Janicek.com

Mom and Dad road tripped it west to sunny San Deigo to visit my siblings. They’re slotted to come back to Texas on November 1.

Hi, Just thought I’d check in with you to see how the Houston catering trip went. Knowing you, it went well and you did an excellent job and made lots of money for the company.

Hope you had a nice stay at Cat Spring and it didn’t feel so lonely. I was wondering if you don’t mind letting me know if you got the two packages from UPS.

It is nice to be able to be away from home and still retrieve email messages. I’m sure it was available all these years and I didn’t know. Oh well!

Terri and Craig’s house is BEAUTIFUL. She says to say hello for her. You know Terri has a knack for “fixing” things up with all the extras that make a house a home. The climates is so nice and David is able to breathe again without all his meds and nose wash.

We had Mexican food Monday night, the night we got here. Tuesday, over to Lisa, Ron and Jason’s for lobster and salad. This evening before dark, we’llhave a picnic in the park and Thursday over to Lisa’s to spend the night and Friday off to Warner Springs for the three day weekend to have more fun and enjoy the mineral springs. Then off to Chuck, Lisa and kids place for a nite or two. After all that, we’ll head home and hopefully be back by Nov. 1st.

Oh yeah, forgot to tell about seeing Daddy, Jeanie and Dean in Pahrump, Nv. A lot of sand and cactus. I guess Daddy doesn’t care since he stays inside mostof the time in his PJ’s. He gave us $80.00 to go out and eat the night we got there, but refused to go with us. We brought him some leftovers and he was as happy as anyone. We talked a bit more the next AM and off to have brunch at one of the casinos, again leaving Daddy at home. Then packed up and were on our way to Calif. The traffic was so heavy leaving Vegas that we stopped off for the night in Barstow. Never again will we take that route on a Sun. night with all the people trying to get back for Monday work day.

Well, I didn’t mean to go on and on, but the coffee Terri and Craig have here has got me all hopped up.

Love you guys and am anxious to see you two on Turkey Day.

Love you

I stepped on the scale last night before leaving for Tae Kwon Do. I weighed 150 lbs. with jeans, a t-shirt and tennis shoes. This morning I weighed 148 lbs. with nothing more than my skivvies. I got my leg caught in the tub drain this morning and had to get Riley (8 lb. Rottweiler/Manx cat) to pull me out with a tow rope. I’m going to grab a napkin, hop on a skateboard and windsurf to Kohl’s this afternoon to buy suspenders. My pants keep falling off.

I was at CompUSA yesterday, shopping for a new sound card as the line in input on mine seems to have pooped out. I walked by the hard drive section and saw a 120GB drive for $59.99. I couldn’t pass that up. I installed it and noticed that the drive had 111GB. I e-mail Seagate’s technical support…

Josh,

What seems to be missing space on the hard drive is actually the difference between the two numbering systems used in the computer industry.

Decimal vs. Binary

Most Hard drive manufacturers use DECIMAL numbers to show capacity:

(1 KB = 1,000 bytes)
(1 MB = 1,000,000 bytes)
(1 GB = 1,000,000,000 bytes)

Most Computers (BIOS) and Operating Systems use BINARY numbers to show capacity:

(1 KB = 1024 bytes)
(1 MB = 1,048,576 bytes)
(1 GB = 1,073,741,824 bytes)

EXAMPLE:

Seagate’s Model … ST380021A … total formatted capacity expressed in:
DECIMAL = 80 GB …

The same drive will show up in Windows expressed in BINARY as approximately:
BINARY = 74.5 GB.

Use this formula to convert the DECIMAL 80 GB to a BINARY number

800,000,000,000 GB … divided by … 1,073,741,824 = 74.5 GB

Your Operating System would show this 80 GB drive as a BINARY number equaling 74.5 GB … minus any space already used.

IN SUMMARY:

You are NOT missing any space on your Seagate hard drive.

Your Operating System is converting the DECIMAL number and displaying it as a BINARY NUMBER.

If you care to delve deeper into this subject, there is an excellent article regarding this subject at this link:

http://physics.nist.gov/cuu/Units/binary.html.

Robert H.
Seagate Technical Support

========== Customer’s original message ==========

I purchased a Seagate 120GB Barracuda ATA hard drive at a CompUSA in Austin, TX this morning. PN: 9W2883-337 S/N: 3JT20400. I installed the drive but it says there are only 111GB. Where did the other 9GBs go?

