Happy Halloween

I have no big updates to speak of right now. I just got back from an uneventful week long trip to Boston for ecommerce software training. Aside from the inside of the hotel and one or two restaurants I saw nothing of Boston so I don't have a single picture from the trip.

Check out my mad pumpkin carving skills on the skull pumpkin to the right. It won't win any awards but not bad for ten minutes of last second work. Several kids commented on how cool it was. I took a pretty cool night shot of all of the pumpkins we had out that you can see if you click the image to the right.

We had a fair amount of trick-or-treaters this year having gone through 7-9 bags of candy. It lasted from 6PM-8PM with the streets being all but empty around 7:30PM.

Another day in paradise

It's been an eternity since I posted something and a lot has changed since my last post. The highlights:

• I'm still at the same job and was promoted to "Manager of Development" from "Senior Developer" in January. It came with a substantial raise and management responsibility of off shore resources.


• I broke up with my previous girlfriend in December and have been going out with a new person for about seven months now.


• I'm heading to Minneapolis for one day for a technical meeting with a new Fortune 500 client


• I'm heading to Boston again in August/September to get trained on our soon-to-be-released ecommerce product


• I bought a sweet museum quality wooden ship because... I've always wanted one (and just look at it!)


• I sold my Xbox 360 and Wii and finally admit I am done with console gaming (except my PSP). I'll stick with a PC for gaming from now on.


• I still don't have a Facebook, MySpace, or Twitter account.


• I signed up for AT&T U-Verse IPTV service and absolutely love it. I passed on their Internet service for now since I had bad experiences with DSL in the 90s.


• I had my porch torn down and rebuilt this summer (it was practically falling down). Now all I need to do is get a new roof, paint the whole house, get a new driveway, fix a hole in the side of the garage, and finish the basement.

Rafting

I went white water rafting in West Virginia for the first time this past weekend. Four of us stayed in a cabin in the middle of the woods for two nights and rafted for one day. The cabin was nice with plumbing, electricity, and air conditioning (but oddly no phone). It was also quaintly located in the middle of "did you hear a banjo?" country between two mountains at the end of a one and a half mile "mule trail", er... "road".

The rafting was awesome and the scenery was fantastic. It just sucks you can't bring a camera to take pictures of it because you pretty much are guaranteed to lose it in the water or up against a rock somewhere. We hope to go again next year for possibly two days since one day just didn't seem like enough. If I can find a way to encode it, I may post a the short DVD video of the trip that we purchased. Here are some pictures of the cabin and surroundings in the meantime.

Tea Party

I just spent the last week in Boston, but it was for software training so I didn't really get to see much of the town. They're so high tech in Boston even their TVs run Windows 98! Not really, but for some reason the hotel's pay-per-view system apparently was down all week and apparently runs Windows 98. The picture to the right came up every time I turned my tv on all week. Click the Win98 TV to see the few pictures I did take in Boston.

The only "Boston" thing I had a chance to do was go to a Red Sox vs Twins game at Fenway Park. It was fun and all, but it being around 99F out cramped like sardines with eight people I didn't know (it was also the first day of training) hampered the experience.

On the way back to Cleveland, my license slipped out of my pocket at the TSA checkpoint. It either fell on the floor or in a plastic bin by the metal detectors. Do you think they'd let me go look for it? Nope. Do you think they'd offer to look for me? Nope. Offer for them or me to go through the empty bins quickly to get it? Nope. What did they offer? "Get the hell out of this federal security checkpoint now or you're going to have a problem" spoke a stubby, bald, and little napoleon-complex prick. To avoid becoming a nightly news headline I left the checkpoint, but returned with a Massachusetts State Trooper to help get my license. The trooper spent about 30 seconds in the TSA office before declaring "I wouldn't go in there, I'd call the lost-and-found on Monday". Something is seriously wrong with this homeland security crap when I can't even get my driver's license back and state troopers are afraid to confront TSA agents.

New! Improved!

I was bored today so I decided to do a little "cleaning" around this site. For starters, I finally got into the 21st century and added an RSS feed (the icon underneath all the left menu items.. and also to the right of this post). I also updated the free software list since some of links were outdated (AVG), some if it just sucks now (Password Corral), and some other free software I've been using for several years wasn't on there (KeePass, Paint.NET, Irfanview, IE7Pro).

I've got a new server coming to replace the dual 800Mhz tank this site has been running on for the past few months. It was only $300 (including tax & shipping) and the specifications blow the current one out of the water: dual 3Ghz Xeons, 2GB RAM (to be upgraded), EIDE controllers (instead of old school SCSI standards) and a functional USB header for external storage.

I love Craig's List

You know you've reached a certain age when you get excited about a vacuum cleaner. I just got a Dyson DC07 Animal off of Craig's List for $100 cash. It's not so much that "Yay! I just bought a vacuum!" as "Yay! I just bought a $500 vacuum for $100!". The guy that sold it to me only owned it for three months, used it like three times, was moving clear across the country, and was selling everything he owned rather haul it across country (something about owning a house here and a house there).

For the most part, the Dyson lives up to almost all of the hype. We vacuumed the entire house with the old vacuum, then went back over it with the Dyson. We filled the Dyson's canister up... three times. Pretty impressive/nasty ;)

And for no particular reason, I give you the Benny Lava video

Did it again

Well, I did it again: I changed jobs. My first day was April 14th as a "Senior Web Developer". I don't reveal company or people's names on this public blog, but as far as the company goes they're a downtown interactive marketing company that has been around since 2001 (with offices in several other U.S. cities). They were recently acquired by an international (also several U.S. offices with a major R&D location in India) software company. My primary focus will be implementing an existing web content management system and transitioning to a newer more robust system over the next several months. I've only been there a week and find myself overwhelmed with the workload, and that honestly makes the days fly by which is always nice.

As far as other stuff I went skeet and trap shooting for the first time a couple weeks ago. The trap shooting was awesome... the skeet shooting not so much. I definately need to upgrade from a pump action shotgun if I start going more often though.