*NOTE: this is long, so get comfy. i apologize ahead of time.

have you ever been to clients from hell? whether you just want to know that you’re not the only one dealing with a terrible client, or you want a good laugh, i highly recommend it. i have had more than a handful of scenarios that are worthy of being quoted on this site, which reminds me–i really need to start writing them down.

if i haven’t said it enough, i love my day job. my Big Girl Job. i love information security. it fascinates me. i have learned more in the past 9 months than i learned through all of college. i enjoy my day at work, and when i come home every night, i generally get right to working on websites. brett or i will cook dinner–he settles in playing his xbox, and i get to coding. my hours are weird, because not every freelance web developer has the same routine. that’s one upside to any kind of freelance work–making your own hours. i’ve realized that clients don’t always understand that. sometimes… sometimes they think that because you make your own hours means they can help you *define* those hours.

example: this morning, i got a call from Company X (i will leave all names anonymous from here on out) at 7:38 AM. this is the same client i was griping about yesterday on twitter. i didn’t answer the phone. i let it go to voicemail, and moments later received the voicemail, accompanied by an e-mail.

it is not out of the ordinary for things like this to happen. that does not make them acceptable. a few months ago, i got sick of allowing my clients to walk all over me (which was 100% my fault, there need to be boundaries) so i defined my own hours. i told them (nicely) that i am at my Big Girl Job during the day, and everything else (website related) is to be taken care of during the week, in the evenings between 5 and 9 PM. that is a small window, but so far it is working. they can e-mail me all they want, but for the most part, all website related work will be done during those 4 hours.

well, this winter things picked up a bit. i had a lot on my plate, and still do. some odds and ends are being tied up, some projects are just hanging there waiting on the client to come forth with updates, and some are just starting up. it’s a big mix, but i keep track of everything in spreadsheets and i’m pretty good at keeping it all organized.

one thing that i make SURE of, whether i stay organized or not, is that there are invoices. invoices, invoices, invoices. and some form of a binding statement that says, yes, i will pay you this amount of money. there are a couple (literally) that i don’t worry about because, A) they are friends, and B) they have been loyal to me for years. because the moment a client starts changing numbers on me–there’s a problem. man, i just started realizing how many nightmarish stories i can tell you all. so many blog entries to come of this. i must not forget.

anyway, way back in september, i was contacted by Client X (who i have recently found out is actually an independent contractor for Company X, which i mentioned earlier). Client X needed 2 websites to be completed because their company, Company X, did not have enough resources (whether it was time, money, or people, i don’t know) to get them done. we both signed a contract, saying i would be subcontracted to complete these 2 websites. i sent Client X 2 invoices–one for each website. the invoices stated that 50% of the website would be paid for up front, and the remaining 50% would be paid upon completion of the site. this is how i do every project, and so far it has worked out in my favor. i promptly received the first 50%, for both websites, via PayPal. we were good to go, i thought.

i completed both sites fairly quickly. there were a few minor changes that were done over the course of 2-ish months. basically, the sites have been completed and sitting, waiting on my server for about 4-ish months now.

now, i found out a couple weeks ago that Client X is no longer working for Company X. this only came up in conversation via e-mail (which have been few and far between, terrible communication on their part) after i sent the 523th bitchy e-mail, demanding i get paid for the work i did. MONTHS ago.

i’ve been bitching and moaning to and about Client X for months now, but never took any kind of legal action. the amount of money i am owed is not a small amount, but in my mind, it is not worth going to court over. the only reason i asked about lawyers on twitter yesterday was to get other opinions on how to get things moving in the right direction so this can be finished. if that did not work, then i would be more inclined to take some sort of legal action. evidently, a lot of people thought small claims court was a feasible idea. i know nothing about that sort of thing, so the thought alone scares me. i’d like to avoid that if at all possible.

i started making phone calls. i called Client X, roughly 4 times, before i got any kind of feedback. i called Company X at least 20 times yesterday, and all i got was answering machines. FINALLY, a representative from Company X called me, but because i can’t have my phone in the lab i work in, i missed it. awesome. phone tag really blows.

