Convicted of Geekery

2005-11-15T10:35:00.000-05:00

I am having way too much fun with this

http://elothtes.pbwiki.com/

Hotel

2005-09-02T09:54:00.000-04:00

Hotel
Originally uploaded by geekcraft.

The view from the lobby of our hotel upwards.

Made it!

2005-09-01T18:46:00.000-04:00

Made it!
Originally uploaded by geekcraft.

So frustrated

2005-08-31T11:40:00.000-04:00

I just called my employeers payroll hotline to check to see if I qualified for Labor Day as a paid holiday. I don't. If I was to put in another 10 hour day today(giving me 30 for the week, another requirement) I would still end up being 3.5 hours short over the last 26 weeks. I keep pretty exacting records for my time and have been looking through them. It's annoying. If I hadn't taken my anniversary off, I would have qualifed. If I'd put in extra time on some of the weeks where I was short of a full 40, I would have qualified. If I hadn't made an error that shorted myself half a day I'd be closer (note: my manager didn't say anything either when he looked at my card to "check my math" like he does every week. I had worked four 8 hour days and one 4 hour day and just went "4x8 is 32" and wrote that as my time even though 8+8+8+8+4=36). It's just frustrating.

DSC00121.JPG

2005-06-20T12:44:00.000-04:00

DSC00121.JPG
Originally uploaded by geekcraft.

Blood tastes like Cocoa

2005-05-23T12:04:00.000-04:00

So, I had fake blood thrown on my face last night and that was cool. I hope that the comic (graphic novel? sequential art? photo book?) turns out well for Rosalie and JJ. The scenes that were set up last night seemed pretty good so I'm hopeful. Waiting till the whole thing has been published to read it. Right now I only know the most basic plot outline.

Other news...

Had sushi with Jair at Waraji on Friday night. I honestly don't think I'll be eating sushi anywhere else from now on. The selection there is just too good to pass up and it's not that far away.

Played a lot of World of Warcraft this weekend. I'm only level 14 right now but I've been having a great time with the game. Not once have I felt like I've been level grinding. I have 10 quests queued up to work on plus I've been working on secondary skills like fishing/cooking as well as my profession skills (herbalish/alchemy). I think I need to go back to the newbie zone and pick flowers for a while. My herbalism isn't quite good enough to collect the stuff in my current zone. Ah well.

2005-05-06T16:41:00.000-04:00

Sorry I haven't written in so long. Did you miss me?

Here's a quick list of what's been going on before I bugger off again.

1). Still in process of ordering Mac. V. much looking forward to it.
2). Went to Junior League of Raleigh thing with Annie. Met her friends and friends husbands and had fun and bad barbecue.
3). Grandfather had a stroke but he's recovering nicely.
4). Asian party was fantastic with many awesome people and good food.
5). Have had whole area at work shaken and rearranged. It was very much like being in an etch-a-sketch for me this week but it's all too the good so no real complaints.
6). Parties and movies and walks this weekend.
7). Was on OLN when they showed the Tom Boonen interview during the Tour de Georgia stage 5 coverage.
8). Making plans for Dragon*Con. Very excited about that.

Bye.

Mike went down to Georgia

2005-04-27T12:05:00.000-04:00

As many of you know I went to Gainesville, GA this past weekend to watch the start of the stage 5 of the Tour de Georgia. Honestly, I wish the would just say "of". They're not french. The Giro Italia isn't the Giro de Italia. The Vuelta Espana isn't the Vuelta de Espana. Ah well.

For those of you not aware, the TdG is the premier stage race in the USA. It's 6 days long and has done a pretty good job of attracting high level talent in the last couple years. This is due in good part to the appearance of Lance Armstrong at last years Tour. He showed up to get some race practice in while fulfilling obligations to sponsors. That immediately raised the attention of the media and a lot of bike fans. Since Armstrong committed to riding the Tour de Georgia and defending his title the media meter spiked big time. Or maybe that's my perception. Also of important note is that LA is retiring after this years Tour de France. That meant that the Tour de Georgia would be one of the last (if not the last) time he would take a start line in the US. So our stage is set.

