I feel odd....

2011, a year of Anamnesis and Erudition

2011-12-31T22:38:43Z

While trying to come up with a title for my year-end blog, I was thinking of a way to sum up my year in two to three words. After consulting Dictionary.com I came up with anamnesis and erudition.

Anamnesis means the recollection or rememberance of the past. This past year has been one of great anamnesis for me. I've had some pretty huge events happen to me this year. Most notably, my dad passing on March 19th.

I am a person that is prone to reflectiveness naturally. My dad's death has made me more reflective then I've ever been before. Combine that with your usual male psyche of turning 30 and realizing that, "Yes, indeed YOU are now 30." Which leads to why I chose the word anamnesis as one of my descriptions of this past year.

Each holiday, certain beers, certain songs, corny jokes, and random intoxicated nights have brought on memory's of my dad. I would be drinking one of our homebrews and it would cause me to think of stories he would tell when we'd be brewing. For instance one of the many, "So we (Marine Corp Marching Band) were marching in this parade in _____ and we were so drunk......" hahaha. Those stories would usually bring a story or two out of me as well. Holiday's with family we would sit around and start talking about dad and grandpa as well.

When it comes to his passing at this point, I'm doing alright. It still hurts, and I still get sad from time to time, but I figure that's where I should be. He was a fun guy, even when making jokes about fungi. He had his moments, just like every other person. All in all, I learned a lot from him and he was a great dad!

I've also learned a lot in an academic sense this year too. Which brings us to the meaning of erudition. Erudition is knowledge acquired by study, research, etc.; learning; scholarship.

I started going back to school, again, at the begining of this year. I didn't start off very strongly. Procrastinated at the start, partly because I was taking all online classes and forgot that I was in school. I'm a dummy sometimes. Once I started to get my act together a bit in mid March, my dad died which caused me to totally derail myself from staying on track. I ended up only passing one of my three classes that semester.

After explaining my situation to my teachers and apologizing for not communicating better with them, I started fresh for the fall semester. To which I screwed around some more. Got back on track a bit, then fell back off track. Then the last month and a half of the semester I got my act back together.

I learned so much about computer networking and how the Internet works as a network. I can confidentally fix peoples networking problems now, haha!

All this studying also caused anamnesis as well. Looking back to my history with computers and technology. It also helped me realize what I was looking at when I was teaching myself HTML when I was 14 and learning how to bypass protocol's on the MPS network. I was totaly fumbling around then. If my 14 year old self would have actually understood what I was looking at, I would have done a lot more damage, and I totally would have turned into a hacker. So I guess it's good that I didn't. haha

There has been a lot of other things that have happened this year, but most of those have been posted about on facebook, or I've talked about in other ways. Plus, this is more of a "What do you think of this past year" type of blog.

So there you have it!

Cloud Computing

2011-12-22T21:27:25Z

I had to write a paper for my Network+ class that I was taking. We were given a list of broad topics to chose from. We were also allowed to write for any type of audience, which means we could have written a super technical paper or we could have written an explination type of paper.

I wrote my paper on Cloud Computing. I also decided to write it in a way that anyone with little computer knowledge could still understand what I was going on about. I chose to write it this way because when I eventually get a job in the real world, I'm going to be dealing with people that have no idea what I'm talking about. In order for them to understand me, I'll have to relate the information to them somehow.

After writing this paper I realized that not everyone is as big of a Star Trek nerd as I am, unfortunatly. That being said, you can always watch some of the Borg episodes online and that will clear up any of the refrences.

So without further guilding the lilly, here you go!

The Borg and Cloud Computing

Playlist for a celebration.

2011-03-25T06:38:55Z

Today was certainly a tough day. I know it might not look that way to some. I tend to be very hard to read on the surface sometimes. Especially when I have to deal with lots of unfamiliar people, like I did today.

You see this past weekend, Saturday night to be exact, my father died of a heart attack. Came as a shock to everyone, as these things often do. Not really gonna talk about that here.

Lets just skip to what this post is actually about. In the process of planning for my fathers celebration (i.e. memorial) it was suggested that we can bring some of his music to play during it. So my mom asked me to make a playlist of my dad's music to play at it.

