The voice of StarTrek, and therefore the voice of many of us geeks, Majel Barrett Rodenberry is gone...

http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/news/tv/la-me-roddenberry19-2008dec19,0,7472433.story

I'm officially sad.

Just wanted to say Happy Thanksgiving!

I've got to get to work. Have a good weekend all!

Good evening inter-web babies.
I found something out in the endless seas of electrons and wanted to share it with you.( American Poem )</div>

Oh yea baby, it's for real:
http://geeksofdoom.com/2008/10/27/boondock-saints-2-officially-begins-filming/

Can I get an AMEN?

So the trip to Detroit was... successful. Everything worked to spec, and I even learned a few things that I'm trying to put into practice.
In other professional news, we've rolled out a new IM system at work. It's pretty cool, and the general consensus is it's a good thing. Most of the older folks who are using it don't like it, and see no reason why they'd ever use it. The rest don't see a problem with it. So far it hasn't been abused more than I have expected. In addition to this, I'm working on re-vamping our Domain, re-vamping our network infrastructure (including the wireless that is still problematic), and fine tuning the whole thing. I'm also doing research on WMI scripting, and that could take months of research.

On the non-professional side of things, I was in North Carolina with the wife for a bit last week. I basically came home from Detroit, worked for a day, and then hit the road for NC. It was nice to be out of town, even if my mom was WAY over protective of my wife. I know she means well, but if it's annoying me, it was driving my wife crazy! I'll have to talk to her about that...
So we stayed there until the day after my birthday, and we drove home. I have to admit, the car was better on my back than I thought.
OH! I'm thinking of buying a mini-van. The van the company got me for the Detroit trip was WAY comfortable. I was actually feeling BETTER than I had before I left. Now that I'm back to my old seats, I'm hurting again... go figure. So I found a van that's in my price range and that I like. I'm planning on taking a look at it this week. It's funny, I want a mini-van and my wife wants a sports car. How's that for a switch?

Lastly, remember me spouting about switching my computer to Linux? Specifically Fedora? Yea, that crashed and burned. It actually burned to the point that the Windows recovery CD wouldn't boot. I had to clean the entire hard drive, and leaned on Ubuntu, the more supported Linux distro. I've got it up and running smoothly now, for the most part. My connection to work is still FUBAR, but I'm still working on that.
WoW is running, I've got Open Office 3.0 installed (which I recommend to anyone who wants a free Microsoft Office replacement) so I can do some productivity based stuff.

That's all I've got. I'm out for bed.
Be good kids!

So I'm heading out of town Monday. We've got a show in Detroit, MI that I'm setting up for. Thanks to my brilliant handling of our network in the last year, we're actually taking live orders now at trade shows. Previously, they would dump the data into a mock server, then re-key every order after the show was over. Assuming we had a good day, that's 75 orders that we have to put into the system when we take the order, then re-key into the live system when we're done. Why on earth would we do that? 
Now, we connect to our system through an encrypted internet tunnel, so we're cutting out some of the work.
Anyway, I've digressed. I'm heading up for the show Monday, and won't be back until Wednesday night.
I'm here Thursday, then the wife and I are heading to North Carolina for four days. My birthday is next Monday, so I figured I'd like to get out of town for a while. With all the drama at work, it will be nice to side step work for awhile. So we visit my parents. My mom's been having some hard times with her dad and sister recently. They both may have cancer. Nice, right? My grandpa has had throat cancer before, and we think he may be getting it again. My aunt has been having SEVERE mental problems for about a year. Mental problems like she can't remember how to dial a phone. Yea, good right?
So we're heading down for a few days, both for us, and because it'll be nice to see my parents.

In other news, I am Linux bound. I've switched my main PC (A Dell laptop) over to Fedora 9.0. That's a Linux distro that I've gotten familiar with at work. I'm totally digging it. I've got the main things working (OS, internet, email, openoffice for Word, Spreadsheet, etc...), now comes the IMPORTANT things like WoW, and all the other games I've got on here. That's going to be the hard part I think.
I've kept a copy of Windows on here for dual booting purposes, so that should I NEED to go back to Windows, I can without too much trouble.
It's pretty cool.

That's all I've got. Hope y'all are doing well.

Some of the highlights of the week:
Friday: "Do you really think you could land that job?"
Monday: "We're not trying to screw you..."
Tuesday: Dr. thinks I may have re-herniated my back..
Wednesday: I can hardly stand. Drugs are good...
Thursday: I get confirmation that I'm being placated at work...
Friday: I'm thinking about moving jobs

Yea, good times.

