6/1/2003 10:21 PM
I write this from Peoria, IL, on my sister's new computer. Brian and I came home this weekend so Brian could introduce Kathleen to the family, and to spend a very pleasant weekend in Peoria, unfortunately, missed my train to come back to town, and set a land speed record for the trip from Peoria to Galesburg, to get to the train station. The car we originally used to get to Galesburg broke down. That cost us a good amount of time, and wound up costing me $49 in an unused, nonrefundable ticket. Julia and I did some running today, and got some exercise yesterday, as well. More about that on the lard page. I am very tired now, so I will sleep.

6/5/2003 9:05 PM
After a very long time, I just installed LiteStep again. I just reinstalled windows, because of some inexplicable stability problems I was having. That all seems to have cleared up now. For a week or so, I have been using the boring, monumentally useless, stiflingly unconfigurable interface, until I have everything lined up the way I want it. I was tired of waiting, so I just went ahead and installed it.

Previously, I was using GeoShell, which is very nice, fast, and easy to use, but it still has too many rough edges for me. Some of my games would screw up nastily when I loaded them from within GeoShell. Prior to that(and still, on my laptop) I was using Blackbox for Windows. It's an X11-based window manager, that was quite masterfully ported to windows, and has a very pretty, easy to use interface. It's also probably the fastest windows shell I've ever used, but it doesn't like my games, either, and have a few assorted quirks, which I guess are just bugs.

Before that, I used a very old version of LiteStep that, while frill-free, was very fast, and got the job done exceptionally well. I liked it so much that I used it for about a solid three years, until the idea of other windows shells became too alluring. Anyway, the moral of this story is: Kill your desktop.

6/6/2003 6:43 AM
It was a hellish night at work, but when you're busy, time seems to have a way of passing more quickly. We are meeting for breakfast and beer after work, as a sort of good-bye toast for Misty. She got a job in Little Rock working for another dying cellphone company, and took the opportunity to get right the hell out of here, and start doing something she might enjoy. I will have to monitor my beer intake, as I have a three-hour drive to Des Moines in store, this afternoon. This will be the first visit I pay Alex since November, not counting when we left For Ireland from Des Moines, a few months ago. I am looking forward to some minor league and some libation.

6/9/2003 10:55 AM
I had a fun, relatively unexciting weekend in Des Moines. We went to two Triple-A ballgames, and it was rainy and pretty miserable at both, especially the first one. On Friday morning, a few of us went out for a few beers after work, at some places out in Lees Summit. It definitely was fun, but I had to get on the road later that day, not to mention that I had to drive the 16 miles back to my place. So I couldn't drink much. It was, nevertheless, very fun, and we all agreed to meet again at a bar in town called Charlie Hooper's, on Sunday night.

So, in light of this, I made sure to leave Des Moines early enough to make it back to KC in time to meet everybody. As a bit of a surprise for everyone, Geoff was in town, and he and I arranged for him to meet us all. On my way down from Iowa, Brian called me, and informed me that there was already a gathering of people at Side Pockets, a billiard bar in Lees Summit. It was 6 PM.

I was disappointed by this, as I wasn't keen on the idea of driving 32 miles round trip to get to a bar. I called Geoff from the road, and he agreed that the idea of driving out to Lees Summit was less than appealing. I decided, in the end, to go anyway, meet up with everyone, and then go to Charlie Hooper's to meet with Geoff, and anyone else that the folks in Lees Summit didn't manage to get a hold of. In addition, I trusted Brian, who had planned the whole time to be at home by 9:30 or 10, so he could ring his steady girl, to drive my car home. He only killed it once(that I saw). I was proud of him.

In total, I went to no less than three bars, and managed to keep my spending under $30, and to boot, Geoff's sister gave me a ride home. It was a very fun Sunday, but I really wish more people had come to Hooper's. I do think, however, that I would like to make Sunday nights more of a regular thing, as bars are rather sparsely populated, and the drink specials are thick. Also, Hooper's has Bully Porter on tap. Yum.

6/9/2003 11:51 PM
I have managed to sign up for QuakeCon early enough to be able to take my computer to the event. The 4000-seat Bring Your Own Computer(BYOC) area filled up in just under two hours, when the signup started tonight at 8 PM. I'm just glad that I made it. Now, all my ducks are in a row for the event, and all I need to do now is wait impatiently for the onset of the third week of August.

6/12/2003 9:59 PM
This has been the worst night at work that I have yet experienced. Don't get me wrong, it's quite invigorating to be busy all night, and not looking for something to do to pass the time. It's just that the platform that I have been working with this week has been the least stable set of software that I can recall using, in recent memory. It makes me wonder why my employer spends so much money on it. I was actually told by an appadmin last night that he wasn't going to fix anything, and that I would have to carry out routine work without the use of the software his team supports. That blew me away. His only justification, as far as I saw, was that he didn't want to wake up to do his job.

