Mass Transit

So living in CA this bridge collapse is a big deal on the news around here. Close to 200-250k cars are going to have to find a different route or take mass transit. The governator declared all mass transit free for today. Which got me thinking.. what if mass transit in urban areas were free everyday during rush hour. Would it alleviate traffic? Would it be worth it instead of building 8 and 10 lane highways all over the place? Who knows but it may be worth a try.

Happy Anniverisary

Happy Anniversary to Jen and I (it was actually on the 26th but I'm slow to blog). It's been four years now. Crazy stuff. Our anniversary's have become so common place that Jen stayed in MN instead of hanging out with me. Anyway, time is flying and we only have like 8 months left in CA and it's back to MN.

Entertaining Weekend

Not so much entertaining but rather we were entertaining Jens brother Matt and our neighbor from MN Jen. Jen took them on the standard Windcheater Mystery Manson, 17 mile drive and Monerary Bay Aquarium Thursday and Friday. Saturday it started out raining which sucked but we made the trek to San Fran just for something to do and maybe scout for Sunday. But it cleared up and they got some good views from the Golden Gate bridge and Alcatraz. We had to scamper back to Sunnyvale to make our dinner reservation. After dinner we went to a comedy club called RoosterTFeathers. The comedians there were friggen hilarious. I was really impressed with the talent for such a small establishment. I wish I had a memory so I could steal some of the jokes cuz some of them were awesome. So we found another something to do here when times are slow.

Sunday we did the usual visiting Muir Woods and San Fran. I'm getting really itchy to get out mountain biking again.

Find the Squirrel

 

LCS Terminated

I got out of a meeting today and read an email stating that the government terminated the LCS contract with Lockheed. Read I worked on LCS a few years ago so it's sad to see LM lose it. The first ship was just christened last september. The mood went from the feeling of a major success to flop in a very short time when news got out that the ship was 2X over budget. I've heard bits and pieces as to why the program got so out of control but I'll leave it out of this blog because I don't know what's accurate. I was really surprised to hear how much the programs cost had over run. I wonder why safe guards weren't in place to notify managers much sooner as to how much the program was projected to over run so something could have been done earlier. Who knows.

I'll be keeping an eye on how well General Dynamics performs on their LCS contract. Lockheed built the first LCS ship and General Dynamics started a year after. Even if they do perform on it I think they'll be able to look at the mistakes LM made and correct them so they'll look better.

Bye Bye Exploder

 

Well the time has finally come to say good bye to the Exploder. Our relationship started while an Ex and I were shopping for a truck. I was driving from Willmar to Montivideo and winter was fast approaching. I didn't think my winter beater would make it through what ended up being one of the worst winters ever. The sales person said "you should take a look at this" and he show'd me a 2 year old Explorer with low mileage. I was pretty skeptical to trade my '94 Talon for it, after all I'd be losing my chick magnet. (It's almost as bad as Ben trading his Mustang for a Suberu) I even had a car full of girls honk trying to pull me over when I had my girl friend in the car. My ex pushed hard to get me to trade it for the exploder. So a few days later I broke down and traded it. Almost immediatly I regretted it. And to make matters worse the girl packed up and moved out me two weeks later. I was pretty bitter, so bitter in fact I didn't care if the stupid Exploder really did explode. I had little patients to wash it or keep it clean. But I guess it's the end of an era of sorts. It got me through college, a couple stolen stereo's, and it plowed through a few snow banks. So in all it wasn't too bad.

Headache Rant

Since I got to Sunnyvale I've had a headache about what seems 50% of the time. I've been taking 5-10 Advil a day. I think my body is getting immune to it. The doctor says it's just the stress of having a new baby and the move out here and what not. And people wonder why the Voodoo doctors are so popular. At least an attempt at a diagnosis would be nice. Maybe it's a tumor or maybe it's the smog here, but when I got back to MN my headaches get worse. I've backed off so much soda and switched to water with no avail. It's driving me crazy. Currently I've had a headache since I got back from MN. It's mostly just a dull pain in the back of my head and it intensifies from time to time rendering my day useless. And beings I'm blogging about it now, it's starting to intensify rendering me an unproductive slob for the day.

Weekend Recap - Stinson Beach & Easter Sunday Church

I think my head is still spinning from driving about 20 miles worth of twisting turning rising and falling hills. We went to Stinson beach on Saturday, which started out as a terrible day. In Sunnyvale it was 65 and sunny, as we got closer to Stinson beach it got super foggy and cold. Driving on mountain sides with the fog was pretty slow. I was wondering if we'd ever get there. When we got there it was so bad that we decided to eat lunch and figure out what to do. Thank God the fog cleared and it warmed a bit. The view there is absolutely gorgeous with cliffs along the coast. I'm not sure how high it was but when we were leaving we could see ships way out in the ocean. It was pretty awesome. Definitely on the list of "Must Sees" if you visit Cali. The scenery is awesome.

Sunday we got talked into going to church with Janel and Jon. Jen babysits their son, Mason. We got to church at 9 and found out the service was changed to 10 for Easter Sunday. Thankfully they had a playground for the kids. The service ended up being 1.5 hours long. Hayley was getting major antsy towards the end. I think church should have a rule, all services have to be under an hour. But it was a Lutheran church and after attending it there's no way I'd switch to Catholic. I'm rooted in the Lutheran faith I guess. When I get back to Minny maybe I'll think about getting confirmed.

I Need More BLOG BELL

So I've been dropping the ball blogging. I don't know that anyone can keep up to Ben, the Tech King, over at Studio711. I have so many ideas for blogging and putting stuff on the web but I just don't have the time to put it together. I'm contemplating starting a mountain biking video podcast of the different trails around here but my video editing skills are not quite up for the task. Unless one has a log of experience with video editing one can spend many of hours for a few minutes of video and with my slooowww pc rendering would be horrendous. Maybe it's time for an upgrade. But I'm getting way off track.

Last weekend the fam and I flew back to MN for my brothers 40th surprise B-Day party. We didn't tell anyone we were coming so I think we added to the surprise a bit. It was a blast to hang out with everyone and to talk to some of my brothers old buddy's too. The only problem with a weekend trip is the short amount of time to hang out with everyone. I also got a headache from the flying that lasted two days. I seriously can't stand these headaches.

Anyway, I would've blogged sooner but I keep waiting for the pics from the party so I can use them on my blog. But I seemed to misplaced my camera. If anyone finds it please return it.

Bombing the Hills

Now that we're getting passed the beginners level and into the intermediate level of mountain biking we're spending most of our biking up hill. The first time we were on the trials we rode the breaks hard not knowing what was coming. Now we're almost full speed bombing down the mountain. I'll try and throw a jump in here and there but I still have visions of face planting when I was a kid so I chicken out most of the time. Jumping can get hairy cuz the trails are only 4 feet across and any mistake means a big fall down the side of the hill. The aggressive factor goes way down after having kids but it's still a blast. Except for the 30 minute climb at the end of the ride to get back to the top. Even in the lowest gear this climb is brutal. Our goal was to climb this hill without stopping or having our feet touch the ground by the end of the year. We both did last weekend so that was our big accomplishment.

Early Bird

The last few weeks I've been working many hours and working late which cuts into Family time. So I'm going to try and change my schedule and start working at 4am - 3pm-ish. We'll see how it goes. Getting up is pretty hard these last couple days. Getting home and seeing Hayley for an hour before she goes to bed sucks. But it's almost as bad being home and super tired also so it's a fine balance between sleep and Hayley time. I've also slacked a bit on working out the last week but I did fit in a 9 mile run on Saturday. So far that's been my longest run in one shot. I'm going to attempt a helf marathon this spring and again in the fall to see if I improve on my time. Annnd I'm way off topic so this getting into work early is already showing it's effects.

Happy B-Day Mom, Ginger, Mike ...

So yesterday it would've been my moms birthday. One thing she didn't do was forget peoples birthdays. Me on the other hand, it's my specialty. I make a News Years resolution every year to remember peoples birthdays and to send them cards. So when Jen said it was moms birthday yesterday it hit me that I missed my sisters birthday earlier this month. CRAP!!

I have a plan from this point on not to forget. I'm going to enter all events on my Google Calendar and have it email me a week before. We'll see how it goes the rest of the year.

It's Wednesday!!

