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UPDATE: Facebook Applications [30 Nov 2009|03:34pm] Originally published at Random Drivel. You can comment here or there. So I don’t post much here anymore, but I remember about a year and a half ago posting how many facebook applications requests I had, contemplating if I could get to 100. I’m reporting back that I did reach 100 a few months ago, but it appears that requests have started to slow down a bit. Due to Facebook changing the way their homepage looks in the past year, the numbers were skewed a little bit, and I also ignored/rejected several groups and friend suggestions which brought the numbers down, but here’s the current snapshot: Facebook Requests A few things: If an application gets removed from Facebook, the requests automatically disappear (I compared the last picture to what my current requests are, and there are some missing apps). Events disappear after their date has passed. Friend requests now appear in this list, but I typically approve those if I know the person. I usually reject Facebook friend suggestions, but you can see that there is one in there. Groups also get rejected, as I am already in several, and groups serve little purpose in the new facebook scheme. This is mostly for posterity, it serves no real purpose. I think I”m going to ignore all and start with a fresh slate. 1 comment|post comment

90’s Music [03 May 2009|07:55pm] Originally published at Random Drivel. You can comment here or there. 90’s music on the radio reminds me of high school. That’s not necessarily a good thing. 1 comment|post comment

401(k) Woes [09 Oct 2008|10:56pm] Originally published at Random Drivel. You can comment here or there. After today’s stock market closing (Google says the Dow Jones Industrial Average is at 8579.19, -678.91 points today, (-7.33% change in value) as of  Oct 9 4:07pm ET), my 401(k) is now -36.7% YTD with a net market change of -$8,825.40. The part that stinks the most for me, however, is that barely 2 and a half years ago, I was walking across the stage accepting my college diploma, having never seen $8,825.40 all at once, ever, in my life. My first paycheck after that (two weeks pay!) was for more money than I had ever made in a calender year. This sucks. I am 25 years old. I would freak out if I dropped a $10 bill. I was watching the SNL “Thursday Weekend Update” tonight, and the Keenan Thompson sketch where he plays an economic advisor who screams over and over to “FIX IT! FIX IT! FIX IT!” Is exactly how I felt. I feel sick to the stomach about this. I know its not much money, and I know I’m young and there is plenty of time, and I’m not supposed to touch this money for 40 years anyway. But I feel sick about this. 1 comment|post comment

The Further You Ride, the Better the Burger [17 Aug 2008|04:59pm] Originally published at Random Drivel. You can comment here or there. Went for a motorcycle ride with a few coworkers and the motorcycle club. Rode about 120 miles, out to Caliente and around the loop. Stopped at a little burger joint out in the literal middle of nowhere! The further you ride, the better the burger. post comment

Irony [02 Jul 2008|10:14pm] Originally published at Random Drivel. You can comment here or there. Irony (ī‘rə-nē, ī‘ər-) n., pl. -nies. 1) Watching the South Park episode, “Guitar Queer-O” (which parodies the video game Guitar Hero by implying it sucks), and seeing a commercial promoting the new Guitar Hero: Aerosmith game. post comment

Quarter Life [01 Jul 2008|10:07pm] Originally published at Random Drivel. You can comment here or there. I’m sleeping on the couch this week while my parents are visiting California. Thus, in keeping with a tradition that is now 15 years running, I did not wake up on the morning of my birthday in my own bed! post comment

Escape [28 Jun 2008|10:40pm] Originally published at Random Drivel. You can comment here or there. I Just got done rewatching John Carpenter’s: Escape from New York on UniHD. I hadn’t seen it for some time, and it reminded me that I haven’t seen Escape from LA in quite some time, either. I think they should make a sequel: Escape from Chicago. And if that one is a success, I feel Escape from Houston would be a massively popular follow-up. Both of those are coastal cities, so they could just reuse the plot from the first two movies again. Escape from Phoenix would probably suck. post comment

Google [11 May 2008|07:18pm] Originally published at Random Drivel. You can comment here or there. Is it just me, or is it starting to get harder to find what you want on Google now? Maybe I’m just accustomed to finding what I want on Google in seconds, but lately I’ve had to wade through pages of crap to find what I’m looking for. Some sites are starting to design their pages specifically to get high Google ranks… those cheaters. post comment

