Romey’s Ramblings

6:38am Baby!!!! And I am now going to bed!  I had A BLAST tonight for my birthday!  Had a nice poker party where many of my awesome friends came - Joel, Emily, Leanne, Michael, and of course my sweetie Bethany   …  We ended up having 14 people over in my little apartment!  It was so much fun!  I took some pictures too and will post them later on today!

Everyone pretty much went home around 2am, then a few of us stayed and watched Team America, lol…  Then got in this engaging discussion on global terrorism and foreign policy that lasted until 5:30… Then Joel and I figured we’ve been up this late, might as well knock out a bit of Madden..  Freakin’ Joel beat me 35-32.. Arghhh…

But now it is time for bed, we’re going to go see Batman Begins.

GOOOOD NIGHT NOW!!!!

I had an AWESOME day today - Bethany and I had so much fun at the concert.  I really want to get into it more, but I’m dead tired.  I have some really funny stories to tell, and I took a ton of pictures, but I’ll post one as a teaser for now… 

This is Spearhead… Not the best quality, but it’s 3am..  I’ll fire up Photoshop in the morning… 

At this very moment I’m very pissed…  This morning I could not find my cell phone.  I looked all over but ended up having to go to the concert without it (which I pretty much felt naked without the phone).  I came home and tore apart my apartment looking for it…  Well I found it… But it turns out that I WASHED IT!!! That’s right, I had it in yesterday’s shorts pocket, and I put it through the washing machine.  Surprisingly the phone itself still works.  I can make and receive calls on it.. But the display is fried, completely gone…  So it looks like I’m getting a new phone.  Argggh…..  I’m so mad at myself…

More on Saturday later this weekend

So I decided to bite the bullet and upgrade to Premium.  Largely due in part to the onMouseOvers that are in the recent Xanga adboxes were hosing Internet Explorer on my desktop.  I figured no adboxes, no problem, but my IE is still hosed.  Maybe it’s because of the new Google Toolbar, or maybe it’s because Internet Explorer has become a piece of crap…  Something tells me that my desktop is due up for a good white-wash and re-install of Windows…  Maybe when I have a weekend to kill - not anytime soon.  Anyway, Xanga Premium, looks good so far.  I figured I post enough that I can justify the $25 per year for it.  We’ll see how it goes

So last night Bethany totally surprised me!  For the last few weeks I’ve been told to keep July 2nd open as she’d like to take me out for my birthday.  Last night she told me what we’re doing - she got tickets to the Big Summer Classic over at Red Rocks!  I seriously had no idea - it was such a surprise!  I am so excited to, especially to get to see Spearhead, along with String Cheese Incident and Keller Williams!  This is going to be a great concert!  I’m so excited!!

I’m going to bring my camera so I can show all of you who have not beed to Red Rocks (or don’t live close to here) just what you’re missing.  This is one of the most AWESOME venues in the country!

Thank you so much Bethany!  You are such a sweetie   Now I need to finish my laundry and we’re heading down there in a few… More to come

First off work sucked..  Basically same song as yesterday, different verse today.  Luckily we found the cause of the problem, and I figured out how we can solve it, but I don’t have the information to do it and once again I’m relying on another team to help me.

Also I got my pictures from the disposable back…  Basically this was the biggest disappointment of the day.  NONE  of them really turned out.  They basically looked like this:

And this…

Ooooo the colors changed…  But yeah, you really couldn’t see anything.  I guess the heads of the people in the commonwealth of Virginia look nice, but that’s just about it… Oh well…  It was a nice experiment while it lasted.

I did have a few nice pictures, like one of my friend Meghan who went to the concert with me:

Thanks again for going with me Meghan!  It was a blast!

So yeah, next time I’ll have to smuggle in the digital, which is what I should have done in the first place.  Now I’m just hoping that the guy that was next to me that night emails me his pictures.

I’m sorry if I’m in a complaining mood tonight, but there are two things that really are annoying me that I’d like to rant about a bit…

First off, I walk out of work today and check my cell phone to find 4 voice mails.  3 of them were love from some friends, but the last one was from some people from church.  They called me because they left me a message trying to follow up on a message some guy left for me yesterday, and that they got a new computer in but they don’t know how to connect it up to the network over there and they’d like to transfer their email files over to the new computer, but they don’t know where the files are, but now they’re stuck and they really need me to come over and get things set up for them….

There are so many things wrong with that, I just had to laugh right there…  First off, I’M NOT THEIR COMPUTER REPAIRMAN!  The last time I checked my work badge it didn’t say the name of my church.  That being said, I don’t mind helping my friends out where I can, but my #1 PET PEEVE is when people ONLY call me because their’s something wrong with their computer.  I think it’s important to be a good steward with your gifts and give them affectionately.  God’s blessed me with the ability to understand technology and I’m happy to do what I can, but that doesn’t mean that I need to be on your beck and call and am somehow accountable for your computers not working.

Secondly, the reason I haven’t returned calls is not because I’m frustrated, but because I’M WORKING DURING THE DAY!  I’m up to my neck here being busy at work, and quite frankly I can’t take off in the middle of the afternoon and skip out of work, drive across town to take a look at something that is not really job related at all.

