Last post has significance, it's key for penguins to see the pretty pictures.

Slow day today, I don't think I ever woke up. Need to keep working on catching up from the beeper week.

I'm thinking of making some changes to the blog here but haven't figured out quite what else I can do yet. Maybe once I have my thinking self back, I can catch the inspiration and make things happen with the words on the page.

Happy Beltane! May your new ventures have a magickal blessing to help them come along.

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Family Time

This weekend was a good one. Most of it was spent on downtime with the family. I did get a little bit of time just for me while I went and geeked out watching the NFL draft on tv. I can't explain why I like to pay so much attention to it, just something that I have done for years. I watch at least the first round highlights and try to see how things pan out. I think the fun in it for me is seeing who is being hyped up as the team savior, things to watch for in the upcoming season and now with fantasy football, a way to take advantage of some of that knowledge. Soccer went from Saturday morning cheering to a family game that all four of us were playing as the evening coolness came in. Both kids seem to love to play and I would love for them to pick up some new skills to use on the field, but I think we just have a lot of fun together doing it. I am finding that I am not in as good of shape as I could be, guess all those hours sitting in my office haven't been too beneficial to my health. It would be nice if I had a good sleep schedule with my work too. Last night was not the best for sleeping with the beeper going off here and there. Comes with the territory though.
Got a little bit of yard work done today as well as the grocery shopping finished. I am wiped out and should find myself some good dreamtime tonight.

Helping to give back

Tonight we watched our results from voting for American Idol on tv. This week was special because they were launching the charity "Idol Gives Back" and had a very special show lined up with the stars coming out of the woodwork for it. We made a small donation, but it should go to good use. This fund drive was for children in Africa as well as fighting poverty and starvation here in the United States. I am a firm believer that you need to start small to make a big difference. Start local, then national, then global. If we don't take care of our own, what difference does it make in the world? The thing I like about the idol fund drive is that the charities that they give to are: 1) valid charities, 2) no strings attached, and 3) no religious affiliation trying to add conversion as a price to pay for help. It was a great show and I'm glad we could do our part to help out. If everyone who watches the show (35 million+ by neilson ratings each week) gives just a little, they will be able to make a huge difference.

While we're giving back this week, check out this video and help donate $0.49 per view to Autism research: http://www.whatkindofworlddoyouwant.com/videos/view/id/213154

Find joy in your day, hug your kids and have fun...

Catching up

It's been a while since I've had a post, the words just haven't wanted to flow to the blogosphere.
Work has kept me busy even though a lot of my work tasks have been given to other members of my team to help balance out the load. We had our first couple of hiccups with our fledgling service that brought about more work to fix the bugs and try to prevent them from happening. Nothing like putting out fires left and right to keep the heart pumping. We're trying our best to mold our application team and get everyone working together. I think that things are starting to move forward, but not everyone is on board with us yet. Time will tell if we can get everyone together to make this successful. My sleep schedule during the week is taking a beating though, I have gotten to the point where some mornings I could refuse to set my alarm because the pager will do the job.
Easter weekend was good and it is wonderful being able to spend time with the family. We went out to the Brother-in-law's place for dinner and things went great. I spoke with my mom and my dad in the same weekend. My issues with our war in Iraq took a deeper concern after talking with mom though, found out that my little brother is scheduled to head over there later this year. His reserve unit was given their orders that they will have to go to 75 days of training in the states, a few weeks in Kuwait for adjusting to the temps and then onto Iraq. I really hope that for the sake of all our soldiers that we can find a way to end this thing soon. Last year, my older brother was supposed to head over but his orders were changed at the last minute. Not sure that my little brother will get so lucky as he's in an infrastructure team that helps rebuild areas. Ironic that we not only send over the troops to destroy the place and tear it up in the name of the "War on Terror" but then we'll send them over there and make them repair what they broke. Sorry about the rant, it just irks me how we tend to handle things waving our flag and showing our power in the world.

Today we took the kids bowling and had a pretty good time. It's been a long time since I've been out to the lanes. The kids are trying to get a feel for it as they decide if they want to take part in the homeschool bowling league that is starting next week and will run for 10 weeks. We managed to get two games in each and everyone did well for not doing it very often. With practice and time, I think that all of us could get better.

