sometimes being a biker can be tough. for example, last weekend i decided i needed to get a few things from office depot. like large plastic containers. it was a nice day, and i figured i could carry everything on my bike. plus it's only a few blocks. large plastic containers don't always nestle into each other very well. and they didn't have any large plastic bags that could hold them all. i ended up with them on the tank between/on my legs, while i used my chin to compress it all together and keep it from falling to the side. my arms also had to kind of reach around everything to get to the handlebars. but i took mostly back roads and made it home without any disasters.

wednesday night, on the other hand, i was in precarious situations both going to and coming home from the radio show -- neither of which were my fault. on the way to the show i was driving down westheimer toward montrose. now, westheimer has pretty narrow lanes, so that makes it a little dangerous in general. but in this instance, i was in the outside lane in one of the tight doglegs when a shiny new silver corvette who was being stopped behind traffic on the inside lane decided a corvette just shouldn't have to sit. the grey-haired, probably mid-50's, upper-management-class driver popped his tires to the right and burned rubber to jump into the outside lane...where i was about to be. i slammed on my brakes and my back started sliding to the left. fortunately he had gunned it so he moved out of the space i was moving into as i slid. i gave him a friendly gesture as he took off. i don't think he even knew what he did to me. then he had to stop at the light at montrose. he whipped lanes and pulled up next to a somewhat older yellow corvette that was at the light, which i pulled up behind (glaring at him the whole time). he started waving something in a baggie toward the other corvette until the guy rolled down his window. i guess his need to jump into my lane was so he could offer his fellow corvette enthusiast a sticker for his window. the light turned green, they were still talking, so i revved my engine and the yellow corvette started moving. the silver guy took off slowly, then he gunned it and took both lanes in the dogleg by katz's. then he slowed down again and waited for the yellow corvette to get up beside him again. classy guy.

on the way home, the danger wasn't as immediate, but still could have been bad. being a biker, there are certain places you drive often where you know people do stupid things. either because the road/signage/whatever is weird, or because people want to naturally do things there that don't match the road rules at that point. the alabama/shepherd and alabama/greenbriar intersections are two of them. at alabama/shepherd, coming from montrose there is no left turn. what had been a left turn lane now goes straight through the intersection, along with the outside lane. in the opposite direction, there is one straight lane and one left turn lane. first, a person making a left may think you are in a left turn lane if you are on the inside. second, the road shifts a little to the right in the intersection, so a lot of people in the outside lane going straight assume the inside lane is turning left, or they go straight and end up splitting both lanes and choose to take the inside lane thus blocking you off or pushing you into oncoming traffic. but that's not where my problem was. the alabama/greenbriar intersection from shepherd has two lanes going straight, a left turn lane, and one lane heading toward shepherd. the other side has a left turn lane, one forward lane, and two opposing lanes. people going toward shepherd love to move over into the left turn lane right after the intersection, or sometimes before it. as i was coming up to the intersection, a big suv was coming down the left turn lane with their left turn signal on. but they didn't turn left. they came straight through the intersection into the left turn lane i was in. they saw me and had enough time to jump over in front of the car that was beside them (and in the single proper lane), but i would have gone to the right anyway because i was halfway expecting it. still, it's not fun to think about a head-on collision at 35 or 40 mph when you're on a motorcycle. (even with a helmet. which i wasn't wearing.)

i'll cap the biker stories off with another one that is my fault. thursday night i decided to go the grocery store and buy some soy milk. just one 0.5 gallon of soy milk...the bike is a fine choice for such a lovely evening. but of course i didn't just get the soy milk. i was aware i was on the bike, but i picked up a 6-pack of juice drinks and a pre-made salad. this all required two bags. which didn't fit on my tank very well. and immediately began sliding to either side as soon as i started going. each object almost fell out of the bags at multiple points. and my driving was about as good as if i'd been rather intoxicated. using the clutch was difficult. most of the way i drove with one hand. good thing it's only a few blocks! i got home and hit the driveway, and the soy milk immediately fell to the ground. i pitched the other stuff to the grass and parked my bike. no food losses. no bike losses. no body losses.

during my container buying excursion last weekend, i also was excited to see a new product -- sharpie pens. i love sharpies, but they have a tendency to bleed through paper. so i was excited to see pen models, guaranteed to not bleed through (most) paper. i got them home and tried them out. sigh. they're okay, but the ink color is much lighter, and the lines are pretty thin. maybe i set my standards too high.

this saturday i got up late and eventually left the house and ate at goode company bbq. i then dropped by yankee candle to use a coupon i had. i picked up a sicilian orange (large jar) and a fudge ripple (medium jar).

speaking of yankee candles, i finally had my first real "disappointscent". (i just made that word up. i'm so clever!) it was juicy watermelon. it smells pretty good unlit, but when you're burning it the only thing i can really think of is that fake watermelon scent of stuff like jolly ranchers. which is okay if that's what you want, but i was expecting more of a legitimate scent. oh well, i've only got about 135 more hours of it left. ; )

(as an aside, today at lunch we saw a biker guy on a chopper pulling into a parking lot in rice village. a coworker said "ooh, i bet he's going to bath and body works. to get some nice scented soaps. or candles or something." while the coworker who went to yankee candle with me laughed, i said "hey! there's nothing wrong with a masculine biker liking scented candles!")

