Some of the stuff going on with me Right Now: 3 August 2008

Favorite TV Shows: '24', Deadliest Catch, Las Vegas, American Chopper, Mythbusters, Who's Line is it Anyway, My Name is Earl, Scrubs,,re-runs of Farscape and Firefly (on DVD), E.R., a Utah Jazz Basketball Game, or any NASCAR Nextel Cup Race - Despite the large list, I really don't get to watch THAT much TV - I wind up missing most of those shows.

Favorite local radio station: KWFR-101.9 "The Fire," unless I'm in the Ram, then it's: 89.3 - "The CD Changer"  (the local radio stations kinda suck)

CD in the Honda's player: Anger Management - an MP3 Jukebox CD

CD's loaded in the Ram's Changer:

• Linken Park - Meteora & Hybrid Theory (a CD-R I burned)
  
• Bowling for Soup - The Hangover you didn't deserve
• Collective Soul - Youth
  
• Collective Soul - Collective Soul
  
• Collective Soul - Blender
  
• Dave's Mix from Hell - a CD-R with some alternative music that my buddy burned for me
  
• This Side Up - an unlabeled MP3 CD-R that I made
  
• This Side Up 2 - another unlabeled MP3 CD-R I made
• This Side Up 3 - and yet another unlabeled CD-R...
• Anger Management III - another CD I made
  
  

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Here's a shot of my current desktop(s) - My main machine (Big Dawg) is back to being a single OS machine, Lapdawg is my Dell Laptop, Rusty is my router/firewall, Anubis is my wife's machine, Old Dawg is a WinME machine built to play the ancient computer games of the '90s, Watch Dawg is the living room machine hoping to be a PVR/DVR someday, and Velociraptor is my web server/file server/print server:

Rusty Win2K Server Desktop	Big Dawg WinXP Desktop	LapDawg WinXP Desktop	Anubis WinXP Desktop	Velociraptor Win2K Desktop

Current WinAmp Playlist:    I have a huge and growing MP3 collection and love to have them running while 'surfing and e-mailing.

Favorite Games on the Computer: MAME32 (Classic Arcade Games), SimCity 2000 + SimCopter, Crimson Skies, Jane's Air Force, Unreal Tournament, Unreal Tournament 2004, Need For Speed - Underground, Need For Speed - Porsche Unleashed, Need For Speed - Hot Pursuit, NASCAR Racing 2003, Polar Bowling, Spider Solitaire, Hangaroo, and Dilbert Desktop Games Elbonian Airlines. 

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Big, Major Stuff that Happened  - Most Recent stuff first:

• 3 August 2008 - Even more stuff has happened since this time last year:  I work for the government again in charge of computer security for the 17th Training Group at the base - it's a 'Temp' slot, but my Boss is working hard to make it a permanent slot.  The Honda's been getting a solid 34 mpg since I resurrected it, and I even spiffed it up a little with some window tint, new rims & tires, and some major clean-up.  I'm also teaching myself Php and MySQL - so far, so good.  Here's a link to my Test Weblog page - it'll be incorporated into this site (mostly replacing this page) once I'm happy all the bugs are worked out.  That will also prompt even more changes to my main website and its sub-pages.  The lack of current updates is pretty much what sparked me into learning some new coding... that, and I don't want to be left behind as far as how to put together decent websites without having to do it the hard way.
  
  Now I just need to learn some of the finer points in Dreamweaver so I can rip the pages out as fast as I can 'draw' them (and cut-n-paste into DW, then dump the Php on top of it all).

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• 2 June 2007 - OK, something happened to me.  Either I got older and wiser, or cheaper, or something.  I bought (more like rescued) a '95 Honda Civic VX hatchback from a friend who blew the head gasket on the way to work.  I offered to help him fix it, but he finally hit the point where he'd had enough of messing with the car and decided to let it go.  I got a helluva deal on it at only $800, and my plan is to fix it up and drive the wheels off it while enjoying awesome gas mileage.  Check out the new page I made for it HERE

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• 18 May 2007 - Tomorrow I go to the Kendall Art Gallery to pick up my entry in the Anything Goes, Almost Art Contest.  After joining the San Angelo Art Club, the contest came about and I decided that since I hadn't put up any work, I'd have to make some kind of a showing by entering the contest.  My pal Jim suggested I paint another one of his Jeep dashboards, but I didn't think I'd have enough time to do something well.  So, I went with something I'm very comfortable with: pencil on art paper.  I also picked a subject that I've very comfortable with: American Bald Eagle.  I surfed around for some reference pictures and got some nice shots.  This one was the reference picture, and I decided to go with a little more intense look with some focus out of frame... oh who am I kidding - this is how it came out.  Close but not exact... although I like the look of mine a little better - considering it's pencil.  I also tried a new technique - using the graphite collected from my Drafting Pencil Lead Pointer, I used some cotton balls and Q-Tips for the 'smeared' values, rather than using my finger this time - which came out a lot cleaner.  I'd also never used ArtGum eraser in the same manner - most all of my drawings had some kind of an 'outline' between the subject and its background... which the ArtGum worked through quite nicely for a more realistic look.
  
