Twev1701.net

I have horrible luck. I never win anything, and things rarely go my way. Until now…

Last week I hit a brick wall mentally and emotionally. I had a nice long talk with Jess about it and she told me I need to start doing more things for myself and doing things that will make me happy. As we talked, she had me list a few things that I would love to do. In my small list, I mentioned that I would love to go see a band I have been a fan of for years, Tantric. She told me to look them up on their website and see where they are playing. She didn’t care if they were playing in Philadelphia, she was going to take me. I looked up their shows, and found that they were playing in the Poconos this coming week, but they were one of 4 bands playing this show. That meant that I would only see them for about 20 minutes. To me, that was not worth the price of a ticket.

Fast forward to Friday afternoon. I was working in my office around 5pm, and I got a text message. The text was from a local radio station that had a program called the ‘Unfair Advantage’ where they text you about upcoming promotions, and every once and a while, they will put on a free concert for people in this club. Low and behold, I get notice of a free concert on Monday night, and 2 free tickets. The show you ask? Tantric and Saliva at the Woodlands in Wilkes-Barre!! That’s right! I get to go see a band I have been wanting to see for years for free Monday night. To say I am pumped, would be a gross understatement.

In case you have never heard of Tantric, here is a taste of the type of show they put on. Granted, the audio isn’t the best, but you get a feel for them. And yes, that is a fucking violin rocking it hard!

Here’s the official video in case you want to actually hear the song.

Looking at some of the old pictures I posted on MySpace that I talked about in my last post, I got to thinking about something. This is a picture of me working on the code for the very first website for our school’s newspaper, The Hawk’s Eye. This was back in 1996, and I did all of my page building by writing manual HTML code. Here’s a funny story about how this all started.

Our high school had just gotten internet access at the beginning of 1996. By this time, I was already ½ way through my senior year. I was taking a journalism class, and was also on the newspaper staff. One day, Ormando and I were talking with our journalism teacher and head of the newspaper, Mr. Sanders. Ormando and I not only had him for journalism, but also for creative writing during second period. Back then, the school was still 100% Apple/Macintosh and I was a die-hard PC guy. This was a great topic of conversation between Mr. Sanders and I. We would go through the age-old Pc vs. Mac debate almost every day. One day, the three of us happened to start talking about the Internet and how it was going to change journalism in the next few years. I then threw out the then crazy idea that it would be cool to put the school newspaper in the Internet. Right then and there, Mr. Sanders’s eyes lit up. He was a man that loved being on the bleeding edge. This was just a school newspaper, and in our lab we had a room full of brand new Macintosh Power PC computers all running Adobe PageMaker to put our little paper together. Hell, we even had one of the very first Apple digital cameras, the almost $800 Apple QuickTake 100. Knowing Ormando and I were computers geeks; he put on what can be described as a very wry smile. Hell, there were plenty of times I actually got pulled out of class to fix the school’s computer network. Mr. Sanders leaned in, and calmly asked, “Do you think you can do that?” Feeling the geek blood in me surge and adrenaline rush, I looked at Ormando and smiled. “ Yeah, I should be able to. I’ll let you know after next period.” Mr. Sanders grinned ear-to-ear and went back to his desk. I then immediately headed right for my Mac in the corner.

I just told him I could do something I had no clue how to do. I had never even attempted to make a web page, let alone a whole website. To top all that off, I have to now put the entire newspaper online! I started with the basics. I quickly did some searching online via Yahoo! and Lycos (this was pre Google kids!) and discovered webpages are written in a language called HTML, or Hyper Text Markup Language. I quickly printed out everything I could on all the tags, nomenclature, and structure to take to my next class. I grabbed the last of my papers as the bell rang and ran downstairs to Algebra III/Trig.

All during math class, I read my HTML paperwork. I was fascinated by this new language in front of me. I was already taking the highest computer programming class my high school offered, but it was boring to me. We were coding in C+, which was a derivative of Pascal. I had already taken 2 years of Pascal, and my C+ class unexciting since a douche was teaching it. This was something new and fresh. The best of all was that from everything I was reading, there was no compiling. That means that all changes happened in real time. By the time class was over, I had a pretty good understanding of HTML.