Milestone [05 May 2008|08:45pm] Originally published at Random Drivel. You can comment here or there. I’ve got 1083 miles on the VTX now. Awesome! The major miles were put on driving out to the Antelope Valley (200 round trip), Morro Bay (300 round trip), and joyriding around town as a weekend warrior. Lots of the miles were also driving to work, which is getting easier now that its no longer 30 degrees in the mornings. Here’s to the next 1000 miles, and a few more mods to the bike! post comment

A New Role [15 Apr 2008|07:26pm] Originally published at Random Drivel. You can comment here or there. I am now the Facilities Maintenance Team Leader, or, the manager in charge of the Facilities mechanics, at work. Role transition with the previous Team Leader starts, well, today really. I’ve been working for almost two years now, since graduating in May ‘06. This new job will be good for my development, so we’ll see where it takes me. post comment

Facebook Applications [09 Apr 2008|09:15pm] Originally published at Random Drivel. You can comment here or there. Wow, Facebook. Maybe you should try to chill out a little bit… Here’s a screenshot of the application requests (38 at latest count) I have right now on facebook, or at least the ones that I haven’t deleted yet. I wonder if I can make it to 100? post comment

Photographic Evidence [07 Apr 2008|09:00pm] Originally published at Random Drivel. You can comment here or there. She doesn’t exist until she’s been photographed! Picked her up today, and rode her out to the freeway and back. Clocked 53 miles already today. I’ll hit that 600 mile service before you know it! Photographic evidence: post comment

Brand new bike [06 Apr 2008|07:42pm] Originally published at Random Drivel. You can comment here or there. I bought a new motorcycle today. A 2007 Honda VTX1300c. I went down to the local dealership, negotiated a good price on it, and put a down payment. They’ve gotta dealer-prep it, so I wont get it until tomorrow. When I get it, I’ll put pictures up. I’m excited! post comment

Back to Blogging [04 Apr 2008|08:15pm] Originally published at Random Drivel. You can comment here or there. I was thinking about this the other day. I haven’t posted to this blog in almost a year. A lot has happened since last year, too. Well lets see, what are the highlights: March 2007: Visited San Salvador, El Salvador, and my family for a week April 2007: Work retreat at Pismo Beach, California July 2007: Turned 24, vacation for a week in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico August 2007: Rode my motorcycle to Las Vegas, Nevada in the 110° heat, won $1200! September 2007: RHIT Homecoming in Terre Haute, Indiana New Years 2008: Las Vegas, Nevada! Hundreds of thousands of people partying on the Strip February 2008: Saw my parents in Irvine/Laguna Beach, California when they flew into town for a wedding March 2008: Went back to Mobile, Alabama for Danielle’s wedding, got to see Melissa, Danielle, Jamie, Melissa again, although I missed a few people. I guess I’ll just have to go back. March 2008: Work retreat at Morro Bay, California Most of these had pictures to go along with them, which can be found online if you are on my facebook. So, its been a busy 12 months. Well, let’s hope that I don’t continue to neglect my blog. Thanks for reading! post comment

bandwidth test [10 Jun 2007|09:21am] Originally published at Random Drivel. You can comment here or there. Using two different bandwidth tests and using wired/wireless connections, I’m still not sure what my actual bandwidth is from Brighthouse Networks. I’m pretty sure I’m paying for 7mbps down speed, but I’m not sure under what circumstances. Obviously, wireless has a higher latency and slower speed than wired, as shown by the below tests connecting to a server in Los Angeles: Wireless: Wired: The other test, from Bandwidth Place, told me I had 3mbps down wired and 1mbps down when wireless. I’m still not sure which is right, but I spend most of my time on wireless from the laptop. Anyway, the whole reason I did this test was because I pay an obscene amount of money every month for this so called 7mbps service, and I’m not sure if its worth it. I can save $15 a month ($180 a year) by downgrading to the Road Runner Lite, which is I think 768kbps (more than 7 times slower, but about 15 times faster than dialup). I seriously think I’m being ripped off. post comment

More CNN Campaign Bias [07 Jun 2007|03:09pm] Originally published at Random Drivel. You can comment here or there. 2 top GOP hopefuls to skip Iowa straw poll: http://www.cnn.com/2007/POLITICS/06/07/iowa.straw.poll.ap/index.html Romney has claimed that he will win this poll due to Guiliani and McCain opting out. I think that is a blantant show of hubris, because, Boy! Won’t he have egg on his face in the event that he does not win. Again, no mention of any of the so-called “2nd-tier” candidates, all of which have a shot at taking home top honors. post comment

