Back in Massachusetts, added a whole 3 pictures of my vacation. Although good ones, I need to take more pictures. I am a bit of a photo slacker. Oh well, at least I did get some neato beach pictures. So overall, the trip wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be. Staying at the Island really made a difference, and actually being able to get around on my own did too (rental car). I am such an old man, set in my ways and all. So next target is Cancun. I just need to find someone to go with me, and I hear that its going to be the rainy season for a whlie. I’ll look around, see what my options are.

Doing some Veritas training for work. Also scheduled to do some TSM training next month. I’m not too fond of training. Seems like a lot of money on stuff you can do at home. Mostly everything I know I learned at home playing on my computers. You just gotta be interested enough, and have a “few” computers. I guess training is OK on multi-million dollar hardware, unless you can simulate at home (like my small tape library) We’ll see how it turns out, I hope I don’t fall asleep!

In Brownsville now. My parents are letting me stay in their condo at the beach, and it is making all the difference in the world! For some reason, I always feel on edge when I’m at home in Brownsville. I think it is because I can not smoke in front of my parents (especially my mother). She says I can, but still, I can’t. Smoking isn’t an integral part of my life, but it is something I do. Similar to watching TV for most people. Anyway, staying at the island is like being in my own hotel room. only 20 minutes away, and the ocean breeze to counter the normally hot Rio Grande Valley weather. I almost think I can move back here if I lived at the island. Only problem is I doubt there are any SAN implementations anywhere within 300 miles if this place. Brownsville is hellish as always though, 95 degrees and 93% humidity. And its already September!Even Austin isn’t this bad. I remember when I first moved to Austin (which everyone says is very humid) my skin started to dry out.

I have been runnnig into a number of awesome documentaries on the History and Discovery channels lately. For some reason, I have been recording them and archiving them in mpeg form. I think to myself, that I will probably not watch them again, so why do I do that? I also have a tendency to do that with a number of other shows that I probably will watch only once. I’m a digital packrat. In real life I throw things away, if I don’t think I’ll use them again (or even for a long time). So why am I a digital packrat?

Going to Brownsville tomorrow for a couple weeks. Hopefully the weather will be nice, and I can hang out at the beach. Gonna take some pictures with my snazzy camera.

Started eating a bowl of oatmeal and a banana every day now. Its not as bad as I was predicting. For some reason I thought it was going to be as disgusting as soy milk (which makes me nauseus just thinking about ). On top of that I finally got an access key for the exercise room that works, so hopefully I’ll make myself start that this week.

In other news… I’ve been asking around to see if we can get employee discounts on STK hardware, and I just get looks like “whats the matter with you?” Apparently no one is interested in using Enterprise-class hardware in their homes. weirdos. Anyway, All I want is a small 4U rackmountable tape library with 2 DLT drives. Enen then I get the weird looks. Like everyone doesn’t have a 19″ rack at home, sheesh! This piece of hardware is still way expensive, but if I can get this at cost or maybe a loan from the company, it’s all good! Its really the tape media that’ll kill ya, but due to a DLT>Hcart migration a while back, I am fully loaded with DLT tapes. Even though I hate DLT, can’t argue with the price I got on the media.

A few hours ago, I put on my brand new sneakers and got prepared to do some exercise.

Plan:

- Stretch for 10 mintes.

- Run over to the exercise room,

- get on a stationary bike and ride that deal while the Oreilly Factor was on TV. (The got TVs over there)

- Job back to cool down

- Stretch for another 10 minutes.

Execution:

- Stretched for 10 minutes, check

- Ran over to the exercise room. OK, two BIG problems here:

1. I am so out of shape that the minor job to the exercise room had me lightheaded, almost to the point of hallucinating. I lost my peripheral vision, and thought seriously about fainting.

2. (Thankfully) my key didn’t work for the exercise room.

- I recovered after a few minutes, then forced myself to run back then up my stairs.

- Got in then stretched for like 3 mintutes and just about collapsed.

I can’t believe I’m THIS much out of shape! (well, maybe I can) Oh well, I will keep at it for a while. Where is all the “Exercise makes me feel good” crap? The feeling was almost similar to some heavy inebriation (which I’m not a fan of either.) If that’s what you exercise nuts are talkin about, y’all are a bunch of idiots! I hope you aren’t the same people that say being drunk and high is cool!

A while back, I had a journal entry mentioning that Crichton was coming out with 2 movies, but Airframe wasn’t coming out. This fellow from New Zealand was kind enough to email me this link. I find this interesting, because if someone does a search on Google for “timeline movie” my site is around number 8 or 9 on the list. apparently that is how this guy found me. That Google is crazy!

I’m going to make the jump into being a homeowner. Just not my own. My parents suggested I buy some property in Brownsville, TX. The found some properties near the hospital over there for a decent deal. Also, there are a bunch of filipinos over there now for the new hospital. Seems like all the people they know in real estate don’t have a problem finding renters in Brownsville. Even if there is a renter problem, the mortgage for a property in Brownsville would just be spending money for the cost of living up here. Since its all invested, I can’t find a negative Everything I read doesn’t really say anything negative about real estate as an investment/business. So.. Im jumpin in head first, see what happens. My father is doing this through a limited liability corporation that we will create, so it shouldn’t be dangerous for me financially.