Never been one to let the carrier drop

My prior landlord chose to sit on a check for four months, and my somewhat less than organized accounting system let it fall off my radar. When deposited, it drew my account negative, and as a result, I got charged two overdraft fees.

These fees.. $34 each.. were for moving bits around in a register.

I’m sorry, but I feel like I’m being taken advantage of here. $34? I could understand $10, but $34? What if I were paid minimum wage? That’d be like five hours of work.. for something that a computer did automatically.

Face it – capitolism is a tool for the evil side of the fence, not the good one.

I posted the pictures from my trip to NZ – they’re at http://gallery.sheer.us/main.php?g2_itemId=3652 if anyone wants to see them.

I’m currently listening to SkyCriesX’s ‘My Broken Dreams’ for about the tenth time this week, and musing about how I need a subwoofer that will fit through my office door (yes, it’s too narrow for my 1801s) – there’s something about the shape of this room that simultaneously eats all bass and makes anything I listen to audiable throughout the entire house (and for all I know, the entire neighborhood)

Kayti wrote this parody for me because when I’m working really hard I say that I’m working my paws to the bone. Obviously it goes to the tune of “Bad to the Bone”:

—

Artist: Ecccentrick Kayteee
Song: Paws to the Bone

On the day I was born
Saw gadgets all strewn around
And I gazed in wide wonder
At the joy I had found
That’s when I spoke up
Said, “Everyone leave me alone
“Because starting today
“I work paws to the bone.”

Paws to the bone
Paws to the bone
P-P-P-P-Paws to the bone
P-P-P-P-Paws
P-P-P-P-Paws
Paws to the bone

Replaced a thousand parts
Before I met you
Replace a thousand more, baby
Before I am through
I wanna write more scripts and apps, babe
Reems and reems of code
I’m here to tell ya, honey
I work paws to the bone

Paws to the bone
P-P-P-Paws
P-P-P-Paws
P-P-P-Paws
Paws to the bone

I make restoring go fast
I’ll make some COBOL seem fun
I’ll fix a database crash
And make a Windows box run
Built a mighty sound system
Which to raves I loan
I’m here to tell ya, honey
I work paws to the bone

P-P-P-P-Paws
P-P-P-P-Paws
P-P-P-P-Paws
Paws to the bone

And when I drive the streets
Past stalls my Tango slides
Every car that I meet
They all stay ‘lectrified
I wanna tell ya, pretty baby
Well, ya see, I made my own
I’m here to tell ya, honey
I work paws to the bone

Paws to the bone
P-P-P-P-Paws
P-P-P-Paws
P-P-P-Paws
Paws to the bone

Well, I survived my trip to New Zealand, and yet another busy day at my main client. I’ve been enjoying listening to the pile of CDs that I brought back from NZ – I’m going to have to stop by the Trance Cart at the spectrum again and buy some more CDs, though. I just can’t get enough.. 😉

I’m trying to get up the energy to make some major architectural changes to one of the peices of software I’m maintaining. I need to have them done by Wednesday if I’m going to do them, and they’d make significant performance improvements if done – but, they would mean basically ripping out a whole bunch of code and moving it to another module, plus adding even more thread management stuff than I already have. I don’t know what I’ll end up deciding to do..

I’m about to leave for home.. things have pretty much wound down around here..

The NZ trip was extremely exhausting.. I felt like I was always ‘on’ every minute I was awake for the entire trip – we got tons done though, and I’m now all set to write the backend. If I can ever find time between all my other jobs.

I sent copies of my bank statements as captured from wamu’s web site to my lawyer.. hopefully I’m getting close to having all the neccesary paperwork in for that process to complete..

Well, work has again taken me to exotic locales – this time, I’m in New Zealand, working with a offshore development firm here. These guys are amazing user interface experts – it’s really fun working with people who actually know more than I do, so much to learn.. 😉

Other than that, NZ is nice.. the 12 hour flight was made bearable by really good sleeping drugs and lots of external batteries.. (For those of you who haven’t seen them, APC sells external laptop batteries.. 65 wh each. They give me about 2.5 hours of runtime each, plus the 2 hours on the internal battery is 7 hours of computational fun.. they were about $75 each at CompUSA’s going-out-of-business sale)

One fun thing about my life is that I had almost no jet lag going to NZ, because 9 AM here is 2 PM at home, so I’m only waking up a hour than I usually would be.

