along the journey

so. trying to figure out what’s going on with the picture uploading…

Does it create a thumbnail or not?

Last week I got this mouse. I hooked it up on Friday and didn’t reboot until just before I left. This morning I started noticing that when I’d middle-click in Firefox, it’d switch windows. Apparently Microsoft has taken it upon itself to reconfigure the default action of a middle-click, such that it does something similar to the Alt+Tab behavior of windows. For those that use middle-click you need to go into the software and re-assign the middle-mouse button to be auto-scroll. This will then allow you to open new tabs with a middle click in Firefox.

I’ve posted some Halloween Pictures… I’ve botched my Coppermine installation trying to setup some mods. I don’t know when I’ll fix it. It’s been over a year since I last messed with the pictures on my picture application anyway.

Here they are.

I left work early today so Amy could go to the doctor. Caleb was wound up from his trip to the pumpkin patch. He was watching tv, but wanted to color, so as Amy ran out the door, we sat on the floor with a coloring book and crayons. He tried very hard to stay in the lines. Then he remembered something. He ran over to the kitchen table and brought over a small jar for me. He told me that he got this for me, that he couldn’t get me a pumpkin, and so they got this instead. It was a small jar of applebutter. We opened the jar and I tasted it, and he tasted it. Then I went to the kitchen and toasted some bread and had applebutter on buttered toast. it was really good. I heated up a salisbury steak “microwave meal” while I sat with him as he ate his toast. Once I got my food out of the microwave, he wanted to eat my mashed potatos, and corn. He didn’t want any thing to do with the so-called meat. After that we cuddled in bed for a bit while he watched Little Bear. After a bit he fell asleep and I retired to the basement to play on the real computer, not one of our laptops.

Yesterday on one of the mailinglists I’m on, someone mentioned developing icehouse pieces for Vassal. The icehouse pieces are an extension to a module for a Piecepack. So yesterday at work I played my first game of onemanthrag, and left some comments on the wiki, for the author of the module… this morning we IM’ed and talked about getting together this evening for a game of Alien City. We did hook up this evening, but didn’t get a game started. We got the board setup, before he ran off. We’ll play it eventually. Anyway, I worked through the tutorial included with Vassal, creating a test game. It’s really very cool. I’m sure i’ll never use it for it’s intended use …. wargaming, but I’ll get some abstract or Icehouse games in. I’m pretty sure icehouse itself would work…. any takers?

Last night between headaches, Caleb and I drove around town looking for this new game by WizKids. We found it at Legends Games and Comics in Towson. I bought 5 packs at $3.99 each. It’s sold like baseball cards, included in each pack is a tiny d6, 2 ships, an island, some treasure, and possibly some crew or other goodie. The ships are made from the little plastic cards, similar to z-cards which you punch out and construct a miniature ship. They’re fairly sturdy. So I ended up with 10 different ships and an assortment of other stuff. We haven’t had time to sit down and figure out the game yet, but it looks like fun. If anyone else in the area has any desire to play this game, contact me.

Yesterday we started working on the baby’s room. I moved the computer out of it and down into the basement. Also moved the desks out of that room as well. So now I’m in the basement. Amy started painting last night, she did the first two walls, and after church today painted the other two walls. I’m sure she’ll put up some pictures of it later. She really did a great job.

When we got home from church this morning we noticed that there was some paint bubbling away from the wall in the living room. As I inspected more, it appears that our roof may be leaking. Really, if it’s not one thing, it’s another. We recently refinanced, and got ourselves into a position during it that we didn’t have a choice but to go through with it, but ultimately I feel like we got screwed over. I’ve been sort of depressed in general as a result of this. Amy was stressed over it during the process, but now she’s alright with it, me, I’ve yet to recover. We’re awful with money, saving, and such, and everyday it just seems to get worse. I’m sure that things will get better, and are probably not nearly as bad as I’m imagining, but until then….anyone know any roofers that works for free?

monochrom’s massive Multiplayer Thumb-Wrestling

Well it’s only been about 3 weeks, but we’re up and running with DSL through Cavalier. It seems pretty speedy, just by surfing around. I’ve been using dial-up so I’m sure that I’m just forgetting. Was using Dad’s cable internet this past week and this is much faster, but I’m not convinced it’s a internet issue as much as it’s his computer and all the spyware infested. Speaking of which. I think I’m gonna go mess with that now.

