2 Bit Hacker

Yup, made it another year without kicking the bucket, 28 in a row now, a new personal best. Not a lot of fanfare this year, which was kind of nice.

The last weekend of June, my dad and stepmother came out for a visit. We wandered up to Freeport and Portsmouth for a day. The weather was actually nice for most of the time they were out here. It was good to see them again, and I’m thinking of making a trip out to visit them in the not-to-distant future.

For the long weekend, I traveled down to Hyde Park, NY with my mom, niece, and nephew to meet up with my aunt and uncle to visit my cousin who is attending the CIA. We dined at the school’s Escoffier Restaurant, which was quite good. I’m somewhat kicking myself for forgetting my camera that night, as I would have liked to have taken some shots of the school’s interior. I will have to visit again.

We spent most of the 3rd visiting some of the historical sites in Hyde Park, including the FDR Presidential Library and Top Cottage. I was mostly surprised by the simplicity of Top Cottage. It’s not really a terribly remarkable building, simple but well built. It’s odd to think of a US President entertaining foreign dignitaries there. I did end up taking a number of pictures throughout the day, which I’ve posted in my gallery.

In the evening we attended a demolition derby at the Duchess County Fairgrounds in nearby Rhinebeck, NY. Very entertaining, though somewhat marred by pain from a wisdom tooth that’s being extracted soon. I expect it was the highlight of the trip for my nephew, who didn’t seem all that impressed by the historical sites earlier in the day.

Overall a very good birthday and 4th of July. Somehow I managed to avoid all the fireworks, and ended up not having any kind of party. I’d still like to have some people over to my place at some point, but I’m not sure when.

Thanks to everyone who wished me a Happy Birthday over on Twitter and Facebook!

Personal birthday, family, trips

Spent last weekend out in Ohio for my grandparents’ 60th anniversary. Drove out there with my mom on Friday, took just about 12 hours to make the drive going out I-90. The anniversary party was on Saturday. I had a pretty good time. It’s been a while since I’ve seen a lot of my family, so it was good to see people again, though I went in to my anti-social mode with all the people around. My Nikon was acting up again, so I don’t have any pictures, which kindof sucks.

On Sunday, Jason and I had planned to meet up in Dayton at the National USAF Museum. Unfortunately, Jason’s fuel pump died just outside of Indianapolis. I decided to drive out there to see him anyway. We ended up going into Indy to grab some food, then we went to a Fry’s, since we don’t have any of those up here.

Overall, not a bad trip. A lot of driving in a short period though. Ended up putting a little over 2000 miles on the Prius, so I’ll be taking it in for its 5k service this weekend. Don’t think I’ll be doing anymore road trips for a bit. I think I’ll be flying next time.

Travel family, prius

The drive up to Michigan ended up getting delayed a couple days, as I came down with what seemed like a bad cold last week. I started running a fever on Tuesday night, and could barely move on Wednesday. Delia ended up making the drive to Michigan on Thursday, and I was starting to feel better by Sunday, then one of my tonsils decided to swell up to the size of a kiwi. My dad ended up dragging me to the hospital, where I was checked out and given a prescription for Motrin and an antibiotic. Doing much better now. The swelling is still there, but no more pain. Hopefully it’ll shrink back down in a few days.

Anyway, I finally ended up having the meeting for the job in Saline today. The meeting was a lot shorter than I expected, they just asked some basic questions about my backgrounds and skills. Apparently the job won’t actually be opening up for a while, so, although it would be a really cool job to get, I’m not going to be holding my breath for it. I need to give RNet a call to see if they’ve decided on anything yet, and once I get back to NH I’m going to look into getting some temp work or something.

That’s about it. We’re going to be heading out tomorrow, starting the nice long drive back to home. It’ll be nice to be back in my own bed again.

Travel family, jobs

As some of you know, Delia and I have been on a road trip since Friday. It’s mainly a trip for me to try and find gainful employment, since I haven’t been having much luck in the NH area. Yesterday I interviewed at RNet, the ISP that Jason works for. I thought the interview went pretty well, but we’ll see how it goes. One of the interviewers seemed somewhat concerned about Jason and I being friends and working together, but I don’t think it ever caused a problem at JLC or Net-Temps. Delia seems to like the Bloomington area, and has already interviewed with a massage place in the area.

Tomorrow we’re planning to head north to my dad’s house for a few days before heading home. I hope to meet with someone concerning a system administration job at a school in Saline, MI. It’s pretty close to where my dad lives, and the job looks pretty interesting from the description.

Other than that, not a lot going on. It’s been cool seeing Jason and Stacey again and hanging out and getting Delia away from WoW for a bit. Unfortunately, my trip coincided with Matt’s trip to NH, so I completely missed seeing him, which sucks.

