Alkalol...don't drink it.

The Alkalol company makes this wonderful product. You don't drink it, but you can gargle and do a saline nose wash with it. Gross huh? :)

Well it isn't nearly as gross as the sinus infections I'm prone to up here in metro DC. Ick. This alkalol *dissolves* mucus. I know - fun for the whole family. Next time you have a cold that is lodged in your head and things are too thick try this stuff. I haven't seen it in the big drug stores, but it has been around for awhile. At least now it seems you can find it online at places like Amazon (Alkalol Mucus Solvent Topical Liquid - 16-oz. Bottle)

Where I've bean?

I've been busy living life and not updating my blog. Which is more important?



I sometimes wonder about the usefulness of the blog. My friend Mike expressed the same concerns that I have, that is a blog is full of useless information that seems awefully contrived and self-centered. I enjoy it because I can look back upon the writings and remember where I was and what I was feeling. It helps me remember and makes me happy. Sometimes people mention to me things I've written and it gives me reason to speak to friends or strangers about a common experience. Sometimes it gives me reason to reflect upon my buddhist studies and cultivate inner peace and avoid anger and attachment.



Happiness is what it is all about, isn't it?

I'm back?

Well, got a little bit of Pennsic this past weekend. It was fun for a two day event, but I think just one more day would have worked better. I didn't get to see enough of my friend Crystal and also would have liked to browse the merchants some more. I wish the drive wasn't so long.



Camping wasn't bad - although a bit cold. I had a double air bed blowup matress that as basically two layers of air matress on one. I would have liked to have had a real firepit but didn't get the wood and settled on a small grill with charcoal. It was hot enough thanks the the fire priestess (thanks Crystal!)



And we might have a new clan: Clan Noshame is born!

I'm still on vacation.

Whew! Just heading back from Seattle, WA. Sitting in the airport now - wishing I was home already. The mountains were beautiful - wish I could hole up in isolation for a week, but a day was good enough. Enjoying a new book "Meditations on the Path to Enlightenment" which I'm hopful will help me further along the right path.



I look forward to seeing my children and friends back home.

Ack. Ick. Phbbttt. Hack.

Squeemish readers please avoid!



I wanna die - my sinuses are killing me. Woke up not wanting to move or wake up, then coughing and puking up all sorts of sinus evil. It is the blood that scares you most! Auggh! Auggh! And the blood vessels in my eyeballs seem to have ruptured from all the puking. Ouch - feels like thumbs on my eyeballs. Fever anyone?



Did I mention I was supposed to be working on a major presenetation of the status of our program with my co-workers today? It took me ten minutes to type this entry. I can hardly focus. I'm gonna set the clock for an hour and have a lie-down. I *HATE* being sick.

What I do

I'm going against the grain. Up to now, I've been testing web pages with JAWS for Windows and determining where the Section 508 guidelines require certain techniques. I've started trying to prioritize and build statistics on how likely web content is to be inaccessibile. Things like Frames top the list and depreciated HTML are towards the bottom of the list. I hope this statistical approach (maybe just 'data driven' or 'metrics' approach is better?) will also become a *process* that can be used by non-technical staff to help determine which EIT is most likely to be at risk and target manual assessments on these high-risk items.



I started this because I had to review a 1500+ web page site - try that with JAWS! Eeek. I also want to use publicly available (freely available open source) tools and create publicly available tools and an open process that can be used by other agencies or groups at no direct costs. It will either be a complete failure or a new way of doing assessments!

No Respect & A Movie

Went and saw a midnight showing of Spiderman 2. Summary: It rocked! Better than the first one.



The bummer was the theater decided to turn off the air conditioning around 12:30ish. A theater full of geeky bodies in the heat. Use your imagination. Ok, don't if you are eating.



The real problem was *35 minutes* of commercial bullshiite. I'm not going to put up with it anymore. I'm going to demand they tell me when the movie REALLY starts so I can sit outside. Damn if I want to be a captive audience. I'm sure some marketing dweeb is thinking they have all they could want and it will only get better. They keep it up and I'll start splicing nudes into the snow white films ;)

Bluaugh!

I SLEEP NOW! (I still have my skeleton!) I'm tired. Couldn't sleep and ended up with 2.5 hours of sleep total. I wish I didn't need sleep.



Found out paint does not always dry inside of 7 days - 6 weeks! Ack! A month and a half of no wiping and no cleaning - who would have known? All the paints I had growing up were damn near impervious to indelible ink pens inside of an hour. Maybe it was just my parents were smart and encountered this same problem well before I paid attention to it.



Thinking of Dodging beer and watching Dodgeball! tonight.

Government? Cluster!

Heard on Metro: "With the government alert on domestic terror AND
upcoming events in the area.." they make it seem like a government
planned event. Huh. Maybe it is? ;)
--On the way home

Perchance to dream...

Ah, I purchased another Shadowrun Figure at the Game Parlor in Woodbridge yesterday. I promised myself I would start gaming more. I miss gaming but don't have the time.



