Wow its been a while

It's been a really long time since I posted anything to my blog.  It's not because there is a lack of things to blog about, its just all about time and the fact that I can't actually get to the blogger site anymore from work.  No matter, I know that I can send in postings from email now anyway so it doesn't hurt me.  Time has been scarce lately with all the things going on at work and on the home front.  Since I don't talk about work at all, its time to move on to the home front!

December 27 is the magical day that I will close on my newly completed townhouse in South Florida.  It's less than a week away and I'm excited to actually own real estate.  It's going to cost a mother load of money but I think in the end it'll be well worth it to have the ability to paint walls as I see fit, put holes in the wall without fear, and just add and subtract things as my wife and I deem appropriate.  I mean renting is a pretty sweet deal because you can just get up and leave if you want to but there's just something psychologically refreshing about actually knowing that the place you live is YOURS and you're really not answering to a land lord.  Granted things like home repairs will fall on me or the repair man to do rather than a handy man supplied by the land lord but thats something I can live with easily enough.

My wife and I did a walk through earlier this week to look for flaws at the townhouse and what we found were just a few minor things here and there, nothing really earth shattering.  Just needed a few adjustments to some bricks, add a little paint here and there, adjust the toilet so it flushes a little better, and removing the coke can that was still on the roof from the construction guys.  I took a few pictures but they're generally boring because the place is empty and painted completely white.  The kitchen area is pretty nice though with the stainless steel appliances and the black marble counter top.  I am also very excited that I have my own garage.  No more parking my car outside and all that crap and fighting for parking spaces or getting pissed that someone took my normal space.  I can also start storing stuff in there which should free up lots of room in the living area.  The courtyards aren't bad, I'll maybe add some plants or something to it as well as some patio furniture and a grill for cook outs.  It's nicely shaded most of the time so I don't have to worry about stuff like sun damage.  The master bedroom is awesome because it has the big balcony on it.  Normally the townhouse model that my wife and I purchased would have a small balcony good enough for maybe a chair and thats it, the one that came with our townhouse has a HUGE one where we can fit 2 chairs and a small table.  It over looks the street so the neighbors can see me when I'm out there but I don't much care, I have a balcony!  I'll take pics once the closing is done.  Furniture is coming in later in the week and all the utilities have been scheduled to be installed the day of closing.  I would suspect by the first weekend after new years I should be all moved in with all my stuff :)  Oh happy day!!

Oh and to everyone that reads my blog (I know who you are because of the comments) Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!!  (I'm Catholic so I'm only saying Merry Christmas and not Happy Holidays so :P)

The softer side of Sears

Last night was a good night because after the purchase my wife and I made, we know that its almost time to move in to our townhouse.  On a suggestion from my sister-in-law, we went to Sears to buy a washer and dryer.  Because of some peculiarities with our place, they have to be stackable or one of those all in one deals that LG makes.  We decided to get the ultra brand spankin new Kenmore HE5T.  These are the mack daddy's of the Kenmore line and they're supposed to save you tons of money because they use less electricity and water per load.  They may cost a lot up front but I'm sure it'll be worth it.  It's also nice that they are front loading because I don't like having to dig at the bottom of the washer for clothes, I always end up missing some.  :)

On a funnier note, my wife and I also went to Macy's and she was looking for a tweed blazer.  Almost anyone with half a brain will know what tweed is as well as a blazer.  Since we couldn't find one she decided to ask a sales person.  She asked where the tweed blazers were and the sales person replies "whats a blazer?"  LOL!!  To top it off, she follows up with the question "whats tweed?"  ROFLMAO!!!  Needless to say we left Macy's soon after that.  Ahh holiday help, I hope they're being paid only minimum wage.

The elusive Tickle Me Elmo Extreme

The hottest toy of the Christmas season this year I think is the all new Tickle Me Elmo Extreme.  It's been sold out at stores for a while and I've heard that people have fought over it at regular brick and mortar places just to get one.  I saw a demo of it on Walmart.com and the things it does is pretty sweet for only $40.00.  Walmart is actually selling 6000 of them a day on their website beginning at high noon EST but they never last more than a minute.  I've been trying for 2 days now and all with no luck.  At least I have it in my shopping cart so I can do a fast check or something but it takes excellent timing.  I think its kind of like trying to get something on eBay.  The only bid that counts is the last dude that puts in a bid and normally thats at like the very last second or so of an auction which is probably why I've never had much success getting anything on eBay except for odd ball crap that no one really wants or cares about.

Muahaha, the blogging continues even though I'm locked out during the day time.  Email blogging is no different, i just can't change my page elements right now.

The elusive Tickle Me Elmo Extreme

The hottest toy of the Christmas season this year I think is the all new Tickle Me Elmo Extreme.  It's been sold out at stores for a while and I've heard that people have fought over it at regular brick and mortar places just to get one.  I saw a demo of it on Walmart.com and the things it does is pretty sweet for only $40.00.  Walmart is actually selling 6000 of them a day on their website beginning at high noon EST but they never last more than a minute.  I've been trying for 2 days now and all with no luck.  At least I have it in my shopping cart so I can do a fast check or something but it takes excellent timing.  I think its kind of like trying to get something on eBay.  The only bid that counts is the last dude that puts in a bid and normally thats at like the very last second or so of an auction which is probably why I've never had much success getting anything on eBay except for odd ball crap that no one really wants or cares about.

Muahaha, the blogging continues even though I'm locked out during the day time.  Email blogging is no different, i just can't change my page elements right now.

Locked out of blogger

My firm's network just locked me out of blogger which kinda stinks.  But thats ok, because I can still send in my blog posts by email!  Muahaha!  There are always ways around this stuff!

Free Hockey Game

Last night at the last minute I went to the Florida Panthers v. the Anaheim Ducks (remember the movie the Mighty Ducks? Yeah thats them). It was a pretty bad ass game to watch and I was even able to take my wife with me. And you know what the best part was? The tickets were free and so was the parking. Well that wasn't exactly the best part, my firm has one of those luxury boxes with the private seating, TV,'s, mini lounge etc so not only did I have a great view, I didn't have to sit with the common folk :)

Well the Ducks beat the Panthers 5-4 but it was a great game because they scored at least once each period to keep things exciting. I'll give it to the Ducks, they have a great scoring line. A lot of their goals came a minute or so after a face off so they're really quick at getting into scoring position after the ref drops the puck. The Panthers put up a good fight with a spectacular goal in the 2nd period with one of the forwards that was totally off balance managing to slip in a goal between the goalies legs while falling flat on his face afterwards.

One of the funnier things I saw was that the Florida Panthers have their own cheerleaders. What hockey team has cheerleaders anyway?? This was certainly a first I think. They're called the Florida Panther's Ice Dancers......... strange, you normally only see cheerleaders at basketball and football games. They did also have a funny mascot dressed up as a panther and he seemed to be having tons of fun riding around on an ATV in center ice doing donuts. Now thats a fun job right there!

If my firm offers more tickets, I'm definitely grabbing them!

No respect

It seems to me that the people in South Florida don't have a lot of respect for other peoples cars. I got a nice gash on the rear quarter panel of my car. You can't see it from a distance and at a certain angle but when you're up close you can see it just fine and it totally sucks. My wifes car also got defiled on her rear quarter panel as well and it hasn't moved for two weeks from her parking spot. If I ever see anyone defiling my car or my wifes car and not leave a note, they're in for a nice long gash on the hood that says "FU". I've paid too much money for my car to have some random dumb ass scratch my car because they lack skill in the realm of driving or simply getting in and out of their car. BLAH! May those types of people burn (in the deepest part of hell) for being so inconsiderate.

Sleep interupted

The weekend is normally the time that I enjoy sleeping in a little but this weekend was a little different. I was sound asleep when the neighbors car alarm decided to go off for some odd reason. Now a considerate person would get their ass up and actually turn off the car alarm and let their neighbors sleep considering its 6am. Needless to say that I couldn't go back to bed after that so what sleep I wanted to catch up on I lost again...... Nah I'm just kidding I took a nap that afternoon on the couch but still, turn off the damn alarm to your shitty car and let people get their sleep on the weekend.

So Sleepy

These past two days are pretty much a blur for me because I've been falling asleep on the couch at home right after I finish dinner. It could be a whole combination of things really. One, I get really sleepy after stuffing myself with my wifes cooking, two, there really isn't anything good on the tv at night now that all the new shows are done, or three, I'm just trying to catch up on sleep that I've missed since moving to South Florida since I'm waking up at least an hour earlier than I used to but I'm still going to bed at around 11 or 12 at night.

I expect a little less sleep in the coming weeks as I transfer my cats to my bedroom for safe keeping. They always seem to wanna play late at night. I'm also anxious about closing on the townhouse my wife and I are purchasing since its supposed to happen this month. It probably adds a little to my restless nights. I'll probably sleep better once I'm actually in it and have all my crap put away.

A welcome addition

I'm sitting in my cold little server room eating lunch and chomping on the latest flavor of Doritos. My wife was nice enough to get them for me when she saw them in the vending machine at her place of employment. They're called Blazin Buffalo and Ranch I gotta say that I like them. I am personally a big fan of the Spicier Nacho and Cool Ranch flavors of Doritos and this one tastes like they took the two and smashed it into one great bag of chips! I'm definitely going to have to find a much bigger bag of this stuff and keep a stock of it in the pantry and as part of my hurricane supply kit. Yes it is that damn good!