on my drive home, i spoke with Client X. he finally answered his phone, and i’m sure he regretted it immediately afterward. i was not psychotic, but i was not exactly friendly. my e-mails started out friendly, but over the last 4 months, they got a little uglier. i’ve heard the exact same story at least a dozen times from Client X, and yesterday’s phone call was no different. i hung up, and because i was so fed up with everything (i already had just one of those days yesterday… forgot my badge, spilled coffee TWICE, spilled ravioli EVERYWHERE, spilled pears EVERYWHERE, smashed my finger, it was just irritating), i went home and took a 20 minute, scalding hot shower, followed by 20 minutes of laying on my bed and staring at the ceiling. then i asked brett to go buy us a case of beer. thank you, babe–you are awesome.

after all that, i didn’t exactly sleep well last night.

and then i got the call from Company X this morning at 7:30. i did not need that. but after listening to the voicemail, and reading the e-mail this morning, i’ve decided that Company X is not who i need to be angry at. Client X deserves to feel my wrath. all of it. come to find out, he hasn’t been working with Company X for “a long while now” according to them. which COMPLETELY explains why this is a nightmare in the first place. if an independent contractor leaves a company, and continues to deal with Company X’s clients, that is a recipe for disaster. and serious communication FAIL. and confusion. and all of the above. depending on what kind of contract they have, that can be considered breach of contract–something i do NOT want to become involved in. Company X told me that if i put the sites back online (i took them down, hoping the process would speed up with some motivation), he could get the deal finalized with their clients (the companies whose websites i’d created) and i will be paid by next week.

with all that said, i should have gone to Company X months ago. however, i did not know to do that since i had no idea, until recently, that Client X didn’t work there anymore. all along, i thought i was still dealing with Company X through Client X. definitely *not* the case.

currently, i am waiting for an e-mail response from Company X about this whole ordeal being patched up. the sites are live again and their clients are viewing them, and *hopefully* giving them the final payments. which will hopefully be given to me by next week. hopefully this nightmare will be over. hopefully. thank you, representative from Company X, for not screwing around. you are a good man. cross all your fingers, all your toes, all your eyeballs, please. i will let you know what happens.

in between working on websites last night, i was reading articles on digg. cue digg haters/reddit lovers now. anyway, i was reading articles on digg, and by reading the articles i mean perusing the comments (highly entertaining). it got me thinking.

i am not even going to attempt to start up the linux vs windows vs mac conversation because i think that exists elsewhere on the internet (and on digg) about 234298053 times. everyone who knows me knows i’m a huge linux fan. i’d love to own a mac. i use windows in a VM for web development and work crap, except for at work, because nearly everything work-related ends up requiring windows in some form or fashion–the VM just doesn’t cut it anymore. there are a huge number of reasons people prefer the different operating systems they use, and it will always be that way. i just happen to prefer linux.

however, i just feel like there is such a huge misunderstanding. a whole mess of people are all like “ohh, linux isn’t hard, just use ubuntu! or fedora!” and that is halfway true. because if you are one of the tons of people who just uses a computer to check e-mail, surf the web, download music, etc, then sure! it’s a piece of cake, and all it takes is getting used to a different GUI, and the ability to break free from all that is not open source. there are plenty of valid open source substitutes for *nearly* every kind of software you use–you just have to get used to them.

but if that’s all you use linux for, you aren’t really learning linux. you are essentially learning a different GUI. not that there is anything wrong with that at all, because i am all for turning people to the dark side and throwing fedora in anyone and everyone’s face. or any flavor of linux if that’s what it takes. it’s just… if you are scared of the word linux, that is somewhat incorrect. what you should actually be scared of is the command line interface. except, my entire point is you shouldn’t really be scared if you are willing to learn a thing or 2 and can wrap your mind around the absence of a GUI for 5 minutes.

and if that makes you uncomfortable, DON’T SHY AWAY FROM IT. that’s bad! you will not learn! you must break things. you must use the google. which also means, make sure you actually have a CAT-5 cable handy, because installing linux without abusing the power of the internets is just not fun.

during my freshman year of college, a guy i worked with at tech support invited me over to his house one night for the sole purpose of helping/watching me install slackware. it was my first fresh linux install, so i was nervous to destroy something. i quickly learned that if you destroy something, just format it again and start over. technology is awesome that way, so long as you have a backup of all that you hold dear.

he told me to use slackware for a while–USE it. ABUSE it. break the shit out of it, if necessary. i must admit, i reformatted months later and used ubuntu. i dual booted with windows until i was 100% comfortable. then my friend rob introduced me to fedora. i ditched ubuntu, and the dual boot, and have never looked back. i was smitten.

this is rob and i. to a tee.

