Blog Archive of the first half of 2005

This is my blog from January to June 2005. New blog can be found here!

June 2005

06/27/05 -- My first day of work in 2 and 1/2 years! I could not fall asleep last night at all, so I was up all night and then went into my first day of work. It was very tough, but I pulled it off. It went well, we did some training till noon, then got to listen to live phone calls the rest of the day. I thought I would hate being on the phones again, but after listening to calls, I think I'll fit in just fine. Come to find out that I already know 3 people that work there, 2 guys I've worked with before at other places and a girl I went to school with too. The bad news is that everyone is doing their shift bidding and I found out that all the 12-8 shifts are already gone, so the earliest I could get would be 4pm-1am. And if that shift is taken, then I'd be working the 3rd shift. The 3rd shift would suck time-wise, but I found out you get 10% shift differential pay increase for all hours worked after midnight, and they need people to work a bit of overtime lately, and that's an additional time and a half pay on top of the 10% increase. So overtime hours for me that are after midnight would be $20/hour! Sweet!!!
    So 5pm finally came and I somehow was able to drive home. I got stuff ready for tomorrow and slept from 6pm till 6am! It's Tuesday morning now, and I'm just now typing this out. I'm all charged up ready to take on my 2nd day. I guess we had a pretty bad storm last night, I don't know cuz I slept through it. But I woke up today to find out my main PC got rebooted from power loss, but my server is still on, whew! After some poking around I also found out that I was assigned a new IP address by Mediacom, so I need to fix some things here to get everything back up and running again.

06/26/05 -- A busy day. Spent a few hours finishing up Steve's business website, and finally made it live. Check it out at www.stephensframeshop.com
    Tomorrow is my big day! Hopefully there'll be no snags and I still have the job secured. I think if they didn't want me to come in they would of called me by now, but you never know. So I'll find out tomorrow if I still have the job or not. I have to be there at 8am to 5pm for the next 2 to 3 weeks for training. It's going to take me awhile to get used to those early hours. I wanted to get up early today so I could get up early tomorrow morning, but I ended up sleeping in till 1pm! D'oh! Well it's past 11pm now, so I'm off to try to get some sleep, wish me luck tomorrow!

06/25/05 -- A bit hung-over today. Finally got home and finished up Steve's business postcards and a bit on his website. I'm planning on getting his website completely done tomorrow, so that will take a few hours.
    I was at home burning CDs and then at 10:30pm Dan called asking if I wanted to go out with him. I almost said no, but Dan and I barely get to go out together so I decided to go. We went to the Twisted Parrot for a few hours and playing 3 games of darts, Dan won 2 out of 3. I think I play better when I have a few in me! Then it was a quarter to 1am, so we decided to drive up to Grimes to check out the bars there. His new house is being built on the outskirts of Grimes, and we wanted to know what kind of bars and how many bars are in Grimes, so we went. He knew of a place called Rookies, that was at the entrance of Grimes. We drove in there and they were closed and it was only 1am! Then I told him about another bar I saw in town, so we drove up looking for it. We didn't find it at first, but we stopped by his new house to check it out and take a leak. I pissed out his kitchen window, while he pissed out the back porch. Probably the ONLY time I'll get to piss out the kitchen window! LOL. We came back into town and I found the other bar called "The Corn Patch". It was closed as well. We then stopped at Kum 'N Go and got some munchies and asked the guy what bars are in town, but he only know of Rookies. We finally got home and Sarah's Dad told us about another bar or two that is in old downtown Grimes, off the street we were on. Maybe there still is hope for Grimes. I told Dan how much it would suck if the bars in Grimes closed early, because it's a bit of a drive to the nearest bars in Des Moines! But maybe we'll find some place decent to drink at around there. He said they will be moving in the first week of September, so it's going to be exciting!
    Tomorrow I need to finish Steve's new website and get laundry done and get ready for work on Monday. I have to be there at 8am, and that is going to be a challenge!
    Oh, and I just happened to look at my old blogs, and my first entry was June 21st, 2004, so I have been blogging for one year now, yippee!

06/24/05 -- Another super-hot day out. Went to Steve's shop and helped out for a bit. Took some inside pictures and pictures of framed pictures to put up on his website. Need to get that up and running this weekend.
    Tonight was Poker night at Eric's. We had 9 people playing, and it was a good time. I got drunk too early and was drinking like I was dying of thirst. I ended up finishing my 12-pack of Coronas early too. Stupid me got drunk too quick and had trouble paying attention and lost. I did take my camera with me and got a few pictures. The lighting wasn't too good, so they are kind of dark, but here they are for your viewing enjoyment.

06/23/05 -- Today I made up some postcards for Steve for the Grand Opening of his new shop. After typing out the name and addresses of 150 customers, finding the right postcard paper and using mail merge in Word, I finally got them all printed out, and they look great too. This weekend I will have to put the finishing touches on his new website and get that up and fully running.
    Tomorrow night is Poker night at Eric's finally. It's been about a month since we've played. Can't wait to see everyone again and play some Poker.
    If I haven't mentioned, Eric is planning on buying a house soon and he's looking for some roomies to help pay the bills. I told him I'm very interested so I can get out of here and out somewhere to have some fun. He's been looking at a few houses, and he found one that I hope to God he can get. It's in Lakewood, which is just north of Norwalk, a really nice little town, kinda like the nice neighborhoods in West Des Moines. It's very close to the new interstate and just a jump over to I-235 and a 15 minute trip to work. It's also 2 blocks away from the lake too. It's a no-wake lake though, but looks like it would still be fun. The house is a 4-bedroom house, 1 1/2 baths, 2-car garage, and a HUGE deck in the back that would be great for parties. Oh, and I just found out today that is also has a wet bar in the family room! Oh man, I hope he can get this house!
    And if everything goes well with Mediacom, the drug screening, background check and credit check, I'll still be starting working there Monday morning at 8am. Bah! The trainer told me that training is usually 4pm-1am, but since he's so busy with other stuff, it's gotta be 8-5. This is gonna suck hard, because I am not a morning person, and I'll be struggling to get there in time in the morning. Not to mention the traffic will be horrible too. And after 2-3 weeks of training, then I start working on the 2nd shift, which could be 12pm-8pm or 4pm-1am. That's gonna be tough in the switch, and I'm really hoping I get the 12-8 shift, 1am is too late to be leaving work. Oh, and when I was there yesterday, someone from the Tech Support team asked the supervisor I was talking to about a problem. The problem was obviously a DNS issue, but the tech support guy didn't really know what DNS was! WTF??? I told a friend about this and he said that hopefully I'll get to move out of that position right away and be advanced to the next position. I hope its not THAT bad in Tech Support though! Geesh!

06/22/05 -- Got to Mediacom today and the guy I was supposed to see was in an interview the whole time! So someone else had to help, and that someone else didn't have the keys to the filing cabinet either! But he was able to look up most of the paperwork on the PC and print them out. He only found half the paperwork though, but said I could fill the rest of it out on Monday. Then he sent me to the otherside of town to take that piss test. My first one, and it was interesting to say the least!

06/21/05 -- Today I had to go into Mediacom to fill out some paperwork before I can start working. I get there at 11am on time, and looking all nice, pressed shirt and pants. The papers I had to fill out were in a locked file cabinet, and they then realized that the person who had the keys was gone for the day. So I have to go through all of that again tomorrow. Argh. It looks like I will start working this coming Monday, and he told me that training lasts 2 to 3 weeks. I know there's two positions that had to be filled, and I got one of them. So I wonder if there will just be two of us in the training class.
    Something funny happened today too. I got an email from my friend Mike about a job opening. He got this email from someone, and that someone got it from someone who works for DMACC. They occasionally send out emails of job opportunities to a select few, and those send them on to friends and so on. The job opening it was for was Tech Support at Mediacom! The exact job I just got! I thought that was pretty funny, someone telling me about a job that I just got!
    So tomorrow I'll get that paperwork done at Mediacom. Then I'm going to Eric's when he gets off work to help clean his place for Poker this Friday night, he's buying me beer for helping. Other than that, I've been relaxing away my few last days of vacation left. Been playing Grand Theft Auto-San Andreas for about a week and a half now and I just finished the game today, but I'm now working on getting 100%. Been also watching season 1 of "The Shield", wow that's such an awesome show too. Anyways, it's late, I'm off.

06/20/05 -- Today I had that 2nd interview at 11:30 this morning. It went just as well as the first interview did. It was basically a short interview with another guy, and it only lasted about 10 minutes. He did tell me that they had 2 positions to fill and 3 more people to interview for the job, but he also told me that I have a very good chance of getting it. So I left and was told that if I don't hear from him by next Monday to call him and find out what is going on. So no good news yet, and I figured it would be a long week waiting to find out if I get the job or not...
    Boy, has my luck really changed...I got a call from a lady at Mediacom early this afternoon. She asked if I was still interested in the job. Of course I said yes, then she said for me to come in tomorrow to fill out some paperwork. I got the job. PWNED!!!!1 Ah yes, I finally pwned something today!
    So ya, I got the job if you are wondering. I had a good feeling, but I'm glad it went through. It's funny how I look back at what has happened in the past month. I laugh at that one job now, the one that I didn't get chosen for and got kinda pissy that I didn't. Well now I got a better job, and a job that pays about TWICE as much!
    So from here I got to go sign tax papers and all that crap tomorrow. They said something about a drug test so I need to find out when I have to take that. I think I will start working next Monday. My 2 1/2 year employed spell is finally over. It was fun while it lasted!

06/19/05 -- What a nice weekend. Left Friday at 7pm and went to Bloomfield to stay with some friends. That night we could not sleep because dogs were barking outside all night long. I was up all night and Dad only got a few hours of sleep. We went fishing at 5am the next morning out at grandma's old farm. It was kinda foggy out and the grass was still very wet from morning dew. We had to walk about 300 feet to the ponds in grass that was as tall as my chest. By the time we got to the water, our pants were completely soaked including our socks & shoes. We didn't have any live bait and it was still too early for anything close to open yet. We tried digging around with a crowbar from the trunk of the car, but just found baby worms. We stayed for a few hours, but it was a nightmare. Finally we came home and got some sleep. Later on that evening, we went fishing at a small pond behind the local hospital. Dad caught a good sized bullhead and also a big bass, but thru the bass back for some reason. I caught a lot of fishes, but they were all small ones or bluegills. Got home and cleaned that bullhead up and went to sleep. This morning went back out to grandma's old farm around 7am and this time we had waiters on, but by then most of the grass was dry. We fished for a few hours, but we were basically feeding them and didn't get anything on our lines. The we went to a "secret" pond my Dad knew about, way back behind a field and in a forest. It was very small and tough to get to. Dad caught a big bass on the bottom and we kept it, but I couldn't catch shit, they just weren't biting. The water there was kinda clear and I could see the giant ones up close to the shore, and I'd drop my bait right in front of them only to see them look at it and wander off. Kinda depressing. Finally we left and swung by my grandparents house for lunch and cleaned up that bass Dad caught. Then finally the 2 1/2 hour drive home. I got home at 6pm. Got cleaned up and a shirt ironed for tomorrow morning's 2nd interview with Mediacom. Also looks like Eric is having Poker this Friday night and he'd say he'd buy me beer if I came over and helped clean beforehand. I said I would cuz I need beer and I'm about broke! Wish me luck for tomorrow's interview, if this one goes as well as the first one does, I'll get the job...after a drug test of course, but I'll pass it just fine!

06/17/05 -- This evening my dad and I are leaving to go stay at some friends in Bloomfield, Iowa. Then Saturday morning, we are going out to my grandma's old farm to go fishing all day. There are two small ponds out in the field that we will go fishing at. I guess there's so many fish in those ponds right now, that you can basically see them jumping out of the water! It's going to be fun, I haven't been fishing for years! We were supposed to go the past two weekends ago, but it's been raining those weekends, but this weekend is finally nice out. I'm hoping to bring back some catfish to cook up as well. I'll be back Sunday afternoon.

