me talking out loud

Was cruising around the internet and happened across the Wordpress site. On it they talked about the latest version 2.0.2…. I stopped and looked again… version 2.0.2. Oh crap - my blog version is waaay out of date… *sigh* something else to add to my list of things TODO - upgrade the blog.

Just added the pictures from Jason’s dives at Shark’s Pit and Happ’s Reef this past weekend. I had a cold last week and was still stuffed up, so couldn’t dive with him. The water was beautiful - so I was kinda jealous… but not too bad since I still felt kinda crappy.

Hope you like them.

Don’t you hate it when you think you have all the kinks out of something - and bam! You find a really big one sitting right under your nose. I hate that.

Well I did it - I passed the MySQL Core Exam (at least that is what the paper that they gave me at the testing center says). This is going to sound horrible but - it was both harder and easier then I thought it would be. They asked about things I never heard about, things I did hear about but didn’t remember the details, and luckily stuff I did know (thank goodness I had the study guide and used it). The stuff I thought would be on the exam - wasn’t - so the studying saved my butt.

Well thank goodness that is over… Though I still want to go for my Zend cert sometime around the end of the year. But that is a long way away yet. For now - I just want to sit down and read a good book that has nothing to do with computers.

Well tomarrow I take the MySQL Core Exam for 4.x whether or not I’m ready for it. I am definately nervous and it will not help that I am also sick, but such is life. At least i have a valid reason to be sweating while I take the exam… I’m sick - remember .

Wish me luck.

Ok - for a while now a bunch of friends have been trying to get me to what the British show “The IT Crowd” and for various reasons - I didn’t. Last week I was once again reminded to one of the episodes and just watch it, and I finally did.

I have to admit - it was funny as hell. There were a couple of times I litereally had tears in my eyes from it. So what do I do? 1) Download every friggin episode and put them on disk to take home and 2) introduce my husband to it (he also enjoys it). Hopefully they will continue the series and continue to make the episodes available online, though I don’t know the current status of the show. Again I was a later - but better late then never.

Psst - if you aren’t in England to get the direct downloads - there are plenty of other sites that have them. So just look around.

Favorite tech props - the RTFM Tshirt worn by Roy in the first episode and the various perl camels around the office.
Favorite quote - “Fire… exclamation point, Fire… exclamation point, Help… exclamation point”

Went down to the seaplanes this weekend. It was a really cool dive. The planes sit at ~75 - 100 ft and are quite easy to see when it is clear. You have to be careful though since the bottom is silty and kicks up easily. We unfortuantely got there after a larger group and the bottom was still kinda kicked up. When we were there the best vantage point was from directly over the wreck looking down.

You could see the wings laying flat on the ground with the pontoons pointing upward, but the odd part was the cockpit seemed to be facing upward (maybe it was just because of the hole… ). Anyway we took some pictures (will be loading them in the next day or 2) but plan to go down again hopefully in better conditions. It should be noted that the seaplanes were our major objective - but there were some really cool sealife around. soft seaweeds/corals (we giggled at the phalic shaped one) and some beautiful large angel type fish (not bat fish - smaller). All in all it was a good dive.

Well I went out last night and had dinner with my husband’s command’s family support group at Old Hagatna Grill. I have to admit - I had a good time. But I also have to admit it was kinda odd.

It has been over 2 years since I connected with the support group. Since then all the people I knew are long gone and a whole new set of officers and ombudsman have taken over. It has also been about 2 years since I really had to socialize with military spouses and I forgot what it was like, and how different our life is from so many of them. Most live on base with young children and limited contact with the local population. We live off base, have a teenager and rarely have contact with the military population. My husband and I work hard at living a “normal” civilian life since the military will not always be a part of our life. To me, many of the other families lives are almost consumed by the military. Talk about being close to polar opposites.

Don’t get me wrong - to me each has it’s place. And I am the first to recommend to a new spouses/arrivals to contact the support group and ombudsman. They are incredably valuable resources to have. Friends, play groups for the kids, support when the spouse is underway are just a few of the things they help provide to someone new to the area and the military lifestyle. I guess I/we have been here (Guam and the military) long enough that we no longer feel the need… though I will probably be one of the first to call when/if I do feel I need them.

Jason and I tend to be isolationists… we don’t really socialize much with others. It isn’t that we don’t enjoy socializing, we just like to do our own thing and if others want to join in - great. If not - that is fine too. Neither one of us particularly drink and why go to a bar when home is much more comfortable. We like doing outdoor stuff (offroading, golf, diving) but don’t feel the need to do it every weekend. I guess what it basically comes down to is that we are both intraverts. Each others company is generally all we need. It is nice though to occasionally get outside our box and reconnect with the rest of the world.

Found the basis for this on Bash.org… pretty sure it is actually an old thing - but I still like it:

Girls = Time x Money
Time = Money
Girls = Money x Money = (Money)2
Money = root(evil)
Girls = (root(evil)2)
Girls = Evil
Or…
you can say girls = (root(evil)2), so girls = |evil|
or girls = absolute evil

I can live with that.

Sheesh - go home on Friday and take 3 days off (Monday was a local holiday) and miss the release “party” for Zend’s new Framework. I personally have been patiently waiting for this to release. Don’t know why but I’m rather excited about it.

Now that the first release is out, I can’t wait to take it for a test drive. But before I do that I of course need to check out is site and the manual - of course. Both, after a quick glance through, seem to have quite a bit of info for me to dig into and through. From all I have read in the various blogs it is still very rough around the edges but worth playing with.

Well now that I am on the new server and the gallery is up and running, figured it was time for me to up load those pictures that instigated the whole move in the first place (and yes they brought me over the 800Mb limit imposed by my last hosting service.

I have put up the Gab Gab II, Dadi Beach, and Piti Bombholes pictures. Before you ask - Yes we did take all those images, and No we did not buy an underwater camera. We did buy a waterproof casing for the digital camera we already had and use that. Cheaper and as you can see effective (with a little color, layer and contrast balancing in PS7… no more then you would do if you took it to one of the kiosks at your drugstore).

Hope you like the pictures and we will be sure to keep adding to them as we do other dives.

found this interesting - FIX: safe_mode is gone in the Zend Weekly Summery: Issue # 276