Suddenlink is horrid.

So, if you're in WV, you're dealing with Charter cable being bought up by Suddenlink. Well, let me relay my experience with suddenlink.

They suck.

I cannot get support for my service because their input forms on thier website are hosed. They require that you input your zip code before they'll even give you a phone number to call. When I put my zip code in, it either tells me it's invalid (gee) or "an application error has occurred."

Pa-Thet-Ic.

So I can't even call them. I'll find the number via some non-internet means and call. But how pitiful is that?

Uptime. Suddenlink apparently can't keep cable connections up. And when you call, you get some flunkie who doesn't know anything about anything networking. The only thing they understand is the script in front of them which is basically a block of "if(){}elsif(){}" stuff printed on paper. I don't know why they even bother using people. The people are apparently trained to behave like software.

LISTEN SUDDENLINK, SOME OF US KNOW MORE ABOUT NETWORK SYSTEMS THAN YOUR TIER 3 BUSINESS SUPPORT. WE DO NOT ENJOY TALKING TO ROBOTS. EVEN IF THEY ARE OF THE HUMAN VARIETY.

So.... apparently lead time for a site visit to get a suddenlink wire monkey out to check the power/signal levels on the circuit's somewhere in the neighborhood of five days. And yeah, it's one of those "we'll be there sometimes between 1PM and 12:30PM. (yes, that would mean the next day.)

Here's my advice people. If internet connectivity is important to you and you're in West Virginia? Go with (in this order of support/clue) nTelos DSL, Fibernet DSL, Verizon DSL, ATT Dialup, Suddenlink Cable.

Yes, I'm about this close to cancelling my suddenlink account and returning to dialup service since DSL can't reach me.

Ronnie? Ronnie who?

I have no idea what reminded me of this. But recently a childhood memory came to mind. It's pretty messed up. And if this blog has any readers, they're well aware that when I say "messed up," I generally mean it.

Here's the scene. It's maybe December, maybe January. The previous night, freezing rain accumulated on everything for several hours. Following that, there was a light dusting of snow. The road that ran past my house ran uphill at a moderate incline for maybe a tenth of a mile. After that, there was a moderatly flat sweeping left-hand turn. After that, it was about a 10% grade straight uphill for about a quarter mile with a slow S turn in the middle.

Now here I am, maybe 11 years old. School's canceled. I walk outside and realize that the road is two inches of solid ice with maybe a quarter inch of snow on top. In my limited experience, one thing was certain. A runner sled would flat FLY on this surface. So I go into the garage, get the sled, and treck the half mile or so up to the top of the hill. I gather my nerve, and down the road I go. I'm certain I reached speeds of forty to fifty miles per hour coming down the road. Of course, it felt like I was approaching the sound barrier, but it was just awesome.

So, after a couple of runs, I invite my friends Matt and Ronnnie over to share in this wicked sledding near my house. They show up, and an entire day of some of the best sledding I ever experienced ensues.

Well, dusk arrives, and we're all exhausted. It's a long walk up that slippery hill. Matt and I have had enough. It was oh so fun, but neither of us had another walk up that hill left in us. Ronnie on the other hand, wanted to take one last run. Matt and I agree to wait on him to take his last run, then we'll all go inside and grab some hot chocolate courtesy of my mom.

Ronnie disappears around the curve, going up the hill, and Matt and I are left on the moderate grade just before my house. Really bad ideas start to appear in my tired brain. "Hey Matt, look at these big round ice-blocks the plows left beside the road."

"Yeah, what about 'em?"

"Let's set up a slalom for Ronnie. He'll come around the curve, and he'll have to juke left-right-left-right to get past 'em. It'll be cool."

"Hmm, yeah, ok, let's do that."

So Matt and I set up this chicayne. We stage these two-foot by two-foot by six-foot walls of ice halfway across the road. We stagger them about fifteen feet apart, and each one on alternate sides of the road, extending about halfway across. Not really understanding the physics involved with a sled going forty miles per hour, we didn't realize that it would've been impossible for a formula one race-car to make turns so quickly, let alone a runner sled struggling for grip on solid ice.

We hear the clickityclackety of Ronnie's sled coming down the road and start laughing and giggling like little girls. I remember Ronnie's eyes being the size of dinner plates when he saw the first wall of ice and turned to avoid it. And he did avoid it. But there was no avoiding the second wall. Pow. Ronnie hits the second wall. The sled basically stops. Ronnie goes airborne and slams into a telephone pole which bounces him back into the road spreadeagled and unconcious. I will never forget the sight of Ronnie spreadagle, sliding slowly down the road rotating around and around. He comes to a stop about fifteen feet from my driveway. He's not moving. I look at Matt and say "Oh damn man, I think he's knocked out."

