Personal archive at Daniel Spisak on Technology

Archive for the 'Personal' Category

7 months ago

Bloody Vikings

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Categories: Personal

I know I haven’t posted in a while here but that is going to be changing soon. Life has been pretty busy, but this is for good reasons. Things are getting done and progress has been made. After all, I did graduate! In the meantime, the Nonmundane.org server has moved to new hardware and a new OS. It’s now hosted on a custom box I built running FreeBSD 7 and it seems to be just fine. Sadly however, in the process of moving from the old and busted server (good riddance!) to the new hotness there were some bumps in the road. Namely, my entire Gallery 2 photo database and picture gallery is 7 different kinds of screwed up due to some demolished MySQL tables.

You may also have noticed that the blog is now running WordPress 2.5 and this has caused its own set of headaches. Namely, dealing with broken plugins, semi-functional Wordpress themes and general digital decay and cruft. Most of the blog is working but you will see some parts are, shall we say, running at reduced capabilities.

On top of all of this I am also attempting to figure out where I am having my birthday party still. My real birthday was April 12th which has come and gone and I was unable to celebrate at the time due to working in San Francisco running a show for work. I had a place in mind to have a party this Saturday evening on the 26th, but that fell through. My other alternate in mind wont work either since I know the person will be out of town in the mountains for the weekend. This leaves me with two remaining options, one in Marina Del Rey but I’m not really sure how many people would be able to make it or want to drive all that way or try and figure out yet another possibility. In any case, if you’ve got any ideas I am all ears.

10 months, 3 weeks ago

New Year Eve is coming….join me

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Categories: Personal

This year I am hanging out with some friends of mine up in Marina Del Rey for New Years Eve. In case some of you folks dont have plans already or were wondering what is going on then this post is for you. If you are going to show up then give me a call or IM me at docwho76 on AIM or one of my other IM accounts. Here is the info for the New Years Eve party at their apartment in Marina Del Rey starting at 7PM. Here is a link to the Google Maps address of the location:

http://tinyurl.com/2hsxpl

It’s Apartment 204 in Building 6. Right now the Building 6 elevator is broken so you need to park closest to the Building 7 elevator and someone will let you in the door. To park take the small traffic circle and drive down the ramp to the bottom level parking structure. There will be a phone on the left, dial 262 for the apartment for someone to buzz you in. Park as close to the Green Building 7 elevator as possible. You might have to park a ways down the structure depending on how crowded it is.

It’s a pretty big apartment, lots of room. Booze and food will be there, but as usual if you want to bring some beer or food that is always welcome. There will likely be some kind of console gaming going on either Rock Band or Guitar Hero III or the like. The apartment also has a pretty huge outdoor deck as well for all the smokers.

Anyways, let me know if your going to make it or not. Hope you all have a great New Years!

11 months ago

I am graduating!

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Categories: Cool and Personal

Okay everyone, this is the day none of you have been waiting for! I finally got my grade for my last quarter at UCI and I passed all of the classes!

What this means is that barring any bizzare unforeseen circumstances (i.e. I owe the uni money somehow, I turn out to be a figment of my own imagination, etc) I should be officially graduated from UC Irvine with my bachelors degree in Information and Computer Science.

So what does this mean for you, the non-existant reader who cares about this? Well since UCI only does commencement once a year it means I wont walk until June 2008 roughly, and tickets for commencement go on sale sometime in March I am told. It supposedly takes the university about seven weeks to process the paperwork to certify and print a degree at which point they either mail it to my permanent mailing address or notify me that its read to be picked up.

I already have a job as a consultant which I am now going to be working for full-time basically with benefits and other nice things which should help me out a lot with my stupid money troubles finally. The plan so far is to spend some time paying off my small remaining debt and taking car of a few things on the car I have had to put off and then getting a decent amount of cash saved up before moving out of the parents house.

Now as far as celebration of my graduation goes, frankly I have no idea when it will happen or what shape it is going to take. This is complicated by the fact that basically I am already working full-time and have some big projects in the works already for CES (which I am going to again to work) and some other stuff. I would like to have a party with all of you people that could/would want to do such a thing as soon as I can figure out a good time for it. Odds are sometime the weekend after CES or in Janurary sometime since everyone is going crazy with holiday events.

