half a cat

So here is a little site admin amusement: The top monthly searches that have resulted in traffic to my site…

My favorites — poke my dog, milo the silo, and furburgers.

Holy Feck. I’m looking forward to the move to Mipples — got my new email addy today (nic AT cray.com. sexy), along with my new office number and phone number for it for next Monday. Anyways,…back to this weather thing, today was retarded nice here in Billings. I’m talking t-shirt in the backyard nice, putting plants in the back of the pickup and driving them around town nice. I spent the day demolishing the garage, utility room and patio with Mom — thanks ! We can check that off the list now, just need to do the bedroom, kitchen foods, and the bathroom now. One more day of packing! I even managed to get the HD out for a ride tonight — just ’cause I can.

Anyhoo — Mipples: Please take a note out of our weather forcast. 50s or 60s for daytime highs. Nothing less, nothing more until April. I will serenade you with my sultry Big Twin rumble to your hearts content. Seriously. I promise. Sadly, looking at the weather forecast for MN reads like a whos-who of bad winter driving. Ice, ice pellets, snow then rain, rain then snow, etc. Thank god I spent this weekend redoing the front end (bearings, races, seals & hubs) on the Brown Beast - having 4×4 again will be nice. Now if someone could only tell me where to find a copious amount of sticky-icky mud near the TC that I can play in and not get arrested for…. This is your chance people — the comment link works!

Well — I’d best get folding and editing the wardrobe here unless I want to sleep on the floor. Yawn

What is more fun than sandpapering the rear-end of an aligator in a phone booth? Oooh! ooh! I know! Pick me! How about a lagoon-esque flooding of a crawl space discovered in 6F weather at midnight after a long weekend of traveling and partying ? You betcha!

Poor Portana’s crawl space was flooded from a burst cold water pipe when we returned. We knew the pipes had frozen the morning we left, but we couldn’t really do anything about it as she was babysitting her rockstar boyfriend in his morning of Retchery and we had to get packed and to the airport. We did have some family members check in on it, but the main shutoff was frozen and couldn’t be closed. We figured that two days of good luck might hold through, but alas it twas not to be. Walking into her house and turning on the kitchen faucet rewarded us with hot & cold water — the hot just a trickle, but at least running. The bathroom…well the hot water trickeled as well, but the cold water just made an ominous gurgling sound. A quick check with my Super Sniffer 2000(tm) confirmed that we were standing over a yet to be determined quanity of stagnant water.

Popping open the crawl space access (external to the house) showed us that we were mere feet away from having a very nice house-boat. There was 2 to 2.5 feet of water just sitting there, all icy and cold looking. My external thermometer was not looking forward to a Polar Bear experience. After finding out there are NO 24hr plumbers in Billings that have pumping equipment (seriously, what kind of fuck ass town is this sometimes!), we rang up one of my friends who had an irrigation pump. We tried to get some water pumping out, but at 2am we were just making a big icy mess of her yard. A call later to the public utilities company here got the water shutoff. We called it a night — there was no immediate danger to stay up and play Ahab. Oh — forgot to mention: The main water shutoff for the house is on the other side of the crawl space, on the other side of the swirling mess.

Revisting the pond this morning found the water level down about 2 feet. I fired up the pump again to move a bit more mud around, but at the end of the morning I left about 6″ of water standing. Thankfully the crawlspace is all dirt, so we are going for the “what goes up must come down” method of home repair. I’ll check in tomorrow to see if it is dry enough to slop around and examine the damage — so far it looks like one minor break in the bathroom cold water feed. A soldering job and we should be back in business. All-in-all, it turned out to be not quite as catastrophic as we had anticipated…so far!

Woooot!!!!! Daddy has a new job!!!

The very gracious folks at Cray have extended me an offer to work in the Filesystem group as a Software Engineer III. Sweet! I will be working from the Medota Heights, MN location — so all you Mpls/St. Paul folks get ready, I’m a moving on in! Cray is a fantastic company, I’ve worked with them and their hardware for the last year or so. I am hoping my experience translates nicely into a easy transistion there. I will be working to help support Lustre and other filesystems on the Cray hardware line, so watch out CFS — I’m Baaaaack.

Thankfull this ends a very anxious (and broke!) job search for the last 6 weeks. I’m ecstatic that it is over, but I do have to say that not doing much for 6 weeks was a right nice vacaction. I’m going to be starting the new J.O.B. on the 13th of March and I am so looking forward to working and earning my moohlah again. I now have a very hectic week and a half to get my current residence packed up and cleaned, then hang around Billings for a week to wrap up some paperwork stuff, then on the road and moving here around the 9th or 10th. Wee! Thankfully Aunt Red has offered for us to hang out at here place until we get settled and find a new place. I will most certainly be taking her up on that offer!

