Good Luck -> Bad Luck

"It all comes out in the wash" - some girl I know

That's the way it goes. You have a bit of good luck only to quickly turns right into bad luck.

Tuesday night I skipped Trivia Night for the in order to play poker with a few friends. $32 for a night of entertainment ($25 buy in and $7 for the 6-Pack of Buster Nut Brown), not too bad. This would be my first 'real' poker game, I've played a bunch with friends and family but never like this. I get to the house @ around 7:30 open a beer and we start playing. (Nothing starts on time in Durango, except anything involving games and alcohol.) It takes me a few hands to learn the table rules, but once we got started it was awesome. We played Texas Holdem the whole time, definitely the most fun version of poker I've played. I ended up in a hand with a pair Jacks in the hole and everyone but Mike and I folded out on the flop. He bet big so I raised him (I was pretty sure he was bluffing), he calls and another card comes out. He bets big again so I raise him again. The last card comes out, at this point I was sure he was bluffing, he never bets this big. He bets and I raise again, by now there is at least $70 on the table. Here we are, we both called and we both have a lot of money in the pot. The cards go down... TWO KINGS!!! He had two kings! Oh yea and the cards in the middle that I haven't been paying too much attention too, yea, the last card drop was a king... I just got my ass handed to me. That took a huge chunk out of the stack of chips in from of me. I began to play a lot calmer after that. Turns out that it didn't matter because I held out until the end and ended up winning the tournament $120 in my pocket!

So I'm feeling pretty good about myself for that, I will definitely go play again and let then win some of their money back... I say some because my other new hobby is going to need this secondary income. That Revo is the coolest toy I have ever played with. Unfortunately it is very hard to go easy on it, all you want to do is go full throttle off that jump over there. Today I decided that I had spend enough time fixing it and wanted to go play. So I pick the place I am least likely to go out and trash it. The soccer field at the college is recessed into the ground about 8' on one side of it, which makes for a sweet drop off to jump down. Grass makes a very good place to land too because it is much softer on the truck. I get to the field and fill it up with fuel and start it. While I was warming up, I noticed that the slipper clutch is loose and is not engaging. I stop the truck and proceed to take 15 Min to tighten a little nut. Finally I get it set and start it up again. I do a few slow passed for warm up the engine and began walking toward the drop. I know the area is clear because it is a grassy soccer field so I don't worry about scouting it out too much. I drive the truck off in a slower practice drop and it drops a lot quicker than I expected. The truck disappears, I hear an impact and see the truck cartwheeling back into view. Turns out I broke the A-arm on the front suspension. It hadn't even fully warmed up yet! Not wanting to give up it might present a challenge and I might as well finish off the tank of gas. The truck is quite unstable at this point but still capable of very high speeds, even of grass. As I'm flying down the field the broken wheel decided to turn suddenly and the truck begins cartwheeling down the field again. Broke the tie-rod on the rear wheel. Now I've got two broken wheels that turn in random directions and over half a tank left. So I keep driving it... What else was I supposed to do, I've got to replace those parts anyway lets have some fun! I finished the tank without any more damage. That little truck has taken many MUCH harder hits than that and driven off with little more than some scratches. Now I'm breaking 2 major parts in less than half a tank!
At least give me ONE chance to play with it today!

Nevermind..

I have deleted that last post, I though it was pretty dumb...

Ive got a better one to post later

Beware of the Dark Side of the Force

OK, I just downloaded the Star Wars Episode III Trailer... It is true that I am a geek, but I am SO excited for this one! The trailer looks so much better than the other two, crappy but I like them because Im a geek, prequels. So dark and exciting, and looks like some killer action. I cant wait!!

I guess I need to be slightly leary of my initial reaction. I remeber getting very excited about the first ones after watching the trailers, but not like this. I think (hope) this one makes up for the other two.

Whew!!

Well, I finally got all my chores around the house done... It has been awhile since I've had the time to do that. I went to work this morning (Sunday morning I must add) and to have yet another day of wheel spinning... Gets just a little aggravating, and I cant help but blame myself for it, even though I'm pretty sure the stuff I need to finish is not checked in yet.

Anyway, I got home around 3 and began cleaning, and cleaning, and cleaning... Finally got the house back to a respectable level of cleanliness. Then I sat down and finished up the website that I have been working on for a few years now. They call me every month or so with changes, and it takes me about a month to get to it. That's how its been going with them for some time. I am surprised they keep using me to do it? (Maybe its because I haven't charged them in over a year?) Anyway I finished their latest request for changes, and wrote up a bill that I discounted about 75% due to my "Slackerness" and backed everything up. So that's two things that have been on the task list for about a month checked off. Now all I have to worry about it work (which is actually most of the reason nothing else gets done).

I am now finally loading up World of Warcraft again, I have not had a chance to reload it since my system crashed a few weeks ago, unfortunately it is a long process of downloading updates so I wont get to play it tonight. I don't really play all that often but I like to trade off between watching movies and playing WoW (or both at the same time!!) for my brain shut-off period.

Well its getting late, gotta go to work tomorrow... Feels like I've been saying that a lot lately.

