January 13th, 2005 Yvo
Years ago I hated Mac. I remember the “eeks” from elementary school and first year of middle school. I was so happy when the Macs were replaced by Windows based computers. I mean who would purchase a mac other then people that couldn’t understand how to work with a computer.
Enter Mac OS X, the 10th version of Mac OS, the software like Windows running on the Mac platform. Mac OS X is what Longhorn will eventually be for the PC. Mac OS X started out being hated as 1. It ran slowly on a lot of G3 processor computers (G3 means 3rd Generation) and 2. Backwards compatibility, something Apple was good at, didn’t really exist. However through the years Mac OS X has gotten far more respect and love. Right now they are at 10.3, ready to release 10.4, named Tiger, this year. Around 10.2 I became interested in getting my own Mac but unfortunately all the lower end macs came with integrated monitors and included a keyboard and mouse. I didn’t want to have a whole second setup on my computer and I didn’t want to spend $2000 on just a box (the G5 computers).
Last year I bought my first Apple product, an Ipod Mini. I haven’t used it as much as I would have liked, in part because the Ipod really doesn’t function as well on Windows as it does on Mac. Sure the software is the same but it just feels clunky under Windows. Something that isn’t the case on a Mac.
Then something happened… Apple did what I really didn’t expect. They are finally catering to those looking to purchase a mac, but don’t want to buy a new monitor etc and spend $2000. They are actually thinking about the normal people. They created the Mac Mini.
Yup… its pretty damn pretty. The dimensions are even more amazing… 2 inches tall, 6.5 wide and 6.5 deep. Basically a 2 inch tall 6.5 inch square. Thats about as wide as my current computer. It does NOT come with a keyboard, mouse and monitor. Which means I can get something called a KVM and hook those up myself to my existing setup. Even more excitingly… the specs aren’t bad at all. Sure its not a G5, but a mid/high end G4. The $499 model has a 1.25ghz G4 and the $599 carries a 1.4ghz G4. In the Mac world, these are powerful chips. Not everything should be measured by “megahertz/gigahertz” and this is one of those situations.
So I am definitely going to save up for one of these. This is my goal to get this year, before August. I hope I will be able to do that. I am so excited about this product.
Anywho… that is all I had to say for now.
More information:
Mac Mini website:
http://www.apple.com/macmini/
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January 10th, 2005 Yvo
This weekend was interesting. On Saturday I woke up with Cammy next to me. However she had to work at 11am and soon thereafter I was watching TV being bored. That is when Josh started IM’ing me and proposed we install Cammy’s car alarm. Seemed like a great idea, too bad that Cammy wasn’t into it. So after finally getting the alarm and car keys from Cam it was off to Josh’s house in Kent / Federal Way border, but he lives in Kent.
What turned out to be a 5 hour job.. turned into a 2 day job. While we started off easy and good, like installing the wires in the car we ran into a thing called multiple wires with the same colors. This is where we started poking and prodding. We ended up blowing a fuse and spending a good 2 hours looking for it. It got dark and cold and we stopped. Cam was a little upset that night because I basically did this without her approval but I figured in the end it would be for the best and I would just let her be mad for a good 24 hours. I drove home in a still drveable car with a lot of exposed wires.
Enter Day two… I was at Josh’s at 1pm and he was finishing up installing a starter in his car. I proposed to move it back to my house. For a good 9 hours we worked on everything. Too bad that I FINALLY found an easy to read wiring diagram 2 hours before we finished but it sped up the process a whole lot.
Now Cam has a fully working car alarm with remote start. I just have to move the yellow wire to the starter BEFORE the ignition and then its good to go as right now you have to disarm to enable remote start and then rearm as the starter inhibitor (which is after the ignitor) is stopped the charge. Also I have to install the kill switch and remote start switch. Then it will be done, but those are cosmetic things.
Cam came at around 9ish when we still busy (we finished at 11ish) and she wasn’t really that upset anymore. A little shocked to see her car all wired out but not mad. After a few hours she saw that Josh and I hadn’t fucked anything up and I think in the end she is happy and grateful we installed her alarm. We did save her a good $200.
