Ash the Mighty

Ah the 3rd shift . . . of hell

Don’t get me wrong, the new job is really quite enjoyable thus far. I dig learning new things and I feel like all the things that I’ve been blindly stumbling about trying to figure out on my own for the past two plus years are finally getting explained to me in a nice and comprehensible fashion. In fact, during training one of my classmates commented that in one day of intense Linux server training we learned more than he did in an entire semester of classes on the subject. Pretty swank!

And for the record, I can now get an entire website up and running on either a Linux or Windows based box without the use of a control panel in about 5 minutes flat. This is something that I tried doing on my own a couple of times and never quite got right. Again, pretty swank.

All that said, this new gig is not without it’s downside . . . namely third shift. More specifically third power shift. What is power shift, you ask? Well, I was on a modified power shift before. It means that you work four 10 hour days rather than five 8 hour days. On my old, modified shift this was AWESOME because it meant I worked Monday through Thursday and got Friday through Sunday off. Well, that was an extremely rare shift. As in only one in the whole company. Much more common is the Friday through Sunday shift. Like I said, and 3rd shift. So I work from 7:30pm to 6am Friday, Saturday, Sunday, and Monday; leaving me part of Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday off.

I’m sure I’ll get used to it eventually, but in the mean time, I’ve become a bit of a shutin with no sense of time whatsoever. I have basically tried to stay on the same schedule but that’s not gone entirely as planned. I’ve also watched pretty much every show that my TiVo had recorded for me AND a fair amount of Netflix Instant Queue stuff. So basically what I’m saying is that I’ve got the worst of both worlds. I not only have to work a horrible shift that puts me at odds with everyone I know, I ALSO have opposite days off from everyone in the known universe.

Wheeeeee isolation!

Slainte.
~A.

Oh Alright . . . (4 Things)

I was tagged and Mandi threatened to hit me . . . and I’m a little afraid of her, so here we go.

Four jobs I’ve had

1. Harkins Theater bitch
2. Bookstore clerk
3. Bouncer (sorry, Door Steward)
4. General purpose tech guy

Four movies I can watch over and over

1. Super Troopers
2. The Princess Bride
3. Snatch
4. Better Off Dead

Four places I’ve lived

1. Mesa, AZ
2. Denver, CO
3. Tucson, AZ
4. Glasgow, Scotland

Four TV shows I love

1. Burn Notice
2. Firefly
3. Heroes
4. South Park

Four places I’ve vacationed

1. Rome, Italy
2. Paris, France
3. San Diego, California
4. Princeville (Kaua’i), Hawai’i

Four of my favorite dishes

1. Chicken Fettuccine Alfredo
2. BBQ Pizza
3. A really great bacon cheeseburger
4. Poached Eggs

Four sites I visit daily

1. wwtdd.com
2. Woot.com
3. Engadget.com
4. Lifehacker.com

Four places I would rather be right now

1. Colorado Springs, CO
2. Kaua’i, Hawai’i
3. Glasgow, Scotland
4. Prague, Czech Republic

Four bloggers I am tagging

Skipping this part. You wanna take part? You do that!!

An observation.

Yes, yes. I read some celebrity gossip websites. And by “some” I mean “one.” What Would Tyler Durden Do? is too amusing to pass up. The author is hilarious and for once doesn’t take himself or his subject matter too seriously.

That’s point one. Point two is that on Monday I got back from Hawai’i. After a six hour flight (of which I am terrified), a seven hour delay (which upset me greatly), and a loss of three hours to time change (which just generally sucks), I wasn’t really in a position to enjoy much in the world. That did not stop me from going to see The Dark Knight, however. Since then many people have asked me what I thought. I’ve not known what to say. I was exhausted. The movie was interminable. And the knowledge that I was watching the last thing one of my favourite actors would ever do was incredibly depressing to me (not the least of which because he was 28 when he died from irresponsible use of perfectly legal drugs, which is scary to any 28 year old who is on a lot of perfectly legal drugs from various doctors).

ANYWAY. The point to all this is this link, wherein the author sums up his thoughts about Mr. Ledger’s performance quite succinctly and in a minimum of words.

After having read this short article, I no longer am on the fence about the movie. It was FUCKING AWESOME and I want to go punch some of the no-talent ass-clowns that Hollywood calls actors in the face.

Just sharing.

~A.

I don’t condone cruelty to animals, but . . .

. . . I’m considering taking up voodoo. Kauai has chickens. Lots of them. Theories abound as to why (YouTube of some jackass feeding some) but in all likelihood they are so plentiful because Hurricane Iniki destroyed their chicken coups back in 1992 and no one was able to round them all up. They’ve been able to multiply so prodigiously because their only real predator is the automobile as the damned things go wandering across streets without a care in the world.

So the point of this whole story is that there are hens and roosters all over this damned island including right outside my hotel room. And those of us who were lucky enough to have been born and raised in the city are suprised to learn that roosters crow whenever they damned well feel like it. Day, night, whenever. All I can say is that the Colonel did this country a favour when he started reducing the chicken population and Baron Samedi (linky)is a really under-appreciated demi-diety!