What happened to Monday and Tuesday. The week is flying by. The weather here is the best it's been since we got here. Daylight savings time is awesome. The extra hour of sunlight means I can do a lot more with Hayley outdoors when I get home. Hayley runs for the door as soon as I get home. I don't think she likes our apartment that much. She'd much rather hang out outside. If her shoes aren't on she'll run around the apartment trying to find them and she doesn't give up. After she finds her shoes and gets them on she'll bring my shoes to me if I don't already have them on. I've even got her trained as to which shoes to grab. I'll even switch it up on her to see if she understands. I'm amazed at how smart she is at this age. Although when I start thinking she's standing out we'll hit the park and see other kids her age doing the same things. So she's not standing out so much but she's a lot of fun to be around.

Shoes

Running five miles a day is killing my legs so I bought what I thought was a good pair of Nike running shoes. After a couple weeks running in them my feet were killing worse then before. I tried to tough it out thinking they just needed to be broken in but my feet got worse. They even hurt when I walked in them. So I went back to my rag tag shoes I was using before. The rag tags were getting to the point that they were falling apart so I decided to try again and buy a new pair. I went Sports Basement across the street. At first I figured they'd be way over priced but I gave them a try. I start checking out the shoes and a kid asked if I needed help. I told him I needed running shoes and I told him the Nike's I was wearing were killing my feet. He kind of laughed at the Nike's, apparently Nike's are bad shoes unless you get into the big money shoes.

He first had me take off my shoes and walk down this track. Then he had me try and a couple different kinds of shoes and run down the track with them. He made the comment that he couldn't see me running for more then a half mile with my stride. I guess I didn't realize there's a technique to running. So on top of selling me shoes he gave me a lesson in running. Apparently he was a big Cross Country runner and now he runs marathons. I bought the shoes for $80 and my feet felt a hundred times better after wearing them for a few hours.

So if you're ever in the market I highly recommend the Sports Basement. I'll be using them for all my sporting needs. It's a great store. Read some reviews for yourself.

Trails

Just some photos from last weekend.

http://picasaweb.google.com/chadwick1p/MtnBike

Delayed Weekend Update

Last weekend Jens mom was here so we spent the time doing touristy things. We had a short period of time to go mountain biking on Saturday and about 10 minutes into the ride I got a flat tire, and of course I have no clue where my pump went. This really put a damper on the day, so I had to walk back to where Jen and her mom were walking the trails. I changed my tire and proceeded to wait for Chad to come with his pump from his car. The flat tire cost us a good 30 minutes of riding. The trails were dryer then last time and it was warmer out. I'm getting braver going down the steep hills and I'm starting to throw in a jump or two. I keep envisioning landing on my face as happened when I was growing up. (which explains a lot)

After mountain biking we went to San Fran to see the Golden Gate bridge. After getting lost in San Fran all I could think about was "Why don't we have a GPS, they're so worth it" but eventually we found it by driving in one direction until we found some signs.

Sunday we went to the Monterey Bay Aquarium which was pretty cool. There's a bunch of buildings that used to be a canning companies that have been turned into a big tourists area. The area is called The Canning District. It was pretty interesting to see and it would be fun to see it back in the day.

Let is snow

Heee Haw. I'm not in MN dealing with all the snow they're getting. Al and Kathy are in FL and they're huge snowmobilers. Talk about ironic. But I can't brag that much cuz it's a rain fest here. Rain rain rain all day and night. It's driving me crazy. I want 70-80 degrees with lots of sun. Someday I'll move back to FL so I can experience it.

Hitting the trails

We got a late start mountain biking but when we eventually got there it was awesome. The view is phenomenal. I took these pictures with my phone, one of these days I'll have to bring my camera. Most of my pics ended up blurry. The trails were a little slick and wet from the rain and snow we got yesterday. (haha it snowed in the mountains and we saw some snow on the trails) Here's a pic of me wearing what else, my Oakley's. Oakley's on the trail is actually bad idea. It gets so hot that they steam up the entire time.

Here's the best pic of the trail I got. Like I said the rest were to blurry. The trail narrows quite a bit in some spots also. It makes one think twice before gaining to much speed downhill. Tumbling down the side wouldn't be much fun.


The day came to an upbrupt end when Chad broke his peddle when we were just about to hit the down hill slope on the way back to the car. He ended up running up the hills and riding the bike down. Funny stuff cuz he was running up the hills faster then I was biking. I'm a little out of shape when it comes to biking.

Weight Struggles

So a while back I made a bet with Green-O as to who can lose the most weight. I started out of the gate fast losing 50lbs. Since I've moved to Sunnyvale I haven't been able to lose another pound. I've been working out pretty steady but I think my food intake has probably increased a bit. When I started this weight loss drive I didn't diet that much other then cutting out ice cream and not eating after 6pm. My body has caught on to me here. I run for a hour 4-5 times a week. I could use the excuse that I've just put on muscle and I'm still losing fat but the waist line doesn't lie. So I'm going to start trying to diet a little and cut my portions down. We'll see if that helps.

My current stats 195lbs with about 4-6 inches off the waist line.

An eye on the weather

Accuweather has been a popular site as of late. This weekend Jen heads back to MN so I'm looking forward to a full weekend of mountain biking. We've had so much rain of late the trails are probably a muddy mess but that's alright I'm totally up for getting dirty. So far this weekend is looking dry but it's supposed to rain on Thursday. I'll be disappointed if it carries over into the weekend.

I've also been watching Orlando, FL since my Brother and Sister with their families are heading there for vacation. So far it's looking pretty good for them. I'm a little jealous I'm not vacationing there this year.

Recoverying again

Before last year I couldn't remember the last time I had a non self induced stomach flu. After last week I've caught the stomach flu three times in a year. I think Hayley is a walking incubator. I'm not quite sure where she caught it, but she's been ill for about a week. I got it on Thursday. I felt it come on in the morning but I tried to tough it out and make it into work to no avail. Being sick is brutal for me cuz I have major caffeine addiction and not being able to keep anything down brings on the biggest headache ever. So I spent the entire day with a huge headache on top of the hourly ritual of praying to the porcelain god.

Friday I toughed it out and went to work with what felt like a brutal hangover. My head was spinning all day but a big dose if Advil and soda kept the headache away. My stomach was kept under control with a tablet or two of Rolaids.

But my misery can't top Hayley's. I feel so bad for her. She just can't kick these things. Hopefully it's just a childhood thing and she's able to fend it off better when she's older. So far she's inherited my immune system cuz Jen never gets these stupid flu's, colds, and any other virus Hayley brings home.

Trouble Sleeping

After feeling like I caught up on my sleep yesterday I ended up not being able to sleep last night. After tossing and turning from 12am - 2am I decided it was time to try and be somewhat productive and work. So I'm at work and I can't get anything done cuz the simulator is down and there's no admins here to fix. It's just great. I should've stayed home.

This weekend was a washout. It finally stopped raining about 2 pm on Sunday so we got in some biking on paved trails. Nothing like last weekend. Although it was tempting to slosh through the mud but uphill would've been tough. Hayley got to come with in the trailer. She gets excited to go now so it's kind of fun.

That about sums up the weekend. Sunnyvale in the winter isn't that exciting. The rainy season here is nothing like Florida's rainy season. When it rains here it's for 1 or 2 weeks straight. At least in FL it was for an hour or two a day and the rest of the day was fine.

What was that temp?

This week in MN alone makes it worth moving to CA. While it's high 60's here it's a little fridged in MN. I don't remember the last time I've had to deal with sub zero weather. I don't remember having any cold temps last year. Enjoy that weather Minny's.

Weekend Highlights

The highlight of this weekend was mountain biking through the mountains. Chad and I went to the El Corte de Madera Creek trails shown in the picture above. There were many places where the trails were about 3 feet wide with cliffs on both sides. Chad made the comment about 5 minutes into the ride that he wanted to start on something a little easier. It took us about 1.5 hours to get there twisting and turning and finally finding it. We rode for about 45 minutes and decided we'd hit it hard next time now that we got a good idea of what we're doing. Uphill was killer on the legs and it was hard to keep the front tire on the ground so needless to say we spent a lot of the uphill ride walking our bikes up. But next time it should be easier.

It was great to see the Colts win the Super Bowl. I wanted to see Manning and Dungy to finally win one. They've had some great teams but couldn't seal the deal. Next year I predict there's a .009% chance the Vikes will be there.

In need of some Voodoo

Since I got sick over Christmas I've had a lingering headache. I think I threw out my neck a bit and I didn't get a chance to see the Voodoo doctor before I got back to Sunnyvale. Sitting at my desk for 11-13 hours a day isn't helping either. Our chairs here are not that great compared with Eagan's. I might break down and see the Voodoo doctor here but my insurance won't cover it. I have a hard time paying the equivalent of a weeks worth of food for a neck adjustment. Maybe another Advil a day will fix it.

