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Welcome to my place to ramble, philosophize, link, prophesize, and sometimes proselytize. At least on a good day! Hope y'all enjoy, maybe even chuckle or do the "eyebrow thing" occasionally, but most of all that you come back. And feel free to comment, or add Karma as you wish. Finally got a new webcam and it's up... If'n you want to take a peak, click on "webcam" on the right- If the image is not recent, it means I turned it off because I needed some "private time" And if you would, please sign my Guest Map so I know where in the world my visitors come from. OK, On with the posts -- -Steve posted by Steve @ 10:39 PM EST [link] Sunday, February 15, 2009A Lifelong Hobby RekindledDon't ask me why, but... Now that we've been firmly entrenched in digital imaging for many years, I've taken up shooting film again and even set up a darkroom once more. I have a Nikon F4s, which in my mind (and many pro photographers will concur) is one of the best 35mm cameras in the world. Now if I only had the money to buy a couple lenses... Maybe I'll treat myself when I get my tax return. Yeah, strange working in the darkroom. I haven't done it almost 20 years. I was working in a commercial darkroom back in the late 80's and I haven't had my home darkroom in operation for probably almost 30 years. I still have the enlarger I got for Christmas when I was around 14, so that's 32 years ago! But I'm actually using a much nicer Omega enlarger I bought at a tag sale and had been sitting in the attic unused for 10 years. I grabbed all my old photography books I had in storage, bought a couple newer ones from alibris.com and did a little homework in my spare time. Nothing much has changed, they have new films using a different technology, but I have been shooting conventional "old school" B&W films like Kodak Tri-X and Ilford HP5-plus. Danny and I (he's almost as tall as me so we don't call him little Danny anymore) went down to B&H photo on 34th and 9th. If you have never been and have any interest in A/V equipment, you simply must go! They have absolutely everything and anything related to Photography and Video production. And the overhead trolley system that transports bins of purchased items from the many departments to the checkout area is really cool. Bring your camera and you can try practically any lens made on it and have a look-see. We bought paper (Ilford nowadays, Kodak, although they still make chemicals, no longer produces B&W paper), paper developer, another safelight, and some odds and ends. Then we came home, mixed up the paper soup, and started printing negs from a few rolls I had shot in the previous few weeks. I must say it was lots of fun. Like always, time seems to stand still in the darkroom, and before you know it I'd been in there for over 6 hours! I ended up with about 9 or 10 good negatives from the 3 rolls of film I had shot and developed, which I find about average. I took some shots of the Croton river and was trying for the "cottony" effect you get with long exposures and flowing water, but even on an overcast day with the lens stopped all the way down, I was still getting 15th or 30th seconds shutter speeds, too fast to make that effect work. But I found a genuine Nikon neutral density for only 19 bucks on ebay and it got here in 2 days with free shipping, so I'm gonna give it another go at another spot tomorrow. For some reason I've always enjoyed B&W photography much more. Learning to see and think in terms of tonal range without the visual noise of color has been almost second nature for me for almost as long as I can remember. We only have consumer grade digital cameras at home, so I've never even tried B&W with digital, I hear it's nowhere near as good as film though. I'd love to have a good digital camera and a couple lenses for it, but I just don't have the time or money now, so I'm going to continue to develop (no pun intended) my skills with conventional silver based imaging. OK, enough from me, if you're into photography, hope this brought back some memories, if not, you must be bored! posted @ 08:01 PM EST [link] Friday, January 9, 2009Cars I've OwnedOK, I've been thinking about doing this for awhile, so without further ado, here's a list of cars I've owned. I think I remembered them all. They're also in the order I've owned them. In case you couldn't tell I was a big Mopar fan for years. 1969 VW Beetle 1976 Ford Mustang II Ghia 1970 Buick Lesabre (2 door hardtop) 1973 Lincoln Continental 1986 Toyota SR5 Pickup 1972 Dodge Charger 1972 Chevy Impala (2 door) 1986 Toyota Celica GT 1964 Plymoth Valiant Signet convertible 1976 Plymouth Fury (police cruiser) 1969 Chrysler Imperial 1970 Dodge Dart (4 door) 1974 Plymouth Valiant (2 door) 1964 Plymouth Savoy 1982 Chevy Caprice Estate Wagon 1950 Plymouth Cranbrook 1980 VW Rabbit Diesel 1986 Toyota Corolla SR5 (2 door) 1974 Dodge Dart (2 door) 1984 Chevy Caprice Estate Wagon 1966 Chrysler New Yorker 2000 Jeep Wrangler 1985 Toyota Corolla (4 door hatchback) 1994 Chevy Cavalier (2 door) 1989 Toyota Camry 1986 Nissan Pathfinder (2 door) 1986 Jeep CJ7 1991 Toyota Corolla posted @ 11:30 PM EST [link] Tuesday, December 2, 2008Final MealOK, If you had a last meal and it could be any food from any place you've ever had, what would the meal consist of ? Mine is easy- Soup- The Lobster Bisque from Arno's on Nantucket. Bread- Sourdough assortment from Boudin's in San Francisco Salad- A spring mix with a round of warmed goat cheese in the center, slivered almonds, and a nice raspberry vinaigrette. Main Course- Broiled NY Strip Steak served with 6 jumbo shrimp, brushed with a compound butter then grilled over cherry wood coals. Vegetables- Baked Potato with butter, chives, sour cream, salt and also- broccoli spears sauteed with olive oil and garlic, sprinkled with a few drops of lemon juice Desert- A Double chocolate ice cream soda - either from "The Hippies Place" that was on City Island, Bronx, NY in the 70's or from "Huntley Farms" in Eastchester, NY also in the 70's. Home made ice creams, fresh whip cream, it was great ! And if I'm not full maybe a slice of Juniors Cheesecake from Brooklyn Beverages- Iced water while eating, Coffee would be a yemen mocha brewed in a vacuum pot, with raw sugar and cream, and then maybe a bit of a nice vintage port to end the perfect meal Or maybe just 10 really fresh and juicy white castle cheeseburgers with one onion ring each placed under the bun top and a chocolate shake, depending on my mood ! posted @ 09:56 PM EST [link] [Karma: 3 (+/-)] Friday, November 28, 2008Desert Island Album's (CD's)OK, I'm always saying- "such and such" is one of my desert island albums... Well, I've finally taken 5 minutes and written down the ten albums I'd take if I was going to be stranded on a desert isle. Yes, just ten albums to listen to for years on end. I guess The Professor and Gilligan are taking care of the electricity and the sound system! Anyway, here's the list- 1- Charlie Parker (still not sure what album yet) 2- Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers RVG recording - Live At Birdland 3- The Rolling Stones- Sticky Fingers 4- The Beatles- The Beatles (White Album) 5- The Clash- London Calling 6- Bob Marley and The Wailers- Confrontation 7- Lucinda Williams- Car Wheels On A Gravel Road 8- Red Hot Chili Peppers- Blood Sugar Sex Magic 9- Patti Smith- Radio Ethiopia 10- The Allman Brothers Band- The Allman Brothers Band posted @ 11:04 AM EST [link] Friday, August 8, 2008A Night In TunisiaOK, I have to just say how incredible this mornings "Bird Flight" was. Particularly a group of 4 back to back renditions of Night In Tunisia. It's not a long story, so I'll tell it quickly... Many moons ago, about 27 years to be exact, I had a really kick-ass stereo (actually the one I have now isn't so bad either). In fact I had people tell me they could hear it 2 city blocks away when I had the windows open and the wind was blowing in the right direction. But of course I attribute any hearing loss I may have from working around Jets for a few years. But, as usual, I digress, back on point please- Anyway, often times I would come home at 2 or 3 in the morning, after a long shift of cosmic exploration, and I'd listen to a radio show called "The Transfigured Night" which showcased avant garde and minimalist music of the late seventies. Stuff like The Red Crayola, Shox Lumania, Steve Reich, Brian Eno, you get the picture. After that show was over, the next show was called "Daybreak Express" and was very upbeat Jazz which was a great way to watch the sun come up. And after that show was Bird Flight. Hosted by the venerable Phil Schaap, the always verbose and usually anecdotal Jazz historian. Phil is not just spinning records, he spends probably close to 50% if not more of each show presenting the story behind the music, often from his personal experience with many of the late masters. But of course Bird Flight is dedicated to one musician in particular, Charlie Parker. By now you may be wondering, how can this guy have a radio program for over 30 years playing the music of just one artist? Well I can't answer that, you have to listen to understand. You will learn not just of Charlie Parkers music, but about Dizzie Gillespie, Lester Young, Earl Hines, and many many other legendary, and also some unknown artists, and how they shaped the future of the art form known as be-bop. This year, Phil is doing a chronlogical history of every known Charlie Parker recording. He started in March and is only up to summer of 1946 so far, so I wouldn't be surprised if this continues through to the holidays. I could go on and on about Phil, but best to leave the accolades it to a professional writer, so look at this piece, a very good celebration of Phil and his contribution to the music world... Phil Schapp Article If you are in the tri-state area you can catch Bird Flight on WKCR, the staion of Columbia University at 89.9 on the FM dial. And thankfully you can also listen to show over their stream at WKCR's website but it's not archived, it's only vailable live, so tune in every weekday morning from 8:20 and hopefully, you'll hear something you like, something that will make you come back and listen again and again, maybe even for 27 years... So all this was just my very roundabout way of saying, holy shit, the pieces he played this morning were absolutely rocking my world! I've quite an extensive music collection, maybe 3 or 4 thousand albums worth of music, spanning practically all genres and decades, and nothing lifts my spirits or gets me in a good mood like an exceptional rendition of Night In Tunisia or Ornithology. Those pieces have the power to change my whole being at the particular moment I listen to them, and the amazing thing is that they retain that power even after I've heard them a hundred times or more. So come to think of it, I do understand how he's been playing the same artist every day for 30 years. And I'm glad he's still doing it, I hope he never stops. Do yourself a favor and give it a listen. Bird Flight- 89.9 FM in NYC or at WKCR weekday mornings at 8:20 until around 9:50 It has changed the way I think about and listen to music forever. posted @ 12:25 PM EST [link] Friday, July 25, 2008I'll keep my end of the bargain...OK, you know who you are, if you got that email, and you do me that favor, I'll write a long ass post here and fill you in on whatever and such. What the hell, it's only been 6 months, right ? Hopefully I'll be writing here real soon... -S posted @ 07:49 AM EST [link] [Karma: 1 (+/-)] Sunday, December 23, 2007One good thing today- Ron Paul on Meet The Press !!This is major, can't get anymore main stream media than this... I hope the good Dr. does well. Sometimes I think that the hope I have for this country that's been rekindled by Ron Paul is just displaced emotional wreckage from the stuff that's too painful to deal with in real life. But then again I may be wrong. Either way it wouldn't change the fact hat Ron Paul is probably the only man out there running that has appealed to people on a very emotional level. He has, quite frankly, done this by being very unemotional. If you listen to Dr. Paul speak, he never quavers, he will, in an almost monotone delivery, expound on anything and everything from health care or immigration to economics and central banking with great knowledge and understanding. His conviction and deep commitment and respect for the U.S. Constitution is also commendable. The man is a scholar as well as a healer. Both require attributes we don't associate with politico's, so maybe it should come as no surprise that it practically shouts "no business as usual around here". posted @ 02:20 PM EST [link] [Karma: 15 (+/-)] Another year over It has been quite sometime since I have liked, the so called - "Holidays"... Actually they make me sad. Even sadder this year. Maybe in a clime where it's 80 and sunny you could forget it's the season to be you know what. In any case, this time of the year sucks. posted @ 09:55 AM EST [link] [Karma: -2 (+/-)] Tuesday, October 23, 2007Does anybody even read this?Just wondering... If you know me, send me an email to let me know. Yes, to my gmail address. I wish I could turn comments on, but they were getting filled by spambots so I had to say goodbye to them. One day soon I'll archive all this old stuff and install new blog software with all the bells and whistles. Actually I heard my webhost is going to upgrade their version of PHP, so who knows, it may break my whole blog and then I'll have to re-do it... K, ttfn posted @ 09:08 PM EST [link] [Karma: 6 (+/-)] Wednesday, October 17, 2007Oh BoyWell, being a bit obsessive, I found a new site (goodreads.com) and have been sitting here for an hour trying to remember good books I've read and add them to the list. Kind of like when I start rating movies on Netflix and before you know it, hours and hours have went by... I guess I really do need to get a life! In any case, it's a cool site, check it out. Kind of like Listology, but just for books. posted @ 07:51 PM EST [link] Sunday, August 12, 2007Ron PaulWell I'd have never believed it. After 26 years of not voting, I've registered to vote. Ron Paul has made me hopeful there may be one last chance to make this country great again... And to return the liberties we've been robbed of illegally for years and years. Quite a tall order. Well he has a lot to say on these subjects, you see what you think- -- Ron Paul on Wikipedia -- -- Ron Paul official site -- -- Ron Paul TV, it's really quite good... -- of course, youtube has many of his speeches on many topics Check out these videos- Ron Paul on YouTube Just google him and start reading, very intriguing for a candidate Ron Paul... posted @ 02:23 PM EST [link] Wednesday, January 24, 2007Very UsefulI know there are a ton of translators out there, going back to the old skool - babelfish and more. But this site is really cool, it conjugates, finds anagrams, has contextual examples, etc. And the most amazing thing is how many languages they support, a dory-load (yes, if you are not from new england, that's the same as a butt-load or a shit-load). Anyway, here's the link- Logos Translator posted @ 09:32 AM EST [link] Saturday, October 14, 2006This is Classic This is Useful This is Revolutionary This is Random posted @ 10:50 PM EST [link] [Karma: -7 (+/-)] Friday, October 13, 2006This is Disheartening This talk is NYC Trash This is NYC Amusing This is Neat posted @ 09:26 AM EST [link] [Karma: -4 (+/-)] Thursday, October 12, 2006This is Startling This is Amusing This is unusual This is art This is about Gotham posted @ 08:50 AM EST [link] [Karma: -3 (+/-)] Tuesday, October 10, 2006These are Books This is Amazing This is urban This is addicting posted @ 08:27 PM EST [link] [Karma: -2 (+/-)] Monday, October 9, 2006Columbus DayThis is yummy This is fun This is useful This is educational posted @ 07:36 AM EST [link] [Karma: -15 (+/-)] Saturday, October 7, 2006Saturday?This is cool This is amazing This is neat This is indispensable posted @ 07:27 PM EST [link] [Karma: -1 (+/-)] Friday, October 6, 2006TGIFriday This is cool This is loud fun This is worthwhile This is downright erotic posted @ 05:20 AM EST [link] [Karma: 14 (+/-)] Thursday, October 5, 2006ThursdayThis is cool This is fun This is indispensable This is provocative posted @ 08:59 AM EST [link] [Karma: 5 (+/-)] Wednesday, October 4, 2006yikesthis is Really Cool this is cool this is fun this is useful posted @ 09:50 AM EST [link] [Karma: -8 (+/-)] Tuesday, October 3, 2006todays...this is Extra Neat- Worth the time to watch this is cool this is fun this is provocative posted @ 07:20 PM EST [link] Monday, October 2, 2006Three ThingsThis is cool This is fun This is useful posted @ 08:05 AM EST [link] Sunday, October 1, 2006Two ThingsOK, maybe three things This is cool This is fun This is provocative posted @ 12:02 PM EST [link] [Karma: -11 (+/-)] Tuesday, November 29, 2005I'm Baaaack...No excuses, it has been way too long I'm going to try and once more find the wherewithal (sp?) to write at least a few paragraphs here every couple days. Maybe even add a link or two and some photo's... Did you miss me? OK, I also need to figure out my login for the damn tag board to get the spam out of it too. Anyway, time to walk the dog and get to work. Dog you say? Yes, I'll fill you in on that and much more during our next episode! posted @ 06:21 AM EST [link] Monday, January 3, 2005No I haven't disappeared...I think this has been the longest I've ever went without updating. So much has happened, and at the same time not much has changed at all. If you know what I mean. I won't try and fit it all in one post, I'll backfill in dribs and drabs. Much easier for me. Work is good as usual, home is good. Grace has finished the six month long process of bringing her stuff up here and even turned off her telephone line down at her parents so I guess we're offically co-habitating now. Her cat has disrupted the feline balance here somewhat, but I'm a sound sleeper so the middle of the night brawls they have downstairs never wake me up! You guys don't know but I was without a car for almost two months and it was brutal. Sam drove me to work in the morning (at least he always got up for school) and Grace came to pick me up in the evening. It made for some long days, but I was working a lot of overtime during that period anyway. I finally got another Jeep. Not a TJ like I wanted, but a decent one of those is 15 grand used so that will have to wait for awhile. Nope, I got me a bona-fide real Jeep, an old CJ-7 that drives like a truck, bounces, rattles and squeaks more then the '69 ford tow truck I drove years ago. But it's a solid foundation to make a good weekend rock-crawler out of. If you know Jeeps I'll fill you in on the specifics, if you don't prepare to be bored (or moreso, whatever the case may be). It's an '86, considered by most best year for the CJ-7's. It has 258 straight six, Dana 30 front axle, Dana 44 rear, and a Dana Spicer 300 t-case. Motor was rebuilt less than 10k ago, it has like every piece of stainless add-on you can get (which I usually don't like but it looks OK), all new autometer gauges and a monster tach with tell-tale, headers, dual exhaust, MSD 6AL ignition, Tuffy security console, BFG 33.5 x 12.5's on AR wheels and what appears to be about a 4 inch lift. The motor pulls strong, everything works, and it goes straight, so all in all not bad. The main thing is the frame is good, and there is like NO rust on the floors. It has those ugly double tube chrome bumpers and nerf bars which I really hate, but they'll have to stay on for awhile. So I was surprised but my Wet Okole covers fit the seats pretty good, so I slipped them on. Makes me feel at home, I sat on those seat covers for 3 years every day in my '00 Wrangler... I also installed a CB (Cobra 29LTD) and antenna. I have a Cobra 148 GTL and also a good 10-meter radio I could have installed but it would have been overkill for what I need. I have tons of stuff need to do, most will have to wait until spring. I plan on gutting interior and coating the tub inside with Herculiner. I need to swap the doors with a pair I have that are mint (but need to be painted). I also have to paint and swap the tailgate. I want to put steel corners on the rear and do the custom tail light thing, with the LED lights, of course. And I want to put in a new lift kit, a proper one with new springs. And a steering box brace is mandatory. And finally I want to get a rear bumber with swing away tire carrier and trail rack. Soon after that I'll swap out that ugly front bumber with a rock bumper and hopefully one day add a winch to it. And I want to get one of those trick CO2 tanks for onboard air. Once summers here of course I'll need a bikini top. I figure if I spend a few grand I'll have a really solid and capable machine, and fortunately they just go forever and you can keep rebuilding them forever too! Oh you want a picture you say? Ok, maybe just one. OK, here she is, a little dirty, like a Jeep should be. Here's a shot of the interior looking through the drivers door, nice neoprene, right? And here's the view from the other side. As you can see, the interior needs some cleaning, tidy up loose wires under dash, etc. And I need to mount some speakers to cover up those holes in the dash. Eventually I want to get the Tuffy overhead console to get the CB out from between the seats. So it will give me something to obsess on, spend all my spare timne on, and yes, have fun 4-wheeling with. OK, I'm dead tired so enough for now. I'll write as soon as I can and post more pics too. Oh yeah, happy new year and hope you're holidays were good... posted @ 08:40 PM EST [link] [Karma: 1 (+/-)] Tuesday, October 26, 2004Old Dog...Just a real quick one. Hooked up Grace's scanner to her computer and was scanning in some old photo's. Did this one of a dog I had, or should I say the BEST dog I ever had. His call name was Primo and he was truly a great dog. Good prey drive, eager to please, and always ready. In any case here's a picture of Primo. K, that's all for now... But as if you couldn't guess, y'all will prolly be seeing lots of old pics in the near future! posted @ 07:35 AM EST [link] [Karma: -6 (+/-)] Saturday, October 23, 2004One more quickie for the night...Wow, two posts in one day, haven't done that in awhile, huh? Yup, we just got back from WallyWorld (AKA Walmart, the retailer who is ruining this country according to more then one web-pose (I just invented that, it's my word for a Web Expose). We stocked up on paper plates, napkins, cleaning chemicals, the ususal crap. Also went by Home Depot and priced the rug we're gonna get for the spare bedroom. Now just have to go back tomorrow and somehow get it home, it's probably as long as the car I'm driving! One more thing about Walmart... If you ever want to see all the people who should NOT be wearing spandex doing just that, and with a belly shirt to top it all off, just go spend 45 minutes at your friendly neighborhood Walmart! I guess I can understand the 50 inch hips on the regular shoppers there, I mean, how can you pass up those candy bars next to the checkout, they're only 44 cents a piece! Anyway, I actually got a comment to a post here a few weeks ago and I just noticed it and read it. It said "we want pictures" and that's it. So I figured I'd post a few more pics to keep that person happy. And hey, maybe more people will leave comments, ya' never know. So real quick as I'm tired and wanna go snuggle/watch SNL, here are a few. You have all heard tales of my one cat that's a real killer, Gray Cat. Well she leaves whole chipmunks, squirrels, moles and mice for us, or sometimes she eats the whole thing and just leaves the stomach. She has woken me up at 3:00 am to the sound of a skull being crunchily chewed up before. A couple weeks ago I opened the bedroom door in the morning and found just this head on the floor looking at me. I thought it was kinda comical so I snapped a pic. Last week she dropped a live chipmunk in our bedroom and then chased it onto our bathroom. The poor thing was trying to escape and jumped into the toilet bowl!! It almost drowned in there, but I snatched it out and let it free outside. Grace held it and protected it until it was no longer in shock and could run off into the woods again. I wish I would have got a pic of it in the toilet, now that was funny. This is Grace's cat Graham, he's a big boy, almost 17 pounds, but very mellow. We also have the semi-feral Max, who stops by every couple days to grab a bite to eat, next time I see him I'll snap a photo. He's also gray, yes, we have 3 gray cats. Remember we made our annual pilgrimage to the beach a month or so ago? I said I'd post some photos so here goes. This is the usual "oh, how scenic" shot of the lighthouse with a sail in the background. And here's my honey standing next to the sign before you walk onto the beach. The weird thing out there (Robert Moses State Park if you must know) is you'll be walking along the boardwalk that traverses the dunes and see a deer right next to you on the sand. Just odd seeing deer; A- at the beach and B- on an island. And another shot of G standing on the boardwalk as we were walking out. If you look closely at the background you'll see not everyone is naked. You didn't really think I was gonna post naked pics of us did you? I guess you had to be there, in fact, I know you had to be there! And if you know me, then you know I have been a changeling at times. Just to keep you wondering, take a look at this shot of me about 5 years ago. Hmmm, a little different then I look nowadays, huh? OK, I said I wouldn't be long so I'm gonna go upstairs. Oh, guess what I found today I haven't had in almost twenty years. Goat's milk ice cream. Yummy! PS- I'm not even gonna proof read this so please 'scuse any typo's K, g'nite... posted @ 11:17 PM EST [link] [Karma: 11 (+/-)] The leaves, they are a chaaangin' And falling too, all over the yard, I dread having to start the annual rake-a-thon. Looks like fall is here and before you know it there'll be snow on the ground. I can't believe it's been two weeks since I've written anything here. I'll skip the obligatory apology. But I've been painting my ass off trying to get all the outside stuff done before it gets too cold. I'm actually looking forward to the winter so I can turn my focus to the inside. If you knew me you'd know I'm famous for gutting a room, re-wiring and insulating it, then sheet rocking it and then, well, waiting a year until I get around to taping it and painting. Seriously, Sam's bedroom sat for a year in bare sheetrock before I taped it. But it was a spare room then so it was easy to just leave the door closed and forget about it. I don't mind the taping so much, it's the sanding I can't stand! I sheet rocked the upstairs hallway about 6 months ago so if I get it taped in the next couple months I'll be ahead of schedule, right? I did paint the whole cottage, trimmed out the windows in the back of it, and changed the color scheme a little in front. The back side of it was a whole 'nother color, it hadn't been painted in probably twenty years, so there was quite a bit of scraping to do on the wood part up above, but it came out pretty good. It looks really cute if you ask me, like a little house. I guess that is the definition of a cottage, eh? And I cleaned out my shed and organized it, built a new door for it (it was doorless for over a year) and I also finally pulled wires and got electricity in it. As you can see, I have it jam packed full of stuff. Speaking of jam packed, I need to organize the front room in the house. It's just storage really, all the stuff that won't fit in the computer room or the laundry room. And all the tools and stuff I have nowhere to put now that I don't have a garage anymore. Just look at all the crap in there! Yes, those are all old Sun workstations and external drives on that top shelf. In fact, I dug up an old photo