Tuesday, February 24, 2004
Mardi Gras New Orleans style. I came, I saw (in some cases way too much), didn't have time to get a t-shirt.

We had a good time at Mardi Gras. We strolled down Bourbon street as well as most of the French Quarter. We went to several parades. We came back with a ton of beads, some parade coins, some cups, and a plush football.

Spent lots of money and lots of quality time in the car.

Overall a very succesful trip. One of these days I'll put the whole experience in words. Right now, I'm still running to catch up.

8:02 AM Posted by Big Dave | 0 Thoughts

Thursday, February 19, 2004
Swell... Just swell. As if my paranoia needed a boost.

1:24 PM Posted by Big Dave | 0 Thoughts

Wednesday, February 18, 2004
Well... No one said people weren't interesting. As a taste for the odder side, try some of this.

Super Hero goes grinding
Caped Crusader? Really?

9:52 AM Posted by Big Dave | 0 Thoughts

Monday, February 16, 2004
I'm completely useless at work today. All I know is I'm going to Mardi Gras this weekend in New Orleans. I consider myself to have lived a relatively sheltered life. I have heard wild and crazy stories about this place and particularly this event. I'm eager to go, but I have one problem. I'm EXTREMELY protective. I call it "Big Brother Mode." It's good and it's bad. I want to go and have a good time, but part of me is already being extremely paranoid. I imagine it will be fine once we get there and I see what's going on. For the time being my mind is going nuts with what could happen.

Oh, that and I'm listening to an audio book on Smallpox as a biological weapon being the next major catastrophe. Nothing to put one in a cheery mood than a little old fashioned paranoia. Where's Big Brother when you need him.

11:18 AM Posted by Big Dave | 0 Thoughts

Friday, February 13, 2004
I've been working over the last few days to get party music together for a dance that the youth are having on Sunday. While I was trying to find a copy of "The Bird" by Morris Day and The Time, I decided to investigate some of the new legal file sharing options. I downloaded iTunes and Napster.

iTunes was easy to use, but when I downloaded a file, they saved it in a proprietary format so I can't copy it to a standard MP3 player and take it where ever I want. I needed to edit the song for content because they cuss at the very beginning. Since it wasn't an MP3 file, I could burn it to CD so I'll pull it off the CD and convert it back to a standard WAV so I can edit it and them into an MP3 using CDex. (CDex is a little more complicated, but it lets me do what I want to do).

I never actually downloaded anything with Napster, so I'm not sure of the format or ease of purchase, but Napster also did not have the obscure song that I was looking for. Not sure what that means for Napster, but I liked the look. I'll have to see how well it performs at some point.

Each of the services charged $0.99 per song. I'm curious to see about using it with some other songs I want.

I'm also in the process of trying to get a linux PVR to work. So far no luck, but I did manage to install RedHat, so there is a possibility of success in the far distant future.

4:18 PM Posted by Big Dave | 0 Thoughts

Wednesday, February 11, 2004
'Star Wars' to be released on DVD

It's about stinking time.

11:37 AM Posted by Big Dave | 0 Thoughts

Monday, February 09, 2004
I thought weekends were supposed to be relaxing. Well this weekend was certainly anything but that. I've had a very trying time over the last several days, but it appears that most of those featurettes are drawing to a close.

It all started last Thursday when I went to get an oil change. Standard thing for those who drive cars. They recommended that I have a radiator flush since I had a lot of gunk in radiator. They did the flush and I drove it around for a little bit. It wasn't readily obvious, but I knew something wasn't quite right. Friday night my heater doesn't work (bad on one of the few cold weekends in Texas) and my car was starting to over heat (a funny irony wouldn't you think). I tried taking it to a place that said they were open on Saturdays when I check the web, but were closed when I got there. I did a little bit of driving, but tried to stay off of it Saturday and Sunday. Unfortunately you can't get anywhere in the metroplex without driving for 30-40 minutes.

Sunday I went out to my car to drive up to the church for youth that night and not only do I have to worry about my car, but I have a flat. I fill it up with air and drive to a gas station to fill it up with a real compressor instead of my little one. As I'm bending down to remove the air cap I can hear the air escaping from the tire. At that point I drove it to the nearest Discount Tire hoping they were open. They were not, but I knew I couldn't drive it so I left it there and called to ask to Desiree come to get me. My dad would of course call me a fool for driving a car I was worried about over heating to begin with, but I don't have to tell him do I?

Last night was Celebration of Summer for the youth at the church. It's a night to show case what is coming up during the summer. The adults get the information and the youth get to play games or run around on the giant inflatable things. They rented a couple of obstacle courses, a bounce house, and an inflatable electronic bull. The electronic bull was a hit. They had a lot of fun with that one. I played sound guy and supervised one of the obstacle courses. Desiree brought her Ukulele and wore a crazy crab hat that she took to Buffet last year. She and her cadre of followers trapsed around most of the evening. Half of the time they were dragging her from one place to the other, so that does bring into question the term followers.

