Heyyyyyyy Brother!

Hey guys, I wanted to use my blog here to remind everyone of our trip tomorrow. I'm sure I don't have to remind anyone but ITS TOMORROW!

Be sure to bring a swimsuit, batteries, camera, vijagames, money for Erik, money for gas, drivers licenses, and anything else that may be awesome. I think as always we will get JUST A LITTLE bit of food for the hotel (we always buy too much), and pick up some alcohol in Dallas. I'm thinking everclear so we can make strong mix drinks with cheap koolaid, or whatever. Also some Vodka and Rum should be nice. Use this time to consider anything you might be forgetting to bring and PACK IT NOW!

Erik has informed me that he would like to leave Tulsa by 12 o' clock, but check in is whenever.

Normanites, lets try to leave by 1.... and 2 by the latest! Token and I are driving.

Update!

Once again I'm here at work, giving another update when I should be working/reading. Not much is going on this past week, it's been a very calm/uneventful week in Norman. Amber, the roomies, and I have been watching some movies the past few days. We're trying to catch up on Indiana Jones before we go to the movie tonight (we still have 2 more to go). We also saw Prince Caspian last night, which was very well done and a very fun movie to watch.

Besides just hanging around watching movies, and playing games, not much has been going on. I've spent most of my free time thinking about A-Kon (which is next Thursday please everyone ask off, Joe I'm looking at you)! I think we're going to have a great time, and we should all go out of our way to keep ourselves busy. Like I was telling Erik, the second we get bored on a Sat afternoon we need to just all get really drunk, at like 3. It will be awesome. Although Erik suggested just going to the hot tub whenever we get bored of the kon, which is a great idea also (I love hot tubs). I assume that the Tulsa people will consist of Erik, Tara, Josh, and Joe in one car. Norman will consist of Max, Bekkah(i think?), Amber, James, Token, Adam, Tanner, and myself. We should be able to do 4 / 4 in 2 different cars. Vikki will also be joining us but not until Friday night, Amber's friend (who I've forgotten her name, will also be meeting us in Dallas. Sounds like a lot of people, but at least we are getting to go for pretty cheap. I just wanted to remind everyone to pay Erik if you have not. He is always very nice to reserve everything for us, and lets do him the respect of paying him when we all get there (if not before, or you already have). On that note let have fun and make it the BEST TRIP EVVVVEEEERRRR ( lol rfgo!)

I guess the last thing that I have to report is that Token, Amber, PTJ, and I have all started playing FFXI again. We've made 100 % new characters on the Leviathan server. I've gone back to XI before, but this time it's a little more fun for me. I've been teaching Amber how to play and it's really fun to go over everything, and experience that "new" feeling all over again. She seems pretty interested, asking questions, and seems to absorb most of what I'm explaining. We spent 2 hours in town last night, showing her around (Auction House, different parts of the city, Mog House, exit's, menus, etc.) and we haven't even left Bastok yet. I hope to explain combat this weekend, and start getting groups together with the Jameses. I'm under the impression that Adam might join us, but is not wanting to commit too much time to anything since he has a summer class after A-Kon. Oh. Incase there are any once-long-haired-tulsan-friends of mine who might wander back in our fold, or anyone else for that matter, possibly a mustachioed, candy loving freak our names are....

Token - Logjammin, Red Mage - Hume (Bastok)

Nick - Funran, Monk - Taru (Bastok)

Amber - Misscatears, Warrior - Mithra (Bastok)

James - McGregor, Warrior - Hume (Bastok)

Adam - Atomsk, Paladin - Taru (Bastok)


Anyways, hope everyone has a great extended weekend (maybe thats just for us STATE employees)


Adios,

You guys ready to laugh?

I'm sure that this WILL be a mistake, but it's only a 12 dollar mistake really. I've reactivated FFXI to play with Token, James, Amber, and Adam (who says he will play for awhile before school). We're all starting brand new characters on Leviathan, our famous server from 4 years ago. We're gonna create our Big American Party Linkshell if possible, but also join Token's friends from back in the day. It will be fun to start over and play anew with new characters and old friends. Token told me no more epic Windurst trips though, which makes me a little sad. :( Just for old time's I've selected this post off of my "Funran to the Max" Blog of the OEF forums.

