Rough weekend

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I've had better weekends to be sure. Girl troubles at the start, which I won't get into here. Then I lost one of my cats. I realized Friday night I hadn't really seen him all day, so I started looking around and he was nowhere to be found. My neighbor told me that she had seen a black cat running up the street a day or so before, so I don't know if he was running from something or towards something (or if it was even him). This was "my $600 kitty":http://feralboy.com/log/archives/001538/, so I'd assume he had a healthy fear of canines at this point. As of this morning, he still isn't back, and hasn't turned up in the "local shelters":http://found-pets.org/csbm.html or been seen by neighbors. Not holding out too much hope there. I just hope if something happened he didn't suffer too much. I picked up some fancy collars and tags for the other two, and I'm also considering making them indoor only cats again. But dammnit, they just started learning how to use the great big outdoor litterbox! To try and take my mind off of things, and get back more into my biking/climbing groove I tried to go for a club ride Saturday morning. I've never done anything like that before, but it seemed like a good way to get out there and get a little more motivated to put on some miles. I checked around on a bunch of websites, and found a club that left from a nearby park at 7 a.m. There were lots of cyclists there, but nobody seemed to be there for the club ride. I did see one group of riders that _might_ have been them, but they all had matching jerseys and super-fancy-ass Treks, so I didn't think that my grubby fixie and nut-hugger-shorts-under-regular-shorts-so-I-don't-look-like-a-dork would fit in too well, so I just let them ride on and decided to do my own club ride. I took a "nice long loop":http://tinyurl.com/bbah5 through some of the hillier sections around town, so it wound up being a really good ride in the end.

Now more than ever I'm looking forward to my Vegas trip. It's going to be nice and theraputic for me.

Insect stories

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I was watching an episode of "Wildboyz":http://www.mtv.com/onair/wildboyz/ the other day, and there was a skit where the guys went into a screened-in box, and let loose a beehive. They both got stung multiple times until they couldn't take it anymore, and then dove into a nearby stream to get away. It reminded me of two "hah-hah-funny-now-that-I-think-back" incidents that I had growing up. My "sister":http://commiescorner.blogspot.com/ and I would play outside a lot. We were on a nice chunk of land, with big rocks and trees and all sorts of other fun things; a veritable treasure trove of places to play for kids our age. We were out playing in the street, climbing up the roadway cut and goofing around. I was standing on a battered old piece of plywood laying on the ground, when I started to feel little hot jabs everywhere. Looking down I saw a swarm of insects around me, and I took off down the street yelling and screaming like Dick Cheney himself was after me. Burst into the house, tore up the stairs into the kitchen, where luckily both my mom and dad were there to assist. I very clearly remember standing in the middle of the kitchen lineoleum in my Underoos, with my parents and me holding ice cubes on every part of my body that we could all reach. I don't remember if it was yellowjackets or hornets, but I was stung about 13 times. I've given stinging insects a wide berth since then, and probably have only gotten stung once or twice more since then. I guess I save all my painful outdoor encounters "for cacti":http://feralboy.com/log/archives/001571/ now.

The other time was less painful and more funny. I was out playing in the dirt, as I was often wont to do. It got to be about dinner time, so I went inside to the 2nd floor bathroom, which was right next to my bedroom, to pee and wash up. As I stood there with my pants down I saw an ant crawling on my junk. I guess I had been playing near an ant nest, and a few had crawled up my pants leg. I was already mid-urination, and I couldn't quite stop it, so I was sort of trying to pause the flow, let the ant crawl down right to the tip, then start it back up again to blast him off the end. Of course I was wiggling all over the place as anyone with an ant on their penis would do, so all I really wound up doing was peeing on the toilet and the floor while doing the "truffle shuffle":http://imdb.com/title/tt0089218/. Good times.

Practice

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I think I had almost forgotten that "my sister":http://www.livejournal.com/users/fuzzyfruit/ and I had planned a trip out to Vegas this fall. I sort of panicked when I realized that the dates were almost here, so I now have flight, hotel and car reservations. I went budget all the way, since the hotel is only going to be for sleeping at night. We're staying at the "Golden Palm Casino":http://www.goldenpalmlv.com/, which I never even heard of before. (Apparently it used to be the HoJo's?) The purpose of our trip is two-fold: climbing and poker. With "Red Rocks":http://drtopo.com/nevada/redrocks.html just about a half hour away from downtown, the plan is to climb in the mornings, then head back to town to shower and hit up a cheap buffet for dinner. I expect it will be thoroughly exhausting and thoroughly enjoyable. I haven't been on a rope in months, so the next few weeks I actually need to start getting my ass to the gym; at the very least to do 4x4s to build up some semblance of endurance (and callouses). My sister has been out of practice too, with some issues that have kept her from climbing. We'll both be flailing our way up 5.9s and 5.10s, but apparently Red Rocks has them in abundance!

