I talked to a friend who works at Lemieux Galleries about getting them framed for trade in computer work. After meeting up (and agreeing how incredibly cool these prints are), I picked out a matte and frame. Each print is 11.25″ x 27″, and 18″ x 34″ after the framing – they’re not exactly small.

Well, I finally got around to hanging them. The unexpected hard parts of hanging them though, was deciding the order. I settled on chronological order of appearance, according to the original trilogy. I did it from memory, and used an ever-excellent and accurate xkcd comic as a reference. The only thing I’m not exactly sure about is whether we see Admiral Ackbar or the Emperor (and no, his hologram doesn’t count) first – and that can be quickly (and funly!) solved by popping in the DVD.

The only thing I debated to myself about was the Luke poster. I wasn’t sure if the white robes depicted his time on the ice planet Hoth, or a more metaphorical representation of him as a sort of “white knight”. I went for the more literal Hoth interpretation because a) I think it’s the correct one, and b) that would give me a solid reference on the timeline.

Well, and I think we can all agree the set looks awesome:

I think each one ran me about $250 each, but that works out to 30 hours at $50 an hour. I get sweet custom frames, they get working computers. Everyone wins.

On the other side, it means that I’m finally getting around to getting rid of the last bit excess hardware that’s been collecting dust over the last x years.

Still works fine, just needs a good home. I’d love some cash for these items (I’d settle for some Guinness or Abita), but at the end of the day, they still work and throwing them away would just be a shame.

APC Smart UPS 1400. Great battery backup, just needs fresh batteries which aren’t all that hard to come by.

HP ProCurve 400m. Such a good switch. Lots of unused drive bays, and can have a secondary power supply installed.

Cisco Catalyst WS-C1912C-EN. A neat little switch for someone wanting to play with/learn about fiber.

Cisco 3101 and 3102 Routers. I dunno, bookends?

Know anyone who’s interested? Send them my way!

I hopped on the scale recently (something I’ve never owned before, and still rarely step on), the other day, and saw a number that was new to me: 167.5.

This is the most I’ve ever weighed, topping my post-Katrina expansion. And I don’t really care about that, because it’s all relative. I don’t care that I weigh that, I care that my BMI is high. I also care that I wasn’t able to button a pair of pants.

The problem is I have become sedentary. I’m traditionally used to a much more active lifestyle, and that just isn’t happening these days. Between the day job, the design/development LLC that Bea and I formed, the housework, and the less-than-happy knees, I just haven’t been exercising. And I /need/ to. I want to.

I just have to make the time. And I am. My friends Chum Dumpster and Everything Butt Sex have been meeting up at NOMA M-W-F at 6am-ish to run 5k. Chum and EBS are hashers who have been concentrating on the drinking part of hashing over the running part. While they run a slower pace than I do, they’re doing the hard part: getting up and doing it. This is what I need. So, Mondays I plan on bringing one dog, and Friday the other, leaving Wednesdays to myself. The pups need exercise too, especially chubby little Indy.

And as for the knees/etc, I’ve already taken the first step, so to speak: I went to the Louisiana Running Co to get fitted for a new pair of shoes: K-Swiss K-Ona C. They’re meshy on top and drain out of the bottom! THE BOTTOM! I really liked that place, too. Just a two-person startup, and I didn’t feel like I was being “sold to” – he just wanted to help me run how I wanted to (no races / half-marathons / full marathons). I definitely recommend them.

Now, obviously running won’t fix the problem alone. I have plans to mountain bike (at least a few laps at the spillway) every few weeks, and do Wii Fit on an almost daily basis.

There are of course dietary concerns, and all I’m going to say is that I’m already making a concerted effort to eat better, and especially cut out as much high fructose corn syrup / crap foods overall. I also understand that it’s just not practical to go whole-hog on that effort, so it’ll be within reason. The last thing I want to is stress out about what I’m eating. If you are (or if you aren’t) familiar with the next handful of months in NOLA, then you should read Pistolette’s excellent rationalization on eating and goals in NOLA.

And as usual, she has inspired Bea and I with our life this year. We have a list of goals, broken down into months, for the year. We’re gonna get a lot of shit done that we’ve been putting off. We’re tired of a project being 85% done.

 

Novembeard is over. I’m sure many Significant Others are grateful for this, and hopefully even more are pleasantly surprised – most of ladies I’ve dated were initially anti-beard.

They came around.

As an unwitting / accidental participant of Novembeard, I can’t say the challenge was particularly difficult, uncomfortable, or itchy. A beard (or various stages of it) is my default for facial hair.

I unfortunately lost my length adapters for my beard trimmer an unknown amount of time ago, so when I heard about this (project? movement? awareness?), I figured ‘Why not? Not like I can properly trim the beard anyways.’

It’s a bit on the longer/scruffier side, but I still like it. Besides, the newly-arrived frigid weather calls for it. My favorite response is by good friend Pistolette: “You are making Dexter eyes in that photo!” I’m not sure what that means, but I’ll take it.

Sorry for the gratuitous height, but my new phone, the Droid X, takes pictures in widescreen.

While their wedding was a few weeks ago, they decided to pretty much keep it family-only and opting for a friends party later – which happened tonight.

I’m deeply honored to be a part of this for them, and have thoroughly enjoyed the experience as a whole – especially the parts where I got to catch up with family and old family friends.

I’ve only seen 3 photos from the ceremony, but here’s my favorite:

NaBloPoMo has been a good exercise – gotten me to get off my ass and write about things that are long overdue – but I’m pretty much done.

I just feel that at this time, I’ve exhausted my post pool. I guess that’s the idea – to catch up on your backlog which then forces you to generate new content.

The problem is, at this point, I don’t feel much like generating new content – and I have 10 more posts to go after this.

I should just be honest with myself and duck out now, but I’m almost done – I should just finish it. Perhaps I should do more situational posts – i.e. one at my ‘coffeeshop’, one drunkpost, etc.

Yeah, booze makes everything better. Now I have content for two – I only need 8 more…

So if you are so inclined, please send you phone number along to dubtea@gmail.com. Thanks.

Nothing against Sprint – I’ve been with them for 7 years or so now (thanks Roger), and I’ve been overall pretty happy with them. I did just look at my Feb bill and notice that I was ~200 minutes over equating to over $100 in extra charges (40¢/minute)!

Anyways, if you had my 940 cell #, delete it. I ain’t be havin’ no none more.

The real point is that you all, even you GoogleBots, want to buy me lots of gifts. I know, it will be a strong urge to resist, but please try. For the children.

Seriously. I write about it every year (which means 12 of you read this), and this year is no exception. However, instead of just Child’s Play Charity (my long-running favorite – pick NOLA!), I have two additional:

OLPC: Give One, Get One – OLPC (One Laptop Per Child) is a project to develop a super-cheap, rugged, Linux-based laptop to distribute to poor, technologically deficient countries to help boost education, which will in turn boost, agriculture, medicine, etc… For $400, you can buy one for yourself, and included in that price, one will be shipped to a child in a developing country – but you only have until Nov. 25. $200 of that is tax-deductible, and you also get a year of T-Mobile hotspot access, as an additional incentive to that warm fuzzy feeling. To put my money where my mouth is, I just bought one ($423.95 USD after shipping).

Now that all the techie stuff is out of the way, let’s get to the fun stuff: football and booze. They go so well together, right? Well, there are apparently two new wines out there courtesy of Gridiron Cellars: the Cajun Cannon Cabernet benefiting the Louisiana Chapter of the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation, and the Vintage Brees Chardonnay, benefiting the Brees Dream Foundation.

Go forth and donate!