Bryan's Weblog of Stuff

Recently...
My 2023 Year in Books
I Believe
Mount Removable Drives in WSL2
What I’m Listening To
My 5-Star Rated Books From 2018
My 2018 Year in Books
Books section of the site, I love to read. I read a ton as a kid, but that diminished quite a bit as an adult. Over the past few years, I’ve started reading more, including 52 books in 2017." class="sidenavlink">My 2017 Year in Books
Cutting The Cord, One Year Later
We Cut The Cord!
DIRECTV NOW Update

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Monday, October 29, 2001

New Digs
Really digging our new digs...nice and close to work (mine at least), as well as all kinds of other cool stuff - museums, IMAX, zoo, botanical gardens, neighborhood cafes, legendary bbq, etc.

Oh, and I had forgotten how much I enjoy a high-speed connection...the instant gratification of it all...yes!

By Bryan at 8:52 PM , in In General - Permalink
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Tuesday, October 23, 2001

Moving Time, Again
We are moving out of our temporary housing and into a townhome. No, the house hasn't sold, but the friends lease at the place where we've been staying is almost up.

I will have highspeed internet there and might be relocating the server to our new location. So, FYI, there could be some downtime in the next couple of weeks.

By Bryan at 2:30 PM , in In General - Permalink
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Sunday, October 21, 2001

Polls Are A Farce
Texas was ranked #5 and lost a hard-fought, close game to #3 ou and drops 6 spots to #11 in the AP poll. #4 Oregon loses a shootout to unranked Stanford and drops 7 spots to #11 in the AP poll. Does this seem right to you? It doesn't seem right to me. It will be interesting to see what happens when the polls come out after this coming weekends games, when #2 ou or #3 Nebraska will be handed their first loss of the season. I bet anyone willing, that regardless of who loses, they will not fall out of the top 10. In fact, assuming that Texas takes care of business against Missouri, I bet that they loser does not fall below Texas, which has worked their way back to #7 just barely behind Florida. Florida...there is a team that was #1 in the land and lost to an unranked team. They fell 6 spots to #7. So I just can't figure out how in world Texas barely loses to a higher ranked team and end up where they do, while other teams in similar positions completely bomb to unranked teams and don't fall farther back?

F*ck the pollsters. Give me a playoff system.

By Bryan at 8:45 PM , in Sports - Permalink
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Ducks Shot Down
Wow, Stanford came back and beat Oregon. How did I miss that final score last night?

Texas should check in at #7 in both polls...I don't think they will jump Florida, but that was a dominating performance of a very good Colorado team - on national TV.

Now that Oregon has a loss, I will root for them to knock off UCLA. Also time to root for Nebraska as they face ou next this Saturday. I still hold out hope for Texas and a national title. A longshot, I know, but you never know. ou loses to Nebraska, UCLA loses to Oregon, Virginia Tech or Miami lose at the hand of the other, Florida faces 4 top 20 teams in their final 5 games. So, with a little help, the season could wind down with Texas worked their way into the Big 12 Title game against an undefeated or one loss Nebraska game (assuming they beat ou, they still must face CU and K-State). Most likely one other team will be undefeated - Miami or Virginia Tech. Let's say Texas beats Nebraska in the Big 12 Title game, they would be a front runner of a group of 3 or 4 one loss teams to face the lone undefeated team in the Rose Bowl. It could happen.

By Bryan at 11:45 AM , in Sports - Permalink
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Saturday, October 20, 2001

Wild, Wild Big 12
Go figure...

Kansas State loses to ou by 1 point.
Kansas State loses to Colorado by 10 points
Texas loses to ou by 4 points (I don't count the final touchdown).
Colorado loses to Texas by 34.

Further, how the hell does Baylor score 17 points on ou, when Texas could muster only 3?

It's really too bad that there is no playoff system in Division 1A college football, because I would love to see a rematch of Texas and ou at the end of the season.

Updated 1/25/2004:
(For you land thieves that means what follows is new.)
I guess I need to clarify what I mean by “I don't count the final touchdown.”  I am sure you all have heard someone say “meaningless points,” right?  You know, points scored at the end of a game, distorting how close (or not) the game really was.  The final turnover in that game was obviously critical to the outcome, and for land thieves everywhere, the touchdown was icing on the cake.  In other words, Texas lost, but it wasn't a game played like a double digit loss.  If you still don't get it, then forget -- I can't help you.

