Highway Signs

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

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

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

Google Maps for Palm OS

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

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

I live with a Gremlin!!

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

The Miami Auto Show

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The evil VW Rabbit!!

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

The Yankees Lost :(

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

South Park and World of Warcraft

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

Blogger Beta

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

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

NJ Tax for iTunes

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

Fearless!

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

Voltron is MINE!

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

VOLTRON!!!

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

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

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

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

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

My dying iPod

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

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

Construction is everywhere!

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

Chaos in Pembroke Pines

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

Networking Trouble

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

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

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

Commuting to Miami

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

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

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

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

Finally finished moving to South Florida!

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

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

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

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

Moving to South Florida, Part 1

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

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

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

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

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

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

Berns baby!!

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

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

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

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

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

Parking woe's

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

Feeding the asian stereotype that asians are bad drivers!

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

Tivo Trouble

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

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

My kitty sliced my hand!!

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

Mitchells Fish Market was Awesome!

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

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

My car is perfect once again

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Yankees sweep the Red Sox in 5!

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

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

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

Woohoo Google Calendar for me!

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

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

Windows Live Writer Beta

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

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

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

They're more than meets the eye!!

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

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

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

My cat is smart!

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

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

My laptop burned me

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

So much for flying with carry on's

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

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

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

Cleaning up Flickr

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

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

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

Getting even more connected with my Treo

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

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

IT WORKS!!

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

Three ways to blog on Blogger

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

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

What's up with Blogger?

What's up with Blogger?

I have been a blogger user for quite a long time. My friend Alison got me started on this thing and at first it seemed pretty cool. At the time I could do all sorts of good things like adjust the template, send emails to my blog so they would get published and even send in pics from my phone and presto they would appear.

It seems that the service hasn't been upgraded in a little bit and things that used to work don't anymore. Right now is a pretty good example. I'm actually using my cell phone (the trusty Treo 650) to write this blog. However, instead of sending an email I'm using an app called U*Blog because my emails are now ignored by Blogger. That's just not right in my view. That was one of its most useful features because I take a lot of pics with my phone and like to blog about it but since I can't there has been a lack of posts in the last few months.

I do have other blogging accounts I just never used them since I've invested a lot of time in this one. One place that I might transfer my blog to is MSN since they did a huge upgrade and is way easier to customize. I don't like MySpace blogs simply because its just text really. I guess I'll wait a little while longer and see if I want to put in the effort of moving to a new blog or just suffer with what I have.......

It's funnier than I remember

Today I got my DVD's from Amazon. I recently ordered Pinky and the Brain and Animaniacs. I loved these cartoons as a kid and they're even funnier now that I'm older. I've only watched maybe the first DVD but the episodes that they put on it are hysterical. I'll probably end up watching this during the week. I can't wait to get volume 2 of Animaniacs. The only thing thats missing now is Histeria which was really short lived but one of the funniest cartoons I've seen. In my opinion, Warner Brothers needs to refocus on great cartoons because the cartoons they made in the past are freakin great and their movies are just ehh...... they're alright but the cartoons are way better. Bring on Tiny Toons!!!

Animaniacs and Pinky and the Brain on DVD!

Finally after years and years of waiting these two great cartoons are being released on DVD. I used to love watching these cartoons after I came home from school. Who can't laugh at a pair of mice trying to take over the world in one night or having three crazy kids run around causing havoc everywhere they go? I already ordered it on Amazon and its being shipped to my office so I'll have something funny to watch during my lunch break....... AWESOME!!

Hooray its my birthday!

Hooray its my birthday!

Today I continue my journey into my late 20's by turning an astonishing 28 years old today. So far I've gotten some really good gifts. I have FIFA 2006 for my Xbox 360 (Brazil will win the cup this time), 2 shirts for work, a gift card, and best of all concert tickets to see Santana at the Ford Amphithearter in Tampa.

In only 2 more years I'll actually be 30. Ouch!! I guess I better enjoy my 20's as much as I can before I become a decade older :)

Cool a full rainbow!

Cool a full rainbow!

I was driving this afteenoon on my way home from work I saw a full rainbow in the sky. Normally I just see just a piece of a rainbow but this time I saw the full arch which was pretty cool. I would have tried to take a picture of it but I was driving and that's a bit dangerous. maybe next time I'll try and take a picture when I'm at a stop light or something.

A test post with U*Blog!

A test post with U*Blog!

I'm trying out yet another program for my treo. I am trying as much as possible to use my treo instead of my PC for things that I would normally boot up my PC for like blogging and instant messaging.

