Hergio

My New Blog: blog.hergert.us

2005-11-20T09:29:00.000-05:00

I've decided to go purchase my own domain name and set up my own blog, and also add things to it as I go. I don't want to just have blogging, but I'd like to maintain projects I work on, family stuff, pictures, etc. So we'll see how it goes.

It's over at http://blog.hergert.us. So this probably will be my last post over on this blog. I am still tweaking that one to look the way I want. There is so much more ability to customize and makes things your own when you have your own setup. Plus having your own domain really gives you a presence as well.

Oh and by the way, I am using WordPress as my blogging tool with a MySQL database. Wordpress is an awesome blogging tool, its just great! I highly highly recommend it if you want to use a powerful and slick blogging tool.

FolderShare

2005-11-14T08:32:00.000-05:00

This site allows you to sync up any two computers as well as share files to friends over the web. Its a pretty cool application. I guess it used to cost a fee, but Microsoft apparently bought FolderShare and now you can get the service for free. I've already begun syncing up the pictures from my Powerbook to my desktop so in the case of a failure on either, I have a mirrored copy of the files I hold deerest.

Tom Cruise Kills Oprah

2005-11-03T17:05:00.000-05:00

Found this funny Quicktime spoof on waxy.org from when Tom Cruise visited the Oprah show. Its called "Tom Cruise kills Oprah". haha

Flight Patterns

2005-11-03T12:36:00.000-05:00

Wow, this is a really sweet page. Its flight plan visualizations from the FAA, its amazing to see all the air traffic in the US. Plus its a neat visualization in itself.

netvibes.com

2005-11-03T10:36:00.000-05:00

Yeah, this is sweet. Netvibes.com

This is web 2.0, most definitely. Beats start.com and live.com hands down. Microsoft should be hiring these guys or secretly copying them. Because these start-up guys have better ideas and a better implementation of a portal than billion dollar Microsoft has been able to do.

Yahoo! Local Maps Beta

2005-11-03T10:25:00.000-05:00

Yahoo! has come out with a Beta Version of its local maps feature. Its a very neat interface. Its based in Flash. Now, I think this is good because it provides a very neat interface that is very responsive and rich. But at the same time I see it as cheating because I've always seen Flash as not a true web standard and design. I mean, it has its place, but I think they used it so they could quickly jump into the frey of leading map providers (Google Maps and Virtual Earth).

Speaking of leading map providers...what the hell is MapQuest doing in all of this? They used to be my favorite place for maps and now Google and the rest came along and have kicked the crap out of MapQuest. Their interface has changed slightly, but the maps are no where near as interactive as the other competitors. And they don't provide satellite images (Yahoo! maps beta should add that too). I hope MapQuest is working on something big, otherwise they should just shut their doors because their interface right now doesn't hold a candle to Google, Microsoft, and now Yahoo.

Anyways, back to Yahoo! Maps Beta. I really like the little overview map in the upper right of the interface. The fact that you can navigate using it and get a high level idea of what you are looking at is quite beneficial. I think others should copy it. Who can make a better version of it? I love this competition between these guys, its making these map providers create better and better apps. Ahh, to be a consumer in today's tech environment is awesome.

Washington, DC

2005-11-02T08:41:00.000-05:00

Got back from my business trip to Washington, DC last week. It was pretty tiring but I enjoyed it. We stayed and trained actually in Arlington, VA, but our hotel was right next to Arlington Cemetery and we were able to visit DC on a few occassions.

We went down there to train on a software product called JRules from a company called ILOG. Its a rules engine based in Java that we plan to use within our company. Pretty neat product. Training was good, learned alot and I feel alot more comfortable with the product. Now the difficult part begins... designing and writing our applications to use it. Using a rules engine kinda changes the way you think about things because its not the same as straight forward programming. Not so procedural, I guess.

Boy did I miss my family. I cried like a baby saying goodbye to the wife and kids. I missed them so much. I hated going away. It was exciting to be going on a business trip, but it sucked leaving family. But I think it made me realize more how much I love them and how much I hate going a day without seeing them.

