Don's Journal

Cutting down on my expenses

2009-01-03T01:26:59Z

So previously I was on an unlimited blackberry plan that gave me unlimited minutes and data for $129.00 a month. I used my mobile phone for just about everything work related, including meetings. Since I work from home, I do all my meetings over the phone. This way I probably used close to 3,000 minutes a month.

After having a conversation with Tom Sheppler, I decided to make some changes to the way I did business from home. I already use VoIP for my home landline so decided to add a second line and drop my Blackberry plan down to the minimum 450 minute allotment (with unlimited data).

Cost of second landline: $19.95/month.
Savings in plan change: $60.00/month.

The nice thing about my VoIP provider is that not only do I get unlimited calls to the USA and Canada but I also get unlimited calls to Australia, Germany, and 18 other countries and with my home office based out of Germany, I still make quite a few calls to there and Australia, where I was on a project for several months (and may have to go back). All for $20.00/month.

So the new plan is to use my landline for all my business needs and to just use my mobile when I'm actually away from home.

Most profound lyrics ever

2008-12-21T19:09:07Z

So profound I don't know what it means!

Zaichiki na stene
Posle zakata umirayut
Myortvym legko vdvoine
Zaichiki gasnut, i zamykayut

Dvesti dvadtsat' na sebya
Obmotalsya, i vperyod!
Dvesti dvadtsat' na sebya
Dvesti dvadtsat' na neyo

Ty menya uchish zhdat'
I govorish smeshnye frazy
A ya vsyo hochu otdat'
Esli lyubov' - znachit tol'ko srazu!

Ty ne poimyosh vo sne
Esli lyubov' - znachit vsyo sgoraet!
Zaichiki na stene
Posle zakata umirayut

Dvesti dvadtsat' na sebya
Obmotalsya, i vperyod!
Dvesti dvadtsat' na sebya
Dvesti dvadtsat' na neyo

Shows about folks getting haunted by Ghosts

2008-12-04T20:29:06Z

The one issue I have with these types of stories is that if I saw a ghost, I'd gtfo of dodge. These people continue to live/stay there.

How cool is that?

2008-11-30T03:44:06Z

New Line Cinema founders making a big budget adaptation of Isaac Asimov's Foundation novel!

http://entertainment.slashdot.org/entertainment/08/11/29/0323248.shtml

The next stage in the suck that is my medical drama.

2008-05-20T20:20:07Z

Despite increasing my meds, my Hemoglobin A1C went from 7.6 to 7.8. This means my body is no longer producing enough insulin on its own to keep my blood glucose levels down. This also explains why I've been so freaking tired lately.

Becoming insulin dependent is bad. In normal non-diabetic people, the pancreas do a wonderful job of secreting insulin to meet the bodies demand for consuming sugar in the blood stream. Drink a coke and your body will secrete just enough insulin for your cells to absorb the sugar which will lead in a sugar rush. As the body consumes the sugar, less insulin is produced and you experience the sugar crash.

In type II diabetics, the body first produces the insulin but the cells don't do such a good job of taking in the sugars. At first this leads to your body having abnornally high levels of insulin in your blood stream as your pancreas cranks out more and more of the stuff to get your body to digest the sugars. One thing that type 2 diabetics discover is that they are eating far more carbs and sugars than they used to because your body does such a shitty job of digesting the sugar.

A good analogy for this would be children starving in Africa. Children are starving in Africa (cells). A benefits concert is raised to send food to the hungry children of Africa (hormones triggering hunger response). Millions of people around the world respond and send food to Africa (we eat). The food arrives in Africa where it's locked in warehouses due to political bullshit or lack of good roads to deliver the food (type 2 diabetes). In turn another benefit goes out, more food is shipped, etc..

It's a vicious cycle.

Eventually the pancreas can't produce the required insulin and no matter what meds you are on, they all work around insulin so you have to go on insulin.

