That’s it! I can only handle this beautiful scenery for just so long. This room is getting to me. There’s zero character to it. So I’ve come to the conclusion that OMG I GOTTA PUT SOMETHING ON THE WALLS! Off to thinkgeek.com I go, but something tells me administration wouldn’t be too keen on this hanging on our wall:

Or, even better, my personal favorite:

No, they definitely won’t like that at all. Gah, no go on the walls for right now. But wait! Music! Ahh yes, nothing like music to add some pizazz! I see the younger drones around the offices that drill away at paperwork all day with small radios & headphones. I know I can get away with that!But how? Off to Google I go!

I found this project called Vibe Streamer. It’s surprisingly slick and easy to use for a free project. Just install the program and let it run in your system tray. Forward the port (default is 8081), and voila! You can stream your music from any internet connection on Internet Explorer, Mozilla, and Opera browsers.

It works wonderfully. You can manager an unlimited number of users & groups. You can cap the bitrate for any specific user or group. You can even lock it down by IP address. The web interface is nice and simple. It could use a few more features, like adding multiple songs to the playlist at once. There might be a way to do this. If there is, then it isn’t obvious enough.

I’ve still got some more playing around to do with it, but at first glance it’s a great package. It certainly looks a lot better than something like Andromeda. Hopefully they’ll develop a linux based version in the future!

So I’ve recently come to the conclusion that I like children. I’m not just saying that because I’ve accepted the fact that I’m going to have one very soon, and I’m not meaning it in a weird father-of-15-home-schooled-kids kind of way. Little people are just so freakin’ funny. Now, I don’t mean that to offend anyone. I’m talkin about the kiddies here, folks.

As I was walking in the house after work yesterday evening Jen greeted me with the always wonderful hug and kiss. But the thing she said next was what broke from the routine.

“Garrison named our baby for us!”

This wouldn’t be terribly big news if, for instance, Garrison was somehow involved in the parenting of the baby, rather than being only 5 years older than the baby. Garrison is our 4 year old nephew, not Jen’s baby daddy. Now, in case you’re not familiar with family traditions, the name of a newborn is generally picked by the baby’s mother and father, not the mother and her nephew. I was sure that hilarity would follow.

“If it’s a girl, Booger Friday.”

What a whopper it was. Booger Friday. Wow. I love kids.

On a side note, Booger Friday is undoubtedly a boy’s name. What was he thinking? I mean, c’mon, the kid’s initials would be BFG. Of course, either way, any offspring of mine is going to dominate with the knife.

Early last week I got a call from Revis, my brother-in-law, asking if I wanted to hit the river this weekend and do some kayaking. “Sure,” I thought, “what’s the harm in that.”

I now know the harm in that. This isn’t actually a real lobster, it’s a real life picture of me:

Ok ok, I’m just joshin ya. It’s not quite a real life picture of me, because my arms don’t look like claws. In fact, they’re not even at their typical status of guns. They’re about as good as noodles right now.

Seth’s fact o’ the day: There is jack diddly squat on the Red River between Plain Dealing and Cash Point Landing. Nothing. nada. I think I heard a cow once, but that’s about it. Or maybe I was delirious by then. Wait wait wait, I do remember one thing being quite plentiful between those two points: miles. Lots and lots of ‘em. Something like 35 of them according to the GPS.

It’s been at least a few years since I’ve done any kayaking/canoeing or, well, anything even remotely active, for that matter. My body is reminding me of that right now.

As I’ve said multiple times since the weekend: I think if it had been about 30 miles, I would’ve been peachy keen. Thirty-five, though, put me through the ringer. Those last few were Satan’s territory.
All in all, though, I highly recommend kayaking the Red River. Maybe not that particular section, but somewhere. I had a terrible opinion of the Red having green slime flowing through it w/ three-eyed fish swimming in it, but it was surprisingly nice on the northern end. It could definitely use some rain, though. Too many shallow points. I think I was more familiar with the handle on the front of my kayak than the inside of it.