I need to take pictures

It's been a long time since I've taken any new photos with my digital camera. Normally I'm going on trips or to events and what not but lately I've stayed put at home and theres really nothing to take pictures of except my cats. I think the last pictures I posted were of the Miami Auto Show and that was well over a month ago now. Well in that time I also haven't gone anywhere myself so I guess a vacation will soon be in order so more pictures can be posted. Hopefully I'll be in some of them since I normally play photographer.

A new computer for the family

My wife and I went out last night to pick up DVD's at Best Buy. Of course I just had to get Pirates of the Carribean 2, but I also had to get the immortal Animaniacs and Pinky and the Brain. While we were looking around, we decided to go computer shopping. My old Dell that I inherited from my sister-in-law isn't cutting it these days so as a gift to the new house we might pick up a new PC.

I personally wanted one of the HP laptops that they were selling, after all they were only $750 and had tons of nice features. My wife though wants a desktop so we saw a totally tricked out HP Media Center PC with a 20 inch wide screen monitor. It had everything I could possibly want in a PC except for Windows Vista but there is a coupon that I can get for that. It's going to cost a pretty penny but thats alright since we're in need of a new computer anyway and I haven't actually had a "new" computer since 2001 so I'm over due for it. Yay, new gadget to play with!

Ft. Lauderdale River Walk

Today I went out to lunch with my wife because she's going to go on a trip to CT and I won't see her till Sunday so it was a good time to see a little bit more of Ft. Lauderdale. I have to say it is quite a sharp contrast to downtown Miami which where I normally am for work.

I work on Las Olas Blvd in FTL and its pretty much their downtown district with all the tall buildings and such but the biggest difference is that the area is really nice to walk around and they have lots of places to eat and shop. There is a place called the River Walk that is like a mini entertainment area where there are tons of places to eat and it all has a great view of the river and all the yachts that are berthed there.

Since my wife permanently works in FTL right now, she decided to show me around so we went over to the Bank of America building for some eats and then a nice leisurely walk down the River Walk area and looked at all the huge boats and of course to look at menu's just in case there was a place of excellent quality that might make us drive all the way out here to eat.

I've worked in Miami for a little less than 3 months and I have to say that I rarely if ever venture out of my glass edifice that I work in. I think its the nicest building in the entire area because there is so much construction going around. Not to mention, Miami is just OLD. You can tell the buildings are of a 1970's or 1980's vintage just by the way they look or at their designs. It's also not the safest place to walk around so I tend to bring lunch and eat it at my desk most of the time. If you venture down the street some, there is the "new" area that is just beyond downtown Miami. There are some really nice new office buildings that way as well as some excellent dining. It would be nice to move down that way, I bet the parking might even be cheaper (doubtful but I can hope) and its probably safer to walk around that area since there area also a lot of residences there. I've come to realize that when people say that Miami is a totally awesome place to visit, they're neglecting to say that they're talking about Miami Beach or South Beach. I will admit that I thought there was going to be some sort of glamor about working in Miami for a large company but after seeing it I'm kind of underwhelmed by it and not just a little bit disappointed in the city. Oh well, on a brighter note, its almost time to close on my townhouse aww yeah!

Keeping it all organized

I've been a PDA user for a while but I just used to keep my contacts in it. I used to carry separate PDA and phone and most of the time I just left the PDA at home, who wants to carry both after all? I've been using my Treo for almost 2 years and I can say right now that I totally don't regret shelling out the money for it. Good example!

Right now I'm in the middle of trying to get a home loan because I'm going to be a home owner in the next month or so. There are tons and tons of people that I have to consult with because there are loan officers from various companies involved, title people, insurance people, my personal real estate broker, etc. that I have to deal with and keep straight. Well for this little venture I think I've added at least another 10 contact names and corresponding info to my Treo which has helped me a lot and saved me time hunting for names and titles. I also took the liberty of scanning everything into PDF's and creating various excel spreadsheets that I've kept on my Treo and thats helped a ton too with keeping all the corresponding numbers together so I can evaluate everything.

The search feature is just awesome. I couldn't remember the number for someone but of course I remembered the name. Just use the search command and presto, everything came up related to that contact including all my To Do items and memo's that I've written. My contract is up in June of 07 but I'm not sure if I HAVE to renew it. If I don't, I'll probably end up keeping my PDA till it dies or I come into some sort of windfall of cash and the next Treo thats released just totally blows me away or something in terms of features. But I think I can safely say I'm going to keep using Smartphones. They're just way too useful because of the PIM capabilities and also the internet is damn right useful with certain applications. How I lived this long without one sometimes astounds me.

Cracker Barrel Experience

Today was the first time I ever went to Cracker Barrel and most likely it will be my last. I went with my wife and my brother and sister-in-law for a little breakfast. The wait to get seated wasn't all that bad but the wait to get our food was terrible!

Here's what happened........ We got to Cracker Barrel and put our names down so we could get a table. Pretty standard stuff. We order our stuff from the menu, even though its like noon you just have to try breakfast since thats what people rave about and everything. So we place our order and wait for almost an hour to get our food. Sounds a bit excessive doesn't it just for pancakes and eggs. Oh but it gets even better, they couldn't even get the order right after telling the waiter multiple times what the the proper order was. Needless to say, the experience was totally less than stellar. Compared to IHOP, this place totally sucks. Now I just need to find an IHOP somewhere in South Florida so I can have a good breakfast experience again.

Holy handbags

I just came from the Coach store and I just saw a couple of Japanese tourists buy 10 different bags at once. The price for a bag averages like $200. Man alive I want to be able to spend that much during the holidays. Need to win POWERBALL!!

Black Friday

It's the biggest shopping day of the year and my ass is up at 5:30ish to go out shopping with my wife for all the excellent bargains that are only available today. I know this is a retailers scheme but every year I wake my ass up although I personally am not going to shop and get anything, I'm going to do it all online and have it shipped to me. I just need to figure out what my wife wants for Christmas this year so I can get it nice and early.

Gobble gobble gobble

Nothing says Thanksgiving like a fried turkey :)

Oh and ham, corn, peas, mashed potato's, etc.... Yum....

The never ending train

I left work early today to beat the traffic but I was presented with a new surprise. While I'm working in Ft. Lauderdale my commute takes me across a pair of train tracks. These aren't commuter trains that pass on these tracks, these are those really long cargo haulers that seem utterly endless. It took maybe 10 minutes for the train to pass but lo and behold a train coming in the opposite direction decided to cross as soon as the first one went by! What fantastic luck!! It was only 15 extra minutes for my commute home but it was an unwelcome delay since I wanted to get home to enjoy the long weekend.

Gift List

On the suggestion of my good buddy Wyatt who's all the way up in Philly making elevators go up and down at un-imaginable rates of speed, I decided to put a link to my Amazon.com wish list on my blog and on my MySpace page.

Amazon gave me a few options, one was send out an email (boring), another was add a graphic (getting better but not there yet), and the other was to put up a little flash movie that would cycle through things that I've added to my list. Well since I didn't feel like doing the email thing (I mean really, who do I email anymore these days?) I went for the flash movie of course since it has the most pizazz but for some reason the flash movie wouldn't load. Alas, I have resorted to the graphic. At least they gave me a lot of different graphics to choose from and of course I picked the biggest most obnoxious button on the site so people can see it nice and clear. I'll have to start making use of my new wish list if I remember. I like to keep things like that on my Treo and just tell people what I want but even that is kinda difficult since I can never think of anything I want or need besides electronics or video games :) Would anyone care to get me a game for Xmas this year????

Turkey Day is upon us, how glorious!

Ahh tis a time to give thanks for all that we have but more recently, its a time to eat like everything in site like a Hoover vacuum, watch TV for hours on end and then on the Friday after Thanksgiving, to wake up before the sun comes up to wait in line for those oh so special Thanksgiving Day sales.

This routine has been completed by yours truly for a number of years and I doubt that this year will be any different. Although the shopping part might since my wife was stuck with office watching duty on Friday. I think that every time I've gone out on the Friday after Thanksgiving, I never end up actually buying anything. There are so many things that I want but can't buy because its too close to Christmas and someone might get it for me. This years Christmas list is pretty short and the stuff I'm asking for is mostly under $40. There are of course some exceptions like the uber large hard drive I want to do backups of my computer and store all my precious media files on, and of course there are the games for my Xbox 360 like Gears of War that I had the chance to try out at the mall last night or Rainbow 6 Las Vegas which also looks pretty good. I'm hoping to get done with Need for Speed by this weekend so I can have something new to play soon.

As for Thanksgiving itself, I'm going to be spending it here in Florida with my in-laws. I would go up to CT to visit my mom but we would probably end up eating out since buying a turkey for 2 people doesn't seem to make much sense and also because I'm not much of a turkey eating person, I claim the ham during most Thanksgiving meals as well as any potato based product that happens to pass under my nose. My sister-in-law is preparing the turkey a little different this year. I'm not going to say how until the day of Thanksgiving and after I've had my share before I report on what exactly was done. Needless to say its definitely going to be interesting and different.