Leaving class, I headed back to Mr. Sander’s lab. Eager, he asked if I could do it yet. I told him I needed about 20 minutes to write some trial code and I would know. I once again headed for my Mac in the corner. Just as I bought up the text editor, Ormando came in and sat next to me. He looked at me with a wee bit of uncertainty. “Do you think we can do this?” he asked. Not taking my eyes off the sheets in front of me, I explained we would know in a few minutes.

This is a moment I would love to go back and witness. This must have been a sight to really see.  There I am, hunched over a keyboard, spilling out code that I had never laid my eyes 60 minutes prior like I did this everyday.  I mean, think about it. There I am with a few print outs, and a screen full of code with stuff like </html> <img src=” <a href=” </h2> and the like strewn about in between normal English words.

After about 15 minutes of writing this and grabbing a few items from the Internet, I was ready for our first test. Ormando called Mr. Sanders over to let him know we were ready.

“So what’s up guys?” Mr. Sanders asked. Ormando responded for me. “Trev’s ready to test the code he wrote”.

With that being said, I opened up Netscape (remember, 1996 people!), and then opened up my test.html file that I had created. The page changed from a blank white start page to a rather loud purple and black patterned background. At the top centered in big bold black letters were the words ‘The Hawk’s Eye”. Below that was a short paragraph about our current issue’s articles. To the left and below that was a picture of Mel Gibson as William Wallace in ‘Braveheart’ with the caption “Our teacher, Mr. Sanders”.  He chuckled at this. “I like the picture you found of me.”

I looked over the page and it was displaying just as I thought it would. I looked up at him, trying my damndest to contain my excitement. “We can do this.” I said.

Mr. Sanders then turned to all business.  “What do you need from me?”

I had already anticipated this question while writing my test code. Going for broke, I decided to go for broke. “I need complete access to the lab and all it’s resources, full access to the school’s server, and to get out of all my class for 1 week.” I know for a fact I winced when I asked for the week out of all my classes.

Mr. Sanders turned and walked straight for the door. Just as he was about to disappear, he stopped and looked in my direction. “Give me 20 minutes and I’ll see what I can do”. With that, he was gone.

I looked over at Ormando shrugged. “Do you think we’ll get it?” He looked just as melancholy as I did. “Not sure.” We then turned back to our test page and started playing around with some of its attributes to see what we could do.

Sure enough, about 20 minutes later Mr. Sanders returned and came to the back of the room where I was typing away. “I got you full access to everything, and out of all your classes except your programming class. Do you think you can get I done in a week?” I look at him and smiled in full confidence. “Yep. We’ll have the newspaper online in a week.” Mr. Sanders smiled and headed back to his desk. Once he was across the room, I looked at Ormando with horror on my face. “How the hell are we going to pull this off in one week?”

For the next week, I started school at 7:30am, headed right for the lab, and worked on the website until about 10:00am, when I had to go 2 labs down and program in C+ for a period, and then it was back to my lab and code in HTML. It really was a surreal experience. To say I was in geek nirvana would be an understatement. That was single handedly one of the best weeks of my entire high school career.

At the end of my self-imposed one week deadline, I delivered an online version of our newspaper. Not only did I create a full front end, but also a backend infrastructure so we can take our PageMaker files and import them directly into the website. To this day, this is one of my proudest achievements as a geek.

These past few weeks have been busy, and yet, not so busy. I guess it all depends on how you look at it. For example, a night spent sleeping because you’re exhausted to me is busy since I’m not doing anything recreational, but isn’t since I’m not doing anything constructive either.

Yeah, I’m messed up in the head.

So what’s happened since my last real post? Quite a bit actually since you’re curious. I’ve started using my PC again for the first time since I got my Mac. Truth be told, I have used Remote Desktop quite often to move some files around or to do things I can do easier with a PC. But I have gone a step further by actually bringing the tower down from on top of my file cabinet and connecting it’s mouse and keyboard back up. Right now I don’t have a way to switch video signals, so I just swap put the DVI cable from my Mac to my PC. What is my reasoning for this? Well, it was twofold.

