Unfortunately, I was down all day. And that means my sister’s knitting blog was down all day.

However, it wasn’t Qwest’s fault. In fact, it looks like Qwest did their magic in the middle of the night (my old connection died at about 12:11AM). I tried changing out the DSL modem at 7:30AM and everything seemed to be working fine. However, the instructions I got from my ISP were a bit off, and my ISP also wanted me to change my system to use DHCP. I had to wait until I got home to get things working. My friend altered some things on my computer to get things going.

Well, now things are sorta back working. My modem says:

My resolv.conf is still being overwritten, but at least I’m back and so is my sister’s blog.

So now I have a whole 72MB of RAM for my SPARCclassic. And tomorrow, my DSL gets upgraded (hopefully) so my sister’s web site might be faster. And faster downloads. Yay.

And I think that’s all I can think about right now. Saw a couple of friends today who live in town but I haven’t seen for a year or more! One is even in my neighborhood. Yay.

Well, I hope my DSL is up tomorrow. We’ll see.

Yesterday kind of sucked at work (at least towards the end) since I didn’t get some things working. That means I have to use Microsoft Windows, something I dislike. Really dislike. Really, really dislike. You get the picture. I was terribly disappointed.

Does anyone not have troubles with their iPod scratching? I think they make them with extra scratchable materials. Holy crap.

And by this I’m really avoiding what I meant to say, I finally got another copy of “Alternative” by the Pet Shop Boys — my favorite group — and I really enjoyed it. But I forgot how much I liked the Duran Duran’s 12″ mixes. The longer remixes of a lot of bands just leave me bored. Some of the worst is Spandau Ballet’s repetitive nonsense. Yeesh. But Duran Duran adds twangy guitars, horns, and even disco-y violins to “Planet Earth,” “Girls on Film,” and “My Own Way.” The remixes were all called “Night Version,” and were even faster than the regular version. I don’t know if they just happened to hire the best studio musicians, but it just sounds like they were all on.

OK, so the lyrics are all kind of silly. But you have to remember I’m the guy who likes:

“And I should’ve been gone
After all your words of steel
Oh I must’ve been a dreamer
And I must’ve been someone else …”

I did get a copy of “One Thing Leads to Another” by The Fixx. That’s another excellent stream-of-blithering song. Wow. Did that guy do that in one breath?

Today was supposed to rain, but it was a beautiful day and the first day this year that was over 60 degrees. I met a friend for lunch and we blabbed for 2 1/2 hours, then went for a random walk through the neighborhood. Things of note: sections of the giant sewer tunnel being built under downtown Portland, and the stump of a tree that looked about four feet in diameter (maybe more). The tree was a huge cedar and my friend was upset that they killed such an old tree. I counted the thick rings, and I only counted 22. Wow that thing grew fast.

I must have driven 300 miles yesterday. My buddy Greg convinced me that no one else wanted to go to the ham radio junk fest swap meet in Puyallup, WA. Made a couple of mistakes and didn’t buy anything.

The first mistake was eating breakfast at a place called Nickelby’s in Tumwater. It wasn’t bad, but it wasn’t good, either. We ate there as an experiment and also because we didn’t know if we could find the place that our friend Bill likes. I’m not sure, but I think it’s the Hawks Prairie Inn that we drove by right off the freeway. Duh. We drove right by it after we left Olympia.

The second mistake was eating at a fancy McMenanin’s again. I’ve tried the Hotel Oregon in McMinneville and yesterday I tried the Olympic Club in Centralia, WA. Neither of them was as good as the local McMenamin’s Tavern.

It was a fun time otherwise. Fun driving if you don’t have to do it very often.

When I got home, I had the box set of Duran Duran singles. There are 13 CDs, and each is a reproduction of the 12″ singles (or a 45 if there was no 12″ single). I listened to that while I was putting together a ham radio kit. I forgot how much I liked those old Duran Duran 12″ singles. “My Own Way,” “Planet Earth,” “Rio,” and the list goes on.

I’ve been spending much too much time at work trying to get my computer running. There are other issues that I can’t go into, but it’s a big pain. And then when I got home I couldn’t get my web server started. Rather than post here, I had to fix it so my sister’s knitting blog could continue to get hundreds of hits each day. Heh.

In any case, this web server is working and I think my computer at work is almost fixed. So there.

Well, I got “Alternative” by the Pet Shop Boys, “Red Hot and Rio,” and an 80’s mix CD.

And since I had to spend some time getting my editor working, I don’t have much time to write much. Nor can I think of anything except I really would like to get some sleep!

For those taking the opportunity to get married, CONGRATULATIONS! For those who think it’s going to ruin society, GET A GRIP. By most estimates, about 8% of the population is homosexual. Of those 8%, what percentage are going to get married? I’m not sure, but for those who are, YAY FOR YOU TWO!

(No, I’m not looking for a guy to marry.)

OK, enough of that. My odd brain has been seeing Caton Gates everywhere. A guy crossing the street this morning looked like Caton. A guy who was looking for a date in the Portland Mercury looked like Caton. Neither of them looked enough like Caton to be Caton, but I keep wondering why I see Caton in my hallucinations. (Not in that way, either.)

And, speaking of hallucinating, I kept smelling incense on my walk home. Aromatic hallucinations, too.

It’s all a personal exercise. I’m trying to find something interesting every day to write about. Heck, I ought to just chart the outside temperature or something (warmer than before). But really, I can get a chart off the web.

OK, so I ALMOST picked a song to buy. “Breakout” by Swing Out Sister. I always liked them, but had no idea that they were so much more popular in Japan. And they were popular when I was there. I wonder if I shouldn’t just buy their CD.

I should also buy a copy of “Oh, Sherry” by Steve Perry since that’s the first song I played on my iPod, and I, er, found the song somewhere.

Somehow my body didn’t get the memo that it wasn’t supposed to sleep through February 29th. I’m convinced that February 29th happens every year and we just sleep through it most of the time. I was pretty sleepy.

I did convince my buddy Il to get off his duff and ride one of my bikes to REI to pick up whatever they were giving away today. I was hoping for another 20% off coupon, but today I got a Topeak Toolbar. So REI and the chance to have another $10 donation given to the Bicycle Transportation Alliance got me on my bike for the second time in two days, and the second time in three years.

Il had to borrow one of my bikes because even though he’s a bikie, he only has one bike. It’s a $1000+ Trek, but the frame is cracked. I haven’t ridden in years, but I have at least three ridable bikes, and another in pieces.

Unfortunately, the bike I rode today was the victim of my dad’s exploding pesticides. I couldn’t scrub the crap off the bike, but I rode it anyway. Ick is about all I can say about it.

I wasn’t doing all that much today, but that was the plan. Finish my parents’ taxes, and then maybe read a book. I even thought I should go to the new REI opening near my house. If you ride a bike there, you get a 20% off coupon and $10 from REI goes towards the Bicycle Transportation Alliance. Well, the taxes are close to finished and I made it to REI, but I didn’t do much more.

Last night I saw my friend Craig sing at a place called Momo. I’ve known the guy since high school (over 20 years ago) and this is the first time I saw him sing. The band he sat in with is called “Grass Verge” and played lots of things I didn’t recognize. Some songs from “Cracker,” I guess. But Craig was better than their normal singer (don’t tell him I said that.) Stayed out too late. Had 50% more beer than my doctor said I should have. (Three in four hours.) All in the name of fun. Always fun to see Craig sing and see Craig’s mom heckling supporting him.

And I got my first paycheck. I better figure out what I’m doing at work pretty soon so I can keep getting them.