Homey

I love Halloween. Particularly when it's on a Friday. Partying, drinking and handing out candy to little kids. Joy!

At the moment, however, I'm anxiously awaiting a process of converting a physical server to a virtual machine to finish at work. It's not all relax just yet. It claims it's 68% of the way through and only 34 minutes to go, but I know it could take longer. A lot longer potentially. It's been going a little over an hour (which I guess isn't bad, considering the slow state of the degraded RAID it's coming from).

Did I just work geek out on my blog?

I think I did.

Time to go twitter. Never done it before. I hear it's addictive. I need a good, healthy tech addiction. No I don't. WTF.

Not that anyone cares, really.

Gregsta'

UPDATE: Apparently I had Twittered before, 3 months ago. How quickly I forget.

Eye Tea

The wonderful part about being a nerd herding computer pro is that I get to play with new toys all the time (when the company has money in the coffers, anyway). Right now, that means video conferencing, new Palm PDA's, fast laptops and high end color copiers.

Today, I just want to go to bed and sleep. I don't can how many gadgets there are to play with.

Gregsta': Delusional

Gratitude

Technology is the biggest love-hate relationship I have. It swings toward hate a lot more these days.

Oh, and a big FUCK YOU to all the hackers, script kiddies and extortionists out there that make Windows security updates necessary.

Gregsta': Sick of Security Updates

Trick 'er Treat, Bitches

Haloween. It's one of those holidays my wife loves. I on the other hand secretly just want to stay home with a remote controlled water gun aimed in the general direction of trick-or-treaters. Why? Because if I had been assaulted with a water gun as a kid on Halloween, it would have built important and necessary character traits I needed in life. I want all kids to have the opportunity to be successful in life. You can't be successful in life if you never get hit with a water gun on Halloween.

Tough Lovingly,
Gregsta'

Weird

It's a weird day. That is all.

Gregsta'

Que and Aye

It's time for another round of Q&A with Gregster. All questions are real.

Q. I emailed you 2 weeks ago and I still haven't gotten a response. What gives?
A. I don't respond to emails requiring thought, long responses or commitment. Who has time? Besides, I'm married - I've already made the biggest commitment I'll ever need to make, so why make any more? I'm constantly bombarded with short emails that require split second responses that make me a hero. Your 3 page "this is what's happening with me, what's happening with you, do you want to hang out" email will not get a response for at least a month. You will also get a big fat "I can't hang out because I'm too busy." My suggestion? Shorten down to "Hey, let's go to [insert affordable restaurant name we've all been to before] on [day of the week I have off] and catch up. I'll buy!" It's a recipe for success!

Q. Why do you kick homeless people all the time? They're people just like you and me!
A. No, they are not people. People have jobs and purposes in life. Homeless people smell, ask for change and pee on the sides of buildings. They deserve to be kicked.

Q. How is it that you can make time to hang out with your drinking buddies, but not me?
A. Because my drinking buddies are always at the bar. Try it - I'll run into you sometime. Booze, darts and friends. It doesn't get much better than that!

Q. Is there a particular reason you're so jaded?
A. I'm not jaded, rather I'm opinionated and I happen to have very limited time resources. If you don't agree with me, I'm not going to make the time to correct you or discuss the matter. It's that simple. We're all entitled to our opinions. Learning to respect each others differences of opinions is paramount to living in harmony with each other.

Q. You're an asshole, Gregster. How does your wife stand you?
A. I love my wife, listen to her, support her and giver her my utmost respect. You just called me an asshole. Figure it out for yourself.

Answeringly,
Gregsta'

Brick...house...

Office: Mad House

World: Gone Mad

Me: mAd sKilLz @ tha bLawG

You: Wasting mad time reading my blog. Get back to work.

Gregsta': Mad

Danger Mouse

I love cooking. There are few things I like more than cooking. It's, shall we say, a passion of epic proportions. I was reminded one of the cardinal cooking/physics rules this evening:

Frozen food dropped into hot oil will splatter.

I have a nice owwie on my middle finger. Lesson re-learned.

Gregsta': Hot Oil Rub

Geeks on a Train

It's Thursday! Yippie! One more long, arduous day and then a long arduous weekend!

I'll spend my day working long hours, traveling to the Emerald City (why do they call it that anyway?) and staying in a hotel. Oh joy.

The things we do for work.

Mad prop-a-lopas to Gooch. Saving my ass, one billable hour at a time. If I had a hero right now, it would be Gooch.

Gregsta: Railing...

Keeping up with the 19 year olds...

I know how this guy feels. Sort of.

Blarg 3

I tried my hand at replicating the Steak Diane from Wilf's last night. Aside from the lack of using the Flambe technique and substituting Tri-tip for tenderloin, it came out pretty close. Not bad.

