Just before the sun comes up.

I want to see the sun rise over the ocean. 
I've wanted to see this since I was a kid.
I want to see that special color I've read about that flashes as the sun just begins to touch the horizon.
It's supposed to be beautiful, but you have to be aware when it happens.
How could it not be beautiful though? Everything else here is beautiful.

And wondering if we made a mistake by coming out here.
Everything is so unfamiliar. Money is tight. We have only a few hours each day to spend together.

We've lost the luxury of freedom.
I've feel like a king who has chosen to be indigent just to be in someone elses world.
If I come clamoring back to Las Vegas after falling back a few steps here in Florida,
then I was just lucky in the decisions I made in Las Vegas.
However, if I can do well here, then what I did in Vegas wasn't luck, it was ability.
My life has been a perpetual experiment trying to prove this one theory 
- That we are the creators of our own lives.
- and that we (not some glowing entity in the sky) are the god that we pray to in our solemnity.
If this experiment fails, then my theory must be wrong.
I also think we chose to be here in this world. We aren't just an accident of nature.
But, I'm more than happy to wait to find out if that theory is true or not.

To those who ask the question "what are we doing here", the answer will reveal itself in the end.
I guess, no matter where I go, my soul searching will go with me.
I apologize to anyone who reads this and wonders why I talk this way. I'm just curious.
I believe that if Dorothy closed her eyes, clicked her heals three times, and said there's no place like home,
she could have been back in Kansas at anytime. 
Becky and I can do that too.
  :^)

I love when nice things happen to nice people like us...
I LOVE YOU TO PIECES!!!

We buy small quantities of groceries now.
We don't order pizza because the dumpster is 1/4 of a mile away.
Everything we do seems to be based on carrying things up or down the stairs.
Someone should invent a portable balcony wench for apartments like these, just to haul grocery bags up and down.

And also, it goes to the right spot now when you click on an entry.
I've got to remember to enclose my Href's with quotes.
It took about an hour to figure that out.

I still smell like curry fried rice. It was good food, especially the lemon chutney stuff.
This morning I got my Florida plates.
The Tax Assessors Office had no signs from the street. In fact, it was in the middle of a little mall.
There was no line, but there were a few snags.
- The tax guy needed to see my odometer (which has a mind of its own).
It didn't work.
- I could have gotten my personalized plates overnight,
but he said if my Schwab debit account didn't work, we'd have to do everything all over again.
- They took my Title to my truck.
I'll get a Florida one in 3 months. Now, I've got to wonder what will happen if I want to sell my truck.
The good thing about this is, I've got my ex's name off of the title.
The bad thing, of course is, I may never get my title back.
I've hit snags before, where a date/something didn't match, and I ended up with nothing.
Whatever the case, its all much cheaper than Vegas.
My plates cost $230, my insurance is $260 (I think), and I don't need a smog test

He's moving to Pleasantville, Ca.

I love your eyes and your smile. It's great to be in love with you!

Paging back and forth was a mess. As it turned out, I got to rip out a bunch of code.
VB has a DateAdd("m",-1,mydate) function that manipulates dates very nicely.
Finding these functions is a pain without a manual or online help.

He's 1/4th of the reason we came up. The reason definitely wasn't money.
My reasons for coming out here were
- Health Insurance

- See the East coast and get out of Las Vegas
- Fix up my Resume with current activity

- Hang with Mikey, because he's one of the few friends I have left.
Oh well, if he goes to San Francisco and works full time, maybe he'll be able to pull me in. That would be nice.
San Francisco now seems stained though, since Skip died there.

Here in Florida, the Tax Collector takes care of vehicle license plates, and there's not many of them around.
To make things worse, they're only open 8:30am to 5:00pm., the hours I work.
So, I HAVE TO TAKE TIME OFF, and that sux.
Becky and I went to Tony Roma's last night. Man, that food was very good, and reasonably priced.
We also swung by Walmart to pick up a sheet, table, and clock. Much needed stuff.

And I don't get something in Tampa, we should become truck drivers...what do you think?
We could have a little house near Ida...

** Smiles **

He's got an interview next Tuesday with a company in San Francisco. Yippee!!!
I think he's going through a headhunter named Kaiser.

You're logged on as me right now though...so it looks like I told me I love me....haha

I love you so much. I felt really bad about what you
said yesterday. I know you didn't mean what you said.

I know that you would ever leave me,we are too good
for each other. We love each other so much. I do miss
you when you are at work. It makes me feel good
when you call me. Today I'm doing laundry, watched
the movie Phatom of the Opera. Now I'm watching
ZZtop the music vidoes. I love this screen it is so cool.

