ProteinSpill.com

Old Computer Clearinghouse

In the process of getting rid of my older computer equipment, I find that there are a lot of people who still don’t have computers at all but would like one. Yeah they could get one for $200-500 from Wal-mart or Dell but that’s still a lot for some folks who just want to check their email and look at the Cast Portal from home.

So, if you have some old computers (minimum: Pentium II, 128MB RAM, 4GB disk) or extra parts like PCI or AGP video cards, PCI network cards and modems, hard disks, 144- or 168-pin DIMM memory, etc. that is cluttering up your extra bedroom, contact me and I’ll take it off your hands. When I accumulate enough stuff to build a suitable machine, I’ll give it to someone who needs it. I’m putting a list together of those folks too.

If you’re curious, I’ll be setting them up with a minimum install of Gentoo Linux. Pretty much nothing but gnome-light, firefox, and gaim. No floppy or CD-ROM. Should be pretty hard for people to mess them up The only rule will be that if they buy something new, they must give it away or give it back.

I just discovered the Trunk Monkey

It’s really a shame this auto dealer’s ads were pulled off the air. I’d love to see more stuff like this. It made me go to their site and look around after all. Unfortunately I won’t be traveling to Oregon to buy my next car.

You can find a couple more Trunk Monkey ads on Google Video.

Movie Theater Rudeness

People seem to be pretty good about turning off their cellphones and such. I only heard one go off just as Narnia was starting. They quickly silenced it. A crying child still added to the soundtrack throughout the film though. If your kid is scared, why force him to stay?

The really interesting bit was the apparent Coca-Cola fan sitting directly in front of me. During the slideshow before the previews, any time a Coke ad appeared on the screen (you know, every other slide) this little punk would remove his Coca-Cola branded hat and hold it up over his head directly in my line of view. His mother ignored him. I kicked his seat. What the hell?

Quick Wal-mart trip

Tonight I went to Wal-mart to get a couple of things. The checkout lanes seemed busy but the further away from the door I went, the fewer guests were in line. I found one with no line and the girl was staring at the ceiling.

I carefully placed my two items on the conveyor in front of her and she said, “hi.” She scanned the small container of whole cloves and placed it in a bag. Then she put my second item on the scale and immediately broke out her price look-up sheet.

I leaned in and said, “It’s a lemon,” and smiled. She smiled back. I don’t think she understood the joke.

Computers for sale – EVERYTHING MUST GO!!!

I’m going to be consolidating all of my computer equipment in the very near future. Before I break things up and sell the parts, I thought I’d see if there was any interest in the whole machines. Here’s what I have:

• iMac G3 266Mhz (Rev.B Strawberry) 256MB RAM, no HDD, OS X 10.1 *sold*
• Pentium II 233MHz, 96MB RAM, 40GB HDDspoken for
• Celeron 400MHz, 512MB RAM, 30GB HDD
• Celeron 1.7GHz, 512MB RAM, 80GB SATA HDD *pending sale*
• Pentium 60

I have a pair of Sony 19″ E400 FD Trinitron monitors, a Sony 15″ Trinitron and one or two random brand 15″. There are a number of PS/2 keyboards and mice, CD-ROM drives, AGP video cards, sound cards and lots of random networking gear.

If you have any interest in any of this stuff… even if you’re unwilling to pay for it, let me know. Whatever I can’t sell I’ll probably give away if you have a good story. I’ll be posting pictures of all this stuff shortly.

Perspective and the Eternal Optimist

I’ve been looking at my situation the wrong way. I’m not an unemployed software engineer, I’m a retired software engineer. I wonder if that would “work” in an interview?

When I worked at Verifone a few years ago I decided that I didn’t want to spend the rest of my life behind a desk, rotting in some cubicle writing shitty code for The Man. I had a weak plan to retire by my 30th birthday. I used my savings to buy a motorcycle instead. heh.

