Flack

For the past three weeks, the city of Yukon has been preparing for this weekend's opening of their giant Christmas light festival, Christmas in the Park. In fact, when the family and I went to the Community Center the weekend before Halloween for their annual haunted house (Spooksville), Christmas lights were already being hung around the parking lot. While we were out with the kids tonight we decided to drive through the park and look at the lights. Gates were scheduled to open at 6pm, and we were approximately the tenth car in line. About five after six the barricades were removed and the line of cars began slowly filtering into the drive-thru light show. About a minute and a half into the ten minute adventure, a woman approached our car on foot. Typically the city asks for donations at the end of the show, not during it, so we weren't sure what this person wanted. As she approached our car and said, "there's a large transformer on fire. Please drive through to the end of the park immediately." Unfortunately no one told the first half a dozen or so cars of the impending blaze. The front of the pack continued their lumbering pace of two miles per hour along the single-file path, unaware of the approaching fire. While the kids looked out the windows enjoying the lights, Susan kept her eyes on the road as I continually glanced over my shoulder, watching for approaching flames. Fortunately we never saw any, otherwise we would have gone off-road to get out of there. It's never good karma to peel out on baby Jesus and his manger, regardless of the threat. By the time we got to the end of our little drive, the smell of fire hung in the air as smoke drifted into view. And as I suspected, whatever danger there really was wasn't great enough to prevent the people asking for donations at the end of the drive to stop our car, collect our spare change, and hand out peppermint candies to the kids. I hope all the elves made it out safely.

On the way home from work today I pulled up to a four-way intersection with traffic backed up in all four directions. After much honking, I could see cars to my left and to my right driving through the intersection. My lane didn't move. After more honking, another two cars crossed in front of me. My lane didn't budge an inch. In front of me were a couple of cars backed up behind a semi truck. Then, I saw them; the words painted on the back of the 18 wheeler: STUDENT DRIVER You know, I understand truckers have to learn how to drive SOMEWHERE, but I'm not so sure a four-way stop sign on a narrow two lane road is the best place for them to start. The truck had on its right blinker. Trucks make wide right turns. (At least that's what the signs on the back of their trailers typically declare.) Thus explains the stalemate; the driver simply couldn't make the turn with any other cars in the intersection. Eventually, all the north and south bound cars went through the intersection, finally allowing the truck enough room to turn -- but not before taking five minutes out of my weekend.

Man this kid just keeps getting cuter.

Apparently, squirrel traps do in fact work, given enough time. After a couple of days of no luck I moved the trap closer to where I thought the squirrel was entering the attic. Today when I came home from work, Mason and I heard a sound that sounded like the neighbor was hammering on something. It took us a few minutes to realize the sound was coming from our own attic. With Mason preoccupied with the Wii, I went into the attic and retreived my captured critter. I'll spare you the details, but after he was good and dead, I tossed his furry little carcass into a cardboard and tossed the box into the back of the golf cart. Then, with the Wii on pause, Mason and I rode over to the woods and performed a small ceremony. I used the time during the ride back to talk about how we don't kill animals for fun.

I was okay with our cohabitation for a while. Had they chosen to live quietly in the attic instead of continually waking us up in the middle of the night with their scratching and rummaging, we could have remained housemates for some time. Unfortunately for them, this will not is not the case. One of us has to go, and it's not going to be me. (Famous last words, right?) After taking a public beating due to my prior critter removal efforts (although in my defense, poisoning a possum works really well), I decided to take the more civil route this time by shotting the squirrel in the head with a pellet gun. Wait, is that more civil? I get confused. Using a pellet gun on loan from dad I scoured the attic for my little fluffy friend. Fortunately for both of us, he was either away on an errand or had the common sense to lay low. No stuffed squirrel so far, I'm afraid. Plan B involves a squirrel trap, purchased this weekend at Lowe's for around $20. The cage advertised "no assembly required" and came with only three illustrations on how to set the trap, which made my inability to set the trap all the more frustrating. The trip was later confirmed working when I caught my arm in it. The bait, a cracker with peanut butter, was placed in the trap and the whole thing was moved up to the attic. The trap does not kill the vermin; it merely captures it and holds it. Disposal methods are left to the homeowner. A quick Google search turned up all kinds of recommendations, from drowning them in a trash can full of water to freezing them in your freezer (with my luck, he'd just eat all the frozen pizzas and hibernate in there). One thing that is stressed on all these sites is that you cannot simply turn them loose, as they will return. There are reports of squirrels returning up to 25 miles to a nest. If the choice comes down to driving the squirrel more than 25 miles away or putting it down, well, ask the possum how that one will turn out. As small as this guy is, I suspect the battle will be over soon. What could possibly go wrong, right?

My latest free Visual Basic program is CrawlPaper, a small utility that randomly selects wallpapers and displays them as your background in Windows. After unzipping the zip file you will see Crawlpaper (13k) and a folder called Wallpapers. Simply place your desktop wallpapers in that folder (most major file types supported) and Crawlpaper will randomly select one and change your background wallpaper. The program will allow you to stretch, tile or center the wallpapers based on your preference. Believe it or not, the code that makes CrawlPaper work is only about 4k. The remaining 9k is the routine I used to make a program minimize to the systray. Weird. CrawlPaper (it crawls through your wallpapers, get it?) is available as a free download from my software area. Enjoy!

