Al Bear's Clawings
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| Tuesday, June 24th, 2008 | | 10:51 am |
Weekend Report
Weekend report. ![[info]](http://p-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) dexter_fox and I had an awesome weekend with the visit from sabotlours and carol_kitty we were their hosts from Saturday to Monday. We picked them up Saturday afternoon at the train station and we went from there to the annual So-Cal Fur-B-Q. We take over a section of a large park in Irvine, CA and attendance is usually a tad over 100. It was fun, but very hot and humid. Furries! even in a remote hot park, some folks brought their 4 foot satellite dish wireless router and power generator to set up internet access! LOL internet! We returned at 7.30 PM and made our way to the domain. At 8.30 PM the temperature was 101 freaking degrees! (see picture behind cut)
We stopped by the local supermarket and picked up tons of beer, foodage and booze, hey, Sabot was here. We also got some meatage for the grill for grilling the next day. On Sunday morning Dex cooked breakfast and made the famous Dexter for all. We then filled up a cooler full of drinks and ice and headed out to the beach, (Zuma beach in Malibu) it was an awesome idea to go at the time we did, we departed at 9.30 and got there at the perfect time. The parking lot was great. We parked right away at 10.15 AM we went into the very cold and rough water and had a ball. We left close to 1.00 PM and by that time it was jam packed! the line of cars to go into the beach parking lot was over half a mile long! WOW! Dex ended up with bad sunburns on his shoulders and tighs. He missed putting sunscreen on those areas.
We stopped at In-N-Out close to the domain to have a late lunch and then we got to the domain. We were all tired and exhausted from the very hot beach. We all took naps and then watched Arctic tale. kaysho joined us and we were hanging out drinking beers and having a good time. In the evening we started grilling meatage! I mean, look at this wonderful meatgasm--->
 we stuffed ourselves silly.  I also made a large salad enough for everyone for which everyone liked. I love making salad. And Dex foxie made mashed potatoes to go with the meats. Goodtimes. We then watched the Gymnastics Olympic tryouts on TV.
At 9.30 PM Kay had to leave, and Dex had to go to sleep due to work the next morning. Sabot Carol and I stayed up until 11.00 PM. and then we turned in. Yesterday, Monday morning Sabot cooked breakfast. And then we headed out to do and see stuff. I drove ourselves to an old rock quarry up in Griffith park close to the Hollywood sign, a locale used to film many movies and TV shows. Especially the cave used to film a sequence from the old 1960's batman TV show. We hung out and did some exploring. We then headed out to the Traveltown train museum it was cool. We saw a bunch of old trains and steam locomotives. One locomotive had 81 inch drive wheels! it was huge (see picture behind cut). After that we headed over to the Los Angeles Zoo. The LA Zoo sucked today, most of the animals were nowhere to be seen, but then again, temperature was in the mid 90's. In the late afternoon we headed back to the domain. Kitty treated us to lunch at our favorite Chinese restaurant.
Once we got home Carol and Sabot packed up and we waited for Dex to come home from work. At 4.30 he did, and we hung out for 30 minutes. We then drove to the Metro red line Subway station parked free on the park n' ride lot and took the subway to Union Station where Carol and Sabot took their Amtrak train back to Albuquerque. The subway was so convenient! it took only 25 minutes from Universal City to Downtown LA! for only $1.25! (one way) I was the biggest nonbeliever of the LA subway until less than 2 years ago. Now when I think of going to downtown LA, I think of the subway instead of driving! We saw them off hugged said our goodbyes and Dex and I rode the subway back. It was an awesome weekend! but way too hot. I'm glad the heat wave is dying off. (see pictures behind LJ cut if you wish)----->
( more pictures here )
Current Mood:  accomplishedCurrent Music: Fan | | Saturday, June 21st, 2008 | | 11:40 am |
| | Friday, June 20th, 2008 | | 2:49 pm |
| | Thursday, June 19th, 2008 | | 12:53 pm |
| | Wednesday, June 18th, 2008 | | 10:57 pm |
| | Wednesday, June 11th, 2008 | | 2:33 pm |
| | Thursday, June 5th, 2008 | | 2:10 pm |
What's going on.
