What fun

I decided a few months ago, when I figured out that I was going to be a full time student, that I needed to go ahead and get a "smart phone." The issue is finding one that is practical for my job and for school as well as personal use. After reading several reviews I narrowed it down to 4. The iphone, a blackberry, a blackjack, or the new and upcoming Motorola Q phone were my narrowed down options. I quickly omitted the iphone, don't get me wrong, great phone for a lot of people. It doesn't make sense for me to get one though. Primary reason is that I would ruin it in a week, two at best. Touch-screen phones aren't great for those of us who work with paint, drywall, and various textures. I would kill the touchscreen without knowing it and that would be wasting $500 in a hurry. Add to that I have a 30GB ipod and it handles music, pictures, video, contacts and the like as I tell it to.

I finally came to the decision of the Moto Q. So far I like it, a shiny new toy that talks to my PC. I have to admit that it integrates nicely with Office 2007 (word, excel, powerpoint viewing, and one note) and with Windows Vista. You can make or view new documents, email attachments and email them out right there. Yeah, i got the unlimited data usage plan. It also has a port for the micro SD flash disks, and my 1GB disk that I bought for my razor is not going to waste. Another feature that sold me on it is the keyboard. According to several reviewers and personal inspection they did it right. I haven't fat fingered the keys once during my "ops check" that I have been doing since earlier this afternoon while working on my project. We will just have to see what I think in a few days after I have had more opportunity to actually use it on the go.

I'm gleeful in my geekness.

Joe.

Technical Difficulties

Well well, two bolg sessions in less than a month. I know you must be asking WTH?

Truth being told I am working on a project for one of my classes and needed a break. This was one of the first things I thought of doing to kill a wee bit of time, how sad for me.

Now onto the subject at hand. My Desktop CRASHED! After 5 or so years of being worked like a mule, it finally said "System failed CPU test" about 6 times then died. The amusing part of this is when it happened I was watching The Lake House on my PC and had to wait until last night to finish it. As if you can't see the ending coming a mile away. Good movie....bad CPU, no cookie. I of course being the tech geek that I am ripped apart my cpu and found scorch marks on the board and little bubbles on the processor itself. Fun times. Long story short I ordered a barebones kit from tigerdirect and it got here last night. Then comes the operation which was rather successfull. Upon closer inspection of the documentation for the motherboard that comes with the bundle it of course states that the board was designed for Windows Vista and the manufacturer will not gaurentee that the entire board is compatible with 98/2K/XP. So now I have that installed and I'm thinking great. I can finally get back to work. The bloody windows firewall is cutting off my internet access while active. I am trying like hell to get it configured properly and failing miserably. So to check my email, find research, and goof off like this I have to do it without a firewall. Windows Vista has got to be the most back ass wards OS for the computer literate I have ever seen. I can get everything I need to changed, but it won't let me get anything out through the bloody firewall. What the hell I ask you, what the hell?

Well I'm headed to the Microsoft site to hopefully find the answers and leave dear Mr. Gates a love letter that some tech in the department of "WTF emails" will more than likely discard like so many others. Use XP as long as you can people. Or do what I'm planning on; MAC.

Thanks a lot Obi-bill Kaboozie.

Joe

Busy Busy Busy

Oh Lord, look at the date. It's been a bit of time (if you define bits in quarters) since my last post. I'm just sitting here wondering why I can't seem to get to sleep and was checking out crazyville for a good giggle-snort. It did not let me down.

Well now, let's field some questions in my head.

Where have I been all year? In Texas working, working, school work, and the occasional fit of sleep. It's been a long and bit of a turbulent year here at the cafe. I've been working on two refurbishments at work since last spring with a third that was a quickie (week and a half) in there just to see if I would actually go insane from it.

Did you go insane? The short answer is yes, although to those who know me there won't be much of a difference.

