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 :))