Update 1 comment

Sorry all, I’ve been busy. But you don’t come here to read excuses about why I don’t put up content… you just come for the content. So here’s what I’ve been meaning to drop word on for the last few days:

Lunarpages service upgrade

So I get an email from Lunarpages, my new and oh-so-good web host. My webspace parameters have been augmented as such:

• 250 Gigabytes Storage (Previously 35 GB)
• 2500 Gigabytes Data Transfer (Previously 800 GB)
• 10 Add-on Domains Included ($300 a year in free add-ons)

All I can say is “Hell yeah!” I was paying more for the add-on domains, I have 3 more attached to this website that I have to handle and they used to only give 2 add-on domains, but now I think my price has gone down. I’ll have to check on this later.

LOW 40 purchase

So I made a stock purchase on Friday. I’ve been looking at ways to diversify my portfolio and put the money I had sitting in my ING money market account to work for me. (ING Direct is great, btw. I recommend them to anyone looking for a high APY savings account, theirs is 4.50%, FDIC insured.) So I was looking around morningstar.com and I found an article (Here: Morningstar.com - The Berkshire Hathaway Portfolio). I just picked a good-looking stock that was not tech-related, and I ended up buying 40 shares of Lowe’s, as in the home improvement store. I know there’s a Lowe’s near my place, and just through some cursory research I found that their strategy is to simply keep expanding and building up a presence. Anyway, I’m hoping that my position in Lowe’s is one I will hold on to for a while… it’s the first store that most of my more house-improvement-experienced friends around here think of when it comes to buying home improvement stuff, so I think I’ve gotten into something good here.

Options trading

The other thing I’ve been working on (and just completed today) was an online CBT from www.888options.com which introduced me to the basics of how Options trading works. I applied for an Options trading account with my online broker
TDAmeritrade today, and I hope to hear back from them by the end of the week.

Violin out of tune… permanently

Well… at least until I get a new one. I just now tried practicing on my violin, and once again for the second time my A string sounded like E or F, which means that it was WAAAY out of tune, and this time I couldn’t get the peg to stay at the correct pitch. Azi said that my violin had a fickle E which tended to stray out of tune every time I’d come to class, so I think my violin just has a general problem keeping the tuning pegs at the right place. I’ll try swapping it tomorrow… I hope they don’t give me any crap, because I’m also late on my first rental payment. :((

No new girl prospects, not afraid of being alone… for now.

So I’m changing. Every day. And lately I’ve come to realize that being single and singly-single is not too too bad… I mean, I do have the time to do what I really want to do without having to worry about a girlfriend who may be mad at me for not doing something she wants me to do. I have a buddy at work, my military brother Stricky-Strick, who is happily married but constantly tells me to not get married anytime soon. Trust me, brother… you don’t have to tell me twice, I know that already. But anyway, I think if I just chill out and relax and not stress over not having the girl, the girl will eventually come to me, but in the meantime I’m free to pursue school, violin, and reading the books that I’ve been meaning to read but have been slacking instead.

Final Fantasy XII

Speaking of doing things I really want to do, I’ve been playing the hell out of this game. Ever since I bought my TV card I’ve been trying to knock this one out of the park before school starts so I wouldn’t be tempted to play it when I have other things I need to be doing, like studying for school or studying for my Staff Sergeant test or studying for my AFOQT (Officer Training School Test) or studying for my GRE so I can officially be in the MS program at UCCS instead of just a non-degree student… anyway, suffice it to say that I really better not get distracted this next couple of months, what with all this studying I need to do and preparation for a possible deployment. I’ll get it done, no sweat.

Gym…

Speaking of sweat… I’ve not been sweating enough at the gym, and I can feel my body paying the price of sloth. Random pains, general lack of energy, lower-back pain due to sitting on my ass too long playing FFXII… I need to get running more often. I love the way I feel after I go running in the morning and I hit my day knocking out one task after another… it’s just the getting up and going to the gym part that usually thwarts me for some reason. Once I’m in my gym clothes and my feet hit the track, I’m on automatic, music gently pushing me on thanks to my iPod Shuffle.

School starts on Tuesday

And if you missed it when I mentioned it before, I did register for classes this semester at University of Colorado, Colorado Springs. I signed up for two classes this semester in preparation for applying to be a grad student for the Computer Science MS program. I’m quite excited, really. I signed up this semester for Software Requirements Analysis/Specifications and Software Project Management… I find that I have the know-how, but I really don’t have the organizational methods to attack a software development project, nor do I know how to map out what a project would require… so here I am. Maybe I’ll FINALLY finish that damn survey application that I’ve had on hold for almost 2 months now…

*phew!* So much going on now, not like before where I was living mostly in my head, now I’m living mostly in and about town. I guess it helps to load up on shit that I need to do anyway, keeps me from over-analyzing the under-important aspects of life. All I ask is that God keep my soul, and continue to help me make the right decisions.

The jet turbines are spinning, it’s almost time to blast off….

-TJ