Since its the day before Thanksgiving, I'll probably think of something else to blog about while I'm at the office or maybe I'll go shopping for gifts for my wife. Happy Thanksgiving my people!

Collaboration is the name of the game

I think I'm an avid internet user. I like to find things and tinker with new tech. A big thing that I enjoy using these days is Google Documents and Spreadsheets. I've been using them for less than a year but its helpful to me to be able to create non sensitive documents or spreadsheets and just save them to the web. I don't put personal crap in there since it is being written and saved on the internet. It's sorta like email but without all the hassle of firing up Word or Excel, typing it up, saving it to my computer, then going into my email program and sending it to myself which if you think about it is kinda silly.

The collaboration part is pretty nifty too. I use it with my wife every once in a while like when I need to create a doc or a spreadsheet that we're both going to send out or if its something that I need for her to review. I find it better than sending emails back and forth and then trying to figure out what was changed or looking at the ugly pink comment boxes that Word and Excel give you. I haven't had cause to use it much with her but I'm slowly getting her to come around to using it every now and then. A perfect example is the Christmas lists that we're compiling. I would have used Google Docs and Spreadsheets but we're doing it for the whole family and not everyone has a Google account. I think over the course of the year I'm going to corrupt a few more members of our family to start using it. This way I won't have to send out any more emails.

The ever popular SPAM email

Regardless of what a lot of people in government and the technology industry think, I personally believe that SPAM emails are still just as pervasive as ever. Take for example ME. I started working for my current company only a few months ago, before I even started here my computer and accounts were all set up and one of the first things I encountered was SPAM! I haven't even sent out a single email using that address and already it was getting spammed.

I use a number of other accounts online and I have 2 that are linked together because I need to be able to get mail while away from my computer. I don't send a lot of email from my phone but my regular account I send lots of mail out during the day and that one seems to get spammed the most. There is maybe 50 spam messages waiting for me in the morning in my spam mail box, its nice to know that the filters that have been set up by Google and Outlook are working well so it doesn't creep into my inbox although once in a while a stray message manages to get in there.

I actually set up an experiment a few years ago with Hotmail. I had an account that was really old but I still use it to sign up for stuff and then I created another dummy account just for laughs and didn't use it for anything. I enjoyed watching how much spam my older account got while my new one got next to nothing. I guess there are a lot of companies that sell email addresses or people troll for them on the job websites these days because you can't sign up for places like that without an email account and of course I never use my real one just in case.

So where does that leave me? Well I have about 3 email accounts that I use on a daily basis for various types of correspondence that I check pretty religiously and just have to clean out because spam is freakin everywhere. Even though I get spammed up the wazoo, at least its not getting into my archives which go waaaaaaay back to 1996 :) Ahh the things people said back then and if they only knew I kept it all hahaha

Short Weeks are the Best!

This week happens to be the week of Thanksgiving! I love this time of year because there are just so many different holidays jammed into a short time period which breaks up the work week nicely. Of course right now its Thanksgiving which is basically a huge reason for everyone to forget their diets and just pig out on a huge bird with all the trimmings. Almost everyone gets the day after Thanksgiving off which is the busiest shopping day of the year. I remember some years getting my butt up at 6am to go Christmas shopping but I think I'm going to avoid that this year and just get most of the things I need online if possible.

After Thanksgiving comes Christmas of course, NOT the happy holidays. CHRISTMAS!!! The most wonderful time of the year! There are 2 days off (which again breaks up the ole work week) plus gifts for all the good girls and boys (and in my case cats as well). Although these short weeks cause some complications at work like people taking time off or trying to get things done at the final hour, its just nice to know that there is an extended weekend coming up where work is forgotten and time with my wife and cats is all I have to look forward to :)

Violence waiting for the PS3

I found this article on Yahoo News about people getting shot while waiting in line for the PS3. I've been reading a lot about the PS3 launch and how there are going to be lots of issues with deploying the product since there are so few. However, resorting to violence to rob people of money while they wait in line, being rude to be the first one to plop down $600 for a game system is just going way over the line. There are maybe 400,000 available for launch and you can bet that they are all going to be sold. I got an Xbox 360 for Christmas last year and my wife was smart, she pre-ordered it online so she wouldn't have to wait in line and even though it was slated to come late and after January 2006, I still got it on Christmas Day. People just need to be patient, yes the games and the experience is probably that damn good but its not worth it to get hurt or hurt others over it.

Me personally, if I have the money I'm going to wait till its maybe a month old or so and then I'm getting a Wii and Zelda! ;)

The Ali G Show

My wife rented some DVD's a couple days ago and one of them was the Ali G Show. It has that dude who play's Borat which is pretty popular right now. I personally don't see the humor in the show. Since it was something on HBO I thought it would be at least as funny as the stuff they show on Comedy Central. No big deal really, I'll just toss it in the mail and hopefully I'll get something good in the next few days.

"We don’t teach long division; it stifles their creativity"

What kind of crap is that??? If my child's math teacher ever said that to me I'd whoop their ass!

More ads in Hotmail

I was going through my email accounts today and noticed that in Hotmail there were a lot more ads than normal. I normally just see maybe a top banner ad on the page but now there were ads on both sides of my screen and taking up valuable real estate. I know that ads drive free web services and all but huge banners going on the top and sides of my email app are just a bit excessive. I use Gmail most of the time even though I've been a very long Hotmail user. I'd probably still be using Hotmail if they let you have POP access like they used to before they were bought out by Microsoft like 5 years ago or something like that. The integration with Outlook isn't all that good and it takes forever to load. I just use it for junk mail most of the time anyway but its still annoying to see. Stop with the freakin banner ads already!

Blogger is acting weird

This morning I tried getting into Blogger using Internet Explorer but it just wouldn't let me log in for some odd reason. I always keep Firefox as a backup but the new version just totally eats my computers resources like a hog so I try not to use it unless I have to........ like right now to write a blog post :) I hope they fix it soon........

Christmas is back!!

My wife sent me an article this morning that said Christmas has finally returned. After years of people saying "Happy Holidays" because it was all politically correct and crap, Wal-Mart and some other major retailers are finally saying Merry Christmas again which is totally awesome. Why do most people in the ole USA get presents on the 25th of December??? Hmmm I think its cuz its CHRISTMAS!! Bring it on baby!

Gears of War released

Yesterday I was enjoying my day off so much snoozing and playing Need for Speed Most Wanted that I totally forgot that Gears of War was released for the 360. I read all the reviews and it sounds totally bad ass! I'm gonna have to get this game but it'll have to wait until I'm done with my other games first. If I get the game before I finish the others then I'll never finish any of my games since I'll be dividing my time up so much. At least Christmas isn't too far away now :)

Election Day

Unlike a lot of people I didn't go out and vote yesterday, why do you ask? Well as of right now I still haven't changed my voting district from Tampa to Pembroke Pines and I really can't anyway until my townhouse is ready. I do know its street address already but I can't have my mail going to some empty shell of a townhouse now can I?

As I read the news I saw that the Democrats were kicking butt in the elections. I'm not that informed when it comes to the Dems and GOP candidates for Floriduh so I probably wouldn't have voted anyway. The presidential election is the only one that really matters to me and I voted in 2004 like everyone else. However I'm still pretty interested in what goes on in my beloved Northeast and I must say that I was highly disappointed to hear that Joe Lieberman was re-elected to the Senate even though he was running as an independent because he lost the Democratic nomination for CT. BOOO!!!! I guess the next couple of years should be intersting with the House switching and the Senate up in the air right now. Yay dead locked gov't wasting more of my tax payer money on nothing that affects me in the slightest. I want my refund from the IRS already!!

Happy Birthday Thumper

Today is Thumper's 3rd Birthday. I should get him a toy or something but he doesn't really play with cat toys anymore. I did give him like 5 treats and some cat nip though. :)

New England in the Fall

This is the first year since I moved to Florida that I didn't get to see the leaves change color in CT. I stole this picture off of Flickr since I couldn't take any of my own. With my move to South Florida and starting a new job, I lost all the vacation time that I had saved up. I normally reserve 2 weeks for my parents (October for my mom for her birthday and my dad whenever he wants me to go to Hawaii since his schedule always changes) and then the other two I save for miscellaneous days off that I feel like taking or to go on vacation with Claire.

If there is one thing that I miss the most about the North East its the changing seasons and fall is one of my favorite. Although I'm not a big fan of raking leaves or anything like that, I do enjoy watching the leaves change color and driving on the Merrit Parkway which is lined totally by trees. Maybe next year I'll make it to Connecticut for my mom's birthday, then I can take some more pictures of the changing leaves and enjoy the New England area.

Emergence Day is coming!

What exactly is Emergence Day? Why its the day that the new game Gears of War is released for the Xbox 360 of course! This is a shooter/horror game where you play a soldier in the future and the point of the game is to kill aliens with guns or by other means (you know, grenades, chainsaws, just plain old hitting them upside the head with the butt of a gun....etc......). I was watching Family Guy last night and saw a really sweet commercial for it. You can find it here.

I think that would make a lovely gift for Christmas :) I should be done with Need for Speed Most Wanted by then.