Have there been any life-altering events these past months? Well there was the feeling like Belton's most wanted for all of ten minutes which I still chuckle about. Then the getting dressed up like a prostitute (yes there was a short skirt and boobs involved in the outfit) for charity. That has, of course, yielded a seemingly endless supply of jokes for my co-workers and friends; because as you know, entertainment is important but mockery is the stuff life is made of. All in good fun of course.

That was just disturbing, but seriously; Life-altering events? Well possibly two. The first is that I am switching from being a part-time student to a full time student in January. I seem to have this equal feeling of calm and mind numbing fear about it. The other is a woman "TA-DA." We've been dating for three months now. My friends like her, my family likes her, but I'm just waiting for the other shoe to drop. Don't get me wrong, I like the girl; but past that I'm not sure of much about the relationship. In my opinion I have exactly ZERO business dating anyone right now. I work 50-60 hours a week, and am taking 9 hours of college this semester. Not what I would call a lot of time for quality time with her. She is great at telling me that she is understanding about all of it but constantly tries to get me to come over and spend time with her when I should be doing schoolwork, which is starting to grate on my nerves. So far however we are doing ok. I think that both of us are working on our shortcomings as far as the other is concerned. I have even committed to doing Thanksgiving with her and her family this year, I hope there will be ham.

So are you going to marry her? OK voice in my head, cut that crazy talk you flippant goober. I'm not sure I want to be married to anyone. The red one tells me I need to learn to be flexible and compromise if I am going to get serious and married one day. Time will tell.

So what will your college major be? Good question, general studies for now at the community college. Once I transfer, I will be pursuing a BSIT or BSCIS with a teaching certificate. Then teach public school while working on my masters and teach college after that. P.H.D. I'll cross that bridge when I get there.

Here ends the interview of me, by me. More to follow some day.

Joe.

It's about time

Sorry I've been out of pocket so long, life has been; life. I have been swamped with illness, school, work, and a death in the family so all of a sudden blogging took a back seat. I am still making my classes which are going quite well and I am sure will continue to do so.

The death in the family was hard for all of us. Nana was my last grandparent since I lost my Grandfather at the begining of May in 2006. I miss having her around, she had this uncanny ability to put a smile on my face no matter what my mood was. It's a rare thing to be able to do such a simple thing for people, or to have it done for you and I miss that among other things. I had the eye opening task of organizing everything with the memorial service, from getting the family notified and into town to getting business at the funeral home and church taken care of. It enabled me to detach myself from the emotional side of it because there were things that had to be done. Now that I have time to relax a bit I find myself going through the mounring process currently, I'd rather be handling the business of it all still.

Work is work, it is the end of the month so we are doing the 10 hour a day, 6 days a week scramble to get things done. The good news on that front is that we are interviewing for new technicians and I will probably be training the new person and advising them on the best way to handle the equipment. That should make for an interesting change for me at work.

I actually went out on a date this past weekend. Upon some minor reflection I realized that it was the first time in 8 years I went out on a date with someone I had not known for several months/years prior. The date went well, dinner and a show at the Temple Civic Theater. She Loves Me was the show and it was fantastic, I didn't really like the way that the music was arranged but overall I really enjoyed it. The more important part to all of this, as far as I'm concerned, is that she had a great time. I'm hoping to go out with her again soon, I'm just not sure what the second date will entail.

That brings us up to speed for the most part and I will try to keep this blog updated and flowing a bit more frequently. I will be doing my best to get out at least a weekly update probably Sunday evening or Monday sometime for those of you that might read on schedules.

I'll be back soon.

Joe.

College Bound

That's right folks, after 11 years I am finally going to go to college. Took me long enough. I actually started classes Tuesday of this week. All I can say is WOW. I understand that when I got out of high school that at the time we were considered rather dumb by people in or approaching their 30's, but now; dumb is getting redefined. How on earth can these kids graduate high school and speak like they do. The word "like" is used at least three times in a five word sentence or you just aren't speaking their language. I spent the majority of the morning not trying to figure out what the teachers were talking about, but instead trying to figure out what the hell the students were saying. I'm just taking some very basic courses and I pray that once I pick a major and transfer to a larger college that people will have figured out how to communicate using the English language again. Until then I'm afraid it is going to be a long semester.

