The official website for Battlefield 2 just went online! Check it out here. Right now there isn't much there, but check out the video's. The cool one is the missile going right thru the open doors of a Blackhawk. It is sweet! I hope when playing I never have that happen, unless I'm in the Blackhawk!

There is also an exclusive video here showing in game play. It's all ground action, but it looks pretty good. I'm really excited for it. I don't see a release date yet, so keep your eye's here, and on the official site!

Over the last couple of days I have been mucking with the new Gallery 2. It is currently at alpha 4, so it has some bugs. I'm leaving up my production gallery, but wanted everyone to check out the new one. One of the main reasons I went for this is that the old version of Gallery does not support authenticated SMTP. I'm still working on getting this one working, but when it does I should be able to send out email's when I create accounts for my friends and family to upload their photos too. That way you can create your own password versus me doing it for you. I don't know much about CSS, but I've been able to get it looking good within my site. Give me your opinions on it!

The forum is now back up. There was a security hole in the previous version, and my upgrade didn't go that smoothly. I still have a couple mods to add back in, but the attachment mod is back, and everything should be working fine. Let me know if you see any more problems!

Why? I just don't get the games women play. I down right hate it! I'm not going to play the games. It's just not worth it to me. I'll try for a while, but then I just get sick of the crap. Why do women have to play little games. Why can't they just be straight up. Just say it. They swing on a pendulum from one side to the other and never explain why.

I did get a cool letter today. It was addressed to:

Michael Johnson
Owner
JAM Productions

I thought that was way cool. Inside was my new TIA CCNT certification certificate. It seems like most TIA certs are life time, but this one is only 3 years. So that kinda sucks. Oh well.

I think I need a UPS. This morning the power went out at 6:35:34. I didn't get back to the system to find that the bios flipped out again until 3:45PM. I need to move this stuff to a new server. The BIOS doesn't always retain the CPU settings, and jumps into the BIOS waiting for user input. I'm also thinking UPS. Just to power the one server, router, and our modem. At least if there is a power outage it can shut the system down, and avoid the BIOS issue. Time to modify that Christmas List!

So today I went down to South Towne to get some Salt City Spiced Wassail candles. The entire parking lot was full. It was crazy. I just parked between Dillard's and REI, and walked. I'm not the type of person to drive around and find the closest spot. I just don't care. So I walked. I was on a mission. I knew exactly what I wanted. Everyone else in the mall had no idea. When people aren't focused on a goal, they move slowly, looking at everything until they decide what they want. I had decided beforehand. I must have looked like a speed walker going past everyone who was slower than a snail in the mall. But I got my candles! I high tailed it right out of there only to be greeted my holiday traffic. Bah... Humbug!

In related news you may notice I added a new item on the main menu. It's a list of ideas for anyone wanting to get me something for Christmas. Sometimes it can be hard to figure out what to give someone, so lists can help. The great part about lists like this is that its just ideas. If you want to give something to someone, and can come up with something cool on your own, that's rad! But if you just can't figure something out, it's nice to get some help.

In unrelated news I fixed the empty lines on my blog! Thankfully there are people out there who know CSS a lot better than I, and they were able to help me.

I added some links today. Rich just got his own site up, and is using the same blog software as me. His new site is www.kaspariandomain.com. He just posted about a cool piece of software that lets you use your 1 GB of storage on Gmail (e-mail me if you want an invite) as a drive on your computer. You can drag & drop files just like it's a disk drive. Pretty cool stuff! I also added other links for friends and family.

For my Thanksgiving I went down to my grandparents with my family. I'm spending the rest of the day getting ready for tomorrows LAN party. All of my and Tony's computers are reserved. We have 14 people confirmed to come, although 3 will be later after they get off work. It will be a blast! If you want to play talk to me soon!!!

Due to the stupid spamming I just started getting, I upgraded to b2evolution. This is much more powerful, and lets me blacklist spam! Yay! My blog is clean again!

Some stupid spam bot has found my page. You may start seeing comments made for poker or other such stuff. I will be trying to kill its ability to post comments. It may be one of you has a virus. You can get a FREE virus scan online from Trend Micro.

So, the last couple of days...

Tuesday.... Well Half-Life 2 came out, and since I got it free from ATI I played. Late... I went over to Tony's, and played some more. Then I came home and played until 1:30. Far too late! At least I'm done now.

