NOFX

This week is my first week back to work from a 7 week haitus. A few of the many things I did was backpack on the west coast, go to Canada, backpacked and hiked in NC and parts of the AT and went to one kick donkey bluegrass festival. I slept in a bed a total of 3 nights the entire time. Most was in my tent or hammock and a few were on an air mattress. Having no idea what day it was at any given time was a great feeling. So it's my first week back and I can already feel the place taking my soul. I have been in the office for 3 full days and I have done absolutely nothing. I'm a software engineer, I'd love to have an assignment and put my skills to use. I asked for work today and I was told to look into this one bug.. thats it, extremely lame. I'm also going to be doing nothing but helping out the guys who do all the testing. I felt great being outdoors and in shape, I even rode my mountain bike 50 miles on the new river trail one day, just to see if I could make it. Then I come down here, all my stuff is in storage I'm sleeping on my friends couch and it takes me an hour to get to and from work in rush hour, when it should only take 15 minutes. I've never driven it that stuff.. It totally blows, I don't see how people do it. I had tons of companies get back to me about all the applications I put in. I was informed I was supposed to go to Singapore next week, I wanted to go, so I ended up blowing everyone off.. except Google, I told them I'd get back to them when my vacation was over. I'm moving into one of these furnished extended stays studios for a month. Its right beside work, cheaper than renting a one bedroom, someone comes and cleans the place once a week and there is no power/water bill. I'm not sure what my next move is, but I don't think I can hold out down here much longer. I was thinking wait until the end of the year, let my vacation reset and then roll out with an extra months pay, but I don't know if I can make it. The only reason I came back was because I thought I was going to Singapore next week. For certain reason I got to stay in the area for at least the middle of October and then I'm free game. I wish it wasn't getting cold soon, I think I'd try to hike the whole AT.

I'd get some spinners if I were you.

netflix = 8 bucks a month. cable TV = 80? netflix > cable

FloydFest I had a blast last year camping out. It's smaller, lesser known festival in Southwest Va with some decent bands. I think roughly 15,000 came through over the 4 days last year. My buddies are bailing on me this year, but I'm just going to roll solo.

7969

Thanks a lot for sharing your story Bush. It's kind of inspirational. I'm actually going to be moving my stuff into my elderly grandparents house and spliting the time between staying with them and my father. We have a farm that has been in the family since the 1920's that I've always wanted to put a small cabin on. Since I'm an only child, I want to stay closer to home to make sure everything stays in check. As of now, my only plan is to take my father out to the Pacific Crest Trail. If I am enjoying my freedom, I may go see more of Europe. About 4-5 years ago I got to spend a month or so in various parts of Norway. I'd like to spend a month riding the rail around Europe. There are a few cities within an hour of my home town that I will be looking at for jobs while I'm on break. They aren't huge tech area's, but I'm sure if I keep trying, I can find something. I go to Singapore for work.. I don't really like Singapore and would hate to live there, but travelling to the other side of the world on the companies dime is OK with me. Plus, I get paid about double when I travel. These are all good perks to the job. It's also pretty slack, but I'm completely burned out. I'm not learning anything new and I'm just trading time for dollars. I just got to do something new.

I'm sure a marriage would be an adventure. I've been in plenty of relationships and I have that one relationship where I look back and say that I wished I wouldn't have let her go, so it makes me a little pessimistic about it right now... When I meet the right girl, I'll go down that path. But first, I have a few more things I need to check out solo. I do have tentative plans made up to backpack across Europe. I don't think I'll be able to squeeze it in this round. Just music festivals and hiking. If I do decide to come back to work at the same place. I'll be heading to Singapore almost immediately. Last time I took a side adventure to Malaysia. If they will give me anymore off time without pay, I'm going to do a tour in New Zealand.

OK.. Here I am. 10 months later. I'm still working the same 9-5. The only bonus is that I have about 30k in the bank account and a few more shares in my 401k. I've been doing 3 month leases and this time it ends in July. So here I am again, what to do?? Instead of just walk away from work, I've been talking to management and I've all but officially been cleared to take two months off of work. Unpaid for what vacation I don't have. I'm already in the process of selling what remaining useless stuff I have. When my lease is up, I'll be moving the few essentials into my parents basement w a room/office setup. Part time, I'll be looking for a job in an area of the country where I want to live. I already had a phone interview with Va Tech and hoping for a second. Full time, I'll be mountain biking, hiking and camping. I already got plane tickets to take my dad backpacking on the John Muir trail out in Yosemite. He's in his mid 60's, so that's something I have to do. Other than that, I'll just be hanging with old friends and generally enjoying my summer. I'm leaving my doors open for the possibility of not coming back. Maybe I'll find a better job? Maybe I'll realize that my freedom while being young is worth more than the 9-5? Maybe I'll be ready to come back. Who knows? If do come back, I'm bringing nothing with me, but a car and a blow up mattress. when a man losses everything he is free to do anything I'm ready for an adventure

I still play

I know you said no Youtube. But why not make the youtube video private and only allow access for certain people? Throw an webserver on your machine and send them the link?

a gnarly beard I'm working on. Who else hasn't shaved in two months?