06/16/05 -- Well Mediacom was supposed to call by noon today but didn't. So I got tired of waiting and called them. I got my 2nd interview setup for Monday morning! If this goes as well as the first one did, I'll get the job for sure. Not sure what the 2nd interview consists of, but I'm guessing they will ask technical questions, no sweat.

06/14/05 -- Ah, just got back from my Mediacom interview. It went really well. Now I have to wait a day or two for a phone call to schedule my 2nd interview, and after that I do a drug test. Seems like a cool place to work. Small office area, and mostly other computer geek guys there so I'm sure I'll get along just fine. The position does have great medical benefits and also discounted Mediacom services. I'd get FREE digital cable, 1/2 price pay-per-view movies, and 1/2 price cable Internet. This first interview went great, so I'm sure I'll get called in for a 2nd interview. Only problem I see is if Best Buy calls this Thursday or Friday and wants me to work for them. I hope this Mediacom job comes through before then though.

06/10/05 -- What a great start to my day today! I got up early to help Dan rewire some of his house. While I was still 'waking up', I got a call from Mediacom asking to do a quick phone interview about a job I applied for 2 weeks ago today. It went very well and she told me about the job. It's Help Desk/Tech Support and for 2nd shift. Told me the starting pay is $12/hour and asked if that would be ok with me. $12/hour is more than I've ever made before, and I said, "Ya, I guess that would be ok", then I almost busted out laughing! I couldn't believe the starting pay! She set me up with an interview on Tuesday. Actually there will be two interviews, one then another. I'm hoping I get this job, it's full time, pays great, and I wouldn't have to wake up at the butt-crack of dawn and try to make it to work on time everyday! Yes!
    I got to Dan's before noon and started working. He had to put grounding wires to outlets in the basement that didn't have them before he could "sell" the house. It's already sold, but he has lots of things to do to it before the new buyer will move in. I got to do a lot of the wiring, and it went pretty smooth. After everything was sealed up, some lights didn't come back on, but after careful looking, one wire slipped upwards from the rest, and it was an easy fix. After that every light worked right. Then I did a lot of little fixer-upper jobs around the house, and later that evening we started moving more stuff to storage. Dan talked me into stopping at our bar for a quick drink. I didn't want to because I've been working all day and had a bit of a stink to me, but he talked me into it. That place was packed too! But we grabbed a table and had a pitcher. We also ran into an old friend Sean, who neither of us had seen forever. Had fun catching up with him and then we left and made a few more moving trips. I just got home and it's 3am now, argh. I told him I'm sleeping in tomorrow before we figure out if I need to help again tomorrow or not.

06/09/05 -- Just got back from the interview. It went fine. He told me they are looking for 2-3 part-time positions to fill and he had a pool of about 5-6 applicants to choose from. He said when full-time positions open up, the part-time people get them, so I can get a full-time position out of this. It pays well and they give you the Geek Squad outfits to wear, black pants, white shirt, and black tie. He told me about what kind of work they do and it all seems very easy. I should find out Thursday or Friday next week to see if I'm picked then there's like a 2nd interview with the General Manager, but he said it's more of a meet-n-greet. After that, I get hired on, get my Geek Squad clothes and start working. In the meantime, I'll continue to apply for other jobs just in case this one falls through. Wish me luck!

06/07/05 -- Well I finally got a hit on a job today. A lady from Best Buy called to set up an interview with me. Got one for Thursday but forgot to ask what position it was for, kinda unclear on the website I filled out. But she called back 5 mins later and told me that the position is actually part-time at the moment. I asked for what job and she said for Computer Technician. If she said Salesperson, I would of said hell no and hung up. But even part-time's not bad right now, compared to nothing! Who knows, it may turn into full-time, and if it's bad I'll find somewhere else to work. This Best Buy job isn't on the top of my list, but it's the only one that's biting and I haven't heard shit from any other places in 3 weeks, so I'm gonna go for it for now.
    Still looks like it MIGHT rain this weekend, but might be too early to tell. So fishing might be put off for another week. If not, there MIGHT be Poker going on this weekend, and also Dan needs some help adding ground wires to some of his electrical outlets in his house before he can sell it. Either way, I'll be busy.

06/06/05 -- Another very hot day out today. Spent all day inside where it was cool. Applied for a few more jobs as well. I've been downloading TV episodes from some TV shows and watching them. I'm still waiting to finish getting The Sopranos, The Shield, and Invader Zim. I heard Invader Zim was a cool cartoon, and surprisingly it is! Here's a funny screenshot from the show.

06/05/05 -- Woke up early today and got back to Dan's to help him finish moving some more stuff today. A LOT of heavy moving today. It was hot out, but no where near what it was yesterday, which was very humid weather. Another reason I hate Iowa, and can't wait to live in Colorado. I also took my PDA over to his new apartment to find out if he is in a hotspot. As soon as I plugged in my wireless card it lit right up! And with 100% strength too! The router musta been right above his place. Come to find out it was an ActionTek router, bah, and I looked up the default password and default IP address. Connected to it and didn't even need the password! This router's config had a feature that even showed every website it's connected to for the day! It was a Qwest DSL router and we were able to connect at 22Mbps, not too bad, twice as fast as wireless-B. Dan's only in that apartment for about 3 months before his house is built, so he now has free Internet till then. He also gave me a bunch of "almost" empty bottles of liquor tonight too. Bottles from his "bar" that he didn't want to move. But he did throw in some almost full ones. I'm working on the bottle of Baileys tonight. Mmmm!!! Fun link for the day! "Same-face-on-every-picture girl". May not be safe for work, sound optional.

06/04/05 -- What a horrible beginning of a day for me! I sometimes have insomnia, and last night I couldn't sleep for the life of me. So I was up all night. Early that morning, I went to Steve's stop to help him out updating inventory for a few hours. After that, I went over to Dan's house and help him move stuff from his old house to his new apartment, and other stuff to storage, all day long. It was so hot out too, I think I lost 20 lbs in sweat! Ack! Finally got home later on, showered and crashed finally. I slept 12 hours straight and didn't wake up during the night at all! I was so nice. Fun link for the day! Lynx Effect Lips. Safe for work, but have sound on!

06/03/05 -- Tomorrow will be a busy day for me. In the morning, I'll be at Steve's new shop helping out for a few hours then after that I'll be helping Dan move stuff to storage and to a new apartment they are getting before they can move into their new house. I know I will be tired as hell after tomorrow. Gotta get up early and work hard most of the day. ACK.
    I'm STILL looking for a job, and it's beginning to piss me off. Here's my plan: I want to get a computer related job and work full time for the summer and during that last class I have to take in the fall too, if work will allow me to be full time around the class schedule. Then in the first half of next year, move out to Colorado and get a good job out there. I need a computer related job so it will count as "experience". Almost all computer jobs out there require experience, so it's tricky finding one that you can get without much experience. Iowa really sucks for computer related jobs. There's probably only 2 to 3 jobs that open up every week that I'm eligible for, and that's after scouring the SIX job sites I monitor everyday for new jobs. What I wanted to do this summer is get a job and start raking in cash to save up but most importantly get money to get caught up on my certification tests. Each test is at least $125 and I have quite a few to take. Jobs these days require certification but more importantly job experience. With experience you can get many jobs, but the certifications can really get you in the door. It's called the vicious cycle, and I currently have TWO vicious cycles working against me. The first one is that I need money to get my certifications, but I can't get money without a job. The second is that in order to get a job you need experience, but you can't get experience without a job. And here's another thing I read that I don't understand; I've read that employers are suspicious of people that don't have a job, and they would rather hire someone who currently has a job. That's retarded. Secondly, if you have a job and are looking for a new job, you have to get time off work to apply for the job including time for an interview. Now think about this. Go ask your boss for some time off so you can go apply for another job. It's not going to happen, and you may get fired from your job too! So what do you do? You lie to your current employer saying that you have a doctor's appointment or something so you can go apply/interview for the other job. So by employer's saying they'd rather hire someone who currently has a job opposed to someone who is unemployed tells me this...Employers would rather have a deceitful employee than an unemployed one. Oh, and I am also in a tough situation right now. I won't have my degree till December of this year, so finding something I can get experience with is even more difficult. Anyways, I guess I'll keep looking, so wish me luck!...I really need it.

06/02/05 -- Today I think I finally found the problem on Steve's computer. At first it would shut off when it started up. I thought it was getting too hot inside, so I replaced the CPU fan with a better one and even made a hole on the side case and installed an extra internal fan for him. The inside temperature dropped, but it was still shutting off unexpectedly. I went out to his new shop to take a look, and I happened to bring along my extra PC for parts. I thought it might be the power supply, so I went to CompUSA for a power supply tester, and to DIT for a power supply. It wasn't till after I opened the case I realized it had a 400W power supply and I just purchased a 350W. Argh. So I used my new power supply tester on it, and guess what? It said it was working fine. Hmmm... I looked at my PC that I brought along and I happened to have a video card in it. I took it out and swapped it with Steve's video card and put it through some heavy testing, and the PC didn't turn off. I guess it was the video card all alone. It was getting too hot or something. The small fan on it was all gunked up with dust, and I cleaned it out pretty good, but decided to use the extra video card I brought along for his computer anyways. But now I finally got a power supply tester, I've been wanting to get one for awhile, they are really handy!
    Well, I was hoping I would get to go fishing this weekend with my dad at my grandma's old farm, but we decided to go next weekend because it is supposed to rain most of Saturday. I guess the 2 small ponds are full of bluegill and catfish, and I want to bring back some catfish for eating. He told me there are SO many fish in the ponds now that you can see them jumping all around when you cast your line in the pond. It's going to be a lot of fun, but I'll have to wait till next weekend for fishing.

May 2005

05/29/05 -- I get woken up at 10:30 by Eric talking on the phone to Vonage to fix the problem. Only 6 hours of sleep! Seems like enough, but I have been getting 10 lately, and my body was hating me after 6 hours of sleep. Anyways, he finally got it working, and we had a lot of fun with the Tivo and the cool features it could do. He had to go to some stores, so I went along. Ultimate Electronics was closing its store, so we popped in there. Not much of anything left. Just a lot us people looking around like vultures at the table scraps that were left. We got some lunch and went to Best Buy and then CompUSA. CompUSA was having one hell of a Memorial Day sale. I knew I would get something while I was there. While we were there, we looked at the sales ad and I saw the perfect sale! Three 30-pack Memorex 52x CD-R's for $10. It was actually like $20, but had "instant" rebates. One per household though. So after looking around at everything they had, I got 3 packs and gave Eric 3 packs and got in separate lines. I got 180 CD-R's for $20! Awesome deal. I usually buy them through Newegg for $23 for 100 of them.
    Finally got home later that night and my friend Lisa was wanting to get out and do something badly. So after talking some friends into it, kinda late notice, we got a few of us at the bar and had a lot of fun. We played a shit load of games too. Foosball, Darts, and a few games of Pool. Bar was closed and everyone else left but 3 of us, so we went to Perkins to get some breakfast and sober up. It was sooo good too. Funny seeing all the other drunks out there as well. Got home after 4am and passed out. What a fun day.

05/28/05 -- Went to hang out at Eric's tonight. He just got a Tivo for his DirecTV and we were setting it up. It said you need a land line to first set it up, but his land line is thru Vonage and it said there was problems setting it up through that. We scoured the Internet looking for answers, but none of them worked. Finally we took everything to my house at 11pm to hook it up to a land line and get the installation setup. When we returned, it still needed to connect to get some info or something. He called Vonage at 2am and the manager said that there wasn't many techs on staff at that time, but we should wait 2 hours for a returned phone call. So we watched The Life Aquatic and tried to stay awake. It was finally 4:30am and no phone call and those damn birds were already singing outside. He went to bed, I slept on his couch in my clothes, ack.

05/27/05 -- Not much has been going on at all this week. Mostly hanging around. Still applying for jobs waiting for some bites to come back. Found some good ones today, nailed four of them. There was one that I'm absolutely perfect for, but it was for a Help Desk job. If I don't get that one, I don't know what I'll do, keep looking I guess. I'm looking for a computer related job, something to get experience with. Just really need something till the end of the year, because when I finish up that last class for Fall semester, my sights will be pointed at moving to Colorado and finding a kick ass job out there. I guess it's Memorial Day weekend, but don't mean much to me since I don't have a job yet that I can get that 3-day weekend with. But I'll get something soon, I have to. Anyways, wish me luck!

