The Life of Jeremy

And, the anti-climactic response.

2010-11-05T12:23:00.001-04:00

Dear Mr. Lawrence,

Your e-mail below was forwarded to me as Assistant Director of Public Works. Thank you for taking the time to provide us with your input.

The construction activities you have observed along Three Chopt Road are related to the ongoing Department of Public Utilities (DPU) waterline installation project. Representatives from DPU have informed me the contractor will begin final restoration of the disturbed road surface including the replacement of the concrete median at Three Chopt Road and Cox Road later this month pending weather. In the mean time, DPU representatives are monitoring the roadway.

The signal at Pump Road and West Broad Street is maintained by the Virginia Department of Transportation. I will ask that they review the signal timings and make any adjustments they deem necessary.

In closing, should you have any further concerns or questions please do not hesitate to contact me at 867-5309 [number changed].

Sincerely,

Henrico County Department of Transportation

2010-11-05T09:27:00.001-04:00

Henrico County Department of Transportation

To whom it may concern (likely no one):

I got an opportunity to drive down the new stretch of John Rolfe Parkway--between Church and Broad--this evening. It was a very smooth ride. You should work on that.

I realize that your laborers have spent the last 12 years working on the stretch of roadway that’s going to eventually (perhaps by the time I retire in 2040) become the full John Rolfe Parkway. I remember when you opened the first portion between Lauderdale and Ridgefield when I was first allowed to drive myself to Godwin High School in 1998. It had promise. It would be a fantastic way for me to get home easily while avoiding traffic after I dropped my friend off. He lived off of Lauderdale, and I was near Church and Pump.

This smooth, nearly flawless stretch of roadway (however minuscule it may be) is unacceptable in the Far West End. It just doesn’t fit. All of the roads around it have trenches and pot holes cut strategically into them so that our vehicles don’t have a chance to stop bouncing after barreling through one before slamming into the next. You’ve done well with Three Chopt, which was as newly paved as this stretch of John Rolfe not too long ago. You even managed to unevenly cut a ditch down the middle of Three Chopt in a manner that we’re forced to attempt to hold our vehicles steady with at least two tires bouncing back and forth between the edges for a stretch that seems like a mile. Heading from Gaskins to Pump in the afternoons, I begin to get the jitters as the road starts to level off, but am rewarded once again with the bone-shaking rumble as I near the apartment complex.

For a while there, during your constant roadway experimentation, you’d just thrown gravel into the ditches beside Three Chopt and made me drive there. I don’t know if you were just testing out a new strategy during that time or what, but I liked it. Not only did I have to navigate ditches, trenches and potholes, but I also had to watch for flying gravel, workers standing around looking at one another and eating donuts, and orange barrels rolling down the hills toward my car. It was like a gauntlet of potential vehicular destruction that really epitomized driving in the Far West End.

I will give you some credit, however. In the 12 year stretch that you spent paving this new section of John Rolfe (presumably pebble by tiny pebble), you have managed to wreak havoc, destroying several of the connecting roads. I used to take Pump all the time to get from Church to Broad. It was a straight shot from the many neighborhoods to all of the shops. Not only that, the traffic at the stoplight right there at Pump and Broad was always very fitting of the Far West End (Great Job on setting the timing of the green-light just long enough so that the first car THINKS they can make it through before the light turns! You’ve gotten me good a few times!). Now, I have to rumble across what used to be Pump before making a left turn onto the new (too smooth) section of John Rolfe in order to make another left onto Pump. You turned a single painless left turns into two lefts over what could only be described as a mine-field of potholes and jagged edges. Bravo.

In conclusion, please find time to do something about this stretch of even roadway before I get spoiled by not having my joints shaken every time I sit down in my car. I wouldn’t want to become accustomed to this, only to have it ripped away when someone there decides that it needs more holes and takes a jackhammer to it for gits and shiggles.

Thanks for your time and attention.

Sincerely,

A Concerned (Shaken, not Stirred) Citizen

Testes Tester

2010-09-16T17:05:00.003-04:00

Just seeing if I can get the code formatting to work. Also, I hope no one finds my blog now by searching for Testes.


// comment
public class x-returner 
{
  public int x { get; set; }

  public int getX { int x = 1; return x; }
}

Testes Tester

2010-09-16T17:05:00.001-04:00

Just seeing if I can get the code formatting to work. Also, I hope no one finds my blog now by searching for Testes.


// comment
public class x-returner 
{
public int x { get; set; }

public int getX { int x = 1; return x; }
}

Verizon and their glaring incompetence.

2010-07-27T10:31:00.004-04:00

So, I got my bill from Verizon this month, and shock-of-all-shocks, it was wrong. They overcharged me for TV and Phone and didn't bother charging me for internet. Again. This isn't the first time, I'm sure it won't be the last.

First off, I pay them a LOT of money each month, as we are pretty loyal customers and have had our cell phones through Verizon Wireless for as long as I can remember.

As Laura recently lost her job, I started looking into ways that we could save a bit of money, and cutting back this bill was #1 priority, as it's our most expensive bill.

I started looking online and found a "Quad Play" package that seemed like a good deal at 134.99 for TV, Phone, Internet, and Wireless service. Granted, I'm sure I'll pay more than that for wireless service, as my wireless service alone is typically $170+. (700 minutes, two additional lines, two $30 data packages, and text messaging packages.. yeah, it's a ripoff.).

So, I start chatting up a nice rep named 'Rockie' that I imagine looks something like Rick Moranis from the original Ghostbusters movie. He assures me that the package is $95, plus my cell service charges, plus any equipment charges, plus taxes and fees. That's a lot of plusses.

Ok, so let's do the math.

My equipment (Set top boxes) comes to 14.98 a month, the "Taxes and fees" come to a ridiculous 15.50 a month (not including internet.. I don't know how much that is, they didn't charge me for it). So, 30.48 a month.

My Cell Bill this month was 173.82. Yes, I know, insane.. but I have $80 worth of data and text messaging plans alone over the 3 lines.

So, 95 + 173.82 + 30.48 = 299.30.

That's not too bad, under 300 bucks.. although tacking on whatever the taxes and fees are for internet will probably be a little over that.

My bill? 292.45. That doesn't include internet. I doubt I get 15/5 FIOS for a grand total of like 8 bucks a month. I really don't have too many complaints with verizon other than that their billing practices are batshit crazy. If they could just get it right and keep it right, I wouldn't complain. They have automated systems to do that stuff, how is it wrong so often?

Moral of the story is, pay attention to your bill, as they nearly never get it right. Then they expect me to pay for their incompetence. Yeah, I don't think so.

Eesh, I feel better.

The Gimp

2010-05-09T18:24:00.001-04:00

PiBG
Originally uploaded by unafragger

This is the BG image that I created (mentioned last post) with the Gimp. As I said, I love the Gimp, and I think this came out quite well, but it just doesn't handle 3d as well as it could.

Blender Rendering

2010-05-09T18:22:00.001-04:00

dice
Originally uploaded by unafragger

I downloaded a program on Saturday called Blender on Ubuntu. I was goofing around with the Gimp making some desktop backgrounds, and I was able to get some pretty decent 3D backgrounds, but it was difficult to do, and as much as I love the Gimp, it isn't the best 3D Rendering tool.

So, I picked it up, got into it, found a fantastic tutorial page on wiki books and started following through. I love it. I've been messing with it seemingly non-stop for a couple of days now. This is about the most advanced thing that I've created so far, and it was pretty much directly out of the tutorial (or, a single die, anyway). It's pretty sweet looking, though.

It even has a pretty sweet animation utility where you can actually animate the 3D objects you create. Making it even more powerful, it has some sort of game engine built in. That's way beyond me at the moment. I've made a few animations, and they're very simple. I can't wait to get into the Game Engine. :D

More to come.. hopefully!

New Riiide

2010-04-19T19:18:00.004-04:00

So, I got a new car about a week ago. Yes, I used to drive an Acura Integra, and it was old. It was slick, though.. low rider, hugged the ground and could really get up and go. Had a very zippy 140 hp, and I loved driving it.

After about 10 years of owning it, I was about ready for something else. I'd never had a NEW car before, so I'd decided I wanted a new car, not a used one. I figure, I'm still childless, most of the money that I make goes to eating out anyway, so why not treat myself to a nice new car while I still can?

I'd looked around for a while, but I wanted something bigger! I certainly didn't want a full size SUV or anything, but just something bigger than what I had. Also, after last winter's snow, I figured it'd be nice to have a 4wd around the house too. Laura's car did OK in the snow, but certainly not great.

SO, after much (ok, not that much) deliberation, I went with a shiny new Toyota Rav4. Like I said, I figured since I was getting something, I may as well treat myself. It's a V6 269hp 4WD Limited Edition Rav4 (Black Forest Pearl.. sparkly) with mostly all the fixins. It's got a 9 speaker JBL sound system, dual automatic climate control, heated leather seats, backup cam.. the whole nine yards. I love it so far.. it's hard to keep clean, but worth it when it's nice and shiny.

Surprisingly, it's about as much fun to drive (so far, anyway) as the Integra was. It certainly can't zip through the traffic like the ol' Ac could, but it can get up and go when it needs to, and it's no slouch going around the corners either. So, if you see me go by you on the road, just know that I'm still having a good time with the new car, and wave hello. :P

Programming muscles!

2010-04-08T10:21:00.003-04:00

I've had a great last few weeks at work, I've been working on a new project. I've got an old application written in VB.NET for the old 1.1 framework. While it's a decent application, has a good handful of users, and accomplishes what it's set out to do, it's somewhat clunky, has many 'add-ons' that don't exactly tie in perfectly, and is becoming "too big for it's britches" as my mom would say.

SO, I'm getting to re-write it using the Entity framework in C#. C# is certainly not my strong point -- I took a single class in college that used it. I'm learning it, though. I've always felt that if you have a good programming base and understand one object oriented language (I'm much better in VB and Java), then it's easy to pick up the others.

So, I'm learning all kinds of new things, getting to use technologies that I haven't used before, and getting to really "flex my programming muscles." As work goes, it's been a really good couple of weeks.

Ubuntu!

2010-03-05T12:56:00.001-05:00

As a previously devoted Windows user, I have finally seen the light. No longer do I have any interest in working with Windows, as Ubuntu now holds a special place in my heart.

Sure, I still get a lot more hardware and software support on Windows, and I still have the copy of it that I bought, however, I feel as though I don't need to really use it. Ubuntu does everything that I could possibly want it to do for the moment.

Once I get back into wanting to play games, I have a feeling that it's going to be a bit tougher, but for now, I LOVE LINUX.

Physical Phitness and Photography.

2010-02-17T10:30:00.002-05:00

I can't wait for the spring to get here. The last few weeks have been so snowy, that we haven't been able to get out of the house. My gym-going in the mornings has stagnated entirely, I haven't been in like a month.

I was thinking the other day, and one of the (many) reasons that I'd like to get into better shape is that I'd like to be able to take up hiking. Perhaps not permanently, but I've always been interested and thought it would be something fun to do. Problem is, I haven't ever really been in the shape for it.

I'd like to be, and one reason is that I think it would be a fantastic photo-opportunity. I don't go very many places, and most of the places that I go don't provide too many things to shoot. Sure, a good photographer can find a shot in anything.. but I'm not a good photographer. YET.

Not only do I feel like it would give me a chance to get out of the house, it'd also give me a much better chance to get a bit more use out of the camera. That would be fun.

Something to bitch about?

2010-02-17T10:28:00.002-05:00

I was going to make a post on how I was annoyed because I haven't (at all) been able to stop eating out like we'd wanted to, and how we still spend ass-loads (though smaller asses) of money on eating out.

I've decided not to, however. I only seem to make blog entries when I have something to bitch about. I guess that's a good sign, as I certainly don't post very often. Maybe I don't have a whole lot to bitch about.

Good times!

Me and my Slow Cooker

2009-11-23T15:18:00.003-05:00

So, Laura and I have really been trying to watch our finances lately. It comes down, essentially, to her not wanting to be tied to her job for the rest of her life. I agree entirely and hope that one day soon, she'll be able to cut way back on her hours, eventually quitting all together.

We found that, over the course of about 30 days, we'd somehow managed to spend over $1,300 on eating out. This includes restaurants, grocery store meals (NOT our regular weekly groceries), and things like starbucks. We could just about take on another house payment for that! So, we'd decided to start cooking more at home, in order to help improve our monthly rationing of funds.

My first real experiment was a ~2lb beef roast. We've had this large crock pot for at least a year, maybe a couple of years now. I think this is the second time it's been used.

I spent some time shopping for that perfect cut of beef (or, picked out one that looked like it was about the right size and hoped for the best), snagged some veggies after reading a few different recipes on the internet, picked up a can of beef broth and some spices (rosemary and ground thyme), and headed home.

At around 2pm, I chucked the chuck in the crock pot, added my 12oz of beef broth, and started cleaning and cutting the veggies. We added about 6 carrots, peeled and sliced, a head of cauliflower, some zucchini, a yellow onion, 3 cloves of garlic (crushed), and about a teaspoon each of the spices. We let the roast roast for about 4 to 5 hours, and voila! Dinner.

It turned out pretty well. I'd never cooked anything like this before, so I was pretty impressed. Sure, it could have used a little more flavor, but for the most part, it was very good. I think we'll definitely do it again sometime. I'd say the total cost was somewhere around $20 still, after all of the beef, veggies, broth, and spices. My wife, my mother, and I all had a pretty big meal out of it. There's still probably a couple of servings left, too. That isn't too bad for 4 or 5 meals worth.