Wednesday just as I left for work Gina called me. She was sick and was going home. So as quick as I could get out of work I went over there to see how she was doing. We sat around and talked for a few hours. Once again I am amazed at just how awesome she is. It's good motivation for me to do that much better. Like she says, we shouldn't be better than the world as it is steadily declining, but always be striving to get better. Not just better than the world. I'm working on it! :D And getting much better!

Thursday Gina left to go down to see her family. Fortunately she was feeling a lot better, not completely, but good enough for the drive. I finished Half-Life 2 during the day. I got so tense while playing the game, I could feel the tension leaving after the game was over. I then took a test for my CCNT class. 5 to go to get my CCNT. Later I went over to Tony's place and hung out, playing a bit of Desert Combat Final.

Today work was rough. I felt like nobody did anything yesterday. I had to do everything today that should have been done yesterday, plus a bunch of stuff from today. It really makes work frustrating. Everything was a mess left for me to clean up.

So work today was busy!!! It's a good thing we got our displays built yesterday! The nice thing about when work is busy is it goes fast! The day went by so fast.


Tonight Gina & Justin came over to hang out with me and my parents. My dad didn't get home until they were leaving. We pretty much hung out, talked with my mom, and busted out the Lego's for Justin. Gina and I did jump in to help Justin out. :)

So last night I went out with Gina and two of her kids, Britney and Justin. We doubled with Eric & Natalie, and Kirsten. We went and saw The Incredibles, then had dinner at the Mayan. The Incredibles was a great movie. But the wait to get it, and the wait at the Mayan was horrible. I felt so bad that we waited so long. Justin was just out of control, and wasn't listening to Gina at all. I tried to help, but he just didn't want to listen. I felt so bad for Gina. She looked like she was tired, and it looked like it was draining her. She looked fantastic! But tired. I really did enjoy being with them. Although I probably have enjoyed going over and just spending time with her and just talking even more.


Now I hate the holiday season for one reason only, work. I went in today to build all our displays for Thanksgiving. Fortunately today was Stake Conference, so it wasn't too bad. Then I was only at work for 3 hours, so that was good. At least it's done. And I shouldn't have to for Christmas... I hope. At least the rest of the holidays are happier!

Kristi and Dana had their son today! Larsen Edward Torp. Yup, we're all calling him Lars! :) I have pictures in my gallery here! Way to go guys!

In case you haven't seen, I put some pictures of our new telco closet wiring here. I got a 24 port patch panel off eBay, and we punched down every jack throughout the house. My dad and I ran 3 lines out to the middle of the main room in the basement as well. 1 goes to my TiVo, 1 to the Green Machine, and the other is for LAN party use. But check it out. I'm pretty happy with it. Now if only it could be in a better location!

So I just finished setting up a new mail server. So my new email address is michael@waterman981.com. Everyone make note of it!

The Tour of Hope begins tonight at midnight. I wish they were coming to the Huntsman Cancer Institute. But its something really cool. Go Lance go!

While it is cool for me to have this blog, I think a forum would be really cool because it could get more interaction from my friends. So register and start posting!

OK, so everyone out there knows I am a dork. So I left work early today to avoid overtime. Come home to see if The Edge has posted anything. Nothing I could see at first? then I noticed it? He was online right then!!! So I made a comment in the thread he was posting in, and yes? HE REPLIED. So I?m as giddy as a school girl. Edge replied to me. THE EDGE. Of U2. Now I can die. ;)




Read the thread! (Yes I realize it wasn't the most profound thing to say, but after what I said, I think its really cool!)

I have U2's Vertigo! The MP3 hit the net this morning, and I was there to snatch it up! I got it from U2 Valencia.com. Its also on the radio tomorrow, so listen to it. Love it! I have listened to it like 50 times so far!


Woo Hoo!!!


The counter you now see added to my site is the countdown timer for How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb U2's new album. 59 days to go!

So yesterday my assistant gave me the news that he would have to quit. Now I am down to me, and 2 part time night people. Life is not fun. With all this I have decided I need to drop 2 of my classes. I am just far to stressed with work and school. There is just so much going on my stress level was through the roof. Once I had decided this I felt my stress going down. I am keeping my two cool Telecommunications classes and dumping Communications and Human Relations. The joys of school.


Today was my day off, and Natalie's friend Catherine and I went for a bike ride. We went over to the Jordan River Parkway trail, starting at 12600 south. We went north as far as possible, then turned around and went south. I am so out of shape. I should have gone riding much more this year. I have only been out three times on my bike. Pretty pathetic.