Thanksgiving

At what age do “the holidays” quit being something you look forward to and become something that you dread?

Maybe “dread” isn’t the right word, but you know what I mean.

Particularly when the people that you’ve spent the holidays with for years and years (and years) are no longer in your life. Regardless of why they’re not in your life, when the holidays roll around you spend a lot of time reminiscing about history, family, life, etc. Good or bad, you always have this idea about the holidays that they’re supposed to be this magical time of snow and happiness and hot chocolate and family and new socks.

And part of me is afraid that this year won’t measure up. That this year will be a disappointment ’cause of the horribleness that’s preceded it. That it will be a long, gross, cold, freezing rain of re-telling the story of how things fell apart, and saying that you’re “good” when no one believes you possibly could be, even if you did.

I started this post hoping that it’d be a good, positive one that reassured all of us that things are going well.

The thing is, things are going well. They are. I have a great apartment, great dog, great friends, and I’m doing a pretty damn good job of holding shit together and rebuilding my life. But there’s still this…I don’t know…

You know that swirly black swirling mess that appears over your head when you lose at Wii tennis? It feels like that. More on that later…maybe.

Despite everything that’s happened this year, I do have things that I am thankful for:

• I’m thankful for the friends and family that I have who’ve helped me through this.
• I’m thankful for the opportunity to start my life over again. Not everyone gets that chance.
• I’m thankful for what I’ve learned about myself, and the way that I think and feel.
• I’m thankful for the things that didn’t kill me, but made me stronger.
• I’m thankful for what I learned about trust and loyalty, and the people that I thought were trustworthy and loyal, and the people that I know are.
• I’m thankful that every day is easier than the one before it.

In truth, things could be WAY different than they are now, and I am truly thankful for the people in my life who’ve helped me through it all.

Whats the opposite of “triumphal”?

Tomorrow I will return to Chicago from an extended vacation in Utah, mountain biking with my family.
Normally, I would be looking forward to returning to see my girlfriend, see my friends, and find out what had happened in my absence.
Not this time.
This time is different.
This time I kinda want to vomit.

In case you hadn’t yet heard, right before this trip my five and a half year relationship with Talia ended.

I am returning to Chicago to start trying to find an apartment, sell furniture, and divide up our posessions.

It feels like I am flying back to make arrangements for the care and burial of my relationship. Of five years of my life.

If you feel like coming up to the podium and saying something about the deceased, please send an email instead. While I am trying to be more open (hence this post) that doesn’t mean she would want this to become an open discussion on the topic.

PS – Sorry if this is how you’re finding out about this. I do love you all, but I am over regaling survivors with the tale.

Jackpot!

Yes, that is, in fact, a ping-pong table, coffee maker, snacks table (they’d just cleared breakfast), and fridge full of drinks. And the bottom shelf? That’s beer and wine.

“Generally you should wait ’til after 5:00, and don’t get hammered.”
“OK.”
“You’ll get hammered.”

Now, where is that Xbox that’s showing up on the network?

Please Use Protection

Last week we did this thing at work called “Tech Check” (or TekChek, or TechCzech, or something hip-but-actually-not) and I got to help a lot of new students try to get their systems to a minimum standard of functionality for their school year.

This was eye-opening. Viciously eye-opening.

The quantity of people who should be computer literate who were running wildly out of date systems with no anti-virus and no admin password was astounding. It was a combination of not knowing that they should and not knowing how to do so. I am not going to go into details about why these things are important, just quick, easy instructions on how to do it.

So, for anyone who’s reading this, I’m asking you to now, please, for the love of all that’s holy (or not), install A/V and updates and make sure that your user account has at least something for a password. Even if you’re using a Mac, you need to keep your system up to date and have a password.

Windows Instructions

1. Open Internet Explorer and go here: http://update.microsoft.com/windowsupdate. Follow the prompts to install all available updates. Go there over, and over, and over until it says there are no updates left to install. Reboot as many times as necessary. Then go there again, just to make sure.
2. Get anti-virus. If you want great protection, you have to buy it and this is the one I recommend: Eset NOD32. Purchasing a good A/V solution is extremely important if you are using your computer for business at all, and Eset NOD32 provides discounts for multiple computers or multiple years. Please do this right now. If you were unwilling to pay the “extra” money for a Mac, this is one of the costs you chose to bear. If you are unable to shell out $40 / year for a great solution, here’s an adequate, free solution: Avast! Home Edition. It’s not perfect, but it’s better than nothing. Note: lots of businesses and schools will provide anti-virus to their employees, students, etc. Often this will be pre-configured to download updates, run in the background, etc., and may never require you to purchase a license. Check with your employer or school.
   
3. Give yourself a password: Press Ctrl + Alt + Delete and click the button that says “Change password”. It is important that you remember what this password is, so make it memorable. Make it your drivers license number, or your license plate number, or your insurance policy number, or something else that you can have written down that doesn’t look like your password. Here’s an idea: pick something in your wallet that expires regularly, and use something from that (your insurance policy expiration date, for example). Then, every time that expires and you have to get a new one, change your password to reflect the new information.

Mac Instructions

1. Click the Apple logo in the upper left corner and choose “Software Update…” Install all available updates, reboot if necessary, and keep checking until there are no updates left to install.
2. Give yourself a password. Click the Apple logo and choose “System Preferences”, then click “Accounts”, your account should be highlighted with a button that says “Change Password”. It is important that you remember what this password is, so make it memorable. Make it your drivers license number, or your license plate number, or your insurance policy number, or something else that you can have written down that doesn’t look like your password. Here’s an idea: pick something in your wallet that expires regularly, and use something from that (your insurance policy expiration date, for example). Then, every time that expires and you have to get a new one, change your password to reflect the new information.

