We are victorious!

Our softball team finally won another game and, this time, I was actually playing. In fact, I didn't play half bad - not to mention that I retired the side in the bottom of the final inning, unassisted, 1-3, unassisted. I even managed to go 3-4 from the plate (I struck out once on a foul ball, but it's getting better). And Lizzy played an excellent game over at first. She even helped turn a double play - I thought she was going to jump right off the field she was so excited.

Anyway, it was certainly the first time I've really had fun playing ball this year - for some reason, everyone was just upbeat for this game. I think a big part of it was that we managed to get out of the first inning without committing a bunch of errors and allowing a gob of runs. After that, it was a much easier game.

Anyway, it's time for dinner (now that it's 9 o'clock) and then off to bed for me. Take care, everyone.

New technology highlight of the day... GMail!

I heard about GMail some time ago and, initially, I thought the idea was pretty hokey. GMail is an e-mail service that is currently being Beta tested by Google (the popular Internet Search Engine). As this service is coming from Google, it has some very "Googlish" things.

First of all, Google is supplying up to 1 gigabyte of storage. With so much storage space, there's little need to delete e-mails, you can simply archive them. To go right along with the notion of archiving everything, Google is providing the ability to use their search engine to scour your old e-mails looking for the long-lost e-mail with Aunt Susie's address in it from two years ago. ;-)

Hmmm...sounds great, right? So what's the catch? Well, Google needs a way to pay for this - after all they're a business and they want to make money. How do they make money? Advertising. Here's the kicker - when you sign up for an account on GMail, you authorize them to scour through all of your e-mail messages (a computer does this, of course, not a person) and look for keywords. Then, when you view your messages, you'll see ads alongside the message that relate to the keywords found in your message. So, for example, if someone sent you an e-mail about an upcoming camping trip, you might see some links alongside the e-mail that have to do with camping supplies or sporting good shops.

So, that's the catch and, at first, I thought this sounded like a bunch of garbage. However, I've recently heard a lot of folks talking about GMail and a lot of them sound quite excited about it. Well, because I'm a curious little rodent, I figured I'd better check it out and I signed up for an account. Here's my take on it...

First of all, the GUI is clean, crisp, and incredibly responsive. I've never used a web-mail service that's been so fast. Of course, that's taken out of context to some degree - I have very few messages in my mailbox and the system isn't currently open to the public yet so I imagine the current workload is pretty light.

Secondly, the search tools are great. They're fast and they're accurate. Nothing quite like being able to sift through gobs of messages in no time to get what you're after.

Third, the advertisements are very minimal, although I think this has more to do with the Beta release than anything. I sent myself some test e-mails with some "choice commercial words" that I thought would draw some ads, but I've seen little to nothing.

Finally, the coolest feature I've seen is "threaded conversations." Rather than having separate e-mails for "e-mail conversations" (a series of replies from one person to another and back again), GMail groups all of those e-mails together into a single "thread." When you receive a new reply, the entire conversation is bumped to the top of your inbox so that you can easily look back on the entire conversation (or minimize the rest of the conversation so that you only see what's new). That feature, by itself, it pretty cool.

I'm not sure what sort of tools are available to help filter SPAM - the tools like sadly rudimentary at first glance but, if the SPAM filtering tools are useful, GMail might just be a hit.

Anyway, if you're interested in learning more about GMail, check out gmail.google.com. It's probably not for everyone, but it's worth a look.

By the way, I also turned on comments on my blog so, if you ever feel the strange urge to comment on my blog, you can click the little "Comments" link at the bottom of any post and rant to your heart's content. Who knows? I might even read it. ;-)

What a hectic morning at work. Everyone needed stuff done right away and I just couldn't keep up. By lunch, I was ready to go home and nap.

Anyway, this afternoon has been a little less busy so here I sit in my Naterohan.com T-Shirt (You can find action photos online here and here. Note that these photos are copyrighted by McGlone & McGlone Inc., but we hereby authorize anyone who wishes to duplicate these for personal gain to do so.) The afternoon has been much less hectic - probably because I'm the only one in the office.

Liz and I are going to head over to see a travel agent this afternoon about our proposed trip to Ireland. I don't know that we'll go through an agent in the end, but it can't hurt to go and see one for a little while.

After that, Liz and I have the night off. We'll probably head home, make some dinner, and play some games online with Nate. That's really all we've got on our plates for tonight. I love that.

I suppose I should probably water the lawn a little bit. After we've gotten so much rain, it sounds weird that I'd want to water the lawn, but it's been hot and dry for the last week or so and, if I don't water the lawn soon, it's going to start turning brown on me. So, I guess I'll be playing with my sprinkler tonight. Woo-hoo! :-/

Anyway, that's about all I've got, really. Catch y'all later.

Corey

Yet another long weekend...

