Nifty... it's been exactly a month since I posted. Fun. Anyway... Since then I've done a (1)show, thrown a (2)party, taken a trip to (3)St. Louis, and begun the great (4)Linux project. Busy month no... plus it's spring break time at work so that means that I'm spending more time there as well. So... about my life:
(1)The show was with Culture Shock Dance Troupe. They're a hip-hop group. Lots of fun to work with and to light. Could've been more organized, but most of all it was nice to get behind a board again doing something fun. Maybe I'll get some more chances to design in the near future. We'll see.
(2)The 2nd Annual Evans St. Patrick's Day Party was another rousing success. A bit more laid back than last year, but fun. Todd sang very few 80's songs. The quote of the party: "Did you comfort him and say 'Shut the Hell up'?"
(3)Went to St. Louis to visit the family of The Best Wife In The Whole World© including The Smartest Baby In The Whole World©, my nephew Kaleb. Nothing special... just hung out and relaxed and had a good time. Of course we came home to find the car had been towed. That sucked monkey balls, but oh well. No damage and we got it back.
(4)And on to Linux. I'm using it now. Slowly but surely figuring stuff out. There are still things I have to switch back to Windows for, but I'm hoping to slowly break that habit. If only I could get my 2nd monitor and sound card working. Oh well. We'll see what happens over the next few weeks. I'll keep you posted.
So that's my life right now. Nothing exciting, but nothing bad either. if you know anyone who needs a pilot with a great personality, good looks and questionable dance skills, Let me know.

So... not a lot going on in my world. The Best Wife In The Whole World�'s birthday is tomorrow. Send her a happy birthday e-mail. I've been doing a lot of reading lately. Library books, Linux documentation and my brother has some great stuff too. You should read more. Not feeling totally on top of the world today, so it's almost 6 and I'm still wearing pajamas. Which, may explain why this is a particularly rambling rant.
I haven't been doing the Music, Links, Quotes and What I'm Reading things in a while. Did you like them? Do you want them back? Let me know.
Those of you that know me, know I had a hard drive crash a few months back. Since then I've been running the HDD from my old machine (an Acer) with Win98. It gets the job done and it's got all my crap, so it's kind of like a old beater car. You know it, it feels comfortable, but the damn thing breaks down all the time. So, I've decided that when the new HDD comes, I'm going to put Linux on that and see what happens. Hopefully, I'll soon be completely Windows Free (except maybe when I'm playing Civ, but I hear there's even ways around that.) I've been playing with a version called Knoppix that's pretty cool. You burn it to a bootable CD and it runs completely from that. No installing, no risks of messing up your Windows crap. Put it in, boot it up, run it. Pretty sweet. I'm liking what I've been able to do so far. The biggest aggrivation is that it doesn't remember settings (since it can't write to the CD) but that's a problem I'll be able to solve if I actually install it. Ah well... I'll keep you all posted on that project.

Today, Fred Rogers died. Mr. Rogers was an important part of my life. From him I learned how crayons are made, that "make-believe" is important, and that you should like yourself. Yes, I learned that from many other places, including my parents, but Mr. Rogers made it his goal to teach everyone that. His show is educational, informative, relaxed, and fun. So few childrens' shows are anymore. Most are just ads for toys. Yeah, I watched transformers, but I was upset if I missed Mr. Rogers. This was a man who wrote all of his scripts by hand on yellow legal pads, and went to seminary on his lunch-break. You almost never saw him off the show, because he had no desire for fame or star status. He wanted to teach kids the best he was able. He did.
His death brings sadness to millions of people who grew up with him. Yet I take some comfort in the memory that when my grandfather died, one of the ways my parents helped me was with a booklet that Mr. Rodgers had written about dealing with death as a child. The man understood that life is temporary, and that we have to do the best we can with what we have. I can only hope that when I have children, I can find someone like him to help me know how to teach them like my parents did, and that when I reach the end of my life, I can feel that I made even a small part of the difference that Mr. Rogers did.
http://pbskids.org/rogers/

