DIARY OF A TROUBLED LONER: September 2001 |
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Saturday, September 1 2001
I didn't get up till eleven following my late night. I went right back to working on the Windows 2000 install. There were no problems which kept me working on it so much, I simply wanted to make everything proper and comfortable and make sure all things were as I wanted it. Afterward, I worked on my Movies page, adding ten or a dozen new reviews. This took most of the day. I got dinner from Taco Bell again; I watched Tech TV's Big Thinkers as I ate, pleased to see they had an interview with author Douglas Adams. It was incredible, seeing him so lively and engaging, to think he died only eight days later.I once again had amassed several unmarked CDRs of MP3s and data. I designed and printed up labels for them in the evening. My brother Mark called. I guess he'd been impressed with my optical mouse, so he'd bought one for himself. But his computer was so ancient it only did not have a USB port but didn't even have a PS/2 port! He'd used a PS/2 adapter to plug it into a serial port, but his mouse was not working and was not even being recognized. He was forced to attempt any troubleshooting with only a keyboard. He would visiting tomorrow and he said he'd bring his computer over. I informed him I had a used 500 MHz processor and 12 GB hard drive for him too. Later, I watched my NetFlix rental Chasing Amy. I checked my e-mail one last time, and was thrilled to see an unexpected letter from my penpal. Sunday, September 2 2001
I had my desktop TV working under Windows 2000 so I was able to watch Ebert's show. And since QuckTime had been restored (because IE6 had been avoided) I was able to listen to WDET's broadcast of Car Talk and Thistle and Shamrock, things I hadn't done in weeks. For the heck of it, I visited Blood Red Sky and started downloading some more U2 shows. I was interested in a full-length rehersal concert, from a couple nights before the start of the Elevation tour; as well as a Pop Mart show from Columbus, which I'd been to. (Once again I'd failed to record this because of tape trouble. Somehow my portable AIWA recorder had switched to FM. So I'd taped two hours of radio broadcasts. Even worse than that, no station had been set, so in fact I ended up with two hours of dead air!). My brother Mark and his family showed up at around five. He arrived in a new car. Another one of his several castoff cars had broken down recently, which was finally the last straw for him. He went out and got a Honda Civic, just to finally insure he and his family had a trustworthy car to drive. We had burgers for dinner, since it seemed appropriate to have a cookout on this unofficial last weekend of Summer. Mark and Eileen told us how they'd spent yesterday and today moving daughter Heather into her house at U of M. It cost twelve hundred bucks for Heather and three friends to rent the house, and the owner didn't even provide window blinds. Afterward, he brought his computer in. I assumed the reason his optical mouse did not work was because the serial port he was using could not transfer any power to the mouse; I assumed that's why the makers stipulated using PS/2 or USB. I assumed I had an old mouse to give him, but instead could only dig up a Cirque touchpad I used to use. My niece Cathy once again used my scanner to upload some of her wolf drawings to the Neo Pets site. I rebooted into Windows 98 for that, but then booted back into Windows 2000 to show them the Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings trailers. Mark and I went online and shopped around for the motherboard he would need so as to use my Pentium III processor. Once again, that Robert Hancock site proved invaluable, giving us the exact model number. Mark was pleased to find he could get the motherboard right now for as little as ninety bucks. After Mark and his family left I got back to web work. I wrote entries for my August diary page, coming a couple days shy of finishing it. I also worked on revising the logo on my homepage, since the logo was obviously showing up too wide in 800x600 display. Over on AOL i was puzzled to get all sorts of letters asking me to update my billing. For months I'd been using my own AOL VISA card for payments; I fetched that from upstairs, only to discover the card had expired in 07/01. I couldn't believe the bank behind the card had not sent me any replacement. One of the big empty partitions I'd created was for games. I tried installing a couple of this now, but was alerted they would not work under Windows 2000. I rebooted into Windows 98 for the install. I'm really not into gaming, but I've accumulated a handful of discs throughout the years and didn't mind visiting them from time to time. I installed my Pro Pinball disc first (along with Douglas Adams's Starship Tiranic). I played a few games of Pro Pinball, and amazingly amassed a high score of 2,209,563,580! Monday, September 3 2001
Remarkably, despite having Canadian and Mexican customers, we did not have to work on Saturday or MOnday. We actually got to have Labor Day off. My brother Rick had invited us over for Labor Day dinner. I'd assumed we'd have a cookout, but oddly he was cooking a turkey. I got to speak with nephew Joe while he was fielding three IM windows; but soon he and a friend took off for a road trip to Ann Arbor. My nephew John didn't show up till later. I got to see his stupid eyebrow piercing. He'd dyed his blond hair blue again, but by now it was turning green. He looked much like the Brussels sprouts we had with dinner. Speaking of Brussels sprouts, their biggest fan, my young nephew Jake, was fishing with the neigbors and didn't come home till midway through dinner. John only had mashed potatoes and Jake, who'd already had dinner, still had room for some sprouts. Rick and Debby had bought their son Joe a new computer for his freshman year at Kalamzoo College. It was in the back room, while their old computer was still in the basement. They'd gotten him an e-Machine with a sizeable hard drive, good speed, and a built-in CDRW. It made me feel like an old grandpa remembering how when I'd gone to college the best we could do was a record player, a TV with rabbit ears, and maybe a hot-air popper and a typewriter. While the kids these days have cable TV, microwaves, and laptops or desktops with ethernet connections. After dinner, back at home, I got a letter from Phil. It looks like we might seriously be going to Las Vegas in November for U2's show.Tuesday, September 4 2001