I am hoping my fascination and purchase of the figures will remind me to stop and play. I also enjoy the figures themselves. They are well done pieces of art that remind me of fantasy gaming and past fun with friends. While at the gaming store I also realized I don't have enough dice ;)

WoW WOW

I saw more pictures of World Of Worldcraft (WoW), this time of Player vs. Player (pvp) combat. I can't wait for this thing to come out and my productivity and sleep levels to go down the tubes!



On another note, I cancelled my Final Fantasy XI account. The game just isn't all that, introductory piece is annoying an not educational about the game, and it really is designed as a controller based PS2 game. The keyboard button config tool was horrible and the navigator interface you went through before playing the game was painful too. Sigh.



--Saardek

Ack.

Well I was sick on Monday. I hate feeling tired and miserable. I went to work on Tuesday and it was so hot and sticky outside I thought I had developed another fever. Icky icky icky.



I played some FF11 last night. I still don't like the interface. The login process interface sucks - hey, I *have* a computer. I understand PS2 users need the interface to check email and board info, but the interface is not only non traditional it sucks. Example: you have messages - choose check messages. Wouldn't it be easier to automatically display them on logon? They already made gross assumptions about the interface and user interaction..it wouldn't be unexpected. They also make you go through several screens just to play the game! Bastards! I understand it may be PS2 focused for development, but you released a *Windows* version (I play games on windows and it won't run on my preferred Linux system(s)). This PS2 concept also fails to properly address keyboard and gamepad configuration. All and all I think this game was money wasted. I'll probably cancel before renewal next month.



--late while on the train to work.

Pumpin' the Cathedral

Jeeze, it is so hard not be cynical when they keep shoving crap at you. Just watching the ceremonies for Reagan and they keep panning into and out of the cathedral. It feels like a sex shot or something.



Now you can say I'm wrong for mentioning it, but it is such a farce that they want to pay respects when they are really off hoaring for ratings. Belittles the whole event if you ask me.

Pitiful Worm Baby!

Went out and enjoyed a beer with a friend last night. It was fun to BS and commiserize over a drink and watch all the people.



I still find I don't like the smoke - it is one of the things that makes going out unpleasant - but we got out early before it was too thick.



Since Friday might be a government holiday, and my offices are closed, I might go to the midnight showing of Riddick on Thursday night, er, I mean 00:01 Friday.



Was planning to go home to NC this weekend but Mom & Pop are away until Saturday night and I wanted to bring the girls to see them. Guess we'll wait another week or two. Perhaps we'll get Invader Zim DVD and watch that instead.



--I demand piggies!

XPeed-off

Well, looky here. Seems XP decided I didn't really want to look at the dial-up connection I was using. I can't see it under network connections this morning. It is still there because when I don't give it a network connection it starts the dial-up dialog but I can't see the actual network settings - nor the connection box in the taskbar.



Go figure.

It's the little things.

I had a shower and bathroom without having to leave the house this morning and it was WONDERFUL! You don't know. Really - yet another thing we take for granted.



I've tried to thing of other things we take for granted and it is an interesting mental exercise. What could you not live without?

Fingers (and legs) crossed...

Here's hoping we have a functional bathroom today. Here's planning; I'm stopping by the gym on the way home. ;)



Feeling: dehydrated and late.

That was a long weekend?!?

Where did it go?! I still don't have a bathroom (grrr...) And we found the shower valve needs to be replaced to use the new shiny handles...after the tile is in. I primed two walls for paint. I also was pissy from being tired and the weather getting sticky. I think I almost bit Anthony's head off. (Sorry A!)



On happier news, I was able to log in and download the Vendetta (www.vendetta-online.com) client and set it running on my laptop. I'm going to setup the other computers with it too..one with linux and another on Win2K.

--I'm on the train headed to work.

Dammit, dammit, dammit

Forgot my wallet today. Irks me to no end. Now I'm scrounging through the bottom of my backpack and hoping I have enough change in the truck.

OK, I'm Gildas...what's a Gildas?

My friend Arthur asked me the significance of my alias "Gildas Talmadge".



Funny how the obvious sometimes isn't!



I was in the Society for Creative Anachronism (SCA) and as part of the roleplaying you create an alternate personality, or persona. This persona should be (roughly) around the times of the middle ages. (OK, you Period Nazi's go away, this is a brief summation!) I was going historical research for an appropriate (also known as 'period') name and came across stories and information about Saint Gildas, one of the first historians attributed to writing (among other things) the Knights of the Round Table, King Arthur, etc. Being fascinated with the history and idea that a real person wrote history regarding something that is so often considered fantasy, I instantly decided it was a good name that had *meaning* to me.



The Talmadge comes from my distant relative. I always liked the sound of it and it had a period sound to it. Combine the two and you have the other me!



So there you go, how my alias came to be.n

Me Mine Not Yours

I somehow found time to update my website entry page. Still don't have the database up and some links are down but I'm making progress!



