May 16, 2000 | May 17, 2000 | May 18, 2000

Everything Statistics

Statistics               stats   wa7   inc  l_stats l_wa7
Total Number of Nodes:  517900  1890  1534   516366  1949
Total Number of Users:   14558    41    68    14490    37
Total Number of Links: 1500276 18411 21724  1478552 17859
Current node_id:        554205  1996  1781   552424  2032

Everything's Best Users

Users                  XP wa7 inc   l_XP l_wa7
Pseudo_Intellectual 10743 127  35  10708 142 238
dem bones           10322  91 138  10184  83   8
jessicapierce       10255  90 139  10116  82  14
pukesick             7695 116 118   7577 116 113
DMan                 7426 153 179   7247 149 145
Saige                7086 147 143   6943 148 155

Server time: 04:10 Wed May 17 2000 
Your Fellow Noders(25)

l_ = last (previous) value
inc = increase in stats value
wa7 = ((stats + (6 * l_wa7))/7) = weighted average with denominator 7


There is no positive change to status of Everything Snapshot. I'll report if there are any other changes in the future.

To node ...
E2 other everythings, best feature ready html editor,
Malaysia InTech
Others Muslim Salat Times, Deja, tracert

The synchronicity of: clinch it. Back to more experiments in Interactive Fiction for me.

Now all I need to do is learn how to program...

I'm pretty certain my votes and Ching!s haven't been refreshed for a period in excess of 24 hours. This worries me mildly.

Update: Wow. Just as I hit submit, they refreshed. Five minutes late, boys.

in our last episode... | p_i-logs | and then, all of a sudden...

13:28 EET

*sigh*

Everything was going rather swimmingly. A calm day at work, nice weather, cold Pepsi Max...
And then the damn network problems came back, out of the blue.
I think this PC is just toying with me. It must enjoy seeing me nearly rip my hair off and bang my head against the monitor. There just doesn't seem to be any logical explanation to these malfunctions. (No, not even Microsoft.)

I bet this workstation is possessed by EDB.
Hopefully it's not hungry.

Oh well, when I get home I'll be in my patented good mood again. No nasty-minded computer could spoil an entire day for me.
today i am six feet tall.

juliet sent me a pair of shoes. they're sort of maryjane style, but with large platform soles. all of my denims are dirty, and so today i wore a skirt.

other than these new shoes, i only own two pair -- black 4-eye doc martens and brown hiking boots. until a recent funeral these shoes had served me well, meeting all my needs. now i have something that goes with skirts. werd.

another company in the building does a lot of team building activities. tomorrow they are going to go whitewater rafting on the shenandoah river and i have been invited to go along. i left a message with my boyfriend to find out if he is interested, and if he is in, i will wake up feeling terribly ill tomorrow morning and call in sick to work. i hope he wants to go. it sounds like fun.

YAY! practice ruled. what a workout. AND WE GO WHITEWATER RAFTING TOMORROW! wh000ty-t00t-t00t!!!
Had a really terrific lunch with my son yesterday. Missed my hour workout, but did get a three mile walk in. Going to be a hard day for Mom today. My son graduates tonight. Some of his friends and the Youth Pastor came over and celebrated last night. I will miss them getting together like that. I've taught, tutored, babysat, advised, cried over, scolded, and praised three fourths of these kids. It's such a fragile week for them I hope they're careful.

Fear Versus Love

There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear; for fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not reached perfection in love. We love because he first loved us.
- 1 John 4: 18-19 (NRSV)

For years I have allowed the fear and pain of being abandoned by a parent - rather than God's love - dictate my actions. The more I can give those fears and pain to God, the more I can experience God's peace.

Devotion

Being on time to work is not one of my strong points. Today, however, I was early so I spent a good portion of the early morning slacking off to make up for my timeliness. I have realized that my job does nothing but break me down. Each day it gets a little more difficult to drag myself out of bed and begin the morning's routine. By Friday I am sure to hit snooze one more time than I did on Monday, which brings the current count up to 6 (50 minutes of snoozing!). But like I said, this morning was an exception.

I've been fairly productive for the past hour. Did a bunch of general admin stuff (boring but it allows me to sit here and node at the same time) and played with a router's config. Now I'm ready for lunch!

Things to do today:

Updates:
Its hailing outside right now which really pisses me off. I still haven't eaten lunch because I've been too busy. I guess that's what I get...

