m a l l e r y . . .

I don't even know where to begin...   Okay...   I met this incredible woman and we fell in love. I always said it would never happen to me, but it did...   So yeah, damnage, photography, writing... it's all been taking a back seat in my life since the beginning of May...   She's Mallery. She's my other M, and I couldn't be happier.

  We met at Charley's a week after her birthday, and we've been in each other's lives ever since. She completes me in a way that I never thought possible. She understands me in a way that's totally inexplicable. I've stopped thinking in terms of "me" and have begun thinking in terms of "we"...

  I barely and rarely go out drinking anymore. If I do, we're together.

  We never seem to run out of things to say or talk about...

  I don't believe I've ever been so moved by another person in my entire life. I've never been so comfortable being myself around another person before.

  Being with her is never having been hurt by anyone before. Knowing her is my heart never having been broken before. She makes everything new. Seeing the past through the eyes she gave me allows me to see it for what it was, and none of it really matters now that we're together.

  Plus, she's a kick-ass cook!

  I love you, baby doll...

reflection...

I must find a place to hide, a place for me to hide...   Okay...   I'm not much of a holiday person.   Easter is just one of those holidays that brings back a lot of bad memories for me. It must be the whole full moon, spring equinox thing. Everything just lines up bad for me, I guess.   I don't really want to go into any of it - suffice to say that I've been poisoning myself with colossal amounts of alcohol for the last three days.   By the way...   I apologize to anyone who sent me an e-mail recently. I've been kind o' busy. I do plan on responding. So I wasn't being a dick, or anything. Between work and play, I just haven't had time.   At least the whole dizziness thing cleared up. It took about two weeks, and now, I'm happy to report that I haven't been hit with any vertigo for over a week.

spent most of the long weekend with this guy - my new best friend...

  I also might be leaving Sealy for another job. Actually, it's a job I held before. I might be going back to work for the United States Government. I scored in the top two percent on the entrance exam, and I've had my interview. I'm waiting for either a phone call or a letter now. A phone call would be some one telling me where and when to report for work. A letter would be some one writing to me to let me know my services aren't needed by Uncle Sam at this time.

  Needless to say, I'm hoping for a phone call...

  I know people I work with read what I write here, so...

  No, it's nothing Sealy did or didn't do. It's just a better opportunity for me. It's better money, better benefits, and a much easier life.

  I was heartbroken when I got laid off (because of George Bush's oil war) back in 2006. I'd always said that I would never return to Baltimore Avenue under the pretense of a temporary status. I maintained that the only way I would ever even consider returning would be unconditional permanent employment. This posting offers it. I applied for this along with one-thousand other people, and I was lucky enough to be one of a hundred interviewed for seventy-two available positions.

  I scored high enough to be strongly considered. The test is everything. The interview is mainly to find out if you have some crazy-ass grudge against the government and/or to find out if you can read, write, perform basic math, and use a computer. Basically, as long as you're not smoking crack in the lobby when they come out to talk with you, you're pretty much okay.

  We'll see. It's also been my experience that Uncle Sam can surprise me sometimes.

  Sealy, Inc. has been very good to me, and this was one of the toughest decisions I've had to make in my life thusfar. They've placed a lot of faith in me as a lead operator, and in this economy, making the money I make working for them is a wonderful thing. So-far, Sealy's been wearing a recession-proof vest in our current economic environment, and leaving the company would actually be a pretty scary thing for me to do.

  Anyway...

  Another way I've been keeping busy is constructing a whole new domain to augment what I've been doing here. Damnage.net is pretty much up and running.

  Photography is very important to me. It's something I do a lot of, and the volume of pictures I compose is a bit much for a blog like this one to handle. Dot net's mission is to be an online photobook/portfolio for me. Coppermine is an excellent script, and I'm using it to run the domain.

  I did manage to get out today and take some pictures (after lunch at my cousin's house) with my mom. We stopped off at the Forty Fort Cemetery so that I could visit with some of my favorite subjects.

  Like her:


final judgement: click above to visit damnage.net

  Easter or not, it's Sunday, and another binge is done. This was a three-day ripper that ate up a huge chunk of cash and left me even more perplexed about life than when I went into it.


...petition the Lord with prayer

  It's time now to kick back on the couch and watch Sunday night cartoons on Fox. Sunday is pretty much the only day of the week when I watch television. When that's done, I just bought a new Sony five-disc DVD changer that I've been putting some serious mileage on...


sony...

  If you'd care to comment on this blog, please click here to do so...

mike

or...   Mikey through the looking glass?   Anyway...   I've had an interestingly boring couple of days.   It began Wednesday night with a trip to the emergency room. While I was at work, I began experiencing what could only be described as violent dizziness. It panicked me. I wasn't sure what the hell was going on. I could barely stand up. I began wondering if some one had spiked my Fanta Grape. I called my supervisor on the radio to ask him if he was in his office. He said he was. I told him that I was having a problem and that I would be up.

  The walk up there was this Carnival of Souls experience that I won't soon forget. My sense of depth was totally skewed and I could barely keep myself level. It was like being shit drunk without the fogged brain thing I'd normally associate with that condition. Nancy (who works in the warehouse) saw me as she was going on break, and helped me the rest of the way.

  After some discussion, it was determined that I should seek medical treatment. I called my mom (she lives within walking distance of the plant), and she picked me up and took me to the emergency room.

  The car ride up was an adventure. My eyes wouldn't focus on anything and the road in front of me kept shifting and spinning. The motion of the car seemed to make it all worse.

  After a long wait, a saline solution plugged into my right arm, a CAT scan, some blood work, and some valium to help with my equalibrium, the doctor told me what I long suspected:

  I have rocks in my head.

  He explained that he felt a small pebble (or other contaminant) lodged itself in my ear and worked its way into my inner ear, causing me to experience my severe disruption of balance. He said that he felt as though the contaminant would work its way out in a couple of days and I needed to stay home from work. He prescribed some antivert and sent me home at around three o'clock in the morning.