05/22/05 -- What an exhausting day. Today I helped my stepdad move his shop from the southside of Des Moines out to his new location in Windsor Heights. His son and his friend also helped us move things as well. We used a big truck, a small truck, and an El Camino. We took about 3 or 4 trips back and forth cross town all day moving heavy equipment and very heavy tables. We finally got done that evening, had pizza and I just crashed. Slept 12 hours and my back is killing me! I get to move more stuff today, but it shouldn't be as bad as yesterday.
    Oh, I thought this was interesting. A few weeks ago, my mom and my stepdad drove down to Alabama to see his daughter and her family, and they made some stops on the way. One of the major things they saw on their trip was a stop at Graceland. They took a TON of pictures, and I thought I've seen all of them till yesterday there was a picture I haven't seen. Is it Elvis' ghost? I've seen lots of "ghost pictures" on the Internet before, and a lot of them do have a white smeared image that goes across the picture. They told me when this was taken they saw nothing in front of them, but it showed up in the picture. Take a look yourself.

05/20/05 -- Wow, long time since I've updated this. Not too much happened this week at all. Been up too late and sleeping in too late too. Just tonight, I went with Eric to Algona to pick up those card pictures that his aunt framed for him. It was a 2 1/2 hr drive up there and another 2 1/2 hours back. It was kinda fun though. She did a really good job on the frame work. We put a ton of cardboard on and around the pictures to they wouldn't get hurt on the way back, they were in the back of his truck. The pictures were about 5 feet tall and about 4 feet wide. We got them up to his apartment ok too.
    While I was over there earlier, I tried to remote desktop into this PC to get a phone number of someone, but it couldn't connect. So I did a remote desktop to my server, then tried connecting to my main PC from there. It had some problems, then neither would connect. I let it be at that, but when I came home, I found a blue screen on my server. Shit. I was almost ready to break my old uptime record too! My previous record of non-stop uptime was 59 days, and it was at 46 days. Now it is reset to zero. Shit. I think the reason why it did it is because when I RD'd into it, it started a new instance and started up my startup programs. Protowall was one of them. I guess it don't like to have one instance of Protowall running at one time, that's what the blue screen told me. Note to self, don't do that again. So it will now be ANOTHER two months before I can try to beat my record again. Shit.
    We are planning a big Poker game at Eric's tomorrow night. It is the first one since he's got his Poker table, and his leather seats and his Budweiser signs. It's gonna look all nice when he has all them hung up. I'm hoping my luck will change though, so maybe I'll get at least 2nd place again in Poker.

05/14/05 -- Well Dan took me out drinking last night, had a fun time. Got home at 3:30am though. Surprisingly, no hangover today. Spent a few hours finishing up my "professional" website with info about me including my resume. You can check it out here www.brian-watson.com
    My dad was having problems with his PC so he brought it over. After I installed Windows 2000 Professional on it awhile back, and reinstalling AOL for him, they only gave him 2 phone numbers, but he had 4 before. He called AOL and they told him that's all they had was those 2 numbers. Since he didn't have them written down, there was no way to get those other 2 phone numbers on the list. The 2 that AOL gave him were ALWAYS busy and he could never connect. AOL basically said tough shit. I told him to find a new ISP because AOL sucks and paying $25/month for 'tough shit' and you can't connect isn't worth it. So I told him to check out www.peoplepc.com or www.netzero.com  Netzero has tech support for like $5/minute, so he went with PeoplePC. He had problems installing it so he brought it over today for me to fix. I spend 4 hours working on his PC today. The installation would try to connect to their servers to download additional software, but the phone number was bad. I had to call their tech support twice, and finally got the hidden web address where I can download the full package without having to connect to download the additional components. Then I got him connected, but had a DNS issue. Internet access worked, but no name resolution would work. I tried everything, and called PeoplePC for a third time. I laid the computer lingo on the guy pretty thick, and he put me on hold for 5 minutes to read a book on it or something. He suggested reinstalling IE and reinstalling the modem. I did both of those but it still did not work. I knew the problem was something simple that would be the last thing I would think of, but I couldn't figure out what it was. I asked some friends and they couldn't explain it either, why full Internet access would work but DNS. Finally I remembered how when I installed Windows, I went through and disabled some services I knew he wouldn't need. One of those services was the DHCP client. After enabling it, and basically forcing it to start up and get running, DNS finally worked! It was odd because the IP addresses for everything were the same before and after the fix, but now DNS worked. What a pain that was.
    With all that out of the way, I am now working on redoing my stepdad's website, new look, new domain name. That shouldn't take more than a week. With my new brian-watson.com site, which only took me 3 days to make , when I email out resumes next week for new job openings, I'll note in the email that more information can be found there. There's a lot more info on that site then I can put in a one page resume, so I hope it does the trick and scores me a job!

05/12/05 -- I had a revelation today. A guy from a company that I applied for called me today about this Network Administrator job I applied for. Sounds like the job has to do with a lot of web servers and websites. He asked me if I could email him links to some of the sites I have done. I sent him links to the site I made for my stepdad's business and a link to this site. This site is my best work so far, but it's not exactly "professional". Then I decided it would be great if I had another domain name under my name, and just had personal work history information on it. Something with my resume, work history, certifications, etc. So I began working on it, and it's turning out quite nicely! It is exactly the way I wanted it, clean, simple and professional looking. I put a lot of hours of work into it today, but I'm hoping it will be 100% done by Sunday, so then I can show it off when I apply for new jobs next week. I already got the domain name and half the content uploaded. I was surprised on how fast it was up! Within 10 minutes of registering the new domain name, I had name resolution to it in no time. After that headache I had from adding on my stepdad's new domain name to this hosting company, this time I was able to copy those settings to this new domain name and it took no time at all. When it's done I'll let you guys look at it!

05/11/05 -- Fuck TicketMaster. I don't know where to begin. He said he would call yesterday, never did. I called him as soon as I got up this morning, and he told me that the position was already filled. What pisses me off is that if he would of done his job correctly, and called me back when he said he was going to, I would of gotten an interview and had a good chance of getting the job. But because he never called when he said he would and completely ignoring my phone calls, I had NO chance of getting that job without first getting an interview. Thanks asshole. He also said the reason he didn't call yesterday is because he found out from the first guy that the position was filled, and the first guy is supposed to call with the bad news. Just corporate run-around if you ask me. And he told me that same bullshit all employers say, "we'll keep your resume on file and if anything comes up, we'll give you a call". Bullshit! Just tell me the truth, my resume and all others are thrown away. Ask yourself this, how many times have you ever, and I mean EVER, had a company call you saying that a position opened up and they had your resume on file, and wanted you to come in for an interview??? Never! Grr...well, there goes a good week and a half completely WASTED! So on to bigger and better things I guess. Found a few more jobs to apply for and I did so. Not much IT selection this week. I wish I was done with school and I could get out of this state. Funny how the governor wonders why young people don't want to stick around here after college...ha!
   The only good news today is that the grades are in, and I did pretty well last semester. Got all A's and one B, that B was in Cisco. I was surprised about that because I thought I could of gotten a C in Cisco. I'll be on the Dean's List again.

05/10/05 -- Guess who DIDN'T call today? Grrr...I'm gonna call him tomorrow and find out what the deal is. It's only been over a week since he's called, but hasn't called back yet! Spent a lot of time outside today, mowing and taking down an old fence. I've gotten a ton of sun since this weekend, and I'm hoping for it to tan out. Other than that, being out of school is boring! Hopefully I'll be working soon. Argh.

05/09/05 -- Finally got my haircut today! Check out my before and after pics here. I finally got ahold of that TicketMaster guy, and he was out of his office, but said he would call tomorrow. So I'm hoping I'll get that interview scheduled pretty soon this week. I'll keep this updated to see how that job goes. Not much else went on today. Here's today's fun link, http://www.punchbaby.com/great.htm (not safe for work!)

05/08/05 -- What a tough weekend. Went to bed early Friday night so I was at Dan's bright and early Saturday morning to help out re-roof his garage and house. There were a small crew of us over there working and we were doing a good pace. We ran out of shingles, and was waiting for Menards to deliver them. They said we would have them at 2pm at the latest. Two o'clock came and went, and after numerous phone calls, they finally showed up at 5pm! Now with all the materials, we worked as fast as we could to get as much as we could done. At the end of the day, the garage was finished, and half of one side of the house was done too. After supper, I went home, cleaned up, and returned for free beer and poker. I hung in till the very end, and got 2nd place! I got home at 1:30am, and crashed as soon as I hit the bed. I told Dan I was going to be there at 10am on Sunday, but I was so tired and weak, I decided to sleep in a bit. I finally got around and got there at 12:45pm. By then they had one full side of the house done. It was a bad day to work on the house today, the heat and humidity was bad, then the strong winds blew a lot of our stuff off the roof, then it rained hard for about 10 minutes. But after all that bad weather, it got to be perfect, and we finally got the entire roof done. I got a bit of a sunburn from it, but hopefully it will tan out for me. I'm tired and weak as hell, and all my muscles are screaming at me. But it was kinda fun, and I didn't mind helping out a friend. Steve and Mom got back from their week long trip today, and all this week he will be moving his materials out to his new location in Windsor Heights. I'll be busy helping him move if I don't have a job by then! I'm still waiting to hear from the TicketMaster guy, I've left him a few messages, but he still hasn't called back yet. He wants to set up and interview time, but hasn't called back yet. Hopefully he'll call tomorrow, if not I'll be back on the phone trying to reach him.

05/06/05 -- Well, that last final came and quickly went. It was one of those computer simulated ones that he sometimes has us take. They are HORRIBLE. The test is thru a third-party so it never follows along with the book. Oh, not to mention, right before the test, he told us it was over the ENTIRE book, not the 5 chapters we had for that class! The actual test was horrible too. It comprised of 4 case studies each with about 10-12 questions on each one. You had to first read through a 2 page story about the scenario then answer questions to it. The navigation in the test was retarded too. Took forever to figure it out, which it shouldn't have. We've had these kind of tests in the past, and he curves the hell out of the scores because they suck so bad. I remember once getting like 40%, but because of the drastic curve, it was an A. This time around I did not want to take this test and it was so bad, that I finally started clicking buttons to race thru it as quickly as possible. Ended up with a 33%. Seems bad, but after curve, it should be an A or a B. I don't think anyone scored over 50% on it. When that was over, that was it! Now I have the entire summer off till that one class I must take in the fall.
    Since then, I've been bored out of my skull. Sitting around, doing nothing, and STILL waiting for that TicketMaster guy to call me back. I called yesterday and left him a message, but still haven't heard back. Only thing I can think of is that he's busy catching up from the 2 days of work he was out for. I got a good feeling about this job, so I'm not worried.
    But finally some action this weekend. My friend Dan is going to re-roof his house and garage this Saturday. I offered to help out, since I'm an "expert" after re-roofing 5 roofs last summer! The weather looks good, should be mostly sunny with a high around 80. It's supposed to rain tonight, and might continue till early morning, but I think we will be alright. After a long day of work, Dan plans on getting a pony keg for us and possibly having others over to play Poker again. It's been a long time since we've played, going on 2 weeks now.
    Only problem I can think of is getting a little burned out in the sun tomorrow, then getting my haircut before my interview and having a bad tanline! I'm hanging on to my shaggy hair as long as I can though. Here's a picture I took the other day. Right now, that is the before picture, the after picture will come soon!