Liz and I spent most of the weekend in Sheboygan, which was nice. We got to visit her family for the weekend and wish her dad a Happy Father's Day. Then, on Sunday, we went to Milwaukee for a graduation party for one of Liz's cousins. The party didn't start until 4 or so and it's a 4+ hour drive home from there so we didn't get to stay long - I think we were only there for about an hour before we were on the road again.

We made it back last night around 9:30 or so. Sarah and her boyfriend, who rode over to Sheboygan with us, had another 2 hours to drive before they made it home to Mankato so I imagine they made it home around midnight or a little thereafter.

I love seeing family and friends, but all the driving gets tiring. I tell you, I'm just exhausted today. We got home so late that I didn't really have much time to unwind so I didn't get to sleep for quite a while.

Anyway, on a brighter note, I finally got my picture of Gavin playing with his drum set (okay, so it's only one drum, but it's a start). You can see it here.

Tonight, I'll be playing basketball with the guys after work. We normally play on Wednesdays, but one of the guys has started classes (going after his MBA, I think) and he can't make it on Wednesdays any longer. Since no one else objected, we've shifted to Mondays so he can still play.

After that, I hope to get some sleep...

Hi everyone,

It's been a busy couple of days. Thursday night, we had our softball game (although this was another one I wasn't playing in). We were actually very close (despite commiting 3 errors and allowing 7 runs in the first inning). That game was tied going into the final inning. We gave up 4 runs and then only scored 2 so we lost by 2. The real downer was that we had 3 girls all strike out looking in the final inning. :( The good thing was that, even though we lost, I think we had more fun than we've had all season. I don't want to say this is why, but there was a certain person not there for this game that seems to draw a lot of life out of the team...

Anyway, that was pretty much it for Thursday night. We spent the rest of the night getting ready to head out of town. After a hectic Friday morning at work trying to get everything done, we got on the road a little before 2. Traffic moved along pretty well, for the most part, so we made it into Milwaukee around 6. We met up with Liz's family and went over to Miller Park to catch a Brewer game. It was a good game - the Brewers won 4-1 despite leaving bases loaded twice and getting robbed by the umps one 2 or 3 calls.

So now we're back in Sheboygan and just chilling at Liz's folks' place. Liz's mom is playing in a symphony pops concert tonight so we'll be heading to that a bit later. Besides that, we don't really have any plans. We'll probably just visit with the family for a bit and then head home tomorrow (Sunday).

I suppose I'll be going now.

Take care,
Corey

Rain, Rain, Go Away!

Do you believe it?!? It' bloody pouring outside...again! We've gotten so much rain over the last month or so that I'm honestly amazed the entire city of Rochester hasn't begun sinking into the Earth.

I was supposed to have basketball with the guys tonight but, due to the rain, I'm now sitting at home, instead. Perhaps this will give me a chance to catch up on some of the housework that needs to be done. Or, more likely, I'll catch up on some video games. :)

Liz and I just got our new digital camera yesterday so maybe I'll play with that for a while tonight... Ah, the possibilities are endless...

Hi again,

Last night turned out to be a pretty long night at my house. After a long day at work, Liz and I went out for dinner with a couple co-workers of hers. We didn't make it home until about 8:15 or so. I was "pleasantly" greeted with some problems from my computer. :-/ So, last night, around 9 or so, I started rebuilding my machine.

I reformatted the hard drive and reinstalled Windows XP on it. Then, I went through the wonderful task of applying all of the Windows Patches (which takes longer than installing Windows, I might add). Once all of those were in place, I installed a couple applications. I didn't get very far - an instant messenger, some financial software, and one game - that was about all I got done last night. But it's enough for now. The computer seems to be functioning properly again. :-)

Of course, I had to install my instant messenger software and had to request authentication from everyone on my list. I suppose I was mildly surprised when Nate responded to be at 1:45 in the morning. I suppose I should have expected the guy to be awake. ;-) So I finished off my night by chatting with Tron until about 2 in the morning.

I gave Kara a call last night and she called me back around 10 or so and we chatted for just a bit. I got an update on Dean's position with CHS. It sounds like he got just what he wanted. They gave the Athletics Director position to the current Vice-Principal and Dean got the PE job that he wanted. It sounds like he'll now be splitting time between working at the Rec Center and teaching classes. In the end, it would seem as if everything worked out for the best there.

I suppose that was about it for me last night. I don't think Liz or I have any plans tonight. We might head over to the batting cages and hit some balls for a while after work, but that's probably about it.

Well, until next time,
Corey

Well, this weekend was almost what I expected. I was hoping for a nice, low-key weekend and I ended up about half-way there.