FUN FACT: rob now works for red hat. along with 9 or 10 of my other appalachian LUG friends. i’m so proud.

i guess what i’m trying to say is, if you really want to learn it–get dirty. rip it apart. break it to the point where you have a blinking black screen with text flying all over the place. reformat half a dozen times if need be. ASK QUESTIONS. be intuitive. be curious. just don’t ask me questions, because i am not a patient individual. i will quickly respond with let me google that for you and send you on your way, because that’s the way i learned, and it works.

if you are REALLY feeling frisky, give gentoo a go. i dare you. i will bring the popcorn. you, on the other hand, will need something much more potent. cue all the gentoo fans who use portage in their sleep. YOU ARE ALL INFINITELY SMARTER THAN I AM. move along.

[edit] it seems as though i’ve lit a fire, yet again. gentoo itself is not scary. the install process–that can be scary. and is not for the weak at heart. or in this case, it is not for someone who has only seen ubuntu once and still sucks their thumb when approached by anything other than windows. for those of you who are seasoned veterans of the open source world, i am not talking about you. LET’S NOT TAKE EVERYTHING SO LITERALLY. [/edit]

to be clear, i still break my laptop(s) on a bi-monthly basis. i will even admit that i stooped as low as asking one of said red hat friends to help me fix something a few weeks ago, but (in my defense) it was only because i had exhausted every internet resource i could find. i also told him i’d buy him a beer next time i am in raleigh, which is always a valid form of payment.

i started off studying for the CISSP in a very unorganized manner–just reading through materials haphazardly, hoping and praying that some of it would stick as i went along. then i came to my senses and realized it is divided into 10 domains for a reason.

for the past several days, i’ve been reading and re-reading the SANS CISSP booklet for the first domain–access control. i’ve listened to the lectures, and i re-played the chunk on kerberos about 7 times just this afternoon (nightmare). i made diagrams. i made about 50 flash cards. after all that, i’ve been completing the practice quizzes on domain 1 at an 80% rate or higher. this is not to say i’ve mastered access control, because i am nowhere near that point. but i’m very comfortable with it, and that’s a good start. i think tomorrow i will move on to domain 2 after doing a couple more quizzes.

thank you to everyone who has been giving me study tips and materials–i really appreciate it.

perhaps when i get reimbursed for the exam, i can buy a round of alcoholic beverages for all of you. and myself. lord knows i’m gonna need it afterward.

way back when, my web server sat in my old room at my mom’s house. years ago, she decided to get rid of her internet and, as we all know, a server is a moot point without any access to the internet. i moved it to my dad’s house and kept it there until i got out of college. it now sits in the corner of my living room and has been downgraded to a development server for my client work. this is largely because godaddy’s dedicated linux servers have proven themselves to be a spectacular investment of a small $6.99/month. as spectacular as they may be, i cannot stand their commercials.

several weeks ago, the damn power supply on said server decided to take its last breath. i had 2 choices–1) buy a new power supply, or 2) toss the entire PC and buy an enclosure for the 3.5″ IDE old-as-dirt hard drives rotting away in there so i could get my crap off. by crap, i mean 20GB of photos (YES, just photos, from everything i ever did in my life), 80GB of old home movies (my dad ripped very VHS my family ever created and gave them to me for safe keeping), several gigs of pirated DVDs, software (OMG Photoshop 5.0 is still on there), and about 60GB of whatever crap music i was listening to in high school. to my surprise, there was actually a good collection of pantera on there. i didn’t totally let myself down.

fast forward to this weekend: i told brett i’d buy him modern warfare 2 for valentine’s day. his old xbox died and he threw it out, but kept the hard drive. he planned on buying a new xbox on the 12th when we get paid. i told him i’d front him the money so he could go ahead and have an early valentine’s day–he can pay me back later. so we went to gamestop, purchased an xbox, and MW2.

gamestop is right next to best buy… it was inevitable. originally, i was going to buy a new power supply, but this caught my eye instead. surprisingly, i don’t own an external hard drive. i need something new to use as backup, so i bought it. thank you, tax returns.

