Garbunzl.com

My response to Jonspach’s post.

What is this?
Well, you’re supposed to bold the things you’ve done so readers can find out how you’ve led an awesome life so far.

Here’s what I have done:
1. Started your own blog Ummm, yeah
2. Slept under the stars camping when I was a kid
3. Played in a band (Rock Band: start a band, rock the world)
4. Visited Hawaii(honeymoon 2000)
5. Watched a meteor shower
6. Given more than you can afford to charity
7. Been to Disneyland(twice)
8. Climbed a mountain
9. Held a praying mantis
10. Sang a solo (Rockband again)
11. Bungee jumped
12. Visited Paris
13. Watched a lightning storm at sea
14. Taught yourself an art from scratch
15. Adopted a child
16. Had food poisoning (7-eleven, egg-salad sandwich)
17. Walked to the top of the Statue of Liberty
18. Grown your own vegetables every year
19. Seen the Mona Lisa in France
20. Slept on an overnight train
21. Had a pillow fight
22. Hitch hiked
23. Taken a sick day when you’re not ill
24. Built a snow fort It was quite impressive…or so I remember.
25. Held a lamb
26. Gone skinny dipping
27. Run a Marathon
28. Ridden in a gondola in Venice
29. Seen a total eclipse
30. Watched a sunrise or sunset
31. Hit a home run
32. Been on a cruise (To Victoria)
33. Seen Niagara Falls in person
34. Visited the birthplace of your ancestors
35. Seen an Amish community
36. Taught yourself a new language HTML?
37. Had enough money to be truly satisfied
38. Seen the Leaning Tower of Pisa in person
39. Gone rock climbing
40. Seen Michelangelo’s David (more…)

Its been about 8 months since my last post so I figured now would be a good time for another.

While there are many reasons for this long break, such as returning to school or playing too much Rockband and other videogames, the main reason was due to site issues and some frustration.  Not sure how, may have been my host, but my entire “mediaalbums” directory just vanished one day, along with all the videos and photos.  I was rather disappointed to find out that my host doesn’t backup folders containing MP3s or video files, due to size.  Without a backup I’d have to set the whole system up again and I really didn’t want to.  Aside from that I also had some issues with hackers and decided to lock down the site until I could fix everything.  Now that Wordpress has a more adequate method for inserting images and media, I’ve decided to resume.  I’m still in the process of changing the look and fixing/removing dead links and images so please excuse the mess.

Working out of Federal Way, I drive around the area fairly regularly. As anyone familiar with the area knows, there is no shortage of freight trucks. What with the convergence of 2 main highways (18 and I5), 18-wheel semis are an abundant part of the landscape. During a typical lunchtime excursion the other day as I was making my way back to work I was cutoff by a truck that was merging onto eastbound 18. Now this is not the first time this has happened and in general the trucks around here seem to drive more aggressively than usual. It just seems to me, with merging in particular, truck drivers have abandoned the consideration of “yeilding” to other traffic for more of a “plowing” approach. Perhaps it could be that since both words have agricultural connotations, it’s causing them confusion? Whatever the reason, I just felt like complaining about it to the world. So, for anyone reading this, thanks for listening!

Still busy busy busy, just a quick post to let you know what I’ve been up too.

We had a nice, quite Thanksgiving at home this year. It was great to have a 4-day weekend to spend some time with the family and eat lot o’ turkey and stuffing. Though it still feels too early this year, I started putting up some Christmas lights on Sunday. Not much so far, just lining the driveway but this year I plan to get up on the roof to put up lights. I’ll likely post more on this in the next week or so. Also, though I swore against it after my first failed effort, I couldn’t resist building another computer. I had several components just sitting around so I bought a case, motherboard and cpu and tried again. While it appears I have a stable system, I’ll devote a seperate post to the numerous issues I had in the building process. Lastly, I’ve added a new shoutbox feature in the sidebar for anyone who enjoys making off-handed, pointless comments about whatever. Until next time…

With the 5th anniversary of the 9/11 tragedy nearing, it’s on a lot of people’s minds.

For a writer at satirical web periodical, “The Onion”, this is purely for entertainment purposes. See it here: http://www.theonion.com/content/node/52325 (more…)