Will Slusher.net

… and now, another (or a first) installment of poker as a metaphor for life…

Last night, a bunch of friends an I got together for a little poker night… It has been a while since I had played, but I started out pretty well…

About halfway in I was doing pretty well… I had been playing pretty conservative, the hands I really ‘played’ I won, and I was probably second in the chip count… I was cool… confident… more or less at ease in my game…

…and that’s when I they came along… the best two cards a guy can hope for before the flop… pocket aces… They were stunning… I knew from the first moment I saw them that this was going to be something special… It was all I could do just to keep my cool and play it slow…

I don’t remember exactly how things went down, but I played everything right… I bet well, but not so well as to scare everyone out of the pot… the flop didn’t seem to be any help to anyone… The turn paired a 4 and now it was down to me and one other player…

I bet and she raised, then I raised to put her all in… When we flipped over our cards she had pocket queens and I had my pocket aces…

… and then it happened… the dealer burned the top card and flipped up the river… and there it was… the queen of hearts… giving my friend a full house and me a lonely two pair…

… and so it goes with life some times… some times the most perfect and wonderful thing comes along… completely unexpected, but completely amazing… Then, just when everything seems to be going your way, and everything seems to be falling into place… BAM!, everything changes in the blink of an eye…

… sometimes, even the perfect thing just isn’t meant to be…

… I’m really digging the new Carbon Leaf cd… I’m not sure it’s as strong as “Indian Summer”, but there are some pretty good tracks… several which really seem to match my current mood…

…which (speaking of the mood), honestly, isn’t that bad… I kinda flip-flop back and forth between understanding/accepting and hurt/bitter… but I think that’s to be expected for a while… Really, I’m pretty much ok most of the time… It just hits me every once in a while when I find a little note, or photo, or something that reminds me of how good things were at one point…

In other news, I’m really digging my new iPod as well… I’m really enjoying the color screen, the video playback (although, due to some ergonomic issues my attempt to watch Good Eats (with my personal culinary idol, Alton Brown) at the gym failed miserably)… I even like the redesigned headphones… The new ones actually fit properly in my ear, which is a first for the little ear buds… My only complaint is that the nice, shiney, black surface REALLY show fingerprints… but if that’s the worst issue, I think I’ll be fine… :)

Anyway, back to personal stuff, I’ve decided I need to set a goal for myself… something to challenge me a bit… sooooo, I’m thinking I may try to run in a race next spring… maybe something in the 10k to half-marathon range… I haven’t figured out all the details yet, but it’s something I just feel that I want to do…

‘course, we’ll see if I’m still so sure in a couple weeks as I try to build up my tolerance for running again… :)

In other, other news, my friend Margaret and I tried cooking with tofu last night… It was an interesting experience and actually turned out much better than I expected… I think I may try experimenting with tofu a bit more… Last night we more or less just substituted for chicken in one of my thai recipies, basically just stir frying cubes of it with garlic and red pepper flakes… I think if I try it again, I might use smaller cubes… I also will probably drain and marinade it a bit ahead of time… I’m also tempted to try coating it with something to get it a bit crispy on the outside…

Anyway, I think I’ve probably rambled on enough… Back to the old grind stone…

Sigh…. Where to begin… let’s begin at the end…
This isn’t exactly the next ‘catching up’ post I was hoping to write, but I guess it has to be written…

Last Sunday Kristina and I decided that it was time to part ways… Well, that’s not entirely true… Kris informed me last Sunday that she’d been thinking about things and had realized that we just weren’t meant to be… I just kinda sat there in shock…

A week+ later, I’m still trying to suss out exactly how I feel about things… In some ways, I know this is the right thing to do… Then, at other times, something will remind me of the really great times we had together, of how right things felt, and suddenly I’m not so sure anymore…

But what can you do? Not much, other than just giving the heart the time it needs to accept and recover… Everyday gets a little better, a little clearer, a little easier…

Anyway, we should move on to happier topics… :)

