Month: October 2010

Happy Halloween!

Posted on by Chewbode

I was under the assumption that Alex and Nel wouldn’t be having their annual Halloween get-together today since Alex told me they all had the flu this past week. I was surprised when he IMed me this morning and told me to come on up. I just went to the store and got some stuff to make some fun cocktails and will be bringing that with me later today. I got home and mixed a of couple sample drinks just to make sure everyone would like them, and I think they will. 🙂

I’ve been playing guitar a lot more lately. My trusty ol’ Ibanez SGT-110 has been getting a hell of a workout. Might need new strings soon. I recently found that if I tune down a whole step, it makes singing a lot easier for me. Even though I’m able to sing at a higher key, I end up having to project a lot to get vibrato to work in my throat.

Speaking of guitars, I’m really happy with my 110, but I’m starting to get the itch for a nicer axe. I love the sound of Grand Concert bodies with their rich bass-y tones, so I started looking at the Ibanez AC3000WCNT. They are pricier (Sam Ash sells them for $499.99), but I think the playability would be improved over my 110. I’ll probably go check one out next weekend.

Happy Halloween everyone!

Hunting Continues…

Posted on by Chewbode

I’m house-sitting for someone next week for about eight days. This person has a separate guest house on their property that I will be checking out too. If it looks good, then I’ll be moving into it over the next few weeks, so looks like the house-hunting is just about over. Best part: it’s in South Tampa, not far from Arnold’s place (and work).

I’m going to start working on SCS017 again tonight right after I read a script that Carl sent me (sorry, been busy man).

Hmm…

Posted on by Chewbode

Looks like I’m not getting all of the old blog posts. I would surmise that Archive.org only scrapes the page and doesn’t do deep link inspecting. I had an option set to only display the five most recent entries on the old site, so I’m only getting five entries per month. But, I guess that’s better than nothing. Maybe I’ll have some old entries somewhere else. I’ve gotten all of 2004 and 2005 now transferred over to the new site here.

Getting Sick

Posted on by Chewbode

One of the features of the original site was Sick Thought of the Day, which was a footnote to each blog entry. There were hundreds of these, which were lost forever. Lucky for you all, I created a Twitter account for this a while back and I’ve just added the feed to this homepage of the site (scroll down a little – it’s on the right side). Enjoy!

A New Hope?

Posted on by Chewbode

I visited the studio apartment tonight and liked it a lot. It had plenty of room for me. I’ll have to get a stackable washer and dryer combo, but that’s pretty much it. And, oddly enough, there wasn’t a closet, so I may have to look at getting a wardrobe for my clothes. I’ll check out IKEA after I’m done writing this.

The lady who owns the property was really nice. Her husband passed away recently, and I think she took a liking to me. I need to hammer out some details tomorrow, but I told her I’ll have a decision to her no later than Thursday. I’m feeling really good about this. Other than the drive to work, I think it’ll be a good fit.

Housing Adventures

Posted on by Chewbode

Tonight after work I’m going to look at a 1,200 sq. ft. studio apartment in Wesley Chapel. It’s on the same property as the owner’s regular house, but there appears to be about an acre of land around it.

The pros: It’s at the top end of my price range, but all utilities are included, so the cost works out pretty cheap. Also, it’s one large, open room, which means I can set up the space for studio work pretty easily. It will also put me a lot closer to Alex & Nel’s house.

The cons: If I get this place, it will extend my drive from 15 minutes one-way to work to 50 minutes one-way. This also equates to spending more on gasoline. It also takes me away from South Tampa, which kinda sucks a bit as I really like the area.

Right now I’m living with all my stuff in storage, so it’s difficult. Even though I have a bit of a reprieve with the house not selling, I can’t continue to live like this. Hell, I can’t even cook anything as all my kitchen stuff is in storage. That, and the fact the studio is taken apart makes for a very un-homey feel to the place. So, I need to get out soon.

Full, Yet Relaxing

Posted on by Chewbode

That pretty much describes my weekend. I stopped off at Hooters Friday night and watched the Lightning win their game and the Yankees lose theirs. I’ve decided I need to slow way down on eating out to save money, so I’m going to limit myself to one night per week. I may make it a weekly pizza night and stay home and do work on this site while eating.

