Archive for September, 2008

New AIM Account

Monday, September 15th, 2008

Fucking Hotmail and fucking AIM. Two dumbasses.

So, I lost my AIM pwd the other day when the work hard drive died. No big deal right. Go to the website and say forgot pwd. It sends an email to my alternate account at Hotmail. Except they don’t tell me what the email sender will be or how to keep it from being spam blocked. Tweedle dumber, Hotmail, blocks the AIM pwd change emails. So, my pwd is effectively locked away from me with no way under the sun to retrieve it.

The Google hits mention calling them, but I don’t see an AIM support chat or email on their website and ALL the forgot pwd links go to the same useless screen. I had to do this last time and forced everyone to change/lose their links to me. This is a stupid reason to make new accounts and a reason NOT to use Hotmail. It’s good I get email through the blog account or I would just be screwed.

It kind of makes me want to create a 100,000 useless accounts on both sites.

Stupid $%$%#$#$%&*&^!!!!$%#%#$%$$%^%$%^&*&

AIM should mention that they can be block and what the email will come in as. They could also provide a secondary means to reset an account pwd, like oh everyone else on the Internet. I’ve never seen anyone else require a second email account to reset a pwd.

Hotmail should know what an AIM pwd reset account is. I’m sure they see at least two or three in a day. And let them through. What’s this shit about getting an email and not putting it in my junk mail box? How many emails have you completely blocked from me Hotmail? What’s a Junk box for?

Blog Upgrades

Saturday, September 13th, 2008

This morning I upgraded the blog to WordPress 2.6.2 and I’m trying to change the appearance to something more suited to my interests. Currently, all the posts are in one stream. For persistent items, I make a page on the side. However, there are getting to be more pages and more pages that I would like to add that don’t seem appropriate for the root page of the website. Pages that would be more suited to a particular topic.

The topics that I want to have are based roughly on the tags; rambling, bicycling, apple/mac, house projects, news, and gardening. I would like my bicycle items, for example, to stay closer to the top, but the current home page is correct in how it works. So, if I give them their own space the website can filter and organize them to represent my interests more accurately.

G4 Cube

Friday, September 12th, 2008

I ordered one of these a few days ago to be a temporary main machine for 6 months or so. It’s the predecessor to the Mac Mini, a G4 Power Mac Cube. It’s 8″ X 8″ X 10″. I can upgrade the processor, but it’s got 768 meg and a 120 gig drive. That’s close to enough for 10.4. I’m excited. The Mac Mini I’m on now is just underpowered for what I’m doing. This should be better and later I can use it around the house to play music or something off the network shared iTunes.

I also ordered a G4 Power Mac to use as a file server. All the USB drives can connect to that and it will be a constantly running file server. It was $180 for an old G4/466 with 4 PCI slots.

Dead Drives

Friday, September 12th, 2008

It looks like it’s official. I’m jinxing the computers again. A month ago my laptop drive died. This week my work laptop drive died, followed a day later by my external drive. The last two have resulted in a major loss of data. Many hours of work. Oh well. Thank God, I copied a few VMs to the Drobo at home.

Doors Update

Thursday, September 11th, 2008

They measured for doors today. It took 5 minutes. I had them do almost all the interior doors; both bathrooms, all the bedrooms, and the backdoor of the laundry room. Right now, I’m thinking slabs, the door only, inside and a whole new hung exterior door.

Epilogue

Wednesday, September 10th, 2008

So, I guess by today my emotional state returned roughly to normal. I look back on what I wrote and it’s interesting. A bit disjointed, because I didn’t have chance to put it together. My issue started with one thing and eventually returned to the thing that continually bothers me. The question of “why”. Why do we live? What are we supposed to do? What am I supposed to do? What do I want to do?

I can’t seem to find an answer to any of these questions and it’s bothering me. The “pursuit of happiness” as it’s called in the Constitution. It seems like it should be such a simple thing. I can think of a lot of things that might make me happy, but then again maybe not. You really don’t know until you’re in that situation. And some things are irreversible.

Would I be happy in a relationship? There’s so many factors. I think so. I can’t tell. Dito for another job, another house, another city.

Then if the constant in all of these situations is myself and I’m not satisfied with any of them. I must be the cause of the unhappy and just improving my attitude fixes all of the above. Or not.

