waster lite

I've got nothing to say.  Actually, I might have too much to say, and can't figure out how to prioritize it all.  Some various ramblings...

Joe, Celeste, and baby Maddie are doing just fine down in KY.  Maddie is 3mo old now, and growing like a weed!

Samantha just finished her freshman year of college with a 3.414 GPA!  She's been working as a nanny while taking classes, and just been busting her tail all around.

Ethan is planning his summer vacations ... he's got trips w/ us, his dad, and his grandma down in FL.  He's pretty much booked the whole way thru.  Lucky dog.

Megan is still a freshman, but she already lettered in the ColorGuard.  They had a really cool performance this year, set to Pink Floyd's "Wish You Were Here."

Missy has been even busier than I've been.  She took a new position at work, but still has a lot of the old responsibilities, too.  So everyone in the office knows what a superstar she is, but it's a heckuva a load to carry.

I've already done two races this year.  I ran the Monument Rock n Roll 10k down in Richmond in April.  It's called the rock n roll bc they have bands playing all up and down the course while people are running.  Totally cool.  It was my first run-only race, so it was really weird to start with my feet on the ground.  I didn't even know how to warm up.  I did OK, but def could have done better:  total time 1:00:14.

The second race wasn't much of a race, but actually more of a party disguised as a race.  A couple friends, my sister, and I were on a team of 4 for the Rock Creek Park RunAmuck.  Beer, sunshine, friends, exercise, and a hellacious amount of mud made this a excellent day.  Check out the pics here.  (When you get to the video of the finish line, give it a minute to load.  It's totally worth the wait.)

I'm planning to make next year's RunAmuck a big event, w/ fam, friends, and even the kids.  Be ready.

The rest of my race schedule is rather quiet thru for a few months.  There's a 5k in Herndon on June 5, then nothing else scheduled until Aug & Sept, when I've got 4 triathlons on deck.  The season is capped with the Tough Mudder in October.  That one scares me a little bit.

Mud racing done wrong.  Or right.  Depends on your point of view.

That's the update.  Dunno if I'll be back next week, or if I'll be writing once per season.

It's kinda interesting to look at the links I collected over the past while, though.  They span from the tail end of the cold weather to the bright sunshine of spring.  I even had a couple of Cince de Mayo bits to share:





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Osama bin Laden flash games.

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Aaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhh.....!

There I was.  Mother of God, there I am!

I was hoping for just one more snowstorm before springtime rolls around.

OK, nevermind winter.  Kate Upton is jiggling me full-steam into bikini season!

I started a new business.

No, really, I started a new school.  Karate school.

AntiVaxxers continue to breakdown herd immunity in the US.  We're on track for the most cases of measles in a decade.  Click to see the JennyMcCarthyBodyCount.

GraveDigger* pulls an effing monster-truck backflip!

*I do understand this isn't GraveDigger I, but don't really care enough to learn the whole Digger family tree.  And since I haven't found time to blog in months, I didn't want to waste any more.

An educational look at Cinco de Mayo.

Scarily true.  Even the hair-dryer guy.

Finally, a couple quickies from Mighty Optical Illusions (Caution, clicking the pic for full screen may help, but will also potentially mess with your head.)

If either your screen or your brain start melting, don't say I didn't warn you.

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call me pops

First thing every post, I apologize for not writing more often.  So just go re-read last post, and I'll be sorry again.

This time, I'm actually more sorry about the timing.  I had a few items to share that were rather time sensitive.  I've still got 'em copied below, but it's on your shoulders to do a bit of time travel while reading.  If the posts aren't funny, it's your own damn fault for not trying hard enough.

Now that our regularly scheduled apologies are out of the way, on to the good stuff...

My new name is Pops.  I got to choose it myself.  

I'm actually writing this update from the mountains of West-by-God Virginia.  We're somewhere on I-64 between Nothingsburg and Emptyville.  Missy's taking a turn driving the truck, Mom & Tam are half dozing in the back seat, and I'm letting my mind wander a bit.

We're checking off the road-trip requirements of PretzelNacho Combos, beef jerky, and Long John Silvers.  Those hush puppies are sitting in the bottom of my gut like a rock.

Pops; my new name.  We're road-tripping to KY to see Joe, his wife, and their new baby, Madison Nicole.  They call her Maddy.  Yep, my kid has a kid, makes me a grandfather.  If that doesn't make you roll your eyes and giggle a bit, you need to cut back on the self-medication.

