Okay -- I've heard of the Russian Mafia (even think I bought computer parts from them in Indiana...), Chinese Mafia, Italian Mafia, etc. But I have never heard of the Lesbian Mafia before. And to think they are infiltrating our government right now -- taking out college professors -- and corrupting our politicians. Sheesh -- where have I been? Or maybe this guy is just wacko...

http://www.lesbianstudies.com/

Okay -- don't ask how I came across it (actually I was browsing someone elses blog -- really! Linkfilter.net). But here is an article for those of the female anatomy persuasion. Ever been in that situation where you just HAD to pee but could only find a men's restroom? Here's an article on how to pee standing up at a mens urinal! It includes a "Problems and Solutions" page, comments from readers, and of course tips on how to accomplish this feet.

http://www.restrooms.org/standing.html

Of course I have put off any preperations for this trip until today. Why? Why not?

Went climbing tonight and managed to make it up a 5.10c. Worked on a 5.11a that I had completed a couple times ago -- didn't make it up it this time. And then tried a 5.10d and couldn't top that one off either. I don't know what was wrong! I wasn't doing bad but wasn't doing great.

Oh well. I guess I have to go get ready for the trip. I'll finish Alias first.

--B--

Went to the city tonight to help Chris and Gretchen move. Chris's call to fame is two-fold. You might have heard of him because of Lockergnome or possibly from his TV show, Call for Help on TechTV. And Gretchen's call to fame is being his wife. I'm not sure which job(s) are harder!

Chris and Gretchen were in need of help moving their tech-related stuff. Items that they *really* cared about and didn't want the movers touching (yes, they are True Geeks).

Even a Chris without coffee was still wired. It was amazing! Talk about tons of ideas. We talked about everything from Gnomedex 3 to dealing with stress, to a new book that he is working on, to 80s movies, to ... the list goes on. His brain is literally always on -- it's way kewl! Kinda like how I imagine being at a Think Tank would be.

Anywase, they are moving from near Pac Bell Stadium to the Castro district. For around $100 more they are going from 800 sq ft to around 1700 square feet. Going from an apartment type place (converted warehouse really) to the top part in one of those old kewl houses. It's way impressive -- wood floors, way kewl fireplace, lots of hidden nooks and crannies. They're going to have an intresting time setting up the network and computer equipment. Out of four main rooms I counted 6 power outlets. Truly an old house. Parking sucks tho. And expensive rent. Still -- you walk out the door and can see all the way to the bay. It was way kewl.

Anywase, it was a relatively painless move of the puter equipment. Two cars made it into one trip. And Chris -- if you end up reading this and you need help with the network just lemme know! I'm more'n'happy to help out setting up friends' home networks!

We topped off the evening with a great meal at this little ... ummm ... Italian (maybe?) restaraunt. Chris and Gretchen took us out to dinner (they didn't have to -- really!). The chef recognized them and gave us a special appetizer and then came over to say hello. It was a GREAT meal -- quite quite quite good. Can't remember the name of the restaraunt tho...

All in all a fun afternoon/evening. At least *I* thought it was fun.
I'm off to bed early as these gettin' up at 6am to get to work at 7 so I can leave early days are wearing me out!!

--B--

I have updated the Wierd Web Wonders page with a couple of unique (ahem) websites for everyone viewing pleasure!

w00p!
--B--

Yes -- you read the title correctly. There is a church out there called "The Church of Beer". And yes, they do have a website. Now what would you expect to find at the Church of Beer's website? Why you can find Haiku's on mullets, the latest sermons, reviews of beers, and of course, a place for you to become ordained!! All bow to the high priestess Missy of the Church of Beer -- I can just see it now!
http://www.beerchurch.com/
Or you just want to become ordained?
http://www.beerchurch.com/ordination.htm

And you thought I was done with bathroom humor! HAH!
I traversed high and low on the web to come up with this tasty site.
Have you ever wondered if it's all right to use the kiddy urinal? Have you ever wanted to know what was considered appropiate bathroom conversation material? This is the site for you! The Internation Center for Bathroom Etiquette!
http://www.icbe.org/

Along the lines of death art (see below) I bring you LifeGem.
This company promisses to take the carbon from your ashes and compress it into a sparkling diamond. They always did say diamonds are forever! But I really must wonder about this... it's quite scary in some sort of sadistic way.
http://www.lifegems.com

New images posted from my climbing adventures this past weekend. The first ones are available at:
Climbing At Porter Creek 01
And:
Climbing At Porter Creek 02

Enjoy!
--B--

You ever drink one of those Sobe drinks? Ever looked under the lid?
Quote of the Day from Sobe Drink:

Shag a Lizard!

--B--

Had a good evening climbing with Jason -- didn't actually finish many routes but I got up quite a ways on several 5.10's -- just couldn't seem to finish any. My arms were dead!