Friday night Susan, Mason, Morgan and I met the Martins (my friend Jeff, his wife Heather, and their two youngest children Talon and Madison) for dinner at Mazzio's Pizza in Yukon. It doesn't seem like that long ago I was washing dishes and preparing pizzas and Jeff was delivering pizzas at that exact same location, but when I do the math I quickly realize that was over 18 years ago. Kids and young adults often throw around the phrase "time flies," but it is not until you get a little older that the words hold significant meaning. Seventeen or eighteen years ago it not be uncommon to find Jeff and I (along with our friends) hanging out at Mazzio's on a Friday night; last night, we did it while watching our kids play together. I never imagined this. I does my soul good to see our kids playing together. After eating pizza and letting the kids play videogames and eat candy for a while, everybody headed back home. Mason was upset because he wanted to have a sleepover with Talon, but his room is a mess and Susan was feeling under the weather. After several minutes of begging, Susan caved and said Mason could have Talon spend the night, if he cleaned up his room first. I've never seen a kid clean his room so quickly. Like a Kansas tornado Mason spun in circles, magically flinging toys on to shelves and clothes into his closet. Whatever works. Talon arrived and the boys spent some time playing Xbox. Talon's three years older than Mason so there's always a bit of posturing as to who's going to be the alpha-male. Mason thinks "his house, his rules," while Talon's a little older and a little wiser and probably puts up with Mason a bit more than a kid Mason's own age would. Jeff was supposed to drop Talon off but the two of us ended up hanging out in my own arcade for a bit, talking about the good ol' days and looking at projects that need to be completed. There never seems to be a shortage of those, that's for sure. Jeff left a little after midnight and I was sitting in my lounge chair when I heard Mason's door creak open. When I got up to investigate the door quickly closed. When I went into Mason's room I found the two boys running around in circles. "Time for bed," I said in a stern voice. The two reluctantly climbed into bed and pretended to fall asleep. Around 1am I heard more noises. I went to crack the door open and found the lights on, Mason sitting up in bed, and Talon hiding behind the door. "Go to bed, boys," I said. "I'm trying daddy," Mason said, "but Talon keeps playing the guitar." "No I don't," Talon said defending himself, "Mason keeps asking me to play songs." "Don't make me come in here again," I said. According to Susan, she went and told the two of them to quiet down two more times, once at 2am and once around 4am. And while everybody had a long, tiring day today after a lack of sleep, I can't help but to smile a little as I remember all the times Jeff's dad Neil opened Jeff's door and said, "Ok boys, time for bed," to a couple of teenage boys trying to stay up as late as we could possibly make ourselves. Mason took a nap around 3pm today and hasn't woken up.

Up and Running! After a couple of days of installing, tweaking, and configuring, everything is up and running at casa O'Hara. robohara.com, along with half a dozen other websites, are now running on my home computer. All this would not have been possible without the help of my old friend Jeff, co-owner of Managed Data Solutions. If you ever need hosting, consulting, backups or any other type of data solution, give MDS a try. Good peoples, they are. Over the past 48 hours, again with major help from Jeff, I was able to install a mail server, MySQL, migrate my old databases over, and perform a bunch of other tasks that would confuse some of you and bore others. The short version of the story is, I'm back, I'm online, and I'm not going anywhere for a long, long time. I did experience one major glitch yesterday, which I was able to overcome this morning. Apparently, there is no "upgrading one's home Internet to a business Internet connection." Instead what happens is, home Internet is turned off, and business Internet is turned on. This sounded okay until yesterday afternoon when all of our cox.net e-mail addresses were deleted. I wasn't happy about that, but I didn't see it as a critical error -- not until Susan informed me all of our online banking was tied in to her account! Susan contacted Cox's online technical support last night and was informed that the accounts were deleted and that they could not be recovered. This morning I contacted tech support (and eventually a supervisor) and the accounts were restored, now happily living under the umbrella of my dad's account. Whew! So anyway ... summary is, everything's back up and running, no more forseeable technical issues, and everything's grand. Time to quick talking about webhosting and start talking about other stuff for a change.

The other night while taking a test in class I came up with a good idea for cheating. First, carefully peel the wrapper off a 20oz Coke bottle. Scan the label into your computer. Using Photoshop, remove the ingredients and replace that text with whatever cheatsheet you need for your test. I'm pretty sure you could get quite a bit of writing unnoticed on there, and even teachers who ask you to clear your desk of books and papers will probably let you leave a Coke on your desk. I haven't tried this (don't need to), but if you try it I want a picture of the bottle.