Maddy was born 3 weeks ago at only 4lbs 7oz, but totally healthy.  No time in the NICU, and home from the hospital in just two days.  Momma and baby are doing juuuuust fine.  In fact, Maddy is already over 5lbs and steady growing; earning gold stars and double prizes from all the baby docs.

I've only seen pics so far, but she's the cutest thing EVER. So far, I've only seen pics (the camera, in this case, did NOT add 10lbs).  I'm totally wired to meet her this weekend, and to give everyone hugs all around.

I've caught some teasing about the whole grandfather thing, and it's just so off target.  I haven't felt my age since I was about 13, so the 'getting older' part doesn't stress me in the least.  I'm loving every minute of this.  I couldn't be happier for Joe & Celeste.  Nobody's confused that they've got a lot of challenges in front of them, but the core of it all is that they've brought a beautiful perfect little girl into our world.  

It doesn't get any better than that.

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AngryBirds + a lumberjack axe = ChickenHouse.

Just point and klikwerk.  

Multitasking.  Starts easy, then rips your brain in pieces.

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Look what I got for Christmas!

Football season is over.  As a die-hard Redskins fan, I'm telling myself that our Elfin owner is done throwing barrels of money on big names that have exceeded their shelf-life.  May we never see another Haynesworthless or McDrabb.

Shmitten Kitten - know what I hate/like?  Click this.  Seriously.  Do it.  Now.  The page is too big for me to copy here, but it's effing classic.  

US History observation:

Stoners always know what time it is, and that the Price is Right.



Do ya feel lucky, punk?  Well?  Do ya?

Steve Jobs' New Year's resolutions:

Olga Korbut in the 1972 Olympics.  Inhuman skillz!


Gone with the Wind, the never-before-released director's cut:

Barstool Sports' 2010 Sex Scandal Teacher starting line-up.

Don't push me, you little two-legged brat.

Special K sent me an EggsBox 360!  Can it get any more stupider?


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quick and dirty for the holidays

School's out, I'm on vacation til January, and the family is all in town.  Start the holidays!!!

Joe and Celeste drove up from Kentucky on Tuesday.  Long drive, but safe trip though.  They've done birthdays with his mom's fam, and they're doing Christmas stuff with her mom's fam tomorrow.  They're meeting up with us on the afternoon of Christmas day.  This is their first year trying to balance so many houses, so I'm sure it'll be a challenge.

We have the shared-holiday down to a science though.  Since the actual holiday is always a jumble of super-hectic activity, we just do Christmas early.  Regardless of the date on the calendar, it's good family time without all the time constraints.

Missy and the kids started Friday night by baking and decorating a whole rack of cookies.  These were FoodChannel quality cookies, too.  Win-me-ten-thousand-dollars cookies.

The adventure didn't stop when the cookies were finished.  Sam and her bf got in a car wreck late that night.  They're both OK, he got a couple stitches and they both got a whole rack of bruises, but nothing permanent.  I did have the pleasure of answering that 1am phone call telling me she was in a car wreck.  We spent the whole night in the ER, but sadly I missed watching when they dug this piece of glass out of his face:

Saturday was still fun, but thankfully with a lot less excitement.  We had reallllly tasty dinner down in Alexandria at Columbia Firehouse.  It's a top-notch restaurant built into what used to be a for-real fire station. The original building dates from 1883, and it's still got the classic feel to it.  

After dinner, we went across the river to the National Harbor for a bit.  They've got a lot of holiday stuff to check out:  light shows, giant Christmas trees, dancing fountains... it's all really fun freebie stuff.  Not enough to fill an entire evening, or to do year-after-year, but definitely worth the trip at least once.  (We didn't do the ICE! displays, bc $30 each, times the size of my crew, gets a bit expensive.  Just didn't seem worth the reward.)

Once we finished all the running around, we had a late night gift exchange back at the house.  Everybody in the fam really gets into gift-giving; finding the right present to deliver a big smile.  As a result, I think we all made out like bandits.  :)

Over the coming days, we've got a whole rack of Christmases to celebrate.  We'll be running around the DC area doing the holidays with all the different branches of a big ol' family tree.

Have a safe and happy holiday!

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Bloons, Christmatized.

The best part about the 12 Holes of Christmas (besides the Tiger Woods jokes) is being able to color your balls.

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Pam says have a classy Christmas.

Jess sent in the 1811 version of the Urban Dictionary.  Captain Grose's "Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue." I'm happy that sort of buckish language has progressed, bc I'd have a heckuva a time not giggling whenever I mention my twiddle-diddles.

