The great Amazon List

It's the holidays so that means its time for gift giving and all that jolly stuff that goes on. After going to the mall multiple times and finding nothing worth buying or putting on my Xmas list, I decided to beef up my Wish List on Amazon.com. I've had a wishlist for a while but no one really knows I have it. There are some pretty big ticket items on that list (like a new camera :)) that I want and some things that I need like an unlocked GSM phone for work because of my occasional international travel.

What I'm a bit concerned about putting on my list on Amazon are clothes. That's one thing that I'll almost always go to the store to get because everything looks good in pics but doesn't look good on me. I guess there are generic clothes that I could put up like dress shoes or something but electronics are way more fun. So for right now the list is updated since I took some time yesterday to add some expensive items, you know just in case ;-)

Merry Christmas everyone!

Halo3 Complete! Booyah!!

After quite a long time of not playing Halo 3, I decided to pick the game up again today and actually beat the game. From all the game guides that I've read, I thought that it was going to be fairly quick to beat it since I knew I was in the next to last level. It took me almost another two hours to finish it but it was pretty good. I thought that the final level could have been better but eh, what can you do right?

The ending to the game isn't bad, I won't spoil it for anyone although I'm pretty sure that most people have beaten this game way ahead of me. I seem to be taking a lot longer these days to beat games or even muster the interest to play them. The end cut scenes were fairly lengthy but it was worth waiting to see all of it. I don't know if I'm going to play through the game again but I may just for kicks and I might kick it up a notch in the difficulty settings to get a new challenge.

There are a number of games that I want both for my Wii and for the Xbox 360. My laundry list of games are:

Ninja Gaiden 3
Call of Duty 4
Mario Galaxy
Geometry Wars
MLB Power Pros
Command and Conquer 3 (this one is for PC, I'm an old fan of the game)

Now will I actually go out and get these games? Highly unlikely but you never know. I've played most of the originals for these games except for MLB Power Pro's so I know what they'll be like. I'm looking forward to some new challenges, maybe if I get some time on the weekends I'll pick up a couple of these games and see if I can get interested in gaming again.

Oh Christmas Tree!

I was walking outside tonight in The Woodlands and saw this huge Christmas tree at The Marketplace and thought it would be something to blog about. It's rare to see something like that in Florida so its nice to see it while I'm on the job.

On a side note, my wife put up our Christmas tree and so far my cats haven't knocked it down yet. The lights for the outside are up too. As soon as a little problem with the house is fixed, I'll be lighting up the neighborhood. Booyah!

Hilton Diamond Status

A funny thing has been occurring at the Hilton Garden Inn where I'm staying at. I recently made Diamond Status (it's the super high status that Hilton has for staying with them for a loooong time) and all the front desk people know me now and refer to me as "the one that achieved Diamond status" whenever I give my name to check in.

It sounds to me like this doesn't occur too often at this particular hotel. I know that a lot of consultants like me achieve super high status with hotel and airline reward programs but being referred to as the "the one that just achieved Diamond status" seems just a bit weird. Well I'm just going to keep on getting my points so that I can achieve my goal of staying at the Waldorf=Astoria for free :)

Home for the week!

Ahh its Turkey week! One of the best things about it being Turkey week is that instead of traveling to my current client I get to work on my client stuff while I'm at home. It's one of the perks that I currently have with my job.

So what am I doing while I'm at home? Well I'm working of course! I'm also trying to spend as much time as I can with my two cats who I leave behind every Sunday when I fly out and I am also trying to spend a lot of time with my wife. I will admit that although I enjoy the travel at times and the ability to get away from home, its very nice to come back to my home and spend it with the ones I care about the most. I also get to do some of the things that I don't normally do like make the bed, use my own shower, and wash dishes. Eating out has its appeal but after doing it for a while, I nice home cooked meal is what I crave these days.

I'll have some pics from Turkey day and post them later on Flickr or something. It's time for me to get back to work!

Happy Birthday Thumper

Today is Thumper's 4th Birthday. Besides the day he was born, this is the first birthday that I've missed. I feel kinda bad since he's also sick at the moment but I'll make it up to him when I get home this weekend by giving him a few treats. He hasn't gotten any bigger but he's definitely a little more needy now that he's getting on in age and also because I don't spend as much time at home. If he still played with cat toys, I'd get him something from PetSmart. He'll have to settle for me making him even fatter :)

Scoring 200!

I went bowling this weekend with my wife and with my new ball I was able to get another 200 game! Thats the second time this year that I've been able to get a 200. It's a rare occurrence for me but at least I was able to do it. As I get better, I hope it'll be a more regular occurrence.

I gotta say, I'm loving my Black Widow, now if the bowling alley lanes would stop ruining the finish on my ball! I have all these scratches on my new ball and its only 2 weeks old :( I guess I'll have to spend some money next year and get a spare ball.

New Computer

This past week my wife informed me that the monitor for our current PC gave out. It was a Samsung 15" LCD screen which was pretty cutting edge when we bought it in CT about 4-5 years ago. A practical person would probably have only gotten an LCD screen but being me, I discussed it with my wife and we saw this as a great opportunity to finally upgrade out computer. I was using a hand me down computer from my sister in law since I was able to bring it back to life but this time around I decided to purchase one, I think this is the first computer I have purchased since 2001 which means I was due anyway.

I went over to Circuit City and Best Buy and compared prices and at the end of the day, Best Buy had the best package. I was able to get an HP Pavilion Elite with an Intel Quad Core PC, 3 Gigs of RAM, and 640 GB hard drive. Thats some serious muscle compared my old Pentium 4 with 512 of RAM and only 220 GB hard drive. I have gone through the basic setup sequence for the new computer but I haven't had the time to install all the programs that I normally put on a computer to make it run well.

The package from Best Buy came with an all in one printer/copier/scanner but I'm saving that as a backup for when my current printer finally dies which will be a long time. We also decided to change the monitor that came with the package. I originally wanted a Samsung 22" monitor but they didn't have any at Best Buy so I went ahead and got an LG monitor instead which looks just as good as the Samsung and was actually cheaper as well. The picture on it looks fantastic so far so I am very pleased with the purchase.

The only part that I'm disappointed in is that I can't expand the PC any more than I have. I was going to try and cannabilize some of the parts from my old desktop but there's no more room inside the chassis. I guess thats the price you pay for getting an off the shelf PC instead of building it but I didn't want to go through the hassle anymore. The only thing I foresee having to purchase is a USB hub for the computer because there aren't enough ports currently.

I'll write an update on my progress on how things are going with the new comp although I expect things to go fairly well. I'll also give my impressions of Windows Vista since it came with the computer.

New Bowling Ball

This weekend I got a new bowling ball called the Hammer Black Widow Pearl. I was using a different ball for the past two years that I bought in Tampa called the Power Groove by Brunswick. Sadly that ball has run its course and it was a beginner ball to begin with. I got the ball on the advice of my father in law who's very much into bowling and was able to advise me well on what kind of ball to purchase.

I tried this sucker out today and man does it hook! When I used to try and hook my old bowling ball, it would hook a little bit and not hit where I wanted it to get a strike. I took my new ball and threw it like I threw my old ball and holy crap did this bad boy hook! Normally where I would hit close to the center, I totally missed most of the pins and hit maybe one of the back pins on the edge of the lane. Needless to say I need to make some huge adjustments to my game but I'm very happy with the over all performance of the ball. It'll just take a few weeks to get used to it. As you can see, it looks totally bad ass too which is nice :)

International Travel Stinks

Up until this point, my trip to Brussels was fine until I got to the airport. I travel quite a bit for my job so I know what I can carry on a plane without much trouble when flying domestically. On the way here, I had my standard 22” rollerboard bag along with my back pack. That’s pretty standard for most business travelers in the US since there are plenty of people just like me hopping on to planes getting ready to go consult somewhere. I was perfectly fine coming here to Brussels with my rollerboard and my backpack as well, so it made things really simple.

However I just finished passing through security and everything but I am minus my rollerboard because the agent at the desk said I had too much stuff. Obviously the standards of what can and can not bring on a plane to stuff in an overhead bin are a bit different here. I had to check in my rollerboard which right now is totally pissing me off. I had my jacket on and I don’t need it going to Florida where its currently 80 degrees outside. I was so mad that I didn’t even get a souvenir for myself to remember the trip. Now I have to wait in baggage claim which sucks all kinds of ass, I also had to unlock my bags for security screening since they don’t accept TSA locks either, they would have just broken them and I paid a pretty tidy sum for my locks. The only thing that would be of value is a game I got for my wife that I took to play on the plane.

I haven’t had good experiences with checking in luggage which is why I’m pretty upset about it now. If my shit ends up lost or damaged someones ass at United is gonna feel it. On top of that I gotta WAIT for it at baggage claim and then I have to wait for a bus to take me to my parking garage. I just need to be home already, I’m so done with this trip!

