I feel lower than the lowliest sewer rat right now. All the water has drained out of my basement, but what's left behind is enough to make anybody vomit. Now I have to sort through all my belongings that were downstairs and figure out what's worth keeping and what needs replacing. Oh, and I also need to get a hepatitis shot.

Price City says I need to get a contractor out here immediately and get a damage estimate, then get everything fixed. All the flooring and sheetrock is damaged, so my entire basement will have to be gutted and rebuilt. So I guess when this thing is all over, I'll be better off than before, but I don't know that it will have been worth it.

A sewer main broke in my neighborhood this evening, so I've spent the last hour or two rooting around in 8 inches of shit and filth in my basement.

My bed, clothes, appliances, and god knows what else is ruined. Price City said their insurance will cover everything, so I'm not terribly worried about it. Tomorrow, hopefully the water level will have gone down enough to start cleaning up. I've got a shitload of work ahead of me now.

There's plenty of snow on the ground right now, and I'm wearing the only clean clothes I have, a pair of shorts and a t-shirt. All my shoes are ruined, so I'm wearing a pair of old sandals that I luckily had upstairs.

Fuck this, I'm going to clean up now and get a good night's sleep.

I'm having some minor problems with my truck. :( The rear differential is leaking oil, and the front-end makes a lot of noise when the hubs are locked. I'm pretty sure the rear diff just needs a new pinion seal, which, from what my repair manual says, is going to be impossible to replace myself. The front-end problem could be almost anything, but I suspect it's either the hubs themselves, or the driveline. There's too much mud caked on everything for me to get a good look at it.

So it looks like I'll be letting a mechanic ass-rape me in order to get it all fixed, 'cause I've never known a shop that doesn't charge a thousand percent markup on parts and labor.

At least the truck is drivable, so I can put it off awhile longer.

I'm gonna fuckin' kill my mailman. For some reason, my credit card company decided they're going to give me a free subscription to Spin magazine. So my first issue comes today, and it looks like somebody dropped it in a puddle on the ground, then picked it up and chewed on it for a while.

When that fucker opens the mail slot tomorrow, he'll find a double-barrelled surprise waiting for him.

There's nothing more fun than skidding through a mud-hole sideways to the extent that mud gets flung through your open driver's side window. :) I got really bored yesterday and drove my truck out by Pinnacle Peak, and the roads were just nasty out there. I kept it in 2-high most of the time, just for the fun of fishtailing all over the place, but there were some places that I probably would have become inexorably stuck had I not thrown it into 4-high before I lost my momentum. I parked my truck at the curb on the street rather in the driveway, 'cause I don't wanna clean up all the mud that's been falling off. :)

You know, it's a really fucking bad idea to have city/county property taxes due one month before christmas.

Update: Looks like either my mortgage company or the county screwed up, bastards. $30 of my monthly house payment goes into an escrow account for taxes, but the county apparently has no record of that, so I gotta make some phone calls Monday to get it all straightened out.

Check this, Owl's got a hip-hop message board, Lyrical Warfare, that's pretty sweet. Not only is the design damn good, but it's an extremely popular site. Go check it.

Well, that layout had been up long enough, and I figured it was time for a new one. So here you go, the same old layout, with a few colors changed and some slightly different graphics. Yay.

I put a new poll up, so go vote (bottom-left column).

The results of the last poll (Scariest Manson) were surprising. Charles got 66 votes, Shirley got 45, and Marilyn got 41. Now Shirley Manson might not be perfect, but she's hella better than Marilyn Manson.

From the Salt Lake Tribune:

A two-car collision in Spanish Fork Canyon at about 5:30 p.m. left three people dead and three others critically injured. The accident occurred when a westbound vehicle on U.S. 6 crashed head-on into a Ford pickup carrying five family members. The driver of the westbound vehicle, an unidentified female, died at the scene of the accident. The male driver of the pickup and an infant passenger also died in the crash. Their identities were also unavailable. Three other passengers from the pickup including a woman, a 6-year-old girl and a 2-year-old boy were hospitalized in critical condition. It appeared that speed was a factor in the accident, said UHP Sgt. Doug McCleve.

Coincidentally, on the news last night (RealVideo Feed), the UHP trooper said the baby was sitting on the mother's lap in the truck. I feel very sorry for that baby, but the mother gets no sympathy from me. That bitch got what she had comin'. It was a regular-cab Ford truck, almost identical to mine, except a year or two newer, and they had two adults and three children crammed into that thing. It's uncomfortable for even three adults to sit in my truck.

