Brian

ham

2004-09-30T22:57:07Z

So, I'm further extending my dork-itude. In spring of 2003, I became a Ham (amateur radio operator). It's kinda silly, but quite fun. I've recently upgraded my license class from "Technician" (run-of-the-mill dork) to "General" (quasi-ridiculous dork). On 13 Oct, I plan to upgrade again to "Extra" class (über-dork). Then I can replace my current hideous call sign (KB1JXQ) with a reasonable one. Stay tuned for details. :)

I need a new soldering iron. I just have this little 15W pen right now and it's not allowing me to affix this 10-guage wire to... well, anything. :) Any ideas?

Furthermore, a friend of mine got in touch with me today after several years of being out-of-touch! Thanks for the ping, Azz! :) I wish I knew how to put those cute little name refs in here... she's on LJ too... hmm... I should figure that out...

Hmm... I just figured that out. LJ FAQ number 75, as of this writing... does this work? sxyskeksis Whee! :) Now I'll share my information with everyone who already knows it. Use the SGML-like <lj user="insert-user-name-here">

Quotes of the day (hereafter QOTD)...
«Check it out, Strong Bad! This'll be great... just say "Screw all y'all."»
«Hey Homestar, would you like 174 glasses of melonade?»

props to whoever knows the source, and to whoever can point me at the EXACT (i.e., URL) of the source of the first quote... I can't find it any more... and I mean the *original* one, not the one in the language tape... ooh, i've given a clue...

I love being on hold.

2003-06-27T21:14:27Z

I admit it... I love being on hold on the telephone. There's just something about being able to charge time on the clock... while doing nothing and listening to cheesy music with abysmal audio quality over the phone. I really like the you-are-on-hold music. It's always different and I like it.

Sure, there have been a few times when the music is shitty and I want to stick sharp objects in my eye... but for the most part... they're pretty phat tracks.

Anyways, that's my thought for the day.

Back to being on hold!! :o)

Right, one more thing...

2003-04-29T04:41:44Z

Before I forget, here's the stats:

Total distance:  2928.7   miles
Total gas:         47.643 gallons
Total gas cost:   $69.26  dollars
Fuel economy:      61.5   mpg

Though nearly 50 gallons of gas sounds like a lot, just think of if we were to take the same trip in, say, a Ford Excursion. Easily well over 200 GALLONS of gasoline, and nearly $300 in fuel cost alone. I laugh in the face of such inferior vehicles.

The stats

2003-04-29T04:25:45Z

So, my buddy's really into Pearl Jam. And I think they're pretty cool, too... but I've never really considered going to a concert or joining the Ten Club (Pearl Jam Fan Club) or anything silly like that. But, Nick has done both.

A bit of history... Nick and I drove from my hometown of [near Rochester, NY] to Los Angeles, CA... in 2.5 days. Left early AM on 2 January 2001 and arrived 4 january at about 8pm, stopping to see the St. Louis Arch; Albuquerque, NM; the petrified forest, the Grand Canyon, the Cross of the Plains (a 200 foot tall corrugated metal cross-shaped waste of space just outside the thriving metropolis of Amarillo, TX). On 5 Jan, we got up and went to the beach with our friend with whom we were staying out there. The water was a bit chilly, but far from the 8" of snow we received 2 days before as we set out on this fine journey.

So, we figured... wtf. Why not take another road trip?? So we did. We considered Montreal, Atlanta, Chicago... all too *normal*. Then we saw another tour location: Nashville, TN. It hit me like a sandbag; I could hardly escape the thought of driving to the Heartland of America in my Jetson-mobile... one could only imagine the looks they'd give me as I pulled up next to a V12 Diesel Ford F850... driven by a 40-year-old fat chick... the same area of this fine nation that supplies the food for the hungry engineers on the Coasts, and that provide 80% of the staffing for our Armed Forces. We simply couldn't resist! Armed with digital camera, yuppie clothing, bottled water, and an automobile -- the likes of which will never be seen again in the Deep South -- we set off.

As we left on Thursday, 17 April 2003, we stopped to get gas as we left... about 20 miles west of Boston, MA. I noted that the gas prices had gone up another $0.10 since three weeks ago when I had most recently gotten gas. We filled up for $12, and drove to Ohio... spending less than $12 in gas and $14.85 in tolls. Yay New York! We visited a chick who's a friend of Nick's in Columbus, and unfortunately didn't get to catch up with my friend in Dayton. Next time, though!

So the next day we got up after sleeping the evening in Ohio (Nick's friend's 10-year-old daughter didn't feel comfortable with me and nick sleeping overnight (!) so instead we stayed in a piece of shit motel for $40 (total). The shower was like a gentle stream of lukewarm piss... just as intensely streaming down when it was *on* as it did when it was *off*. It glistened as it streamed down the rotting shower stall, stirring the unhappy mildew for the first time in months. I didn't take a shower that morning.

