Family

And So This is Christmas

So Jenn and I went to Alpena Thursday night. We stopped at Pizza Hut in Tawas for dinner, and talked to her parents for a while after getting there fairly late. Friday we went to see her best friend Gwen then to her Grandma’s house and I met her Dad’s side of the family. We spent a few hours there, then went to see her former fellow employees at Staples. On Sunday, we had a big breakfast, then opened gifts. Following all the gift exchanging we had Christmas dinner of ham, roast beef, potatoes, carrots, rolls, and sweet potatoes. We left for home a little after, and visited my grandparents for a while after returning.

A note on the trip though, pertaining to air beds. Thursday I fell asleep on an air bed, and by 3 woke up on the floor. After a few minutes of trying to re-inflate, I just went to sleep. After 3 patches throughout Friday, I managed (I thought) to fix the 1/2″ separation in the seam. But no, each time I awoke through Friday night I was slightly lower. So for all those interested in an air bad, make sure you carry patch kits and duct tape.

So, gifts I gave to people…

For my Mom, I got a telescoping snow brush. Her truck is big, and her old brush wasn’t cutting it.
For my Brother, a pair of pretty cool wire strippers. Insert any wire (10 to 22 gauge) and squeeze. Easy as that.
For my Dad, a TracFone card.
And for Jenn, a very nice pearl and sapphire ring.

I also went along with Jenn for gifts for her parents, sister, and my grandma.

Gifts I received…

A new Dockers coat and matching gloves from Mom.
A Keyspan Media Remote, ThinkGeek Pi shirt, set of coasters, and grooming set from Jenn.
A Belkin USB light and a pair of flannel pants from Dad.
A pair or divided pans from Jenn’s sister.
A giant can of Kool-aid, Cashews, and War and Peace (the book) from Jenn’s mom.
A sleeping bag and cash from my grandparents.
and some more cash from my Uncle Mike.

I think Chris is getting me something, an I will likely be getting a Hess truck from my Uncle Steve, as I have for 15+ years, and I haven’t yet actually given my dad his gift yet.

So thats about it. Guess I will be back on Wednesday.

nick

Hello Out There

There was no quote last time, you notice that? I couldn’t think of one, sorry. I have been running dry on quotes lately. Just wanted to get that out of the way.

Fireworks Saturday were cool. Jenn and I were right behind DoubleTree Hotel, between their building and the river. Was a really good spot I felt. Jenn seemed to enjoy them too.

I realized earlier today that my brother’s birthday is the 9th, which is like 3 days away. Wow, that’s close.

Apple is giving away free ipods. Every 100,000th song purchased, from the 95,100,000th to the 99,900,000th, will bring a free 20GB ipod to the purchaser. Then, on the 100,000,000th song, the purchaser will receive the grand prize of a 40GB ipod, a 17″ PowerBook, and a gift certificate for 10,000 free songs to fill their new ipod. Also, the grand prize winner will get a chance to create their own celebrity play list for the music store. Apple’s website has more info, as well as the rules for no-purchase entry. They are at about 96,865,000 right now.

I ran XBench on Jenn’s new ibook. Wow. With a dual 800MHz G4 as a baseline 100, Jason’s 733 G4 Quicksilver received a 64.68 overall, my 800 G3 ibook got a 42.90, and our 400 G3 imac a 30.24. So what does Jenn’s 933 G4 ibook get? An 85.17! Thats wicked considering it was only $1049. She scored over 100 in several categories too, especially under memory since she has DDR memory where the baseline system had SDR. And by the way, A dual 2.0 G5 Powermac averages a 200 overall, with up to 2000 in HD performance thanks to it’s Serial ATA drives.

What else…..

I am using Folding@home now. Some of you may remember that I used to run SETI@home. I pretty much stopped running SETI when I switched to the ibook, and have now decided that folding is probably a better choice. Yeah, looking for Aliens is fun, but this is more likely to be useful.

I’m getting to the point I wish I didn’t know about Tiger. I hate knowing I have to wait till mid 2005 to buy it. By the way, for those unaware, OS X has cats for all the version names. 10.0 is cheetah, 10.1 is puma, 10.2 is jaguar, 10.3 is panther, 10.4 is tiger. Future versions of the OS are expected to include lynx, cougar, and leopard.

Well, thats quite a post for me, so I am going to bed.

night

nick

“I’m gonna bite you sucka”
– Blackula

Another Day, Another Blog

Well, I decided I should update before going to Jenn’s tonight, so I don’t end up late again.

I kinda worked today. We mostly drove around to Dixie Cut Stone and to do a few bids. It’s something. Even if I worked for two minutes, it would be 2 more minutes than last week.

