School has Changed……

School has really changed over the years. I'm sure my parents said the same thing when I was in school but gezz.... This is just alot for me to take in. Tonight we had Parent/Teacher Confrences. First of all let me say I never dragged my parents to a confrence where the teacher was wearing a short little mini skirt. Not that I mind, but teachers didn't quite look like that when I was young. Heck, I don't see how they get any learning done at all like that. Anyhoo... after discussing some of the long writting assignments Brandt has been having, she said it was fine if he did them on the computer and then just printed them out. First of all I don't want him doing that until he proves he can do it normally and second of all, in high school we got chewed out for using a calculator to do simple math. Like we hadn't been doing it on pencil and paper for the previous ten years. Oh that's another thing. They let them use pens. We were pretty much pencils only until way late in school. And even then it was frowned upon. Many other things have changed.... But I didn't notice half of them, mostly due to the short skirt thing........

:)~

It's good to hear from friends..... Ever notice that? By the way, it's Linux 517 - William 2. The gap grows ever closer.

The best of times… The worst of times…..

I was told last night by Brandt that this weekend was the best weekend of his life. That's funny cuz it was one of the worst weekends of mine. This weekend for me really started about a week ago with a nagging little email issue at work. As the week went along the problem grew and grew. By Friday it was pretty much a full blown crisis. We had three companies all with out email, all due apparently to changes I'd made to the system. Well Friday night after work we had tickets to a Freestyle Motocross competition at Reunion Arena. As excited as Brandt was about that I couldn’t not go. So I pulled myself from work and took him. It was kind of nice, we went with a vendor that I buy parts from at work. It was pretty much a night on them. They paid for just about everything. Brandt had a Great time. Now he already knows what will be on his Christmas list of next year, a dirt bike! Meanwhile he's all bouncing in his seat clapping away, I'm over there drinking my $6 beer and trying to figure out my little DNS/Email issue. By the time it was over I'd pretty much worried myself sick about it, but had many ideas to try and see if they would work.

Saturday morning and I'm off to work. Brandt was invited by Teri to go see "Jimmy Neutron" at the movies. How could he pass that up. After that they went to McDonalds and grabbed some lunch. When they were finished with there little play date, I headed home to let them into the house. That wasn't exactly the end of my work day, just the end of my work day at work. This every growing DNS/Email issue continued well past my time of useful consciousness. I finally gave up around midnight and called it quits. Of course that's not really where it ends. I think about what to do all night.... In my dreams.... and the first thing when I woke up. I know... that's pretty sad isn't it?

Sunday, no football for me. Immediately upon us getting up and putting on some clothes we were off to work again. This time to build a DNS server that would solve the worlds problems, or so I hoped. Brandt was really good considering the time we spent up there and the mood that I unfortunately was in. After we had the server built and running, we took a break and went and rented a movie and a PS2 Game. Once again this is great for Brandt but me, well I was stuck with the $16 late fee from 6 months ago. After we finally returned to the house, it was off to work for me again. Luckily for me, I can do just about my entire job from home. We watched a movie and attempted to do some laundry while I was working but neither one worked really well. Finally after getting Brandt to bed, I made some progress. I was 11:30 and the problem looked like it might be fixed.

Now it's Monday evening and we are still limping along with our hit or miss email. I'm 100% sure it's fixed. The last two day we didn't have email at all. We are currently waiting for DNS to cycle through the Internet. So now you can plainly see why Brandt had a great weekend and I had, well not one of my best. Anyhoo..... See ya!

Lost Advice……

Lost Advice......
Don't you hate when someone you care about greatly is doing something you think is a complete mistake, but you can't tell them so. It's not my right to tell people how to run their life, but sometimes people can't see the forest for the trees. Somtimes looking from the outside in you see it much more clearly than anyone on the inside ever could. That's where I come in. I don't have the answers. I don't know what's the right move. I surely don't do everything right in my life but sometimes I see things that I know aren't the right way of doing things. Not always, but sometimes I do have opinions on things and it just drives me crazy when I can't say anything. It's not my place to do so. Of course by writting this, I guess in a weird, round about sort of way I am saying something. Anyhoo, I guess I've rambled on enough....

