The Rumors of my Death have been Greatly Exaggerated

Sorry for the long snap before posts. Over the holiday weekend, I caught some type of nasty sinus infection. Corbin had it first in the form of an ear infection. Jenn got him to the doctor and within a couple of days on meds he was back in good shape. I wasn't so lucky. I picked it up on Saturday. It got worse through Sunday. Monday I went golfing with my family, and added a sunburn to my misery. Tuesday we went to the zoo, which was a blast, but didn't help my cold or my sunburn. So my first day of work at Integral was a real struggle on Wednesday. Fortunately, I'm now starting to feel like I'm coming out of it. I'm not 100% back to good health, but at least I can breath through my nose again. I'll get some updates on here about the stuff I didn't have the energy to write about last week.

Oil Change

I'm getting better at changing the oil on the cars. I changed out both the Alero and the Bravada today. It would have gone a lot smoother if I had done a little pre-planning, but I got both cars done. Sure, I could have taken them to an oil change place and had them both done in under an hour for $40, but why choose the path of least resistance? I was all set to get to work around 1pm when I realized that I didn't have oil filters. So I made a quick run to Pep Boys to get the filters. I also decided to pick up air filters for both cars, as both had been running for about 18,000 miles without a change. Two air filters, two oil filters, and a 3-pack of air fresheners and I was on my way home, $45 poorer.

When I got home, all the kids in the neighborhood volunteered to help me out. Corbin wanted to know why his daddy was crawling under the car. With all that help, I was successful in both removing the oil plug without dropping it, and removing the oil filter without dropping that either. Here is where the pre-planning flaw comes in again though. The Bravada took 8 quarts of oil to fill up. That was all I had leftover from my last effort. That meant another trip to Pep Boys so for 5 quarts of oil for the Alero. As I was getting into my car, I noticed that the back tires were looking really low. I got out the air gauge and saw that the rear driver's side tire was down to just 5psi. I detoured over to Tire Barn, and they said that the bead between the tire and the rim had corroded and was leaking air. They fixed it and filled up the tire, free of charge. I love that place! I bought a set of tires from them a while back, and they've really taken care of me.

Back home with five quarts and another bottle of windshield wiper fluid and I took care of the Alero. Here again, I'm bitten by the pre-planning thing. After changing out all of the oil, I had a bunch of spent oil and no place to put it. I had stored 12 quarts of spent oil from the last set of changes in barrel through the winter, intending to put it in milk jugs for return to a oil change shop for recycling. We had put away some milk jugs, but those were no where to be found. The barrel doesn't have a lid, so taking that wasn't an option. I decided to pour the spent oil back into the original containers. Using those and an empty windshield wiper fluid bottle, I managed to get it all stored. Success!

Another task I took on was to router the cabling for the Sirius receiver through the car. I pulled up the plastic runners by the passenger door and hid the antenna cable through there. I also discovered an extra lighter plug on the passenger side, and used that to keep the Sirius power cord from dangling down the center console. There are still some things I would like to fix, but this was a good day. I just need to get the hazard light button re-mounted (it fell back into the dash) and replace the low water coolant level detector (regardless of how much coolant is in the tank, the idiot light always blinks) and the car will be back to mint condition.

New King of the Castle

For the past couple of years, I have held the title of "King of the Castle" at Flexware. I earned the title by eating a record number of White Castle burgers, also known as Slyders, in a single sitting. In a one hour period, I ate 17 sandwiches. It was a mixed lot of chicken, chicken with cheese, fish, hamburgers, and cheeseburgers, but 17 was the record. This beat the previous record held by my coworker Josh, who had choked down 15 of the little steamy burgers in his last record attempt. The record stood at 17, hovering out there for anyone to try for it.

Now that I am about to leave Flexware, I was afraid that the title might be permanently retired. I wasn't about to let that happen. So today I went to the castle to feed the crave. I picked up three crave cases, one plain, one with cheese, and one with cheese but no pickles. A crave case holds 30 Slyders, so I was packing 90 sandwiches when I strolled back into the office. I was sort of debating whether to get two or three cases, and it was a good choice to go for the three.

Everyone was sitting anxiously at the lunch table as I returned. Eyes lit up as the boxes of Slyders entered the room. I distributed the cases, and we began to dive in. I tried to act as a pace setter, and quickly downed my first five burgers. Josh laughed with a bit mirth, and continued his onslaught. Others at the table (Hack, Kevin, Jeff, Dwayne) made respectible efforts, but fell short of the goal. Others tentatively tried a couple of Slyders, some for the first time. They were with us in spirit at least. In the end, I decided to make a strategic stop at burger 11, recalling the incredible amount of pain I endured during my record night.

Josh, cheered on by the growing crowd, continued to pound down one White Castle after another. Asked if he was getting full he replied, "I'm not full, but I'm getting really tired of eating." The warrior pressed on, and at the end of the hour time slot had completed a new record of 20 White Castle burgers. Josh has my respect, and the new title of King of the Castle.

I Hate the Weed Eater

Sorry, this is a gripe post. I hate using the weed eater (aka string trimmer, edger, angry hornet....). I try to put it off as long as I can, which usually means I run it about once a month. When I do, it is always a pain. First, it takes a special fuel-oil mix that I can never remember the ratio for. So I usually make up a gallon and it will last all year. Of course, by the end of the year the fuel and oil are becoming sort of a slurry goo, which I know isn't good for the motor. Next, our trimmer is not the easiest thing to start. I'm starting to get down the order of incantantations and black magic spells necessary to start it. Usually, it involves some language not befitting young ears, and severe abuse of my arm and shoulder as I pull on the starter line. Everyone once in a while the starter line hitches on something and I feel like I just about ripped my arm off. And you can't just start it. Here are the steps as I've figured them out so far:

1. Insert ear plugs, and apply PPE (personal protective equipment)
   
2. Top off fuel
   
3. Prime fuel line with 3 to 5 pumps on the primer
   
4. Turn the choke completely off
   
5. Pull starter cord several times
   
6. Curse
   
7. Continue pulling starter cord until motor turns over a couple of times
   
8. Switch choke to middle position
   
9. Continue pulling starter cord
   
10. Curse louder, forgetting ear plugs are in and that everyone in the neighborhood can hear you
    
11. Continue pulling until motor starts
    
12. Flip choke to full-open position and hope it doesn't die and flood the motor
    

Approximately 70% of the time, this method works. The other 30%, the motor floods and I have to start all over. Grrr....

Of course, now you've just gotten started with the trimmer. Now begins the process of traversing the yard looking for stuff to clip. Usually the light post, mailbox, trees, house perimeter, and fence are on the list. The fence is the worst part. If I get too close, I tear up the fence. Not close enough, and it looks like I didn't trim. All the while the trimmer is spraying very small, very hard bits of tundra in every direction. Inevitably, either the spool of string runs out or gets jammed, which requires shutting down the trimmer, fixing the problems, and repeating steps 1 through 11 above.

Once I've finished with the trimmer, I have a fine coating of grass from head to toe. My hands are always completely shot at this point due to all of the vibration from the trimmer. The reason that this comes up today is that I ran the trimmer yesterday, and after two full showers I'm still finding clippings. My eyes are the worst part. I wear my glasses while I trim, but it doesn't keep everything from getting in. I found a nearly inch long blade of grass in my eye one time. Fortunately, no damage done.

Anyway, I think that helped to vent my frustration with the trimmer.

High Score

I'm pretty proud of this high score. I was given many gifts throughout life: great family, a good set of brains, a healthy body.... but rhythm was never one of those gifts. Donkey Konga is a game all about rhythm, and this is my high score playing on the medium difficulty level on a very hard song (7 out of 8 bananas on the difficulty scale). I love electronic music, and I'm a big Crystal Method fan, so maybe I had a little bit of an advantage on this one.

Donkey Konga is fun in so many ways, it is really hard to explain. First, it is fun to try and get the beats down, because when I started I felt like I was just smacking at the bongos. Jenn and I had a good time laughing at ourselves and how bad we were to start. It is also fun to challenge yourself on some of the songs, just to see if you can keep up. Another way it is fun is when you get into the groove of one of the songs and you don't really have to concentrate on hitting the right note... it just sort of happens. Ahhhh... the zen of Donkey Konga.....

Okay, it's 2am and I've been playing for over 4 hours.... time to get some shut eye.

Game Finished - Donkey Kong Jungle Beat

Donkey Kong Jungle Beat is the game that came with my second set of bongos for the GameCube. It is a fairly simple game where you tap the left drum to run left, tap the right drum to run right, tap both drums to jump, and clap to perform an action. The game is fast paced, but even though there is a lot going on on-screen, there isn't much to the game. All you have to do is beat the heck out of the drums and clap like a mad-man and you'll get through just fine. Each level is made up of three scenes: two platform action scenes and a final boss fight. This was the game that was on display at Fry's that enticed us to get the drums in the first place. The game is so easy to pickup and play that anyone could have a good time beating on the drum. It's great stress relief too!

