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Christopher 'Vulpine' Kalley,
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Copyright © 1998-2006

"Better Vulpines through Technology."


"But Officer! The dwarf was on fire when I got here!"


I'm alive... Fri Sep 30 18:50:02 CDT 2005
Mood: exhausted Music of the Day: Firefly on TV
Just a quick note...I survived day one. My brain hurts, alot. ALOT. I learned alot, but still...owowow. *falls over* More as my brain recovers.

Frazzled Fox Thu Sep 29 19:45:22 CDT 2005
Mood: frazzled Music of the Day: Alias on TV
Well, I thought today would be a calm, quiet day. It was, til about 2:30, when the Chief Operating Office of the company asked me to go over to the Network Operations Center and get a 'brain dump from the senior Windows admin'. I get over there after lunch, no admin. Wait for a good while, admin shows, tells me to grab my stuff from my normal desk, I'll be playing admin for the near future if not longer.

The plus sides:
  • Learn new things.
  • Probably real promotion.
  • Off the sales floor.
  • Raise.
  • Chance to show my stuff.

    The negatives:
  • I was comfortable at what I was doing.
  • I probably won't be getting rid of any of my current duties quickly.
  • I haven't done any serious windows foo on a regular basis in months.
  • What if this turns into another "temp" job that never goes away ?

    I'm hoping this is just a chance to show my learning skills, and kick major windows butt. But, I'm afraid that it's going to go very badly. *sigh* I'd like a stressbreak please, pretty please ?

    • Weekday Movies and Weather Thu Sep 29 11:35:06 CDT 2005
    Mood: Ok Music of the Day: Blue Oyster Cult - I Love the Night
    Well, I had fun last night. Me and Amythest went to see Mr and Mrs Smith again at the dollar theater. Still amusing as hell, must get this movie on DVD when it comes out. Came out of the theater, and storm clouds were rolling in. Hurrah for weather changes. Walked out this morning, and hurrah...it's not summer anymore, at least for a few days. Went from 102 to 70 something overnight. Of course, said weather change played havok with my sinuses, but I'll live with the pain, if it gets me cold weather.

    Weekend looks to be busy, not sure on Friday, but Saturday I'm helping The Grim Squeaker move in the AM, then going to see Serenity that night. Sunday is 'take mom to walmart' day. So alot to do, but not the most fun stuff. Oh well, keep me out of trouble and add points to my good karma pool. Next weekend though I'm heading to the Texas Ren Faire down near Houston, at least that was at last planning. I'm taking the Friday before off for the roadtrip, so woo for 3 day weekend and out of DFW roadtrip. Now to get there without killing cow-orkers.

    Weekend Update Mon Sep 26 00:26:28 CDT 2005
    Mood: ok Music of the Day: Thin Blue Line on TV
    Well, I had a rather full weekend. Friday I got out of work and met up with Nymaz and Amythest for dinner then off to the local Improv comedy club to see Jeff Dunham. You've probably seen the guy, he's been doing comedy for a long time, he was one of my dad's favorites. He does various routines with puppets, and is a very talented ventriliquist. Before he got started there was another comedian, who's name I'm blanking on who was rather good. Now opening act comedians tend to not be the best, but this guy was good. Laughed quite a bit, nice warm up for Jeff Dunham. Where I laughed til my lungs hurt. Was an expensive evening, but worth the money.

    Saturday I woke up rather late, I needed the sleep I guess. I lounged around, played UT, then a few of us met up to see The Corpse Bride. It was good, not great, but good. I guess I just had higher expectations. But, the music was fun, the animation was interesting, and the story was nice. So, it's worth seeing unless the idea of marrying the dead really bugs you ;) After the movie some of us went back to Amythest's to watch a Richard Jeni special. Slowly corrupting my friends ;) They enjoyed I believe :) Afterwards I came home, watched a little TV, read, then sacked out.