My problems began last month on a Saturday with a simple e-mail error. "Mail server not responding." If you stop and think about the Internet, it's pretty amazing that it works at all. I mean, to get an e-mail from one place to another it has to hop across several routes. Each of these routes include switches, routers, servers and Internet connections, all of which must be up, functioning, and correctly configured. Your single piece of electronic mail may bounce through a dozen or so of these stops, and the speed in which this happens is measured in milliseconds. When I begin to think of all the things that could go wrong between point A and point B, I'm surprised that the Internet works as well as it does. This is a long-winded way to say that when my mail server quit responding temporarily, I didn't become too concerned. Later that day when my website went offline as welll, mental alarms began clanging. After being offline for two days, I tried calling my hosting company. I got a voice mail message that said, "we are not currently accepting incoming calls. Leave us a message and we will call you back." This does not bode well. I left a message. No one called me back. Things were going from bad to worse. The following Tuesday, four days after the initial outage, I finally received an e-mail from the company. The e-mail stated that their old webserver was old and running Windows and that their new webserver was new and running Linux. So you know, part of me found it hard to be too miffed over the outage, but a heads up before four days of no website and no e-mail would have been nice. Unfortunately, this was just the beginning. After the new server came online I got an e-mail from the new administrator. The new administrator told us all how glad he was to have our business and how excited he was to be working with us. If working with me excited him then he must've been real excited for a week and a half because that's how long it took to iron out all the problems they introduced into my world. First, I had to go to all my domains (seven) and update the name servers. No biggie there. After doing that, Wordpress (the "engine" that runs my blog) quit working. Oops! They hadn't given me rights to my own database -- that took another day to fix. There were several other hiccups along the way. For example, the new server which runs Linux is case-sensitive. The old Windows server wasn't. That means "pic.jpg", "Pic.jpg" and "pic.Jpg" are three different files. That caused a lot of stuff to break. Some stuff, I never did get working. My old file search engine I wrote is still broken. I don't know what's wrong with it. Somewhere in the middle of all of this, I was sent an electronic bill for my hosting. That's when I discovered my hosting fees had QUADRUPLED. Yes. I would now be paying 4x what I was paying. After e-mailing the new administrator (I'll bet he was excited!) I informed him of my old rate. He said he would meet me halfway, which he felt was fair, and which meant my rate would "only" be doubling. And while it's still a decent rate, it's kind of like someone telling you they're about to break two of your fingers, and then trying to get happy when you find out they're only going to break one. The icing on the cake came last week when, out of the blue, I quit receiving e-mail. No error, no nothing, just no e-mail. After doing some troubleshooting I realized that the old mail server had been moved. After figuring THAT out on my own and setting up a new account, I was rewarded with 1,723 incoming messages. Yeah, that took a while. Frustrated over multiple problems and the increase in fees I decided to make some calls. One of those calls was to Cox Cable's Business Internet Division. Turns out, for about the same price as hosting seven domains elsewhere, I can have my home Internet upgraded to a business account, and run everything from the house. One fringe benefit to this is that my home Internet connection will double in speed -- plus, I'll be able to host seven, seventeen, seventy or seven-hundred websites for the same price. So calls were made, paperwork was filled out, and a date was set. Tomorrow, robohara.com will be moving to it's new home -- *my* home. Although the average web visitor won't notice the change, there's something about this migration that seems exciting to me; something about people pointing their browsers to a website and ending up in my home that seems kind of techy, kind of neat. I've run websites at my house before, but nothing on this scale. I'm kind of looking forward to it in my own geeky way.

Halloween has come and gone and things are back to normal for the most part. All the skull-shaped candles, plastic skeletons and other assorted scary decorations have been packed away for another year. Last year's Halloween candy has been dumped from the kitchen's candy bowl, which has now been filled with this year's trick-or-treat bounty. Yes, the kids get so much candy that it typically lasts an entire year. And even though we've combined all the acquired candy into one central bowl, apparently the kids have secret stashes around the house. Even with the candy bowl out of reach, I keep finding candy wrappers all over the house. Everyone in our house is sick. We've been passing around a bug for the past week or two and now it's my turn. Lots of sneezing, nose-blowing and bathroom time. Yay. I had to work for a few hours Saturday and I felt okay then, but by the time I got home my head was pounding. Susan had to wake me up from a nap to come eat dinner, after which I went right back to bed and slept another nine or so hours (ten if you factor in daylight savings time). Speaking of Susan, she's in DC on a whirlwind trip -- out yesterday, back tonight. That puts me in daddy daycare mode for 24 hours. The kids and I met our friend Emily for dinner at Taco Bueno. Morgan likes beans and Mason likes any meal that comes with a toy, so it all worked out. Morgan left the restaurant with half a party burrito but by the time we got home, no one could find it. I'm sure it'll turn up soon.

This year our front porch hosts four carved jack-o-lanterns. Mason drew the face on his pumpkin and I cut it out for him. When I asked Morgan what she wanted on hers, she replied, "bat." So, she got a bat. Susan's is a traditional looking jack-o-lantern while mine is a creepy alien face, an idea that I got from a downloaded pack of jack-o-lantern templates. Here are Mason's, Daddy's, and Morgan's jack-o-lanterns out on the front porch (Mommy's is on the other side). If you're interested in checking out the templates, here are the packs. Each one has 50 or so templates. They're plain ol GIF files that you can either print out and tape on your pumpkin, or simply look at and freehand (which is how I did my alien). http://www.robohara.com/temp/templates2005.zip http://www.robohara.com/temp/templates2006.zip And, here are more pictures of us carving pumpkins.