After watching ou choke away a shot at the national title with loses to two teams that Texas beat in the 2003 calendar year, I am once again puzzled by outcome of recent Texas ou games, especially the most recent. 

One last thing, I am always ready for a rematch.  I am sure land thieves understand the feeling, since they seem to be on the short end more often than not against Texas.  What is ou's all-time record against Texas these days? Something like 38-55-5?  Good thing for those four in a row to make it look a little more respectable.

The tables always turn.  I am sure that how ou fans feel now is similar to how they felt in the late 80's.  The question is, do they remember how they felt most years from 1989-1999?

By Bryan at 6:51 PM , in Sports - Permalink
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Wireless Rocks!
Went to CompUSA last night to browse. I do this from time to time, even if there is nothing specific that I am looking for. To my surprise, they were selling this for only $149. That is $30 less than the standalone Wireless Access Point was selling for. After verifying that the price was for real, I hurried to the counter to pay for my new toy and then raced home (actually to the in-law's house, which is where we are staying this weekend) to set it up.

First, a little background information. My father-in-law's house has a broadband connection through their cable provider. I have my own IP address with them for when I visit, so that I can get online using my laptop. Within 15 minutes, I had configured the Router so that it was now being treated by the ISP as though it was my laptop (it was connected), connected my laptop to the built-in switch via CAT5 and surfed the Internet through the router, and had then configured the wireless LAN and the wireless card in my laptop to talk with each other. Done. That fast. So no more cables running through my in-law's house as I move from one room to another with my laptop...I am untethered, and I love it!

By the way, I bought the device for eventual use in my own place, not specifically for use at the in-laws.

By Bryan at 9:20 AM , in Technology - Permalink
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Friday, October 19, 2001

Hmmm...
Hmm...I have one...two...three...four dynamically generated websites that I have developed. From a technology perspective, they could be looked at as major and minor updates to the same codebase. Unfortunately there is little compatibility between them. I can do things in one that I can't easily do in another, or at all. I have one site that gets many more visitors, but it has the last verison of the codebase...the newsest version doesn't get any traffic, which is ok, but I want its code.

I am building a web site/content management framework, but in the meantime, I have these other systems to support. What to do, what to do? I know what to do...finish the framework and the use it in every site I have. Easier said than done. I need to add features and functionality now, not in a month or two.

The sites...

  • daneman.org - version 1.0 of the codebase.
  • metastash.com - version 2.0 of the codebase, and a great improvement.
  • cachedcode.com - version 2.5 of the codebase...better design, but no functionality (dev time still goes to v 2.0)
  • dev.chapter41.com - version 3.0 of the codebase...revolutionary...but still under development.
I just don't know what to do.

By Bryan at 2:37 PM , in Developer Stuff - Permalink
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Media Bias
Another gem of bias by the media.

It seems as though a ZDNet writer received some information about an error message that a reader ran into on a Microsoft site and decided to write an article about it. The article, titled "Microsoft.com error reveals IDs, passwords", unfairly attempts to shoot down Microsoft and the .NET technologies. It takes a friend of the author to save the article by pointing out that this error has nothing to do with problems inherent to .NET, it has to do with a programmer putting code into production that should not have been.

The code was left in debug mode which exposes lots of nice details to developers when errors occur, details that should never be seen by the general public. Aside from the debug mode issue, the error was caused by a variable not being declared. Why didn't this pop up in testing? The error prone code should never have made it into production. Perhaps I should apply for that job with Microsoft that was recently posted on one of the many job boards.

By Bryan at 9:20 AM , in Technology - Permalink
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Thursday, October 18, 2001

Seriously
Serious Question

Do deaf people talk to themselves, and if so, do those that know sign language sign to themselves?

I was at Barnes & Noble the other night and a guy who is at least hearing impaired (he had hearing aids behind both ears) was standing at a display rack looking at stuff and signing. There was no one else around for him to be signing to, so that is where the question comes from.

By Bryan at 9:05 AM , in In General - Permalink
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Monday, October 15, 2001

Times Have Changed
How times have changed.

By Bryan at 11:49 AM , in In General - Permalink
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Bloggerbot
This is pretty cool...

By Bryan at 10:38 AM , in Weblog Applications - Permalink
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Sunday, October 14, 2001

Redesign Done
Redesign done (for now). Tell me what you think.

