Who are you?

All the world's a stage and we are but mearly players.
-William Shakespere

I think Willy might be on to something. If all the world were a stage who would you play? The Hero? Comedic relief? Perhaps you'd be person #2 in restaurant.

I think my role would be set builder. Not because I like to build stuff but because it's integral to the play and no one sees who does it. No one really cares (with the exception of the director). The academy awards presented set designers their awards right next to their seat so that they wouldn't have to take the cameras off the beautiful people for more than 15 seconds and spend time waiting for them to get to the stage.

So, how about it? If all the world were a stage..who are you? who who; who who I REALLY WANNA KNOW! (dang CSI and the Who for that song)

Excuse me, while I kiss this guy..err, kiss the sky!

So yesterday I got back from California. As some people refer to it "The land that flows with Fruits and Nuts". My trip was very enlightening and over the next couple of blogs I'll be sharing some of the nuggets that I've come across.

When I first got to LA, I had to wait about 20 minutes for my close personal friend Cris to pick me up. Cris had timed himself perfectly to pick me up with one small exception. The pilot flying put the peddal to the metal and arrived 30 minutes early. I honestly didn't mind the wait, it allowed me to view something very peculiar at the airport..

Before I start, you should know that I like to watch people. I don't know why that is, I just find it interesting how people do things when they think they aern't being watched. Shayna is a little bit different, she likes to eavesdrop on other's conversations.

So anyway, while I was waiting I saw 4 people waiting for someone(s). 2 were an enderly couple, 2 were a younger (mid to late 30s) couple. They were obviously waiting for the same people. The younger lady visibly worried. Tears were in her eyes as passenger after passenger walked past her. Other people who were waiting though would have big smiles and get hugs and kisses as they met up with their family.

It's amazing to me how such strong emotions can occur within a few feet of eath other. On one side you have a lady who thinks maybe something happened to her daughter and st worried sick. On the other you have people rejoicing for seeing family again.

Down the hall you have people holding each other tight not wanting to let go as they leave for their plane. Right next to them people with a blank stare as they just try to get through the TSA security system.

The worried lady's family did finally come out the doorway. The look of relief showed in her whole body as she hugged either her daughter or neice and her sister. The only problem I guess with people watching is that you don't have the full story.

I don't know if anyone got to see Shayna and I reunite after our plane rides. Don't know if anyone even bothered to look. Everyone else was to busy looking for their own loved ones. It's just as well. A little privacy for a welcome home kiss is just what the doctor ordered after a long flight.

Excuse me, but your fox is on fire

At the request of my friend Chandler (whose name isn't really Chandler but he looks like the character from Friends) I tried the Firefox browser. I had tried it before when it was firebird or somelike that like that and wasn't too impressed.

I have tried it again and I have to admit it's pretty slick now. I'm a big fan of the Wizz RSS feed reader.

For the longest time I tried to get Shayna to use an RSS feed reader to handle her daily blogs. She doesn't like to change though. She's a creature of habit and that suits her fine. Once it was setup though, and she saw how easy it was to check all billion of the blogs she reads, she finally came around. I love my creature of habit..especially when that habit is to kiss me when I walk in the door.

No more details on that (which I'm sure you are all thankful for).

Next post will be something profound..like a link to a videogame or something. :-)

First Worms now fleas

Not nearly as difficult as worms, but certainly a lot of fun.. I bring you fleas

I love the 8 bit music too. Classic.

Wind of Change

I got an email from Alan Merton today regarding upcoming changes at the GMU campus. All I can say is..wow.

For those of you who know/attended Mason this will be interesting. For everyone else this will be mind numbingly boring so check out the links in the previous post.

When I left in 2k2 they were just about to begin on a new building for meeting spaces/tv station as well as more dorms. The dorms can easily be seen while driving on Braddock road at the corner of Braddock and Roberts Road.

The new development is called the Northeast Sector development and runs from SUB II, past Fenwick, past commonwealth & Dominion and ending at Patriot Circle where Lot G & F meet. Here is a picture (it's large so be patient):

As you can see this is going to go right in front of Essex (my old dorm), through the woods and end at the parking lot. I don't know how I feel about this. Part of me wishes that I would be a student in 2k7/2k8 when it's finished. It looks like it would be fun! Part of me is sad because I know that area and it seems like every place where you can stick a building in this county..they stick one.

The proposed buildings are a new dining hall, a fitness center (yes another one. This will make 4 buildings that deal with fitness), and 4 dorms that will have a total of 1000 beds. For more info you can go here.

I've got a fever, and the only prescription is more links!

My Mother-in-law could use this

Space worms..because no one should be able to get past level 2.

What a difference airbrushing makes

FlashEarth. Google Earth/MSN Earth, all in Flash format. Pretty nifty

sorry about the HTML and boy is my wife great

Sorry about the poorly formated HTML. Apparently if you have a word long enough in the title of your post, it will move all the stuff in the navigation pane to the very bottom of your blog. Such is life.

Last night we had our combined small group. It was a lot of fun having others there with us. After our bible study (shout out to Mike) we went over to Whitlows. (shout out to Andy for the suggestion) Nice little restaurant. I wouldn't mind going back.

