We were going to go camping this weekend, but my wife and I decided that we'll be too busy to get the camper and all our shit ready by Friday, so we're going next weekend instead. On my way home from work tomorrow, I'm going to take the dirt road turnoff at Soldier Summit that leads to the Uinta National Forest to look for a decent place to camp. That's the same place we saw that bear last year, so I'm going to bring my shotgun next weekend just in case.

My in-laws are at it again. Saturday, my wife had gone with our son to her sister's baby shower, and even though she had spent hours and hours helping her mom prepare for the shower, both her mom and sister were being ungrateful bitches simply because my wife had brought our son--they thought he was going to get in the way of Traci helping them out before the shower started, I guess. Somehow I got blamed for everything though...her mom and sister kept asking why I refused to watch Michael, even though Traci had explained that she would rather have Michael with her than have him stay home with me. Her sister even went so far as to call me a lazy-ass for not watching him, and that's what really pissed me off. Anyway, my wife ended up calling me so I could come pick her and Michael up before the shower even started, and her sister and mom had to take care of everything else themselves.

I'm pretty angry because Traci told me that all her mom and sister have been doing the last few days is criticizing the way we raise our son and question the ways in which Traci chooses to spend her time (apparently they want her to do all their bidding rather than have a normal family life with her real family). I decided that it would be pointless for me to get involved, because it would just result in me getting really pissed off and probably physically harming somebody, so I'll let my wife do whatever she wants, which means she'll probably kiss and make-up within the next few days, and they will all forget that anything even happened. But I won't forget, and now that I know how they really feel about me, even if they only talk about it behind my back, I will return the feeling right back in their faces.

Sweet...my advance payment check came today, even though it wasn't supposed to be here 'til next week sometime. Looks like I'll be getting that new computer on Tuesday when I go to Provo for work. The only problem is the motherboard I'm getting doesn't have any ISA slots, and my modem is an ISA card, so I'll have to wait 'til I get DSL to put the computer together and start using it. Either that, or I can trade my mom for her 33.6 PCI modem, but that would kinda suck...but I guess it'd be worth it to have a 1.2 GHz machine with a slightly slower modem.

I should be getting my $600 tax refund check next week, and since I'm getting DSL soon, I guess I'm going to finally upgrade my computer. I'm running a PII-266 now, but here is what I'm planning on getting next week:

Case

Supercase 500 ATX 300W UL- AMD K7 Approved $55

Motherboard

ASUS A7A266A SKT A ATA100, 266MHZ FSB W/Sound 3 SDRAM & 2 DDR $143

CPU

AMD-K7 Athlon Thunderbird 1200MHz - 266MHz Socket A $112

RAM

DDR 256MB 266MHz - PC2100 $46 X 2 = $92

That comes out to just over $400, plus I'll probably get a new keyboard and an extra case fan, and maybe even a webcam. =) Whatever money I have left over will go towards a digital camera.

I am a happy camper. Finally, I should have DSL in a couple of weeks...I forgot to ask how long it'll take to get the line tested and service hooked up, but I'm sure it'll be at least that long.

I decided I didn't want to drive to the office at all this week, so I'm staying home today. It's Mormon Day's here in Utah (yes, that apostrophe is intentional--this is Utah, after all), and most people here celebrate it like the rest of the country celebrates the 4th of July, so the cops set up roadblocks to check for drunk drivers and such. Since my car still isn't registered, I didn't want to chance getting caught in a roadblock, plus since it's basically a state holiday, traffic would have been horrible between here and work, especially with all the road construction.

What I find funny is that even though the state is celebrating the day the Mormon pioneers first came to Utah, the cops are looking for drunk drivers. I doubt they'll catch any church-goers who have drunk a few too many, and I don't see why any beer drinkers would be out celebrating the day Bring'em Young settled the land by driving around intoxicated trying to kill people.

After having not showered for six days, it felt extremely good to come home last night and shower. Camping was great, I had more fun this year than I have any other year at my wife's family reunion. Most of my time was spent just sitting around and bullshitting with everybody, and we played a couple of games of baseball, except with a wooden paddle and a plush ball, which was actually quite fun. Coming home sucked in that it meant returning to the real world, where my job and my mess of a house awaited, not to mention that it was really hot here. Driving down out of the mountains, it just kept getting hotter--it was probably about 70 degrees up there, and it was 90 when I got home.