  Oh yeah - here's my picture: HERE  I'm going to try and get a better picture of it - without all the reflections - soon.
  
  I don't know - I guess this officially makes me an 'Artist.'  Well, that, and a friend (who really IS an artist) made me a Worry-Stone with the word 'Artist' engraved into it.  So I guess it's official now.

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• 4 April 2007 - All of my websites are now restored.  After some mediocre attempts at restoring the hard drive partition, I took the drive to a very savvy friend at work and he was able to recover the partition information and save the drive, and burned my web-root directory onto a CD so I could restore my sites.  Thank you, Randy!
  
  I'm going to be more proactive about backing up my critical information - whether it be simply stashing another copy or two elsewhere in my network, or backing up to CD the stuff I need kept.  Come to think of it - I have a ton of pictures on my hard drive that need to be burned onto a CD or something, in addition to website stuff.

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• Last week of March 2007 - My webserver (Guarddawg) dies.  The failing heat sink fan caused the CPU to overheat and shutdown, which wound up taking the hard drive partition that housed all of these wonderful websites with it.  Fortunately, I also have a nice wireless router, so I was able to continue on with the internet connection and not worry about scrambling to get the server rebuilt.  I was able to rebuild the server itself using parts from both Guarddawg and the previous Soyo Dragon version of BigDawg, which means the server absolutely smokes now.  But lost all of the websites and other information I had stored on that hard drive... and learned a valuable lesson about server management.  I guess I need to do some reading on how to extract information from a failed hard drive now.

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• Shortly after Christmas, I found myself somewhat in demand to maintain some websites for some friends of mine I met through the Community Band.  This is not a bad thing, either.  I'm having fun working on them and who knows - it may work into some extra spending money.  I also joined the San Angelo Art Club, and am now maintaining their website as well.  I see a trend developing here.

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• Shortly after in December - I went to Fort Meade for a training class on the new system we installed at work.  When I returned, apparently Big Dawg was unhappy that I had upgraded Anubis, so the hard drive controller took a dive on the Soyo Dragon+ mobo that's been my staple machine since Dec 2001.  6 years it hangs in there and finally gave up... now that's gettin' your money's worth.  So I picked up pretty much the same gear and jammed it all into Big Dawg's monster tower case - life is good.

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• Late-November - The wife discovered a new game that her machine wouldn't run, so it was time to upgrade.  I stuffed a new ASUS A8N mobo w/AMD Athlon64 3500+ CPU, 1024MB DDR-400 RAM, 250GB SATA II HDD, and a new Antec 450 watt power supply in Anubis.  Everything ran like a champ and her games all run now.

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• Last week of October 2006 - Entered the Jeep in the Goodfellow AFB Car Show at the Recreation Camp again.  Didn't win an award, but I did win a cool (cheese-mo) cordless 'Hammer' drill as a door prize.  Had to jump start the Jeep again this year because I don't drive it enough to keep the battery happily charged, and Jim's cooler ran it down while it kept our lunches and snacks cool.

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• 5 October 2006 - I took the Jeep to the Auto Hobby Shop for some TLC this weekend, and also to paint some Tru-Fire flames on Jim's Jeep's dash panel.  I acquired some seats from a '97 TJ and a charcoal gray rear seat from an '89 YJ Wrangler to replace those original Ick Blue seats that came with mine.  The TJ seats are a little worn, but I also snagged some charcoal gray Bestop seat covers for them - so it should be pretty nice once I fabricate some adapter brackets to mount everything up.  I'm sure I'll take some pics as well.
  
  Still missing my little buddy Thor.

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• 3 October 2006 - After the past weekend and part of last week worrying about our dog Thor's sudden weight loss and lack of appetite, we were able to finally get him in to see the Vet.  We were kind of expecting bad news because he's almost 13.  Well... it was bad news.  His blood-work came indicating impending kidney failure and any treatment would most likely just prolong any suffering he was currently enduring before eventually failing anyway, so we chose to let him go.  It wasn't a hard decision to make, given the options.  However, it's one of the hardest decisions I've had to live with.  We've had him since he was a puppy and took him on as a personal project since he was the runt of the litter - my wife and I would take turns hand-feeding him at our friend's house until he was ready to come home with us for good.  I'm going to put together a page with all of the pictures we have of him (and some pages with our other pets, past and present) - it's about time they get some attention on this site as well.  But I'm going to give it some time as seeing the pictures only brings the pain back knowing he's no longer with us and I won't be greeted with his happy face and nubby-tail wagging.

