So, this past weekend, I went to Midwest Furfest, met up with a bunch of cool people--Jouva, AndrewNeo, IceFox, and Taren... also spent tons of money--a lot on things I probably shouldn't have, but oh well. I still think it was worth it to get a dinosaur drawn on a punchcard. :)

Breakdown of the weekend:
Friday: arrived late, stopped by the con and wandered around a bit, but went back to the hotel shortly after.

Saturday: got up early, went to a few panels (of varying quality), ate some really good pizza at Rosatti's for lunch (between panels), then spent the early evening playing Settlers of Catan with Verace and a few other guys. Was a really fun game, and it was a good group of people. After that, got some Chinese food at this small fast-food type place--was rather good, and they were generous with their shrimp, given the cost of the meal. So much rice, though... Went back to the hotel for a while before seeing Jouva was in the den playing games, so drove back to the con to play Fluxx, followed by a fairly massive game of Apples to Apples. Again, a really good group of people I played with. Also saw the fursuit parade that afternoon, and have LOTS of pictures from that. Still working on processing those.

Sunday: *sniff* almost time to leave. In the morning, took Jouva his badge that he had forgotten the previous night, and he, Andrew, Teek, and I all went to IHOP for a late breakfast/early lunch. Got to talk to them, and through several memes, we all got to know each other fairly well. From there, we putzed around for a while until we were ready to go, I said goodbye to Jouva (couldn't find Andrew in time), and began the long haul home. Made it home in (mostly) one shot--took a break somewhere in Illinois for food and gas.

Anyway, thanks to everyone for an amazing weekend, and I look forward to doing it again.

First, I'm sad. I just lost a 556 day uptime.... but, on the other hand, that system is actually patched now. Thanks to everyone for not exploiting it. Just have to clean up the little bits that didn't get started right on boot. Oops?

Next, physics. It works. At Six Flags yesterday, one of my friends had the excellent idea to drop a penny at the top of Mr. Freeze. It stayed in front of our face, perfectly, until hitting the floor of our car when we turned at the bottom. Horray, freefall. It really is an incredible sight, though probably not the smartest idea to be dropping things from the top of a roller coaster.

Still, this weekend was a lot of fun. Cool beans.

And a late happy Mole Day to everyone who celebrated on October 23. I wore one of my t-shirts, of course.

Sometimes, bad news can be surprisingly uplifting. That's kinda what I'm feeling now. Absolutely no hard feelings to the involved parties, but in a way, this may be a beginning to a new start in my life--and that's helpful. Yeah, there's pain there... and maybe it hasn't hit me fully, but I'll work through it. We all run into pain in our life, and quite honestly, I couldn't have found a better way to do it. Things will settle back down, I know they can't ever be the same again... but at least there's not any reliance on lies or false hopes.

In short: honesty is a good thing. You owe it to others around you to be honest, and when others are honest with you, respect that. It is a commodity that cannot be overlooked.

Enough seriousness, though. Everyone have a good remainder of the week, and enjoy your weekend!

Well, took the time to look into my computer today, and reseated the video cards and memory, but no change. Took one out, and it passed POST. Swapped my other card in (since I run SLI for no reason), and back to dead. I figure I've got a bad card, so I pull it back out, put the working card in, and call it good. I look at the bad card, and there are four blown caps ot the card. When I power it back on, I notice some SERIOUS video corruption. So, I pull it back apart, look at the working card, and notice yet another blown cap. so I figure I'll run it headless for a while, until I can get them replaced, whether under warranty or if I have to buy new ones. Of course, the BIOS I have is stupid and defaults to "halt on all errors", so I had to take it apart yet again, put the semi-working card back in, and change the settings so it won't halt on error at all. At least it works now, despite making a whole bunch of noise at power-on because it's missing a video card.

Oh well.

Well, looks like my desktop died. Noticed it the other day when I couldn't ssh in. Finally got around to trying to get it back online this evening, and a completely black screen, and nonresponsive. So, I try to reboot. No video, no POST.

Looks like I've got something to tackle over this weekend.

In better news, I got a ton of work done for ACM. Just hope it did what it should have done, or I've got a lot of a mess to clean up. Also sent out the week's EAS test, which was fun...

