Comments from friends and family

Around February: Hey, are you still dating that girl? You should blog about it or something

May-ish: Sorry to hear about your breakup. What's new? You haven't posted in a while...

June: Nobody blogs anymore!

August: Hear you've got a new girlfriend! When do we get to meet her?

Late October: Man, sucks that it didn't work out... you ready to start dating again?

Today: It's been almost 11 months since you've blogged. You could at least mention Vader.

So, 2010 in review: 2 short-term relationships. I ended one, I was just about ended by the other. So I got a dog. He's a miniature schnauzer, and I've named him Dog Vader, Dark Lord of the Chew Toys.I find your lack of treats disturbing.

I also ranked twice in Kung Fu. (have I even mentioned Kung Fu? I started going last December) I got my Gold (Metal) sash in April, and my Blue (Water) sash in August. I was awarded Most Outstanding Beginner student (beating the 300 pound guy and the dude who never shows up). I'm also the only Hsing-I student there, so I get quite the unique experience.

Here's little Vader..Why are you taking pictures instead of drying me off?

What the bad man did to my car...

Twas the week before Christmas, and par for the course, Jer was heading to work for his IT outsource.

Although it was Saturday, the server was corrupted. He had to fix it off hours so no work’s interrupted.

Committed to go, he jumped in his Mustang. (Although he left his key card behind- dang!)

Before very long (he hadn’t travelled five blocks), a sight appeared that made him jump out of his socks!

The car up ahead moved into the left lane, then suddenly swerved! This man was insane!

On horn and on brake, Jer pushed with his might, but the car up ahead continued moving right.

Unable to stop the upcoming ordeal, the cars met and bumped, with a crunch and a squeal.

Blood started boiling in the back of Jer’s head. His knuckles turned white, his face became red.

“My beautiful car! What has this idiot done?” Jer roared to himself. He was not having fun.

He jumped outside with a curse on his lips, when the man stepped out… with sixty inch hips.

The swear fell away, voice crumbled to dust. “I think that he’d maybe eat me if I cussed!”

The man approached Jer. “I’m sorry!” said he, “I didn’t see that island in front of me!”

“I’ll call the police, we’ll see what they say.” This is not how anyone wants to spend their day.

The cops came and went, insurance exchanged, but Jer wasn’t quite sure who it was the Cop blamed.

The process drags on, as these things sometimes will, but Jer hopes he’s not stuck with the high repair bill.

The estimate on his prize vehicle you see, is thirteen hundred, that’s a lot to me!

It may be up to three weeks before the case is settled, until then, Jer’s poor car will have twisted metal.

I honor your offer

Well, court date came. Since many friends I've talked to about it are unfamiliar with the process, here's what happened:

First off, this wasn't actually my court date. This was arraignment, so it this wasn't where the cop had to show up or I'm off the hook. This is just where I plead ‘guilty’ or ‘not guilty’.

There were about 30 defendants there, most on traffic violations, some in from the county jail on failure to appear in court, shoplifting, etc. I think one guy was on a controlled substance charge.

First, they had us sign a form informing us of our Miranda Rights and right to an attorney. Then we filed into the courtroom, and a 400 lb man walked in and announced he was the City Prosecutor, and if we planned to plead ‘not guilty’, try for a deal, or not be eaten, we should talk to him before the Judge arrived.

A few people in front of me had similar tickets to mine, and he basically told them their only option was to plead ‘guilty’ and pay the fine, or ‘not guilty’ and they'd set a court date. He told them this just by looking at their citations and not asking them anything. When it came to be my turn, he asked "What can I do for you?" (Maybe it was because I was well-groomed, wearing a suit, and not smelling of pot. Some people are just idiots!)

"I'm contesting that this took place in a construction zone," I said.

"Well, if you bring your ticket in to court, I can loo-- Oh, you have it here? Let's see.... hmm. Yeah, it does say 'approximately 11800 South'... OK. If you plead ‘guilty’, I'll drop the construction zone part of it, or you can plead ‘not guilty’ and take it to court where the officer will have to appear."

Now, I know the officer had irrefutable video evidence that I was going 76 MPH. I don't know if his video proved the improper lane change, but I figured with this offer, I had nothing to gain by going to court, so I accepted.

