The Demon Werx

In my infinite capacity and planning for this site and life I missed one little thing…

It just so happened to coincide with an issue that briefly blocked outbound internet at work….

I didn’t re-register the domain for www.demonwerx.com! So I owe Amok another $10 because I had to authorize the registration for the site.

Thanks dude!

So we’re back…. I will have to mark the 19th as a special date so I we don’t have an outage next year.

~Demon

So I got my car out of the shop yesterday… they replaced the alternator after getting it shipped overnight.

That sucker is like a brand new car!!! I didn’t stall it, I’m still impressed, because the new clutch acts totally different than how it use too. Reminds me of the STi and WRX I drove a while back, with significantly less power compared to both of them. I was laughing for the first few minutes because that car is once again a wicked little beast of a car.

I am going to see if I can shoot a picture of the front end of the car… and then with some JavaScript tweaking throw it up on the www.demonwerx.com front page. We’ll see how that goes.

~~~ 8/11 ~~~
Ha! I stalled the car for the first time today… still getting used to the clutch, it’s much faster and it only needs just a few inches of travel (it feels like) to actually engage. I almost stalled it a 2nd time while shooting off the line (not so planned) at a stoplight.

It’s a beautiful thing, all clean and such… I need to take a picture for the front page of demonwerx before I get it all dirty again.

~Paul

So we took the Subaru 2.5RS to the shop to get some work done. New clutch, break light harness, 130k checkup, replace the axle boot and all that good stuff.

Yesterday I went and paid the bill and then jumped in the car… the guy had the A/C cranked so I immediately turned that off and discovered a really weird noise coming from the engine. Well come to find out the alternator was screaming, not sure if its a bearing or something but it was definitely dying. Not a fun thing but I’d rather have the thing die in the shop’s parking lot then on the freeway.

Now the fun and surprising thing was: there was this Beautiful black ‘07 STi sitting in the driveway area next to my car, the guy had done some work on that thing! The car just saturated the air with power even though it wasn’t turned on. Anyhow, the driver showed up to pickup his car and while he was waiting for paperwork he wandered over to my car…

My car is nice, I love it, but it’s not an STi! It’s the STi’s nerfed grandfather, in fact it’s 3 generations from the current STi. However I spin it my old car gets ALOT of attention! This guy with this beautiful STi walks over and starts asking me about my car, how many miles, how old, what’s broken on it, etc. I told him: 01′, 130k, clutch, viscous coupler, and now the alternator. He was very impressed on the great condition it was in … and then told me I should do an “STi swap”… basically replace the Roo’s guts with the ‘07 STi guts and that sucker would be ROCKING! And it definitely would be.

I need to figure out what we are going to do with the cars and pray I don’t get in a serious accident on mine ever again.

It still surprises me the attention that car gets, but I love every second of it.

-Demon

So we went to Tahoe, it was beautiful… but the road was really long. Don’t take highways from Vegas to Tahoe, unless you have a sports car and a strong stomach, because it takes for-freaking-EVER!

We didn’t take many pictures for the sake of taking pictures of the scenery and such, it was my Mother-in-law’s 60th birthday so we hung out with the family. I wish we could spend more time with the family but weekends are too short and that drive was way to long.

I played with a little bit of JavaScript last weekend on the front page of Demonwerx, lemme know what ya think. I will be adding more stuff to that as I put time towards it. I need to build a page for the Baby stuff too, the space is there its just a matter of time.

Everything is really just a matter of time…

-Paul

So playing WoW and all I’ve finally got my first epic flying mount! It’s pretty exciting! For those of you not familiar with the “mount” system in WoW… well, mounts are horses that your character rides on like a knights steed or mount. In wow there are a bunch of different mounts all with varying flavors of pizazz! Now the thing that sets normal mounts aside from special ones are the speed at which they travel and where the mount comes from, and how much the skill cost.

Epic means well… Epic. It’s the top of the line (there is legendary but still epic is prime and obtainable) so on the regular ground mounts at level 60 you purchased or quested for a 100% mount versus the 60% mount from level 30 (now, used to be 40). When you hit level 70 you paid 900 Gold to get a 60% Flying mount and could fly Slowly all over the place. They also have Epic flying, this costs 5,200 Gold and is more obtainable now with daily quests and the amount of gold they generate. In addition to the inflated prices on the auction house, don’t buy just farm and sell!

Regardless, my Rogue Darkespectre now has her 300 riding skill and a swift blue Gryphon. I will be doing the Netherwing quests as well as the Sha’tar Skygaurd in order to get the big Netherdrake mount and the Red Nether ray… both of which will take some time and serious rep (reputation) grinding. And maybe along the way I will save up some money to buy the 5k skill on my hunter too, he’s already exalted with the Skygaurd and I have been eying that red nether ray for a bit, gotta love a sinister looking hunter on a cool nether ray.