Work today was easy as a breeze even though Kristy called in sick because her son was sick and the babysitter called in sick so that meant that she couldn’t bring her son to day care. Anna and I survived the day without her. It got kind of busy at one point with both sales managers, 2 sales reps and 4-5 different customers in our office plus calls holding, but we managed.
Brought back the computer of Breanne tonight and her tennis rackets. Who knows they would have claimed $80 for each racket later on down the road like they were trying to claim their computer for $250 (a Pentium 133 worth $250… you can get a brand new Dell incl. monitor for that price, not that its any better hahaha). It felt good to get rid of it and not to deal with it anymore. It was funny that Breanne opened up too. I went there with Cam and Cam said goodbye really perky, good times I suppose. That was finally of anything Piehl related. I am not going to the court thing tomorrow. I have better things to do. My parents aren’t reminding me of it either anymore because they know that I just want to move on and that is what I am doing.
Anywho… it is only Monday and it seems to be a good week.
Signing off,
Yvo
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January 8th, 2005 Yvo
Cam gave the latest Modest Mouse album for Christmas and I really like this song…
Your gun went off.
Well you shot off your mouth and look where it got you.
My mouth runs on too.
Shouts from both sides,
“Well we’ve got the land but they’ve got the view!”
Well now here’s the clue.
Life it rents us.
And yeah I hope it put plenty on you.
Well I hope mine did too.
As life gets longer, awful feels softer.
Well it feels pretty soft to me.
And if it takes shit to make bliss,
then I feel pretty blissfully.
Your gun went off.
Well you shot off your mouth and look where it got you.
My mouth runs on too.
Shouts from both sides,
“Well we’ve got the land but they’ve got the view!”
Well now here’s the clue.
We are fixed right where we stand.
Life it rents us.
And yeah I hope it put plenty on you.
Well I hope mine did too.
We are fixed right where we are.
As life gets longer, awful feels softer.
Well if feels pretty soft to me.
And if it takes shit to make bliss,
well I feel pretty blissfully.
For every invention made how much time did we save?
We’re not much farther than we were in the cave.
As life gets longer, awful feels softer,
and it feels pretty soft to me.
And if it takes shit to make bliss,
well I feel pretty blissfully.
If life’s not beautiful without the pain,
well I’d just rather never ever even see beauty again.
Well as life gets longer, awful feels softer.
And it feels pretty soft to me.
For every good deed done there is a crime committed.
We are fixed.
For every step ahead we could have just been seated.
We are fixed.
As life gets longer, awful feels softer.
Well it feels pretty soft to me.
And if it takes shit to make bliss,
well I feel pretty blissfully.
We are fixed.
We are fixed.
We are fixed right where we stand.
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January 5th, 2005 Yvo
SCROLL BELOW TO SEE POST ON MY VANCOUVER TRIP
I did one of these last year on my Livejournal and I am doing it again this year.
2004 was a very interesting year for me. I saw changes in jobs multiple times, love for the first and second time, big decisions and more. Overall a year to remember and never to forget.
For the first part of the years I spent my time (and most of my time) at Fry’s guiding the computer department. That career and time came to an end when I wanted to go to Holland for 3 weeks. I requested this off months ahead but was denied this luxery, so I formally quit.
Holland in itself was an adventure, one to never forget. I hadn’t seen a lot of family in over eight years and it was great to see them again. We also stayed at my mom’s friend, who only recently at that time started talking again. I saw a lot of people and I was also looking at universities as I started to realize that I may have options in Holland.
I left to the US again missing what I had gained in Holland and that was a lot of motivation and a desire to go back badly. I came back to the US hoping to get my job back but unfortunately that ship had sailed and I spent the next few weeks looking for a new job. Middle of May I started working at Livebridge, an outsource company that handles Verizon Wireless support. At the same time I lost one of my closests friends to her demanding boyfriend who didn’t approve of her and me hanging out. The story goes more indepth, but it happened.
