Daily Doings at the Line of Death Bar & Grill

Tonight I had dinner with a friend and former co-worker whom I haven't seen since R and I were married back in '99. I first met Jim when we both worked at CSC. He was part of the group that came over from Indianapolis. Him and I just hit it off. But we went our separate ways at the end of '96, when the contract ended.

We went to Mama Carolla's Italian Restaurant on East 54th St. Great place. Even though we haven't had contact in years, it's like we picked up where we left off. I got him caught up on my life; he caught me up on his. We wondered where our former co-workers ended up; we've lost touch with many of them.

We exchanged business cards and made tentative plans to get together again soon.

I love electronica. I love computer graphics. Animusic brings these two worlds together.

( Here's a sample. )

Today I cleaned up and sorted the area around the downstairs bathroom. I split up the items into three piles/totes: Likely to use, Not likely to use, and Don't/Won't use.

Most of the stuff that R left behind in the vanity drawers and cabinet were put in the Don't/Won't use. I separated out the hair thingies and jewelry, since I thought she might still want them. I also cleaned up the counter, which desperately needed cleaning.

Some of the items in the Likely to use pile were boxed and labeled for eventual moving.
The next step is to to do the same to the upstairs bathroom.

A question for those of you who used professional movers: Do they expect everything to be boxed up when they get there? Or is that something they'll do for a price?

Just finished watching the 2nd annual NHL Winter Classic, between the Detroit Red Wings and the Chicago Black Hawks. This game was held at an ice rink built inside Wrigley Field. For many of the players, it's a throwback to their childhoods, having played hockey on the frozen ponds, lakes, and rivers. I thought it was a great game, and it's great for the sport in general.

This will hopefully become an annual tradition, as the game moves from city to city. Last year, it was held at Ralph Wilson Stadium in Buffalo. Where would you like to see next year's game played, and with which teams?

I usually don't write about my dreams here, but this one was quite vivid. I dreamed I was at a Styx concert, but before the concert, I was involved in an interactive play with members of the band, along with a cast of extras. It was kind of a sequel to Kilroy Was Here, without the likes of Mr. Roboto and Dr. Righteous. It took place in a city, with lots of brightly colored graffiti. It was like being in an adventure with the members of Styx.

I was shooting pool with Dennis DeYoung on aa makeshift pool table. (Yes, I know he's no longer with the band.) I was discussing "Girls With Guns" with Tommy Shaw while sitting in a car with him. All while we were on the run from an evil record company.

I wish I could recall more details.

I spent a low-key Christmas this year. I spent the morning with R and M, videotaping M opening up her presents. I spent the afternoon alone. I went out to a local Chinese restaurant for dinner: shrimp with lobster sauce.

M gave me an ornament and a magnetic picture frame, which I'll probably take to work.

A couple of weeks ago, I purchased a Zip drive module for my laptop computer on EBay for $12 (including shipping). It came in on Monday. I spent part of last night and part of today testing it out. It's working fine. Even though Zip drives (and disks) have mostly been replaced by USB flash drives in the past couple of years, I'm still finding uses for them.

Spent the last few days at work waiting for things I'm needing. The requests have already been made. On Friday, I got my voice mail set up. Today, I finally got my SAP acount so I could do corporate training. (They do a lot of CBT at $CLIENT.) And so I spent most of the day doing training. Some of it's due next month; some is due in February. Most of it is common sense. But with the end-of-year shutdown coming up, people and tasking are scarce, so it's a great time to be doing training.

It was bitterly cold this morning. It's a good thing I had my lined pants and layered a henley sweater over a long-sleeved T-shirt.

The National Weather Service has issued a freezing rain advisory for tomorrow afternoon. I am so NOT looking forward to the drive home then. Times like these I wish I could work at home, wherever home happens to be. But for now, that's not an option.

I braved the ice this morning and made it to $EMPLOYER's office. Then I went to $CLIENT, where I in-processed and got my photo ID. I spent the rest of the day waiting, meeting some of the people I'd be working with, waiting some more, recieving my computer, and waiting some more. For the next couple of weeks, I'll be doing mostly corporate training and orientation. That is, once I get my system and email accounts established.

[Updated 00:05 16-Dec] My project manager also mentioned that part of the reason I started this week and not last week is that this gave the IT staff some time to process my computer and account requests.

Shout-outs: Happy birthday mseuphrates!

I have two empty Macally external drive enclosers, both EIDE (parallel ATA). One's for laptop-sized drives (2.5" wide, 9mm high); the other's for standard hard drives (3.5" wide). I'd like to purchase Western Digital EIDE drives for both of them, but I can't afford to do so right now. I'm worried that I won't be able to find these soon, as the market has gone toward SATA (serial ATA) drives, which have a much faster throughput rate. (According to the specs, SATA can push data at 3 Gb/sec vs. EIDE/PATA at 100 Mb/sec.)

I realize this is purely a want, not a need, as I already have enough external drive storage. What's driving this is the waning availablity of these drives. I'm afraid these will be out of stock by the time I'm ready to buy them.

[Added 20:45]
Here's what I'd like to purchase next month:
1) Western Digital "Caviar Blue" WD5000AAJB (500 Gb, EIDE, 8 Mb cache)
2) Western Digital "Scorpio Blue" WD2500BEVE (250 Gb, EIDE, 8 Mb cache)

Since I'm not going to sign up for Twitter anytime soon, I'll just post a few tidbits here.

* I wish Microsoft had a more efficient way to release patches for us dial-up users. I'm tying up my phone line for hours waiting for the patches to download.

* Pens must breed when nobody's looking. I just went through a few desk drawers and I probably have about 50 pens of various ink colors and styles.

* I really should sit down and watch "The Last Lecture" by the late Randy Pausch in its entirety. I saw part of it this evening on my local PBS station after channel surfing, and was favorably impressed. I wonder if the local library has it.

* I wish I had a teacher and mentor such as Randy Pausch when I was still in college. And I'm pissed at myself because I haven't accomplished as much as he did in his short life.

* I should post a video from the Animusic Channel on YouTube here. I still think it's Way Cool Stuff!