Ramblings From Justin Penney

I picked up a fretless Jazz Bass last weekend. It's got a little dmagage (easily repairable) and I got a really good deal on it at the Musicians Friend clearance center. I haven't played a fretless since the Yamaha I had in high school. It took a bit to get my intonation back in but it's pretty much there now.

I had picked up We Sold Our Soul For Rock and Roll by Black Sabbath a couple weeks ago. I've been rocking out to that playing along. When I had my old Yamaha Jon Stubblefield would just jam out on Sabbath song. I know Geezer wasn't playing a fretless but it sounds like he should have.

I've actually been playing to a lot of records lately. I had lost some of this the last few years. It's really good practice and an overall enjoyable time to just slap on an album you love and struggle to keep up. If nothing else trying to play to a different style is hard work and keeps you your toes.

# posted by Justin @ 11:24 PM 0 Comments Links to this post

So I'm nursing a Bully! Porter. After a week of being sick and a week on antibiotics this is a nice change.

# posted by Justin @ 11:19 PM 0 Comments Links to this post

Sucks! It's been a week of feeling like crap but I'm mostly back to normal again. Or at least the closest approximation of normal that I can do. I didn't really feel much like writing during the last week because of this.

# posted by Justin @ 5:24 PM 0 Comments Links to this post

I love eMusic. I signed up originally when they had the "unlimited" account. I really didn't take as much advantage of that when I should have and cancelled after they got bought. I went back a few months ago and it's now the best $20/month that I spend. I get 90 song downloads of legal mp3s. Just plain mp3s. You can copy 'em. Burn 'em. Do whatever because there is no stupid DRM crap that everyone defeats anyway.

I do all my "work" work on Linux and when I was originally shopping they were the only music store that supported Linux. They still have the client but you have to hack a little to get it to work. Some people find some older libc files but I just install tinyproxy to get around the connectino probelm with recent libc versions... anyway. I'm happy.

So they recently added a bunch of stuff from Deep Elm. It's been good to get some stuff I'd been meaning to buy anyway. Black Phantom Crusades by Red Animal War is so good. I've had a couple songs on a sampler and man... this whole album is awesome. I'm at the moment downloading Dance a While, Upset by Settle fish. I also got Civil Wars by David Singer & the Sweet Science. I wasn't disappointed in Civil Wars but I really expected every song to hit me like "I Will Come Back From the War." They didn't still a good album.

I've been litening to the Matt Skiba/Kevin Seconds Split EP a lot lately. The Matt Skiba songs are just amazing! They are so direct but interesting. The dark subjects set to mostly happy sounding songs really does it for me. That's the major reason I like Good Mourning by Alkaline Trio so much... how could you not like pop-esque songs about serial killers and alcoholism?!?

I'm listening to Control by Pedro the Lion right now. Why don't I hear more people talk about them (him). Damn. I got interested after Achille's Heel came out and I went to their site and they had relatively detailed recording notes up. After reading about the creation I had to get it. I love that album. The songs are so catchy but dark. The content is amazingly versatile and accessible considering that they are considered a Christian band. Most christian band lyrics don't really resonate with me very well but the imagery... or empathy... that these songs make you feel is amazing.

I've spent the last week without a reasonable way to listen to music. I had a DVD full of mp3s but the DVD on the laptop I was using was broke and the laptop speakers were crap anyway. When I was in the machine room last week I was singing constantly. I'm fighting sleep now just so I can stay up listening to music!

# posted by Justin @ 2:09 AM 0 Comments Links to this post

Finally! Oh man... it feels like forever. I hung out with my wife. Got excited. Played Guitar. Played bass. Quietly played a little drums. LISTENED TO MUSIC! Ahhh... relief.

I'll finish out the week posting about food... since all I did was work and eat anyway...

