I cannot honestly tell you the last time that I had a lengthy vacation that involved me being outside of Southern California since my trip to Orlando with Sheff in 1998. That was the year that I met Jocelyn and then moved to Jacksonville the following February. Since then I have had mini vacations, primarily over a weekend or within striking range of San Diego or Jacksonville. One that comes to mind is the trip to Tampa Bay for our honeymoon after we got married. That essentially was the only trip that Jocelyn and I had without Molly (since she had not been born at that time). It was always a money thing. Every time we had plans, things turned to crap because of money. Finally we decided to bite the bullet about two years ago and we both filed Married but at the higher Single rate for work and last year we finally saw some returns. We hit it big in the refund department from the government and after paying off some old tax debt, we were able to have a decent Christmas for once. Then this year we filed and got even more back which was pretty damn stellar. We paid off a big bill, then split the remaining amount down the middle to spend as we pleased.
I knew that we would be getting our money around the time that Molly’s birthday would happen and just by pure happenstance she had the week before Presidents Day off. I quickly took the time off as well, determined to spend the week at home and hang out with her instead of working from home and just letting the week go to waste. Then I thought about a trip with her. Some place that she had never been too before, a place that she would appreciate. A place that I vaguely remembered, but had an excellent time at when i was a kid. Washington DC was that location.
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Tags: American, Jacksonville, Jocelyn, Molly, Orlando, Sheff, South Korea, Tampa Bay, USA, Washington DC
Mon, February 14 2011 » Family, Politics » No Comments
Ok, so 4 day passes and single day passes went on sale this morning at 9am. I was at the computer at 915am and saw the strewn of crap that was coming up on twitter about the group in charge of selling the tickets. These jacktards called TicketLeap.com, had one of the most massive EPIC fails of all time.
They apparently did not know that Comic-con fans are rabid, they apparently did not know that jerk off little Emo fucks that follow twilight would be online as well to buy tickets. These guys apparently did not load balance their system for the massive amount of traffic that was about to go through their system. Apparently these idiots had no clue what they were about to get hit with. I sat there for 3 hours hitting refresh and seeing their ugly ass damn over capacity logo on the front page. It almost made me as sick as seeing the twitter whlae.
What made matters worse is that they had some fuck on twitter RTing people saying that they got their tickets, but apparently ignored the 10 bazillion tweets about how much they sucked.
I think the worst thing about this crap was when I could get on the ticket page, some days and types of tickets were already blocked out, but later on, they would show up.. then disappear, it was a cluster fuck. I ended up getting 2 adult passes for Thursday, Friday, and Sunday. At the time that I bought those days, Saturday was blocked out, but then I found out that Saturday did not sell out until 3 hours later which pissed me off even more. These guys are fucking jack asses and i am pissed beyond belief that the Comic-con organizers did not make sure that whomever they are contracting out to knows what the fuck they are doing.
Tags: Comic-con, SDCC, TicketLeap, traffic, Twitter
Sat, February 5 2011 » Family, Internet » No Comments
I am not as good at prose as I would like to be, but hopefully I can convey a message that people will somewhat agree with.
Political debate has always been a needed element in our society. Without debate and compromise you cannot effectively run a nation. You especially cannot run a super power with 300 million people in it. I enjoy debate, I am rather good at it as well, I can understand the subtle nuances and deflections that occur in a debate fairly easily. Sometimes I will take the bait and then the debate goes in favor of my opponent. The idea of staying on subject and confusing the other is something that I still have not been able to master on a regular basis.
In the 80′s when Reagan was in office, a lot of policy was set, with one of the most liberal Speaker’s of the House. Government was not perfect, but it ran, with a lot of compromise. You had the leader of the Conservative party and the leader of the Liberals work together on policy that put us in a position to eliminate the Soviet Union’s threat, effectively ending the cold war. This was done through debate and compromise. I have learned that if one party is happy, the other is not, the best way to gauge if something is effective is if both parties sit there and agree on something, but neither of them are really happy about it. That is how you keep things in the middle, balanced, and in essence moving the government right along.
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Tags: politics as usual
Fri, January 28 2011 » Politics » No Comments
San Diego… I had to wear socks today because the temperature had dropped to the high 50′s this morning.
Tags: cold, San Diego, socks
Wed, January 5 2011 » Family » No Comments
I am 38, going on 39 in three months. I am married, have a daughter and two little dogs. I am pretty much mr. home body. I enjoy watching my daughter in martial arts, in dance, at school, singing, playing. I enjoy the dogs sleeping and playing. I enjoy talking with my wife and watching her have fun as well. I am not mr. entertainment from what you would imagine.
How does one spice that up? How does one do something that nobody would imagine, what can one do that will enrich their life?