Now, I just need to find something else to do in the slow-cooker, because I was pretty impressed at how easy it was!

Gym!

2009-11-20T21:10:00.002-05:00

So, for three of the last four mornings, I've woken up at about 6:30. I've crawled out of bed, dragged myself into the bathroom, splashed some water on my face, gotten dressed, and headed out the door. Once the brisk morning air has hit, and I've remembered why I'm standing outside of my house at ungodly hours of the morning, I've crawled into my car, and driven in a half fog to the YMCA. Thankfully, the path to the Y from my house is less than a half of a mile, and only requires a couple of turns in the car.

I guess I'm certainly not a morning person. I've forced myself to get up and dragged myself into the gym because I've felt that it's really the only part of my weight loss plan that has been much more plan than action. I haven't been doing a lot when I get there, but I've been doing much more than I would be doing if I were still lying in bed, drooling on my pillow, willing the sun to stay down for just a few more minutes.

This morning (and each other morning), I've hit up the treadmills. This morning, I made it about 1.5 miles in around 23 minutes. No, that's not a very fast pace, but it feels sufficient to me, that early in the morning, in the shape that I'm currently in. I work up a decent sweat walking more than running, and I am plenty awake by the time I'm done. It gives me more energy for the day and actually makes me feel like I've accomplished something.

I said I'd made it 3 out of 4 days, and the day that I didn't go, I could honestly tell a difference in the way I felt.

I sure do hope to make it a habit and keep up the trend, because I feel like exercise is almost as important as diet to my health.

Diabetes Research

2009-11-20T11:21:00.004-05:00

As I've been living with Diabetes for about 3 months now, I have learned a LOT, and I do mean LOT about the disease. I figured I'd compile it all into one place so that I could share what I've learned with others. This is primarily from reading a lot on http://www.diabetesforums.com, but a I've also read plenty of websites, books, and all other information I could find on the subject. I've listed my main sources below, but this is certainly not extensive.

Don't take any of this as medical advice, as if you have, or think you may have diabetes, you need to consult a Doctor for medical advice.

So anyway, pardon the extensively long post, but I hope you can learn something.

What is Diabetes?

Diabetes, in a nutshell, is the body's inability to properly control blood sugar levels. There are several mechanisms to maintain proper control, but the primary mechanisms involved in controlling blood sugars are insulin and glucose. The healthy body maintains a proper ratio of insulin to glucose and keeps the body's blood glucose (BG) level within a normal range. Diabetics have to work much harder to allow their body to maintain the proper ratio. Each and every case of diabetes is different, and each individual has to adapt their treatment to their own needs, because no treatment works the same for two different people.

Though there are many variations of Diabetes, Diabetics are typically classified into two categories.

Type 1

Type 1 Diabetes was previously known as Juvenile Diabetes because it is typically diagnosed in children and young adults. Type 1 Diabetes (T1D) is or is caused by an auto-immune disease where the body's immune system attacks the pancreas. Beta Cells are killed off by the body's own immune system to the point where the body's insulin production is severely limited or even eliminated. Type 1 Diabetics (T1s) require insulin therapy because their bodies do not produce enough, or any insulin at all on their own.

Type 2

Type 2 Diabetes (T2D) was previously known as Adult-Onset Diabetes because it is typically diagnosed in adults later in life. Recently, the diagnosis of T2D in youth has been rising due to the "obesity epidemic." As I'm a T2, personally, this doc will be much more heavily focused on T2D.

T2s suffer from Insulin Resistance (IR) have a limited ability to use the insulin that our own body produces. This is the reason that our blood sugars remain high. In contrast to T1s, T2s typically have an excess amount of insulin in their blood. This is because the cells in the body do not properly utilize the insulin in the blood, so the cells do not receive enough glucose. In response, the pancreas produces even more insulin.

Insulin Resistance is made worse by being overweight. This is because fat interferes with the body's ability to properly utilize the insulin in the blood. I will expand further on this later on.

Mechanics of Diabetes

Before getting into the symptoms, complications, and control of diabetes, it is invaluable to understand how diabetes works. I mentioned that there were two primary mechanisms to Diabetes: Glucose and Insulin. Let's take a closer look at the two.

Glucose

Glucose, in the simplest terms, is a simple sugar that is required by cells in living bodies to continue to function. Plants produce their own glucose through photosynthesis, while animals break down food sources into glucose. Without fuel, our cells cannot reproduce or repair themselves, and will deteriorate over time. That is one reason diabetes can affect all aspects of our body and mind.

Certain types of foods yield much more glucose than others. Carbohydrates are our primary source of glucose, and there are several types of carbohydrates. Carbohydrates include both sugars and starches.

Monosaccharides are simple sugars. This includes fructose (from fruits) and glucose (typically from other plants).

Disaccharides are double sugars. These are bonded pairs of simple sugars. These include Sucrose, Lactose, and Maltose. Sucrose is simply table sugar, and this is usually the only sugar labeled on food labels as "Sugar." Sucrose breaks down into 1 Glucose, and 1 Fructose molecule. Lactose is the sugar found in milk, and also only contains one molecule of glucose.

Polysaccharides are complex cargohydrates. These are chains of glucose molecules. These digest more slowly than simple and double sugars, and are found in peas, beans, legumes, grains, potatoes, and other starchy plants.

Each of these types of carbohydrate is broken down during digestion, and the glucose is absorbed through the small intestine, and distributed to the entire body through the bloodstream.

Our bodies need a constant supply of glucose, and so excess glucose, or glucose not needed by the cells when we eat, is stored in the liver and muscles in the form of glycogen. Glycogen is simply long chains of glucose. Between meals, when the body is in short supply of glucose, the muscles and liver release glucose into our blood through glycogenesis, breaking down the stored glycogen.

It is also worth noting that the body is able to break consumed proteins down into glycogen to be stored in, and later released by the liver.

Now that we know how our body supplies itself with glucose, we need to know how it's used. This leads us to our next point.

Insulin

Insulin is a protein, or a hormone, produced by the islet cells, or Beta cells, in our Pancreas. Insulin is used by the body in a number of ways. Primarily of focus for diabetics, and the primary use of insulin, is to act as a transporter of glucose into our cells. Without insulin, glucose is never absorbed by the cells, and remains in the blood stream. As noted earlier, this prevents our cells from getting the necessary energy for maintenance, reproduction, and repair. This also causes high concentrations of glucose in the blood (High blood sugar, or hyperglycemia), which can lead to a plethora of complications, which I will elaborate on shortly.

In addition to transporting glucose into our cells, Insulin is also the hormone that promotes the body to store fats. Keep this in mind, as it is an important mechanic of the low-carbohydrate diet and weight-loss.

As previously mentioned, in T1s, the beta cells in the pancreas have been exhausted or even killed off, and insulin is no longer produced. Without insulin, the body will not receive energy from glucose, the concentration of glucose in the blood will rapidly rise, and many complications will occur.

In T2s, insulin is still produced, but it is not used efficiently by the cells. This typically leads to an elevated level of insulin as well as an elevated level of glucose in the blood. The elevated level of insulin is both caused by, and causes weight gain and excess body fat (as fat is one of the primary causes of insulin resistance).

Symptoms of Diabetes

There can be many symptoms that can lead to the diagnosis of diabetes. In T2s, most of these are caused by hyperglycemia. Diabetics typically exhibit some (but not all) of these symptoms:

Excessive thirst
Frequent urination
Unexplained weight loss
Glucose in the Urine
Extreme hunger
Tiredness or fatigue
Rapid changes in vision
Numbness or tingling in the extremities
Slow-healing sores or infections

If you are experiencing more than one of these symptoms and aren't sure if you may have diabetes, you should see a doctor. There are several different tests that can be performed.

If you have access to a blood glucose meter, you can always check your blood sugar yourself. The most common, and likely the first test that a doctor will do is called a fasting blood sugar test. They simply check your blood sugar after you've fasted for 12 hours. This is certainly NOT a definitive test, as fasting sugars can be perfectly normal, and your average sugar level can be quite high.

A slightly more capable way of testing is a hemoglobin A1C test. This test will show your average blood-sugar level for the past 3 months. Diabetics often have this test done periodically as a way of keeping track of our progress. While this does provide substantially more accurate results, it is still not definitive.

The most commonly accepted way of knowing for sure is called a GTT (Glucose Tolerance Test) or OGTT, or Oral GTT. In this test, you consume a normal level (more than 150g per day) of carbohydrates for 3-4 days prior to the test, and then fast for 12 hours. The doctor will give you a set amount of glucose, and test your sugar at intervals after the ingestion or administration of the glucose. This displays trends, as well as your "peak" sugar, and should allow for a definite diagnosis.

I will not expand too much here on the symptoms, but will go into more detail in the next section on potential complications of diabetes.

Potential Complications of Diabetes

There are a whole slew of complications that can arise from diabetes. These are typically due to elevated levels of glucose in the blood, but there can also be complications caused by low levels of glucose, or even rapidly changing BG levels. It is heavily reported that all of these complications can be prevented, and in many cases reversed, by maintaining healthy blood-glucose levels. Complications that I'll focus on are primarily caused by high blood sugar levels, or rapidly changing blood sugar levels.

Frequent Urination is caused by the kidney's trying to remove excess glucose from the blood stream. The kidneys filter the glucose out and then expel the excess glucose through urination. This can cause dehydration which also leads to excess thirst.

Putting excess strain on the kidneys filtering out high levels of glucose can lead to kidney problems, urinary tract infections, kidney stones, and eventual kidney failure.

Fatigue is another common issue among diabetics. This is caused simply because the cells are not getting enough glucose to provide energy.

High glucose levels cause poor circulation. High blood glucose draws water out of your tissues, causing them to become dehydrated. Dehydration leads to poor circulation as blood is thicker. The poor circulation can cause numbness in hands and feat, and this can lead to Diabetic Neuropathy, which means that your nerve cells are degenerating and dying. This nerve damage can be permanent if elevated blood sugars persist for too long. It is recommended that Diabetics visit a podiatrist at least annually to have their feet checked for signs of neuropathy.

In addition to neuropathy, retinopathy can occur in the eyes due to high, or quickly changing levels of blood sugar. This damages your vision, and can be either temporary, or permanent if it is allowed to go unchecked for too long. It is also recommended that Diabetics visit an ophthalmologist annually for a diabetic eye exam. Optometrists are unable to perform the same level of exam as ophthalmologists and so the ophthalmologist is the recommended course of action.

This same mechanism causes the walls of the blood vessels to thicken. This is a leading cause of high blood pressure and cardiovascular disease in diabetics. Heart disease is the leading cause of death among diabetics.

High Cholesterol is another common worry among diabetics. High cholesterol is caused by increased insulin levels in the blood. The more glucose in our blood, the more insulin the body must produce to combat the elevated glucose levels, and thus the higher our cholesterol becomes. In diabetics, the cholesterol causes fatty plaque to form in the blood vessels and arteries. These plaques dislodging can lead to heart attack or stroke.

Poor circulation also limits the immune system's ability to combat infections. Infections can run rampant in diabetics, and untreated infection can lead to gangrene. Severe damage can require amputation.

I hope you can see that the best course of action is to control your blood sugars. Out of control sugars can lead to a plethora of health problems, many of which can cause death.

Let's take a closer look at methods of controlling diabetes!

Controlling Diabetes

There are several methods of controlling diabetes. As I believe that maintaining tight control is the key to fewer complications, and a longer, healthier life, I will focus most of my time on this section. Before we can get into the methods of controlling our diabetes, we need to understand what "control" is defined as.

What does "normal" mean?

Persons without diabetes maintain near constant blood glucose levels (BG) of 80-100mg/dl, typically hovering right around 85. Dr. Bernstein explains, "There are times when that range can briefly stretch up or down—as high as 160 mg/dl and as low as 65—but generally, for the nondiabetic, such swings are rare." As diabetics, we should aim to remain within these target numbers, although it is most definitely not always possible to do so.

So, what CAN we do? The American Association of Clinical Endocrinologists specializes in diabetes treatment. The AACE recommends that blood sugar levels should be 140 or below two hours after meals. While this is a noble start, many people feel that this number after two hours is still too high. Most diabetics BG "peaks" at around 1h after meals, and so they aim to stay below 140 at all times. There are a lot of us who do aim to stay within the "normal" ranges of 80-120 at all times.

The other common measure of control comes in the form of an hbA1C test, which measures the amount of hemoglobin in the blood and is said to show an approximate 3-month average of BG levels. The AACE recommended A1C of diabetic patients is 6.5% or below, which correlates to an average BG level of 154mg/dl or lower. As you can imagine, most of us feel that this number is unacceptable to us personally, and shoot for much tighter control in the 4.5-5.5 (83-118) range.

The most powerful tool that we, as diabetics, have to combat our disease is our BG Meter. By measuring our BG before and after meals and activities, we are able to determine how the foods we eat and exercises we do affect our BG levels. There are several different methods for achieving these results, and I can tell you from personal experience, that it is achievable.