So I was driving over to a co-workers house to help her with some computer trouble.
Yes, I do that kind of thing occasionally.
So I'm driving and I pass a funeral parlor, which in and of itself is not unusual, but the name catches my eye.
"Newcomer Funeral Services".
I couldn't help but laugh for a few miles. I just thought it both ironic and amusing.
Yes, I'm messed up.

Snobbery night tonight! w00t!

So yesterday I did something stupid. I got up and decided "I'm going to start working out in the morning". So I did, for 45 minutes or so. Mostly core strengthening exercises, as my back is STILL/ALWAYS an issue. I did those in about 15 minutes, and then decided to walk on the treadmill for half an hour. 
I feel like I'm pre-operation. My back hurt bad enough today that I've already taken a T3 that I keep around for just such a problem. 
I hope this goes away, but I'm not certain it will...
SO let this be a lesson to you. Don't exercise, all it does is hurt you.

I had it out with "the man" yesterday. I didn't get what I wanted. They didn't offer what I wanted, although they did offer what I expected them to.
I countered with mine (which was basically 50% increased above BASE salary). They didn't take kindly to that... I could see that my boss was floored. The great thing is, the data I have points to me being (even at my 50% increase) 12K underpaid. Yea.
So they countered this morning, and I knew that they couldn't get where I wanted to be. The countered offer was higher than their original, but not by much. I took it, as I didn't want to drag it out any more, and because I know that I've been averaging a 13.3% increase every year. In two years, I'm chasing the cap for my experience level. I'm ok with that.

So that drama's at an end. I know my wife will be unhappy with the results of this, just as she is every year when I get my review. I hate it sometimes. This company has gone WAY out of it's way for me, and I have a bunch of benefits here that I wouldn't get anywhere else, show me where I can get vision/dental/medical/life/disability for supper cheap w/$0-10 copays. I won't have a set schedule, I won't have a specific number of days I can take off, so I can pretty much schedule what I like and still get paid for it. There are some good benefits that I can't put a number on.

So there it is. I've got enough to cover what I was planning on covering, plus just a smidge extra (huh, doesn't like smidge). The company is very happy with my work, and I'm very happy with the work I've been doing. Not too bad all around.

In other news, my wife and I (and two couple we know) are going out this weekend. Broadway Across America's "The Lion King" is in town, and we've had tickets for months. We're going out to diner to one of the swankier restaurants in town before too. It's a night of snobbery/culture, and it's a rocking good time normally. We try to do these quarterly (as money allows).

Sunday, I have to go tutor some of the folks in my Math class, as they are already having trouble with it. Week 3 and we're already diving into imaginary numbers. Reality is for people who can't handle √(-1).
If you get that joke, you've spent way too much time with math. If you don't get that joke, brush up on your math skills ;-)

Have fun kids.

So I know I've been on about this before, but I think I'm getting my review tomorrow. I have busted my ass off this past year. I've done a considerable research on it, and I'm gearing up on fighting for an "equity adjustment" as opposed to a raise. That's when you are so far behind the market for your position that a typical (5-15%) raise won't come close to closing the gap. That's where I'm at. According to Salary.com, I'm the bottom 1% of my field. That's crap.
So I'm working myself up over that, and making myself all nervous. Now granted the premier of Heroes is going to allay a lot of those nerves for a bit, it's not going to be easy.

Ok, enough of my bitching about how much I make. I'm more often than not happy I simply have a job, that I can pay all the bills, and that I have a little left over.

In other news, I went to a web publishing seminar today. Ok, not really web publishing as the Adobe Creative Web publishing suite seminar. Holy Crap! I need to have this software (especially since I'm creating at least three web sites in the near future). The bad news: it retails for $1500. The good news: my current student status gives me a $1100 discount on it. W00T! I'm thinking about picking it up after I call in some markers.

In personal news, the wife and I have been getting along all right. I was supposed to go out Saturday, but got sick. That made me sad, since I spent three hours cleaning up Copperfield (my latest SR character). He's a mage following the Dresden File's Laws of Magic. If you haven't read the Dresden Files, do it.
DO IT NOW!
Ok, so enough geek speak for the moment.
Just wanted to shoot a quick update as to what's what.
It's 8:59 pm, and Heroes is about to start. Do you know where your meat body is?

So I figure it's time for an update...
Jen and I went to the doctor. While I felt the trip was not wasted, Jen will not go back.
No, I take that back, she'll go back if I tell her that she has to go back. She would rather we try to work out whatever problems we have on our own, rather than involve anyone else. I agreed on the condition that the doctor was still available if we fail.
We've talked some, and it's good. We both have issues with the other person, that's to be expected. We were not (and still kind of aren't) talking about said issues, but we talked about them. We'll see how it goes.