11 months ago

Wordpress updated, etc

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Categories: Personal and Technology Musings

I finally went ahead and upgraded to Wordpress 2.3.1. I ended up having to uninstall the Bad Behavior plugin because, well, it was behaving badly. Namely when I tried to login to the admin page of my blog from home it thought my home IP address was a known bad IP address which sounds pretty wrong to me. So I went ahead and logged into my server via SSH and tried to login to the admin page using Lynx on the console and Bad Behavior then had a conniption fit about being connected to from localhost which in my book was the last straw. You should *ALWAYS* allow localhost to connect to you dammit, you damn dumb POS overblown PHP script. A quick rm of the Bad Behavior directory got things back to normal thank god.

While I was at it I also updated all of my plugins and tinkered around abit with the backend scripts for the Redoable WP theme I am using in an attempt to get some annoying MySQL errors to stop when I am in the administrative interface with some luck. Apparently the author of the theme is swamped with real work and uni studies so I can understand their predicament. In the meantime I might go check out the K2 theme people and see where they are these days. Last I looked it was at a point where you had to sync with nightly SVN updates which I thought was rather ridiculous a thing to have to do for a bloody WP theme to work reliably.

More updates to come.

1 year, 1 month ago

How can I help you?

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Categories: Personal

I just needed to share what I just learned because I myself can’t believe it. Long story made short, I had not received a license renewal notice from the DMV for my cars tags which expired near the end of this month. So, being the bright person I am I try to look into the DMV website to see what my fees are for the BMW.

Except, if you go to the DMV website and try to lookup your fees online you have to have a RIN number to enter in along with your license plate number for their system to show you your registration fee information. But I never got a renewal letter from the DMV, so I have no RIN. So no online help there.

Some perusal of the DMV site does net me a 800 number to call. I call it and am immediately in voice menu jail, however the system wasn’t designed by Kafka so after about two minutes I was able to navigate to the “Talk to carbon-based lifeforms” option. After waiting on hold for about another minute a decently nice guy comes on the phone to help me out. I explain I had gotten no renewal notice and that I know my registration is probably due ASAP. The man then tells me “Oh, well the computers here are confused because it shows the title for your car was transfered in 2005″

WHAT? THE? FUCK!?!?!?

I talk to the man some more and ask him “What is the name of the person it was transfered to?”. He tells me “I can’t give that to you, its a conflict of interest.” So I try a different tactic “Can you tell me exactly when the transfer supposedly happened?” He says Janurary 16th, 2005. “Wait a second, I got a license renewal notice for 2006! How come that one got mailed to me if the title was supposedly transfered to someone else?”

“Dont know” he says.

“If I come into the DMV office will they be able to tell me the name on the transfer?” I ask him.

“Yes”

“How come I never received any notification paperwork from the DMV at my permanent mailing address, which has never changed since I’ve had a license in CA?” Getting pretty fuming mad by this point wondering if this was some kind of aborted ID theft attempt or something.

“I don’t know sir, you’ll have to talk to someone at one of the field offices about that”

Gah….so now I know how much my registration will cost me (way too much thanks to 4 old parking tickets now totaling $572 dollars, thanks County of Los &*^&*^%# Angeles) and have to smog the BMW and go into the DMV office to find someone to talk to/yell at for this title nonsense. Le sigh.

1 year, 3 months ago

Photos from Rich and Michelle’s wedding

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Categories: Personal

I just finished uploading photos from Rich and Michelle’s wedding last week to my server. There were a lot of chunkers in attendance and overall it was a lot of fun for everyone involved. One funny thing that happened was the priest presiding over the marriage forgot to conclude the ceremony at the end (the part where they go “By the power invested in me by the State” etc) so when everyone was at the reception at the Mile Square Golf Club he pulled the couple out onto the dance floor and completed the lines there.

