Personal

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

Memorial Day weekend

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This has been a really nice weekend so far. I actually ended up with a couple days off — worked Saturday at Suncoast, but that was it, so had Sunday and Monday off. Quite nice.

Took Miranda out to see The Mummy Returns on Saturday night, making my second time seeing that one in the theaters. It pretty much stays the same in my opinion — a fun flick that I enjoy, and almost as good as the first one, but a definite roller coaster ride. There are parts that are so much better than the first that I was really impressed — and parts that were so much worse that it was depressing. Ah, well…overall, pretty damn enjoyable. Unfortunately, Miranda wasn’t feeling well, and so she had to go straight home after the movie.

Jones Lake, Anchorage, AKSunday was a great day. Absolutely gorgeous weather, so I decided to go out and enjoy the sun and get some pictures of Alaska before I leave. I just picked up a nice little Kodak DX3500 digital camera earlier in the week (finally — it’s been about 8 years since I’ve had a camera), and wanted to get some shots of my home for the last 26 years before I bailed. I started by heading out to Earthquake ParkEarthquake Park, Anchorage, AK, as it’s just about a minute away from my house. There were a bunch of other families and tourists out enjoying the weekend, too, so I ended up spending a couple minutes there watching some kids play as their parents took in the displays scattered around the area. The view of Mt. Susitna Mt. Susitna, Anchorage, AK was just gorgeous, Sleeping Lady was out in full splendor, with just a scattering of light fluffy clouds up in the sky.

After Earthquake Park, I headed downtown, and discovered somewhat to my dismay that while downtown Anchorage looks gorgeous from afar, it’s still a bit too early in the year to get any really nice shots of it. None of the flowers have started poking up from the various planters, and the grass is still just coming in, so it’s still got a lot of brown mixed in with the green. No huge biggie, though — another couple weeks should take care of that pretty nicely. After a while I ran down to Village Inn to get some grub, then went home to rest for a bit.

That evening I went out to the valley to hit a bonfire party that Danielle was throwing. I met up with Danielle, Christina, and some of their friends from the valley (Sparky, Victor, Carlos, Dorothy, Earl, Dave, and a couple others who’s names I can’t remember right now) at Danielle’s house, then we all caravaned Heading out, Mat-Su Valley, AK out to the Palmer Hay Flats refuge for the bonfire. The evening was just beautiful, and the area was absolutely gorgeous — a valley down at the base of some hills, with the sunset reflecting off the mountains in the distance. I took some shots to try and put together a panorama of the view, if I can get them stitched together decently in Photoshop I’ll see if I can get the final result posted here.

After starting the fire Sparky, Bonfire, Mat-Su Valley, AK in the time-honored bonfire tradition of piling up a bunch of wood and dousing it with lighter fluid, we all just spent a nice evening standing around, talking, munching on some grub, and attempting to prevent Earl from blowing anything up. As few of us were much into drinking at all — I brought a few Smirnoff Ice‘s to drink, but only had two over the course of the evening, and few of the others brought anything — Victor, Sparky, Dorothy, Bonfire, Mat-Su Valley, AK it was a very nice mellow evening. We even had the troopers stop by a couple times to check on us, and they basically told us just to make sure we got the fire put out when we left — one of them even said that this was the kind of party they like to see. It was pretty cool — for all the harassment the police get just because they’re in a position of authority, it’s been very rare that I’ve had any sour dealings with them at all.

Eventually Bonfire, Mat-Su Valley, AKit got to be about two in the morning, and we all decided it was time to head out — a couple of us had to make it back into Anchorage before we crashed out, and everyone was starting to get tired. So, after a good few minutes trying to put out the bonfire (quite a chore in itself), we all headed home. The drive back in was wonderful, too — I just set the cruise control for the speed limit, and cruised on in. As most people out for the weekend were going to be coming back into town today at the end of the three day weekend, I didn’t have much traffic to deal with, and only saw a couple cops on the way in. Made it home a little after 3am and crashed out.

So now it’s Monday, the last day of the weekend, and I’m pretty much just spending the day relaxing here at home. I’ve got four more days of work at GCI, then the next two weeks will be the final push to get everything packed up and ready to go before I leave state…that countdown just keeps going….

Mars needs a facelift!

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Cydonian faceThis just in — It seems that our nearest neighbor in the Solar System, and most possible target for future colonization, is in dire need of a facelift!

NASA has recently released photographs of the famous Cydonian face on Mars that show that one of the strongest pieces of evidence we have yet of alien intelligence is in danger of being eradicated from our Solar System. While NASA’s scientists have always been quick to deny that the face is actually a face (how foolish — what else could it be?), scientists worldwide not under the thumb of the U.S. Government have spend untold hours debunking the “theory” that NASA and the US Government want us to believe — that the Face does not exist, and is merely a product of poor photography combined with human imagination.

