Misc	Monday, October 24, 2005 4:22:30 PM
Thanks to Josh for these links: * SecondSpin.com is having a 25% off sale through 10/26/05. Use promotion code DVDSALE46. I can't wait to stock up. * Also, we just finished laughing about the Google searches for "FAILURE" and "MISERABLE FAILURE". Google has information about it in the advertisements section to show that they aren't politically biased. More information is at http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/3298443.stm
TiVo and the A/V Sender/Receiver	Wednesday, October 19, 2005 5:13:56 PM
I felt like I had blogged about this a while ago, but I guess I just became an unpaid commercial with people at work instead of blogging about it. If this is a repeat, please forgive the duplication! TiVo has definitely changed the way I watch TV. Anything I want to watch is available in a lovely list whenever I feel like watching it. And there are no commercials. It is a very good thing. However, I got so used to watching TiVo that I haven't wanted to watch anything else. I'd be on the elliptical machine and watching morning TV with all of the commercials and I would really want to just watch something that I wanted to see (sorry Michelle, but Katie Couric drives me nuts) without any commercial interruptions. I had done some research a year ago on A/V sender receivers, but the cheaper options had bad reviews from anyone with a wireless network (we do and we need it to work or Mike will be sad) and the highly reviewed one had a larger price tag than I wanted to pay. But, I told Mike I wanted it one day and the next thing I know, I had it. Nice husband. :) I LOVE IT!!! Seriously, this is the best gadget ever. (For people with 1 TiVo and 2 TVs.) Meet our A/V Sender/Receiver. I hop on the elliptical machine in the AM and turn on the non-TiVo connected TV. The TiVo remote works through this A/V Sender/Receiver and I happily fast forward all of the commercials. It works really well and only sometimes has a fuzz on the TV. But I've noticed that the fuzziness only happens on high-action commercials that I don't know that my old TV can handle with the jury-rigged setup to make the receiver work. Plus, I'm fast-forwarding them, so I don't care. :) I will be embarrassingly honest and admit that I tape "All My Children" and watch it on the elliptical machine since that makes sure that I exercise in order to see what happened next. (They are currently having an interesting storyline on that show, admittedly during sweeps month and the soap I used to watch in high school is whiny and bad right now.) It works for me and I exercise just about every day now because of the setup. For a hate-to-exercise person, that is a good thing. Note for anyone who watches AMC and loves the show, I'm only allowed to watch this show on the elliptical machine, so right now I am 3 days behind because of a bad ear infection/slightly perforated ear drum that knocked me off my feet for almost a week. No spoilers! This is working out so well that I am very tempted to get another small TV/receiver combo for the bedroom. I'm still pretty sick with my ear and sometimes I like to curl up in bed and watch TV while I'm not feeling well, so it is pretty tempting right now. We moved the TV/receiver in while I was taking sick days from work so I'm missing it a little bit now that it is back in the exercise room/office. The guys in the office were talking about some $5000 TV that they can get for $4000 because of some weird company discount, so Mike can blame them for my TV ideas. :)
Toll Brothers in NY Times	Tuesday, October 18, 2005 3:36:10 PM
Here is a very long and interesting article that they ran on the front page of Sunday's NY Times Magazine on my employers. http://www.nytimes.com/2005/10/16/magazine/16brothers.html?oref=login BugMeNot.com has a free login to use if you don't already have one and I've printed the article out here in case the link someday gets messed up. One of my favorite parts was this: Toll spends every Monday poring over prospective land deals in his firm's headquarters, a nondescript three-story building in a Horsham, Pa., office park located about 30 minutes northwest of Philadelphia. For the head of a company known for the cut-glass chandeliers and double-height foyers in its signature mansions, his office is a strikingly d?class? affair. (Bruce Toll is vice chairman of the board and an active adviser but plays no daily management role.) The ceilings are low, the lighting is harsh, the air-conditioning is on the blink. Toll's shares in his company are now worth more than a half-billion dollars, yet he does his business on the cheap: a glass-topped table surrounded by dining-room chairs in fuzzy orange fabric that were salvaged from a bankrupt company years ago. *LOL* It is so true.
