Today I’m in a bit of a funk; I had a conversation with Jen last night and said something stupid and regret it now. I also got an email from Dan about effectively dissolving Greycube, and that has me really blue as well. He doesn’t have time to run the server and frankly, I don’t blame him. I knew this day would come but hoped that it wouldn’t. Now I need to figure out what I’m going to do for web hosting. I miss those days, and I miss the fun we had (and the paychecks we got.)
I also returned $54 worth of stuff I bought from Home Depot and exchanged it for the phone and cable switching block.
This is a message to the little oriental dude in the Acura TL who so kindly got in front of me on the highway this morning: I’m coming for you. When I’m coming up in the fast lane doing about 75mph, and you decide that the police speedtrap access lane is your personal U-turn area, and pull out 500 feet in front of me with your hazards on, you’re gonna piss me off. When you put your hazards on and then take 2 minutes to get up to 55mph and then finally pull over into the middle lane while I lean my hand onto the horn button 5 feet off your bumper, you’re gonna make me mad. When I lay about 20 feet of rubber and narrowly avoid having the lady behind me open my trunk with the hood of her Cherokee, I’m going to yell at you. And when I pull alongside you, slow to your speed, and commence to tell you how stupid you are at the top of my voice, look at me, little man. Next time you do that, I hope I’m behind you in the Scout, dumbass. I’m going to leave my foot off the brake and jam an LT235/75R15 Dunlop Radial Rover right up your skinny little butt.
Normally, I keep my road rage to a dull roar in the back of my head. But I’ve seen two accidents (seen one firsthand yesterday evening and saw the aftermath of one this morning) in the last 24 hours, and I think some stars or planets are aligning and pointing at my bumper.
I found this site today and read through it; Then I laughed my butt off. Right on, man.
→ This is a syndicated post from my Scout weblog. More info here.
I just printed out a test page from a Laserwriter 4/600 Jen and I found at a thrift store in Laurel for the kingly sum of $6.90. It is absolutely flawless- there’s no marks on the case, the test page looks clean and crisp, the count on the engine is 12,486. It has 2MB of RAM and prints at 600dpi; the connection is a DIN-9 Mac serial cable, which is the only drawback. I’ll put it in over at Jen’s house so she can print with it and chuck her inherited DeskWriter from Henry, the Amazing Freaky Upstairs Neighbor. I am psyched.
We had a really great weekend together; Saturday we woke and went to get breakfast, then busied ourselves cleaning up the backyard and taking a load of old building debris to the dump. After that we rolled to Sam’s Club and stocked up on food and supplies for the next few weeks, so we both have enough pierogies to feed the Chinese army for a week. Saturday night we met Dave and Joan in Elicott City for dinner (actually, we met Joan; Dave was about 45 minutes late.) Jen read the travelogue Dave wrote about their travels to Europe and I made conversation with Joan. It was great to see him again, although he was in a sort of subdued mode. I kind of wish it had been just the three of us- Dave, Jen and myself again.
Hmm. What’s new in the boring world of Bill this friday? My basement is really coming along; with the exception of the shelf in front of the window and the area around the top of the closet, all the woodwork is done, stained and installed. I’m going to be refinishing the stairs this weekend, as well as getting rid of all the garbage down there and in the backyard; hopefully then I’ll be able to move around enough to add the valves on the water supply and then move the washer to the back. Once that’s done (and some general cleaning is complete) I’ll be able to move the junk upstairs back down the the back of the basement. I’d really like to get all that done.
In the news, here’s a good story about the Can Company building, formerly home of the Bibelot by my house. I’ll be happy to be able to walk down there from the house and grab a cup of coffee and sit to read for a few hours- I miss that. I won’t miss Bibelot’s high prices, either. And there will be a One World Cafe there instead of Donna’s, which seems to be waning too. I also heard that there are lawyers trying to sue Osama for damages related to the WTC bombings; there are other lawyers fighting these lawyers for first position- the guys who are ‘representing’ the folks hurt and killed in the embassy bombings back in 98. Lawyers…
This is a fantastic article that makes one stop and consider our current action-and responsibility-in Afghanistan.
