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Christopher 'Vulpine' Kalley,
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Copyright © 1998-2006

"Better Vulpines through Technology."


"Why Is 'Abbreviation' Such a Long Word?"


Btw... Mon Oct 31 19:54:47 CST 2005
Mood: paganish Music of the Day: 13 Ghosts on DVD
Btw...before I forget, Merry Samhain/Halloween/All Hallows Eve/etc to you all, and may this year be calmer than the last.

Getting Back to Baseline Mon Oct 31 17:49:52 CST 2005
Mood: tired Music of the Day: Animal Planet on TV
Well, after much gnashing of teeth and banging of skulls, I've got my windows game box setup as more than just a gaming box. I moved the DVD rom and CD RW from Shub to the Windows box, as well as the 19" monitor. Which I need to replace soon, it's very dim. Never noticed before, until I played WoW for a second. I'm going to move Shub's harddrive to ATAthoth in the near future to copy files from it, but since I have disk to disk backups setup, I could copy over most anything I needed, I probably only lost a few hours of emails all in all. Not bad for a massive system failure.

Since I changed my Windows box rather dramatically, and it's going to be my primary workstation for at least the near future, I decided he needed a new name. So, say hello to Zhothaqquah. For the non-Mythos fanatics out there, Zhothaqquah is the Hyperborean variation of Tsathoggua. Hard to pronounce either way ;) I don't know what I'm going to do with Shub...I've been thinking about making my default box a Windows box, I've been gaming alot more than I used to, and I've been thinking of a dual head Windows box, with the game in one monitor, and my assorted chat/mail/webbrowsing programs in the other. I'm planning on using the remains of Shub to build a new Linux server/workstation. Mostly for email, terminal windows, and filestorage, but probably keep a few X-windows apps running as well. We'll see...for now I'm back and workable, and we'll see what goes from here.

Shub-Internet Down Mon Oct 31 14:28:03 CDT 2005
Mood: Frustrated Music of the Day: none
Just to add to my stress levels, Shub is offline. We had a power outage at home, and it seems to have done evil things to my linux box. Won't post, looks like a fried motherboard/cpu. *sigh* So, I spent the day (I'm home sick btw) trying to bring her back to life and then setting up the fileserver to act as a re placement box. *grumble* I so did not need this today. *sigh*

Short Haired Weirdo Wed Oct 26 22:09:03 CDT 2005
Mood: amused Music of the Day: Bad Company - Bad Company
Well, not really...but my hair is alot shorter. Went from lower back length to a little past the shoulders. I had a ton of split ends and tangles, this cleaned them up nicely. It's going to take a while to get used to it being this short, but it works. And yes ladies, there's still plenty to play with :)

Addendum Mon Oct 24 01:35:45 CDT 2005
Mood: still tired Music of the Day: The Mutton Birds - Don't Fear the Reaper
Ok, thinking things though more, while not making it all better, at least has me less grumpy. That and babbling with Techie . It's good to have a friend who understands you...even if you're talking in sed and variable referencing ;)

Besides insane friends, there's a few other things that are worth mentioning as good for fox cheerups.

  • Order of the Stick: Laugh out loud funny, especially if you ever played D&D seriously.
  • The Unspeakable Vault (of Doom): Laugh out loud funny if you've ever read HPL, or talked to me for more than 30 min ;)
  • World of Warcraft: well, once I replaced a 256 meg memory stick with a 512, it now doesn't crash every 15 min.
  • My psychic mp3 player, for playing Rob Zombie's "Living Dead Girl" while playing the above WoW as a female Undead Warrior.
  • My insane friends, especially Amythest , Nymaz, SugarFae and the above mentioned Techie. Thanks for dealing with me this weekend, and keeping me from hiding in a corner thinking bad thoughts.

    Ok, on that upbeat note, I think I'm going to try to sleep...ugg. 6 hours before wakeup time. This is gonna suck like a hoover.

    • Fox Musings Mon Oct 24 00:48:42 CDT 2005
    Mood: tired Music of the Day: Manowar - Hail and Kill
    Ok, I just tried twice to write something, and both times I came out sounding in my ears like a whiney teenager. "Oh, woe is my life, everything is dark and gloomy." Meh...I hate when I feel like this. I know what would make me feel better, but it would end up causing me more grief that I've got now. Yes, I'm being vague, neener neener. :P You might know, you probably don't. This is that whole playing things close to my chest thing. I'm good at that.