I took it easy this past Friday – stayed at home and watched The Matrix. On Saturday, I woke up, did laundry, talked to Mom, got my ears lowered and avoided the temptation to buy a lot of stuff at CompUSA. After that, I watched the UT vs. OU game… I should’ve taken a nap instead.

When Elise got home from work, we went to Bellville for the annual Austin County Fair. I didn’t take too many pictures – I was busy socializing.

Elise and I went back to my parents’ house late that night. We slept in on Sunday. We ate. Ate some more. Ate again. I washed the Jeep. We ate again. Oh yeah, and Elise tested out my Dad’s new hydrostatic transmission-driven riding lawn mower. Sexy!

After being at work for an hour or so this morning, I walked across the street to the convenience store for a coke. I rarely drink cokes (or “soda” as some refer to it) because 1) I’m not really a caffeine junky and 2) I try hard to maintain my stick-like physique.

As I approached the facade of the store, I heard a man screaming. I couldn’t make out from where the tantrum was coming and it stopped as I got closer to the store. I bought my coke and headed back toward the office. I heard the screaming again. I turned around and saw the man at the pay phone. He was livid. He was screaming at the person on the other end of the conversation. He screamed and screamed and slammed the phone against its base multiple times. If I had to guess, I’d say his knuckles were probably busted due to his violent outrage. It was an amazing scene. People are weird.

As I continued my trek back to work, I wondered what it could have been that made this man so mad. Was is a cheating girlfriend? An out of stock crack dealer? Corrupt stock broker? Whatever it was, I’m glad that I’m not that dude. My only gripes are that my wife works so much that we rarely get to spend much time together and I’m getting gray hair. I wouldn’t abuse a public pay phone over those things.

In hindsight, I should have stopped in my tracks and danced. That’s what I should have done. I would have performed the hammer and the cabbage patch. I really should have. Life isn’t that bad. Perhaps that angry man would have turned around, seen me dancing and laughed. People driving in their cars would have laughed too. Oh well, hindsight’s 20/20. I just went back to my office and had a coke and a smile.

I just checked our house savings account… this time next week, we’ll be at 75% of our goal for cash savings! This time next month, we’ll be very near our goal. I set our goal to what I thought was enough (although it’s still significantly more than what most people are putting down on a house these days). I’ve come to learn that if we want a “deal” on something we can realistically afford, we’ll need to save a little more. At the rate we’re going, that shouldn’t be a problem. Ideally we should have our Realtor taking us to look at houses now. If we wait until we reach our goal, then have Della take us to look at houses, by the time we find and fall in love with a house we’ll have more than what is expected of us for the loan amount(s) we’re considering. Exciting!

I woke up early on Saturday and went for a salubrious 20+ mile bicycle ride. The hills in Austin are pretty rough. That was exhausting. I came home, flopped down on the couch and watched the majority of the Sopranos third season on DVD.

5 p.m. rolled around and Elise called to tell me she was on her way home. Once she got home, we hopped in the Jeep, drove to El Arroyo, picked up her boss’s Suburban and drove to DKR stadium so Clay (bossman) could have his vehicle. That was amazingly frustrating. We got to the stadium just after UT beat Kansas States. I wouldn’t be surprised if someone told me that the entire world attending that game. We were stuck, in our vehicles for almost half an hour in a mob of burnt orange wearing pedestrians. I don’t think I’ve ever seen that many people at one time in my life.

Being an hour late already, we finally dropped off Clay’s Suburban and hauled butt to San Antonio for the Kiss and Aerosmith concert. We got to the Verizon Amphitheater just in time to catch the end of Kiss’s first song. Needless to say, the concert was awesome.

We slept in on Sunday, went to Hut’s for lunch and then house shopping for almost four hours. Elise actually pooped out before I did. We’re both getting really excited and nervous about buying a house. It still might be a year before we buy, but we’ve got [financial] blinders on.

I’ve been back in Tae Kwon Do for a few months now. I’ve been slowly relearning the traditional colored-belt patterns. In Unified Tae Kwon Do, a student reaches a black belt by beginning with a white belt, you then achieve higher belts by learning and performing your patterns during a test, board breaking, sparring and your overall attitude, devotion and enthusiasm. The test is conducted by either an instructor or Master Park. Master Park was at all of my tests.

