August 2002 Archives

I hate money. I really do. Mostly because I do not have enough, but also because it runs my life way too much. (I think those two go somewhat hand in hand). If I had more money, I think I would be able to live life the way I want to live it instead of having to make decisions based on not having the money to do them.

I'm already starting to stress about the fall and winter, because I would like to attend a number of concerts. The big ones would be The Other Ones, Rush, and Phish. Also, there is the Dream Theater show which I already have tickets for, though I owe my buddy cash for em. These are all arena shows which mean they will all cost a decent amount of cash, at least $50 each. Plus, the Phish show is in NY, which means travel expenses. Even if I am already home in NY and just crash with a friend for the night in the city, its still going to cost some money.

I just wish there was some way that I could make some extra cash on the side somehow, or even get some easy consulting work that I could do at night. Not sure how happy work would be about that, but that is an issue I can deal with at some other point. I figure as long as it is not affecting my day time work, I should be fine.

Other money issues ... I stayed home today, didn't feel well at all when I woke up, still kinda iffy, but much better than first thing this morning (and NO, I DID NOT GO OUT LAST NIGHT). While home, I dealt with bills (now you see why I am complaining about money) and did a bunch of work around the house. I tried to clean up the living room some. I also did some work on my bedroom, which is a disaster area now. The biggest thing I noticed while doing all this? I need some more furniture. I need another set of shelves to put all my magazines on, a real entertainment center (I should take a pic of my fake one), and some night tables for my bed. Those are the big ones right now, but in the end, that all costs cash, which I don't have, so here the cycle repeats.

I also mentioned yesterday that there is LOTS going on this week. I really want to attend tomorrow, but since I know I am going out on Thursday for the game, I probably should not. It is a 6-10 type show, so it may not be too bad. Who knows?

So, in the end, I just hate money running my life. I joked earlier about starting a "Tour Fund" or something, but somehow, I don't think enough people read here for me to get any real money and I don't think that is the best way to make money.

My one other idea is a web idea (big suprise!). Maybe once I get the new Mindstorm machine up and running, we can start selling more services and maybe actually start making cash off that, instead of just sitting there making enough to keep the machine up and thats it. That would be a good thing, especially if it meant little time with decent returns. Even and extra $200 or $300 a month would be nice to have.

In the end, I just need to figure all this out. I know a lot of people will say, get on a budget, but that is difficult for a number of reasons, the biggest one right now is trying to play some catch up with past due bills that don't allow me to figure out who I owe what to, until I get paid.

I guess I just need a sugar momma :)

I finished reading Crypto: How the Code Rebels Beat the Government Saving Privacy in the Digital Age on my plane ride out to San Francisco.

It was a good read. I thought it was going to be much drier than it ended up being. I was thinking it was going to be straight history, but it was much more of a story. The author did a good job of interviewing people and getting the real back story and inside information rather than just what happened in public.

The story basically covers cryptography in the public sector from Diffie and Hellman up to recent things like a lot of the fighting that went on once the Internet gained popularity. Definitely very interesting read with a lot of good information. If you have any interest in cryptography or even just wonder all about how stuff gets encrypted when you guys stuff on the Net, you may find this to be an interesting read.

I hear I might be a bit behind on the curve on this one, but I think this is great. Some nice girl named Karyn got in a bunch of debt and decided to start the Save Karyn. web site. I guess this is something like a modern version of begging, but in the end she really isn't bothering anyone. Very interesting concept.

On the other hand, some nice people who don't seem to like Karyn went and started the Don't Save Karyn web site. They don't want anyone to send cash to Karyn.

All very interesting. Though I don't know if I would go in to that much information about my personal finances. You never know who could use that information against you in the future. When she goes to buy a house is someone going to remember the site and turn her down. Or is she just gonna start the Help Karyn Pay For Her House site?

Could be interesting to try. Maybe I should just add a donate to Skadz's debt link on my page. Maybe that would get me a few bucks here and there. Could be fun and any extra money can't hurt. I may just call it my Tour Fund, since Phish is coming back and all :)

If you are a fan of South Park and known my friend Tim, you will amused with this graphic I made with this tool.

I added a bunch more pictures in the gallery section of the site. Lots of these are old. I think I need to get a new camera which is more compact and easier to tote around. The one I have now is from like 1999 and is rather large and unwieldy.

I have a ton of possible things to do this week. I know I will have to skip out on at least a few of them, since I have bills to pay and sleep to catch up on (already, ugh!).

Tonight, Jack and Present Company are playing over at Harper's Ferry. This is of interest because Keith from Central Basement is going to be playing with him. Also, Tommy (of Central Basement) and Paul (of Moo Tycooon) are playing over at the Bell in Hand.

Tuesday, Stu Sinclair is playing over at Sissys K's as usual. I haven't seen him on Tuesday in a while, but who knows.

Wednesday night, Moo Tycoon (who don't seem to have a web site yet) are playing over at The Rack. I heard good reviews of last time they played, so I definitely don't want to miss this.

Thursday night, there are 3 things happening. First off, I am going to the Red Sox game. Should be fun, though it is couples night, which can sometimes take some of the drunken rowdiness out of the night. Also of interest on Thursday, Hypercane is playing over at the Rack. Two of the guys who were formally in this band now play with Chad LaMarsh. I've seen the guys who are still in the band get up and jam on a couple of Sundays, so I think it should be a good show. It's an early gig though, so I think I may miss it. Lastly you have Central Basement over at the Bell in Hand as always.