Papa Bear has several distinct roles and duties within his own cave. Some of these responsibilities are inherited; others are assigned. Papa Bear's primary responsibility is the safety and security of Mama Bear and her cubs. Keeping the cubs safe involves watching over them and protecting them from serious harm. Sometimes Papa Bear lets the cubs do dangerous things and sometimes the cubs get hurt, but that's how cubs learn. When Papa Bear sees a truly dangerous situation, he will intervene. Papa Bear does this by keeping a close eye on the cubs, even when he is pretending not to. Papa Bear delivers security to the den by providing for Mama and the cubs. This involves providing food, shelter, and making the cubs feel safe. Papa Bear spends a lot of time in the corner of the cave overseeing the den. Papa Bear defers to Mama Bear's judgement and maternal instinct often. Papa Bear would just as soon maul anyone who messes with his cubs, but Mama Bear knows that this is not always the best approach. Sometimes when the cubs begin wrestling too hard or a predator comes sniffing around the den it is Papa Bear's job to growl loudly. Most of the forest critters know to leave Papa Bear alone at that point. For the most part, Papa Bear lets Mama Bear and the cubs squabble with the other creatures in the forest. Papa Bear does a lot of eye-rolling and gets told to sit down a lot when the hair on the back of his neck begins to stand up. Papa Bear's strong suit is not diplomacy. Just know that there is a line that, once crossed, Mama Bear will no longer be able to hold Papa Bear back. At that point Papa Bear will simply open your head like a can of soda and eat your brains like a cantaloupe, and he will do so regardless of objections or repercussions from the den. It is really best for everyone involved not to push Papa Bear over this line.

This weekend Susan and I took the kids to "Spooksville," one of those small town Halloween festivals that is offered as a "safe alternative" to trick-or-treating. And without going too far off on a tangent, let me just say that trick-or-treating is not optional in my household -- my two kids WILL march their cute little costumed butts door to door, regardless of weather conditions or social acceptance, gathering as much candy as possible every October 31st. Period. They will do this every year until the day comes when they get their licenses and are able to go to Halloween parties and get drunk with the other sixteen-year-olds. I can see the writing on the wall, folks -- this year my kids are attending three different "safe alternative" Halloween functions, and I will allow them to attend these as long as they also continue the tradition of trick-or-treating. The day we no longer allow our children to knock on the homes of random strangers and ask them for things to eat is the day the terrorists have won. So anyway, where was I? Oh yes, Spooksville. Spooksville (aka the Community Center) contained approximately a dozen or so different activities for the kids, most of which seemed to be taken directly from the Bozo show. Kids threw ping pong balls into cups floating in a tub of water, tossed rings onto pointed witch hats, and threw bean bags at pieces of plywood with holes cut in them. Feed the yummy plywood ghost a bean bag! Boooor-ing. Then of course there were the non-skill based booths -- the face painting, the craft making, the balloon-twisting. Zzzzzzz. Oh mighty Satan, when did you lose your grasp on Halloween? Where have all the ghouls, goblins and demons gone? Mason, in his "Zombie Doctor" costume, stood out like a sore (and rotting) thumb among a sea of pirates and super heros. The girls' costumes weren't much better. The girls under seven or so were all dressed as Disney princesses: Snow White, Cinderella, etc. All the girls over seven seemed to be dressed as hookers, sluts, and go go dancers. I don't know if they were supposed to be someone in particular (someone suggested Hanna Montana) or if they'd all just raided mommy's closet, but it was pretty disappointing. I don't remember seeing a single witch. There were no Freddy Kruegers, no Jasons, no Michael Myers, no demons, devils, ghouls, ghosts, goblins, or anything else scary or offensive. One poor kid was there in a Jango Fett outfit -- ouch, welcome to the clearance aisle! Just when I had just about given up hope on Spooksville, Halloween, and society in general, I spotted the line to the haunted house. I made up my mind that my kids WOULD be going through the haunted house. I smacked the pipe-cleaner ghost out of Morgan's hand as I drug her over to the end of the line. The two of us waited there while Susan and Mason waited for a clown to twist a balloon in to the shape of a sword. Twisted balloon animals? On Halloween? It was time to show these kids what Halloween was really about. After fifteen minutes of waiting, we (as a group of ten) were led into the haunted house, aka "the other half of the Community Center." Apparently the tour comes in two flavors: "scary" and "little kids." We were grouped with some other little kids so we received the "not-so-scary" treatment -- but I have to tell you, especially for little kids, it was pretty scary. The first room consisted of a jail cell with a gorilla in it. I'm not sure what's so frightning about a gorilla that lands them in every haunted house, but they seem to regularly appear in haunted houses. I can remember seeing a Three Stooges flick with a gorilla on the loose in a haunted house, so it's not a new phenomena. After passing a couple of dopey animatronic characters, we finally got to the good stuff. First up was a stage coach with a guy in a skeleton mask, asking if anyone wanted to go for a ride. Nicely done! From there we were led into a really dark room blacklit room with ceramic masks adorning the walls. At least one of the masks was being worn by someone wearing all black, so the masks appeared to be floating and moving on their own. The overall effect was pretty cool and much more than I was expecting. After passing a room with an abandoned fridge full of plastic bloody body parts, we met a crazy doctor who was busy chopping a lady's legs off. The lady was lying on a table with her legs hidden as the doctor slammed a hammer down on the operating table. The final two rooms of the haunted house were the only two movie themed rooms, the first being the puppet from Saw and the final room being a scene from The Ring. Unfortunately since we were on the kiddie tour very little happened in either room. Both looked great. As Samara appeared from behind a static-filled television, we were whisked out of the room and out of the building into the bright sunlight. Looking back, I find it interesting that none of the horror classics from my generation (specifically Freddy, Jason, Michael Myers and Leatherface) made an appearance in the haunted house. Do kids these days not know who they are? Are they no longer scary? Back in my day you couldn't have a haunted house without at least one machette and one chainsaw. Not only did none of my own nightmares show up, but none from earlier generations were there anywhere. None of the classics like Dracula, Frankenstein, the Mummy or the Wolfman were there either. Maybe those guys are all passe' these days. If you want to scare youngsters these days, have a guy inside telling them there's no cell phone coverage within the building. Nooooooooo! Despite what these anti-Halloween maroons would like you to believe, my kids are fine. No nightmares, no trauma, no nothing. A good, haunted time was had by all. See you Wednesday night!