Mom, you are a genius. Probably one of the most theraputic things I could have done. It was nice uploading all of his CDs to his laptop. Gave me a chance to listen to, or for most of it, relisten to a lot of what he listened to. I got to pick out what I thought were some of my dads favorite songs. I tried to stay away from the rock format for the most part. To be honest, I just didn't feel Styx or Frank Zappa was apporiprate for this occassion.

So I heard a lot of cool stuff, a lot of interesting stuff, a few things I still don't get, and then I heard my dad. It happened while I was doing stuff around the house on Tuesday afternoon. I had on some John Pizzarelli, "Our Love Is Hear To Stay" to be exact. Out of no where came my dad. It was clear as day. The exact moment was "Honey Pie" (linked below), a simple cover cover of the The Beatles tune. What struck me about that song was they general feeling of his cover I feels caputres the way he felt about my mom. Starried eyed and in love. But with a jazzy feel. hehe.

04_Honey_Pie.mp3 Listen on Posterous

It's a song him and I had talked about a few times. I've also heard him humming/whistling it several times. And there I had it, how I would make this mix for him. So while I finished uploading his music, I thought of song that I talked to dad about, or would hear him whistle or whatever.

My dad being a trumpet player in his younger years made me lean (and it was an easy lean at that) towards the Jazzy side of music.

So here it is, my attempt at a Musical Eulogy for my father, Steve Larry.

"Playlist for a celebration"

The Chieftains - "Sea Image"
The Philadelphia Orchestra - "Pomp And Circumstance"
Michael Bublé - "That's All"
The John Pizzarelli Trio - "The Frim Fram Sauce"
Tony Bennet "Body and Soul"
Simon & Garfunkel - "Homeward Bound (Live)"
Eric Clapton - "Tears In Heaven"
Harry Connick, Jr. - "He Is, They Are"
Barry Manilow - "Moonlight Serenade"
Louis Armstrong - "Dream A Little Dream Of Me"
Harry Connick, Jr. - "Save The Last Dance For Me"
The Manhattan Transfer - "Tubby Meets A Jazzy Band"
John Pizzarelli - "Avalon"
Harry Connick, Jr. - "Funky Dunky"
The Manhattan Transfer - "Java Jive"
Blood, Sweat & Tears - "Spinning Wheel"
The Manhattan Transfer - "Route 66"
Tony Bennett - "Old Count Basie Is Gone (Old Piney Brown Is Gone)"
John Pizzarelli - Honey Pie
John Coltrane - All Or Nothing At All
John Pizzarelli - "Rhythm Is Our Business"
Neil Diamond - "Forever In Blue Jeans" *Wedding Song
Blood, Sweat & Tears - "And When I Die"
The Manhattan Transfer - "God Only Knows"
Harry Connick, Jr. - "With Imagination (I'll Get There)"
John Pizzarelli - "Coffee, Black"
Jelly Roll Morton & His Red Hot Peppers - "Dead Man Blues"
Gunther Schuller, The Incredible All Star Band - "Semper Fidelis"
Chuck Mangione - "Amazing Grace"

So there you have it. If you are at all curious as to why I picked the songs, please feel free to ask. I have a reason for all of them. Might not be the most interesting reason, but I picked everyone on purpose.

Maybe if I'm feeling adventerous tomorrow I'll upload the playlist. Anyone have any good ideas on how to do that?

Daily blogging? Schedule day 3.

2011-03-04T07:55:48Z

So I'm laying here in bed, listening to The Weakerthans "Reunion Tour" trying to figure out what to write about. I want to do a daily blog because I feel it'd be good for me to just go over my day or get some thoughts out or something.

This is my 3rd attempt at writing something now. My first attempt was just a boring old breakdown of my day. I gave up on that before I even got to lunch. My 2nd attempt was turning out to be just some long winded thought that probably wouldn't have been coherent to anyone but myself.