So... it's been a while since I updated, but judging by the total lack of responses I usually get, there's only 3 people reading this and they're my parents and brother. Is anyone esle reading this nonsense? Even if you're not, that doesn't mean I'll stop writing it.
So I've been reading a lot of the stuff at Orson Scott Card's website. If you get a chance, read his essays on the current war situation. They make a lot of sense, in a way that I don't think most people see things.
As far as that goes, what do I think of the war? ("Wait" you say, "shouldn't that be 'what do you think about the war?'") Um... no, it's not your web page now is it. I think that the US has an obligation to defend itself and its allies. I think we should use diplomatic means whenever possible and only use force as a last resort. However, I also think that if we say we are going to use force, we should use it. And not only should we use force when it's called for, we should use massive, overwhelming force. We should not use force against a government that protects it's people and leaves its neighbors to their own lives. But when a government is killing it's own people or attacking it's neighbors we should say "Stop now, or else we will eliminate your government and occupy your country until every citizen is given the opportunity to decide who they want in charge." If they want a king, or dictator, that's up to them, but when they start killing people, we stop them. I realize things are more complicated than that on the whole, but something needs to be done, and sitting on our thumbs isn't getting anything accomplished. How can we do this? I don't know, I'm a theatre technician, but someone out there must have some ideas that will work. Maybe every memeber nation of the UN should transfer a percentage of it's military to the UN's control, give the UN the ability to enforce their mandate. These troops would wear only the insignia of the UN, and any country that interfered with them would be embargoed... or something. Any ideas?

Today's Link: Hatrack River
Today's Music: Tricky
Current Book: The Uplift War by David Brin
Today's Quote: Oops, I thought. Oops is an all-purpose word standing for every bit of profanity, blasphemy, and pornographic and scatological execration I could think of.Flux -- I Put My Blue Genes On

So... for my first rant of 2003 (what can I say, I've been sick or busy) I'm going to piss and moan about the utility companies that seem to conspire to make my life miserable.
First of all, ComEd has mostly just been confusing. Sending out a late payment notification on the day a payment is due, while the payment is sitting in their building. That's merely annoying. However... People's Energy apparently doesn't care one bit about their customers. They don't bother sending bills... unless you ask for them. So you can imagine my surprise when I got a bill in October for over $200. Keep in mind... I've got a stove and that's all. Heat is from a boiler in the basement that the land-lord pays for. Along with this bill was a disconnect notice. So I called them up to say "what's going on?" and was told, that not only should I have been paying this gas bill (which may have been my fault) but because I didn't have an account, I could not make a payment to prevent the disconnect until my account had been set up, which, they told me, would take several days.
Knowing my own history, I was willing to accept that I owed them for a year of gas, and I set up a payment plan with them. I've since made my payments every month.
Yesterday... I got another disconnect notice. Apparently, they haven't recieved my check (although my bank show that the payment has cleared) and therefore, I'm booted out of the payment plan and owe the full back amount. Needless to say... I was a little bit annoyed by this. So I called their customer service line and was told I owed... not the $50 that the last bill I got said... or the $80 that the disconnect notice said... but over $90. I asked the woman to explain how I owed that amount. She said something about me not having made my November payment. After about 10 minutes of her not telling me anything that agreed with what they had sent me in the mail, I got angry and told her I was filing a complaint with the Illinois Commerce Commision and hung up.
After venting to the Best Wife In The Whole World©. For a while I had calmed down a bit and called the customer service number again and the conversation went about like this.
Me: I'd like to speak to a supervisor, please.
CS: Is there anything I can help you with?
Me: No. I'd like to speak to a supervisor.
CS: There are only two supervisors on duty right now, and they are both busy.
Me: I'll hold.
CS: I can't just leave you on hold sir. Is there something I can help with?
Me: No. I want to speak with a supervisor.
CS: I can have someone call you back.
Me: About how long would it be before my call was returned?
CS: I have no way of knowing.
Me: Would it be a matter of a few minutes, a few hours or a few days?
CS: Well, it depends on how many people they have to call, our policy states that they cannot call people after 10:30pm (it was just after 10 at this point) At which point they'll begin calling people again at 8am tomorrow.
Me: Fine. Please have someone call me.
Although there was a call from People's Energy this morning, I was unable to answer the phone and the message simply gave me the regular Customer Service number, so I guess I have to go through the whole ordeal again. Anyway. I'm annoyed with them. And as an added annoyance... every time you call them the first thing you hear is a recording telling you to visit their web site. You also get a similar message every time you get put on hold. The funny thing is their site is apparently down... none of the images load and every link gives you a 404 error. (Except in Netscape where you can't even load the first page.) So... I think I'm done ranting, but I'll keep you posted on any developments. What do you think of the situation? Am I over-reacting?

