Personal

The stuff about me and my life. The “diary” side of blogging.

Where were you?

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I found an interesting discussion today, and thought it was well worth cribbing to use here on my site. One of the members of the HTF started a thread asking where people were and what they remember about significant dates in history. He started with a short list of about five dates, and as people have responded the list of days has grown.

I’ve posted my list here — it’s my hope that some of you visiting will take the time to follow up in the comments, and feel free to add other dates you might find significant. The first few dates on the list were added as more of a joke, but I went ahead and included them — who knows? Maybe Methuselah stops by every so often. :)

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Moving soon

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I talked to Melvin last night, and got the go-ahead to move into the new apartment, probably starting next week sometime, so that I can be in by the 15th. My move in costs for the month of March will be a total of $325 — $300 security deposit plus $50 rent pro-rated down to $25 because the official move in date is halfway through the month! Not a bad deal, there.

I knew it wouldn’t all be good news

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Two big “ouches” that may be affecting the site due to my upcoming move — a $300 fee I hadn’t expected, and a possible downtime of as much as 2 months (worst case scenario). I was afraid this might happen….

All that’s going on is when you sign up for a DSL account with Speakeasy, you sign on for a 12-month contract. Should you cancel your service within that 12 months, you’re subject to a $300 cancellation fee. Since the DSL line is hooked up in co-operation with the phone service provider (Qwest, in my case), it can’t be simply tossed onto another number…even when changing apartments, it’s a process of closing one account and opening another. On the bright side, though, if you re-open your account at the new address within 90 days of cancelling your account at the old address, that $300 is refunded. Still, I have to spend it in the first place, which hurts.

The last downside — because I’ll be starting the connection process over, my website could be down for as much as close to 2 months. Speakeasy asks to allow up to two weeks for the connection to take place (from placing the order to the signal coming up and online), and they can’t start the process until after you’ve had a working phone at the address for a month.

I’ll see what I can do with creative juggling to make the transition as easy as possible, though. Melvin just told me I’ll be able to move into the apartment on March 15th. I’ll be paid up at my old apartment through the end of March. So, figure I leave my webserver at the old apartment until the very last possible day — that will have my website up and running through the end of March. If I start my phone service at the new apartment on the 15th of March, then I’ll be able to place my DSL order on April 15th, and the new DSL line will be up and running by the end of April, with about a month of downtime. If I’m really lucky, Melvin will allow me to place the order to start phone service to that apartment at the beginning of March, before I officially move in, and I’ll just leave that number unused until I actually start living there mid-March — if I can do that, then that could move all pertinent reconnect dates up by two weeks, giving me only two weeks of downtime for the website. I’ll see what I can do.

I should still be able to get online for e-mail and such the entire time, though, as I’ve got modems in both of my computers now — so at least I won’t be going through the same ‘net-less existence I was when I first moved into my place.

More updates on all this nonsense will appear as I nail down the details.

Infocom presents Tetris

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Y’know, you might only get this if you’ve been using computers for a long time…but I think it’s hilarious. Royce will, too, if he hasn’t seen it already (or, perhaps, if it’s just been a while). Tom will probably understand too. The rest of you…well, you’ll just have to bear with us ‘old-timers’.

Basically, Infocom was a company that did some of the earliest computer games, back when everything was completely text-based. Think Zork, or the origininal Hitchiker’s Guide to the Galaxy game. If you have to ask…you won’t get it.

You are looking at the shaft. A large red block, four units by one
unit, is above your head, dropping slowly. It has its long edge
horizontally aligned.

>turn the block

I don't know how to "turn" something.
The block descends lower.

>rotate block

The block rotates in mid air, now with the long edge vertically
aligned.
The block descends lower.

>move block left

The block shifts to the left.
The block descends lower.

>drop block

You aren't holding the block.
The block descends lower.

>move block down

The block drops into the narrow gap, filling the four columns.
The columns flash twice, then vanish, dropping the blocks
above them down.  A musical tone is heard.

[Your score increased by 20!]

A square grey block, two units by two units, is now overhead,
slowly dropping.

— This is from a post I found that was originally posted to alt.religion.kibology, by Dave A. Largtigue.

Lots of moves, and Casey turns 30

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I’m a little tired right now, and kind of sore (there’s a nasty flu bug going around that I think I might be catching), but I wanted to toss a quick post up before I crashed out for the night.

Candice in her new roomI’ve spent much of the past couple weekends helping Candice move. She was able to get a new room in a different wing of the college, so she’s out of the standard dorm situation. A much bigger room, with a bathroom all her own — she’s quite excited about this. Can’t say as how I blame her, either — I know I’m really enjoying having my own space rather than the roommate situation I’ve been in ever since I moved out of my folks’ house.

