Today is my last day at CMS, and I don't know if I am excited or not about that. I mean, I have gotten paid $13 an hour for the past nine weeks to do essentially nothing. Plus I am getting part of my scholarship requirement out of the way (now I just need to graduate and get the government job), and I am getting three CS elective credits. But it gave me lots of time to edit Wikipedia, setup Google Calendar, and play with RSS readers. Tough life.

Last weekend, Amaris and I met up with her dad one last time and headed out to the beach. Everyone told us to go to Ocean City, MD when we did the beach, but what we didn't know was that everyone else got the memo too. Seriously, there were three times when we hit major delays: at a toll booth (1.5 mile delays), at a STOP LIGHT (1 mile delays), and when we were getting into Ocean City (7 mile delays). Yeah... we hit almost 10 miles of stop and go traffic (more stop than go). We didn't get out of Catonsville until noon so it was almost five by the time we got there. Since I was not feeling like dropping $200 on a hotel and then dealing with the same traffic heading out of town, we decided to play in the ocean for a few hours, grab dinner and head out. That place was a nut house, and it was the type of place where you can just tell that all of the vendors are just seeing you as a cashpot that they want to tap (much more so than businesses usually do). You could easily leave there cleaned out and carrying a bunch of junk that you will regret buying. So we stayed for about 5 hours walking along the board walk and playing in the ocean and then we headed home. It took us 2.5 hours to get home.

Today we are heading out for Vegas. Allowing for stops at training camps, and spending the weekend in Virgina with Ben, I figure that we will roll into Vegas around noon on Thursday. Hopefully I wont get a call on Monday from the Riviera saying that they rented out my room to someone else.

Ok, lets do it. Football season is here and just in time. Last year when I was in Southern California, the Dallas Cowboys flew into the base I was stationed at for their training camp and I got a few pictures and autographs with the players. I also stopped by the San Diego Charger's training camp, and I would just like to point out that both of those teams ended up going to the playoffs (and getting eliminated in their first game... but what can you do). Maybe I am good luck for teams.

This year, I am making a much longer trip back to Moscow and will be able to stop by a lot more camps. Baltimore doesn't start their camp early enough for me to go there, but I will see the Washington Redskins, Indianapolis Colts, St Louis Rams, and the Denver Broncos with the option of the Pittsburgh Steelers if I feel like it. I will post pictures, but now onto the pressing business. My yearly evaluation of the Packers.

Unfortunately I won't be going to Packers camp because it is a bit out of my way, but I can evaluate them from a distance. Last year I said that they would go 6-10, but after a late season four game win streak that put them within one New York Giants loss of being in the playoffs at 8-8, they definitely have some potential this year. Most of the starters from last year are back,

Quarterbacks: Favre is 37 and this is probably his last year. Even if he wanted to come back, I am not sure the Packers would let him. They have cut pretty much every other 30+ year old player in their rebuilding, so I think that his legacy in Title Town will only keep him on the roster so long. Aaron Rodgers is now in his third year, and I am not sure he will sit around much longer. He was amazing in college and probably wants his shot. Either way, if Favre goes down this year, there is someone behind him ready to jump in (as long as he doesn't break his foot again).

Running Backs: Ahmad Green was the franchise back, but he got too old and was cut. They drafted Brandon Jackson in the second round, and have a few other backs that got light use in the past two years. Most likely, the Pack will use a committee of running backs, with Jackson slowly moving into a prominent role. That is... unless they land someone like Larry Johnson. But Ted Thompson seems to lean towards getting young, cheap talent that he can develop. Seems to be working so far. They also got rid of their full back (again, getting rid of 30+ year old William Henderson), and are handing the job to third year pro Brandon Miree. He got some starts and a fair amount of playing time last year, and did a fair job so this might be a good move.

Wide Receivers: Donald Driver is back, but he is getting older and is starting to lose a step. However, Greg Jennings should mature into a starting level WR this year. In addition, they have third rounder James Jones and second year Ruvell Martin who showed flashes of promise last year. I think that the wide receiver position is getting much better than it has been in years past (since 2004 when they last had Javon Walker).