dexter_fox and I came back from Houston on Monday at 3.30 PM. We had a wonderful time down there. I got to meet Dex's aunt from Iowa and his Grandmother from Arizona, they were both as awesome as the foxie, Dexter is!  (it must run in the family!) Texas was nice, except the crazy high humidity! UGH! I was taking 2 showers a day and it still wasn't enough! I really could not live there, (as nice as it is)
Our flight was delayed by only 30 minutes on the way back, hey, it's better than the 6 hours from the flight to. Life could not go any better at the domain, But other things could go better, like controlling my legendary bad temper. I tried making a DVD on my laptop 2 days ago, it failed 10X I made 10 coasters, 10 ruined DVD's I did tons of stuff, uninstalled-reinstalled software, did maintenance on my laptop and updated/installed other drivers. It wasn't enough. So I did what albear does. While the CD tray opened giving me my 10th DVD coaster, I slammed my fist to the open DVD tray. 
Yes, I got my new laptop on January of 2007 and I destroyed a part of it already. I had to get a new drive on ebay. I was really *lucky* not to have damaged anything else in the process, well, except my fist, I got a nice little bump and 2 cuts. This is not really not an IT process of fixing computer problems.
And another great company story. I was sitting on my Office Depot chair last week when I reclined, it broke -----> picture<----- the last thing I saw was me looking at my ceiling! the chair had a 5 year warranty. I emailed Office Depot and sent them pictures of my 2 year old chair asking for spare parts to fix it. I got a very apologetic email from them and they sent me a $100.00 gift card to get a new chair. (I paid $69.00 for it) And the company that made the chair offered to send me parts to fix my chair. (only the arms section was broken) I was wowed by this! could it be that companies are afraid of litigious consumers? (I'm not one of those) I mentioned this to dexter_fox
Even after this I feel good! and here's a feel good song that I just love! (all the way down, yes, I love this song and video as much as Darude's Sandstorm, yes, Mr. cubstatik.
So, that's what's going on at the Domain on June 5, AD 2008.
Current Mood:  contemplativeCurrent Music: None | | Wednesday, May 28th, 2008 | | 8:07 am |
Dog! I f'n hate this! Grrrrrrrrrrrrr!!!!!!!!
Yes, Grrrrrrrrrrrrr!  I'm really ticked off, dexter_fox and I are woke up at 4.00 AM to make it to the airport at 5.30AM for our 6.30 AM flight to Houston, everything was fine and dandy, until, we made it to the gate and the nice gate agent tells everyone that our flight was delayed a bit due to *difficulties* and it was delayed until 11.00 AM! WTF Arghhhhhh! at 7.30AM they announced that it would be delayed again until past 12.00 PM, Dex asked them if they could set us up on another earlier flight, so we'll be taking off at 11.20 AM on another flight.
Damn, this is not cool, our flight was delayed by 6 hours, BTW, it's Continental Airlines! *gotta do a little name dropping here* it would really suck to be some folks we saw here with connecting flights in Houston. At least they have free wi-fi but still, we'd much rather be half way to TX by now.
Our hangout for 6+ hours
Current Mood:  annoyedCurrent Music: Terminal waiting room | | Monday, May 26th, 2008 | | 5:25 pm |
Woo-Hoo! OK, I'm extremely happy today, I have been studying and reading a 1400 page book, plus 2 others and reading many websites that deal with the A+ examination to study for the Comp TIA A+ IT certification, the entry level IT industry certification. Yes, I know many folks in the IT field say that the A+ is sh\t. It may be, but face it, most IT jobs specifically ask for it, if you don't have it you don't get the job. It also helped a hell of a lot by knowing a of a lot of stuff the test consists of due to my previous computer hardware/software experience. Plus, the A+ has been re-written to dump all the useless legacy crap you don't need anymore today. (IRQ's, I/O, DMA's) and such.
It's now full of networking stuff. Anyway, I took the first portion of it last week, and I passed it. I took the second part today and passed it! Woo-Hoo! I'm damned happy, so is dexter_fox (my first IT industry certification) surprisingly there were tons of tricky questions and you really have to know your stuff/re-read them to answer them correctly. I'm happy having nailed both tests on the first try. I've read of folks trying up to 3 times each! and I saved money too, to take each section it costs $163.00 bucks, I was fearing not passing and having to re-take the exam(s) and paying again! I've read about folks who had to take the first part up to 4 times. Having this A+ certification will help me make my transition to IT from logistics even better and easier. It's a start, I know.
