Current Brainstorms
Wednesday, May 28, 2003
Last night I was working on my computer and kept getting bombarded with pop ups. I thought that excessively odd since I didn't have a browser open at the time. I start looking around and decided I might have a virus. After updating my virus definitions and running a sweep, I decided to look into the processes I had running on my machine. There were several of them including
rb32.exe. This stupid thing refused to die. When I discovered it was SpyWare, I went out and downloaded a program called
SpyBot Search and Destroy.
For those of you who don't know. SpyWare is software that sits on your system and collects data on your activities and then reports it back to some other system. It's commonly associated with Freeware software. I think this latest annoyance came when I upgraded
Kazzaa. That may not necessarily be the case because apparently this annoying little program will automatically update itself. I ran Search and Destroy and found about 30 programs/cookies/trackers on my system. Now I'm not a paranoid person, but this scares me. Who knows what kinds of other things are on my system without my permission.
I highly recommend you download and install the search and destroy program. No sense in wasting bandwidth so that someone else can send you more spam.
Oh... and you want to see how hard these jerks make it to get rid of their software? Try looking at
this tech support question.
12:34 PM Posted by Big Dave
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Tuesday, May 27, 2003
I had some bone head debt collector call me today on my cell phone asking for someone else. When I answered the phone she asked if I knew this other person with the last name of Rollins. My first response was a simple "No." When she persisted by saying, "Are you sure you don't know her? She lives a block from your house." I got a little hot. When I asked her what this was about and she told me she was a collections agent, I got really ticked off. I promptly told her not to call again and hung up the phone. Upon reflection I decided I should have told her I live in a community of apartments and there were several hundred people that lived within a block of me.
However, as I was looking up the phone number to figure out which set of morons had called me, I found
this. If you want to see what words your telephone number spells out, you can use it. My phone number spells out 2-acidic.
2:41 PM Posted by Big Dave
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Friday, May 23, 2003
Insanity has been the order of the day every day this week. Our client who was supposed to go live at midnight has still yet to go live. We've had all sorts of fun issues including discovering that they had sent us some bad data for about 100 people. The worst part about that was we had to wait until it was fixed and then delete all the employees and start loading the data again. Almost everyone stayed the night. I went home about 6:00 and was back in the office at 10:30. I'm not sure if sleeping for a bit helped or hindered. Eric has been here for the last two days. Yaser, Allen, Bill, Christian, Eric and I were all up here banging away. I left as it was loading some of the data, but apparently it was still loading when I got back.
Fortunately everything looks to be in good order. There a bunch of minor corrections all over, but nothing show stopping. I'm very glad we have a three day weekend. I may require the rest of the weekend to recover. Saturday is my only day with stuff going on. I have a wedding to attend and I agreed to go help fix computers for some sort of charitable cause. All I know is they have 60 some odd computers to fix that morning.
I'm feeling pretty good at the moment, but I'm sure I'll crash later.
I was sitting here trying to think of something fun or cool and then I remembered a couple of things.
Fun car commercial Please let me know if you can remember what this type of machine is called. I've been trying to think of it for a couple of days.
and
Odd Todd - Matrix
1:35 PM Posted by Big Dave
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Monday, May 19, 2003
Today has been somewhat surrealistic. I found out yesterday that Yaser's father died. In Islam, it is required that the body be buried by sundown the next day at the latest. Since Yaser is from Jordan, there is absolutely no way he would have been able to make it in time. He was very close to his father and is taking it hard.
That being said, work is just as frantic as it has been for the last few weeks. I spent a good part of Saturday at the office and had to come up Sunday night for a while to get some of the critical things off the list. We have a new customer who is driving us nuts, but has the potential to bring lots of money into the company.
