DAN’S BLOG

Today went from OK to bad. Today was my first Lab day at microSkils. That was fine. I just have to complete at least 20 hours of Lab/study time this week. I got in 6 and a half hours today total. I left to come home at 1:00PM. After I get home I call the paperwork fettish obsessed people at the Unemployment Development Department. I wanted to see why my unemployment application was denied. The lady says that I could get benefits IF I go to school DIFFERENT hours from which I used to work. i.e. I would have to take night classes ONLY to get any MONEY! That’s just STUPID! Grrr. And I’m not switching to night classes. I can’t concentrate too well and plus I think their night classes are more crowded at MicroSkills. So, no free unemployment income for me. An hour later I get a call from a lady at the SUHSD payroll department. She informed me that my last paycheck was the result of an error. She told me I had to write a check for the full Net ammount of $1383.01 to the Sweetwater Union High School District! So now all in the same day I am denied unemployment money AND I have to give back a thousand dollars to my former employer for the mistake THEY made 10 weeks ago! They really F$#ed up IMHO! Sorry, I’m just really mad and sometimes it feels like the world is trying to rip me off. Paying for MicroSkills is gona be hard. AND I was thinking of buying a new HD for my server. Ggrrrr.

Ok peeps. Here’s the edumacation thingy TPS report. This week is my first week at MicroSkills, a technical college. They can train and certify people in 6-months to a year. I skipped the first class called First Step, and the A+ class. I jumped right into the Installing and Administering Windows XP Professional course. SO far it has been good. Each course is about 2 weeks long. Week 1 is the class, Week 2 is the LAB. Then you take the exam. Here’s some pics.

Today I went to La Jolla beach for a bon fire schindig. It was put on by a group of people from my cousins’ church. We happened to have our laptops there in Mark’s car. I took mine out to the beach area for a while and I discovered that there was Wi-Fi access on the beach. LOL. I was able to connect to the Internet and chat with people using someone’s RoadRunner Cable modem connection. There is no sand in my computer either. I know, I’m crazy. Later we went to see AVP in the theatre. It was okay I guess. It was like a sequal of Aliens and a Sequel of Preditor combined into a sort of hybrid sequel.

Monday is my first day at MicroSkills. I have no idea what to expect. I’m nervous. It’ll be alright though. I hate the long drive. And I hate paying about 17K for it. I’m basically broke now. TOTALLY broke because of the MicroSkills thing and my trip to the UK. :-/ I only hope that when it’s over I will find a really good job. (sigh)

I installed some new track lighting in my room today. Well it’s not “new” actually. It came from the kitchen, but since we’re totally ripping out the kitchen and remodeling it, I got the old lights. They work MUCH better than the dinky light on my ceiling fan!

We’re remodeling our kitchen. Can’t you see that?

You won’t believe this. I just got back from my trip to the UK and while I was in the air on my way home, cox decided to make changes to their bandwidth caps. It’s FASTER! I now get 4 Mb/s (500KB/s) Downstream and 512 Kb/s (64KB/s) Upstream! This means many of you may be getting speeds like 70KB/s off my server now instead of about 40KB/s! I am astonished COX did this. They actually did something…GOOD.

I am home now! I didn’t have any Internet access from the moment I left Dave’s house in Exmouth. It is 4:25AM here at home now. I couldn’t sleep. heh. I didn’t post anything when I got home yesterday because I was totally knackered! Later today I will post a couple pre-dated posts I wrote offline in my hotel and on the plane. So it’ll look as if I was online. It’s nice to be home. I had a wonderful time in the UK. Next year Dave and Mike MUST come to San Diego! ttyl.
—Update—
I just posted two postings below.

Obviously I am not posting this message live as usual. I will pre-date it when I post it later. I am in the air right now. We are almost over Greenland. Local time 11:38 AM at present position: 3779 Miles from LA. Altitude is 31000 feet. Speed is 617MPH. The temp is -41c outside. Brrr. Time to LA is 6 hours and 46 min remaining. It is 6:41AM in LA. I love these LCD displays on the 777’s. You always know where you are. The topographical maps are excellent too.
The hotel was better this morning. At least I didn’t have to pay for breakfast. Their continental breakfast is excellent, with bacon and stuff. My first hotel didn’t have such an elegant breakfast. I got up at 6:15AM and left the hotel on the Hoppa at 7:00ish. The Hoppa bus was quite packed today. I guess it’s the rush in the morning. When I got to the Heathrow Airport there was a moment of confusion but I soon figured everything out and I found where I was supposed to go and everything went smoothly. I didn’t have to x-ray my shoes this time like I did in LA. The worst part is the waiting. I had to wait about 3 hours for my plane to board. I was WAYY too early. It wasn’t THAT busy really. Takeoff is fun, We’ll see how landing goes. The movie selection is pretty good too. I never thought I’d see Shrek 2 on an Airplane before I saw it in the theatre. That’s all for now.