Mention "fried chicken" in Oklahoma and it won't take long before someone recommends Eischen's ("eye-shuns"). Eischen's Bar, out in Okarche, Oklahoma claims to have the world's best fried chicken. Today, Dad, Mason and I decided to test their claims. Okarche is 25 miles northwest of Yukon. Dad and I chatted during the drive while Mason played some Connect Four on his Gameboy. It's a good thing he had something to keep him occupied; based on bad information I gleened from the Internet, we drove right through Okarche and on to Kingfisher, another 10 miles. Once we realized our mistake we doubled back to Okarche, arriving at Eischen's just after noon. Somehow Dad was able to "deduce" where the bar would be, and he was right. Having an internal chicken radar is an invaluable survival skill. I have heard rumors of people waiting hours just to be seated, but on this particular Saturday morning the bar was only semi-full. We were seated and waited on immediately. The best way to describe the building, both inside and out, is that it looks exactly like one might suspect a bar would look like in Okarche, Oklahoma (population 1,155, according to Wikipedia). The outside of the bar is red brick. The windows are tinted darkly, with neon signs mounted on them. The interior is as dark as it is old. Other than the two flat screen televisions showing college football games, the place probably hasn't changed in half a century. One sign says no children allowed without parents; another one declares "no coffee or tea" -- beverages are limited to water, cans of pop, and of course beer. In one corner stands a jukebox -- in the other stands a vintage Pac-Man cabinet behind a worn pool table. The floor is intentionally covered in colored sawdust; why, I wasn't sure. The menu, mounted on the wall, advertises the bar's half-a-dozen choices. If you came for chicken there's only one choice: "chicken", which is a whole chicken (two legs, two thighs, two wings and two breasts) for $10. If you're looking for a side item I'd recommend the okra, seeing as though it's the only side item. There were also two different sandwiches, chili, cheese nachos, and chili cheese nachos. People don't go to Eischen's for the variety; they go there for the chicken. Plates consisted of butcher paper, "carry-out containers" are a sheet of tin foil, drinks come in the can served along side styrofoam cups of ice, and there were no utensils to be found. The only thing missing was Patrick Swayze, randomly kicking people's asses. The dilemna dad and I found ourselves faced with was, is there such a thing as "great" fried chicken? Don't get me wrong -- everything was delicious, hot, and fresh, but both of us agreed that even the world's best fried chicken is probably just good. And yeah, it was good, but I doubt we'd make the 50 mile round trip for it again (unless, we agreed, it was to show off the place to an out-of-state visitor). For what it's worth I'd saw Eischen's fried chicken is probably the best fried chicken I've ever had -- and quite possibly, the least expensive. Whole chickens are $10, the okra (which you could easily split between 3 or 4 people) was $5, and Mason's nachos were $5. If you're a fried chicken connoisseur, by all means, make the trip.

Maybe someone can do a Robotron hack, changing some of the sprites to cupcakes, cakes and cookies.