    Ok, for those who are probably wondering if they're going to see my name on the evening news for either climbing a watertower with a rifle, or running though a shopping mall with a sword...I'm not feeling too violent. Say thank you to World of Warcraft as a nice outlet for any aggressive feelings. Mainly I just don't see alot to look forward to in the next few months, and quite a few things to dread. Maybe it will pass, maybe it won't. Oh well.

    Yep, still whiney...but I'm tired of trying to write something more upbeat. Screw it. I'm allowed my share of whiney posts.

    Good Dreams Sat Oct 22 11:18:30 CDT 2005
    Mood: better Music of the Day: Mythbusters on TV
    Well, after my less than stellar day yesterday, I expected some vaguely anxious dreams. Instead, I dreamed I was working at Google's new Dallas office. Which was laid like some weird open air maze...with computers and offices. And yes, it included the famed Google cafeteria with free food and gourmet chefs. I dreamed I was working my tail off, not quite sure what I was doing...some kinda of programming work. Weird. But good.

    Lets see, last night I was in a less than great mood, but I was good and I didn't decide to hide at home. A bunch of us decided to go to a local schools haunted hayride, but when we got there we found out they weren't running it for insurance liability reasons. Poo. So we decided to go to dinner instead. Btw, we = Amythest, Nymaz, SugarFae, and Techie. Me, Nymaz and Sugarfae tried to be good and not talk WoW all dinner. ;) Afterwards we headed towards our various homes, where I fired up WoW...I really need to upgrade my RAM, 512 megs just doesn't cut it. But, if I stay out of the crowded cities, it goes okish. So I see my plans til I can upgrade the ram to 768 or 1 gig. I played for an hour or so, gained a level and headed to bed, where I started reading from one of my collections of HPL stories. Been a long time since I sat down and read though all of the HPL stuff. So should keep me reading for a week or two.

    Today I'm heading to the Texas State Fair with the above crowd. Hurrah for friends. Btw, thanks guys for listening to me vent last night, it meant alot to me. But, for now...I need to clean, I've let this place get way too messy. Laters gators.

    Well, that sucks. Fri Oct 21 23:20:45 CDT 2005
    Mood: annoyed Music of the Day: Rush - Big Money (live)
    Well, guess who's not getting promoted to admin at work. I guess the other dozen or so jobs I do in the course of a week is more important. *grumble* I'm very unthrilled with this, I won't go into details how unthrilled though. Oh well. At least I'm not on call anymore.

    Post Birthdayness Tue Oct 18 21:00:13 CDT 2005
    Mood: better Music of the Day: $40 a Day on TV
    Well, I survived my birthday. Bed last night and I slept rather deeply. Woke up this morning, and heading my butt into work. But, before I go...I make a small Amazon order. My mom trys to understand me, but when it comes to birthday and xmas gifts she's given up trying, and hands over cash. So, I turned the cash into an order for a pair of Mythos books that are out of print. Now to wait on Amazon shipping, but I can wait. I'm patient... ish. Work was ok, I didn't stay all day, I was exhausted when 2-3 pm rolled around, and I was caught up on my day's work, even with the day off. So I came home, and reinstalled WoW. I've been having random lockups on a fairly regular basis, and so I tried a non money fix. It didn't work, but oh well. From talking to a few wowites, I need to upgrade Yog-Software's memory from 512 to at least 768, though 1 gig would be better. Maybe in the future, depending on the budget. After much install foo, I went to be a good ferret roomie and cleaned out their cage. Not fun, but I have happy weasels so that's good. From there I showered and cleaned up, and back on WoW. Probably will play for another crash or two, then crash myself.

    Maybe tomorrow I'll get my report for the rest of my birthday weekend. Depends on how busy work is.

    And yet more crap... Mon Oct 17 20:48:12 CDT 2005
    Mood: sad Music of the Day: nothing
    And this day just gets worse. Was suppost to go out to dinner with a friend of mine. Get a call, she fell and hurt her ankle in the Walmart parking lot. She thinks it's just twisted, no big deal. Save by the time I get there it's hurting more than just a twist. We head back to said Walmart so she can report the accident, go home, order dinner. After a while she decided to go to the doc-in-a-box, but since I'm running on a few hours of sleep she got another friend to drive her. I hope she's going to be ok. I'm going to go to bed in a sec, let this rotten damn day be over.