Friends updates	Tuesday, October 11, 2005 2:08:11 PM
Mike and I spent a wonderful weekend visiting our friends Jeff and Hannah. (More on that to come...) While I was there, I told Hannah that she needed a blog and she agreed. Yay! I love reading my friends' deep thoughts and Hannah is the kind of person that always makes me stretch and grow. http://hannahlabonde.blogspot.com/ Last week, my friend Josh and his wife Soo welcomed their son Caleb into the world. Isn't he too cute? http://www.christcommunitypa.org/blogs/josh/?p=228 Simply amazing.
Update on my life	Tuesday, October 04, 2005 4:02:45 PM
While I'm waiting for a Crystal Report to load, I thought I would just give an update on my life at present. Work is going great. I have worked a ton of hours this year compared to last year, partially because an unexpected set of training classes right around my wedding put me out of the office for over 2 months solid, partially because a mandate to add Crystal Reports and Novell iChain to all new projects made each project grow about 3 weeks, and partially because I hate to tell people that things are getting delayed (yet again) so I worked crazy hours to make up for the above delays. I know this is dumb, but I can't help myself. I really like my job and it is hard to go home when I'm having such fun. :) But, I have good reasons to go home. My lovely husband is awesome as always. We commute together and get to spend lots of extra time just talking on the commute. Usually the vast majority of conversation is on the way home since we are barely functional in the morning. Marriage is great, I'm happy to say. We are fairly busy right now and haven't been able to make being time a priority as much as we should. On Monday nights, we are helping our church go through a revisioning process (more on that below). On Tuesdays, I have visits to my chiropractor or facialist and then we did have an Argentine Dance class later in the evening, but (as of today) we've dropped out due to a combination of too much stuff that came up unexpectedly and the fact that my back spasmed for 10 days after the first class. (Darn that back. I hope that one day it goes back to normal.) On Wednesdays, I have the acupuncturist working hard to adjust my chi. Thursday is Mike's acting class and a nice time for me to watch Everwood and not make Mike suffer through it. (I know Everwood is cheesy, but I can't help myself.) Usually, I try to catch up with friends and family that day and end up with TiVo taping it anyway. On Fridays and Saturdays, we have a variety of things going on - acupuncture part 2 for me and weekend things that mostly involve running around. Sunday is church and then football (YAY!!!) and dinner with friends and sometimes more church. Speaking of TiVo, it is still the coolest thing. It tapes everything and I can try out all sorts of new shows and see the old ones, no matter where the networks have moved them. I recently installed this very cool A/V sender/receiver that transmits the signal from the TiVo in the living room to the TV in the office so I can watch the TiVoed shows I want to see while on the elliptical machine without commercial interruption instead of the silly morning shows with the zillion commercials. It is very cool and I've been MUCH better about exercising every day because of it. Our church is going through this very awesome revisioning process where everyone in the church took a survey and then we are spending about 2 months going over the results and comparing the programs that are in the church and seeing if they meet the needs of the congregation and the community around us. I really respect them for going through that process and think that all churches should do this every so often. Mike and I are currently revisiting the church question ourselves and are probably going on a church adventure in the very near future to try out different churches. My world view has definitely changed over the last decade and I'm not certain whether or not that means that the church that fits me the best has changed too. It is hard to tell that unless you try other places. Mike has never really had a chance to see other churches and how they differ so he is interested in making this journey. Much more on this topic will follow. I'm not certain if I will be creating a whole new blog for this journey or not, but there is definitely enough content for it. The Crystal report has finished running, so I'm back to work. I hope all of you are doing well, too!
