Gripes. Not. Allowed.

I don't have any room to complain about anything. Somewhere in the world, there's always going to be someone who has it better than me and a lot more people who have it worse off than me. I really don't have anything to write about once I've put this into context. For example:

Gripe: My Camry Hybrid is in the shop to have body damage repaired caused by an elderly man who didn't see me park next to him. Completely his fault and his insurance is paying for it.
Reaction: You're lucky you have a car. You're lucky the old man that hit you wasn't uninsured.

Gripe: I have to deal with traffic coming home from work. Why can't they put more lanes in?
Reaction: Hey fucker, at least you can afford to drive. Some of us walk, bike or take the bus a lot further than you. It takes us a hell of a lot longer to get home.

Gripe: The weather is terrible! Why can't we have a normal Spring!
Reaction: In some parts of the world, people are dying because of the heat, hurricanes, tornadoes and drought.

Modestly,
Gregsta'

Butta'

HAPPY 50TH BIRTHDAY TEENA!

I concocted the most Paula Deen inspired dessert I'll ever make again. A 3 layer traditional Whitecake with Buttercream icing. There was at least 12 sticks of butter used in the making of that thing. I had one little piece of it and I about fell into a food coma. I think I may have created what amounts to the highest saturated-fat-per-slice cake known to man.

Heading out soon for brunch. The cat is sitting behind my chair crying for attention. There's a news paper waiting to be picked up in the driveway. Life is, well, normal as ever.

Gregsta'

Nothin

I wish my job were exciting enough to talk about here.

Only on a rare occasion do things happen that the average person could relate to. Seeing as how I don't wish to alienate my audience of 5 people, I must wait until I have something non-geek to write about.

Gregsta'

Douche Award!

I win! I win!

Mad apologies to Gooch and Jenn for missing them at Putters the other night due to a major mis-communication and assumption on my part. I am a Giant Douche.

Gregsta'

Phony

I love technology. Kind of like how we love pizza. It tastes and smells so good at first. Those first few bites are heaven. Only after you've consumed everything it has to offer, you feel awful - sick and unnecessarily full. Your world comes crashing down all around you. All you want now is that simple salad that would have sufficed just fine... but you gave it away...

Case in Point: My new AT&T Tilt. Neat phone, sexy features - dead after 4 days.

It's the Mayfly of cell phones...

Fortunately, I keep my trusty Nokia 3100 close at hand. It may not sport my calendar, contacts, email and qwerty keyboard (to name a few lackings), but it's reliable. Kind of like a 1980's Toyota Corolla - Reliable, gutless and cheap.

Off to work. Work work work. Then dinner. Then sleep Then work. Work work work. Ugh.

Real,
Gregsta'

My 8 hour, $35 vacation

When the weather gets nice, a little timing and some ingenuity will lead to some of the best vacationing this side of the Rockies. Peep this:

Yesterday, Bets' and I embarked to the Canon Beach - a great "boutique" coastal spot on the Northern Oregon coast. The weather in Portland hit a little over 90 degrees (quite hot), where the coast was a cool and perfect 74 degrees. We spent a mere $35 on the whole 8 hour excursion. It was by far the best "mini-vacation" I've had in a long time. Here' s the run down:

Timing: Traveling during non-peak haul-ass-to-the-beach times is ideal. This meant leaving Portland around 12:00pm and leaving the coast to come home around 6:00, getting us back into town around 7:30. Our travel times overlapped everyone else's lunch and dinner times. Sweet.

Travel: Having a Hybrid does save money. A lot of money. They like long drives at fast speeds. Don't use the A/C or floor the accelerator too much and you've got a recipe for a cheap trip. The 200 mile round trip consumed a quarter tank (4 gallons) of gas. At current prices, that's about $15 in gas. Had we been traveling in our truck, we would have spent closer to $30 in gas.

Accommodations: Or should I say lack there of? A 70 degree day in a town with tons of public services in a small radius means no greenbacks for accommodations. The beach served as a perfect place to nap, walk and play.

Food: We ate pizza-by-the slice and ice cream, about $20 for the two of us. Yum! Who needs gourmet sit-down when you have Pizza a Fetta - only the best pizzeria in Cannon Beach! (and a delicacy I don't often indulge in) They have a window off to the side where the schlep fresh slices and sodas. The ice-cream place across the street had very tasty (and cheap!) ice cream.

Off to breakfast!
Gregsta'

Something Good

Dinner party was a hit last night. Mad props to everyone who made it out.

The heat inspired me to fix a ceiling fan in our office to make the room comfortable again. For some reason in this house, the air conditioning doesn't seem to affect the upstairs as well as it should. Might have something to do with the fact that there's not returns on the 2nd floor.

My laptop boots slower than ever. Oh, it's all the updates, scans and other shit that happens. My bad. For a minute there, I thought that Windows might actually be misbehaving. I'm not big on living behind iron clad doors in life, so it bothers me that I have no other choice online.