Tight Ends: Bubba Franks is back, with Donald Lee backing him up. This is nothing to get excited about, but Franks is a reliable target and blocks well and Lee has done a good job in years past so this is not necessarily a weak point either. But this is no Antonio Gates or Tony Gonzolez.

Offensive Line: With all of the starters, and most of the backups coming back this year, the OL is finally looking more promising, and Thompson's moves from years past are starting to look a little more logical (still don't agree with most of them, but they are looking better). The line is finally going to have some consistency, and should improve on the acceptable performance of last year. That is critical when you have a 37 year old QB and young RBs in the backfield.

Defensive Line: While KGB is loosing his edge, Aaron Kampman has shown that he is one of the league's best with an NFC high 15.5 sacks last year. That pair teamed with a committee of defensive tackles, including Ryan Pickett and first round pick Justin Harrell should make the line a force to be reckoned with.

Cornerbacks: With Charles Woodson and Al Harris starting on each side, the Packers have one of the best starting CB combos in the NFL. Woodson showed that he still has quite a bit of gas left, and took a lot of the pressure off of Harris. Throw in Will Blackman, and you have the strong spot of the Packer's positions.

Safties: Both starting safties are back this year, and they both played all 16 games and had 80+ tackles last year. While they didn't get lots of interceptions last year, the consistency at this position will help and will continue to take some of the pressure off of the cornerbacks.

Linebackers: All three starting linebackers are back this year, including Nick Barnett and 2006 first rounder AJ Hawk, both of whom had over 110 tackles. The depth isn't great at this position, but with so much youth and so much talent back there, the Pack should have a shutdown linebacker corp as long as no one goes down.

So the strong point of the Packers this year is the consistency they have (including 20/22 starters returning) and the durability (19 of those 20 played 14 or more games last year), I think there is some serious promise this year.

Ever have one of those days where you think back to things you did as a kid and just reminisce about it? I did that this week in a big way. After getting sick and tired of the way '24' was going (with too many sappy scenes involving any of the women on the show and not enough action), I decided to move on to another show. I don't know how I ended up with it, but I decided to download the first season of the Mighty Morphin Power Rangers.

Way back when... back when it first premiered in 1993 when I was an 8 year old southern boy living in Texas, I started my obsession with the Power Rangers. Now when I say I was obsessed... I mean that. As a kid, I would get completely enthralled in one thing and nothing else (I guess I am still kind of that way... but to a lesser degree). Things like BRIO trains, MarbleWorks, Sonic the Hedgehog 2 and my SEGA, pretending to be a radio station DJ (with my parents collection of CD including Huey Louis and the News, Bryan Adams, and MoTown), POGs, and of course the Power Rangers.

My brother and I would pretend to be power rangers for hours, fighting and everything until it usually ended with him getting hurt and me getting in trouble. We would even try to end arguments by saying that we had the shield, referring to the shield that the Green Ranger... because he was the bad ass ranger. We even bought the Megazord to play with.

But watching the episodes now just isn't the same. Its great to see the show that took over my life, but it is really pretty lame. The sets are beyond simple and half of the show is just the same long clips of the rangers morphing and then calling their Zords. The show must have been easy to make but damn I was obsessed. When we moved up to Idaho, the first thing I wanted to know was what channel Fox was so that I could watch them again.

Of course, after the rangers my obsession changed to computers when my family got our first $3000 Windows 3.1 computer, and I haven't moved on since. I guess the stuff I had was sold in a yard sale at some point,

Amaris and I finally made it down to Washington DC last weekend. We were going to do it a few times before, but something else always came up and it got pushed back. But dang there is a lot of stuff to do in DC. We got around to most of the memorials (Washington, Lincoln, Vietnam, Korean) along with the capitol, Arlington National Cemetary, Union Station, and the Holocaust Museum. While everything was really interesteting, I think the Holocaust Museum was the best part just because it was such a thorough account of what happened around WWII. In the past few weeks, I have gotten to see a lot of American History with Gettysburg, Philadelphia, Annapolis and Fort McHenry, but this time I got to see a war that didn't have much to do with America (relatively speaking). The museum bridged the time between WWI and WWII and how Germany ended up letting Hitler do what he did.

