BigCat’s Blog of DOOM

When Jim Egli was here to visit (if you want to hear the MP3 of the interview Jeff did with him, it is here) he mentioned that he is listening to the bible on his ipod via a podcast of the 1-year bible.
( Bible Podcasting Angst )
In other related news, I got an email from the “Free Ipod” websites that I got my ipod from, and they are going to start tossing people who don’t finish getting all their referrals in 90 days. This made me wonder how close I was to finishing a couple of the things I started and it turns out I’m 1 person away from getting a free 30 GB one. So I figured that would be a cool b-day present for rockyrockstar since he has really wanted something like that for a while now. If you want to be that last person to help me get Jeff a free ipod click on this link http://www.mp3players4free.com/default.aspx?r=11605 and sign up for one of the offers there to complete your registration. I have to finish this up by the end of May. Oh, and if you are just interested in getting a free 60 GB ipod yourself, check out this link http://premiumipods.freepay.com/?r=11393589

The thing I find most interesting about today is not that I have sucessfully spent more money than I thought I was worth, bringing my week tally to 1 brand new car, and 1 106 year old house, but it is the wonderful interaction of the people around me I’ve had.

Last night I went to bed feeling cold, burdened, confused and lonely. Tonight I feel vibrant, connected, and in touch with something I sometimes feel like I’ve lost…my friends.

What made this day great wasn’t signing like 50 documents just to put an offer on a house, but it was the little things. Like having a friend here to watch it all happen because he came over to help teach Laurn guitar. Or the great comments on my blog from a pal who is going through similar stuff, or the guy who just dropped by to hang out and ended up celebrating with us. And the old friend who took time out of his lunch to pray for me, who also happens to be the only guy I know right now that I can call earlier than my Dad and he’ll be awake to listen to me when I feel confused, burdened, cold and lonely.

The investment I set out to make with this whole ordeal wasn’t ever supposed to be just about smart financial planning, it was about investing in these shared moments with friends. And I hope that we can make our new home even more welcoming and inviting, so that when we mark the next big mooent in our lives, just like tihs moment, we won’t just remember what we were doing, but we will remmber who we were doing it with.

I think we have come to a decision and are going to put an offer on a house.
( House Stuff )

So I like the new car pretty well, it has an axillary input in the stereo so I can plug the ipod right into it, and the shifter is in a slightly more comfortable place than the old car and has a cooler looking knob. That ends the differences between the new Saturn ION and the old saturn SL2 that I was able to discern on my way to work. Oh, also it has onstar, which is free for a year, which amongst other things will email me each month a diagnostic that they run on the cars computer, so it will tell me when I need to take it in for warranty work. The onstar button strikes me as something I will forget is there, or something I will play with way too much.
( Rambling about making investments )

I’m a total freaking genius, and by genius, I mean idiot. I killed my car through neglect, and now as we are approaching a time when we want to buy a house we have to get a car. So, after consulting many who have not ever killed a car, and some who have, we have decided to get a new car. This will make it so if I screw something up again, or the car just takes a shit, we are covered for a long time, so no unexpected major expenses in the first few years of the house from cars. Saturn is going to give us some nice financing to take what little money we had left to pay on the first car, (we were 6 month shy of paying it off) and put it into the loan for the new car and our payment is only $100 more than our old minimum payment (which is fine because that is $150 less than we were paying every month because we were trying to get the car paid off fast).

Oh well, you live, you learn, I think I’m sold on the idea of buying a house now instead of a condo because I want a garage so I can get under the car once in a while if need be….which hopefully I won’t need to because we are also getting one of those new super warranties that come with every new car you buy anymore.

