Rush tickets on sale

June 27th, Mansfield MA, An Evening with Rush.

I'm not sure I'm going this tour. Should I buy tickets anyway? Not exactly cheap....

2 steps forward, 3 steps back

Sometimes you have to look backwards in order to move ahead. In 2004, my brother-in-law Steve was serving overseas in Iraq and the surrounding areas. I looked at the sacrifices he was making for what he believed in, looked at the struggles he had been through to become a Marine at the age of 30, and decided that I needed to take steps to change my own fitness level. I ate better, started exercising, and eventually started running. I dropped 40 pounds, was running up to 20 miles a week, and felt the best I ever had. In the middle of all that, I became closer to Steve than I had been since high school (while being as geographically separated as is possible, basically).

Then things changed. I hurt my foot while running a 10K race with Steve upon his return in 2005. Things got more complicated at home, and at work. I lost my drive, and eventually lost my fitness. It took a little while, but two years after that road race it's 2007, and I'm heavier and more out of shape than I was in late 2004. I just reread my blog post from that day, from the race. It's sobering to look back on what I've lost.

That's looking back.

What motivated me then isn't what is motivating me now. Now it's time to look forward. I'm not getting any younger. I am lucky to be as healthy as I am, given how poorly I've treated myself in the past. I deserve better, my wife deserves better, and I know I'm capable of better. I'm tired of knowing my potential and being so far from it.

About a month ago, I convinced myself of this, and have quietly been working on it. I've done four weeks of the same 9-week program that got me into running in the first place. I've been recording my food intake, logging my exercises, and generally ramping up towards being more responsible. And I'm finally confident enough in it to post here that it's what I'm doing. Even though nobody really reads this, there's a certain amount of commitment involved in putting it down "on paper" as it were.

The habits are getting back in place. The body remembers what it takes. The comfort of knowing I can do this (since, well, I did it before) competes in my mind with the frustration that comes with doing it all a second time (and having it be harder).

So, once again, I'll probably be posting fitness-related items in here again, as I try to keep myself honest.

Life is a journey, and sometimes you have to loop back around and cover the same ground twice. It's okay. We're not in a hurry....

I can't quit my job

So, yeah, evidently I didn't win the big lottery last night. I even bought a ticket and everything.

Stupid system.

In other news, I am a travel writer!

Oh, wait, not really. But I did contribute to wikitravel.org, which takes the wiki approach to travel guides.

So, while I didn't win enough money to quit my job and roam the world, I did spend some of my personal time making sure that my own experiences traveling help someone else pick a good restaurant next time they go to Sanibel Island. Hey, you gotta make compromises in life.

Stalking my friends from high school

So I'm poking around a music forum today, and I notice a post about a site called Metal Archives. They said, if they don't have an entry, the band is either really obscure or isn't metal.

Suuure.

So a buddy of mine in high school was in a short-lived death metal band called Exhumed. What are the odds they have an entry? Pretty good. Not only that, I get the names of a few of the other bands my old no-longer-in-touch friend has been in since then. I follow the lines all the way to his myspace page (via his current band's).

Awesome world we live in. To be fair, we did touch base about 5 years ago, so I knew he was still playing music and all that.

Speaking of myspace ... is there like some rule that all myspace pages must look like someone ate an HTML dictionary and vomited it back up in random order? Goddamn.

You have to watch the game

There are a lot of fans in New England who aren't interested in watching the game today. Indy beat the Pats twice this year, and ended our dreams of further cementing the Pats' place in history. Peyton is overexposed, and nobody wants to watch his goofy grin upon being handed the trophy. On the same lines, Chicago is a team that ran the table against the NFC this year, a feat which hasn't earned them any respect. They struggled against the likes of Arizona, and sometimes seemed to be nothing but smoke and mirrors.

So why watch this matchup?

I'll take you back to Superbowl XXXII. John Elway, who positively owned the Pats during his career, was facing Brett Favre, who had defeated the Pats the year before. Pats fans didn't want either of these guys taking the trophy. Elway was to us, what the Pats were to Manning (up until this year, grr). Favre's victory lap around the Superdome was still fresh in our minds.

With this context in mind, I watched a 30-minute highlight show on this game, today, on ESPN2. And I grinned like a little kid. I relished the tension, the drama, seeing the game unfold, watching the big hits, and big drives, the determination and grit as the Broncos' ran the Packers over enough times to wear them down and win the game.