"Nov 02, 2003

FFXI

So, when I woke up I was lvl 8, right now I am 7. Grr.. I played for about 6 hours today, only to go backwards. Although it was worth it, because we were heading too Sand'oria to check out the shops. We (White James, Matt, Black James and I) took a boat to the east continent, and traveled south to Windurst. It's way better for us mages and I knew that I needed to go there. On the way, I went fishing while we are on the boat, and I caught a sea monster, and it came on the boat and killed me and Black James. But the ship was full of 40 people that were better than us. So a White mage revived me. Now that I'm in Windurst I have a new staff, new spells, and looking for new armor.

But we made a mistake, we left Josh, Joe, Max, Adam. This was not cool of us, and I feel really bad. We should have started in Windurst, like you guys mentioned, I didn't realize that Bastok would be so fighter dominate....So I take part fault for that one. I didn't think that mages were frowned upon in Bastok. So sorry guys. The boat is only 100 bucks, if you guys can get up there, White James I'm sure will tell you how we did it, I'm not quite sure, he was the only one with a map. IM really sorry guys. We will get you over here though.

Bad things-

Were not members of their region, and that sucks, are mog house are rentals (free) but we don't have the Furnishing option (boo hoo). We have to go to a Bastok delegate to get are signat cast on us.....and some of the towns people are assholes. It cost 20,000 dollars to become one of them........once again, we should have started in Windurst, I didn't understand the consequences, or how the rules worked with the regions. I'm sorry again :)"

9 in the A.M

Morning all,

I find myself sitting at my work desk again this morning without much to do. I love my new job, I really do, but I don’t really have anything to do today. In fact today quickly becoming a shadow of yesterday. I arrive at 8am and immediately begin checking my daily reads across the internet. That normally takes anywhere from 30-40 min before I feel like I’ve caughup with the ‘happenings’ going around online. After that I’ll go fill up my water bottle, sometimes walk out to the lobby to get a drink from the water fountain just to get the blood flowin…. Then I might read some of my computer books, but as you can imagine, regardless how much you enjoy computers, a book about the Microsoft Exchange Server will put you to sleep early in the morning. Regardless, I come back to my desk and hit the “send and receive” button on my Microsoft Outlook inbox, hoping a new e-mail has arrived with something to do. That is normally not the case, which is really too bad because I’d like to be walking around the office fixing computers, or working on stuff like that. I’m complaining about not doing anything, so obviously it’s not the most terrible thing in the world or anything, the problem is that I enjoy working on computers; it makes the time pass much faster. As the day progresses people will start to come online, Erik is usually always on gtalk which is nice, but I’m sure he is much busier than I so he may not always be able to talk. With any luck though my phone will ring, and some confused senior will need me to show them how to add a contact to their e-mail address book.

I’m sure a few months are going to go by and I’m gonna be missing days like today.

Besides work everything is going pretty good, been playing a lot of video games lately! I say that like it’s new news, but honestly I’ve gotten a chance to really play some stuff I never have before. I spent last month really playing Metal Gear Solid 1 which II really enjoyed, Solid Snake might be the best man in the world. I’ve also started playing Ico with Amber, which is really amazing. It’s nice to play these old games and know it’s one more title I can scratch off my “OMGZ YOU HAVENT PLAYED THAT?!” list. I’ve spent my free time this week playing FFXII, my favorite addition to the series in sometime. Other than that not much is going on, Me and Amber watch the first Indiana Jones last night so we can prepare for the newest installment on Friday!!

A-Kon is coming up, I thought I would remind everyone to ask off for work if you need to, and start growing out that facial hair because next Thursday I’m shaving my beard and only leaving behind the potato. I better see many fellow potatoes walking out that door Thursday afternoon right before we head to Dallas. Do it for Potato Man, what would he do.