I’m watching “A Beautiful Mind”. I’ve wanted to see it for quite a while, but forgot it when at the video store. By the way, LOTR:ROTK comes out tomorrow, and I will be renting it as soon as I can get to a video store.

Yesterday was my dad’s birthday. He is now 50. There was no big hoopla though, at least not while I was there. Generally they wait and celebrate my dad and uncle’s birthday together, around Memorial Day.

I am really excited for WWDC at the end of next month. Preview of OS X 10.4 Tiger, probably a new G5 with fun specs like double sided DVD writer and dual 2.5Ghz or faster 970s, and more.

Today is the 24th, which means next update will be the anniversary. That means I need to do a shitload of work on the site in the next 3 days.

So what have I been up to…

Yesterday I went to Jenn’s, shopped at Meijer, and ate at the Texan. Saturday was Meijer also, along with taking the dogs for a walk. The dogs being our Molly and Brittany, a Collie/German Shepherd my grandma is watching. And on Friday was, uhm… Oh, an update, so I already told you. Haha!

I really couldn’t remember for a minute there.

OK, so that’s all then.

I WILL do a nice, big update on Thursday, for my anniversary. And vote, you scardy pants. I only got 2 on last poll and 1 on this.

nick

Suspect is down.
Suspect is down… permanently.

Number 75

Well, this is my 75th post to the blog. Monday will be the 76th, and last of 2003, followed by Thursday with the 77th and first of 2004. 100th post should be on Thursday, March 9th, 2004, in case you wondered.

Christmas was nice. Christmas Eve I went to Grandparents and saw dad and Mr. “In the Army Now”, my cousin Matt. Christmas Day I stayed home, My Aunt and Uncle came by, and Suchyta did later in the night too. All together, $200 cash, $25 gift card to Meijer, and a pair of satin/silk like pants. Pretty good all-in-all, and there is some stuff in the mail still too.

I saw League of Extraordinary Gentlemen last night, and it wasn’t real great. Brother was talking through 50% of it though because he’d already seen it, so I missed alot. Will likely watch again.

I am looking for a storage rack that will hold slim jewel cases and Zip disks. My problem is slim cases aren’t quite 1/2 the width of a regular case, so I can’t just slide two in every slot. If you know of one, let me know. Actually, I am looking for a desk too. I need more $$$.

I was searching for “Metric Shitload” online, wondering how many english shitloads were in the metric variety, and came across Urban Dictionary. It’s a site with definitions of slang terms, and you can even submit new words. So, of course, I submitted my word, hoojibob.

Ok, I am going to read my book. I will see you for number 76 on Monday.

later,
nick

You only need 2 tools, Duck Tape and WD40.
If it doesn’t stick and should, Duck Tape,
If it sticks and shouldn’t, WD40.

The End is Here

Number 34, the last blogger blog to be blogged.
😦

I still have my flu-e-cold-ish-thing. Doing much better though, thank you. Thursday it was just starting, from about 2am to 2 pm friday was the worst, barely breath, coughing, lots of draining, horrible. Started getting better after that (as if it could have gotten worse).

Was bored, so I went to leoville.com, and Leo said that he heard rumors around that TechTv might be sold, which got me all reminiscent of old TSS episodes, when the network was really awesome, as ZDTV. So I go to the TechTV.com and I see they have a WMV of the VERY FIRST EPISODE, EVER. With Leo and kate and UGM 1.0 (though it wasn’t 1.0 yet because there were no successors planned) with an amazing PII 300 and 128MB RAM, WOW. Anyway, so then I see the links to everyones webpages, and go through them all, except kevin’s, because it says it was down and just gives a link to go somewhere else for now. So when I’m on Sarah’s blog page, there’s a link to that same site kevin had posted, so I go there. OH MY GOD! It’s the greatest show ever, you have to watch it. Yes, it’s an 85MB download, yes you need to go get a DIVX player, but its so worth it if you even remotely like this stuff. Oh, you need the link huh, here.

Also, check this out, entertaining at the least.

What else. Hmm. Going to do a lot of work on website soon. I need to. My HTML class isn’t til October, so can’t depend on that pushing me. I really am going to try though, I promise.

I went to a family reunion in Munger today. Not my family, but close. My “Grandpa” Jack was there, we haven’t seen him in years. He lives in a VA nursing home in GR now, used to come over all the time though. He recently recieved a medal for fighting at Normandy in WWII. Here’s the PR. As old as he is, and as bad as his hearing and eyes are, you could see how happy he was to have gotten it.

Ok, I guess thats it. See you Wednesday for my 3rd blog at the new blog. Actually I’m not real sure on numbering scheme. Guess it would be number 37 huh. Yeah, number 37. If anyone has suggestions as to what I should work on, improve, or add to the blog, website, or anything, please let me know.

