OK, now this is really not funny... quarter-of-five?!?

Can somebody please explain to me how it suddenly got so late?

The big disappointment of the trip is that Tussey Mountain didn't have their halfpipe cut the day that I got to ride over there. Surprisingly, they had decent snow on the mountain, and a very small crowd which made for a good day. The whole vacation thing was good and I had the time to see all of my family. There are lots of details, most of which I will not touch on right now... maybe down the road sometime. For now, I'm back in Denver and that feels good.

Too many stinkin' people are off of work these days. I went up to Arapahoe Basin after passing up Key(clusterf_ck)stone. A line of cars stretched back from their free lots for about half a mile. There didn't look like there were any open spaces, so those people were probably going to be sitting for some time looking for spaces. A-Basin wasn't overly crowded, although their lots threatened a swarm on the mountain. More terrain is open, but there's still a lot to cover and the winds today didn't help to keep the available snow on the mountain. There was just enough to make for a good day.

We need a storm. A big two-foot kind of storm.

So how do you bribe a friend to wake up at 5:00 am to drive you to the airport?

"The Punk Rock Bowling Tournament gonna be on Thursday, January 18th ... We encourage everyone (band, label, store, whatever) to participate and put a team together." -- courtesy Suburban Home Records.

Crap. A couple of the mountains got about half a foot last night. I should have been riding today. Instead, I was at the car dealership getting an oil change and service done on a parts recall. I shouldn't complain -- one of the mechanics left some sort of tool in my car that I'm debating on whether or not to return. It's not something I'm familiar with, but it sort of looks like something that you would use to pull weeds out of your lawn. My best guess is that it was used to change my wipers, but until I try to use it myself for that sort of task, I might never know.

If the dealership wasn't so far out of the way from my house, I would drop it off today.

A study published in JAMA announced that there is no definite correlation betwen short-term cell phone use and brain cancer. While that's a relief, there was no mention about the fact that people who use cell phones in public spaces, such as restaurants, look like assholes.

I bought a battery backup for our server last night. I was excited about the idea of it staying up while I'm out of town and the power goes out. All of that excitement quickly faded when I plugged it in and smoke started pouring out of the terminals. Wasn't planning on making another trip to the computer store so soon.

No one to ride with today, but I did a day at Keystone by myself. How is it that the meteorologists can be so off on a day like today. I nearly didn't make the hike today because there was a forecast for 80 mph gusts again. It's been windy as hell up there over the last 5 days. Instead of wind, we had a light (really light, like non-existant) breeze, clear skies, lots of sun, and it was probably in the mid-twenties. Beautiful. Almost so beautiful that I didn't notice that 25 minute line for the gondola at the bottom of the mountain this morning. Oh wait -- not that beautiful, but still beautiful in a 16 kind of way.

Les Savy Fav ... rockin' my garage. It'd be nice if they got their asses over here and toured the States a little this summer.

After finding myself overwhelmed with the notion of "sooner or later" getting through the 800 messages that have collected in my inbox from a mailing list to which I'm subscribed, I decided to blindly delete them without even reviewing the subjects for interesting entries. Feel like I'm not keeping up with my part of the deal. I know I'm going to have to do this when I return after the holiday.

ugh, it's really early. I'm headed out with Matt to see if we can catch some of the sweet stuff from the storm last night.

70 mph gusts while sitting on the chairlift today -- I think that I'm lucky that I didn't get blown away.

Yesterday makes 14. I hate counting and I swore I would never do it again, but the last two days have been phenomenal. Just how is it that 2-3 feet blows into the woods at Keystone and no one has touched it?

Tussey has a pipe dragon. That's just too strange for me to fathom, but according to their site it's true. I want to ride there when I am home... Don't ask me why.

I had planned on shipping my old deck to my parents' for the holidays and just leave it out there. I don't ride it anymore, but I could take it for a few runs out there. Little did I know it would cost about $100. Maybe I'll be carrying it after all.

Day 13 -- One might think it would turn out to be an unlucky one. I was a little worried about that myself, and tried not to think about it. As it turns out, there was only one unlucky bit to the entire day -- I planted my face in the snow in a bad landing, scraped my chin, and gave myself a fat lip. But it was a great air, and I was feeling it for the whole run. So who's to say it is bad? This was probably the best day I've had this season. The Copper Four-Pass is treating me right.

Just a few things to mention right now. First off, a link to the 5K site. This is a competition to build a web site using less than 5KB of total file size. Maybe I'll have my class do something along these lines -- might be a good project for them. So here's the URL... http://www.the5k.org/.

