Tuesday, September 30, 2003
Well, it is the second night of my working my new job. It really is interesting. This is exactly the kind of work I enjoy doing. Or at least it will be, once I get to jump in a little deeper. I'm still learning where things are at this point. So, I am really excited to be back to work doing something I enjoy once again. And it has been an entirely different point of view on life as well. Things are looking pretty good. Not spectacular, there is a lot that needs working on, but the outlook is good for a change. I don't know if I should go as far as to say that I am happy, but what I definately can say is I FEEL a lot happier than lately - and it is making all the difference! Off to bed - alarm screams at 6:15! [more]
Entry: 35 Posted by kelly @ 11:23 PM ET [Link]
Monday, September 29, 2003
Well, today was my first day on the new job. It went rather well, if you ask me. I wish I could say more now, but I am starting to crash pretty hard, and need to get to sleep. Perhaps tomorrow, I will give a two-day impression... 'till then...
Entry: 34 Posted by kelly @ 11:36 PM ET [Link]
Well, the weekend is over. It's been time to go to bed for a while now, and I am about to actually try and do so. Got work in the morning. We'll see how it goes. So far, the last of my weekend has been interesting. Saturday, I did not do a whole lot. I started to weed my garden, but then it started to rain, so I ended up watching some TV until Sean came over and we went out to dinner at Bru's Room. Now c'mon, we went to a sports bar for dinner - what was going on - a huge party of like 20 or more - mostly kids! Not the place I expected to see a bunch of kids. At least the food was good, and everything went smoothly. Afterwards, Mark came over as my sister and brother-in-law stopped over. They are borrowing my video camera again for their little trip to Prauge. Must be nice. So, they left, and the rest of us start to watch the last episode of Enterprise, then some episodes of South Park that Mark brought on DVD. Then, Mark helped me haul up the huge base of my waterbed to the guest room. Now I can start to assemble it. And I gotta figure out what I am going to do with that big gap in the garage also. heh..
Sunday was another day. I woke up early, and picked up my dad. We went to a memorial service for a good family friend who had passed. It was an absolutely beautiful memorial to a very special guy, Jerry. He had been the piano player at the restaurant I used to work at in highschool with my dad. He was very good, and even played at my sister's wedding recently. It was interesting to be there, with many of the people I used to work with way back then. Since my father is still in the business, I never really lost contact with that group off people, but it was interesting to be surrounded by them all again. Jerry will be missed. The rest of the day was pretty much routine. I picked up my Nana and brought her to my parents', and Dad and I went out to the stores to check out the weekend sales. I ended up getting myself a 120G harddrive for $80 (after rebates) so I may backup my /store drive. I have been quite nervous lately about that drive being a single point of failure for the bulk of my most important data. I will get that in operation soon. Other than that, I had my time, and I must now get back to the grind. Alarm set for 6:20, backup alarm (television on at high volume) set for 6:30. I want to leave between 7 and 7:15. And at least I actually am tired from waking early today. That, and my friend Melody had mentioned to me that a good technique to wind down at the end of the day is to take five minutes before bed to reflect upon the day, as to resolve any pressing issues in the mind, allowing it to rest easier. So I thought, no better way than a journal entry. Hope it works well, I could use the sleep. I also think that this is a good time, my sleep "sweet spot" seems to be between 5-7 hours. Any more or less yields a cranky Kelly. Should have done more experiments with this earlier. Whatever. I'm looking forward to not having to worry about issues like that in the near future. So, again, we'll see how things work out. 'till then..
Entry: 33 Posted by kelly @ 12:49 AM ET [Link]
Saturday, September 27, 2003
Tonight, I went out to dinner with Sean S, Brian, Phil, and Fion. We went to my favorite place in town - Ichiban Japanese. :) It was good. Then, we went to the movie theater. Phil wanted to see the movie starring The Rock, but noone else wanted to see that. We stood there, stewing for a while, and decided just to go next door to Boomer's for a little putt-putt. So, we get there, and start a game of mini-golf. It was good, but there were a number of water traps thanks to poor drainage. So, we played through. SPLASH! heh... I got mine in the hole from the middle of a puddle twice as deep as the ball itself! heh.. The others just kinda "pushed" their ball out of the trap. Anyway, it was getting late, and someone noticed we were like the only people left on the court. No notices, no empoyees walking around.. Then we notice the waterfalls get a lot quieter. Guess they shut them off. Heh, oh well. A few minutes later, we are on the fifteenth hole, and out go all the lights! Total darkness. Those farkers shut us down in the middle of a game and never even looked to see if anyone was out there! So, what do we do? Play through. By the light of a few blue LED keychain lights, we finish the game. It was fun. On the way out, we left our clubs up against the doors to the building to make them wonder in the morning (it too was closed) - and left through an open gate in the front. On the way home, we stopped at 7-11 for slurpees. It was a good night.
