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Holy Crap; ROSIE GOT HER LICENSE!!!

Ξ October 30th, 2007 | → 0 Comments | ∇ Blog |

That’s right folks, Rosie got her license today

Weekend - New Bern, North Carolina

Ξ October 30th, 2007 | → 1 Comments | ∇ Blog, travel |

Rosie and I bolted to New Bern, North Carolina for the weekend. We got off to a rough start that included delays at JFK, that resulted in a missed connection in Charlotte, NC. Unfortunatly our missed connection resulted in us staying for an unscheduled night in Charlotte, before arriving at New Bern in the morning.  So, yeah we got stuck in Charlotte NC for a night. Par for course, Rosie and I made the best of the evening by getting pizza and beer in Downtown Charlotte. I can’t speak for all of Charlotte, but the area called “Center City” was nuts. It was louder and crazier then Midtown Manhattan. I’m not sure if it was because it was Holloween Weekend or it’s always like that, but it was nuts. The streets were crowded and the bars overflowed into the street. Anyway, we didn’t stay out to late because our luggage apparently got to its destination before we did. But, the point I’m making is that as far as layovers go, it could have been worse. It also makes me want to travel back to Charlotte again.

We got the first flight out in the morning to New Bern, NC. We quickly checked into the Wyndham Resort at Fairfield Harbour, where we have a time share (we can use any of these with our timeshare: http://www.wyndham-vacations.com/main.taf?p=0,13 or therse: http://www.rci.com/RCIW/RCIW_index?body=RCIW_rdMain .. basically anywhere in the world). Our room was a huge two bedroom, two bathroom apartment, with a living room and a full kitchen. We also had two decks, one was screened in, the other was an open deck off the master suit. The master suite also had a jacuzzi. No complaints about the reservations.

After we dropped our bags we went over to the local historical society and found that they were doing the anual Ghost Walk that evening. The ghost walk stops at a number of Civil War historical landmarks in New Bern, where actors pretend to be ghosts and tell you the history of the home or landmark. The tour also includes a walk through the local cemetary where you happen to cross the path of a number of other historical ghosts. It was an fantastic evening, and I don’t think Rosie would be opposed to going down to New Bern again for this next year. The evening also included 3 church dinners, and a show “Out With the Wind” (a spoof of gone with the wind), at a local theater.

After the Ghost Walk, our feet were killing us, wo we sat down to a late dinner at THE CHELSEA. The food was outstanding. WOW.  Actually all the meals we had down there were teriffic, with the exception of a tourist place called  Capt. Ratty’s Seafood and Steakhouse - YUCK. Otherwise, on the same block was a place called MJ’s Raw Bar & Grille that more then made up for it.

The next day we toured Tyrone Palace, the first capital of North Carolina. North Carolina is all about the history folks, and New Bern has lots of it. We took loads of pictures which will be posted soon.

That’s about it. We had an uneventful flight back. Rosie and I love doing weekends away and are hoping to get away at least once more before our trip to Disney in January.

2007 Dodge Nitro

Ξ October 30th, 2007 | → 0 Comments | ∇ Cars |

I had the chance to tool around in the 2007 Dodge Nitro over the weekend.  Here are my impressions.  First, I thought it was an easy car to drive.  The insides were comfortable, but it was missing a standard GPS.  I think all cars sold today should have a GPS as standard equipment.  Aside from that one thing, I have nothing bad to say about the interior of the car itself.  There was plenty of leg room and head room and the center console was laid out intelligently. 

Beyond the interior, I felt that it had a bit of a slow pick up, and the engine sounded a little “whiney” to me.  That aside, the truck handled like a champ and was very easy to drive.   I’d like to see later models with bigger windows, for better “viewability” (is that a word?).  I’ve driven the Mitsubishi Montero with it’s huge windows, and it’s something I really liked.  I just felt that I was able to see more.    As for the Dodge Nitro, I didn’t have any “blind spots” or anything like that, I just like bigger windows as a preference.

The truck looked nice overall, but my wife thinks it’s a bit boxy.

Overall,  I’d rate the Dodge Nitro a 7 on a scale of 1 - 10 in the category of mid-sized SUV’s. 