  So I've been sitting here since then, bored out of my skull. My eyes straightened up back to normal today - normal enough so that I could sit here long enough to write this anyway. The antivert has been keeping the dizziness to a minimum - actually, I feel pretty much normal today.

  I had today off as a vacation day, but it's been a total waste. The weather is pretty miserable out there, so getting anything done is pretty well lost. I'd rather not drive if I don't have to.

  The sky was pretty clear last night, and I managed to get some shots with the new camera:


Orion: wide angle using the Kodak P880 w/telephoto lens

  The other shots I got weren't what I'd wanted. I'm still figuring out f-stop, ISO, and whatnot with the new camera. The aperatures work differently than they do with the Z650, and there's also more flexibility than what I'm used to. I would've liked to have spent more time with it last night, but it was too damned cold out.

  Oh yeah...

  by the way...

  The newest member of the family:


My Kodak P880: it offers an amateur photographer both flexibility and visual cunning to acheive results

  I've had some unsure moments with the camera since I won it on eBay. The FedEx guy who was supposed to deliver it to me was quitting the company, and kept avoiding Mountain Top - so it wasn't getting delivered. I got impatient last Saturday and went down to their Pittston, PA place to retrieve it.

  I managed to dump a little Coca-Cola into the camera's power button during the ride home, and the thing would power off intermittently. Part of what I was doing for my last couple of days off was cleaning the power button out with alcohol to break up the syrup and sugar. It seems to have worked. I didn't have any problems with it at all last night. Given what my eyesight's been for the last couple of days, I really didn't want to take the thing apart to clean it, but I think I've broken up most of the contamination without disassembling it.

  I'm feeling pretty much back to normal now. My dizziness has stopped and my eyesight's returned to what it was before. I'll probably be out at Charley's tomorrow night.

  It was unplanned, but at least I got a rest from the daily grind. I just hope that the co-pay from the insurance isn't too extreme...

  If you'd care to comment on this blog, please click here to do so...

  Wow...

  After what had to be the most miserable night I've ever had at work tonight...

the waning eclipse

While I was walking out to my car and looking up at the sky to see if I could salvage some sanity after tonight's chaos, I noticed that the moon was waxing full - but there was something distinctly wrong with it...   I couldn't think of what it was...   Then it dawned on me...   A total lunar eclipse!   The sky was somewhat cloudy, but I thought if I could rush home, I could capture it...   ummm...

  I dunno...

  I guess I couldn't be that lucky, huh?


the clouds rolled in...

  It clouded back up.

  Undaunted (and pro'ly a bit looney), I stayed out on the porch to wait for another opportunity. I got some. Frickin' seventeen degrees out, my hands got a bit numb, but I got some good shots of the waning eclipse:


waxing/waning - it was a moon that couldn't make up its mind...

  I tried different apertures and shutter speeds, but the full moon can be a tough thing to focus in on. A lot of the shots were wasted, but I got quite a few good ones.

  One more for the blog, an' I'm gonna crash...


Almost Over: Saros Cycle Eclipses only happen once every eighteen years (and eleven days)

  Oh well...

  Time for bed. After the night I had tonight, I'm beat...

  I hope you enjoyed the pictures of the eclipse. I only wish I got to photograph it from the beginning.

  If you'd care to comment on this blog, please click here to do so...

  Okay...

  I figured out what to do with all of the overtime money I made...

  Camera equipment. Lots of it.

the moon

I got a couple of wicked Kodak lenses to augment my Z650, a wide angle, panoramic deal and a telephoto. Some of the results of which can be viewed further down in this blog.   I also purchased a "gently used" Kodak P880 on eBay for a couple hundred bucks. I've heard nothing but good things about the camera, and once I have it, I'll be able to share accessories from the Z650 with it - like the Kodak Schneider-Kreuznach Xenar 1.4x 55mm Telephoto Lens I just received.   Bummer though...

  The Kodak Schneider-Kreuznach Xenar 0.7x Wide Angle Lens (55mm) will be lost on the P880. From what I've read, the camera won't function well with it. Another downside will be having to purchase 52mm filters. I don't mess with filters much, at least not yet. All I ever really use is a UV filter and a circular polarizer.

  Anyway...

  Here's a smattering of photographic exploits from the weekend and tonight:


Orion's Sword - captured using the Z650 with the telephoto lens attached


Orion's Belt - again, captured using the Z650 with the telephoto lens attached

  These next three are somewhat interesting to me. I took these tonight after I got home from work. I wanted to get some wide-angle stuff, and I saw that the sky cleared out during my nine o'clock break tonight.

  but...

  By the time I got home at around eleven-thirty, the sky clouded back up again. I was kind o' pissed off at the let-down, and I think these photos represent it. I shot these in high color, using the 55mm wide-angle lens, utilizing a long exposure (the clouds were moving very quickly), at ISO 400 and the f-stop all the way down. The effect is eirily out-worldly:







  Oh well...

  I knew a woman once who said she always wanted to see the forest shot from/through my eyes. Ask and ya get? *LOL* I don't think I can actually shoot anything not tinged with malstrom and decay.

  My mom gave me a book on photography a while back called Introduction to Photography: A Self-Directing Approach by Marvin J. Rosen. It's the second edition, from the eighties, but I'm getting incredible ideas from it...

  If you'd care to comment on this blog, please click here to do so...

  Grab the bull by the horns, the old adage goes...

  Nobody tells you where to go from there.

  Wow...

  The Kodak Gear tripod I picked up from Amazon.Com is like totally cool!

  After the sky cleared out a bit, I went out back tonight for a little while to snap some pictures of old friends, namely Canis Major and Taurus the Bull.


"Dog Star" (or Sirius, the most prominant star in Canis Major)

  and...


"Bull's Eye" (or Aldebaran, the eye of Taurus, surrounded by the Hyades Cluster)

  Bummer though...