So, then we drove to Nashville, TN! That's not entirely true. *I* drove from Columbus to Nashville. Nick slept. I stopped to get gas at the RidgeRoad Marathon in Medina, OH, and spent a whopping $13.84 for gas. This lasted a further 600 miles until we reached Nashville. We had some dinner (barbecue) at Rippy's Fine Family Dining Establishment on Broadway, and walked around to some shops. Then we drove to the Grand Old Opry and walked about the Opryland Hotel (absolutely one of the most impressive buildings and indoor gardening I've ever seen). Then took a quick catnap and went to the Pearl Jam show. Great time! We randomly met some kids from Massachusetts there -- they went to high school with a friend of ours from college. Freaky. Anyway, we chugged a couple beers and saw the show... great time. Great band, great seats, great music.

Next day, we got up and drove to Memphis... saw Beale St, and Elvis. Graceland is indeed as impressive as they make it sound. It's really, really neat. Green shag carpet... on the ceiling... walls, and floor... vinyl-trimmed bars, TV's set in the wall (three in a row; to watch CBS, NBC and ABC all at the same time...) Good times, and well worth the $15.

Bedtime. More soon...

Back and unmotivated

2003-04-23T00:39:41Z

Yeah. Rough coming back from 5 days of vacation... I need a weekend soon to relax and catch up on stuff. eep.

So, the road trip was really fun. Pearl Jam was really good, but quite loud. :) I'll have some pictures as soon as my friend uploads the digital pics he took to his web site. We stayed a night each in the following fine cities: Columbus, OH; Nashville, TN; Memphis, TN; Washington DC.

Stats and more information to follow...

werk werk werk

2003-04-15T06:09:00Z

The list of s--t to do continues to get longer as the week draws to a close on Wednesday. I'm taking a road trip to see Pearl Jam (s--t, I almost wrote Perl Jam; I've been writing code too long...) with a buddy of mine from school. We're driving to Nashville, TN. Yes, they're playing at a venue 20 miles away from my house. But instead, we're driving 1129.8 miles. Go figure.

So, yeah. A short week, it shall be. I'll keep you's posted on the road trip. We're staying in the Grand Old Opry one night and going to visit Elvis over the Easter holiday. Great f--king choice. :)

But hell, it's better than work! :)

Back!

2003-04-09T02:32:11Z

So, I'm going to get back into this whole blog-type thing...

werk, again...

2003-01-20T06:46:09Z

Well, another broadcast (unicast?) to the world...

My new favorite web-thingy... well, okay 2 of them:

Strong Bad Email

and Soda Play AKA, "See If You Can Make Anything That moves without directly copying someone else"

Barleywine Ale is my new favorite beer, and I discovered my new least-favorite beer last night, under-passing even Michelob Ultra: Owen O'Leary's [Natick, MA] Winter Beer... Check out the Bad Web Graphics here...

Aite, y'all.

Peace.

p.s. Campaign Slogan Of The Day:

ANYONE BUT BUSH -- 2004

Geocaching, 1.0a

2002-08-01T21:52:10Z

So, I went to a "team-building event" for my department today. It was pretty lame. It was a bastardized version of Geocaching (www.geocaching.[com|org|net|info]), on a small island in Boston Harbor. The Island was cool, the game was not.

Anyway, it was pretty lame. That's my $0.015 for the [day|week|month].

But, I'm going to try some REAL Geocaching sometime to see if it's slightly less lame.

I'm going out with a friend for ice cream now. :)

-out-

bugger

2002-06-24T06:02:01Z

So, I'm at work. Yes, 1:19AM on "Sunday night," or rather "Monday morning," or rather, some hour that NO ONE SHOULD BE AT WORK.
But, yeah... I'm here. I'm working on this CGI-enhanced web page that allows any person here at MITRE to place an order online for a sandwich from our deli here. Sounds easy, right? Yeah. that's what I thought. It's not all that hard, but 500 lines of code and I dare not think of how many hours later, I'm almost satisfied with it. :-\
It works 9 times out of 10, so, I just put in a kludge to retry if it fails. The only problem is that, sometimes it says it fails, but it actually sent the order. Mind you, these are not bugs in *MY* pristine code, but rather a hiccup somewhere involving the modem/fax handshaking... but I can't figure it out. I ran, literally, the exact same order 6 times, and it worked fine the first three, failed on the fourth, then worked on the 5th and 6th times. Completely random. Anyway, good enough for now. Bed time.

Wanna do coffee again sometime, Amy? ;-)

-b out

"My Farts Smell Bad," by Brian

2002-04-10T13:41:29Z

Man, I just let one rip. My officemate isn't here yet today, and he should be glad... because DAMN. I had to open the window for this one. Good thing it's a bright shiny day out (almost 55 degrees! yay!) so that it's bearable to have the window open...
Worst feeling in the world: smelling like BO or cow manure and not having a good excuse for it when your boss walks into your office.
Still sore from Yoga last night... but it was good.
Well, that's my $0.015 for the day. Off to the Sox game tonight!! Yay for drunk people and overpriced entertainment in the name of the Great American Pastime!!

Okay...

2002-04-09T00:17:15Z

So, I'm going to try to get into this again...
<taps screen>Anyone out there?</taps screen>

All for now... check back often! :)

First time for everything

2002-03-08T21:49:41Z

Sooo... We'll see if anyone notices that I've finally put something here.

Anyone? :)

\me taps screen