this weekend i went back to office depot and picked up some more containers and some other stuff. after the disappointment with the sharpie pens, i felt the need to vindicate my pen purchasing needs. so i bought an 8-pack of liquid expresso pens. and i bought a 4-pack of staedtler permanent pens. (they're about like permanent sharpies, and bleed through paper about as much. still, they're nice.) i also went for the gusto and picked up a somewhat expensive cross fountain pen, along with various writing supplies (silver foil lined envelopes, brochure jackets, white antique laid paper). it seems like having nice presentation for ye olde hand-written letters is a Good Thing [tm]. now if i ever get around to writing any, i can do it in style. i'm still toying with the fountain pen. it's a different feel than most ballpoints and felt/porous tips...very smooth, and bleeds a lot. it's been a long time since i used fountain style pens.

saturday early evening i dropped by taurian and ordered 0.5 inch 6 gauge captive hoops. it's a ritual, you know. hopefully they'll be ready in the next week or two. i was somewhat confused as i rode down westheimer, as there were cops blocking off most of the side streets and a lot of people milling about. i figured maybe i just missed a parade. not quite. i was early for a parade. the gay pride parade. by the time i was leaving taurian there were more people standing and sitting along the street. i didn't hang around.

saturday night jack and sue came by after a shot to hang out. except sue was groggy and walked into the house, straight to the couch, plopped down, and fell asleep. jack was coherent, but within about 15 minutes of sitting down to talk with me, he was falling asleep as well. jack thought he needed caffeine instead of driving home, so we left sue on the couch and headed to the house of pies. it was packed, i'm guessing from the gay contingent who had just gotten their pride on at the parade. we regrouped and headed to the teahouse. i had a pina colada smoothie with tapioca, jack had something with caffeine. but it wasn't enough. we got back to my house and he asked if he could take a nap. he went to my bed, and i woke sue up to tell her she could sleep on the bed if she wished. she got up and went back. three hours later, they woke up and headed home.

on sunday i ate a late lunch at einstein bagels, then i headed over to target. i bought a few more plastic containers (i'm trying to organize and go through a bunch of stuff i still have in cardboard boxes, you see), along with a silver metallic ink pad (could always come in handy), one of those punches you use to round corners on paper (i'll explain this purchase some other time), and a wooden "treasure chest" box made in india. which was very explicit about the fact that it's "NOT FOR FOOD" and for decorative purposes only. (i know using it as a food container was the first thing i thought of...or maybe not.) my treasure chest is currently going to be holding a bunch of remotes. maybe one day it can hold other things as well, like fruit, or cheese danish, or jello. but for now, the remotes pretty much fill it up.

whatever the case, here it is, two years later (plus a couple of days). if you don't feel like reading about my woes and troubles, sadness, doubt, pessimism, and that sort of rot, skip along to some other post of mine.

right now i'm kind of down. eh, it happens. i'm probably better off without tamara, especially considering all of the things she's done and chosen over the last few years...i'd probably be in even worse financial shape, plus be tied directly to her ongoing issues. but even that doesn't make me feel like the things that happened were right or for good or that this is the way things should be, because in my mind i know better. i know i had made a vow and i loved her, and i was trying -- imperfectly as it may have been -- to find some way to make things work. i know what happened and what i've gone through is not right. but i've had to go through it nevertheless. the burdens she's put on me make me angry because i know it's unfair, but i still feel sorrow that what i believed in turned into something so ugly and painful and corrupt.

but that's life. i know that. it's just really not easy for me to accept. i want everything to be more logical -- you do good, you receive good. you try your best, you are rewarded for it. but that's not reality. "the rain falls on the just and unjust alike." (matt 5:45) "but mostly on the just because the unjust have stolen their umbrellas." (rejoinder found online)

i also don't want certain people to read this and think i'm claiming i'm faultless or played no part in any of the problems in my marriage. i know i didn't always make the best choices or be as supportive/comforting as i could have been. but i was trying. and i staunchly believe that all of my faults and failings did not add up to what i received in return. i'm just really sad that the vows and all of the good possibilities were choked out and destroyed. there was good there. there really was. and it was killed.

great. now i'm putting more stuff online so everyone can think i'm messed up or wonder why i can't seem to get over things or whatever. i always just kind of hope that someone who views marriage and commitment and emotional betrayal in a way similar to me will read and understand what i'm going through and how long it can take for events to be processed. this wasn't a "try it out" thing for me. there was no "backup plan". my choice was a new single path in my life. now it's gone -- and in a spectacularly horrible way -- but i'm still here, left behind, trying to deal with this hole i'd never expected. plus having to go back to the beginning in that aspect of life and start over. it's a pretty daunting task for someone who doesn't find the positive in every experience, and didn't exactly date so much. at all, really. pretty much. yeah, yeah, i know you're surprised to learn i wasn't dating all the time, or in numerous long term relationships. but it's true! and i've not yet found something or someone that will help give me that kickstart to forget about the past completely (well, mostly at least) and move forward. suggestions? (and no, Jesus, G-d, and/or the Bible, nor any other religious response is an acceptable answer.)

--------------------
Date: Mon, 23 Jun 2008 15:14:31 +0100
From: c.moore7 Gazeta.pl <c.moore7@gazeta.pl>
Subject: SOMEONE YOU CALL YOUR FRIEND, WANTS YOU DEAD.

 I felt very sorry and bad for you, that your life is going to end like this if you don't comply, i was paid to eliminate you and I have to do it  within10 days.  Someone you call your friend wants you dead by all means, and the person havespent a lot of money on this, the person also came to us and told us that he wants you dead and he provided us your names, photograph and other necessaryinformation we needed about you.

