Yeah, yeah.. I'm advertising for my own business on my blog. So sue me.

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Let's face it, we've all been there. You just moved out of Mom and Dad's house, finished up college with no imminent plans of returning, you're trying to market your internet-based business to be the next Amazon.com, but you're just barely getting by financially.

I'm currently at this point, and I'm getting a bit frustrated with it. I've had plenty of side job opportunities and am currently working to get those rolling, but due to the type of skills I possess, none of these side jobs are going to be much shorter than 6 months.

Typically, this wouldn't be an issue for, say, a web development firm, but those guys have the staff and the hours to commit to it. I'm working on getting two of these projects going, but really can't seem to find the time to get them all done reasonably quick.

Also, the typical web development firm will bill the client in installments. That's not really an option for me, as my clients are in the same position I am, and can't have the funds around until the project is completed.

What I'm looking for is quick, small projects or services I can offer to earn some cash in a hurry. I wouldn't mind something that's going to be recurring or easy to repeat, I really could use something to help out with the bills.

As it sits, I just got paid Friday, and after all my bills have been paid and I made 1 small purchase, I have $30 left in the bank. I'm at the point right now that I'm very strongly considering terminating the Netflix account I have, to free up the $20 per month I'm paying there.

If you have any ideas (outside of plasma or sperm donations) that would legally put a little bit of cash in my pocket, I would really appreciate it.

As of about 20 minutes ago, a good friend of mine passed on. I have known this friend since 2001, and we have spent lots of time together. We have worked together, played together, seen movies together, and even just hung out.

It was in the middle of playing that this friend decided it was time to give up this life and pass on. We were having such a good time together, and it really caught me off guard.

Who was this friend? It was my computer. I know, it's nerdy, but it's just what happened. Something totally overloaded (probably the processor) and popped the power supply. It's possible that just the power supply is done for, but where it's the 4th I've put in the computer, I'm kinda leary of adding a new one. I've put a lot of money into this computer, and upgraded it to the point you'd never know it was a cheap eMachines. Sadly though, if I'm ever going to upgrade, there's virtually nothing from that machine that I will be able to use.

So, for the time being, I have my trusty laptop and a Pentium 4 with 256MB of RDRAM, which I'm currently trying to get Windows installed on. I would just say "why bother" and stick with my laptop, but I need something I can use for my web development work.

So yeah... If anyone wants to donate to the "Build Tim A Computer" fund, there's a nice little Paypal donation link at http://www.skudd.com/ . :)

http://blog.skudd.com/?page=cycling

I'll be keeping this updated now :)

For the last 2 weeks, I've had to be awake fairly early in the morning, even on the weekends. I decided this past Friday that since I wasn't going to be able to afford going out of town for the weekend, I'd sleep in as late in the day as I could on both Saturday and Sunday.

Yesterday, I was laying in bed, sound asleep, when my Skype number started ringing. I buried my head in my pillow and tried to ignore it. After it stopped, my cell phone started ringing. I tried to deny that my cell phone had rang, and tried to go back to sleep. I failed, so I got up and checked both for voice mail messages. Sure enough, my business partner/friend/former roommate left me a voicemail to let me know that his wife had gone into labor. I was happy for them, and I was glad he called about it because I asked him to. But why couldn't she have gone into labor at like 4:30 in the afternoon? Needless to say, he called me again around 9:30 last night to tell me that he was a proud father of a little girl, and that everyone was doing just fine.

This morning, right around the same time, my cell phone rang. I was sleeping kinda light, so I heard the ringer loud and clear. When I got out of bed to see who it was, it was Mom. She hadn't left a voice mail, which kinda frustrated me, but when I called back she answered right away. She was calling to let me know that they were going to come down this way for the day, but that it wouldn't be for another couple of hours. GRR! So why didn't she call another couple of hours later so I could get some sleep?!

Don't get me wrong, I love my parents and my friends, and I'm glad that they are keeping in touch with me. I just want to get some sleep one of these days!

I've had a Netflix subscription for about the last year. I maintain my queue and watch every movie I receive, regardless of whether I've seen it before. I have the "3 at a time" plan, which means I have 3 movies out at any given time. I have my dad set up with a sub-account, which causes me to receive 2 movies, and him one. Something odd happened this last time around, though.

I received the normal 2 red envelopes in the mailbox, but one felt different than usual: It had 2 movies in it instead of just one. I figured it was just a mistake, so I thought nothing of it. That was, until I actually watched the movie.

