Friday, February 27, 2004

lan party madness

call of duty
battlefield 1942
halo
unreal tournament
counter strike
Yeah, they're all here. I am sitting in Zach's garage. I think a quote from thinkgeek would be appropriate.

Ah, sweet LAN parties...The stimulating scent of caffeine, the verbal jousting, the smell of pepperoni lingering in the air, the floor a tangled infestation of cat 5, the neon lights of case mods poking through the scene like lasers in fog. Nothing quite like it. And when the gaming starts, everybody becomes so intense. One frag leads to the next, emotions wax and wane as gibs amass and levels change, here an unnamed player, there an elite commando with uncanny aim. Over time, the LAN party itself, a single organism, breathing, hunting....

Thursday, February 26, 2004

parents - the necessary evil

My parents are on my case again. Only this time, I am afraid it is on a bit bigger scale, and that scares me.
Last week, my dad basically told me that even if by some remote chance I did get in to Chico, I show no sign of succeeding there. In an email a few weeks ago, he stated that, this is a direct quote:

If you do not get into Chico State, our intent is that you go directly into the workforce and support yourself completely (i.e., not live at home). We do not want to support you going to a community college at any time, but you may, of course, do so at your own volition and expense.

Well, how did this come into play today? Yesterday he went to my bank and pulled my account, of which he was the undersigner. He gave me the remaining balance in cash, but my account has now been deactivated. My dad told me that if I wanted a new one, I am going to have to wait until I am 18. Funny, my birthday (May 29) is suprisingly close to graduation day (June 3), and hence summer. Anyone want a roomate this summer?
*sigh*

Monday, February 23, 2004

my new project?

I will flat out tell you. I have a tiny bit of UNIX knowlege, but I know next to nothing about the SOLARIS operating system. I have never worked on it before, which is probably why my school district's tech guru handed me the task of installing SOLARIS 9 on this massive server he has. And installing a few applications to get the box to talk to a windows server 2003 box.
Like I said, I know very little about this.
I will call it a learning experience. Not only have I never worked on a SOLARIS box, but I have never worked on a SPARC based system (with two of 'em no less), a system with 16 sticks of memory, or even tried to compile and install software on the above. But I am willing to learn :)
For serious, I should take a picture of this beast.

Wednesday, February 18, 2004

getup kids

So I am driving to James' house to carpool to Shast College for my English 1A class when my cell phone rings. I look at caller ID and it is my sister, Sheryl. I hadn't talked to her in quite a while, so I was pretty excited. I picked up and we shared the whole "how are you" moment. She told me about how my other sister, Sarah was going to a Getup Kids concert in San Francisco in March, and how whe really wanted to go. Well, I really want to go too, so she told me to look for tickets online, and if I found any, to buy 2.
Well, apparently she looked as well, because she called back a few minutes later, two concert tickets the richer.
So now all I have to do is catch my parents on a good night and ask them. Here is a synopsis of what I got going:

for me:
Both my sisters are going
I already have a ticket
One of my friends (Sean) is going

against me:
It's a friggin Monday night! (wtf?!)
I'd have to drive down there
I am *not* on break (my sisters both are)

So here's the approximate conversation:
ME: Hey, mom, dad, I love you both. By the way, there is a concert on Monday the 29th in San Franc-
THEM: NO!

Wish me luck.

Tuesday, February 17, 2004

directly from microsofts website...

"If you're running Windows Server 2000 or Windows NT 4 Server in your enterprise, chances are you have spent quite a bit of time reducing the attack profile of these systems by applying patches and removing unneeded services and functionality for them to be as secure as possible. Out of the box, neither of these operating systems offer the strong security required by enterprises. IT administrators need to be very careful to configure the various security mechanisms after installation. It's been a hard lesson for IT: Improperly configured and unpatched servers are a prime target for exploits, worms and viruses."

There was a footnote I found amusing...

"Footnote 1: One must understand that the security shortcomings of older operating systems are a sign of the times. When these operating systems were developed, system exposure to the Internet was at a minimum and exploit tools developed by elite hackers were not widely distributed to less-skilled hackers. "

Friday, February 13, 2004

A little follow up...

Okay, so here's full story as of the local Redding Record Searchlight.

Thursday, February 12, 2004

NASA comes to redding

I worked with channel 11 to shoot video at shasta college while students had a video phone call with two astronauts currently housed on the International Space Station. Here are pics, story to come...

in spacebr>
me on the camera

inside the van

Friday, February 06, 2004

more websites...

Well, in addition to keeping up my own website and anths.org, I am writing a PHP application for my internship, as well as designing a website for a local construction company. A few minutes ago I just found out that I am going to be re-designing websites for two other schools in the district. It's a good thing I like coding HTML. :)
Two of the jobs are paid, and I was promised a chocolate cake by the secretary of one of the schools I am going to be helping out, which is always good. And who knows, maybe I can put these all together in a portfolio and put myself through college designing web pages! Now how cool would that be?

Sunday, February 01, 2004

jim is crazy.

James is going insane.
Very insane.