Need for Speed Most Wanted

In previous posts I've talked about getting Need for Speed Carbon but after reading numerous reviews I decided to get Need for Speed Most Wanted which was one of the launch titles for the Xbox 360. There was a certain aspect that a lot of people saw was missing from Carbon, namely the cop chases that are prevalent in Most Wanted. I personally like a challenge and the cop chases give me that because I have to use my skills to run away from "the man" as fast as I can.

The only thing that I don't like so far is that nothing in Most Wanted takes place at night. In Carbon the opposite is true where everything takes place at night. I've only gone through a quarter of the game so far but right now it looks pretty good. I'm not as adept at creating mayhem though but thats a hold out from my Burnout days (Burnout 5 comes out in 2007!) where I had to avoid hitting things to win a race whereas in Most Wanted its kinda encouraged in order to block your opponents.

Ahh now on to the cars! I've gotten a few cars already and sold a couple as well. I started out with a Chevy Cobolt SS and that was good for the first few races that I did. In the game you have to deal with 15 boss characters and when you win, if you're lucky you win their car. The first car that I won was a SWEET VW Golf GTI that was already tricked out. I of course added some of my own personal flair by giving it nicer rims, changing the paint a bit, and tuning the engine so it goes faster. It was my favorite car for a good portion of the game that I've played. I've also won a Lexus IS300 but it was a hideous brown/gold so I changed it to red and it drives alright but it skids too much for my taste. I did manage to get a Toyota Supra but that sucker spun out worse than the Lexus so I ended up stripping it then selling it so I could buy another car. I had my wife choose what car I should get with the money that I had and she opted for a red Audi TT Quatro. Not a bad little car if I do say so myself, and I made it even better by pumping an extra 30 grand into it to make it a little bad ass auto. My favorite right now is the RX8 that I won. I tossed maybe 20 grand into that car to tune it up, change the paint job and add some dark tints so it looks totally sweet. I wish I could take pics of it on the 360 and post them online.

I'll probably end up playing the game for the next few weeks trying to beat it. I've sorta lost interest in FIFA 2006 and although my brother in law bought FIFA 2007 I'm not that interested in playing it since there are way more cars to get and to trick out. Oh yeah!

Getting my game on tonight

Tonight I think I'm going to pick up a new game for Xbox 360. I haven't had a racer in quite a while except for Project Gotham Racing 3 and that one was ultra realistic and I'm in the mood for a more arcade type racer. The newest game on the market is Need for Speed Cabron. The reviews have been alright for it so far and there are a ton of mods that you can do to the cars and plenty of events to keep me occupied. I'm still debating whether or not I should shell out the extra money for the collectors edition because its an extra 10 bucks and $70 for a game is kinda steep. It kinda takes me back to the days of the Neo Geo (I bet a lot of people barely remember that system because it was so expensive at the time) when games for it were at least $100 but it seems that games are fast approaching that price point. If I build a phat ride in the game, I'll see if I can take a pic of it and post it on my blog. How freakin sweet would that be? Now I just need the wireless adapter too so I can get the latest upgrade to my Xbox so I can play games in High Def (and I also need the plasma, anyone willing to give me one will have my eternal thanks :))

Zucca's!

For lunch today my wife decided to take me out since I'm working with her in Ft. Lauderdale for the month. I'm on a rotation to the Ft. Lauderdale office for my firm since I spent the last two months in Miami.

The place that my wife chose is supposedly a pretty new place called Zucca's which is an Italian place in the Bank of America building right down the street from me. They have this really cool bread that they make in house that looks like a half a ball and its mostly filled with hot air. I also have no idea what the spread was that they gave us but it was sooooooo good that I ordered a second one for us even though I was almost done with lunch. They have a pasta bar in the restaurant which is pretty cool. You can have made to order pasta dishes and watch them cook it for you while you wait. I've experienced something like this before but this was some high class pasta and also quite tasty. My wife ordered something off the menu that she had tried once before and that was also really good too. I might go there again for like a dinner or something because eating that pasta for lunch really made me sleepy. All in all, an excellent place for food in downtown Ft. Lauderdale!

Happy Halloween

Ahh Halloween! The night of evil is upon us and in Los Angeles, Satan is having his super sweet 16 party complete with Ferrari cake!! (If you don't get the reference, you're totally sad for missing South Park last week, it was AWESOME!) Tonight all the little kiddies will be out in their costumes trick or treating and getting lots of cavity creating candy. Hmm I remember those days about almost 20 years ago now, holy crap thats a long time! I'm just going to sit back, relax, and let my brother in law deal with all the kids that will come to the door asking for candy and maybe play a little Xbox 360 while I'm at it.

Penguin bashing at its best

A few years ago one of my co-workers introduced me to a fabulous site called Yetisports.org. On this site is nothing but games and they're all pretty simple. However, even though its simple its hella fun. You basically play a huge abominable snow man and you get to either toss or hit penguins to acquire points! What could be more fun than that? It's highly addictive and fun as hell to play to while away the hours when you're waiting for stuff to download or just to break up the day. I highly recommend the baseball and the penguin toss. :)

British Camera's

I read this pretty amusing post on the NY Times about the camera's that the UK puts on its streets to catch speeders. It sounds like a pretty good idea but the people in the UK don't like it all that much. They described some pretty funny things that people were doing to the cameras such as setting them on fire, smashing them to bits, SHOOTING them, or using home made explosives to blow them up. Supposedly, a lot of people don't like the cameras because it forces them to slow down or else you get a ticket in the mail. I personally like speeding on the highways so I could be one of those disgruntled people knocking it over with a bat or something if they tried that here in the US. But at least it brightened up my Friday reading about that... LOL!

Somethings not right in the mornings......

It's been an odd week and its only Tuesday! Something has happened to the traffic patterns in South Floriduh this week because the roads that I travel which are normally clear except of course I-95 are getting all clogged up. My route consists of I-75 South which is never bad (and this is still a constant) but 119th St which is where I go to make my cross over to I-95 has been just terrible the past 2 days for no apparent reason. It was jammed past the toll plaza and it hasn't done that in the 6 or so weeks that I've been living down here. I hope it clears up quick or I'm going to have to find another route to work because coming in at 8:30 is unacceptable!

Weird Tourists

This past Friday was a little weird in terms of going home. I left at my normal time so of course I'm stuck in traffic. Friday traffic is normally a bit heavier than normal because of the weekend and all but now I'm digressing. On to my point!!

I was going about my business when this Chrystler Seabring convertable passes me on the right. I know, does seem strange right? Well here's the strange part...... There were 2 guys in the car and one had his hands in the air in that praise God kinda pose. Well I took a closer look and he was holding a camera...... The doofus was taking a picture of Miami traffic!! Who in their right mind takes pictures of traffic unless you're not from the area?? I just found it funny that some tourist was taking multiple pics of Miami's horrible traffic. At least when I take pics as a tourist, I take pics of cool looking inanimate objects like mountains or buildings and not TRAFFIC!

Free food!

A week or so ago I decided to drop my business card and my wife's business card into one of those little fish bowls at Bahama Breeze. Lo and behold, my wife won some free food. Booyah!! I'm grabbing more business cards before I leave so I can drop more in some fish bowls around town. No one really wants my card anyway at work so why not? :)

More Miami traffic woes

This mornings commute wasn't bad, I still left maybe 5 minutes late but over all things were pretty smooth till I hit one of the parking lots on my way to work (I-95). It seemed much busier than usual but that stuff doesn't really faze me since I have my iPod to listen to. Oh no the real problem now is Miami itself!

I'm in downtown Miami trying to get to my beat up parking garage that I pay way too much money for and lo and behold, I get stuck........ AGAIN on 2nd Ave and Flagler Street. They just made Flagler Street into a two way road for some odd reason (the powers that be in the Miami City gov't are probably to blame) and this requires additional traffic lights. For most towns, no big deal right? Hook it up to the system and let it ride. Sounds simple enough to me. HA!! Whatever!! The dingleberries that set up this traffic light forgot one little detail, the fucking thing needs to change every now and again to let people coming from other directions through!!

So what did I do to remedy my plight? Why run the red light of course. I looked left, no cars, I looked right, no cars, I slammed on the gas and heard my tires chirp as I sped through the intersection, made a quick left turn not caring if it was green or not and high tailed it to my garage.

It's a really sad thing when I am already thinking that Tampa is way better than Miami. I think it might do the city good to be totally washed away in a hurricane or something and start over fresh. I don't want people to die mind you, I just want the city itself washed off the face of the map so no one has to suffer (especially me) anymore.

The parking lot

Thats my new name for I-95 and downtown Miami. I was running a little bit late this morning and I-95 was just a parking lot! Normally after the airport exit, things start to pick up again and I can maybe hit like 70 mph but not today, today I think I caught a glimpse of what traffic would be like if I left at around 8 am instead of 7 am.

I thought that was bad enough, but in Miami downtown thery're doing a whole bunch of construction and some genius has decided in his infinate wisdom to change the way some of the roads work. Some east bound roads now go west, some one way streets are now two way streets. I can already tell that this is having an adverse effect on traffic because I was able to turn off my car and just listen to my iPod for 10 minutes while I just watched the pretty traffic lights change color but me not moving one inch forward. Needless to say I got to work about an hour later than I wanted to so that means my butt is stuck here till 6pm. Oh well, at least its almost lunch time :)

Highway Signs

I don't know if I've blogged about this before but there are highway signs down in the Miami area that are similar to the highway signs that were in Stamford and both served the exact same purpose, show flash messages about how bad traffic is. Very useful if you don't listen to the radio a lot for traffic information, not like the information they give you on the radio is all that accurate anyway.

