The Eagles Nest

As I write I am looking out of a small attic window, high atop a 120 year old home in the middle of Ross County. This home was built sometime just before a large prison was established around 1900. It was built for the warden to live in along with his family and has seen several familys throughout it's history. It now stands dark and empty, and occassionally houses training, meetings, etc. for the prison just a few blocks away.

I will be teaching in this old house two days a week for the next few months. It's really not a bad place to dwindle away time. Very quiet. Very scenic (except for the large ugly prison up the road), and almost livible. I say "almost" because although it has it's share of livible features like a large full kitchen with appliances, several bathrooms, about 6 bedrooms, etc. it is missing some necesities such as "heat". It's colder than hell up here. Maybe because I am in the attic.

There is a small signed nailed above the door as you enter the attic that reads "Command Post". Not sure what that means exactly. Maybe it's some kind of inside joke. As I understand it, this attic used to house the Wardens regulation size pool table. And the shuffleboard grids are faded, but still visible on the hard wood floors up here.

This house is in desperate need of repair. It seems that the present warden decided to abandon this house for the most part, and very little happens here. It is a shame really, because this large home is heated all winter long, and checked in on several times a day for fires, vandalism, etc. I would love to live here. Not sure I would want to pay all the utility bills though.

Aslame as my work has gotten recently, it's really nice to be somewhere cool. Especially when I have to be locked up here from 9:30AM to 8:00AM.

So I have another hour before my next class. Should I got downstairs and take a nap? Go play basketball in the cold (did I mention the hoop?)? Or maybe I will call the office back in Columbus and tell them only one person showed up this morning. Yeah, and then I will study.

And Later ...

Okay, so I never studied. I got to looking at the material I will be teaching this evening and realized that nothing was set up for it. All the course really requires is notepad and a web browser. They also want for you to have installed Netscape. God I hate Netscape. Installing Netscape to all of these doggy old computers took a good long while. So long, that before I knew it ... my next classes students should be showing up.

I hurried back and forth between my Netscape setups and the attic window. Yet, my students never showed. After I was done setting up, I started to get bored, and I began wandering around this house. Most of the doors are locked (and I shouldn't be wandering around anyway) but there is some cool stuff laying around this place. On the first floor there are two nice glass cases that have been ruined with bolted on padlocks. But inside is a wonderful collection of prison "break out" stuff. There is a small collection of home made knives (shanks), some ripped up and knotted sheets (escape ropes), and even a little black mans face with some facial hair glued on. I'm not sure what it was made out of, but they did a pretty good job. All of the items look to be the real thing, so I have to wonder if they aren't from the prison up the road. Next to this collection was a sign reading "contraband". It had some bullets and stars underneath of various examples. Fun.

Behind the contraband collection was a small coat closet under the stairs. I couldn't resist looking inside. The smell about knocked me down when I opened the door. It was a FOUL odor. It looks like at one point someone had stored some dry kitchen items in this closet and mice had discovered it. The closet was full of popcorn and mouse droppings. Gross. I won't open THAT door again.

After I was done poking around, I decided to grab the basketball from the basement and shoot some hoops. The ball was pretty flat and probably hasn't been used since they held pot lucks here a few years back. Still, it had enough air to get a few dribbles out of it. I shot some hoops, and headed back inside. Strangely, as cold as it is outside, I think it might actually be colder in this attic. Isn't heat supposed to rise? Where is my heat?

Well, I guess it's back to waiting. I am supposed to have a class at 4:00 (about 40 minutes). We'll see who shows up.

Jesus Is Just Using Me

I was driving home from a late class a few nights ago. I was a little pissed off that a sales person had stopped by to visit my students and shaken things up a little bit. For whatever reason, he spent an hour talking about two seminars that may or may not ever take place. And then pulled my students aside and bothered them about "how classes are going". Now that we are two weeks away from finishing classes at this location, he shows up and asks for complaints. I wanted to slap him.

