Jake’s Life

Picking Gammy up from the airport.

We woke up at 4 a.m. and couldn’t sleep so we went for breakfast.

Complete hottie at Target playing a video game.

From the significant other…I’m still pissy that I’m not working tonight.

Although it may be a bit late to showcase Windows Mobile 6 which came out earlier this year, it’s still great that they’ve done this. It’s geared toward mobile business users but also shows some of the strongest points of the Windows Mobile OS. If you’re looking into a mobile device or just like nicely done Flash sites, check it out.

I have longed for a solid, convenient, and mobile way of tracking my finances for a long time. When it comes to finances, right now I keep receipts, check my online banking daily, and keep track of things in my head. While I haven’t overdrafted my account in a long time I still feel as though my finances are scattered and need to be more tightly tracked.

I need a solution that I can track on my computer, on my Pocket PC, quickly and easily. I need to keep track of my account balance, bills, and pending transactions. With these needs a Web 2.0 solution makes sense but I have yet to find one that has everything I need. Mint accesses your bank account information for you and displays your bills, spending, and balances all in one spot but has no mobile version. Moneytrackin’ has a great service which allows you to track your account balances and provides a mobile version, but won’t let you track bills (it does let you enter transactions to be made periodically, for example a bill which is set up to auto-withdrawal, but the service enters it into your account on the day you specify instead of reminding you about it ahead of time).

One desktop financial app I like is MS Money Essentials, but it cannot export files (to be transferred to a mobile device for instance). I have tried MS Money Plus and it’s too involved, way more than I need. Quicken is nice, but the GUI is nasty looking and some tasks are way more complicated than they need to be.

How do you track your money?

Readability of a blog or other web site is what I believe to be the main way to keep readers, aside from content of course. Pro Blog Design has listed 30 things you can do now to increase readability of your blog, including underlining your links (and saving underlines for them only), posting pictures at the beginning of the post (pictures help grab attention to the post, so why do it any other place), and restyling the CSS of your theme to make owner comments stand out.

Something else I want to bring up, which is also found in this article, is the wall of text. That is, a huge block of text in one paragraph with no life, soul, or end in sight. Truthfully, this is the only thing I can think of that would make me skip reading the post. I use Google Reader to catch up on all of the blogs I read, and when I expand that post to find one huge block of text I don’t even bother.

[30 Ways to Improve Readability via Pro Blog Design]

No, this isn’t a post about my genealogy.

Do you ever have a video or computer game that is not the latest and greatest but still engrossing and fun? I do: The Jedi Knight series, Knights of the Old Republic, Diablo, Elder Scrolls, Myst, Hexen 2, Starfleet Command, among many others. The one I’ve been spending my time on lately is Vampire the Masquerade: Bloodlines. It was the second game in the series after Vampire the Masquerade: Redemption, and spans four large cities, with hundreds of quests. If you know anything about the VtM series you know it’s addicting as hell.

In creating your character you choose from different clans–each with their own history and disciplines–and build your character’s stats. Items, weapons, and armor are all available through the game to help supplement your basic stuff when you start. Certain characteristics directly affect others, either by complementing skills or reducing the chance of going into a frenzy. There are also five masquerade violations allowed (using disciplines or feeding in public in the city), but there are quests which regain them. Violate too many and vampire hunters will track you or the game is over.

Here are a few YouTube videos showing the original trailer and some of the disciplines used, followed by some screenshots I took.

Don’t be fooled, I’m not in Cabo right now. But I am enjoying my short vacation from work. I go back Monday night, then go on my normal days off Tuesday through Thursday, and return on Friday night. I haven’t gotten away from work completely this week though, with the “anonymous” comments and e-mails through my web site that the Queen of the Damned sends and the short bout of clean up that I’ve done with a few things. I’ve also been e-mailing back and forth with our HR department about a few things that came up. Nothing major.

I’m picking up Gammy from the airport today and taking her to the grocery store to get her fridge stocked back up from her month of visiting in California. I’ve also spent the last three nights with Sandro, and likely tonight as well, which has been great. He brought over a “pig” (2.25 gallon keg) of beer filled with tasty Big E Brewery Scotch Ale.

I’ve got a few more things in the works to blog about, specifically the final post in my coming out story. It’s hard to round everything up and finalize it, but it’ll be done.

If you live in Chicago you can check on the web to find out what crimes are reported in the city. You can browse reports by the type of crime, street, date, zip code, and even the police district. I wish they’d implement something like this nationwide.

The other night (around 4am actually) I stopped by a 7-11 to grab a Rockstar and some Grizzly when a silver Ford Explorer pulled up outside with Arizona plates. Out walks someone I have seen several times on a very popular amateur gay (str8) porn site (ACM).

“Wow, he’s so short!” I thought to myself.

He walks in and you can tell by the eyes that oxygen isn’t the only thing that’s made it up his nose that day. The same goes for his older-but-desperately-trying-to-retain-his-youth companion. I knew that he lived in the area because I’ve seen his profile on several sites, and have seen others that I knew to be in porn (Ashton Ryan, guys from Sean Cody, and other smaller or more local production companies). So I get my stuff, step to the side so this porno-munchkin can get rung up and notice something increasingly startling:

Don’t get me wrong. I’ve seen his videos, and know that for a younger guy that he has more hair than is typically seen but it’s usually trimmed and shaped quite nicely. He must not be getting ready for a shoot.

I am officially using vacation days from work right now. My usual Tue-Wed-Thu off has now been extended through Fri-Sat-Sun. I return to work Monday, then get my usual three nights off again after that. I should have used my fourth day for that Monday, which is sticking up like a wild hair in my calendar right now. I haven’t so much as called in sick since I have worked here,about 18 months now, and think I deserve a break. Unfortunately, the busy minds and mouths continue on while I’m away.

It’s also too bad that I’m not able to get out of town for a few days with Sandro like we originally planned, but we still get to spend time together this week which I’m going to love. And with my college career coming to a close (for now) and this time on my hands, once I finish my final project I am going to be revamping my resume, sending out some job packets, rearranging my room and decluttering, and overall try to work minimalism into my daily life. I live a bit minimally right now (financially) but nothing like I used to. I also need to start sticking to my workout routine, which is anything but routine right now.

Question: Would any of my readers be up for reviewing my resume once it’s finished? That excludes the people at work who read my blog trying to use their decoder rings found in Little Princess cereal boxes (you know, the kind with marshmallows) to find things to try to get me in trouble with.