~Ash.

Kauai’i!

Aloha!

Oh come on. You had to know I’d start with that. Well here we are, about half way through our little vacation, and we’re having a FANTASTIC time! It really has been amazing. The flight was just as miserable as anyone who is afraid to fly and has shoulders the size of Atlas could ask for, but that was over with relatively quickly and when we got here we rented two cars. I’m driving a (relatively) sporty red Grand Am, and my Dad is in a granny-car Impala. Surely the Gods are pleased with me. Not too pleased however because They then gave me Mom as a navigator. We tried to go to Duke’s for a quick drink which is in Lihue, the town which has the airport, and yet somehow we ended up in Kapa’a which is almost a third of the way around the island in the wrong direction. This is not as bad as it sounds however, as it turns out that the entire Island of Kaua’i is about 552 square miles. To put it in perspective, Metropolitan Phoenix only is 517 square miles.

Anyway. We figured it out eventually and drinkies were had. We then made it to the hotel which is pretty much at 12 noon on the clock which is Kaua’i. Monday was a beach day, so we went to Princeville Resort (which was once part of Club Med back in the day) and hung on their beach. Oceans that are warm enough to swim in are awesome when it’s been well over half a decade. We have all been a little anal about sunscreen so nobody got too badly burned, though Amy has an interesting pattern on her shoulder where Nate must’ve just kindof given it a swipe.

Then yesterday was an all effing day tour of the island. It was interesting and all but it was in a big van with about 15 people and it was just entirely too long. That said, I currently have, minus about 200 images that I’m going to stitch into a panoramic, about 125 photos that you can view here. Feel free to browse at your leisure. These are all just from me and Bessie. They’re not counting what Amy and Nate and Mom and Dad have taken with their cameras MUCH LESS what Alanta has taken with Bessie Sr. or her point and click! In short, we’re are the slide show people from hell!

Today we’re staying close to the hotel and doing the pool thing. I’m back at the room to do the photos and to check my email which I’ve been doing compulsively all week. The reason? Because I interviewed two weeks ago for a new gig at GD and I was supposed to hear this week . . . and I just did! Yep, you heard it here first folks. I just got a new job as a Server Support (Jr. Admin) with GD. Yay me! Now I should really go tell the fam . . .

Have a great one, guys!

~A.

Damn!

Holy crapmonkies! SlingBox is quite possibly the coolest thing ever. Picked one up off of Woot a couple of weeks ago and just got around to hooking it up in time for me to go to Hawaii. For those not familiar, basically I hook it up to my Blooka (aka, TiVo) and it allows me to remotely access it (including saved shows) via my lappy from anywhere on the interwebz. Of course with my luck there’s a gaping security hole and I’m gonna get hacked or something just by announcing this, but whatevs. It’s too cool to pass up! I can be watching my Burn Notices, L&O: CIs, and My Boyses all from the beach or what have you!

Sad, I know, that I’m excited about watching telly in paradise, but do you really expect any less from me?!

~A.

Wheee.

Gots me my iPhone 3G. Yes it involved me getting up at 6am and standing in line for in excess of an hour and a half for the AT&T store to open so that I could be lucky Number 13 to get my grubby little paws on one. Of course this did me little good since it wasn’t until about noon that I could make the Apple servers active the damned thing, but at least I had one. Apparently the early-to-rise attitude was absolutely worth it since at about 8:30 pm when I went past the Apple store at a different mall there were literally dozens of bored-yet-desperate looking entirely-too-hip-for-their-own-good Mac people standing in line hoping that the store wouldn’t run out of units. I laughed at them (yes, literally. And yes, I am going to hell) as I sauntered into the store to buy a new hard plastic case for my new acquisition in hopes that I don’t break this one as easily as I damaged it’s predecessor. Ash is very hard on his technology. Because Ash is an overgrown child. Who apparently talks in the third person.

The holdup in getting a working phone caused very little to get done today (after the thing finally activated, of course it took for damned EVER to sync, etc), so I’ve now got to run several errands tomorrow AND pack AND get my living room ready to be torn apart while I’m out of town (oh yeah, my ceiling is getting replaced due to a crack in the drywall. Takes four days so they’re doing it while I’m out of town rather than have to live through THAT nightmare. Risky, I know, but seriously . . . what do I REALLY have worth stealing besides a TV and a PS3?). So the long and short of it is that I should really stop rambling/messing around with the iPhone and just go to bed.

Fine. Be that way.

But I will give some real first impressions of the 3G tomorrow when I’ve had a chance to play with all the new features . . .

Caio.

~A.

One more day!

One more day of my PIP (don’t get me started, but definitely a “WOOT!”-worthy item).

One more day of work before a whole week of vacation (spent in Hawaii no less!!).

One more day until the iPhone 3G comes out (which I will be [hopefully] getting!).

And finally (and most silly) . . . One more day until HellBoy II comes out! I’m probably one of about 15 people who saw the first one, but I thought it was freakin’ awesome (and Ron Pearlman is the most kick-ass gay man ever) so bring on more of the Big Red.

That is all.

~A.