Dustin's Personal Blog

Hey there. Glad that you stopped by to check this out! I have been writing a blog off and on at my MySpace page (I've posted a few of those entries on this site), but I thought I should post a "quasi-professional" one, since all the cool kids are doing it.

I plan to post interesting tidbits of information that you will hopefully find interesting, amusing and useful.

My wife and I just bought a new washer and dryer this past weekend. They come tomorrow. I guess it's a sign of aging that I'm really looking forward to new appliances. Sheesh. While we were at Sears, Jen bought me a nice tool storage unit for Father's Day. She bought it a week early, but it was on a fantastic sale, and there was no way she was going to sneak that bad boy home and give it to me this weekend.

Business-wise, I've got quite a few things on my plate at the moment, including wrapping up the StormWood site (finally) and covering for Kelley at Webeze while she goes and enjoys herself in NYC. I'm also starting to plan a new Web-based business to compete with Google and Yahoo!, but I can't talk about that too much at this point, now can I? It's in the idea phase right now. I need to talk to some more technical people to find out if it's even feasible. Then I'll start writing up a plan, etc.

Anyway, take care!
Dustin

My buddy Zack's band Rivals played their 4th annual Halloween show on Friday night at a new venue, the Krazy Koyote in Gilroy. For the last three years the band has themed their costumes together: in 2003 they did 'The Wizard of Oz' (with former bassist Dave as a surprisingly sexy Dorothy) and in 2004 they did 'Ghostbusters' with Silly String ghostbusting guns. I was talking to Zack a couple weeks back and he brought up that they were gonna need some help for this year's theme and I said I was in. Then he told me the theme: 80's WWF wrestlers. After laughing at the visuals running through my head Zack began to list off the positions they need filled. As soon as he said 'ring announcer' I said that was what I wanted to do.

The show was a blast. After Donald (as the ref) and I took the stage, revealed the painted WWF logo on the back wall, and Joel and Kevin put up the ring ropes across the front of the stage, I launched into an animated announcement of "tonight's main event": the new bassist Tom as The Undertaker, drummer Jim as The Ultimate Warrior, guitarist Zack as Rowdy Roddy Piper, and singer Matt as Hulk Hogan.

As I said, the show was awesome. They totally rocked. I haven't been to as many Rivals shows as some; probably about 10 including their first (at which I also introduced them, although somewhat nervously as Zack likes to point out). But this show was the most fun I've had at a Rivals concert, and not just because I was a part of it. The set was tight, the music loud, the crowd was rapt. The only downer note was when the venue tried to quickly shove the band out the door after the set so that friggin' KDON could set up for some stupid hip-hop DJ party. Anyway, I got a little ornery and told anyone that would listen that they could kiss my rear and we were going to take as much time as we needed to get all of our stuff out without losing anything, and if stuff was missing they could pay for it. The manager came up to us looking for some "missing" mic stands and said the owner was breathing down her neck for them. I told her that since they forced us to move quickly, we didn't know if we had them or not and if they were still missing in the morning to call. And that the owner could come talk to me about it if he had an issue. Sometimes I get a little confrontational... =)

So today Jen went back to work for the first time since having Lucas. She was pretty sad to be leaving him and returning to work. She's been off for 6 months so it's kinda strange all around. Since I work from home and don't work a full 40 hours a week (usually more like 20-30, and I can work a lot during nights and weekends), I'm mostly functioning as his daycare. We are also having our moms come and help out. My mom is working a shifted schedule (4 10-hour days) and driving down Thursday nights to watch him all day on Fridays (and she'll drag my dad along sometimes - btw they live 2-1/2 hours away). Jen's mom will probably come watch him a couple of afternoons a week and we may go over to her place sometimes since I can bring my laptop and hook up to their internet wirelessly. I'm just glad that Lucas seems to be taking decent naps now (in fact he is napping as I type). About 2 months ago I was really worried that it was going to be total hell.

Anyway, back to trying to get some work done and playing some WoW while he's out...

One of the ways to keep a baby happy is to sing to it/him/her. It doesn't matter what you sing just that you do it in a "goofily interactive" way (parents understand). So I've got Lucas on my lap earlier while I"m on the computer and I'm singing along to whatever the hell iTunes throws out at me randomly from my 5797-song playlist. As I'm singing along to one song I realize that not all songs should be sung aloud to children... I'm singing 'Mr. Brownstone' by Guns N' Roses. It's not that it's an overtly dirty song or anything, just blatently about trying to get out of drug addiction.

Then two songs later I'm singing 'Plaster Caster' to Lucas, which a Kiss song about a chick who sleeps with famous dudes and gets plaster molds done of their genetalia.

You know, five years ago I never thought I'd have these sorts of issues, and now I'm in iTunes putting asterisks next to songs with profanity so I can sort them out of my "Kid-Friendly Playlist."

