Category Anything and Everything

My test failure from Tuesday was eating at me. So I crammed all day yesterday and then retook it today before my flight up to PA. I was wrong about having to wait a few days. I passed. Thank goodness, I would have been miserable for my trip if I went 0 for 2. If I would have failed again I would have had to wait at least 2 weeks until taking it again which have REALLY sucked.

I took the Vette for the test, topless. It was fun on the way up. On the way back the outside temperature was 95 or 96 degrees. It wasn’t so fun then. I cursed any stop in traffic as it meant instant oven for me. I leave for PA at 4:30, get to Philly at 10:30, yawn…….

After a good 2 weeks of effort I took the test today and failed. Failing doesn’t bother me if I had no clue about the questions but I thought I passed, rather easily. I had seen at least 80% of the questions on my practice exams and I am sure I answered almost every one correct based on the answer provided in the practice exams. The few I hadn’t seen before were not terribly hard and I was confident I got most of those right too. So when I saw the 663 score come up, (needed 700 to pass) I was pissed. Evidently a boatload of those practice questions have incorrect answers. I was pissed all the way home and am still pissed as I sit here pounding out this entry. What really sucks is you have to wait a few days to retake and since I am going away Thursday, the earliest I can retake is late next week which means I will have to review a bunch of it. My frustration level is off the charts, this is the first MSFT cert exam I didn’t pass the first time through. Grrrrrrrrr.

Our merry go round of company continued this weekend. My brother-in-law & sister-in-law and my neice were down to visit for the weekend. We have never had a toddler in our house before. She is 14 or 15 months old. On Friday afternoon they drove over from Miami. We decided to just cook out on the grill and hang out. For whatever reason I drank a lot (for me) I think I had about a six pack. I wasn’t stupid drunk but it made me very tired. We were watching Matrix and during the last third of it I was passing in and out of consciousness.

On Saturday I was happy to hear that my brother-in-law was into going to the dog track. It was a good time. I started off hot on the first race. A 2 dollar quinella bet hit for 32 bucks. Yes!! I then hit an extended dry spell and only hit one small bet for the next 6 or 7 races. Then I caught on fire and won on the last 6 races. In the end I turned my initial 20 bucks into 75. A good day in my book. I REALLY like the track. The funniest track moment was after one of the last few races, the winning dog was out on the track after all the other dogs had left. It looked like his trainer was trying to take his muzzle off. Closer examination revealed that the dog had ripped one of the pacer rabbits off the pole and had a death grip on it. Finally the trainer got it away from the canine. It promptly went after the other rabbit that was still on the pole and attacked it. It was funny as hell. Evidently the dog has a deep hatred of “Sparky” the pace rabbit. No wonder he won.

Saturday evening we went to a restaurant we were never at before. I made a bad choice for an entre but everyone else liked their meal. It was a nice enough place, but pricy. I always have a hard time justifying spending a fortune on a meal. Eating just isn’t a big enough turn on for me for it to make sense. My brother-in-law paid for the meal. I felt bad because I knew it was steep. I had the least expensive entre and we used our entertainment card to get one of the meals for free, a small consolation. This is always one of the tough parts of having company down. When you go out to dinner there is always that uncomfortable moment when the check arrives when the “I’ll pay, we”ll pay” stuff starts. I really hate that. It would be much simpler if we could just agree to go dutch and each couple pays for their stuff. Then there is no need to keep mental score of who spent what and it would just make things simpler. Oh well that is unlikely to happen.

Sunday was a low key day. We spent most of it hanging out by the pool relaxing. Usually for me, a “day” spent at the pool means I hang out there an hour or two. We were out there for the better part of 5 hours, a record for me. As a result we all got a bit toasted. It is always a weird thing to me that after a day spent doing next to nothing lying by or in the pool, it can actually make you feel tired like you actually did something. We cleaned up, went to dinner at Snook’s where we had a good but not outstanding dinner. Our waitress wasn’t great and by Sunday we had caught up about most things so most of the time was spent paying attention to my neice. I picked up the check this time since I was in a dinner “deficit” because they paid the night before. We came home and were all tired. They left early this morning.

