Current Brainstorms
Thursday, August 28, 2003
I had started my last post when I thought we were ready to get out of here. We had a problem with one of the laptops and I didn't manage to get out of there until much later. A trip to Wal-Mart at 11:30 bailed us out of a major problem. We couldn't find a modem to send with a laptop. I had scoured the office, but no one uses a modem any more or the modem is internal to the laptop.
What was supposed to be the last stage took us 3 hours to get figured out. I left work a little after 1:30 this morning. Jill hopped on a plane at 3:00 this morning to take the laptops to Sacramento.
I did get to go look at Mars. That was a plus, but I hate being under the gun like that.
This morning I slept in and then went to Fry's. I bought components to replace my fried motherboard and CPU. I ended up buying the Soyo Dragon 2 - Platinum, a 2.8 GHz processor, and some ultra fast memory. When I got to work, I spent two hours in surgery before the patient came back to life. I have yet to put it through it's full paces, but so far, I'm quite pleased.
So basically, I've had a really busy few days.
6:03 PM Posted by Big Dave
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Wednesday, August 27, 2003
Oh what a day. I'm actually still at work. After trying for several hours to walk them through problems on the laptop, we have decided to take it upon ourselves to provide the user with the laptops they needed to enroll clients. It's been a long day of scrounging for laptops and installing what is a huge three tier system on single laptop.
As if that wasn't enough. The very first thing I did this morning was to fry my development machine at work. It's truly a shame. I was going to upgrade the memory from 512 MB to 1 Gig of Ram. While this may seem absurd to many users, I typically consume over a Gig of ram. When it fills up all the real memory, a computer starts to use the hard drive as memory. Since a hard drive is much slower than RAM, it really bogs down the computer.
I got in a hurry and didn't check everything twice before I installed the extra memory I had bought. I had purchased the wrong memory. When I put it in, I caught a whiff of ozone and immediately turned the machine off, but I was too late. I had fried not only the motherboard, but the processor as well. I've had the chance to check the processor and the memory. The memory got to go into one of the other developer's machine. He doesn't know it yet, but he's going to be a happy camper when he comes in tomorrow.
The bright side is that I get to build a newer, faster computer. The bad news: I really needed my computer today. Oh and I'm going to hear about this for the next several years.
9:30 PM Posted by Big Dave
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Insanity is the order of the day. I can't think of anything more frustrating than walking a non-technical person through a very technical process. The good/bad news to this is that if I can't get them to figure it out over the phone, I'm on my way to Little Rock this afternoon.
We had gone through a lot of trouble testing everything before we sent it to them. It works fine for us, but they can't get it to work. How thrilling.
12:13 PM Posted by Big Dave
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Thursday, August 21, 2003
You know those days when you have an incredibly strong craving for one particular type of food. Usually something very specific? That was me today.
Someone at the office was warming up some brisket. I could smell it all over the office and it smelled really good. I decided that barbecue was exactly what I needed. And as soon as possible. I'm a little picky about my barbecue places, but once I find a place I like, I'm usually quite loyal to them. One of my favorite places is a chain called
Sonny Bryan's that was started in Grapevine, but is now owned by a corporation. I knew there was one in the Stonebriar Mall, but I had only found it once. After a little detective work I located it inside Macy's.
The food was awesome. It hit all my spots at once. I sat there and ate looking out into Macy's. It's really funny that this little restaurant was inside the department store. I didn't see anything I need, but it's one way to ensure I go back to Macy's.
Now a satiated and much happier David is back at work were he is way behind in everything he needs to do. Mainly b/c I've been playing project manager all morning. Oh. And playing with my new laptop. I forgot to mention that part. I bought myself a birthday present. And it's nice.
"It's good to be the king."- Mel Brooks (
History of the World; Part I)
12:55 PM Posted by Big Dave
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Tuesday, August 19, 2003
I went to Schlotzsky's for dinner tonight. On the way up to the building I noticed that their sign with the removable plastic letters had a very informative message for people as they drove by the restaurant. It said, "Eating is necessary"
I laughed when I saw it, but I couldn't argue the point.
8:00 PM Posted by Big Dave
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Monday, August 18, 2003
I had a post going.. I've already done it twice. But I've lost it twice.
Needless to say, when you're already in a sour mood. That doesn't help. Maybe I'll post something later.
Stupid computer.
11:56 AM Posted by Big Dave
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Thursday, August 14, 2003
I truly find it amazing at the variety and quantity of things I misplace in my apartment. I will admit that it is a small apartment and that I have way too much stuff in it, but I should still be able to find most of the things I'm looking for.