Movies and more

It's been a busy week work wise and the weekend got off to a busy start too. Last night we watched the newest episode of Numb3rs. It was a very good one that kept you guessing. After that was done, we took in the local news and then watched the movie Volver. It was interesting and you had to pay attention because it was in Spanish with English sub-titles the whole time. It was a good movie and a story line that you don't expect until it plays out.
Today I went with Alex to a birthday party for one of his soccer teammates which was held at the local cinema. We watched TMNT (Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles) and it was really fun to introduce my son to something I watched when I was a teen. The movie was done all in CG (computer graphics) and the detail that they can put into the movies these days is just mind blowing. It was a good movie if you are a follower of the old series. New story plot that continues the story of the turtles, but shows them as time passes by after the defeat of the nemesis, Shredder. A new twist on their old friend April O'neil, who goes from being a tv reporter to a major import specialist.
After an afternoon of meeting up with family this afternoon and egg dying for Easter, we watched A change of heart. I wasn't sure what to think of it when I read the description, but it really pulled at the heart strings of this Dad. A really good story about an adoptive father who fights to keep is new daughter after the death of his wife to cancer. Good dads are out there and depicted in the movies too! :0)

Time to get "Joost"

Today I received my beta tester cap for the new broadband IPTV product called Joost. It is an interesting new delivery model for online video content. This content comes from both big name studios as well as some well known vid-casts. It is still in beta and the time I've had to check it out today does show that it is still a work in progress. I don't know if it is a limitation of being a beta tester but no matter what channel I selected or show I tried to watch, I would get about half way through a show and it would throw up an error, sorry this channel is temporarily unavailable and the stream would just stop. Checking out the forums on the joost.com website, this seems to be common with this latest version of the client software. This is the last big push from them for beta testing and maybe they stretched themselves too thin. I will give it a few more days to get a good feel for it, but so far it has potential. Being someone who spends a lot of time on the computer for work related things, it gives me another outlet for entertainment. I now have Joost, Netflix Watch it Now and my podcasts that I watch on the Democracy player. This really is the new way to get the programming that we want. The AppleTV device seems a little early but if content keeps getting better like it has and it becomes something we can stream directly to the tv instead of having to get the content out of our iTunes downloads, it could become a real killer app device.
One comment about the Joost client, especially on windows, when you want to stop streaming the data, you have to completely close the client. If you only minmize it or put it into standby mode, it is still actively pushing bits across the network. Be careful that you are not in danger of getting cut off from a bad ISP like Comcast as seen here.

While the debate of Windows v. Mac v. Linux rages on, at times rising to a roar in certain circles, The following article shows why there is a fourth option.

read more | digg story

I have to agree that there is an overwhelming trend towards browser based computing. If you have all your applications online via Google Apps (Documents and Spreadsheets, Calendar, Gmail) and you have your bookmarks stored somewhere, you are pretty much good to go no matter what system you are using. Add firefox to a thumbdrive and you can take everything with you no matter where you go. I'm not in this camp personally but I think it makes things truely portable. In my line of work however, the PC is still essential for most work applications. I need the VPN, Putty for SSH and my RSA token for access to my servers. Other applications like Email and Corporate IM are available online in a pinch when I do need to get to something quickly, but without the VPN, there is no solving the issue without having someone else run the commands for you.

Think of the average computer user though and this all online option works.. until you take away the internet connection. This could be an interesting trend to follow, especially as more applications go into "web 2.0" online form and move the desktop into the web browser. Got any ideas on how best to do this? Leave a comment.

Busy Day

Today we had a very busy day. I was a proud daddy as Alex had a great soccer game. He scored a goal for his team, got in after the ball and just had an overall great time. We managed to get the front and back yard mowed, watered the garden and got the menu and grocery list planned out. Speaking of the garden, we are seeing the first signs of life. Looks like the Cukes and Yellow Squash are trying to pop through. Not bad for the first week of them being out there. Tonight I have three changes (two down and one to go as of this post).