May 2004 Archives

i just received an email from an upset webmaster who recevied a forged virus-filled email which looked as if it came from me. this stuff is really unfortunate. not only are these spammers costing me money as a percentage of bandwidth, wasting my time (which is money) -- now they are soiling my name. my mail server
currently has 89 requests, which are all bounces for bogus addresses. i'm very annoyed.

i don't know how good it is, but the article is shipped off to sysadmin
magazine for review. =)

i just called Linda in order to get access to the inspection report etc. and
it arrived in the mail. now i have quite a bit of leisurely reading (hah) ahead
of me.

well, i paid way too much money for some guy who didn't seem any more qualified
than me to 'inspect' my condo. i certainly expected him to be much more
knowledgable/talented. perhaps my condo is just to small to have many things
of interest, but if i did that again i think i'd keep the money for myself and
spend 3 or 4 hours (instead of the 30 minutes he spent) looking the place over.

after 5 months of nothing, i finally managed to start my article. i wrote
about four paragraphs. i would estimate that i'm about 1/5th of the way done
with the rough draft of content. i'm going to have to average over 3 paragraphs
a night (plus time to revise). if i actually learn not to procrastinate, this
might become a regular thing...

i really learned something about the way i do development. i rush. my last
project was over budget and has a lot of poor qualities. it is also a resource
hog; in short, it sucks. my current project is going to shape up nicely but
still took way too long to do because i started developing too quickly,
without taking enough time to think about it. it is interesting because i
don't think i ever worked while watching myself work. if this trend continues,
i should be able to eliminate many inefficiencies and streamline my process.
i hope for the day when i can consciously evaluate and improve my study
habits -- look out!

i almost slept well last night. i think the light and my concern about my
work project woke me up. i decided not to attend the PSNUG monthly meeting
tonight; i need that extra time for myself. i have 5 days to write my article;
how did i get here? i really implemented this poorly. same thing with my
project at work. sometimes i have great plans or schedules but no discipline
for implementation. i have to work on this; it is a crucial weakness that is
limiting my ability to excel.

me and Rob finished the first half of our final project tonight even though
the lab took about an hour longer then we would have liked. this is a busy
week. time for bed.

as if operating on four hours sleep weren't enough, my offer for the highland
condo was accepted. it looks like the path towards my first home is quite
clear. i'll be notifying my landlord of my intention to vacate.

i'm up too early. my body started to feel itchy and my mind became too active
for me to go back to sleep. i'm not sure where i've picked up this horrible
trait, but i seem to have procrastinated on quite a few thing and now i have
to suffer the consequences. i hope i learn from this...

I asked Linda to place my final offer on the Highland condo today. It is the
max I can spend but nothing I've looked at has come close to the same feeling.
We'll see what happens. =)

well, i don't know if my wedding will have a best man although i've often thought about it. finally, after all these years, if given the opportunity, i know who i will ask.

Eriko told me that she made the reservation for the shrine over the phone.
They will put money down on the 30th... I had trouble sleeping, apparently
I want to work on my project for Isilon because I couldn't stop thinking about
it. So, I'm up.

i find myself often listening to sentimental music or daydreaming of events,
past or future, which strike me emotionally. it is a very curious process.
perhaps the daily routine (in a very loose sense) is so logical and devoid
of obvious emotional impact that i conjure up things? maybe it is to find
balance? i must daydream about sad events to counter the happy times, which
make the present elation even more real? but i also daydream about happy
moments in the future, which strike me in a very similiar way. overwhelmed
with gratitude. perhaps i am hardening my emotional receptors in anticipation
of rockier times ahead? i'm quite curious.

yet another night of non-contiguous sleep. the last night i slept solidly was
the day before Eriko arrived and i can't even remember besides that. it has
been a mixture of things -- thoughts, temperature, Bailey... i'm such a
tight schedule that i can't just laze indefinitely. which reminds me, time for
work...

day #2 of busy week #1. work went well, I made good progress on my project,
fixed a couple of bugs, and helped my teammates. we actually had an interesting
lecture tonight in class (because he was a guest speaker) and lab was also
finished quickly (for the first time) so i was able to watch Seinfeld. i
completed my homework due tomorrow and i feel OK. i have tenative plans to
meet up with Jay but I haven't heard from him. i probably won't try real
hard because I'd like to spice up my class plan and even develop some
handouts. time for a bath and book. i found out today that Susie reads my
diary too. ;P

i had a full day of work (almost 12 hours), made another offer on the condo on QA and completed my homework due Wed. I finished just in time for Seinfeld. =)

i had a great time. everyone continues to mold into the roles that life has chosen for them. it is amazing to watch Matthew grow, to see Zack, Katrina, Melissa, Kevin, mom, and dad. I cannot quite put into words the beauty that I saw. I'm a blessed boy to be a part of such a great family.