You can see my online web content over at www.personaldaemon.com - feel free to stop by.

I tire of construction details!

Just finished levelling the dimmers in the bathroom. I think the box was moved when the drywall was placed on it and shifted. I did the electrical work and I placed the boxes in the same location as they were before but it seems that was about half an inch too far back. The drywall guys simply cut out the spaces and happily spackled and patched looking at light switched recessed half an inch in the wall. Supposedly one of them has been doing this for 15 years. Wow. Fifteen years of screwing people over because of lack of attention to detail. Go figure.

Open Format or brilliant Bittorrent Client?

I was downloading the latest SuSE CDROM .iso images with GetRight! and had to close down to go home. I had about 300M worth of data.



I installed a fresh copy of GetRight! into Mozilla and tried to resume download but it was slooooow. Noticing I was getting nice download speeds on my bittorrent client (I currently am using ABC under WindowsXP) I stopped GetRight!, copied the .getright partial file to my torrent download folder, found the torrent, and saved the torrent as the same filename. ABC automatically checked the file and began a resumed download. Neato!



Well possibly neato. The proof is in having a working final image - we shall see if SuSE Disk 5 MD5 hash matches in a few. Then the battle begins: SuSE 9.1 vs. Fedora Core RC2!



Where are all my monster Godzilla sounds!?!

Beer, Beer, Beer, Beer!

Going to the Brickskeller tonight for beer around 9pm. Should be there with Anthony, Mike and a few others.



C'Mon by! I want to try the J W LEE'S Vintage Ale 1987 9.6oz 9.95 from England. Brewed the year I graduated from Skool. Hope it tastes better than I speel.

left foot..right foot...left foot..right foot

We have no bathroom. We removed the toilet last night and just finished emptying it for the drywall people.



Song playing: Devo - (We all have to) Go!

No *I* am the real Gildas!

Ok. One of the reasons I both with this stuff is so my friends and family (the people that put up with me) can be closer to me and my daily life.



Bollocks that - technology is making it even easier to pretend I care! That's right, I type here and I never have to socialize or talk to anyone I know again. Just get that online grocery delivery, telecommuting job, and replace my computer chair with a port-a-potty. Is sarcasm really wasted on YOU?



OK, maybe I like the tickling sensation when someone googles me.



All that drivel to tell you to get your buns over to Friendster and look me up. And don't forget my yahoo.com profile, and my personal webserver should be available at times too.



Did I mention I am on Instant Messenger? Either at [WORK IM] or [PERSONAL IM] after hours.



By-the-way: I use GAIM under Windows and Linux. If you want an Instant Messenger that works with Yahoo!, MSN, AOL, & Jabber all at the same time, with multiple accounts (I can be logged in with my personal account and see my friends and my professional account to see my co-workers at the same time.) then go get this thing! Open Source (no cost software!



Yay!

Computing Melancholy

Well, I have four shiny CDROMs labeled "SuSE 9.1" Disks 1 through 4. Disk 5 sits unburdened by bits, untouched by laser light's sweet happiness. Zenling is starving on a diet of OEM supplied XP Professional until my .iso finishes!



Damn GetRight! GetItRightDammit! more likely. The accelerated (segmented) downloading on a partial 300M file decided not to resume. Or to be fair, it tried to resume and the tux.org server couldn't but GetRight! screwed me anyway. Grr. Grr I say!!



I demand piggies!!

Computing Happiness

Well, I have a new baby: Zendralisk was born last night!



Dual Gigabit Ethernet, 1Gb Mem, Athlon xp2800+, 250GB HD, nVidia 258Mb GeForce 5700LE Video card. I forgot my laptop power supply at work so I built the new monster instead of working on my webpage. I think I might get the wireless hub add-on today and use my existing wireless hub at work. By-the-way the ASUS case and power supply are pretty quiet. Damn near silent by comparison to thew el cheapo fans running web services in www.personaldaemon.com. But I only paid $99 bucks for that one :)



I wish I had a shiny new monitor!



Geek? Me?!? Do you see any headless chickens?!?

I'm Mobile!

Well, If this works it means I can post to my blog from my Sidekick (danger hiptop phone).



Technology rocks!



Unless of course it is being used for repression...

Purpose. Focus!

I am going to try to write daily in my online journal. Anything at all - why populate the internet with useful information when you can read my drivel? If you want to help encourage me, post a reply or email me if you see me miss a day!

Gym dandy..

Went to the gym during lunch today. Ran two miles. The first mile was at 9 minutes 30 seconds and the second mile was at 8 minutes 25 seconds; a new record for me! Now if I can just get there for 45 minutes a day. An hour lunch makes it difficult with showering and changing clothes. Meybe I should go nekkid to save time....

I hate!

...when I thought of something that I wanted to say, don't capture it and feel like I didn't reflect and take my idea on to something more brilliant than an idle thought.



Grr...

Moving in.

Just setup the Blog. Ick - don't care for the name, sounds like a bullfrog more than an online diary.