A lot has happened since my last update, nearly 6 months ago. Let's see, I got laid off, found a job, company went out of business two months later and have been looking for a job ever since. I did manage to land a few projects that provide just enough money for me to scrape by. I won't complain because I know that there are others out there who are far worse off than I am.

Terror Mosquitos
There have been a lot of stories on the news regarding mosquitos spreading the west nile virus. How long until these bugs are considered terrorists by the Bush Administration?

Spam
has anyone noticed the amount of spam on mailing lists lately? I'm getting about 40-50 per day, and im only on 4 lists. Mailman definately needs to get some spam protection built in.

Personal life
I've decided not to renew my lease this year and move to a cheaper neighborhood. They wanted to raise my rent at my current place, which would put me above the 1k mark. I refuse to pay 1000 dollars to my landlord for the way she treats her tenants. There are several drug spots in our building, homeless people frequently either squat or sleep in our hallways and my girlfriend was confronted by a junkie as she disturbed him shooting up on the staircase. I know that there are worse places to live in NYC than where i do, but these places dont usually cost the amount i have to pay. I wish i had done some more investigating prior to moving in.

Work
My supervisors have let us know that we will all be let go at one point or another. I think he is going to let one person go right away, another couple in two or three months, and then keep myself and one other person on until the summer. My future looks great, i can hardly wait for the time off. NYC is probably the worst place to be jobless at this time.

During the past few months I have not been getting much sleep. I think i may be suffering from insomnia. It doesn't help that i am an incredibly light sleeper and my girlfriend isnt. During her slumber, she frequently pushes me over, hits me or talks in her sleep, all of which wake me up.

I've tried everything i can think of. I've even grown a tolerance to over-the-counter sleeping pills during the past 6 months. If things dont change soon, and i dont expect them to, i'm going to have to see a specialist.

unfortunately, this could not come at a worse time. I've got problems at work, college starting in two weeks and apartment hunting next month. I'm under an incredible amount of stress, and while my girlfriend would like to help, it's just not possible. Heck, most of my problems are due to her in the first place.

on the good side, my coding has gotten much, much better lately. It's probably due to the 10-12 hour workdays, 6 days a week that i've been putting in.

So I've just picked up a new client. It's one of those jobs you have to be weary of until your are paid at least once. I'm honestly surprised they are still in business. They've got me setting up new servers and troubleshooting their existing ones. It wont be that bad, provided they can afford to pay me as per our contract.

On another note. I never realized how bad nimda really was. They are constantly infecting those machines. Has anyone had success cleaning and then locking up their win2k boxes? My solution would be to install linux on them instead, but management wont hear that.

There's an ariticle today in the New York Times' Circuits Section about digital photography and how it worked out better for journalists at the WTC disaster. In it, one paragraph sticks out:

David Handschuh, a staff photographer for The Daily News, was blown a block away by the force of the implosion at the trade center. He credits emergency workers, who pulled him from the rubble three times that day, with saving his life.

Who the hell does this guy think he is? If emergency workers had to pull this guy out three times, it means that they were not able to help other victims at the scene. It's pretty damned selfish to be taking up that much time of the workers and then putting yourself in a situation where you would need help again.