I got paid yesterday. Hallelujah. The carpet is ordered and all I have to do is set up a time when they can come and do it. Hopefully in a week or so. And, I saved about $100 or so from my initial estimate- I thought it would be about $500 and it came to a little under $400 with better padding. I also bought the rest of the trim molding and stained it last night; I bought 2 lighted 3-way switches for the stupid hallway light, so that will finally work again; and I bought 4 planks of 8″ wood, 2 maple and 2 pine, for the stairs. Then I installed them and found the stairs were actually 8″ deep/tall, not 7 ½” like the stupid lumberyards cut everything now. So I cut 2 planks, they don’t fit, and I’m going to return the other two (hopefully.) I guess I’ll heatgun/sand the old planks and then reinstall them- they were ugly, but still very sturdy.
The backyard is finished- the wall is up and looks good. So, next spring I’ll start on the revamping back there.
I also installed a Voodoo 5 card in the NT box last night; it’s running fine and works great. It also fixes the nagging gamma problem I’ve had with the Sony monitor, so I don’t think I need to buy a new monitor right away. Thank god. I’ve been trying to install the Voodoo 3 in the Mac here at work but it isn’t working right now- after a long search for all the proper install files and a flash of the card’s BIOS, it crashed on a boot of Marathon and now isn’t working anymore.
I’m working from home today so that the carpet guys can come in (sometime) and measure/eyeball the floor in the basement. I actually need to run downstairs and clean up the floor before they get here, but overall it’s in good shape. I also have this video card sitting here but I’m afraid to bust it out just for fear of blowing up this computer and not being able to work all day.
I have to admit, I’m stressing out about work and money issues. Work is going OK but I’m afraid that after this project I’m going to get canned for some reason. My boss is great but I’m feeling out on the ledge, and I can’t shake the feeling. I think my work has been good up until now, and I don’t think they’re mad at me, but I’m just really down on the economy and afraid that I’m going to lose my job soon. I’m going to head into Home Depot or Lowe’s this week and take some extra hours a few nights a week just to get the bank account padded and back up to fighting size, or pay off the credit card/second mortgage and free up some cash. I’ve been great with the credit card up until this past week, when we didn’t get paid on time. I haven’t put anything on it in about 2 months, and I’d like to keep it that way (although i bought the USB card for the Mac on it.) After this carpeting gets installed, I’m going on a budget of $100 a week or something like that so that I can really save some cash for the next few months. I have to find out what they pay hourly and do some math to see what I could make for 3 nights a week or so.
5:40 pm – Hmm. I found, after several abortive attempts at trying to start programming my own log program, a program called Greymatter, a free Perl script for starting a weblog. I do believe I’m going to try it tonight and see what results I get. I also got some good feedback from my boss about the interface, so I’m feeling better about that as well. All that having been said, I didn’t get a whole hell of a lot done today- lots of configuration, copying, uploading, etc. I did quickly get the USB drive up and running to get some stuff off the drive for Matt, and found a few things I should have archived a while back.
At work this morning and pretty tired from last night- Jen and I slept pretty poorly because the cats were so lonely. They spent most of the night walking on our heads, fighting on the floor, and knocking stuff over. Jen kept waking up and getting sick from the sleeping pill she took- she had no time to sleep it off. Then we were awakened by the guys working in the alley at 7:30 this morning. One good thing is that they are up to my backyard this morning, working on the wall in between Dick & Thelma’s and my own. I figure they’ll be done by the time I get home tonight.
Today I’m listening to Cure For Pain. I miss Morphine. I wish Mark Sandman was still around. Here is your homework, for anybody who might be out there: Go home, go directly to your CD player and pull out that new Blink 182 CD you’ve been sneaking when everybody else isn’t home; go dust off Cure for Pain, drop it in on shuffle, pour a tall glass of red wine, and chill out.
