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  Sometimes the path within must be extracted...

  Sometimes we need to tear down and destroy what we are in order to make way for something new, or something better...

  
cemetery gates

  I don't like myself very much anymore.

  I think it's time to totally back away from everything and completely re-evaluate my situation. I know I have a long road ahead of me. I know that I have to walk down it alone. I need to prepare myself for that journey.

  I have a NASTY lump on my head from an accident today. I was plugging my laptop into an outlet in my living room to charge it up. The outlet is behind a bookcase. On top of the bookcase are books, with stone gargoyle bookends pushed into either side of the row. One of them fell on my head while I was plugging the laptop in. Dude, they're friggin' heavy! It damn near knocked me out when it hit me. My head still hurts...

  I have a really hard head though...

  I bought a new camera on Saturday, a Kodak Z650 SLR deal. It's got an excellent 38mm 10X zoom lens on it. It's the best camera I've ever owned. OfficeMax was doing an inventory, and they had it marked down to a hundred bucks! I couldn't say no. It was marked down from two-hundred and forty dollars. I found out that when Kodak released the camera last year, it was over three-hundred dollars. I'm thrilled with it. The image clarity is wonderful at 6.1 megapixels, and the clarity on the zoom is incredible. I think damnage might get a makeover soon. The quality of graphics I can produce using the new camera is much bet ..]]> http://mike.damnage.com/post/random/13/Shotgun-Opera--Lock-and-Load
  Yeah...

  I'm keeping the blog-post-song-quote thing goin'...

  Anyway...

  Can anyone say...

  VACATION???????

  YES! And dammit, I've earned it! I put in like fifty hours this week! The kaizen deal was considered a success. I made a few new friends, and pro'ly a few new enemies, but I came out of it pretty well.


angel eyes...

  Me messin' around with Photoshop again...

  I got my laptop, notebook, whatever ya wanna call it:


my new Toshiba Satellite Pentium Dual Core...

  No, it's not the one I originally wanted to buy. I was having the WORST luck finding one until I ran across this Toshiba Satellite at Circuit City. It was six-hundred bucks, five-hundred after a rebate. By the way, Best Buy sucks. I haven't trusted them for years. Not since they tried to sell me a big screen TV with an eight inch tear in the screen. I tried to purchase two laptops from them on two different days, two different sales, both times they were "sold out" - ummm... bullshit? I mean, yeah - they pro'ly had like two or three of 'em at the ridiculously low price they advertised, but it's just a scam ta get ya in the store, methinks.

  Anyway...

  I may have to rethink my previous attitudes towards Windows Vista. I couldn't get Linux running right on the thing to save my frickin' life. I gave up and put the OEM Vista Home Premium back in. Once I tweaked it to look li ..]]> http://mike.damnage.com/post/random/12/Im-not-paralyzed-but-I-seem-to-be-struck-by-you
  I'm seein' nowhere through the eyes of a lie...

  ...or something like that.


the beginning of a bolt of lightning tonight at work (out back)

  This week was tiring, and I'm glad it's nearly over with. Next week though...

  Next week should be pretty interesting...

  I was chosen to take part in a kaizen event at work. I get to discuss (for ten hours a day, for four straight days, Friday we get to have breakfast and leave early! ) improvement of work cells in my department and whatnot. I'm actually pretty jazzed about the whole thing. I've never taken part in one of these, and I'm always anxious to try something new.

  It'll be weird adjusting to a day shift schedule for a week, but I'm flexible, I think I'll manage...

  I'll get out early, presumably late Friday morning sometime, and then I'll have Colombus Day Weekend off! Actually, I took the following Tuesday off as a vacation day, so I'll have, what for me will be a five day weekend!


mikey's conception of mikey on vacation

  ...which, considering how broke I am right now, means I'm gonna lay around for five days an' be a total bum.

  I dunno...

  I might take my loan back up tomorrow and get some work done on my car over the weekend. I might even buy the cheap laptop I've been drooling over at Wal-Mart for the past few weeks.


mikey's growin' the full beard back...

  I've been pretty busy lately...

  Mainly with work...

  I did manage to get out this weekend though. As a change of pace, I gave Whiskey Business a skip and went to Ol' Time Charlie's for their Saturday Karaoke thing. No, I didn't sing, but I ran into a guy I work with and spent the night bullshittin' with him an' slammin' down some Molson Canadian.

