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  • God I wish I could draw. I think I would realy enjoy it. Instead, I just draw like crap and get frustrated with it.

  • I downloaded a new peice of software to try out on my PDA. It’s called Ultrasoft Money and it’s basically a portable version of Microsoft Money which is what Heather and I use to keep track of all our banking. I get really bad about keeping receipts in my wallet and such, so I thought, since I keep my receipts in my pocket for so long and don’t ever enter them into the “checkbook” I shoudl carry the checkbook with me and enter them in right away. This Ultrasoft Money think is awesome. It does everything Money needs to do in your pocket, including auto entering data and such. It makes entering receipts a piece of cake. So not only do I know exactly how much money I have, but then I can take it home and sync the PDA and it will enter all that stuff into Microsoft Money on the computer.

    The only problem is that it’s $40 and I don’t have that kind of money, even though, technically, it will save my hundreds in bank fees since I’ll be more on top of my finances. Like, I last looked at my account information at home on like Saturday morning and I had $47 dollars. Since then I’ve bought two things and now have only $41, but if I wasn’t entering the data in immediately, I’d only be guessing at ammounts rather than being able to say for certain. Now when I estimate how much money I have, I often get off by $4-5 which can mean the difference between being okay or being overdrawn. When I get overdrawn, because of the delays in posting with the check card, I can often buy two or three things, thinking I’m still okay, but actually being overdrawn before the bank and I realize. Then they charge me $33 an item for being overdrawn. So really, if this software even keeps me from being overdrawn once, it’s almost paid for itself.

    I’m also trying to make more and more reasons to carry my PDA with me at all times because often it would be really helpful to have it, even though I tend to forget it a lot. By finding more and more ways it can save my life, I’ll be more likely to pick it up and slip it in my pocket when I leave the house. Oh well. I guess I really should find something to do rather than just writing journal entries.

  • Wow, I suddenly became very bored. I have small things I could be doing around the office, but nothing pressing. Everyone’s at lunch and I’m here all by myself. It’s quiet and I kind of want to go home. Damn.

    I wonder what I could be doing. I could work on my D&D Web Page or just write stuff for the new world I’m developing, but I’m feeling somewhat un-inspired lately. I’ll probably sit here and relax a bit more, then consider writing a bit. Gotta get that game off the ground eventually. I wonder who’s gonna play in it.

  • Baldur’s Gate: Dark Alliance II makes me happy.

    Even though it tanked my bank account and trashed two months of allowance with stupid bank fees when I forgot that I pre-ordered it on my allowance card, it’s still been worth it (okay, maybe not entirely, but I’ve been having mucho mucho fun with it). Corwin75 and I played for a ton of hours (okay, like 5) and as soon as he was out the door, I started playing my single player again and immediately saved over all our hours of play. I did this twice with Baldur’s Gate: Dark Alliance and apparently never learned my lesson.

    Other than that, this weekend I got my first TPK. If you don’t know what that it, then you probably don’t care. All I’m saying is, no party of four 1st and two 2nd level characters should ever face an Ogre and six Orcs. It wasn’t entirely my fault, I didn’t write the module, I just ran it and apparently had a really good day with my dice. I need to threaten to replace them more often.

    I sanded 18 more boards on the wood floor this weekend and don’t feel nearly as shitty for it, I must be building up the muscles that involve hunching over and running a belt sander for 2 hours. We’re now over half way done. w00t.

    I need a good camera to take pictures of the minis I paint. Heather’s old point and click digital camera just doesn’t cut the mustard because, while the macro feature is pretty good, it doesn’t focus on the mini very well and it still comes out looking like crap even after a great number of attempts. I’m beginning to think scanning the mini may be a better option. Oh well, back to the grind.

  • Some days I realize that I’m pretty much unskilled in the areas that I’ve chosen to make my living. I realize that a lot of people have probably found their way into a similar position, but every now and then, I realize that I really want to go further in some directions and I don’t have the skills or knowledge to do so. Really, rather than being well eductated, I’ve become a fast learner and can follow dirrections very efficiently. Fortunately, for the most part, that’s pretty much all I need to do. On occasion, however, I realize that that’s just not enough and that if I were to really want to do something, I’d not have the qualifications to do so. And even if I could convince other people that I could do it, I would be concerned that my shortcomings would make it to where I would feel that I shouldn’t have done it in the first place.

