2009

I realize that I haven’t posted much, but there is good reason for that. On Thursday of last week I got a call from my mother telling me she was having emergency eye surgery. On Friday morning, Krissy and I pack up the car to drive down to NJ, where she was having the surgery. Well when we get there we find out that even though it is emergency surgery, and without it she will go blind, since she doesn’t have insurance they won’t touch her without a $3000 down payment. Well since she can’t afford that, and since it is ridiculous that they’d want that, she does what any person who is pissed off would do, she goes through the emergency room.

In New Jersey if you go through an ER they have to treat you no matter what. Only problem is that since she already was upstairs they won’t treat her, so they manage to work out a deal with the hospital higher ups and the doctor and get it down from $3000, to $1100. Still a lot of money, but a lot better than three grand.

Either way, it is things like this that is proof that we need an affordable healthcare system where we can walk in, get fixed what we need to get fixed and go home without paying ridiculous amounts of money. Now for those of you who say something like “why doesn’t she have insurance”, it is simple, she lost her and couldn’t afford to keep her health insurance because she has a few pre-existing conditions and it would cost her more than she makes on unemployment in order for her to have it.

For all of you who are against a public affordable option for health insurance, fuck off, you are probably rich, have never been without insurance and would probably drown in your own piss if you ever didn’t have money.

I am sick. My head is throbbing my throat hurts and all I want to do is crawl back into bed.

I’ve been working through most of the day though on numerous different things. Right now I am trying to get everything sorted out with this script I am writing. The main concept is down, I just need to modify it to work with my user’s script, and then I may put it live.

I know it works right now, just need to make it more user friendly. It won’t be much, but it will be very simple and more things that will require users to register will be coming shortly after. I don’t know if I will have many members, but I hope so over time.

Caity was nice enough to give me five words to blog about, so here I am blogging about them.

Family
I used to think that I didn’t really have much of a family. For most of my life the only actual family that I had known was my father, mother, and grandmother. I went to my uncle’s funeral a few weeks ago and found out that I have cousins, those cousins have children, and I even have second and third cousins that I have never met in other parts of the world. I’d like to stay as close as I can to my family, after all, they are my heritage and my family can be traced back hundreds of years. I think I am finally seeing why family is so important to so many people, it just took me longer than most I guess.

Blogging
I like blogging, though it can get to be a pain sometimes, but all in all it provides an outlet for me to speak, that is when I can speak and not be bound by nondisclosure agreements. For the most part what I write here is completely 100% real. I used to do paid bloggings, until Google dropped my page rank, but looking back I realize that was a really low point in my blog. I lost all my visitors from back then and I am just starting to try and get them all back.

Games
I love games. There is nothing like just sitting back and relaxing after a hard day of work and beating up some virtual enemies like Nazis, Spartans, zombies, or the horrific Nazi Zombies. I have been a gamer my whole life. I actually cannot remember the first system I owned, I know it had a gun and some ghosts that would talk and tell me not to shoot them, but soon after that I remember getting a Nintendo Entertainment System. I’ve had a lot of consoles since then, Super Nintendo, Sega Genesis, Sony Playstation, Sony Playstation 2, X-Box, X-Box 360, Nintendo Wii. I’ve loved all the consoles that I have owned for many different reasons. Super Nintendo had some great games like Mighty Morphin Power Rangers, Genesis had Mortal Kombat with the blood in it. My Wii is completely different, I just wish it had better graphics and games. My 360 is what I play most though, because there’s just nothing like hopping online with some friends or strangers to beat the crap out of other people. It definitely beats playing alone.

Photography
I haven’t really photographed much in a while. I did take pictures at a Labor Day fireworks display, but other than that I have been really lacking lately. There’s really no excuse, if I had a more high end camera, I still probably wouldn’t take as many pictures as I would like. I suppose the not taking pictures come from not knowing what to take pictures of, on top of just really not having much inspiration. When we were living by the beach it was completely different. Watching the sunrise over the ocean was majestic, although I could also watch the sunset over the Sound here, but I can barely get over there for sunset, so maybe that’s why I don’t take as many pictures anymore. I had plans to actually make a lightbox at one point and set up fruit bowls among other things in it, but it never came about. Who knows, maybe one day I will build the lightbox and start taking professional looking photographs.

Programming
Programming is much more than my job, it is my art and it is my true passion. I am usually working on one thing or another in this language or that one. I’ve been programming since high school, it is what I studied in college, and it is what I do on an everyday basis. I’ve done C++, Visual BASIC, PHP, Javascript, Actionscript and more. I’ve been doing simple stuff like HTML and CSS for over ten years and I can see me doing this for at least another ten more years. Any script I download I modify in some way to better make it better, from WordPress and creating plugins, to Enthusiast 3, all the scripts I use on my site are in some way modified by me to work better for me or my visitors.