As I my blood is boiling I pass a church sign that reads "WHAT IS JESUS DOING THROUGH YOU?". I guess it's not enough that my employer uses me. Jesus is using me too. Son of a bitch! He needs to leave me alone. And I need to find a new job.

I looked around a few job sites, and found some jobs I want. But I lack a degree, and certifications. No way am I going to try and tackle a degree at this point in my life. The certifications on the other hand, are well within my reach. It's time to stop getting used. It's time to get my head out of my ass and study. It's time I get re-employed!!

I'm very sorry if you all have been looking for Wardriving adventures here. I don't want to blow the suprise I have been planning, but I should give you some idea of what is going on with me. I have been wardriving, and not sharing. I have been collecting adventures for a project. When it's done, all of you faithful Blog readers will get to enjoy my many findings.

In the meantime I may put together a mailing list of some kind to keep everyone informed of my upcoming project, once that is anounced.

I won't forget you, faithful Blog readers. ;-)

Wrath Of The Roadrunner

I know you all enjoy wardriving stories. And lately I haven't really had any for you. This past Thursday I had to drive to the forest, as I do every Tuesday and Thursday. I had a couple of hours to waste, so I pulled into the McDonalds parking lot. I really wasn't up for trying to position my laptop just right in the car seat so that I could get my 3 or 4 in signal strength.

I headed down the street into town, and found an open access point belonging to a homeowner. Since it's off the main road, I could park right on the the street with my cantenna aimed into the owners living room window. We are talking 20+ in signal strength. The speed was much higher than what I had been putting up with. I just couldn't hide as well here as I leeched. I also found that there was something else on this network pulling down some bandwidth. The house looked dark, and I saw no signs of life inside. There were no cars parked in the back (I had cased the alley earlier). So ... I did a little packet sniffing, and then promptly put an end to the culprit by assuming his IP address. It was just Kazaa downloads. I probably interrupted a movie download. Whatever.

After about an hour I looked up and noticed the blinds were pulled up pretty high in the window of this house. Had they been that high before? I was having a long arguement with my wife at the time through my messenger, and I hadn't paid much attention. I had also been sitting there for well over an hour. Maybe I should leave. Nah! I had a couple of downloads going and I was comfortable.

20 minutes passed by, and suddenly a Time Warner van pulls off the road and onto the parking lane ahead of me. Then starts backing up, and doesn't stop until he is directly in front of me. Time Warner had been called. I noticed that the DNS servers I was using that were loaned from the access point are Roadrunner IP's (Time Warners service). So I politely messaged everyone I was speaking with and let them know "I've been caught! Moving on!". :-)

Woops. So maybe someone was home, and stopping their downloads was not a good idea. Next time I walk onto someones network, I should probably share the bandwidth. And I also burned my bridges no a strong signal and god bandwidth. Oh well.

I need to get moving. I am going to my sisters house today for the 'football party', and so the kids can hang out and play. I hate football. I think I will play with the kids instead.

Rough And Toothless

I called up the dentist Tuesday afternoon to make an appointment for my 'extraction'. I got a tooth that fell apart on me chewing up some pizza one day. The estimate to repair the tooth was close to $3,000. I decided pulling the tooth was a better idea. So I called the dentist to make the appointment, and they were ready to do it the following morning at 8:00AM. That was fine by me since I wasn't teaching class on Wednesday.

I arrived around 7:30AM sharp at the dentist office. But nobody was there. I found out that dentist herself, and all the assistants don't show up themselves until about 8:00AM. So I waited in the 'waiting room'. The waiting room is odd, because it's shared with the whole small building. So this waiting room is about 100 feet away down a hall from the actual dental office. It was cold too. I don't think they started heating the building until I showed up.

At 8:00AM they brought me in, sat me down, and began with the novicaine. Three full shots were delivered in all. One on each side of the tooth, and a third across the top of my mouth. They pre-numbed the areas with 'topical' stuff. So the first two needles didn't hurt much. The third needle had to break through my pallette in the top of my mouth which she warned 'was a stinger'. Damn that hurt. They work that needle in slow too. But after that shot, my whole head was numb.

