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Sunday, December 31, 2006

Last post of the year

In Nebraska for New Years... thanks to everyone for a great year. I look forward to having another great year with all of you.

Tuesday, December 26, 2006

Merry Christmas (yesterday)!!!

We had a wonderful Christmas and Christmas Eve.. I'll let the photos speak for themselves (also experimenting with listing the videos on PicasaWeb, let me know what you think).
From Christmas Day...

If the album link is hard to pick out, here's another link to the album:


Blogger turns gold!
Since that is the blog site you are currently looking at, I thought a story about it coming out of beta was a nice add here. It's been a really nice experience using this site and I would recommend it to anyone.

Friday, December 22, 2006

Christmas is sneaking up...

Lot's of family coming in tonight... last night Carson was invited to a Cookie Decorating Party! He had a blast.

From CookieParty

Friday Funnies
Foxtrot isn't really a "web" comic, but today's strip is really good so I wanted to feature it.

HOW COOL IS THIS?!?!?

Wednesday, December 20, 2006

Flyin' through December...

I can't believe that Christmas is in 5 short days... and the days have been short lately. We have Christmas letters made up and most mailed out, I will try to convert it into a web page as well. There is a phone number here you can call and hear a message from Santa that is different daily and Carson has loved listening to Santa after school. I just read a story about Santa using MS Live Messenger, that crazy Santa really knows how to keep up with the times.

This looks like something really cool to, have a free web meeting! Very cool.

Alright, it's time again for:


LIFE CHANGING TIPS AND TRICKS!!!!
This week we have, How to make a Christmas card star... looks to be something very cool to do with all those really nice cards you get, rather than just making a pile with them.

What a very cool commercial/parody... and yes, I LOVE 24.

Monday, December 18, 2006

I hear sleigh bells

Santa's coming!! Everyone look busy!

From Christmas 2006


Jenni's parent arrive on Friday via car... Grandma Norton by plane. Then Saturday her brother flies in. Should make for a very festive Christmas. I'll be sure to keep the camera "loaded".

Thursday, December 14, 2006

Tweaked

So I slightly changed the look of the blog.. it was a little too "caffeinated" with those other colors. I also added another site to my link list, Paul Thurrott's blog, he runs the SuperSite for Windows which is a great Windows resource. I am very much enjoying his weekly podcast from Twit.TV with Leo LaPorte. Another of my favorites from Twit is Security Now with Steve Gibson... both are really great programs, I would recommend you listen if you have the interest in either topic.

Saw a great list of facts and ficitons from Wired... interesting to say the least.

I love this, I really do.... hahahahahaha

Wednesday, December 13, 2006

HumpDay upon us!

I have a work gathering today in Bloomington, so I'm making this entry short and sweet.... well, ok it's going to be short.

Still tired from last night, but none of the patches I put on required a reboot which was really nice. So let's get to the meat of our HumpDay programming.

LIFE CHANGING TIPS AND TRICKS!!!!

How to drive a car in winter weather!
Great tip for all.

Ok, time for me to head out to Bloomington.. so I'll leave you with this very curious USB device:

Monday/Tuesday got by me

So it's 1am and I'm done patching my servers and workstations... if you know what that means and you haven't checked your machines for updates, do it now. If you don't know what that means, nod and pretend you know what I mean. (Patch Tuesday)

Sunday Carson went to a birthday party for his friends Katie and Maddie's birthday party (Their dad and mom I went to High School with, Charlie and Lauri). He had a really great time and there were tons of kids PLUS there was a clown (no, not Charlie).
From December 11th...

Oh, in that album is us making a GingerBread house with Carson after the Birthday party.. it was all fun and games until someone crammed their face in the icing.

So, let's skip the topic of the Colt's... I'm still mad about that thing some people called a game. ugh

Have you guys seen this search site? Talk about searching with attitude... I had a few chuckles but will stick with my google.

Dude!!! I TOTALLY WANT ONE OF THESE TABLES!!! Man that's cool.