of my computer room when they were all hooked up. Here's my Sun Stack from a few years ago. Yes, my computer room was just a little bit cluttered back then. And I do apologize about the MCSE books in the background, I bought them on sale and never even cracked them open. Now my O'reilly Unix books on the other hand, got plenty of usage back in the day... Back to my cluttered storage room- If you look close you'll see the bottom of the Joey Ramone figure I just had to buy (you know, it will be a collectors item one day). Yes, I'm an ideal canidate for that show "Clean Sweep" that airs on TLC!! Yeah, I have pack rat syndrome. A severe case of it indeed! But I'm throwing stuff out on a weekly basis and trying to get better at not saving everything. I could be worse, I don't have jars of bent rusty nails that I've saved for years and years like someone I know (you know who you are). Hehe, couldn't resist that one. Last weekend we had Sarah up as it was her birthday that Friday. Isn't she adorable? We just hung out and did a lot of canning. We made apple butter and apple sauce to can, and then baked a birthday cake for her and then made dinner. I guess she had fun. We pretty much worked in the kitchen all day, but for me it's not like work if it makes the house smell yummy and the end result tastes good! So now you see/hear how busy I've been last couple weeks I'm pardoned for not updating here, right? Riiiiiight... OK, enough outta me. I hope to finish painting the trim in the spare bedroom and maybe pick up a carpet for it and lay it this weekend. That room is going to be a giant closet basically for Grace to put all her clothes and furniture in from her Mom's house. Then I can paint the other little bedroom and make a guest room out of that. Oh, I said I was outta here, right? K, bye posted @ 03:40 PM EST [link] [Karma: 3 (+/-)] Thursday, October 7, 2004Yeah I know-It's been awhile. Been busy with the day to day survival stuff. I did a few construction like thingies around the ole homestead, I abso-friggin-lutely will take pics and post them this weekend. Grace brought her cat up and is little by little going through her stuff at her parents and transporting the keeper stuff up also. I jokingly told her that if she takes a year to bring all her stuff up it won't seem like she's moving in officially. Sam actually got a job, just in the nick of time. He's working at Freight Liquidators, unloading trucks, putting displays together, stuff like that. I guess he took me seriously when I said he has to start paying for his own car insurance or that cars coming off the road. Speaking of which, I actually got my transmission back from my friend. I threw it back in a few weeks ago and so far so good. Put about 1500 miles on it and it hasn't blown up yet! I guess a little freon leaked out when it was sitting as the A/C doesn't work anymore, but I don't need it now, it's down into the forties at night... Hmm, I just wanted to interject this link from Dive Into Mark- Specs as it really really is good to be reminded now and then that I made the right choice getting out of the IT business. I got an email from an old co-worker yesterday telling me about a position I should take. Big money, but a 6 month gig. So what do I do after that? And when I think about all the frustrating meetings with clueless project managers and vendors or clients I've sat in on, I start to realize that no amount of money is enough. In fact, maybe I need to partake of a good dose of my all-time fave usenet group, why of course, I'm talking about alt.sysadmin-recovery. And yes I assume you don't have a default newreader so it's the google groups page. Remember deja-news? OK, now I'm reminiscing too much, time to go, have stuff to do, later. posted @ 08:56 AM EST [link] [Karma: 24 (+/-)] Wednesday, September 15, 2004Damn Webhost!Aaaaggghhh, My web host provider switched their servers to another flavor of linux. Fine with me but they broke my hit counter in the process. Actually the counters for every domain on that server. I ssh'd in and the files in the counter directory are all owned by root. The directory itself is owned by nobody, which is correct, that's the user the httpd daemon runs as... So I made a trouble ticket and explained to them all their sysadmin has to do is chown/chgrp all the files in there to nobody:nobody and it will be fine. I hate having to always tell the companies I PAY FOR SERVICE how to fix the problems they are having. What annoys me more is how they never know it's broken until I point it out. Does anyone run scripts to grep errors from the log files anymore? Guess not. Oh well, I'm out of the sysadmin business now so I can bitch, right? riiiiiiight! K, pizza is here so I'm outta here I'll post pictures from the beach in the next couple days... posted @ 08:05 PM EST [link] [Karma: 31 (+/-)] Tuesday, September 7, 2004OK, the pics already...Yes, I know I said I would post them so here they are. If you remember, last we joined our characters, they were processing quantities of food stuff. To give you an idea of one session, here are 45 pounds of plum tomatoes, blanched and being peeled/sliced. And a short while later, here they are in their final state, S&G's tomatoe sauce, reducing down on the stove before being jarred and processed. This is the finished product is the middle box, right hand side, and the box in the rear. The stuff in the front is tomatoe-jalapeno salsa and the other quart jars are whole plum tomatoes. We don't run the sauce through a food mill, so it has seeds in it. We kinda like it like that, it's like you just sliced up fresh tomatoes that way, but sauce purists may disagree. These little jelly jars are Peach Jam, it's quite good on a piece of toast when you want a snack. I want to try making some rasberry jam as well if they still have any up at the farm. But I have a feeling it may be too late in the season by this weekend. And here are some pickles, pickled veggies, and sliced tomatoes. So that's about the extent of our canning so far. We went to Stormville flea market this weekend and just picked up a few boring things. Some new pillows for our bed, a new cutting board, some oral-b heads, and crap like that. I really like the new pot rack I hung, it frees up cabinet space and helps the kitchen flow better. Here it is but I don't have enough hooks so my good sauce pans aren't hanging yet... And yes that's one of those scrolling/animated signs on the wall, it says "welcome to steve's kitchen", if I find the remote I'll re-program it to say Steve and Graces kitchen. And since cabinet space is so limited I put a little rack unit up next to the fridge in that doorway I closed up that used to go into the computer room. I just keep mixing bowls and stuff on it, but getting the big and seldom used appliances (rice cooker, cuisinart, juicer, stuff like that) off the counter tops was the best thing I've done in awhile. And right in the middle of that rack you'll see my new pot, a 12 quart calphalon stainless stock pot with pasta and steamer inserts. Yeah she's a beauty, and very reasonable on sale from Amazon. I must say, if you check on Amazon from time to time, they have good sales on Calphalon stuff, plus I get special promo discounts too that help. OK, so now you see the stuff we've been cooking, the stuff we've been canning, and the stuff I've changed in the kitchen, enough yet? Me thinks so, I'm tired and gonna go upstairs and fall asleep. posted @ 09:06 PM EST [link] [Karma: 26 (+/-)] Sunday, September 5, 2004Stormville !!Nope, that's not the name of some new show on the WB... It's a giant flea market near here with tons of vendors and loads and loads of stuff! And I'm fixin' to wake up Grace and head up there in a few minutes. I'll take some pics of whatever cool stuff I come home with and keep y'all posted, K? Oh yeah, I had to work yesterday, bummer, but it went fast. G and me went back to the farm and picked 45 pounds of plum tomatoes afterwards. So today we're making loads of tomatoe sauce and canning it afterwards. That way we can fresh home-made sauce anytime without all the hassle. Alright, I have to get moving or we'll never get outta here. l8r... posted @ 08:34 AM EST [link] [Karma: 19 (+/-)] Tuesday, August 31, 2004Finally, some new pics...I know I've been saying I'll post them for ages, so here goes- I'm sure you're sick of hearing about the garden. Well it's almost done, once the habanero's are all ripe, it'll probably be time to turn it all over. Actually I am thinking I may not have enough habs to make hot sauce this year. And the jalapeno plants are really not producing as well as they have in the past. I made some tomatoe-jalapeno salsa and canned it, and I'm thinking I just may pickle the rest of the peppers I get. I know you're supposed to pick the zucchini before they get too big, so they taste better. But who can resist letting a couple grow to see how huge they'll get... Take a look at the size of this sucker! In fact, it's as big as a two-litre soda bottle at the bottom. One thing that has me a little worried is I don't know where our spider went. You see, there was a really big spider living on the front porch. I mean really giant, like imagine the body was as big as a walnut. And now I see the giant web is there but no spider. What if that thing got into the house somehow? If I woke up to that thing in my bed I'd probably go through the ceiling! Anyway, here's a picture of it, you can't appreciate how scary looking it is unless you're right there and can actually see it's fangs. And I've been canning stuff like a canning fool. Here's the pickled veggies that started the whole canning obsession. Since then I've done salsa, pickles (both dill and kosher style), peach jam,and tomatoes (chopped and whole). In fact the whole dining room table is full of stuff I've canned in the last week. If you couldn't guess, I'm trying to keep myself busy as my honey's away and if I just hang around doing nothing I'll really start to miss her badly. So I keep busy around the house, listen to some tunes, the Stones played here, thank you, and stuff like that. The good news is Grace should be coming home today. I visit her every night and she seems to be feeling much better. The bad news is I may have to work Saturday, and it's a three day weekend and I was really looking forward to doing some fun stuff, as well as getting some stuff done around the house I've been putting off. Plus this weekend is Stormville Flea Market!! Which is like heaven to a junk collector like me... In any case, I'm sure even if I do have to work I'll get around to having some fun and also take a few new pics to post. K, I'm outta here. Back to work for me. posted @ 11:27 AM EST [link] [Karma: 42 (+/-)] Sunday, August 29, 2004WowI am so beat it's not even funny. It's starting to catch up to me. I've been going non-stop every day and night for a week and a half now. Every day I come home from work, can some veggies or prep some food stuffs, then I run to get some kind of dinner for us, drive 38 miles to go see my honey, (she should be coming home in a few days), visit and eat and have a few cigs, drive home and fall asleep exhausted. Weekends I work Saturday, go shopping after, come home and tend to the pool, then do the same routine in the evening. This saturday I picked mass quantities of tomatoes to can. It was 95 degrees, the sun is blazing and I'm sweating my ass off. We picked 50 pounds of them. Today I finished re-arranging the kitchen, added a wire rack for storage and cleaned out a few cabinets. Then I hung a wall-mounted pot rack I found, I've been wanting one for ages. I hate that clanging when you're pulling pots and pans out from under a cabinet! Cleaned off all the countertops too and organized everything. Then we blanched,skinned, sliced and jarred/processed 14 quarts of tomatoes. Then I dropped Danny back home, and went to see Grace. I really should fold my laundry and put it away, just too tired. Have to go to sleep. I took a bunch of pictures, stuff I canned, a huge spider living on the porch, Danny at Orange County Choppers- standing in front of their bikes and also in front of the shop, and some other stuff; I'll post them tomorrow, for now it's sleepy time for me! later... posted @ 09:42 PM EST [link] [Karma: 4 (+/-)] Sunday, August 22, 2004Chilly This Morn'...Yeah, it was downright freezing when I went downstairs this morning. The weatherbug told me it was 53 outside, and the thermo-meter in the living room said it was 60 !! One thing I really like about this house is how the downstairs stays so cool in the summer. One thing I hate about this house is how the downstairs is FREEZING in the winter. I mean in a real cold snap you can peg the thermostat and it's in the middle fifties. And the frigid air coming up through the spaces in the hardwood floor is a big bonus. In any case it's been good sleeping weather lately. Just so much damn rain. Getting a little old now. The pool is full to overflowing out the skimmer. In fact the weather has been so crappy I've neglected it and it's just a tad green. I'll shock it today and get it back to crystal clear in a day or so. The really major thing in my life these days (funny I didn't open with it, just making sure you're paying attention), is that Grace is in the hospital. Yup, my honey wasn't feeling too good so she had to go in for a little bit. I miss her so much. I have a hard time falling asleep at night without her and it gets worse when I awake in the morning and she's not next to me. Hopefully she gets out sometime this week, they're adjusting her meds and just keeping an eye on her. I go see her every night and bring her a snack and a diet soda and we sit in the little kitchen or TV room and visit. I just feel kind of empty without her here at home. Maybe I'm in shock still, but it hasn't been hard for me to accept the situation. The person I love and want to spend my life with might get sick every couple years and have to go away. It's hard but it doesn't change the love we've nurtured, and I guess in some ways it makes it stronger. OK, Sam came back home and Sarah came with im to visit so I'm gonna run out to the store and get a couple things. I'll keep y'all posted. Thanks, Steve posted @ 12:01 PM EST [link] [Karma: 10 (+/-)] Wednesday, August 11, 2004Same old same oldNothing new under the sun. Sam came back from upstate. I'm a little bummed he didn't stay until the end. I think he would have felt good about himself if he did. But I guess he really wanted to come back home so he could hang out and get wasted with all his burn out friends. He really is in for a major f**king wake up call real soon. He has one more year of high school and after that, get a job or get out. Actually I'm not even gonna wait that long, get a job and start contributing towards your car insurance or I'm taking that thing off the road. Once my car is fixed and I stop using his, of course. And I'm gonna make a list, shit that HAS to be done around the house. Run the vacum once a week, light cleaning, stuff like that. I'm just sick of picking up everyone elses crap and being the only one who can see dirt or clutter. I really hate to sound like a dick, but come on. I'm not friggin' killing myself to pay all the bills, fix everything that breaks, clean the house, do all the dishes, and then what? Fall asleep exhausted every night and have no time to play on my one day off ? Nope, fuck that. Enough of that, I just needed to vent. Problem is it's always the same thing, over and over. Just like a broken record. The only thing that gets his attention is when I blow a gasket and just go off on him. Are all teenagers like that? Or is it just the boys? methinks it affects the male of the species much worse. In any case, I've been reading a really intense online novel in progress. If you've ever read "The story of O" then you'll like this. Hell it makes me want to order some of this stuff... Yes, how could one not admire the practice of shibari, or rather the art of. Oh, the story you ask? Yes, of course, here's the link- Divestiture: An Erotic Novel-in-Progress. Actually the author, remittance-girl, is really cool. If you send her an email she actually answers you, and you can IM her on yahoo messenger. Yeah, in case you didn't know, I always toyed with the idea of writing a novel. Probably end up with something between Maugham and Neal Stephenson, which sounds like a pretty strange mix, huh? So I don't know about wherever you are, but here in good ole NY, the weather has sucked last few weeks. It has been hell on the garden, way too cool and wet. The habaneros are doing only OK, and the jalapenos are kind of light this year. So I don't know how much hot sauce I'll be able to make this year. I think next year I'm gonna do like a 20 by 10 foot garden of just hot peppers. Make a whole shitload of hot sauce. OK, I have to get back to work and I need to wake up. Tired as hell this morning. Guess reading Divestiture got me inspired and I went to town last night. So it's the good kind of tired. Insert stupid looking grin right HERE. K, outta here posted @ 08:14 AM EST [link] [Karma: 16 (+/-)] Monday, August 2, 2004Monday Mondaynaaa naaa, naa naa naa I know I'm not the only one that remembers that song... Yeah, I must be bored, eh? OK, so not much going on in my parts. My webcam link is down as I have no internet at home for a couple more days. So it didn't rain yesterday, even though we were promised flood alerts and all kinds of neat weather. Basically it was really humid and yucky until the sun made up it's mind to stay out. I kinda like serious weather, big storms and stuff, makes you realize where us human beans fit into the big, meaning really big, scheme of things. So we went for a walk around Pelton pond yesterday morning, then went to Cold Springs and checked out the town. Had a couple sclices of pizza, which is a big expenditure for us lately, and then went home. G floated in the pool, I took a nap, then woke up and made some zucchini bread. Yes, again, I don't know what else to do with them things! We watched six feet under as she really wanted to see it. I was liking the two chicks that were getting ready to get down, and G was liking it a little too much, so she had to have a little spanking... And that's about it, nothing exciting going on. Just same old same old. Sam may end up coming home this weekend. His Mom says he called up late last night really miserable and asked if he could come home. I miss him too so that's fine with me. Only thing it changes is we can't walk around naked anymore (bet you wish my webcam was on now, huh?). OK, so lemme get going, I am after all working. Keep y'all updated much as I can... posted @ 11:19 AM EST [link] [Karma: 2 (+/-)] Saturday, July 31, 2004Cool HotelOK, from the slightly kinky (yet nonetheless fun) department; Check this post out about "Love Hotels" in Osaka. I especially like the furniture with a purpose and the directions that depict how it should be used! OK, I admit it, I have way too much time on my hands, I'll stop linking from blog to blog and get back to work. Looks like a nice day, kind of breezy and not as humid as they said it would be. Have to vacum the pool when I get home and maybe take a little float in it for awhile. Alright, back to work for me. Later posted @ 01:03 PM EST [link] [Karma: 10 (+/-)] Thursday, July 29, 2004Long Time...Since I've posted anything, sorry 'bout that. But if your life is so lame you actually look forward to reading my latest posts to see what has been happening in my life, well, do I have to even say it? In any case, I'd love to say tons of cool shit has been going on, but that's not gonna happen. Really my life has gone even more down the crapper. Work is really good, relationship stuff is good, the kids are good, that's about it. But I'm so far behind financially I don't know how or if I can dig myself out this time. Like three months behind in the mortgage, I finally start working, and I'm gonna make my first payment. I go to check my bank account online last week and it's MINUS four thousand dollars. Like what the f**k? How can that be? I call up my bank to see what's up... Well, turns out I owed Sears two grand from like four years ago, things were going to shit in my life, out of work, and other stuff, so I chose not to pay them. Keeping a roof over our heads and some kind of food on the table was, in my mind, a little more of a priority than paying Sears. So, they went and filed a judgement against me, and then they went in my bank account to get what they're owed. Well since there wasn't enough to cover it, my account is frozen. For a week now... Yup, that means no access to any funds, at all, so things have been really tight. They turned my cell phone off, but it was only 48 dollars past due so I got it turned back on. The internet is getting turned off any day now, and they already stopped picking up my garbage. Oh, and to top things off I'm almost out of fuel oil and I owe them money too. I don't know what to do, and the main part is I'm geting tired of struggling. I'm tired of trying to keep that house, carrying it all by myself, and every year and a half having some catastrophe happen or being out of work and falling behind to this point... On the other hand, if I sell it I'll walk away with practically nothing, I have horrible credit and would never get a mortgage again. Plus I like being a home owner, I like tinkering around the yard and trying to keep the place from falling apart. And it's a really nice chunk of property. I guess what I'm getting at is I'm sick of being in this situation, feeling like the whole world is falling in on me and not knowing how to get out from under it... I think I should be freaking out, but I'm not, I'm almost at the point of being numb. Thank God I can go to work every day and get my mind of all this stuff. You know, I just want to be able to catch up and not have to worry every night what the next thing is that's gonna be turned off. I dunno, actually writing this is getting me more bummed out. Lemme get going and I'll update y'all soon and hopefully something will have changed for the better. posted @ 10:44 AM EST [link] [Karma: -12 (+/-)] Tuesday, July 6, 2004sky rockets in the night...Please don't tell me if that title got you singing a certain 70's fluff song, OK? Hope everyone had a good 4th of July and a nice day off (if indeed you had yesterday off). We didn't do a whole lot. Like I said, I didn't have the big barbecue this year. It was just family and then a couple friends came by for the fireworks show. I had a few things to light off in celebration. Well maybe more than a few! And here's a shot of the whole gang. Yeah, the girls are getting so big, seems like every time I see them they're an inch taller... Sam and Danny enjoyed the show big time, as always. I had some three inch mortars we lit and they were incredible, I'm talking a two hundred foot spread in the sky and they climb to almost three hundred feet! I'm definitely getting a lot of those for next years show. Maggie seemed kind of bored by it all. I guess it starts to seem the same after you've seen it year after year. The boys have fun lighting the stuff so they're more involved with it. Sam is going upstate for a few weeks to work at his Aunts and Uncles motel and spend some time at the lake with his grandparents. I'm going to miss him, the house always feels empty when he's not there. Even though sometimes it seems like we only talk when I'm checking to see if he's done his chores or say "yes, you can go out, don't be too late". Plus now I have to feed and water the dog every day and mow the lawn, but it won't kill me to push a lawnmower, I did it for a lot of years when he was younger. The garden is growing like crazy! I picked a couple bell peppers and a few hot ones to make some home fries for breakfast yesterday. This is the first time I've grown "Portugese Hot Peppers" and they aren't bad. I had a hard time finding any jalapeno plants this year. Everyone was sold out for some reason. I have a whole container full of habanero's for making hot sauce and that's it for hot peppers. I skipped the cayennes this year as I really don't use them for cooking so why bother... I took some pics of the garden and will post them when I get home tonight, a progress report kind of, and I'll put the pics up next to them of when I planted it so you can see how big everything has gotten. OK, I need to take a walk around here and see what's going on. Have a good one. posted @ 08:23 AM EST [link] [Karma: 51 (+/-)] Friday, July 2, 2004Workin' AgainWhew, It's nice to be working again after an almost two month break. Not that I didn't keep busy with stuff around the house, getting the pool open, planting the garden, keeping my R/C cars running, you know, exciting stuff like that. Today will probably go by fast as it's the Friday before a three day weekend. I just have to write a couple reports and send them up to the home office, walk around and take some pictures of the progress and conditions, sounds like an easy day. For the first time in a lot of years I'm not having a big 4th of July bar-b-q... Being out of work so long I'm just too broke and behind in all my bills so I can't afford to buy all the food and supplies to feed thirty or more people this year. Going to keep it to just family and then have people come up later for the big fireworks show. I hear through the grapevine it's going to be the biggest one yet! Last week Grace and I drove down to North Carolina as planned and helped my Dad move into his new place there. Oh my God! What a long miserable drive, only to unload a ton of stuff, and then drive back on the third day. Definitely too much driving for such a short while. We did drive around the town though, Asheville that is, and it looks like a cool place. The neat thing is they have all these fast food places I haven't seen since I was a kid living in Michigan. And of course all the gas stations have moon pies and goo-goo clusters on the counter for munchies. I heard they even have Vernor's Ginger Ale in the markets down there! If you don't know about it, Vernors is one of the oldest soft drinks made in this country and unlike any other ginger ale you've ever had. Go to bevnet.com and read their review, they give it four stars, myself I'd give it five in the glass bottle, 4.5 in the can. So the nice thing about this job is I'm in the trailer onsite with the government guys, so we have a lot of luxuries you wouldn't expect on a construction site. Like high speed internet, satelite TV, a Keurig coffee maker, a real bathroom, and more office supplies then your local stationary store, to just name a few things. And of course since they're with the federales, what they say goes, so they kind of always get their way if they really want it, not a bad thing at all. And the air conditioner kicks in this place. It was 60 degrees in here when I opened up this morning! OK, I'm outta here, have to make a cup of coffee and walk around the site. My internet at home has been broken but supposedly it's coming back up today, so I'll post some pics from down south and take some more this weekend. -later posted @ 08:17 AM EST [link] [Karma: -3 (+/-)] Wednesday, June 16, 2004Triple H lately...If you've ever spent a summer in New York, you know that's not referring to the club Axel Rose spoke of, but instead HOT, HUMID, and HAZY! And that's what these last few days have been like, the air is mighty thick. And this is nothing, wait until August gets here. I guess the good part about it is that the garden is growing like crazy. The broccoli have really taken off, and the celery looks mighty healthy too. We have a bunch of little green grape tomatoes, and every morning Grace and I go outside to take a look at it before she leaves. Yesterday was her day off, so we floated around in the pool and pretty much relaxed most of the day. I went over to a friends new house and replaced a water line that had burst over the winter so he could turn his outside