The Matt Faus Blog

My granddad brought out the guns today and we did some target shooting. It was a lot of fun and I got to shoot a rifle that had been used in WWI. We shot a semi-automatic .22, a lever action 30-30 equipped with scope, and the afore mentioned Springfield 30.06. It had been quite a while since I had shot a rifle, and it felt good. We shot some targets from about 30 yards and I got a dead-center bull’s eye with the 30-30. Later on in the day (dusk) we shot at some cans, but that didn’t go so well because it was getting pretty dark. Anyway, it was a lot of fun. Now all I need to do is regain hearing in my left ear.

We’re heading to Branson, MO tomorrow to lounge around for a couple of days before heading back to Dallas. Nick said we might go bowling or something tonight, but if not maybe we’ll go build a campfire in the woods and chill out there a little bit before leaving at 7:30 tomorrow morning.

Well, it’s Christmas Eve and all is well. I’m having a pretty good time with my family up here in Wisconsin. It’s so relieving to have access to the Internet, even out here in the country. It is dial-up, which is somewhat frustrating, but it’s better than nothing. My grandmother found some old fireworks in the closet today, so we got to play around with those which is always fun - my dad was getting pretty crazy with the bottle rockets! At least my mom wasn’t out there; she would’ve had a cow. My Uncle Lawrence, Aunt Patty, and Cousin Nick are coming in tomorrow for the Christmas dinner, and I am very much looking forward to that. My dad, my brothers, and I have been playing chess quite a bit to pass the time. I’m glad I brought my chess set; it has been a lot of fun. My 16-year-old brother, Ben, isn’t too bad, so he is rather fun to play with. He has yet to beat me, but at least he tries and enjoys it, which makes it enjoyable for me.

That’s all I’ve got for now, I’m going to try and read away some of my boredom - I slept all day today and am not tired at ALL (it is 1:00am).

Well, after 3 Mountain Dew:Code Reds, a bag of Flaming hot Cheetos, a couple fast food sandwiches, and an assortment of mixed nuts we are here in the great state of Wisconsin! I left my house at 4:30 in the morning and did not get out of our van, except for a few 5 minute bathroom breaks, until 8:50pm. It really wasn’t too bad, my brothers and I played PS2 for a while and I had my laptop. We’ve already played in the snow all day today and made a huge snowman and started a Snow Castle (pics to come soon). Anyway, we’re headed to Chuck-E-Cheese’s for my brother’s birthday (a family tradition), so I’ve got to go!

Well, every two years or so my family makes the trek from down here in the southern regions of the United States all the way up to Wisconsin. From Dallas it takes about 18 hours to drive (5 people on a plane is expensive), but we’ve got the big van with plenty of space and a drop-down LCD that we can watch movies on or even hook the PS2 up to. I’m pretty excited, it’s always fun hanging out at my Grandparent’s house. I won’t get to see quite as many cousins as I usually do, because two of them are overseas serving in the military, one in Korea and one in Germany, and two have started families of there own and won’t be able to come. Regardless, it’s going to be a lot of fun to play in the snow and my grandmother makes some awesome Christmas munchies (puppy chow is the bomb). With any luck, there will be enough snow to sled down the many hills on their 60+ acres of land and we might even get to shoot guns, sweet!

Let me take just one minute of your time to complain about Waterview Park Apartments, the apartment complex that has a monopoly on on-campus living at my University.

Thank you for your time.

I’ve been working with InfoPath a lot lately (a Microsoft form designer) and as I was making the Sales Proposal form for Mentalix (my part-time job) I started posting on the forum at InfoPathDev.com. I was trying to perform some certain functionality to make the printable version of the form easy to read and apparently I figured out how to do something that no one else had. You see, InfoPath is horrible when it comes to data presentation. The collection and storage part it’s got down pat, but the reporting functionalities are very limited. Anyway, I wrote this code and the owner of the site, Patrick Halstead, asked me if I would write up what I had done in a generic How-To article so that he could post it to his site. I did, and now it’s up. Check it out. You probably won’t enjoy the article unless you’re working with InfoPath and trying to accomplish the same thing, but I thought it was pretty cool that I had my mugshot and biography at the bottom of the page.

Today I ordered SBC DSL internet, again. When I moved into my apartment the beginning of this year Travis and I decided to go with SBC DSL instead of Comcast because it was a little cheaper and we had some connectivity issues with Comcast last year. Well, everything was going fine until we got the bill for October. On this bill we had our phone service (required for DSL), our internet service, and Dish network charges. Dish network!? Some brilliant programmer in the depths of the blue whale that is SBC decided to slack in his error checking and write the internal transaction software so that anyone with that was assigned a phone number that had had Dish network service associated to it before it was closed would also receive the services. I was getting charged for Dish network and I don’t even watch TV! I called as soon as I saw this on the bill and they told me that they would take care of it but that it would take a few billing cycles for everything to clear out. They also told me to only pay the amount shown for phone and DSL services and to disregard the Dish network charges. Two months later on Friday night after coming home from dinner my internet had been disconnected. I called DSL support that night and they told me to call Customer Support in the morning because my account had been suspended due to nonpayment. SBC suspended my account because I did exactly what they told me to. Anyway, I called in the morning and I was told that my internet would be turned on in 1 to 4 hours, but of course it wasn’t. Finally, I had time to call again this morning and found out that my DSL account had been closed. Not suspended, but closed. James (the sales rep) told me that he could order again for me for a higher rate than what I was at and it would take a week to get everything up and running. I complained, threatened to cancel my account and go to Comcast, and he caved. I will now have internet in my apartment again in about a week at a lower rate than what I was originally paying. A freakin’ week without the Internet! Ugh.

Well, as I was trying to buy some tickets on ticketmaster.com today and after clicking through a couple links I was greeted with the following message:

Please note.

We limit the rate of web page requests that can be made by individual users in any given time period. Your web page requests have exceeded these limits and your access has been temporarily disabled. We impose these limits to protect the web site from automated programs, as part of our efforts to promote fair access to tickets. Please allow several minutes and then try again.

I must be a Robot. After waiting 5 whole minutes I clicked back and was able to proceed searching, but it happened again. This is when I started to get a little frustrated. And by “a little frustrated”, I mean pissed off. After waiting another five agonizingly long minutes to use a website (while reminiscing on days of dial-up Internet service in disgust) I was able to click a link without being told to stop. Now it was time to get prepared. I tried to stop myself from browsing the Internet at my normal speed and wait a few seconds before clicking through again (so as to seem like a normal human being). To aid in this endeavor I opened the Windows clock and watched as the seconds ticked off - that’s right I timed my web surfing. Even with 10 seconds between web requests (yes, 10 seconds is a long time) I was told that I was browsing too fast, which is ridiculous. Imagine if Google implemented the same thing. Ha! They charge a $5 to $10 “convenience fee” for every ticket you buy there, but I am not seeing any convenience!

I’ve decided to use WordPress as my blogging software. It’s got a lot of great features and should be pretty easy to use (besides being free!). I’m not making any promises on the amount of attention that this blog gets, but I’m really trying to get back into updating and working on my website. Hope everyone’s holiday break from school is going well!