Controlling with Diet and Exercise

Some T2s are able to control their diabetes with nothing more than Diet and Exercise. Even with Insulin therapy or oral medications, watching your diet and exercise routines is the single most important thing you can do for your health as a whole. As stated earlier, one of the causes of insulin resistance is excess fat. One goal should be to cut down on this fat, as any change in this area can provide many health benefits. These include (but certainly are not limited to): an overall healthier feeling, more energy, lower cholesterol, lower blood pressure, decreased resting heart rate, lower BG levels, decreased risk of heart disease and increased circulation.

The mostly widely accepted method of controlling diabetes through diet is by following a Low Carbohydrate Diet. These come in many forms, but all follow one principal -- restricted carbohydrate intake. These diets are not only used to control BG levels, but also to promote weight loss. Why? As stated earlier, carbohydrates break down into glucose much more quickly and efficiently than any other type of food we eat. This glucose leads to high insulin levels in our blood along with elevated glucose levels. T1's who eat more carbohydrates much inject more insulin to "cover" the carbs they eat, while as T2s, our pancreas or supplemental insulin does the work.

This build-up of insulin in the blood, as we have explored previously, leads to the building of excess fat-mass in our bodies, as well as elevated cholesterol. As stated before, this leads to poor circulation, high blood pressure, and the risk of heart disease, heart attack or stroke. The simple fact is this: limiting carbohydrate intake not only reduces our BG levels, it also reduces the amount of insulin in our blood, which vastly reduces our chances of other complications.

So what are we to eat? It is simply not feasible for a lot of us to eliminate carbohydrates completely from our diets. This is where the Glycemic Index comes in. Our bodies are able to digest certain carbohydrates much faster than others. The slower-digesting carbohydrates allow our bodies more time to react, and thus produce less of a "spike," or sudden rise in our BG levels. These slower foods are lower on the glycemic index. "The glycemic index (GI) is a ranking of carbohydrates on a scale from 0 to 100 according to the extent to which they raise blood sugar levels after eating. Foods with a high GI are those which are rapidly digested and absorbed and result in marked fluctuations in blood sugar levels. Low-GI foods, by virtue of their slow digestion and absorption, produce gradual rises in blood sugar and insulin levels, and have proven benefits for health."

Pure glucose is given a GI of 100, and foods that absorb more slowly are ranked on a scale below that number.

Low GI foods have a GI of 55 and below. These include most fruits and vegetables, pasta, legumes, milk, yogurt, and low-carb products such as cheese, nuts, cooking oil.

Medium GI foods have a GI of 56-69 and include most whole wheat products, basmati rice, sweet potatoes, and table sugar.

High GI foods have a GI of 70 and above and include items such as corn flakes, rice krispies, baked potatoes, watermelon, crossiants, white breads, most breakfast cereals, most white rices, and straight glucose.

This is important to keep in mind when choosing carbohydrates to eat. Eliminating high-carb, high-GI foods from a diabetics diet is the single most effective way of maintaining a stable BG level. This means cutting out things like white breads and rice, potatoes (baked and french fries) and white rices.

That is certainly not all we can eat on a Low Carb diet. Proteins are "free game" because they are digested and broken down into sugars at such a slower rate than carbs. This includes meats. Many of the Low Carb diets recommend sticking to leaner meats such as chicken, turkey, and fish. I tend to lean more towards Dr. Atkins' approach which also allows fattier meats.

Higher levels of fat in the diet is acceptable so long as your insulin levels remain low due to low carb consumption. This helps to prevent the body releasing insulin, which in turn prevents it from storing the fat. Additionally, when there are limited levels of glucose in the blood (due to the low carb load), your body switches to its alternate fuel source: fat. When glucose is not available as a fuel source, the body can also burn fat in a process called lipolysis.

Advocates also point out that with lower levels of insulin in the blood, cholesterol levels actually decrease even when consuming dietary cholesterol. Eating a healthy amount of fats also helps the body feel full. I am a big advocate of the low carb diet because it allows me to eat plenty of food so that I don't feel deprived, and allows me to eat most of the foods that I enjoy.

So what IS low carb? This is where most of the debate focuses between the several low-carb diets. Atkins' "Induction" phase advocates eating fewer than 20g of net carbohydrates per day. A very important distinction here, as "fiber" is not counted toward net carbohydrate intake. Why? Fiber is insoluble and our bodies do not digest this and turn it into glucose. It has no affect on our glucose levels, and thus no affect on our insulin levels. To determine how many grams of net carbohydrates are in a food, we simply take the total carbohydrates, and subtract the fiber grams. Sat your eating a piece of whole wheat bread that contains 12g of carbs per slice, and 3g of fiber per slice, the net carbohydrates in your slice of bread would be 12-3, or 9g.

Dr Bernstein recommends a diet consisting of 6g of net carbs (carbs) for breakfast, 12g for lunch, and 12g for dinner, for a total of 30g per day. On the other end of the spectrum, the American Diabetes Association recommends 60g of carbs per meal for men, and 40-55g per meal for women. Most all of the diabetics that I've spoken with feel that this is too many to maintain healthy BG levels. The key is finding what works for YOU as an individual.

While Diet alone can control BG levels, another important factor is exercise. The muscles burn glucose more quickly than other cells to provide them with energy to expand and contract. Even muscles in rest burn glucose more quickly. Additionally, exercise increases metabolism and reduces insulin resistance. All of these combined point to the fact that exercise is very useful in maintaining a healthy BG.

Building muscle alone is a good practice as well, because any increase in muscle mass yields a net gain in the amount of glucose (and calories, for that matter) your body uses, even while in rest. More muscle mass = less insulin resistance, and more glucose or fat burned.

Controlling Diabetes with Oral Medication

There are several different kinds of medications available today to help with controlling blood sugar. Most of the newer medications come with a very small risk of hypoglycemia (low blood sugar), however the risk is always there.

Sulfonylureas are a class of medications that stimulate insulin secretion. These were the first type of diabetes medications developed and include Glimepiride (Amaryl), Glyburide (DiaBeta, Micronase), and Glipizide (Glucotrol). These coax the pancreas into producing insulin throughout the day, so without appropriate food intake, hypoglycemia is a real possibility. Additionally, some people feel that forcing the already exhausted beta cells to produce even more insulin can lead to even faster beta-cell death, and can lead to progressively less insulin production over time. This can make it harder and harder to maintain good control.

Repaglinide (Prandin) and Nateglinide (Starlix) are medications that stimulate insulin secretion for a much shorter period of time. These are taken directly before meals, and evidence exists that they cause the pancreas to produce more insulin as more carbs are eaten. This more closely resembles natural behavior of the pancreas and reduces, but does not eliminate the risk of hypoglycemia.

Biguanides work mainly on the liver. Glucophage (Metformin) is currently the only drug of this category on the market. This is typically the first line of defense as medications go for T2s. This doesn't stimulate insulin production, but rather prevents the liver from producing too much glucose through glucogenesis. Metformin is also able to reduce the appetite. This makes it the drug of choice among overweight T2s, and is sometimes even prescribed to assist in weight-loss in non-diabetic persons. Additionally, Metformin helps to reduce insulin resistance and allows the body to more readily use the insulin that it produces.

Although there are several other categories of drugs available, these are the most commonly prescribed. Alpha-glucosidase inhibitors slow down the digestion of starch, Thiazolidinediones reduce insulin resistance, and there are several combinations of drugs available as well.

Controlling Diabetes with Insulin Therapy

The third, but certainly not least, way of controlling Diabetes is through insulin therapy. Because diabetics on Insulin usually have to inject themselves subcutaneously (under the skin, not in a vein) with insulin, a lot of people view this option as a last resort. This is a flawed view, as many sources believe that beginning patients on insulin early, or soon after diagnosis, allows the pancreas to "take a break" and can slow the progression of the disease.

Insulin itself, is a natural hormone, and so there are typically far fewer side effects associated with insulin than there are with the oral medications. Diabetics who are unable to maintain solid control on diet and exercise, or oral medications are typically able to sustain much more reasonable numbers using insulin. Insulin is not only for T1 diabetics, but is also used in T2s to augment their body's own natural insulin production, and to give the pancreas a chance to recover. T2's pancreas function declines over time with poor control, as the beta cells must work harder and harder to control BG levels, and this can cause a decline in insulin production, leading to the requirement of insulin in T2s as well.

There are two main types of insulin that are administered: long acting (basal) insulin, and fast acting (bolus) insulin. There are a few different brands of each available, and each has it's own purpose. The bloodstream always needs a small amount of insulin in order to counter-act the liver's glucose release. The basal insulin is typically injected once or twice a day (ever 12 or 24 hours) in order to replicate or augment this basal insulin that naturally occurs in non-diabetics.

The second type is fast acting insulin (bolus), and this should typically be injected from 10-30 minutes before meals. This insulin is used to counter-act the rise in blood sugar that is a direct result of eating. Most diabetics on bolus insulin develop a Insulin to Carb ratio (I:C) to tell them how many units of insulin they should inject based on the number of carbohydrates the meal is going to contain. Bolus insulin is also used to "correct" hyperglycemia quickly, and help the BG return to normal.

When on insulin therapy, you have the greatest risk of hypoglycemia. If there is too much insulin in your blood for the amount of glucose, your cells will consume all of the glucose, and your BG will drop too low. Hypoglycemia typically displays several symptoms that will vary based on the severity of the hypoglycemia. These include (but are not limited to) hunger, sweating, anxiety, tremor, heart palpitations, visual disturbances, confusion or abnormal behavior, seizures, loss of consciousness, and can even cause a coma or death if they are severe enough.

While the risks are great, the rewards can be as well. Diabetics on insulin are typically able to maintain tighter control, and slow the progression of their disease more than those not on insulin.

To make the decision even easier, one of the latest entries into the market of diabetes control is the Insulin Pump. The pump is a medical device that administers small amounts of insulin periodically through the day through an infusion set that is inserted as a syringe would be just under the skin. Users of the pump are able to adjust the amounts of insulin administered throughout the day and adjust the amounts that is administered before meals. Many find this to be the most efficient way of maintaining tight control, as the amounts of insulin administered is very flexible and programmable to meet individual needs.

In Conclusion

In conclusion, I hope that I've given a basic understanding of the mechanics of diabetes. Moreso, I hope that I've shown that the complications that can occur as a result of not controlling your blood glucose levels are not complications that any of us would like to deal with, and that these complications can be easily avoided using the many tools that we have at our disposal as diabetics.

I hope that you've gained some knowledge from reading this, as it's something that I would have liked to read upon first learning that I was diabetic.

Glossary

Beta Cells - The cells in the Pancreas that produce Insulin.

Pancreas - The organ near the upper rear of the abdominal cavity that is responsible primarily for producing and storing insulin.

Insulin - A protein, or hormone produced by all living things. Insulin is the hormone responsible for allowing our body's cells to absorb glucose. Insulin is also a "fat storing hormone" in that it assists our body in converting excess glucose to fat.

Glucose - The simple sugar that all bodies require for energy. This is also known as blood sugar. This is the simplest form of sugar that our bodies can use, and nearly all foods that we eat are eventually broken down by our bodies into glucose to provide our bodies, as well as our brains, with energy.

Hyperglycemia - Excess levels of glucose in the blood -- high blood sugar.

Hypoglycemia - Low levels of glucose in the blood -- low blood sugar.

Sources

Worth noting, many of my sources come from material that I have read on the internet, as well as some of the books that I have read. I've done a lot of reading since I was diagnosed. I've listed most of them below, though there could be plenty left out. Also, some of the information that I have picked up has been second hand information from may folks on forums that have lived with, and coped with Diabetes for far longer than I have. I may not have concrete sources for a lot of this information.

Dr. Atkins' New Diet Revolution - Dr. Robert C. Atkins, Eric Conger

Diabetes Solution - Dr. Richard K. Bernstein

The First Year Type 2 Diabetes: An Essintial Guide for the Newly Diagnosed - Gretchen Becker

Weight Loss for Dummies

2009-11-08T16:41:00.002-05:00

So, I've been trying (once again, as seems to be a common trend in my life) to lose some weight. Since I was Dx with Diabetes, I've NEEDED to lose a bit of weight so as to help with the blood sugars, and to help my body get over some of the Insulin Resistance that's there now.

Granted, my sugars have been doing fine, and I've been losing weight, but it is NOT coming off quickly enough for my liking. I've been reading quite a bit on the Atkins stuff lately, because Low Carbing is a good way to keep blood sugars in check as well. I was trying to follow the "Induction" phase for a while, but it's just out of my reach. That involves eating only 20g of carbohydrates per day.

Take a look at the nutrition information on anything that you're eating. A serving of chips has more than 20g of carbs. No, I don't eat chips anymore.

Anyway, that's just balls hard. I've lost maybe about 30 pounds from my heaviest weight, which, I'm happy about. That's no small matter, granted. However, it's not enough. I was up to 285 lbs at one point. I'm around 6'2", so that's not AWFUL, but it is creeping up into the "obese" category. I've lost down to around 255 now, but I'd LOVE to lose back down to around 200. We'll see how it goes, but it sure does seem to be a tough thing to do.

Etcetera

2009-10-15T16:24:00.002-04:00

So, not too much going on as of late. I'm back to wishing that I posted more on the blog, because I feel like when I go back to try to read it in a few years, large chunks of my life will be missing. :P

Unfortunately, though, I have nothing too interesting to add. I'm waiting for my Google Wave invite to arrive. I'm.. looking forward to going to the Beach LanParty again this year. I'm... OH, I'm eating really low carb for the next couple of weeks to see if I can lose a little weight before Laura and I go to busch gardens on Friday.