When I lived in Stamford, the sign would always update with new info about whats happening on I-95, like traffic is backed up until exit 22 which I knew was Fairfield so I would take alternate routes so I could get to my destination faster. They have traffic signs in the Miami area as well on both I-95 and I-75 but with a slight difference...... it doesn't give you traffic information!! I've been commuting to work in Miami for a good 6 weeks now and the only thing that it has ever told me is to buckle my seat belt because its the law in Florida. I'm assuming a few hundred grand of tax payer money went into putting in these electronic billboards to show traffic info and the best they can do is to tell me to buckle up. What a waste of resources! If it showed traffic data, I think things might flow more smoothly in the mornings, like that 5 lane closure this morning, I bet that wasn't on the traffic board for people heading north bound on I-95 until they were stuck in the huge mess that developed this morning.

Only 30 minutes to lunch time, can't wait!

Google Maps for Palm OS

Google just came out with a small program for Palm OS so that Treo users like me can use Google Maps on a Smartphone. I just downloaded it for my Treo (I'm running out of memory with all these applications on my phone but oh well) and I tested it out and it seems to work great! It's even easier to do a search for stuff than using TomTom (which I paid a shit load of money for). It might replace my TomTom when it comes to just looking up places on a map since it seems so much easier in terms of the interface but TomTom will remain of course for giving me blow by blow directions to where I want to go since it is a GPS app.

I would include screen shots but I don't have a program that does that (yet) for my Treo. But now I have a new toy to play with so YAY I'm pretty syched!

I live with a Gremlin!!

Last night was highly amusing because my wife and I have renamed my sister in laws cat Lady Gremlin. Her real name is Lady Gray (my brother in law gave her the name) but she hasn't gotten along with Thumper or Nala and is always growling, snorting, or hissing. Last night Thumper was in a playful mood and decided to chase Lady Gray like he does to Nala. Well he chased her into the kitchen and all of a sudden my wife and I hear this huge growl followed by a snort! My wife then declared "there's a gremlin in here!!" So now we're going to call Lady Gray Lady Gremlin............ and whats even funnier is that she'll respond to the name Gremlin too. I called out to her using her new name and she meowed at me twice. I think I'll get her a new name tag, my brother in law should love that!

The Miami Auto Show

This past weekend I went with my wife to the Miami Auto Show that was held at the Miami Beach Convention Center. All the major car manufacturers were present of course and showing off 2007 model cars and some 2008's as well. There was a lack of concept cars but I think thats because all of those cars got shipped off to the Paris Auto Show. But all in all, it was a great show and there are some pictures below of some of the awesome cars that I sat in or saw. Needless to say, I definately want a Nissan 350Z, anyone care to make a donation to Jason's 350Z fund?? ;) Enjoy the photos!

Ahh the newly redesigned Nissan Altima. I was able to actually sit in this car and I must say that its super sweet. I like how they redid the lights and the lines of the car. I think they made it look even better than it already did. Almost makes me want to turn mine in for this model.

Wooo, check this sucker out. This is the all new Porche 911. It only had a price tag of over $175K. It's a small price to pay for being able to go over 200MPH and 0-60 in less than 4 seconds. This is the kind of car you drive out in Nevada where everything is flat and straight so you can see just how fast this puppy can go!!

This really sweet photo was taken by my wife while we were in "Millionaire's Row" where they showcased most of the cars that were over $200K a piece. The lights look like little eyes and the effect is super cool too when she took it while we were walking by. Obviously they wouldn't let us sit in one of these cars, they're just way too expensive to have mere mortals touching them.

Three words come to mind whenever I see this picture........ PIMP MY RIDE!

And here we have the new Camero, one of the only concept cars that I saw while at the auto show. This sucker looked really sweet and I would have loved to sit in it but they were keeping the public away with a barrier. PAH! Let me see so I can decide if I want to drop 40K on it or not!

And finally, one of the highlights of the show was being able to ride in a Jeep and going through an obstacle course. They did not let you actually drive the jeep but they basically put it on two wheels, climb some logs, do this awesome hill climb, then a sharp drop and then another hill climb and another sharp drop. It didn't last all that long but it was pretty cool. I got to ride in one of the new Cherokee's but I really wanted to go in one of the new 4 door Wranglers they had. Maybe I'll go back to the show in 2 years, they should have some really exciting things by then.

The evil VW Rabbit!!

This is one of the pictures I took at the Miami Auto Show. It's VW's rendition of an evil Rabbit in honor of them bringing the Rabbit back to America. I personally like it although it does kind of look like a character out of Super Mario Bros. 

The Yankees Lost :(

I wasn't around to see it because I was at the Miami Auto Show but the Yankees lost in the ALDS which truely stinks. I guess there is always next year but at least the Red Sox didn't make it at all :) Ahh there is a silver lining to this dark cloud........ ha!

South Park and World of Warcraft

Last night South Park aired one of their best episodes to come out in a long time. Last night it had the cast of South Park totally immersed in the game World of Warcraft or WoW. My sister-in-law and brother-in-law both play the game and my wife and I thought it was hysterically funny when we compared them to the characters. I'm definitely saving that episode on my computer and ripping it to a DVD until I can buy it. It's not yet on YouTube but its only a matter of time...........................

Blogger Beta

I just finished upgrading to the new Blogger Beta that has been floating around for a little while. I'm still trying to figure out all the in's and out's of this thing but it doesn't seem that much different. The big one that I noticed is that I don't have to figure out code anymore to add elements to my pages. That's definately a good thing although a bit behind places like Yahoo 360 and MSN Spaces that already have these functions built in and so far still look way slicker than Blogger.

I did notice one thing when I was updating my page though, I can't use a mailto link anymore so that people can email me (not like anyone emailed me anyway but still). I think there's a way to get around it but I'll have to tinker a bit with the new blogger. I think posting stuff is supposed to be faster too but I'll test that after I'm done writing this blog up. Time to get back to work!

NJ Tax for iTunes

The lovely state of New Jersey has levied a new tax that began this month that institutes a sales tax on iTunes music downloads. For the most part $0.99 is pretty cheap for a song but by adding the 7% sales tax (up from 6%), you're paying over a buck per song now. I don't have a problem with taxes really as long as they're used for the right thing. Adding taxes to kill budget deficits doesn't seem right though. If you get your state in the hole by 4.5 billion dollars, you're obviously doing something wrong. Real estate taxes are through the roof almost everywhere, I don't see a reason to add this type of tax. If successful other places are going to be doing it and then we're all just going to go back to stealing music like the good old days in the 1990's.

Fearless!

This past weekend I saw the movie Fearless and I have to say that it was pretty awesome. I didn't expect it to be in Chinese though which kinda threw me but it was alright reading all the sub titles. Unlike a lot of other recent Chinese action/drama's that have come out over the years, there weren't a lot of action sequences with wires or people generally flying through the air doing impossible feats of martial arts mastery. I mean there are a few instances sure but for the most part it looked all quite believeable. This will definately be added to my DVD collection once it comes out next year.

Voltron is MINE!

I have just completed my purchase of the Voltron Masterpiece Collectors edition toy. It comes with all 5 lions from Voltron, the main weapon and of course the awesome box that it comes in. There's only 150,000 of these things in existence and I'm going to be one of the people to own one of these bad boys. It'll look great next to my Robotech VF-1S Roy Fokker Masterpiece Collection toy that I got a couple years ago. I'll post again once I get it, I'll take my own pics as actual proof that I have it in hand :)

VOLTRON!!!

Today I purchased Voltron Season 1 on DVD. I didn't get the cheesey car one but the all important lion one. It came in a nice blue tin with a picture of the Blue Lion. I'm sure the other tins will be similar and just as awesome.

I also saw in the mall a collectors edition of Voltron for about $150 but I didn't get it although I was very tempted. Its the same company that made my Robotech collectors edition Veritech and that one was awesome. If I find some spare money maybe I'll get it because it totally looked awesome. Can't wait for the rest of the DDVD's to come out to complete my collection.

Don't drive in the HOV lane if you're a single

I was doing my regular commute today towards Miami and on my route, I-95 has an High Occupancy Vehicle (HOV) lane. The lane really doesn't serve a purpose from the look of things, its just a restricted lane that cars with two or more people can use to try and get ahead of the rest of us poor souls who drive to work alone. The times that the HOV lane are active aren't that bad, after 6pm on the way home, it opens up to everyone so that means I can hit the gas and zoom on ahead of all the dunder heads that are in the slower lanes.

