Thu Jun 19, 2008
At least that's what the Dr. said in the message. Oh joy. From what I've been hearing the next step will be a visit to the hospital, overnight probably, so they can hook up sensors and probes and test me. Ughh... It's kinda a catch 22... I'm betting part of my problem is my neck size. But it's been pretty big for a long long time. So I need to lose weight, but at the same time sleep apnea can lead to weight gain. SCREWED! Wed Jun 18, 2008
Yup, that's me! I've had plenty of great days to ride my bike, but did I... nope! I need external motivation. Riding by yourself time after time is great if your training to race, but I like riding with others. Of course organizing these rides can be more work. So anyway, last night I was cleaning up my mountain bike. Right now the chain is soaking in degreaser. I need to get some new cables, and adjust the rear shock for added weight, ie... my fat butt. So I guess it's time to ride. Mon Jun 16, 2008
Yay! I've gotten the blog successfully updated! The update was actually the easy part... the skin was the hardest. I did take a new skin and modify it to fit the site better than it was, so things look a little different. I'm just not set on the colors yet. I may still tweak them. Any suggestions as to what colors need to be changed? One of many new cool things with this include smilies! :D [lightbox http://www.waterman981.com/gallery2/main.php?g2_view=core.DownloadItem&g2_itemId=10130&g2_serialNumber=2 [Me flying!]] That should also work for multiple images, which should be cool. In addition I will later be installing a Gallery plugin to easily tie this blog in with the photo gallery. Should be cool! I don't know about this auto indent/tab thing... I'll have to find a way to disable that. Yay I figured it out and killed it! It's probably good to do the indents, but for many lines it really screws up the formatting. So I'm behind in versions of the blog software. Because of that I will be doing an upgrade tonight. I don't know how long it will take at all. I'll probably redirect the default page to just the header, so the Forums & Gallery will be accessible during the downtime. Wish me luck!  Mozilla is releasing Firefox 3.0 tomorrow, and while they are at it the want to get a world record of most downloads during 24 hours. I love Firefox, and really think it's the best browser available. If you've never tried it, download it tomorrow and give it a whirl. Sun Jun 15, 2008
Have any of you been watching this? What a fantastic show! I like this even more than Planet Earth, and that is a great show! Here's the summary from Discovery.com:
This show is very cool, a chronicle of our manned voyages to space. If you haven't watched any of it yet they are airing all 6 episodes in order next Sunday. I highly encourage everyone to watch it! I'll have it on and will be watching it again for sure! Sat Jun 14, 2008
So Steve and I went to see a matinée of The Incredible Hulk today. Great show! I think both Steve and I agree with all the critics... Not as good as Iron Man, but it's mostly due to the differences in the characters. You are definitely able to enjoy watching Tony Stark more than watching Bruce Banner try to get rid of the Hulk. Still a great movie! My biggest problem with the last movie was his father. Honestly if they had never included his father in the show it would have been so much better. That character is what ruined that movie IMO. It could have just been an origin story along with the Government trying to get a hold of him, maybe even capturing him, then his escape. Just leave out his father all together. The Incredible Hulk is a mix between a sequel and a restart. They retell the origin during the opening credits a little bit different than what we saw in the last movie, but at the same time this takes place 5 years later... and it's been 5 years since 'Hulk' was made. So they pick up there, but the origin was a bit different... Highly recommended! I'll go see it again anytime! Although Steve wants to go see Iron Man again... Jason? I've been lucky... My allergies started up just before all that last rain that we got. That kept everything down, which has been nice for me. But today they have really started coming back. Because of them my Saturday's typically will be get up, mow the lawn, then take a shower. Ugggh! I hate allergies! Well I'm out of allergy pills so off to the store for me... Wed Jun 11, 2008
Yeah... I got off my butt tonight and finally fixed the photo gallery. As a new security release was released today I thought it would be a good time to do it. So I downloaded the full version, and went through the upgrade procedure. Along the way I discovered a few places that things weren't running right. After the upgrade was all done though it still wasn't working correctly! Arrrgghh! After about 20 minutes of poking around I found that I didn't compile php with GD support. Reinstalled it, then restarted the web server... YAY! Everything works now! So enjoy! Well this month I decided to get a new toy. An Onkyo TX-SR606 receiver! There are several reasons I upgraded:
All in all I really like it. My previous receiver was starting to show it's age. And it was cheap... Now of course, I do need to get some new speakers... I'm thinking of basically this system, but with a few adjustments. RS-42's for all 4 surround speakers instead of the RS-10's, and a different sub as I generally hear these sound better with a different sub. I've thought about bumping the other speakers up to the 52 series, but I'm just concerned about power handling. These will all come in time. Looking at the package price, it is the same as everything individually. So I'll shop around and take my time to get them. One of the nicest things of course is using HDMI from everything. All 3 components I have, TiVo, HD DVD player, & my HTPC, all have HDMI outputs (I currently even get regular Dolby Digital 5.1 from the HTPC!), so I don't need tons of cables back there. Of course as a result I have tons of extras. Here's what I have if anyone needs one!
