New Footware Required

This week I went to a Sports Medicine doctor because I've been having some pain in my foot in the past few months. After talking to him for a bit he prescribed for me some insoles for my shoes and some new running sneakers since the ones that I've been using aren't good for my feet at all. The insoles that I got feel a little bit funny but it releaves pressure from my heel which is a good thing since thats whats causing me the most pain at the moment. The doctor also took a look at my sneakers and said that I would probably need to get some new ones.

The ones that he suggested are by a company named Brooks. I personally have never heard of them but supposedly they are famous for making excellent running shoes. The name of the shoes is the Brooks Adrenaline GTS 8 which is a Runners World Best Buy.
I saw this shoe at the store where I got my shoe inserts for my dress shoes but I didn't buy them because I wanted to shop around online a bit first to see if I could get a better deal and to see if there were a few more colors available. The picture to the left shoes the shoe I will probably get even though I don't have anything yellow to wear with it but it looked the best out of the selection that was available. However there are other sneakers that I am considering and I might buy them and take them on the road with me to try out.

The Asics GT2130 is another option that I am interested in because I know the brand much better than Brooks. I might decide to buy these using some gift cards of mine so it doesn't really cost me anything. They look just like the Brooks sneakers above which is nice.

Right now as things stand I'm not allowed to go running so I can rest my left foot which is the one that is injured right now. I can do very low impact stuff so that I can keep on exercising and trying to lose weight, but I have to wait at least 3 weeks before I can start some light running again. So I'm going to wait till then to buy my sneakers, maybe by that time I would have picked a shoe that I like and will get two pairs so I can have one on the road and one at home.

So much for getting my Nike's! I have a gift card for them already but my wife can use it :)

MS Project..... How I loathe thee!

Being a Consultant a lot of my work is tracked and entered in a little tool called Microsoft Project. For those that have no idea what I'm talking about, thats ok because most of us that use the tool see little value in it as well, at least I do. A lot of projects I've been on have tried tracking what we are supposed to do in MS Project and to a certain degree we are successful. The only thing I don't like about it is that projects are fluid, they change from day to day or even hour to hour so it almost makes everything impossible to track. I had the fun duty of creating a project plan and made it nice and high level so that it will be easy to track stuff. Now whether or not people want to do it that way is not my problem yet. I just know that after I create this project plan, a few updates will be made and then I won't touch it ever again until maybe the end of the project.

I just know that its going to get worse as my career progresses because I will be the one making the updates or requesting others to create project plans. People just love seeing these things with all the fun lines and what not. The one I created in Excel is prettier than anything you can get in Project, it just can't give you reports and what not. If I'm lucky, Microsoft will come up with a more automated or simple tool that I can use. That would be the ultimate! For now I guess I'll suffer along and curse the program as I continue to use it throughout my career.

I wish I could think of what my next rant will be but my brain is kinda turned off today. Till the next blog post!

Summer Travel is Gonna Suck!

If this past week was any indication, this summer is going to totally suck for flying. I had to fly home early this past week due to some personal stuff happening here at home but I scheduled out my normal flights and all that jazz. Getting to Memphis didn't pose any problem at all, just the regular Monday crap that I go through. The way back was an entirely different story.

Wednesday there were all these storms that were rolling through Atlanta and thats the main hub for Delta Airlines who is my current preferred carrier since they have a big presence in Ft. Lauderdale. Well I get on the flight no problem and so far things look like its only going to be delayed for about 5-10 minutes or so which is not even long enough to record on most tracking systems. Of course my wait wasn't that long, I ended up boarding the plane, taxiing to the tarmac and sitting there for about an hour because Atlanta wouldn't let in incoming traffic due to the storms. Oh lovely!! After we take off the pilots make up some time by flying a bit faster, I mean they've already burned a fair amount of fuel just sitting on the tarmac so burning a bit more by going faster isn't going to change things. Ahh here's where the trouble starts to begin.

Just like one of my flights that I took in Detroit, I land but then I have to wait to taxi to the gate. Of course we make all these stops along the way so that jets can take off and land since there are quite a few runways in our path to the terminal. I can almost see my gate and continually check the flight status of my flight home and notice that it says its delayed till 10PM. OK not bad I think I'm alright in terms of time but either way I hot foot it to Terminal A from Terminal B. I get to my gate and see that its deserted which isn't a good sign. I decide to see what zones have boarded and all of them have! Crap! I hate checking my bag but I wasn't the only one late so there was a few spaces still in the overhead bins. I was in Row 12 but my bag was in Row 25 so de-planeing will definitely be interesting.

