2007

I love beer. It’s my drink of choice whether I am home or out, so I have been thinking about brewing my own for quite a while. It takes a few weeks to brew, but once it is done, it comes out fresh. There is nothing like fresh brewed beer. I’ve been checking out MonsterBrew because they have everything you need to start brewing your own beer. From incrediants, to kits, to the hardware you need to make it, they have it all. They even have books and videos on the subject coming soon, just in case you are curious about brewing your own, but don’t quite know how to start. It really is a one stop shop for all your home brewing needs.

So I am using my new Westinghouse LCD monitor, and I must say for a 20″ monitor that cost me $189, this thing is beautiful. There are no dead pixels, everything is crystal clear. I absolutely love the clarity on it. I still have my secondary CRT monitor and maybe within the next few months, I might buy a 15″ to replace it, if I can find one for a good price. I think I would go with Westinghouse again, this is beautiful.

When I was in Deltech I had to use the AS/400 operating system by IBM. Now I’ve used Linux, Unix, Mac, and Windows, and I have to say that the AS/400 is more like a Unix operating system than the Mac, which was actually built on top of Unix. The difference between the AS/400 and other operating systems? AS/400 wasn’t built by people who had worked with Unix systems. Also while 32 bit operating systems are still relevant, and only came to be popular 2 to 3 years ago, the AS/400 has been on a 64 processor since the mid 90’s. Now personally I have worked on an IBM AS/400 iSeries that we used to run reports in class. Eventually we got to see how it handled C++ programs and SQL commands. It handled it better than most Windows machines.

I am happy to report that this will be one of my last posts (if not my last post) on my oversized CRT monitor. I bought a 20″ Westinghouse LCD Monitor at Best Buy today and I am going to set it up tonight. I’ve needed one for a while due to mine being very dark and with the blurry text so it is basically dying on me. I will write a post on my review of my new monitor when it is up and running.

Krissy and I have been trying to get organized and not have everything all over the office. With organization comes office supplies, at least when it comes to use anyway. See we bought pens, pencils, notebooks, paper trays, and binders. While not all of that seems like it would help us get organized, it really has. The trays has our mail in it, the binder has the paper and the notes of the day, week, month, etc while the bins have everything else that didn’t need to be in plain sight. It wasn’t even that expensive for that stuff either, it was all very reasonably prices, especially with the back to school sales going on right now.

I’ve been trying to get a hold of my friend in Ohio for the last few weeks. Everytime I call I get a recording that his number has been disconnected. Now I know he was trying to move for the last few months, but I also know bill collectors call him and occasionally he just doesn’t pay his bills so they will disconnect his service and the calls will stop temporarily. Now I just need to wait for him to either get a new number and call me, or wait until his phone is reconnected.

I haven’t played pool in over a year. I used to play everyday in high school, mainly because we had a couple of pool tables to play on at school. I’ve always wanted a pool table. I’ve been looking at pool tables and I’d love to have one with black or red felt. I never really liked the green ones much, but a white table with black felt would be my perfect table.

There’s a billiards place up in Dover that I went to, I should go back and play. Maybe Krissy would go with me one day and play, after all it is boring playing by yourself.

I’ve been playing around with the Userplane chatroom for the last week or so. I cannot figure this thing out, it is very difficult for me to get to doing what I want it to do. Userplane provides the chatrooms for Facebook, Myspace, and many others, but it isn’t an easy program to customize at all. I should be done, but I keep running into things that should work, but don’t work. It’s really annoying me.

Everyone wants to feel secure on the internet. Whether you are shopping, playing games, or just browsing, security is very important. How do you get secure on the internet? The answer is a firewall. A firewall is just what it sounds like. It is a wall that is preventing the fire from getting to you. What fire you may ask? The spam, viruses, and anything else that you don’t want on your computer. It also keeps your information from getting out. Say you have all your financial information on your computer, without a firewall hackers could come in and take that information without you even knowing about it.

Firewalls aren’t the only thing you will need, especially if you have children in your household. We all know teenagers love porn, but a firewall will not be enough to stop them from looking at it. What you need to do to prevent that stuff from getting on your computer is to put up some parental controls.

Firewalls and parental controls are good, but how do you know which one to use? Well that’s you would check internet security review websites to see which are the best and which ones will be the best fit for you.

It’s that time to reveal my August 2007 totals for the month. Last month’s total was $317.89. Let’s see how I did this month shall we?

Loud Launch: $60.00
PayPerPost: $538.12
Blogsvertist: $25.00
Text Link Ads: $30.25
Adbrite: 7.86
Private Advertisers: 4.16

My total for August 2007 was $665.39. That is up from last month, hopefully I will stay around that number for September as well.

I wrote yesterday how an old friend messaged me and we picked up right where we left off. There’s a lot of people who have friends like that, theyu can not talk to someone for years and then just pick up right where they left off. My mother did that with my aunt a few years ago (not blood related sisters). I can do that with my friend Brett, too. I haven’t talked to him in a few months, but we always seem to pick up where we left off.

I have other friends, though, that I don’t speak to anymore and that is because we don’t really have anything to say. It is almost like there is a spiritual connection to those people whom we can just pick up with after so long. Our spiritual siblings, would probably be a somewhat good term to use right? I mean when you have a brother or a sister and you’ve known them your whole life you can come back and still be family, the same thing with these spiritual siblings, you can pick up right where you left off and not miss a beat.

Now how can you tell if you have one of these spiritual siblings? Well if there is someone who you can hang out with and not have any awkward silences, or be uncomfortable with. They are the ones where you are comfortable the first time meeting them no matter what the situation might be. They are the ones that you can spend six hours on the phone with and want to get off, because it only feels like 10 minutes.

If you have someone in your life like this, then they are probably a spiritual sibling.

I like projects. I’ve put in peel and stick tiles, built part of a basement, and I have repaired countless holes in walls. I’m always looking for information on how to do things that I can’t do yet. There is a lot of stuff that I would love to do. I’m into electronics, so I think learning about home wiring would be a pretty interesting thing to learn about. I’m thinking about picking up a DVD that teaches you all about it. Of course before attempting anything too advanced, I would probably have to make sure to watch the DVD a few times to make sure I was doing everything correctly, otherwise no more updates to Lep’s Lair.

I think DoItYourself DVDs would be good to start with, it is always good to have some background on the project you are doing. I mean you don’t want to get into something and realize that you do not have the correct tools for the job right? The DVDs will make sure you have the right tools and the knowledge of how to use them. If you are interested then why not Visit DoItYourself for more and buy the DVD, I know I might go there the next time I take on a project I need more information on.