Now this sound pretty cool and is post worthy, The Great Internet Migratory Box Of Electronics Junk.

As I've been getting back heavy into my electronics dabbling recently, since my discovery of how cool microcontrollers can be, I've acquired even more electronics junk than the staggering amount I had previously. So it sounds like a cool way to get rid of some of the duplicate items I have, things I've just had for too long and haven't found a use for, and a way to get some new interesting gizmos to play with. Probably have enough laying around here to start a box or two myself.

this years winter break is a two part adventure... well three really. first week I'm here in the frozen tundra of michigan. I head back to vegas to hit the party at rook's on new years eve, and then off to another cold place, santa fe, new mexico, for another week.

partied late friday night, two bottles of wine, and I passed out on the couch for a few hours some time around 4am. eventually I got up, talked to the roommate for a bit, and saw zan off as she had also crashed here. then went up stairs for some more sleep, waking up around 4:30pm. good party.

saw eddie izzard at caesars palace saturday night.

and spent till now screwing around with microcontrollers, when I should have went to bed, which won't bode well for my sleep schedule.

went hiking sunday. great weather. awesome scenery. pictures don't do it justice.

mummy mountain

of course I'm sore as hell.

I was poking about in my old email and found this gem:

"I thought I mentioned it.. but here goes..

my friend john use to always make the reference "about the diameter of a
d-cell maglight" just to watch the other males get uncomfortable or self
conscious. He would of course never really say what he was referring to..
but of course the mind is more than happy to play the association game
even if it is way off...

The original reference came from a innuendo filled conversation he was
having with some friend of his. "so big and juicy you just have to put it
in your mouth", and "about the diameter of a d-cell maglight" were the
ones I remember.... the topic of conversation was some sausage that he had
gotten.

I however got the ultimate come back to his reference, when while sitting
at the dinning room table (which was always a mess BTW) he had picked up
one of the mag lights which were sitting there.. It was a four cell
model.. I had picked up the other mag light which was a three cell. At
this of course a comment had to be made...

"Mine's bigger" he said rather smugly...

"Very true, but... ", since I lived there I knew that my roommate Stacey's
kid had pretty much gutted the larger of the two flashlights, so I click
mine on and shine it in his face, "Mine works."

It was great."

so last night's sexy party was a great success. everyone enjoyed themselves immensely. made up some buffalo burgers. my pool actually got used for some swimming. I got lit, thanks in part to some stiff screwdrivers, and the pitcher of booze kelly mixed up. RSA SecureID security tokens are remarkably resilient to pool water. there was concern for the well being of the "trash can guy" as he clearly decided to enjoy himself to the point of excess. two chicks making out on your lap in the pool is every bit as awesome as you would think it to be. jose's strategy to wear a bikini top made him some new friends. I have enough beer in the fridge to supply a whole new party. the only real casualties were one glass bottle which shattered on the kitchen floor, an over enthusiastic flusher who broke the down stairs toilet flush arm, and one guy who threw up and then passed out in a trash can. and thanks to the people who decided to clean up a bit before going home, the aftermath abatement consisted of making the kitchen not sticky, cleaning up the missed bits of glass on the floor, and gathering up the last remaining cups, bottles, and towels which were scattered about.

so the trips I have plannes are...

cisco networkers, anaheim, july 22 - 26
penny arcade expo (pax), seattle, august 22 - 26 (including the west coast train trip)

woo.

posted the pictures and video from coachella. my camera was not designed to accurately pick up bass 15 to 20 feet from a bank of speakers the size of your living room, so the audio quality is crap. ::shrug::

here is the list of bands I ended up catching while at coachella...

[ more ]

so I've been sending updates of what I've been doing at coachella to my twitter account, since I can do that from my phone. ok, I could update this from my phone, but this doesn't automatically let people know when there is a change. twitter is kind of like a mailing list for im/phone text/web messages. I thought it would be useless at first, and now I see it's actually kind of cool.

http://twitter.com/krux

totally dominated tonight at rummy and dominos. i rock.

picked up the car, which turned out to be more of an annoying process than it should have been. go online, and book my reservation about a month ago. got a decent deal so I'm happy. today I walk down to the rental car place, only to find a bunch of empty lots. seems it's no longer just a walk to get a rental car. they've moved everything down to paradise and warm springs area, so this means I have to walk over to the airport to catch the shuttle, which is still close, but not as close as the car rental places use to be.

the shuttle driver was a hoot, and far more entertaining than you would expect a rental car shuttle driver to be. get to the new rental car complex-o-rama, and walk up to payless where I put my reservation in at, and to which I'm pleased has no line. now here is the bitch. I've rented with them a couple times in the past, and if you're local you have to fill out this annoying form that has a bunch of personal information on it, more than your usual car rental that just needs maybe a couple forms of ID at most. but you only have to do this once, so I didn't worry about it. ah, but today, it's a new policy. seems I have to bring a copy of my insurance, and a local utility bill. Ok, I walked to the airport, and there is no way I'm walking back and again to get absurd amounts of paperwork just to rent a car from these fucks at payless. not that I could even give them a copy of a utility bill, since those all get sent to another state where I do all my billing electronically.

I'm annoyed at this point and don't really want go through the pain of trying to figure out who has the next better price on my phone, so I just pick one at random. now I see why they had no line at payless. seems every other rental car counter has people in front of it. payless is a bunch of asshats, and I'm the only one who didn't get the memo on this today. so lucky rental car company who gets my business is dollar, who like every other rental place in the world, just needs a credit card and to see your drivers license. they didn't even want a copy of it, just seeing I had one was well enough with them.

now down in the garage, I look for a mid-sized car, and see there is exactly one, and it has people getting into it. ok.. but before I am annoyed further, an employee says, "no midsized cars? here, free upgrade, take one of these." my choices are old man mercury boat car, dodge charger, or a nissan altima. so I get the nissan altima. nissan is the poor man's infinity, so I'm happy on the car at least.

now I suppose I should finish packing.

so today was a fairly decent day. I managed to wake up on time, even got into work 15 minutes early. last part of the day dragged a little, but the morning was busy enough. good message activity over on thcnet. even got around to getting a workout in once I was home.

so I decided that I needed to treat myself to some fish tacos and a side of guacamole from baja fresh. the fish tacos, were good as usual, but that last part of my order was a mistake. see what I got was not guacamole, but rather totally inedible and bland green stuff. I swear if you took avocado, and cut it with water, you wouldn't have something as tasteless as this. I ended up throwing it away, because it was just pointless to even try to consume.

to make up for this travesty against one of my favorite food stuffs, I've no choice but to make a proper batch of guacamole for when I have people over this thursday.