Much excitement at work. Mostly personal advancement and such. We bought a few months ago some new hardware, and it sat idle waiting to return from classes and for some other machines to free up enough to switch over applications. Basically I was in a holding pattern until this week to setup the new gear. But set it up I am, and more importantly, I'm getting to exercise a number of new skills. The one that got me excited today was a technology called multipathing. Create multiple paths from your host to your storage, then when one path fails, the system can continue talking to the storage with only a brief hiccup, and no data loss. I've been wrestling with the commands and nomenclature for the last 2 days, and today it all came together, and it all worked. I'm so happy.

All the while I've been listening to Bon Jovi's It's My Life, which is causing me to think more about doing stuff outside of work, and making more of my time. I may never be famous, may never be remembered by history thus granted imortality, but I definately don't want my time on earth to be spent inefficiently. Get up and move. See things, do things, try things. And then write about them so my children and more importantly their children can remember them, learn from them, and perhaps insipre them to try it themselves.

Or maybe it's just that the song has a great two beat pause right in the middle that I can't resist pounding my desk to...

Spending the day shopping for computer stuff with my brother Randy.

I put two items up on eBay today. It's a start of my innept attempt to scour the house and remove a few of the less or never used items. I'd really like to make better use of the attic, such as laying down some plywood for walking and storage, and installing an attic ladder in a more accessible location. Maybe I'll just cut the hole for the ladder, and install the ladder at a later date. Yeah, that's a good idea.

Summer to me was rolling out the slip-n-slide, riding my bike to the Pick-Quik to spend my hard earned allowance on swizle sticks, using a plastic comb to try and break my friend Tom's world record at Track and Field, taking ill-advised dives into our above ground pool, which we sunk into the ground, trying to stay the entire night with my other friend Jeremy in my fathers tent without needing to go inside, or having the flaslight go dead, getting icecream from the icecream man out of his rusty van while The Entertainer blared from out the top of his roof-mounted speakers, hiding in my room conquering Nintendo games as fast as the video rental store acquired them, and generally being a happy, lazy boy, glad to be out of school.

Nothing took up as much time though, as the trips to North Carolina. my Mom, bless her brave soul, would bundle all 4 of us into her custom conversion Econoline van, loaded to the hilt with suitcases, books, coloring books, travel games, and coffee, and spend 5 days driving to NC. Each year, we'd rent a different house in a ski resort community of Sugar Mountain, our first year at the tippy top of the mountain, and each year thereafter getting closer and closer to the bottom. Eventually she bought a house of our own, next to a river and a lake, near the slopes and tennis courts. It slept 15, but still never felt big enough for 4 kids.

Along the way, we'd go out of our way to stay at a particular style of Holiday Inn called a Holidome, which was a fancy way of saying a kids friendly hotel, complete with fancy pool and slide, video arcade, often times a 3-hole mini golf putting range. We had our share of less reputable Days-Inn or local places, which had their own charm, along with their own diseases and rickety plastic slides. One of the greatest thrills was discovering that a particular pool came equipped with a diving board.

The car ride itself was a challenge. Loaded with travel games like scrabble, magnetic chess, and those books with the special pen that caused the paper to change color, my Mom headed off down US 301 or I-75 with little more than a prayer of keeping us in control. She also had a little wooden spoon that she hung from the rear-view mirror, and was not afraid to threaten us with it. It was much more effective as a fear tactic. Psy-Ops were my Moms speciality.

We travelled to such exciting places as Valdosta, Georgia, which is the home of King Frog(and King Frog radio), and the Valdosta Mall, and some outlet malls which we used to pine for. Once we hit Valdosta, we were officially on our way. We were making serious progress. It also took the better part of the first day to travel those relatively short 250 miles.
Some other locations that stick in my head include Macon, GA, Commerce SC,

Savannah GA, which is dangerously close to the infamous paper mill on I-95. If you've ever driven I-95 when the mill was active, then you know what I'm talking about. It stinks. Really. It gets in the can, and like a skunk, you can't get rid of it for miles. Close the air vents, roll up the windows, it doesn't matter, the smell still gets in. Roll the windows down, turn the air back on, it still doesn't matter, the smell won't go away.

Once we hit Winston-Salem, NC, we knew we were getting close. Here we left the interstate, and got on local highway for the last 3 hours. Slow, twisty roads, steep inclines and declines. It was mountain driving at its finest. Of course our full size van was not the easiest or most nimble vehicle in the world. We'd be barreling down one of the inclines, passing flashing signs warning you to please, please, for the love of God to use your lower gears, blazing past runaway truck ramps, which are dangerous looking mounds of sand designed to take a truck, and bring it from 90mph to 0mph in a stretch of 200 feet, and a glorious could of sand. We kept pleading with Mom to take the van into one of the ramps to see what it was like, but she never would. Harumph...

Each time, we survived, and arrived on Sugar Mountain. Every year I'd make a point to trek down the ski slopes, which in the summer are very steep, covered with tall grass, and exposed to any wandering kid to play on. They wisely took down the lift chairs, and locked the doors to the ski lift control rooms. Mom drove us to the top, we walked down. Along the way we'd find ski poles, broken skis, hats, goggles. Some of these we'd keep. I don't remember why...

The place was heavily forested with coniferous style forests, tall green trees, but with little underbrush. It made for great hiking and exploration. At one point we found a river that was part run-off, and part natural spring, which ran from somewhere near the top of the mountain to what would eventually become our lake. We tried many times to ford the river to it's origin, but were always stopped by a think bramble we couldn't get around, a spider web that some banana spider built across the river, or a hive of bees. Beeeeees....

When not hiking in the woods, I was likely to be hiking the 1.2 miles to the Scotchman's convenience store, which was across the street from the front entrance to the mountain. In the early years, the Scotchman's would be home to a different video game each year, and I would make an effort to hike down, or get Mom to drive me down, whenever I could. Sometimes, when feeling extra energetic, I might even go the extra 1/2 mile to the Food Lion grocery store, but then I would almost always need help getting home.

Summer in NC usually meant some sort of summer programs. The area had a decent selection of summer programs, from horse back riding, to tennis, to a nifty course in whittling wood, to a course in Calculus I and II. The calculus was reserved for my last summer in NC, at which time I was completing my first summer of college.

That's summers to me in a nutshell. I know there are other things worth talking about, but the summer heat has me pining for latitudes north of here.

I've almost finished with the collapsible months on the right, but for some strange reason, they start in the open position and not in the closed position. Everybody else implementation starts closed. Must investigate further.

Update : Have I ever mentioned how much I love Ace Hardware. This is a great small town style hardware store, with everything you need, without all the large HomeDepot style hustle. The people are nice, wonderfully helpful, and very affordable. I was briving to Home Depot to look for a back support belt, when Denise suggested the much closer Ace. I don't know why it's so hard to remember they are there, they are closer, nicer, cheaper, friendlier. I should buy some stock in them. Anyway, I found the back belt, and also found some coaxial cable to play with. I'm trying to continue digging up my front yard, but I'm tired, really tired. . .

Update : Yea, the menu on the right works now. Click on a month to expose the days I've written about. It's now much cleaner and easier to find things. Not that anyone other than myself will be looking at the history. Except maybe Mike in about 10 years when he's trying to justify large electronic purchases.

"But Dad, you bought a $2000 computer right after I was born, why can't I?????"