The Thai lunch from yesterday impaired my sleeping. I'm exhausted. Too much extra energy yesterday. Up super early today in order to get in to the office uber early.

Gregsta': Ready to Slumber

Lag

When you get into the office in the morning and everyone else had a great weekend while you spent the entire time cooped up in a class C office space, you tend to get a little aggravated. The only thing keeping me from taking out a few people is that I've had a little time to myself this morning to get a few things done that were on the personal to-do list.

Gregsta': Aggro-Cultured

Floggy

It's pea soup out there this morning. Kind of like mom's pea soup, only without the yummy flavor.

I'm coughing this morning. That can only mean one thing: Too much Vertigo exposure last night.

[hack][cough][wheeze]

Gregsta': Flogging

Inspiration

Never thought of covering on my favorite song like this guy did...

yawn.

Worked 22 of the last 48 hours. My legs are starting to get that sitting-too-much feeling. Going on a walk in a few minutes.

I've ordered a new Palm Pro PDA/Phone. I can't take my AT&T Tilt anymore. I want it gone. By gone, I mean giving it to a consultant to figure out my ActiveSync issues at SRG. I haven' had a more frustrating cell phone ever. The iPhone was starting to look good. For a moment.

I tried my hand at coding again this evening. I realized that I just don't have the patience for the little details that make programming work. There are just too many other things grabbing my attention at the moment. I've got a project coming up where I've got to start developing a beta site for a proof-of-concept for venture funding purposes. Ugh.

Betsy and I are now officially carpooling together to/from work. Yay for saving money!

On to that walk.

Gregsta': Exhausted.

Mind Numb

It must be Friday. My mind in numb.

When, oh when, will the wonderful posts of yesteryear return to the Domino Effect? The posts that inspired an entire group of 5 people to get up off the couch and say "I can be more productive than Gregster'"... The drivel that has undoubtedly led to drool on keyboards everywhere... Prose that puts your mind back into gutter where it belongs...

That was pretty good for being uninspired.

Gregsta': Livin' Loca

Congrats

Congratulations, Betsy for graduating! I am so proud of you and lucky to have you as my wife. Over the past year, you've worked hard to earn this. Love, Greg

Master Debater

It's Presidential Debate night #2.

I'm a decided voter. Perhaps I'm in the minority, but I don't think I am. I think if you were to take a vote today and then again in a few weeks, the overall results would be the same. I like Obama, what he's about and I'm decided.

It's hard to watch Barrack and McCain try and convince the rest of America. It's like watching a bunch of teenagers trying to bully the little retarded kids into submission.

For the record - I'm a Conservative Pro Government, Guns and Abortion Democrat. I'm in favor of government that works and is efficient. Granted my views aren't terribly realistic, but I don't have an investment in a particular special interest (except guns and fiscal simplicity, perhaps). I suspect my views will change over time in the direction my personal and fiscal investments are affected by different issues.

Gregsta': Debated

Blurr Part 2

Good game last night between the Jaguars and the Steelers. Apparently I'm not allowed to disseminate anything without the permission of the NFL. And I quote...

"This telecast is copyrighted by the NFL for the private use of our audience, and any other use of this telecast or of any pictures, descriptions or accounts of the game without the NFL's consent is prohibited"

I call bullshit.

In that case, anything you see in downtown Portland cannot be disseminated without a written consent from me. That's right. If you see anything downtown, you don't get to tell anyone about it unless you get a nice little signed and notarized letter from me telling you so.

I like football, baseball and basketball just as much as the next guy. But seriously? They've been doing this since 1998 apparently.

Gregsta': Not impressed

Fry

Last nights debate was interesting. We held a small partay. A friend brought over a VP debate version of buzzword bingo. Frankly, had we not had the bingo, I would have been bored to tears, yet glued to the screen hanging on every word.

One thing that makes me absolutely pissed is how fake-civil the candidates are to each other. I say just be yourself and let it show that you're opposed to their views. This dancing around the issues and trying to look good in the eyes of the people shit isn't cutting it for me. I want to see the real Joe Biden. I want to see the real Barrack Obama. Tell me what you really think. The lipstick on a pig comment was priceless. Keep it real like that.

I think I'm getting sick. I've been working too much and it's catching up with me.

Gregsta': Exhausted

Fuhn

It's 7:00am. Today, I've got a small consulting gig, work and I'm trying stay on top of news. The economic situation in the states is awful, to say the least. Even the people at Democracy Now! sound like they're defeated, and that's a tough bunch of people.

I'm working on downloading some software (second attempt) from a company that has a great product, but can't seem to get their website and infrastructure for distribution to work right. Ugh.

Just keep swimming... just keep swimming...

Gregsta'