Below are the 20 most recent journal entries recorded in WhiteFox's LiveJournal:

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Thursday, July 2nd, 2009
12:51 pm	Here we go again Tonight I pack for Boscobel Wi.  I'll be leaving at 9:00am tomorrow morning to arrive at around 1:00-1:30pm.  I still feel like I just got back from Fond-du-lac. I have a lot of fond memories from Boscobel last year, we'll see if this year can live up to it. (Comment on this)
Tuesday, June 30th, 2009
2:50 pm	Fireworks Pictures Many wonderful pictures of the fireworks I worked on this weekend can be seen here:  http://galleries.whitefoxden.org/main.php?g2_itemId=29 (Comment on this)
Monday, June 29th, 2009
9:45 am	Weekend Summary Friday night:  Drove to my parents place, setup a wireless router to work with their new DSL line, went to bed at around 1am Saturday:  Got up around 9am and went to the Hollywood facility (since mom and dad were planning on sleeping in).  Helped them get on their way to the Pine City shoot and then went back to my parent's place.  Purchased a cell phone for mom, showed dad what a fireworks shoot site is like, and enjoyed the fun of the Pine City Freedom Fest before wanting some great fireworks. Sunday:  Left for the Hollywood facility at 6am.  Left the facility at 8am to go to Fond-du-lac reservation to setup that display.  Display setup went at a decent speed, then we had several hour of hang-out time before the shoot.  Shoot went off great, and the display was amazing.  Did clean up then drove back to Minneapolis, got to bed at 2:30am. Monday:  Got up and went to work at 8am.  Now I'm at work and feel like a zombie. EDIT: If anyone of you are considering large-scaly pyrotechnic displays as a hobby/profession, DON'T there are levels of physical exhaustion that humans are not meant to reach. (Comment on this)
Friday, June 26th, 2009
10:20 am	Weird Night I was feeling particularly tired last night, so I went to bed early (around 10pm, normally I go to bed at midnight).  Since I went to bed early I woke up early, the problem was early was around 4:30am...   So after getting something to drink I went back to bed.  I had a terrible time falling back to sleep, and spent a long time laying awake and tossing and turning....   Then all of a sudden I woke up and it was 7am.  I have no memory of finally falling back asleep (I usually do remember a minute or two of drifting off), and I have no memories of dreaming during that time.  From my point of view, one moment I was trying to fall back to sleep, the next I was waking of from sleeping for an hour or two.  The experience left me feeling rather uneasy. Current Mood: listless (Comment on this)
Tuesday, June 16th, 2009
2:59 pm	Let the fireworks begin So, with fireworks shoots every weekend for the next 5 weeks, it'll be a busy time for me.  In preparation I've made up two separate packing lists, one being a basic over-night bag with 2 days worth of cloths and personal care stuff.  The other being all the pyro-related tools and gear I might need.  The idea being the pryo-tools can just stay in the bag from weekend to weekend, and the over-night bag can go straight to the basement for washing after each weekend. I'm really excited to switch from all the prep work to the actual setup and firing of the shows :) Current Mood: excited (Comment on this)
Friday, June 12th, 2009
2:11 pm	bing.com I am the only one creeped out by the whole "Decision Engine" advertising campaign for bing.com?  I mean seriously, who if they thought about it would really want to let a web site do their thinking for them?  And who in their right mind would ever want Microsoft to make their decisions for them? (Comment on this)
Friday, May 29th, 2009
11:51 pm	I am done with nights In 10 minutes my last shift as the night support person will be over :) (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Tuesday, May 26th, 2009
7:12 pm	Yes & No meme ( Read more... ) (Comment on this)
5:27 pm	Fun weekend Saturday I went up to Pine City to help build racks at Hollywood Pyro again.  I was there from around 2pm to around 10:30pm.  We got a lot done, had a nice stake dinner, then roasted marshmallows over a camp fire.  Of course it was also more physical work than I've done in many months, and has resulted in me being all kinds of stiff and sore. Sunday we went to the National Eagle Center.  We didn't actually manage to see any eagles in the wild, but seeing them close up at the center was really neat.  You could get as close as you wanted so long as you didn't touch them.  Personally I like having fingers, so touching them was not something I even considered.  We also got to watch one eat.  It ate a medium sized rat, and it was just as gross as you can imagine.  Especially when it swallowed the rat-tail whole.  Eagles are not neat eaters... Monday we rested for the most part.  I worked on some pyro related stuff, getting stuff ready so when I go to my parent's next I'll be able to makes some cool stuff.  But for the most part I tried to take it easy. (Comment on this)
Saturday, May 9th, 2009
11:45 pm	Fireworks Training This years training was a different experience. I spent most of the time during the in-class portion talking to people I've met last year. Of course this had the negitive effect that I missed 5 questions on the test this year as opposed to the 2 questions I missed last year. I was also quite happy that I was able to be helpful during the live fire exercise. I was able to offer suggestions and safety advice as well as show some people the right way to do some things. I also managed to help put out several small grass fires, but everyone was involved in that. The hand firing was fun also. It's an experience that you pretty much have to do to understand. I tried to explain to one of the other people there that you can't really compare setting off display fireworks to the comercial fireworks that anyone can buy in Winsconsin, but of course he didn't really believe me until he tried it himself. Along with catching up with people I'd met and worked with last year I also met some new people, including a couple people that I might be able to get involved in playing airsoft. (Comment on this)
Thursday, May 7th, 2009
