Vanessa and I just returned from a whirlwind trip to Illinois, Iowa, Minnesota, Wisconsin, and Michigan. Central to the trip was spending a few days in the Minneapolis area to visit a couple of friends. But, to make things interesting, we decided to drive there with several stops on the way and coming home. Our trip map: View Larger Map...

Continue reading "Upper Midwest trip"

For years I've avoided getting a fancy cell phone, instead making do with the low-middle level phones that Cincinnati Bell Wireless was offering. I didn't feel like I was missing much, I found that I mostly needed a mobile phone for actually phone calls and the occasional text message. Last year I started hearing my wife's pleas for a new phone due to the fact that texting was such a pain on her standard flip phone. As it turns out, last year my company worked out a corporate discount with AT&T...

Continue reading "The phone is "smart", was the decision to get it?"

Not sure if anyone out there pays attention to my Flickr photostream , but I decided to change the way I am displaying my photos. I have decided to mark most pictures of friends and family as "private". The reasons for this are two-fold. First of all, I decided it was best to maintain some semblance of privacy and not show every single picture of my family and friends all over my photostream to everyone. I have left some pictures of adults from trips and vacations as public, but I am trying...

Continue reading "Changed my Flickr photos organization"

Friday I went skiing for the first time in a couple of years. It was my first trip to Perfect North since my first "real" trip skiing at Snowshoe Mountain . So naturally I was a bit rusty on my first couple of runs. I even fell down on a simple run that I have had little trouble with the last few years. Outside of that first fall, I felt I skied quite well considering I hadn't skied much lately. I only fell one more time after that first stumble - this other fall was near the beginning...

Continue reading "Looking like a fool with your poles on the ground"

Finally, after much speculation, rumors, and other innuendo, I have released the new theme to the ol' website. I call this theme "Shenandoah", mostly because the banner is from one of my pictures I took while hiking around Shenandoah National Park (the picture in question is shown below). For now, I am sticking with Graffiti as my site's engine. I've been poking around the latest code drop from the Codeplex site, and one of the things I wanted (routing) is enabled. Now, I just need to wait...

Continue reading "Different look, same great taste"

Thus another Bengals season comes to a close. They got to play one more game than usual this season by virtue of making the playoffs. The Bengals were the proverbial blind squirrel this year, and they found their nut thanks to a better than average defense, a solid running game, an off year by the Steelers, and some lucky bounces. I'm not going to do a retrospective for the entire season, there are better sources for that. I just wanted to post some thoughts after simmering down after watching the...

Continue reading "The Bengals are who we thought they were!"

It's been quite awhile since I've posted. I admit it, I'm not a very prolific blogger - newer job, new baby, personal projects, blah blah blah. Really, if I was inspired I would have time to take 30 minutes a few times a week to post something. But due to laziness (or inertia) I haven't been. I sometimes wonder if I should just make this a more static site and not even put up the pretense of being a blogger. But... I think I will continue to pretend to be an occasional blogger. After all, I've been...

Continue reading "And you call yourself a blogger!"

So Outside Magazine ranked Cincinnati #9 in it’s 2009 best places to live list . I found that interesting, to say the least. Not that I entirely disagree, because I do live here and like where I live (particularly East side – much better than North side). But, I have lived here pretty much my entire life and I do know that the adventurous types might find the area a bit lacking. Sure, as the article does say – we do have fairly easy access to the mountains and rivers of Kentucky...

Continue reading "Outside Magazine’s Best Places to Live, 2009"

Just about a month ago I worked my last day at Strategic Data Systems (SDS), and in turn, I started my first non-consulting job ever since I graduated from Miami University in May of 1998. That's right, I was a software consultant (mostly as a developer) for the first 11 years of my career. Truth be told, consulting fit me well - I liked the variety in work, the challenging and interesting projects, and working with many different people (technical and non-technical). However, this past winter I...

Continue reading "Career.Refactor()"

A few days ago I decided to take the plunge and install Windows 7 RC 1 as the main operating system on my laptop. I had heard from quite a few people on twitter that had done so, and decided that I was feeling just crazy enough to do it myself. I was due for an OS refresh anyway, so why not roll the dice and go with the well-reviewed Windows 7? Although I was actually pretty happy with Vista (as opposed to some out there), there were a few quirks that I was hoping Windows 7 would address. And after...

Continue reading "Windows 7 - first impressions"