But anyway............ I was driving down I-95 this morning and there were a ton of cops sitting in the breakdown lane thats just to the left of the HOV lane. Actually there was just 1 cop but by the time I lost sight of him, he pulled over two different people for trying to cheat traffic by driving in the HOV lane. I don't think its worth getting the ticket although I don't know how much it costs but I know it should be more than a tank of gas or something. I'd much rather wait it out and just mosey along in the regular lanes, besides after the Highway 836 junction, everything is fine on I-95 and being patient means no ticket, no spot on my driving record, no higher insurance costs, and no loss of time because I was pulled over. You can cheat sometimes but eventually you will get caught, the state cops down here have quotas to fill haha

My dying iPod

This morning as I was driving to work I was using my iPod to listen to some music because I was getting sick of the same 10 songs that I have been hearing on the various South Florida radio stations. A curioius thing happened as the music was playing, it just stopped in the middle and played another song. For a CD player thats probably normal but not for a hard drive based MP3 player. I thought this was a fluke so I tried another song, something of more recent vintage since I have a lot of songs going back to around 1996 when I first started my vast collection. To my surprise, that song didn't work either so I reset my iPod but that didn't seem to do anything to alleviate the problem.

I think that I might need to get a new MP3 player for Xmas or something or until this one totally gives out. I think it still kinda sorta works but its not at 100%. The big hassle will be buying all the extra little things that I need for an MP3 player to work in my car like the FM broadcaster and a new car charger. If it comes out and gets some really good reviews, maybe I'll get the new Microsoft Zune player which looks pretty sweet and is basically a souped up version of the Toshiba Gigabeat S player that has been getting some pretty good reviews of late. I can't really complain though, my iPod has served me well these past 2-3 years. Maybe I can still use it as an external hard drive if it totally dies as an MP3 player :)

Construction is everywhere!

Working in downtown Miami is certainly interesting. I mean the city hasn't impressed me in any significant way and the traffic getting in and out of here is pretty terrible. One thing that I think is going to add to it in the future is all the construction thats going on right now. If you just look at the sky line of Miami, you're going to see at least 30 cranes at a minimum with high rises coming up everywhere. I certainly hope that they are going add a lot more parking so that rates finally start to come down. Paying the amount of money I am right now for the nasty garage I park in is total crap. To do all this construction many roads are closed in downtown or just all messed up because of all the heavy crap being brought in. There were 3 large parking lots or so I'm told that was right next to the office that have since been converted into construction sites for high rise buildings. Hmm the slight problem with that was that they never replaced the parking spaces that those building sites took so parking right now is at a premium. I give it at least another 5 years until construction in this town is done and by that time it will have gotten even more congested :( BAH, HUMBUG!!

Chaos in Pembroke Pines

This weekend I was in Pembroke Pines picking up a network adapter for my computer and there was a huge thunder storm that rolled through just as I finished my purchase. My wife and I ran out in the rain to my car and proceeded to go home. Here's where all the utter chaos takes place. One of the major intersections had nothing but flashing red lights. Most places there would be some semblance of order with people just taking turns going through the intersection or there might be a cop directing traffic or something. At this intersection it was nothing but pure chaos. Everyone was trying to get through the intersection at once. I was surprised that no one got into an accident trying to get through. I used a bunch of cars next to me as a shield so just in case some fool came running through the intersection they would hit them first and not me. All in all, my fancy New England driving skills got me through that mess relatively quickly. Needless to say, I'm not going to attempt to take that route to work or home any time soon unless I have to.

Networking Trouble

I set up my computer in my room at my sister in laws place but there's just one problem. I have a desktop computer and normally its hooked up to my wireless router using an ethernet cable. Before I left I bought a wireless USB adapter so my desktop would connect from a friend at work but I didn't know how good it was since I bought it my last day in Tampa. I thought that a wireless usb adapter is a wireless usb adapter really, they should all work the same right? WRONG!!

I used it for about a week and the network connection was terrible! During the course of the week I updated my sister in laws network to a 54G wireless network with my router thinking that might help things but it didn't. I was only getting around 1MB per second and I was barely 100 feet away from the router. On top of that my network connection died if the adapter got over heated and then I would have to reboot my PC just to get my network connection back.

I tested the wireless USB adapter that I use with my Tivo and that one worked great! So this weekend I decided to get another one just like it from the store. Luckily it was on sale at the store and it was even an upgraded model. I'm actually using it right now and its been working great and I have an even better connection with this one than with the one hooked up to my Tivo. Time to download Windows Vista RC1 without worrying that my network connection is gonna drop :)

Commuting to Miami

My new daily commute to Miami so far has been pretty eventful of late. I started working at my new company on Monday and had to find a way to get to work. Unfortunately the fastest way to get to work is by taking a toll road. The toll is only about a buck so thats not too bad really. The really bad part is when I meet up with my old friend I-95. Man the traffic there is freakin terrible. It's nothing but stop and go for at least 5 or so miles. I normally have my GPS with me but I've been just winging it lately and I think I've found a good route to work. Any way that I go is going to be bogged down with traffic.

I did make one mistake though, I did go to this one road called 826 one day on my way home and boy oh boy was that a mistake. My co-workers later told me that 826 is just a parking lot no matter what time of day you go or even what day you go one. On the weekends its supposedly just as bad as if it was a week day. Needless to say I'm definately not going that way again.

My way home is pretty straight forward now. I just take good ole I-95 to I-595, to I-75 and thats it. Distance-wise its longer than my commute to work but there are no tolls on it and after you pass the Florida Turnpike entrace, its pretty smooth sailing which is what I like.

Now if only I could get monthly parking somewhere in Miami I'd be all set..........

Finally finished moving to South Florida!

It's Sunday morning and I have completed my move to South Florida. Actually I completed my move on Friday evening by driving to my sister-in-laws place but I finally have my computer up and running and thats when I determine when I'm finally moved in since its normally the last thing that I acutally put together.

My wife and I packed our cars until it could hold no more of our stuff. Luckily we had just enough room for everything that we wanted to take with us. I had the pleasure of driving with my two cats in my car. They howled for about an hour or so but then they calmed down and tried to sleep. I was having flash backs of when I moved to Tampa because that was the last time that my car was ever that full of junk. I put most of the stuff that I brought with me into storage until I move into my new townhouse that is in the process of being built.

My cats seem to be adjusting well to their temporary home. My sister-in-law has two cats of her own so they've been kind of growling and hissing at each other but its all pretty amusing to watch. There haven't been any full blown fights yet but once they get used to each other I'm sure things will eventually calm down. My cats actually sleep in my bedroom with me and they seem to enjoy it. They wake us up early but I have to wake up early anyway for work so it doesn't bother me as much as it would have if I just worked down the street or something.

Monday is definitely going to be interesting since that is when I start my new job. The type of company is very similar and I've done the job before earlier in my career so it'll be like an old shoe, good and comforting and easy to wear/do. I have a few network upgrades to do and I have to set up the Tivo here as well. There will be plenty more to post in the next few days, until then...........

Moving to South Florida, Part 1

Above is the picture of the 14' UHaul truck that my wife and I rented to start our move to South Florida. Ohh, first a little pre-text. I'm moving my butt to South Florida to take a job as a tech and my wife will return to her roots in marketing and we're going to be moving into a new townhouse that we're having built. It's definately an exciting time for us and we're going to be starting our jobs next monday.

Our saga began a few weeks ago when we both learned basically at the same time that the companies that we have been interviewing with offered us jobs practically on the same day. After we learned that we had new jobs we set out to packing which took us 3 weekends to complete of getting boxes, gathering our crap up, and putting it away. We sold a lot of our furniture as well. We still have odds and ends at home right now but they'll be tossed or donated by the end of the week.

This past labor day we had the movers start putting stuff into the truck that we rented. We decided to use a company called Purple People Movers. What took me and my wife weeks to pack, they were able to move in about an hour. I have to say I was really impressed on how fast they were able to move about 40 or so boxes, my bikes, 42" TV, exercise bike, and assorted other stuff down 3 flights of stairs and pack it all into my moving truck. There were 3 of them and my wife and I just looked on in awe at how fast they were moving stuff out of the apartment. At the end of the hour the truck was all loaded up and we were ready to make our trip.

I personally have never driven something as big as a 14' UHaul truck before. It's basically a modified Ford F-350 Super Duty truck but it handled like a beast! I had to anticipate braking way in advance because there was so much stuff crammed into it the truck took extra long to make any stops. I was also having a problem with the mirrors because I wasn't used to not being able to actually look behind me. I only had the side mirrors to use and that was interesting. They were a little loose so the wind kept pushing them in so I couldn't see what was to the sides of me. That made for some interesting driving since there are so areas in Pinellas County that require one to switch lanes constantly. All in all, I think we made pretty good time. My wife followed me in her SUV with some extra stuff that we couldn't fit and it took a little over 4 hours to make it all the way down.

After we arrived, we decided to crash at my sister in laws place for the night which was really nice considering most of the day was spent packing and driving. We got up super early in the morning to unload the truck at a storage place and that took about two hours. My wife and I had lots of her family help us out and I was glad that it didin't take too long. After unloading the truck, we actually drove BACK to Tampa in her SUV to do a last cleaning of the apartment and to begin packing up the last of our things for our final move this weekend. This next trip should be very interesting considering I'm going to be bringing my two cats with me and they will meet for the first time my sister in laws cats who we will be staying with while our place is completed.

Moving is really hard work, I'm glad I only have to move to my townhouse later on this year and then for the next few years I won't be budging unless mother nature deems Florida needs to be under water for the next few thousand years.

Berns baby!!