And when Elway hoisted that trophy up, I still felt that residual resentment. "Now retire, and let us start winning AFC championships." But beyond that, I looked at two legends, at or near the tops of their games. And I knew I was watching something beyond what mattered to our team. This was history, this was football.

This year, the story is no less compelling. Manning, at the top of his game, with his aw-shucks grin and a team built to propel him to the top. Chicago, with decades of historical greatness in defense, ready to take it all away and slowly grind the game away with a punishing running game. Rex Grossman, inexperienced, maligned, ready to either win it for his team or lose it with a single foolish throw.

For these men and their families, this may well be the day they most remember, for the rest of their lives.

It's the Superbowl. The final showdown you've been building towards since August. You have to watch. I mean, who knows what you might miss?

Giving Thanks for Thanksgiving

If you know me, you know I'm not exactly a hardliner when it comes to resisting the appeal of the Christmas holiday season. But one thing I will stand up for, every year, is the ability to celebrate Thanksgiving as a holiday in its own right.

Growing up, Thanksgiving was one of many holidays we didn't celebrate. My mother believed, as most in her faith do, that Thanksgiving is a corruption of an ancient pagan celebration and no good Christian should celebrate it. Not only that, Witnesses specifically avoid singling out any one day to do someting they should do every day (be thankful). Then there's the whole patriotic history, eating to excess, etc. Anyway, you'll find a good write-up on beliefnet.

Even given all of that, Thanksgiving was the one time where my whole messed up family got together. My aunts and uncles who had left the state would come back, cousins I never saw would appear at my grandparents' house, and so on. We never had a car, so visiting with certain family members was very rare. If we skipped holidays, we might never see them. So at several points in her life, my mother came to some kind of a compromise with her conscience and her family.

We attended a few Thanksgivings. It wasn't a regular thing, as my mother's strictness on certain issues varied year to year. But we went to a few. Enough for certain aspects of the holiday to imprint on me, and eough for me to feel sentimental about it in a way that I don't with other holidays.

As hosts of this year's Thanksgiving dinner, we have a chance to take the traditions I remember from my childhood and mix them with my wife's family traditions. It's a rare thing, for me. I have very little in the way of tradition when it comes to the holidays, so mostly I've just inherited hers. It's a special opportunity and I look forward to it.

So, for just a couple more days, try to ignore the Christmas music on the radio. Don't put out your lights quite yet. Take a moment to be thankful for your family, your traditions, your memories, and all that you've accomplished (through hard work or dumb luck) in the past year. And get psyched up for good comfort food -- the smell of a roasting bird, potatoes whipped so smooth they might as well be fake, hot gravy and warm pies. And get ready to remind a new generation of kids that Christmas is great, but Thanksgiving deserves a place in your heart too.

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone.

How I Spent my Weekend

This past weekend, I participated in a traditional male bonding ritual -- I went fishing. On the ocean. In a boat. With "the guys." The guys, in this case, are from Jess's family, and people Jess's dad or brother go to church with. In other words, not people I necessarily have a lot in common with. Except, you know, total masculinity.

Now, my expectations were low to begin with. Consider the following facts:

1. I get seasick easily.
2. I am not a recreational fisherman.
3. I am not a member of their faith.

But, the trip was in honor of Jess's dad's birthday, not mine. My goal was to be there and make sure he had fun.

It started out fine, overnighting at Jess's parents. I entertained folks by basically watching wacky movies on youtube and google video, and we all drank coffee and made smalltalk. By 11 or so, we were in bed, and having trouble sleeping in the noisy bright city environment. Country living has spoiled me, I tell you. Street lights and traffic? What's this?

We were up and about by 5 AM, and on the road shortly thereafter, six guys sitting in a Ford Excursion, not very awake. My brother-in-law asks, "Hey, does this ting have a radio?" The silence is replaced by whatever the radio had been on previosly -- a Christian station. As if the music wasn't bad enough, it changed into a scriptural reading. Picture a guy just droning on, no commentary, reading aloud from the book of Isaiah. Fortunately, we were able to change it after a few painful minutes, over to a "mix" station. Bland inoffensive music, but at least it wasn't biblical.

The second amusement of the trip was in how badly we got lost. The blind were leading the blind in the front seat. I had made the mistake of getting two sets of directions -- one (very detailed) from Google Maps, and one (short and sweet) from the Marina's website.

Unable to reconcile differences between the two directions, our front seat tandem drove us all over Connecticut. Miraculously, we had left early enough to overcome this obstacle, and arrived only a few minutes late after stopping for directions at two different gas stations.