The problem is that you aren't nearly as good as your pancreas at regulating your blood sugar. You tend tend to inject too much, or too little, and go through all kinds of bad shit. Also the body doesn't get any better at absorbing the sugar so you end up with tons of insulin coursing through your system which can lead to hardening of the arteries and slew of other bad shit.

This is why heart attacks kill diabetics faster than it kills normal folks."

So I go to see the doctor next Wednesday to talk about going on insulin. YAY ME!

Kid Rock - All Summer Long

2008-05-09T12:37:32Z

It's a complete ripoff of Werewolves of London and Sweet Home Alabama, structurally it blows, and I'm not particularly a big fan of his singing.

But every time I hear it I tap my foot to it.

Damnit.

Yardwork

2008-05-06T03:11:06Z

My buddy webrat made a post in his journal about yardwork so I figured I should probably post an update on the progress of my yardwork.

For whatever reason we pretty much let the yard go last year, particularly the backyard which is not a good thing when you live in the south and are bordered next to an overgrown wooden lot.

They say the south is covered in 7.5 million acres of kudzu and the good acre overgrown lot next to mine is no exception. Kudzu is horrific. It grows like crazy and form these really thick roots that go deep underground. The typical treatment for kudzu involves an eradication program involving herbicides, pulling, and clipping, and is estimated to take 5 years.

Kudzu has invaded my back yard. Last year it got so bad that it made it into the pool before we took action. Now it's firmly entrenched into our azalea bushes, fence, and about damned near everything else. Fortunately kudzu doesn't grab onto bamboo very well so our bamboo grove is thriving quite nicely and is firmly entrenched along the creek that runs through our property.

Right now we're spending about 2 hours every day working on the yard trying to get it up to muster. Most of the kudzu is grown but I have to get out there daily to take out the 18 inches or so of new growth that sprouts from a vast array of tunneling roots firmly entrenched in our property.

Between the kudzu, some wicked azalea munching fungus, and moles, we have our work cut out for us.

This is just in our relatively small back yard. The HUGE front yard which was well maintained last year looks great thanks to frequent mowing, a decently wet season so far, and chemlawn. ;)

Iron Man

2008-05-05T13:16:51Z

Iron Man had more of a profound affect on my wife than it did.

She even mentioned that if we had another kid she'd name it "Tony Stark Stauffer".

She's a nut.

Meme

2008-04-25T12:29:03Z

I started to do a meme but got disgusted about halfway through and stopped. Stupid meme's.

Got green?

2008-04-23T12:22:05Z

Singapore airlines is now offering suites on their A380 planes. Right now the only route is out of London but a quick fare lookup came out to $13,500 for a round trip flight. Heh.

Still the suites are pretty impressive.