I played for a couple of hours tonight and managed to beat the game. Once you figure out the basics, it isn't too difficult to play through. Even though it was easy to beat, it was a lot of fun. Anyone out there who has a GameCube would probably enjoy this game.

Oh, and the picture is of my score after beating the final boss

Job Change

Friday I made a major change. I submitted my two-week notice at Flexware. Flexware has been a great employer for me for nearly five years, but the time has come to move on. I am headed down the road a ways to Integral Technologies. I have high hopes that this is going to be an excellent career move for me. Integral was recently acquired through its parent company by Schneider Electric. Schneider is looking to use Integral as a way to grow revenue quickly, and is infusing the business with an incredible amount of money. Integral plans to grow through both new product offerings and acquisitions of other businesses. I'm hoping that I can get to know integral and within a couple of years put my MBA learning to good use in assisting with those acquisitions and new product developments.

I'm making this move with a bit of a heavy heart. Flexware was a great employer, and I made some incredible bonds with the folks there. It was a really difficult decision to make. I was comfortable at Flexware. I probably could have continued to work there for the rest of my life, collecting a check every other week and putting in my hours. There is something inside me that demands that I go after that carrot though. So a couple of months ago I started looking at the jobs that were out there. I made it to the final interview stage for the Director of IT position at SaveItNow!, but was turned down in the end for lack of executive management experience. I received an offer from a contract operation here in Fishers, but contracting is not at all what I'm looking for, so I turned that down. I also reached the final interview stage with Radian Research in Lafayette. I was well on my way to receiving an offer letter from them, but Jenn and I decided that we really like it here in Fishers, and we wanted to stay. In addition to that, it didn't seem that they could offer me any more than Flexware already did, other than a title upgrade to Senior PC Software Architect. So I turned that opportunity down.

I was really excited when I learned about the opportunity with Integral though. The company deals with subjects that I find very interesting: security, access control, automation, video storage and playback. That the company was local and going through a big growth spurt was just icing on the cake. I had a phone interview on Thursday, face-to-face interviews the next Tuesday, and an offer letter on Thursday. I feel really fortunate that I was able to find everything I was looking for right here in Fishers.

So to my Flexware friends - I'm going to miss you all a lot. I'm still in the area though, and I'll be sure to stop in from time to time to say hi. I wish you all the very best, and I know that you will be very successful in the future. You have too many good people not to be.

Game of the Moment : Donkey Konga 2

There is a new addiction in our house, and it is Donkey Konga 2. For our anniversary, Jenn gave me a "coupon" for anything I wanted at Fry's (within reason), and she said I couldn't justify it. That meant it had to be something totally for fun. We went in a couple of weeks ago to browse around, and we walked by the DanceDanceRevolution (DDR) kiosk. DDR is a rhythm game where you try to dance to the beat, and the game cues you to what you should do. There is mat on the floor with spaces to jump on, like in twister, and you get high scores based on how in rhythm you are, and if you hit the right spot. I had always wanted to try one of these, and thought it would make a great exercise program. Anything that mixes video games with exercise is going to be a surefire hit with me.

I sucked at it! Of course, it was my first time, but I was really bad. It didn't help that one of my coworkers happened by with his camera phone at the same time. I got a little gunshy at that point. Fortunately, right next door to the DDR setup was a Donkey Kong Jungle Beat game setup. This is a GameCube game where you play a set of bongos and Donkey Kong does things on the screen. Corbin took to it right away, and Jenn and I both thought it was pretty neat. It was also much less than a DDR setup, as I already have the Nintendo, and the Bongos run $50 with a game, or $30 without. To get setup to play DDR I would need to buy an XBOX or a Playstation 2, dancepads, and a game. That was going to run a minimum of $300. I knew I had a major paper coming up, though, and decided not to get anything to make sure I could study.

My willpower ran out on Friday. Jenn called me at work and said she was hungry for Chinese. She also dropped the hint that Fry's was on the way. That was all it took for me. I dropped in the Fry's, picked up two sets of bongos with the Donkey Kong Jungle Beat and Donka Konga 2 games. It is a BLAST! Jenn and I played Donkey Konga 2 for a little over an hour tonight. It is so much fun. We can play with or against each other. The point is to hit the bongos in rhythm with the music. The screen cues where you should hit the right bongo, left bongo, both, or clap. There are easy songs, with a slow tempo and few notes, and tough songs with a fast tempo and lots of notes. It is soooo much fun. The only downside is that our hands were getting pretty sore from beating on the drums.

There is another Donkey Konga game with other songs if we get through this one. Nintendo also has a Donkey Konga 3 in the works. And who knows, if Jenn and I really enjoy these rhythm games, maybe at some point we'll splurge and get the DDR setup. It was so much fun to sit in the basement and play video games with Jenn. I'm glad we've found a game that we can both enjoy together!

PostSecret

Have you ever had a secret that you couldn't confide in anyone, but wished you were brave enough to tell the world? PostSecret is a very cool blog for just that. It is full of postcards that people have written their secret on, and mailed in. Some are hopeful, some are funny, some are sad. It is kind of fun to read through them and see which you identify with.

Church and State

This is so sad that I don't even know where to begin. If you click on the story, you can watch a news video about a church that excommunicated all members that were known to have voted for Kerry in the last election. During the last election, several folks made a point that, if you support your church (Christians), then you MUST support George Bush. I took serious issue with that. After all, Jesus even said "give to Caesar what is Caesar's, and give to God what is God's". Most of the time that phrase is used in reference to taxes, but I think it is equally applicable to seperation of Church and State. I believe that one of the reasons the American Way works so well is that we have a healthy seperation of religion and politics. The pioneers who first settled this land were racing to escape persecution for practicing their system of beliefs. How sad is it that we've now come all the way back to where we started. Whether you are Democrat, Republican, Green Party, Libertarian, or whatever... I don't care! You are welcome at my church anytime. I'm okay with disagreeing on politics, and I don't feel that anyone's political standings should remove you from God's sight. It infuriates me that our politics and religion are getting so twisted up as to create this kind of lunacy. This is the kind of thinking that has led to the situation in the Middle East: theocratic systems where the political leaders whip their party into a frenzy and declare religious war on anyone who would oppose them. All of this, what I would call blasphemy, so that the leaders can keep their position of power. How very, truly sad that we seem to be nearing a precipice, where our politics and religion become so indiscernibly intertwined.

My hope is that this stops, and stops soon. We need to be able to not just tolerate those with a different opinion from our own, but celebrate our differences. There is so much to learn, so much opportunity to grow when we have a diverse environment with a variety of beliefs, backgrounds, cultures, and ideas. I'm not interested in a gray race, nor a monoculture of religion. I want variety.

Video Capture

I'm in the process of converting a bunch of our old VHS home movies to DVD. To capture video, I currently have the VCR output routed to the input jack on our Sony Handycam. The HandyCam is then connected via USB to a USB Hub, which is then connected to the PC. I'm using Nero Vision Express to capture the video from the HandyCam, and the HandyCam is doing the analog to digital conversion on the signal. The result has been less than I had hoped. The capture video is very grainy and choppy. I'm not sure if this is due to the capabilities of the HandyCam, speed issues with USB (I think I'm using USB 1.0), or of the software on my PC. In addition, the audio is out of sync with the video. What is really frustrating is that I can't do high speed dubbing, so it is only after waiting for the video to finish (anywhere from 1 to 2 hours) that I find out just how bad the capture was. I thought maybe the choppyness and syncing issues might be due to playing the video on my PC, but after burning to DVD, the issue remains.

My PC is a 2.4GHz Pentium 4 with 512 MB of DDR 266 memory. The hard drive has over 20GB free, and spins at 7200RPM. I don't run any other applications while capturing video, and the performance monitors show that, while the system is under a load, it isn't exceeding the limits of the PC. I'm fairly certain that my PC has the horsepower to do what I want, so I'm looking more at my method for capturing video. I watch the output from the VCR on a second monitor to verify that the VCR has quality output, and the image is bright and crisp, so I know the VCR is working well. The screen on the HandyCam also shows a nice, bright image with good quality resolution. But when I get to the PC, the image is dark, grainy, choppy, and the audio is often out of sync. I'm fairly certain that I either need to upgrade to a firewire connection to the HandyCam, or I need to invest in a dedicated video capture card and go straight from the VCR to the PC.

Anyone out there in webland have experience with doing this? Any tips on what a good next step might be, or good equipment for video capture?

