Month: January 2006

Dye it

As I mentioned in the previous post, I was growing hair on my face to see what I could do in the middle of my face after shaving away what I felt was not necessary, or what would be my choice in look … I decided to ask Greg from Octane what to do with my hair if anything … He’s a hair dresser as well as a rock guitar god … His response was to dye it … Been there, done that and I wasn’t very interested in doing that again … I told him I’d have to dye my hair every two weeks or something … He says, “So?!” … I have to tell you, it wasn’t very fun dying my hair in the past, why do that every two weeks? I think I’ll pass on that … I also have this feeling that I will certainly resume shaving my entire face and using the Conair hair clippers to shave my hair down to a 1 every month …

… speaking of dye it … I got the book “The Abs Diet” back before Thanksgiving … Decided to start on the diet after Thanksgiving, but that rolled into Christmas and eventually the New Year … Finally starting trying different foods and consuming different types of food … Types in the way of what the book suggests you eat and such, but not changing from Italian to Indian food or something … I know from experience that if you eat right, you will simply lose weight … When I was 14 years old, I went to Weight Watchers with my father … All that you had to do was eat what was on their menu and you lost weight … In fact, it was usually a lot of food to eat …

Recently I heard Bill Maher talking about the food we Americans eat … As a culture, America is getting fatter … They’re widening seats in movie theaters, airplanes, stadiums … The average shoe size has gone up per year … Apparently, we’re basically killing ourselves with the food we eat … Completely makes sense to me … So not only is the decision to eat differently based on a diet, it was simply a guide which seemed to not exactly change yourself completely … The guy that turned me on to the book recently said it’s a “lifestyle change”, I don’t necessarily agree in that I think it’s a decision to change the quality of food you’re putting into your body … There are plenty of things to eat on this diet that “other” people eat every day … I usually just chose to eat different things … I also decided long ago, and even after watching “Supersize Me” that I wouldn’t eat fast food if I didn’t have to … There is a convenience to it, it’s just not the best thing you could do … Think about how you feel about 2 to 3 hours (depending on your metabolism) after you eat fast food …

So, I sorta started this diet, but in moderation … It’s tough to completely get away from what I’m used to, and it’s also tough to try to get the whole family eating right … My wife bought the fries that the book suggested … She cooked them up for dinner and my 7 year old ate one and began to complain saying it tasted horrible and shrieked “Why are you doing this to us?!” … He’s complaining that I am trying to get the whole family to eat healthier … so my wife and I tried the fries expecting the worst, and they were fine … The 4 year old didn’t complain, and after we all gave the fries our approval, my 7 year old ate the fries, and even asked for more … So, I believe also in the mentality that if something is supposedly “better for you” or supposed to be “good for you”, there is already a mental block in place that this is going to taste bad … That’s simply not the case … I am finding a lot of the stuff utterly too sweet … But that’s just me …

I write this just after consuming my “smoothie” … vanilla yogurt, milk, banana and peanut butter … This one was much better than the smoothie recipe my wife followed from the yogurt package … This smoothie was void of oatmeal which you can chuck in there as well, or whey powder for protein … My biggest problem is the weekends in the bars with what to drink and eat, and during the week my wife and I like to have some wine … The author, David Zinzcenko, discourages drinking alcohol drinks … They’re full of calories … In fact, the local news just did a story on how high in calories drinks actually are …

Oh well, I will continue to wean myself into this diet to not shock myself into the change, but there are the success stories of those who committed entirely and lost a lot of weight in a short period of time … I do like the fact that the author is conscious of losing fat, not muscle and the way in which to accomplish this … There’s even a companion book to let you know what to eat when you’re out and about from the fast food joints, restaurants and parties … I will certainly keep this blog posted on the results, and if I see favorable results, then this is the diet for anybody … No matter what, everyone should eat better …

Today is your birthday …

It’s my birthday too, yah! Yes we’re goin’ to a party party … Well, not really … I am going to work though … Tonight Octane is in Watchung, NJ … It is my first show as a 40 year old. Yes, I am the same age as the Superbowl … Born the same year the wonderful Dodge Charger was introduced to the public … (The Dukes of Hazzard adopted the ’69 Charger for their General Lee) …

The bLog application I’m using here was upgraded several days ago. It now looks the same up front, but the backend is entirely redone. They did a good job on the admin interface. WYSIWYG editor (sorta) and a bit more spiffy looking … I upgraded all the bLogs to this release and I linked to some of those bLogs in a new area on my navigation called bLogs … My father recently saw my bLog and wanted one. I had originally set my brother up with one because he had a free site that he was putting alot of text on and it was grossly mismanaged and confusing … I started him on MovableType and when this new version became available, I migrated him over. Also some relatives from Denver were setup with the same thing. I use this bLog application on the OctaneCrew site as well …

I was shown a link to a bLog entry: this one It’s a parody of an old computer game, but the content is amusing.