What we saw first was one of the cooler things I was to see that day -- the boat warehouse (picture is not mine, comes from the Marina's site).

Imagine a giant parking garage for boats, where each boat fits into a cubbyhole and is retrieved from it by a huge forklift/crane thingy. Easily a hundred boats in this building. Very nifty.

This led to a surprise, however -- how small the boat was. I mean, it wasn't tiny, but it was smaller than I expected. Given my sensitivity to motion sickness (fascinating, by the way, Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motion_sickness claims this is an evolved response to hallucinations caused by toxin ingestion), this was notgood news. I downed a couple of Dramamine and helped load things up.



The trip started out wonderfully. The weather was perfect and the seas calm. We left the shoreline and found an area where some birds were congregating, and tried our luck with some light tackle. This is "normal" fishing, basically. Rod, reel, lure, cast and reel in. Nothing fancy, very relaxing. But we caught zero fish and decided to move on.

Here's where my experience totally shifted from my expectations. I pictured us on a boat, with lots of water on all sides. This is true ... but what I hadn't planned for in my mental image was the number of other boats sharing the same spot. This wasn't a matter of "look way over there, someone else is fishing," it's more, "Well, there are 25 boats within sight, obviously this is a good place to fish."

The next type of fishing we did was much less fun, for me. The rods were replaced with much heavier ones, and each of us put a heavy weight at the end of our lines. You then stop the boat and set it adrift, and then hang your line off the edge of the boat. Release the line, wait for the weight to hit the bottom, and then reel it in a foot or two. Then, periodically bounce your rod up and down so the weight hovers above the ground. The result is that your lure is a couple feet off the ground, trailing behind your weight. What sucks about this?

• The rod is heavy and tiring on the arm
• The heavy weight dulls your ability to sense anything
• As the ocean changes in depth, your weight will snag on the floor and fool you into thinking you've caught the world's largest fish

The fascinating thing about that last bit is that it reveals just how quickly your boat is drifting relative to the ocean floor. You go from leisurely holding your rod to feeling like a submarine has
snagged your line and is making for Mother Russia.

Anyway. This method of fishing (jigging) bored me to tears, and did very little to address my growing seasickness. I took more Dramamine, which made me more tired and less eager to fish. But I did my best.

After a while, we moved on to Round Three. Here, we trolled. You take two big rods, put them in holders at the back of the boat, and tow a couple hundred feet of line behind you with big lures at the end. When you land something, you strap yourself in and reel in the fish.

I must say, this was pretty cool.

You take turns letting the line out and catching whatever you hook. We caught enough fish doing this that everyone had a chance, or several chances really. My chance came fairly early on, and I dragged in the biggest catch of the day, a 36" Striped Bass (Striper). This fish was a good 6
inches longer than anything anybody else caught, and it went a long way towards keeping me credible even as I spent more and more time sitting on a cooler and wishing my seasickness would go away.

Reeling in the fish was more fun than you'd think. It's a continuous strain on your muscles, six guys are cheering you on, and it's hard. At the end, you pull your fish aboard, and everyone oohs and aahs over what you've done. And then they measure it and keep it if it's legal, and you're back at square one.

As a plus, the boat is moving the whole time, which really helps with my motion sickness. But eventually the seas got too rough and we went back to Jigging. I didn't even bother to fish this time, instead quietly cheering on everyone else who was reeling them in. After six hours at sea, we headed back in, exhausted, dirty, but satisfied. To be honest, I was ready to quit after 3 hours, but hey, we got our money's worth.

In the end, my brother-in-law caught the most fish (8) and I caught the biggest. Not bad. Our captain came ashore with us and fileted the fish in front of us so we could split up the meat easily. As someone who doesn't really enjoy eating fish, I donated my monster filets to Jess's dad and brother. I hope they enjoy them. Here's our cooler at the end (mine is the one on top).


The ride home was long and fraught with peril. We got stuck in a 45 minute traffic jam due to what had to be a fatal accident; that car was crushed. We also had a tire spring a leak, which the manly men of course had to repair immediately (surely a good idea, but at this point I was hungry and exhausted). We got back to Springfield around 6, were back on the road home by 7, and I was showered and back in bed before 9.

Was it worth it? Definitely. Jess's dad had a great time, and I even had some fun. Would I do it again?

Nah. Not really :).

Two months?

So, obviously it's been a while since I posted. Funny that my last post was about TiVo, as it brings me back here 2 months later.