Not going so well for me so far. lol.

And, I'm hungry.

That's all I got. Sorry.

Test post.,

2009-10-15T15:02:00.004-04:00

Just wanted to test to see how the image upload works. Where does the image go? I don't want to clutter my Picasa album with uploaded images. :P

Edit: Yep, it definitely uploaded it to my Picasa web albums..

Well, I guess that's acceptable.

A few weeks after Dx

2009-09-04T15:51:00.004-04:00

So, I'm a few weeks in and it's drastically changed my life! Haha, ok, so that's being a bit dramatic. I've brought my sugar down into a normal range and lost close to 10 pounds since the diagnosis a few weeks back. And ya know what? I feel spectacular! I have so much energy now, I absolutely love it.

I've switched my diet up drastically, from eating bread and pasta and rice and fatty foods all the time. Now, I'm pretty much low-carbing it, consuming around 30-60 grams of total carbs a day (or shooting for it, anyway). It's surprisingly easy to do, and leaves a lot of leeway in the types of things you can still eat! It requires quite a bit more planning than I'm used to, and makes it challenging to "run out and grab something", but as far as meals and most foods, it's a piece of cake.

I've gotten to enjoy a lot of veggies that I wasn't so sure about before. I've been eating a lot more lean meats (chicken, turkey, fish) than I had before. And sure, I can still enjoy the occassional steak -- just not with the 100+ gram's of carbs that you get in most of these restaurant's baked potatoes. Yeah, I miss a few things, but I've gained a lot from it already.

In addition to all that, I've been trying (and having some issues with it lately) to get in at least a mile's worth of walking each day. Work has been sort of a pain lately, and I haven't been getting home until after dark. So adding all that up, I feel healthier than I have in quite a while. I'm really enjoying it.

All that just to say that I've found it doesn't necessarily have to be a curse.

Diabetic!

2009-08-14T22:26:00.004-04:00

So, I was diagnosed yesterday with (a semi-mild case of) Type II Diabetes. I'm pretty substantially overweight and so I'm sure that has led to it almost entirely on it's own. On the one hand, it's pretty scary. On the other, though, my doctor said that I'd likely be able to manage it with diet alone if I were able to lose a good amount of weight. So, it totally could be a lot worse.

I don't have too much to say right now, as I just found out yesterday. I'm in the process of learning the types of foods that I can and can't eat. I don't have a blood glucos testing meter yet, so I'm going to have to get one of those. I'm also on 500mg metormin a day, which I haven't started taking yet because I've read that it can be tough on the stomach.

Laura and I are going to be heading by the 'Krops tomorrow to pick up the meter so I can start testing, and I'm in the process of trying to find some decent lower carb and health recipes. We'll see how that goes.

I'm going to try to post more, also.

Weddings, Weekends and Workdays

2009-06-08T10:45:00.002-04:00

So, it's yet another workday. This weekend just flew by because I was a groomsman in a friend of mine's wedding. The whole week leading up to it, I was pretty short on sleep. It was much more pronounced Thursday onward though.

We had a "bachelor party" type of thing on Thursday night. I say "type of thing" though because we all just went out to Hooters and snacked on some wings and drank some beer. It was a pretty good time, I always like hanging out with Devin, but he had a friend there that I didn't like at all. He got two nicknames after the next couple of evenings because of the way he looked and acted. First, he became "Stifler" because his personality was exactly like Stifler's from American Pie. Constantly hitting on any female that walked by, cracking stupid 'guy' jokes. He even looked a lot like him. "Abercrombie" became his other nickname, as the waitress pegged him dead on when she said he looked like a manager from Abercrombie. He was for about 4 years. Anyway, other than that, thursday was a good time. I, being the old married guy that I am, headed home around 10:00 or so, but it was pretty tough to get to sleep after that, and I was up until probably a little after 1.

Friday was straight from work to the wedding rehearsal. After the late night the night before and getting up at 7am for work, I wasn't very energetic the rest of the day. The wedding rehearsal started at 6, we were done by around 7, and we all headed out to the Grapevine afterwards for more food and drink. That was a good time, with the friends and family that were involved in the wedding. I brought my wife along to that one as well, and we all had a good time. Finally made it to bed at a 'reasonable' time that night.

Saturday was the wedding itself, I was in a tuxedo from 2:00pm until about 10:00 pm and that was absolutely exhausting. Add to that the conference call that I had to attend at 1:30am on Sunday morning, and I didn't get much rest Saturday night either. I slept for about 2 hours Sunday afternoon, and I also slept pretty good last night. Thankfully, I finally feel like I've caught up.

So, as exhausting as it all was, It was a pretty good time. I'm really happy for Devin and Lauren as well, they're a really good couple. So, now that it's Monday and I'm sitting at work, I think I'll get back to it and get some stuff done.

The Wandering Mind

2009-05-05T10:51:00.002-04:00

So, I'm sitting here at work drawing an intellectual blank. I've got stuff going on and there are several things that I need to get done today but I just can't seem to put my finger on a starting point. Usually once I find that starting point, it's all gravy, but for some reason, I just can't get going. So what do I do? Find something on the internet to read that will get my mind thinking again. It's usually a book or something of the like, as looking at sites like failblog.org amuse me, but don't really help to get me moving.

The only thing about that is that I can get pretty easily attached to things I'm reading. I'm "caught up" with about 2 or 3 serialized novels, in the middle of a series or two (waiting for the next book to become available!) and reading Laura's Cousin's novel, Desperate Highway at home. (Excellent read, btw. http://www.desperatehighway.com)

It's hard to keep them all straight, and even doing that is becoming a burden, causing my mind to clog up even more. What to do?!

Oh well, that's all I have to say today. Not being able to think well, I'm not really able to come up with an answer on my own. :)

Productivity 101

2009-04-07T16:09:00.000-04:00

Wow, what a productive day it's been. I'm still sitting at work, but now the market is closed and so I can finally take a breather. I was going to blog this morning about lack of motivation and how I have a hard time getting motivated to get anything done. I decided, however, that instead of just blogging about it, I should go ahead and get to work on what I wanted to get done. I'm very glad that I did.

I really do have a hard time getting motivated to get things done, but I've managed to show myself today that I can. Head down, headphones on, music going, and work flowing. It was pretty cool. I've still got stuff that I can get done, so I'm going to head back to working on it. I have to keep the momentum going, or else it's all over.

Shot of the day (night?) - 4/4/09

2009-04-05T10:56:00.002-04:00

This is one that I took last night. I've seen several photos of the moon that have just blown me away, it amazes me how much detail some people can get with just a simple camera. I wanted to give it a shot. I definitely can't get nearly as much detail with my lens selection as some others can, but I was still pretty surprised. It's cool how you can actually see some of the texture and terrain.

This was shot at ISO 640 on my D80. It was shot at around 210mm zoom (315mm equiv on a 35mm camera) with a 1/400th second exposure time at f/8. It's nothing spectacular, but it was still surprisingly cool to me. This is just cropped to get rid of a bunch of black sky -- this was the original image size. I took out all the saturation, as the white balance was giving it sort of a yellowish hue that I didn't like. That's it, I left all the curves and contrast and such alone. Pretty neat!

Sunday Morning Blah's

2009-04-05T10:49:00.000-04:00

So, it's Sunday morning, and here I sit. Another day in front of the computer. I actually don't have much of anything planned for today. I'm heading down to my dad's to have lunch with him later this afternoon, I believe. He was pretty sick all of last week, and I felt really bad for him. I've been worried about him like crazy since he had a stroke several months back. Even when he gets sick, I'm always worried that it could be something more serious. It turned out not to be this time, thankfully, and I think he's feeling a lot better. So, that's the plan.

I don't really have much to add. I slacked off this morning and didn't go with Laura to church, because we were up so late last night cleaning tea up. We made a gallon (or so) of tea for dinner last night and drank some (1/3 or so) of it. Laura was trying to pour herself a cup last night and apparently spilled it all over the place. She spilled most of the rest of it, it was all inside the fridge, on the floor, everywhere. We ended up having to take apart the entire fridge (just about -- all the shelves came out) so that we could clean it all up. I felt terrible for her, because she's a very clean person, and having that everywhere must have been driving her nuts. Everyone spills every now and then.

So anyway, we were up until probably around 1:00 and then when the alarm went off at 6:40 or so this morning, it was just not time to get up yet. I ended up staying here and slacking off. I feel a bit better now, so that's nice.

That's about it -- slack Sunday. Does anyone else have any fun plans?

Shot of the Day - 4/3/09

2009-04-03T11:45:00.001-04:00

We'll give this a shot. Since "my thing" for the time being is my new DSLR, and photography and stuff, I'll try to post a shot each day that I either enjoyed taking or that has some sort of story behind it or something. Who knows how long it will last, my interests seem to change with the seasons. :P

Anyway, this one was one of the first few that I took with the new D80 that I feel really came out. I was chilling out on the front porch for about 20 minutes with the camera pointed at the bird feeder. The sunlight was pretty nice, as it was around sunset and the light was direct (from the left side of the photo). I was able to get the capture with a quick enough shutter speed to eliminate any kind of shake. Nothing special about the shot or the birds, but they were pretty cute. I liked it because it came out nice and crisp.

Trip Back in Time

2009-04-03T10:32:00.000-04:00

I always say that I enjoy going back and reading all my old entries. Since I've been moving everything over here from LJ, I've been going back and re-reading all my old posts as they've transferred. It's crazy how much times have changed. It all got me thinking, if I could travel back in time and change any one of my decisions, would I?

Maybe I'm just an overly optimistic person, but I really don't think that I would. I'm a believer in the butterfly effect of the chaos theory, and so any one small change that I would have made would have drastically altered my life. Let's do a for instance -- say I wish now that I'd done better in school (I don't, just pretend, here). I could say, "I would change my decision to start playing quake so that I could spend more time working on school work."

Granted, this would be no small change in my life, as that single decision to start playing a video game has shaped who I am today. Sad? Maybe.

Playing quake sparked my interest in computers and the internet as a whole, and led to my decision to learn all I could about computers. Not only that, it was my poor performance in school that led to my attending VCU. (No offense to VCU, It's a fantastic school -- I just couldn't get in any other school had I wanted to, with barely a 2.0 GPA coming out of high school) I actually had to take a semester off before going to VCU because I wasn't accepted when I first applied. It was a karate instructor of mine that was an associate Dean at VCU that was able to help me get in after that first rejection. If any of those decisions had changed, my life would be totally different. I wouldn't have started my first semester in the Art school, I would have gone straight to Computer Science or something. I wouldn't have transferred to a different school my second semester. That was my wife's first semester. That semester, we had two classes together, and I really got to know her. I wouldn't be living where I am, or working where I am because I wouldn't have been in the same places at the same times. Everything would be different.

Who's to say whether that's a good or a bad thing? I'm certainly not going to try to make that call, but I'm very happy with my life today, and I know that any change I would make would drastically alter where I am today. Thinking about things like that also makes me realize that each and every decision I make today drastically alters my future.

Just something to think about.

Bear with me

2009-04-02T14:42:00.003-04:00

Please bear with me over the course of the next few days (hopefully), as I'm porting all of my old Live Journal posts to Blogger. I much prefer the interface of blogger and have grown tired of the slow UI that Live Journal uses, and so I'm transferring all of my entries over.

Blogger has a limitation to only allow 50 posts per day (and I now realize that this one isn't going to go through, as it's 51, so I'm actually writing this yesterday), and I have roughly 261 entries that need to be transferred over.

Props to Linux Lore and their application (http://linuxlore.blogspot.com/2007/09/livejournal-to-blogger-or-blogger-to.html) that makes this as seamless a process as possible.

Edit: It actually did let me post after verifying that I was an actual person. Excellent! So this post is actually today! Also, I started from the "beginning" and I'll update with the rest of my posts in the days to come.

Shooting in the Snow

2009-03-05T19:45:00.005-05:00

So, like I was saying, I just snagged a brand spanking new DSLR and I've been wanting to take some sweet pictures with it. I took photography back in High School and I've always enjoyed shooting stuff, the course was only a semester, and that's about all I know about phogotraphy in general. Some basic rules here and there -- the rule of thirds, for example -- and the general ideas behind exposures -- f/stops, shutter speeds, etc. That's about it.

I actually find it a bit strange, because I'm one of the least 'artistic' people that I've ever met. I can't draw, I don't know anything about writing or music or any of the 'creative' arts, but I do really enjoy taking pictures.

Anyway, I snagged the camera on Friday and it rained all day Friday evening and all day Saturday. I was bummed, not much light when it's rainy and dreary, and can't really go out to take pictures. I was pretty lucky when the snow started falling though and I was able to get a couple of shots outside my house of the snow. Unfortunately, it kept falling and we were up to about eight inches by the time it was over. That's the most snow we've gotten in ten years. I got a few cool shots, I'm hoping maybe I can get a bit more use out of the camera this weekend since it's going to be back up to 80 degrees. Yep, after eight inches of snow last weekened, 80 this weekend. Crazy weather!

Who are you?

2009-03-02T10:09:00.001-05:00

And why are you blogging?

Don't you find it interesting when, say, you look back at something you wrote three or four years ago and think to yourself, "What was I thinking?"

That's the idea behind my wanting to start a blog. That's really about it. I also like keeping other people entertained (and I'm not really sure why), so I hope that someone other than me can get some enjoyment as well.