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• 16 September 2006 - I updated the look of the Home page a couple of nights ago.  Once I dug around and found some more nifty things to play with, I came up with the new look.  The real drive for it is because I didn't really care for how the last look came out (with the weird horizontal Nav bar) - it just didn't fit with the old layout I'd made for the Concho 4 Wheelers a few years back.  I'm still not completely happy with it, but it's definitely better now.
  
  Brass Band Quintet practice is a blast.  We rehearse at Carl's house, which is awesome!  He has a detached 2-car 'Garage-Mahal' with central heat and air, so we can practice in peace and comfort... but who benefits more - us, or his family and neighbors?  It's fun and I'm glad I was asked to join.
  
  I'm also on a quest to get a new gas cap for our lawn mower.  Apparently it either fell off during a mowing, or it was taken off by someone when they stole our gas one night.  I didn't notice it was missing until we returned from Utah - and I'm sure the neighbors are ready to kill me because the lawn hasn't been mowed in forever.  Oddly enough, Lowes (where we bought the mower) doesn't have gas caps as replacement parts for their mowers - just about every other part you could want though.  Time to check Home Depot and one of the local mower repair shops.

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• 22 August 2006 - We started up Ice House Brass Band Quintet rehearsals.  So every Tuesday night, I get the wonderful opportunity of playing music with some of my favorite people from the Community Band.  Which is good - because I was 'jonesin' for a music fix, and this fills the bill.  Plus, since there isn't a big section of other Euph players to fall back on, I have to work a little harder to site read and sound better - since I'm all by myself on my part.  We're going to be playing some small Christmas parties, church gatherings, and maybe some weddings and other special occasions where some nice instrumental music is appropriate but not quite a full-on Brass Band.  This should be fun.

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• 19 August 2006 - Reloaded Windows XP back on Big Dawg after losing yet another Western Digital Caviar hard drive (13GB - which held my XP operating system),  and unfortunately lost all of my e-mail from the past 14 months.  I had neglected to relocate my PST file last time I installed XP - crap!  At least I was able to back up all of my important stuff (pictures, music, artwork, and other important stuff) onto my laptop before I left on my trip.  Oh well - but that's two WD's that are toast... and most people seem to have issues with Maxtors - which seem to love me.  The drive died on Mom while she was babysitting the animals and house.  No biggee though.  I ran on Red Hat Fedora the whole week or so while BigDawg's XP OS was down - which will make for interesting times after I get Rusty's hard drive reinstalled and put back on the shelf.  I just need a 4-port KVM (and relative cables) to make that happen.  I can't decide if I should make Rusty a Linux machine, or make the server a Linux box instead.  Gonna hafta think this through some more.

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• 11 August  2006 - Made it back to San Angelo finally.  All-in-all, not a bad trip driving and I had a great time getting my Utah fix.  I hope it's not another 6 years before we can go back, but we'll see how things go.

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• 10 August 2006 - Left Monticello (after picking up a couple six-packs of Wasatch Brewing Company's Polygamy Porter) and made it all the way to Lubbock, TX (through some rather scary looking rain and a bout of loose gravel - that left some rock chips in the new paint...).  And crashed overnight - there really ain't crap in Lubbock, despite its size... we were downtown next to Texas Tech and not all that impressed.  We'll make every effort to keep Lubbock on the 'drive-thru' list during future trips.

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• 9 August 2006 - Went back to The Sparrow's for another visit before leaving SLC to head back to San Angelo.  Left SLC around 2:00PM... not wanting to go.  Made it to Monticello, UT around 8:00PM and had dinner in a really nice restaurant called The Lamp Light or something like that.  Most excellent food and service, I must say.

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• 8 August 2006 - Found a cool coffee house with free wireless internet and spent a couple hours just chillin'.  Mocca Express in the plaza located at 13th East and 7800 South - awesome!  Also grabbed some more pictures of the Sandy area while I was out.  Went to Smith's on 104th South and 13th East for some stuff to take to dinner.
  
  Also, got in touch with my pal Baab's sister and another close friend and had dinner at her place.  We had a great visit and just relaxed.  I was still so amazed at how nice Salt Lake City is in the summertime compared to San Angelo - it was in the low 70s by 10:30PM... which is a stark comparison to San Angelo where it's still hovering above 90 at 11:00PM.  Green grass, nice evening temps, and about another hour more of twilight thanks to the mountains... what's not to love?  Someday hopefully...

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• Kinda just vegged on the 7th - her back was messed up and I kinda didn't really have much planned to do outside of the reunion events anyway.

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• 6 August 2006 - Met up with The Sparrows, some of my mom's dearest old friends (and even more important people I spent time with growing up) and had a great visit.

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• 5 August 2006 - 20th Year Class Reunion.  Holy Cow.  Had a great time at the breakfast/tour of Alta High.  It's changed a bunch... but still felt like the old school.  Hooked up with some friends I've known since grade school (and seemed to have more in common with them than the handful of people from High School that I recognized).  Lots of fun.  I was also happy to finally get some face time with the folks from the reunion committee that I'd been e-mailing for so long - great bunch of people.
  