Yesterday was also a day that made me take a look back at why my wife is so awesome. While at Whitlows, Rachel (shout outs to Rachel AND Christine for making the initial appearances at small group) asked about how Shayna and I met. We told the whole story about how Shayna quasi stalked me, how I made sure she was "worthy" of me, and how God has interacted throughout our relationship. I knew all this stuff before of course, but it's always nice to go back and revisit every once in a while. If you haven't heard the story and don't feel like waiting for us to tell it to you, you can go here.

Yesterday I also had a disturbing dream. I had always heard that when you die in your dreams you die in real life. Well, that isn't really the case, but dieing in your dreams is not fun. I've forgotten most of it, but basically I was with this gang and we were going to kill some others. I backed out at the last minute and waited in the car. My gang got slaughtered and then they came after me. I looked out the car and saw a man with a rocket launcher pointed right at me. I resigned myself to the fact that I was going to die and just sat there and waited for the missle to land. After that I wondered around, but there was no one anywhere. I found sneaky (our cat) but he was afraid of me and kept hissing at me (I think because I was a ghost). Throughout the dream I wasn't really sad or anything except at the very end. I found Shayna and it was her birthday. Everyone was there for her party giving her gifts and such but she was sitting by her self looking lonely. I walk up to her and tell her that I lost my ATM card and that she should take out some money to get herself something for me (Ghosts don't carry ATM cards). She started to cry and said that she couldn't because there wasn't anything left. She had to take off so much work off because of my death.

It's a stupid dream, but it shook me up Sunday morning. The thought of hurting Shayna in any ways pains me so much. I can't imagine my life without her and it made me sad to see how she was without me. I guess we'll either have to life forever, or die together in our sleep.

Alrighty, enough mushy talk. Next post will be on fantasy football or how much I love spaghetti (shout out to Pop-Pop for the secret family recipie)

I hate Mondays

Last week I had a Hard Drive go down. This week a hard drive at the DNS goes down so we lose our site.

Normally Monday's aern't like this..must be August I hate.

Ohhhhhhhhhhhh Fuuuudddggggggggeeeee

Ever seen the movie Christmas Story? Remember the part where the kid says ohhhhh fuuuuuudddgggeeeee when his dad knocks the lugnuts out of his hand? Ever have one of those moments? I had one today.

I walk into the office today, oblivious to how my future is going to turn out. I reach my office and the CEO (a very nice lady) says "Is that Carl?"
I answer yes.
"Zeus is down"

Ah well, such thing in life happen. I'll just go to the server closet and restart. Everything will be fine. I reach the closet and see the machine. A poor sickly machine. The hard drive light is solid. The screen is blank. The computer Gods laugh as they see what I start to realize. Hard Drive problems.

I restart the server. The windows splash screen comes up then goes blank. Somewhere, someone just got struck by lightning. I wish it was me. I quickly take the server out of the rack and take it to my desk. A haven for fixing computers. I can more easily diaganose the problem there..

The server is now sitting on my workbench. I start it up. The windows splash screen comes up once more. It disappears and I listen to the hard drive. No horrible clacking..although it is running loud. After a minute or two the login screen appears. I log in and while it is slow it does work. I go to the event viewer to see what has happened between 7:30 am and 4 pm last night. Lots of red Xs. All of them say device/harddisk1/ has a bad sector. This bad..very bad.

Nothing horrid though. Just run checkdisk and have it mark off the bad sectors. I'll call dell and get a new drive. Everything will be fine. It goes through the first diagnostic fine. The diagnostic where it actually checks the surface of the drive is a different story. It stays on the first part for 30 minutes. The percentage is still at 0. The outlook is gloomy.

Ok, I'll run the operating CD and use the recovery console. Perhaps the windows version doesn't work, but the DOS version must! I put in the CD and boot. It goes through the normal screens. Hit F6 if you need to install a 3rd party RAID device. drivers loading..drivers loading. F2 for automated system recovery. This is not normal, but I don't want to recover the system so I just sit and wait. I'll be given some options soon.

Now it starts to check for previous versions of windows. Normally it does this when I'm about to install. Oh well, I've never used this disc before. Perhaps it's a little different.

Copying files to system installation folder. Now THAT'S a screen I know I see when I'm installing. But it couldn't possibly be installing. I didn't hit F2. There's no automated recovery.

System reboots on it's own.

OOOOOOhhhhhhhhh Fuuuuuuuudddddddgggggggeeeeee

I have just formatted (aka erased) and installed a fresh copy of the operating system. My heart sinks, my hands tremble I scream NOOOO! It's to late though..it's starting configuration screens (all by itself I might add).

I reset again and find 2 different installations. One incomplete and one my original. Thankfully nothing is overwritten. I call Frank to help me out. I'm going to need to put the data on a different server.

Fast forward to 1:30 pm. Everything is setup on the backup server. Called dell..they agree it's the drive..one will be here tomorrow. It's been a long day. I want to go home and snuggle up next to my wife.

