All week I've noticed things out of place around the house. I just assumed that I either just moved things and not noticed it or the dogs had moved things.

Today, that all changed.

This afternoon, I went to get a pair of socks out of the room I'm saying in, and the door was closed and latched. I know I didn't close it.

Tonight, I went to use the bathroom, and someone had blown their nose and just left the toilet paper in the toilet. I haven't blown my nose at all in the last 6 months.

This totally explains the way the dogs are always on edge, the reason Jenn is always nervous feeling, and it also explains that person I saw running away from the window.

I don't believe in ghosts, per say, but I don't know how else to explain this. If someone was actually in the house the dogs would have been a lot more on edge because of the smell and sounds.

The groove at the top of the picture is the joint between the bricks on the side of the house.

(Ein got to this before I did.)

Or maybe you have a Gmail invite to get rid of... Either way, you'll find this site a blessing, or at least you will when it gets finished.

The concept is quite simple:

1. You have an invite. You donate it to the site.
2. John Q. Gmail-lover wants an invite.
3. John clicks the "Get an invite" link
4. John fills out the info (Valid email address, etc.)
5. John gets the invite URL emailed to him
6. The URL takes John back to the site, the invite is marked as claimed
7. John is taken to the actual invite
8. John gets his Gmail account
9. John gets 6 invites
10. The cycle repeats for Jane Q. Gmail-lover

Simple, but yet to be implemented. If you want to help out just let me know. I have started the code, so the framework is set. It's just a matter of handling all the requests and forms and such. You know how to contact me.

It's biting it's teething it's biting I'm bleeding It's calling it's crawling it's calling and I'm falling The perfect sound of middle ground Pull me under before I try to drag you down Someone has to pull me under before I try and drag you drag you drag you down

(Finger Eleven - Drag You Down)

I guess this is the geekiest way to break up with someone. Possibly the harshest too.

They say that the average person will eat 15 spiders in their sleep within a year.

Tell that to this guy:

Last night, I was sleeping rather well. That was until around 4:30AM when I had this dream...

It started out as a fencing duel with someone. I have no idea who that person was or what they looked like. At any rate, I was having trouble keeping them from killing me. Then, for some reason, the dream switched and we were in some ball room that was filled with people. The people were cheering on the person I was fighting, and were actually helping him out by tripping me and whatnot.

The end of the dream was what creeped me out...

In a quick bout of victory, I jumped over to the wall, cut the rope that held the chandelier, and watched as it fell to the ground, smashing everyone in its' path (which was everyone). This wasn't your normal chandelier though. It was made up of the fan blades from a jet engine. The blades began to spin as they fell towards the ground, and they chpped everything in addition to smashing it. The problem was, I was standing too close to where the blades fell, and the left side of my body was cut off, leaving me there to bleed to death.

They say that you will never see yourself die in a dream unless you actually do die. This is only the second time I've seen this.

The first time I had a dream that I died of a massive heart attack... Turns out, the person having the heart attack wasn't me: it was my friend's dad. Not 3 days after I had that dream, her dad died of a massive heart attack. When she was ready to talk about it, she explained it... It was EXACTLY how my dream went.

So, I don't know if that truely was me in the dream last night, or if it was someone else. I don't even know if it was some sort of preminition or whatever like the other dream was. At either rate, I woke up sweating like a mad man and I had trouble geting back to sleep. I'm still a bit shaken up by it.

It was more than just a crush on her, and she admitted that the last I talked to her. We both liked each other and wanted to spend time with each other... Then, one day, she disappeared. She got a job, started school, made friends... Basically, she found her life.

One day, I got an email from her. She was excited but scared. She informed me that she was quitting school to go into the Army as an intel analyst and that I would not hear from her for 6 months or so.

At the end of the 6 months, I emailed her. She replied and told me that she couldn't talk to me anymore because she was now married and her husband got very jealous when she would talk to other guys. At that point in time, I didn't really realise how it would affect me.

Today, nearly 6 years later, I had a flashback. There was no reason for it. I hadn't been thinking about her. I hadn't gotten an email or a call from her. I just felt like she was right there, next to me...then she was gone. Tonight, it happened again. I looked over to my left, and I felt like she was right there. I decided to do a bit of Google searching, to see if I could find out where she was today and what she was doing. After about 6 tries, I found their web space, provided by their ISP. I just quickly skimmed through a few of the pictures, all of which were something other than her, until I got to one with her and her husband in it.

I know a lot of the people who read this have been "in love" with someone else, but I don't think that's what this was. We weren't just casual friends, but we weren't "in love" either. If we were, then why didn't I feel like this sooner? You would think that if I had lost a love I would become very depressed. Why, out of the blue, have I been getting these feelings like she's right next to me? I don't understand it at all, and at this point in time, I am very detached from reality.

No, I'm not stalking her. No, I'm not suicidal. No, I'm not going to do anything stupid. I just don't know what to do right now. I don't know if I should try to contact her. I don't know if I should just delete this entry (blog entries NEVER get deleted) and clear my history and move on.

