Desert Living

It's been a long while since I've updated this here page so I guess I could start with the basics. The move went well. I only fucked up with the truck itself once, and with the trailer maybe 3 times. I saw a huge amount of the country in a span of only 4 days, although a lot of it was under cover of night. I had one very horrible drive, as well as 3 not-as-bad drives, which I shall now detail for my future amusement.

The Move:

Day 1

I woke up ass early on day one to grab the moving truck from the Penske rental center down the road. I was told the truck I received was the newest of all on the lot and, barring one side of the thing, it was in decent shape superficially. I signed the necessary papers, made some small talk with the shop owners, and drove the truck out to begin the arduous task of moving all of my amassed junk from one side of the country to the other. I parked the truck squarely in front of the apartment building, unrolled the ramp, and began lugging junk from point A to point B ceaselessly. You never realize how much junk you've amassed over the years until the fateful day comes in which you need to move all of it. My bedroom, big enough to house my bed and dresser (but not much else), during the task of moving soon took on the dimensions of a cavernous basement. I did not realize I had managed to shove so much into so few nooks and crannies, and the sheer volume of shit began to irk me, provoking me to outright toss the more useless trinkets and baubles into the garbage. Thankfully, I had the assistance of Jim and Nubs, as well as Sadie when loading the truck so it did not end up being as laborious as it could have been, but all in all it was the second worst part of the moving experience. Eventually, after much shoving and shifting, everything was loaded. I bid adieu to my friends, closed up the truck, and Sadie and I made our way back to the rental facility to pick up the trailer.

The car trailer (yes, it deserves its own paragraph):
When we left with the truck, our rental-master told us if we were back before noon they would be there to help us with hooking up the trailer. As unluck would have it, we did not arrive in time. We had to figure out how to finagle the damn thing onto the truck ourselves. We fucked it up once, and holy shit was it scary (though my car was going to end up smashed since the trailer popped off the hitch and started rolling down the slight gradient it was placed upon) but in the end we got it figured out and headed out on the first very long drive of the trip.

Day one took us from Pennsylvania all the way to Tennessee, much of it happening through the night. It was an outrageously long journey, but not especially difficult. Having Sadie in the front to help me stay entertained certainly was helpful. Eventually we made it to her cat-shit filled, somewhat dilapidated housing situation and promptly took our rest to prepare for one of the longest days of my entire life.

Westward and Houseward Bound

So great and mighty interfarts, it appears I've finally gotten myself a place to call my own (since the Hawthorne apartment was leased under Jim's name). It took awhile, but I'm thinking it will be worth it in the end. I hope it becomes a vacation destination for my friends out east, and I'm hoping for a few weeks a year spent with them in my place. I, of course, will be visiting them as well. There are some repairs which need made, some minor, others not so much. I'm pretty nervous about driving a truck with a trailer on it, but thousands do it every day so it must not be too tough. Just have to make sure I don't knock anyone off course.

Real Estate Woes and Waffling

Suffice to say it is difficult buying a house in Phoenix. I am fully qualified to own one, however I've yet to even get an offer accepted by any sellers. The issue hinges on the market crash and after effects. Investors are swooping in and buying up all the houses at my price point to flip them or rent them out. For a home buyer who just wants to live in a place, this presents difficulties. This being the case, I've decided that no matter what happens, house or no I'm planning on leaving the second week of October and staying in a furnished apartment till the one house we truly love falls into our lap.

On John's suggestion we visited Maricopa and though the area seems nice it's pretty far from Phoenix proper. Sadie is not much interested in living out there and I can't disagree with that. It's a brand new town, incorporated in 2003, and it doesn't have much in the way of amenities at the moment. I'm not saying it won't take off, but as of today there's not enough there to entice me to live there. Plus, it adds about an hour to the Havasu drive which is long enough to begin with.

The vacation was pretty great, minus the housing issues. I stayed at my grandparents' new place and reveled in its awesomeness. We swam in the lake, met herpes fish, and generally lazed about. I went to see Nickolas for his birthday party and watched him smash his face into the cake repeatedly. I also got to meet Michelle's new friends who have been, from what I hear, very helpful during her time of need. The drive up was even pleasant, as the scenery is just so different and hauntingly beautiful.

