Janicek.com

I rushed home from work on Friday and cleaned the apartment for most of the night. Every once in a while I have to clean so I can remember why I don’t like cleaning. I made the process more palatable by throwing on my headphones and shuffling all of my Tool albums on the iPod. After four hours of cleaning, I took the trusty Shadow out to gather manly things. I first went to Hollywood Video and rented Terminator 3 and The Italian Job. Next I went to the Diamond Shamrock for beer. I went home, watched Terminator 3, drank beer and scratched myself while sitting in my clean apartment.

Elise came home from work around midnight with approximately 972 lbs. of crab rolls, mini chimichangas and chicken flautas. We had to throw the chimichangas and flautas away, but froze most of the crab rolls. We stayed up until 2 a.m. or so, just talking out on the balcony.

We woke up early on Saturday. I took a chimichanga-caked sheetpan to the dumpster because our apartment smelled like El Arroyo. Elise had to get the door for me on my way out because I was toting 938 lbs. or stale, fried Tex-Mex appetizers. Really. I walked back from the dumpsters to find out that I had been locked out of my apartment and Elise was taking a shower.

I hung out outside for 15 minutes or so and then started banging on the door. Elise finally opened the door for me. I was pretty upset. That made Elise upset. Then we went and looked at houses with Della for five hours. The whole time Elise and I were giving each other the silent treatment. Quite counter productive when you’re house shopping with your spouse.

I finally showed Elise the bulging biceps I had acquired by carrying half a ton of greasy leftovers. She giggled at me, curtsied and we danced like those goons in the movie Grease. We went home, Elise took a nap and went to look at more houses. I stayed home and started reading a book. My parents called. We talked about houses. Elise came home shortly thereafter. She talked to my parents about houses. I went into the office and ripped a few more CDs. I talked to Riley about houses. Riley went onto the balcony and talked to my parents about houses.

Elise and I got up on Sunday and looked at houses. We called Della and had her drive out to show us a couple more houses in a neighborhood that we’re eyeing. We got home just as the sun was going down. Elise made a really good cheese and potato soup. We watched The Italian Job and went to bed.

I recently purchased a 52X CD burner on eBay. I bought it because my 2X burner wasn’t really cutting the mustard. The installation took me all of five minutes. I started ripping some CDs using iTunes when I suddenly received an XP error, something to the effect of “Drive E: write error”. I clicked My Computer and noticed that my C drive existed, but my 30GB E and 120GB F drives weren’t showing up.

“Hmmm…” thought I. So I restarted my computer. All three hard drives were there. I started ripping another CD. After the first song ripped, I got the same error. I restarted again. Same thing happened.

I’m not usually a violent person, but something clicked and I kicked the ever living hell out of my computer. I mean hard. I was livid. I went East Side on my PC tower. I threw a couple gang signs and even tried to stab the side of my computer with a screwdriver. Seriously. I am soooo pissed at my computer right now. For the past six weeks I haven’t even wanted to sit down in front of it because I wind up having to fix something – or I have to ship it off to my Mom who has the patience (and lack of a gang sign repertoire) to work on it.

Anyway – I pulled out the 52X CD burner and put my old one back in. Things work normally again but what a pain that was. Now I have a CD burner that I can’t use. I’m really looking forward to getting an iBook. I’ve always thought that I’d remain biplatform if I were to own a Macintosh but the way things are looking, I just might have to switch.

Life has been stressful here recently… Elise and I went house shopping with Della this past Sunday. We found a house that we really liked in the neighborhood we really like. We made an offer on the house Monday afternoon. We made an appointment to meet with a mortgage broker on Tuesday. On Monday night, the sellers of the house counter offered by reducing their price by $900. Yes, $900.

We decided to just stop. Without even really discussing it, we both agreed that we’re going to continue living below our means. I think it’s a husband and wife ESP-type thing. Even after having talked with another broker and being nearly convinced that we could pay more than we wanted to, we still didn’t do it. We were trigger happy. Although we haven’t slept well all week, we’ve still been able to “sleep on it”.

Well I finally got my computer back. What was wrong? Wrong boot sequence. It was booting the floppy drive first versus the CD ROM. It’s been almost three weeks since I’ve had access to a computer at home. Now I’m going to have to spend all weekend installing software. I’ve been itching to play with my new Pinnacle Studio AV capture card. I also want to re-rip all of our CDs using iTunes.

