Vincent The Dragon

Nothing much going on..
Schools are not much in the way of fun. Have learned a lot about the machine but after the school is over there is not much to do. We have a Ricoh room at the hotel that has a nice pool table in it and the guys have been meeting there after the class to play a bit and..well..drink beerz. We get free drink coupons and it would be a shame to not use them!

They have done away with the Oak Ace award program so the motivation for getting a perfect score just is not there. All of the people in the class are all of an advanced level of technician (as am I) so for the most part things are rolling along fairly speedily and not requiring much in the way of explanaitions.

Today is the day that “bugs” are inserted into the machines and we are to de-bug them. Supposedly this is to test ones ability to troubleshoot but it is hard to re-create the real world issues you see so these can be a challenge for some…

I think I will log into SL tonight and see what’s going on; don’t want to drink too much tonight as Friday is the final test day and I will have to get up at like 4am to catch my Saturday flight out…not looking forward to that day at all.

Packing for my impending trip to California.

Nothing much going on.

Switched to FirstLook viewer for Second Life - much improved framerates

Still feeling a bit frumpy. Kind of depressed. You know those times when you look back on your life and take notes of what you have done but come up with mostly nothing...Seems all i can dwell on is the fact that it has been mostly lonely and in pain and now that i am in semi-remission i still cant shake the feeling that it may be too late for me to try...

i hope i can manage to get another Oak Ace award for this school. i have two and i don't think anyone in the company has managed to get three. You get those when you ace the class.

I don't know, just haven't been on top of my game this week.

Getting ready for a week long trip to California to go to a vendor school.
Those are never fun. Nobody has cars that are in the hotel, after spending 8 hours in class then having 1.5 to 2 hours of reading assignments + homework means we usually just set in the bar. That and the schools/hotel is not anywhere touristy.

Nero7 decided to lockup to the point is having to pull the plug on the system.

Ububtu live cd will not boot system for install.

Western Digital boot cds (three versions) will not boot in my system to remove the sector 64 offset so windows will see more than 33 gig of a 110 gig drive.

25 year old wallpaper refusing to be removed to the point of might have to pull the drywall down and start fresh.

Clothes dryer just blew the bearings on the drum can.

Did not win the lottery.

Have a massive headache.

Setting in SL, nothing going on...

So, here I sit…four hours stuck to a chair in the infusion ward getting my Remicade treatment. I was hoping to come up with something a bit more creative….however my brain seems to not want to co-operate….Nope I got nothing.

Oh well, I guess I will expound upon why I am here. Remicade is an Imunomodulater (big word). It is a modified protein grown from a combination of human and mouse proteins that acts as an Anti-TNF-A inhibitor. Anti TNF-A is one of the trigger cells that make your immune system attack whatever it needs to. People with Crohns have an over abundance of Anti TNF-A and with nothing for the immune system to fight, it starts attacking stuff it normally should not. In Crohns people’s cases, it attacks something in the gastro-intestinal track and causes problems there along with causing some systemic problems like arthritis and joint pain, etc. Remicade sticks to the spots Anti TNF-A would normally so the level of TNF-A actually super increases and tricks the body into stopping production of the protein.

I have been on Remicade treatments since it first came out…does some math…seems like it has been ten years at least. I was DX with Crohns about 18 years ago now. I was in the top severe range; barely able to function with handfuls of pills and lots of rest and pain…lots of pain. It took a long time to get to were I am now; mostly normal and ready to move on with my life but since it took me out of the loop socially during those years one would normally explore those avenues; I can’t help but feel a bit retarded in the areas of interpersonal stuff on top of being quite shy. I am trying to work on it; but I can’t help but feel that my window of opportunity for finding a mate has passed me by. You reach an age were your lack of experience is just weird and since I don’t have any real friends I don’t get exposed to social situations anyway. I am not the kind of dragon that goes out on his own; I need someone to drag me along with them…

Actually, the discussion last night in SecondLife I was participating in kind of hit on it a bit. The discussion was about going to the movies. I was like, well I got a big tv and a nice sound system, so like why bother. The response was to go out with friends and have fun. I responded that the only friends I have are known only to me as a collection of 0’s and 1’s…the discussion ended with that…

I think I will stop now; I seem to be depressing my self. Maybe I’ll try to take a nap; I seem to be tired lately, not sleeping well.