Palm decided to work with Microsoft	Tuesday, September 27, 2005 10:51:23 AM
I wasn't expecting this... http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2005/09/27/BUGADEUANQ1.DTL&type=business
Tidbits...	Thursday, September 22, 2005 10:47:51 AM
I'm not really in a deep blogging mode, so I thought I'd post some of the things that I was looking at this morning. Very interesting point of view from my friend James' Sept 21, 2005 blog on evolution. I very much enjoyed the "Darwin Goes To Church" article that he posted with it. http://www.bickley.org/misc/blogs/myblog.html Totally crazy story about Philadelphia's archaic laws that are preventing horrifically sad abuse cases from being prosecuted. http://www.kyw1060.com/news_story_detail.cfm?newsitemid=49429 How wrong is that??? Our future car: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/9436937/ (or here for the flashy fun http://automobiles.honda.com/civics/index.aspx). Mike is thrilled that the concept car was not put in place over this one, so we can wait until we actually need a new car to get one. A little bit about Hurricane Rita from the Weather Channel... If there is any good news at this point, it is the fact that it is very difficult for a hurricane to maintain category 5 status for any lengthy period of time. Near-perfect to perfect atmospheric conditions are necessary for a category 5 hurricane to exist and these "perfect" conditions are difficult to come by and do not remain in place for a long period of time. So although Rita is currently a category 5 hurricane, fluctuations in intensity are occurring. Rita may now be entraining some drier mid-level air from over the western Gulf of Mexico and Texas into its western side, causing the slight decrease in wind speed and increase in pressure. I pray that it does weaken and that because of Hurricane Katrina, this is handled much better.
Hurricane Katrina insanity	Wednesday, September 21, 2005 12:30:52 PM
We don't deserve help from other nations. It is totally ridiculous to toss food sent by other nations to people starving because of government red tape. Who is going to help us next time? Hopefully everything will get worked out before they destroy the millions in aid from Europe. http://www.mirror.co.uk/archive/archive/tm_objectid=16147117%26method=full%26siteid=94762-name_page.html
Just in time for our Florida trip...	Thursday, September 01, 2005 2:30:15 PM
Crazy gas prices: http://moneycentral.msn.com/content/CNBCTV/Articles/Dispatches/P128021.asp Make me want to get that new hybrid car sooner rather than later!
Free Credit Reports	Wednesday, August 31, 2005 3:17:55 PM
Thanks for the post, Josh! http://www.christcommunitypa.org/blogs/josh/?p=194
Leave My Child Alone	Wednesday, August 31, 2005 3:17:10 PM
So much for privacy... Buried deep within the No Child Left Behind Act is a provision that requires public high schools to hand over private student information to military recruiters. The purpose of this invasion of family privacy is to allow minor students to be recruited at home by telephone calls, mail and personal visits. If a school does not comply, it risks losing vital federal education funds. The only way to keep your children?s contact information from military recruiters, is to submit an "opt-out" letter in writing to your school district?s superintendent. Visit http://www.leavemychildalone.com/ and get your kid(s) off the list.
Prayers for the Hurricane Katrina victims	Wednesday, August 31, 2005 1:25:12 PM
Louisiana Governor Kathleen Blanco has declared today a day of prayer for the victims of Hurricane Katrina. "As we face the devastation wrought by Katrina, as we search for those in need, as we comfort those in pain and as we begin the long task of rebuilding, we turn to God for strength, hope and comfort." Those poor people. We are praying for you. Bob Toll (CEO of my company) is matching any contributions made by employees to the American Red Cross. If you wanted to give and double it, let me know and I'll make the contribution for you here. If you are still peeved about their September 11th funds, there are still a great many other organizations that are helping out the victims, including my favorite World Vision.
Damn SOX audits	Friday, August 26, 2005 6:17:12 PM
I hate SOXA and all of the associated audits and "reforms". I am going to program 5 minutes to fix one page and then spend 30 minutes documenting what I just did and filling out ridiculous forms. I'm trying not to be a whining bitchy person about all of this (and I have been very sweet and understanding until this last meeting 15 minutes ago), but give me a break!!! I have clients that I told I would finish their stuff by X date and now find out that, by the way, here are a zillion hours of forms that you didn't know about and now have to accommodate and still meet your deadlines. The people doing this aren't the ones calling up my clients and explaing to all of them that their upcoming projects are getting delayed because of this mess. Going home from work now. *grr* Damn you Enron! You're making my work life so much more difficult because you couldn't stop yourself from being evil.