  I only had a window of about a half an hour before the sky clouded back up. These two pictures were about the best I could do. I live in a highly light-polluted area - which is another reason why tonight was a good night for this: new moon. New moon essentially means no moon. No big white blob in the sky throwing stray light all over the place. I mainly intended this to be an exercise in exposure times and magnification limits for photographing stars with my Kodak Z650.

  I dunno...

  I think I was more jazzed about looking up at Orion and his friends above me with the tripod controls in my hands. I felt like a teenager again (yes, my adolescent years were very depressing) with my first telescope.

  I guess I'll go back to watching The Odd Couple. I got the first three seasons on DVD recently...

  If you'd care to comment on this blog, please click here to do so...

  Just the fading fucking reminder of who I used to be.

  Got a free moment to catch my breath and reflect a little bit...

  I came to a bit of a revelation tonight. Karmically speaking, I think I've moved into a good place emotionally. I feel as though I don't owe anyone anything. No apologies, no explanations, nothing.

  ...and by the same token...

  I feel as though no one really owes me anything, and if they do, I'm willing to forget and forgive any karmic-type debts and move forward with my life.


blackbird in a tangled forest

  I'm working more with my new-ish camera, experimenting with PASM, especially shutter speeds, ISO settings, and exposure times. My goal is to get better acquainted with astrophotography. I spend most of my awake time at night, so I'm attempting to adjust my photographic pursuits to accomodate it.

  I picked up on a new tripod to replace one that broke on me a little while back. I got a good deal on a Kodak from Amazon.Com. Ten bucks, believe me, I'm not complaining. With delaying shutter speeds, it's crucial to have a steady base to work from.

  I can finally afford a Canon Digital Rebel XTi, but I'm gonna hold off on buying it for a little bit. I'm gonna wait on my income tax return, so I can get some wicked accessories to go with it. Photography is becoming more of a passion for me, and I want to mess around with some more serious equipment.


the moon can be a semi-tricky subject to take an acceptable picture of

  I dunno...

  I'm kind o' tired. As I've written in previous posts, I've been working some extreme hours. It's beginning to pay off, as I've also mentioned, but it's really taking a physical and emotional toll on me.

  A little over a week ago...

  I was shaving before work. I have a battery-powered razor. I finished touching up my beard and threw the razor in a drawer in my bathroom - without turning it off, and spent the next half hour trying to figure out what the constant drilling noise coming from the bathroom was. I thought the fan in the ceiling shorted out, or something. I was cutting power to the bathroom from the electrical box and everything trying to get it to stop. I had to leave for work. When I got back home later that same evening, I went to shave again to get ready to go out, the battery was dead, and I realized what happened.

  Funny? I dunno, maybe...

  To me, it's just a sign of how burned out I'm getting working all these hours. I'm not as young as I used to be, and I'm feeling much older than I am.

  I feel as though I work every day (technically, I sometimes do), and every day is beginning to feel like the same day happening over and over...

  By the way, I've put my myspace profile back up. If we were friends before, and you'd like to be friends again, just send me an add request.

  If you'd care to comment on this blog, please click here to do so...

  Hate me for all the things I didn't do for you...

  I don't have a life anymore.

  I have a job.

  I have time for nothing else besides work. I'm working like over fifty hours a week. I have to work the next three Saturdays, including this one. I've worked the past two Saturdays. By the time Sunday comes around, I'm too damned tired to even get out of bed.

  I'm losing even more weight. When I get out of the shower and look in the mirror, I just wonder where I'm going. I'm down two more pant sizes. I haven't been this light since I was a freshman in high school - and I was three inches shorter back then.

  The money is phenominal though...

  I go out for an hour or two every Saturday night after work (depending upon how soon I can get out of there), but it's nearly impossible to relax. By the time the end of the week comes around, I'm run down so damned ragged that my brain won't stop trying to angle and wangle. Running this department on second shift has become an every day exercise in being given a set of impossible circumstances and being expected to accomplish everything against nearly insurmountable odds. I keep delivering the goods (literally), but I'm burning out, and I can see myself slipping here and there.

  I guess I keep doing it because I literally have nothing better to do. If I were to stop, I don't know what I would do with my time anymore.

  Nine hour days are a minimum anymore. I got out of work at eleven thirty (a half an hour late) only once since we started the plant back up on the second of this month. I went to Wal-Mart tonight because I was ridiculously low on stuff. I didn't even enjoy it. I didn't get there until after one o'clock in the morning, and it was a race against time trying to cram everything I needed into a shopping cart. I got home a couple of hours ago...

  I'm thinking of buying a new car and debating upon whether or not to keep my old one. I want to get an 2008 PT Cruiser (I've always loved those things). I think I could afford the payments with little or no hassle. I'm up for a couple of raises this year, too - which would make it even easier. Jet black, chromed up, it'd look pretty sharp...

  The scary thing about all of this, in the bedding industry - this is considered the SLOW season...

  I dread to think what May and June will bring...

  Oh well...

  I'm gonna eat some chips an' go ta bed. Tomorrow and Friday are supposed to be pretty bad, demand-wise. I should try and get some sleep, I guess.

  If you'd care to comment on this blog, please click here to do so...

  Trying to keep a level head...

  How should I begin this?

  Another x-mas has passed me by. Another year in this stinking, god-forsaken sewer of a world. Another twelve months of agony, trying to face humanity with dignity and grace, and barely keeping it all together only to show the world a mask of indifference. Another three-hundred and sixty-five days of searching for an angel's face in humanity's broken statuary, only to find the pain of others which either equals or exceeds my own. Some of that pain I manufactured for them, and some of it was manufactured - tailor-made just for me.

  No...

  I can't begin this piece of prose like that. I may want to. I may need to. Hell, I might even bullshit myself into thinking that there's no other way...

  ...but there is another way.


ya better watch out... ya better not cry...

  Sometimes it's difficult to know who your friends are in this place. Sometimes, it's even more difficult to see them.

  I've destroyed myself so many times.