Jason did pretty good tho -- workin' his way up a 5.8 and working on another couple 5.8's.

Also go Missy to sign up to be a member. She'll probably use the workout equipment most but when/if she wants to climb she can! At least now she can work out whenever she wants!

I got some more work done on the oldbrowsers website. Started work on the downloads section tonight. Just the very basics -- design/layout/etc.

Guess thats it so I'm off to bed!
--B--

You ever have those dreams where you swear it was real?
You ever have those dreams where you totally know you are dreaming?

I've had both this weekend -- only I can't remember either one.
And what makes it even more annoying is that (at least for me) I dream and there is a "soundtrack" to the dream. Only once I wake up I can't remember any of the music. That happened this morning.

I remember something about writing some music and it was way kewl music. And right as I was finishing it up ... the alarm went off.

Oh well -- another tune that will just be stuck in my head.
--B--

Jason and I found the climbing area I couldn't track down yesterday. It was WAY farther down the creek then I was looking.

But lets start at the beginning of an interesting Sunday. Missy and I went to work to print out some pictures for her grandmother. Then grabbed some grub and headed to Bead Bath and Beyond to purchase a bagel slicer. Missy had been cutting bagles by hand and it made me flinch every time watching her do it.

So then we got back and it was time to go climb with Jason. We headed off to Porter Creek again in hopes of finding the elusive climbing area. Down the creek we went and after about a mile (well maybe just under a mile -- but it was quite a wase down...) we found it. The rock marked with "LSD" in spray paint. It was quite a bit taller then I felt comfortable climbing tho -- at least without a rope. But now we know where it is and can head back with a rope cause there were at least two bolts on the top.

Got back home to find that there was a problem with the AOL sites at work. Guess it was a big deal or something -- anywase, my pager hadn't gone off so I had no clue that anything was wrong -- but somehow thats my fault as well. So I guess you know, whatever.

Then I found out that one of the owners/vice-president/whatever at work had signed up for a remote monitoring service of our site about a week ago. Now about a week ago we started having incredible problems with one of our report servers. It seemed to crash webservers left and right. Michael and I had tried to figure out what was wrong with it and hadn't figured it out. So tonight Michael puts two and two together and comes up with 5 and decides that hey -- it could be this remote service thats causing the problems. We don't know for sure yet but I went ahead and denied all traffic from the class C where that monitoring service was located and we'll see if the report server crashes again.

Oh well -- crappy ending to a quite good day. Oh yah -- had Sushi for dinner -- that was kewl :)

--B--

Had a relaxing Saturday today.
First I slept in TONS -- that was nice!
Then we went and had a late lunch at Bufa (good Mexican resteraunt!)

Got back and was trying to decide what to do and decided I'd try and go find a place to climb outside. Grabbed my guidebook and headed off to try and find one of the closer places. I was shooting for one of two places on Porter Creek Rd. The first one had a bunch of bouldering areas -- the second was a lead climb area with only three bouldering problems. So I drove past where I thought it was, doubled back, missed it again and then pulled into an area where I thought it might be. I followed the little dirt path down to the creek only -- no climbing areas were apparent to me!

So I went up and down the creek looking for the climbing area only I couldn't find it. So back in the car I went to find the other location. It was much easier to find. Only there isn't nearly the same amount of climbing available there. Oh well. I took some pictures of it -- I'll upload 'em sometime this weekend.

Tonight we've been watching movies. Got tired of TeeVee and Tivo (well not tired of Tivo, just tired of what was recorded on Tivo). So we watched Clash of the Titans (or Clash of the Dimes as Missy calls it). And now we are watching Harry Potter -- a pretty good movie -- it grows on you (deffinately one of the better scores that John Williams has done).

I've been working on oldbrowsers.org as well. Got the history section finished. I had a funny bug with the next button that ended up being that I hadn't scrolled over far enough to copy and paste a section of code into as I was replacing a section that wasn't working. Oh well -- an hour wasted.

I think I've hammered out the db section for the browsers themselves as well. I had it mostly completed except for a couple of overlooked items -- like Platform, download counts, etc. I think I've got that all straightened out tho.

I'll start work on the code for that section tomorrow probly. I've also decided to add a "forum" section. Why? I dunno -- cause it's kewl? I grabbed the code for the forum thats on asp.net to go through it and see how they are doin' it. That'll be a later project tho I think. Get the downloads section done first and then work on the forum.

Guess thats about it fer now.
L8tz all!
--B--

Welp -- went climbing with Jason tonight. It was fun. Started out bouldering a couple V0's and then worked up to a V2- and worked a bit on a V1+ that I've been having problems with.

Glanced over at the V3 I had completed and decided that I would wait for another day to climb it again. I went on and asked Brian (one of the guys who works there) about what the requirements for one of the climbs was. It said "rails are on" and I wasn't sure if it was for feet only or for hands as well. It was for hands and that made a much easier climb.