Ohh, I almost forgot.

1 Nicholas Yax
2 Jason Julian
3 John Pauwel
4 Nicholas Suchya
5 Lauren Somalski
6 Robin Yax
7 Stephanie Ricker
8 Scott Helber
9 Troy Histed
10 Rachael Zieve
11 Barb Courtney
12 Jacob Courtney
13 Connie Yax
14 Danielle Pilon

Thats all of you. Sad isn’t it. Over 3 months, and only 14 people, and I’m one of them. granted, you may have showed other people, but I doubt it. But I guess thats one of the great parts about having a blog. You can say anything you want, because nobody actually reads it. I have IP address logs to prove it. Ok, thats all.

later,
nick

those that don’t believe in war,
remember all who fought and died to allow you that belief.

29

Well, still running at 1.8MBit, downloading 5MB mp3s in a mere 20 seconds is awesome, when I can find hosts that are running that fast too.

I downloaded the security update for OS X yesterday, not realizing it was going to make me restart afterward. So I just minimized the installer into the dock and ignored it for a few hours. Then the computer started acting screwy and I decided that I mind as well just do the restart, though I probably could have fixed it. So the record is at 10 days, 12 hours, and 8 minutes. I had hoped to make 14 days, but the ibook gets too unstable, dirty memory problems. Maybe after I upgrade the memory it will be better.

Jason is dead, has been at least a week since I saw him online or anything. Heck, I’ve seen troy since I saw jason, and Troy is only on like every 3 months. Well, maybe more, but only like 2 or 3 times since school let out at end of april. Anyway, RIP Jason!

Everyone is leaving for school. CMU, MTU, and , uhm, pretty much everyone I know goes to those two actually. Poor saps, delta doesn’t start until Sept. 4th, HA HA! (Nelson style) Maybe they will read blog more this way, being so far from me and all.

My financial problems are fixed, so I will be going to school this semester. I’m glad, I wouldn’t accomplish anything otherwise.

I have posted 2 entries to new blog, to see how it works, and done some updates on the website. I will post a list of all 14 people who viewed this blog on the final post on Sunday, August 31st, 2003. Funny how it worked out that way. Anyway, I am looking forward to it. I can play with the design more, since its just an HTML template, and can put pictures and stuff right in the blog. Will be cool.

An update from a while back, when we went to Mt. Pleasant to get mom’s car, we ate at Genji Steakhouse and Sushi Bar in Midland. Very Benihana like. Sushi was small and expensive compared to Hello Sushi, though a greater selection. And price was high, considering that they really just stuff you with sticky rice. I suggest if you want to try it, go for lunch, it’s cheaper.

How about that black-out. We lucked out, lost power for about 3 seconds because 2 of Consumer’s generators got knocked off from the surge. Really makes you realize how dependent we are on electricity though. Gas pumps, card swipe door locks, elevators, traffic lights, cell phone towers, so much that we take for granted and don’t even think about needing electricity.

My Uncle John is in town, the rich one. Came in this morning, leave tomorrow night. Staying at a friends house though, so makes it easier on us. He was here this morning, but I was still sleeping so missed him. Sure he will be back though. I haven’t seen him in 7 years, wow.

Ok, I think thats about it. I will be back on Tuesday for number 30. See you all then.

nick

28

Look, I’m on time!

That fluke with my connection running over-speed is back. It was at 1.8Mbit on friday, then slowed to sub-normal for a while, but returned on sunday to the 1.8Mbit level, and has hovered there since. I love this, I can download at around 230 kbytes/second, which is SOOOO fast its scary. I just hope Charter isn’t charging us for this.

My brother has moved back in, long story. He found that living with friends can turn out to be not as great as you expected, and that life is harder than you think. The problem is, he wants his half of the bedroom back, bastard.

I have began moving the blog. I will wait until at least the end of this month to move, and will move all the archived posts from here on blogger to the new page. We’ll see how it works out.

I might not be going to school this fall. I am having some problems with financial aid, and need to be paid by tuesday. I’m not sure how to get $1000 in a week, probably will need to get a loan and pay back whenever fin-aid comes in.

My cousin Danielle saw my blog while she was in town, and thought it was really awesome. Before she left home to PA, we set her up her own blog (which is no longer available). She’s doing better at posting than me, but then again she doesn’t have a life (as if I do).

Well, I guess thats it. I will try getting website and new blog running soon, but no promises. This fin-aid stuff is really bugging me, and will definitely be my priority project.