First, my laptop is on the fritz. I know what the problem is but I’m just not sure where it is. See, the AC adapter will no longer supply power. I checked it with a multimeter, but after doing some reading online, that may not be the best test. Certain laptop adapters show a low voltage output until there is a draw. So right now it’s either a bad adapter or a bad power coupling inside my laptop. I have to take our present over to JP’s house for their new baby this weekend, so I think I am going to take my laptop over and check it with his adapter since we have the same exact laptop. With my laptop down, certain things I prefer to do in Windows, or need to do in Windows, have no outlet.

My second reason is actually a PS3 game. I downloaded and played thru the demo of ‘Bioshock’ on the PS3. Playing this really made me want to play the full game, something I started last year on my PC. Plus with the winter coming, I really want to get back into PC gaming. I know you’re asking why since I love my PS3, right? Well, with it getting colder out, my wife is going to be spending more time inside the house and that means she’ll be watching more TV. It’s easier for all involved if I give her the big TV and I play my games in the next room on my PC.

To be honest, when I first hooked everything back up I really missed my PC. In fact, for a single solitary evening, I actually considered going straight PC again for a while. Then Firefox crashed on me 3 times while trying to upload a single picture to MySpace. OS X never looked so good once I switched the DVI cable back!

Speaking of pictures on MySpace, I made some fun discoveries the other night. I was bored and waiting for Jess to come home, so I started going through an old hard drive that I have hooked up to my PC. It was the drive form my old IBM server, and contains files going back about 9 years. In all these old files, I found a bunch of pictures I scanned in from high school. Being the historian I am, I uploaded them to my MySpace page. To save you time, here is a direct link to the album.

Other than working and playing with ‘puters, Jess and I celebrated the 2nd anniversary of our marriage. From what other people have told us, we’re not the only ones in disbelief that it’s been 2 years already. To be honest, I would have said it was last year. I suppose that’s just proof that some of the best memories are the ones that stay the freshest in out minds.

Today was a really good day. I had somewhat of a meltdown last night with Jess over things going on in my life. I ended up going to bed last night in a very sullen mood.

However, my spirits brightened this morning when I woke up with Jess next to me. She was supposed to be observing at Wyoming Area this morning, and should have been gone by 8am. As I laid there with her, she gently woke up and I asked her why she wasn’t at school. She said that she checked the school’s website, she saw that they were taking state standardized tests all day, therefore, she didn’t have to go. Once we both were awake, we decided to spend the day together.

We each got showers, I put on my new favorite shirt, and headed up to Dino’s at the mall for some lunch. We each enjoyed a burger and fries, while watching some CNN. (yes, we’re nerds) After that, we walked around the mall, picked up some Christmas presents, and a cool Jolly Roger magnet for Jess’s new car. I also finally picked up a new game for the Nintendo DS that I have been wanting to pick up for almost 2 years. Every time I have gone into a game store, I have picked up this game and always put it back because I did not want to spend the money. However, after my talk with Jess last night, I finally decided to pick it up. With that being said, I am now enjoying playing Super Mario 64 DS.

After that, we decided to head up to The Shoppes At Montage to look for some new work shoes for me. I ended up finding some great deals on shoes. Not only did I get a new pair of Rocket Dogs for work, I got a new pair of Nike sneakers for going out, and a new pair of Nike sandals, all for under $70! This my friends is the largest amount of footwear I have ever purchased in one day in my life! Normally my wife is the one buying large amounts of shoes, but today, it was me. Go figure.

After we got done hauling in my bounty, we went to The Christmas Tree Shop and bought some Thanksgiving and Christmas decorations. Let me tell you something folks, you know you’re in love when your wife picks up a large white ceramic turkey, smiles at you, and you tell her to put it in the cart. Yes my friends, I now have a large white ceramic turkey in my living room.

After all of this, we headed home, making a stop at Wal-Mart for some necessary evils that are found cheaper there. Once home, I played some Mario 64 DS while Jess watched Oprah. After Oprah, I fired up the grill and made some sausage & pepper haogies. Once the hoagies were consumed, we suited up Mr. Loki and took him for a walk. After his walk was done, we finally sat down, and are watching the final Presidential debate on TV before switching over to Ghost Hunters.

As you can see, I had a very good day!

It’s been a few months since I’ve done one of these.