You start with a white belt, then you test for a yellow stripe. You then test for yellow belt, then test for green stripe. Green belt, blue stripe, blue belt, red stripe, red belt, black stripe, another black stripe and then black belt.

For each rank you must remember two patterns, one traditional and one free-sparring as well as the patterns from previous belts. It gets pretty rough when you’re getting ready to test for your black belt. I believe it took me three years to reach black belt. I continued going to classes until I graduated from high school and then moved to Austin for college. It was then that I began practicing the fine art of being out of shape.

Nine years later, I’m back in and really enjoying it – wondering why I ever gave it up. I’m in better shape than I’ve been in a long time. I can comfortably perform the white through red stripe traditional patterns as well as one of my four black belt patterns. My self confidence has also grown a lot in the past months. Not that I was really lacking, but confidence can always grow.

I went out onto the patio this morning to contemplate life and any of the reasons as to why someone would have sat down and invented cottage cheese. The latter led me to remember a certain individual by the name of Rodney Nunn.

Rodney was my own personal bully when I was a freshman in high school. Since the Bellville Independent School district cared so much about your humble narrator’s future and overall physical well being, they placed me in a pre-algebra class with Rodney Nunn. I later had to double up in my mathematics curriculum in order to become a fully functional member of society and be able to calculate things like “If I’ve already microwaved this bag of popcorn for three minutes and there are still less than two seconds between kernel pops, will I be able to set the microwave to heat for an additional minute and have time to open the refrigerator and stare blankly only to later realize that I already had a drink waiting for me on the coffee table?” The Pythagorean theorem comes in handy in this situation.

Coach Wunderlich was our pre-algebra teacher. He was also one of the junior varsity football coaches as well as the girls’ softball coach. If I had to guess what his ancestors did based on surname, I would say they were responsible for the sunglasses that blind people wear.

I was a freshman. Rodney was a senior. We were both in Coach Wunderlich’s 5th period pre-algebra class. Rodney never made it out of the pre-stage of variable-based mathematics. Even though he was mean to me, I truly hope that he can determine a parabola’s direction by knowing that y=a(x-h)2+k. This lends itself useful in determining buying power when shopping for area rugs, clumping kitty litter and nasal spray. Some restrictions apply. Void where prohibited.

I hated going to pre-algebra because I knew that I would be receiving my daily dose of abuse from Rodney. I have recently learned that I’m capable of subjecting myself to selective amnesia. My relationship with Rodney is one of those rare cases. I guess saying that this is a rare case is not easily hypothesized nor capable of being proven because how would I know what I haven’t remembered or temporarily forgotten? A ha! – see, algebra! I don’t remember everything that Rodney did to me, but I know that he was a mean cuss. I remember that he used to flick my ears until they turned red and called me names. Never did I do anything to Rodney to warrant such maiming.

Rodney Nunn played a significant role in my life. He reminded me of that “do unto others” creed. He helped me become a person who enjoys being nice to other people and tries to make others laugh. I wonder what Rodney Nunn is doing now. I wonder if he’s one of those people who is immune to karma. If I were demented, I would come up with the notion of a gaggle of pixies wearing Wunderlich sunglasses and t-shirts that read “Algebraists do it by Symbolic Manipulation”, flicking the ears of Rodney Nunn for an eternity. I’m not demented so I wouldn’t think of something like that.

My in-laws are gone, we’ve dropped down to basic cable and I have no dove meat.

Steve and Joanne left on Thursday morning. Elise and I were pretty bummed. Even though they were on vacation, it seemed as if Elise and I were as well. It was nice having them here for a week.

In an attempt to increase our cash reserve (aka the “house fund”), we decided to drop down to basic cable. We decided upon this three months ago. We called the cable company three months ago. The cable giant switched our service just this past Friday. No Food Network, TLC or Learning Channel anymore. Now we only get the big three networks, something called the WB, a handful of home shopping channels, two channels from Spain (Soccer exclusivo), the local hippy politics channel and public access channels that require its “stars” to wear a toilet seat as a necklace.

Dad and I went dove hunting in Hallettsville yesterday. We didn’t shoot any birds but we did manage to blow one of the tires on Dad’s truck by running over the edge of a culvert pipe.