I almost blew myself up Thursday night while I was trying to get the heater in the camper to work. I had lit the pilot light and turned the temperature knob up to high, and the burner came on. So I turned the temp knob down just until the burner shut off, then I was going to turn it up just a bit until it came on again so I didn't have it set too high. The burner never lit again, even though the pilot light was still on, and eventually the knob was set to high again without the burner ever lighting. Then I heard a muffled *thump* sound, and the pilot light blew out. I shut the gas off and was trying to figure out what was wrong when I heard people outside my camper--apparently it was much louder outside, and a big blue flame came out of the heater exhaust. It scared the shit out of everyone else, but my wife and I were perfectly calm. I'm lucky I had the pilot light view-window shut, or else that flame would have came inside and probably injured me pretty badly. I never did try to light it again, so I gotta take it all apart and figure out what's wrong.

My son pulled himself to a standing position yesterday, which was pretty scary--he's not even crawling yet, and he's able to pull himself up like that. My wife was lying on her side on the bed, and Michael was sitting on his butt next to her when he leaned forward and grabbed her waist and just stood up. I guess it's time to stop putting him in his walker and leave him on his stomach on the floor, maybe he'll learn to crawl then.

Whenever I prepare to go camping, I always think to myself that it can't possibly be worth all the trouble to go shopping for food and packing stuff and all the other preparations that go into it, but when I finally get up in the mountains, it all seems worth it. The air smells of pine trees, it's nice and cool compared to in town, and you can see the stars so clearly that there seem to be ten times as many as usual.

We didn't leave town 'til midnight last night, and we got into camp around 1:00 am. It only took about 20 minutes to get all set up and into bed, and I slept much better than I usually do. I decided to take today off work, because I didn't want to bring the camper out that late and still have to come home and work in the morning. I ended up coming into town today to get a couple of things we forgot...I left my bike here because the tires needed air and my mom had my pump, and I didn't have time to go to the library and get a book, plus we forgot a few things for the baby. There was a shitload of road construction between here and Huntington, so the drive back is going to suck, but once I get back there, it'll be nice to spend a few days away from everything. I probably won't be home 'til Sunday afternoon or evening...I'm not gonna be able to watch the Nascar race, but hopefully I can at least get coverage on the radio.

I've done three new layouts for this site recently, but I don't like any of them enough to replace the current one. They're pretty good layouts, but I just don't see the point of using something I like less than what I've already got--I'll get sick of it really fast, I'm sure. In fact, I don't think I have it in me to do a layout any better than this one. My skills are pretty limited, and all my layouts are just variations of previous things I've done. I guess that means this layout is going to be up for a long time.

I didn't really want to go into work this week, but it looks like I'll have to go on Tuesday, if only for a few hours. I guess it's not all that bad, 'cause I need to get a drinking-water hose for my camper, and I can't find one in Price, so I'll grab one while I'm in Provo. I was planning on bringing my camper up Huntington Canyon when I'm finished with work on Tuesday, but now I'm thinking it might be better to go Wednesday, mostly because I don't like the thought of leaving my truck up there unattended overnight. My wife is going up Wednesday evening with her mom, then I'm coming up Thursday evening when I'm done working. I have to drive my car up, which is still not registered, and won't be for another couple of weeks if I don't sell it first. But I'll have my bike-rack and bike strapped to the back, so a cop won't be able to see the tags, and I shouldn't have any problems unless I get pulled over for some other violation (gotta watch my speed!).

Justin got a webcam:

James linked to this, The Man Show's periodic table of the elements. God, that is hilarious. =)

Lately, I've felt like I could really use some time away from civilization, and not just a few days, but something like a month or more. I'm just sick of the daily grind, and all the responsibilities that go with having a job and bills to pay and people to interact with. This is the same feeling I had before I quit my job a year-and-a-half ago and moved back to Price, and it was nice to have a couple of months during which I didn't have to work or pay bills. In fact, it was during that time that I bought my truck and did pretty much nothing but drive around off-road, exploring all the dirt roads and trails outside of town. I wish I could afford a month off from work right now, but I've got precious few vacation days left for the rest of the year, and I'd rather not waste them on my own mental health. =)

NASCAR officials are a bunch of pantywaists. First, they make a really bad call and black flag Stewart near the end of Saturday's race. Of course, he gets really pissed off, which most drivers would do in such circumstances, but taking it out on a reporter definitely isn't the way to go. Anyway, since he was already on probation for hitting Jeff Gordon's car a while back, NASCAR should have suspended him for a race or two, but instead they just fine him ten-grand and extend his probation period. Rather than admitting they made a bad call by black-flagging Stewart, they just went easy on him for his behavior following their bad call--it's all just a little hypocritical. They did something wrong, which caused Tony to do something wrong, but instead of reversing their call, they continue to place the blame on Tony (so they don't look bad) while still going easy on him (more than likely because of a guilty conscience).

Here's a link to the whole story, and there's a link on that page where you can see video of the incident on the track that caused the black flag, in which even the announcers say they think NASCAR made a bad call.

