MikesHeadRoom

Ah time flies when you’re having fun. How true it is… This past year has been a big one for me and here’s how it all rolled out…

The last you knew is that my girlfriend rules. Now that still holds true, but with a slight twist. As the spring progressed, my love for Desiree grew and a situation presented itself. Her roommates had married and were moving out into a house of there own and she was left with decision to make; live alone or move in with me. I’m happy to say she choose the latter. Moving her in was exciting and I’m still not entirely certain that the unpacking has fully concluded. Nevertheless, our love continued to grow and on Father’s Day I asked her to be my wife. The answer was a tearful “yes” and so enters the previously mentioned twist. The former girlfriend that rules is now the fiancee that rules! We’ve had plenty to do in preparation for the wedding, as I’m sure all couples share. We’re approaching the finish line though, as we just ordered our wedding bands two days ago. We’ve booked the locations and have the cake and photographer lined up. The only big thing left is for me to get the tuxedos picked out and we also need to get some honeymoon plans in order. Oh and one more thing… there’s a baby in the oven!

I was surprised this afternoon when a special delivery arrived for me at the office. It was a bad ass teddy bear with balloons. Thanks baby and happy Valentine’s Day!

I’ve been really slacking lately on the music creation front. I felt creative earlier at work and had some free time tonight, so I thought I’d record whatever came out of my fingers at the old keyboard. I spent most of the evening making a scalloped potato chicken casserole, so by the time I got around to doing anything, the creative juices had dried up a bit. It’s tired, sloppy and nothing special, but it’s something. Enjoy!

Tired Sloppy Improv 01

On my recent trip to paradise, the one spot where I spent the most total amount of time was in my bed sleeping. It’s hard to tell what time it is inside a dark cave with no clock. The second place trophy for most time spent there goes to the casino. The Shogun Casino to be exact.

Part of it was the awesome bar and server staff they had working the joint. After only two drinks, and amidst thousands of other passengers on the ship, they knew from then on I was either getting a pina colada or margarita. Both “extra strong” please. Despite being possibly considered “girly” drinks, they were delicious. I don’t care. Ni was the name of the adorable little Chinese girl who would wander the casino looking for me to see if I needed a refill. If I did, she would smile from ear to ear and go get it. If I didn’t, she’d put on this frowny face, then smile and then come find me a half hour later. It was awesome. There were other servers, but Ni was the best.

I don’t know if I’m so ruddy from the sun or the booze.
Either way, thanks for pic Adam!

I had been only in one other casino up to that point and that was Casino Windsor. At Casino Windsor I played like ten dollars worth of slots and that was it. My gambling experience was pretty limited. It took a few days before I put money down on anything.

So I started playing, getting more confident with each chip drop. I wasn’t really winning any money though. Win five, lose ten, win ten, lose five. I did have the fortune to be blessed with one half of one hundie chip that Adam found. I blew that $50, so it doesn’t count towards my totals. The last night though, lady luck was shining on me as I arrived at the casino with two $5 chips. I left that night with $110 cash in my pocket. Yeah.

So I was just shopping at Kroger and was all wrapped up. I’m making my way back to the front of the store and though I’d take a look at the seafood department, because, of course, I love seafood. I see these crab cakes and I’m like “oh, I love crab cakes, but they’re always so expensive”. I look at the price. Pick up the package. Look around cautiously to make sure I’m not on candid camera. Score! These babies are normally like $2 a piece. I’m about to eat one so if I get poisoned and die, you’ll all know to avoid the 2 cent crab cakes.

UPDATE: I still live and it was delicious. It was a great deal after all.

I created a Flickr account to display a sampling of the photos I took on my recent trip to paradise. Higher resolution photos are available upon request. Blog(s) will follow detailing the wonderful experiences, but for now enjoy this:

Vacation Photos

It’s that time of year again when Mike buys himself Christmas presents. Last year it was the big HDTV and laptop. This year it’s a Caribbean cruise vacation and what else? Another new computer of course! Today I picked up a brand new HTPC to replace my old roaring beast. This brings the total number of computers in my home to seven. Totally absurd, I know, but I’ll be getting rid of some of the older ones. Perhaps as a Christmas present to someone who has no computer. We’ll see.

The new guy is an HP s3220n media center PC. One of those slimline models. So small in fact, I could probably place it under my TV, as if it were a DVD player or cable box. I probably won’t do that though, just to ensure it has no cooling problems.

The best part is that there was a $200 rebate (!). Word. Built-in 802.11g WiFi, NTSC & ATSC tuners, 2 GB of RAM, Athlon X2 5000 and with free lifetime TV program info… you can’t go wrong for $500. The bad part is all the bloatware garbage nonsense that it comes bundled with. When will PC manufacturers realize that nobody wants the crap software they load on their machines? I’m guessing I should be able to get it mostly cleaned up in about an hour. The big test though, is whether it will play h264 720p MKV content with switchable soft subs on my big screen. If it doesn’t (please work), Office Depot will take it back with no questions asked. At this time it’s considered a Christmas gift purchase and I have until January 21 to bring it back with no restocking fee (!). Word.

Apparently nobody in my neighborhood. Today after work I was all like “yeah, I’m going to go buy some pumpkins and candy”. So I did. Luckily, pumpkins and candy were both on sale at Kroger. I got home and placed the pumpkins on my porch in an inviting manner. I then dumped four bags of Kit Kats into a big bowl. At this time it was about 6:15 and I didn’t know when trick-or-treating started, so I called my Mom and she’s like “yeah, it started at six… oh I gotta go there’s trick-or-treaters here”. Now it was a bit chilly, not too bad, but my front door opens right up into a living tree. Not wanting my tree to get shocked, I placed the bowl of candy on the porch, turned on the front light and closed the door. After about 45 minutes the door bell rings and there’s a little fireman shyly saying “trick-or-treat”. I was so pumped up that someone finally showed, I tried to make the kid take handfuls of Kit Kats. He only took three. His parents waved. Now as far as I know, that was the only patron I had all night. That’s messed up. I now have a giant bowl of candy. At least I can give it away at work. I know they like candy.

So I have switched over my home desktop computer to primarily run LinuxMint 3.1 Celena as the OS. I’ve also got Beryl 0.2.0 installed as my window manager. I find it’s easier to use than Windows (I don’t know OSX) and much more pleasant to look at. Highly recommended if you’re looking for a new computing experience.

I made a video of some of the fancy effects Beryl has to offer, so you can see the eye candy you’re missing. It turned out a bit blurry though and I’m not sure why. Music provided by Particle.