Elise and I met my parents in La Grange last night so we could pick up the computer. We had dinner at Boss’ Steak House. My parents and Elise all ordered hamburger steaks. I ordered a tough and overcooked filet mignon. I drew the short straw (and most expensive) of the meals.

In other news – last Friday Elise and I met John and Christine along with some other friends at the Broken Spoke. After being in Austin for almost 10 years, I’d never set foot in this landmark. I don’t regularly listen to country music so there’s really no reason why one might find me in there.

Elise and I drove to Bastrop on Saturday for the computer hand off to my parents. We ate barbecue at Cartright’s (great food) for lunch and tooled around Wal Mart for an hour or so. Elise and I drove back to Austin and decided to go to Kohl’s so yours truly could get a new pair of black jeans. I bought black jeans. And black dress slacks, a pair of khakis, a sweater, new shoes, a hat and gloves. After having been out all day, we decided to go home and have a quiet night alone. I made spaghetti and meatballs for dinner. Elise conked out on the couch and I watched a horrible episode of Saturday Night Live.

We both woke up early on Sunday. I promised John and Christine that I would make hot wings for them. Elise had to go to work for a couple hours so she dropped my off at J & C’s on her way. John and I made some pretty potent hot wings. We were in the kitchen for quite a while. During that time, Elise and Christine went house shopping. After eating, Elise and I stayed for a couple more hours, hung out in the back yard and tried to figure out what we’re going to do as far as buying a house. We’re still not sure. I’m thinking about pawning it all off onto fate.

I’m going on three weeks without a home computer. I’ve gnawed my fingertips down to bloody stumps. I’ve been huffing a non-toxic Elmer’s® glue stick. I’ve found myself weeping while curled up in the fetal position in our home office. Ordinarily I would e-mail my glue stick dealer when my supply is low but have now resorted to using this strange, wall mounted device manufactured by Uniden for communication. I’m hoping my computer will be fixed by next week.

What’s really killing me is that I can’t manage our finances by my normal means. I use a combination of Quicken, our credit union’s website and my checkbook to keep track of our money. I’m anal about this. I have my system – I know where every red cent is and where it’s going.

In other news – Della, our Realtor, took us to look at houses for the first time last night. Elise saw a couple houses in a neighborhood that she really likes and wanted to see the insides. We looked at four homes. The fourth one was the best as it had a beautifully manicured yard, but the house itself we couldn’t tolerate. The other three houses aren’t worth mentioning. They’re all older homes in older neighborhoods. Elise and I decided that we now want to look in new neighborhoods.

We now have the money now to put down on a house and pay closing costs. We told ourselves in January that we wanted to be in a house by next January. That’s two months away. Even after we find and fall in love with a house (who knows how long that will be) we know it will take at least a couple months to actually close. Couple that with John and Christine’s offer on a house being accepted earlier this week and a notice I received on our apartment door yesterday stating that come January, when our lease is up, we can sign a six month lease that will only raise our rent by $200 per month! Or we could pay month to month and our rent only increases by $250! Call within the next fifteen minutes and we’ll throw in a free kick in the groin!

I’ve been hearing that iTunes for Windows is crashing machines running Windows 2000 Professional. This happened to a friend of mine today. We work together and both use Win2000. I downloaded iTunes the minute it was released a couple weeks ago. It installed fine for me and has worked great since. Great so much that with the recent purchase of an iPod, my recent PC problems, seeing Panther in action, an AirPort bribe from John and using iTunes, I’ve decided to save my money and purchase an iBook.

So my friend’s PC wouldn’t boot after installing iTunes. A trip over to a few forums and Apple’s website gave me this:

Symptom

A computer with Windows 2000 does not start up after installing iTunes for Windows.

Products affected

Windows 2000
iTunes for Windows 4.1

Solution

Start up the computer while holding down the F8 key.

From the Windows 2000 Advanced Options menu, choose Last Known Good Configuration.

Press Enter. If other screens appear, press Enter until Windows continues to start up.

Download and install iTunes for Windows version 4.1.1 from the iTunes download page (http://www.apple.com/itunes/download/).

Restart the computer when prompted to do so.