Calamity Jane and the Exercise Frustrations	Tuesday, August 23, 2005 10:12:39 AM
Speaking of female-type things trying to get Mike's attention by breaking, I have been experiencing a crazy amount of health issues requiring me to not exercise and take narcotics. I'm starting to wonder if my subconscious would like me to be a couch potato drug addict. The saga begins when my doctor put me on a medicine to kill nerve pain for the 2+ months after the wedding. However, it made me gain 10 pounds and I was always tired and not myself, so Mike and I talked to the doctor to get me off of the stuff. After 2+ weeks off of them, I feel like my perky optimistic self again and have stopped lying on the couch and crying all of the time. Wahoo! Now to attack those pesky 10 pounds... Well, first I had to have a very minor surgery, so I couldn't exercise for 2 weeks. OK. I resolved to exercise the moment those two weeks are up. Enter the narcotics after the surgery. They are very, very lovely and I could almost function in real life while taking them. So, I stash them in Mike's dresser to make me think twice before taking them. I only took two, but I thought about taking a third. Mike reassures me that he would tell me if he was worried that I was turning into an addict. The Saturday before my two weeks were up (2 days to exercising!), I somehow sprain my knee in my sleep. I noticed it at my acupuncturist while laying on my stomach for an hour that it hurts. It gradually got worse the entire day and thereafter until I could barely walk on it on Tuesday. So, Mike stays home from work with me and drives me to my family practice doctor who determines I need to stay off of it and get an MRI next week if it isn't better. Then, Mike drives me to my chiropractor who tells me that family practice doctors are good for diabetes and little else. Dr. B proceeds to adjust my hip and knee, ultrasound my whole leg, put electrical stimulation pads on my knee with ice and on my butt with heat. Fun stuff, but it works. Wednesday, my knee feels great until 3pm. So, back to my chiropractor for more of the same and to my acupuncturist who put needles there too. By the evening, I was crying with the pain, so I took a pain pill from the above surgery and felt great. I then felt great on Thursday, bad on Friday (so I took another pill), and 99.9% healed up on Saturday. Yay! Monday morning, I will totally start exercising again. Saturday afternoon, we were organizing our little home office and I carried a box with a large 3-hole punch on top of the pile of other things to put in the newly organized desk drawers. I put the box on a chair, turned and saw out of the corner of my eye that the box was slipping. I grabbed for it, but the 3-hole punch (in slow motion) flew off the box and landed on a pointy end with a crunch on my foot. The same one with the sprained knee. My foot instantly turned black and blue and I lost it to a "why me?" pity party. Mike carried me to the couch, put ice on the foot, and cooked me dinner so I was more able to cope with life with my blood sugar back to normal. Such a lovely husband! But, I still can't exercise and have a gorgeously black, blue, purple and green foot. And yes, when the pain was at the absolute worst, I did take another pain pill although I then stashed them back with Mike. Craziness. While at Sunday night dinner with Andre, John, Deb and Mike, I tell them the story. John agrees with me that my body is somehow forcing me to sit around and watch The Daily Show. Andre advised me to not clean the house or lift anything for a week and to keep away from sharp objects. I am definitely taking her advice. I then notice that I have all sorts of little bruises on my arm. Deb tells me I must stop with this or people will think Mike is beating me. !!! It turns out that the "bruises" were some sort of peach cobbler residue that I cooked for dessert, so *whew* one false alarm. Funny stuff. :D And before you ask, yes Mom, I'm taking my vitamins every day and mostly getting enough sleep. It seems to just be a series of unfortunate events that is just a little blip in my life. Maybe next week I can get back on the elliptical machine... Yep, the optimisim is back and I'm loving it!
Why I've renamed Christine 'The Money Pit'	Tuesday, August 23, 2005 10:11:55 AM
http://www.salubrio.com/mike/message-detail.php?message_id=275 Mike tried to explain that she was named Christine because she tried to kill things (Mike's wallet and his DC mechanic), but I don't think that she is trying to kill us, just make sure Mike pays attention to her every week and spends money on her. :D