Mike had slightly good news, when he and Joe and I sent in our weekend reports. He'd found an online store which sells Lost & Found, but was only able to save about half his files. Work was not too busy today. I finally remembered to bring in a box of Puffs Plus, since it had been a while since the last box had run out. I worked a little on my homepage logo again, resizing it ptoperly. I also found out, from the Something Awful site, on how to left/right justify my text. I got an e-mail from Mike, asking me if I wanted to see the MSU/CMU game this Saturday. Sadly, it looked like I'd be working, since Reid was planning on doing some more shooting on a movie. Late in the day I did some research on ASCAP, about that packet they'd sent me to license use of their music. Most of my audio files are from Jimmy Buffett who is actually BMI, so I checked their site out too. I was tempted to go ahead and pay their minimum fee, but I held back simply because I didn't want to lose the money just yet. I finally got to see the finale of Murder in Smalltown X. Late at night, on a whim, I installed an Ultra Board discussion forum on my site. I'd had a message board up there a while ago, which had pretty much gathered dust. But I installed this one party because it looked nice but mainly because it was something to do.Wednesday, September 5 2001
I'd avoided having to buy gas over the holiday weekend, but I had to fill up now. I thought I might avoid the inflated prices, but nevertheless it cost me $16.25 to fill up my tiny tank. Dave was back again when I got in. He and Reid had arranged with our sister division to have some training. It was supposed to last for two hours, but they didn't believe it would take that long; but they were gone from one to ten all the same. I created a new menu bar on my page, a gray column with additional links to parts of my site. I wanted to fine-tune the settings on my Ultra Board but couldn't do that till later. I found an Ultra Hacks site, with pointers on how to use Ultra Board. Disconcertingly, the consensus was that Ultra Board was not worth it. The parent company had gone under and no more support was offered for it. People were suggesting using Ikon Board instead. I investigated this, but was unable to install it. I guess I needed to contact my host for permission to do CGI work, since both attempts at installing Ikon Board failed.My FTP work with Ikon Board tipped me off to a program called Csear FTP. It looked exactly like the kind of program Mike and Schmoe and I had been discussing. It was a gateway through which I could turn my hard drive into an FTP server. I allowed the program access to my "MP3" drive and created user profiles for Mike ahd Schmoe, complete with passwords. I was tickled to think that I had just created an FTP server just like Holylands and Blood Red Sky. I also got the audio DVD of A.I. today in the mail, along with the soundtrack to The Gift. Thursday, September 6 2001
Reid was complaining about an upset stomach, so he left early at two. I got my laptop out and was able to perform my experiment. I'd left my computer on and Cesar FTP running back home. I got online, via my laptop, and tried logging onto my hard drive. Cesar FTP disallowed my first attempt, but then, after I tried Mike's password, I was able to look at my "MP3" drive. It looked like it worked perrectly and was also performing exactly how I wanted. I sent off e-mails to Joe and Mike telling them the good news. I saw a couple TV and food related stories courtesy of Fark.com, and it occurred to me I could paraphrase these stories on my TV and Food pages, just to add some more content. I got another package tonight, from Loreena McKennitt's Quinland Road. I also got a letter from JC Penney about life insurance coverage. They'd talked me into accepting a nine dollar a mponth charge for additional coverage; now, just like with AOL, they needed me to update my billing information. I guess my AOL VISA had gone kaput. I swear I received nothing about service to this card being discontinued (and it's not a question of my being a deadbeat, since my other two credit cards are active and fine). I ripped MP3s from The Gift, and uploaded them to the soundracks group, just to "give back".Friday, September 7 2001
I'd completely forgotten to watch U2 on last night's MTV Video Music Awards. Luckily it appeared I had no needed to, since someone was already offering RealVideo of it. I called up JC Penney to cancel my extended coverage. The guy I spoke with seemed heartbroken I was leaving and tried ot talk me out of it. I'm sure the coverage is good and worthy, but I simply did not want it. I hadn't wanted it to begin with and had simply agreed to it just to get the telemarketer off the phone. So I did not want to go to any trouble to carry over coverage I did not want. (But the thought it did not escape me that I'd probably get in a car wreck on the way to work now.) Feeling quite productive and business-like, I also called up Cingular to cancel my phone service. I wanted to get a new phone and a new plan, but the girl I spoke with suggested it would be better just to continue coverage and upgrade my plan at a store, so as to avoid reactivation fees. I asked her what the nearest store would be, but she was unable to pull up a list. And, getting even more work done, I got an oil change on the way to work.Reid told me I wouldn't have to work tomorrow. He would come in instead. The forecast was for rain this weekend, so he wouldn't be able to shoot his movie. I instantly e-mailed Mike, seeing if he still had a ticket to tomorrow's MSU/CMU game. He sent a reply saying I was welcome to go, that we'd be heading to East Lansing at nine:thirty, and then right afterward I was unable to get back into my AOL mailbox. Reid confirmed he couldn't log into Yahoo! mail or Hotmail. We could still visit web pages, but could not access any mailboxes. Instead, we saw this. I wondered if we'd done something wrong, if the sys admin was on to us for something, or if the big boss thought we were online too much. It's within the company's rights to ban us from using outside mail, but it still irritated me. It complicated things as well as making me both paranoid and angry. We could still go online, since I tried going to the Cingular website, but we were still prohibited from going to any outside mailboxes. Fortunately, later in the day, I was able to access my AOL mail simply by going through my laptop. I tried looking for local stores on the Cingular website, but I couldn't pull up a list. Maybe this was related to the same problem earlier. It was quite cloudy and dark when I left work, and I droive through heavy rain on the way home. I'd tried to tape Whose Line last night, while at work, but discovered I'd screwed up. Channel seven had rescheduled both shows, moving them to nine:o'clock. According to my sources, only one show would've been aired, at eight, so that was all I'd taped. So I was ticked off to find out I'd missed both shows, and even more ticked off to hear these were the season premiere. On the brighter side, Ain't It Cool had a downloadable QuickTime of The Lord of the Rings TV commercial last night. Since I knew I had to get up early tomorrow it was difficult for me to get to sleep. I ended up reading a couple chapters of my Emmerich Pressburger biography, as well as taking a hit of Nyquil. Saturday, September 8 2001