Richard and Michelle’s Wedding Photos I took

1 year, 3 months ago

Why I probably won’t be renewing my Yahoo! Personal’s account

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Categories: Humor, Personal and Relationship Follies

So for the past month I have been paying for my Yahoo! Personal’s account in an attempt to see if the service had gotten any better or see if there were any actual real people using the service. I’ve been keeping track of the numbers and results so far and today marks a full month since starting this experiment of mine. So in total, in the past month since I started using my Yahoo! Personals account here are the results:
—
1 Spammer
14 Contacted over a month ago, 2 of which deleted their profiles since, of which 12 never responded back with so much as a “not interested”
1 Of which said not interested
1 Who said they had just started dating someone

1 Who contacted me spontaneously (from Riverside)
1 Who IM’ed me spontaneously (from Alabama, see below)

1 Whom I contacted, they wrote back, I responded and they responded back, only to not hear anything from them for 3 weeks since. So not sure what to think. She seems nice and interesting and said she was on vacation at the time of her last response but that was three weeks ago so I sent her a quick note asking what had happened to her. Maybe she just got busy with life, who knows.

The one who contacted me from Riverside seemed nice but Riverside is just too bloody far away from everything I do. School, work, you name it not a single lick of any of it takes me out to Riverside. So that’s just not workable for me. After all I have to be practical about what I am capable of dealing with time-wise and distance-wise and I know Riverside is just too damn far.

Now the one from Alabama who spontaneously IM’ed me. Oh boy, that one has crazy written all over her. She talked to me yesterday and it was the most singularly weird conversation I have had in a long while. I tried to be nice, but I’m not sure this woman got the point that I am not looking to start a long distance relationship anytime soon. Just check out this chat log from yesterday and you will see what I mean. And remember boys and girls, I get to pay Yahoo! $24.95 a month for the privilege of talking to people like the one below. Sweet Baby Jesus.