Even in the two days that we were there, there were a lot of things we missed. We didn't have time for any of the Smithsonians, the FDR memorial, or the WWII memorial. There were also things that required [free] tickets that we just didn't have the forsight to get. Gotta do the Washington Memorial, the Mint and the Capital building next time.

The best part was probably at the end. We were walking through Arlington towards the Marine's Iwo Jima memorial and reading some of the tomb stones... it doesn't really hit your that these were real people until you actually look at them. There were people who had been born in the late 1800's and people who had fought in WWII, Korea and Vietnam. I didn't realize what the Iwo Jima memorial was (I had seen it before, but the name didn't ring a bell), but that was really cool to see upclose again.

Now we are getting ready for the last week in Baltimore. This weekend we might meet up with Amaris's dad one more time, but the details still aren't clear on that. But I think that it is time to head to the beach. We have gotten close but never made it all the way there. Next week is my last week at work (and Cal Ripken Jr's hall of fame induction) and then training camps start. So on my way back across the country, I am going to have to stop by a few places. Ya know...

Then DEFCON. Oh yeah. It is going to be a good month.

I think that global warming is one big warm pile of crap. Everyone is all of a sudden all worried about being green and having a small "carbon footprint" (ironic since our foot... and the rest of us are carbon based... I always get a chuckle out of that). Last week there was a big concert, with people flying in from all over the world and people watching on the internet and on TV to watch a feat that uses one heck of a lot of power and fuel and creates a lot of trash to promote being green. Hmm... seems rather counter productive doesn't it.

Global warming is coming... that is why we have to BUY carbon credits. That is why we have to change the way we do business. That is why you should be SCARED TO DEATH because the world will possibly, for sure, end sometime in the very near or semi distant future. It is a call to arms because there is only one thing that we can do: throw more money at the problem to fix it (want to buy carbon credits, or even a device to measure your output?).

But should we care. There are four things to think about before you join the mob and turn into a hippie:

Is GW actually happening?

Supposedly. I don't think that there is any solid science to back it up because supposedly the sea levels are going to start rising dramatically, the winters will get shorter and the summers will be dryer. But "global warming" has been happening for such a short time that we have not been able to detect it. Sure, they show you images of huge ice shelves falling off Antarctica but what do you expect? The continent goes from seeing next to no sun one day to having complete sun six months later. Wouldn't you expect it to grow and shrink?

And of course the graphs showing the fractions of a degree that the world has been warming at for the past years. I have seen graphs that compare the graph of the last 100 years to the last 2000 to prove that GW exists. But how do they think that they can accurately tell us what the temperature was 2000 years ago. Sure, we can tell that there were ice ages pretty regularly, but they want to say that they can compare accurate temperatures with wild ass guesses?

If it is, are we causing it?

Our carbon emissions right? But what caused the temperature fluctuations in the past when cycled in and out of ice ages. Was it SUVs back then too?

Maybe we should understand the past better before we start jumping to conclusions. There are more variables in a global climate than just humans.

If it is happening and we are causing it, is there any reason to think it will be bad for us?

So it gets warmer. Is that really bad? The world changes a bit... some people loose their water front property and we have to change some of the habits that we have made in the past. People are scared of change, but this might not be completely bad. Besides, if global warming keeps up at its current snale's rate, then our great great great grandchildren wont even notice the difference, and we won't be around long enough to see any real change happen. It will just be the way the climate is.

Just because the climate is changing, doesn't mean that it will be catastrophic.

If it is happening and we are causing it and it is bad, are there any solutions out there to fix it?