Huzzah - WebCam is Back

Many, many thanks to Absenth who was gracious enough to offer me some account space to host my webcam. I've been really impressed lately with the connective power of blogs and websites in general. I never really thought anyone but family would be reading this blog, or the one that we do for the family. Now I've seen a offer to host the webcam image, and an offer for a free meal... AWESOME! In addition to that, two people have come in to play volleyball at FUMC over the past couple of months, and learned of our play through the yahoo group that I put together. Thanks to everyone who reads these, and thanks for all of the responses and help! I know it isn't always riveting reading, but I'll try to keep it at least mildly interesting.

Best Round Ever

Sunday morning I got a call from my dad wondering if I would be able to get out and play some golf. My attitude about playing golf this year has done a 180 degree turn from last year: I'm ready to play! We teed off at Wildcat Creek, and the weather was unbelievable. The wind was constantly blowing at what felt like 35 miles per hour, and the sun rarely peeked out to warm us up. Our group was bundled up in several layers of clothes, and we still felt the bite of the chill. We got a brief repreive from the wind once we got into the wooded areas, but it never truly let up throughout the round.

Regardless of the weather, something was working for me out there. I shot a 97 for the round, the best round I've ever had! I can't remember ever breaking 100 before (unless you count Britton Golf Course, which isn't really a full length course). For the front nine I shot a 47, and a 50 on the back nine. Wildcat Creek is no easy course, either, so this came as a big shock to me after my first round of the season came in at 116.

I guess now the bar is set a little higher. I suppose the only thing to do is get out there and practice more!

Busted

Well, so much for the "What I'm doing right now" picture... at least until I figure out another solution. I use Insight Broadband cable modem service, and it is against the terms of service to host a web server or FTP server. I was using both to host the picture on the site, and to upload the latest update. Evidently they caught on, and I got a nice warning letter:

Insight Broadband - AUP Violation!



Please Do Not Respond to This Email -- If You Have Any Questions, Please Contact Your Local Insight Office.



Dear Insight Broadband Customer,



We are contacting you in regards to your Insight Broadband service. Our Network Operations Center (NOC) runs a test over our entire network on a regular basis to find computers setup to run as servers. Your computer has come back with ports open, indicating that it is running as a dedicated Internet server. Your computer must have these ports closed. Running a server is against the Insight Broadband Service Agreement (section 9).



Running a dedicated Internet server puts an unnecessary load on our network. Even if you think you are not using the server, you put yourself at risk to hackers and/or viruses, which could use the open ports to expose and control your computer. Once a server is circumvented, it can be used to hack into other servers in or outside our network.



If you are running a server-based OS, such as Windows XP Server or Linux, please keep in mind that these operating systems are designed for running dedicated Internet servers. As such, most of these OSs will open server ports on default, when the system is loaded.



The following is information about your account, and a list of open ports found on your machine:



Account #: ------

IP Address: -------

Open Ports:



Port 21 - Response: 220 Serv-U FTP Server v6.0 for WinSock ready...

Port 80 - Server: Apache/2.0.53 (Win32)



For more information on how to disable these open ports on your machine, you will need to contact your tech support for your computer. If you have installed the operating system on your own, you should contact the support line for your OS.



This is an important issue and needs immediate action in order to ensure no interruption to your Insight Broadband service.



If you are part of a business and need to run a dedicated server on our network, you may contact our business sales department to inquire about our Business Choice accounts.



As always, if you have any questions about this or any other aspect of you service, please call your local Insight office. Thank you very much for your cooperation.



Thank You,



Insight Broadband Technical Services





Please Do Not Respond to This Email -- If You Have Any Questions, Please Contact Your Local Insight Office.



Click here to go to InsightBB.comClick here to go to Insight-com.com



This announcement was sent to you by Insight Communications. If you have any questions, you may contact us at: 4701 Commerce Crossings Drive, Louisville, KY 40229, Attn:Technical Support Group.

So I shut down the ports and will have to quit with the picture until I can find another, clever way to get it on there. Oh well, life goes on....

I'm Certifiable!

This morning I took the Microsoft Certification Exam 70-320 : XML Web Services and .NET Remoting in Microsoft Visual C#. I passed with flying colors, which means that I'm now not only certified in that subject, but I've passed the requisite exams to be a Microsoft Certified Application Developer (MCAD). In the MS developer track, you are a Microsoft Certified Professional (MCP) after passing any exam. I've been an MCP for several years, but I've not put the effort forth to get through the exams to get my next certification level. Until a couple of years ago, the hurdle was pretty high. To reach Microsoft Certified Solution Developer (MCSD) status, you had to pass five exams. Microsoft introduced the MCAD certification as a mid-step between the two. It was just the motivation I needed. That, and the fact that we have a state grant at Flexware to get reimbursed for any certifications we get.

So now I have two more exams to pass to get my MCSD. I need the 70-300 Solution Architectures exam, and an elective. I'll likely take the SQL Server exam as my elective. This latest exam was probably one of the hardest I've taken, and I've been putting it off for almost an entire year. I'm glad it is finally over and I can move on to the next one.

Book: 2 , Spiders: 0

Jenn was cleaning out the basement closet today, and came across some more of our eight-legged housemates. Two were already dead, but one big one was still limping along. I grabbed the trusty battle axe, aka a thick book, and ventured in. A couple of quick mashes with the book, and our buddy was curled up. Jenn broke out the handy-vac and sent him on his way. I haven't seen any of the creepy crawlies scooting across the floor since our first run in. I guess they got the message.

Zelda Music == Tchakovsky?

I was sitting here listening to my Sirius radio. That's when I noticed something. I'm listening to Sirius Pops, the classical pops station. The current track is Swan Lake : Dance of the Swan Queen. As I'm listening, this sounds a whole lot like some of the theme music to the Zelda series fo video games on the Nintendo. Have I played so many hours of video games that I'm starting to hallucinate and hear the music in other places, or did the game producer crib the music from Tchaikovsky?

Skype

There is a new telephone service that has been getting a lot of attention recently. This one is a little different though: you use your internet connection to make calls. Skype is a tool developed by the same folks who brought you the Kazaa P2P file sharing service, only this time the focus is on voice rather than files. To be sure, internet voice chats are nothing new. NetMeeting has been around since 1996, allowing you to have voice chats over the web, and most instant messengers include some type of audio / video conferencing features. What sets Skype apart is the quality of the service, and rich set of features. First, Skype has focused on getting voice, and voice only, just right. Skype will work behind some of the toughest firewalls where most instant messenger apps are so fragile that a sneeze on the network shuts them down. The software and service is completely free for making PC to PC phone calls.

One of the features that really sets Skype apart is the SkypeOut service. For a little more than 2 cents a minute, you can use Skype to call justa bout any real phone (mobile or landline) anywhere in the world. There is no monthly subscription fee. Just buy SkypeOut credit like you would a calling card and go to town.

Of course, some folks aren't comfortable making calls from their PC. There is something intimate about having that handset next to your ear that you know that you are making a phone call, and not just talking at your PC. That's where the CyberPhone steps in. It looks like any other telephone handset, and plugs into a USB port on your PC. It works directly with Skype to allow you to place regular phone calls. If that isn't enough freedom for you, grab a handheld PC, such as a Dell Axim or any other Microsoft PocketPC handheld, and you can Skype over your WiFi network. A couple of my buddies at work have PocketPCs, and we tried out the Skype connection that way with great success. There is an element of coolness to knowing you can walk into any place with a open WiFi connection (public libraries, Starbucks, cafes, etc.) and start making free / cheap calls on your PocketPC.

I'm just dabbling with Skype right now, but if this service continues to grow like it has over the past six months, I would almost consider ditching our regular phone service for it. Skype offers a SkypeIn service in beta form now that allows regular landline and cellphone users to call your skype account. Service runs $40 for an entire year, which is about what most people pay per month for their local and long distance service. This is an interesting technology that I'll definitely be keeping tabs on.

Nintendo A Capella

By now you all know that I absolutely LOVE video games. When I ran across this video, I was just utterly amazed. A group of singers, I presume in a college club, perform several old school Nintendo theme songs a capella. It is really amazing. Give it a listen!

Day Light Savings Time

There has been quite a bit of political debate in Indiana recently concerning Day Light Savings Time (DST). Most of Indiana is not on DST. Instead, we are on Eastern Standard Time. The result? For a portion of the year, we are in the same time as New York, and for a portion of the year we are in the same time as Chicago. We never change our clocks, we just let 'em run.

Our governer (Mitch Daniels) is hell bent on changing that. When a recent call failed to get the necessary votes to pass the DST plan, Daniels got on the phone and badgered enough Republicans to change their mind. There was a re-vote, and this time it passed. I'm still not sure if the bill says we would go on Eastern or Central time, but it still has a ways to go before it can be enacted into law. Nevermind the fact that the US legislature has already told the state that they may not mandate a time zone to all of the counties.

