Want to be like my grandma
This past Saturday, Melanie and I went to my grandmother’s house to paint her kitchen and bathroom. She has a small apartment, so, while it may have been rough simply because painting always is, it wasn’t as bad as could possibly be. There’s really no story there. The real story lies with my grandmother.
My grandma isn’t exactly young. To be precise, she’s 84 years old. Somehow, though, in all defiance of age, she’s more active than many people I know, including a lot of people my age. Before Melanie and I even got there, she had already painted parts of the kitchen which included climbing up on a step ladder and all. When she told me this, I was a bit concerned, but she wasn’t. She refuses to let age stop her. I want to be like my grandma as I get older. I want to be able to hold on to that youthful energy and zeal for life. I only hope I can be so fortunate.
Smile Empty Soul “Don’t Ever Leave” Lyrics
Half inch fuse, ready to bite
Never said you’re sorry cause you’ve always been right
Tell me I’m lame every Saturday night
Cause you drink too many and you want to fight
All my life, hold my breath
Wonder what trouble is coming next
Hold on tight through this mess
Sing that song cause you sing it best
La la la la
Hey…
I love it when you’re spitting in my face
The way you scream when you’re breaking all my things
I love the way you put me in my place
Don’t ever leave me alone
Miss those days of play
I’ve been thinking a lot about it lately and I really miss those days of playing outside for hours on end with Joe. Life was so much easier back then and, yet, so much more exciting.
We tended to focus on three different sports: basketball, baseball, and frisbee. Basketball was the most competitive. Heading to the park to play 4 or 5 or sometimes even 7 games. More often than not, Joe won because I was simply over powered, but it was a damn exciting time getting out the competitive bug.
Baseball was our most relaxed sport. We mostly just had a catch every so often and then, once baseball season started, we’d play every day until our elbows hurt from over extending ourselves. Boys being boys.
Frisbee was an odd obsession that became crazy because of our spin on it. We were slightly obsessed for that one year. Every single day we’d be out there trying to break our own record of consecutive catches. It started with 17 and wound up at 420 on April 20th. No joking. It was fun to watch, too, as a few neighbors would spend some of their time just sitting there and watching us fling this plastic disc back and forth as we ran into and over cars trying to catch it.
I miss those days. I want to go outside and chase a frisbee because I want to prove to myself that I’m better than I was yesterday.
Smile Empty Soul “Faceless” Lyrics
God only knows
All the side effects of listening
To static on the radio
Stare at the screen
‘Til the videos have driven you
To lunacy with visuals
I can’t believe you sold…
I can’t believe you sold out
Rip your soul out
Rip your soul…
Would you face me and look into my eyes
Before you lie straight through your teeth
And maybe you’ll pull it off again
But you can count me out
Week of the work I love
It’s been an interesting week. Because of continued problems with vital computer records, at work, I haven’t been able to do my usual work. Instead, I’ve been helping out merch, the department I left only a few months ago and the department I love being in. Working beside my buddy, I dealt with hooking up TV’s, displaying quite a few new washers and dryers, and the usually organization of tons of box stock. It was back breaking labor, at times, but also so much more enjoyable than the paper work nonsense I usually deal with these days.
It didn’t take long for me to realize how much I miss the work. The position I have now guarantees me off most weekends, but that benefit doesn’t outweigh the simply fact that I love the work merch has to do. It’s always different and, often times, forces me to solve puzzles involving wiring or changes to the store layout and such. It allows me to be creative. I miss that so much.
I’ve already told the GM that, if a full time spot in merch opens up, that he should consider me. He’s been very impressed with the work I’ve done this week, so I’m hoping he keeps that in mind. I need to get back to merch, eventually. There’s just so much more job satisfaction to be found in that department.
Bang On: The New 007 sucks
The James Bond movie franchise is one of the longest running in history. It’s held a very similar, yet successful, formula for over twenty films. The rights holders, regardless of the success they’ve had, though, decided to change the direction of the famed spy saga a bit with the casting of the current Bond, Daniel Craig. He’s supposed to be more like the character from the books and the movies, themselves, are supposed to be more realistic. There’s only one problem: The new Bond movies suck.
Palm Pre hardware concerns
With the Palm Pre launching tomorrow, I had a whopping two minutes to play with one at work. Since I didn’t have time to analyze the software, I just took quick looks at the physical hardware to see what’s what.
Even in the two minutes worth of use, I was quickly able to realize how bad the keyboard is. Now I used to own a Samsung Blackjack (a phone with notoriously small keys), so I’m ok with a cramped keyboard. The problem here, though, isn’t down to the size of the keys or even how close they are. The real problem is two fold. First of all, the keys near the edges, especially the left side, were particularly hard to press. In the case of the ‘A’ key, I kept missing the key, outright, and hitting the raised edge immediately to the left of it. It was very frustrating. The second problem rests in the texture of the keys. They have a VERY rubbery feel to them and it was actually difficult to slide my fingers from one key to the next. A co-worker of mine, who came over as I was looking at the device, came to the same conclusion very quickly. He was amazed at how bad the keyboard was.
Best weather gadget for Vista/7
Weather gadgets have been a pain in the ass for me because I could never find one that fit my needs. The default Microsoft weather gadget didn’t show enough information unless you took it off of the sidebar and I prefer to keep my gadgets in one place. Then, when I found one that fit in the sidebar and showed more information, it would randomly stop updating or showing a moon for the current conditions at 1pm. In comes Simply Weather.
Well, I finally found a gadget I like. Simply Weather , from Blue Onion Software, is a little simplistic in appearances, lacking any glossy graphics and what not, but works very well and shows all of the information I could expect to see in such a small space. If you’re like me and looking for a weather gadget, this is the one to use.
Slight reorganization
I’ve started work on reorganizing the site to separate content better and, perhaps, allow me to post more content that will bring in more visitors.
The first change is a pretty simple one. I created a new category called “Tech Talk” where I can post random tech news without throwing it into the rather generic “General” category. I hope to begin posting little tech tidbits, here and there, about random things that interest me. I won’t be posting news or anything, so don’t expect to see that here.
I’ve also, once again, switched around the category listing in the first column on the right. I put the “Journal” and “Tech Talk” categories up top since I believe most people coming here will be looking there. I’ve also taken the “Lyrics” listing out of the column, though a link still exists to the category in the right most column.
Any more ideas, boys and girls?
A day back inside the studio
It’s been a while since I’ve done anything enjoyable at work. My current position involves a lot of numbers and a lot of paper work, but very little hands on work and it really sucks. Today, I got a slight reprieve.
My store has an audio room specifically set up with mid range audio equipment that needs a little more attention and finesse than a home theater in a box setup. Unfortunately, since I tend to work with people who don’t give a crap, the room often find itself torn apart. In this case, about 80% of the speakers weren’t working for one reason or another. It took a few hours, but I managed to fix it up as best I can given the power issues that are also plaguing the room.
It just felt good to work with my hands again, you know? I love that work and it’s the work I’m best at. Though the pictures are a little blurry because I mixed a dark room with a camera phone, you can see some of what I did. In the first picture, you can see the completely stripped down wall. In the next picture, you can see the final work. Everything was functional.