It's time, I think, for me to start the GregsterNET. There will be one website. Mine. $5.00/month and I'll personally connect you up via string and tin can (it's still a Beta technology, but the engineers ensure me that it will work.)

Peace OUT
Gregsta'

ho hum

This was quite a day. That's all.

gregster

Life hands you stuff

It's fascinating to me that I'm going to get $600 back from the gov in the next couple of weeks.

They went to all that trouble to collect it from me in April, and now, they're giving it back?

And people wonder why inefficiency runs rampant in this country.

Gregsta: OUT

PBJ

Captains Log - Stardate 51108540 - There's really nothing to report of any interest to anyone. Thankyou.

Trekingly,
Gregsta'

Cheese Me

It's Saturday morning. I remember being a kid, I would race downstairs and watch cartoons all morning long. It wasn't until some program came on (probably Love Boat or Perry Mason) that I gave up the boob tube for real life.

Now that I'm 30, I don't watch cartoons on Saturday morning anymore. Nope. It's real life, all the time. For instance, this morning, I'm conducting some systems maintenance on my web server. Later, I'll head to the store to get groceries. After that, I'll probably start re-organizing my garage. Then, it will be time for dinner, then bed. Actually, I'll have 2 hours left in the day after dinner that I could finish doing some work-from-home for the office in.

I'm not one to be overly sentimental (though I have been known to save all sorts of memorabilia from my childhood), but I do long for the days where responsibility didn't exist. Truth is, in my life time, that will never happen again. Sad, but true.

Woo hoo! I just cleared 10GB of logs out of my web server! Yay! Microsoft Updates installing! YAHOO!!!

Wow. My teenage self just called me from his Motorola Brick Phone in 1997 to let me know how lame I am and how I should get a life.

How lame: Indeed.

Gregsta'

Home, Home on the Range...

Finally heading back home from an overnight stay in Seattle. Unfortunately, I wasn't able to complete everything that I needed to. It never ceases to amaze me how the smallest part will keep things from working. In this case, a specialized cable. Oh well.

The nice thing about taking the train to and from Seattle is that you have time to enjoy some quiet time. In my field of work, quiet time is hard to come by - users bug you day and night for help. At least on the train, when I'm bugged, I can choose to ignore it long enough to give the issue at hand the necessary thought. I choose when I hit "refresh" on my email. I choose when I'm going to respond to something. I choose when I answer the phone. At the office, people come up constantly and demand my attention. I do it to others, too. Sometimes it a necessity in the grander scheme of things. I can accomplish more learning and decision making in a 2 minute conversation in person than I can in an email conversation over a few hours.

Oh, did I slide off subject again? I did, didn't I. Dagnabit. I need a hobby to give me something to do when I'm bored. Reading trade magazines, catching up on MeFi and Slashdot don't count as hobbies.

Gregsta'

Ugh

9:00 and I haven't even been able to start the meat/potatoes of an upgrade that I'm in Seattle to complete. I guess when I jokingly said "I'll be here till 4AM," I really wasn't kidding.

Ready for a nap. Waiting for Ibuprofen to kick in. Productivity kept me away from the proper doses of coffee today. Bad juju.

Techingly,
Gregsta'

Training

I'm sitting on the train to Seattle for the first time in awhile. It's like a working vacation of sorts. I get to sit around in the dining car, enjoy fabulous scenery and get work done all at the same time. Normally, the outside pressure is relatively low and I can focus nicely.

Train rides are an interesting combination of beautiful scenery and industrial wastelands. It's amazing how little industrial operations clean up.

Well, thats about the extent of my blog-worthy thoughts for now. Back to work!

Gregsta'

Killer

Let me just start out by saying I make a killer Grilled Salmon.

Tomorrow - Business Trip to Seattle. I like to keep busy, but this is getting crazy. Tomorrow I hope to have some sort of relaxing time in the morning. Actually, that will probably amount to "recovery" time for the drinking I intend to do tonight (I'm perfectly aware that it's Tuesday).

Our good friend Lori leaves for Belgium tomorrow. She's able to work from there. Talk about the ultimate in telecommuting.

I guess Sea Lions are turning up dead everywhere.

Poaching: It's not just for eggs!

Did I really go there? Sick fuck...

Postingly,
Gregsta'

10?

It's 10:00. I'm finally done working.

For today.

I suppose one of the drawbacks of being Technology director for a group of design professionals is that when things get busy, there's no mechanism to truly defray the added workload. I'm left to take up my own, project-imposed slack. The owner group doesn't really get the whole idea of not working to death. Most of us aren't interested in burning every waking hour for the sake of the profession. We have lives and things that we do outside the office. The owners pin the problem of how to deal with the deluge on us and offer no financial or staffing support. That's the short version.

Enough whining I guess.

Considering an early night to bed. We were out way too late last night.

Gregsta': Out like a light.

Sit

I was going to clean my garage about now, but it started raining. I love Oregon.

Instead, I'm in my home office, getting things done.

Good night last night @ Vertigo.

Happy Birthday, Nate (who turned 30 recently).

Back to werk...

Gregsta'