August 29, 2003

Making us go home...

Well, the saga of the annoying cold of 2003 rages on. I can't figure out if it's worse today than it was yesterday or not. It may be.

The bad news is, the management here at Martin feels it necessary to send all employees home at 2pm today. I'm looking forward to a long weekend of doing nothing. Have a great one!

Posted by Jeff at 10:17 AM | Comments (3)

August 28, 2003

Galloping Crud

My snottiness has turned into a nagging cough..which is pretty typical of a common cold for me. It starts as a sinus problem, then moves on into the nose are, then down into the throat and makes me cough for a day or so. Then it'll be gone. Thank god. My nose was so stopped up two nights ago that I didn't even taste the NyQuil as it went down. That was weird, considering how strong-tasting NyQuil is.

I discovered last night that 1 of the 2 wireless networks in my neighborhood is totally unprotected, even the web-based admin system. The other of the two has WEP turned off, so I can use their network, but they were smart enough to change the default admin password.

This just in.....I just got a call from Ryan Homes. Remember the flat tire incidents from a month or two ago? (read here and here) Well, the story is, I never got reimbursed from Ryan for the flat tires. They argued that I couldn't even prove that the flat tires were a result of a Ryan problem. I reluctantly agreed and gave up on trying to recover my $200 in tires.

So, I just got a call a few minutes ago from the Customer Service lady at Ryan Homes. She was calling to let me know that they had re-assessed the situation and had decided to reimburse me for the two tires. So, I guess I'll be faxing them my receipts tomorrow. Yippie! Honestly, I had totally forgotten about that whole ordeal and had just let it drop. But, this is a good deal.

Posted by Jeff at 12:03 PM | Comments (5)

August 26, 2003

Wireless, Wireless Everywhere!

I finally received my new D-Link wireless router yesterday when I got to work. It's funny how it took exactly a week for a package to travel from Charlottesville to Richmond. I think Office Depot screwed up and forgot to ship my order. The router was only $15 after SlickDeals rebates and such. Not a bad deal for a 4 port wireless router that has tons of cool features. I got home last night and spent a good hour or so configuring it to integrate with my existing Apple Airport Base Station. I set the SSID of the new station to the exact name of my existing station, thereby creating one large, seamless network that you can roam between. This solves my problem of not getting a good strong wireless signal to the front two bedrooms upstairs. It also solves the weird problems that my old 1 port Linksys had been giving us for a while. Not sure what I'll do with the old router. Maybe some website has some neat hacks you can do with it or something. Anyone need a 1 port - 1 port router?

I discovered something interesting while testing out my new wireless network: there are lots of people with WiFi in our neighborhood. I launched my trusty wireless sniffer, Mac Stumbler, and headed out into the front yard. It immediately detected 3 or 4 other networks that I didn't know were there. Two had encryption on, the other two didn't. I'll definitely be exploring those networks sometime soon..probably tonight. Poor, unsuspecting neighbors.

My sinus cold isn't getting too much better. It has moved on into my nose more now, causing lots of sneezing and snottyness. Just what you wanted to know, right? :)

Posted by Jeff at 10:27 AM | Comments (11)

August 25, 2003

Back from the beach

We're back from our weekend blowout at Myrtle Beach...and I feel blown out. What an exhausting weekend. And, just like last year, I've got a nifty new sinus cold.

I thought Myrtle Beach was supposed to be a fun place where you relax by the pool or on the beach. I guess not for us. :)

Posted by Jeff at 12:09 PM | Comments (5)

August 20, 2003

Bringin' on the heartbreak

I just walked through our atrium and saw a scary sight: Mariah Carey singing a cover of Def Leppard's "Bringing on the Heartbreak". Wow. It didn't sound horrible, but (to my knowledge) it's the first time someone has covered a Def Lep song. I was pretty surprised.

We leave for Myrtle Beach tomorrow night after work. I'm stoked. Heheh. I said stoked. I never say stoked. It must be because I've gotten quite hooked on Fox's new series, "The O.C.". I'm not sure what it is about that show, but it grabs me..it's very interesting.

Posted by Jeff at 11:12 AM | Comments (3)

August 19, 2003

Sluggishness

I feel kinda sluggish lately. There's lots of projects that I need to really be on top of right now, but I'm having trouble motivating myself to tackle them completely.

It looks like I'll be seeing a whole lot more of that Michael Sos kid with his new job being down the street. I found out yesterday that he's parking in the ghetto deck with me, so that's pretty cool.

