Now where do I get one?!?
Random Rants
So I am officially into my second day of my annual On-The-Wagon Adventure ™. Last year’s ended when I got drunk in the airport after two beers on my way to Vegas. 30 days really did screw with my tolerance.
I got back from Mexico with no really exciting stories. We did get back to Galveston 6 hours late because a “young traveller” got very sick and we had to return to Cozumel in the middle of the night. I got to see a sunrise over the Gulf of Mexico because my cabin mate was snoring like a space shuttle launch. My thoughts on this Royal Caribbean trip: I’m glad I did it, the food was very good, the company was great, the prices were not obscene, and Mexico in January is great (85 and sunny). I’m not sure I will do it again, certainly not without a good sized group. We had 18 or so with us and that was a good number.
January Poker Results. Certainly not good, but not bad. Here is a result chart:
| Games Played: | 21 | |
| In The Money: | 7 | 33.33% |
| Return on Investment: | -6.49% |
I’m hoping for better in February.
Although I said I was running several weeks (months?) ago. That went by the wayside when it got into the 20s and 30s. I’m a wuss, sue me. But it is *really* nice in Austin today, so I am back on it this afternoon.
I picked up my processed deer meat this weekend. It is about 70 lbs worth of sausage, links, steaks, fajita meat, and backstrap roasts. Good eating.
Geek Moment. I wanted to firewall my Linux box at work (I no longer control the network- seems like a good idea). I found FireHOL at SourceForge which quickly gave me exactly what I wanted. I used the client-all.conf example which blocks all incoming traffic. I wanted to allow http and ssh so with two added lines of configuration my Linux box is locked down. Nice. I’m going to be reconfiguring my network at the house this week so I’ll continue to geek out on my poor readers.
Since my old company was acquired by IBM, we had been working on moving to the main IBM Campus here in Austin. That happened last Friday. I’m now in my new cube. My only work now is getting the lab up and running which really isn’t a full time gig. I will be working on my resume and contacts for the next 5 or 6 weeks since my current official last day is in mid-March.
(with credit to the Onion – printed version, not sure if this is online).
“In honor of Boise State’s Fiesta Bowl victory, in which the Broncos uses the famous ‘Statue Of Liberty’ play to beat Oklahoma, Onion Sports lists the most notable trick plays in history:
*2005:* NASCAR driver Kyle Busch takes a huge risk to win the Checker Auto Parts 500 at Phoenix International Raceway when he manages to convince the rest of the field they’re going the wrong way and spends 500 laps battling oncoming traffic.
*1992:* Absent-minded first-baseman John Kruk performs the hidden-ball trick too well, as the game has to be canceled when he forgets where he put it.
*1993:* Jose Canseco is brought in to pitch in order to create a distraction while the rest of the Texas Rangers steal priceless treasures from the Dallas Museum Of Fine Arts.
*1980:* Harlem Globetrotter Fred “Curly” Neal dribbles the ball down center court and makes a fundamentally sound layup, utterly baffling the entire Washington Generals defense.
*1989:* Trailing the Vikings late int he fourth quarter, the Cincinnati Bengals execute a perfect ‘fake-fake-field goal’ when, after lining up for the kick, snapping the ball crisply, and miraculously getting three special teamers open in the end zone, holder and backup quarterback Turk Schonert puts the ball back down and Jill Gallery sends it through the uprights as time expires; Cincinnati loses 27-29.
*1946:* West Point’s classically educated football couch Red Blaik realizes that the ‘Statue of Liberty’ play has become predictable and devises a variant for an upcoming game at Notre Dame: the ‘Michelangelo’s David,’ in which the quarterback stands alone, nude and resplendent in the backfield.”
Good stuff from the Onion as usual.
Have a great weekend folks. I’m off to Mexico via a boat. Pics when I return. I have some of me field dressing the deer from my last post- but that probably isn’t a very nice thing to sip your coffee to.
Saturday was the day to sight in my new toy (see old post). It was really off and took me a box to get it dead on at 50 yards. It was pretty close at 100 so I felt confident in my job. Big Dale and I went out to the blind about 4:30 but we spooked the heard on our way up. Three bucks and two tiny yearlings showed up near dark- but no others. Dale suggested we get up pre-dawn and try a morning hunt. I’m game, we did it last time. About 6:30am we were in the same blind and started to see the wildlife. A few turkeys were nearby and the same bucks from last night came in at 7:30. Nothing else until near 8. About that time the herd “appeared”. Anyone who has watched deer can tell you, they are like ghosts. They just show up from thin air. We picked out a few doe options and I decided on an older one. Even at 80 yards you could tell it was a big one. 5 or 8 minutes on scope to make sure there were no other deer in the way (the 30-06 does a clean thru-n-thru on basically anything in Texas) and now there is one less deer in the Hill Country.
