scott

Fathers Day

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This fathers day I was supposed to have dinner with my parents and they would spend time with my sister Sunday morning. Like many plans in my family that setup changed at the last minute so I found myself at a backyard party my sister threw at her house. Flickr photo stream is here. As much as I don’t like the two hours plus trip to get to my sisters, I usually have a good time. Sunday was beautiful day. It was the first time I was at the house and able to use the pool.

It was a great day all around. How can you really complain when you sit around and eat, lie around in the pool play with the kids in the pool? When I wasn’t in the pool I kept cool by siting at the patio table and Zachary kept coming over with a watering bucket and wet my feet. For some reason he loved doing it, and it kept him busy for like 90 minutes.

The only down side really of visiting is that the drive home is usually horrible with tons of traffic on a Sunday night. Compound that on top of the fact that I am not a huge fan of sleeping over when there are tons of other people over. There just isn’t enough places to sleep comfortably. I will say that I do get in ample reading on NJT on the train ride out. Going home the ride sucks, but I would rather riding in the car with my parents if there are there than taking a train home and dealing with the limited sunday night schedule.

I still need to figure out what to get my dad for fathers day, and his birthday for that matter. He is now help, since he has no idea what he wants.

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Phone vs PDA Phone

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Yesterday I broke down and did a sort of impulse buy. I have been eying some mobile phone alternative to what I have that is not an iPhone. The Nokia E61i is just too dam slow, and the lack of a good email client and task management has put me over the edge with tolerating it. I will admit the E61i is still a great phone, but for me there are things that I will put up with and things I won’t. My issue is that the next real contender for a phone for me is the new iPhone 3g that is not out yet. Even then I am not 100% convinced I will be happy with it due to some known limitations for me.

That all being said I broke down and went out and bought a Nokia N95-4. It has almost all the multi-media functions of the iPhone and more, but it is not a PDA. In the first day that became a problem for me, but I did have a back up plan. I broke out my old Treo 750 that I never got around to selling and set it up to use as just a PDA. I can also use bluetooth to use the N95 as a modem if i want to check mail or browse the web on the Treo. I know, a PDA and a phone. How 2001ish. So far it has worked for me. I don’t always need the PDA, but it is on my desk at work or in my bag when I need it. That and I actually have a nice fast phone that sounds good. I know I will probably ditch this setup by the time the iPhone 3g comes out and I get sucked into getting one, but this setup does work.

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Rain, Lots of Rain

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I was surprised when I got a knock on my apartment door tonight. A maintenance person from my building was checking to see if i had a leak during the big rain storm today. I was like, “what? Leak, no I am fine”. Then I figured I would check out what he was talking about. Sure enough I had a small leak near my celling in my bathroom. Turns out some entrance to a deck on the floor above me flooded and the drainage system couldn’t accommodate as much water as was trying to get into it. The pent up water started leaking into my apartment and i believe another one or two on my floor. It was a small leak, but it flooded my bathroom a decent amount since it was constant for a while. I had no idea about the flood until the second or third time i checked on the leak and wondered why my feet were wet!

The maintenance guys were fantastic. They came and mopped and cleaned everything up, and they are going to call me during the week to arrange to come in to fix the marks the leak left.

I am glad I got home before it poured since I was out shopping in the afternoon before the rain began.

The Grind

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I am finally starting to get into a routine with work. I am not 100% comfortable and in the rhythm, but I am slowly getting there. I am still working to list out all the major tasks I need to accomplish, and what issues are more important than others. I always know that you are not fully productive in a new job for up to 3 months, but it is always hard getting acclimated to the new surroundings even if you know it is natural to be nervous and apprehensive because you are not integrated yet.

Grand Theft Auto 4

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A few weeks after it came out I broke down and bought Grand Theft Auto 4. I have never played any of the other versions of the game, but I heard tons of good things about it and I was done with Mass Effect. If I haven’t said this before on the blog I will say it now. I am not a gamer. The stereotype for a guy in the Technology field is to be the huge computer geek and gamer. I may like my gadgets and all, but I have never been a hard core gamer. I didn’t buy my first gaming console until around two years ago. That being said, recently I have found that I do enjoy to spend some free time on the Xbox 360. What is funny is I know people that their lives revolve around the games. For me I will play if I have free time and nothing else to do. It is a great escape, but I cannot play for hours. It gives me a head ache.

