The SjN Chronicles

Cleaning Mother...

Decided to get a 'much needed' cleaning done of M.O.T.H.E.R. No, not my mom. Mother is my primary server. A better term lately would be my "junk drawer". She has fell into ill repute as of late. Things are already looking shiney!!

Besides, I'm finding all kinds of cool crap that I've created, collected and saved over the years. Found an old pic of me with one of my tats in frame. Mind you, this is rare as I never show off my tattoos!

So far, I've come across a lot of old vacation photos, applications and a ton of art that I had done and forgot about. Yep, cleaning out the ole' server was a good idea! Now if only I had someplace to store all this stuff to free up some space!

A buddy of mine created a 6 terabyte NAS to hold his junk. Think I might do the same although I may do the 2 terabyte variety and see what happens. For now however, I'm probably going to run up to Best Buy and pick up an 8 gig thumb drive. You can never have too many thumb drives! I keep an arsenal of them in my bag as I travel around. If you have the right tools, you can have your PC with you wherever you go, right in your pocket!

Well, back to cleaning. Mother is already looking a lot spiffyer!

Peace,
SjN

All work and no play...

Work. The daily grind. Day after day, you wake up, get showered and ultimately subject yourself to the horrors known as employment. A necessary evil. During these hard times people are scrounging for employment and will basically do anything to earn a paycheck. Having a job, while important makes the need for vacation even more so.

About 8 years ago, I invested in a condo in Oceanside, California. Since I have this deep rooted love affair with the beach, it really seemed like a good idea. 8 years later, I consider it one of my best investments. Every year, I pack my things and head west.

This is pretty much the view from my patio at sunset. The Oceanside pier is great for walking, fishing, perusing nearby shops and just taking it all in.

A wonderful place to 'decompress' after a year's worth of office grind.

Anyway, I just put in for two weeks off and it came back APPROVED! Whooo-Hoooo! California, HERE I COME! I can't wait to land in San Diego, rent me a Prius and head to my beloved little beach town. I have to be honest, I'm not a big fan of California (in the Los Angeles sense of the term) but give me Southern Cali, and I'm one happy surfer! I can't wait to get to my condo, grab my swim trunks, dig my toes into the cool sand and hit the waves to get my surfin' on!

In the mornings, my favorite thing to do is walk down the beach about a half mile to the Oceanside Harbor. Here there are multitudes of small shops, vendors, seagulls, fishermen you name it. A flurry of activity in the morning as the fishing boats head out to sea for a day's catch.

I always hit a small restaurant called the Robin's Nest (red building in the image) and order me a chicken fried steak and eggs and about 400 cups of coffee! THE BEST! I always like to carb up on vacation as I'm pretty much on the go all day. Having breakfast on the patio taking in the fresh air while listening to the seagulls overhead is what it's all about.

Gah, now I'm really getting stoked for vacation! So where do you like to take your vacations? The beach? The mountains? Just stay at home? What decompresses you when it's time to break away from the "daily grind"?

I'm outta here. Going to throw some Jimmy Buffett Mp3's on and cruise into vacation mode.

Shawn

My best friend - Mini!

I'm so happy!
Last week I made the final payment on my beloved Cooper! She is now 100% all mine!

Prior to getting my Mini, I owned a Mustang GT convertible. I liked it but it sucked gas like there was no tomorrow and I wanted something more efficient. My wife suggested a Mini-Cooper and I'll be honest, I was a bit reluctant at first. I didn't want to get rid of that VROOOOOOM feeling that the stang gave me. The power that thing had was unbelievable.

That is until I test drove this hidden rocket.

This is the Mini 'S'. It sports a turbo engine and will flat out paste you to the back of your seat when you punch it. I was amazed at the power this little car had! Oh and speaking of little, don't be fooled by the Mini Cooper's size. Speaking from experience, I can honestly tell you that the Mini has twice the room in it that my Mustang had! On the outside you have this darling little "clown car" but once you get in it, you have a spacious interior akin to a Cadillac. It's quite the deception.

So right now I have the Mini and I also have a Toyota Tacoma.  I'm considering getting rid of the Toy and getting another Mini! The 40 MPG that the Mini affords is REALLY nice.

Oh, I've also got my eye on the up and coming MINI-E. The new 100% electric Mini Cooper! BMW is really forging new ground here and if anyone can do it, BMW are the guys to roll out something as innovative as this. I've already been in talks with them (TRYING to get me on the field trial program) but they won't budge on the California, New York, New Jersey test beds ((sigh)). Guess I'll just have to wait it out.