    Sunday was lazy day, played a little more UT, read, in general felt meh. Sunday blahs suck. Didn't help that I thought I'd screwed up on the finances. Got it all corrected in the end, but the feeling of panic sucked much. Did my usual Sunday evening TV viewing, I'm really enjoying Rome on HBO. Hurrah for history shows. But now it's Monday, bleah. Another workweek of fun and frolics. *sarcasm* Hopefully it will be a nicely quiet week. *Crosses fingers*

    Jinxed it Thu Sep 22 16:24:57 CDT 2005
    Mood: rather annoyed Music of the Day: Blue Oyster Cult - The Siege and Investiture...
    Well, guess what's borking again....crap. Somedays tech just seems out to get me. Well, at least I can use it somewhat. *grumble*

    All the News that's Fit to Print Thu Sep 22 15:52:52 CDT 2005
    Mood: good Music of the Day: Virgin Steele - Agony and Shame
    Well, it's Thursday. We got a hurricane coming our way, but by the time it hits DFW, it will be a tropical storm or less. Not my first storm by a long shot, so no I'm not panicing. My sister is...she called my mom to say "Now if you go stay with Vulpine or $BROTHER, you tell me !!!" My mom lives on the second floor, while both me and my brother live on the ground floor or in a single story house...if it floods, we're going to mom's :) But it shouldn't be a big deal. I'm hitting the store tonight for candles and a good flashlight, and a few food things, just to be safe.

    Had some PDA issues for a while. TsathgGUI, my old reliable Tungsten T decided that my handwritting needed some extra issues. So it added a twitch to any lines going up and down. This makes Graffiti sub in alot of E's for whatever letter I was trying to write. This was rather frustrating. Well today, I decide I'll add some items for the shopping list via the computer. I went to check something and the main "home" button wasn't working. Ok, resync the digitizer one more time...then it works fine. No twitch. Maybe it heard me bitching about it last night over at Amythest's. Oh well, whatever happened, as long as it works. I didn't want to have to cough up a few hundred for a new PDA.

    Not much else. Most of my plans for the weekend are kinda up in the air, depending on weather. Probably make for a very lazy weekend. It's ok, I can use a little lazyness I think.

    Weekend Update Mon Sep 19 11:38:18 CDT 2005
    Mood: Ok Music of the Day: Nightwish - Know Why the Nightingale Sings
    Well, it's monday again. wee...but I had a fairly decent weekend all in all. Friday you've already read about, lots of installing on good ol Shub-Internet. Final report, everything seems to be working fine, no issues to report. Hurrah for things going right. Saturday I woke up feeling mostly spry, got moving and headed down to one of the Half Price Books, this one about 20 miles away in South Ft Worth. Why ? 20% off sale, and I had a little spare cash. And this one tends to have more in the way of Lovecraftian/Weird fiction... especially this week. I made out like a bandit, I got ST Joshi's "H.P. Lovecraft: A Life", aka the best bio for HPL. And while getting bios, I got one for Robert Bloch, the author of Psycho (and many other stories). Guess how he got started, yep...he was one of the youngest members of HPL's writing circle. It's a small world. I also got some Conan pastiche books, including one of the Red Sonja books I was missing. Yay killer redheads with swords ;) Got a few other books that I can't remember the titles of...my brain isn't what it used to be. I do remember getting a small collection (2) of tales that look to be more amusing than horror, hard to explain...I'll go into detail later. They had alot more, but it would have been all repeats of stories or books I had, so I was good.

    After the bookstore, I headed to Walmart, stocked up on gas and groceries for the week. Came home, vegged a little, then met up with Amythest and headed to dinner at Fuddruckers (hamburger place) with Techie and WesM. Had a good fried chicken sandwich. From there we went to Techie's and watched The Transporter. Fun movie, not very realistic, but who cares. The girl was cute too :) That always helps. Came home eventually, watched a little TV and crashed out.