MEMEMEMEME Get to know your friends

2008-04-02T03:27:56Z

Stolen from bpeace

1. What is your occupation? Senior Technical Architect (apologies to the real architects out there, I didn't pick the title)
2. What colour are your socks right now? Naked
3. What are you listening to right now? The Daily Show with Jon Stewart
4. What was the last thing that you ate? Quiznos Prime Rib and Peppercorn sub
5. Can you drive a manual car? Yes
6. If you were a crayon, what colour would you be? Seafoam
7. Last person you spoke to on the phone? A sales person for my company
8. Do you like the person who sent this to you? Yep, we don't really hang out socially but he's what you can expect out of a decent person.
9. How old are you today? 40
10. Favorite drink? diet coke
11. What is your favorite sport to watch? None really
12. Have you ever dyed your hair? No
13. Pets? Luna, Yoda, Hammie, Coffee (Dog, Cat, Hamster, Hamster)
14. Favorite food? Italian
15. Last movie you watched? I am Legend ..again
16. Favourite Day of the year? Christmas
17. What do you do to vent anger? Fume in a passive aggressive manner
18. What was your favourite toy as a child? Atari 2600
19. What is your favourite season? Autumn
20. Hugs or kisses? Hugs
21. Cherry or Blueberry? Cherry
22. Do you want your friends to post this? I'm curious, yes.
23. Who is most likely to respond? Noone
24. Who is least likely to respond? Everyone
26. When was the last time you cried? About a week ago, we were driving to dinner and the kids were fighting in the bad seat. After ignoring me, I pulled over, yelled at them, turned around and drove home. Kids were subdued but wife was mad at me because she had dressed up and put on makeup and stuff and she ended up having to cook dinner.
27. What is on the floor of your wardrobe/closet? Shoes, a bag containing dry cleaning.
28. Who is the friend you have had the longest that you are sending this to? gossamyrrh who I have known for over 20 years now.
29. Who is the friend you have had the shortest that you are sending this to? Probably maiaijou my friends list is pretty static
30. Favorite smells? Sandalwood
31. Who inspires you? Patriotism. Not the republican kind, love em or leave em but the Lee Greenwood type. Acts of Heroism also (with a capital H, the selfless and really only kind)
32. What are you afraid of? Not being able to provide for my family.
33. Plain, cheese or spicy hamburgers? Cheese
34. Favorite car? Yukon Denali. I know, I'm not particularly PC.
35. Favorite cat breed? Orange Tabby
36. Number of keys on your key ring? 2
37. How many years at your current job? Less than one
38. Favourite day of the week? Saturday
39. How many counties have you lived in? 2 I was born in Japan and lived there for the first two years of my life.
40. Do you think you're funny? I have moments.

Global Warming

2008-03-28T15:52:45Z

xkcd has a great statement on it.

Songs in my head

2008-03-24T23:19:38Z

Just finished playing Portal. I'm behind on the curve since I was out of the country for four months.

Cute song, but the lyrics are probably a lot funnier if you've played the game.

Oh, the lyrics also contain spoilers of a sort so don't clickeh unless you've already played (in which case you know the song) or don't plan to.

Parting Thoughts: Rochester

2008-03-20T22:07:54Z

I'm not actually scheduled to leave Rochester until 5pm tomorrow but I don't have to be at the client office so I get to sleep in.

As I stare out the window I am greeted by gray skies and a ton of snow coming down outside. It is 35 degrees and they expect 1-2 inches of accumulation here on this first day of spring with more lake effect snow tomorrow morning, finally tapering off sometime tomorrow afternoon.

My impressions of Rochester are strictly limited to the downtown area as I didn't bother to rent a car but the gray skies are a pretty good reflection of the downtown area as well; desolate and depressing.

It looks as if the city hit a high point somewhere around the early 70s and then began a slow decline after that. Like many cities it's size (roughly 200,000 and declining) most of the folks have migrated to the suburbs leaving a rather sad core of a downtown. The sidewalks are wide enough to support chairs and tables but many of the buildings stand empty. There is a nearby "mall/food court" complex that is about 70% empty, to be fair, it is being demolished in about 90 days to make way for a new corporate headquarters for some company but being one of the few consumer areas, I'm not sure it is necessarily a good thing.

An excellent statement to the hard times that downtown Rochester is facing can be reflected by the fact that I saw the governor of New York (the new one, not Spitzer), give a speech at the aforementioned mall.food court speaking of the need to revitalize the urban areas of New York's smaller cities (note: Rochester is the 4th largest city in New York behind NYC, Albany, and Buffalo).

To get to the customer site, I walk past large buildings hosting JP Morgan Chase and other large companies but these buildings seem mostly empty. Even during the lunch hour, I don't see many people walking about. It's rather sad really because this city has so much potential and it's wasted. The affluent people live in the suburbs while the poor and desolate have been left to the city center.

It's pretty depressing.

Whee, Delta

2008-03-18T03:42:13Z

Delta has now managed to misplace my bag *3* times in the last 3 months.

ffs!

Game system update

2008-03-12T05:31:35Z

Long story short, my gaming system is up and running.

