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Oooo goodie. The masters of all things networking at TW helped my obviously fooking ignorant CCIE ass understand that when they do maintenance on their equipment, I must cold boot my router to reset the interface else it "no worky por nada". This pill might be easier to swallow if I didn't do this shit for a living. I love my ISP... not.

"I am not what you would call a handsome man. God did not choose to bless with me with good looks, charm, or a fully functional brain." - Paco (Waterboy)
Did I ever mention how much I love attending pointless meetings? They fill my heart with joy. I try so hard to stay focused. I don't know where I would be without Bullshit BINGO. Have you played? It's fabulous and it is ever so helpful when you have meeting after meeting after meeting... the rules are quite simple: Each player prints their own game cards. Check off each block when you hear the words printed in the card during a meeting (also works for seminars or conference calls). When you get five blocks horizontally, vertically, or diagonally, stand up and shout BULLSHIT! My inadequate ISP is still fixing their little problem.... (sigh)... I am really looking forward to getting out of here this afternoon. This sucks.

"goth clubs should serve coffee. ice cold coffee. with nails and broken glass. and call them 'depresso's" - irc quotes
My ISP's effin network is still down... no mail, no web, no dns, no brains... I think I'll take a nap. I just need to figure out how to secure a hammock across my office. There doesn't appear to be a strong place of attachment. Dilema. I guess under my desk will do in a pinch. Yaawwwwwwwn.

Unbelievable. My day is off the blocks and running rapidly toward the gutter. Here's the part where I complain and make you ask yourself why the hell you are reading this anyway... first off, I'm sure it's annoying to have this never-ending page of posts to load every time you come here, so I wanted to make it small and use the archives... apparently, not many people refer to older posts, so archives that work correctly seem to be a low priority for the folks that develop Blogger. Again, sorry. Secondly, someone hacked my mail server and started using it to propagate SPAM. I hate SPAM. I am not sure I know anyone that likes it... we just tolerate it. I was running late getting into the office. I almost always a punctual guy and being late bothers me. There was no good coffee when I arrived... prelude to a bad mood. I had a bushel of emails and voicemails with various complaints and pleas for assistance on issues that I really don't care about... then, the piece d' resistance! Fucking incompetent Time Warner Communications yet again takes my network connectivity down. I am hosting this journal from a "business class" cable connection (hence the miserable bandwidth) and the freaks at the cable company can't seem to keep their network up. If they worked in the real world, they wouldn't be employed very long with their track record, but apparently over at Willy Wonka's Chocolate Factory, they can drop customers at will and just dance around all day with no consequence. "Oompa oompa..." ad nauseam. I called and got the "our air conditioners are having trouble keeping the routers cool enough and they are overheating" excuse. WTF? What do you do with the money your unsatisfied customers pay you every month? I really should change. I used to have Sprint ION at home... that was excellent (8Mbps down, 1Mbps up) and it never went down. I wonder what joys lay quietly ahead, waiting to spring into my day to deliver another lump of coal.

Blogger's archiving is still severely fucked up. Sorry. Because of this, I am not cutting back the verbage on this page (because the archive links are broken and I reference old shit often)... if it gets too slow, I'll move to Stephen's server (CoLo'd at gig+ speed to the Net). Dammit Blogger.

"...the little things... is there anything bigger?" - Vanilla Sky
What a day. First off, thank you Stephen for the excellent companionship this afternoon. We are so much "on the same page" about life issues that I always have a great time hanging with him. The restaurant Nicole (who I would secretly love to go out with... shhh, don't tell anyone) told us about was great. It's called Spanish Flowers and it rawks. The food was good and the service was excellent. I ordered a "margarita... rocks, no salt", which apparently translates to "pour me an 8 oz. glass of tequila and wave a lime somewhere near the edge of the glass" in Spanish. Fuck me. You're not supposed to make "the shot face" when you drink a mixed drink... are you? After a few of those, I was feeling no pain. We rented a couple of movies. Stephen has this incredible 16:9 ratio digital widescreen (55") and Bose surround system at his house, so it's kinda like being at the theater. Vanilla Sky is a trip. I liked the movie, but it was not at all what I expected. I spent a lot of time with Eclair today. She is such an amazing dog. Hopefully, I'll get some pics of her online soon (she's a beautiful dog as well). In pace with today's topic, Stephen is having trouble with his ex-girlfriend, so I helped him put off dealing with the issue in the stereotypical male way... beer. We went for happy hour at the steakhouse down the street from my house where they pour very large beers and don't ask any questions. I give him unsolicited advice, but then feel bad afterwards... look at me... I'm single, what the hell do I know? Anyhoo, that wasn't the main topic of conversation, so we had a great time. I ran into some people I knew from my job of yesteryear and caught up on "schtuff". I would say that I had, for the most part, an amazing day off. Back to the grind manana. I liked all the comments on the last post. It was like a record (or something)... :-). I'm glad someone is out there listening. Uh, while I'm on the subject... thank you. Tomorrow is one month of blogging for yours truly and I am about 1100 hits shy of 10000 in the first month. Obviously, someone gives a shit about whatever crap I am leaking onto this page. So, if you are reading this, thanks. I love the comments, email, pictures, etc. It's not why I started writing this journal by any means, but it may very well be the reason I continue. You all are great. I especially like how people come out of the woodwork and comment when something strikes close to home (ie. the comments and emails about my last post... you know who you are). Communication... isn't it all about communication? I am, in a really strange way, looking forward to my ride to work tomorrow. I think this commute has become addicting. I plan on attending the H-Town Bloggers happy hour tomorrow afternoon at Lil' Woodrows, so if any of you are part of that group and the venue has changed, please email me! Sleepytime.