Enough wow talk before I get blocked at work again…

-Demon

So now that the big news is publicly available to my Mom’s side of the family, I announced it at my Sister’s “after party” (wedding reception) on Saturday.

We are pregnant and having Twins!

There ya go… its on the net, so I’ve got two pictures I need to post on here: 1 of the MacBook Pro and the other of the ultrasound.

Cool stuff!

~Paul

So I bought a new laptop for my birthday, wen’t all out and got a 2.6Ghz 17 inch MacBook Pro.

I’ll take a picture of it tonight so I can post it… its a very beautiful computer, quite a powerful bugger too! The only major upgrade that it needs, besides a cooling thingy to go on the back, is RAM. It’ll cost me a whopping $80 to go from the stock 2Gb (2×1) of RAM to 4Gb (2×2).

Now there is a problem though… as beautiful as this new beast is… I am running into an OpenGL issue where the video drops out and sometimes hangs the whole system. I got it to run SecondLife (very odd game).

So I’ve been thinking, while working on a Sunday afternoon, that I should blog more… Not so much to be listened too, I know Ammon reads this (and is sufficiently confused by my WoW babble) I think some of my family reads this too.

So blogging is more of a therapeutic thing to vent whatever emotion I got. Life is good, it really is, I just get really annoyed by little things at work that are out of my control and I should most likely be careful about complaining on the internet about my job.

So it’s my birthday tomorrow, the big 28… what have I learned from the last 28 years…

1. Life is good, it really is… sometimes we have to step back and look at a bigger picture or realize that it may stink at the time but thats just where we are standing.
2. There are lessons to be learned from just about everything, these lessons can be quick and painless and the can be long and drawn out, however there is always an approach that can be taken.
3. Find a good distraction - it is important to find something that lets you escape… obviously don’t get to carried away.
4. A job is a paycheck and a good way to learn about yourself, but it is just a job. You define the job it does not define you!
5. Be accountable for yourself. (I am still learning this one) Really, be accountable for your actions, take responsibility for what you need too.
6. Make mistakes, just try to falling in the rut of making the same mistake twice, or multiple times. You’ve got an unknown amount of time and your going to be better off learning from the stuff you do rather than avoiding not doing anything wrong.
7. Be dynamic, change that road map or your plans, don’t set to rigid of expectations, understand that things change all the time and you’ll be better off adapting to the change then fighting.
8. Don’t be afraid to challenge stuff, heck you might learn something or stop something… this may be more of a work advice thing, but its good in life. Don’t get to overzealous with it though.

Life is life, its good, bad, ugly, and breathtaking at times.

This next weekend is going to be fun, I get to deliver some news at my sisters wedding reception.

~Paul

Go watch this movie!!

The wife and I enjoy watching movies, with rising theater costs we probably like watching movies a little more than we should. However, Wanted was Awesome!!

As I told Ammon, I think it falls in the same category as Equilibrium (Equilibrium still has the leg up on Wanted though) … but it is fantastic and exceeded my expectations. Interesting twists as well.

Go watch this movie: Action, Blood lots of blood, and some pretty funny comedy too!

-Paul

priceless…

In WoW I play a hunter… I shoot things with a wicked cool bow and do a lot of damage… but hunters in order to keep themselves alive use Feign Death, brutal cool skill that makes you appear dead and most mobs (bad things) will leave you alone and move on to the next target.

In the case of the picture - The priest got to know the rampaging mob quickly… and died.

Thankfully we hunters don’t suffer as much damage and survive! (Damage equals repair bills which equal cost).

There ya go!

Life is good…

We are learning new things about how pregnancy affects every facet of life, but it is worth it and will be more worth it when the little one arrives (dang well better be :P! ).

Hopefully there are some other things in play that will help with an old issue from back in 2003.

More later!
~Paul

We are pregnant!

So I’ve been thinking a lot about the concept of “want”… It all started when I was reading the book “How to win friends and influence people” by Dale Carnegie, I still need to finish this book. Another book I need to finish reading as well is “A road less traveled” by Scott Peck.

Through this reading it dawned on me how important and consuming peoples “wants” really are in their every day life! I believe, after thinking about it, that most people are so caught up in what they want or think they want so much that they don’t realize how it impacts their interactions with other people on so many levels.

Something I find really interesting is: do people really know what they want? I myself don’t know what I really want, I know I want a new computer, a higher paying less demanding job, a couple cars, a huge house, and not to want. However, of all those wants none are completely realistic at this time, they all have validity and are not to be discounted.

I will use the quote: “In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king.” (Desiderius Erasmus, Adagia (III, IV, 96)) They who possess the strength, insight, and the kindness to help others in finding what they really want are in a very special and powerful spot.