Last night I finally went to the famous Berns Steakhouse in Tampa FL.  This is the place where the President of the United States goes to have a meal whenever he is town campaigning or doing whatever it is he does when he's here.  I'll give them this, they make a pretty mean steak and they cooked it to perfection which was really nice.

The menu was quite extensive.  They had every type of steak you could think of and in every kind of thickness and they give you a list of the types of thickness, what ways it can be cooked, what thickness is appropriate for cooking it rare, medium etc.  There was even a glossary of terms and the waiter was very helpful as well in making suggestions.   When you go online and look them up and check out the prices, you're kind of overwhelmed at how much it costs.  But the thing is is that the meal includes so much stuff.  Say you order a steak (like I did) you get an onion soup, a salad, a baked potato, fresh onion rings, and veggies.  Thats pretty much a complete meal right there.  One thing that was pretty interesting was that they prepare your baked potato at the table.  You can't sub stuff but you can get a la carte.  I personally didn't sub anything but the people I was with did and even ordered this awesome tasting mac and cheese, and the crackers with melted cheese on it was totally awesome.

The wine list at Berns is just HUUUUUUGE.  It looked like a really thick text book I once had when going to school.  They had every kind of wine from every region you could think of.  And we're not talking the cheap stuff that you get a the liqueur store either, we're talking some vintage stuff that costs well over $700 a bottle.  I didn't have any wine of course but it was just cool to look through it and see what it was they were offering.

Dessert is yet ANOTHER completely different experience at Berns.  They have little rooms that have privacy doors so you can eat your dessert in complete privacy.  They even have a little box that lets you select different music to listen to.  Oh this is also really cool, they have a guy in a room that plays piano and you have a small phone so you can call him up and have him play a request so you can listen to it in your room.  You can't say that isn't freakin cool right there!  Of course this being Berns and all, it wouldn't be complete without yet another list of different types of spirits for just the desserts that they serve.  This list isn't as extensive as the wine list but its certainly just as expensive.  I had the Macadamia nut ice cream that they are famous for and they make it on site too.  I have to say that it was really good.

The atmosphere of the entrance of the restaurant is very old world European.  It has red velvet on the banister and on the walls, classical style paintings of famous rulers of Europe, and the lighting is quite dim as well.  There is a large bar on the premises as well and numerous different rooms that sport different themes.  I can say that if one lives or visits Tampa and has money to burn, Berns is a must see.  (The key here is that you need to have a lot of money to burn to eat here)

Parking woe's

This one will just be a general complaint. Can people no longer park between the lines? My garage at work has tons of spaces but it seems like almost half of the people park on the lines, crooked, or take up two spaces. I was forced to park on the roof after only leaving my spot for 10 minutes to sell something. Is it really that difficult to park between two little lines???? GAH!!

Feeding the asian stereotype that asians are bad drivers!

This morning there was a huge amount of traffic going into work so I tried an alternate route so I could get to work as close to on time as possible. On my alternate route I got stuck behind this street racer pimp Honda Civic. It had the tricked out muffler, the cool rims, and the tints and I think even a ground effects kit on it. There was only one problem with it, the person driving it was going so SLOW!! I'm in the car with my wife and we're both getting road rage that this idiot is driving like an old granny in a tricked out Civic that looks like its supposed to go fast. After I get to a road and pass him we discovered that it was a little asian man driving it. Being an asian myself I was kinda pissed that he was feeding the stereotype that asians are bad drivers so I promptly stepped on the gas and left him in my dust and proceeded to speed to work to attempt to make it on time. Gah, people like that make me so pissed and also make me late for work!!!

Tivo Trouble

I think recently the firmware on my Tivo was upgraded because its been acting funny for the past few days. When I used to look at the show guide maybe 5 minutes before the next hour it would show the next hours shows and not what I'm currently watching any longer. Now it only shows what you are currenly watching at any given moment which is totally annoying now.

One more thing that seems to be kind of off is that the reactions to the remote commands when I press a button seem ultra slow now. That's totally unacceptable considering when I press a button the menu should pop up instead of giving me a 3 second delay. I hope they fix both of these problems soon. I want my old Tivo funtionality back!!

My kitty sliced my hand!!

Last night was packing night since I'm making my big move to South Florida soon. I was handling Nala (the smaller yet fiestier cat) to put her in the second bedroom of my apartment since she has this thing about climbing whatever is around. As I approached the room, she decided to use my hands as a spring board. Needless to say she gave me a huge cut on the palm of my left hand. I have a huge bandage on my hand right now and used a shit load of Neosporin to kill any infections. I should be able to take the bandage off later today but my hand hurts like crazy!!! GAH!!

Mitchells Fish Market was Awesome!

Today I had lunch with a good friend from work and I suggested that we go to Mitchell's Fish Market here in Tampa.  I must say that the food there is excellent!  They have freshly caught fish every day and the menu changes daily too, not only that its printed daily with a date/time stamp.

The one thing that separates this place from all the other sea food restaraunts that I've been to is that this place actually serves raw clams.  For some reason thats a very hard commodity to get here in Tampa so I was quite excited to have some.  I haven't had raw clams since I lived in the north east and I used to eat them pretty regularly with my father when he bought them from Stew Leaonards on the weekly grocery trip.  They even provided a soup sampler so we could choose what soup we preferred.  I personally had an order of raw clams, the lobster bisque soup, and the grilled salmon with mashed potato's for lunch.  The food there is freakin awesome and I'm definately going to see if they have a location in Miami.

My car is perfect once again

Today I had to take my car to Kauffman Tire in order to finally get some new tires. I bought my car back in 2002 and I never got new tires for it. After dropping it off this morning I received a call mid morning and I was told that I needed new brakes!! Well thats just a ton more money down the drain but I must say that they did an excellent job with my car. Luckily I only needed 4 pads, 4 tires, and 4 cut rotors. On top of all that, I got even better tires than I requested. Originally they said they had Toyo tires that they recommended on the phone in stock but during my call this morning with them about my brakes, I was informed that the tires I asked for are actually not in stock and instead they gave me even better tires but at the same price. How freakin cool is that? I have the awesome warranty with it but its pretty useless unless they open a store in South Florida.

Now when I brake, my car doesn't shake which will definately make my wife happy. I used to make her really car sick because of all the shaking that went on when I hit the brakes. The car rides pretty well too on the new tires although I really can't tell the difference. I just know that I can go faster on these tires than my old ones but who goes 120 mph on the highway in Florida anyway unless you're trying to outrun a state trooper? Tomorrow I'll see if all the money fixing my car was worth it during my rush hour drive to work :)

It's a Google kinda world.......

I was just pondering how much stuff I use now that is Google related. I've used all types of products in my time with IT and in college and I have to say that I have seen my own personal shift towards Google and it surprised me quite a bit on how much I rely on the products of this company.

Lets take email as a prime example. Before GMail came out, I was tied into using my ISP's email service or the venerable Hotmail of which I have been a proud member since 1996. I still use Hotmail from time to time but its mostly for junk or promotions. Once I heard about GMail and its 2 gigs of storage I thought it was freaking awesome and I signed up via one of those invitations you needed to get. The best part was that it had free POP access so I could ditch my ISP's email, I used an email address from my old school and had them reroute everything to GMail, I in turn forwarded all that mail to another GMail account that I created so I can get it on my phone. I have yet a 3rd out there just holding files since some genius came up with the idea of GDrive so I could use it as an internet hard drive. Nowadays I rely on GMail for all my personal correspondence with anyone except for tech support which I still use Hotmail for. If Hotmail still had free POP, I would probably be using them right now but alas they don't so GMail it is.

Another fine Google product that I've started to use is the new Google Calendar. I like how I am able to have multiple calendars to sort my life out. I personally use Outlook at home because it syncs with my Treo and I also have a Plaxo account that synch with Outlook so I'm never without my calendar or contacts. But the collaboration abilities with Google Calendar are awesome. I can see my calendar in pretty colors, add more calendars as I need them, and add calendars of family and friends. Now my only problem with the calendar as it stands is that I can't access it from my Treo, nor can I export the calendar into a format that my Treo will accept. I'm hoping that this will be solved then I might just totally move to Google Calendar. As it is, I'm just testing it and messing around but it seems very useful so far.

Maps is a big part of my life since I always seem to find myself in unfamiliar places when driving around Florida. I've remedied that recently with my TomTom GPS Navigator software and Bluetooth GPS receiver but before all that I relied on internet maps. The grand daddy of them all in my view has always been Mapquest. For as long as I can remember I've always used map quest, that is until Google Earth and Google Maps came around. Not only were the maps better than Mapquest, I could view aerial photo's of where I was going and the directional lines would show up perfectly. There have been lots of custom maps around the net but I haven't used any of them. My wife still relies on them since my GPS is connected to my phone but until I see MS Live maps and Yahoo's Maps Beta best Google, I think I'll be sticking with Google Maps for now.

I subscribe to a lot of Google services but the last ones I'll talk about are the new spreadsheet and word processing apps. I've recently tested these out with some simple documents and I can heartily say that these apps are pretty decent. I haven't tried more complex stuff like calculations or advanced formatting but for simple stuff its still pretty good. The only downside is that you have to be connected but the up side is that it can import documents and you can collaborate with people in real time. That to me is pretty awesome and sure as hell beats emailing docs all around town. There are free apps like OpenOffice.org but those are local to your PC so you can't collaborate or share. Man you gotta love all these new web appliances.