However one of the rails had broken so that made it closer to a 5.10d (it was marked a 5.10c). At least thats what I was told. I hoofed it up the climb with much less effort then I had last time I had tried (not knowing that the rails were on). There were a couple of tricky moves close to the top but I made it up.

Jason cimbed a couple -- flashing a 5.8 (very good for him!!) and making it most of the way up another 5.8. To warm back up I climbed the 5.8 he hadn't completed and then moved on to a 5.11a.

Again I got some tips from Brian (they call it "beta" in the climbing world -- when you get tips on how to climb something before starting on it). This one had some wierd smearing moves right at the beginning with a nice lunge to a sloaper ending the smear moves. It was quite difficult to stick but I managed to get it eventually (two or three times). I made it several moves on and then hit another hard spot faltering for a shorter time.

Upwards again I went and made it to the next to last hold where again I was faced with a big move to a sloper. In fact it was sloper holds most of the way up -- thats what made it so difficult. So that next to last move took me a couple more tries. In fact I was pretty wasted by the so it took several trys to even get back to the same point I had been at. But at last I stuck it. Then it was just the last move to the top. Another big move but the sloper I had a hard time sticking was an upside down pocket. Okay -- so it was like a two finger edge -- but it felt like a pocket after all the other slopers! Flipped my hand upside down and cranked on it and *bang* was at the top.

It just kicked ass!
Followed that up by a nice relaxing break letting Jason climb while I belayed him and then a traverse during which I made it one wall farther then I normally make it. All in all a successfull evening.

So thats all thats new here right now. Don't know whats going on this weekend but probably a relaxing evening tomorrow and not doin' much of anything during the weekend days. Maybe get out on some real rock?? Maybe just hang low and sleep in!

L8tz all!
--B--

Calif State Law Snippet

So I've been wondering exactly what the law says in terms of slary employees and the like. This document pretty much somes it up. I particulary like sections:
510, 512, 515.5 (part b in particular), and 550-553

There you have it. I would need to check with a lawyer but I am pretty sure that with the way the law is written that I would be gettin' some back pay, nobody can demand that I work a 7 day week, and the list goes on.

Thanks to rnt for finding the info!!!

Now -- what to do with the information?
--B--

Okay...
I've had this idea for some time now. About a great educational related website. Something that would expand childrens knowledge on oh so many levels. An idea that would expand my knowledge and enhance the web (at least I think it would).

So ... my idea ...
A website. An educational type of website. It's rather difficult to explain so let me just jump in and try.
Have someone (me) live in a National Park for a year. Have a website to document the experience. Have a questions section so that kids can write in and ask questions about the national park. Then get the answers from "experts" in the field that the question was asked (ie: What made Half Dome?" -- get it answered by a geologist). Have a daily blog type of entry (or three times a day or something like that). Digital photographics uploaded daily. Set up some sort of time-lapsed photography from one or more locations where you can see how the seasons turn. You can interview park rangers, guests at the national park, people who live near by, etc.

It can be such an amazing site. Only -- I don't know how to get it off the ground. It would be nice to make enuff money to live on during this time -- have some sort of decent Internet connection, fud, lodging, etc. I just can't figure out how anyone would make any money off of it -- except maybe like sponsors. And you could sell some sort of merchandise. I've pondered emailing companies like National Geographic and Microsoft and such but I'm worried that they would take my idea and run with it themselves -- and I would love to be the guy who goes and actually does the whole thing.

So -- how do I get this idea from my mind to fruition? How do I get sponsors? How do I write it up so that I can make it interesting to companies when they wouldn't make much cash back on it?

Questions -- I have tons. Answers? I have none. Just a burning idea whose time (I think) has come.

Please feel free to comment all you want!
Thanks,
Brent

Why oh why do I have to go in to work tomorrow? Oh yah -- to make money. Or something like that.

Anyhwase, the weekend was rather relaxing. Went and got some slacks yesterday and a dress shirt that actually fit. My sholders have gotten a bit wider then they were when I was 18 (the last time I bought dress shirts or pants for that matter). Why do I need them? I'll leave that for you to figure out on your own.

I finally went climbing tonight. Haven't climbed much in the past two weeks since I cut my finger. I worked mostly on feet climbs and one armed climbs the past two weeks. So tonight I finally went and did some real climbs (using both arms/hands). It was kewl! I did a lot better then I thought I would. First I climbed all the new V0's in the bouldering room that they had just reset. It was kewl. So then I moved on to a V1 without any problems. And then figured I'd start a project climb -- a V2.