I can already get my personal mail, surf most websites except those with flash or java, use AOL to message people in real time, edit documents, and ummm that's about all I do on my phone besides calling people. Since I've installed so much junk on my phone over the past month, I think I'm going to need a new memory card soon to hold everything. So if anyone wants to get me a b-day gift this year, get me a 2GB SD memory card so I can dump yet more crap onto my phone :)

Oh yeah, gotta love Virtual PC

I recently installed Microsoft's Virtual PC 2004 on my home PC. I like to tinker with new programs and stuff but I have been cautious not to muck up my home PC too much because reloading it all the time takes a lot of time and effort. Since Microsoft just made this for free, I decided to try it out at home and at work. At work I successfully installed SUSE Linux 10 and it seems to be working pretty well so far. I don't have a lot of time to actually use it but from what I've seen so far its a good OS.

At home I installed an old copy of Windows 2000 that I own. I could have installed WinXP but its kind of bloated and Win2000 is a pretty good test bed for the programs that I try. Mainly stuff like Trend Micro Internet Security (I'm in the Power User group) and various other programs for doing stuff like cropping pictures, photo albums, anti spyware, etc..... I totally forgot how barebones a Windows 2000 install can be. It only had Internet Explorer and the OS and that was it. I'll have to work on installing other programs like OpenOffice.org to read and write office files, Adobe Acrobat Reader, and maybe a few audio and video codexes so I can test out movies that I make. I gotta say I'm liking this a lot and if I can put it on a networked hard drive, I can just make up virtual machines and use those and never have to install anything on another PC again. This is getting to be pretty sweet!!

Going to Orlando!

This coming weekend I'm heading to Orlando for the MRO World Conference. Most people probably have never heard of MRO unless you're in the IT field. My company currently uses them and I'm going to find out whats new and improved since we bought their software in like 1999. HA! So I'm taking a road trip and I'm staying at the Disney Dolphin which I know is a super sweet resort. I went there last year for my birthday (just for dinner though) and it had some really tasty food. I'm hoping the rooms there are equally good.

The only bad part is that I'm going to be away for most of the day for my wife's birthday. The conference ends at 3pm but then she has a dinner with her team at work so I won't be able to take her out. However I do get to take her out on Friday which is better because we don't have to worry about getting up early for work the next day.

A great day for sports!!

Today is going to be an excellent day. I just finished watching Wimbledon where Roger Federer just finished winning his 4th straight title. I was gunning for Nadal to win but it was still a great match.

There's also going to be a Yankee game going on today at 1pm and they're playing Tampa Bay so that means its going to be on TV for me to watch. Last night they trounced the Devil Ray's so that was a good thing.

And of course at 2pm today is the World Cup Final!! Italy vs. France!! WOOOOO!!!!!!!

4th of July fun

Yesterday of course was the 4th of July and that meant lots of fireworks all across the ole USA. This year my wife and I decided to stay in Tampa instead of going to South Florida. We stayed in Tampa last year too but that was more because my father was visiting us and he wanted to see some fireworks which is why he came at that time.

Yesterday was a good day though, it started off kind of slow but started to pick up as the World Cup kicked off one of their semi final matches with Italy winning 2-0 in double over time. Of course my italian friend Lucy had to call me and gloat that Italy made it to the World Cup finals. Next up was a home made lunch from my wife. She decided to cook us some burgers and chips and they were absolutely awesome. She made them really thick too and added my two fav's on a burger........ cheese and bacon! MMMMMM

We followed that up by heading over to Safety Harbor which is small town really close to where we live since we live close to the Tampa city limits. We arrived pretty early for the fireworks because my wife said that I would have trouble finding parking if we went later. Turns out she was right because it was definately challenging finding parking in Safety Harbor. There were little lots here and there charging $5.00. I certainly wasn't having any of that. After a little roaming around, we found some good parking on the street for free. By the time we parked and found a spot it would be another 2.5 hours until the start of the fireworks. To pass the time we listened to the band that was playing, they had reggae and more traditional american music playing, and of course we had to get some funnel cake and soda. What was really cool was that they had an Outback tent set up selling appetizers. If we had only known we wouldn't have eaten lunch so late since we weren't expecting good food at the fireworks area. The display that night was pretty good. They had all these patriotic marching band songs playing in the back ground and I actually knew most of them which surprised me. After the fireworks were all finished up, we began the long walk back to the car and had to find an alternate way home. The town is really small and has only two main roads. Luckily one of them lead to this major roadway in Pinellas so getting home wasn't so bad. Ahh gotta love 4 day weekends, hope I have another one of those sometime soon.

Return of the Rabbit!

It has returned!! After many years of being absent, well not really absent just renamed as the Golf, the VW Rabbit is back! It's probably strange that I'm writing about a car that I've never driven before since the last one was sold around 1979 but my father owned one and when I was younger he used to let me shift the gears since he had a manual transmission.

I can still remember how featureless the car was. It has no A/C, power nothing, not even the steering, but it was relatively peppy for a tiny car so my dad got some good speed out of it. Alas we had to sell it because it just didn't cut it for his 80 mile round trip commute so we gave it away for about 500 bucks. Maybe he'll buy a new one now that they've come back. I know that if I had some extra money lying around I would buy one just to have some fun around town.