In the evenings, we tried to get out and go to dinner and see some of DC in the remaining hours of day light. If only we had gone a week later we would have benefitted from switching back to Eastern Standard Time... ah well. So we were able to stop at the Washington Monument, the Capitol, The White House, the WWII Memorial, the Reflecting Pool, and the Lincoln Memorial. We were out until 10:30p that night seeing those places. When we were at the White House we witnessed a protest led by Cindy Sheehan mourning the 2000th American death in Iraq. It was pretty intense with all the people chanting and shouting at each other. Both sides were represented so there was some tense moments. Very interesting.

Overall, I had a good time. Learned alot and was very tired every evening. Washington, DC is a very interesting place and I'd like to visit it again with my family. The business trip was fun too, learned alot about a good product and look forward to using it.

live.com and start.com

2005-11-02T08:16:00.000-05:00

Microsoft recently announced the launch of a new site called Windows Live. I read about it above on News.com as well as on Google Blogoscoped. Now will somebody please tell me what the difference is between Windows Live and Start.com? Please!? They are practically the same thing, at least thats what it looks like right now. Little portlets you can drag around, customizable content, changing the number of columns, show/hide, etc. Its all the same...whats going on here? Apparently, this page will have more. It already has an email portlet (pretty neat indeed), and supposedly will have an MSN Messenger portlet as well among other things. So where is start.com going to go? Who would use start.com if Windows Live is the souped-up version of start.com?

Halloween Costumes 2005 - Part 2

2005-10-22T14:33:00.000-04:00

Well, here they are. The final costumes. They took alittle longer than expected but boy was it worth it. They really look good. I just finished up the second crayon hat last night and fitted the head straps this morning. They are going to get their first test tonight at a local Halloween party at the fire hall. Hope they stand up to my boys!

Basically, to give a quick description of how I made these; I bought some colored fabric and some black iron on interfacing as well as some foam paper for the cone hats. I also purchase some wooden rings that I believe are used in embroidery and just pulled off the clamp.

I started by sewing the colored fabric into pillow cases, although they tapered as they moved away from the opening. This way they wouldn't be too baggy at their shoulders. I then hemmed the bottom to hold the wooden ring that would give the costume its circular shape (like a crayon).

I then printed out copies of the crayola logo and the wavy strips (I am anal about making it really look like the original) and used that as a stencil on the black interfacing. We also cut out the words "RED" and "GREEN" for the back of the costumes. My wife and I ironed it all on and cut out the holes. Looked great. Then onto the hats.

It took a couple of tries with white paper to get the right look but I ended up with a shape I liked and cut it out and super glued it into a cone. Then I cut out a ring to attach to the bottom of the cone and then edged the ring with a vertical piece to give the cone hat that distinctive edge that crayons do. Then just placed a little circular piece at the top of the cone to close it up. Then I super glued an elastic piece from ear to eat and, voila!, it was done!

I took way too long with these, but I am such a perfectionist, its disgusting. But I am sorta proud of these. My wife helped me a ton and was so supportive, just letting me do my thing, giving me great input, and helping where she could (and I'd let her, hehe).

Can't wait to show them off tonight at the party. Then they will be wearing them to the PAETEC Halloween Party next Thursday. I won't be around, I'll be out of town on business in Virgina/DC but my sister-in-law is coming out to Rochester that day to go to the party with the wife and kids. But then next Monday we'll do the real thing and hopefully really haul in some massive amounts of candy with these things!

Google Toolbar works with Firefox 1.5 beta

2005-10-14T10:31:00.000-04:00

Looks like Google released a new version of the Google Toolbar for Firefox (they blogged about it here). I wanted 1.5 beta AND my google toolbar a couple weeks ago...so I just hacked it. I mean, it actually sounds worse than it was. Just changed the maxVersion level of the plugin to 1.5+ and viola! it works! But maybe I will install the 'official' one that works now. :0)

Halloween Costumes 2005 - Part 1

2005-10-12T22:51:00.000-04:00

Well, I have been working every night for the past week on the boys halloween costumes. Tonight I decided to take the evening off to watch my show (Lost on ABC) and relax alittle. Anyways, they are going to be crayons. Red and green. I have spent way too much time on making these things as perfect as I could. I have been sewing, cutting, drawing, stitching, etc and boy is it fun, but tiring. I will definitely try and post pictures of the final costumes when they are finished. I will try and describe how I made them as well, I am pretty impressed with myself. I searched the internet to see if anyone had done something like this before (in the way I wanted them to look) and I did not see anything, so I did it all from ideas my wife and I came up with. We'll see...