I'm tired. I don't wish to be rude to our guests, but at the same time I want sleep. *Sigh*

Well, it took long enough, but thanks to help from my roommates, I have a pretty solid wall in place now. It's not much, but it blocks some light, and gives me something resembling privacy. Ok, the wall can't take any weight applied against it, really, but it only wobbles when you do.

At this point, I'm tired and hungry. Never a good combination for me, because I only get more tired and more hungry. :/

Everyone's computers around me are dying--it happens with age, I guess, but I feel kinda useless to help in some of these instances. It sucks not having a supply of known-good parts to attempt to diagnose a failed system. Most of my troubleshooting abilities are built on prior experience--not that unusual, I suppose, but it's hard when you start seeing issues you haven't encountered before.

Well, after two hours of packing, four hours of driving, and another few hours of unpacking and setting everything up, I'm home at last. Still need to build something so I have some semblance of privacy, but for now, I have a bed, my computers, and a working internet connection. That's all I need. Time to find some food--Alex's Pizza would be awesome, but I think I'll save that for when the large items come with my parents tomorrow. Maybe Hardee's--it's cheap. What can I say? Now I really am a poor college student.

At some point, I have to go buy food, if I want to continue being able to eat. Other things on my agenda are getting my station key, seeing about resuming my work here with IT (I know I can, but I need time to settle in first), and hanging out with friends in town. Right now, Rez is playing Hexic right across from me. Fun stuff.

So, after two months, my summer is drawing to a close. And with my phone number being correct in the company directory for approximately three days so far out of this entire time, it's been rather quiet, too. I was supposed to move desks at one point, never did, but for some reason, my phone extension got changed to one that I have no clue where it's located. Really. Then I did change desks, and informed the telecoms person of my new desk/extension. Just today, I get an email telling me my voicemail has been set up. Gee, thanks.

Got a paid lunch from my bosses after presenting a (rather boring) project. It was okay, had a burger, but we did have some fun discussions on how messed up some things in the company are, and they'd like me to come back when I'm available. Certainly worth considering.

Also, I got to have some fun with company computer equipment. Boss told me to. Horray! (All I'm going to say on that one, and yes, it was interesting.)

Sigh, one day left... I'd like to think that I've gone out with style, though. At least I've made people there laugh, as well as given them some useful improvements.

Well, as I finish my last weekend in KC for a while, I have had a lot of fun... Yesterday, I started out at 7am by helping to clean up household hazardous waste (ok, so I loaded brush into dumpsters and tires into a 53' trailer... and have the scratches to prove it). Then, at night, went out with an old friend from my previous life in retail to Worlds of Fun, along with one of his friends from his current job. I tricked him into riding the Timberwolf (an excellent ride, though a bit jarring), and also rode all the other roller coasters, except for the Spinning Dragon (make fun of me for it, but I didn't really feel like getting sick, despite liking dragons).

I think that'll satisfy my addiction for a while, but who knows, maybe I'll get another shot at doing some more on some weekend, hopefully when the parks are less crowded. Right now, I've got one week of work to survive, a deadline to meet tomorrow (which I don't feasibly see happening), and packing everything to make my trip Saturday.

I may be sore right now, but it was completely worth it.

I've realized this weekend that I have an expensive addiction. What's that?

Oh, adrenaline.

Went to Six Flags with a group of friends, which is $40 to get in the door. After that, free for all on the roller coasters, which are quite fun. I'm contemplating going to Worlds of Fun this weekend for variety (much closer to me and hopefully less expensive).

Favorite ride of the weekend: Batman. Not only is it exciting, but it has some of the best damn artwork there. That isn't to say that The Boss, Mr. Freeze and The Ninja were bad... on the contrary, they were all quite good, and we even rode The Boss three times in a row. So sad that each only lasts for under a minute...

Favorite quote of the weekend:
Zach: "Doug, you're going to regret sitting next to me."
Me: "Why's that?"
Zach: (Jams safety bar down against my hips.)
Me: "Damnit."

I've mostly recovered from my sunburn from Saturday and then swimming on Sunday, and am getting ready to collect household hazardous waste this weekend for my work's community service project. Let's get sunburned again! After that, one week left before school!