I picked Stage 5 because it was on Saturday and Gainesville, the start town, was only about a 6 hour or so drive away. I left work early (noon) on Friday and started my trip. Honestly, it wasn't very exciting. I got stuck in traffic outside of Charlotte, stopped and ate Steak'n'Shake for lunch and drove along I85. Nothing terribly interesting. But it was kind of nice. I just relaxed and listened to the radio.

Once I got to Georgia my Google Map directions sent me along some smaller roads in my quest to get to Gainesville. Gainesville is off of 85 a good 20 miles or so and there isn't a really good direct route. I was a little concerned. Something about the thought of getting lost in the backwoods of Georgia just isn't comforting. I made it through safely, however, and even got to see the little town of Toccoa. If you aren't familiar with Toccoa, that's ok. But if you've seen "Band of Brothers" you'll recognize the name as the place where Easy Company trained.

Eventually I made it to Gainesville. Checked into the hotel, walked around the town a bit and got dinner at IHOP. Then bed.Got up the next morning, cleaned up, checked out and headed to the start line.

From 9:15 till noon I stood in my one spot along the guard rail next to Autograph Alley. You see, the way that races work is that all of the riders have to sign in and get there numbers. People line up on either side of the stage where this is done and try to get autographs.

I waited patiently with my camera, sharpies, program and copy of l'Equipe from July 26th, 2004 (the day after Armsrong won his 6th TdF). For the most part, I just wanted to take a bunch of pictures and I was hoping to get an autograph or two. Now here's the one interesting, non-cycling related story from my trip. I'm standing next the guard rail for an hour and a half or so and I can feel someone pushing against me. I mostly ignored it figuring it to be one of the children of the family next to me just being fidgety. No big deal. There are a lot of people and we all want a good view. That is until...

"Sir, could you please stop pushing my child? She's just a little girl and you're a grown man." - Bitchy lady

"She's pushing me." - me

"She's just trying to get back to where she was!" - Bitchy lady

"I've been standing here for an hour and a half. I haven't moved and I'm not getting pushed." - me, spinning around and pointing at the woman

"I think it's pathetic that a grown man is pushing a little girl!" - Bitchy lady

"I think it's pathetic that a grown woman cares where her daughter is standing and not that she's pushing people." - me

"Well you're not going to push my granddaughter." - Crazy Old Man

"I'm not pushing her. She keeps pushing into me. I'm not going to take that." - me

"Why don't you just shut up?" - Crazy Old Man

"No, you should shut up." - me, in a stroke of "genius"

"No, you shut up." - Crazy Old Man

"Why don't you make me." - me, still under the influence of divinely inspired conversational jabs.

"You want to go somewhere and talk?" - Crazy Old Man

"No. We can talk about it right here." - me

"You want to do this here?" - Crazy Old Man

"Here is fine." - me

"Sir, I'm a police officer and I don't think that's a good idea." - Man Who's family I've been standing next to for an hour and chatting about cycling with, speaking to Crazy Old Man.

And I turned back around and ignored the COM and BL. The thing about the conversation is that I had to try not to laugh during the "No, you shut up" portion. It's like I could see myself saying these things and not stop, but just knew how ridiculous they were. Ah well. I never said I wouldn't punch an old person.

After that things were pretty quiet. I took a lot of pictures (working on posting them to my flickr account) and got a couple autographs but not, sadly, the autograph of Lance Armstrong.

Once the race headed out I got in my car and started the long drive back.

True Story

2005-04-27T10:05:00.000-04:00

This is a 100% true story.

The characters:
Anthony: Object lead. Cubicle is right next to mine
Rodney: Software Tester. Happens to be my mentor here at the company.

Rodney walks into Anthony's cube and begins speaking.
Rodney: "...oh, sorry. You're on the phone."

Anthony: "No problem man. I'm on hold."

Pregnant pause.

Anthony: "Wait. I'm on hold with _you_! You just told me to hang on a minute! You're trying to drive me crazy!"