WWPMD?

New Job

It just seems like I was ranting and raving about my promotion at my last job (oh wait it was my last post). Well this is the perfect segue (I love this word but it looks stupid as hell) into my newest announcement, which for many of you is not news at all. Regardless, I got a new job working for the Oklahoma Conservation Commission as their Information Systems Network Management Specialist. Nice title huh? A friend of mine gave me a heads up on the position, and even though I was under qualified I went ahead and applied. Four weeks later I'm sitting at a desk in a cubicle with my name on it, with a beast of a Dell accompanied with two 21inch monitors! The new job is great, I've got a lot to learn but mostly picking things up as they come along. I have a few books I'm reading so I can get familiar with the unfamiliar here at the new job. Basically I'm responsible for maintaining the network around our office, while being able to help the users around the office with small problems as they come up. So far any problem users here have I've been able to fix, e-mail issues, error messages, and random stupid mistakes. The network side of things is basically making sure that the network is running correctly, being able to fix something if it goes down, or doing things to make sure it wont shut down, or have problems. These things are a little more serious and since I'm learning them along the way it makes it a bit more scary. So far (knock on wood), no problems have occurred. I hope it stays this way because my boss will be gone all week, which leaves me to just sitting here writing on my blog, reading my Windows Server 2003 book, and surfing the internet while I wait for people to have computer problems.

It was too bad leaving Computer Nerdz, it was really great there. It was easy, fun, and I miss the people a lot. I was only there for a short time ( 6 months) and I wish I had started earlier. It's great to know if things don't work out here (I think they will work out just fine) that I always have a place to fall back on. I did receive employee of the month right before I left (heh), which is awesome because my name will be immortalized in the OKC north store.

Other than my new job, I don't have a lot to report. Amber graduated OU this week, and we should all golf clap for her. There is a party in her honor at my apartment this Friday (the 16th). My brothers are also graduating from High School which is crazy to think about. So golf clap for them too.

I'm running out of things to say, which is too bad because I'm pretty bored at work. Time to read some more of my computer books :(

So I lied about posting so often, but here is a life update for you

So March has already been a very interesting month, I've started dating Amber - who most of you have met. Things have been going pretty good, and I look forward for the rest of you to meet her soon, if not I believe she will be coming to A-Kon so you'll have your chance there. Besides girls, I've gotten a promotion at work (and a raise), I now work the "Bench" which is working inside the store instead of driving everywhere. Which is a nice new title for me, less driving, but still a chance to make lots of money. It's a laid back position and I don't have to be in peoples homes, plus I can listen to music, etc. Yay! I still want to pursue certifications to supplement my college degree and beef up my computer knowledge. I've even thought about going back to college all together....but the tech certs' seem like a better choice for what I'm wanting to do in the future.

