GAH! The Dog Ate My Homework!

Grrr....So, I created this nice long post complimenting everyone that I know and care for and generally spreading happiness all about the world. I think I had even stumbled upon the cure for cancer. Then, when I hit "Publish Post," I got a handy network error and it was gone. GONE! Think of the suffering that will now take place due to that network error! Ahhh, how the little things impact the cycle of the world...

Well, let me try to recap what I had already written. Given the lengthy nature of the cure for cancer, my fingers are tired so I guess you're going to get the shortened version.

Last weekend - Liz and I were back in Sheboygan. It was really nice to see the family again for Easter.

Next weekend - we'll be back in C-ville (and surrounding areas for those slackers that live in Appleton). So, if you're going to be in the area, either save some time to visit or make plans to get away - I'll leave it up to you as to what you'd like to do.

Colorado pictures are still not online. My laziness consume me entirely, I guess. On the up side, though, Liz and I did get our taxes done. Sure, it doesn't offer the total satisfaction that using a quality piece of Google software does, but, supposedly, the IRS gets upset if you don't do it. Good thing there isn't such an agency that ensures that you upload your vacation pictures in a timely fashion.

I've been a bit busier lately. Mayo work is still boring and remarkably slow-paced, but work at Relion is really picking up. I worked on a big project for Regis Corp. before I left. Well, they're ready to start working on the next release of that software so I guess I've got some work to do. I worked on some requirements documentation over the weekend and I was in the office until about 8:30 last night working on screen prototypes. Terry is meeting with them this morning so, assuming all goes well (and even if it doesn't, I suppose), I'm going to have plenty more work to do on that project. This weekend may be my last weekend away for some time.

In addition to that project, it sounds like Relion may pick up some rather hefty backfile conversion projects that they'll likely need some help with. They also hired on a new tech so I imagine I'll be in the office a bit in the next couple weeks showing him some of the stuff I've got floating around.

All of that isn't without it's benefits, though. Since I knew I was going to be working late last night, I jumped at the opportunity to take that blasted car cover off by car. I took her for a spin Monday night to clear out the cobwebs and then took her in to work yesterday. Ahh, yes... With the vroom vroom and the zoom zoom. I sure did miss her.

I've been listening to the Killers album a lot lately (Hot Fuss). After the first time through, I really wasn't impressed. However, after the 3rd or 4th time through, I've really come to love that album. It's really very good and, apparently, is much like a fine wine in that it ripens with age.

Fingers...cramping...up...

Must...stop...writing...

I guess the cure for cancer will have to wait. Dang network errors.

It's a Boy!

No, I'm not having a kid, but my sister is. For anyone that doesn't already know, she's due this Summer and she just had an ultrasound this week - apparently, she's having a boy. So, I guess there'll be another little Gavin running about. :D It sounds like everything is going well so now it's just time to hang in there and wait for the new baby.

So, let's see, what else is new?

Liz and I made it back safely from Colorado. The drive was long, but mostly uneventful. When we got back in to Rochester, we found that there was a whole lot of snow on the ground. Amazingly, when we got to our house (just after Midnight), we found that our driveway, sidewalk, and deck, were completely cleared off. Apparently, we had gotten 20 inches of snow over the couple days before we came back. My neighbor had borrowed his neighbor's snowblower to clear his driveway and, when he was done, he was nice enough to do mine, as well. It sure is nice to have a good neighbor. :)

We've got a ton of pictures of the vacation, but I just haven't gotten around to publishing them into the Net yet. Honestly, I haven't gotten around to much of anything this week - it's been a pretty lazy week. My only real accomplishments of the week were to go to see my broker (Liz and I went to see him to do some financial planning) and get my hair cut. Exciting stuff, huh?

Liz and I vegged out and watched some basketball last night. We caught most of the UW-Milwaukee/Illinois game. It went pretty much as I expected, but I must admit, UW-Milwaukee looked pretty dang impressive. Illinois is just awesome, but the Panthers looked pretty good. Of course, the best part of the game was the opening 5 minutes. Those guys were up and down the court so fast that I got tired just watching 'em. I'll bet they wished they were doing windsprints or something less tiring.

Tonight, the Badgers will be taking on NC State and Liz and I will probably be in the car for the entire drive. We're making our way back to Sheboygan for Easter. Unfortunately, that means we won't get back to C-ville this weekend, but we're planning on another excursion next weekend that should get us there. So, if you're in the area, you have over a week's warning that we'll be coming so there should be no excuses if you fail to avoid us.

What would one of my blog posts be without a little hockey news? Some good, some bad. First let's go with the good - the Badgers made it into the final 16 teams that will be playing for the NCAA hockey championship. They open up the tourney tonight with a game against Michigan. I'd be all upset about being on the road and not getting to see it, but there's no way it would have been on TV, anyway. The bad news? The NHL cancelled this year's draft. Sure, it doesn't really impact me much, but it still sucks to know that the NHL is all fouled up. Gah!