Amazing Hand-Eye Coordination (Ikaruga Game)

2005-10-12T11:50:00.000-04:00

Check out this video where some guy is controlling a 2 player coin-op game using one hand for one player, and one hand for the other. Give it a couple minutes to stream, google video can take a few minutes to load a video.
Anyways, this isn't just some simple top-down shooter, this is one intense looking game. It really looks pretty fun, actually. Its called Ikaruga (see review here on gamespot.com) and I guess its available for the gamecube.

digg story

Free Downloadable Fonts

2005-10-12T11:41:00.000-04:00

Nice find here on Digg. Digg story here; it links to dafont.com which has some really great free fonts. From well known fonts from advertisers, movies and TV shows, to some plain out useful fonts. For example, I'm always on the lookout for some nice mono-spaced fonts. Currently I love BitStream Vera Sans Mono (available on dafont, by the way), since I am coding all the time. But here is a nice list of other mono-spaced fonts for use. Give them a try, I know I will be running them through their paces in Eclipse.

Skipping Verizon Wireless Voicemail Message

2005-09-14T21:58:00.000-04:00

Have you ever been annoyed by that default lengthy voicemail message of Verizon Wireless customers you may call? Or possibly even long lengthy annoying voicemail greetings of the customers themselves? Don't fret any longer, there is a solution! When the message begins to play, hit "*" and the message will immediately stop and then you will hear the welcomed "beep" to instruct you to begin your message. Whew!

What a welcomed shortcut this will be, especially for all those housewives calling their husbands when they are late leaving work who conveniently "miss" the call(s). Now they can leave tons more angry voicemails. But I don't know anything about that sort of thing, its just a hypothetical example. ;0)

Oddly enough, I found this out watching Google Current this afternoon. Its a pretty interesting station if you are lucky enough to have it in your area.

MS Office 12 Beta Screenshot from PDC 05

2005-09-13T13:29:00.000-04:00

Office 12 Interface screenshots were released today. Its currently being slashdotted, so you may want to wait a bit before trying. Anyways, they look pretty nice. I like the new way the menus work. Apparently Microsoft is trying to get away from the 'old' hierarchy menus. Hopefully using them will be intuitive. Can't wait to get a hold of this.

MSN and Google in Politics

2005-09-12T13:11:00.000-04:00

Over on Scoble's blog he noted how apparently MSN appears to be more conservative and Google more liberal. And to see what he means, plug "failure" into each search engine and see what the top result is in each. Interesting.

For the lazy people, Google's results and MSN results.

digg.com

2005-09-07T14:19:00.000-04:00

What a sweet site. Its like slashdot but what stories appear on the main page is controlled by the users. If you like a story, you vote for it (digg it). There is also this neat spy page which allows you to see what other users are digging in real time.

Another thing about this site I love, besides the abundence of constantly updated and interesting stories is that fact that alot of it is driven using AJAX. Asynchronous JavaScript and XML is what is stands for and its been around awhile, but just recently has it begun to get some attention. It really got popular when Google started using it in its Google Maps, Gmail, and Google Suggest applications. So anyways, on this site, when you "digg" a story, it does it using AJAX. And the spy page refreshes every 10 seconds using AJAX. Pretty slick. (Thats my word as of late, slick) :0)

FlashEarth

2005-08-23T16:26:00.000-04:00

Pretty neat site. FlashEarth.com Really cool how you can compare both Google Maps and MSN Virtual Earth. And since its done in Flash, it looks sweet! And looking at this guy, Neave, has some other pretty neat stuff. Enjoy.

Poking fun at Balmer

2005-08-08T22:45:00.000-04:00

Over at MacComedy, those funny fellow mac users have put together an entertaining video of Steve Balmer's (Microsoft CEO) speeches put to music. Man, that Balmer is crazy. Take a look.

Picasa 2

2005-07-14T00:23:00.000-04:00

Boy, what an awesome program this is. It can be found here and is a sweet picture program developed by Google. They really did a nice job with this, its extremely sleek and actually FUN to use!

Live 8

2005-07-06T21:22:00.000-04:00

Saw some of the LIVE 8 clips on AOL, pretty cool. From what I heard the converage was so-so on MTV. There are some places online to see clips, but I can't seem to get exactly the ones I want. If anyone knows of a good link for seeing good clips of LIVE 8, please let me know.