hose on and fill his pool. Then I hooked up his pool filter for him and gave him the quick rundown on how to have a sparkling pool in 5 easy steps. That's about all I've been up to lately. Hope to start work next week. Going to New Hampshire again this weekend and I'll take lots of pics this time. K, gotta run and pick up Sam from school. Try and stay cool... -Steve posted @ 12:54 PM EST [link] [Karma: 9 (+/-)] Tuesday, June 8, 2004Everything is green and alive!Yup, it was a dreary winter, but the yard is alive and thriving, the blackberries are fixin' to fruit soon and the poison ivy patch by the stone wall is doing very well! It's been raining like every day or night and the grass is growing like crazy. And it gets really cool at night (good sleeping weather) so the pool, although it's crystal clear and looks very inviting, is still freezing. Actually the water was 62 degrees yesterday, Sam went for a swim and said his feet went numb rather quickly... But it should be near 90 today and tomorrow, hopefully it will warm it up a bit. The garden is starting to look better. The peppers have baby peppers and the grape tomatoes are starting to produce little greenies. When it takes off and starts to look like a jungle, I'll post some pics. I don't know what to do with my gray cat. She keeps killing chipmunks and baby rabbits. And then she brings them in our room and proceeds to eat them. I mean the whole thing, you wake up to the sound of her crunching on bones in the middle of the night! She's really a good cat, I just can't seem to convince her that Cat Chow is a sufficient diet! And I really like to see the chippies and rabbits around the yard (long as they stay outta the garden) so I wish she'd leave them be... Anyway, I took some pictures a week or so ago and made another thumbnail page. These are shots around the yard . I added some commentary and hope you enjoy. Now you'll get a sense of what I see every morning when I walk outside. Plus you'll see my favorite trees. OK, I have to do a little carpentry and tape some sheetrock next door, so I'm gonna start my day. Enjoy the sunshine- -Steve posted @ 09:10 AM EST [link] [Karma: 4 (+/-)] Sunday, May 30, 2004Savage fun !!K, we got back from New Hampshire 'bout one in the morning. Woke up around nine and did some chores, vacum the pool, miracle-gro the garden, etc. Decided to have some fun so Sam, Danny and I took my Savage over to a building site near by. It was a little too rocky for real high speed runs, but we had a blast! As usual, I broke something. Seems like it's the best when you only go all out and beat it, and when you beat it, stuff breaks! Here is that baby just flyin' through the dirt and here it is doing a mega-wheelie!! And if you just hit little bumps she wants to go airborne, which is amazing when you consider it's one heavy truck. Here it is catchin' a little air and here it is up on one wheel and pulling like crazy! Notice the angle of that one back wheel that's grabbing in and trying to pull the truck right over... (sorry it's a little blurry, so hard to catch this thing on camera) A cool shot of it flying through the dirt again, notice the rooster trails of dust behind the wheels. A shot of it on 2 wheels, and another wheelie pic. Here's one where you can see the scale of it compared to some two by fours. Pretty cool, eh? These things are a blast, I've been playing with them for almost 15 years now and it still puts a big smile on my face... OK, here's the best for last- a short movie, this is one of it doing a 180 off a wall of dirt, it is kinda fast, so replay it a few times to get the full effect. Well, hope you enjoyed as much as I did, gettin' late so I'm gonna go chill upstairs with G and catch some Zzzz's Enjoy the rest of your holiday weekend... posted @ 10:30 PM EST [link] [Karma: -11 (+/-)] Friday, May 28, 2004Road Trip !OK, so here it is, raining and all grey and I have to pack up the car and also get Sam and Danny loaded up and drive to New Hampshire. Hopefully I'll beat the holiday weekend traffic. It looks like I found some gainful employment! Yes, a bona fide J-O-B !! And not too shabby at all. I'll actually be able to cover all the overhead here at the homestead/compound/commune and maybe have a little left over to venture down to Chinatown for a bowl of pho and some bubble tea on weekends... As a matter of fact, I'm going to fill out the forms and stuff up there as the company is based out of Mass but I'll be working in good ole' NY only about 40 miles from home. Grace is staying home while we're gone and she'll feed Princess and look in on the cats and garden while we're gone. It was hard saying goodbye this morning and she started crying and I got all sad. Makes me sad to think about not seeing her for two and half days. Anyway, I gotta run. I'm bringing the digi-cam and an RC-truck to play with so I'll take lots of pix and post when I get back. Have a great Holiday weekend- -Me posted @ 09:32 AM EST [link] [Karma: 7 (+/-)] Tuesday, May 25, 2004Feels like Summer !!OK, I know it's not for almost a month yet, but it feels like summertime is here. For a few reasons. Once again, I'm without a job (seems to happen every other summer last 4 years). I have just about given up on ever being a Solaris Sysadmin again. Unix will always be my first love, and the BOFH my hero, but in the NYC metro area, there are just waaay more Unix admins then jobs last few years. Unless you of course are Dennis Ritchie and have 3 or 4 degrees and are an admin/senior DBA/network guru/C++ and Java programmer all in one. Then there are a few jobs out there. The other reason is it's been hot and humid and thunderstorming like crazy around here. Guess it could be worse, we could be having tornadoes, eh? I guess the way the market is they can have a laundry list of very specific requirements. But hey, I think my resume is pretty impressive anyway. Wanna take a look? Wanna hire me? Here is a text version with the names erased to protect the innocent (more like guilty). What have I been doing? Keeping busy so I don't fall into a depression and then proceed to be in denial of the fact that I'm depressed. This morning Grace got to sleep in. So I woke up, vacumed the pool, watered the garden, and took a few pix of my RC cars. Take a look at the thumbnail page I made of the pics. Notice how sparkling clear the pool is. Yes, I'm a Pool-Master, I can make the nastiest green or brown pool crystal clear in a few days. Yes, I'm getting lazy, easier to make a page of thumbs then to add all the links to the images here in the body of the posting. This blog software is Greymatter of course, and you have to add links and such as html tags and I'm just a little too lazy this morning. I also put in a vegetable garden this year, it's been about 5 years since the last time I grew veggies. Have some tomatoes, zucchini, eggplant, bell peppers, and bush beans planted. And of cource I grow Habanero's, Jalapeno's and other hot peppers in containers for cooking and to make my own hot sauce. Which of course is so hot nobody can eat it. To top it all off (as if being unemployed isn't bad enough) the transmission went in my Camry, so it's just sitting at the top of the driveway. I'm driving around in an old Chevy Cavalier that my friend Lissa gave me and I had planned on giving it to Sam to drive. But for now we share it, kinda like a family vehicle. OK, that's it for now, I'll take some pix of the yard and stuff and post them soon. I'm going up to New Hampshire to help my Dad pack for his move this weekend so I'll take pics up there too. He had a heart attack two weeks ago so he can't do any lifting or anything. Thankfully he is alright, but it was just bad timing as he's retiring and moving down to North Carolina next month. K, later for now.... -Steve posted @ 10:43 AM EST [link] [Karma: -13 (+/-)] Thursday, April 22, 2004Fun with RC Cars...I'm not even gonna apologize for staying away so long. Just that by the time I get home from work, bla bla bla (or yadda yadda yadda) The funnest thing I've been doing lately is I fired up my RC10-GT which if you don't know, is a kick ass R/C car. Or I should say 1/10 scale, 2 wheel drive, nitro-powered stadium racing truck to be more exact. Team Associated has been one of the most consistent race winners in the R/C world for almost 15 years now. I started with the RC10 electric buggy about ten years or so ago and graduated up to the gas powered truck a couple years later. I know most "adults" think they are toys for kids, but they are really impressive. They are just like scaled down cars. They transmission is very complex, the suspension is incredibly adjustable, you have to give them front end alignments, and so on. It takes a good ten to twelve hours to build the kit, and it's comprised of a couple hundred very small and precisely manufactured components. And the whole setup when I bought it 8 years ago was almost seven hundred dollars, so they are definitely not for kids, or not kids that live in my zip code! Anyway, my truck had been sitting for about three years, and I wasn't sure it would even start. Well. lemme tell you, it starts, and still is faster then just about any truck I've seen. When I first got it I made sure to get a screaming engine, the fastest one out (within reason, of course) and it makes a huge amount of power. It's really hard to go straight, if you gun the throttle it just spins out, and it's hard keeping the front wheels on the ground! Here's a quick video I took fooling around in the yard when the kids were up a couple weekends ago. The video is jumpy as I converted it to 10 fps so the file would be smaller, otherwise it's too big to download. Anyway, here's the movie of my truck look at how it kicks up a trail of dirt as I go up the driveway, and keep in mind I can't even come close to top speed as you need a lot of room for that. For the setup I'm running it should go close to 50 MPH top speed! And here's a cool page that gives you an idea of the some minor hop ups you can do, the pictures here are great, click on some of them for a very detailed view- RC10-GT bulletproofing OK, I'm really beat, let me get going and I'll try and take some before and after pics of my truck so you can see what I've been doing lately. posted @ 10:49 PM EST [link] [Karma: -6 (+/-)] Monday, March 8, 2004Ouch...Well, first time for everything, and it's my first time hurting my back. Hope I just pulled a muscle or something. All I know is putting my socks on or getting upright from bed is near impossible. But sitting isn't so bad. So I'm re-installing Redhat 9.0 on my dual P-2 all scsi system. The one that was my "dream system" when I built it about 4 or 5 years ago. It's still not too bad, but I'd love to see linux on a new super fast machine. I'm wanting to build a new computer one of these years, if I can ever catch up on bills and get my head above water. I even dragged out my Ultra 30 clone workstation, maybe I'll download the new Solaris beta release and give it a try. You know, in all my spare time. I finally hooked up that wireless router and moved Sam's computer to his room over the weekend. So I have the computer room all to myself now. I cleaned it all up and also rearranged and cleaned up the living room also. Here's a shot of the stereo I just put together, and yes, here's what's left of my albums. Just need to organize the dining room and paint it and the whole downstairs is looking pretty good. Todd and I started sheetrocking the upstairs hallway and ceiling last week, and it's on hold from getting finished until I re-wire all the switches at the top and bottom of the stairs. All in all can't complain. Grace is upstairs watching some Charlies Angels made for TV movie, I made us some jasmine tea, and as soon as Redhat is installed and rebooted I'm off to bed. Which gets me thinking, I miss SuSe, has anyone tried it lately? I haven't ran it in about 5 years now and am curious how it is these days. Why dontcha post in the tag board section if you have any feedback, K? All right, I'm gonna read some other blogs and be a link whore for awhile... -nitey nite posted @ 11:02 PM EST [link] [Karma: -14 (+/-)] Sunday, February 29, 2004Ears were ringing!Yup, I got the stereo all hooked up. Holy shite it is LOUD !!!!! I went up in the attic and found my old vinyl (what I have left from the superb collection I had at one time) and was spinning some records. Quite an eclectic collection I have. The Beatles, Ellington, Bob Marley, Eno, Taj Mahal, Muddy Waters and the like. All I can say is... It is LOUD ! I had the Sex Pistols cranked up and it was incredible, my ears were ringing and I was half deaf afterwards, like I was transported back to my bedroom circa 1979. I woke up at 2:30 in the morning last night and went downstairs and hooked up the DBX boxes and the CD player. Yup, listening to Sheryl Crow as I right this (but at a low volume, Grace is still sleeping upstairs). I even hooked up the old Pioneer SR-202 reverberation amp. Yes, you heard me right, a real honest to goodness reverb! When was the last time, if ever, you heard one of those? I remember my father had one on his stereo, along with his 8-track and light boxes, those things that looked like speakers but had diffracted plexiglass in the front and flashed multi-color light shows along with the music. I'm not going that retro, but I thought the reverb would be a cool touch! Did I mention how LOUD this system is? The only thing is I need to take the receiver apart and clean all the pots and switches, it's noisy when you adjust the volume. But that's to be expected with it's age. The contacts get dirty and corroded after 20 or so years. No big deal, a can of tuner cleaner will fix it right up. When I first plugged it all in the turntable wouldn't spin at all. It lit up but the platter wasn't spinning. I spun it by hand and noticed that if I turned the pitch control up all the way it would make a little jerky motion. So I took the belt off and spun the motor spindle fast between my fingers. It spun a little, real slowly, then stopped. So I noticed that if I spun it real fast it would get up to speed. Basically I took it apart, lubricated the motor, made sure it spun consistently at a fast speed (and it stopped making squeaky noises) and put it all back together. Voila! It worked. Who said electronics repair was hard? And I only zapped myself twice... Just kidding. So all in all, with a little tweaking and twisting and lubricating (hmmm, sounds kinda erotic) I have it all working like a dream. Clean the pots on that receiver and I'm rockin' like it was 1979 again! Hell if you was a fly on the wall ya' mighta even seen me doing the pogo to Eno in my living room! Sorry folks, no pix of that! OK, gonna go cook up some pancakes for G and me. Have fun and enjoy this day that only comes once every 4 years. posted @ 01:19 PM EST [link] [Karma: 10 (+/-)] Sunday, February 22, 2004Cool Vintage Stereo !Hey guys... I know, it has been way too long since I've updated. But here I am and I have tons of stuff to tell, don't know where to start. House stuff- Finally going to finish my bedroom. I primed all the windows, and put up some roman shades. I also primed all the trim in the hallway. Sam and I ripped off all the paneling and then the wallpaper in the hallway too. The walls are that really cool old textured plaster, I'd love to just paint them, But there are too many cracks and holes and the ceiling is horrible. but there is NO WAY I'm gonna rip the walls down to studs and then sheetrock, that's a nightmare in this house. Instead I got some quarter inch sheetrock and am going to just go right over the walls and ceiling. Big timesaver! Yesterday Sam and I ripped out the old attic stairs (the fold down kind) and put in new ones. It wasn't that bad, but man we had to cut a lot off the new stairs, guess they aren't made for six foot-four ceilings, eh? OK, so on to the fun part, and the title of this post- VINTAGE STEREO SYSTEM I'm building a vintage stereo system. Yup, a late seventies system, real kick ass setup that will shake the whole house! Now you may ask, how am I doing this when I'm so broke I can't even afford to pay attention (or update my blog)? Well, Grace's parents are selling their house, so she is cleaning out tons of old stuff. She asked me if I wanted their old stereo, she said it's huge and weighs a ton. I said sure, why not, figuring I'll stack it up in the junk room with all the old computers and stuff I'm never gonna use... Well imagine my surprise when she brings this sixty pound monster up here. We're talking a Fisher Studio Standard RS-2015. Cranks out 150 watts a channel of that warm sounding, full bodied, old, "they don't make 'em like they used to" receiver sound. Look at the heatsinks on the back of this bad boy! Here's photo collage of an identical but lower powered model. And she also brought this old Pioneer turntable. It's a PL-516 model with a Shure cartridge. So I'll be spinning my old vinyl some time real soon! Then she bought me this cool old tape deck on Ebay for only thirty bucks. A Technics RS631 model that is supposed to be in flawless condition. The woodgrain is going to look great with the receiver! So naturally I had to go over to my Mom's garage and dig out my DBX boxes and signal processor, the only pieces I saved from the superb system I had as a teenager. That was a really nice setup I had- Kenwood amp and tuner, Dual turntable, and also a Technics deck, but an MX model with the DBX noise reduction (and it also handled metal tape, which the one I'm getting doesn't). I sold that system for twelve hundred dollars of cash and goods back in 1980, so you can imagine how nice it was. I ran into the guy around ten years ago and he said it still sounds better then a new system he had bought! Anyway, like always I'm digressing. Here's the DBX boxes I still have from back then. A model 120 Subharmonic Synthesizer, which is awesome! It recreates the whole spectrum of audio one whole octave lower and then mixes it back in, makes the kind of bass you can feel going right through the walls! And here's the model 200 Program Route Selector I have. Handy if you have multiple inputs. And an SAE-5000 Impulse Noise Reduction unit. This baby will take clicks and pops out of records for recording purposes. The speakers I have aren't vintage, but they are supposed to sound OK for the price and they do push a lot of air. They are KLH Rave-12's and will have to do for now. I would love to get an old pair of Klipsch Heresy's or maybe even Cornwalls some day, but they are out of my price range. Even if I could afford them, I'm afraid the 140 year old walls in this house would all start to crack if I turned them up! Anyway, that's the system, kinda cool, huh? And all for free, can't beat that. When I get all my vinyl out of the attic and out from under the stairs I'll catalog it and put it up for you guys to look at, comment on, etc., K? Oh yeah, I got a digital camera at last! It takes great pictures. It's kinda like a business purchase for this joint venture Grace and I started, we're selling stuff online. It's almost half way paid for from sales, another couple weeks and we'll be operating at a profit! And I can now take really good quality pics to post here. All the old ones on this site were taken with my cell phone, and are pretty crappy. I decided on the Fuji Finepix S5000, it's a really nice camera for not much money at all. You can find them for under three hundred bucks and they are loaded with features, and it has a really long zoom, which I have wanted. Just so you know, all those stereo photo's were NOT taken with my camera, I snagged them off the web from various places while doing research on the components of the system. If you want to see a pictre it took, look HERE. That's my Gray cat and I even optimized it for the web in Photoshop, the original image was huge. But you can see what I'm talking about, it takes some nice photo's! OK, I'm starving, gonna rustle up some chow for Sam and moi and throw a load of laundry in. I'm gonna get in the habit of updating regulary here, I kinda miss it. That and I would love to know the flamer who keeps voting the posts down... l8r posted @ 07:21 PM EST [link] [Karma: -7 (+/-)] Sunday, January 4, 2004o'four is here...And without any terrorist attacks. Another year over, a new one just begun... K, I know I'm getting old since I can remember when John Lennon was killed like it was just yesterday. It was one of those moments in your life you'll never forget. I guess like folks from my parents generation remember when JFK was killed. I dunno what got me on these thoughts... It's that time of year, remembering things past and all that. I've been up to the same old stuff. Work work work. Come home, try and tidy this place up, watch a little tube and cuddle some and then go to sleep. Get up the next day and start all over. My tenant got a really cute dog for Christmas, a French Bulldog. It is sooo cute, a little tiny thing with giant ears, he kinda looks like stitch from Lilo and Stitch! Sometimes I wish I had a house dog, and think that one day when Princess dies I'll get another dog. But then I start to think about how much easier life would be with just the cats. So I woke up this morning, did the dishes, and am making a big pot of my famous chili. Yup, and I'm drinking a cup of my famous coffee as I write this. So for dinner we'll probably be having chili dogs, or chili and rice, or chili/cheese omellettes, or chili and spaghetti. For lunch chili pies (frito's with chili on top covered with grated cheese). Shit, the phone just rang and another guy I know just died. Kinda bummed and have to make some phone calls now. Talk to ya' later. -Steve posted @ 11:31 AM EST [link] [Karma: -13 (+/-)] Monday, December 29, 2003Two Down, Two to Go...And I'm not talking about the Beatles ! OK, so Christmas and my Birthday passed and I survived. Only Grace's B-day and New Years left and I made it through the holiday season. I have some pics to post and also have to update my DVD list, so I'll do that tomorrow night. It's late, have to go to sleep. Hope y'all had a nice X-mas ! signed, Not so bah-humbug after all posted @ 01:19 AM EST [link] [Karma: 38 (+/-)] Sunday, December 21, 2003Jing Jing Jinglin' ...OK, This has been the LONGEST stretch ever for me not posting. I hope to be more consistent now. Really, I do mean it this time < sigh > I have been busy as all hell. Basically I finished the cottage completely. I got all the bathroom fixtures in, the chimney up, The whole heating and hot water systems plumbed in and wired, and the propane tanks installed. The heat is on and it's all nice and cozy in there. So cozy in fact I have a tenant !! At last !! He seems real nice. He installs appliances for Sears so he hooked me up with a super nice stainless steel stove for in there. All in all it came out really nice. Sorry I didn't get any pics before he moved in. Now at long last I can finish my bedroom. I need to prime all the windows with Kilz and put the trim back around the doors, then finally paint the windows and try that fancy Ralph Lauren paint I got for the walls (the stuff that's supposed to look like linen). My mom got me roman shades for the windows in there (seven windows in my room, plenty of light!) as a Christmas present, so if I ever finish it, it'll be nice. Then maybe I can save up and get a cheap dresser or two from Ikea and get rid of the giant old ugly ones I have (which are mostly full of books and magazines and junk anyway). Hell, then my room will look like a real grown ups room, eh? Yesterday I went shopping with my Mom and Grace, we got those shades and a few things for the kids. I have to say, Danny got the neatest present from my Mom, I wish I had one! But since he may read this, I'm not able to say exactly what it is... Today G and I went to Home Depot, I returned a buch of left over stuff from the cottage and used the credit to get a new tool bag for work, so I don't have to carry that big ugly briefcase style one. But I will say this, once I loaded it up with all my tools, fluke meter, butt set, toner and a keyboard it is really heavy! Hope I always get parking close to the call I'm going to. Then I got a tree and brought it home and we decorated it. Thanks to Todd for giving me a couple sets of lights he had never used from last year. It's real simple, white lights, red velvet ribbons, strings of silver beads, and a few tiny wooden ornaments. But it's our first tree together, last year I didn't get a tree, so it's extra special and really looks nice. I miss Sam and wish he was here to help decorate it too, but we're taking a time out from each other and he's staying at his Mom's for a week or so. No big plans for Christmas. Going to go down to St.John the Divine for Midnight Mass with Maggie and Grace. It is absolutely incredible down there. This will be the second year in a row, and I hope to make it a tradition going to that great cathedral every year. Did you know it's the largest cathedral in the world, right in NYC ? Here's a cool history of it's construction, still underway after almost a hundred years... OK, I need to get to sleep, have a good one. posted @ 10:52 PM EST [link] [Karma: 3 (+/-)] Sunday, October 19, 2003Shopping FrustrationsOK, I'll fill you in on the headaches I had yesterday. So I borrowed a big box truck to pick up all the stuff I need to finish the cottage. Make a Home Depot run and that's it, I'll have everything and then it's just a matter of installing it all. But noooo, all of a sudden the one crucial piece that Home Depot used to stock is now a special order item! I found that out only after the second store I went to and 4 hours later. But I did get the following- - vanity, with countertop/sink - Delta faucet for above - good quality fiberglass walls for the shower - toilet - speedy valves, supplies, and trap for sink - flange, wax gasket, speedy valve and supply for toilet - medicine cabinet - strip light for above medicine cabinet - 3 pre-hung doors (closet, boiler room, and bathroom doors) - nice Schlage locksets for those doors - moulding kits for all three doors - base moulding for the whole place - paint for the walls and moulding (cracked wheat is the color, goes nicely with the tiles) - carpet and padding - a thermostat Earler in the day I went to the chimney store and bought a chimney with the roof flange, storm colllar and cap. Chris is supposed to come by today and install that for me, and also fix the roof on the shed and put in the roof boot for the plumbing vent. So what am I missing you ask ? The glass walls and door kit for the shower! I can't find it anywhere... And I need two 30 gallon LP gas hot water heaters. One is going to make domestic hot water and the other will be plumbed in as a mini-boiler, with a circulator pump, expansion tank, auto fill, check valve and combo gauge. I had spec'd out boilers, and the smallest one I could get was almost 5 times the size I needed, so for now I'm going to run a hot water heater as a boiler. Maybe down the road when I add a second room on to the building I'll upgrade to a boiler. A small boiler is also twice the price of two hot water heaters, and I just need to get it heated and finished so I can get a tenant in there, fast as possible. So it's all coming together. The main thing now is to get the heat working before all the pipes freeze and to get it finished! George is coming to lay the carpet next Sunday. I hope to have all the walls painted and the bathroom fixtures installed by then. Working on it a few hours every night it should be possible. OK, time to start my day, I will take pictures as I get stuff finshed and update the Garage Transformation page. This project was started last Thanksgiving, soo my goal is to have it done by this one. A year to build a small house in your spare time is not so bad. The main thing was I ran out of money and work was stopped all summer. Oh yeah, you don't want to know how much I dumped into this place so far. Probably close to 