all things cbl » 2005

Jul 30

Generators rock

By cbl

Yes, Generators Rock. When you have one.

Aaron and I went to a Matinee showing of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory yesterday afternoon to celebrate SysAdmin day. OK, maybe not celebrate it, but just to skip out on work a few hours early to see a movie that neither of us had seen.

On our way to Hurricane (we both agree that the Coral Cliffs Cinema 8 in Hurricane is the best theater in Southern Utah, which totally surpasses Westates hands down) a storm was picking up. I saw a few lightning in the darkened sky but thought nothing of it… until.. We were into the trailers of the movie and the power went out. The projector dude poked his head through the hole and said we’re in another one of the infamous Hurricane Power outages.. if no power in 15 minutes we’ll get our money back.

A few people left right away, since they had kids. Others, including myself and Aaron hung around hoping that the power would, indeed return. For a brief second it did, getting all of our hopes up. However, it was then followed by another outage that continued to last until the Theater manager came in and gave us all emergency tickets to come back whenever we wanted.

Such is the life, I suppose in Hurricane. One would think they could invest in a generator to run the sound and projection units during such an outage. Would it be worth it? Well, if the power was out for an extended amount of time, they’re just loosing business. So perhaps it would be.

Maybe I’m just spoiled with a generator at our data center that keeps us up during no power for days. But then again, maybe I demand such a up-time for all daily services. I await the day for my home generator unit to keep me afloat in the event of another lengthy outage.

Generators rock.. if you got one.

Jul 29

SysAdmin Day

By cbl

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Work

Yes folks. Today is System Administrators Appreciation day. This day always occurs on the last friday of the month of July. Quite the exciting one, this day is.

I remember, because I found a calendar that Val made for me before she left on the mission, that had this day written on it. Then today, when checking the channel and slashdot it was already announced to the world.

So what am I doing for SysAdmin day? Not much. Probably mow my lawn or do some more weeding.

Sure wish someone would get us a cake or something

Jul 23

Delicious

By cbl

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Fun

So I stole Eric’s iSight friday afternoon and tried out the Delicious Library application for OSX. It’s pretty freaking awesome. I spent most of friday evening scanning in my books, and DVDs.. and some music CDs. Then I found an exporter for it so I can export my stuff to the web..

Here’s what I got so far.. I like it.

Needless to say I bought the application for $40 after I ran out of my 25 free entries.. well worth it.

Only problem, it doesnt have a bit of my church books as well as some of my spanish cd’s and books. But I guess that’s to be expected. If it’s not on Amazon, it probably can’t find it.

I’ll post more on this later probably.

Jul 18

00:42:31.800

By cbl

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Triathlons

That’s my run time. I suck.

Overall the Tri was quite fun. It was a bit overcast during the swim and first part of the bike.. during the run the sun came out and it got hot. Wow. Running sucks.

Maybe I need to start the swim out in front as to get around all the people grouped together and swimming slowly.. it’s a pain. Banging into each other.

Biking. I need to work on this too. More biking for me.

And Running. Running sucks. I need to do this majorly. Get my time down to something REASONABLE is my next goal.

Total time: 02:02:20.800

Milliseconds has my results here.. even though they screwed up and didn’t get my T1 time right…

Running sucks..did I mention that?

Jul 15

Echo

By cbl

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Triathlons

It’s Tri Time again!

Right now I’m off to the TriUtah 4th Annual Echo Reservoir Triathlon. This was my first Triathlon last year when I raced. Quite the experience. Now I’m back, with 5 Tri’s under my belt and with a road-bike to boot. Hopefully I’ll do better this time.

I’m quite excited about the swim and bike, however the run (5k) will kill me..

Good luck me!

Jul 14

DCI

By cbl

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Random

So about 11 months ago in Denver were DCI finals. The Cavaliers won. I hear it was awesome. Val was able to go with a group of people from Spanish Fork. She called me during part of the finals and left messages on my phone with drums in the background. It was freaking awesome..even on my voicemail.

So I finally got around to buying the DCI Finals on DVD. 5.1 surround. It should be awesome. Reason for buying it finally? I got Drumline Widescreen on DVD and we’re watching it on my big-screen tonight. I got chills, and memories of being in a marching band in high-school.

Anyway, I’m quite excited to turn up the volume on my copy of the DCI finals once it arrives. I’ll probably post more then about it.

Drums are freaking awesome..

