Jared’s Blog

I’ve decided to redesign the site again. It’ll get a complete overhaul. First of all, I’m ditching MovableType for Wordpress for a few different reasons. First of all, I like open source and free software. Hell, I did my senior research on it in college. The another reason is because MT is going to a paid structure. Sure its free for the little guys like me, but who knows, they might make me pay later. Lastly, its PHP based which is what I wrote this site in. I believe the templates will work out much better this way.

Originally I wanted to make this a more professional site too. The sad fact is black just doesn’t look professional. I’m gonna go for a clean white or light grey feel on the redesign.

I have no idea how long it’ll take to come up with a design. Being that this has been in the back of my mind for 4 days now. It might be awhile.

This week I started working for NESC. So far it’s a lot like last summer when I was just a volunteer intern. Except this time I’m gettin paid which makes a whole lot of difference. Mon. - Thurs. all I did was haul computers around. It’s “grunt work,” but it’s grunt work that pays decent. Once we get past the computer moving, it should be a little better. Today I got to play with $500 wireless access points from Cisco. Close to $25,000 probably passed through my hands today. Not to mention there was over half a million dollars worth of networking equipment in the same room I was in. I’m talking $10,000 switches. It’s funny, when you’re holding them, they don’t feel like that much.

Being that I have a steady cash flow now, there’s a few purchases I’m looking at making soon. The first is a cell phone plan. It’s about time I get one. I’ll probably go with Sprint since that’s what the rest of the family has and I’d get free calls to them. I know they’ve got good coverage down in Minneapolis too. That will be good for when I move down there.

The second thing is a new graphics card for my computer. I figure I’ve just about won enough gambling that I can afford one. Right now I’m on the lookout for a nVidia GeForceFX 5900XT. It’s a card capable of pumping out top of the line graphics with a low price tag. I hear they can reach 5950 Ultra speeds when overclocked. I’ll be happy with it running stock.

Last of all is quite a bit different from the other 2. It’s time to get rid of my shitty ass old van. On Wednesday, I checked out a 2001 Grand Prix GT. I can see myself in it. It’s only got 46,000 miles, and it’s got the 3.8L engine which I guess is Pontiac’s best. The $11,495 price tag is on the high end of my range, but I think I could handle financing it. There’s also a nice Grand Am at the same place. Little bit less at $10,395 and its got a CD player and only 38,000 miles. EIther one I would be happy with. And being that I’m off on Monday, I may make some trips to the bank to check out loans.

My only fear is that if I sign a loan agreement, then I HAVE to find a job right away as soon as I’m done at NESC. I know I won’t be able to save a ton over the summer, and I wouldn’t last long on savings in Minneapolis. But sometimes, you just have to take chances.

Tonight was Game 7 of the Stanley Cup Finals. Calgary and Tampa Bay put on a thrilling series and capped it off with an even more thrilling game. Unfortunately, my favorite, The Calgary Flames were not able to come away victorious. They came out flat in the first two periods and it cost them in the end.

With the awarding of the Stanley Cup, the 2003/2004 hockey season came to a close. There’s talk that next season won’t happen. If you saw tonight’s game, you realize what the sport is all about. There were so many stories. Dave Andreychuk winning his first Cup in 22 seasons, The persistant Flames making the underdog run to the finals. How can people say hockey isn’t entertaining? If you’re a fan, make it your mission to see a season next fall.

So I know it’s been awhile since I posted. I have been meaning to get a post up here for quite awhile. Unfortunately every time I thought about it I was laying in bed trying to fall asleep. Anyways…

Today we had my sisters grad party. Grad parties are fun as hell. All kinds of people you rarely see show up and you get to talk. Then there’s the food. We had pounds and pounds of food. According to my mom, it’s better to have too much food than to not have enough. I think that I’ll be eating porketta sandwiches for weeks now. Not that I mind, I love the stuff. Let’s see what else. Oh yea, if you’re the honoree of the party, then there’s all the gifts (which are mostly money). Smart ole me decided to invest my grad money and now it’s worth about half it was before.

Despite all this stuff going on, I found time between last night and tonight to rewrite my artwork page in PHP code instead of straight html with a few includes. It’ll make it easier for me to update that page because I just need to drop images in folders and they’re automatically added to the page. I’d still like to rework my scripts some more though because I didn’t do any auto thumbnail generating or size checking. I’m going to try to do more of the same to my other pages.

I need to get to bed now because I have to start work tomorrow at 8AM and so I’ll be up bright and early.