  Skipped the golf tournament, since what I do on a course can't exactly be called 'Golf.'  I understand most of the participants had games and scores that even the PGA Pros would envy.
  
  The evening event was great.  I received some recognition for my work on the website.  I also won an iPod Nano for having driven the farthest distance to attend (the ones who flew the farthest received one as well).  I'm also now known to the whole class as the guy who 'did the website,' and wore checkerboard Vans slip-ons to the 20th year reunion.  It was fun catching up with a couple more of my favorite people that night as well.  We also ran into an old girlfriend at the reunion (yes, her - long story...) but my wife was good with it.  My initial thought: Why was she there?  I mean - really.  She graduated a year later than I did after all, so there's no real reason for her to be there.  I know why she tagged along with her pal who actually was part of my class (who's husband is in Iraq) - and I'm not surprised at the logic or reasoning... they're that close of friends and I'm cool with that.  But I wasn't expecting (or hoping for that matter) to ever see her again - and there she was.  Oh well.  I was actually a little worried about her being there would piss off my wife, but she actually enjoyed the meeting, although I'm pretty sure it was not because she was happy to have met the one I thought was 'the one.'  Oh well... as long as she had a good time and there weren't any cat-fights in the parking lot I didn't hear about... I'm good.  And that's about all of the weirdness I had to endure, so it's all good.
  
  I'm so glad I went.  And I hope I don't have to travel as far for the 30th Year Reunion.

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• 4 August 2006 - Went to a few stores for some things we'd need for the reunion events the following day.  Snagged a nice silk dressy T-shirt and belt, and she got a professional make-over at Dillard's... which was a little more than we would've thought possible to spend on a couple of make-up items - but she was happy with the results, so that's all that matters.  Had a nice dinner at T.G.I. Friday's at South Towne Mall.  Also went by the Popish's again and swiped some of their Wi-Fi internet access to check e-mail and do a couple of quick Class Reunion web-page editions - probably looked a little odd surfing the 'net from their driveway.

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• 3 August 2006 - Spent the day with the Popish's and had a wonderful time.

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• 2 August 2006 - finally made it into town (SLC, UT!!!) around 11:45PM.  We made good time to Albuquerque, NM, where we stayed over night.  And the trip was going well until we hit Gallup - that place has been torn up since before 1999!  WTF is wrong with those people?!  Can they not get the damn road repaired or something?  Thanks to I-40 being torn up at the exit we needed to take for Cortez, CO and on to Monticello, UT, we missed it altogether.  Not to mentioned it's been renamed from U.S. 666 to U.S. 491.  As a result - we drove on to Arizona and took U.S. 191 to Monticello... which worked out because it's where we needed to go anyway.  But it added around 2 hours to our trip because 191 is messed up and not a true North-South route.
  
  Once we hit Monticello, we grabbed some dinner and left around 6:00PM for SLC.  Nothing major happened along the way and we made good time.

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• 1 August 2006 - Cool - finally on vacation and taking off for Utah this morning - I can't believe my 20th Year Class Reunion is on the 5th - 20 YEARS!!!  Geez... anyway, we're staying at a place called Studio 6 on 975 East and 6600 South.  Got a mega rate for only $43.00 a night - it's an extended stay-type hotel and was a lot nicer than we were expecting.  We'll be back. 

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• 3 July 2006 - Wow - been awhile.  Not much has changed though.  Community Band rehearsals started up again in March, and I can't believe the last concert of the season is only 5 weeks away... and I'll have to miss it because I'll be in Utah for my 20th year high school class reunion.  I was actually tempted to blow off the reunion just so I could make the concert - playing in the band again is almost as a bad as having a crack habit... it's so much fun and I enjoy it so much.

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• 11 February 2006 - Couple of things been going on. 
  
  The Alta High Class of 1986 website is starting to get a life of its own.  More people are showing up and signing the guest book.  It looks like it might be playing a useful part in helping with the upcoming class reunion after all.
  
  I've been working on a drawing for a friend, well - more like revisiting an old drawing I did back in High School.  It's on the 'In Progress' page in the Artworks section/  I'm going to try and have something going all the time... I'd hate to wake up one day and no longer have my drawing abilities.
  
  Our next Brass Band rehearsal is this coming Thursday.  There's a performance slated for 25 March at Fort McKavett - this should be fun.  I really love playing again.