So here I sit, my 3rd attempt. Why do I think this is good for me? I'm looking at this as a way to decompress. Maybe get feedback on things that are going on, or that I don't quite grasp. As I've mentioned in previous posts, I have a hard time relating to people a lot. It might be good for me to put some of this stuff out there to help people understand me more, or for people to help me understand people more.

For example today I had lunch with my Mom at Classic Slice. It was awesome. We split a great brownie, and had great conversation. I've come to expect nothing less from time spent with my Mom.

Among the topics of conversation was my attempt at getting a daily schedule going. I showed my mom my basic bare-bones schedule that tells me things like "Wake up", "Eat", "Shower"< etc... Then I showed her my Day 1 schedule and told her how awesome that day went for me. Then went on to talk about yesterday and how I feel like it just fell apart.

Mom told me that she learned pretty quickly with me that she had to keep me on a schedule in order for me to get anything done. I didn't really remember that until she said something. Made sense that she did that. I asked her if she did the same thing with my sister Kim, and she said no. That puzzled me. I guess I never realized that my parents did anything different with her than with me. My sister didn't really need all the extra help I guess that I needed.

I'm glad that my Mom was able to recognize at an early age that I needed a lot of extra help. I'm glad she figured out a lot of tricks to help keep me going. Mom's a pretty smart that way.

The schedule thing is going great. I was pretty excited because I thought I had figured this out all myself. Now I have to give the credit to my Mom. hahaha.

After lunch with my Mom, I stuck around Classic Slice to do some reading for my Network+ class. I started doing that around 1:30 and didn't finish till about 4:30. I only read one chapter. It was only about 20 or so pages too. I'm just a very slow reader, especially when I have trouble focusing. I was also forcing myself to take notes 'cause I felt that writing down a paragraph summary will help me retain more of what I'm reading. I also wrote down lots of vocabulary terms and key points. I'm not used to doing any of this mind you. I seldom take notes or read. However that has only been since I started college, and I have sucked at college thus far. That's how I did notes in grade school and high school and I was much better at school then. So I realized I should get back to that.

In the process of writing out the 2 major parts of my day just now I came to a realizition that what I really need to be doing is getting back to the basics. Ever since I first broke my structure when I went to Denmark my senior year of HS, I have been having problems. I never went back on my structure which can somewhat explain why I always feel so lost and confused all the time.

After doing another successful day of adhering to my schedule and feeling how accomplished I feel, it's clear to me now that I need to get back to the structure that my Mom so kindly figured out for me when I was young. I feel that I'm well on my way at this point. I just need to stick to my schedule and stop being so lazy with everything else. Become an active participant in my own life again.

Day four tomorrow. Have a few errands to run, an appointment with my head doctor, hopefully some more school work, and then work all night. Should be a fun day. I'm looking forward to it.

Schedule Day 2

2011-03-03T03:46:20Z

So yesterday was my first day following a full day schedule. It went pretty well, especially seen as how I had to work. Being at work kind of takes care of the schedule for 8 hours or so.

I felt pretty accomplished by the time I got home last night. I think it's because it's been hard for me to manage my time on a day to day basis lately. Without full time work I seem to hardly notice what time it is, and how little I'm doing in the time that I'm wasting. It seems to be greatly affecting everything I do. Anyways, yesterday was a good day, and I count it in the win category, even though I had more George Bluth, Sr problems. George Bluth, Sr, by the way, is the PC that I'm building for school right now.

Today is not a win though. I pretty much failed right off the bat. In my defense, I didn't realize it was going to happen. I left the schedule open for the most part today because of the problems with George Bluth, Sr. I woke up this morning and turned my laptop on while I was still laying in bed, which is where the fail started. That being said, I had the best intentions when I opened it. I had hoped to catch my friend Charlie this morning to see if I could grab his power supply so I could swap it out with mine (trouble shooting step).

As luck would have it, I did catch him, and I decided to meet him first thing. So I hopped out of bed and ran over there instead of sticking to the morning routine schedule. Skipped breakfast, shower, and all that to go get it. I tried to start the schedule over once I got back home, but it pretty much fell apart.