It's late, I'm going to bed.. but first an important warning review for those lucky enough to get a Wii. Warning offensive language inside, click play with caution:

Sunday, December 10, 2006

Rare weekend post

Went to the Children's Museum on Saturday with the whole Indiana chapter of the family.... they have a holiday slide they put out.. here's Carson:

I put up a PicasaWeb album too:

From Xmas @ Childr...

Friday, December 08, 2006

Operating System

No post until now because I've spent all morning loading Windows Vista Enterprise (64 bit) on my desktop.

Things seem to be moving faster overall, thus far... time will tell.

Friday Funnies
This week, I bring you The Joy of Tech.

Have a good weekend.

Thursday, December 07, 2006

ICE ON THE ROAD, EVERYONE FREAKOUT!!!!

So my normal 25-35 minute commute turned into a 2 hour slow crawl of patience testing, brake stomping fun. Between the overly careful drivers and those drivers with no regard to other human life, it was quite the epic drive.

Pretty decent deal on a laptop over at SlickDeals... I would probably upgrade the video card and then price out upgrading the RAM to 2gb but otherwise looks like a decent offer.

I feel like this sometimes... heh

Like helping charities? Need some Mac Software? Let's combine those attributes into this wonderful idea.

IT'S TIME FOR ANOTHER WOOT-OFF!!!

That's all for now, possibly more later.

Wednesday, December 06, 2006

What?

Soooo, Wednesday eh? Well, I don't have much today so let's get started.

Microsoft released their first commercial for Windows Vista... I'm going to have to agree with the review, it is pretty boring. ho hum.

Carson and I got haircuts last night... I tend to take Carson to CookieCutters here because they have a slide, let kids watch a show while getting buzzed, and they let them sit on neat ride-on vehicles instead of normal barber chairs. Like this:
From Carson Candids

If you click on the album for that photo, you'll see I added a new album there called Carson Candids... I'll drop random photos of Carson in there from time to time that I really like.



LIFE CHANGING TIPS AND TRICKS!!!!
This is a great tip for most everyone that has some amount of computing going on at home... How to improve your WiFi reception.


Ooooh! Halo 3 TV commercial looks very cool...

Tuesday, December 05, 2006

Tired Tuesday

meh... I did get the pictures from this weekend uploaded though! Carson went to his cousin's cousin's birthday... yes, that's right, my brother-in-law's sister's son. It's much more simple to explain if you could see the white-board I'm pointing at. At any rate, he had a lot of fun and really enjoyed seeing Elmo. Happy Birthday Colin and thank you to Jill and Doug for a fun party.
From Colin Birthday


So yea, if you like Olive Stone movies and don't have many in your collection here's a way to bump your collection way up without spending a bunch of money.

More later? Perhaps.

GMail mystery solved!! So that's where they get it.

A holiday classic internet video as remade by Family Guy:

Monday, December 04, 2006

Blue Monday

Football disappointments abound this weekend... :*(

Huskers lose the Big 12 championship game... although they get the bid to the Cotton Bowl to play against #10 Auburn. Oklahoma goes on to play Boise State in the Fiesta Bowl.

The Colts lose to the Titans in what I will call an early Christmas present to Tennessee.

Yup... double whammy. At least my fantasy team is doing ok this morning (go Reggie Bush!).

Friday, December 01, 2006

Holy cold snap, batdude.

Wind advisories and temps in the 20s. I think it's snowing a little too. Yuck.

Read a great write-up on the Big 12 championship game... it is really nice seeing NU-OU playing in a conference championship that has important bowl implications. Even though both teams have changed dramatically over the years.

Oh man, SIGN ME UP FOR THIS!!!

Perhaps something new starting for Friday's... I like comics and there are a ton of good web comics out there that even I haven't seen. Maybe I'll pick an episode every Friday usually from a new strip (I'll have to plug my favorites a few extra times, of course). We'll call it:

Friday Funnies
Today's feature is: Joe and Monkey
It's really a random strip which is probably why I like it. I look forward to sharing my findings.

Great stop motion video...

