100 things to say

This started out as "100 things about me" which was inspired by thethinker's post that really only turned out to be 50. Since she's half my age, I guess I had more baloney to put down. Haha. Anyway, for your enjoyment, groans, LOLs, wows or whatever, here is the list. I've added links because...I just like linking stuff. So there!

I'll post this list today in honor of it being a hundred freakin' degrees outside. Why do I live here?

1. I adore my iPod. It's a 3rd generation with the buttons not embedded in the clickwheel. I got it free for going to a night class paid for by work.
2. I listen to TWiT and Diggnation every week.
3. I read Digg.com and BoingBoing.net fanatically. In fact, I have their RSS feeds on my work computer's desktop via a Yahoo Widget.
4. I watch Tiki Bar TV in iTunes as soon as a new episode comes out and have every episode so far on my hard drive.
5. I've tried to watch Ask A Ninja, and though Amber loves it, I find it to be just OK. In fact, today I unsubscribed from it. Sorry Ninja.
6. Two of my best friends from High School Blog and Blog. After 10 years, it is really great to be able to feel like I'm in touch with them again. Now, if muscles would start a blog, the old team would be back together again!!!
7. In High School, I participated in some really great capers. We changed the marquee at our high school to say something offensive about the superintendent. The next day he was seen standing atop the cab of his pickup tearing the letters down; it was a high marquee, not to mention the high point of my HS career.
8. Well, maybe getting my letter jacket for UIL Accounting was the high point. I'm not sure. It's a toss-up.
9. I have told select friends about my blog, but none of my family.
10. DarrellH is my real name. Or maybe it's made up. The voices in my head keep contradicting themselves on that point.
11. That's really a picture of me. Or is it? I could photoshop John Candy to look like that. You may never know.
12. My wife, and the love of my life, has a blog. She actually blogged before I did. She was telling the world about her life more than 3 months before I started.
13. I actually set up her blog on an old HP Pavilion PC that used to be my mother's. That computer is wireless and also serves as our Media Center; it has TV out that we watch things on our television with. We like that a lot since we don't watch broadcast TV hardly at all.
14. I am an OK programmer. I wrote a program that we use every day at work to create new user accounts. It was over 1500 lines of code. That's pretty good for me! I got paid $500 as a contractor to write it. I budgeted 10 hours, but actually spent more like 20. It works well, if I do say so myself.
15. I really like making web pages, but I'm slow at it.
16. I do windows. We have some red Windex right now.
17. I also do Windows, but am getting more and more interested in Mac OS and Linux. I have a CD of Ubuntu that I plan to load on an old laptop.
18. I have 6, count em s-i-x, spare monitors in this house right now! I have about 4 old PCs that are for parts here too.
19. We bought ourselves a digital camera for our wedding present to each other, and got a printer from several of Jen's aunts as a wedding present. Now that's a cool family!
20. I do side work as a "Technology Consultant." That's what my cards from VistaPrint say at least. I really fix problems and help people setup their computers. I'm VERY patient, and I think that's what makes me good at it. I moved some furniture for a lady the other day too, so maybe I should put "Jack-of-all-trades" on my cards.
21. I have lots of flowers in the back yard in pots and in the front yard in a planter bed. I don't water them nearly as frequently as I should.
22. We grow tomatoes every summer, but this year, unfortunately, they have already died off from the heat and/or bugs. Damn! I love tomatoes on sandwiches and burgers, but not straight.
23. I loved Mater in the Cars movie too. He reminds me of me. :p
24. Kari Byron from Mythbusters is one of my favorite TV personalities. Oh, sure, I like Adam and Jamie too, but...
25. I'm an avid recycler. I recycle paper at work and harass the people who refuse to. I recycle paper, plastics, and metals at home. I wish there was a place to recycle batteries, as my kid goes thru them quickly.
26. I bought new rechargeable batteries for my beloved Kodak DC280 digital camera, and I plan to donate the old ones that still work to the kid's toys. That's recycling for ya!
27. I will have another son this month. His first name will be Jen's choice, his middle name will be my Grandfather's first name.
28. We wanted a girl so badly, but #3 will have to be the girl. Her first name is going to be after a favorite character from a very-short-lived science-fiction TV show. Her middle name might be my mom's middle name; we're not sure yet.
29. My hands are getting really tired of typing, so I might have to take a break right now and drink some Diet Pepsi. I really prefer Diet Cherry Vanilla Dr Pepper, but I don't have any cold nor do I have any ice right now. Oh well.
