got my sweetheart on the plane, but only barely....

everything went smoothly this morning, the time change wasn't a problem... we got up, i got her breakfast in bed and we took our time getting ready.. we took off for the airport around 12:30pm or so (i think) and she needed to get a few things at the store so we went out that way. everything up here by my hotel closes on sunday, so we kinda went exploring... we went by a Stop & Shop and got the supplies and then found ourselves at this shopping center and decided to get some lunch. we ate at cheeseburger in paradise.. had a few drinks, listened to some music.. had a lot of fun.. from there we took off to the apartment to drop some things off (because i thought we had lots of time).. we got there and jenn was pretty sleepy so i let her rest for about 20-30 minutes. i kept my eye on my watch and at "4 o'clock" i got us on the road... got her to the airport around "5 o'clock" and after leaving her at security and making it out to the car i realised that all that time i hadn't changed the clock in my car or my watch so we were an hour off... her flight was supposed to board at 6PM and she called me at 6:15 when she realized what time it was. i was just about to call her because i had just gone through the payment place and realized what time it was... she made it on the plane just fine, but it sure was close...

i kept saying how i wanted to spend as much time with her as possible and i guess i got to, but it sure made me feel crappy because she had to run to her gate at the end. i wish it hadn't gone quite like that.

oh well, she'll be landing in about an hour and should be home soon. i'm gonna miss her. bad.

i did everyone else's that i saw before bed time and then created my own. everyone should take a stab at it, i think it seems pretty interesting...

piffy's johari window

kthxbye.

Everything you've heard about New Jersey is true. Armpit of the US, New York's Stupid Neighbor, or just plain ole Cesspool. I've had nothing but trouble in this state since I landed. I made my way to the baggage claim and waited for a while. Things started to tumble into the revolving contraption and there were only a few bags (I guess most people didn't check bags or were heading elsewhere). I saw my suitcase and grabbed it; waited a little while longer and nothing else came out. The conveyor kept moving, but nothing was coming out. I started to wonder where my toiletry bag was... Well, eventually the conveyor turned off. My stomach sank. I wandered over to the Continental baggage office and told them only one of my bags came out. They had me fill out a claim ticket and I told them to call my cellphone if it was found this evening, so I could drive back and get it (I was hopeful). It's nearly 9pm and no call. I had a crapload of stuff in there and yes it can all be replaced, but some of a lot of it was gifts I had received, so it pisses me off. They gave me a number I can call to get a reimbursement on the cost, up to a point, but its not the same. I want it back.

After that I found out the hanger my suit was on had broke and I was just holding onto a broken hook. I quickly rectified the situation and carried my dress shirts and suit by the actual hanger.

I headed over to the rental car area and found out that when I return the car I'll be charged almost $100. Nothing too upset, just didn't expect it. Compared to the amount SyncSort has spent just to get me up here for an interview its a little change. Besides, if I get the job and accept it I bet I could expense it (or make up for it with the salary increase).

I got a Chevy Malibu. Not too bad a car. It has enough pep to keep me happy. I make my way towards the hotel and come to find out that the Garden State Parkway is a freakin' toll road. I have no cash on me, none. Zero. When I hit the first toll booth I ask if they take credit and she prints me a receipt and gives me an envelope. I have to mail it to the NJ Something or Other. I go through 2 more toll booths and get the receipts. In total I am going to have to send $1.75 to NJ when I get home. Great.

I finally make it to the hotel and get checked in. They have this auto check-in terminal and so I use that. Nowhere on there do I indicate I am handicapped or need a special room, but I get a room with all the trimmings for someone in a wheel chair, or a walker. Hand rails next to the toilet, a seat in the shower, a special chair in the room (I suppose so they can sit down in the middle of the room or some shit).

So.. That was my eventful trip to New Jersey. I got replacements for most of my lost items at the grocery store across the street. It still sucks that all my other stuff has been lost. They better find it and send it back to me. Either that or pay to replace all of it. Fuckers.