I'm done in Brussels

Well so far most of my trip has consisted of eat, sleep, work, for the week days while I’ve been here. My current client has offices here and so far I’ve stayed till at least 7PM every night. The cool thing though is that there is a taxi service that took me to and from the client site in Brussels so I didn’t have to worry about that at all. It was normally a nice relaxing ride into the office until the fun began in earnest for the day. Anyway enough about work…….

Monday was interesting because I tried a traditional Belgian vegetable with lunch called Wutluff (I can’t spell it, I’ll look it up later) but my co-workers who work on the European side of the ocean said that is a very Belgian thing to eat so I figured why not give it a go. It actually didn’t taste that bad, I was told that its an acquired taste but it tasted a bit like corn to me although it has no resemblance to corn at all. The rest of the fare was pretty easy, chicken and potatos. I ate a really simple meal on Monday evening due to the fact that I was wiped out and really didn’t want to venture too far from the hotel. Needless to say that I didn’t get to do anything but sleep that night.

Tuesday night was a bit more interesting. I went out with my boss and European co-workers who gave us a little driving tour of the city. I was able to see things like the Palace of Justice and the Royal Palace from the car, we couldn’t really stop because it was late and there was no place to park and take pictures. No matter really, I can get pictures from the internet. We ended up eating at this Belgian place that was really close to the place where I ate lunch on Sunday. Just for fun I took a picture of the really expensive chocolate shop that I visited (of course the place was closed!) and so were all the other stores except the restaurants. I ended up having a traditional Belgian beef dish which I probably wouldn’t be able to pronounce at all but it was still pretty good. It was basically a steak but it was marinated with Cherry Beer which I thought was rather interesting. I also had shrimp croquets as an appetizer. Although Belgium is the a great land of beer, I didn’t end up drinking any simply because I don’t like the stuff and it would go to waste. I’m told that there are at least 350 different varieties of beer brewed in Belgium which for such a small country is really a ton of beer. Most of it is available for sale in a grocery store so that’s pretty neat too. My co-workers knocked a few back but I kept myself sober (I know I’m boring but eh) and it was almost midnight by the time we were all done.

Tonight is Wednesday and I will be heading to the old homestead tomorrow morning. For some odd reason I wasn’t able to print my boarding pass online. No matter, tomorrow I have a taxi to the airport so I know I’ll be well taken cared of. I didn’t buy any souvenirs for myself but there really isn’t anything I want to bring home. I took a bunch of pictures tonight of the Grand’Place at night which I hope will come out well. Overall, I’d say I had a pretty good time here in Brussels. Now I can scratch that off my list of places that I’ve visited. J

Trip to Brussels

This weekend I had to travel to Brussels, Belgium for work. As is my personal policy, I can’t say who I work for currently or what client I’m on because that’s just asking for trouble but I can go ahead and blog about the things I see here in Belgium while I’m here.

Well first things first, the beginning of my trip started with me going to the airport at Ft. Lauderdale. I have to say that I’ve never seen FLL that busy EVER. All my normal parking spots were all taken which pissed me off. I had to park really far away in the Palm Garage which requires taking a bus or taking an extremely long walk which is totally un-acceptable but all the other levels in my normal garage were taken. I’ll deal with that when I get home though. Hopefully I won’t be too inconvenienced.

Next I discovered that I forgot to charge up my iPod last night so that wasn’t a good thing. The flight to Washington DC was pretty uneventful and I concentrated on reading one of the books that I bought for this week. I was able to find a power outlet at the Washington DC airport which was nice so I was able to charge it up to the max just before I boarded my plane. I have so many books I’ll be busy for a few days just reading everything I have. I’m also hoping to get in a little bit of shopping since I want to get some chocolates for my wife while I’m here.

I forgot how awesome big planes are. I used to the smaller commuter jets or mid size planes. There isn’t a lot of room on those and economy is economy whether or not you’re flying domestic or international but the headroom is greatly improved and you also don’t feel the turbulence as much. I also was fed on the plane, I think its almost been at least 5 years since I’ve had an actual meal on a plane. The fare has improved I think but then again its really hard to mess up pasta. I wasn’t able to sleep on the plane since technically as I write this its 3:!5AM EST and in Brussels its currently 9:15AM. There was also some good movies showing on the plane so that helped me pass the time. I saw Surf’s Up which I originally wanted to see in the movie theater but never got a chance to do so. They were also showing Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix but the audio was all messed up so I only watched a few parts of that.

Right now I’m at my hotel in the city of Brussels. I’m currently writing this master piece in MS Word because I don’t have internet access. Internet access for 24 hours is 20 Euro’s which is quite a lot. I’m used to hotels where I have some status where I get free internet and free waters. I’m on a high floor so the view is pretty nice but the room is super small. I forgot how much smaller everything is in Europe compared to the US. I would say that my hotel room is no bigger than one of the smaller bedrooms in my townhouse whereas in Texas, my hotel room is bigger than my master bedroom at home. I’ll post pictures when I get a chance, right now I don’t have my USB/SD Card adapter so it’ll be hard for me to transfer pics but I think I can figure out a way to do it. Being its Sunday, I’m going to head on over to the Grand Place where all the tourists go to take some pictures of the excellent architecture and maybe do a little shopping while I’m there. More to come in the next few days!

My first impressions of Brussels

I’ve been walking around Brussels all day so far and I think I have a good impression of the area already. For the most part, I can say that its not what I expected at all. I thought that being Europe and not to mention the seat of the European Union, that this place would be pristine. I know those are high expectations but I think it was a reasonable assumption.

Well first thing that really caught my eye was all the graffiti. Now I’m originally from lower Connecticut so I took quite a few trips to NY in my time so I know how bad graffiti can get, especially before the Guiliani administration basically cleaned up the city. The graffiti here is almost to the extreme. I mean I’m used to it being on store gates and on signs but almost every store front I saw had some sign of graffiti on it. What was especially bad in my view was that there was a huge amount of them on national monuments. I saw this huge statue of King Albert and there was nothing but graffiti all over it. It wasn’t very picturesque but I snapped a pic of it anyway just to show how much graffiti was on it.

The cleanliness of the city itself reminds me of NY at night. Lots of trash on the sidewalks waiting for pickup and generally stinking up the town, spew! I expect this from NY but not of Brussels. I guess I was just expecting more. I’ll have to set my expectations a bit lower the next time I travel to a European country. I’m sure the country side is probably pristine. Maybe I should start heading to those areas in the future if I decide to vacation here. I just know that I won’t be going anywhere in this town alone at night because some of the places here just seem outright creepy to me and I don’t exactly blend in well with the Europeans with the black hair, olive skin, and slightly slanty eyes. Haha! That might make me a target to get mugged since I know I look like I don’t belong.

Shopping so far has been underwhelming but that’s due to the fact that everything was closed. There were some chocolate shops open but that’s to be expected since it’s a huge draw for tourists. I went out to eat at this little place somewhere in Brussels and the food wasn’t bad but things really didn’t start to pick up until around 1pm. The service was SLOW. I’m an American so I’m used to getting quick service so I can eat and leave. I attribute this to a difference in culture. Things seem to move slower here and at a more relaxed pace whereas I am going to where I need to be with purpose, even if it is just wandering around with no particular direction.

The chocolate shops that I’ve seen around town so far have been pretty impressive overall. I like this chain store called Neuhaus. I might try and go to a place called Mary’s if I can find the time. Their chocolates are supposed to be excellent and I have to bring something back home for my wife before the week is out. I’ll have to do some more research online or something but I know I’ll be able to find her something that will satisfy her palette.

Hotel accommodations might have to be a separate post but I’ll just give it a spiel here. I forgot how small everything is here. The elevator can fit 6 people very snugly which is not good for me at all. I need my 3 feet of personal space. My hotel room is about the size of my guest bedroom at my house. I feel so spoiled by the privileges that I have at the Hilton. I’m used to a monster room, decent TV, free waters, free breakfast, and free internet. Here everything is extra so that’s a strike against this place already. I can live without internet access though, this just means I don’t have to work while I’m in my hotel room. It’s a good thing I bought a truck load of books as well as my wife’s PSP. I have plenty of games, reading, and tunes to keep me occupied.

Well that’s the first impressions I have so far. There will be more observations later on as the week drags on and as I see other places in Belgium. I probably won’t get to post this blog until I get home but I needed to jot all this down before I forgot about it. Gotta love MS Word sometimes.

The Grand’Place and Surrounding Area

This morning I went out for a walk with my boss to look around the great city of Brussels. I know sounds a little weird but its better than going out alone in a strange city. The one place that keeps on grabbing my attention in all the guide books that I’ve read on Brussels is Grand’Place. This location is pretty nice I must say. The guild halls that surround the square are very impressive in terms of their architecture. It was a little difficult for me to take pictures today because there was a marathon being run in Brussels today and it ended at the Grand’Place.