This is my first blog in over a week. Where have I been? No where actually. I have been here. I have improved some stuff on the site, but mainly I have been working on other people’s stuff. It’s been kind of a busy couple of weeks, so much so that I haven’t even had time to play my Xbox at all. That has hopefully changed though and the next week at least shouldn’t be as busy.

I am hoping to do a better blog soon, maybe tomorrow. Once I do then I will return comments. For some reason I am in a slump with the blog.

My father called me a few days ago and let me know that my uncle had passed away. I went to the wake yesterday and saw family I haven’t seen in years. Some of them I don’t ever remember seeing. I recognized my aunt, but that is only because I remember her from my grandmother’s funeral over ten years ago. I don’t remember her ever seeing her besides that one time. I didn’t even recognize my uncles sons. I don’t even remember ever meeting them before, even though when I looked them up on Facebook I found out that they lived close to me when I was growing up.

Up until the wake I wasn’t necessarily upset with my uncle’s passing. I felt I should be more upset, but I suppose that even though he was my uncle, I never had him in my life so I didn’t really feel sad. I went to the wake only because I felt I should. My father, brother, and cousin Jasmine were all there. Jasmine and I started talking and neither one of us recognized anyone at the wake. I think we both felt the same thing, that maybe as a family we shouldn’t be so far away? She lives in Colorado so it is understandable why she wouldn’t necessarily know anyone when everyone lives in or around New Jersey, but I’m in New York, I lived in New Jersey for 21 years and these people are still complete strangers to me. I never really felt I had family before, my mother is an only child, and her side was the only side I’ve ever really known.

A few months ago my uncle contacted me on geni, which is a site to connect with your ancestry. I barely looked at it, I don’t even think I responded to him. I kept putting off for something else. Today I really looked at it. My family is a lot bigger than I would have thought it to be, and the fact that he put this whole thing together, I wonder if he felt the family was too far apart and if he wanted to bring everyone back together.

I don’t know these people who are in some way related to me. I don’t know their likes and dislikes, I don’t know their nicknames, I wouldn’t recognize them on the street if I passed them. I’m thinking that it needs to change though as I am seeing that family is important and that a family that is distant is useless. I think family should be all around, you should at least be able to say hi and find out more about other members of your family who may or may not be deceased. A Christmas card here and there, a phone call, a random cup of coffee, even just an add on a Social Networking site, family shouldn’t be something that you have no idea who anyone else is. It should be something you embrace, something that you know is out there, even if it is half way around the world. Family shouldn’t come after work, or anything else, it should be number one.

Family isn’t just those who are blood related, it is anyone who you love and hold close to your heart. Family are those friends you love, the ones who you would take a bullet for. Those family members are just as important as the ones your related to because they aren’t the ones who are obligated to be part of your family, but ones you choose to be part of your family.

Family is important, love is important, don’t let another day go by that you don’t appreciate or know your family. You never know when they’ll be gone for good.

There was a huge thunderstorm in Glen Cove today. Well I am sitting here and I see a flash of lightning. Then I hear the thunder. It wasn’t just thunder, this was the kind of thunder that is right overhead, but louder than usual like it hit something. Well then I hear another explosion. I come out to the kitchen and what do I see? Well look below.

The lightning struck a power line and fell onto a car, which made that car, and the car next to it explode. As messed up as it sounds, it is poetic justice, since the Subaru that blew up was the same one who last week parked on my ass in an illegal parking spot and Kris had trouble getting out to go to work.

A few hours ago I was working on a blog post and some new content (which won’t be up for a while) and I hear a bang, like somebody had dropped something heavy. I go to the kitchen and I see a cop. Well as nosey as Kris and I are, we take a walk to go see what happened. A car went speeding up the road and hit the Bobcat that was working on the road from the fire earlier today. The car is totaled, and somehow everyone who was in it survived. Here are the pictures of it.

It’s been an interesting day on Forrest Avenue in Glen Cove and Locust Valley, now if only everyday was as interesting.

Over the years I have had a lot of people tell me that my site was hard on their eyes and it was so dark it was hard to read anything. I hope I never get those complaints again because as you can see, I made it brighter, lighter, and with easier to read colors. Now hopefully more people will come and use this as the resource site it is. I realize some parts look weird, but I can assure you that this is still a work in progress, and if you tell me which parts of the site look off, I will fix them ASAP.

In other sire news, I have finally decided what the first feature of a member section will be. It is light weight, easy to code, but unfortunately a lot of other sites have it. I will just have to make mine better. I am not going to tell you what it is, I may tell my mailing list subscribers, so if you really want to know, then sign up.