Why go on DST? Ostensibly to allow for more daylight hours in the evening to be outside. That's the major reason. During the summer, the number of daylight hours increases. We end up with more daylight, both before normal work hours and afterwards. The idea is that, by moving our clocks forward an hour, we wake up earlier in the day and shift those morning daylight hours into the evening. In the fall, as the daylight hours wane, we would move our clocks back.

There are other arguments as well, most of which I put little stock in. Proponents claim that DST will be good for the Indiana economy. That's a pretty fluffy response to just about any bill before the state house. Proponents claim that a large amount of time and money is lost by businesses who must help people outside the state understand how Eastern Standard Time works. Of course, no one has ever presented any hard numbers on this, so it is really difficult to validate the claim. Another claim I saw recently was that, by switching, we could save 10,000 barrels of oil each year due to the decreased use of lighting in businesses. Nevermind that we use 100,000,000 barrels, that reduction would be a trivial 0.01% decrease in usage. Add to that the fact that, if we get home while it is still warm, we're likely to switch on our air conditioning. Air conditioning consumes a lot more electricity than lighting.

From those opposed to going on DST, I've heard people say "Just wake up earlier". The comeback to this one is, "But the businesses I work with won't be up at that hour." Either way, I don't think either argument has much merit. To me, this is a really trivial issue that I wish our legislature would just drop so they could address some of the more important issues. If it were up to me, I'd leave our time where it is now. I don't have to change my clocks, and I don't really have any need for extra daylight. In fact, if we switch to central daylight time, we won't even get the extra daylight benefit. Maybe I'm just a stick in the mud, or afraid of change, but I almost feel like our using standard time is something that sets Indiana apart, and I like that.

Fry's Electronics (aka Geek Heaven)

I don't have school tomorrow night, so today has been pretty stress free. This morning, Corbin and I got packed up and headed over to the grand opening sale at the new Fry's Electronics. It was awesome! I thought it was going to be another Best Buy knock-off, but it is so much more than that. It has all of your electronics store fare: PCs, movies, games, audio, video, etc. In addition to all of that, they also carry component parts and lab equipment. It sort of like a Radio Shack, a Best Buy, and a Barnes and Noble all rolled into one, and then pumped up on steroids. They had a wide selection of motherboards, Tektronix oscilliscopes, movies, games, and other great geek stuff.

I had avoided coming in earlier in the week because I knew I needed to control myself. Sometimes I go in a store like that and I just completely lose consciousness and come out with a very light wallet, and very little trunk space. Today I was on a mission. My mission was to get all of the equipment I would need to transfer VHS tapes to my PC, and then burn those tapes onto DVD. This is for a little project I'm doing to transfer all of my parents old home movies over to DVD before the tapes start to rot. They were caught in a flood last year, and we're not sure how long they will last. So in order to complete this project, I needed a couple of things:

• VCR
  
• DVD Burner
  
• DVD Media
  
• DVD Authoring Software
  
• Video Capture Board

Our old VCR bit the dust a couple of months ago, so I needed a replacement. I was looking to get a DVD/VCR combo so I could put it in the arcade cabinet and watch just about anything I wanted. I found a nice Panasonic model for a shade under $100. As I browsed through, I found a copy of Quicken WIllMaker Plus 2005. Jenn and I need to get a will put together, and the WillMaker software was marked down to $30, and with the $30 mail-in rebate, was effectively free. So then it was on to the DVD Burner. I found a Memorex multiple format DVD burner that was $89.99 with a $20 mail-in rebate. There are way too many recordable DVD formats, and this one seemed to support just about everything out on the market. In the same isle, there was a pile of DVD-R media. A 50-pack of blank DVD-R media was marked down to $12, and included a $12 mail-in rebate, so that was another freebie I tossed in the cart. The burner included the DVD authoring software, so I was able to skip that one. Then it was on to the video capture equipment.

This is where my plan hit a little snag. Corbin and I had been in the store for an hour and a half at this point, and we had completely exhausted his supply of snacks and drinks. He was cranky, and we think he is cutting some molars, so he was in an awful mood. I hadn't done my homework on video capture boards, so I needed some type to look into the different models. With Corbin throwing a fit, my patience was wearing out. I decided to high tail it out of the store while I still could. I tossed a couple of DVD cases into the cart on my way to the register. Total Damages: $254.26. Total Rebates: $62.00.

Get My Geek On

Every once in a while, I get bitten by the bug to do some very geeky project. A couple of years ago, that project was to build an arcade cabinet. This week, I got the bug again, although to a much lesser degree. I've been trying to clear out all of the unnecessary stuff from my desk at work. I have piles of stuff I never use, and it clutters up the limited space I have. I had three PCs sitting under the desk that were switched off 90% of the time, and I had a three piece speaker set with a giant subwoofer that I never used. I always wear my headphones, and never use the speakers, but I plug my headphones into the speakers. It was time for all of this stuff to go. After moving my speakers out, I plugged my headphones directly into the line-out jack on my Sirius radio. That's when I discovered my problem. The radio did not have a volume control. It was intended to be plugged into a stereo receiver, and the receiver would supply volume control. I was faced with a decision: spend $30 or more on a new set of headphones that had a built in volume control, or spend $15 to build my own volume knob. I knew that a volume know is just a variable resistor (Potentiometer) in line with the signal, and I had used them before in lab for class. I headed down to the radio shack and picked up a hobby kit, a nice shiny knob, and a good two channel potentiometer. Potentiometers are pretty easy to use. In most cases, there are three solder points. You wire ground to one of the points, your source signal to the other, and the output to the one in the middle. As you dial the potentiometer back and forth, the resistance applied between the source signal and the output changes, and in effect changes the volume on the headphones. My potentiometer had two channels, one for the left speaker and one for the right. It was a simple matter to get the wiring done, and the dremel did nice work of poking holes in the sides of the hobby kit. And now, I have a fully functional volume knob! Now that I'm done with this little project, I do have one thing I would have changed. I used a 100K Ohm potentiometer. That's a lot of resistance. I think my headphones only provide a 10K Ohm load, if that. The result is that I have to dial the "volume" on the potentiometer way up to hear anything, and once I do hear something, the knob is very sensitive to changes. A little to the right, and it gets very loud. A little to the left, and it goes silent. It works for what I need, but if I were to do it again, I'd get a much weaker potentiometer. This was a fun little project that didn't cost a lot of money, and it let me geek out for a little bit.

The knob and potentiometer, pre-assembly

Finished Volume Control

Veneer-ial News

I had a regular tooth cleaning on Monday. A couple of years ago, I broke off one of my teeth in the middle of the night. Not sure how I did it, but I ended up with a crown. About six months ago, the doc was probing around during a cleaning and found that a large gap had opened up between the crowned tooth and the gums. This is usually a sign of early gum disease. They made to applications of antibiotic in the last six months, and the checkup on Monday showed great progress. The gap had closed back down to a healthy level, and they gave me a rubber pick to help massage the gums and get them back to full health. During the same visit, he noticed that one of my other teeth needed some work. I had veneers placed on two of my teeth when I was younger because they were so much smaller than my other teeth. The dental assistant called them pygmy teeth. The tooth I broke off was one of the teeth that had a veneer, and now the other veneer was showing some decay. At the top of the tooth near the gumline, you could see a thin grey line. The dentist said this was normal wear, and that veneers usually last between 5 and 15 years, depending on care. I think I've had mine for at least 15 years.

So this morning, I went back to the dentist and he cut off the old veneer and applied a new, temporary one. In two weeks I will get a new permanent veneer. During the whole process, I did some research on veneers. Although the dentist didn't mention it, I had three options for cosmetic repair to the tooth. The option that I have is the veneer, which is a porcelain shell that is cemented around the existing tooth. My current veneer work is going to run $831, and the websites I read said that the cost can run from $500-$1300 depending on which tooth needs the veneer and where you live. Another option is bonding, which is very inexpensive, but only lasts up to five years, and is meant for minor filling in of chips. Finally, I could have had the tooth ground down and a true crown installed. That would cost about the same, and last just as long, but the procedure is a lot more painful as it requires a root canal. I'll stick with the veneer.

Flashback 1997 - Jumper

Flashback 1997 - Nero (the ULTIMATE dog)

Flashback 1997 - Mom

Flashback 1997 - Travis (the cheesehead years, evidently)

Flashback 1997 - Dad

Old Photos

With my 10 year class reunion coming up, I've been sort of awash with nostalgia. The last time we were up in Kokomo, I grabbed a bunch of my parents old home movies. It was hilarious to watch videos of the family at Christmas and Thanksgiving back in 1989. Everyone looked so different! Tonight, I was going through some old files and stuff that I had backed up, when I found the pictures from the website I had while I was at Purdue. I found this picture of Denise and I back at our old house. I have no idea how old this photo is, but it was a real throwback. It's been a really long time since I've seen or talked with Denise, and I feel pretty bad about that. We were best buddies all through high school, but life kind of got to us and we haven't kept in touch like we should.