Thursday, November 30, 2006

Wacky weather..

From super warm and nice on Monday to snow and cold for tomorrow... Indiana and Nebraska share similar weather patterns.

Football news!
Pro - Ricky Proehl (WR) joins the Colts. This will be a great addition as they haven't been running their normal 3 wide set since Stokely (WR) has been injured. With Dallas Clark (TE) getting hurt it puts some additional strain on their depth in the three wide set... Clark often would line up as the third wide receiver.

College - The Big 12 championship game to produce two bowl teams. The winner is to go to the BCS game at the Fiesta Bowl and the loser is to go to the Cotton Bowl. Not a bad deal at all for the Big 12, as a few other teams are expected to get bowl invites as well.

So Stephen Colbert is having (or had) a "Green Screen Challenge"... some very funny results on his site.

Maybe some more later...

Wednesday, November 29, 2006

Hump day strikes again!

Been busy the last two days, but wanted to drop a blog entry for today despite that.

Looks like Vanderjagt is out of a job... Him missing the field goals against Indy was probably the best part of that game. heh

Good Deal Alert!
Fry's has some good hard drive deals that are worth a look. Click here to hop there.


LIFE CHANGING TIPS AND TRICKS!!!!

Today's tip: "How to make balloon animals" Oh yea, very cool. At the bottom of the article are links to a couple different sites, the one that says something about videos is a crazy watch.


Here is a hilarious commercial...

So yea, get a laptop.

Monday, November 27, 2006

And... We're back!

Got in before 9pm last night from Ohio... had a great trip. Colts stepped up and had a nice solid win, even if it was against a McNabb-free Eagles. Have a big meeting today so I will be a bit busy... but I did get the trip pictures up on PicasaWeb.

Peek-a-boo!
From Thanksgiving ...


Hope everyone had a great holiday.

Wednesday, November 22, 2006

Happy Thanksgiving!


I won't be posting again until Monday so I thought I better start off today's post with some holiday wishes. I hope everyone has a safe and happy Thanksgiving!

Remember to try your hardest to get along with everyone... for inspiration just check out the picture over here. :)

So, with that out of the way... the HumpDay tradition of a tip and/or trick continues!


LIFE CHANGING TIPS AND TRICKS!!!!

Ok, today's tip seems very appropriate with the holiday season - How to be a good house guest.

Should have a photo album update soon, but if I don't get to it and we have some good pictures from our Thanksgiving festivities I'll be sure to do another Picasa Web Album.

And here's a helpful video on how NOT to take an inside pitch.

Pitcher Throws A Strike - video powered by Metacafe

Tuesday, November 21, 2006

Taco Tuesday

So, got a stack of PS3s sitting around waiting to be eBayed for thousands? Well, now you have options! This story warms the heart and boggles the mind.

And from the Department of Strange and Inappropriate Tattoos, this beauty!

My favorite show, Mythbusters, got some coverage from the NY Times recently. Pretty cool stuff.

More to come...

It's that crazy purple hippo...


Cool stuff for SysAdmins! Windows Powershell

Monday, November 20, 2006

Monday blues...

So the Colts lost, :sadface:. But at 9-1 they are still the best in the conference... I hope they can fix the problems that the Cowboys exposed.

It's a short week with Thanksgiving on Thursday! We will be traveling to visit Jenni's grandmother in Ohio and Jenni's mom and dad will be there too. Should be a really nice visit. Carson is already excited.

Friday, November 17, 2006

Friday!!!!

Ok, so it's 3:39pm and I'm just now putting a blog post up... should speak to how busy I am today. heh

We have Windows Vista and Office 2007 on hand, so trying to sort through that... scrambling to write documentation and notify people of it's availability. I've also started testing MS Forefront Client Security, which is the corporate version of Windows Defender with some extra stuff. All of that AND the phone has been ringing off the hook here today.

We had our Thanksgiving Luncheon at work and man, there was a ton of food. I brought one of 12 supplied pumpkin pies.