Matt turns to me and says "Knocked out hell. He's fucking dead man," then starts madly clearing our "chicayne" off of the road.

"No way, you think? Naw, he's just knocked out."

"Dude, did you SEE that? He's fucking dead man. I'm going home." And off goes Matt walking home, right past Ronnie, dragging his sled behind him.

So I walk down to Ronnie. "Ronnie, wake up. Dude, wake up." Nothing. I think "Crap, maybe Matt was right." So I ... well, er... I just went inside.

"Hey mom, can I have some hot chocolate?"

"Sure, I'll make you some."

At this point I realize that the kitchen window where mom's making me hot chocolate has a great view of the road outside my house. Too late.

"Is that Ronnie out there?"

"Where?"

"Out there on the road! Oh my god! Is that Ronnie!?"

And out the door dashes my mom. Fortunately, Ronnie comes to while my mom's down there freaking out. She brings a very, very dazed Ronnie into the house who can't remember a damn thing. I of course get interrogated. "Dude, I don't know what happened. Matt and I were tired, you wanted to take one more run. Matt went home, I came inside. No idea what happened." No one but Matt saw a thing that could dispute this story. I know Matt never told anyone. I know I damn sure didn't.

If Ronnie reads this entry, I promise it'll be the first time he learns what really happened that day.

Shreddin' the twisties

The AWR. So coined by personas known locally and internationally as "Pants" and "Slick." The AWR is the "after work ride." Couple of years ago, I managed to raz a co-worker into submission through ceasless nagging and ribbing. On a beautiful sunny day, I'd walk in wearing my leathers and go "hey man, where's your bike?" I did this about every other day for a couple of years. Finally, he went out and bought a CBR600RR. Probably did it just to shut me the hell up.



Well, today, we both rode to work. As such, we decided to do the AWR thing. Went down corridor G, then headed west on route 3 to route 34, and north to Winfield. Was a great ride. Even managed to get over on my tires a bit. I didn't put a knee down anywhere, but we were gettin' through the corners at a pretty good clip. Sometimes, the zen of a good ride on twisty WV roads is exactly what a man needs.

Escape.

A friend of mine's father was in ailing health. I feel guilty that I hadn't really paid a lot of attention to the guy until he was in pretty bad shape. Once I started listening to what he had to say, I felt like an idiot for not listening all along. He had some profound things to say, and had a way of saying them that was unique.

To elaborate, my friend had hit some really hard times. Some really bad stuff had gone down, and we were at his dad's house. Things were so bad for my friend at the time, that anywhere around supportive family was better than anywhere else. I was seriously concerned he may kill someone. Seriously, it was bad.

In the midst of dealing with this mess, my friend went outside for some air, and to stew in his own thoughts. When he walked out the door, his ailing father looked at me said said, "You need to take that boy fishin." I looked at him quizzically, thinking, but not saying "gee, how in the world is 'fishin' gonna help anything in this mess?"

He continued, possibly in response to my quizzical look. "When that bass hits, a man ain't got a care in the world."

Now, I'm not even an amateur angler. I fish a good bit. But my friend's now deceased father's words have been ringing in my ears for years now. "When that bass hits, a man ain't got a care in the world." The more I think about that, the more true it is. When that bass hits, the universe is boiled down to two points connected by a piece of nylon line. There is no crime. There is no welfare. There is no war. There is no long-running family disagreement. There was no argument last night. There is no poverty. There is nothing but a bass, a line, and you.

The fight might last all of thirty seconds. But for that thirty seconds, there are only two things in the entire universe. You, and that bass. And in the end, if he breaks the line or spits out the hook, it's really the same as if you land him on the bank or in the boat. For an instant, all of existance was boiled down to two points and a line.

Network Engineer's Nightmare

Literally. A nightmare.

You know how when you get steeped in something in the waking world, sometimes it bleeds over to your dreams. Like, guys who work in supply warehouses start having dreams about millions of boxes. Stuff like that. Well... damnit, it's happened to me.

Recently, I've been doing a *lot* of network design. I've been working nearly constantly with switches, routers, redunant gateways, redundant physical paths, (insert long line of technical jargon like Virtual Router Redunancy Protocol and Spanning Tree Protocol etc...) to the point of madness.