The “what is it all for” question really comes out in depression. Another way of saying, “why should I put up with this crap”. I figure it’s like Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs. I don’t know if I agree with the last need on his list, esteem.

When all of the other needs are satisfied we are left with “why”, “why are we here”. This is where philosophy and spiritualism pick up. This question can’t be answered from this side of the veil for lack of evidence. Philosophy attempts to pick apart the aspects of life to generate an answer. Spiritualism postulates an answer blindly or by extracting meaning from certain physical events. Individuals or groups may have direct experience with something to provide them evidence for a particular belief system.

What we lack is a basis for determining what to do, what will make us happy. There’s no rule that says “do this or that” to be happy. That’s left to each individual, “the pursuit of happiness”. What is happy? (answer: not painful, content, satisfied, not longing, joyful, smiling, pleasant, productive, spreading/giving these feelings to others)

My career choice and experience betray me here. Rules are everywhere in programming. There is always a box to work in. Books, forums, tutorials all describe what other people have done to accomplish a goal. A goal they know from the beginning. Something in the intent of the rules of the software. Windows can’t run a slurpy machine out of the box. Crystal Reports can’t drive a car.

I see this problem in myself when I try to write something at home. It always ends in a meandering nothingness. I’m great with some direction, someone to satisfy, a short quick thing to achieve. Left to myself, I kind of go nowhere. No focus.

The one thing I know is that if I don’t figure out what to do with myself it will periodically drive me crazy until I do. Eventually, the shiny, distracting objects get boring, I start hurting, and I want to know “why” again.

Prologue

Wednesday, September 10th, 2008

So, before I wrote the preceding post I wrote another one. The need to hold the emotion still for long enough to write it down and explore it exasperated a sensitive situation. That feeling held on for much longer than several minutes and was ready to be called again a couple of weeks later. I’m posting it here with very little editing, because on reading it again, it strikes me as very good and more importantly honest.

What do I want?
To not experience this feeling. It’s intense, heavy, loneliness. It’s based on an absence of something. A hunger or deep emotional need. My chest is thick like from a heavy congestion. I’m tired and intensely focused inward, because the outside and all the people in it don’t satisfy it. It’s like a black hole drawing me inward.

What I want is the lack of the lack. I want that safe, loved, comfortable, satisfied feeling that comes from cuddling up to someone. Looking into their eyes and seeing the same love reflected back at you. Where a pet returns this feeling it is tame compared to connection with another animal of the same species. I want to be held and to hold. To pet and touch. Stroke and stare into the other person. To feel that connectedness. To be loved.

I feel as if my whole life has been without love. Though I know there were moments with Bridget like this at the beginning, but I don’t remember them.

Love from parents, siblings, family, and friends is different. Love expressed through actions, but lacking the depth and intensity of a lover.

I don’t know what I’m looking for exactly. Just that something is there and I’m desperate to find out what is there. To know someone else intimately. Completely. And to love them all the more for being themselves. To see the reciprocation in their eyes.

This need is intense and desperate. A crazy willingness to do anything to get it. That, I know, is the destructive side. Blind emotional response leading poor decisions. But to step into that flame. I want it so badly. That want is the cause of the pain.

This is were I curl up into a ball with my pillow in the center. I focus on that feeling and imagine some situation with another person where that feeling is satisfied. Eventually, it calms. I know it only sleeps to be awakened on another occasion when I’m reminded again that I want and can not experience this.

When this feeling is too intense to be relieved by fantasy I scream inside my head as loud as possible. It hurts and I cry and ask why. How can life turn out to feel this way? It doesn’t seem right.

They tell me that choosing the wrong person to share this with is bad and I have been concerned my whole life about that. And I can certainly understand this by seeing what others experience and empathy with them. At this point it’s hard to care.

For even a taste, I’m tempted to give up everything. The temptation, not commitment, is what keeps me where I am. It seems so hard.

Oh, to rest for a short time. This pain takes a lot of energy.

Most of the time I ignore it. An elephant, one of many, in my head. I know not to think about certain things.

I’m writing this down and have tried to hold this feeling still for an hour in the hopes of obtaining some service from it. Service to others or myself. There has to been a reason I feel this way.

