Diary

I’m now the proud wearer of this awesome shirt.

Pegasus Publishing rocks. Go buy stuff from them.

Woot.

I’m in Key West.

And you’re not.

(Of course, wherever you are, you’re probably with my baggage.)

Heather and I donned battle armor and braved the new Ikeastore on Monday morning. The store is like an enormous theme park for trendy-but-thrifty adults, complete with a neato magnetic-locking freight escalator as a ‘ride’. I could’ve blown a lot more money than I did, but I managed to escape with only a TV stand.

[link] to Mark????r TV stand

Posting from vacation hot-spot (literally), Uvalde, TX.

We drove for about 18 hours. I’m going to bed.

Tomorrow’s for rafting and hiking and looking at dinosaur tracks.

The VNV Nation show was spectacular.

I’ll post more later. Now I must fall over.

My friend and mentor, Doug Visniski, passed away this weekend.

Doug got me my first job in Atlanta, and was my shift lead in Sprint’s IBO NOC. He had an insane amount of knowledge about networking tucked in his head, and even more knowledge about automobile mechanics. He was the only guy I knew who could remotely troubleshoot obscure physical-layer issues while putting together engine parts at his desk.

He taught me a great deal about deep physical-layer troubleshooting, and was instrumental in maintaining the outstanding quality of service provided by the Sprint backbone during his many years with the company.

Last week I went to Birmingham and set up my sister’s home wireless LAN. She’s only now gotten her very first computer, which is a 14″ G4 iBook. She’s already complained about “all the porn on the Internet”, and she’s sent her first dirty email Forward.

I’m so proud.

I’d decided to hand-me-down my old Linksys 802.11b access point to her, but when I set it up at her house, it promptly died. This involved much obscenity, and a few trips to Radio Trash. She ended up with a nice Linksys 802.11g AP/Router, and I had none.

Spiderman 2 rocks. Go see it.

Oh wait, you’ll all have to wait for 24 more hours! Sorry!

Somewhere in the twisted mental pathways that make up the tiny brain of my little dog, Tak, the phrase “It’s a trap!” — said in an Admiral Ackbar voice — means “there is a squirrel outside. Go find and kill it now!”

Really.

“It’s a trap!”

And the dog bolts out of the room, off the porch, and over to the nearest tree, hell-bent for some squealy squirrel death.

Because Laura is special, she scored some sneak preview passes to Harry Potter and The Prisoner of Azkaban.

Not really spoilers, but just in case.