Well, last night, I dreamed I was standing in front a switch. A big Cisco switch. Now, when I say big, I don't mean it had a lot of ports in it. I mean the damned thing was BIG. Like, six feet tall. The data ports on it were three or four feet across. The patch cables that went into it were a good three feet around. The problem in this dream, was that we didn't have enough of these ENORMOUS patch cables. And unfortunately, we had a major uptime requirement that just couldn't be broken. The systems must stay up. There were two of us. And we came up with an idea to keep the systems up. My co-worker would go into the switch (and by into, I mean literally walk into the damned thing instead of log into it) and try to implement a software work-around. My job? Switching frames.

Yes. The frames were about four feet long, translucent, weighed about a pound, and were maybe four inches wide and three inches tall. I could read the source and destination mac addresses that were etched into these "frames." They came out of one giant switch port, and my job was to read the source and destination mac addresses off of them, and carry them over to the correct destination port, and throw them in. Yes. I was a VLAN.

I nearly woke up screaming.

I think I need to find a new career as a construction laborer or something.

So sayeth the flatlander....

"yeah but your whole state is like goddamned afghanistan with trees and moonshine"

-- unnamed friend from flyover country.

There's literary art in West Virginia. Just ask Bigfoot.

So, just to prove that we're not all NASCAR watching, budwieser drinking, harley riding on sundays in leather chaps, banjo playing, tobacco chewing, inbred, one toothed, backwoods, bumpkins the State of West Virginia has decided to incentivize the state's youth to participate in the literary arts. Yes, folks, we're having a poetry contest. About monster trucks. Yes, you read that right, monster trucks.

While I'm sure that great literary works have been written about less classy subjects, I'd imagine most of them were composed by drunken irishmen or sailors on shore leave. I, for one, cannot wait to read "Ode to Bigfoot."

Paging Peregrinus... paging Peregrinus...

Cowards! Caving to terrorists LEGITIMIZES TERROR!

Pathetic.

Some of you may have read that I sent a nastygram to Comedy Central's feedback department about thier censorship of the South Park Episode. I got a form-email response. Note that it took SEVERAL days, so they must be innundated with correspondence like mine. That or they recieved so much, they had to wait on thier legal department to formulate a mass-response.

Anyway, here's the drivel they sent me:

"Dear Viewer,


Thank you for your correspondence regarding the "South Park" episodes entitled "Cartoon Wars." We appreciate your concerns about censorship and the destructive influence of outside groups on the media, entertainment industry and particularly Comedy Central.

To reiterate, as satirists, we believe that it is our First Amendment right to poke fun at any and all people, groups, organizations and religions and we will continue to defend that right. Our goal is to make people laugh and perhaps, if we're lucky, even make them think in the process.

Comedy Central's belief in the First Amendment has not wavered, despite our decision not to air an image of Muhammad. Our decision was made not to mute the voices of Trey and Matt or because we value one religion over any other. This decision was based solely on concern for public safety in light of recent world events.

With the power of freedom of speech and expression also comes the obligation to use that power in a responsible way. Much as we wish it weren't the case, times have changed and, as witnessed by the intense and deadly reaction to the publication of the Danish cartoons, decisions cannot be made in a vacuum without considering what impact they may have on innocent individuals around the globe.

It was with this in mind we decided not to air the image of Muhammad, a decision similar to that made by virtually every single media outlet across the country earlier this year when they each determined that it was not prudent or in the interest of safety to reproduce the controversial Danish cartoons. Injuries occurred and lives were lost in the riots set off by the original publication of these cartoons. The American media made a decision then, as we did now, not to put the safety and well being of the public at risk, here or abroad.

As a viewer of "South Park," you know that over the course of ten seasons and almost 150 episodes the series has addressed all types of sensitive, hot-button issues, religious and political, and has done so with Comedy Central's full support in every instance, including this one. "Cartoon Wars" contained a very important message, one that Trey and Matt felt strongly about, as did we at the network, which is why we gave them carte blanche in every facet but one: we would not broadcast a portrayal of Muhammad.

In that regard, did we censor the show? Yes, we did. But if you hold Comedy Central's 15-year track record up against any other network out there, you'll find that we afford our talent the most creative freedom and provide a nurturing atmosphere that challenges them to be bold and daring and places them in a position to constantly break barriers and push the envelope. The result has been some of the most provocative television ever produced.

We would like nothing more than to be able to look back at this in a few years and think that perhaps we overreacted. Unfortunately, to have made a different decision and to look back and see that we completely underestimated the damage that resulted was a risk we were not willing to take.