I took some time last night (in my unmotivated state) to browse around the national TTORA (Tacoma Territory Off Road Association) discussion forum. I do this from time to time to see if anyone is talking about CustomTacos and also to see what kind of interesting discussions they're having over there. Gotta see the competition, right? There's usually some kind of discussion involving CustomTacos, but I found a good many negative comments over there last night. It kinda made me mad at first, kinda like if you were a fly on the wall and overheard someone talking bad about your Mom. But I guess I realized after a while that in this business (like almost any other) any PR, even bad PR is...well...PR. It gets the site's name out there, even if people are referring to it as a "dump" and Customcrapholes. It sucks that the site has seemingly taken on that kind of reputation over there. But, I take what is said over there with a grain of salt as I've discovered those guys are pretty closed minded to any Tacoma that doesn't get taken off road at least twice a week. It really reminded me of the main reason why I created CT: To have a place where Tacoma enthusiasts of ALL sizes and interests could visit and chat without being slandered or belittled.

I guess the site is the one that gets slandered and belittled for opening its doors to more than just off road enthusiasts. Shame on me for having an open mind. :)

Posted by Jeff at 12:22 PM | Comments (5)

August 18, 2003

Wheelin and Picnicin'

I had been looking forward to Saturday's wheeling excursion for weeks, ever since Jimmy invited me. Looking back on it, I was excited that I finally had a vehicle that I could take off road and do funt hings with. But at the same time, I was a little nervous. I mean, the truck is still new with under 5,000 miles on it.

Olivia's blog really tells the story well, so I won't bore you with the details here (go read her site for the stories). I have posted a bunch of photos and some movies of our adventures.

I had an awesome time and am really looking forward to the next trip. I think the most exciting part of all is how well my truck did for being factory. Time after time, I'd make it through a tough spot and thank Toyota for making the TRD version Tacoma such a killer truck, even right from the factory!

I spent about 3 hours washing the truck today, doing my best to get off every spat of mud that I inflicted upon it Saturday. It came amazingly clean and I have found very little damage - hardly any tree scratches and only minor damage to my rockers from the hill incident.

We attended the XMUG cookout today. The turnout was a little disappointing, considering only about 15 people out of 33 who signed up actually showed up. The food was great and we had a good time, though.

Posted by Jeff at 12:09 AM | Comments (5)

August 15, 2003

Congrats to Mike

Congratulations to my good ole' buddy Michael Sos on landing his first Richmond job. Lucky for him, he'll be working in the block right behind Martin, so he can buy me lunch from time to time.

Looks like he starts Monday. I guess they really needed him soon.

Work is going to be super-tough today. Half the companyh is leaving at around noon to head out to one of the Executive's house for a big party celebrating the new business efforts of the last year. Should be a fun afternoon.

Posted by Jeff at 09:36 AM | Comments (3)

August 12, 2003

Slack Blogger

Yeh, that's right. I've been a slacker blogger lately. It's just been one thing after another and I really haven't felt like typing much lately.

The show this past weekend was a little rainy, but OK. I helped Mom and Dad move their data over to their new eMac. I dropped my truck off yesterday morning to get the sunroof installed...and should be able to pick it up this afternoon. The big off road adventuire is this weekend - I'm excited and nervous. And then the nexct weekend is the big Myrtle Beach trip and car show. Luckily, Glen let me have that Friday off, so we'll have an extra day to enjoy the beach. :)

And now, I'm back off into slacker land....

Posted by Jeff at 11:12 AM | Comments (4)

August 06, 2003

Brainy Smurf

Not much to blog about lately. Work is kinda busy with planning the big switch-out with the next lease. In my final round of eBay auctions for a while, it looks like I have at least ne (if not maybe two) deadbeat bidders - idiots who don't understand that whe they bid on an item, they are held accountable for it. I'm so sick of eBay. I'll probably end up just giving away the rest of my old truck parts, just to avoid the hassles I've encountered lately.

And by the way, if you haven't gotten an email from Olivia, we've decided to kill our home phone service as of August 8th. It's going to be weird to not have phones sitting around our house. And no answering machine to talk to us when we arrive home from work. We'll still both have our mobile phones, where you'll always be able to reach us, except when Olivia has hers off. Email me if you don't have our cell numbers.

And now, I leave you with Brainy, who says, "Don't forget to update Jeff and Olivia's telephone information."

Posted by Jeff at 09:28 AM | Comments (6)