captbrando’s log

This is one of the funniest translation sites I have seen. Up there with
the Bork-o-lator. Ask Snoop to
shizzolate something for ya, know what I’m sayin’ ‘n shit?

Yep, things finally went nuts over here weather wise. Its funny how ice
can paralize a city. It sleeted all last night, and we are supposed to
get round 2 tonite.

I saw the funniest thing today. I was driving around taking pictures
before I picked Chris up for lunch and what should careen by me but a
black suburban with a guy hanging on the bumper riding a sled. Mind you
of course, that he is not sledding around a parking lot. This is down one
of the main streets in Stonebridge. While I am holding back my laughter,
I make the turn, pass them with my windows down, and tell them I
absolutely have to get a picture of this. So I then sped down the road
(4wd rules), pulled over, and waited for them to come over the hill. I
grabbed about 4 shots, and I hope to get them developed soon.

BTW, I also am having an interesting telephone company dilemma. I’ll let
you know how it turns out once things settle down a bit. Don’t want to
mention any names until everything is said and done .

*brr*

Well, Arctic Blast ’03 is headed our way, and we might get that snow day
after all. Chris has been left so unsatisfied this year because there was
not one. Maybe she’ll get to frolic after all!!

They had both some really awesome acts (James Taylor & Yo-Yo Ma, Dixie
Chicks), and some really tired ones (I’m not going to mention any names).
I think we are seeing the beginning of 4-5 years of really good music, and
Britney is deed. Maybe she’ll take up seedy B movie acting.

Turns out, it was not RedHat’s problem after all (my
apologies). Intel’s 440GX motherboard is a piece of proprietary work, (or
junk either way) and I finally got enough information to work around this
issue. JOY!

Damnation. Adaptec’s 7896 chipset BLOWS in linux. RH8 installs fine,
rescue kernel works fine, but the thing wont boot!

Seems like work didn’t really stop until right now. Been off and on
working since early this morning. Welp, things seem “OK” right now, so I
think I’ll sleep.

Thanks to MATT for finding a bug in this old site. I have not gotten to
the next stage of upgrading and redesigning yet, so I missed that.
Hopefully soon!

Depending on the prof’s demeanor when he is grading, I am confident that I
scored at a minimum a 93, max 100. Damn it feels good!

Yep, the big test is TODAY! yick. The worst thing about class this
trimester is I don’t get to watch 24
live. Nutz. Thank GOD for Replay
TV. So while you cats watch 24 live, I’ll be slaving over this test.
Bummer.

BIG test on tuesday. Gonna spend all day studying to try and prepare for
the MONSTER!

Well I hope everyone’s valentine’s day was great! Here’s a quickie ontoday.

Got the ol’ haircut today. Needed a trim. After that we went to see thein-laws and the niece! Gotta love her cute smile. After that fun, wewent to see Shanghai Nights which is REALLY good. Funnier than the first,and the action is MUCH better. Matt and Allyson joined us for theoccasion. After that, we hit Fox and the Hound in Plano/Addison. Greattime there! That place is one of the best Fox & Hounds I’ve ever been to.Now its sleepy time and big study time for tuesday’s test.

Check out that old funny guy Gordon
Keith, and his href=”http://www.gordonkeith.com/valentinescards.shtml”>unfortunate
valentines.

So I got this really sweet boom today for my studio. Only problem is, it came with no counterweights. So I’m wandering around trying to find counterweights for this thing so I can use it. Its really nifty looking so far! (Update… sold it

Also got one of those nifty Stroboframe Pro-RL brackets. Only problem is the anti-twist plate I bought does NOT work with the camera. Going to have to take a hammer or some pliers to it. Should be fun.

The NCAA has helped college athleticsbecome the dirtiest sports business around. Their rules are too complexand easy to violate for minor infractions, yet they get broken oftenenough and it seems that only in the high profile cases do people getcaught.

Sen. Earnie Chambers of Nebraska hasintroduced a bill that would require football players to be paid a stipend. Aren’t football players in some cases already compensatedbetween twenty and fifty thousand dollars per year? Tuition, books, roomand board in most public and private universities with college athleticscan be put in that range. And lets not even count the numerous “jobs”offered to players by the football boosters which give them more thanenough spending money to have a great 4-5 year run.

So if football gets compensation, what about baseball? Basketball? Thisis going to sound very un-conservative, but isn’t that taking away some ofthe fun of college athletics? Private universities are going to have muchmore money to contribute than public universities. What about Division IIteams? Those smaller universities are trying any way they can to compete,and this would be another blow to their athletics programs if theuniversities can determine the amount of the stipend.

I say, the program is already in place for college players to becompensated. They receive a free college education (granted, most of themare not mature enough to realize the benefits in this alone), nationalpublicity if they are good, numerous kickbacks from boosters and bigcontributors, an instant network of high powered business people to leanon when it comes time to hit the real world and countless other forms ofcompensation.

The system is dirty enough as it is, and it seems to work ok. Why ruinthe purity of college athletics even more?

I’ve been an EBay kinda guy for a long time now. No I dont have 1000 feedback points, but I usually shop there for items if I am looking for the special camera gear. Apparently, some people have decided that EBay is the place they want to RETAIL their camera gear. Even if an item is a very specialized, high priced item and listed as NIB (New In the Box), I can’t see someone actually purchasing the item for full retail price when you can go to various stores online and purchase it for that price or cheaper, and have the company’s customer service stand behind the transaction! If everything is selling for 1/2 retail, how do you expect to get retail?

That said, there are several people who on lower priced items (less than $1000) end up paying MORE than retail for USED items! I’ve even seen auctions where the seller is selling INFORMATION about something. I.e., a link to somewhere. Have these buyers never heard of Google? One hilarious case was an original BOX for a lens. Note, not the lens with the original box, just the box. The item went for over $100.

I guess the moral I have learned is, use EBay as a tool, but don’t let sellers make a tool out of you!

Class last night was interesting. Learned about the budgeting process. Ijust gained a whole lot of respect for CPAs who do this for a living.

I was watching some interesting commentary about this whole Iraq conflict.France and Germany are the only two big EU countries that are fightingmilitary action. So much so, that they may in fact talk themselves out ofa strong position. Personally, I am all for finding a diplomaticsolution, but you know those folks over there are laughing their butts offat the little policing resolutions the UN security council creates. At some point, isn’t SOME action necessary?

Of course the big radio address happened yesterday. Anyone wonder why itwas not a video again? I don’t think Osama’s in good health wherever heis, and putting a camera on him would do more damage than good. I’llreally be glad when this whole thing is over. It’s also interesting someof the (albeit remote) parallels that 24 is drawing with the whole terroristthing. Oh yeah, and ElishaCuthbert is HOT.

Welp, its off to the grindstone for me.

Ugh. Yep, its that time again. Meeting with the tax folks early thismorning so maybe they can tell me how much I get to contribute. Boy, Isure hope the 2002 tax cuts help me out!

Just got back from some lovely beerage at The Flying Saucer in Addison,
and I was checking my Ebay auctions. I
am pondering purchasing some new equipment, but I just gotta look for the
right deals. Spending the $$$ at retail just does not seem right anymore.

Yep its morning again! Time to kick off a great week of work. Here is
some other junk in the plans. I will hopefully get a working version to
SourceForge later this week. I
need to come up with a better name than brwblog for this thing so
once I do, I’ll be good to go! Also, this layout will be changing soon.
I have some ideas in the ol’ noggin, but it will take some time to get
things done. Stay tuned!