So, after a grueling 38-hour drive from Florida (a far worse trip for the two cats than for the two humans), with a stop to load as much of my belongings as possible, I'm now in New York City, a city so nice, they named a state after it. Much of my time has been spent riding the subway, often the very same 5 train that took me back-and-forth between the Bronx and Manhattan during childhood and early adulthood.

My first ride this week, a morning rush-hour trip from the Lower East Side to my aunt's house in the Bronx (temporary pingouin World HQ), to get showered and dressed for a couple of job interviews, had an "I heart NY" quality to it; as that uptown train emerged from underground, into the open air and the long-forgotten sights of the elevated South Bronx tracks, I thought, I'm lovin' this shit! The hustle and bustle of people going to work in the Big Apple, people reading the sports or gossip sections of the Daily News or the dreaded/dreadful Post, the overhead view of the Bronx, always under construction, always decaying and beautiful, just made me gush for a second or two.

I'm a bit less in "I heart NY" mode now, but it's still a good feeling to be here permanently, after having been a crasher, vacationer, runaway truant, or tourist since the first time I left the city as a kid. The slog of the subway rides - it takes 11% of a day to make the round trip from the Lower East Side to my aunt's house - and the discomforts of that contrived, often superficial process of the job interview, have added some sobriety to my disposition.

I'm still getting things done in spurts; Monday night and part of Tuesday were given over to catching up on lost sleep and doing a bit of unpacking. I write this now while my aunt runs her various errands, including one at her bank, which gives me the opportunity to open an account. She has CD101.9 on her car radio, smooth jazz mixed with a little "quiet storm" for extra salability. My aunt is 71 years old, and this choice of radio station further reinforces my view that smooth jazz is nothing more than muzak, bass, and drums. The "beautiful music" elevator music stations (like the old WPAT-FM here) are long gone, replaced by dreck like this.

I brought an iBook with me, for I had wanted this move to be as spartan and minimalist as possible. I failed, struggling to fit my "minimal" stuff into what space remained in my moving partner's car. I was too tired, still only halfway through the Florida-to-New York journey, to tarball and transfer the last of my various source code, text, and HTML files from my PC to the iBook. I'm missing some needed code right now, and need to write out a detailed set of instructions for my mother (a computerphobe, and the Keeper of Mine Puter) to start up the PC, log into Linux, do a set of arcane Unix commands, make floppiable tarballs (of some Java, Python, and XML files), and shut down. A daunting task.

So I'm one of those guinea pigs (or masochists) installing Linux on an iBook. I blindly ordered an external USB hard drive, not knowing really if Yellow Dog and this drive (and drivers) will make nice with each other. Nor do I know if the current kernel knows what to make of the internal modem and sound. Complicating things further was the iBook's choking on a home-burned install disk yesterday - there was a little gunk on the CD at first, but, even cleaned, the choking and sputtering continued for several minutes before the CD would be recognized by MacOS as a CD-ROM. After getting that far, I had to leave; I'll try to commence a for-real install later today. I miss Linux, and haven't really gotten adjusted to using MacOS for anything more than websurfing and e-mail fetching.

Cigarette prices here, while not quite the sticker shock of Canadian prices before the taxes were cut (IIRC), are still pretty bad, about twice the price of North Carolina. It's a longstanding family tradition to never leave NC without buying a carton or three, and I have done that this time, as I had done, in years past, for trips across that great long undefended border, back in the days when cigarette-smuggling was front-page news. I'm down to half a carton, having originally left the state nine days ago with one carton, so it will soon be time to make the rounds in search of generic non-filtered cigs.

One thing I've noticed in this neighborhood, where I briefly lived during childhood (this is where doo doo boy took place), is that most of the houses and apartments have bars on all the windows and exterior doors. While the North Bronx wasn't the sort of place where you could leave your door unlocked at night (an unwise but generally safe thing to do in the parts of NC where I've lived), you didn't need bars. My aunt even has The Club fastened to the steering wheel of her late-model Pontiac coupe.

As has been the case since birth, there are assorted relatives spread over this small radius of the North Bronx, a different mix, as some of the elders have passed away or moved upstate, and The Next Generation(s) has spawned families and The Nexter Generation(s). I've seen a few relatives thus far, some only briefly, some whose names I've not yet learned, but it's nice to be here again, and will soon be able to remember all the names of the young'uns.