    Sunday I woke up a little late, but since I didn't have plans til that afternoon it wasn't a big deal. Bummed around, watched TV, played UT2004, til it was time to go to the movies. We went and saw Transporter 2. (Big shock, I know.) It was good, same kinda movie, girl wasn't as cute though. Afterwards we went by Half Price Books, so Amythest and Techie could take advantage of the sale...I was good (and poor). After that we watched Rome on tv, then I headed home. With a killer headache...from the movie on my sinuses started getting fuller and fuller, and my head ached more and more...came home, doped myself and generally prayed for someone with a drill to come 'help'. No one did, but it's ok...I woke up today feeling quite a bit better. Well other than the whole work thing...but that's ok...I need the money. :) So that was my fun weekend. Now to get though today so I can go home and crash.

    Final Post on Update Sat Sep 17 00:13:49 CDT 2005
    Mood: accomplished Music of the Day: $40 a day on TV
    Well, Shub is happily running on Fedora Core 4. I need to do a final reboot at some point to update the kernel to current, but that can wait a little while. Final result, it was mostly painless, everything seems to be working as far as I can tell other than apt-get, and Yum seems to have taken it's place nicely. Sound is little off, but that's just configuration I think. Not bad, just had to crank the volume way up to get the same level as pre-update. We'll see what I find that doesn't work over the next few days, but so far...so good.

    Yum Update Fri Sep 16 22:17:19 CDT 2005
    Mood: happy Music of the Day: Mythbusters on TV
    Well, since apt-get is being less than useful, I've switched to using another RPM install app called Yum. It's got quirks I need to learn, but at least it's doing the system updates now. But...I've got a few.

    Transaction Summary
    ===========================================================================
    Install 10 Package(s)
    Update 239 Package(s)
    Remove 0 Package(s)
    Total download size: 416 M
    Is this ok [y/N]: y

    Thank Cthulhu for broadband...

    Shub-Internet Upgrade Fri Sep 16 19:31:06 CDT 2005
    Mood: hopeful Music of the Day: Stargate on TV
    Hey, at some point tonight I'm planning on upgrading Shub-Internet to Fedora Core 4, from Core 2. This should take me a longish while, since my upgrades never go smoothly. ;) But I could be wrong...So while I'm doing that, I'll be mostly offline. I'll have Yahoo messenger online with Yog-Software. And email via webmail. Wish me luck.

    Update: 21:44
    Fedora Core 4 installed fairly painlessly, of course though I have a ton of programs that don't work right, or needs to be tweaked. I've got email, I've got Gaim for chat, I've got Firefox. All should be good eventually.

    Somewhat Better Fox Thu Sep 15 15:14:56 CDT 2005
    Mood: better Music of the Day: Nightwish - Ocean Soul
    Well, after the Wednesday from heck, where I caught up on 2 days of work while wishing that anyone with a power tool would just lop my head off... after that it got better. About 10pm or so last night my headache went back to just stuffy, and I slept. Had fubared dreams, but I slept. Woke up this morning felt mostly better. Not wanting to go slamdancing or get into a nice barbrawl, but I can move my head without wincing. Yay no- headaches. Which is good, cause I've been megabusy today with customer requests and other work related foo, and I get to stay late tonight to do some sales training (as in, train the sales people, not become one). Oh well I need the hours to make up for the time I took off this week. From work, I get to go critter sit for a friend on a business trip, then home... where I should do laundry, but you know what...the heck with it, I'll do it this weekend sometime ;) Maybe. ;)

    Sick Fox Tue Sep 13 17:18:34 CDT 2005
    Mood: sick Music of the Day: Ong-Bak: The Thai Warrior on DVD
    Well guess who's sinuses went ballistic Sunday night. Yep, sick fox...again. Now, besides the feeling that my head is going to explode, I have a sore throat. Meh...I need a new skull. Anyone know any good treppanists to let the evil spirits out. :(