There'd been talk we might have to actually be in at work on Saturday, not just for a shift, but to sit around between ten at night and three in the morning, while changes were made to the swipe-boxes we pass our ID badges on to get into our rooms. Thankfully the person in charge informed us our presences was not needed since he had a key to our room. Reid would be working the afternoon shift, so I was free to join Mike in going to see our alma mater CMU play Michigan State University in East Lansing. I got to his house at nine:thirty and he and I and fellow alumni Don made the hour and a half long trip. Mike had been given a tip on where to park, but the lot was full when we arrived. Luckily, we found a better spot, near the stadium. This lot was "alcohol-free", however, and we couldn't even hide our beers since Mike hadn't thought to bring cups. Don scammed some cups from some other tailgaters -- who happened to be from CMU -- and we got sit and relax before the game.It was a treat to find out CMU's Marching Chips had been invited, so after many years we got to hear our fight song again.  Central surprised us, since they really seemed ready to fight to win. We hadn't been expecting much, but the Central resolve really took us by surprise and kept up our interest. This lasted for about a third of the game. After that MSU lashed out and took command. CMU got several lucky breaks but was unable to capitalize on any. Midway through the fourth quarter the score was 35 to 7, and when the CMU quarterback threw a right a pass right into the chest of an MSU player we decided to just leave and beat the traffic. I had to make a pit stop on our way out of the stadium...and somehow in those few minutes Central scored two touchdowns! As we headed to the van we couldn't believe our ears when we heard the announcer's voice wafting through the air that the score was 35 to 21. Mike made it to the expressway in good time. I slept through the trip back. Mike set up the remainder of the tailgating food in his kitchen and we sat around watching the U of M road game on TV. I'd left my computer on at home and Mike was able to dial into my computer via Cesar FTP, just as planned. I hung around later to watch an REO Speedwagon concert DVD, and I got home at around eleven. My "One Ring" from Badale Jewelry was waiting for me. It looked a little cheap, but that's what I'd paid for. It still looked pretty cool. I watched my NetFlix rental of Memento before going to bed. Sunday, September 9 2001
I discovered one of my favorite singers, Loreena McKennitt, had had a song covered by a Greek singer named Haris Alexiou. Intrigued, I spent much of the afternoon trying to track down an MP3. Audio Galaxy wasn't helpful so I ended up downloading KaZaA and WinMX. I spent the late afternoon making CDRs, from the MP3s I'd made of the BBC's Lord of the Rings dramatization. I wanted to fit all thirteen episodes onto one disc. At night I tried taping my usual Fox shows, but these were pre-empted by NFL football. This made it that much easier to devote the night to watching and taping the first two episodes of HBO's Band of Brothers. Speaking of The Lord of the Rings, I listened to the episode 12 CD, holdng onto my One Ring, before going to bed.Monday, September 10 2001 My alarm went off at seven, waking me two hours early because I stupidly forgot to reset after getting up early for the MSU game Saturday. I was bleary I just continued to slap the snooze alarm and didn't realize my blunder till around eight. Then, I finally reset my clock and got another hour's sleep. I hoped to leave early so I could either go to Borders or Best Buy. I didn't have a lot of time when I left, but sneaked over to Borders anyway, having enough time to merely browse some DHTML and CSS books without being able to buy any. I wasn't sure which book to buy anyway. I was quite pleased to discover our e-mail access had returned. Reid said it had returned on Saturday. Evidently the network servers had detected a potentially dangerous virus, so access to all outside e-mail had been curtailed for a time. The day was extremely quiet. I only got two (work related) calls, total. In the evening I got a call from Phil, about U2's return to America. The 3rd leg of the Elevation tour was official and tickets would be on sale this weekend. We decided we would be going to two shows, one in Hamilton ON and the other in Las Vegas. I wasn't much in the mood for another drive to Chicago; and my coworkers had informed me that Notre Dame (the opening night) might look close on the map but it's actually a long and slow drive. Phil wasn't sure he could make it to Hamilton, since if he did well in a fishing tournament this week he might end up in another tourney the same week as the Hamilton show. But, since he was within driving distance, he hoped to try and make it anyway. It was fun making these plans again. I had to hang around afterward to fault one of our board sets, since Reid had told me it had faulted to the spare this morning. I had to fault it back. For some reason all of Joe's e-mails which I know he'd sent this morning started showing up between six and seven. It was very dark when I left, even though it was only a halfhour later. This was a definite reminder of how late in the year it was getting. I ordered The Hobbit and The Return of the King on DVD. They were coming out tomorrow, so I guess I'd waited a bit too long to get them on time. Ralph Bakshi's The Lord of the Rings was coming out tomorrow too, but I was boycotting it, not because its piss-poor but because Warner Bros is not releasing it letterboxed. I found a DVD when I got home. When DVD Planet had looked like they wouldn't have The Wicker Man I'd ordered it from Amazon. My DVD Planet copy had shown up, so now I have two. I fiddled around on my computer and watched TV on my desktop. And then, I got to bed late...on this night before the world changed. Tuesday, September 11 2001
The phone rang at around nine:twenty. My second cousin Jay had called my Aunt Mary and now she was calling us. Smoke was gushing from the twin towers of the World Trade Center as if they were tall chimney stacks. I rushed between my computer and the TV in the kitchen, completely forgetting I could've watched CNN right on my desktop. About the only thing I saw live was the collapse of the first tower. It was then that the full import of what I was seeing overtook me. This wasn't a fire, this wasn't an explosion -- that national landmark had just disintegrated in front of me and was gone! Reid called up from work, asking if I was watching the news. Since our building is close to our corporation's World Headquarters, one of the big bosses was saying we did not have to come in to work if we did not want to. However, the day's programming was continuing, so I figured I'd have to go in anyway. A short while later Reid called back telling me not to come in. The buildings were being evacuated. I stayed home and watched TV, transfixed by the horrendous images, unable to look away. I know no one in New York and know no one in the Pentagon, but the sights were horribly shocking. Unbelievable, indefensible, inexplicable.