Well, I don’t know about you, but it doesn’t take much imagination at all for me to see that the above picture quite clearly shows a face. And do they really expect that the American public is so stupid as to believe that after sending countless satellites into space, the Voyager probe to the stars, and who knows what else (I would list placing men on the Moon, but that has long since been uncovered as a hoax), that the Viking 1 and 2 landers had such poor equipment on board that they would mangle a random collection of peaks and valleys into looking like we know the Face to look?

Lately, however, some more disturbing news has leaked out of NASA. As can be plainly seen in the images below, the Face is being destroyed!

Three faces

The only question now is how is this happening? The three pictures were taken within the space of less than 30 years — from the Viking missions in 1975 and 1976 to the most recent flyover by the Mars Global Surveyor in 2001 — and show a frightening amount of destruction. While we know that Mars has an atmosphere inhospitable to human life (or, at least, so we’ve been told all these years), it isn’t so horrid as to account for that much degradation in such a short span of time. So what could be responsible for this?

The only answer I can come up with is that the Face is being deliberately destroyed to hide its existence from us! This single image — released by NASA itself — does more to prove that the Government has been hiding information from us (either about its own capabilities, or about its involvement with extraterrestrial intelligence) for years than anything previously found! I don’t know who is destroying the Face — or how (though it could either be through their own means, if you assume that NASA’s claims about the moon landing are true, and we can travel between the planets; or through the assistance of alien intelligences in collaboration with our government) — but the why can be easily guessed.

To keep us ignorant.

The face has been a thorn in the side of those in control ever since the pictures leaked out to the world after the Viking landers took them — incontrovertible proof of alien intelligence — and they must have been working since its discovery to destroy it so that they could ‘debunk’ it as just another jumble of rocks.

I feel that it is imperative that we refuse to let this continue. Contact your representatives, senators, whomever, but let it be known that we will no longer allow ourselves to be led, that we are not the pawns that our so-called ‘leaders’ want us to be!

Let the truth come out!

 

Okay, okay. So I’ve been watching too much X-Files recently. The picture of the three faces actually comes from a fascinating article on NASA’s website about the formation in question, and how the increased resolution of today’s cameras (and not erosion, alien conspiracies, or the like) are giving a clearer picture of the ‘face’ on Mars. Neat stuff, but it triggered my brain, and I had to get this out. Hey, it was fun!

Off to Fairbanks!

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Well, my rides on the way. Don’t know if I’ll be updating at all while I’m in Fairbanks, so this may be my last post for a few days. If so — see y’all (whoever you may be) when I get back!

How Hollywood sees us

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…all of you are just simple-minded dumbasses with tiny brains and limited exposure who are so used to ‘checking your brains at the door’ that your gray matter has devolved into a state of gummy disuse. You are no longer even capable of appreciating anything a notch above ‘stupid’.

— Al Brown, on the Home Theater Forum, hypothesizing on how Hollywood sees the American public

I can’t chicken out now…

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…I’ve got a serious inquiry on the car, and I just turned in my two-week notice at GCI and CNTS. So, June 1st will be my last day employed with GCI. I’ll probably turn in my notice at Suncoast fairly soon too, so that my last week there is either that first weekend in June or soon thereafter (if I sell my car early in June, getting around is going to be somewhat problematic). More and more it looks like my target date for leaving really is going to be June 15th — I’m (quite intentionally) making sure I’ve got all my loose ends tied up here, and that it’s difficult for me to back out, just in case I get a last minute case of the heebie-jeebies.

Getting things ready

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I realize I haven’t been updating all that frequently lately. Most of my time when I’m not at work has been caught up in two pursuits: sorting through everything I own and determining what to keep, what to get rid of, and what to try to sell; and kicking back for an evening of watching DVD’s when I can’t deal with my room. Going through six years of collected stuff is not the easiest thing in the world to do.

Anyway, the moving sale continues to progress — things are appearing and disappearing at a fairly decent rate. I’ve also added a bit more information on the Ford Escort I’m selling.

It’ll probably be a couple days before I update again — I’m heading to Fairbanks this weekend to visit with my brother Kevin, his fiancee Emily, and a few friends (definitely Kirsten and Jaime, and we’ll see who all else I can find while I’m up there). Hoping for a fun weekend…I’ll be back in town Sunday afternoon.

Until then….

