I had a rotten night and got to the doctor this morning. I’ve been having sharp pains when I inhale and was getting a little worried about what’s going on. The doctor said that some muscle spasms in my back have pulled a rib out of line. He have me some pain killers and muscle relaxers to see if they’ll help. At least I can breathe without pain now, but I don’t like how fuzzy headed they make me.
Author Archives: Pat
Installing More RAM
I’ve been having some trouble with mod_security eating up all the available RAM on the machine so I decided to add another gig of RAM. Fry’s had a matched pair of Corsair 512M modules so that I can keep my DDR2 speeds up. They’re installed now, but there’s some funkyness with getting them running with the existing RAM. They’re newer and faster than the existing modules. I’m going to watch them for a while and see if everything plays nice.
Proven Guilty
I picked up Proven Guilty, Jim Butcher‘s latest book in the Dresden Files series for the flights to and from MITM and finished it tonight. It’s definitely in keeping with the rest of the series, only novel length, and has started to tie up a few of the loose ends that Jim has been putting in throughout the series. There are multiple plot lines which intersect throughout the book. No spoilers but the ending has left me with more questions and waiting for the next book. Harry’s taken on new responsibilities, some of which might get him killed and others which want him the next best thing to dead, so hurry up and write the next one, Jim!
MITM 2006 – Sunday
Today was a short day, and the rain was still there. Everyone was packing up to go home but there was still time for some good laughs and a few more pictures. I left the farm at around 9:30 to get back to St. Louis in time to catch my flight home. Apparently there was some sort of Red Hat Society gathering in St. Louis this weekend because there were red hats and purple dresses all over the airport. After an uneventful flight I got home at about 4:00 in the afternoon.
Thanks for a great weekend everyone!
MITM 2006 – Saturday
I got an early start and got out to the farm by 9:00 and headed out for breakfast not long after that. It was really good to see friends whom I only get to see once or twice a year. After breakfast I made a quick run up to Peoria (about 2 1/2 hours away) to see Reese for a little while. Then back to the farm for some roast pig and more catching up. The pig was excellent and nature’s fireworks really helped. We had a line of strong thunderstorms park right over us. It was bad enough that I slept in the rental car instead of pitching the tent.
MITM 2006 – Friday
This weekend is the annual MITM gathering in Illinois. I got some cheap plane tickets thanks to American and Southwest’s fight over the Wright Amendment and flew up on Friday evening. The plane was delayed on the runway for almost an hour and because of being up early for work and the late arrival I decided to crash at a friend’s house in St. Louis instead of driving tired.
A Bunch Of Landscaping
I’ve been pretty frustrated at the state of the landscaping in my front yard. It’s been a mess for a while with lots of overgrown shrubs and a layout that’s just way too dense. So on Saturday I had some landscapers come over and remove all of the shrubs and other plants. Then on Sunday a couple friends came over and we planted some new flowers and mulched everything. It took about 40 bags of mulch to get everything covered, but it looks great now. There are some before and after pictures in the gallery.
We also planted a couple fig trees in the back yard. Hopefully they’ll have some figs on them next year.
Conehead’s In The Hospital
Well, it looks like I left too early and missed all of the excitement last night. It’s looking like Conehead had a heart attack last night. He got an ambulance ride up to the hospital and it looks like the doctors decided to put a stent in. Red and Redbeard have been visiting him and say he’s doing well. Scary stuff indeed…
CRABB 2006
The pictures are up from this year’s Casa Rojas Annual Birthday Bash. There were a few people who I haven’t seen down here before, like Chuck Lanter and Conehead, and a lot of regulars. The weather was a lot nicer this year and without last year’s rain we were able to hang out outside for quite a while.
I finally left at around 10:30 that night because I was just beat but the party was still going strong.
If you’re interested, the pictures can be found here.
X Men: The Last Stand
Here’s a double review, of the movie and the theater. A friend of mine knows the folks who own the Harkins Theaters chain. They were having their grand opening weekend for the new Southlake location this weekend and she got us VIP seats for one of the shows on Saturday afternoon.
We lucked out and got to see the movie in the Ciné Capri theater with its 74 foot wide, 30 foot tall screen. The picture quality and the sound were incredible. The seats were extremely comfortable. No more AMC Theaters at Grapevine Mills. This place blows that AMC theater away.
The movie was pretty good, though there were a few things that I was wondering about, like where Nightcrawler went. There was more backstory and character building than in the last ones as well. Overall it was a great addition to the franchise and well worth the price of admission, if I’d had to pay.