My latest search and rescue operation has to do with a large 5 foot tall white structure that I use to hang my hanging clothes when they come out of the dryer. You would typically expect this task to be very simple. I have to laugh at the fact that I searched for twenty minutes. Opening the same closet doors and looking in the cracks and cubby holes. It is a known scientific principle that if you repeat the same experiment given the same parameters you should expect the same results. This principle held true in my circumstances as well. I decided to sit at my computer and write a update while waiting for divine inspiration to hit me. I find it more than a little ironic that the large white structure of my quest was laying on its side behind the couch next to the computer desk. Thus the muse has inspired me once more and I have laundry to finish.
Only 30 minutes into my search.
10:57 PM Posted by Big Dave
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Monday, August 11, 2003
I can't believe it's Monday already. Actually the day is almost done so it's really Tuesday. Oh never mind. Today was a good day, but incredibly busy. I felt like I was moving all day, but didn't get anything done.
I had a great time last weekend. Saturday was a counselor get together. It was supposed to be on the lake where some of the counselors have a 'yacht.' We met up at a pier on Lake Texoma. Desiree and I got up there a little after 10:00. It had rained most of the way up there. When we got there I got to see that they weren't joking when they called the boat a yacht. This boat was about 40 feet long with 2 beds/2 bath and a living room and kitchen. Since it was still raining when we got there we just hung around on the docks and waited for it to clear up. When it finally quit raining, we cruised out to a nice little cove that they knew about. Among the many fun activities we had going on, I got to ride on a Sea-Do. I had never ridden one before. After I was taken for a cruise, I got to be the driver. Desiree went with me after a while and we headed out. I had a great time, but was a little cautious about going too crazy. Dezi said after we got back that she was awfully sore. We had a great time, but I was exhausted by the time I got back.
11:31 PM Posted by Big Dave
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Thursday, August 07, 2003
Does anyone else feel as dumb as I do sometimes?
I got home on Tuesday and checked my mail to discover that I had mailed my rent check to myself. I figured out what had happened. I must have put the car payment check in the over night box for the apartment complex and put the stamp on the wrong envelope. I decided I'd have to call the apartment complex in the morning and see what was going on. As I was walking up to my apartment, I noticed a piece of white paper waiting for me on the door. I pull it down and it says "Notice of Eviction." There was more verbiage than that, but that was the gist of it. It also said I had until the 8th to vacate the premises. Of course the office is closed by this time, so I have to wait until the morning when I can talk to them. But I fretted about it most of the evening.
I was glad I had decided to stop by Blockbuster on my way home. I had rented a couple of movie, but the only one due back early was
Spirited Away. I put it in and was greeted by
John Lassiter introducing the movie. I have to admit, I was really impressed. I don't know how many people would actually know who he is, but he's the creative director of
Pixar. They had him labeled on screen as being with Disney, but he's actually with Pixar. Anyway... The movie was excellent. I had been told long ago that I needed to see it, but just hadn't managed to get around to it. Beautiful yet unusual animation and I really enjoyed the story.
I waited until the office opened at 9:00 the next morning. I had gone to the bank to pick up some cash in case they wouldn't accept my check. When I finally got in, I talked to the temp that was working the office. All the full-time people were off on some type of training. I explained what had happened and asked her to look for my other check. She didn't find it, but took my original rent check and my number and told me she would find out what I needed to do next. She called me a while later to tell me they had already sent my other check to the bank and didn't know if it was going to clear or not. Highly confusing, but I'll be upset if it actually clears the bank.
After I got off work last night, I went by Desiree's and we went back to my place so I could put on some non-working clothes. She set up an indoor picnic in the living room (since it was 106 yesterday) and we proceeded to chow down on sandwiches and homemade brownies. After that we went to play on the playground for a while, but it was really hot and humid so we didn't last too terribly long.
I got some fun stuff for my birthday. My mom sent me an application for a passport along with money for the fees. Dezi got me a shirt that had a picture of Mickey and said "I'm with goofy" while pointing off to one side. She also got me some shorts and a copy of
My Big Fat Greek Wedding. It was a very pleasant evening.
9:36 AM Posted by Big Dave
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Wednesday, August 06, 2003
Happy birthday to me. Happy birthday to me. Happy birthday to meeeee! Happy birthday to me.
26 Baby. And I just keep picking up speed.
8:07 AM Posted by Big Dave
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Tuesday, August 05, 2003
Ok,
So I promised a more detailed update. Well I don't really have time right now, but I'm going to make time. Work is really picking up. We have some new clients that look like they will be going live in October. These are some of our really big guys and we've been working towards that date for a month now.
