The blog of Michael Rice

Well I’m back online after an extended down time. My main computer is dead. It will only run for a few minutes a day (and only on certain days when it feels like running). Tonight I managed to get it to boot and stay running for about 5 minuets before it died, which gave me just enough time to get this backup off that machine and install it on my temp web server. I hope to get a more permanent solution soon. I did go ahead and upgrade my blog to the latest wordpress so maybe it wasnt a total bust?

Well if you didn’t already know Nine Inch Nails has a new cd out. Its called The Slip, and it kicks ass. What makes it even better though, is it’s free!!!

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Originally uploaded by the_real_errr

Its been raining a ton here. With lots of rain cool little mushrooms normally grow. I was heading to work today and at the foot of the stairs Were these nifty lookin mushrooms. I have no idea what kind they are but they sure look pretty cool.

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Originally uploaded by the_real_errr

Yesterday we were sitting around bored trying to decide where we wanted to go get rained on. After a little bit of discussion we decided to go to the Frio River. Its right around a 2 hour drive from our apartment. The original plan was to go to Garner State Park and play in the water or something, but the park was full and they would not let us in. We drove up the road a little further untli we found a good spot to park where we could access the river. We walked down to the river got on our tubes and floated down the river about a mile to this place called Happy Hollow. They charged us 2 bucks for an exit fee then a dollar per person to shuttle us back to our car. This was mine and Aprils first time to ever go tubing. Summer had been several times before. We had a really great time. We got a few pictures of the river (none with us in it though). You can check them out here.

I was surfing the web and stumbled across this and nearly spit milk out my nose laughing. Check this out. Its almost sad how true this is.

So my car has been running kinda rough for a while now and the stupid “Check Engine” light has been on since the day I bought the car. I decided that I should get it fixed before the summer time gets here and the stupid car breaks down on the freeway and leaves me stranded.Now with my new fancy job I dont really have time to screw around with fixing my car my self, and all my tools are still in Odessa because I dont have any where to store the tool boxes. I take the car to a local shop today that was right down the street from my house. Its basicly 1/2 way to my office. I know from having wokred in a shop for most of my working life that getting a car fixed isnt cheap. Infact it can be damn expensive. I told the service writter the symptoms my car had and he told me it would be Wednesday at the earliest before they could look at it. Thats no problem for me since the car does still run it just runs kinda crappy. I set up the apointment and tell them I will be back Wednesday morning on my way to work. He tells me ok and informs me of their service chanrge to “check out” my car. Brace your self folks because I nearly passed out smooth. They have a 1 hour charge to check out the car… at a whopping $84.50. I was like holy shit!! I can recall going to a new doctor for the first time about 18 months ago and not havving health insurance and only paying $90 for the office visit. I mean shit.. the doctor went to college for what.. like 10 years or more, and I pay him $90 and I have to pay some guy who at best has a 2 year degree and most likely just took some test to get a cert like the ASE. Did I give up the being a mechanic at the wrong time.. Our shop charged $57.10 an hour and I thought we were a little on the high end.. but wow these folks may be charging more than the dealer.. I will have to look into it and find out. I do still plan on taking them my car becuase I dont really have time to go out looking for a better deal either, and with me not really having anyone here who can take me around or anything Im just gonna have to spend the money this time.. Ill keep you posted on what ends up being wrong.

Thats right folks. This time I got me a real job. Im going to be a Systems Administrator for McClelland and Hine Inc. Im going to be moving to the wonderful city of San Antonio Texas. This all happened real fast and my head is still spinning from it. My first day of work is going to be on Monday the 15th, so I will be moving this week and though the weekend. All I can say right now is WOW!!! Check back for updates from my move and how my job goes

Well I went out and bought me a nifty new Nintendo Wii for Christmas this year. Ill be perfectly honest right up front. I had no idea when I bought it that it would even connect to the net at all. I totally bought it just to be able to play wii sports and the new Zelda game (which I am to broke to buy right now). After hooking it all up I did like I always do with all my new eletronic devices.. I RTFM, and to my great suprise I found I could hook up to the net and get old classic NES and other games, as well as send and recieve email and even surf the web all from my Wii. Joy for Mii!!! So I go and follow all the instructions and get my Wii connected to our WRT54G Linksys wireless router I was happy to see the Wii supported WPA and WEP so I didnt have to sacrifice my security settings to get this thing connected. The setup was simple as could be, in less than 3 mins I had my Wii ready to connect to the net. I hit the test connection button and damn.. I get this POS error message.. I think OK.. maybe I had a typo on my wifi key.. So I enter it again, same shit… At this point Im thinking it must be my moms crappy DSL connection. I take her router and hook it up to my always on cable connection with 3 static IPs and an 8.0/768 connection.. I hit the test connection and Wham its on, it tells me my system needs an update and I agree to have it update. No sooner did I agree than it kicked me off and said my connection was wrong. Geez!?! WTF. So I go to the nintendo web site to register my Wii for the extended 90 warranty and then hit the forums looking for help. I found TONS and TONS of people posting about this same problem, the fix was pretty simple though. For what ever reason changing the MTU to 001 and then moving my router to broadcast on chan 11 instead of Chan 6 and wham Im on and its pretty speedy. This thing is pretty cool. Im just waiting for it to get a virus or some spyware or something stupid like that, before you know it I will be trying to get linux installed on it if that happens

YAY!! At last!! After 2 months of me not having a car to drive after my trucks motor blew up I got a new car!! Well its not new, but its new to me. Like I stated in my previous post I buy EOL cars or trucks. My latest car is pretty nice though. Its a 1996 Ford Thunderbird. Mine looks just like the one above, same color and wheels; I hope it lasts a while, because I need it pretty badly. I got a new job Friday that I start in 2 weeks (or sooner if my current job can be filled before then).