Series 3 is out, and it's not everything we wanted it to be. Don't get me wrong, the functionality I want is in there. But plenty of people are disappointed that the newer TiVo functions allowing multi-room viewing and sharing between TiVo and other devices are not available due to ongoing discussions with the cable companies.

That wouldn't stop me from buying it, except that it's 800 dollars.

TiVo is everything I want in my DVR. But I can't spend $800 to record my TV shows when my cableco DVR does an acceptable job of it. For $1600 I could ditch my 27" CRT HDTV and replace it with a 42" LCD HDTV that does 1080p. Which do you think would have a greater impact on my daily recreation?

The fact is, I'm not blowing a grand on either of these things. I have a house to pay for! Well, not just the house, but doors, carpets, floors, and chimney work. And who knows what else? At this point, a thousand dollar luxury purcase just isn't in the cards.

If it was $300 I would have argued with myself but eventually bought it. For $500 I'd be kicking myself, wishing I had it and watching for sales. At $800, I can just back away and let the early adopters enjoy their new toys. I'll check back in with TiVo sometime next year....

TiVo: No, don't cancel!

Shortly after getting HDTV and a HD DVR from my cable company, I realized my TiVo had a short life span ahead of it. Dual tuner and high definition simply are killer features. Everything else, though, the TiVo does better.
Handling a show ending while you're recording it
Handling schedule changes
Season passes are "smarter"
Suggestions
PC integration
Overall interface

In other words, it breaks my heart every time I use the HD DVR instead of my TiVo.

So, after not using the thing for 6 months (hear that? That's 75 bucks down the drain), I called to cancel. I got a very friendly enthusiastic young man who couldn't wait to help me, and made me feel even worse about canceling.

I explained why I had to do it. I talked about HDTV. I mentioned I'd be looking at them again in a few months when Series 3 came out.

And he said, well, Series 3 will be out in a couple months. What if we didn't bill you for a few months, and once it comes out, you can decide whether you want to cancel or not.

Well, fine.

I'm a sentimental sucker. I love my TiVo. Let's hope I don't forget to cancel again in 3 months (or let's hope I get a Series 3 for Christmas...).

New hobby in the making?

The area where I live now is known for being a haven for sportsmen. They are trying to attract hunters, fishermen, and just plain outdoorsy types. Boating, hiking, fishing, you name it.

Well, on the 4th I got a taste of what it has to offer for people, and I might just be hooked.

We had a medium-sized family BBQ on the 4th, and after a nice little thunderstorm blew through, all the guys in the group (myself, brother-in-law Steve, father-in-law Steve, and nephews Tommy and Joey) got into the kayaks Steve (BIL) had brought and started out from what's traditionally known as "North Pond." We paddled over to where a stream leads to the pond from another one, and headed up that way (going under the very low bridge to do so). Within mere minutes, the road was out of sight, and we were surrounded by reeds, wildlife, and quiet.

Now, I love water. It calms me, the sight of it, the sound of it, the idea of its vastness. But I am not a boat person -- I get seasick quickly. And I am not a fisherman -- haven't fished since I was a kid.

But this trip changed both those opinions of myself. The water was calm, and sitting in the boat was equally calming. And while I am not a legally licensed fisherman, I will admit to taking a couple casts and getting a feel for the rod and reel. Somehow, having something to occupy you in a simple repetitive way made the whole experience even more relaxing.

I returned home after several hours loose and relaxed, if a little sore from paddling. Sunburned, sure, but with a new experience under my belt.

Jess was just saying that it would be nice if we had a hobby we could enjoy together. We're going to give this one a shot -- a place nearby will rent you kayaks for the day for $40, or a bit more for a two-seater. We're gonna check it out, see if it's something we both enjoy.

Who knows, maybe I'll be posting about my exploits across the streams of Worcester County before long....

Identity Theft FTL

Within the past year, I have received notification from three companies that personal identification about me may have been accidentally disclosed to unintended parties.

Wells Fargo had a server disappear in shipment, which may have had all kinds of juicy info on it including names, SSNs, and bank account information. Wells Fargo, of course, does my home mortgage.

A Medical Insurance company that I don't even do business with, but which provides services for my place of employment, recently contacted me to say a server was stolen out of a locked office at their facility, which had names and SSNs.

Finally, my newspaper informed me that they accidentally shipped a piece of paper including some billing information (we have our newspaper paid direct from our checking account, much as we do with our phone and electric bills) to their carriers.