Such is life...

Okay, so that's a horrible title, but I'm a little giddy right now. My second favorite baseball team, the Astros, just made the World Series! Should be an awesome Series. They've never been to the Series before (the franchise started play in 1962 as the Colt .45's) and the other team, the White Sox, hasn't been to the Series since 1959 (and hasn't won it since 1917).

Go Astros!

So I've been a traveling dude lately, and it just continues. Two weekends ago my friend Erik and I took a road trip down to the L.A. basin to catch the NASCAR race at the California Speedway in Fontana. We tailgated all day with Mitch and Linda (my brother-in-law's brother and wife) and Coach Dave and Jonathan (family friends of the Yanoskas). My brother-in-law Jerry showed up late (as usual LOL). We tried out the trick we learned on Mythbusters to get beer really cold and keep it cold. You fill the cooler with ice, then water, then you dump a shitload of salt in and stir it up. The salt lowers the freezing point of the water and makes it like 26-28 degrees F. We drank ice-cold beer all day, and even when we left the beer out for 10-15 minutes in the 95 degree weather, the last sip would still be as cold as the first. That ruled.

This past weekend I drove up to Reno to visit my friend Amy in Reno and to go to the George Thorogood concert in Tahoe with her. She had scored us free tickets through her radio station. The concert was awesome, but the best part of the weekend was when we got back to Reno. I told Amy I felt like playing some blackjack and to see if we could find a $5 table to play. We went over to the Reno Hilton since she lives pretty close to it. There were no $5 tables so I decided to go ahead and play a $10 one instead. I threw $80 out there and played my usual conservative fashion. For the first 20 minutes or so I was going back and forth, up a little but not really on any streak. Then two things happenned at once: a new shoe of cards was dealt in, and the other peple at the table left. Usually I like to play with other people because I'm a social guy but I decided to stick with it because I was having fun (and I at least had Amy and the dealer to chat with). Well, this new shoe was HOT. It felt like I couldn't lose. I had 3 blackjacks in a row and 6 total. I won all of my splits and double-downs. When the shoe ran out, I walked away from the table with $377.50. In the span of about 45 minutes I had made $300! That was so awesome.

This next weekend I plan to stay in town, but the weekend after Erik and I are driving out to Vegas to catch some races (we have free tickets to the NASCAR Truck race and the Champ Car race). Erik's parents live out there so we'll crash at their pad.

That's it for now!
Dustin

Here we are, 8 weeks into having the new baby and things are just starting to settle down. Last week, he just started sleeping through the night, usually from like 11-6. Now that Jen is starting to get some uninterrupted sleep, she's feeling tons better too.

Speaking of the baby, that dude is long! He just broke 10 pounds last week, but he's gotta be 2 feet by now. He's gonna be a tall guy. Maybe he'll become a pitcher and win the Cy Young... ahhh, dreams. =)

General life update: I've been getting a lot of work from one company that I've been doing independent contracting with for web design, but still no "real" job. I've been sending my resume out and contacting companies, but nothing. The job market for web design still seems a little stagnant... I also probably should take some classes and update my skills a bit.

Random weekend update: Went to my Uncle Aric's 40th birthday party this past weekend up at his house in San Francisco. His "partner" Mike is an excellent cook and there was great food, some smoked beef brisket and pork shoulder. Their place is awesome, a couple million-dollar home with a view of the entire city and the Bay Bridge. It was the first time my uncle had gotten to see Lucas, and my aunt's Marjie and Claudia got their fix. My parents stayed the night, and while we were up in SF, we of course had to make a stop at Ghirardelli Square for some sundaes!

Gaming update: My brother-in-law Jerry and I play poker online through ESPN. We were both in the Sunday tournament this week, an up-to-1500-player tournament (1316 this week) that the top 50 each week go on to play in the Finals, a 400 player tournament in which the winner gets a seat in the "real" 2005 US Poker Championship in Atlantic City (ESPN pays for the airfare, hotel and the $10,000 entry fee). Anyway, it was a blast. I was bluffing my bad cards and playing my great cards well. Jerry made it to 170th which is great, but I... ended up 23rd! It was awesome, and I went out with a King Ace so I didn't feel too bad leaving when I did. The finals are August 21 so I'm looking forward to that...

Gaming update #2: Since a little before having the baby I had stopped playing World of Warcraft because I hadn't been able to play very much and was getting left behind by my friends. Well a couple of weeks ago some other friends said they had just started new characters and invited me to join them. I've been playing a little bit every day (and a lot some days... til 5a the other night) and been having a blast. Everyone should play this game! At last check there were 2 million people playing...

Coooool: We had air conditioning installed a couple of weeks ago... so awesome. It's like TiVo, can't remember how you could live without it.

That's all for now!