think, write, share

i’ve been up since 4.20am EDT, so bear with me if this is short and/or incoherent.

well, i’m back from my exhausting business trip to the east coast. it all went pretty well, despite the fact that i had to travel on my birthday. but i did get to see laura, pudup and chuck in between my trip to NH and MD and that was awesome.

NH was ok, with some good progress made on the stuff i needed to look at. i wasn’t sitting around just reading the paper and working on crossword puzzles and i wasn’t under a lot of stress (or any at all), so it was an easy trip for me.

being away from home on my birthday was kind of a bummer. i’ve never been one for big celebrations, but it was kind of odd to go through the whole day without a birthday greeting. at least until i got back to my hotel. i got the usual birthday greetings from my family and my college friends scattered throughout the country. I even got happy birthday greetings from people i’ve never met in my life. kristy sent me a birthday greeting from italy, even though i’ve only really known her for about a year or so. but did i get even so much as a happy birthday text msg/IM from my california CMU friends? no. i heard NOTHING from ducky, na, lynne, wilbur, markus, wynne, bonnie, etc. not a peep. needless to say, that annoyed me and i’m a little pissed at them…

my time at Pax River was a mixed bag. it was awesome hanging out with joe m., even if it was just for one day. the plane inside the anechoic chamber was awesome and it was nice to see Compass Call perform its mission. our system however, was the subject of the week and it was not going well until thursday afternoon. 13 hour days and being put on the hot seat was not my idea of fun, but i did make a lasting impression. i wouldn’t be surprised if when i return next year that there will be a tshirt for me that reads: “it’s not my code.”

well, i’m glad to be back in california. i wish i could have flown back on friday, but that was impossible. i’m supposed to play softball tomorrow morning, but we’ll see how tired i feel to do that. i got a ton of stuff that needs to be done including laundry, food shopping, and tomato sauce making in addition to fishtank planning now that i got my aunt’s old tank and desk.

man, i’m tired…

well folks, it looks like i’m hitting the road again, and this time i’ll be gone for a full two weeks. so where am i headed?

• July 12th - July 16th: Nashua, NH
• July 16th - July 19th: Piscataway, NJ
• July 19th - July 24th: Patuxent River, MD

hopefully it will be my last trip in a while, but the way things have been going lately, that’s doubtful. i’ve actually been home for a solid two weeks, and have sadly spent most of it cleaning house. so i’m a little late when it comes to spring cleaning!

i don’t mind traveling for work at all. in fact, it’s nice to be able to go out and see your system actually working (or in many cases, not working at all) and to meet the people on the other side of your (more than) once-a-week telecons. the hardest part for me is finding people to come by and take care of the kitties. Erica’s been great when it comes to stopping by the house and I’m thankful that Nancy is coming by the 2nd week of my trip to take care of the house. i’ve set up a drip/soaker hose system on my patio to water my multitudes of plants, so i don’t need to worry ’bout that.

in case you’re wondering, this is what i have growing on my patio.

the sucky part of this trip is that for the first week, i’ll be out in nashua by myself. and while i’m not worried ’bout being able to do the job (which involves a lot of babysitting and crossword puzzles) i hate eating out by myself. but i guess this will be an opportunity for me to get over that since i’m sure it won’t be the last last time i’m traveling alone. that and the fact that i’ll be away from home on my birthday. but i will be spending the weekend with laura and pudup and hopefully getting together with sarah, samneric and possible trieu down in boston, so it won’t be all bad.

one more trip this year and i’ll have premier status on united. woohoo…

someone asked once, (but i forget who) and this is what i have currently growing on my patio, all in containers of course…

• better boy tomatoes
• red roma tomatoes
• morning glory ivy
• south african daisies
• chrysanthemums
• sweet italian basil
• rosemary
• bower vine
• german camomile
• jalepeno peppers
• cayenne peppers
• calla lillies
• greek oregeno
• snapdragons
• catnip
• midwest evening primrose
• sweet peas

well, after a couple of weeks of technical difficulties, the blog is back with some changes.

here’s the skinny on what happened:

• finally decided to move the site to a new server
• the site moved ok, except for the databases associated with Moveable Type
• couldn’t log into the site, couldn’t access the comment database, couldn’t do anything
• spent hours with dayv trying to debug the problem and eventually gave up

So what’s changed? Well, for one thing, the blog is now powered by WordPress, a free open source weblog software. So far, I really like it. You’ll also notice a few new options on the sidebars. There’s a search, a calendar along with some registration links. You don’t need to register to comment, but I may have to institute that if I start getting spam comments.

That’s it for now! Hope you didn’t miss me too much