    Happy *grumble* Birthday Mon Oct 17 10:46:03 CDT 2005
    Mood: annoyed Music of the Day: nada
    Well, my birthday hasn't been the best so far...stayed up late playing WoW, fun. Getting called by work at 4am because a server I'm not in charge of and don't have access to is down. Bad. Staying up til 6am helping with said box, worse. Getting multiple calls about other servers acting up...even worse. Going to work, on my day off, on my birthday to fix network foo and servers, very worse. Now I'm home, and I'm jittery as fuck right now. It's going to be a while before the adrenaline goes out of my system...and then, I'll do a nice job screwing up my sleep schedual worse. No zoo for me today, I'm too tired and it's going to be in the 90's today. So *tosses that idea in the trash* I hope my superstition about how you spend your birthday as a reflection of the coming year doesn't come true this year, otherwise...it bodes very unwell.

    Happy Spawning Day to Me Mon Oct 17 00:09:19 CDT 2005
    Mood: awake Music of the Day: World of Warcraft
    Well, as of 9 min ago I turned 33. Hurrah for me. :)

    Ok, I accepted the crack pipe Sun Oct 16 17:57:17 CDT 2005
    Mood: good Music of the Day: History Channel on TV
    As an early bday gift to myself, I picked up World of Warcraft today. I finally decided I needed a new addiction. I'm patching it now, and I'll probably be playing tonight at some point. I already talked to The Grim Squeaker about which server and I'll probably be playing on Feathermoon. No, I don't know what I'll be playing yet ;)

    Glad I have tomorrow off, since I bet I'll be up late tonight :)

    Work Update Wed Oct 12 22:14:47 CDT 2005
    Mood: up and down Music of the Day: A-Ha - The sun always shines on TV
    Well, work hasn't changed much. Still doing the Shared Windows Admin job on top of my original jack-of-all-trades job. This has taught me two valuable lessons.

  • That I can multitask like a muthafscker...as long as I don't think about what I'm doing...the second I ponder what's on my plate, it goes back to overwhelming.
  • That working in the Network Operations Center = tons less distractions, in fact if I go back to my old job duties, I'm going to push to stay in the NOC. Doubt it will happen for lack of space, but you never know.

    Today was a milestone day, first day I went in and instead of feeling overwhelmed, I was just whelmed. Had some hard issues, worked out most of them without loosing my temper or wanting to say the hell with it. I have about 3 projects in pending/pondering mode. A new shared hosting server, which is pretty much done, I just need to tie it into the network. I also want to build a internal fileserver for the addon softwares and stuff we put on servers or use in the data center or tech floor. We've been stashing this stuff in various locations across the network, and it could be better organized. Thinking a Fedora box with Apache for a webserver to share the files, and ssh access limited to me and the other admin. So not just any file gets added...funny, both of us use Linux workstations to admin Windows servers. Oh well, it works. Last project is another new shared server for a remote location. So I'm working on how to build our hosting enviroment in a smaller footprint, without access to the local network resources (backups, database servers, domain controller), while still keeping it responsive. So I'll be playing, as soon as I get the hardware. Plus add in my usual job duties and whatnot and the next few days should be BUSY. Then off for 3 days, then Tuesday will be a scramble fest. Oh well, I deserve my bday off.

    Still no news on if this move is permenent, or if they plan on hiring a new admin in the near future. I'm not stressing that just yet. Too much on my plate too often, but I see me having a long talk with HR in a few weeks to point out what all I'm doing, and hope it goes somewhere well. Plus, showing how much I truely rock might go a long way...we'll see. But, like I said...today I felt like an admin, instead of someone thrown to the wolves. Let's see if it lasts.

    • TRF Weekend Mon Oct 10 21:59:51 CDT 2005
    Mood: good Music of the Day: History Channel
    Well, here is that post I was talking about. Friday me and the Ufies gang piled into a rented minivan and drove south towards Houston. 7 of us, we were kinda crammed into place, but it beat trying to drive solo. Took about 4 hours to get to Houston, we were staying with some local friends. Got there, got arranged, and pretty much passed out.

