What a BuzzKill

This is a shot of the Earth and moon from Mars. Puts things into perspective for me.

_{(click image for larger view)}

I stole this image from NASA’s website.

_{This entry feels less stressful now.}

I just read a very interesting article about time, technology, media, participation, and gin. While I don’t especially care for gin, the article was fascinating. Check it out if you have some time.

_{This entry has surplus time.}

It’s a slow day at the office today; a welcome break if you ask me. Right now I’m scanning an old computer for malware and viruses. It’s an old Windows 2000 computer with 128 MB of RAM. (that means it’s horribly slow, for you non-techies)

While the scan runs I’ve checked and replied to all my email, read all my RSS feeds, chatted with the office manager, and now I’m writing this post. Bored might be a word for it, but I’m not really. Relaxed might be a better fit.

Yesterday I installed a second video card in my computer. It’s configured in SLi mode, which means that it’s got a helluva lot of graphics power. While I was at it, I also installed a second hard drive. It’s not configured yet, but I plan on using it to mirror my existing hard drive for redundancy. The computer is turning out to be a real powerhouse. I might even go so far as to install another operating system or two on the unused partition just for fun.

Right now custody of Rece is settled. He lives with me, but visits his mom every other weekend and also has a mid-week visit. It isn’t exactly what I had hoped for, but maybe it’ll work. I’ll be going back to court in March for a hearing to decide on the amount I’ll pay for child support, if any. Right now I pay my ex $230 a month. It doesn’t seem fair, since I pay for everything regarding Rece. Hopefully the judge agrees with this.

One relief for me was that the judge rejected her request for spousal support (alimony). She’s more than capable of working: she has a college education (BA in psychology) and plenty of work experience. She can no longer threaten me with it.

Hmm … that’s all I feel like babbling about for now.  Back to work!

_{This entry feels detached today.}

^{This entry was very impressed.}

Maybe it’s because I’m spoiled. Maybe it’s because for the past 9 years I’ve worked at a place where we had 11 paid holidays off per year and now I don’t have very many holidays off. Maybe it’s because my son has been lying to me about school. Maybe it’s because I have to go to court in a couple of weeks to work out custody and child support. Maybe it’s because I’m paying a boatload of money every month towards back taxes because the filing was botched by a tax guy that disappeared off the face of the earth.

Whatever the reason is, I’m frustrated. The weekend can’t get here soon enough.

No blogging has been done in some time because I’m feeling rather private. This is because of many reasons and once some of them have been resolved, I’ll probably be back to blogging and taking pictures more often. Inspiration isn’t flowing lately, anyhow.

_{This entry just wants to relax for a bit.}

This video series is incredible. It never occurred to me that this was even possible. I’m linking to all the videos here, in order, so you can watch them. They’re each about 11 minutes long, but well worth watching them all.

Part 1:

Part 2:

Part 3:

Part 4:

Part 5:

_{This entry strives to live debt-free.}

It’s 10:00 pm right now. I’ve just started drinking my 3rd beer since 9:20 pm. Let’s see if I can get drowsy enough to fall asleep.

Update - 10:25 pm: I’m only slightly buzzed, but not tired. I’m going to try rum and Diet Coke (Plus) now.

update - 11:00 pm : yep, one double=shot bacardi dark and diet coke did the trick. I’m going to bed now

_{This entry just wants to catch a few more z’s.}

“What? You mean you’re not going to post another video today? Are you crazy? I live for that shit!”

Sleep is just something my body knows it should do, but doesn’t really want to go about, well, yanno … actually doing … enough. I’m finding myself completely awake much later than, say, 2 weeks ago. Last night I got around 4.5 hours of sleep. What’s especially odd to me is that I’m not even tired — which is and isn’t a lie, sorta. I mean I feel like I’m not getting enough sleep, but I don’t feel tired. Does that make any sense? The night before I got about 5.5 hours of sleep.

It isn’t because I’m doing anything that would keep me up that late. I’ll stop playing Lord of the Rings Online as early as 11:00 pm and still not be able to get to sleep 2 hours later. Drinking a couple of beers will make me a little drowsy, but when I get into bed, I can’t fall asleep. There’s nothing like wanting to go to sleep, feeling like you’re going to go to sleep, but not actually falling asleep. Huh? What? Exactly.

We’ll see what happens this weekend. I don’t have anything planned (except to get rid of my cat) and Rece will be at his mother’s for the weekend, so it may be possible to get caught up on some missing rest. So my theory goes, at least.

Yep, I’m getting rid of my cat. I won’t say how, but the cat will be gone. Okay, I will say that it involves a shelter, but that’s it. My apartment smells of cat pee and I’m not happy about it at all. Didn’t she read my earlier post about restroom behavior? Stupid cat.

Work has been very busy lately, thanks to an anti-virus software roll-out project for one of our clients. They have over 120 computers that need their anti-virus software upgraded. All but about 30 of them are at remote locations, on stand-alone workstations, with staff that barely know how to right-click, let alone attempt to install software on their own — well, except for Smiley Central … they always seem to manage getting THAT piece of crap installed. Oh, lordy, lordy!

