Scooter

Picture to come but I will soon by the proud owner of a bright pink 50cc scooter. Will try to capture my father's disgust with it/me in the posted pic. =)

Are you a night owl?

My internal day clock is all fucked up. I can't fall asleep before 6am and don't wake up until 12/1pm most days. I work 95% of those hours so only have downtime Fri/Sat to hangout with others. The problem is I'm off schedule. By the time I get up, half a normal day is over. Fridays are the worst. Alina, others get home from work at the same time I'm perked up ready to go out and see the world.

Wish somebody else was up during these hours. It would be nice to be able to talk to something that responds with more than just complete, error or warning.

Year and a half?

My last post was a year and a half ago! Wow, I'm long overdue for a holiday letter like update. Let's see, what's the template again?

Work
I work for the same place as before and love working there. Free food, a golden tee machine, and a kick ass project stocked with talent. Who could ask for anything more?

Travel
The invincible sword goddess talked me into a backpacking trip, and you know what, I throughly enjoyed it. We went to the Grand Canyon and did a three night/four day trip. There was a blizzard the night before (yes, it snows in Arizona!) so we had to get chains for our shoes and ski poles to make it down. Once we made it down though it was 70 and sunny. A thirty degree difference from the top and no snow! My goal was for us to hike 10 miles each day but we wound up closer to 8. You can blame me for that. The sword goddess whooped me on the trails. I am so out of shape.

Unfortunately we ran out of food. We stretched a three day into a four trip and didn't have enough to cover the extra day. I was worthless on the trails without food so the sword goddess kept giving me her portions. Needless to say she was starving by the time we made it back to the top. We decided to hit the first restaurant we saw which was "The Bright Angel Lodge." We're about to order her a feast when the busboy arrives with waters. He had Michigan listed next to his name on his pin so I asked him where he's from. The exchange went like this:

Me: Hey, where in Michigan are you from?
Busboy: Ypsilanti. It's a small town outside of Ann Arbor.
Me: Ann Arbor. Cool. That's where she's from and I used to go to school out there.
Him: Huh. Well I guess that makes us neighbo-- wait a minute, I know you!

I'm a tall, white, jeans and t-shirt guy. It doesn't get any more generic so I figured he's full of shit.

Me: No you don--
Him: No, Mike solo! You were Mike's roommate.
Me: Holy shit! *I Look at his name tag again: Josh* Josh Webster! Wtf!

Talk about out of the blue. Josh was a friend of Mike's. He'd come by ours or we'd go to his house for beers or to watch Mike and him play music. He used to have long hair but it's now short and he's got a goatee which sort of explains why I didn't recognize him. We ended up grabbing sushi later in flagstaff and got to meet his new girlfriend. She's a sweetheart, and Josh told us about how he's been working with another guy rapping. He's all about the look too. Had diamond earrings and a bad ass watch. I've gotta dig up the picture of it. Blingin doesn't even begin to describe it!

Outside work
I got a cat! Her name is Chewy and she's a six month old torti that I rescued from PAWS. She's very people friendly and purrs like a refrigerator if you pet her. One of my favorite things to do is chase her, or have her chase me, around the apartment. I rarely lower the shades so I can only imagine what this looks like to the neighbors. Yes, I'm turning into the crazy cat guy....

Volleyball. I still play every thursday night. Putting together a couple teams to play on the beach this summer.

Softball. I think the same group as last year is going to play again this summer. Hopefully I won't get taken out again by a burly catcher..... =)

Miss my mom. There. I said it.

It's saturday night. Shouldn't you be out?
Most (maybe all?) of my friends have a girl(boy)friend, fiance, wife, husband, or some kind of significant other. Tonight was date night so I'm at home with my date, chewy. Been chasing her around and she's got this new game where she likes to box me with her paws. Ugh! I am so THAT guy....

Geek speak (Trojans)

I hate trojans just like everyone else but I'm impressed with the creative ways people come up with to hijack a PC. Tonight I zapped one off my PC that took on the name svchost.exe. It used a directory called !submit to send passwords and other information about my system over the internet through a background running program. Nothing too exciting there, but I'm impressed that it protected itself by disabling the Windows Task Manager. This made it extremely hard to tell if I had a trojan running. In fact, I never would have known that I was hit if it wasn't for the !submit directory. Good show you piece of shit hackers.

Other impressive trojans I've caught:

- Mapped google.com to a different web address that looked exactly like google, but prevented any searches about the trojan running.

- Ran two processes and anytime you deleted one, the other would re-start the killed process.

- Renamed itself to a different random process name on startup.

- And the best I've ever seen, VX2. Some how the creator figured out a loop hole in Windows XP that allowed his program to load as a system level process. It used to be, and might still be, a huge pain in the ass to kill a system level process in Windows XP. If I ever meet you, Mr. VX2 creator, I'm applauding you and then punching you in the groin. You fucking costing me an entire weekend.

I hate chaches

I hate people who use sports as a means for violence. Earlier today I was in a bar fight.