Well — I better get back to enjoying the minus 10F goddamned weather here in MN. Yeah, stay inside has a nice sane ring to it.

This weekend saw a trip to NoDak to help the fam celebrate my Grandpa’s 79th Birthday. This man is a testament to the idiom that “they just don’t make em like they used to”. He re-shingled his roof last summer, put a new tin roof on the barn this last year, and is now fixing up the new house “in town”. Amazing - he took Flyboy (sister’s b/f) and I to the Historical Society to show us some of the old tractors and cars they have there. We young chickens froze our feet off, he was more than fine. Apparently the heater in that model works better than the new ones.

The driving was amusing. We rented a GMC Envoy to get us all in there — 4 adults, one 7 year old, and a weekend of luggage. Now, I’m not sure what you remember of the family trips as a kid, but ours were always a hassle at best. My sister and I are both giant PITAs when it comes to car rides. I am “she is touching me/looking at me/thinking about touching me”. She is “I have to pee” every 15 minutes. Thankfully age has mellowed us a bit, but we still have the memories fof these things to help fuel the ridicule and harasssment. Mom unfortunately is now fair game for teasing too — beit that she packed too much stuff, or is getting cranky because we kids are dragging our feet or being difficult on purpose. Suffice to say, there is a lot of good natured bickering and teasing that goes along with getting all of us into one vehicle. The bonus this time was that Flyboy was joining us for the weekend. Fresh target!

It was really fun to see some of the relatives again - aunts and uncles I’ve not seen in a year or 3, cousins that used to help us all get into trouble, and various relatives of my grandparents’ cohort. I feel it necessary to take every chance I can (within reason here folks…) to hang with g-pa and g-ma, you never know what turns life is going to take. I just hope I can be as spry and good humored at 79 as they are. It is very amusing to see those two and how they still flirt with each other — be it over forgetting to put something on the table for breakfast or who was responsible for breaking something — just makes be very happy to see that.

So! The big news for this week is that I waiting for offers from companies — no interviews or calls left, just paper work or not. I’m actually a bit nervous about one offer, if I don’t get it I will end up having to really sit down and re-think my options and what I want to do with them. crosses fingers

Some days just rock. I started off today by waking up to an alarm, something I do maybe maybe 10 times a year. I am a firm believer that getting your schedule in order and allowing your body to wake up naturally is light years better than cursing like a drunken sailor at a small electronic box every morning. I prefer to cuss at them all day

Anyhoo.. woke up, shower & shave, coffee, then moved towards clothes - dress shirt & trousers with a wool dress coat. I was given a ride to the airport (coffee in tow), hit security right off as I had checked in online, then off to the gate to get some good coffee-drinking-iPod-jamming-reading-book lovins before boarding. Arrived, hit Budget for my car (this is where the day started to get really good) - I was due a compact car, but somehow scored a Ford SUV thingy with leather interior. Something about wearing a dress coat and driving a leather interior that makes a man feel good.

Ahh yes — so the real reason for the trip was an interview. It went quite well, blah blah blah. Pretty standard fare for a tech interview, lunch, etc. Back in the SUV (btw - I HATE these fugging things. They are SO the new mini-van;popular with soccer moms and neutered men. They just have bigger tires and bumpers…) Got a nice surprise while there when the sales dude from my old company walks in. Sometimes the planets align just so - it was good to see him and catch up a bit. Hit the aeropuerto for the flight back, enjoying the ability to just drop the car off and run - I love direct billing. More Ipod & book, interrupted by some people watching. Women in SLC are tall. Huh. Came home, was picked up at the ‘port by the lovely gf. What is it about sexy women driving your truck to pick you up that just well… you know. Back to the shack and chilled on the sofa with dog, girl and beer. Mmm good!

Fire, kerosene laterns, Indian food (homemade of course!) for dinner, more hound-scratching and some tivo lovins. Backrub for the gf, quick email check, now off to my leather chair and the fireplace to read some more.

Some days just rock.

Update Sampling my latest beer concoction - porter with coffee & chocolate. OMFG. Yeah, that good. It is still really young yet, but I envision me trying to dance with the dog if I drink too many more of these.

Hey there! Do you enjoy newspaper ink stained fingers? Repeatedly lifting boxes over 50 lbs? Can handle hours of tedious work all the while handling valuable objects? Have nothing better to do for 4 or 5 days this week ? Can ignore boxes and boxes of pr0n? (I, uh, got it, uh on Ebay for, yeah! on Ebay…) Wouldn’t mind slaving away your days while I sit around in tube sox and underwear, drinking coffee, and trying to scratch rythmically to CMT ? GOOD! I will patiently wait here (in said underwear and sox) for you to show up to help, and I do mean in the full sense of the “royal help”, me pack up house! If I don’t answer the door right away, please just let yourself in — I’m probably sleeping.