 Meanwhile, I have sent my boys to track you down and they have carried out thenecessary investigation needed for the operation, but I ordered them to stopfor a while and not to strike immediately because I just felt something goodand sympathetic about you. I decided to contact you first and know why somebodywill want you dead by all means. Right now my men are monitoring you, their eyesare on you, and even the place you think is safer for you to hide might not be. Now do you want to LIVE OR DIE? It is up to you. Get back to me now if you areready to enter deal with me, I mean life trade, who knows, and I might justspear your life, $12,000 is all you need to spend.

You will first of all pay $2,500 uder 48hrs then  you wilI pay another  $2000 after that i will send the tape of the person that want you dead to you and when the tape gets to you, you will pay the remaining $8,000. If you are not ready for my help, then I will have no choice but to carry on the assignment after all I have already being paid before now. Warning: Do not think of contacting the police or even tell anyone because Iwill extend it to any member of your family since you are aware that somebodywant you dead, and the person knows some members of your family as well. For your own good I will advise you not to go out once is 7pm until I make out time to see you and give you the tape of my discussion with the person who wantyou dead then you can use it to take any legal action.

Good luck as I await your reply to this e-mail contact:
charlesmoore6@live.fr
 
CHARLES
--------------------

interesting, eh? somewhat chilling, even though the bad spelling, request for money, and clandestine nature of the thing (not to mention the math... $2500 + $2000 + $8000 ≠ $12000) make it scream poorly executed nigerian internet scam. so i did a quick search on the subject line on google just to see if others had noted this round of scam email.

and, of course, they had. unfortunately, it turns out they first started seeing them in late may -- which means i didn't get one for almost a whole month from the time they started being sent. it makes me feel like a net loser. *sniff* *wipes tear from eye* in fact, some others had replied to them and gotten responses about sending money via western union and such. i figured my online pride was at stake at this point, so i decided to sit down and write a reply.

NOTE: those of you who are offended by foul language and unnecessary vulgarities, as well as bad grammar, poor spelling, and general nonsense (such as all caps), may want to stop here. you have been warned...

GOD DAMIT! I KNEW THAT SON OF A BITCH EX OF MINE WOULD TRY TO
GET BACK AT ME, BUT HIRING POLISH-FRENCH HITMEN IS CROSSING THE
GOD DAMED LINE! WELL I'LL SHOW HER SORRY ASS! I'LL PAY YOU TO
LEAVE ME ALONE AND TAKE OUT HER NO GOOD PIECE OF SHIT ASS
INSTEAD!!! WOULD YOU BE INTERESTED IN WORKING A DEAL LIKE THIS?
LET'S FACE IT, I DONT WANT TO FUCKING DIE AND YOU COULD MAKE
SOME EXTRA MONEY FOR YOU AND YOUR BOYZ. YOU WOULD THINK SHE
WOULD KNOW I COULD OUTSPEND HER SINCE I FELL INTO ALL THAT
MONEY FROM THE LOTTERY AND EVERYTHING. BUT MAYBE SHE'S JUST
JEALOUS THAT I'M ROLLING IN IT AND SHE'S GOT TO SIT THERE
AND WATCH ME RUB IT IN HER FUCKIN FACE. PLUS IT DOESN'T HURT
I GOT MONEY COMING TO ME FROM SOME NICE CHRISTIAN FOLK AND
SOME ESTATES OF PEOPLE WHO LIVE IN FUCKED UP WARZONES. I
CAN'T WAIT TO SEE THE LOOK ON HER FACE WHEN YOUR BOYS SHOW
UP AT HER PLACE, AND NOT WITH THE GOOD NEWS ABOUT MY DEMIZE.
YOUR A REAL PEACE OF WORK CHARLES, ALL SCARFACE AND SHIT
ABOUT TALKING TO ME ABOUT IT. LET ME KNOW!!!

NICK
--------------------

remember, i'm playing the role of an ignorant person who would take such a scam seriously. although obviously i'm slyly -- or not so slyly -- referring to the country codes on the email addresses, other nigerian/internet scams, etc. so don't anyone get some kind of kooky idea that i'm in any way, shape, or form serious about anything i wrote.

*sigh* i hate having to make a disclaimer, but some people on the internet are rather dull of mind and may think i'm serious about...well, any of it. (no, my name isn't actually "NICK". and no, as a matter of fact, i did not win a lottery. i know, i seemed convincing, huh?)

unfortunately, i got a bounce back as undeliverable to the charlesmoore6@live.fr account. it pains me to think that after all of the many hours i spent crafting such a beautiful missive, it might go unread and unappreciated by the senders of the original email.

dignan: here are just a few of the key ingredients: dynamite, pole-vaulting, laughing gas, choppers. can you see how incredible this is going to be...handgliding...come on!
[...]
anthony: and he just got so excited about the thing, i didn’t have the heart to tell him “no”…that uh…look how excited he is.

-------------------------

aufsatz #2, theme #2

i don't know that one single day is the most important of my life. my wedding day is a contender/possibility.

many girls dream of/imagine their weddings from childhood, but i did not. i wanted to marry, but my thoughts on the actual wedding were vague. when my (now) husband and i set a date, i needed to think quickly. who knew weddings were such difficult work? (probably all of those girls who thought about them from childhood!)

we married on june 20, 1998 in perryville, maryland. my husband is from Texas, but i am from delaware, northeastern maryland, and southeastern pennsylvania. my friends have less money than his friends, so we married in maryland so mine would not have to fly. the reception was first. the wedding happened at a historic revolutionary war tavern. music played; guests talked and laughed. we ate mexican food and drank blue cream soda, dr. pepper, and big red. after sunset, we performed the ceremony. the bridal attendants carried candles on candle-lined paths to a gazebo on the susquehanna river. they wore black dresses and suits. my husband wore all black -- pants, jacket, shirt, tie. i wore a simple white gown with black trim and a wreath of black roses on my head. my veil and train had little roses sewn to them. on my feet, i wore my black combat boots! after all, i needed to be comfortable and be myself. the ceremony was simple but meaningful.

afterwards, my husband and i drank wine from the same glass and then broke it (a jewish custom). the guests ate cake -- chocolate wedding cake and a Texas-shaped groom's cake. we smoked cigars and burned sparklers. everyone signed our wedding covenant (another jewish custom).

my wedding was not important because it was a party. it was important because it started my new life. the agreement i made at my wedding was very, very serious. my world is different now. perhaps my wedding day may have been the most important day of my life.