The subway highlights of the day: as I was riding the near-empty post-rush 5 train back to the Bronx, a bunch of wonderfully wild, noisy elementary-school students (with adult supervision) from Saint Luke's School bounded into my car. They got off at East Tremont, after the train was briefly slowed by track traffic, and, soon afterward, the train came to a complete halt at 180th Street, a few stops before mine.

It turns out that after rush hour, there's construction going on for this portion of the subway system, and I would have to wait for a shuttle to take me the rest of the way. A would-be fellow passenger, transferring from the 2 to the 5, a landscaper on his way to do some work not far from me, dressed in a cool sleeveless Air Jordan t-shirt and shorts, his face a mixture or young and old, with lines in his face from all that time spent in the sun, went off at the delay - there was no way, as we waited and waited for the shuttle, and more and more stranded 5-train riders arrived on the platform, that he could make it to his destination by his scheduled 11 AM time. And the notion of doing construction during business hours, rather than the wee small hours late at night, only infuriated him further. I was treated to Genuine Irate New Yorker for several minutes, but he was also Genuine New York Nice after he blew off some steam at The Man. These construction hours are, I'm told, a point of controversy around here, and Election Day (and Primary Day, I suppose) aren't all that far off.

I need a nap.

Today, Leynos was walking with me back home and actually fell down a manhole. The lid wasn't really stable or properly fitted. Painful death.....

Work today was really hellish. We had to go up to Birmingham and M managed to take a wrong turn, leaving us stuck in the car for another half hour.

We had gone up there to try to work out what was wrong with the BDC. It refused to boot all the way and blue screened when you tried to log on. Unfortunately I left my Bootable Business Card (Linux distro that runs from a 40Mb CD) in Swindon so we couldn't get on it and access the network from it that way either.

Repairing or reinstalling NT failed as it couldn't copy lots and lots of files across from the CD so we concluded that it had a duff hard disk, we ended up disconnecting it so we could return to Swindon and replace the disk there. So having the Bootable Business Card wouldn't have done much good anyway. Still, as of tomorrow it will live in the Technet folder!

Took a lunch break during which I located Forbidden Planet and picked up some Doctor Who CDs and books. Then it was back to the office for testing of the Evil Database. It is evil because it needs a unique frontend for each user so we have a lot of messing around with scripts to select the correct one. Add to this the confusion of accessing it from multiple NT domains and you end up with a 10 minute wait from double click to Access appearing on screen.

My own database (still under construction) sits on MySQL on a Linux box and a PHP3/HTML front end, time from double click? 1 second.

Of course, removing the BDC also removed the plot server, so we had to set up the PDC as a temporary replacement plot server. HA! We ended up messing about with different versions of the server software and drivers, and had to have some CDs mounted on network shares in Swindon so we could access them up North.

We finally got that sorted and headed home, the plans to spend the afternoon in Swindon were scrapped and I made it back to my place at 18:00.

I then sorted out my bank statements (my floor now actually has space on it!) and listened to the first episode of one the Doctor Who CDs, it is the best yet.

Then it was time to connect to the net and discover that somebody had cooled inter-culteral misunderstandings, being my first cool I was forced into smug mode (see Red Dwarf - maybe). I also found that the rating on May 16, 2000 is now my highest so I will keep writing up my life for anybody (or should that be everybody) to read. I then requested a kill for another witeup of mine that had ended up as low as May etc was high, looking back it wasn't as good as I thought.

A few days ago I complained to ZZN about a spammer and got a nice response that assumed I was a ZZN member and had access to their red list. I wrote back and got this automatic response.

I'm now off to listen to some more Doctor Who and room cleaning (shiver), but I think this will push me up a level so that is two great everythings to happen to me today :) .
I got to sleep in this morning, but I still got up around 8:30. I had forgotten how calm it is to be able to take your time on a day normally not allotted to you to slow down, a weekday. I still did my regimen at the gym to retain a sense of structure until my dental appointment at 1:30, where I was to debate what part of my neglected mouth I could afford this month. I can't sit still with even a handful of hours left vacant during daylight, and I wanted to enjoy as much sunlight as I could that would normally be dictated by the glint of heat coming off parked cars at work. I went to Rue De La Course and had my usual, sitting outside to blissfully watch eclectic traffic swim by while the day slowly heated up. On the drive uptown, I saw a Festiva like mine on a used car lot with a price tag of $3,500. Even though that's horribly inflated (our own dealership's inflated price for one was $1,500), it made me feel a little better about driving a tin can.

