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!

Moving The Bike

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Today I finally took my bike (a Trek hybrid) out for the first ride of the season. That meant I needed to air up the tires since the bike sat dormant in my bedroom for the entire winter. Yes, you read this right it sat in my bedroom. When I moved into my new building they didn’t have a bike storage spot, so i found a corner in my bedroom for it to go. So in addition to taking the bike out for my first ride of the year, I got a space in the new bike storage room that opened in my building. It is now safely hanging on a wall somewhere. it is actually kind of cool.

I didn’t ride around that much on my first trip out. It was a beautiful day and I rode down by the water near my apartment. It was nice. I have to find a good route to ride for a work out. When I was in Manhattan, I just rode to central park and biked half the loop. I am too far to feasible do that now. I will need to explore a bit.

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I also checked out the pool in my building. It wasn’t as nice as I thought, compared to other apartment complex’s I have been in. Oh well, this is still one of the nicest buildings I have ever lived in. If the weather is nicer I will take a dip next week.

BBQ Weekend

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This weekend I went up to Jayson & Gretchen's new house for a BBQ. I went up Saturday afternoon so I could hang out and not have to travel on Sunday morning to the BBQ. I am glad I went up early because besides the hour and a half train ride, I didn't realize that the 7 train wasn't running at my station. That meant a 5 minute trip from my station to Grand Central turned into a 40 minute trip. I actually almost missed my train on Saturday because of the MTA's decision to do construction on a holiday weekend. Great job MTA.

Other than that near miss-hap the weekend was great. The weather was fantastic. There was tons of food. I saw a bunch of people I haven't seen in ages. Scott (not me another Scott) was there with his wife and kid. Kai was there with his wife and kid. Ian was going to come but he is expecting a new born any minute so he was a no show. There was tons of food. I am impressed with myself for not drinking that much. I don't drink allot normally but I am trying to cut back anyway because I am worried that more than one or two drinks of alcohol will trigger a migraine. I did mix up two or three Jack Daniel's Lynchburg Lemonades. They are really good.

I was able to get a bunch of photos with the new digital camera. Man that camera takes good photos. They will be up on Flickr soon.

I was originally going to stay over until Monday so I didn't have to worry about taking the train home late on Sunday night, or leave early due to traveling all that way home via public transit. Thankfully two of Gretchen's friends gave me a ride. I am glad they did because I didn't get home until past 1AM. I think it was better to do that than get a not so great night sleep at someone else's house and then still have to travel home.

Overall a fantastic weekend. I had a blast at the BBQ and got to see some people I haven't seen in a really long time!

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The New Digital Camera

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I totally forgot to write that I got a fantastic new digital camera. The Saturday before Mothers Day I went out and bought a Canon PowerShot SD750. What is funny is as digital camera's go it is a very inexpensive one. I only spent like $179 on it. What is crazy to me is that spending under $200 got me a 7.1 mega pixel camera that takes fantastic photos, and video's. After doing my research I got this model because it takes good video at 640×480, 30fps. The trade off was not having a manual view finder, but I was worth it for me. The digital display is really big so I don't mind. The only gripe I have is that even though for a camera in it's class it takes pictures fast, it is still slow compared to a digital SLR. It does have other limitations but for what I want, it was small and perfect. It is light years better than my old 1.3 mega pixel Sony Cyber shot I got 8 years ago and spent almost triple the price for!

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Day Three

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I am on day three at the new job. I am having problems timing my morning schedule right. I am ending up at work very early (aka 8:30AM). That would be ok if I wasn’t staying till 6pm the past two days in a row. Well to be technical yesterday was 6:30ish. I had less meetings today, but I had to work on the list of tasks that I need to tackle. For the record it is hovering around 75 so far. The overwhelming factor is diminished a bit today, so there is hope for me!

The Worst Timing

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I woke up with the beginnings of a Migraine today. That isn’t good on any day, but is even worse when I am only on my third day of a new job and I have no time banked and no credibility yet. I am just not sleeping. It boils down to that being my problem. I sleep half the night and then I just can’t anymore. So this morning I woke up with what felt like the beginnings of a migraine. I couldn’t chance it so I took an Amerge and went to work. Thankfully it worked and I was tired most of the day, but I made it. I even was able to stay almost an hour later than I had planned.

What is weird is when I get a migraine sometimes I might be hungry because I didn’t eat all day but the thought of eating anything doesn’t do anything for me. I ended up not eating anything until like 2:30 and even then I only had a half a sandwich. Of course I get home and I am feeling better and I am not tired! Go figure. I am hoping I am feeling better tomorrow.