Bite Me Winter! Woot!

Posted on February 19, 2007 by Daniel Meyer

The predictions for this week are for temperatures in the 70′s and possibly 80′s, with breezes out of the south all week.

WoooHoooo! A break from the cold weather!

Just in anticipation of warmer weather I’ve been riding. I did a couple-hundred miles this weekend just doing errands (Garland to Richardson via Bonham and the like) and hunting up a cheap car for my nephew to drive while he’s in college.

Now that it’s actually gonna be warmer, I expect to be a bit hard to find (when I’m not confined to the dungeon at work that is). Gotta burn as much gas as possible…it’s been a cold winter and obviously we don’t have that global warming stuff kicked into high gear yet.

Y’all (that’s a Texas technical term) ride safe!

CUAgain,
Daniel Meyer

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Happy Valentine’s Day!

Posted on February 14, 2007 by Daniel Meyer

Horse smooches for all! Continue reading →

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…And it’s back!

Posted on February 9, 2007 by Daniel Meyer

A series of simple events…unrelated…or are they?

The world…and the encounters we find in it…can be so much more than they appear to be…

A bit of a challenge at work…a chance to excercise my skills.
Finally a test of my skills…instead of yet another tiresome test of my patience.

A live concert with my favorite band.
Three hours of music…skilled and subtle magicians weaving their intricate spells and carving pathways through my soul.

A challenge to excercise my mechanical muse at home…
Man and machine. No matter that I deny it…Steel and oil run hot in my blood.

A little bit of art…
THAT side of me pulls stronger every year…DARE I unleash it?

A particularly good evening’s session at the keyboard…
I’m intently working on “Storm Rider”…hopefully for Summer ’07

A brace of outstanding, moving, soul-stretching tunes…
And we try so hard
But it’s not enough
to hold back the tide
and get rid of this stuff
and the weight of the world
comes crashing in on us all

A high-speed ride through the cold and the mists of the night…
To hell with the winter and all it stands for. RIDE!

A night’s passion with the wife…
What? Riding doesn’t make you horny? Maybe you’re not doing it right.

The dream…
Reality bends, passions flow, barriers fall, worlds collide, and ‘The Dragon’ rides!

The lust is back. The passion. The drive. I’m not sure I’ll ever be able to articulate just how powerful these influences are…

I am completely at their mercy when they flow…I am utterly lost when they ebb…I sometimes wonder if I’d be better off if they never returned…and then just as strongly I pity those that lack them. How can they taste life?

Those drives…those desires…the wanderlust…the passion! All have returned stronger than ever.

Dare I set them completely free?

Live. Ride. See. Fly…

Are you ready?

CUAgain,
Daniel Meyer

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Surrender

Posted on February 7, 2007 by Daniel Meyer

Well, I called in sick to work again today. I was feeling better yesterday and went in, but apparently overdid it. The penalty for that was to spend a horrible night’s sleep, and the morning coughing and blowing about a quart of putrid green jello out of my sinuses.

Ugh.

So, I called in sick…heh…well…sort of. It was early and I didn’t want to wake folks so I actually emailed in sick. Gotta love the ‘net.

After that I did something I rarely have ever done.

I quit worrying about responsibilities. I didn’t worry that I’m the bread-winner. I could have cared less whether the wife got to her class on time. The dog might have been hungry, but I didn’t notice. I wasn’t worried about the massive amount of work that I need to do…both around the house, at work, and on my books/projects. I take my work reponsibilities personally, and really need to be working. I really want to get Stormrider done for this summer, and there’s a lot of work left to do. Yep, my Dad needs my help, and I’ve not been able to get over there…and that has bothered me. Not today.

I gave it all up…I layed down in the bed and simply released myself…
Excused myself…
Permitted myself…
I allowed myself to surrender to this moment of weakness and spend some time recovering. Let the mind…and the body…rest.

It was a wierd feeling. Just let it go. It’s not an easy thing to do for me…the drives are powerful and primal…and there’s never been anybody else to pick up the slack. There’s never been anybody there to tell me it was okay and that they had my back…at least for a while.

Let it go…

As I slid into a peaceful sleep, the first I can recall in a long time, I couldn’t help wondering if I was doing something wrong.

What does that mean?

CUAgain,
Daniel Meyer

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Wasted Work?

Posted on February 6, 2007 by Daniel Meyer

Wasted work? I’m not sure. I get paid for it…but is that enough?

Anyway, myself and a coworker are attempting to do the reverse-engineering of a particularly nasty system…a system they let all the folks go that constructed the … thing … and a system that is slated for replacement. Why? So we can add new functionality and improve existing problems with the thing.

But…it’s slated for replacement. They know it’s dangerous. They know it’s not a long term solution.

It’s intense work. I expect us to still be tracing scripts and spoolers and crossmounts and other bad practices through the end of this work week and into the next. It’ll take all our talents to do it.