  It's different not having my best friend to hang out with in bars anymore. After the aneurism, he can't drink - and nor does he want to, which is great. I have a wedding to attend in a couple of weeks, and I'm giving serious thought to quitting again myself after the wedding. Boozing is basically all just a stupid waste of money when you come right down to it. I'd always felt that drinking was a sign of weakness on my part, and anyone who knows me knows - I despise weakness. Vices are just expressions of flaws ..]]> http://mike.damnage.com/post/random/10/If-I-go-crazy-then-will-you-still-call-me-Superman
  Today, for the first time in my life, I got certified to run a forklift at work. What? No fanfare? It's a big deal for me! Actually, it's something that'll make my life ten times easier at work...

  I'm not gonna go totally wild and be like Cryptie, or anything (also try this link ), but still...

  (if you followed the links - was THAT fucking WEIRD or WHAT??? )

  My supervisor put me through one HELLUVA obstacle course, too. The guys watching me take the test were somewhat surprised at how much I needed to do to prove my skills. I passed - thirty out of thirty questions and tasks completed successfully!

  
mikey on his birthday

  I've been window shopping online quite a bit these days. I've been seriously thinking about purchasing a notebook computer. I just keep running into the wall of having to purchase one running Windows Vista - which I DO NOT want. I could run off on a bit of a tangetized rant here about how much that piece o' shit OS sucks, about how PATHETIC it is that Bill Gates and company want to imitate Apple, and how digital rights management is a violation of civil liberties (and how enforcing it on a machine is a total PIG on memory speed and processor power), but I won't. Anyone who knows anything about computers knows enough to stay away from Microsoft's latest blunder.

  Anyway...

  Wal-Mart has an interesting little machine I'm thinking of buying. It has Vista, yeah - but a quick format and an Ana ..]]> http://mike.damnage.com/post/random/9/wow-lift-trucks
  I'm definitely not bored anymore...

  My first day back, and I dunno...

  It was pretty interesting.

  I came home pretty sore and worn out. It was a good worn out though. I love factory work, actually. Things change enough every day to keep it interesting, and they're mundane enough to give me a sense of routine. I dig that balance. I never realized how much I missed it until I got back into it.

  By the way...

  I know people are actually READING this stuff. Server logs don't lie. Don't be shy - gimme a yell so I don't feel like a duck quacking in an empty void here! Actually, it's okay if ya don't. Sometimes I think I write this stuff more for myself than anyone else.

  I forgot to mention before that my best friend, who had the aneurism, is home from the hospital in Philly - which is great. He got home about a week ago and he's doing well.

  Damnage is doing well. The computers that run it survived their little freak-out from the power surge. I really do need to get that redundant power supply, don't I? Uptime is EVERYTHING for a server, and NOT buying one is pretty much neglectful on my part.


damnage.com from the outside

  Okay...

  That's actually an older picture of damnage. My desk is almost never THAT neat. Actually, that picture is about a year old. Damnage is on the other side of my desk now, and it has a bigger monitor. It's still a Compaq Deskpro EN though. It amazes me that that little box does so damned much. I can't wait until I can scrape some money together to get the Systemax tower servers I want. Damnage was built on a severely tight budg ..]]> http://mike.damnage.com/post/random/8/back-to-work
  Four days off and I didn't really do much...

  After my somewhat limited birthday festivities subsided, I basically just laid around the house, doing nothing - and I had a wonderful time doing it. I used to always say "doin' nothin' means a lot to me..." (I got it from Bon Scott - sue me...), and it does. I spent a lot of time thinking these past few days. I've mostly been thinking about the direction I want to take this network in...


mikey bein' a bum

  What does one do when they own infinite possibilities on the web? I can build my own machines. I now have six static IP addresses. I'm in a position where I can say or do anything I want. The whole thing with web hosting keeps dancing around in my brain. I'm perfectly capable of putting it together. It'll just take some money, basically.

  hmmm...

  I've been looking at some Systemax tower servers - they're very reasonably priced, and seem as though they were just MADE to run under Fedora 7.

  I found one mistake I made with attempting to set up my personal machine under Fedora - I left the chosen hard drive on a RAID channel - dumb! But that's what I get for setting the thing up while I was loopular. If I'd set it up using IDE, it may've gone differently. I might try it again tonight.