Wedding

2005-07-06T21:20:00.000-04:00

My wife and I are in a wedding this weekend, should be a good time. Its a good friend of mine that I used to work with at my previous job. We still keep in touch even though I'm all the way out here in the ROC. We're both standing up in it, its the first wedding I've ever stood up in (besides my own) so I am alittle nervous. But it should be a really fun time.

I am taking off half of tomorrow and then all of Friday for it. I was supposed to pick up my Tux tomorrow, but the rehearsal (and dinner) is tomorrow night. So my tux won't be ready. So I have to go to Buffalo for the rehearsal, and then on Friday truck all the way back to Rochester to pick up the tux. I've I had realized this when I got fitted for the tux the first time, I would have had them send it out to Buffalo. No changing it now. Kinda sucks, but oh well. It just better fit perfect.

Alright, I got some work for work to do. Later

July 4th Weekend

2005-07-05T10:27:00.000-04:00

Geez what a weekend. Had a great time with friends and family. Had a BBQ, swam alot, played ball, had a bon fire, shot off fireworks, had another BBQ, hung out with friends some more, went to a nature park and then saw an awesome fireworks display. Boy, definitely not a relaxing weekend, but sure was a fun one.

Now its time to sit down and relax at work. Ooookay. ;0)

Big Brother 6

2005-07-05T10:24:00.000-04:00

Its almost here! Can't wait! Big Brother 6 premieres this Thursday July 7th @ 8PM. I've watched every season of Big Brother. Its really a nice refreshing summer series. Its not overkill as its only a couple months out of the year, unlike Survivor where they are now shoving it down your throat with one season ending and another starting up a week later. Anyways, plus its fun to see what sorta people they throw into a house and see how they interact. And there's usually a neat twist thrown into the mix to make it all the more interesting.

I won't be able to watch the premiere live as I will be at a wedding rehersal party. But I am sure one of my wonderful co-workers will tape it or Tivo it for me. :0)

Looking at the list of house guests on the site, my very first unofficial prediction (based on looks and the small bios) for the winner is James. But I am not going to hold myself to that. Only after I see the first episode I will make my official guess at the season's winner.

Eclipse, Ivy, and Necessitas

2005-07-05T10:18:00.000-04:00

Been looking into a nice way to track java JAR dependencies in our Eclipse projects at work. We have a great library sharing distribution mechanism in place, but no dependency management. You got to know if your project uses Lib A, and that Lib A needs Lib B; you gotta add Lib B to your project.

Found a nice java library called Ivy for managing your java dependencies using Ant. Really very nice. All types of ways to configure how libraries are retrieved and versioned, has caching so you don't download libraries over and over again unnecessarily. But what would be even better would be to use Ivy from Eclipse. And thats where Necessitas comes in. Its a nice plugin for Eclipse, put together by Kevin O'Neill, that allows you to use the Ivy dependency management but have all the libraries automatically added to your classpath and cached to your computer. Started using it; pretty nice. I'd like to contribute where I can, but its off to a great start. I'm looking more and more into the source of it, so maybe I can add a thing or two.

But I recommend if you are in software development and have libraries you reuse in multiple project, you should have some sort of dependency maangement. Because it can be hell to keep everything straight.

Guess the Google

2005-06-20T16:35:00.000-04:00

This a pretty neat game a friend of mine emailed me about. Go to
http://grant.robinson.name/projects/guess-the-google/ and click on the Lauch Project button at the bottom. It pulls images from images.google.com on the fly and displays them to you and you have to guess what the phrase is that would have brought up the images in Google image search.

I also suggest you vote for this as the FlashForward2005 People's Choice award here . There are also some other pretty neat flash games and applications to be viewed here. Some are very good, but I think this one is a winner.

Uh oh!

