Zel-kun’s Words

I spent all last week travelling.  I drove my car to work monday, and didn’t see it again until Friday night.  There’s nothing wrong with saving a whole week’s worth of gas by driving a company vehicle, especially with today’s prices.

I went to Indiana, working around my old home.  It was there that everything that COULD go wrong, did.  I’d write about it, but it would be a page of techno-babble, so I’ll summarise by saying Murphy was my best friend that day.

I went to Springfield the next day, which went fairly smoothly.  My GPS (my cell phone) died as I reached the city, making me guess where I had to go.  I had the address, so I used my good ol’ trusty sense of direction.  I took the second Springfield exit I saw, and drove down the street, keeping an eye out for a gas station to stop and ask for directions.  On my left I saw it, a Circuit City, housing a Verizon kiosk, one of the sites I had to visit.

Must be karma trying to make up for all the crap I went through the previous day.

I had to stop by a cellular site, which was the first time I’ve been to one since doing work for U.S. Cellular some three years ago.  It was just as secure as the ones I’ve been to in the past:  Short, hidden, unmarked.

I had to pull a piece of retired equipment out of the rack there, the last piece of equipment that my group had there.  To get an idea of what I was looking at, picture a wall of expensive and important equipment, much of it visually indistinguishable.  I had to pull one of them, and no one there knew for sure where it was.

I got on the phone with the co-worker who had sent me to pull the equipment, who then walked me through to finding the equipment.  For several minutes, we went back and forth making sure I was looking at the same thing he thought I was looking at, then we took a deep breath…

I shut the thing down and pulled it from the rack, sweating a little despite the air-conditioner blowing on me from directly overhead.  I didn’t hear any alarms going off, so I figured I was in the clear.  I confirmed with the control techs that I did not cause the site to blow up, and high-tailed it out of there.

As I was returning to Chicago, I heard a commercial for a local butcher…

“Bloomington Meats: So good, even vegetarians can’t resist!”

That amused me to no end.

On Friday, we went to see Get Smart, which I thoroughly enjoyed.  I’m normally not a huge fan of Steve Correll, but he played Smart surprisingly well.  Along with that, The Rock played a good part as well, tough and amusing.

Sunday we went to my dad’s for a celebratory barbecue for our wedding.  We brought Zai’s parents along, so they had a chance to meet some of my family.  Sadly there was the language barrier for her father, but at least the food was good.

I saw Nick, my stepbrother, for the first time in two years.  The first thing he said was, “Your hair is long… I’m not sure I like that.  I don’t know that you’re really you.”  He then proceeds to poke me to verify that I’m really there.

He bought a PS3, and subsequently broke it.  He wants me to take a look at it.  I warned him that I’ve never even been in the same room as a PS3, but he decided he trusts me enough to haul it home with me to fix it.

Guess the coming week will tell whether or not that’s a wise decision…

Zel-kun out.

Father’s Day… when we get together and say, “Thanks Dad, for putting up with me all those years, dealing with my BS, and loving me anyway.”

It takes a lot of patience to be a father.  My patience is put to the test when small things like my cat or my co-workers annoy me, which shouldn’t even be mentioned in the same sentence with what a father goes through on a daily basis.  My father had his share of troubles from his children, and that includes all the crap I did.

I treated my father to breakfast on Saturday, being as we were to spend some time Sunday with Zai’s father.  We went to the Original Pancake House, a place I had never been before, and which had a much less than stellar review over at Perrero, but despite that, the food was very good.  I had a skillet with bacon and red pepper, with a side of some of the best chocolate chip pancakes I’ve ever had.  The prices were pretty high, however, with coffee at $2 a cup, and the waitress spent most of our meal ignoring us.

So, decent enough, I suppose, would have preferred better service at those prices…

Anyhow, we spent the rest of the morning at dad’s, chatting and catching the last half of the Shawshank Redemption.  It was a good way to spend a Saturday morning.