The square itself is made of cobblestones giving it that old world feel. There was also a huge tower that made up one of the sides of the square. There are lots of little gaps in which a person can walk through to get to some other areas. I walked around the entire area for a while trying to find different sites. There was a small open air market, tons of small shops (all of which were closed, apparently nothing is open on Sunday’s which really stinks) and there were a few other sites that I went to but at the moment have a difficult time remembering. I’ll explain more on that in my next blog post.

One place that is worthy of mention is the Centre Belge de la Bande Dessinee. I’ll admit the name doesn’t really give anything away but what it comes down to is that this place was a comic strip museum. I had a semi hard time finding this place because its not identified anywhere on the building and the site I originally thought was where the museum was was nothing but a huge crater. It’s only after I walked down the street a little bit did I find the actual museum. Apparently the popular comic Tin Tin is Belgian and they had a whole museum dedicated to Belgian Comic artists. The museum only cost me 7.50 Euro’s which isn’t bad at all. The lack of English placards on the exhibits was a bit challenging because I couldn’t understand anything that was on them but it was nice to see all the different types of cartoon comic strips that Belgium has produced over the decades. I was able to take a lot of pictures while I was there. One thing that I thought that was amusing was that the Smurf’s were created by a Belgian artist so there was a whole exhibit on them.

OK, time to write a different blog entry describing my current impressions of Brussels.

Halo 3 Bliss

This Thursday when I got home I said HI to my cats, tossed my stuff in the bedroom and decided to fire up my Xbox 360 to get into Halo 3 that my wife was kind enough to purchase for me while I was away during the launch event. I started on playing it on regular difficulty because I haven't been playing my video games all that much lately since I don't have the time these days.

I must say though, that my expectations have been met or exceeded with this installment of Halo. One of the sad things is that I know that this will probably be the last Halo game where I go around as the Master Chief shooting things to oblivion. The level designs are way better, the vehicles are super fun to drive, the graphics are excellent and the weapons are also good since there are a ton of new ones to take advantage of.

From what I've played so far, this is going to be a fun game to replay a few times through. I would play on Xbox Live but I'm a cheap skate and I don't have the optional Wireless adapter for it. I'm still going strong on my Wii but for right now, Xbox 360 will rule my living room until I'm done with Halo 3 :)

Halo 3!

This Tuesday will be the the biggest release of a video game EVER! Only one game can garner this much attention, HALO 3! I am the proud owner of the previous entries of the Halo series on the original Xbox. I can say with a straight face that I liked the first Halo game over the second one. Playing as the other side in Halo 2 just wasn't all that fun, I preferred playing as the good ole Master Chief. I've already read the reviews on Halo 3 and they're all favorable. It's supposed to be totally bad ass with a ton of action. If I wasn't so cheap, I'd get Xbox Live and play online but I just don't have the time to do that sort of thing anymore.

Since I won't be home when its released, I'll be picking it up this weekend. I'm sure to get a copy somewhere, there are at least 4 Gamestops in a 10 mile radius of where I live. This weekend will be interesting to say the least :) Booyah!

Jamba Juice

I traveled to The Woodlands tonight as I'm supposed to and I'm staying at the Hilton Garden Inn. The great thing about staying here is that I'm close to a shopping center called The Marketplace (at least I think thats what its called). Anyway, my wife has turned me on to Jamba Juice, so right after I checked in headed out to Jamba Juice. This is the first time I've walked anywhere around here but the walk really wasn't that bad. If I have some free time later this week, I might try and go to the mall or something right after dinner. It's really close by, the only bad thing is that I have to walk through the parking lot.

I got this awesome peach smoothie, my wife picked it out for me today since she had a menu from one of the times I went out to lunch with her. It was really good and only cost around five bucks. I'm going to start booking this hotel for my entire project since I want to be able to walk around the area. I can't do that from the Courtyard Marriott. Anyway, if the opportunity presents itself, I'll get another Jamba Juice smoothie this week.

Ninja Gaiden II = WOW!

I decided to look on my RSS Reader for some news and I saw an entry that was show casing some video from the up coming Ninja Gaiden 2 game for PS3 and Xbox 360. Since I own an Xbox 360, this is definitely a game I would be interested in. I have an original Xbox as well and I beat the original Ninja Gaiden on that console and the game itself was absolutely amazing back then. After looking at the newer game, I can tell that this game is probably going to be harder than the last one and it looks like they added a ton of new weaponry as well as some new ninja spells. How can this NOT be a sweet game? This is the only other game that I'm looking forward to so far besides Halo 3. Call of Duty 4 might get a look from me because its more modern combat and not WWII this time around. There are so many games that I want for the Wii and Xbox 360, I'm gonna go broke!

If you want to see the trailers for Ninja Gaiden, either hit up 1up.com or ign.com Both of them have it and if you've played the original, you'll be wow'ed by the sequel.

Continental Airlines is pretty sweet

Today I flew out to my new client out in Houston TX. This client is a little unusual because I have to fly out on Sunday evenings. No matter really, my wife understands this is the needs of my client. Besides I get more hotel points this way anyway because I stay an extra night. I don't get any points with Avis anymore because I'm not renting a car and I may start to get Marriott points because I should be staying at the Courtyard Marriott but they don't have any rooms available so I'm staying at the Hilton which is fine by me.

OK so anyway, to get to and from Houston, I'm using Continental Airlines as my carrier. First off I'm allowed to shove all my miles to Delta which is pretty awesome although I may want to rethink that since miles don't expire with Continental unlike Delta which expires every two years or so. Second, its a direct flight to Houston. That is a huge plus in my book because I don't have to hurry around an airport to rush off to a connecting flight. It's just a straight shot and then I'm heading to ground transportation to get my butt to the hotel. Third, they offer better snacks than all the other airlines I've flown so far. They offered me a turkey sandwich for a measly two hour flight. Thats pretty unheard of really in this day and age. Normally you would have to pay for that sorta stuff on airlines like American and Northwest. At the most on Delta you'll get some peanuts and a drink. And finally, the planes seem to be generally newer than the other airlines. The ultra huge carriers like American (MD 88's?? come on how ancient are those?), Delta (older Boeing 737-400's) or Northwest (Airbus A320's from the early 90's), Continental is using some later model 737-800's which is NICE!

If I didn't have to connect in Atlanta for so many of my flights, I'd go ahead and switch my rewards points to Continental from Delta. We'll see how things work out though over the course of the next month or so. Well, more later this week after I get to experience all that Houston TX has to offer. Btw, I'm not really IN Houston, I'm in a suburb but if I'm lucky I'll actually make it to Houston one of these days.

iPod movie bliss

Since I've been home for work recently, I've taken the opportunity to put some video's on my iPod so I have something to watch. I had movies before on my iPod but most of them were action movies for the most part. The one that got the most play with The Godfather but I needed more comedies so this week I converted a few of my DVD's to iPod format. I bought some software a long time ago that would do the conversion (I know, strange notion, I actually bought software) but its been working really well, much better than the normal freebie software that I use.

My library is getting quite extensive, but I'm also starting to run out of hard drive space on my computer. I can't load all my movies on my iPod because I don't have the space, I need a lot of space for the mountains of music that I own. I've seen the new iPods and I'm not yet all that impressed. I dont' want to buy all new accessories and it doesn't look like the new iPod touch will be easy to use in the car.

Now I'll have something to watch on the plane Sunday evening when I go to Houston for my client. There are good things and bad things about leaving for the client on Sunday, the bad thing of course is that I get to spend less time at home with my wife and cats, the good thing is that I get to dress like a schlub instead of wearing my work clothes and heading straight to the client site and I won't feel all messed up when I show up for work on Monday morning.

Cell Phone Rant

I've been a Verizon user since before Verizon even existed. I remember my first Bell South cell phone that I got back in 1999. Currently they are the largest wireless network in the US that is using the CDMA protocol. Almost all the rest are on GSM except for Sprint. I find it distressing that for its huge size and customer base, Verizon still has the most piss poor phones on the market.

I'm personally not a regular cell phone user, I use a PDA/Smartphone but even then, I still think that there needs to be a better selection of phones from my carrier. I like the ones that Cingular has but they're GSM and my current phone is not compatible. Even Sprint has better phones than Verizon and they're a distant 3rd place in the cell phone wars. I'm not a big fan of the Blackberry right now but still, I keep on seeing these bad ass phones like the Pearl and the Curve coming out for all the other carriers but not for Verizon! BOOO! I wish I had at least the option. If I ever became disgruntled with my Treo I would so go for a Pearl. I've seen my friend Johnson's Blackberry Pearl and its super sweet.

Oh well, I can but hope that Verizon will get in some new phones by September 25, thats when my wife is eligible for a new phone :)

2007 VMA's

Last night I was going to watch the MTV VMA's but after only half an hour I just had to turn it off and watch Family Guy re-run's on Fox. My wife pointed out to me that normally they hype the VMA's like crazy but this year they didn't and I can see why. The whole show looks like it was put together by some college interns and run by the TV broadcasting club of some po-dunk university out in the middle of no-where.