Just to add a little insult on my trip home, I'm delayed a bit again because of the storms in Atlanta that affected my flight from Memphis. The plane is taxiing to the runway and the pilot informs us that we are currently number 19 for take off.... this just gets better and better! After about 20 more minutes, another small problem arises. The east bound flights can't take off because the storms are rolling in with a vengeance so they have to find a way to get the east bound flights out of our way so we can take off. Overall another hour was wasted taxiing until take off.

If that is a harbinger of what is to come this summer, I know I'm going to be in for quite a few nights in Atlanta this summer which would totally suck! Gotta stay positive though, if I'm lucky I'll always make it home on the weeks I'm flying away for work.

200 Games for Us

Last weekend I went bowling with my wife and for the first time ever we both achieved 200 games. I only got a regular 200, she got a 204 or something. Thats pretty bad ass. It shows that both of us are getting better. She's getting used to her new ball and so am I. If I get a new ball, I'm probably just going to be buy the exact same one that I have now because I'm bowling pretty well right now. I'm probably going to skip bowling this week so that I can catch some sleep. *yawn* Oh well, I just gotta say that its nice to be home for the weekend.

Damn gas prices

Gas prices don't seem to be getting any cheaper. I can understand that there is more demand for it and less people turning it out. Thats why I'm thankful for the job that I have which doesn't require a daily commute using my car. When I used to work in Miami it used to be a 30 mile trek one way to the office. Thats a crap load of gas no matter how you slice it and you use a lot more because you're always stuck in rush hour traffic as well.

Right now my family has two cars. An SUV that my wife drives and my personal car that I drive to the airport. My car is also the weekend car so that we can drive around and get some decent gas mileage. I've watched as gas goes over $4.00 a gallon so my venturing out on the weekends might become even more limited than it is now. Depending on how long my wife's car lasts, we might get her a hybrid of some sort. She loves her big SUV's but its no longer pratcical. If it wasn't so dangerous I'd let her get a Vespa or something but in FL, thats just asking for death right there. The small hybrids are just eh, kinda weak in power and not much to look at. I would be more inclined to get her the Toyota Camry hybrid since that looks pretty nice and 34 MPG is a huge improvement over the 15 MPG she gets now. If Lexus makes an affordable hybrid, I'd get her that.

I'm almost out of gas in my car thats currently sitting at the airport but you won't catch me waiting until that light goes on. No matter what the price of gas, I'm still filling up that tank, I just have to make it last longer while staying safe on the roads. The stories of complete morons running their cars on the highway till it sputters and dies is just nuts, that endangers everyone around them including themselves. $60 is chump change when you compare it to getting nailed by another car at over 70MPH and possibly dying in the process.

Ok enough ranting and raving for now. Time to get back to work.

Getting up late

This past Monday I made a slight boo boo. I had a 6am flight to Atlanta and I got up at 5am. Totally not good! I have never showered and dressed so fast in my life. It was a good thing that I
packed all my stuff up the night before and put it downstairs near the garage door so that I could just pick it up and throw it in my car. I didn’t even get to say good bye to my cats. I did kiss my wife good bye though since that’s more important. I basically raced out of my housing community and booked it straight for the airport. The airport is normally 30 minutes away but I
did it in about 20 without excessively speeding. The excellent part was that there was no line
at security so I breezed through. I had Zone 2 on my boarding pass and they were seating Zone 5 which wasn’t bad. I was able to get all my crap into the over head near my seat and having exit row as well made the trip a bit better.

After all the drama of rushing to the airport, the plane I
was on had a generator problem so we had to taxi back to the gate to have it
inspected. They then decided to switch
on the backup generator which guzzles more fuel so they also had to put in
another 2000 pounds of fuel on the plane to make sure we got there in one
piece. The benefit was that I didn’t
have to wait as long for my connecting flight but I guess that will teach me to
get a good night sleep the night before I have to leave for a 6am flight.

Hurricane Season is almost here again

It's the end of May and that means Hurricane Season will be in full swing shortly. I haven't even stocked up on any hurricane supplies yet so that should probably go to the top of the shopping list in the next few weeks.