After a half an hour of listening to people explain why they were driving on suspended licenses, (seriously, I'm now convinced that I'm an excellent driver) It came to my turn and I told the Judge that yes, I understood my rights, No, I didn't have any questions, yes, I understood that the agreement was to the full fine without the construction zone enhancement, blah blah blah. I then plead ‘guilty’ to all charges, went upstairs and paid my $300 fine. At least it got cut in half.

Anxious

I'm having a strange issue here. I've decided to fight my speeding ticket, and the way I see it, there are three possible outcomes:
1) The cop doesn't show up and I'm off the hook.
2) The cop does show up, my arguments make sense, and I get a reduced fine.
3) The cop shows up, but nobody listens to me, and I pay the full fine.

I've already started adjusting my budget to deal with the worst-case scenario, but I'm feeling super-anxious about it. I don't know why. It's there in the back of my head all the time, and my over-active guilt reflex is going crazy. I've got my plan in place, so why can't I quit thinking about it?

sigh...

The day after my last post, my mom sent one of those emails to everyone in her address book...

Dancingmoose vs Skinforhair

I need to pick a facebook username. Do I go with Dancingmoose (a staple since early high school) or Skinforhair (a christening from a college roommate)?

Also, Daniel's been working on my drywall the last couple of days. I'll try to take some pics tonight and post. (What?? Jer might actually move into his house??)

The House

Ok, it's more than a month overdue, but here's the post about my house:

I bought a house. Actually, I kinda bought two houses. There's the original house, then the add-on "mother-in-law" apartment that's close to the same size. I've got it zoned as a legal duplex now. My friend Joel is renting half.

Seen from the front corner. My half to the left, Joel's to the right

There's an awesome back yard that's totally enclosed because of the way the house is "L" shaped around the corner.

Yard includes a gazebo, fountain, and playhouse.

Now I have somewhere to sleep when my future wife is mad

Here's a panoramic of the backyard that I photoshopped together.

Unfortunately, the wiring is pretty bad, so I've been redoing it.
Holy Fire Hazard, Batman!

I'm also kinda crazy about getting cable and network into all the
rooms, so I've been doing that, too. While I was at it,
I found the poor man's way of doing whole-house audio, so I've been running audio wires as well, and have been installing ceiling speakers.

Several rooms were set up for swag lighting, so the power sockets were tied to a light switch (like a motel). I hate that, so I fixed it, and I've been installing lights in several places that needed it. (Including one bedroom that had no lights whatsoever!)

Lotsa light. Also note ceiling speaker!

I've ripped a whole bunch of holes in the walls to do my wiring, but luckily my friend Daniel used to be a drywall guy, and he's going to help me patch it up, then my sister Judi is going to help me paint. Hopefully, I'll be moved in in the next two weeks. (I've stayed out knowing I'll have to patch and paint)

Examples of my wall destruction. Take that, walls!

I wish I'd had the foresight to do "Before" pics.. I'm going to see if I can't find some of the original MLS pics.

So there you have it! Joel's family is living in the house section currently (we call my half the "Apartment"), so I didn't want to jump in there and take a bunch of pictures. I'll try to get some later.

(Can I note that I hate working with pictures in Blogger? I had to republish 17 times to get this to lay out correctly. Sheesh.)

There's no such thing as May

I think i lost a month somewhere... Between Papa's sickness/death/funeral, trying to stay sane at Mom&Dad's house, and working my tail off, it's hard to remember what day it is, let alone write about it. :)

THE CAR!

Ok, we all know I love my Mustang, but when I was in Vegas a couple weeks ago, I got to drive this:


That, my friends, is a 2008 Corvette convertible with only 200 miles on it. (about 500 when I was done) Fire-engine red, with paddle shifters for the gears.















This was also fun. In the dashboard, there's a projector mounted to display a HUD (Heads-up display) for your speedometer on the windshield so you don't have to take your eyes off the road:
Man, that thing was fun. And fast!

Lazy

So like everything else in life that requires consistent updating, (journals, laundry, tax information) I have failed in keeping up with the blog as well. I just get involved in other things and tell myself that I'll get to it later. I have a journal with one entry. Seriously.

Anyway, here's the month in review: I played a lot of video games, ate a lot of burgers, and got a total of about 16 hours of sleep.

I've been working on a ton of new hardware for work. We got 10 new servers and put them in a data center. I've been in charge of getting that all set up.

I also started an application process to work for Cisco next year in North Carolina. I'm going to San Jose next week for the final interview, so we'll see how that goes.

