Six Feet Under

So, it’s 9pm on Sunday night, and my favorite show of the summer is starting. I bought a 25 ft. phone cord last night so I can sit on the couch in the sunroom, watch TV and be signed on. Yeah, baby. This is my substitute or wireless networking, my friends. I would love to have DSL, a wireless gateway, wireless network cards and other cool tools, but hey, that costs money. The phone cord was $2.99. Here’s dreaming.

My computer downstairs isn’t even connected to a phone line. It’s three years old, starting to breakdown, and there’s no replacement on the horizon. Yeah, baby, this is the highlife.

Why do I bring this up? No idea… just rambling. I’m the only one I know of my friends at work with a wife, a kid and a mortgage, well, with a wife that stays home. (take your meds, Billy… sorry Six Feet Under moment). I love my life, but I sometimes watch my friends and wonder what it would be like to be able to go out on the weekend without worrying about Max and if he’s all right. To be able to go out and spend money without worrying about the mortgage. Yep, responsibility… it’s a bitch. But, I really (and I mean it this time) wouldn’t have it any other way. Max only gets more fun. He’s hilarious. He’s not saying words, but his babbling is becoming more intoned and animated. It’s too funny to listen to him babble away.

It’s funny. We make decisions with no real idea what the consequences will be. Thankfully, most of the time, things work out. We make it work. I’m glad that when I got married I knew what I was getting into. I knew what I wanted out my marriage, and I think we’re doing a pretty good job as a couple and as parents. So, that’s the state of the union. Now, back to the show… and Sweetie, I’m sorry. I hit the record button @ 9, but it didn’t start. I’ll fill you in when you get home.

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Categorized as tv

Let’s see if this works

I’m using Mozilla to write this post. We’ll see how this goes.

I love other peoples’ photos. Why? I’m not really sure. I like seeing what matters to people I don’t really know. It takes some effort (a lot less than it used to) to post photos. You have to either suck them off your digital camera or worse yet, scan them, create the pages for the photos and then upload the whole mess. Yup, that’s effort. So, what makes people do this? Other than people who post just for family members, which makes perfect sense, why would people post their vacation photos from their trip to Boston or who knows where and then tell everyone where they are? It’s fascinating to me. I love looking at this window of a moment in someone else’s life and seeing what I can learn from them.

Usually, not much. But, sometimes, there’s that perfect image of a party with smiling faces, arms around shoulders, drinks in hand. A picture of a family, doing normal family stuff in the backyard. Kids smiling. Parents smiling. It’s just great.

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Categorized as blogging

What is it about accomplishment

What is it about accomplishment that’s totally re-energizing? After my brilliance this week, I feel like working again. I don’t feel like doing nothing, and grudgingly doing my job. I feel like doing it in new and fantastic ways, with plastic spoons. No, really, I’m amped. I think this new “get cool results by getting idiots to learn just some html tags” is really cool. It should save me from having to do things all the time, and I’ll really only have to write the tags once, make sure they work, and then unleash them on an unsuspecting world. Sure, I may be writing myself out of a job, but I’m tired of doing the same thing every day anyway. Without giving away too much, I’ll try to keep y’all updated on my quest to replace myself with HTML. It’ll work, I swear on Tim Berners-Lee’s shiny bald spot.

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Categorized as geekery

I am just blown away

I am just blown away by this image. I reminds me of the little characters my brother, Tim, and I used to draw in high school. We’d draw a little person form, and then only fill in parts of the person, so they ended as these humanoid sculptures. It sounds a lot cooler than we ever got them to turn out. This is cool… but, so is the rest of the site.

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Categorized as computing

Random Notes From the Underbelly

Just because I’m a glutton for punishment, I watched Six Feet Under again. Yes, the one that ruined me on Sunday. Why? Jen hadn’t seen it, and I talked it up so much, she had to. So, I sat there and steeled myself against what I knew was coming. I got a little choked up, but no actual tears this time. Yes!

You know what’s sad though? Jen didn’t cry at all, didn’t even snorffle once! I was amazed. Her explanation was that she had detached herself from it and it didn’t get to her. Yeah, well, it got to me, lady… it got me good.

