The Halls

While Jeff and I were driving up to the boats on Tuesday, we were talking about cell phones, and cell phone plans, and how I'm never buying a minute plan that my kids could share, because they would never be any minutes left over for Ann or me. The only cell phone my kids would ever get would be a pre-paid one, and when you're minutes are gone, they're gone.
Jeff commented that someone should make a kids cell phone, that can only call home or emergency numbers. I said, "yeah, that's a good idea, but I've never seen one, and I doubt anyone would make one that specific".
Wrong.
I just saw a commercial for this.

Which I thought was going to be the only thing that was exactly that, but it turns out there are a few others,

but this one looks the best to me.

I had lunch with my friend Damon today, and saw my grandma. Then I argued with people at work all afternoon, and I still have to go back to Chicago tomorrow, at 5am no less. I'm clearly being punished.

Posted by Aaron at 8:52 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

So. Christmas is over. It was hectic, but fun. We played a lot of games, which all involve screaming in my family. Whoever's loudest has the best chance, since all we play are games like pictionary and catchphrase. They're fun games, but I'd like to find some new ones.
The kids got entirely too many things. I was talking with my friend Damon about this, and how I seem to be turning into the stereo-typical old man, who had is much worse off as a kid, and all kids today are spoiled and coddled entirely too much.
But from my point of view, it's entirely true. So I can only assume the same was true of my parent's view of my generation.
But the number of gifts was staggering to me. Especially from my parents. Way too generous. I'm going to have to be a friggin millionare to keep up that kind of pace with my grandkids.

I have this long list of things I want to accomplish over this week between christmas and new years. Some are hard deadlines that need to be done before Jan 1st. Others just need some time at home, so I was hoping that this week would afford some more time at home to finish them. So far, I'm making progress, but I doubt it's going to all get done.
-License my truck (3 months over due!) -- done
-change oil in truck and van -- nope
-regrade basement floor so I can finish the trim on the wall I repaired -- nope
-defeat the kickstand safety on the bike. Since the neatruel switch is broke, the bike always thinks it's in gear, and the starter won't go if the bike's in gear and the kickstand is down. So I have to start it with the kickstand up. Annoying. And since I have no immediate plans to fix the neutral switch, I'm going to defeat the safety mechanism. not done
-I need to drop off multiple bags of clothes to the goodwill for some 2005 charity donation slips. -- nope
-I need to get some more contributions into the kids college savings accounts before the end of the year for the 2005 tax breaks -- nope

Why am I even working? I have more to do at home than here....

These things are made more difficult to get to with the vast amount of poker I've been playing. Chad insisted we all go play at the boats yesterday afterrnoon, with the rest of the region. We had to wait 1.5 hours to get on a table. Made me long for Vegas, where you can walk into any poker room and be on a table in <15 minutes. It was fun because I played omaha 8/b for the first time in a casino, and it was fun for the only reason poker is fun, I won $200. Jeff continually got bad cards, and that happens. But I had normal cards, and just tried to get the most out of the winners I had. So at least I know I'm not a total moron at Omaha 8/b.
Ashland tournament tonite, and Misty's tomorrow. This might be getting to be too much, but yesterday was out of the norm. Or so I'm telling myself....

Posted by Aaron at 11:09 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Played poker at misty's for the first time in weeks. Didn't win, even though I once again got my money in when I was ahead, and could only lose by being outdrawn. But of course it happened.
Then we played for psuedo-cash until 3am. It was pretty fun, even though I mostly lost there too. But we had a fun time.
Now it's time for eating and drinking to excess.
We're going to Columbus on christmas day this year, probably for the last christmas there.

We just received several friend's "Christmas letters" which is a sort of year-end summary for each family, from just one person of that family's point of view. I feel sort of left out when I get these, thinking "should we do something like this?"
And then I remember, I do exactly that, everyday. You want a year end summary? You're already there man. Just browse through the archives.

Posted by Aaron at 3:54 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

I'm addicted to the burger king satisfaction song, which is, I found out, by Benny Benassi.
Now I just need to learn to dance.

Here's the email from the guy who wanted me to come back to Chicago next week, because I'm still flipping him off right now.

Aaron,

Russell needs more help. If he can not solve his problems tomorrow,
I need you to come to Chicago for 2-3 days on Monday or Tuesday of next week.
I would much rather that you come on Monday Dec 26.

We need to have the demo finished by Friday Dec 30.

I hope he can see me right now, because I'm doing this as hard as I can.

And by the way, with the next few days of family get togethers of celbrating and drinking, remember not to get this drunk.

Posted by Aaron at 2:01 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

the new MovableType rocks!
I got 96 new junk comments yesterday, yet they all got filtered out. It should be back to the old way off comments for everyone else now too, while still filtering out the lame ads.