Germany Wins!!

I just finished watching the Germany v Argentina match and it was pretty damn good. I'll admit that I like watching soccer a bit more now. Compared to other sports its nice that soccer doesn't really stop the game that much for stuff like time outs and what have you. Today's game ended in a shoot out with Germany making 4 goals to Argentina's 2.

Next up is the match with Italy v Ukraine. That one should be interesting but I'm more interested in the other matches. I'm anxios to see how Brazil does.

Oh glorious Friday!!

Ahhh today is pretty awesome so far. Today I woke up slightly later than I normally do (thats because of the cat or else I would have woken up even later) and set about to TELECOMMUTE for the day. This is one of the best things ever invented on the planet for office workers. Not only do I get to stay home, but I can do all my regular work as if I was in the office but just without the distractions of my co-workers. I have the added benefit of being able to actually make use of my home computer today which I don't do nearly enough.

Today I'm going to be testing out my GPS stuff that I just got yesterday for my phone. It looks really promising even though the maps are a bit on the dated side for Florida. If this was for the north east I'm sure I wouldn't have a problem since no one is building roads up that way anymore. I also have to actually hit up my bank and make a deposit. I haven't done something like that in a long time since all my stuff is done electronically most of the time.

I'm also going to spend some time with my older cat Thumper since I've been away quite a bit during the month of June. He's the affectionate one although my wife differs in that opinion and calls him annoying. I can see her point of view though since he loves waking us up at 6 every single day. He normally starts keeping quiet when I pet him or somehting in the morning. I'll let him run around and play with the laser pen I have since he enjoys doing that.

The rest of the weekend should be pretty good too. I have a 4 day weekend! Thank you 4th of July!! 4th of July means tons of 4th of July sales and of course that means tons of shopping. AWESOME! I'm heading to the Prime Outlets at Ellenton in order to pick up some clothing for work since I'm getting kind of tired of the polo's and I figure I might as well get some button down shirts since I'm low on those. I'm also going to get an exercise bike and I'll probably sell the trusty Nordic Track because my back really hurts after I use it. Hopefully I can put the bike downstairs since the Nordic Track disturbed the neighbors and currently sits upstairs on the loft along with my computer. Time to get to work!! :)

World Cup vs. Olympics

I will be the first to admit that I am not an avid watcher of sports. So far the only things I'll really watch is stuff like the super bowl, NY Yankee baseball, and tennis if its one of the four major tournaments unless I'm going to see it live, oh and X-Games because that shit is just super cool to see. Just this past year I think the Olympics were on for the winter, I can't remember since I had just about zero interest in watching it and neither did a lot of other people. However now that the World Cup is on, people are leaving work and taking really long breaks to watch it. I've seen people with streaming video on their PC's with highlights of the games.

I find this kind of interesting that there is so much more interest in the World Cup than there is for the Olympics. They both have a lot of similarities in my view. They both occur only once every 4 years in a different location around the globe, there are national teams from all over the world competing, but the major difference is that the World Cup is just soccer (or football to all you international people) wheras the Olympics encompasses a lot of sports. World Cup coverage in the US has been pretty good so far with tons of matches being showcased on ESPN and ABC even though the US team is pretty lousy when it comes to soccer on the international stage. Maybe thats part of the appeal, the US isn't a major player in the sport and it gives the rest of the planet a chance to cheer for someone else or see someone else take the crown.........

They do say that soccer is the worlds sport. I know that people all over the world except for the US go crazy for this sport which is probably why attendance is so high at the World Cup compared to the Olympics. Germany has so many stadiums in its country dedicated to soccer that it must be giving the whole country a huge economic boost wheras the Olympics are really centered on just one small location in a country. I'm looking forward to seeing the rest of the World Cup even though I have to Tivo it. The only World Cup final that I remember is the one in 1998 and that final was kind of dull by ending in a shoot out. I hope that FIFA has changed things around a bit so that the final has to be played out all the way till there is a clear winner, sudden death over time baby!!!!!!!!!

Thursday shall be glorious!

Why is Thursday going to be so super sweet?? Well for one thing, I'm getting the GPS software and Bluetooth attena for my Treo at the office via FedEx, secondly, two of the movies that I rented from Blockbuster are coming as well so its not going to be another boring evening of watching bad re-runs on TV, and three I'm getting some extra moolah in the bank for some work I did last week. Ahhhhh what a wonderful day, can't wait till tomorrow comes around. Now if I could only find a way to get out of work early, say when I receive my package with my GPS stuff, that would make it the ultimate day as far as work days go.

Tivo plus Yahoo is just simply awesome

I've had Yahoo for quite a while but for the past few months I've been using Yahoo TV listings to set up recordings on my Tivo. I have to say that its super sweet. Right now the world cup is on and its always during the day so I can never watch it. Since I'm lazy and don't like using the Tivo to look up shows, I've been using Yahoo TV instead and just scheduling it from whatever PC I'm using. I have to say I love this feature. I've also experimented with some of the other features like traffic reports and weather but thats less useful to me right now.