Regardless of work, I had a good weekend. Saturday Desiree and I went to dinner with her mother's side of the family. We went to a Macaroni Grill where they had a wandering opera singer. Our table must have been a favorite of his since he kept coming back. When we were finished with the meal and getting ready to go, he started trying to get me to sing in an operatic fashion. I went along for a little while, but the idea of singing in a crowded restaurant with a good portion of Desiree's family got to me. I decided it was time for us to make our departure. I at least had a good reasoning. We were going to see X-Men 2. We made the movie in perfect timing, but the projector bulb was out so the movie started about 15 minutes late. However, the theatre manager came in and announced the situation and that they were going to comp us tickets for next time.
Sunday was busy all day. I went to church with Desiree and then helped set up for a piano recital she was holding for her students at 2:00. It was a little rushed, but everything turned out well. I have decided that I would like to learn how to play the piano. Desiree has promised to help me learn. I want to be able to play Disney tunes. That's probably pretty advanced and may take a while, but I want to be able to play fun things. Since I want to play, I'm going to get Desiree to go with me to pick out a keyboard.
6:23 PM Posted by Big Dave
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Saturday, May 17, 2003
Here's something to make you go Hmmm.... An
Inflatable Church
11:43 AM Posted by Big Dave
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Thursday, May 15, 2003
Hmm... this weekend has flown by. I'm not sure exactly what it is that I've been doing, but I know I've been keeping busy.
I'm still nursing the chigger bites. Fortunately they don't itch much anymore.
Last night Desiree treated me to a 10:30 showing of
The Matrix: Reloaded. I enjoyed the movie for what it was, but my expectations were not met. It appeared that they went from fighting being and integral part of the story in the first Matrix to a "How can we make it bigger and better" philosophy. The movie was enjoyable, but they took everything we thought we knew about the matrix and turned it on its head. I am looking forward to the next movie, but I hope it is better than its predecessor. I did enjoy the spectacular 10 minute chase scene and the fact that Morpheus went after an agent with a samurai sword.
Hmmm... trying to recap the week. Desiree cooked dinner on Monday night. It was spaghetti. Very good spaghetti. I was lazy Tuesday. I had to watch Buffy. There's only one more episode left. I was upset last week because I tried to tape it and the Mavericks game was on in it's place. So they moved Buffy to 9:00. Stupid networks. Like anyone wants to watch basketball. Now
Texas Aggie Football, that's a sport people should watch.
I guess that brings me to today. I have been working hard all week. Shahid has been given some progressively harder assignments. He's catching on, but it's a large system, with a huge learning curve and he gets confused about what classes are being called where. I've done a lot of work this week. I have finished a couple of enrollment products and written a data loader for our new client who is set to start enrollment at the end of the month.
This weekend should be a fun one. I'm finally going to go see
X-Men 2. I'd like to go see the
Frisco Rough Riders, but I'm not sure if I'll have time this weekend. Already have dinner plans for Friday and Saturday night. Plus I'm playing with the youth Sunday night.
I was trying to make plans with my buddy Josh the last time he was in town. He called on a Thursday night and we were trying to figure out when we could get together and go out to dinner. He laughed because I had something going on overnight that next week but Friday. He commented on needing to call me more than a week in advance to get on my schedule. I guess I do have a lot going on. But I like it that way. I just can't figure out how I'm going to find the time to do everything else I want to do.
3:07 PM Posted by Big Dave
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Tuesday, May 13, 2003
I had a wonderful weekend. We had 21 kids go camping with us. I came home quite content, tired beyond belief, and covered with chigger bites. It was a very good weekend.
This morning I have taken some benedryl to keep me from scratching the chigger bites. I probably should have only taken one. It's almost all I can do just to keep my eyes open.
I have some coffee and the need to get stuff accomplished today. That's the only thing keeping me awake at the moment.
More later
9:26 AM Posted by Big Dave
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Friday, May 09, 2003
This weekend I'm taking about 20 youth camping. Now this might not sound like a lot of fun to many people, but I'm really looking forward to it. I finally have all my bases covered. I have directions, tents, drivers, food, and everything else you can possibly imagine. Unfortunately I was up until 2:30 making sure everything was in order. I'm going to sleep well tonight.