I hate cars, my family is cursed when it comes to cars. I thought I was digging out from under that curse, but in two years I’ve crashed one car, drove another until the exhuast literally fell off and then sold it to a high schooler who welded one of those fat ugly mufflers on it, and killed a third just by being stupid.

http://headrush.typepad.com/creating_passionate_users/2006/03/how_to_be_an_ex.html

I thought this was somewhat interesting. I really liked this quote:

But the most troubling–and where we have the most leverage–is with the amateur who is satisfied with where they are. These are the folks who you overhear saying, “Yes, I know there’s a better way to do this thing, but I already know how to do it this [less efficient, less powerful] way and it’s easy for me to just keep doing it like that.” In other words, they made it past the suck threshold, but now they don’t want to push for new skills and capabilities.

I so hate that attitude in myself, we tell ourselves this sometimes because of the point of dimishing returns for us is reached, but still, it gets to me when I hear myself say that.

Dave Lin’s and Jeff’s recent posts about the work/spirtual life balance reminded me I never wrote about some interesting connections I’ve found in that for myself. So here it is, with an emphasis on one particular thing I’ve been kicking around in my brain the last week or so:
( What if Tech was easier for Churches )

I installed the newest beta of Windows Vista (the version of windows that will be out later this year) on my machine at home today. It ate my trusty old monitor that got me through most of high school and college. I had the dual monitor setup going like I usually do, and then all of the sudden it goes dead, and won’t turn back on.

Sad day. I guess I’ll have to get a new second monitor. Anyone have an old 17″ CRT they are getting rid of? That would be an upgrade from my old 15″ that just died.

But the good news, my computer works pretty well with Windows Vista as is, it even uses that cool looking “Glass” theme thanks to my GeForce 6600GT I bought a while ago.

This is good news because I thought I was going to need to do some upgrades to get it going. The new version of Windows is pretty tough on the hardware, which is why it is my current recommendation to NOT buy any new computers for the next 6 months unless you absolutely have to, or you know how to get your hardware ready for the new version.

If you want to see the coolness that is the new windows, feel free to stop by any time and check it out, I’ll probably run for a while in this windows and not switch back unless I need to, cuz it seems fairly stable right now, and I know that will only improve with subsequent upgrades going towards beta 2 and the release candidates.

Yes, that is right ladies and gentleman, after many years of Intel bashing, and hating them because they are the microsoft of the hardware world, I am going to jump camps unless AMD pulls something amazing out of their ass.
( Nerdy explanation of why I was an AMD fanboy )
So, now I like intel again, and I basically realized that I can like either company as long as they aren’t trying to screw the consumer like Intel did with the P4 and their strong-arm monopolistic buisness practices in the 90′s.

It is going to be a fun year for the processor wars, just like 1999 and 2000.

One of my big faults is related to one of my favorite strengths.

Whenever I start working on a tech project I go crazy nuts over it. Then once I’ve mastered the ins and outs of whatever I’m doing, I get bored. Usually this is when the project is nearing completion, or I’m at a point of frustration (The frustration part brings back to my mind the infamous FreeVo project that Rob and I worked on for two weeks).

So, in the spirit of this issue, I installed Joomla on my server today to play with. It looks interesting, it is written in PHP which is always nice, and it has the ability to add all kinds of stuff. I did this because the more I think about it, the more wordpress seems just a little short-changed as a content management system.

Ever stuck in my geekery, I will always be starting new things and never finish them…
well, at least I got that email server working before I tore it appart for parts for another project…and that project is working…so I guess I do finish things.

Why is that with most things the last 5% is the most boring and tedious.

Also, a quick note about my insomnia yesterday. I have noticed that today is a much much better day than it would have been if I didn’t have a totally terrible day yesterday. I’m tired, about like normal, but it feels so much better than yesterday that I seem to only be able to focus on the improvement.

I think I slept an hour or two last night.

Work is going to suck.

I’ve just started this super-nerdy project and I need some advice from my more linux-literate friends.
( Don't read if you don't want to be nerded out )
In other news, Kyle and Ellen are going to be here this weekend, and Saturday Lauren is having a girls night, and I’m taking Kyle out to do something fun that is still TBD. So if you are a girl stop by my house on Saturday for good girly time, and if you are a guy give me a ring and I’ll tell you where we end up going.