Next up, Don...

I went to see the halfpipe finals for the Van's Triple Crown (I should get search result listings for this!!!) at Breckenridge. I think this was the coolest professional sporting event that I've ever witnessed. I had a prime location, too, standing midway up the pipe right along the fenceline. These guys and girls were going off and they were literally flying 5 feet in front of me! I took a bunch of pictures of the whole thing, and they're being developed right now. Hopefully, I'll have something to show by tonight.

I'm liking the sound of this: "Snow accumulations 8 to 12 inches with locally heavier amounts above timberline."

From the "What could possibly be next" department: DreamCast runs Linux. I saw this on Slashdot tonight with links to screen shots. Here are two that I liked best: one, two.

"I make music to fill holes in my record collection and to try to communicate to other people who have similar holes in their record collections. I know those people exist, and they get us."

Travis Morrison, The Dismemberment Plan ... from The WestWord

I think I've finally discovered the source of the "phantom stench" in my fridge. It's been elluding me for months to the point where I can barely distinguish it. But people keep telling me it's terrible. We'll have to just wait and see if it goes away now.

I installed the new Opera 5 browser today to do some testing. I haven't gotten to actually running it yet, I just went through the installation. I don't often read the end-user agreements, but since this is ad-supported software, I thought I would give it a skim. Most of it was boring garbage, until I got to this section which made me consider how I might eventually need to use this software:

"YOU ACKNOWLEDGE THAT THE SOFTWARE IS NOT INTENDED FOR USE IN (I) ON-LINE CONTROL OF AIRCRAFT, AIR TRAFFIC, AIRCRAFT NAVIGATION OR AIRCRAFT COMMUNICATIONS; OR (II) IN THE DESIGN, CONSTRUCTION, OPERATION OR MAINTENANCE OF ANY NUCLEAR FACILITY. "

No, I think I'll be OK with this one.

It was day 11 today, and it was spent at A-Basin. They got about 5-6 inches in the Summit County resorts last night, but it wasn't enough to completely wipe out any ice that might be lingering underneath. That's why my ankle is sore as hell right now ... one bad spill for the day.

Call me a saint or something.

I did my good deed of the month tonight. I was at the car wash when I was approached by some guy from South Dakota who was out of luck at the bus stop. Apparently, he needed to get to the bus station downtown in Denver and was miles out where we met. Since the buses stopped running earlier in the evening, there was no way he was getting downtown. He offered me a fiver, and I took it. I wasn't really happy about driving downtown tonight, but he didn't seem to be in a good position for getting himself there. Winter nights can really suck standing around in the cold. So we hopped in and headed off.

He wasn't sure exactly were the bus station was, and admittedly, neither did I. We drove a couple of circles once we were in town, and eventually found it. I dropped him off and, here's the kicker, returned the five dollars he offered me for the ride.

I'm hoping these karma points will pay off sometime down the road.

This office is freezing.

I got screwed over today with the dribble lid from my favorite people at St**bucks. I guess that makes up for the free coffee that I got yesterday. I knew there was something suspicious. C-O-N- spiracy is what I am saying here, friends. I look like I peed on myself.

It's about some trouble I'm having with my eyes.

palooka666: so did you need to go to grad school in digital media to learn to scan your face and do weird things with it?
GreatBigX: no ---
palooka666: edu-ma-cation is wonderful...
GreatBigX: that's just the side effect of working at home
palooka666: so have you scanned your ass yet?
GreatBigX: the scanner sits too high on my desk.
palooka666: i know you want to and email it to everyone
GreatBigX: no ... just to your mom
palooka666: she's already got a shot of your ass
GreatBigX: hehe
GreatBigX: lol

"i'm amazed to see that chad can grow facial hair" -- Sanj.

Right now I feel like a monster looking for coffee.

I had a funny dream last night about a friend of mine. I was visiting her house and looking at pictures on the wall. One was of two men refinishing a hardwood floor in her kitchen. It was her father and Bob Vila -- Bob Vila was finishing her floor!!!

I just reworked the layout here tonight... I like it better than the other garbage that was going on before. It will take a little bit of time before everything else is in place. Thanks for your patience. (Is anyone there?)

Been away from the site for a while due to Thanksgiving and finals at the university. But now I am finished with all of that.