That solution didn’t work for me. I’m not guaranteeing what I did will work for you, but this is the method that got Mickey’s computer back up and running:

Start up the computer and wait until you’re prompted to press F8, then do so. I tried holding down F8 while the computer booted and I received a keyboard error and then the computer froze.

From the Windows 2000 Advanced Options menu, choose Safe Mode (not with networking or command prompt).

Press Enter. If other screens appear, press Enter until Windows continues to start up.

Go eat a sandwich. Really. After numerous tries and resorting to cold boots, I finally let the computer hang while I went to my desk and ate a sandwich. After being hung on the blue Windows logo boot screen for approximately five minutes, it finally loaded windows.

Control Panel > Add/Remove Programs.

Download and install iTunes for Windows version 4.1.1 from the iTunes download page (http://www.apple.com/itunes/download/).

Restart the computer when prompted to do so.

Mickey’s computer is back to normal after an hour of trying to boot in Safe Mode. I don’t know why iTunes works on my Windows 2000 machine. I’m glad it does though.

My home computer is still up on blocks. I can’t get Windows XP to install. Well, it installs itself, but when the computer reboots, I get that wonderful greeting: PRIMARY MASTER HARD DRIVE FAIL. I called my Mom, a.k.a. The Oracle of PC Hardware Configuration last night and hit her up to fix it for me. Hopefully I can have Elise meet my parents halfway to their house to give my mom the computer. In the meantime, it’s going on three weeks of not having a computer at home. What really stinks is that I just bought a Pinnacle Studio AV capture card and wanted to start editing videos again. I also recently installed iTunes and was really looking forward to creating some new playlists, ripping some CDs and retagging a lot of our mp3s.

In other news – I had a good time this past weekend. John and Christine took me to a Halloween party on Friday night. I was going to go as Josh Janicek but was quickly convinced that I should be a carefully sculpted living replica of Mira Sorvino.

Tommy and I hung out on Saturday. This just after UT beat Nebraska. 31-7. Sorry, that was for someone elise. I mean Elise. I mean else, someone else. After hanging out at my apartment for a while, Tommy and I went to Kohl’s and later met up with Jeremy at Chili’s for dinner. I want my baby back baby back baby back baby back. Don’t get the baby back ribs and Chili’s. I could have saved my money and bought some beef jerky or just gnawed on a twig. We convened at Tommy’s for boxing on HBO. After boxing, Tommy, Ann Marie, Lisa and I went to a costume party. It was okay. Elise showed up, we stayed for an hour or so then headed home. Elise ate a piece of toast that I made for her for dinner.

I woke up on Sunday, rode the trusty shadow out to Dripping Springs, then to Toys ‘R’ Us, then to work to finish a differential file server backup. Elise and I stayed in most of the day and watched football.

Life’s been all around kind of crappy as of late. A guy was walking out of my office building as I was returning from a dentist appointment and lunch with Elise. He said: “Hi, how are you today?” Instinctively we always say “Fine, how’re you?” Why do we do that? Why don’t we tell the truth?

“Actually, not so well, since you asked. I made some 9 layer dip on Sunday that’s taken it’s toll on my old gutty wuts. It’s become painful to do common things such as walk and breathe. I just got back from the dentist and my gums are killing me. You see, I’m prone to plaque build-up below my gum line and the hygienist had to work double time on my grill with that Medieval hook thing. On top of that, I have a cavity and have to go back to the dentist on Monday to have it filled. And for the cherry: I don’t have dental insurance. Or medical for that matter. So now I’m having to look forward to riding my motorcycle, all paranoid-like to the dentist on Monday to be subjected to a shrieking drill while afraid of getting into any sort of accident that would make for a hefty out-of-pocket emergency room visit all while having gut rot that could halt a rabid rhinoceros. So if you wouldn’t mind just shoving me into a protective bubble, rip all of my teeth out and toss me a magazine and some toilet paper – that just might get me through the day.”

I run a popular website, www.HartzVictims.org, that provides information and stories about Hartz Advanced Care Flea and Tick drops. It is an anti Hartz website. I get submissions on a daily basis explaining how someone’s poor cat had to be rushed to the vet’s office to be pumped full of steroids, anti tremor medications and fluids.

Every once in a while, I’ll get an e-mail like this one. And to think, this person is probably out there driving around in a car or voting! What’s better is her e-mail address was a .edu.

