Information Technology - A Tale of Two Paths

My career has spanned a total of 7 whole years, I can't even put a full decade on my resume but I don't think I really want to anyway because that just means I'm getting older which isn't a good thing, although having the decade on my resume shows how much experience I do have. But anyway already I digress......

My whole career has been in Information Technology and I've come to the conclusion that there are only 2 basic forms of IT, 3 if you count management but thats a different animal in itself. Now there are many levels to the 2 basic forms but when you come down to it there is only Support and Development. So what does this all mean and whats the point? I'm just doing a usual rant about something random and I just happened to pick this. Anyway.....

Lets start with numero uno since thats the one I'm most familiar with. For 6 of my 7 years I was in the IT support field. That meant helping people from far and wide and from all different levels from Partners to lowly admins with the computer problems. A lot of people that I know are in this field because lets be frank here, people just don't know how to use their computers and always find new and interesting ways of screwing up their workstations. There are many levels, call support, field support, etc etc but it all boils down to helping the end user and being their punching bag as they bitch you out and tell you it was working only 5 minutes ago although they neglect to tell you they were installing some weird freeware game to pass the time between emails. This is the lowest cost area of IT for the most part but its also one of the most critical since support keeps the lights on and everything humming at a nice smooth pace. I was part of this workforce for a while and it was quite enjoyable except for the dealing with the mad people part. You really get to know the people that make the money and learn about the business which is all very important if you ever want to break out of IT support and go on to greener pastures like Consulting :)

The second area that IT falls under is development. When I talk about development its the actual creation of stuff like hardware and software or setting up infrastructure and things of that sort. I've had to deal with developers a little later in my career and for the most part they create some really cool stuff. These are all the technical folks who in school took stuff like advanced math, particle physics and the like. Development requires taking all the ideas that people give them and making them into something useful, yet eye pleasing and cool. Their type of works requires lots of hours and stimulants to keep the midnight oil burning because they work on deadlines. The people in support have deadlines too but they don't have to deliver solutions within a budget and make it sing and dance. Development is interesting because they create something out of just some ideas. I admire these people for the things they have to learn to actually create computer programs. The farthest I've ever gotten was doing a Flash website with some Action Script but thats nothing compared to some of the complex programs being built for large corporations.

So now what? Well this was just my basic opinion of what IT is divided into. There are pro's and cons for each work force. If you're the brainy type, development might be for you, if you're more a people person try support. Although keep in mind that IT will always be viewed as over head cost so IT is sometimes one of the first areas that people start cutting or sending to India. I was fortunate enough to be in a position that couldn't be outsourced to some other foreign land and I've used the skills and knowledge that I gained in my current career. So for anyone thinking about going into IT, think about it a little to see what work force you'd much rather be in. I'm more of a support guy but thats because I prefer playing with the cool things that developers create rather than trying to create it myself.

For my next blog post, maybe I'll start my consulting skills tips or something. There aren't that many of them if you're just starting out and I'm not management so I can't say anything about that just yet but who knows.... Time to go get some lunch with my wife :)

Career Books

I'm an avid book reader but mostly I read science fiction stuff because I'm a geek like that but thats besides the point. I decided to look around at some other sections of the book store besides the usual areas like the science fiction, travel, and comic sections that I normally hit up. I decided to hit up the career section since I am a person that has recently changed careers from doing regular IT work to being an IT Consultant. I normally go to Barnes and Noble or Borders for my book needs (I've probably spent thousands of dollars on books over the years) and I was surprised that there weren't that many books on the different types of careers that one can go into. I found a lot of books about being an Entrepreneur, getting into business (like that isn't broad), or nursing. There were also a lot of things about changing careers or trying to make your career better but not really anything about an actual career.

I find this interesting because you can't read up a little on the different types of careers that you can get into. If you want to get into a career in IT, most likely you'd be directed to the IT section and all the fun books that teach you how to code and how to use different operating systems. That doesn't tell you anything about the type of career you could possibly have in the IT field. The same thing goes for Consulting. There aren't any books that I've seen so far that have anything on what the consultants life is like. I know that there are differences depending on the company that you join since everyone is a little different but no one ever tells you what its really like. There are all types of skills that you need to be a consultant but no one ever tells you what they are until you're actually doing the job. I'm all about on the job training but maybe a little warning on what types of skill you need would be helpful.

