buttons…

Ok, it’s time for me to write again. I’m sorry for the lapse but I haven’t felt like I have had much to say over these last few months. Maybe this post will help with that.

So on Tuesday I attended an MSDN tech event presented by Ron Cundiff. It covered Visual Studio Team Edition for Database Professionals, Windows Workflow Foundation, and Expressions Web. I thought it was a pretty good presentation all around and the resource dvd so far has been good to go through. We also received a copy of Vista RC1 and I’ve got to say that I’m impressed with it so far. I haven’t played with it much since it was called Longhorn and I have got to say that I’m impressed with the improvements so far. I guess one of the first things that turned me off to it in Longhorn was the driver support. It pretty much couldn’t run on my desktop but most of that is resolved. Not that I hold that against Microsoft, it was still early in the game at that point and I could get it running on other machines that had what I guess I would call a more normal hardware configuration (i.e. factory bought).

Of late at work, however, all I have been doing is database conversions leaving my little programming heart empty. The only programming work, if you could call it that, has been some freelance web design that I do for local musicians and venues. That just isn’t enough to keep me satisfied. So why don’t I just program something for myself? Well there in lies my problem. I just can’t think of anything to throw myself into. I go out searching on the web for ideas but they’ve already been done, or it just doesn’t seem useful to me.

So to any of the readers I may still have, do you have any suggestions for things to work on?

361f238b1eb43e71411c37c8936b2bac->

33ad2350ba4b3fe4c813443a00a7a891->

d74da934f3e54128f62f840890594223->

6db80caae00c2bc947199d36e5baf917->

08fcab799f4237aa239693bc2a8c72b3->

de9eceac8854416a722438ad339b5a48->

5b1e8da4f9534811e274430b0b7f799c->

6db80caae00c2bc947199d36e5baf917->

08fcab799f4237aa239693bc2a8c72b3->

de9eceac8854416a722438ad339b5a48->

5b1e8da4f9534811e274430b0b7f799c->

de9eceac8854416a722438ad339b5a48->

9903033->9903033->

08fcab799f4237aa239693bc2a8c72b3->

5b1e8da4f9534811e274430b0b7f799c->

de9eceac8854416a722438ad339b5a48->

6db80caae00c2bc947199d36e5baf917->

08fcab799f4237aa239693bc2a8c72b3->

5b1e8da4f9534811e274430b0b7f799c->

de9eceac8854416a722438ad339b5a48->

6db80caae00c2bc947199d36e5baf917->

08fcab799f4237aa239693bc2a8c72b3->

5b1e8da4f9534811e274430b0b7f799c->

de9eceac8854416a722438ad339b5a48->

No longer will the best seats go to the die hard fans. Those that waited in line for 3 days before the box office opens to claim their rightful spot as number one fan. No no, now it goes to the people with the money. In case you missed the article, the NY Times is reporting that Ticketmaster will now begin auctioning off the best tickets to the concerts. As if ticketmaster doesn’t make enough money off of a show, now they want more?

This past weekend I went to see 30 Seconds to Mars at the House of Blues in New Orleans. An awesome show, and by far one of the better concerts I’ve been to in a very long time. The receipt, however, reads like a Mastercard commercial:

Ticket Price: $14
Service Charge: $7
Some faceless vendor getting half the earnings: Priceless

My absolute favorite part is that it is to prevent Ticket Scalping? Ok, so instead of letting others scalp you’ll do it for them. I’d rather give my money to the random guy on the street. He’ll at least let me haggle and I know that if I want to see a sporting event or a concert, Joe Scalper on the street will always have a ticket for me if I really want it. Nevermore….

