This post is to document every time my poor little box craters. Maybe I’ll be able to identify a trend or something…

Not to get all insightful again, but it’s nights like tonight where you stop for a second and have a realization. For example:

I was pulling out of work tonight and while sitting at the stoplight with the sun shining down and the windows open, I realized that I had a pretty decent bike (with a fresh 10 miles..at least on it!) on the back of my car, I had a Dell 2650 and a Cisco PIX 515e in the back seat, and well…yea. I recognize that most of those are merely material objects, but I think it’s what I can do with them that sparked the warm, fuzzy feelings. Not to mention how lucky I felt driving around with all that equipment! It’s not every day I can say I’m carrying around a dual-cpu server box and an enterprise-class firewall in the back seat of my car!

For now, I must sleep, as tomorrow will require strong pix-fu. My legs have been exercised this evening, tomorrow it will be the fingers and the command-line configuration skilz that get a workout. …and the lead foot as well, mwuhahaha! (Don’t worry, Mother…I won’t speed…much ;))

Via some random blog - I’m in agreement that this Zen philosophy captures how I feel about life:

The master in the art of living makes little distinction between his work and his play, his labour and his leisure, his mind and his body, his education and his recreation, his love and his religion. He hardly knows which is which. He simply pursues his vision of excellence in whatever he does, leaving others to decide whether he is working or playing. To him he is always doing both.

There was some point in my life, whether it was High School or College I’m not sure, that I determined that no matter what I do with my life and my career, I am going to enjoy what I am doing. If I don’t enjoy what I’m doing for a living, then it simply becomes a task that I have to get up in the morning to do. This is why I don’t mind sitting at home at night and configuring the PIX at work, or why I enjoy installing operating systems in my spare time. These are the things that give me pleasure, and thus, these are the things I will pursue in life as they make me happy.
As a former co-worker once reflected on what I had taught him: “life is what you make of it”. In short, you have the ability (to some degree) to determine what you will do with your life. I tend to believe that we (humans) are here to enjoy life on this planet, and that’s what I plan to do with it.

Odd that the Zen quote matches my current quote of the day by Charles Swindoll:

I am convinced that life is 10% what happens to me and 90% how I react to it.

Totally true…there are other quotations around this theory, but I’ll stop rambling and get back to hacking.

It’s amazing what some people can do with Photoshop…

What a weekend - I’m not even sure how many times I’ve gone biking, but my li’l rockhopper has been through mud, rain, sun, sand, and yes, even horse manure. It feels good to get on a bike and push myself…my thighs are going to be gigantic pretty soon, due to the way I ride. I also went to a Chicago Fire (Major League Soccer, for those of you not in the know) game today. They lost to the Columbus Crew 3-1, but I think they’ve been doing pretty well otherwise. It was pretty fun - it rained just a little bit a couple of times, but not enough to get me wet at all.

The sky outside right now is that deep orange light indiciative of a thunderstorm. Oddly enough, I just glanced out my window and saw some wicked blots go across the sky. It’s been humid, humid, humid here in Chi-town the past week or so. There were a couple good storms this weekend, but nothing like back in New England.

I bought a bike last night. This sucker is sweet! I took it out and got it a little bit dirty. It also fits in the trunk of my car with the back seats down - now I don’t feel like such a yuppie. I also took a nice digger while I was riding last night - it felt good. I even drew blood in a couple places. I haven’t gone riding in probably over six years, ever since I went away to school. That was six years ago?! Man, I’m getting old.

In any case, I got my bike at Johnny Sprockets. That Rockhopper is actually a pretty popular bike and Johnny Sprockets was one of few places that actually had it in stock. Other places weren’t expecting new shipments until early June. Needless to say, I’ll be biking again tonight…

I had another wonderful flight to Cleveland this morning (note the dripping sarcasm). Got out on the runway, sat there for a while (not quite sure how long due to intermittent nappage) and then the Captain came on to say some generator wasn’t working and we’d have to go back to the gate.

So we sat on the runway for a little bit longer (not quite sure how long due to intermittent nappage) and then went back to the gate. The mechanics climbed aboard and checked it out for a while (not quite sure how long due to intermittent nappage) and the next thing I knew I was looking out over some nice fluffy cumulous clouds. All told, the plane was about an hour late getting into Cleveland.

What made it even better (grin) was the empty tank of gas (due to other circumstances) in the car that I had to race to the client in because I was late. I still haven’t filled it up, so it obviously made it and I’m probably going to try to make it back to the airport too. When I purchase the fuel option from Hertz, I feel this odd compulsion to return it with the least amount of fuel possible. Most of the time, I do a pretty decent job, but I might win this time, particularly due to rising gas costs.

On that note, I was out of Chicago for about 10 days - when I returned, gas prices had been hiked $0.20! It is now $2.55/gal for premium in the city. *ouch* I’ve heard through the grapevine it’s supposed to hit $3 this summer. Time to make use of GasBuddy.

I also saw a humorous sign while driving from North to South Carolina via Rt. 9 while I was heading to Myrtle Beach last weekend (thanks L++!) - it was a really old, non-functional, run-down gas station that still had a sign for prices out front. While the prices were long gone, what caught me were the two types of gas…regular and unleaded. …I told you it was old!

I think that’s enough of a brain dump for tonight. Time to head out to Aladdin’s Eatery (Lebanese cuisine) and pick up a spicy kafta rolled and some Tabouli or Falaffel. mmm…so good. NOTE: This is different from the Aladdin’s Natural Eatery in Rochester, NY that serves Mediterranean/Greek cuisine - but that place is pretty good too! (Especially the li’l octopi and mousaka)

Charlie who? No, I got a charlie horse this morning while lying in bed. I don’t know if it woke me up, or if I woke up and then got it, but regardless it was certainly painful. It was in my left calf, which is odd because it happened in the same calf a couple months ago. It’s so bad that it actually still kind of hurts today.

I figured I’d blog it, so in case it happens again I can have some sort of record.

The ingenuity of techies around the world never ceases to amaze me. RIT’s CSH Drink has been around for as long as I can remember the Internet, but some guys recently decided that wasn’t enough. Behold, Pizza from the Command Line - a perl script that you can use to interface with Domino’s Online ordering by issuing a simple command such as pizza_party -smgx 1 medium thin. That’ll get you a medium pizza with sausage, mushrooms, green peppers, and extra cheese on a thin crust.

Now that’s innovation, Holmes.

Ah, I’m back in Chitown after my Myrtle Beach adventure - I had a great time and you should see the nice singe I got after being on the beach all day on Sunday. I’ll post a pic of my leg later - I kind of look like a lobster. And before you say anything, I DID wear sunscreen and reapply it throughout the day!