Father, Husband, Geek. One Cool Monkey.
Ben
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Homepage: http://www.onecoolmonkey.com
Posts by Ben
Weather Musings
Nov 6th
The kiddo is sleeping, and the dog is too…so I get a chance to chime in. I missed posting yesterday – yeah, I admit it – but I’m still staying with the spirit of NaBloPoMo as much as possible. Yesterday was just a bit difficult to get out here and make my mark.
There was a bit of a return to some cooler weather in North Texas, today. This was welcomed with opened arms by me. I much prefer the cooler weather to the warmer. I stand in contrast to my mom and sister there, I think. They were both happy to get away from Maine’s climate, whereas I still occasionally daydream about living what that weather again. Don’t get me wrong. Winter all-out sucks. But, no worse than Texas Summers kinda all-out suck. So, you trade out one for another. I used to joke that “you don’t have to shovel heat”. And this is true, obviously…but you know. You can always put on clothes….you can only take off so much…and then if you’re still miserable, you’re just f*cked.
Post-game Debriefing
Nov 4th
First off – great game today. The Patriots bested the Colts in a nail-biter. The Pats won by 4 points, and I’m sure it’s not the last time we’ll see them.
There was a great turn out for the game – lots of fun New England folks at the bar. I bought a tower of beer for the group, but not enough people helped me to consume it. I need to go, because otherwise I can’t work on the sobering that needs to happen in the next 10 hours. Good night to all!!
End of the Day Ketchup
Nov 3rd
Just squeezing in under the deadline…who knew this posting every day thing would be a difficult thing?
It’s a great Texas fall day today (meaning temperatures in the low 70s as a high, which feels downright cool after nearly 6 months of 90-100 degree heat). The Little Monkey and I had our weekly Saturday outing – kind of created to give Mrs. Monkey a bit of a break and let her catch up on some studying or chores she needs to catch up on (or, as the case was today, relaxing in a bath for a while after mowing the lawn…).
Tomorrow is the big Patriots/Colts showdown. Superbowl XLI.5. Go Pats!
Hockey, Music & Monkeys
Nov 2nd
It’s been rough watching the Stars play tonight. Currently, the score is 3-0 Phoenix with 5:27 left to play in the 2nd period. What’s sad is that the Stars have had many more scoring chances than Phoenix. The Coyotes are just getting all the lucky bounces. Things just haven’t gone the Stars’ way this season so far, and I think one of the big reasons it hasn’t happened is management’s decision not to put all the money they had at their disposal to go out and get a big scoring winger this off-season. It’s showing now.
Other than that, though, it was a good day. The weekend is here, finally. I don’t think I posted about my misfortune with my music collection the other night. Tragedy struck when I came home from work to find that my CAREFULLY saved music collection that I had reloaded onto my new operating system just the night before, was missing. There was just nothing to be found. I’m not sure if I did it, or if someone else accidently deleted something (I left my account logged in, and a couple people had access to it…I don’t blame them – it’s my fault – but they might have accidently done it). Luckily, I got together with some friends a few months ago for a big music swap, and so all of that music is also on one of their hard drives. I’m getting together with one of those friends tomorrow to restore the collection. I miss it!!
I’m getting back to the game. Enjoy a preview of what could possibly be the worst movie ever (but, it does have a monkey skateboarding and playing hockey – still not enough though…yikes).
Monkey out.
Many Monkeys!
Nov 1st
Okay, this is a bit of a test, because I haven’t posted pictures since my cat passed away nearly two years ago. But, I’m sure we’ve had some technological developments since then, right? I think it said something about that on the back of the AOL Free Trial CD I got in the mail the other day….
What?? Oh. Here’s a pic of my mom and my son and I. MONKEYS!!
NaBloPoMo and 80 Blatherings!
Nov 1st
So, what is this gibberish you’re reading above, and why should I start my blog posting talking about it? I’m glad you asked, Hector. You always were the inquisitive one of the twins. Quick, to the explanation stool!
