I haven't typed anything lately as the voices in my head haven't said anything interesing in a while {grin}

Actually, I've been pushing myself to get a bunch of work done in a short time and not allowing myself to do much stuff besides my daily web surfing. Played some darts last night and I played a little bit of The Sims tonight (about 1/2 hour) and then back to work I went. I did spend some quality time with the mp3 collection tonight as well tonight. Who would have guessed that I, slacker supreme, would become a bit of a workaholic.

Why? I mean besides the fact I've got deadlines coming up.. I guess I just feel like I need to really put a good foot forward. I don't want to call it "the pressures of fame", but I really feel like after the big deal that was made about that award, I really need to step up to the plate. Add to that the fact that I would really like to go up for tenure early - I gotta get this stuff done.

Then again wasn't it Scotty (from Star Trek, natch) that something like, "Promise them 1 day and then do it in half that and they'll think you are a miracle worker." Maybe I should have inflated those time estimates. ERF.

Enough jibber jabber! I'm at a stopping point on my major spreadsheet project so I'll turn in early. A small reward for a full week. Maybe I'll treat myself to some new comic books tomorrow! Until next time true believers!

ERF! ERF! ERF! It's been one thing after another today. No wait - It's been one thing overlapping another all day today. The campus email goes down - the phone rings off the hook. The databases are off line - the phone rings off the hook. A group of machines is behaving oddly - the phone rings off the hook. Of course I'm flooded with email and other problems through email and the people who need to deal with these problems aren't here. The support people I call aren't there. This really is not fun. I'm sitting by the phone waiting to hear from people I don't even know if they will call me back or not. ERF!!! The sad thing is I was planning on working at home this afternoon. So much for those plans! ERF!!

An interesting day today...

The water main for the apartment building broke today. No water for most of the day. Julie & I spent most of the day running errands. I'm just glad I had a chacne to take my morning shower before it happened.

The comic book store I frequent didn't get new comics this week. This is the second time in a month that a dispute with the distributor has kept them from getting the week's shipments. This is becoming ridiculous. I've gone to the same store for a decade to get my graphic literature fix and now it is showing all signs of financial diress. I hope I'm wrong.

Crystal moved into town today! This is strange, all of us (both my sisters and I) haven't lived in the same town since I left home for college. Not that we will be seeing each other all the time, we all have our own lives now, but the idea just strikes me as really neat as Bambi & Daren once lived clear out by the Atlantic Ocean for a while.

Speaking of Daren - It was his birthday a few days back. Sorry about the delayed birthday greetings!

Virus Hoax

There is a new virus hoax message being sent around these days. You may get a message like the one below telling you to look for a file called jdbgmgr.exe and to delete it. This is a hoax similar to the sulfnbk.exe one that came out last year about this time.

This is a hoax, the jdbgmgr.exe file will be on your computer as it is a part of Windows. (It's a Java DeBuGer ManaGeR -> JDBGMGR.exe)

For information check out: Hoaxbusters (URL courtesy of Judellen)

Hey, it's Andrea F.'s birthday! I know she won't see this, but someone pass the greetings along to her!

Virus alert

A lot of you have probably been suffering from a rash of strange email notices. Maybe you got a "bounced mail" message and never even sent the person an email in your life. You may have found yourself subscribed to a listserv you never knew existed. You may be getting messages from people wondering if you could resend an attachment that you never had.

This is a side-effect of the Klez virus. It picks two random email addresses from the person's address book or from web pages they have visited and uses one for the "From:" line. (This practice is called "spoofing" - creating an email that looks like it came from another person). This would explain why you may have gotten some strange emails lately.

I now return you to your regularly scheduled work day.

Ever get your thoughts stuck in the middle of decade? I'm currently going through/suffering an amazing wave of 80s nostalgia. Maybe it's because I keep seeing icons of my youth in pop culture today. Transformers symbols on tshirts at Hot Topic. G.I. Joe comic books restarted. The big Spider-Man movie. Top video hits of the 80s on VH1. Maybe I'm not the only one.

The thing that gets me is that I had never really been one to think, "Gosh, the 80s were wonderful. I think I'll stay in that time frame forever". In fact I had prided myself that I hadn't. Maybe it's because I turned 29 a few days ago. A lot of "where have I been" has been going on in my head. Don't get me wrong - I'm not wishing that I could go back and change things. I really love the way my life has turned out so far. I've had ups and downs - but I'm in a really good spot now.

Maybe I should just enjoy the fact that I can enjoy the good things of the 80s again for a little while without being "dated". But if I start singing "Ice Ice Baby" and wearing parachute pants - somebody lock me up for my own good!

Today's my birthday! Happy birthday to me! Too bad I spent it with a bad gut ache. Must have been something I ate last night. Anyway show me some love by posting on the message board or send me an email. Heck, show you really care by buying an Emerald Fusion t-shirt from the store! {grin} Later all!

Houston was ok. I spent most of my time in the conference. I talked to people from Canada, Ireland, England, Hong Kong, Egypt, and Finland; along with many of the states. People from all over the world were there and I was floored that so many came and were excited about the project I was displaying. I'm getting email from them already. I guess this means I'll have to finish it add modules to it. Getting my trophy was something as well, as a President and CEO of a major library automation company was doing the presentation, in front of a crowd of about 1,000 people. I really underestimated what an honor this award is.

Houston itself was going through some problems as we were there. On Sunday there was a minor demonstration, I guess it was some Palestinians - I never did find out what was going on. George Bush, or "Junior" as I call him, was also in Houston for a bit. As we left Houston - there was a huge chemical fire going on. Later that day it was listed as one of the top 5 smoggiest places to live. With all of that going on, I was just barely aware of it.

In fact, I hardly left the building/mall complex. Why should I when it was over 90 degrees and nasty humidity and I could get just about anything right there in the building. The Galleria had an ice rink in the mall for crying out loud. I was impressed.

I'm back! I've got lots of stories to tell, but they will all have to wait a bit as I catch up on other things.

Good news! I'm back on Google's index. Thank you oh great Google!

More good news, on Sunday Julie & I celebrated our 1 year anniversary. Love ya hon!