Me: "Guys, that is kind of psychotic."

Curtain.

Sony Ericsson/Cingular Star Wars Promotion

2005-04-19T15:54:00.000-04:00

Here's a picture of the face plates (or "Style Up Covers" in corp-lingo) that are being released for the Z500a.

American Cycling

2005-04-18T15:49:00.000-04:00

I'm probably the only person who reads my blog that also cares about cycling but I'm going to post this anyway just in case. For those of you who haven't heard yet, Lance Armstrong has announced his retirement.

His last professional race will be the Tour de France and, while he hasn't ruled out some amateur racing near his home, most likely his last pro race in the US will be at this weeks Tour de Georgia. As a fan of both Armstrong, the old USPS team and cycling in general I would dearly love to see him race one last time. The 5th stage of the TdG starts from Gainesville, GA at noon on Saturday the 23rd of April. Since that's not terribly far from where I live, me, my July 26th, 2005 copy of l'Equippe and my PSP are (like the Devil sans fiddle) going on down to Georgia Friday. Well, most likely. Something could change those plans.

Anyone who wants to join me on this pointless road trip where I will drive 6 hours to possibly get an autograph, watch only the start of one stage of a race, sleep in my car and not do much else should let me know. If I don't get any volunteers I won't be suprised.

New cocktails!

2005-04-18T13:25:00.000-04:00

Ingredients:
1 20oz. bottle of Diet Pepsi
2 Ibuprofen
Traces of TylenolPM and Benadryl in bloodstream

Pour Diet Pepsi over ice.
Add Ibuprofen.
Shake well (throwing "action items" at Mike works well for this).
Strain.
Sip carefully.

Ok, a new actual cocktail that I saw on FoodTV this weekend that I'll probably get Senor Doominguez to help me drink at the Asian Food Party on the 30th.

The Sake-tini
2.5 oz Dry Sake
1 oz Vodka
chipped ice
1 Japanese cucumber, cut into rounds, for garnish

Pour Sake and Vodka into a cocktail shaker.
Add ice.
Shake.
Strain, add garnish, serve.
Enjoy!

eBay

2005-04-15T14:12:00.000-04:00

I love eBay today. I was able to buy 7 shadowrun books for less than $50 (shipping included). One of the books was a hardcover of the first edition rules in excellent condition. It'll make a nice addition to my collection.

Please kill me

2005-04-13T14:36:00.000-04:00

1.5 hours into the 3 hour training meeting.

Apparently, eating free at Subway isn't the only benefit of being a duck.

2005-04-08T12:52:00.000-04:00

CNN says: Secret Service Protects Expectant Duck

From the article:

"He (Treasury Secretary John Snow) had been briefed on the duck and he stopped to pay a visit," said Nichols.

Tis the Season. (Weekend Rambling)

2005-04-05T11:36:00.000-04:00

I was going to post all this yesterday but I was laid low by a severe case of the allergies yesterday. I could barely function much less compose a coherant blog post. Of course, that didn't keep me from going into a work for half a day. They don't really need me to think here.

Weekend almost went according to plan. JJ and I saw Sin City on Friday night, then hit Gypsy's, the Borders and the Midnight Madness sale at Toys R Us.

Toys R Us was fun. We only waited in line for about 20 minutes or so because while we wanted to see the new Star Wars stuff we knew it would be there in the morning. Mostly it was just kind of a fun dorky thing to do. I picked up Anakin's Jedi Starfighter, which is cool, as well as General Grievous and Anakin figures, which suck. Hasbro has decided to add special action things to them. When you push on Grievous' head his arms move. When you squeeze Anakin's legs his right arm slashes. Unfortunately, to get the mechanics correct to do this they had to reduce the points of articulation in the toys. Grievous is always in "four arm" mode (his arms split so he can attack with four sabers at once) and Anakin can't bend at the waist. Yes. That means I can't put him in his own starship. How f'd up is that? Ah well. I probably don't know what kids want these days (or how to sell them the same crap 4 times).