No excuses

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This whole "blogging" thing seems to have taken off lately. My "best friend":http://providencelife.blogspot.com/, "my sister":http://commiescorner.blogspot.com/, and "her very good friend":http://luggnut.blogspot.com/ (and also a friend of mine growing up) have all popped up with their very own in the last few weeks. If my mom starts a blog I will officially eat a hat. It's great to see these blogs; Ryan's especially. He just made a dramatic move from Philly to Providence (well, maybe it wasn't dramatic, but people in his life made it that way. I

More floor

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Work has been progressing pretty quickly on flooring. I finished up the master bedroom last night (working around the closet door track was a huge pain in the ass), then started on the infamous "blue room":http://www.flickr.com/photos/feralboy/9973819/. Rather than clearing that room out, I just started moving everything away from the one wall so I can get enough floor down to move stuff back over it. I did something similar in the master bedroom, and dancing around the furniture seemed to work out ok. However, in the blue room there's so much crap in there that it feels like the trash compactor scene from Star Wars; there's this big pile of stuff in the middle as the floor is edging closer. "One thing's for sure, we're all gonna be a lot thinner."

The beauty of all-wheel drive

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This morning I hopped in the car, as I was dangerously low on caffeinated beverages, and I've been putting in the OT at work lately, so my eyes were having a hard time staying open of their own volition. I get about 50 feet out of the driveway, when I realize that the car is pulling to the right, hard. I hop out and look... oh joy! my tire is flat! Run the car back into the driveway, and start sorting out my wrench/jack/spare situation. I'm just cracking the bolts when the pool guy shows up with one of those cigarette lighter compressors. Slap some air into the tire, and I'm off to the local tire shop to have them patch what should have been just a "minor screw hole":http://flickr.com/photos/feralboy/33187965/. Drop the car off, ride back on the fixie (whoops, forgot my shoes, so I did it in sandals, which was suprisingly un-sucky). Call comes about an hour and a half later, heat-ring something something, riding around while flat something something, and it can't be patched. Deep sigh.

"Ok, I guess you'll have to replace it then." "See, that's the thing of it. When you have all-wheel drive they all have to have roughly the same amount of wear, otherwise one tire spins more and you mess up your transmission and void the warranty." "Oh. Well, _that's_ fucked up."

So now I am the owner of 4 brand-new tires instead of 3 tires with 18,000 miles and one patched one. Difference of about $350, as near as I can tell. I wish I would have known; I could have done autocross this weekend on the old tires to really shred them.

Keeping busy

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Yesterday involved all kinds of house errands. First stop was at Gerson's, which is a pretty cool building supply surplus place. It's like a giant junkyard of building stuff, and you can find some really neat things there. I needed a replacement toilet tank lid for the guest house at "Paul and April's":http://apadventures.net. My cat had decided to break the old one by knocking a candle off the windowsill and catching the corner of the tank lid, shattering it. I had tried Gerson's once before, but the lid I had gotten didn't quite fit. This time they had the EXACT lid from the same manufacturer, so that was pretty awesome. Next stop was Lowes to pick up "a grill":http://www.lowes.com/lowes/lkn?action=productDetail&productId=41590-46487-GSF-2616&lpage=none. It was one that was very highly rated on Consumer Reports, and only $200, so how can you argue with that?

Finally, on the way back I stopped at a mexican pottery place to find out about getting a chimenea. I love the idea of having one of those in the backyard, especially for when it gets cooler. Plus, there's been lots of dead fronds coming off the various palm trees on the property, so that plus all the big cardboard boxes from grills and table saws means that I needed a makeshift incinerator! I didn't think I'd actually be getting one because I already had a huge box in the back; I just wanted to get an idea on prices. There was a very nice one there that was a little smaller, and only $45, so in the car it went.