Friday night, Liz and I got tickets to go and see the new Harry Potter flick. We almost didn't get to go as we got clobbered by a nasty storm that night. There were tornadoes in the area and a lot of hail coming down. Fortunately, we didn't get anything more than a lot of rain. It came down awfully hard, but it could have been a lot worse.

Anyway, we did manage to make it to the movie - barely. The new Harry Potter is pretty good. I like the fact that the kids in the movie are starting to get a bit older and can at least, to some degree, act a little. Of course, the fact that Dumbledore died since the last movie was filmed and they had to cast someone new in that role, as well as a new producer did little to keep the same "feel" of the original movies. It was good and probably worth seeing, but I'll leave it at that.

Saturday, Liz and I kept awfully busy. We were up early and cruising around the town. We hit the farmer's market and stopped at a couple nurseries. Liz picked up a burning bush and a couple grasses for the front corner of our house (where I just put in our cedar fence). She also picked up a nice rose bush for the flower bed out front. Once we got home, she went to work planting all the new shrubs and I got to work mowing the lawn. It was so hot and humid that it was hard work being outside at all. After I got the lawn mowed and trimmed the hedges out front, I tore into cleaning out the garage. That garage took all afternoon to clean, but it's much improved. In fact, I just took a load of junk to the dump today to finish it off.

We finished up outside around 6 and were just about dead to the world. Some chicken on the grill and some online games with Nate was about all she wrote for us that night.

Yesterday (Sunday), I finally got the low-key day I was after. Liz and I ran a couple errands in the morning - grocery shopping, hair cuts, etc. - but then it quickly turned into a marathon video game day. :) Ah, yes. Liz, Nate, and I played Neverwinter Nights from about 2 until 11 (with a couple hour break for dinner, of course). It's been quite a while since I've played so many video games in one day, but it was just what the doctor ordered - no work and no travelling. :)

And I suppose that brings us to the start of another work week. Hopefully, I'll have some more to update you with, soon.

Oh yeah, lest I forget, Big Daddy Tron (that would be Nate, in case you were confused), set up his own website at http://www.naterohan.com. Feel free to check it out - the lazy cur even copied me and set up his own blog. So, if you'd like to know what drunken stupor the boy has been in lately, feel free to check out his pages. They're certainly worth a look. :)

Cheers, everyone,
Corey

Hi everyone,

Well, you may have noticed that my blog has gotten a bit of a facelift. I actually look at it so seldom that I didn't remember how ugly it was. Hopefully, you like the new look a bit better than the old one.

The last couple days have actually been a little more low-key (outside of work, anyway). We've had constant rain for a couple days now so we didn't play basketball on Wednesday and we didn't have our softball game last night, either. I've been in such a funk playing softball that I really didn't mind the rain out one bit. Instead, we spent the last couple nights at home playing video games and relaxing.

I talked to Nate a little bit. His classes at FVTC started a week or so ago. He said the classes aren't bad but he's got a couple loud-mouths in one of his classes that get on his nerves. Regardless, the classes seem to be going well. Nate also registered naterohan.com - you can check it out, but there wasn't a lot there last I looked. I'm sure he's been working on it, though, so you might find more there now.

I finally got another picture of Gavin. Supposedly, Mom lost her digital camera and just recently found it. That, apparently, explains the lack of pictures I've been receiving lately. Anyway, here is the pic I just got. Hopefully, it'll be followed up by some more. :)

Liz and I finally have a weekend off. I don't know what we're going to be doing, but I'm sure it'll be pretty low-key. Tonight, we're heading out to see the new Harry Potter movie but, after that, we don't really have any set plans. Hopefully, it'll be a pretty relaxing weekend.

I suppose that's about it from this neck of the woods. I hope you all have a great weekend.

Take care,
Corey

Hi everyone,

Well, it's been a rather hectic weekend/week so far. This last weekend, we had plans to head to Liz's cousin's graduation, but that wasn't until Sunday. So, starting Friday night and throughout most of Saturday, I spent my time putting in a new Cedar split-rail fence in the front yard. It's in now, but it sure was a lot of work.

Then, on Saturday, Liz's sister, Sarah came over with her boyfriend, Marvin. We went out for dinner and they spent the night with us as they were planning on riding with us over to Wisconsin Rapids for the graduation.

Sunday came and went and we spent most of it on the road driving to and from Wisconsin Rapids. It was nice to be there for the graduation, but it ends up being a lot of time on the road and not a lot of time visiting with anyone. :(

Anyway, that was about it for the weekend. This week, besides being awfully busy here at work, Liz and I have found plenty to do after work, as well. On Monday, one of Liz's co-workers had a birthday so we went out to dinner with her after work. By the time we got home, it was getting pretty late and Monday night was game 7 of the Stanley Cup finals, so I was watching that until bedtime, anyway.

Then, last night, we had softball practice until 7:30 or so. After that, we went out to eat with some of the guys on the team so we didn't get home until 9:00 or so.