So what does all that have to do with GTA 4? Well in my free time recently I have been playing, and it is fun. That game is so funny because it takes everything that is wrong with society and goes to the extreme with it in the game. Some of the stuff that goes on is almost comical. For the record I do not believe that game is for kids, but I don’t see why people wanted to totally ban it.

On a final note, I am glad I drive better in real life than I do in that game. I go through like 3 cars a day in GTA 4!

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The Do Nothing Weekend

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My plans for this weekend are very simple, I am to do nothing. I am happy to report that as of noon Sunday I am successful in that mission. My goal is to stay in and kick the remnants of my cold so I am fresh and normal for next week. I may have stayed in, but the cold is not 100% gone yet. I am coughing a little, that is actually a new development. My noise is still slightly stuffed up, but better than before. My throat is still slightly soar. An improvement over last week yes, but I am still not my normal self yet.

I missed my nephews birthday party yesterday due to this cold. As much as I am upset that I missed it, I am glad I didn’t have to do all that traveling to get there. That and there would be tons of kids over, and I don’t want to get anyone else sick. Instead I sat around and watched allot of TV. I have all but cleaned out my backlog of things to watch on my Tivo and Apple TV.

It is weird to think that it was 95 degrees out yesterday and currently 93 degrees outside when I am cool and comfortable with the AC on low in my apartment. I will say this, my current apartment stays cool. In my last two apartments before this without AC on high the place would be sweltering with the temperature in the 90’s outside. When I woke up this morning my living room was a bit warm but not completely unlivable when the AC was off for more than 12 hours. There is allot to be said for that!

I am not sure what the agenda holds for today, but probably more of the same lying around letting the meds kill my cold. Maybe I will get some more writing in this afternoon if I am in the mood.

Skype With Caller ID

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I have previously commented about how fantastic Skype was, as well as that its biggest limitation was that it didn’t provide caller ID information when making calls. Well Skype finally enabled outbound caller ID for US skype customers. If that wasn’t good enough, they went a step further and allow you to use the caller ID information from your mobile number instead of your Skype Out number. This is the perfect solution for me since I want my mobile # to be the only number I have to give out. All I needed to do was register my mobile with my account via an SMS message and now all outbound calls via skype come up as if it was from my mobile.

For me this feature may change how I use my communication tools. I might not need to pay for unlimited mobile phone service if I can make unlimited outbound calls from my skype phone for $3 a month, and people would only see my mobile number!

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Dinner With The Family

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Today I was back at work but still felt like crap. I did feel better than I did yesterday but I was really tired and stuffed up. Other than that the day at work was uneventful. I was originally planning to go out by my parents to have dinner with them and my sister who was visiting. It turned out that the weather wasn’t so great so my mom, sister, and the kids didn’t goto the beach. That was a win for me since they wouldn’t be rushing to travel home from the beach to eat, they decided to come by my neighborhood to a restaurant. I was thankful since it would have been a trek for me to get to them, and I was out of it. Sometimes relying on mass transit sucks, this was one of those times.

We ended up going to the crap house by my place. I had crab cakes. It was good, but I would have appreciated the food more if I wasn’t sick. I did get to see my parents and my niece and nephew (my sister too). They are so cute. I know I say that allot, and most people say that about relatives, but they always put a smile on my face when I see them. I wish they kept their distance from me because I didn’t want to give them anything, but my sister wasn’t worried. Morgan, and I shared a piece of chocolate cake with my dad for his birthday. Morgan had more than both my dad and I.

Since it was Zachary’s birthday yesterday we had cake and sang happy birthday for him and my dad. Zachary loves to sing happy birthday. I am going to try and get some photos my sister took of the kids at dinner. They were funny.

I Hate Sick Days

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I worked from home today due to my head cold. My prediction on monday was unfortunately dead on. I woke up yesterday and felt like crap. Everyone at work wondered why I was in. All I can say is one I get bored being home sick, and two when you are the new guy you don’t typically take off on your third week at work. By this morning I was just too beat to go in, so with everyone’s blessing I worked via VPN. You have to love VPN. The added benefit of not going into work and doing things remotely was that I didn’t have to talk to anyone. That was great since my throat hurt when I spoke. I only had to talk on one conference call, and even then I didn’t have to talk much.

Hopefully I feel better tomorrow, since I can’t sit home another day or I will go crazy. It is also my Dad’s birthday tomorrow so I need to be in shape to travel to my parents house so we can go out to dinner.

Soar Throat

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I am getting a sore throat. I have the unmistakable feeling that I am getting a cold. I am not happy. Other than that work week #3 at the new job started off fine!