In the months leading up to my wife and I getting married, there were a few conversations/arguments over what to do with our separate banks account. My bride-to-be did not want to leave her bank, nor did I want to leave my bank. She ended up winning me over with the argument that she shouldn’t put all of our eggs in one basket. She was worried that if we had 1 joint bank account and that bank went under; we would be left with nothing. I scoffed at that idea and in a smug sort of way told her that banks don’t go under – this is the 21st century. So in the end, I put her on my bank account and she put me on hers. We have 2 joint account and 2 different banks.

Looking at the current grim financial landscape, I am so glad I listened to my wife. Bank failures are reported almost everyday, and the stock market is tanking on a weekly basis. If one of our banks happens to go under, at the most we may lose a few hundred dollars from that account. We would then still have our secondary account to fall back on. Granted, both of our banks are FDIC insured, but that doesn’t mean anything to you at the moment when you bank’s local branches shutter up and you’re left with the money in your pocket.

My wife is one smart cookie!

It’s been almost a month since I embarked on a cyber social experiment. The experiment’s main goal was to abstain from using Twitter for one full week to see if I was more productive or not. I started the experiment by simply tweeting the following message on September 9, 2008 at 9:32pm.

I’m going to be performing a social experiment. Will cutting off Twitter for 1 week make me more productive? I’ll let you know in 7 days 8^)

A blog post followed that message 48 hours later explaining the conditions of the experiment. After I posted that message on twitter, I shut off all cell phone notifications and didn’t load Twitter up 7 days even though I originally allowed myself to do it 3 times a day. I thought loading it up even once was like sneaking a cupcake after each meal while on a strict diet.

During my Twitter-less week, I did a lot. I got more done at work with less interruptions. Both at home and at work my cell phone vibrating with a new text message wasn’t constantly bothering me. Also while at home I wasn’t constantly feeling the need to reload Twitter to see what everyone was up to. After 3 days of this it really hit home that I was reading about what others were doing and spending more time tweeting about what I was doing than actually doing things. This was a lot of wasted time and productivity. For instance, during my week off I completely rearranged and rewired the living room, shopped and purchased a new car for my wife, spent less time in from of a computer screen literally doing nothing, started organizing our attic, and decorated for Halloween.

I’m sure you asking why I wouldn’t normally do those things if I was using Twitter the way I was before the experiment. The thing is, I would have gotten them done, but they would have been wrought with interruptions and delays. For instance, I was able to literally work or a solid 6 hours one day on the living room, without so much as a text message or Twitterrific chirping from the computer room. I was getting so much done without interruptions, that I continued my experiment for almost another few days after my original end date. My first post experiment tweet did not happen until the evening of September 21, 2008. Following that, it took another 4 days for me to post again, and this time it was a link to picture of Jess’s new car. I really didn’t start using Twitter again until September 26, 2008, and when I did decide to use it again, it was with a set of newly self-imposed rules.

My rules for my Twitter use are as follows:
1) I only check Twitter when I am not doing anything.
2) I only can have 2 people’s tweets going to my cell phone at any given time. Currently, this is my wife and Leo Laporte for TWiT updates.
3) I will only tweet from my cell phone when I am not doing anything. No longer will I stop or postpone the activity I am about to tweet about for the sake of tweeting. My case in point is my trip to the Renaissance Faire. I tweeted when we were leaving the house, and when we left the Faire. I never tweeted while there.
4) I can only use my web browser to check Twitter. No more using 3rd party programs like Twitterrific that update every few minutes.

To someone who doesn’t use Twitter, this all must sound like some sort of post addiction rant. In a way, it kind of is. I have what can be described as an ‘obsessive personality’. When I find something I like, I latch onto it for dear life. Twitter seemed to feed that monster something fierce.

So in the end, was my experiment a success? Did I find the answers I originally sought out? I would have to say ‘yes’ to both questions. I now use Twitter in a totally different fashion, and have come to appreciate it for what it should be used for – micro blogging. In the absence of Twitter, I found myself blogging a lot more. I had to remember that this is what I used to do before Twitter, and it should be what I continue to do with Twitter. The one thing I have changed slightly is now I log all my tweets from everyday on my blog, but they are not displayed for my readers. I like to think of this as a hidden archive for me to look through one day.

In the end, I have learned that Twitter is like all the finest things in life – great in moderation.