Dropped coin on a CD burner this weekend, and who would have guessed it -- I spent about 10 hours trying to work out the hardware issues. Another big surprise here, my Zip drive was the cause of it all. I consider this thing to be the root of all evil. Even with the latest drivers from Iomega, this thing still doesn't work. So I unplugged it and put it into a lead box to make sure that none of the evil would escape. Tomorrow, I plan to drop it in the Snake River. Or, maybe I'll just beat it with a baseball bat a few times. We fixed a VCR like that earlier this year... we fixed it good.

So 2 hours of work today vs. 3 hours of troubleshooting on my USB peripherals. And then my network connection goes out after I had everything else reinstalled. An hour or so later, I realized that the network was out because my ethernet cable had disconnected from the card while futzing around behind my PC. Now I understand why they always say to make sure everything is plugged in before looking for other trouble. I'm a jackass.

Apple juice.

I go for years thinking nothing about it. My childhood was marred by glass after glass, in an attempt to quench my thirst -- yet, with apple juice my thirst always returned. So out of the blue I buy a quart of it. I now have another 2.5 gallons in my fridge and that doesn't even seem to be enough.

I feel a little bloated right now, though. A warning to you all.

One of the better breakfast ideas that I've heard. Mix your own cereal and have it shipped to your door. MyCereal.com might be a little more expensive than boxes from the store, but definitely worth a shot. I love breakfast.

Well it's about freakin' time....
Netscape 6 finally ships after 32-month gestation

"I Dissent"

If I have to read another concurring or dissenting opinion from the FTC in the next 6 months, I might shoot myself.

For a while, I thought that my paper might be the end of me. At this point I'm not so worried. I hate writing papers about things in which I have very little interest. I've just used the word "plethora" in the last paragraph that I added, and I think it really breathes new life into this project. Anyone got ideas for other words that might be fun to add? The paper is about Federal legislation for the governance of online privacy -- but don't let that be a limit to your creativity.

The Plan is coming next week after shows in Japan.

ff=66 .... or so they say.

Damn this chocolate straight to hell. No more than 12 hours after I give away the rest of my Halloween candy to friends for fear of eating all of it myself, a whole new bowl shows up in the mail room! Blessed mother of willpower... oh, screw it.

WARNING!
Contents under pressure and may resort to the use of one or more expletives and/or colorful language.

Bed vs. Godzilla

Hey, if Ralph Nader had a giant swinging dick like Al, then he'd be on the cover. And you know what else -- if Bush wins, then fuck Thom Yorke for encouraging the Naderites. Think he'd like it if Marilyn Manson went over there and helped the Tories out?

From RollingStone.com: Radiohead

Just clicking around on DeviantArt tonight. Interesting visuals ... some good, some shit.

My clothes are covered in static today. Must be the change in the weather. I have that weird electrifying feeling around my crotch... kind of fun and kind of annoying all at the same time.

uhhh.... imagine a rat-carcass stuffed with deviled eggs and then left for six weeks in a urinal. -- yeah.

Speaking of good deeds, I returned a woman's purse to her when she nearly forgot it from a coffee shop. I didn't even look inside!

I got a free cup of coffee for that one. I don't know what would be better, eternity in heaven or a lower tolerance for caffeine. It just doesn't have the effect it used to.

The good deed for the day, or maybe I should make it for the week or even the year. I don't think I do to many of these. Some guy waved me down while I was driving tonight and asked for a ride to his cousin's house. It was only about a mile away, and he seemed pretty frantic.

The story went that he was out drinking and his friends had taken off without him. When he went outside, as the story goes, three guys tried to jump him and stole his rental car when he dropped his keys. Seemed a little far fetched, but hell, he seemed like he needed a lift -- maybe he just wanted a free ride.

Anyway, I don't know if I get karma points here or not. I wouldn't have picked him up on my own if my friend hadn't suggested it, and at least he didn't vomit in the car or anything right?

cold and rainy out today ... I eschewed the ultimate game that I should have been in and spent $60 on CDs instead. new music should always preempt a cough with the sniffles.

helmet.

yeah yeah yeah. It's been what -- three months? Whatever.

OK, so what's been happening here? I started back into school this fall for my 3rd quarter at the university of denver. Kickin'. I'm trying to find a a doctor who is willing to stitch a couple more arms on me and have petitioned Congress to add about 4 more hours to every day. There's a lot to do. For anyone from Lafayette who may remember this saying ... "My ass is Sooooooo big."

I'm looking at my last posting here about CDNow, and I can smile because since they are still in business, I have been buying like crazy.... modest mouse was a nice recent addition.

