iPod Shuffle!

I won an iPod Shuffle here at the conference! Not bad. I also got a 4-port USB hub and a 128 MB memory stick.


More later.
-- C.

Greetings from Vegas!

(Stupid blasted Blogger! I wrote a nice long message but it failed to post it. Now I have to start over. I need to remember to copy my posts before I hit the Publish button.)

Well, here I am in Las Vegas. My room has a nice view of some mountains off in the distance, but not nothing of the Strip.

My flight out of town was delayed and then cancelled, so they flew me to Dallas/Fort Worth instead of Chicago. My co-worker went through Cincinatti and got to Vegas about a half hour after I did. We got to the hotel around 9:30 PM local time which is 12:30 back home. I was too tired to do any sight-seeing.

This morning I had a nice breakfast and went to the conference opening sessions. The keynote speaker was half-way through his speech when the fire alarm went off. Fortunately it was only a false alarm.

This hotel is pretty amazing and I haven't even seen half of it yet. The the food is wonderful.

Tonight, we've been invited to dinner at the MGM Grand and we get to ride in a limo to get there.

Sometimes work isn't too bad.

Ok, enough for now.
-- C.

A couple of notes though. While sitting in Dallas waiting for my next flight, I over-heard two women talking. One started coughing heavily and the other asked, "Still have that cough? What's it been, two weeks?" "No," the other answered, "More like three." So I'm thinking, here's a great idea. Why don't you get on a plane with 100 other people in a small confined area, and share whatever it is that's been making you sick for so long. Wonderful. If I get a cough, I'm looking her up and having a discussion with her.

Also, on the ride to the hotel we passed a Chuckie Cheese. A couple letters on the sign were burnt out and it simply read, "uckie cheese." From reports I've heard, that's a fairly accurate description.

Heading out of town

To day is the day I head out to Las Vegas for a conference. I'll leave early this afternoon and get back late Wednesday night. I'm looking forward to it even though Paula isn't able to come along. I'm really looking forward to the NASCAR ride.

I plan on taking a lot of pictures. Most of them will end up on my flickr account, but I'll put a couple in here too.

Have a good week!


-- C.

New cell phone from work!

We had record-breaking sales last year, so they went all-out to get me a new cell phone:




-- C.

New wine shop in town

There's a new wine shop in town called Wine Time at Jefferson Pointe, between Panera and DeBrand's (it opened in November '05). Paula and I stopped by to take a look. It's pretty nice, with wines at several different price points. The owner is very friendly and willing to talk about wine. He said he only carries things he likes, but does want feedback from customers to see if they have similar tastes. I saw several bottles between $10 and $15, but some were $35 and up to $60.

If you like wine, check out this shop. He also carries a few types of cheese and each wine is labeled with a brief description and examples of what food it goes well with.

I just hope it sticks around a while, it seems small shops like this don't last long; but this looks like a good one.


-- C.

Upcoming trips

This Sunday I fly out to Las Vegas for a three-day conference, flying back to the Mid-West on Wednesday. Then the following Friday we're driving up to Chicago to spend the night because we have a very early flight to New York on Saturday morning.

I'll be hitting Las Vegas, Chicago, and NYC all within a week, seeing the U.S. from coast to coast.

I'll be sure to take my laptop and digital camera and post lots of pics.

Anyone want to give me money to gamble with?


-- C.
Not that I'll give you your winnings...I just want lots o' cash to play with. /big-grin!

Well, you don't hear that every day

I was just in the break room at work getting a drink while one of the HR guys was getting coffee. He asked how I was doing and I said fine and asked him the same. He then asks, "So..." and I can tell he's searching for words.

"How's your rectum?"

I guess he found was he was looking for, but I think he should have kept searching.

That's a question you don't hear every day.

Or month.

Or year.

Or, if you're lucky, even in a lifetime.


-- C.

Regarding teachers

Why do teachers get paid so little? I worked as a network guy at my old high school while I finished my Bachelor's degree*. They started me off at a salary equivalent to a teacher with five years of experience. It wasn't bad for a single guy college guy / recent graduate, but as the main income for the head of a household?

A good teacher can have a huge influence on a child (on the other hand a bad teacher can also have a huge influence on a child). Why wouldn't you want to attract the best possible people for the job? I guess low salaries will only attract people who really (really!) want to be a teacher and not people who are just out for money. But there has to be a better way to weed out ineffective teachers.

How can we change this national perception that's it is okay to pay teachers practically nothing?


-- C.
* A side note: As I was coming to the of my college education my mother strongly suggested I start sending out resumes. "No one is going to just come up to you and offer you a job," she chided. Well.... One day I got a call from the principal of my old high school. The previous computer teacher was leaving and he suggested they talk to me to see if I was interested. He knew I liked computers and knew I was finishing up my degree and might be avilable.

So, yes mom, people DO actually call you up and offer you a job, even if you don't send out resumes. But I wouldn't recommend that strategy to anyone.

