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| Well, it's very late on Sunday night (for me anyway...5:20am Monday morning to you diurnal folk  )...
The LAN party was lots of fun. I once again claimed the HDTV for my
computer, there was lots of food (although for obvious reasons I didn't
touch much of it), and of course, I took tons of pictures - as always,
accessible through my gallery. It was nice getting out of the house and spending time with people too, although I'd like to do a lot more in that area.
I ended up sleeping for a bit over two hours at the LAN, then again
from 2pm to almost 9pm that day after coming home. Then last night I
didn't get to sleep until after 8am, and woke up near 6pm. My sleeping
patterns are really screwy right now (when are they not?), but I
suppose I have that luxury. Other than that, the weekend has been
rather uneventful...just a lot of sitting around on the computer,
listening to music, updating my gallery, talking to (few) people
online, etc.
I'm also pretty sure I'm still having problems with kidney stones. If
you remember, I went to the emergency room back in February, and was
damn near ready to off myself because of how bad the pain was. Luckily
I still have some of the Vicodin that I got back then, and I've taken a
few of those over the last week or two. I've also had the same type of
pain (though less severe) several times at intervals since the original
incident. Unfortunately, I've read that once you've developed kidney
stones, you're more likely to do so in the future...and also that
overweight men are more likely to develop them than average-weight men.
So I'm basically screwed on both counts. I don't know specifically
what's causing them - I drink a decent amount of water (though I'm
trying to increase that), and I don't know what in my diet could be
causing them to form. Fortunately for me, the pain in the lower right
back area (you know, where a kidney is )
usually doesn't last too long, and doesn't seem quite so severe as it
did when I went to the emergency room almost four months ago. However,
it still worries me enough that I'm going to try to schedule another
appointment with my doctor soon, so maybe I can figure out exactly
what's causing this and perhaps be able to do something specific about
it (in addition to losing weight, which I'm already working on).
Other than that, there's not really much. Apparently my family is going
to fly up north for a week at the beginning of July to visit family,
which I suppose should be a nice change of pace at least. Though it
seems that may interfere with the second summer session of classes if I
wanted to do that, so we'll see.
Anyways, if you've read this, feel free to leave comments or send me an IM or whatever...
| | |
| So once again I go months without updating...
Nothing too much has been going on in my life lately. It's summer,
which is nice in some ways. I haven't been getting out of the house a
whole lot in the last few weeks, but I hope to over the summer.
Spending my whole life in front of the computer can sometimes get old
even for the most hardcore of computer nerds. 
We are having a LAN party on Friday night at Lando's house, and I'm
very much looking forward to that. Supposedly it's a pot-luck sort of
thing, and everyone is supposed to bring food of some sort, but since
I'm trying to lose weight (and likely wouldn't touch most of what
other people would bring anyway), I may end up just bringing a salad
for myself or something. It should be lots of fun though, especially
given that I'm claiming the HDTV again for my own computer. Lots of fun
to be had when gaming in that sort of setup. 
After that....who knows. I'm still not entirely sure what I'm going to
do this summer as far as maybe working, maybe taking classes, or
something else. I could definitely use some money though, so if I can
convince myself that I wouldn't hate every minute of working wherever
I'd happen to work, it would probably be the "logical" thing to do. Not
to mention, I intend to do a pretty major computer upgrade this summer,
and that's not going to be cheap. Luckily my car seems to be having no
problems (though I still need to get it inspected). I did have to throw
quite a bit of money at the car in the first few months after I bought
it (not so bad considering I bought the car for way under what its true
value probably is/was), but since I got the major starting problem
fixed in January, it's
been perfect ever since. There are still a few things that I would like
to do (most notably getting the power locks fixed), but honestly, I'm
happy with the car as-is. It's reliable, it's fast, it has a ton of
room, and it gets pretty decent gas mileage. Oh, and the air
conditioning works.  What else could I want?
________________________
I have felt quite "disconnected from the world" these past few months.
I'm not sure that I know why, either. It seems as if I'm sort of
drifting away from many (all?) of my friends, and I never seem to have
meaningful conversations of any type with anyone anymore. Honestly, if
I could turn back the clock by two years, or hell, even one year, I
would not hesitate to do so. The months in recent history are mostly
devoid of any defining moments whatsoever, wasted time it seems. Is it
bad that I'm looking longingly back on the days of high school,
wondering why the present day is so bland compared to that time? Maybe
I just need to meet new people, who knows.