I survived last season without a scratch because no hurricanes came by South Florida. I don't know if that will be the case this year but I hope it will be since that sort of things makes things disruptive for my job and my family life. I already have a generator which should be sufficient for powering at least my fridge and a few other things, and I have shutters to protect my windows from being blown in. The big thing I need is probably batteries and food. I have a grill that uses gasas well as a backup camping grill plus some gas canisters for that. I've lived in Florida for 5 years and I've survived my share of hurricanes already but I just want to continue seeing them pass me by and leave me alone. Less headaches are good because it means less gray hair. Ha!

Joining the Bluetooth Age

Today is the day my new Bluetooth headset is going to be delivered. I have come to realize that I talk a great deal on my cell phone and I'm getting a bit tired of always holding it to my ear. So I have decided to get a new headset that I'll take with me on the road. This should make things a bit easier when I call home or if I have to wait on hold for something.

I used my sister in laws Bluetooth headset on and off for a bit but I couldn't take it with me because of the color. I liked how it worked while I was here at home. I picked Motorola since they have worked with my Treo 700p in the past and I have no reason to doubt that it will work again. Will this mean I'm going to spend more time on the phone? Probably not because it eats my minutes but I'll now be in compliance with the law by using a hands free device while driving. I might give my opinion on how it works later next week after I've had it with me for a bit. Hurry up and deliver my shit UPS!!

New template

After I think 6 years, I'm getting a bit tired of the old template so I picked a new one. The color is still blue but the design is a bit different. The cool thing is that I didn't lose any of my links or anything like that. The only thing that Blogger lacks which I wish they would finally do is a way to save my entries without plopping in a new template and then saving the web page. I have years of entries on this thing and I don't want to try and save them all to one file. Thats also the main reason I haven't changed blogging services or tried to use MySpace or Facebook for it.

If they come out with some snazzy new templates I might change it again but we'll see. This one will do for now.

The great sunglasses search

I've been looking for a new pair of sunglasses recently and I must say that it has been quite the challenge. By any measure, my eyesight really sucks. Without my glasses I can barely read what I'm typing on my computer without getting within maybe 6 inches from the screen. I decided to try and get some Oakley sunglasses (see picture above) during my lunch break today because I know that Oakley makes prescription sunglasses. The ones I picked out are called the Flack Jacket and it even comes in Asian Fit (look it up, its pretty interesting how they tailor glasses to fit an Asian face at Oakley). The person who assisted me was going to order them for me because they don't carry that kind of stuff in stock and Oakley makes special lenses and everything. I come to find out that my eyesight is so bad that Oakley can't make lenses that would be of any use to me. The problem is that the lenses can't be curved, they have to be straight. I have the thinnest lenses possible for a pair of glasses and they still look a bit thick for me. I saw what regular plastic lenses looked like and I could have sworn they were almost a centimeter thick.

The advice I received was to just get a regular pair of frames from anywhere and just put in some sun glass lenses. I don't mind doing that but I'm probably going to need to get something sporty or that can stand up to a measurable amount of abuse. The frames also need to be made of titanium because me and cheap metal don't mesh well together. It sounds like its going to be another $500 purchase but we'll see if I find anything that I like before my mini vacation in July and my big one in July.

New License Plate

I've been living in FL for around 5 years now and I changed my car registration when I moved to Tampa and got some new plates for my car. I know I read this somewhere when I registered my car, every 5 years or so they give you new plates because the reflective sheen on the plate wears off or something stupid like that. Personally my plates are fine and I like the license plate number that they gave me. It even still says Hillsborough County on it which is sweet.

Yesterday I went and checked the mail and was a little surprised to find a new license plate in the mail. When I read about them giving me a new license plate every 5 years or so when I moved to Tampa I thought that they would just give me a duplicate of my current plate. This doesn't seem to be the case because I have a totally different license plate now. I really liked my old one and I'm not anxious to put the new one on. I also have to memorize a completely new license plate number and I just finished memorizing my old one. When I lived in CT and had my car registered in NY, it didn't matter how old your plates were, they just gave you a little sticker to stick in the corner and that was that for the most part. I know somewhere in NY there are still some people driving around with the classic orange license plate or even the one that features the Statue of Liberty

If I'm feeling up to it I'll put my new license plate on this weekend but I won't be happy about it. I will wash my old plate and keep it.

It's all f'ed up in ATL

I'm writing this post from ATL airport and something just isn't right. There are people everywhere rushing to their connections. I come here fairly frequently and I've never seen this place like this. He line to get to Terminals T-B was HUGE, there had to be at least 100 people waiting to get on the escalator to the train.