It’s been three years since they laid me off. I look for software jobs every week, sometimes I even interview. I’m pretty sure I won’t like the work though. Programming computers is boring. Especially when you’re on a team that works on a small part of a large application. You hack on the same tiny bits of code every day until it comes time to release to your customer. Then you work on the next version of the same tiny bits of code. Ugh! It’s also fattening.

So now I go to DisneyWorld almost every day and play with a 14-mile-long electric train set. The hours are sometimes tough, but so what? I get by ok and I have a social life. I do what I want. I’m fortunate to have a 4-bedroom house to myself most of the time. I’m healthier than I’ve ever been and I’ve got great friends.

Why would I want to go back to an office?

I can’t believe I put that in my mouth

I get so much material hanging out with Maribeth, it’s worth it to talk to her a few times a week just to keep this website going.

We went to lunch the other day and she actually bought this stuff. She thought it was Waldorf salad. Now that I’ve looked it up (mayonnaisse and fruit? ew) maybe she was right. Either way it’s gross. She tried it and said the fruit was bad. Then she tried to get me and everyone else she came in contact with to try it. I insisted we bring it back so I could take pictures to share with you. You’re welcome.

Aramark charged her 99 cents for already-eaten fruit. Mmmm! On the way back from the Mouseketeria she said, “I can’t believe I put that in my mouth.” I looked at her and we laughed. I said, “You just titled my blog.”

With the WDW Marathon this weekend, there was ample opportunity for overtime. Scheduling apparently thought it was a good idea to bring the high-seniority openers in four hours earlier than normal to cover the Marathon. Yeah, the same people who were just given the six Free Days I mentioned previously. I heard we broke the record and had 27 call-ins for the day.

Saturday night’s performance was similar to that but not as bad. Some opportunistic day crew came in early to help take those hours. I think I earned an extra weeks’ pay over the last two days!

I hope you appreciate my graphic. I worked on it for like 4 freakin hours. Wow, it’s 4am already!

When I finally got out to my car at 2:46am Saturday, it had acquired a nice coat of ice. I was exhausted, but I had to wait to thaw my windshield. Bleh.

Finally, I’m not running the heat in my house because I’m a cheapass. Tekey was snuggled up in my bed spying on Tracy and I at my desk.

New T-shirts

I’ve been working on this design for a while and I’m having trouble making the girl “work” so I’m presenting them now just with text.

Unfortunately Cafepress only has one black t-shirt and it’s cut for men. If you want something different let me know and I’ll whip one up for you.

“Free” day!

The Company brings this stuff upon itself. Maybe it’s our union? Either way, it’s pretty stupid. As of 1 January, every fulltime cast member without a reprimand has six “free” call-sick days. Paid. The holiday was actually paid on Monday, to suit our salaried cast. So, call-in rules make the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd January unavailable. Today, 4 January, would be the first day you can call out without losing the holiday…so guess what? I understand Monorails was hurting quite a bit today–17. How did your department do?

Happy New Year

The exit at the Magic Kingdom really wasn’t that bad considering a full park dumped at 12:01am. Lots of people complained that they were “forced” to get in line for the monorail because some guy was waving a flashing lightstick and yelling. So then it was my immediate responsibility to let these people climb over two sets of barricades so they could get in the proper line. Yeah, well, tough shit, you’re riding the monorail now.

Shortly after midnight I went up to work car 1 on exterior but it was pretty pointless. Glen was working the gates from the other end, so I was pretty much just loading the front cab. Just before 1am, I let Dennis take over and I cut through to go to the bottom of the ramp and say goodnight to MB. I got down there and there was a bit of a situation.

I wound up extending myself an hour to 2:15 and taking off my hat so I could better intimidate the guests into staying in line. Rather than get into major arguments with these people I tried to just listen and apologize. I didn’t want a riot. Brandon was down there too taking pictures. Hopefully I’ll get a copy of some of them.

I was surprised that for the drive home, I-4 didn’t really have many cars. I got home in record time… only to find a note reminding me to clean the kitchen. Happy New Year.