Will buying carbon credits from across the globe for your factory in Los Angeles really make LA that much better? People are going to continue to consume and the only way that anything is going to change is when the consumer continues to get what they really want, and when the business doesn't see it on their bottom line. And we have been doing that for years now. Cars are cleaner, electronics use less power and technology has allowed us to do more with less. That is the natural succession of business. What can Al Gore giving us sensationalist media clips do that is better than that?

Last weekend was another one of my three day weekends because of my 9 hour work schedule. So I essentially had 2 days off (last weekend), 2 days on, 1 day off (the fourth), 1 day on, 3 days off, and now 5 days on. Not that it really matters... I am not doing anything.

Amaris and I hooked up with Lucas and his wife and went up to Philly last weekend. We didn't really plan the trip months in advance, but it was appropriately timed. I had forgotten most of my US history relating to Philadelphia, but there is a lot there! The country was born when the capital was there, so there is Independence Hall where the Declaration of Independence was signed and the Constitution was written. There is also the Liberty Bell, the First and Second National Banks, and some serious history. We ate at a place that has been open since 1775 where some of the founding fathers met over brew to talk about how to get Independence from Britain. All of the dates were a little fuzzy, but walking around gave me a quick refresher.

July 4 was the day that they finished the Declaration of Independence. They didn't sign it until a month later and that was when the war started. Not only that, but New England didn't even support the war so only about half of the US was actually fighting the war (and even then many people in those states were loyal to Britain). With all of the patriotism around the fourth, it is easy to think that we got our independence that day... but that isn't the case. We finally won in 1781, but that was just to get independence from Britain. The Constitution created a *united* set of states and wasn't adopted until 1787. Washington became president before all of the 13 original even became states in the United States.

Good stuff.

So the town that we are living in has an annual parade that is kind of a big deal I guess. People actually set chairs out on the side of the road a week ahead of time to save their spots (although I think it is more of a symbolic thing because even on the day of the parade it is easy to find a place to sit). The parade was an hour and a half long and had some of the state's senators and representatives in it, so I guess it really is a big parade.

But there were two parts of it that bugged me. Right before the parade, there was a girl (had to have been 12 or 13) who was wearing a shirt that had the British flag all over it. I don't know if she was doing it for a reason, but seriously... we are celebrating the idea of getting away from the "taxation without representation" and the other policies that the king imposed that we didn't like. The other was a float in the parade that said that war is not the answer... peace is. They had people walking along side it with tribal looking things on their head. I felt like ripping those things off and breaking their legs with it. Maybe they don't understand that we are celebrating the WAR THAT GOT US OUR FREEDOM. Get the fucking sand out of your vagina and go drown yourself in your own smugness. That was not the right parade to be at you damn hippies.

I am offically a Google fanboy. Yeah... I probably have been for years now, but I have finally admitted to myself how bad it has gotten. I am using Gmail, Google Calendar, Google Maps, Google Reader, Google Groups, and Picasa. I will be uploading all of my images here, and setting up a website with their website builder. I could build and host my own... but for some reason Google just makes everything look cooler.

I read their blog daily with Reader, and I never search for anything unless it is with their search engine, or Google Images. Whenever I get on the internet for the first time on a computer, I set my start page to iGoogle and sign in.

Now, I am using Google for blogging. I have imported all of my old blog entries from Spaces Live (http://maiios.spaces.live.com) and Live Journal (http://maiios.livejournal.com) on here.

The sad thing is that I will probably use the RSS feed that Google has for this blog in Google Reader... I don't know why. I think Google is a drug and I am addicted. But they are just SO GOOD! They even care about the environment. Damn... they had just better not turn into the next Microsoft or I will be really pissed when I have to quit my Google job and get rid of all of my google clothes and repaint my house to non Google colors.