  It's like peeling back the layers of a rancid, rotten orange, looking for good fruit and finding only filth more rotten than the crap you've thrown away beneath each putrid layer. Maybe my tenacity has finally paid off. Maybe there's actually something in me worth saving.

  This past weekend I hit total and absolute rock-bottom in my soul. I destroyed anything and everything that Michael Rogers was. I set out to do it. It was deliberate. I ingested more poison into me than I ever thought possible - beer, liquor, capped it off with a couple of sleeping pills, and fell into my usual Saturday night weekend coma. By the end of it, I'd forgiven a very old wrong - an enemy whom I never stopped loving like a brother. I made my peace with him in a deadend fog of guilty, I don't know what. It was the beginning of purging out poison in my soul.

  For the first time in a long time, I'm hearing the narrative voice in my head that compells me to write.

  I'm writing again...

  I heard the voice of another friend, trying to talk reason to me. I heard it too late Saturday night, but its resonance stayed with me, and I still heard it when I woke up Sunday night. Maybe it wasn't too late after all. Rob, dude - thank you for everything.

  I heard another voice today, one I conversed with for hours - the kind of silly shit that only makes sense when you've found a true friend. Maria, if you've ever believed that I helped you through a difficult time - you helped me through the same time just as much, and I thank you for it. You're not only a good person, you're the best person. Please, don't ever lose sight of that, no matter who it is trying to tell you anything different.

  I'm some one who's always looking for an angel. I'm always looking to see something miraculous. I'm always looking for a reason to believe in humanity, and whatever's beyond it. Maria, through your strength and conviction, you've taught me to look inward for it, and I think I may've found it. Not enough to purge away and give anything up, but enough to hang on and hope for a tomorrow that I felt would never come. I'm not looking for angels anymore, I'm looking for reason - for answers to questions I was either too afraid to ask, or I believed had no resolutions. I'd always felt that hope was a dangerous thing to have in my life, because it would always inevitably lead to disappointment. You taught me it's a cool thing to have, a good way to be, and I can only hope I can live up to the resilliant example you've shown me.

  I'd always maintained that I was here in this life to learn a lesson of humility. I think I just might get it now...

  X-mas was something of a disappointment. I'm never too concerned with what people get me. For me, it's more about what I can get for them. The people I give gifts to are the most important people I know. I got my mom a DVD recorder, and the damned thing doesn't work. Taking it back should prove fun...

  It was disappointing for me to say the least...

  I'm glad the cell phone worked, at least...

  In turn, mom got me like a year's supply of JOOP!, which, of course, I'm eternally grateful for. She also got me a deck of tarot cards based on the works of Leonardo Da Vinci - which should prove interesting to work with.

  Plus a whole mess of other stuff...

  Rob was cool enough to pick me up a gift card for Best Buy, which I'm glad can be used online. I don't get out and shop much anymore. I do ninety-percent of my shopping online these days. It's just so much damned easier. Thanks Rob, the gift card might get me a new DVD player. The one I got last year around this time is starting to go weird on me. It's cheap. It was a cheap gift from an even cheaper employer I'd worked for at the time.

  I'd also like to thank my aunt and uncle who sent me some x-mas cash - I used it to buy myself some new silver rings - including a sapphire set in silver. It's my birthstone. I've always wanted to own one, now I do. Thank you...


ice house

  I've also found a new hobby...

  Anyone who knows me knows how much the Roman Empire fascinates me. I have a couple of Roman coins that I carry around with me as good luck pieces.

  Anyway...

  While fumbling around Google looking for a good way to clean them, I stumbled across a whole group of people who get uncleaned Roman coins from dig sites in Europe and clean 'em up. Dude, the whole idea just sings to me. I love it. I've ordered some to give it a shot. They cost a little more than a buck a piece, and I dunno...

  I love the coins I have so damned much, to own a little piece of the empire like that is endlessly fascinating to me. I want to just pursue it even further.

  If you'd care to comment on this blog, please click here to do so...

  I'm only here for a while and patience is not my style...

  Hey Maria, thanks again for the cell phone bill...

  Just kidding.

  Really...

  Anyway...

  I know I'm in a minority here, but I despise the holiday season thing. Not only is it just a blatant, month-long reminder to me about how much I missed out on in this life, it's a travesty of traffic where people drive like they're total loons with the attitude of "Fuck you! It's x-mas! I can drive however I feel like!"

  I hate x-mas trees. Who ever came up with that concept anyway? Let's go out in the woods, kill a tree by cutting it down, then drag it home, throw it in the middle of our living room, decorate it, and watch it die a slow and painful death. What the hell IS that? I dunno. I just wish it would all go away already.

  I did what little x-mas shopping I needed to do totally online this year to avoid the holiday assholes. When I shop, I like to be leisurely about it - I normally enjoy shopping quite a bit. I don't dig the experience being all about stress and aggravation. If I'm looking for stress, I can go to work and get it there.

  Yes, I'm totally fucking Scrooge...

  I DO celebrate x-mas in my own way - the original Roman way. X-mas is actually a bastardization of the pagan (Roman) Festival of Jupiter (Jesus was born in the summer, people... ), and I honor Zeus in the same fashion that the Romans did - total debachery!

  Okay...

  Enough of my ranting about all this shit, right?

  Let's have a nice, tranquil image...


caged angels...

  Yeah, I know...

  People enjoy the whole holiday thing and I should be more tolerant. I dunno...

  My tolerance is wearing a bit thin these days. I've been through so damned much this year. I just want 2007 to be over and done with already.


ask me "Why?" and I'll answer "Why bother?"

  Work is getting somewhat stressful, as I'd mentioned before. I have to put in six-day work weeks for the next couple of weeks, and I'm really not looking forward to it. I could use the money, I have to pay my car insurance this month and everything, but damn - this week is just like sucking the frickin' life out o' me for some reason. I can't sleep for shit anymore, which I think is part of the problem, and when I'm at work, I'm just tired - and quiet. I know if I open my mouth too much, I'll just come off as being irritable.

  My cards (tarot) make no damned sense anymore...

  I won't even go into that one...

