What. A. Year.

Well, folks, this has been quite the year. Let's take a little trip down memory lane...

January: Celebrated 6 years with my then girlfriend in Victoria. Watched her leave for India for 6 weeks before I left for India, myself. Started building a friendship with someone who was, at that point, only an acquaintance.

February: Left for India at the beginning of the month for four weeks in Bangalore for work.

March: Returned from India to a life that had changed a bit. Started socializing more with friends. Had a very fun and interesting welcome back party. Continued building friendship with the person who used to be an acquaintance.

April: Ended my six year relationship with my girlfriend. Road trip to Vegas with a friend, and on the return, San Francisco. Start friendships with several people and become part of a new circle of friends.

May: Started seeing someone I knew in high school. This did not last for long (see below).

June: The fit hits the shan and thus begins the worst summer of my life.

July: Yup, the fit's still in the shan and summer still sucks, but I took a motorcycle training course and I bought a motorcycle. Woo!!!!

August: The fit's no longer on the shan. I take a deep breath and life starts to simmer down. I turn 28. I take another road trip with a different friend - this time to LA to see the Price is Right, and through the Bay area. One of the best road trips ever! I got to go to Disneyland!!!! For the first time!!!!!

September: A minor crisis averted. And a long motorcycle trip around the Olympics.

October: Nothing much to report here. Did go to Oregon Trail Rally near Tillamook, Oregon.

November: Nothing much to report here. Did go to the Seattle International Autoshow.

December: Wild West Rally at the beginning of the month. Then, a trip to Connecticut to see my grandmother, whose health had been progressively getting worse. Then back home for a week, and then back to Connecticut for her funeral. Happy Holidays, yo!

A very eventful year. Ups and downs. But through it all, my friends have been there and I end the year with more friends than when I started. I love my friends. Being 3000 miles away from my real family, my friends ARE my family.

It gonna (did) snow!!

Much like another friend last night, I got a call from a friend who needed some help. Seems her bus couldn't make it all the way back into Renton last night due to a nasty snow and ice storm. From the news reports, for some people it turned their 30 minute commute into a multi-hour nightmare. So she and I met up near my office and I took her back to my house where she stayed the night. In addition, I picked up another friend of mine at her apartment and she came and visited. By the time it would've been time for her to head home, the ice had started forming and I was not feeling too comfortable with going down the long, steep hill to her place. She stayed the night, too.

At about 2pm today, I left the house to take both of them home. In addition, I picked up my ex-girlfriend and took her into SeaTac. So I was playing chauffeur for a few hours, on many patches of ice. Fun stuff.

I can see why a bus couldn't do much for making it into Renton - the roads were just coated in compact snow and ice. Luckily, they'd been sanded, which improved traction a bit, but overall they were very messy.

Needless to say, I didn't make it to work today. And I'm going to try my darnedest to make to work tomorrow as I've got some stuff going on there that requires my attendance.

Please let my commute go smoothly tomorrow :-|

Disintegration

Disintegrating an iTunes music library that has 13,000+ items can be a chore. It can also be a little emotionally draining as I deleted around 5500 items that were hers leaving me with around 7600 of my own.

And I deleted her account off of the main computer tonight. That's also a biggie. I can't say I'm not a little down right now, but I'll get over it.

She'll be moving most of her stuff out this Friday.

Bottom

My compassion is broken now
my will is eroded now
desire is broken now
it makes me feel alive
i'm on my knees and burnin'
my piss and moans are the fuel that sets my head on fire
so smell my soul burn
i'm broken lookin' up to see the enemy
and i have swallowed the poison you feed me
but i survive on the poison you feed me
guilt fed, hatred fed, weakness fed
and it makes me feel ugly
on my knees and burnin'
my piss and moans are the fuel that sets my head on fire
i'm dead inside

shit adds up, shit adds up, shit adds up, shit adds up at the bottom

if i let you, you would make me destroy myself
in order to survive you, i must first survive myself
i can sink no further, and i cannot forgive you
there's no choice but to confront you, to engage you, to erase you
i've gone to great lenghts to expand my threshold of pain
i will use my mistakes against you, there's no other choice
i'm shameless now, i'm nameless now, i'm nothing now, i'm no one now
but my soul must be iron 'cause my fear is naked
i'm naked and fearless
and my fear is naked

dead inside, dead inside, dead inside
nameless now, shameless now, nothing now, no one now
shit adds up (x4)
and you see me naked now
fearless now, naked now (x2)
shit adds up
it leaves me dead inside (x4)

hatred keeps me alive
angriness keeps me alive
weakness keeps me alive
guilt keeps me alive
at the bottom

Bad news everybody!

