Another Word for Nerd

Warning: Political opinions ahead.

I had $29 bouncing around in PayPal, and for a week or so had been debating what to buy.. Gun stuff, books, etc. - but hadn’t been able to decide on what to spend it on. Last night I finally spent it on stuff from store.barackobama.com.

This year is the first time that I’ve ever donated money or contributed to a political party, because this is the first year that I’ve seen a candidate that actually offers hope for the future. I’d previously donated $10.01 to his campaign back in February, and will be donating more before November.

In 2004, I switched parties and voted for Kerry simply because he was running against Bush. In 2008, I’m voting for the candidate that can pull us out of this mess.

I sit and think about getting older.

I turn 34 later this year. Everything between age 21 now has just been a blur. Too much of being a workaholic. Too much waking up on a Thursday and thinking “The week’s gone by already?” Too much time spent not accomplishing anything that really matters in the long run other than paying bills and getting by.

I’m seven years older than my parents were when they had me.
I never thought that I would own a house - but now I’m in my *second* home.
I’m making four times what I did in my first “real job” at ioNET in 1995.

I never thought that I would find someone to spend my life with who could put up with my quirks, hobbies, and tendency to be a workaholic. I’ve been with Amy for TEN YEARS now - a third of my life - and we’ve been married for seven of those years.

I don’t “feel” like an adult. I still feel like a kid who is “managing to get by”.
Does this ever change? Do you ever grow older and finally feel “grown up” and mature?

I’m having a heck of a time finding a jeweler or watch repair place to do a simple bezel insert replacement on a pair of Invicta 8926 watches (Rolex Submariner clones). I’ve got the replacement parts, I just need someone with steadier hands to do the actual work of popping off the old insert and gluing the new one in.

When the inserts arrived in the mail last weekend, I took everything to my normal jeweler, the Jared location at Gessner and I-10. Their watch repair person said “Sorry, we’re not an Invicta dealer, I won’t work on them.” I’ve done thousands of dollars of business with them at that location, but their refusal to do a 5-minute job on a $100 watch (when they know I’ve been considering the eventual purchase of a $6K watch from them) made me REALLY frustrated.

I then headed home, and realized that Houston Jewelry was in a strip mall a couple of blocks from the house. I stopped in, explained the situation, and that I just needed a simple part replacement done. The lady I spoke to said “Sure, we’ll work on anything - leave it with us and we’ll call you on Monday with an estimate, this shouldnt take them long at all.” I just got off the phone after they called (note that it’s now Tuesday) and they said “Sorry, we don’t work on Invicta watches.”

Why is it so hard to find someone in west Houston that’s willing to take my money and do this simple 5-minutes-per-watch part replacement?

Heck, I’ll even provide illustrated instructions!

August 2008 Update: Although I ended up fixing one of the watches myself, Rex Solomon (owner of Houston Jewelry) has contacted me and offered to have his watchmaker do a bezel swap if I still need it.

Added two handgrip rails, a vertical foregrip, a Hogue rubberized pistol grip, and a BlueForceGear Victory-series two-point tactical sling.

I’m ready for the paper target zombie hordes!

Just finished a data migration project at work that took up a lot of weekend and evening hours, and this is the first weekend I’ve really had “to myself” in the past two and a half weeks.

I’ve been reading a lot, and even picked up MORE Mack Bolan books at my new favorite used book store here in Houston, Quarter Price Books. Check them out if you’re tired of Borders, Barnes & Noble, and Half Price Books and just want the fun of browsing through stacks and stacks of stuff that isn’t remainders and unsuccessful titles.

I think I’m set for at least a couple months when it comes to reading trashy male action/adventure novels.

On Friday, I won this auction: “Executioner w/Mack Bolan by Don Pendelton - 154 issues”

Of course, now I need to find a cheap way to build some paperback-only bookshelves.

A recent discussion brought back to mind one of my favorite hobbies through the years - reading trashy “male testosterone action/adventure” novels like the Mack Bolan “The Executioner” book series.

I had a good collection of the first 25 books in the series back in the late 80s and early 90s, and would pick them up whenever I found them at flea markets and used book stores. When I lived in Austin from 1996 to 2004, I got my “fix” from a neat little used-paperbacks-only book store on Burnet Road called Book Exchange. I think I still have a lot of trade-in credit left on file there from when I cleaned out my garage one weekend…

Now that I’m in Houston I’ve been unable to find any neat little “hole in the wall” used book stores that carry tons of paperbacks and the “male adventure novels” I look for. Half Price Books is good for sci-fi and everything else. They carry plenty of romance novels (the Mack Bolan series is published by a division of Harlequin) but none of the actual Bolan series or spinoffs.

So far it looks like my only option is to rebuild my collection via eBay, but if anybody that sees this knows of good hole-in-the-wall used book stores in Houston, please let me know via email or comments - and if you’ve got a box of Mack Bolan books in the back of a closet, get in touch.

I’ve had an iPhone since they came out last year, and ever since I got the phone, I’ve been on the search for the perfect iPhone case.

I started out with an iPhone Total Body Skin from BestSkinsEver (ShieldZone sells an identical product, at a higher price). This protects the screen, and adds some not-really-needed protection to the back and sides of the phone that gives me some peace of mind.

First, I started out with a generic snug form-fitting rubber/plastic case bought off eBay. It was okay (better than nothing at all), but didn’t quite fit right and started to “sag” and get loose after only a month or so.

My second iPhone case was the Incase Leather Fitted Sleeve for iPhone. I bought this one from the Apple online store, using part of the store credit that Apple gave out after the iPhone price reduction. It was in use less than a week; the case didn’t fit properly (too tight) and the stitching started to put little divots/indentations into the screen and body protective film. The port access holes never lined up right, and the leather bits on the sides of the phone would “roll” one way or the other. I eventually just took it off and threw it in a drawer somewhere.

My third iPhone case was the DLO Jam Jacket. This was a big improvement over the generic rubber sleeve case and the leather fitted case. However, I don’t use the iPhone earbuds and don’t need to carry them around, so I used a razor blade to cut the “earbud holder” off the back of the case. I used that case for six months or so; my only real complaints are that the texture and “tackyness” of the rubber used tends to attract dust and dirt and that the holes on the side for volume and mute access aren’t very user-friendly (I often had to just pull the top part of the case off the phone when I needed to get to the mute switch).

I was at MicroCenter tonight, and ran across what is, for me, the best case for the iPhone - the XtremeMac Tuffwrap. It’s got the same basic shape and “grip” as the DLO case but without the headphone stuff on the back, and has nicely-formed ports for access to the lock button, side buttons, and bottom dock connector. It came with a TuffShield screen protector, but I’m not using that because the phone already has a protective skin permanently installed.

Other than the generic rubber case I first got off of eBay, the XtremeMac Tuffwrap is also the cheapest case I’ve purchased for my phone, at $19.95. I don’t think I’ll need to find an alternative!

Max, our Saint Bernard.

1999-2008.

We did all we could.
I was with you at the end, there was no way I was going to let you be alone.
I held you in my arms as long as I could, and I know you were comfortable.

I miss you, buddy.

I always say “Three things you shouldn’t discuss at work are religion, politics, and firearms”, and I don’t normally like to discuss religion or politics with friends (I have a few fellow firearm enthusiasts as associates).

However, I early-voted today.