Reading: ChroMagic: Key to Havoc

Just so the DevArt world knows, my journal is located at [link] now.

With the friends I keep on there, and the various features that allow me to tie it into my home site, I saw no reason to not use it - especially since I have a permenant account over there. So head down there to read anything past Dec 22nd, 2003 - It's regularly (somewhat) updated, and contains all my old entries from DevArt as well.

Monday, December 22nd, 2003... 2145 UTC-8, currently... XMMS is softly playing: Ayumi Hamasaki - Evolution

I would have made this last night 'cept I was playing Ragnarok... Not a bad game... Work's been pretty good... My dad's comming to visit for Christmas (Oy!), and we'll see just how well (if at all) that works out... J cleaned out his room (finally), and the ski trip planning continues...

Don't have much else to say, 'cept that I'm totally addicted to Ragnarok at the moment, and, that Natasha, the loving girl that she is, is getting me Caffeinated Hotsauce for Christmas

She's such the awesome!

Monday, December 15th, 2003... 0800 UTC-8, currently... XMMS is softly playing: Ayumi Hamasaki - As If

Holy shit, here we are again, 3 months between updates. I need to pull my head out of my ass and commit to doing something, and, doing it RIGHT.

Well, major update...

Last month I touched on my making oper on GamesNET, and, I'm still there. Also, about a month ago, I made the NETCOM team. For being staff for only 10 months and change, I'm now a full network adminstrator over with GamesNET, and very much enjoying contributing. I also linked my own server, finally. [link] is mine, making me a full Server Admin as well. I still co-admin Oktagone, however the box has since de/relinked due to connection issues. Something tells me it won't be around for too long this time, either, but we'll see...

J, my former roommate, left. He got pussy-whipped by some girl, and pretty much abandoned me. While I'm upset, the dude's like family to me, and I just hope that he realizes it... I'm trying to get all his stuff out of the back room before Christmas so I can make it look like I live in there... The reason for that is pretty simple... My dad's comming to visit.

Having not seen him in close to 6 years, I'm a bit nervous. And even our last meeting 6 years ago was just a brief weekend. Last time he was part of my actual life was some 10 long years ago. I have mixed feelings on this visit, but, we'll throw caution to the wind, and, see what happens... Just want him to think I'm doing well though, that I'm making it on my own. Probably in the hopes he won't think I failed because of him or something. Need to be strong.

After they leave, a few days later, I have the GamesNET Staff Ski Trip happening at my place. Man, this is such a clusterfuck of pissy planning - which is exactly why it isn't the GamesNET Annual Staff Ski Trip. If I can pull it off this year it'll be a fucking miracle... I'm already short money, and if nobody plans on contributing, there'll be no skiing. Transportation issues are also plaguing this trip, as everybody's comming, and nobody can rent a vehicle. Best I can do is trust to the TCP/IP god that things work out, as they usually seem to do for me last minute. Either way, I'm going to need an ulcer or 12 removed from my gut by the time it's done.

After the ski trip is over, I'm moving. Will probably give my 30 day notice Febuary 1st, paying Feb's rent, and using my March rent money to break the lease. Then I'm moving back in with Jim, Hazel, Dan, and everybody I bitched about here. Maybe in my travels over the past year or so, I've matured, gained wisdom, or developed massochistic tendancies, but whatever it is, it's what I want to do. They're family. All I have out here, really. And I realize that the only things that change in my life, are that which I change myself. So if things aren't the way I want them to be, then I'm going to have to do something besides sitting on my fat arse and waiting for them to get better... I'm taking things into my own hands this time around. While I still stand by moving out, and think it was the right decision at the time, I also stand by this one to move back in. I don't consider the past year of my life to be a mistake, nor do I consider this "running home". It's been a journey, one which I've shared with many people, and learned a great deal on. And, it's time that journey comes to an end, and I return to where I belong.

Wireless at work is going well. Just about ready to roll that out this comming week, I hope. We'll see. I also got a new workstation last week. Dual Athlon MP 2400s, gig of RAM, it's great. Looking foward to using that this week (I just installed it Friday). Other than the usual security patching, network admin tasks, programming, and network cleanup, things are going well. I'm enjoying my job for the most part. Tuesday night we're going to see Return Of the King, and Wednesday afternoon is the company Christmas party. Looking forward to both events.

I promise an update by Sunday night, as well... So help me if I fail

Sunday, September 7th, 2003... 0733 UTC-8, currently... XMMS is softly playing: Ataris - Boys of Summer

Holy shit, how the hell did half a year go by with out an update from me?

Oh, yea, I remember now. Deviant Art changed their HTML code and manages to crash my web browser every time I visit. I still need to e-mail the Konqueror devs about that, as well as Deviant Art.

Anyway... Using Mozilla Firebird for this update... It's an ok browser, but not fully up to what Konqueror is for me... yet... It's got a long road ahead of it, but it seems well packed for the journey.

