• Family:
  Drake is starting to crawl fairly well now. Check Violet's blog for a video. What's really cool is that a few days ago he crawled over to me as I was lying on the floor (in his nursery) and then he used me to prop himself up into a standing position. He stood all by himself, wobbling just a little bit, for almost a whole second!
  The cats and dogs are fine, though somewhat bored. I haven't been home much lately to entertain them.
  Our neighbor complaimed about Sebastian coming up to the fence in an agressive manner. the fence is a standard chain link fence, about 3' high or so, so Sebastian can get his head and paws on top pretty easily. The neighbor feared for the safety of his granddaughters, and threatened to kill the animal if he ever crossed the fence. He insisted I do something about it. After some conversation we agreed that he didn't care about the dog barking, he just didn't want the dog potentially jumping the fence. He isn't wrong.. if my neighbor's dog seemed agreesive when Drake was trying to play in the yard, I'd complain to. I would have threatened to call Animal Control as opposed to shooting it, but that's just me. Anyway, there are 2 fences. My yard's fence is metal chain link the entire length of the shared border. He has another fence adjacent to mine running parallel, a 6' wooden privacy fence, but its length doesn't run the entire length, it stops about 40' short. I told him I would fix the issue. He mentioned under his breath he should finish his wooden fence, but I felt that he had neither the desire nor the resources to do so. Besides, he's too busy playing horseshoes. That afternoon I went to Home Depot and bought a metal fence mesh and some stakes (about $50.00 all in) and installed it. It's a 4' high fence, but the stakes are 6' so I raised the mesh above the current chain link fence. I then attached the bottom of the mesh to the chain link using strips of baylene (sp?) wire. I'm fairly happy with the results. I'll hopefully take a picture someday and update the blog.
• Home:
  I've neglected most house chores lately. Art isn't on the walls, a dozen or more boxes remained unpacked, and the general organization is still somewhat chaotic. I did however take the time to baby proof Violet's office from Drake pulling on the network and cable wires coming out of the wall and into the deprecated heater vent along the lower wall. he still pulls on it, but it's "safer" now, I suppose.
  One of the support brackets on the riding mower had come off due to a bent cotter pin, which I had discovered by luck. I was actually looking for a missing wheel or something becasue it seemed the cutting deck was lopsided toward the left front corner. This caused some minor cuts into the dirt and uneven cutting while I mowed the lawn. It was easily fixed though and now I'm back in business. The thing backfires everytime I shut it off though, which I don't quite care for.
• Work:
  Well, crunch mode is over now. No more overtime, at least for a while. The next month should be fairly relaxed since I've been lightly scheduled due to having worked so much the previous month or so. More beta players have been invited in, and the forums on Warhammer Alliance (and others) are abuzz with the latest newsletter.
• Other:
  I don't buy music very often.. maybe one or two every year, and then only because Violet hands them to me. I'm usually quite content listening to the same CD over and over again. I tend to keep the CDs in my car for months at a time. So anyway, I recently bought 2 new CDs, Sara Bareilles and Colbie Caillat, based on Violet's suggestion of new music I would like. So far, I do.

My mom visited over the weekend, so I took Fri and Mon off from work. We did some letterboxing and shopping while she was here. She liked it enough to buy her own stamp. Its good for the whole family!

Drake's crawling better and sits up with ease now, which I am happy about.

Otherwise I've just been really busy working on this.

I started reading a new webcomic. It started back in 2003, so its pretty old, but I find it interesting. I also removed the Pet Professional, since that hasn't been updated in forever.

A few weekends ago , like, 2 or 3, I decided to use my mowers bagging system.
This was mistake #1.

Although I'm happy a ton of dead grass isn't lying around the yard, its collection meant that I had to stop the mower every time it got full. Or clogged. which happened a LOT due to the grass being wet and tall. I ended up with about 20 bags of grass. Sorry, I have no pictures because I forgot to take any.

It took 4 HOURS.

The headlights work fine, BTW. It took so long that night fell before I was done.
Important tip.. if you're mowing the grass and don't have the cutter engaged, the grass just lays flat and uncut. Even if you drive over it 5 times trying to figure out why no progress is being made.
That was mistake #2.. probably wasted about 10 mins doing this.

When during the course of mowing history you find yourself wielding a machete(Yes, I have a machete.. what of it?) to cut off low branches from trees and bushes, be wary of random police cars driving by. This didn't happen to me, but it could of. I'm just sayin...