Okay, so NaBloPoMo is a site that I stumbled upon after a late night of binge-drinking and yahtzee. Actually, I came across it while web-meandering from page to page (while binge-drinking). It started with a visit to an iLike page of a fan of Michael Penn…or maybe it was They Might Be Giants…who turned out to be the adorable Uber-Mom from Colorado, Greeblemonkey (sorry ’bout your state’s Rockies, Greeblemonkey – they were a fantastic team this year and deserved better than to run into the Machine that my Red Sox had become at that point). Anyway, she had a link to her page about the Blog Posting Fiesta that was to happen, and I loved the concept. And HEY!! What better idea to kick start a person who has been posting a blog a month (at best) for the past year or two, than to challenge said person to post a blog a DAY? Yes folks…for those who haven’t already followed the link and learned, NaBloPoMo stands for National Blog Posting Month. I view it as a tribute to bloggers and writers everywhere, and a call for them to do what they do best – or in my case, what they do monthly. (No, FU-D, I’m not going to make that comparison. Shut up).
So, that’s the goal – we’re really going to plunge deep into the WiredMonkey’s psyche if you can stomach the ride long enough. Not that it’s a grotesque or demanding journey…just hoping it’s not so boring you want to get off the ride on Nov. 2nd. Heh. I hear you get a free shirt if you make it through Thanksgiving….
Anyhoo…so this is my 80th posting. Nice round number…it made me stop and a take a moment on what I’ve reflected upon in the past couple years. Not bad, but there should be more. Again, this is where this drive kicks in, I think. I’ve got lots going on to reflect upon now, and a few good stories to tell. The people will remain nameless (or dubbed with silly little psuedonyms, which is something that amuses me endlessly), so you’ll get all the fun details. Now that you have the details, check back tomorrow, and you’ll see something new. Yay.
P.S. Wouldn’t it suck if my next posting were November 28th? Hah!
P.P.S. I love the idea of a label called “random”. Eventually, my “random” posts will all be categorized neatly to read at once. That’s awe-tastic.
Where’s My Time Machine??
Oct 31st
As I have been detailing (modestly and scantily) on this very blog, I have been growing my music collection on my Mac Mini (also known as Fred). Fred got a buddy last spring in the form of a 300 GB firewire drive, and some friends and I got together, shared our music collections, and promptly stuffed the firewire buddy to his gills. I do not exaggerate – I believe there was just over a gig of free space left when trading was finished.
Anyway, I have been transferring and consolidating music files…getting rid of duplicates, etc., etc. When I’m finished, I should still have nearly 200 GB in music, but there will be some space on the firewire drive to build a partition for back-up purposes. Then I can make sure I keep all of my music, photos, and other such important things. Just in time for Time Machine to come around on Leopard and make all of this tie together oh so nicely. Stay with me here…
So, this evening, I was wrapping up some of my “drive cleaning”, and getting ready to outfit Fred with Leopard. I move over my pictures and document folders to back those up, and decide to give the disk a bit of a check with the Disk Utility feature on the install disk – make sure it’s working okay and ready to handle the new OS. Here, we begin the fun…
First, as I’m verifying the disk, the utility starts spewing error after error at me – problems with several HP Laserjet printer descriptions or something to that effect. Kind of odd, since I don’t use an HP Laserjet, and I’m not sure Fred has ever printed to an HP Laserjet. I’m sure it’s some of the default descriptions they have on file so that Fred can be a Plug & Play wiz, but it’s a pain that they’ve gone corrupt or whatever.
So, it goes through several thousand of those errors, and then locks up. Big Fat Beachball o’ Death. Ugh. Not much to do at this point but to give him a restart and go in to run it again. This time, I get in there, and Disk Utility won’t verify the disk. It starts and stops about 30 seconds in. Hrmmm….
Well, let’s go back to OS 10.4.10, I say to myself. Let’s REALLY make sure everything is backed up, and bring out the heavy diagnostic tools…. Ha, ha, ha. Of course not! Fred won’t have it. Right during startup, Fred just shuts off. Going back in to the Leopard startup disk, the new installer won’t even see the hard drive. It requires that I completely erase and re-format the disk before it will do any sort of verifying or installing.
Well. I could spend the lengthy (and probably costly) process of reclaiming the data through various outlets – there are options to get stuff off of dead/damaged disks. But, I really don’t want to deal with all of that. And, aside from an iTunes Library file and some bookmarks in my Safari folder, I have complete backups of everything.