Out of the three, only Wells Fargo offered to give us a year's free subscription to a credit monitoring service. I wasn't going to take them up on it, but after two additional breaches in the course of the following months, it's probably about time to do that.

And of course, because no tragedy in America happens without someone standing to make some cash, I recently saw a sign on an insurance company for "Identity Theft Insurance." What the hell is that? It's not like you can say, "My identity got stolen, I need a settlement to replace it."

Ah, the perils of the modern age.

What does your workspace say about you?

I've always wanted my workspace to reflect a little of who I am outside the office. This serves a lot of purposes. I get to have a little bit of my outside life around me while I work, and people who come into my workspace can see a little of the person who might not otherwise surface. It can also act as a conversation starter and a bit of a friend-finder.

The problem is that after ten years in the same company, it's stopped reflecting a little of who I am, and started reflecting a little of every little thing that has interested me in that ten years. It's less like a snapshot of my life and more like a dumping ground for it. And that's fine, in some ways. Some times it's cool to find an action figure I got when I was in my teens and remember how it ended up at work when I wanted something to decorate my cube in my first month on the job.

But overall, it's slowly been gnawing at me. I want a cleaner workspace, with less junk and more meaningful items. More things with stories attached, fewer random Burger King kids' meal toys.

And now, as a shift into a new managerial role (and office with a door) looms on the horizon, I have the perfect excuse to do something about it. What do I keep, what do I get rid of, and what do I add?

I mean, I can't even remember what prompted me to put a snowman-shaped pez dispenser on my bookshelf. I think I nabbed it from someone's cubicle after they left the company, to remind me of them ... but I can't remember who it was. There's an irony there which is not lost on me.

I have two Lord of the Rings movie posters on the wall that have been on display since well before the movies came out. When I put them up, it was a way of spreadng the news about the upcoming movies and starting conversations about them. Now people assume I'm some kind of LOTR fiend when the truth is I've seen Ocean's Eleven more times than I've seen Fellowship of the Ring (okay, maybe not, but it's close).

I've got snapshots of my nephews from before they were old enough to talk. Now they're in little league. I've got a complete LOTR chess set. Patriots players action figures for people who haven't been on the team in years. A giant R2-D2 cookie jar. The list goes on.

But I also have my collection of magnets I grabbed on my road trip, to remind me of where I've been. I've got a clay "death mask" I bought in Cancun. I've got a beautiful black and white picture of my nephews and niece taken last fall in a pile of leaves. And while you might not understand why a Diablo 2 action figure is important to me, in a weird way it's very important to me, and I don't want to let it go quite yet.

It's going to be interesting to see what I make of my new workspace, when I move into an office. How much of the old me will come along? What will my co-workers think of the change?

Right now my plan is to save one shelf in the office for "toys" and decorate the rest with more "grown up" trinkets. This will force me to pick and choose the toys which have the most meaning, and remind me of my roots, while allowing me to show more of who I am today to those who step into the office.

The real question is, what do I put on the walls? Right now I have four posters -- 1 Sandman, 1 Swingers, and 2 LOTR. I've been thinking of decorating with travel-themed posters, though ... change it up a little.

Watch here for updates :).

Not a programmer?

In the early 1980s, our classroom received its first computer. It was a TI 99/4A which ran some educational software but more importantly had a BASIC interpreter.

I sat and watched as the teacher asked if anyone in the class knew how to use it. One kid did, a popular boy named Tim. It was ... maddening ... to my little nerd self. I was the smart kid. I knew math, spelling, science. Tim was supposed to be the popular kid, who could beat up anyone in a playground fight and always got picked first at kickball ... how dare he know something academic that I didn't?

That shit would not fly. That summer I took a "Advanced BASIC Programming" class (yes, I jumped right into advanced; the beginner class was full) and a typing class, and by the start of seventh grade I was well on my way to being the kid who knew the most about computers in the class.

Little did I know then how much of a big deal this would be. The rest of my education in some way or another was centered around computers. Computers would dominate my spare time and hobby cash spending for years to come, and would even lead me to my first girlfriend.

As a sophomore in college, some Math professors sat me down at a table and tried to talk me into changing my major from Computer Science to Math ... but I would have none of it. Writing software was what I did. I couldn't imagine leaving it behind.

And now, in a way, I am.

Starting in mid-July, my job title will no longer contain the word Engineer. I will be a Manager. UML diagrams will be replaced by Microsoft Project Charts. If I do my job right, not a single piece of new code with my name on it will make its way into the final product after that day.

