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Happy Pi Day

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Last year someone pointed out that 3/14 was Pi day. Normally I would think that was cute and not really care. But this was March 14th. My birthday is March 16th. Since I was in High School I always said my birthday was like a 3 day holiday since 3/15 had famous references by Shakespeare (i know a reach but i was taking lit classes at the time in HS so it was in my head), then my birthday and then St. Patrick’s day. Now here I am being told that there is a 4th day that has some meaning right at the beginning of this so called holiday.

On Friday I was talking to another Scott at work whose birthday was next week and i mentioned there was some significance to the 14th but I couldn’t recall what. Wikipedia helped solve that question. To celebrate Pi day I had Pizzaria Uno. I had an individual pie!

Drinks With Friends

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Today after work I went into the city to meet up with friends at the usual hang out for some drinks and to catch up. I haven’t been out in a few weeks so it was good to see everyone. I didn’t stay out too late and I am happy with my 3 drinks I had.

Work overall was ok today. Nothing major to report. I had hoped to finish meetings earlier than I did but that happens a lot on fridays. Starts off looking decent and then things just happen. I can’t complain though. A good day generally.

Belgian Food Day

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Today at lunch one of the PM’s I am friendly with wanted to goto this Belgian pub. Another PM and I tagged along. This place was supposed to have fantastic burgers. Two of us ended up with fish and chips, but the other guy said the burger was really good. We will be back to try other stuff. The place was good. On the way back to the office we took a detour and hit a popular Belgian waffle truck that only is near the office on Thursday’s. The long line was worth it. I had this place a few times and it was really good. Another guy had heard about it and was the one who recommended to go since it was nearby. Well nearby is relative. Not sure when we will make that walk again, but since it was nice out today it was a good desert to our lunch.

Back in NYC

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As much fun as I had in St Louis I was glad to be back in NYC today. I wasn’t glad to be in the office at 9AM after getting home near 12:30AM. I had a 9AM conference call and then I had some face to face meetings so I couldn’t work from home. I also had to race out to a working lunch at the hard rock right by work. I don’t’ normally do those so it was a change of pace.

Overall a really productive and hectic day. I was so glad to get home and just relax after work.

St Louis Day 3

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I am on my way home from St. Louis now. I got a bit delayed getting out, but thankfully it wasn’t more than an hour. A bunch of us got a ride to the airport from the one person from NYC who had a rental car and was leaving today. I was on a different airline than everyone else so I couldn’t hang out with anyone else. They were in a different terminal. I hit the Chillis Too for dinner and then went to the American club before the flight. Flight Tracker and the FAA weather app’s on my iphone were invaluable for this trip. Both kept me better informed than the airline was.

Other eventful things today was we went out as a large group to Mongolian BBQ. I was skeptical about it but overall the food was pretty good and there was plenty for me to eat so I was happy.

St Louis Day 2

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Day two of the conference was good. We got a lot done. I did my big presentation. I think it went well. After work I was going to avoid the team dinner since I was really tired, but I got strong armed by two guys on my team and another guy who we work with and I ended up going with them to the shooting range. One of the guys from NY really wanted to do that so 4 of us went.

It was a lot of fun. I got to shoot an AK-47 and an AR-15 for the first time. I also tried a really big revolver like the Dirty Harry gun. I didn’t like that. After that we went to dinner at this place that had fantastic burgers. Thankfully I was back at the hotel at a reasonable time. I was still glad I didn’t goto the other event since they were out much later.

Overall a really good day.

St Louis Day 1

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The first day of the conference went well. I also got to spend some time with my team that is in St Louis. For dinner another team manager was in and most of her US staff with her so we ended up combining our team dinners and had one big get together. We work closely with each other so it was nice to get out of the office for a bit. We almost never do this so it was a lot of fun. One of our head architects was also in town so he came along. All in all it was like 9 people. We went to a decent steakhouse that several people have been to before. Compared to NY it was super cheap and tasty!

The night wasn’t too late since we all had to be at work at normal hours. Overall it was a great first day in St. Louis!

Mediocre Friday

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Today was one of those days that didn’t suck, but was just a general bla day. It was only partly related to the weather. It started out with promise (like all days i guess) but went downhill quickly. Work wasn’t horrible but was just a stressful day that was full of working issues that shouldn’t have been issues. That is all I really will say but it was just a frustrating day. Thankfully these days are in the minority.

The evening was also a general let down. On top of that it was freezing, and I had to navigate the large amount of snow. I am looking forward for the weekend, even if I am traveling on Sunday.

Another iMac

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So I should never talk about technology and say one thing and then a few months later totally change my tune. I know, I am bad. I say that after ranting about the all in one computer form factor. I had a love hate relationship with my 24″ iMac. I was happy and sad to see it go. I like laptop’s much better. I really do. Of course that doesn’t explain why today I went out and bought a 27″ iMac. And not just a regular 27″ iMac, I got the Quad Core i5 model. I figured the even more money for the i7 was overkill. Well the i7 was overkill or I didn’t want to wait for the special order for that. I will just keep telling myself that it was overkill.

So why after being mad at the all in ones, would I go and get another one? Well that is an interesting story. In December I finally after 2 years of pondering it, I went out and bought a 30″ LCD monitor. See my reasons for not getting one sooner in my “Monitor Upgrades & Monitor Arm Number 2” post, so I wont have to go back into that again. After all that I wanted the dam iMac again because even though the 30″ display was fantastic, it wasn’t fantastic with my Macbook Pro. The image was just crap. The stupid Apple Dual Link DVI to Display Port adapter that everyone bashes does suck as bad as everyone says. I don’t know why. And it isn’t all the time. I used the same adapter on my Mac Mini and it seemed to work better. The monitor worked fantastic on a non mac machine, but guess what all I have are Mac’s.

So why did I change my mind? Figuring out what my tax return would be on Thursday was what started my thoughts. Originally I wanted a Mac Pro. I figured I would splurge and plug it into my fancy new monitor. Then I saw the cost of the single processor model. Holly crap that is expensive. The similar quad core iMac was like $500 cheaper. I then thought about out how much i could get for reselling my 30″ monitor and the iMac is half paid for, plus i am getting a slightly smaller screen and almost as powerful a system. Lets face it I don’t “need” a Mac Pro, I wanted it to drive the monitor I had. In the end this was a cheaper and smarter decision. My desk is also thankful for the extra room.

In the short term I am still going to hold onto the Macbook Pro because I do use it out of the house, but that is also soon to go the way of ebay once I get an iPad or something else small.

Now I can’t promise that in 6 months I wont be fed up with the all in one again. But for now I think it was a smart move. To show how much I think this was a good idea, I can say I even bought the Apple Care for this thing. I almost never do that since I usually only keep a computer for a year!

Next thing I need to do is figure out how to get the VESA mount on this new computer so I can use my monitor arm again. Thanks again Apple for making a standard like VESA so hard to setup. If the reviews of this mount are any indication I am going to be not happy when I try to mount it.

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Took Monday Off

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Since I worked all day last Saturday I decided to take today off and relax. I had some shopping I wanted to do, get a haircut, etc. Just typical weekend routine stuff. It was good to just not have to goto work.