Borders was Borders. JJ once again sharked an SR book out from under me. I guess I should've been more observant. Note to JJ: You can't use it in the game if I don't have time to read about it first!

Gypys: Good food. It's too bad they server Pepsi. I'll forgive them that since they make a damn good chicken sandwich and ten layer cake.

Sin City was awesome. It was made of awesome. Awesome like a thousand hot dogs. What else can I say? Storyboarding for the movie had to have been pretty damn easy. "Well, we went out, bought the graphic novels and taped them to a wall."

Saturday I bought some bib shorts because the local bike shop was having a sale. I didn't get to use them till Sunday because of the hail storm but they made the ride vastly more comfortable. I will never use regular shorts for riding again. Also watched Eddie Izzard's "Circle" with my sister Saturday night. Hilarious.

Unfortunately, somewhere between some mild allergy problems Saturday, riding around with Jair on Sunday not being able to test drive cars (and what is up with dealers being closed on Sunday? God has abandoned those bastards. No amount of church will help them) and my ride later that afternoon sent my whole body into a downward spiral so that when I woke up Monday morning I felt really, really sick. I was planning on staying home all day but Annie forgot her laptop and I said that I could bring it to her. Well, after going to lunch with her, Joe and Leah (extremely fun lunch crowd, by the way) I figured I might as well go into work. Drugs, sleep and my concoction of sprite, ice and pineapple juice has helped me ou immensely.

That pretty much puts you up to date with my life.

Oh, did anyone else see that They Might Be Giants are doing at least some of the music for the "Coraline" movie? Neil Gaiman mentions it over on his blog.

What's in your bag?

2005-04-01T11:58:00.000-05:00

bag
Originally uploaded by geekcraft.

The "What's in your bag" meme has been going around for quite some time and I finally got around to it. It was actually pretty fun to look through my satchel and see what I carry around with me as well as what some other people have.

My hope is that some of you who read my blog will continue this meme and post a picture and list of the stuff that's in your bag. If you want a good place to post pictures and get ideas checkout Flickr.

note: You can click the picture for a detailed view as well as notes saying what each item is. Here's the list:

Wilsons Leather Laptop bag with Timbuk2 iPod case
20GB Second generation iPod
Sony MDR-V700 headphones
S710a mobile
map of Raleigh
PSP w/ Untold Legends loaded
PSP accessories
Oakley Sunglasses
Eddie Izzard pins
Nike cycling gloves
Note pad, pens, pencil and eraser
My grandfathers Railway Express Zippo.

DSC00010.JPG

2005-03-31T15:51:00.000-05:00

So...this probably seems like a pretty boring picture of my office to the casual bystander. However, what they probably don't realize (but that you and I, smart people that we are, already know) is that this picture was taken on my S710a camera phone and emailed from there to my flickr account and then automagically created as a blog post. This text was added later because I didn't feel like typing out all this in the email.

Pretty Shiney Precious

2005-03-28T16:30:00.000-05:00

I caved. I'm sure there was a moment in time when you could actually see my resolve crack and shatter into a thousand pieces like a mirror in front of a gorgon. I can tell you when it happened. It was when Nick (co-op here at the office) showed me his PSP running Ridge Racer and I thought "Wow. That looks almost as good as GT4."

Not long after I lost weight in my pocket as I put down the cash for one of these pretty pretty toys. Some might call me foolish, and they would not be wrong, but I'm happy with it. It is, in the words of Carl, friggin' awesome.

Aside from having a huge, glorious, beautiful screen the PSP can do some wonderful things:
-Play UMD movies. Proprietary format but cool.
-Play beautiful games. That screen isn't being wasted (so far) on crappy looking games.
-Show pictures that were taken on my camera phone and saved on the memory stick.
-Play games over wi-fi in either ad hoc or infrastructure mode (ad hoc: play wirelessly with whoever is around, infrastructure: play over the internet with other people when near a wireless access point)
-Other cool things that I'm forgetting.

Hopefully soon SCEA will add an IM client (like the DS) and a browser (built in to Wipeout). We shall see. Many cool things are possible. I just hope it sees it's fully potential.