25 grand. So you see why I want to finish it and start getting a return... K, later for now. posted @ 08:30 AM EST [link] [Karma: 1 (+/-)] Friday, October 17, 2003Killin' Bill...Damn, Grace and I went to see Kill Bill last night. I liked it, a lot !! If you dig samurai flicks or cheesy old kung-fu movies, imagine them with a Quentin soundtrack and his style of repartee... Anyway, can't wait for part 2 to come out now. Want to catch the new Texas Chainsaw as well, maybe next week. And of course, the final part of the "M" trilogy is right around the corner. OK, my warm bed and soft girlfriend are calling me, I'm gonna go crash, but I'll update with some new pics and stuff tomorrow. Been busy as hell and working my butt off around here lately. The cottage is almost done!! Yup, it's all coming together at last! I'll fill you in tomorrow. posted @ 10:07 PM EST [link] [Karma: -3 (+/-)] Friday, October 10, 2003Trying to get into the habit again...Of posting stuff here! Just been so busy, and it's way easier to just vegetate that last waking hour in front of that other, bigger CRT that has 500 channels to choose from. But of course I watch the same dozen channels all the time so all the rest are really just fluff. So what have I been doing you may ask? Well, a lot of work on my Mom's house and even a little on the cottage here as well. At her house, she added a sun room on the back, had her kitchen and bathroom doubled in size, and tiled half the house. Problem is, after throwing the second incompetent general contractor off the job, it was all done inside, but the outside was completely unfinished... OK, so don't ask me why, but I said I'd finish it all for her. So I had to shingle the whole addition and half the front that was ripped apart, trim all the new windows, install soffit and fascia boards on the addition, and then paint the whole house. All in my spare time of course, and whilst still keeping up with the never ending and eternal renovations at my house, and oh yes, of course, still trying to finish the cottage so I can rent it out and start getting some return on all the cash I've dumped into it so far. So I find on the front of her house the sheathing is rotted in spots, so I rip it all out, skin it with new plywood and then Tyvek it. Then just do the shingles on it and it's ready for paint. You can see here the new shingles are white. Here's another shot to give you an idea of how many shingles it was (a lot!). Here's the new addition, I shingled it all and trimmed the windows, but you can see there's no fascia or soffits yet, here's the other side of it. Here's a closeup of the roof valley, without the trim on. I have to add a few shots of the addition all finished, I thought I had taken some, but I guess not. But I do have a pic of the front all painted and done. Not bad, all she needs to do is have the front walk done and plant some shrubs and of course put gutters up and the whole house is pretty much done. And I still found time to bake cookies with Sarah and Danny, which kind you ask? Oatmeal chocolate chip with walnuts of course! The only downside to enjoying candy and sweets as much as I do is this. Yup, that's me enjoying a root canal a few weeks ago! Grace and I haven't been downtown to enjoy some pho for at least a month now, so I ordered a few vietnamese coffee makers from quickspice.com so I we can enjoy a cup at home now. But I think I feel a hankering for some pho coming on... We also had a nice bonfire in my fire-pit when the kids were all up a few weeks ago and roasted marshmallows and made s'moores too! I have a bunch of wood stacked up and if I get all my scheduled projects done this weekend (one crucial one is closing the pool) we'll have another fire Sunday night. OK, that's it for me. Glad I posted a few pics and hope I didn't bore the hell outta y'all. I've had quite a few more things going on I didn't even mention. I'll post more and try and "back log" until you're all caught up on my goings on last month or two, K? aiigghht, 'nite all... posted @ 12:44 AM EST [link] [Karma: 3 (+/-)] Wednesday, September 10, 2003New Ink...Well it's been a few years, but I got a new tattoo. I know, you must be thinking, where do you have room ? But actually I have a little strip about 2 and a 1/2 inches wide by 7 inches on the back of each upper arm that's bare skin. Yup, I missed a few places. Anyway, a friend of mine is a REALLY good artist, (actually he's an art teacher as well) and is learning to do tattoos, so seeing as how he needs practice, and he is doing them for free... Yeah, I never let anyone practice on me before, but it turned out really good. He has a super steady hand, the thin lines are so straight it's amazing. And it came out really really nice. Maybe I'll let him do some stuff on my legs. I've been talking about starting on my legs for years now, so maybe it's time to take the plunge. I have an idea for a neat custom piece, a Sun server and monitor done graffiti style, with the motion squiggles, and bright colors, with cables flying about, little lightning bolts coming out of the cables, and hex code in a cloud floating behind it all, and maybe even a Sun logo to boot. I would get the color scheme from some old Sun postcards and ads I have saved, and see if he could draw something up. I'm thinking it would be nice filling up a whole calf, the outer side. Then on the other leg, again outer calf, I've been wanting to get Shiva and Shakti, in "the divine embrace" with some sanskrit and lotus blossoms in the background, all in black and grey. Oh, are you wondering what I got done? I got me some of that "gangsta' style" Olde English lettering in a vertical strip, starts right at the bottom of a tee shirt sleeve and goes a few inches below the elbow, five letters, it's nice and deep, deep black. I'll get someone to take a picture and I'll post it. OK, I'm fighting off the remnants of a cold that had me miserable earlier in the week, so I'm going to bed early tonight. Oh yeah, this Saturday is my youngest son Danny and my brothers' birthday. Happy Birthday Danny and G-O, you're getting old! G'nite- posted @ 10:08 PM EST [link] [Karma: -8 (+/-)] Monday, September 1, 2003September at last...Yes, I know, I kinda' took a month off from posting, but I PROMISE to be more regular starting NOW!! So I just woke up, it's raining out, and I'm waiting for the coffee to finish brewing. Grace is upstairs half asleep, think I'll just bring our coffee up and snuggle and doze a little more. Yup, sounds like a plan. I'll fill you in on everything that's been going on a little later, like, this evening. But trust me, nothing that exciting... Thanks for being patient whilst I was on hiatus ! -Steve posted @ 10:18 AM EST [link] [Karma: -6 (+/-)] Tuesday, July 29, 2003One more thing...Seems the counter is not working right, it reset at 1,000 unique users, so it is 1000 AND whatever it says at the bottom of the page, K ?? posted @ 11:52 PM EST [link] [Karma: -9 (+/-)] Shit Shit Shit !! My 'puter is broke, bigtime ! Won't even get to the bios screen, so either the bios is fried or the motherboard went. A code flashes so fast I can't read it, and no POST beeps, so it's not good. I'm writing this on my dual P-2, all SCSI Linux workstation, guess this will be my everyday machine until I get a chance to swap my drives from that machine into a spare one I have here, then I'll have to fight with 2000 as all the hardware will be unrecognized, aaaggghhh !! I just pray the disk is OK, I'd hate to lose my thousands of MP3's (quite an eclectic collection, all my old work files, all my love letters, warez, and of course the homemade porno's we made, etc. Hopefully I'll get a chance this weekend to fool with it. Wish I had the money to buy a new motherboard and chip and video card... All the PC's I use are at least 4 years old now and kinda slow... OK, I am beat and going to sleep, write more soon. -Steve posted @ 11:51 PM EST [link] [Karma: -5 (+/-)] Saturday, July 19, 2003I'm soooo tired....Must be depressed, I'm just so tired and I can't snap out of it. I've had two glasses of vietnamese coffee and I still feel tired !! Well, we all know it takes mass quantities of caffeine to have an effect on me, so maybe I can't count that. OK, I'm jumping in the pool and then Todd is coming and we're going to a meeting. l8r -Steve posted @ 06:25 PM EST [link] [Karma: 20 (+/-)] Thursday, July 17, 2003Say Goodbye Jeep...Well, Much as I loved her and she has been a great vehicle, I have to let my Jeep go. The repo-man is gonna take her one night real soon. Well, if I leave it parked in my driveway, which I haven't been! Yup, I did the math and being out of work for so long now I just can't keep making the payments, so I talked to the finance company, they weren't willing to work with me, so I told them to come and get it... Kinda sad, I really loved that thing, it went places you'd never think a vehicle could go, it rode great, I beat the crap out of it for 3 years and never had a single problem with it... But I have to put all my resources into saving my house, that's the main priority now. I'm getting an old (1985) toyota corolla from my cousin Pete for nothing and I'll drive that around until it dies. He also has a really clean low miles '87 Monte LS that needs a transmission, for 400 bucks, so I'm gonna take that and put a tranny in it when I have the money, as I've driven rear wheel drive american cars all my life and that's what I prefer. I know how to fix them and I like they way they handle and ride, guess I'm old fashioned, huh? Anyway, here's a couple pictures of the Jeep out on a 4-wheelin' trip a couple years ago, but she looks exactly the same now. This is taking a rest and exploring, and here's starting off a steep descent over the peak of a foothill. And here she is during the blizzard we had this past winter, resting and full of snow. I'm gonna miss that thing. K, I gotta go take care of stuff, bye... posted @ 10:24 AM EST [link] [Karma: 1 (+/-)] Tuesday, July 1, 2003Been awhile...Yes, I haven't posted in ages. Been way busy. The end of June is always hectic around here. I've been kinda up and down, some days no problem hanging in there, others I just get to thinking it's time to throw in the towell. But I just keep doing whatever I ned to do, putting one foot in front of the other, and trying to have faith it will get better. I dunno, I guess that's all I can do for now. In any case, I'm going to be busy preparing for my annual fourth of July Bar-B-Q and extravaganza next couple of days, I'll be sure to keep y'all filled in on my progress. K, tired and gonna go upstairs and rest (not really, just not in the mood to write tonight)... PS- I have some new pics to post, I'll do it tomorrow, promise... posted @ 10:11 PM EST [link] [Karma: 9 (+/-)] Saturday, June 21, 2003Cookin' Up A Storm...That's what we've been doing. And kinda fitting as all it does is rain lately. I only got to go in the pool 3 times so far, oh well, I'm sure it will get hot and muggy sooner or later, and I'll be able to spend plenty of time floating around. What's cooking you wonder? Well, last night we made a couple trays of lasagna, but not the ususal kind. Ours was made with a bechamel sauce, and you add a little tomato sauce to the bechamel so it's kinda pink. We used the home canned tomatoes I did last fall up in New Hampshire when we had "family canning day" up at my Dad's. It turned out very good, was soupy at first (too warm) but after setting up overnight it's quite yummy. Today was another rainy day. So I picked up Maggie this morning and brought her to the mall to get her birthday present (yesterday was her B-day). She wanted some C.S. Lewis books in the series she's reading so we got them, walked around some, and then headed back. We stopped at Mi Bohio and had some fried plaintains and mango shakes, the shakes there are out of this world! Then I spoke to Grace and we made plans to bake some cookies. So she met us at home and we went and got the ingredients for "Maggie's secret cookies" and also stuff for dinner. So while G and Maggie made the cookies (I helped a little), I kept busy making swedish meatballs for dinner. The cookies are EXCELLENT, they are oatmeal-chocolate chip, with one secret ingredient, of course. Here's Maggie taking a batch off the sheets to cool. The swedish meatballs weren't so bad either, seeing as how it was my first attempt at them. Then after I dropped Maggie back home, I ran into Stop and Shop down there, as it was the last day of the weekly sale and they had Purdue whole chickens, buy one get one free. So guess what we're roasting up tomorrow for dinner... And I had a big scare today, I thought we lost the new cat. Her name is really kee-kee, but we've taken to calling her "pretty cat", just not to her face, as she is pretty. Here she is reclining in my bed, and you can see her weird haircut- all short but her head, legs, and tail are still long. Here she is eating, see how huge and bushy her tail looks! Once her hair grows back she's gonna be a beautiful kitty, just look at that face. Anyway, she must have gotten out somehow, and I didn't see her all last night or today. I was thinking she won't know her way around. but I opened the laundry room door to check for water (yes when it rains hard for a long time I get seepage, even minor flooding at times) and there she was! She must have discovered there's a missing pane in one of the windows there, that's the kitty-door the other cats use to come and go as they please. I'm just glad she's home safe and sound. Otherwise nothing much else is new around here. Same old stuff. No work on the cottage as I ran out of money, but I may finish the closet up there and paint it, maybe work on it a little to keep it going until I figure out how to get the cash to finish it. Looking forward to the July fourth, having my annual bar-b-q and fireworks show, this will be my sixth or seventh one now and everyone seems to enjoy them so far. So anywaaay, I'm outta here for the night, but before I go, wanna post this picture of Grace and I, so you know what we look like when we're smiling together. posted @ 11:50 PM EST [link] [Karma: 5 (+/-)] Monday, June 16, 2003Father's DayWell, I survived another one !! Hope yours went well also. I got a couple neat cards, and Danny gave me a screwdriver and best of all, a medallion coin with a neat saying about Dad's. I picked up all the kids yesterday and we went out to Queens to go to a couple markets. I was out of rice and kimchi so it was time to re-stock. The little asian markets around here simply pale in comparison. Out there they are full fledged supermarkets, with a much bigger selection and better prices too. And of course they have a wonderful snack shop with the best corn-dogs, fried squid, etc. Then we all came back here and Sarah and Danny spent a couple hours in the pool. I jumped in for about a half hour, it was a little cool but not bad. The water temp was 72, only a few degrees off, I like it around 75 myself. I ran back down and dropped them all off as Danny had hos last little league game of the season last night. Then I went to my regular Sunday night meeting, and afterwards went and saw the last couple innings of his game. Came home and talked on the phone, ate some cherries (mmm, they were yummy) and went to sleep. Today I plan on moving the dog kennels to a new spot, vacuming the pool, and spending quality time with the new cat. That's about it, nothing exciting. OK, I need to get some better pictures of the cat and I'll post them. She keeps moving every time I get a good pose in the viewfinder. posted @ 07:16 AM EST [link] [Karma: 6 (+/-)] Saturday, June 14, 2003I'm fat !!Yup, I can't deny it. I've gained twenty pounds since last fall and even my face looks fat now. I have to just stop eating for awhile I guess. Nothing much else new, still depressed, tomorrow is Father's Day, I wish I could just sleep all day and avoid the world. I got a new cat, she is really cool, but looks weird temporarily. She's a long hair, but her previous owner had all her fur shaved off, except for her head, tail and legs. So she has this huge bushy tail and a skinny looking body, and her head looks two sizes too big. I think it's an Angora, but not sure yet. Anyway, I'm exhausted as usual, I'll take some pictures of the cat and post them tomorrow. posted @ 11:17 PM EST [link] [Karma: 14 (+/-)] Sunday, June 8, 2003My Sims need me !OK, I know it rarely happens, maybe once every few years I play a PC game and get hooked. The only games I ever played with any consistency were Quake and Quake2/3, and SimTower way back when. Well don't ask me why, but I was bored sitting here the other day and decided to find a copy of SimCity 3000. Well I did and damned if I can't stop playing that stupid game. It really takes awhile to build a substantial city!! I guess I have about 7 or so hours in real time invested in my city so far. In sim time the city is 220 years old (I run it at the fastest speed) and has around 135,000 inhabitants. My budget is fine, I have almost $400,000 to build stuff. I have a fusion power plant (pricey but makes tons of energy) along with a nuclear one as well. A seaport, airport, military base, university, a couple colleges, like around 5 hospitals, police stations and firehouses. I also have the Adler planetarium, some nice parks, a couple marinas, a recital hall, and so on and so forth. When it gets really nice and big I'll make it available for download if anyone wants to load it into their game and take a look. The things that are the biggest pain are planning the subway system and getting the highways good so traffic is not a major problem. They are always complaining about traffic! In the real world, I have the pool sparkling (if the sun would shine that is) and I put the steps in so if'n one wanted to freeze, one could go for a dip. I got this "liquid solar blanket" that I'll try if the sun ever comes out, it's supposed to help warm it up faster. Besides that, not much has changed, I'm broke, depressed and just trying to keep the faith that there is indeed some light at the end of the tunnel somewhere. Tomorrow is Grace and mines one year anniversary, but I try not to think about it, if you know what I mean. Otherwise I can't complain... Well I could but it doesn't change anything so I gave up on that (except in small doses and mini-rants of course). K, I'm outta here, gonna go give a Hugo a ride to the mall and prolly come back here and build my city more. posted @ 12:47 PM EST [link] [Karma: 13 (+/-)] Thursday, June 5, 2003Wanna get wet and slippery ??Well if'n I do, all I have to do now is walk about 40 feet out my kitchen door... Yup, the pools open!! I know, the water is freezing still, but I couldn't resist. So after many hours of standing there with the pool vac, the bottom is smooth and clean and the water is crystal clear. Yes, I'm not bragging (well maybe a little), but I consider myself somewhat of a pool master. I can take the worst pools you've ever seen, the water could be black, and turn them sparkling blue and inviting in no time. Trust me though, you learn those skills from neglecting a pool and letting it turn black (or green or brown), better to maintain it no matter what the weather outside and avoid all those hassles. I didn't put the steps in though, as I figure it's still too cold. But maybe I'll do that this weekend. Not like I have any other plans. I'm so broke and so behind in all my bills that I don't even eat dollar menu anymore. But I did go look at a job that could pay almost a half-months worth of bills if the lady goes for it. I hope to meet her and give her the estimate tomorrow or Saturday. It's an old barn that's all rotted on the bottom half. So it needs footings poured and to be re-framed and skinned on just the lower half on three sides, and then primed and painted. So we'll see what happens. If it was my barn (no electricity and a dirt floor) I'd have a hard time justifying spending the money. OK, I'm gonna go hop in the shower, have to go feed Alan's dogs and cats for him, then head over to Castle Heights I guess. Later... posted @ 04:36 PM EST [link] [Karma: 4 (+/-)] Saturday, May 31, 2003I dunno...What to say... Obviously, as I haven't posted in a week! Just kinda getting through each day, putting one foot in front of the other. Went to Stormville flea market last weekend, it was great as usual but ohmigod, the traffic getting there was unreal. I picked up a nice topiary made from rosemary, so as it grows and I trim it, I can cook with the trimmings, kinda neat. This isn't the greatest pic, but it's on the table between the jade and the easter lily. Also, Debra gave me a realy nice spider plant, and here it is in it's temporary home above the microwave. And I picked up a new set of sheets for my bed and a couple new pillows. I think that makes eight pillows in my bed now, Gray cat told me that it's juuust right! The best purchase was a set of wind chimes, I always liked them, just never took the time to appreciate them. I guess hanging in Debra and Alan's yard last week got me thinking how I like wind chimes and spider plants, so thanks you two! Now when the wind blows just right it's like music drifts in my window! So the lawn is all grown in and green as can be, it's really nice, and I'm a bit surprised it worked so well. I don't know if you've ever tried to even spot seed small areas, but grass is a pain to grow. So imagine I planted the whole yard, I was sure it wasn't gonna work! PLEASE look at these old pics, when it looked like a mine field, and you will appreciate the change! Here's the view from the road, and here's below the pool, notice that huge pile of debris and rocks is gone? Nice, huh? There are patches that are thin and you still see the hay from planting, but it's getting there... But here's the view when I walk out the door now, quite an improvement! And I took the cover off the pool yesterday, hoping the rain we're supposed to get will help finish filling it so I don't have to run my well dry topping it off. Yup, it's almost summer when I start dreading having to keep that pool going. Though I have to say I take a certain pride in keeping it sparkling and cyrstal clear, it makes me feel good. I just wish it got more use, so if'n you ever wanna come over and take a dip, feel free. Really, just gimme a heads up so I can let Sam know. The cottage you ask? Well, I primed the front, but there's a lot of cleanup to do around it as you can see. George finally finished laying all the ceramic tile. It came out REALLY nice. Here's a shot of the kitchen floor. I know in the picture it looks crooked and bumpy and stuff, but it is straight as an arrow and level, it's just all hazed over with dust, needs 4 or 5 good moppings is all. And here's the bathroom tiles, they are cool, I love the retro pattern! Now if I just had the money to finish it and rent it out, it would help out immensely until I can get back on my feet. To get this close and then run out of money just a couple thousand short of finishing it is a real bummer! And on the personal front, Grace and I were having a lot of mini-tiffs, but we have been talking about stuff and what's going on with us and how we react and deal with things (or how we play old scripts and how we can change that) and we're doing fine now and happy to have each other. Hugo is up fromn Florida visiting my Mom so it'll be nice to see him around again. OK, I need to go work on the pool before it starts raining, sorry I haven't posted in so long. posted @ 09:31 AM EST [link] [Karma: 19 (+/-)] Monday, May 19, 2003Stressful Weekend...In fact, so much so I'm not even in the mood to post about it. Still digesting it all. I guess I'll tell the whole story tomorrow when I'm a bit more rested. Uh, now that I think about it, writing is somewhat cathartic, so I'll tell you a little. OK, so Saturday morning I am going down to see my youngest son play baseball. Now since my oldest was supposed to spend this weekend with his Mom, we (my Mom went to see the game too) took him down and all went in one car. I had planned to have my girlfriend pick me up about half way through the game and give me a ride home. Our thinking was we'd have the house to ourselves and be able to just lay around in bed and maybe cook some dinner and have a relaxing evening with no distractions or having to be a car service to Sam or stuff like that. So about fifteen minutes into the game, the party hereafter known as "the ex" shows up, drops off Maggie (my oldest daughter) and explains she can't take Sam for the weekend, she has no groceries, her bank account is screwed up and her paycheck never got deposited and she's all distraught. And can my Mom just drop Danny and Maggie back at her place after the game, then she leaves. Now I'm looking at Sam and I feel bad for the kid. I know he likes to stay up here and hang with his friends, but he also needs his Mom and it's a bummer to have everything change unexpectedly at the last minute, right? And now I'm feeling bad as they have no food, but a part of me is like, shit, I haven't went grocery shopping in over a month, I'm out of work and we live in spaghetti, slices of pizza, and dollar menu cheeseburgers most nights. Grace picks me up and I tell her what happened and she's concerned and says why don't we buy some groceries and drop them off. I said no, who knows what kind of stuff to get, etc. But I did go to cash my unemployment check, and I called and asked if she wanted me to drop off a hundred bucks so she could buy some groceries, but she said, no, don't bother. I'm not going to press the issue, hey I offered and it was all I could do in my situation. So we eat some spaghetti (again with the cheapest belly filler there is, but it's good!) and then we head up to my house to chill out. Well, when we get home I expected Sam to be here, but we walk in the door and I see a baseball glove on the kitchen table! Uh oh... And I hear voices coming from the computer room, one of them is Maggie's. So we walk in and there is Sam, Maggie and Danny. Turns out my Mom took it upon herself to invite Maggie and Danny up to spend the night at her place. OK, not a big deal usually, just a little bit of a surprise, but there's more to this. So Grace has never met my younger kids that live with their Mom. We talked about it but in the begining decided it was best to wait and not introduce them, as who knew if our relationship would grow and last, etc. Then Grace got sick over the winter and it's been a long and arduous struggle back to wellness for her so we didn't even consider it. We did talk about maybe hanging out with Maggie a couple months ago, but then I lost my job, things got hectic, and we never really talked about it after that. I figured Maggie was the best one to meet first though, she's vary mature, funny and insightful and a really great kid. Danny is only 9 and all boy, and also I thought he may have some confused feelings and stuff so I wasn't so sure about him. And Sarah is a sweetheart and all, but again I worry about her being overly sensitive and stuff. Anyway, it wasn't how we would want it, but she met them and all seemed to go well. We were all a little nervous I think, but we made small talk and chit chatted about this or that. Then the kids were over at my Mom's playing baseball in her driveway and I was watering the grass seed and puttering around the yard with Grace. My mom came out and proceeded to get on Sam's case as they lost three baseballs and she was blaming Sam for it all like ususal, so again as ususal I had to get in the middle and play peacekeeper and stick up for Sam. See all the fun I have? Then I wanted the kids to see The Matrix Reloaded, so we took them to the mall and I bought hem the tickets (it's an R flick, I dunno why) and went up to the food court to see if they wanted to eat. Grace was worried maybe they wouldn't let them in, so she suggested we wait and make sure it went smoothly... Good call on her part, I walked them up and the ticket taker