  I dunno...

  I'm just looking forward to New Year's Eve - not because I have grand plans or anything (nothing could stand up to New Year's Eve '05 when I had like four different parties to go to), I don't have ANY plans right now, actually. I just want to put 2007 behind me and start over...

  For now...

  I think I'm just gonna heat up some pizza and chili in the microwave (I know, I'm a sick man), start up the fireplace (ummm... brrr? It's friggin' COLD in here), and just relax.

  If you'd care to comment on this blog, please click here to do so...

  I'm ready to die in obscurity...

  I'm not all that much for holidays. I guess, for a man like me, all they really represent is what's missing in my life. You can bullshit yourself and say you've got the stamina to run the whole race by yourself, but sometimes you realize that there're certain things you missed out on in life.

  I spent my Thanksgiving hung over on my couch watching football. I didn't really plan it that way - actually, I didn't really plan it any particular way, that's just how it worked itself out.


lady on the lake

  I was off from work for five straight days. It's okay, but I'd really rather just go back to my job. I always say that I'm no good on my own. I need structure and boundries. I don't like to be off of work for more than two or three days - anything beyond that, and I can get into trouble.

  Sunday was neat. Rob came over. We watched football, ate pizza, and laughed our asses off for most of the afternoon and evening. It was a great day for football. The Bears won. The Raiders actually won against the Chiefs, and Philadelphia played their guts out against New England. We watched Michael Moore's new movie, Sicko after the eight o'clock game was over.

  I spent the rest of the weekend at Ole Tyme Charlie's gettin' loopular...

  I also picked up a nifty little cold, which blossomed a bit in my lungs today, and kept me from getting work done on my car this morning. It sucks. It was cold and raining out today, and I didn't want to take the chance of going out in it and making myself worse. I have to go to work tomorrow no matter what. If I don't, I'll lose three days of holiday pay, which at this time of the year would totally suck for me.

  Other than being a walking snot factory, I'm not feeling all that bad. I've been fighting this off since Friday, thinking it was the sudden change in weather affecting my allergies. I dunno...

  It's a bug. It sucks. I'll probably be feelin' like total shit at work tomorrow.

  I think now I'm just gonna eat some leftover pizza, while I can still taste it, and maybe go back to bed...

  If you'd care to comment on this blog, please click here to do so...

  Filthy mouth, no excuse, find a new place to hang this noose...

  It was an interesting weekend.

  Wood Street in Wilkes-Barre is progressively becoming more and more boring to hang out at on the weekends. So yeah, I've taken to frequenting Ole Tyme Charlie's in Plains. It's a great bar, with a wonderful atmosphere. Some of the people I run into down that way, man - it's cool. I saw people this weekend I haven't seen in ages.

  Site update alert...

  I had a pretty full weekend, but I managed to get some stuff done on the server.

  For one thing, I'm now the proud owner of NEPA309.Com - which will be the new home for the webcams I have pointed out of my kitchen window, looking at Route 309. There isn't much there yet, but I'm hoping to get it all put together this week.

  Also...

  The banner exchange didn't go anywhere, and is still accessable on the blacklist's main page. I just haven't decided on the best way to integrate it into damnage's new design.


my initials?

  Rob and I spent the day watching football on the widescreen today. It's a lot of fun. We order food in every Sunday now, and just watch the games and bullshit. I'm thankful for every day I get to spend with the man. I mean, when I think about how different everything could be, with his brain trauma and everything - I've become incredibly appreciative of my best friend. Today he bet me that the Colts would come back from their incredibly bad start against the Chargers. He lost, and the bet was, if he lost, we had to sit through First Blood and listen to Stallone's commentary on the movie while watching it (Rob HATES Sly's acting with a passion). He lost, and we spent the rest of the night laughing our asses off at the movie. Seeing him sit through that was priceless for me.

  We're talking about having a Superbowl party here at the end of the season. I haven't hosted a party in a long time, and man, I think it would freakin' ROCK! Buckets of food from Januzzi's and everything? Oh DUDE...

  We didn't get to watch the Raiders vs. the Bears - I had a pretty wild night last night, so I slept through most of it today. We didn't miss much. We were keeping track of it on the laptop in the living room (thanks to NFL.Com ), and the game sucked. It was tied up most of the time at 3-3 until the Bears mobilized a bit and started scoring. I'm used to the Raiders losing by now anyway. It isn't a question of if the Raiders will lose every week - it's a question of how much they'll lose by.

  Oh well...

  Time for bed. We're having another Kaizen Event at work this week, and with so many people participating in it in the plant (including my second-in-command), it should make for a pretty interesting week at work for me.

  By the way - NO UNION at work! They got handed a crushing loss at 51-13 in the vote on Friday.

  If you'd like to comment on this blog, please click here to do so...

  Fly over me evil angel...

  Leave me to die here...

  Help me survive here...

  Alone.


put me to sleep evil angel...

  Damnage.Com went an' got itself a new look, didn't it?

  Yeah...

  It's an idea I came up with while I was at work on Monday night, and I've been obsessed with putting it together ever since. I've been working with this boast machine blog script more and more, and I really like it. Well damn - I guess I like it so much that I'm now using it to run like ninety percent of the site, huh?

  and yeah...

  This is all that was mike.damnage.com - combined with damnage.com itself. It's the third time I've messed with this script, and I think I've got it refined down to the point where I'm really comfortable with it. Again, so much so that I'm using it to administrate most of the domain.

  Don't worry...

  If you don't see something here that used to be here, it'll be back. I just got a little anxious to get the new design up and running - so yeah, some things didn't show up yet. Some of the archaic perl scripts that were running here are gone for good though - like Matt Wright's message board. I feel that what this script can do far surpasses what my ol' "blogulator" variation of Matt's board script ever could do.

  If you haven't heard from me in a while...

  I've been busy? I mean like really busy. I mean that intentionally pissing all over a Teamster local in order to vote 'em out of my plant an' keep 'em out takes up some serious personal time. Between all that, and running a department, and redesigning an entire web site...

  ummm...

  yeah?