I've found a bunch of other great pictures as well. As I get time, I'll post them here.

St. Louis

Last week I ws in St. Louis for the Gathering of the Games conference on Open Book Managment, The Great Game of Business, and Employee Stock Ownership Plans. We had a good time at the conference, and were very well taken care of. Some of the seminars provided some really useful and interesting information, while others were sort of duds. I won't bore you with all of the details of the trip, but we did get a chance to walk down to the Arch. Our hotel was right downtown, only a few blocks from the Arch. Thursday evening after the conference we walked over. Unfortunately, by the time we arrived they were sold out of tickets, but we did get to poke around for a bit. Later that evening, we found an Irish bar to have dinner and relax. We figured it would be packed, seeing as how it was St. Patrick's Day and all. It was dead! There were people in the bar, but we expected a crowd. Maybe we were out too early (we were back at the hotel by 10pm), or maybe it just wasn't the most happenin' Irish pub in town. Either way, we played on the shuffleboard table, and got in a couple of games of pool. It was a fun trip, and a nice break from the usual work-week.

An interesting perspective

The Arch

St. Louis Crew

Book Review : 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership

I recently finished John C. Maxwell's "21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership : Follow Them and People Will Follow You". This book was assigned reading for our Organizational Development class. The book is structured as 21 chapters, one for each law, and a concluding chapter, as well as opening remarks by John Maxwell and Zig Ziglar. The laws are:

1. The Law of the Lid
   
   1. Leadership Ability determines a person's level of effectiveness.
   
   
2. The Law of Influence


1. The Management Myth


2. The Entrepreneur Myth


3. The Knowledge Myth


4. The Pioneer Myth


5. The Position Myth


3. The Law of Process


1. Phase 1 - I don't know what I don't know


2. Phase 2 - I know what I don't know


3. Phase 3 - I grow and know and it starts to show


4. Phase 4 - I simply go because of what I know


4. The Law of Navigation


1. Set a goal


2. Create a plan to reach the goal


5. The Law of E.F. Hutton


1. Real leaders are not always the named leaders


2. What Defines a Real Leader?


1. Character - Who they are


2. Relationships - Who they know


3. Knowledge - What they know


4. Intuition - What they fell


5. Experience - Where they have been


6. Past Success - What they have done


7. Ability - What they can do


6. The Law of Solid Ground


1. Build Trust


2. Provide Support


7. The Law of Respect


8. The Law of Intuition


1. Those who naturally see it


2. Those who are nurtured to see it


3. Those who will never see it


9. The Law of Magnetism


1. Leaders attract people like themselves


10. The Law of Connection


1. People don't care how much you know until they know how much you care


11. The Law of the Inner Circle


1. Your success is only limited by your ability to surround yourself with good people


1. Potential Value - Those who raise up themselves


2. Positive Value - Those who raise morale in the organization


3. Personal Value - Those who raise up the leader


4. Production Value - Those who raise up others


5. Proven Value - Those who raise up people, who raise up people


12. The Law of Empowerment


1. Only secure leaders give up power to others


13. The Law of Reproduction


1. It takes a leader to raise up a leader


14. The Law of Buy-In


1. Don't buy the leader or the message - Get a new leader


2. Buy the message, but not the leader - Get a new leader


3. Buy the leader, but not the message - Get a new message


4. Buy the leader and the message - Get behind the leader


15. The Law of Victory


1. Leaders find a way for the team to win


16. The Law of the Big Mo


1. Momentum is a Leader's Best Friend


2. You can't steer a ship that isn't moving


17. The Law of Priorities


1. What is Required


2. What gives the greatest Return


3. What gives the greatest Reward


18. The Law of Sacrifice


1. You've got to give up to go up


19. The Law of Timing


1. The wrong action at the wrong time leads to disaster


2. The right action at the wrong time brings resistance


3. The wrong action at the right time is a mistake


4. The right action at the right time leads to success


20. The Law of Explosive Growth


1. To add growth, lead followers


2. To multiply growth, lead leaders


21. The Law of Legacy


1. A leader's lasting value is measured by succession

The content of the book flushes out these laws with case studies from sports, business, and John Maxwell's life as a minister, businessman, leader, and speaker. What makes this book of note is that John Maxwell grew up in the Midwest, leading a church in Indiana for some time early in his career. As such, his background is similar to many of our own, and the perspective is one that is easy to empathize with. The book isn't breaking any new ground in leadership theory, but the lessons are tried and true. This is an easy book to read in a weekend, and while you probably won't come away with a new world perspective, it is nice to see the tenets of leadership framed up in stories that we can identifiy with. I would recommend this book to anyone who is interested in leadership. Because it is such a quick read, I would recommend that you simply check it out of the local library.

Weird

What is it with the French and taking weirdness to a whole new level.

Arachnophobia

I hate spiders. Anything with more than four legs is just creepy. Tonight, I had just finished up my homework, and I was going to put my books in my bag for the next day. I pick up my bag, and underneath is an enormous brown spider. It took everything I had not to throw my bag and scream like a little girl. I took a step back, grabbed the heaviest book I could find (no problem with all of my nerdy technical books around. I book on programming for Windows NT and Windows 95 should do quite nicely). I gave the book a little toss, and to my chagrin I see the abomination squirt out to the side, narrowly avoiding a textual death. Fortunately for me, he froze a couple inches from the book. I slowly lifted it again, and with much better aim this time succeeded in ceasing the little abomination's life. Score: Book 1 / Spider 0.

Do you get these spiders in your house? Someone once told me they were called wolf spiders, but I think it is just a common house spider. Either way, I'm going to kill them on sight. I've seen them range in size from half an inch across to fully almost two-inches. They are brown, and look hairy. They never seem to have a web, and they are frighteningly fast across the carpet when they get spooked. I see them down in the basement from time to time. I've found several dead already, which suits me just fine, but I'm kind of curious why they have chosen my house as their final resting place.

So now I'm totally freaked out, thinking every little brush against my leg is one of those eight-legged cretins scurrying past. I guess my only consolation is that they don't seem to spin webs or climb very well, so I don't have to worry about one of the big ones dropping in on me from the ceiling. I've had that happen with smaller spiders in the past while I'm playing a video game in the dark. I'm sure that Jenn is going to catch me on film sometime, flailing around like sissy, scared to death that I might have actually touched a spider.

Gathering of the Games

Today was the first day of the Gathering of the Games conference here in St. Louis. I've never been to St. Louis before, and I was surprised when I saw the arch from miles away. This first day has been pretty interesting. It took us about four hours to drive here, and then we headed to Friday's for lunch. We took a little break before our heading to the start of the speakers. Our first speaker was Scott Waddle, the commander of the US submarine that ran into a Japanese school ship. He was a very interesting speaker, and had a powerful message about doing the right thing, even when it means putting yourself into a bad light. I purchased a copy of his book and had it signed to Corbin. Next up I had a breakout session focused on Employee Stock Ownership. It was okay, but the conversation that it sparked with my co-workers later was awesome. We hit on a lot of topics that had been brewing in my mind for some time. It's always nice when you find out someone else has been thinking about the same things as you have. It was also fun to have a bunch of free drinks with my coworkers!

Tomorrow is more of the same, starting with a breakfast / networking session, followed by more keynote speakers and breakout sessions. Right now, I think this conference has been more valuable for the conversations that it sparked with my colleagues than for the content of the conference itself. Still, the ends justify the means. I'm looking forward to some of talks we have coming up to see if they spark any more interesting conversation.

Book Review - A Stake in the Outcome

It has been a while since my last book review. I just finished up "A Stake in the Outcome" by Jack Stack.

Overview

A Stake in the Outcome covers the topic of the effective use of company ownership by the employees as a method to promote optimization and innovation in the business. The foundation of the concept lies in the idea of getting employees to act and think like owners. By truly making employees owners, either through direct stock sale or ESOP programs, employees will be incited to learn the business game and begin making decisions that are healthy for the company. The book covers several stories relating how Jack Stack and his business, SRC, first got off the ground and through the lifetime of the business. Along the way, he discusses several of the benefits and potential pitfalls of employee ownership, and discusses the steps that SRC took to manage those issues.

My Thoughts

It took me a long time to read this book. The book is only 266 pages in length, and I started in January. I had several issues with this one though. I'll try to be fair.

Firstly, this book is built around the experiences of one man and one business: Jack Stack and SRC. Additional anecdotes are included, but by in large this is the story of how Jack Stack transformed a division of a larger corporation into a startup company, and built that startup into a conglomerate of related businesses. As such, the stories do not relate well to the environment at my work. At SRC, Jack Stack was surrounded by little motivated, little educated employees who were accustomed to a corporate method of doing business. Stack had a great deal of work ahead of him to get his people to stop focusing on doing the work in front of them, and start thinking about what is best for the company. My office, by contrast, is full of highly educated, highly motivated people who have not become dulled by the corporate experience. One of the most difficult tasks that Stack covers was his need to both motivate his people and educate them on how business works. Our staff have the education and reasoning power to appreciate basic business concepts. Our projects teams are small, and our relationships with our customers are intimate. Often times the salesperson, engineer, and customer service are all the same person. Our heirarchy is flat, and there are no divisions for political and beaurocratic in-fighting to take place in. Due to the disparity between the environments of my company and SRC, it is difficult to take Stack's stories and see how they apply to our business.

