WalkenDude's Xanga

Hold my space in line, pls

Sun, 08 Jun 2008 16:06:20 GMT

Just maintaining the account

Sunday, June 08, 2008

Sun, 08 Jun 2008 16:06:15 GMT

I'm bringing Xanga back - drop a comment if you're with me!

Sunday, June 08, 2008

Sun, 08 Jun 2008 16:03:00 GMT

I'm bringing Xanga back - drop a comment if you're with me!

Wednesday, June 08, 2005

Wed, 08 Jun 2005 10:26:55 GMT

Hola chicos y chicas!

It's been a very long time since I posted anything but would like to say that I have been reading my Xanga digest nearly everyday.

A quick review of my life since January...

I taught 2 courses at my old college last semester. One was a essentially IT project management (which I have done professionally for over 14yrs) and the other was on Internet backbone networking (boring shit). They required a lot of work, the pay was terrible and I enjoyed it to no end.

Right now I'm teaching a distance learning graduate course on Information Systems. It's an intro class but at the grad level it requies a truck load of work. The online aspect of the class is OK, but I prefer the in-your-face approach. I find that I spend a lot of time checking for plagorism.

My motorcycle is down for the time being. Some sort of fuel problem is my guess, but I can't figure out what it is. The carbs seem to be working right, the fuel filter is new, the fuel tank screen is clean, vacuum lines are unblocked, etc.

Compression on the cylinders is 150 which is normal for the engine.

It runs fine at idle but when I ride the bike and roll on the gas hard it sputters, backfires and dies. The whole situation is pissing me off and I'm losing out of classic riding days.

Since I use the bike as to commute in good weather (good = no snow, hail or torrential downpours) this is seriously annoying me. To add insult to the matter I had to drive into NYC last week and when I went to go home my Jeep was gone. I had my RX-7 stolen out of my driveway about 10yrs ago so finding my Jeep MIA wasn't exactly a good feeling. "Raging fucking loonie" is a better fit, but I digress.

Seeing as how there was a ton of festival style garbage in the street I figured that the cops towed the car because of a parade or street fair. No signs indicating that I parked in a No-Go spot, but this is NYC. There are rules for the rules and to hell with any standardization.

I call the towing department and after an hour of bullshit they give me a website to check. There is no record of my Jeep. Now I figure it was stolen but I see a little link that says to call the local PD precinct if the vehicle was moved due to a parade.

I call up, give them my license plate number and the officer says, "White Jeep? Oh, thats on Madison around 85th street. We moved all the cars near the museum. No tickets were given out. Have a good day." CLICK.

What is this? An Easter Egg hunt? Still it beats a $300 tow charge or a $150 parking ticket.

My company starts up in September. I've been doing freelance IT consulting for about 2yrs and have enough clients now to hire on a few "work for hire" people. I have to admit that I love what I do for the most part, but a steady source of income would be nice.

My plan is now to grow the business for another 2yrs and get it to a point where I can mananage a number of people and projects part time. During this time I want to get my teaching certification and try to get into a tenure track at a local college. I really enjoy teaching and this seems like a nice way to have the best of both worlds...stability and freedom.

Heading to Florida to visit some relatives this weekend and then making plans to go to Baja Cali for a vacation in August. While I'm there I'm seriously going to look into buying property.

Later!

Sunday, December 19, 2004

Sun, 19 Dec 2004 22:11:56 GMT

Last night was our annual Holly-Daze Open House at my place. We had about 80 people come through during the course of the night with the last non-sleepover guest bailing out at about 4am. Not nearly the turnout I expected. About 5 years I had 75 people in the house at one point in time and close to 160 pass throught the doors.

My back porch is loaded with leftover booze. Close to 6 cases of beer, 25 bottles of wine, 2 bottles of single malt Scotch (Glenlivet 12yr and McCelland) and 1 of grappa. ...about all I need now is some Absinth.