This is where things that I had planned turned around. I had a 5 week training with Livebridge and the last week and half I started to be more social outside of my work. I was hanging out with my neighbor increasingly more and her friend Sam who was spending the night frequently at that time. Years ago I was a little scared of Sam because it seemed she was infatuated with me, but she matured a lot and she in my eyes still is a very mature person. Anyways one night a girl named Breanne came a long and that changed some of my outlooks of my future.
My original plans were to move back to Holland like I said but instead I fell for her and ended up staying here to be with her. However her parents, being the ultra conversatives that they are, wouldn’t have any of it and kept creating assine rules. What looked like a very promising and long relationship ended up being a very bittersweet short relationship. In the end I learned a lot and I can thank God for putting her and me together just so I can taste what love is and to help out another human being. I hope that one day Breanne won’t be bitter anymore and see what happened as a good experience and that she doesn’t put the blame on me but rather on her parents.
During the end of that relationship I started talking to Cam more and more. I had heard of Cam as she was one of my friend’s girlfriend for a very long time. However I saw Cammy shortly after they split and I just wanted to talk to her one night in September and her and I started talking again. Cam and I went to Vancouver at the end of September. When I came back Bre wanted to give it another shot but things failed fast in part because I pushed the Sprint issue and that I was starting to realize that it was over. Since October 5th Cam and I have been happily in a relationship.
Around this time I stopped at Livebridge and had a short lived (2 week) experience as a bill collector. I never ever want to do that again. I hated it and I was glad to get out. Now I work at EDI and boy do I love it. The end of 2004 saw the end of another friendship. This one can be partially blamed on me but I was simply fed up for it. The way I was treated by Alisa was just nasty. I spent an entire weekend building her a website and I barely get a thank you. Hell she continued demanding changes after that when I did my best. Not to mention that she destroyed a CD I paid for plus that it was one of my favorite albums. The treatment I received from her is just disgusting. Friends don’t do what she did. Enough has been said about it but it still angers me whenever I think about it. I considered talking to her about it after I talked to Kristy but I gave it a lot of thinking and I shouldn’t be the one that makes that step.
I can say without a doubt that this year has been a good and bad one at the same time. I feel that I have developed a lot as a person and that I am more mature then the year before. I have learned a lot and coped with a lot. I realize though that there is a lot to be heard. I am thankful for meeting and being with Cammy. If it wasn’t for her during the months of September and October I don’t know where I would have been today.
Thank you everyone for sticking with me in 2004… I hope 2005 will be a good year as well. Only time will tell……
Yvo
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January 5th, 2005 Yvo
Happy belated new years everyone!!
Figured it’s never too late to wish someone a happy new year in the month of January. This year I spent my new years with Cam in Vancouver B.C. our second time this year. Vancouver is such an amazing city and I would definitely lived there if the chance was given to me.
We left on Friday, December 31st 2004 to Vancouver. This time we took Cam’s car, not mine. I need to work on mine to make it more comfortable which is going to be my goal this year. This time we left prepared with a laptop and digital camera. Anywho… We left around 12 ish towards the border. Now around 11am there was a 5 minute wait. By the time we arrived at the border (which was 1:30pm) this was a completely different story. It was backed up for at least a mile and half on the Interstate. I decided to get off the interstate at Blaine and took the other border crossing to get to Canada. The wait here was only 20 minutes, which isn’t bad at all.
Cammy waiting patiently like me at the border…..
We took the freeway into Vancouver this time and came in via Pacific Blvd. Bridge, one of the bridges into Vancouver. I learned my lesson not to take the “short” way via Kingsway. Boy that was scary last time!!
Here are some pics on the way into Vancouver that Cam and I took….
Click on the picture to enlarge
Click on the picture to enlarge
Our hotel this time was the Best Western Vancouver Downtown hotel, their website is http://www.bestwesterndowntown.com/.
Here are some pictures of our hotel and me laying on our KING size bed and yes it has a kitchen!! Woohoo!!