I continued watching the news that night, hoping for something good, hoping for some explanation, hoping for some reason. I couldn't get over how no one or no group had come forward to take credit. It was argued that such an action would be foolish, but to my way of thinking if I were to sacrifice my life for some cause I would damn well want others to know why! I wasn't sure I'd be able to sleep tonight, so I took a big swig of Nyquil before bed time. Wednesday, September 12 2001
There was no call in the morning, so I treated this like any other day and went in to work. I watched the news in the morning and listened to it in my car on the way in. NPR was covering the story, so for the first time in many months I was able to hear the familiar voices from Morning Edition again, at this late hour. I was very upset to find out the company was not simulcasting CNN. They'd done so yesterday, I'd heard, but they just had normal programming on all channels. This was quite a blow, since it meant I was cut off from any new developments in New York or DC. Reid and I were stuck relying on the CNN, MSNBC, and Fox News web pages. We kept an eye on them all day. Dennis showed up near the end of the day, to make some changes to some channel settings. I ended up staying till nine. I was glad to be home so I could watch more of the news coverage. I stayed up quite late, and once again I needed to take a swig of Nyquil to get to sleep.Thursday, September 13 2001
Today is my mom's birthday. I'm a bit chagrined to admit the events on Tuesday had completely driven this from my mind. I hadn't even bought her a present yet. She wanted a book called Cookwise by Shirley O Corriher. I made a point to stop at Borders before work, and luckily they had a copy on their shelves. Determined not to be left out today, I brought a little transistor radio with me. I wasn't able to get WDET, unfortunately, in our basement office. The best we could do was WWJ News Radio on the AM band. They had updates on the attacks, but mostly they still talked about local news. Reid and I were both put off that the station still continued to play commercials. That news of the thousands missing was interrupted by blaring yammering local ads was rather disturbing.I was so frustrated about being left out of the information loop, I tried to listen to the radio over the Internet. The corporate firewall prevents using RealPlayer, and sadly my laptop proved to slow to use it either. The same was true with QuickTime. Actually, QuickTime was worse than RealPlayer: I could only get one or two seconds of QuickTime sound from WDET's downstream; but I could get ten or fifteen seconds of RealPlayer sound off the NPR homepage. Whenever I lost the sound, I just hit the pause button on RealPlayer. It would rebuffer for about thirty seconds and then I'd get ten more seconds of sound. For a while, this was the best I could do. Later in the day I tried new batteries in the radio. I was able to get WDET in now. The signal came in best with the radio sitting on the floor by the door. It made the evening pass by a lot quicker. I continued to watch the news when I got home, but the lack of any good news or anything of much substance was frustrating. I was also getting a little irritated how Fox News seemed rather irresponsible in constantly spreading rumors that survivors had been discovered. Once again I needed to take a swig of Nyquil to get to sleep. Friday, September 14 2001
There lots of things to download this morning, so I almost ended up leaving late. The help desk had been getting calls about certain boxes not receiving audio. Oddly, this was the first I'd heard of it. Dennis came by to instruct how to diagnose the problem. Noticing my paltry transistor radio, he thought about asking to get us cable in our office. This would be a blessing, especially since most every other area in the building already has cable (and reportedly our room used to be wired for it too). A fairly quiet day. I was pleased to see, when I left, that the parking lot lights were finally on, since it was getting to be so dark.I suddenly got the bug to make a CD when I got home. The U2 "Wire" listserv had been discussing all the U2 songs which were meaningful in the aftermath of the tragedy. I decided to make a compilation of my own. I used Cool Edit to mix the songs together, crossfading them into a giant WAV file. I used CDRWin to draft up a cue sheet, burned the CD, listened to it before I went to bed. Today was supposed to be a National Day of Prayer and Remembrance, and I guess this was my hour of reflection. Here's the track list: Peace on Earth (radio edit) Saturday, September 15 2001
I didn't do much this morning. I downloaded some MP3s. I made a CD label for my U2 CD. I also looked around for new FTP program. I'd bought a license for CuteFTP but it was only good for the version under Windows 98. I couldn't use this version under Windows 2000 and I did not want to buy two licenses for the same single computer. I'd discovered "ESftp" at work, a free program which worked okay on my laptop; but oddly the version I downloaded today turned out to be shareware. I did search on Hotfiles.com and Download.com for a free program, and happened upon FTP Commander. I tried it out and it seems to work okay.My brother Rick had invited us all over tonight to see off Joe the night before he goes to college in Kalamazoo. My parents had offered to drop by after church and pick me up so we could go to Rick's together. I figured I might as well go to church with them. It seemed right, in this week of all weeks, to spend some time in reflection and prayer. For the sermon, the priest read a letter from Detroit's Adam Cardinal Maida, urging us to seek peace over retaliation. As if to express a private disapproval, the organist then launched into "Battle Hymn of the Republic" for the offetory hymn. My mom mentioned later that the congregation must've sided with Mr Pawlowski since she'd never heard them sing so loudly as then. We stopped at sub shop for dinner, before going to Rick's. We were close by but we took our time since we were not expected till seven. It would be a very casual get-together. Debby would only be offering chips and snacks, nothing big or fancy. It turned out to be so casual our guests weren't even there. The driveway was empty, the house was locked up. I checked the doors in back, but they were locked up too. While we waited outside, Betty (a friend of Debby's) and her family showed up. We up standing around, as it got darker and colder. My mom was upset she hadn't brought her set of keys with her. She'd brought a completely different purse. She tried seeing if Marsha was home next door, since she would have a set of keys too; but there was no answer there either. It was after seven by now, so they were officially late. I was getting more and more irritated; it didn't help that it was getting chillier -- nor that I'd had two big cups of pop and needed to pee. I finally offered to drive back and get mom's keys. My dad said they'd be home by the time I got back. I didn't care; it was something to do. So I took mom's keys and drove their car back. I made pretty good time on the way, taking only about ten minutes. Returning to Rick's though, things ran slower. As expected, Rick and Debby were already back. They'd gone to Olive Garden, apparently, in Southgate. And I guess Debby had insisted on stopping at Kmart on the way back, just to insure they had enough snacks. I didn't see much of Joe anyway, since he spent most of the time in the front room once some friends showed up. We didn't even have any snacks; the bags hadn't even been opened yet. I guess my parents had spent enough time standing on the front lawn that they didn't feel like staying much longer once we got inside. I screwed around online when I got home, including typing up a week's worth of entries on this page. Sunday, September 16 2001