Secondly, I came to vehemently dislike Jack Stack as I read through this book. His attitude comes through loud and clear in both the way the book reads, and the attitude that he takes. In the very first chapter he makes clear that he puts no stock in formal education, and feels that the only true learning takes place through experience. He relates several stories about how SRC and his board coped with pitfalls of starting a business, and how some of the issues he would need to deal with as an owner seemed to hit him out of nowhere. As an MBA student, I feel compelled to defend my quest for this so-called "worthless" formal education. In several cases, problems he faced and took months to handle are discussed in a couple of chapters of the text books I've read for class. It would seem clear to me that if Stack had had the sense to at least investigate some type of formal education prior to setting out on this adventure, he would have benefitted greatly. I appreciate that experience is the greatest teacher of all, but Stack really put me off with this attitude that resonates throughout the book. It is part of the reason it took me so long to finish this one.

To be fair, there is some very good knowledge in this book that is applicable at work. Once I was able to put aside my dislike of the author and parse through the stories, there are some nuggets of experience that we can do well to take note of. Of those, I believe that Diversification is the most immediately applicable, and Succession Planning is something you can never plan too early for. Stack goes into great detail about how his business was overly reliant on a single customer, and when the customer pulled the plug it sent SRC into a tail-spin. We've been in that unfortunate position as well, with major customers providing a large percentage of our work, and then taking that work away.

The more I read of the book, the more I began to respect Jack Stack as a CEO. He has a great attitude and personality for the position. He is bull-headed, he loves change, and he is constantly challenging himself extend into new areas and improve the business. Add to this his phenomenal commitment to his people, and you have a great recipe for a corporate visionary. Unfortunately, these qualities do not lend themselves to being a good teacher. There are several cases in the book in which Stack makes a statement to the effect of "I've given you this incredible opportunity, why can't you see it for what it is?". The greatest teachers are able to get their students to discover new things on their own, and guide the process of learning. Stack, on the other hand, rams it down his students throats. It makes it very difficult to read the book and come away with an "aha, now I understand" feeling.

Conclusion

Although Stack is clearly an incredible corporate leader, it is difficult to gain an appreciation of the benefits to be gained through an employee ownership program by reading this book. The scenario at SRC is so different from the one at my work that it is difficult to empathize and learn from the stories. Our staff are highly educated, and able to quickly grasp business concepts. I feel that there are better texts available on this subject that would be more effective.

Of course, this is just one opinion. I would appreciate any feedback from other folks that have read this one.

Trash Troubles

This past week has turned into a wrestling match with the trash company. Every once in a while, our home owners' association distributes a pamphlet with updates on the community. In the latest one, there was a blurb that mentioned if you were using Republic Waste Services and were paying over $34.50 each quarter, to give them a call and ask for the HOA rate. Our rate had risen from a nice $32.50 at the beginning of 2004, to the latest bill which rang in at over $40. So I gave them a call. It turns out, our HOA never negotiated a rate with Republic. The operator on the phone said that several people had called, and they were going to meet on it later in the week to decide what to do. In the meantime, I had a talk with my buddy Anthony, who also used Republic's service. I was paying a rate equivalent to $13.00 per month, plus fuel surchages. Anthony was paying $17.00 per month! He was getting the same service, and lived only a couple houses down the street, yet his bill was over $10 higher than ours.

Today, I got a call back from Stacey at Republic. She let said that they had decided to offer me a rate of $12.00 / month plus a $0.46 fuel surchage per month if I would sign a 3-year contract. I asked about the terms of the contract, and they would only guarantee my rate for the first year. That sounded awful risky to me, especially with the history of Republic raising their rates over the last year. I also discovered that Republic was doing the commercial trash pick-up for office, and had jerked us around quite a bit with missed pick-ups and overcharges. All of these added up and prompted me to start calling around to see what else I could get.

I found four service providers that performed residential trash pick-up service in my area, with a Friday pick-up day (required by the HOA). Here is the breakdown of rates:

Company	Normal Rate	Fuel Surcharge	Tote Rental	Notes
Best Way	$13.25	N/a	N/a	2 totes included in normal price.
Rays	$12.00	$0.12	$3.00
Republic	$12.00	$0.46	N/a	3-year contract required
Republic	$17.00	$0.46	N/a	Rate without Contract
Waste Managment	$16.40	$0.30-$1.00	$2.00	Fuel surcharge based on average cost of diesel
All rates are monthly

As you can see, there were quite a few options out there. Rays had the best offer, although we would need to either rent a tote, buy one, or go without. Best Way was offering something slightly better than what my current arrangement is with Republic. Republic's contractual offer really spooks me, and I don't trust them, so we'll likely make the switch to someone else. How Waste Management came to their pricing confuses me, as it isn't really competitive with the other folks (unless you consider the "standard" rate from Republic at $17.00). Why do all utility services have to turn into a haggling hassle like this?

Another Game Down

I finally beat Neverwinter Nights! I've had this game for well over a year, and I finally finished it up. It's a fun game, and I can see how it is really appealing to Role Playing Game (RPG) fans. You can customize the character you play in just about any way you can imagine. In fact, there are so many possibilities that it is almost a drawback to the game. There were so many options and choices at every turn of the game that I always felt like I might not be making the best choice. Towards the end I decided to forget about playing for the perfect character and just try to hack and slash through the rest of the game. This turned out to be a pretty good strategy, as I probably would have wasted a bunch of time worrying about increasing my saving throws when all I really needed was a tank as a NPC henchmen to soak up all the damage while I mopped up the stragglers. Yes, I realize I'm just talking jibberish now. In any case, once I adopted the hack and slash strategy, the last chapter of the game went by pretty quickly. I doubt I'll get any of the expansion packs for the game, but I definitely got a lot of play value out of this game. I'm sure I put more than a reasonable number of hours into completing this game. Now its on to the next one! Hmm... should it be Zelda 2: A Link to the Past, Myst [I, II, or III], Fire Emblem, or Final Fantasy Tactics? How can I go wrong? :-P

Free Lunch Friday

Today has bee THE day for free treats at work. My financial advisor, Jeff Hodges of American Express Financial Advisors, dropped into the office to deliver a free lunch buffet from TGI Friday's. He had sesame chicken, beef and chicken fajitas, caesar salad, subs, and cheesecake. It was great!

Another Class?!?!?

Usually, Wednesday nights are a night that Jenn and I get to cuddle on the couch and read books together. It's not terribly exciting, but I really look forward to it each week. It is a quiet, comfortable time when we get to be together. So what did I do this Wednesday? I was in class! Again!!! Only this time, it was work related.

I'm currently working on a project to evaluate a Laboratory Information Management System (LIMS) for introduction at one of our customers. I'm developing a list of requirements that their labs have for features the LIMS must provide. I really don't have an extensive background in LIMS, but it is similar enough to Manufacturing Execution Systems (MES), which I am familiar with, that I am able to get the concepts and develop the list of requirements. We found out about a class at the IUPUI school fo Informatics that was focused on LIMS, and LabView (a major LIMS vendor) had sent one of their folks to speak at the class. We got permission from the professor, and I proctored that class for the evening. It ran from 5:45-8:45, and hour shorter than my Monday night class, but it still made for a long day. It was worth the trip though, as the speaker gave me his slides and also a copy of a sample requirements list that he had put together for when he went on sales calls.

I was really sad that I didn't get to spend the evening with Jenn like I had hoped, but I tried to make up for it by coming home early before the class to spend some time with her and Corbin. We got a chance to play and have some dinner before I had to leave. Still, Jenn was pretty burned out on Thursday, so it was a good thing that I didn't have another class scheduled that night.

New Class, New Instructor

This week is the start of my new course for my MBA program: Organizational Development. Economics is over, and I'm pretty certain that I got my A. I'll only know for sure when the grade card arrives, but based on all of my scores, I was pretty securely in the A range. The instructor for Org Dev is certainly unique character. He has a level of enthusiasm for teaching that I haven't seen before. It's borderline between being overly enthusiastic and highly entertaining. At some point during our first night of class he laughed, cried, shouted, whispered, glared, and smiled. He was all over the emotional map. He definitely keeps my attention throughout class. He claims that he will be a tough grader, which I have had yet to see consistently throughout this program. We'll see how this guy follows through on his promise.

