The cat is out of the bag. I repeat, the cat is out of the bag!

Nah, seriously... I'm finally making a move to get myself in the computer-related industries. I will be starting at Touch Support on January 5^th at 3:00PM. My role will initially be "Level 1 Tech", but I hope to be able to scale the ranks fairly quickly.

This is going to be a big turning point in my life, from various aspects.

First and foremost, I'll be moving out from my parents' house. I love them to death, but this is something I have to do and that I am more than ready for. Initially, I'll be living with my best friend, renting a room from him and his wife. While I live there, I'll be looking at getting my own apartment, preferably something small with utilities included in the rent.

Second, I'll be getting into the career that I chose several years ago when I started my college education.

Third, I'll be getting fat. Yes, that's right, I will be getting fat. I've been working very physically intense jobs for basically all my life so far, and the new job will put me in an office environment, sitting in front of a computer all day. Hopefully I won't be drawn to food, but I can pretty much count on becoming diabetic, due to the massive amounts of Red Bull and Dr. Pepper I'll be drinking.

So yeah, that's that. Is anyone looking for a roomie? :P

I have been tossing and turning since about 6:30 this morning, because Mom was getting ready to go somewhere. I finally climbed out of bed at 8:30, and she rushed out of the house to go somewhere.

Dad was apparently outside when she went to leave. He just came storming into my room to say that Mom had backed her car into his Blazer and broken the bumper in the process. He was so pissed off about it that I have to increment the number of times I've heard him swear as long as I've been alive.

The problem is perception of time. Yes, people cram so much into their schedules that they get the feeling they're in a hurry, some to higher degrees than others. When this happens, they have the same problem everyone else always has when they're in a rush: They make mistakes. The bad thing about it is that when these mistakes are made, they attempt to point blame elsewhere, rather than taking responsibility for what they've done.

The cell phone culture is to blame for this, if you ask me. Have you ever seen someone getting into their vehicle while talking on a cell phone? They're distracted, and rushed, because they're paying such close attention to the person on the other end of their ear, yet neglecting that car that parked behind them. The cell phone also allows for people to multi-task, multi-task, multi-taaaask! They cram so much into every minute of their day, regardless of whether they're at home, in the office, or out on the road. This allows people to carry out seemingly better logistics, getting so much accomplished in such a short span of time, not wasting a single nanosecond.

When that happens, focus and concentration are thrown to the wayside. Not to mention people are so physically AND mentally exhausted, they have an even harder time juggling the thousands of tasks they've assigned to themselves, and the remaining shred of ability to efficiently multi-task is gone.

Now, I must say, my Mom doesn't own or use a cell phone, and it's for the better of the world. However, she still applies the 36-in-24-hours logistics to her day, and problems like this occur.

I own a cell phone, but I prefer not to use it, especially when I'm driving. If and when I get married and have kids, I'll prohibit the use of cellular telephones, unless it is for emergencies and quick communication.

We need to get back to the stone age. There were far fewer automobile accidents back then.

m4tt wears pink shirts!

EDIT!!! Apparently there is some disagreement on my masculinity because of m4tt's ability to wear pink. As such, I give you Tim, in purple!

Please note, this is an old-ish picture.

Why does my life have to get complicated all at once?

I just had a panic attack hit me rather hard. I hope it doesn't last long and I hope I can sleep tonight.

GRR!!!

Edit: I don't know what brought this on. They never really hit me for any specific reason. They're almost always just completely random.

I worked at the Crown Point shop today, about an hour north of here. I guess the word "work" is used kinda loosely, because the work I did was 8 hours of sitting in front of my laptop, trying to finish up the payroll system and talking to a few people on the various instant messenger networks.

All in all, I did get a lot accomplished today. The outcome of the project was very much positive, even though it's not 100% done. It was received so well that the boss lady wants to deploy it for usage in all three shops, rather than just the two! Talk about cool! Once I get it all done, I'm going to go back and see about setting certain things up as variables, establishing some options, and packaging it up for redistribution. I'm still not too keen on releasing the product as a "free" product, like Linux and the sorts, so I may see about working through some colleagues to market the system.

I had a meeting two days ago, which I really can't go too far into detail about right now, but since I mentioned the project during the meeting, the other parties were pretty interested in it. That may be a chance for me to market it further.

On the way back, I gave one of the other guys and his lady a ride. We got on the topic of some weird stuff, like parallel universes, ghosts, and the like. It was interesting and made the drive got a lot quicker.

I'm going to bed soon, I think. I'm tired.

I'm lazy. I'm tired. I feel like doing nothing.

