Erin's Blog

Link/Tip of the day:

You can make a South Park character of all of your friends! I made one of me:



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More boring stuff about my life....

Last night I was witness to a high-speed chase near Amarillo, Texas (pop-up warning). I was on southbound US 287 between Dumas and Amarillo when a green Ford pickup flew by me at 90 - 100mph. A co-worker of mine who was driving his own vehicle pulled in front of the truck to try to slow it down, as we saw the cops coming up behind him. The truck swerved around my co-worker and continued on his way. We saw on the news later that night that the suspect had stolen the truck and led cops on a chase of speeds over 120mph! He eventually abandoned the vehicle and was chased on foot and shot. All over a stolen car... Exciting stuff!

I am in Texas on business. This is the second time I've been sent here in the past month. Fun stuff. Strangely, I met a friend of mine from online here last time -- he is in the area tonight, but not in the same hotel as me like he was last time. What a weird, chance encounter! If you're reading this Vi, hi! :-)

Work has been good. I have been working hard the past few months. Recently, I had three days off in a row -- a rarity -- and I actually used them to finish unpacking. My place is actually to the point where I would feel comfortable bringing friends over. I am happy. For the past few years I never had the drive to finish unpacking. Wherever I moved, things remained in boxes, stacked. I never felt "at home" in the messiness. I hated being at home; basically using it as a shower and a bed and avoiding actually _living_ in it. Now my place is unpacked and decorated. I have candles set out (I love candles!) and my whole apartment smells like vanilla. It is a very comforting scent in a nice and comfortable apartment.

My friend Br gave me a bunch of beautiful glass roses for my birthday. I found some cool wooden boxes at Target and are using them with the roses for decorations. The boxes and the roses match the color of the drapes in my living room exactly. I think they make nice decorations, myself. Someday I should take a picture or two and post them here for you.

Well, I am tired. I didn't sleep well in the hotel last night. I only got 2.5 - 3 hours of sleep. Possibly from the hotel bed, possibly from the several iced teas I drank at dinner. Hopefully tonight I will get some better rest.

_erin

Link/Tip of the day:

Ever wonder what is inside the "Magic 8-ball?" These guys found out. Beware the blue fluid!

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More boring stuff about my life....

It's been quite a while now. More than a month, in fact.

I have been very busy! I have only had three days off since I started working at the new job back in mid-September. Each of these days has been requested. Today will be another day off and my fourth since starting with the company. I plan on cleaning my place a bit and doing some laundry. It will feel good to have everything finally put away from the move. I can actually invite people over to my place now and I won't be embarrassed.

Along with crazy hours comes crazy-good paychecks. If you know me, you know that I have a hard time saving money. It itches and burns in my pocket. So I went out and did something foolish. I bought a new computer. Well, I guess it isn't too foolish considering my last PC was bought in 1999. Six years is a LONG time in the computer world.

While money burns in my pocket, I am not one to waste money readily. I research large purchases. And I don't like paying for software that I won't use. Unfortunately, Dell's selection of business and home computers all come with operating systems and all kinds of crappy bundled software that do not suit my needs. Luckily, their server systems come bare -- without any operating system or additional crap. So I spec'd out a decent machine for my needs. I chose a PowerEdge 1800:



It is fast (Xeon 3GHz), has plenty of memory (1GB), has a large, fast disk, built-in networking and I ordered it with a combo DVD reader/CD-RW drive. I don't usually play games, so I don't need a beefy video card, hence the built-in video will be more than adequate. I will take the SoundBlaster Live! 5.1 card from my existing PC and add it to the server and then I will have the perfect machine for my needs.

The nice thing is that it will run Mac OS X now that Apple has released an Intel port of that OS. :-)

Well, I have to get some sleep.

_erin