When we left, we decided to go to Dairy Queen, which I haven’t been to in years.  I bought a small Butterfinger Blizzard, and Zai got a chocolate strawberry sundae.  I watched them make it…

I’m not sure what mental handicap every Dairy Queen employee has… but It’s as irritating now as it was when I was young.  When you fill a bowl with ice cream and syrup, make sure the minature lake of syrup is BELOW the rim of the cup, not above.  It was filled about a quarter inch into the cap, which meant there was a huge mess just waiting to happen as soon as that cap was removed.

I saw Zai walk towards the car, and I had to put an end to that right away, “Where you going?  Sit down at the table out here and eat.”

Visibly annoyed, she grumbles, “Fine.”

She sat down and the damn sundae explodes all over the table and her hands.  There is strawberry and chocolate sauce everywhere, completely covering her hands and table, and thankfully not in the car I just cleaned.  She threw the sundae away and went to the gas station across the street to wash up.  She ran back with stories of urine everywhere, graffiti on the walls, and bugs in the sink.

So gas stations have dirty bathrooms… I did not know that.

In any case, thank you dad, the breakfast I bought for you does not even begin to repay you.

Zel-kun out.

So, as mentioned in a previous post, I finally bought an X-Box 360, my first current generation system.  It’s sad, being what a gaming nut I am, but honestly… I haven’t been impressed by the games that have been coming out these days.

But X-Box, ironically enough, has impressed me with the games that have been coming out, that I bought one.

Those who know me, know that I think the X-Box is perhaps the worst gaming system to ever curse the world with its existence.  So no one was more shocked than me as I put one in my shopping cart at Fry’s Electronics and wheeled it to one of their one hundred registers (that’s not even an exageration).

I must credit Microsoft in this case, and that is that it learned from each and every one of its mistakes from its previous system.

X-Box:

• No RPG’s
• Terrible controller design
• Faulty hardware that barely used the resources it had
• Giant console twice the size and weight of the other consoles

X-Box 360:

• Some good, solid RPG’s, a particularly good one I’m playing now actually released BY Microsoft
• Comfortable wireless controller that lasts surprisingly long on a single set of AA-Batteries, and you’re able to turn the console on and off with the controller
• Hardware that can sync with computers and many storage devices, able to easily become a multi-media entertainment system, and able to substitute game music for music from your audio files (a personal favorite-feature of mine)
• Smaller design comparable to the other systems

So I’ve been pretty happy with it.  My biggest complaint is it’s inability to adapt to older televisions.  Granted, it’s something of a moot point with my new TV, but it’s still worth mentioning.

I plan on getting the Wi-Fi adapter and joining X-Box live, which my friends and co-workers assure me is well worth it.

We’ll see…

Congratulations Microsoft, you finally did something right.

Zel-kun out.

So, it’s been about a year since I moved out.  I know because the annual festival that came to my street when I moved in has just come again.  I wasn’t all that impressed with the festival this time around.  Sure, they had the pineapple drink that I loved from last year, but that was about it.  Other than that, just expensive tacos and rigged carnival games.

It was an inconvenience more than anything.  They blocked off the road in front of the apartment, so I had to park four blocks from home.  I found out monday when I went to work that there was no parking in that spot, even though there was no sign, even snapped some photos.  I plan on fighting the parking ticket… I swear, sometimes I think the city of Chicago lives to give me parking tickets for stupid things.

My apartment had the bad fortune of being directly in front of a booth selling CD’s, which meant it had to blast it’s bass from dawn until dusk.  To add to the cacophony, various other musics from the festival joined the bass.

But the weekend was far from bad, however.  I decided to buy a high-definition television.  I had been holding off because I saw absolutely nothing wrong with the television I had, a thirty-five inch tube.  However, my purchase of an X-Box 360 forced me into a corner.  See, the system is designed for high-definition, so the image is slightly blurry on a tube.  So when there’s text on the screen (as is common in RPG’s, the games I play the most), I can’t read it.