The Voodoo reference comes from my brother when I mentioned I needed to see a chiropractor. He said once you start going you'll need them for the rest of your life. There's truth to it but an adjustment does take my headache away for a couple weeks.

On Demand

According to Bill Gates life as we know it is going to change drastically. Well at least the way we view TV is going to change. Although I don't generally put a lot of weight on the words of Bill Gates, in this case I'm on the bandwagon. I'm certainly not claiming to be on the cusp of cutting edge technology but since I bought my iPod the way I view TV is totally different.

Actually, maybe it wasn't my iPod that did it but rather my wanting to listen to the KQ92 and 93x morning shows. Although I'm listening to them a day late I can pause, rewind, fast forward anytime I'd like. Listening to these Poscasts has me somewhat addicted to Podcasts now. I've tried to fill my iPod with enough Podcasts to get me through the work day. More and more video podcasts are being released and some of these video Podcasts are TV shows like "The Family Guy". Apple has it setup perfect for podcasts to charge money. I'd be more then happy to cancel cable if I can just subscribe to my favorite shows and I'd be more then willing to buy the AppleTV box to view these shows as well. I guess I'd be missing out on sports in real time but the Internet is going to take care of that sooner then we think.

I'd list my Podcasts that I currently listen to but it's been an experiment and after I have the list somewhat settled I'll post them. For the time beings check out the Podcasts the Ben listens too. I have subscribed to most of them to see what they're about.

SR-71 Blackbird >= Mach 3

All those days I spent bored wondering what to do and I never thought to go see my favorite jet that was on display less then three miles from my house at the Air National Guard museum. The SR-71 Blackbird was recently moved from the museum to the CIA head quarters for their 60th anniversary. I'm not sure if it will ever be back but I certainly missed a golden opportunity to see it. I read about it in the book Skunk Works and ever since I've been in awe over it. Now I'll have to travel somewhere to see it. Hopefully I can catch it at an air show or something while I'm in Cali. Check out a video of it on youtube.

Bath Time

One of Hayleys favorite activities is bath time. She'll run into the bathroom and stand next to the tub and repeat over and over "Bath".."Bath" while shaking her head yes. It's pretty funny. So why is this worth blogging... Last night during her bath she was playing around. Then her face got red and she "Pinched a loaf" in the tub. I knew kids did this but I never thought about it. Thank God I caught her in the act and I was able to stop her from playing with her turds. I cleaned and sanitized the tub and gave her another bath without incident this time. Hopefully we have no repeats of this event.

Go Colts!!!

The Colts vs Pats game last night was one of the best ever. After swallowing the Bears winning it was great to see the Colts win. Now if they can crush the Bears all will be well. I hate the Bears. They're the worst team to ever make it to the Super Bowl. Except for maybe the '85 Patriots.

Work and not much else

So I've pretty much been working and sleeping. It's been a super busy month and I'm trying hard to meet some deadlines this week. Today I left work frustrated cuz our simulator wasn't working so I finished what I could and headed out. I plan on being back super early tomorrow. Hopefully the simulator is back up and running.

When I get a brief second I've been subscribing to podcasts to listen to at work. I'm very happy with my iPod and glad I swapped the Zune for it. It's a a lot more user friendly and the iTune integration is really nice. I also like the option of watching some video before bed to unwind. Although Jen didn't like me using her arm as a prop to hold it up.

Hayley has been doing good since we got back. She hasn't got sick yet so after a 4 month fiasco of fighting through ear infections and colds this is a nice break. Keeping her away from daycare is paying off big time. She really wants to get out side more often. I wish the temp was about 15 degrees warmer here so we could spend more time outside.

Hayley did the cutest thing the other day. When Jen tried scolding her for pushing her nicknack's off a shelf Jen told her Naughty, Naughty while pointing her finger at Hayley. Well Hayley spent the rest of the day repeating what Jen did. It was the funniest thing. Kids are so fun.

Media Center Weekend

So after the excitement died down with the new iPhone I decided to get an the 30 gig iPod with video capabilities. I figured I wanted something with more memory and I didn't want to use AT&T (Cingular) as my provider. I had a bad experience with them in the past so I'm not switching just because they got a cool product. I'm sure down the road other providers will get it and then I'll re-evaluate my options. Hopefully the price will have gone down by then also. So now that I have an iPod I've been spending a good chunk of the weekend converting my cd's to mp3's.

The other product announced at Macworld was an Apple TV. The Apple TV would be kind of cool. I figured it'd almost be worth it to cancel Blockbuster and use that money towards buying movies and TV shows. If there were enough TV shows offered online I would even consider cancelling cable TV and just downloading the shows I want to watch. I thought about it for a while and then decided to try out my XBox as a media player. I've never really thought about using it as a media center. However, since I've had Hayley it's pretty much just collected dust. Guys at work use the XBox all the time and stream media to their computers so I figure why not give it a shot. After spending 4 frustrating hours trying to figure it out and almost giving up I decided to check the cable connections. It was agonizing to find this was the problem. The cord connected to the XBox was loose. Soon after reconnecting cord to my wireless router I got wireless streaming media going to my XBox. Cool stuff. So now the XBox is a media center instead of a gaming machine.

It's Arrived!!!!!!

A while back I posted about wanting an iPod but with more features. Well the device I've been craving has arrived. CHECK IT OUT!!!! I'm really happy I didn't keep the Zune.

Macworld

In a few hours I should know what my next gadget is. Is it going to be a video iPod, an Apple phone, or some other gadget being announced by Apple. Steve Jobs gives his annual key not this morning at Macworld. This is one of the most interesting conventions I've kept track of. (Actually it's the only one) I've been tracking it because there's so much speculation about what Jobs is going to announce. So many insiders have predicted on thing or another. We'll shall see...

Weekend Recap - A Golden Gate Experience

So we got together with some fellow Eaganites who wondered out to CA to work on some Satellites. Michelle, Mike, and Aubrey are braving the traffic and decided to move to San Fran. Chad, Jen and I headed over there to check out their apartment and visit the Golden Gate Bridge. Their apartment is three blocks from AT&T stadium, where the Giants play. It's a great location. (And the monster trucks are there next weekend. We're pulling the mullets out) So we took the public transportation to the Golden Gate Bridge. It's about 7 miles from the apartment and it took about 1.5 hours to get there. OK maybe it wasn't that long but it felt like it. The bridge was pretty cool but it was just a bridge. Here's some pics from the site seeing trip. There's some great pics of the bridge, Alcatraz, and a look back and San Fran, as well as some other landscape around the bridge. After the site seeing adventure we went to Michelle and Aubrey's apartment to grill out. They have an outstanding community area on the roof with a hot tub. We'll probably grilling there a lot this year.

Sunday was Jens B-Day. "Happy B-Day again Jen". We didn't do much other then buy a trailer for the bike and we went for a bike ride. Nothing to exciting I guess. Now it's back to work.

Signs from the Golden Gate Bridge

Apparently missles are common place around San Fran.

Crisis counseling on the bridge?

Explains the first sign above.

Don't turn around on the bridge.

Zune Review

Well I finally decided I wanted the Zune instead of an iPod. My wife called santa and had it delivered it a couple days early. The deciding factors in choosing the Zune over the iPod were

1) FM radio - I gotta have my morning show fix so why not buy a device with FM built in
2) The bigger screen - Although it's the same resolution as the iPod, I figure on using the video feature a lot when traveling so the bigger screen would be nice.
3) Video output - I thought it'd be nice to output video to the tv. I could load Hayleys movies on it and not have to worry about bringing dvds everywhere we go.
4) Ben said so

I was pretty excited until I started using it. I really can't add much more then Ben already said in his Zune review. But here's a few items that stick out to me.

- It really bugs me that there's a lack of support for podcasts. If I have to fire up iTunes to download my podcasts then I might as well buy an iPod in the first place.
- I don't like the hookiness of having to let the Zune software scan my computer for songs. I'm not saying it's bad for all users but I'd rather save the time and just drag the music/vids/images onto the device. The software took forever to scan my computer and everytime I sync it scans for changes again.
- I can't remove songs from the Zune. I have to manage everything through the computer. Hello, I don't want to depend on the friggen computer to manage my device.
- I have .avi files I want to transfer to the Zune. Microsoft developed the avi format, they could at least support it on the Zune. The Zune media player should be able to do everything x-box media player does. Either that or the software should convert the videos as it does images. I don't mind converting videos but I don't want to pay another $40 bucks for the software. There's a ton of Freeware that does this for the iPod.
- My thumb is ready to fall off from pushing so many buttons trying to create play lists. Apple got it right with the click wheel. Again I'm in Little Falls away from my computer which is why I was using the Zune to create play lists and not using the computer.