  My time is pretty much consumed these days. I'm barely sleeping.

  What I'd really like to do is just take a little jaunt around Mountain Top with my new Kodak and just photograph some of the cemeteries we have around here.

  I dunno...

  Maybe this weekend...

  Not this Sunday though...

  It's the Raiders vs. the Bears - and Rob and I are gonna make it a point to watch that game together. My prediction? I think the Raiders are gonna pull this one out o' their collective asses and win. Their season is pretty much hopeless this year anyway, but I think they have this one in 'em...

  Enjoy d-com's new look...

  If you'd like to comment on this blog, please click here to do it up...

  Sometimes the path within must be extracted...

  Sometimes we need to tear down and destroy what we are in order to make way for something new, or something better...

  
cemetery gates

  I don't like myself very much anymore.

  I think it's time to totally back away from everything and completely re-evaluate my situation. I know I have a long road ahead of me. I know that I have to walk down it alone. I need to prepare myself for that journey.

  I have a NASTY lump on my head from an accident today. I was plugging my laptop into an outlet in my living room to charge it up. The outlet is behind a bookcase. On top of the bookcase are books, with stone gargoyle bookends pushed into either side of the row. One of them fell on my head while I was plugging the laptop in. Dude, they're friggin' heavy! It damn near knocked me out when it hit me. My head still hurts...

  I have a really hard head though...

  I bought a new camera on Saturday, a Kodak Z650 SLR deal. It's got an excellent 38mm 10X zoom lens on it. It's the best camera I've ever owned. OfficeMax was doing an inventory, and they had it marked down to a hundred bucks! I couldn't say no. It was marked down from two-hundred and forty dollars. I found out that when Kodak released the camera last year, it was over three-hundred dollars. I'm thrilled with it. The image clarity is wonderful at 6.1 megapixels, and the clarity on the zoom is incredible. I think damnage might get a makeover soon. The quality of graphics I can produce using the new camera is much better than with my old Mustek. The night vision mode is wonderful. All the pictures in this blog were taken with the new camera, by the way...


taken with my new camera...

  I was at Wal-Mart on Thursday, and while I was there, I bought 28 Weeks Later. I watched it tonight, and I'm still not sure how I feel about it. I thought it was good, not as good as the original, but good. I'm gonna watch it again before I go to bed tongiht.

  The Raiders lost again today, making them 2-3 in Week Six. Sometimes it's tough to be a part of the Raider Nation. The boys never seem to be able to get their shit together.

  Anyway...

  I think after this weekend, I might get my own shit back together, quit drinking again, and just hang out in the cemeteries on the weekends, taking pictures of angels like I used to. I think going back to the bars was a mistake. There's nothing left for me out there. I'm a dinosaur out in that world.

  I dunno...

  I might give it a rest, but I'll probably wander back out into it again. I literally have nothing better to do. It gets to the point where I want to go back to work on Monday because there I at least have a sense of purpose. When I'm given time to myself, I just wander around aimlessly, bumping into stuff without any sense of direction or purpose.

  It makes me wish we had overtime on the weekends again. I'd be earning boatloads of money, and I wouldn't have to think about everything that's wrong in my life. I could just be behind my saw, cuttin' up rework, and all would be right with the world...

  If you'd care to comment on this blog, please click here to do so...

  Yeah...

  I'm keeping the blog-post-song-quote thing goin'...

  Anyway...

  Can anyone say...

  VACATION???????

  YES! And dammit, I've earned it! I put in like fifty hours this week! The kaizen deal was considered a success. I made a few new friends, and pro'ly a few new enemies, but I came out of it pretty well.


angel eyes...

  Me messin' around with Photoshop again...

  I got my laptop, notebook, whatever ya wanna call it:


my new Toshiba Satellite Pentium Dual Core...

  No, it's not the one I originally wanted to buy. I was having the WORST luck finding one until I ran across this Toshiba Satellite at Circuit City. It was six-hundred bucks, five-hundred after a rebate. By the way, Best Buy sucks. I haven't trusted them for years. Not since they tried to sell me a big screen TV with an eight inch tear in the screen. I tried to purchase two laptops from them on two different days, two different sales, both times they were "sold out" - ummm... bullshit? I mean, yeah - they pro'ly had like two or three of 'em at the ridiculously low price they advertised, but it's just a scam ta get ya in the store, methinks.

  Anyway...

  I may have to rethink my previous attitudes towards Windows Vista. I couldn't get Linux running right on the thing to save my frickin' life. I gave up and put the OEM Vista Home Premium back in. Once I tweaked it to look like Windows Classic, it was familiar enough for me to use. I haven't had any compatibility issues with it yet. It IS a pig on memory though, I may need to upgrade the one gig of memory it came with to something higher. I'll need to get some specs on the board though...

  Anyway...

  This is gonna be a short post. I'm anxious to begin my vacation in earnest. I'm taking a powder out to the bars early tonight to see what I can see. My tarot card spread looked pretty good for the weekend, and I can't wait to get it started...

  If you'd care to comment on this post, please click here to do so...

  I'm seein' nowhere through the eyes of a lie...

  ...or something like that.


the beginning of a bolt of lightning tonight at work (out back)

  This week was tiring, and I'm glad it's nearly over with. Next week though...

  Next week should be pretty interesting...

  I was chosen to take part in a kaizen event at work. I get to discuss (for ten hours a day, for four straight days, Friday we get to have breakfast and leave early! ) improvement of work cells in my department and whatnot. I'm actually pretty jazzed about the whole thing. I've never taken part in one of these, and I'm always anxious to try something new.

  It'll be weird adjusting to a day shift schedule for a week, but I'm flexible, I think I'll manage...

  I'll get out early, presumably late Friday morning sometime, and then I'll have Colombus Day Weekend off! Actually, I took the following Tuesday off as a vacation day, so I'll have, what for me will be a five day weekend!


mikey's conception of mikey on vacation

  ...which, considering how broke I am right now, means I'm gonna lay around for five days an' be a total bum.