Something from work I can talk about.

2005-03-22T12:32:00.000-05:00

So, I was discussing with Annie the other day that the worst part of my job was the fact that I really can't talk about what I'm doing with any of my friends. It's not that I don't want to or that they wouldn't understand the issues it's simply that Sony-Ericsson won't allow it. That's ok, really, things would just be more fun if I could tell people all the cool stuff I'm doing. I want to keep my job though, so I'm going to keep my mouth shut.

Here is something that I was part of that I finally can talk about: The Cingular-Star Wars Promotion. My contribution wasn't huge, I simply tested all the content to make sure it worked as intended and didn't break the phones. I did get to play the game, though, and that was fun. Not allowed to show any of the stuff off to people at this time but at least I can say "There. I worked on _that_." It's really a nice feeling.

Stupid Gov'ts (besides our own)

2005-03-10T16:15:00.000-05:00

Saw this on The Cycling News this afternoon, found it interesting

"Verbruggen added that Armstrong's actions during the 18th stage of the 2004 Tour de France, where he followed Simeoni up to a breakaway and effectively killed the Italian's chances of getting clear, 'did not deserve a penalty.' A judicial investigation was opened in Italy after the incident, trying to determine whether Armstrong had threatened Simeoni, and whether he could be charged with sporting fraud, violence and intimidation of a witness. Thus, Armstrong could be questioned by police if he sets foot in Italy."

Now after reading that you may wonder what happened, so I'll explain it in a nut shell: Lance Armstrong rode after a guy who tried to get into a breakaway. That's it. No violence. No intimidation.

I'll explain even further and give some backstory.

Simeoni testified that a Dr. that Armstrong has worked with in the past gives all his patients steroids and that Armstrong, to be as good as he is, must have been given drugs as well, such as EPO. Armstrong called Simeoni a liar. Simeoni decided to sue Armstrong for libel.

Fast forward to stage 18 of the 2004 TdF. Armstrong is in the yellow (of course) and Simeoni has had a lackluster Tour. A breakaway forms and Simeoni decides that it's his chance to try and get a stage win and some attention. Armstrong sees this, decides that he doesn't like Simeoni and goes after him. Now, Armstrong isn't going to take the stage. He's a good rider but he doesn't actually win that many sprints on flat stages. The real strategy is that because Armstrong is wearing the yellow jersey the rest of the peloton can't let him break away (the other General Classification riders will lose to much time) and will chase him down. So, by going after Simeoni, Armstrong effectively kills any chance this guy has of winning the stage.

Everyone in the break away knows this and knows that with Armstrong there it will ruin their chances as well. They ask him to leave. Armstrongs response is "If he's here, I'm here", indicating Simeoni. Simeoni "for the good of the group" drops back and so does Armstrong.

Apparently, that's "sporting fraud, violence and intimidation of a witness" in Italy. It's also important to know that Armstrong didn't do anything illegal and was in no way penalized by the UCI (the international cycling union). The Italians are just pissed because one of their favorite riders got smoked.

Mmmm...Tasty Trade Goodness

2005-03-06T01:38:00.000-05:00

Went to the big moving sale at Chapel Hill Comics today. It was awesome. I actually didn't spend nearly as much time in the store I wanted to for a variety of reasons.
#1 was that I needed to get home and check on the poor sick Annie
b) was that I wasn't feeling well myself but mostly it was
iii. The fact that after being in the store for 10 minutes I had picked up 12 new trades and I couldn't fathom walking out of the store without them.

Here's what I spent my hard earned money on:

Powers #4-6
Invincible #1-3
New X-Men 6 and 7
The first three trades of StormWatch written by Ellis
Sandman #4

I could easily have picked up even more if my wallet hadn't tried to run away when it saw the stack I was carrying. They had the rest of Sandman, for starters, and I didn't even get to most of what was on my list (more Preacher, more Punisher, Transmet, Sin City)

Of course, I think it's fairly obvious that Annie and I spent the rest of the day vegged out on the couch reading.