I think Microsoft should put Ben on the Zune team. I feel like the current Zune team hasn't used a portable mp3 player before.

So you may be asking yourself "why not return the Zune if you're so unhappy with it?" Well I was planning on it but Jens brother loves it, so I sold it to him at a discount as part of his x-mas gift. He didn't really like the Command & Conquer box set I got him.

Now I'm back in the market for a media player. I'm going to wait until after Macworld next week to get one. Maybe Apple has something new up their sleeve.

Back to Normal

My stomach finally feels normal again. I was beginning to wonder if I should see a doc or something. Stomach bugs suck. That's the second time in a year I've caught a stomach bug and hopefully the last. I can't remember the last time I caught a non self induced stomach bug.

We made it back to Sunnyvale with little trouble. I was really surprised at how well Hayley handles flying. I figured she'd be all over the place kicking and screaming to move around. But for the most part she just sat on our laps and played with the window shade. It's amazing how little things like a window shade can keep a toddler entertained.

I got a HHR again for my rental car. I'm kind of disappointed, I was hoping for a Chevy Impala but I guess it's considered full size. I'll probably change it up this Saturday when Avis gets their inventory full again. Being back home made me realize how much I love my Mazda. It's a great car, I wish I would've got the six cylender though. Four is just not quit enough power for my liking.

Flu Ridden Christmas

After flying home last Friday everything was going great. Jen, Hayley and I were hanging out at home and taking care of some house hold chores. I got my annual checkup and the doctor proclaimed me healthy. The next day we planned a long day of shopping. When we were about to head out Jen started feeling under the weather so she slept most of the day away. Although we ended up getting most of our shopping done that night.

Christmas Eve we drove to Willmar and Jen was feeling better. We arrived at my brothers for the annual x-mas party and about a half hour into it I started feeling sick. So I tried taking a short nap. It didn't help much at all. Later on I threw up and it all went down hill from there. I spent most of the night on the crapper. It was pretty miserable. And to make matters worse at least half of my family got the bug later in the week. My gut hasn't felt the same since. Sorry to all that I got sick. Hopefully you have a better recovery then I did.

Merry Christmas Everyone

I just started and finished shopping today. I waited so long because I was bitter over CA having a higher sales tax then MN so why buy stuff there. Plus it's way over priced.

And I should mention that I have the coolest wife ever.

Tremers

While I'm out here in Cali I wouldn't mind experiencing an earthquake, albeit not a big one. It was semi disconcerning to get earthquake emergency kits at work. The kits have first aid stuff and a self charging flashlight (which is kind of cool) and other odds and end things to get one by if the building tumbles. I'm sure our cubes will keep us safe. At least I feel pretty secure since I'm next to a support railing, which supposedly is the safest spot in an earthquake.

Anyway, I was posing the question as to the frequency of quakes out here and someone showed me this site. http://earthquake.usgs.gov/eqcenter/recenteqsus/ It has a record of all earthquakes that happen in our region. Digging deeper I found that we had an earthquake last Sunday about 10 miles from our apartment and I didn't have a clue. http://earthquake.usgs.gov/eqcenter/recenteqsus/Quakes/nc51176897.php I'm wonder what does one have to register to feel it. 2.2 didn't quite cut it.

mp3 players

I keep thinking of what kind of mp3 player I want. I keep going back and forth between the Zune and the Video iPod. Although the Zune has more of the features I like, it doesn't quite cover everything. I'm thinking I'd really like something that I can just download stuff to the device bypassing the computer. It would be nice if I could just download the latest PodCasts when they become available. I'm missing the daily morning shows in MN. I wonder if the "rumored" iPhone from Apple with have some kind of feature built into download podcasts. Hopefully it will be released soon. I may have something waiting for me under the tree. Maybe I could exchange it.

Hayley and Jen Heading Home

I just dropped Jen and Hayley off at the airport. We had originally planned on them staying in MN until after Christmas. I'm glad they came out. Our stuff would probably still be in boxes if it weren't for Jen. Now we have a nice clean apartment to live in. We both commented on how we wished this apartment was the floor plan of our house. It's pretty nice. Now if the weather would warm up a bit.

Flight Mixup

When I booked Jens ticket here I thought I had her flying back on Monday night. It didn't dawn on me that I really booked her flight for early Monday morning at 12:30 am. Good thing she brought it up today cuz I would've drove her to the airport on Monday night and she would've missed her flight.

Cool Work

Since I moved to Sunnyvale I'm learning about brand new technologies. It's totally different then anything I've ever worked on in Eagan. I'm amazed at the technology here. Space Systems and Satillites are so interesting. Today I went to a presentation on the Crew Exploration Vehicle (CEV) which is going ot replace the shuttle. The sub systems that go into that are amazing. I'm amazed at the things people think up to make it functional and safe. I certainly would not mind working on that project after I'm done with my current rotation.

Move in activities

I would've never expected the process of moving to be this expensive. When I moved to FL we rented a furnished apartment and drove down there in our truck. This allowed us to bring virtually everything we needed. I don't recall spending that much money up front there. Since we got to Sunnyvale we've spent close to a thousand dollars on getting this apartment settled. Everyday it seems like we're running to Target, Costco, or IKEA for something. A table here a bed in a bag there throw in some cleaning supplies a new vaccum and all our TDY money is going down the drain. Hopefully the bleeding stops this week. We finally got our funiture yesterday. Which was an event in itself. The guy calls in the morning to inform us his help didn't show so wants to wait until Monday. I'm like "yeah, no!!" I'm sick of living on the floor and if I have to help move so be it. The guy showed up 10 minutes later and it took about 3 hours to unload everything. At the end of the day Jen had everything situated except for the kitchen. I was pretty much relageted to keeping Hayley out of everything along with discarding of boxes and assembling the new kitchen table. The apartment looks nice now though. I wish our house was as big as our apartment.

Counting Down

Jen and Hayley will be here in 2 days. Man am I happy they're coming now instead of waiting until after New Years. The $250 plane ticket was well worth it. I'd be going crazy if they weren't going to be here this week.

Weekend Highlights

This weekend I set out to purchase a bike. After doing some shopping on Friday I settled for a bike from Sports Authority. It was only a two our extravaganza. Working with minimum wage workers can be brutal sometimes. I went through two cancellations of my bill because the lady couldn't figure out how to ring up a bike. So that kind of put a damper on riding most of the afternoon. But I managed to ride to work and it took about 25 minutes. Although carrying a laptop may take longer.

Sunday morning I hung out with some Packer fans and we found a sports bar to watch both the Vikings and Packers. The bar was pretty run down and the pop tasted like water with a touch of brown food coloring. We did manage some free food though. BBQ ribs and potato salad so it wasn't all bad. (The Vikings were terrible though).

After the game Chad and I went mountain biking around the bay area. We found some trails and I was floored to see a dude hunting. The dude drove his truck to the entrance of the trails and rode a bike to his spot. It was incredible. Hunting here would be awesome. Just a light jacket and you're ready to go. The swamps were full of ducks too. The guy had three and shot one while we were standing there talking to him. I'm thinking I should've brought my gun out here to hunt some. You can't ask for better weather to hunt in. There's no getting cold here.

The weather here has been amazing. It hasn't been cloudy at all since I got here. It's a little chilly at night but it's fine with a sweatshirt. Some people are still using the pool during the afternoons.

Slow Start

It's been pretty slow these first couple days at work. Our lead is waiting for two more people to join the team before he really gets into training us. So I'm stuck reading ConOps and what not. It's not all bad I guess. It would be nice to have my own apartment ready to roll though. I've been living with a couple guys that came out here and we're basically in an empty apartment waiting for furniture to get here. I bought a blow up mattress for the time being.

The weather has been pretty nice. Highs in the 60's and lows in the 40's. I'm slowly learning the roads and what not and finding many places to go. This weekend I'm planning on finding some hiking trails in the mountains. Hopefully I don't need boots. I didn't bring my camera so I'll probably buy another one since Jen and I were thinking of getting one anyway. So hopefully in the coming blog entries I'll have some pics to show of the area.