That was totally WICKED!!!!

I bought The Incridibles yesterday. What a great movie! I think Pixar has got to be one of my favorite companies right now, too bad they are bound with Disney :-(. I think they are going there own separate ways after the next movie Cars though, which would be great! Can you imagine what the creative minds at Pixar could do if they were not bound by all the rules Disney has about their movies! I think my favorite part of the movie (by a very small margin because there are MANY favorite parts) is when Dash is running from the bad guys and ends up running on water, he lets out this little laugh, because he thinks he is going to sink but doesn't! HA! I laugh every single time!

In not such good news, it is Saturday and once again I am at work. Unfortunately it doesn't look like I am going to be able to do the work I came in for. The other team working on this project is in Montreal and they are doing the "back-end" functionality of this piece of software. I am doing the GUI (Graphical User Interface) as in the buttons and dialog boxes and displaying the data. SO the problem is, I've made my buttons, I've made the Data grids to display the data, it all looks flashy and cool but none of the buttons work, and no data gets displayed because the code that does all that is in Montreal! I've been assured that it has been written and is ready to use, but it has not been checked into Source Safe, the central place all the code is stored so that all of us can access it and get the latest stuff! How am I supposed to make my buttons work if there is nothing to do, how can I test to see if my data display is correct if I cant get any data to display! I am already 3 days behind schedule and it is really stressing me out, and not this! I also cant seem to not blame myself, although I cant logically see how I am to be finished without this code... I guess there is more I can do but half of what I do will just be deleted and re-written as soon as I actually get the real code. There is so little time to do this that wasting it on work that will be redone anyway seems fruitless.

Oh yea and it is snowing again outside. I want to go play!

Frodo Failed!!!

Saw this on the net today, thought it was funny.



Thanks to whoever it is that I stole this from...

Larakin

This name was a nickname given to me a long time ago while I was a Mountain bike Guide in Park City. One of the patrollers, whos real name I cant remember but we all called him Kiwi, called me that. It has stuck ever since. I never really knew what it meant, I knew it was some sort of Austrailian/New Zealand slang given that is where he was from.

Well I finally found a definition in an Austrailian slang dictionary:

Larakin: Definition: Funny character. Good Laugh. Example: "He's a real larakin"

I always thought it meant something like "crazy kid" "rascal" or "punk" or something like that. I like this definition better.

Roll Call

I have been really enjoying posting things on here, I even have started worrying about getting a post up every other day or so. While I was thinking of what to write I started thinking about who reads this. I keep pretty good track through my site counter, but I dont dont know who most of the prople are (I only get partial IP addresses).

I do know who some of you are that regularly visit, but I am curious about who everyone is? and If I know you or not.

I came up with the Idea of a roll call (hopefully you will participate).

You dont have to if you dont want to, but I would like to know.

So Post a comment tell me who you are and maybe how often you look. If I dont know you personally, maybe where you are from and how you came upon this page?

Maybe even some suggestions on what you would like to see here?

Busy Busy Busy

For the last few weeks I have been very busy, well at least more so than normal. We started a new project at work and have a very short deadline. Which has only been shortened by my computer problems last week. I am definitely geting a little stressed about it. Not necessarily because of the work or my ability to do it, but mostly I am worried about what my co-workers and boss thing about the work I do, I still feel like I pretty new at this (at least professionally) and would like a bit more feedback. The new project is in a language I have not learned yet as well, C#, that is not easing my worries either. It is not that the code itself is very different, it is the backend work of linking files and loading dlls and basically how the whole environment is set-up. I feel like I am asking a bunch of stupid questions, which after I hear the answer confirmes that, hopefully I don't look too dumb.

On that note, lets get on to more fun stuff.

Risk... What can I say, it is a great game. I had played a couple of "risk-like" games on the computer but had never actually sat down at the board. Friday night that's exactly what we did. Mike, Sadie, Cina, and I decided to play a "practice" game to learn all the rules and generally how to play before we really sat down to go for a real game. 3.5 hours is some practice game! We got into it quick and didn't stop. I cant wait to spend an afternoon with a bunch of people and play, at least once anyway.

Saturday after work, Mike, Brendan and I took the Revo out for a few hours of fun. It will be quite some time before I get tired of that thing. I had it jumping at least 6-7 feet off a dirt ledge and landing without so much as a crunch. Next time I am going to tie my GPS to the top so I can get a top speed clocked. The company boasts 40+ Mph but we will see. Ill bet closer to 30 at this elevation, but that is still way to fast for a car this size. That's 331 scale Mph!!

Here is a picture of it doing some doughnuts:


I'm getting pretty tired, and the laundry just finished so Ill finish catching up later. The title fits doesn't it, I cant even find the time to write down all the stuff that went on last week! It should slow down here soon, or at least I hope it will :-|

Sexy Jigalo

Stange people on this internet thing..

Sombody visited my site today that found it by typing "any information in sexy jigalo" into Yahoo.

I dont know about the jigalo part but they got sexy right!!