Posted by Aaron at 8:57 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

just got back from playing at the weekly game at the small town bar I've gone to. I played perfectly (in my mind), and still lost.
Happens to me a lot.
The game is insane, so I play very tight, only play very good hands.
So I played exactly 5 hands apart from my blinds.
Here they are:
1)late position. J-9 offsuit. tried to limp in, but the position to my left raised, then it got re-raised, so I folded.
2) K-Ts I got all-in with this, stupidly. and lost.
3) Qh-Qd. Got all in pre-flop with this, had 3 callers, won it.
4) Js-Jc. This was later, in freezeout, so only 1 caller, with A-garbage. No ace, so I'm the winner, and knocked that guy out.
5) Qc-Qd. there was only 1 call until the position to my right raised $1200 on $300/$600 blinds.
I go all in, re-raising him $2100 more. He thinks, and calls with KQ offsuit.
Of course, a king fell on the river.
Only 3 cards to help him, and he gets it. Happened to me last week against Hoover, er, Alfred last week too.
Oh well. If that's the only way I get beat, I guess I can't complain. I get in with the best hand.

Christmas is coming, and I have much to do.
-Starting some real planning on the basement bathroom
-Starting some real work on building a kegerator flow meter
-Work projects are of course still a huge crisis with CES coming up. They just asked me to come back next week. Everytime I'm on the phone with these guys, and they say "We really need you come back up here next week", all I can think of is a polite way to say "I'm giving you the finger as hard as I can"
-I'm gonig to try let crazy to finish this basement between christmas and new years. I'm trying to recruit Jeff's help, but he's on vacation then, and who wants to work freelance while you're on vacation?
-Then I'm also gonig to try and build the poker table hoist that week too. yeah right.

Posted by Aaron at 12:30 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Ann's brother sent me this. It's a little corny, but did make me laugh.

I am extremely disappointed with the belkin's firewall abilities. I thought I could filter IP addresses, but that is not true. LAME
So I had to install shorewall on the mythtv/http server anyway. oh well, it seems fairly secure now....

Posted by Aaron at 10:49 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

I was finally home for a weekend, and managed to get some stuff done.
-I made a brief appearance at Scott Broady's graduation party before going to a wedding. It was very cool to see that he finally got himself graduated, after more attempts than I could count. It was also a pleasant surprise to see his brother Nick, who I hadn't seen in many years. He was mostly the same, and doing well.

-We went to Laura and Warren's (now officially known as "lauren") wedding last nite in Ithaca. (A very small town in NE). It was a very good time, although the kids were very tired and grumpy at the end. I drank too much as usual, but it was a fun time. Apparently, Warren in into kareoke in a big way, so it was the first kareoke wedding reception I've ever been to. Well, maybe not the first. Greg's wedding had a kareoke element to it, only in that he jumped up on stage and sang "welcome to the jungle", which was probably the best part of the entire marriage.

-I just got my new 801.11g router setup here at home.

This is significant not just because of the upgrade in wireless rates, but now all the wireless routers are very cheap, and render my original linux router machine completely obsolete. So I have officially shut it off. Maybe I can find another use for it, but for now, it's been retired. snif.

-Now I'm paying some bills, and making sure the mythbox is running correctly. I have a lot of tv to catchup on.

-I've turned the comments back on. So comment away! I'm feeling lonely that no one talks to me anymore...

Posted by Aaron at 5:43 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

Holy Jesus! If you pray hard enough, dreams do come true.

Posted by Aaron at 12:16 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Last nite, after work, Steve and I had 2 pints of very good beer at a local microbrewery, called Prairie Rock Brewing company.
Their Vanilla Creme Ale is so good, it's scary. It tastes like creme soda, not like beer. I could drink a thousand of them. So it's probably good I don't have access to that at home.

Posted by Aaron at 10:06 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Perhaps one of my readers knew this, but that song (one of my favorites done by lagwagon) is, in fact, a cover song. The original was done by Echo and Bunnymen. Who, I heard has a new album that is quite good. I'm going to have to check it out.

Posted by Aaron at 8:21 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

I think I'm getting the stuff I came here to do working. This is good news. Now at least it should mean that I can leave when I'm supposed to.
It's snowing here again. When I left last thursday, it snowed like crazy right as I was leaving, and a plane crashed at the very airport I was at. I'm hoping all the snow is cleared away by friday, when I leave.

Posted by Aaron at 2:12 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

I think I need to lose some weight again. The last couple of weeks of doing nothing but eating out and drinking beer here in Chicago have been hard on my waistline. In an effort to start this, I think I'm going to start blogging what I eat. Maybe it will guilt me into not eating and drinking so much.
But I doubt it.

Posted by Aaron at 12:31 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

Well, the previous 2 weeks of work sucked completley. But I got to come home to have my birthday with my family, go out with my wife to a good comedy show, and play some cards with my friends. I got destroyed by Alfred the suckout king, but I still had a good time.
But now, the fun is over. I leave at noon today to go back to Chicago, where I will most likely be working 12 hour days, and because the project is very Dilbert-esque in nature, it will most likely not be finished by the end of the week, when I have to come back for a wedding.
Good times.