They were using some weird 80's theme that had a female speak and spell voice going through all the nominee's and it was really hard to understand. They also showed clips of each video in small little boxes to make some sort of collage which didn't really work either. I was only able to really watch the first main performance that started off the award show and then they continued to show snippets of other performances that were taking place at "parties" in other locations of the Palm's Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas. Truly an interesting format if you're there live to enjoy it, but for those of us watching on TV it kinda sucked. I also think the cue cards were un-readable to the announcers because everyone I saw in that half hour kept on fudging what they were supposed to say. How embarrassing!

If I were the head of MTV I'd probably end up firing the whole crew that worked on the VMA's this year and maybe light a fire under my creative team for coming up with an absolutely craptacular show. Oh and just because you make new awards, doesn't mean that anyone really cares. Stick with the tried and true, thats what made people want to watch the show in the first place. OK, rant done......... for now.............

Book rewards

I read a lot of books now that I travel most of the time. I end up buying about a book a week or so because I'm normally on a plane at least 6 hours out of the week and that doesn't include the time that I spend at the airport waiting around to board the plane.

I buy most of my books from Barnes and Noble because its just down the street from me here at home. I prefer Borders though for a few of reasons though. First off, Borders was the bookstore that was closest to me when I lived in Stamford and I liked going there a lot. The prices at Borders is normally cheaper than Barnes and Noble although they're pretty comparable. The rewards program with Borders is also free which is good for me because the one that Barnes and Noble offers you have to pay a yearly fee, whats up with that? And finally, Borders is just everywhere, from the airport to the mall, I can always find a Borders (or a Walden Books which is owned by Borders) or I can order stuff online through Amazon which has a deal with Borders.

I'll admit that the majority of my books in 2007 has come from Barnes and Noble but thats due more to convenience than anything else. If Barnes and Noble makes their reward program free, I'll sign up with them too, I could always use 20% off on new books :)

Marriott Silver!

I got a pretty cool surprise in the mail yesterday, Marriott sent me my Silver Elite card! I didn't know I had achieved Silver Elite but I guess all those stays at the Fairfield Inn that I had to endure got me enough points so that I could get the status. Granted it wasn't hard to achieve, I only needed 10 nights at any Marriott to get this far. I need another 40 to get Gold but I really don't want to get to Gold with Marriott. My next assignment is taking me to Houston TX, well a little north of there and the approved hotel there is a Courtyard Marriott which kinda stinks. I was hoping to get Platinum on my Hilton Honors account.

Hilton's so far are my favorite hotel chain, then the Starwood's, then Marriott, and last and certainly at the bottom of the pile is Holiday Inn. At least I will be getting 25% extra on my bonus points so this will give me a little flexibility as I'll be earning more points overall. There is a Hilton Garden Inn near the Courtyard Marriott which wouldn't be bad I don't think and it would allow me to earn more points with them. My march continues on to getting elite status!

Home for Labor Day

I'm sitting in my home office writing this blog because this week happens to be the week that I'm slated to work from home so that I can be around for Labor Day. I was rolled off my client early so that means I get to spend next week at home too! Ahh the sweetness of it! I get to spend lots of quality time with my wife and cats which is always a good thing. I'm trying to get a new assignment and it looks like I'll be heading out to Houston. I've never been there before so this will be something nice and new. If I'm lucky, I might be able to make it to an Astro's game or something. :) Woo another hat to add to my growing collection, if I made it to the Tiger's game I was planning on going to in Detroit I would have gotten a hat as a souvanir.

Now that I'm home, I'll probably blog a bit more until I'm deployed. Look out for more boring crap from me!

Super Secret Status

This past weekend I registered for super secret bad ass status with Avis. I'm working on Diamond for Hilton but I just got Avis First status after sending an inquiry to Avis customer service. After I complete 3 rentals a month I get a free weekend rental. I just got this status but its just plain awesome since I rent with Avis so much. I've also found that they have the best rates over all.

I don't know what other fun perks I'll be getting but they have to be pretty decent after all the cars I've rented with this company, maybe I'll get some free upgrades to an luxury car or something one day. Their cars are sometimes not that great but over all I've enjoyed the experience. When I start returning the car to the place I rented it, they'll probably give me even better cars since I know they're giving me crap because I'm not returning it to the same facility currently.

For now, I'm going to see how much I can milk this. It's going to be so sweet!

Pontiac G6

This week I got a Pontiac G6 as a rental car from my lovely friends at Avis. I gotta say that this is one sweet ass ride. This little car has some pull. I think its a class above the Neon and Focus but with a much bigger engine, better sound system and over all its just hella fun to drive! I floored it just for kicks while coming to my hotel up the entrance ramp and that little car MOVES! If I knew I was going to be a consultant a few years ago, I probably would have loved this to be my airport car. It's American so I don't mind it getting dinged up since it doesn't retain value, but it would be cool to go on the highways because it has so much power. If I could request this car every week I would but there's always the possibility I'll get an even better car one of these days. :)

South Florida is Hot Hot Hot

This past Sunday I decided to go to the swimming pool at my community with my wife to of course do a little swimming and to cool off. It had been pretty hot the last couple of days that I was at home and thought that a nice swim would be a way to cool off. It even rained an hour before hand so the water should have been nice and cool right? WRONG!

The pool water felt a lot like bath water when I jumped in. It was pretty interesting given the fact it was about 90 degrees outside and the water temp was actually hotter than that. I held out my arms in the air for a couple minutes and dunked them back in the pool and it felt really hot when I did that. But I enjoyed staying in the pool so I stuck it out. Normally I would have left but I don't get to stay home often or use the pool so better to take advantage of the opportunity while it presented itself.

Maybe for my next place the pool water won't be so hot in the summer time. It just needs to be October already so its not 90 degrees in the evening (I know its sad isn't it?)

Forgot my socks

After my little scare a few weeks ago by getting stuck in Detroit, I've been packing an extra set of clothes in my suitcase. I've also taken to working out at the gym at the Double Tree where I'm staying so thats another pair of clothes entirely. As fate would have it, I went ahead and packed all the extra clothes I normally do except for white sports socks that I use for working out. Fortunately I had at least one pair but I used up some cash buying more socks. I need to start making a packing checklist so I stop forgetting stuff.

Being Gold rules

I checked into the Double Tree at my client site this week and much to my surprise, I got a coupon for $5.00 at the gift shop. Now I know its only $5.00 but that means I can get 5 free bottles of water which is super sweet. I also get breakfast in the morning now which is particularly awesome. Hopefully I'll wake up early enough to start taking advantage of this perk of mine. I've worked hard to get my Gold status with Hilton. I'm earning about 4000 points a stay which isn't a lot but when you add it up over time, I'm looking at some free hotel stays in 2008 when I finally go on a nice long vacation.

I'm not doing so hot on my points for the airlines but thats because they expire too fast and I don't earn that many of them when I fly. Besides, I can get some free flights by giving up my seat when I start flying Air Tran again. Ahh the wonders of travel.

More troubles with Northwest

I've been doing a fair amount of travel with Northwest Airlines for my current client. So far they have been the most unreliable air carrier that I've ever taken. Last night they left at least an hour later than they were supposed to and with my drive home I didn't get here until at least 2am which to me is quite un-acceptable. It's a good thing I'm not flying with them for much longer.

I've changed flights because I'm just tired of always being delayed by the major carriers. It seems to me that the smaller carriers like Jet Blue and Air Tran are doing much better in terms of being on time and they're also a little more generous with their food. Hopefully I'll earn some free flights with Air Tran once I start taking them come September.

The first to return Harry Potter

This was amusing to me so I thought I should blog about it. For the Barnes and Noble store in Pembroke Pines, I am the first person to return their Harry Potter book or so the salesperson says. I bought one earlier today because the ones that my wife ordered hadn't come in yet. Well to our great surprise they did come in today so I returned the one I bought. They didn't question it but if they had I'd have to point out that its quite difficult for any normal person to read the whole book (which is over 700 pages) in only 5 hours. I'll probably read it later tonight or something after watching my Saturday evening TV of course.

More travel woe's

I would have to say that work-wise this was the worst travel experience yet. Since I fly around the country for a living I'm sure I'll have even more stories to tell in the coming years which should entertain people if they bother to read the ole blog.

Anyway, I was all set to leave from the little regional airport in Michigan like I always do, turned my craptacular car in (Subaru Forrester) and then noticed that the security area was closed off. I looked at the screens and they said everything was on time. I went over to the ticket counter (the airport is so small its less than 100 feet away) and inquired what was going on. The ticket dude (who pulled like triple duty as the ticket agent, the gate attendant, and doing stuff on the tarmac) said that the flight from Detroit had been delayed and they expected a 7:30PM take off.