05/03/05 -- I'm still alive. Got to school early today, studied for a bit, and took the SQL final. It wasn't too bad, and I found out I got 80% on it, woot. Had lunch, then we all took the dreaded Cisco final. Something about Cisco tests, I felt sick to my stomach before I took it, but it could of been that monkey meat sandwich I had for lunch too. I wanted to take my time in the Cisco test, there was only 39 questions and we had 2 hours to take it. I had it completely done by 30 minutes. I held my breath, crossed all the fingers I had, and clicked the Submit button to have it graded. I got 78%! I was happy about that, it was a tough test, and you just need 70% to pass it. Still don't know what my final grade in that class will be, teacher said we should know by Friday. I'm guessing a C or a B in there. In SQL, I'll be getting an A-, and the test I have tomorrow over Microsoft security I should do well in as well. I think I'm getting an A or high B in that class too. So if I get both A's in the Microsoft classes and a B or a C in Cisco, then I should make Dean's list, but I highly doubt I'll make President's list this semester. I'll be happy with Dean's list, because these classes were tough, they save all the tough classes up for the last semester!
    I took a 4-hour nap today, and I'm still sick, but feeling a bit better, so maybe it's going away. I never get sick, so maybe this one will pass soon. If it doesn't then I guess I'll go to the doctor to get some drugs. Tomorrow is my last final and this semester is done! No more school till Fall, then I have that one class I have to make up!

05/02/05 -- Somebody kill me now. I am sick as a dog! I first had sinus pressure, but now I have a sore throat, bad cough and runny nose. Oh, and I must have a bad fever because I have the shivers too. It has gotten worse over the past couple days for me, but today has to be the worst it's been, and I'm guessing it will get worse than this! If this wasn't enough to deal with, I have finals tomorrow!!! Two tomorrow and one on Wednesday! I have no idea how I'm gonna be able to drive up to Ankeny, concentrate enough to do well on my finals, and then drive home. I had to go to Wal-Mart today to get food and medicine. It was an absolute nightmare. Every line was packed, and I got stuck behind some lady with a FULL shopping cart, and I just had 7 things. The cashier couldn't have taken any longer either, I swear to God. I just wanted to go home. Oh, and I had a feeling someone would call me about the TicketMaster job, so I waited around all day till 4pm to go to Wal-Mart in case he called. Guess who called when he was gone? The TicketMaster guy. I called back and left a message for him, but didn't hear back from him today. His voicemail said that he will be out of the office till Thursday, so I should expect to hear from him then. Maybe it's a good thing, because I know they want me to come in for an interview soon, but I don't want to be sick as a dog in an interview! And I don't want to say that I want to come in, but have to postpone it because I'm sick, and then someone else gets the job! So the longer it takes for them to get me to come in, maybe then I won't be sick anymore. Anyways, wish me luck for tomorrow's finals, I'm gonna need it! 

April 2005

04/27/05 -- Said screw school today, and slept in. Just missed my one class for today, but I'm sure I didn't miss anything big. This afternoon this weird package came for my mom through UPS, and it was from the Schwan's Company. The Schwan's Company sells frozen foods door to door by their yellow refrigerated trucks. We don't order anything through that company, but this package was from them. Before we opened it up, we decided to look into it to make sure it was legit, because it's a weird feeling getting a big white Styrofoam package that weighs 18 lbs, and you don't remember ordering anything. So instead of calling in the Bomb Squad, I looked up the UPS number on their website to check that it came from where it says it came from, and it did. My stepdad called Schwan's to figure it out, but they had to redirect him to a local number and no one answered there. They did tell him that the package had cookie dough in it. That's when my mom realized it was something she ordered from a lady at work last Christmas, and this must be it. It was cold on the outside, and after opening it, there was the cookie dough, but also THREE bags full of Dry Ice! Sweet! I had some fun with that stuff. I put a small chunk in a bowl and put under the faucet and watched all the "smoke" come off of it. Told my friend Jeff about it and he suggested making a Dry Ice Bomb. I had a faint memory of what that was, so I looked it up...basically get a plastic pop bottle, put some chunks of dry ice in it along with some water, put the cap on tight and get very far away from it. A website also said that it's as loud as a shotgun blast when it blows up, ya right I thought, so I started breaking up pieces of the dry ice, put them in the bottle, and had the folks come out on the deck to watch. As soon as I put water into it from the garden hose, lots of "smoke" started pouring out of the pop bottle. It was a bit tricky to put the cap on because the "smoke" was pushing against it. But once I got it on, I tossed it into the middle of the backyard. It landed funny, and the pop cap was pointing straight where I was standing. I decided to go back up on the deck to watch from a safe distance. We waited about two minutes and you could hear the dry ice making a crunchy noise, and I swear the pop bottle looked like it was almost completely round like a ball, when BOOM!!!, it blew up. I think it was louder than a shotgun blast, so loud it even hurt my ears a bit. But God was that cool! I looked in the yard, and the pop bottle must of been shredded into about 100 pieces, and it made a small "crater" in the grass where it was! I better be careful though, I still have three bags of that stuff, and next week I have LOTS of free time because school will be out! 

04/26/05 -- What a day. I had two tests today. The first one was the last chapter test for SQL class, and I almost aced it. The second test was my hands-on final for Cisco. It was a pass or fail kind of test. Talk about stressful! I barely studied up on it, and I felt sick before I took it because I needed a good grade on it to pass the class and keep up my GPA. It was nerve racking, and at one time I suddenly forgot everything I learned, but I passed it! It was actually a lot easier than I thought. After we got everything set up OK, we left the room and the teacher would mess up 3 things with our stuff. When we all got back, each of us had to figure out the three things wrong on our configs, and fix them so it was up and running again. Luckily mine were very simple and I found them right away and had them corrected in no time. I'm glad that's over with. I just have one more test this week, and a database I have to make by Thursday, but it's easy stuff. Next week I have 2 days of Finals and the semester is over! In the meantime, I've been looking at the job postings they post at DMACC for tech jobs around the Des Moines area with other businesses. I did find some internships that I want to get, so I need to update my resume and I'll probably apply for all of them, at least one of them will hire me, right?

04/24/05 -- What another lazy ass weekend...I love it! Somehow I had no homework to do, so it gave me a chance to start working on a new revision for my stepdad's website. He is planning on moving shop, and I thought that the time between moving out of old place and into the new one would be a good chance to get started on the new design for his shop. I made it really easy on myself, I'm basically using the design of this site, but everything will be modified of course. He has also decided to change the name of his shop slightly, so we bought that new name's domain name and I've been doing what I can to get the new template done for the site. I'm also going to have his site hosted on this site's computer. But you will never know, because when you go to the new .com name, it will be located on this server.
    Other than that, this is the last week of regular class, and then finals next week. I have three tests this week, and besides that, there's not much else going on in class this week, I don't think, so maybe it won't be a tough one at all!
    Oh, and this picture has been circulating around the 'Net lately. This new Pope freaks me out, and there is an uncanny resemblance between him and the Emperor from Star Wars! I can't wait to see him kiss little kids and see the kids scream in terror! Oh, the comedy! See the pic here.

04/23/05 -- Life Sucks for DJDingo   I found out yesterday that I did NOT get that job! I can't believe it! None of my friends, nor the other guy who did get the job, can figure this out either! I think it was 1 of 3 reasons why I didn't get the job...1-The other guy has more "retail" experience that I do, 2-I am over-qualified for the job, and 3-I made the other guys look bad. How did I make the other guys look bad? Well, they had a computer that had problems with the floppy drive and they told me that they could NOT figure it out, and asked me to work on it. I thought if they can't figure it out, then I doubt I will. So I looked at it and got some weird error why it was trying to read the floppy disk. I replaced the floppy drive with a new one, and bam, it worked. It took me about 2 minutes to fix the problem. I kept asking them, was that a test or were you guys seriously stuck on that problem? They told me it was not part of the "test". It's weird. It kinda sounds like they are a bunch of boonies! But again, I'm not for certain on that. What was even weirder is when I called the boss to ask if he made his decision yet, he asked me the name of the other guy, and he said yeah, we hired him. He forgot the name of the other guy, but he's got the job?!? WTF??? Ah well, it wasn't the best kind of "experience" I need to get for my real job, and it barely paid over minimum wage too. So maybe it was a good thing I didn't get the job. And working with boonies is not my idea of fun either!
    I was pretty pissy I didn't get the job when I found out, so I thought my luck would change that night because all of us were playing Poker at Dan's house. Boy was I wrong. It just sucked, I won ONE hand, and I was the first one out, like 2 hours into it. I decided just to leave at that point. Not much fun sticking around for another 3 hours when you can't do anything but watch everyone else win!
    So I'm back at square one. I plan on going to the DMACC Job office after class on Monday to see if I can get one of those high paying internships that some companies offer. I've been told that's the kind of experience you really want. It means more to companies that you were an intern, who probably fetches coffee all day, than to work for some no name computer store where you work on computers all day. So go figure. I don't agree with it of course, but if that's what they want, then that's what I'm going to try to do!

04/20/05 -- Happy 420 Day Everybody! Well, didn't hear back from the boss at the computer store about the job, so I wonder what's going on. I just found out from my other friend who is applying for the job, that he called the boss and he's still thinking on who to hire. So it now could be another day or two before we find out. Lord, the suspense is killing me! I hope I get this, cuz there's not really any other computer stores around here that I'd like to work at really. To work on PCs at CompUSA, you need A+ certification, which I haven't gotten around to doing yet, and Best Buy is full of retards that don't know shit, and I'd rather not work around boonies. So anyways, that is what's been going on around my life today. Oh, I got another email from the other djdingo, this one had a virus attached like the first, but it didn't come through because of his ISP's email system. I decided to make a page on this, so check it out here, it's a funny read!

04/19/05 -- I'm done! I have the Cisco Case Study completely DONE! It feels so good too! I've been working on this class project for the past 3 wks or so, and it's finally completely done! I had to type up my "documentation" tonight, and after making it all pretty and such, it came to about 10 pages. I'm trying to help my other friends with it, but I certainly can't help everybody. Most of the guys in class decided to keep leaving class early while I stayed till the end of class each day to work on it. Well, it paid off, I have it done early, and there's a good chance I'll get an A or a B on it as well. For the other people who didn't get it done, well, I don't mean to sound like a dick, but you only have yourself to blame. I remember trying to get my other friends to stay and work on it with me, but they all insisted that they had better things to do and left class early, while putting it off to the last possible minute. This reminds me of a funny quote..."Procrastination and Masturbation are about the same thing...sure it feels good, but in the end is when you realized that you just fucked yourself!"

04/18/05 -- I went into that computer store today, and worked for a few hours so they can "try me out". It was simple shit. Found out another guy in my class also applied for the same job, and he went in there after I did so they can "try him out" too. Stiff competition! But I'm not worried, I think I'll get it and if not, then oh well, I'll just look some other place. I'll find out when I get home from class tomorrow if I scored the job or not.
    I have this week and then next week of regular class, then the third week I go in a couple times for finals and that's it for this semester. This semester is almost over! After it's over I have the entire summer off, but I still have one more class I have to make-up in the fall. It was a scheduling error on DMACC's part and I didn't know the class was available only in the fall, it told me only in spring. Spring came and that's when I found this out. I should be severly pissed about it, but since I don't plan on going to ISU anymore, it doesn't really bother me. I also plan on using this extra time in the summer to rack in money and get a lot of those certifications done! Need to catch up on Microsoft certifications, and finally get that A+ certification done and over with.

04/17/05 -- Didn't get to play Poker this weekend   I think everyone wanted to take a break, but I'm ready to win more money! Was kinda a lazy weekend for me though. Been busy all day today, mowed the lawn for the first time this year, yay, and cleaned up the yard also. Tomorrow is my judgement day! After class, I eat lunch and get to that computer store so they can "try me out", to make sure I'm good for the job. I know I'll get it, the stuff they told me I will be doing, I can do in my sleep! I'm really excited too! I think it's going to be a lot of fun, and for some reason I'm ready to get back to working! It's been over 2 years! geesh! I now have 2 full weeks of school left and then finals week. I'm pretty much caught up in everything, but I'll still have a lot of studying to do for finals, gotta get the highest score I can on the finals! Oh, here's a "sneak peek" picture of the Half-Life 2 Expansion Pack "Aftermath", looks pretty fun! Click here.