Oh, and uptime is at 9 days, 7 hours, 25 minutes. Have had 1,134,799 pageouts during that time. Actually, if I start VirtualPC, I can hit 15 or more pageouts at a time. By the way, a pageout is what happens when you run out of RAM, and your computer needs to access Virtual Memory on the Hard Disk instead. Right now, I have 11MB of RAM free, but has been less than that generally. I need to put some real thought in weather I should get AirPort card or RAM first. We will see.

Ok, hasta lasagna
nick

Remember, warning labels are there because somebody else already tried it.
If somebody thinks that blow drying your hair while your still in the shower will save some time, I say let them try.

24 (late)

It’s the first time, but I did it.

I’m late.

Technically not though. I generally post a day late, but only by like an hour, not 23. Oh well.

My allergies were REALLY bad last night, went to bed early.

I did see Bad Boys 2 last night though. REALLY good movie. Definitely see this in the theater, don’t wait for the DVD (If your waiting for the VHS, I will kick you, no, really). You don’t need to have seen the first one, but it was a good movie so see it anyway, got to help a little.

So I hurt my back, and hit my shin with a sledge hammer, well now I whacked my knee getting out of the shower. Dislodged my knee cap or something. I suck.

Finally got CATV and Ethernet upstairs. My TV cable was kinked though, and the reception is suffering. Am going to check the connections, try our amplifier first, but will probably need to re-run the cable.

Downloaded Konfabulator and CandyBar, Both really cool. Konfabulator puts Java widgets on your desktop. You can choose from 1100 pre-made or make your own, anything from weather to calendars and mp3 controls to system uptime monitors (at 3 days, 10 hours and 29 minutes now). CandyBar replaces all the finder icons system wide. Folders, disks, the trash, network files, audio files, movies, toolbar icons, all of it. Konfabulator is free, though they do ask for a donation. CandyBar is $12 something shareware, free for like 2 weeks.

My cousins and everyone is gone now, (woohoo). My other uncle is supposed to be in town in a couple weeks for his high school reunion. Haven’t seen him in 7 years, since our first year on Wagner.

BTW, my birthday is September 8, just 36 days away (HINT HINT). I will be 21 and no, I will not buy you alcohol (without a bribe anyway HINT HINT).

Well thats all for now. Back to normal schedule, as if I hadn’t missed.
Number 25 on Tuesday

nick

“I see fraged people”

22

Well, I guess I can tell you all now…

But I will wait, for the hell of it.

So what is there…
We went to Tawas today with DJ and Pat. Showed them all the stuff on the way. Water intake in northern Arenac County, Alabaster where the gypsum is mined, Omer. You know, all the good stuff.

Ok, now I’ll tell you.
My mom went to the casino Tuesday night and was playing $.50 machines, but started running low. So she moves to $.25 machines. She’s playing one, and sticks a few quarters in the machine next to her. Ching, ching, ching – Jackpot.
A 2004 Chrysler Sebring Convertable LX, $26,500. her cost, $.50 and $1,700 in taxes.
So there you go. It’s a beautiful car, that’s what we took to Tawas today.

Ok, not much else, can’t even think of a decent quote to end with.

See you all later, Wednesday…
nick

Untitled

Ok, back to Kung-Log due to the unfortunate and disgruntling happenings a few days ago.

Something very big happened last night. I can say what here because we don’t want some people who may read this to know, but if you do know, then there you go. I don’t know, nevermind.

My cousins are, uhm, interesting. They mostly just play PS2 or watch TV, but they are mostly cool. They can get annoying, a bit clingy. They don’t get my jokes either. I probably should watch what I say around them better too. I mean, they are 12 and 13, I don’t want to scar their fragile little minds. Oh well.

Hey, I just noticed if I spell Kung-Log properly, with the hyphen, it says the spelling is ok, cool.

I was right on the Linksys, having a wifi router makes me want the airport card even more. Too many other things that I need though, before I can get into buying more wants.

My brother found his keys. Not sure if I mentioned they were missing. I did in the first version of the last post, but don’t know if it made it in the one that got posted though.

I realized that puberty killed my creativity. I used to be able to write those crazy stories in seventh grade, but not anymore. They start to get these weird sexual references and situations, and I just get pissed. My damn brain is screwed up. You ever think about your brain? Its weird. All we are is brains, the rest is just support. For mating, and feeding, and that kind of stuff. Freaky.

I am going to try posting more, whenever something happens, or I think about something cool. I also think that I am going to get rid of the counter. Its just too disappointing to see that nobody comes to the blog. I know Scott and Jason do, but there doesn’t seem to be anyone else. Oh well, one day, one day you all will see. My Blog will be visited regularly by teens of people and you will be sorry because you could have been here from the start, but no, you had better things to do. YOU’RE BASTARDS, HEAR ME? BASTARDS! Sorry, a little too emotional there.

Adios,
nick

one cockatoo, two cockafour