Well, instead, I get a call on Saturday morning informing me that a data DVD I had written for a couple of our members became unreadable. Perplexed, I rode down there and spent the better part of the afternoon trying to figure out what went wrong. As far as I can tell, we got screwed by bad media. Damn "Great Quality" crap from Fry's. . . should've known better. . .

Decided to spend quality time with YanYan on Saturday night instead of meeting with the peeps from work for dinner. . . we went to Hickory Street Bar & Grill and chowed down on some food. It was tasty, and I left feeling very very very full. So I guess that's a good thing.

Sunday I woke drowsy and stayed mostly drowsy the rest of the day. Spent some time cleaning the Bismark, so now it looks brand spankin' new again (until the impending thunderstorm that's bound to show up like it usually does right after I do these cleanings). . . and then had dinner at Mongolian BBQ where YanYan had starting working. It was a nifty little place, where they had some of the better ingredients than I had seen at other mongolian bbq-style restuarants. Once again, the food was tasty, and my stomach is still full from that meal. . . :P

The main thing was heading over to Kyle's place so we can do a minor overhaul of the Shadow Phoenix. Ever since she was redeployed several months ago, there were still tiny problems that were plaguing the engines. This has gotten significantly worse recently, plus I needed some realignment done in the turn signals. So spent about three hours this afternoon getting my hands dirty working on the interceptor. Damn. . . it was time well spent. The interceptor performs significantly better now compared to before the repair job. All I can say is I owe the man a cold one. . . without Kyle this couldn't have been possible.

The Bismark was taken to the nearest repair facility for repairs on Monday, and I arrived for work shortly after that. Didn't actually a whole lot at work, because they finished the repairs shortly after lunch. The faulty fuel panel access lock was swapped out, and everything's good again.

For the rest of the week I juggled between three projects (MS Licensing, Project Central Server, and Exchange Server). I managed to get some new updated numbers (damn Bill Gates and Steve Balmer for their money grubbing tenacity) for our future licensing, but got stuck at a road block for both the PCS and the Exch2003 projects. I'm hoping walking away from it for this weekend will allow me to come up with something for me to work with next week. I hope.

Woke up late this morning, and rushed out the door to get to work. Realize on the way to work that the Bismark was low on fuel. Stopped at fueling station to refuel. The fueling gate is stuck on the ship. . . creating the situation where I couldn't get fuel to the Bismark even if my life depended on it. Tried calling work. My phone battery dies. Tried calling work on the after-hour's cell phone provided by work. Phone battery dies too. So here I am. . . stuck at a fueling station, with no way to get fuel into the ship, and no way of contacting anyone. Absolutely FRIGGIN' wonderful. . . great way to start a Monday.

Retreated back to OC4. . . finally was able to contact work and let Bill know my dilemma. Then contacted the shipyard to ask them WTF?!?! They throw up their hands saying there's nothing they can do over the phone. Has to be brought in for repairs.

So here I am. . . sitting at OC4. . . stranded until a tender arrives to tow the Bismark and take me to the nearest repair facility.

Its going to be long. . . long. . . long. . . week. . . and possibly a long. . . long. . . long. . . month. . .

So after hours of slogging through cables and hardware components and moving around stuff. . . I managed to decommission Quincy IV, IV-A, and IX. IV and IV-A had far outlived their intended lifespan, and IX I really didn't want to let go. . . but with the arrival of XIII. . . there really wasn't much to argue about.

All three systems are now downstairs in storage awaiting liquidation. Or if they're too old to be liquidated. . . indefinitely mothballed until they're needed again. . . I also threw in my HP 630C printer and the Acer/BenQ 620U scanner since they were replaced with the HP 6L Laser printer and the Epson CX6400 Multi-function printer.

The good news is there's more space on my rack now. . . and since I'm planning on installing a second processor for XIII, I'm not too worried about losing rack space anytime soon. . .

Other than cleaning out CCCCC.net, I spent most of the weekend relaxing by playing games and spending time with YanYan (we went to Piccolo's on Friday night for her graduation dinner. . . it was good Italian). . . and spending Saturday morning at work for the monthly server maintenance window. We also saw Alien vs. Predator Saturday night. . . which was mildly entertaining, but altogether not too bad.

YanYan turned in her thesis today (with all the proper signatures from UT staff), so we'll be going out to celebrate tonight. Haven't decided where yet, but somewhere.

Just got back from lunch, hosted by the Finance Dept in appreciation of the IT Dept. They had Chinatown (a nearby chinese cruisine place) cater the food, and everything was very tasty. Now I just have to somehow fight off food-coma and last the rest of the day. . .

It is. And it will be an interesting week still.

One of our top SMS guys (an MS MVP, no less) had a near fatal email debacle today, but I managed to insert my two cents worth and help clean up. I don't care about who takes credit for doing what, but the fact that he's up and running again lets me know I'm doing my job correctly.

YanYan's busy with finishing her thesis that's due on Friday. I think she'll be fine, since all that's left is some minor touch up (and quote insertion).

Goddamn. . . stupide people should be BANNED from the freakin' roads.

Was minding my own business in the Sam's parking lot after I finished shopping with YanYan. And this mother loving asshole in a champagne colored Honda Venture (TX H06-CZZ) which drove by me only a few seconds ago decided to back straight up. . . INTO me (as opposed to the Bismark). Asshole. YanYan screamed bloody murder, and either the asshole decided he had backed up enough for him to gain access to a parking spot, or he actually woke up from whatever flower-loving fantasy of his in time to realize there was actually a person riding on his rear bumper, we will never know. All I know is, the dumbass should be dragged into the alley and shot, revived by Evil Twin, then shot again point blank into the gut by a M1014 Combat Shotgun (with Winchester Supreme® Double-X® Magnum Buckshot loads with copperplated, buffered shot), because after he finished parking, he acted like nothing had happened and briskly walked away.

If anyone happens to be near a Honda Venture with a TX license plate of H06-CZZ (that's a zero, not an "O"), feel free to honk at him, scratch his paint, and/or otherwise beat the tar out of him. Remind me to thank you later.

Spent most of yesterday just chilling around the house and doing almost nothing. While it was a blatant waste of time, it felt good not doing anything and just resting my mind. Spent the afternoon chilling with Evil Twin (which resulted in him getting an XBox), and then all three of us (ET, YanYan, myself) went and chilled at D&B. On a side note, I FINALLY got my Gold Status at D&B. Its amazing (and scary) how much money I've spent there. But I guess if its good clean fun. . .

Based on her symptoms, it looked like it was a combination of dehydration and food poisoning. Dehydration because she doesn't drink enough water, food poisoning because she ate something she should've known better than to eat.

And of course, my tickling point, there is the soundtrack. I thought the music for the OAV series was good, until I heard the OST for the Movie. Pretty damn good orchestration IMHO (I honestly could not tell whether it was synthetic or real). . . so at least my ears will have something new to munch on for the forseeable future.

Too bad the Sakura Taisen PS2 games are all in Japanese, and PAL. Meaning my poor PS2 won't have the pleasure of displaying some impressive mech battle scenes. *sigh*. . . oh well. . .

Now I get to help YanYan finish revamping her site. The bulk of the work's been done. . . just a few more modifications and her "new" site will be ready to roll. And it looks like I probably won't get to work on my site as I had originally though. No rest for the wicked. . .