We were able to look at a few more houses on Friday before we left, but I didn't feel great about either of them. I had felt kind of worn down from the previous disappointments. In the end it turned out my feeling was correct.

Sadie and I had a bit of a tearful goodbye at the airport, however we knew and still know the future involves being together so there is no reason to be sad.

Sunset over Allegheny

I am getting excited. Only a few more weeks before the yearly vacation down south, and this year, plans to seek out a more permanent domicile. This is going to be a helluva ride.

I talked to my agent yesterday and somewhat hammered out the details of my visit. I'm gonna line up a few places for visitation, a few awesome places I would not mind inhabiting. I've got plans, ideas, and fun things in mind and lined up for the ready. I've got visions of getting a little truck, a trailer, and a jet ski/dune buggy/boat. I've got visions of uprooting any stupid trees, killing any stupid grass, and installing a big motherfucker of a saguaro cactus. I've got visions of lounging around in a large pool, sipping alcoholic drinks, and peeing liberally.

My great white hope hinges on businesses steering clear of any properties I've got my eye on to give me a fighting chance. I'm hoping for a quick, clean sweep. I'm tempted to put an offer in on one house before even visiting it in person, however I feel that would be too much of a gamble seeing as I'd be stuck there for a few years in case there are any issues. Thankfully, for every house that I like which disappears off the market, it seems two crop up to take its place. I'm going to take a bunch of pictures, compare some strengths and weaknesses, and if I'm lucky, be able to put in an offer before the end of the first day of searching.

Absurdly simple? Don't bet on it.

It never ceases to amaze me the ridiculous things people want information about. I suppose it true that my interests, seen by others, may seem as ridiculous as theirs do to me. It's all about capitalizing on those interests, however ridiculous they may seem, and giving the people what they want. That is how business is born.

Of Whiplash and Wind

King's Island was great. It was better than I had remembered. It is nearly on par with Cedar Point for sheer number of great rides, including the classic, rickety, thrillingly terrifying Beast. We got a chance to ride all of the major rides, even though the crowd was quite solid the entire day. Our first stop was at the newest ride, the Diamondback. The experience was Millenium Force lite with wide, sweeping banks, smooth climbs, and some wicked drops. It felt very open and floaty with a good amount of air time. The final stretch, which used water as a breaking system, was a unique experience which soaked my shoulder. A solid 8.

Other than the Diamondback, I had never ridden the Stunt Track or the Firehawk so we eventually made our way to these throughout the day. Stunt Track ended up being a fun little romp through the set of an action film (since it was formerly called The Italian Job this makes sense) which involved a few special effects and some unique features, including a powered launch up a spiral and a stop mid-coaster where an antagonizing helicopter "shoots" the car, causing jets of flame to shoot from the scenery.

The Firehawk has its own story to tell. It started with the end of the Outer Limits ride. I headed off to the bathroom and tried to empty my clogged bowels for the fifth time that day and once again met with failure. I cut my losses and headed to the queue with Rayya and Rob for what appeared would be a thrilling ride. The line was long but the excitement was high. I had never ridden the ride while it was installed at Geagua Lake and known as the X-Flight and had never experienced such a feeling as appeared to be offered by this ride so as I stood it was with anxiousness and a little apprehension in my heart. People were also line-jumping. Rob eventually had enough of this and told a little girl with horrible teeth and a grating voice off, and let the entire line know of her misdeed. Unfortunately it was to no avail as the "honest person" ended up getting in a train ahead of us anyways, but we struck up conversation with the people behind us and it made the line move a little faster. We never learned their names but the adult of the group was a stereotypical ginger redneck from West Virginia. He was full of stories about bar fights, traffic accidents, and previous amusement park experiences and kept us entertained through the long wait. Finally, it was time to strap in. I climbed into the seat, clamped down the harness, and waited with trepidation. We were hauled up the hill backward, taken to the top, and flipped. From then on, it was a bit like what I'd imagine flying like Superman would be. I would have loved another go, but the line was prohibitively long so we declined another wait and instead traipsed over to the Beast for a final night ride. My feet aching, I gimped off to my car with Rob and Rayya close behind and, saying our final goodbyes, sped off into the night.