The food was fantastic! I made baby back ribs, spiral ham and wasabi smashed potatoes. Some friends brought stuffed shells, chicken parm with pepperoni, fillet mignion and crab cakes, all homemade.

The desserts were obscene...I can't even look at chocolate right now without getting queasy. Truffles, Lindor chocolates, homemade cheese cake, more cookies then you can count, Triffle...the table just about broke.

My dog, Alexa, mangaed to stay out of trouble this year. No stolen cheese logs or knocking over the Christmas tree for a change.

I played DJ and bartender for about 4hrs, mixed some good tunes to get people going and dragged out my recipes for a few neat champagne drinks that are great for these kinds of parties..

A bunch of my old martial arts friends showed up with their families and kids so we got the chance to talk shop in the kitchen for a few hours. Is it just my friends or do all groups of three or more guys have to immediately form a circle when talking?

I'm frikken beat, but it was a blast.

Tuesday, December 14, 2004

Tue, 14 Dec 2004 20:16:24 GMT

It looks like I'm going to enter the world of academia, this time from the opoosite side of the desk.

In January I'm teaching two IT courses at a local university and probably taking some classes to finish up my Master's work.

One thing that I can see already is that I'll need to adjust to the pace of educators and union members. It's about 1/2 that of what I'm used to. For example, I needed to confirm the cirriculm for one of the classes (what syllabus to use, testing criteria, etc.) so I emailed the person in charge of new adjuncts for the department. They didn't respond in a few days so I sent another email and left them a voice mail. One more day goes by and still nothing. I call the department, determine that they have been in the office for the last three days and leave another voicemail and email.

That night I leave another voicemail and email. Still nothing in the morning.

I call the department, find out that they are in, go down to the university (12miles away), essentially bully my way into their office and politely introduce myself, expalin what I need and then go over the material. The total time with them was about 5min, but it took me 4 days and an hour of my life to finish it.

After it was over I asked them why they didn't just email me the information. They said that they had over 50 emails to respond to, each of which requeired personal attention. BFD, chief, I used to get 50 a day and consider myself lucky.

Buck up, little soldier, and wear a helmet, lifes tough.

Wednesday, August 25, 2004

Wed, 25 Aug 2004 17:09:33 GMT

Want to hear something funny?

About a week ago I got a parking ticket in NYC for leaving my motorcycle up on the sidewalk overnight. I do this all the time on Vals street and have never had a proble in the 2.5 years we have known each other. Lots of other motorcycle guys on the block and we all do it. With the way some idiots drive and park, the sidewalk is the safest place for a bike.

Out I go in the morning and here is a parking ticket jammed up in my cover. It's illegible as hell but the license plate number looks like mine at first glance. I'm a little pissed off, but I figure with the anount of money and time that I save riding the bike into NYC, a parking ticket now and again is normal.

I fold the ticket up, shove it in my jacket and head out.

I picked up the parking ticket today to pay it along with some of my end of month bills.

Since I can't read the damn thing to determine how much I'm supposed to pay, I went online to the nyc.gov site to do a search.

Taking a closer look at the ticket I find that the license plate number is wrong. It has too many numbers.

The ticket isn't valid. Nothing shows up under a search on the ticket number, the license plate number on the ticket or the real license plate number on my bike.

Just to be safe I called up the NYC finance office (from a pay phone ) and had them do a search on the ticket number and the license plate number on the ticket. Nothing....

I RULE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Oh, ThreeBroomStix asked about my Xanga Handle...

WalkenDude comes from two sources. The first is that I've used it as my trail name when hiking for about 22yrs of so. When you get to a trailhead, there is sometimes a register book for you to sign in and leave comments. At shelters there is usually a register and logbook as well.

It's a custom of long trail hikers and thru-hikers to use a nickname of some sort. Getting one assigned to you is a dangerous chance to take.