Can't believe no one has mentioned gmote. By far the most useful app for me. Turns your device into a mouse/keyboard for any pc.

It's your floppy drive. Replace that and the power strip will no longer click. Also you might want to contact your hardware vendor and update your ROM.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16824254052&nm_mc=OTC-Froogle&cm_mmc=OTC-Froogle-_-Monitors+-+LCD+Flat+Panel-_-Hanns-G-_-24254052 Had this guy for 3 years maybe? I paid around $600 for it then. I love it. It's also a 16:10 ratio, so you get 1920x1200 instead of 1920x1080.

I'm going to start representing TF again. Sup Sexy.

thanks for the name change

There's only a handful of us around that moved over from the mmmmcs forums btw, I want my name reverted back to the original. Who do I talk to about that?

Went to Malaysia this weekend. I got to visit a small fishing village away from the capital city. 4 of us went to a restaurant on the river where they literally caught the fresh seafood within in a few miles of the place. We had four large plates of food that we all shared. Noodles, crab, egg something, vegetables and rice. Total cost of food and drinks for everyone was about 40-45 ringget. Which is about 10-12 US dollars. Very cheap country, bring cash with you there and you could live like a king.

Took this pic the other night from 57 floors up EDIT* well, kinda realized I posted where I was going a couple weeks ago... enjoy the pic!

Only use synthetic if your starting out with synthetic. Theoretically synthetic oil will keep the inside of your engine cleaner.. less gunk, etc.. At 180k miles, your engine already has the build up of regular oil. Running synthetic now may keep further gunk from building up.. but your engine already has already been exposed to enough regular to not really make any difference. With that said, I don't really care and I run regular oil in my car, because the chances are that something else will out on the car before the engine. In my motorcycle, I do run synthetic since it has always had synthetic in her.

I have the 28" Hanspree, which is basically the same as the Hans-G. I've had it for 3 years and wouldn't trade it for any other monitor. Get a 1920x1200 resolution monitor, not a 1080. The aspect ratio of the monitor makes it a little taller than the 1080 monitors I have seen and I like it much better.

Can't get on the forums at work for while now.. still swing by here, also play cs sometimes when the server is populated. On Monday, I'm leaving for a month long trip in Singapore. Please pray that I will not get taken advantage of by a lady boy.. I've heard some stories.

I've had both ATT and Verizon. I've used both in rural areas and in the city. I've probably had ATT for 3+ years and verizon for about 2 years. Now I'm on Tmobile and since they use the same towers as ATT, my service is just as crappy. The only reason I switched to Tmobile is that I wanted to test out android and no other provider offered an android phone at the time. ATT's service is much crappier outside of the city. You have service along interstates and a great distance outside of the city. If you are venturing out away from the populations, I'd go with verizon any day.

The last time that happened was back in 2002. From that point I always kept my data on a backup drive. What's really crappy is when your C drive is fine and your backup drive fails. <- That happen back in 2004. Hard drives seem to be a little more stable now days.

I don't do stupid things on my bike or at least I think I don't, I enjoy living.. Being aware of my surroundings prevented me getting hit head on. If I hadn't started braking as soon as I noticed the guy first started to cross the double line, I'm pretty sure I would have been toast. I wouldn't have been able to stop in time. I try to always gear, but I don't have a decent jacket right now. I'm shopping for one online. But I do always wear a helmet(we have helmet laws here in Virginia). With all that said, I'm an aggressive defensive driver. I can accelerate, stop, turn much quicker than cars. I can see much more and Im far more aware of whats going on around me. I try to stay away from vehicles as much as I can. I do not like you riding right beside me or right behind me. Chances are, you will be on a cell phone and try to merge into my lane. If you are behind me and haven't given enough room, I'm in constant fear of you running over me. For those of you who don't ride.. please put more room between you and the bike than you would a car. There is nothing I hate more than a car trying to keep up with me. I accelerate to 80 for 10 seconds to get away from the car. I slow back down to our cruising speed of 60 or so and next thing I know, the person is either right behind me or beside me again. Why do people do this? I had some doucher in a silverado tailgate me on my 300 mile trip home. He gave me about 10-15 feet of space while I was doing 60 in a 55. He eventually passed me on a double line. Again, a couple days ago, just riding back and forth to work. I had two separate incidents where I'm in the right lane. A car in the middle lane wants to ride right beside me. They barely get in front of me, they ride there for a while, forget I'm there and then merge into my lane. I'm already expecting this, so it doesn't phase me too much. I just wonder if they feel like a jackass or not when they look in their rear view and see me right on their donkey. Nah, they probably don't. They probably assume I sped up and just wanted to tailgate them. I also had a lady on her cell phone pull out in front of me that day too.. I was just cruising through the work complex roads, doing 35 or so. She's pulling out of the parking lot, she looks right at me and keeps pulling out. When it comes to the dangers of riding, my fear of cagers far outweighs my ability on the motorcycle. I know my limits on the bike and don't do things I'm not capable of. I can't control you not paying attention, so therefore I have to be aggressive or get ran over.