Now, I'm not a Will Ferrel fan by any means, and his movies annoy the crap out of me. When I loaded this one in the DVD player, I had overlooked that he was the star of the movie. When it started, I expected disappointment, as I saw his face as the main character. I decided to "suffer" through it and see what it was all about, and I figured I would turn it off eventually if I got annoyed by it. The thing of it was, I didn't get annoyed.

I sat here watching the film, and I identified with so many points of it. It was almost as if someone made the movie about me, with the usual Hollywood exaggerations. I couldn't believe it! The difference was, this movie had a definitive ending, whereas my life seemingly doesn't. I learned some from the movie though, and I saw parts of my life on the screen that I need to do something about. It was almost as if someone was trying to send me a message. I have to say, if that was the goal, it was achieved.

I would have never selected this movie in 100 years, regardless of what popular culture said about it. The fact that "Stranger Than Fiction" became that mistakenly sent Netfix disk just seems to be rather odd... Words can't explain how disturbed I feel now.

No, I'm not going to go jump in front of a bus. I'm just going to totally reevaluate each day as I live it.

By the way, it was an excellent movie. I highly recommend it.

So last night I was making my dinner, which consisted of chicken, rotini, spaghetti sauce, and broccoli. I got to the point where I needed to add the spaghetti sauce, and I grabbed the jar out of the fridge. See, this jar of sauce is probably about a month old a the most, and it has an expiration date of January, 2009. I figured it would be alright, so I opened the jar, smelled to see if it went sour for any reason, and I noticed an onion top had floated to the top (or was it? o_O). I grabbed a spoon to dig it out, which is when I noticed a bunch of mold growing around the rim of the jar.

I ended up throwing the pan of chicken and pasta on the back burner to cool down, threw the spaghetti sauce away, threw the broccoli back in the freezer, and went to Fazoli's instead.

I just can't quite understand why that spaghetti sauce went bad so quickly. Has my power gone out for any long span of time?

Work has been keeping me too busy and I've had too much other stuff going on to finish the cycling blog. The stats banner is extremely outdated. My last ride was around 14 miles, but I don't remember much beyond that.

I'll try to keep up with updating my stats. For now, I contemplate sleeping.

Yet another rarely embedded Youtube video:

After careful consideration, I have decided against enabling mod_userdir on the Wildebeest. This means that if you have a site on there, it will no longer be accessible via http://wb.skudd.com/yourusername or http://wb.skudd.com/~yourusername . If you have a site on there and would like to be able to access it still, you need to let me know. I will have to set up the Apache virtual host for you manually.

I've added some filters to automatically blacklist bots based on submitted content. The bulk of the recent additions are from *.ca.cx, and it's been stupid having to manually blacklist each one, knowing exactly what they were. I've also set it up to blacklist certain pornographic sites. We'll have to wait and see how this works. :)

Attention Wildebeest Network Users:

Your account should be back online and available, but there are some things that need to be configured yet. Be sure to log into your account and make sure nothing is missing, then contact me to get the Apache virtual host set back up. Anyone who does not contact me about their vhost will be left without HTTP access.

Just as I started feeling good about riding, an old friend had to go and ruin it. Who is that friend? Why, it's my spine.

I felt really exhausted all day and I couldn't figure out why. No matter how I sat in the chair at the office, I couldn't get comfortable.

I got home and ordered a pizza and sat down to watch a movie. About half way through the movie and 3 pizza slices later, I was off to the bathroom, where I've been since. Yes, gross and creepy as it may sound, this is the first blog entry I've authored from the porcelain throne.

Due to that good ol' place where my vertabrae got smashed together, the nerves headed to my lower digestive tract have said "bombs away!" I'm exhausted more so than I was earlier today, and I'm running a relatively high fever, which is "normal".

At any rate, I guess I'm going to have to hold off riding for a few days while I wait for this to sort itself out, and even then I will have to limit myself.

As you may have noticed, my passion for cycling has been rekindled for some odd reason. The result: I'm feeling healthier, more energetic, sleeping better, and this site has been getting daily updates.

I've created the image you'll see below to kinda keep everyone abreast of my stats. Eventually, it will link to a site where I will log all my rides, and schedule additional rides. For now though, that's what you get. ;)

If anyone is in the Lafayette, Indiana area and wants to ride, let me know. There's been 3 of us riding pretty much regularly for the last week, but we're trying to rally more... Especially since we're down one for a while (Get better, Ben!). The bar below should give you an indication of what to expect, so if you can't handle these rides then you may not be the candidate. Sorry. :/

At any rate, I'm going to pass out now. Today's ride was a little intense for me.

Distance: 11.6mi. (approximately) Average Speed: 9mph Max Speed: 25mph How I feel: Not too bad The Route: Link