Travel Mix Up

So I was supposed to leave today for Sunnyvale. My Administrative assistance booked a flight with a layover so I called the travel agency myself to see if I could get a direct flight. After some time looking for flights the lady said she had something that flew out a few hours later so I took it. I waited a few hours and then I went online to check in. When I tried checking in the site said I couldn't check in until 24 hours before my flight. I thought something was messed up so I looked at my new itinerary. It said my flight was for tomorrow at 5 not today at five. So I called back and all flights were sold out. Pretty crappy since I was supposed to start tomorrow. So I told them to rebook my hotel and car for Monday instead of today. Hopefully my new boss understands the mix up. I don't really mind that much since it's another day I get to spend with Hayley.

Sunnyvale...First Impressions

Busy Busy Busy. Did I mention it's busy out here? The view is nice because there are mountains on both sides of the city but it seems like every inch of real state is used and there's not a lot of parks and open area until you get to the Mountains. Live close to work that's my suggestion, unless you want to spend a lot of time in traffic. The roads around here have got to be the worst signed roads of anywhere I've ever been. Although the roads aren't as bad as New Jersey, the home of the jug handles, they come in a close second. Painted lines marking the lanes of traffic suddenly end and when you go around a curve you have no clue if you're in the same lane. If you can get around that part of it things will most likely be fine. So far I like Clearwater a lot better then this area. I think mainly cuz I liked being so close to the Gulf and roller blading on the causeways. Although I can't complain about the weather here, it's been in the 70's both days and seeing the sun is nice.

I spent most of Tuesday looking at apartments and I looked at one today. I think I'm going to take the one I saw today. It's a 720 unit complex which is huge, but it comes with a lot of conveniences like an onsite store that will deliver to your door, dry cleaning service, a fitness facility that would rival any major fitness center like Bally's and a spa with a massage parlor. It comes at a pretty stiff price tag though, $1840 a month. I budgeted $1800 so it's not too bad. It's also only 3 miles from work so not having to drive will help with the extra cost. I just may break out the roller blades again and roller blade to work everyday or buy a bike. Most of the roads around here have bike lanes.

The Lockheed campus here is huge. Lockheed in Eagan has just under a 1000 employees, there are well over 7000 here. I'd say the campus has more buildings and is definitely bigger then the St Cloud State campus. It's a city within itself. I saw my cube and I'll be over looking a huge atrium on the forth floor. It's by far the best cube I've had at Lockheed. So I'm looking forward to that. It's kind of weird cuz there are umbrellas on the ledges of the atrium over the place and nobody seems to know why. It adds the feel of being on the beach. I found out that the task I've been assigned to way behind. Nothing like finding out you're behind schedule before you even start. So my team is going to be challenged to get back on schedule.

The Yahoo campus is across the street from Lockheed, I counted 4 buildings that I think are part of Yahoo. We made a trek up to Google as well. Not that it’s anything special but it’s kind of cool to see the major tech company’s head quarters. There’s also a ton of empty office space left over from the dot com bust.

Well that's enough babble for one day.

Teaching

I now know how it feels to suck at teaching. I feel really bad for my students cuz I had no clue what I as doing today. (or last time out for that matter) I felt like I had a good idea what needed to cover before the class started. When the class started I decided it would be best to forget everything. It was brutal. I felt like I was in one of those "wanna get away" commercials.

Before I started I thought teaching would be a lot like being a sales person. A sales person basically teaches a customer about the product they're selling. I was pretty decent at selling so I thought I'd be good at teaching. My over confidence killed me. If students didn't know OOAD before I started they definitely don't know it now. I'm thinking it's pay back for all the teachers I ripped on in college. Although this is self inflicted cuz I should've spent a lot more time preparing for this class. We'll see if I can redeem myself next Monday. But I'm not that confident about it.

Bowling Blues

Our team is on a roll. We've dominated the competition for the last month or so. We went from 16th to 1st in that span. I've raised my average to 189 in that span also. Until the last game of last week I was on a 12 game win streak, which is pretty tough to do in bowling. Generally someone has a big game against you. But things have been going pretty good for me. Until last night. I got crushed by a low handi-cap, 50mph throwing bowler. This guy was getting strikes no matter where he hit the head pin. I swear he hit 10 right in the middle and he'd get a strike. It was unbelievable. I guess the speed of the ball was creating an unbelievable amount of pin action. It didn't help me that I didn't find my grove until the 3 frame of the third game. By that time it was way to late. I lost even though I had a 220. I shot in the 170's the first two games so my average is going to go down. Which sucks cuz I was hoping to end this year with an average about 190. With my rotation in Sunnyvale I only have a couple weeks left to get it above 190. I'm going to need a rocken series next time out.

Miller Bowl III

Every years since Bob bought a house a couple blocks from mine he throws a party. The party starts out with a big football game at the park a couple blocks away. Then it gets rowdy at Bob's afterward. Every year has it's unique events that we keep remembering from year to year. Like the first year it was the Setrum Streak which was basically throwing a hail mary to the receiver that was being covered by the slowest player on the other team. Last year I missed the event so I'm not sure what was the memorable moment. This years memorable moment came from a group of guys playing tippy cup and getting lit up before 7:30 and then breaking Bob's ping pong table. Not to mention one individual going down for the count around the same time. No puking and rallying here.

So it's been 4 days since Miller bowl and I'm still feeling sore. I need to get into shape. These once a year sporting events are killing me. I couldn't hardly walk I'm so sore. But in all it was a blast. Kudos to Bob and Jamie. They always throw a good party.

Next Stop... Sunnyvale, CA

A couple months I submitted my name for a possible rotation on a new program that Eagan was going to get. There were two efforts, one in Eagan and one in Sunnyvale. I didn't really want the Sunnyvale position but I mentioned if they really needed people there that I'd go. Well last week I got an email with an interview schedule for the effort in Sunnyvale and apparently I must have said the right things during the interview because I was offered the job there. I still wasn't that hip on going there until I saw the compensation package. Then I started thinking it over real hard. I inquired family and friends asking for advice. After getting the call that they wanted me in Sunnyvale I told them I'd get back to them the next morning. Well that night I didn't sleep at all. I don't know that I've ever tossed an turned that much over a decision. I still didn't know what to do the next day. I remember being so relieved to be back in MN after my rotation in FL. It was great to have family a couple hours away, I love being able to drive there for a day and being close enough to head back home to sleep in my own bed. We had a Q/A session that day and the manager in the meeting said this was one of the best career opportunities for a young engineer he's ever seen. The program I'll be working on is a highly visible program and the CEO is taking a huge interest in it. So that pushed me over the edge and I decided to take the rotation in Sunnyvale. They wanted me to start ASAP but I pushed the start date out to the Monday after Thanksgiving.

I'm relieved today to have the decision out of the way. I'm going to miss family and friends a lot but Jen and/or I will be coming home quite a bit unlike FL when I didn't have paid trips back. With the compensation package I'll get out there, Hayley won't have to be in day care. That actually was one of my biggest decision makers. Jen will be able to spend everyday with Hayley now.

So it's off to Sunnyvale.

Daycare Bugs

Hayley has been in daycare for just over a month now and she's been sick twice from it. She really never got sick until she was in daycare. Hopefully it's a good thing that she gets sick now and not so much later on in life. Although all the colds I caught when I was younger doesn't seem to help me fend these stupid bugs off as Hayley has spread it to me as well. Although my cold is not nearly as bad as Jens. She can hardly talk today.

Professor setty??

Well I signed my contract with St Thomas officially making me an adjunct professor. If you've known me for any amount of time while I was going to school you would've no doubt heard me bashing the teaching habits of the professors. Well we'll see how I do in this role. I have it easier then most professors though since I only have to teach for 1/3 of the semester. However, the topic I'm covering really takes a full semester to teach so it's going to be challenging.

The Biggest Loser

Yep I'm a fatty. Even though I haven't always been a fatty somehow these fat cells seem to absorb more and more fat making crap. I'm constantly playing the yo yo game... weight up .. weight down and every time it seems the weight gets a little higher. (Dam ice cream) Basically the cycle has been 2 months of dieting and 4 months of being a slob and eating. Now that grad school is done there's no more excuses.