Jeez...could there possibly be any more road construction between my home and work? Literally about 1/3 of the road was either torn up, closed off to one lane, or freshly gravelled. They were still rotomilling a long-ass stretch of road at 9 pm when we were on our way home, so we had to wait for 5 or 10 minutes for them to stop traffic traveling in the opposite direction and let us through.

I got a book from the library a couple weeks ago and haven't finished it yet, but it was due back today. I think I'm just going to relax and read for the rest of the evening, that is if I don't fall asleep soon.

Things have been rather dull around here lately. I have to go into work tomorrow, my wife has a doctor's appointment, and we have some shopping to do, so it'll be a hot and busy day. I don't think I'm going into work next week, 'cause I'll be busy getting ready for the camping trip that weekend. I'm probably going to bring the camper up a couple days early so my wife's family doesn't get all the good camping spots--plus I can choose a spot far away from my in-laws, who I believe are going up early as well.

It looks like I'll have to get my car registered next week too. I've had a few people look at it, but nobody was all that serious about buying it. I hate to put money into it when I know I'm going to get rid of it (hopefully) soon, but I don't have much of a choice, 'cause relying on one vehicle is getting to be a pain in the ass.

I surprised even myself this morning and got up early to mow and water the lawn. I was going to install some brackets on my truck to secure the camper to, but I needed a 3/8" drive drill to do it, and my antique Craftsman drill is only 1/4" drive. I ended up just buying a Skil 9.6V cordless drill, rather than borrowing one from somebody like I normally would. It's nowhere near the best drill you can get, but it's not bad for how inexpensive it is, and it's much better than what I already had. The only thing that sucks now is that I have to wait five hours for the battery to finish charging, at which time it should be plenty hot outside, too hot to be working on my truck in the driveway.

The one thing that sucks about the 4th of July being in the middle of the week is that I have to work the next day, and getting drunk isn't exactly the best thing to do. It feels like a weekend, and hopefully I remember that I have to work tomorrow morning. =) Of course, I don't hangover that badly, so tomorrow shouldn't be that bad. I had tons of fun tonight, despite almost catching myself on fire a couple of times. I'm surprised I didn't puke, with as much food as I ate, and as much as I drank afterwards. I probably should go to bed now, so g'night. =) We'll see how many spelling mistakes I need to correct tomorrow when I'm sober, if any.

Well, I don't have much in the way of plans for this 4th of July. My mom is having a barbecue this evening at her house, so I'm going to that...I'll probably get plastered there, then just walk home and crash. =)

For some reason, the city actually collected garbage today, and since they have never done so on federal holidays in the past, I didn't have mine out at the curb. I called the city office and left a snide voicemail wondering why nobody was in the office today, asking why they picked up garbage on the 4th of July, and whether or not they are going to be picking it up tomorrow as well. Very few people on my block had theirs out, and one neighbor actually took their garbage across the street to be picked up after the truck had already passed their house and was on its way down the other side of the street.

My internet connection has been sucking a fat one lately. Last night, I tried to upload 40 megs of work files to my site so I could access them when I was in the office today, but I was getting like 0.6 K/sec. After leaving CuteFTP uploading all night, it had only done 19 megs by the time I was ready to leave for work. I ended up having to bring my hard drive into work today and copying the files directly from it.

Although my ISP advertises DSL on all their vehicles, they do not actually offer it, and they keep pushing back the date they plan on having it available. I seriously think it will be a very long time before they offer it, and when they do, I bet it'll be very crappy.

I found this article quite amusing. It talks about why so many people dislike Jeff Gordon, and tries to explain it by suggesting that people are just jealous of his success and money. If that were the case, why is he the most disliked driver in NASCAR? Why did people like Dale Earnhardt so much, when he had so much more success and money than Jeff Gordon? I think it's because Jeff Gordon simply has a dislikable personality. Truthfully, he's one of the best drivers out there, but people don't get sucked in to that "follow the leader mentality" like you often see in football and basketball, where many people like whoever happens to be winning at the time. Jeff Gordon is just a dork, and the majority of people realize that. Of course, I wouldn't expect a journalist to say that publicly, so I understand why that article doesn't come right out and say it. =)

Camping was hot. It didn't help that we got there during the hottest part of the day, and I spent an hour getting camp set up in 100 degree temperatures. It was fun still, and I'm glad we went. I found out the fridge in the camper doesn't work that well (maybe it was just the heat), and that a few other things can use fixing up before our three-day outing in a couple of weeks.

I still haven't sold my car yet, so that pretty much sucks--the registration expired yesterday. I can't park it on the street anymore, 'cause I don't want the fucking PPD to make an easy $15 off me. If I don't sell it soon, I'm gonna have to replace the windshield and get it registered, 'cause it's worthless to me if I can't get rid of it or drive it.