I don't really want any suggestions on what to do. I really appreciate all of them that you all have given me in the past, but I don't want them on this item.

I'm not going to post her name, but name here, if you read this, try to understand it. I sure don't.

People who try to be the social butterfly always seem to get themselves hurt. When they do, they make sure the entire social group knows about it.

Here's a suggestion: DON'T BE SO FRIGGIN' CONCERNED ABOUT YOUR IMAGE AND DO WHAT'S RIGHT!

That was aimed at nobody in particular.

So today I was thinking. I don't know that I really mentioned my reasons for giving up on dating in detail, so here goes...

Everyone knows my disgust for money. Just because I hate it so much doesn't mean that I don't need it to live, though. While I was growing up, even today, my parents have had to struggle to make ends meet. Sometimes, this has meant wearing worn out clothing, eating sub-poverty meals (if at all), and just going without on a lot of things. I have made up my mind that I will not put my own family through that. Also, I feel that if the man of the house does not provide full financial support, it should be split equally between the couple. Right now, I am a college student. I don't make much money in the freelance work that I do, and it doesn't come in at a steady flow. There are times, like now, that I will go for months without any income at all. Sure, this is where proper financial planning comes into play, but that causes a lot of un-needed stress that can be avoided with the proper career choice and job placement. This is something that I am working on with my current status in college. Sure, I have my AAS already, but that doesn't really guarantee me much as far as a solid job. If I can't support myself now, there's no way I'd be able to support a family right now.

For the past month or so, I've been seeing things and hearing things around the yard after dark. One night, I saw a flashlight shining at the deck door, until I went over to see wtf it was, which is when it was pointing at the ground by the dog pen out back then just disappeared. Another time was when the midnight train went through town and riled up the coyotes. I wanted to go out and see if I could see them, so I grabbed my Mag Light and shined it out towards the fence row, southeast of the house. I didn't see anything, but off to the west in the bean field, I heard "COME ON!!!... COME ON!!!...", then the sound of someone falling in the beans, followed by "oh shit..."

Tonight, I have my east window open to let some fresh air in. Starting at about 9:30PM, I heard what sounded like someone trying to climb through the bushes. I went out to the garage to find the baseball bat, and a car took off from in front of our house. The car went down the road a little ways, stopped, backed up in front of my neighbor's house, then took off really fast into the subdivision. I grabbed a piece of steel pipe out of the garage, then came back in and resumed what I was working on. A little while later, I heard the sound again. This time, I went running out the garage door, around to this end of the house, looking for something out of the ordinary. As I stood at the east end of the house looking for movement, I heard the noises again, but over behind the shed in the back yard. Since I was alone and had just a steel pipe and a Mag Light, I decided to not go investigate over there.

Again, I came back to my room and resumed my task at hand, and a while later, guess what...

This time I quietly went out to the front porch, pipe over my shoulder, flashlight over the other, and waited for any noises. During this time, a county sherrif drove by. I couldn't determine whether I should have been relaxed or more paranoid. Regardless, I continued to wait for a noise. When I heard what I was waiting for, I jumped up, ran to where the sound came from, and looked all around the area for whatever it was. I found nothing.

So, back in my room, I kept hearing it. I was getting sick of hearing it, but not clearly, so I turned my music off and waited. My music has now been off for about an hour, and I've not heard it once.

Over the weekend, my hosting provider moved to a different IP address with a different hosting company. During the process, most of the DNS servers in the world got the change, with the exception of my ISP. After not being able to get to any of my sites on this domain and the others I've got hosted on this server, I got pissed, did some investigation, and sent my ISP an email.

Here's the email:

The server that I have some web sites hosted on has changed IP addresses within the last week. My DNS settings have been updated to reflect these changes, but there are apparently issues with the Midwaynet DNS servers handling the propigation. As you are probably aware, Verisign changed the refresh rate to 5 minutes last week, so the changes I made propigated almost instantly, but there are some problems with the primary DNS server that you folks have. When I do a dig on my domain, skudd.com, I get the following: [root@boardbox etc]# dig skudd.com ; < <>> DiG 9.2.3 < <>> skudd.com ;; global options: printcmd ;; Got answer: ;; ->>HEADER< <- opcode: QUERY, status: NOERROR, id: 23716 ;; flags: qr rd ra; QUERY: 1, ANSWER: 1, AUTHORITY: 3, ADDITIONAL: 0 ;; QUESTION SECTION: ;skudd.com. IN A ;; ANSWER SECTION: skudd.com. 13409 IN A 209.51.159.66 ;; AUTHORITY SECTION: skudd.com. 13409 IN NS 127.0.0.1. skudd.com. 13409 IN NS ns1.craftstream.com. skudd.com. 13409 IN NS ns2.craftstream.com. ;; Query time: 112 msec ;; SERVER: 12.159.224.10#53(12.159.224.10) ;; WHEN: Tue Sep 14 14:44:56 2004 ;; MSG SIZE rcvd: 114 However, when I try to dig www.skudd.com, I get this: [root@boardbox etc]# dig www.skudd.com ; <<>> DiG 9.2.3 < <>> www.skudd.com ;; global options: printcmd ;; Got answer: ;; ->>HEADER< <- opcode: QUERY, status: SERVFAIL, id: 20906 ;; flags: qr rd ra; QUERY: 1, ANSWER: 0, AUTHORITY: 0, ADDITIONAL: 0 ;; QUESTION SECTION: ;www.skudd.com. IN A ;; Query time: 119 msec ;; SERVER: 12.159.224.10#53(12.159.224.10) ;; WHEN: Tue Sep 14 14:45:43 2004 ;; MSG SIZE rcvd: 31 Doing an nslookup, I get basically the same things: [root@boardbox etc]# nslookup skudd.com Server: 12.159.224.10 Address: 12.159.224.10#53 Non-authoritative answer: Name: skudd.com Address: 209.51.159.66 [root@boardbox etc]# nslookup www.skudd.com Server: 12.159.224.10 Address: 12.159.224.10#53 ** server can't find www.skudd.com: SERVFAIL However, when I force nslookup to use your secondary DNS, it works properly: [root@boardbox etc]# nslookup www.skudd.com 12.159.225.10 Server: 12.159.225.10 Address: 12.159.225.10#53 Non-authoritative answer: www.skudd.com canonical name = skudd.com. Name: skudd.com Address: 209.51.159.66 From what I can determine just from doing this, I'd say that the primary DNS server is not taking the updates properly. I don't know if there's anything you can do to force the updates, but I thought I would give you a heads-up on it. Thanks again for all your hard work! -Tim Garrison

A little while ago, I decided to swap the DNS entries in my network configuration. Guess what... It didn't work again. So, I tried my former ISP's DNS entries, and at the command line, using nslookup, it seemed to work... That's what I thought 'till I tried using a browser: "Host not found"

My brother-in-law, being the cool dude he is, gave me the DNS entries for his ISP. Now, I am able to get to this site and all my other sites. I haven't gotten a reply from my ISP yet and most likely won't.

http://m4tt.box.sk/blog.php?user=Matt

I installed M$'s Service Pack 2 today. Read my blog on my site as to the verdict.

For the past few years, I've not really been going to church on a normal basis. Why? Because I really disagree with the ritualistic crap that has nothing to do with the core of the TRUE religion. What do I mean? I'm talking about faith. Faith is not religion, and religion is not faith.

Simply put, religion is the rituals that one man thought were necessary to practice his faith, carried on throughout generations. Today, the rituals have pretty much been bastardized and no longer exist in their original form. Regardless, though, rituals are NOT needed to practice faith.

Matthew 6:1-8 (KJV) 1 "Beware of practicing your piety before men in order to be seen by them; for then you will have no reward from your Father who is in heaven. 2 "Thus, when you give alms, sound no trumpet before you, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, that they may be praised by men. Truly, I say to you, they have received their reward. 3 But when you give alms, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, 4 so that your alms may be in secret; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you. 5 "And when you pray, you must not be like the hypocrites; for they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and at the street corners, that they may be seen by men. Truly, I say to you, they have received their reward. 6 But when you pray, go into your room and shut the door and pray to your Father who is in secret; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you. 7 "And in praying do not heap up empty phrases as the Gentiles do; for they think that they will be heard for their many words. 8 Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask him. Taken from http://www.bible.com/

That portion of scripture was referenced in the sermon at the church I went to this morning. I know I've read it before, but I never could remember where. Quite frankly, I'm glad I at least caught that portion of scripture, because I can use it, not only to justify why I don't pray using big fancy words, but also to justify my utter disgust with religion.

No, I don't live a perfect life by any means. I am, however, a "born-again believer", as it is put by the standards of the world today. I have accepted Christ as my personal savior, and I believe that without him, we would all be sinners destined for Hell. Although, with him as my personal savior, I know that I'll be spending eternity with him in Heaven.

Yes, I know, it sounds preachy, but that's my faith. I know some of you who read this don't believe that Heaven or Hell exist, nor do you believe that there is such a thing as a savior. The point is this: I believe it, it is my faith, and I am simply sharing it.

There are many things in my life that I feel can't be judged by other people, which I will not go into this time. For example, I know I use some language that is not accepted by our culture and ethics (or at least it never used to be), but I don't use it all the time, nor do I do it in a way that is sacreligious or slanderous towards God or the bible. Because some people find it offensive, I refrain from using it around them.

So, back to the title of this post... The preacher today said something that set him apart from all the other preachers in this area, and allowed me to respect him more than I respect the other preachers I've encountered. He said this: Faith is not religion. Religion is not faith. By basing faith on religion, you are lowering the bar of what faith is, making it seem less important and easier to obtain.

I have a feeling I may call that church my temporary home church, until it goes into the downward spiral that most good churches go through, or I move away from this area.