Is it to choose logical thought over raw emotion? To write this down and in my attempt to make sense of it to help some else? Is it a lesson I have or haven’t learned. What is this? Why do I feel this way?

What is my response supposed to be? Am I called to satisfy this need, ignore it, remove/reduce the attachment that creates it?

Why does it hurt so bad? It’s the button that got pushed the most with Bridget and is the cause of much of the pain getting over that relationship.

So, much pain. I sit here and stew in it to record it in order to make sense of it and do something toward not experiencing it anymore.

Feeling Very Lonely

Saturday, September 6th, 2008

I feel so much pain and loneliness that I don’t want to be here anymore.

My personal life is bland and empty. It’s more active than in many, many years, but the thing I want most, a romantic relationship, is completely lacking. This is something I have forgone for a number of years. Always, I assuage these feelings with, “just a little longer” or “it will happen”. But I refuse to accept these blind and delusion affirmations any longer. It hurts a lot and nothing seems to be changing or likely to change. I won’t live my life alone and I don’t count invisible friends.

Does anyone have advice for what to do when there’s a pain in your chest, an intense feeling to attach yourself physically, emotionally, and spiritually to someone else, and all you can think about is the opposite sex? “Putting it in a box” doesn’t seem to work anymore and the intensity grows so that every 3-4 months I freak out.

My professional career, if you can call it that, kind of sucks is and is at the least dissatisfying. Though it’s good enough in pay and flexibility that I find it very difficult to leave. I’m open to schooling and a career change, but I don’t see anything sure and enticing.

Besides, if my decisions led me into blind alleys in both cases how can I trust myself to make decisions that make me happy. I thought a good job and good pay would make me happy. Wrong. Oops. I thought I would meet someone fantastic, fall in love, and be happy. Wrong. So, what do I think would make me happy? The fuck if I know.

Literally, I have no idea what would make me happy. I can think of so many things I could do. What door does happy live behind? A bike ride across the country? Quit my job and work at McDonald’s? Study religion in seminary? Get another degree? The is the confusion and doubt that so many possibilities cause.

Such large scale changes are terrifying and I want to be sure; really sure, before I walk myself off the blank. But the questions still remains. What plank?

Everything pales in comparison to the feelings from being unattached and alone. For some this is freedom, but I’ve had years of such freedom and I’m really tired and want to rest against someone for a little bit. Can’t I just meet someone that I could spend a lot of time with? Why is this so hard?

Maybe this is a big pity party. So sorry for poor Stephen! But I’m tired. It really hurts. I’m sick of hurting like this. My own decisions seem worthless.

It’s not that no one cares or that I am not the only one going through this process. Those sentiments don’t take away one iota from my feelings. So, for all the well wishers, “Thank you very much.”

I’m posting this in public, because I would really like to know what other people do when they feel like I do.

Cnet: Revamped Google Picasa site identifies photo faces

Wednesday, September 3rd, 2008


Google wants to help you put a name to that face.

With a face recognition feature set to launch at noon PDT Tuesday, Google’s Picasa Web Albums will help users label their photos with the names of subjects. That and other changes to the photo-sharing site are joined by a new beta version of the accompanying Picasa 3.0 photo-editing software.

The “name tag” feature presents users with collections of photos with what it judges to be the same person, then lets them click a button to affix a name. Once photographic subjects are named, users can browse an album of that individual on the fly.

It took me less than 15 minutes to tag close to 200 faces in a set of more than 100 photos, and that included some start-up time such as figuring out how the system worked, establishing names for various common subjects, and correcting a few errors. The most impressive moments are when Picasa presents a large array of photos with the same face, and you can label them all with a single click.

Picasa editing software now lets users export movies with musical soundtrack to a file or YouTube.