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•  16 January 2006 - I just received my new Yamaha Silent Brass practice mute for my Euphonium.  This will be especially helpful in keeping the noise of me practicing under control, as my wife has a rather bizarre schedule thanks to all the medication she's on.  For those who don't know what a practice mute and/or a Euphonium is, here's a picture:  Jupiter Euphonium and Yamaha Silent Brass

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• 31 Dec 2005 - last day of 2005... and my birthday.  I got about 2/3 a bottle of Capt Morgan's in me... but didn't get too trashed this year.  Which was good because I wound up helping a friend move a bunch of bales of hay out of their barn because of a threatening grass fire the next day.  That was fun, but fortunately the grass fires weren't as big of a threat to the property as it looked.

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• 25 Dec - Christmas was pretty normal.  Had a big wonderful dinner, exchanged presents, hung out all day.  Usual stuff.

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• 18 Dec - played a Christmas Party at Fort Concho with the Jupiter.  It sounds wonderful, and was a joy to play.  Had a great time.  My pal Steve called earlier to B.S., and I told him about the horns.  He was happy to hear that I'd gotten back into one of my old hobbies and asked if I'd named my Euphonium 'Nacho Horn,' yet.  Well, at that point, I decided that's what I would call it.  Apparently, you're supposed to name your horns - according to a Brass Band forum I frequent - and I used to tag everything I had in my office with 'Nacho ....' so people wouldn't run off with it.  Thanks Steve.

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• 17 Dec - My back is shot out... mostly from being jammed into that coach seat in the same position for 4 hours on the flight back last night.  Oh well - I came home to two new horns and I'm very pleased.  Tonight's our company Christmas Party - that should be fun... (we'll see).  But this afternoon, I'm going to clean and polish the Jupiter so we'll be ready for tomorrow.

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• 16 Dec - got home from Boston.  Long-ass flight... delayed for 2 hours in Dallas... made it even longer.

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• 11 Dec - Flew to Boston for a Sun Maintenance course.  I got to learn how to troubleshoot and repair Sun machines. It was cool, and probably the best training course I've been to yet - probably the most fun trip I've had for a training class as well.  Boston was freaken cold... and what's up with the sun going down at 4PM?  They can keep it in the winter time.

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• 7 Dec - I'm so weak.  I was watching a marching baritone auction on eBay (just out of curiosity) and caved - so I bought it.  I wasn't planning on it, and I really don't need it, but I wanted it.  So... it's on the way now as well.  Here's one of the auction pictures: Blessing M300 Marching Baritone

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• 6 Dec - OK... we've had our big major Christmas concert for the year with the San Angelo Community Band.  It was fun... but now I'm bummed that there's nothing left until April when we start rehearsing for the Summer concert series.
  
  This past weekend, El Cheapo decided to demonstrate exactly why I named it so: the case handle fell apart while I was moving it from the truck to the band room.  Plus, after only about a month of playing the horn roughly 3 nights a week, the lacquer is all but worn away on the lead pipe where I hook my thumb to operate the valves.  Only cosmetic, but still.  So I poked around on eBay and found this: Linkage  Yup - a very slightly used Jupiter 470 Euphonium.  My wife has decided that I've demonstrated enough enthusiasm and sticktuitiveness to justify getting a nicer horn - so she agreed to go in there an snipe it for me.  And we only wound up paying $663 - roughly 1/3 of the cost for a new specimen.  I'm stoked... all the reviews have this horn up there with the likes of the Yamaha YEP-321... which I've had the pleasure of playing one since I joined back in July.  I'm kinda torn on the idea of having a brass-colored horn... I really dig the nickel.  But this one's got both brass and nickel plating  - best of both worlds.  It should be fine.  I'm thinking that barring any unforeseen oddball circumstances, I may have just bought my last horn.  I hope so... except for maybe a cool bell-front Marching Baritone... you know... just to have one of my own... and there's a couple on eBay right now...
  
  I might check and see if Steve wants to pick up El Cheapo for cheap... or maybe just hang onto it.  It's really not THAT BAD... it's just... well... cheap.

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• 29 Nov - I decided to tear up my Artwork page.  It's got a whole new look, and a new feature: the In Progress page.  There's now a link to the drawing/illustration that I'm currently working on.  I've decided to start working on some more artwork - since I'm not getting any younger... and I envision arthritis making an appearance somewhere down the road to steal any talent or skill I might have away someday... it's already working on a shoulder and wrist... so it's probably just a matter of time.

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• Next week - I head to Boston during some of the coldest times of the year.  Lovely.  Should be fun.  I get to learn how to do hardware maintenance on Sun machines.  That should round out my skills quite nicely.

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• 1 Oct - Just got back from two TDYs spanned over 2 weeks.  The first trip was to Fort Meade, MD, where I got to visit the NSA Headquarters building.  It was cool and all, but it was kind of a waste of time in my opinion.  The highlight of the trip being that I got to meet some internet friends I've known for several years now.
  
  The trip last week was to Randolph AFB, TX, where I pretty much had to sit through the same class I went to Wright-Patterson AFB, OH last year for.  THAT was indeed a waste of time.  But I got to hang out with another friend I've known since I've been in Texas since he's stationed in San Antonio now as well.  Dave was feeling under the weather, which sucks that I didn't get to hang out with him, but I'll be back down there in about another month or so - so we'll hook up then.
  
