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I used to be a pretty outdoorish person. I was heavily into sports, fishing, etc. Nowadays I spend most of my time indoors dealing with computer related stuff. I don’t really enjoy the outdoors as much as I used to.

Recently I was invited to go camping with some friends. I had mixed feelings about going. One one side I knew the people I was going with and it’s pretty damn near impossible not to have fun with them. But on the other side it’s July in Mississippi and it’s HOT!. I don’t handle heat very well anymore. But seeing as I really liked hanging out with the people going I decided I could take the heat. I left the day after I got back from the ARC Trip so I was a little beat down to begin with. It takes almost 2 hours to get where I was going to meet them. I got a late start and after we went and got some dinner, so we got to the campsite right at dark.

It was a nice area as far as camping goes. Nice sandy beach. Protection from the rain if needed. And right on a creek/small river. By the time I set up the tents I was soaked in sweat and the bugs were out in force. Though I was covered in spray to protect me from the bites it didn’t stop them from landing on me constantly. After awhile the heat became at least bearable. We talked a little and laughed a lot like we always do. Soon we decided it was bedtime so we climbed into the tents we we wasted a lot of time and energy trying to Mcguyver a ceiling fan. The air mattresses didn’t hold their air so soon we were feeling all the lumpy sand beneath us. I knew I was in for a long night but at least i was in good company.

Next thing I heard was a fart coming from the other tent, followed by the cries of laura to be let out. We all got back up and laughed about what happened while adam continued to wallow in the funk he produced. Soon after that we decided to call a halt to the camping trip. We packed up and headed back to a nice air conditioned home to get some sleep.

While the camping wasn’t really all that great I did have fun with who I was with like i always do. Under a few different circumstances, even the camping could have been fun. Hopefully next time it will not be so hot.. I’m voting cabin lol.

Like most of these trips my blog posts can not do them justice. It’s one of those you just had to be there things. I’m glad I was there.

Here are some pictures for a recent converence I attended.

OurArtworks Members

Eagle Ridge Conference Center

just me

Banjos

Last weekend I took a trip to Lousiana. We were going to visit a friend near New Orleans. According to google maps the trip was going to take around 6 hours. We left out around 8 am saturday and headed south. Although i was a bit cramped we had a good time on the way down. You wouldn’t believe how much fun can be derived from a small fake titty.

Before I talk about this next part of the trip let me say I am not a fan of bridges. Very high and long bridges increase my pucker factor to about 50 psi. As we got closer to New Orleans the road turned into a bridge. Unless you have been on this bridge words can not do it justice. It was like a never ending bridge. But all things considered it wasn’t that bad as the bridge wasn’t very high and the scenery was pretty interesting. I saw communities built on the water. From what I could see it appeared these people made a life there on the lake/swamp. Small houses with boats as their only transportation. I was thinking it would be kind of cool to go and spend some time with these people and see just how they lived. As we trekked across the bridge it soon began to rain. Now when I say rain I am not talking about a gentle rain. I am referring to monsoon type rain. Traffic slowed to a crawl with visablity very very limited. Now my bridge anxiety started to kick in. It could be because of my military training, but whenever I am in a bad or potentially bad situation, I run scenios in my head on what I would have to do if things go really bad. I think it was made worse by the fact that i was not driving and I not big on situations that aren’t more in my control. At that moment I renamed Lake Pontratrain to Lake Bullshit.

All I can say is the person in charge of designing the bridge system in Louisiana must be on crack. We finally got to an area were there was land under the bridges and soon the bridge turned back into road. Where we were going wasn’t a very large place. In fact it was a very small town. None of us had been there so we were relying on the map to get us there. The rain really didn’t help matters. Now I must say I am not used to going down winding roads with swamp 2 feet off each side of the road. The alters to dead drivers along side of the roadway wasn’t helping either. I swear one of them was inspired by voodoo. We finally get to the Street ( and i use that term very lightly ) we were looking for.

Bill’s bar ( heh bill ). Picture this. A country bar full of canjuns wearing Hawaiian shirts and grass skirts, playing the beach boys. I FREAKIN LOVED IT. The bartender was the brother of our friend and was a very nice guy. I enjoyed listening to the people talk. It ended all too soon.

Unfortunately we had to head back home early. Now it could have been from eating a lot of junk food from truck stops or maybe the beer but my stomach was not happy. Once again i was in a cramped space going down the road but this time that was the least of my worries. I was doing my best not to crop dust the people I was with. I managed, through super intestinal fortitude, to stay in control until we got to a place were i could take the browns to the superbowl. Note for future trips: pack some snacks for self. It took 3 days to return to normal operational status.

Overall it was a fun trip. It would be hard not to have a good time with the people I was with.

I’m going to end this with some things that will make no sense to anyone other than the people that were with me.

Transvestite, Twins, Voodoo Squirrel, Fake Titty, Lake Bullshit.

I have been doing a ton of work on techgear007.net lately. I am pretty proud of some of the things i have accomplished with the site. I feel it is the best it has ever been as far as functionality. I wish I could find a better niche for the site. It’s a real shame that it’s not utilized more than it is. My hope is to turn the site into a more community based resource site. I still plan to keep the chat stuff as a lot of people still expect to find it there. I want to take more of a behind the scenes role and let the people that are interested take more of the day to day forum stuff. I have a hard time trusting people to give them total access so instead i try to build things for them to use that will allow them to more easily do what they need to but at the same time ensuring the security of the site. Maybe I haven’t developed the friendships and contacts that I should to help the site grow. I tend to keep to myself. A precious few people know much about me online. Most of the people I talk with either want my opinion or help on something. My personal life doesn’t get discussed. I guess I could go out and kiss ass and give everyone staff positions on tg but that’s not what I want the site to be about. I like to watch and reward the people that provide a service to tg. I’ve said before I do not really ask people if they want a position. I sort of appoint them. I think that came from the old msn days when I went to the extreme team forum one day and noticed JJ had added me to the team. It was a pretty good feeling and I do the same in hopes that it gives others that same feeling. It’s really kewl to be acknowledged for what you do when you aren’t expecting to.

As for some of the coding I realized that I still have a lot to learn about securing things such as php forms. There are so many things you have to watch out for. Some security based and some functionality based. Fortunately for me the people that work on php provide functions to help with most of it. Many times it’s hard to look at something from a newbies view. I build something based on how i would use it and then find out it will mess up if it’s not done correctly. So then i have to go back and make it as idiot proof as possible. Then I have to secure it from the people that know more than I do lol. It’s really tough to do sometimes. But I am not easily defeated. Very rarely have I run into something I couldn’t do. I am pretty relentless when it comes to that sort of thing. Another very rare occurrence is me asking for help. The joy I get out of coding is figuring it out for myself. I am proud of tg and I think it’s really awesome that it has put me into contact with so many people.  I’ve watched a lot of users actual grow up using the site. Fresh faced teens now heading off to college. While there are other sites out there that do what tg does I don’t think any of them have the history or the reputation of tg. I know I am very biased but I think tg provided a lot of people not only a place to get help but a community to share with their peers. Regardless of how many people use the site now or in the future tg has been a very good life experience for me and many others.