wouldn't let them in if I wasn't going also. Well, I was kinda resigned to just giving in and figured, how we gonna change his mind. But Grace asked to speak to the manager and I must say, she surprised me with how smooth she was, very persuasive, and unrelenting, until the manager gave in and walked them to the entrance, ripped their tickets in half, gave them the stubs and let them in!! So they got to see it, cool. G went home when the movie was over, and I went to pick them up, stopped at Carvel and got them all ice cream. All in all I guess not a bad weekend. Oh yeah, I am amazed at how good the lawn is coming in! I'm more surprised then anyone, believe me, it's not that easy to grow new grass. OK, I'm tired, gonna go crash. Sorry if this post was long and boring and made no sense, just kinda rambling 'bout whatever... posted @ 10:26 PM EST [link] [Karma: -1 (+/-)] Friday, May 16, 2003-ReloadedDamn !! Went to see it last night, it was un-friggin'-believeable. Neo is badder then bad nowadays, and a lot more Trinity in this one, and the car/bike chase scene, it's, well, you gotta see it. See this movie ! K, happy Friday posted @ 07:37 AM EST [link] [Karma: 24 (+/-)] Wednesday, May 14, 2003two more please...Damn, The counter has been stuck at 498 since last night. Be nice to have two more unique visitors here, seeing it hit 500 in a couple short months will be somewhat gratifying (jeez, what does that say about my life?) and also, as usual, nobody ever clicks on the guest map and puts a pin on the country/state they're from. I know I get hits from Italy and the UK, would be neat to see them on the map (blatant hint thank you). K, tired, up too late, gonna take a cranky nap -ciao posted @ 03:47 PM EST [link] [Karma: 5 (+/-)] Tuesday, May 13, 2003I KnowI haven't been updating. I was busy with getting the lawn seeded and stuff. Now I'm not busy, but I'm starting to get bummed. Trying to stay in the positive, but it's not always easy. There are like, no jobs out there in my field. And if I change careers and start all over doing something else, I won't be able to survive and pay my bills on that income. So what's a really good Solaris sysadmin to do? I dunno. Hell I'd even be a linux sysadmin if I had to! OK, Alan asked me if I'd like to go to lunch, so I'm gonna meet him down in Ossining, have to run, I'll post more later, promise. posted @ 11:42 AM EST [link] [Karma: -11 (+/-)] Friday, May 9, 2003It's getting greener all the time, yes it is...Maybe it's my imagination, but I think I saw some grass seedlings out in front when I was putting the garbage out this morning! Wow, it will be so nice to have a lawn again someday soon. I drive around and everywhere the houses have lush green lawns. And I have had dirt and ruts and piles of gravel and rocks for the last six months... But any day now, my new lawn will be sprouting like crazy!! I'm even excited about the weather report. We're supposed to have short daily showers for four days in a row starting tomorrow. Perfect for establishing my new lawn! See, I really can't water the grass as it runs the well dry if you run the hose for a long time, so I was really concerned about how I was gonna keep the soil moistened. I know, I know. Boring stuff. But if you put all the effort I have into grading it all and removing all the rocks and field stones and raking and fertilizing and seeding and then topping with hay and hoping for rain, you'd be all concerned about the weather and how your grass seed was doing too. I'll take some pictures later of the yard so y'all can see how the trees are all budding and coming alive and how it's starting to shape up, K ? Now I have to go and pick up a couple laborers to work on my Mom's yard. I'll keep ya' posted on the green scene. Oh yeah, you did pick up a Mom's day card and present for your dear old mum, right? posted @ 07:55 AM EST [link] [Karma: 16 (+/-)] Tuesday, May 6, 2003hay !Hay, not hey, that is. That's what was in my pockets, my hair, everywhere yesterday, I was like a scarecrow! I finally got the front and very front yards raked out and smooth and ready for seed. So I spread some fertilizer, some grass seed, and covered it with hay. It rained last night and is on and off drizzling today, so hopefully in a couple weeks I'll have baby grass for a lawn. Anything but dirt and I'll be happy. And the electricity is on in the cottage ! Hurray ! It's kinda neat to be able to flip a switch and lights come on, after so long. George is coming this afternoon to start laying the rest of the tiles, so it's getting there. Last week I primed the front of it also, so it looks nice and clean and white... All I have to do now is figure out how to come up with a couple thousand dollars to finish it and it should be real nice! Once the tiles are done I'll get some new pics of it all and post them, K? So last 4-5 days has been all outside work, grading the yard, trying to get it looking half-way decent. Yesterday and today I have a few laborers next door at my Mom's house (oh, you didn't know my Mom bought the house next door about five years ago? it's a blessing and a curse at times...) grading her backyard and moving boulders and getting it ready to be seeded and do some landscaping there too. She had the same backhoe operator as me there destroying her yard last year. So little by little things are shaping up. I still have no job, no money, and no prospects. But I have a good outlook, I have loving people in my life, and I'm lucky enough to have 4 great kids who I miss. That's a hint if you read this, Maggie, that I haven't seen you in awhile... My son Sam who lives with me has a girlfriend! For a few weeks now. It's weird, like, he is growing up, I must be getting old. But I can still hang pretty good, and feel better then when I was 30, so I'm not complaining. I went to Rich's wake last night. man, he looked horrible, didn't even look like him. His wife looked like she was holding on. I can't help but think about their two kids though. I mean, the youngest one won't even have any memories of her father, that's really sad. And I look at his life, he had it all, a beautiful and very successful wife, two kids, a big luxury home, money, all the things people dream of. But it couldn't fill the hole inside, it couldn't take away the pain, only the drugs could, or at least you think they do when you're caught up in the life. But meanwhile all they do is take away your ability to feel and make you exist, not really living, just surviving. I dunno, we went to the diner last night and were talking, five people I know died in the last six months, that's five people too many. Two OD's, one heart attack, one liver failed, one from the virus. At least some of them died clean and happy I guess. Shit, this is kinda getting me bummed out first thing in the morning and all. It's a gray dreary and wet day out, it's too easy to become morbid and start thinking negative. I have to run a couple new water lines at my Mom's house and tie them in so she has hose-bibs outside, I guess I'll change and go do that to keep myself busy. I talked to Grace this morning and she was maybe going in, maybe gonna fall back asleep. She said she'd call me in an hour, and she hasn't, so that means she fell back asleep. I guess I'll let her sleep and if she's in the mood (no not that mood, we're always in that one) she'll come up later and we'll cook up some grub and chow down. I made chicken stock from the chickens we roasted this weekend (they were delicious by the way, stuff with a whole lemon and fresh thyme, rub with olive oil, salt and pepper and shove in the oven) so I'm thinking of making some "green rice". What's that you ask? That's when you sautee up a cup each of chopped spinach, parsley, and scallions in some olive oil. Then you add two cups of rice and heat until translucent. Then you add the appropriate amount of chicken stock (depending on how you like your rice) and cook until done. Fluff it up with a fork, and crumble up some feta cheese on top, or just squeeze fresh lemon on it , and enjoy! OK, you got two cooking ideas, heard about the progress around the old homestead here, and also had a mini-discourse on why drug addiction is bad. So I guess I can safely say I've said more enough and I'll go start my day... posted @ 10:58 AM EST [link] [Karma: 2 (+/-)] Friday, May 2, 2003Another RIPShit, last night I was doing my usual bed-time conversation with G, I was tired, told her goodnight and hung up, rolled over and went to sleep. A half hour later, the phone rings again, and wakes me up. This is a little after midnight and I'm exhausted, but I thought maybe she had a bad dream so I answer it... It's my friend Danny calling to tell me that Blockbuster Rich is dead. They found him in a room up at the Mohegan Sun casino. They don't know what happened, but they found drugs in the room, so it will probably end up being another OD. I know he checked himself into a facility for depression a couple weeks ago, but he just left on his own accord this week. Then one day his wife came home and his bags were packed and he was gone... She had been talking to Danny worried about him, wondering if anyone had heard from him. It's kinda freaky, but when Danny told me yesterday he was misssing, the first thing I said was "he's probably in a casino hotel room with money and drugs spread all over the bed". And then he calls and tells me someting almost just like that, but now he's dead. Damn, another one, the longer you stay clean the more people you see die. Or maybe now I just notice it, before I didn't really want to know. In any case, we'll miss him, and God bless his wife and his two small children. I can remember so many times talking to him, bullshitting at the diner, and I can remember his laugh and his smile like it was yesterday, even though he hasn't really been around much this last year or so. Shit, this is just getting me bummed out, I'm gonna go call Danny and see how he's taking it. He was real close to him and was trying to help him get straightened out this time around, so he's pretty upset about it. K, I'll write more later I guess. If you believe, please say a prayer for his family. Thanks posted @ 10:27 AM EST [link] [Karma: 15 (+/-)] Wednesday, April 30, 2003Sleeping with rodents...Hmmm, you must be saying, interesting title today. Well I'm not talking about the two legged type of vermin, so it's kinda yucky! You may not know, but I have two cats, Gray cat and Max. Gray cat has been a fixture here for years, I sorta inherited her and she's grown on me. She sleeps with me most nights if she's in the house. Max on the other hand, I just got last summer and he can be a bit annoying at times... Anyway, Gray is a real killer, she kills baby chipmunks, mice, moles, whatever she can get her paws on (or into I should say). And I know it's because she loves me and all, but I'm not amused to find that the thing on the carpet at the top of the stairs (yes, if the light wasn't broken I would have seen it right off) isn't debris of some sort, but a chipmunks head! I almost stepped on the damn thing! And I have to wonder where the rest of it is too. And, as if that's not bad enough, there's more. Seems like since she sleeps with me, and I guess thinks my bed is the place to be (hmmm, smart girl, huh?) she has left me "presents" in my bed before. OK, it's one thing to find a dead mouse on your comforter, but what happened last night, freaked me out. About two in the morning I woke up suddenly, I rolled over and something made me pop up. Hmmm, must have been that dead mole that was under the covers, that my leg brushed against! Eeeewwww!!! And another time I woke in the morning to find a dead mouse all squished, like I had rolled over on it multiple times with my legs as I was asleep. See what I'm getting at? This is weirding me out, like I have to be all paranoid who knows what I'll wake up with in my bed... OK, now that I got that out, I'll catch you up. Not much going on. George came over Monday night and laid the tiles in the bathroom up in the cottage, it came out really nice. Tomorrow night he's gonna grout them and start laying the tiles in the entry hall and kitchen/dining area. So little by little. I know I wanted to have it done by the end of the month (tomorrow) but the floor situation screwed me up. If I had gotten the pergot floors like I wanted it would prolly be done by now. So the trees are all starting to bud here, the whole place is coming alive and it looks nice. The no grass at all in the front yard thing is kinda depressing, but I should have grass seed down this weekend as long as it doesn't rain. Today I went to Home Depot and got two more sheets of wonderboard to finish the underlay for the tiles in the kitchen up there. Grace played hookie and came up, so we just hung out in bed like slugs and half-napped all afternoon and then I cooked up some burgers for dinner. She left to do her Wednesday evening thing and I'm writing this. OK, before it gets dark, I'm heading out to pick up some junk in the yard and put those last two sheets of wonderboard down. Then I have to do laundry and I'm wiped out, so prolly go to sleep early. Nice day- enjoy what's left of it... posted @ 06:17 PM EST [link] [Karma: -2 (+/-)] Sunday, April 27, 2003Gunga Din, water - water !Guess what ? I got the water tied in down here at the house yesterday, so now there is running water in the cottage!! Yup, I had it all done and air checked the lines last night, then I ran out for a few hours. Well I got home around 9:30 and said, what the hell... So I turned off the house, drained the lines down and cut in a tee to tie in. It sounds like a 20 minute job to do the whole thing, but it's a little more involved due to circumstances. See, we couldn't get the water line going up there buried deep enough as there's so much rock ledge under the ground once the machine started digging. I had thought about using heat tape to keep it from freezing in the winter, but once it's buried, what do you do when it goes bad in 5 or 6 years? And how do you know it went bad, wait until the line freezes and then you're digging up the driveway in the winter, Sounds like a bad idea. So, the brilliant solution? Run two water lines up there, and make it a loop, and then add a circulator pump in line and a check valve so the water can only go in one direction (around the loop obviously) and another check valve from the house feed so the water can't try and back feed into the house system here. That picture is my boiler room wall and those are the two lines, the pump, and two check valves, but plumbing-savvy types probably recognized that right off! So now in the winter, just flick the switch to turn on the circulator pump, and since the water will always be moving, it can't freeze.... At least in theory, I'll let you know how it works next January... And more exciting news on the cottage- my friend George is coming over today (yes, I know it's Easter, I'll stop working and eat a big Easter dinner) and we're going to lay the ceramic tile in the bathroom and the the entry hall and kichen area. Yeah baby, get that bathroom floor done and I can set the fixtures and then I'm almost finished! I am gona be fried today- I was up to almost 5:30 this morning. Last night I was screwing wonderboard down on the floor up there in prep for the tiles. Then I got done around three and when I should have been sleeping, a good movie came on I never saw so I had to watch it. It was called "Bad Timing: A Sensual Obsession" and had Art Garfunkel, of all people, as the lead, and Harvey Keitel also, who I usually like. And Theresa Russel was hot twenty years ago also! All in all it was quite good and I'm surprised I had neither seen nor heard of it before. OK, I still need to have my second cup of coffee, drinking Tanzania blend these last few pots, it's a little mild for my taste, I like bolder African brews myself. Then I have a few more screws to shoot into that floor before George comes. And all my kids (yes, all four of them) are coming up to have Easter dinner at my Mom's this afternoon, so it will be a busy day, I'll try and post later and of course have pics of the floor. Alright, if you're Greek (like me) or Russian Orthodox- Happy Easter! posted @ 10:37 AM EST [link] [Karma: 13 (+/-)] Friday, April 25, 2003Damn...Started smoking again. Yup, yesterday I bought a pack. The rest is history. I'll write more tomorrow, exhausted tonight and going to sleep (but I'll have a few cigs first, eh?) posted @ 10:15 PM EST [link] [Karma: 12 (+/-)] Tuesday, April 22, 2003Aaaaaggggghhhhh, I wanna smoke !!!Damn, I quit smoking yesterday. Yesterday wasn't bad, but today, well, lets put it mildly and say I'm really friggin' cranky. On the verge of going postal at times. but I just take a deep breath and tell myself that person can't help being the way they are (and any way they are is almost sure to be more then my patience at the moment) and it's probably my perception that is off. And it passes. But damn it's hard not to say something at times. OK, as a matter of fact, just typing this is making me crave a smoke, so I'm going to stop. Tomorrow I'll find some cool links to post about people who are quitting and on the verge of being psychotic as a consequence, and also somehow still seeing the humor in it, K? Alright, night, methinks I'll go upstairs and watch TV and try to not think about the fact there are probably some butts in a wastebasket somewhere in this house (yes, isn't that gross, but that's how bad this damn addiction is)... posted @ 09:57 PM EST [link] [Karma: 21 (+/-)] Sunday, April 20, 2003Evolution of infatuationMe, twenty years ago: D'you think she'd go out with me? Me, fifteen years ago: D'you think she's smart? Me, ten years ago: D'you think she's nice? Me, five years ago: D'you think she's not psycho? Me, now: D'you think she'll pass the background check? - I lifted this from accordian guys page, thought it was funny as all hell, so props to him, and as fer me, yeah, I haven't had time to come up with anything witty or insightful lately. Mixed a bunch of concrete and poured the floor in the bathroom up in the cottage, had a big fight with my Mom today (what else is new), and then just chilled out with G on CUseeme and cooked up some ravioli for supper. Did some laundry, did the dishes, now I'm gonna go watch a movie and fall asleep. Yes, I know, how do I deal with all the excitement? It ain't easy but you get used to it! posted @ 10:30 PM EST [link] [Karma: -5 (+/-)] Monday, April 14, 2003'TatersOK, so I took a day off today and did nothing. G played hookie and came up in the morning and we went and had Mickey Dee's breakfast. Tried their steak egg and cheese on a bagel thing, it was quite good. Then we came back and just layed around in bed all day until around 2:30. Then she took a nap and I cooked some cornbread. Then we went to the supermarket and got the fixin's for supper. Which is why the title today is- taters... So since we both openly joke that we have an eating disorder, and people are always amazed at the amount of food we can eat when we chow down, I'll just say we may have made a little too much food! Like six pounds of potatoes for three people may have been overkill. And 12 boneless thin sliced pork chops may also have been a few too many. She cooked up a wonderful frittata for an appetizer, but there were nine eggs in that bad boy, it could have been a meal in itself with a nice salad... Then she roasted up all those aforementioned taters, drizzled with olive oil and salt and pepper. I very finely chopped some parsley up and made a salad of baby romaine and shredded carrots, and shook the shake and bake onto the pork chops. She made a nice red wine vinaigrette for the salad and also to make a potato salad with a few of the taters. Then we roasted a couple heads of garlic, and mashed them into the taters with fresh parsley, butter, and loads of coarse salt and fresh ground pepper. By the time it was all ready, we were both exhausted, Sam was wanting it to be done so he could go out, and we were a little full from the frittata! Well, the oven roasted, skin on, garlic mashed potatoes were delicious, the pork chops were a little dry, and I never even had any salad. By the time I did all the dishes and cleaned up, we were wiped. Smoked a couple butts, had some coffee (yes, the famous kind) and then she left and I'm sitting here writing this. And I'm burning old stuff from my PC onto CD's and deleting it, then defragging so I can free up some space. I guess you'd call it "archiving". I want to make enough room to copy the whole disk from my old workstation onto here, so I can go through it and burn that onto discs too. I haven't used that machine in almost 3 years, but it has a ton of stuff on it that I still need now and then. It's a dual Pentium 2 all scsi box, so I'm gonna wipe it out, put Linux on it, and it should be a kick ass Linux box, eh? Well, I'm exhausted, gonna go crash, as tomorrow I have a lot of stuff to get done and some errands to run. And I guess I'm having mashed taters with dinner tomorrow night! posted @ 11:13 PM EST [link] [Karma: 8 (+/-)] Sunday, April 13, 2003Pickled Bologna!!It may sound gross, it may seem as if you wouldn't go near it with a ten foot pole. However, if you grew up (or ever lived) in the midwest, you may have fond memories of pickled bologna... Yes, the amazing stuff that comes in a big jar, one continuous piece of tube meat in that vinegary brine. Well, the good news is you can order it online, and I did. Here it is, a new jar full of pickled bologna. It's best enjoyed on a ritz cracker with an optional slice of farmers cheese. So I promised you a few pics of the yard, so you could see the gargantuan task I have ahead of me, so here they are- Here's looking out the kitchen door, the whole front yard is now a foot higher then it used to be. And here it is from out in front by the road. and this is the view from the same spot, turning around and looking towards the road, notice around that little maple tree there is a 25 foot circle of gravel embedded into the soil.... That should be fun to try and rake up! Here's the view from midway up the driveway (which is destroyed too by the way). And my personal favorite, the giant pile of dirt, rocks, and pieces of blacktop (err, I mean my driveway) that is piled up next to the pool. I don't even like to think how many man-hours and wheelbarrow loads it's going to take to remove that.... OK, enough of that. I'm gonna throw my laundry in the dryer, take a quick shower and look for something decent to watch on the tube, so later y'all. posted @ 09:19 PM EST [link] [Karma: -2 (+/-)] mmmm, plain spaghetti Yesterday the sun came out around 2 and stayed bright and breezy, t-shirt weather! I saw a couple convertibles with the tops down and heard a lot of bikes cruisin' around. Very tempted to put the top down on my Jeep, but I know from past times even though it's warm, I'll freeze my ass off at highway speeds... This week is supposed to be in the seventies every day the latter half, so watch out Spring fever rules may go into effect... I bought a couple 25 pound bags of grass seed to try and plant a lawn where I now have only dirt (like 2/3 of my yard) and am not looking forward to all the work it will entail. Raking out all the ruts and picking out all the stones, forget about the piles of gravel the construction guys just ground into the yard... What a nightmare, but since we aren't getting any rain for a few days, I'll wait on the planting, maybe just do the prep with Sam on one section today. I did get the second coat on the ceiling in the cottage, and I installed the ceiling fan, the high-hat eyeball trim, the track lights, and the smoke detector, so the ceiling and lighting are out of the way. I also got the end caps for the baseboard heat so it's all finished.This week I'll pour the concrete in the bathroom floor, attempt to lay ceramic tiles in there (first time, wish me luck) and then I'll be able to concentrate on finishing the bathroom. I also want to finish taping the closet, install the shelving system in there and put the closet door and trim on. So it will be a busy week. In the evening Grace came up and we cooked dinner. Just plain spaghetti with olive oil and butter, she sauteed some broccoli with oil and garlic and I made a salad of just romaine and shredded carrots, she made her delicious vinaigrette. Then we had a pot of my famous coffee. I'm taking to calling any coffee I make "my famous coffee" as everyone loves my coffee, I have friends that only want to visit for a pot of my java. Hmmm, what does that say about my personality? hehe, oh well ... After dinner Sam bleached his hair, it looks good. His friend John T. came by and he had a plate of spaghetti. I like that kid, he always eats whatever I offer him when he stops by around meal time. Must be the greek grandmother in me I guess. OK, I'm going to finish my coffee (yes, the famous kind), get dressed and start working on raking and leveling the yard. I'll take pictures and post them later so you'll get an idea of what I'm up against, when I say that guy destoyed my yard and driveway, I'm not kidding! K, enjoy the day boys and girls! posted @ 12:43 PM EST [link] [Karma: 1 (+/-)] Saturday, April 12, 2003OK PhoSo yesterday- Painted the ceiling in the cottage, am going up there soon as I finish this to do the second coat. Then I'll install the light fixtures and ceiling fan. Then G came up and we had a nice afternoon, just relaxed in bed and veged out. Last night drove all the way to Poughkeepsie as she found that they have a vietnamese place there and we have been wanting a nice bowl of pho for some time now. Went on Mapquest and got directions, drove up there and believe it or not there were 2 places within a half a block of each other. The first one we tried Saigon Cafe was Zagat rated and supposed to be good. Well the spring rolls weren't that great and the pho was too sweet. We split vitenamese steak and I liked, she didn't. So don't ask me why, but after driving all that way, I just had to try the place up the street also, it was much bigger, maybe 15 tables compared to 6 in the first place, and more of a restaurant atmosphere. The pho was better, but they still used wider noodles, almost like pad thai, rather then the very thin vermicelli that in mind is the only proper noodle for pho. So to sum it all up, you need to go to Mulberry street downtown to get really good vietnamese cuisine. The place I love is called Pho Viet Huong at 73 Mulberry St. in Manhattan and I wrote about last time I went there and have pictures too, in this post- so I won't go on and on about it. If you are in NYC's Chinatown, do yourself a favor and stop in and try it, you won't be disappointed. So we kinda had a discussion/argument about all kinds of heavy stuff on the way home, then G went home, and I called her to make sure she got in OK, it was raining and foggy as all hell last night. We talked for a good hour until she fell asleep on the phone, then I went to sleep. Relationships are hard, when you're really in it and you really work on stuff, but I love her with all my heart and it's worth it, even if it is painful at times. We talked again this morning, and now I'm drinking my morning coffee and writing this! I'm going to go turn the space heater on in the cottage to warm it up so I can paint. I'll surf and add some cool links and a post tonight. Oh yeah, how's that war going? And can people click the "view my guest map" button on the link bar and PLEASE post a pin where they live?? Pretty please? posted @ 11:14 AM EST [link] [Karma: 7 (+/-)] Tuesday, April 8, 2003New Lucinda album is out !!Oh, I forgot- The NEW Lucinda Willams album is out today !! And the critics are giving it rave reviews, of course... It is absolutely fan-f**king-tas-tic... When I saw her last summer at Central Park she played a lot of songs off it and I've been waiting since then for it's release. You can listen to the whole CD online by clicking HERE Or read