For the picture freaks, I posted all the thanksgiving pictures, and some additional ones.

Posted by Aaron at 6:39 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

So I got back last nite, and before I had even left, they were asking me to come back next week.
It's amazing how insane the schedules can be. No one learns.
We went to the hypnotist last nite at Misty's. He was pretty good. I got talked into going up on stage, despite my protests that it would be a waste, because I knew I couldn't be hypnotized. I've tried before, believe me. The frustrating part was that the hypnotist was thining that I was going under, when in fact, I was no where even close. So that's how real a skill that is.
I don't know. I am always quite skeptical about hypnotism, but I've seen enough random people do some pretty wild things that I can't dispute it.

Today I found out that I will be going back to Chicago on monday. Hooray! Ann's happy about that.

Posted by Aaron at 5:25 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

This is bad news for me. Good news for Vegas
Travelers soon will have the opportunity to get on a plane at Lincoln Airport at 1 p.m., with a pocket full of gambling money and be a big winner or broke at a quarter past two.
I may have to be on that inagural flight.

Posted by Aaron at 4:05 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Oh yes. ABout comments. I love them, please comment away. But there's a new rule. Thanks to the countless idiots who create comment spam, I upgraded to MT 3.2 (remember my post about that? of course you do) and turned on the strictest comment policy. What this means is that in order to post a comment here, you need to create typekey account, and then you can post all the comments you like. This keeps the spam down for me, and then (after you have an account created) you only have to do a one time sign in to comment. I tried it, and it's all working great.

Posted by Aaron at 12:47 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Because it's still funny, it's timely, and I miss my family, so all I do now is go through our pictures (which I apparently don't post enough of).

Abby is clearly saying "You got a problem!?!?!?!?", while Ally is flashing their gang sign.

See that jacket on the chair in the background? That light weather jacket back there? It's currently 12F here in chicago, and that's the only jacket I have here. Good times.

Posted by Aaron at 12:25 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

I'm trying to compile my own year-end "best of" lists.
Things like: best movie, best album, best single, best new restaurant, best beer, and maybe some others.
Sadly, I can't think of many movies I watched that actually came out in 2005, nor any music I listen to that came out in 2005, or even a new restaurant I went to.
So right now, my list consists of:
best beer of 2005: new belgium fat tire.

Hopefully I'll think of more things later and add them.

Posted by Aaron at 9:55 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

I am in suburbia. Namely Chicago. No place has more suburbs, or at least no place I know of.
I'm very hopeful that tomorrow I will finish up my project, (or at least get enough done that I will claim it's done) and then leave.
I borrowed some dvds from a friend at work because I have nothing to do. I went to his place this afternoon and watched the bears beat the packers, but I was really not interested, just looking for something to do.
So I went back to the hotel and watched Daredevil, because I've never seen it. I've always heard it wasn't very good. Those reviews were correct. Mostly a waste of time, but that's what I was looking to do.
Right now, I'm doing what I thought I'd never do again, playing online poker. I do nothing but lose, lose, lose. But I have nothing else to do, and I lose slowly.
Hopefully I will be home soon....

Posted by Aaron at 9:50 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

So. It's Saturday nite, 8pm. What are you doing?
I'm working. I wouldn't necessarily have to, as I've got enough done now that I could stop and get it finished in plenty of time to leave next week. But I know no one here, and I have nothing else to do. I was considering driving to the nearest casino to play some cards, but a big snowstorm has just arrived, and it's snowing heavily now, with a forcast of 3-5" total. So I probably shouldn't go driving around an area I know nothing about, just to play 5/10 hold'em.
Yes, that's right. The closest casino only has 5/10 and 10/20 hold'em. Holy crap. Is everyone around here rich? Friggin Vegas has everything from 2/4 to 50/100. The boats in Omaha are the only live poker around, and it has 3/6.
So I'm not driving an hour in the snow for that.
I guess I have a fun nite of DVDs ahead of me.

Posted by Aaron at 6:27 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

I'm still here. As I described before, certain things needed to get done before I could do any real work. I've been coding things up on a simulator so that when those precursary things were finished, I could "hit the ground running", but you can only go so far with that before you need real hardware to test on.
So of course, one of the things that needed to be finished for me to do at least some testing got finished friday morning. I could have told you that would happen monday afternoon. So now I feel obligated to stay, and try and get at least most of the work I came here to do, somewhat done before I leave. Otherwise, I leave and have accomplished nothing.
So now I come home on my birthday, and that nite, Ann and I, BJ and Shelly, and some other mystery couple are going to see a hypnotist again, only this time it's in Linocln, so that should be cool.
By that time, I'll really looking forward to getting home and doing that.

Posted by Aaron at 11:30 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

This guy has a really funny article on why I'm stupid. The sad part, I can't dispute much of any of what he says, yet I am still guilty of it, and most likely won't change.

Posted by Aaron at 7:32 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)