And that brings up to today. I was planning on playing basketball after work today, but it's raining awfully hard right now so I'm guessing that we won't be playing. Maybe tonight I can catch up on some errands and what-not.

Anyway, that's been the past week or so in a nutshell. I hope your lives have been a little less hectic.

Corey

Hey folks,

Well, we had our softball game last night...it didn't go well, at least from my prespective. :( I was playnig shortstop last night and, although I wasn't playing incredibly well in the outfield, it wasn't all bad. The problem was my batting. For some reason, I just couldn't hit the ball last night. I'd gone 7 for 8 at the plate throughout the season while, last night, I hit 0 for 3 and only reached base once on an error by the left fielder. Grrr...

Of course, if that were not enough, I manage to knock our first baseman (that would be Liz) out of the game. :( I caught a line drive and tried to double off the runner at first by snapping a throw over there. Well, as the runner tried to get back to first the throw hit him and bounced up and hit Liz above the left eye. I think it scared her more than anything, but it really swelled up in a hurry. Following that play, my throws from shortstop were all over the place - too much thinking, I'm sure.

Anyway, Liz is doing much better today. We kept ice on it all night last night and the swelling has gone down a lot. She's still got a bit of a shiner and she can't see very well out of that eye, but it's still a lot better than it was.

Despite my horrible game, we still only lost by 2. Perhaps if I had reached base a couple times we would have won the game. Who knows? I just know that I'm pretty frustrated by the way I played last night.

Besides the softball game, we didn't do a whole lot last night. Liz and I went home and had some dinner and watched the hockey game (Calgary won in overtime to take a lead in the series, 3 games to 2). That was pretty much the whole night.

Fortunately, we don't have anything going on tonight. Maybe I'll go to get my hair cut. It'll be nice to have a night off.

Enough of me venting. Catch y'all later.

Corey

Hello again,

Well, yesterday was a busy day for me. I spent most of the day at work and, after that, I went out to play some basketball with the guys. We played until about 7:30 and, when I got home, I fired up the grill to make some dinner. By the time Liz and I were done eating, it was already about 9:00. So, that was pretty much all of yesterday.

We finally had a nice day here yesterday - it wasn't raining for the first time in about a week. While I was out playing ball, Liz was at home doing some yard work. She planted some Lily of the Valley along the side of our house. Hopefully, that stuff will come up well. While she was outside, I was looking at the holly we plated some time ago and found that it's got a lot of new growth on it. I suppose the rain has been good for those things.

I talked to Dad for a while last night. He's up the same old stuff - just working a lot. He mentioned that Dean played his first Summer baseball game this weekend and hit a couple dingers. I suppose I'll have to give Kara a call one of these days and see what's going on around that place. Of course, I might just have to remind her that I still haven't gotten those pictures of Gavin. ;)

Liz and I have a softball game tonight so we'll be headed down to the park after work. We've got another road trip planned this weekend, but this one is only for a day. Liz's cousin, Margaret, is graduating on Sunday so we'll be headed back to Wisconsin for that. I don't know what we'll do over the rest of the weekend - try to get some work done, I suppose.

Anyway, I suppose I'll be going. I hope everything is going well for all of you.

Corey

Hi everyone,

I trust everyone had a nice long weekend. As always seems to be the case in Summer, Liz and I were on the road again this weekend. This time, it was off to Oconomowoc for another wedding. Jon Odishoo and Daphne Eder, a couple that I worked with while at UW-P, got married there this weekend. As is usually the case when you go to a friend's wedding, we didn't know many people. There were a few people there we knew, but only a few. Nonetheless, it was nice to see those folks again.

It just so happens that Liz's sister, Theresa, lives in New Berlin, which is just outside of Milwaukee. Since we were so close to Milwaukee for the wedding, we stayed with Theresa for the weekend. We met her new boyfriend and took in some of the activities in Milwaukee. We went to a Brewers' game at Miller Park. The Brewers lost, but it was a pretty good game and it was the first time I had been to Miller Park. It's a really nice stadium, but it was raining so they didn't get to open the roof for the game.

Yesterday, we went to the Milwaukee Public Museum and checked out the IMAX theater. I've been to a couple of those now, but they're still fun. They're just really disorienting when you go into them. The room is so big and wide open that it kinda throws you off balance. Anyway, we had some fun this weekend and made it back to Rochester around dinner time last night.

I got out to mow my jungle of a lawn last night. It has rained so much here lately that I haven't had many chances to mow it and it grows like crazy. It was a little wet yesterday when I went to mow it, but it was supposed to rain all day today (which it is), so I figured I'd better get it done. I tell you, it was about all my poor little mower could handle.

Anyway, that was about it for the weekend. Now, it's back to work - at least it's a short week.

Catch y'all later.

Corey