I drive that highway, the deadliest highway in Utah, at least once a week (both ways), and I've seen some really stupid shit happen. Usually it has something to do with most people being oblivious to their surroundings, or being overly-cautious to a fault. I don't think the UHP is helping, either, because they don't give citations over seemingly-minor infractions--rather, they park on the shoulder near a blind corner and clock people as they come into view. There are several places where either the eastbound or westbound lane opens up into a 2-lane passing lane, and there is a sign that says, "Keep Right Except to Pass," obviously because the oncoming traffic can use that lane to pass if it is unoccupied. It seems like about half the people on the road just stay to the left, either because they're lazy as hell, or they're just completely oblivious. I usually hang my arm out the window and give those people the finger while flashing my headlights at them, but it never works. It really is stupid people like that that cause accidents, not people who speed.

Virgo: (Aug. 23--Sept. 22)

You will spend two years in prison for sodomy, though you were sentenced for embezzling.

Looks like Ramblings is closed forever. Too bad, James is the man.

I've been sick the past few days, so I've spent very little time at the computer, even for work. Nothing much worth mentioning has been going on anyway, so I still probably wouldn't have posted much lately.

I went to a lanparty Sunday, at which I got my ass kicked by everybody there. I don't know why I bother going to them. I play UT and Q3A and such games single-player a lot, but I suck ass playing multi-player with those guys. Ah well, it was fun, I guess, but maybe not worth disassembling my computer, carting it over to somebody else's house, then doing it all over again when we're done.

There have at least been a lot of goings-on at other sites in the past little while. Naim did a new layout, and I like it quite a bit. Mark also has not only a new layout, but a very interesting concept going on at his site. Both he and his girlfriend post on 2 separate sections of the site, joined side-by-side using frames. If ever there was a use for frames, that's it. There seems to be something missing from his portion of the site, but I just can't place my finger on it (heheh...). Now that positivecurrent.com is outta here, Rich and his roomies are all posting at apt207.com. Now that's some good stuff. And lastly, I've always been a fan of design without graphics, and this site is a damned good example of such that I found from my referrer logs.

Some scientists did a study trying to determine whether or not marijuana is addictive. They allowed monkeys to push a button which caused them to be injected with THC. The study found that the monkeys pushed the button up to 30 times when THC was being injected, but only 1-4 times when water was being injected. This led some researchers to believe that marijuana might indeed be addictive.

This kinda sounds like a no-brainer. No shit they injected themselves more with THC than water. If I had an IV hooked up to my arm, and simply had to push a button to get injected with THC, you're damn straight I'd be pushin' it all the time. And if it was battery acid rather than THC, I'll bet I'd push the button fewer times. :)

Stolen by stoned monkeys from NeoFlux.

I was always taught that boy meets girl

Kiss him on the cheek and life's ok

Sublime rocks my world.

Damnit. Some kid was going to kill everybody in *N Sync, but his mom foiled his not-so-evil plot. She must not have realized that he would have been doing the world a favor, ridding us all of just one of the many annoying boy-bands.

Source: nme.com story

I recently started re-reading Robert Jordan's The Wheel of Time series, and I'm on book 4 now, The Shadow Rising. I just saw on this site (nice site, btw) that there's yet another book out in the series. Jeez...I like Robert Jordan a lot, but I wish he'd hurry and finish the series. :) Nine books is a lot, but it makes for some god damned good reading. I'm just anxious to find out what happens.

I've read the most of the books 3 or 4 times already, but every time a new one comes out, I read all the previous books to re-familiarize myself with all that's happened up to date.

I was supposed to go into the office to work yesterday, but I forgot and worked all day at home. So I came into the office today instead, and now I'm swamped with work.

On the drive up here, something pretty cool happened. I was getting on I-15 in Spanish Fork, and a semi was getting on in front of me. I-15 northbound turns from 2 lanes to 3 lanes there, so the on-ramp becomes its own lane, and there's no need to merge into traffic. But for some reason, almost everybody merges into the middle lane, leaving the right lane empty. I usually stay in the right lane for the 2 miles or so to Springville, then get off the highway there. Anyway, the semi in front of me was going pretty slow getting on I-15, so when I got right behind him, I signaled and started into the middle lane. Right when I was fully in the middle lane, the jackass driving the semi signaled and started getting over into the middle lane, apparently trying to cut me off, as there was absolutely no traffic in front of him for about a mile. I threw it in third gear and gunned it, trying to force him back into the right lane. I had to swerve a little bit into the left lane, but when I got beside him, I crept back over to the right, forcing him back into his own lane. My car was probably about 2 feet from his truck, which is pretty close at 65 or 70 mph.