Nicole and I are moving out of our house and going our separate ways. When? I don't exactly know. But I honestly think I have never cried as much as I did yesterday.

Needless to say this is not the space where I want to air my dirty laundry, but for those who know me, well, this is going to be a huge change. I'm still trying to find ways to cope, but I guess this has been long in the coming and we both mutually agree that it's for the best.

End of an era. Almost 6 1/2 years.

Back to Bangalore

Today Nicole left for India. She's going to Delhi first for about a week and then she's going to Bhubaneswar (pronounced Boob-a-nesh-var) for school until February 28th. It just so happens that I will be going to Bangalore from February 2nd thru March 3rd. I'll be back in the states on late Saturday March 4th.

It started to dawn on me just how much I'll miss her while she's away when I dropped her off at the airport. It'll be 6 years together for us on January 28th and I've grown incredibly accustomed to her presence.

I'm planning on a rendezvous for us after February 28th. I'll most likely fly her down to Bangalore to be with me for just two days before I fly back to Seattle.

I think it's going to be a long month.

In Victoria, la dee da.

It's been a long day. Nicole's going to India next weekend for at least 5 weeks on study, and then I'm going to India (a different part of India) for a month on the 2nd of February. More work stuff.

But this weekend was our little getaway from Seattle. I made reservations on the Victoria Clipper a while back as our 6 year anniversary is on the 28th. Welp, we got to the clipper for an 8am departure. Boat was delayed by two hours leaving Seattle. More coverage (and pic) from Nicole here.

So we're finally on the boat, and we're about 15 minutes out of the dock and the boat slows down. Then they mention there was a problem with the exhaust manifold and one of the engines had to be shut down while the engineer tries to fix it. Another 15 minutes later, and we're informed that due to this problem, the boat's being turned around and we'll be returning to the dock.

So now, the lady across from us is balling her eyes out and I'm trying to laugh the whole damn thing off. Nicole and I talk about whether we want a refund, whether we go up to Victoria by car, or find another hotel and stay in Seattle. We chose to continue onto Victoria. I used my bluetooth connection and T-Mobile T-zones service with my laptop to make reservations on BC Ferries Tsawwassen-Swartz Bay run. We made it up to Tsawassen on time. The border had a less than 5 minute wait. Perfect....

But there was still more fun - this time it's a guy who has a gun or something. And the cops are yelling at him to obey or something. Hard to say, we were too far away to see what the hell was going on.

But anyway, we're here. The hotel's really nice. I'm just happy as hell to be here and we're going to try to enjoy our little vacation as much as possible.

Funniest story I've heard all day.

Nicole recently brought home a very cute kitten which she named Fire. This kitten hasn't quite figured out that the older, fatter cat, Ari, is not a female. Yet he insists on trying to nurse from Ari.

Today's story really took the cake:
http://www.livejournal.com/users/vitaminacetone/

Nicole's journal

Nicole has her own journal with much more articulate and interesting entries about the Japan trip than mine. Mine's all pictures and poo-eating primate talk. Hers is much more interesting. Go check it out...

Lollapablahblah

Saturday, Nicole and I went to the White River Ampitheatre for the newly reincarnated Lollapalooza. Not a bad show, but I have to echo some complaints I've seen:

• No staggered seating, which creates horrible sightlines to the stage.
  
• Pretty abysmal sound (although if you wear earplugs, it's almost bearable)
  
• Uncomfortable seating. Take a cue from Safeco Field in Seattle, and aim for the seats they use.
  
• Long lines at the bathroom. In fact, so bad, we saw a line of guys pissing behind one of the restrooms.
  
• Who wants to go to a covered ampitheatre?? I mean, c'mon, that totally fucked the sound up.
  