04/14/05 -- I'm so funny. I tried studying for a test last night, but I got tired of it. I studied for a long time, got about 1/2 way thru it and decided to take a break. Then I decided that was good enough because I was tired as hell. So I stayed up another hour and 1/2 playing video games! LOL. Took test, got highest score in the class! Who needs to study anyways?
    In Cisco class, we have been working on our Case Study for the past month. I finally got all the commands entered in my configs, the first in class to do so. I swear I have stayed till class was over for the past 3 or 4 weeks working on this. Just about everyone else decided to leave 2 hours early and kept putting it off. Now it looks like everyone is just now starting it, and I'm basically done! What it is, is a long project where you have to connect together about 5 routers, a switch, and a few PCs, and configure them they way they ask. It seemed impossible at first, but after you go over old stuff and try commands out, you get the hang of it and eventually chip away at it. Since I got all my commands done, some friends and I went to another classroom and tried to put the whole network together. Come to find out, DMACC is short on parts, so we didn't have the entire thing put together. Then after about an hour of shooting over my configs to every single network device, we hit a snag. After about 20 minutes of troubleshooting, we realize one of the ports on one of the routers is bad! I don't know how the teacher expects us to all config the network one by one to prove it works when it's due a week from today, there simply isn't time to do that! But this is how it's always came down in Cisco in the last few weeks, we would work on these damn Case Studies, but never really get them completed because of lack of time. Either way, I hope I can get an A on this because the only thing I've been graded on in the class is the chapter tests we take, and none of us can score decent on those. Cisco likes to teach you everything about apples, then test you on oranges. Anyways, I've ranted on long enough, time to crash.

04/13/05 -- What a busy day. After class today, I stopped by the computer store and had an interview with the boss. He wants me to come in on Monday after class to "see how I do". Piece of cake. I'm 99.9% sure I will get this job, no sweat.
    I'm also making note that I got my hair trimmed today. That way I can see how long it will be before I get it cut again. It was getting in my eyes 'n shit, and buggin' the hell outta me. It's still shaggy, but I don't look that much homeless now. 
    I've been playing the new expansion pack for Doom 3, it's called the Resurrection of Evil. I really got into it at first, it was a LOT of fun. It was a little bit better than the original Doom 3 game because you didn't have all those stupid emails to read thru on your PDA, and less locker combinations to worry about. But after awhile, it felt like you were playing Doom 3 all over again. A lot of the stages and graphics were almost identical to Doom 3, and it kinda felt like they ran out of ideas for this expansion, so they rehashed old ones. With that aside, I've been playing it everyday since the weekend, and I finally made it to the last level, Hell. I swear I played 2 hours straight trying to get thru these little levels in Hell. Very unoriginal game play! They have about 10 HUGE monsters spawn at once, you eventually kill them with an ounce of life left, and guess what, here's 10 more HUGE monsters to kill. It got old really quick. I finally said screw it, and ran as fast as I could to the end of the first level and made it to the second level. This one was the same deal, but the monsters were bigger and it was basically IMPOSSIBLE to finish it! I tried every trick in the book, and looked all around and didn't find the exit. So I decided to use God mode to kill everyone to see if that opens an exit, and it did. So I restarted my game without God mode but could not for the life of me kill these monsters! I had the game on Easy level, but it was still basically impossible! I got tired of it really quick, wanted to finish the damn thing, and put God mode one and went to next level. The next level was basically the same, TONS of HUGE monsters spawning from everywhere. I have no idea how people could pass it, especially since you play all these levels without any life power ups. Finally, got to the last guy. Even with God mode on still took me a long time to get him figured out before I finally destroyed him. Then came the kick in the teeth, the ending. I'll go ahead and save you 4 days of game play by telling you what happens, the screen turns completely white, you hear a female voice say, "Marine, you're back. You made it home.", and then the credits roll. That's it. Thank GAWD I didn't waste another 2 weeks trying to finish the last levels for that shitty ending. It's gotta be one of the worst endings I've ever seen. Thanks for the let down id software, pffffft!!! 

04/12/05 -- Well, the deputy came to my house today. Said he had to drop off some papers for me. Looks like an old credit card bill is catching up with me. The collection agency wants to take me to small claims court to try to get some money outta me. We'll have to see how this one turns out. It's still bad news, but I was preparing for really bad news, so this isn't so bad. hehe.
    Other than that, I've been coming up with creative ways to rake in some cash for this space of time between now and when I get to working. I sold off my lab book answers for one class to some guys, made $30 total, and that was just one class! I have a few more classes I might make some loot on as well. I also spent all last night and all day today rebuilding my Dad's PC, and made a small chunk of change on that as well. Not to mention I have about $200 in pop bottles I need to take back as well. I'll have to ask this guy in class if his work is hiring an extra guy to work on PCs or not. I'm kinda exciting to be working again, it's been...well let's see...over two years!!! But all good things must come to an end. Maybe I'll find out about this job tomorrow. Need to keep busy over the summer and till I'm done with school at the end of this year. Then if things work out like I hope, and I find a great job in Colorado, I'm outta this stupid state. Anybody want to help me move out there? It's only a 12-hour drive!

04/09/05 -- Man, I got robbed last nite in Poker. I was kicking ass for the longest time, then 3 other people from outside came into the game late. I even had pocket Aces TWICE in a row, what are the chances??? That REALLY sucked cuz it screwed everything up for us. At the table I was at, it came down to Eric and I being the winners, and we were pretty close in chip count. We moved to the other table for round 2, and I started off great. Then on one had, I had 2 pairs on the flop, and I kept raising and raising. The dealer was putting the cards RIGHT in front of him, I had to strain to even see them, and he was covering them up with the cards next to it. I kept moving them apart, but he kept covering them up. I didn't think much of it till we turned our cards over. I thought I was going to win because I had 2 pairs, but what I didn't see was the 4 spades, and the other two people had a flush. I never saw those spades, and I was kinda pissy about it, but ah well. I played like I wanted to AGAIN, and I ended up at the winners table again. I think one reason I went out early too is because the other table was taking FOREVER to knock people out of the game, and the time we finally all got together at the 2nd round for the winners table, it was like 2am.
    In other news, I'm a criminal on the run! Yesterday I went outside to get the mail, and I notice a business card taped to my front door. I get closer and I see written on it my name telling me to call the number on it. The card is from a deputy at the Sheriff's department!!! WTF?!? What did I do now? I was freaking out big time over this. I thought it might have to do with that expired plates ticket I had a couple months ago, but I found the stub to the money order I used, and it was cashed on time by them, so that's not it. Then later I thought it might be about something that happened to my Dad's ex-girlfriend. I call him today, and it's not about that. Great. I have no clue what this is about. So I finally call the number back, but I leave a voicemail this time asking him to call me back. So now I don't know if they work weekends or what, but I expect to hear back from him probably on Monday. I'll keep you updated about the story as it unravels!

04/08/05 -- What a week. Been busy all week with school, didn't have time to update my blog at all. It's getting towards crunch-time in school now. Just a few weeks left before this semester is over. Can't believe it's here already, seems like it just started! From finishing lab books, to completing projects in classes, I've been busy. But I'm working very hard at all these, and getting most of them done EARLY so I can then sit back and relax, or sell my answers to others who need them, hehehe. Tonight is Poker night, and hopefully my new way of playing will pay off again. Jeff's birthday is today, and he's busy playing golf in the Ozarks so he won't be a force to reckon with at the table tonight (even though it was ME who took him out of the game last time).
    I was also planning on taking another Microsoft test very soon too! A friend of mine in class knows some guy who had 3 vouchers that expire at the end of this month, and he was gonna sell them for $50 a piece. I told him that I was interested, and after realizing I had plenty of time to study, and the availability of test appointments, I told him to tell the guy selling them that I'll take one. I was excited, this was going to give me a chance to get caught up in my Microsoft tests because I am a bit behind in them. Haven't taken them because of the lack of money. Not to mention, the one I need to take next is not at the discounted rate, so it costs $125 instead of the discount rate of $60. I can't afford $125 right now, so this $50 deal was perfect! Unfortunately, come to find out the other night that he already put them on eBay. Grr....(on eBay they usually sell from $85 to $120, far from $50). But after talking to my teacher, he knows a few students that have Microsoft vouchers that are about to expire and they might sell them cheap. So I emailed one and we'll see if I can get back to studying again!

04/03/05 -- Been a lazy weekend. I went through all that old PC stuff I got from Dan, kept what I wanted and updated my PC Hardware for sale page with the rest. Also got that new PC put together for my mom too. I hope it survives for a while, I installed XP with Office XP and some other stuff on the hard drive that's only 6 GB big. It currently has 1.5GB left of space. They don't really fill it up with stuff, so I think it will be ok. If not, then I'll have to ghost it to a bigger hard drive for more space. In other news, the Pope died this weekend. I'm still trying to figure out the Catholic "religion", but I found this one site that has some useful info, check it here.

04/01/05 -- Been a tough week at school with tests and everything, that's why I haven't updated all week. Played Poker tonight. We had quite a good sized crowd too. I finally played like I always wanted to, easy on the bluffs and aggressive when I needed to be. I ended up going to the 2nd round of the winners table with the least amount of chips compared to the others. I hung in there, and eventually took people out and then make an awesome comeback. It finally came down to 3 people at it was about 2:30am. Then there was 2 people, me and Dan. I was then guaranteed 2nd place which was $30, and we wanted to end the game very quickly. I had a decent stack of chips while Dan had every other chip from the 3 collections of chips, like a thousand! I went all end and lost, but that's OK, I got 2nd, and that's the best I've done for quite a long time.
    Dan also said he cleaned up his computer room today, and gave me a box FULL of old stuff. I'm going to have to go thru it tomorrow and see what I should keep and maybe try to sell the rest off. I'll post that tomorrow and see if I can make a few extra bucks on the side...stay tuned!

March 2005

03/26/05 -- It was Poker night at Dan's last night. I barely won anything in the first main game, but in the 2nd "losers" game, I got second and won $5, so I won my money back for the 2nd game. Not much, but I'm just happy that I've finally won, I've gone SO long without winning.
    I think it was that homemade Margarita I had last night, but I've been fighting a headache all day, and there is not headache medicine in this house! Other than that, I've been reinstalling all the programs I needed back on my server, and it's finally complete. Most of the files I was hosting before are back, but some aren't because they were the only copy I had. I'll get it all figured out soon.
    I've also been playing the Painkiller expansion pack, Battle Out of Hell. I thought the last guy was pretty sweet looking so I took some screenshots to share.

03/25/05 -- Well Eric couldn't get a 800MHz P3 for me, so I decided to move my parts back into my old PC. But for the life of me, I could not get it to boot. To make a long story short, I did have both HD's on master and ended up accidently erasing a partition, thereby erasing all my files, and ended up reinstalling the OS. After thinking about it, after all that extra work, I should of just reinstall while in the new machine, even if it was just 100MHz more. Ah well, I like this PC, it's treated me well, only time it screwed up is for some stupid thing I've done.

03/24/05 -- Spend the day putting together all these parts I got last night. Spent a few hours moving parts from my old server PC to my new server PC, the 800MHz one, but had trouble with the clock settings. After poking around with it for another hour, I finally found out that the CPU is only 600MHz, not the 800MHz like Eric told me! After talking to Eric, he said he would try to find a 800MHz P3 to put in there for me. If that comes through, I'll upgrade my server to that, otherwise I'll go back to what I was using before. It's not worth reinstalling the OS for an additional 100MHz! My room currently looks like a computer graveyard, see pic here.
    See if you are prone to seizures! Stare at this for 5 minutes and see if you piss yourself.

03/23/05 -- Bought a bunch of stuff from Eric tonight. I plan on upgrading my server AND also upgrading my mom's PC. Her PC is currently a 300MHz machine, ack! So I'll combine these parts with parts I currently have and make the best machines out of the combination of the parts. What I have left, I will put on my for sale page and try to get rid of these parts to my friends. Here is a list of all the stuff I got last night...