I've seen this once before in Detroit and that was when everything was backed up which seems to be the case this time as well. I know I bumped a few people out of my way to get to my gate but I am not missing my flighthome no matter what. It looks like I'll be getting home around midnight but at least I won't be traveling next week. SWEET!

Home for my Anniversary

I was originally going to be home this entire week but circumstances at work had me out at my client site. I was able to negotiate a way to come home in time for my 3rd Wedding Anniversary. I'm all about the Work/Life balance and there are some dates that I will always take off no matter what and my anniversary is one of those dates.

Anyway... I made it home by Wednesday afternoon just in time for dinner. Unfortunately my wife had to work late so we were a little behind in eating. I did go over budget this year but I actually succeeded in getting her gifts that she actually wanted and not something that was really cheesy. I got her a kick ass bracelet from Swarovski and sneakers from Coach.

For me, my wife got me some Swarovski crystal bears that I'm going to add to my growing collection. One day I'll put them in a nice glass case to display.

The best part was that my wife made my favorite food for dinner and also baked us a cake that was the same flavor as our wedding cake that we had 3 years ago. She's big on baking now and makes a pretty good cake. I'll have to get her a Kitchenaid stand mixer one of these days. OK, still bored but I don't want to blog anymore. Thats it!

US Airlines Suck

As I'm writing my latest rant I'm sitting in the 45th row on an 757 Delta Airlines plane going from Atlanta to Ft. Lauderdale. As the title implies I am quite dis-satisfied with American air carriers. I had a sweet ass seat in row 21 which is close to the exit yet far from the bathroom and not in the ass end of the plane. Do to some prime idiocy by the gate agents, my sweet ass seat was probably given to some schmuck with no status. I've flown nearly 100K miles with Delta and have Gold status which gives me first pick of seats. Sitting me in the ass end of the plane is not the way to treat a frequent flyer.

In the past I've flown some international carriers like KLM, SAS, Singapore Air, and British Airways. From what I've heard their services far outstrip anything the American carriers offer. I would like an opportunity to fly United Arab Emirates, I hear their service is fantastic and they know how to treat their passengers well. It seems that with American carriers, we're all just cattle to haul while constantly charging for crap that used to be free or included with the price of the fare. I have noticed also a shift in attitude by air carriers that they just don't care because they have no one to compete against but each other in the US market. They can continue to fleece the consumer while whining they are losing money so they have to increase fares or start charging for stuff like FOOD. Bullshit! I think that the way to save the consumer is to let the international carriers into the market and let them compete. I'm sure that things will get better. If it gets worse they can be kicked out of the market again or people will just refuse to fly them.

So to the whores at Delta, learn to treat your frequent flyers well, we're the ones that are keeping you in business. If not for my Gold status I'd be giving my business to Air Tran and they used to be Value Jet! Now that's kinda scary when you consider their saftey record but at least they know how to treat the consumer a bit better than you old codgers.

Bring me Continental! At least they still give me food!!!

Ok that's the rant for now. We'll see if these turds upgrade me next week or not.

Car woes

This past week hasn't been a good week. My wife's car decided to die on her and wouldn't start at all come Tuesday morning when she had to go to work. That was a real bummer because no matter what she did and no matter what suggestions I made to her over the phone the car just wouldn't start. When I got home this past Thursday I decided to give it the old college try but no dice. So this past Friday I had to have the Xterra towed to Nissan to get examined. My wife's car isn't a spring chicken anymore, its 9 years old and we really haven't had any major work done to it but its about due to have it. I got a call from Nissan yesterday afternoon and its quite a doozey on what needs to be accomplished.

• Both cables that hook up to the battery
• Timing belt
• Water Pump
• Fuel Pump
• tensioner for the timing belt
• Oil Change

I think thats it, at least thats what they said they were doing. I'm hoping to pick up the car today and that everything will be alright.

My car had the Check Engine light flash a few times in the past week or so and I was going to bring it in today but it suddenly stopped flashing so maybe it was just a glitch. My car is also kinda old, maybe 6 years old. The cool thing is that my car doesn't have a timing belt but the chain will probably need some adjustments soon as it gets older and I drive it more. All I know is that my wife is due for a new car next. That Lexus 400h is looking pretty good and I might want to get something like the new Audi TT or the 350Z. I just know that any car I buy has to run on regular unleaded gas, with the way things are going with oil and gas prices I can't afford something that takes premium.