7:22:44 PM jen.lasweetbaby: Hello…..how are you doing today,? my name is Joyce , just wanted to IM you if we can chat together or what do you think!!!!!….
7:23:26 PM doctorwho21: Hi there, who is this?
7:23:43 PM jen.lasweetbaby: sorry my name is Joyce from Yahoo Personals
7:23:59 PM doctorwho21: oh ok! Sorry, was just a little confused
7:24:08 PM jen.lasweetbaby: Oh….okay
7:24:15 PM jen.lasweetbaby: my name is Joyce
7:24:21 PM doctorwho21: Hiya Joyce. I’m Dan
7:24:35 PM jen.lasweetbaby: and am new member on there , just wanted to Im you if we can chat sometime
7:24:42 PM jen.lasweetbaby: nice meeting you Da
7:24:44 PM jen.lasweetbaby: Dan
7:25:17 PM doctorwho21: Yeah its ok, I dont mind
7:25:27 PM jen.lasweetbaby: okay..thanks
7:25:34 PM jen.lasweetbaby: how old are you ?
7:25:41 PM doctorwho21: But you profile says your in Alabama?
7:25:46 PM doctorwho21: I’m 31
7:26:27 PM jen.lasweetbaby: yes , i just like to chat with someone long way , coz i dont know where we cpuld meet if God to let Us to each other better
7:26:40 PM jen.lasweetbaby: Or dont you want to talk to me since am in AL?
7:27:11 PM doctorwho21: It is nothing personal, but I have done long distance relationships before and I have found out that they have not worked for me in the past.
7:27:37 PM jen.lasweetbaby: Oh….i think god dont want you both to meet each other
7:27:58 PM jen.lasweetbaby: well i do believe in Gods word and i like going to church
7:28:28 PM doctorwho21: Ah ok, well I am not very religious I’m afraid.
7:28:43 PM jen.lasweetbaby: afraid of what !!!
7:29:04 PM doctorwho21: I was just saying that I am not religious
7:29:36 PM jen.lasweetbaby: oh….okay got it
7:29:53 PM jen.lasweetbaby: so dan do we think if God can let Us we gonna be togther
7:30:04 PM jen.lasweetbaby: am just alone nobody and i need someone to make me happy
7:31:19 PM doctorwho21: Right, uhm, I hate to sound down here but I really am in no place to be doing a long distance relationship. I am looking for someone local Joyce.
7:31:56 PM jen.lasweetbaby: well if you say so
7:33:44 PM jen.lasweetbaby: so what do you wanna talk about now?
7:33:54 PM doctorwho21: I don’t think you understand. I am working on a degree right now and have little time for much beyond work, school, and possibly starting a relationship locally. If I was going to be getting into a long distance relationship I would need to be done with my degree and in a better position financially.
7:34:20 PM doctorwho21: Whatever you want to talk about is fine with me
7:34:44 PM jen.lasweetbaby: Thats okay by me and if you think we can ever meet then
7:34:51 PM jen.lasweetbaby: what are you really lookingfor
7:36:11 PM doctorwho21: Well I am looking for someone I get along with and can talk to along with a dash of physical compatibility as well.
7:36:26 PM jen.lasweetbaby: Thats cool
7:36:34 PM jen.lasweetbaby: so can you tell me more about you sometime
7:38:17 PM doctorwho21: I guess, but I really dont see how we would possibly ever meet up?
7:38:40 PM jen.lasweetbaby: how and why do you say such thinggs?
7:40:24 PM doctorwho21: Because its how I see things? Your on the opposite side of the country. I have no idea where I will end up when I am done with my degree but there is a good chance I will remain in California. Hence my prefrence to try and find someone locally.
7:42:01 PM jen.lasweetbaby: so are you saying we cant never meet in person ?
7:46:14 PM doctorwho21: I’m saying that I dont see how it would happen since I am in no position to travel anytime soon. I also hardly know you, not to mention since your profile isn’t complete it makes it difficult for me to know if we are physically compatible either. This whole conversation sounds like someone asking me if I might ever go 2000 miles to buy milk from the store instead of going across the street to the local store, sight unseen. I also mentioned I’m not a religious person, nor am I likely to change my stance with regards to that anytime in the foreseeable future. While I am sure you are a nice person, you are coming on sort of strong and I know very little about you. I would prefer to take my chances locally where I have the ability to easily make plans to meet with someone verses trying to invest time in a long distance relationship that could very easily end up not being what either person wants.
7:47:54 PM jen.lasweetbaby: ohh….
7:47:58 PM jen.lasweetbaby: can i add you?
7:48:14 PM doctorwho21: I thought I already authorized it?
7:48:24 PM jen.lasweetbaby: No
7:48:26 PM jen.lasweetbaby: i dont think so
7:48:28 PM jen.lasweetbaby: you havent
7:49:04 PM doctorwho21: I just allowed it?
7:49:17 PM jen.lasweetbaby: Okay
7:50:32 PM jen.lasweetbaby: so what are we gonna talk about now
7:50:59 PM doctorwho21: Whatever you want, you caught me in the middle of reading for one of my classes
7:51:28 PM jen.lasweetbaby: lol….well i want to know what are you really looking for
7:51:43 PM jen.lasweetbaby: and what type of relationships are you seeking for on here
7:52:25 PM doctorwho21: One second
7:52:48 PM jen.lasweetbaby: Okay
8:01:50 PM doctorwho21: I’m looking for a woman I am compatible with, ideally someone to date and maybe develop into a more serious relationship if I feel comfortable about that.
8:02:29 PM jen.lasweetbaby: Thats nice
8:02:39 PM jen.lasweetbaby: when did you joined this site?
8:04:11 PM doctorwho21: a month ago
8:05:47 PM jen.lasweetbaby: oh….
8:05:57 PM jen.lasweetbaby: and you never met any lady so far /
8:06:04 PM doctorwho21: nope
8:06:13 PM jen.lasweetbaby: Okay then
8:07:34 PM jen.lasweetbaby: so tell me more fof you
8:07:42 PM jen.lasweetbaby: or what doy uo wanna know about me
8:08:39 PM doctorwho21: Why did you decide to talk to me?
8:09:09 PM jen.lasweetbaby: i think you’re looking for a serious relationship right ?
8:09:36 PM doctorwho21: eventually, yes, but I’m not going to jump right into one. I want to get to know someone first
8:10:05 PM jen.lasweetbaby: yes thats what we’re doing
8:11:09 PM doctorwho21: right, but I prefer to meet people in person to make those kinds of determinations. I have had experiences in the past where people online were not what they represented themselves to be.
8:12:04 PM jen.lasweetbaby: Okay,,,,then
8:12:16 PM jen.lasweetbaby: i think we have to add this then
8:14:59 PM doctorwho21: add what?
8:15:24 PM jen.lasweetbaby: i mean end this
8:15:41 PM doctorwho21: the conversation you mean I assume?
8:15:52 PM jen.lasweetbaby: yes
8:15:58 PM doctorwho21: Okie dokie
8:16:38 PM doctorwho21: Good bye
8:16:46 PM jen.lasweetbaby: its okay

Seriously, I just want to meet someone relatively normal-ish who is local and whom there is at least some kind of spark with.