I was so pleased with my U2 CD compilation I ripped it to MP3 and uploaded it to the alt.binaries.sounds.mp3.2000s group. It was a 76 MB upload, and it took about two hours to accomplish. I titled the album "U2 - for September 11" and added "[something I cooked up]" to the subject header. After I began the upload I was embarrassed at the thought my little parenthetical comment made it sound like I had some culpability in those attacks. Thankfully no one made note of it; but, at the same time, no one seemed to make any note of my offering at all.My dad had another collectibles and book sale at Southgate Civic Center today. I heard he did poorly. I surprised though that he'd made about a hundred bucks, since I would've expected next to nobody would've been shopping this weekend. My mom was going to have a birthday dinner tonight. My brother Mark was going to come over, for her birthday, so she had spent all day making her own dinner. I heard that this had been called off at the last minute. My mom was not pleased to hear this, especially when she found out the reason why. My mom told me later that she had been tempted to just shrug it off, but, since she'd spent all day making dinner, "doggone it," she would speak her piece. It was rather interesting to be in the middle of a big family squabble. It was like we'd become part of a TV show. Maybe everything will get wrapped up in November, during sweeps month, during a special episode of "The Asterious". (Obviously I can't go into details.) Monday, September 17 2001
Nothing much going on in the morning so I actually left for work early. I stopped at the Burger King in Flat Roick and tried out one of the new triple cheeseburgers. Not only was it delicious it turned out to be rather easy to eat in the car. This made me think of writing an article for my Food page about different "car foods". Reid was grateful I'd shown up early since he told me he had to leave right now. His mom had been out of the state this week, and the closures at all the airports had left her stranded. She'd gotten as close as Chicago, but had been forced to sleep at the airport terminal last night. So Reid faced having to drive the five or six hours to pick her up, followed by the five or six hour return trip. He took off immediately, leaving me with seven hours alone. Complicating things, our stupid Xytech program was not working again. We could not connect to the Traffic database to check on tomorrow's programming. Reid, as he left, said he'd called about it, but after a halfhour I called again. As expected, the corporate help desk said the only thing they had on file for Xytech was the web site. This would help if I needed to reinstall; but it was not a software problem, it was a connectivity problem. Specifically it was a SQL server problem. The guy conferenced in someone else, who tried to help walk me through into connecting to the Xytech website. I repeated again how this was a SQL server problem! Thankfully Ken, the same guy who'd helped us out last time, showed up later and was able to restore our SQL connection. He assumed some router in the World Headquarters had gone bad, so he just found a different pathway to the drive we needed. It was late in the day, but I was finally able to proofread tomorrow's schedule.I spent some time checking out the Cingular website. I hadn't been there in several days, but I finally returned and was able to successfully look up authorized Cingular dealers in my area. It turned out there were stores practically within walking distance, at Vreeland and Van Horn. I wondered if I should stop by on the way home, but it look liked they close at seven. When I got home, I found my DVDs for The Hobbit and The Return of the King had shown up. I'd also gotten my NetFlix rental of the Willy Wonka special edition. I found out my mom had called Mark tonight, to discuss some of the things said last night. I guess the two families were on better terms now, but it still sounded a little frosty. I watched some of my DVDs late at night. I also watched the return of Davd Letterman. The show had been pre-empted last week, but was scheduled to be in reruns anyway. It seemed strange then that his return should be such a big deal; but it was. His return marked the beginning of a wilfull return to some kind of normalcy. And his opening remarks were so heartfelt and well-spoken that I kicked myself for not taping this show. Dave's honest and personal and emotional words proved once again what a great broadcaster he is, and why I dedicatedly watch him evey night. Tuesday, September 18 2001
I found Mike's new Dell computer had shown up yesterday. I'd been able to track down a transcript of Big Dave's comments from last night, so I forwarded them to Mike and Schmoe. I left early again just so I could shop for a cell phone. I stopped at the store closest to me, on Vreeland. The man working there told me that with the thirty dollar plan I was interested in I could even get a free Ericsson phone. I couldn't go through with it though since I'd stupidly forgotten some of my paperwork at home (despite havbing deliberately left it in plain sight). I wouldn't be able to do it anyway, I was told. It was suggested I come back later when the owner was in, since he knew all the codes needed to transfer my service. The boss usually doesn't show up till aorund one:thirty, which threatened to make this transaction difficult for me; but I found out the store doesn't close till nine.Our field rep from San Diego had called yesterday with a workaround for our latest Program Guide problem. The workaround that I'd developed myself was simply restarting NT every time I wanted to use the Program Guide software. His workaround was almost as simple and a lot quicker. I tried it out today, and it seemed to work. I called back, but only got his voice mail. Around the time we solved one problem, we discovered another. This one, though, belonged to a different department. We got a call from the production side saying several shows would have to be canceled today because of viruses. I thought it odd that our programming network would be shutdown because of viruses, but Dennis, later, explained how the instructors use PCs in their teaching and for remote communication with their students. It turned out this was the Nimda virus, which I heard about later on. (It's strange how some viruses are supposed to be so huge but never affect me personally at all. While other viruses, like the Sir Cam virus, just will not go away.) Since so many classes were bieng canceled, I wondered if I might be able to leave early -- but of course the one or two classes which were on still lasted till eight:o'clock, so I would get out at my usual time. Reid left a little early so he could go to Dennis's building and pick up a replacement pager. I don't know if this was related, but I had trouble getting into my AOL mailbox again. I got out my laptop and connected that way. Mike was inviting me to another U of M game this weekend. I had to work, but secretly I didn't mind missing the game. It's fun going out and tailgating and seeing a football, but it's also fun to just sit around on the weekend and rent DVDs and take it easy. I killed some time checking out personal ads on Love@AOL. It seemed most women were seeking guys who were taller or made more money than I. I did find a couple intriguing prospects (it helps that their likes and dislikes were answered by "No Preference"). I checked out the Yahoo! personals too. I was tempted to put up an ad there, especially since I already have an account with them. Reid has a couple personals up (made up ones, only for fun) and had gotten some response from them. I went home, grabbed my Cingular paperwork, and then went back to Champion Paging on Vreeland. The owner was in, so I was able to exchange my phone and my service plan. My original plan, which I'd gotten through AAA, had been for five free minutes at $23.99 a month. I'm embarrassed to admit I'd been paying that for about four years! As had been explained to me, Cingular does not send you anything when you finish your contract. If you continue paying it is the same as agreeing to continue service. So I guess I was just the kind of sucker they were looking for, since I dutifully paid that amount every month...and it was only recently I'd begun to question why. Now I could pay $29.99 for 250 free minutes, free nights and weekends, and free long distance. Plus a free phone. (Technically the Ericsson phone I was given (the 1228dl) was twenty two bucks with a twenty dollar rebate, so it was not exactly free.) I charged up my phone as soon as I got home. I discovered someone was uploading an MPEG of last night's Letterman show to alt.binaries.multimedia so I immediately started downloading. I watched Leno's first show back. Leno was good, and I like how he likened the the attacks to being "sucker punched", but he's still no match for Big Dave. Wednesday, September 19 2001