  Then I get to head back to San Antonio the last week of October for an Information Assurance conference at the Radisson Hill Country Resort.  Pretty cool... but it's probably gonna suck sitting there listening to a bunch of stuff that doesn't apply to my job either because we can't use it, or the funding agency won't buy it.

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• 12 August - I just received the second horn I purchased on eBay.  It's a no-name 3-valve Baritone Horn and looks really spiffy.  Unfortunately, it was supposed to be a 3-valve Euphonium, and my plan was to swap cases with the Selman (since it's a big-old clunky wooden monster), and my pal Steve was going to buy the 'Euphonium' for himself and join me in the Community Band.  Whoops!  Not having anything in the picture to scale - and the seller not knowing what kind of a horn it really was kind of bit me.  But Steve came through and bought it from me anyway - even though I'm still stuck with the clunky old case for now.  I'll start checking pawn shops and whatnot for a decent case or maybe just buy a Gig-Bag and be done with it.
  
  It's a bummer - because after getting the Alto Horn and cleaning it up, it's actually a very pretty horn.  Again, no scratches or anything to speak of (once it was polished), and would've made a nice addition to my 'arsenal.'  Now I just need to find that elusive Marching Baritone or 2-valve Baritone Bugle for cheap.  I took a picture of the horns while I had them all here - I'll post it later.

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• 9th of August - Played in my first concert with the San Angelo Community Band.  Had a ball.  The big let-down was discovering it was the last concert of the season - so no more rehearsals or concerts until November.  Dammit!  I was having so much fun.  Oh well, I guess I can take this time of hiatus to work on my sight-reading and intonation and get my embochure (there's a term I haven't used in like, 20 years) back into shape.  The biggest bummer is that I have to return the Yamaha YEP-321 that I borrowed from ASU (local university that strongly supports our band).  I borrowed the horn because El Cheapo, which I've lovingly named the Selman I recently purchased on eBay, still has issues involving sticky valves - which sucks considering it's a brand-new horn.  Turns out that the Selman is really cheap copy of a Selmer-Conn... and that the seller made this thing out to be something more than it really is. 
  
  Speaking of, the work on the horn is still going slow.  But - having spent the money on something that I've only just broken back into, I need to make this thing work and stick with it before I can even consider upgrading to a 'real' instrument, like the coveted Yamaha YEP-321.  So far, I've polished the valves, only to find out that the valve-bores themselves have some burrs in them that just keep scoring the valves - which is likely the cause of all the problems.  But now I have the proper buffing wheels for my Dremel and a new flex-shaft, so I should be able to get it squared away in short order.  If this doesn't work, I'll have to cave in and take it to the local music store and see what they have to say - which will probably be very similar to what I've been doing all along.  But we'll just keep 'em crossed for now.

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• Weekend of the 4th of July - I still haven't received any information regarding the Concho 4 Wheelers 4th of July Run.  Unfortunately, I don't feel well today - so I'm not going wheelin anyway.  However, it's really crappy that they would blow me off like that after several attempts to get in touch with people to find out what's going on.  I e-mailed everyone in the club - no reply.  I talked to some of the people who are prominent members, and they had no idea what was going on either.  I also attempted to contact a few of the club officers, with no answer.  So - screw 'em.  I've had enough of the stand-offish sub-standard treatment from the club on the whole.  No, I don't go out and 'wheel and drink' with them every weekend - mostly because my Jeep's been broken.  But I've dedicated some time and effort over the last 6 years towards building and maintaining the website for the club - for gratis.  And spent 3 years writing and sending the monthly newsletter to the members - gratis as well.  In both capacities, I've drawn mixed reactions from the club members: some offered support and praise, and others have offered criticism.  Well, I've had enough of that - so I'm done with them.  At the next meeting, I'm turning over the responsibility of the website to whomever wants it.  I'm going to check and see if the Texas Off Road Network will host the site and upload it - but after that... buh-bye.
  
  I don't need people in my life who are going to take advantage of what I can do for them, then offer me nothing in return and criticize my efforts.
  
  And boy are they in for a surprise with what they're going to have left when it's all said and done.

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• 28 June, 2005 - After talking with my pal Steve at work, he convinced me to check out the San Angelo Community Band at one of their rehearsals.  I've been talking about picking up a Euphonium of my own (since I always had school rental horns) and joining the band.  Well, tonight I finally went to see if I would be over my head with the music they play - and it looks like with some major practice on my part, I might be able to fit in.  It was a total blast sitting there even just site reading the music along with the other Euphonium players and I'm sold.  So I came home and ordered THIS on eBay.  It's a brand-new Selman 4-valve Bb Nickel-plated Euphonium - almost exactly like the Yamaha YEP-321 that my friend Stuart Rice had in high school, except without the prestige and cost of the Yamaha name.  It should be here sometime during the week of 4-8 July - but I hope it gets here on the 5th - since that's when the next rehearsal will be.  If it doesn't show, I'm going to borrow one of the school horns and sit in for my first official rehearsal - after I show up a little early and work out some of the time it's been since I last put a horn to my face - almost 20 years!!!  Should be cool.