Maybe I should try and write a basic book on what its like to be a consultant in IT and the types of skills that you'll need. It would be really basic and generalize a lot of things in terms of the type of training that would be required, the things that a person should focus on and what not to succeed. Hmmm.... nah I don't have the time to write something like that, maybe I'll just write some blog entries since I haven't been posting nearly as much as I used to in recent years. Well I think this is it for this week, or month, depends on my laziness factor.

9 Years today

Today is March 22 which means its the anniversary of when my wife and I started dating. This is of course a totally separate anniversary that we like to celebrate in addition to our wedding anniversary. It's quite hard to believe that its already been nine years since I started going out with my wife. It seems so long ago when we met in college and then went on Spring Break during 1999 to Orlando. We started going out after that really fun Spring Break after having an awesome time at Disney and Universal Studios. I don't know if its romantic enough to tell my kids one day but its one of my fondest memories.

As for today we're just taking it easy. I took yesterday off because it was Good Friday so I didn't have to work, today is our anniversary and tomorrow is Easter where I will be looking for the Easter Bunny and his lovely colored eggs. I can't wait for Friday, its going to be super sweet since not only do I get to see the Yankees play but I get to finally see Dolphin Stadium.

Rodeo Houston

This past week I went to Rodeo Houston. It's one of the biggest rodeo's in the country (I'm taking the announcers word for this). This is the first ever rodeo I've ever been to and I was able to see it from the box level. It was actually pretty neat, I saw bull riding, cattle roping, and chuck wagon racing. I'd go into detail but I can't describe it really. I do know that some of the names of the horses and bulls were quite amusing to say the least (Californication, Shake N Bake, etc.).

The end of the evening ended with a concert by Fergie. That on its own was quite interesting because not only did she sing her songs but she also sang some other songs by some pretty famous bands like The Rolling Stones and Led Zepplin. The stage was cool because it rotated 360 degrees so that everyone could see her around the stadium. I didn't stay for the whole concert because the van that I took to get there was picking me up and I had to pack to come home today.

I would go again if offered but I don't think I would pay for it though. Although I do admit it was pretty entertaining :)

Going to NY!

This year I'm turning 30 years old and to celebrate it I'm going to be taking a trip to NYC for a week to also celebrate my wife's birthday. Of course this won't take place until July but I've already booked the trip and the best part about it is that all my travel and accommodations are FREE! How was I able to pull this off you ask?? I'm a consultant! No I didn't use my powers of persuasion or anything underhanded (would have been cool if I could!) but I did accumulate a ridiculous amount of hotel and airline points in the past year since I started my job so after some calculations and some consultations with my wife, we decided to take a trip to NY all paid for with my points.

I'm currently at nearly zero but my status remains the same which is awesome. We'll be flying up using Delta because thats my airline of choice because I have the most points and status with them. I haven't decided on how to get to the hotel yet but I might take advantage of some of the corporate rates that my company has with a limo company and use that if possible. Otherwise a cab will probably do. As for accommodations, I will be staying at the fabulous Waldorf=Astoria on Park Ave. It has always been one of my dreams to stay there one day after I've seen it countless times in the movies and its all the sweeter because I'm staying there for FREE! Ahh how sweet this vacation will be!

So if any of my friends that still live in the north east area and that still read this blog are around, call up the cell and find me and the wife while we're there :)

Bleh nothing to blog about

It seems that it has been a long time since I even decided to blog anything. A few weeks ago I blogged that I had new glasses (which I'm finally wearing) but other than that I haven't found much to blog about in recent days or things that I can blog about because I am a cautious man and never blog about work.

I guess everything is going well so far. No major problems or events to speak of that aren't work related and other stuff I just don't want to blog about anyway. LOL! I am working from home this week which is nice since it gives me a break from traveling although it feels funny not to be traveling at this point even though I've only done consulting for about a year now.