I've had a busy week so far and there is no sign of it letting up. Neither of
my offers on condos were accepted, with a scoff by both owners. I can't say
I expected anything else (although I hoped for a different result); now I am
emotionally distant and I can resume my search more pragmatically. I spent
quite a bit of time with the realtor, Linda, on Sunday -- some of it was just
goofing around in her office. I offerred to write her a piece of software to
send 'hot spot' deals to her phone via text message instead of having to
manually check the web page. If I do it, and its a hit, maybe she can sell it
to other realtors. ;P I've been speaking quite a bit with a gentelman named
Jay. He is a potential hosting customer, a potential SuSE student, and a
potential project pal. He's just entering the Linux world and I can tell he
is terrified. Most of that fear he will have to overcome himself. I imagine I
will have something similiar to face when I head towards academia. Eriko has
tenatively picked a date for the wedding -- July 17th, 2005. On to work.

Eriko told me that she doesn't like cooking and I shouldn't expect her to
cook for me. That's tough stuff. I have to admit that I hope she will cook
but I can manage if she doesn't. I received a counter-offer today but the
bastard barely lowered his price. The realtors talked and supposedly he is
willing to go lower but I'm not convinced I want to go that high. I wonder
how I will sleep tonight. ;P

i put an offer on two different properties today. naturally i cannot buy
them both, and it is quite possible that neither party will want to take
me up on my offer. nontheless, i'll either get a yes or a no and a solid
answer will help me sleep. ;P

I recieved an email from Eriko today asking when the best time to have children
was. I have suspected that the impulse for marriage would grow stronger the
more she desired children and that a child would closely follow marriage (in
fact, when she would mention having a baby, I would remind her that we have
to get married first). Specifically, she wants to know how having a child will
align with me achieving a PhD. This is a tough one. I'm not 100% committed to
a PhD but the gut desire is there and I think it is highly likely I will be
committed soon. I told her a year or so ago that I wanted to wait 5 years after
we were married. She took that to be 5 years after we met and that is fine.
That would put a child about two years after marriage, which should correspond
to the time frame in which I finish my master's. I figure it will take me
about two years to actually be enrolled in a PhD program -- because I'll want
to take a break and I'll need to do sufficient research and study. It will
be a financial challenge to have children and go for my PhD but I think if we
are modest and lucky, we can do it. I'm planning on making an offer on two
different places this weekend. They are both in the same building. One is a
more quality place while the other has more square feet. They are both
overpriced so we'll see how the owner's react to my low-ball offers.

i started to write this early but was interupted by my co-worker. now i'm
here in the UW hardware lab with music tones playing in the background. i
did not make time to read the suggested material for tonight's class. it was
a very involved paper with quite a bit of mathematics. my mind is still lazy
and i wish for it to engage itself but i must be patient. there are so many
things i wish to learn and understand that it can be a bit overwhelming to
think about. as it stands, i need to be more disciplined.

boy, this stuff is confusing. mortgages, rates, ARM, brokers, etc, etc. i've had a good time visiting with mom and dad. last night we talked about religion and spirituality and that is always kind of an awkward subject. i'm beginning to
accept that they just may never understand how similiar, if not identical, our views of the world are. especially dad; he always gets frustrated that he can't help me more but i don't think he realizes that he has already helped me. i'm not interested in learning the particular tenets of the Catholic faith, i'm interested in learning and hearing about their own particular spirituality. i think a lot of the misunderstanding is my fault; i learn much more about their spirituality by not specifically mentioning the topic (or it's sister, religion). i love to just dream and theorize and debate about the nature of the cosmos but they have a very fixed definition (of the details, in both cases). underneath the details, we have the same innate sense and understanding. i do a lot better when i ask about challenges, joys, and memories where i am then able to sense and feel rather than process things intellectually. which makes more sense for me anyway; i only think about spiritually !
as an exercise since one is a subset of the other. anyway, i'm learning. ;)