GOP Debate Talk Clock [07 Jun 2007|01:32pm] Originally published at Random Drivel. You can comment here or there. I’ve been paying attention to the Presidential debates, and the most recent set of Democrat and Republican debates on CNN exhibited a noticable amount of disparity among the candidates speaking time. After a bit of searching to find if anyone logged their times, I discovered that the team for Chriss Dodd (D) catalouged time for not only the Dems, but also the GOP! If that’s not unbiased, I don’t know what is. Thank you, Dodd. Here are the GOP results: http://www.chrisdodd.com/node/1382   My candidate for the 2008 elections is GOP candidate Ron Paul. Dr. Ron Paul ran for the Libertarian party in 1988, but has been a 10 term congressman for the state of Texas. The self-described “Champion of the Constitution”, he believes strongly in individual rights. He is the only candidate who opposed the Iraq War, and favors an immediate withdraw. He is against Income Tax, the PATRIOT Act, and is in favor of reduction of Government. According to the graph above, it appears as if moderator Wolf Blitzer is leading the pack of GOP candidates, despite not even running for office. Closely following him are the Media annointed chosen candidates of Giuliani, McCain, and Romney. Ron Paul and the rest of the so-called “2nd tier” candidates trailed by halfway or more. Despite this, Ron Paul consistently gains ground in online opinion polls, with popular vote claiming he won all three debates. It remains to be seen if, when the time comes, his online popularity will translate to the ballot box as the GOP Primaries begin. post comment

My New Ride [12 May 2007|01:11pm] Originally published at Random Drivel. You can comment here or there. Here she is! 1999 Honda Shadow VLX 600c Cruiser, 11,000 miles. I’m the proud new daddy. post comment

Follow-up to RIP, Laptop [08 Apr 2007|12:45pm] Originally published at Random Drivel. You can comment here or there. Well, after the last post I made about the laptop, I did indeed put a fresh install of XP onto it. I was able to find copies of the video drivers online, which took forever. The battery still didn’t work, and the wireless card began to go on the fritz (probably from me just grabbing the laptop by the screen to transport it around). This morning, I was using the laptop when I started hearing some odd noises emanating from  the hard drive. I immediately knew that this was going to be a hard drive failure, and ran to setup the desktop to get ready to transfer files. Too late, the laptop shut itself off. Luckily, I have a converter to hookup laptop hard drives to desktops, so I was able to run a utility to repair the drive and copy files over. The repaired hard drive works now, so I stuck it back in the laptop. Kinda works, its a bit slower than before. I’m not really in the market for a new laptop. Or a new desktop. The desktop has its own problems, least of which are IDE controller problems. Oh, and Happy Easter! post comment

NFL Playoff Confrence Championships [14 Jan 2007|05:34pm] Originally published at Random Drivel. You can comment here or there. Semifinals of the NFL Playoffs, and we’re up to the Confrence Championships. Two underdogs won this week, and they happened to be Indy and New England, the two teams that I wanted to see play in the Confrence Championships. This is Indianapolis’ chance to exact revenge on the Pats for ruining their season more than once on New England’s way to the Super Bowl. Here are my predictions: Round 1 KC @ IND - Indy NYJ @ NE - New England DAL @ SEA - Dallas NYG @ PHI - Philadelphia Round 2 IND @ BAL - Balitmore NE @ SD - San Diego PHI @ NO - Philadelphia SEA @ CHI - Chicago Confrence Championships NE @ IND - Indy NO @ CHI - Chicago Super Bowl CHI vs. IND - Indianapolis The New England/San Diego game was indeed close, as I’d hoped, and it turned out to be in favor of the Pats. Is it just me, or have the Pats won a lot of games in recent history by freak accidents? The play today where Brady throws an interception, San Diego then fumbles and New England recovers for a first down? That sets up the touchdown and eventual 2-pt conversion. So, I went 1 for 4 this weekend. I’m changing my Super Bowl pick to Indianapolis. Next weekend, I have doubts about Chicago’s ability to beat New Orleans. Also, as the old saying goes, “Hell will freeze over if the Saints win the Super Bowl.” But I think that they have a fair shot of beating Chicago, depending on Rex Grossman’s play. But my pre-season Super Bowl pick was Indianapolis and Chicago (albeit, the prediction was that they would be undefeated and meet with 18-0 records). So I’ll be sticking with that. post comment

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