• Not very diverse food choices. After waiting in line for ten minutes, a woman came out and informed everybody that this was the beer line. Oh great, thanks for putting up a sign!
  
• Pretty bad traffic before and after. When leaving the ampitheatre, we couldn't turn left (west) to get back to Seattle, so we had to drive east past the long line of cars and then turn around. It was pretty funny to see a Canadian getting handcuffed after failing a field sobriety test, though. I'm glad I didn't drink.
  
• It faces away from the sun, which is actually a disadvantage. Seeing a concert in front of a beautiful sunset was one of the nice things about going to the Gorge.
  
• No view! One of the things about the Gorge is kicking back on the lawn, sunning yourself and catching the view of the Columbia. But at White River, you get a little bit of Mt. Rainier through the Seattle haze, and that's it. Oh, there are some trees off in the distance. Woo.
  

Apart from that, the show was good. Audioslave rocked my ass off, and Jane's Addiction brought a little tear to me eye when they played Jane Says.

Oh, I don't know if this has anything to do with the urinators, but at about 9:30pm, we noticed the smell of manure wafting its way through the ampitheatre. Yeah, so the ampitheatre's out in the middle of farmland, but it was pretty foul.

White River's all shiny and new, and I'm sure there were some deals struck to get acts to come play there, but I'll stick to the Gorge for concerts, where possible. It's just a better venue.

Yar! Thar be brats on the field, matey!

Pirate fined for assaulting sausage

My favorite line: "...Simon took a half swing at the Italian sausage character, hitting her from behind and causing her to tumble. When she fell, she knocked over the woman dressed as the hot dog."

Good thing I'm going to be making a couple stops in Milwaukee at the end of the month during Nicole's and my trip to Connecticut. This could get interesting.

Yes, AAA does rule.

This is what Nicole and I did this afternoon.

Fun.

Hi-Fi

Some time ago, I was lent an old Dual 1229 turntable by Nicole's parents. It served its purpose pretty well for the time it was in service. When I got it, it had no cartridge and was a mess. I took it into Hawthorne Stereo and had them take a look at it. The guy there said that this particular turntable was his first when he was a teenager, 30 some-odd years ago. I asked him if we could get a cartridge for it, and he pulled out a Grado Black cartridge and proceeded to mount it on the Dual's tonearm.

I took it home and played with it a bit and it sounded pretty damn good. I bought a few records here and there and recorded them into the computer. It did well, until a few days ago. Nicole had bought two new records and the old Dual just couldn't play them very well. The left channel was barely working. When it did, it'd be fine for about a minute, and then cut out, leaving only the right channel to do its thing. Finally, we gave in and bought a Numark TT-1600 DJ turntable at Guitar Center up in Lynnwood.

What an improvement. I don't consider myself too knowledgeable about turntables, but putting this one together was a good learning experience. Today, I managed to get the Grado cartridge mounted successfully, replacing the stock Numark cartridge. I don't really hear much difference between the two, but I figured if I paid $40 for the Grado cartridge, I might as well use it.

Thanksgiving was good. We went up to Nicole's grandmother's house on Camano Island. I'm still waiting to hear from my mom or my sister about my sister's forthcoming first child. Any day now....

Merry Christmas to me!

The iPod came today. It's supposedly a refurbished unit, but it's in perfect condition. It's a 5GB iPod, and I'm very happy. I managed to get 786 songs onto it, with 64MB of free space. Not too bad. Now I wait for the PodPac to get here, so I don't have to worry about it getting badly scratched. It looks buff as hell, but I know how badly they scratch (especially the very shiny stainless steel back) and I want to keep mine beautiful.

So far so good with it. Thank you, Nicole :-)

iPod-errific

Just a quick note to say that, hopefully, I'll be getting an iPod. Assuming FedEx doesn't find some way to fuck it up during shipment, it should be here by the time I get home from work tomorrow. Apple was running a special on 5GB refurbished iPods, so I figured I'd snatch one up, on my girlfriend's dime of course. It's her X-mas gift for me...

Sidekickin' it, boyeee!

It's a little too early for a X-Mas presents, but I couldn't wait to get my girlfriend a T-Mobile Sidekick (a.k.a. Danger Hiptop). She's been pining after one since I first showed her the product page and flash demo on Danger's site. I've been pining for it too. It looked pretty damn nice.