3c28d215bd977c292df8b04faccfba53->

1c7c89f021d2ad0906a468d8ed51d96e->

2906634baed9864b6eb212287cf69d7d->

049b5af9e48fe9242398e0a905b8d38b->

2906634baed9864b6eb212287cf69d7d->

049b5af9e48fe9242398e0a905b8d38b->

2906634baed9864b6eb212287cf69d7d->

049b5af9e48fe9242398e0a905b8d38b->

2906634baed9864b6eb212287cf69d7d->

049b5af9e48fe9242398e0a905b8d38b->

2906634baed9864b6eb212287cf69d7d->

049b5af9e48fe9242398e0a905b8d38b->

So every other blog I read is talking about it so I figured I needed to see what the big deal is with Share Your OPML. Well it’s exactly what it says, so that’s good, a little truth in marketing. Beyond that it lets you see who else subscribes to your feeds, and compare your feed list to others so you could probably get a good idea (especially as more and more people sign up) of what other feeds you may be interested in.

Anyways, go check it out. I found out that Alfred is subscribed to my blog. Thank you Alfred. I still laugh everytime I think about the time I was talking to Vito on the phone and he said you were in the room with him “Alfred from theSpoke Alfred?”. I don’t know why I thought it funny, but I still do.

fc6dc993e7b42a53839c6b6637e86993->

85b3d71baecc9180fe2690da713d8a11->

85b3d71baecc9180fe2690da713d8a11->

85b3d71baecc9180fe2690da713d8a11->

So, I managed to finish one of the websites I wanted to finish last week. I got started on the second but just didn’t quite find the time to finish it. It happens. Beyond that the CSS Reboot is almost here, and while I have an idea of what I want to do I don’t know if I can pull it off. I’d feel somewhat bad about taking a break from other sites just to re-design my own. Of course I could just do nothing but web design all weekend and perhaps get it all done, but that would anger quite a few people. So as usual I’ll just float along, see what happens and hope for the best. Besides, these things are just my own side projects and at least I’m keeping up with work, which is what pays the bills.

So a few new things I suppose. I downloaded Flex 2.0 Beta today and started playing with that. I never did get into flash and can’t say that I’ve ever done it so I don’t really know how it compares, what the differences are, etc… but Flex Builder let’s me build web applications like I would a windows application and that is pretty damn cool. Of course it wouldn’t be complete without a C-eque syntax so that I could write my own app in under two minutes. Granted, nothing fancy yet, but it is pretty cool. I plan to apply for a non-commercial license a little later on and see about hosting those applications here.

At work, well I’ve been torn between three projects of late. One is fixing a nasty bug in a Crystal Report. The last few report bugs I’ve fixed have been awesome wastes of time (i.e. fixing the width on a field) but this one involves a gigantic SQL query that just defies the laws of rational thought. Oh well, it has to be done and I picked the short straw. On top of that though I’m working on a pretty neat Windows Application to develop configuration files for all the other programs I’ve written so that end-users don’t have to manually edit the xml files to get the program to work. I’m fairly proud of it and can’t wait to have the time to actually finish it up. Beyond that, I’m developing an ASP.NET 2.0 application. This is a much slower process than it needs to be. I’ve got the background in ASP.NET to just hammer out an application in the new framework with no problems, but I’m using this time to actually figure out the new features which hopefully will save me alot of time in the future. Some of the webpart stuff in there looks fairly neat, though I don’t think I can use it on the project I’m working on I may be able to put it to use somewhere else.

Well I suppose that is all for now. Check back to see if I actually make the reboot. If nothing else I do at least have some sort of design in my head for what I would like it to look like. That may at least get me started.

3d2977b2cf31f5a937544487ea3da07f->

d498284fb2bf4df82f8cbca07166ee7c->

0c93b2afde7afd64d0c3bb30530f0b90->

3b1bfec04637d11987333fd781d6e3e6->

7a40a4d854bea81b98ff990cbb753634->

85720ea4141c210d5a706aec6a161dcd->

0c93b2afde7afd64d0c3bb30530f0b90->

3b1bfec04637d11987333fd781d6e3e6->

7a40a4d854bea81b98ff990cbb753634->

85720ea4141c210d5a706aec6a161dcd->

3b1bfec04637d11987333fd781d6e3e6->

7a40a4d854bea81b98ff990cbb753634->

85720ea4141c210d5a706aec6a161dcd->

3b1bfec04637d11987333fd781d6e3e6->

7a40a4d854bea81b98ff990cbb753634->

85720ea4141c210d5a706aec6a161dcd->

3b1bfec04637d11987333fd781d6e3e6->

7a40a4d854bea81b98ff990cbb753634->

85720ea4141c210d5a706aec6a161dcd->

Just finished one of the two websites I planned on having finished this week. Got a little behind, as well as got a few other things on my plate, but I might be able to pull it off. The next site, for the most part has all the layout done on it so now I just have to slap it on top of wordpress to finish it up.