It weighed in at 120 on the tripod. It dressed to about 95. I am getting sausage links, summer sausage, dry sausage, fajita meat, and the backstrap. It will probably be about $200 to process but it will be a *lot* of meat.
Sunday afternoon was football. I was dragging and debating going home during the Indy-New England game, but stuck it out to see Peyton finally win a big game. A shame too, I really did want the Patriots to go for 4 Super Bowl wins in 6 years.
And now I work for a few days. I have to prep for my cruise to Mexico this week and we are moving to a new work facility the end of next week. Fun Fun.
Enjoy your Monday everyone.
Do you have Earthlink Highspeed? They updated their DNS awhile back to give back a custom Earthlink/Yahoo seach page for non-existant domains.
Normally this would not be a problem- but for some it can. For me it was. The AT&T network client my company uses for VPN does not act well when DNS is hijacked that way.
Earthlink has what they are calling “Opt-Out DNS”. Update your router or DNS entries to include the following DNS servers: 207.69.188.172 and 207.69.188.171.
Details can be found here: http://kb.earthlink.net/case.asp?article=187117
Most of the people who read this are in Austin and know of the icy/rainy/snowy mix going on for the last few days. I won’t bother with details. I actually worked a few hours on Monday and made it to the office before 11am today (business ops opened at 11 so I was actually early for a change :-). It should get above freezing in the next couple of hours which will make life a little bit more pleasant.
My Remington 710 did not get used this weekend- we didn’t want to get stuck in the Hill Country for 4 days.
I have upgraded WordPress. They were pretty pushy as it was a security fix. In fact, this is the first post.
Despite being off work or on partial days I played very little poker. I missed Jim’s even because I was supposed to be hunting. I’m going to miss his next event because I will be in Mexico. I’m not going to make Mook’s event this weekend- mainly because I am going to be in Mexico the next week.
Now I need to power though my BlogLines and get out of the office before it more rain/ice hits.
Have a great day and be safe if you are dealing with the ice.
This is a picture of my newest toy:
It is a Remington 710 with composite stock. The caliber is 30-06. Academy, a local sports store, had it on sale over the new year for $320 including mounted scope. It will be put to use mid-January for the first time.
I was planning on writing up a “New Years” post like many of the people I am reading this week- but that will have to wait a day or two.
Things I must say in this post:
Baltimore wins their division ($-50). Georgia beats VA Tech heads up ($-25) and Boise State pulls off the major league upset of Oklahoma. Other than the money- I do love this time of year.
I started running again for the new year. It was in the low 50s this afternoon, but I did my best. I am getting soft and thin blooded here in Texas. I am following Hal Higdon’s 15K Training Guide even though I am not planning on running any races. I want to get up to the 7-8 long run range, so that was the best guide for me. Once I get to week 9 I will probably revert to week 7 and loop though over and over. There will be more about that in a future post.
I’m back on the Sit-N-Go wagon. That will be the subject of my first Poker Post of 2007.
I hope that you and your’s all have a fantastic Holiday.
See you all in 2007
-Stevo
I am watching Smith on CBS’s innertube (great name eh? Ted Stevens would approve) and think they just flat out screwed up. They had recorded seven episodes and four aired before they cancelled it. Now, all seven are on innertube and on iTunes. I am though most of the last one and feel comfortable complaining to CBS because this show is good. I want to see how this ends. I want to see how close the FBI gets to Smith. I want to see the Egyptian robbery. I like the dynamic between Ray Liotta and Virginia Madsen. Oh well. Another show I enjoyed pooched.
Now I will bitch about the innertube player which skips segments and requires me to really fuck with RealPlayer way too much to watch a show on it. I don’t even mind the commercials- but *they* never seem to screw up or get skipped.
Does anyone have an opinion on fire safes? I want a medium sized home safe (cash, passports, credit cards, important paperwork, ect). I would like a digital keypad, but that is not a requirement. And I really would like to bolt it to the floor in my closet but have no idea what brands or price point to look at. In the next year or two I will probably be picking up a gun safe- but that is a whole different conversation.
A while back I started creating seperate emails for each vendor I deal with online ([email protected], [email protected], ect.). Most vendors are pretty good about not selling that info, I do get ads from them but they are expected (special offers from REI for example).
But not AllofMP3.
I just started getting spam email from them to my private address. Nice huh? I’m going to file a complaint and drain my account. Then I will turn off the private address and the spam will just stop. At least *that* spam. I can not refill that account anyway with Visa, Mastercard, and PayPal all no longer doing payments.
Everyone thought they were a bit shady, here is some proof.