Please remember that this is just a base level of security meant only to deter the casual intrusion – kinda like wiring your bike to the bike rack. It’s not going to protect you from someone who is dedicated, but it should help you from being one of millions of people who get pwned just because it was so easy.

Also, feedback is always welcome. If you want more instructions for making your computer safe, let me know and I’ll write more documentation.

UPDATE: Eset has a free online virus scanner.

Picking up the slack

Since Abby isn’t blogging anymore I feel like there are some things that some of you should know about that she normally would have world wide web logged about before I got around to it.

One big one is that she and Bean are moving into the apartment below us. And, it looks like Ben is moving into the apartment above us. For real. This is turning into a dorm. We’re calling it “headquarters” and Little Portland is inserting itself right in between Andersonville and Uptown.

Bean’s fake birthday party was last night and the party occupied the parking lot and two apartments.

Soon, the world.

Even bigger than that, though, is the fact that I am hungry and going to go grab some food.

When Z-day Comes…

…how long will stuff keep working?

Take, for example, electricity. How long will our current power generators and distribution systems last if no one shows up to maintain them one day? How much human intervention is required to keep them going? Will I just keep getting bills auto-generated and stacked in ComEd’s outgoing mail pile?

How ’bout cell phone service? Will all the satelites and fiber optics just keep going until my service is cut off ’cause there’s no one to process my payments? Or the Internet? What if everyone at Google and AT&T just didn’t come to work? How long would their systems keep working?

What about GPS? Will TomTom guide the few remaining people through the  post-apocalyptic wasteland?

I just saw Terminator: Salvation (thumbs, up, mostly) and they seemed to have a fair amount of functioning infrastructure considering the situation. It didn’t seem luxurious by any means, actually quite the opposite, but they seemed to have some sort of digital network, electricity, etc.

I’m just curious. Seems pretty important to have that stuff working, especially since I can barely make a lasagna without internet access.

By the way, that show on History channel, Life After People, sucks. Seriously. Don’t waste one minute watching it. Great idea, poor execution.

A Very Fun Thing I Will Surely do Again

A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again

I am just finishing another book, A Supposedly Fun Thing I’ll Never Do Again, by David Foster Wallace and have to say that he is my New Favorite Author. This one wasn’t as good (or at least not as consistently good) as Consider The Lobster, but it was a great read.

The thing that I think I really like about him and his style is that even if I don’t care, at all, about the topic of the essay, I still thoroughly enjoy reading it. For example, near the end of this book is an essay about Michael Joyce and pro tennis. I couldn’t care less about tennis, or Michael Joyce, but I read that essay all the way through and really enjoyed it. I enjoyed it not because it gave me a deeper insight of Mr. Joyce or tennis, though it did, but because his writing style is so in line with what I enjoy reading. He’s challenging in a way that few others are, while at the same time being approachable and humorous.

The titular essay “A Supposedly Fun Thing I’ll Never Do Again,” is a hilarious read about the despair of being on an island cruise. And the entire time I could see myself feeling the exact same way.

5′2″

So we have been taking Bill to this daycare place when we leave on vacation and, in the words of the owner, “daycare is not for him.”
Apparently, Bill has a beef with large, black dogs. Which he expresses by biting them. And sometimes they bite back.
He’ll be OK, everyone says, but he looks pretty damn pathetic.

Considering the Lobster

As part of my process of personal development I am Attempting to address my previous dislike of any kind of reading other than current affairs. To that end I bought some books that I would not normally consider owning.
First, Farenheit 451. It’s small, short, entertaining, and a good story, though scary in its accuracy. And I have enjoyed it thoroughly during my daily commute. This is my first time reading it, surprisingly, and I’m glad that I’ve finally gotten around to it. I have known the story for years, just never read it, despite the fact that I did go to an American high school, where, I believe it is required reading for most youth.
Second, is Consider the Lobster.
Until he died last year, I had never really heard much of David Foster Wallace – I don’t read Premiere, Esquire, or The New Yorker.
But in NPR’s lenghty coverage of his death and writings, he sounded like someone whose writings I would really enjoy. Since then, I have made the occasional overture towards finding his books, but failed. I didn’t mind failing at this for so long because I am very good at starting new books before (and often instead of) finishing old ones.
This morning I started reading this collection of his essays and have found that I really do enjoy it. He’s funny, critical, thought provoking, and generally a good read. The first essay is a lengthy one about the yearly Adult Video News awards, and the personalities involved, and their relationship with the American consumer. Pretty damn interesting.
I think a number of you, my dear reader(s), (one is a number), will really enjoy this when I’m done with it.

Driver Safety School

Today (Saturday), instead of staying in bed and sleeping off last nights beverages, I got up at 6:30 to go to traffic school.
And it was totally worth it.
It was four hours long at a local community college with this ex-trooper who had clearly done this dozens, maybe hundreds, of times. He’d memorized all these lines and responses and horror stories and clearly had not actually thought about any of them in years. The few who were paying attention to what he said would ask questions about the inconstencies and he’d just repeat himself or make vague threats of arrest. Plus he mispronounced common words like crazy. I wanted to ask him to say “Internet” just to see how foreign it would seem, but was afraid he’d throw me out of class and I wouldn’t get credit. It really felt like middle school.
Speaking of the Internet, on my way back from class, I found the Internet Chat Room. It’s underneath the Wilson L stop if you ever need to use it.