 

 

 

 

                 Love you

                 Becky

I wanted Becky to overcome her fear of riding roller coaster's.
I told her an 8 year old that was riding this one coaster was braver than she was.
And then I told her if she didn't ride the coaster, she'd be on the next flight out to Vegas.
That makes me an asshole.

I don't know why I'd say something so cruel to someone as special as my sweet Becky.
I must be changing for the worst.
I don't like my job.
I don't like being poor again.
I don't like what the future is going to turn out to be if I stay in this situation.
I'm going to make a choice soon. It will be finishing LVDUDE or truck driving.
With either decision, I'll get to finish the condo and get some permanent income coming in.
None of the above is an excuse for saying what I said to Becky though. That was inexcusable.

Channel 8 in Las Vegas rewrote their website. It kind of looks like this one, which is scary.
LVDUDE has a very open format. There isn't anything else like it on the internet.
You can copy links, enter a personal blog and easily enter ads.
If I don't do something with this site in a year, the design will be worthless. So, I've got to keep trying to improve its looks and functionality. This is one of my opportunities to get rich. I must either finish it, or give it up.

The rides were great! We almost rode everything in 8 hours. A few of the rides were closed.
The worst thing that happened was when I ate a leg of turkey and the darned thing got stuck.
Man, that's painful. I kept riding the rides though. The pain lasted for two hours this time. sheesh.
We'd gotten what turned out to be an excellent deal on Universal Studios from Costco.
$64 for three months in either Universal Studios, or Universal Studio's Islands of Adventure.

The gate price for 1 day, 1 park is $54.

I've only been here three weeks, and it feels like I've been gone from Vegas for years.
I'm getting caught up in the day-to-day living. I may never know the answer to the what-if's I had.
What If: I'd finished this website instead of moving here?
Keep in mind, I wrote this program in a weekend---> http://www.lvshots.com/games/

What If: I'd gotten Rainbird to buy my A/C energy saver?
Would I have gotten rich?
As it stands now, I may never know.
6:00am - I get up  and  work on LVDUDE.COM for maybe an hour.
7:30am - I take a shower at 7:30am. 

8:30am - I'm at work.
6:00pm - I get home from work

6:30pm - I have to feed Becky and myself. 
10pm    - I'm in bed.
I'd estimated completing LVDUDE in about a month, working 10 hours a day on it.
As it stands, it'll take 10 months because I'm only working on it 1 hour a day.
My budget is tight, because I'm not making much money. It will be December before I break even from just moving.
In other words, I'm becoming just like everybody else. I'm losing my dreams of a better future.
I'm not controlling life. Life is controlling me. It's trying to drag me into its little pits of hell.
It's my belief, that when a man's dreams die, he loses his soul.
He becomes a robotic zombie, doing the same routine every day of his life, until his life is expunged.
Soon, I'll be balancing pennies in my checkbook, thinking I can't afford to take vacation time.
I'll be thinking I need this job and fearing these people are going to fire me.
I'll lose my feelings of self worth.
If I cared about this job, my esteem would have already been crushed.
I've got to keep site of this one thought: "I am somebody. I can change the world.".

And I think Becky and I both agree, it's pretty cool. The bedroom has a 12' projected TV screen on one wall, an air bed to lay on, and some fold up camp ground chairs (bright orange). It looks like a giant ate an M&M factory and puked furniture all over our apartment. So many colors.
We picked up some 1 park/3 month tickets for Universal Studio and Universal Adventure Island this after noon. They cost about $60 (a few more $$ than a one day ticket). What's confusing is, if its one park, how come they mention two parks on the box. Everyone says it like one park, but in different directions. Anyway, I think I read somewhere its 44 square miles, so, we will get lost without a map.

Did I tell you today how much I love you?
I LOVE YOU!!!

I got up and went out on the balcony to watch it. Across from us, three floors up, I saw a couple in their kitchen. They were moving funny.
SO, I got my binoculars. What happened next was a surprise for Becky.

They went to their balcony. He took off her pants and went down on her.
My binoculars by this time were zoomed in at maximum!!!
About then, I had to let Becky know.
When I went back out on the the balcony, they were still going at it like wild dogs!
She finally flopped off of him and back into her chair.
WHAT A COUNTRY!!!

It was 11:30pm here and we were sleeping. It's funny, because when I woke up, it felt like I'd slept for at least 6 hours.
They got a 99 Ford Escort for $1,000.
Now ain't that cool? He said the Blue Book on it was $2,000.