    Saturday we got up, waking up in a strange room was well....strange, but I got over it. Got showered, got dressed. Most everyone was going in garb, not I. I haven't been doing garb to faires in a while now. I did wear my Esoteric Order of Dagon shirt...it's not ren, but it's fun. I do want to do garb again someday, when I have half a clue what I want to wear ;) We piled into the vans and off we went. Took about an hour to get from our host's place to the fairegrounds. Got in, saw the Throw Up juggling show and laughed our asses off. From there we shopped a little, and then off to the The Bed Bob Show. Now that was hysterical as well. I've loved Bob (not that way) for years, and it never seems to get old to me. Plus for an old dead guy, he has good taste in girls. ;) After Bob, we split up to do more shopping and see a fencing show called 'To the Hilt', which was funny, but not as good as Throw Up or Bob. Did some more shopping, actually bought something...an Xmas gift for Nymaz. I also picked up a fairly nice sword for $10 (I love the TRF pirate shop, cheap deals that are actually good) and a mini flask with a green celtic knot on it. I'm a happy camper for the loot I got. Eventually we ran down, and headed back to our hosts' place for dinner and lounging. We made sandwiches, and sat around and talked about everything and anything. Cian, one of our hosts, is one of my favorite people to just sit and talk to, he's as much of a fan of biblical history and the Grail theories and whatnot as I, so we can babble about Masons, Templars and whatnot for hours. Finally we all crashed out around 2am. I had some rather nasty dreams...woke up from them, had breakfast (yay waffles) and finally packed up to head back to DFW. Another sardine can trip...but not too bad. Got back into town around 6pm, and I got dropped off around 7:15 or so and greeted by some needy kitties and ferrets. :) And 3000 emails from work. :( Unpacked, cleaned up a little and was in bed fairly early. And again with the bad dreams...including one about New Year's eve. We were driving towards Dallas (I'm assuming the 'we' was the Ufies crew) and it was just about mid night...the clock counted down, and at midnight...Dallas exploded in a nuclear fireball. Now that was a shocking wakeup. *thud* Went back to sleep, woke back up, got ready and headed to work where I was swamped most of the day. After a 10 hour day I finally wrapped up and headed home. I still have a ton of things to do, but most of the immediate stressors are done. So I'm happier. Now to get though the rest of the week...then...I turn 33. :)

    Home Sun Oct 9 20:05:30 CDT 2005
    Mood: tired Music of the Day: silence...
    Home safe from TRF, had a good time, will go into detail later/tomorrow/whenever. I'm dead tired.

    This Weekend Fri Oct 7 14:52:27 CDT 2005
    Mood: Squamous Music of the Day: none
    Btw, if you're in the Portland OR area this weekend, check out THe HP Lovecraft Fi;m Festival. I wanted to go, but I just couldn't figure out how to afford it. Next year though I think I'm going to make it somehow. Yay films with tentacles ;)

    Babblings while getting ready Fri Oct 7 14:28:55 CDT 2005
    Mood: babbly Music of the Day: TV show on the 7 wonders of the ancient world
    I'm spending today getting ready for TRF. I've gone to the store, I've packed clothes (having been taught to pack by my brother and his partner helps...they used to backpack across France, and could pack like nobody's business), gotten cash, came home. I'm looking forward to the trip, I need the break. Nice to be off work today, though I expect Monday to be pretty hectic playing catchup. (Or mustard). I woke up and thought I was late to work, then the harddrive spun up and I remembered I was off work. Yay. Besides getting ready for the trip, I've read a bit of one of my favorite Lovecraftian books, Nightmare's Disciple. It's a cross between a serial killer novel and a Mythos tale. Lots of backstory about the cultist-killer and how he got into worship of the Great Old Ones. Plus, there is a horror bookshop in the story that's the inspiration of my dream bookstore, The Dreaming Toad. *grin* Someday, someday I'll be out of tech and I'll be dealing in weird books. Woo. But the book is alot of fun with an interesting mix of real and made up backstory to keep a fan interested.

    Speaking of scattered weirdness... "Catholc Church no longer swears by truth of the Bible". Wow...and I thought with NewCatholicPope (I still can't remember his name, it will take me years to not of JP2) we'd see more of a move toward an old style Catholic Church.