This weekend brings more excitement and decision making. Craig is coming up from Houston. There are some issues with where and when he will be around that I need to get worked out. That is because my mom is heading to Saratoga for the weekend and wants me to come down. It's Travers Week at the track, so it could be a lot of fun, but who knows? It will be a busy weekend no matter what.

Now all this is in addition to little things like work, laundry, paying bills, buying groceries, cleaning the house, trying to catch my new roommate, etc.

Well, I have been sitting on the couch this afternoon doing a combination of computer stuff and TV watching. Well, while doing this, a little mouse popped out of my kicthen to say hi. I made a noise when I saw it and he turned and headed back in to the kitchen and has seemingly disappeared. I wonder how he got in. I hope I can catch him in a humane way before having to lay traps down, no need in killing any animals. Or maybe I should just get a couple of cats .... hmmmm ....

The big news this week is that Phish is back! Or at least will be on New Years Eve at Madison Square Garden. This is awesome news for phans everywhere. At least this year I will not have to try and figure out what the hell I want to do for New Years. They will also be doing 3 dates in Hampton, VA the first week of the new year with more to be announced soon.

A bunch of other announcements came out as well. Phish plans on recording a new album in 2003 is the first one. The second is thet a live Phish DVD is coming out. It will be from the Vegas shows in 2002 which I attended which should be fun. It will be interesting for the phans to see Kid Rock up on stage with the boys.

Lastly, they announced the 4 next CD sets in the Live Phish collection. They will be 4 Halloween shows in which they covered a full album from another band. It should be very interesting.

Overall, WOOOOOOOOOOOOOO HOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO! I think its time to tour :)

This past week I attended the Linux World Conference and Expo. I think attended might be a bit of an incorrect word. I worked at the LWCE would probably be better. I was there with my company, Egenera, working our booth. I guess you might consider me a booth babe or some such thing :)

Working a booth can be both interesting and boring at the same time. You end up saying the SAME thing over and over again as well as answering the same questions again and again. But at the same time, you get to meet all sorts of interesting people and hear about some of the things other people in the computer industry are doing.

It was a good show overall. We had our booth as well as one of our machines in the Intel booth for a BEA demo.

The Microsoft booth was rather boring. They were basically promoting their Unix Services. It was interesting because their booth was manned with a number of people all of whom were probably 25 at the oldest. I would assume they were getting beaten up pretty badly, but didn't actually talk to them to find out a definite answer to that. The Sun announcement was amusing, basically they announced Linux x86 desktops, but they want them to ONLY be desktops. They will come with either Sun Linux 5.0 (aka repacked RH 7.2). The 5.0 version number is rather amusing to me. Their claim is they bought Cobalt, and they made versions 1-4. Oracle continued to pledge their Linux support. We actually talked with one of the guys working on the Oracle World show and he is giving a lot of consideration to spotlighting Linux at Oracle World.

Overall, a good show. I had a good time, though I didn't get to explore the show floor as much as I would have liked.

Today I should be being a lot busier than I am right now. I am headed out to San Francisco tomorrow morning (at the ridiculous hour of 7AM) for LinuxWorld. I will be working the booth for my company. I haven't done a long show like this in a long time. Not since the days of working at the now defunct local ISP Bluesky. Hopefully I will get some time in around the show to check out what other people have in their booths. I plan on bringing my digital camera, so hopefully I can snap some good shots as well. I especially can't wait to see what is in the Microsoft booth. Should be real interesting.

But on today's list of things to do is laundry, pack, go buy black pants, etc. I also want to try and clean the house up before I go. It's always nice when returning from a long trip to come home to a clean home. I wanted to go to Lukas's party tonight, but it starts at 10 and I have to be at the airport at 5. Somehow that doesn't work out all that well.

Time to start doing some stuff :)

First is the DVD Viewer's Choice Award, as part of the DVD Awards. You can vote for your favorite DVD of the year right here. This one is definitely a tough choice for me. I've gotten a bunch of good DVDs this past year. I think two of the top ones on my list would be Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back as I am a huge Kevin Smith Fan and Almost Famous: The Bootleg Cut which I thought was a great extended version of an awesome movie.

Next up is the Don't Link to Us! site. This site basically contains a continuously updated list of web site with ridiculous linking policies. Basically companies that really don't know what the web is all about (and especially don't understand what blogging is all about. Some amusing stuff. I think my favorite is companies who say you can "refer" to them, but not "link" to them. Uhhh, eh?

The third interesting site I have seen today is BlogTree. This site is trying to become a genealogy of Blog sites. Basically the people who inspired you become your parents and it goes from there. Interesting concept. It will be interesting to see where they get in terms of people signing up and linking up.

So, I'm driving back from lunch just now and this guy on motorcycle coming the other way has his hand out and motioning towards the ground. My first thought is "Who is he to tell us to slow down", seconds later, I found out. He is a very nice guy to tell us to slow down. There was a cop sitting around the corner with his radar gun out and waiting to catch someone.

Sadly, on a normal day, if there was noone is front of me and the guy on the motorcycle had not been there, I would most likely have gotten a ticket. So, thanks motorcycle guy!