Entry: 32 Posted by kelly @ 01:25 AM ET [Link]
Friday, September 26, 2003
Once again unable to sleep, I lay in bed thinking... And what interesting things have come to mind. A lot has been going on in my life lately, and many changes have occurred, and have yet to come to light. But I think of where I am, where I was, and where I am going - and I have realized something. But first, I have to mention where I have been. The last few years have been very busy as well. I have gone through some big career changes, and bought my own place. However, I have deep down noticed that I have not been myself. I never really actually came to realize it, but deep down, I knew all this time that something was not right. Now, it is coming to light. I just hope the future remains so bright... [more]
Entry: 31 Posted by kelly @ 03:49 AM ET [Link]
Well, it is now Friday. Last day of freedom. Then is the weekend, and I start work on Monday. In fact, I have to be there at 8:15am - in North Miami! This is going to be interesting. At least this is just orientation. I have been uber-busy lately with things, and for the better. I still have to deliver that computer to West Palm Beach. At least I think it is working now. Working on patching up XP and going through all the patches and powertoy installations... fun. I will deliver it tomorrow, and get that out of the way. Also, this weekend, I expect to get the guest room back to a usable state. It currently has one item in it: a chair. I want to put the waterbed back together, and get my desk back in there so it is a functional room once more, and I can possibly entertain guests. I would have done it today, but I had no help to carry it up (not that I had any bringing it up the first time, or bringing it back down to the garage), but my legs hurt so much from all that squatting, that just climbing the stairs is uncomfortable. heh.. Well, it is about 2:30am, and my Trillian client is not letting me log into Yahoo again. So, I just loaded up Yahoo IM. Deal with it later. I like to stay online in case people want to talk. I should have gone to sleep long ago, but I'm still finding it difficult to go to bed. I always do. I don't know why I am in the hyperactive state of mind at night - always wanting something to do, always needing to be doing something. Yet, mornings, I don't want to move. Guess I'm going to have to change that soon. Well, anyway, I'm going to try and get some sleep now, and enjoy the last of my freedom.
Entry: 30 Posted by kelly @ 02:37 AM ET [Link]
Thursday, September 25, 2003
What a long and exhausting day. Worked on the truck all day, did not finish until around 11pm. Sean helped with the bleeding of the brakes, and we did the rear ones too. Thanks for the help Sean. Total cost: $185 in parts, 7 hours of highly interrupted time, 5 cans of Coca-cola (two of which were sacrificial - one to "Doh!", the god of clumsiness, and the other to my looking for a quick way to remove brake fluid from my car door), about 20 mosquito bites, and one sore back. Afterwards, I took Sean out to Wendy's for a little snack, and to eat dinner since I did my usual not eating anything all day. Finally, I get home around 11ish. Chris was waiting for me in front of my house. So, I took a shower, and his server was running, but it had reboot itself about 8 times. Bad. He brought over a spare computer and fresh harddisk to use as a temporary server, and his full backup from last night. I build the system out. It gave drive errors on a brand new drive. Computers really don't like me. I think I got around it though when I more carefully formatted the partition, specifying the size limits. But of course nothing can go well. We went to the colo and swapped it out, after facing a few more issues. I got back home at about 3:00 - with his server to look at later. Fun. My feet ache. I've been too busy to even worry about things. I re-washed my load of laundry that had sat in the washer for a few days. It smelled funky.. heh.. In the dryer is okay, but don't leave wet laundry in the washer. Now, I am trying to wind down from a stressful day. I wonder if I will ever get back on a normal schedule. Or at least one where I don't have to miss out on everything else I like to do... Time for Kelly to rest. Abbreviating tonight's sleep - maybe I will get tired earlier tomorrow night then.
Entry: 29 Posted by kelly @ 04:31 AM ET [Link]
Wednesday, September 24, 2003
The truck is almost all fixed. I am waiting for Sean to come over to my parents' to help me bleed the passenger side brakes. In the meantime, I've snapped a few photos of it and my Dad's kitchen progress. Since I did not sleep very well last night, I overslept, and did not get to Dad's until late. Therefore, he had to go to work and could not help me. So, I did them all on my own. What a pain! It really wasn't a hard job, just tedious. It helps to have someone helping or just keeping company. I don't really like to be all alone too much - and this was the first time I've done any major car work at my parents' without Dad around to either help or hinder. heh.. I realize how much I enjoy having him around. Also, it was really a pain (literally) to be squatting down to the level of the work so long. My legs fell asleep many times. A few times, it was difficult to get up - my legs barely worked when I stood. I will be feeling this tomorrow! The hardest part was getting the calipers off. There is a scary system holding it in place where you have to pinch two metal bars together, and push it through. Not too hard with 3+ hands. One to pinch them, one to hold a screwdriver, and one to hammer it through. That was the biggest pain. heh.. But it's all done. My mother helped me bleed the first one done before she left for work. I think I scared her when I bled the first time, and the brake pedal went down on her. hehe.. After fixing the first side, and getting all the kinks out of the process, I test drove it, worked fine. The biggest pain was Chris calling every half hour or so asking when I can look at his server again. Ugh. Ah, well... Time to get back to it, and be done with it once and forall!