9:56 AM Posted by Big Dave
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Wednesday, May 07, 2003
I had to go yell at somebody this morning. I would have loved to do it in person or over the phone, but I had to do it by email. I got a call this morning from a very upset Desiree since Lonex hadn't done what they said they would do. When I asked them about it, it was bounced back and forth between Sales and Tech Support. I finally sent the Sales department a nasty letter and threatened them with future clients. I'm pretty sure that got their attention.
I got an email a couple of hours later pointing the finger at someone else, but they did what I expected them to do. I love it when I win. And I always win.
[Update:] I actually got a call from the manager this afternoon apologizing for the confusion and taking responsibility for the mix up and asked me to pass on his apologies. Ok. They are out of time out.
12:02 PM Posted by Big Dave
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Monday, May 05, 2003
I usually listen to the radio all day as I code. I usually have a hard time picking up the station I like, but today I couldn't stand the static. I decided to put in a CD to aide me in my coding efforts. I'm really glad I did.
One of my coding CDs is a group called
SuperChic(k). It's a Christian group. I'm trying to think who I'd relate them to. The only person I can think of is
Pink. That type of energy and meaning in their songs. Today I was listening to a song and discovered it has a new meaning for me. It's called "
Let it Be." The chorus goes like this:
Let it go. Let it be.
Brick by brick we can be free of all the words we say until we are our own enemies.
Let it go. Let it be.
Brick by brick we can believe in the person God intended us to be.
Let it be.
I've been very bad recently about trying to tackle the whole world at once. When something doesn't go my way I get very frustrated. I am a control freak in many ways. I want things to be the way I want them. I don't understand why other people aren't as passionate about the things I want them to be passionate about. Whether at work or at church. I just need to take the advice of this song and let it be. I know I'll be a much happier person for it. It's amazing how often I have to remind myself of the truths that I already know.
12:54 PM Posted by Big Dave
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Friday, May 02, 2003
I think it's funny that I can lay in bed and ignore my alarm for an hour, but if my cell phone goes off, I'm up and trying to find it by the third note. That's not a suggestion, merely an observation.
Something that made me laugh:
Killer Coding Ninja Monkeys do exist
8:07 AM Posted by Big Dave
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Thursday, May 01, 2003
I'm glad that we're really busy, but I'd like a lull at some point.
Since we're under the gun to test with a new client next week, I have been working like a mad man. I come in, sit down, and code until 6:00 or so. With only a few breaks for restroom, water, and the like. Lunch has been a quick run to a drive through and then back to work. Today was the exception for the week. I went to lunch with a few of my co-workers. We went to an Indian food restraint named
Sitar. It was good food, though it wasn't as spicy as I remember most Indian food being. They had something for dessert. I can't remember what it was called, but it tasted like rice stirred into condensed milk. Not very appetizing.
I'm the kind of person who would try just about any kind of food once. I've had fried rattlesnake before which makes some people cringe with the thought. It was ok. But there were a lot of tiny bones you have to pick out.
I guess it has been a good week, but I've been stressing about all that is on my plate at the moment. I'm ready for some of that to come off. I have a lot of things I would like to do, but I'm too busy to do a lot of them.
Do you have things you'd like to do in your life time? I have several.
I would like to take some form of martial arts. I would like to study
Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu since it involves a lot of locks and grappling to wear down an opponent. Kung Fu would also be nice, but it is much more intense than many of the other disciplines. For instance, to getting a
black belt in Kung Fu requires training in 8 different weapons/weapons techniques.
I would like to become a certified scuba diver. I'd like to have EMT training (highly unlikely at this point). I want to learn how to ride a motorcycle. I want to go sky-diving. I would like to learn how to fly a plane. I want to learn how to sail a sail boat. I want to take trips to Europe, Australia, Hawaii, New Orleans, Las Vegas, New York, etc. I want to have my name in the credits of a Disney movie. I'm sure I'll be able to think of more later, but this is all I can come up with off the top of my head.
Basically, I just need to start a list and try to start knocking them out. They all seem pretty daunting though.
9:54 PM Posted by Big Dave
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