I worked on it a couple times but it had this ucky sloper hold right in the middle that I kept trashing myself on. So I asked for a tip and was told to keep my weight low. Slopers are done through friction -- friction on your hands is caused by weight on your hands -- weight on your hands means body low. Once I got the tip I went off and sure enuff, that was the trick. So I started that climb from the beginning and got it! So I went on to another V2 that I had been working on for some time -- I could do all the moves, just not all together. I got that one so I went on to yet another V2. And yup -- I got that one first try! I was on fire!

I pretty much called it quits after that. Did a couple of other V1's and some minor traversing but that was about it for me. Looking forward to climbing tomorrow!!

Guess thats about it -- L8tz all!
--B--

Updated a couple things on the site here:
My resume link now actually links to ... my resume! I have to say, Word does the most godawfull HTML that I have seen come out of a program since... I dunno ... Frontpage 95!

Updated the archives on the right to actually *look* like the rest of the site. There appears to be a problem with the javascript menus tho -- at least in IE. It works great in Netscape! heh.

Thanks to everyone for posting comments. You all are correct!! We'll just see where it goes from here I suppose.

--B--

Welp... I dunno what to do anymore.
I keep telling myself just "put up with it for a bit longer -- it'll get better" and then something goes on that makes me question myself.

So I came up with a great plan that will allow us to better utlize our hardware. Allowing us to have two active sql servers instead of just one with a hot standby. Only this would require reloading not one or two but three servers. Not a trivial task and not something that can be done during business hours.

Soooo I come up with a plan. Oh -- and we want to do it this month. Well, I offer, in my plan, to work over a weekend as long as I can get two days off the following week. Only seems fair right?

So I get a reply that reads:
"...
And Brent, as described before, we don't have a policy of providing comp time at LTI - salaried professional employees work to get the job done no matter how long it takes.

Let me know what you all decide so we can communicate the schedule today.

Thanks."

And then another one that reads:
"Time parameters....

Saturday:

Noon to Midnight PST

??? We must indicate the exact times the system will be offline. And we really should do this really off hours not at noon but I'll acquiesce on this one."

Now -- lets go down the ticker list:
first off, it is off hours for our customers if it happens over a weekend.

Second off: In my original email I outlined the fact that items beyond my control would require the system being down the *entire* weekend.

Third off: As a salaried employee it is quite obviously up to me to control the fact that if I let them, LTI management would drain me dry. It sure can't be held against me if they (management -- ALL of them) have let it happen to themselves.

Since nobody there seems to stick up for me, the guy who seems to be doing 10 peoples jobs, it is now up to me to do so. What does this mean? I think suddenly the rest of my weekends this month just filled up. I don't think I'll be able to do that SQL job after all.

So I honestly have no clue what to do for the long term. What to do ... what to do?? All I know is that it's getting harder and harder to stick it out. To grin and bear it. To turn the other cheek. Something's got to give and I'm sick to death of it being me. Honestly sick to fucking death of it.

Apologies to Missy if I've been moody. And with my finger killing every time I bend it climbing isn't looking like a good outlet for at least a couple of days. I guess I'll just keep plowing onwards and keep looking elsewhere. It really makes me wonder if I'm in the right business tho. While it pays well I've been through two jobs that both have started out decently and then just sucked major ass.

Thats it from my neck of the woods.
--B--

*sigh*
Thats how my day has gone.
*sigh*

It started out decent enuf. Took Michael back his bike that Richard had borrowed for when he was out here. Ran some other errands. Picked up a frmae for a poster...
Got back with time to put the poster in the frame and go climbing before sushi time for dinner.

Thats when disaster struck.

I was putting the glass back into the frame when I heard a sharp crack and the glass shattered in my hands. I didn't feel a thing but looked my hands over and sure enuf, blood was oozing up from my left hand's middle finger. Got it i under some water and it was still bleading pretty bad.

Missy had me wrap it up while she called a friend who is doing her internship to be a doctor. Missy's friend, Cary(?) gave the news -- it's off to the emergency room we go.

So we washed it off again, applied another damp paper towel and headed off to Sutter Hospital. Now I knew better then to expect fast service -- and I undertsnad that emergency rooms are for that -- and the dr's have to take the more severe patients first. But my god! We were there an hour before we got a room. Another hour before the doctor came around to give me stiches. Now I doubt any of this was anybody's fault in particular but still -- my god!!

Four stiches later I'm look at one week of no climibng with my left hand. Two weeks of light climbing, and then probably another two weeks to get back up to where I was climbing at.

Oh well -- life goes on. This way I'll be able to climb easier climbs and concentrate on my feet! It'll just be a bit more challenging -- thats all. Two points of contact on the wall instead of the more comfortable three.

I'm going to be heading down to SB at some point this month. Not quite sure when. Probably try and hammer out the details early this week. Gotta get myself a suit and stuff.

Oh well -- guess thats about it for now.
--Me--
*sigh*