While driving home from work yesterday I heard Queen's "You're My Best Friend" on the radio and it reminded me of the same story it always reminds me of. In 2nd grade, my best friend Andy Willrath moved away. My new best friend became Chris Brogan, fellow Myers Elementary student and fellow fan of all things geeky. Both of us were interested in UFOs, Bigfoot and the Loch Ness Monster. Chris owned a 24" Godzilla and I owned several of the 24" Shogun Warriors -- the two of us spent many hours setting up battles and so forth with those guys. I remember one time we decided to make a fake UFO video with my parents' video camera. We used a blue blanket for a sky-like backdrop and a cut out in the shape of a UFO that we placed in front of a flashlight. The end result wasn't very impressive, but you have to give us credit for trying. As with toys, Chris and I also had similar tastes in women. Both of us had crushes on Brandi Salsman, the hottest girl in 2nd grade. Brandi and I "went together" for about fifteen minutes that year before Chris wooed her away from me by taking her on a date. Yes, a real date. Chris took Brandi out to eat at a restaurant in 2nd grade. There was no way I could compete with that. Chris got the girl, and I was reduced to riding my bicycle around our neighborhood (Brandi lived just a few blocks from me) and pretending to have chain problems right in front of her house -- the idea being, I could stand in front of her house for several minutes pretending to work on my bike in hopes of catching a glimpse of her through a window. Embarassing, but true. If Brandi was forced to choose between a kid who took her out on dates and a kid who pretended to work on his bike with pretend tools on a daily basis, I have to say she made the right decision. Surprisingly through all of this, Chris and I remained the best of friends. Chris and I visited each other's houses often and remained friends the following year in Mrs. Estrada's third grade class. Near the end of the school year, Chris announced that his family would be moving away. I can't remember where they were moving to, but I remember I was heart-broken. On the last day of school we had a going-away party for him. That day, I brought a copy of Queen's "Bohemian Rhapsody" on 45 to school. The B-side of that single was a song called, "You're My Best Friend." I wanted to give Chris a huge send off. During lunch I envisioned myself hopping up on the stage in the cafeteria and lip-synching to "You're My Best Friend" with the entire student body cheering. This of course never happened. I kept the record tucked away in my bag the entire day. Before going home we had a small going-away party for Chris. Someone's mom (maybe mine, I don't remember) brought cupcakes and we had a little party. I asked Mrs. Estrada if I could play my record during the party and she said yes. It was my own little send off to a good friend. Looking back it probably seemed a little strange to Mrs. Estrada that I would dedicate what is probably a gay love song from Freddy Mercury to a fellow classmate, but whatever. I don't think I had any concept of that in third grade. I suspect today's third graders would be less forgiving. And so, that was it. After the party Chris got on his school bus and I got on mine and we went our separate ways. I'm sure there were promises of keeping in touch but they never happened. I have no idea where he went and I never saw or heard from Chris again. That summer, the Willraths moved back to Oklahoma and things changed back to normal. Andy returned to being my best friend, and Chris Brogan was quickly forgotten, only to be remembered from time to time when that song comes through the radio.

After a few days of ups and downs, followed by several days of just downs, my web host is back online. For you, that means several blog entries I've been saving in my head. For me, that means I no longer have to sit in front of the computer hitting F5 trying over and over to refresh my e-mail program in hopes of getting some. Speaking of e-mail, it appears like anything sent to me from last Friday until yesterday ended up in virtual la-la land, so if you sent me something and I didn't respond, I probably never got it. Tuesday night I started Private Investigator class (CLEET III). It already seems more interesting than the security guard class. After this class is over I'm seriously going to take a cake decorating class at the vo-tech as well. Maybe when the FAA decides they have no further use for me in about two years I will get a job as a security guard who guards cakes. Or maybe a detective who investigates cake fraud.

This morning on the radio I learned that October 23-27 is Celebrate Job Loss Week, "to focus on a plan to celebrate and move on after getting fired or laid off." In honor of such an occasion, I will now share with you the story of Heavenly Pizza. In the fall of 1993, after attending Redlands Community College for two years, I transferred to Southwestern Oklahoma State University in Weatherford, Oklahoma, some 60 miles away from home. I arrived in town only a few days before school began, at which point I began hunting for a job. Bad timing on my part -- I was told at the time that the population of Weatherford was "12,000 when school is in, 7,000 when school is out" -- and apparently I was the 5,000th person to arrive in town. By the time I began applying for jobs, everything was taken. When I applied at McDonald's I was told I would be put on a waiting list. For the first couple of months I attended school I simply didn't work. Then, I stumbled across Heavenly Pizza. Day One of Three Susan and I stopped by Heavenly Pizza for lunch one day and noticed a "Now Hiring" sign in the window. Before sitting down to eat, I asked the owner for an application. He hired me on the spot and put me to work. My class schedule was such that I had a three hour break in the middle of the day. Susan ate lunch by herself as the owner shuffled me back to the kitchen to show me the ropes. I had previous experience at both Mazzio's and Pizza Inn, so I figured I would catch on quickly. I didn't. Heavenly Pizza didn't have the same giant equipment that those chains owned. Everything was done by hand and done by feel. Instead of working with a team, Heavenly Pizza only had two employees -- the owner, an older, cowboy-type fellow, and a hostess/waitress gir that I recognized from school. With me, made three. After a hectic and confusing lunch period, the owner left me behind to wash dishes. Day Two of Three Upon arriving the second day, the owner said to me, "ok, I'm going to let you run everything today. You'll be okay." I wasn't okay. I didn't know how to do ANYTHING. I didn't know where anything was. I don't like being unprepared I spent a couple of hours confused, frustrated, and stressed out. The owner stuck his head back in the kitchen every now and then to assure me that I was doing fine. I wasn't doing fine. Even if he didn't know it, I knew it. Day Three of Three Found a note from the owner waiting for me when I arrived. "Good luck! Call me if you need me!" To say that day's lunch was a disaster would be an understatement. Pizzas were late or burnt, and definitely not heavenly. I finished my shift because I figured I owed hungry lunch patrons that much. After lunch I shook the waitress' hand, said, "good luck," and walked out the door, never to return. Friday (day five) was to have been my first pay day. I never went back to pick up my check. I never even went back to eat, which was unfortunate as they had really good pizza as long as I wasn't cooking it. The best in Weatherford, by far. I think I will celebrate this week by eating some pizza.