1 year, 4 months ago

New photos and friends birthdays!

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Categories: Cool and Personal

So my friends are what you might call the perfect storm of planning r-tardation sometimes. Don’t get me wrong, I love them like family but sometimes they do things collectively that are at the same time completely awesome while being totally retarded.

Case in point, this past 4th of July it looked like no one had any kind of group activity planned. No BBQs, no parties, no get togethers, hell not even a trip out to go see a new movie. In other words, pretty damn bleak. There had been a potential prospect for a party to go to, but my friend whom knew the people throwing it decided not to go and I wasn’t one to try and worm my way into a party where I didn’t know anyone.

So starting on the 4th of July I get an invite on MySpace for my friend Jim’s birthday, to be held on Saturday the 7th in the evening. Good, right? Well my friend Jason Bender had gotten a hold of me like a week and a half previous and let me know his birthday was going to go down the same night at The Edison in Hollywood. Conflict, right?

But wait, theres more! The next day, the 5th I get another invite to a birthday party for my friends Alia and Irene….on the same day and time. Great, so now there are four birthdays spread across three different locations on the same night. At which point I talk to Adrienne and she tells me that my friend Rich who is getting married is doing some kind of party that same night!!!! Whom I then ask about what is going on, only to find out that event is cancelled.

Except the next day I then get an invite for Rich’s birthday dinner on….you guessed it…the same freaking night. So we now have five birthdays in four different locations, three of which are in Orange County and the last which is up in Hollywood. So I decide to stick it out down in OC and hit all the parties I can so I can see people I hadn’t seen in quite a while. It was sort of like a bizarre triathlon of some sort, but overall it was a fun experience.

Now, onto the photos from the parties and other events recently!

Everyone who made it to Rich’s 31st birthday party at the teppan house they picked in HB. All the July birthday party photos are here.

On Friday and Saturday I spent a few hours getting tanned/lightly sunburned while getting some photos of surfers and hot surfer babes from off the HB Pier at Main St.

Friday’s photos at Huntington Beach

Saturday’s photos at Huntington Beach

Last but not least are some older photos I had neglected to upload. First we have a few shots I took at sunset near the Seal Beach Naval Weapons base not too far south from home here. I really like how the colors in the sky came out that particular day, just awesome light.

Finally we have photos of the Friday night Big Bang fireworks show at Angel Stadium in Anahiem from back in early May when I went to see the Angels kick the White Sox a new one. I didn’t have my tripod with me so I was having to hand-hold these shots so they didn’t come out as good as I wanted them to, but it gave me some experience working on my handheld technique. This particular photo however I thought turned out not half bad:

In movie related news I can recommend anyone go see Transformers, especially if you are a big fan of the show. Michael Bay somehow managed to make a truly kickass movie with my childhood franchise memories. If you haven’t seen the movie yet, you should do yourself a favor and go out and see it right away.

1 year, 4 months ago

It’s the 4th! I have NOTHING to do!

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Categories: Personal

This must change. If you know of something going on, be it BBQ, party, gathering of awesomness…. WHATEVER. Reply back and let me know, or IM me, or call my ass 562-331-1603.

If I don’t hear of anything I may just head out to the beach for some sun.

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About the Author

Daniel Spisak was born from the fiery depths of fusion and now roams the pale blue dot known as Earth. I obtained my bachelors degree in Computer Science from UC Irvine at the end of 2007.

I am also involved in technology & security consulting firms as well as being a freelance technology writer. I also contribute to Jerry Pournelle's website and Chaos Manor Reviews. Additionally I am also a freelance photographer as well and you can find my photos either on my own personal gallery or up at my Flickr account or on Zivity.

This blog is one of the main locations where I do my writing, which is then automatically sent to my LiveJournal, VOX, and MySpace accounts. I can also be found on a variety of social networking and microblogging sites like Pownce, Twitter, Brightkite, Facebook, and LinkedIn.

If your viewing this site with Internet Explorer it may not look correct because IE is horrible about following W3C web standards properly or consistently. I suggest you try browsing the Internet with Firefox. It is much better and not as vulnerable to security flaws as IE can be.