I spent most of the day working on the payroll system for work. We had a slow day otherwise. The shop was pretty well clean from yesterday, and with the few cars we had today it didn't get dirty at all.

Needless to say, there are just a few finishing touches needing put on the payroll system, a couple new reports needing to be authored, and a couple more features needing to be added, then it's all done. Tomorrow I will be migrating the data from the system in place at the one shop to this system, and I have to set it up on all the workstations and make sure it works. Oh wait, it's web-based... That's the easy part: Adding the site to the favorites and making the users pick secure passwords.

Now, I suppose I need to start a file folder for this project, since it's about done. I typically do that in the beginning stages, but this was a fly-by-the-seat-of-my-pants kind of project. So far, I'm pleased with the outcome.

And now, I shall go pass out.

Okay, I'm going to put this as clear-cut as I can:

If you're not having the phone conversation, don't listen to it.

If it's not your room, stay out of it.

If it's not your computer, don't use it.

If it's not your money, don't worry about it.

If it's not your mail, don't open it.

If it's not your food, don't eat it.

If it's not your clothes, don't wear them.

In the last entry, I made implication of cellular telephones being the bane of my existence. Well, I would like to clarify.

Cell phones are great for quick calls and emergencies, but nothing more than that. Today, Sunday, I was on the road for a few hours. The entire time I was driving, I was on the phone with someone that called me. One of the people that called kept the call short, which was much appreciated, but the other two occupied most of my driving time with what was dubbed "important business".

I see too much of this at any given time. Not just for myself, but for everyone. How have these wretched things become such an essential piece of our lives? I find it highly disturbing to see how attached our culture has become to technology, to communication. Even kids (younger than 13 years old) can be seen with cellular phones. All age ranges are addicted to the MySpace phenomenon, and go into detox-like symptoms when they are without internet access for more than a couple hours.

When I was growing up, television and video games were the "drug" of the youth. Today, it's communication.

Now, don't take that the wrong way. I am all for communication in every relationship, and it's something that I feel is mandatory. But the communication these people are doing is stupid, things like, "What are you doing? What about now? What did you eat 5 minutes ago?", or just the sound of another person's breathing... How can this type of thing be beneficial to anyone? How can it enhance social skills?!

If you didn't already know, I was home-schooled from the third grade, up until I received my G.E.D. From there, I attended a community college, where I was pretty well known among instructors, fellow students, and the college staff. I was known for knowing my coursework, maintaining a high grade point average, and being outgoing towards everyone.

One of the biggest arguments in the anti-home-school debate is that home-schooled kids, the product of home schooling, are socially deficient. They claim that every home-schooler is a pale-skinned, pimple-faced, skinny nerd who can't carry his own weight but could solve a quadratic equation in under 5 seconds. I want to know why, and how.

Have you seen the recent generation to pass through the local school? Have you tried to talk to any of them? If you ask them, though, they'll be all over giving you their MySpace ID, or they'll give you their cell phone number so you can "txt" them. Yet they can't comprehend simple math, look someone in the eye while talking, or walk more than 4 feet in front of them due to their intolerance for sunlight and the long hair that is hanging in their face, impairing their vision.

To end this rant before I spend all night typing a thesis about the subject, I'll just say this:

Communication by means of internet, cell phone, or other non-standard medium is a drug that we (humanity as a whole) are very addicted to. For myself, I choose rehab.

Leave a voicemail and don't slit your wrists if I don't call back.

I am beginning to believe that one or more of the following conditions is true:

1. The world is in an organized conspiracy against me, attacking everything I say, do, or think.
2. All outgoing communications from my phone, computer, or mouth are being filtered, preventing the message from reaching the intended recipient.
3. Due to the conspiracy mentioned in #1, my "personal time" has been virtually abolished.
4. Telephones have been created to enforce the previous point.
5. So-called "energy drinks" are nothing more than liquefied sedatives.

When four of Santa's elves got sick, and the trainee elves did not produce the toys as fast as the regular ones, Santa was beginning to feel the pressure of being behind schedule.

Then Mrs. Claus told Santa that her Mom was coming to visit. This stressed Santa even more. When he went to harness the reindeer, he found that three of them were about to give birth and two had jumped the fence and were out, heaven knows where.

More stress. Then when he began to load the sleigh one of the boards cracked, and the toy bag fell to the ground and scattered the toys.

So, frustrated, Santa went into the house for a cup of apple cider and a shot of rum. When he went to the cupboard he discovered that the elves had hidden the liquor, and there was nothing to drink.