Speaking of moving, it appears that my move is going forward as well. I’ve given Melvin my rental application, and he’s said I should be ready to move in on March 15th. This will most likely mean that my webpage will be offline for a while (grrrrrrr…) as I get the DSL line transferred over to the new apartment. I’ve got a bad feeling it could be as much as a month to a month and a half, as Speakeasy apparently can’t connect a DSL line until I’ve had a phone line up for a month, plus there’s the time for the connection to actually get made. Ah, well…so it goes…I’ll make it as short a time as possible, however.

The kitty litter cakeCasey hit that wonderful 30 about two weeks ago, but everyone’s been so busy that we weren’t able to have the party until this weekend. However, it ended up going pretty well. Dez made an absolute masterpiece of a cake, as you can see in the picture here — a kitty litter cake! I don’t think I remember quite all of it, but I think it was crumb cake and white cake crumbled into pieces and mixed with pudding, put into a litterbox, with a litter scooper for a cutting/serving tool, and complete with Tootsie Rolls melted and formed into the right shapes to serve as kitty poop! Dez was bouncing around the kitchen when I showed up, completely thrilled with herself for creating this thing — and I laughed as soon as I saw it.

It’s wonderful having sick friends sometimes.

Casey eats kitty poopThe cake was a hit with the rest of the group too — once they could convince themselves that it actually was edible (though one or two of them had to remove any ‘poop’ from their plate before they could actually eat any of it). We all sat and talked and joked around for the evening, and it was a pretty nice night. They’d done the whole party with a ‘white trash’ theme, complete with weenie wraps, pork rinds, and cheeze-in-a-can for the crackers, and to top it all off (aside from the cake, of course) — pig’s feet! The pigs feet even got sampled, too, though I decided that that was one culinary adventure I really didn’t need to explore. In any case, was a good evening. Candice and I stayed until a bit after 11pm, when she ran me home, and she went back out to campus.

And that pretty much catches up to where we are now. Until later….

The pope said what?

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In November, the frail and ailing Pontiff sent his first email, a message sent to his Bishops in Oceania in lieu of what would be a taxing visit. “This new Internet is a Blessing from the Lord,” the Pope said through an interpreter, “but Jesus Motherfarking Christ, these annoying-ass pop-up ads are farking pissing me off.”

— The Schmews

The return of Spudnuts

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I got the following off of the comment thread from this post by Wil’s wife on WWDN. Yes, I know i’ve been mentioning that site fairly often lately…but Wil rocks, as does his wife, and as do many of the people who read and comment on his site. It’s become a daily stop for me.

Anyway, one of the regular readers and posters-of-comments has been MIA for a while. Last night at around 2am, Spudnuts returned with a vengeange. Whoever Spudnuts is, he’s one of the funniest guys I’ve read stuff from — and the following series of posts demanded to be saved. If you read this, I hope you get as much of a giggle out of it as I did. The majority of the posts are by Spudnuts, plus there’s a few relevant posts by other WWDN regulars in there too.

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Palindromania

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Need a cheap excuse to party? At 8:02pm tonight, if you use military time, it will be 20:02 20/02 2002. This won’t happen again until Dec. 12, 2112 at 12:12pm — and won’t happen again after that.

But I’ll be sure to put a post up here to remind you all then.

Seven things

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Wil has a wonderful post up on his site where he suggests making a list of 7 things we’re thankful for. The comments for the thread have a ton of these lists from the various people reading Wil’s site — the following is what I posted.

Well, I’m a little late to the party, but that’s okay. Fashionably late is cool, right? :)

7 things I’m thankful for…in no particular order…

  1. Waking up a little late to predictions of clouds and rain…then making it to work on time and watching the clouds blow by and blue skies and sunshine lighting up downtown Seattle.
  2. The fact that I’m finally actually living in Seattle rather than Anchorage, Alaska.
  3. Growing up in Anchorage. I had all sorts of goofball experiences and made wonderful friends that I wouldn’t have otherwise.
  4. Having three weddings to go to within the next two years — James and Stacy this June, Casey and Jenny this July, and my brother Kevin and Emily next year sometime.
  5. Old friends that were here when I moved down, new friends that I’ve been making since I moved down, and a girlfriend that’s kind of a bizarre combination of both of those, in a wierd sort of way.
  6. Movies, music, books, and ‘puters — four things that, both collectively and individually, I spend way too much money on. But that’s the point of having the money there in the first place, right?
  7. Life. Just being here. Seeing each day pass by, with all of the good and bad things that happen. Knowing that no matter how bad things seem to be at any given point, there are always more days coming along that can — and will — hold wonders just as amazing as whatever may be getting me down.

It’s an incredible world we live in, and it’d be a pity not to step back, look around, and actually see some of the things we tend to take for granted. Thanks for this list suggestion, Wil, and thanks to for everyone who’s contributing (maybe that’s number 8 on my list?).

Cool beans.