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Getting back to the house, I realized there was no way I was going to be able to get the grill box in the house by myself. I had needed help getting it in the back at Lowes, and it certainly hadn't gotten any lighter. Whipped out my handy box cutter, and started unloading it a piece at a time, until I had gotten enough weight out that I could drag the main part (the housing , lid, etc.) inside. Assembly was pretty straighforward, and in about an hour I had a new grill!

After all that assemblin', I was pretty toasty, so I took my very first dip in the pool! I can't believe it's taken me this long to get the pool in swim-able shape, but it was a pretty nice feeling to go for a swim in MY pool.

Now it was time to get grill accessories! A quick trip to the local casino to get funds (heh... +$160 in 2 hours), then Target for grillin' tools. Neat example of knowing your target demographic; my new grill spatula has a bottle opener on the handle. Gas station to get a propane tank, a run to the grocery store to get some chicken, and I was cookin'. Next time I need to remember the non-stick spray. Oops.

I sat out on the back patio, watching a small fire in the chimenea, and eating my chicken and veggies. Then it was early to bed (exhausted!), and falling asleep to the sounds of a huge thunderstorm. A great day.

Layin' floors and stealin' cable

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Lots of action at the house over the last week or so. Last weekend The Great Floor Adventure began. I had picked up a saw earlier in the week, the boards had been sitting and getting used to the temperature and humidity, so it was time to get started. So far, it's going well. The "hallway":http://flickr.com/photos/feralboy/28404845/ is mostly done, and right now I've got about 3/4 of the one bedroom finished. The only tricky parts are going through "doorways":http://flickr.com/photos/feralboy/28404974/, and cutting the weird leftover bits for the short distance to a wall. Putting down the big boards in an open area is like nothing now. Long board, long board, measure the end, flip, cut, start the next row with the leftover piece. I'm hoping to maybe finish the one bedroom today. It's very satisfying to see the progress, especially considering how crappy/smelly the carpet that was there was!

In other house news, I got a random call from the cable company the other day. I figured they were going to ask why my "bandwidth usage":http://feralboy.com/log/archives/001523/ was so crazy, but it turns out they just wanted to offer me "free" cable? How's that? Well, they'd give me ultra-basic service for $10 a month, and take $10 off my internet bill. I asked the rep why they would do that, and he said (quite honestly, I think) "If you have more services with us, it makes it harder for you to leave." Fair enough. The antennae reception is crappy, so I figured why not? Contractor guy came, and said "Hey, you don't have a trap on your line, so when I flick it on, you're going to have extended basic. I won't tell anyone if you won't."

So now I'm enjoying about 100 channels of crap for free. I think I had forgotten how useless live TV was. My "beloved TiVo":http://feralboy.com/matt/tivo/ is still in storage, but the one problem with me plugging it in here is that I don't have a phone line in the house, so no way to call and get updates. Guess I'll have to bust open the cover again and add "Ethernet":http://www.9thtee.com/turbonet.htm support!

Flooring adventure!

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Last night Kim and I picked up 20 boxes of "wood laminate flooring":http://www.kronotexusa.com/flooring-details.asp?DecorNumber=D755 from a local building supply warehouse. At only $1.10 per sq foot, it was just about the cheapest price I've seen for this particular brand, either online or in a store. The 20 boxes and 5 rolls of "underlayment":http://www.goldcoastflooring.com/quietwalk.html just barely fit in the hoopty, so no need for 2 trips. I'm going to have to go back for more anyway... what we got yesterday will cover about 500 sq ft, and we're looking at doing somewhere around 1000 sq ft total. Carpet has been fully ripped up in one of the bedrooms, exposing the concrete subfloor. The boxes of flooring are laid out all over the house so they can get acclimated to the temperature/humidity of the house before I start "installing":http://www.kronotexusa.com/installclic2clic_lowes.asp. I'll be picking up a table saw with my gift card to Sears that I received from my lovely mother later on this week. This weekend I should actually be able to start putting planks down! I'm sure there will be lots of pictures, stories, and most of all cursing for you to read about.

Ajax = teh hotness!!11!!

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Well, I can't believe it's taken this long for me to start on a project using "Ajax":http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AJAX, but I finally got the opportunity with some new reporting changes at work. If you don't know what Ajax is you should just go read the Wikipedia entry above, but basically it's a way to make changes to a page without having to reload the whole page. Think "Flickr":http://flickr.com. Think "Gmail":http://gmail.com. The whole application that I work on deals with presentation of data in large chunks, so the ability to use this technology is going to make for a much better user experience. Plus, it's nice to be starting with something new. If there's anything I hate, it's feeling stagnant, which is why I try and do "side projects":http://feralboy.com/bsclient/ whenever I can, but I've been pretty busy with life lately, so not much time for side ventures.