Also last week my iPod decided to crap out… it looks like the hard drive died… On the surface this doesn’t look like a happier topic, but, given the fact that I’d already replaced the track wheel and main board in this iPod, and given the other events of last week and my need for a pick-me-up, I decided to order one of the updated 5.5th generation iPods… It should arrive today! :)

Of course, this lead to a grueling side project this weekend of going through my entire 4000+ song collection and updating all the album info and artwork so that I can make full use of the nice color screen… :) Pain in the ass (I spent the better part of a day on it), but worth it, in my anal retentive, OCD way of thinking…

Also, I did my first road test with the new version of my car computer last week… I don’t think I have any updated pics of the new computer yet, but the smoked plexiglass case turned out really well… It’s pretty sweet looking… and, I think, it might actually fit under the seat, once I trim off the support bolts in the corners of the case….

Anyway, for now the PC is sitting in the floorboards… And so far, so good… I’m testing out a front end application called Centrafuse which I’m really digging… It basically gives me a nice touch screen friendly interface to accessing my navigation software (which, I also got an upgraded version of) and for playing media (which I finally have a hard drive big enough to store)… I’ll try to get some update photos, etc up soon….

Hmmmmmmmmm…. I think that more or less covers the big things… Well, on big thing and too geeky things that help take my mind off the big thing… but, ya know… :)

So yeah, it’s been a while (far too long some might say) since I’ve posted anything…

I was thinking of doing another “catch up” post, ’cause lots of fun things have happend since I posted my graduation congrats for Kris (a week long trip to New Hampshire/Vermont with Kris, A trip or two back to Floyd, and excellent (thought rainy at times) camping canoing trip with Scott and friends, a day-trip with Kris to Monticello)… but, I’m not feeling motivated to tackle that just yet…

I thought instead, I’d write about this past weekend…

My friend Dante got suckered in to graciously decided to serve as technical director for a middle/high school (I think) production of “Into The Woods”… Since there weren’t too many experienced builders working on the project, he decided to get together a bunch of his friends (mostly FYP Tech alums… mostly) and have a big, hardcore build weekend…

The weekend kicked off with a trip to Kings Dominion on Friday that I unfortunately had to miss because of work… I did however meet up with them (eventually… long story involving the multiplicity of Cracker Barrels in Fredricksburg and Dante providing directions to one while going to another) for dinner and later on, “Pirates of the Carribean – Dead Man’s Chest”… Possible thoughts on that later…

On Saturday, we got up early and hit the theater running… The first project was to build a couple of ramps on either side of the stage… This would have been an easy task but 1) the stage itself was angled, rising from 3 feet at the low end, to about 4 and half feet at the high, 2) the ramps also had to be angled in, in relation to the stage… and 3) we were all still pretty tired from the night before…

After a couple measuring debacles (forcing the “long ramp” to becomre the “short ramp”) we eventually got them up (as designed) and connected to the stage (with some interesting “transition” sections between level ramp and raked stage), only to discover they were more slides than ramps…

While we waited for discussions with the director on a redesign, MB and I got started on project #2… The design called for “A stump in the center of the stage, with a step to get up from the lower stage to the upper stage”… After tossing around a couple of ideas, we decided to interpret this as “A large stump with a spiral staircase carved into it, to allow actors to move safely from the lower to upper stage…”

Luckilly, there happened to be a nice, 4ft diameter round already cut out an in the scrap pile, which we decided was perfect for the size of the stairs… After a little planning, a little math, and a lot of cutting, we were able to get it assembled pretty quickly… The finished product (well, finished construction wise, it still need a lot of paper mache and some paint) is on the right… Sorry for the poor image quality, I didn’t have my camera with me, so that was taken with my phone…

While MB and I worked on that, the rest of the team was working on the other set pieces… This mainly consisted of two rolling platforms, one being a house on one side, that would rotate 90 degrees to be a tree, the other a very tall tower that then rotated to be another tree, with branch that could support two people…