Well, yesterday I went in for the MRI at Mercy. What an interesting experience. I like that hospital a lot- all the people I’ve dealt with there are really very nice. At about 12 noon yesterday, I was laying on a sled being inserted into a long plastic tube, and then being bombarded with magnetic waves, all to the sounds of “If You Leave Me Now” by Chicago. Most of the time I was OK; I wasn’t claustrophobic, but found I had to regulate my breathing. After awhile, I was actually drowsy, and when I got used to the sound of the machine it was easy to deal with. I got to see the readouts, though, when it was done, and that was very wild- seeing a crossection of my own torso was fascinating.
Played a bit of Half-Life last night (Steve gave me the game) and found it wildly addictive. Must……resist….
Basement is coming along as well; I got a lot more of the trim installed/stained; I drilled pilot holes for the electronics board but wasn’t able to mount it last night. I fixed a lot of the little nagging sections of trim that didn’t piece together well, which made me happy. I just want to get paid so I can finish buying the supplies I need (front window, shelf, trim molding) to get the rest of the cosmetic stuff done.
Scout report: I went over to take a look at it. It does have a lot of real nice parts, and a good running 304 with a new master cylinder and radiator; it has two Dana 44’s on stock wheels and a T-19 close 4-speed. It’s red and was repainted at some point in the past 10 years or so. The interior is clean. The body however is the problem. It’s been hit once in the right front, so the whole right side of the clip is toast. Shame too, because the fenders were new aftermarkets and are clean. The pillars are clean; the rockers were replaced at some point, but both front body mounts are hosed and the right rear is going. The left rear mount is spotless- puzzling. Theres rot through the floor where it meets the middle channel, but the rear lip is clean. The top is pretty bad, and the rear quarters are original, and not so good.
For $750, about a year ago I would have jumped on it and worried about where to put it later. He has a fiberglas fender and a new grille for it, so it would be mobile (needs front brake work- I could get him to do it for an extra $100 I’m sure) but the problem of storage still remains.
→ This is a syndicated post from my Scout weblog. More info here.
Found this online today:
It is a 1976 with a clear title. 304 V8. Dana 44 front and rear. 4 spd…T19. 98000 original miles. Motor runs very strong. Doesn’t leak oil or burn any oil at all. Starts right up. Scout is very mechanically sound.
Interior is in very good shape.
I’d like to make a quick sell. Want $750. I’d keep it myself but I have a project CJ5 which I’m more involved in. Something must go.
It has right front fender damage. Needs a new front brake line, too. Very simple fix for the brakes. I have the replacement fender and 80 SS front grill available, too. Just haven’t gotten around to replacing the parts.I’m located in Cockeysville, MD. If you are serious about buying and would like to come up and see it call me.
I’ve attached some pics. They don’t show the fender damage. Sorry. I’m hoping to take more pics this weekend.
→ This is a syndicated post from my Scout weblog. More info here.
The city is finally beginning work on my alley today! Jen and I woke up at about 7:15 and by 7:30 there were a bunch of guys out on the north end of the alley with a jackhammer busting up the concrete. I am so happy this is underway. I have to rent a sledgehammer from Home Depot and break up the concrete shelf around the old garage footings so that I can *ahem* throw the busted-up stuff on their carry pile. The only drawback is that trash pickup is out fron this next week- we’ll have to make sure the street stays clean.
The first coat of stain is on the shelving and the finish molding downstairs. I still don’t have money in my account from work, so I can’t go and buy supplies, but I have enough to work with for the next few days- getting the basement cleaned, installing the electrical board and the closet pole, fitting the last kickplate board, sanding and staining, and finishing off the shelving. I can’t wait to start on that tonight. I ran some steel wool over the stuff I sanded and smoothed it out- it’s going to look great when it’s done. I used polystain on all the woodwork; I hope it holds and does a good job. (it’s a stain and polyurethane all in one.)
Sometimes, we hold these truths to be self-evident department: Never buy or eat a grocery store-made sandwich. Yuck.