This is big, really big. It's a huge departure from what I've been doing for longer than I've had to shave. And while it scares the living daylight out of me, I'm thrilled and energized by the challenge.

I'm sure I'll be writing more about this as I actually transition into the role. For now ... I just keep thinking of that kid who wanted to make computers "do cool stuff." I hope I can feel some of that enthusiasm again, in helping other people "do cool stuff" instead.

Step one is (not) optional

(Wise quote from Jess's uncle: "If you're going to be a home-owner, you better get comfortable with killing things.")

Based on personal experience, here is how best to remove an infestation of gypsy moth caterpillars. There are several things you must have at your disposal, first:

• A large pruning instrument, for removing branches of trees where the caterpillars have made their tents.
• Materials for building a small fire. Kindling-level is fine here.
• A fire accelerant will be handy.
• Something to start the fire.
• Obviously you must locate your caterpillar tents.

Now, the actual methodology:

1. (This step is optional [not really].) Build a small fire. Leave kindling to catch.
2. Go forth and prune your trees, gathering the afflicted tree limbs.
3. (This is step is optional) Spray nests with fire accelerant (WD-40 works).
4. Place limbs over fire so that nests catch and burn caterpillars.

I can't say what comes after that, because we skipped step one. Our method was more like this:

1. Go forth and prune your trees, gathering the afflicted tree limbs.
2. Place cardboard under tree limbs.
3. Light cardboard on fire.
4. Add accelerant after realizing fire is taking forever to start.
5. Caterpillars realize things are heating up, crawl out of nests by the hundreds, and take off running.
6. You alternate crushing the fleeing caterpillars with your feet and spraying the whole scene with WD-40 to help the fire spread and do its work.
7. Disgusted, nauseated, and perhaps a little scorched, you hose down the impacted area.
8. You scuff the caterpillar guts off your shoes later.

So, the moral of the story? The fire better be hot enough to kill those bastards before they have a chance to notice it, or a simple sweep and clear becomes a total clusterfuck.

Happy Anniversary

So, tomorrow Jessica and I celebrate 12 years together.

Don't worry, I'm not going to jump off of a balcony.

In fact, we're playing it pretty low key this year. Yesterday we ran some errands, did some shopping, and had separate evenings (Jess had a mini class reunion from her collge friends; I ran Scarlet Strat in WoW). Today we went out for breakfast, and took a leisurely drive down route 9 to Easthampton (via Amherst, Hadley, Northampton). We drove down the streets we used to live on, cruised through our high school parking lot, and looked up at the mountain where I proposed to her.

Not bad, if I do say so myself.

Then we hit a graduation party for her cousin Sara, who just finished at Westfield State and is hoping to start teaching soon. It was nice, as always, to see family. It helped that the weather cooperated, as baking in the sun made even Bud Light taste refreshing (notice I didn't say good).

We're getting old, you know.

I've been a part of Jess's family for much longer than we've been married. I was a near-permanent fixture at their family events back when I was in high school, hanging around with Jess's brother Steve. So I've literally seen these kids go from toddlers to high school graduates and beyond.

And somewhere in New Hampshire, a young cousin of mine, related to me by blood, is graduating high school this year. We're invited to his party, though I haven't seen him since ... well, let's be generous and say 7 years. Could be ten.

And I probably won't go. Because while Jess's family may be kooky, they're a family. They fight, but they love.

My family is nothing like that. My aunts haven't spoken to my grandparents in years. Every single time they meet it's a major dramatic production. If we go to this party, we'll be spending time with all three of them (my mother and her two sisters) at the same time.

I don't know if I can handle that much of my family. The one I was born into.

It's really not a happy thing to think about.

So instead I'll focus on the positive. Twelve years of building my own family, with someone who no matter how different we are, is perfect for me. And through some magical coincidence, I'm perfect for her too.

Works for me. Happy Anniversary, Dave & Jess....

This place sure has gone downhill

I mean, come on, Dave.

Your profile picture is now a broken URL. You haven't posted in two months. You can practically see the dust bunnies. And six months ago you were seriously thinking of buying a domain name because you were blogging regularly enough that you felt comfortable having a more permanent home for the content.

So what gives?

I don't know. For a few weeks, I loaded up this page every day and stared at it trying to decide what to write about. And then I stopped altogether. I haven't even missed it.

But three things happened to change that.