It's a Michigan tradition to play a cowbell to show your support for the team and a guy at our table brought the bell. Every touchdown he played the bell, but as the night wore on the Ohio State fans got more and more agitated by this. It started with menacing chants of "where's the cowbell" after every big OSU play. Later it escalated to snippy comments as they walked past our table. And on a late touchdown by umich all hell broke lose. My friend went to play the bell as he had done previously when a grinning OSU fan darted for him. The fan grabbed his bell, knocked him in the face, and then tried to run off with it. I shoot up after the stolen instrument, grabbed it, and got pulled over the booth and into the center of the OSU fan's screaming posse. I get to my feet and am immediately shoved into a table behind us. Like an old country movie, the table goes flying into the air as I landed on top of it. I tried to prevent the fall, but consequently lost control of the instrument. Inspecting the damage, we noticed that my friends glasses were ripped in half and he's slightly cut up. I'm ok and am now listening to the OSU fans chant "Where's your cowbell? and Where's your glasses?" We eventually find the other half of his glasses and engineer a way to keep them together. The neanderthals continue their tackless mocking for the rest of the game.

It's not just OSU fans either. Michigan fans have their share of suckiness too. I'm leaving the bar with my dad and heading to the car when a huge Michigan fan comes shooting past us screaming "I'm so pissed, I just want to beat the crap out of someone OSU affiliated." He finds three petrified high-school aged OSU fans in a 7-11 parking lot. The four of them begin arguing and pushing each other. I head for the car. My faith in humanity is lost. Fight over something worthwhile, not over a stupid fucking sport.

Brief update

I understand that it's been a while. A brief update.

Work
Most of my work is out of New York right now. The development takes place in Chicago but the end users are out of NYC. I've had to take a couple of trips out there to discuss projects with them, and these trips have completely opened my eyes. Chicago feels way behind in terms of where it could be as a major city. New York has a better public transportation system, their neighborhoods aren't horribly segregated, and they banned public indoor smoking which is a law I strongly support. Not to mention they have things open all hours of the day for the nighthawk in me. Perhaps a move is needed.

Travel
I toured the south central with Han's brother. We hit up Nashville, Memphis, and New Orleans. Got to see Kami, meet some European travelers, and hear some first hand accounts of how Katrina really effected New Orleans.

Despite my protests, I went apple picking in MI with the invincible sword goddess. And you know what? I actually kind of enjoyed it.

Going skiing January 3rd in Vail.

Outside work
I've been on a quest to collect more "1020" like people. People that are hard working, determined, giving, and aren't primarily focused on accumulating as much money as humanly possible. I've been amazed as to what I have found. Had no idea how cool a composer, an opera singer, a recycled dress maker, etc. could be.

Speaking of opera. I saw my first, Il Trovatore, last Tuesday.

My sister now lives in the city. Her friends live in a building two down from mine and she's moved into the same one as them. How's that for random? In a huge city full of places to live, her friends and her pick a spot right down the street from me. Weird.

Random
I've listened to the song "Mad World" by Gary Jules on loop for the last two and half hours (not exaggerating). I know, I'm obsessed. (that commercial featuring the song rocks btw)

My 2nd mother

She's dying. I know it, you know it, we all know it.

Man Law #-368.14159

On weekends. Unless it is an emergency, do not call before 10am after a night of heavy drinking.

The more you know....

I attended three different house parties on Saturday, and did something that I didn't previously think was possible.

My friend Steve and I had downed numerous beers and shots (both in liquid and gelatin forms) and we were winding down the evening with a final shot of Malibu rum. I took the shot, and immediately felt my body pressing the “reset button.” A mad dash to the bathroom ensued. A few moments of wheezing, some spitting, and a few gags, and the moment of truth had finally arrived. Although this time it didn’t come flying out my mouth, it came flying out of my nose! It was a liquid steady stream of Malibu rum, and it tasted just as good going out, as it did going in.

I'm a home owner

I'm officially a grown up. Last month I bought a condo and now have a mortgage, home owners assessments, and property taxes to pay out.

I ended up buying my dream pad though. It took about 3-4 months of searching but I finally found my two bed/two bath high rise with a killer view. The unit has been completely rehabbed, meaning it has hardwood floors throughout, remodeled kitchen and bathroom, and all new appliances. It also has a rooftop deck and pool, a doorman, an on-site dry cleaners, and unlike my last place, a working kitchen sink with hot water! Best of all though is the view. It overlooks both the skyline and the lake. During the day you can see all the sailboats out on Lake Michigan, and at night you can watch the fireworks over Navy Pier.

I'm pretty excited about this place, even threw a pool party to sort of christen the pad. I'm still in the process of moving but have just about settled in. Everything from my old place has been moved over, but I decided to amplify the bachelor pad theme and have traded my dinning room table in for a foosball table. I also have to fix some minor issues with the place (I swear I'm at Home Depot at least once a weekend these days) but as soon as everything gets sorted out I'll attach some pictures.