Bad monkey, no banana!

2005-03-04T11:09:00.000-05:00

http://www.cnn.com/2005/US/03/04/chimp.attack.ap/index.html

My favorite part (which made me cringe):

"St. James Davis had severe facial injuries and would require extensive surgery in an attempt to reattach his nose, Dr. Maureen Martin of Kern Medical Center told KGET-TV of Bakersfield. His testicles and a foot also were severed, Kern County Sheriff's Cmdr. Hal Chealander told The Bakersfield Californian." (emphasis mine)

Ow!

Bastards!

2005-02-16T13:08:00.000-05:00

No chance of hockey this year. The owners have one the war, but at what cost? If an agreement had been reached and the shortened 28 games season had occured, I would've gone to the games. I'll probably start going to games as soon as I can next season. I'm not the kind of fan that the NHL will lose. It's all the casual fans. Those are the people who, here at least, are going to fill the seats. I hope hockey isn't dead.

Devoid of any real thought

2005-02-15T20:09:00.000-05:00

So, I feel like I should be updating this more often than once every two weeks. So I'm going to do just that. Even if it means you get posts like this which are full of words but tell you nothing.

I've been really busy at work lately. While I do enjoy being occupied I wouldn't mind if the crazyness could be avoided for at least a bit. Here's some of what I've been doing.

Crystal Reports. I knew it "somewhat" and that put me light years in front of the rest of my department. Ergo, I am now the Crystal Reports guy.

A project I can't talk about for two more weeks.

A project I can't talk about for two more months.

A project I can't talk about for probably 6 more months.

Meetings

See, wasn't that fascinating? On to more fun things.

Annie and I didn't do anything for V-day this year. We rarely do. This was our 7th St. Valentines Day and, in my memory, we've only done anything special on two of those. It isn't that we don't like the day or aren't in love. We just don't find anything super special about it. We don't have kids. For us, every day can be a day we spend paying attention to the other one and showing them how much we love them.

Enough sappy shit.

On Sunday I bought one of these. Now I need this to go with it for my car.

Hmm...aside that, not a lot going on. You can read on Annie's LJ about the continuing saga of Morgan's health. He's doing better (fortunately) but we don't know what the root cause is. Nothing I can really do about that.

Information gap.

2005-02-15T16:01:00.000-05:00

Sorry I haven't updated in a while. I am busy as hell at work currently. Hopefully more later.

MmmMmm, Bitch!

2005-01-31T15:30:00.000-05:00

Just a quick post to let people know that I'm going to be making ribs on Sunday. For my friends who've had my ribs this means that if I am at your SuperBowl party you will be able to have some. This may be considered a good thing.

Wow.

2005-01-28T11:35:00.000-05:00

This article from CNN about a smoldering pile of cow manure may contain one of the worst phrases I've ever read "three-acre manure lagoon".

2004 Year in Review (Late Edition)

2005-01-26T15:54:00.000-05:00

Yeah, I'm a little behind on this but the Oscars just came out and reminded me that I meant

to post this. Here's my quick Year in Review.

Top 5 albums

I don't buy a lot of new music. Why? Cause I suck and I'm picky. Most of the new (to me) stuff I listen to is suggested to by a member of my Music Advice Counsel (JJ, Mike N., Leah and Will). Therefore, to make it on this list the album has to be something that I had not listened to before 2004 and I be something I think lacks suck. Here are the five (in no particular order, except that Crystal Method r0xx0rs)

Legion of Boom - Crystal Method
The Spine - They Might Be Giants
Tuxicity - Richard Cheese
SSX3 - Various (Ok, yes, I cheated on this one. Sue me.)
Transatlanticism - Death Cab for Cutie

Top 5 movies

Now movies, on the other hand, have to be something that was released this year. These are not the five all around best movies of the year. The movies I selected for my top 5 are the ones that I got the most enjoyment out of (and could remember actually viewing).