We’re trying to switch phone service and DSL providers to Cavalier. At the begining of March we called and got things setup, took about 45 minutes. During the call I informed the really friendly sales lady that I already had DSL and asked if I needed to do something before they’d be able to work on my line. Knowing that in the past when I’ve tried to switch or make changes I’ve always had issues. She said that everything would be fine. we got a call about a week later informing us that we needed to cancel our current dsl and that we’d be able to use the Cavalier dialup until we got our DSL turned back on. I was ok with that, but had some things I needed to do, reimage my computer, download some music, etc… before I was going to be without internet. I got everything taken care of last weekend and then called Friday to have Speakeasy turned off. Speakeasy has been wonderful the entire time. My move from speakeasy is an entirely financial decision, otherwise I would have kept them. So shortly after my phone call to Speakeasy on Friday the DSL stopped working, as expected. I called Cavalier to let them know that my DSL was now turned off and the lady I spoke with told me that my line was still shared and that I needed to contact Verizon to let them know that my line was no longer being used by Speakeasy. So I went to call Verizon, I’d be a much happier man if I knew that I’d never have to talk to Verizon customer service ever again, hopefully the switch to Cavalier helps with that. Anyway, Verizon customer support is only open 8-6 M-F. It was about 6:30 when I was told I needed to call them. A whole weekend without internet, Argh!

So I just get off the phone with Verizon, they said that they can’t do anything at this point. The lady, Monica, was surprisingly nice compared to those I’ve dealt with, she said that she did see a work order pending on my line, but couldn’t see any detail. She also said that I shouldn’t have to deal with them to get my line released, that the other company should be doing all the work via internal channels. This is almost as bad as dealing with MVA.

So I’m the first one home, so I get to give the first report. I’m impressed, including myself, there were 10 baltimore area bloggers at Brewers Art tonight. This gives me hope that there might actually have some sort of summer get togethers or something. So I’ll give the roll call - MB,Kelly,Da Brettman,Sea Dragon(let me know if I can use your real name, that goes for anyone),Eeoyre B’more,Bre,Presence (I’m sorry I don’t remember your real name, or know if you even want me to use it),Alex,Technomind ( sorry- same as above). I don’t know about anyone else, but this was an excellent time. I’m glad I got to meet all of you. I hope you all feel the same. I know there are some pictures floating about, if you care, make sure you let whoever posts them that you’d rather not have your face on your blog….. Brett.

First time I went to Brewers. I had the Resurection Brew, not too sure I’m happy with the name, but it was a great darker beer, ala Killians. Good stuff, very smooth, much better than the Bud I had at the bar down the street before I showed at Brewers.

After work, I walked towards Brewers, about 10 blocks from my office. No big deal. I hadn’t had dinner, so I was on the prowl. I stoped at a bar, Irish name, forget it though…. had 25c wings. I sat at the bar and had a beer while reading the City Paper and waiting on the wings to arrive. When I got the wings I noticed the specks of pepper all in the sauce…. I was stoked. These were probably the best wings I’ve had in a long, long time. After eating the wings I moseyed on up to Brewers where I was the first to meet up with MB and Kelly… slowly other geeks arrived. It was funny, Eeyore suggested that Brewers has two floors, the piercing floor and the Prada floor. It’s pretty true, however I don’t think any of us were really in the Prada crowd, we ended up upstairs anyway. We commendeered a couch and a few chairs…. we were set.

Anyway, this really was a great time. Thanks guys. ANy other area bloggers- make sure you make the next meet up- MB and Kelly - great job with the organizing.

Oh look, an actual blog entry, working my way back into the scene. Perhaps in the coming months I might have some more interesting things to blog about.