2005-05-17T11:29:00.000-04:00

Co-workers found out about my blog...I better watch what I say now. :0)

Nintendo DS

2005-04-24T14:43:00.000-04:00

Played the Nintendo DS this weekend over at my parents house. More accurately I played the Nintendo DS owned by my brother. Boy, what a great little system that is. The games are very addicting and the touch screen is extremely intuitive. My son even began playing it and he got really really good at it. I think we may just get him (*cough* me *cough*) one for his birthday... ;0)

Xbox Live

2005-04-20T23:21:00.000-04:00

Signed up for Xbox live this past week. Got a friend who has it. Should be fun. I bought a NETGEAR Wireless Adapter (WGE111) and so far it hasn't been the most fun thing I've ever set up. Not by a long shot. Out of the box, I had to turn off all my security to get it on the network which is understandable. But it claims to support MAC filtering and having broadcasting turned off (if you dont know what those mean, I apologize). So anyways, when I turn on those security features, it can't connect to my network. So I've turned them off, but managed to keep encryption (WPA) turned on. And it worked for a night or so, then after a game it cut out. I left it for the next day and haven't been able to reconnect since. I've rebooted it any everything and it doesn't seem to work. Ugh! I am thinking I need to reset the damn thing AGAIN and set it all up again. I swear if I have it doesnt work again I am returning the damn thing. I might try the 24x7 free phone support it says is included.

Its been awhile

2005-04-09T00:40:00.000-04:00

Boy oh boy, its been awhile. I don't think I can even remember all the stuff that has happened in the past month to recap. Been real busy at work, just finishing up a project, getting it into the test environments, and moving on into another project. So that'll be a nice change. Hopefully my next few projects will have alittle less to do with Oracle E-Business Suite :0)

Had some trees removed from our yard today. We had a crab apple tree and a pine tree removed from our front yard, and a larger tree that I have no idea what it was from the back. They did a pretty nice job, and the price was great. It really opens up the yard more, and you can see the front of our house so much better. Now I have to begin the other yard work like ripping out the bushes and fixing the holes in the ground from the trees. But it should be fun, and I need the manual labor, i GOT to get back in shape.

The wife is out of town for the weekend. So it's just me and the boys. Nothing but Mac N' Cheese all weekend! No, not really. But it should (and has been thus far) a pretty fun time. Geez, I work all day and generally only see my boys in the afternoon/evening and the weekends. I love these guys to death. Being just me and them constantly has made me love them so much more, giving me that aching-love feeling even when they just go to bed. I miss them! I can't see how my wife can break away for 4 days when she's with them so much and has such a bond with them. I really love spending time with them. So I am really taking this weekend and reflecting and just spending some good quality time with my sons.
When they are napping or sleeping, I have had more of a chance to play on the computer. Getting alittle farther in Myst and Riven than I have in awhile. :0) My plan for the weekend has been to not have a plan. Just hang out, chill with the boys, and just diddle on the computer when they are sleepin or watching their DVDs.

Oh that brings me to The Incredibles. I bought the DVD this past month. What a great movie, I really like it. Took my son, S, to the theater to see it and he loved it. E is alittle to young still. Although I guess grandma took them to see Robots and E sat through it just fine. From what my mother in law tells me, she thinks Robots is right up there with the best movies, an instant classic.

Getting Xbox Live in the next week or so. A buddy of mine at work got xbox and xbox live as a wedding gift from his fiance and he's been urging me to get the live part (I already had the box). So I finally caved and got it. I had to get a wireless adapater so I could hook my Xbox into my wireless network. I ended up getting a Netgear Wireless G Access Point, Ralli Sport 2, and the 12 month xbox live starter kit (with Crimson Skies) for $149 all from Amazon and that includes all shipping, tax, etc. So not half bad I think. I am a tight wad when it comes to my money, so I try and find the best deals possible. My dad says I try and split my dollars and spend them twice.

Oh and my sister (and parents) got us Radio Controlled Hummer and Jeep trucks! How sweet! Thanks guys! My sister was buying one for use over in Iraq (got a video from her playing with it, looked like fun) and got a good deal and bought the boys one each. These things go everywhere, and they are a riot. So much fun, thanks again mom, dad, and sis.

Anyways, so thats about it. Think I got a bunch of the stuff that occurred. So until next time....

Tired

2005-03-13T22:02:00.000-05:00

Whew! Been crazy the past week and I have not been able to get on here and post something. Between work, home improvement work, spending time with the kids, having family over to the house, having friends over for alittle Texas Hold 'Em (which I lost in btw), its been busy. So let's see, quick update.

MS Money is going good. Still like it, I think I got all our accounts and bills in there and set up correctly. Its really cool to see how it tracks everything, and it does it in a sleek way. Gotta reiterate, Microsoft did a decent job on this product...but then again I haven't tried Quicken or the others. But I would say if it sucked too.