At work, I started on a bug tracking system, which I hope to incorporate Atlas into and make pretty snazzy. More information to come as the work develops, right now I’m just trying to get a backup copy of the database to play against setup.

0e4599bae32303ca3da03179659575c5->

26ae0032d21fb4609b434f68ca9f074a->

26ae0032d21fb4609b434f68ca9f074a->

26ae0032d21fb4609b434f68ca9f074a->

26ae0032d21fb4609b434f68ca9f074a->

26ae0032d21fb4609b434f68ca9f074a->

Hey Mike, sorry I haven’t been as entertaining this week

So anyways, what’s been going on this week? Well it’s been somewhat hectic, and I’ve had several things to post about but no time to do it. So I guess I’ll just do a week in review sort of thing and hopefully will have the time to expand upon them later.

So for starters, this week has been a fun-filled week of user testing, with several people from the client in the office testing our fixes to the software before it gets pushed out. It’s a very hectic time for most people in the office, and as I was always taught, “Shit rolls down hill…”. That said, me being the low man on the totem pole I caught alot of shit. Not that big of a deal though, as I still had a pretty good week. Best part about client’s showing up and taking over the office is you don’t have to purchase lunch at all, and sometimes even breakfast showed up.

Beyond doing some Crystal Reports fixes and the occasional delve into PowerBuilder I’ve concentrated a good bit of my down time to an application for building .NET configuration files for all our various applications. This brought to my realization that some standards need to be put in place for us developers so that we make similar configuration files. On the other hand, having a plethora of different configuration files has made my configuration file generator much more useful. My basic idea behind it was to write it once and never have to recompile it again as we add new programs to our system. So I’ve been coming up with a nice XML schema that basically covers all the different ways we can (and I hope to extend that so that anyone could use it) build a configuration file. After youv’e got the program running, you (the developer) would just build an XML document that defines the configuration file and drop it into the plugins folder and from there anyone can build a new configuration file for that application.

After that, I’ve just been doing alot of gaming in Oblivion, and some web design. The idea is to launch two sites by the end of next week, and hopefully while I’m at it get my CSS Reboot done in time as well. These two extra websites should help with that somewhat since all three sites will have a Wordpress 2.x backend.

Anyways, back to work I go.