Like I said earlier, this is the first time we have had a baby in the house for any period of time. She is very cute but I can’t honestly say it turned on any feelings that I suddenly wanted a child. My sister-in-law basically spent 99.9% of her waking moments making sure the baby was content. Having a baby in the house sort of has an oil spill effect. Baby stuff slowly spreads everywhere. Going anywhere is quite laborious, all the supplies have to be loaded, checked, maintained and carried with you at all times. It also seems that the parents become primarily servants to the baby’s every need and most other aspects of themselves get pushed into the background. It definitely was an eye opener. We have one more scheduled visitor next month and then we will be back to normal.

3 day work week then up to PA to play in the Rumble. For whatever reason, my bad knee must know the Rumble is coming because it has started to ache on cue. Annoying. My big test is tomorrow so 2 more days of cramming is on the schedule.

My gym still sucks. The latest annoyance has been this week, everyday when I have been there, they have played the exact same annoying, made for 14 year old girls cd. I pray that other gym opens as promised.

Minimal blogging this week due to studying for my MCSE exam. By studying that means looking at approximately 550-575 practice questions (and answers) and more or less trying to memorize them. You try it, it sucks.

Most blog readers don’t go far enough back with me to have any idea what this is. Back around 91 or 92 I started up Bart N Homer’s BBS on my Amiga 500. A BBS is a Bulletin Board System. I basically had a modem hooked to it that people would dial into, connect to my bbs software which in turn let them do stuff like post messages, play games and download files. Back then the Amiga had a huge advantage over PC’s with their ability to multitask which made them much better platforms to run multi-line BBS’s on. It was the start of my online persona. I really got into it and at the height of my craze I had 4 modems and 4 phone lines active at my house! I had a 6 cd changer that housed thousands of files. I remember the thrill of upgrading my 2400 baud modems to USR HST modems through the USR sysop program. Having an HST modem was a badge of honor back then. 14400 was cooking with gas!! Late in the BBS’s life I did advanced things like get connected to FidoNet which was very similar to the internet newsgroups of today. I managed to find an old message that I originally posted off my Amiga in fidonet. (look at the signature line) Back then I made very little money and tried to supplement my income by building and selling computers. The online games by today’s standards seemed ridiculous but they somehow were still addicting. It was a bit of a power trip being the SYSOP, having the power to create, destroy, grant and deny as you see fit. On the board I was Homer, Bart was a friend of mine from when I worked at Weis. He was basically a figurehead that was only there once or twice and never showed up again. However since I didn’t want to change the name I kept things as is even though in reality it was just Homer’s BBS. The BBS moved with me from Brecknock to Flying Hills to Wernersville where it died quietly in 1998.

The reason this came up was a kid that I helped with the BBS scene years ago found my old BBS in a historical listing of BBS’s. He now has a real high tech job and is going for his master’s. Talk about making me feel old. He was 13 when I met him. For some reason I also gave him my old video game systems like my intellivision and colecovision. I guess I was trying to make some room. Funny how paths cross. He just threw in my name to Google.

This weekend my dad was down for a quick visit. He was supposed to arrive around supper time on Friday. I got a call saying his flight was delayed. He was flying into Orlando so he also had to make the 3 to 4 hour drive from Orlando as well. He wound up not making it to our place until after 9:30. He pulled up in his rented Mustang convertible. I hadn’t seen dad since I was up for the Eagles NFC championship in January so it was good to see him. We stayed up talking for awhile but then hit the sack, everyone was tired.

Saturday morning dad and I took the Vette out to grab some coffee. Dad can relate to having a “project” car. He has a 60’s Alfa Romeo that has literally been under restoration for the better part of the past decade. He only got it back recently. It still needs interior work but the exterior looks good and it runs. Sounds very similar to the Vette actually. 🙂 He seemed to like the Vette.

I talked to dad the night before about the idea of going to the dog track on Saturday. He had never been to one and he enjoys a bit of gambling so it sounded good to him. We hit the track just as it opened and grabbed lunch. We made it just in time to bet the first race. Early on we were making dumb bets, not knowing what all the stats in the book meant. However as the day went on it started to make a bit more sense and we started making some bets we actually won on. By the time the final race came around we were a bit over confident and bet pretty heavy on the race thinking we could nail it. Unfortunately one of the favorite dogs got bumped wide on the first corner and never recovered. However one of my other bets almost hit in the end but my dog just missed getting 2nd. Still after a full 4 hours of betting every one of the 15 races (plus I bet some of the simulcast races) I was only down about 20 bucks. It was a good time.