CMS offers a few different work schedules, an 8, 9 and 10 hour day. The 9 hour work schedule is the 9 hours Monday- Thursday and then an 8 hour day every other Friday, with the other alternating Friday being a day off. The 10 hour work day allows you to work only four days a week. I am working the 9 hour work day (well... that is what I am scheduled for..) so last Friday was my extra day off. So what better way to use a three day weekend than to go to New York City. I haven't been there since 8th grade when I got to go there for spring break. Not only that, but Amaris's dad lives in New Jersey so we stayed with him over the weekend. She doesn't get to see him very often, and I had never seen him.

The city was huge, as was to be expected. We were going to go to the Statue of Liberty, but the line was seriously a quarter mile long to get on the ferry, and we still wouldn't have been able to go into the statue... just stand next to it. So we took a picture and moved on. We saw Central Park, Times Square, Broadway Avenue, the Natural History Muesum, and the Empire State Building. I can't believe how much walking we did, but it was a nice day trip. Driving back to Baltimore after NYC almost made it seem like a tame little town. Crazy.

In other news, it looks like everyone hates their summer jobs. Ben and Lucas aren't wild about what they are doing. Even Ramey who was so excited about getting his job says that he wishes he went to Egypt. I am sitting here with no work to do... I have not had anything since last Thursday. Now, it isn't terrilby bad because all of the work that they are giving me is a tad tedious, so I am instead surfing the web all day for $13 and change an hour. And I have done valuable things with that time. Besides keeping up with Slashdot, Engadget, Digg and Google's goings on, I have studied for the Cisco Certified Network Assistant certification and found a new bank account. Good stuff.

Speaking of a new bank account, I was wasting my time one day looking at my bank statement, and I realized that I was getting paid 0.1% interest on my checking account, and .05% interest on my savings account (which means that I have been getting less than $1 in interest lately). So I decided it was time to move on. I found a online bank based in Massachsetts called Salem Five [http://www.salemfive.com/] that pays 5% interest on checking and savings accounts, and they have CDs where you can pull your money any time after an initial set of time (so non of those small windows where you can access your money). So I increased my savings interest rate by 10,000% and my checking interest rate by 50,000%. Plus they don't have as many rediculously high fees like US Bank. That was a no brainer.

I finally decided to put some pictures of my adventures up here for everyone to see, but then I realized that I haven't been taking pictures. So then I decided to talk to my friendly neighborhood Luey (who reminds me of my mom) and I sifted through the billion pictures that she took for the best few. I have pictures of most of the counselors up along with some other pictures of what we have been doing. There is everything from the "No Hands Day" at dinner where we eat the whole meal without our hands, to the wedding that the kids put on for us (I don't know how I am going to tell Amaris that I am hitched now). There is even some pictures of us in testimonial paint, which is where we talk about how we came to God and use paint on our face to illustrate it (the kids love it). Oh, and I have my own mini series that we do before the bible studies called "Packman and Friends" where we do little skits to bring the kids into bible study time. So check out the pictures, and if I can get a hold of any other goods ones I will put them up too.

By the way, be praying for me because not only is it "No Hands Day" again, but it is the pinnacle of the week when we paint all of the camper's faces and get to really have a heart to heart with them as they (hopefully) open up to us. Last week rocked because one of my campers who was really quiet really opened up to me and we had a pretty cool talk. I really like that kid.

Anyway, my break is over so over and out!

I don't want to work for the government. Not only is it depressing and boring to work here, but I don't even get to play with the technology that I want. The entire government is outsourced. Maybe I will join the Navy or something cool like that... get to see the world and all that. I figure it would be cool to have a job like that before I get all settled down and boring and stuff.

Oh... speaking of not being boring, I am going to New York this weekend. And I meet Amaris's dad (wait... isn't that a step in the direction of being settled down?).