Now for the big update, lots of you have heard this story one way or another but probably haven't heard it all. So here it goes. Last Wednesday I picked Ashley up to go get some lunch and hang out (she's in town from Minnesota for spring break). We we're driving to Charlestons for lunch, we were driving down interstate drive (near all the restaurants here in Norman) going about 30-40 MPH. Out of nowhere this red Mustang takes a left right in front of me while I'm driving ( I had the right of way, she was behind a stop sign and for some reason did not see me), and with only 3 second warning I slam on the breaks and sound the horn. Crash. My car is fine mostly, but her car on the other hand is fucked. The drivers side door where I hit her looks like the Hulk punched it as hard as he could. I'm surprised she could even open the door up, or get out of it at all. So we pull over out of the road, and Ashley calls the police. A few minutes later the cops show up and begin the standard stuff, license, registration, etc, etc. After about 20 minutes of sitting around complaining that our necks are killing us, a police officer walks over to Ashley and I. He walks up to me and says "Sir I need you to put your hands behind your back, I'm going to put you in handcuffs and take you to the police department". So I'm about as shocked as I could ever have been in my life. Ashley is yelling at the cop asking what I did wrong, etc. It was terrible. I'm getting arrested in front of the stupid people who pulled out in front of me. I climb into the back of the police car, and ask the officer what I've done, and why we're going to the police station. He tells me that I have a unpaid speeding ticket that is a few months old and (apparently) my license had been suspended (but I had no idea). Of course I move every year it seems like in Norman, so my address was out of date on my license. Basically I forgot about the ticket, had gotten a new car by then, and never received the notice of suspension. So we get to the police station, and he takes off the cuffs (as I scramble out of the car without arms. We go inside and I pay my Driving under suspension fee of 279 dollars (fuck). THEN, I find out that I don't get my license back until I go to fucking AMBER Oklahoma in the middle of nowhere and pay them 360 (fuck fuck). THEN today right now, i'm going to get my license reinstated for 50 bucks. Now while this sounds bad, it gets worse. I now have a court date on the 22nd of April, where they will tell me that because I got a TICKET while UNDER SUSPENSION, I get ANOTHER TICKET (probably another 300), AND my license suspended again for 3-6 months. Yeah. The only bright side is that I'll have my car for another month, but after this I don't know. I called my uncle who is a lawyer in Tulsa, and has already made a few calls trying to get my ticket "removed", so maybe a lot of this will just go away. He's pretty confident about getting a lot of this "taken care of", because he knows a lot of people, etc. It's kinda lame how the state can just fuck you and stack ticket upon ticket and ruin your life by taking away my license, further punishing me by not allowing me to work and lead a normal life. So it's nice to know that they are corrupt enough for my uncle to just call a few people and get a lot of this removed, which makes this all easier to swallow.

I'll keep you guys posted on what's going on with all of this, and I promise to update more than once a month.

The cake is a lie

Sorry for promising daily updates, it seems that might not always be something I'll be providing. I'll try to not forget the blog though. Sometimes there is just nothing to write, I opened up the editor a few times and could not write more than a few sentences. So, I might not give an update daily, expect at least a few times a week, at least.

Life has been getting interesting as of late, been trying to get out more, doing things out of the house when I can, bars, etc. I've also changed my attitude concerning work, it's time to start figuring out a plan for the future. I'm happy enough at work right now, but I'm already seeing a problem with the way things are run there. It's full of awesome people, good bosses, and all of that, it's just that some of the more corporate "choices" are a little cheap. Basically all the driving is getting old, 2.00 per call isnt good enough, not when you might go from Norman to Edmond, or Yukon to Moore. It's bullshit actually. I've been looking into other lowend computer jobs that might be closer to me, and a better fit for my monetary situation. I've applied at Circuit City for their Firedog team, or whatever the hell they call it. I heard they were hireling, so I figure since they are "big time" they might treat their employees better like providing a company car for house calls, or maybe I could work inside full time doing PC repair / tech work? Either way it's more money in the pocket, which is good. The next step is finding the certifications I need to get, and/or the classes I need to take. By the end of the year I'd like to have some kind of networking / IT job for a company. That's my goal.

Other than all of the work related stuff, things have been going pretty good. I've spent some time playing Cave Story, which Joe has been recommending and I'm glad he did. I've also been playing a lot of PS3 with Joe, which has been a lot of fun. Lost Planet is surprisingly fun, and Warhawk never disappoints. There are a few psp and ds games I'd like to get my hands on, but they might have to wait till the summer. Money is tight, and Smash Bros is around the corner and I'll have to pick that up for sure.

It's way too late, I've got to go to freaking bed. :(

House Freeman

Vikki sent me this picture and I thought it was awesome. I don't really have anything to write about that concerns Gordon Freeman, or Gregory House. Which is too bad because they both are really awesome, just like this picture.

Today I had a day off, which was kind of nice because I worked almost twelve hours yesterday. I didn't really do much, picked Adam up from TCC (his car is in the shop what a fucking pogue), cleaned the house, and played some Final Fantasy XII. Now I'm watching Daria with Token waiting for PTJ to get some so we can watch Weeds.