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• May 31, 2005 - Things are going well with General Dynamics, so I can't complain.

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• May 15, 2005 - Things didn't work out for the Government Job... so as of Tuesday, 17 May, I'll be a contractor again working for General Dynamics.  It's the same job, the same location, but a few more bucks and some different benefits.  Most of all... I'll be a contractor again - which is a bummer to me, but at least it's a job.

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• March 16, 2005 - I just returned from MCSA BootCamp are Global Knowledge in Dallas, Texas, where I successfully passed the tests to become an MCP and MCSA.  I'm still waiting for the money to start falling from the sky.

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• May 10th, 2004 - I just accepted a position with the 316th Training Squadron of Goodfellow AFB, Texas as a Civil Service employee.  I'll be doing System Administration, Hardware Maintenance, Network Management, Operating System Migration, and Tech-Refreshment as old computers need upgrading.  The systems I'll be working on range from Windows NT-4, to Solaris, to Windows 2000 - so I should be quite busy learning Solaris UNIX and getting smart with the new CISCO equipment coming in.  I'm so excited and will be starting on 17 May, 2004 - just 1 week from now.

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  Stuff older than this is kinda sketchy on the date stamps.  Sorry it's so messed up.
  
  

• I just realized I haven't updated this in forever (Damn near a year now).  I think I'm going to look into getting some of that BLOG or Php Forums software and incorporate into this page to keep it all straight.
  
  
• I just got the Ram body work done and repainted from the 2002 hail storms.  It turned out really cool, except that the body shop f00ked up a lot of things and missed a bunch of detail stuff... most likely because they were mad about having to repaint it since they screwed up the color the first time.  I'll get some pics soon.  Think - Cowl-Induction Hood... very cool.
  
  
• From August to October 2003, I built a computer that looks like a Winston Cup car - Rusty Wallace's #2 Miller Lite 2001 Taurus, of course.  Here's a quick and lame page about it: Rusty 
  
  
• I just completed my first case mod sometime around July 2003.  I picked up a new case for my wife and decided to mod it.  Here's how it turned out: Anubis
  
  
• Finally got the Widetrac Dana 30 front axle installed on the Jeep (week of July 4th) thanks to the help of my pal Dave.  We blew off 'wheelin' on the 4th of July thanks to the rain and such.
  
  
• I scored a Widetrac Dana 30 front axle for the Jeep from a guy in the Concho 4 Wheelers.  He decided to go with bigger axles and hooked me up with his old one.  It didn't have a carrier (differential) or pinion, which is fine since I already have the R&Ps and carrier from a few months back.  Cleaned it up and painted it during May/June.
  
  
• The seatback of the driver's seat in my Dodge Ram snapped off sometime around the first week of March 2003.  I went out to the truck to leave work one night and when I hopped in, the upright snapped and the back fell over into the back seat.  So when I sat in the truck, I was looking straight up at the roof.  My truck's a '97, and I found the entire bench seat from a '98 Quad Cab for the truck, which is a Helluva lot sturdier and shouldn't break since that seat is designed to be stand-alone with the seat belts contained in the seat itself, since there's no 'B' pillar.  Seat looks great, but now I have 2 sets of seat belts to choose from.  Gotta do something about that soon.
  
  
• Went to Dallas the first week of December and snagged a wide-trac rear axle for the Jeep with 4.10 ring & pinion gears, Moser 1-piece axles, and a Detroit Locker.  Cleaned it up and painted it Dec 21st.  Ordered a set of 4.10 R&P for a Dana30 front axle after the wife snagged a new D30 carrier on e-Bay for $38 shipped.
  
  
• I painted the hardtop and door trim on the Jeep and added a Super-Swamper stripe down the side of the Jeep just in time for the Concho 4 Wheelers car show benefiting the Toys 4 Tots drive.  Here's a pic of that: Jeep Car Show
  
  
• In November just before Thanksgiving, I finally got off my ass and took my A+ Certification tests and passed.  Thank you.
  
  
• (Sep - Dec 02) Did some major stuff to the Jeep - check out the new Jeep Tech/Projects page HERE
  
  
• I was sent to Dallas for A+ Certification/Hardware training and although fun, it was a waste because I already knew everything.  At least I got to go to the NASCAR race Sunday before class.... just to sit in the rain.  Oh well - $400 in tickets wasted as well.  Even got the car stuck in the muddy 'parking lot.'
  