-------------------------

so there you go. i found that awhile back in some of (the massive amount of) her stuff she left behind for me to deal with for her, and saved it for this occasion.

last night i went to crescent city and read some from a hank williams biography i own. i just happened to run across this excerpt from a letter fred rose wrote to hank in 1948, after audrey decided to divorce hank, and hank wasn't living so well:

remember that women are revengeful and do all in their power to wreck a man when they separate from him and the only way to win is for the man to become successful instead.

ha ha. ha. as mike knott sang on strip cycle: "am i winnin' something?"

sunday i got up and went with my parents to mason. the reunion was in a library. we were the host family, so we had to get there early to help set up and such. my dad had taken a bunch of paper doilies and written important dates and events in the leifeste line up to my grandfather's generation. this reunion is just the leifeste branch from my great-grandfather. about 55 people showed up.

after the reunion, i went with my parents down to one of our places and "helped" my dad round up four cattle he had there so he could take them to auction. he was doing this because the water pump had gone out and they were about to run out of water. mostly i sat in the pickup and my dad did everything.

monday i got up around 8am and went with my dad down to our two places and did some work. being a computer guy and office worker, i don't do much physical labor. especially outdoors. the first thing i did was get within one to two feet of stepping on a three or four foot rattlesnake. fortunately, i didn't tread on it. it had 10 rattles and a button. that would have been real fun. after that excitement, i then went about helping troubleshoot and attempting to fix the water pump (appeared to be the pressure switch, not the pump itself). we repaired a metal swing that one of the arms had broken on. and we cut down some big limbs from a mulberry tree. this was doubly exciting, as i both got hit in the hand by a rather large falling limb and i got to wield a gas chainsaw while standing precariously on a 10 foot stepladder and cutting a limb above me.

for lunch we drove back into mason and ate at northside cafe. i've mentioned this place before, but once again -- any place that has neither coke nor pepsi on tap, but rc cola, cane sugar dr. pepper, and big red has got to be doing something right. their burgers are really good too. while there, a trio of what appeared to be rich-ish older white women who were "going (hill) country" for the day showed up. it was kind of funny to compare their look, demeanor, etc. to the rest of the mostly "normal" folk. even funnier, a few hours later we were driving back through mason and saw a couple of people carrying an antique couch across the street to a big white trailer on the back of a pickup. it was two of them. i'm sure they were delighted by their finds in the quaint, sleepy little hill country town. anyway, after lunch we picked up a few things in town, including a few panes of glass for windows.

we headed to art and commenced to trying to figure out how to fix and piece together some of the windows. we only got some of the work accomplished. we then headed back to work on the water pump again, but we'd forgotten the sealer so we gave up and headed home. once there, i ate supper with my parents and then spent some time with my grandmother.

tuesday i slept in (finally!), ate lunch with my parents, talked with my grandmother some more, then headed back to houston. i used wednesday as a day to recuperate from my vacation, as well as the ~6 hour each way motorcycle ride.

friday i got to go into work late. i spent most of the day at home.

this weekend i didn't do much, other than spending a fair bit of time working with/for jack on the bohemian photography domain. i moved some stuff around, changed his email to run off of google apps, installed some blogging software a few times, did some troubleshooting on his linux server, etc.

on sunday i went by yankee candle again, but unfortunately a lot of the scents that were there the first day of the sale were gone. the only thing i got for myself was a medium sized root beer float candle. (which i left in the car a few hours and it got bubbly and melted weird. i was worried i had messed up the oils/scent in it, but i think it may be okay.) i bought a couple to give to jack for father's day, and i bought one for sue so she'd forgive me for my previous discretion. i spent most of sunday with the potts. i ate lunch with them, helped jack do some more domain and google apps stuff, then we all went down to clear lake to the yankee candle store down there. i'd heard they had a wider selection. unfortunately, although they had scents i hadn't seen at the other store, they really had nothing that excited me.

our trip down there did give the co-worker i went with previously a chance to turn the accusatory tables on sue. gee, i'm being fought over as a candle store shopping friend. i feel so special!

[mike calls back; the machine picks up again]
mike: 213-555-4679. that's it. i just wanna leave my number. i didn't want you to think i was weird or desperate, or... we should just hang out and see where it goes because it's nice and, you know, no expectations. ok? thanks a lot. bye-bye.
[mike hangs up. he walks away from the phone... then walks back and calls again; once again, the machine picks up]

(excerpt from one of the most painful movie sequences to watch, from swingers)

last saturday evening i headed over to a co-worker's place for a party. he had rented a margarita machine, so myself and another co-worker felt like it was our obligation to at least drink enough to get it to where you could see an air gap at the top of the window in the front. those things have a big reservoir. we failed. but it was a valiant effort on our part. afterward, i was cajoled into playing rock band. i played drums, then bass, then bass and singing, then bass, then drums again. it was fun, but i have a stand-offish, can't-enjoy-myself, image to protect, so that was a temporary lapse. i was the last to leave, because i have a tendency to overstay my welcome and then feel stupid later, but as we were standing outside talking there was a cracking sound or two, then a tree fell over beside us. that was weird. evidently it'd already leaned over onto a car earlier in the evening. (probably about a 4-inch trunk, so don't imagine a huge oak or something.)