So, I let slip with the hints that I was going to get her one, and went into the T-Mobile kiosk at Northgate Mall to pick one up. I'm already a T-Mobile customer, and she has no credit to speak of, so I added it to my account. T-Mobile's running a special where you buy the phone for $250 plus activation plan, and you get a $50 rebate. Get this, the activation plan is super sweet - $40/month gets you all-you-can-eat data and AIM messaging, 200 weekday/1000 weekend minutes, and 1000 outgoing SMS messages. Not bad at all. I pay $30/month and don't have a phone that can do all that her Sidekick can. It's a sweet little device.

There are always going to be some problems, and purchase and use of the Sidekick was no exception. I went to the T-Mobile store right after work, and proceeded to wait for about a half-hour in line as other customers were helped. Once I finally got to talk to someone to tell him I wanted a Sidekick, I explained that I had actually already been in the night before, but the salesperson told me that there weren't any available units. That salesperson told me that all of the units there were returns and hadn't been properly reset for resale. So, the guy that I was telling all of this to looked to see if there were any reset units. There weren't. He asked if I'd wait while he reset the unit, and I said I would. I waited patiently for the next 25 minutes, and then got the Sidekick. Wooo!

But all was not well. I got it home, plugged it in to give it a little charge and then fired it up. What's this? No SIM card? Where is it? Oh yeah, I have it put it in. Doh. Okay, fire it up again, watch the T-Mobile animation as it boots and then wait. A message comes up telling me that I need to register. I choose a new user, and go through with registering this unit with Nicole's standard username. Going good so far....

At the end of the registration, it contacts T-Mobile's servers and then returns an error telling me that the device is already registered! Wha?! There's another option in the registration screen to login using an existing account, so I try that. It's already got a username in there AND it won't let me change it (the box was grayed out). Ugh! I called T-Mobile's support department after looking at their website and they told me I'd have to wait for 24 hours for the unit to be "activated."

The dufus I spoke to also told me that I'd have to first register on T-Mobile's site. Not quite. I tried to register, but whenever I entered in the phone number, it'd tell me that the phone # wasn't recognized. Rather than hassle with their wonderful "Wireless Data Group," I took the phone back to the T-Mobile Kiosk. While there, I saw the salesperson I had talked to the prior night.

After another long wait in line, he helped me out. He got on the phone with the Wireless Data Group people and quickly realized that they weren't going to be of much help for me. He started to reset the phone himself (even though he had never done it before), but stopped when he realized that it'd just be easier to grab a brand new phone (a couple came in a half-hour after I left the store earlier) and try it out with the SIM card I had.

Success. The SIM card from the already registered Sidekick was put into a brand-new factory fresh one and we got it all registered. Hallelujah. Now Nicole would finally have her new toy. When she started playing with it, she was extremely impressed. It allowed her to check e-mail, make phone calls, chat with friends on AIM, surf /., and keep herself occupied during her commutes.

Tragedy, however, struck on the 3rd day of possession. Nicole went to reply to post on /., and the Web browser locked up. She was still able to use all of the other tools on it, but not the Web browser, and after restarting her Sidekick, the browser wouldn't even load.

After looking at a User Guide on T-Mobile's site, we found a very interesting passage about a Recovery Tool that would re-flash the Sidekick. The PDF had links that went nowhere, but luckily, Google found this page with all the info and links to the working recovery tool, and it supports OS X!!!!!!

We ran the recovery tool on the Sidekick, and it gave us an error that said it couldn't flash the device, with a ROM1 code. Shit. Well, we reset the Sidekick, using the instructions the ROM1 code gave, and the damn Sidekick came back up, albeit without any data whatsoever. Here's the brilliant part - all of your data on the Sidekick is automagically backed up to T-Mobile's servers (yes, it could be a privacy risk, but it's a brilliant backup strategy). Once the Sidekick got re-connected to the network, it automatically downloaded all of the backed up data on the T-Mobile servers. Fucking awesome. And the browser started working again!!

Perhaps this weekend we'll re-run the recovery utility, because it might have a newer version of the OS and firmware, but for now the Sidekick is working and Nicole's a happy bunny. I am too.