Archive for the ‘General’ Category

Global Consciousness Project

Sunday, February 13th, 2005

So I came a cross a pretty interesting article/project while wandering around. I really liked it because it was both intriguing and kinda gave me that nice little feeling that there is still plenty out there that we have no idea about. There are too many things that grey out the magic and wonder out of the world and this is one of those that puts color back in.

The link to the article is here:

http://www.rednova.com/news/display/?id=126649

but I have posted it to this blog incase the article goes away. If you want to read it locally, click on the “More..” : (more…)

Cool Quote

Monday, February 7th, 2005

Things you can find under a bottle cap:

“Don’t let yesterday use up too much of today.” -Cherokee

I thought this was a pretty nice quote 🙂

Not so quiet afternoon

Monday, February 7th, 2005

Today was fun, I met up with Scott for sushi and photoshooting in downtown San Francisco. We first decided to head over the SF Ferry building, wandered our way through the financial district and found ourselves in the middle of the Chinese New Year. Popped out into Little Italy where the wonderful smell of garlic drew us to the “The Stinking Rose”, a really great restaurant at which we enjoyed lunch. Then we made our way back through the festival, back down to the ferry building and Ghandi before going home.

You can find Scott’s photos of the trip here:

http://homepage.mac.com/scolerick/PhotoAlbum3.html

[*I think its time I got a new camera 🙂 ]

http://homepage.mac.com/scolerick/PhotoAlbum3.html

New and not so interesting things

Sunday, January 30th, 2005

Ok, that was not what I expected…

I just got home from having a nice “mom cooked” meal, when this black (with brown patches) cat strolls out from the bushes. I stop, not wanting to frighten it and to see if it is friendly. I try calling, but it sits there in usual cat fashion, with it’s back to me. Then after a few seconds, I hear this strange sound. I almost think of the owner, somewhere out of sight, saying “Awwwww”, seeing I had found her cat, but no, this was no innocent sound. This was a warning, a precursor, to three cannon like projectile vomits blasts, issued out from this not so innocent cat. I stood, as this feline issued forth a torrent of liquid and unmentionables, in quantities I wish to neither guess nor measure. Then as quickly as it appeared, it ran off into the darkness. At this point, I find my self thankful for: A) my rearward position in relation to the cat, B) this lucky event happened outside and not on some poor soul’s carpet. Wow, experiences I can do without.

On a lighter note, today has been one of those getting things done days. Except I never seem to achieve the grand vision I create at the start. So let me rephrase, this has been one of those getting things done, between being distracted, days.

I talked to my brother Trey and let him know I was heading his way. I realized we hadn’t seen each other in over 7 years. For family that used to cross paths at least every two years or so, that’s a REALLY long time. I fully plan on fixing this discrepancy. I still need to get the plane tickets, but after surfing around for most of the day, it looks like I’ll be doing the Southwest thing.

I also booked my room in Las Vegas for Defcon 13, and started working out tix for Vegas and Thailand. MY GOD!! $1900 for roundtrip tickets, GUH! I actually found some on EVA for $900, but I think that shopping 7 months in advance might be working against me. I’ll try again at the 5-6 month marker.

Another one bites the dust

Thursday, January 27th, 2005

Well, it’s now two for two. I just got an “A” (yay) for Unix System Administrator I, which wraps up the Berkeley courses I took for the 2004 winter session.

One thing I have to say, is that I really enjoy is the educational reimbursment program at OpenTV. They give an allowance of about $5000 a year that they will reimburse you for if you get a “B” or higher in a class related to your (at work) duties. I’m looking forward to maxing my limit out 🙂

Laughing Sal

Tuesday, January 25th, 2005

I liked yesterday, it was fun…

For some reason I woke up WAY to early for a Sunday, something like, 8am’ish. My god, that’s just not right. But I found a great way to fill the time (see previous post “WOOT”). Then, as afternoon rolled by, I met up with Kristen and Alicia to head over to SF and do the tourist thing.

We decided that Fishermans Warf would be our stomping grounds and started off at Pier 39. We wandered through, playing in hat shops, magic shops, stocking stores, photo galleries, and then ended up at the fudge shop. We quickly realized that we needed food and had previously set our minds on getting clam chowder bread bowls. So we had to forego the fudge temptations and headed over to the main Warf area. On the way out we watched the sea lions laying in the sun enjoying themselves, and passed by a few street performers.