Elise and I had a nice anniversary yesterday. Work pretty much sucked for me – I couldn’t wait to get home. To add insult to injury, my stupid iPod’s batteries went dead while at work so I had to listen to droning bus engines on the bicycle ride home. Just prior to leaving work, I spent too much time trying to figure out my newly acquired miniature frame-mounted tire pump. I looked like I was trying to wrestle an epileptic crocodile. Anyway – come to find out, having air in your tires can lead to a quicker ride home.

Steve and Joanne took Elise and me to Eddie V’s for a mighty fine and fancy dinner. Steve had the Mahi Mahi filet with spicy rock shrimp and mango salsa. Elise had the broiled swordfish steak with mushrooms, pistachios, chives and veal jus. Joanne and I both had the Pacific Ahi tuna with avocado, tomato and chile vinaigrette. I had mine rare (still flopping on the plate) and Joanne had hers cooked medium well. We all thought everything was great but Elise made out with the best meal of them all.

We went back to our apartment after dinner and opened presents. I bought Elise a Dell Axim X5 Pocket PC, hoping that it will help her in her job. Elise bought me a chef’s jacket and a 7″ Wusthof hollowed edge Santoku knife. Of course I had to immediately hop up and slice a carrot to test out my new toy. I’ll probably need to count my fingers on a daily basis from here on out.

After opening presents, we all went on the balcony and talked for a while. We then went into the office and looked at Elise’s and my wedding photos on Janicek.com. By that time it was almost 1 a.m. I think Elise went back into the living room and talked with her parents. I just remember the alarm waking me up at 6:45 a.m. Back to reality.

My in-laws are in until Thursday of this week. They got into town around 6 p.m. on Friday after driving from Norman, OK. Their journey started from Des Moines on Thursday. Elise was working, so I took them to Hoover’s for some comfort food. Steve and Joanne both had the barbequed chicken, I opted for the chicken fried steak. Everything was awesome – even the waitress who insisted that Joanne not order the grilled salmon Caesar salad but a rib-sticking order of chicken and mashed potatoes instead.

Elise got home from work at 1:30 a.m. Steve and Joanne tried to stay up to wait on her but couldn’t quite make it. Elise and I went to bed. We woke up on Saturday and drove to my parents’ house. After a short visit we drove to New Ulm to have hamburgers at the Texas Star Cafe. My Mom, Steve, Joanne and Elise dropped my Dad and me off at the house so they could drive to see the big town of Bellville.

Dad and I smoked pork ribs. Dad showed me the beginnings of his new work bench that he’s building with his new router. The rest of the family came back from Bellville. Steve and Joanne learned some interesting history about your humble narrator, so I’m told. Mom and I finished cooking and we all sat down and had dinner. To rub salt in the wound, someone brought out the photo albums. I avoided the situation for the most part. When I heard laughter, I walked further.

To create a diversion, I decided to blow something up. I went outside and started shooting off left-over fireworks from the fourth of July. That grabbed everyone’s attention and soon I had an audience.

We woke up early on Sunday. Steve, Joanne and Elise went to church in Bellville. Dad, Mom and I stayed at home, sacrificed a goat, painted stick figures on our foreheads with pig’s blood and sang Barbara Mandrell tunes. Well, really we just ate bagels.

The rest of the afternoon consisted of reading the newspaper, talking, watching football and eating. We headed back to Austin at 8 p.m. I stayed up long enough to put away my clothes and other miscellaneous effects and hit the hay.

Weekends are just too short.

Our brain piercing smoke alarm went of at 5 a.m. Monday morning. My wife happens to be a snooze hitter, so I can usually tune out any annoying beeps and buzzes while sleeping. This particular incessant squeal made me open my eyes, but remain relatively unresponsive. Elise got out of bed and assessed the situation. The manly man that I am stayed in bed with the comforter pulled up to my chest.

Elise came back to bed. There was no reason for the smoke alarm to go off. I asked Elise: “Was that a poltergeist?” Dumb me. I’m not manly because I didn’t get out of bed to check for a fire, now I can’t go back to sleep and I keep pulling my legs in closer to my body because I’m thinking there is a paranormal demon roaming our apartment, setting off smoke alarms and looking for some hairy, skinny legs to eat for a late night snack.