Our pledge to you, our loyal viewers, is that Comedy Central will continue to produce and provide the best comedy available and we will continue to push it right to the edge, using and defending the First Amendment in the most responsible way we know how.

Sincerely,
Comedy Central Viewer Services"


Yeah. Wimps.

Oh, and google, you're wimps too. I couldn't upload mohammed.gif. I had to rename it. Damned cowardice is running rampant.

Here, I'll do something you didn't have the balls for:

Comedy Central and Muhammed

What I pasted into the feedback form on comedy central's website regarding South Park and censorship (apparently comedy central would not let them air an image of muhammed):

"Assuming the plotline of South Park is correct, your cowardly retreat from the first amendment is not respresentative of the spirit of freedom upon which this country is based.

I have changed the channel. I won't be seeing any more comedy central commercials."

I should get a nice drawing of muhammed and put it on this blog.

Sometimes it's a shame.

It's a shame that the local Little League baseball league is run by petty, vindictive, power hungry little beaurocrats. It's a shame because it hurts the game. It's a shame because it hurts the kids. It's a shame because it's been that way since I played at that field 20+ years ago. It's a shame because I won't expose my son to them. It's a shame because the kid hits every fastball and knuckleball I throw down the pipe. It's a shame because he has all the fundamentals, and he won't be playing.

Busy weekend

I had a really busy weekend. Trust me, I'm really, not ever, going to use this blog as a diary or journal, but hear me out. This weekend I recieved some cultural exposure that's pretty darned rare for me. You have to keep in mind that if I'm not fighting at the dojo, learning to fight at the dojo, or shooting stuff at the range, I'm probably at work. "Culture" for me means learning the japanese or korean names for various strikes, blocks, pins, throws and holds. And I suppose my use of russian ammunition for my commie rifles is a uh... form of cultural exposure.

My weekend started with a trip (the whole family) to the Clay Center for a performance by the West Virginia Symphony Orchestra. They had a guest piano virtuoso by the name of Valentina Lisitsa. Oh my god could this woman play a piano. Her performace (and the symphony of course) of Liszt's Totentanz literally brought tears to my eyes. It was my son's first exposure to classical music live. After the performance of Totentanz, the symphony went to intermission. I leaned over to my wide-eyed son (who plays guitar, and understands how difficult the mastery of an instrument can be) and said "um... was that just a little more complex than Green Day?" He nodded and replied "uh... yeah," still wide-eyed.

So Saturday, we head to guitar lessons. Yes, my whole family takes guitar lessons. The boy and I play guitar, and the wife is learning bass. And if you're in the Charleston area and in need of a good guitar teacher, look up Josh Cannon. Just call Fret n Fiddle in St. Albans and they'll hook you up. Josh can friggin play. I mean, the guy can PLAY. On top of that, he's a helluva good teacher. Very patient with fumble-fingers like myself. He doesn't chastize me for being lazy and not practicing like I should. And that's good. Because I'm not a professional musician, and I have a job, and so on... But I digress.

Right after guitar lessons, we all pack up and head over to St. Albans High School. Karate tournament day. Both the boy and I compete. We both did pretty well. My boy really kicked some butt. His age and experience class is a lot more competitive than mine. It's a bigger challenge for him to place well.

After the tournament, we head out to Scarlett Oaks for a jazz performance by Dominick Farinacci. This guy's a trumpet player, and after hearing that, I'd rank him as one of the best in the world. The guy's only twenty three years old, and he's freakin' amazing. I played a trumpet as a kid and through high school. All told, I played a trumpet for oh... seven years or so. Among my peers, I was pretty damned good too. I usually sat first or second chair in band, and being sorta familiar with how the instrument is played, I can recognize talent and skill when I hear it. Holy crap that guy was good. I mean, I can't say how good the guy was. It's just not going to translate in a text medium. Seriously, to register how good the guy was, take the top of any art or skill, and there's your analogy. The Tiger Woods of Trumpet. (that's actually a very good analogy because they were both very very good at a very very young age) The Michael Schumaker of Trumpet. The Valentino Rossi of Trumpet. The Michael Jordan of Trumpet. You get the point. The guy was good.

Not only was Dominick good, but the piano player and bassist in his band were damned good too. Now, the previous night's performance by Ms. Lisitsa had kind of tained my perception of "good" when it comes to the ivory keys, and no, this guy didn't hold a candle to her, but he was good. He did some crazy crazy stuff with scales and modes. Real zappa style space-stuff.