we went home and i decided to start working on my server. it has a fresh build of CentOS on it, so i wanted to at least salvage the hard drives. i had an extra power supply in the box of ancient and random computer hardware in my closet, so i gave it a shot. it was dead, too. instead of going back to best buy, i called compuzone–a local computer repair shop.

my original plan was to buy an enclosure for the drives and toss out the computer. get this–they wanted $75 to transfer all my crap to the new external one i bought, but they’d sell me an encosure for $40. i told the guy i’d buy the enclosure, do it myself, and then return the enclosure. i am pretty sure he didn’t like that answer because after telling him that, he agreed to do the data transfer for $30. SWEET.

i told him i’d go home, grab the drives, and bring them back to the shop for a transfer. then i realized–i really don’t want two 18-year-old computer shop guys doing my data transfer. i worked at tech. support for 4 years. i am well aware of what goes on. i went back inside and told them nevermind, i’ll just buy a power supply. they were $34 at compuzone, which was much cheaper than best buy. FOR GOOD REASON.

i went home all excited. i gutted the computer, cleaned it out using almost an entire can of air duster, and took out all the tacky cold cathode sticks and fans that my ex boyfriend from high school bought me. in 2003, this computer was seriously badass. i built it just so i could play day of defeat and battlefield 1942. it glowed green in my bedroom and at every LAN party in high school. ohh, memories. i am so glad i didn’t get rid of it just yet.

i put the new power supply in and right out of the box, the damn thing was dead. that’s what happens when you buy a crappy 450W power supply for $34 at compuzone.

the crazy part was when i took it out and put my old power supply back in, crossed my fingers, hit the power button, and it freaking worked. i tried it at least half a dozen times earlier and nothing happened. but somehow, by the grace of god, it decided to come back to life. my server is now being run by a zombie power supply–who knows how long it will last. i waited all afternoon for all my crap to transfer to my external hard drive.

IN THE MEANTIME, i decided to have a reformatting party by myself. brett was preoccupied putting together his xbox. i had nothing better to do until the super bowl came on. before i started reformatting, and because i was already fixing everything else i own, i decided to do a “quick” upgrade on my router. alas, in the middle of the firmware upgrade, something went seriously wrong. while i was pulling my hair out, brett was trying to get his xbox live account working. no internet == no xbox live. he kept trying to access the internet, and i was all like IT ISN’T GOING TO WORK UNTIL I FIX THE DAMN ROUTER LEAVE ME ALONE. so… the living room was very tense for about 20 minutes.

somehow the upgrade caused the modem to crap its pants (wtf?). either that, or it was just horrible timing. it took me 15 minutes of cursing and mashing the reset button with a pencil to realize it wasn’t the router giving me hell. i reset the modem, and everything was peachy keen. HOORAY.

i downloaded unetbootin to do a netinstall of fedora 12. fyi, if you’ve never used unetbootin, try it sometime. i love it. normally, it’s a painless process. since my laptop was purchased in 2007, the graphics card is (geforce go 6150) a bit outdated. i tried 4 times with 4 different configurations to get the video drivers to cooperate. it was just not working, so i went back to fedora 11. worked like a charm.

this is the only complaint i have ever had about linux and that is getting nvidia and broadcom drivers to cooperate on the first go-round. or the second. i’ve reformatted my laptop at least 30 times in its lifetime, and i have NEVER had the same install process twice.

anyway, it’s all working together nicely now. and the funny thing is, i told a guy at work this entire story yesterday. he came into work this morning and said, “i woke up this morning… AND MY POWER SUPPLY WAS DEAD”.

i totally jinxed him.

since i sat down this morning, i’ve been listening to lectures (i acquired some very helpful training lectures in MP3 format), going over practice quizzes, and doing my best imitation of a sponge. the lectures are from a SANS CISSP course, and they are amazing. aside from the fact that it’s like… over 40 hours of lecturing. i got through almost 4 today. it’s still much better than reading, and the guy doing the training is excellent.

i am NOT substituting reading with the lectures, by any means. i’ve got the SYBEX book, CISSP for dummies, shon harris, ISC2’s official guide… i have too many books. i used the SYBEX book for my CISSP/Sec+ class in college–it’s easy to read and i’ve read most of it already. shon harris’s book is the one everyone raves about, and a lot of people said the CISSP for dummies was all they used. i’m kind of stuck. and the lecturer stressed how it’s not always a good idea to use so many books because they might have different information from what ISC2 currently uses. the ISC2 book itself is NOT an easy read.