They gave me about 5 minutes to really get numbed up, and then they went to work with the pliers. It didn't hurt at all getting pulled. I just felt a lot of pulling and twisting. Then a pop. I couldn't believe how long the tooth was. It was amazing. It was also really gross looking. I wanted to grab it and stomp on it for hurting me so many nights.

They had me bite down on some gauze for a half an hour, and I later had to change out the gauze another 3 or four times before the bleeding stopped. And that was it. Not too bad an operation really. And I took Tylenol all day, so I felt no pain at all.

I am so happy not to have that tooth today. I slept so good last night. No aching at all.

But now ... I am back in the forest again. Getting ready to teach the second half of Microsoft Word Level III. OH BOY. I LOVE WORD LEVEL III. And it get's better. Tomorrow I get to teach Word Level II to ONE person back at the office. God I love my job.

Oh well. Before I know it, it will be lunch time.

God's Blunder

On a day where my job entails reading Microsoft Word level 3 instructions off to bored students, my only comfort is finding humor in misspellings. Today students were creating a form, and they were asked to create a form. On this form were a few shipping types. Delivery, UPS, and 'second day air'. One student entered, "second day error". This must be when God tried to make the sky, but failed. Unfortunately, this will probably be the highlight of my day until I return home at 8:00PM this evening. Now, onto more MS Word Level 3. Thank you for enjoying that with me.

Gangsta Rap

I could be studying. I could be working on ... something. Instead I am downloading gangsta rap tunes. I am celebrating the fact that my student didn't show up today. I was scheduled to teach Microsoft Word level 1. I was not looking forward to it. I had planned on working to about 3:30 and breaking out of here. Now, I can continue with those plans. Although, I wouldn't call this working.

I don't have much that I have to get done today. At some point though I should write out my schedule for next week. I have to mail that in now that I can be accounted for. Monday is actually a state holiday (Martin Luther King day), yet we are still scheduled to work on it. Since my son has the day off school I think I will fill out a time off bank form and take the day off anyway. I have no class scheduled, and I really dont want to show up and sit around the office all day like I am now. I can do this at home, and it's warmer there.

The Mac Arrives

Late Tuesday afternoon, Discount Man's Mac arrived from Fed Ex. And what a nice looking Mac. He got himself an eMac, versus an iMac. The difference is a tube style monitor, versus a flat panel display. In price, the cost was about $400 less for the eMac. He did throw in some options though. Like the 'superdrive' which is a CD burner and DVD burner tied into one unit. He also got a swivel base which is quite nice (about $40), and a memory upgrade to 512MB's.

We got it out of the box, played with it for a while, and then didnt know what else to do with it. After an hour or so we were all gathered around my PC watching clips from ebaumsworld.com. Not sure how that happened. After watching an old clip for retarded children about 'periods' my stomach was aching from laughing so hard. I was a little disappointed that ebaumsworld was forced by legal action to remove this old clip of Barney (the kid dinosaur thing) lip synching to Tupac music. I spent a good 5 minutes finding it with Google. It was worth it. The kids dancing around while he's singing about 'bitches' and 'guns' is just ... awe inspiring.

We also managed to set up the Discount Man cam. A permanent home on his Mac. We had a bit of trouble with the 'maccam' driver. It introduced Discount Man to the 'force quit' function of OS X. And upon rebooting we had to unplug his camera to take it out of 'duh' mode. Believe it or not, Logitech actually has Mac drivers for their camera. Nice! So we loaded up the proper driver, slapped EvoCam on there and away he went. You will have to check out the all new Raycam/DMcam portal.

The Cam Portal! *click here*

Now I am waiting for my morning class to show up. I'm out in the forest again. What fun. Trying to shake a headache that started about this same time yesterday. The sinus pill I popped a while ago seems to be doing the trick. Relief!! I am just counting the minutes until it's lunchtime and I can scoot off to McDonalds for some Internet access.

I hate being unplugged.