House is relatively the same since I last talked about it. My wife painted the kitchen set (maroon) as well as the cupboards (black) and it really looks nice; it gives them a totally new look. And, being the penny pincher that I am, I am very happy with the way it turned out and that it only cost as much as the paint. Plus my wife got a nice sense of accomplishment out of it too. So things look great with the new kitchen floor.

Work has been busy...I have a project I am trying to finish up and I was at work until 10:30pm last Friday. I left when they turned the lights out on me! But I'm almost there...anyone have any serious experience in Oracle E-Business Suite? :) Hey, its worth a shot.

I guess my sister is doing well in Iraq. Sent over a laptop a couple months ago and now her Captain wants an iBook, so I just bought one to customize and send over to him. Trying to keep our troops happy and comfortable as possible. I personally have the PowerBook and absolutely love it, so anything on the mac side is a good choice.

Wedding anniversary is coming up! Looks like the wife is taking me out to see a lacrosse game next weekend, the Rochester Knighthawks versus the Buffalo Bandits. My home town favorites (bandits) versus my new town's team. And right now only a win separates them in the standings, so it should be good.

Well thats about it, sorry for the lapse. Goodnight....

MS Money Update

2005-03-03T21:23:00.000-05:00

Well, so far so good. I must say there is alot to it and it can easily get crazy, especially when you start punching all your numbers it, it can just get hairy. I think there are some simplier ways to view the information, but I like seeing everything up front and digesting it...then I think nothing is getting past me.

Inputting all my accounts was a breeze. Every account except my bank and my school loans hooked up to the internet automatically. And to touch on what I mentioned in my last post about MS Money, I spoke with my bank and found out there is a free way to get my bank information into MS Money. It just requires me to log into my banking site manually and download a ofx file and then just import that into Money. Its really not that big of a deal, not a big effort. I may even write a little program to take care of it for me.

The bills thing seems alittle more complicated. I am still mastering that one. Can't seem to figure out if there is a way to link your accounts and bills, like if I have a credit card and its due date is the 13th, then put a recurring bill in the bill section for me. I don't know, maybe I don't understand how it is supposed to work yet.

The 401k thing seems nice, although I don't know enough about my 401k to be able to punch it into Money. You can put in what stocks its in, how many shares you have, etc and it can tell you to-the-day what its worth. But I think I can dumb it down enough to just say "here's what I am putting in each pay period, keep track of that", I will leave it up to my institution to track the investments and I'll update accordingly.

But so far so good, I will try and stick to it.

LOST

2005-03-03T21:15:00.000-05:00

Man, what a great show. Lost on ABC network is one of the best shows I've watched in a long time. This along with Desperate housewives, I think that reality television may finally reached its peak. Don't get me wrong, I enjoy some reality television now and then, its actually pretty refreshing and quite interesting. But I think it has also saturated the market so much, that it can become overwhelming. I think thats why it took off in the beginning; because it was so different and real. When EVERYTHING on television starts to go that way, it begins to lose it's sheen. So now with some non-reality shows out there that are becoming my favorites, like Lost, Desperate Housewives, and ER, it makes the shows like Survivor and American Idol more enjoyable.

Microsoft Money 2005

2005-02-28T00:01:00.000-05:00

Bought Microsoft Money 2005 this past Friday. Bought it online at Best Buy online, paid for it online and opted for the pickup from the store the next day...couldn't wait to get my grubby little hands on it. Have had some good reviews from people at work about it, so I thought I would take stab with it. Try and get those bills in check. Plus it was on sale at BB for $39, and plus MS is offering a $20 mail in rebate...so I might get it for $20 total, if that rebate goes through. But who knows, they might see I bought it onsale and not give me the credit.

Anyways, I've tried it out some and its nice. I like how it connects up to your bank and credit card accounts nicely. And I am going to try and start paying some bills with it. But overall the interface is very slick and intuitive. As I become more affluent with it, I will post my thoughts about it on here.

But one thing that rubs me the wrong way is my bank charges for the ability to have MS Money connect up to it and download account information. And even with that, I can only 'sync' up 15 times a month. Crap I tell ya! I'll be letting them know I don't like that, and that I will begin researching other banks for perks such as free MS Money connectivity. I mean, they have my money and make money on it, the least they can do is let my computer connect up and download.

