I get into my car.. still unbelieving. I turn the key. I notice that the mileage reads “14,666” miles. The radio starts kicks in. I have a CD playing; my favorite CD. The first words I hear from the singers angelic mouth: “Fate… is so unkind”. I near weeping as I finally have a moment to reflect on the night’s terrible events.

Fate… is so unkind indeed. Vanhood as vans know it changed forever last evening. Vanlandw, Vanbergs, and myself, congregated for what can only be described as pure, un-adulterated, sheer vanhood. What might this be? Well, the answer is “Knockout Matches”. Wrestlemania 2000 for the nintendo 64. Hours of painstaking work creating personalized characters. Personalized moves. A vallant 3-way battle where the victor cannot be decided by “pin” or by “disqualification”… Not even by submission of the opponent. The winner is declared only when an opponent is knocked unconcious. It is an epic battle, with alliances and betrayal and whole drama. A poem of heroism. A story of defiance. A war with three parties and no sides.

When these wars take place… battle after battle after battle ensues… to the tune of at least 10 rematches. This night, there was no count. The knights of vanhood rematched and rematched for 5 hours… Finally, in the early morning hours… We decided on one final match. The match was epic. Temporary alliances… swinging of chairs and lumber… running power punches… Tiger suplexes… “near” knockouts where a foe managed to pick up the fallen…

Finally… vanlandw had been hurt, i stand him up to execute a powerful full nelson suplex, a knockout move… Just as he begins standing, i notice vanbergs is already running right for vanlandw and i know i have made a grave error. Vanbergs unleashes unfathomable fury straight into the back of vanlandws head via the undescribable “running power punch”. Vanlandw crumbles.

Vanbergs instantly grapples my character.. strategically preventing me from helping vanlandw get up. After a brief time of struggling to get to his feet, vanlandw’s character subsides… Gives up on the match, the war, vanhood, and his life. The bell rings.

After some shouting, name calling, alliance forming, alliance betraying, we decide… “1 more match.” But wait… we notice our characters dont look right… our characters look plain… whats happening… Reset it! 3 way match… no belts… oh no… characters… empty… gone… vanhood redefined.

Years of vanhood washed away… 1 cartridge battery dies… destroying years of customized player honed ultimate glory.

Knockout matches are no more… no more forever.

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My birthday has now come and gone, and i am 25 years of age… There was a pretty good turnout of friends and family in Sister Lakes Michigan, and the weather wasn’t too terrible. Overall, it was pretty fun. Probably the coolest thing about the entire weekend was mickeyvb just surpassing MacGyver as the best handy man of all time. Mickeyvb disassembled (sheer piece by piece) a boat engine while it was still on the boat, and while the boat was in the water, and while he was still wearing swim trunks. He then re-assembled it, and ultimately fixed it. There are quite a few pics in the gallery of the weekend…

I’m looking forward to finally taking a real and scheduled vacation… I pretty much get 4 weeks of vacation, and i havent used any yet, so im just going to take 2 weeks off and see what happens. It’s wierd… When i was unemployed, i almost dreaded waking up in the morning just because i knew i was going to be completely bored off my ass. It really was almost enough to drive me insane. It was completely quiet all day, i would fall asleep sometimes during the day, then stay up late at night… that whole two months just kind of blended into some wierd long hard matinee movie that i cant even remember watching… But for some odd reason, I’m really looking forward to that same scenario for a couple of weeks. I have nothing planned, and dont currently plan on doing nothing… (?)

I guess its all relative to what your life happens to be like…

I might write more here later… brb

I mainly wanted to write this post to try out notepad 2… I do like it… but i think i like Vi better.

Anyway… this day has been purely epic. I played some counter strike, listened to some new disturbed, ventured out with vanlandw to partake in what can only be described as pure vanhood. We traveled to “Silver Bullet Firearms”, rented handguns, and fired 100 rounds of ammunition each. I cant explain how rewarding that is on so many different levels. For my weapon, I chose a glock 22. lightweight, .40 caliber. I didnt want to go too big since this was the first time i have ever shot a handgun, and i didnt want to get a 9mm just because I am a van. Overall, the .40 was a good choice, but i did like shooting vanlandw’s Sig .45 cal. 🙂 photo weaponry

Following 200 total discharges of ammunition, we ate at Mcdonalds… Following Mcdonalds i listened to some new disturbed again.

All in all… a day of pure perfection.

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This past week i had been taking an official Active Directory class… Although training is still sort of like work, it was good to change the pace a bit. I got a great instructor, and the fact that there were alot of hands on labs made it a very worth while experience. I learned more in a week then marty levin taught me in an entire semester. Basically, i sort of feel like i could call myself an expert on Active Directory now. I’ve had a decent amount of experience with it, and this training introduced me to the finer points of OU’s, group policy, etc. I must say 2003 has a much nicer group policy management console than did 2000.