The worst part about not having Internet access during a four-day vacation is by the time I finally get around to blogging about the trip, I tend to skim over the details and just hit the highlights. Of course the way I ramble on, maybe that's not such a bad thing. With that, here are the highlights, with a link to pictures at the end. Thursday Departed for Broken Bow, Oklahoma around noon. Original plan called for three vehicles to make the trip: our van (with me, Susan, and our kids), the sister-in-law's Isuzu Rodeo (with Susan's sister, Susan's mom, and our nephew), and the neice's car (with both neices and a boyfriend or two). When we arrived at my sister-in-law's house we discovered that the neices wouldn't be coming until the following day. So, the other two cars hit the highway/turnpike headed for Broken Bow, Oklahoma, some 272 miles southeast. Arrived at the cabin mid-afternoon; different cabin than we had last time. The old cabin seemed more geared toward indoor entertaining while this one seems more set up for outdoor activities. Don't get me wrong, we're still talking four bedrooms and three bathrooms, but the living, kitchen and dining areas were much smaller than last time. Morgan, Susan and I claimed one downstairs bedroom, Liz and Becky claimed the other, while the boys claimed both upstairs bedrooms as their own. It didn't take long for everyone to settle in. Within an hour Mason and Dylan were soaking in the hot tub out on the rear deck. Once they were done with that I hooked the Nintendo Wii up in the living room and the boys had a good time beating each other up (virtually). Friday Friday morning Mason, Morgan, Susan and myself headed off to Antlers, Oklahoma to visit my Uncle Kenny. Our first official point of business was lunch. We picked up BBQ brisket sandwiches at the Way Station in Snow, Oklahoma. To give you an idea of just how small Snow, Oklahoma is (population 292), my Uncle didn't pay for lunch. He just put it on his tab. Of course, I wouldn't try that if I were you; the Way Station is decorated in stuffed animal heads and hides and I suspect if you tried to walk the tab yours might be hanging there next! All kidding aside, the sandwiches were EXCELLENT and although very few of you reading this may ever find yourself in that next of the woods, I highly recommend trying Jim's brisket sandwiches (with onions and jalapenos) if you do. With full bellies and tanks of gas we headed back to Uncle Kenny's in order to see "his backyard" which is a couple hundred acres. The five of us piled into Kenny's off-road Blazer and hit the trails, climbing rocks, crossing streams and hopping logs where necessary. By the time we had made a lap around his property, Morgan was cranky and ready for a nap. After the women-folk (I'm a cowboy now) went inside for a nap, Mason, Kenny and I hopped on two four-wheelers and set out to see more of his property. Mason started out sitting in front of my on my four-wheeler, but moved to the back after he tired of getting hit in the face by bugs and branches. After a long day of driving and riding we went back to my Uncle's house where we hung out for an hour or so. Mason and Morgan napped while the three adults chatted. Eventually we parted ways and went back to the cabin to meet back up with Susan's family. Friday night our neices called to inform us that they had changed their mind and weren't coming to the cabin. This upsetting everyone on a few levels. First of all we were a little upset because we had paid more money this time for a bigger cabin since more people were coming. Personally I was disappointed because the girls like playing cards and I was looking forward to a good poker game this weekend. I guess the biggest reason everyone was disappointed is that I think everyone kind of wanted one last big family vacation before the girls grew up and found other interests. Saturday Saturday morning, everybody but me set out once again in search of diamonds at the Crater of Diamonds State Park in Murfreesboro, Arkansas. I did what I normally do; I stayed back, guarded the cabin, soaked in the hot tub, watched the OU game on television, and napped. At one point I drove into Broken Bow and stopped by the casino where I won around $85. I also found as many diamonds as everyone else did who went to the diamond dig so, there ya go. Saturday night the kids spent more time in the hot tub, playing Wii and watching movies. At some point Becky and Liz drove back into town to check out the casino while Susan and I watched the kids. I went to bed around 9pm, exhausted. Sunday We got up, we had breakfast, we cleaned up the cabin, we came home. The end. PICTURES.

There was a time when every weekend was a mini-vacation. Not so, these days. There are no more spontaneous road trips, no more vacations on a whim any longer. With two young children underfoot, trips have to be carefully planned nowadays. We can’t step outside the house without snacks, DVDs, CDs, videogames, diapers … not to mention stuff for the kids! Tomorrow morning the four of us hit the road for southeastern Oklahoma. Once again we’ll be roughing it in a plush air-conditioned cabin (the only way to camp, in my opinion). Right outside the cabin’s back door is a natural spring for relaxing in … and by “natural spring”, I mean Jacuzzi. After hanging out around the cabin Thursday we’ll be heading to visit my Uncle Kenny at his place Friday. With horses, four-wheelers and more acres than my entire neighborhood, the kids will have a fun time playing and exploring. I, on the other hand, will be constantly checking the ground for scorpions and my hair for ticks. Thank God I’m a city boy. Saturday, Susan and the kids along with the in-laws will be heading once again to the Crater of Diamonds State Park in Murfreesboro, Arkansas. I am still desperately trying to talk my way out of digging in the dirt for hours on end and staying back at the cabin by myself. We’ll see if I should be so lucky. That block of time would be a great chance for me to crank out a few more chapters on my new book. Or, drink beer and sit in the Jacuzzi. Either way. Sunday, we’ll head back home. Just a few years ago, packing for such an adventure would have involved throwing clothes in a bag and grabbing CDs on the way out the door. No longer. Tonight, operation Road Trip Packing has begun. Laundry churns, lists are made, rooms are scoured for trip essentials with military-like accuracy. One armed doll? Check. Favorite blankies? Check. Plastic kazoos? Uh, better leave those behind. It’s a long drive. House sitters are coordinated, alarms are explained and rules are given. Preparing for fun is hard work. I need a vacation.

