Mmmm. Seems my XSPF player is broken. For some reason it no longer likes my URL for the playlist. Not sure if it’s a WordPress thing or what (I’m thinking it’s WordPress). But since I’m not a WordPress expert, it’s going to be down for a little bit. Sorry to anyone that actually used it.

I’ve been working as a computer geek for a few years now and have been “fortunate” to be involved in some interesting things. Taking the path of jack-of-all-trades has allowed me to gain a wide variety of experience in a rather short amount of time. It entertains me to hear stories from other people and read sites where people post their experiences (think Dilbert for real). At lunch today, I was chatting with my higher ups and mentioning a conversation I’d had with a friend of mine the night before. He’s in progress to becoming a computer geek too and provides me with interesting stories, and I try to prepare him for things he’ll encounter later in his career.

So,  I’m going to be starting to write about some of the things I’ve learned thus far in my career. Some will be useful, others purely for entertainment purposes, but all of them “learning” experiences. I believe that our experiences make us who we are, and good or bad, they were necessary to get us to our current perspectives. And without them, we’ll that’s just fun to ponder over drinks sometimes.

Since it’s beginning to get wintery here in MN it was time for me to stock up on Kleenex. Now ever since my boss introduced me to Kleenex with lotion, I’ve added it to my list of things worthy of spending extra money on. If you don’t buy the lotion ones, give it a try the next time you have a cold, it’ll save your nose and you’ll probably be hooked as well.

Anyways, back to my point. Since I anticipate a bit of use (and I’m lazy) I like to go for the multi-box packs. I like to try and match the color palette of my house too so I try to pick the most neutral set. The problem is there always seems to be that one box in the set that stands out. So you get two or three boxes that are similar in color (like gray/blue/brown whatever) and one that just doesn’t belong, like pink. I’m actually quite curious about this and will likely look to Google for the answer at some point, but really, why do they do that? You take a perfectly good set and throw one completely contrasting box in there. It’s probably to try and lead people to buy the individual boxes so they can get the colors they want but in the end I broke down and due to my frugal upbringing, now have a pink box of Kleenex on my desk at work.

Well, I’m not the best at visiting the dentist often. They’re expensive and painful. But I have been getting better about going again and most of that has to do with the fact that I get nitrous now when I visit. I’m not sure why I never got it when I was younger, perhaps I may have actually “enjoyed” my dentist visits if I did, but instead I just remember painful grinding.

I got my teeth drilled today and once again opted for the laughing gas. I think I’m getting the hang of it now too because I didn’t end up completely losing it and giggling like a kid this time around. You’d think that it might encourage me to take better care of my teeth but I really don’t see that happening.

While getting the work done, I asked Dr. Grimm (his real name) if they had some sort of teflon for teeth. In today’s world of high tech, you’d think we could ditch monotonous tasks like brushing. He said DuPont does make a sealant, he also noted that there’s this other invention called floss that works pretty well too. Touché.

So for another year or so my teeth are all good.

I’ve been interested in the Wiibrew project lately and it’s gotten me started testing my skills at game programming once again. I’ve been able to get some beginner programs up and running and getting up to speed on the libraries and program code already out there. It’s been a lesson in frustration again but it’s also been fun to see it run on a Wii. I’ll keep you posted with anything I come up with.

OK, so I’ve sort of gotten around to adding some of my old music back to the site. I’m still working out all the details with the new site structure and where everything’s going to go but it’s functional for now. I do actually plan on someday putting up things I’m currently playing/working on but I have no timelines right now. The home studio is currently down right now but I’m still using my wonderful Zoom H4 to tape my noodling in the living room so I might upload some of those clips, we’ll see. For now, enjoy the old stuff.

Oh how I miss swimming. I’ve been watching the olympic trials and it’s reminded me of the days of my youth (not that I’m THAT old). I had a great deal of fun in the sport and still love watching it. There’s just something about watching good swimmers that’s impressive. I know it’s probably due to a predisposition but it’s just beautiful watching good technique. It looks deceptively effortless and if I didn’t know better I wouldn’t think it’s so difficult. I’m really looking forward to watching the Olypics this year.

Well, since I’ve finally moved off my home server, I thought I’d try using an existing framework for my website instead of rolling my own over and over again. For now, I’ve picked Wordpress. We’ll see how well it works. I’ve taken a bit of time to come up with a theme that matches closely to my old design but I can’t guarantee that I’ll be sticking with it.