19b5df36a09ceae74bf6c302f6b3d463->

733ca9af8cee2a7e5f4d7923644f76da->

733ca9af8cee2a7e5f4d7923644f76da->

102016ffe4628e2c31af5a60396fc2c7->

0357cce8a197837b08837aaf4464797d->

0b1b7b4eb3c84c71d1234aba124c5e2a->

9d4a1044702b43011878a2ede6bc0964->

fe4d8c53d980daa1a8bacf8465138f3e->

d6637fd3e46932bc606a0173bd8553a9->

5a8b410e5b7d13c405d8ee6b7a1c891a->

5cb3f15a0bf9b01c131d1edbc93c5904->

733ca9af8cee2a7e5f4d7923644f76da->

02e743f5cffbf5187539b14855dc5511->

27902f2e8fef872cbe7cec880fdf2a34->

c9a06c0c14770eb58d5abad3e9ebc982->

3cde3aa098d9a13ff31a41803436d4d2->

f01bbad7ecf6f5c3c4de32acda5dfbe1->

b3f111ca953514e368644e10aa9ddf07->

82a2161945482ae84b9711546cd4f96a->

d5285f918aa628d2badcba913ed412b3->

034f1c3b282d865b7e37db2a891d29b6->

a44e9610ed576a4abcf92e381afb5268->

2d88beee9c088f2c4018301b4878febf->

5cf111a89776c499ba5d5fc3319cf7fd->

376fef0ca6f8bd5da9945c90c2cc58e6->

dbafbfd0f0d030fbe16d8ebdd10fc30b->

61742bf932e850f96656ea966f867204->

1c91d272ba404cdd204c715a85183376->

6ae795336d65fa6b875d11120231307b->

1a41cd1f42855d068a2003e7f406836d->

ba782818166d6a03be129ac8c049005a->

42b180d2d1344a46ecce6e9a671d2ced->

cd1ba40299a65124e7f406f824836f52->

80c5a3688f16aa89684e6ed50ec8b1f1->

98277e0bb9550decade847c4ad0d64ad->

f007114991137f4ba7a5f3d257b55414->

c6922d72b6b58138bb1f809c941ba7c6->

d38c6ceb61a79a2bdb56a0078cb7fde3->

be0a493b86bc6b4247d8abc05a0049de->

ef478c2bd5fa1dc1da202bdf2a21e60b->

8af770524b3ba1e1db9ea3a625c28841->

7bd23d5064612636b1e82e2a6ad6327a->

f9cb52c29f0304e31a0834d74b16ea89->

22808b70a810f86ef89c395dc09960b4->

e1074f6e57ca74c3253aba7bf67015bf->

11e218dfc0301bcbf8c8938b71f6f07c->

64767240ca6800e01ed7cc82d473d7ab->

51836f6f374863d8139b69f14e30c8fa->

55cc2ae969d67cc6f9cc4cc8df9a7645->

400e1979ba62fb3e3146133e6df4d5b1->

3c1e9796d64d6786868e405560ee99ee->

bfe4753e6055bda199ba288fd2a8db1f->

8e70b83a0db64f9fbd86fd63129807b8->

cac32b85b72395548a8c10f1d181a0c1->

733ca9af8cee2a7e5f4d7923644f76da->

034f1c3b282d865b7e37db2a891d29b6->

ba782818166d6a03be129ac8c049005a->

42b180d2d1344a46ecce6e9a671d2ced->

8af770524b3ba1e1db9ea3a625c28841->

51836f6f374863d8139b69f14e30c8fa->

400e1979ba62fb3e3146133e6df4d5b1->

cac32b85b72395548a8c10f1d181a0c1->

5cb3f15a0bf9b01c131d1edbc93c5904->

034f1c3b282d865b7e37db2a891d29b6->

a44e9610ed576a4abcf92e381afb5268->

2d88beee9c088f2c4018301b4878febf->

5cf111a89776c499ba5d5fc3319cf7fd->

376fef0ca6f8bd5da9945c90c2cc58e6->

dbafbfd0f0d030fbe16d8ebdd10fc30b->

61742bf932e850f96656ea966f867204->

1c91d272ba404cdd204c715a85183376->

6ae795336d65fa6b875d11120231307b->

1a41cd1f42855d068a2003e7f406836d->

ba782818166d6a03be129ac8c049005a->

42b180d2d1344a46ecce6e9a671d2ced->

cd1ba40299a65124e7f406f824836f52->

80c5a3688f16aa89684e6ed50ec8b1f1->

f007114991137f4ba7a5f3d257b55414->

8af770524b3ba1e1db9ea3a625c28841->

e1074f6e57ca74c3253aba7bf67015bf->

3c1e9796d64d6786868e405560ee99ee->

So I decided to sign up for the CSS Reboot 06. Hopefully I’ll actually make the deadline, which is May 1st, but I figure this is a good way to get myself around to actually making a new look for my site, which I’ve been trying to do for the past few months. I mean sure, this nice K2 theme for Wordpress is nice, clean, good looking, but it isn’t mine. Besides it might finally give me a chance to learn a bit more about CSS.