I spent the afternoon trying to trouble shoot George Bluth, Sr more. Came to the conclusion that the motherboard was bad, and now I have to send that back and wait for the new one. For those of you that care about what's going on with that. I'm hoping to get the new one by the end of the week.

I realize now that I have to adhere to the schedule from the start. I give myself 5 minutes in my schedule to wake up and get out of bed. I have to stick to that. I'm a hard person to keep on task (with life stuff), and it starts with me first thing in the morning. I feel that if I can get out of the bed within the first 5 minutes of waking up is a victory. It's nice to start the day with a little victory.

After the wake up is breakfast then bathroom time (you know, shit/shower/shave time). The bathroom time is the key point in my day I have realized in the last few weeks. I've noticed that no matter how little I want to do when I wake up, if I can get myself in the shower, the rest of the day will fall into place. The shower is what truely wakes me up and gets me going in the morning. That's one of the reasons ya shower in the morning right, to wash the sleep away?

So hopefully tomorrow I can keep this all in mind when I wake up. I know there is nothing I can do for my computer tomorrow as far as fixing it. I do have to take in my motherboard to be shipped out tomorrow, and I have to pick up an ethernet cable and an HDMI cable. I also, and more importantly, need to do more reading for school work. Hopefully I will be having lunch with my mom tomorrow at my Classic Slice as well.

So I have my work cut out for me tomorrow. Here we go.

Sorry for the poorly written blog. booooo.

Computer Build Quandry

2011-03-01T21:49:24Z

I got my new processor today, the correct one. Put it in my computer and get everything hooked up. Go to power it on, and it does the same thing as last time. The fans start up for a split second, and then some LED's light up, and then nothing. Then it sort of just power cycles. I can't figure it out.

This is the link to all the computer build parts: Computer Build

However the processor I got is: Intel Core i5

I tried unhooking the graphics card, the hard drive, and the blu-ray drive and then powering on, and still the same thing happened.

So I'm wondering if i hooked something up wrong on the motherboard. And I also can't seem to find where this plug goes either: Computer Build Photos

Anyone have any ideas?

Title this

2011-01-19T06:19:13Z

So I guess I'm nervous about starting these classes for the advanced computer networking program at MATC. Sometimes I trick myself into thinking I'm not really good with technology or any of this kind of stuff. I just have to settle down and get used to being back in school and remember that I do actually know what I'm doing.

Here's a little background on me, I guess. My dad got his first computer when I was in 2nd grade. I remember him showing me how to get a program to run in DOS when I was just begining 2nd grade. I remember later that year my school got their first computer, one of those sweet Apple IIe's with the green screen. They weren't sure what to do with it, let alone how to hook it up. One of the teachers remembered that my dad had recently got a computer and they asked me if I was capable of hooking it up. I remember hooking it up, turning it on, and even running a program, and then showing the principle how to run a program. I set up the few other computers the school got as well.

Around 4th grade (maybe 5th), my dad was working for an insurance office helping them with some of their computer needs and selling insurance too, and the office decided they needed a network. So my dad brought me in with him and we set-up a network. I would help him do some maintenance on it from time to time as well. I was still playing with our home computer all the time as well, learning how to do random things.

The summer before I started high school we had just gotten the internet, which really excited me. Almost nobody had it then (this was 1996). I remember trying to tell people about e-mail and stuff like that. I had a lot of time that summer, and decided to learn how to make web pages. Without access to any HTML books, I just sort of figured it out by looking at the script to web sites and just figured out what each line of code meant. After about a week, I ended up getting an internship with New Rock 102.1 working on their web page. Basically I lightened the load to the DJ that they had doing most of it.

When I had started HS at Marshall that year, they had me help fix their older computers and stuff like that. Junior year I transfered to Riverside HS, where they actually had programming classes. I took an AP Computer Programming class where they taught me PASCAL (totally useless now, I know. haha). Never took the test for college credit for some reason though. They also had me take their honors HTML class where I used it as a platform to show off my abilities as a web designer by hacking into other peoples computers on the network and changing all their script split seconds before they were to be shown on a large screen up front. It scared a lot of people, and also pointed out huge flaws in the schools network which they started working on fixing.