After the first days’s worth of building (a good 12 hours), we retired back to Dante’s place for some much needed drinks and sleep…

The second day was much of the same… We finished up the stump staircase (I have to admit to spending a bit of time having way to much fun sculpting roots and branches out of chicken wire), then moved on the redoing the ramps for about the 4th time… Ultimately, the decision was to make them a reasonable slope (about 10 degrees), then have the transition wedge (since the ramps angled in) be a step up between the ramp and stage… This worked out pretty well and resulted in a solution that was much more compatible with the continued well-being of anyone who had to use it…

After that, there was lots and lots of finishing stuff to do, mainly covering all the exposed platform edges and braces with ply to mask it off… By the end of the second day (another full 8 hours or more), almost all of the real construction was finished, leaving mostly just painting and finishing work… All in all, I think things turned out pretty damned well, thanks to the hard work of everyone who came out….

Anyway, I titled this post “A sense of accomplishment…” because riding back to Dante’s apartment Sunday night to pick up my things and head back to C’ville, this wonderful feeling came over me… I was exhausted… my feet, my legs, and my back ached… but I felt really, really good… I felt like we had accomplished something…

…and I love that feeling…

There’s just something very satisfying about throwing yourself headlong into a project, giving it everything you’ve got (and sometimes a bit more), and emerging on the other side victorious… That’s one of the things I love about doing theater work with FYP, and with other small groups… I almost always head home at the end of the day with that wonderful sense of accomplishment…

Congrats baby! :)

And congrats to all the other graduation 4th years walking the lawn today! Have a blast today, you deserve it… :)

Update: I switched the big version of the announcement down to a thumbnail, since it was kinda big… if you click on it it’ll pop up a bigger version using the ever nifty Lightbox plugin…

Also, check out my album of graduation photos here: 2006 – Graduation

Yes, I know… It has once again been far too long since I posted anything… I really have no excuse other than being very busy… or lazy… or, something… :)

Anyway, I will try to do a more conprehensive update a little later on, but for right now, I just wanted to point out the new and updated photo album link…

After the last update to the site, I had originally went with a plugin called Lazyest Gallery which fit very well with my photo album philosophy… just upload the images to the right folder and Bam! you’re done… but the index page was a little funky, and I was never completely pleased with it…

So, yesterday, I stumbled upon a different plugin called fGallery… It’s not quite as simple as Lazyest Gallery (after you upload a folder of images you have to go into the settings to “add” it), but I like that you can optionally add a title and caption for each photo after uploading, and that is uses a very nifty JavaScript plugin called Lightbox to display the images…

‘course, now I see that there’s a new version of Lazyest Gallery out that used Lightbox as well… but I think, for now, I’m going to stick with this one…

I don’t have all the pictures added yet, but I’m working through them… One little “glitch” that I’ve noticed is that the images don’t launch with Lightbox until the page is fully loaded… which could be an issue with some of my larger albums…

Anywho, test it out if you feel like it and give me some feedback if you’re so inclined… :)

“Where to begin… let’s begin at the end…”

Last night, Kris and I (and, I suppose, about 848 or so others) went to see Carbon Leaf perform a special “acoustic” session in Old Cabel Hall… All in all, I have to say, it was pretty frickin’ sweet… :) It was such a different atmosphere than the other concerts of their’s we’ve been to. The shows at Starr Hill are always packed and smokey and loud… which, in it’s own way, it quite awesome… But this was much more chill with everyone seated, but still, I thought at least, very full of energy…

They kicked things off with 6 new songs inspired by their travels out west, which, I’m guessing, will be on the new album they’re going to start recording pretty soon… All in all I liked them a lot… I found myself both liking and disliking that they put them all together at the beginning… it was good, because the all went well together (and because it got most of the new stuff out of the way early ;)), but of course, it also lead to feeling of “gee, I hope they hurry up and play something I know…”

After that they moved on to a good mix of stuff from “Indian Summer”, with some of their older and new stuff mixed in too… Oddly, I don’t think they did a single song from “Echo Echo”, which, I feel, is probably their most popular album… ‘course, it was my first Carbon Leaf album, so maybe I’m a little biased…

But yeah,anyway, lots of fun was had by all, I believe… :)

Anyway… I don’t think I have too much new to reports other than that… Maybe something will come to me later on… :)

Ah well….