I really enjoy the track, I wish I knew someone else down here that was into it. However I did find out that I can actually bet the dogs over the internet! I created an account there but didn’t activate it for actual betting. I guess that would be an unwise move and I think it wouldn’t quite be the same as actually being at the track.

Saturday night my dad took us to Carraba’s for dinner. It was crowded, an hour long wait. However they had outside seating available. There was no wait on the patio since it was still rather warm outside. However my dad was ok with sitting in the elements so we did that instead. It was fine but it didn’t quite have the same feel as when you eat inside. As usual the food and service was great.

On Sunday my dad wanted to go to the gym. An odd request but it was fun. Years ago, I used to meet up with my Dad often on Sunday mornings at Colonial Hills for workouts. Probably the last time I worked out with dad was at least 5 years ago. He is closer to 60 than 50 now but still is a strong guy and still makes the effort to exercise regularly, a good thing. By the time we got home it was almost one o’clock. I threw some burgers on the grill, dad took a swim in the pool and then it was time for him to pack up and meet some people he used to work with in Bonita. Dad hopped in the convertible and put the top down even though it was 96 degrees out and you could see the thunderstorms hanging just off in the distance. Moments like that characterize him well and also make me see where I get some of my similar quirks from.

I got to catch up with what is going on with him and my second family. My dad and my step-mom are packing up and moving to New Mexico at the end of the summer. We talked about how weird it was to be leaving the house that has been in our family for more than 30 years. He has a million things to take care of related to the move but he likes challenges and this will be certainly be one of large proportions. My little brother just graduated high school and is going to college next year, my little sister is entering her third year at Penn State. I got to hear a couple more classic dad stories. It’s good to know he still has the urge to buck the system.

After Dad left we cleaned up and went to see Harry Potter. In preparation, Alison had just reread the book because she wanted to compare the book to the movie. She had a full page of notes she made in regards to how they would handle different aspects of the book in the movie. She was a bit disappointed to see how huge parts of the book were omitted or glossed over in the movie but we agreed that there is little choice as the movie was well over 2 hours as is. I liked the movie although I don’t know if I liked it as much as the first two. The kids unfortunately are aging faster than they can crank out movies, so soon they will look ridiculously old in comparison to the age they are supposed to be representing. Unfortunately the actor that played Dumbledore died, his replacement was not nearly as good in my opinion. The special effects in the movie were great. I’d definitelty recommend seeing it, however I don’t think you want to read the book immediately prior to viewing it.

Want to see a human being squat 800 pounds? Incredible.

Wow what a ceremony. It’s hard to believe that after being on Earth some 36 years I never saw a presidential funeral. I guess when Nixon died, they didn’t do anything this elaborate since he was impeached. It’s hard to imagine they would do the same for Ford when he goes. Poor Nancy looks so sad.

Wow just saw in the church, Clinton, Ford, Carter, and Bush senior all sitting in the same row. Wild.

Well the good news is I didn’t have to get reproximation done. The bad news is, that is because I still have the same set in up top and went back two on the bottom. Argh. Evidently there is one tooth on the the bottom that needs to be rotatated and isn’t moving as it should. So the ortho came up with a different course of attack. I was on tray number 14. We went back to tray 12. He took tray 12 and did some monster garage type of modifications to it. He cut out at a few places and then attached a metal “button” to the tooth that isn’t turning. So now I have a rubber band that hooks to the aligner and attaches to the button in order to provide more torque. At least he is trying something different. It is a bit of pain in the ass because everytime I take out the aligners to eat I have to change the rubberband as well. I have a feeling Alison will be in for something similar when she goes back next week. What orignally seemed like a no brainer treatment plan is getting to be more and more complicated and lengthy.

After the ortho I stopped at Sam’s club to pick up some groceries. We had also talked about picking up a king size mattress there before my brother-in-law comes down next weekend. So although I was by myself, I decided to get the mattress while I was there since I had the truck. Big mistake.

