Where do I sign?

I've been dying to get my basement finished and decided to check out the Owens Corning Basement Finishing System. What a frickin joke. They came and gave a three hour presentation, then wrote up a quote for $28,000. $28,000. That had to be said twice. That's to finish 750 square feet over three days of labor. Let me put that in perspective. A few years ago I spent $38,000 for: four months of labor, new glass block windows (~9), new vinyl windows (~20+), the entire first floor redone in dry wall, a new kitchen and bathroom torn to the studs and rebuilt (including fixtures, cabinets, plumbing), new light fixtures/outlets/switches throughout, and a new main 220v panel with new romex runs. Suffice it to say, Owens Corning won't be getting a call from me anytime soon.

Other than the quote nothing new is really going on. I'm still digging my new job. I've got a new toy coming at the end of the week: a Dell Axim x50v. I can't wait to mess with it.

Beverage Nirvana

Behold! Beverage nirvana! I just bought a metric ton of apples, oranges, carrots, and celery to make juice out of. The picture is of carrot apple juice. While it may sound weird or gross, it's actually really damn good. The carrots provide alot of the water volume and carrot flavor (duh), while the apples add sweetness. Making fresh juice is time consuming, a pain in the ass, and messy... but man is it worth it. Plus it's healthy (something I'm not accused of being very often ;) ).

In other news I'm still at my new job and still like it. I just moved my desk from the "new bitch desk" spot (directly in front of entrance door) as it was referred to. I even got an upgrade to an LCD monitor. w00t!

p.s. Don't forget tommorrow is Mother's Day. I didn't!

Camera Phones Suck

I attempted to go fishing at Edgewater today. Unfortunately, the temperature decided to plummet into the high 40s/low 50s from the high 60s and low 70s that it was all week. The water was super choppy and overall it just was not fishing weather. Suffice it to say we lasted about a half hour before calling it day. I did catch something... if a minnow counts! Seriously, I don't know what kind of "fish" it was, but it was like an inch and a half long. Mmmmm... dinner! I think the first hint we shouldn't have bothered was that nobody else was fishing when we got there ;)

While I was out on the pier, I attempted to take some pictures with my VX8100 phone. Boy did that not work. Everytime more than 40% of the picture was in motion (i.e. the lake) the damn thing refused to take a picture (just showed a fuzzy garbage screen). Out of 15 pictures I did take, the one to the right was the only even remotely decent one. So much for useful technology. Next time I'll take my trusty Sony Cybershot.

Sick

I've been sick for a week and it freaking sucks. It never fails that as soon as the weather clears up I come down with a cold or flu. Blah.

Anyways, after having this site up for like five years in classic ASP and HTML coded by hand, I decided to reprogram the entire thing is C# .Net. You can't see the difference? Well, that was kinda the idea. I mostly did it for back end management, as well as to add a members section. The members section will contain files and other things I don't want unfriendly people seeing (and I've been surprised by exactly who views this site).

Jack Is Back

This was just so cool and well put together I had to post it. It's a fake trailer for "Titanic 2: The Surface". The clips are ripped off of previous movies. See how many different movie titles you can count. At first watch I saw Titanic (obviously), Con Air, Shawshank Redemption, and The Bourne Identity. I'm not sure what movie the underwater clips are from.
In other news, I just got new tires for my car. I got a set of Falken Ziex ZE-512's. You can't go wrong for $68 per tire. I'd thought I'd be paying in the $110 per tire range. Go! Go! Internet pricing! ;)

Sofa King We Todd Ed

While I was out yesterday I saw the gem in the picture to the right. How retarded. I'm sorry, gull wing doors belong on Lamborghinis and DeLorean's and that's it. Any moron that drives that thing around and hops out at a 7-11 or movie theater should sign a purchase contract agreeing to be bitch slapped by the first person that approaches them. There are lots of things you can do to enhance your car's appearance... that shouldn't be one of them.
I've been at my new job three weeks and am still loving it over my old one. The work is coming like a tidal wave and I can't get enough of it. Busy days fly by. Plus getting out early and driving winding country roads home everyday ain't so bad either ;)

New Job

I started a new job this week after only eight months at my previous job. I came to the realization that being in IT/IS in the manufacturing sector sucks. You're last to get money and resources, and first to have them taken away when some other department needs them. I also found that when I was programming for someone with a genuine need that appreciated the work, my day flew by. Recognition of good work increases employment satisfaction? Who knew! Unfortunately, such work was hard to come by. I did a total of... ready for this? One programming project while I was there. It was a project I could've banged out in a day or two if I had a written spec.

As of March 20th, I started working for a political campaign web programming shop. I've already done a site for a cable industry lobbying group, and start work on an NRA (yes, that NRA) related site next week. Did I mention I also got a substantial raise over my previous job? Yep. By the way, the picture to the right is of my dual monitor PC at the new place. Oh, I also get to wear whatever I want to work unless a client is coming in. That rocks. I like it here and won't be looking back anytime soon.