My wife's career

My wife is a teacher. She alternates between pre-school and day care, so she's watching kids aged 2 to maybe 5. I've been by the school and it looks like a lot of fun. There are plastic toys everywhere, over-sized clothes to dress up in, games stacked on shelves, books lined up neatly, and cute fuzzy animals scurrying in their cages. She says they sing and dance all the time, and go outside when the weather is nice enough.

I'm so jealous. Where I work we have beige cubical walls, no music, no toys, and certainly no recess.

But then again, she's working with two-year-olds and kids who often have "accidents." I'm just glad the shit I have to deal with isn't so literal.


-- C.

New hardware

The lease on my desktop at work is about over, so they are setting me up with a laptop. With the desktop, I have two monitors (flat panels, even). This is very handy for programmers. I can keep the code on one screen and view the results in a window on the other.

While getting a laptop for me, they also got a docking station with its own video card, so I can still have the two monitors. Two tech guys have been working on this for a week. It seems the video card is bad.

The other day one of the guys stopped by my desk and handed me a sticky note. He said, "I was walking behind your manager and this fell out of his notes. I thought you might like to see it." The note read, "[my name]. Failed to perform."

Hmm, that's not a good thing for my manager to write. But the smirk on the tech guy's face lead me to believe something was up. He said the note was really from the video card, not from my manager.

He thinks he's clever or something.


-- C.

My "To Do" list

I decided to make a list of things I want to do before I die. Some of them are gleaned from others' lists, and are shown in no particular order.

1. See the Northern Lights
2. Go on an Alaskan Cruise
3. Attend Mardi Gras in New Orleans (this was written before the hurricane)
4. Ride in a hot air balloon
5. Fly a plane and / or helicopter
6. Ride a gondola in Venice
7. See (& walk on) Great Wall of China
8. Swim with a dolphin (may be difficult since I don't swim well)
9. Enable someone else to accomplish a goal from their own list
10. Visit Maine
11. Visit the pyramids in Egypt
12. Visit the Sistine chapel
13. Visit Easter Island
14. Visit Australia and/or New Zealand
15. Visit Hawaii
16. Visit Portugal and/or Spain
17. Tour a (European?) castle
18. Watch a space shuttle launch (in person)
19. Visit Ireland
20. Visit England
21. Visit Scotland
22. Visit France, Paris, and see the Eiffel Tower
23. Leaning Tower of Piza
24. See the Sphinx
25. Learn to speak a foreign language (German? Italian? Spanish?)
26. Learn to play the piano
27. Visit all 50 States

Here's a list of things I have done, that would be on my list:
Visit the Grand Canyon
See Mount Rushmore
Visit Niagra Falls
See Devil's Tower
Visit Yellowstone Park
See Mount St. Helens
See Old Faithful
Visit World Trade Center site
See the Statue of Liberty
See the Washington Monument (8th grade trip to DC)
Go whale watching (done 6/11/05) (Boston trip)
Ride in a helicopter (done 7/13/05) (Fort Wayne's Three Rivers Festival)

States we've been to together:
1 Indiana
2 New York
3 New Jersey (just drove through it, but that seemed to be enough)
4 Massachusetts
5 Rhode Island
6 Illinois
7 Wisconsin
8 Minnesota
9 Michigan
10 Alaska (well not yet, but that's the plan for this summer)


States I've visited:
1 Indiana
2 New York
3 New Jersey
4 Massachusetts
5 Rhode Island
6 Illinois
7 Wisconsin
8 Minnesota
9 Michigan
10 Florida
11 South Dakota (Mount Rushmore)
12 Wyoming (Yellowstone, Old Faithful, Devil's Tower)
13 Montana
14 Idaho
15 Oregon
16 Washington (Mount St. Helens)
17 California
18 Nevada
19 Arizona (Grand Canyon)
20 Utah
21 Colorado
22 Georgia
23 Tennesee
24 Kentucky
25 Ohio
26 Pennsylvania
27 Iowa

Countries I've visited:
Canada
Mexico
Germany


It's good to have goals...something to strive for. This isn't a complete list, of course.


-- C.

Little box

I ordered a piece of software last week. When I got home yesterday Paula told me I got a little box in the mail.

I guess she wasn't kidding.




-- C.

Games and gaming.

I like games. Mostly I like computer games, but board games and card games are fun, too.

Let me back up a little bit. In grade school I read a lot of science fiction books. This gave way to fantasy books in medieval settings when I got to high school. I like the swords and axes, bows and arrows, orcs and trolls, dwarves, elves, and gnomes.