Anyway, wow... 6 months of... just plain... wow I have a new roommate... J, aka SiGhCoTiC, and he's pretty cool... We've been friend's for a while, and living with him isn't overly bad... Right now, I still have that 1 bedroom apartment, so it's a little cramped... I've always slept in the front room, though, on the couch, so it's not like I was using the bedroom myself though. Not putting me out, and it's company.

Work is going well... My new office is great. No major complaints... Work itself is pretty well, too. We're doing some neat shit and I'm doing what I love doing; network administration. Coding is minimal, not really doing much talking to customers, and we're making some really innovative solutions.

I also made GamesNET staff back in Febuary, and think I mentioned it briefly in my March entry. That's going very well, actually... I went from a basic #support helper in Febuary to a server co-admin with a local o:line in early May, to a full fledged oper in July with all rights and privledges thereof. 3 weeks later, I got 100 OpServ access, and then 600 a week after that. I joined the GamesNET Routing Committee afterwards, and have been sitting there ever since. GamesNET has been such a wonderful experience for me, I think it's just plain awesome. It has, with out a doubt, changed who I am for the better, and I've made some really kickass friends as well.

I also took part in something called the Landmark Forum, which has totally 180'd my perspective on life, the universe, and everything. Again, for the better, I find I'm happier, in better relationships with my peers and my friends, and things just seem better all over life. Best $400 I spent, actually, and while my ass was sore for a little bit afterwards (from all the sitting - it's nearly 16 hours a day), I'd still do it all over again.

Defcon 11 was pretty good. Didn't get as many pics as I did last year, but the ones I did get are pretty good. I dragged JaZz0r from GamesNET staff along with me, and we stayed at the Alexis Park with CrackerJack, whom I met last year. TrevorSky didn't come this year, unfortunatly, but Sig9 from last year was there with us as well, though he stayed in another room. Over all, it was a great time with much, much drinking.

Well, that's really about all I can say right now, mostly because I don't remember any more specifics. I'm going to start updating this damn thing weekly, though; that's a promise. One I intend to keep this time. You're only 21 once.

Tuesday, March 4th, 2003... 1233 UTC-8, currently... XMMS is softly playing: Pink Floyd - Lost For Words

Well, my first journal entry of the new year, already 2 months in... I really need to updated/give a shit more often. So, lets see... Lump in my nut is still there, but it appears to be a blood vescle or something. Relief there. Medically speaking, I'm pretty well off right now - nothing major, just my usual cuts and bruises from living...

I have pics up of the house on my primary site, and will be updating some of my artwork there shortly... Aside from my masterpeices, I'm pretty much going to be posting things on my portfolio site from now on. I'm just about to release version 5.0 of the site, as well, which for the first time in a VERY long time, includes a rather sharp looking layout instead of just colored text...

Other than working my ass off on servers and networking, I've had the wonderful chance to build a few kick-ass mail systems as well which I'm happy to say are going into production around the world... I'm also going to be implementing wireless technologies around my apartment, and probably around Northern California shortly as well... I'm also looking at widely deploying IPv6 to all of our customers, as well as possibly rolling out DSL... Of course, trying to code stuff for GamesNET and GamesNET Radio, DJing, and being on staff, I have no time at the end of my week; finding time to shop, clean the house, do laundry, etc, is always a challenge.

Basically, life still sucks - I'm just too busy to care at the moment... Thursday was supposed to be a kick-ass day... And, parts of it were... But, to make a long story short, Visa got cracked into a few weeks ago, and several million credit card numbers were compromised... Visa then notified the banks issuing those card numbers, and, of course, mine was one of 'em... So, my bank, with out telling me or anything, canceled my card on me. I went on a trip to meet a friend, decided to get out some cash from the ATM to buy lunch, and the blasted machine ate my card. Just said "Unauthorised Transaction. Retaining Card. Goodbye" and was probably laughing at me inside it's programming. Meeting Aichan went well, 'cept my lack of money (I was going to take her to Applebee's) so that threw a damper into my plans. I'm still cardless and waiting for my replacement ATM/Visa card.

"So I opened my door to my enemy, and I ask 'Could we wipe the slate clean?', but they tell me to please go and fuck myself. No, you just can't win..." - Pink Floyd

That's about how I feel right now... Things are breaking at the office left and right... I typed most of this up yesterday, actually, and then got blasted with problems up the whazoo... First, my boss decided to set the IP address of his new server to the IP address of the NFS mail volume, which took down mail in nothing flat... Then, he tried to "fix" the phone system, and left the voicemail module off for the whole night (that's also what distributes calls), leaving me with a nice problem this morning. And then, today, something happened to our primary web hosting server... It's still up, but nobody can log in.. Error in the libs or something... So I'm rebuilding a new one from scratch... It's been a bad week thus far...

That's about it for the time being... I upgraded my OS at work, installed a new one at home, and am lovingly running Gentoo Linux 1.4 rc3 on both systems now... It's been a pretty good run on that system; I'm pretty happy with it... Nothing else to really report... Tonight, I'm going down to Oakland for a confrence... not sure when I'll be back yet... But we'll see... I don't have high expectations of this, but my mind is always open... Till then, I can only see what my future holds...