• ABit KT7A-RAID motherboard with AMD Athlon 1200 CPU


• Generic motherboard with Pentium III 600MHz CPU


• PC case with 250W power supply


• PC case with 235W power supply


• Zip drive 250MB


• Floppy drive


• SoundBlaster ISA sound card


• Video card - generic


• Video card - nVidia geForce2 MX 200 64MB


• Network card - generic Ethernet and BNC connectors


• 2 sticks of SD-RAM 64MB PC133


• 2 sticks of SD-RAM 128MB PC133


• 1 stick of SD-RAM 256MB PC133


• CD-R/RW drive - LG 12x8x32x


• CD-R/RW drive - HP 8x4x32x


• CD-ROM drive - Sony 48x

03/23/05 -- So it's your Spring Break, what have you been up to? Not a whole lot, been catching up on readin', gamin', and sleepin'. I would do something outside, but it snowed yesterday here, ack. I've been working on my music collection, and I am ALMOST done! Been a year's worth of work, and I'm now finishing off the recent songs of 2005 before I am caught up. My friend Jessie showed me this site yesterday, www.whoorderedroomservice.com check it out, it's fuct up. I can't believe it's already Wednesday; I'll be back in class before I know it. Only things I really have planned this week is going to Eric's tonite for South Park and Poker night at Dan's this Friday night. I hope I can stay up for both, I've been crashing at 8pm and waking up at 5am lately! I finally got my days and nights switched around, but it's too damn early!

03/18/05 -- Missed the past 2 days of school. Two classes I didn't need to be at because I'm far ahead, but the other I had a test in and totally slept thru it. Grrr... But I will be able to make it up after Spring Break. Unfortunately I won't be going anywhere for Spring Break. So with an extra week free, I plan on getting a lot of studying done.
    I've also been working a LOT on my music collection, and I'm almost done! It's been a year this month, and I'm finishing off my huge list. There are about 3 years I can't find, but I'll pick those up later when I can find them. Since I've started, I've gained over 5,000 extra songs. I had 11 CDs full of songs, now I have over 40 CDs full of songs. I still plan on making a jukebox PC someday with all my songs on it. Have it so you can pick songs by year, genre, artist, etc. A touch-screen would be killer on it too. Or maybe just have a PC dedicated for music, and be able to play songs from it anywhere in the house through my wireless network, that would be cool.
    Oh, I ran across this ad on the Internet the other day, see here. WTF? First off she is NOT an artist, she's horrible! And what guy looks at this picture of her and says yummy? Ack!!!

03/16/05 -- Woke up today with a splitting headache for no reason at all. Decided I didn't need to go to school today; I'm caught up in my classes, so I stayed in bed till I felt better. Dan and I went to Clicks tonight. The place seems to be going downhill. I haven't been there in a long time, but it seemed not as good as last time. Some of the best games they had were no longer available to play, like HL2, CS:Source, and others. It was pretty dead in there, but I think it was because of it's a Tuesday night. The prices went up a bit for stuff too. Both of us ordered a pizza; they had 2 sizes, a $5 pizza or a $12 pizza. We both got a $5 and it was barely bigger than the small plate it came on. Not to mention the bathroom was a dump, one toilet out of order, and no paper towels. Eric also showed up for a bit, but then left afterwards. We went to the Twisted Parrot after Clicks and got pwned by an older couple on the new foos ball table. Then Dan and I played some pool, and he pwned me pretty good there too! Guess it wasn't my night. So I came home and crashed, slept 3 hours and now it's 4am, and I've been up since 1:30am and I'm wide awake. Class starts in 5 hours....meh...

03/13/05 -- What a long weekend. This has got to be the first weekend in a long time that I did homework all weekend. But I needed to do it, got caught up on a lot of stuff, and got ahead in my classes, so I can sit back and relax for awhile now. Not this week, but next week is our Spring Break. I think over Spring Break I will start studying for another Microsoft test that I need to get caught up on and done soon. They extended the 2nd free try special till the end of May, but this test I plan on taking next will cost the full price of $125. So I basically stayed home all weekend doing homework and getting stuff done. I was supposed to go to a friend's wedding party, but I totally forgot, so Sarah, if you're reading this, sorry!

03/10/05 -- Can you say 3-day weekend? Some schools have Spring Break next week, but not DMACC, we have to wait another week before spring break. Ours is lined up with the high schools, but not with ISU or U or I, pretty lame... I decided to give up doing labs in my MWF class because for the past 3 weeks, nothing has worked and others and I have gotten the strangest errors and nothing would work right. So Jeff and I both decided to install all this shit at home and do the labs at home. Basically it was 3 VPC's, one domain, one child domain and a 2nd DC to the child domain. After everything was configured, it works like a dream. I don't know what my computer's problem is in class. But I've been blowing thru the labs today. So this weekend, I'll be catching up in labs in both classes, trying to get them done as soon as possible so I won't have to worry about them at all. It's gonna be nice. So if any of you guys in my class are reading this, and need answers for the labs, money talks...

03/08/05 -- Tomorrow is the beginning of Season 9 of South Park! I'll be over at Eric's watching the new episode, it's called "Mr. Garrison's Fancy New Vagina". Mr. Garrison gets a sex change. This looks like it's gonna be a good one!

03/07/05 -- Got that part I was waiting for today for my Modem Mod project, and basically got that project done. Took all day though. Read about it here. Haven't had much time to update this site lately, since I spent all weekend bringing my PC back to life and then all day doing this project. I'll get around to it sooner or later.

03/06/05 -- What a weekend. Spend most of Friday, Saturday, and Sunday reinstalling everything to get my PC up and running again. Installation went fine until I was configuring the BIOS. Noticed that the CPU fan just STOPPED, and I about died. After reading the Engrish in my Chinese manual and figuring out how to fix it, I found out my motherboard had a fan throttling feature on the motherboard, and that's what it was doing. I copied my original C: drive and also made an image of it, and I had over 160 folders in my Program Files folder. Some of them I didn't want to reinstall, but the majority of them I had to. I got most of everything reinstalled, but still a lot of stuff needs to be reconfigured. I also forgot my screen name for AIM, and clicked "forgot password", it told me that it would be reset and an email was sent to me with the details. After I didn't get it, I realized AIM still had a super old email on file. So I made a new screen name and tried remembering my old buddies. But it was just now that I just happened to try some passwords under my original screen name, and I found it! So don't delete me from you AIM accounts, I'm still "JackHammer1977". So if anyone wondered where I was this weekend, this is why.

03/02/05 -- I got my almighty new motherboard today. Plan on installing it with a fresh copy of XP this weekend. Gonna take a LONG time to get it back where I want it. I also found a great price on a part I need for my modem/HD enclosure project. Found a cheaply priced one on eBay, total of $20 (including shipping), while other sites wanted around $40. It's a USB 2.0 to IDE converter with power supply (AC Adapter to 4-pin Molex). It looks like I can get it all inside the modem case (excluding power supply). If not, I'll take it apart and try to squeeze it in there. I've been taking pictures of the whole thing so when I get this done, I'll make a page showing how I made it, it'll be neat. I want to also incorporate the row of LEDs that are on the modem to go into this HD enclosure. There are quite a few LEDs, so I'll have some for power lights and some for HD activity lights. I'll try to set it up so I can easily insert a bigger hard drive in the future without tearing the whole thing back up again. When it's all said and done, it will be a sturdy, heavy HD enclosure kit, but it will look cool because it's retro and will have working lights. Here's a better picture I found online of the exact same model of modem I have.

03/01/05 -- The only thing fun that happened today was that our class got to take a tour of the IT department at DMACC. It was pretty neat to see behind the scenes and see all that stuff put together. The server room has an intergen system installed (it's a fire suppressor; if there's a fire, it sprays its gas into the room so the fire has no more oxygen to burn. Of course if you're in there when it happens, you'll probably suffocate and die). That took up most of the hour or so and when we got back to the room, our teacher wanted us to make a list of 5 things that we'd change about the IT setup and tour. I decided to be silly and made a bullshit list. I showed my friends and they all got a kick out of it, and at the end of the class, we turned them into the teacher. Some of my friends said that the teacher would not be happy about it and he might yell at me about it. So I'm wondering what will happy, cuz I thought the whole thing was funny. Anyways, here's the list of 5 things I'd change about the IT setup and tour I gave to my teacher...

1. Train ride for the tour
2. Apple II Networking
3. Cooler rooms, Freon cooled
4. Free intergen samples
5. Full cavity searches

The last one is my favorite, but I don't think my teacher will get a kick out of it! In other news, there were some super old PC parts sitting out in the hallway today, and I just had to have this modem! Wasn't till later that I realized it's a 2400 baud modem. It is heavy as hell too! I think a cool mod for it would be to convert it into a external hard drive enclosure with working lights. See pix of this beast here... side view, front view, and back view.

02/24/05 -- There was no snow expected today, but we got a few inches. I saw 4 cars in the ditch on the way to school today. It got warmer though and all melted, but it came from nowhere! I had some new DVDs to burn, they usually take around 6-7 mins, but today they took an hour each! I checked my memory, virtual memory, and ran some CD tests on it. Did a few simulated burns on it, CDs burn fine, but not DVDs. I've came to the conclusion that its shot, or on its way out. It a shitty AOpen DVD burner from DIT. I asked if they had any problems with them, they told me they only had one returned to them before. I never did like AOpen products, junk. The only reason I bought it from DIT is because it was cheap and they have that one-year policy where if it craps out, you can return it for another product (and they didn't have any Pioneer's in stock, like it says on their site). So I'll be doing that within the next couple days. Hope that solves the problem, then I'll be back to my pirating ways! Shiver me timbers!

02/22/05 -- Had the Microsoft meeting today. It went pretty good, got some more free junk and I even won a t-shirt too. Oh, and the way I submitted my information to Microsoft, they usually print up ID tags for you that has your name and organization on it. Here's a picture of what mine looked like. The organization part of it got chopped off, it should of said "This ID Badge has been hacked". In other news, I guess T-Mobile's computer systems got hacked...twice! The guy that did it had access to just about everything on customer's phones. The main one that got hacked was Paris Hilton's phone. Her address book, pictures, notes, everything have been floating around the net for a few days now. I found some and if you notice this weeks "pic of the week", the picture speaks for itself!

02/21/05 -- Such a relief has been lifted from my chest! I finally passed that damn Microsoft test today! Took me 3 times too! I only paid a total of $120 for three times, so I got a good deal. I felt that I could of studied a bit more, could of crammed more before taking it, but I really didn't want to overkill myself on it. So after going over that TestKing ALL last week, 269 questions and 350 pages later, it finally paid off. I feel so better now that's out of the way. Now that's over with, I will take a week or two off, and start reading my ExamCram book for the next test, which is supposed to be way harder, but I also have the TestKing for it as well. So when all that studying is done, hopefully I'll pass that one my first time because it's not eligible for the discount, and it will be the full price of $125, unless I can get a cheaper one on eBay. Tomorrow is another Microsoft Meeting, which is cool because we will get some more free shit, but the sucky thing about it is that we have to be there at 8am, and my earliest class starts at 9am, so I will have to get up an hour early, ack!

02/16/05 -- Studying is going well for my Microsoft test on Monday. This new TestKing is pretty tough on questions, but I'm getting most of them right on the first shot. If I get this one passed, there is one or two more tests that I'd like to knock out of the way before the end of this semester, because then I'll have other new tests to take. I finally got 1 picture from Dan of my tattoo. He took 3 but maybe the other ones didn't look too good. If you'd like to see it, click here.

02/15/05 -- This time I am going to do it! I decided it's about time to start studying for that Microsoft test that I've failed twice so far, because this month is almost over, and the free 2nd try offer ends this month. So starting yesterday, I am going over that new TestKing I have for the test. It is 350 pages long, and has 269 questions on it. The previous one I had was old and only had like 80 questions. I got one of the last 2 appointments available in the DMACC testing center. It is scheduled for next Monday afternoon. I figured if I can go over 50 questions a DAY in that TestKing, I will have it completely read by sometime on Saturday. Then I have the weekend and Monday morning to cram up as much as I can. I hope that this new TestKing will put me over the mark to pass it this time. If by chance I fail, I would have to schedule another appointment right away before the end of this month, and since DMACC is out of appointment times, I would have to take it at Vatterott college. They have plenty of spots open, as of now, and hopefully those will remain open if I need them, otherwise it will cost another $60 to take this damn test for the FOURTH time!