Details of the weekend.
Friday night the lock-in started at 10:00. I showed up about 8:30 to see what I could do. We set up some speakers and a laptop with an MP3 playlist of party music. They had rented several blow up games. They had Joust, a giant Laser Tag maze, and an obstacle course. I challenged a couple of youth to race on the
obstacle course. I knew it was a ludicrous proposition, but I had a good time with it anyway. On the first go around, I discovered that I'm so heavy I sink almost to the floor which makes it very difficult to get over the hills. I made it over the hills and Laura had already made it to the end. On the next go around, I was racing Bianca. She told me "No Cheating!" But she should have known better. Right after the initial obstacle, I rolled off the course and ran so that I was in front of the giant hill. I climbed up and rolled down the other side. I hit the barrier that is supposed to stop you and kept right on rolling... Over the wall and onto the ground. I wasn't hurt, but I did lay there for a few minutes catching my breath and making sure nothing hurt that wasn't supposed to.
About 2:00 we realized that all of the snacks and cokes had been finished off by the youth. Leia, Nate, and I made a run to Wal-Mart to reload. We also decided to add a little mischief to the mix and grabbed a large set of watergun. I also grabbed a little nicer water gun and a giant bottle of bubbles. We made it back in about 45 minutes. Not bad timing for all the stuff we brought back with us. One of my favorite water guns was a little bitty guy that looked like a grenade. I could hold it in my hand and spray the youth walking by without them knowing where it was coming from. We'd also stand on the balcony and shoot down on the guys playing basketball or volleyball. I'm not sure who had more fun at the lock-in. The youth or the "adults."
Saturday I went home and crashed. The only sleep I had managed to grab the night before was about 30 minutes when I decided to check the resilience of a couch. Last Sunday marked one year that Desiree and I have been dating. I was originally told I couldn't go to youth, but it was a couple of youths' last time before they move to Chicago so she relented. We went out to celebrate on Saturday. Both of us were exhausted. Dezi had asked all her piano students over for a slumber party the night before so she didn't get much more sleep than I did. But I had my nap during the day. We went to a little Tex-Mex place in Coppell called Ole's. They have wonderful fajitas. Desiree was trying to order the sour cream enchiladas and made sure there was no meat in the sauce and the waiter just couldn't seem to understand what she was asking. I tried to help, but that only seemed to confuse him further. Eventually they brought out the food. She had chicken in her cheese sour cream enchiladas, so it was sent back to the kitchen. Another waiter got involved and got the whole mess straightened out.
Our first date had been to Cowboys Red River. My original plans for Sunday had included going to the same places we went on our first date. Since neither one of us were in any condition to be out for terribly long, we went back to my place where I had some country MP3s we could dance to. The only other people we had to compete with for the dance floor were my cats to kept trying to get in the way.
Sunday I got a call that something was broken, so I went up to the office to figure out what was broken and why. I found the problem, temporarily patched it, and went along my merry way. On my way to pick Dezi up, I got a call from my buddy Jeff. The first question out of his mouth was, "Are you married?" After the initial shock and confusion I found out that a couple of my other friends had already managed to get engaged and married without telling anyone. It made more sense in that context, but I did get a good laugh out of it. That night the worship service was outside. It was fun and the waterguns made a triumphant return. As we were finishing up and getting ready to go, one of the other counselors pulls me over to the side and asks if it was our anniversary. I answered in the affirmative at which point she asked if I was going to propose. I responded that it was a possibility, but not tonight. She then told me I should walk up to the mike and do it right then in front of all the youth. "Be spontaneous!" What's the deal with everyone trying to get me married off? It was funny though. I told Dezi about it later and we just laughed.
11:48 AM Posted by Big Dave
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Monday, August 04, 2003
I have so much to say, but no time to say it. Here is a super quick summary to be followed by a more detailed explanation.
Friday
- Lock in with 135 youth
- Had to be that guy who yells hand check
- Raced youth and won (but cheated) on giant inflatable obstacle course
- 2:00 AM run to Wal-Mart for Cokes, treats, and waterguns. (Muhaha)
- Sleep? Not a chance.
Saturday
- Sleep
- Dinner with a waiter who couldn't speak English
- Dancing in an intimate atmosphere
Sunday
- Work (use sparingly)
- Play (sprinkle liberally)
- Odd question from a random phone call.
- Youth; wild and wacky fun.
- Similar odd question from a wacky counselor.
8:14 AM Posted by Big Dave
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