10:54 pm	"You keep using that word, I don't think it means what you think it means." "Unlimited data usage" So part of the plan for my Blackberry is that on top of paying for the cell phone usage I pay $29.99 a month for the Blackberry data plan which is supposed to give me "Unlimited data usage". Of course "Unlimited" does not include text messages, emails, or linking my phone to my computer to access the internet, all those things cost extra. They really need to look up the definition of the word "unlimited" I will be buying a new phone shortly and getting rid of this extra $30 a month that really doesn't get me much at all. (Comment on this)
Wednesday, May 6th, 2009
5:25 pm	Fun with Dieting So most of you know me well enough to know I'll never really be able to take being on a diet too seriously.  However lately I've started taking little steps to try to loose some weight.  Without making a "plan" or anything, I'm trying to change my eating habits so that I'm consuming less fat and calories.  Eating salads for lunch, and  I've started snaking on those little cut up carrots you buy in bags since I've always loved raw carrots any ways, and it's a lot better than snacking on potato chips. The problem is that I've recently found my body doesn't like eating significant quantities of vegetables at one time.  Any time I eat a salad, or some of my carrots or what ever I end up with an upset tummy.  I'm going to try combining my veritable intake with a cup of chamomile tea and see if that helps. Current Mood: blah (3 Comments |Comment on this)
Monday, May 4th, 2009
9:58 pm	Feeling icky Like eternallion, I seriously doubt I have the "swine flu" (why on Earth do they give these things names knowing that naming it will cause a panic?).  But I've been feeling icky for days.  My biggest issues are near constant sinus pain and fatigue.  I really want to go home from work right now and sleep, but I have 2 hours to go. (2 Comments |Comment on this)
9:12 pm	Suspicians Confirmed: Last year in this post: http://whitefox77.livejournal.com/265524.html I speculated that the reason the one family in Hugo last year had so many injuries compared to their neighbors was because they didn't take proper shelter. This year in storm spotter training that was confirmed. The family heard the sirens go off, but assumed it was just another false warning and ignored them. Minutes later their home was destroyed by a tornado. I can't begin to imagine what these parents are still going threw. Another family, just two houses away, took shelter under their basement steps. Although their house was also destroyed (the second floor was ripped apart and the whole house shifted several feet off it's foundation), the family suffered no injuries. So please, if you hear the siren, or realize you are in an area with an active tornado warning, please take shelter. Also keep in mind that this year in MN a new program is going into place to "tighten up" the areas effected by tornado warnings. This means that if the sirens go off, it isn't for the other side of the city/county any more, the sirens will only go off where severe weather is likely. (Comment on this)
Sunday, April 5th, 2009
1:56 am	The Family Man Tomorrow I embark on the 370 mile trip to Sleepy Hollow IL (I'll let you know if I meet the headless horseman). The purpose, to take the family to visit the in-laws. It also means time away from the stress of work, and a week of not having to be the only one to watch and take care of ST. (Comment on this)
Tuesday, March 24th, 2009
4:08 pm	It's dead Jim The hard drive of my notebook died :( But was 100% covered by my Dell extended warranty (note: the warranty has more than paid for it's self with this one repair). Not only that, my old drive was 80Gb, the replacement they sent me is 120Gb. A 50% upgrade for free :) (Comment on this)
Tuesday, March 17th, 2009
8:22 pm	Ah... Memories (2 Comments |Comment on this)
Tuesday, March 3rd, 2009
12:07 am	Amused: Mythbusters Fire Starting "myths" I just watched a Mythbusters episode where they did different "myths" on starting fires.  There were silly things like an "ice lens".  But there were some pretty normal things like a fire bow, and the flashlight/steel-wool trick that you can find dozens of you-tube videos of.  What was really amusing was how hard a time they had starting a fire using traditional methods that have been successfully used for thousands of years (such as the previously mentioned fire bow). (Comment on this)
Monday, February 9th, 2009
4:55 pm	More Web Site Woes So, the switch from EasyCGI to OCC Hosting is still under way.  WhiteFoxDen.net is at least up, even if many aspects of the site still aren't working properly.  The real important thing is that WhiteFoxDen.net email is working properly.  WhiteFoxDen.com is 100% down.  I've had numerous problems getting the domain properly transfered. One of the recent problems I've experiences is that the databases I had on the OCC system have suffered corruption.  What's worse is that it happened long enough ago that OCC no longer has good backups.  The biggest effect this has is on the photo galleries.  Those databases stored all the information for my various photo galleries, and now I have to rebuild those galleries from scratch.  From now on I think I'll keep my own backups (like they said I should from the beginning). (3 Comments |Comment on this)
4:27 pm	School open house So they had a sort of open house at Little-Bit's school today.  Parents were invited to come in and visit the class room, talk to the teachers, and meet other parents and students. Normally I enjoy these things about as much as a whole in the head, but this one was a bit different.  There were some parents there with a child a little younger than Anthony, and I was actually comfortable talking to them.  Of course they weren't your average parents.  The woman was dressed in all black with short black hair, fair skin, was wearing a pentacle, and had very nice cleavage (in general I found her quite attractive).  She does web development to boot.  The man was dressed mostly in black , has a ring in his lower lip, does "tasteful nude photography" and has been playing with computers since the Commodore 64 was "it".  My kind of people :) Aside from other idle chit chat (which went the range of topics from nude photography to science fiction conventions), I spoke with them about some of the trickier aspects of raising a child with developmental difficulties.  It's nice to hear other parents views on things such as tendencies towards violence, and the use of baby gates with kids big enough to climb over them. Over all it was very nice to talk with parents I felt comfortable around who have had a lot of the same experiences / difficulties.  Unfortunately strawberry_tart was not feeling social, and didn't really interact with them at all. (Comment on this)