Kitchen bags do not fit (well) inside the mower's bagging system. They just don't.
Mistake #3

You can't trim grass with a cordless trimmer if there's no actual cord in it. This is likely true of corded and gas powered trimmers too.
Mistake #4

Don't wear your normal work shoes for mowing the grass, especially when its wet, and even more especially if the shoes are not water poof.
Mistake #5

The following weekend I bought some cord and spent another 30 mins or so trimming the edges. I'm still not done (I ignored the drainage ditch) though because the battery doesn't last as long as I recall. I have a 2nd charger and 2 extra batteries, I just don't know where it all is.

I just bought new shoes this weekend.

Since I've been in crunch mode (working major OT, like 60-70 hour weeks) for the past 2 weeks, I havent been able to update my blog. I havent really done anything besides work and a few house chores. Yesterday I went home a little early though since I worked until 1130p Sunday. It's a lot of pressure right now. I'm relieved Violet understands, even though she hates my current schedule. It'll be over in a day or two though. Theoretically.

In other news I saw and bought Neverwinter Nights 2: Mask of the Betrayer a few weeks ago. Maybe a month ago, I dont know anymore. Anyway, last night i spent about 2 hours making a character. I haven't played the game yet, but eventually.... (sigh)

It's been too rainy to mow the lawn, which could use it.

Apparently there is no warning system or escape plan for tornadoes here. We don't have a basement or shelter or anything like that. Thankfully it's a 1 story house with easy access to the bathroom, which is where we'll all try to head in the case of an emergecny, but with 2 adults, 1 baby, 2 cats, and 2 dogs, I fear that if a Tornado does hit, we won't all make it. A series of tornadoes hit VA about 120 miles south of us.. which is why I'm concerned.

I've totally ignored my diet this month... Bad me!

Shortly after Penny Aracde posted this, THIS appeared.

That is all.

For lawn care, I have a cordless, rechargeable weed eater (trimmer).
I also have an electric lawnmower. Its great, since there's no gas, oil, or maintenance. But it requires an extension cord. And a lot of pushing.
Well, this new house has a pretty big yard. Possibly too big for extension cord use. We also have a front yard.. mowing would take me hours. Ick. So I've been surfing Craigslist and found a good, used riding mower.


IT'S FRICIKIN AWESOME! Mowed the entire front and back in like, 30 mins.
Murry 18.5hp 46", about 8 years old.
$500 bucks. (New ones are 1500-2500 easy, and used ones are 250-750, usually with stuff that needs fixed and are really old). Its a great deal since it runs good, no defects that I know of, and came with a bagging system, mulching cover, AND a snow plow. How cool is that? I may take more pictures later... but now I'm going into work (yes, Its Sunday) with baby Drake so Violet can take a break and I can get some work done (milestones are approaching fast!)

I'm very happy to report that today is Violet and I's 6th wedding anniversary. Apparently I made a very good choice (this time). Our lives are pretty good, despite my blogging to the contrary sometimes. Our son is nearly 7 months old, my career is awesome, and we just reduced our living expenses in order to pay off some debts. And I owe most of it to my lovely bride. THANKS BABYKINS! YOU'RE THE BESTEST!

I'm ashamed to admit that I didnt buy her a card. I had planned to, but then things came up (The move mainly, but we also went to see the Washington Capitals.. they lost 10-7), and by the time we got home, it was after midnight (We took the metro rail into downtown DC). So I failed. I'll have to make it up to her next year I suppose :(

For puropses of downsizing, we've moved into a smaller, lower cost house (I wasn't willing to give up our pets for the sake of saving a few bucks.. we adopted them, they're ours, and I just don't feel right giving them away because they're sometimes encumbersome).
Old House:

• 4 BR
• 2.5 bath
• 2,500 sq ft.
• 25-35 min commute
• $1,800

New House:

• 3 bedrooms (Mush smaller than the previous house, and no master bath)
• 1 bath
• 1200 sq ft, if that.
• 15-20 min commute
• $1,300

Hopefully the smaller house will reduce our utility bill as well. I spent most of my weekends for the last month or so packing, which is why my blog posts have been non-existant. Last weekend was the big move. Thank goodness several of my coworkers helped my on Saturday! I moved more stuff Sun and cleaned Mon night and took Tuesday off work to finish cleaning. It was so much work, I cannot even put it into words because I'm too tired. (And that really says something)

And now, its time to unpack and organize. (sigh)

Happy late Easter. I've been too busy or tired to post.

All I've been doing is working, packing (we're moving at the end of the month), housework, or taking care of Drake. I had to sacrifice some sleep to play DDO during its 2nd anniversary free week of play. I didn't gain a level, but I got closer than I was. They have a 9.99 deal until March 14 I think, if you pay for 6 months at once.