I have been growing my facial hair (beard?) since New Year’s … When I started with Octane, I originally grew my sideburns long and sometimes made them pointy … It was my way of doing something a little different without permanently inserting something in or on my body (such as a piercing or a tattoo) … A bartender at The Whiskey Tango said that with the sideburns, there was nothing going on in the middle, so I decided to let it grow and see what it was that I could do with it … It comes in both gray and dark, so have to see what I am left with in the way of shaping …

Last night I completed my sons’ room … What my wife said we started over 8 years ago I finished in a couple hours … Originally when we moved in our house, the back bedroom became the “guest” room with an old double bed from my brother, and the middle bedroom was the “computer room” which housed 3 or 4 PCs which made up my multi-node BBS … Eventually I networked those PCs with one in the basement store-front … That old coax wire is still running up there … When we had our first child and the BBS was no longer running, the computers just sat in that room, and at one point, the room was removed of its drop ceiling tiles and we were preparing for a nursery … It never got past the ceiling tiles … The the other bugger came along, and still we did nothing with the room … The back bedroom has since had the bed dismantled and propped on its side and a lot of things have been “stored” in there … So here we are with 3 bedrooms, and we’ve only been using 1 of them for people … I guess that’s pretty atrocious …

So, removed everything from that middle bedroom and I went in with a razor blade and cut the ceiling tiles that were purchased 8 years ago into the ceiling … We purchased a remnant and that was the next thing to go in … I used the razor to cut around the radiator that I needed to bleed to get the heat kicking in there … Then the bunk beds were carried up there piece by piece and I assembled the bunk beds … My wife dressed the bed and we put them in their own room for their first night alone … The wee one ended up in the master bedroom before the night was through though … After this small sense of accomplishment, and how it got done since I pushed it to get done, we’re looking to further our home development back to a sense of order. We have accumulated so much stuff (junk?) in our time here that we’re overwhelmed with it all …

The firewall that I posted about a couple posts ago has been in operation for a month or two now … It is the most efficient firewall I have run thus far … It is utilizing one of the servers I bought off of eBay and it is using the latest and greatest Open Source software … I have a much better definition of my network usage … I even turned on the other direction firewalling and I think some things that may not have been “legal” (legal in the sense of what should be allowed to leave your network) have been thwarted … I have taken screen shots and stuff to put in a newsletter to hosting customers that is long overdue … Another thing that I need to accomplish is a better maintaining of the fees and allowances that I allow to continue on my network … I have been much too lenient on people and have been very free with my time and services … This needs to stop …

I guess this brings me to an announcement that I don’t think I’ve made … I no longer work on the Out On the Town … The owner fell behind in paying me several years ago, and he’d made an attempt to catch it back up but then fell off on the payments … I think I was making money in other areas at the time that it just didn’t matter that he owed me money … Even when I went to work house at Whiskey Tango, money was okay and I didn’t see an effect of this … Then I went working for Octane and I now have more expenses incurred due to having a gas guzzling truck and loans to pay off and eventually pay back … Money became tighter … then he missed paying me an issue entirely … He insisted that he did pay me … We were in a quandry because there was no proof to either of our stories. This led my wife and me into a bit of trouble paying bills … Now we had the previous balance that had been floating for years, and a couple recent issues where now we were seriously behind … He insisted that he paid me on a regular basis, and what this entailed was being paid on a Monday and then being owed that money again on a Wednesday … While yes, we were getting the money it seemed as though I was working for free and I gave the ultimatim that I needed to be paid what I was owed or I was simply not going to do anymore ads … He said he couldn’t pay me in full, so I stopped doing ads the end of November … The guy that was doing the layout is now still using my old ads with the bits that need to be changed simply covered up … I got everything that was OOT related out of my name (domain) and ceased providing all of the free services I was providing … The owner says that maybe after he pays me off (which he elected to do monthly) that I could “come back” and do ads once again for the paper … I have to tell you, after doing that paper every 3 weeks for about 10 years, I dont miss it … The only thing I do miss is the money …

So there it is … The things I want to accomplish in this New Year and becoming 40 years old … Tightening up my relaxed attitude towards people taking advantage of my charity in the web hosting and cleaning up the house … There is a lot of junk that we need to get rid of, and some of it is worth a lot of money … I will sell that stuff off and work on finding new ways to accomplish my goals … Thanks for reading …

Happy New Year

Hello everyone … It’s been a while since I’ve written … I promise to put some updates up here and let you in on what I’ve been up to … I’m sure there has been a void in your days since you’ve not got something new from Dave here in a while … I have rants to rant, and stories to tell … Oh do I?! Please don’t be upset with me if I don’t post for another month though …