In his frustration he accidentally dropped the cider pot, and it broke into hundreds of little pieces all over the kitchen floor. He went to get the broom and found that mice had eaten the straw end of the broom.

Just then the doorbell rang, and irritable Santa trudged to the door. He opened the door and there was a little angel with a great big Christmas tree. The angel said very cheerfully, "Merry Christmas, Santa. Isn't it a lovely day? I have a beautiful tree for you. Where would you like me to stick it?"

And so began the tradition of the little angel on top of the Christmas tree.

...when you get older.

Check out this puppy: Wikipedia Image

Today was pretty much one of the worst days at the shop in the year and a half I've been there.

It mostly started with this one customer. Things were going pretty well until I hear one of the guys say, "Okay, so they charged you and you want us to fix it?" Here's what happened... The lady came in for an oil change yesterday, and part of the service is that we check and adjust tire pressures. She said she went home and check her tires and found that they weren't set to 35PSI, as they were supposed to be. She said that she didn't feel comfortable bringing it back to us, so she took it to another shop and they charged her $15 to check her tires. WTF?! I told her that I'd refund her money, made a copy of the invoice from the other shop, and we checked her tires again for her. When we started to check them, she said something along the lines of, "I'd rather you didn't check them, because they're set to where they're supposed to be." One of the other guys told her that we would check them anyhow, just to see if our gauges were wrong or whatever. I told the lady that if she ever had any concern about tire pressures, fluid levels, or anything like that, she could come back and we'd check it for free. She said something like, "Well, I didn't know that," and left.

Right after that, one of the guys called me down in the pit to handle a problem with a drain plug. Turns out, the oil pan was stripped out and it was the boss who did it. I tried to clean up the threads on this aluminum oil pan, but they were too far gone. So, to take care of the problem, I put a bigger drain plug in and all was fine. See, what happens when these things strip out is people over-tighten the drain plugs, or they start them in the hole crooked. I have discussed the issue with the boss before, and he said, "Just put a longer plug in. A torque wrench is pointless because a lot of these are already stripped out." What pisses me off so bad about that is that I've requested both torque wrenches and longer drain plugs, and we've gotten neither. Every time I've requested the drain plugs, I've been told something like, "You already have enough that size." Whatever. It's your name on the sign.

Then not 2 cars later, the same issue with another oil pan, only it was a different size than the prior one. I went to see if we had any drain plugs that size, and I could only find one. When I tried to put it in the car it wouldn't go in, and I didn't want to force it. I was PISSED. I thought it was the last plug we had that size, and it had to be replaced. I went back to see what we had for other drain plugs that might work, and I just so happened to find 2 more the size that I needed.

The next car was the same damn thing! This time we had the right plug and I was able to fix it, but I just absolutely HATE having to do that. If the person who tightens the drain plug doesn't over-tighten it, there would be no need to repair it. A simple $20 torque wrench can prevent a drain plug from being cranked too tight, and will save everyone a lot of headache in the long run.

I'd guess I had to fix about 10 of the 37 oil pans that came through the shop today, and it's all because people who work there are too paranoid about a drain plug falling out, so they think tighter is better.

Maybe my skin is just getting thin. I don't know. I'm tired of having to fix everyone else's screw-ups. I'm not a babysitter; I'm a manager. There's a difference. Why does it have to be that people are so ignorant and they leave these messes for me? It's the story of my life, I guess.

1. Blargh. I'm tired.
2. SkuddBlog f0.0 hasn't gone any further since the last update.
3. I'm tired.
4. I just did most of my Christmas shopping in less than 10 minutes and I'll see it in 5 to 7 business days.
5. I need to take care of the "Spam Project", but I'm too tired and/or lazy.
6. I'm tired.
7. I'm going to bed.
8. I need to cut back on my use of (un)ordered lists.

One thing I see a lot of on some programming forums I visit is, "How do I create a 'bad words' system? How do I filter out bad words from a user input string?"

Well, there's more than one way to skin a cat, but here's how I would do it (All code is in PHP unless otherwise specified):

Step 1: Establish an array of "bad words". $badwords = array('word1', 'word2', 'word3');

Or, to make it a little easier to add to later: $badwords[] = 'word1'; $badwords[] = 'word2'; $badwords[] = 'word3';

Step 2: Compare your input string to the bad words list. Okay, there's a couple ways of doing this... I'll do it the verbose way:

$words = preg_split('/\s+/', $input, -1, PREG_SPLIT_NO_EMPTY);

foreach($words as $word) { if(in_array($word, $badwords)) die($word.' cannot be in this field); }

That's it!