sunday i went to a carter country, but managed to avoid purchasing a pistol. i got pretty close though. i'm not sure how much longer i can hold out. i then went to ikea, where i almost purchased some candles. my will that day was strong though, as i maintained control.

wednesday night i signed up for both plurk and twitter. but i'm trying to not get sucked into either one of those. i was just protecting my name. at least that's what i'm telling myself. so far, it's working.

thursday during lunch a co-worker and i ate in rice village and then headed to the yankee candle store. they were having a semi-annual clearance, and thursday was the first day of it, so i wanted to make sure i got a good selection. in the past, almost every time i've gone to the yankee candle store i've gone with...we'll say "sue" (to protect their identity). and i was the one that made a yankee candle believer out of this person. but this time i went with the co-worker. so i wanted to be nice and let my friend know there were some good candles on clearance. this was the text exchange:

me: Juicy peach, beach stuff, lots of good stuff on sale.
her: U went without me. . . Nice. Real nice. Who did u cheat on me with? U know what, I don't want to know. U make me sick.
me: Hey baby, it's not like that, i thought we had an open flame...
her: Save it - maybe your Yankee whore wants to hear your lame ass excuses, but not me. I may never be able to look at a Yankee candle again. Thanks for ruining them for me. I thought u were different than the other guys. . .
me: I was weak. I'm sorry. But...would you maybe consider a three-wick? There are enough scents to go around. I'm still the same candle lover.
her: I can't even believe you would suggest a three-wick. What kind of girl do u think I am? And do u really think you're man enough?
me: I didn't want to say anything, but the same scents were getting old. Surely you've thought about trying new scents too. At least i'm man enough to admit it. I can't hide it under a bushel!
her: How dare u - Terry you ignorant slut
me: Well, one of us has lots of new candles to enjoy. I understand why you'd be jealous. Green isn't your color though.
her: I'll try to forgive u for your indiscretion

a couple of hours later i got a text message from her husband...

him: I'm cool with 3 wicks

anyway. i did go a little crazy. but at $12.50 per large candle, it's more than half off the regular price. here's what i got for myself:

medium candles:

• peppermint swirls (cranberry peppermint and jack frost)
• very berry (sweet strawberry and buttercream)
• caramel apple (macintosh and vanilla caramel)

large candles:

• sweet strawberry
• honeydew melon
• juicy watermelon
• sparkling lemon
• berry tangerine

there were others i wanted, but i managed to restrain myself a bit. we'll see if i can keep from going back. at this point, i've already got enough candles to last me for probably a couple of years. i think maybe i have a bit of a problem. i love candles. and i'm not just looking around the room to say that. i love candles.

last night was the geek gathering. the hot russian chick from work and her daughter (whom she'd brought to work friday) joined me in going to tropioca. although before that i had to join them on a hunt for the new tiger snake webkinz. it was a successful mission, thankfully. i had the possibility of seeing sara at the geek gathering, who currently lives on the west coast somewhere but was in town for some job fairs for local schools, but it didn't work out. i was also possibly going to hang out with sue, but that didn't work out either. but it was still a good evening and night. the turnout at the geek gathering was pretty good, which is always nice.

"there's no earthly way of knowing
which direction we are going..."
--willy wonka, willy wonka and the chocolate factory

[1] grab the openmotif rpm for an older fedora version (4, for example):
wget http://download.fedora.redhat.com/pub/fedora/linux/\
core/updates/4/i386/openmotif-2.2.3-10.FC4.2.i386.rpm

[2] openmotif has a dependency so it won't install via "yum localinstall blah.rpm" -- so use the rpm command itself with "nodeps":
rpm --nodeps -ivh openmotif-2.2.3-10.FC4.2.i386.rpm

[3] you also need libXp.so.6, and it's available for fedora 9, so use yum to install it (if you don't have it already).

if you trust me (hey! it's a random guy on the internet! what's not to trust!?), run one of these two commands (as root, of course):
if [ `yum list | grep -c '^libXp\.'` -eq 1 ]; then echo "libXp installed"; else yum install libXp; fi
OR
if [ -f /usr/lib/libXp.so.6 ]; then echo "libXp.so.6 exists"; else yum install libXp; fi

the first checks to see if the libXp package is installed. if so, it tells you; otherwise it runs yum to install it. the second checks for the libXp.so.6 file, and if it's there it tells you; otherwise it runs yum to install the libXp package. you really don't need to do both commands. really.

or if you don't trust me (hey! it's a random guy on the internet! what's to trust!?) run this command instead (as root, of course):
yum install libXp

if you've already got it, it'll tell you. if not, it'll install it.

if for some reason you need the actual rpm file, you can get it at: http://download.fedora.redhat.com/pub/fedora/linux/\
releases/9/Everything/i386/os/Packages/libXp-1.0.0-11.fc9.i386.rpm

[4] now you can install the citrix icaclient 10.6 (get the rpm file from the citrix site, silly)
rpm -ivh ICAClient-10.6-1.i386.rpm

the ica client is installed in /usr/lib/ICAClient
(that means wfcmgr, wfica, and so on are in that dir)

it'll show up in your menu in Applications -> Internet -> Citrix Presentation Server Client

run it, accept the license agreement. now you've got your citrix client.

but wait! there's more! another thing you might want to do, which i did:

[5] as root, ln -s /usr/lib/ICAClient/npica.so /usr/lib/mozilla/plugins/
(or put it in your own personal mozilla plugins area if you don't want to do it as root. that would be ~/.mozilla/plugins if you didn't know. create it if it doesn't exist.)
[5a] if you kept selinux active, it will end up complaining later on. if so, do this:
chcon -t textrel_shlib_t /usr/lib/ICAClient/npica.so
[6] restart firefox.
in the address bar, type "about:plugins" and look for the citrix client in the list.

the only part of citrix i use is the web-based apps (metaframe or wts or whatever it's called. i'm not a citrix admin or anything, so don't get all up in my grill about your l33t c!trix skillz and how i'm a c!trix n00b, yo.) so this seems to work for me.

one new event was that i connected to a newer citrix system and got an error:
You have not chosen to trust the "Thawte Premium Server CA", the issuer of the server's security certificate (SSL error 61).

a quick google search reveals all: turns out my citrix ica client needs a new thawte root cert. to resolve this, i download ThawteRoot.crt from http://www2.slac.stanford.edu/computing/windows/services/citrix/linux_client.htm and placed it under /usr/lib/ICAClient/keystore/cacerts.

in other words, if you find yourself in a similar situation just do this (as root):
# cd /usr/lib/ICAClient/keystore/cacerts
# wget http://www2.slac.stanford.edu/computing/windows/\
services/citrix/downloads/ThawteRoot.crt

enjoy.

as before, i claim no responsibility for any accidental citrixide that may occur by following these steps, or if your fedora install gets borked, or if your cat gets feline diabetes from this, or whatever else may result. you're a big boy or girl and you chose to run linux. figure it out yourself, you lazy good-for-nothing freeloader!

friday i went in to work in the afternoon because electrical work was being done in our data center so i was working an evening shift. fortunately, i didn't have to stay all that late (around 11:30pm). but i did have to get up at around 5am saturday morning to go back in. yuck! i was done around 10:30am, except for some forgotten things here and there -- but my sleep schedule was evidently totally jacked up. i took a nap in the early evening, then got up and headed over to natalie's for her house warming party. i didn't actually see much of her house, but i was there until around 3am. i met a couple that seemed really cool -- he was a programmer and she was an artist. i'll probably never see them again. :) i got home and went to bed around 4am.

i slept most of sunday. sunday night i went over to the potts and had a root beer float and watched bandits. sue's brother is in town for the summer i think, and had brought it. it was okay. it has bruce willis and billy bob thorton as inmates who escape from prison and start robbing banks.

today i got up and decided to have brunch at le peep. i walked there and ate, then from there i walked to academy. i almost bought a pistol. but i decided i should probably wait, since i'm trying to get up the gumption to pull the trigger on buying a new tv. at some point last week i went to a best buy to compare the samsung ln46a650 and sony bravia kdl-46xbr4. i should have gone to circuit city: i stood in the best buy for 40+ minutes and no one ever said a word to me. oh well, i've pretty much decided i'm going to order online anyway...i can get either set for probably $700 less than i'd pay if i bought it locally. that's a lot of money, and i'm not sure having someone local to deal with problems is worth that much money. and i don't think i could haggle them low enough to make buying locally worth it. plus i don't like haggling.

a while back i logged into my cafepress account and looked at the history on my items. i thought they'd mail me when something sold, but i guess maybe it's only when you have the price marked above their base price. it turns out other than my own purchases, they've sold one "christian rtfm" shirt, two "fsck the system" shirts, and about 26 "bob wills is still the king" bumper stickers.

and one of these days i'll take my car, motorcycle, and pickup in to get them worked on. i hope. maybe in that order. or maybe not.

now i'll go join jack and chip at the house of pies...

i decided a while back i'd start posting stuff i'd held back over the years. not because i still feel the same -- or even because i really feel good about some of the things i said (or the way i said them), but because i felt that way at the time and i figure it gives a snapshot into where i was then. if you don't care to read me being pissed off about the financial/legal issues surrounding my divorce and trashing my ex some, then skip following the link.

looking back at the blog for context, the may 2006 entries leading up to this day are void of this issue, and the one that would have followed it takes a bit of a different tone (link). some of other june entries deal with it somewhat though. that said, here it is, unedited...

a few weeks ago i had to help a friend who realized another friend was taking financial advantage of them (to the tune of several thousand dollars). it really sucks when people take advantage of someone else (financial or otherwise) and use their relationship and/or trust as a pathway.

i can say that from personal experience obviously, having watched my ex-wife legally* take half of my retirement and savings i'd gotten...especially the part from after she'd already chosen to continue an affair and moved on with her life (and out of the state, even). in other words, she chose to have an affair, leave me and our life, start something completely new, and sever all ties with me...except for the legal tie to the money i was making and saving, which her and her lawyers were more than happy to take from me.