On Friday, i spent my training lunchbreak driving around near the GR airport. This was satisfying for a couple reasons. For one, i made it a point to drive by my old workplace “Progressive Distribution Services, Inc”. I felt a distinct urge to urinate on the building, but i merely smirked at the fact that I don’t work there any more. Secondly, i happened to come across something i never new existed. i just happened to drive right up to the GR Ford Airport viewing area. This is basically a long parking lot where you are situated 50-75 yards from the runways. I didn’t think too much of it until a massive passenger jet took off right in front of me. It was so close and so loud that i could hardly believe it… I really felt like a little kid. I was seriously infatuated watching these planes take off and land. So much so that i failed to even eat lunch, and was ten minutes late in getting back to my class. But, when it all ended I received this certificate.

Friday night i headed to hart mich to help my dad get his 1973 plymouth ‘cuda polished up… He had registered to have it in a local car show, so wanted to get it in ‘ship shape’. It ended up looking pretty damn nice, and i was extremely jealous of that automobile. The Mickster did take me for a ride in it, at which point he displayed to me how easily the beast could liquify its tires. I then took 3 hours or so to hand wash, wax, and completely clean my car as well. It might seem like severe overkill, but my car is 1 year old and it still looks brand spanking new.

The car show was amazing, especially for the city of hart. I have never seen that many people inside that hideous town. Alot of awesome cars… new, old, custom built, etc. Just packed the entire downtown strip of the city. I really like cars :-/

I took alot of pictures at the show, of my fathers car, and of my own car (since it will never look better than it did that day) Feel free to check them out.

My dad didn’t win anything, but it was fun to hang out at the show with him for the whole day. He was definitely in his element, and proud of his automobile. As well he should be, he put alot of blood sweat and tears into that beast to make it run. He essentially rebuilt the entire engine… And he had alot of people come by to talk to him about his ride…. The remainder of the afternoon and the next day were spent backflipping and sunbathing at my parent’s pool. I drank some labatt’s, ate some bratwursts, took some naps… Weekends really cant get much better.

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July is almost half done… summer is almost half done. So far, its been the typical run of the mill summer.

A few highlights:

War of the worlds is a sweet movie. (more on this later)
I have just gotten 4 cavities filled.
Actually saw fireworks this year.
Work going very well.
Almost my 25th birthday.
Steve Jobs, here I come.

To elaborate on some of the finer points, I am having a great summer. My career is really growing with the company. I definitely joined a great organization at a great time. They’re hiring two more people in the department, one of which will be actually a level below me. Basically they are trying to get me away from helpdesking and support so that i can concentrate on maintaining the growing network and server infrastructure. In two weeks they are sending me to a week long Active Directory 2003 training course. Blah Blah Blah, I really like my job. Although I can’t help but look forward to retirement… I’ve got a pretty good chunk in my 401k already and I havent even been working there a year yet.

Also, as a benefit of my job, I am entitled to a “PC loan” which would allow me to spend up to 2,600 bucks and have it be auto-deducted from my checks over two years, interest free. So, 99% sure that im buying a 20inch imac. I was really considering a G4 powerbook… but they cost more than an iMac with 5 inches less screen, less processor power, less video ram, etc. etc. etc. I’ll keep everyone posted. However, I do think im going to try to get 500 bucks together and at least start a savings account before i commit to a new main terminal.

Now let me discuss my thoughts about “War of the Worlds” – THIS WILL CONTAIN SPOILERS… DON’T READ IF YOU HAVENT SEEN IT YET.

I really thought the movie was simply amazing. It feels very real. You really feel like you are there with the characters.. Which is odd, because it really spends very little time on character development. The visual effects are amazing… I’ve already heard people say that they didnt like the second half of the movie, but I would disagree. Ray Ferrier goes through a complete revelation as a character. He goes from doing nothing for his family to doing literally everything.

I liked the effects. I’m almost embarrased to say I liked the acting. I liked everything… EXCEPT the very end. All the characters… All the world pretty much… Went through the worst ordeal ever documented; And some how, some way, “Robbie” just happens to have made it to his mom’s house in Boston completely on his own (and 16 year old) accord. It was obvious that he died, there was no other “buts” about it. I felt like spielbergs made the movie have a happy ending because he felt he had to. The ‘happy ending’ in that movie layers it with a pretty substantial cheese factor. However, it’s not nearly enough for me to dislike the movie as a whole. Im sure i’ll go see it again. Better than A.I. – Not as well done as Minority Report. Most likely better than Indiana Jones 4 will be. I respect your work, steve.

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