pointless babble. why are you even here?

Well, after wearing my new jeans for 2 weeks straight, I thought it was time to switch it up. I failed to appreciate that my old jeans are still ridiculously huge though. Check it out.

These jeans never used to be tight, just comfortable and the right waist. Now, I can fit my fist sideways into the waste; I think it’s time for another new pair of jeans. I also started rocking medium sized sweaters now, which look good and are quite slimming. For the record, I’m down to a solid 170, though I’m starting to notice I’m losing as much muscle mass as I am fat. Time to start doing some exercise again. Besides, I need to get down to 160 by the end of the month so I can enjoy some beers down in Arizona!

As for Aaron’s request, it’s all kind of here, but I’ll post a rundown at some point. For now I need to get to sleep though; got to vote for Ron Paul tomorrow morning before work

Much as expected when I started my weight loss crusade, my clothes no longer fit me right. More specifically, Large shirts look a little big on me, I had to add a new notch in my belt and my jeans hang loose and shapeless off my hips. So, instead of looking trim and attractive, I look like I don’t know how to dress myself, which of course, wasn’t my goal. I’m currently 175 pounds, 20 pound lighter than when I started all this, and it’s very noticeable; I still continue to get comments on my size from people I know.

Anyway, I was planning to stave off buying new clothes (specifically jeans) until I got even close to my target weight. Let’s face it, I’ve still got 15 pounds to go, and if 20 pounds caused such a huge change in my figure, another 15 was sure to do the same. Still, it sucks to have lost all this weight and look scrubby as a result, and since I had some clothes to return from Christmas to return to Kohl’s and Old Navy, I figured I would splurge on at least one pair of new jeans. And there in lies the reason for this post.
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So, I recently bought a Nokia N800, partly because of all the N810 news I’ve seen recently and partly because I wanted a cool new toy. My roommate recently bought an iPhone, which for all of the hype, is kind of lame. Don’t get me wrong, the interface is really slick and using the ‘net anywhere is kind of cool, but it’s a closed system that people keep hacking to add functionality. It also has a really low resolution and doesn’t support Flash, which is pretty lame.

The N800 on the other hand is based on Maemo Linux, is totally open, already has full VoIP functionality, fully supports Flash (meaning YouTube and all-Flash sites work just fine), has about twice the resolution of the iPhone (so I don’t have to keep zooming and scrolling websites) and has a ton of really cool apps. GPS? Check! USB OTG? Check! Expandable memory? Check! True multitasking? Check! Mozilla browser? Check! VNC, SSH and VPN access? Check! Video chat? Check! It even has Skype and Gizmo clients and a port of Pidgin, the greatest chat client ever. Sure I don’t have Internet access anywhere my phone works, but WiFi is so easy to come by that it’s hardly a factor for me. If I really need to I can pair it with a Bluetooth phone and use it that way.
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No, I still haven’t read up much on the Zend framework yet. All in due time….. I have more important things to worry about right now.

After seeing people I went to high school with at a wedding I recently attended and seeing them looking all trim and fit and seeing pictures of my fat ass from the same wedding, I’ve decided enough is enough. I officially weigh in at 195 pounds on a good day. Back in high school, i weighed 160, and while that wasn’t “thin” by any stretch of the imagination, it was a hell of a lot better than 195! Ultimately, I don’t have the desire or drive to get all ripped or anything, I just want to not be disgusting anymore and I think 160 is a good goal.
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Well, trying to post consistently on here isn’t working either I guess, as it’s been like 6 weeks since I last put something up. So, the new goal is to post quick and small things.

First, Xubuntu! The main drive on my desktop crapped out on me, so I was forced into reinstalling Linux. I had been runnign Ubuntu 6.10 for a while and it was in dire need of a refresh anyway since I botched the nVidia drivers on day 1 and never cared enough to start over. I’ve been reading a lot about how great Ubuntu 7.10 is and I got used to using Gnome, but it always just felt so slow and I also read that Xubuntu (which runs Xfce) was a lot faster. So, that’s what I decided to install. Continue reading →

I went paintballing for the first time this last weekend. I never had much interest in doing it before because I’m not partial to pain, but I have to say, getting shot doesn’t hurt THAT much. Most of the time I got hit in my forearms, with the exception of getting hit on the hand once (which is starting to bruise now). But, the pain goes away quickly, and nobody I went with (19 other people) really got hurt.