New England Weekend

Ξ October 22nd, 2007 | → 6 Comments | ∇ Blog, travel |

Another marathon weekend ensued.  It started out Sat afternoon with a drive up to New Windsor NY. The fellow I work for at the bank (Bill) was having a dinner party at his house. It’s not far from West Point (just to give you an idea of the location). If you’ve never seen Upstate NY in the fall, it’s truly beautiful. Many people associate NY State with New York City. The two couldn’t be more different. NY State is HUGE, whereas Manhattan is only something like 23 miles. NYC is really only a small part of the state, which is home to TONS of beaches, dairy farms, and the Adirondack Mountains.

 Anywho, our drive upstate was really nice. In New Windsor we arrived around 5pm and got a grand tour of the place. It was fantastic. At least coming from a guy who has been looking for housing in the NYC area. The place is giant.  You really get a lot for your money up there so I think we’re going to add the area to the short list of possible places to buy our next home.

i digress.
Dinner was delicious and the company was good. Bill’s a good egg and his wife Patty is also very nice. Also in attendance were Bills friend Chip, his wife and another couple I work with. Rosie and I both agreed on the way home that Chip is funny as hell.  We all played pool and fooseball and played darts in Bills game room.  Rosie and I kicked butt!  You really can’t compete with Irish people at bar games.  

Alas, the evening came to an end after desert and Rosie and I bolted towards the Mohegan Sun in Ct. We were supposed to meet a group of people up there to celebrate Karen’s 30th Birthday. Some of you may remember Karen as one of the bridsmaids in our wedding. Well apparently Ct. stops serving drinks at 12:30, so instead of heading to the casino we met up with everyone at the hotel. Someone in the party had purchased beer earlier and stowed it in the hotel fridge. Good Times, but what the heck is up with a casino that stops selling booze at 12:30?!?!? I’m used to Las Vegas where you can party around the clock. I’ve actually been to vegas w/out a hotel room and just partied till it was time to go home. Apparently you can’t do that in Ct.

Well morning came early and it was time to leave Ct. We had a big breakfast and headed to the Bridgeport Ferry which took us to Port Jefferson, Long Island. From there we made it to the tail end of Ann & Joe’s new babys (gia) christening. After a bit of merry making, we shot over to Ann & Joes house for a bit and finally made it home late Sunday Night. *whew*.

We had a super time with loads of friends around, but next weekend just the two of us are heading to North Carolina to unwind a bit. This will be a busy week because of mid-terms and a database project that needs to get done. I imagine that by Friday I’ll be ready to relax a bit.

Weekend @ Montauk Point

Ξ October 15th, 2007 | → 0 Comments | ∇ Blog, travel |

Rosie and I went out to Montauk, NY right after work on Friday evening. I think our timing was great, It wasn’t peak season but it was perfect weekend weather wise. We stayed at the Beachcomber Resort & Hotel on Friday and Saturday nights. It was VERY comfortable (I’d recommend it to anyone heading out there). The room was big, it had an AWSOME view of the ocean and it was quite nice overall.
So we got there kind of late on Friday evening, so Rosie went to bed (she wasn’t feeling well), so I set up my laptop and surfed the net for things to do.

<Geek Mode On> 

My connection time from Montauk with my Verizon Broad Band Card was a blazing 1.2Mbps. That’s better then I get in Manhattan and Queens. I was thrilled. I’ll attach a picture of my setup in a few days.

</Geek Mode Off>

Anywho, we got up bright and early on Saturday morning and headed out.  Diet be damned, I had the pancakes .. and the corned beef hash … and ..
(*i digress; or shall i say “i digest” .. ba dum dum)
after breakfast, we headed out to the Montauk Point Lighthouse. The Lighthouse is one of Long Islands most popular attractions. We had a great view of the beaches from the top. When we came down we walked down the beach and Rosie came across a sand shark that had washed up on the shore.
After the Lighthouse and the beach, we went down to Gosmans Dock where we had fresh seafood and cold drinks.

After a nap back at the hotel, we went out for more seafood and cold beers for dinner. Afterwards we went back down to the beach and looked at the stars. It was a beautiful clear night. We got back to the Hotel quite late.

The next day we had breakfast and spent the rest of the day at the Duckwalk Vinards in South Hampton. We tasted a number of wines and picked up several bottles for home. We also picked up some fresh veggies at a farmers market on the way home.