I could use one of those little go carts in this town.
They are getting a landline soon.
That'll be much better. I love cell phones, but they still cut out a lot when you're on speaker phone
Renee got kicked out of BADD
She wasn't bad though. Her toe was. It looks like they mainly want PYT's to spread the word.
She's moved in with Grandma, which, if my guess is right, she'll be kicked out of there pretty soon.
I'm guessing she never got her diploma or GED. She knows nothing about real work, and she's 20.
It'll be interesting to see what's going to happen with her.
I guess Robert and Sonny are the only two people in Las Vegas that miss us.
Noone else has called us out here from Vegas.
You'd think Grandma or Renee would have called us by now. They have free long distance.
That's pretty depressing when I think about it.
The people who call us are my Dad, Sonny, Robert, Ida (in Missouri) and Jeanette (in Sacremento).

They'll get nice Christmas presents this year...haha.

Hmmmm. It could even be a relief.
Jeff was working one of my previous projects. He merged my stuff into it, and I retested my stuff.
I was told that was a waste of time. I'm so confused. Either I'm supposed to test something to death, or I'm not.
I can't win here. I'm playing a loser's game.

?DICTIONARY \CAESARS.$DATA3.DDL
?OUT $S.#JRC
?ASSIGN CCAGENT-REC,\CAESARS.$DATA6.CCFILE.CCAGENT
OPEN    CCAGENT-REC;
 title     @date as date *
           TAB 20 "* * *   C A E S A R S   P A L A C E   * * *"
           TAB 70 "PAGE " @PAGENO ;
  subtitle @time as time *
           TAB 20 "            BRANCH LISTING        "
           TAB 70 "CCAGENT";
!----------------------------------------------------------------
LIST
    BY CCAGENT-AGENT       HEADING "BRANCH/CODE"
          CCAGENT-DESCRIPTION HEADING "BRANCH/DESCRIPTION"
          CCAGENT-STATUS
          CCAGENT-TYPE
WHERE CCAGENT-STATUS NOT = "I" AND CCAGENT-TYPE = "DI";

RECORD CCPITDTL-REC. FILE IS "CCPITDTL" KEY-SEQUENCED.
  02 CCP-KEY.
    03 CCP-PITAREA                PIC XXXX.
  02 CCP-MARKERAMT         PIC S9(9) COMP.
  02 CCP-SETSHIFT                PIC X.
  02 CCP-SHIFT                      PIC XXX.
  02 CCP-SETACTDATE        PIC 9(5).
  02 FILLER                             PIC X(5).

 
KEY IS CCP-KEY DUPLICATES NOT ALLOWED.
End

Last night, Jeff, Becky and I went on a search to find cheap cigarettes.
We went all over looking for a smoke shop. One downtown was supposed to be duty free, but it was closed.
The businesses here must change frequently, because the phone book and online yellow pages aren't up-to-date.
I talked to Jamie and asked her to submit me to JP Morgan in Tampa.

It would mean a 25% increase in wages, so, I'd be crazy not to give it a shot.
At M2, there is absolutely no chance for bettering my position. They just barely recognize my existance.
Hanging out there is a daily grind of deadlines and one line changes. Its a good way to waste your life if that's what you want.
I'd be doing well to write a simple report. I think they'd think I'm to stupid to write a requester/server pair.
I had to increase a working storage field from PIC 9(8)V99 to PIC 9(9)V99 yesterday.
I increased it to PIC 9(16)V99.
I wanted to increase it to PIC 9(16)V99 COMP, but didn't dare to do it.
WHY? Because, when I increased it to 9(16), I was asked why I did that.
I said, so the field will never have to be increased again, and there was no reason not to.
If I comped it, it would be smaller than what they had to begin with.
So, improving anything is probably a mistake. They make their money by billing hours for petty changes.
If I were the owner, I might be thinking that not having to change the field again and again cost $$$ in billing hours.

All I have to do with my site is to make it look prettier, and to figure out the best way to make money with it.

It seems like it's pretty much good to go.
I need to test it for the kind of people who'll be using the site though.
They will be deep country folk, probably with dial up connection and low-computer skills.

I'm not using our internet connection because its being dominated.
The phone and cable I could care less about.
However, I picked up a wireless router at CompUsa on the way home.
Since the internet is down, I can't set it up.
Mikey said he'll set it up, SO, I'm going to let him.
Its not enough to just want something.
If you want something, but aren't willing to work for it, you must not want it very badly.
Besides, the router should set up easily.
I've done my transactions over the net...not the way I'd like to have done them...but at least their in.
So, I'm happy.