The other source is from The Stand and the associated song "Among the Living" by Anthrax. Randall Flagg, aka The Walking Dude, is one of my favorite King villians. Sure, killer clowns in the sewers are fun, but Flagg has style.

Tuesday, August 17, 2004

Tue, 17 Aug 2004 19:55:16 GMT

Val and I got back from a short vacation out on the Outer Banks of North Carolina. It’s a beautiful area and one that never get tired of visiting.

Spent every day at the beach and every evening at the pool and hot tub. Got to play bartender a lot too. This is one of my favorite things to do on vacation and I had a brief stint behind the bar when I was in college.

Did a little crabbing and surf fishing. Fishing for me is essentially drowning bait and drinking beer. I could care less about catching anything, but it’s a social activity and my idiot friends enjoy it.

She started her new job yesterday and is getting acclimated to the company. It’s a big NYC fashion outfit and she is going to do great here. Some odd-ball issues to take care of with the person who is leaving the job she is taking, but nothing too weird or exotic.

One of the neat things is that since she will be traveling a little bit, I can tag along sometimes! Vegas, St. Barts, Amsterdam… pretty neat perk for me.

Wednesday, July 21, 2004

Wed, 21 Jul 2004 00:22:18 GMT

An old friend of mine (call him Bean) made a go at climbing Mount Everest recently and I didn’t hear anything about the outcome. I ran into a mutual acquaintance of ours last week who said that Bean had to be medi-vacced off the mountain and that he lost a leg. Needless to say, I got on the horn to find out what happened.

It turns out that Bean made it up to 25,000 feet to one of the permanent base camps without a hitch. Once there they ascended a touch over 26,000 feet to set up a group base camp for their final ascent. When Bean was coming down from the group base camp he began to cough up a little blood. Nothing major, just some pink foam, but that’s not a particularly good sign when you are 25,000 feet up.

What happened next occurred quickly and nearly killed him.

He became lightheaded and his legs became heavy. This is common when the body isn’t getting enough oxygen and lactic acid begins to hit the muscles. When he reached the permanent base camp he sat down for some hot tea and passed out. Luckily someone spotted him and got help. Bean was out cold, not breathing; they couldn’t find a pulse and turning blue. He had high altitude pulmonary edema or HAPE.

They rushed him into what amounts to a pressure chamber (oxygen tent with a sturdy airlock) and it blew up on him. They scrambled to the last one at the base camp, hit him with blast of adrenaline in the heart and brought him back. Once he was alive they quickly moved him down the mountain, narrowly beating a severe storm and to a point where a more advanced medical team could work on him. Four Sherpas volunteered to take him to the a village where a helicopter could get him to a hospital in Katmandu.

Get this, these four guys ran with Bean being carried on their shoulders for 14 miles! If ever there were some damn fine people on this planet, these are prime examples of humanity. Thye got him to the village and an old Russian copter took him to Katmandu. The fun only continues from here.

Nepal is having a bitch of a time right now with Maoist rebels stirring the pot in every conceivable way they can. Once Bean got to Katmandu the van he is in can’t get to the hospital because every street is closed by either rebels or the government. Finally the driver gets to a government checkpoint and tells the guards that if they don’t let them by this guy is going to die. If he dies, the driver says, he is going to dump the body at this checkpoint and blame the guards. They let the van pass.

Once at the hospital Bean is semi-aware of what is happening. They figure that his lungs are about 80% filled with fluids and his heart is laboring like a bear is giving you a hug. The hospital is something out of time capsule. The beds are wrought iron, the wheelchairs are wicker and they still use glass tube syringes with thick steel needles. Disposable? My ass! Clean that sucker out and maybe sharpen the point of the needle once a week.

As Bean puts it, “If you needed your appendix removed here, you might as well ask your neighbor to do and save yourself the trip. But if you had HAPE, you were essentially in Sloan-Kettering.” This is what they do and know better then anyone else. They had him stabilized and improving within hours, moved out of ICU in a week and on a bus to the airport in 9 days. The other funny thing is that even though this place is about 100 years behind the 8 ball in terms of equipment and technology, they can validate a credit card instantly.