Jul 09

Ultimate Torpedo

By cbl

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Fun

I’m surprised that I haven’t blogged about Torpedo before, it’s such a part of my life, such an addicting, yet FUN part of my weekly life.

So today Matt and I went to the college pool to play our usual weekly game of Torpedo. This mornings game started at 9:00AM. Well, about 9:20am after we had enough for a 3 or 4 member team. Wow. What the fun. Swimming around in the deep end all day throwing around a little plastic torpedo.

Mark’s torpedo seemed to be loosing it’s speed, so Tuesday I ordered my own torpedo (2nd day shipping) so we could play this Saturday with the new speed/slickness of a new torpedo. What fun. I actually got it delievered Friday.

Anyway, the game consists of two teams. The rules are similar to Ultimate Frisbee, except with a Torpedo instead of a Frisbee and Water instead of Grass. One can throw the torpedo, but only under water (except to start off a round, which is done overhead). One can not move forward or back, or side to side (much) when he has posession of the torpedo. He can, however, move up and down in the deep end of the pool looking for openings to throw. If the torpedo hits the ground it is the other teams posession and they pick up where the torpedo settled. The goal is to pass the torpedo to your team-mates in order to reach the other side. Pretty easy, eh? Well You’d be surprised.

Today’s event went from about 9:20am to around 12:55pm. Over 3.5 hours of torpedo… WOW! My face looks a little red, as does my back. It’s funny because the front of my body is white, while the back is getting a tan. I need to lay out…

ANYWAY.. It was a fun time. I have heard that it’s a quiet sport for those observing out-of-water. All you see is people coming up for air, heads bobbing up and down.. as most of the game is done under-water. The only time one really hears any talking, ranting, cussing (ok, none of that had here), is after one scores.

The funnest is to wait out behind the offensive until someone from your team steals the torpedo. Then they can launch a long-bomb to you .. if it has enough steam you can swim along side the torpedo and eventually get more distance out of it.. sometimes, however, this results in problems as the torpedo might outrun you. Anyway, I found out a new trick that one can do with these long-bombs, is moving your hand quickly under the traveling torpedo and it’ll get some more lift as well as velocity… useful for the time that you’re “almost at the edge”, but not quite…

OK..OK.. So this is our second year playing this sport. Principally it was developed by the Hansen’s in their pool.. I came along soon after, then Mark, Joey and the rest of the Veterans.. However, playing in the Hansen’s pool with the shallow edge is not quite as fun as playing in a deep end of a large pool. Hence, the reason for moving to the college pool. We’ve also played two times or so at the SHAC. I, in particular, didn’t like playing there for some reason.

That’s it! That’s ultimate torpedo in a nutshell. Hopefully it’ll become an olympic sport some-day.. Who knows. It just might.

I think I’ll register “ultimatetorpedo.com” just in case right now.

Jul 05

37.446 -113.136

By cbl

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Random

Right around these coordinates (not sure on the exact just yet) is an awesome view. Matt and I hiked down to this point that overlooked the Kolob Arch, and a number of the Kolob fingers. Wow. The drop was quite huge, and the view was even grander.

Having been around Aaron enough, I bellowed out a few ‘echos’ and got at least 3 replies back from this canyon..

It was quite the adventure and eventually winded down to the end of the not-well-traversed trail where there were a bunch of pine trees and a little, well, clearing. See my photoblog for a few more shots. I’ll also throw them on my gallery once I tweak the levels.

My dad was going to come out and look for us since we were taking our sweet time coming back. The hike up to the truck was strenous enough carrying my camera. Plus it was July 4th and the middle of the day out. Lucky for me I wore a hat and sun-glasses. Matt wore shorts and flip-flops, yet he faired better than me on the way up. Lucky!

Jul 01

Batman Begins

By cbl

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Fun

So Matt and I went to see Batman begins Thursday evening in the Hurricane Coral Cliffs Cinema 8. All I can say is.. WOW.

I was stunned. Parts seemed a little long at times, however, after I look back on it they told the story how they should have, and cutting the parts would have distracted from the flow of the movie.

Now the Katie Holmes part I could do without. She did alright, but I still can’t find her a credible actress for some reason. Maybe it’s the girl-next-door face that she always has. Or that half-crooked smile. I don’t know.

Yet, despite the Katie Holmes issues, I will still probably see this again with Pete and eventually buy it on DVD whenever it comes out.

Wow!