Been sick - nasty head/chest cold.
Getting better.

Spent time rebuilding computers. moved my main workstation to the HTPC, moved the HTPC to mom, moved moms to the bench test, moved bench test to trash.

Have no plans this year end.

There is a party in Luskwood, i'll be there.
Im there now and its fun tonight
gotta go bye

Well, holidays went well with various family members. The gifts i gave went over well. Had a good time at my dads, i brought Munchkins card game along some of us played and had fun.

Lets see, I got Dragonology, a neat little 3D laser etched glass cube with a cute fairy in it, a really nice hooded jacket, some gourmet coffee with chocolate , about 1/4 of a cow in meat, and a real nice 14.2volt drill with a screw shooting adjustable clutch (this was the only thing on my 'list' as it were)

Brought my present to my self, the computer over to mom and bills(step dad). He is a computer guy like me which is great. Showed him the computer (named Big-N-Blue). Went online to SecondLife to see what it looked like and to show mom N bill. Man i need a better monitor; bill has a 19inch lcd and i am still working with 16inch crt's. SL looked even better on a bigger monitor. Mom and bill are amused by SL and don't understand the furie part...but they only know what they have seen on t.v. and don't have a clue. Neither can begin to grasp the therian aspect of myself and i wish they would stop digging about my sexuality...no mom i am not gay, but i am a bit bi so if that makes me gay in your eyes then so be it. Besides i have not had to opportunity to explore many sexual avenues yet...Thats the depressing part of the holidays, being around family that all have mates, boy/girl friends...i really really want that type of companionship and have no idea how to get it and/or are too afraid to...

Wow, this entry has taken an odd turn...

Anyway, the one thing i got that i did NOT want is this chest cold..

well my coffee cups empty, i think i will stop now. Hope everyone had a good holiday

o.k waiting for the computer i bought to show up....5 days ago the
delivery date shows the 21'st. and the package is still in California.

Late the 19'th I see all of a sudden a bunch of entries on the
tracking site that i have been checking 3 times a day and the package
is now to be delivered on the 20'th. A day earlier and i have to be
somewhere that night. I wait at home after work as late as i can then
off the where i needed to go. 1/2 hour latter, they attempt delivery.

Called this morning and ask if it will be re-attempted today.
answer: yes
O.K. now this is a residence, will it be delivered after 5?
answer: yes, they deliver until 9.

Great. I get home early, just in case, at 4 and find another door
sticker. They tried at 1. Called and asked what the deal is.

"Oh we cant give you a time"
So..you cant properly track or give me a day you will deliver and you
cant give me a window of delivery less than 14hours...you suck

Now i will have to take a personal day tomorrow and set here and
wait...you watch they wont show until 7pm.
>:(

almost done with my holiday shopping. just a few little bits to pick up; and just in time.

I went ahead with the computer purchase. Final specs as follows:
Intel Core2 Duo E6300
160 Gb Sata drive
2 x 512 MB DDR2 pc 6400
Asus P5N32SLI-SE_DLX

I think I have assembled all that parts I want so I can put together myself in SecondLife. I am currently using the Luskwood Creatures yellow Dragon. I will use that head and wings with a recolored Red Fox body using a skunk body shape and adding Chester the ringtail's feets along with a simple swish tail to build me into a tan/sand colored dragon.

Version two will have to wait until I get a better understanding of scripting and prim building. I want to be able to fold the wings a bit more when on ground as they kind of get in the way a bit and the head needs a bit of work. I like the hair but I have no need of all the spikes and horns, or at least not quite so big.