These two hour projects leave no time for anything extra.
I may be terribly misplaced at M2.
1) You have to fudge everything. They only think they have a test system.
2) You rarely see a screen that immulates production.
When I've set up test systems,
- They've had a whole day's worth of data that can be replayed, 
- A pathway system where a screen can be displayed and sent and a server can be debugged

Anything but entering raw data through notepad, then sending it through a program.
I'm back in the stone ages as far as work goes.

AND, I'm not going to get anytime to improve it.

The last hour of working in this quiet place just draaaaaaaaaaagggggggggssssssssssss on.

I wanna snore so bad.
I'm going to swing by and pick up a "D-Link DI 524 AirPlus G High Speed 2.4 Ghz wireless Router" on the way home.

With a name like that...it's gotta be worth $20...haha.

That's how I'd describe this trip.
People are either happy or crabby. They're sane or insane.
I'm both glad and sorry I came here.

My most recent pain is my roomie, who hasn't had wired internet in a long time.
He insisted on it before I even took off, and instead of getting wireless we got wired internet for ONE user.
That one user could have been my PC that could share the internet.
His laptop didn't even work using wired internet.
Wired internet is more difficult than wireless. Technology is working its way away from wiring codes.
I brought hardware that won't work. We have the WRONG cable modem.

 

By his expressing a desire to go backwards in time to a setup that everyone is getting away from,
I'm burning out trying to figure out if we can still do it and it's going to get expensive.
In other words:
- We have one internet connection.
- We are living in a apartment so we can't drill holes in the walls for wires.
- We don't have a shared internet connection device of any type unless its my PC that's setup for it.
- I don't think what he wanted can be done with out one.
I based my thoughts on being able to share a dedicated connection on Paul's cable modem.
It was probably designed for internet sharing, which is why he had an extra port on his bridge.
I'm having to connect to the internet through a connection we pay for,
I'm connecting though my neighbors internet connection. 
I'm doing it on a bar stool with my ass hanging out in the kitchen.
I rely on the internet for my finances and my knowlege. I spend at least 3 hours a day learning, and reading.
I almost never play games on it. I need this, my bills are back in Vegas, not here.
And I'm having to pray my neighbor doesn't move.
For this, I'm sorry we came. This internet is going to cost me dearly.
I get every day, and I write code for LVDUDE. Now I can't do that in comfort.
If I don't finish it, it'll cost me a lot money.
And LVDUDE is path for early retirement.

It's a great apartment. What isn't great is our furniture. I guess it's always best to buy furniture for the place you are moving into.
I'm hoping we'll finally get a chance to relax today.
They have a couple of pools, jacuzzi's, excersize rooms, and some gazebo's set up around the lake in back.

Ain't you 2 Becky?

To: 818 Renaissance Pointe #301, Alamonte Springs, Florida 32714
Today should be a real HOOT!

Truck Driving - $.25mi/6 days/10 hours/480da/2,880mi a weekAvg 48mph=$37,488 a year
Truck Owning - $.85mi/6 days/10 hours/480da/2,880mi a weekAvg 48mph=$127,488 a year
Current - $62,000
Mgm - $135,000

It would be:
Zombie: 1 a : a person held to resemble the so-called walking dead; b : a person markedly strange in appearance or behavior. One who has no will.
We are close to Haiti aren't we?

After Monday, all I'll need is a small nudge. It won't take much. I need to read my contract.

I went to get some coffee.
Standing there next to the coffee pot and putting sugar in his tea was the second highest up guy, Dave.
I said with a smile: "HEY, YOU'RE DAVE. I'M JIM. I'M YOU'RE NEW PROGRAMMER!".
He said: "uh huh". I felt worse than if I'd farted in a plastic chair in church during prayer.
The guy didn't even offer me a handshake. He didn't even look at me.
Two people, ONLY TWO PEOPLE, have had the decency to give me eye contact when I first met them.
The grumpiness doesn't appear to be just in my group. 
Everyone in that building seems grumpy.
I hope that kind of courteousy doesn't rub off on me.
If I become that way, I'm joining Skip.
I hate when I miss the opportunity for making a new friend.
I've learned so much by being friendly.
We are social creatures. Until we learn to self replicate, our race can't survive outside of a colony.

I suggested an obvious change in M2's environment that would save time....
- They are logging on as someone else then back to themselves just to see a report.
- Instead of just making a simple change to allow programmers to see the reports they generate

.

And instead of fixing this obvious oversight, I get, nah...we're used to doing things a certain way.