But why? We’re going to pull it out sometime soon…it’s just that nobody will put the foot down and say “when” soon is.

It’s a waste of effort.

But I do get paid. It’s what they want me to be doing right now…and they cut the checks.

So, is it still a waste?

Food for thought.

CUAgain,
Daniel Meyer

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Ugh…

Posted on February 5, 2007 by Daniel Meyer

NOT feeling good. Chest cold, sore throat. Headache. Chills. Yeah. The Flu. Yuck.

I actually called in sick to work today. That’s 3 or 4 times in nearly 22 years. That ought to tell you how bad it really is.

And it’s warm out today. I’d rather be riding.

CUAgain,
Daniel Meyer

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Groundhog Day

Posted on February 2, 2007 by Daniel Meyer

So, today is Groundhog day. Which also means it’s sniper-rifle day. See, if the little git sees his shadow and lives to report it to headquarters, we get 6 more weeks of winter…which means less riding time (or colder riding time). It is no less than a war.

So, pick your location carefully. We can’t let the little rodents win.

CUAgain,
Daniel Meyer

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Chocolate

Posted on January 30, 2007 by Daniel Meyer

Sooo….

Picture this.

Take a small lunch sack (or bag for you non-southern readers)…the brown paper kind that’s waxed.

In a double boiler, melt about 6 ounces of high-quality, very dark chocolate.

Pour it into the sack. Swish it around till the entire inside is coated. Set upright in the freezer.

When hard, tear the sack off, and what you have left, is a chocolate sack…a chocolate sack that the extra chocolate ran to the bottom to give you a candy-bar thickness for the bottom.

Fill the chocolate sack to within an inch of the top with a whipped white chocolate mousse. Fill the remaining space with fresh strawberries, blueberries, and raspberries.

Serve up as dessert.

Oooooo…yeah…

This topped off my dinner in Providence last Thursday of Fettucini Alfredo with bay shrimp and sea scallops, served up by the tiny little naturally flirty thing with the really nice knock…ur…the really low-slung tight black top. Yeah, she leaned way over and started describing dark chocolate and forbidden fruit and I didn’t even ask how much it cost. I didn’t care. It turned out to cost nearly as much as the entrée actually. I still don’t care.

There’s a story in the middle of this…a story of turmoil…of restlessness…of the dark side of the man…of wild eyes and pain, passion, and loneliness two-thousand miles from home, without even The Dragon to help me outrun it. A mixture of darkly male thoughts, sapped creativity, swirling feelings, and utter exhaustion that even chocolate couldn’t help to quell.

But that’s another story.

Or is it? There’s distance…creatures of the night…unthinkably cold temperatures…and steel and blood.

Perhaps I’ll tell it later.

CUAgain,
Daniel Meyer

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Security?

Posted on January 28, 2007 by Daniel Meyer

So, here’s my problem with airport security.

Whilst I’m in Boston being professionally assaulted by the airport screener because of their crappy, defective equipment…

Him, at the end: “Well, I guess it was the rivits on your jeans it was picking up.”
Me: “Doesn’t work very well then does it?”

Anyway, as I have some 6 foot guy feeling up my feet (these people are criminally insane…and from now on before I fly I’m not changing my socks for a week), I’m eyeing the 40 pound laptop computer and bag I’ve been hauling around the airport all day.

Now why am I hauling this around instead of checking it?

The airline and the giant employment agency for ex-high-school bullies TSA tell me that the baggage is not secure enough for me to check valuables…and that they cannot be responsible for it arriving at my destination if I do check it.

Hmmm…the bag I hand to the airline employee that is immediately sent to their secure area…and remains inside that secure area until it spits out on the baggage carousel at the end…is NOT secure. Somebody could open it, remove items, and get them out of the airport.

There’s the rub, ya know? If somebody can open it and remove items…then they can open it and insert items.

Meanwhile, 7 “security” guys are involved in feeling my feet.

Yeah. I feel safe. How about you?

CUAgain,
Daniel Meyer

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Books and Stuff

Posted on January 19, 2007 by Daniel Meyer

The Magic UPS guy showed up today, and I now have plenty of ALL the titles in stock, in both hard AND soft cover (several had been listed as “limited quantity” on my order page for a few days now).

So. Order away!

On a related note…I will not be shipping anything ordered after 6pm Sunday Jan 21 until I get back from my business trip next week. So, order before Sunday if you want them next week. I also encourage you to go ahead and order next week if you’re in the market. I’ll ship everything ordered next week on Monday, Jan 22…and they do go fast…

You can, of course, order from lulu or Amazon or any of my other suppliers as well. Their shipping schedule is not affected by my business trip (LOL!)

Y’all (that’s a Texas technical term) have a safe (or at least fun) week!

CUAgain,
Daniel Meyer

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