Bean was pretty much kicked out of Katmandu because they didn’t want any foreigners getting in trouble. He took a crappy cargo plane to Thailand, another crappy dual prop plan to Hong Kong, spent the night in a real hotel and then got back to the USA the next day.

He’s been home for a bit now and is doing well. His lungs are still about 10%-20% filled with fluids, but there was no permanent damage to his heart which is a big cause for concern. The doctors feel that his lungs will be OK too, but they are watching to make sure.

Bean is also starting to exercise again after ballooning up to 198 pounds from his usual 155 or so. The drugs they have him on to clear up the infections are major league water retainers. We are going to try to get together and do a little bike ride or maybe kayak out on Round Valley in a week or two.

Makes me feel a bit like a slacker…

Monday, July 19, 2004

Mon, 19 Jul 2004 22:16:16 GMT

I spent about 8 hours this past week talking to advisors and the fraternity officials about the kids with the drug issues. The official decision is that since these kids are not active members anymore and there is no proof, the organization will do nothing. This isn't my idea of a good choice.

A few things...
I'm pretty well versed in the proper steps to take as an advisor. I've been a youth advisor for three groups of kids (middle school, high school and mixed (12-21)) for well over 12 years. I've had to deal with some messy situations and know when there is a problem and when there is some peer pressure usage. This time there is no doubt in my mind that this kid will ultimately get into real trouble. Trouble like getting caught selling or like crashing his car while high. I really don't wan tto see him hurt himself or others over something as common and stupid as this.

For the record, I don't like this kid. I find him to be a bully, ignorant, arrogant and a sneak. ...but, he is a member of the group and I do have strong feelings about doing the right thing by all the kids.

About the only option I have is to talk directly to the parents and try to broach the subject in a way that will allow them to take the reins. I can't see how they can not suspect something is a little wonky here.

On to some happier topics...
Val had her birthday bashes this last weekend. friday night we met a bunch of her friends at a little uptown bar called, duh, The Uptown Bar. Only about 10 people showed up and she was a little bummed out.

On saturday we were supposed to meet her folks for lunch out on Long Island. They threw a surprise party for her and a ton of her family and friends were there. Some of the people who showed up on friday were there on Saturday as well, so she was running around saying how sorry she was for thinking that they all forgot about her. Everyone had an extrememly good time and she loved it.

Afterwards the two of us went to a BBQ on the NJ shore hosted by one of my buddies. Big, big spred with a lot of dignataries from the Masons showing up throughout the afternoon and evening. We essentially closed the party and got home late.

Sunday I was beat from all the driving and food so I spent a good portion of the afternoon on my porch reading the NY Times and napping. There are worse ways to spend the day.

This week I have a rather ambitious 15 mile hike planned in the Cats. It's a good haul for a day hike due to the amount of delta V spread out along the trail. This will be the first decent hike since I've been back from the AT in Georgia.

I also start my bike training again in preparation for the Golden Apple ride on 9/26. When it comes to bike riding I honestly suck turtle tukas. My bike is a hybrid Trek, good for what I use it for, but completely innapropriate for long road rides. I'm hoping to do 75 miles with it on the Golden Apple. Last year I tanked at 50 miles and was absolutely hell to deal with for the rest of the day. My big goal is to do a century (100 miles) this year, probably in the late Fall. I had a magnetic trainer set up this year and did a decent amount of spinning too so I don't think that I lost much endurance. My form is somewhere between, "Is he retarded?" and "How did you train that monkey to ride a bike?", so I _really_ need to work on that. Hills still kill me but I'm learning to use a smaller gear and a quicker cadence rather then mash big gears like I've been doing.

Re-read all my Lance Armstrong books for inspiration too.