Monday, April 28, 2003
This weekend has started off with a resounding gong.

I had a good weekend. It seemed rushed, but I enjoyed every minute. I just wish I had a weekend to recover from my weekend. Desiree and I went back to Abilene. My mom had seen that the Bellamy Brothers were coming to town that weekend and offered to get tickets for us if we'd come visit that weekend. I hate that I have had to resort to being bribed to go home, but it's been on the calendar for over a month. We left Saturday morning and got there about noon. All of us ended up running around that afternoon.

We stopped at a garage sale benefiting the local animal shelter. My dad bought a couple of old typewriters. One of them was manual and the other was electric. For some reason he has taken to collecting them. I know my mother wishes he'd find something that doesn't take up as much room, but he's going to have his way. It's easier to cooperate than put up obstacles. What can I say? Stubbornness is a trait that runs in the family.

We visited Celebrate Abilene. It was originally a railroad festival, but it has grown and transformed over time. Now it's a giant block party. Well... Maybe I should strike that. It's a block party with a moderate turnout anywhere else, but it's giant for Abilene. They had some fun exhibits going on. My parents told me that we needed to check out and show by Robert Sabuda at the local children's museum. He's best known for his pop up books. I got to look at a lot of the art that went into making both his picture books and his pop-up books. My favorite was one called The Paper Dragon. He took paper and painted it and then cut it out to form the shapes that he wanted and put them together to make the picture. Dezi liked Arthur and the Sword (which was done on stained glass) and The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. I just had no idea of the artistry that could be involved in the making of children's books.

After making the rounds we decided to go back to the house. The concert started at 6:00 with a couple of opening acts and the Bellamy Brothers going on at 9:00. We went out to dinner with some friends. After dinner we packed up our chairs and some water headed back the way we had come. The crowd picked up over time. The first act was a group called Slim Chance and the Survivors. Good toe tapping music, but that's about it. One intersting thing that we discovered later is that the accordion player was blind. His dog was leading him around a little while after the show. The next group is a local Dallas band called Anytown. Good solid vocals. Tight playing. And the songs that they wrote were really good. My dad and I each bought a CD after the show. One song I'm going to have to play for my friend Josh. It's entitled, "No More California."

The Bellamy Brothers were really good. Dezi and I danced for most of the night. I can't say that we really started the dancing, but we did start before everyone else did. Just no one else was dancing so we quit. We then had more takers so it was fine. If it was a song that everyone recognized the dance "floor" was absolutely packed. Other than that it was just a moderately crowded obstacle course.

I heard the funniest conversation that night. It went something like this.

Girl: "Where you been all my life?"
Boy: [mutters something unintelligible]
Girl: "Merkel!!! S*** I don't want to go to Merkel!"

It was a good weekend. But I'm pooped. Hopefully I can rest some this weekend. Is it too early to be looking forward to the weekend?

4:28 PM Posted by Big Dave | 0 Thoughts

Friday, April 25, 2003
I'm sitting in the server room this morning rebuilding our demo server. Nothing was wrong with it, we just needed to upgrade the software and thought we might as well clean it up.

But I was looking around at the server cabinets. It makes me laugh. We have an IBM cabinet next to a Compaq cabinet next to a Dell cabinet. With a whole bunch of little PCs all over the room. I guess no one accused us of being bigoted toward one vendor.

Work has been a killer this week. I have my work mapped out for the next few weeks and I can't seem to get it done quick enough. It would be nice to have another programmer in here, but it would take them several weeks just to figure out this whole system. Sigh... someday.

This weekend Desiree and I will travel to Abilene. Get to spend quality time with the parental units and enjoy the Bellamy Brothers. It'll be nice to get away, but I can almost guarantee that whatever challenges I have will be in my minds queue all weekend.

12:19 PM Posted by Big Dave | 0 Thoughts

Wednesday, April 23, 2003
Well... let's see. I was at work until 9:30 last night. Went home and got immediately back on the computer. It's a good thing I'm getting some exercise in, otherwise my knees would be complaining about all the sitting I'm doing.

I have found a new hosting company that I'm very impressed with. I will eventually switch this site to their servers, but only when I have a bit more time. http://www.lonex.org

I was up until 2:00 last night because I couldn't convince my brain that it was time to go to bed. It's hard to get in early like you planned when stuff like that happens. Some of it was work stuff, some of it was church stuff.

Desiree called last night. She and her family had gone to see the Jimmy Buffet concert. From the sounds of it, everyone had a great time. Some are probably paying for it today.

I need to be incredibly productive today so I should get back to it. More later.

10:10 AM Posted by Big Dave | 0 Thoughts

Tuesday, April 22, 2003
Let's see. Quick update.

8 days worth of work and only 3 days to do it in.

Easter. Came and went.