I brought my cell phone with me to work. I dind't need it; I guess I just felt like showing it off. It also gave me a chance to page through the owner's manual and to program my phonebook numbers and choose my ring. (I chose something plain, since those musical rings were already annoying at the start.) Remarkably, some classes were still being canceled because of the Nimda worm. Probably the biggest news today was seeing the official word that the U2 tour was back on. Tickets would go on sale on Friday and Saturday. That meant the Internet pre-sale would be tomorrow. I was surprised Phil did not call. I called him when I got home, deliberately using my cell phone. He seemed kind of out of it, as if he'd been napping. He also seemed uncharacteristically indecisive. Our plans for the Las Vegas show were more important and involved more people, so I assumed we should concentrate on using our Propaganda fan club tickets for that, and try getting tickets for the Hamilton ON show through the Internet pre-sale. (Phil was still unsure if he'd be going to the Hamilton show, since the fishing tourney scheduled for last Saturday had been postponed like everything else had. So once again he wait for the next Saturday before he could be sure -- although he assumed he could make it regardless.) It seemed stange for me to be the decision maker, but I guess Phil realized I'd be the one buying the tickets anyway, since I was the one who could access the Internet on all three days. Just to make sure I could buy more than one set of tickets, I got Phil to give me his credit card number. Phil warned me about being cocky though, saying we might not get any tickets at all. I doubted that though; I was confident I'd be able to get through, since I had access to two computers and a fast corporate network.Phil asked me if I'd seen the new "Stuck in a Moment" video. I'd downloaded it from some site but had never watched it. I took a look at it now, and coincidentally someone was asking if this same video could be uploaded so the writer could share it with friends overseas. I offered to upload the file to my website. I did not do any more searches for World Trade Center or Pentagon photos. I did not watch CNN or MSNBC or Fox News. I had finally grown tired of the updates and being reminded of the tragic loss. It was somewhat of a relief to start moving on. I got back online before I powered down the computer, discovering two letters from my Illinois penpal! Thursday, September 20 2001
I was ready to buy tickets at 10am. But, disturbingly, no link was listed for the Las Vegas show. It was as if this date had been dropped from the tour. This concerned me greatly, since it was the first I'd seen of such a development. I refreshed the Ticketmaster listing but there was no change. The November 18 show was simply not listed. I tried confirming this at the official U2 homepage, but it must've deluged with hits since it was inaccessible. It occurred to me to try the SFX homepage -- where I found Las Vegas tickets were being sold at a site called Tickets.com. All this worrying was pointless though. I hadn't even intended to buy Las Vegas tickets yet, and I'd wasted so much time that when I finally got back to shopping for Hamilton ON tickets they were already sold out!Phil had been right. We did indeed come up empty handed. And the fault for it was all mine. I guess the one consolation was that the pre-sale for Las Vegas tickets would be at 1pm our time, so I had another chance when I got into work. Phil called me up at work, from his work, and I gave him the bad news about the morning. The Tickets.com site mentioned U2 but did not provide an actual order page yet. It still said tickets were not for sale for this event. However, on a whim, I typed in "thomasandmack" -- for Thomas & Mack Center -- into the address bar, and discovered the venue's homepage. They had a link to Tickets.com's event page, where I sat and waited tli 1pm. As soon as the sale began I was feverishly trying to get in, and even enlisted Reid to use his computer. But we coupld not proceed any further than this front page. Options for tickets dwindled before my eyes, until, once again, all available tickets were gone. Once again, we'd gone bust. This time I e-mailed Phil the bad news. I also wrote a long letter to my Illinois penpal. I'd been so distracted I didn't get around to checking tomorrow's schedule till quite late in the day. I watched President Bush's speech when I got home. The time for picking out his personal faults had passed, so I watched the speech uncritically. It was a defining speech, strong and certain, and I thought he did well. Even better, the speech had elicited another e-mail from my decided Republican Illinois penpal. She also happens to be a war vetern, having served in the Army during the Gulf War. I was interested that she'd happened to provide some personal thoughts: "Anxious?" she wrote in response to a previously sent question. "Me? Heck yeah.... I am so glad that [I am] out and don't have to do this again. Keep in mind, that I am saying that as a mom. Lots of things cross my mind, but I'll try and keep them brief. I just think that this is going to be unlike anything we have ever done before. No real enemy, no place [to] deploy troops for an invasion. I am afraid for the people who are getting deployed. I know what that was like and I remember the fear that all of us had when we found out what was lying ahead of us. It was scary. No knowing if we would make [it] back home, not knowing if we would be under chemical attack, or if we would have to shoot and kill someone. Keep in mind in the military, your primary purpose is to kill people. It is something you never think about until you are put in that situation. Friday, September 21 2001
Today's ticket search should be easier since it was simply on Ticketmaster and because the amount of available tickets would not be limited. This was a normal full-blown sale. I was able to get General Admission tickets for the Hamilton show right off the bat, but I couldn't believe that was "Best Available" like I'd chosen. It was inconceivable that every single seat had been sold already and the only thing left was SRO on the floor. I tossed those tickets back in the pool and tried again. I tried and tried, refreshed and refreshed, but I never got another chance to buy tickets.Once again, I had failed. Shortly after I got in to work, Dennis came by. He'd arranged a conference call with San Diego so we could discuss problems with the Program Guide. We got the call at 1pm. Unexpectedly, I found myself emceeing the call, since I work mainly with the Guide software. San Diego was saying they'd been so quick to suggest that workaround earlier in the week since the problem we were having was a known flaw in the software. This didn't make any sense to me since I'd never encountered this problem before. I'd been working with this Guide since I'd started working there, fifteen months ago. Since then we'd had this Guide installed on different hard drives three times, so if this was a standard idiosyncosy of the program why did it only show up on this third install? This version had also been provided by San Diego, we had not installed it ourselves, so was it possible it was different than the ones we'd previously used? San Diego admitted they did not know and would have to check with their software people. Afterward Dennis commended me for handling the call so well, bringing up all the necessary points. I guess it helped that I was genuinely curious enough about these questions to ask them without hesitation. Phil called up afterward, and I gave him the next round of bad news. We consoled ourselves by saying we were more interested in the Las Vegas show anyway. We'd just concentrate on that for now. (It would go on sale tomorrow, while Phil was off fishing.) As hoped, my Propaganda order form had arrived today. Phil and I had had a feeling this might be so, especially since a Detroit fan on the "Wire" listserb said he'd just gotten his. I would be working tomorrow, finally returning to do my share of Saturdays, so I'd have to get my money order tomorrow. I was glad I could get the form sent off over the weekend and not have to wait till Monday. Tonight was the America: A Tribute to Heroes telethon, which, notably, was being broadcast live on a variety of different broadcast and cable networks. I taped it, but I missed the beginning since I couldn't find my stupid VCR remote (it was the only way I could switch from EP to SP mode). I'd had my doubts about the program, dreading that it would be tacky or schmaltzy, but instead it was understated and quite moving. I thought U2 did an excellent job, and I was pleased with their song selection. Bruce Springsteen and Billy Joel and Paul Simon were also standouts. Saturday, September 22 2001