* the legal reason is because we were still legally married and Texas is a community property state, so anything i made or saved during that time was community property by law. there is no status of "legal separation" in Texas, so even if you're split and live separate lives for 20 years, legally everything made and saved during those 20 years is community property. if you're married you're married. period. so unless the parties involved are willing to be fair and accurate about things, the truth of the situation doesn't really into it on a legal level. i always thought my wife would be fair. ah, naivety.

as for her income during that whole time that i was entitled to...she claimed she'd earned nothing. (mutual friends told me that wasn't true, and they're probably right, but as with the situation in general there wasn't much i could do about it.) in fact, they claimed she'd managed to run up $11k of debt! but she and her lawyers were so nice, they said they wouldn't make me legally liable for that money she'd spent completely independent of me. (because of the community property thing, any debt is community debt as well.) of course, they didn't want my debt either. but about that cash you've managed to save up...

even if one chooses to believe everything during the marriage should be halved in a divorce regardless of circumstance or situation -- which i don't ascribe to -- this goes above and beyond that. there are numerous reasons beyond her having an affair that the money shouldn't have been split to her (ages, her increase in earning potential, who earned the money, etc), not to mention that when we started the split she stated all the retirement was mine and she didn't want any of it. because she knew that was fair. but she changed her tune, becoming willing to take half my retirement money. including half of what she wasn't even around for when i was earning and saving it.

she prostituted her integrity over that money. but by then she'd already prostituted herself in any number of ways. i feel sorry for her, but it's also hard not to feel some amount of vindication in knowing that after choosing to treat me so unfairly it sounds like she's getting her rewards. it's not what i would have ever wanted for her, but she really shredded up my life so it's hard not to desire some kind of retribution. i wish she could have handled things with grace and honour. she's got (or had, at least) so many great traits and qualities, but she chose to fsck it all up. i hope one day she can stop hiding from herself and regain some of the facets of the person she was.

i also feel like she is either being fed lines by her law firm, or she's making stuff up. either is equally probable. but her lawyers are probably making some extra coin off her, and she's getting money for nothing, so neither one of them probably care too much. i guess maybe their continual attempts to paint me as the bad guy helps them keep their minds off of the unfairness of the situation...nah, i'm sure they've justified it long ago.

just like the affair, i guess. because obviously, i'm the bad guy. i'm the one that did everything so wrong. i deserved all of this. why, i'm getting off lucky. like i have any right to whine about any of it. she deserves better than me. in fact, she never should have gotten involved with me at all. but that money of mine, that'll make a nice compensation package for the horrible things i did to her. yeah, that's it. money makes it all feel better now doesn't it?

saturday morning i got up around 8:20am (geh!) so i could go help sue with soccer. jack was shooting a wedding, so she was supposed to be coaching and mothering simultaneously. unfortunately, simcha only likes mom, so i couldn't help much with her and sue ended up having to take care of her while being a coach. after the games they left for a nap then a birthday party. i figured since i was already in the general vicinity, and it was lunchtime, i'd head to sylvia's. mmm. on the way back home, i stopped at a couple of places and looked at tvs. i'm still not sure what to do, but right now i'm leaning toward a sony bravia - xbr4 or xbr5, 46" or 52". they're more than i really wanted to spend, but they're considered the best lcd screens. maybe i'm just being hypercritical, but it seems like lcds have really good pictures but don't handle rapid motion and scene changes well. even the really expensive ones with the 120hz and other bells and whistles. it makes it difficult for me to want to drop that kind of money. my tube picture may be inferior and lack clarity/detail, but it doesn't pixelate or ghost or such.

whilst driving around looking at tvs, i was talking on the phone and hopped a curb. i'd been thinking about getting one of those infernal bluetooth headsets for awhile now, just for when i'd like to be on the phone and still need the use of both hands -- so i decided to bite. i ended up going to the apple store in the galleria and buying an iphone bluetooth headset. it's a pretty slick looking little device, and it seems to pair with my ancient razr okay. although i'm still trying to figure out some of how it pairs, whether it is active or not, and how quickly it drains my phone battery. hopefully within the next few months i'll be getting a g3 iphone, and then the full benefits of the apple bluetooth headset will be realized.

another thing i picked up while looking at tvs was a western digital "my book" external hard drive (320gig). it was around $90, and it now serves the purpose of being my time machine backup drive. it hangs off of my airport extreme's usb port. i had to reformat the drive as hfs+, but after i did that and shared it through the airport utility admin tool i was able to choose it as the backup drive in time machine. so now both my power mac and macbook air are being backed up to it. i'm not sure i like this responsible life i'm now living, what with backups and all.

saturday night i headed over to el pueblito on richmond for myat's grad party. he and a few other folk who just got their mba's were celebrating there. there were a lot of the regulars from that crowd there, along with a fair number of people i didn't know. steve davis showed up, which was a cool surprise. myat spent most of the several times he talked to me trying to set me up with some girl there. not sure why he thought that's how things should be, but he was persistent. i managed to avoid talking to her the whole time though. (yea, me?) i left around 1am and headed home.

today i got up and was messing around with my power mac, trying to figure out why it has seemed so sluggish lately. suddenly i realized it was showing it only had 256mb or memory. egads! i have a couple of 512mb crucial ballistix modules in there, but it evidently wasn't seeing them. i powered the box off and tried every memory variation i could think of, but it never saw the crucial sticks. i guess they're dead. *sigh* i searched around online, but i kind of wanted memory now, so i ended up trekking around town. i started off at microcenter, where they only sold "lifetime" memory or something, which was twice the price of the crucial i'd looked up. the microcenter guy tried to insist other memory isn't good with apple, even if it says it is. whatever. next i dropped by a circuit city, but they didn't have any for apple. then i went to best buy, but they didn't have any either. so i gave up and drove to fry's. at fry's the guy argued about how any memory works in apples, and "certified" just means they tried it and it worked. whatever. ("guaranteed to work" means something when you have to return/exchange things if they don't.) but i was tired of driving around and wanted something right then, so i gave up and bought a 2-pack of 1gig corsair memory modules. with a $30 mail-in rebate they work out to about $50, so i figure that's okay. i got them home and put them in and they are okay so far. i may go ahead and order a pair of crucial 1gig sticks online as well. that'll max out my box.

in the afternoon i finally went to eat. i'd woke up this morning craving a bagel for some reason, so i went to einstein bagels and had some kind of hot open-faced bagel sandwich and an iced tea. i sat there until they were closing, then the manager came by and said they had a bunch of bagels they were going to have to toss so i could have a bag if i wanted. he gave me probably 15 bagels. i kept a few and gave the rest to the potts this evening.