By Bryan at 8:33 PM , in Site Information - Permalink
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Time For A Redesign
Time for a redesign. I know you can't wait. Since I am only talking to myself, I know I can't wait.

What a shame that one of our bombs hit a house in Afghanistan. So now the count of civilian lives lost is somewhere around US: 7,000+ Them:4+.

To CNN and all the other liberal media outlets...stop putting so much emphasis on a stray bomb, or on a prince who had his donation rejected because his true feelings are much more inline with those of the radicals than with ours. Each time you run a piece on our stray bomb killing 4 civilians, you should also report on how our humanitarian aid saves hundreds or thousands of lives, or how the Taliban regularly murders their own.

By Bryan at 12:27 PM , in Site Information - Permalink
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Tuesday, October 9, 2001

Oy...
That's all.

By Bryan at 10:11 AM , in In General - Permalink
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Friday, October 5, 2001

Cool Longhorn Gear
For all of you Longhorns out there who might be looking for a last minute item of orange to round out your gear for tomorrow's big game,as well as take you through the rest of the year, check out the burnt orange tumbler from Starbucks's. Ok, so they call it Pumkin Spice, but it looks burnt orange to me.

Beat The Hell Out Of ou!

Hook'em!

By Bryan at 12:19 PM , in In General - Permalink
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Thursday, October 4, 2001

Blowing Steam
I have been short-tempered, bitter, mean, impatient, disinterested, unmotivated, and many more things these past few weeks. Many people have probably felt the same way in light of the recent events, but I think that my anger is rooted in other issues that have not been dealt with. I think that my anger stems from July 19th, 2001.

July 19th, 2001, the day before my son's first birthday. Some family members were already in town for the special day, more family members were scheduled to arrive later in the day. It was to be a happy time, a good time. It was to be a time of family coming together to celebrate the 1st birthday of the first member of the next generation. How quickly things change.

I had recently completed a project and had taken to working from home while between projects. On this day, I was at home with family - mom, step-dad, wife, and son. Sometime in the late morning on July 19th, 2001, I received a phone call from my boss. This in of itself was not unusual. After all, he would regularly call for one reason or another, and typically it was to tell me that I was going onto another project at a client location 1-2 hours drive from home...not a call that I enjoyed receiving. On this day, however, when the phone rang and my wife answered, I knew immediately who it was and that it was not going to be a pleasant call. There had been a layoff and I had been let go. On the bright side, I would be paid through the end of July (yippee! that makes all the difference in the world...).

So there I was, freshly unemployed with family in from out of town and more arriving later that day. I was shocked, I was mad -- I didn't know what to do. Ok, the obvious thing to do was get a new job, but that wasn't going to happen that day or even that week. In the meantime, how do I deal with all these people around? How do I deal with friends and family at the house on the Saturday for the big birthday party? When do I get to deal with the emotions that I was sure to have from being laid off? I had to be strong, for my wife's sake. She didn't need the stress. I had to be happy, after all, I didn't want to ruin the party. At the same time, I needed to grieve and be pissed off.

That afternoon, as more family was arriving, I took a short bike ride to blow some steam. I rode as hard and as fast as I could. I don't know that it helped. In the following days and weeks I held the emotions in as they were nonproductive in my search for a new job. Within a couple of weeks I had an interview with a company in Texas. Within a week after the interview I had a job offer. Within two weeks of the offer I was getting ready to go to Texas to work. I had still not let my emotions over losing my job out. Some might argue that I didn't need to at this point, because I had another job. Either way, they stayed bottled up inside. Additionally, I was now feeling the stress of trying to sell our almost new house, moving and starting a new job. Resentment and new anger were building over the fact that I had to leave my home in Colorado for this job. I was angry that I would no longer be in Colorado, I was mad that I was not going to enjoy my house that we had lived in for less than 6 months. Still, the emotions stayed bottled up inside.

Then September 11th happens. I have grieved, I've been sad, I've cried, and now I am angry. I am angry because now I am fearful. I am not afraid of dying, I am not afraid of war. I am afraid for those that I love, especially those who are so young and innocent. I am afraid of the world that my son will grow up to know -- a world of terror, a world of hatred, a world of war, a world of fear. I fear that one day my wife will head off to work and my son to school and that it will be the last I see of them.

That pisses me off.

By Bryan at 9:10 PM , in In General - Permalink
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