Speaking of lost sleep, I've been having to get up 2 or 3 times every night to put Drakey back to sleep. I'm still sleeping in the nursery for this exact reason. He does OK for a few hours, but then wakes up and realizes his pacifier is gone and starts to fuss. Once I reinsert it he goes straight back to sleep. Then we both wake up around 6am and I cant go back to sleep. So for the last few weeks Ive been averaging 6-7 hours in broken spurts. So I'm kinda tired.

Gwyen had some kinda injury about a month ago, dunno if I mentioned it. She seems better overall, but she isn't eating as much as she used to (and may have lost some weight). Vet thinks its some kinda blunt jaw trauma.

In preparation for the move I tried to get my trailer, but I couldn't get the hitch lock I put on it to unlock. I tried wiggling and did both correct keys, but it just won't turn. I called the manufacturer (Coquent) and they've had some reports of this issue. Even though its well past its 90 day warranty, they're gonna send me a new one. Course, I have to hack-saw off the old one.

That's all I have time to type. Sorry my updates are few and far between.
Check out the Lost Boys 2: The Tribe info. If you dare.

Easily my 2nd favorite web comic ever is Evil, Inc. It's been around for years, so if you haven't read it, do so as soon as you finish reading this post. Do not past Go. Do not collect 200.00. Unless, you know, someone owes you 200.00. But then go read it. It's full of awesomeness.

Another good one is Amazing Superteam. Poor art but good dialog and decent storyline keeps this comic going. I like it a lot.

I turned 37 today.

I went to work. (I have a deadline on Tuesday). I took Drake with me too. I didn't get as much done as I would have liked.

We drove to Vienna and Annadale (30 mins) to look for a place to live. A few are decent possibilities.. We'll see if any of them pan out.

We went to Fuddruckers for dinner. Now I remember why we don't go there.. too expensive. Drake was really fascinated though and was extremely good our entire time there.

The evening was spent trying to organize a schedule for house hunting for tomorrow. And Drake is really fussy this evening so I didn't get much done. I also have to do taxes, not to mention pack. Also, Gwyn has been sick (can't drink water) and after a vet visit 4 days ago, we don't know what's actually wrong with her. But there's blood in her water bowl, so I had to isolate her to the extra bedroom.

That's pretty much it I suppose.

I specifically asked for nothing for my birthday, since we can't afford it. I got some nice cards and an outrageous gift from my mom, which I really appreciate.

Just follow the link, check the video, and sit there in bewilderement. I cannot, in all good conscious, post any pictures.

Pimped Out Powder Room

A few weeks ago I had a full physical. I got the results a week or so ago, and after a lot of non-returned phone calls, I had an appointment today for the follow up.

I'm fairly healthy, normal / average whatever... except for my Cholesterol. It's like one of those commercials with the happy healthly person doing happy healthy things, but then they get hit by a bus or trip or something. I knew that would be me one day.. I just figured it would be after I was 40. I'm not sure when my last full physical was, but it was probably a few years ago, and it was fine. I blame donut day.

Every Wed EA Mythic has "donut day".. several boxes full of awesome donuts. I usually try to avoid them, and as a result I end up only eating 2 or 3 or rarely 4. Every week. For nearly a year. Before that, Mad Doc Software had Pizza Friday.. all you can eat free pizza and soda (well OK, the hot chocolate and soda were always free). I was there for about 8 months. Since I suffer a -5 to Will rolls when it comes to donuts or cookies (mmmm Cookies), and a -5 (cumulative) to free food, it's no real shock that my Cholesterol is high. How high? Very.

Cholesterol can’t dissolve in the blood... it has to be carried by the blood.

There's 2 types of Cholesterol: Good (HDL) and Bad (LDL). The bad stuff is what clogs up your arteries. That's what causes things like heart attacks and strokes (Which my family has a long history of). The good stuff supposedly carries the bad stuff away and into the liver. If your good stuff is too low, and the bad stuff too high, that could be an indication of elevated Triglycerides, a body fat.

Normal Good (HDL) Cholesterol is 40 mg/dl (milligrams per deciliter) for men and 50 for women. Mine was 32. That's bad.

Normal Bad (LDL) Cholesterol is less than 200 mg/dl for a person with no other risk factors. 200-239 is "Borderline" High risk. 240+ is high risk. If I remember correctly, mine was 243. It could have been 234. I don't remember. Either way, it's very bad.

I have to take an aspirin and some medication every evening. I go back in 3 months to see if my cholesterol has lowered without any liver problems. Joy. Now I feel old.

As a result, as of yesterday, I started exercising. I'm doing the Walk away the Pounds DVD program by Leslie Sansone every morning at 8am for 30 mins. I hope to keep up with the program, since it, Weight Watchers, and Violet's use of them both, is largely responsible for my weight loss a year or so ago.