But anyway, say HI to my little girl!

Take care everyone,
SjN is OUT!

We are go for Touchdown...

Got up this morning and was sipping coffee and playing some World of Warcraft. All of a sudden, I hear the deafening BOOM! Followed by a series of other rumbling noises. I jumped up and ran my upstairs patio to see what the commotion was.

That's when I was fortunate enough to witness a hot air balloon descending down to touch the bottom of the basket into my lake!

I ran and grabbed my camera to fire off a couple of shots. I love hot air balloons but I don't think I'm ballsey enough to actually climb into one!

The pilot showed his (or her. Couldn't tell) expertise by controlling that giant balloon to gracefully skim the surface of the lake. The balloon stayed there for a good 5 minutes before the burners started to fire off again.

It wasn't long before the balloon started it ascent. Soon it was a tiny yellow dot high up in the sky. I don't know. Being that high up with only a thin wicker basket between you and certain death?

Not so much.

Was an awesome sight though! That started my day off right. Let's hope the rest of my day goes just as good!

Well, gotta get ready for work!

Peace,
SjN

 

End The Lunacy!

Ahhhh Water... Good ole' H2O. Two parts Hydrogen, One part Oxygen. The stuff of life. I was perusing around my local grocery store yesterday when I saw it.

The isle. THE ISLE!

You know what I'm talking about. You know that isle that you come upon in every single grocery store on god's green earth that shelve rows and rows of delectable, taste bud tingling bottles of, of, of...

Water.

Many with thirst quenching names such as Everest, Aquafina, Disante' & Evian?

Yea those.

Thats when it hit me. Are these bottles really from the heights of the mountains of Nepal or the bubbling brooks of the Yosemite mountain ranges or even exotic islands like Fiji? To answer this question I turned to the seer of all knowledge, the tome of answers, the documenter of all that is written....

The Internet.

The bottled water racket is an 8 BILLION DOLLAR A YEAR INDUSTRY! Let me say that again cause I think it's kind of important - 8 BILLION DOLLARS!!! Coke and Pepsi are actually in on the sham with their bottles of Disante & Aquafina respectively. These two companies actually managed to figure out a way to convince you to pay for the BASE ingredient of their sodas. No syrup, no citric acid, no potassium benzoate (or whatever else is in those concoctions). And guess what, YOUR PAYING MORE for their base ingredient - plain ole' water, than you'd EVER pay for the entire damn Coke or the Pepsi in the first place!! That is absolutely asinine. Am I getting through to you here?

Let's move on...

Interesting, it appears that all is not as it should be in bottled water land. There is a disturbance in the force. The first thing I noticed was that NONE of these bottles of water came from such exotic places like Nepal, Yosemite or nope. Not even Fiji. Try places like Corpus Christi, Texas or Los Angeles, California on for size. That is more truthful. Gotta hand it to those marketers. They work magic. I've gotta give kudos to the manufacturers of Everest Water though. At least they've added in fine print - "Product of Corpus Christi Municipal Water Supply" on every bottle. And let me spell it out for you just in case you don't understand what  "Corpus Christi Municipal Water Supply" means. In other words, that can be translated into "Corpus Christi Municipal TAP WATER". Yet, we still buy the junk for a couple O bucks a bottle thinking we're detoxifying our bodies with those exotic Nepalese healing elixirs. And don't even get me started on this whole DETOX movement I've been catching wind of. That's a whole different post. Unbelievable...

Now let's talk ingredients.

Ingredients you ask? There aren't any ingredients in water!! Au contra'ire, I must retort. One of the main ingredients I found in most (not all) was Potassium Chloride. What is that you ask? Well in short, it's a chemical compound. Potassium chloride (KCl) is a metal halide composed of potassium and chlorine. So much for chlorine free. Oh, lets not forget some of potassium chloride's OTHER uses, fertilizer, medicines, scientific applications and my MOST favorite use of potassium chloride?

"Judicial applications"

If you need me to spell that out for you, potassium chloride is the primary juicy stuff that is injected into death row inmates in order to carry out their sentence.

'ahem'... yea.

Oh, almost forgot - It's also radioactive. Potassium chloride is useful as a beta radiation source for calibration of radiation monitoring equipment because natural potassium contains 0.0118f the isotope K40. One kilogram of KCl yields 16350 becquerels of radiation consisting of 89.28 percent beta and 10.72 percent gamma with 1.46083 MeV.