I am waiting for this week’s payment to come in, but I don’t think it is going to come in until late tonight, if not then possibly tomorrow. I just hope my bank accepts wire transfers on the weekend, otherwise I will need to wait until Monday. Either way, I believe all bills are up to date and I won’t need to pay any until next Friday when that payment comes through. Hopefully between now and then I can come up with some side work or something.

Work has been a little crazy the last few days. Things kind of blew up out of no where, but for the most part I think everything is back to working the way it should. My job would be a lot easier if I wasn’t on wireless internet. Occasionally I unplug the cord from my 360 to plug it into my computer, but that can be a real hassle. I have been reading up on using two routers together, so I may just plug in another router in the bedroom and connect it to the Xbox and the Mac and PC. At least then I would be able to check how stuff looks and works in Internet Explorer.

Other than that I think I am going to need to buy a battery backup, this way I don’t need to worry if it starts storming outside, I can still work even if the lights go out. At the very least it will save me from loosing work if the power goes out.

Last night I decided to leave my announcement list, and move to a completely new one. I have also changed the mailing list sign up on the sidebar to stand out more and made a WordPress plugin to allow commenters to subscribe with just one click.

I went grocery shopping today. Have you ever noticed that when you are in a rush and want to get in and out quickly and walk as fast as you can that the most annoyingly slow people cut out in front of you and won’t let you pass? I hate that, I kind of just want to push them with the shopping cart to where they need to be, it would help both of us out, if you think about it. They will get to their destination quicker, and I will be able to walk without them getting in my way. It’s a win win situation.

Okay, I think that rant is done. Besides shopping, I changed up my automated notifications that show up on Twitter, Myspace, and all the other services to include the name of the post. I think it will help me draw a user base.

So here are some questions for you, what kind of content do you like to see on websites? What will make you tell your friends about this site? Are you interested in being an affiliate?

I changed the layout of the index page a bit, I put the blog on top of the girl and guy of the moment. Will there be another contest with that? I don’t know, which is why I am putting them underneith. If I do it, it probably won’t be until after I figure out what I want to do for a layout change, although I have been talking about a layout change for how long now?

I think Kris and I are going out to dinner tonight. We were supposed to do lunch today, but something came up with Krissy’s job, so we made it a dinner date. Until then though I have nothing to do. I returned Prototype last night, and found out this morning I have another free rental at Blockbuster. I want to get one of the Call of Duty games, or this game that Lindsey was talking about, Overlord.

I am also anxiously awaiting a payment today. It is the first time that I am having any payments sent through my bank, so I want to see if that shows up today or how that works. I just hope it is sent before my bank closes, otherwise I think I will need to wait until Monday for it, and that won’t be good since I was hoping to pay some bills and do some shopping this weekend. I guess I just need to wait and see.

I created a Myspace Adder section for the site. You can find it here. I did this for a few reasons, first I thought it would bring in some new people to the site (so far it hasn’t though), and two, I wanted to create one for a while and I saw a site that didn’t use pictures for theirs, so I decided to copy the idea and use a general picture for everyone.

Other than that, I have been working all day today and haven’t had a chance to return comments yet. I haven’t even seen any decent new videos to put up in the previews section, it just seems like a blah day all around.

While reading through some sites I just found out that John Hughes died. If you are unfamiliar with his work, then really you should be wondering what you have done in your life. His works include Ferris Buelers Day Off, the Breakfast Club, Weird Science, Curley Sue, Sixteen Candles, Planes, Trains and Automobiles, and Uncle Buck, those are just his directorial credits. As a producer he brought us the Home Alone series, National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation, Career Opportunities, Flubber, Baby’s Day Out, Dennis the Menace, Only the Lonely, and 101 Dalmatians. He also wrote National Lampoon’s Vacation. Like I said if you have never seen any of his movies, then you must lead a very sad life because these are most of the greatest films of the 80s and 90s. The world has lost a great talent.

It has been a few days since I’ve blogged, but really it doesn’t seem that long at all since I have been adding stuff to my Previews section everyday, multiple times a day using WordPress and some custom hacks I made up.

Either way, I haven’t really been up to much, just working and playing Prototype. I’ve got a few secret projects going on for LepsLair that I can’t talk about much yet right now, maybe sometime within the near future, but I think it will definitely start to bring more people here and possibly get others to promote it, which will be good.

We went to St. Roccos Feast on Saturday night, that was pretty fun. We weren’t planning on going, but Alicia called us and told us that we were. It’s great when other people make plans for you without telling you first isn’t it? We hung out there until after they closed up, then we hung out with them for a while afterwards drinking beer. I really like beer.