Last Week, A Summary

So last week was kind of a big deal. I finally broke the news to everyone that I'm moving out west. I was pretty nervous about how they would react, but it was mostly positive. To be honest, I didn't know if they were going to feel like I was abandoning them or what but regardless my mind was and is set on moving. It's nothing personal, just something I've been considering for awhile and now that I have someone to make the journey with me it became almost a no-brainer, especially with housing being so cheap out there. I have been looking into a lot of houses out that way, but unfortunately it's been harder to get ahold of the agent dealing with the house I really like than it should be. I'll be anxiously awaiting a call from him today, but I won't be holding my breath.

The house in question: http://www.realtor.com/realestateandhomes-detail/4621-W-Pleasant-Lane_Laveen_AZ_85339_1110859022

Other houses to consider:

http://www.realtor.com/realestateandhomes-detail/10799-W-Mountain-View-Drive_Avondale_AZ_85323_1102717186

http://www.realtor.com/realestateandhomes-detail/10401-W-Ashbrook-Place_Avondale_AZ_85392_1111291956

The plan for this weekend is a sweet trip to King's Island. I'm pretty excited as I haven't been there since 2003. They have a new, super-wicked looking coaster called the Diamondback that I'm anxious to ride. We'll probably be roughing it for the weekend, which is fine with me. I haven't woken up in a sopping wet vinyl deathtrap for a while.

Having a Grails old time

Since I've been with such a lack of actual programming work for so long, I've taken it upon myself to investigate the Groovy and Grails framework. I am attempting to throw up a neat little forum which links with the Killing Floor server I've got running currently. So far I have the ability to create a player profile object which links to a generic player object. I would like the pool of generic users to be populated from actual server gaming sessions but I'm not at that point as of today. It's almost 6AM and I've slept but 3 whole hours today and tomorrow (later on in the morning) is going to suck.

Otakon 2009

Got back from Otakon last night and I must say it was a pretty great time. From genuine enjoyment of some animes to faux affection from mocking others, all in all it was a good way to spend the weekend. There were a few standouts that I'd like to look into a little more, including Kaze no Stigma, which was about a guy from the fire magic using clan who instead mastered wind magic, and another whose name escapes my grasp at the moment but involved men who slayed and ate gods. I got a King Kittan snap model, some little figurines, and a few pieces from Artist Alley as souveniers. Also saw, in the realm of live action cheesiness, Zombie Mermaid, Black Magic, Cicikman, Death Bell, and Long Dream. I think I ended up watching more live action than anime this year which was fine as the cheesiness quota has not been fulfilled in quite some time.

Spoiler Alert

It's probably my own fault for not reading it earlier but the Harry Potter series was spoiled somewhat for me today. I read the last line, "all was well," and got chills. I'm still in the dark about the goings on of books 5, 6 and 7, but I've no doubt there will be an epic showdown in which many will be hurt, a few will die, people will realize who they are truly meant to be (no more of Harry wondering about Slytherin), and Voldemort will be banished once and for all. I read this line, thought these things, and felt the immense weight of it fall on my shoulders. Strange how three small words in a book I have not even read could physically affect me so. I am excited for the rest of series.

Reminiscing on: Otherland

Otherland will go down as one of my favorite series of all time. Mainly fantasy, but framed by sci-fi, it involves a lot of misfits and miscreants and devious individuals hell-bent on achieving their respective goals, consequences be damned. Nearly every character has an interesting back story, and mesh well with the huge amount of sub plots and interweaving threads introduced throughout the 4000+ page quadrilogy. The series contains many quotable lines, many of which are delivered by !Xabbu, the rest by Martine. It is ultimately a tale 0f g00d versus evil, with clearly defined enemies and doubtlessly pure motives. It leaves the reader somewhat breathless and ragged, throwing them straight into hopeless situation after hopeless situation, with nary a pause to catch one's breath. I was only disappointed that in the end since things turned out better than I had envisioned and seemed sugar coated. Even if it could have been edited somewhat to save on pure word count, I do not regret diving straight in and immersing myself in myriad virtual environments, each more enchanting, ominous, and unstable than the last. It is a must read.