Then senior year I was an exchange student to Denmark and seemed to have lost my mind, and gave up on computers. I'm an idiot! hahahaha....

The last 2 years I've been realizing that I have missed my true calling and that I need to be working with computers in some way. I love the way everything connects to each other. I love that we are becoming so wireless and still can stay connected. I'm excited for the future of all of this right now. I have lots of ideas for things I want to do. I feel I have a good grasp of what's possible in the future, and decided that I need to start getting myself in a better position to become part of the future of the world. I guess that's why I signed up for this course.

I need something to kick my brain back into on mode. I need stuff that will challenge me. I've forgotten a lot of the stuff I did when I was younger, but I feel it's sort of like riding a bike. Once I start doing it again, it'll come back to me and I'll feel excited about it the way I used too.

So take from this what you want. I'm not claiming to be some sort of computer genius or anything. There is a lot of stuff I don't know, and there's a lot of stuff I've figured out better ways to do because "convential" knowledge hasn't gotten in my way and I can think outside of the box. I'm pretty excited to start. Excited but nervous!

erv0 @ 2009-05-05T06:28:00

2009-05-05T11:30:04Z

it's my birthday!
hello year 28!

so lately

2008-11-10T11:26:38Z

Lately I've been listening to a lot of Rage Against The Machine....
what an amazing band. I don't feel these guys get the credit they deserve at all.
I was just looking through random stuff about them online and found there "Sleep Now In The Fire" video.... I dare any band to try something like this now-a-days...
I wish I could play with half the amount of passion they played with!
Check out the video, and read the stuff in it too!

good night

2008-11-05T07:17:44Z

wow.
tonight was one of those nights that crept up on me and turned out to be amazing...
I was in a rush after working at Kinko's today (super busy in my new position at CPC). Rushed home and changed really quick and then headed right to Turner Hall to work the Girl Talk show.
Crowd there was awesome. Everyone I worked with was in a great mood. We were all talking about the election and what not.
A girl totally came up and flirted with me, then after I was done working she found me again and we danced to Girl Talk. I got her phone number and shit too... Yeah...
and to top it all off, Obama won!!!
I'd go into more detail on all this but fuck it, not my style so much as of late......

:(

2008-09-18T00:37:03Z

had to take willie to the humane society tonight......
this blows......

side note...

2008-07-08T17:10:48Z

just a side note to the whole bike riding thing: I wanna take up boxing. Maybe that will help me releave some of my pent up anger/frustration/whatever..

erv0 @ 2008-06-22T16:17:00

2008-06-22T21:18:41Z

we should start using this old propoganda poster again!

HAHAHAHAHA

2008-06-16T01:23:49Z

HAHAHAHAHAHA
http://www.nastyhobbit.org/player.php?clip=audition-dance-commericial-1

totally worth it!

erv0 @ 2008-06-09T07:19:00

2008-06-09T12:21:20Z

I am thinking about getting Rorschach from The Watchmen as my other tricep tattoo to match the guy holding the umbrella from the casket lottery cd "survival is for cowards". Rorschach would be a good Yin to the Umbrella dudes Yang I think. Not sure how it'll look yet though...

new dew

2008-06-02T02:48:11Z

check it
sorta shaved

hahaha

2008-04-28T12:42:50Z

erv0 @ 2008-04-17T21:21:00

2008-04-18T02:21:46Z

My Personality


Neuroticism	94
Extraversion	39
Openness to Experience	43
Agreeableness	6
Conscientiousness	41

You are sensitive about what others think of you. Your concern about rejection and ridicule cause you to feel shy and uncomfortable around others. You are easily embarrassed and often feel ashamed. Your fears that others will criticize or make fun of you are exaggerated and unrealistic, but your awkwardness and discomfort may make these fears a self-fulfilling prophecy, however you tend to lack energy and have difficult initiating activities. You are not prone to spells of energetic high spirits. You prefer familiar routines and for things to stay the same. You can tend to feel uncomfortable with change. You do not like to claim that you are better than other people, and generally shy from talking yourself up, however you believe that a certain amount of deception in social relationships is necessary. You are guarded in new relationships and less willing to openly reveal the whole truth about yourself. You are not an overly cautious person. You will think about alternatives and consequences but make up your mind fairly quickly.