I have just finished scheduling the Germany v Argentina game thats set for Friday. That game is going to be totally bad ass! Can't wait to see it when I get home on Friday night.

World Cup 2006

Lately like the rest of the planet, I've been watching World Cup Soccer. Its been really interesting to watch all the different national teams play each other and also hear the fans in the background chanting as well. It's too bad that USA soccer got bumped from the tournament but when I see these other countries play soccer, its just obvious they are so much better than USA soccer. Right now the teams that I'm most interested in is Brazil (of course), England, and Germany.

Right now I'm watching the Brazil/Ghana game and I just saw one of the really awesome forwards for Brazil basically dribble the ball into the goal past the Ghana goalie for a world record breaking 15 goals in the world cup. And Brazil scored within the starting five minutes of play! Now thats what I call some awesome soccer! I can't wait to see who's in the finals, I'm figuring I'm taking the day off to see that game. Hopefully it won't end in a shoot out like one of the other world cups that I saw in the past. It needs to be more exciting than that.

Yeah baby, I'm getting GPS!

This past weekend I decided to get a GPS bundle for my Treo. Most people probably would get one just as a standalone but those suckers are so expensive! The one I wanted was around $600 and I think thats a little too much. Instead I opted to get a TomTom GPS bundle with a Bluetooth receiver. The one I bought was a little over $200 which isn't bad and I got a car cradle for it too so I can mount it on my dash board so I can see where the maps on the screen. Although the screen is a bit small, I think this will be awesome for when I go to different cities that I'm not familiar with. The GPS unit is small enough to carry in my pocket and lasts for about 10 hours powered on. It should be here by Thursday :)

Now that's what I call a party!

I just got back from the best corporate party I have ever attended. I am currently in Miami attending a software conference conducted by HP. I've been here since Monday night and so far I've had a blast.

The first party was on Tuesday at Bongo's in Miami. There was tons of food there plus awesome Cuban music. There was the added benefit that the entire place was basically reserved for conference attendee's. I had about two plates of food and enjoyed the music for the night.

That party paled greatly in comparrison to the one that was tonight. HP and its partners had reserved a huge swath of beach right on Miami Beach and also in the middle of Ocean Avenue. Again, lots of Cuban food present to feed the 3000 or so people there. There was an open bar, well at least 6-10 open bars. There was an air brush tattoo artist, at least 2 regular bands, a cuban band and dance team, and after that a DJ. Oh it doesn't stop there! There are pillow lounge chairs everywhere, free Coldstone Ice Cream made on the premisis, and to top it off, a Cuban cigar roller on hand maiing free cigars for everyone. I also saw the largest skillets I have ever seen cooking food for the masses.

The party lasted to at least 10:30 but it could have been longer since it was going well after I left on a bus back to my hotel. I kept it light on the drinks but definately had ice cream and a good helping of food. I would have stayed longer but there are more things to attend tomorrow. I haven't been to that many conferences but this was by far the best. I'll remember this one for a long time to come. :)

Trip to Stamford, Part 1!

Well here I am in Stamford CT once again. Instead of being here to have fun I'm actually here doing my old job. There's a conference going on and they needed some help so what better way to get to Stamford than to volunteer to work there? I arrived yesterday after taking a really early flight (7:25) and then I went over to Budget to get my rental car. What car did I receive? A lovely sea green Ford Focus! I'm not the biggest fan of Ford or the Focus in particular but I will say this, that little thing has a bit of spunk to it. Compared to the PT Cruiser that I drove in Vegas, this thing has a bit more muscle to it. Granted I haven't driven it for very long but I have pushed it pretty hard on the highways basically because I know where I'm going and I have no fear of cops since I know all their hang outs on I-95 and the Merrit Parkway.

Now to top it all off, on top of getting the Ford Focus as a rental car, I am staying at a Howard Johnson's in Darien CT. Why so far? Because its graduation time in Stamford and every hotel is booked up solid. Most of the hotels approved for use by my company are like Hilton's and Marriots but since they're all filled, I had to dig way down and stay at a lovely HOJO! Everything in the room is like vintage 70's except for maybe the TV. The drapes, the furniture, especially the bathroom all looks like it was built in the 70's. I think its kind of amusing really. If I had my digital camera I would have taken a picture of it. I won't have to deal with it for too long since I am going to be leaving Stamford on Saturday anyway. Until my next post.......