The government is unbelievable. I should be prepared for all of this since I worked for the Navy last summer and all, but I still am not. After going to dozens of meetings (most of which don't actually produce any work... just plans for more meetings), talking to lots of people and just seeing what goes on at CMS, I have figured out what we do: nothing. Right now we have four concurrent audits going on, all of which take up government resources on both ends (auditor and auditee). Basically, CMS uses 1/5 of the federal budget so lots of people want to see where the money is going, but I guess they are not doing a good job. I will tell you what we do:

1. Deal with audits. Four concurrent is a bit out of the ordinary, but there are always lots of audits of CMS. One of the audits that they are doing is checking whether select laptops are encrypted, which sounds great, but that requires all of these people to stop whatever nonwork that they are pretending to do, bring their computer downstairs and get it back a few hours later.Yeah... I don't know how they are going to check their email and CNN either.

2. Set policies for the real workers: contractors. The government setup policies that force most work to be contracted to private industry to get the best price. What they did not do was to get rid of the people who used to be doing that job. So now we have all of these contractors doing the actual work, and the government workers sitting around "managing" them. So they instead just set hundred page long policies, have meetings on them and rework them over and over again.

3. Talk.I cannot believe how much people just sit around and BS with each other. It is great for "team building", but people do it for hours. There is one guy in the cube behind me who seriously will get into conversations about anything with anyone. One second he will be talking about how much he hates the project he is on, and the next he is talking about how much he hates the 5/6 year old soccer league that he coaches.

I was always against government programs like Medicare, social security and welfare before because they make people lazy, but I did not even account for the massive amount of beurocracy that they create, and the amount of laziness on the inside they create. Amazing... and I committed to working for them. Sigh.

Hmmm... I figured that I would be updating this a little more often than once a week...

Anyway, week 2 is in the books and I still don't really have a long term project to work on. I have been in a bunch of meetings and conference calls, yet no project. Technically, I think that I am working on three projects but they are all waiting on someone else. Maybe this is a good representation of the government. But I was told that I would get some work this afternoon working on some more policy stuff. But isn't there something wrong with putting someone with little experience in security on security policy stuff?

But I think that this is going to be a great experience for me, simply because it is showing me what I *don't* wan't to do. Bascially, CMS exists to manage contractors who do all of the real work. So when I asked whether they had their own datacenter and they said yes... they did answer the question as honestly as they could. It is just that my interpretation of running a datacenter is much different from the government's idea of running... anything. From what I have seen, CMS does nothing except create a huge amount of federal buerocracy for Lockheed Martin (the contractor) to deal with and through. And that is your government at work.

The lady's house that we are staying at is a very nice house, but them lady does not take care of it. 95% of the lights are burned out and the garden would look great without all of the weeds. So I am finding that conditions like this motivate me to clean up. I guess I am a neat
freak down deep.

But when I am not working or showing my neat freak side, I have been seeing the sights. Friday I saw an Orials baseball game. It was fun, but I still don't understand what would be interesting about actually watching the game regularly. I have even been following baseball a bit because the radio stations talk about it a lot since this town has a team. So yeah... I don't get it Christine: baseball is still boring.

On Saturday, I went to a Baltimore tradition called Honfest. It was... interesting (honfest.net). I guess it is Baltimore celebrating the fact that they can't move on from the 50's. A lot of people do the beehive hairdos and wear those takcy glasses. But they had good food so I had a crabcake and a thing of fried dough. So many things that are huge over on the east coast are hardly offered at all in Idaho. That is why I am loving the east coast... atleast for a summer.

Yesterday we made a daytrip up to Gettysburg which was great. I was a little rusty on my civil war history, and I don't think I ever really studied Gettysburg atleast. It is amazing how many people died so quickly... especially since they hardly had accurite weapons and could, at best, shoot 3 times a minute. I guess warfare has really changed in the last 150 years.

So I guess this summer is going to be me taking the good with the bad. I am having a lot of fun over here, and this job is great... but it is not what I would want to do. Niether was last summer with the government either though. Maybe this scholarship wasn't as hot as I originally though.

Just kidding... yeah... it still rocks.

I figure that it is about time to update this again. It is a slow day at work, so there is no better time than the present.