The longer story of course is that:

So a friend of mine graciously volunteered to help me assemble the machine. I brought all of the equipment over there except the hard drive which for reasons unknown, I had simply left behind.

We started with the case and with the exception of a few minor hookups, we were up and running (at least passing POST) in no time. The only real negative part of the whole deal is that the dominator ram that was shipped to me had a little hole in the corner and one of the mounting brackets for the fan and all of the screws were missing. Hopefully NewEgg will just send me a new mounting bracket with requiring me to RMA the RAM. :P

After getting home, I installed the WD Raptor drive and the Creative X-Fi card out of my old rig and proceeded to install Vista Ultimate.

For those familiar with Vista, Vista has a system rating that it gives a score of 1.0 to 5.9 depending on how awesome your system is. It grades over a variety of categories including hard drive, RAM, CPU, Graphics Card, and one that escapes me. Whichever area scores the lowest, that is what your score is.

My computer scores 5.9 in all categories except for RAM where it scores a measly 5.6. wtf?

I checked out the performance of some of my old games including Counter Strike Source. CS:S has a video stress test option that my old system would get about 50fps on a good day. This system got up to 249fps on the stress test. With that I decided to crank up all of the details to max setting and go with a 1600x1200 resolution (old system I played at 800x600). The fact that I consistently got 100+ FPS just amazes me.

Next step was to install Crysis. Crysis is a new game that can take advantage of Direct X 10 if you have it and reduces even the most high performance cards to a frame rate of 10-15 at the highest settings forcing most people to turn down the level of video detail.

At 1280x1024 resolution with the highest settings I average around 35fps which is respectful and my what a pretty game it is.

I also bought the Orange Box which I will try out tomorrow. All in all, a pretty good system so far and no driver issues despite going with 64bit Vista although my copy of McAfee won't work with it.

SoKo - I'll Kill Her

2008-03-10T17:08:25Z

It's huge in Australia and it's catchy.

I like it.

SNL: The Mirror

2008-03-08T15:03:08Z

It makes me lol. It's a Hulu link so I hope non-hulu folks can watch it.

New Gaming Rig

2008-03-07T07:38:55Z

Having been the brunt of many a jokes for the past 18 months or so because my gaming rig was "an HP Pavilion?!" I decided to order a new system.

I think I may have just sprouted another chest hair or two (bringing the total to about 15):

GIGABYTE GA-EX38-DS4 LGA 775 Intel X38 ATX Intel Motherboard - Retail
Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 Kentsfield 2.4GHz LGA 775 Quad-Core Processor Model BX80562Q6600 - Retail
PC Power & Cooling S75QB EPS12V 750W Power Supply - Retail
CORSAIR DOMINATOR 4GB(2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 1066 (PC2 8500) Dual Channel Kit Desktop Memory Model TWIN2X4096-8500C5DF - Retail

It comes with its own fans!

VisionTek 900209 Radeon HD 3870 X2 1GB (512MB x 2) 512-bit (256-bit x 2) GDDR3 PCI Express x16 HDCP Ready CrossFire Supported Video Card - Retail

Western Digital Raptor WD1500ADFD 150GB 10,000 RPM SATA 1.5Gb/s Hard Drive - OEM

And finally the case:

Thermaltake Armor Series VA8003BWS Black Full Tower Case w/ 25CM Fan - Retail

This system is gunna scream.

Back home

2008-03-02T12:27:54Z

The flight from Australia was a long one but one I've made a few times now. Eighteen hours later I'm home and am on a completely messed up sleep schedule that doesn't even make sense on Australia time.

Thanks to those who wished me a safe journey.

Last day in Australia

2008-02-29T00:24:43Z

Today is my last full day in Australia. Tomorrow shortly after noon, I'll board a United flight which will take me for a short layover in Sydney and then onwards to Los Angeles, a 7,502 mile 13.5 hour segment. I will continue to work on the project from home for two more weeks or so before I move onto my next one.