First, an online friend of mine offered me some workplace advice, based on her own experiences in a situation similar to one I find myself in. On a whim, I went to read her blog and it was really a cool experience -- just reading stupid random stuff about playing hockey and dancing and the trials and tribulations of work and all that. I realized that I missed having an outlet for talking about that stuff.

The second thing is that my buddy Clint said, "Hey, it's been two months." So, yeah, fine.

The third is that I just got back from JavaOne, where everyone talks about how we're in the middle of this revolution from the Information Age into the Participation Age, and how everybody's a publisher of content now. And I'm thinking, yeah, I dig that idea. In fact, I publish content ... like every two months. Shit.

So, there you have it. A rebirth of blogging.

So what's going on in my life? What's the context for future postings which I'll try to make more regularly?

• After treating my body like shit for almost a year, I'm finally realizing that I can't keep it up. I've started working out again, from square one, because I've come to peace with the fact that I've lost most of the fitness I gained in the last push. After only a couple weeks of it, I've started to realize how much I miss it, and I'm a little bit depressed at how far I let myself go.
• My World of Warcraft guild is going through some very tough times, after withdrawing from a raiding alliance due to conflict of vision. Things are very bumpy and we're not sure what the future holds.
• Our home continues to improve. Jessica has spent significant chunks of time working on the outdoors, setting up little flower gardens and whatnot and watering them faithfully. We've finally bought and used a lawnmower. We're looking at carpet and flooring options.
• Things are changing at work. I'll write more once things have been announced to my team (on the off chance someone from work stumbles onto this), but I'm likely to be changing responsibilities fairly soon.
• Our 12-year anniversary is coming up and for the first time we're not traveling anywhere to celebrate. Just day trips.
• Wedding season is coming up -- got a bachelor party to go to soon, and another to plan before autumn.
• My mother is alive and well and living in her own apartment, and coming to grips not just with her health issues but also financial ones.

I'm sure there's more, but that's a quick update. I promise to come back, if for nothing else than to gripe about how hard it is to start focusing on fitness again after months and months of ignoring it....

San Francisco, Part Three!

Looks like I'll be heading to San Francisco again this year. This will be my third trip for JavaOne, making something like fifteen nights I've spent in San Francisco. I don't even think I've slept that many nights in Boston or NYC. Well, that's what happens when the company pays.

To be determined is whether I travel alone, or with Jess. We hadn't planned on an expensive trip together this year, but basically having her along on a company trip (if we don't do anything expensive) is a severely bargained vacation for her. We pay for her flight and her food, and that's it. Still, it's a different trip with just work going on versus sharing the time with Jess. Not that I mind a lot, but when every moment you're busy at the conference is a moment you're not seeing San Francisco with your wife, you kind of find reasons to stay away from the conference.

We'll see.

What I also have to decide, and soon, is where I'm going to stay. The place we stayed last year, Pan Pacific, is no longer affiliated with the conference. I'm not sure why; it was a fine location.

So, there are a couple metrics I need to worry about. Price is the smallest issue. Ideally I should pick a spot with a reasonable rate, but it's not a huge factor.

The next issue is location. While all of the hotels are "walking distance" from the conference, they vary from "next door" to 8 blocks away. Last year's hotel was a bit of a walk, but I never really minded it. Still, closer might be cooler, if it can be arranged.

The final issue is character. The truth is, I like to travel. I like to be in new places. While there's nothing wrong with staying at yet another Marriott, you have to wonder how different the Marriott San Francisco Downtown is from Marriot Boston Copley Place, say.

This creates an interesting dynamic. Close to the conference center, you have bland expensive chains which are designed for convention-goers. You also have a few expensive luxury hotels, and these are the ones I might have trouble getting paid to stay at. Further away, you have some of the more interesting, cheaper places, with more personality. Of course, one person's personality is another person's "dirty, noisy, and cramped." Finding the compromise is the hard job. The bonus here is that price and character are often inversely related. The $230 room at the Marriott is probably much less interesting than the $120 room at the Mark Twain.

Anyway, right now I'm seriously considering Hotel Rex, a small hotel with a literary theme near Union Square. The problem? I remember where this place is, basically another block further from the conference than I was last year ... uphill. Deal breaker? Or deal sealer?

It remains to be seen.

"Welcome to Home Ownership"

"Welcome to home ownership."

I hear that ... a LOT. I tell people about some minor adventure, and that's their response. I'm starting to see a trend.