(original photo appears to be by mark lennihan, associated press)

last night i watched eternal sunshine of the spotless mind again. i think maybe it really is a story about me.

tonight at the radio show robb zipp showed up. i hadn't seen him in awhile so i walked out of the studio and talked with him in the lobby. while we were talking he said "hey, your ex-wife didn't happen to have a tattoo in hebrew on her arm, did she?" i was wondering how he'd know that. i said she did. he said he was thinking about some people saying i was kind of religious, and thought maybe he'd met me and my wife years ago through some guys in a band. (it was josh and miles and the rest of the guys from segway (sic.) then feedback.) "she had blond hair, dyed black on the bottom." yeah, that was her. "yeah, she was pretty hot. i remember thinking 'man, how did she end up with that guy?'" haha. ha. i said "she was crazy." to which he replied "(pause) well, still, (pause) i guess at least you had that for awhile." still, kind of a small world. that probably would have been in 1999 or 2000 or something when he would have met us. we talked a bit about josh (he called him "oatmeal" because for some reason some people started calling him that for awhile) and miles. kind of weird.

UPDATE (May 15, 2008) -- i've gotten several comments about what robb said, but i'm not going to approve them. i wasn't intending to make robb look bad, or suggest i was upset by what he said. i don't know that i even quoted him exactly right. he meant it lightheartedly, and when he realized what he'd said/implied might hurt/offend me, he looked slightly horrified and apologized. don't hate robb - he's a cool guy. : ) we're both self-deprecating fellows who think we're lucky if we're dating attractive women (at least i'm pretty sure that's his position as well), so he didn't mean it maliciously or anything.

friday night i went to blanco's to see dale watson. unfortunately, i just wasn't really into it. i stayed for a couple of hours. when the band took a break, i went outside and smoked my pipe. the band started playing again, but after i finished my pipe i just went ahead and left. i went by taco cabana and picked up some food, then came home and watched the last episode of season two of "dead like me". (do you put tv shows in quotes or underline them? i don't remember. oh well, whatever. screw nit-picky grammatical rules.) the hot russian chick at work let me borrow seasons one and two of the show because she really liked the series, so i just finished watching them all. i think it was a good series, but not phenomenal or anything. she also recently loaned me the firefly dvd boxset, so i guess i'll start watching those soon.

i spent most of saturday with the potts. i ate brunch with them at ihop, went to the bohemian photography loft for a couple of hours, then took sue to the apple store because her iphone had developed this annoying trait of echoing back to people calling her everything they were saying. (a software reload of the phone fixed it.) i agreed to take her to the apple store because i was thinking about buying some stuff. i had some money from various holidays and such, plus the money from selling my laptop. i was originally going to buy a time capsule, but i asked a person there if there was any benefit or features to the time capsule versus an extreme with a usb-attached drive and he said "no." i was in the process of talking myself out of buying anything at all, but then sue asked me what i wanted and why and how much it cost and said i should just buy it. so i bought an airport extreme 802.11n and an airport express 802.11n. from the apple store i took sue back home, and i hung out and ate supper with them.

when i got home last night i broke out my new toys and started configuring them. i successfully managed to replace my old linksys wrt54g with the extreme, and i managed to get the new express set up and working. i was having some problems figuring out how to get the old 802.11g express to work, so eventually i gave up and went and read crime and punishment.

today i went back to it and figured out the issue with the g express. the airport utility makes it look/sound like when you tell the express to join a wireless network it should show up in the drop-down list, and if it doesn't you need to make sure the wireless network is turned on and functioning properly. i never could get my wireless network to show up in the list. in fact, nothing showed up. (unless i had the g set up to create a wireless network, in which case it showed itself in the list.) i thought maybe it was a n vs. g thing and kept trying to change configurations and all kinds of junk to get the wireless network to show up in the list. eventually at some point i realized you could just type it in by hand and ignore the empty list. *sigh* it worked. i then spent an hour or something looking for an 8 ft or longer 1/8" male stereo to 1/8" male stereo cable. i was sure i had one somewhere, but i never found it.

so i called my grandmother, then went and ate at goode company bbq. from there i went by radio shack, figuring that would be a good place to get a long cable. nope. 3 ft and 6 ft. *sigh* from looking through all my cables earlier, i remembered i had a couple of 1/8" stereo to rca cables, so i instead bought a pair of female-to-female rca couplers. i came home and put it all together. and it's all set up and working now.

so what did i get for all of my troubles? the ability to play itunes on my computer, my home stereo, and the speakers on the front porch -- all at the same time. of course, i also got two 802.11n devices, but since my old express is g it sort of defeats some of that. but my macbook air is 802.11n also, so i now have the ability to be all 802.11n at some point in the future. oh yeah, and i got gigabit ethernet connections. and a pretty much all-apple network. steve jobs would be proud.

today is the 10 year anniversary of failure.net. that's right, 10 years ago today i plopped down $70 for two years of ownership of the domain failure.net. it had never existed before. i didn't buy it from anyone. you see, the internet was still slightly fresh and somewhat untamed back then. even though i'd wanted my own domain for a while, ownership was more expensive (and less common) in those days, and i didn't have nearly as much expendable income. by the time i decided to do it, a number of other domains i was interested in were already gone. but i finally broke down and did it. and i was pretty happy with what i got. and it's been nothing but failure after stupendous failure since. makes a domain owner proud, it does.