One thing about Ajax is that it can be a pain to set up, and a pain to debug when things don't go perfectly. Thankfully people have already put out some "code libraries to help speed Ajax development":http://ajax.schwarz-interactive.de/vbnetsample/default.aspx, and Microsoft is going to be "including something":http://weblogs.asp.net/scottgu/archive/2005/06/28/416185.aspx in their next version of ASP.NET.

A year of repeats

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It looks as though Lance is on track to pick up his record TDF win. This should come as a suprise to no one; he's amazingly fit (with freakish lung capacity), and he's backed up by the best support riders, the best technology, and the best training methods. Another amazing repeat story is unfolding in Las Vegas this week, too. It's the Main Event in this year's "World Series of Poker":http://www.worldseriesofpoker.com/, and with only two more days and 27 players left, last year's champion Greg Raymer is starting today in fifth place with $3.8 million in chips. Other notables are "jailbird":http://www.bluffmagazine.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=69 Mike "The Mouth" Matusow in first place with $5.1 million, and Phil Ivey in second with $4.6M. Considering the huge field he had to wade through, it's simply incredible that Raymer is on the verge of another final table this year.

There was a lot of talk about the huge explosion in poker's popularity this year, and how every event was going to be a crapshoot with all these Internet qualifier donkeys, but it would seem that in most events the cream rose to the top, with many big names taking many big events, including both Doyle Brunson and Johnny Fucking Chan winning their record 10th WSOP bracelets.

I have no idea how the main event is going to finish up this year. Phil Ivey is the odds-on favorite (3-1), and Raymer is right behind him (5-1). Matusow is a volatile presence, so a final table involving all three pros would be something, indeed.

Keith Alexander

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I just saw "on Boing Boing":http://www.boingboing.net/2005/07/12/in_memoriam_keith_al.html that "Keith Alexander":http://www.nootrope.net/blog/index.html "died in a bike accident":http://www.zentastic.com/entries/200507121426.html yesterday in NYC. Probably very few of you know who he is, but he was a fairly legendary figure in the NYC body modification scene. After I had started getting into piercings after I turned 18, I had gone in to the now-defunct Gauntlet to get my septum pierced and get my navel pierced properly once and for all. I had attacked myself on at least 2 occasions with an ear gun trying to get a ring to stay in there, and small wonder, it wouldn't.

I was still a fairly poor college student at the time, so when they offered me a cheaper rate to have an apprentice piercer take care of me, I said "Sure!" Turns out that apprentice was Keith. He had just started recently, and was clearly a little bit nervous about making sure he didn't forget anything going over all the questions and precursor stuff with me. He was being helped by a beautiful blonde master piercer, and once we started marking dots and everything he slipped into his rhythm like he had been piercing people for 20 years.

It took him a little while to get the septum piercing lined up, so he had the needle inside my nostril, just tiiiickling me a tiny bit, and I was worried that I was going to sneeze and drive the needle through my brain. I was tempted to just yell "c'mon, just jam it through already", but I restrained, and finally was rewarded with the familiar pinch and slow spreading warmth.

Keith seemed to genuinely enjoy helping people with body modifications; clearly it was a passion of his, and he just wanted to share with the world. I was suprised and pleased to see a big post about his "massive koi tattoo":http://www.boingboing.net/2003/10/17/fullback_koi_tattoo_.html a few years ago, and pleased to find him blogging and very much in touch with the communities that he was interested in.

It's a sad day to lose someone who had such an interest in the world around them, and such a gift for making other people share that same interest.

Hot hot heat

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Today looks to be "the 28th day in a row":http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=397&e=5&u=/azstar/20050710/lo_azstar/26daysof100andcountingits10thlongeststreakbutfarfromtherecordof39daysin87 with 100+ temperatures. It's a dry heat and all, but there's no getting around that being out in the direct sunlight is like being in a blast furnace. I have to say, however, that when I was out east a week ago I realized what an oppressive force heat plus humidity can be. I don't miss that at all, and I was happy to escape back to my new hot, dry home state.