    Not much else going on, watching Ong-Bak: The Thai Warrior on dvd. Pretty impressive martial arts flick. Ok, the dubbed version...well the voice actors are a little...bad. But the fight scenes are very well done, and rather painful looking. Mental note, never be a stunt person in Thailand. It's good if you like martial arts movies, and aren't too concerned with plot or dialog...just a semi connected series of fight scenes. :)

    Hopefully tomorrow I'll feel something close to human so I can go back to the salt mine. Being sick is really doing a number on my mood, going anywhere from fairly happy to bottom of the barrel depression in no time flat. But hopefully, but tomorrow I'll feel almost human, and be back to normal by Friday. Not that anything of much merit is going on this weekend, but still...rather be healthy on my days off ;)

    Weekend Update Sun Sep 11 18:16:30 CDT 2005
    Mood: ok Music of the Day: The Unnameable II on DVD
    Well it was a fairly lowkey weekend. Friday night I got off work, headed over to Amythest's for chinese food and Stargate. By 10pm or so, I was exhausted so I came home, took a hot bath and read Tsathoggua Cycle. The plan was to read one or two stories and crash out. Well, as I'd finish a story...I'd think "Well, I'm not quite tired enough, and that last story was short...one more." Next thing I knew, I'd finished the book, it was 1:30 am and I was ready to zonk out. So I did.

    Woke up the next day, went over to hang out with Amythest again, before going to SugarFae's that night for a dinner party. She was making desserts and prepping homemade wine. So I mostly was reading. Then we headed off to the dinner party. Tacos for dinner, which were very yum. Then we watched the pilot of Firefly, and a Richard Jeni comedy show. From there I went home, and watched the new Bruce Campbell movie, The Man With the Screaming Brain . It was good and cheesy, exactly what the doctor ordered. Afterwards I read a bit more, headed to bed.

    Sunday I woke up mostly on time. Puttered around the house, watched Split Second then I drove up again to Amythest's to deliver juice, she wasn't feeling too good. From there I went to Petsmart to get ferret chow. They had critters for adoption, one very cute kitty...who was VERY skittish. So I got a nice scratch for my troubles. Poor adoption people though I was going to go postal, all I did was ask for a kleenex when I saw I was bleeding more than a bit. Not anyone's fault but my own, poor kitty. After ferret food, I hit Half Price Books, got a few things I've been wanting without breaking my budget (well more than I've already broken it this week). Came home. Felt a little physically off, but I think I'm getting better. Heading out in a while to watch Iron Chef and the mini series Rome in a while. So I should have a fun evening. Then sleep tonight, and starting another work week. Eep. Hopefully it will be calm...and include a nice raise for my 2 year review. *crosses fingers*

    Button Collection Sun Sep 11 11:50:53 CDT 2005
    Mood: amused Music of the Day: Split Second on TV
    I finally hung up my button collection. Got a huge piece of cloth, hung it on the wall and added the buttons. I finished up this morning with this...

    I've been collecting buttons for years, for a while I even was a creative consultant for a friend's button business. So, yeah... I have a few. Nice to have them hanging up again, I've missed having my little circles of insanity.

    It's Here !!! Thu Sep 8 18:03:58 CDT 2005
    Mood: woohoo Music of the Day: Curses of New England on TV
    Guess what came in the mail. Yep, The Tsathoggua Cycle. *happy dance* Not only did I get the book, but I got a $3 Chaos Bucks token from GenCon. Chaosium is good about adding freebies to orders. So, I know I'll be reading alot tonight. *happy dance*

    Happy Anniversary Thu Sep 8 10:57:48 CDT 2005
    Mood: tired Music of the Day: Nightwish - Ghost Love Score
    Happy 2 year anniversary to me, 2 years on the job. How weird how my life has changed in 2 years. Mostly for the better. Go me :) I think I'm going to treat myself to a nice dinner tonight, maybe something else fun. :) Or I might just blow up bots in UT2004 again ;)