The classic:  Drowning Pool "Bodies (Let the Bodies Hit the Floor)"

The remix:  TouchCat gives us Lolita the Parrot rocking a spot-on cover.

Um, I'm not sure how Gina's doing things in TX, but I'm not up for much of mobile-anything in the back of a white van.

Everything but secks.

Simple and accurate.  Worst part is, I don't even offer one.  Missy has to deal with me in fractions.

I've had this in my inbox for a while, and I'm not sure exactly why I think it's so awesome.  Maybe she reminds me of someone.  Maybe it's just really cool.  Maybe this is how Penthouse Forums appear in my head.  

Closing this week with my all time favorite Christmas image.  To me, nothing says Christmas more than watching the presents open their children by the tree.

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done done done done DONE

I've been gone for a while.  I've been getting whipped by my schoolwork this entire semester.  Whipped hard, too, with no SafeWord to loosen the straps when things got a little out of control.

It was worth it though.  Last weekend, I finished my senior project.  103 pages of tension, sweat, and bloody keyboarding.  Earlier this week, I completed my final final.  Say that with me:  "final final."  No more exams, EVAR!  I am one-hundred-per-cent, now and forever, i's dotted and t's crossed, DONE with my degree requirements.

Once I get my grades back and do all the formalities, I'll have:
(assuming that I passed of course)

• Diploma in Homeland Security
• Associate's degree in Computer Information Systems
• Bachelor's degree in Information Systems, focus on Programming

I feel more smarticles already.

Besides schoolwork, we've had the typical whirlwind of family stuff happening around the house.  I have a few  dozen topics dancing with the sugar plums in my head.  I really need to flush my brain and start over, though.  Kinda like coming back from vacation and deleting the email inbox.  If it's important, it'll come back.

Megan lettered for doing her 3rd season of color guard in the marching band.  She's just now a freshman, so she got credit for the years she was in middle school, but spinning flags w the high school band.  She's kicking tail in her classes too.  Missed straight A's the first semester by one class:  B in violin class.

Sam is home from Radford.  For keepsies.  Before you jump to conclusions, her return is by choice.  She earned solid A's and B's her first semester, but decided to switch schools.  She's already registered for the spring semester at NOVA, and will be transferring to JMU either sophomore or junior year.

Ethan just finished a really cool science project.  He built models of three different bridges, and tested how much they flexed under different weight loads.  His project looked like the projects you see in the movies, 1000x better than anything we ever did in school.

Joe and Celeste are doing their thing down in Kentucky still.  My mom and I took a road trip a while back, checking out their apartment and delivering furniture.  The apartment is super cute in a nice neighborhood, just up the road from where he's working.  They're coming into town for Christmas, so I'm looking forward to getting caught up on all the latest.

Christmas for us is actually starting tomorrow.  Since the kids have so much family, step-family, and extended family, December 25 is insanely busy.  We do our famstuff on a different day, so we can relax a bit and enjoy the time together without dealing with a high-pressure schedule.  We're going to dinner in Alexandria at Columbia Firehouse.  I know it sounds like a bingo hall, but it's actually a really cool restaurant built into the shell of an 1800's firehouse.  After dinner, we're heading down to the National Harbor to check out the lights and shows, before heading home to exchange gifts.

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Balls.  Not like that.  These are balls in a Christmas, as well as a use your brain, kinda way.

This game kick's some Christmas ass!  You'll soooo wind up on the naughty list, though.  Super Santa Kicker!
(Why is Santa so jolly?  'Cuz he knows where all the naughty girls live.)

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Send submissions!!!!


Five ways to let your Facebook password get stolen.  (Side note:  it drives me effing crazy when people say "I was hacked!"  After a decade in IT, I've only seen one instance when the user hadn't done something boneheaded first.)

Gawker's password database was compromised.  Here's a graph of the most common passwords in that data spill.  If your password is on the list, maybe you should be a little more creative...

Der-duh-derrr.

Dog people are infinitely funnier than cat people.

Dogs don't need people to be funny:  "I made food!  I'm magical!"

Candy is my favorite part of Halloween.

The 1985 John Riggins limited edition Ford F-150.


Only in West Virginia.

CrifDogs NYC!


All I need is the little box of 8 Crayolas.

I just got free of my BlackBerry.  I can vouch for accuracy of the dinosaur picture.
(btw - Verizon, which caught a lot of my venom over the summer, backed off of their stupid "pay extra for nothing" policy.  We renewed the contract and got three new phones, including my Droid X.  I'm still irritated at Verizon, but I LOVE MY DROID.)