I got a nice dinner at this place called Peppercorns. Its located back in a neighbor near the hotel/office. Of course, a little background. The neighborhood the office is in apparently pretty upscale. It doesn't look like it in some regards, but just down the street and around the corner are these neighboorhoods of huge mansions in the woods. The kinds of places you would see along in the Sequoyah Hills area or along Northshore in the Farragut area. Big brick houses with big yards and lots of trees. Pretty nice. Well, this restaurant is situated back in that area. Looks like it would be pretty busy with upscale clientele if it weren't Super Bowl Sunday. It was pretty dead and I got way more than I could eat. I have all the food I'll need for later tonight and tomorrow morning/afternoon.

My interview starts tomorrow at 9:45am. I'm planning on getting up at 5:30 or 6 and going to the hotel's gym. I want to try and get a good long workout in so I can try to relax.

Hopefully I sleep well tonight. Its weird to be in a hotel without the wife. I've never travelled alone like this and it'll be something I'll have to get used to if I take the job. I keep telling her that if I do I'll live in the hotel gyms and come home a buff husband. That would be nice.

I just realized I've been sitting here, taking my time watching the Super Bowl (mainly the commercials), for almost 45 minutes. I'm gonna wrap this up for now and go read up on SyncSort some more. I'm gonna make some notes and try to get some questions down on paper so I can review them in the morning.

Dabbling in (X)HTML & CSS I found this specific demo very interesting, as well as the other CSS experiments on the site.

Its not an incredibly new idea as I've seen and used similar mechanisms before, but its a cool way to do those Flickr style notations completely in CSS.


read more | digg story

Okay, so here goes... I'm lazy and didn't post things on their actual day...

Happy Birthday to Sam.. I thought about him, but for the life of me couldn't remember the exact day (I think its the 9th, but it may be the 3rd)

Happy Birthday to jess0r!

Happy Birthday to stanaconda!

Happy Birthday to devilgirl!

Happy Birthday to me!

Happy Birthday to angelicjenn!

Hmmm.. I think that's it.

So far my birthday has been great. Really excited about my errands this afternoon and seeing Jenn in her play tonight.

I liked doing this one. Found some cool pictures.







You can do your own here.

I know, I know. I haven't updated in a long time and everybody has been waiting for me to supply more wedding pictures. Well, everything is setup and ready for your viewing.

To get to our personal photo gallery just hit up the following link: http://www.jenndon.org/gallery.

To get to the professional wedding photos you need to do the following:

1. Goto http://www.atlantisphoto.com
2. Search for the event "Fraley"
3. Create a login/password, its free and lets you track things individually
4. Enjoy all the awesome pictures.

I hope everyone enjoys. Through Atlantis Photo anyone can actually purchase prints/photos and they send them out. Its a nice way for family and guests to be able to get copies of pictures without too much hassle.

*scowl*

poor jenn has so much to get done before we leave tomorrow and she had scheduled an appointment with one of their clients today at 2:30 thinking that her appointment with farrah was for 5pm. i sent her a message today confirming the details and briefly sent her scrambling to work out the details.

thankfully, she called back and everything worked out just fine. the client didn't want to meet until tomorrow and she is able to get in during our time. she'll be going back to work afterwards to finish up, but it'll give me a chance to run one of my errands.

what a trooper. :)

so, i've decided that i want one of these. and i'll take one of these.

i've wanted to get a mac, ever since mac os x came out, but i never could justify it. i haven't made a pc purchase in FOREVER. hell, i've never really made a pc purchase for myself. i always got hand-me-down parts from my dad or friends or what not. i've built them for friends (or wife-to-be, as it was) or upgraded them for friends or spec'd them out for friends, but i've never dropped that kind of money on one for myself. never could justify it, when i was given decent parts that did what i wanted.

well, you know what? i want one. you know why?

turntables + mixer + garageband = quick, cheap, easy recording studio...

i don't need that big, nasty monolithic pc sitting out in the living room. i could hide the mac mini so much easier. i bet i could even find a simple 6" lcd that will hook up to it, controlled by a bluetooth wireless mouse and keyboard (which i can hide when not in use) i can record my stuff without any trouble.

how simple and cool would that be? hell, right at $1,000 i could do everything i need. i already have a monitor stored underneath the table. i can get a usb keyboard/mouse for super cheap and be on my way. it would be a ghetto-rig (permanently hiding under the table), but it would get the job done. in time i could add the display and bluetooh peripherals.

and when its time to upgrade? who cares... it was under a grand and i can move the little bugger into the office. let it sit and be my token mac. doesn't matter. i want to hack on a mac.