Airlines to Charge for Second Bag

I read this article on the NY Times today about airlines starting to charge people for checking in a second bag. I personally don't check bags in when I'm flying if I can help it but this will make things a bit worse as people try and carry things on the plane. I read quite a few of the comments that were posted on the article and people seem to think this is a bad idea. I tend to agree if this makes all the over head bins full. As long as I'm flying Delta or United I don't have a problem with this because I have status on both airlines and can board first.

When I'm flying other airlines this becomes a problem. As a business traveler, I don't want to check in my bags because it slows me down at the airport to wait for baggage claim and also forces me to take more time at the airport to check bags on to my flight. This gets especially complicated because I always have to connect in large hub airports like Atlanta and the risk of my bags being lost increases by a lot. I also have massive distrust of baggage handlers. I've watched these people just toss crap onto the conveyor belt to go into the plane or just toss them onto the baggage cart without a care in the world.

One last thing, I have a problem paying for something with no assurances that my bag will be there when I get to my destination. I had a bad experience a few years ago when I went to NY with my wife (she was my fiance then) where the NY bag handlers totally destroyed my bag. I also don't trust them not to rummage through it and unlock my bag because they have to be checked before they go on the plane and they can unlock my TSA approved locks.

I think it would benefit a lot of people if they started to open things up to foreign carriers that are part of the same frequent flyer alliances that are currently in place. This would give people more choices on who they can fly, better services over all (at least I think this will improve things), and increase competition for customer's (maybe lower prices too?) and offer services that we used to have (like food that doesn't totally suck). Alright, thats my rant for the day. I'm out for now! I'll have a new one for tomorrow I'm sure.

Courtyard Marriott Collierville near Memphis

I am near Memphis working at my client and I'm staying that the Courtyard Marriott Collierville. This is a brand new hotel (as in 3 months old) and its totally awesome. It's situated right in the middle of an outdoor mall. There is a Macy's and Dillards as the anchor stores and all the other types of stores you could expect in a regular mall. I can go and walk around after work and/or dinner and browse. I decided to take a quick walk around just to see what was here.

I already ate a place called Crepe Makers and I tried the Raspberry Chicken Crepe which was pretty awesome. I'll probably get that again sometime while I'm here. I'm only here for 8 weeks give or take so I should be able to fit it in. I'm going to try a few other places here that are unique to Memphis and maybe take in some blues. I have a guide and I hope I have time to experience some of the nicer places here. Maybe see Elvis' house! That would be sweet. OK, I'm done with this post of awesomeness, I'm gonna publish this and write a gripe now :)

Conan on HBO Family?

This is especially weird. I got my TV back after the storm in Dallas passed and as I was flipping through the channels I saw an old classic, Conan! I don't know which movie it is, I think its the one after the original but the fact that its on HBO Family is just weird. Oh well....

Hail in Dallas

I'm still here in Dallas, I'm not going home until tomorrow and I'm going to wake up super early to try and get on the 5:35PM flight home to Ft. Lauderdale since I'm booked on the 6:40PM flight. It's only an hour difference but at least I'll be back a bit earlier.

Anyway, there is a huge hail storm in Dallas this evening. It's all over the news and everything and the Weather Underground site shows this huge swath of purple (thats a bad thing) on the radar map. I can even hear the hail hitting the windows of my hotel room which is pretty neat. To the south, the hail is supposed to be the size of golf balls which is pretty impressive in my book. I don't think I'll see any come this way and if I do it'll probably be because it smashed my windows in or something.

Unfortunately,the storm killed my TV so I have nothing to watch right now. The free internet that I'm borrowing from some fool that didn't secure his network is super slow so I can't even watch stuff online right now either. I am downloading a new IM client thats supposed to be super slick. If its slick enough, it might have a home on my computer in my office. I'm going to test it on my work computer and see how things go.

Anyway, hopefully the storm passes quickly and my cable is restored. I'm getting kinda bored just sitting here with nothing to listen to or watch......

I forgot something in the last post...

OK I forgot one more reason why I've got a hate on for Marriott right now. I have no access to Comedy Central. This is very a very important channel for me to have. They have Futurama, Lil Bush, and most important of all, SOUTH PARK!! I'm hoping that they have it in Memphis when I get there. If they don't I'll be mighty disappointed.

Marriotts Suck!