One thing that I have been doing is connecting with lots of friends and family on Facebook. So far I've found at least 2 first cousins and 4 first cousins once removed on Facebook which is pretty nifty. A lot of co-workers and friends from work are also on there so that helps with the networking aspect of my job. A lot of people that I used to work with are also on Facebook so it seems that it has become my new default social networking tool. I still have others like MySpace but it seems that people aren't using it nearly as much anymore. Well at least among my friends thats is. I don't see any updates and I personally am not really making any anyways. I'll probably leave it stagnant and use Facebook for most of my networking.

Lets see.... oh yes it was also my sister in laws 26th birthday so I helped her celebrate that by taking her out to dinner with my wife to an awesome place called Season's 52 in Ft. Lauderdale. I had the steak and my wife had the shrimp stuffed with crab which was excellent. We both had this excellent shrimp bisque that I plan on having again as long as they don't switch around the menu.

I'm still looking for places to have my 30th birthday since I'm turning 30 this year. I'm still kind of set on going to NY or something for the weekend and spending massive amounts of cash and points getting there. I do have enough Hilton points to stay at the Waldorf and I think I have enough airline miles to get two tickets to NYC easily enough. I just have to research what I can use to get to and from the airport, I think I can use the limo service that my company uses since they have preferred rates and stuff like that and a limo for my 30th would be super sweet. Well thats it for now, I gotta get back to work and stir the pot. Gotta love consulting :)

New glasses for me

This past year I got my eyes checked out because I switched jobs which means new insurance. This summer it seemed that my eye sight was getting worse so I went to see if it was. Well it turns out that my eye sight did get worse but not so much that I immediately needed new glasses. The place I went to didn't have any good frames that I wanted so I've held on to my new prescription for the past few months.

My wife recently had to get her eyes checked so I went with her to see if her eye doctor had some good frames. I ended up buying some bad ass glasses there. I buy Flexon frames these days which is basically an indestructable frame. I have them now and I can do all sorts of crazy stuff to them and it'll keep its shape. So my new frames are Nike Flexon frames which is awesome. My eye sight is pretty bad so I get the expensive ultra thin lenses too so my glasses aren't so heavy and it has all the clear coating/scratch resistant stuff on it just in case I step or drop them or who knows what else. One thing that's new is that they now change color to gray when I'm in the sun. I forget what the feature is but now I won't have to bring my sunglasses with me. Being that I travel so much, not having to bring sunglasses will be nice. I will still keep my Bole sunglasses for driving at home but for traveling for work, my new glasses will do the job. If I could update my current pair a
nd my sunglasses I gladly would.

I should get my glasses in a week or so, I'll have Claire take my pic and then I can dump it on Facebook/MySpace :)

Burnout!!

This weekend I picked up Burnout Paradise for thr Xbox 360 and I have to say that its a pretty good game over all. I am a fan of the Burnout series, I have two previous games on the original Xbox that I enjoyed playing for hours on end and this latest one doesn't dissappoint.

There are a few things that are really different in this game compared to past ones. The first one is that I haven't been able to find the "Crash" mode yet. This was one of the huge draws Claire and I had towards the game. The utter chaos that could be brought to bear was always incredible. The otherone that is really weird is that there is no defined "route" to any of the races. You have a map to figure out you route but its kinda weird to pause the game and figure out were to go next. All the streets in the game have names but I've never been good with street names in the first place.

However its still been an excellent addition to my 360. I'll be playing this when I get home on Thursday night :)

Tax Season is upon us

Ahh the month of February! What a joyus month it is. It's that time of year that employers big and small start sending out the Federal W-2 form so that income taxes can be filed. I think this is one of the most hated times of the year for tax payers and the government and I'll give you my reasons.