30. I once carried a magazine out of a store for a guy in my pants. Not really.
31. I use Azureus a lot, but I'm not saying what for.
32. I have 4 computers in the house. Two are "headless" ones that I only use via remote control. I can remote into them from work too!
33. I've never watched an episode of the New BattleStar Galactica, but I have a free episode in my iTunes. I got a sticker with an issue of some magazine that let me download it free.
34. I've also downloaded in iTunes the pilots for Blade: the series and Three Moons over Milford and Who wants to be a super hero?, but haven't watched them. Knowing me I never will.
35. I'm a terrible packrat: I have probably 500 GB of drive space on different machines in the house and it's all filled with crap I probably could delete, but am too lazy to.
36. Pursuant to #35, I also have stuff in my garage from when I lived with my parents that I don't want to throw away.
37. Also pursuant to #35, I have lots of paintings from my high school art class (mine and classmates) that I haven't looked at in 13 years.
38. I tell my wife and son I love them about a dozen times a day. You never know what could happen to you in a day...
39. My parents are both alive and still married, but some days I'm not sure if either (lives or marriage, the way those two are) will last much longer. :)
40. I have a brother who I like a lot, and hope that one day he'll give me some nieces and nephews so that Brendan can play with cousins like I did when I was young.
41. My dad had 10 siblings, my mother only one.
42. My mom never knew her dad and was afraid to track him down. Finally she did and found out that he had died a few years earlier. Moral: whatever it is, do it now!
43. I link to WikiPedia more than anything else in my blog.
44. I have a girl assistant at work. All the guys that have worked for me have annoyed me, whereas the girls did the work without complaint.
45. I have played around on Amazon's Mechanical Turk a lot, but I'll probably never accumulate enough to get paid.
46. I take lots of surveys online and make money that way. Really, I've probably made $200 total from it. Not fast cash, but easy cash.
47. At work, I manage about 60 Windows 2000 and 2003 servers.
48. I have created over 15,000 email accounts while I've worked there.
49. I play around on Flickr a lot too. I comment on lots of photos there, and "favorite" just a few.
50. It was so interesting that I read OneRedPaperclip from start to finish in one day.
51. I was reading J-Walk every day for a while, but haven't been by there lately. Actually I just went.
52. I just emailed Zoe's dad to ask him if she's going to do any more shows. They're good, but she hasn't done one in 5 months. :(
53. I have 3 email accounts that I really use (Gmail, Yahoo, & Hotmail) and some others that I don't use very often (2 or 3 more). I don't check them as often as I should and hence they a filled with spam. Doh!
54. I know personally people in Indiana, North Carolina, Missouri, Washington D.C., Colorado, and Texas of course.
55. I drive a grey Dodge Durango that gets me where I need to go most of the time. It's not well, though, as it coughs and sputters almost every time I drive it and the Check Engine light is a permanent dashtop feature.
56. I always buy my gas with a Wal-Mart gift card since you get a 3 cent discount.
57. I try to plan my driving route efficiently so that I don't have to drive more that necessary.
58. I never go in my bank; we do most everything via the ATM and online.
59. I almost never use a different bank's ATM because I don't want to pay the bloody fees.
60. I enjoy going to the hospital nursery to peer thru the window at the newborns. Usually this is after getting a cheap lunch in the hospital cafeteria. The prices are good and I never leave hungry.
61. Though I was secretly very depressed several times as a teenager, now that I'm an adult, I love life and am rarely unhappy with my little niche. To all those people who say that childhood is such a wonderful and rosy time, I say bullshit. I like being an adult much more.
62. I have an ooooollld projector that I can hook up to the computer and watch things on the big white wall in our family room. I would like to build one like this one, but I don't think I'm skilled enough.
63. I buy blank DVDs by the hundred, but 10% of em end up as "coasters"...Grrrrr!
64. I'm a cereal fanatic. I have 10 boxes of cereal on top of my fridge right now, but only 1/2 a cup of milk left. I'll eat cereal any time of day or night.
65. I love Anime thanks for my college suitemate Mario C. He like Ranma 1/2 and Lum. I love Ranma, but don't like Lum. I also love Cardcaptor Sakura and anything by CLAMP as well as Outlaw Star. I didn't expect I'd like Outlaw Star when James M first showed it to me, but I do!
