Dance Dance Thor

I believe I've started something... last time I was up in Monrovia, Anna and I showed Mom "Stepmania":http://www.stepmania.com. I mentioned that it could be set up on THOR, the "MythTV":http://www.mythtv.org based PVR that I built for them. Setup was pretty easy, they are on MythTV 18.1 with "Gentoo":http://gentoo.org underneith. So I emerged Stepmania, copied the songs into /usr/share/games/stepmania (make sure you get the permisions right, group needs to be games) and had MythTV scan for games (on the frontend under Utilities / Setup - Setup - Media Setttings - Game Settings) and made the XML file gamelist.xml under /usr/games:

       
               Stepmania
               /usr/games/bin/stepmania
               Dancing
               2006
       

The dancepad from ToysRUs and a USB adapter from Fry's where identified no problem. Go to Media Library - Play Games - All Games - PC - 2006 - Dancing - Stepmania. On the main Stepmania menu select Options, setup the dancepad keys under Config key/joy and Scan music. After that we where up and well...dancing. Very cool.

Tonsillectomies are no fun

People are starting to ask about me, so I thought I would do a post. Plus I didn't see many account of adults having their tonsils out on the blogoshere, and it would have been nice to know what it was all about. So here's were I'm at a week after my surgery. I'll try and come back and update more as I finish healing.

And on the 8th Day We Moved

We moved in 8 days. That's right, we went from 'We should move' to 'How do you like the new place' in 8 little days. It was nuts, but we made it. With my surgery pending and everything else that happens in December, we really didn't have time for a drawn out move anyway. We basically doubled the square footage of our place, added a roommate (it?s a 2 bedroom with a loft, flat-mate decided to take the loft). All and all we?re only upping the rent by $500 a month and we?re getting a lot more bang for that buck. Plus we?re only a mile away from the old place, still near the train station and for the first time in 4 years I don?t live right next to a freeway. Only real draw back to new pad is the parking really sucks here. So how did we pull of the move? Find out after the jump

Ask and Ye Shall Receive

Jamba Juice!
Just this last weekend I was telling my Dad that what we really needed was a Jamba Juice across the street from our appartment. The was a Juice Stop, but I never really liked there smoothies much. Just yesterday Anna calls me to say, guess what Juice Stop is gone and its going to be a Jamba. I went to investigate this morning, and they're already excepting applications. I'd totally work there if it wern't for this degree my parents spent so much on ;-) They definatly have at least two regular customers. I am well aware that I'm too excited about this, but hey its the little things that make life worth it.

Jury Dupty and the Doctors

I've been stuggling with my health for years. Turns out that at least some of that has been chronic tonsilitus. I've seen both my regular doc, Dr Augustino, who is excelent and a specialist. Both said that the tonsils need to come out and that I should do a sleep study to see if anything else needs doing. This means missing some work (I've already missed 2 days for doctors appointments) but it can't be helped. Its nice to know its not just me being a wose. I also had joury dupty last week. I have to say that the system worked really slick. The ladies running the jury pool really are a well oiled machine. I didn't get selected for Voi Dur so I was out of there by 1:30. All and all an excellent experianc, not to mention that the court was right near Fry's :-)

Dallas Trippen

I went on my first business trip two weeks ago. I feel like we were productive... We learned a lot about the tool Dimensions (which I can now say for sure is crap). However its what management want us to use so I stuck with it for now. Dallas it self was ok, nothing really to see, though my boss and I did visit the Dallas Museum of Art. The museum was worth while, I really like that they hold free evening hours every Thursday. I also saw the main dist center for Tuesday Morning (a discount chain) which was cool. Flying really makes me appreciate all the comforts of the train, but at least my flights where on time. Total loop count (number of circles made trying to find something) was 10... Not bad for 6 days. The funniest insident was Cindy and I hunting for the gas tank release on the Galant I rented. We spent maybe 15-20 minutes because it was obvious that it took a lever and didn't just open. I guess your supposed to figure out that it pivots like a secret door.
I'm trying to get orginised and post more... We'll see how that goes.

Camping for New Years

Well I've actually booked a camp ground for New Years! Details about the site (located near the apartment) can be found "here (ReserveAmerica)":http://www.reserveamerica.com/jsp/commonpage.jsp?goto=/usa/ca/sane/newindex.html and "here (California Parks)":http://www.parks.ca.gov/default.asp?page_id=662 . I really hope this turns out well. Guess I need to figure out exactly who's coming (two have RSVPd already) and what we need to bring. More later, theoretically I'm working ;-)

Why Ride the Train

I was reading this article and I realised that I totally do what he talks about wanting. I ride the train to get things done. A lot of people have questioned my sanity in taking an hour long train commute each day. However I get a lot done during this time. On the train there are no emails, no internet, no coworkers and no printers which break every hour (I have printers next to my cube and a lot of people have problems with them. The best is a coworker who begs and pleads then curses the heratige of a coworker, highly amusing =-) Now I'm not saying there are no distractions. For instance the other day the Red Hats invaded my train (not the Linux company; that would have been cool). So I ended up chatting with old ladies instead of working. But most days the only thing I have to do is get my ticket looked at, which takes about 5 seconds. Then I'm free to work, read my book, watch a movie, whatever I want. Its a good life =-)

Why You Lucky...

This morning, I really wanted to call in sick. I havn't been sleeping well this last week and I'm just run down from the rat race.
Once apon a time I was a pretty big gammer. Between video games, stratagy and roleplaying, well lets just say it ate up a lot of time and money. So I was pretty jelouse sitting there on the train this morning listening to people talk about going to E3. There have been groups going up to LA the last couple days. Each morning it gets a little more tempting to just head up with them and try to sneak in. It is a really good thing I was getting off the train when Spaz called to tell me where he was. All I can say is there better be good pictures =-). He's the second person to call me today telling me they are doing something cool while I trudge off to work. I have got to figure out a better balance between work, side projects and fun time. More than that I need to stop waisting my fun time trying to figure out what to do. *Sigh* At least I can say my projects are coming along pretty well now. my inventory system is just about designed, I just need to code it up and my web gallery is still in the prototype stage, but I'm learning a lot about rails in the process. Ok, enough for now, time to get back to work. Oh and I started writing again last night, but more about that soon...

Ready Steady GO!

Many of you have asked about my website. A select few had actually visited the thing before it went down last year. A LOT has happened since then. Items making the short list include, but are not limited to:
Graduation from college (2 attempts)
3 car accidents in 3 months
Moving to Solana Beach
Becoming a contractor (for a month ;-)
Going full time at ASP
Getting Engaged
In the last few months life has finally started to settle into a rythm. A hectic, I'll never get it all done kind of rythm, but a rythm none the less. So I'm back with a new blog, a new website and a fist full of new projects. Maybe I'll set up a poll about how long people bet it will last :-)