Busy Week

2005-02-27T23:43:00.000-05:00

Whew its been a busy week, haven't been able to get on here to post anything. Our sons love snails, so we bought them a snail for the acquarium this week and it died when we got it home. I took it back today to get it replaced and this one also died before I even got it into the tank it seemed. I think its the place we are getting them from. I am sure I won't be going back there.

We put in a new kitchen floor this weekend. Went out and bought some peel and stick flooring, not going too expensive as we may remodel the entire kitchen in a few years, so why waste the money now. But boy was it a pain in the ass. We had carpeting in our eating area, and tile in the main kitchen area. Due to the differing types of flooring, we had to rip everything out to the sub floor. What "fun" what was. But we got it all out, and had my mother and father (aka
MacGyver; boy I loved that show). My dad is so knowledgable and helpful, I don't know what I would do with out him. I learn so much from him. Thanks mom & dad for your help, if you're reading this. But now its done, the kitchen looks wonderful. We even put in some colonial molding and base cap and it looks purrty darn sharp. Quite happy with the turn out.

Well, its on to another fun week. Maybe I can post more on here...

Presidents Day

2005-02-21T15:06:00.000-05:00

Just relaxing here on this presidents day after a long weekend. Took a half day on Friday and as I walked out, thank goodness I said "see ya Monday" to someone and they were so kind to inform me that we had Monday off. I'm such a dunce, I would have gone into work today too and not realized my mistake until I saw the parking lot.

So as I said, I took a hald day on Friday and headed into Buffalo for a fun filled weekend. We generally stay with my parents when we go in. Did some running around to drop off some baby stuff for my cousin, who was having a baby shower on Sunday. Saw my grandma who just got out of the hospital. She's now recouping after some back surgery. She's such a tough lady, I think shes 85 or something, has a replacement hip and knee, and has had countless surgeries the past few years, and yet she still keeps on tickin'. I hope I am as tough as her when I get to be her age. She's just been getting down on her self about everything and we just have to help keep her hopes up.
Got our taxes done this weekend...turned out very well. I purposely try and contribute just a bit more than I have to so I can always get something back. Sort of like a little reward every year at tax time.
We went skiing on Saturday as well. Went out to Bristol Mountain in Rochester with some friends and met some co-workers up there too. Had a great time...what a nice night. Thought we weren't going to be able to get out this season, but we did. Oh how I love skiing, what a wonderful sport.
And then Sunday the boys and I just chilled with my dad while my wife and mother went to the baby shower. They sounded like they had a good time. And then we did what we ALWAYS do on Sunday evenings, watch Extreme Home Makeover and Desperate Housewives. Two good shows in my opinion, I suggest watching them.

Well, thats my weekend, now its on to a short work week.

Haven't heard from my sister in Iraq since last Monday or Tuesday. Hope shes ok.

Bonus Week!

2005-02-17T23:18:00.000-05:00

Got a bonus from my work this week. Yea hoo. Gonna pay off some debt and sock alittle away. Giddy up. I love my job, I really do. :0) Not many people can say that.

Buffalo Bills release Drew Bledsoe

2005-02-17T13:59:00.000-05:00

Well, the bills finally did it. I think this is a good first step for the Bills in their preparation for next season. Don't get me wrong, I don't think Bledsoe is a bad quarterback by any means. I just think (1) his non-mobile style of play wasn't helping (1) he doesn't fit with what the bills coaching staff wants to do (2) J.P. Losman deserves a chance to step up, and I think he will. Go Bills!

Microsoft announces IE 7

2005-02-15T23:27:00.000-05:00

Looks like Microsoft will in fact update their browser. Whoopie I say. If it wasn't for Firefox, Microsoft wouldn't even be doing this. I'm happy with my new browser and I plan to stick with it. But on the flip side, I still would be interested to see what Microsoft pulls out of their hat.

My sis

2005-02-14T23:36:00.000-05:00

Just missing my sis on this Valentine's Day. The boys were talking about her today. Maybe she'll read this blog and post a comment! *hint* *hint* :0)

Love ya Sis!

Sports

2005-02-14T23:33:00.000-05:00

Just watching the news...ugh, looks like they are cancelling the NHL season. Man, what a waste, first time since 1919 I guess. That really sucks, I like watching hockey...especially my Sabres! I don't claim to be an expert on the issues concerned with the lockout, but I would think it has to do with alot of money and somebody not wanted to budge.