So what does this all mean? Well really right now, the only thing that matters to me is my venerable email and as long as GMail is the king and I can get it via POP I won't be switching anytime soon. As for the other services, they're definitely nice to have in a pinch and pretty fun to play with. And to show how much Google invades my life, my blog where I write all my rantings and ravings is on Blogger which of course is owned by Google :) Now if I could only get my hands on Blogger Beta...........

Yankees sweep the Red Sox in 5!

According to most news sources, the Red Sox haven't been swept in 5 games for almost 50 years!  Now thats quite an achievment if you ask me.  I like the fact that they're calling this the Boston Masacre 2 in the NY Times online.  Now the Yankee's have a pretty good lead in the AL East and the only way the Red Sox are going to be in the playoffs is if

1. The Yankee's royally fuck up in the next few weeks leading into October
2. The Sox all of sudden have a huge surge and win the AL Wild Card Race
3. Insert favorite act of God here...........

Needless to say I have confidence that the Yankees are making the playoffs this year and October is definately going to be a sweeeeeet month!

Woohoo Google Calendar for me!

My wife and I are Gmail users and recently we both signed up for Google Calender.  I've actually had it since the beta started a while ago but I never really used it because no one else was using it.  I use Outlook at home and my Treo of course is with me but I also use Plaxo which syncs all my Outlook calendar stuff and my contacts to the web so I'm never without them no matter where I am.

I actually saw why people like it so much when I went to a conference in Orlando FL.  At the conference there were a bunch of meetings going on with different companies that were giving people information on how to upgrade their software.  When I went to see if there were any openings, I saw that they were all using Google Calendar to manage all the appointments.  I thought that this was a really cool way to use technology and share information with your friends, especially those that don't use MySpacve or Evite a lot.  I'll probably end up roping a lot of my in-laws and other family into using Google Calendar so they know when I'm around and when I'm not.  Now I'm just waiting for a way to sync it with my current Outlook crap so I don't have to do double entries into both my Treo and my Google Calendar.  Come on Google hurry up, I'm dying over here!

Windows Live Writer Beta

I'm trying out the new Windows Live Writer beta which is made for publishing blog posts on numerous different types of blog sites.  It's mainly optimized for MSN Spaces (I have an account there that I don't use) but it said that you can use it for Blogger so I might as well try it out.

There are a lot of enhancements going on in the blogsphere in terms of tools.  I was almost ready to jump ship to MSN spaces but then I heard that Blogger was finally updating their tool set after a really long time.  The thing that I liked about Blogger was its simplicity to post things but the ability to customize was a real pain the ass.  I had to figure out how where to insert snippets of code in an CSS form in order to get different elements to appear or stick it in something like MS FrontPage and edit that way.

With the new version of Blogger its supposed to be way easier but its currently in beta and it hasn't been released to all that many people.  Since I have to wait I figure why not see what MS has to offer in terms of a blogging tool so here I am writing a post in Windows Live Writer.  I have to say that the interface is very simple and the tools that you can access are straight forward and uncluttered.  The only bad thing is that you have to install it but I guess that's also a good thing so I can write my posts off line.  I could also write it up on my phone but it takes way longer and my thumbs get tired after a while.  It's time to publish this so its time to cross my fingers and see if this works!!!

They're more than meets the eye!!

Early this morning while I was driving into work I spied a van with the image to the left on the trunk. The symbol was freaking HUGE! I pointed it out to my wife who I car pool to work with and said, "Look its a Decepticon!!"

I then attempted to whip out my camera phone to take a picture of it so I could post it but alas I was unable to get a picture of it because I moved ahead of him, but thats alright because that has to be one of the funniest things I've seen in a very long time.

And for those of you that don't know what a Decepticon is, you totally need to watch Transformers, and I don't mean the new crap, I'm talking about the stuff that came out in the 1980's, now thats classic TV right there that one and all should watch in their life times.

My cat is smart!

Last night I put my older cat Thumper in his cage so he wouldn't wake me up bright and early this morning. As an added precaution I put something in front of his cage so he couldn't get out. I just put Nala's little round sleeping cat furniture in front of it but I thought it would be sturdy enough given that its made of wood and decently heavy.

Well lo and behold, I hear a faint meowing at my bedroom door! Thumper managed to get out of the cage by sliding the lock release over (its just a simple lock, I don't put a REAL lock on it since I don't want to accidentally lock him inside) and then pushing the door open and also moving the cat furniture. This marks the 3rd time that I've seen him escape from the cat cage which is pretty cool if you think about it. Now if I could only teach him not to meow at my bedroom door in the morning, that would be the ultimate!

My laptop burned me

I was working with my work laptop on Friday and it started to overheat by a lot. Now the USB ports aren't working on the PC so I had to swap it out this morning. I don't have any marks but it still burned when I put it on my lap and the plastic is a little warped because of the extreme heat. Hopefully it my new PC won't burn me.

So much for flying with carry on's

Right now the news is crawling with reports of how a terrorist plot was just thwarted in London. Apparently a bunch of people that hate the good ole USA wanted to destroy some trans-Atlantic flights going to the US but they were caught but it is still causing massive amounts of chaos at airports in the UK and in the US. As I was driving into work, all the radio stations were mentioning it on their shows and how that at a bare minimum you had to be at the airport 2 hours early because of the elevated security status.

Now the part thats really going to hurt is for people like me that don't like to check luggage when they travel. Most of my travels don't span more than a week and even then most of my most recent travels have only spanned 3 days or so. If I'm only going somewhere for 3 days, do I really need to check in luggage when a carry on is sufficient? Well according to most news I'm reading right now, you can barely bring anything with you on board the plane now (probably short term but if I was a regular business flyer I'd be pissed). A lot of the things that I normally take with me on a trip are electronic in nature, things like my iPod, my wife's PSP when she lets me take it for playing games, my Treo, and of course my laptop PC. I'm not very comfortable checking any of these things onto a plane because I know what happens when I give up my baggage to others. Normally it gets all banged up and thrown about in the cargo hold and the chance of one of these things being broken just sky rockets! I paid hundreds of dollars for this stuff which is used to keep me entertained on airplanes because the magazine thats on board really stinks and you can only shop on the Sky Mall for so long without going nuts.

As I'm checking my schedule right now I don't think I'm going to be flying any time soon except for October for my mom's birthday which is a small 3 hour hike to NY. Maybe at that time I won't be taking my laptop but I sure am taking a lot of my other electronic gizmo's and hells no am I checking that stuff in because NY bag handlers are some of the worst I've seen yet. I used to have broken baggage that proves this but the airline replaced it since it was so damaged it couldn't be used anymore. Now if gas were cheaper, I'd just start driving everywhere instead of flying, seems to be much safer and have a lot less hassles............ So to all your travelers out there good luck at the airports!

Cleaning up Flickr

Today I decided to clean up some of the stuff that I use on the web. I have used a lot of different photo sites in the past and I even started using some new ones. But the one that matters the most these days are the pics that come up on Flickr. Granted I post a few pics here and there on MySpace but the bulk of my online pics were up on Flickr but I've since cleaned that up :)

I used to have all sorts of weird stuff like pics I took on some of my trips, my wedding, my sister in laws wedding etc.... Now there are only cats and my latest trip up there which is nice. I have that little Flickr thing on the side of my blog and for the longest time it kept rotating some boring pics that I had uploaded I dunno how long ago. Now it has some much better pics that I took in Las Vegas when I was there in May. I also have an extensive collection of pictures of my cats but thats because I was bored enough to actually load them up.

Maybe I'll take another trip somewhere and will add more pics, in the mean time I'll get more pics from home, I know I have more somewhere that I can post.

Getting even more connected with my Treo

I've had my Treo for a while now (maybe a year, maybe more but I can't remember) and during this time I've found more and more stuff to add to it. I already have games, GPS maps, word/excel editors, and phone directories, I mean what else could I possibly want on this thing?? Well of course I want instant messenger on it, but since I'm a little stingy, I want free instant messenger :)

Recently I was able to find something that works pretty well called Toccer. It only works with AOL Instant Messenger but its great for what I want to do which is chat with people on the go. It's been espeically handy while I've been away this summer at conferences. During my last conference in Orlando it was very handy keeping in touch with my wife during the day since I didn't really have time to make phone calls but being able to use IM was great. So even if I'm away but in the US somewhere, at least I know I can still talk to my people or email them. :)

IT WORKS!!

After months of not working it seems that blogger mobile is up and running again. This is very good news because now I can blog and post pics from my phone..... Woohooo!!!!

Three ways to blog on Blogger

Just to give Blogger another chance I decided to look in their help files to see if there are better ways to post using my phone.

Recently I've been using U*Blog but I can't post pics with it which is what I would like to do on occasion. There is also emailing it in using a specific email address but then pics won't appear either. So that now leaves me with option 3 which is blogger mobile. This also requires me to email stuff in but it supports pictures however in recent months it hasn't been working well so I stopped using it. I guess now is as good a time as any to see if they have it working again. I'll attach some random pic to this post just to see if it works. Hopefully it does since I like blogging when on the go........