OK, no sweat, 7:30 will still give me half an hour to get to my other gate in Detroit so I can catch my ride home. 7:30 arrives and the plane just arrived and started to get people off. OK I think I can still deal with that, it'll be really tight but I think I can still make it to my gate in time. The flight of course is quite un-eventful until we actually land. Due to some snafu or whatever you want to call it, the gate that my plane was supposed to use was occupied. Sounds like a simple problem right? Put the plane in a free gate. The pilot comes on and says that Detroit is experiencing heavy traffic in Michigan and there are more planes coming in than taking off to avoid some sort of storm. Pah! Like I care, just park the stupid plane so I can get on my way!

Here's the kicker, 45 minutes later I'm still on the same plane, still parked on the tarmac and no closer to the terminal. I saw a couple planes park next to mine and then leave to go to gates but for some funny reason mine was still sitting there eating jet fuel and pissing everyone off. At this point I've checked with the airline and lo and behold my flight left without me. Luckily I work for one of those ultra huge companies that have their own travel agents so I call them up and ask them if there are any flights out to Ft. Lauderdale that night. Because of my incredibly good fortune so far, there are no other flights out and most of the flights for tomorrow are booked solid. Since I had this funny feeling that I was already re-booked on another flight, I told the travel agent I would call back if I needed further assistance.

After finally getting off the plane, I just saw a sea of people in terminal C which is the smaller terminal in Detroit, terminal A was my destination and I decided to head to my gate to see what the deal was. Being impatient, I decided to skip my gate and go to any gate to see what could be done. The kind gate agent at A74 (this is ALL the way at the other end of the airport from terminal C) just printed out my boarding pass for this morning and said I'd be on the 7:11am flight. I asked her what about hotel accommodations since it was mechanical/maintenance failure at the gate and not the weather. She told me to go to Gate 41/43 and wait in line to see if I can get a voucher for a hotel. I decided to take the nice train that they have in terminal A to Gate 41/43 and the line was HUGE! Obviously I'm not the only schmuck stranded in Detroit because the gates were all fouled up and there was no where to park the jets. I took a look at the line and calculated how long it would take me to get to the front and after coming up with about an hour or so to two hours, I determined that all the hotel rooms will be gone by then. I decided to phone my boss who said to go ahead and book a room and charge it in, just not to go to some $300 a night place since I'm waking up at 5am anyway. Ahh gotta love the travel agent! I call them up and get a spot at the Crowne Plaza right by the airport.

I decide to go down to the waiting area for the shuttle and see another sea of people calling up hotels trying to get a place to stay. Luckily I have my confirmation number on my phone so I have nothing to worry about. The first thing I noticed is that the DoubleTree where I normally stay in Michigan is WAY nicer which is kind of sad considering I'm in Detroit. The second is that room service is way over priced. I paid $18 for five pieces of coconut shrimp and a Sierra Mist. If I wasn't so hungry I wouldn't have spent the money but as it is, it was 11PM and a man's gotta eat. Alas I only have five hours to sleep but normally that should be enough. But the tale doesn't end there...............

Ahh this morning! I get up, stretch and get ready to head out. There are bunch of people heading out at the wee hours of the morning as well but thats not surprising considering the large amount of people stranded. I decided to take the 5:30 shuttle to the airport so I could get there early and also because I have no idea what the wait times are like in Detroit for security. Surprisingly I breeze through security and head for my gate which is all the way at the end. (A55). So far things are going pretty good. I'm a bit hungry but no matter, I'll be home at 10AM right? WRONG!! As we're on the plane and after we push off to actually get under way, the pilot comes on the PA system and says that they're having some technical difficulties starting up the right engine but its nothing to worry about, they'll just pull in and have the maintenance guys start it up from the engine compartment instead of the cockpit. Hmmm that doesn't sound like just a little problem, what if the stupid engine cuts out while we're in flight? I'm not too confident that the Airbus A320 can stay up in the air with just one engine. As luck would have it yet again, they tell us the plane is busted after about 15 minutes and we're forced to de-plane. Yay delayed again!! The flight attendant tells us to go into the terminal and to a new gate so we can grab the next plane that comes in. Hmm doesn't sound too bad except the next plane doesn't come in till around 8:30! They also have to taxi, get to the gate, de-plane, clean, inspect, re-fuel, and re-board everyone. Estimated departure time: 9:30AM.

At this point I'm starving so I decide to use up some more cash and get some breakfast which wasn't all that bad. Kind of like the BK breakfast sandwich that I like. After wolfing that down its about time to board and take off. The rest of the flight is quite uneventful except that I was sleeping when they were handing out drinks and snacks. So now I'm at home working from my home office writing up my blog. This has to be one of the longest entries ever but I felt I couldn't leave out details, this was one trip to remember!

A strange freebie at the ball park

Tonight I went to the Class A Great Lakes Loon's game near my client site. The game was pretty good and the stadium was awesome. The stadium itself was brand new and the teams weren't that bad although I've seen better in Class A (Tampa Yankees) but at least the home team homered twice. I didn't stay until the end of the game though but thats alright, the tickets were nice and cheap and I'll probably go to another game. The only thing that was really weird was the gate gift at the end of the game. And the gate gift was.............................. a loaf of bread.................... yes thats right I now am the proud owner of a loaf of bread. Since I haven't received my Diamond Status with Hilton yet I don't get my free breakfast at the Double Tree so this will do until I finally hit it.

All I need now is some free butter and I'll be all set!

I just saw Transformers the Movie today with my wife and I have to say that the movie totally kicked ass. The special effects were excellent and the story line was pretty good too. If you ever liked Transformers as a kid, this is a must see movie. Who can't enjoy big giant robots blowing stuff up??? :)

Ahh Tea!

Yesterday I bought some tea from Teavana and I have to say that its really good stuff. I bought two different types, one is called the Rooibos Tropica and the other is the Rooibos Key Lime. They're mixed with some other teas to get a pretty good taste and I'll probably buy more when I run out. I also bought their perfect tea maker so I can always get a great cup of tea. I know its pretty cheesy but I thought why not, I bought my dad one and he loves it. Maybe I'll get some crumpets to go with my tea........

The last of my 20's

This month I'm going to be turning 29. Seems a bit depressing considering I can only call myself a 20 something for another 365 days or so. Next year I hit the dreaded 30! I'm thinking of getting lasik so I don't need my glasses anymore, I think that would be a really cool gift to myself, the gift of sight with no glasses. Then I can start buying cheap sunglasses like everyone else. I'd do the contact thing but it just didn't feel right when I tried them.

The other option is to get a car or something to soothe myself for turning 30. Although thats a bit on the expensive side and the thing will do nothing but sit in the FLL garage most of the week or the garage here at my house.

Only 19 days to go, the Amazon Wishlist is updated though :) Just look for stuff with the highest priority, thats what I want for my 29th B-day.

The Soaring Eagle Casino

This past week I went to the Soaring Eagle Casino in Mt. Pleasant MI. It was quite the interesting experience. it felt like a much smaller version of Foxwoods. I didn’t play that much while I was there, just a slot machine and at least i was able to come out $2.00 ahead.

The real reason that I went was for the buffet that was there. it was prime rib night for only $20.00 so of course me and some of the people that I work with went. that right there is an unbeatable deal. I stayed a little while longer after dinner to watch some of my co-workers play things like black jack or roulette. Maybe one day when I have some extra money to burn I’ll go ahead and try one of those games out.

Only one thing bothered me about the slots at that casino, they didn’t take coins. I had a whole stack of coins in my pocket but I couldn’t even use them since the machines only took dollar bills. I guess that’s the direction gambling is going in. I’ll admit it certainly makes things easier for the casino because they don’t need to lug around heavy sacks of coins everywhere when they empty or refill the machines. Maybe I’ll go back to the casino later on since it was a pretty good time.

A lemon of a car

This week I probably had the worst car to date. I was given a Chevy Impala that had just been cleaned up and it was basically one of the only cars they had left. I'm sure that’s due to the fact I come in so late and a lot of the people that fly to Flint are on business and need to rent cars.

The biggest problem with the Impala was the fact that the tire was leaking. I could basically deal with that but it was still a bit annoying. The passenger seat belt also didn’t work but that didn’t bother me that much. The last thing that I have to complain about was the ride. I’m sure if the car hadn’t been abused it would have driven fine but someone did a real number on this car. It basically felt like a massage chair on speed when I got close to 70MPH. I drive about that fast on my way to work so I took it as a good thing when I was in a decent mood and a bad thing when I was slightly annoyed. this coming week I’m staying home so no rental car for me till July 9. I want to try out a Subaru legacy one of these days just to see how they are, its getting it that’s tricky. Oh well, we'll see what happens. Whoohoo 4th of July week coming up! :)

Wii-mania continues

This morning my wife and I decided to head on over to Best Buy just to kill some time so we could get hungry enough to eat a decent amount of dim sum for lunch. Best Buy opened at 11am and when we arrived, we got there maybe 15 minutes after the store opened. There was a huge line for the checkout line and almost everyone in it was holding a Wii. I could only say to my wife "suckers" since I didn't have to wait in a huge ass line to get my Wii :)

Right now we're playing Wii Golf and a game called Trauma Center which is definitely a different type of game all together and there's no way any other console could do this game without the inventive Wii-mote. I'm off to my client tomorrow so no more gaming till Friday. I'll just have to keep myself entertained with Lego Star Wars on my wife's PSP till I get home.