I'd set my clock for eight. I guess I was unused to getting up early on Saturdays since apparently I unconciously shut my alarm off when it first sounded, and I did not wake up till nine:thirty. I needed to be at work by ten:thirty, so I had to rush to get out of the house. This was further complicated by the fact I needed to stop at the bank to make an ATM withdrawal, swing by Rite Aid for a $274 money order, and then hopefully send my ticket order off ASAP. I'd passed the Flat Rock bank on the way, but it felt anathema to backtrack -- I had to go forward. I also hated to pass up the opportunity for two breakfast burritos, so even though it added an additional delay to my commute I waited in the McDonald's drive-thru.It was already after ten, so there was no hope of my getting in at ten:thirty. This turned out to be even more remote when I ran into a traffic jam north of Northline. It turned out to be construction. The two right lanes were closed off because of a patching crew. At least they were actually working, I guess. The county seems to enjoy setting up patching crews right there. The jam-up doesn't start till right after the exit, so you don't know enough to get off the expressway; and since there's no exit for another two miles, you're simply stuck there, trapped with all the other losers. I'm supposed to show up a halfhour before class time, just in case; but today I was lucky to get in right before the class, at eleven. There was only one class today, and it lasted till one:thirty. At one, I was back at the Tickets.com page, desperately trying to get my mitts on Las Vegas tickets. We had several other people wanting to go, so it didn't matter what seats I got. There was no need to be as picky as yesterday. And, sadly, there was no opportunity to prove this. In only thirteen minutes, the place was sold out. Once again I'd struck out. I found out later though that this time it was not my fault. I saw on the "Wire" list that somehow tickets for the Las Vegas show had leaked out at midnight last night. People were able to buy tickets through the website overnight. I was uncertain if this was a mistake or an unexpected gift; but regardless, I was unable to participate since, lucky me, I'd gone to bed early because of my working today. I wasn't able to send out my money order until I got home, when I just dropped it off in our mailbox. I went out and got Taco Bell for my dinner and also rented Hannibal on DVD. My nephew Jake came over. I happened to be working on my homepage, so I put him on it.  Sunday, September 23 2001
Joe, who'd been at college for a week, had forgotten some stuff at home. My parents offered to drive over to Kalamazoo and drop the stuff off themselves. They also brought Jake, so he could see his big brother. I chose not to accompany them. It might've been interesting to set food on a college campus again, but I couldn't help thinking Joe might be a little embarrassed if too many members of his family showed up. Instead I discovered there was a wealth of stuff to download in newsgroups. I'd just finished reading the biography of filmmaker Emeric Pressburger and by remarkable coincidence someone had uploaded a copy of A Canterbury Tale (a Powell & Pressburger film I'd never seen before) to alt.binaries.multimedia.vintage-film, plus someone else had uploaded the original West Wing pilt to alt.binaries.multimedia.repost, and various excerpts of Tribute to Heroes (including the whole show, unfortunately audio sync problems) showed up on alt.binaries.mpeg.videos. MP3s of Tribute to Heroes were showing up too, but I was quite disappointed they were such poor quality. Most of them were only 128kbps, some of them were a ridiculous 56kbps and in mono! For something that should've been so widely taped, such poor quality was unacceptable, but those seemed to be the only versions floating around.Monday, September 24 2001
I found out my mom is very upset because Joe's roommate has a girlfriend at neigboring Westen Michigan University, a girlfriend who visits quite often, and whose visits force Joe to sleep on the couch. When they'd seen him yesterday Joe had complained he'd only gotten two hours of sleep.I happened to have downloaded the Hannibal score already, so I listened to it now, on the way to work. I was taken aback at the wild percussive ethnic music, which I did not at all recall. It took me a few minutes to realize I was listening to the radio! The cassette adapter for my Rio Volt hadn't been pushed in. My gas gauge was quite low, so I took Allen to West Rd. I also made a side trip to Radio Shack to buy a mini-to-mini stereo cord. The pumps were out of order at the Mobil station at West Rd, so I took my chances and got on the expressway. My needle was definitely at "E" by the time I got to the Mobil station on Southfield Rd, but at least I was able to fill up now. It made me late, but it was a necessary stop. I spotted Reid walking out of the building just as I was walking up to the porch. He told me he had another doctor's appointment and couldn't wait. I thought I'd forgotten again, but he explained how he thought the appointment was for one:thirty but had found out it was for one:fifteen. So he'd needed to leave. He'd finished entering most of tomorrow's schedule, and I finished it up when I got in. Once again I faced the prospect of seven hours alone in our room. It was kind of busy for a while, and it did not help that I felt so out of it. It took me a while to get out of weekend mode. Once things quieted down I got my laptop out, so I could screw around on AOL; but then I hatched a plan of creating a new web page. I'd been toying with the idea of Taliban parody page. It irritated me how the people behind The Daily Show and The Onion were saying there was no humor any more, since the September 11 attack. That was erroneous. Obviously, there were aspects of the tragedy that had to be avoided, but if there was one group in all this who were ripe for a send up it had to be the Taliban. They were a bunch of ignorant zealots with delusions of grandeur -- if not simply delusions -- and if I had to be the person to puncture their inflated persona then by God, and by Allah, I would. I continued to work on my Taliban page when I got home. I was quite the multitasker since not only was a I writing, I was downloading the new Paul McCartney album, I was instant messaging a(nother) friend of mine named Mike (about the album), and I was watching the premiere of Angel on the WB. I normally don't watch Angel but did so tonight specifically to see the new commercial for The Lord of the Rings. I assumed it would be similar to the commercial sneaked into the MTV Music Awards, so I thought it quite bizarre that at the beginning of the show there were actually commercials for the upcoming commercial. I was stunned though when it finally came on. I watched on my desktop TV, so I was able to video capture it. I'd expected just a thirty second commercial, but it turned out this was our first sight of the new movie trailer. It lasted about two and a half minutes, and it looked fantastic. There were actual scenes now, including special effects. Even before this I couldn't wait to see the movie, and now the wait only got worse. I continued work on my Taliban page, finally uploading it to my web space. The results of my work can be seen here. Tuesday, September 25 2001