Well its nearly time for turkey. Every year my brothers moms side of the family has a fried turkey Its always deep fried in peanut oil. Every year for the past 5 or so years I have gone over to eat some of this tasty bird. I love it.. The meat is always so juicy and tender, unlike when the turkey is baked, its generally a bit more dry and not as tender (at least in my experince). Since the age of about 10 or younger I have known I had an allergy to peanuts. Nothing at all had ever happened to me when I would eat a PB&J. Once I hit about 22 I started to notice when I would eat one or even a hand full of peanuts I would have a stomach ache though, now at the age of 26 I get down right sick and have been known to start throwing up and stuff… This sucks because it looks like this will be my first year in a long time to have to pass on the turkey.

I know several other people who happen to hate peanuts but they could eat them all day, one of them wont even touch peanutbutter.. why cant she be the one with the allergy instead of me.. it wouldnt matter to her anyway since she hates it anyway.. oh well.. life goes on!

My not so little brother Matt played football for Bonham this year. His team basicly kicked total ass. They went undefeated all season long. Last night they played for what I guess was to be distric champs against Goddard, an undefeated team from Midland. Most of the other games during the season were no challenge for Bonham. They would go in and dominate, some of the games they played had scores up in the 60’s with the other team at 0 or maybe 7. This game was not that way. If Bonham was going to win this one they were going to have to work their ass off for it. Both teams wanted to win this game, and it was obvious. Goddard would drive its way down to the goal line and then Bonham would hold them off and get a turn over. Bonham would drive down then Goddard would hold them for a turn over. This went on back and forth with both teams allowing only 2 touch downs each. The game stayed this way all the way to the end. The final score was Bonham 14 Goddard 14. I was completely impressed with the sportsman ship Goddard displayed after the game was over. Bonham was in the inzone having a meeting with the coaches, all the Goddard players and coaches went to the 50 yard line and took off their helmets and put them on the ground and then began to give Bonham a round of appluse and then rushed in to give them all a high 5. It was killer to see all those kids celebrating how hard they played. Each team went home a winner last night. Congratulations to both teams on the best game of 8th grade football I watched all season long!!

Well about a week or 2 ago I was driving and started to notice a tapping comming from my truck. I figured it was an exhaust leak or maybe a lifter that was tapping. The noise got worse over the next week or so and it turned into a knock. I knew this sound well because I have at this point blown up about 11 motors. Not because Im hard on a car, but because I buy an EOL car or truck (end of life). EOL is all I ever have the money to afford so Im used to blowing up motors. This truck was no exception to the rule. On my way to work Friday the motor gave out and I had to get my unlce to come tow it home for me. Now Im in the market for another EOL car or truck. Some day Ill get a good job and be able to buy a decent ride, but until then EOL here I come.

Well I am going to give comments another shot. I have installed this Spam Karma app. Im going to give it a try, and see how it does. From what I understand it does a pretty good job.. we shall see..

Well, after who knows how long of being gone an old site so many fluxbox users grew to love for styles and an overall community is back. This time fluxmod is not run by ikaro though. This time a small group comprised of Meltir, Tenner, and my self are in charge of whats going on. As many of you already know Tenner is famous from his wonderful styles he makes and excellent tech support in IRC, Meltir is famous around the fluxbox IRC chat room for being an excellent tech support guy and over all great fellow, and I am just known for always being in the IRC room (hey someone has got to hold down the fort ). Right now there is already a large ammount of styles up for download. We will be working on getting forums, and other features added as soon as possible. We are looking forward to building a solid stable community for the worlds best Window Manager fluxbox.

Well starting in June I went on a diet trying to drop 88 of the 313 pounds I had hanging around. Being that heavy sucked. I never had energy to go do anything, I couldn’t even walk because my knees and back would hurt so bad after only a few mins of walking. First I started out trying to walk but that was quickly nixed. I talked to some buds on IRC who I knew were big health buffs, and they suggested to me to try riding a bike since it would be no impact on my knees, and wouldnt strain my back. Up to the gym I went to get on a cycle. I started and was only able to make it 15 mins at a time, after a week or 2 I was up to 30 mins. I kept this up for about a month and didn’t even loose 8 pounds. Needless to say I was getting pissed off. Next I figured the changes I made to my diet just were not enough. I made more changes to the kinds of food I was eating, and then to the ammount I was taking in, and even steped up the workouts to twice a day and 5 to 6 times a week. From July 4th to right now I went from 306 to 273. Im now able to not only walk with no problems, but I am running 2 or 3 nights a week as well.

