Personal

Monday Dinner

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Monday Passover dinner was nice. I went to my parents house. My sister and brother in law were there. Mike’s father was there also. A couple that my parents are good friends with were also there with their 2 daughters and one of there parents. My niece morgan was also present, but she was not a happy camper. She has a cold and a fever. It is not fun watching a little one when they are sick:(

As far as the “official” Passover service goes, we skipped it. That is what I like about religious gatherings run by my dad. We don’t have any!

Carrie made my favorite desert. Crackers with melted chocolate on it. Normally you take saltines and melt butter on top of them. Then you take chocolate and put it on top of the butter and bake until the chocolate is melted. You then spread it evenly around the crackers. Put nuts on it and let settle in the fridge for a while. Simple and it tastes awesome. My brother in law jokes around and calls it the white trash desert. I don’t care if it is cheap, because it tastes so awesome. For the holiday my sister made it with matza. it was not as good as it is normally but I still liked it.

Friday Drinking

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Work Friday was well work. The mail system upgrade thursday night went off ok, and we had no problems to clean up on Friday. That was good.

I had a meeting with our AT&T representatives. Gus suggested I take them out to lunch to show our appreciation on getting them back as an account team. We were happy to get them back so I suggested lunch. I figured Dukes or Old Town Tavern. Nothing super expensive. They are after all vendors of ours:) They had other ideas. Two of them came down. So it was Keith & I with our voice & our data reps. They weren’t going to let us pay, and then they decided to go across the streak to City Crab and get some lunch. I had never been there even though I have worked on and off in on that block for years. If they were paying, we weren’t going to stop them.

The food was fantastic. I was sort of worried about the price. Both reps were like don’t worry at all. I got the crab cakes as an entrée. So did one of our Rep’s so I didn’t feel so bad. We had calimarie for an appetizer. The food was great. I will go back there again.

I was fighting a head ache all afternoon. Not sure why. It was probably the temp. I get sick (Migraines) allot when the weather turns from Hot to Cold or vice versa. Cari wanted to go out drinking since it was her first weekend living in the city. She got an apartment across the street so her commute would be better during the week. She is our Comptroller so she is staying in the city all the time burring tax season. So she was all pumped to go drink. I went because I figured if 1 drink can’t kill the headache I will go home.

The running joke at work is that when ever cari and I go out drinking together we both get sick. This has happened 2 to 3 times since we started working together. I can safely say that Friday broke the trend. A bunch of us went to No Idea! It is our standard Friday night bar. it is right around the corner from work.

We had AJ, Aaron, Cari, John, Jenn, Matt, Myself, Rajive, & Gus come out. It was a good time. I ended up missing like 3 trains I wanted to catch. By the 4th train I was like I need to catch a train. Rajive was like you need another drink. He almost got me one when I finally convinced him I was really leaving this time. Conclusion of this night: Cari & Gus think I am a loud drunk. They are correct:)

A fun time was had by all…

eBooks And Other Apps

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I bought an eBook yesterday. To most that would sound like a confession of a first time eBook buyer. I can safely say that I have been buying eBooks since 2000. When I traveled with Datastream I would put ebooks on my then Pocket PC (an HP Jordana) and use it to read when I was out to dinner or something. I used to travel by myself. It was boring at a hotel or restaurant eating by yourself. Instead of bringing a book with me to dinner, I would just have my Pocket PC that I was carrying anyway. It made things easy. I have read a few books on it.

I haven’t read any books, let alone eBooks in a while. A few people have recommended me to read the Da Vincii Code. Instead of buying the book I got the eBook at Palm’s ebook store. it was only $9.99. I put it on my iPack and am reading it using the Palm eBook reader. Palm was smart and made a reader for the Pocket PC, Palm, Mac, and the PC. I can read the book on my Treo 600 or my iPack. The iPack is better since it has a much nicer screen. I am on chapter 4. I will let you know how it is.

I also downloaded a few other free programs and utilities for my Treo 600 off of palm’s new software site, Palmgear.com. I found it when I was buying my eBook. It looks like it is competing with Handango. I like the way they setup the site. They have a my favorite software list so you can keep track of the latest versions of software you like or own. It also tells you how long you have left on trial software you have downloaded.

I didn’t buy anything, but I got a few freeware utilities that look cool. The latest filez program, a drink mixing program and a few others.

Rain Day

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It is raining today. Not really hard, but a nice mist. I hate this type of weather. At least it is not hot, that is all I can say.

I got the later train today. I find it funny that I consider it late, but if I catch an 8:32AM train I am at work no later than 9:30AM. That is with stopping to pick up breakfast. Most of our dev staff isn’t in before 10AM anyway, so I am not really late. it is all relative.

If I catch the 8, or 8:15AM train’s I am at work really early or just on time. That is the difference express trains make. Today it was rainy, I wanted to shave, and I didn’t want to be on a wet crowded train while I am still recovering from a cold. Thus I am on the later train. it is never a good idea to use a laptop on a crowded wet train anyway. This way is much better.

Yesterday was low key after I got home. Work was crazy, but we are talking about other things in this entry. (Notice how I try to keep personal and work blog entries separate. That is why I may have several entries in a day. If anything I am well organized). I got home around the normal time, and I attempted to not do much work. I was successful at that BTW. watched some TV and downloaded some new stuff for my Palm.