Our lease is up end of March, so I've been trying to find another place to rent. I have high hopes but little faith in the industry I have chosen, so I can't risk buying a house at this point in time. So we will rent yet again.

Having a roof over one's head is easily, and by far, the largest contributor towards our high cost of living. (We spend in excess of $4000 each month). It's very difficult to lower it, as I have been trying to do for a while now. If we could somehow get rid of our two dogs, 1 of the vehicles, cancel the cable and lower our cell phone plan, and then find a cheap (<1400) apartment or condo we'd probably be better off. But I cannot seem to do any of that.

The dogs are our responsibility.. I knew getting them was a bad idea, and I said so at the time of adoption, and I've complained about them ever since.. But I cannot seem to give them up. They are a part of the family now. I was strong enough to say NO when we got them, but not enough to enforce it. Besides, legally I'd have to return them to the shelters... one in Texas and one in Cali, and that's certainly not worth the drive. I tried Pet Finder up in Boston and came very close to giving away Sebastian. I'm pretty sure I blogged about that though.

I can't risk only having one vehicle. If it breaks, we're screwed. And even though Violet drives hers fairly infrequently, its almost worth keeping it until its paid off, which should be sometime this year. Mine isn't worth selling.. I owe more than its resale value is, so I'm stuck with it. Which sucks because the fuel level thingy broke, so I have no idea how much fuel remains. I just refill every 250 miles or so now.

We need internet access, for Violet's job.. that's a need. TV, not needed, but stupid Comcast package deals are such that we wouldn't be saving much by canceling it. Same for our cell phones. We tried eating from home, but I don't think that works. Our grocery bills are 80-150 bucks.. much higher than going out every night.

Sure the kid isn't cheap, but I knew that a long time ago, and the little guy is worth it. Have you SEEN his pics on Violet's blog? D'oh, he needs me right now, so that's gonna cut this blog short. I was gonna ramble about figuring out ways to earn more money since I can't seem to reduce my outgoing expenditures, like canceling my 401K and making my # of W-2 deductions really high. But I'm not gonna do either. For now.

Can't decide what console to get? No problem.. Here's a handy chart! (Courtesy of the Penny Arcade forums)

I'm not sure I've mentioned this before, but for quite a while now I've been enjoying free games courtesy of Kongregate.com.

One of my favorites is Desktop Defense, in which lemming like creatures go across the screen, and you have to place towers to shoot them before they make it across. Its free, fun, and doesn't take a whole lotta time.

Usually, I don't much care for pie. But this is awesome.

The Booby Wall.

Naturally, I approve.

Last week was not a good week for my computer. This tale is a gauntlet of suck. And a long one, which is partly why I'm telling it a week later. Also, this didn't all happen at once. Fixing it wasn't my top priority however, so the suckage simmered for 4 days over the holiday while I occasionally had between 30 min and 2 hours to work on the issue.

Let's begin with my setup.
Windows XP, 300GB hard drive (split into 3 roughly even NTFS partitions), DVD RW, and a external 40Gb drive.

• C: is my main boot, system, and games drive. ~93.1 GB
  
• D: is the DVD-RW (Can't find a link for this BTC-1008IB sucker).
• E: is the 2nd partition. It's where I keep all my stuff. ~93.7 GB
  
• F: is the 3rd partition. It's where I keep all my crap. ~92.5 GB
• And some letter later is my external drive. My DVD-RW has a built in 5-in-1 memory card reader, as does the external drive case, so I never know which drive letter is which.
  

(Yes, I realize that my 3 partitions don't add up to 300GB. That's just the way formatted file systems go)

--------------
I don't know how, when, or why, but all of a sudden I got a pop-up application in my taskbar saying I had spyware. The name of this app was Awola. Not only did it update itself with new "protection", but it also started scanning my drives. It almost looks legit, and after scanning my drives it found a few malware/spyware apps and some other stuff, but not a virus. This was not a good thing. I quickly disconnected myself from the network and used my laptop to check into it. Apparently its linked with a trojan virus and is very difficult to remove. I followed the link's advice, and also ran Trend Micro's online scanner, Housecall (since its free, fast, and fairly effective, in my experience).

I couldn't get rid of it. I tried force quitting apps, deleting executables, uninstalling crap, Booting into safe mode... nothing worked. At this point I instructed Violet to disconnect her PC from the network (Naturally, her Mac wasn't in any danger), just in case. I ran Housecall on my laptop as well, and it was clean. I did a few windows updates, but that didn't work either. I was hosed.