a review of the album So run out and buy a copy NOW posted @ 11:22 AM EST [link] [Karma: -25 (+/-)] Snow Again... Damn, I'm really getting a little tired of snow now. I like it and all, in the winter that is. But I have stuff to do and it's messing with my schedule. Up in the cottage I put in the kitchen sink and faucet and finished piping out the water main in the boiler room. Yesterday I installed the baseboard heat and it looks good. What I really want to do is caulk a few cracks in the ceiling and paint it (with ceiling white, of course) but the temperature is too low to paint, so that's why I'm saying the weather is screwing up my schedule. I guess I'll just do odds and ends up there today, finish bringing the feed over for the heat, across the attic and stub it down in the boiler room, and maybe sand the taping I did in the bathroom. I want to get the ceiling painted as I bought all the lighting fixtures. I would like to get them installed as hopefully the electric will get hooked in to the house this week. Yesterday as I was sitting here, before I went up up there to work, I decided to drop a line to my head hunter. Well low and behold, she called me back within 5 minutes! I was very surprised. She said she just had something come in that morning and she was going to look it over and see if I was a good match. We talked about some skill sets and then I got an email from her saying she was going to do a presentation of my background to them and she'd let me know as soon as she heard something. That was yesterday afternoon. I'm starting to think the worst... Or maybe just the usual, which lately has been the worst. Couldn't she at least call or write and say it's a no-go so I don't sit here wondering? Aaaaaggghhh, I need to find a job, like NOW!! Then I drove through the snow and freezing rain last night to go down and see G and we had breakfast at IHOP, it was very yummy. Came home, talked to her on the phone and fell asleep. What an exciting life I lead huh ? For some strange reason, for the first time since it started, I watched the war on CNN this morning when I woke up. It's so weird to see it all first hand almost. Like nothing is private anymore, I guess Marshall Mcluhan was right after all. Made a pot of coffee, and drinking it now before I switch to construction worker mode. All out of stuff I like so I brewed a pot of Ethiopian Sidamo. Going to stop by S'bucks today and pick up a pound. Lately I favor a custom blend, half Gold Coast and half French Roast, it's very good. Of course if I could afford it I'd drink nothing but Yemen mocha's... The other cool thing is a couple weeks ago they had a brewing sale, and the coffee pot I use, the "Utopia" was only fifty bucks, so after the employee discount (thank goodness for friends) it was only thirty five bucks!! Yup, so I bought a spare one to have for when mine breaks. I'm already on my second one, so I figure every year or so they just wear out. The amazing thing is this is the EXACT same pot they sell at the Bodum store for $119, and I got it for a mere thirty five, oh how I love a bargain! And it makes the best coffee you ever tasted. Vacuum brewing is the best method there is, and this pot makes it foolproof with a built in chip that controls the temperature and timing. In any case, don't even get me started on coffee, I'll be here all day! So I'm gonna have another cuppa, get dressed, and start my day (yes, before noon!). I'll check in again soon, and have some pics of the cottage work as well, K? posted @ 10:57 AM EST [link] [Karma: -1 (+/-)] Sunday, April 6, 2003Spring Ahead!Ah, once again I'll have to remember which clocks I have changed and which ones not as I try to figure out what time it is. It's so much more fun to just change half of them. Not much new to report around here. Had a relax and hang around in bed and on CUseeme day yesterday, then G and I went to Crackerbarrel last night and had a good ole country style breakfast for dinner. Gonna go to Home Depot today and get stuff for me to install in the cottage this upcoming week. Kitchen sink and faucet, door for the closet, the baseboard heat, the lighting fixtures, stuff like that. Think I'm gonna try and get the main room finished and then concentrate on finishing the bathroom afterwards. The main thing is getting those damn tiles down on the bathroom floor. Guess I should just rip up the plywood in there, pour cement, and then get to it. OK, rather then bore y'all I'll finish my coffee and start my day. Nice to see nobody is signing my guestmap... :-( posted @ 10:50 AM EST [link] [Karma: 16 (+/-)] Thursday, April 3, 2003Two QuickiesOK, I was EXHAUSTED last night. Got the cables dragged through the conduit and hanging there ready to hook into the respective panels. It was a major pain and I was out there at 7:00 pm with work lights on backfilling the trench! Came inside, talked to Grace and told her I was gonna hang up here and go to sleep early. Then I took a shower, called her back and talked until I fell asleep. I like that, we talk on the phone until one of us falls asleep almost every night. Last night I was asleep by ten, imagine that! So I'm gonna put two quick links here and then I'm off to Home Depot, then heading down to see my honey. Have a good one ! First a funny online novella- "How Harry Potter Got His Groove Back" And we all need the Alanis Morissette Lyric Generator posted @ 11:24 AM EST [link] [Karma: -4 (+/-)] Wednesday, April 2, 2003One Hundred ThingsYeah I know, it's kinda cheesy and everyone does it. I must have too much time on my hands, or maybe I'm avoiding all the "not fun" work around the homestead by feeling compelled to add content here. In any case, I sat down and wrote the almost obligatory "100 Things" page, and it's on the link bar so y'all can check it out. Funny when I started, it seemed like it would be hard to come up with a hundred little blurbs, things that are what makes me the person you know (or don't) and love (or not). But by the time I finished, my head was full of things, and I was like "oh shit, I wanna add this and I wanna mention that", probably could have easily wrote another hundred, but then it wouldn't be 100 things now, would it... Alright, I've procrastinated enough today. I'm gonna go to the electrical supply house, pick up 100 (hmmm, that number keeps popping up doesn't it?) feet of 4 gauge thhn wire and drag a new electric service out to the cottage. Thanks to the backhoe operator who cut the old service in December, hours after I pointed out to him where it was buried, of course. OK, peruse the 100 things and feel free to comment if you like, you know, you click the link under this post that most likely says "no comments" ! posted @ 11:19 AM EST [link] [Karma: -15 (+/-)] Tuesday, April 1, 2003Miso Soup RecipeWell I skipped a few days but I've been busy. You may notice I added a cool guestmap (please pop a pin in your location), a comic of the day, and the good old weather pixie so you know what it's like outside my window right now. And if you are intrigued by the "autoerotic" site and want to post a pic of yourself... Anyway, my contribution today is a really yummy, quick and easy recipe for Miso Soup. I'll spare you the thousand word rant on why miso is so good for you and why we should all eat more. So on with the recipe- 3 cups water 3 scallions- chopped 1 stick wakame seaweed 1/2 teaspoon hot sesame pepper oil (you can skip this if you want) Tamari/soy sauce to taste, usually 1-2 tsp. (I recommend a japanese soy sauce) Black pepper to taste 1 1/2 generous Tbsp miso (I like red or shiro miso, try white for a change) 2 Tbsp. soft tofu optional - sometimes I add 1/2 tsp of dashi, purists may disagree optional - very thinly sliced shitake mushrooms Place water in a pan and heat, while heating add wakame broken into very small pieces (they will expand), the sesame oil, tamari/soy sauce, and pepper. When water comes to a boil, add scallions (and a few thin slices of mushroom if desired) and remove from heat. Dissolve miso in water, add very small chunks of tofu and serve. Enjoy with a nice green salad and rice or maybe some crusty bread for dipping... Note- it is important not to cook the miso or vital nutrients and enzymes will be destroyed. OK, that's my fave miso recipe, only takes ten minutes and it's delicious. Once you buy a package of wakame and a tub of miso you will have enough to last you for many many batches of soup. And these days regular markets all carry tofu, so you will only have to visit an asian market once in awhile. Personally though I love them and do as much shopping there as a regular supermarket, but that's just me. Alright, eat well and be merry ! posted @ 06:31 PM EST [link] [Karma: 26 (+/-)] Saturday, March 29, 2003I got blisters on my fingers !Yup, I love that line, what ? You don't like The Beatles ? Shame on you... Alright- things that irritate me right now- I haven't eaten, we have food, but that means I have to cook, and then clean up. I have no job, no money, but tons of bills. The way the IT sector has been last couple years, Solaris System Administrators are about as in demand as Netware 3.x admins. So I may have to make a career change. It sucks, Unix and the net has been the only thing that I never tired of. Oh well. Next, I have blisters under the callouses on my hands, yard work isn't bad. But when you are trying to fill holes and smooth out ruts from a backhoe and the soil is packed hard as a rock from having feet of snow on it all winter, and it's loaded with rocks and gravel and pieces of blacktop from your almost non-existant driveway... Well you get the picture. And then I think about the fact I paid some a**hole fifteen thousand dollars to replace my septic and as a result he destroyed my driveway and my yard and then disappeared in a heartbeat, well I could definitely get a little miffed about that one if I think about it too much. But it's done, nothing left to do now but try and make it look less like a construction site and more like a yard. Things that make me happy now- G, that she is in my life. My kids, my cats (well Gray cat especially, Max has to calm down a bit), and I could list a few more things. I could be a lot worse off, I have been. Thank God I don't have to live that way anymore, eh? Alright, it's pouring rain out, the yard and driveway are once again a giant mud pit, all the ruts I filled are now full of water, so the loose soil sunk right in, and I have yet to eat. Thinking maybe grilled swiss on rye with tomatoes, and some new england clam chowder. All I have to do is run out (I'm already soaked, what the hell) and get some swiss cheese and tomatoes. Yup, that's what I'm gonna do. Later on. posted @ 05:50 PM EST [link] [Karma: -9 (+/-)] Updated DVD List OK, I know it has been a few days. Been kinda busy. My girlfriend stayed over most of the week and we've just been enjoying life and getting a bit of spring fever I guess. She left this morning and I miss her already... I actually got around to updating my DVD list, it's linked over on the top right in the link box. All the movie titles link to the IMDB page entry, same for the directors. I will also add "buy this DVD" links to Amazon.com for all of them. Actually Amazon has better reviews then IMDB, so maybe you'll get more info from those pages also. Alright, I'm gonna go out and shovel some dirt. Half my property is now a mud hole thanks to the guy who put in my new septic this past November. Maybe I'll take a few pics and post them so you can see just how much work I have to do, case you think I'm exaggerating... K, enjoy the day posted @ 01:26 PM EST [link] [Karma: 1 (+/-)] Wednesday, March 26, 2003Order Of BattleThis is a GREAT link. Thanks to G-O for it, really gets into detail about what we have over there. In any case, check it out, or look at the site top level, it's kinda cool. Global Security Iraq Ops posted @ 11:45 PM EST [link] [Karma: -5 (+/-)] Friday, March 21, 2003100 Unique Readers !!Cool, I checked before and the counter was at 98... Just looked and it is at 100 !! So 100 people have read about my so called life and what not, kinda neat. Maybe we'll have a prize for the 1000th visitor? posted @ 04:05 PM EST [link] [Karma: -1 (+/-)] Tuesday, March 18, 2003Nightly Recap...Alright, I feel like I have to just update y'all on a few things. I got a phone call from G later in the morning, telling me she was sorry she started in on me first thing in the morning and that she is feeling over sensitive, and that I'm a good boyfriend. Made me feel nice, and also made me kinda sad she is having a tough time these last few days. She drove up this afternoon and took me out to an early dinner at Chlili's, I'd never been to one before and it was good. I wish there was more I could do, but I can't take away her sadness, all I can do is be there for her. So I guess the next week and a half will be kind of tough, but we have each other and we'll make it through it. I know you don't read this hon, but if you do, I love you... OK, on a lighter note, the guy from the flooring place came and measured the cottage today, looks like I'm going with Pergot flooring in there. It will cost about twice as much as carpet, but will stay nice looking about ten times longer! And I sheet rocked the bathroom, at last. Tomorrow I'll do the boiler room, and maybe even start taping those two rooms if I'm lucky. Worst case is I tape them Thursday and Friday, and maybe get them primed this weekend. I have to get into high gear, need to get that place finished and get some income from it. OK, I had a killer stomach virus Sunday night. I puked harder then I think I ever have in my life, about 6 times in a row, I don't know where it all came from. but it was horrible. Then I was just so wiped out and weak feeling, and a little feverish too I think. I actually had to no-show G down in Tarrytown, first time I ever did that. She understood, of course, and even came up yesterday to nurture me if I needed it. But it was a sunny warm day, first one in ages it seems. I got a little spring fever and after lying in bed miserable for 19 hours, there was no keeping me down! I took it a little slow, but got a few things done. Seeing as how it was the first nice day of the year, I had a hankering for some burgers from the grill. No prob, you say? Well, first we went to the hardware store and I picked up new flavorizer bars for my grill as the old ones were rotted out (Weber owners will understand) and then when we got home, they were the wrong size! So back to the hardware store, got the right ones, came back, cleaned the whole grill, and put them in. Then I had to clean the cast iron grates and season them with oil with the grill heating up. At long last, so I go to take the burgers out and start cooking. And guess what, I get out there an open the lid and it was out of gas!! So one more trip, this time to the deli, to get the tank filled. Finally cooked those burgers, and being out of practice, they were a little over cooked, but still had that yummy bar-b-q flavor. So it was a big production, but worth it. And now the grill is set for the rest of the summer. Alrighty, time for bed (actually I'm on the phone with G and it's a bitch typing with one hand, no, the other one is holding the phone...) so have a good one. posted @ 10:54 PM EST [link] [Karma: -15 (+/-)] more links OK, rather then sit here and write some drivel, I'm just gonna pop in a few amusing links, ones that people sent me or I've found, they may have absolutely no redeeming value, they are just exactly what they are... This is a great comic, yes, I do like comics, as a matter of fact, I had the first 4 years of "Heavy Metal" until my Mom moved when I was overseas and threw them out, how much would they be worth now? I dunno, but check this one out- Nowhere Girl, cool online strip Maybe it's from being woken up at 6:00 am by my girlfriend this morning, to hear her start on a half hour tirade about how I look at other girls in a "way" that makes her feel less then. How I don't make her feel special enough. Hmmm, this from the person I hop in my Jeep and drive 30 miles in an instant to see whenever she's feeling lonely or sad or needs to talk. I start to wonder how much is enough and will I ever be able to be enough. So in keeping with that train of thought (no, I won't post the "top ten reasons you know it's time to break up" again, astute readers may notice I closed that post so it's not visible right after we got back together) I am adding these links in the "All men are pigs" tradition... "Men Are Pigs" blog A blowjob How-to Rutgers U has the marriage project, think opposite This is why they invented low rise jeans Camel toe, you love it or hate it... K, enough outta me, time to start my day! posted @ 07:26 AM EST [link] [Karma: -8 (+/-)] Sunday, March 16, 2003Be CarefulSafety Tip Please be careful, new evidence suggests the bathroom is a dangerous place! posted @ 03:49 PM EST [link] [Karma: -26 (+/-)] Thursday, March 13, 2003Catching up and some meme linksHey Guys, Sorry it has been so long. You must be thinking- wait, he's out of work, sitting at home, why isn't he blogging twice a day? Well I've been keeping busy. In the cottage, I ran the gas lines (for the stove and boiler), air checked all the water lines (thank God, no leaks) so I was able to insulate the bathroom and finish putting armaflex on all the water lines. I set the base for the stall shower, and I also finished all the stub outs in the boiler room. So basically the bathroom and boiler room are ready to be sheet rocked and taped. And I installed the top kitchen cabinets, they look good. I plan on getting the bottom cabinets and the counter top in by tomorrow night. Much as dread it, I guess this weekend I'll be sheet rocking the bathroom. Rocking isn't that bad, I just project about the damn taping afterwards... But I need to get moving and finish it as I need the income. The job market sucks still, been horrible for the last two years. Ever since the dot coms all crashed, there is not much call for Solaris System Administrators anymore. Getting to the point where I wonder if I have to change careers again. Problem is I can't walk into a new situation and earn enough to pay all my bills. But that's my shit, has been my dilemna for the past few years trying to maintain the homestead here by myself. I'm not complaining, just tellin' it like it is. On the personal side, life is good. Happy, joyous, and free. That was the promise and that's what has come true. G and I are fine, very much loving each other, very much in awe of how wonderful our relationship is and how full our hearts can be. Yes, without sounding all sappy, I must say, for me, that I feel as if God brought us together so I could learn the true meaning and experience of loving and being loved, of being accepting, patient, understanding, tolerant, giving, receiving, and so much more. And fantasizing about the future, building our dream environment/home/etc. I guess this may be old hat to some of you, but it is all new and exciting to me. The kids are good, Danny is coming up for the weekend, I hope Sarah and Maggie will visit on Sunday, I miss them so much. And it's already Thursday and Sam has made the school bus every day so far this week! Yeah, that's a good thing... OK, I need to get some stuff done, but it's been awhile so I'll throw a few links your way- Sam found this one, check out the prank calls, and sound boards so you can make your own- Funny way to waste some time And of course, being very intrigued by all things meme, here a few must reads- To learn about memetics A regular stop for me 'Nother good meme site Martin Willets page, interesting reads K, outta here, catch y'all later... posted @ 09:54 AM EST [link] [Karma: 16 (+/-)] Thursday, February 27, 2003AdmirerHey, this is great (Thanks Paul)... Just go here, fill in your name and have a look at your number one Personal Fan!! posted @ 10:30 PM EST [link] [Karma: -26 (+/-)] Sunday, February 23, 2003KarmaHey, who is giving the posts negative Karma ? Just so you know I click the + and it cancels out your negative vote so it gets back to zero... Don't be a wussy, psot and say who you are ! ;-) posted @ 10:58 PM EST [link] [Karma: -13 (+/-)] Friday, February 21, 2003Garage Page UpdatedI know it's been awhile. But finally, the Garage-Cottage Tranformation page has been updated. Yup, we are at phase 3.75 now ! Getting there, I hope to have the kitchen cabinets installed in the next few days and that should make it look like a bona fide living space... OK, stay tuned... posted @ 11:30 AM EST [link] [Karma: 0 (+/-)] Tuesday, February 18, 2003Lotta Snow...So was that the blizzard of '03 ?? It started Sunday night around 10:00 pm and it ended last night right about midnight. I went down to the village Sunday night, got some 2-Boots pizza, always like the city when it's snowing! We got around two feet here, I think down south and near the water they got quite a bit more. The snow plow guy finally made it here at four in the morning (woke my ass up) and he managed to get 2/3's of it plowed. So if I can dig out a pathway from the driveway to the door... Well, you get the idea. Here are a few pics, these are from yesterday morning, keep in mind we got another foot after these pictures. Here's one driving, and here's a few cars on the side of the road down in Greenburgh, here is another snowed in car. I'll take pics today of the yard and post them later. OK, I have to get dressed and start shoveling... Later- OK, cleaned the walk with Paul. Here are a few more pics- My Jeep, notice the snow is as high as the hood! Here's the backyard, the view from top of the driveway and the view of the walk. This is how much is piled on top of our oil tank, and walking around the drifts are up to my knee! I mean, for me, I like snow, so this has been a nice last couple days. Makes me SMILE ... posted @ 10:15 AM EST [link] [Karma: -7 (+/-)] Saturday, February 15, 2003Valentines Day Feast !Hi - I know, I haven't posted in ages. Work has been hectic, stuff to do around the house, etc. But I did want to say I hope everyone had a HAPPY Valentines Day !! G and I went out to Queens, she wanted to treat me to a feast and eat some real Kalbi, which is beef short ribs you grill yourself right at the table. Then wrap it up in a leaf of lettuce with some shredded scallions and maybe a dab of miso based bbq-sauce. All I can say is, WOW, it is dee-lish! You can take a piece sizzling right from the grill and just pop it in your mouth, all juicy and nice.... The picture you just saw was from a chain called Kang Suh, they have a place in Westchester, but we went to Dae Dong, it's on Northern Blvd. by 220th st. in Queens. Here's the table after we got done, actually there were even more plates of food while we were still eating! Here's a shot that has the cool fountain that was next to our table. And you can see the kalbi cooking on the grill here, and yes, I anonymized her face ... So it was a nice evening, and then we stopped by Han Yang Mart to get some little yogurt drinks and choco-pies !! Hope you all had a nice holiday as well and I'll be posting again soon- posted @ 02:47 PM EST [link] [Karma: 3 (+/-)] Sunday, February 9, 2003All Primed Up !Finally ! I finished priming the cottage today. Was up until four in the morning last night caulking and doing the first coat. Then today I went up and finished the second coat. Looks great. Funny how a place all of a sudden looks like a real living area once it is all one color, rather then raw sheet rock with seams all over the place... Anyway, I'm beat, going to sleep. I'll post pictures of it on the "Garage Transformation" page tomorrow. posted @ 11:55 PM EST [link] [Karma: 24 (+/-)] Monday, February 3, 2003Mott St and some good PhoPho- Gotta love it. What else has that wonderful seasoning, those soft noodles, nice hunks of beef floating in broth, and you get huge bowl of it for 4 bucks... Yup, went to China Town with Sam and Maggie today, and I just had to go to that vietnamese place on Mulberry street that is always packed. Now you'd think in China Town, we'd have to eat chinese, maybe have some good peking duck, but I don't get to eat vietnamese as much as I'd like, so pho it was... I think the kids liked it, but Maggie looks kinda freaked in this picture, huh ? But Sam chowed down with me, we cooked up some thin sliced beef right at the table and rolled it up in lettuce, mmmm, good stuff. Then we stopped at the Dragon Land Bakery, I always go there when I'm in the neighborhood, I love that place and it is so cheap ! All the good cakes and cookies are like fifty or sixty cents, and they have bubble tea, which is soooo yummy, I had mango, Sam had honeydew flavored. The place is always packed, people constantly coming in and out, and they have terrariums built into the tables, with live turtles and stuff. Nice fish tank, with a couple of impressive Arrowanas swimming around. And the cookie ladies are very professional and efficient. Swing by, you won't be disappointed... It's at 125 Walker St, right by the corner of Canal and Mulberry. So the parade was short and the sidewalks were so packed you had to squeeze your way through every inch. We stopped in some neat stores, one place had big jars of shark fin and birds nest. You can't see the price in this pic, but the red birds nest is 2,800 dollars a pound! We saw some cool stuff. So the food was great, and I picked up a nice tea pot and a new tea cup, both dirt cheap. All in all a nice day. On the way home, Sam and I stopped at Stew Leonards and stocked up on the juices he likes, so we took care of an errand too. Came home, talked to G for an hour on the phone, and then wrote this. K, tomorrow's my day off so I wanna enojoy it. Later... posted @ 01:27 AM EST [link] [Karma: -5 (+/-)] Saturday, February 1, 2003Happy New Year !!Happy Lunar New Year !! So, we are welcoming in the year 4701... I think it's going to be a good year. To start it off with a full belly, G and I went out to Flushing to eat, and eat, and eat. The traffic was all backed up on Northern Blvd., I guess because the parade was just over. Here's a straggling Lion we passed. The weather was damp and drizzling on and off, not a great day for a stroll. Then we hit a few markets. We knew the market was named something that started with an "H"... So when we came a cross a big one named Han Ah Reum, we went in to check it out. Wow, it had tons of neat stuff. But, the best is the snack bar before you enter the main market area. We had some beef filled pancakes, and an out of this world corn dog. I mean, country fair corn dogs have nothing on thse bad boys! You can sit in a little room at a counter and munch away, and they had a big urn of barley tea (yum) brewed, just help yourself. Speaking of tea, ask me sometime about "blossoming beauteas" they are really good, and so pretty, with whole flower blossoms in your cup... So we're shopping away, got a few things and more that aren't in this pic. And Grace eyes these choco-pies she used to eat as a kid, gets all excited, her g-mom used to have to hide them in the attic so she could dole them out. So I got a box for home, and ya' know, they are good, I can see being little and just eating one after another until you have a tummy-ache. Then, on the way out, the fried squid were done. Mmmmm, so we grab a plate full and pop another squat in the munchin' room. So we load up the Jeep, have a smoke, and head on up the road. Stopped at another big market, but it was Chinese rather then Korean, but I did get a few pieces of bamboo for my ever growing plant collection here, and a couple pieces of cake for a later on snack. We did stroll for a bit, but it was too cold. Grace noticed a cool sign, the "Do Me" (hehe) pain clinic, guess for those S&M types (of course that would never be us), but it was amusing. Then we are driving along and she spots it- The market, Han Yan, it's the right one, and of course, it starts with an "H". This one was big also, but they had a couple women inside making