02/13/05 -- A fun weekend, but shitty and rainy out. Ended up playing Poker at Eric's place with some friends, pretty fun time. I noticed Eric's bike on his porch was still there. He asked me if I wanted to buy it for $25, it's a Dyno Compe bike. One of those little bikes with the handlebars that spin all around and has pegs in front and back. I was like hell ya I'll buy it! I was tinking around with it today, but can't ride it yet cuz it's all rainy out n shit. So when spring comes around, I'll take it out and ride around the place jumping stuff, pulling tricks, picking up honeys....or is that wishful thinking? Either way I'll have some fun with it. It's the bike I've always wanted to have when I was a kid, and now I got it! Need to move up the seat and maybe the handlebars too, hope I don't look like a giant retard on a little bike!

02/10/05 -- OMG, are you ever going to update this? hehehe. Man, been really busy with school and shit. Too busy studying to do any updating on this site yet. I did finally get that tattoo if you didn't know. I'm still waiting for Dan to give me those pix, maybe I'll get those this weekend. I was planning on visiting my sister and her husband in Denver over Spring Break, but then I had 2nd thoughts because of the cost, but I just talked to her a second ago, and she was telling me that I can travel thru Amtrak for like $60 (roundtrip I think). Of course it would take a bit longer than driving, but I wouldn't have to drive and I could get one of those little rooms on the train and sleep the whole time if I wanted. I've never traveled by Amtrak, so I hope this train won't be one that ends up in the news. She also told me about some new pool hall that opened up really close to their house and it has like 50 pool tables! I told her how I play pool about every weekend and it's a lot of fun. And my tattoo care cycle has finally reached that point where I don't use Bag Balm anymore, but now using regular unscented lotion. This is a hell of a lot better, that Bag Balm shit is sticky and it made wearing shirts VERY uncomfortable. It left rings of dried up lotion and black ink inside about 4 shirts and stained my bed sheets. And it's black INK so you know it won't come out, grrrr... But this regular lotion is better, not as sticky. As soon as this completely heals up, in about a month to a month and a half I go back to get free touchups. I can see some spots that definitely need touched up, so by then it should look perfect. I can't wait till the day when I don't have to worry about this tat unless it's in the sun all day. This part with the lotion sucks because I hate lotion.

02/05/05 -- Today is the day! I will be getting that tattoo I've always wanted today. I hope I'll be ok, I get nervous just thinking about it. I have absolutely no time this weekend for homework, and I have a lot of reading to get done! I spent all yesterday getting this site up and running, went out for a bit last night. Today I'm getting my tattoo, and Dan wants me to go out with them later on tonight as well. Then tomorrow is the Super Bowl, and I have absolutely no idea what I'm going to do for that. I have no interest at all to see it, so maybe I'll just skip it and get to reading. I need to watch what I get into, I'm getting to the point where school runs into other stuff I'm trying to do, I need to put school first like I always have so I will get those good grades. Well, I'm off to Dan's to get him, grab some lunch, then go under the needle. Wish me luck!
Well I did it, I'm such a stud. It took 3 and 1/2 hours though! A lot of the other guys there who had tattoos all over themselves saw mine, and were impressed that I was putting up with it for over 3 hours. They were even MORE impressed that this was my first one! At first it hurt like a bitch, it was almost unbearable pain. Then it started getting numb and didn't hurt as bad. The whole time it still hurt, but it was more of an uncomfortable feeling than pain. The guy told me that around 3 hours the endorphins wear off and the pain from the first part comes back, and boy was he right. So the last part of my tattoo, the better half of an hour, it was very painful. That was the part that he was filling in the sections with solid black. So he would go over it again and again. But I got it done. I have to put some lotion shit on it for a week or so, and he wants me to come back in a month to a month in a half to get it touched up. So if it looks a little funny now, it will look perfect after the touchup. I'll post pictures in a few days or so of what I've done.

02/04/05 -- Things are starting to finally come together. First my website's name was propagated thru the DNS servers, so then you could type in djdingo.com and it would actually come up. Then, I was finally able to get my forums transferred over. That was the biggest pain, but I guess when you backup the database thru phpBB, it just backs up its own tables in that database, any new tables that were added by MODs have to be explicitly added to the backup. I am also working on something called Coppermine, which is like a forum, but for pictures and other files only. Anyone can post a picture and others can rate that picture and also leave comments on it as well. When that's completed, there are a few other add-on's I'd like to do. There's a really nice looking blog add-on I'm thinking of adding. It allows people to leave comments, search for certain keywords, and other neat stuff.

02/02/05 -- I am about to give up on this hosting company I am trying to work with, www.hostingplex.com I have had to contact them a total of 8 times to get my domain up and running. First it was the phone verification bullshit, now I cannot get the email they are sending to me that has my login and password. They have sent it about 3 times so far, but I still don't have it. It's not being blocked by any spam filters, and I checked and double checked, and my email has been working fine all day. I told them that if I don't have it by tomorrow, I'm canceling and going somewhere else. Out of all the hosting sites I looked at, there's was the best deal, but I'm beginning to believe it is too good to be true. I had read a lot of testimonials on their forums and a lot of other people have good luck with them. Most people were able to sign up and get working on their site within minutes. It's now going on four days for me. So my magical move to another hosting company has been temporarily stalled, but hopefully I should have a new home by this weekend. In other news, the groundhog saw his shadow (No surprise), Pierre Piece is kicked off the Iowa basketball team (yippee!), and hostingplex sucks.

01/30/05 -- Got a lot done today too, been busy! Did some more shopping online, got my domain name today, still waiting for it to be activated though. Once that's done, it will be awhile before everything is uploaded and then I will have my own dot com! I also got a domain name for my stepdad's business website also. It was only $10 for a two-year domain name, and I had it pointed to the Mediacom website. Check it out at www.stephenscustomframing.com

01/29/05 -- Upgrade complete! God, this took FOREVER! I started about 11 this morning and did not get done until about 8 this evening. For my main PC, I had to install a new 200GB hard drive (after formatting it's only 186GB, pffft!), ghost some drives, and also install a new 16x dual-layer DVD +/- burner, with software. Once that was complete, I took my "old" (the first hard drive I started with on my main PC, a whopping 60GB), and put it into my server PC. But then I found out that Norton Ghost 9.0 will not work in Windows Server 2003! And I also found out that the diskpart.exe command-line utility will not extend a basic disk in Server 2003 because of a bug that hasn't been fixed yet. So I copied disks, changed the drive letters around, and decided to keep 3 hard drives in there. Only problem was that there was no rack room for my the 3rd hard drive! So I did the unthinkable and removed the floppy drive and replaced it with the 3rd hard drive. Like I was really using it! So now my upgrade is completed!...My next big project is getting my domain name and getting all of that set up, which is going to depend on the level of difficulty. I'm hoping it will not take longer than a week, maybe a good weekend I could get it done. (And by the way, DVD burners are NICE!!! If you do not have one, GET one! They are hella cheap, and the discs aren't too bad either! I can now fit SIX CDs on ONE DVD! It will be awhile before I give up my CDs, but I totally see it happening!)

01/27/05 -- Hoping my money comes in the mail tomorrow! I got a list of stuff I need to get, can't wait to go shopping again! As of this very moment, I only have 80 cents to my name, argh! So everyone cross your fingers and see if my check arrives tomorrow! Oh, in other news...a friend of mine got a domain name and he and another friend and I are going to help out and build it from the ground up. This website should be pretty cool, its www.brownbottleflu.com It will still be awhile before it's fully up and running, hell he just registered the domain name tonight, so it will even be a few days before you can access it. But probably within a week, I will have my own domain as well, and I will be able to move out of the tight room here at Mediacom! Oh, speaking of, they called yesterday about the bill, but the money was already there, no need to be paranoid after all! Whew!

01/26/05 -- Ok, spend most of the day after class installing a FTP server and phpBB as well. I installed it on my server, and wanted to keep it separate from this site, but my friend Jessie thinks I'm paranoid so I linked them together tonight. Oh, and Mediacom called earlier today too, but I think it's because we are a bit late on the bill. I'll find out tomorrow! So if you haven't checked it out yet, visit my forums and get registered and have fun with it, I sure will be!

01/25/05 -- I've been working on installing and configuring phpBB on a Virtual PC for a few days now, and I finally got it working! phpBB is a forum that can be added to websites. A lot of extra components must be added to the server for it to work, like PHP and SQL. Neither of those I can install while using Mediacom's web space. When I do get my full fledged website very soon, this will be something that I will add to it as well! My financial aid check gets mailed out this week, so hopefully I will be able to cash it before the weekend. There is also a lot of goodies I plan on getting as well, DVD burner, bigger hard drives, etc.

01/23/05 -- Didn't get the mail yesterday until today, and I got my Microsoft Certification package finally! Boy, I was excited! It contained my certificate for my MCP and a MCP pin and wallet card. MCP is a Microsoft Certified Professional. But this is the first out of 4 certificates for Microsoft I plan on getting. My next cert would be a MCSA (Microsoft Certified System Administrator), which you receive after 4 tests, then MCSE (Microsoft Certified Systems Engineer), which you receive after 7 tests. I was planning on just going to get my MCSE, but after finding out that I'm just one test away from the next cert level, that's my new plan. So after 8 tests, I could be a MCDBA (Microsoft Certified Database Administrator). Not to mention, that's just the Microsoft side of my planned certification, there's still Cisco and A+ to go through as well!

01/21/05 -- OMG! I've been having trouble using Yahoo Messenger for about all week, and today I decided to fix it. I always leave it running, but it just stopped working and I couldn't connect to it at all. So today I started my quest to fix it. After uninstalling, reinstalling, uninstalling, reinstalling, etc etc, I came across the problem. I couldn't connect to yahoo msgr from here, but I could from my other PC. Looking into it further, I could ping the yahoo msgr's servers from other PC, but not from here. That was the problem. I tried writing to my hosts file, but still no go. I could not ping their server names, nor their server IP addresses. My good friend Jeff finally came online, and I asked him to help me out. He gave me some ideas like flushing DNS and messing around with my IP settings, but nothing worked. I was about ready to give up. He then ran across some info and I decided to give it a try. The command I used was "netsh winsock reset catalog". I decided to post it here so I will always have it if I need it. It is for XP w/SP2 and it clears and rebuilds your TCP/IP stack. After the command is entered, you must reboot for it to take affect. This saved me today, and everything is back up and running, after 3 hours of trying to fix it! Thanks again Jeff, you're my hero for the day! (So anyone reading this wondering why I haven't been on Yahoo Messenger all week, this is why!)

UPDATE -- After getting Yahoo working again, it ran for about 10 minutes, then stopped and I couldn't connect since. After more and more investigations, I have finally found the problem, ProtoWall. I guess in the last update I got, Yahoo was added to the blocklist. Because of this when I would try to connect to Yahoo Messenger, or ping their servers, my requests were simply blocked. The reason none of this happened on my other machine is because I haven't updated its ProtoWall since before this update on this machine, it still has the old blocklist. So after adding Yahoo to the list of exclusions, this will never happen again, whew! Now FINALLY, I can get on that homework :(

01/20/05 -- While looking at the weather today in class, I came across this ad on the website. At first I was boggled to what exactly this guy was doing because it looks very dirty. But then I realized he is stuck in a snow measurer but it still doesn't make sense. It looks like he's filling it up with his gingerbread man juice, lol. I was able to enlarge this picture so all you saw was his face, and I couldn't contain myself in class. But anyways, check out this animated picture of the gingerbread man, I think it's the same one from the Shrek movies! Click here.