Wii Power!

Yesterday I went out and bought myself a Nintendo Wii for me and my wife. I have to say that the Wii has provided the most fun gaming experience I've had in a long time. I haven't bought any real games for it yet, I might go ahead and rent some later this weekend though just to try things out. The fact that I can use it with some of my older GameCube games is awesome. Right now I'm playing Wii sports that came with the console and its pretty damn fun. I'll probably play it again tonight with Claire to see who's best :)

Almost stuck in NY

On Sunday evening I was supposed to get on a plane with my wife and sister-in-law to head back to Ft. Lauderdale on Spirit Airlines. My wife and sister-in-law get their tickets just fine but I was having problems so I go to the ticket agent to get my ticket. When I give her my info they tell me that my ticket was never purchased and that there were no more seats on the plane. I had gone through my company travel agent to get my ticket on Spirit but because they're not one of the approved carriers, its a little complicated for them to get me a ticket.

I call up my travel agent to see what happened because everything that I have with me says that I'm confirmed for the flight. The travel agent scrolls through the record and finds a notation that my ticket wasn't purchased because of an invalid credit card. How that was possible is beyond me considering that my credit card is my corporate card and I've been using it for months. Since I couldn't get on the Spirit Airlines flight I ask if there are any other flights home, no matter what the cost because I just have to get home. My wife, being the excellent wife that she is, is checking with Jet Blue which isn't too far away from Spirit in the terminal to see if there are any flights and there is for over $300. I put that in the back of my mind just in case I need it and proceed to discuss travel arrangements with my travel agent. At first it sounds like he has me on a Delta flight which isn't bad because I can get extra points with them, the only downside is that I caught him buying a ticket for Newark to Ft. Lauderdale rather than La Guardia to Ft. Lauderdale. For my friends who know the tri-state area, we all know Newark is no where close to La Guardia.

After trying out different options, most of which did not leave from LGA or left the next morning, I decided to purchase my ticket on JetBlue. Although I might be out $300, I'm going to fight it out with my travel agent to get some of my money back considering something went very wrong with this trip. I'm all booked up for my flights to my client for the next few weeks and I know those are OK because I have seat assignments and everything.

All I can say is that this past weekend was the worst traveling experience I ever had, its a good thing I didn't have checked luggage because I know that something would have happened to it if I did and then I really would have had a terrible weekend travel-wise.

A night out in NY

I was in the NY area for a little over 24 this past weekend because I had to go to a baptism where I was playing Godfather. I did make time to go out with a few friends from back home on Saturday night. My friend Johnson, being the good man that he is, was able to drive Claire and I to NY. We were meeting our friends Lucy and Luan at Penang near NYU. I used to go to Penang in Queens but I don't know where it is anymore and there isn't anything to do in Queens after dinner anyway so this location made the most sense.

The food there was as good as the food at the Penang in Queens, the location was nicer too. Since we arrived late, Lucy and Luan came from a bar and started to get hammered but they didn't get too far since we arrived only half an hour after we were supposed to. There I had all my favorite dishes and appetizers as well as this really good watermelon drink that I had never tried before. There are pictures from the dinner and all and I think Claire posted it on her MySpace page.

After dinner we all decided to go to a bar. The bar was FAR no matter what Luan says. The bar was actually really nice, it was black and red with some plasma TV's above the bar. I only had one drink and everyone else had at least two or three. Things got really funny when all of a sudden the movie that was playing on the TV changed over to some really bad porno. The movie was so bad it was hysterical and the fact that we had been drinking only made it that much funnier. Needless to say we left that bar to try and get into another bar but the one that we went too was just too full so we made this huge loop and ended up walking through a little bit of Chinatown as well as Little Italy.

The end of the evening was at a bakery near Penang. The place we went to was called Bruno Bakery and I must say I was surprised that it was open at 11pm. We all had some dessert to top off all the food and drinks we had earlier that evening. The evening was really fun and I hope to do it again when I take another trip to NY. I'll see if I can get some pics together and post them on Flickr, I'm not at all skilled at using Slide but eh, I'll use what I got!

Crash and Burn PS3!

I was perusing some of my regular tech and gaming sites earlier today and I came across an article that detailed that so far Sony has lost 2 billion (thats right kids, I did say BILLION) dollars on the PS3 so far. I will admit its a superior gaming machine when it comes to graphics, the Blue Ray DVD player, and 60 gig hard drive compared to my Xbox 360 (which is currently at Microsoft for repair). To me thats an incredible amount of money no matter how you slice it. Even MS is doing better but the real winner for this generation of game machines I think is the Nintendo Wii.

I plan on getting a Wii next week if I can along with Zelda and maybe another game. I may not be home a lot to play it but hey, I might as well get it because it just looks too damn fun not to!

Stuck in Michigan

I was going to take what is known as a flex trip at my company, meaning that I was going to head off to another destination besides my home location of Ft. Lauderdale. Right now I'm writing this from my hotel room in Michigan because I wasn't able to leave because I made a critical error in my travel plans. That mistake was using Chicago's O'Hare airport as a transfer point.

My flight was originally scheduled to fly out of Michigan and go to Chicago at around 6:30PM. I found out later that morning that my flight was delayed which wasn't so bad. Then about an hour or so later I found out my flight was canceled. Needless to say I was beyond pissed. My co-worker was nice enough to get the airline to switch our flights to an earlier flight at around 3:45 so that was pretty cool, but thats not where this ends. As the day goes on we find out that the flight is delayed till 8pm. Well that kind of puts a cramp in my day considering my connecting flight was at 6PM central time. So that leaves me here, stuck in Michigan just slightly pissed and just a little disgruntled. I dare say that I will probably try to avoid Chicago like the plague in the future.

To be thwarted because of a little wind and rain! GAH!

Going for the Gold (or Platinum)

As you can tell, I'm trying to catch up on my blogging since I let it sit for quite a while before I post anything new. Well anyway...........

Since I am the great traveler these days (even though until about August it'll be to Michigan), I've been trying to build up my points on various different airlines, hotels, and car rental places. The ultimate goal is to get Platinum status for most of these places. Granted it takes a long time to get status with these places, you gotta travel a lot! My trips to Michigan have been slowly but surely increasing my point status but I've been kind of scatter shot. When I was going to Ohio I could always count on around 2000 miles on Delta and quite a few points at the Hilton or Westin hotels.

My Michigan trips have me running around on 3 different airlines so my point totals aren't what they should be. Platinum status is cool as hell because you get like double points most of the time, free stuff all over the place, and normally you get to board the plane first. But the best part? UPGRADES!! The points that I accumulate can be used for different upgrades whether they be car upgrades (premium rentals are SWEET) and even free stays at hotels (which I will definitely use when vacation time rolls around). I think it'll be at least 2-3 years before I get to where I want to be but once I'm up that point, vacations will be so much sweeter than they already are.

Traveling with extra gear

This week is especially hard since I'm traveling around with some extra stuff in my bag. I got a new game for the PSP and my wife let me take it with me. The game I got was Lego Star Wars II which I rented for the Xbox 360 and beat but I enjoyed the game so much I decided to actually buy it. The PSP though adds quite a bit of weight to my bag. There's the extra A/C adapter and the PSP itself which I also lug with me to the office because I don't want to leave it in the hotel because I'm just not trusting like that.

I'm also starting to carry around extra clothes in my suitcase just because the weather outside is getting nice and I really don't want to go out after work in my work clothes. Shorts and t-shirts are the name of the game for after work activities. While this adds a bit of extra weight, I look at it as semi exercising while on the job. HA!

SUV Upgrade in Michigan

Normally when I get a rental car for my client up here in Michigan I get a car. There was one instance where I got a small SUV but for the most part I've been driving cars. This week I got a nice surprise when I received a Ford Explorer. I'll be the first to admit that I think the car is pretty sweet in terms of the ride and the look. The gas mileage kinda sucks but overall this would have to be the best car I've gotten. Avis has been pretty good to me so far, so much better than Hertz. I'm gonna build up my points with them and the free iTunes songs after ever rental doesn't hurt either. :)

New RSS Feed on MySpace

I finally found a way to post blogs on MySpace kinda sorta. There is a cool Flash based widget that I just used to show an RSS feed for my blog. The only bad part is that it doesn't show all of my post, just a little snippet but its good enough for me! Total sweetness!!

PT Cruiser

This week I got a PT Cruiser as a rental car. I've already ranted about how much the car sucks in a previous post on my blog although I made that post in 2006 when I went to Las Vegas. Needless to say I'm not pleased but it could be worse, I could have gotten the Toyota Corolla that the person before me got. I hate that car even more than the PT Cruiser! BOOO!!!