Matt if you’re reading this…. I’m sorry buddy, but I’m going to bug you. I might also finally give your CSS Groups a try as well. Heck maybe I can even get you off your ass and get you to redo your site as well :P. Anyways, time to start thinking about what I want to do. So May 1st, do or die, this place will have a new makeover.

eb32ae2f97f002de5b56557afcfa007b->

c823652c9c44305dcaa454f213c949ef->

f529875720c2dd00ab9dc09de193984f->

568fdadd2930f3f32d2b8cdb075b4ba2->

f529875720c2dd00ab9dc09de193984f->

568fdadd2930f3f32d2b8cdb075b4ba2->

f529875720c2dd00ab9dc09de193984f->

568fdadd2930f3f32d2b8cdb075b4ba2->

f529875720c2dd00ab9dc09de193984f->

568fdadd2930f3f32d2b8cdb075b4ba2->

f529875720c2dd00ab9dc09de193984f->

568fdadd2930f3f32d2b8cdb075b4ba2->

f529875720c2dd00ab9dc09de193984f->

So I’m still pondering around on my idea for the Made In Express contest. I would have to say the hardest part is always coming up with an idea when there isn’t a real problem to solve. I guess the proper approach would be finding a problem then, but again what problem can I come up with the answer to that hasn’t been done before. Sure, I have an idea or three, but is it something that can win? Is it something people need?

Of course, another one of the stipulations of the contest that I’m not overly happy with is that it’s a solo mission. Sure, I can do all the aspects of my ideas on my own, but I have friends that could do parts of them better and as a team would make for a much better product. Granted, this is just for a contest and if it were to be developed for resale, or anything like that more people would actually be brought in on it.

At this point though, I think I’m just rambling. Off to write out more of the ideas and see how to connect them all.

06ba0df3464d5ff32bd17beb74f46424->

a01df506c17a43cc10beac938f25fc80->

2f3a24ab980794704a2b2455374925b4->

a01df506c17a43cc10beac938f25fc80->

2f3a24ab980794704a2b2455374925b4->

a01df506c17a43cc10beac938f25fc80->

a01df506c17a43cc10beac938f25fc80->

a01df506c17a43cc10beac938f25fc80->

So while the blog world is all up in arms about running XP on a Mac. Big deal, sure it’s a good idea and all, but what do people expect, Windows was made to run on just about any hardware configuration. It’s like they made Partition Magic for dummies. If you need a link to it however, it’s here at bootcamp.

Ok, so what is the title about? Well it’s about what entertained me for a good hour or two today. That is (at this point) a five part blog by Kevin Smith. The title of it is of course “Me and My Shadow” and it’s about Kevin Smith and his relationship with Jason Mewes. In case you have been under a rock for the last decade or so that is Jay and Silent Bob. It was an in depth look at Jason’s struggle with drug addictions that leaves me wanting to know more. Write Kevin Write!!!

But in all seriousness, it’s good to hear that despite the up and down battles Jason is doing better. In other news, Clerks 2 is coming out in August, which led me on my adventure to find Kevin’s blog.

c4edaef1314ef0c1016998703394beda->

a9cba487b7d8205ccf6420e5f8dc00c2->

347e734557d9bdf7eb1cdbf9eb40fcc2->

b092097b39820569f1d90eb326e7f493->

347e734557d9bdf7eb1cdbf9eb40fcc2->

347e734557d9bdf7eb1cdbf9eb40fcc2->

347e734557d9bdf7eb1cdbf9eb40fcc2->

So last night, after watching the LSU women’s team lose to Duke in the Final Four I put on the movie Proof starring Gwenyth Paltrow and Sir Anthony Hopkins. What a good movie. If you have time to pick this one up and watch it (run time is about 99 minutes) it’s definitely worth it. Especially for those of us in a Math oriented field.

The one scene, above all others that did it for me was when Gwenyth’s character was reaching into the fridge for a jar of Mayo and that idea just suddenly hits her and she has to quickly run back to her notebook to plug in this newly discovered idea. For anyone in the computer science industry I’m sure you can relate to this. When you’ve been staring at the computer screen for four or more hours, can’t figure this one thing out, so you go take a walk and once you are on the other side of the building it hits you and you make a mad dash back to your desk to plug in this missing piece of the puzzle, compile, Eureka!!!

Ok, I’m done.

1d287a4480d0bbb8b4736858b6196d30->

9659913bdb4e7455fba58fdc2477c4c1->

So, it’s a few weeks later than when I actually did it, but I decided to go ahead and reformat my Dell Inspiron 5150. I named it Trinity because I decided to put three operating systems on it, mostly as a nice platform to be able to test websites out on, as well as try out any programs on. Those three operating systems being Windows XP Pro, Ubuntu Linux, and Mac OSX (installed in that order). So far I’m a bit happy with the setup, being a matter of geek pride more than anything else.