Oh, dexter_fox and I are going to Houston, Texas this Wednesday to attend his brother's marriage ceremony this coming weekend. I had to get a suit, so I got this one this weekend ---> 2008 solid black textured black tie with a semi-purpleish shirt. I hadn't had a suit since my first communion in 1981, here I am 9 years old with a 3 piece navy blue suit, with a striped tie at Universal Studios Hollywood, ---> 1981 Yes, things are going great, IMHO.
Current Mood:  ecstaticCurrent Music: Silence | | Sunday, May 25th, 2008 | | 12:53 pm |
| | Friday, May 23rd, 2008 | | 3:46 pm |
This thing is old!
Wow, just got to thinking about something dumb, I made this RTD (local transit company at the time) GMC RTS II bus model by hand out of cardboard, tape, markers and 2 bottles of liquid paper in 1987. The vibrant color has long faded. And the black plastic tape trim has started falling off. I
was 14 years old at the time. Hard to believe it's lasted so long!
Man, this thing is way older than I was at the time I made it! (I was 14 years old, and this thing is 21+ years old!) isn't that
something? (BTW, I'm now 35) man, I'm I old! I remember wasting time after school doing these things. I
remember making a LAPD police car, a taxi, a mini van, a helicopter and a regular car. Well, after all
these years, the RTD, RTS II bus survived!
(more pictures if you want to see here)-----> ( Read more... )
Current Mood: contemplativeCurrent Music: Silence | | Sunday, May 18th, 2008 | | 8:44 pm |
Califur 4 Hi all, I just wasn't feeling very posty but here I am again, to pollute yer' el-jays with my stuffs.
This weekend dexter_fox and I spent our weekend at Califur 4 down in Irvine, (a 55
mile drive south for Dex and I) The con was at a new hotel this year, we outgrew the old Holiday Inn the con
was held at for the last 3 years. This hotel was the Irvine Hyatt. We shared the room from
Friday afternoon until Sunday morning with kaysho We got to the hotel at 11.30 AM and got in line to register, since we didn't pre-register. Bad idea! the line was about 40 people long? and it took 2 hours to get through. The planning was so half assed, and poorly organized, they had 3 old piece of crap computers for people to enter their info, and it was taking from 3-5 minutes on average per person to use. A person behind me said just using pen and paper would have been faster! I agreed. When I got to the front of the line and tried to pay with plastic, they said that sorry, they only took cash! WTF?????? there was no sign whatsoever telling ANYONE this. I was pissed off, but Dex loaned me money to pay for this. This has been the worst con line ever, hands down.
About this Hyatt hotel, we noticed stuff when we got to the hotel, We saw the hotel staff move
all the seating (couches and chairs) away from the common areas and concentrated them all on a
small hallway that most of the CF events took place at and many hotel areas were off limits by
the hotel posting hotel security personnel to impede our access. That was odd. On Saturday night
the hotel really went out of their way to hide us, the strange folks by setting up a long big, tall
black curtain along to hide most of the con common areas we had, apparently, there was a cosmetics industry convention on
Thursday evening, some sort of graduation ceremony on Friday and large expensive wedding party on
Saturday evening. So, of course the hotel tried their very best not to freak out the other
guests and making our con feel like crap. The ambiance just wasn't there and it really made you feel out of place there.
It's funny about so-called fancy hotels how they rip you off, parking had to be paid for, and so
did internet access, WTF? Motel 6 and many cheap motel chains give you that and much more. The
only good thing was seeing old friends again, but the hotel truly sucked ass! A bitchin' room
party cubstatik threw on Saturday night was seriously quieted down due to complaints
from lame people before 7.00 PM! and was totally shut down by the hotel by 11.00 PM! f*ck man!
11.00 PM!
We heard that the wedding that took place, the bridesmaids got smashed and were wondering into
our side of the curtain and acting like bitches. We heard that they were trying to remove
fursuiter's heads and just being total a-holes. Hotel security had to be called and they removed
the wedding party people from our con! furries weren't causing a ruckus, but the wedding
bridesmaids, isn't that a bitch?