    Well, I'm mostly packed. Have drugs, have clothes, have books (besides Nightmare Disciple, I also have a Conan novel, and the 2nd in the Kushiel's Dart series, in case my tastes go from horror to adventure or historical BDSM fantasy *wink*). I also have packed my pillow, some chocolate for the people hosting us, and Skippy the Plush Cthulhu. So I'm ready, I think.

    On a different subject (told you this was random) I'm turning 33 in a week and 3 days. Sometime the previous weekend I'm thinking of a small lunch/movie get together with some of my friends, Monday, my actual birthday I'm off work. Probably will spend it doing something special. I'm thinking museums or the zoo. As much as I love time with my friends, especially the above places, going alone has it's own pleasures. I can sit and watch one animal for an hour if I wish, or hop around like a lemur on crack. :) Need to see if the local Omni has anything special for that day. Hmm, Volcanos of the Deep Sea ...I think we have a winner. *grin* I also need to plan for time with my Mom, and with Amythest. We have a tradition of spending each other's birthdays together, so we'll see how the schedualling foo goes. Btw, not that I expect gifts, or that anyone has to get me anything...but if you're so inclined I do have a few wishlists ;) Again, you don't have to, but just in case. *wink*

    Ok, enough babbling...time to post this. :) See ya when I get back.

    It's been One Week...(almost) Wed Oct 5 22:14:34 CDT 2005
    Mood: tired Music of the Day: Something about cars on TV
    Well, tomorrow will be 1 week of pseudoadmining. It's going...ok. I'm still feeling rather whelmed, but alot of my old work load is slowly getting shifted to other people. I'm rather tired, hoping I sleep tonight. I know alot more after a week, and I'm more comfortable with doing what I don't know, I can learn and fast. So we'll see.

    Tomorrow is my last day of the week, Friday I'm off...heading to TRF. So, a 3 day weekend to let my brain rest and veg. Next week is well, a week. WE'll see what happens, hopefully nothing too insane though. Then next weekend is my birthday...and another 3 day weekend. Yep, taking my birthday (Monday the 17th) off. Not sure what I'm doing, but it will be fun.

    Wish me luck, I'm gonna need it :)

    The Few, the Proud, the Weird... Mon Oct 3 20:41:15 CDT 2005
    Mood: Fnord Music of the Day: Show on secret societies on TV
    Well, it was an odd weekend. Friday after work I was rather stressed out. Worries about work, wondering about the future. I tried to enjoy hanging out with some friends, but I really wasn't in the mood for it. Nothing that my friends did or didn't do, I just had a brain full of thoughts that were spinning around. Came home, went to bed rather early, since the next day was going to be busy.

    Saturday I woke early to help The Grim Squeaker move. Got there, helped finish up packing, loaded the truck fairly quickly, and off we went. After a stop for food by me, Nymaz and Squeaker's brother, we got to his new place (nice.) and unloaded. Amythest ran the unloading, made it very organized and for once, I didn't do bad things to my knee with the stairs. Impressive for me, I usually hurt like hell after a move. Once all was said and done, we made our way to the movies. Specifically, to see Serenity. Don't worry, no spoilers. I liked the movie alot, but some things I really didn't like. Personally, I prefered the TV show over the movie, but it was good. I also got to meet some new people, some friends of Techie and a member of the D/FW Ufies List. So it was a good time. After the movie we went to a place called Cafe Brazil where I had a pretty good BLT sandwich. But after food, I was so SO tired, and I wasn't the only one, so we went our ways and I headed home to crash out.

    Sunday was a Sunday...I as planning to take mom to Walmart, but as sore as I was, I didn't want to do anything but slump. Mom understood, I explained the work foo going on. She helped me destress about some of my worries. Afterwards I pretty much just vegged out the rest of the day, while my brain went to tapioca. I couldn't even remember my pin # for my bank account when I went to balance the books. I ended up passing out early that night (for me on a Sunday).

    Today I woke up rather frazzled still, got ready for work, got there and got busy with stuff. And funny, I kicked major butt, finished off a number of issues that cropped up over the weekend, got more comfortable with the idea of working in the NOC, and in general felt better about the changes. Tomorrow I get to learn how to build the big end servers, before I leave work early to take a friend in for eye surgery. So, gotta learn fast. And Friday I'm leaving town to go to the Texas Ren Faire. Hurrah for TRF. So, this should be a good week. *Crosses fingers*