Anyway, I have one more night, "in the shit," tonight. I absolutely cannot wait until next week, when I'll be supporting something else at work.

6/16/2003 2:42 PM
Joel and I tried a new bar on Friday night. It's called Bender's, it's downtown, and Joel is doing their website in exchange for free beer. Sounds like a good deal to me. We each paid five dollars at the door, and walked into a very entertaining rock show with Reservoir Dogs being played on every TV screen. Fun, altogether.

Brian and I met after that at Charlie Hooper's, for tasty spirits and good conversation. We decided that night to go to watch the Royals host the San Francisco Giants, the next evening at 6PM. We lazed the afternoon away on Saturday, and missed the Stadium express, having to drive to the game. We arrived at the game, and took our "secret" way into the stadium with the conventional(slow) way in blue, and the faster, smarter, more clever way, the way we went, in red:



We walked a good three quarters of a mile from where we parked to the front gate, which was not a problem, as it was a gorgeous day. When we arrived at gate, we had already noticed how many people there were. We made a bet, once we got in, that whomever could guess the closest to the actual attendance would get their next beer purchased for them by the loser. Brian guessed 31,500, and I guessed 38,500. At 38,261, I won, and I enjoyed my beer copiously.

Anyway, we approached the front gate, and began to be accosted by scalpers. I politely turned them each down, until we were actually in the short line to buy tickets, when another guy approached us, and asked us if we needed tickets. Brian asked him, "How much," and the guy said, "Aw hell, I'll just let you have 'em." That is how we got into the game with upper level seats on the third baseline for free.

The game was a blast, we were in the shade, and both Mike Sweeney and Angel Berroa hit homers for us, not to mention the fact that Barry Bonds never hit one out. The Royals wound up losing 7-3, but still managed an exciting, very entertaining game. I can't wait to make another.

We adjourned to the Newsroom, where we had between 6 and 10 pitchers of the black stuff and/or Newcastle. We then stumbled home for lots of sleep. Brian and I spent a very nice weekend in Kansas City- our last for a long time. The next time we know of that we will both have a free weekend in KC is in late July.

6/18/2003 5:48 AM
Sorry for the slight lapse in uptime. If you didn't notice, cool, but if you were frantically clicking links to bahua.com between the hours of 8:35 PM and 2:38 AM, allow me to explain. By some strange means, a valve was opened to begin releasing copious amounts of water from the sprinkler system, in all apartments on the southwest corner of the building. Foul play is suspected, but not certain. Hallways and stairways on the southwest corner of the bulding began to fill and flow with water, and the fire alarm went off. We all assembled outside the front of the building and eventually heard the regrettable news. I was told that water had been turned off in the west half of the building(in which I live), and electricity would soon follow.

So, I packed up a few nights' things, called Brian, unplugged all our computers, and drove down to Lees Summit to get a hotel room for the night(near work). Brian had to drive a coworker home from work, a good distance from Kansas City, so he decided to try our apartment before coming out to the hotel. He discovered that the water and the electricity were both back on, and promptly began plugging things back in, including the computer upon which this website is hosted.

It was not fun, while it lasted. In other news, in case you have been emailing me, and getting myriad failure notices, I can explain. Simply, my user on kermit was deleted yesterday. I have nothing bad to say about IEAccess, the company that used to host my email. They were very attentive, had excellent service, and in my very exceptional case, free. I would highly recommend them to anyone who needs a webhost, in Peoria. I have made arrangements with another email host, but it will take a day or two before everything is all set up. Until then, you can reach me by phone, by my kcgeek address, by my techemail address, or by my work address. I will provide links to none. I will have a real email address soon. Please be patient.

6/19/2003 7:58 AM
Surprise Surprise! The forums section is complete! Have a look around, and see how you like it.

6/25/2003 5:33 AM
Well, it's been a while since I've made a proper, frontpage update to this site, and for that, I apologize. I assure you, however, that I have not been idle. The forums have and will continue to require a good portion of my attention, but I have basically gotten them to the point now where any more work that I do on them is just feature additions.

The lard page is still regularly updated, and despite the short lapse in updating this page, I submit that I have never been busier with bahua.com than I am now, halfway to Christmas.

I went to Peoria over the past weekend, and had a nice time. the name of the game now, though, is save money. I won't have any significant amount of money to throw around(or pay bills with) until the 4th of July. We have another new, but still favorable, supervisor at work now. Vince is leaving for another job(seems to be a trend around here) and Mike is stepping in as an interim supervisor for third shift. I have a fun, broke weekend in store.

6/30/2003 1:11 AM
My weekend at home has been filled with eggs, bacon, chinese delivery, and Harry Potter. I have a download for you, though. It's called Miranda IM, is released under the GPL, and is available for download here. It's an all-in-one instant messaging client that I find much faster than any of the proprietary clients, and also much easier to use. In addition, it has a modular framework, allowing third-party plugins to work with it seamlessly. Give it a try. I think you'll like it.

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