We went to Paintball Sam’s for the Bachelor party of a friend of mine. I new a lot of the people there, but there were also plenty that I didn’t know. More than anything, I was really impressed with the equipment they rent; semi-auto air-fed guns that almost nobody had any problems with. Mine shot exceptionally well and was even faster than the other’s I was with (288 feet per second when I tested it). Continue reading →

I fell behind again, but only by a few days. I’m still trying my best to post on a regular basis though.

First we’ll start off with work and my commute to connect with the last post. I’ve gotten used to the commute and waking up early to make it now. I get tired earlier at night, but I guess that’s expected. I have once again avoided a ticket punching last week, so that makes 3 free rides on the train; not too bad.

I’ve been occupying my time on the train by listening to podcasts and playing a little bit of games, Planet Puzzle League exclusively I guess. The podcast I’ve been trying to catch back up on is the Dopecast which is all about drug news and the counter culture. I’m not one for their use personally but I think many of the illegal drugs out there should be legalized and it’s cool to hear what’s going on in that regard. Soon I will be reading on the train too, having purchased Sun Tzu’s The Art of War (since it’s been references often in my daily living for some reason) and Just for Fun, the story of Linus Torvalds (since it was inexpensive and I expect it’s an interesting read). I’ll let you know how those go.
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Ever since I started my new job, there has been talk of getting a new office. The company had already been occupying two office spaces, having knocked down a wall that separated the two. We had so outgrown our old space that the development department (where I work) had been relocated to a third space on the first floor of the building; we weren’t even connected to the original office.

How fitting it was then that roughly a week before my one year anniversary (that’s right, I’m a senior developer as of today) we are finally occupying a new office. It was a year in the making, and this was the third space they had looked at and made moves on (after the first two fell through), but we made it. And since most of the office lives in the city, that’s where we moved to. Sadly, I live in the northern suburbs, meaning I nearly doubled my commute….

But it’s not all bad; the new office is really awesome, the location of it is amazing and the development department has finally been reunited with the rest of the company. I was personally looking forward to that later part the most and I’m happy we finally made the move.
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Once again, it’s been far too long since I’ve posted anything here. In fact, it’s been over 2 months. Needless to say, a lot has happened in those 2 months….. but nothing is here. It’s partly because I don’t sit in front of my computer at home too often anymore and partly because I don’t feel like making long posts to sum things up. But, I think I have a solution.

I’ve been reading posts on lifehacker for a little while now and they seem to be bit fans of a site called twitter over there. Now, I’ve never used the site myself (since I pretty much hate the whole “social networking” scene that popped up), but the idea is simple. Users get on and post about the trivial crap that’s happening in their life.

So I’m going to start posting trivial crap up here…… OK, not really. But, it made me realize that the key is in repetition. So, my plan is to post here at least once a week, possibly twice. I guess we’ll see how well I keep up with it, but that’s the new plan. That way, I don’t have to write up a long post every time I want to write something, but I’ll still get all of the info across. I’ll start this week, possibly Wednesday or Thursday here; we just moved offices at work so I have a couple things I’d like to write about concerning that anyway.

Lastly, after the trip to HOTlanta (more on that in the future), there’s a bunch of new pictures to put online here. I’m working on that too.

Yes, this jacket is great! How great you ask? You have to see ti to believe it, that’s how great it is!!

Before I go in to the jacket though, let me recap why I chose it. First, I didn’t want a traditional leather riding jacket (as seen here), I wanted one without a collar because I like the sporty look; not too old school, but not crotch rocket either, just simple. Second, I didn’t want anything TOO plain (see here), and I liked the look of the stripes, it made the jacket pop. Plus they are reflective, and safety first right…… ok, I don’t even care if they are reflective, but it’s a nice touch. Finally, if this one would have had a grey sripe instead of an orange one, I would have gotten it, but as it is it’s too Harley for me. So, there it is.

Now, why Fox Creek Leather? Well, quite simply, I could not find one bad review of any of their jackets! I mean, there are some on their site from random people who were not happy with one thing or another, but that was it. And if there’s one thing I’ve learned in life, it’s that the general population is retarded. Multiply that by the fact that people are 10 times more likely to write up a bad review than a good one and their track record looks pretty awesome.
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