The Incredibles - I love you Pixar.
Shaun of the Dead - Like "Dawn of the Dead" with Brits and Comedy (and Bernard Black in one of the messiest on screen deaths I've ever witnessed)
Spiderman 2 - Come on! It's fucking _Spiderman_!
Hero - Jet Li goodness in a great movie with beautiful cinematography.
Phantom of the Opera - Great, powerful music. Totally fine Emmy Rossum. Pansy OG, though.

Top 5 books

Much like CD's, the books in this list were not necessarily released in 2004 but it was the first time I had read them and I think they're worth a glance by just about anyone.

The Friday Next Series by Jasper Fforde - Book jumping Literary Detective Crime Novels. Beat that!
Every Second Counts by Lance Armstrong - Really interesting if you're into the sport of pro road cycling or if you want some ideas on good leadership and team management.
Nevermore by Neil Gaiman - I can't ever seem to get excited about reading a Neil Gaiman book. However, it never fails that I get sucked in, can't put the book down, and love it.
Zombie Survival Guide - A must for anyone who wants a spot on my Super Zombie Squad.
America: The Book by John Stewart - Hilarity.

Best Band I didn't know about before:
Death Cab for Cutie - How did I miss these guys?

Best LJ friend I've never met (male):
Jizzmatic2000

Best LJ friend I've never met (female):
Cocktailsat7

Best Sports moment:
Lance Armstrong winning his 6th consecutive Tour de France - Now, I know there are some crazy ass Bostonians who will disagree and say that the Red Sox amazing ability to stop being bitch slapped by the Yankees was the best moment of the year. For them, that may be true. Personally it doesn't mean anything to me. Maybe I'll care when they're trying to get their next World Series win in 2090. All that aside, the reason I loved that particular moment was because I was there. There is something amazing about standing on the side of the Champes Elysee with close to a million other people while an American athlete on an American team and riding an American made bike does what no one else has done in the 100 year history of the crown jewel of cycling. 6 Tours. Six. Straight. Over 2000 miles of cycling in 23 days. Every year for six years. And for the curious, do you know what Lance Armstrong did the next week? After cycling almost every day for 3 weeks while burning close to 9000 calories every day and shedding pounds of sweat, do you know what the USPS Team did the next week? They raced! They went "Ah hell, that ain't no thing." and got back on their bikes. What do they do in the US after they win the big event? They go to Disney World. To hell with that.

The rest of the year by the numbers:
Jobs: 3
Moves: 1
Countries Visited: 4
Kids: still 0 (thank god)
Months unemployed: 10 (ouch)

Say "blog" enough and it stops sounding like a real word.

2005-01-25T14:00:00.000-05:00

So, I have a new blog. I don't really know if I need one at all but it's worth a shot. I barely ever used my LiveJournal account. Most of what I put there fell more in line with "What's going on this weekend?" rather than any sort of real information about my life. It's not that I don't have things to say. Usually I'll think of something to post before I fall asleep at night but think better of it when I wake up in the morning. It's silly, honestly.

well, maybe it isn't. Posting on the Internet, whether LiveJournal, forum or even an email list, always makes me feel exposed. I've probably started and then deleted more posts in the last few years than I have ever completed. Sort of the opposite reaction I had to my Internet "youth". Back several years ago I would say anything I felt like saying and back it up with volume and rage. Ah well. We all have our stupid indiscretions.

This little narrative is going to be different. At least that's what I'm telling myself. I will start posting what I want, even if it may be silly and/or stupid. I'm going to put up the pictures I took at the Tour de France this past year (as soon as I can make the Hello BloggerBot put more than one pic per post). I'll do my "2005 Year in Review - Late Edition". The series of posts about each of my friends and how I met them and why I keep them around (or they me), that's going up too.

Just, ya know, don't expect it tomorrow.

2005-01-21T18:55:00.000-05:00

Well, I swore I'd start up loading these for public viewing some time. Here's the first (really the last) one for a test.

Tour de France 2004 awards ceremony.

First Post!

2005-01-21T18:50:00.000-05:00

Oh, Google. Is there nothing you aren't capable of doing?