Work has been far more busy than I think anyone expected. Which kinda sucks. Not to mention the people that have been vanishing from the workplace. Including my own boss. So far for the most part I've been glad with the selections of who have been selected to not be with us anylonger. Typicaly people the people with clues ended cleaning up after are gone.

Looks like there is another trip to Portland in my near future. Helping a friend move into his partime in the Pearl District. I am hoping for some good photo ops around down town assuming I end up with the time.

My laptop is fixed all except I have 1 extra screw left. not bad considering I took it apart over a week ago.

I also created a gallery page for Eugene pictures. I've got a few more to add to it I just have to find them.

Still no shell script but I'm in no rush or real need for it.

Laptop declared as fixed.

Back at work. Yesterday was busy today even more so. Oh well at least I enjoyed my time off so this doesn't bother me as bad as it normaly would.

I meant to look at the pictures I took over the weekend, write a little shell script, and upload photos to the gallery. But Chris was in town so I went and got drinks, dinner and ice cream with him then sat in the hot tub and felt none to good after getting out all light headed and stuff. So hopefuly tonight more photos in the gallery or here or both.

My supervisor got fired or laidoff, something. I was supposed to get my annual today, which would have ment a raise but it will have to wait a little longer now.

Going to Grants Pass today. Going to see family most of which I haven't seen in a about a year and a half when my cousin was Married. I am hopging for a chance to go take some pictures tomorrow morning or afternoon before coming back to Eugene to start the grind again come Monday.

Hope you all had a good thanks giving and weekened, extended or not.

I again attempted to find gifts for a couple of my friends to no avail. I have turned to the interweb to find a gift for the Chris. I think I've figured it out, now just have to wait until payday then to decide if I will ship to Chris or to Me then me Deliver it to the Chris.

I've still got to figure out what I want to ask for from people. I've also got to figure out what to get my Mom and Catherine. I bet there are a couple other people I could or should get gifts for as well if I findsomething that screams [insert someones name here], I will most likely get it for them assuming I can afford it.

Fiona is easily one of my favorite concert experinceses. Most shows the performer(s) are gonig through the motions and singing their songs. Fiona who was kicking the tour off last night and was quite vocal about how nervous she was about it connected with each of her songs and belted them out like she ment it at times looking like she was on the verge of tears. She at one point admited to having trouble singing the angry songs because the croud was being so "nice" to her.

I also got to see Chris' new place. I will never be able to find it on my own again but thats ok. He moves mid December.

Chris had found someone to go to the Show tonight with him. An old highschool friend he was fairly nuts for. The problem is she is talking about getting married to the guy she is living with and has been with for the last year or 2. Now I'm all for hanging out with old friends. Just not taking them to shows like this. So I made a new rule for Chris. No non-single females taken to shows. But she can't go anyways cause she has come down with a nasty cold apprently.

My laptop part has shipped. Assuming it really is the problem I will be up and running again next week hopefuly by wednesday.

1 day work week. They should all be this short. 2 days would be acceptable as well.

I didn't sleep so well last night and I have a week full of long days a head of me. The plan is to sleep well after Rollins and sleepin as much as I can tomorrow then pack and get my car's oil changed before flying driving up to Portland to catch Fiona.

Work is slow but not slow enough. Thats ok though.

Tomorrow we have Monday. Hopefuly an easy day at work. Even if it is not it will only be 1 day. Then its off to the Henry Rollins spoken word show then Tuesday up to Portland to see the lovely Fiona Apple. Thursday will be a pain but Tuesday, Wednesday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday should all be good.

I'm gonna go get dinner now. Thank you for reading.

Made my carpayment and setup an oil change for mein car on Tuesday.

Started playing with the orinal digital picture frame I made. Was thinking about itegrating it with my current computer as 3rd monitor using something likemaxvista. But the old frame isn't really stable. Can't get it to power on reliably and room is very tight with a network cable or even wireless card in the damn thing. I've got another idea but it requires powertools and more time. Powertools I don't have and time I doubt I will be spending on such an unstable device. I've got many other ideas for many other hacks that I simply cannot afford at this time, even if I could I may spend the money on photographic gear or something else that seems useful at the time.

I haven't actually gotten much done today. But it's saturday and I got what needed to happen done. I'm gonna get laundry done tonight.

I wish my laptop part would show up.

I bought a new shirt last night. I also looked for gifts for Chris and Catherine, and thought about what I want to get my parents. I was unable to find suitable or apporpriate gifts for anyone. I still got some time though and a couple more pay checks as well.