I plan on writing a book on this ‘Philosophy of Want’.

~Paul

I have a headache…

I am working an issue currently that is bizarre. An issue with a switch, an A/C unit, Spanning Tree, and some other stuff.

I just sit and listen and see when I can help, but still my head hurts.

I am waiting for the day to be done so I can try to get a few hours of quiet and watch Iron Man! That’ll be cool!

~Paul

This is an odd but accurate title that I chose for this post… This is not for all humans, I don’t know everyone, but I feel its applicable to right now…

I met my friend Ammon a while back, we were in the same training class for work about 3 years ago. After getting out of training and ending up on the same Technical Support team we became good friends, met a lot of great people as well on that team. Ammon is a great person, quiet and seemingly shy until he gets comfortable with ya, then it’s quite apparent he’s not all that quiet anymore. Brilliant with code and computer things (I am envious of his skills, he creates where I reverse engineer and tweak).

Last week, he admitted he was envious of me. I quickly went retarded and the conversation was sidetracked then we went out to lunch, yay for BBQ! It wasn’t until I read his blog that confirmed what he was envious of.

The human condition is truly strange… we envy what we don’t have, what we could have, what we could have had, what we think we want to have, and what we really don’t want to have but still think we do. Life is going very well for the wife and I, we are in the best position we’ve ever been in, yet struggles are still there, challenges are still there. As a whole we are well, even though minute to minute it seems to be ever changing things are good… yet I still find myself envying people for all sorts of different reasons, some valid, some childish, some simply because I have come to a conclusion that is far different than the actual reality.

I envy Ammon for the man he is despite the challenges he has encountered, overcame, and is still working on overcoming. I respect him for the same reasons, many people would have given in and let go a long time ago. I’m glad I have him as a friend and hope I can be as good of a friend as he is for me. The wife and I enjoy his company, despite the fact Anubis now smells everyones breath because of him.

You need to come over for BBQ!

-Paul

*He is the reason I have my websites and working code.

Word on the streets is it that Windows is going down… as an OS they probably will not go down for a very long time simply because of market saturation and fear of moving to a different OS. I actually don’t know how it is going to play out nor am I going to make any predictions, no info means guessing, guessing = most likely wrong. (I analyze for a living and must have data to do analysis)

So… what would I be scared of? Well, nuking and paving my current big gaming machine. I don’t know what all I have installed on the machine (I know I have W o W and Call of Duty 4) and some other programs. What else I have stashed in there is a good question and that is what is making me hesitant to get the cleaning started.

What about nuking other boxes? Oh yeah, no hesitation there! I am currently in the process of cleaning up a 120 (112Gb usable) disk so I can drop Suse10.3 (OpenSuse) Linux on that machine. Why? Well first it is a stable install that actually went through just fine on my laptop (it’s an old ~900Mhz 348Mb of Ram AMD box). If I am going to learn a *nix might as well drop it on my secondary box and get some use out of it. Currently that box is my Dev and Questing box, I do some HTML work on it for my lvl19.com site and use it for wowhead info when playing wow.

It’ll be fun, I might have it installed tonight or tomorrow night.

~Paul

Things change, systems change, pages change, things change.

In the computer world on sites, systems, games, etc… things are changing all the time but why? Yes, it is inevitable and change needs to happen, but what philosophy is driving these changes?

Change to improve? or Change to test and break?

If changes are going about to improve the content or system then it is a healthy philosophy and your users will see (dependent on the quality of the change) hopefully an enriching of content on your part.

If changes are simply made to test the stability of the system, my feelings are this is not a valid or sane way to go about testing stability (Dev and QA environments = all I have to say). If it isn’t broke don’t throw code at it until it breaks, that makes No sense at all.

Change in life seems to be a little bit more complicated than on a computer… but thats another post all together.

~Paul

So today I begin my “Hell Week”… ok, so hopefully it won’t be as bad as last months call or this last weekend as my co-worker got hit hard!

In other news:
My Xbox hates me: www.360voice.com/failover

In wow I have started playing in the arenas (I quit my guild): 2v2 bewear of the anklebiters; 3v3 Run n Gun. It’s fun, I am better geared (I actually have pvp gear) than my teammates, but they are awesome and we do very well despite the gear.

At home: I love my wife, she is awesome! These last few weeks/months have been rough, we’ve been extremely busy. We need to start working on her music, which means I need to learn how to use Cubase.

I buzzed my hair the other day and confirmed a subtle fear I have had as I began to see more and more of my scalp… my hair is thinning.

So I think I’ll try rogaine out…

~Paul