Bertelsmann AG to the rescue! Woo hoo! And for a while there, I was worried that CDNow, strapped for cash, was going to go under and that I would no longer have my favorite CD store... ZDNet Story: Bertelsmann buys CDNow for $3 a share

Some new mailing lists I bumped into today. I am often in the search for relevant lists that aren't a waste of time. I'm trying a few out to see how they look, and I'm sure I will make suggestions down the road.

Ask Jeeves is a search engine... sort of. The twist is that it attempts to answer natural language queries, or whatever they term a normal question that isn't just a bunch of keywords. So if it answers questions, the obvious thing to do is to interview Jeeves, right? I saw this a while ago, but I don't think I've posted it here. It's probably one of the funniest things I've read on the Web in 5 years.

Interview with the Search Engine from Satire Wire (formerly FNwire).

I swear, I am trying to be good... but it's just so hard sometimes.

Something Jay said today caught me really good... First off, this should be prefaced by a story at Salon.com.

"I think we should teach kids prostitution to prevent basketball"...

"Afterall, basketball players nowadays are a whole lot more dangerous than hookers. You never see a hooker driving a Pathfinder carrying a gun and 5 pounds of weed."

"Ok, maybe sometimes."

Regarding research into online privacy, I found a little "how-to" on ZDNet about the basics of protecting yourself online and maintaining relative anonymity... Keeping Your Private Information Private on the Web.

I've got very dark red hair these days.

"It has been found that the entire outer layer of skin is shed every one or two days."

So Gary Settles, a scientist at the Penn State Research Foundation is going to use that layer of skin and a "thermal-plume" that rises from the human body to test for illegal drugs, substances and explosives. This is a great idea for airport security, but what about the related privacy issues? NYTimes.com article

I managed to do something nasty to my neck this morning. One of those, "I was just turning around and then....". Well, to say the least, I am in a lot of pain. Digging through drawers for muscle relaxers or bourbon or something. And I was suppose to be playing Ultimate tonight!

Something I've been meaning to jump into soon is database programming. Perl.com has an article titled Short guide to DBI (The Perl Database Interface Module), which is probably a good place to start. Just have to sit down and read it.

I've been seriously lacking here, but I want to continue adding useful resources that I am finding. The Faqts site has a number of areas on programming lanuages, and focused questions about how to accomplish some tasks.

I was digging through some old email the other day and realized that someone had submitted an old javascript project of mine for About.com's HTML Tip of the Day last August. It is a really simple color converter, which at the time wasn't available in the standard image editor applications.

Here it is.

I got a surprising email yesterday from the people at PizzaTherapy.com (see 5.9.2000) who thanked me for my "kind words". I don't remember sending them any messages from their site, so I guess they must have found my site on a reverse search for their domain name.

"Pizza On Earth, Good Will to All!"

There's a few things that I had tried to post here in the last couple days that just haven't shown up. So much for the glory of the Internet.

Tuna salad sandwich with spicy mustard, fresh tomato, and Muenster cheese on whole wheat bread. Try one.

I need energy food right now. This evening has been draining on and on and probably into the wee hours tonight. I am not looking forward to the morning.

Today was one of those days (actually, it still is one of those days) when you suddenly look up from the crack in your windshield and the orange traffic cones going under your tires and realize that the trees suddenly have leaves all over them. I was driving down to school this morning and thought that I had somehow made a wrong turn and ended up in a lush jungle. Spring...

I like to cook things that take a lot of time and effort. Pizza from scratch is one of them. I'm talking about rolling dough, making sauce, the works.... Don't ask how I bumped into this site, but PizzaTherapy.com may later be of use to me.

Made some updates to the site tonight. Everything is in flux ... I don't think that one page has quite the same layout as the next. That whole Master Template scheme fell apart a while ago.

I'm working on this whole Flash thing... but for now, I still feel kind of crappy.

Been spending many hours in front of a screen recently. The latest big change in my life (probably just until the end of my classes for the quarter) is that I am staying up until 3 or 4 am most nights and sleeping until about 11 am. I've got classes 4 days of the week that start at 1 pm and it was really tough getting motivated to work before them. So now I just run errands in the mornings and then work in the afternoon and into the wee hours.

Man, I love the routines that school can put you through.

So here it is. I've been working on rebuilding a site for myself and figured that a blog would keep me involved with it. I got tired of having a site that wasn't updated on at least partly a regular basis.

What's been going on recently? I'm doing the grad school thing and it is treating me right. I have a ton of work to finish in the next month or so, and I will most likely be ranting about it here... so keep your eyes peeled.

This is just the beginning...