Looks like Alberto is gonna get an upgrade

Since I live in lovely Floriduh, I've been watching the progress of good ole Alberto. Seems like he just hit 70mph for sustained winds. Add another 5 and he becomes a category 1 hurricane. By all projections its not going to come to Tampa unless it takes a major turn to the right, then it'll head straight into the bay but the likeliness of that happening is small right now. I'm just hoping they'll let us all telecommute tomorrow :)

Welcome to Tampa Tropical Storm Alberto

It's only 12 days into Hurricane Season here in the dirty south and what better way to kick things off than with a named Tropical Storm called Alberto. This thing started way down south but of course its going to hit Florida in some way. So far there has been a good amount of rain (if I'm lucky there will be enough of it so I don't have to go to work tomorrow and can telecommute), there will supposedly be high winds and there's even a tornado watch in a few of the counties next to mine. Wild stuff right?

I don't expect to see that much damage this time around. But just in case it gets bigger, Claire and I already went grocery shopping so we have plenty of supplies to last us through. I even went so far as to get two extra bags of cat food for my evil ones as well as a little bit of extra litter. I guess I'll see what happens in the next few hours, in the mean time I have to create a packing check list so I don't forget anything for my trip to Stamford later this week.

Logan's Roadhouse and Cars

This past Friday my wife and I went out to the movies and saw the Disney/Pixar movie Cars. It was pretty long for an animated movie but the content was great and the animation was freakin sweet! If you're into the Pixar films, go ahead and watch this one. There is a funny short at the begining of the movie like most Pixar films thats very well done too. K thats it for the movie, I'm not going to give away any of the story.

After the movie, we went to a close by restaurant called Logan's Roadhouse. It got a really good review on CitySearch so we figured why not give it a try. It's mostly a steak and rib place so of course we ordered a steak (me) and ribs (my wife). The food there was pretty good I have to say, it certainly lived up to its CitySearch reviews and the service was really good too. Quite attentive but not overly so like some of the more expensive places that we've been to. But the best part about this place? Unlimited peanuts! Yeah thats right, unlimited freakin peanuts and you know whats even better? You can be as messy as you want and toss the shells on the floor. This place was kind of like the English Long Bar in Singapore where you can eat all the peanuts that you want and toss the shells wherever. I didn't have too much because I had to save some room for dinner but still it was really fun over all. I'll have to find a branch in South Florida online one of these days when I'm good and bored and have nothing better to do with my time.

Yankees are in first place :)

Over the past few nights, my wife and I have been watching the Yankees/Red Sox games that have been on TV and so far the Yankee's have not disappointed us with 2 wins under their belt. We saw most of the first game which was a lovely 13-5 blow out and some of the second game although we really only saw results on MLB GameDay since they weren't televising it here in Tampa.

Tonight is another story though, tonights game will be on ESPN and we'll probably end up watching it since there is nothing else to watch this evening. Re-runs are so boring so what better way to stir things up than with an exciting Yankee game! I hope they win tonight so they can increase their lead in the AL East. Not bad for a team that has 3 starters out on injuries.

Is the day of reckoning upon us??

Well today happens to be 6/6/06......... but what most people fail to realize is that it is 6/6/2006 so we've already been through this exercise before in human history and so far the Earth hasn't blown up or the hand of God hasn't come down to smite the wicked among us from the planet leaving only the good behind. Although there should be some good parties in the places that are named "Hell" haha

Gas up $0.20

This weekend was pretty nice, gas was around $2.60 (who thought I would ever think that is a reasonable price for gas??). This morning I was driving in to work and noticed that gas went up to around $2.79!!! How insane is that? It's only Tuesday! I hope it doesn't go up much more or I'm petitioning for myself to work from home exclusively because my salary can't take this kind of hit anymore.

Emailing my blogs isn't working!!

I'm pretty sure I've blogged about this before but sending emails to my blog to be published still isn't working. I would say that I blog a good deal on my PC but I do occasionally like to blog using my phone. My Treo lets me send out email and such and the reason that I chose to use Blogger was because I was able to send emails to blogger and they would be published. I've tried to use the email feature a few times from the email addresses I have set up and they still don't work right :(

I'm going on two trips in the next few days and I'm probably not going to be blogging via PC but via email. Since this isn't working, there probably won't be many blog entries in the next two weeks unless they finally fix it. I was going to add pictures too since I was going to bring a camera or use my phone. GAH! Blogger needs to get this damn thing working already! It's been months!

I am the Cat Whisperer

I have finally taught Nala to sit. She's not trained to the high degree of Thumper. I trained him over the course of a couple of months and he was the only cat at the time. He's clicker trained to come to me and to sit. He'll even jump off of counterd when Claire or I tell him. We're still working on him getting to shut up but we can live with it for now.

Nala will now sit when I shake the treat can which is a good thing. She sometimes comes to me or Claire when called, but its funny that she listens to Claire more than me since I'm the one that likes cats and all. Maybe Claire should also be known as the Cat Whisperer................ even though she would be a reluctant one.