I suppose it probably doesn't help that I gained some weight over the
course of the past year as well...it would not be an exaggeration to
say that I am utterly embarrassed with how I look right now. I am
trying to remedy that with the same diet that helped me lose 70 pounds
over a period of nine months back in 2001, and my target is much the
same this time. Objectively, I'm probably not eye-gougingly hideous,
but I'm certainly not happy with what I am right now.
It's going to be a long summer.
| | |
| Just a short update for now since it's been a while...maybe I'll do a longer one later.
It's now Spring Break, of course. I got my things together (computer,
clothes, other random accessories) and left College Station at about
12:30pm last Friday, got into San Antonio a little before 4pm. The
first few days were mostly uneventful - just relaxing at home, using
the computer all day, etc.
On Monday I was performing tech support for Ben (Tyler's cousin) - he
has been in the process of building a new computer, and was stuck at an
obstacle - that is, it wouldn't boot up.
So I headed over to Ben's house (with Tyler and Ryan just for fun) and
inspected the computer...as it turns out, the power supply he was using
was insufficient. (For those who care, it was missing the 4-pin ATX 12V
auxiliary connector which provides power mostly for the CPU.) So we
went to HEB, where he cashed in all his change (to the tune of 85
dollars), then headed over to CompUSA where he bought a new power
supply. Of course, the computer worked when we got back - but then he
had problems installing Windows. Nothing is ever easy. We also stopped
at Whataburger to eat after leaving CompUSA - mmmmm. We chilled at
Ben's house for a while; Tyler and Ryan playing some football game on
Xbox, and me attempting to follow the action and understand the game in
vain. For the first time this season, I missed the episode of 24
- but luckily I had my HDTV tuner hooked up to my antenna at home, and
thus had Malcolm record it. I had a hell of a time trying to clear
8.5GB of space on one hard drive though.
Tuesday was the day of the first LAN party. First up though, was Buffet King.
I didn't have to pay for my own food either - Justin was kind enough to
pay for me, since I was giving him a ride to the LAN parties. We were
at the buffet for probably around an hour and a half. The food was
quite good (although it's been better). I've noticed that I can't eat
as much as I used to - although given the weight I've gained over the
past few months, that's definitely not a bad thing. Anyways, we (Tyler,
Malcolm, Justin, and I) left the buffet a little before 4pm, and I took
everyone back home so we could gather our computers and related
accessories for the LAN party. I picked up Justin around 6:45 and then
we headed to Kenny's house in Schertz. Luckily only Juan and Ryan were
already there, so I managed to score a prime table spot.
It helped that I have a nice compact LCD monitor this time instead of
the 65 pound behemoth 22" CRT I had at the last LAN party (at Ryan's
house). The LAN was a success, I think - we had many computers, several
great games, and people weren't starting to fall asleep at 2-3am like
they usually do. We were still quite active at and past 5am, which was
fun. We wrapped things up around 11am - it had apparently rained during
the night (I hadn't even noticed), and was drizzling a bit as we were
leaving. Malcolm, ever cautious, wrapped his computer in a trash bag
before taking it out to his car. I just ran out to my car and threw my
computer in the back seat. I need to
find some sort of LAN bag for my monitor like I had for the old CRT -
because needing to take the monitor apart and pack it and unpack it at
each LAN/move is getting more tedious than it needs to be. I also had
renewed interest in my SFF box idea after moving my computer several
times (and it helps too that there's supposed to be a new A64-based one
coming out soon that still has a standard PCI slot for my HDTV tuner).
Anyways, I took Justin home (complete with his huge monster CRT like I
used to have), and then stopped at Taco Cabana to pick up some food
(since I hadn't really eaten since the buffet of the day before). This
was at about noon at this point, so I went home and ate, and went to
sleep. I didn't even bother bringing my computer in from my car since
we would have another LAN party that night.
Last night, Wednesday night, was that second LAN at Tyler's house. It
was somewhat smaller than Kenny's LAN in attendance, but it was still
lots of fun. Ryan and Justin still came, but didn't bring their
computers this time. Ben finally got Windows installed and his computer
working over the course of the LAN party, which I'm sure he was
thrilled about. Bobby also showed up with his computer, which was a
nice surprise - I almost never see him anymore. There were also
appearances by Val and her friend Colleen, and some guys who brought
two Xboxes who I'd never seen before. We ended up playing more FarCry
than anything, which was fun. We also watched my high-def recorded
episode of 24
on my widescreen monitor after we'd grown a bit tired of gaming. After
that, I was basically out, so I moved my monitor back to a relatively
safe place on the table, and went back to Tyler's room to steal his bed
and sleep there. Things wrapped up there at about 9am or so - once
again I took apart my monitor, packed it in its box, and got together
the rest of my crap to throw it back in my car again. I went back home
and actually set up my computer this time, and basically chilled, doing
nothing much. After a while I went to pick up some tacos for lunch at
Pepe Nachos (formerly Villa Maria <throws signs>, formerly
Sombrero Rosa way back in the day...) for Malcolm and my mom and I -
they were quite good. I laid down at
about 3pm to take a nap (or so I thought), but I ended up sleeping
basically straight through until 8. And here I am now.