Free Massage Day

Woohoo, free massage! Chiro-Spa of Fishers sent a masseuse to give free, 10 minute massages in our office. It was a nice break in the middle of the morning. The masseuse said she couldn't find any stress points, so I guess that means I'm pretty relaxed. This is the first time I've had a "professional" massage (Jenn gives me great massages from time to time, though), and it was pretty nice. I really expected the masseuse to go digging into my back muscles, but it was a lot more gentle than that. Each year I get Jenn a spa treatment at The Escape Day Spa for her birthday or Christmas. Maybe next time I get her one, I'll have to treat myself as well ;-)

Camera Memory

We have a 2-Megapixel digital camera that we like to use for all of our picture taking needs. Back when we got it, 2-Megapixel was a very nice camera, and it still is. In the high resolution mode, we can print out an 8x10 picture and it looks great. Unfortunately, memory for the camera was really expensive at the time, and we stuck with the original 8MB card. We can only fit 10 pictures on it in high-res mode. We've turned into real shutterbugs with Corbin, and 10 pictures is really limiting. Jenn asked me to check out a bigger card for the camera. I was very happy to see that prices have come way down. I just ordered a 128MB card from Computer-Memory-Store for $20. They carry a lot of flash, magnetic, and other memory devices. Now we'll be able to take 150 pictures at a time. I doubt we'll ever take that many in one outing, but it is nice to not worry about memory limits anymore.

Another One Down...

I promised myself that I wouldn't buy any new video games until I had gone through and completed all of the ones I already have. There are a handful of games down here in the basement that I've played up to a point, and then either got distracted, frustrated, or lost interest in for one reason or another. Tonight I put one of those games to bed. Metroid Prime 2 is one I received for Christmas, so it really hasn't had much time to collect dust. I received MP:2, and Paper Mario this holiday, and Paper Mario won out for my play time first. Once that was done, I switched over to MP:2. The game plays identically to the first Metroid Prime game, and so it was very easy to jump right in. For some reason, this one just didn't grab my attention like the first one did though. With the first one, I was amazed at what Nintendo had done wth the GameCube both in terms of graphics and gameplay. First person shooter type games are incredibly difficult to pull off without a mouse, but Metroid Prime did a great job with its targeting system. Metroid Prime 2 was just as good, but it wasn't better at anything over the first one. I suppose I sort of expected progress. Not that I was disappointed with the game, I loved playing it and really enjoyed it from start to finish.

I still have some others to finish up. I'm taking a business trip to St. Louis later this month, so I figure I can finish up Final Fantasy Tactics and Fire Emblem on the GameBoy during that trip. Until then, I'm pretty close to finishing Neverwinter Nights. I've had this one for a little over a year now. It is a really engrossing game. I would sit down to play for an hour and end up spending four or five. I think that is why I quit playing for a while, it was just too much of a commitment to sit down and play. I had to rebuild my laptop (re-install the OS, all software, etc.) over the weekend, so while some of the installs were running on the laptop I played NWN on our home PC. I really started to get into it again. I think I'm on the final chapter, so I'll make that my next game to complete.

Speaking of finishing things up, my MBA is getting close to the finish line. Last week was the final class for Advanced Mangerial Economics. I really got a lot out of that class. It was an eleven weeks course, one of the longer ones in the curriculum, and it provided a lot of good information on pricing, competition, and... well, economics. Today I'll be starting on Organizational Development. I had an Organizational Behavior course as part of my management minor at Purdue, and it was the biggest blow-off class I ever took. I'll be going into class with low expectations, so hopefully I'll get a pleasant surprise and learn something. This one is only six weeks, and then another six weeks for International Business. Once that one is over, my classwork is done and I begin work on my final paper. The final paper is sort of the equivalent of a thesis for the program, since a thesis is not required. I'm not really sure what they are looking for yet, but hopefully I'll learn more by the time classes finish up.

I'm also reading several books. I have three books for class and two for work. I'm about half-way through reading "A Stake in the Outcome" by Jack Stack for work. I really don't care for Jack, but the information in the book isn't all bad. The author has a really attitude about formal education. In short, he thinks it is worthless. He advocates getting a bunch of moderately educated folks in a room and using group think to guess at the correct course of action over formal education on the subject at hand. I take real issue with that approach. He also talks about the ideas of employee ownership programs, business mini-games, and tips for anyone running a business. Not all of it is bad, and some of the tips can be useful. However, I think that anyone who reads this as the gospel on how to run their business will be "entrepreneurially dangerous". At work, we have a term for folks we meet at manufacturing sites who have a base knowledge of computer systems but consider themselves experts. We call them "technically dangerous", because they have just enough technical knowledge to get themselves way in over their heads. I think Jack Stack's book would create a cadre of business folks that are equally entrepreneurially dangerous. One example that really got to me was when he spoke about a sales organization he formed. He spent page after page talking about how perfect his plan was for this sales organization. His plan was so perfect in fact, that they couldn't fail. The sales organization failed mightily though, and rather than look inward at the structure he created (which was the ultimate cause of failure) he instead blames the people he hired to fill the roles. That, and my previously mentioned comment about his stance on formally educated business people, really turn me off to his book. The conference I'm going to in St. Louis is put on by his organization, so hopefully some of the other folks he is associated with will improve my opinion of him and his work.

Aside from that book, I'm also reading "21 Irrefutible Laws of Leadership" by John C Maxwell. Maxwell worked as a minister here in Indiana for a time, and was in Indianapolis last year for a conference. The book isn't breaking any new ground in the leadership world, but it is always good to reinforce your knowledge on the subject. That one is for class, along with a text book and a set of example articles. Another book I'm half-way through is also for work: "Collaborative Manufacturing" by Michael McClellan. This one is fairly interesting, and it reminds me a lot of my marketing class. It deals with tightening up the supply chain by allowing more freedom of information. Suppliers, vendors, manufacturers, warehousers, and retailers all working together in a highly trusting collaborative environment. It is a nice idea, if a bit utopic, and presents a good case for unified standards in supply chain management systems.

Wow, this turned into a much longer post than I had expected. I sat down to toot my horn about beating Metroid Prime 2. Hope I didn't bore you too much!

Poker Party

Our friends Anthony and Karla threw a poker party this weekend. It was a blast! We got to meet some of their other friends whom we had only known through stories and blogsites so far. It was a really fun night. We thought we might have to leave early, as poor Corbin has had a stomach bug this week, and he wasn't feeling comfortable falling asleep in a new place. Fortunately, we were able to coax him to sleep a little after 8 and have some fun. At first, we thought we might play different games throughout the night, but we just played Texas Hold 'Em the entire time. I was fine with that, as I love playing Texas Hold 'Em. At the end of the night, it came down to Anthony and I with all of the chips between us. Anthony went all-in on a straight draw, and I called with a pair. He didn't make his straight, and I won the pot! Woohoo! That will certainly help pay for the Pedialyte that Corbin is drinking as he is on the road to recovery. No sooner had the game ended than Corbin woke up a little bit. The rest of the folks stuck around to play other games, and Jenn and I headed home with Corbin for the night. We had a great time, and now were are looking forward to the next time we can all get together. Maybe next month we can host the party.

A Geek Triumphant

Not content to simply redo the arcade, I installed a bunch of software on our home PC this week as well. I've been wanting to try a piece of software called Bugzilla, which is a open-source tool for tracking bugs in software. I thought that it might be a nice tool that we could use at work to help in tracking bugs in our projects. I wanted to try an install at home first before I ran it on a box at work, so I setup our home machine to run apache web server, MySQL database, ActivePerl, and CVSNT. I followed instructions on the Bugzilla site for installing on Windows (it works better under Linux, but I'm not going to mess with our home PC just yet). I had it up in one night, and I installed it on a PC at work today.

Once I was finished working on our home PC, I realized that I had a working web server, which meant that I could now serve web content from our home computer. So tonight I setup a free service to allow me to serve the webcam from our house. I'll be a little bit better about turning on my webcam at work now that the picture will actually update. I think serving web pages from my home machine might not fall in line with the terms of service for my ISP, but I won't be serving a lot of content. Anyway, I'm just excited that I got this to work!