Although, if I move out here, it would be a shorter drive to visit Houston…

Travel family, jobs

Another Christmas come and gone. Doesn’t even really feel like it was all that big a deal this year, probably because I only gave one gift out, since I couldn’t afford to get gifts for a lot of people. Hopefully next year I’ll have more spare cash to throw around.

Anyway, early last week my dad and Mary came out to visit. They attended Delia’s Winter Solstice Celebration concert on Sunday, and we ate a bunch of dinners together. I couldn’t really get any time off from work, so we didn’t really have time to do much other than that. Mary got a massage from Delia though, and seemed to enjoy it. The evening before they left we did the whole gift thing. They gave us some holiday dishes, an RC car to play with, and a check to cover the cost of getting some new (and badly needed) tires on the Focus. Delia also gave me her gifts then, including a Game Boy Advance SP Classic, a case for it, and Hellboy and Ella Enchanted on DVD.

Later in the week, my mom and Ralph came down from the frozen northern regions of Maine. They were actually down for some tests for Ralph, but it was good to see them around the holidays. I really should get up to Maine more often, but the drive is such a pain. Anyway, Ralph was looking better than I expected, though the drug he was on caused him to gain a lot of weight. I guess he’s starting to do a bit better, which is good. I hope to head up there for Easter. We ended up getting together on Christmas morning for a bit of breakfast. It wasn’t the big traditional family breakfast, but it was still nice to be together and have cowboy eggs. They ended up giving me a check as well, though I wasn’t expecting anything. With Ralph being sick, things have been pretty tight for them.

Oh, and on Sunday, I was rather surprised that kat_ra gave me a gift; Arc the Lad 4 for PS2.

I think that covers everything, though I’m sure I forgot something, I always do.

Edit: Of course, I forgot the gifts that Delia’s aunts gave me, a gift card to Best Buy, a calendar, and a new shirt.

Personal family, gifts, holiday

Finally getting around to updating my journal for Thanksgiving. Delia and I went over to one of her aunts’ houses in the early afternoon, but since they had already done their normal Thanksgiving stuff a few weeks previous, they were having roast beef instead of turkey. They did make up a turkey breast though, which was tasty. After eating we hung around there for a bit, playing with the dogs a bit and Delia took a bit of nap. Then we wandered over to redenife’s house for a second dinner. This one was much more traditional, with a proper turkey and stuffing and whatnot. Unfortunately, nobody seemed to really be hungry at this point, as almost everyone there had just come from a previous dinner. I feel kindof bad about that, because there was a lot of food, and it was quite good.

Oh yes, and the pies. So many pies. At Delia’s aunt’s house there were four pies (chocolate, apple, pumpkin, and pecan) and then at Rob’s there were too many pies for me to remember. I do remember a strawberry rhubarb pie though, which is, of course, the best type of pie known to man. So very tasty. So much pie.

The rest of the long weekend was spent recovering from the pies and playing World of Warcraft, which is now sucking up a majority of my spare time, though I try to remember to take breaks to sleep, go to work, and spend time with Delia, who seems to be very understanding of my gaming addiction. I love her

Oh yeah, if you’re interesting in seeing how WoW looks, I’ve started posting some screenshots.

Personal family, holiday, wow

Well, I finally managed to snag the laptop away from Delia long enough to update again. Day 2 was mostly spent finishing the drive from Rochester to Michigan. I got a little lost trying to find my dad’s house, but we got here eventually. My dad wasn’t doing too well, but he was social for a little while, and got to meet Delia and such. I got the last of my birthday gifts, a tea mug from England and a Hauppauge WinTV-PVR250, for the HTPC. I can hardly wait to get home and install it.

Day 3 was mostly spent in the hospital, waiting during my dad’s surgery. It sounds like everything went fairly well, though they’re still not sure if it was cancerous. I guess they’re going to run some tests on the stuff the removed, and they’ll know more at the end of the week. We visited with him for a bit afterwards. I had received warnings that he was going to look horrible, but I didn’t think he was looking all that bad. He seemed pretty tired, so we left after a bit.

That evening we went into Ann Arbor looking for a BookCrossing book at a cafe, but were unable to locate it. Then Delia played some DDR at a local arcade and we hit a Borders, where I grabbed a book on house buying. Apparently Ann Arbor was the location of the very first Borders book store, which is kindof cool. We then went back toward my dad’s house, and went into a Meijer, so Delia could experience the less evil version of Wal-Mart.

Today the plan is to go visit my dad again, then head up to Toronto to meet Delia’s sister, and probably do some touristy things. Hopefully I’ll find a place to hop online again to make another update.

Travel family, gifts