Weeds, a Showtime comedy/drama is an awesome fucking show. It follows the life of a typical suburban housewife who makes a living as a pot dealer. It's really clever and well written, like most HBO shows, or Dexter (also Showtime). It's nice to know that someone besides HBO can put out some awesomely written shows that are adult oriented. HBO is kinda running dry right now, I'm not worried or anything but they just don't have any new shows running right now. There is some new stuff coming but I'm not sure if it will be this Fall, or next year. There is a Vampire drama show coming out that it supposed to be awesome, a show about woman who run a realestate company in Dallas which actually looks pretty good, and Preacher which is based off of a comic book so it's got to be good. I also read about a new HBO show called "Song of Ice & Fire" which is based on a long series of fantasy books, that's about all i know.

Wow this is a pretty random post, I think I'm going to wrap this up, PTJ should be home soon to watch some Weeds. Plus I have some food in the oven, food times.

PTJ (James) is a Fucking Dick

<---------- (above) Big Douche Fag. He thinks it's gay I have a blog, and I like to write. Well guess what James, I hate you and I hope you die in a fire of flaming shit. Die. I told him I like having a webpage and that he is a dick, and he said "mehhh why don't you blog about it". Well guess what you fucker.

Blogging at work

I'm just sitting around at work today, been fixing a lot of computers here in the office which has been a nice change of pace from driving around. It's really quiet here, and I don't have to deal with people. After my 90 day period is up, I'll be a full time employee which is awesome because my second 200 bonus will be here in just a month. Once I'm considered a full time employee I might be able to be promoted to "bench", where I can work from the main office! It's the same type of work that I do out in the field, but it's quieter and easier to surf the net while I'm running scans :D

Other than that not a lot has been going on with me besides work, etc. At some point I'd like to get the certifications I need to do Network Administration for a bigger company, which is kinda what I'm shooting at jobwise. I'm happy where I am now though, at least for the time being it's a good first step. I don't get the big bucks that I got working as a Landman, but I also have more of a life again, which is great. Although I do miss it from time to time, really I miss the money. Money is kind of an issue for me right now, I am going to put in some extra hours at work till I catch up. Too many bills, puh, it sucks. I hate money.

Well I've got a 6:30 call coming up, and I'm going to see if I can't take it a little early so I can get home before it's too late. Hope everyone is enjoying the blog, I know no one updates their old ones, but that's mostly an issue of the oefnetwork being gayed up. I'm liking this bloger though, it's easy to use and it lets me host pictures. Much easier.

Sunday Night

I'm trying to force myself to write daily, and since I missed yesterday it's important that I at least post once this weekend. Overall it was a pretty good weekend, Joe and Erik came down and we played a lot of video games from the days of yore, like E.V.O. - The Search for Eden. Which so happens to be a great SNES game that I'm ashamed of never playing as a kid. Although I missed it when I was young, I still got that feeling of playing a game for the first time on the SNES like I did after coming home from Blockbuster in the mid nineties. You basically start out as some sort of "low on the food chain" fish that isn't very threatening, eating the easy monsters you find which give you "Evo P's" (Evolution Points / XP). Once you've accumulated enough Evo P's you can spend it on upgrades on yourself. So your little fish can eventually get stronger jaws, speed efficient tail, various horns, bigger/smaller body, better body armor, etc. Basically every time you play you create a new "monster" as you travel through the levels (of Evolution), Fish, Amphibian, Dinosaur, Primate/Animal, Human Being. Each level follows the same basic formula of evolving the weak features of your "new body", until you are strong enough to beat the boss (which happens to be the top-dog of the current era's food chain). If you were not here this weekend, I encourage you to go download the emulator, or even pick it up from a pawn shop if you happen to come across it. It's an excellent game, I just hope someone else thinks so and remakes it on XBLA/PSN.