Memorial Day Weekend

This past Memorial Day weekend was pretty entertaining. First I picked up my wife's friend from the airport and went off to the Sawgrass Mall for some shopping which lasted for about five hours. We also had lunch at the Cheesecake Factory which was pretty awesome. That evening we decided to go to a comedy club at the Hard Rock in Hollywood. The comedians that they had were pretty good. I liked the second act the best, the main act was one of the finalists from Last Comic Standing although I don't know what season he was from. He was doing just fine until someone made fun of him and then he decided to stand and try and make a view point which just killed the mood at the club. He tried to end it on a good note but eh, it was kinda half hearted. No matter, I'm sure he'll learn from the experience and I had a good time regardless anyway for most of the night.

Sunday was a day at the in-laws. There was a lot of food there and we all spent most of our time in the pool getting all prune-y. I think I spent at least 3-4 hours in the pool with everyone playing pseudo volleyball. I was in the deep end with the guys so it was harder to jump up and score points. It's not like we were keeping score anyway, it was just a lot of fun just to play. Truth be told I forget what happened Sunday night *shrug* I guess its not important really hahaha!

Monday was a good day because it was pretty nice and we spent most of the day at the beach in Ft. Lauderdale. I think this is really the first time that I've been to Ft. Lauderdale beach and if I went there before, I certainly can't remember it. The waves crashing on the beach were pretty strong but we all went in anyway. I had no luck with the umbrella though no matter how many times I tried to stake that sucker into the ground, the wind just kept on blowing it over so I gave up on it. My wife's friend got burned pretty good so we had to get her some lotion so the burn wouldn't hurt too much. She had some bad luck on the way home too, her flight was delayed till after midnight so instead of having her take that flight, I drove out to the airport to get her so she could at least get some sleep at our place. I brought her with me to the airport this morning and I get to the airport pretty early but she was on the 7am flight so she didn't have to wait that long. All in all, it was a good Memorial Day weekend.

Back from San Juan

It's Tuesday and I'm already back at work. I came back from San Juan last Saturday night but haven't had a chance to write anything on my blog until today. I uploaded pictures from the trip to my MySpace page. I'll upload pictures to Flickr later since thats where most of my other pics are.

My trip was pretty nice over all. I like the hotel that I stayed in, I ate way too much (I'm not used to eating 3 meals a day for 6 days straight), the places I saw was great, and there wasn't too many hiccups.

Here are some of the highlights right off the bat:
Camuy Caverns - Very nice place to go, although the bat shit on the railings was a little gross
Huge Dish to look at the Universe - Uber cool, it was in a James Bond movie :)
Tour Guide for the caverns and dish - "Words are like bullets"......... if you don't get the reference, go watch some South Park!
Old San Juan - The whole city was awesome
San Cristobal Fortress - One word......... COOL!
El Moro Fortress - Two words........ UBER COOL!


If I'm in the mood I'll write more later about my vacation, and if not, eh I'll just remember it in my head :)

A Beautiful Beach in San Juan

At this very moment I am writing this blog from the Carolina Beach in San Juan. My wife and I didnlt go at the peak season so the beach isn't too crowded which is really nice. We found a good spot under a tree to relax so we're not totally baked by the sun. The water is crystal blue just like Hawaii and pretty warm too. The sandis a bit hot and I think I burned the bottom of my feet while I was trying to take some pictures but thats OK, the picture will come out pretty nice when I post them later on Flickr.

Tomorrow will be quite an adventurous day since I'll be headed to the Camuy Caverns and an observatory for the day. There is going to be much picture taking of course! Time to get back to relaxing on the beach, if I havve the urge I'll write more tomorrow.

FTL Security

Something odd happened to me and my wife while we were going through airport security when we were leaving Ft. Lauderdale. In what I can only call a weird coincidence, the both of us had our carry on bags searched after we went through the metal and x-ray screens. I know we didn't pack anything that would require a second search because I made sure we did everything by the book. I travel for my job so I'm pretty up to date on what we can and can't pack. I wasnlt that upsetbut I was pretty annoyed that I was stopped for additional screening. My wife was a bit more upset because they messed up her carefully packed clothes when they went rumaging through her bag. I'm traveling again this coming Monday, lets see if I get stopped again for no good reason.

An Awesome Dinner in San Juan

This evening my wife and I went out to dinner at La Piccola Fontana to celebrate our anniversary. This year was a little more low key than last year when we went to Las Vegas. the restaurant was located in the El San Juan Hotel which is a really nice hotel. lots of dark woods and crystal chandeliers decorated the lobby and the hotel had not one but two Starbucks Coffee places in it. Noww thats a classy establishment! (For those of you that don't get the joke, look up Strong Bad on the internet and watch his cartoon).

I ended up getting a seafood linguini with spicey marinara sauce that was really good but my wife by far had the better dish. she ended up getting a 16oz lobster tail drizzled with honey truffle sauce. This thing tasted awesome and she was nice enough to let me have a piece of it. We ended our dinner with chocolate cake and ice cream. MMMM I'm totally stuffed right now, so its time to veg on the couch with the wife and relax for the

Happy Anniversary to Us

Ahh today is a very special day. Today I am celebrating my second wedding anniversary with my wife. We stayed up late last night so we could give each other cards and yesterday we also bought each other iPods. I needed one for when I travel for work and she needed one for when she works out at the gym.

We'll be spending our anniversary in San Juan for the week. We haven't had a nice week long vacation since last May when we went to Las Vegas. There are going to be more out doorsie things for us to do in Puerto Rico simply because the heat won't be so punishing and we're not going to be in the middle of a desert.

My wife has booked a few excursions for us already and I'm sure there will be a few more we'll find to do as well. If I have the time I'll send updates while I'm in San Juan but don't on it, I'm there to relax and enjoy my vacation. Highlight for tonight is dinner at a fancy italian place :)

And I didn't bring a computer with me this time, this will probably be the first time I haven't brought a computer with me in a while and it feels great!! Later my people!

Wow I've reached a blogging milestone

I didn't realize it till I actually looked at my Blogger dashboard but I've actually reached 502 posts. I personally think thats a lot for someone that really doesn't write a lot although I've been told enough that I write pretty well. Now I'm in a job that can take advantage of my writing skill but now I'm digressing. Maybe in the next 2 years I'll make it to 1000 blog posts even though I doubt anyone is still reading this. It just seems like good practice to keep on blogging and who knows, maybe one of my friends on MySpace will actually read it sometime.

Ft. Lauderdale Air and Sea Show

This past weekend I saw the Ft. Lauderdale Sea and Air Show at Ft. Lauderdale Beach in beautiful sunny Florida. I'll have to admit, the demonstrations were really cool. The trick bi-planes were pretty sweet to watch going through some really intricate maneuvers but the highlight of course were all the fighter jets that they brought out.

The brought out primarily fighter aircraft like the F/A 18F Super Hornet, the F-15 Eagle, and the A-10 Warthog. The Eagle and Super Hornet were really loud and they were buzzing the beach close to the sound barrier. You could even see the vapor trails behind them as they were pushing Mach 0.9. I was waiting around for the F-22 Raptor but it was too hot. Just as I was leaving I did see it near the beach and it was pretty sweet to see. Gotta love vector thrust being able to flip the aircraft in the air like a pancake on crack. I would say one of the best parts was seeing the B1B bomber. That sucker was HUGE!! You could feel that plane coming before you ever saw it. I bet the enemy can feel their doom just before they get a huge bomb right up the ass. Well nothing else to report on the home front, next week is vacation time oh yeah, probably going to post pics the week after if I have some time.

I hate mosquito's!

This past Saturday I went on a little tourist attraction called the Jungle Queen with the in-laws. The ride itself was pretty cool, it was on this old boat that resembles an old paddle boat and it went down a small river in the Ft. Lauderdale area. The bad part about the trip was when we got to this island to sit down to eat. It was all you could eat chicken, ribs, and shrimp. Sounds good right? Normally I would have enjoyed something like that and eaten plenty but there were mosquito's under the table biting the crap out of my legs. So in the end I was more annoyed than anything else. After we got home I counted the bug bites on my legs and it numbers at around 21 bites on my legs. Now I'm out at my client in Michigan and my legs still itch like crazy. So far after studying things a little bit, I don't see how mosquito's are useful to the planet. They should be exterminated!!! This way no more bug bites for me.

California Pizza Kitchen

California Pizza kitchen is one of those places that you just have to love. The last time I actually went to one was when I lived in Tampa. There wasn't a California Pizza Kitchen there I think, who knows! But the one that I normally went to was in Orlando FL at the Millennium Mall. Granted that was a bit far to go for pizza but I was already at Disney so a little more mileage on the car never hurt anyone.