Now I feel great (well not as good as I would like but tons better). I still have about 50 more pounds to go to get down to where I would like to be, I think Ill be able to be there before Christmas. I’ve already gone from a 44 waist down to a 38, and I hope Ill be down to a 36 or 34 when its all said and done. Time to wrap this up and head out for a run. Take care

Well today was my 26th Birthday. I had a really good time. I didnt do what most people I know who are in their 20’s do on their birthday (which is go out and drink and party). Instead I was a judge at a UIL computer science regional meet. It was totally awesome. There was a total of 9 teams from all across parts of Texas. One team ended up having to quit before we got started because they had a sick team member and they didnt have the required 3 team members needed to compete. The contest had a total of 12 problems that each team could choose to do. Each problem they got correct was worth a max of 60 points. Some of the problems were so easy to do that if you didnt get them right you didnt need to be there in the first place, and others would have taken me more than the 2 hours of allowed time to write. All the teams got problems 11, and 12 right off the bat with the first submission taking under 8 mins. Which isnt much of a suprise considering this was all that was needed:

for(int i=0;i<23555;i++) System.out.println(”some message”);

Most of the other programs required you to parse some given data files and do something with them. The easy ones were problems 11,12,1 and 2. Only 1 team even tried any other programs than those 4. Team 6 (no idea who team 6 was) They tried problem 6 and found a bug in the given data and we were able to reproduce the bug, this team would have won first place if they would have had the correct datafile to parse. I have no idea what will happen now but they should be given the points for finding the bug like they did. I got a shirt in the mail from thinkgeek.com today from my mom. It was the “No, I will not fix your computer.” shirt. Personally I think I had the coolest shirt on tonight at the contest. It was really a great time getting to see all the upcoming computer scientists, some of those kids were really bright. Well I guess this is the end of my geeky day. I guess Ill wrap it up by writting some java code on one of my apps.

EOF

I got flat sick of spammers. I tried using this plugin that adds captcha to help prevent spam. Well it only stoped about 1/2 the spam, and how the othr 1/2 of the people still manage to get past that is beyond me. I know that who ever is writting the bots that spam is only wanting a pay check but I think youre an asshat for doing it. Take your talents to somewhere else. Sorry for no more comments but I got sick of dealing with the non stop comments that had nothing to do with anything but trying to help increase someone elses page rank in search engines.

Well its been a long time coming, but at long last I think I have found a new long term hosting solution for this site. Since I put this site online back in 2004 I have hosted it at home. Its been lots of fun and I have really learned a ton, but lets face it, with school and now work, I just dont have the time to keep my server updated.

I have been using FreeBSD as my web server for almost a year now. I ran this nice tool called portaudit that checks installed packages for known vulnerabilities, I found I had 50 packages. These included my php, apache, and several of the other server software packages I was using. I decided after finding all these vulnerable packages it would be better for me time wise to just get a host and only worry about keeping my web content updated for a while. I knew that PBLUG used phpwebhosting.com to host our LUG site, and I also knew that Caleb also used them so I figured Id give them a shot. Its a heck of a good deal, and Im glad I made this move.

Our gallery is going to be offline for a while. Im not sure how long but I hope to get it back up soon. I only get 200MB of space, but it says more for free as needed so we will see because my gallery is about 400MB. I have (read in the process of still) also moved my familys site thebeckners.net to this host as well. The same goes for the gallery on that site right now too. I have found that alot of the same pictures are in each gallery so I will see what I can do to use only 1 gallery instead of 2 of them this time.

I plan to post some news about the fluxbox wiki soon, but this has gone on long enough.. Ill save that for another day when I am bored

Well school has started back and I am taking a few classes this semester and Im working at the school in the lab as the linux lab guy… One of the classes I am taking is the second semester of freshman english, 1302 as my school calls it. Its a very interesting class so far, lots and lots of reading in this class. So far we have read two short stories.

The first was by Nathaniel Hawthorne, a story called Youg Goodman Brown. This was a very cool story, I found it a bit hard to read (even after being modernized some) for me due to it having been written in the 1800s and me not being the best reader (thanks cartoon network :P). If you are bored and have 30-45 mins free go read that little story, its about a guy who questions his “Faith”, it has some pretty interesting characters in it, and I found it pretty enjoyable.

The second story we have had to read was written by Shirley Jackson and called The Lottery. It was first published: 1948, in the June 28 edition of the New Yorker Magazine. All I can say about this story was that it was great. When I first started reading it I though “Oh boy this one is gonna be lame” but it got really good really fast. At first I was wondering.. whats this gonna be about, are the winners gonna get money, a home imporvemnt.. what could it be.. I was really excited to find out. I found before the end that the winner wasnt really gonna be a winner..what a twist this story has… If you are looking to spend 20 mins or so reading a really good short story take a look at The Lottery. Its well worth the read.