I'm in Dallas this week meeting with my boss to get some back ground information on my new client. I'm staying at the Marriott Las Colinas, one of the newer Marriott properties around this area I guess, at least thats what the website tells me. I have Silver status with Marriott which is pretty easy to get but it nets you next to nothing. Anyway, I'm at a regular Marriott while I'm here, not one of the Courtyard Marriott's but so far I have the impression that you get so much more at the lower level Marriotts tthan you do at a regular one.

For example..... at this particular Marriott, I don't get free internet (pah the gall!), no free breakfast (I have Diamond status at Hilton so I used to having that), and no free waters (boo!!). Also the towels feel like sand paper against my skin, bleh!!!! These reasons alone make me hate going to Marriott's. I have been assured that at my client site in Memphis, I'll at least get my free breakfast which is what I miss the most and that the property is brand new and the staff will take care of me because there are so many people from my company staying there. I may get Platinum status but thats little consolation considering Hilton's give me more perks (like double points,my waters, and free breakfast).

Oh well, I only have to suck it up for about six weeks unless I'm extended which may be likely,but who knows! Maybe I'll be lucky and they'll build a Hilton right next to the Marriott.

Off to Memphis

I've left Houston for the last time in 2008 this past Thursday which also signaled that it was the end of my project. I've spent the past few days trying to get on a new client. With the help of a few friends I'm going off to Memphis in coming weeks. Next week I have to go to Dallas which shouldn't be so bad but then its off to Memphis. I'm hoping that I'll be able to see some of the sites like Elvis' house, and maybe hear some blues music in a bar.

I know that the entire place is going to be in an uproar since Memphis just won the NCAA basketball championship so things should be very festive. The only bad part is that I won't be getting any Hilton points while I'm on this job but its only 8 weeks so I should be OK as long as I can get to another Hilton property on my next client.

I'll take my camera of course and take some pics of Memphis if I have the time. Ahh to finally be staffed once a again!

Flying First Class Rules

This week is awesome because I am flying first class on Continental Airlines to Houston. Normally I'm supposed to be flying in coach but this week was a little unusual. first off I booked my flight super late so there was limited availability. Second the flight I tried to book myself on had a connecting flight and would have gotten me into Hosuton later than I would have liked. And third, the first class ticket was actually cheaper than coach! Strange!

Besides lounging in an over sized seat, I get tons of extra leg room and I also get breakfast (Honey nut Cherrios, fresh fruit, cinamon roll, and juice) which is awesome in itself. I'm flying in a 757 which means that first class is pretty far from the engines so I don't hear the rumble or all the noise.

I have an upcoming vacation in July and I think on the way home I'll be flying first class but this time on Delta. I hope their first class is as good as Continental. Now this is what I call flying!

Am I at Yankee Stadium?

This past Friday the wife and I went to Dolphin Stadium to catch a Yankees v Marlins game. Our seats were pretty good, on the second tier just below the luxery boxes. Unfortunately the Yankees lost the game but thats not the point of this post. The really weird thing about the game was that it felt like Yankee Stadium rather than Dolphin Stadium.

Sounds strange doesn't it? Heres a bit of evidence for ya! First clue was the parking attendant. I was wearing my blue batters jersey and my wife wore a blue Yankee hat. The parking attendent made this comment that so far he had only seen 3 Marlins fans pull in. OK kinda odd, so I pull into the parking lot and see quite a few people tailgating which isn't unusual except they were all wearing Yankee shirts. HA! Going towards our seating area, its just a sea of Jeter and Rodriguez shirts and jerseys. Am I really in Florida right now??? Then during the game just hearing the cheering for the Yankees drown out the pitiful attempts by Marlin fans is just too hysterical. The amount of cheers for Jeter alone were just overwhelming. I didn't hear one Marlin get that sort of cheer the whole game.

So the Yankees lost but not a big deal, it was spring training and they won the day after against the Marlins anyway. Even exiting the stadium was funny. There were Marlin (go fish! LOL) fans here and there in the rolling sea of Yankee blue......

Farewell Houston!

Today I learned that my time in Houston is at an end. I'll admit that I've had a pretty good time here. I've made a few more friends, attended my first rodeo, and eaten more tex mex than I ever want to again. While I would like to stick around and stay staffed, I'll have to join my colleagues on the bench and wait for a new assignment. All this stuff is exciting or course because I'll be going to a new city and jumping into some new work and of course learning more about my craft.