Other than that, things are kind of back to normal. I hate it. Ok, hate is a strong word. I don't like it. I was hoping to spur some change, some marked effect. It feels like as long as we don't talk about it, there are no problems, nor was there ever any problems. I don't want it to be like that. The day or two after the visit to the doctor were fabulous. We actually talked to each other, not chit-chat or idle conversation, communication. Then it faded out and seems like it died. I don't want to have to carry this in the relationship too.

Enough about that. We're working on it, and I've set a time line for the things I'd like to see. If I don't see those things, then we go back to the doc.

In more recent (and upbeat) news, Jen put her application in for a promotion last week. Low and behold, they interviewed her about it. While I do not know the results as of yet, she was told that the position is up between her and another girl she works with. Keep your finger crossed. I know it sounds silly, but I think something like this will be good for her. She was hit pretty hard when we moved down here. She was making enough where we used to live to cover ALL of the expenses without my help. That's a lot. Now she feels like she's hardly contributing (which is not the case). It's rough, it hit her already fragile self-esteem, and has been keeping it down some. We'll see how that goes.

Also in other news, I get to make a trip to Detroit, MI the week before my birthday. My company is partaking in the Michigan Restaurant Association show. It's a show for... Restaurant Supply Companies! Jerrry (my boss) went up last year. I have never even seen the satellite store we have up there, so I figure now is a good time. The company is paying for everything, and I'll be gone for 3 days. It should be a good time. In other work related news, my review is coming up in just over a week. I've determined that I'm being paid WAY less than fair market value for my experience. As such, I'm going to be requesting a pretty large raise. I'm still below the 5% line of my field (so sayeth Salary.com). I don't want to appear greedy, but damn it, I could be making a lot more elsewhere. As a matter of fact, I've applied to a few other positions. One told me they'd hire me, except for the lack of Confidential Security Clearance. That made me feel pretty good for not having a degree.
Speaking of which, class is back in session... Woe is me.

That's all I have time for at the moment. Mainly because that's all that's been going on.

The Dresden Files. No questions asked. While not being completely faithful to the books, the show was GREAT. If Sci-Fi hadn't dicked around with the scheduling and stopped moving the show, I'm sure it would have done better.
So yea, the Dresden Files all the way.

So it looks like it's all going to come down to the 27th. That would be, for those of you who don't know, the day after our Anniversary. Jen is seeing the Dr. this afternoon for her last individual visit. Then on the 27th, we both get to see him. It should be interesting. There's a large part of me that is just tired of dealing with all the crap. "Having to tiptoe to save her sensibilities" as a friend of mine has put it. I'm not the only person who has issue with how she's been acting.I'm no saint, but I don't believe I'm misjudging this.
So the ride home tonight should be fun. Jen's picking me up since my car's at the shop, and she's coming straight from the Dr.
Awesome.
In other news, I've started classes for this trimester. It's an insane amount of work, but I NEED to get it done (just one more thing I think I could do better solo).

Enough of me bitching. Thanks for listening.

So I'm here now because I have hope. Hope that my future can be better than my present and past have been.

I talked with Jen this morning. She sees no benefit to going to see the psychiatrist (individually or as a couple). She's only going because I gave her the impression that if she didn't go, our relationship would end. I don't care if we go to the psychiatrist, but there are things that are driving me to depression/resentment that need to be handled and we have proven we are incapable of dealing with it ourselves.
You said you "feel humiliated and worthless just pulling into his parking lot." I can't think what part of trying to save a dying marriage is humiliating or worthless. I think maybe you are upset because you feel like I think it's all your fault. I don't think it is, but the problem IS mainly on your end. YOU ARE NOT TRYING! I've given up so much; emotionally, mentally, hell even physically so that you can be happy. Every time I ask for something in return, I get nothing but a temper tantrum and angst.

So you are making me feel like this relationship isn't worth your time or effort to save. That makes me want to work on it even less. You were upset that I haven't been paying attention to you recently. Did you ever stop to consider it's because I'm upset/angry with you but have NO WHERE to go? If I could stand to be at work more, I'd stay there. It physically hurts me to stay because the way my back has been feeling. I know if I move out, it won't be temporary. I may say it will be, but it won't. The more I think of it, the more I think it may be a good idea for me to do so.
I sincerely believe that I would be capable of so much more without you than with you.
...
I think that's the key right there. I didn't realize I thought that until it came out.