After I blew past the guy, he just stayed over in the right lane, so I'm pretty sure he was just being an asshole, though I don't know why he would do that.

That was the second time I've ever forced a semi into another lane. The other time I was behind 2 semis on a 2-lane highway, and there was a long line of cars behind me. Right as we were coming to a passing lane, the rear truck started getting over to pass the one in front. The line of cars behind me was so long, that I decided I wasn't going to let the jackass in the semi hold everybody back for the duration of the passing lane, so I got in the oncoming-traffic lane and forced him back over behind the lead truck. I'm not normally that agressive, but when you've been following 2 trucks over a narrow winding mountain pass doing 20 mph under the speed limit, there's no need for them to pass one another doing 2 or 3 mph faster than the other, while holding up 15 or 20 cars in the process.

Man, being broke sucks. I just paid my house payment and some other bills, and I now have $70 to my name. That's not good, considering I have to register my truck in 2 weeks, and especially so since we're having a baby in a few months. If I can't manage my finances better than this now, I'll be screwed when there are three mouths to feed.

This year's elk hunt was a total bust. I have never hunted so hard, hiked so far, and hurt so much, and seen so few elk. I shaved off two weeks worth of facial hair yesterday...damn, it feels good to be clean again. My sleep schedule is all messed up now. I'm used to going to bed around 8:30 or 9:00 p.m., and waking at 6:00 a.m.

I don't think I'll be doing any big game hunting again for several years. It takes up too much time and money and effort to be worthwhile. I spent $50 on a license, $50 for gas, and much more on ammo, gear, food, and all that stuff. I used up 4 precious vacation days. And worst of all, my body is going to be stiff and sore for weeks to come.

I used to think I was a kind of a hick, but that's so far from the truth. Most of the guys I hunted with were bigger hicks than I ever imagined existed. Sitting around the campfire, talking about pastures, cattle, sheep, and coal mining just isn't my idea of fun. And you can only hear the phrase "Ain't nobody got nothin' on my daddy's mutton" so many times before you openly bust out laughing at somebody. Of course, the mutton wasn't that bad, but it was greasy as hell...I'll probably never eat it again.

As you may have already read on Solo's site, we've decided to name the baby Michael Ryan Udink. Solo tried to convince me otherwise, but his efforts were thwarted. :)

When I take my garbage can out to the curb every week, I leave it just in front of my driveway, far enough ahead of my car (which is always parked at the curb in front of the house) that there's no chance the garbage truck will hit it. I always park my truck in the driveway, but the garbage man comes early enough that I don't go anywhere until after he's gone, and I just put the garbage can back before I leave.

The past two Wednesdays, I forgot to put the garbage can back before I went somewhere, and knocked the fucker out into the street when I was backing out in my truck. Man, I hope nobody saw me do that.

This weather is too damn nasty to be out hunting in, so I'm working today and tomorrow, then going back up tomorrow night and hunting until Sunday night. Everybody came back from camp because it was too wet and foggy up there. And out of the 15 or so people in camp, nobody has yet killed an elk. This is a shitty year.

Yeah, it's a boy! :) I've got a few stills of the ultrasound that I might scan and throw up on here, and we got a 20 minute video of the whole thing, too. Now we just have to think of a name...

I've seen deer gutted, but I've never taken down any big game before, and I'm not looking forward to gutting it when I do. I assume it's like gutting fish, but on a bigger scale. Instead of inserting a finger and scraping the guts out, you insert both hands and cut parts out with a knife. Yummy. I found this site that describes the process in detail, so hopefully that's enough for me to get by on in the field.

Saturday morning, the shoulder strap on my rifle broke, and the rifle hit the ground hard. The bolt actually pulled right out of the stock, so now the stock is fucked. I'm going to the shooting range today to make sure the scope didn't get knocked off-center.