To make up for the lack of links and actual interesting content, here is a video to take you worries away:

Thursday, November 16, 2006

It's a woot-off people!

If you've never been to woot.com, today is a good day to go. They are having a "woot-off"... which means they will continually have an offer up all day. Normally (as their logo states) they offer "one day, one deal", basically a decent deal on some random product each day. The product will be available for as much stock as they have. Sometimes things get sold out before 8am, but when they have these woot-offs there's something all day long and it's different stuff.
http://www.woot.com/

Gonna have other pics from Heather and Brett's visit up today.

For Heather, Bill Polian owns the Colts.

Pics from H&B's visit! This one is the best.
From Heather and B...

Wednesday, November 15, 2006

Hump day arrives...

So yea.. Wednesday again and I think I'm going to start something just for hump day.

LIFE CHANGING TIPS AND TRICKS!!!!

OK, so for the first Hump Day Tip... we have "How to Save a Wet Cell Phone"
If you have ideas for good material for tips or having something that's been nagging at you that you would love a tip for let me know and I'll try to personalize some of my tips for people.

And in the spirit of being helpful along with the approaching holiday season here's GiftHat, it's a wishlist site that let's you create a list with links and pictures to the things you would love for Christmas.

What a dilema!

Tuesday, November 14, 2006

Patch Tuesday

Every month about this time Microsoft does some patching... which means somethings get broken and somethings get fixed but break other things. It all adds up to me having to work more. :( Such is the life of people in computer support, we accept it. Just don't expect much from us for the next two days and everything will be groovy again after that.


One of my favorite Mac commercials...


Some Vista links for those who are interested... good info here.

As a former collector (and current holder of) sports (baseball) cards, this is what you call a keeper.

Monday, November 13, 2006

Monday already!?!?

Well, it's Monday already... ain't that a _____? Heather and Brett left out this morning. We had a great visit!! Got to look around downtown and do a little shopping, saw the Indianapolis Motor Speedway Hall of Fame, and looked through the Civil War Museum in Monument Circle. Sunday came and we watched the Colts trying their hardest not to lose, too bad they weren't trying to win instead would've been more scoring. ;)
From Colts Game

A cool online utility for those that don't have access to a place online to store your files.

Danish speed control... Not Safe For Work (nekid danish people).

Cool event coordinator site, that's free!

Friday, November 10, 2006

Friday is finally here!

So Friday is here and as I type this I'm sure Brett and Heather are in the car headed this way. Woohoo!

Was a decent morning too... Carson was awake and moving, he seemed to sleep better. His cough is still there but it's moving stuff so that's good. More later.

Public Service Announcement: Don't do this... the end.
HA!

White & Nerdy by Weird Al
Great video/song


Also check out this crazy cat!

Thursday, November 09, 2006

Sick day

Carson had a lot of problems breathing last night with all the mucus in his head.. so everyone didn't sleep to good. He and I decided to stay home today so that he can get over this cold or whatever is clogging him up. I hope he doesn't get me sick.. that would suck.

Wednesday, November 08, 2006

Hump day is here

Another day closer to Brett and Heather's visit! Woot!!

So here's a great story about a silly race car driver. Brett and I have done something very similar except for we got yelled at before we injured ourselves. haha

Got my DVD Recorder last night, and made 3 DVDs from VHS tapes and Camcorder tapes. It works pretty darn good. I need to watch the output on a non-widescreen TV to see how it looks on there still.

Here's a great video, it's not for the kids... animated violence, animated adult situations, etc. :)



Another great video I saw was this one that is a parody of David Blaine.

Tuesday, November 07, 2006

No poker last night. :(

With Martin out of town and Chris B. on his death bed, poker night has flopped for a second week in a row. Boo.

That face sums it up.

Busy busy today with work, so updates may be slim.

Monday, November 06, 2006

Tired but excited...

So I stayed up for the entire Colts-Pats game, as seen by my last entry early this morning. Which means I'm tired, but I'm excited for this week to begin because on Friday Brett & Heather will be driving in to visit us. Going to be a fun weekend, we're going to go watch the Colts play the Bills among other things.