Why Politics Suck(s)

It stinks to live in the DC Metro area. Everyone here has an opinion on pretty much everything. Right disagrees with left, left disagrees with right. Honestly, if it were possible I would register as a DC (that's Don't Care). As it stands I'm a registered republican because my grandfather registered for me, and the only reason why I vote is because my wife wants me to (but I'm slowly working her towards my way of thinking)

One of the things that irritates me the most is people who dislike the electoral college. They want a pure populare vote which to me is incredible stupid. Here's why:
MTV and tons of other media outlets try and get everyone to vote. More people vote and then more of the people's voice is heard. Here's the problem. People are retarded! Do you really want an 18 year old boy voting for president? He'll probably vote for Bush to see more pics of his drunk daughters at a college frat. He might vote democrat to see what further sex scandel can take place in the white house. Should his vote matter as much as the person who really cares? Of course not! I honestly voted for John Elway to be president. You want THAT to be equal with everyone else's vote?? (shout out to Elise..how many times have you visited people's blogs today?)

I couldn't care less who wins the elections. Politicians all promise that they will change things for the better. How do they know that they can do that? The president has no impact on how the economy is doing. Congress has no impact on it. So who does? The federal reserve..you know, the people who make the money!!

To all the people who are pro-life/pro-choice. You have it all wrong. Your body, your choice? That's total bunk. The Gov't chooses what's best for you. That's what it's there for. Don't believe me? Try driving 80 in a 65 and see what that gets you. While you are at it, carry some crack. Your body right? Some people say Jesus would be pro-life. Jesus wouldn't be pro-life. He's be pro-don't have premarital sex and get pregnant dummy!

For those of you who live in the DC area. Join me in my crusade. When people start to talk politics..just zone out and play Mario Brothers in your head (Sam, this doesn't apply to you..you might never come back).

I fought the law, and the law took me over it's knee, spanked me and screamed "WHO'S YOUR DADDY!"

On Thursday and Friday Shayna and were in VA Beach. We decided to take a two day mini vacation and it was a lot of fun. We spent a couple hours at the beach, ate at Sonic, went to the VA aquarium and overall just had a relaxing time.

We found over the two weekdays that traffic is pretty horrid in VA Beach. A lot of times you will be cruising along and suddenly have to slam your brakes. As we were exiting the tunnel, someone from the right lane decided to stop to try and make a u-turn. I thought for sure we were gonners.

On the way home traffic was pretty bad as well. It was slow for no discernable reason (commonplace in Northern VA). As it opened up, I got into the HOV-2 lane and started cruising. I start to space out a little and didn't pay attention to my speed. Next thing I know I pass a cop, I look down and I see I'm cruising at 80. Naturally the cop pulls me over. (shout out to the cop..if your reading this)

So I get a ticket. 79 in a 65. Most people, when they receive a ticket, are upset at the officer. They feel that the officer should be out getting criminals or real law breakers. It's just a speeding ticket. There are rapists, murders, and politicians to catch. I don't feel that way though. The way I see it, I'm just as much a law breaker as those other people. Sure my penalty is not as stiff, but that doesn't change the fact that I endangered not only myself, but my wife and other drivers as I sped along the highway.

Perhaps I'm a goody goody, or maybe I read James to much. People have been rationalizing laws since the begining of time. That if you lie and have to pay 1 pigion it's not as bad as killing which is worth a goat. James makes it clear though that to God, there are no different penalties. If your guilty, the fine is that you don't get to be with him. I think it's important to remember that whenever we tell "little white lies" or take a pen from the bank.

I'm now a "bad boy" as Bryant would put it. All the girls will be after me. Sorry ladies, I already got a great one.

Good thing I have a good getaway car.

If you keep that up, one day your teeth will fall out!

Shayna and I went to the dentist yesterday. It was an interesting trip. Dr. Kenneth Gregory is a good dentist. He's funny, explains things well, and overall a nice guy. He's going to keep my teeth in my head which is an added plus.

I won't go into to much detail on Shayna's visit other than she had more cavities than me (I had none) which is funny because if you know Shayna you know that she takes extremely good care of her teeth. She brushes every day and flosses if not everyday then every other day. I just recently started flossing more than twice a month. The doc says I have some of the strongest teeth he's seen. However, my visit wasn't completely rosey. I have periodontal disease.

Apparently it's a problem with my gums. The plaque has gotten into them and if I don't have it taken care of, it will eat away at the bone holding my massivly strong teeth in place. While he's poking and prodding around it makes me realize how this relates to God (I'm sure this will make sense to none of you) (shout out to H.Dixon by the way if you've gotten this far). Satan can tempt you and cause you to sin. When he succeeds these would be the cavaties that need to be fixed by the dentist. But if he doesn't succeed, he'll keep attacking..only this time he'll try and shake you from God (I guess the bone).

You know looking back this post isn't very good. I had a point yesterday morning when I started it but then tons of work came in and I didn't get back to it until this morning. At least it's an update (shout out to my wife, she's so great!)!

In football news, the first preseason games are this weekend. Hall of Fame game first and then a monday night game. 2 more days..tick tock tick tock.