01/19/05 -- I own! Today was the Microsoft Meeting. We did get some neat MS items, a MS carrying bag, a MS t-shirt, a MS pen, a MS notepad, a MS clipboard, MS Post-It Notes and 3 software packages: ISA Server 2004 eval (my 2nd copy), MS Security Guidance Kit, and Windows XP SP2. SP2 on CD was probably the most valuable to me. The meeting was at times boring, but we first went over XP's SP2, and that was kind of interesting, then after break we went over ISA 2004, which I've seen before but understood more of it this time around. I felt pretty smart through the whole thing, because when he would ask a question I was the one who piped up with the answers. Answers like IPSec, %20, PPTP and clear text. They usually give out prizes to those that come to these meetings, but this time the prizes were a little weak. There were 2 MS books they were giving out. He collected the questionnaires and called off the first name, ME! I had a feeling I would win somehow. I got a book on Security. Then I had to draw the next name, and I drew my teacher! It was pretty funny that we "monopolized" the prizes this meeting. After getting home, I was thinking about selling this book because I could use the money right now, it's retail price is $50. But after looking and seeing people sell their brand new books for half that, I decided to keep it. After flipping through it, there's a lot of security topics that I find very interesting, and I could learn something here! So today was a good day after all!

01/17/05 -- My 3-day weekend is now over. Got some things done today, like homework. Worked on this site for awhile and watched a couple movies today too. Just watched The Bourne Supremacy, it was pretty good, kinda long though. Earlier today I finally watched Shrek 2. There is no way that movie was better than the first. I must of laughed out loud about 4 times the whole movie. It had some good 'moments', but it's not right to say its better than the first one. I've also read that they are planning to make a Shrek 3. If it's anything like the 2nd one, it will probably be worse. One of my favorite parts is when Pinocchio was wearing a thong, and the part later in the movie when the Gingerbread man said my favorite line, "Not the gumdrop button!" I still get a kick outta him when I see him on that Wal-Mart commercial!

01/16/05 -- Wasn't the big winner last nite. I did make it to the 2nd round, but I was one of the first to go out. I had like 75 and everyone else had at least 10,000. So I was hanging in there by my fingernails. Found out that Dan and Sarah are getting married in September and it's going to be in Vegas! They want me to come along with them and other friends too. Dan said I'd be best man if I made the trip. They are going to be there for 5 days, and it would be fun to be there also for 5 days. I'd planned on getting a part time job starting this summer, so I should have the money for it. I might not do anything this spring break too, so either way I should have the money. He was talking about going to the Hoover Dam while they're there, and I told him that we should go on one of those tours that takes you up to the entrance of Area 51. I want to get my picture next to the "mailbox". A 3-hour drive out into the middle of the desert to get a picture next to a mailbox, that sounds worth it right?

01/14/05 -- VERY cold this morning, a negative 4! My car didn't want to start again cuz it was freezing out, I had it jumped and it BARELY stayed running. Put some of that Heet shit in it, and it seems ok now. Did more installing junk at school today, but when I got home, I think I saw a ghost! I was inside the door and finished taking off my shoes when out of the top of my eyes, I saw something zip by really quick at the bottom of the stairs. It was round shaped and dark, like black and dark blue. It happened so quickly, I wasn't sure what it was at first, thought it was my imagination. But then Gizmo was right there, and he saw it too! He ran to the edge of the stairs and was looking down them trying to see it again. At first I thought nothing of it, but eventually it started to freak me out! I think there's something in this basement, Gizmo is scared to come in my room most of the time. And there's plenty of times he will be on my bed and just look around the room with his eyes like he sees something flying thru the air, kinda weird. Of course during those times, there is absolutely nothing there. I believe in ghosts, and I kinda wonder if we have one here, but I just hope its a nice one, and doesn't scare the shit outta me! Other than that, Dan's having Poker night tomorrow night, and I'm ready to win some money again, I could really use it now!

01/13/05 -- School is going well. Most of this week involved installing OS's on our machines for all our classes. I used to hate it, but now I like it because it means there's no homework. It's been cold as hell lately. My car didn't want to start up after class today, got a jump from a friend. Tomorrow is supposed to be colder too! But I better go because we don't have class on Monday for Homie Day. All my books finally came in too. It feels so good saving over $200 in buying used books! For those of you that paid full price for your book...suckers! Ha ha!

01/11/05 -- Well, yesterday I got plenty of studying in for the test. My first class we just went over the basic first day of class stuff. I went to take my test, and it was 40 questions and you had 2 hours and 15 mins to complete it. I had it done in an hour and 15 mins. This time around, I had COMPLETELY different questions. They were on different topics as compared to the first one. I thought I did really well while taking the test. When I say my grade, my heart sank again. This time was sad. I got a 590 and needed 700, I did worst this time around! One of the guys in class was talking about ordering the newest testking, and dividing up the cost among a group of us. The newest testking has about 200 actual questions and answers from the actual test. So just study that over, memorize or understand them, and you'd be sure to pass! I think I'm going to try that next. This test is a lot harder than I'd thought. I've already studied over the textbook AND an Exam Cram book and I still can't pass this test, so I know another book probably won't help. I'm beginning to think I got lucky on my first MS test, almost getting perfect...that was the easy one, the rest are tough! And on the other hand, this test was a discounted one, so it's $60 instead of the usual $125. So when I take it again, I will have to pay another $60, totaling $120, so I think it all equals out. Better than paying $250 to take it twice!

01/10/05 -- Today is THE day! Class starts once again at 9am, and after class I have my retake of the Microsoft test. I went to bed early, and just woke up, its 4am now. Now I can finish cramming so this time I hopefully will pass that test. Oh, and check this out...I just got an email from the person I ordered a book from and she said that the CD wasn't in the book like she thought it was, so she went ahead and mailed it, but she's going to refund my money for it! Free book! How cool is that? I can get a copy of the CD from somebody in class. The refund is only $14.49, but it's cool the book is free. And good thing it's shipped already, I need that book for my Tuesday class!

01/09/05 -- The LAN Party came and the LAN Party left. I got up there at the start of it at 6pm on Friday night. There was probably about 20 guys there all together. I took a 12-pack of Dew, but there was plenty of pop there to drink. Pizza was ordered, and there was a ton of snacks to eat. After getting everything setup, I still couldn't connect to other games. I tried moving into the main room, but still couldn't connect. I even moved AGAIN while in that room and still no go. After numerous attempts of cable checking, ping tests, and others, none of us could figure it out. I had my firewall turned off AND the firewall service disabled, but I still could not connect to any games. One of the teachers who was putting this on was bound and determined to figure out my problem. He dug a little deeper into it than what I did, and we ran across a few things, but still no luck. SOMEHOW my firewall had a feature that was blocking all attempts to connect to a game even when it was completely turned off AND completely disabled. Once that was corrected, I was now able to play. This turning point happened at 1am, SEVEN HOURS after I got there! I was about ready to pack up and go home! So with that behind me, I was finally able to have fun. We played a lot of games and it was a real blast. I wanted to stay as long as I could, but after finding out that Dan couldn't come out, I decided I'd better be off sleeping, so I left at 11am. Now after sleeping all day and all night, I got one last day of vacation before school starts tomorrow and I also have my retake on my Microsoft test! Let the fun begin!

01/07/05 -- About this time last week, I ordered my books online thru amazon.com and got the used ones. According to the descriptions, I was able to get the 'newer' looking ones with all the CDs enclosed. By doing it this way, I saved $200 instead of buying them at the retail price at the bookstore! Yay for me! It looks like I will get one of the books tomorrow, but I still haven't heard from the other ones yet. This is probably the drawback to ordering them online. They say they will be shipped somewhere from the 11th to the 25th! That's up to 3 weeks into school without books! Lord, I hope they get here sooner. I also got my appointment set up for Monday AFTER class to retake that Microsoft test. I think I will pass it this time because I was so close the first time and barely understood the testking I was studying, but this time I REALLY understand the testking and I know what to expect. Either way, wish me luck!

01/06/05 -- So last night, we were going to have some guy come over to plow out the driveway, and since my car is at the end of it, I had to go out and scrap it off and park it in the street till after our driveway was plowed. I haven't gone anywhere since last Saturday, so I had ice caked on my car from the 2nd ice freeze, and all the snow that fallen all week on it as well. It took me 30 minutes to get my car all scraped off! The ice on the windows was a quarter of an inch thick! It just didn't want to budge. So I tried putting some window washer fluid on it to melt it, that barely worked. So I decided to dump a bunch of hot water on it. That did work, but I noticed that all that water started to thicken up on the bottom of my car. Well, I got my car moved to the street, but the guy never showed up! So this morning, I had to move my car back into the driveway. Again, I had to scrap it out and knock all the snow off of it, but I got stuck in the driveway. So I had to dig it out and finally get it in. Then I got ALL the ice and snow off of it, I had ice caked on all over my hood and trunk. I think the worst is over. I just saw on the news that we 'officially' got 14.6 inches of snow!

01/05/05 -- Ashlee Simpson is over! Or at least, I hope! Did you guys see the Orange Bowl last nite? During the halftime show, there was 3 singers, and she was the last one. She sung her song horribly, and at the end, the entire audience booed her, it was hilarious. I think people are finally realizing that she is a no talent ugly slut. Her last big debacle was on SNL were she got 'caught' lip-synching, but she then blamed it on her band, and then later blamed it on acid reflux?!? WTF??? Hopefully this will be the year that Ashlee Simpson is no more. A lot of us are sick of these corporate-made pop singers that don't even write their own songs. Their look, their attitude, and their slutty life is all premanufactured by some corporation, and a predetermined girl is the pop star. Only problem here is that this girl is talentless. I think I could sing better than her, and that's saying a lot! Her older sister Jessica does have some talent singing, she is very beautiful, but damn, is she stupid! Sometimes I wonder what Nick was thinking marrying a stupid blonde like that. Ashlee would of been beautiful too, but sometime last year or so, she dyed her blonde hair BLACK. Ack! That is the most ignornant thing to do! Blonde is the most desired color by women, in my opinion, and for someone who is naturally blonde, to dye it BLACK, its just wrong. Black does not look good on a blonde's fair skin, it just makes them look dirty and even MORE slutty. I still hope to God I never have a daughter...

01/04/05 -- Bring on the snow! We are having a snowstorm right now, and by Thursday morning, we should have 12 to 16 inches of snow! On the news, they show people at the grocery stores stocking up on food, but the "hot item" is milk! WTF? If you don't have milk, we're all gonna die? Yes, milk is important, and it can be used for many recipes, but why are people going nuts over milk? My friend who works at Fareway told me they sold over 400 gallons of milk, and ran out of milk! Maybe I'm just not at that age to understand it. If I knew I would be snowed in for a few days, and I was at the grocery store, I'd be in the beer isle, but that's just me. With all this snow outside, and the roads slick to go anywhere, might as well drink right? hahaha But I think by Friday evening, when the LAN Party starts, the roads will be cleared and everything will be fine, and that's all that's important to me right now...I'm such a geek...

01/02/05 -- Just another lazy Sunday. Played some games, watched some movies, laid around. But starting tomorrow, it's time for me to study up again on the test I failed about a month ago. I will be taking the retake of it very soon, hopefully next Monday, which also is the first day of Spring semester. So this week is mostly studying, and this Friday night is the DMACC LAN Party, which is going to be very fun, I've been looking forward to this for about 3 weeks now! It's a 24-hour one, but you can leave whenever, so I think I'm going to stay as long as I can. I'll have a 24-pack of Mountain Dew with me to keep my fraggin' the whole time. I hope they have some kind of competition or contest during it, that would be very fun. Did you know that the average age for the video gamer is 29 years old?

01/01/05 -- Happy Hangover everybody! I had a fun night at a crappy, but fun, bar with some friends. Had lots of pitchers of beer and got turned down by many beautiful women, but it was a good time! hehehe So this morning, I wake up at Dan's, and I wake up Shari in the other room and go to give her a ride home, but as soon as we walk outside, we realize that everything is coated in ice! We had to slide all the way to my car, VERY slick out. The whole driveway, road and my car is covered in ice. Took about 20 minutes to scrap it from the windows, very thick. Driving was tricky too! I got passed by a semi truck on the interstate, and my windshield got coated in muddy water that froze instantly, and I couldn't see shit! I found a spot on the very top of the windshield to look out of to find my exit. I couldn't use my washer fluid because it was frozen up. I made it home ok though. I think I'll be napping most of today, still outta it from all the yummy beer last nite. I'm not as hungover as I thought I would be, which is a good thing! Happy New Year all!