Overdue Update

What a slacker I've been with this blog. I've gotta learn to post more often. A lot has been going on over the last week. I've been named project manager for a new project at work, which is exciting and stressful at the same time. I'm sure I can handle it, but my guts are churning a little bit anyway. To add flames to the fire, I have a final exam tomorrow night in Econ, as well as a final group paper and group presentation to do. The paper is ready, and our group met today to put the final touches on our presentation. Just before the meeting Jenn and I dropped into H.H. Gregg to get a new dishwasher. We found a fairly inexpensive Maytag model that was in stock and will be installed tomorrow. We're leaving all of the dishes on the counter to make a big test for the new washer :-)

Probably the most exciting part of the week was Corbin's birthday party. We had a bunch of our family in for a day to celebrate Corbin being a one-year-old. Time has really flown by, I can't believe our little boy is already one! He is so amazing. He can walk, babble, figure out things, and he is a pro at copy-catting anything I do. If I turn on the TV, he practices hitting that button to turn the TV on and off. If I use the remote or the keyboard, he is right there too. If I dunk a cookie in milk, he tries to push his food through the lid of the sippy cup. It is really fascinating the way he watches what we do, and then immediately tries to mimic it. His birthday party was a lot of fun, and we got to see a bunch of our family that we haven't had a chance to see over the last year. Corbin was on very good behavior, even without a nap! He did a great job of scarfing up some of his cake, and he tore through his presents. He got some pretty cool stuff too! A moose sleeping bag, a Weebles firetruck, a cool growth chart with his name on it, and a lot more. Thanks to everyone who came and celebrated with us!

I've also been playing throughout the week with reworking the PC that runs the arcade. As I mentioned in previous posts, I was dabbling with Suse Linux for a while in a virtual machine session. I decided to go ahead and take the plunge and reformatted the hard drive on the Arcade PC. I reinstalled the CD-ROM drive, installed the second video card, and installed the USB card. I also moved the case out of the cabinet so I could work with it more easily, as well as to hook it up to the KVM and new network router. The first time I loaded a new OS on the machine, I tried Mandrake Linux. It is currently the most popular distribution of Linux for its ease of use and nice features. It worked really well, but the Arcade PC is so old and crusty that it just couldn't handle all of the nice extra features of that distribution. So I started digging some more. I was going to load Beatrix Linux on there, but the PC BIOS does not support booting from the CD-ROM, and getting a boot floppy ready for Beatrix was going to be a real pain. Then I found Damn Small Linux. This version of linux is intended for business card CDs, which are really tiny CDs that look like business cards and can hold about 100MB of data. The whole distribution is less than 50MB, which means you can load it on most USB drives and boot from that. Not only is it small, but it doesn't need much memory or CPU speed either. That was perfect for the arcade PC, which is going on 10 years of age now. Over the years I had upgraded it to 96MB of memory, a 400MHz AMD-K6 CPU, and 4GB of hard drive space. Still, the front side bus on the PC is incredibly slow, and the whole thing just barely cranks along. Damn Small Linux was perfect for running such an tired old machine.

Even though Damn Small Linux (DSL) is intended to run from a bootable CD, the website described how to boot and install from a floppy disk as well. I got the install done (very quickly to my surprise) and was rolling within an hour. After getting DSL installed to the hard drive, I used the software install tool to find a version of MAME (the software used to run the Arcade games) and ZSNES (the super nintendo emulator). Now the arcade is back up and running and better than ever. I still need to tweak it so MAME can run full screen, but the ZSNES emulator works very well, and full screen too. An added bonus is the XMMS music system, which allows me to play streaming music from web radio stations. I'm sure I could have done that with the old Windows 98 install that the Arcade PC ran before, but XMMS came preinstalled on the DSL distribution.

So it's been a pretty busy week. Tomorrow we will get our new dishwasher and enjoy the wonders of modern technology again. I think my twiddling with the arcade PC is done for a while, except maybe to get MAME to run full-screen. I think that all that I can do now for that machine is to simply chuck it and get a faster PC to run the arcade. That will have to wait though, as there are other, higher priority items on our budget list right now. So I apologize for the long wait on this update. For now, I will retire to my La-Z-boy recliner with my bottle of Sam Adams Light in hand to play some Metroid Prime 2. Have a good night!

Dishwasher Troubles

Water intake valve

Fried Switch

Our Dishwasher went kablooey this weekend. We noticed it part way through the week. Dishes just weren't getting clean. It was barely noticeable at first, but by Friday it was obvious that something was wrong. When the cycle was finished we would open the door to find that the detergent had just spilled out of the cup instead of getting washed around during the cycle. We would start the cycle, and a couple of minutes later open the door to find the inside dry as a bone. No water was getting into the thing at all.

Jenn's dad is a pro at fixing things, so when he was here on Saturday we started taking it apart to find the problem. Jenn and I had noticed that the Heated Dry button wasn't working anymore. When we got behind the button, we found that the whole switch had arced and created a mess of melted plastic. We hoped that replacing the switch might fix the problem. We headed to Lowe's and got a replacement part. The switch worked now, but the water still wasn't coming in. We decided to let it go for the night and start work again the next day.

Sunday we took off the kick-plate and started poking around in the water works. Jenn's dad saw that the circuit had continuity all the way to the solenoid for the water intake valve. At that point, the circuit was dead. We popped the valve out to take a look, and there was no obvious damage. The screen looked clean, and the valve moved without a problem, so we had to assume that the switch wasn't working. I found a site to order a replacement, and it should be here by Wednesday. Hopefully that will do the trick and we will get away with $35 worth of repaired components rather than the $350 - $1000 expense of replacing the unit.

In with the New, Out with the Old

Our collection of computer equipment continues to slowly grow here at the house. About a week ago I was looking at the top of my desk at our networking equipment, and I started thinking. We had a cable modem, a Cable Modem Router, and a Wireless Access Point. I was thinking, "Surely I can somehow combine this equipment." And I did! I hopped on eBay and found a Netgear wireless router and 4-port switch that would do the job of the seperate router and access point I currently have. The price was right, and the new toy, I mean, piece of computing equipment vital to our network, arrived today.

Now that I have this handy little device, I don't really have any use for the other equipment. It is still in fine shape, and should work for anyone who needs it, so I decided to sell it on eBay. If you think you are in the market for something like this, just check out the listings:

• Linksys Router
  
• Netgear Wireless Access Point
  

If you win the auction, we might be able to work out some way for you to pick it up and avoid the shipping costs.

Taxes Suck!

I just finished filing our federal, state, and local income taxes for 2004. The process is such a pain. We got a pretty heft refund (Corbin was a huge benefit!), but it was still incredibly confusing to get filed. We had a lot of circumstances that muddied the water too. Jenn worked part of the year as a full-time employee, and part of the year as an independent contractor. As an independent contractor, we had to file the self employment forms. I have a health savings account through work, and evidently the IRS still isn't sure what forms they want you to file when you have one of those. It won't affect my return, as all of the contributions were from my employer and all of the disbursements were for qualified medical expenses, but it is still frustratingly difficult to understand how to fill out the various schedules and forms.

Starting this year, it is free to e-file your federal return. I chose to do mine through TurboTax. TurboTax was pretty good about walking me through the majority of the issues for my return, and getting all of the schedules properly filed. The only thing it didn't get quite right was the Health Savings Account, but I was able to go back and find that form later. The federal return was free, but I payed $19.95 to file the Indiana return. I could have filed the indiana return for free on the indiana site, but I've been sitting here for close to three hours answering tax questions. It was worth $20 not to have to do that again.

So we will hopefully find a nice refund deposit in our checking account soon. We can use that to fund Corbin's college fund for the year, and cushion our savings a bit more. I'm definitely going to have my exemptions increased at work though. I would much rather have a refund closer to zero dollars and be able to use that money throughout the year.

More Linux....

Boy, this week sure has flown by. We did a really good job on our international presentation on Monday night. Our group presented on Cuba. It is an economics course, and I learned some interesting things about Cuba's economy. They have a GDP per capita (a measure of productivity, roughly by person) of $2,900. Compare that to Americans who have a GDP of $37,000. Cuba is a pretty poor nation economically speaking. Still, they have a fairly good health care and education system. The literacy rate is above 96%, and average life expectancy is over 76 years. That is on par with or better than the US. Still, I wouldn't want to live there. Volleyball was a lot of fun on Tuesday. Wednesday nights, Jenn and I have gotten into the nice habit of curling up together on the couch to read books. Jenn is doing some fun reading, and I'm catching up on my reading for the leadership program at work. Thursday night we watched the new episodes of CSI and WIthout a Trace. We also watched The Amazing Race on Tuesday. We love those shows! I have had several meetings with customers this week, so I've been traveling a bit. I was in Connersville, Greenfield, Shelbyville, and Lafayette this week. Hopefully all of these visits will turn into purchase orders. I've also continued to dabble in some experimenting with Linux. I read a review of a live disc called Beatrix linux. It was rated as the easiest to use of all of the live disc versions. A live disc is a cd that you stick in your computer and it boots directly to the linux operating system. I have to admit, I was pretty impressed with this little CD. Little in a physical sense too, as I was able to burn it on a 250MB mini-disc. It booted up without any problems and I could browse the web, check e-mail, write a document, and chat using MSN and Yahoo right away. Pretty impressive. I still haven't had a chance to try out Mono or any of the development tools ( I took a break and played Metroid Prime 2 for an hour last night) but maybe I'll get a chance at that some late night this weekend. Anyway, this week has just flown by and I thought I would catch you all up.