Dilbert moment of the week - I sat in a meeting in which we discussed how we'll number our software versions. Honestly. Who cares? Someone just pick a standard and tell me what to use. This is not rocket science (well, it is computer science, but big deal). In case you have no idea what I'm talking about, just take my word for the fact that it was a waste of a half hour and, when we were all done, I had convinced most people that it was entirely subjective and didn't matter, anyway.

I also spoke to the recruiter from Google for a bit. We didn't talk long, only a few minutes. He basically just wanted to talk about what I've been up to for the last couple years. He said that he'd send my resume on to their hiring committee and they'd decide whether or not I was worthy of additional recruitment time. I'm not even sure if I want them to be interested or not. As cool as it would be to work for Google, I'm not entirely certain I'd be willing to relocate to California - they've got weird cows there and stuff. At least, if they weren't interested, I wouldn't have to consider it any more.

Anyway, enough babble. I'm outta here. Have a good Easter, everyone. See y'all soon.

Gentlemen, Start Your Drooling...

The Shelby Mustang Returns

Hello From Colorado

Hey y'all,

Well, Liz and I are officially on vacation. The vacation has been good but the weather has been rather "uncooperative" to say the least. Friday night, I drove to Mankato through freezing rain, snow, and wind that blew so much snow across the road that I couldn't see past the hood of the truck. On our way to Colorado Springs on Saturday, we drove through just about anything you can imagine - snow, wind, rain, hail, whatever. It wasn't until today (Tuesday), that the weather really started to clear up. Up until today, it's been snowy and hazy.

Colorado Springs is an...interesting town. Some areas are very nice and others seem very run down. The most peculiar thing is that those areas seem interspersed among one another. One block will be very nice and the next will be horribly run down. It's just a bit odd, that's all.

We've already taken in quite a few sites since our arrival on Saturday. Sunday, we took a train ride through a nearby gorge. We've also spent some time checking out the Gardens of the Gods, the local zoo, and a waterfall. We also checked out the Olympic Center, where Marvin works. They're having a boxing tournament there this week, which we might check out for a while on Thursday. Don't worry - I've taken a ton of pictures of whatever I can find so I'll get those online once I get home.

In case anyone cares, the Badgers beat Anchorage 2 games to 1 to make it to the WCHA final five. They'll be starting a series against North Dakota on Thursday night.

Well, I guess that's about it, for now. I'm going to go enjoy some more of my vacation. Later, all!

Corey

And We're Off...well, almost.

So the voyage out to Colorado begins tonight. After work, Liz and I will get the rest of our things together and then we're going to head over to Mankato to rendevouz with Little Red. We'll spend the night in Mankato and, tomorrow, we'll begin the trek across the nation.

We spent the bulk of last night getting ready for the trip. We packed our suitcases, cleaned the house (well, sort of), paid the bills, etc. Truly a joyous night, let me tell you. :-/

I don't really know what we'll be doing out there, but it won't involve work, so that's a good start.

Sports are giving a little excitement back to my life recently. It's time for college playoffs so there's a little more to cheer about these days than the fact that the NHLPA and the NHL will meet for the 1st time in a billion weeks or whatever it is now.

The Badgers basketball team will make the NCAA tourney for sure, but the Big Ten tournament got underway yesterday and the Badgers will get their first shot at that tourney against Ohio State tonight.

The men's hockey team is set to start the WCHA playoffs tonight against Anchorage. They'll play a 3-game set this weekend with the winner advancing. The hockey team sure slumped at the end of the season, going 1-5-3 in their final 9 games and dropping into 4th place in the WCHA. The good news? Dropping to 4th place set them up against Anchorage in the first round, who they went 4-0-0 against this season. Hopefully, those guys can get their act together for the playoffs.

The Packers seem to have begun a complete dismantling of their team. Starting guards Mike Wahle and and Marco Rivera have up and moved on to Carolina and Dallas. And, now, after being unable to convince Darren Sharper to take a 60% paycut from what he was supposed to earn this year, the Packers have cut Mr. Sharper for salary cap reasons. Well, guys, you got a lot of rebuilding to do and you've finally got a little cap room to do it with. Get going. I sure hope the Pack has plans for the draft because they sure haven't made any noise during free agency.

In entirely unrelated news, I got a rather odd e-mail earlier this week. Apparently, someone at Google spotted some of the work I'd done for JavaRanch and sent me an e-mail to see if I'd be interested in working for them. I have to say that I was really quite amazed that Google would be interested in me. I doubt much will come of it, but I sent him my resume and he asked me to give him a ring after I got back from vacation. We'll see, I guess.

So, let's see...any other exciting news? I can't really think of any. Take care, everyone. See y'all in a week or so.