Office Space

One of the funniest movies ever, mainy because it is EXACTLY where I work! Even the scene's happen at my office. Yesterday afternoon my boss walked into my cube and said "Hey Justin, whaaaats happening. Umm... Yea... were falling a little behind so I'm gonna go ahead and have to ask you to come in tomorrow, we're going to have to kinda play catch-up." OK, he didnt say it exactly like that but the meaning was the same. So here I am on Saturday at the office on a beutifull day, working (well not at the moment because I am writing this post, but it only takes 5 min.)

So if you have not seen it, go watch it and you will know exactly what it is like to work where I work...

Office Space: Work Sucks.

You feel better now Brendan?

Andy's Birthday and other happenings

Yesterday was my good friend Andy's birthday, or as we decided last night his "double barmitsfah." We went out and had a few drinks at... Guess where... Thats right! Lady Falconburghs! Well we had a few drinks, Andy had a few more. He enjoyed the evening thouroughly (by enjoyed I mean drank heavily) as you can tell by this picture of him.



Yes that is a pink ladys shirt that he has stuffed himself into!

I also prove how much of a crappy friend I am last night by missing JD's (my roomate for 4 years) birthdhay on the 8th. I thought it was April 8th, that is no excuse though, sorry about that. I will find somthing to make it up to him.

I almost made another mistake last night by not opening mail... I hade a piece of mail on my counter for about 2 weeks, pretty basic, nothing showing who it is from, just an address. It did say "Check Enclosed" though, so my immediate assumption was that it was just another creditcard scam, you know, cash this $3 check as our gift to you and we will immediately screw you over by enrolling you in some "credit protector" thing or something else of the sort. So I was just about to rip it up and throw it away when I decided to open it just to see what it was. Turns out that it was a $425 Check from Saab Financial!! It was my security deposit from when I returned the Saab! Man I would have been pissed if I threw that away!

Day two of the great Re-install

I have now wasted an entire work day installing windows and all of the Development software that I need. All of which is extremely difficult without a CD-ROM!! I am on the final leg though... Currently installing Microsoft Visual Studio .NET 2003 the longest most overwhelming install of any piece of software in history. I had Windows installed and running from a blank hard drive in a shorter time than it takes to get visual studio running.

This process has just been nothing but problems. Tried to get it done this weekend so that I didn't have to waste time at work, but Dell tech support would not do much unless I ran their Diagnostic CD on my computer, and that was at work. So Monday morning I call them up again and, guess what... the CD-ROM doesn't work so I could not read the diagnostic CD. Hmmm, I could have told them that on the phone. But we are all completely ignorant consumers to them and we actually know nothing (Well neither does the support rep in India that I talked to, he has a nifty script he has to read to me.)

Anyway that is what I have been doing of late, I know it is very boring, but that is what I do.

I did get to break my RC truck this weekend and because I have my own personal hobby shop I had the parts needed delivered to my desk yesterday morning! Unfortunately I was working on my computer, and my car (I have a leaky tire), and had to go for a run, so I didn't get a chance to drive it. I did get it all fixed though which is almost as fun as driving it!

Stupid computers...

OK, nevermind I don't really mean it.

A little background. I know computers, I know how to run them and how to keep them running correctly. My laptop that my company gave me for work has been the greatest little piece of machinery. I have had it for a year and a half now and it has worked flawlessly, it takes everything I dish at it. Software development is not the nicest thing to do to a computer, I've done some pretty nasty things to the system. When the code is not written correctly the system crashes, sometimes very harshly. This little laptop has endured MANY MANY system crashes that would beat down on even the most reliable systems (which mine is because I run it ;-)) and it comes tight back at full power. Until now, It has finally failed on me, and it is in the hardware so I cannot fix it. I spend a good portion of yesterday attempting to get it back up and running so that I would not fall any farther behind at work (I missed about half the day Friday due to this.) But now I am at work with a computer that works but I cannot do my work on it because it crashes so badly. So I am going to shut down now and make another effort to get back going.

On another note, Dell Tech support may be the best in the world (well India anyway) but it really needs another place to call in so that when I, a geek, already knows what is wrong I can just tell them and have them ship me the warranty part. Instead I have to talk on the phone to some dude in India with OK English for an hour and a half as he reads scripted support, all to come to the same conclusion that I had already figured out.

Hopefully I will be back working soon.

Oh man, this is way too much fun!!

I dont really have time to write about it yet but Ill post some pictures.

Lack of self control

I most definitely suffer from this affliction...

I bought a new toy yesterday (that is why I have not finished the post I was going to put up yesterday) It is WAY too much fun.

It is a Traxxas Revo 4WD Gas Powered RC Monster Truck.

I am still breaking it in so I haven't been able to really play with it yet, but even being limited to half throttle for only 2 seconds at a time I've still rolled it because it is going so fast.

I will post some pictures as soon as I stop playing with it long enough to sit down at the computer!

The definition of hipocracy

Excite News Photo - VIDEO GAMES NEW RATING

This was in an article about a new rating for video games.

Guns in video games = BAD
Actual toy guns most likely pointed at an actual person = GOOD.


Hmmmm...