-/- 
[album] Entry: 28 Posted by kelly @ 10:09 PM ET [Link]
This is why I keep the laptop on at night, logged in. I was laying in bed, face down in the pillow - completely and utterly unable to sleep. It was one of those nights where every little sound and speck of light is amplified to crystal clarity. Light I have under control, but every car whizzing by on the turnpike, the cycling of the A/C and compressor, the laptop humming under the bed, the crickets, the frogs, the fridge in the kitchen cycling even! Every sound registers, and gets analyzed. Each passing car, each frog's croak. I can picture my entire surroundings, and place each and every sound in its place. Having rained recently, the turnpike is especially loud, both because the air carries the sound better, but also because of the wet road. I can see the wet road, I can see the rain. People may think that it would always be better to lose their hearing over sight if one had to go - but I can see very well with my ears. Very odd, since they don't work very well in the range of human speech. But anyway... I hear my computer beep - I am receiving an IM. It is AnnMarie. She has had a particularly bad day, and wanted to talk about it. This is why I leave myself logged in at night. Talks like this are way more important than just about anything else I can think of. Sleep, money, whatever. That is why I do it. Do not be afraid to call/IM me at any hour if you need to talk. [more]
Entry: 27 Posted by kelly @ 05:57 AM ET [Link]
Sean stopped by today to drop off all the parts I would need to replace the brakes in my truck, and leave a little instruction on how to do it. So, I now have all the parts I need - yet I don't plan to start on a brake job at 11pm at night. So, tomorrow I plan to get up and head over to Dad's, and work on it there. That way, I can use any of his tools that I may need, and he will be available to help if I need him. (Bleeding brakes requires two people anyway). Besides, I didn't feel like getting into it tonight anyway. So, anyway, Sean stayed over for a little bit, and I showed him the steps of converting MPEG video into a more efficient MPEG4 video. It really is not that hard, once you get the hang of it. It just takes forever, and you need the right software setup. I also need to start processing some of the video I have taken recently. Ugh, and I have to rebuild that PC I took home with the bad harddrive, since the new drive came in. And then, I need to work with Chris and rebuild his RAID disk array. Okay, I am starting to innundate myself with a list of things I need to do - time to just go to bed and worry about it all tomorrow. Also, I got some other news today that is still sinking in. I still don't know how it's effecting me. Not so bad as I thought, so far. Eh, we'll see..
Entry: 26 Posted by kelly @ 02:19 AM ET [Link]
I had that talk with Laurie tonight. It seems that things with her and the other guy have gotten more serious, and she wishes to pursuit a future with him. This is kind of what I expected to happen, ever since things I mentioned in entry 14. Yet, it still hits home. Had things been different, something more could have happened. Yet, his moving in had been planned before her and I had started anything - so that was unavoidable - and she always had the feeling for him for quite some time. So, all I can say is that I hope she finds happiness. I do not regret having fallen for her, nor anything we have done. If anything, I feel bad for having put her in this situation which I know has caused her quite a bit of pain. At least the wondering and hoping is over - and we can both move on with out lives. At least she will remain a very good friend. [more]
Entry: 25 Posted by kelly @ 01:57 AM ET [Link]
Tuesday, September 23, 2003
Can't fix the truck today. No parts. The parts will be in tomorrow. Ugh.. So, I start working on fixing up my journal. Then, I get a call from Chris telling me that his server, hunter, is down. Ugh, hunter is such a one-off pain-in-the-butt server to deal with. So, I tell him to pick me up, since my truck is damaged. He does, and we go to the colo facility to take a look. Basically, an all-night ordeal of headache, computer-induced torture, and more things that make you go bla... [more]
Entry: 24 Posted by kelly @ 02:50 AM ET [Link]
Monday, September 22, 2003
Saturday, 20 September 2003. Nathalie's birthday party! Happy Birthday Nat! There was to be a suprise birthday party, but it sounds like someone spilled the beans. Oh, well... It's okay. The party was at her and her parents' house. We had a nice dinner, followed by the opening of gifts. Afterwards, we all went out to Hugh Jorgan's dueling piano bar. A good time was had by all, and all in all, it was a great nite out, despite missing the company of some...