Hanging out at guys weekend the last weekend Green-O and I decided to put a bet on who could lose the most weight (percentage wise) by guys weekend next summer. We'll see how it goes. If I lose 100lbs and still lose I'll still be happy I guess. It's only $50. Our starting weight is Green-O 213lbs Kyle 249lbs. (that's close to 100lbs heavier then I weighed at high school graduation)

Finally Walking

It's been 6 months since she crawled. We figured she'd be walking by 8-9 months. A couple times in the last month she's taken a few steps between me and Jen but with grandma here the last couple days she's off and walking a lot on her own. It's kind of cool to see. She still falls a lot and she's working on getting up on her own now. But she can get across the room pretty easy now. Now if we could get her to stop eating everything.

The Season

Tonight was pretty much our season in softball. We started out 2-4 so our chances at winning the division were not that good. We've turned the season around with a 6 game winning streak so our record is 8-4. This league has no playoffs so there is no chance at winning the league since the first place team was undefeated. The last two weeks we've been waiting on this game. If we can't win the division at least we can beat the undefeated team. It was close tonight, after 6 innings we were down one and up to bat in the top of the seventh. We eecked out three runs so all we needed to do was hold them in the bottom of the seventh. I walked the first batter (my first walk all game). The next batter hit a lazy fly that was caught. The next guy hit a shot back to me and I basically looked at my glove in disbelief that I caught it. Then got my wits and threw the guy out at first for a double play. Exciting stuff even though it's slow pitch softball. I think after this game we should have second wrapped up with two games to play.

Big Win's

This week has been a good week in Golf and Softball with both events coming down to the final hole/inning. During my golf match I was up 2 with 3 to go only to choke 2 away on 7 and 8. So now I'm tied on the 9th hole and he hits a good shot in the middle of the fairway staying well short of the 3 bunkers that surround the green. The hole is only 258 yds and we had a slight wind against us. This guy was a lot better then me around the green so I figured my only shot was to try and drive the green so I put my all into the shot and it landed in the front bunker. He hit his next shot just over the green and I hit mine on but I had a 20 foot putt. He chipped 4 feet to the hole. So I'm thinking just to tie I need to 2 putt and I hit my first putt 8 feet left of the hole and I'm thinking I'm a major choker. Then after a couple minutes of sizing and practice strokes I bang the ball so hard that had it not hit the hole it would've went 8 feet past. But luck was on my side. He barely missed so I won the hole and the match. Our team is in first now. With a good shot to win the first half.

Our softball team was playing the second place team and we blow a 6 run lead in the bottom of the 5th with a horrid error streak giving up 9 runs. We came back and scored 3 to tie and held them scoreless in the bottom of the 6th. The 7th and 8th inning were scoreless as well. So in the 9th, the second extra inning, we scored 2. There first batter hit a ball and our right fielder tried diving for it and missed giving up a homer. The next batter got a signal and things weren't looking good for us. But the next batter hit to SS and we got the force at 2nd. The next batter flew out to center. So they're down to their last out. Seebs moves in at LC and they totally hit it over his head but our RC cheated over and made a nice running catch to end the game. So we leap frogged them in the standings. We play the first place team next game but they're undefeated so there's no chance of catching them.

In all it was a good week of softball.

Truck Blues

The truck is still broke. Ford quoted $850 or so to fix it. So it ain't going to get fixed by Ford. That's total crazy talk. That's like me asking $100 for each line of code I write. Oh wait, I think my employer charges the government close to that for each line of code I write. Now if only I saw even a small percentage of that I could afford to pay Ford to fix my truck. Man I should have left it dead when we found it on the road. Good thing I got inlaws that go out of their way to fix stuff. At least I can repay them with some Hayley time.

Turn your back for 2 seconds

Hayley loves playing in the spice cabinet so while she was playing in it I made a sandwich for lunch. When I went to the fridge for milk I looked down and I had a green daughter. She'd got into the food coloring. I was in shock for a while afterward. I couldn't believe it. So I spent the next 1/2 trying to get her clean. Good thing the stuff comes off pretty easy. Although she ended up with a green mouth and tongue for a few hours. 

Graduation

Yep it's finally over. I went to the ceremony last Saturday and I thought it was actually kind of cool. All the professors lined up and gave an ovation as we walked into the gym. Our degree program was the last out of 450 students to walk across the stage so that took some time and I was 4th from the last overall to walk across. One thing I didn't know until graduation is that Master graduates get caped. Something a little different then undergrad. Now I can push for a promotion at work. We'll see how that goes. 

Minor Cross Roads

I made the decision yesterday to move to a new project. I was working on a legacy system, which basically means the software has been completed and I was working on minor enhancements. My new project will give me the opportunity to work on new development and I'll have the opportunity to refresh my design skills again. It's been a while since I've worked on a new development so it should be fun. The software I'll be working on is a UAV ground station platform. So it should also be interesting.

On another note, I've finished grad school and I'll be attending the ceremony on Saturday night. It's been mentioned in my blog about 10 times now so I'll leave it at that.

Sunday a Mike, Scott and I are heading off to Milwaukee to attend a Twins - Brewers game. It should be fun as long as the 5 hour drive doesn't wear us out. Monday we're going to try and get a tour of the Miller brewery. We'll see how that goes. We're pretty unorganized right now so we'll be playing things as they go.

The Short Bus

I joined a different crowd to lunch today and as we were walking to our vehicles I was shocked to see someone drove a bus to work. It was friggen hilarious. We all hoped on and headed out to lunch. I guess it's not as funny blogging it as it was in person but oh well, not everyone can say they get bus service to lunch.

One Final Left

After going down in a blaze of fire yesterday during our presentation I can take comfort in knowing that I have one final left and I'll have a masters. I figure if I look back on this five years from now I'll have no clue what happend during this presentation. From misspellings on the powerpoint slides to running over our time limit. But whatever, so now I need to get a 80 on the final instead of a 70 to get an A. I'll add another 20 minutes to my study time.

I really don't know what to think of it since I assumed getting a masters would be a lot harder than this was. But I don't feel to bad since taking classes at Stevens University wasn't anymore challenging. Maybe school comes a lot easier when you only take 1 or 2 courses at a time. All I know is that being done will free up another night so I can play more golf and spend my time with Hayley and Jen.

#1 Programmer on the Planet

When I graduated from college I used to think I was the best programmer on the planet. I was the tech lead on all my college teams and I had an actual programming job so I was heads ahead of the other BCIS students that I knew in experience. All this non-sense came crashing down after I met Ben. He made me realize I had to settle for the 2nd best programmer in the world. (I'm actually down to about 25th best now, Dam LM for hiring smart people) **sarcasm people**

Well Ben is leaving LM for a lesser known company called Microsoft. Ben made this announcement a long time ago but I just finally got a chance to blog so I'm writing about it know. I have no clue why he'd want to the leave the world leader in technical prowl for a MS. If you're interested in why he's leaving you can read about on his blog I'm kind of happy now cuz when my MS apps crash I can call someone to complain about and actually get results. Although with Ben on board, MS will produce the best quality software ever.

I am left with knowing that I gave Ben on good idea to use a Hashtable in his code. He only gave me about 300 ideas.

Well best of luck to ya Ben. Say hi to the last of my 7 prom dates for me while you're there. I think you know her since she's a regular commenter on your blog.

Recent Happenings

Blogging has been sporadic at best since the beginning of the year. Mostly because work is super busy and school. But at the end of this semester I'll have a masters. I'm pretty excited about that.

Anyway here's some happenings:

- I ended the bowling season with 186 average in my Tuesday night league and 182 in my Wednesday night league. I started bowling early in the second half of my Wednesday night league so I had already worked out a lot of the kinks by then. I got an email showing my dad's average is 185 which is outstanding at 70.

- We decided to leave Hayley with the grandparents while we're in FL. Nick is going to hold down the fort at home. Hopefully we don't miss her to much.

- Easter went great. We visited my brother and his family and my sister and her family. We made it home around 1:30ish am. I'd like to thank Lisa for cooking an outstanding meal. I think they were pretty impressed with the progress Hayley has made.

- School is going good. It's a lot of busy work this semester but the work isn't to challenging.

Spring

This winter was one of the warmest on record and definently the warmest that I remember. There was hardly any snow too. I got to use my snow blower twice. But even though it was such a warm winter the average temperature was still in the 20's which is still to cold to spend a lot of time outside with Hayley. Going to visit Jen today at work with short sleeves on got me thinking about last year in FL and how it was so nice to go outside everyday of the year without a coat. I think our families need to move there so we don't have to worry about not seeing them if we move there.