i also have the pass4sure test bank of practice questions, which is over 2300 questions. plus the practice quizzes from the lectures. plus smaller study guides containing key points from each domain.

i think i’m set on material. my boss came by and dumped even MORE books on me today, which i have not listed, because i’ve just given up on those. i need to pick 2 and stick with them. and the lectures. seriously–a godsend. i’m going to burn them to a CD and listen to it in my car. that man’s voice is going to haunt my dreams by the end of march.

and i know this post’s title stresses how good of a day it has been. the lectures are actually kind of fun (i’m aware of how dorky that sounds), but today was also the day my TAX RETURN got deposited into my bank account. i really needed to replenish my savings after paying for the exam ($550) and the dental work ($700+), so a load has been lifted. and replaced with a nice chunk of change.

something else spectacular happened today, which i am not going to write about until it is a done deal. it will be soon, however, and i could not be more excited. i do not want to jinx myself.

PLUS… UFC 109 is tomorrow. and the super bowl, of course, is sunday. i’m counting on lots of celebrating, lots of sleeping in, and steak. and i’d REALLY like a whiskey sour tonight.

oh, and my resume/portfolio can now be found at www.WhitneyPowell.com. i splurged a bit with my tax return and dropped 10 bucks on a domain. finally.

my new pet came in the mail yesterday. FINALLY. he does absolutely nothing, and is so not worth the $20 i paid, but i couldn’t resist. i believe i’ve made it quite obvious that i’m addicted to twitter (and every other form of social networking). and now i will tote him all over the globe. wherever i go, he will be there. and i will snap a photo.

except for at work, because if i bring my iPhone in here they might kill my first born. well, probably not. but i would most likely lose my badge. perhaps a limb. definitely my iPhone.

i did actually bring him to work, though. i must stay prepared for a potential adventure.

so i will take pictures of him everywhere except for work. all his adventures can be seen here. i am contemplating naming him something other than ollie, but it says that on the box he came in, so i might be stuck with it.

if you have a request for a specific stupid-plastic-bird adventure, tell me! this is assuming it does not involve boobs. or nudity of any kind.

i’ve never been a big movie person. of course, i like movies, and i like going to movies (despite the ridiculous $9 it costs to see one these days), but usually you’ll find me behind a computer screen. i recently realized how many good movies i missed growing up after i got flamed for not having seen shawshank redemption until a week ago.

when i lived with my mom, i rarely turned on the TV in my bedroom. i actually had to pull up a picture of my old bedroom just now to see if i even had my TV in my bedroom in high school because i couldn’t remember. that is kind of sad. i didn’t even bring my TV to college my freshman year.

my sophomore year, i lived in a tiny studio apartment. my TV was the focal point of the apartment, and it was on 100% of the time. but i didn’t have cable. or a game system. so… basically it played under the tuscan sun on repeat, because that was the only feel-good movie i had in my collection of 9 DVDs. that year, i was too depressed to watch anything else.

and the rest of college? the TV stayed in the living room. i can probably count the number of times i sat on the couch in the living room and watched it. i was always in my bedroom on the computer.

UNTIL RECENTLY. maybe something finally clicked. maybe i’m getting sick of staring at a computer screen all day AND night. maybe it’s because we like getting cozied up on the couch after dinner together. more than likely it’s the latter.

in the last week-and-a-half/2 weeks we’ve watched…

• sherlock holmes
• up in the air
• zombieland
• where the wild things are
• the hurt locker
• kill bill
• house of the devil
• avatar
• shawshank redemption
• the prestige
• the book of eli

SO EXCITING. i need more movie suggestions. i have a netflix account and i need suggestions for my queue. HIT ME.

i got back from baltimore late last night. this week flew by quicker than i ever thought it would. i had heard from a handful of people how bad it was going to be (the training i attended) and to my surprise, they were SO WRONG!

i don’t know if i’m just a dork or if it had something to do with the coffee (i will get to that bit momentarily) or if it was really as fun as i thought it was… but i had SO MUCH FUN during training. it certainly had the potential to quickly turn into death by powerpoint. and it didn’t. it really didn’t. i mean, we were in training from 8:30-3ish every day. the room was set up in a horseshoe, projector in the center. 4-6ish people were conducting the training, and they all had a sense of humor and understood the vitality of bathroom breaks during sessions like this. we had 10-15 minute breaks every hour. spectacular.