Just to knock out the pre-requisite 'about me,' I'm 27, a computer programmer, living in Richmond, VA. I'm married, no kids (and none for a while, thank you), and I just got a brand new shiny DSLR camera that I've been taking advantage of for the last few days. That's about my only hobby now, I like playing video games and tinkering with computer hardware in my free time.

(Edit: That is no longer relevant, as I've decided to transfer all of my old posts over. Also, look at my profile. :))

On that note, thanks for coming, enjoy your stay, hope you find something to keep you occupied.

More Specificic.

2008-02-24T22:27:00.000-05:00

We had a mad lazy weekend. Laura and I went down to Colonial Heights this afternoon and met with my dad to go to lunch. That was about the most that we did this weekend. We ran all our errands yesterday and uh.. well.

That's it, really. Boring weekend, way too much WoW.

Hm.

2008-02-24T22:25:00.000-05:00

Maybe it doesn't update as often as it says it does. I'm level 53 now. :/

Silly thing.

On a brigher note.

2008-02-21T16:54:00.000-05:00

I found a site that generates forum sig images based on the WoW armory. It's pretty neat and the sig updates every night!

For those of you who have no interest in WoW, this won't matter.

Also, I need more friends. haha.

Edit: There we go -- looks like I just have to go in and update it manually.

That's fine.

Last Night.

2008-02-21T16:07:00.000-05:00

So, I was leaving work last night, and realized that I didn't have a parking pass with me. Basically, we've had 1 more guy going downtown lately than usual, and so a few of us downtown have been sharing one. Yesterday, I drew the short straw, and was also the last one to leave.

Now, this is a puzzle, because without a pass, how am I to get out of the parking deck? In the past, we've been able to "fill out" the ticket, and they'd let us leave, and bill the money to the parking pass. Thus, I didn't think that it would be a problem at all. Now, if you're thinking to yourself "well it must have been, or you wouldn't be writing about it," then you are absolutely correct!

I get up to the gate, explain my situation to the young lady that's handling the booth at the moment, and alas, they can't do that anymore. Or, at least, she won't for me. I don't know which was the case. I have to pay 20 dollars to get out of the parking deck. "Well, I don't have any cash on me right now, are you sure I can't just fill out the ticket?"

"No, I'm sorry, you'll have to pay."

"You don't take cards or anything, right?" That would be way too convenient.

"No, sir, I'm sorry. If you'll back up, you can go by the parking office right here and he may be able to help you." Granted, I'm paraphrasing. She was a 30 something lady, working as a career (i can only assume) in a parking booth. So it may not have been quite so eloquent. No, not downing booth attendants, but generically speaking, there isn't much in the way of education required to do said job.

Anyway, I skidaddle on over to the "parking office" and a somewhat more edumacated gentleman still refuses to allow me to fill out a voucher. I'm a little disturbed at this point, but not too bad. He says that if I pay, and come back tomorrow, they'll be able to reimburse me. He suggests that I go up to the ATM and get cash. It's right upstairs, so I head on up to take out some money. Lo and behold, it's out of order. It's sub-30 degrees outside, sleeting, and the nearest ATM (in working order) is roughly 2 and a half blocks away. Fuck me. Now I'm peeved.

I walk out, get my money, rush back to the parking office to give him another piece of my mind and it's locked. Are you fucking shitting me? Back in my car, back to the "booth lady" to pay my fine and get the hell out. I'm nice, it's not her fault, it's their policy, I just wanted her to know, etc etc. She takes my ticket, takes my name, and tells me that I can come back tomorrow and stop by the building management office to get my refund. Yes, I'm fucking sure.

I'm sitting here now thinking it's just a sunk cost, I don't even want to call them again because I'm going to get pissed off again. But I'm going to. I'm going to get my 20 bucks back. It's not the money, it's the principal of the damn thing.

Kabutos and stuff.

2008-02-18T11:07:00.000-05:00

So, on Saturday, we all got together and went to Kabuto's for Dinner for my mom's birthday. I'd never been before, so I really enjoyed it. It was Mom, a couple of her friends (Tammy, Julie, Barry), Devin, Lauren, Curtis, Meggie, Laura, Me, Laura's Mom, and Jim. There were a bunch of us there and so we were a little tight gathered around the table, but it was actually just about perfect fit.

Anyway, we got there at around 6:45 or so, had reservations for 7, and it's a damn good thing we did. They can't seat you until your entire party is there, and it was packed. We couldn't park in the parking lot because there were so many people there. The last member of our party arrived a couple minutes after 7:00, and we were seated by 7:10 or so. We got soup, salad, appetizer, entree, and hot tea as a finisher. It was good, and a lot of fun to see them cooking right there in front of you like that. They offer vegetarian dishes as well as as steak, shrimp, chicken, and lobster. Afterwards, we all came back over to our house and had cake and ice cream. I think everyone really had a good time.

Sunday was a totally lazy day, I sat around and did just about nothing. I played about 6 hours of WoW this weekend which is the most i've played in a LONG time. I leveled my priest up to 51 and played around a bit with the character Devin's leveling for me. I ran Dan through Ulda, which was really cool being able to do that. That's about it. I'm still hooked on that show, Dexter.

So much to do in life.

2008-02-13T14:43:00.000-05:00

I'm signed up for 43 things, but there's just so much I want to do.

I just came back from lunch with laura and we got into this whole conversation about how there's so much I want to get or do or whatever. It's ridiculous. There's a ton of stuff I want to get for the house, and a bunch of stuff that I'd like to do to it. Let's see.

Vinyl Siding

Gutters

New Windows

New Hot water Heater

New heat/AC unit. Ours is old.

New floors in the kitchen

New Dishwasher

New Range (stove)

Extend / Rebuild the deck.

As part of the new deck, Hot Tub!

In addition to that, I really want to get my pilot's license. I want to build a website again -- even if it is that one that I keep telling Laura's uncle and Cousin I'm going to help them with. I'd like a new car (because mine's getting old-ish). I want a new cell phone. Basically anytime I see anything that I think is cool, I just want it. Granted, I don't just go out and blow money on things... ever. I'm actually pretty good and thrifty. I don't just blow money on stuff, even though I spend more than I should. I always eat out, and that is a huge waste of money. So, how should I go about GETTIng all this money?

You've gotta have it to make it, right? I want to open a brokerage account and start investing some in the market. I work so closely with the market, I feel like I've got a fairly decent idea about how things work. Or, at least, I know enough that I know I'm not guaranteed to make money regardless of how much research I do. The market just changes on a whim. It's nuts.

Anyway. I'm all writed out.

I suck

2008-02-06T16:33:00.000-05:00

We're moved into the house, married, everything's going well. We've gotten everything squared away (pretty much), other than getting more curtains and one more ceiling fan and such.

Work's about the same, less stressful lately, thankfully. I've really been enjoying it lately.

I suck at updating the journal all the time, so I think I'm going to give twitter a shot.

http://twitter.com/UnaFragger

Give that a shot.

Wowsies

2007-07-17T10:45:00.000-04:00

It's been a busy week or so. We've ALMOST finished painting the house. All we've got left to do is the bathrooms. I got most (all but one) of the ceiling fans and light fixtures that we've got put up. I got a new toilet (because that's something that everyone inevitably wants to know) because the one that was there was TINY. And I'm NOT. hehe.

Anyway, that was fun. We're moving THIS SATURDAY, so I don't anticipate that it'll get any less busy in the meantime. I'm really looking forward to moving though. We've been spending so much time there anyway that it's really starting to feel like home. :) I can't wait to be living there.

That's it, I'll try to write more later. At work now. Kinda a busy morning. I've been good n' productive. hee.

OH, and I got a 30GB Video iPod for my birthday, so I'm happy. :)

Teehee

2007-07-02T22:15:00.000-04:00

Still not too much to report in the way of painting -- the living room made it further along today, Donna came by and edged everything off nicely. Laura and I went up in there and Laura edged the ceilings in the master bedroom and closet and re-did the master closet to even it out a bit. I took down all the blinds, because I spoke with the painter, and she's going to be doing the trim and such tomorrow. So, that should help. We got up the trash, threw out the blinds, dismantled the old ceiling fans, etc.

The most exciting part of my evening was installing the new ceiling fan in the master bedroom. Never knew I had it in me. Directions are (usually) for pansies... except when working with electricity, I guess.

I'm Beat

2007-07-01T20:52:00.000-04:00

We went by the house and did a lot of painting today. it was great, we mixed the colors for the laundry room, and used that in the laundry room and the master closet -- it's sort of a taupe color.. sort of a dark caramel? maybe?

Anyway, it turned out really well and covered up all the scuff marks and stuff that generally get left behind in a laundry room. It makes it look pretty dark in there, so now I think we're going to have to get a new light fixture, but that's ok.

Anyway, I know I said I was going to take pictures, but I didn't. Donna (the painter) didn't come on Friday, so there wasn't much more done that's worth taking a picture of yet (with the exception of being able to see some of the colors.)

I'm going to wait until she gets more color up on the walls and then get some shots to post for everyone.

Speaking of pics! Yahoo Pics is going away, so I had to transfer all my stuff over to flickr. I'm going to have to re-link all my links. hehe. That's cool though. I hope all my pics transferred like they should have. I guess we'll see.

Back to work tomorrow. Joy of joys.

I'm such a kid

2007-06-29T17:05:00.000-04:00

I totally want these.

http://www.dickssportinggoods.com/product/index.jsp?productId=2660650&cp=1413252.2599945&pg=1&searchSort=TRUE&searchSort=TRUE&s=D-StorePrice-DSP&parentPage=family&searchId=17527995683

So

2007-06-29T12:45:00.000-04:00

Not much new to report.

Donna started painting on the inside of the house, and it look fantastic. I think we really picked out some good colors.

Laura and I were originally planning to do all the interior painting ourselves, but after we 'discovered' what a pain in the ass it could be, we decided to hire someone to do the downstairs for us. It ended up being one of the best things that we could have done because I SOOO don't want to have to paint a lot. We've done about half of two bedrooms now, and it's a royal pain in the ass. So, we've got a professional doing the entire downstairs (less the laundry room) and the common area upstairs. She's done half the downstairs, and none of the upstairs (as of yesterday). But it looks awesome. Granted, for nearly $1,300, it should.

So that's about it. I don't know if we're going over there at all today or not -- probably to see the paint. I'll try to remember to take the CAMERA and get some pics that I can shoot up here for you folks to see. :)

Hope everyone's doing well.

:/ I need a flickr account or something.

Agh

2007-06-22T10:33:00.000-04:00

I have teh dumb! I cannot brain today. :/

I'm working on this hugely complex abstract problem at work and I can't figure it out!

And it's not really even that big of a problem. I just can't get it.

I hate days like this. It's like there's a concrete wall enclosing my mind. If I could just break through, I could have this figured out in an hour.

*Grumble*

NOTHING

2007-06-20T16:21:00.000-04:00

Nothing to see here. Move along.

The culmination of the house

2007-06-15T12:22:00.000-04:00

I'll have to get some more pictures to post on the net, I guess, just so people can see what I'm talking about in entries like this.

But, it's all starting to come together. We got a lot of work done in the yard (though not nearly enough). So, that looks nice. We've gotten a lot of work done inside as well. This weekend will really only be our second weekend working in the house, so I guess that's not too bad. We're planning to start painting, and that should make a WORLD of difference. We've gotten most of the holes patched and the caulking done. Laura's cleaned the kitchen and dining room really well, and even the living room now. We’ll start painting the ceilings first. We’re just painting all of them white.

It’s hard to describe the color that’s in there now. It’s a white…ISH. But it’s like a white that’s been stained by someone smoking in the house for years. Mind you, the previous owners didn’t smoke, so the house doesn’t smell of smoke or anything like that. That was just their choice of colors. It’s so drab, it’s boring. All of the trim in there accentuates the yellowy of the walls with a light beige color, imitating an off-white. Not really very attractive.

So, we’re going to put some color on the walls. Nothing drastic, mind you, but something. The ceilings and trim should really pop with the sharp white contrasting against the colors that we chose/choose to put on the walls. It should make such a huge difference to get it painted. I’m really looking forward to it.

TONIGHT, however, Laura’s making me climb under the front porch and deck. We’re putting down some landscaping sheets under both and covering them with a light colored pebble of some kind. Probably going to stop by Lowe’s and get that tonight. That should help to spruce up the front of the house nicely. I’m not sure how it’ll look under the deck, but we’ll see. The deck is a good 4 feet off the ground in some places. There’s a small slope away from the back of the house. *shrug* We’ll see!

:)

Like a day off!

2007-06-11T22:24:00.000-04:00

Wow, sunday was a beast. We had about 12-15 people over at the house out in the yard doing yard work, inside doing house work. Laura's uncle installed some celing fan's (he's an electrician, and actually had to run the wires to the switches and cut holes in the ceilings of the 2 rooms). My dad helped out with locks, and cutting down a gigantic bush with a chain saw. A ton of people helped out with yard work, and a bunch more hleped out inside.

Still more fun, I got to break in the new grill. We fired it up and cooked 12 burgers, and about 15 hot dogs. (not all at the same time) Worked well though. I finished getting all the new locks put on the doors, and I got the new kitchen faucet installed. I patched most of the holes, tightened the railing on the front porch, we tore down the defunct swingset in the back yard. Granny got that a bunch of that ugly ass wall-paper down from the master bathroom, and Ellen got a lot of the grass cut.