Corporate Sales are Awesome

This weekend, I was able to go to a corporate sale at Macy's. All these huge corporations in the Tampa area got a 20% off coupon on any clothing in the store. I was able to get myself some pretty sweet deals on some work clothes since I am always in need of more. Since my wife belongs to the same company, she got 20% off her clothes as well. The only bad part was that I didn't win any of the door prizes that they were giving away. Oh well, maybe next year I'll get something. Needless to say we spent a lot but I think we also saved quite a bit. I'll be sporting some new threads come Monday morning :)

A truely sweet sale

Tomorrow my wife and I are going to a corporate sale event sponsored by our company. We get 20% off stuff thats like over $100 bucks or something like that. There are supposed to be door prizes and such too so maybe I'll win some money or a shopping spree. I need to get more work clothes anyway, I'm starting to run low, especially in the pants department and this is as good a time as any to stock up on my wardrobe. And since I'm going with my wife, I'm sure to get something semi trendy since my taste is pretty bad but hers is pretty good so I should at least come up with something decent if we compromise.

There's nothing to blog about.....

I'm sitting her in my office cube thinking about what to blog about and nothing comes to mind. I never blog about work since thats just dangerous and dumb since companies are looking at blogs to see what employees might be saying. There's nothing interesting going on this weekend except a special sale for employees at my company at Macy's where I probably won't buy anything, although I am getting Apollo 13 on DVD from Blockbuster pretty soon.

Hmm........... Only thing thats worth mentioning is that I'm going to Miami Beach for a conference to evaluate HP software to use. That should be quite enjoyable since I'll be staying right on Miami Beach. I'll be sure to send pics if I'm not encased in a conference room all day long.

For anyone seeing X-3

My wife's co-worker just told me that my wife and I missed out on the ending to X-3 because we didn't stay for the credits. So if you're going to see X-3 in the thearter, stay until the credits are done because there is one more scene. Son of a bitch I can't believe I missed it!

X-3 and The Da Vinci Code

Recently I saw both X-3 and the Da Vinci Code. I thought both movies were pretty good. In the case of the Da Vinci code, I don't see why so many professional reviewers didn't like the movie. I thought that it was pretty faithful to the book. Granted it was missing some things and maybe some suspense but over all it was pretty good. I would definately recommend going off and seeing the movie and if you haven't read the book, you should probably go back and read it to see what was missing. I personally have the illustrated version of the book and I thought it was pretty cool to see all the places and art work that the book talks about.

The movie X-3 was very good in my opinion. I thought that it was going to be a lot longer than it was but it runed out to be the right length. They introduced some new characters and some old ones................ well I should just let people see the movie because I certainly don't want to ruin it for anyone. Needless to say, people have to see this movie, it was freakin awesome! I'll be getting this one on DVD for sure to round out my collection since I have the first two already.

Its getting hot in FL

Right now its Memorial Day weekend and where am I spending the majority of my time? Why in my apartment of course! The reason? It's getting way too hot and humid to go outside for long periods of time without getting totally baked. I was in Las Vegas recently and it was pretty hot there but thats a different kind of heat. In Las Vegas it was a "dry" kind of heat. Here there is plenty of humidity to make things feel even worse than it really is. I think I should get one of those personal coolers from Sharper Image so that I can stand being outside for longer than 5 minutes.

Google Calendar needs Hotsync Support

I admit that I use a whole host of apps but if there's one thing that I wish I could have its HotSync support for Google Calendar. Right now I use MS Outlook and Hotsync it to my Treo 650, what would be really cool is if I could see my calendar online at Google. The concept of Google Calendar is really cool and I like the color coding aspect as well. Right now my calendar is synced up with Plaxo but that only works with Outlook. I'm currently looking for an Outlook replacement but I'm not having any luck. I'm hoping that one day, Mozilla will integrate a calendar into Thunerdbird so I can ditch Outlook all together but I tihnk thats a few years away. :( I guess I'll just struggle on with my MS stuff until something viable comes around.

The 700p is out!

Palm and Verizon has come out with the new Treo 700p which is an upgrade to my current Treo 650. I've been reading up on it for a little while and the only thing that I can say that I really want from it is the added memory and the EVDO highspeed data network. I use my phone for the internet a lot when I'm away from home to read up on stuff, look up stuff, or just to play Dope Wars or Black Jack if I'm bored.

There is supposedly a new update for the 650 coming out that I'm waiting for thats supposed to add tons of enhacements but right now its rumor which kind of stinks. I'm sure there will be another Palm device that I'm going to get that will have a better OS and all that jazz. I'm debating whether or not Palm or Windows Mobile is the way to go, but I have at least another year so I have time to decide.

