Podcast

Tech-Head

Last night at work I was having an admittedly bad day. I just did not want to be there and was very disgruntled. I met my wife for dinner and vented to her about my frustration. My frustration came from the fact that with my schedule I seem to be doing nothing but close lately. My wife, always trying to be the bright star in my gloomy night, tried to cheer me up. And as usual, she did manage to cheer me up. I went back to work not thinking about how much I did not want to be there, but what I would do when I got home.

As I walked around my departments, I let my mind wander. I used to do this years ago when I was working in hardware, and used to come up with some great ideas this way. Anywho, letting my mind wander, a random thought came into my mind.

“I miss being a tech-head”

My tech-head days have long been behind me ever since we closed i/o Computers. I took a beloved hobby of mine that I really enjoyed, tried to turn it into a profession, and in doing so, totally soured my hobby forever. I promised myself right then and there that I would not do that again. Only one question presented itself now.

“How?”

I wasn’t sure. I wasn’t even sure I wanted to do something that would make money. If I did something to try and make money, there’s that pressure to make said money. I was looking for another tech hobby. Again, I came up with nothing. That is, until my buddy Jerry texted me around midnight tonight. He knew nothing of what I had been thinking about. In fact, only 2 people knew what I was thinking about and that would be my wife and JP. However, not knowing what I had been thinking about for the last 24 hours, Jerry seemed to not only find a solution, but sum it all up very simple. Here is his text message in its entirety.

“Growing Up Geek?”

Prefect! It’s a property we created and abandoned. It’s something I loved doing, and something that was not revenue driven. To me, this fit the bill. So, we texted back and forth like all good geeks do for about 20 minutes and tried to come up with something resembling a plan. Right now we have come up with this: we want to do it, we just need to figure out a time good for all of us. We said we might try and record this weekend, but again, we may or may not. This was the main reason we stopped recording back in February. We just couldn’t come up with a mutual time & date to get everyone on Skype at the same time.

When I asked Jerry what made him ask about Growing Up Geek, he said he just listed to the last episode we recorded, and really missed it. In fact, I am listening to that very episode on my iPod as I type this, and I am laughing my ass off. I so want to start doing GrUG again. And we will, one way or another, in the words of the venerable Captain Jean-Luc Picard, “Make It So”.

The Weekend That Was

We’re at the end of another weekend that didn’t quite turn out how I planned. Whether or not this is a good or bad thing remains to be seen.

The weekend started off with me without a car. My car is in the shop so that meant I have to share Jess’s. So I get up relatively early on Saturday to run some errands before she has to go to work. My first stop is across the river to Kingston to get a haircut. I make it over there around 11:00am and I am greeted with a 45-60 minute wait for a chair. Not having that much time, I say ‘screw that’ and head on to my next destination – the liquor store. After last week’s podcast I ran out of vodka and wanted some for this week’s cast. I make my way over there and pick up the goods. Now that we have acquired alcohol, it’s off to the grocery store for some weekend supplies. After spending 10 minutes and $30 there, I finally head home to have lunch with my wife before she has to leave for work. Once she leaves for work, I have a small list of things I want to get accomplished. Six hours later, I have managed to accomplish 2 of those things. Knowing this is probably all that is realistically going to get accomplish, I retire to my computer and get some coding done there. After a few hours, it’s time for our weekly podcast, when I realize I have nothing to talk about. It has been a really slow week for tech news and I am coming up empty handed. I put out a tweet to all my compatriots and no one has anything either. Looking at a very grim podcast, we decide to forego this week and meet back next week. That leaves me the rest of the night to have a few drinks and play some bad 80s music louder than is probably recommended.

Sunday greets me with cold temperatures, and a light dusting of snow on the ground. I rise from my bed, climb over the wife, and try to figure out what I want to do with my last day off before Thanksgiving. I decide on a few things, but then like most things, they fall through. What I do end up doing is watching some Stargate Atlantis, including the saddest episode ever filmed. I’m not afraid to admit that I get a little teary eyed every time I watch it. Once I recover my manhood, I make my way to the attic and locate all of our Christmas decorations. Since my busy time at work has ended and Jess’s has just begun, I decide to make things easier for us and bring all the decorations downstairs. With everything in one room, we can decorate at our leisure. Once that was done, I did some Christmas shopping online for my niece and nephew, and purchased some Christmas music from iTunes.

Getting into the spirit of things, I call my dad and we talk about the upcoming deer season. Afterwards, I call my wife at work to talk to her on last time today. She won’t be getting home until after I am in bed and I won’t be seeing her again until I hand the car off to her tomorrow afternoon. We talk about our plans for Thanksgiving on Thursday, and other small talk. This year, we are going down to my sister-in-law Brandi’s house. It should be interesting since she is hosting not only her family, but her husband’s family as well. Jess lets me know what time we have to be there, and we discuss a possibly trip we may be taking for her birthday weekend. She still hasn’t decided if she wants to go away or not. If we do go away, now is the time to go. Gas prices are the lowest they have been since the beginning of 2005, and the hotel we looked at back in April is 1/3 of the cost it was back then.

That pretty much sums up my weekend. Not a bad weekend, but in the same breath, I wish I had sometime to play some games. I guess I’ll just have to find some time during to week to get some gamage in.