Periodicdesign

I’ve made a few moves in the past week or so, one being to my new place in Arlington, VA and the other being a switch from one web hosting provider to another. Keegan, over at The Big Noob, pointed out a nice little yearly savings on web hosting that he stumbled across. I figured for the low price of less than $10 USD, I couldn’t go wrong. Even if I didn’t like the service, it’s only $10 USD and I can always switch to somewhere else. When I say $10 USD, I mean for an entire year, not just for one month or for setup fees. That number was the entire cost! I’ve been happy with the switch so far and the flexibility that Dreamhost provides along with the stellar support and services has been an all around great switch. I’m still making some updates to the site and getting all the bugs out from the move.

As far as the move to Arlington, VA went…well…it went. We all were very tired in the end. The weather was extremely hot and after fighting with U-Haul for several hours the night before (and sending me all over the countryside for a truck) we all just wanted to vegetate. I would like to thank Betsy, Forrest, Shaun (Mule), Lynwood, Krista and Melissa (Liz) for all their help and we will be having you over in the near future for payment. I would also like to thank Helen’s parents for their generous furniture donations to the house. I don’t think we would be as well outfitted if it weren’t for you two. Thanks to all!!

I will post some photos of the house in the coming weeks (once the place is all in order). Keep your eyes peeled. This place is hotter than the oven door, and for what we pay in rent, it is a steal!

You’d think at this point I could achieve a degree in dating or some other form of certification pertaining to sociological interaction with the opposite sex. I’m writing this post to fix an error in another post and elaborate on another portion of my life. The “he said” and “she said’s” of the prior post have been corrected in my mind, but in the process, I found out I was being made an ass of the whole time. It’s amazing who you think are your friends and end up not being as friendly as you had once thought. Of course, maybe I’m being a bit cynical in my thinking. I tell many people that life is all perception and maybe my perception of friendship is not the same as others. So, maybe some people think they can let trust slip now and again and this is OK with the world and we should all be accepting. On the other hand, does that mean I should step down to their level of friendship and act like nothing happened; of course not. I’m not going to change my value on life, friends and family just because [an] individual(s) think they can more or less control my life at their will.

What this has taught me is who to be trusting of and who not to be trusting of. I have found that dominant individuals are to be taken lightly and not trusted fully. I mean, after all, they wouldn’t be dominant if they didn’t have some untrusting characteristics. Bill Gates didn’t get where he is today by being a “nice guy.” You have to stab a few backs and piss a few people off to get what you want. When you don’t want to compromise, you just squash. Yes, it’s rude and unfriendly, but what are your values? You make a choice in life to put others first or yourself in front of others, and that’s the bottom line. Now I’m sure, for the most part, you group individuals into certain categories such as “family” and “friends,” all of which being treated and placed differently in one’s life.

This post is not meant to incriminate, just my perception on the world. Names have been left out to protect the innocent and guilty because I feel a need to put people first, not the other way around.

Some of you may recall my previous post about dating in and around the DC area. Well, I’m posting on session two at this point in the game. I’ve had a little growing up in the dating department and some realizations that have come into play these past few months since I made that post. Last night affirmed some ideas I have been having as of late and solidified where I want to go with my life and what kind of person I want to embark on life with. I went out in Frederick, MD for dinner with a young woman I met the other weekend to a nice little restaurant called Acacia. It is located in downtown Frederick, MD; a short walk from public parking.

I had the Poached Atlantic Salmon and Flounder Napolean and my date had the Seared Chicken Chop, both of which were exquisite dishes. For an appetizer, we shared the Jonah Crab-Bay Shrimp Dip which was out of this world. I would highly recommend this restaurant to anyone visiting the Frederick area and wanting a nice, quiet place to have lunch or dinner.

As far as the date is concerned, it went extremely well. She was a pleasure to dine with and we had some great and very interesting conversation. I definitely want to do something again soon; very soon actually. I’m not saying I want to marry the girl, but definitely a good catch. I still have my sights on a few other women, so I’m not affirming anything with this post, just keeping those in my life up to date with my daily happenings. I’m highly interested in this one young lady in the northern Virginia area, but I can’t seem to get a grasp on whether she’s interested or not, and my friend doesn’t seem to want us to even try a connection. She’s more perturbed that our one friend isn’t interested and not that I am. I guess she doesn’t think I’m good enough for her?? I don’t know. I’m still going to be me, hang out and enjoy her company when I can.

I’m not the first to post about this, but one of many who have and will. I love how Google announces all of their new and cool tools so secretly. It’s almost like they don’t care. They just kind of toss a nifty tool out here and there with the comment, “Here you go; give this a try.” The same is true, to some extend, with their new tool, Google Earth. Now this isn’t new to some, as many geeks and techies know, Google Earth game from the software application Keyhole, which Google purchased and was strictly selling as a retail version for some time. Now they have split the product into a few different versions: Google Earth, Google Earth Plus, Google Earth Pro, and Google Earth Enterprise. All of these versions have the same basic features such as building rendering, typography, places of interests, roads, etc. The difference is scalability and added features such as faster streaming of imagery and database integration features.

I captured some screen shots of various places I have been, lived and would like to go. I downloaded the application a couple of days ago, so I’m still tinkering with it. It’s more or less, hit or miss when it comes to downloading. They only allow downloads at certain times. Just keep your eyes peeled, or if you’d like, for close friends, I have a copy on my machine that I can toss your way (10 MB). I decided to open the application, pick a few points of interest and then let it stream for an hour or so while it built some of the 3D modeling and typographic features of certain areas. I still have not caught on to how the application streams, what it streams and what, if anything, it stores, but it’s pretty efficient.

I really think Google is doing things right and pushing technology in a direction that it has not moved in for some time. Just think about it, five years ago, we were excited about rollovers, Flash intros, MP3’s and Pentium III chips running at 500 MHz. Now we can take our entire music library with us on a device the size of a deck of cards (with high resolution digital cameras coming in at the same size); desktop computers with dual core chips allowing for, theoretically, four processors in a home computer; mapping the globe and visiting anywhere in the world without leaving your seat; and many more services I can’t even begin to name. I use to say, “What will the next five years hold?” Now I ask, “What will the next month or this year hold?”