As always, I took lots of pictures at the two LAN parties - as it
turned out, 255 in all (including 10 or so videos) in those two days.
That brings my total picture count since I bought the camera (in
October), to 2199.  Malcolm thinks I'm crazy for taking so many pictures, but I didn't buy that 5GB Microdrive not to use it.
Of course my online photo gallery will be updated, but it may be a
little while. It will take quite a while to go through all the
pictures, caption them, and especially upload them on this cable line
(as opposed to the university ResNet connection).
As for the rest of Spring Break...I hope to have more fun. It's passing
way too quickly, but at least I'm not just sitting at home doing
nothing all week. Lando is apparently going to host another LAN party
tomorrow night, which should be fun in its insanity. Remember, his
house is the one in the remote ranch-like location - and he has a mad
HDTV and HT sound system, perfect for immersive gaming. Oh, and he has
horses too apparently. So assuming it
works out (that is, people can go) - it should be fun at least. Even
(especially?) if it works out kind of like last time, where much of the
time is spent playing games on my computer on the big screen.
Beyond that, Veronica (who was a foreign exchange student from Denmark
my senior year of high school) is apparently coming into town for two
weeks.  I haven't seen her since June
of 2003, and I can't wait to see her again. We still chat from time to
time on AIM, but due to time differences (Denmark being seven hours
ahead of the time here), it's not as often as I'd like. So hopefully
I'll get to spend some time with her this upcoming weekend too, or at
the very least the following (Easter) weekend, since she'll still be
here then too.
I guess that's about it. I did say I was going to do a short update - but it appears I'm not capable of such things.
AfroMan out.
| | |
| Things just seem to be getting more and more fun.
Without making this really long - Tuesday night, I started experiencing
a sharp and intense pain in my side that wouldn't go away, and I
couldn't even sleep because it was so bad. Given the fact that the pain
wasn't going away, and that I (in general) tend to remain healthy
otherwise...I thought it would be wise to have it checked out. So, it
being after midnight at this point, and since I wasn't able to just
sleep, I headed to the emergency room of the medical center here.
I ended up waiting over three hours to be seen, but long story short -
they found that I had kidney stones, which were the source of my pain
(and nausea/vomiting earlier while I'd been waiting). They prescribed
to me Vicodin (a narcotic pain reliever) and some antibiotics to
prevent infection. I finally got out after 6am, went to the nearby
24-hour pharmacy to pick up my drugs, and then headed back to my dorm.
Needless to say, I was beyond exhausted at that point, and I ended up
basically sleeping for all of Wednesday.
Thursday and today I felt a little better progressively. As my last
update indicated, I was to have a Statistics exam on Thursday. I
obviously didn't make it, due to still sleeping much of the day and
generally feeling like crap. My professor will let me make up the exam
with a note from the doctor, which I won't be able to get until I go in
for my follow-up next Wednesday.
I sure hope that the next two weeks, those that separate me now from
Spring Break, are less "eventful" than the past two have been...
| | |
| This past weekend, I went down to San Antonio to see the TR Drumline
(such as it is these days) perform at their first competition. It was
in Pflugerville, and they were the only group in their class this time,
but it was still a fun experience, and their music was pretty decent.
Of course, being the camera nut that I am, I took quite a few pictures of the group. Check out my updated photo gallery
to see them. We also went to some combination pizza buffet/indoor
amusement park-type place after they performed, which was fun as well -
but would have been more so if I'd gotten enough sleep the night before.
And that's about it. I have a Statistics exam on Thursday which
hopefully shouldn't be too hard. And I'm still waiting for Spring
Break. We're still trying to figure out the LAN party stuff, but the
latest I've heard is that one or both nights are going to be at Tyler's
house, which would be cool. And I'm sure we'll do a buffet outing one
night with "the group" (i.e. some/most of our LAN group, plus Yvette
and Pete). Then whatever else on top of that. I'm hoping I actually do
lots of stuff over Spring Break, and don't just end up sitting at home.
AfroMan out.
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