This year I decided to break out the Al Bear after being in hibernation since AC 2005! Still lookin' good after 6+ years! not bad for the old bear. It was
fun, I tried to zoot a bunch of times, but my stamina wasn't up to par due to me being overweight at the
moment. But I got some goodtimes. I also participated in the fursuit parade on Saturday afternoon, but again, the damned hotel was making stuff difficult for us, most of the parade route was through the hotel's kitchen, out of the way secondary small hallways and passageways. We were forbidden from the front of the hotel or the lobby. And our last photo shoot area was a very secluded and small out of the way patio. So yes, the con wasn't so good, I'm sorry to say. Many furs were saying the same thing about the Hyatt. If CF 5 is going to be at the same hotel next year, dexter_fox and I WILL be skipping it until they find a better location. Here's me getting down at the Friday fursuit dance for your viewing! (below) and some pictures behind the LJ cut.
( Read more... )
Current Mood: accomplishedCurrent Music: King of the Hill on TV | | Monday, March 24th, 2008 | | 9:09 am |
Weekend Report
So, dexter_fox and I had a very chill weekend. The business that took us to downtown LA was getting our taxes ready. Since I was unemployed for 5 months and adding my stock market capital losses I ended up getting close to $2,000 from the feds and close to $1,000 from the state. This year Mah' foxieh' and I did our state return jointly. 
The weekend was very low key. Did laundry, ran a few errands and watched two Netflix DVD's we had. We finally got to see The Devil Wears Prada that was a funny ass movie, I really liked it! I liked it so much I "backed it up" and we also caught Samuel Jackson in Black Snake Moan very strange movie. And man, is Sam getting old!
And also, I'm still in awe over www.hulu.com I love it! we fired up the laptop, plugged it into our bedroom TV through it's VGA connection and watched many newer Family Guy and Simpsons episodes we had missed. Dex introduced me to a TV show I had never heard of, It's a silly short lived series from 2000 called Jack of all Trades This one made us laugh nonstop! *I highly recommend you catch it* And why we did this, I don't know, Dex as a joke played an episode of Fantasy Island, OMG is that the lamest TV show ever? YES! we were laughing at all the corny, awful crap therein. We can't believe they actually wasted precious TV airtime to show that crap! It was funny! like MST3K funny, we were cracking up nonstop! that show is so bad,
I don't blame Tatoo for offing himself!
I also picked up a sweet wireless compact keyboard with a built in pointing device a few weeks ago to control the laptop from bed, It's really cool I no longer need to run a 15 foot VGA cable across the room to control the laptop. Dex and I also cooked up a really good potato mushroom and meatball stew on the ol' croc pot. We didn't use a recipe, but just threw stuff together, after 7 hours of cooking the results were a pleasant surprise! Good weekend.
Current Mood:  awakeCurrent Music: Servers running | | Saturday, March 22nd, 2008 | | 2:57 pm |
| | Wednesday, March 19th, 2008 | | 6:51 pm |
Anthrocon! (awful zuits! were any of you here?)
Just watch the first five minutes (if you haven't seen this I hadn't, yes, I'm lame!) Also, www.hulu.com is damned cool! and Uncle Kage is a sellout!
Current Mood:  creative | | Tuesday, March 18th, 2008 | | 9:56 am |
So, the cops with their radar guns and the threat of getting $600.00 speeding tickets couldn't change my driving habits, until now. $3.79 gasoline WILL force you to lay off a bit. I only used to drive on the fast lane on the freeway hitting up to 100 MPH easily at times every day, but doing on average 85-90 MPH but now I have to restrain myself. I now drive on the slow lane doing 60 MPH! ACK!!! I hate it, but I suppose I hate paying $3.79 for gasoline even more. I still think it's going to get worse. Something cool that I noticed too was that in 7 months (August 2 nd of last year to March 2 nd) I drove exactly 3000 miles, man! when I used to live in downtown LA and had my old job I drove 3000 miles in 1.5 months!
| | Thursday, March 6th, 2008 | | 5:56 pm |
I'm alive
Work has been crazy busy for the past going on 3 weeks, the migration to Microsoft Exchange hit some major snags. We thought it would go smooth and have maybe a 2 day difficult time. It lasted over 2.5 weeks. Needless to say, people were pissed off. It's now simmering down finally. Man, I didn't expect IT work to be so frustrating. But it's all good now. The IT consultants were doing stuff not so well I heard, so that caused major hiccups. This thing resulted in some serious meetings, shouting matches and other fun stuff. I was summoned many times to help folks with their email, but I really couldn't do anything, it was on the other side of the court. I felt bad I just did whatever I could. I also made some errors transfering folk's email crap. I learned from my mistake and I won't let it happen again. I have worked OT many days in these 3 weeks. My boss has slept in the IT office. He's been putting in 7 day straight 18 hour days! It really sucks to be him! man, and he's on salary. YUK!