The grass is thick as hell in the yard, and it's that nasty clumpy kind too, so it's hard to cut. Her lawn mower kept cutting off, so she only got about half of it done. My boss at work is going to give me one that he had that stopped working. He dropped it off with someone to get it fixed, so as soon as that's done, hopefully I'll snag that from him. HOPEFULLY it'll be this week so that I can finish cutting the grass, because having HALF the yard cut looks kinda funny. Though, it is the half of the yard that's visible from the street, so it makes it look way better than it did.

Laura and her aunt and my mom and several others tore up a bunch of the bushes, weeds, and spider grass from the front yard lining the driveway and side walk. That improved the look of the front of the house dramatically. Anyway, sunday was a crazy day. Today, we didn't do ANYTHING, and it was good. Nice and relaxing.

Also, http://www.lunarwars.net

:)

So!

2007-06-04T21:50:00.000-04:00

We got in there today. We had a painting contractor come by to give us an estimate on some painting that we wanted to get done, and she was able to give us a lot of little pointers about fixing up the walls. There are tons of little holes in the walls where the previous owners had pictures hung and shit. They had a LOT of pictures.

Anyway, so we got some stuff to fill in the holes and a bunch of other shit we're gonna need for painting, calking (!?), etc. We spent over a hundred bucks there, but it's okay. There still aren't any chairs. We need to take some of those over there. Hehe.

Anyway! Good times. We didn't do any work tonight because Dave came over and so did Mom and Dan, and we showed them around. But it was good times.

Yay!

2007-06-04T17:31:00.000-04:00

We just closed on the house!

Off to work.

Just a typical, lazy weekend

2007-06-03T22:02:00.000-04:00

Laura and I pretty much just hung around here all weekend. It was pretty nice, very relaxing. We just got back from her choir thing at church a while ago. It was really good. On the way home, we stopped by Chung Hing (or whatever) to get chinese for dinner. Omg, awesome.

I ended up with some boneless spare ribs and pork fried rice. I only ate about half of it, but that was still more than enough food. Anyway, it was really good.

So, back to work tomorrow! I reeeally hope we hear back from the attorney about the house pretty early in the morning. I hate just not knowing what's going on with things. it's always easier to just KNOW one way or the other. Anyway!

Hope everyone has a goodnight!

Mother F*ckers.

2007-06-02T11:04:00.000-04:00

So, our whole weekend's shot. Here's how it went.

We got to the attourney's office at 12:30 on Friday, all ready to sign the paperwork to close on the house. We sit there for about 15 minutes before the attourney (who I really don't like, because he seems like an arrogant jerk, but I only got to talk to him for about 15 minutes anyway, so no matter). We get back to the back conference room thingy to start signing the papers, and he tells us that the sellers haven't approved the HUD (?!) and haven't wired the money that they owe and have to have wired before we can sign everything to close. Apparently, the closing attourney for the sellers was slow getting the paperwork to them, and so they didn't have time to look over it and approve it before we could get in there to close.

Since the house is actually owned by a relocation company, and not the people that live there, they're closed ont he weekends, and thus can't do anything over the weekend. We'll have to wait until Monday at the earliest to hear whether or not they've seen, approved, and paid the costs that they're required to pay before we can close on the house.

Needless to say, I was peeved. So, we sit here all weekend, without a house, and without any plans, because our plans DID include cleaning, patching, etc the house and working in there.

SO! I guess we'll be waiting until next week to do anything. In the meantime, we're going to see Shrek 3. Which, should be fun, but it doesn't help the fact that we have no house. :/

Woo, got the keys!

2007-05-31T21:50:00.000-04:00

We went and did the final walkthrough on the house tonight, and ended up walking away with the keys. We're closing at 12:30 tomorrow. I have to work, but I can't imagine doing too much at work. I doubt my mind'll be there.

The house was about what I was expecting. It looked significantly larger without all of those people's huge furniture in there. The back yard is really nice, and I'm really looking forward to getting out there and working on it. The walls are all so plain and drab, and there are little holes everywhere where there were pictures hung and stuff. We're going to have to do a bunch of patching, and a shit-load of painting. it's going to look amazing once we're done though. And, we've got TWO MONTHS to work on it. :D

I can't wait. Some of you should come by and see the before picture. hehe.

Wowsies

2007-05-30T19:44:00.000-04:00

So, I'm sitting here on the sofa watching a program on how fish sticks are made.

Amazing.

We're closing on our house in less than TWO DAYS. I can't believe it. Also, I can't wait. It should be so much fun to get in there and do some work on the place. :D That's about all I've been thinking about lately.

Greetings from the home front.

2007-05-26T13:43:00.000-04:00

Yeah, I'm sitting on my sofa getting ready to play WoW again. I haven't played recently.

That's about all, we ran a shit-load of errands today to pick up a butt-load of cleaning supplies and some food for next week. (The food was for next week, the cleaning supplies are more for next weekEND after we close on the house. :)

It's like 90 degrees outside today, it's insanely hot. I just want to stay in here in the air conditioner and not do anything. Although that would get somewhat boring. :)

I know, I know.

2007-05-25T16:48:00.000-04:00

It's so spotty when I get a chance to post. It's really crazy. I guess if I were more consistant with it, it would be more fun to read.

So, let's see. Been married for a month and 10 days now. It's about the same as it was before, nothing really changed. It took me forEVER to get used to wearing my ring, but I feel sorta wierd withOUT it on now. So, I guess that makes it pretty official. I would say "I love the married life!" and I do, but it really isn't much different than it was before. :D

We're closing on our HOUSE on Friday (next Friday), June 1st. I can't wait, it should be a total blast. I'm really looking forward to having something to really work on and "customize" or whatever. It's a pretty nice house, built in '92. It's a 2 story colonial out in the "far west end" near ridgefield and john rolfe parkway (for those of you familiar). It's all white (as far as the walls, AND the outside go), and it has dark green shutters. We're going to leave the outside pretty much as-is for a while, though it's going to need to be re-sided sometime in the future.

The inside is getting a facelift though. We're repainting pretty much everything. It has new carpeting in the family room (sort of the normal tan-beige color). The dining room and entryway/hall is a hardwood. The Kitchen and eat/in area is a linoleum tile, but it's not too bad looking. The entire upstairs is also newly carpeted. It's about 1500 sq. feet, and should prove to be quite an adventure in adulthood. haha. Although I'm a few years into my career, married, and just about to buy a house, I still feel like a kid half the time. :P Nutzo.

Anyway, that's what's going on in my life. And, I guess that's all that matters, since it IS my journal, after all. :P

Wow.

2007-04-12T09:35:00.000-04:00

I'm getting married in 2 days.

Busy as balls

2007-02-16T19:01:00.000-05:00

Wow, today was crazy.

Good crazy.

We get to see 3 of the houses that we wanted to see tomorrow. I'm excited.

And (though I probably shouldn't post this on the internet, but i must brag), my credit score is 779. :D

Houses!! :D

2007-02-02T11:27:00.000-05:00

I'm pretty excited. Laura and I finally got pre-approved or whatever for a mortgage the other day, so we finally got to start looking at houses. We spoke with a realtor a few days ago and she set us up on their portal so that we can really start looking at houses. She started us off with a really broad search area, and there were about 73 houses that matched our search criteria. Maybe half of those were in our price range, and out of all those, we found 3 that we really liked. They were close to home, good size, nice layout, pretty new, nice sized yard.. very cool.

I really can't wait until we get to actually start touring some. We're getting married in the middle of April, and our rent comes up for renewal at the end of JUly or early August. So, we're probably going to try to get out of the Apartment then and into a house, so we can start actually earning some Equity on where we live. I'm pretty excited too. I'm looking forward to being able to do house work and yard work. Make some minor renovations if we need to, and do some painting. I haven't had a chance to do anything like that in a long time, and I've gotten really really lazy. So, it'll be fun to be able to actually get up and do some stuff around the house.

Anyway. That's about all that's been on my mind the last couple of days. :/ Work = usual.

Rainy Days Suck

2007-01-05T10:17:00.000-05:00

It's shitty outside today. It's friday, which is good. No more work for a whole 2 days! Woo.

All my geek friends are leaving on Sunday to go on to the annual geek-fest lan party down in Nags Head, and I don't get to go this year. On one hand, I'm a little dissappointed because it's always fun, but on the other, I'm sorta glad that I don't have to worry about it. Also, it's going to be nice to be able to go on a Honeymoon in April, and I'll be able to use the rest of my vacation when we move into a new house.. hopefully this summer. :D

PS, look forward, because I'm sure I'll be recruiting some of you guys to help me move again. lol.

Fkn Dominion. hehe.

2007-01-04T11:29:00.000-05:00

So, we get home yesterday and there's a notice on our door that Virginia Power is going to cut off the power from 6:00 to 6:45 this morning. Shit. Our alarm clock goes off at 6:30. What if the power's not in? So, we scramble around yesterday to find batteries to put in the alarm clocks so hopefully they'll still go off and wake us up, and I set the alarm on my phone too.

Go to sleep, and at like 3:00, the power goes off. Wakes us both up, and it's a pain in the ass to go back to sleep. Then, around 4:30 or 5:00 rolls around, and we start waking up.. just KNOWING that the power's going to go off again any minute now. Goes off around 5:45 (pretty much still awake) and comes back up at like 6:05. Great. So the alarm clock does go off as it should, so I disable the alarm on my phone. Noo, couldn't be that easy. That goes off too.

So, I don't know. Just a pain in my ass. I didn't sleep like well at ALL last night and I woke up with a crazy bad headache this morning because of it. I hope it doesn't come back.

Family Reunion!

2006-12-31T00:12:00.000-05:00

We had my family gathering today down in Franklin. My family can be so country sometimes, it's funny. It was good times by all though. The food was incredible, as usual. :D And then we went out to dinner afterwards. I got some Buffalo wings.. I'd been craving those bad boys for like 2 weeks. Really hit the spot.

Ok, off to bed! :D

Sigh

2006-12-29T22:53:00.000-05:00

I'm a complete and total world of warcraft addict.

Wewp for long weekends

2006-12-28T09:14:00.000-05:00

So, I got a 3 day weekend last weekend, and that was pretty nice. I've worked Tuesday, Wednesday, and today (thursday) of this week. Laura and I took off Tomorrow, and everywhere's closed on Monday, so this week should even be a four day weekend. I'm so excited about that, it should be niiice.

Work hasn't been too bad. It's been a slow week, and thus I haven't gotten much done. It's not too bad, I haven't had too much pressing that I really NEEDed to do, but now that the year is starting afresh, I'm going to have to get a lot more done.

I've been thinking about new year's resolutions, and in the past, I've always just said that I want to lose weight. The fact of the matter is that it's more than that with me. I never have any motivation to DO anything -- be it eat right, exercise, or even do things around the house that I know I need to do.

Problem is that I can't will myself to "be more motivated" because that just isn't realistic. So, what I'm going to try to do is just say "screw it, just do what you need to do."

Whether I have the motivation or will or whatever to do what I need to do, I CAN consciously make myself just get up off my lazy ass and do things, and that's just what I'm going to have to do. Sure, I've tried in the past, but only about half-assedly, so this time, it's going to be full-out. No more Mr. Lazy Guy. :D

I think that's going to be it for this year. That should solve a lot of my problems. hehe.

How about you guys?

Early Merry Christmas

2006-12-22T17:07:00.000-05:00

I'm at work, again! I know that I didn't want to be, but I'm about to leave. We all just got done watching National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation, and it was pretty funny.

I hope everyone has an awesome weekend and a Merry Christmas.

Why it's always about work

2006-12-14T14:38:00.000-05:00

I was thinking earlier today, I always post on here when I'm on a break at work or something like that. I can also only do it when I'm here in the office. I have a lot of things that I have made a habit of doing at home each night, mostly consisting of checking email, hopping on WoW to check auctions, etc. I really need to put posting to this thing in my nightly routines.

I sometimes wonder how I'm ever going to go back and read later to see how I'm feeling if I never post in here.

Anyway, so what's been going on in my life? It's been pretty productive, actually. I've got off tomorrow with Laura, and we're going to drop her car off again to make sure we're done with all the work that we need to get done on it. We've been doing a lot of planning and such for our wedding (Which is April 14th of next year for all those of you who may be interested). I got baptised last sunday at church, so that's cool. I've gotten a bunch done at work lately, but still not as much as I'd like to. I have a bunch of different things that I need to be working on and so sometimes it's kinda tough to keep up with it all. I'm going to work on prioritizing all of it so that I can knock things out instead of just dancing around them.

That's about it, really. Life seems rather normal.

Motivation to the negative degree

2006-10-27T22:13:00.000-04:00

I am soo sleepy, I don't know what to do. This week has just dragged by. I really have nothing to complain about, it hasn't been particularly stressful or long or anything like that. It's been very very mundane. I guess that's why it's seemed so god awfully long.

Halloween's comming up soon. What's everyone going to be?

Wow.

2006-10-25T22:08:00.000-04:00

It has just been absolutely forever again since I've had a chance to write anything.

I've been getting sent downtown again a lot to work on that old program that I can't stand, so that sucks. Other than that, work's been going really well.