    Shit, does any of that make any sense? I think I’m just rambling.

    Long story short, the school that I work for has finally admitted to itself (though a lot of political leverage) that it needs a new web page. This is something I’ve been fighting for since, well, since I created the present incarnation of it (yes, that generic looking B&W monster is my creation). I was excited about this because it meant I’d be able to do something I truly enjoy as a part of my standard workload. I enjoy designing and coding web pages, but I realize I’m not a great designer, which is why I was doubly excited by the fact that one of our design faculty was going to spearhead the design aspect and I’d be on the back end putting it all together.

    At a lunch meeting today with the faculty member, our network manager and myself, two students happened along as well. It turns out that she had recruited some members from her class to assist with the project but by the end of lunch, it sounded like all my talents and efforts would be covered by these students and I would be left to “implement” the final website. From my standpoint, “implement” equates to “copy final files to the web server.”

    Color me dejected.

    So since lunch, I’ve felt like a day laborer who just happened to find his way into computer support. I often think of how much I’d enjoy some simple, blue color labor, but then I realized that I’m technically an unskilled laborer and wouldn’t qualify for better than a floor worker that would make significantly less than I do. In fact, about the only advantage I have over a simple day laborer is the fact that I speak english as my native language. Damn.

    I’m going to go now.

  • Looks rather one sided, don’t you think?


    create your own visited states map
    or write about it on the open travel guide

  • WOO!

    How do you get up quick in the morning?

    Have your wife tell you that it is now thirty five minutes past the time you were supposed to be at work.

    I rolled over half asleep as Heather sat up saying “shit.” I was awake enough to realize she’d probably overslept. I asked her what time it was. She replied “8:20.” Of course I’m supposed to be at work at 7:45. I sat bolt upright in bed and shouted “you’re shitting me! It’s 8:20? You’re not serious, are you?” She was just silent, didn’t answer, so to confirm, I grabbed my glasses and looked over at the clock. It was only 7:20. Thank god. I was still “late” for work, but since I schedule myself to be fifteen minutes early every day, it’s not so bad when I’m ten minutes late (or only five minutes early, however you want to look at it).

  • Oog, 5 hours of sleep is not enough for this job. I will not offer to run any more games on Wednesday nights. From now on, gaming doesn’t start until at least thursday.

    So my bank account, the one I use for my “allowance” got screwed again last night. The preorder that I placed in August for Baldur’s Gate: Dark Alliance II went through last night while I only had $6 in my account. So now I’ve gone from $6 to -$75 (as a result of penalty charges from going negative). I think, due to unscheduled charges this month (things I didn’t actively purchase but were pre-ordered or part of a subscription) I’ve been charged almost $100 in overdraft fees. From now on, no more subscriptions, no more pre-orders on my allowance account. They’re too chaotic to plan for.

    I was informed yesterday at work that we would be redoing the S.O.V.A. web page. I’ve been wanting to do that for some time now and I’m finally getting the chance. Unlike last time, I’m not in full control. One of the faculty is doing the bulk of the design work and I’ll just do the coding and data entry, but it’s still going to be a lot of work. Not only that, but the deadline is ruthless, they want to have something online by Feb 15. What sucks is I already scheduled a weekend out of town on the 7th and 8th, so there’s a whole weekend I can’t work on it. I paid to go out of town already, so I can’t really back out of it. I’d be out $20. I’m just going to be pushing hard all that week. We have our first official design meeting tomorrow. I hope I get the initial design comps soon so I can start the layout.

    But I get to go to the office now, so no more looking at cute girls in the lab for me.

  • Stupid Macs.

    Stupid Classic environment not working on our new Panther machines. I can’t even install OS9 under Panther and I totally don’t want to have to start again from scratch for one user.

    dangit.

  • I can’t stand it anymore, I gotta know what the music is that they play between commercials on Adult Swim. If you know what any of it is, you’ve got to tell me. There are a lot of different songs they play, and I like them all!

May 2025
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