Today's Link: All Recipes
Today's Music: MC 900Ft Jesus
Current Book: To You Scattered Bodies Go by Phillip Jose Farmer
Today's Quote: "Never be in the copany of anyone with whom you would not want to die." Freman Saying (From "House Harkonnen" by Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson)

Well, I hope everyone had a Merry Christmas (whether you actually celebrate Christmas or not, the hope that you had a merry day should always be appropriate.) I did, I can highly recomend "Cranium" as a party game, it's fun and lets everyone have a moment to shine, or not shine as the case may be, but if you can get through it without laughing a bit, you're probably already dead.
Anyway, the year 2002 is almost over. A lot has happened this year. We'll get the question out of the way early, since my answer is a bit on the obvious side. Today's question is: What's the most important thing you've done this year? Clearly getting married is the most important thing I've done this year. Now I have The Best Wife In The Whole World, which, of course, makes me terribly happy. I've been working on getting the pictures scanned and turned into a web page so that everyone can see that TBWITWW makes the most beautiful bride, and that I (apparently) clean up okay myself.
For the end of the year I want to say thank you to everyone who make my life better this year than it would have been without them. First and foremost, of course, is The Best Wife In The Whole World and my Family (which is substantially larger now.) I want to thank my friends who keep me entertained, and happy and so much else. I want to thank the people I work with who make it easier to get through those very long days, and make the ridiculousness of what we do just a little easier to deal with. Thank You all and Have a Happy New Year.

*Note: Link to photos adjusted, 10-16-05

Today's Link: Monster Garage
Today's Music: Karl Denson's Tiny Universe
Current Book: The Life and Writings of Thomas Paine
Today's Quote: "No Santa Claus! Thank God, he lives, and he lives forever. A thousand years from now, Virginia, nay, ten times ten thousand years from now, he will continue to make glad the heart of childhood." Francis P. Church

So... life continues. I had a bunch to say today, but I seem to have forgotten it all. I'm looking forward to Christmas. Looks like my parents and brother are going to come up on Christmas Day, which will be great. Of course we'll have to do some cleaning between now and then, but nothing gets you to do that quite like the pressure of having people over. I've been doing a lot of organizing of papers and stuff the last few days and I've realized that there is just a lot of crap that piles up in our lives, even if you're not a total pack-rat like I am. Bills, pay-stubs, insurance forms, cards, maps recipies, owner's manuals... It's all stuf you want to have around "just in case" but it gathers and piles up untill you're about ready to go crazy and take a torch to the whole lot. If you're like me in addition to that you've got boxes full of assorted cables, pages torn out of magazines, tourist brochures for places you might like to visit some day, things you might use in some kind of project someday, half finsihed projects, stuff you've taken apart and intend to put back together, etc. etc. It makes me think about the fact that one of the things that acheologists love to find in an ancient village is the dump. It tells them about what people ate, what they kept stuff in, what they did for fun, and many other things. So what are our landfills going to tell future archeologists about us? Probably all kinds of conflicting things. What would someone think if they came across the remains of your delling if it were suddenly buried, as it is right now, in a Pompeii-esque lava flow?
I think in my apartment they'd find many kinds of storage media (books, CD's, tapes, videos, DVD's) and many decorative items as well as electronics in every room. Perhaps they'd think this was some kind of library. I like that thought. Responses