Bellamy Brothers concert this weekend.

Youth Campout. Has yet to have been planned.

Hmmm.... The term burning the candle at both ends comes to mind.

10:28 PM Posted by Big Dave | 0 Thoughts

Saturday, April 19, 2003
It lives!!!!

12:35 PM Posted by Big Dave | 0 Thoughts

Happy Easter All

12:31 PM Posted by Big Dave | 0 Thoughts

Thursday, April 17, 2003
This week has just flown by. Last night I went up to the church. Since it's Holy Week they are having a service every night of the week. Last night was a Healing Service. It entailed an alter call where they anointed you with oil and let you pray at the altar. The intent is to offer up any brokenness and hurt while preparing ourselves for Easter. I managed to get back to my seat before some of the youth that were sitting in front of me. One of them came back and immediately wiped the oil off of his forehead. I pointed out that he wasn't supposed to wipe the oil off, but he responded with, "It's gross." I couldn't help but laugh.

After the service I sat down with our new youth director, Rick. Rick wants to get the youth website going again. We had one that died of neglect. Now we're going strong to get a new domain and logo. We're going to have a logo competition with the youth to decide what the new look should be. I'm excited, because a lot of the things I have wanted to do in the past, I now have free reign to go and make a reality. That's good and bad. I would love to do everything I imagine, but I don't know where I'll fit it into my hectic schedule. I do have to admit though, that my schedule has calmed down a little bit over the last few weeks. We shall see.

After I got home at 11:30, I played on the computer until 2:00. I finally made myself go to bed, but was too wound up to sleep. It'll be fun to have a wish list and see how many of those items I can actually accomplish.

12:33 PM Posted by Big Dave | 0 Thoughts

Tuesday, April 15, 2003
One of my co-workers found and caught a tarantula in the lobby this morning. He came by and tried to scare a couple of us with it. Instead of jumping, I wanted to look it up and find out what it was. Can you tell I ran the nature area at a Boy Scout camp? Here's what he caught. The body is about two inches long. I think it is a little smaller than my palm. Not that I pulled it out to play with it. They will take him (well I'm assuming it's a him) to a field behind the building and let him loose.

Just reading up on him I discovered something. I didn't realize it how long tarantulas live. 25 years is a really old spider.

10:25 AM Posted by Big Dave | 0 Thoughts

Saturday, April 12, 2003
I was actually ahead of the curve for once. I saw a story on CNN today about the www.WeLoveTheIraqiInformationMinister.com. It's good to be the king.

7:07 PM Posted by Big Dave | 0 Thoughts

Friday, April 11, 2003
A tribute to the soldiers.

It's a bunch of MSNBC photos to the tune of Tom Petty's "Won't Back Down." Very well done.

12:57 PM Posted by Big Dave | 0 Thoughts

I don't know if you had been watching "Baghdad Bob" make his blanket statements of denial. He kept denying that the infidels were anywhere near Baghdad and that the Iraqi army was being slaughtered. This site is a commemoration of him. http://www.welovetheiraqiinformationminister.com/ [link via Josh]

I have a slow weekend coming up. That's probably a good thing since my apartment looks like it's been bombed. Maybe I can get things cleaned up.

9:16 AM Posted by Big Dave | 0 Thoughts

Thursday, April 10, 2003
My mom emailed me yesterday, but I didn't check my mail until this morning. At the very bottom of her email was this comment:

"All is well. I probably will call you tonight, because I'm tired of waiting for emails or web page updates.

love you
mom"

I thought it was very funny. Especially since I called them last night after I got back from running around. It's a funny world we live it, but I would rather pick up the phone and call someone than email or instant message them. Yet, both of these things were designed to help us communicate better. I think I would have to argue that today's society communicates more, but not necessarily better.

This week has been another roller coaster, but not as bad as last week. I took my car into the shop yesterday. It was making some funny noises. I have my car back minus the funny noises but with a nice fat bill. Not fun, but I took the car to a shop I trust. They did a lot of work on the guy so I'm hoping I don't have to take it back in any time soon. But the car has a lot of miles on it. I'm sure shop trips will become more frequent.

I was listening to the radio yesterday as they were describing the scene in Baghdad. I heard them describe pulling down the statue with what effectively amounted to a tow truck for tanks. I have mixed feelings about this war. I have mixed feelings about what will come from this war. I hope and pray that it will allow the Iraqi people to grow and prosper. I was trying to imagine how I would feel if I were an Iraqi. It's like being rescued from a horrible situation by the person you've been told all your life is the enemy. I makes for some pretty bittersweet emotions. I would like to say everything will be resolved and make sense in no time, but I just don't know. I'm not pro-war and I'm not anti-war. I'm just a realist who looks for the flaws in any plan.