CHOMP!

Dammitall.  I knew it was them.

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nothin

This is just too funny to bury at the end of the Waster.  (via TotalProSports)

Been crazy effing busy for the past couple weeks.  This may be the shortest Waster ever.

I'm working on my senior project for school.  Cool that I'm getting closer to the end.  Sucks that it's whipping my tail.

Work has been nuts, too.  We have a delivery to the gov due on Monday, so everybody has been spinning in circles trying to get things wrapped up on time.

Halloween is here... best holiday EVAR!  We have a small costume party tonight, then a bigger sillier one tomorrow.  I haven't had time to build the anticipation, but now that I'm off work for the weekend, the jitters are rising!

Enjoy the holiday!

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Monster Truck NIIIIIII-TROOOOOO!

Tetravalanche.  Looks pretty cool, but I just can't quite figure it out.


Jerseylicious.  Not playable, but totally funny.  Thanks, TouchCat!

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xkcd is right on point.  again.

Ranker's 10 hottest girls with bad teeth.

Doggie parkour.


I love me some Jack.

I love me some pirates and Jamaicans, too.

Kat swears this wasn't her.  I'm confirming that denial with her sister.

Put some John Lee Hooker into your head for the weekend.  Boom Boom.


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up from the hole

I've been stupid busy with school and work this week.  4-day week, but I had 6 days of work to try to squeeze into it.  I'm just scratching out a couple thoughts here during the football games.

I'm doing my 'senior seminar' this semester at school.  It's pissing me off something fierce.  I burned 11 hours on this project yesterday instead of running around in the sunshine.  Something sucks; it may be the professor, may be the curriculum, or it may be me. 

I've spent a few years studying IT stuff; software architecture, programming languages, other geekstuff like that.  The problem I'm having with this class is that the project is decidedly less-than-geeky.  12% of my grade is based on a huge proposal document, intended to sell my project to a business.  It's a heavy dose of creative writing (I'm soooo not an ENG major) paired with a boatload of business writing (again, not a BUS major).  Bleh.

So school jammed my weekend so far.  Not happy.  10 more weeks before I get this class behind me, and I'll be a very happy boy.  Hopefully, the prof will have us getting geeky soon.

I'm taking off work Mon & Tues, and heading down to KY to see Joe & Celeste at their new apartment.  For both of them, it's their first time living on their own.  They've got a lot of learning ahead of 'em.  I've got a truckload of furniture & other stuff to help get 'em started.  I'm pretty excited to see the place and visit with the kids for a bit.

Go check out my buddy Jon's 'Friday for the Foodies'.  He writes for Glide Magazine's HiddenTrack every week.  This edition is all about a top-notch butcher shop near Alexandria.  The shop is called "Let's Meat on the Avenue", and can hook you up with all sorts of fun stuff.  They carry buffalo, true kobe beef, wild boar, and even kangaroo!  I'll be grilling the whole wild kingdom soon.


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Dom is the source of all our shoot-em-up fun.  TropicalDragonSlaughter!

Rescue the miners! (timely, but sucks)
Be a miner! (playable)
Miner 2049er! (old school)
Protect the minors! (best of the lot)

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(Credit to BarstoolSports)

Guys, pay attention.  She will judge you based on your email provider and your ability to drive a stick shift.

I worked software dev w/ Eddi for a while, but back then he didn't have computer skills like this!



Kat's Dueling Banjos redux, with fire.


Stop!

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selling my soul for my friends

Another post starting without direction... I'll just ramble for a moment until something catches my fancy.  The latest kidstuff:

A while back, I'm pretty sure I shared the info that Joe bailed on college.  He and his gf had been staying down in KY with his grandma (mother's side) for the past few months.  They had a JoP wedding a couple months back, and just this past weekend got their very first apartment together!   I'll be making the drive to KY in a couple of weeks to check it out and deliver some furniture.

We visited Samantha down at Radford last weekend.  She arranged for some beautiful weather, and we had a really nice tour of the place.  It was 'Family Weekend' along with 'Highlander Festival' so most of the buildings were open and showing demonstrations, and all the courtyards were packed with vendors and fairground foods.

Ethan and Megan are midway through their first semester already.  Interims came out, and we have mixed results.  Some really good news, and some not-so-good.  That's all I'm saying at this point. 

Got a couple bits of advertising to squeeze into this action-packed post...