When smart people do dumb things, stupid results occur.
I decided to format and reinstall Windows. I had installed XP on my system, like, well over a year ago, so I was probably due for a reinstall anyway. I backed up my important docs on my other 2 drives, E: and F: (which are part of the same hard drive.. do you see where this is going?)

Dumb people do dumb things:
After I booted to the XP CD, as a reflex habit from doing this so many times, I deleted my C: partition, created a new one with the max remaining size, quick formatted it, and installed Windows. No problem. Then I tried accessing my E: and F: Drives. They didn't exist. Mmm.. that's not good. Must be a Windows issue. I did the updates, service packs, etc.. All was fine. Still no drives. Not good for our hero.

Careless people do careless things:
So I booted the Windows CD again and started over again. Same result. Like, Duh. I kinda sorta remembered something about Windows not seeing really big drives, and after a quick search on Google, I remembered that I had to go into the Windows Disk Management Tool (Which is not intuitively placed) There I saw some avail space, but the numbers were off, and there was only one. I figured 1 partition was better than none at this point, so I clicked on it and set it up. This didn't seem right to me, but it had been so long since I'd done any of this, and I didn't have a lot of free time to really think about it, so I just did it anyway.

Stupid people do stupid things:
That, of course, didn't work. So I quick formatted it. That didn't work anything either. Then I reinstalled windows from scratch a third time, and this time I did a full format instead of a quick format. Needless to say, this didn't solve my problem.

At some point I remembered the Master Boot Record.
Man, did I screw THAT up through all this. Things were not looking good, and they'd get worse...

Crazy people do crazy things:
At some point I finally realized that the partition I was formatting during the XP install was 131 GB. Since my partition was less than that, I found this to be a bad thing. I decided to start over completely, and deleted ALL of my partitions. The data was still on the drives, I just couldn't access it. So I didn't think this was too bad a thing at the time. Time to break out the hacker toolbox...

Desperate people do desperate things:
What I needed to do at this point was get my partitions back in place. I searched and downloaded several partition programs, but none of them did what I needed to have done. Either they were demos, couldn't restore lost partitions, or were too complicated to use.
I eventually found a link to Testdisk 6.8 on an Ultimate Boot CD forum. It searched and found around 6 lost partitions. I had no idea what my drive geometry was, so I guessed. I figured there was a decent chance I had lost everything at this point anyway. I soon ended up with screwed up drive geometry and very weird, very incorrect, partition information. I also couldn't boot using the Window XP CD anymore. Very bad. After fiddling with this program for well over a day, I eventually figured out how things were originally setup.

Then I tried to install XP again. Even with the partitions seemingly correct, XP would only partition and format to a single 131GB chunk. Mmm... that's interesting. I didn't continue installing XP... instead I took the time and effort to do some web research.

Smart people do dumb, careless, stupid, crazy, and desperate things all at once.
To make this long story shorter, I won't go into that whole ordeal. Suffice to say that I ended up using Bart's Preinstalled Environment(BartPE). It's pretty awesome. AND it saw all my drives. Now that I had access to my E: and F: drives, I backed up what files I really needed to my external drive.

So BartPE saw my drives. I tried the Window XP Boot CD again. No luck. Something strange was amiss. Turns out that the original (Pre-SP1) Windows XP install CDs don't recognize partitions larger that 32GB. Pretty stupid. Well, that's bad. I searched and found my other Window XP install CD (I have 2 legal copies.. one for my PC and one for Violet's PC). Using her install CD didn't work either. Sad Panda :(

More research. I discovered from Paul Thurrott's SuperSite that I had to "slipstream" Service Pack 2 onto a new Windows Boot+Install CD. Problem was, I didn't have any burn software to create a bootable CD. More downloads of demos and programs that didn't work. I eventually found my copy of Nero, but it's tied to the device I purchased it with. I tried oldversion. com, but that didn't help me too much. Not knowing if this would even solve my problem, I mostly followed Paul's advice, and used the following:

• Bart's PE Builder, to boot to the PC and run the Testdisk program.
  
• ISO Buster, used to extract out the Windows Bootable image file.
• AShamoo Burning Software , to create the Bootable CD with windows on it.
  

The CD I made didn't boot. I wasted a 2nd CD trying to make another copy of it. Third time's the charm though. I booted to CD with Windows XP and slip-streamed SP2. It saw my partition at the correct size! I eagerly installed Windows, and this time SP2 was built in, which would save me from having to download and install it again. Turns out you can slipstream lots of stuff into a Windows XP installer. Anyway, that's my tale, as best I can remember it, with as short as I care to make it. If you've read down this far, you're really bored.