I woke up Saturday determined to relax and de-stress. I cleaned up a bit, went out and grabbed a little bite to eat, then got the truck washed. While I was waiting for them to finish detailing the truck, I thought about heading to the the airport I normally fly out of, Tampa North Aero Park (X39) up near Lutz, and just hang out there for most of the day. So, after they were done, I got in the truck and went there. It’s great to just sit around, watch planes, talk to the old-timers, and get a chance to read through the pile of aviation magazines that have been accumulating on my desk at home.

Between lessons, my instructor came up to me and told me he had an opening after his next lesson and I should go up and have some fun. Over the course of the next hour I thought about that and when he landed I took him up on his offer. I didn’t bring my flight bag with me, as I didn’t intend on flying, so it was a bit awkward not having all my stuff with me. Anyway, we went up, flew around a bit and just had fun. I even flew over Alex & Nel’s house and snapped a photo.

Flyover Alex Nel

Later that night, Arnold called me and asked if I wanted to go out on the boat with him and a buddy of his. I said yes, and we went out fishing for shark all night. We only caught a bunch of ladyfish; no sharks. But we had a lot of fun. Got back home around 4:00pm last night and promptly fell asleep. I think the de-stressing and all of the fresh air and sunshine was why I slept so soundly for 13 hours last night.

Chewbode’s Abode

Posted on by Chewbode

I’m in a transitional phase yet again. The house I’ve been renting for the last several months has been sold. I was supposed to be out this past Monday, the 18th, however the deal fell through – or at the very least has been put on hold for a little while.

So, I’ve been searching for a new place, which has been very difficult, mostly because I’ve got such poor credit and am getting turned down left and right for apartments and house rentals (mostly through real estate agents). My only hope is to get a cool owner that is willing to do first and last month’s rent with a security deposit and not run a credit check. I got a bite today and will be talking to someone tomorrow about a house just a few blocks from here, in South Tampa. I’m also looking at a 1,200 sq. ft. studio apartment up in Wesley Chapel this coming Monday. Fingers are crossed.

I’ve been reading Dr. David Madow’s book Impress The World With Your Body In Seven Dayson my iPhone. Essentially, it’s a guide to set you up with an eating, attitude, and exercise ritual for each day of the week. So far, I’m on day two and am right on target. I’m going to try this for a while in an effort to get down to my ideal weight and just feel better in general. I went out to Sports Authority today and bought a couple of 10 lb. dumbells and a bar that hooks under any door so you can properly do situps. I’m even tinkering with the idea of posting my workout and diet info up on the site here. Maybe. Although, just doing frequent blog entries will be pretty therapeutic, so I’m not sure…

The Phoenix

Posted on by Chewbode

“To be reborn is a constantly recurring human need.” -Henry Hewes

A while back I stopped supporting this site. A lot of things took over my life, and, frankly, I purposely neglected it. With the advent of Facebook and Twitter, why would I need to keep up on my own site anyway? Why deal with all that work and custom code? And to top it all off, I never wanted to market it, so no one really visited. The result: into the dark, dank corner of the internet it slipped. And was forgotten.

Until one day, about a month ago, I wanted to get some data off the site. I literally hadn’t visited it in over a year. And, lo and behold, the site was down. Glitch? No problem, I’ll fix it. So, I logged into the admin console at the hosting company and to my horror I found the site was gone. Just. Gone. No files, no nuthin’.

I contacted customer support and asked them to restore the site from backup. After going around with them for a couple of days, they finally came back and told me the credit card I was using to auto-pay for the site was declined seven months ago (my card expired and I never updated my account info). On top of that, I shut down my Exchange server in early 2009, so I wasn’t getting email sent to those domains, which I thought was fine. Guess where the hosting company had sent the payment error emails?

So, they only kept three months of backups of the site. They cancelled my account due to payment failure. So, chewbode.com and all it’s lovely contents and hard work went bye-bye.

I was irritated for a couple of weeks. Then, one day, I realized that the reason that I was irritated wasn’t because of the hosting company’s lack of backups, but that I let all that history
(four years of blog entries, photos, stories, etc.) slip from my grasp. I missed my data. I missed the site – the site I had decided I didn’t need in my life a year prior.

Proof was in the pudding, as they say. It was time to start rebuilding the site. As of now, there is simply this blog. Nothing more. But I will continue to build the site and will make it better than the old one.

To be continued…