If you need component, svideo, or composite I'll throw in what I have... But if anyone needs any of the above cables, make me an offer! (Just don't buy them from BestBuy or Circuit City!) 2 of the HDMI's are practically new. I just got them on Monday, but in the mean time had already ordered some 24AWG from Tartan Cable. Mon Jun 09, 2008
Well I figured since I am turning 30 next month, it might be a good time to get a physical. So I got a new doctor with my new insurance, and went in for a visit today. The results? 1. No more caffeine. There is a valve at the top of your stomach and caffeine relaxes it. So no caffeine and it should close and stop acid reflux. (edit: Here's a link to explain it!) Unfortunately right now I have 2 liters of Mt. Dew, Dr. Pepper, & Cherry Coke in my fridge. I need people to come over to drink it. Man's movie night? The new Venture Bros? Call me, I'm available! 2. Cinder Blocks. He wants me to elevate the head of my bed with cinder blocks. I wonder if I'll slide down during the night? 3. Sleep Apnea test. I'm doing the first one tonight. I got a little monitor I hook up to my finger. Seeing how my Dad had it, and it's hereditary... chances are good. 4. My knee problems since 4 wheeling on the 31st is probably a sprain. Never heard of a sprained knee before, but apparently it's pretty common. He wants me to give it more time. Overall I liked him. Definitely took the time to answer all my questions. With my previous doctor I always felt rushed. Never got everything taken care of. Tue May 20, 2008
So.. My ISP is folding. Basically there are 2 options... Comcast Cable internet, or DSL. Comcast - Higher upload and download speeds, but I would no longer be able to have my email server, possibly they may block my website. Also no static IP address. DSL (I'm thinking XMission) - Static IP, should be able to keep everything running. Slower... I did call Qwest and we should be able to get the Premiere package, which is 3 Mbps+ (up to 7) down, 896 kbps up (so my site should be faster). Distance is the major factor for DSL speed... I'm thinking DSL is probably the best option for us. I'll keep everyone posted as to what we do. I'm not exactly sure what happened... Sunday around 2 PM this server rebooted... and froze. It wouldn't reboot properly at all! So Monday I took it in to work with me to work on during slow periods. Still couldn't get it to boot properly. So last night I rebuilt the server. New drives, put into a software RAID 1 mirror. I still need to promote it to a domain controller and get my email up (which may be pointless soon, but more on that tonight), but most of the server is running correctly again. Sun Apr 13, 2008
So yesterday Jason and I went down 4-wheeling at the sand dunes. We took our time, and stopped at Rocky Mountain to pick some stuff up. Pulled into Oasis around 2 pm and unloaded. We headed out and started cruising. We were able to go pretty fast over most of the dunes. It just seemed like the razorbacks weren't really bad. Or we just picked some really good lines. We found one decent jump out by Oasis where I hit 30 feet. We went back, fueled up, and headed out to the mountain. We hit up the valley, and this time Jason beat me every time. It's gotta be those pounds I've put on.. :( I really need to get rid of them. Heading back out we found a nice little jump right next to the mountain. You didn't get tons of distance, maybe 25 feet, but it was smooth. Clean approach, transition, and landing. You couldn't overshoot it, or you'd land on the flat, but if you hit it right is was really smooth. We went searching for Jason's Jump (where he crashed a couple years ago), but there is nothing left of it. We continued and went around to the backside. Just cruised around mostly. One jump we've hit in the past looked decent, but I never did like it. Eric usually did though. I'm sure Eric could have easily hit 50 ft on it... Beba... maybe 70. It flattened out around 80 ft. We made our way back to Oasis, and I was beat. At first Jason was wanting to go out again, but after 10 minutes he decided against it. So we loaded up and came home. I am so freaking sore today! I can hardly move! It sucks bad. I guess that means I need to go more! My arms and shoulders are the worst areas. I think I'm ordering a steering stabilizer at the end of the month. Pictures are up here! Sat Mar 29, 2008
So in 3 days I lost 8 lbs! Woot! My secret... This nasty cold/flu/whateveritis that I have. It's pretty much sucked. It started Tuesday, I came home from work early, and immediately went to bed. I was fluctuating between hot and cold. My body couldn't stabilize. I had no energy at all. Thursday that pretty much stabilized, but then came the cough. Really nasty on Thursday, manageable since. But I did lose 8 lbs. (probably all water weight..) Tue Mar 11, 2008
So as some of you know I haven't been able to ride my bike on Kristi's trainer for the past 3 or so weeks. Well things have improved so today after work I got on the bike and started to ride. I AM SO OUT OF SHAPE! The route I chose was from my house, down Dimple Dell, then up to Wasatch, and back. It was the up part that killed me. This is no small hill. It's not as steep as some, but gets steeper gradually. At the top it just plain sucks. My legs turned to jelly! About 4/5ths of the way up there is a circle to one side. That was nice... I just went in there and kept pedaling on the flat to get my legs feeling better. As soon as they were better I continued my ascent. If it hadn't been for that detour there is no way I would have made it. It was definitely nice to get back out though. I'm still unsure about fast descents on that bike since the tires are so narrow. I'm just afraid of the loose stuff. Practice makes perfect! Mon Mar 10, 2008