Thirdly, I’m frustrated that people equate all computer problems on the same level..  I don’t fix computers at work, I’m a web developer.  I write programs.  I have a strong technical background and have an MCSE (Microsoft Certified Systems Engineer) credential (which is actually outdated now   ), but I am not a networking guru.  I’m not an expert in OS problems..  And there’s a big difference with helping people with my expertise and being leaned on like a crutch…  It’d be one thing if they asked me to help them in redesigning their web site or with a web application.. That’d be right up my ally and enjoyable.  But when people call me wanting me to figure out their networking problems….  It’s like asking a gourmet chef to work the fry machine over at McDonald’s - *I guess* it’s related in the "food field", but in the end you’re not the right person for the job and no one is really happy.

I’m sorry about the big rant - and please don’t think that I’m mad at THE church, or hate volunteering or helping our friends or anything like that, but this is just a built up frustration with MY church and the complainant attitude that they’ve developed towards volunteers.  There seems to be such a lack of appreciation and value of Volunteers there that they’re really burning people out - and I’m finding myself included in that number.  They wouldn’t be in this situation if they ran off the original guy that set up their machines and networking…

Okay so that’s rant #1, but there is one more thing that bothered me a bit tonight….

(So if you didn’t think I wasn’t nerdy enough)  I subscribe to PC Magazine to keep up on some of the technology issues., and I bought and issue of PC World to read on the plane for the DC trip…  Both had reviews on headphones this last month.  Then on the way home on the trip I found that my stock headphones on my iPod are starting to split and exposing wire, so I’m like.  "Hmmmm might be a good idea to check this out and see what I can do to replace them.  Oh how convenient, they’re reviewing headphones, maybe I’ll find one in there."

Except virtually EVERY ONE they reviewed was at least $80, and their editor’s choice was $250+!!  Now how practical is that?  It frustrates me to see how out of touch some of these "consumer guides" are.  I would be comfortable spending $25-35 on ear buds, maybe if I was persuaded to I could drop ~$40 on a really nice pair, but $80?!?  Let alone $250?!?  I’m not going to buy headphones that cost just as much as my iPod did.

In reality, who can afford to pay that much for head phones?  If I was a sound engineer working in a recording studio, or a VERY frequent traveler that was always on a plane and needed noise cancellation, I could maybe see that, but for EAR BUDS?!? 

And let me remind you how I got in this situation in the first place - the ear buds I got with my iPod are now 7 months old, trashed and exposing wire…  What do you expect from things are either in your backpack or ear canal???   It’s just frustrating to think how out of touch people in these magazines are with their consumers.  What do you think the demographic for PC Magazine is?  - PC enthusiasts & IT folks that probably make $50-90k per year..  Now $90k is a lot, but still could you drop $250 for EAR BUDS, especially with a family to provide for?  COME ON, get practical!  Thanks for nothing!

Sorry for the rants tonight…

Tonight’s post is going to be short.  I wish it could be longer but my busy day prevented it.

My re-entry from the trip into work sucked.  I woke up this morning starting my normally meeting-filled day when I started getting pinged like crazy.  It turns out we pretty much had a red-hot issue that needed to be addressed and I was basically the only person who could handle it, so I got pulled out of all of my meetings and spent all day working on these issues.  What makes it worse is that the problem lies with something beyond our team’s control, so I’m really at the mercy of a whole other group.  Basically it was just crappy.  Oh, and not to mention the mountain of email that I got for being for one day - talk about nuts!  Ugh… 

I really want to write more, especially in regards to some of these Supreme Court Decisions that have been handed down these last few days.  There are two that I’m pretty pissed about, and hopefully would like to rant a little more on them later on, but for now I must say this:

Kelo v. New London - Eminent domain can now be exercised for development of commercial property.  What the heck were they thinking when they ruled this way.  Way to KILL the 5th Amendment!  This is income redistribution at it’s worst. Basically they take your property at "fair market value" - what they feel it’s worth to them (typically below that you’re willing to sell it for), and hand it over to someone who’s going to turn that same land into far more valuable real-estate in which the commercial developer will profit from.  This is one of the core reasons I lean on the conservative side - I am firmly against the government taking someones money and giving it to other people.  More on this to come…

Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios Inc. v. Grokster, Ltd. - I don’t get this ruling.  So I guess companies that create P2P software CAN be held liable, if they MARKET their software for the use of illegal downloads.  But how exactly do you determine marketing intentions?  Do companies now have to be responsible for EVERY mention or appearance of their product?  Maybe I’m reading this on, I need to do some more studying, but right now I just see this as another excuse for frivolous lawsuits by the RIAA and MPAA, used to harass and intimidate their own customer-base.  In the end the only people that will be getting rich are Lobbyists and Lawyers.  NIIIIIIICE!

I’m still really pissed about this, enough to renew my gift contribution to the EFF. Want a really good perspective on this issue?  Check our Dallas Mavericks owner & Internet entrepreneur Mark Cuban’s blog.

The Conflicting Ten Commandments Rulings - Ok…  So I guess through your mental powers you’re supposed to figure out what SOMEONE’S INTENTIONS are for putting up the 10 Commandments, and based on what you THINK their intentions are, they’re violating freedom of religion…  Hmmmm…

Lol, also today was finance day… Not fun, I tallied the receipts from last weekend’s trip:

Concert Tickets - $140
Round-Trip Airfare - $150
2 Nights in Hotel - $189
Rental Car - $74

Flying cross country to go see a band that you thought wasn’t going to be in your home town, only to find out they’re not going to be there three nights - PRICELESS!

Okay, complaining about money aside.  The trip was freakin’ worth every penny, and I’d do it again in a heartbeat.