66. I sponsor the Anime club at the university where I work, in fact. I try to attend the meetings, but Jen likes me to come home so sometimes I don't go.
67. I'm planning to take 6 weeks off under FMLA when the new baby is born, and work can go to heck.
68. I love Big Dog shirts, but don't like dogs. They stink. The dogs stink, not the shirts.
69. I had a greyhound named King when I was a kid. I loved that dog. But he stunk. Oh well.
70. I also had a cat named Gizmo when I was a kid. He didn't stink.
71. I now have the orange cat as my "Office Assistant" at work. I didn't like the dopey paperclip guy.
72. I have my email open all the time at work, so there's really no concept of "checking email" for me. I never listen to voicemails, on the other hand. I hate voicemail. I wish I didn't have it.
73. I have 3 very close friends who are in their 70s or 80s. Everyone should have a friend whose drastically older than they are. It makes you realize how others have a different perspective on life than you do.
74. One of those friends passed away 3 months ago, and I was very sad. I sat with her for a while as she was dying. It was a heart wrenching experience.
75. I whispered Brendan's then-secret name to my grandmother at the Rosary before her funeral. I haven't directly told anyone Andrew's name yet. (!)
76. One of my biggest accomplishments was volunteering for the Red Cross during hurricanes Rita and Katrina. I am sorry that those caused so much destruction, but I loved my time volunteering at the shelter.
77. I would never have volunteered if not for Cat Schwartz doing the same.
78. I have watched hundreds of videos on YouTube and Google Video, but only ever posted one.
79. I'm a big fan of Lynne & Tessa.
80. I'm also a big Fan of Kitaro, John Tesh, & Yanni. My more recent musical tastes include Adiemus, Acoustic Alchemy, and Andrea Bocelli, but I like almost any kind of music other than Rap.
81. I have RoadRunner, a Wireless Router, and a Netgear StorageCentral Box right here in my house. Unlike the one on their web page, miiiiine actually has lights on it!
82. I like the idea of sharing my wireless, but I encrypted it because I don't want anyone browsing all the shares that I have in my home net.
83. I want so, so, so, so, so bad to put solar panels on top of my house and generate some electricity that I can call my own. Even if it does only power my clock radio.
84. I am really very interested in nuclear power and how the power grid works.
85. I let my kid play with the water hose even when there are water restrictions. I enjoyed that as a kid and I'm not going to deprive him. Screw restrictions.
86. One of my best friends it an M.D. and I'm so proud of him for it. I was afraid that he was going to be like me and not go any further than bachelor's.
87. I recently got Transitions lenses in my new glasses, and now I'm a Transitions Evangelist. I can't resist telling people how great they are.
88. I love my Nextel i275 camera phone.
89. I love Sci-fi: The Matrix is my favorite movie, I love Star Trek, I love Firefly. I'm also an Alton Brown fan.
90. I'm also a documentary fan: Anything on Discovery Channel, History channel or TLC will keep me for hours. I particularly like Mythbusters, Modern Marvels, and Mega Movers. MmmmmmMmmmm!
91. I love Science and Technology. I subscribe to Popular Science.
92. I have been addicted to video games since I got my Nintendo 8-bit and played Mario and Duck Hunt. I started a list of all the video games that I've played and am constantly updating that.
93. I have played games on PC, Nintendo 8-bit, Super Nintendo, Nintendo 64, Gamecube, Original Gameboy, Gameboy Color, Gameboy Advance, Nintendo DS, Playstation 2, Xbox, and of course in the arcade.
94. I love watching people play DDR, but I'll only play it in my living room, and then not very well.
95. I'm damn near out of things to say. Hehe.
96. I once worked a straight thru 36 hour shift at work. I worked all night on a server problem, then talked all day at Freshman orientation. When I finally went home, I had to call Jen from the bottom of the steps because I didn't have the energy to get up the 8 of them. I'm serious!!!
97. After 10 years working where I work, I am finally getting an office of my own. Yahoo!
98. My picture at work was in the newspaper some years ago, and I was literally screamed at by the VP of my area for not getting permission first. It was one of the accomplishments I'm most proud of, but thanks to him, it was also the worst day of my work life. Fuck you Howard.
99. I buy refilled ink cartridges. I save a lot of $$$ that way.
100. I dance and sing with my boy in the living room. I keeps me young.

And there you have it friends and neighbors. 100 things. I hope you laughed at some of them! :) I challenge anyone to do a list like this. It is harder than you think!!!