Soo…. yeah. I’ve actually started putting things into boxes here at Casa Del Neek* (sorry P, stealing the * for side-stories). After a trip to Target to get the pasticy storage bins and bubble wrap, I managed to get all of the good dishes wrapped up and ready to move. This includes a very nice set of dishes my Grandma gave me for my b-day-slash-thanksgiving (complete with manly pink roses and gold trim), several serving platters from the Moms, and some candlesticks & other sundry items. I did manage to get it all into one bin, so I’m pretty happy about that — it should move pretty well too do to my recent experience of moving in May 2002, Aug 2002, July 2004 and December 2004. God damnit I’d love to stay in a house for more than a year or two! I’m hoping to get the books packed up next — I’ve got a bookcase loaded with them, and a smaller one in the office that is collecting a few as well. I’m guessing 4 or 5 good sized boxes just with books…which reminds me to get smaller boxen - no sense herniating this early in the process. I will save that pleasent medical event for when I try to extract my current landlords’ fingers from my prostate….

At any rate — this whole moving thing is starting to sink in. It is very very weird to think that in a short 4 weeks, it is very likely that I will be unpacking my stuff already somewhere new and starting a new job (fingers crossed). I’ve got so much stuff, the thought of it all being packed up seems downright outrageous. If I can manage to do a little at a time, I’m sure the pounds will just melt away and soon enough all my wordly possesions (some would call them “boxes of shit”) will be ready for transport to far away and exciting lands. Imagine “Minnesota” where everyone talks with an accent ala Fargo, the mosquitos carry away small children, it snows like hell hath frozen over (and yet, no Vikings in the playoffs), and strange actor people carry about their business. Fascinating — to even think such a mythical place even exists is beyond me. One would be remiss if he didn’t recant all of the scary religious fables about Salt Lake City - land of 1432 wives (why piss off more than one woman?), liquor laws that would make Jerry Falwell pucker, moral and cultural restrictions even the Bush administration can’t fathom, and skiing out of your front door. With those two options, it is tough to make up my mind. I don’t know how, but I will manage in some fashion.

• So as for Neek…it all started in college when I picked up a Russian ice skating instructor at a country bar in Philly (yes, it was as odd as that sounds). She was H.O.T, well she was until I saw her eat mashed potatoes without her lips touching…shudder…anyways — she had and amusing way of pronoucing my first name. This resurfaced in the last jobs when I went on a rampage about something and one of my co-workers referred to me as Dr. Neek. I guess it kinda stuck then as my alter-ego — I would change my “nick” to Neek anytime I was about to exercise my wrath on something.

It does appear that the job hunt is nearing its death - I’ve got two companies that are very interested. One has waved off my onsite interview as needless as I have worked with most of the team directly and the other is flying me down on Monday for more interviews. I’m not going to voice my opinion here of which job I want — just incase they are watching Hi!! I am keeping my fingers crossed that this all works out well.

So — my feelings: Thank God! Waiting around for the last month has been brutal. I’m starting to get a bit stir crazy with no real “work” to do, and frankly I’m ready to start earning my Presidents again. There are a lot of looming issues that remain unsolved - like packing logistics, actually moving, finding new house, getting the Bogart moved and settled, etc. With the server moved to its new home, I can start to reduce things here and start packing up the office. Boy, that should be SO much fun. Any takers for coming over and doing this for me ? Didn’t think so…bunch of ingrates. All of this is really hanging on which job I get, when I start, when I need to be out of this place by (breaking the lease, gonna take it in the butt there….) , etc and while I’m not fretting about it too much, I would like to know for sure so I can start to move one direction or the other. Soon, but not soon enough!

So, in the meantime — time to pay bills, clean house and start packing. Hopefully I’ll have more of an update next week.

So…you might have noticed over the last day or so that the ol’ diary was MIA. No more! I’ve gotten it and the gallery moved over to the new server. Most of the email is moved as well, just the several gigs of backups to get done yet. There are several new features available for me now — webmail, decent stats on usage and referrers, not to mention I don’t have to pay for HD space here at home, backups, etc on a regular basis. Enjoy!

Hold on to your socks folks, unholymess.com is moving! For years and years (ok since 2002), unholymess.com has resided on a server in my closet/office/room of pain. This has always meant that I needed to keep decent hardware around for emergencies, manage updates and security maintanence, and make sure the internet connection was suitable. This is generally no problem, but when it comes time to move…well it gets to be a royal PITA. At the suggestion of one of my former co-workers, I’m going to migrate all of the items over to Dreamhost - mail, diary, gallery, etc. Email will be the last to go as I have to manually siphon the data out of the existing server and plow into the new one. If you get a bogus unholymess.com web presence for a few days,…well you won’t be reading this and will just have to suck it up.

Happy Trails….