First let's take the individuals point of view. First off, all year long Federal, State, and in some instances Local governments have been fleecing the litte guy (you and me) out of our rightful earnings for an entire calendar year. If the company is big enough, they've been paying this for you to the Feds and it appears as three line items on your pay check. When Februrary comes along you finally find out just exactly how much the government has taken away from you in total. For me personally it was quite a large chunk of change and hopefully I'll be able to get some of it back in the form of a nice refund check. For some other unfortunate souls (me last year), they'll discover that they've paid too little and have to fork over a truck load of cash to the Feds. BOOO!! So this all equates to stress. The tax code has tons of loop holes in it that people can exploit, the kick is trying to find them in the encyclopedic tax codes written by our elected officials. That's where ma
ny of us get fleeced again, there is a whole industry dedicated to helping someone do their taxes. Assistance varies from using accountants to computer programs but it still may mean a couple hundred bucks from your pocket.

The government point of view isn't as bad since they're the ones receiving money but its processing the sheer volume of tax filings that has to be daunting. Not only are they processing individual tax returns but also business returns. All of them need to be checked to ensure that everything has been filled out correctly and the proper amount of tax has been paid to Uncle Sam. A great many people also over pay so refunds are in order. That means the great government machine needs to punch out millions of checks potentially to businesses and individuals which eats up.... tax revenue! And then if you're truely bored you can then watch senators and congressmen spend your hard earned money on C-SPAN on little pet projects that don't really mean spit to you or me but makes them look awesome come election time.

So that's it, that is my tax season rant for 2008. I have one set of W-2's from my job. I'm just waiting for another set for me and my wife's then I can begin the stressful process of trying to find out if I should whoop for joy that I'm getting money back or curse the tax gods that I'll have to fork over even more money to the government.

Seven Years

Tomorrow is January 15th. This is a significant day for me because it is the day that I stepped away from UMass and started my career in Information Technology. Holy crap its been a long time! I can almost remember that Monday, getting my butt on the train to go to NY for orientation and arriving way too early. Since I arrived too early, I made my way to the closest subway and had some McDonalds to pass the time.

Of course on that first day I did absolutely nothing but fill out paper work and I think I got my first work issued laptop which I promptly showed to my then girl friend (and now wife). It was a used, USED, Compaq M700 but I promptly switched it out for a new one once I got to my main work office in my home town ;) Perks of the position! LOL!

I've come a long way I think. I went from field service tech and asset manager seven years ago to a full blown consultant telling people how to run their IT operations. From my standpoint, I've reached a significant goal since I'm finally working for the company that I targeted those many years ago (well I wanted to work here after maybe a year of pain and suffering but good times too). But after going to Tampa, I knew where I wanted to be and now I'm here and now my goal is to progress far enough that I won't have a care in the world :) Well that will probably take another 15 years but I've reached one goal, so the others shouldn't be so hard.

Tomorrow I shall celebrate by getting my Jamba Juice (if I don't work late) and reminisce in my success.......

Yet another new tea!

This past week my wife went off to Teavana to get us some more of our special tea made with Jasmin Dragon Pearls (I forget what the other tea is but its pretty good when you mix them together). Since I've been feeling a bit under the weather, Claire decided to get me some tea bags as well as a tea filter that I could take on the road with me. I decided to take the tea bags this week to see how that worked out, depending on how things go I may try and bring the filter next week.

Anyway, while Claire tried and bought a new tea that she thought I would enjoy. She got me the "To Life" Strawberry Kiwi tea which is really good. Now all the teas that I drink always need some sugar in it but the taste is awesome. I have another Teavana tin that I can take with me on the road and I'm hoping that there is a Teavana here near my client so I can pick up supplies just in case I run out.

Now I can sit and sip my tea in my room while I'm away from home.... thanks Claire!! :)

Happy Anniversary Thumper

Tomorrow is January 8th which is the date I brought Thumper home when I used to live in Tampa. My fat cat has been in my care for four years now and he's still going strong although I think he'll need to go on a diet or something. I'd post a pic of him but I don't have any recent pics of him on my work computer. Well, thats it I'm done blogging for the week (or month, depends on the laziness factor).

The Holidays are over but.....