Last night we went to this mexican place with two of the students in the lab and on the way there passed this pizza place that smelled awesome. We went back for lunch today. Ok... so we go in and are immediately confused, to our right is a doorman and in front of us is a menu board and a cashier. We ask for a table for two and he tells us to step up to the counter and order. The girl at the counter asked Kyle where we were sitting and he said that the guy just told him to get in line. She huffed a little and took our order.

This is like yuppie-ville and it's so weird. They are full service after ordering. What the hell? Pick one, be a deli or a restaraunt. So we place our orders and sit down. Server #1 comes up and tells us that he along with two others will be our servers. I knew right then that was not a good idead. Jacey and I once ended up having two servers at Olive Garden. After we got served our drinks twice the two servers actually started fighting in front of the table. Anyway, so I had an immediate bad feeling.

I should mention that there were two women that got seated beside us about two to three minutes after we were seated. So we get our drinks and watch the two women get there pizza. It smells amazing! My stomach is doing cartwheels at this point. So we wait... and wait... and wait. Then server #1 comes up and asks us how our food was! We sternly mention that we haven't been served yet. He gives us a funny look and says, "Ok." and runs off. After the women next door are done server #2 finally brings our food. Kyle's calzone is burnt. She makes mention of it and that they'll make him another one if he'd like. Kyle snaps at her a little saying, "It's taken too long already." #2 recoils a little and goes on.

At this point I REALLY wanted to hate the food. I mean REALLY bad. Unfortunately(?) it was one of the best things I've had recently. I had a vegetarian lasgna. It was made with mozzarella and goat cheese. The mix took the edge off of the goat cheese. The main filling was spinach and with the copious amounts of garlic was just amazing.

So we're two to three bites into the meal and the doorman comes and asks us how we're doing. Kyle lets him have it, "This was burnt."

"We'll make you a new one if you'd like"

"It's already taken too long," Kyle points at the women next to us with their empty plates and drinks and vibrant conversation, "They got here after us and we just got our food. The service has been very slow."

Doorman brings us back some business card that he wrote on giving us a free entreé each.

Kyle finishes his meal and I'm a few bites from done. His Coke is empty and #1 comes up and asks if he wants a refill. Kyle told him no since we were leaving right after I was done. 10 seconds... #2 comes to ask about the refill. A slightly more frustrated Kyle declines again. Amazingly... 10 seconds later #3 comes up. Kyle snaps a quick, "No Thanks!" After having no attention at all paid to us after everyone got in trouble we got bombarded in a stupid way that would not have happened had there just been one server to a table.

The food was so good that I might go back next time...

# posted by Justin @ 1:44 AM 0 Comments Links to this post

Today was a day. I hate not having a car. I'd like to get out on my own a little.

I had Lebanese foor for the first time today. We went to a place called Saleem's. They had really good hummus. It's a little different then most hummuses that I've had. Much more garlicy and citrusy.

# posted by Justin @ 10:38 PM 0 Comments Links to this post

Today was hopefully the last physical day. I'm really sore from moving computers around.

I can't figure out how hotels make their breakfast food so bland. That's some work! I've decided that I do not like hard bagels, it's only soft bagels for me. Maybe I'm too midwestern but that's what I like.

We got a good walk arount campus here while looking for lunch. This place is beautiful! All the building look like cathedrals or castles. There is a giant green space in the center of campus. Very vibrant with a lot of activity.

So we got back down to work in the afternoon. We finished off remounting 4 racks full of copmuters and rewiring them. Some of the racks were pretty shoddy and a lot of the mounting rails are piles of crap! This truly is like one of those remodel shows on cable.

Our hotel is in the most culturaly devoid part of Saint Louis. We're in a very businessy part of town with a lot of office for large companies. There are also more hotels then I have ever seenin one area. There are however almost not restraunts except for a Hooters. We did find some places (namely a Denny's) but it's not an obvious way to go to look for food.

# posted by Justin @ 10:53 PM 0 Comments Links to this post

The day started early. Got up at 6:30 and finished getting packed. Got my clothes and guitar togther. Finished the DVD full of music I started last night and ate some breakfast (a bowl of Cheerios and a little of my left overs from Garozzo's). I spent the rest of the morning hanging out with Jacey.

