Baby guinea pigs
Ok – so Sydney’s friend Ava asked if we could adopt her pet guinea pig. Her mother is allergic, and her father already has enough animals. So we took it. We fed it what we thought was the appropriate amount. It got fat. VERY fat.
Like, PREGNANT fat.
Had two babies last night. Fantastic. Just what I wanted. A whole PILE of guinea pigs.
No Country for Old Predators
Bill has done it again. Finalist for the MTV video awards. Third video listed. He is funny. Fuh. Knee.
Down another 2.5
Porter Valley started a contest about 8 weeks ago called “The Spring Shape Up” – so I entered. Plan is to pick a target number of day to work out (I picked 3, but actually go in 6 times a week minimum) and a goal – either to lose weight or bodyfat %. I am of the opinion that everyone would be trying to lose bodyfat, buty whatever. I picked bodyfat, and measured at 19% for starters. Not bad considering I was 33.5% about 2 years ago.
My own goal was to lose 2% over that 8 weeks. 2% doesn’t sound like much, but it is when you are my age, and already working out pretty hard. So I ramped it up. More cardio, more intense, full body weightlifting.
Results: 2.5% bodyfat lost (down to 16.5%), 3 pounds GAINED on the scale from 215 to 218. What this means is that I lost about 8.5 pounds of fat, and gained 3 pounds of muscle. Not too bad. Next stop is 13% – where most people agree you can really start to see your abs. David and Josh are on track for the same.
Time to UPGRADE my operating system
That’s right. Having gone from Ubuntu to Vista (because I need to test my killer construction management software in IE), I have decided it is time to truly upgrade for speed and stability.
Hello Windows XP!
That’s right. I’ll say it, and I’ll say it loud: VISTA SUCKS. It is a bloated, slow, buggy, unstable, over-complicated piece of CRAP that illustrates how bad a product can get when a company loses site of its mission.
My niece Kristin, who is doing some web design work for me, brough her Toshiba Satellite over last night to do some work, and I was ASTOUNDED at how slow it was running Vista. This is a dual-core machine with only 512MB of RAM, but still – how powerful is a machine supposed to be. I finally told her that she should put XP on it, and went ahead and spent last night doing it. The thing SCREAMS. Now there is the downside of the lost functionality by downgrading – features like…wait…no. Never mind. There is NO downside. Vista does not do ONE thing better than XP.
I still like Windows Server for many things (stiffs.com runs on it, for example), but none of my software is using it – it’s all CentOS 5. The beginning of the end for Microsoft? Perhaps.
Night golf
This was awesome. Me and David playing golf at Porter Valley Country Club at NIGHT. Light up balls, glow sticks on the pins, glow sticks on the tees, and booze and food every few holes. Shot a 69 in a four-man scramble, which isn’t great – but not bad considering half the holes were in total darkness.
An absolute blast. Going to do that one every year.
Candy to prevent tooth decay
Developed at UCLA – a lollipop that prevents tooth decay.
As Josh would say – crazier than a fish with titties.
St. Pats Drinking
For more years than I care to remember, I have been a drinking MACHINE on St. Pats. I worked at Brennan’s Pub for years running the turtle races, and as a result I would drink there – often from 6am until 2am the next day – every single year. This year I ended up with other, much better plans.
I helped my daughter with a school project. On the downside, I didn’t get to spend several hundred dollars, drive home drunk, and wake up with a hangover that would kill a small village. On the upside, Sydney is well prepared for her presentation tomorrow (she had to act out a commercial promoting the book “Ella Enchanted”), and I’ll be able to put in a full day on my awesome construction software tomorrow.
Good call, methinks.
Going to church
Yes. I went to church today. Seems odd, given that I am indeed an atheist, and a studied one at that. But I also have a daughter, and my ex-wife likes to take her to her church. So I went. And here are my thoughts:
- Yes, there were good lessons to take away. The theme was “compassion”. But then again, what did we expect? That the theme would be “Stabbing is cool”?
- The sense of community is definitely there. But I’m not at all sure why it needs to revolve around a book and some magical guy.
- It does occur to me that there is no place in my life that I am sort of pushed to reflect on these important issues. An atheist gathering or “church” would do it – but I can’t find one in LA.
- I can see no downside at all to my daughter going, as it will give her an open mind about all things – no matter how absurd they seem, or how many people are involved.
So I’m obviously still an atheist.
Cancun, Math Tests, and Software
Those are the 3 things in my life lately.
Cancun for the Liu festivities – insane fun. Sad to see them move to Hong Kong. Bartended every night. Lay on the beach all day. Gorgeous wedding. Ultra-fun reception.
Math test for Sydney. Know she will do well because she studied hard, insisting that I create difficult sample tests for her. She’s just the best thing ever. She gives me strength. I’d suggest everyone have one, but you may not get a smart, gorgeous, funny one. You CERTAINLY will not get one as good as mine.
Kicking ASS on software. Spending all my time trying to become a Linux/PHP/MySQL/Networking/Security expert. Sakha is just unreal – SO fast, SO solid, SO smart. Complete opposite of the NIMRODS I was trying to train before.