Last week was my first week, and as is usually the case with internships, the person who had my assignment was out for most of the week, so I got to look around, get tours of the area, and work on some busy work (same thing happened last summer... just comes with the territory).

I did get to take a tour of the datacenter, which happens to be about 25,000 sq ft. In the center, there is a big command center with a whole bunch of big screens, lots of people all around, and CNN showing in the corner. On the right side are all of the racks of servers. Apparently, they like to switch between computer manufacturers so they have Dell, HP, Compaq (yeah, when was the last time Compaq made servers?), IBM and Sun. They have decided that Sun is the best option for them for some reason and so they are slowing moving their whole datacenter to Sun. Sun has its merits, but it is also expensive... oh wait... this is the government.

They even said that they are still running a mainframe… they need it because some of their critical applications are written in FORTRAN from the 60’s, and they will only run on something that is as old and decrepit as they are. I was told that they planned on switching them over eventually, but it is one of those “eventuallys” that is going to be shelved until the system dies and they have to scramble to get something together.

On the otherside in a room that is about as big as the command center and the server room combined is the backup room. It is a room of thousands (maybe millions) of backup tapes, and "tape silos". Eleven big grain silo sized cylinders that are about 12 feet tall that house more tapes and have a mechanisms inside to easily retrieve any tape you want.

They have other rooms like the "war room" and the "situation room", which are basically just conference rooms that are for those really bad times when the servers that serve millions of people across the US go down (but since it is the government, I guess they have to have sensationalist names incase they have to fight "the war on terror" or "the war on global warming" or "the war on ________").

One thing that I was told over and over again was that I had to try the crab around here. In my first week, I was told that about half a dozen times. So Amaris and I tried it, and I have to say that I was impressed. They bring out this platter of whole crabs and dump them on your table, and then you go at it ripping these things to shreads to get every morsel of crab meat out. I felt like I was doing dissections for science class. But the experience was fun, and very tasty. Amaris is way better at the dissecting than I am, but I guess it is good practice for her future as a surgon (as long as she doesn't start eating the meat off of her patients).

Friday we saw Pirates of the Carebean 3. I am really starting to see a pattern on these trilogies: they have the same great production values and acting that the first two did, but they lack the story that made them so popular. Spiderman 3 was the same, and I am going to guess that Shrek 3 is the same (also see Matrix 3, and ending of Lord of the Rings 3).

Saturday we went down to the Inner Harbor in Baltimore to actually get into the major city that we were living right outside of. I was pretty surprised just how much it looked like the harbor in San Diego, but I guess that shouldn't be too much of a surprise... all they have to work with is water meeting land. Do that, and hundreds of restaurants will come.

And a great site compliments of Digg... it needs no introduction: Badonkadonk Land Cruiser Tank (and make sure to read the reviews).

Time to kick off the start of the summer. This summer I am going to do something a bit different, and I am going to work for the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services-Baltimore in their datacenter group. Last summer I decided that I didn't enjoy coding very much so I have taken a different direction this summer.

Since I wanted to be able to drive myself around to all of the great places on the east coast, and because I was not completely sure about the public transportation around the place where I was going to live, I decided to drive my car out to Baltimore. It took seven days (including one non-driving day) to get to Baltimore with stops at Yellowstone, Mt Rushmore, Crazy Horse (http://www.crazyhorse.org/), a few random campgrounds that happened to be in the right places, my granny's house, and of course, Lambeau Field. Yep... I have been a Packers fan for as long as I can remember and that was the first time that I had actually been in Green Bay. I will be putting lots of pictures on Facebook so look for those soon.

But the weirdest part of my trip happened right in the middle on Wednesday. We we driving through Minnesota (made it through the whole state without stopping for gas or anything) when I got a call from the lady we were going to rent from. She told me that she wouldn't be able to rent to me because of an issue with her exhusband not wanting us to be around her kids. I guess he thought we would be a bad influence or molest them or something. She said that she would call me back to help arrange a place to stay for the summer.