I forgot to mention in my last post that I saw a wolf while I was hunting on Saturday. I topped a rise, and saw it running up the hill in front of me, then it disappeared over the top. I started running after it to get a better view and maybe a picture, but by the time I got to the top of the hill, it was long gone. It definitely either saw or heard me coming long before I saw it. My brother-in-law, Jaysen, saw a mountain lion up there. That would have been cooler to see than a wolf, but either is very uncommon to see, especially when there are men crawling all over the mountain on opening day.

Oh man, I'm sore as hell. I spent the past two days hiking through some rough country, and I don't have anything to show for it.

Just before dark yesterday, I saw a very large bull about 1200 yards away, but I have a cow tag, so it didn't do me any good. This morning, I was standing on a ridge with a bunch of guys when about 30 head of elk ran through a clearing down in the bottom of Muddy Creek, about 400 or 500 yards away. If they were standing still, I'd have taken the shot, but I doubt I could have hit any of 'em in motion. There were 4 spikes in the bunch, one wounded bull (a 5 or 6 point) who was limping behind the herd, and the rest were cows. We watched them dart through several clearings heading south, but lost them in a big stand of quakies and pine.

I came home earlier than I planned, but I'm just too damn tired to do anything but sit on ridges overlooking the creek, and that didn't do me any good today. I'm going back up Tuesday night so I can go hump the bush some more Wednesday morning.

I finally have all my gear packed into my truck, and I'm about ready to leave for the elk hunt. I'm looking forward to the actual hunt, but I'm not looking forward to staying in the same camp trailer as my father-in-law. I went to his house earlier today to help him out with some stuff, and he was being his usual self.

Anyhow, my friend Mikey Marshall called me yesterday, saying he was coming down here to hunt elk, but he has a bull tag, and he's not going hunting in the same area as I am. But I might come back early Monday so I can see him, 'cause I haven't done so since his wedding in July.

Hmm...I found SonicJunkie.com through my referrer logs. The site doesn't look too bad, except it's a little on the teeny-bopper (oh my god, did I just say that word?) side.

The problem is, there is only one true and living Sonic Junkie, and he's a person, not a website. What is this world coming to?

I finally got the balls to make that modification to my ham radio today. It involved breaking two diodes off the circuit board, so you can see why I was hesitant about doing it. My bro-in-law has a pair of those "family radios," like the Motorola Talkabouts, only a different brand (I forget which). So now I can use my ham radio to talk to him and the rest of our hunting party this weekend. I can also transmit on police and military frequencies, so I'll have to be damned careful not to fuck up and get myself in trouble. If I remember right, I can get a huge fine and possible prison time for transmitting on those frequencies.

Sloppy Rage is gone. :( The Assman has left the building.

A friend sent me this picture, and I thought it was so amazing that I'd post it here. Click for a larger version (390K):

And here's some information he sent along with the photo:

This awesome picture was taken in the Bitterroot National Forest in Montana on August 6, 2000 by a fire behavior analyst from Fairbanks, Alaska by the name of John McColgan with a Digital camera. Since he was working while he took the picture, he cannot sell or profit from it so he should at least be recognized as the photographer of this once in a lifetime shot.

I almost blew the engine in my car on my way home from work today. I was passing a long line of cars in 3rd gear, and when I hit the redline (6500 RPMs @ about 70 MPH), I tried to throw it into 4th gear real quick, but I missed and hit 2nd without realizing it. I popped the clutch and crammed the gas pedal and my rear wheels locked up, and my tachometer pegged at 8000 RPMs. It only took me a split second to realize what happened, and I got it into 4th and completed the pass.

I must have looked like a fool to the people I was passing. But I'm glad my car is rear-wheel drive...I'd hate to find out first-hand what happens when both front wheels lock up at 65 MPH. Luckily, the engine still runs, but I need to sell that car fast...someday it's gonna either get me into a lot of trouble, or get me killed.

Rich from positivecurrent.com drew this caricature of me:

Thanks Rich...it's perfect. :)

I didn't remember until about ten minutes ago that I have to drive in to the office tomorrow. I was about to go to bed when I remembered, so I had to turn the computer on so I could upload some files to my FTP that I'll need there. It sucks going into the office, 'cause it's 3 hours total drive time, plus 8 hours of work. :(

I've been trying to get ready for the elk hunt the past few days...I'm sure I'm forgetting something, though. I bought some waterproof insulated boots, some ammo, a knife sharpener, and a pack to carry all my shit in. I should have everything else I need, except food, which I'll get Thursday. I'm heading up to camp on Friday, and I'll be coming back either Sunday or Monday, depending on when (if) I get my elk.