Things definitely could be worse. I could have NOT backed up my pictures and document folders before going in to Disk Utility. I have gone in there without doing so before. And, I could have no backup system in place, and be in a real pickle about what to do to recover my precious stuff. Really, what I’m left with is the realization of what a great advertisement this is for the new backup feature I’m trying to install on Leopard….almost makes you wonder if there is some conspiracy in place….to truly show you just how badly you need the product you are installing. Building consumer confidence through annoyance and data destruction! W00t!
Red Sox, Patriots and Leopards…Oh My!
Oct 29th
It’s been great to be a New England sports fan lately. The Boston Red Sox clinched their 7th World Series title last night after sweeping the Colorado Rockies. And, the New England Patriots have run their record to 8-0 after shellacking the Washington Redskins 52-7 this weekend. The sports pages are ablaze with disgruntled fans and offended, PC-geared, commentators who say the Patriots are “running up the score” on their opponents. Yeah, they are. Scoring records were made to be broken. Why SHOULDN’T the Patriots try to beat the other teams as much as possible. And to the Patriot opponents who have complained about the scoring, here’s a tip: If you don’t like it – stop them. It’s that easy (or maybe it isn’t, and that’s why you’re so upset).
Okay, so that’s what’s going on in the sports world, right now. At least, in my sports world. I’m working my butt off at my new job, trying to figure out PC mysteries and do my best to keep up with the Mac work we have had. Apple released OS 10.5, nicknamed Leopard, on Friday, and I’ve been doing my best to learn all the features. I haven’t installed it on my Mac Mini, but I do have it up and running on my (work’s) MacBook Pro, and it’s been doing great on there. I like a lot of the features it offers, and it makes finding information on your computer pretty easy. I think once I have more things on this laptop, it will be a real time saver. Until then, it just kinda looks pretty.
Interweb Nets Rule!!
Oct 19th
I came across a great blog today, whilst sitting back with a nice cold one, and smiled to myself once again about what a cool age of technology we get to enjoy.
I’ve got an extension on my iTunes called iLike, and while you’re listening to songs in your library, it tells you about other “related artists” you own, and allows you to build a quick instant playlist with similar artists (which is great for a quick “on-the-go” playlist for your iPod). It also tells you about related artists you may want to get (and gives you links to learn more about them, and then a section from similar up and coming artists who can post their free mp3s for download).
But, what I like best is that it gives you 8 profiles for other iLike people who are listeners to the artist you are currently listening to. Well, during one of those songs, I was clicking on a few of the profiles, and I came across this woman who matched me pretty evenly music-wise, and on her profile, she had a link to her blog. I then found the blog I mentioned above.
A long story, I suppose, for a brief moment of epiphonic enjoyment (okay, I totally made that up, but the alliteration – or in this case illiteration – was worth it). Regardless, I now have a new blog to enjoy and a smile on my face.
Ch-Ch-Ch-Changes
Oct 1st
Bonjour, tout le monde…
I hope everyone has been doing well while I haven’t checked in lately. Things have been tumultuous in the Monkey household lately. There are a few who have heard, and some who haven’t…but for those who haven’t, I’ll let you in. I lost my job a couple of weeks ago, and have been in heavy-duty job search mode since. It really couldn’t have come at a more inopportune time, but come it did. So, I had to suck it up and find some work right away. I was very fortunate, and had a few opportunities present themselves right away. I only heard back from a couple of those, but one of the jobs I heard back from was for a job working with Mac computers again. I had a job several years back that I really loved, and one of the reasons I really loved it was that it was a great learning opportunity. This job offered a return to that industry and a position with even more responsibility. I accepted their offer today and should begin work with them later this week.
One of the other great bonuses to this job – less than 5 minutes from my house. I could very literally ride my bike to work if I so chose. I may do that a few times this fall when the weather gets to be accommodating enough.
At home, things are going quite well. I used to refer to my wife as LampLover on here…long story, but those who read her blog knew the story…but since she hasn’t updated her blog in over a year and a half, I think I’ll just refer to her as Mrs. Monkey. Plus, I get to call her a monkey. *snicker* Hey, it’s only fair….
If you haven’t seen the pictures of my adorable little son, click HERE without hesitation. I need to get some more pictures to my father-in-law so he can update the site with some more recent pictures. But, the little baby monkey is growing like crazy, and making this house a very happy home. A tired and cranky home sometimes, but a very happy one indeed.
And now….random monkey. And monkeys making out.
You know what you did,
-WM