fresh kimchi, and they had a nice selection of kimchi's many of them made right there. Picked up a couple jars, can't resist good kimchi. But lemme tell ya', the snack bar in this place, was great! The squid were way more yummy, and I had a good bowl of noodle soup also. G had another corn dog, but it wasn't as good as the first place. And here they bring your eats to you while you sit. We had seen a small band of folks singing and making music, going from shop to shop, when we were across the street. Well they must know where the good fried squid is at, as they were eating here as well. I have to say though, my belly is not used to mass quantities of fried food and grease, and I was over-stuffed and going to turn green soon if I had one more bite. We waddled back to the Jeep and headed home. But not before scoping out the restaraunt we're gonna pig out at next time we're in the neighborhood! Got home and ate some cookies (like I wasn't full enough). Sam and I went to the movies, saw Final Destination 2. Good for some laughs, the splatter-gore scenes were so gory it was comical, half the theater was laughing. Every now and then I surprise me and watch a movie kinda out of character for my taste, but enjoy nonetheless...When I wake up later, I'm taking Maggie and Sam down to Chinatown in Manhattan to see the parade there tomorrow. So maybe I'll post more pics if I take any. OK, it's late, tired. Have a good one... posted @ 11:55 PM EST [link] [Karma: -13 (+/-)] Thursday, January 30, 2003Ionic...."Isn't it Ionic..." hehe, no not that song, I mean the easiest way to feel better and breathe easier! OK, a little background. So, once upon a time, my girlfriend and I were mall strolling, and we happened upon a "Sharper Image" store. She had been wanting the "Ionic Breeze" air purifier they offer, so we went inside to have a look-see. Well, it is a nice unit, and the theory behind it is proven and based on solid scientific research. But man is it pricey, they want 350 dollars per unit, and it can only handle one large room. She has wanted one for awhile. I thought it was really cool and wanted one now as well. I remember when (-) ion gennies were the rage back in the day, before the phrase "new age" was even coined by those Madison Ave. types... Alright, fast forward about 6 months now. Bored and surfing the web the other night and I decided to do a little research on that Ionic Breeze thingamajig. I end up discovering there are way better designed units out there for much less $. Large commercial units aside, I found one in particular I really liked, the "NeoTec XJ2000" model is impressive indeed. And compact, sits on a shelf like a clock radio, freeing up precious floor space, and also operating more effectively as a result of being elevated. Now I'm thinking, maybe someone has a better deal on these things, the one site I found had them for around $130 each, still kinda pricey if you want multiple units. The idea is to have one in each room you spend a great deal of time in. For me that would be Computer room, Bedroom, and Kitchen, probably in that order too. So I surf around some more and found this site- http://www.neotecairpurifiers.com/ Now, being that I owe my girlfriend a christmas/birthday present, I thought, let me order two, one for each of us to test out. They also have a portable car unit for only ten bucks, I couldnt resist and picked one of those up also. Well, I have nothing but good things to say about the guy Serge who handled my order. I'm not sure if he runs the site or just works for them, but the service was first class ! I mean, I placed my order around 11 at night, and do you know I received a handwritten reply in less then 10 minutes confirming my order and stating he would ship the units the next day... Two days later (last night), I received one of them along with the portable unit. I plugged it in and within an hour noticed a big change in the air quality of my room. Also noticed the air had that "feel" to it I only get in places that are charged with (-) ions, either naturally or artificially, and I like that feel, it has an almost calming effect on my mind. Which, if you know me, is no small task! My recommendation to everyone, do a little research on negative ion generators so you have an informed opinion. And if you are at all concerned about the the air quality in your living space, and the consequences to your health, then I recommend purchasing one and giving it a try. Just thought you might be interested. Y'all be well... -Steve posted @ 03:48 PM EST [link] [Karma: -1 (+/-)] Tuesday, January 28, 2003DVD'sOK This one is real quick, but it took me awhile... Here is a current list of my DVD collection I will update it with links to IMDB page and director Bio's soon. -Steve posted @ 01:50 AM EST [link] [Karma: -12 (+/-)] Friday, January 24, 2003Fuck Fuck FuckFuck Shit Just talked to someone and found out Tommy is dead He was doing good I liked him, he was a good guy and he was tryin' hard and he seemed OK when I saw him on Monday Shit there's really no words, so let's just say a prayer for his kids and leave it at that -S posted @ 03:17 PM EST [link] [Karma: 7 (+/-)] Monday, January 20, 2003Personal Message-G- I am happy you are in my life, and thank you, the things you say and do make my heart soar. I will say this to you, and I can't type the hangul character set, so here it is translated, please know it is so true- nanun tangsinur chinsimuro saranghapnita yup, that's just for you and I think nobody will figure it out, but even if they do, it's no secret, it's written all over my face when I think about you... -Steven posted @ 10:42 PM EST [link] [Karma: -6 (+/-)] busy OK Gee-O wanted to know why I haven't posted any rants lately... You really wanna know ? I'll tell ya' My girlfriend is back in my life, after a short leave of absence and we've just been busy making up for lost time, if'n you know what I mean. But I haven't forgotten about my loyal readership, of, well prolly only a few people! Tomorrow night Todd is coming over and we are sanding the tape job in the cottage. If we're lucky we may only need to touch up a few spots, and I'll be priming it soon! A little behind schedule, but as much as I detest taping sheet rock, it's a miracle it's gotten done this fast. I had a spare bedroom upstairs gutted and sheet rocked and it stayed untaped for almost 10 months... So relatively speaking I'm doing great on this job! And work is crazy as ever. I have two new projects thrown at me, need to be completed in less then three weeks. And in my mind, they really should be done by the coder, not the systems types, but lthe powers that be don't agree in that respect. So I have two new things to become incredibly knowledgable and proficient at in no time at all, and oh yeah, of course I am totally unfamiliar with them. Anyone know how to build a "pkg" for Solaris? With an interactive install menu on top of the standard one, of course... Unix Sysadmin, just another name for masochist ? At times I am sure of it... Oh yeah, you ever notice how your cats will do someting incredibly cute, like both stand on their hind legs and playfully box each other- but exactly 30 seconds after you put your camera away... Like they know, they'll make you smile, but you can't capture it for eternity. OK, I'm going upstairs to read and then crash, tired, today was my day off and I spent it relaxing in bed, so why not continue the trend here at home, right? Y'all have a good one and I'll spew some more soon, promise! -S posted @ 10:37 PM EST [link] [Karma: 7 (+/-)] Thursday, January 16, 2003GHi Glad you are back Missed you too That's all -S posted @ 08:29 AM EST [link] [Karma: -1 (+/-)] Tuesday, January 14, 2003dinnerEats- Just got in a short while ago. Cooking some dinner - nabeyaki udon I guess, really every time I make udon it comes out never the same. Just throw in whatever I have around. Boil a pot of water, add some dashi, some japanese soy sauce, a couple packets of that soup seasoning in the brightly colored plastic wrapper. Then add sme shitake 'shrooms, some yard long beans (they must have a real name) and let it cook. Season to taste and let it cook for 5 to 8 minutes. Then add some naruto sliced at an angle and some ito-wakame seaweed and a couple scallions sliced up. Cook another 5 minutes, add the udon noodles and cook until they are done (depends on frozen or fresh noodles). Then ladle into a big bowl, and garnish with some scallion, bamboo shots if you like, and maybe a tiny splash of sesame oil for a change. Steam up a big bowl of edamame and have some rice with furakake sprinkled on top, and feel free to dose the udon with shachimi if you like a little heat. Oh yeah, almost forgot, for clear broth you leave it like that, if you don't mind cloudiness, you can add a little shiro miso to the stock, adds a nice flavor. So what are we making tomorrow? I'm open to suggestions of course- Only takes a half hour and it's good eating. Getting hungry smelling it actually. So let me stop talking and finish cooking. posted @ 09:57 PM EST [link] [Karma: -5 (+/-)] Things you don't like to see number one thing you don't want to see when connecting to a host- @@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@ @ WARNING: REMOTE HOST IDENTIFICATION HAS CHANGED! @ @@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@ IT IS POSSIBLE THAT SOMEONE IS DOING SOMETHING NASTY! Someone could be eavesdropping on you right now (man-in-the-middle attack)! It is also possible that the RSA host key has just been changed. The fingerprint for the RSA key sent by the remote host is df:92:83:43:68:40:41:a3:67:dd:78:3c:d3:8a:7f:f3. Please contact your system administrator. OK, let me contact myself and fix it posted @ 04:43 PM EST [link] [Karma: 24 (+/-)] UD Archive Hey, anyone remember Urban Desires ? Yeah, UD was kinda fun, back when people thought e-zines were gonna be the best thing since sliced whatever. But I will admit I still read salon on a regular basis, nerve and the others all get played as they try a little too hard to be hip/trendy, but salon has good writers. Anyway, here's the link for the UD Archive and yes, I'm working, leave me alone! posted @ 01:48 PM EST [link] [Karma: -13 (+/-)] Disclaimer CYA Disclaimer So, on the very slim chance that any of this gets read by one particular individual, don't take any of it personal. Even if it seems that way at times, K? After all, these are indeed my half conscious any time of the day or night ramblings, right? And I vent. And I ponder. And I go off on tangents not based in reality all the time (I do?). Mostly I need to read myself think, like I've said before. Maybe I need to get out more, eh? And yeah, it doesn't take an Einstein to know this post is aimed at you g, and no, not you gee-o. You know how I felt or feel when I was honest enough and felt safe enough to share it, so if I rant or rave here, it may be just me working through shit. Or then again it may just be shit. And yes, I can hear you saying "seek professional help" with that grin right now if I close my eyes. But I can't type to save my life, so I leave them open. Aaaaagggghhhhh, that's it. I am not thinking any more. Period. And I have a bridge for sale if you're interested, nice view of Manhattan. Fuck, I'm outta here before I make any more of an ass outta myself. And I, And I, And I- shut up and get back to work. Yes, that's the idea. ;-) well I said I'd never edit any of this stuff, what'd you expect? posted @ 12:28 PM EST [link] [Karma: 10 (+/-)] comments fixed One more quickie- I changed the config on the server so "comments" should work 100% of the time now, rather then being hit or miss as in the past. But in reality nobody will use it, you'll continue to just send them to me via email, right? Really, say whatever you want, flames or trolls, might just liven it up a little. Maybe flames AND trolls would do the trick, yes, methinks that would get me going! Anyone see "25th Hour" yet ? Like Ed Norton's work, so maybe it's worth a couple hours of my time... posted @ 12:02 PM EST [link] [Karma: 16 (+/-)] 4 ingredients- Morning, kinda busy here but just remembered, I got a cool cookbook at B&N last night. 4-ingredient cooking. A bunch of recipes that sound good, and each takes, yes, you guessed it, just 4 ingredients! I know, in this day and age, I still buy paper cookbooks. Even though I get most recipes off the net, and even though the recipe is just a starting point, not like I ever stick to the plan. Hmmm, are we talking about cooking here or more profound things? Either way, work is calling. I'll add more drivel later! But real quick, what about strangers who feel the need to say "cold enough for you?" when it's in the teens outside. Does that even warrant a reply? Like, no, I like it below zero, so my breath instantly freezes the cilia in my nose when I exhale. Jeeez. Yes, it is winter in NY, it gets cold, dress accordingly. Hey, it's daytime out, light enough for ya' ?? posted @ 10:39 AM EST [link] [Karma: -6 (+/-)] Tired (again) Man I'm tired (again) Up waaaay too late last night and then busy today. Had lunch at Wasabi with Lissa, then met my friend Bill to go look at a job I took down in that neck of the woods. Stopped by the office for an hour to check a few things (yes, on my day off, yes I am pathetic thank you). Then I had a few hours to kill and no clue what to do. No sense driving back home, to then have to head south in the evening. So, I was IM'ing with Maggie and asked her if she wanted to do sumthin' She was bored too and said YES. Yeah, if you've been reading this thing, then you know I hung out with her a lot around the holidays. Well spending time with her tonight reminded me why again. She is a really good kid. And I'm really proud of her. She's a great student, well adjusted, has a great outlook, and really a joy to spend time with. Can she really be my daughter? And she has a great sense of humor, sardonic/witty/insightful without being negative or seeming contrived at all. Hmmm, well I always did say she was " `whatever age she is now`- going on 40"! So we went to B&N over on central and checked out all the clearance books and then went to the asian market so I could do some grocery shopping. Got mass quantities of edamame, udon noodles, yard long beans, the ususal stuff. And I always get a ton of candy and cookie type stuff and drop it off at the little kids. I know, not good for them, but they have all this cool hello kitty candy and stuff you don't see in regular markets. And I could get hooked on the melon flavored YoGlo, it's killer good shit, not too sweet, a little touch of bitterness to it. A nice change, I don't drink soda so I'm always up for a new soft drink to try. And we went by Julio's and I got the Jeep washed. It was so covered with mud (that thick construction site mud that my whole yard and driveway have been comprised of since I started all the renovations here) and salt and road grime I couldn't see anything in the mirrors even with the windows rolled down. So I guess it was a little overdue, huh? Not much else exciting (as if any of that was). Went to my new Monday night thing, then came home. Checked my email and holy shit. Had one from someone I did not expect to be hearing from. Maybe just testing the waters, I dunno, maybe just saying Hi. But I have of course wondered how they are. Not gonna analyze or read anything into it. It is what it be and it be what it is, right? And oh yeah, believe it or not, some shit IS too personal and I don't put it up here, so that's about as in depth as I'm going with it here, sorry folks. Again, as if any of this shit or my day to day life is even remotely interesting to any of y'all. I just need practice typing and I like to read myself think... K, I'm shot. 3 hours sleep last night does not a rested Steve make. Though I will say excepting this last Saturday night, I have been getting a normal amount of sleep on a regular basis. And I mean a humans normal amount of sleep, not mine. So maybe that's why I'm so beat, gotten used to getting almost 7 hours a night lately. Damn, that's a milestone in these parts. Guess that happens sooner or later when you get to my age! now that I'm old and all. hehe, with that one, I'm outta here, need to crash. -me posted @ 12:53 AM EST [link] [Karma: -19 (+/-)] Monday, January 13, 2003AdaptationSaw Adaptation last night. Good fsckin' movie. For a hollywood flick it was surprising. Then came home and watched a Mike Figgis film just for some perspective. Anyway, someone was asking how come there's no pic of me anywhere to be seen around here. OK, one concession, here's a crappy pic o' moi I grabbed from my web cam. Satisfied? Of course I'm much more dashing in person... Riiiiggghhhhtttt. ;-) N-e-way, todays my day off from the ususal 9-6 gig, so I have stuff to do, have to get going. Whaddaya think, I sit around here all day in front of a computer half-naked scratching my head and wondering what to write? Well some days I do! So, with that, I'm outta here, have errands to do, an appointment, have to grab lunch somewhere (hmm, I wonder where?) and then tonight I have to do a regular thing and then get back here and finish the second coat of mud up in the cottage. Catch up with ya' when I slow down a bit- -S posted @ 10:52 AM EST [link] [Karma: 2 (+/-)] Sunday, January 12, 2003Bowlin'Just got back from moonlight bowling. Hadn't done that in ages (or at least since the spring, so almost a year I guess). When I was PT'ing at 'Bucks we used to all go out after work once or twice a month and do it, fun and always good for some laughs. Just surprising how many teeny-boppers are out at one in the morning, hanging at the bowling alley. Guess there's not much else to do in the winter around here. So it was like a mini-starbucks reunion. Erica and Lauren and Chris and Lisa and Jim and Paul were there and I brought my boys as weekends that I have Danny I can't very well leave him alone here with Sam. They played air hockey and bowled a game. It was a nice change from my usual come back home saturday night and work 'till one and then hang in front of this screen for another hour or so and then crash. Did my usual saturday evening thing earlier with Todd. Damn, number ten lima bean girl was there. So I know all the shite runs me this way and that, and I just figure play it safe and leave it be. But a guy can't help but wonder. Todd's cool so I tell him I have this like, crush/attraction kinda thing. And then I can list the 3 million reasons why not to, I have a ton of baggage (or literally four, 2 boys and 2 girls) and I'm old now, right?, and so on and on and on. And I can laugh at myself and he can chuckle too and then I remember it feels good to have someone you can just talk to about anything and not feel like "oh shit, I'm fscked up" or more to the point, nice to have somoene who knows you and accepts you for your f'ed up parts as well as your kinda OK ones. So that brings me to the other thing. Which is, I am outta the slump I have been in. At last. I'm not glowing as much as I do at times. But I have noticed that people are breaking out in spontaneous smiles around me much more often, those real big makes your whole face radiate good vibes kind of smiles. My smiles themsleves are extra contagious lately and once more I'm feeling good about the world and where I'm at in it. And I truly do believe that's attractive and makes people feel good as well. Funny how it takes so little to make people forget their troubles for a moment, just a kind look and a caring word. Which remnds me a friend of mine told me recently that I had kind eyes. Damn, I don't think anyone ever told me that before. I have been accused of having psycho eyes, looks that kill eyes, anything but kind ones. You know who you are man and thanks again... The other thing I realized, and this is somewhat of a shock. Recently I grabbed a bite with this person. Seen them around casually same places last couple years, exchange a few words now and then, After spending about an hour with them, I come to the conclusion they're kind of immature. What ? Me thinking that? So I arrive at this, the shocking but undeniable truth. I'm a grown up. Shit, I mean, I've had all the trappings of being a grown up before. Had a wife and an unhappy family once, still have a house and all the headaches and responsibilities that go with that. Had super stressful and taxing jobs and had all kinds of stuff that grown ups are supposed to have. But I never thought like one or considered myself one. And I still may be at times too spontaneous, not cautious enough when I should be, and of course I often find myself saying "damn, I shoulda known that wasn't the wisest choice, but it seemed like the win-win one at the time". But now I see that indeed, though I can be irresponsible, but not to excess like I had my whole life previously, I am somewhat growed up. I guess better late then never! But the good part is I still have fun, I will always have that child like awe and excitement for the simple yet amazing things that make life a trip. I still can giggle and laugh at stupid stuff or better yet at my stupidity. And I still love to lay in a field and look up at the sky and scrunch the grass under my toes with bare feet and just close my eyes and feel alive. And what I'd really like to do now is close my eyes and go to sleep ! So tired I'm gonna start making tons more then usual typos. So, before I make less sense then usual, I'm gonna go crash. And I'm not gonna think about number ten lima beans and then tomorrow comes and it (which of course we all know is she, not at all an it) is out of my mind and I'm cool until the next time. Aaaaggghhhh, leave it alone, right? Just say yes, leave it alone. Thank you. K, before I talk to myself anymore, I know fo sho' it be time to sleep. 'nite all Oh yeah, going to go see "Adaptation" tomorrow. Wanting to see that since way before it was out, glad I'm catching it while it's still playing. Oh, did I say I was gonna talk politics? Maybe tomorrow if I'm not too shot. Alright, nite for real now... posted @ 02:36 AM EST [link] [Karma: 8 (+/-)] Friday, January 10, 2003SoundsOne quickie Check out "Banco de Gaia" Great sound, here's their site posted @ 10:46 AM EST [link] [Karma: 9 (+/-)] Nicotine Welcome to weblog entry number 3,429 for the week... K, not really, but sometimes it feels that way. What's been going on, ahh, nuthin' special. The news is I was this close, yup, that close, to quitting smoking. Have a couple boxes of them there nicotine patches, even quit for a couple days, then I modified the program a little... I was not smoking from when I awoke until I got home at night. So from maybe 6:30 or 7 I didn't smoke until usually 9 that night, it wasn't a bad idea, right ? Then I say what the hell, why not have one or two in the morning with my coffee? Then while driving to work, then it's only a matter of saying- why not just smoke regularly? Well I did and I am. I guess the main issue I have (hehe, with quitting that is) is am I doing it for the right reasons ? What are my motives, etc. And really, I don't think I'm coming from the right place at this moment in regards to said. And I can't help but agree with the quote I read once (and no, I'm not saying who the source was) along the lines of "the most interesting people at the dinner table are always smokers". Wow, I opened myself up for some serious negative feedback there I bet. Damn, just started my day and my mind is fried, it's been one of those weeks at work. With that, let me get back to work. Tonight I'll be up half the night sanding and taping the second coat in the cottage, but I'll update here as I have some cool links and also want to just touch briefly on some international politics, alright? back to work, have a good Friday- posted @ 10:01 AM EST [link] [Karma: -1 (+/-)] Wednesday, January 8, 2003RIP JimmyHey, 'Nother one gone. You're in the same places as me, you know Jimmy passed away yesterday... I wasn't really close to him, saw him around, always cracked a smile at his comments. Loved his outlook on life and his message, he was real. Kinda like a generation up from me, but all the people in his circle are dealing with it. What other choice do we have? Shit, was on the phone last night with little Steve and we were going over all the people we've lost to "the lifestyle" to put it nicely. I guess after awhile you kinda get used to it, not numb, and it's not easier, you just accept it. There's only a few of us left from the core 15 or twenty from the old days. So we're fortunate, I need to remember that when I start thinking like it's too heavy, what I carry, at times. At least I'm alive to feel the weight, and when it passes I can soar again, free and just livin' life today, making the most of this moment and taking it all in, still in awe and excited about it, after all the lifetimes I've lived in just this one... Damn, I guess I'm real lucky, hell I could talk for days and days, the things I've done and seen, not all pretty, not all by choice, but the culmination of it all is who I am now, and I like me today, so it was definitely all worthwhile. In any case, lest I get all caught up in it, just a few quickies bring y'all up to speed. But first- Alan, thanks man, glad I called you tonight and yeah, I know it passes, and it wasn't really that bad. And Stephen, man, I know you say I saved your life that day, maybe I did, but you've saved mine dozens of times, just with a phone call. Both of you guys, if you only knew, it's as simple as a glance sometimes, a smirk, an anecdote, or just a patient ear. K, that's that, just wanted to say thanks in black and white, or white on green, whatever it is, it is. Oh yeah, Todd, you too man. You help me more then you know, prolly my best friend in those circles these days. Glad you're back and glad I know ya'. And spring times coming, we'll be at the Beacon and hopefully Warren will be up there breakin' strings on his Gibson again! And in case you was wondering, I'm sitting here singing along to Edie Brickell and Casey Chambers as I write this, just in a mellow mood tonight. Alright, a few pics, work has been crazy, we re-architected all the back end systems and are testing before we roll it all out in production. Here's Henry, my boss, at the data center, looking all chill, got that secret agent thing going on. He's one of the best bosses I've ever had, I'll touch on that one of these days too. But I thrive on this kind of stuff, pressure and getting stuff working against and despite of any obstacles is what I do best. Hmm, isn't that what sysadmins live for, yeah, it is... So I haven't been up in the cottage that much, but Todd came over Sunday and we taped. Here it is partially done, this is all the first coat. And here is the guy who's a hell of a taper and an even better friend, Todd, yeah, he and I can talk about obscure old rock and roll bands for like hours, man, you know your music! And not just saying you have good taste cuz it's usually the same as mine. We finished the first coat, all taped and dry now. Oh yeah, I said I'd get an outside shot , that's the front view from the driveway. I know, it will get a coat of paint when it gets warmer, an automatic spotlight up above the door, and I'll have the gable vent in this weekend. And come spring some landscaping to boot. Slow but sure, it's getting there and it'll be really nice when it's done. We've been getting snow every week and it's hanging around, here's the yard and all the snow. Yup, that's a peach truck sticker on my bumper, the brothers are spoken here, and only spoken highly of, which gets me to thinking about Lizard, is hs still around and kicking? That's another story, one day I'll show you the art he graced me with, I'll carry it with me till the day I die. K, I'm outta here. Going to be a long day at work tomorrow, and then the wake at night will be intense. Lemme try and get a normal amount of Zzzz for a change. Oh yeah, lunch, they got a new sushi chef at my eating place, straight off