Also, the place we’re working at has a kickass automagic coffee maker.. this thing is beyond cool. Press one button on the front panel and it grinds beans, brews a cup in about 30 seconds. Press another, it adds milk. Only thing it won’t do is put the suger in for you.. (but see next year’s model.. ;-))

I’m also getting in lots of walking.. it’s about a klick from the hotel to where we’re working, mostly uphill 😉 – so there’s some chance I will return lighter than I left, even though the food is definately on the yummy side.

I got a new digital camera (well, actually, it’s a shared purchase) which I’ve been having all kinds of fun with – it’s the first fully manual one I’ve had, and it’s sooo nice having all that flexibility back. (It’s the first time I’ve been able to afford a fully manual one – it was less than my first digital camera!)

Of course, there are the obligatory long-exposure night shots – I’ll post them when I get home..

I grew up all over, but a noticable portion of that all over was in Virginia, and as such, I spent a fair amount of time hanging out at Virginia Tech or with people who went there.

I just today found out about the shootings. A friend of mine made the very astute observation that a equal number of innocents probably die in Iraq every day because of our involvement.. and, as I send in my tax check, that just makes me feel worse.

But the VT thing makes me feel really bad. Partially because it brings back the Blue House thing, and the Fluffy Bunny gun incident, and partially because it’s the first bad memory that I have associated with vt. Kind of feel like I lost some kind of virginity there..

I mean, I was writing in a friend’s blog about it and I just couldn’t stop feeling closer and closer to crying, and I knew the things I was writing were making less and less sense and I really wanted to just tell myself to shut up..

It shouldn’t hurt me. I wasn’t there. I didn’t go there, I just hung out there occasionally. I almost certainly didn’t know anyone involved. But it *hurts*.

Ripples spread outward. Just like Dancerboy. I didn’t know him. But it hurt anyway.

I need to find some way to get a thicker psychic skin. These things that just glance off of most other people leaving no damage can leave me depressed and unhappy for days. I feel like there’s some kind of emotional issue that I have tied up in this particular shooting that I need to get rid of – maybe it’s because I never really properly expressed my unhappiness and pain over the Blue House thing, or because I feel like my friendship with Jesiah completely dissapeared afterwords.. mostly my fault, I was hiding in my house going slowly crazy..

(I really don’t miss that. You all will notice the counter at the top of sheer.us, I do really appear to be all, or at least mostly, better. I guess having failed the 12-step program I tried the 1-step program and found it more effective)

Anyway, I digress. I’m really unhappy about this whole shooting thing. Partially because IT KEEPS HAPPENING.

John Locke.

Blue House.

Virginia Tech.

Those are the three that I feel I have some connection with, although my connection with Locke and with VT is kind of tenuous. But those are just the ones that jump to the top of my head. Then there’s friends carrying guns.. I was so unhappy when I found out a friend of mine in AR was running drugs (Which I don’t care about) and packing heat (which I hate. Deal all the drugs you want, but there’s no amount of money nor weed that’s worth pulling a trigger over.)

I try to stay as far away from the news as I can. This has done wonders for my happiness and peace of mind, but it has the downside that whenever some does leak through, it’s always bloody awful.

Why couldn’t $DIETY_OF_YOUR_CHOICE have included file permissions?

chmod ugo-x *

S.

After many years of being 404, something again answers at fred.indstate.edu 2150

Oh no.

Having at least fought a successful holding action with one addiction (90 days) I’m now going to be plunged back into the very first addiction I ever had?

One hopes not.

Ask me not why I felt the urge to look.

1) Sorry I haven’t been reading my friends page, returning calls, answering emails, etc 😉 I had a truly insane month last month, including trips to MN and CO, a visit from my parents, bronchitis, and a host of other fun challenges.

2) From the makers of Reuben and Ed:

http://www.hearingvoices.com/webwork/trent/vid/bushisms.mov

isn’t one of my routine instruments, but lately i’ve been missing my guitar.. I have a blue Jackson that’s rather beat up – whammy bar socket cracked, electronics have been replaced twice, constantly in need of something.. but I really enjoy, once every few months, belting out a few power chords.

However, lately, I’ve been feeling the urge, and I just don’t have time to

1) Find the guitar.. I know it’s one of these guitar cases, but which one?
2) Find the POD
3) Find the POD’s power supply
4) Find all the appropraite interconnect cables

Not to mention, there’s the issue of me subjecting Kayti to my rather weak guitar skills – I mean, let’s be honest, electric guitar was not meant to be played through headphones, and I’m no Van Halen.

S.