For some reason, I didn't want people to see that I was reading Microserfs by Douglas Coupland. I folded the cover over whenever I put it down. He's gotten to be almost an icon, and I felt like I was just another Gen Xer grasping for his wisdom. I didn't want to appear so desperate. There was a cute guy sitting across the sidewalk patio wearing a red gingham shirt, brown slacks, and black Converse low-tops that were quite clean and new looking but already had a torn sole like a flap, showing his bare heel like a scar. He had a sleepy Labrador pup by his feet. An Asian girl came over to pet it, and he looked at the top of her head while she was stooping to scratch its belly. I don't think he knew her, but they were both likely in college, so it felt safe. He watched her walk away with a more clean cut geek, her own Labrador pup tagging slowly behind her. When he rose to leave a little later, I noticed his courier bag was turquoise, and I marveled at the colors he put together almost effortlessly. Most guys I notice are like that.

One image that will always be cool to me is a guy riding a Vespa. Those things had such bubbly, stylish dimensions, and it's cool to see people my age still enjoying them. I also like the audacious colors they used to paint Ford Escorts in the early 90's, those brassy purples and pinks. The colors they choose to paint cars reflects a lot about ourselves, or at least, what corporations have discovered about our tastes.

It was around 10am by this point, and I was shocked by the number of people my age in the café. It is easy to forget that this is a college hangout and that college kids don't often adhere to the same kinds of schedules that I do; their job is to be in college, to sit in open spaces and study everything but themselves. It seems they are always missing what I catch, the magic of watching people in motion. Perhaps my head is just a little clearer. I was like them once. We all are, at some point in our lives, students.

In the bathroom, someone got creative with a silver pen and scrolled a wall sized profile of a man smoking a joint. When I sit down, I see in front of me written: Want to play toilet tennis? Look left. I look left and on the door is written: look right. Neat joke. Also written by the profile is: This is just like my life. Upon leaving, that line echoes in my head. This is like how a life is. This is what life looks like. Outside, an employee has brought out a mop to clean someone's mocha off the sidewalk. Above me, outdoor fans that seemingly do little to circulate the air swing like long drop earrings someone forgot. Out here, all the tables and chairs lean to the street, following the slope of the sidewalk. No one really gets comfortable in patio chairs, I'm convinced. We all have to shift our feet in varying positions because we know the flimsy plastic legs could buckle at any moment. We have to work hard to be aware of things that are not natural, like wood or earth, because we know that man-made things are known to buckle. They can never fully support our weight so they should never be fully trusted.

Another guy sits at a table facing me, a long herd of empty tables between us. He has on green Doc Martens and a darker green baseball cap. Thin, black-framed glasses bring his eyes out from under blonde frosted hair, which he shows me when he takes his hat off. In response, I shake my hair out from its bun, as though we are showing something about ourselves in that moment. We both are prone to staring off, away from our books, so it's natural that our eyes would meet. His book is twice as thick as mine, but his coffee is the same size. Another, more unflattering guy to my right asks that I keep an eye on his table while he goes to buy cigarettes, and for once I actually had to tell people that a table was taken. He returns and thanks me, and I am thankful he doesn't use this exchange as an excuse to strike up a conversation with me. I have my person to watch already. I didn't look at Mr. Green Docs because I wanted a reaction, but we exchanged things back and forth. A girl walked by dressed in what I suppose were the latest fashions, high water pants with ribbons of multicolored fabric sewn to the cuffs, chunky slides and a tropical pink tank top. He looked over every girl that walked by, and to this one he looked up at me right afterward to find that I was shaking my head and smiling my judgement on her dated apparel. He got up to leave, walking almost directly toward my table, then swerved gently to the left, bringing him back to the center of the sidewalk. I'm glad he did, because I don't come here for conversation.

The days are slipping through too quickly. It took a long time to get out of bed this morning, the bed was soft and comfortable. Shortly after I made it out, I got back in.

My mechanic called and we talked over the work on my car, it is now to a point where he feels happy. He is an unusual mechanic, caring deeply about the condition of my car, shockingly honest, I am lucky to finally have him. The total rolls in around $1,500, not bad since I expect to spend $2,000 a year on assorted upkeep. He details some of the things my previous mechanic fucked up deep inside the car. I thank him his diligent work. It will nice to drive again, a roadtrip to Canada is likely now.