the boat. They bring me a little taste of some things he whips up that aren't on the menu yet, kind of like beta testing it I guess. Very good, even the Udon today at lunch was different. The seasoning was more subtle, the flavors played more delicately against and with each other, no one taste overpowering another. Very nice. But in addition, Brian, the sushi man, left to relocate. I miss him, he was a good kid, hell of a sushi man and nice as they come. Oh well, life is about change after all. Here's the new sushi-guy. Hmmm, I'm going to sleep, right? Right. l8r, and case I never told you, thanks for listening (reading). -Steve posted @ 12:13 AM EST [link] [Karma: 18 (+/-)] Sunday, January 5, 2003Feedback Anyone ?Comments... Please feel free to leave them after a post. I have gotten a couple emails from folks saying they felt the "what women should know" and "top ten reasons" posts were kinda negative. Well, if you know me (not even with an uppercase K) then you know that's not the case, I mean, are we taking this just a little too seriously ? Hello? Can you chuckle or do you just crack a half smile/grin? I guess this all goes without saying, as those who do know me did not feel the need to express that. Oh, you ask, how do you email me ? Just ask me in person I guess! Hmmm, OK, tell ya' what, you can have a new address I just got- steve@fiskfamily.org I check that one every day or so as nobody really knows about it yet. Aiigghht, gotta go have a last cuppa and get up to the cottage and start taping sheet rock. Oh, did I ever mention I hate taping more then having my fingernail ripped slowly out by the root? Well I do, but it needs to get done... K, have a day- Steve posted @ 11:55 AM EST [link] [Karma: -24 (+/-)] Saturday, January 4, 2003My closet is finally done!Hi Again ! Damn, I've been posting like crazy last few hours... And also managed to make a quick web page (the gargage transformation, linked under the webcam above all my entries) talk on the phone to lissa forever, and even spent a little time on CU checking the regulars out. Wrote a couple emails too. Sometimes I scare myself how fast my mind is going. Anyway, I said a while back I'd post pix of my closet when it was done. Well I never did so here they are. Here it is rough, before any shelves or racks, just the new doors. Here's the left side, and now the right. Yeah, I have almost 30 linear feet of shelf space now, woohoo! Like I don't have enough going on building a whole cottage apartment, I decided to gut and redo my bedroom at the same time. It's almost done, just need to paint the windows and walls, and lay some carpet. But my room has seven windows, (here are a few of them) so fixing the woodwork up and priming/painting them is going to be a project! OK, ya wanna see more? Here's the view out my kitchen window. And here's my dining room, but there's always stuff piled on the table, so not like anyone can ever eat there... And last but not least, here's where I'm sitting right now, the computer room is prolly the most used room in the house, wow, that sounds kinda sad. But the kitchen and bedrooms aren't far behind. Alright, I'm gonna go watch a movie and TRY and stay offa CU tonight... G'nite- -Steve posted @ 12:07 AM EST [link] [Karma: 7 (+/-)] Friday, January 3, 2003Good ReadWhat Should You Do With Your Life ?? Trust me, you don't want me to tell you ! No, really, if you have ten minutes to spare, read this article, and thanks to Gee-O for sending it my way. Link ! And Gee-O, stop surfing so much and finish the family website. A couple paragraphs of text doth not a site make! -Steve posted @ 07:58 PM EST [link] [Karma: 0 (+/-)] For The Women OK Girls, Here's The Inside Scoop ! Some Things You Should Know About Guys- * We're not as big of perverts as you think we all are (well some of us are). * We're not horny all the time like you think we are (well some of us are). * No matter what you say, your ex-boyfriend is an asshole. * We like you to give us hugs and kisses sometimes too. * Don't argue with us when we call you beautiful. * Don't treat us like crap, what goes around comes around. * Don't treat us like crap, what goes around comes around. - Yes, that merits saying twice ... * We know you're pretty, that's one of the reasons we're going out with you. * Don't go into detail about your period. It scares us. -PLEASE, be sure to click the "more" link below, this is only the beginning! posted by @ 07:48 PM EST [more..] [Karma: -6 (+/-)] Thursday, January 2, 2003I'm BaaaackK, I know it's been awhile... So lemme tell ya what I've been up to, and obsessed with, K ? Friggin' CUseeme ! Yup, I haven't played with it in years. I used to have a bit of an IRC problem too. Like up every night until 3 or 4 in the morning on some out there channels. Well seems I've got the bug again, but this time strictly for CU. And I have to recommend Doc's reflector, there are a bunch of nice folks hang out in there. Ah yes, the occasional lap cam pops in to say hello, but not as many as on other refs... Truth be told I've been trying to connect as I type this, but it's full so I can't get in. Guess it's still a little early. Shit, only got two hours of Zzzzz this morn, need to sleep, finish tomorrow, K ? posted @ 11:54 PM EST [link] [Karma: -2 (+/-)] Saturday, December 28, 2002Woo Hoo !Alright, I got a lot accomplished today, and still had time to relax for a change... My Father and Brother came down from New Hampshire last night to hang for a couple days. So, we woke up this morning, drove all the way up to the South Hills Mall to go to Loews, and I bought a new washing machine. Got a nice super capacity Maytag. Haven't had a working washer in almost a year, and tired of going to the laundromat (usually I just have them wash my stuff, but it's still a pain). Then we went to the "modular closet" isle and I got all the stuff to do my closet. Came back here and finished it, and wired the two light fixtures inside it as well. Lemmee tell ya', it is the nicest closet I have ever had! Talking over 25 feet of shelf space for storage, and almost 10 feet of hanger space. That should help me get my room organized, huh? Plus I got my new bed delivered and set up Friday, so I had the best nights sleep in a looong time. Lets just say my old bed was worn out a lot of years ago. But I never had a spare grand for a new one, so I have to thank Paul for hooking me up with a good deal, thanks Man... One thing is thse new beds are so damn high though. Takes a little getting used to but nice nonetheless. Went down to Pace for the usual Saturday night gig, then out to eat. Oh yeah, today is my Birthday. So All my kids (Sam, Maggie, Sarah, and Danny), Dad, Guy (who supposedly has transformed and looks just like me, but only with more hair) and Todd all met up at the usual place. Damn, I can't even begin to tell you how much food there was. Lets just say a boatload, well, actually two boatloads! And they brought out a birthday cake for me. That was so sweet, I know they went out of their way to get that, they don't even have cake... Man, I am so full I can hardly move. Good thing I'm workin' my butt off tomorrow and Monday here at the house, need to burn off all the extra eats I've had thrown at me this last week. OK, I'm fried and need to sleep so I can get up early and get to work. Want to finish all my windows so I can paint my room during the week. I'll get some pix up from tonight (and of course of my new closet!) tomorrow. Also maybe I'll be just a tad bit more witty and insightful and actually have some social commentary (cloning anyone?) I'm just too tired now to do anything but dully recount my day... Oh yeah, I did go see "Personal Velocity" Thursday night, it was good. I'll touch on that tomorrow as well, K? Need, sleep. Yes, sleep.... outta here, -S posted @ 11:55 PM EST [link] [Karma: -5 (+/-)] Wednesday, December 25, 2002Snowin !Hey, It's snowing, but just a tad. Nice on an x-mas morn' Yup, has me thinking, where the hell did I put my X-mas shirt, the old SD Cycles one I wear but once a year... Was pouring a cup of coffee and heard Gray Cat meowing at the door, guess she spent the night out and about. So here's my favorite pic of Gray - and look out the window, nice and warm and sunny and green. And I had grass, now my whole yard is mud and backhoe tracks. Yeah, yeah, all in the name of progress. Gonna have a lot of landscaping to do in the spring. Cool, get back to the land. Like working outside with earth and green stuff. I like smellin' the smells, feelin' the feel. Hmmm, I like doin' that inside too, but shall we not digress for once? I have some great pix of the kitten, Dave (whose actually almost as big as Gray nowadays) but I have to drop the film off to get D-veloped. These days I just take pictures with my phone, it's convenient, always have a camera with you! The display is 16-bit color, it really is a beautiful phone, best present I've bought myself in a long time. Soooo, speaking of warm weather memories- Santa, are you listening? THIS is what I want next year for Christmas, alright? This pic is from Fathers Day this year. Damn, that bike was fast as hell. She was actually startin' everyone elses bike for them when they couldn't do it. She finally hopped on hers and everyone around was just in awe, it sounded damn healthy. She's lookin' kinda serious here, but she had a kick ass smile, guess I would too if I had a ride like that. Shit, got the 'tude, the ride, and a gearhead to boot, is that what they call the whole package? Hmmm, methinks I'd just be getting myself in trouble if I went back to those places. Have to remind myself that whenever the yearnings come... Riiiiggghhhttt, I'm a responsible adult today with people that depend on me. Speakin of teasers, I'll dig up the link to the original Steve's World and post it up here soon. It was an old (really old, blinky gifs and the like) web page I made about 6 years ago. Have to hand it to Geocities, it's still up. K, I'm gonna throw my paintin pants on and get to work up in my room. I'll write a mini-review of whatever flick I see later when I get in tonight. Enjoy the holiday and your loved ones, if you're alone, keep your heart loving, your mind focused, and your spirit strong and steady, lifes too short and the world needs more people doing it for the right reasons. Alright, without getting all philosophical I'll steal a great quote I read somewhere- "All I've learned about life can be summed up in three words- it goes on" True it is... -S posted @ 11:27 AM EST [link] [Karma: 15 (+/-)] Merry Merry, Quite Contrary... Merry X-mas ! Yup, quite contrary to what I imagined, I was actually feeling a little of the old 'oliday spirit earlier. Busy day. Woke up yesterday and started priming my bedroom. Then off to get a few last minute presents. Yes, the stores were insane busy. Then home depot to get more pipe for the cottage (forgot I have to run the heating lines too). I got some really cool paint for my room. Actually Glaze and base coat. Ralph Lauren has these cool techniques for doing walls, you get the tools and the paints under that label. So I picked a kinda bright, but warm, greenish "chambray" pattern treatment. It looks like a pain to do, will take about 5 days to complete, but it should look great. Then I dropped Sam of at his Mom's so he can spend a could days with her and his sibs. Went to Pace, then picked Maggie up and went to eat, yes, usual place. Holy shit, Brian hooked me up, Soon-Ei just kept bringing plates of sushi and food out, the whole table was full of dishes. And I hadn;t gotten a chance to eat all day, so I gladly finished it all. Maggie surprises me, she tries everything, octopus, fluke, kimchi, whatever, she's open to new things, which is cool. Most kids will only do california rolls! Then we went downtown (or really uptown) to midnight mass at St. J the D Wow, it was incredible. Really really beautiful. If I could wake up early, or stay up a few more hours, I'd go back for the morning service. The music was great, organ sounded as impressive as ever, and the chorus and soloists were impeccable. That place just amazes me. And it's great for people watching. Maggie was surprised when I pointed out the woman sitting next to her for an hour was in fact a man, guess life is a little sheltered down in Irvington, eh? And also, I was surprised to see how many folks go there solo, I'd thought midnight mass was a family/SO kinda thing. Then we went downtown, got a capp and piece of cake, and headed home. It was snowing pretty good down there and I guess the snow and the city I'll always hold dear just got me in the christmas mood. Odd but I had apprehensions about today. This is the first time in last 3 years I have had no kids around Christmas morning, no stockings to open in bed, no sounds of excitement and wrapping paper slowly encroaching upon every square inch of living room floor. But I feel strangely calm and at peace with everything. I guess this is how it is supposed to be, and I'm actually OK with it. I'm going to wake up sooner or later, once I go to sleep of course, and start prepping the windows in my room, putting trim and molding around them, filling holes form years of shades and curtain rods, and then sanding and priming them with Kilz. Alan invited me over for desert at his house, said he didn't want me to be alone all day. Nice offer, I guess I kinda have to stop by, it's the right thing to do. Just for a short bit though, I really don't feel like being around a bunch of people I don't know, making small talk and the like. Plus I have so much to get done around here, really hae a schedule I have to stick to. And I have no clothes, what are the odds there's a laundromat open today ? Prolly won't be crowded if I find one. Sent out my usual mass mail happy holiday e- and with that I'm all done. Presents are delivered, I'm all set to get back regular day to day routine stuff. But like I said, I did have a few hours of holly jolly feelings, so leave me alone about being a scrooge, K? Ya know, now that I think about it, I'm fu**ing tired as all hell. Gonna go crash and tomorrow I'll add some links for photos I took tonight to this post. What, you wonder what to get me for christmas, kinda late, no ? OK, well if you can't find me a sub curious about taking the plunge into a 24/7 lifestyle, then next best thing would be to look at my wish list on Amazon, you know, you just look it up by my email addy. And no, it wasn't me added all that kinky shit. But I'll peruse it.... Alright, again, have a very Merry one, you and yours. Sorry for the dull content, just tired and really nothing that interesting to note today, just puttin' one foot in front of the other... K, l8r again- -S posted @ 05:14 AM EST [link] [Karma: 14 (+/-)] Tuesday, December 24, 2002GONYJust came back from seeing Gangs Of New York with Sam. It was alright. Cinematography was great. Storyline good, just a little slow. Long flick. But kinda neat, very good job depicting Manhattan mid 1800's. I dunno, maybe it's me and I watch too many indie and foreign films, but Hollywood movies are usually a disappointment. Speaking of good films, in the last couple weeks, I've watched "The Object Of My Desire" which was great, "Vertical Ray Of The Sun" which for me was incredible the way light and color is used. "In The Mood For Love" and "Falen Angels" both by Wong Kar-Wai, "Lies" which is a an eyeful, and "Ghost In The Shell". And I have a few more new discs here I haven't even opened yet. Hmmm, I guess I need to stop buying DVD's someday soon. My friggin' wish list on Amazon is like 3 pages long these days. Glad to be done with work today. I have the next three days off and have a lot to get done here. Besides working up in the cottage I just tore my whole bedroom apart. Re-wired, insulated (yes this house was built before they ever thought of insulation) and sheetrocked it. Also tore my old closet out and re-framed so now I have one almost 10 feet wide with sliding mirror doors, so one wall is a giant mirror floor to ceiling. Also have tie downs built into the wall around the bed, in case, well, you need to "anchor" anything. Speaking of, I threw my old bed out as I'm getting a brand new one this Friday, platform job, with a couple drawers in the base (probably good storage for the whips and tie downs, huh?) and a super duper comfy king size mattress to replace the 13 year old one I just chucked that would fold in half if I didn't have 3/4 inch plywood underneath it! So in the meantime I'm crashing on an old twin bunk bed in the spare bedroom and I wake up every moring with my neck or shoulder killing me, it sucks... So tomorrow when I wake up I'm gonna prime all the walls in my room and fill all the old nail holes in the window frames and prime them too. I'm going to do up my new closet with those cool ClosetMaid wire shelves and racks and stuff, so I shoulkd have a ton of storage and be able to get rid of one of my dressers. Looking to unclutter this place. Throw out as much furniture as possible and minimize my posessions. Not an easy task. This is a guy who still has some of the same stuff in my junk drawer I had as a teenager. Well, to be honest, one whole dresser is nothing but junk drawers, no clothes. I think I need to streamline a bit, to put it mildly. My big dilemna is what color to paint my room once it's primed and ready to go (sound familiar?)... Much as I like the dark dungeon type theme, I want it to be kinda soothing on the psyche and easy on the eyes. Really I spend any inside time at home in the kitchen, in front of this keyboard, or in my room watching movies. So it's key that the colors are mood enhancing. Any ideas in that department? Please post them as a comment to this entry, K? Actually this cute girl at Home Depot's paint department was all smiles and flirty when I asked her a question the other day, but I was in a rush to get back here and back to work. I shoud go back and feel her out on it (the paint, stop thinking like me). OK OK That is a good segue into the next thing. Which is something I promised the other night. Nope, not the crush thing, I'll do that next time (maybe, depends how bold I'm feeling). But nobody really reads this crap anyway so why not, right? WHY NICE PEOPLE SUCK- Well, have you ever heard of Clarkes third law ? "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic" So that is very close to the way I often feel- which is "Any sufficiently nice person is indistinguishable from someone who likes me" I mean, it's a pain in the ass enough as it is. Then throw in the confusion of readng signals right and not interpreting that smile with "that" smile, shit, it'll drive you nuts. Bad enough that half the time the people who "like" you are not who you like, and the ones you "like" don't like you "the same way". Then when you do finally have a mutual thing and you build on it, sooner or later it's just not worth it, it ends up being "too much headache". Aaagggghhhhh, shit, just insert appropriate Peanuts strip right here, one where Charlie Browns mouth is open to the size of Wyoming! Then top it all off with most of the people I come into contact with are bona-fide dented cans (and I don't like to defecate where I consume nourishment) and it is even more fucked up. And there's this one can I could be smitten with. And she's gonna kill me with that fuckin' smile of hers. Puhleez, leave me in peace! Hell if I ate canned veggies instead of frozen, she'd be a number ten can of Lima Beans. And I real y like Lima Beans, sometimes I just eat a package of them for a meal, little butter and some herbs on top, mmmm. So what's changed here? Not much, still confused half the time. Been long enough since my last relationship that I' m reverting to "dog-mode" as Lissa puts it, well she doesn't put it that way. She just makes constant "you're such a dog" comments to me. And of course I have to protest, I mean, I'm a male of the human species, it is normal, thank you. So Lissa, when you read this, I may be a dog, but I am trying to figure out why I keep getting involved with psycho girls (or better yet, why am I a psycho magnet) and that's more then most dogs can say! Has anyone noticed I don't spell check any of these things ? Really, I am an excellent speller, can spell almost anything. Problem- I can't type to save my life. So I know there are tons of typo's, you don't like it, you wanna come over here at 3 in the morning and fuckin' proof read it all ? Didn't think so. Wow, I hears some great tunes on A-V at work today. Gonna start jotting down the names and I'll get some links here, like real soon. And I have all the pix from the work party cropped and optimized for the web. Once I figure out how to get the pop-up code working here I'll make a thumbnail page and do some humorous captions. I tried to get the web cam page to be a pop up, but for some reason the same javascript that works in a static page doesn't work here. Not that these pages are dynamic. I settled on Grey Matter as the blog code cuz I don't have time to do a serious site with database driven backend. I have a couple running in development, but writing code to customize all the templates is just too tedious. Maybe one day, but I have too much to do around here to become a code junkie these days. One more thing kinda cool. I've got a cat door on the second floor! How's I do that you ask? Well it wasn't easy teaching the cat to shimmy down that tiny ladder I made... No, what I discovered is that if I keep this one window in my bedroom wide open (yes I know it's December, but I have the thermostat wires grounded out in my room now so it's like an oven upstairs, just temporary since I demolitioned my room, I have a new thermostat to put in this week) Gray cat can jump out the window onto the little roof over the kitchen door, and from there she jumos down to the ground. And I guess she can do the same in reverse and let herself back in. Tonight I opened the kitchen door and the kitten, Dave, was outside, looked at me, meowed once and ran in the house! See, Dave has never been outside. Well, he was a stray kitten someone talked me into taking (thanks Lissa, the fuckin' vet bills added up to the cost of a nice purebred kitty) and I've never let him outside yet. Was afraid he would wander off and not make it back home. Lately though I'm almost wishing he would do just that. Gray Cat is allowed to come and go as she pleases though, always has and never had any problems. Speking of the kitten (really a cat now, but still trippin' like a kitten), lemme give you one piece of advice guys- Next time you're all in love with some female, and she happens to like cats. DO NOT, I repeat, DO NOT, think to yourself how neat it would be to get a kitten. When she's gone and that side of your bed is again empty, the damn kitten will still be around. For a looong time. In fact, depending on how much the woman like to over-analyze everything, she may even make a point of commenting to you how it may have been "impulsive or less then responsible" to get a new cat, "it's a long term commitment" and stuff like that. No shit hon, I have four kids, I know about long term commitments, trust me on this one... Hehe, just couldn't resist that piece of advice. Speaking of kids, I'm going to Midnight Mass at St. John The Divine tomorrow night with Maggie. Kinda cool she will do stuff like that with me. Either she really wants to spend time with me, she really wants to get away from her Mother, or she's bored. Maybe a little bit of each. But she really is a great kid. Smart and funny and insightful, old for her age as only brilliant frustrated teenage girls can be. Man I love her and am glad she wants to hang with me these days. OK, it's late, or early, I need to sleep as I have way more work to do tomorrow then is humanly possible for three people, so if I get half of it done I'll be doing good. Oh yeah, I have to do CXhristmas shopping and wrap a few presents too, damn, that close to X-mas, time flies when you're sitting here writing whatever pops into your head... l8r, -S posted @ 02:48 AM EST [link] [Karma: 8 (+/-)] Sunday, December 22, 2002long ass day...Shit ! I kinda promised myself I'd write something here every day. Well I meant to last night, but was tired. Not like I ain't now, but have to just do it. Sittin' here munchin on some TJ's stone ground yellows. Really had a sweets craving, but nothing in the house remotely sweet or chocolate or even close. Oh well, kinda late to be eatin' anyway... Just got down from the garage, well I guess it's not a garage anymore. Lemme fill you in- I have a detached garage up in the corner of the yard and I'm turning it into a cottage to rent out. Typical construction nightmare so far. Every unexpected snag that could happen has. Had to trench over a hundred feet to tie into my septic, another trench almost as long to bring water and cable/phone. The whole yard is rock ledge so the guy runs the backhoe has had lots of fun. I'm having some guys do the carpenter type stuff as I don't have time. And I'm doing all the plumbing, heat, and electrical. It's coming along nice. I put a giant skylight in and it looks great. Doing a cathedral ceiling with eyeball high-hats over the living area and gonna do those little halogen mini-cans for task lighting over the kitchen. Spring comes I'll do a little patio in front and plant a row of arborvitae for privacy. Seeing as how it's all new it's actually nicer then the main house! But I'm working on the house little by little. Hmmm, now I think of it, I've been working on it little by little for the last 10 plus years. Oh yeah, did I remember to tell you to NEVER by a really old house with the quaint crooked floors and lots of "character". I didn't? Well don't! The SNL anniversary party was tonight, not that SNL, if you know me, you may know what I'm talkin' bout. But I haven't been in that party mood lately, so came back here after a meeting and started runing the water lines up in the cottage. Finish them in the morning I hope and then start pulling wires. Stopped off and had dinner with "dented-can" guy, my usual place, Soon-Ei is off tomorrow so I figured let me stop by and say hello and grab a bite. She's been working seven days a week lately, so glad she got some relief at last. Come to think of it I kinda work every day too, and there'e no chance of me getting a break anytime soon, but it's all in the name of progress so I see it as working towards something tangible. Which is indeed a change for me... Shit, there's so many good movies coming out and I haven't got time to catch any. Maybe I'll see two movies christmas day, make the most of my day of rest, huh? Wanna see "Personal Velocity" with Kyra S and Fariuza B, it sounds good. And of course "Gangs Of NY", but that I'll take Sam to see with me. K, I'm gonna go crash before I eat anymore of these chips and/or the sun comes up. Found some cool links, I'll post them tomorrow, promise. AND - tomorrow I will go off ona deep ass tangent- what the media and technology has done to make this current generation even more fucked, and also, why is sucks having crushes (no, not unrequited love, simple crush we're talkin') and also, why really nice people confuse the hell out of me, K? alright, catchin' some ZZZ's, l8r... -S Hey- Gray Cat is sitting on my hub, the uplinked one, get offa there ! posted @ 03:59 AM EST [link] [Karma: 28 (+/-)] Thursday, December 19, 2002Love Kimchi burps !Mmmm, Just back to work from lunch. Had boolgogi, p'ajon, kimch, rice, miso soup & salad, and of course a spicy yellowtail uramaki roll. I could eat kimchi every day, oops, I almost do. Yeah yeah, I know, it stinks to high hell, but it's soooo good! Went with Lee from work and he's getting all the digi-pix from last night transferred to a machine, when he's done, I'll get some up here, promise, K? Alright, have to go, Jianlin is here asking questions ! Writin' more later ;-) posted @ 03:45 PM EST [link] [Karma: 8 (+/-)] Monday, March 31, 2008YikesYowza!! posted @ 07:10 PM EST [link] [Karma: 15 (+/-)] |