So today an update was released for my phone. One of the major things it did was enable the built in GPS hardware inside the phone. This is really cool! So I fire up Google Maps, tell it to use the GPS, and it finds around 6 satellites and tells me where I am. It doesn't seem accurate enough for geocaching which is a shame, but it will work well enough for directions. Plus it is connected to the net so I can use maps, or aerial photos. Very cool. I still want to get a dedicated GPS, especially that I could mount to my quad. But geocaching would be fun too! So on Saturday Matt Kenseth won the Nationwide Series NASCAR race. That meant free fries today at Arbys! Mmmm... Free curly fries! Hope you went and had some at lunch! Thanks Matt! Sun Mar 02, 2008
Today we planned to skip caravaning, but would leave the condo at 7 am. Well I got up at 6. At 6:55 I knocked on Nick & Sarah's door. Fortunately they had gotten packed up the night before, so it didn't take us long to get out the door. We got to the track around 8:30, without any real problems with traffic. We all went up to the start/finish again for some pictures together, and to check out the stuff being set up. For a while we all just hung around, didn't really do anything, which I was fine with. 3 days of walking all over the place (The Strip on Thursday, then 2 days at the track), my feet were crying out for love! But we had to go meet the two guys with the pit passes, so we left. Nick and Sarah took the passes, and I totally spaced giving them my camera. They saw all the drivers as they headed to the driver meeting. Meanwhile the rest of us went out to the car and got some lunch. We then went back in, and got in our seats. We got Nick and Sarah to come to the front of pit road, and took some pictures of them. They made their way back, and it was time to race! I only left twice to hit the bathroom, but watched everything else. After the race was over, rather than spend more time in the cold (which was a huge difference from the day before), we booked to the car, and started to go. It took us about 30 minutes to hit the freeway, then we went straight up to St. George. Grabbed some Wendy's and hit the sack. So tired. The biggest thing about the whole experience was that it was brought down to earth more for me. You see this huge show, huge spectacle on TV, but when you're there, especially in the garage, it's just guys doing work. Same for the drivers as well. Very cool experience, and I'm totally glad I went! Sat Mar 01, 2008
(Note I'm correcting the date of this post, since there was a power outage that screwed up my server) Today we got up early, and met up with Nick’s parents at their hotel, then caravaned up to the track. We got there about 8 AM, and as soon as we did Nick and I took off running to get to the infield. We never got the chance to go in yesterday because the garage was “hot,” so we wanted to get in. We walked all the way around it, looking at the teams work on the cars in their garages. After 1 trip 3/4 of the way around the track Nick needed to use the bathroom. So we asked one of the dudes where we could go. He pointed us into the Neon Garage. Apparently our passes don’t allow access in there, so we used the opportunity. Chilled in “Victory Circle”, looked through the windows at crews working on the cars. It really was cool. Those Neon Garage passes are available for the public to buy for $130 for Saturday, and $150 for Sunday (Almost as much as our grandstand seats!!!). So we bailed out of the Neon Garage, and started walking down towards Jeff Gordon & Jeff Burton’s haulers. As soon as we got to Burton’s Nick noticed him standing there. It seemed like Burton noticed him too as he started to try to get away. ;) Nick did get him to sign his hat though. A few more haulers down was Gordon’s hauler. We waited there for quite a while. Steve Letarte came over, and I got a picture with him, and had him sign my hat. Shortly after that Chad Knaus cruised by us and got into the 48 hauler. We waited more, and I was able to get his autograph too. Still we waited for Jeff Gordon & Jimmie Johnson. They never showed, but their teammate Casey Mears did, and we both got his autograph. Eventually the garage went back to Hot for practice, so we had to leave. We met back up with Sarah and Nick's parents, where I gave the cold pass to Sarah, along with my camera. So while they went there I hung out with Nick's parents. We went up to our seats, and got ready for racing! Before the race started Nick and Sarah got back. I used earplugs at the beginning of the race, but actually started dozing off. We all got up to take a break around lap 50, and went out to the car to get some food. We got back about 75 laps later. Now I was wide awake. We watched the rest of the race, then chilled to let everyone out. I walked down to the start/finish line and got some pictures. After about an hour we went out to the cars. It took us about 1 hour to get to the south end of the strip. We met up with everyone else and ate at the buffet in Mandalay Bay. It was alright. Good salmon, crappy chicken marsala. Then we headed back to the condo, where we took a quick trip up to the roof where the pool is to check out the view. Very cool. More pictures under Nationwide Race Day! |
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09:30:49 pm, by 