Laura's great grandmother passed away over last weekend, so we went to the funeral today. It was sad (as it generally is at funerals), but she lived to be 94, and had an awesome life, so it's nice to see someone who had so much time on this earth to enjoy.

I finally hit level 30 on my Gnome Rogue on WoW! I know, I don't get to play much. For those of you who actually play wow, you realize that's not much of an accomplishment, but I'm enjoying it. I got into PvP a bit too and got to rank 1! That was pretty exciting for me.

Let's see. I have a review that I really need to work on, but I haven't had time to with all that's been going on, so that sorta sucks. It sounds like most of my weekend's going to be devoted to finishing tha tup. Which is fine, because it's for another case. It seems sweet so far, and maybe I can get rid of this big eye-sore that's in here now. :)

Anyway! I'm really going to try (though I say that all the time) to keep getting this thing updated.

Have a goodnight!

Long Time

2006-10-01T22:18:00.000-04:00

So, I've gotten back into working on that Ticketless program that I can't stand at work. It's been going pretty good, but it's so annoying since it has such a tight deadline on everything that needs to be done for it. My job is really stressful, and that drives me nuts. I LIKE the work that I do, and I really enjoy working with the people that I work with, but sometimes I seriously question whether or not I'm well equipped to handle the stress.

I've always been a very laid-back and relaxed individual, and I hate it when I get stressed out. I've been thinking about trying to look for something else just for that reason. But, I don't want to since I like the work that I do now. So, I don't know what to do. I get annoyed at times, but then at other times it's going really well and I don't have any trouble at all.

*grr* so frustrating.

Help me out, here.

Eesh

2006-09-15T11:59:00.000-04:00

Sucks about my lack of posting. I've been at work in the office lately, so I've really no excuse for not posting more. I just haven't really had anything to say. Life is usual. Hehe.

Hm

2006-09-11T08:49:00.000-04:00

So, I'm in the office, but I get to go downtown to do some work. JOY.

Ugh

2006-09-07T11:13:00.000-04:00

I've been downtown for a week. Hence the lack of updates. Sorry!

Nothing interesting has happened anyway.

Very important update on my life

2006-08-29T15:04:00.000-04:00

So, today hasn't been nearly as bad as yesterday. That's really all. I found out that I have to go work downtown for the rest of this week, and the first couple days next week, because the guy that has taken over for me covering support is going to be on vacation.

Cool.

That's about it really, today's been pretty laid back, i've managed to get a lot done that's been pestering me.

Question for my loyal listeners, do I complain a lot?

Thank you.

2006-08-28T16:19:00.000-04:00

If today is any indication of how the rest of the week is going to turn out, I'm skipping this week and moving on to the weekend.

And there's a very specific someone who can die in a fire.

The Cat Cam

2006-08-24T17:08:00.000-04:00

So, we're sitting around last night talking about what the cat does when we're not around during the day. I've always been curious. So, I found this cool little program that connects to my old webcam and streams video ... -ish images to a web server. Well, I have a webserver set up on my main PC, so I'm thinking "hey cool!"

I get out the ole webcam, hook it up to my laptop, wirelessly stream the video from my laptop to the web server (on my main PC) over the wireless network, and voila! Live video feed of our living room.

That's all well and cool and everything, but the trouble is that the camera isn't always pointing to where the cat is. Granted, he's probably just asleep all day anyway. But that's beside the point.

So I'm thinking today "How cool would it be to be able to control the camera?"

Well, controllable webcams run around 200 dollars (minimum), so that's a bit out of the question for such a semi-pointless endeavor. However, I started looking today and found out that I could BUILD MY OWN stand to mount the camera on so that I can control it's direction. How cool is that? All I need is a couple of servo motors (one for left to right, one for up and down), a quick little Serial (or USB) Servo Controller to connect to the PC, and BAM. Instant control of the servo motors. All for around 60 bucks. Not too shabby. And, I'll learn how to build a stand that I can remotely control.

Then, I'll just have to figure out some way to allow me to control it over the internet, but since I'm a programmer, I don't really doubt my ability to do that. I can't wait, it should be fun. I'm totally going to try.

So, I'll have pics coming soon! I hope. Lol. Still gotta order the parts. :/ :)

I have nothing to add.

2006-08-22T17:28:00.000-04:00

Laura's going to dinner tonight with one of her friends from high school that she hasn't seen in a while, so Devin and I are running out somewhere to grab some food. I don't get to see him much anywhere, so I figured it'd be fun.

That's about it, really. :/

Anyway, hope everyone has a good day! :)

Oh not much

2006-08-21T17:36:00.000-04:00

So, today's been a pretty standard work day -- I got a bunch done though. I got a bunch of stuff that's been bugging me with that ticketless program finished, and then I got to come back here and meet with Ted and PD to discuss the stuff. Which is cool.

I was supposed to put a bulleted list of the top priorities together to send to the users after clearing through Ted and PD, but I haven't had a chance to yet. I need to go home tonight and finish working on my review, but I actually did some of it today whilst taking a break here at work. Mostly the only thing left to do is finish up with the pictures, and the page titles and meta tags and stuff.

Which prompts the point: I absolutely abhor Microsoft Frontpage. It's the WYSIWYG editor that gives you WAY more shit than you see. Notepad, FTW!!

Anyway. So yeah, this weekend was fun too. Saturday was pretty busy, but we got to spend another THOUSAND DOLLARS on flowers for the wedding. But, it's okay. They should be really pretty and hopefully we got everything laura wanted. And, in the grand scheme of things, that's really not that much relative to what a lot of folks spend. So, that's good.

Sunday was Busch Gardens!! It was hot as balls, and I was totally exhausted afterwards. But it was still fun. :D

Anyway, that's about it.

Meh

2006-08-17T12:30:00.000-04:00

We started talking about our company christmas party today. That's one of those things that I always look forward to, because we always go to one of those super nice restaraunts with a private room and just hang out, eat awesome food, chat, and just have a good time.

We were considering places such as The Jefferson, Flemings Steak House, Copper Grill, Magiano's, Franco's, Millies, Book Binders, and a couple of others.

I don't think it matters where we go, it should totally kick ass. :D I'm so hungry now thinking about it.

So...

2006-08-14T12:46:00.000-04:00

A Diet Pepsi, Mountain Dew, and cup of coffee later, I'm pretty awake.

I think I'll be drinking water for the rest of the day. hehe. For my health, if for nothing else.

Eesh.

2006-08-14T10:01:00.000-04:00

I'm sooooo tired this morning, I don't know why.

We went to bed around 11, I slept pretty much without waking up until like 7. But I'm having a hard time keeping my eyes open.

Starbucks to the extreme

2006-08-11T15:16:00.000-04:00

So, we've gotten in the habit of making starbucks runs every friday (as a company), so all of us get free coffee, or.. you know.. whatever it is that we get there.

So we went yesterday because there were a lot of people that were going to be off today, but now we're going for today as well to make up for those people that were out yesterday.

It's great.

I dont even want to know how many calories one of these things has.

I, like some other people whose journals I've been reading, need to lose a bit of weight. It's so annoying.

Nothin Nothin

2006-08-09T17:53:00.000-04:00

Not too much going on today, just hanging out at work.

I left for my combo dentist appointment / haircut yesterday (left work a bit early) and checked my email when I got home only to find out that a fix I'd made to a program didn't work out quite as expected, so I ended up having to do a bit of work this morning and then come in early to fix fix it. Not too bad though, easy fix, and it worked out fine.

Today's been pretty relaxed -- got a good amount done and I got to start on a new (very small) project in VB.NET yesterday, got it worked out pretty good today.

I also have to gather some data for another guy tomorrow morning bright and early because he doesn't totally know how to do it, so that's all me. IT makes me feel pretty good when I'm relied on like that. haha.

Anyway! That's about it. There's a networking guy here now setting up a VPN connection for our office tonight, so I have to hang out here and make sure everything goes ok. Which, I hope it does, because I really have no idea what's going on with that. I'm just a technicality. (Someone here to lock up. hehe)

JOY.

Woo

2006-08-08T09:29:00.000-04:00

I finally got that new executable out to Kentucky yesterday, and I think that it fixed the majority of their problems. WEWT. I'm so glad, now I just have a couple more things that I need to fix for them, and a SHITLOAD of stuff that I have to do for the other ticketless project.. which.. for the record, I'm absolutely dreading.

It wasn't very busy yesterday, but I got a lot done, which was nice. I've got more stuff that I can work on today too, so that's good news.

I really don't have much more to say. However, you should check out this sweet maze game that I've been playing.

http://www.tokenarcade.com/play-476.html

:D

So we went at least

2006-08-07T11:57:00.000-04:00

We ended up staying at Capital Ale house for about2 minutes. It was suuuper crowded, like standing room only, and hot as balls. So, Laura and I ended up leaving pretty much right after we got there. I was told this morning though that they folks did end up getting a table and sitting down for drinks after we'd left, so I sorta wish I'd stayed. It woulda been kinda fun to just hang out and shoot the shit with some folks from work.

It's allright though, we basically just went home, ordered dinner, and hung out. It was very nice and relaxing. All weekend was.

So, I spent a bit of time playing World of Warcraft this weekend, and then when I went to lie down to go to sleep last night, I couldn't go to sleep for anything, so I got back up around 12, and got back on the computer. I ended up playing more until about 1:30 or so, and then headed back to bed. I still wasn't able to fall asleep until around 3:00, and it totally sucked.

I'm doing fine so far this morning, but I'm not looking forward to "the crash" that I'm sure is going to hit me later (probably after lunch) at all. It's going to sux. hehe.

So! That's my weekend in a nutshell.

Hmmm.

2006-08-04T16:43:00.000-04:00

Nothing much going on today. Just the same old kind of stuff. Work has been okay, but nothing too spectacular. I've gotten kind of a significant amount of work done today which is nice. :D That's about it.

We're all going out to Capital Ale House tonight after work, so that should be.. interesting. :)

Still not a big drinker. :/ So, I guess if I did like beer, I'd be a bit more excited about it, but I just don't care at all for alcohol. :/ And I don't particularly like hanging around people who consume substantial amounts of alcohol either, because they usually end up acting like total idiots. hehe.

TGI..T?

2006-08-03T10:26:00.000-04:00

I can't wait for friday to get here. There's not really that much going on this weekend, I'm just looking forward to the weeek being over again. I don't know why.

We're all going to get together and go to the Capital Ale House tomorrow (the folks at work), so that should prove to be interesting. I haven't had beer in like 2 years, and I never did really like it, but it's fine. The company doesn't go out very often, so it should prove fairly entertaining. :)

Oh, do I HAVE to?

2006-08-02T09:11:00.000-04:00

There are some days when I just really don't feel like working. Actually, these are most days. I don't know why. I really like my job, and I feel like when I really try to, I manage to get a lot done. I don't know why I have such a hard time sometimes. It's ridiculous, really.

I need to start eating healthier and taking some vitamins or something, because I like never have any energy. Anyone have any tips? hehe.

I need a new pic.

2006-08-01T10:21:00.000-04:00

I'm going to see if I can find another picture of me to put up on the site, because.. I mean, I still look like that a little bit, but I'm fat as hell now, so not really.

That's a cool picture though since it's so mysterious or something.

I got up this morning and didn't really feel like coming to work, but I've been pretty good and busy, so that's nice. I'm trying to catch up on my billing notes, I'm still a couple of days behind. My boss just yelled at me, ... well, not really yelled, but spoke to.. in a really nice, calm manner, actually, which is sort of surprising.

Anyway! Yeah, probably won't be so nice next time, so I'm going to finish these up. Then, I'm going to finish up a couple of other things that I've been working on -- I actually feel like doing stuff today, so I shouldn't have any trouble getting things done. WHich is cool, because that hasn't been happening all that regularly lately.

So! Back to work!

I really need to get back into this

2006-07-31T12:34:00.000-04:00

So, I figure if maybe I re-organize and re-layout the page, maybe it will give me a reason to get back into posting again. I'm so dissappointed that I haven't kept up on posting like I'd like to.

I'm also very down right now, and I seem to want to post more when I'm either upset or really happy about something.

Anyway, what's everyone think of the new layout? I'm going to make laura get a livejournal too. :)

Ugh

2006-04-27T10:24:00.000-04:00

It sounds like I'm going to have to get back to working on tha tproject that I absolutely hate. :(

I've gotten a nice break from it, and I feel like MOST of the stuff that has needed to be done to it has been, but I am REALLY not looking forward to getting back to work on it. This is going to absolutely suck. :(

AWFUL!

:(

Long time

2006-04-25T16:26:00.000-04:00

So, once again, it's been like 5 days since I've updated. :( Sorry about that!

I have been working a lot lately -- working from my office though, so it's great! I've been working on an ASP.NET website, which is absolutely thrilling to me. I've learned so much working on it, and I've really been enjoying it. I feel like I've done better on it than I was expecting to, and it works very well, very quickly. My boss really liked it too which is definitely always a plus. :D

So sorry about having not updated much lately! I'm at work now. I'm remoted into my computer at home. Hm, I wish I could do that from downtown, that'd make my life so much easier.

It's also fun to play my music while I'm remoted in, because I know that it actually does play on my computer at home. I'm going to have to hook up my webcam, and play some music, and see what my cat does. :P How amusing would that be.

Poor cat. It's okay, he's satan anyway.

Mehehe

2006-04-20T14:22:00.000-04:00

Woo. Happy 4/20 everyone. And no, I don't smoke pot.