The week has been mostly slow at work. Hopefuly Monday will be the same or slower thus making a smoother entrance into my extended weekend next week.

Hopefuly weather will be decent this weekend and I can wash my dirty dirty car and maybe go take some pictures.

Some people at work should not be working the jobs they are. Some of the people work with me some of the people call me. Incompenence is not an excuse or a reason but it happens all too damn often. I am sorry the last person you spoke with gave you shity information and I could not tell you why they told you what they did. No I don't care that your mad and can't or don't want to read the effing manual.

If you don't know how to access the services snapin/control panel on your computer you shouldn't be calling. If you do not know what a path name or directory is you should go to school before you have your administrative assisant dial the phone for your stupid ass.

got a free lunch today at work that was nice. I should have gone back for more. 3 working days left til my mini vacation next week. I need to call the car dealer people and get an oil change setup for next week.

Laptop is busted. I did order a replacement for the part I think I done busted. If it's not the problem them I will have to come up with something else which will really suck. But I can get a new laptop of decent spec for around $500 give or take a few hundred depending on brand and such. but not having internet on my laptop right now is very very sad. Oh well I can manage or I will just put it on the wired network to use it. but that woudl would require me reassemble it.

anyways on to other stuff.

My parents are divorced. As a kid this was not much of a problem. My dad lived right nextdoor for many years. And I got 2 set of gifts for Christmas, and my Birthday. Holidays would often alternate where we would initaly be but usualy we would end up at the other parents' place by the end of the day. Now I'm moved out and live an hour from both of them.

So the conundrum. I just found around 10:30am my Mom will be in Springfield for the Holiday. Where as just Sunday night had I confirmed my attendance at my Dad's place in Salem.

I haven't seen my Mom in close to 6 months and haven't seen that side of the family in who knows how long now. I haven't seen my Dad in 3-4 months, the extended family won't be present in Salem so it doesn't matter how long it's been since I have seen them.

I love both my parents. But I connect much better with my dad and feel much more comfortable there as well, also with his side of the family (but that is not a factor today). I could spend many a word speculating as to the whys and whats about this but it doesn't really matter.

The events are happening at diffrent times. So I may be able to swing both. Assuming I can find my Aunt and Uncle's place in Springfield. But having to do both is a lot more stress than I feel it is worth. But one has to do what one has to do.

I droped my laptop lastnight. Broke the wireless card. I have some spares around. But I am thinking about buying a 802.11G card for the increased speed as I do have a G router now. But that is money I really should be spending on others for gifts and such. Not to mention having money for next week, gas, concert, drinks, etc. So I will most likely use a backup for a while then maybe later get a nicer faster card. Hopefuly I didn't break my laptop.

I've got a CD to make and a webpage I want to start on tonight. I've got some other stuff that I should do like some house keeping on my desktop computer which is mostly used for photoshop and making CDs these days. It has been pretty much neglected for a while.

Last night I asked Chris who he was taking to the Fiona concert. His response "Crap" he forgot to find someone to go. So I got my phone out and started a craigs list ad for a casual encounter. Chris read it and submitted it he just has verify the email now and have it actually post. Then he may get some random girl to go to the concert with him. Which could be interesting. I had to find him a girl to go to Phantom of the Opera a few years back. Sometimes we all need a little nudge. Hopefuly Chris runs with it.

That(768) is the number of levels in the classic arcade game Rampage. Chris and I got tired of it after around 40ish levels, before we decided to go get lunch. He bought a book at one of those large book store chains and later we saw Serenity. Granted I've never seen the show the movie is based on but it stood on it's own.

Chris posed a couple ideas for trips over the summer. Which sound like fun. It will just be a matter of getting the time of and things worked out, like who's car, where we start where we finish, etc. But it's still several months out yet.

It is now bed time. Thank you. Good night.

My achilles tendon on my left foot seems to have decided to be a problem. So motion in my foot is limmited which is annoying. I may take some advil to see if it helps.

I think I'm gonna play with some live CDs today. Maybe install BSD on extra computer I have. I may also clean my place up do some dishes and vacume again. My car needs washed as well but I may not be able to get to that today, and it maybe raining by the time I can get to it.

Game night at Nathans tonight. It's not gonna be the same without Sean. Sean and I have been the longest going and most reliable to attened to game night. Now he is in New York with his girl Lisa who I used to work next to at stream. Both good people and missed.

I added my list of places to photograph a few days ago to my todo list and started to complie a list of photographic resouces and place with pretty pictures.

It's weekend and I'm glad. Work was quite a bit slower today, despite being down more than 10 phone monkeys today. The slowness of work rocked I spent about an hour just goofing off waiting for work while at work.