Got my Sony Laptop working

A really long time ago it seems, I suggested to my father to buy a Sony Laptop PC. At the time it seemed pretty swift. It came pre-loaded with Win98 and had a 450 Mhz P3 processor. My father has since upgraded to a Desktop PC (I also have a Dell he bought two years ago thats so much better than the Sony but the screen is busted so I can't really use that one). I have since upgraded the Sony with a host of mis matched parts that I have lying around. I upgraded the hard drive to a 20 gig (not very big these days but its better than 6 gig), boosted the RAM to 320 which isn't bad, and I also went ahead and loaded Win XP SP2. It's not the best laptop in the world but I'm keeping this PC around just in case something bad happens to my Dell desktop upstairs. I have backups for it on a portable drive so in case theres a hurricane, I can get up and go with my data ;)

I think next year I'm going to invest in a new laptop once Windows Vista comes out if I have the money for it. I have my work laptop but that doesn't count as truely being mine. I want something thats portable with tons of hard drive space so that just in case I gotta go somewhere in a rush, I have everything I need to keep my life going. Anyone have some money I can have to get my new laptop??

The perfect evening........

Tonight I get to go see X-Men 3 and have KFC, what could be more perfect than that???

Wii!!!!

The title of the post is Wii, and it refers to Nintendo's new gaming console. I've read a lot about it recently in the news. It doesn't sound as powerful as my Xbox 360 but man the games look freakin cool! And the price! Forget about it, so cheap I might pick one up!

Ahh the fountains at Bellagio, pretty isn't it?

 

Las Vegas at Night

I took these two pictures from the top of the Eiffel Tower in Las Vegas. I thought it was pretty cool to see the city all lit up like that.
 

The Valley of Fire!

One of the things that my wife and I did while we were in Las Vegas was to go ATV riding in the Valley of Fire. As the name imply's, this place was steaming hot when we got there. We rode ATV's for about 2 hours in the middle of the desert. We went up and down sand dunes, went over really rocky terrain, and nearly got heat stroke because it had to be at least 100 degrees outside. The bottom picture is of us at one of the stops so we had someone take our picture. The top picture is me with the helmet and goggles on. I also had to wear my sunglasses since they are prescription and without them I wouldn't be able to avoid the very expensive turtles that inhabit the area. It was quite an awesome experience but my ass hates me for doing it :)


 

It's my Anniversary YAY!!!

This past Sunday was my first year wedding anniversary. Pretty bad ass eh? I'm spending it in Las Vegas with my wife and we're at the Luxor (the one that looks like a huge pyramid).

We exchanged gifts and went over to the Pharoh's Pheast buffet at the hotel. We had to load up on food sice we would be spending a good part of the day on ATV's. I booked an excursion called The Valley of Fire ATV tour. The name itself should have given me a clue that it would be really hot there but I underestimated exactly how hot.

The bus ride took about an hour or so and the Valley of Fire is in a Federal preservation area. There are these turtles there that are endangered and for every one that you pick up, startle, or accidentally kill, the feds get you for $25K. When the turtles get startled they release the water in their bladder and this being the Valley of Fire, they can't replace it easily so manyof them die due to dehydration. After getting that little pe talk from the guide we were issued ATV's.

The ATV's were easy enough to operate but the terrain we went on was pretty rough and we were going decently fast most of the time. I have some good pictures that I took while in the Valley of Fire. I was last in line which wasn't so bad. I did get a mouth full of dirt and sand even though I was wearing a helmet qand goggles.

One of the best stops was the mining cave. We stayed in there for a good amount of time because people were getting over heated on the tour. It was basically around 100 degrees outside, your getting your ass kicked by the terrain since its bumpy, your trying to make sure you don't flip your ATV or crash into a rock wall, and there's normally a huge dust cloud you have to drive through. Despite all that, it was really fun. I don't think I would go ATV riding in the desert again, but maybe I'll go in a forest or something.

After coming back to the hotel, my wife and I had to get ready for our dinner at TAO which was located at the Venetian. The food there was great and so was the atmosphere. We shared some awesome shrimp with XO sauce and fried rice. We did a little walking at the Venetian and it was quite impressive. They had exquisite paintings on the ceiling, gondola rides indoors, a huge selection of shops and places to eat, and even an indoor town square where you can watch some free shows.

That night we also walked down part of the Las Vegas Strip. Treasure Island was too crowded to see their free show, so we went to the Mirage to see the Volcano erupt. Since it was a bit hot, we cut through Caesars Palace (which is HUGE) and into the Bellagio. We missed the water show but we'll see that another night.

It's Tuesday morning and I'm still sore from the ATV ride but I'm also sore from thr Grand Canyon trip but that's for another blog post........ need breakfast!!

Worst airport ever!

I have traveled around a lot and I've been to plenty of airports but I have to say that the one in Atlanta is the worst so far.

Right now I just started my vacation with my wife and we're off the Las Vegas. Our flight to Las Vegas involves two stops, one of which is Atlanta. First thing that happens is that we hear that the gate has changed. Not a big deal right? Just check the monitors for the new gate. Slight problem here was that there were no monitors to check at the terminal and we both distinctly heard that our new gate was at another terminal. Atlanta has some LONG terminals and its serviced by a train. There was a bank of monitors that said the only flight for our airline was on the terminal we were headed to.