  
• (March 02) A major storm, with a tornado touching down on the outskirts of San Angelo, pounded us with golf ball-sized hail on the 19th. The hail broke both of our skylights, and beat the Hell out of the Ram and the Cav...so now they both look like golf balls. Getting with the insurance adjusters sometime this week. I'm really getting fed up with West Texas.
  
  UPDATE - (End of Apr 02) We finally agreed on a car we both like. She wanted a 1999 Trans Am really bad, but there was the whole 'comfort' thing to figure in, which there is absolutely no way I can fit into the T/A - no legroom OR headroom there...it really sucks being 6'-5" sometimes.  Anyway, we got a 2001 Pontiac Grand Prix GT - which absolutely ROCKS!  Check out a picture HERE
  
  UPDATE - Memorial Day weekend, another hail storm blew through here and did $4800 damage to the Grand Prix.  My luck sucks, and I'm just totally stunned at how bizarre the weather can be...let alone the other stuff going on around here.
  
  
• (Feb 02) I just got my DC Trip webpage off the ground. It's not done, but there's a lot there to start. Check it out HERE. It's pretty cool, and there's lots of pictures.
  
  
• (Jan 02)I also just got Big Dawg totally upgraded. Read about it on the PC Tweakin' Journal page - HERE
  
  
• On 11 December, I met with the Concho 4 Wheelers and they agreed to pay for my club membership if I re-establish the website. On the 12th I made this happen and even secured the domain name of www.concho4wheelers.org  Check out the site.
  
  The bad news is that I have been thrown into Win2K IIS Webserver Hell because I only have 1 IP address and need to run more than 1 website on the same server. Wish me luck in figuring out how to make it happen - for now, this is the best I could do.
  
  UPDATE - 26 Jan 02 - I just downloaded Apache Server 1.33, and I'm figuring out how to make it work. Wish me luck
  
  
• I finally put together a web page with all the cool pictures I want people to see, but don't want just anybody to see. E-mail me here HERE to get the URL.
  
  
• (Nov 01) Guard Dawg is BACK!!! It caught a virus last summer and has been a real pain to get fixed up. So I flushed the hard drives and reloaded Win2K. Turns out it was a heat issue, of which I've corrected by opening up the case and swapping in a power supply with less DC leads. It's now hosting my websites, FTP site, and running as an Unreal Tournament Server. I finally ditched NBCi.com (formerly Xoom.com) once and for all - did I mention they suck now? So you are seeing this from my living room - wave at the cat that's not supposed to be laying on the coffee table.
  
  Guard Dawg is online now as a WWW server and FTP server. E-mail for the FTP site address HERE and I'll set up an account - I turned off the 'Anonymous Login' function.
  
  
• I've been getting some practice as a Winston Cup Driver, through NASCAR Racing 4 (a very cool game). I could only dream about such a cool job. I've got a new lease of running the NASCAR games since I have a much cooler machine these days, as well as having taken in my first NASCAR race at Texas Motor Speedway last April. I'm also a better driver than I remember from the last time I played NASCAR 2...of course, I have a much nicer wheel now. My buddy Ron has been asking me to paint him up car, so I'm going to start diving into the Paintshop program and hopefully turn a decent 'job for Da Man.
  
  
• (June 01) I completed another Microsoft Windows 2000 Server course through Howard College. Class went well and was a total blast! The instructor, Paul Sparks, is Awesome, and the rest of the folks that took the class are very cool people. We had a lot of fun and learned a ton about Win2K Pro and Advanced Server thanks to Paul. Hopefully I'll be ready for some tests soon. (Yikes - a C-note a pop!)
  
  
• (old, but interesting) My buddy Dave was in town last year and we tore the rear axle apart on the Jeep - a complete rebuild: new seals & bearings...no hard parts fortunately. The Jeep is BACK!!! Almost all of the fears I've had about driving are pretty much gone now. I was waiting on the rear axle to go south, and it would've - very soon if not for the rebuild (thanks for the help, Dave & Jim).
  
  The next weekend, installed some 3-point seat-belts in the ol' girl. The Jeeps didn't come with real seat belts until 1982...which meant I had only lap belts to save me (or my front-seat passenger) in case of an accident - which wouldn't have been much help at all. Fortunately, I've avoided an accident with it so far, but at least I'm a little better prepared now if the worst happens. Anybody sitting in back are still screwed for now, but you'll have that.
  
  
• (ongoing) You should be proud of me - despite their every effort, I have continued to resist the urge to kick the asses of several West Texas drivers. Between the Soccer Moms and realtors in their Suburbans, the old people in their Crown Vic's, Lincolns, or Caddies, and the Ranchers/Farmers/Rednecks in their Ford F-series pickups (with Farm Truck plates no less), I wonder how I keep my sanity. I used to think Utah drivers were bad...they've got a lot to learn from West Texans on how to be crappy drivers.
   

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