Well, all the tinkering I did this evening is almost complete. I didn't get around to mixing anything or playing with my turntables that much, but I did get it all setup so I can record, almost...

Let's see... What did I do, you ask?

I took one of my old computers, running Ubuntu and moved it into the living room. I sat it underneath the table I am using for the turntables and mixers. Everything got hooked up and is nicely hidden. The only way you know its there is due to the hum of the fans and whatnot. Hopefully that doesn't get annoying. Once I got the computer out there and hooked up to the wireless router I had to fiddle with the settings on it because I couldn't get to the recording machine from the computer in our "office". You see, the computer under the turntables (for recording) doesn't have a monitor, mouse or keyboard. I have to do everything from the other room. It was crucial I could get to it from our computer room. I got that working, finally... Then I had to deal with the recording software I am using in linux. Its a command-line only program called ecasound. It took me forever to get even the most basic parts of it working. I had to play a game of "trial and error" for just about everything. For the longest time I was getting silence when recording. Found out I had some of the mixer settings on the computer wrong. Once I had sound I could record, but then I was getting errors about the way my soundcard was setup. Found something about that on a gentoo forum. Back in business. I did a couple test recordings, but it kept dropping frames here and there so I wasn't getting a perfect duplication of my audio. There were little pauses and such in the recording. Read up on that and finally got it working better. Instead of getting an error every second, now I got like 7-12 errors over about a minute. Hopefully I can get that resolved and I'll be able to record whenever I want.

Once I can do that I'll tackle the problem that the audio sounds really tinny. I wonder if that's the mixer, the sound card, both or what... Only time will tell

If you ever wanted a reason to NOT name your child Landon, I present you with this:



and this:



If I looked like that and was at prom with a girl like that, I'd be smiling like a dumbass too. Of course I'd be a little concerned about my snaggletooth mouth and pimples, but that's just me.

SO! Let this be a lesson to all future parents. Be wary of naming your child Landon. You could end up like me or that dude.

NB: i started doing that survey and i didnt like any of the first pictures.. when i searched for my name and saw that i thought it was too funny to pass up.

UPDATE: Who will *you* frighten today?



BOOGITY BOO!

I sent a cover letter and resume to Scripps Networks yesterday. They have a listing for a Software Engineer III that sounded promising. I'm hopeful that I'll get a response. Not too sure about the company itself, from talks I've had with co-workers. Of course, I think the opportunity to interview and put myself out there will be a good thing. I talked to my manager about it and he was very supportive. Hell, he mentioned that he knew exactly where I was coming from (regarding my reasons) and might be doing the same if things at work don't change. I'd really like to stay with SAIC, but down here there's just so little IT work. So much of it is call centers and I'm just too qualified for most of it.

Tonight is angelicjenn and I's dance exhibition. We'll be performing our waltz to an unknown song in front of our dance studio and their guests. The song is only unknown because for the life of us we can't remember a single lyric and as such I can't find out the song title. Its funny that we've listened to the song countless times practing, but we can't remember a single lyric. I bet its because overall we're more focused on the tempo and the dance moves than the actual lyrics. Last Wednesday when we went for our lesson we did really good together. We made a small change to the routine, which makes one move a lot easier. The other thing we did is practice small pauses in the routine that allow me to make sure we're on time. Assuming we get off time in certain sections we can do a more "showy" move and then proceed with the dance routine on time. It felt really good to go all the way through with very few mistakes.

I dunno what we're doing this weekend, but I think it will involve a lot of wedding details, running and vegging out on the couch. Since we have free HBO/Cinemax with our digital cable right now I've got TiVo recording a bunch of movies. We have Collateral, Bourne Supremacy, Driving Miss Daisy, Prince of Tides, Dance with Me, and saturday night it'll be recording Anchorman. I'm excited about Anchorman because I could use a laugh right about now.

Back at work, this fine Monday morning. Had a pretty busy weekend.