BIG MISTAKE!! When we got to the gate, it was nearly empty so we had our tickets scanned by the agent. The agent looks at his computer and says that our flight was at the gate that we had just come from in our original terminal!!

He informs us that we have 10 minutes to run over and catch our flight. So my wife and I are practically speed walking through one terminal, caught the train, and speed walked to the very end of our original terminal to catch our flight.

I swear, if I have to take any more flights, I am going to avoid Atlanta like the plague. The airport is just too big, too crowded, and too old techwise. If I can avoid going to Atlanta ever again I will even if it costs me more to fly.

My silly cat

My younger cat Nala did something pretty silly this afternoon. I have a loft in my apartment where I have my computer. I was up there today and my two cats normally follow me up there. There is a rail and a perch where my cats sometimes jump on. Well today, Nala decided to try her luck with the rail and lost her balance. I didn't witness the actual fall. All I know is that one minute I know she is upstairs with me, the next minute I hear a small cry from my cat and a thud. When I looked up she was gone and I saw her run into another room. She seems fine though after dropping about 15 feet or so. Hopefully she learned not to try walking on that rail again.

LOL this is too funny!

This simply has to be one of the best titles for a book I've ever seen

 

Google Sidebar doesn't work anymore

I installed the WinXP SP2 patch on my work PC and all of a sudden my Google Sidebar doesn't work. Thats crap! I use this every day at work for the little scratch pad and for the RSS news feeds that I've set up. Now that it doesn't work, I dunno what I'm going to do now since I've gotten so used to it. I've tried everything I can think of short of reloading my work PC but that in itself is quite a pain. MAN!!!

Trip to the Zoo

My wife and I went to the zoo today since we had nothing really to do. I took the camera and got some pretty funny pics, enjoy! LOL

MI5

My wife got me addicted to watching this British show called MI5. It interests me because its all about spy stuff and people trying to blow up the UK. They're kind of like the NSA and FBI all rolled into one. I'll admit at times its hard to understand them with their thick British accents but whats really cool about the show is that it actually lasts a full hour kinda like the Soprano's. Thats pretty rare in my book since most other shows I watch are basically 45 minutes because of all the commercials that are just thrown in. I'm getting more DVD's in the coming days so at least I'll have something to watch since TV these days is sucking badly!

Is it Friday yet?

The week is dragging badly! Where is Friday???

I'm done getting my summer tan

Today I went to the pool with my wife and she decided to lay out and get a tan and I decided to go swimming in the pool. My skin being the way it is, after about 2-3 hours I have my summer tan all done. Unlike most people, I can tan pretty quickly so theres no need for me to lay out for hours on end. Just a couple of hours and I'm done. If I swim in the sun any longer I'm going to be really really dark and thats what I'm trying to avoid. Good thing I work indoors so I can't get any darker than I already am :)

Easter Dinner was AWESOME!

Tonight Claire made an awesome dinner. Steak, with mashed potato's and corn. I am now soo stuffed that I'm just lying here on the couch writing up this blog entry because I can't move. Thank you for the wonderful dinner Claire!! :)

FEMA: Louisiana Homes Must Be Raised Off Ground

OK now, if you live in Louisiana and you gotta raise your house up 3 feet off the ground I gotta say F that man. Not only do you now have to have a house on stilts, just in case, but now you have to walk up stairs just to get to your house. I'm sure there are stairs for most places but still, I think putting your house on stilts will make it somewhat unstable. What if someone wanted to totally destroy your house? It wouldn't take a lot, just knock out two supports and boom, your house comes crashing down. If they make something like that mandatory, I would move to another state because there's no way I'm putting my house on stilts.

CNN.com - Woman dies a day after Disney World ride - Apr 13, 2006

CNN.com - Woman dies a day after Disney World ride - Apr 13, 2006

I have personally ridden Mission Space at Epcot just once and hell yeah it made me sick as a dog. There are plenty of warning signs everywhere that this is a high velocity ride and if you're in any sort of poor health you shouldn't ride it. It basically takes a NASA centrifuge, adds some nice monitors and other little things and spins you around at around 2G's of force. For the average person thats pretty intense stuff. After riding it once, I know for a fact that I will never ride it again because I don't like having that sick I wanna throw up feeling. But if you're up to it, this ride is perfectly safe and does give you a pretty good thrill!

Taro the Dragon Boy is Great!

I just rented the above movie a few days ago. I first saw this movie WAY back in the early 1980's on Betamax I think. I actually borrowed this from my library in my home town. This definately brought me back. LOL! I can't believe I watched the whole movie again. My wife fell asleep while watching it so she didn't see the whole thing but thats alright, I enjoyed watching it. Maybe I'll let my kids watch it when I have some and when they are old enough. Here's the link for movie on Blockbuster. LINK!!