Get it Together!

Once again I am posting a blog entry from work in an attempt to keep my brain stimulated if and when something comes through the pipeline.  We've been operating this way for nearly a month and it's pretty awful.  If I'm going to be driving here every fucking week to work, then by god give me some fucking work to complete!  I'm chatting on Facebook and doing quizzes and waiting, waiting, waiting.  I can't even do a remote login to my development environment at home to improve my programming chops somewhat so I'm just stagnating here.

I suppose on the upside I am talking to a high school buddy of mine whom I have not had a rapport with since 2007 or so.  He has changed a bit, seems a lot calmer but still generally the same.  Perhaps I will hang out with him someday.

Last work day of the week of May 17th, 2009, EVER

Today I woke up on time.  I woke up earlier than on time, as a matter of fact.  Flew through the usual routine and got to work 10 minutes early today!  Got in, browsed the web for a bunch of seconds, updated my Twitter photo and took about 10 Facebook quizzes.  Apparently the VDA is finally loaded into EDW, ready for further perusing this afternoon.  Surprisingly.  Hope Jason won't mind me leaving at around 3 today, I'd love to beat traffic and have a little bit of time at home before heading to Georgia tomorrow.  Ah, I suppose I'll find out soon.

Work? Feh.

So I'm posting a blog entry from work.  So what.  I woke up late today.  Fuck me.  Thankfully nothing has changed since yesterday so I didn't miss out on anything.  This project is trying my patience, I don't understand why it's so hard to set up a fucking test environment correctly.  

Midas raided my coffers and pulled out a crispy Benjamin for a front-end alignment the employee himself said I didn't really need; however the brand new tires on my car's front end and my grandpap's auto-mechanical eye and consequent advice made it worthwhile to me.  Besides, I paid for that alignment with one journey to Gaithersburg, meaning it was as good as free to me so whatever.  I went to a fucking TASTY sushi place called Momo Taro for lunch while waiting for my car.  God DAMN was it good.  Freshest sushi I've ever had.  I had a Crazy Cowboy roll, tobiko, and octopus and wow-wee!  I'll have to frequent the place a lot more often.

Jason's call is nearly over so perhaps we'll get some sort of worthwhile update on the testing environment.  Here's hoping!

Existential Musings

Being a computer programmer makes it very easy to delve into existential thoughts.  The more one thinks about the inner workings of such a machine, the more one realizes a system, reliant on the same principles but sufficiently advanced in speed and capacity could recreate this reality of ours.  The predisposition to reading works of sci-fi and especially Philip K. Dick's version of the world seems a perfectly natural interest.

Bands to Check Out

From Jason Marty:

Fischerspooner

From Mark Ellis:

Lamont

Fu Manchu

Cave In - Antenna

Saviours - Into Abbadon

Suplecs

From Matt Humphrey:

Neurosis

Shellac

Slint

Big Black (not rapper)

Swans

The Jesus Lizard

An Idea...

What could I do with a story about a guy who plays lullabies to himself to fall asleep?

God, working here is not too fun.

Real life screenshots of the suburban hellhole surrounding Sodexo



Yup...



Parking garage



Man made lake

Update: Still can't play my Xbox here

Rockville, MD: India Garden

I ate some Indian (sub-continental peoples, not aboriginal Americans) food at an Indian restaurant this evening. I gruffled some flat bread, some samosa, and of course the ever-popular curry chicken. I was quite pleased with the visit, even though one of our waiters seemed to have trouble with the English language. This visit was suffixed by a futile stop at Best Buy, which resulted in me paying $26 for a hunk of useless plastic. This hotel is determined to keep me from playing my goddamned XBox.

Crazy Bitch

I am listening to the Pantera song Rise and I'm drawing a lot of parallels between Phil and the lead singer of Otep in vocal style and delivery. Makes sense, as I'd imagine Pantera heavily influenced her.