Chilly and damp and gray today. Much like I like it. Found out at work that The Lord of the Rings official site already had a QuickTime version of last night's trailer for download. Could not wait to go home to get it. (We can't watch QuickTime at work since we can't even install the player!) Ended up being quite disappointed. I downloaded the 20 MB "Full Screen" version only to find it was not full screen. Besides that, the audio was in mono! It pissed me off that the jerks at Ain't It Cool were staining themselves in their excitement that New Line's official site was eschewing RealVideo in favor of QuickTime. I don't get it -- RealVideo's full screen file for the second trailer actually was full screen, stretching across my monitor like a letterboxed image, was in stereo, and was half the file size. It was as if they were so full of rebellion that they were anti-Microsoft and anti-AOL and anti-RealNetworks even when the evidence was stacked against them. They were conforming in their rebelliousness.I checked Yahoo! about that personals ad I'd created. I wondered if I needed to create an e-mail account with them in case I got any response. I hadn't realized the ad had its own mailbox, and when I found that I discovered a had an amazing ten letters already waiting for me! I spent the rest of the night in correspondence. Wednesday, September 26 2001
I tried submitting my Taliban link to Fark this morning. I checked the site all day but I guess my page was not accepted. I went to the new McDonald's by my house; I thought the guy at the drive-thru had run out of change since he closed the window on me and started yelling toward the front of the restaurant. After sitting for several minutes he finally opened the window back up and asked if he could help me. I explained I was waiting for my six dollars in change. He was shocked he hadn't given it to me already. If I were a different person I might try that another time. A long while ago I'd paid thirty bucks for a Lord of the Rings poster on eBay. It was just my luck that the posters were being sold for half the price at the official site. I was almost tempted to order one, since my poster was taking forever to arrive. But I discovered it now when I got home from work. Ain't It Cool's message board was still full of pro-QuickTime blather, so I actually registered with the site just to yell at them for being so blindly pigheaded (and to ask why the QuickTime "full screen" was called "full screen").Thursday, September 27 2001
My Illinois penpal had written again. She asked a provocative question, "Do you think that the God of the Jews and Muslims is our God?" I got the letter at work, and spent a lot of my off-hours pondering my response. On the surface I'd have to yes -- just the fact we believe in One God would be enough to convince me. But, in the details, I'd be tempted to disagree. There was such a dichotomy between the rather vengeful and frightening "Old Testament" God of the Jews and Muslims and the caring and forgiving God of the New. I likened it to "the young God, out all hours of the night carousing and smiting. But then God had a kid, which made him take a new look at things, and he settled down and mellowed out." But ultimately it didn't seem worthwhile to pick apart our beliefs. We all want peace, we all want an afterlife, and if the few rational peace-loving Muslims wanted to impress that our God is the same, then that was fine with me. (My friend John had an interesting take on this too in one of his online sermons:
Whether you are Jewish, Christian, Moslem, Hindu, Buddhist, Wiccan, or Zoroastrian, the warning is the same: be careful what kind of God you worship, for the behavior of any particular God cannot help but be reflected in the behavior of his or her worshippers. It is no surprise that some of those who worship Kali, the Hindu goddess of destruction, have at times included ritual murder as part of their religious observance. It is no surprise that the God of Israel who commands that men, women, and children be slaughtered inspired men such as David who carried out such horrors without a second thought. It is also no surprise that Allah, who glories in the destruction of the wicked would find among his worshippers men who are only too eager carry out this destruction by their own hands. I discovered someone had ripped The Lord of the Rings QuickTime trailer to DivX;). Too bad it hadn't been a rip right off TV, since it wouldn't have the official watermark on it and would also be in stereo. It was still decent and -- yes, finally -- was full screen, stretching from side to side like a beautifully letterboxed image. Now I could finally stop fixating on the "presentation" and revel in what looks to be a fantastic movie. Friday, September 28 2001
Found a very cool program for the desktop at http://www.geisswerks.com/drempels/. Reid and I ran it at work, and were pleased to find it ran quite well even on the dinosaur computers we use. A fairly quiet day. I downloaded that desktop program to my own computer when I got home.Saturday, September 29 2001
I have a confession to make. I'm a man, but evidently I have skin like a girl. About ten years ago, going through a second puberty that no one told me about (when my hair started going gray, my bones started making noise, and hair started growing on my ears), I went from being able to normal deodorant to only being able to use unscented deodorant for sensitive skin. I'd been using a bunch of Avon roll-ons bought from my sister-in-law Debby, but somehow those had run out without my realizing it. I had to work again today, so I stopped at Rite Aid on the way in. I couldn't find any deodorant for sensitive skin. The closest I could get was Lady Speed Stick with aloe.Amazingly, I drove right into that same traffic jam as last Saturday. I couldn't believe I'd forgotten about it. After my brief shift, I stopped at Borders to buy some birthday presents and cards. I also, of course, picked up some books and magazines for myself. For some reason I could not get online when I got home. I had no idea why, so I ignored it for a while and read my magazines. Maybe it was some problem at the cable company, which might go away in time. However, my inability to get online continued all afternoon. Making this more frustrating, my cable modem looked quite active. Its lights were flashing and flickering, despite the fact I could not use my web browser or check my e-mail or open up AOL. I wondered if this might be related to the announcement yesterday that Excite@Home was going out of business -- but this would contradict Comcast's assurances that my service would not be interrupted. Phil called, telling me how airline fares were really low. He was tempted to get our Las Vegas tickets right now. I told him he might as well if he wanted. The problem continued, both in Windows 2000 and Windows 98. For the heck of it, I booted into BeOS...and was shocked to discover I could use their NetPositive browser! The only reason I could think of that BeOS would work while Windows did not was that in BeOS I'd needed to manually set my IP and DNS server addresses and default gateway and such. So I rebooted into Windows 2000 and typed those same settings in, using my old installation form -- and instantly was able to get online (without even rebooting)! There wasn't any worthwhile mail waiting, even after a day, but at least I'd fixed my problem. Sunday, September 30 2001
The daily paper finally had an ad for the Buffett concert in November. Tickets would go on sale next Saurday. Phil called me up around midday, saying he'd bought our Las Vegas tickets through Expedia.com. We'd been planning on just staying at some average hotel, but since rates were so low he'd gotten us tickets at the Flamingo, right on the strip. (This meant less to me than to him, since I've never been there.) Around two we all met up at Rick's house, to celebrate all the September birthdays. These include our mom, two of his sons, and his father-in-law. Dinner was a very tasty Mexican buffet, featuring fixing for chicken or beef tacos and messy burritos.Back to Trouble Loner homepage To Bitter Old Man site To SFG World |
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