For me, it is easy. I laugh at other people. It truely makes my day when I can find a Strange News section, or a site with a really funny name, or even a site that you can send someone to check out… of the lemon party variety…. and wait in juvenial snickering until the person comes running back with an AHHHHHHHH!!!!
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Tags: Fuck You, Lemon Party, Yahoo
Mon, January 3 2011 » Family » No Comments
Ok, I just spat out the last plug that I took from 2010, literally with 7 seconds left on the clock before 2011 started.
I have had a love affair with Mint Skoal for probably 15 years. It started casually in 1996 at work, just using on my drive home from Cloud 9 Interactive. The 2 hour drive in traffic was horrendous and it gave me something to do while I literally went 10 mph on the freeway. It really kicked into high gear when I was in Jacksonville, I found that I could do it at my desk while working without anyone knowing. Then of course with my troll like status at my current office, nobody interacts with me, so hiding my addiction was very easy to do and also since others in the office were dipping as well, I was not a social pariah.
But I cannot continue this. I think the worst thing is that I don’t dislike it. I am addicted to it, but I am not sure if I am addicted to the act, or if I am addicted to the use of it. It confuses me. This really sucks since I know what it has done to my body, I know that it has ravaged my lungs. My voice has changed, my breath stinks, my body is not what it was and is not in the shape that it could be in.
I need to stop, for myself, for my family, for my life. I want to grow up and see my daughter get married, I want to sit there and bounce a little McGuffin on my knee and tell them stories of their grandfather as a child. I want to grow old and see the future. It is about living clean.
Maybe I will just start drinking.
Tags: Addiction, Cloud 9 Interactive, cold turkey, Jocelyn, Mint Skoal, Molly, Skoal
Sat, January 1 2011 » Family » No Comments
1990, 2000, 2010… I like numbers like that…. numbers like 1993, 1997, 2003, 2007, 2011 look… weird… I mean at least 1991 has two 1′s and 2 9′s, 2001 had a movie named after it… 2011? I could not find anything in IMDB.. maybe there is a book called 2011? Yeah plenty of those.. but still.. looks strange.
This will be the first year since it turned 2007 that I had a full head of hair. I actually have a really full head of hair to say the least, I mean we are talking Afrolicious to say the least….
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Tags: 2011
Fri, December 31 2010 » Family, Sports » No Comments
I love San Francisco, if I had the money to live up here, I would move here in a heartbeat. The last four days have been amazing. I have enjoyed walking to Moscone Center, seeing the traffic, seeing the lights, the high buildings, the people. Everything about this place just makes me feel comfortable.
It is not just that the city seems to have things going on, it is a city filled with smart, cultured people. It reminds me of an image that I have created in my mind of what New York would be like, but on a much smaller scale. The people here can talk about anything, they have knowledge, I understand why things are a buzz here, I understand why 50 cents of every venture capitalist dollar is spent in California, specifically in the bay area. San Francisco is a wonderful city.
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Tags: Chicago, DreamForce, San Diego, San Francisco, Seattle, Smart People
Thu, December 9 2010 » Family » No Comments
Being someone with a lot of moderate tendencies with a strong liberal bias when it comes to social issues. I am not going to sit here and say that Tuesday is going to be a good day for the Democrats. I think this will actually be a good thing too. I have never been a big fan of the congress and the president being of the same ilk. Clinton did a great job when the Republicans swept into office. Bush tended to do well with a Democratic controlled congress.
Tuesday the senate will still remain with the Democrats, I just do not see enough seats changing hands. They will lose a few seats, but I still think the Democrats will have a slim majority. The house, that is another story, I think that will see a massive purge of Democrats, possibly in the 50 seat range. Some are saying 60ish, I think it will be more around 50.
Specific races:
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Tags: Barbara Boxer, Christine O'Donnell, congress, Conservatives, Democrats, Election, Fox News, Harry Reid, Jerry Brown, Kentucky, Liberals, Meg Whitman, Obama, Rand Paul, Republicans, Sharon Angel, Tuesday
Sun, October 31 2010 » Politics » No Comments
After a week or so, I finally have gotten around to day 2.
Day 2 started out interestingly enough. I woke up feeling ill from obviously drinking way to much the night previously. I was up at I believe 730am, I was amazed that I had not thrown up, felt like it though, but I kept it down. Took a quick shower and was going out to find something to eat. Staggered downstairs, still feeling hung over and decided that I should find something to eat that was not going to cost me much. I decided, with great failure, to choose the breakfast buffet at TI. Yes, cheap it was not, $27 later I was sitting down with George and his fiance.
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Tags: Baumholder, Baumholder American High School, Darrell Nesbit, George Alsobrooks, Ken Shields, Reunion, Ron Lundy
Thu, August 12 2010 » Family » No Comments