  I dunno...

  I might take my loan back up tomorrow and get some work done on my car over the weekend. I might even buy the cheap laptop I've been drooling over at Wal-Mart for the past few weeks.


"hmmm... lay around an' be a bum? or... DO stuff?

  It's a helluva tossup for me...

  I know, my life is incredibly BORING. Garden slugs get more out of the universe than I do, but you know what?

  I dig it that way.

  I HATE it when my life gets complicated. I like to just go to work, come home, and just BE.

  It's times like this when I LIKE the fact that I never got married or had any kids. This weekend, I'll wake up Saturday afternoon to the quiet hum of a fan and wonder "hmmm... should I get out of bed? lay here some more? sleep some more? or... maybe get some energy together and lay on the couch an' watch a movie?" Some people might be disgusted by my off-work slothfullness, but man - it's just delicious to have problems like these! I'm thirty-five with NO commitments, NO responsibilities that I can't handle by working at a good job every day, NO obligations (other than a wedding I have to attend next Saturday - then I'm free an' clear for an indefinite period of time), no wife, no kids, no worries, no hassles...

  If this is contentment, I'll take it.

  If you'd care to comment on this blog, please click here to do so...

What do I mean by that?

  hmmm...

  Nothing in particular, I guess. I've just had the Three Doors Down song rattling around in my brain all weekend for some reason (I'm listening to it right now). I love the idea of Superman having a dark side. I've been a fan of the DC character since I was a kid. I religiously read the whole Doomsday storyline when it came out in the nineties. In fact, I'm buying the graphic novel (again, I sold it years ago) from Amazon.

  I also dig Tarantino's astute musings about him in Kill Bill Volume II...

  I saw Superman Returns not too long ago, too. My mom bought the DVD for me for my birthday. I liked it. I thought it was pretty good. Kevin Spacey really lived up to Gene Hackman's portrayal of Lex Luthor.


mikey's growin' the full beard back...

  I've been pretty busy lately...

  Mainly with work...

  I did manage to get out this weekend though. As a change of pace, I gave Whiskey Business a skip and went to Ol' Time Charlie's for their Saturday Karaoke thing. No, I didn't sing, but I ran into a guy I work with and spent the night bullshittin' with him an' slammin' down some Molson Canadian.

  It's different not having my best friend to hang out with in bars anymore. After the aneurism, he can't drink - and nor does he want to, which is great. I have a wedding to attend in a couple of weeks, and I'm giving serious thought to quitting again myself after the wedding. Boozing is basically all just a stupid waste of money when you come right down to it. I'd always felt that drinking was a sign of weakness on my part, and anyone who knows me knows - I despise weakness. Vices are just expressions of flaws in a person's character.

  I have few vices...


caught myself in the middle of blinking...

  The Oakland Raiders actually won today - first game this season. Yeah, I've been hangin' out with my buddy on Sundays since he got back from his hospital stay in Philly, and he watches football religiously on Sunday. So I watch it with him, and I'm actually finding myself getting into it a bit.

  Somewhere in there I managed to upgrade the memory on his computer to one gig...


mikey at three years-old

  The people I work with will probably enjoy the picture above. It's like, "He's been wearing that hat for HOW LONG"?

  I dunno...

  I got to talking about sports and it occurred to me that I had this picture on one of my hard drives...

  Anyway...

  I finally got a data cable for my Nokia cell phone. It was like three bucks on Amazon.Com! Well - with shipping, it came out closer to ten, but I was expecting to pay more for the thing. NO ONE around here had the damned thing - not even T-Mobile, and they're the ones who sold me the damned phone! Unreal...

  Just in time, too...

  I have the Nokia 6133 - which, by the way, is an EXCELLENT little phone. If you're thinking of buying it - do it! It kicks a Razr's ass!

  Anyway, I was saying...

  Without the data cable, I had to come up with an interesting way of getting music on to the phone, and getting pictures out of it. It has a microSD card, which is KICKASS. I mean, the thing holds a gig of stuff - dude, I can remember when HARD DRIVES held that much. Anyway - the microSD card came with an adapter for a regular SD device. I have one - my camera. My camera was pretty problematic at best. It would crash my XP installation anytime I'd hook it up, so I needed to use the computer in the kitchen to transfer files. Long story short - I accidentally dropped the camera while performing this little operation. It's dead.

  So now I have to get myself a new camera...

  I'd love to get a Cannon Rebel, but they're expensive as hell. I'll have an extra paycheck in November, and if I quit drinking in October...

  hmmm...

  If you'd care to comment on this blog - click here to do so...

  It's been a pretty interesting week thusfar...

  Today, for the first time in my life, I got certified to run a forklift at work. What? No fanfare? It's a big deal for me! Actually, it's something that'll make my life ten times easier at work...

  I'm not gonna go totally wild and be like Cryptie, or anything (also try this link ), but still...

  (if you followed the links - was THAT fucking WEIRD or WHAT??? )

  My supervisor put me through one HELLUVA obstacle course, too. The guys watching me take the test were somewhat surprised at how much I needed to do to prove my skills. I passed - thirty out of thirty questions and tasks completed successfully!

  
mikey on his birthday

  I've been window shopping online quite a bit these days. I've been seriously thinking about purchasing a notebook computer. I just keep running into the wall of having to purchase one running Windows Vista - which I DO NOT want. I could run off on a bit of a tangetized rant here about how much that piece o' shit OS sucks, about how PATHETIC it is that Bill Gates and company want to imitate Apple, and how digital rights management is a violation of civil liberties (and how enforcing it on a machine is a total PIG on memory speed and processor power), but I won't. Anyone who knows anything about computers knows enough to stay away from Microsoft's latest blunder.

  Anyway...

  Wal-Mart has an interesting little machine I'm thinking of buying. It has Vista, yeah - but a quick format and an Anaconda install later and it would be running under Fedora 7. I've got like one third of my network running under Linux right now, and I'm looking to get the whole thing running under Linux by the end of the year. I just don't dig the way Microsoft is trying to cram Vista down everyone's collective throats.