Kristen hearded us over to a Boudin Bakery where we each got a bread bowl (clam chowder, chilli, and tomato bisque). We sat, ate, and talked about the health benifits of eating cannibals, which was quite entertaining. Afterwards, we figured we needed to walk off some of the food before making our way up to Ghirardelli Square.

While wandering around, we headed into a warehouse that had a ton of the old style (and I’m talking 1920 old) penny arcade machines. Except this was 2005, so they were upgraded to quarter machines for us. As we entered we were greeted by “Laughing Sal”. Now she was this gigantic animatronic woman that laughs when you put in a quarter. We mistakenly fell for it, we put in a coin and quickly regretted the choice as this endless, nightmare inducing laugher erupted from her. We’re talking Steven King nightmare here. We quickly escaped deeper into the warehouse. While wandering around we learned: 1) executions were funny (both english and french), 2) sometimes wind blowing through the empty box is the only thing you get for your quarter, 3) Alicia loves Area51 (the shooting game). We made our way back around to the entrance and found Sal still laughing. I’m telling ya, kids end up at therapists because of this thing. Even when we were 100+ feet away the laugher seemed to cling to us.

Eventually we made it up to Ghirardelli Square. We stopped off and almost moved into the Sharper Image. You see, they have these chairs, these wonderful, beautiful chairs, that massage, knead, and basicly reduce you to a jelly like mass that has no inclination of ever leaving. After about 30 minutes and a number of “I’m next” looks, we finally got up and wanderd out.

One of the chocolate shops was closed for a private party, so we headed over to the second shop in the square only to find the line out the door. After some waiting, more waiting, “OOO empty table” grabbing, again with the waiting, free chocolate hand outs, waiting, ordering, and waiting again, we finally got our mochas and coffee/fudge sunday. It was time to sit, relax, and devour.

The sun was setting, the temperature was dropping, and it was 630ish. We felt like it was 930ish, and decided to raincheck the tapas we planned for dinner, walked back to the car and head home.

Once back in Alameda, we had just enough time to experience Kristen and Alicia’s carpet up close and personal as we tried to find Kristens missing end for her eyebrow piercing, not once, but twice! 🙂 And then, finally closing the night by watching “O Brother, Where Art Thou” which I gotta say “mmmmm…sirens….” sigh

It was a good day.

WOOT

Sunday, January 23rd, 2005

Ok, I’m all kinds of excited right now. I’ve been working out my finances, free time, school, etc, and I think I’ve got some working travel plans.

1) I’m hoping to head off to “South By SouthWest” held in Austin, TX. This is really just an excuse to go see my brothers that I havn’t seen in years. I really miss them and it’s about time I popped over to say hi. SWSW is a pretty popular Film/Music/Interacitve content festival that happens each year.

http://2005.sxsw.com/

2) Defcon13 in Vegas. I went last year and loved it. I’m almost playing with the idea of volunteering, but we’ll see on that one. It is taking place between July 29th and the 31st of this year.

[http://www.defcon.org/index.html](http://www.defcon.org/index.html

3) And the big one for me is that I might be able to learn Thai Cooking in Chiang Mai Thailand! I’m still shopping around for schools and such, but I found one that offers a 5 day course for about $120!! I’m so there. August is looking good right about now 🙂 .

http://www.thaicookeryschool.com/index.html

Does this mean I can loot the body?

Monday, January 17th, 2005

So, I rarely take these types of quizes, but when I saw one on a friends blog that referenced something from my old D&D days, I was curious. Soooo….

You scored as Chaotic Good. A Chaotic Good person is someone who has little intrinsic respect for laws or authority, seeing them as insufficient to sustain what’s right. These people work according to their own moral compass which, while good, is not necessarily always aligned with that of society. Despite their chaotic tendancies, these people are good at heart.


What is your Alignment?
created with QuizFarm.com

With laser beam eyes

Sunday, January 16th, 2005

Ok, this was too funny not to post a link to!!

(Warning: it is a 1.5mb graphic file.)

http://images8.fotki.com/v145/photos/2/23376/93737/mordor-vi.gif

Round 2

Saturday, January 15th, 2005

So, we made it back to the Bladium again, and this time Brian M joined. Kristen and I both scaled more walls. It’s easier once you get over the whole fear of falling thing, and it didn’t hurt that our bodies got a workout from the previous week. I had my camera again, and I was able to get a few shots from up top. When we arrived, we almost though we wouldn’t be able to climb because it seemed the entire gym was flooded with teenage girls. It turns out there was a volleyball tournament in progress.