I think I may clean my place up some tomorrow. Maybe some computer maintaining will happen too.

I have a problem. If I get to far into my own head, which happens quite often, I find my self demodivated. I find if I can put my self in a diffrent gear and hold there I can get some things done. Once I've been set in motion things are normaly fine.

Honestly I think it's half of what has been slowing me down with photography recently. Even when I lived in Salem I recall feeling much the same way. But when I got into gear I was ok. I don't think it is a matter of modivation as there is nothing diffrent about going out and shooting tonight than there are any other nights. I get nothing but shots and sometimes praise for my shots. This isn't much modivation for me, don't stop praising me though. I'd say if anything I have several small modivations that help but no primary modivater. I want to caputure beatuty, I want to be creative, I want to be feeling and doing something other than sitting on the couch watching the funny funny cartoons, I want to devlop my skill/talent, I want to make something that others may or may not apprciate.

I've slowly started compiling a list of places I want to go and shoot/play with mein camera and other toys.

In no particular order

• Alaska
  
• Yosemite National Park
  
• Yellowstone National Park
  
• Seattle
  
• More of Portland
  
• Crater Lake (again)
  
• More of Eastern and Southern Oregon
  

Chris wants me to go to vegas with him sometime so I will most likely end up shooting there sometime.

So I suppose I should start planning for trips to some of these locations at some point.

Work was good until the last call. Which kept me an hour late. Which isn't any good for anyone other than the damn customer. Oh well I'm home safe and sound on the couch now. It sucks to get off work when it's so dark out.

I'm quite ready for my mini vacation coming up later this month. I've got nearly 70 hours of time off.

Tiffany is going to be dropping the scanner she borrowed off little later.

American Dad is a good show. Patrick Stewart is the man.

Wiki's are cool. But they are not for me. I was/am attempting to learn one to faclitate another idea I've had kicking around in my head. It's close but not user friendly enough for the masses. I really really don't want to grow my own for this project as it's far more technical and complicated than I would want to deal with for a ground up solution. I may slowly grow it. I may not.

The weather is pretty Oregon typical out the last few days. Rainy and cold. Best spent inside infront of fireplace or other sources of warmth. So getting out and doing stuff doesn't seem like a fun prospect in most cases. Wet cold and muddy, muddy can be fun and so can wet but not cold. Also wet and muddy are not good for camera and other equipment.

Helped Cat with her laptop. Provided her with some software to prevent issues and help clean them up should they occur. Also took her to best buy to buy a gift for her boyfriend.

I really want to go to Alaska for photographing of the Aurora Borealis. But I will need a few more things from my photographic wishlist, which is quite incomplete in it's current state. I really should start one at Adorama or BH who both specalize in photographic gear and have much better invintorys for such gear compared to Amazon. Not to mention the gear I would need to be turned in to a bensicle.

I plan to do more research of places to go in the meantime with the clothing and gear I have now, while I build my arsenals of photographic gear and clothing for the situations I may encounter. I am taking suggestions.

Today training was not as long as the previous days. So i had to do a little more work than I had done previously this week. But I did get to leave at 5 which was nice.

Cat will be in town tomorrow. So the plan is to hang out some. Do what I'm not sure. Perhaps fix her laptop. Other than that no plans so far.

Depending on happenings and weather tomorrow I may think about going and taking more pictures around town someplace. I really just need to get into some sort of photographic habbit...

Class got out earlier than the last couple days and Lee and I were unable to sucessfully distract or otherwise keep the instructor talking so we had to get back to work earlier than we had been getting back to work...

Today I am officaly no longer driver Ben.

I bought season 3 of Sea Lab 2021 and the Big Lebowski.

By a single request brought to you by punkindunkin I bring you photos.

Please leave comments.
Thank you for looking.

Again thanks to training just 2 calls taken today. Very nice. Also caught a movie with the Chris and um another person. The Brothers Grimm. Not to bad. Not great but I've paid to see worse.

I wish I could be paid to sponge up information all the time cause I'm good at it. Really I am.

No VPN yet. May not because of the bandwidth required and I don't want to draw the attention of the comshaft ISP.

The stuff they are training me on at work is kinda cool. So far nothing that I haven't really seen befor at home or with friends on our own networks. Just a little more flexible out of the box. Which means they should be fairly easy to support. For the most part pretty logical. The hard part will be getting the required information out of the customers.

I'm gonna be in training for the rest of the week. Which means even fewer calls for the Ben while at work. Which is a good thing.