Gaithersburg is... well, you know the rest

Yeah, so this project is a load of shit. We know why we're there, but we don't have any specifics. That sucks nuts. In the meantime, I suppose I'll try to take some pictures from on-site, they have a pretty great view from the 6th floor. I also am fairly certain I'm going to have to shove all my visiting time with Sadie into a ~2 day period. Ugh. Guess that's what I get for not working nearly all of February.

Princeton -- I am here, so what.

So I've been in Princeton for a good 2 days now and, well, nothing is special about it compared to any other place I've been for a gig. I've been chillin' at RadPharm wit' my homie Arun, kickin' it with some Loadrunner scripting and questions relating from said activity. So far this has been a pretty simple, but VERY tedious exercise in copy/paste and manual walkthrough. If only there were a way of recording this in QTP and transferring it to a Loadrunner VUGen script. It would make so much more sense. I took some pictures too, which I plan on uploading to teh webbars once I get home on Friday to grab my camera cable. Rest assured, they are quite exciting, one of which features wild fauna in their natural habitat! Stay tuned to see which one!



Well well, it would appear I am acting pretty eco friendly here!



Here I am, 302 Carnegie Center (Avenue)



This is not the building I went to!



This, however, is.



This would be the parking lot at dusk. Some sort of saying that equates to "the beauty of the urban sprawl."



Goosen



The Princeton Courtyard Marriott



The Mike's Princeton Courtyard bed



The Spicy Chicken Sandwich combo!!!



The somewhat comfy Marriott robe

Lowering the Ears

Today I got a haircut, the first one in about 6 months. It feels strange, the cold cuts through to my head and ears much more easily than before. Something about it makes me feel different, perhaps more attentive to the environment. I was reading an article in one of those Southwest magazines during a flight one time and there was an article a head-shaving type of guy wrote. He explained that it makes you feel good, your scalp feels tingly against the wind. I'm getting some of that, but I do not wish to brave that territory anytime soon. It's cold, Sadie wouldn't appreciate it, and moreover, I don't have the desire. I'll know the time is right when an inextinguishable flame is lit in my heart to become a Buddhist monk. I think I'm all ready to fly out to Philly tomorrow evening, but we'll have to see how ready I am to start this LoadRunner scripting. Baptism by fire, I suppose.

Well Stymie My Windpipe...

Is a very Señor Cardgage and/or Homsar thing to say.

Learning Loadrunning

I have about 2 days to get my ass in gear and learn Loadrunner so I can try to implement some testing next week somewhere near Princeton University. HB mentioned some bullcrap about not getting raises this year, but thankfully he's going to have a talk with Mel and Nate about it. I'm wondering how much strictly enforcing this policy will affect employee turnover because I have a feeling a few of the guys (myself included) won't be too thrilled with this idea, especially if they've improved their skillset a considerable amount since last year. I suppose we shall see. I am hoping it won't fuck us too badly since that would likely mean more work dumped on my shoulders, but it's not likely I'll quit anytime soon since it affords me many opportunities to go and visit Sadie.

Pain in the Wallet

Ended up going down the worst route... got an Arcade plus an EXTENDED fucking warranty. Never again. To add insult to injury, I'm not going to be able to use all the hard drive space from my Elite drive because for whatever stupid reason this XBox doesn't recognize a few of the games are already installed to the hard drive. Urgh. I guess I should be glad that's one of the biggest problems in my life.

FUCK THE XLOSS 3SHITTY

I smoked some salvia divinorum on February 17th, and again on February 2oth. The first experience was nothing to write home about, I had a strange feeling of pins and needles all over my body and distorted vision, but I didn't feel or see anything. However, on the 20th, shit got real. I took a hit, relaxed, and fell into another dimension. I didn't get the full trip effect for there was no full disassociation of body and mind, but I definitely hallucinated. I was hearing and seeing things that weren't there, or more accurately, seeing things that WERE there in a completely different way. I got the pins and needles sensation once again but this time it was accompianied by visual distortion that can be best described as "making the world 2D." I felt like i was running along boundaries that didn't exist where two colors from separate objects formed one contiguous plane. I could have sworn the music that was playing was describing the situation in my mind as it happened. I would like to do it again, this time for real. I want to break through and place my conciousness into another entity, whether it be a brick, a rabbit, or another human.