So this is Tandem hell.
'We're used to beating our clothes with rocks to wash them.'  

Who am I to say the world could be a better place.
I'll make things better for myself then.
This version of Guardian has more security holes in it than I have pores on my face.

310-210-7760

I swear though, there is no reason that people at work should be treated badly. That's just not right.
Life is too short to get caught up in someone else's personal hell.
I've got a lot of options open to me, and that's great!
I'd imagine most of the people at work don't even know they have options.
I'm always amazed at how so many people go through life without thinking about it.
They just go about everyday as if they were going to live forever.
When I get treated badly again, I'll just simply smile.
In my mind I'll say,
- "I know where you are coming from, because I've been there".
- "I know what your dreams are. You have none".
- "I know how you think. You haven't evolved much past the canine species."
- "I know, if you have kids, they love their GameBoy more than they love you. That's because you aren't fun."
- "And I know where you'll be in 10 years...right there at your desk."
And if whoever I'm talking to looks at me, maybe they'll realize that I'm free.
No one can predict where I'll be in 10 years.
And I certainly won't be letting someone else do my thinking for me.
This is my life, and I'll plan it myself.
There's only 36,000 days left till New Life's Eve.

- I'm working way below my caliber for more than half the pay I was to making at Mgm.
  If I was working for the money, this move would have be stupid.
- I haven't forgotten any of my Tandem skills.
  With this refresher, and Transaction Software backing me up, I could get almost any Tandem job out there.
- Unknown to most people, when I left Las Vegas, I created $400 worth of income a month.
  With one week of effort, that will increase my income to $900 a month tax free.
   That income will last for the rest of my life. All I need is health insurance to protect my assets (and future assets).
- I don't need this job, I came here to have fun.
  But if that includes being demeaned and intimidated, I'm out of here.
  I'm told I can move to Daytona beach and live with my Aunt for FREE.
  The deal would be, I take care of her, she takes care of me.
- I have Mikey on the hook for an apartment lease.
  So if I decide to leave M2 and burn my bridges, I'll have to make sure I don't burn Mikey in any way.
- I've also calculated that I can make more money driving a truck.
  If I bought my own rig, I can make almost as much as I was making at the Mgm.
  That option at least has promise for the future.

- I came in early. I got into trouble for that.
My goal was to create a good impression.
- So I waited in the parking lot and  I got into trouble for that.
I wasn't at my cube before my start time. I was told I was early, so I didn't come in, and I got into trouble.
Right off the bat, it was impossible to do anything right!
- I took time to say howdy and learn their systems. I got into trouble for that.
My introductions consisted of "Hi, I'm Jim", and that was it.
My introduction to the Office Manager was her putting a sticky on my PC.
I was given a stack of papers. A lot of them related to full time employees. Apparently, orientation hasn't even been thought about.
- I was told if I entered an office with no one there, I'll be fired.

There's a lot of paranoia there. For a shop with no production data, it just doesn't sense. They process electronic Food Stamps!
- I got into trouble for not answering my emails immediately.

My PC doesn't have speakers. Those emails came from a manager, just a few cubes away. Why didn't she just come by?
- The keyboard mappings on my PC are strange to me.
I won't have time to change them.

 

- I can't hook up my laptop.
I've got Tandem tools and information on it.
The style seems to be fear, intimidation and pressure.
M2 is a quandary.
They want things done fast.
My first code change took 5 minutes. But the testing, which seemed very unreasonable, required knowledge I didn't even have.
- The concensious seems to be that I'm slow.
Without time to learn the basics of their systems, I will be slow. If its written on paper, but its not in my head, I'll always be slow.
Silly things about this shop
Their enables are listed out on a spread sheet.  On another page, it tells you to prefix the names with an E.
Its not documented how to access them. The screen you run them from doesn't even tell you the key combination to get to them.
Running them is unnecessarily complicated. If you don't put N in one of the field's, you have to key in everything again.
Noone seems to know why you have to put an N in that field. Its silly.
- I could work up an easy to use enable menu in 20 minutes.
All of their production sources are just hanging out there for anyone to modify at their choosing.
They should have those sources someplace that's protected at the bare minimum, at the very least.

The name of their compare program is COMPARA.

The name of their pathway entry system is MNDRIV and not MENU.

They use different names for their filenames, the programs file names and the records field names.
An account number might be called as many as six different names. You need a road map to figure it out.
Their perform READ-MYFILE-NEXT paragraphs do much more than just read the file.
And, last but not least, they use GOTOs.

Without proper introductions, without any kind of voice, I'll have no power at M2, EVER. It'll always be a grunt job.