I literally almost cried when I read this. OMG. How irresponsible. I don't have any children. At my age however, if you don't have children, you most certainly have friends that do... I can not imagine placing your children's lives in jeopardy like that... for what? to save a few minutes? I almost was a dad once... not the old fashioned way, but through relationship. I dated this girl in the mid 90's that had a two year old daughter. I loved her very much and I found some irony in our breakup surrounding the fact that it hurt almost as much to lose her daughter as it did to lose her. Strange feeling indeed. So, I had a little taste of dad-mode for a while... it really makes you a completely different person ( in theory... apparently this guy cheering for Darwin's team was a slow learner). I read my friend Greg's blog and smile at how much love he pours out in his words about his daughter. He's such a proud father... a good father. The saddest thing is, shit like this wreck happen every single day. Anyhoo, speaking of relationships... since my brother Sean has decided to break his dating hiatus and give it a go, I thought that I too might take a chance at getting stepped on, lied to, cheated on, taken advantage of, and disappointed again. I'm not bitter though... really. Hearing his proclamation of attempt came as a shock to me because we are both very jaded when it comes to dating. There has been many a long night discussion about why you women feel the need to continually prove the "nice guy always gets fucked in the end" stereotype is true. If you're a dog, a playa, if you lie, if you cheat, if you take for granted, if you are the complete and total opposite of romantic, are a pig, a chauvinist, a loser, a moocher, or basically just a lump of shit with a Y chromosome, then you are guaranteed a relationship with longevity. If you are thoughtful, caring, affectionate, romantic, always truthful, always faithful, and always a gentleman... you are, my friend, a doormat that will end up alone... probably sooner than you think (a.k.a. my most recent attempt at dating that reaffirmed my position on the subject). So, here we are... Sean stepping up to the plate and saying, "Clayton, I'm going to be the bigger man and try this again." Well, I love him. I can't let him put his fragile heart out on the chopping block all alone... then, what common stories would we have to talk about the next time he comes down to my not-MTV-Cribs crib for the weekend? I'll be ok. Every time I've been disappointed in my life, I've bounced back sooner. When Jessica and I broke up, my heart heart so badly I didn't go out on a date for three years. I thought I might just die. LOL. I'm a lot older now and have been through a series of similar disappointments and have either learned to understand and deal with the situations much better or have grown a thick skin around my heart. I convinced it's the former, because I'm still a sucker for romance. Blah blah blah... as he rambles. Ok, I'm getting hungry and Nicole told Stephen and I about this excellent Tex-Mex place over near the Heights that I now must try. I'm proud of you Sean. I wish us both luck... in not proving history to be correct yet again. Oye! Where's my chiliquilles!?

I had an completely fabulous evening doing absolutely nothing. It was incredible. I took the day off tomorrow. I plan on heading off to make a coma taco out of me and my comforter in about 5 minutes, but wanted to record in my little journalized history that this evening of nothing was the best evening of nothing I can remember in a very long time. I'm smiling... well, there are many reasons I'm smiling, but right now it's only important that I'm smiling. Goodnight.

Spitting in public... just say no.

On my way to refill my coffee cup (I figure I walk about 13 miles a day in trips to and from the coffee shrine), I saw a quote scribbled on a cubical white board... "History is a vast early warning system." I like that. It is probably more popularly interpreted as being directed at civilizations, governments, etc. I think it is more true for relationships. Think about it. Oooo... lookie... clean desk... oooo...