XBox in a Messbox

So I still haven't been able to fix my XBox and doubt the project will ever come to fruition now that I've found out my particular XBox fan does not use the standard plug. I need a 3 prong fan and I don't know if i can even get one anywhere. This blows. I'm thinking I may just buy an arcade version and say fuck it since nothing seems to be working as I hoped it would. At least all my save files will be there.

2D Game Notes

XNA 2D game creation notes:

• Create method for handling multiple tilesets per map of differing sizes
• Allow map file to specify tile set, tile size, layer depth, collision and occlusion properties
• Allow also to set parallax scrolling variables
• Create method for automatically loading relevant tilesets and objects into memory on map load
  

A Mental Stretch

At the moment I am watching an advertisement for an "indian head" coin. This coin features a Native American in a headdress, opposite a bald eagle. Who are they catering to? Are they catering to the people who were beat down, spat on and nearly destroyed by the invading European settlers? Are they catering to the DDT infested surviving bald eagles? Or are they catering to the coin collectors who... collect coins and think nothing of the significance of the embossed figures? In all honesty, I don't give a shit, this is more a mental exercise to help raise the mental fog I'm feeling.

Migration Utility Ideas

A short (or not so short) list of features to include in the migration utility GUI:

• Source/Destination project browsing by tree control (implemented)
  
• Attachment count/link count per project (not implemented)
  
• Total size of all attachments (not implemented)
• Listing of test linkages (not implemented)
• Validate valid source/destination fields via dropdown list (not implemented)
• Validate valid source/destination field values (list fields only) via dropdown list (not implemented)
• Allow creation of freeform transform code (not implemented)
• Allow creation of transform code via wizard (not implemented)
• Allow creation of transform sheets for each module: Requirements, Test Plan, Test Lab, Defects (not implemented)
• Allow user to choose migration options including: Migration without attachments, selecting source folder and destination folder when dealing with Test Plan and Test Lab modules (not implemented)
• Allow user to create destination folder on the fly by pulling destination directories into a tree control (not implemented)

If any other neat idea crosses my mind, I'll be sure to add it.

Joke in the Machine

Thank goodness I figured out the bug in the migration utility, it's really off-putting when record counts don't match up and you can't understand why. Tomorrow I shall test it on the unwitting system. Things next week should be pretty cool. I've been wanting to at least walk around Nashville since I started making regular trips down and it just may happen this time around. Even if it's nothing spectacular, it'll be something to do to kill an afternoon.

There once was a thief. This thief was distinct from ordinary thieves for he only sought the most valuable of commodities: knowledge. Reports of his burglaries baffled police; car gloveboxes broken into to steal instruction manuals, libraries raided, department stores with instructionless appliances, mailboxes with the names and numbers peeled off. Knowledge, the most valuable resource of all, was being hoarded by one man, leaving the world worse for wear.

Meatborn Civil Lickballs

So... I had a dream about being in what I believe was Willy Wonka's chocolate factory. I was a student in Dr. House's class and for whatever reason was sent to defuse a hostage situation occurring at said place. I was sent along with other people in the class to search through the factory to find two rooms with master mainframe data. I copied this data to some SD cards and destroyed the terminals in order to diffuse the situation. The cops commended my bravery but did not explain the purpose of my actions, nor offered any updates on the situation. Afterwards we headed to the basement of the factory. Along the way people got lost and disappeared and such, mainly because House told us to meet in the basement and we had no idea how to reach the place. After awhile everyone found the place, which consisted of a damp brick room with metal floors and a few giant metal slides. We inserted the cards into a machine located next to the slide and House encouraged us to act as he would when getting on a slide (by this point he was basically a paraplegic for some reason) so that meant no using legs. He yelled at me because, well, I had never impersonated him before and I was using my legs, so I prompty stopped using them lest I get fired. As each person came to the slide, they inserted their own cards into the machine, but the machine eventually got overloaded. It stopped working and shut down the power in the whole basement. At this point House mentioned something about "meatborn civil lickballs" in reference to the music someone began playing after the power went out. The whole time Sadie was also there as part of the class, researching a mass murderer named Williamson whos ghost apparently haunted the place. Then I woke up. What the fuck.