The battle to turn this house we bought into our home is being fought on many fronts. The first one worth talking about is the paint job. The entire house was relatively unpainted. The main living areas were white, with clear markings of aborted paint attempts of years gone by. The bedrooms were a mix of white and this really pale blue, which looked like it had been unintentionally left on the walls. The previous paint job had been a less-than-enthusiastic affair, evidently, as you could easily see where it hadn't been completed: a giant unpainted area that was likely hidden behind a headboard in the bedroom, for example.

We couldn't decide how to proceed, but we started looking at colors anyway. And then an answer fell in our laps. Jess's parents knew someone who could help us out, and we'd be helping someone out in the meantime. This guy was someone her Dad knew through his church work, a Vietnam vet on disability after a lifetime of tough times. He was getting his life back together, had been sober for a while, and was a painter in need of work. For a reasonable price, he would bring his expertise into our home.

It worked out great. We bought the paint and the supplies, he showed up and just worked his ass off all day. Over the next few weeks, our house was transformed one room at a time, with the living room left for last.

And then he stopped showing up. We called, left messages at his group home, but never heard from him. Jess's Dad called around, and nobody had seen the guy in days. Where was he?

We still don't know. The working theory is that he fell off the wagon when his motorcycling buddy returned to the area, but we don't know.

So, thanks to my wife's initiative, we did it ourselves. She went to the store, bought some brushes, picked up some tips on things to do, and Thursday after work we painted our living room. Friday she put the finishing touches on it, including a couple coats of paint on the trim. Saturday we put our furniture back and packed up all the painter's stuff into one corner of the basement.

We still owe him a few hundred dollars, whenever he returns. And we'll gladly pay it. He earned every dollar of it. And in a weird way, I'm glad we got to paint one room. It gives us a huge sense of pride to sit in our living room and know that we did it. We transformed it. We made it ours.

And then, this weekend, we started working outside. We've got a lot of fighting left to do....

Zombie Horror

You know you are being lazy about updating your blog when your non-tech-savvy wife says she checked it and was sorry to see it hadn't been updated since she last looked.

So now I feel all obligated and such. Heh.

So I'll talk about horror movies, a subject which will bore Jess to tears if she gets stuck reading it. Sorry.

Last year, I was one of many people excited to finally see House of 1000 Corpses, Rob Zombie's first venture into movie-making. It was a classic setup, which you've seen in a dozen movies if you've seen it in one: young couple/group gets stranded somewhere in rural America, gets abducted by group of inbred maniacs living off the grid, tortured and killed one by one, leading to a final escape of one of the characters who either A: gets away, or B: is killed suddenly before escaping. Usually the "victim" characters are flawed enough that you don't feel too bad for them, and usually the "villain" characters are somewhat sympathetic in a "oh, those poor monsters" kind of way.

I'll be honest here. I dig these movies in a weird kind of way. But 1000 Corpses didn't do it for me. I felt like he glossed it up too much, took away all the suspense and tried to win it back with gore. It was too flashy, too much like one long music video with horror overtones as opposed to a solid suspenseful terror movie.

And yet, I still rented his followup, The Devil's Rejects.

And I am so glad I did.

This is so much the better movie. It's a slight departure from formula, in a way that really works and gets you involved. The movie starts with the "house" being raided by a large group of cops. Some of the family get away, and you follow the extended chase. You see the cop in charge of the investigation unravel to the point where at the end you've got a role reversal between the "good guys" and "bad guys."

It's awesome. It drips with 70s mood, has an awesome soundtrack, is gory in all the right ways ... it rocks. It's not flawless, mind you -- some of the acting comes off as stiff and forced, but overall I spent more time happy than disappointed.

The deeper question I ask myself is ... why do I dig this particular genre of horror so much?

That's the much more interesting blog post waiting to be made. And one which I'm not going to do today :).

Goodbye, G'Kar

I believe that when we leave a place a part of it goes with us and part of us remains. Go anywhere in these halls, when it is quiet and just listen. After a while you will hear the echoes of all of our conversations, every thought and word we've exchanged. Long after we are gone, our voices will linger in these walls for as long as this place remains. But I will admit that the part of me that going will very much miss the part of you that is staying.

We'll miss you too, G'Kar.

Character actor Andreas Katsulas, well-known to Star Trek fans as Tomalak and Babylon V fans as G'Kar, died after a long battle with lung cancer earlier this week. Everything I've read about him suggests he was much more than a great actor, he was a great person. He'll be missed not just by his fans, but by his friends, and that says something.