I’m not sure why this was done.  Surely Microsoft could have put a feature that could make the text readable on tubes?  One could say it was to spur people to buy high-definition televisions, but Microsoft doesn’t make televisions… so I’m not sure why it was done.

I hunted for the perfect television.  Best Buy was way too expensive, and Wal-Mart had nothing but cheap brands (not that I would buy from the land of blue vests, anyhow).  I stopped at Grant’s Electronics and found a nice deal on a 42″ Toshiba for $1259.  I signed up for their 90-day no interest plan and was turned down on the account of not having had my current job long enough.  Sure, I could have handed over my debit card and paid for it all right there, but it’s the principle of the thing.  I left feeling dejected and a little insulted, as I’ve worked pretty hard to get out of debt and keep my good credit.

The next day I went to Sam’s Club (owned by Wal-Mart, I know, but their bulk supplies actually HELP small businesses, so I’m less against them) and found a 42″ Magnavox for only $1049.  It was a good deal, so I signed up for their no-interest plan (and was approved, go figure), and brought the TV home.

I spent a few hours after that behind my television stand, straightening out wires and hooking up the new TV.  I finally got rid of my VCR, which had been causing some static in my signal anyway.  I discovered that my surround sound system is too primitive for my TV, lacking a digital sound jack, which is the only sound output on the television.  Part of me is considering purchasing a new amplifier, whereas another part feels the speakers on the television (admittedly much louder and clearer than the old) will more than suffice.

Admittedly, ditching the surround sound will save a lot of cables….

Monday was an interesting day.  I drove to work hitting an especially bad stretch of traffic, arriving about fifteen minutes late.  When I arrived I noticed a lot of people leaving the building, which is very odd for that time of the morning.  When I reached the elevator the security guard stopped me, “Go home, you’re closed.”

This was admittedly a shock, “What for?” I ask.

“All floors,” he responds, obviously mishearing me, but I decide to let it go.  I leave the building and find out from someone who works on the floor above me that there was a power outage.

I call one of my co-workers to warn him, as he’s probably just getting on the road now.  I says that he’s aware and that one of the bosses already sent out texts letting us know.  I apparently was not on that list.

So, I shrug and get back in my car, and use the time to get some things done I’ve been meaning to do.  Got some things for my car, cleared up some business at my bank, and went home.

At about eleven o’clock or so my boss sends me a text reminding me to put in my timesheet, so I pulled out my laptop, connected to the work network, and submitted it.  I also checked my email, which had a couple notifications for the power outage and a number to call the next day to see if it’s been resolved.

The next day I call the number and am informed that power has been restored, so I head in at the normal time.  At my desk phone, there’s a message on my voicemail.  A co-worker called and told me to report to the Elgin facility the day before.  Obviously, I didn’t get the message because security wouldn’t let me upstairs.

Apparently, everyone in IT received similar instructions, and were even wondering why I didn’t show up.  And yet… NOBODY bothered to contact me on my work cell phone I had on my person the entire day.  So, there was some jokes made the following day, them asking if I enjoyed my day off, and me asking why no one bothered to call me, even when the boss specifically texted me to put my timesheet in.

It’s good that I work in an environment where honest mistakes can be laughed off.

Zel-kun out.

Yeah, I haven’t been posting, sorry.  First, the information I wanted to post was lost when Zai’s PDA crashed (I had her take some notes for me while in Vegas), then, I bought and X-Box 360…

So I pretty much forgot about my computer at home.  Although I usually make these posts whenever I can at work, I’ve been super busy and barely had time to think these last couple of weeks.

Hopefully, things will begin to wind down.  We don’t have many projects planned, and we have more headcount than before, so I think the summer will be a bit more calm.

And for those curious, I have not forgotten about the Crusader, nor the Legend of Zel for that matter, I’ll get to work on both of those, I swear…

Zel-kun out.