I've knocked this web down at least twice now and this dude keeps coming back to the same spot. Who am I to say where a spider can or can't live? I now present to you the newest addition to the family, Mr. Giant Freakin' Spider.

Early Saturday morning I hopped in my truck and drove 250 miles to Bentonville, Arkansas, for another round of hunting for and playing videogames with several of my friends from Digital Press. Icbrkr and his wife once again hosted the festivities. Icbrkr's buddy Grimbal showed up, along with 98Pacecar (from Dallas) and Gapporin (from Joplin). Yes, I know constantly referring to people by their online aliases is geeky. Due to a mix-up in directions I ended up following Icbrkr's instructions intended for Gapporin, who was driving from Joplin. I knew something wasn't right when I left Oklahoma headed for Arkansas and ended up in Missouri. While the new route was significantly longer, it actually only added about five minutes on to my normal trip time. Typically I take 412 east out of Tulsa; this time I remained on 44 east all the way to Joplin. While a change of scenery is always nice, it's a little scary when you arrive at a state you weren't planning on visiting. Things worked out, and I arrived around 10:30am. For the next few hours the five of us drove around Bentonville, visiting game stores and pawn shops while shopping and chatting about everything and nothing. I got to spend some time in Icbrkr's Honda Fit, one of the cars I'm considering purchasing, so that was cool. I think everybody in the group found games they were looking for. To be honest I was more simply "along for the ride" than anything else this week. Each time I found a game or system I was looking for I would think about my credit card bill from Vegas that I still haven't paid off, and put it back. That's okay though; like I said, I was mostly there for the conversation and company and both were great as usual. Once the game hunting subsided we all went back to Ice's house for some gaming and hanging out. Hands down, I am the worst Guitar Hero player of the group. Funny thing is, I'm pretty sure I'm the best guitar player of the group. Go figure. After getting booed off a virtual stage while playing Suicidal Tendencies' Institutionalized, I passed the guitar along and let some of the pros play. Gapporin and I were forced to sit through several rounds of Chicken Shoot, a Wii game where players, well, shoot chickens. And not just regular chickens, but cartoon chickens doing things like knitting and tanning. I don't know if it was the angle or if the game is simply this buggy in two-player mode, but I spent the majority of my time playing trying to get the controller to work right. Half the time my side of the screen would look like someone having an epileptic fit was playing. I'm not that bad at games -- honest, guys! After a few hours of gaming we all went downstairs and had some great home cooking from Icbrkr's wife. Whether it's spaghetti like last time or fajitas like this time, Ginger's cooking is always terrific and much appreciated. Thanks again! After dinner the party broke up and we all moved slowly toward our cars. I think I finally hit the road around 8pm. I started off strong but somewhere down the road the long day combined with the fajitas caught up with me, so I stopped at a gas station on the turnpike and took a 30 minute nap. After the quick cat nap, with a little coffee in me I was able to make it home around 12:30 or so.

Alexey Tolstokozhev, a Russian spammer who was responsible for over 30% of all viagra, cialis, and penis enlargement spam e-mails, was found shot to death in his in his luxury home near Moscow this week. Tolstokozhev reportedly made more than $2 million dollars this year alone, thanks to spam. Vardan Kushnir, another prolific Russian spammer, was assassinated in 2005. The spam blocker I currently run has a button that reads, "Kill Spam." I had no idea it would work so well. Link: http://www.rlslog.net/real-punishment-russ...pammer-murdered

As reported by the Associated Press this week, starting in 2009 OnStar will be adding a new feature that allows police departments to halt your car in case you are involved in a police chase. The article also mentions that in 2009, OnStar will be installed in 20 different models (OnStar already has 5 million subscribers). Don't forget that all OnStar units constantly broadcast your location via GPS to the OnStar office. If you have OnStar installed in your vehicle, whether you pay for the service or not, OnStar knows where your car is at all times. And don't forget, your OnStar also has a microphone that connects right to OnStar that I'm sure can be turned on at any given time. Because as we all know people never abuse anything. And if you think the FBI would never use OnStar to listen to people, they already did. If you want to know what all your OnStar unit is tracking apparently you can add a connector and connect to it with your laptop. Here's another tutorial. The second link includes detailed instructions on removing the OnStar unit from a Chevy Avalanche. The unit is located behind the dash, and the removal is quite lengthy. It's almost as if they really don't want you removing it from your car. Or, you could do what a lot of people are apparently doing and simply pull the fuse.