The entire process is very repetitive. We convinced the company headquarters that this was the perfect opportunity to make sure all of their computers were up to date and operating properly. So on top of the anti-virus software upgrade we’re doing updates, patches, and general system maintenance/tune-up things. The entire process is very repetitive. One of the only complaints I have is that it gets boring rather quickly to do the same process over and over again. It’s like the bottle in your shower says, “Lather. Rinse. Repeat.” except that bottles don’t talk. But some computers do (”Shall we play a game?”). The entire process is very repetitive.

So, yeah, sleep. My apartment is a complete mess right now. To see just how messy it’s become, click the webcam link to the right. Don’t forget that the username is Webcam1 and there is no password.

The web host I use to host my website, this blog, and Quinn’s blog just increased my online storage from around 175 GB to 478 GB for free. I’m trying to figure out what to do with all that space, since at this point Quinn and I have only managed to use around 0.1% of it. Online backup? Maybe. I’ll have to figure out how I can secure what I put up there before that becomes a feasible option.

Right now I’m at the office working on a client’s computer that’s hundreds of miles away. Their office is out in the boondocks, so the only Internet service they can get that’s better than dial-up is satellite. It’s pretty neat, but the latency is a bitch! I’ll click on something and it’ll take a second or two before I see that it did it (or didn’t). What typically takes around 2-3 hours to complete is looking like it’ll take 3-5 hours. The entire process is very repetitive. Hey, it’s all billed by the hour, so who am I to complain? I know my boss won’t!

The good news is that I’ll have plenty of work to do for the next couple of months. The bad news is that it’ll be a lot of the same stuff over and over again. I’m definitely going to have to get the other techs working on this project so I can change things up a bit.

Can one really be poor when they’re rich? Fuck if I know. I’m glad you asked, though.

_{This entry thinks that the entire process is very repetitive.}

Yup, this pretty much sums it up.

Okay, there is supposed to be a YouTube video above, but something seems to have gone wacky with it again. I’ll leave it as-is and hopefully I’ll have time to figure out what’s wrong with it again. In the meantime, here’s a direct link to the video:

http://youtube.com/watch?v=zJM4EBuL82o

_{This entry wants to dance like a monkey!}

Why isn’t this topic being discussed by those going nuts about global warming? To me this is the biggest factor on either side of the argument.

Before medicine, people died often and early, keeping the population low and limiting growth. In the last 100 years we’ve about doubled the life expectancy for people. Many conditions that would have prevented people from conceiving a child only 50 years ago are being eliminated, sometimes resulting in people having an entire litter of rug rats. Oh, and don’t forget that the fertility age of both sexes have also been greatly increased, so we can pop out kids for 3-4 decades.

What’s my point? In 1900 the world population was estimated to be around 1.6 billion. In 1960, it was around 3 billion … almost double in just 60 years. Since then, less that 50 years later, we’ve more that doubled the world population again! Can you believe it?

Call me crazy, but if we’re worried about the environment, about the resources of the Earth, about hungry children, about disease, about everything on this planet, we really need to take an honest look at how many people are on it. In addition to doing something about the burning of fossil fuels, or deforestation, or toxic waste, or promoting recycling we should be telling people to stop having so many kids!

People argue that it’s their biological right to procreate. While that may be true, it should come with some sense of responsibility. We’ve believed for so long that having a big family is a good thing … but where did that belief come from? Was it religion (”be fruitful and multiply”)? Was it from our farming ancestors (needing help in the fields)? What about for protection (the village/clan/country needs a strong military)? How about the fact that we’re essentially just another type of animal with a strong instinct to reproduce? Wherever it came from, we need to recognize that those beliefs are no longer going to work if we want to sustain a livable environment here on Earth.

We’re at the top of the food chain. There are no predators to control our population. Science has conquered diseases. Modern society abhors violence, so we aren’t killing one another in sufficient numbers to balance things out. Education and technology have enabled us to produce food in enough quantities to feed everybody (whether or not it’s getting to those who are hungry and/or just being wasted by rich countries is a different topic of discussion). The human population is no longer being kept in check as it once had been for much of our history.

Sure it sounds like some crackpot theory. I admit that, but to me it’s just about the math. If you have an environment that can only produce so much and organisms that need to share it and balance their output to ensure the replenishing of resources, it just makes sense that when one organism becomes out of balance, other things get knocked out of balance as well. Extinction of species is happening at a rapid pace now, especially as we start carving up and re-engineering the natural balance of an area. It leads to a cascading failure that must stop at some point. When will we reach that point? Will we even be around to see it?

There is hope, however. People are becoming more aware of the effects of pollution and their impact on the environment on a global level. Whether or not they’ll do something about it remains to be seen. I’m no saint, either. I’ve made many adjustments to my lifestyle over the last few years that reduces the impact my son and I have on the environment, but I know we could do more.

Hell, I don’t know if this makes much sense, but I felt like getting it out of my brain. Hopefully I was able to get my point across. Thanks for listening.

_{This entry doesn’t know how to fix it, either.}