Augur is playing the gazebo stage 3pm, Saturday at SterlingFest.  I've been a fan of these guys for a couple years now; great rockin' music, lots of fun, and they continually support the community.  (Get to SterlingFest early, and you can catch the belly-dancers at 1:15.)

BYRN, roots reggae rock, is one of my new favorites.  Old friends, but hadn't heard them play until recently.  I'm really liking the sound.  They're kicking off a whole Sunday night of music at Jimmy's Old Town for the 10.10.10 Vet Aide event.  Good music, great cause!

One more ad, then I'm done for the week.  This is some good shiznit.  Tasty and uber-healthy.  Dark energy in a bottle!
(imagination credits go to Hell's Newsstand.)

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Tangerines are deadly?  WTF?

Roller coasters, video games, puzzles, and wasting time.  Perfect.

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Huh?  What?  I wasn't listening.





Mustard with attitude.

What?  You didn't hear that?  Lemme drop the F-bomb once again:

High speed, mid-air dolphin collision! Maybe they're not as smart as I think they are...



Who uses phonebooks? Seriously, paper phonebooks are one of the biggest, dumbest waste of resources I know. Please please please use this link to get off of multiple phone book distributions.

Yeah, that's exactly how I'd use my magic powers, too.

A map of high-school sexual relationships.  I think it's legit:  the chains look realistic enough, and I recognize similar patterns from my school.  I've even have names for a few of the dots...



The banjo scene from Deliverance.  Classic.  Bobby was still untainted.


I hadn't laughed at Sarah Palin in a few weeks.  Consider the streak broken.

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put it on hold

I'd planned on using this week's Waster to vent about recent escapades at the courthouse. Nope, still no resolutions...more delays and silliness. My venting is shelved until sometime this winter, then maybe I'll tell you all about it.

So instead of having a topic of discussion here, I'm just rambling. Dunno where the ramble will take me yet. I'm sure it'll be disjointed and boring.

On my mind recently: Verizon Wireless. We have a total of 5 phones, with a bunch of different call/text/data packages. For years and years, I've loved Verizon, and told anyone and everyone how awesome they are. They have a lot of my money already, and I was trying to give them a lot more (1 new droid + 2 new phones + 3x2 year contract extensions). Instead...

Fuck Verizon Wireless.

They've introduced a new contractual requirement for some of their phones: forced data plan purchase on mid-level phones. I'm not talking about smart-phones like droid or crackberry, but the regular call/text/games/music/ringtone type camera phones.

These phones can optionally connect to the web for things like facebook, VCast, or downloading more media files. Optionally is the key word. The phones do not NEED the data connection to operate. We have data comms blocked on all the kids' phones.

Those greedy Verizon bastards don't like the way we use our phones, so they force a data purchase now, even if you don't want/need/use it. If you phone simply HAS THE POTENTIAL to make a data connection, the charge is $10 per phone, per month. Some quick math:

(4 of our phones are not using data)
x($10 each)
$40 per month
x(24 month contract)
$960 !!!

Read that number out loud, slowly ... nine ... hundred ... sixty ... dollars.

Fuck Verizon Wireless.

Seriously, nearly $1000 in forced additional charges, for nothing. Even though we have data comms completely blocked, we're still required to pay up for any phone that we buy with the POTENTIAL to make a connection.

Can you imagine if other companies did this?
Have an HD TV? Oh, you're required to purchase HD cable now.
Drive a GM? We're making you purchase the OnStar service now.
Have a TomTom? You're forced to pay for monthly map updates.
And you have to subscribe to HBO, whether you like vampires or not.

I called my way up the customer support chain to no effect. The phone monkeys only know what they've been told, and they've been told that "These phones need a data connection to operate." Close. More accurately: "These phones need a data connection before Verizon will allow them to operate on their network."

As soon as this contract is over, we're gone. Eat my gummi nads, you greedy Verizon bastards.


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Robichai reminds me a little of the original Pitfall game.

Tron + LineRider + some old-school motorbike game = Neon Rider.

My favorite Mario game EVER!




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A different perspective.
(source, and cited references)


I miss you, Batman, the Animated Series


Butt-lift surgery gone wrong.


Daddy, I want a miniature giraffe, and I want it now!


I'm not scared of a lot of things. Some think I'm brave, some think I'm stupid, some think I'm reckless. I just enjoy the adrenaline jolts. That said, this video literally made my palms sweat and my heart race. Fuuuuuuuuck this tower-climbing job.


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