I have 'waisted' tons of hours in there already. Had a few good conversations and such. Seems like I mostly hang out in Luskwood.

still getting trackback spam.
deleted entries.
checked B2Evolution and I am not the only one with this issue.
installed temp or perm fix by turning off trackbacks.

I was being spamed as i was filtering them out...more kept popping up.
Dirty Bastards.

Grrrr
Don't they know NOT to piss of a Dragon

Well, I started playing it...now my soul has been sucked into the place.
Yep, I'm addicted.

One thing has become painfully obvious..I need a new computer.
The one I have has served me well over the past few years but you can only go so far with a socketA Athlon mobo.

Actually a good high endish rig is just under $1200; which is not too bad for a mostly complete system. All of my hand built rigs of the past have all run in the $2000 range.

Looking at a Sckt775 Core2 E6300 + Asus P5N-SLI + GeoForce 8800 GTS.
Not the total top of the top, but I think it will be good and have room for growth..

Oh, my SL name is VincentTheDragon Wei. Come find me

Looks like I have had my first spam attack. nothing much just 15 trackbacks. Updated the spam filter...

I think everybody on my Holiday list this year is mostly getting gift cards. I'm just not in the mood for shopping this year. I know gift cards are fine and all but I'm one of those kinds of Dragons that like to get a gift that has some personal meaning behind it.

(interrupted by fur babies, had to play for a bit)

...Where was I...

Well at least I will still have the gift tags. I always print out gift tags with dragon themes on them. Although the recipient may not know it, the Dragon image in the tag has something to do with my perception of their personality or have some kind of meaning; if only to me.

I don't think I will be getting into World of Warcraft, the research I have done so far..it just doesn't seem like the type of thing I want to do...I have started researching Second Life instead.

Uneventful week, nothing much happened other than the temperature going from mid 60's to 30 overnight

Had a strange dream last night. Dreamed that MissT was killed in a icky manner by a large limb that fell out of a tree. I spent this morning harvesting a tree outside. It's been dead for a few years now, the recent storms did break the top out of it and i was getting a bit low on firewood. I did not realize the connection until just a bit ago when i was taking a break and playing with MissT who was savagely attacking my shadow.

Odd, i hope its not a premonition, i get them from time to time in the form of dreams.

Well, thats last of the Thanksgiving Holiday family visits are over...
lets see, went to Dads last weekend, went to moms thanksgiving day, had brother, brothers girl friend and her grandson today.

Everybody in family seems to be well

May have found a home for the kitten (I named her MissT) Pam (brothers girl friend) wants her.

I have decided that my Holiday present to myself will be a Nintendo Wii. I ordered the component cable today, as soon as is ships I will pick up the Wii.

I got a lot of yard work done this weekend, HUGE pile of leaves; like HUGE man!

Changed the outdoor Dragons costume.

Read more »

I has working on something when *poof* spontaneous re-boot.
Turned the compy off then on and it would not come on...stuck my hand in case and cpu heatsink was cherry red! The cpu fan is slowing down after being on for 12 to 24 hours... I have never had a fan fail that did not give some audible cues. I picked up a new heatsink as the one I use has a fan size that seems to not exist.

Going to my fathers this weekend for an early thanksgiving gathering.

Had an interesting problem at work. I had a machine that the customer broke something that required me to disassemble the machine down to a point that you are not normally in need of. Technical support said "Um we don't know how to get to that part, print out the parts manual so you know how to put it back together"

So, I had the machine picked up and brought to the shop. My team leader and the other techs were dazed and amazed that I had the machine in a pile of parts in about 1 hour. I had to remove about 200 screws and take the inner shell out of the machine and separate it from the base frame to get the the part in question. All apart it did not look anything like a copier, more like a pile of rubble. It took me another 2 hours to put it back together. No parts left over and it works great now. Rather proud of the accomplishment, even my team lead voiced that he would have had trepidations about taking something that far apart and felt confident that it would still work.