I was sad when I arrived at work this morning... not because I was at work, but because my trip to work was over. I had a blast this morning... lots of mud, sprinklers, rain, jumps, bumps, and obstacles. This peddling to work thing is the best decision I've made in a while. How ironic is that? I was in the company fitness center showering/changing after I arrived and this large fellow came out of the showers wearing nothing but those big-strap fly eye bubbly racquetball goggles in dayglow color. Bono would have been jealous. It was kinda freaky. I am going to clean my desk today. I'll be sure to take a "before" picture of the clutter for comparison. Coffee time.

My kitty chews. You name it... if it resembles string, wire, cable, etc... Penny has to evaluate the taste. I have gone through more headphone cords, more telephone wires, more speaker wires, more shoelaces, and more miniblind drawstrings that anyone I have ever met... combined. I love that cat. I just got home from Taco Milagro. For those of you that don't know this place, it's like a Taco Bell with top shelf margaritas and fresh ingredients. If your in Cali, it's like an alcoholics' Baja Fresh (in Texas, we do everything with alcohol). I was going to grab something close to the house, but I went with Stephen and his new girlfriend (I think it's ok to call her that now), Georgia. She seemed very nice. I think he deserves someone nice. Anyhoo, I am going to try to sleep early tonight (emphasis on try) and they scurried off to quality time. Awwww... I keep telling myself I'm not bitter. Really, I'm not bitter. I found this Word document tonight when I was looking for something on some archived discs that I really wanted to share with the folks from my generation out there. Well, I wanted to share with everyone, but unless you can remember Martha Quinn, the Outfield, Men without Hats, Falco, the J. Geils Band, Rick Springfield, Dexys Midnight Runners, Human League, Men at Work, Oingo Boingo, Tears for Fears, Cheap Trick, Night Ranger, John Cougar (sans Melloncamp), Modern English, Flock of Seagulls, Soft Cell, Bananarama, Bangles, Huey Lewis & the News, and Thomas Dolby... you probably won't enjoy this quiz. Actually, I just rattled some off the top of my head, but if you find yourself saying "who?" to any of those, you probably won't enjoy this quiz. For those up to the challenge, download it HERE. Write me and let me know how you did... this brings back sooooo many memories. Hmmm... oh yeah, I almost forgot. I am changing the format of this page to show only a week's worth of posts starting on Wednesday. The older posts will be archived. Wednesday is the one month anniversary of thispageintentionallyleftblank.net and I've had a lot of fun sharing my thoughts and getting feedback. I should have started something like this a long time ago. Woohoo... time for me to watch some cheesy late night television and crawl into my big, comfy bed... me likes big comfy bed. Bon nuit.

Prelude to a Parting (Maya Angelou)
Beside you, prone,
My naked skin finds fault
In touching, yet is you who pulls away.
The tacit fact is,
The awful fear of losing
Is not enough to cause
A fleeing love to stay.
______________

"Hate is baggage, life's too short to be pissed off all the time, its just not worth it." - American History X
Anger is an emotion that I do not fully understand. There are a few people in my life that are easily agitated. It seems they get angry with little or no provocation. The anger is often controlling and builds until they completely lose control. I have never experienced anger like that... I dare say I have never experienced real anger, but if I haven't experienced it, I suppose I don't know what it really consists of and hence, I wouldn't know either way. I have been a little irritated about things that would make most people furious, but it takes a lot. I was with a girl one time that had an anger problem. The understanding that I do have on the subject came from that relationship. There were some black days in there somewhere. I am not really sure why I thought of this at this particular moment. I feel my mind wandering from subject to subject this afternoon in my complete and utter boredom and for some reason it stopped here. I love my new MP3 player. It is way better than the last one I bought. Yippie. I am taking Tuesday off work. I would take tomorrow off as well, but my boss is out of town for the next two weeks and I think it isn't really fair to his stand-in to just not show up for work and follow up with a "I'm taking a couple of days off" email. Courtesy is pretty high on my list. I am about to go sit in the afternoon sun and enjoy an espresso or two... alone. I have been such a hermit these days. I don't spend nearly enough time with friends. I have been procrastinating doing things that I really want and need to do. I don't date... ever. If I weren't such a happy guy most of the time, I'd say I was depressed. Does that make sense? Whatever.

Just loading up my nifty new bikepool buddy for the commute to work. I completely dig that it's expandable (via 128MB SmartMedia Card) to 256MB. I really wanted to stick with solid state since my ride is often crazy (offroad). I didn't buy a flash expansion yet, but it appears that I'm still going to fit about 3 CDs worth of music encoded at 128Kbps on the internal flash. Happy happy joy joy...