In other news, I totally hate meme's I made a promise wayyyyyyy back in 2004 to never do one, but here's mine. Yes, my REAL results. I couldn't pass this up!
Powered By Stimulators
Current Mood:  tired | | Wednesday, February 20th, 2008 | | 8:48 pm |
| | Sunday, February 10th, 2008 | | 10:40 am |
Announcement for local S0-Cal furs
Announcement for local S0-Cal furs. I was going to advertise this on Craigslist, but I thought of giving it away here first. Would anyone like to have our former bedroom TV?
We got a new one last month and this one is just taking up space in our closet. It's a high end TV I bought for over $1,000.00 in 1994. A Sony XBR 27" model with multiple A/V inputs, killer sound, 2 tuner picture in picture and a remote control. Would make a good game console TV? it works excellent and has never been repaired. It's very dependable.
It's a bit heavy. If you want it reply here and we'll set up a time for you to pick it up at our domain in Sherman Oaks. (picture)------>
My high end Sony 27" XBR TV from 1994
Current Mood: accomplished | | Tuesday, February 5th, 2008 | | 8:39 am |
Recent stuff going on
Random stuff going on, well I'm not bothering with a big FC report just some highlights, it's kind of moot to do so now. I did have a great time, met some new folks and hung out with old friends. The sucky thing was the rain, it really was the rainiest FC I have ever seen! one of the highlights was meeting plushlover too bad he was around for such short time. Lots of eating and drinking, and hanging out with sabotlours and carolkitty. I m lame, maybe I’m just getting old, but when I stay up past 12 AM when I did, I had to take a 4-5 hour nap during the afternoon. Yes, that's pretty lame, I admit it took time from being social at an event that only happens once a year. .
Since dexter_fox and I forgot to pre register for FC, we had to stand in a long @$$ line to get our badges. That sucked! we assured ourselves NOT to let this happen again, and on the last Sunday of FC we pre registered for FC 2009. So, we'll see you at FC 2009. We'll be skipping AC this year after the way they treated Dex and I last year. The security staff were a bunch of idiots.
The job is going super, and it appears that I will be brought onboard as a permanent employee in a month or so. My boss has been giving good word about me to the higher ups and telling how much I help out. It really sucks to be here since October and not accrue any vacation time, but it would also suck not having a job, even more so that the economy is going down the toilet.
Man, a thing that I'm totally super pissed off at happened to me last month. I was a dumb ass and forgot to pay my Visa bill that was due on January 16 I saw the bill on January 28 I totally forgot to schedule to pay it off via my bank's online bill pay. When I saw it I was worried, I immediately called Chase to notify them that the money would be transferred from my bank ASAP. And that this was my very first bill that I have paid late, EVER! *literally* no dice! they said tough $H\t. So for the first time ever I had to pay a $40.00 late fee! (damn, I had no idea it was so much) and finance charges of close to $25.00 plus other little fees. for a total of almost +$70.00 I'll sure be more careful in the future to never let this happen again.
Ever since getting my first credit card in 1990 I have always paid in full every single month, except today. Frankly I don't really care about the extra money I paid. It's a tax for my stupidity, as dexter_fox would say I suppose. What I care about is my super pristine FICO credit score. (799) I was assured by Chase/Visa that they only report bills late by over 30 days to FICO. But still $65.00+ is a nice amount of money to just throw away. 
I have my W-2's already and the only thing missing is a piece of paper from TD Waterhouse regarding my great .com crap investing mistake. You may remember that I finally cashed out my crap and lost 80% of my life savings on the stupid stock market $h\t. I got burned really nice. I may do my income taxes this weekend and start deducting the big loss this year. I hope I don't raise any attention by the IRS and result in an audit. That's the reason I have never made a deduction in my taxes. This will be the first year.
Current Mood: awakeCurrent Music: PC fans |
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