See? Why post a hundred times when I can smack it all out in one post?

Just kidding, I'll try to repent.

Vanity

Well, so far, the Binary License Plate is in the lead, but there are 2 more days to vote, so If you pay any attention to this thing, give me a hand, will ya?

I think I might also post another poll... about Racing stripes.

Isn't it sad that I don't have anything to post about besides my car?

Finish the Fight

A couple of weeks ago, I was in a store looking at car stereos. As I was leaving, I saw a sign for pre-orders of Halo 3. Uh, oh. I vowed not to buy an Xbox 360 until one of two things happened: 1) I could mod it like my current Xbox, or 2) Halo 3. Guess which came first?



So I pre-ordered the game. Unfortunately, I didn't own a console to play it on, so I went back a few days later and bought one. I needed something to play in the interim, so I got Guitar Hero II (fun game, btw).

Well, the day arrived, and I went nuts. Picked up the game, got some decals to stick on my 360, because, hey, why not? Played on easy and beat it in about 5 hours. (Because I wanted to see the story line)

Can I just say, best Halo ever! Loads of fun, good story, great features. I enjoyed some of the easter eggs I found in the game (RvB FTW!) and liked feeling tough as I played a game I know I'm good at.



Now it is time for multiplayer. I've been trying to get something together for some friends to come play. I want to do it at Luke's house, because he has the HD projector and central location. (Some friends are in SLC, others in Provo) Hopefully it will come to fruition this Saturday. If not, we'll still do it, but at my house in SL.

Bull-Honkey

My family went to the State Fair last night. My siblings came and brought the kids, and my parents bought all kinds of junk food for us. It was fun. The highlight of the evening for me, however, was the Mechanical Bull. I had never ridden one before, but I think I did pretty well considering I had a headache. My brother in law tried to "spur" the thing, but ended up kicking his shoes off and almost knocked out some girl. My sister headbutted the bull on accident.

The best of all, though, was my dad. Clem has TWO hernias and a bad back. He was stiff as a board riding, and he got flung from the bull and landed about 20 feet away... just past the soft padding you're supposed to land on.

So the funeral's on Friday, and it turns out I get the life insurance money.

Just Kidding. He's fine. But it was really funny to watch a 56-year-old man with back problems trying to ride a mechanical bull and almost snapping his femur bone in half. Really, Dad. If you wanted to feel a bit younger, I'll lend you my car keys, ok?

Woohoo!!!

No time to post. I'm doing 120 down I-80 in my new car!

Getting Antsy...

So, I bought a car. Actually, I ordered a car. For those who don't know, I ordered a 2008 Ford Mustang. I settled on the V6 instead of the GT, but whatever. I'm buying eye candy.

Anyway, I ordered it several weeks ago, and have been waiting ever since. The dealership called and told me it would get here sometime during the week of Sept 2nd, but when I went to talk to them last Thursday, they said it was on a train already.

Now I'm getting really impatient. I feel like I've been waiting forever for this thing. It started as a kind of "Welcome to the Real World" and also a "Life sucks, do something nice for yourself" thing. Now it has become a "It's about time" kinda thing.

Funny how something that was originally meant to take my mind off of things and help me just enjoy life is now making me so crazy. Kinda like every girl I've ever dated....

Yeah, as if you even noticed.

So, I haven't posted in a while. I've been out of town. What's it to you?

Bedtime Revelations

For some people, the best ideas come in the shower. For me, they come in bed, as I'm trying to fall asleep. Laying there, it becomes easy to either disconnect from my problems and think of solutions, or to go completely the other way and feel sorry for myself.

With my recent break-up, many people have been telling me I need to find the lesson I needed to learn from it. Last night in bed, I think I found it. Simply put, I need to like me for me. I can't let my self esteem be directed by whether or not somebody else cares about me. Besides, how can someone else truly care about me if I don't like myself unless they like me which they won't because i don't like me because.... it's a vicious cycle.

Time to end the cycle. Now to think of things I like about myself... let's see.....

Oh, well. I've done enough. I'll get to that part tomorrow.

Zombified

47%


Apparently, I have some work to do... What's your zombie plan?

I give up.

Well, it seems everyone has a blog these days. I've fought back and resisted, but I can't take anymore. Apparently, I'm supposed to have one to keep my "friends" informed.... I don't know who these people are, but if they're my friends, can they contact me... and maybe lend me 5 bucks?

Just kidding.