Saturday started out well. Misha and I went to Planet Granite early to get some climbing in before heading to the music shoppe.
Misha did really well. He on-sighted a bunch of 5.7-8s, a 5.9, and a 5.10b. WOWEE. for his first time climbing, I'd say that was pretty good. I couldn't climb up though, for even though Misha knew how to belay, they said they wouldn't test him unless he had outdoor experience. Whatever. So I did some bouldering probs, a little traverse, and a lot of belaying.

After that we headed to The Starving Musician. There was a guitar Misha wanted to check out so obsiously it took a lot of arm twisting to get me there...We quickly found the desired axe and Misha started playing. IT sounded good, played well, and seemd like an overall decent guitar. I asked if I could play. bad idea. I managed to stand on the cord when I stodd up, promptly ripping the electronics from their seat. WEEE! I broke it without even trying...Needless to say I felt like crap and didnt know what to do. We told the workers and the told us they werent worried, "SH*T happens", they said. They offered to give Misha the guitar for cost, and so, he bought it. W00p!

And that was the end of the eventful day.

I love Thanksgiving. Of all the holidays, its the most hassle, but man alive...so good in the end.

We spent the time with Dani's parents down in San MArtin. Its borderline annoying how accommodating these people are. I mention how I like McDonald's breakfast, and BOOM, everyone wants some, and they want to buy. Or Starbucks; we mention how good a mocha sounds in the morning, and suddenly Dad is taking orders. Ah well, I suppose I can't complain if people want to do things for me.

Misha came up from Pasadena. Thats nice too. He'll be here till Sunday I think. I'm really glad he came. He ate a lot. I've never seen him consume that much in one sitting.

Today we're just farting around I think. Whatever we do, I'm sure it'll be good..

I spent the weekend being sick. not fun. I was supposed to help with the all-nighter for the youth at church, but I had to jam early, I was wrecked.

I woke up in the morning to Danielle slamming the door open, "Are you dressed? Are you wearing any pants?". You see, I had only made it as far as the couch before I fell asleep, and Danielle had company in the morning and at some point during the night I had gotten undressed...hmmm...Apparently she didn't want me sauntering about in my boxers in front of company. I can't imagine why.

Hopped in the shower, had a shave, and I'm off to the computer show. I was supposed to build a machine for the church. So, I went and bought parts. Whiule I was there I decided I should have the vendor build it for me (since I was doped up on DayQuill). I bought some extra parts, and off to the office I go. Windows loaded fine, all the drivers and devices loaded fine, and I was on the verge of being astounded at the ease with which this machine was built when I realized...I had for gotten to put in the extra CDROM. Okay, no biggie...NARF! Nothing would load off the drive. CRAP! CRAP SAYS I!
It ended up being a funky IDE cable (3 hours later). went home, and all was well.

Sunday was a relaxing day. thoroughly relaxing. Went to church, cam home, napped, worked a bit on the movie from the all-nighter, and napped some more. Then we went off to the business meeting at the church. MMM, soup...WAIT! I mean noodle soup...wait no!...AH CRAP! Good corn chowder. My fave.

That soup was a good ending to a ho-hum weekend...

Movie's done. Got it rendered in quicktime, windows media, mpg, and Bing! Cherry Vanilla! Also, if you want a copy of your own, we can make VCD's (play it in your dvd player)...The cost to you??? One blueberry flavored tootsie pop.

Quicktime Format:
Low Quality (10.4mb)
Medium Quality (25.2mb)
High Quality (47.6mb)

Windows Media Format:
Low Quality (9.5mb)
Medium Quality (24mb)
High Quality (48mb)

MPEG:
High Quality (187.6mb)

We finished the video of the climbing comp. Its HERE (187mb).

I know its huge, so we're trying in the process of converting it to something smaller for you dialup folks....

-------------------------------------------------------

Update @ 2:00pm: We've been trying to get decent encodes out of the files now for several hours -- I think we're getting close but we probably won't get other versions up until tomorrow am. We are looking at a VCD version of the mpeg file (burn it and play it in a dvd player), quicktime versions at high and medium compressions, and windows media at high and medium compressions. If we can figure out how to get a decent looking "low" compression version we'll post one of those as well.

So, for the last four weeks I have averaged about 65-75 hours at work. It seems like everything is getting on my nerves now. I havent had a good night's sleep in weeks, havent had a good meal since I can remember, and I see no end in sight. They *say* this hectic stuff should all be over tonight, but I dont know. There's too much to do and not enough time to do it. Not to mention the fact that as soon as we think its done, Kirk changes what's *required*. Starting us at square one. I've been spinning my wheels for weeks implementing features and not function. making sure every user can change their scheme to some obnoxious purple, rather than making sure you can adequately make an IEP. Whatever.