W00t w00t!

So many things have happened since my June post. July didn’t see a single day that my schedule was open and I was relaxing.

I spent most of my summer training in my 2 martial arts, my SkyWarn spotting was slim to none (calm summer, not a lot of severe weather), and then the first week of August I finally took a trip out of town.

It was nice to get away from school, and to focus time on family, and other diversions.

That will all end of course at the end of the month when school starts.

I am hoping this means more time writing my thoughts as I progress through another semester of college. 3 more of them to go before I am done, and I can start looking for work.

I miss work!

Recently one of my Twitter “reads” mentioned using a plug in for FireFox called Stylish to kill all of the spam on the right hand side of FaceBook.

If you are a frequent user of FaceBook, you know that it’s pretty annoying to constantly see a list of whatever “applications” your friends are using. (I.E.: List 5 things you hate, blah blah blah)

What Stylish is, is an add-on for FireFox that essentially modifies a websites formatting, and lays over the top of what ever site you’re viewing. So if something particular annoys you with a site, Stylish will allow you to remove the offending piece of code, thus making the site more enjoyable for your tastes.

Using Stylish for FaceBook turned off the notifications but still left other spam like the suggestions window, and other notifications.

So this is the code that stylish created for facebook:

@namespace url(http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml);

@-moz-document domain("facebook.com") {
.UIHotStream {display:none;}

}

and I added the following line to completely block/hide everything on that right side:

.UITitledBox {display:none;}

and so altogether you have:

@namespace url(http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml);

@-moz-document domain("facebook.com") {
.UIHotStream {display:none;}
.UITitledBox {display:none;}
}

I hope that my tip was helpful if you are as tired of looking at that garbage as I am. Now I am going to see what other sites I can use Stylish for because there is certainly plenty of spam/garbage out there I don’t want to look at.

I don’t know about you but for some reason I’ve had to try and get as many events as possible into such a tiny weekend.

It seems that on Friday, (which is normally a day off for me), I had massive cleaning in the house preparing for guests to arrive Saturday. Then, tryin to tweak one of my computers to dual boot (XP and Presto) I ran short on time because I this is the day I grab my daughter early from daycare.

Saturday, with guests, they helped my wife and I pack up a ton of boxes and items which needed to go to storage, then a BBQ at one of the relatives for the rest of the night.

What did I do today you ask?

Today I finished up the XML, PHP, and Java programs that needed to be turned in this week. Then I had to get my amateur radio equipment set up so that I could get onto the first SkyWarn net of the season, as well as check into the Superlink net.

So now I am packing all of my books and gear in anticipation of school tomorrow, and another schedule filled week.

In my brief leisure I also managed to get 30 dvds ripped of Arnis de Mano testing, and a 3 hour videocasting of TWiT live (which happened to be a fun show about social networking).

This semester is half way complete, but already I’m seeing a spike in assignments and projects that need my attention.

On top of that, I’m having to write several apps, dtd’s, xml, and sql files so that should any “surprise” app tests pop up, I have my programs written and ready to go.

I’ve been busy working on logic problems in java using nested for loops, writing sql scripts that create tables so I can activate them via the command line, and acting as a client for my table partner so we can create websites.

Oy Vey!

Because of that, testing in one of my martial art styles, starting my storm spotting training/programs back up, my time is stretched. Any writing at this point will be more sparse but if you follow my twitter feed (on my main site) or my facebook, you can get more instantaneous updates on my daily diversions.

Every spring I gear up and begin training once again to be a severe weather spotter for my local county where I live.

It’s not a difficult thing (if you are fascinated by severe weather) but you have to have a passion for it to want to do it.

Since 2004 I’ve participated in a very special organization of SkyWarn spotters. These people are volunteers who spend a lot of time, money, and knowledge to participating in their communities.

Since 2006 I’ve worked solely with a county organization as a committee board member, net control radio operator, and roving spotter when we needed more people in the field. It’s been a special project that I enjoy being a part of.

That leads me to today. I have 1 of 2 training sessions to attend. 1 today, 1 wednesday. I’ll be heading down to the training session @ 6am, and likely won’t be back until well after 12pm.

This is a lot of turnaround for me seeing I just got back from the cities Thursday night, worked out until 10:30p Friday night, only to get back up, and head for the cities again by 6am.

Is it worth it? Yes. 1000%. I love spring time, severe weather, and serving my community in the process.