I went to one this weekend with my wife and it was awesome. We tried two different pizzas, the Wild Mushroom and the Shrimp Scampi. Whoever thought of putting shrimp on a pizza needs to be hailed a genius! I will definitely be ordering both of these pies again. I'm hoping that my next assignment takes me to a place that has one readily available so that I can try the different pizzas offered. I don't go to California Pizza Kitchen all that often because its expensive so its a treat for me whenever I go. Almost makes me wanna move to Cali........... hehe NAH!!

Treo Case coming today

When I went out and bought my Treo 700WX, I also bought a case for it because the one I had for my Treo 650 wasn't doing so hot. My old case was a vertical pouch type but the Velcro on it just wouldn't stick anymore. Lo and behold, about a month or so ago I was in the car with my wife and I got out. My case had rotated on its clip so it pointed DOWN instead of UP like it normally does and my phone fell out because the Velcro was crap.

I returned my Treo 700WX today because I didn't like some of the features. However I am keeping the new case that I bought for it because I'll need it for my Treo 700P. The best part is that it has a magnetic clip so I don't have to worry about the Velcro wearing itself out or anything like that. The clip also doesn't rotate so that should help things out too.

Now I just need the UPS guy to knock on my door so I can finally get my new case instead of keeping my phone in my pocket.

Good Bye 700WX

I had the Treo 700WX for about 5 days and after tinkering with it for that time it just wasn't for me. I will admit that its a very cool phone and everything with plenty of good features like multi tasking and background synchronization with Outlook for PIM stuff.

The area where it lacked, and this was the deal breaker for me, was the email. I thought that pocket Outlook would at least have the features that VersaMail (which is what I'm using to write this post) had right out of the gate. I have a complex routine in how I get my email and my old Treo was able to do this no problem. I have a primary and secondary Gmail account. Since you can only download mail once from Gmail I had to set things up this way. In Pocket Outlook, three critical features were missing for me. The first was the notifications while my phone is off. I get a decent amount of mail throughout the day and being able to know when I get something is important and the 700WX just couldn't do it. The second feature was a different reply to address. I like people replying to a single address or emailing one main address because it the forwards itself to both of my Gmail accounts. Why this easy thing was left out I don't know. And last but not least was the BCC's that were sent out with each email to myself. This was important because I liked beibg able to download my email to my home computer and to have a proper history of everything.

Now I probably won't be able to download my email from work to my phone but I really don't want to anyway or be able to sync up with my work contact list or to do's (again do I really want to do this??) While I do believe Windows Mobile is the future, I don't think its at a point where I would be willing to leave the Palm OS. So after I send the phone back I will go ahead and get a Treo 700P and download all my free programs to it once again :)

New Treo!

This past week I upgraded my phone to a new Treo 700WX. I used to own a Treo 650 (actually its sitting right next to my 700WX on my desk) and I must say that I'm definitely going to miss it. There were quite a few things that I liked about my older Treo like all the short cuts I could put on the front of the screen, the higher resolution screen so I could read things better, and all the free applications that I was able to get.

Since my contract was up, I decided to get a Windows Mobile phone this time around. It's quite different from the Palm OS and I'm still deciding whether or not I like it. I haven't had a chance to play with a lot of the functions like Excel and Word but I will say that as a personal info device and email client it kinda stinks. The Calendar function is not as good, the tasks are about the same, and the notes are alright, nothing stellar to report there either. The email function is where it is totally lacking. Normally the built in functions would be fine like they were on the Treo 650, but Pocket Outlook is missing some things that I needed to have like a BCC copy of all my outgoing mail, a different reply to address, and of course custom filtering for all my email messages. I'll admit that I probably should have tried the phone out more in the store or something but not that many stores had one for me to mess around with and you'll never know if something fits your needs until you actually own it sometimes.

I did buy (yes I actually purchased software for my phone) a new email application called FlexMail 2007 which does everything I need it to do and then some. I can get my Hotmail email on there as well as my Gmail and if I really really wanted to, my work mail too but I don't think I'll go that far. I've been testing out the software and for $20.00 its doing a pretty good job, almost as good as having real Outlook that resides on my PC. All I need now is some good application to replace my Calendar and I think I'll be all set.

The verdict is still out but I can't go back to Palm OS since most of the corporate world is using Windows Mobile or Blackberry at this point. Well thats not true, there's supposed to be a new version (finally) of Palm OS thats being developed using a Linux kernel thats supposed to be bad ass but we'll see if anyone actually adopts it. Hopefully I'll be out on an assignment in the next week or so.

Damn vandals!

This week my wife told me that the TV's that were in the gym in our community were stolen. Now that just totally pisses me off. I have paid a lot of money for the convenience of using the gym and watching TV at the same time and now some ass has taken them and if my theory holds water, the residents are going to end up paying for it by raising the community fee's. If that happens, I'm going to get even more pissed because its not my fault that security here sucks balls. One man running around in a golf cart at night isn't going to stop someone from taking stuff from the pool/gym.

What they need to do is enhance security. It doesn't cost a lot to get some night vision cameras that are motion sensitive and have it hooked up to a security feed that can be accessed on the internet. They're pretty cheap on TigerDirect.com You can even have the alarm go off if someone tries to use the gym after hours or something or put security locks on the TV that sound off an alarm if someone tries to take it. All really simple cost effective stuff!! I'm pretty decent with coming up with security solutions for simple stuff like that. If they can pay I dunno how much for a security guard to lift the gate up and down, I think they can shell out a one time cost for some extra gear to help keep the stuff the community pays for safe.

I can't find a church that I like

Easter has come and gone and it wasn't all that eventful. I normally go to this church in Weston but for this particular holiday I attempted to try a different church closer to home. I should just have gone to the Weston church instead. The church is called St. Edwards and its been a long time since I've seen a church this ghetto. There weren't any real pews to sit in, no where to kneel, and the staff there was plain rude!

Upon first seeing it from the outside it didn't look so bad, but then me and the wife went inside and we decided right then and there that we're not going to this church again. For those of you not versed in the way a Mass goes in a Catholic church, there's a lot of kneeling, sitting, and standing involved but when you leave out the areas where you kneel, it gets kinda difficult to get the full experience. It was kinda dark inside as well as a little bit dirty too. I could barely see the alter since I was in the reject area that they opened up so people would have a place to sit if you didn't arrive early enough.

The thing that gets me the most, and this is just personal, is all the singing that goes on. I'm used to really subdued psalms and the like that involve organs or pianos, maybe even the occasional trumpet or guitar. Down here they seem to think you gotta add some drums or something and maybe a better beat to get people involved and maybe a little bit of clapping too. BOOO!!!! Maybe its because I'm a little traditionalist when it comes to church even though I don't go that much anymore but I do know that clapping during a psalm isn't what I used to experience back north. And one thing that totally killed me was that they were spelling Hallelujah phonetically so people could pronounce it better during the singing parts of the Mass. LOL!! Thats just terrible!! Not only did they misspell it, they misspelled it two different ways!!

I also wanted to jet out of the church after communion only because it'll be a pain in the neck to leave when everyone else does and I know what the priest is going to say anyway. This lame usher had the balls to tell me and my wife that we're not allowed to leave! Umm hello, I've sung my praises to God (without clapping my hands!) and I got my communion so I wanna go, and I damn well will go if I want to! We ended up going out through a side door but I gotta tell ya, you're not supposed to be rude to the parishioners that are donating money to the church, that just makes me want to take my worshiping and my cash elsewhere.

I should commission a church down here, and I mean a Gothic cathedral with ONLY an organ and no room for a band, drums, or whatever other instruments they seem to be allowing in churches these days. I'm gonna get some NY Irish priest that likes to put the fear of God into people during his sermons by telling the people that we're all damned to hell unless we pray for God's forgiveness. Yeah thats the way to go, then I'd be happy to attend that church for sure. I'd also want it to have a school thats staffed by Jesuit priests and Franciscan nuns and I'll send my kid there so he can suffer as I have suffered.

OK thats my rant for Monday, time to do more work!

Holy Week

This week happens to be Holy Week which means that meat can not be eaten for most of the week. Thats kind of hard for me to accomplish considering I normally have some sort of meat in one of my meals on a daily basis. It's hard trying to find appropriate sea food to eat because there's only so much of it that you can eat. Today is Good Thursday, tomorrow is Good Friday, and of course Sunday is Easter!

There was a South Park episode last night that was awesome. It attempted to explain why rabbits were associated with Easter. It was basically a spoof on the Da Vinci Code where there was a secret society (The Hare Club for Men......LOL come on thats funny right there!) and the fact that St. Peter wasn't a man at all but a rabbit (Peter Rabbit???) It went as far as to suggest that the hat the Pope wears looks a bit funny on a human but its just right for a rabbit because it fits over the ears perfectly! LMAO!!

I don't know what I'm going to be doing for Easter this year, hopefully it won't involve an egg hunt or anything lame like that. I'm just looking for a nice relaxing weekend at home before I go off to who knows where for work. At least that part of my life is exciting and ever changing. If I don't blog anymore this week, Happy Easter everyone!