  The server got knocked out yesterday. Thunderstorm? Power surge? Voltage spike? I don't know - I was asleep. Actually, from what I can see, it happened about an hour after I went to bed. I work second shift, I sleep all day, so the problem didn't get corrected until I woke up. Actually, my mom sent me a text message on my phone telling me the network was down and' everything. One of these ..]]> http://mike.damnage.com/post/random/7/Vacation-Im-Somewhat-Bored
  I'm thirty-five years old now...

  What's strange is that I feel a lot better now than I did, say, ten, or even fifteen years ago. I guess a lot of it has to do with all the weight I've lost recently.

  I don't talk about it much, but I've lost about eighty pounds. Sounds like a lot, doesn't it? Not off my frame. Standing six feet, seven inches tall (202 cm), I can carry a lot of weight. My job at Sealy is highly physically demanding, and weight dropped off of me really quickly when I started working there. Now I have a bunch of clothes that don't fit me.


fun with my camera-phone thing...

  Case in point:

  I have a wedding I'm attending early next month, and I was going through dress shirts to wear. They're all like COMICALLY too big for me. I must've lost about three inches from my neck. Shirts that I used to have trouble buttoning the top button with, well - I can get two hands inside the collar now with the top button buttoned.

  Don't get me wrong...

  I feel great being so much lighter an' everything.

  I dunno...

  Anyway...

  I had a nice, quiet birthday this year. I spent Saturday night out at Whiskey Business with a few friends from work, and my mom came over Sunday with a nice chocolate cake and some presents. If this is thirty-five, I'll take it. Actually, as far as physical appearance goes, I'm pretty good here. If this is as old as I'm gonna look, I'd be more than satisfied. It's weird...

  I can see the people around me, the people I grew up with, getting older, but I basically look the same. I just shaved my beard back into a ..]]> http://mike.damnage.com/post/random/6/Happy-Birthday-To-Me
  After getting the living SHIT kicked out of me at work tonight, I decided I needed to have one of those after-work deals where you remind yourself WHY it is you go to a punishing job every day to begin with...

  Wal-Mart anyone?

  The Wal-Mart in Wilkes-Barre can get a bit weird for me after the sun goes down, so I trucked my little Tracker down to Hazleton (a much mellower Wal-Mart incarnation) to see how the store's renovations are going and what-not.

  Okay...

  Not only did I get their LAST copy of Rob Zombie's The Devil's Rejects for seven dollars and fifty cents, I also got a new pair of steel toed Herman Survivors for like fifty-five bucks! You know what the best part about buying the boots is? They're actually FREE! I have a wonderful employer, Sealy Incorporated, who allows me a once a year allowance for steel toe work boots of sixty dollars! All I need to do is turn in my receipt to our human resources guy and our accounting department will credit my bank account for the money.



...and yeah

  I actually DID buy the boots for work...

  I dunno...

  I'm just sitting here, drinking a Molson Golden from the fine leather mug I purchased at the Pennsylvania Renaissance Faire a couple of weeks back, and I thought I'd share the Wal-Marting experience I had tonight.

  Lame, huh?

  Gimme a break...

  This blogging script is a fun new toy for me! ]]> http://mike.damnage.com/post/random/5/WalMart-Is-there-like-any-other-cooler-place-in-the-universe
  Welcome to my new blog...

  I was gonna go to bed, but I'm still working out some bugs with this thing.

  Anyway...

  I originally intended this blog to just be for myself, but it occurred to me that other people might like to join, which is cool. If you'd like to sign up for an account and begin blogging here, you can do so by clicking here. The previous link will take you to a registration page where you'll be asked to fill in a few lines of simple stuff, most of which you can either ignore or edit later. You'll be given a log in and small profile. You can even add a small picture (maximum 400 x 600 pixels) if you'd care to.

  I have four different categories set up so far - random stuff, technobabble, photography, and web site stuff (primarily for updates to damnage.com). My mind and my interests are both diverse and fractured things, so I'll probably be adding more categories as I think of them. For right now, random stuff has an actual post in it.

  I just hope that people who've read and commented on stuff I've blogged on about elsewhere are nice enough to follow me here and continue to read and make comments on me and my life...

  Don't worry about breaking any rules - I own this server, so basically, there aren't any rules! All I ask is that you don't spam this thing with ads for cheap Viagra and porn...

 & ..]]> http://mike.damnage.com/post/random/4/this-blog