i can’t tell the internets what the training was for, but i can say that i think a lot of people were bored out of their minds. i am basing this decision on the fact that there were a few people with their heads propped up against the walls, mouths open, eyes closed, out cold.

i love talking about technology and security and absorbing every bit of it that i can. and the fact that my job combines that with the military absolutely fascinates me. it’s always something new and exciting. and the last 3 days were nothing but that. sure, there was some dry material in there at times, but that’s to be expected. they also threw in a lot of xkcd and lolcats in the powerpoints, and they were all relevant, so kudos to the geeks who put that together. i love you.

i am certain this field is where i belong. it just fits. i learned a lot. i also learned about coffee.

until tuesday morning, these lips had never touched coffee. i had a mocha, once. it was about 1/2 whipped cream (i don’t like whipped cream. i know. i’m weird.) and it was not that good and it made my stomach hurt. i got lost on the way to the training tuesday morning so my original plan to stop at a gas station and buy bookoos of 5-hour energy failed miserably, leaving me with no other choice. i had to drink coffee.

after the first hour of training, i looked at elizabeth and told her i needed help making coffee. you don’t know how to make coffee? no, crazy woman! i have never had it. please assist me in my caffeinated adventure. she informed me that you’re supposed to put creamer and sugar in it. i did that. i put like a half a cup of sugar in my coffee. i also put a boatload of creamer in it. and then i found the hot chocolate powder mix and it was over after that. i dumped half the bag into my cup.

my coffee looked like chocolate milk. and it tasted pretty close (minus the scalding hot part) except i am convinced that you can never fully get rid of the coffee flavor. i suppose i will have to get used to this. on day 1, i had 2 cups and i couldn’t force my face OUT of a smile for the remainder of training. everything was amusing. i kept giggling. i think the most amusing part was the frequent heart flutters and the fact that after the first cup and a half, my hands wouldn’t hold still enough to actually bring the cup to my lips. i also had to go to the little girls’ room about 7 times that day.

on day 2, i upgraded myself to 3 cups. and also on day 3. i have decided i will no longer live without coffee in my life and i will finally use the coffee maker in my kitchen cabinet. i’m not entirely sure why i have one, but somehow i acquired it during college and it stuck with me during the move.

IF YOU BUILD IT, HE [coffee] WILL COME.

HA! i just realized that “misspoke” is a really funny word. miss. poke. awesome. i’m 23, i swear.

anyway, i am getting a whole bunch of responses from my previous post asking for input from the internets. and i think about half of them say something along the lines of “i don’t think you should change the way you write” or “don’t try and please other people”. that was so not the point of my impromptu survey.

the point was to get some fresh ideas from you guys because my day-to-day lifestyle does not always bring out the creative in me. generally, i leave that up to excessive amounts of caffeine. or jack daniel’s. a lot of times, my day consists of going to work, coming home, cleaning, working on websites, and going to sleep. and it can be very mundane. maybe i need to start coloring outside the lines more often.

either way, the past couple of days have been anything but my normal day-to-day thing. and i love that. yesterday we had a thanksgiving day “pot-luck” at work. i have never, NEVER, seen this much food in my life, second only to golden corral. except this food was safe for eating. SPAWAR purchased turkey, ham, potatoes, gravy, and a few other things (i’m pretty sure it was catered, at least), and then everyone who attended either donated $5 or brought a side dish or dessert. i brought cheesecake, because any excuse to consume cheesecake is always the best choice, in my opinion. as it turned out, about 20 people brought desserts and i had an entirely separate plateful of, well, desserts. it was awesome. i also had 2 platefuls (crammed on 1 plate) of every dish on the table, except for the weird pasta salad with apples in it. far too exotic for my taste.

and today… not so much exciting as it was, relaxing. i wore my favorite dress to work with my cowboy boots (being comfy on a friday makes it that much more enjoyable, also PAY DAY!) and ate lunch with amy and elizabeth outside in the sunshine (despite the beautiful sunshine, i’m still irritated that it is this hot in november). i am not really used to hanging out with girls, and until i started working at SPAWAR i only really hung out with jill (<3). and even that was rare (meaning once every few months). so hanging out with amy and elizabeth the past few months has brought about a lot of interesting conversation. which i love, because they are also not your typical females. and i know if they read this they're going to be like WHAT ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT? and i'm just going to look at them like, really? in your dreams. i think the phrase of the day yesterday was, "it feels like there's a ferret in my chest," and the winner from tuesday, you can read that here.