Last night I stayed in the Muse's guest room and Desiree took me to the tire shop this morning. They got my tire fixed and then I managed to limp my car to the place that originally flushed it since I wanted them to fix what ever they had done. They got it in and opened her up. Ron, the mechanic, showed me what the real problem was. One of the welds had given way on the out flow from the engine. With it leaking so much fluid he recommend that I leave it there and they would take care of it. The owner dropped me off at work so I could try to accomplish what I could for the day. Ron spent all day working on my car and had it ready by 3:00. I got a buddy from work to drop me off. As I was leaving I told Yaser what was going on and he told me to just go home. I guess I looked like I needed it. I really had no intention of doing so, but I drove around for a little bit and then went to the house. I decided that the stubble I had been wearing all day was truly driving me crazy and that I needed to eat something. After those two things were accomplished it was 4:30 and I just decided to stay where I was. It's a good thing too. I had a ton of stuff that I needed to be working on around the house.

This evening I went to my Jiu-Jitsu lesson. One of the guys from the garage was checking out the class. It's such a small world some times. Class was good, but I push a little harder than normal and can already tell that I'm going to be sore tomorrow.

After class I drove to Plano to meet Desiree for our dance lessons. I had originally purchased them as a Christmas present. The classes are fun, but with out crazy schedules we didn't think we could keep it up. We sat down last week and they worked with us to outline something that should be affordable and will fit into our schedules. Unfortunately it means we have to take group classes separately since we can't make it on the same nights. We getting into some of the more involved stuff. Tonight Dezi and I were both frustrated when the steps didn't click quickly. I guess we'll see how well it goes. Tomorrow I'm supposed to go learn how to Cha Cha. I'm already grumbling about it. But I committed myself to going so I better go.

One of these days I'm going to slow down and take it easy... Oh who am I kidding. It's never going to happen. Now my only question is how can I fit in graduate school and scuba lessons into this mess? Hmmm... Study under water maybe?

11:31 PM Posted by Big Dave | 0 Thoughts

Thursday, February 05, 2004
I'm in a very odd mood at the moment. I've been feeling weird physically all day. Very jittery. Maybe it had something to do with the allergy medicine I took earlier in the day.

I had a call from an old girlfriend. I should really clarify that. It was a girl that I was infatuate with who did not return the feelings and chose instead to stomp all over my feelings. We tried dating a couple of times and she would break it off with an email or something equally as personal. She was and still is a good friend. We would occasionally go out dancing with a group at A&M. She always said she wanted me to come dance with her on the day she got married. Well she called today to say that they had a date and she wanted me to come. I will of course, but it's an odd feeling. Not sure exactly what to feel. I'm happy for them. A couple of years have given me the wisdom and experience to know that it would never work out, but you still catch yourself pondering the 'what if's. I wish them the best of luck.

On a completely unrelated note, Dezi and I are now planning on going to New Orleans the weekend before Fat Tuesday. I've always wanted to go to New Orleans. The fact that it's going to be getting some of the overlap from Mardi Gras is just a bonus. I'm nervous and anxious since I don't know what to expect. It's defiantly a 'Carpe Diem' moment.

7:05 PM Posted by Big Dave | 0 Thoughts

Wednesday, February 04, 2004
Engineering geek names son version 2.0

That poor kid.

4:54 PM Posted by Big Dave | 0 Thoughts

Tuesday, February 03, 2004
I guess I should report on my week. After my truly funky mood last week things improved greatly. Saturday we attended a dance lesson along with a dance practice party. It was interesting. I can't say that I had the best time of my life, but it wasn't horrible.

I had big plans to have several of my friends over for a superbly party, but had dallied around and not sent out the invitations in a timely manner. By the time I had everyone who was going to a party had already committed to one. So it ended up being a private party with Dezi, myself, and a pizza.

I didn't have a whole lot of expectations for the game. When I don't care who wins I like to cheer for the underdog so I was rooting for Carolina in this case. I have to admit that it was truly a great game. We watched the whole thing including the scandalous halftime performance.

Overall it wasn't an incredibly productive weekend. But it was good to have a chance to be unproductive.

9:53 PM Posted by Big Dave | 0 Thoughts

Today marks a significant milestone for me. A year and a half ago Dezi and I had our first date. I had decided that I wanted to drag her along and do something that I hoped she would enjoy. We went to a Mongolian barbecue place and then went country dancing. Both were firsts for her. We had a very good time. We confessed later than neither of us had any grand expectations. I'm just glad it worked out the way it did. I think I was grinning the whole night.

She will tell you that I knocked all sense out of her on the first date. I somehow managed to clobber her on the back or her head as we were dancing to "Sweet Home Alabama."

I think my mom has said it best. She's the girl who makes me smile. And it's true. She makes me smile in so many ways. I smile when I see her. I smile when she's jumping up and down because she's so hyper. I smile when she gets excited because she figured something geeky out on her own. I smile when she smiles and I hurt when she hurts. But we both smile when we dance.

She has seen my at some of my lowest points. We met as I was looking for a job after being laid off. She saw me through finding my current job. She's seen me through deep personal faith struggles, and a dozen other highs and lows that I can't think of right now. She is an extension of me that I would be crippled without.

I love you little girl. Thank you for some of the best times in my life.

9:42 PM Posted by Big Dave | 0 Thoughts