Anyway, I haven't really made a post in a few days, been sorta busy, but not with anything particularly entertaining. Been working as usual.

The thing that I'm most excited about is my DSL upgrade! Cavtel has been offering 10Mbps around my area for a while, but not RIGHT there where my house was. I finally got updated to it last night, and I absolutely love it. I've never had an internet connection that fast at home before. I download like a MEGABYTE per second, or around about there from fast servers now. It kicks so much ass.

Work has been cool, I've been able to work from here in the office a lot more lately, because I'm starting on an ASP.NET web project, which I'm excited about. I love doing stuff like this WAY more than old vb6 projects. It's a nice break. I'm sure I'm going to have to go back to the vb6 ones, but I'm glad to have the break from them, at least.

Anyway, that's about it. Nothing particularly exciting. :)

Oh, I read this online novel called "Autumn", it was sorta like Steven King's "The Stand", but not quite as well written. hehe. Although, I tend to be intrigued by books like that, there are 3 more parts to the "series", and now I have to buy the others, because they aren't free online. :( Hehe.

So yeah. Not very well written, but if you're really bored: http://www.theinfected.co.uk/

eek

2006-04-19T00:33:00.000-04:00

12:30. I need sleep. :(

Stuffed

2006-04-16T19:39:00.000-04:00

Happy Easter everyone!

We just got back from Laura's Grandmother's again. She made turkey, stuffing, sweet potato caserole, corn pudding, rice, some cheese potato thing, rolls, and had some dessert from Ukrop's. Apple Pie, and some Chocolate and Pecan tarts. Wow. Everything was awesome. I didn't eat some of everything (thank god), but what I had was yummy.

I hope everyone had a good day! We're gonna just crash here for the rest of the night, I'm sorta excited. The sky is dark as crap off in the distance, it looks like there's a huge storm coming. Crazy!

Ugh

2006-04-14T18:31:00.000-04:00

I remember when I used to be relatively skinny. I'm fat as shit now.

I hate it. :(

omg topeka's = awesome.

2006-04-14T15:11:00.000-04:00

Had a 9oz, medium-ish, juicy, melt in your mouth sirloin steak with a baked sweet potato covered in butter and brown sugar on the side.

I feel like i'm going to pop.

Woomp, day off!

2006-04-14T08:37:00.000-04:00

This is wierd for me, I'm not sure what to do. It's 8:30, and I'm up, first off. On a day off.

I've got some errands and stuff that I need to run. I'm gonna hit up work and grab my check and deposit it. I think I might take my car by the car wash today too to get some of that crazy pollen off. It's kinda gross. All yellowish. I'm headin over to mom's now to eat some breakfast. Then, maybe Mom and i will grab lunch today or something. I haven't been to Ruby Tuesdays in a while because none of my friends like it anymore, because we sorta wore it out. Where I agree with that, I still sorta have a taste for their Buffalo and Blue chicken sandwich. I love buffalo chicken.

Who else has the day off today?

Oh why not

2006-04-13T13:26:00.000-04:00

Sorry Jenny, I'm stealing your survey!

1* First grade teacher's name: Ms Troy
2* Last word you said: Thanks!
3* Last song you sang: Shimmer - Fuel (it was on the radio while I was driving home yesterday)
4* Last person you hugged: Laura
5* Last thing you laughed at: www.fark.com (Thieves steal staircases from mobile breast unit. In related news, new politically correct term for women introduced). I know, I know. But it cracked me up.
6* Last time you said I dont remember: Yesterday afternoon.
7* Last time you cried: I don't remember. Oh shit, now I need to change the previous question.
8* Last time you poured super hot fudge all over yourself: No.
9* What color socks are you wearing: Khaki'esque. To match my pants.
10* What's under your bed? Nuffin.
11* What time did you wake up today: 7:00ish
12* Current taste: Sprite and Spearmint gum.
13* Current hair: discheveled. (sp?)
15* Current annoyance: My lack of energy.
16* Current longing: The end of the day. I'm off tomorrow.
17* Current desktop background: Some wierd abstract thing from deviant art.
18* Current worry: Don't worry, be happy!
19* Current hate: I don't hate much of anything.
20* Current favorite article of clothing: my basketball shorts. so comfortable.
21* Favorite physical feature of the preferred gender: smooth skin.
22* Last CD that you listened to: Some wierd punk mix that I have in my car.
23* Favorite place to be: On the sofa. Or at the cmputer.
24* Least favorite place: at work
25* Time you wake up in the morning: 6:45 -- snoozing until around 7:00
26* If you could play an instrument, what would you play: an acoustic guitar
27* Favorite color: Blue
28* Do you believe in an afterlife: no.
29* How tall are you: 6'2" ish.
30* Current favorite word/saying: "or not..."
31* Favorite book: The Relic. Or, anything by Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child..
32* Favorite season: Anything but summer. I hate hot, humid days (like today)
33* One person from your past you wish you could go back and talk to:
34* Song currently listening to: Nada. I'm at a client location, so I'm trying to be quiet.
35* Where do you want to go to college: Been there, done that.
36* What is your career going to be like: Who knows. I'd LOVE to be in video game design, or web design. My ultimate goal, however, is to open my own Internet Cafe. But that's a ways down the road.
37* How many kids do you want: 1-2.
***Have you ever.........
38* Eaten an entire gallon bucket of ice cream in one day: haha no.
39* Said "I love you" and meant it: yes
40* Gotten in a fight with your dog/cat/bird/fish, etc: I hate laura's cat. All. The. Time.
41* Been to New York: nope
42* Been to Florida: Yep
43* Been to California: no
44* Been to Hawaii: no
45* Been to Mexico: no
46* Been to China: no
48* Dreamed something really crazy and then it happened the next day: .. meh. not really.
49* Had sex: yep
50* Sent someone to the hospital: nope
51* Been dumped: yep
Other:
52* Do you have a crush on someone: uh. my bebe. :)
53* What book are you reading now? I just finished one by Dan Brown, but I don't remember the name of it.
54* Worst feeling in the world: Not knowing what the future will hold.
55*What is the first thing you think when you wake in the morning?: Ugh, I don't want to go to work. Usually followed by "Man, I really need to pee."
56* How many rings before you answer: 1-2.
57* Future daughter's name: I like the name "Taylor"
58* Future son's name: I don't know.
59* Do you sleep with a stuffed animal: Only because laura does.
60* If you could have any job you wanted: Video game designer! :D
61* Wish were here: Nah.
62* College plans: I'm good. Although I was looking at ITT Tech's video game design classes. (Sensing a theme?)
63* Piercings: no.
64* Do you do drugs: definitely not.
65* Do you wish you were someone else: Nope
67* What kind of Shampoo and Conditioner do you use: Pantene shampoo + Conditioner
68* What are you most scared of: I'm good right now. I hate hornets though.
69* What clothes do you sleep in: you don't want to know.
70* Who is the last person that called you: Laura
71* Where do you want to get married: Laura's church.
72* If you could change anything about yourself what would it be? I'm lazy as shit. I think if I could change that, everything else would fall into place.
73* Who do you really hate: Don't be hatin.
74* Been In Love: Definitely.
75* Are you timely or always late: I used to be late a lot, but now I'm generally on time. Well, except to work.
76* Do you have a job: yes
77* Do you like being around people: yep
78* Best feeling in the world: relaxing with the one that you love in your arms.
79* Are you for world peace: what kind of silly question is that. isn't everyone?
80* Are you a health freak: hahahahahah no.
81* Do you have a "Type" of person you always go after: no.
82* Do you want someone you don't have? no.
83* Are you lonely right now: no.
84* Ever afraid you'll never get married: I don't think afraid is the word. I'm sorta excited about it actually. One year from tomorrow is the date! For those of you keeping track.
85* Do you want to get married: Oh. I didn't see this one.
86* Do you want kids? yes.
*IN THE LAST 48 HOURS, HAVE YOU...*
87* Cried: negative
88* Bought something: food
89* Gotten Sick: no
90* Sang: yeah
91* Said I Love You: yep. :)
92* Wanted To Tell Someone You Loved them? yeah.. but i did. hehe.
93* Met Someone: i meet new people every day. but not in the same sense this survey seems to be implying.
94* Moved On: what?
95* Talked To Someone: again, i meet and talk to new people ever day. It's great, really. :)
96* Had A Serious Talk: Sorta. I got yelled at if that counts. :P (sorry bebe. haha)
97* Missed Someone: yep
98* Hugged Someone: yes
99* Yelled at Someone: i don't really yell.
100* Dreamed About Someone You Can't Be With: never.

Woo.

2006-04-12T22:56:00.000-04:00

So, work to day was pretty standard. Got some stuff done, but not as much as I'd like to. A lot of paperwork. I got an email from my boss this afternoon, letting me know that I have to go to Davenport again tomorrow to meet with some people, and gather some info from one of their systems for them. All the work for it is done, but the process is probably going to take about 2 hours to run since he wants 3 months worth of historic trading data. I wonder what I'll do for the 2 hours while it's running. :/

Hmm, let's see, tonight. Laura had choir, so I sat around and played Oblivion for a little while. Watched American Idol to see who was going to get kicked off. I was pretty happy about the choice. It sorta bothers me that I've gotten into that show. Granted, I'm pretty much a woman now judging by the TV that I watch. Let's see. My 3 favorite channels now are A&E, TLC, and HGTV. Yes, Home & Garden Television. Sad, sad day. Actually the only thing that I watch on that channel is House Hunters, but still.

I heard from Dean that I'm getting another case to review for Overclocker Cafe as well. I'm really excited about that, I've really liked the last couple that I've gotten. That's basically what my free time is devoted to now. I work from 8:30 to 5:30 every day. Usually get home around 6:15. I still play video games some in the evenings, but I don't really get much time on the computer. Which is fine with me. I spend as much time as I can with Laura. We run errands, watch TV, and just basically hang out. When I'm not doing any of that, I'm writing news or reviews for OCC. I don't go out much with friends anymore. I really do miss seeing some people sometimes.

Dave, you remember when we used to say that we were gonna have each other over once a week to cook or something before we moved in? We should start doing that. hehe. Anyway, hope everyone has a good night! :P

Work!

2006-04-12T09:55:00.000-04:00

So, I'm at work. I'm taking a little break. I'm trying to put a user interface on this app that I'm working on for some folks. I love making interfaces, because it's so much fun trying to make something that's very functional, and very easy for people to figure out and use.

I'm in the office today, thankfully. Our office is at Gaskins and Broad, so it's about 10 minutes away from my house. I work here a day or two a week, and end up working the rest of the week from Riverfront. Most of the apps we write are for people that work there, so having access to their network makes my life a lot easier. It's in the heart of downtown. I really enjoy it, because all around, there's tall buildings, big streets, traffic, etc. I wouldn't ever wanna actually live there, but it's nice working there sometimes.

It's cool walking around down there, there's a lot of people out on the streets. Lots of little carts and stuff round and about with food. Pretty entertaining. Not to mention, all the people that work in riverfront. I've gotten awesome at meeting

I like being here in the office better though. The guys that I work with are so cool. They're all around my age, so we have a lot in common. A couple of the other guys like the same kinds of video games that I do, and we've had conversations going on about Oblivion a lot lately. Quite fun. I really do enjoy my job most of the time. I have a hard time staying focused at times, but I really do try to as much as I can. It's a blast. Usually.

Dinner with Granny

2006-04-11T21:54:00.000-04:00

So, Laura and I went to her Granny's tonight for dinner. It was quite good. She made us some pot roast with carrots and potatoes, with cabbage and beets (neither of which I ate) on the side.

Laura's having her granny make her wedding dress, and so she's started making one as sort of a "test" now. Laura tried it on tonight, and she was absolutely stunning. I can't wait to see her in the real thing.

--

I figured in the next few posts, I'd try to put in quite a bit of info just so that those of you who may not have heard from me recently can catch up and find out a little about me through posts.

I said last night that Laura and I were living in an apartment now. We're right outside of short pump. For those of you familiar with the area, we're right past the short pump mall heading west on 250. It's a really nice area, in my opinion. I guess since I was originally from a small town, but I've been raised pretty much here since I was about 6, I've grown really accustomed to having everything really near us.

We are about a 5 minute drive from just about anything we want to get to. If we head out of the parking lot and take a left, we've got gas, movies, stores, the mall, ukrop's (or 3), there are 3 starbucks within 5 minutes of the apartment, my mom's house is right near here too... basically everything. On the other hand, if we take a left, we head out into the sticks. There's fields, trees, forests, and lots of open roads to take a spin on. I'm still driving the ac' (integra), and I still love it.

Anyway, I used to always say that I couldn't really picture myself living here in short pump for the rest of my life, but I think that I probably will be. And I really do enjoy it. We're going to be looking for a house sometime coming up, probably starting this year sometime. We have to be out of the apartment by August of 07 as we have it worked out right now which will give us a few months after the wedding to get everything in order, find a house, and get all the payment stuff situated. The big thing is saving up for it. Ugh, talk about expensive. I think the average price of homes around here is around $400,000, the cheapest thing that we'd consider living in is around 200k. It's insane.

So, that's about it for now. More tomorrow! Or later tonight! Or whenever I get around to it. How's everyone else doing?

Got Color?

2006-04-11T14:43:00.000-04:00

May as well make some changes to the color scheme since I have posted about nothing in the past 2 years. Hows the blue looking?