From one cube jockey to another……

As we travel down the padded cubical walls that make up the maze of life, there are the do-ers and the do-ees. We all know I'm a do-ee, but I'd like to congratulate one of the do-ers. Yesterday Teri got a job. I refrain from using the words "found a job" cuz she didn't really just happen upon it. She went out and hunted it down. She's now back with the work of the employed. Welcome back....

Burrrrrrrr………

Just a quick check on the weather. Yup.... It's still cold. More to come right after these messages.

Happy New Year……

img src="http://www.williamhughes.net/images/tophat_2002_md_wht.gif" align="left">
Well it's a new day, a new year, another resolution to break and another chance at being a productive member of society. With so may new chances, why do I feel today is so much like yesterday? Dunno, but I do have a new years resolution to attempt. It's not to loose weight, or grow taller, or win the lottery. Nothing like that, but simply to stick to my diet. Not really for weight loss reason but more for health reasons. I'm doing pretty good on it now but I'd like to do even better. I do have other resolutions but they are nothing that would be appropriate to post here. That will be left to another blog and another time.... maybe......

Weather Check…….

Just so you'll know.... It's cold. It's currently 39 degrees. Ya know just in case you were wondering. Stay tuned for more relevant information.

Ford Sucks…….

The Ford Motor Company sucks.... with that said, I'll tell you why! Yesterday, I was on my way to a Christmas party. I didn't really want to go or anything but I have to at least keep up appearances that I'm at least sort of social. I went out to check my tire which had been leaking. It'd leak out about half it's air in a week. Well it'd only been three days so I figured it'd be fine. But it wasn't. It was flatter than flat. I thought I was smarter than the tire since last week I bought two can's of Fix a Flat. I slapped on a can and as fast as I could put it in, it could leak it out. After I'd emptied the can I tried to get the air compressor on it before all the fix a flat juice ran out. Between the Fix a Flat and the air compressor I couldn't keep enough air in it to keep the rim off the ground. Well now this is where the story really starts. I said no problem, 15 minutes and I'll have the spare on. Oh by the way. Did I fail to mention that we were 4 inches into our 8 inches of rain for this day. Well anyway. I got the jack out, bye the way I found my dear sweet ex wife's camera jam neatly down into the jack storage contraption. I can't explain how it got there or why but that's where it was. I got the jack out and did all my normal tire change prep work. So now I'm off to get my spare. I knew where it was, how to get access to it, it had air in it, sound pretty simple so far. To gain access to this spare you basically have to stick your jack handle into this little hole in the bumper. From this hole is a long tube that runs to a lowering mechanism. Basic principle of operation on this thing is to stick in your hand and turn which lowers the tire to the ground. You basically pick it up and your off to bigger and better things. Not me..... I stuck my 1 and a half foot jack handle into this 2 and a half foot tube. The story of my life if ya know what I mean. I cussed for a full hour over that one. Well eight hours, 4 auto parts stores, and 2 discount stores later and I find my self scraping bottom at wal-mart. I couldn't find any jack handle or tool of any kind to make this think work. We are on like Plan G now, so I purchased a 3 foot wooden dowel from the fabric and general girlies stuff isle. After shaping the end with a utility knife, I was able to insert this contraption into the hole and make contact with the mechanism. I clamped on a pair of Vise Grips to the end and began cranking. The spare lowered to the ground just like it was meant to. The rest of the tire changing procedure when flawless with out incident. Even so, this will really make me think twice about making another decision to purchase a Ford.

PS....
By the way... This post, in it's entirety in being CC:'d to Ford Customer Service.

Santa…..

Ladies and Gentlemen....... Santa has left the building......
Don't forget to tip your waiters and waitresses.......
Thank you and good night......