Then I finally got around to checking my email (I went without internet for almost four days!) and there was an email from her sent on Monday saying that she had decided to rent out the apartment to someone else. So I was confused. I called her and she said that she would talk to her exhusband and see what she could do.

After a day, I called her and left a message. She never called back, but I did get a very angry call from her ex telling me tTime to kick off the start of the summer. This summer I am going to do something a bit different, and I am going to work for the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services-Baltimore in their datacenter group. Last summer I decided that I didn't enjoy coding very much so I have taken a different direction this summer.

Since I wanted to be able to drive myself around to all of the great places on the east coast, and because I was not completely sure about the public transportation around the place where I was going to live, I decided to drive my car out to Baltimore. It took seven days (including one non-driving day) to get to Baltimore with stops at Yellowstone, Mt Rushmore, Crazy Horse (http://www.crazyhorse.org/), a few random campgrounds that happened to be in the right places, my granny's house, and of course, Lambeau Field. Yep... I have been a Packers fan for as long as I can remember and that was the first time that I had actually been in Green Bay. I will be putting lots of pictures on Facebook so look for those soon.

But the weirdest part of my trip happened right in the middle on Wednesday. We we driving through Minnesota (made it through the whole state without stopping for gas or anything) when I got a call from the lady we were going to rent from. She told me that she wouldn't be able to rent to me because of an issue with her exhusband not wanting us to be around her kids. I guess he thought we would be a bad influence or molest them or something. She said that she would call me back to help arrange a place to stay for the summer.

Then I finally got around to checking my email (I went without internet for almost four days!) and there was an email from her sent on Monday saying that she had decided to rent out the apartment to someone else. So I was confused. I called her and she said that she would talk to her exhusband and see what she could do.

After a day, I called her and left a message. She never called back, but I did get a very angry call from her ex telling me that it would not work, to move on and to never call again. Well... that would be a great course of action if the situation were not to the point where I would be in Baltimore in two days without a place to stay.

I called her again and got busy signals, and the voice mail a few times. I started to think she was blowing me off so I called with Amaris's phone, and what do you know? I got through. But then she hung up on me. That was when I finally was sure she was really blowing me off. But I am persistent. I would not take someone throwing me out in the cold and still not answering her phone. I finally got through to her, but her ex picked up the phone and told me he was sorry about my situation but it would not work and to essentially fuck off.

That was my first experience with Baltimore... fortunately I did find a nice place to stay and I start work tomorrow. It will be a lot of fun I hope! I will try to keep this updated for everyone back home to see what I am doing out here. Ciao.
hat it would not work, to move on and to never call again. Well... that would be a great course of action if the situation were not to the point where I would be in Baltimore in two days without a place to stay.

I called her again and got busy signals, and the voice mail a few times. I started to think she was blowing me off so I called with Amaris's phone, and what do you know? I got through. But then she hung up on me. That was when I finally was sure she was really blowing me off. But I am persistent. I would not take someone throwing me out in the cold and still not answering her phone. I finally got through to her, but her ex picked up the phone and told me he was sorry about my situation but it would not work and to essentially fuck off.

That was my first experience with Baltimore... fortunately I did find a nice place to stay and I start work tomorrow. It will be a lot of fun I hope! I will try to keep this updated for everyone back home to see what I am doing out here. Ciao.

I guess I never quite finished my blog for summer 06, so here is a quick wrap up. I never did find a place to stay that night, so I just found a quite and dark residential road and slept there. Then I went to Sea World, Las Vegas (where I hooked up with Kacy), the Grand Canyon, Bryce Canyons, Zion National Park, Death Valley, Mt Whitney (highest point in the continental US), and Yosemite National Park. Saw lots of cool stuff and took lots of pictures. I don't like the picture storage here on MSN spaces so I will upload them to Facebook. Check them out.

Oh... and both of the teams whose training camps I visited went to the playoffs last year... I hope that means I am a blessing to football.