i can’t always tell what you guys enjoy reading about. i’ve noticed that the posts that spike the most interest are ones wherein i make myself look like an idiot. while this is probably true, i still wanna hear it from you.

send me ideas, questions, or whatever you think i should write about or post on here. i’ve also thought about video blogging but i think my voice sounds like that of a 5 year old. tell me what you want! just keep it “tame”. please.

i don’t know why i thought it was a good idea to take on as many projects as i have lately. i think i was thinking that the more i stay busy, the less time i have to sit idly and drive myself crazy. i think that was a dumb plan.

i love doing freelance web design. love it. the extra income is freaking fabulous. but i’ve become a workaholic the last few weeks.

generally, i work on 1 (maaaybe 2) sites at a time, and usually i’ll have clients who need small updates here and there. which is fine. but what have i done? i took on 3. plus i’ve kept up with necessary updates and maintenance. plus i’ve worked on a few odds and ends for one of my favorite clients in charlotte (brandon, you are awesome) more than usual this week, in particular.

3 websites from the ground up. 2 of which are e-commerce. and maintenance for a handful of websites. i either want to die early or i’d just really like to accelerate the gray hair and wrinkles.

i don’t think it’s the workload as much as it is keeping up with my clients. i’m constantly tied to my phone (except when i’m at work, can’t have it in my lab) and/or e-mail so there really is no down time. at least, i don’t give myself any. i read and respond to all my e-mails at work. i read and respond to all my e-mails when i’m carrying my phone around. regardless of the time of day. i usually don’t give myself weekends off and only recently have i stopped bringing my laptop with me when i go out of town (forcing myself to quit working on crap).

i left work yesterday, went to my dentist appointment, and went home. upon getting home, i cleaned up the apartment, did 2 loads of laundry, ran to wal-mart for a few things, and came home and cooked dinner (chicken & rice casserole = very important comfort food). i started working at 6:00 and i am pretty sure my hands did not leave my keyboard until my head hit the pillow at 1 AM.

i am NOT bringing my laptop to boone this weekend. right now, the plan is to wear sweatpants and sit in front of the TV the entire time. also, steak. i’m officially cutting myself off until monday. it’s gonna be tough, but i think i’ll manage.

i don’t know how i could have considered myself a geek up until i got a job with a steady income. in the last 4 months, i’ve acquired my first gaming console since 1998 (yes, 1998, the original playstation), my first HD TV, and my first DVD player that did not also include a VHS player (which died about 2 years ago so i haven’t watched movies at home in… 2 years). it wasn’t until last night that i realized just how bad i am at cable management and how desperately i need to invest in either 1) twist ties or 2) zip ties. thank god i’m not using a wall mount or my “entertainment center” would look ridiculous.

i went to best buy after work and bought a blu-ray player. despite the ongoing debate on my facebook feed last night about whether i should buy a PS3 or a stand-alone player, i went with the stand-alone. i read a lot of good reviews about this one and a lot of really crappy ones, so i took advice from one of them and that was: test out every feature as soon as you buy it. which seems like one of those no-brainer things you’re supposed to do when you buy a new toy, however, the only thing going through my head normally is, “OH SHINY”.

i hooked it all up (and tried my damnedest to ignore the cluster-fuck that is the 2 surge protectors and 357 cables behind my TV stand) and… almost finished taking that advice. pandora and youtube will provide endless hours of entertainment. i’m a simple person. little things make me happy. i’m also a netflix noob (no DVD player also == no netflix) so that pretty much had me sidetracked for an hour. at least.