.... it was really fun! Well first things first I believe. Lets talk about Christmas! This year was pretty good in terms of gifts. I got the digital camera that I wanted from my wife as well as a cookbook with south east asian food recipes. Not only that, I also got a nice gift card from my wife to Jamba Juice! BOOYAH!! The camera was a little over our agreed upon budget for Christmas this year but thats alright, I broke the agreement too and got her a suite case that she wanted as well as some gift cards to buy some new clothes.

After Christmas was all done I took a day off before we traveled to Hawaii for our New Years vacation to visit my father. On the way we had a lay over in Los Angeles and decided to get away from the airport. I rented a car with Avis and they had the gall to try and give me a PT Cruiser! BOOO!! I complained to the agent and because of my super bad ass status with Avis, they gave me a Ford Mustang instead at the same rate. Ultimate sweetness! It would have been better if it was a convertible but it was too cold to put the top down.

Claire did some research while we were home and found a few places to hit up for food and tourist attractions. First we hit up a hot dog joint that was featured on Food Network called Pinks. The dogs were pretty good, we both decided to have chili dogs and some fries. After we finished that, we decided to go to the Chinese Theater and the Kodak Theater to take some pictures, see the Walk of Fame, and just see what Hollywood is all about. After we had enough of Hollywood, we headed over to Beverly Hills for some dessert! Claire found a cupcake place called Sprinkles thats close to Rodeo Drive. I had a hard time finding parking but I found some eventually and got some cupcakes to take on the plane. We also decided to take some time and walk up and down Rodeo Drive before we headed back to the airport. On our way back to the car we saw this huge crowd of people and some spot lights and headed over to see who it was. In the middle of the chaos was none other than Jay Leno doing interviews of people on the street I believe. I didn't get interviewed but it was still pretty cool!

After getting on the plane to Hawaii, we arrived at around 9:30PM which isn't too late. The flight itself was pretty long so we didn't do a lot on that first night. A lot of what we did in Hawaii was a lot of walking up and down Waikiki Beach looking through the stores, going through the hotels and trying to work off all the food we ate on the trip. The entire trip was a big food fest. I was able to eat a lot of my favorite foods while I was on this trip and Claire got to try a few things as well like duriens (yuck) and Thai food.

We did do some unique things that you can only do in Hawaii. We went to an outdoor farmers market where I bought myself some really good Star Fruit and Claire bought us some of the best bread ever made out of Poi. It was a really good bread and was pretty sweet too. Nothing needed to be added to it at all. I also had to hit up the Dole Plantation for some fun in the worlds largest maze which they recently expanded. The record for the maze is 9 minutes, it took me and Claire exactly an hour to finish it. We went past Dole to eat at Giovanni's Original White Shrimp Truck. This was some tasty garlic shrimp served with rice. I think it was well worth going all the way up to the North Shore to get it and just in case you're wondering, they do cook the shrimp in a white camper. We then started to drive to some town that I can't remember the name to but it had one of the oldest surf shops on the island and I took some pretty good pics.

The highlight was brunch at the Plumeria at the Mandarin Hotel near Waikiki. I took Claire and my father to brunch there and it had to be one of the most beautiful places in Hawaii if you were going to stay at a hotel. The food there is really good and I ate entirely way too much but it was so worth it!

We also hit up the Iolani Palace and of course we also went to the beach the days it was really sunny as well as hang out at the hot tub at my fathers place which was nice and relaxing. The only thing that we didn't get to do was go to Haunama Bay. I didn't expect the water to be so cold in Waikiki so we kind of canceled going to the bay to do snorkeling. I guess that leaves us something to look forward to on our next trip to the islands of Aloha. New Years was also really nice because they had fireworks right on Waikiki Beach so that was very different from most New Years events that I've been to

In a nutshell that was my trip with Claire for New Years. When we got back we found all the food bowls I left for my cats empty as well as the water bowls and it looked like my older cat got fatter too. But it was nice to go home after a week in Oahu. Since we still haven't done everything there, there are still things for us to discover as well as other islands to visit in the future.

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!!