generation iPod Touch (64GB) for Chanukah and I’ve found some sweet apps to go with the 40GB of music on it already.
  • Started talking to Martomo (not sure if he wants me to put his real name in here) about getting the old “Black Market” project back up and running again. Sometime in the near future we may be looking for some extra help. (It’s an Open Source project, so don’t bother asking if you think you’ll get paid, it’s all volunteer). Once we take the new version out of beta it will be listed on the Projects Page.

Server / Domain Side:

  • As stated, will be migrating some of the other sites over to here soon.
  • I just noticed a small ‘typo’ from my last post that I over looked while moving everything over to this site, I’ll change that next.
  • After the sites are merged, I’ll post more info on the Server Status Page here.
  • Adobe Contribute is Awesome for doing these updates, makes everything so much easier.

Since this is kind of long at this point, I’ll hold off on writing more until I can organize my thoughts more or have some updates to anything listed here.

Category: Misc. | Tags: , , , , , , , , , ,