Train Delays

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I am on the early train today. I never know why I choose to take this train. It always ends up waiting near the tunnel to manhattan. That makes the express trip almost as long if not longer than the train’s that make more stop’s. I wanted to get to work earlier today so I took it, but it is always funny to me that the express train that makes no stops after it picks me up takes nearly as long as some local’s or other express trains that may make 1 or 2 more stops after my station. Go figure.

Today is rainy and in the 40’s going on 50’s today in NYC. Plain old dank weather. I am glad it is cool still since the AC problem in my office is still up in the air. I am glad I am not Dan. He has to figure out and fix this problem. Everyone, including myself ask him all the time “what is up with the AC”. I do it now because it drives him crazy. Others really don’t know and ask to get updates.

When Migraines Attack

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Monday was a hit or miss kind of day. Most of the day I felt ok. I started getting a migraine about lunch time. I forgot to bring my med’s with me so Cari was nice enough to lend me some Furiset. I had that and ate lunch and felt better for most of work. On the way home I started to crash again. I ended up getting home and going right into bed. This was 7PM. I got up at some unknown time during the night for a class of water and then I was back in bed for the rest of the evening. I haven’t done that in a while. I needed the sleep but it is weird going right to sleep when you get home from work and then get up and go to work the next day.

I do feel allot better right now. I don’t want to push my luck but hopefully I have kicked the sick streak. I did have to take migraine medication Saturday, Sunday, & Monday.

The plus side was I completed work normally Monday. That is always important to me. I don’t like to loose work over a stupid headache.

Weekend Update

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I have mostly kicked my cold. I have a slight cough and runny noise but otherwise I feel much better. Of course Alison is sick now. Also Keith called yesterday and he is not coming in today because of a fever. I have (or someone else has) successfully passed on the bug.

Last night my family went to Peter Lugar’s. As usual it was a fantastic steak. I think morgan liked the bread and water more though! What does she know, she is 1. I had the steak for 2 with my brother in law. It was dam good. I even made room for desert. Cheese cake. It was good too.

Unfortunately I had to take migraine medication both Saturday & Sunday. Saturday a mild head ache was dogging me all day. By the evening I took the drugs because I felt it might deteriorate quick. That is the big fear, so I took some Furiset.

Sunday I took the meds because I wasn’t sure if I was getting one but I wanted to be ok for dinner. I didn’t want to have to cancel twice for my birthday dinner. Normally I wait too long and the drugs are less effective, today I probably took them too soon. Sometimes I feel like I am always medicating. Then I think about a really bad migraine that I have had, and I realize I don’t care if it will prevent even one of those from happening.

Sunday I got some, but not allot of work done. Instead I cleaned up my apartment. I also cleaned out my closet. I got rid of some old clothes or stuff I don’t ever wear. Then of course I went on line and got some new stuff. I spent more than I would have liked at LL Bean. I am finding I like that store allot.

OK, maybe being over the cold was a premature statement. As I sit on the train writing this I am coughing like crazy. I wont speak about being better again. That way I won’t jinx myself.

I cleaned off allot of shows on my Tivo. I got through a big backlog of stuff that I haven’t watched. I still have loads of crap on it but the recent stuff that I wanted to see is taken care of. I love getting a weekend to just sit and veg out.

My New Watch, Well Not Yet!

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I went to the jeweler today with my dad. We are nothing alike in the fashion or jewelry dept. He likes chains and bracelets, and other jewelry. I wear 1 chain I got when I was 13 and a watch. This was my first time to this jeweler. One of my dad’s best friends used to be his jeweler but he got married and moved so my dad found this new guy. I went to try and adjust the watch he gave me so it will fit on my wrist. Right now it is way too big for my wrist. Oops, didn’t get a picture of it on my wrist. It was kind of funny to see.

Turns out that I never realized what makes the Omega watch that he gave some important is that it has the original parts. The band is not the same on all the new ones and you cannot get a replacement like the one currently on the watch. That is bad for me. Since my dad has been wearing the watch for 35 years the band is worn. The links are loose. They are still in really good shape, but they kind of stretched. That means that it wont fit on my wrist correctly. The jeweler is going to see if he can fix it. If not I may have to buy a new band and just keep the old one around in case I need it.

This watch is so freak-in cool. Granted I won’t do anything crazy with it besides get it wet, but it was the watch that they wore on the moon. Can’t say that about my Casio data-link.

Now all I have to do is get used to reading a dial watch. I am so used to digital. I don’t even think I ever had a dial watch?

I will wait the week and see what they can do about getting this thing to fit on my wrist. Till next Saturday…

Make Up Steak Dinner

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I was sick the Sunday before my birthday (I had a migraine) so my family was not able to take me out for my birthday dinner. Last weekend my dad worked sunday so we couldn’t go out then. We have make up plans for this sunday. We are once again going to try Peter Lugars. The steaks there are fantastic. Hopefully my cold will be gone by then. I think it broke yesterday and I am on the road to recovery.

Spring Is Here

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Spring is upon us. I have broken out the light weather jacket for the first time in 2004. It will be 65 in NYC today. That means that my companies office will be like a sauna since I bet the heat will still be on, and the AC is not working yet.

I like the winter. You know why? You can always put on another layer of clothing. When it is hot, there is only so much you can take off! I don’t get people complaining it is too cold. I just don’t get it. Put on some gloves and a sweater. Because if it is hot you don’t want most people taking off their shirts!