The install wasn’t without problems though, as it took a good two days to get Mac OSX installed and running. First I tried one of the earlier builds, where I just copied it directly to a partition and go from there. That never quite worked, and after a few days of work I got a later build and that installed like a champ. I still need to run some updates, because at the moment it won’t run for very long outside of safe mode. Another annoyance is that I can’t get it to work with my internal wireless card, but from what I understand and external card will work just fine. Not that I’m overly worried about getting one though, the main point of installing Mac OSX was to see if I liked it enough to justify purchasing a mac, and at this point it’s really just a matter of which Mac I would like to purchase. All the information that I used for getting it up and running can be found on the OSx86 Project site. Of course most people have already seen this, but it’s always good to link just in case.

And of course the other operating system on this beast is Ubuntu’s Breezy Badger. I have to say this is by far my favorite flavor of Linux that I’ve run, and currently I do have multiple installations between my various desktops and laptops. So far it has run like a champ, and getting wireless running on it (a big requirement for me) has been relatively easy to do. Granted, this may have been a testament to the number of times I’ve tried to get wireless working on various flavors, but it still was up and running within the day.

So I suppose if you have any questions on how I got it working, just leave a comment, I generally will answer within the day.

bda24c941d192bb6984f48bc5c87d6ed->

7c50a016bd6050940a1d30d7385dda24->

b45b1007c78e472dd5ca3106e7050723->

7c50a016bd6050940a1d30d7385dda24->

b45b1007c78e472dd5ca3106e7050723->

7c50a016bd6050940a1d30d7385dda24->

7c50a016bd6050940a1d30d7385dda24->

So I finally decided to set up my own flickr account today. Why? Because of the new phone and the ability to just upload photos to flickr as I take the pictures. I guess I’ve just held out until now because a) my digital camera has been dead for a few years and so haven’t had any way of taking pictures, and b) I just wanted to keep a photo record of the things going on. So we’ll see how long this lasts, as I’m the last person to just pull out my phone and take pictures of things. Who knows, maybe I’ll enjoy it and actually go purchase a new camera.

eb0b7e1b5fff9b4fe893f5bf4547d883->

f5c4467eb3203cdab9dca42f5928b1db->

6f781ee281ed49f0271c5170837bf05a->

83362b9678b1912ec15637f428aea130->

6f781ee281ed49f0271c5170837bf05a->

83362b9678b1912ec15637f428aea130->

83362b9678b1912ec15637f428aea130->

83362b9678b1912ec15637f428aea130->

Fell in love with a phone… Fell in love once and I gained completely… It’s in touch with the world…

Yeah, I’m done singing now. That, however, does not disguise the fact that I got a new phone this afternoon and absolutely love it. It’s the new Cingular 2125 Smartphone to the rescue to replace my fast fading I-Mate SP3i. Now don’t get me wrong, the i-mate was a great friend, a longtime companion, but it was out of date and after many falls from my hand to the pavement it was just having hardware issues that I couldn’t get fixed. Perhaps the casing wasn’t strong enough, or I just dropped it the right way or the right number of times, but of late I couldn’t hear people, they couldn’t hear me, the camera was dead and the joystick button on the front had fallen off making it almost impossible to use.

So back to the new phone… What is so special about it. Well for one, it’s sporting the saucy Windows Mobile 5.0 Operating System. I had been wanting to try it, and while some of the changes are definitely for the better others I’m not to happy about (changes in the menu layouts for the most part, which could be vendor specific). The cons I have so far are really just a matter of getting used to the new hardware, so therefore not really cons at all. Beyond that, I must say I LOVE the screen. The clarity of text and pictures on it is stunning and I wish I could show you how good it is. I guess I could, look at the express button in the previous article, it looks just as good on my phone as it does on my screen, and I like to think I have a pretty damn good monitor. If that’s not convincing enough, just head down to a Cingular store and look at one in person and you’ll understand what I mean.

