/nod

So, the trip to Provo was cool. It went better than I could have hoped. I feel like I've made my peace with that place, somehow. I've spent the entire last week at an intensive training seminar put on by IBM. We studied their proprietary Unix OS, AIX. It was extremely helpful for the things I'm doing at work. The most interesting part though was the people I met. A smattering of IT people from around St. Louis and the rest of the US. Having lunch break with these guys gave me a taste of how "the industry" chunkles along. The training center itself was quite interesting. It's kitty-cornered down the block from the St. Louis Arch, and is directly across the street from the brand new Cardinals baseball stadium. Actually, after lunch one day a lady handed some tickets to a group of us returning from lunch. She didn't need them anymore, so we went and caught a few innings. As it turned out though, we arrived just after the first home run of the game, and left just before the second (and final) one. Oh well. I also managed to get an inside introduction to the old-money St. Louis downtown area. The variety of people I met was quite interesting. My new PC is here, and very sweet. Unfortunately between work and Adult Life (so to speak) I've not had as much time as I'd like to use it. As it is I've got it set up to my preferences to a minimal state. It will be a while yet before I really go all out and bring all of my old files and stuff on-line. I really need to get my music on our home network. I've not been able to swap out the songs on my iPod since December. My car broke on Friday! A pipe in the exhaust system rusted through and collapsed such that the car was very very loud and rumbled a great deal. I literally wore my heavy-duty firing range earmuffs as I drove it to the repair shop. That saved me an enormous headache. Fortunately it was not a terribly difficult problem to fix. I shopped around and found a place that would do the work for not much ofer $100. They did a good job, and had it ready for me Saturday morning. Interestingly enough, the car runs much more responsively now. I guess I'd had an exhaust leak for some time that was sapping power from the engine. PS Exhaust leaks are dangerous! They can cause carbon-monoxide poisoning for those in the car. Some of you might find it interesting that I got my mom the first season of Lost for Mother's Day. She's quite liked it. We've been watching it pretty much non-stop. It cuts into my FFXI time, but family time (and Lost itself) is good too.