This is also the time when I started playing the pencil-and-paper Dungeons and Dragons (D&D) game with some friends. I was always leery of D&D, having grown up in a Christian life-style, but I really didn't know much about it. My friends are Christian and I trusted them. I joined in and ended up having a lot of fun. In a way, the game allows you to create your own story and participate in it. The "game master" sets up a scenario and you decide what you want to do. (As you walk through the woods you see a cave. Do you enter or continue on? A group of goblins attack. Do you run? Do you attack the small goblins and finsh them off quickly or concentrate your efforts the big ugly troll that's behind them?) It's very wide-open and I found it appealing. It fit in with my interest in stories and being creative.

Then computers started supporting D&D-type games (SSI's "Gold Box" series, "Pool of Radiance", "Curse of the Azure Bonds"; "Eye of the Beholder", etc). With the growing Internet came "Ultima Online", a massively multi-player online role playing game (MMO RPG). Hundreds of people could log on at once, create a character, equip themselves, and wander the countryside looking for evil to slay. Or you could kill animals for leather and become a tailor, cut down tress for lumber and become a carpenter, or mine in the mountains for ore and become a blacksmith. If you worked on trade skills, you could create things to sell to other people. Most people created groups to go hunting monsters.

The first computer games were turn-based and scripted. In the world of Ultima Online (UO) you could do whatever you wanted, whenever you wanted. You didn't have to be a warrior or adventurer, you could be a merchant. There was a group of people that would gather, practice, and put on plays in the game (I bet the designers never planned on that!). People would hold archery contests and single elimination fighting tournaments.

There was no end-game and no way to win; you just kept trying to improve your character. I played this game for four or five years, much longer than any other computer game I've played.

Next I started playing EverQuest (EQ), another MMO RPG. It didn't have the freedom that UO allowed, but it still had its own challenges. I've been playing EQ for four years now, but it's starting to wear on me. I just don't have the time to play, like I used to. I have 9 of the 10 expansions but didn't do much with the last two. And Sony (the parent company) just announced the NEXT expansion. One group of friends has already passed me by with their skills, and I seem to keep falling behind. EQ isn't a game you can sit down and play for an hour. It's time consuming, but I have fun with it.

I doubt I'll quit anytime soon though. I can't keep up, but I can find different ways to have fun. I found a group of people that are working in one of the old expansions but I'm even having trouble keeping up with them.

Oh well. I'm not sure what the point of all that was...I think I had one when I started, but it sorta petered out. I have screen shots from EQ (and maybe UO) in my flickr account, with many more EQ screens shots to add.


-- C.

"Freakenomics" By Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner

My wife likes to wander through the bookstore looking for anything that strikes her as interesting, and I grudgingly go along. I like to read, but I already have a stack of book piled up that I need to catch up on. Though I hate to admit it, I have found a few books that I picked up during our wanderings. One of them is "Freakenomics." It's an interesting book which looks at topics you wouldn't normally associate with economics, such as standardized testing in Chicago, sumo wrestlers, crime rates, and culture issues. (I think I was taking an economics course at the time, too.)

I don't have time to do a good review right now, but there's plenty of info on Amazon. If any of my friends are interested, let me know and you can borrow it (after Paula is done).

I also picked up a book about the top 100 most influential books. I started the intro and quickly decided I didn't care much for the author. I've never seen so many parentheses and hyphens in so few pages. This is just the intro so he has to explain his creiteria; there are many "good" books out there but they are good for different reasons. He included some books that are not good but still influential, and left out good books that were not influential. It has 100 essays about the book, the authors, what was going on at the time they were written, and their influence on the world. I only read a little of it before switching to one of Paula's books that was higher on my "to-read" list. I'll get back to this one next.

The book I switched to is a small one regarding the friendships and relationships of women. It is insightful but not necessarily ground-breaking. We all know women tend to me more emotional (eg. open with their feelings, have closer friendships, but can also hold grudges for long periods of time). It is written from a Christian perspective, which gets a little heavy-handed. Again, I'll write more about it when I have time.


-- C.

Oh yeah, happy New Year!

Wow, what a busy month (December) to finsh off a busy year. I finished the last year of my MBA, wrote the final paper that was due in early December, and graduated shortly after. I had two out-patient proceudres (one in December, one earlier). Oh yeah, and I got married in September (happy four-month anniversary, dear!)

I forgot to post about Mike's Christmas party this year. Keith apparently no longer likes me considering the gift he gave me: Jones Soda Holiday Pack, including wonderful flavors such as "Turkey & Gravy", "Corn on the Cob", "Broccoli Casserole", "Pecan Pie", and the ever-popular "Smoked Salmon Pate." That last one smelled like a street corner fish monger on a sizzling July afternoon. Ugh. I won't talk about the taste because it will cause me to have nightmares. Again. (Thanks Dave for your post which inspired me to mention it here.)

New Year's Eve was fun. Kevin and Lisa came (she's due mid-March), my sister and her husband stopped by for a while with their new puppy, and my brother-in-law, his wife, and their little almost-four-year-old. (Originally we planned on going to Keith and Lori's but Lori wasn't feeling well.)

Ok, enough for now. I hope you all had a joyous Holiday Season!


-- C.