Beyond that, my only real complaint about the phone in comparison to the i-mate is the price. Of course when I got the i-mate the prices were basically the same, but I received my i-mate from Microsoft through the Student Ambassador program at no personal charge so therefore the price was just perfect.

Anyways, more reviews to come when I’ve had the phone for a bit longer than a few hours.

a2a05321d2a90d8677bd43840a3a05b0->

e1929ef4cecf48fa7feb5cfe77a4ae3b->

76928152eb15d9bae7602a2c4ebe2e66->

76928152eb15d9bae7602a2c4ebe2e66->

76928152eb15d9bae7602a2c4ebe2e66->

6a57833bcf319e6c1a9d399455fbd416->

6a57833bcf319e6c1a9d399455fbd416->

So the next great conquest? I’m working on my write up to enter the Made in Express Contest. I’ve got an idea for it, but I won’t say what it is of course until the finalists get picked. Of course finalist or no, I’m liking the idea so I’ll probably write it anyways, but it would be fun to actually win something for it.

Current progress? Well I have a nice pad of graph paper sitting in my car with a pen and about 2 pages worth of sketches and ideas jotted down on it so I’m hoping I can flesh it all out well enough to get picked. Nothing like a contest to get your creative juices going.

243526673b527986bdc924cf91cc324b->

deb0b7e665a7a7dbe7a7b4b64714df1c->

cc1ced78da5e4b09083af9852adf043b->

4969c711e92f8e98aef2bc5382969ea1->

cc1ced78da5e4b09083af9852adf043b->

4969c711e92f8e98aef2bc5382969ea1->

cc1ced78da5e4b09083af9852adf043b->

4969c711e92f8e98aef2bc5382969ea1->

cc1ced78da5e4b09083af9852adf043b->

4969c711e92f8e98aef2bc5382969ea1->

So to keep the ball rolling, I figure I might divulge what I’ve been up to in the past few months. Nothing spectacular, so if you are busy you can just come back later, I promise you won’t miss much.

For the overly bored, though, I’ll try to at least entertain you for the five minutes you take to read this while sipping on what I hope is a tasty beverage.

So, as I’ve said before I’ve switched jobs. I went from consulting company to consulting company. My commute to work is a bit longer, 5 minutes to 25 minutes to get to work, but you know that seems to be worth it. Before I was doing consulting/contract work for the State, and now I’m doing the same thing but for a Global 500 company. For the most part it’s a matter of maintaining, upgrading, and fixing some software that they paid someone else to write (in Sybase Powerbuilder ). Oh well, we look good keeping it running, adding in new features, and hopefully all that will turn into a nice big contract to re-write the software in something a bit more code-friendly like .NET.

So beyond the work front I spend most of my time playing music, and of late I’ve been trying to get back into gaming a bit more. I tore through Age of Empires 3, Star Wars: Empire at War, and I’m now working my way through Morrowind: Oblivion. This game, however, comes with a lot of heartache as I read the side of the box and realized my machine only met the minimum hardware requirements. So I’ve got a RAM upgrade on the way, should be here in a few hours, but there’s no sense in upgrading anything else on the machine. It runs an Athlon XP processor, which they really aren’t making anymore, and I use an AGP video card, which has become low-end. What the deuce? So in order to upgrade, I really need a new motherboard/processor/video card, at which point I will just build a new box and turn the current one into a media center or some other file server.

On the music front, I quit playing bass in the cover band that I was in and am concentrating solely on my first band Horseshoes & Handgrenades. We’ve got some new stuff in the works, and are spending a bit more time of late trying to refine our current songs so that we can get back in the studio and record a full length albulm. Can’t wait for that day to come.

Anyways, I’m sure by now that your tasty beverage is near empty, as I know mine is, so I’ll let you go for now. Come back soon, I promise to give you more.

1e5be28cfa89bbaacf119776db0346fe->

058d88a28362031ae235a361e4b3604e->

058d88a28362031ae235a361e4b3604e->

058d88a28362031ae235a361e4b3604e->

058d88a28362031ae235a361e4b3604e->