According to FlightMemory, I will have flown a total of 46,987 miles for this project. I will have completely circumnavigated the globe which is pretty freaking cool all said and done. And while I've worked my ass off for this project and miss my family terribly, I don't regret having worked on it.

I'm looking forward to some good Mexican food when I get back.

Most Wired City in the US? Atlanta!

2008-02-19T22:42:23Z

At least according to this Forbes survey.

The top ten (with previous year's ranking in parenthesis):

Atlanta Georgia (1)
Seattle, Washington (3)
Raleigh, North Carolina (5)
San Francisco, California (6)
TIE: Baltimore, Maryland (16) & Orlando, Florida (2)
—
Charlotte, North Carolina (10)
Chicago, Illinois (17)
New York City, New York (12)
Portland, Oregon (15)

Sydney: Endnotes

2008-02-19T07:39:10Z

Tonight I leave Sydney for Melbourne. I've spent a majority of my time in Australia in Melbourne so there will be nothing new for me. All in all, I like Melbourne better of the two. Sydney is a nice city and certainly is very scenic and pretty but as far as stuff to actually do, it seems that Melbourne beats Sydney hands down.

While Sydney is the larger of the two cities, Melbourne has a compactness about it, especially downtown that just gives you an absolute plethora of choices all within walking distance. And while Sydney's train and bus network is pretty extensive, Melbourne has trams which totally rock.

I think what ultimately did it for me is that Sydney (minus the harbor and Sydney Opera House) reminds me too much of Atlanta, albeit a very cleaned up and bustling downtown Atlanta. All Atlanta needs is a much better public transit network and a monorail (yes, the monorail was pretty cool).

All in all I'm glad I got to spend a month here but there's nothing here that makes me want to come back unless my wife wants to come visit sometime.

In about 3 hours I should be in Melbourne and hopefully in about two weeks I'll be on my way home.

Gen Con

2008-02-19T03:58:03Z

For those who haven't heard:

Heartless Gamer writes to tell us that Gen Con LLC announced late last week that they have filed for Chapter 11. This move will not affect the still profitable Gen Con Indy event which will still happen August 14-17, 2008. "This action became necessary as a result of significant unforeseen expenses associated with attempts to expand its core business to encompass externally licensed events. [...] The protections afforded by Chapter 11 will allow Gen Con to further its efforts to address its liquidity needs, preserve value for its creditors and explore strategic alternatives for the business." Evan writes to add that this is the result of LucasFilm suing GenCon.

Reported in Slashdot: http://games.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/02/18/180246&from=rss

Movie Review: Jumpers - Could be so much better

2008-02-16T11:08:23Z

I don't normally bother to write movie reviews and am content to normally say a movie is either good or bad but this one has been getting lots of ad time here in Australia and I thought it worth explaining why you shouldn't by into the hype and save yourselves a little money (or in my case a lot since I paid $18 for a movie ticket).

Saw the movie Jumpers today. I assume it's playing back home but in case it isn't, it's a movie starring some unknowns and Samuel Jackson as a bad guy.

The premise of the movie is that this kid discovers he has the ability to teleport at will and enjoys this life until he draws the attention of an ancient organization called the Paladins, currently headed by Samuel Jackson who is bent on hunting down all Jumpers and destroying them.

So what's wrong with this movie? So many things. For one, not much is spent on development. Plot, character, history are all lacking. The only excuse we're given to why the Paladin's exist and why Jumpers should die is that, "Only God should be allowed to teleport." or some line like that. Instead the movie focuses on the special affects of actually teleporting.

With better writing and directing, the movie could have earned itself a place amongst successful comic book franchises like Spider Man and the X-Men. I don't even know if this movie is based on a comic, it just has that vibe.

Save yourselves the money and put it on your netflix queue.

PS: On my crappy television update. I complained. They are putting a 50" in my room tomorrow. Yay.