Shahid started on Monday. He's very Indian. (Dot not feather) I know it's intimidating trying to get your arms around the whole thing, but he seems to be doing well. I haven't talked to him much this week since I've been extremely busy. That's funny since I sit right across the aisle from him.

I think I may have to see a movie this weekend. I'm not sure what yet, but something. Also, Scarborough Faire opens this weekend. I'm not going to be able to make it this weekend, but I'm going to go sometime. I went last year and enjoyed it. I was a little disappointed though. I was hoping to see chicks in chainmail. I only saw one and she was selling the stuff.

8:04 AM Posted by Big Dave | 0 Thoughts

Saturday, April 05, 2003
I was looking at my web stats for the last few months. This month and last month have some very unusual developments. I'm not going to link the site, but you can go see what I'm talking about. Numbers 11 & 12 on the list for April.

[Update] The sites are in my referral list and they are a couple of porn sites. Why they linked to me, I have no idea.

3:30 PM Posted by Big Dave | 0 Thoughts

I had someone email me and ask me to put them on an update list for my site. While I'm not sure whether to be flattered or extremely scared that someone would want to follow the tangential thinking that is my mind. Either way, I began researching options. The first one to pop up is a tool called Fresh Blogs. I've met most of the people that make up the Apt Minds team and know it's a neat little tool. I had an account, but I had never set up my watch list. I'm not sure exactly how it all works, but if you like to read a bunch of web sites, you might want to check it out.

Oh... and I'm curious that no one commented on my "Don't eat your toes." comment in the last post. Chalk one up for the curiosity factor.

Last night I went to see a wonderful production of Godspell presented by the youth music program at my church. It was a lot of fun and they did wonderfully. This weekend has been absolutely beautiful. After the show last night we went out to Andy Brown park and played on the swings and walked around the little lake. Good stuff.

Today I went to lunch with my cousin Beth. We decided to go to Dave and Buster's since it's really close. We ate and then enjoyed the games. I got to play the boxing game that I've always wanted to play, but is always really busy. I did well on the first guy, but the second one beat me. I guess I'll just have to play again. We played Skee Ball and some basket ball game. Then we played a couple of games to win tickets. I won twice in a row and then won this tower of power game. I won something close to 600 tickets. I didn't get anything, but I might next time. I'm on a roll today though. I should go buy a lottery ticket.

Oh.. and I found something else that was really cool. I went to the Discovery Channel Store and found this little magnetic dart board. I've been wanting a dart board for a while, but I didn't want to put it up in my apartment. But I decided I had to get this guy. So I did. I haven't played with it yet, but I enjoyed the one in the store. By the way. How come todays kids get all the cool toys. Don't get me wrong, Transformers and Constructs were cool, but I want the little remote control guys for preschoolers that pick stuff up and move it around. Or the voice activated robot. I'd tell that one to go mow the yard if I thought it would work.

I suppose I have stalled long enough. I'm at work and am trying a couple of things since we have a problem with our production server. Since I'm trying to get out of here, I guess I better get done what I came here to do.

3:17 PM Posted by Big Dave | 0 Thoughts

Wednesday, April 02, 2003
It's humpday. This week has definitely been an uphill battle.

Last weekend was good and bad. Fire and ice. Yen and Yang. Get the picture? I was at work late Friday night when I was supposed to be at the concert by 7:30. Of course the one day I leave my phone at home is the one day I would gnaw my left arm off to have it with me.

Saturday we went to hear a speaker talk. Her name was Dr. Alice Von Hilderbrand. I didn't know until we got there that it was a Catholic women's group. I really enjoyed her talk, but then people started asking questions and I got more than an ear full of Catholic propaganda. Including several left-handed slaps at Protestantism.

Saturday night was a "Talking Trash" party. Imagine a bunch of slightly geeky people swinging a Gallagher mallet to destroy such devices as computers, CD players, fans, and curling irons. All things that were so frustrating that we decided they were talking trash and must be taught a lesson. We left early since it was bitterly cold and we were all outside. Fine for me. I was running around in a T-shirt. Desiree on the other hand is not as well equipped to handle the cold.

Sunday was consumed by going to church, paying bills, and watching UHF and Tuck Everlasting.

Lots of work going on this week, but I'm not sure how productive I'm being. I have to set up a couple of machines. Good news is that we are getting someone else starting next Monday.

I have acquired a YMCA membership to the Y that's in this building. I have my stuff and plan to work out my frustrations at the expense of some machine.

Oh... and one more thing. Yesterday was "The Mother of Desiree's" birthday. Happy belated birthday. You know what she needs a name. Since she's always referring to herself as the queen, I'm going to start calling her the "Queen Mother." We'll see how well she likes that one.

I guess it's time to go be productive. Have fun. Be Safe. And don't eat your toes.

8:55 AM Posted by Big Dave | 0 Thoughts