I picked up a new phrase today from Penny Arcade, pray I do not point it at you. LOL!

Verrrrrry tempting purchase, I fear I might go broke though.

Here's a really good breakdown of the Colts-Pats game.

Trying to decide on a color scheme for a room? for a website? for a newsletter? Color Palette Generator to the rescue! It's pretty neat, I messed with it for a solid 15 minutes.

Carson got his class photos back.. THEY ARE AWESOME!!

Yay Colts!

Was ugly, but I'll take it. Thank you defense and Marvin and Peyton.

Saturday, November 04, 2006

Dumb dog

So, I won't normally make weekend posts because there's always so much going on. Today however, the dog decided to whine quite loudly beginning at 4am.. I successfully ignored him until 5 when I could no longer stand it. I let him out and he ran down stairs to get a drink of water and then started to head back up... I was like, no way dude.. get outside and do something in the grass. Anyway, then I couldn't go back to sleep so I've been updating my iPod and reading stuff on the internet. Meh, maybe I'll play a video game until everyone else wakes up.

Friday, November 03, 2006

Class today

Today I'm sitting in on a co-worker's class on Group Policy Objects. I made that sentence a link to a wikipedia article, in case you were wondering what it was. After reading the article myself it seemed boring, but it's not and I'm super psyched to be in the class. Since I'll be in this class I may not update this much today but I'll try to put some stuff in here that might pop into my head.

More later.

Quick note on the "This day in history" tip... GODZILLA! was released this day in 1954 in Tokyo. If you ever listen to The Bob and Tom morning show, you will chuckle knowing this fact. I know I did.

WHOA! Louisville beat West Virginia 44-34. I thought it would be a close game but that WV would come out on top, after reading Pat Forde's story on ESPN.com it looks like Louisville shocked more than just me. This is why I like College Football so much, the stories, the drama, the "intangibles" (*does the Brett hand motion*), and home team being able to perform ungodly feats thanks to their fans. Pro football is fun but it lacks the heart and drama of the College scene.

K.. back to class. ;)

LUNCH BREAK!! Ok, so I was talking with someone about Google's income so far this year and it being in the billions. I FOUND THE LINK! Yes, revenue of $2.69 BILLION for the 3rd quarter. If you love Google as much as I do (which I'm hardly certain is possible), then you'll find Download Squad's coverage of Google very entertaining. One link I got from the Googleholic category that I found more scary than entertaining was The Church of Google. I mean wow, freak alert. ;)

Alright folks, back to class... let's hope I don't get the normal post lunch coma.

Coma averted... whew.

Helpful links from class:
GPO Guy site
Customizing Windows Security Templates
Advanced Installer
Qwerty.msi

Good class overall, I learned some quality stuff.. that I will spare all of you from. ;)

Thursday, November 02, 2006

So, I've never had a blog...

and maybe that was a good thing. I am here now though, so you're screwed.

Great link if you are running Windows Vista: http://blogs.zdnet.com/Bott/?page_id=164&page=7


The saga continues with Dell Financial... I'm not sure how they can continually do things incorrectly but they never fail to surprise me.

What else, Carson had dentist and doctor appointments... all checked out for him, which is nice. He is in the 50th percentile for height and weight, so despite him appearing to be smaller than everyone, he's the normal one. Note to self, stop hanging around with people with HUGE children. ;) hehe

hmm... running out of ammo, ooh check this out: http://www.supermediastore.com/superflash-ed-r-4gb-usb-20-usb-flash-drive-black.html
4gb flash drive for less than $70, word.


Quick product review: Gmail for your mobile device (the app not the webpage) - http://gmail.com/app
It rocks... little buggy on my OLD Blackberry (plus it's version 1.00), but overall it's awesome. So much faster than using the web browser and it looks a ton better.

lata

*edit: oh yea, almost forgot... here's the link to Carson's Halloween fun. http://picasaweb.google.com/airthom/Superman

Wednesday, November 01, 2006