I'll be back one day Houston, there are is still a few things I need to see before I'm done with ya!

Someone needs to put a stop to American Idol

Of all the shows that shouldn't be on TV I think American Idol ran its course after Season 1 and even then I thought it was a terrible show. Year after year we hear people singing crap and then America votes to see who stays or goes. The sad thing is that this crud keeps on making headlines in places like CNN and the NY Times on who got booted. Is that really news? Do people care that much?

Not only is the show kinda crappy with all their supposed "cliff hangers", it takes up the time slots of really good shows like House or Bones and who knows what else. I think I've complained about this horrid show before but that was probably about 300 blog posts ago. Anyway, thats the rant for tonight. Gotta finish up some emails and watch South Park.

Catching up on FOAMY

I've blogged about Foamy before but its been a long time since I've actually seen it online since I've been busy. For those of you that don't know about Foamy, go look it up on YouTube. I swear its some of the most hysterical stuff that I've ever seen. There is the old staple of illwillpress.com that shows all the new stuff but if you want to go waaaaaaay back you have to hit up friendsoffoamy.com. They have the most extensive archive of Foamy vids anywhere on the net.

There are some other cartoons that I deem pretty good that my wife and others have found. Some are good and some are ok. Strongbad is pretty decent, there are a few that stand out that I can't get enough of. Of course there is always Happy Tree Friends, thats just violence taken to a whole new level but good lord its funny. I especially enjoy the one thats setup like a music video for Fall Out Boy.

I need to start finding more entertainment online. There's always episodes of TV shows I never see online but finding the time to watch them is still challenging. I'm feeling creative, might be time for another blog post about something totally random.

The first skill of a consultant.......

Hmm.... there are so many skills thats consultants need but after observing consultants for about a year now I can safely say that the most useful and cherished skill is WRITING! For the most part I've been doing a hell of a lot of writing since I got into consulting a little over a year ago. I got a small taste of that when I used to do a lot of projects for one of my former employers with tons of documents flying everywhere with instructions on how do crap I designed.

This doesn't compare to the amount that I've done recently. In college I could pull 10 page papers out of thin air and I must say that this skill has come in handy. There are numerous status reports, deliverables, etc etc etc that need to be produced weekly while at a client and it only gets worse as time goes on. The better it looks, the more they want. It almost comes to a point where you're doing more crafting of bad ass power points than actually writing down instructions on how someone should perform their new job or document what they did to help someone on the phone. But the point is that writing skills are very essential to the business world. Whether you're in consulting advising mega corporations or part of a small company, being able to convey your point of view and selling an idea or telling a story on how good or bad things are going are paramount in my view. This may be more important than the advanced quantum physics you took in college. While also important (well only if you're going into NASA or something), if you actually discover something being, able to tell people about it is what gets you recognition and gets you even more work and funding to find the next best thing or to tell an even more compelling story in the future.

So my grand advice to the masses (that don't read my blog) is when you get the chance, brush up on your writing skills. This more than anything will help you in your career. Anyone from admins to CEO's need this skill to advance themselves and their agendas to the masses to make more of the lean green (or whatever color they use these days for paper money in other countries other than the USA). I'm guessing my next rant won't be about brushing up on bad ass skills to be successful in this fun world we live in. Maybe I'll talk about my Wii or something.... Super Smash Brothers Brawl anyone??? ;)

Information Technology - A Tale of Two Paths

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

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

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

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

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

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

Career Books

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

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

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

9 Years today

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

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

Rodeo Houston

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

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

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

Going to NY!

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

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

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

Bleh nothing to blog about

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

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

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

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

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

New glasses for me

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

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

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

Burnout!!

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

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

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

Tax Season is upon us

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

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

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

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

Seven Years

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

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

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

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

Yet another new tea!

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

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

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

Happy Anniversary Thumper

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

The Holidays are over but.....

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The great Amazon List

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

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

Merry Christmas everyone!

Halo3 Complete! Booyah!!

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

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

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

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

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

Oh Christmas Tree!

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

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

Hilton Diamond Status

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

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

Home for the week!

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

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

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

Happy Birthday Thumper

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

Scoring 200!

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

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

New Computer

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

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

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

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

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

New Bowling Ball

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

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

International Travel Stinks

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

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

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

I'm done in Brussels

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

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

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

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

Trip to Brussels

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

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

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

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

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

My first impressions of Brussels

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Grand’Place and Surrounding Area

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

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

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

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