But the bassist, wow. That guy was a trip. He'd run through these scales, flip modes, do crazy timing stuff (within the time signature) and just flat go OFF. And what impressed me about his playing, was that he returned to what I refer to as "the melodic." Jazz players tend to drive me batshit. They go off in musical space so far, and so wide that all semblance of melody is left alone in the corner holding a sign that says "hey! remember me? I'm that thing called the song? Over here? Hello?" Well, the bassist would return to the melody. He'd go on some magical scalar/modal trip, and come back to the melody several times during his solos. It was cool. Hey jazz players, listen up. Us lay people need that. We're not all beret and turtleneck wearing musical intellectuals. We need you to come back to the melody every now and then just to remind us that we're not listening to random notes in a random key. K?

OLN thinks the whole country has ADD?

Here's an email I sent to OLN regarding thier Dakar rally coverage.

To: feedback@olntv.com

Subject: Incredibly annoying dakar coverage.

I was forced to turn the channel, switching away from your dakar rally coverage. This is unforunate, as I was really quite interested. Unfortunately, your coverage, consisting mostly of spliced 1.25 second clips back to back, was maddening to "watch." Please not that I use the term "watch" loosely. You cannot watch subjects that are changing at that pace. There's no coherent subject to see.

Please have your producers take note that all of America does not suffer from attention deficit disorder, and as such, can remain focused on a subject for more than 1.25 seconds.


Charleston, West Virginia

The Judo Thing... Revisited

The year is (roughly) 1985. The place is geography class. Coach Todd catches me leaving class and asks "hey, how much do you weigh?"

"Um... about a hundred pounds, why?"

"We need a wrestler at 105lbs, you ever do any wrestling?"

"No, I haven't."

"It's ok. Practice starts at 4 in the cafeteria. Be there."

"Uhhh, I'll have to ask my dad, but ok."

Flash to the first wrestling practice where coach Todd says "You guys who haven't wrestled before, you're going to be sore in muscles you didn't know you had. This is not a sport for wimps. Spraw drills. gogogogogogogo *SPRAWL* gogogogogog *SPRAWL*"

Well, coach Todd was right. I was sore in muscles I didn't know I had. Now, that was 20 years ago. I thought I was done with wrestling practice. Bzzzzt.

See, before last week, I didn't really know what Judo was. Yeah, I've been practicing Tae Kwon Do for quite a while now, but I had no clue about Judo. I mentioned in a previous post that at my dojo it's now ... er... well... required? ... It's at the least, highly encouraged within the TKD system to have Judo and Aikido skills. Well, now I know what Judo is at it's essence. It's "japanese wrestling." Or at least that's what it feels like. I thought I was done with that kind of soreness back in high school. Well, it's back.

I have honest to god mat burn on my ankle. Real mat burn. Just like wrestling practice mat burn. My ribs are sore and it hurts to laugh. I guess that happens when you're tossed on the ground (thank GOD I know how to fall, or I'd really be hurting) by a 220lb dude. And what's interesting, is that it's not getting tossed around by the big guys that hurts. It's getting thrown by the little guys that'll wake you up.

Some of the more senior guys in the class tell me it takes about six to eight weeks to get up to speed physically. I can believe it. It's so physically demanding that I was asking for an oxygen bottle at the end of class. Keep in mind that I can run 3 miles in about 26 minutes. I imagine part of why it's so physically demanding is that I'm doing it wrong. I'm probably staying too tense, too wound up when I need to just relax and use technique.

We'll see.

Yeager in Winter

And a Moon Pic:












:

Boy am I gonna be sore tomorrow.

So, I'd done about a year of Tae Kwon Do training in my teens. I then took, oh, 15 years off for the marines, getting a career started, and various other stuff. During that fifteen years I maybe trained a total of two months. But I digress.

At my dojo, proficiency in multiple arts is... well, not only highly encouraged, but apparently mandatory. There's now a sign up in the dojo basically saying "Tae Kwon Do students: You must have basic judo and aikido skills to test for advanced belts." I'm paraphrasing, but the point is, you have to know basic judo and aikido to attain the higher tae kwon do belts. I think these requirements are new. But again, maybe they've always been there, and I'm just noticing.

So, in accordance with this policy, I took my first formal judo class this evening. It has left me with an impression I feel I should share. Judo is hard. I mean, (so far) it's not particularly hard technique wise, but then again, I'm a total beginner and I'm just learning basics. But the class is really really physically demanding. It felt like wrestling practice. I haven't been to wrestling practice in something like fifteen years. After class, I felt like I was going to die. My god what a workout.

I'm probably going to be hating life tomorrow.