Also hear Eric Moulds is resigning with the Buffalo Bills for 3 more years. Thats great. He also restructured such that his contract is lighter upfront and heavier on the back end to free up some salary cap room for this coming season. I think if we have any shot at the big show, its sooner rather than later. So anything to get some good talent in here now is worth it. Thanks Eric!

Speaking of sports, I gotta start doing something. Damn office job is killing me. There should be a freshman 15 and a graduate 15. I ran around college for 4 years keeping slim and trim, and then I go and graduate and get an office job that works my head muscle and I start gaining. Friend of mine mentioned an Ultimate Frisbee league in the area. Hopefully that will pan out and I can start doing something active. Joining a local lacrosse league wouldn't be a bad idea either....

Valentine's Day

2005-02-14T23:25:00.000-05:00

Happy Valentine's Day to all! Today was a nice day. Came home from work today, the wife made a wonderful dinner. We exchanged our valentine's day cards, and the boys and I got out theres. A couple days ago, mommy went out shopping, so the boys and I made her Valentine's Day cards. It really was alot of fun. Me and my annoying perfectionism made for some stressful moments, but all in all the boys did their own work. I cut out hearts and other shapes and helped them glue everything together. Sticky and fun! But they really turned out well and their mommy loved them. My wife and I are trying to keep things simple and save money, so we just exchanged cards. But I broke down and got her a CD. :) I was supposed to to her the CD from Kassie DePaiva, who is a soap star who has an album. But I could not find it, so I ended up getting her the new Alicia Keys CD. We had just been discussing it the night before while watching the grammys. What an amazing artist she is, I mean really, shes really talented!
So another successful and enjoyable Valentine's Day. I am thankful for my Valentine, as I hope she is happy with me. ;)

Blogging inspiration

2005-02-13T13:37:00.000-05:00

I must say I do enjoy reading Robert Scoble's blog. Seeing his high profile blog in some news articles and what not got me into reading blogs, mainly his and the ones he talked about. And now I find myself exploring and surfing many other blogs. There is so much information and knowledge out ther to be shared being written by thousands of interesting people. So I just wanted to point that out to anyone reading my squeeky new blog, and to give credit where credit due. Thanks Rob.

Old Friends

2005-02-13T13:31:00.000-05:00

Just got an email from an old friend from my high school and early college days. She has moved far away since those days and started her life. That just got me thinking about all the old friends I've had and how its funny how you're so close with people, but indefinitely you grow up, grow apart and make your own lives. After college you persue your careers and start your families and it gets difficult to keep as close and as in touch as you once were and hoped to be forever. Guess thats just how it goes. But you have to make an effort to keep some friends close.

I've found that the friends I've made in my final year of college and first year out of it are the ones I will keep in touch with for a long long time. Hopefully thats really how it will go, and not just because they are the most recent. Now that I am establishing myself, settling down, I think I am in for the long run with most of them.

But its also nice to keep in touch with old friends, see how they are doing and how life is treating them too.

I'm onboard

2005-02-11T23:32:00.000-05:00

Ok, I've finally succumbed to the blogging phenomenon. After seeing all the hype on the internet about blogging, it definitely seems like the next big thing. And plus it just seems like a really neat idea to be able to put my thoughts out there, let people read them and see what they think. I've found it extremely interesting to read some of the high profile blogs out there, as well as some of the lesser known ones. So I've said "what the hell", I'll give it shot. See if I can keep up on this thing and post some interesting bits and pieces of my life.

Lets see if I can list out the things that I might talk about on here in the future and then I can look back at this post as see how wrong or right I was.

I'll probably talk about my wonderful family. I really have to say I have been absolutely blessed with a great family. Not just with the one I grew up in, but with the family I've married into and the one I've created with my wife.
My sister; shes in Iraq right now serving her duty for our country. Shes been there for maybe 5 months and she'll be there probably over 6 months from now so she's always on our minds. We support her and all our troops 100%.
My job and the work I'm doing; I've been again blessed to have a great job at an even greater company. I may divulge more information on that as I get more comfortable online, but due to all the recent hoop-la about people getting fired for blogging about their jobs, I'll tread lightly.
Things I read about online or in my day to day activities. I read Slashdot regularly so there are always some good things to talk about.
Programming, Java, Computers in general. I am a tech guy, so that sort of stuff always amuses me.

So I guess we'll see how well I know myself a couple months from now. So with that; my first post if finished and I am off to bed.