Why You Should Never Lie to your Mother...

This was sent to me by a good friend - I shamelessly post here for your enjoyment...

Brian Hester invited his mother over for dinner. During the course of the meal, Brian's mother couldn't help but keep noticing how beautiful Brian's roommate, Stephanie, was. Mrs. Hester had long been suspicious of a relationship between Brian and Stephanie, and this had only made her more curious.

Over the course of the evening, while watching the two react, Mrs. Hester started to wonder if there was more between Brian and Stephanie than met the eye. Reading his mom's thoughts, Brian volunteered, "I know what you must be thinking, but I assure you Stephanie and I are just roommates."

About a week later, Stephanie came to Brian saying, "Ever since your mother came to dinner, I've been unable to find the beautiful silver gravy ladle. You don't suppose she took it, do you?" Brian said, "Well, I doubt it, but I'll send her an e-mail just to be sure."

So he sat down and wrote:

Dear Mother:

I'm not saying that you "did" take the gravy ladle from the house, I'm not saying that you "did not" take the gravy ladle. But the fact remains that one has been missing ever since you were here for dinner.

Love, Brian


Several days later, Brian received a letter from his mother that read:

Dear Son:

I'm not saying that you "do" sleep with Stephanie, and I'm not saying that you "do not" sleep with Stephanie. But the fact remains that if she was sleeping in her own bed, she would have found the gravy ladle by now.

Love, Mom

Pictures are Up!

Hey folks,

I finally got off my lazy butt (with some prodding from my ever-lovely wife) and got the Pictures section up on my site. There aren't many pictures there just yet, but there's something there.

The more important part of this story is that I used Picasa and it's custom templating ability to generate all of the pages you see within the Pictures section automatically. The only page that I still have to manage manually is the first page that allows you to select various photo sets. Beyond that, everything is generated automatically. Picasa takes care of the creation of the thumbnails, all the page generation, formatting, etc. It's pretty slick, really. If you haven't checked out that software yet, you should. It's pretty sweet and it's free.

Liz and I went out for dinner last night with some friends and ran into our "ex" neighbors (the one's that moved out earlier this week) while we were there. After that, a few of us went to the rec center to go ice skating. That was fun, but Liz wasn't feeling too well after dinner and there were plenty of obnoxious 12 year old boys there so we didn't stay terribly long.

Tonight, we're going to go see the Rochester Community Symphony. We've become quite accustomed to the Sheboygan Symphony (which Liz's mom, Mardi, plays in), and they're very good, so I don't expect this show to be especially thrilling. Nonetheless, we're gonna go and have a listen to see if they're any good or not. We'll see.

I suppose that's about all I've got for now. At least now I can say that I accomplished something this weekend. ;)

Take it easy, y'all.

For Every Sprinkle I Find...

So my dad called last night...the first words out of his mouth (well, after "Hi, Corey" of course) were the usual. "Hey. I got a joke for ya." So, without further ado...the comic musings of my father...

So what's the difference between boogers and broccoli?

Kids won't eat broccoli!

I don't expect you to understand the deep, contemplative, sense of humor possessed by either me or my father. Just know that the previous joke is damn funny. I hope to bring you more classic humor in my upcoming blog posts...just you wait.

So, let's see...what's going on around this neck of the woods...

Our neighbors sold their house. I met the guy that bought it yesterday - his English isn't so good. I believe he said he was from Bosnia, but I'm not certain. His accent is so thick that I had a hard time understanding him. Nonetheless, I think I came out a little bit ahead of my dear wife, who apparently understood nothing except the fact that he bought the house.

It doesn't sound like he's going to be living there, though. It sounded like he was planning on renting the place out. That kinda disappoints me but, hopefully, we'll end up with some nice folks living there. We'll see, I guess. Either way, there isn't much I can do about it.

We got some new picture frames in yesterday so Liz and I spent last night putting them up. Our basement is now full of old movie posters - everything from Star Wars to Marilyn Monroe to the Ghostbusters. It's very cool. I believe that means you are all officially invited (as it always the case, really) to come up and hang with us in our movie theater. (The previous invitation does not apply to random freaky people reading my blog.)

Tonight, I'll be getting my groove on at the skating rink with a bunch of friends. That should be fun - I'm hoping at least one of them won't have any idea how to ice skate so that we can all laugh at his/her expense. Ahh, yes.

Tomorrow night, Liz and I are headed to a symphony concert put on by the local symphony orchestra. I don't know how good they'll be, but we're gonna go check 'em out and see how it goes.

Outside of that, we don't really have much planned.

Liz and I will be heading to Colorado in a couple weeks to go and see Sarah's boyfriend, Marvin. That's coming up pretty fast, but we still got some time. I suppose we'll have to start getting ready for that soon, though.

So...do I have anything else to say? I don't really think so. Have a good weekend, everyone.

Peace, I'm out.