Let me digress for a second to mention how annoying and idiotic I find it that when you leave Sam’s they have a peon at the door checking the receipt against what you have in the cart. When it’s busy, this causes a huge logjam at the door and is a huge waste of time. I really feel like walking right past and saying, “If you think I stole something, call the cops”. One of these days I will. It’s total BS.

Anyways I get past the exit door monkey pushing a regular shopping cart and pulling a mattress cart with a king size mattress, 2 box springs and a bed frame. I slowly make my way to the truck. I look at the skies out towards our house, gray and dark, very ominous. Oh well, it’s too late now. I figured everything is wrapped in plastic, it should be ok. So now I begin trying to get everything in the truck. It takes me forever to get everything in the bed. If you have never attempted to get a king size bed set into a pickup truck yourself, I don’t recommend attempting it. I was getting really pissed because I see person after person walking by, obviously seeing me struggling to hold the mattress upright while attempting to pull the box spring into the bed. Not one person offers to lift a finger to assist me. A-holes. So after about 10 minutes of struggling I got it in. I pin it all down with bungee cords and begin my drive home.

About a mile later I run into a wall of rain. Water is streaming off the stuff but again I am confident the plastic will protect it. As I get up to about 45 mph I notice the mattress is moving and shifting more than I comfortable with. I start looking for a dry spot to work on it. No such luck, the best I could do was to pull up next to back of the grocery store which offered me partial cover from the roof overhang. I jump out of the truck and adjust the bungees as I am getting soaked and progressively more angry. Back on the road, I decide to throw on the 4 way flashers and didn’t crack 45 the rest of the way home. I backed the truck into the garage to get the bedding out of the elements.

Then they real work began. My dad comes down today so there was a bunch to do already not even counting the new bedding I just delivered home. I began operation “bedding rotation” It went like this. I disassembled the day bed in the 2nd guest room and removed it. Then Ali came home so she assisted in the rest. We disassembled the daybed in the 1st guest bedroom and moved it to the 2nd guest bedroom. We set up the new bedframe I bought at Sam’s in the 1st guest bedroom and then took apart our bed and moved it to that room. Finally, we brought the new bedding into our bedroom. However when we removed the plastic we found that the plastic had some ventilation holes in it which also allowed some water to get in. The bedding wasn’t drenched but pretty wet in certain parts. Alison was mad I had the bug up my ass to bring it home myself and when it was obviously going to rain. So I brought in the fan from the shed, propped up the mattress and turned the fan on it full blast to assist in drying it out. I also cranked the AC to help pull the moisture out. While we were cleaning I snapped at Ali and made some dumb comment about her vacuuming the “lazy way”. It was just a result of me being frustrated about the way things were going. I apologized shortly thereafter, it was a stupid thing to say.

The rest of the night we pretty much ran around non-stop cleaning things up, putting things away, making beds, doing laundry, cleaning and organizing in order to have the house in decent shape. My dad could care less about that stuff but still I want the place to look somewhat organized. By 9:30 the bedding had dried out enough that we could put it back down and make the bed. A very busy Thursday evening. Dad will be here around dinner tonight and he leaves sometime Sunday, a quick visit. He has some conference in Orlando, Monday.

Rainy season appears to have arrived. What that means is almost everyday we can expect to get some downpours during the afternoon. A side effect of this is I can’t take my Vette to work. It’s a bit of a bummer. I would have loved to take it today but since the weatherstripping along the roof panel is deteriorated, it leaks badly during hard rain. I need to get that fixed.

Nothing much going on, at work I have started studying for the second test I need to take to upgrade my MCSE to 2003 status. This one is filled with all sorts of questions regarding features of Windows 2003 that pertain to mostly large enterprise installations. So basically I will memorize the crap for the test and never use it again. I am having a harder time studying for this one, it seems more boring than the first. ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ

I am leaving for the day because of an orthodontist appointment. It will be a relatively long one because we have to do more “reproximation” on my upper teeth. (file between them so the teeth have more room to move) I also may have to have an attachment ground off and then reglued. I can hardly wait. Plus we will be discussing the progress (or lack there of) of Alison’s treatment. I forgot to mention that during my last visit, the ortho pulled out the new aligner for the top teeth and gave it to me. It was really tight and didn’t fit well. 3 weeks later when it was time to switch I found out why. I was supposed to be on tray 16, he gave me 17, so I have been wearing the same set up top for a month and a half, doh!!