  Okay...

  I'm back on Vista again, aren't I?

  Actually...

  I'll probably set the laptop's hard drive up to run under a dual boot scenario - I'll split the drive into two partitions and be able to choose between booting into either Fedora 7 or WinXP. It's not often, but sometimes I need to make house calls on people's computers (mostly, when a 'puter is sick, I have its owner drop it off with me and pick it up in a couple of days), and plenty of times I'd wished I had a good notebook PC to get the job done quicker. I can pick up an OEM copy of WinXP Home for $89 from Tiger Direct (Pro for $139).

  There're so many ways I want my money to go though...

  I mean...

  I want to buy GOOD servers for this network...

  A GOOD camera for my little Route 309 webcam deal (I found one with an onboard Linux Debian OS that runs its own wireless thing)...

  I actually want to break the cam off into its own domain, seperate from damnage. I have a name chosen for it, and it's available. I'm not going to share it yet 'cause that's just DUMB. I'm still pissed off at the little prick who scammed up damnage.org. I wanted to buy that up again, too, dammit. I owned it back in 2000, and gave it up.

  Anyway...

  It's late, and I should try and get some sleep...

  Feel like commenting on this post? Click here to do so...

  Okay...

  I'm definitely not bored anymore...

  My first day back, and I dunno...

  It was pretty interesting.

  I came home pretty sore and worn out. It was a good worn out though. I love factory work, actually. Things change enough every day to keep it interesting, and they're mundane enough to give me a sense of routine. I dig that balance. I never realized how much I missed it until I got back into it.

  By the way...

  I know people are actually READING this stuff. Server logs don't lie. Don't be shy - gimme a yell so I don't feel like a duck quacking in an empty void here! Actually, it's okay if ya don't. Sometimes I think I write this stuff more for myself than anyone else.

  I forgot to mention before that my best friend, who had the aneurism, is home from the hospital in Philly - which is great. He got home about a week ago and he's doing well.

  Damnage is doing well. The computers that run it survived their little freak-out from the power surge. I really do need to get that redundant power supply, don't I? Uptime is EVERYTHING for a server, and NOT buying one is pretty much neglectful on my part.


damnage.com from the outside

  Okay...

  That's actually an older picture of damnage. My desk is almost never THAT neat. Actually, that picture is about a year old. Damnage is on the other side of my desk now, and it has a bigger monitor. It's still a Compaq Deskpro EN though. It amazes me that that little box does so damned much. I can't wait until I can scrape some money together to get the Systemax tower servers I want. Damnage was built on a severely tight budget. I paid (after a one-hundred dollar rebate) ninety-nine bucks for that little Pentium III deal. True, I sunk a few hundred more in for a better hard drive, optical drive, memory, and a monitor, but its level of efficiency astounds me sometimes. Linux is a wonderful thing, isn't it? It allowed me to take an otherwise fairly useless computer and convert it into a very powerful server.

  I'm dying for the chance to build another one for damnage.net...

  Which yeah, I'm not totally sure about what I want to do with d-net just yet.

  My hope is to build d-net into a top-level domain name server where I can rent gigs of space and bandwidth out to people. I have the level of expertise to accomplish it - I just need some cash to put it all together. I would also like to build a DNS machine and test it out. I know the principals behind one, but it's all just theory to me. I won't really learn about it all until I actually get to BUILD one and run it.

  All I can say, after years of dealing with hosting providers and free servers (like Tripod and Geocities) - runnng the show by myself is KILLER. I wouldn't trade it for ANYTHING.

  Oh well...

  This is more of a ramble than a blog/post.

  I should probably get some sleep...

  Feel like commenting on this post? click here to do so...

  Wow...

  Four days off and I didn't really do much...

  After my somewhat limited birthday festivities subsided, I basically just laid around the house, doing nothing - and I had a wonderful time doing it. I used to always say "doin' nothin' means a lot to me..." (I got it from Bon Scott - sue me...), and it does. I spent a lot of time thinking these past few days. I've mostly been thinking about the direction I want to take this network in...


mikey bein' a bum

  What does one do when they own infinite possibilities on the web? I can build my own machines. I now have six static IP addresses. I'm in a position where I can say or do anything I want. The whole thing with web hosting keeps dancing around in my brain. I'm perfectly capable of putting it together. It'll just take some money, basically.

  hmmm...

  I've been looking at some Systemax tower servers - they're very reasonably priced, and seem as though they were just MADE to run under Fedora 7.

  I found one mistake I made with attempting to set up my personal machine under Fedora - I left the chosen hard drive on a RAID channel - dumb! But that's what I get for setting the thing up while I was loopular. If I'd set it up using IDE, it may've gone differently. I might try it again tonight.

  The server got knocked out yesterday. Thunderstorm? Power surge? Voltage spike? I don't know - I was asleep. Actually, from what I can see, it happened about an hour after I went to bed. I work second shift, I sleep all day, so the problem didn't get corrected until I woke up. Actually, my mom sent me a text message on my phone telling me the network was down and' everything. One of these years I'll get some spare change together and buy a redundant power supply for damnage. Nothing fancy - just something that would allow the network to have uninterrupted power for a minute or two.

  I decided to enter this blog into a topsite list deal, and I found myself in a position where I didn't have a 468 x 60 banner for it. So on the fly, I made this thing up:



  I'm looking for a good thumbnail gallery post script for this blog. I basically want to integrate all of my photographic stuff into this blog and move it out of damnage.com's main site. I dunno, it makes more sense to have it here. Doesn't it? I dunno - it does to me.

  I've also added a new shoutbox to this little site - you can find it on your right...

  Anyway...

  Back to work tomorrow afternoon...

  I don't mind though. I actually like my job. I work with some great people...

  I just wish I had time for everything. There's so much I want to do...

  Feel like commenting on this blog? Click here to do so...