It's been a pretty lax Sunday, not a whole lot going on tonight. I tried playing Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater tonight, but failed miserably. Which is really frustrating, because I really want to play it, I'm just really bad at it. Part of the problem is the game itself, it has frustrating controls, and a frustrating camera (which was changed in the re-release Metal Gear Solid 3: Subsistence). Although most of the problem was me, if you can't keep your cool during a bad situation (like me) you'll probably just get killed. Also I've never really played the other Metal Gears much, and I'm not terribly familiar with the tactics that are necessary to survive in the game longer than a few minutes... I think I'll try it again because I'm really interested in the game, the espionage stuff, sneaking around, etc very cool stuff (I'm just bad at the game). Oh well practice makes perfect, I've just never been so bad at a game before. It was pretty pathetic.

Anyways, Adam is looking over my shoulder so I've got to get back to my Full Metal Alchemist, an awesome show that needs my attention. Shit, Adam just took over the TV "because I'm blogging not watching", so I guess I'll watch him play Castlevania: Lament of Innocence. What a DICK.

Masochist?

So for the past month I've done a lot of "fiddling" with Linux on my laptop, PC, and PS3. I've always been a nerdy guy when it comes to computers, it's always been a hobby of mine, but I never thought I'd become one of "those" guys. The kind of guy who uses Linux instead of Windows. While I don't think that is who I have become, I have certainly gone down that path further than I ever have before. I've gotten Ubuntu up and running on my laptop and PC right now, both working perfectly. I installed it on my laptop about 2 months ago, and it was very simple and didn't require any extra effort on my part, and was much faster than a Windows install. I use it off and on, but it's really more like an extension of Windows for me. Then, two nights ago I went ahead and installed Ubuntu on my desktop, which was sad to say not as easy of a task as my laptop. ( I know this is really exciting stuff, but welcome to my blog) I must have spent 5 hours just fucking with settings, googling, bugging James/Erik for help, till everything was running as it should (as my laptop did from the beginning). After hours and hours of tweaking, I even got Steam and WoW installed, and running. WoW runs perfect, if not better than it does in my Vista setup, which was really surprising. Steam on the other hand works, but some further googling will have to occur before I can make it playable, it's just too slow.

Anyways, my point in all of this is this - why the hell do I put myself through all of the trouble to get Linux working (as well as Windows) does? I understand that Linux is free, and is not bound down by "the man", and is open source, etc, etc. I get that. But Vista/XP work, they work well, damn well. They do everything I need, and lets be honest, they do it better than Linux. I'm not bashing on Linux, but, if I want to upload a new album to my iPod I'm probably going to have to Google and spend 3 hours trying to emulate iTunes to get it working on my Ubuntu set up. The same with lots of programs. I'm sure that there is a work around for most of these issues, or alternative programs that work just as well if not better.....but it's such a hassle. Yet I enjoy it, I find it entertaining, fun, informative, etc.

But why do I put myself through all of this trouble when I already have an OS that works right now, fully? It's not like I had to pay the big bucks for Vista, or XP, I pirated them obviously. I have no real reason to use Linux, which causes me many hours of troubleshooting, etc, yet I still do it. I'm a Ubuntu cutter, and it feels sooo good! (this is my masochist tie in here lolz)

puh.

Welcome to Puh

After being bored for about ten minutes I decided that it was time to bring back blogging (for my self at least). I have always enjoyed writing posts on the oefblogs we had, but when they went down and the forum was a massive failure, I had nowhere to go....

So welcome to Puh.


Puh.blogspot was taken, that mother fucker. So was a few other choice key phrases, like "lolz/didibuh". Damn shame. So here we are with "puhhhh". Although spelling puh, with 4 h's probably resembles the way puh is used more accurately. Sure, every now and then you mumble "puh" underneath your breath, but normally it's in an exclamation of dismay.

Anyways. I do plan on updating this blog often, daily if i can, and keeping that trend as long as possible. So if you decide to check back again, I hope to have a new post sometime tomorrow (Friday). Speaking of Friday, Joe and Erik are coming down and that makes me a happy Nick.

Well it's time for bed, I have work in the morning and shouldn't be up anyways. I would have been asleep a lot earlier if I could have decided on a blog name, puh.