I’m still basking in the glow of my genius from yesterday. So much so that I’m not even thinking about any rumored impending layoffs.

Max digs couscous!! I went a little nuts at the grocery store the other night and got couscous and hummus and other weirdities. The hummus was assy, but that couscous was yummy. Max used his little spoon on the little pasta and fed himself until we had to stop him. He’s a funny kid.

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Categorized as tv

Days of Caffeine and Genius

Yes folks, you heard it here first. I am a genius. I rule absolutely with an iron fist and Burger King crown. Baby, I am IT. I feel so much better. I took something written for a different web server, using a completely different language and underlying technology, and ported it to AOLserver. Yes, ladies and gentlemen, you may bow before your leader and say, “Kevin, you’re the greatest!” You know you wanna…

And moving on… I think the season of Big Brother is miles ahead of last summer’s snorefest. The evil inside that house is eeee-eeeexcellent to behold. Everyone’s playing the game with a Richard Hatch-like perversity, and I love it. Will especially. I hope he’s one of the final two just so everyone can stand in awe of his evilness. Yes ma’am, that’s one slimy customer.

And one more thing… Max and I came up with a new word last night: Doodootecque: not sure what it means, but it sure is fun to say. It made Max laugh and laugh last night, so I think I’ll keep saying it. I’ll define it later.

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Categorized as funny

Let’s Delay the Pain!

Yeah, that’s a good idea. So, the big layoffs that all the media outlets were reporting haven’t happened yet. What fun. I even came in early today to be here when it happened. Why? I hate walking in on the middle of a disaster. I like to be there when it happens. It just makes dealing with it easier. I missed the last one, and didn’t get to say good-bye. If it’s going to happen, I want to see it.

As someone said to me at an airport, “Corporations are bastards”. The people who work there do their jobs and are usually decent folk. Somehow, when viewed as a single entity, something bastardly takes over. I don’t know if it comes from management, or if it just happens. I give up trying to explain it. Just make it go away…

Ruined Six Feet Under ruined

Ruined Six Feet Under ruined me last night. In the first two minutes, I knew what was going to happen. I wanted to turn the TV off, run upstairs and check on Max, even though I know he’s almost two and that SIDS happens between birth and 18 months. The very thought that something like that could happen was enough. I cried.

Then, when Frederico had to embalm that three-week old baby and held his still little hand, I cried again. It was just so unfair that this young father (well, he’s the same age I am), who has one child and another imminent, had to deal with the idea of a dead child just stabbed me in the heart.

And the end of the show, when they had their own baby by c-section, JUST like we did, and the look on his face when he heard his new son cry for the first time – I lost it completely. I sat there alone in the dark with the credits rolling blubbering like a child.

I love that show. I love that it makes me feel. Most TV is absolute garbage. So much so that watching TV on Sunday (Sex and the City and Six Feet Under) makes the rest of the week painful. Jen mentioned that yesterday afternoon. She’s so smart.

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Categorized as tv

I don’t want to do this

I don’t want to do this… I don’t want my blog to become one of those “I hate my job” daily tirades, but this week, I do. I’m tired of feeling overworked and under siege by project managers. How many project managers does ONE project need? Now, instead of dealing with one person who asks me questions and makes me do stuff, I deal with 5 or 6, which greatly increases my pissed-off quotient (by a magnitude of 5 or 6), and makes my job that much harder. Stupid stupid stupid.

On TOP of that, I have to deal with impending doom, and the possibility that one of my best friends at work might get carried away by it. That pisses me off. So, to sum up, this week has pissed me off. I feel like I’m on the edge of some emotional breakdown, and will just kick the next person who walks by squarely in the nuts.

On a happy notes, during one of my mental health breaks this week, I came up with this, which I think is really cool, and I’d do it, but I know how much people hate pop-up windows. But, I love how it’s aligned, and the TV shows up over the menu on the right, and the logo is behind the text. Yeah, it’s cool. I rule, now go away before I kill your testicles with my boot.

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Categorized as Kevin