I picked up my brand spankin’ new, shiney, happy iBook this evening!  :)

Damn this thing is nice… :)

A huge thanks to John, the Apple genius, and the rest of the genius bar staff at the Short Pump Apple store for making this happen…

YAY!

I am wildly, passionately, amazingly, wonderfully, happilly, incredibly, totally, and completely in love with one Kristina Lynn Caudle… :)

I mean, honestly, how could I not be… ;)

Just had to share… Happy Valentines Day to all!

As any of you who read my blog on even a semi-regular basis know, I’ve been having quite a few issues with my laptop over the past year or so…  I’ve been through at least two hard drive and two logic boards (the latter of those being due to Apple support installing the WRONG logic board the first time) since buying my iBook, and I was kinda starting to worry that I’d purchased a dud…

For most of these issues I took my laptop in to the Apple Store (about an hour away in Richmond), and I was always very pleased with their service and their general tendancy to go above and beyond my expectations to get my issue resolved…

This is in STARK contrast to my recent experience with Apple’s phone support.  I decided to call them first with my last round of issues to save a trip to Richmond.  After thuroughly confusing the poor guy with the main issue (”You did an erase and reinstall?  And it’s doing what?  It just shouldn’t be doing that!”) I proceeded to explain that I would also like to have the correct logic board installed, since they put the WRONG one in last time… This really confused him and he had to put me on hold for about 20 minutes (half with music, half with an annoying voice saying “Please hold” every 10 seconds) while he talked to his supervisor…  Long story short, I finally got to ship it back to them, but, when it was returned to me, they had only addressed the logic board issue…

I must say, it’s very disheartening to get your “repaired” computer back and have it not boot at all…

So, I decided to suck it up and go to Richmond.  Kris and I went together on Saturday (despite the snow).  We got there around 1:00 and the place was packed.  I set up the earliest appointment I could with the Genius Bar (for 5:00) and proceeded to have lunch and do a lot of shopping with Kris…

So, 5:00 rolls around and I get to talk with a very nice Genius, who looks at my system, sees what it’s doing and goes “wow, that’s messed up”… :)  So, he runs some diagnostics and checks my previous repair history (I explained to him all the past issues and the logic board mix up… to which he commented “I’ve done a lot of repairs for Apple… I’ve NEVER put in the wrong logic board [shakes head]“) while Kirs and I do a bit more shopping to kill some time…

So, we get back and he tells me the diagnostics didn’t turn up anything obvious, but it was probably a hard drive issue.  He then said something I total wasn’t expecting…  He siad, “I’ll go ahead and check it in as a repair and try a new drive… but, I’m also going to talk to my general manager about some options other than repair…”

As Kris and I were leaving she said, “Did he just say what I think he said?”…  “Yeah, I think so… but, I don’t want to get my hopes up…”

Anyway, fast forward a couple days to last night…  The Apple Genius said he’d get back to me by Monday at the latest… So, about 7:00 I get a call from him…  And…

THEY’RE GOING TO REPLACE MY LAPTOP WITH THE CURRENT 14″ IBOOK!!!!!

Oh my goodness, I’m so excited… :)  I do have to drive to Richmond again to pick it up, but I think that’s more than worth it…

I have no doubt if I had called support again, I would have just gotten another run around, a replacement hard drive, and more issues down the road…  but, being able to go in and really show someone who knows what they’re doing the issues I’m having, and being able to really explain what’s going on… it’s just a heck of a lot more satisfying to me, and I think results in much better service….

ESPECIALLY WHEN THEY DECIDED TO GIVE ME A NEW FRICKIN’ LAPTOP!!!!

And that’s why I love the Apple Store…   :)