INSTANT QUEUE? ARE YOU SERIOUS? is it sad that i picked movies that are neither HD nor blu-ray as my first netflix adds? movies that are too old (although, timeless, mind you) so that they can’t really be upscaled? annie and casablanca. yes. i went there. i just bought a blu-ray player and have yet to experience the amazingness behind the entire purpose of buying it. i also put cats on my queue. thank you, mom, for enforcing the dork factor.

i did buy 2 movies at best buy: boondock saints and serenity. wednesday is my only free night of the week so i plan on watching one or both of them tonight when i get home from work and the DMV. and THEN i will have officially tested out every feature (i think). this is so exciting.

the other day on facebook, a friend of mine mentioned how much she loved EA Sports Active. she did the 30 day challenge and said she firmed up a lot and loved doing it. it’s 30 minutes a day for 30 days (hopefully i’ll continue doing it beyond 30 days, though). i figure, combine that with Wii Fit and working out in my classes 3 days a week, i should be good to go.

so i went and bought it… yep. i got home from work on wednesday, worked on websites for a little while, and decided, SCREW IT, i’m going to buy it. it’s $60 and that includes everything you need for the workouts. there’s a gamestop about 3-4 miles away from my apartment so i picked it up, brought it home, and i feel pretty damn good about spending that $60.

not to say that Wii fit isn’t awesome, because it is and i’ll continue to use it, but this game gives you a lot of other helpful features. it tells you how many calories you burn, sets goals for you, mixes up your daily work outs, and lets you keep track of your other exercise activities and what foods you eat every day. i need this kind of structure.

i did it before going to my tumbling class last night and i’m not sure whether that was a good idea or not, but i just bought it and if i start skipping days now, i’m doomed. i have had more energy the last week and a half than i’ve had in a long time. this is the first time in a very long while that i’ve taken care of myself the way i should (meaning working out regularly, eating salads and fruit every day, eating smaller portions, not eating after 8 PM, etc). i haven’t been drinking during the week at all, which is awesome. generally jalapeño chicken days at madra rua also include a pint of carlsberg (my favorite) but i’ve drank nothing but water the last 2 weeks (excluding the weekends). let me just say, i almost never practice that kind of self control.

i finally feel like when the time change comes around and it starts getting darker earlier, summer fades away, and the inevitable happens (hellooo depression!) i will be able to combat it much more effectively. i think this part excites me the most because the transformation of whitney during the summer to whitney during the winter scares the shit out of me, honestly. i’m hoping to develop these habits now, early, and stick with it for as long as possible. i think i’m going to keep track of it on here from now on.

i bought a wii about 2 weeks ago. i bought it mostly so i could play wii fit, but also because i haven’t owned a game console since my PS1 that my dad bought me in, ohh, 1998! that’s quite sad. needless to say, i’ve been out of the loop.

anyhow, i bought it. and it’s awesome. and wii fit kicks my ass on a daily basis and i’m loving every bit of it. however, i saw the whole homebrew channel thing and all the neat crap you can put on it like a web server and an ftp server so, of course, i installed the homebrew channel using banner bomb.

that also gave me the option to install DVDx and something else (forget what the other option was) so i installed that, too. when i tried to install DVDx, i got this error:

Error -2011 installing DVD Stub ticket
Error -2011 installing stub

i was determined to get this thing working so i tried installing it through the homebrew web browser. did not work. i tried both versions of DVDx. no dice. same error every time. the articles i’ve been reading keep saying to install it through bannerbomb because i have 4.1 running on my wii, and other articles say that i can’t use DVDx unless i downgrade or wait for the next DVDx.

alternatively, mplayer installed just fine. i installed mplayer CE (was told by a friend that this was the best choice).

i might be confused but some articles i read said you did not have to have DVDx if you had certain versions of mplayer in order to play movies. i tried every version of mplayer (TT, CE, Wii, the works) and i tried an actual DVD, a burned DVD, and a DVD with a .avi file on it.

i’m either a complete idiot overlooking something really simple or i’m fighting a losing battle and will ultimately have to wait until another DVDx is released. or both. now, which one is it?

halp plz.

defcon was freaking amazing. i made a lot of new friends, was wined and dined by goons and geeks, even got handcuffed (and learned how to get out of them). my eyes seriously welled up when i hugged everyone goodbye and got in my cab to the airport. one of my most memorable trips ever, for sure.

also, i bought entirely too much defcon swag. damn you, vendor booths and your booze.

i didn’t get a lot of pictures but i am pretty sure that’s because we were too busy raising hell in the riv.

[edit] completely forgot to mention the blacked out brawndo (IT’S GOT WHAT PLANTS CRAVE! i didn’t know that crap actually existed… it tastes like ass) vending machine. very impressive. i’m pretty sure i have a picture of it on my phone and i will put it on twitpic when i get off work. [/edit]