So open up that 2 dollar bottle of water and chug that good stuff down the hatch!! I'm thirsty just thinking about it!!

Okay, so on to bottled water costs.

This is my favorite part. In these uncertain times, with the economy in the shitter, people cutting back and in some cases, losing jobs entirely, we naturally begin to look around at areas in our lives where we can save a little money here and there. Funny that no one really looks at that water spigot and thinks to themselves, "hmmm.... maybe we'd save a little by drinking from that, that thingy over there". Nope. They continue to make B-lines to the store for those damned bottles (which by the way, consume way too much space in our landfills...). Let me give you a few numbers so you get an idea of the costs involved in drinking so called 'bottled water'. I got this from the New York Times - August 1st, 2007:

"Here are the hard, dry facts: Yes, drinking water is a good thing, far better than buying soft drinks, or liquid candy, as nutritionists like to call it. And almost all municipal water in America is so good that nobody needs to import a single bottle from Italy or France or the Fiji Islands. Meanwhile, if you choose to get your recommended eight glasses a day from bottled water, you could spend up to $1,400 annually. The same amount of tap water would cost about 49 cents."

$1,400 dollars annually? Are you fracking kidding me? That figure is not a neighborhood average, not even a family average. That figure is an approximation of one single consumer thinking they are healthier than all the other idiots who drink from the tap. Hmmmm who's the idiot now? Want to save money? Yea, you know what to do.

Nope. When it comes to rehydrating this body with that ever so thirst quenching elixir of life, I'll happily guzzle down a couple of quarts of the good stuff from my own personal water repository -

THE TAP!!

Rant over...
SjN

In my next life...

I want to be a duck. Why you ask? Let me tell you.

I live on a lake. Living on a lake, I get the great pleasure of bearing witness to the wonders that nature has to offer.

One of these wonders are the many ducks that populate this lake. Over the years, I have watched generations of them grow to adulthood. What follows is my take on "a day in the life of a duck":

Wake up in the morning. Float around the lake.
Copulate.
Quack to get others in the area to come over and visit.
Copulate with said visitors.
Eat some bread crumbs that some passerby tosses into the lake. Copulate some more. Take to the air and land in a different area of the lake. Meet new ducks. Say HI and commence copulation! Get in a fight with another duck. Copulate with the loser's mate. Get ready for bedtime. You guessed it. Copulate yourself into a blissful dream state.

My mind is totally made up. What a life that would be. No job, no worries. Hanging out all day screwing.

Yep. If there is such a thing as an afterlife, I definitely want to come back as a duck. Now if only I could get around that whole 'hunting' thing...

-SjN

Godspeed Jasmine...

Meet Jasmine, my English Bulldog. She's a typical bully. Uncouth, makes noises that no living being should be allowed to make yet full of love. Truly a great pet.

Yesterday, I had to put her down.

You see, back in January, I noticed a tumor on her back leg. A vet visit later and they were scheduling it's removal. After the surgery, all was right with the world. While she didn't move around quite as well as she used to, things were slowly getting back to normal.

Fast forward two months. I noticed her demeanor change ever so slightly. She was kind of down, not her happy self. She also wasn't eating right. This persisted. One day while playing around with her, I noticed another small tumor forming on her back leg again. Soon after that, her leg began to swell. The vet told me to give her Benadryl to combat the swelling which seemed to work. I was encouraged.

Unfortunately it pretty much went downhill from there. Soon, she wasn't able to make it up the stairs for bedtime, going outside to go potty was a 15 minute exercise in futility. That sinking feeling started to set in.

Yesterday, I took her to the vet for another checkup and a recommendation on our next course of action. It wasn't the news I wanted to hear. Unfortunately due to the aggressive nature of the cancer, all they could really do is prolong the inevitable.

Sometimes life kinda sucks and then sometimes life REALLY sucks. This was the latter. The doctors left me alone in a room while I said my goodbyes. You could see it in her eyes that she knew this wasn't good. I gave her one more hug and the vets took her around the corner.

"Would you like to be present and observe the procedure?" the primary vet asked. "What? NO!! I, I can't do that." I quickly retorted. It's times like these that I just want to pay the piper and get the hell out of dodge. This was that time.

Leaving that vet was horrible. There's just something wrong when you see veterinarians and staff crying. I paid the $215.00 then made my way to my truck and pulled away.

You've been a good dog Jaz. Daddy will always love you...
Goodbye and Godspeed.

~Daddy