Vacation dilemma

What to do? Jen and I are planning a vacation to FL at the end of April. The problem we're dealing with is Hayley. Do we leave her with her grandparents for 10 days or bring her with. I'm kind of nervous about leaving her with anyone for a night so 10 days is another story. I know it's a super big chore to bring her with but I'd feel a lot more comfortable with her with us. That way I know she's safe and I won't miss her. A guy at work said "You'll enjoy your vacation for 3 days then you'll spend the rest of the time wishing she was there". I can totally see his point. Maybe we need to cut our vacations down to 2-3 day sprints. That'd be nice if flying was cheap.

And for those of you keeping track I bowled my 3rd 600 series in a row today. Let's see if I can keep it up tomorrow. Soon I'll be on the PBA and you'll be able to watch me on TV. ha!!

Another 600

I bowled another 600 series on Wednesday. I got 5 200 games in a row going counting Tuesdays scores. I ended the night with a 181, 2 pins above my average. It was a decend night and our team is in 5th place so we should move up.

This weekend we're planning on child proofing the house with Hayley crawling. I got the Exploder running but I think it's just about at the end of it's life. I give it gas and it slows down. Kind of weird. I'm thinking it either needs spark plugs or the fuel filter is clogged. Or it's junk and needs to be replaced by a Mazda 3. Who knows.

600 Series

Last night I bowled my first 600 series in a sanctioned league. In the past I've been able to put together 2 good games and then I'd bomb on the third game. Last night was different, I improved every game. It took the edge of the losses by the T-Wolves and the Wild. Now I only need like 1000 more 600 series to catch my dad.

Kirbyyyyyyyyyyy Pucket

Today is an extremely sad day. Kirby was by far my favorite sports figure in any sport ever!! I drove from Willmar to the dome on many occasion and sat in the outfield so I could see him play. And who could forget the greatest introduction of all time "And batting 3rd your center fielder KIRBYYYYYYYYYYYYYY PUCKET". Only Bob Casey, another Twins legend could pull it off. The crowd would go nuts. No other hitter since then has received that kind of ovation every time they step to the plate. Since the time Kirby retired there's been a void in every Twins fans heart. The World Series in '87 was one of the greatest moments in Minnesota history only to be out done by the '91 series. We'll miss you Kirby.

New Hutch

Jens neighbor is retired and he does some wood working on the side. Jens dad had him build us a hutch to store all of Jens Precious Moments. I think it turned out pretty good, however, I could not resist the chance to tease Jen about it. You know the usual, "the computer I could buy with the money we're spending on this" or "I think it would look better on that wall". I think after three days Jen has finally cooled off. :) I tried to work out a deal with Jens parents that in exchange for holding Hayley they should buy us the hutch. I thought they were getting a pretty good deal but they didn't think so. Well I'm off to watch the T-Wolves lose another one. Man being a Minnesota sports fan this year bites.


 
 

Nothing Happening

Life has been pretty routine this winter. Since I don't really like cold weather I just hang out indoors for the most. I day dream about the nice weather they're having in FL and I wish I was there to play golf or just hang out outdoors. I think I've worn a nice path in our carpet from walking Hayley back and forth. It would be really nice to take her for walks outside. Oh well. Hayley does a great job entertaining us. She's just a blast to be around. Right now I can hear her banging her feet against the crib. Which is a sign that she's awake and ready to tackle a couple more hours of the day. So I'm cutting this entry short.

Joel's Plethora of Ideas

Joel has been waiting for his college to remove his autobiography from the web for over a year now. I recently checked to see if it was still there or not and it was gone. So I did a Google search for it and I found the site cached but the image was missing. So I'm recreating the page here (with a slightly modified image) on my blog so this will never go away and Joel will have to live with it forever. Man the kids will love it.



My name is Joel. I am a hardworking, focused college senior. I am thoroughly convinced that I was born a mechanical engineer. From earliest memories I have been building things just to see if they will work. This is why I majored in mechanical engineering, and why I am convinced that I will love a career in the field. My current design projects include a wood burning hot tub, a lightweight gas-powered scooter, and a linkage mechanism for an adjustable kitchen countertop. My brain is a plethora of solutions to design problems. I constantly analyze everything around me, thinking about how things could be designed better or how new designs could be implemented with new materials or mechanisms, always keeping in mind factors like cost and life. Although I have been thinking critically for as long as I can remember, my education has taught me to implement acceptable solutions, and effectively communicate my ideas to others in a viable way.

The majority of my days are spent studying and working. Throughout my college career I have held a job. I feel a sense of pride for working longer and harder than other students. Most would see having an extra job as a disadvantage; I think that it teaches a person how to be organized, self-disciplined, and literally, how to work hard. During school when I am able to have a day off of work I feel like I have abundance of extra time. My homework is done early, and I am left to idleness. In reality this is how other students, or as I see it competitors for future employment, live on a daily bases. This rigorous schedule prepares me beyond the scope of anything I will see in future employment, and I think my employers have, and will, recognize this potential. 

Rolling and Jumping

It's amazing that it's been only 5 months and Hayley is rolling over both ways and she has figured out her jonnie jumpup. She jumps like crazy and when she's out of it she tries to jump anyway. It's so entertaining. This weekend we're getting baptized. The weather has taken a turn from the 30-40's we've had to barley 0. (I won't even mention how nice it is in FL) But it supposed to warm up a bit by Sunday so it shouldn't be so bad.

And a big thanks to Green-O for finishing the dishwasher before all the company comes.

Working 60 hours a week

If you're wondering why there hasn't been any posts in a while it's because our project is working 60 hours a week. It's short term so it's not to bad plus the OT is nice.

Hayley is doing great. She's been rolling over to her stomach in her crib and sleeping like that. But I think she get's frustrated cuz she can't roll back and she'll start fussing. We have nothing to complain about, she's just an awesome baby.

I start my last class Monday. After this semester I'll have a Masters. Cool ey? It will be nice to get that out of the way. Not that I mind taking one class a semester. Well I'm off to work again.

What's up?

Keeping up with the blog? Well not lately. I've been to busy, with what, I don't know.

Anyway, some recent happenings: I did get another ticket. This one for not moving my truck during a snow emergency. I was fortunate enough to see the tow truck pulling up to my truck so I was able to run out and move it before the guy could tow it away. I was happy to pay the ticket rather then have to deal with our truck getting towed. If we were in FL I wouldn't have to worry about stupid snow emergency's.

Ticket Outcome

I took the day off yesterday to fight my ticket in Litchfield. When I got there the clerk had me fill out some forms. I asked how it worked and she said:

a. You can plead not guilty and we'll set up a court date.
b. Pay your ticket.
c. Talk to the Prosecuting attorney and try to negotiate a better deal.

Although I think I could've won the case I choose to talk to the Prosecuting attorney cuz I didn't want to take another day off from work and drive the 1.5 hours it takes to get there.

First the Procecuter said he'd drop the ticket after six months if I didn't get another ticket and I pay the fine. I asked if he could lower the fine, which was $140. He asked what happened and I told him my version of the story and he kind of shrugged and said he'd dismiss the ticket if I didn't get a ticket within 6 months and pay a $100 court fee. Even though the $100 still hurts I settled for it.

No I just need to not get a ticket for six months.

10" of Snow

Now that we got our first big storm out of the way. I'm going to need to fire up the snow blower. Keep in mind this is a very old snow blower with only a pull start. I'm thinking it isn't going to start. It hasn't run in two years. So I'm going to be stuck shoveling. You know there's no shoveling snow in FL. Which reminds me of a professor I had in my undergrad. He used to live down south somewhere. His wife wanted to move to MN to be closer to her family. He made a deal with her. If they move to MN then she'd have to take care of the snow removal. I think this is a good idea. Since Jen wants to live in MN so bad she should be put in charge of removing the snow. She'll definitly want to move back to FL then.

And in other news I got an 85% on my final last night. I was thinking that it wasn't to shabby until I saw the class average of 92.5%. Crap, maybe I should've studied. I guess I'll have to settle for a B in the class. Dam those "All of the Above" trick questions.

Final Today

I have a final today in my Information Retrieval class (The class was basically the nuts and bolts of how Google works). Of which I did absolutely no studying for. I don't know why, I guess time just flew by so fast that I didn't get a chance to study. I'm teetering on an A so I'm thinking after this test I'll be at a B. Which sucks cuz I created a web search engine from scratch for my class project. When I told my professor what I was doing for my project he was like "Do you want to try and continue what another student started last semester" cuz he thought it would be too difficult to implement. Well I finished the project in a weekend.