Lounging on the green gold couch, I enjoy the taste of pie for breakfast. In the dreams I shed upon waking, I had purchased cereal, so it was a bit disappointing to find the cupboards empty. The sounds of a train echos into the house, I grab the camera and a pair of shoes, walking down to sit on a curb near the tracks. There is a nice, large, gritty rock that I amuse myself with until the steel rolls into view. Walking away afterwards, I notice the barrel of the zoom lens appears loose, something rattles inside, and it irritates me.

A short bath, and then I am away walking. First the bank to shuffle money around, the tellers are always nice in a non-plastic way. There are so many people to watch on my way under leaves and sun shadows, interesting, attractive, curious people. Near work, a car honks, and it is not until the distance between is cut in half that I recognize who it is and wave back. Part of that is eyesight, the other is a routine problem comprehending things I see. A change of hairstyle which will not throw others off, can render someone a complete stranger to me. Part of this may relate to my absence of visual memory, I am not sure, it does not bother me very much anyways.

Eyes feel slightly tired today, work is very vacant quiet right now.
We finished up Mom's hospital tests today, but we won't find out the results until Friday. Over the last two years I've been in hospitals more than I would like, and it looks like I may go in myself sometime in the next two months (ganglion cyst). In brighter news, we will probably have our stuff moved to California on June 6, 2000, but we'll leave before that; as much before that as possible, in fact. Let me out of here!

"since feeling is first" will be my entry for today once I find the journal I mentioned yesterday. It still seems strange that he's not here, but that's okay, I wouldn't want it to feel normal. I actually feel sort of homesick, but I guess that makes sense in a way--home is wherever we are together.

Tomorrow I may hang out with my friend Chris, back from Korea and the Army for a few more days. Maybe he can help me with the yard sale if I take him out for lunch...Lots of junk to get rid of, how can anyone accumulate this much stuff? I'd like to live all Zen-like and clutter-free after I move, so, I'm ditching lots. Anyone want to buy a Ghost in the Shell wallscroll or an SD Urd resin model?

17 May is the Norwegian national day. So I spendt the day as most people my age spend the national day. Partying.

Day 2 of my two-day DMV torment. They claim they did not receive the faxed license they were supposed to have gotten yesterday. (Who do I have to bribe to make sure they don't just throw it out?) The Ice Bag says "Didn't you storm out of here last night?"
No, I wasn't angry last night, I think I did a fine job of keeping my cool... I hadn't expected a smooth transaction, I didn't get one, I wasn't really disappointed. WHY, DID YOU MISS YOUR GODDAMN QUOTA OF PISSED-OFF MOTORISTS?
She proceeds to explain how, if I want a transfer from joint-ownership to single-ownership, both owners must sign the title as "sellers" and I have to sign as "purchaser". This is pretty much exactly what I did last time I transferred a title here, for which she condescended to me, made noises as if I had brough the whole process to a grinding halt, and that some doom would then befall me and my hapless vehicle. (That time, she must have spoken to her supervisor, who I can only assume told her "if you can't get the stick out from up your ass, at least get the stick out from up the ass of the stick up your ass.")
THIS time around, however, I am on to her game. I know the roadblocks to expect, the co-owner will gladly sign off this weekend, and if the Ice Bag gives me any flak I'll smooch her. If that doesn't incapacitate her, nothing will, and I'll have solved the riddle of the Antichrist's identity. ("Man nor beast"...)
Lee agrees to lend me some CCR cd's. "Lodi" sums up my feelings, in the funny good way, today.

-/+


This has been noded for consistency's sake only.

Because nothing happened today. I woke up, I went on watch, I got off watch, we had a very busy general quarters drill, I did pretty well, and then I got off watch and read a little e2, and then I ate and then I napped and then we had a meeting, and then I read a little more e2 and then I went to bed and the whole day was pretty much worthless.
Oh, except I finished a press release

Which means I made more money, which means I can pay off more bills, which means that someday we may be able to actually get our heads above water long enough to buy a house. If we ever do this, then I want to get some land and a cabin somewhere rural, maybe the southwest, maybe just local in SoCal, but it's hard to find rural for cheap in SoCal. I'll hope and pine for that another daylog.
Anyway, that was the day, for what it was worth. The day is gone and I will never get it back.

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