Friday, I got off work and headed to the Salon. I had Farrah color my hair, give me a different haircut, and wax my eyebrows. I wanted to test out some ideas in preparation for the wedding. I love the hairstyle (its not that different, just spikier with a little more character), but the color I'm not so sure about. I want it to be darker with more of a highlighted look going on. The eyebrow wax was very needed. The uni-brow look just wasn't working for me and the definition in my eyebrows actually helps open up my face. I approve.

After all that I went to the tanning bed. It was nice and I'll be going back. After a few more visits I should be a very nice color for the beach in August.

Saturday started off lazy. angelicjenn and I didn't get up until noon or so. We got invited out to the lake by stanaconda, taliesin_df29, danny, and josh. More than going to the lake, we went cliff-jumping. It was a lot of fun and just a little bit skeery. I do not like heights and so jumping off a cliff into the water 30 feet below took a little determination. Once I finally got myself up to jumping it was a blast. The moment you clear the ledge and start to free-fall its incredibly exhilerating. I'd be interested in doing it again. Hell, I'd probably even jump from higher up now. The fall is crazy cool.

Sunday was lazy, but with a bit of shopping involved. angelicjenn and I went to a few different stores and I think I've decided on my apparel. I was at Men's Wearhouse and asked them if they had linen suits and they said no, but they do have silk suits. Well, after trying on a sport coat at Casual Male I thought this might be a cool idea, so I tried some things on and fell in love with the way the suit jacket fit me. Its versatile and I don't have to wear a shirt and tie with it. I'm thinking about a beach-y collared shirt underneath that the groomsmen can wear and I'll have the sport coat on to stand out. Not too sure about shoes for the reception yet, but I will ask at Men's Wearhouse when I go back.

Jenn picked up a slip for her wedding dress and we also went to this new store in west town mall where we came up with an idea for wedding day gifts.

We got a lot done this weekend.

Well, I dunno what to say. I got one hell of a surprise on Thursday. An awesome surprise.

I came home to find a pair of CD Turntables and mixer in our living room. angelicjenn bought me them as an early wedding gift. Ever since tinkerroll21 started spinning records and I got into techno music I've thought about picking it up as a hobby. I love the music and with practice I thought I could get pretty good at it. Well, now I have that chance.

I got two of these:



and one of these:



I love them to death and look forward every evening to going home and practicing.

Last night I bought some new power strips so I could re-wire all of our living room Home Theater equipment. Re-wired everything so that it is setup optimally. All I need to do now is practice, practice, practice.

I'm super happy and feel oh-so-loved.

its cold, its windy, its crappy.

i want it to stop.

that is all.

Covering the night shift for Adam. Kinda getting tired, but not so much. Not much is going on at work, which is a good thing. I guess I should be thankful for a slow night. This is definitely a lot better than I was expecting based on the complaints we hear from the night crew.

I'm still actually doing a lot of my normal stuff, which is good.

I broke out my mp3 player b/c it was way too quiet. Not many calls come in overnight.

Hrm. I'm gonna go back to my stuff.

Got up this morning w/ angelicjenn. I had a much harder time because I was up later last night, but I still did it. We went for a 1.5-2 mile jog/walk/sprint around the neighborhood. It took about 30-40 minutes. It burned, but it felt good. After that we came inside and did our 20 minute pilates workout. I decided yesterday that I want to do more than just the cardio at the gym because part of what kept me motivated before was the strenght I was gaining in my muscles from doing pilates on a daily basis. That shit really tones your muscles and that is the feeling I want to have. It will keep me going for quite some time.

I have a wedding to get in shape for and I won't be slacking on this!

Speaking of weddings. Planning anything more than an elopemant can be stressful. Its not so bad, but it does seem overwhelming sometimes. I sent out some more emails to the coordinators a little bit ago and will wait for a response. I also sent an email to my boss about getting time off so we can go visit the Outer Banks and check some of these places out.

*le sigh*

45 minutes on the eliptaical

3.7 mi
713 calories

legs burned afterwards on my errands. body was tired and i was starving.

i've eaten well today, so far. i'm hungry again and will probably get a snack in the next hour or so.