I found out what some of the other projects were and this project totally kicks arse over these other projects. One girl was touting her spider, (A spider is an automated means of collecting links on a page). It took me all of five minutes to include a spider on the indexer portion of my search engine.

But whatever, I'm just against tests that one can study for and forget everything the next day. I think my project should count for 75% of my grade and not 25%. The experience I gained from my project far outweighs the knowledge I'd gain from trying to study for a test.

Did I mention that I hate tests. I'm also a whinner.

Sleep is inconsistent

Hayley slept almost 12 hours yesterday. Last night she slept about 6 hours. No biggy though since Jen has overnight duties. I get a chuckle out of it cuz Hayley will start cooing but once in a while she'll fall back asleep, but for the most part the cooing is a warning that someone should come get her before she starts crying. I can feel a huge uuhhhhh if Hayley starts crying instead of falling back asleep. Then Jen is stumbling around trying to find her glasses and then trying to find her way around. But it's not to funny cuz I generally have overnight duties on the weekends.

I'm Junk

Now and then I send myself emails from my home email to my work email. Well I just realized for some reason I haven't been getting them. So I was checking out my junk email and all my emails from home were in there. I guess I'm considered junk.

Below Zero Today

I believe today was our first below zero temperature of the season. My Exploder almost didn't want to start today and when I put it into drive it took a while before the transmission to engage. But the Exploder is still holding out. Hopefully it will last until I become rich. Which will probably be never.

This reminds me. Norm took us to lunch in his new mini van. It's loaded, dvd player built in, auto opening doors, quick configuration changing and we can't forget OnStar. It was a pretty awesome ride. However, fitting 7 fatties was still a little tight.

Back to my weather whine. I checked Clearwaters weather and it's in the 70's. Man I could really go for roller-blading on the causeway to Honeymoon island.

And then there was one or two

Congrates to Ryan who proposed to Kris this weekend. Judging from all the activity around my cube neighbors I think she said yes. I'm thinking her productivity today will be between 0 and well 0. It's kind of funny to see the difference in reaction between the two. Ryan sent out a one like email "the waiting is over" and Kris is running around spreading the news. Of the gang here at Eagan there were two left to get married. Now there's just one. That would be Matt. Well if you consider Ben maybe that's two. If Ben gets married it may be the shocker of a lifetime. What would happen if he had to spend his money on a wedding and kids instead of electronics? That could get ugly.

Weekend Happenings

Finally we have a dishwasher. After contemplating getting a portable and then remodeling our kitchen we decided to install the dishwasher we had in the middle of our kitchen and just build and enclosure around it. Green-O is handling the labor so I got to give him a big thanks for getting this done. I don't think he expected the inlaws to be there critiquing his every last move. But it turned out OK. The wife and I are so happy that we don't have to manually wash dishes.

After working on the dishwasher we had some Turkey for Thanksgiving with the inlaws. Then it was off to the Monster Truck Show. Jens dad, who recently stopped milking cows, was able to go so that was pretty cool.

Sunday we just hung out with family. I TiVo'd the Vikings so the inlaws wouldn't have to watch them. When I finally got around to watching them I think it took less then an hour after skipping all the commercials and half-time show.

And that was pretty much my weekend.

Three Months Old Today

Hayley is three months old today. Time is flying by so fast. She's grown to the point where she doesn't fit on my chest anymore. Nor does she like to sleep face down so that fun is over. But she's so much more alert and she giggle a lot now. I gave her a bath this morning and she was splashing like crazy, it was so entertaining to watch. We have a video camera and our first tape is just about full. We try to take a couple minutes of video a day. I'm planning on making a dvd of the moments and send it out as a christmas card. We'll see though if I'm not to lazy between now and then.

Thankful for Hayley

This weekend flew by. We spent Thursday and Friday at Willmar. I was surprised how good Hayley was around everyone. She is so easy going. I don't think she cried at all. So having such an awesome baby is what I'm thankful of this year. No matter what I'd be thankful for her but her personality is a bonus. I think Hayley took a day to get wound down though cuz she didn't sleep to well yesterday but she was still good. I think maybe she missed everyone.

Ticket

I got a ticket on Saturday for failing to yield to a pedestrian in a cross walk. For one, the guy was wearing all black and he had his hood up so I didn't see him until the last minute. So I stopped and waited for him to cross my lane of traffic. As soon as I went through a cop pulled me over and said I had to stop until the guy was through the entire intersection and he proceeded to give me a $150 ticket. Well I was looking through the traffic ordinances of MN and I found this on pedestrians - read it here and it states "The driver must remain stopped until the pedestrian has passed the lane in which the vehicle is stopped." So I'm definitely going to court on this one.

Who's going to win in this case.

The Renter Speaks

In class our prof mentioned a site called "The Way Back Machine". I was curious if a web site I created back in college would be there so I typed in the old address - http://www.therenterspeaks.com. I gave up on the site after I got my job. It was kind of interesting seeing what it looked like. Although it doesn't work so you can't see the entire site it's kind of neat to see the old home page. Check it out here.

Snow??

It supposed to snow tomorrow. I have a plan to convince Jen we should move after living in Winter for a while. Florida is so much better then this winter crap.

Weekend

Not really sure what's going on this weekend. The only sure thing is taking care of Hayley while Jen works. That's exciting to me. I've been thinking about taking Hayley to Willmar to meet the family but Jen said she cried for her on their trip to Little Falls. Listening to a crying baby for 2 hours is a tough task so I'm thinking I'm going to wait until Jen is free so she can sit with Hayley in the back. We'll see though.

Waiting for a new car

Although I'm not in the market for a new car I do check out cars that would make sense for me. I need a compact vehicle to drive to work and back. The gas mileage on the Explorer is terrible. I'm not sold on Hybrids because you have to replace the battery every 3-5 years or so. No cost savings there. I've also contemplated a VW Jetta TDI diesel that gets 50mph, but with the price of diesel that would probably be a bad idea. Reading Popular Science online I saw this Europe-only Golf GT that gets 30mph city and 50mph Highway by using both a super charger and a turbo charger. One top of the great gas mileage the performance is good too. The only problem is they're not selling it in the US. Why? I have no clue. I think this car would sell like crazy. So I'm saving my pennies in case they decide to sell it here.

Software Bugs

Top 10 software bugs. My favorite.

1982 -- Soviet gas pipeline. Operatives working for the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency allegedly (.pdf) plant a bug in a Canadian computer system purchased to control the trans-Siberian gas pipeline. The Soviets had obtained the system as part of a wide-ranging effort to covertly purchase or steal sensitive U.S. technology. The CIA reportedly found out about the program and decided to make it backfire with equipment that would pass Soviet inspection and then fail once in operation. The resulting event is reportedly the largest non-nuclear explosion in the planet's history.

New Web Site

I'm working on creating a web site that I can host pics of Hayley and a Hayley blog securly. I'll use the site for other odds and ends too like posting my resume and maybe some old college projects and my attempt at writing a Holdem Program. (Maybe Ben would want to finish it) Anyway, I'm trying to decide what the address of this site should be. I'm leaning toward www.ksetrum.com or www.ksetty.com. What do you think? Leave a comment and let me know.

Serious Blowout

Hayley hadn't pooped for three days. We were watching the Vikings when she let out a serious grunt. I was happy that she finally was pooping, and I figured I'd wait 5-10 minutes to change her so she could finish until I could feel it through my shirt. By that time it was too late. I present a challenge to all diaper manufactures to try and stop a blowout of this magnitude.

DVR is back

We just couldn't live without it so we broke down and got DVR back. Once you have it you'll have a hard time living without it. It's a little more expensive but when we've been missing a lot of TV caring for Hayley DVR is in order.

The Amazing Race Results

Well we came up short. We ended up 1 point out of first. Although I really don't care that we lost but when an event like this is put on I wish judges would be a little more strict on the rules. No big deal though. We came in like 6 out of 8 for the race, however, our airplane expert built a paper airplane that made it across the court yard, about twice as far as everyone else except for a team that put quarters in their airplane. They were disqualified.

The Amazing Race

Tomorrow I'm participating on a team that's competing in the Amazing Race we're having at work. The race consists of 4 team members which have to do different things like leap frogging, putting, building and flying a paper airplane and other stuff. Anyway I thought we'd get a jump start on our paper airplane design. We went to the court yard to test different designs and there were two other teams practicing. I guess we're not going to be the only team prepared. Anyway, if you know of a good paper airplane design let me know.