Click on the picture to enlarge
Click on the picture to enlarge
Yes very comfortable indeed!!! So the first night it was New Year’s eve and we stayed in. We watched the Space Needle on TV and ordered in Pizza. I gave the guy a tip since he had to use the stairs for 7 floors. Poor guy looked like he had the wing knocked out of him when he came to our door. He couldn’t even say New Years eve without sighing. We also drank some champaigne after I fought with the bottle… boy that was a VERY interesting battle but I won in the end!!
The next day we ate breakfest at the Four Seasons in Vancouver. We took a cab there and that was the first time I was in a taxi cab, but definitely not the last. However when we got there it ended up being lunch as Cam and I were a little late. Cam had a keesh and I had a “real” club sandwich which was damned tasty…
Some pics….
Click on the picture to enlarge
Click on the picture to enlarge
The last is the remainder of Cam’s keesh… thats about $4-$5 on her plate. I gave her such a hard time about it I felt guilty as long as she knows I was joking. Anyways….
We decided to take the SkyTrain, Vancouver’s form of rapid transportation to the Metrotown Mall. This is probably the BIGGEST mall I have ever been in… seriously.. two food courts, two movie theaters and just a gigantic mall… two stories as well. Plus… A LOT of sales as it was New Year’s Day. However I think there are always sales going on there due to the extreme competition that such a mall has. I got two shirts (one from Cam, one I paid for) and cologne from Cam. I bought Cam perfume as well. We also watched Meet the Fockers in one of their cinemas… it was definite good times. We didn’t even eat lunch… Unfortunately we didn’t take any pics of the mall… disappointing in hindsight however they have a website…
Description of the mall….
This huge Metrotown shopping complex consists of three main malls - Station Square located on the west side, Metropolis in the middle and the Metrotown Centre towards the east. They are connected by a pedestrian bridge link. The size of the complex can be daunting. Shoppers going there for the first time may be confused and dazed but there are maps available on every floor as well as an information booth located at one of the main entrances.
Getting to Metrotown is easy as you can catch a skytrain or bus to the mall. The skytrain station stops right in front of the mall. You cannot miss this stop as the station itself is named after the mall.
In November 1998, Metropolis opened its door to the public. Connected to Metrotown this section of the mall is filled with ambitious stores with a young and trendy theme. You can browse through the Playdium which offers virtual reality games or catch a movie at the Silvercity Metropolis located at the top floor.
Website: http://metropolis.shopping.ca/
Skytrain website: http://www.translink.bc.ca/…/default.asp
Vancouver on a cloudy day… (click to make big)
People on the train…. (click to make big)
The so called conductor (he really wasn’t one, just faking) (click to make big)
That night we ate at Canada’s version of The Keg. Pretty good food and I had interesting cocktail drinks. i really like Canada’s rule on drinking its just like Europe. If you look old enough they serve you alcohol. They even served Cam alcohol. We came back to the hotel were we bickered a little… something all healthy couples do.
In the morning Cam surprised me with Coffee and it was good. Unfortunately we had to go back and that we did. We took Granville bridge out of Vancouver and went straight towards the border were we greeted with a 40-50 minute wait. Again we snuck in alcohol and again nothing happened.
Some pics as we wait at the Peace Arch park….
Not the only ones waiting (click to make big)
Cam loves the bird… I think (click to make big)
The Peace Arch monument (click to make big)
Ohhhh the border post… yes the ACTUAL physical border post… (click to make big)
When we got over we decided we didn’t want to go home yet so we went to the place the dutch people settled a long time ago… called Lynden. Now following Dutch tradition most shops were closed on Sunday but it was fun to visit none the less…
Some pics…
Cam in a clog!!
The little Dutch mall!!
Cam in a traditional Dutch women’s outfit during the 17th century…
We then decided to go completely off the interstate for awhile and explore the back country. Was pretty fun and good times. We ended up arriving in Bellevue around 5pm. We used my laptop to go on the internet there and to look up an Italian restaurant in Seattle. Boy… that was good food. The service was a little slow but it was good food… and they sung Hakuna Matata… good stuff…
Over all an EXCELLENT trip to Vancouver…
If you want to read more about our trip… go to Cammy’s Xanga….
http://main.xanga.com/home.aspx?user=BrokenAngelGurl
Signing off,
Yvo
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