-Joe

Game 2

Well our second basketball game this year was much improved over the first, despite the handicap of having two injured players. In our first game the players weren't talking, they were all trying to be Jordan or someone else that they thought was a one man team, and there were several tugging matches over who was going to get the ball. I told them they could play the first game their way so I fully expected to lose it, and lose we did (30-10). Thursday was a hard practice for the kids and challenging for me as well, I had to explain to the kids a lot of stuff that I don't quite fully understand myself about basketball, and there was MAJOR emphasis on teamwork since trying to be a superstar got us nowhere. The kids payed attention of the majority of practice and were in a much better position to play effectively as a team.

Game day:
I found out game day morning that two of my kids couldn't play. One had gotten a staff infection on his leg and the other had an accident at school during gym. So I had to redo my starting lineup and substitution forms 10 minutes before the game. I explained to the kids that it was going to be a long game since I didn't have enough people to rotate everyone at each substitution opportunity. I must have looked pretty whipped because one of my kids came up to me and said, "It's ok coach, we can handle this. We have the heart you went on and on about at practice. We'll do our best and feel better for it." I took a minute to gather my thoughts and them gave them a rather sappy pep talk and motivated them as best as I could. The hit the court cheering themselves on ready to play. For the first 6 minutes I was amazed. I just stood in awe for probably the first 3 minutes. I watched my players actually hustle up and down the court, I saw players that can't sink a basket in practice, just lob them into the basket like it was nothing and get back down the court ready to defend. At half time I told them how proud I was, that this was the "heart" I was talking to them about. They were fired up more than they were before the start of the game and all they asked me was who was starting the second half, what are we doing wrong, and whats the score? So I told them what to work on and they said ok, we can do that. The score at halftime was 26-14, I had to recount the marks I made twice just to be sure.

The second half of the game wasn't as good as the first from the playing standpoint, fatigue was setting in and not planning on leaving until after nap time. The opposing team hit the court and just looked whipped. I imagined little signs over their heads that said "put us out of our misery." The score got a little closer and the guys were keeping it together for the most part. The part that I was amazed about in the second half was that the other team was pretty worn out and fouling a little bit, but more importantly they were falling down and tripping a lot. Don't ask me why, for the life of me I don't know. My kids did me proud though, they didn't get upset about getting fouled on, they just listened to the ref and shook it off. When the other kids tripped or fell down, they stopped and helped them up patting them on the back as they caught up with the rest of the team. Final Score 36-28.

Post game I let the assistant coach hand out the stars while i ran to my truck real quick and got some stuff for the kids. When I showed back up a few minutes later the kids had waited on me to be there for handing out the stars, so I could be a part of it. After the stars were handed out I told them how proud of them I was, for the improved play, for their sportsmanship that they showed the other players, and for their heart. I was more than happy to reward them with crackerjacks and sunny D. They just lit up and said thanks. I got the sweatiest hugs i think I've ever gotten in my life. I thought to myself as I talked to some of the parents and watched my players leave for the day that this is what upwards is all about.

About time

Well folks, been busy as all get out this past month and haven't really made the time to post in a while. The end of last month was insane, we worked 6 days a week 10 hours a day up until Christmas. Christmas was good, minimal gifts which is good and alot of family. I participated in a Christmas show at my church in the chorus. Other than that I didn't really do much and for the first time in 28 years I did not get giddy about Christmas. It may have something to do with I wasn't dating anyone, I honestly don't know but I didn't get the gift fever that a lot of people I know get. New Years was good, spent the majority of the evening at a group activity and rung in the new year helping a friend. Look for more posts coming soon about Upwards (the season started the first week in Jan.), Red's birthday (Today), school (I start college Tuesday), and general maddness seeping out of the old noodle. I will probably make alot of the updates this weekend as I find time to write. Until then keep the java warm and flowing.

Joe.