Take a Personality Test now or view the full Personality Report.

The best Buying Pet Gifts.

oh yeah

2008-04-11T07:38:28Z

I have a new celebrity crush now too....

interesting

2008-03-05T05:17:30Z

Soooooooooooooooooo Molitor was nominated for another WAMI award this year. We were nominated for the best group or something. http://wamimusic.com/@files/47/file.html
Second year in a row, last year was best adult contemporary group or something like that.
We probably won't win again.
I'm a little confused as to how we got nominated a second time because we still aren't WAMI members and have only played 1 or 2 shows in the last year, and there was next to nobody there.
Meh.....

Sooo good!!

2008-02-18T05:43:42Z

Soooo I'm on the second level of The Turner Hall Ballroom right now watching The English Beat (You know the songs "Mirror in The Bathroom" or "Sooner or Later"). It's only one original member anymore (the vocalist), but they are pretty amazing live. To my understanding it's pretty much a super group of traditional ska musicians from the UK.
This show did pretty well in sales (511 paid tix), and there were a ton of comp tickets out (130). Lots of people are here dancing there arses off. The crowd is dancing so hard you can actually feel the whole floor shaking. It's pretty impressive! It's the singers b-day today, so he has a lot of friends here to I guess.
I dunno, they are just incredibly solid. Playing mostly up-beat ska stuff. Crowd dancing, swaying to and fro. This type of music really puts me in a good mood.
Just thought I'd share that seen as how I have my laptop here with me......
I love music!

blah

2008-02-07T06:33:13Z

I never write anymore.....
I should fix that....

HAHAHAHAHAHAH!!!!!!

2007-12-23T18:34:16Z

Want to be a x-ray technician?

Questions about music

2007-12-18T19:20:01Z

Soooooooooooooooooo who is the best rock 3 piece band? Or maybe like a top 5? With Molitor's current situations and whatevers its looking like we might be a 3 piece soon, who knows. This got me wondering though, what makes a good 3 piece band, and for that matter, what band is considered a really good 3 piece band?
Here are my rules for this:
1. band must be in the very broad rock genre (so "boy bands" don't count)
2. music must be something that seems like it could be pulled off fairly easy in live settings (just because a band only has three members doesn't mean their cd was recorded as such, eg: most of the newer green day stuff).
3. band must have only 3 members, however exceptions are made for 4 pieces if one member does all the vocals (i.e: u2).
4. I'm not really all that interested in hearing about whatever pop punk 3 piece band unless they were very extraordinary (the queers need not apply).

Lemme know what you guys think........

i get it!!!

2007-11-03T08:24:42Z

so in about 3 hours I will have been up for 24 hours. I'm tired, don't get me wrong, but I'm about to play Halo 2 (my new addiction) and I tend to get caught up in that game for 3 hours before I even realized it. I'm just getting home after another long day/night on my feet.
I've been putting lotion on my heels every morning because they are severely chapped (like lips are, except on my foot) and my right heel had more or less split open (yeah for graphic details). And tonight I was doing my lotion rub down on my feets and gave myself a bit of a foot massage, and now "I get it!!" I now realize why cats love petting. It's because its more or less a full body massage like we could never really imagine.
Not that profound but whatev's....
I did well out tonight. I was social and it felt pretty ok for a change. I haven't felt like that in awhile. After finishing up with work at Tuner Hall (which blows to work there instead of the pabst, but that's for another time) I went down to the Maritime CD release (albeit a bit late for that...) and it was nice. I'm always surprised for some reason that those dudes actually know who I am, I mean ex TPR and stuff they just seem like they should be all huge and sorta rock-star-y or something 'cause that band was soooo great.... They are just dudes I know, but it makes me feel cool for weird reason's... blah, I'm bableing (sp?)
I'm just gonna go... I'll update something more later maybe....