Kyle picked me up at 8:30. We're heading out to clean up and start administrating a cluster that had beenpurchased from usover the past 3 years. This cluster had been expanded by 4 to 10 nodes at a time fairly frequently.

The drive was pretty uneventful except for Kyle's sunroof having and air leak. He's got an Xterra so we jammed some folded cardboard under the cargo basket and it held the sunroof down so we could actually hear. We rolled into St. Louis at 12:10 p.m., which was just when "Wait, Wait Don't Tell Me" was starting. On KCUR, the KC NPR station, it's on at 7:00 p.m. on Saturday night and Jacey and I are nearly always doing something else and we never catch it. Today was just a frustrating continuation of that.

I love the drive up Skinker going towards Washington University. Much to Jacey's displeasure I like to look at pretty girls and there are always pretty girls jogging, walking, inline skating, biking... In a more non-testosterone driven way, it's just nice to see people out of their houses doing things.

The computer room that we are working on is awful. We started by setting some small goals because we have a huge task ahead of us. We were meeting the goals and it wasn't going too bad. We got to a good point and went to lunch.

We drove down the road to Del Taco. Last time I was in STL I wanted to go but we never quite made it. The Riverfront Times had named them as having the best fries in town so I made a point to go there today. The fries were pretty good. Not the best I've had but pretty darn good anyway. The food is pretty good overall. I'd pick Taco John's over Del Taco, but just slightly.

After lunch everything just got worse. We had to fish a bunch of power out of the raised floor. We had pretty much every tile that didn't have something onit up so we could drag the junction boxes around to where we wanted to put the racks. After we got that done we finalised the attack on the rearrangment of the machines in the rack.

All of the machines are numbered. They were not put in the racks in any kind of order. Almost all of the mounting rails were put in incorrectly as well. We got one rack completely disassembled and went to dinner.

We ended up at St. Louis Bread Company (Panera everywhere else). I really disliked Panera the first time I had it and now I've eaten it twice in less than a week. I'm aquiring a taste. It also doesn't seem as expensive as it first did. So this was down in "The Loop" which is an area I love. On the walk from campus we passed a party in a back yard, people were out eating, hanging out, talking and just watching the people go by. There were a bunch of chess games going on in the outside eating area at STL Bread, like serious games where the people hda timers. We were watching this one table of teenagers and they were just flying through these games of chess when this little kid is next up for the table. He's probably between 8 and 10 and wins 2 or 3 games in a row. It was really amazing to see a prodigy like that at work.

Once we were stuffed with bread and soup we haeded back and started reassembly. We got part way through and realised we were going to have to change the mounts on each machine as well as the ones in the rack. The batteries in all of our drills died and we called it a night.

Our hotel is a two bedroom apartment that ended up being nowhere near the college. Not horribly convenient but we'll deal. When we were checking in there was an uncomfortable moment when the clerk said, "Are you guys staying together." It just had a weird feel to it so I went and sat down in the lobby. The people around the hotel are weird! The first people I see are hanging out in and around a truck smoking a joint. We took our bags in after passing some older guys that looked at us very strangely and went to a conveniece store. When we got back the few people around the truck had become like 12 people hanging out in front of our apartment. It's really noisy.

# posted by Justin @ 11:21 PM 0 Comments Links to this post

I finally saw Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. Pretty good. The plot was pretty easy to spot early on so some parts in the middle were a little daunting, I really hate movies with a series of easily avoidable misfortunes (see anything with Ben Stiller in it).

Also watched Garden State a few weeks ago. It was good. Tired plot, guy meets crazy girl has a revelation, but neat. The scenes where he's detoxing from the medications felt accurate.

Watched The Terminal as well. Cute. easily avoidable misfortunes. Cute.

# posted by Justin @ 10:53 PM 1 Comments Links to this post