HartzVictims.org

Sender’s Name: Megan Castor
Sender’s Email:
Message: I put your Hartz flea drops on my kittens and it is not working. How long do I have to wait to use drops again or another product?

I want to know how much it will cost for one (1) Client Access License (CALs). This essentially means that we need to purchase a license so an additional computer can have access to our file and print server at work.

I searched Microsoft’s website. No luck. I found out there are resellers for CALs, Dell being one of them. I called good ol’ Dell, the PC mammoth that’s based out of Round Rock, just half an hour from here. I actually spoke to someone in Bangalore who I could not understand for the life of me. Strike number one.

I have a question. I don’t want to make a purchase. I want to know the price of one Client Access License. Mr. Idontwannatrytopronouncehisname transfers me to another department that I honestly could not understand him say. I’m on hold for 15 minutes. “Jason” answers the phone and starts asking for “Customer ID” numbers. I HAVE A QUESTION!!! I tell this to “Jason” who then tells me he’s just a “Call Manager”. I said “Jason, I want to know the price for a singe Client Access License.”

“Let me transfer you to Sales” says Jason. “Can you tell me the 1-800 phone number you called?”

“What?” I ask.

“What was the 1-800 phone number you called when you called Dell?”

“I don’t know – I called the number off of Dell’s website.” I didn’t bother telling him that I had to traverse a mind-numbing automated answering service, speak to some guy working in Bangalore and 15 minutes holding. I figured he knew that already.

21 minutes and 26 seconds later, I leave a message for “Diana”. I asked Diana to call me back because I want to know the price for a single Client Access License.

An hour later, “Noah” calls me back. I tell him that I want to know the price for a single Client Access License. He can’t answer that question. He sent a request to another department and they’re to call me back.

Technology is a love/hate thing. I’d be pretty happy with an abacus and a slice of watermelon right about now.

Elise and I went to Maggie Mae’s on Friday night to watch DaHeBeGeBees. That makes for immediately spirit lifting regardless of how bad a week you’ve had. In our old age, we concurred that there would be no way that we would stay for the whole show. We would be going home early get a good night’s sleep and be bright eyed and refreshed in the morning. We said good night to each other at 4 a.m.

I went over to John and Christine’s late Saturday afternoon. I’m glad I did because we did our standard sit out on the back patio and take in the weather. We sat there and fended off the cold front as long as we could. Despite John and I both being tired, we made our way to some party that someone had invited someone’s someone to go to.

Sunday was sit around and do nothing day. We watched the last few episodes of the fourth season of the Sopranos.

In other news. My computer has been up on blocks for the past week. I got a nice little case of the IE 6 and Outlook Express don’t want to go online. I tried all of the fixes I could find via Google, but to no avail. I decided to reinstall XP. Upon doing that, I installed the OS on the wrong hard drive (I have 3). To make a long story short, I deleted some files off of the boot drive that I should have. I just now got my hands on some XP boot disks (which I should have made long ago), so hopefully I can get my computer working tonight.

John has decided that he’s going to start going to Tae Kwon Do with me. This is good because 1) John will be getting some exercise and 2) I won’t be freezing on the motorcycle on the way to and from class.

I haven’t seen Harold in over a month. He hasn’t returned any of my phone calls. I’m going to call one more time tonight and then I’m going to call Big Brothers Big Sisters.

Sometimes, you just have to ask for help from the man himself.

We’re at Lisa and Ron’s and will leave for Warner springs in a few minutes and be back Sunday afternoon. Last night Jason finally told his mom he had an itch in his crotch, so Lisa checked it out and didn’t know what to think, so got a relative, Dad to check it out, at Jason’s request. It was jock itch, so the Lanocaine came to the rescue. Later when saying his nightly prayers, he asked Lisa if he could say a little extra in his prayers. He asked Jesus to please make his balls stop itching. Just thought you would get a kick out of that.

Hope you are having a nice day. The smog was horrible her this AM.

Love you

We are going to Lisa’s to spend the night and visit with her tomorrow since she’s taking off from work. Then later on we’ll be going to Warner Spring. Sat. Ron will BBQ. There will be lots of family and friends there, so plan on being very confused. Might need some quiet time before it’s over. Ha!

Hope to hear from you again while we are still on the road.

Love you