Anyway, it was a great weekend. I can’t wait to go back. I’ll publish some pictures in a few days. I left my digital camera at home and have to get my disposable camera developed *sigh*

DB2 Speaker

Ξ October 12th, 2007 | → 2 Comments | ∇ Blog |

So, last night my class had a speaker from IBM come in and discuss DB2.  I was impressed(and I don’t get impressed easily). One down point was that an open invite was sent out to Comp Sci majors and the speaker spent a good amount of time helping people with basic install issues instead of showing code. She was able to show the finer points for query optimization and indexing, but she probably could have covered a lot more if the people that attended were more technical. A lot of the people in the room had never worked with a database before and were in way over their heads. On the other hand there were a number of folks in the room that seemed very knowlegable. Perhaps two talks should have been done. 1) for newbies and 2) for people who are a bit more technical.

*** NOTE ***

For you coders that read this, check out the new link on the side (over there) —>

for the Google Code Search … I just discoverd it today and it looks really cool.

Midtown Lunches, a Belt Notch, school

Ξ October 11th, 2007 | → 0 Comments | ∇ Blog |

Since I’ve been working up in Midtown, I’ve realized that there’s not really any GREAT places for lunch.  When I worked Downtown in the Wall Street area, there were loads of great restaurants, lunch places, bars, tai joints, empanadas, etc. Midtown (40’s) has nothing compared to it. Everything is Deli Salads and/or sandwiches. Since working here I’ve literally had to take in my belt two notches. I’m not saying it’s a bad thing .. I’m just saying its the truth. I’ve probably dropped a much needed 25 pounds since I’ve been up here. And that’s w/out working out as much as I normally do.

School has been going well this semester. I’m enjoying my database class much more then I thought I would. Tonight we have a DB2 Expert from IBM coming in to lecture about The DB2 database. I’ve been looking forward to it all week. One problem with the whole thing is that there is barely enough seating for the people in the class, and Pace University sent out a notice to Computer Science Majors alerting them to the fact that this lecture was taking place and to join us if they wanted to. I reckon I’ll have to get there early today.

The RedHat class is going ok with only some minor snags in terms of having the correct materials from RedHat. I’m working around that as well as can be expected and have sent several letters to RedHat and to Pace Computer Learning Center to lean on RedHat for a speedy response. Aside from that, I’m working with a good group of guys who have the hacker mentality. This is a good thing (hacker mentality is never a bad thing). I’m also at a point in the course where I get to start breaking their machines and they have to fix them.  Good times .. for me at least.

&^%#$&%$@# Car + Weekend :)

Ξ October 8th, 2007 | → 0 Comments | ∇ Blog |

The dinner cruise was nice.  Rosie and I had a great time.  The show during dinner was a bit (a lot) cheesey, but it wasn’t a bad evening.  Rosie wasn’t feeling well for most of the weekend, so this gave me a chance to catch up on school and work stuff. 

On Sunday Lynn and Larry were in town.  We bowled and ate at a hibitchi grill.  I’ve probably bowled the worst scores since my 8th Birthday.  *sigh* 

I sent my car in to get inspected.  I needed to get two new tires.  OK not bad.  Then of course it needed brakes, coolent and a battery.  I knew it needed this stuff so I know I’m not just getting ripped off at the service station, but it’s freekin’ expensive.  Oh well, nobody gets off cheap.  Hopefully, they’ll come to me one day for a website or something

Robert Update

Ξ October 5th, 2007 | → 0 Comments | ∇ Blog |

a while back I wrote about a trip to San Diego and meeting a fellow named Robert. At any rate, he was doing well for a while but the latest report I got from Jim is that Robert isn’t doing well and was not given very long. At any rate, I wish I had better news. If I hear anything, I’ll let you know

Oct & The Pending Weekend

Ξ October 4th, 2007 | → 5 Comments | ∇ Blog |

Well, I’ve had an interesting week. Busy as hell, but not bad. My BOA gig had me trying to break a new software system.. my specialty. I can do that without even trying .. unfortunately.

The month of October has started. Halloween stuff is out earlier and earlier each year. I hate seeing Halloween stuff up in Sept. It’s just dumb.

This weekend looks promising. The group I work for is having a Dinner Cruise on Friday evening. It should be fun. There are no office politics or anything here and the people I work with are good eggs. It’ll be fun to have a few drinks and dinner with everyone outside the office.

On Sunday Lynn and Larry are coming down for Apple Picking and dinner. It’ll be good to see them again. It’s been a few weeks.

Other then that, the weekend seems open. give me a holler if you want to get together,