I speak here from experience. I do tag my own photos–for example the 700 I took on a weeklong backpacking trip earlier this month–and something like Google’s facial recognition assisting would have dramatically sped the process. It wouldn’t help with other tags such as “swimming,” “waterfall,” or “Sierra tiger lily,” but let’s face it–people are the central feature in most people’s photos


Revamped Google Picasa site identifies photo faces

Links for Switching to Mac

Tuesday, September 2nd, 2008

Flip4Mac
VLC
Swap Ctrl-Alt to match Windows
Make Home & End work like Windows
     In FF
SVN
FTP – Transfer
FireFox
VMWare Fusion
iTunes
     Store Purchasing/Track Info
     Audible Authorization
Neo/CrossOffice
RDP
Adium
Chicken of the VNC
Pixelmator
TextMate
Colloquy

Guide to Switching to Mac

10 Things Every New Mac Owner Should Know

Top 30 mistakes made by new Mac users

Switch to the Mac

Welcome to the MacRumors Buyer’s Guide
This page provides a product summary for each Apple model. The intent is to provide our best recommendations regarding current product cycles, and to provide a summary of currently available rumors for each model.

Star Trek TNG All Day

Monday, September 1st, 2008

Sci Fi ran a fan choice selection of Next Gen all day and I think every one of them is a favorite.

Some of these seem to be favorites, because they contain little stabs or goads between cast members that a funny and make them seem more real. And some are not very science-fictiony. No technojargon or even space travel. For example, Inner Light is about Picard living the life of someone on a world just before it is consumed by its sun. Or the one where Whorf hops between different realities. Or the repetitious one. Where you see the 2 days of ship life then the Enterprise is destroyed and the story repeats with little changes in each loop. And of course the pair of episodes with the Borg was the big cliff hanger.

WTF: Sara Palin?

Monday, September 1st, 2008

Usually, I don’t blog about politics, but the recent selection of Sarah Palin is too much.

In the interests of disclosure, I don’t like McCain. He’s too old. Not that he might die in office, but he’s out of touch with the way technology works. Technology is bringing an age of abundance, but McCain was born in an age of scarcity. We are transitioning and the old ideas don’t necessarily work any more. See what the record industry is going through. He says other disturbing things, but all the dynamic duos are disturbing.

It is very scary that they picked someone with no experience to be second chair to one of the old presidents ever. She has the same level of competence for the job of president as Harriet Miers for Supreme Court Justice. There are so many qualified, experience people in this country how in God’s name did he pick her.

CNN: Star Trek: The Experience closing down

Monday, September 1st, 2008

LAS VEGAS, Nevada (AP) — After a decade at the final frontier, Star Trek: The Experience is going where no Las Vegas Strip attraction wants to go.
Trek

With a decommissioning ceremony — as befits any great vessel — the exhibit and its replica of the starship Enterprise are closing Monday.

In the end, the frontier the USS Enterprise couldn’t breach was earthly: The attraction’s owner, Cedar Fair Entertainment Co., and the Las Vegas Hilton, its landlord, couldn’t agree on a new lease. They worked as a typical landlord and retail tenant, with Cedar Fair keeping all revenue from the attraction, said hotel spokesman Ira David Sternberg.

Trekkies are incensed. They’ve scrawled reminiscences about the exhibit on the walls inside, and they’re calling Cedar Fair and the hotel to complain. But their online rumor that the space the exhibit occupies will become a theater for pop star Michael Jackson is unfounded, Sternberg said. He said nothing’s decided.

Star Trek: The Experience closing down

Begin Washroom Remodel

Monday, September 1st, 2008

Yesterday, I started work on the laundry room. It’s a small room between the garage and kitchen with a backdoor, window, huge cabinet, and of course the washer and dryer. The floor, like the kitchen, is vinyl laminate glued down. This is the first room I see when I come home. The window faces the backyard and has a good view of a couple of garden beds.

The walls are texture similarly to the hallway. The walls are the same color as the kitchen. Like most of the house the vinyl laminate doesn’t exactly meet the wall. The backdoor seems to be a hollow interior door that used to also contain a screen door. It’s not a bad room, but a little beat up and sloppily finished.

The plan is to sand the walls similar to the hallway and paint it the same yellow color. Rip the trim boards out and install new ones. They are cheap and Christopher showed me how to do them easily when we did the Yoga room. Quarter round or shoe molding will cover the gap of the flooring. The cabinet will be a second color, perhaps matching the upper bedroom color. This keeps the two tone pattern of the other remodeled rooms. Finally, the backdoor will be replaced with a steel external door.

Right now, the washer and dryer are moved out and I’m removed the 3-5 layers of contact paper they put down in the cabinet. After that it’s tape and prime. For the door, I was thinking of buying one and having it installed so I could see how it’s done.