No more home theater

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Yikes…the sacrifices we make in order to do something that’s important to us. For years I’ve had three ‘boy toy’ areas that were important to me — my music and DJ’ing equipment, my computers, and my home theater. It may not have been much of a home theater, but I was pretty proud of it, and considering the budget I’d put it together on, it was pretty decent.

Well, to further my goal of getting down to Seattle next month, I put pieces of the theater up for sale — and one of my two receivers, the DVD player, and the 46″ rear-projection TV just drove away from me. (sigh) Very wierd feeling, in a way, but at the same time, it’s getting me out of here, and I’ve got the DVD player in my computer, so I’m at least not cutting myself off from my movies. Sure, a 17″ monitor isn’t a 46″ TV…but it works for now.

Ugh…now what?

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Dammit — no matter how well things are going, something always seems to come along to trip things up.

Got word from my boss at GCI today that the temporary position I’m in is ending as of early June. I can either apply for the permanent spot, or let CNTS (the temp agency I’m with) know and hope that they can find something for me.

It’s tempting to try and stay with GCI — I’m enjoying it, and the fact that I’m getting props on how I’m doing there makes me think I’ve got a fair chance of landing the permanent spot. On the other hand, I’m certainly not gauranteed the spot — there’s always a chance that someone from one of the other call centers with a few years experience will want to take it. The pay would be slightly less, but that’s because I’d actually be getting benefits, so that’s not too big of a hassle.

The one that’s actually getting to me, though, is that if I do go for the permanent spot — and get it — I’d just be turning in my two week notice a month and a half later for the move down to Seattle. This really bugs me — I’ve inherited something of an overdeveloped sense of responsibility to my job from my mother, and doing something like that just seems kind of underhanded, even if it’s in my own best interests. Yuck…I hate situations like this.

Besides, if I let CNTS know that I need a new position, who knows how soon they’ll find one, what they’ll find, or how much it will pay? Makes me very nervous…admittedly, this is the kind of situation that can crop up when you’re doing temp work, and I knew that when I signed up — this is just the first time I’ve had to face it, and I can’t honestly say it makes me too comfortable. I’m so determined to get myself out of state at the end of the summer, that I hate seeing anything pop up that might jeopardize that — and losing this paycheck is really high on the list of things that can jeapordize the move.

So…I’ve got some pondering to do, along with a lot of finger crossing. Should be interesting.

Told ya I’d get more in here

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I just didn’t figure I’d wait until this late to do it. Ah, well, at least I’m here, right?

Friday was fairly uneventful for the most part. Had a good evening dj’ing for the spring formal for the UAA Greek organizations, though, which was fun. Not much more than that for Friday night.

Saturday I ended up having a blast. After I got off work at Suncoast I headed out to Studio 99 — and funny, there was no one there. Hung out for a bit, then headed home, to find a message letting me know that they weren’t going to be opening that night, as they didn’t want to try and compete both with a rave out in Eagle River and the various Cinco De Mayo celebrations around town. Understandable enough, so instead I headed out to the Last Frontier to meet up with a bunch of the chatters that I talk to in the Yahoo! Chat Alaska room. One of the other regular chatters has her birthday on the 1st of May, and mine was the 3rd, so we had a pretty good sized birthday party going on there. Got myself fairly nicely buzzed, and only had to pay for one of the four drinks I had! I bought one, one of the chatters bought me one…then a couple girls I met (Barbie and Barb, believe it or not) bought me two because they liked the way I danced. Rock on…sat and talked with them for a while. Unfortunately, they disappeared before I was able to get any numbers from them…(sigh)…just my luck. Maybe next time. Anyway, switched from alcohol to soda and water in time to be sure that I was safe to drive home, gave one of the chatters a lift home, and came home and crashed — all in all, quite a nice night.

The last couple days have been pretty uneventful — pretty much just work and day-to-day life. Have had some good conversations with my friend Erika, who’s thinking it might be worthwhile to hook me up with her friend LouAnne before I leave state…I’ve only met LouAnne a few times, but she seems like a very nice girl, and she’s certainly attractive enough…who knows?

Had a meeting at Studio 99 tonight to discuss the future of the club…looks like things are going to be going through some changes there. I’m not sure I want to say much more than that just now, but hopefully things will be looking up there pretty soon.

Anyway, so that’s it for the past few days. Nothing too earth shattering, but there’s very little of that in my life these days anyway. Right now it’s mostly a matter of counting the days until I visit Fairbanks in a couple weeks (weekend of May 18th), and until I finally leave this state to see how things are living in the lower 48 (sometime in mid-August). Can’t happen soon enough for me.

Happy birthday, Kev!

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Can’t believe I almost forgot to say anything about this — my little brother turns 25 today! Wow…that’s kind of frightening. But cool, too.

Happy b-day, bro.