NPR : Nigerian Artist is a One-Man Body Beating Band

I'm an avid NPR podcast listener. Today they had a story about a One-Man Body Beating Band (~4 minutes). It was about a Nigerian Artist named Jojo Bodybeats who just makes funky beats all day long with his hands, mouth, feet, chest, throat, etc... Here is his website: jojobodybeats.com

WoW!... and I thought I had rhythm.

I beat-box all day, everyday so I could really relate to this guy. I'm not as crazy about it as he is (sneezing to a beat, coughing to a beat, etc...), but I'm always finding myself tapping on stuff and beat-boxing as I walk around the house. I have cooler beats come from my mouth than I do my hands and feet, but I can do some pretty cool things just from being a drummer for so many years. Jennifer has actually started to get some pretty funky rhythms herself, and I (honestly) take all the credit for them. :) She has to listen to me everyday and I can tell that, over the years, she has begun doing it as well. She'll be picking up the kids stuff and she'll break out some funky lisps with her mouth.

Lizzie and Jazzy are always asking me:

Daddy, how you do dat?

My response is usually:

Mirrors.

...they always buy it and just say:

Cool

Microsoft Surface

Microsoft Surface
I'll let the link speak for itself...

Update: 13 July 2007
This was an old post that I never "published". Since the announcement of Microsoft Surface, there has been all kinds of talk and web gossip.

Corey sent me a the best link the other day:

Game On!

A while back I said I switched map applications. Well since then, all the map sites have been fighting for my business... I know, you're welcome. :)

Two days ago, Microsoft Virtual Earth came out of no where and included some next level graphics and interaction into their maps web page. Check it out for yourself: http://maps.live.com. Once you install the plug in you can pan, tilt, zoom, create paths, store locations, share locations, etc... anywhere in the world directly from your browser. The only downfall so far is that it takes a while to load, but once it's up and running it's pretty cool. I was able to zoom into my house and see the hill behind my house. I can't do that with Google Earth or Google Maps.

Soon after Microsoft released it's Virtual Earth plug in, Google introduces Google Street View. This is a cool new feature that let's you see pictures at various predefined locations in a 360 degree view. Again, directly inside your browser window. Here is a cool little video to show you what it's all about:

Needless to say, these are pretty fun times for the web! I can't wait to see what they come up with next...

My Stress Fracture

Well, I went to the foot doctor yesterday and he told me that my MRI came back indicating that I had a stress fracture on one of my ligaments that connects the inside of my foot to the outside of my shin. Apparently this is the best case scenario and my body will just heal itself over time. He told me to not run on it for 2 more weeks and then ease back into running on a soft track. As it turns out, he said that it usually happens when runners do too much "hill work". I didn't have the heart to tell him about my new sandals. I'm sure it was from me trying to stretch the 'toe' strap on my Chaco's all day long. I still wear my Chaco's, but I no longer stretch my toe strap all day...

So the bottom line is that it my injury should heal itself over time if I just take it easy for a little while longer. I totally expected to walk out in a boot, so I'm pretty happy with my visit.

Blake Lewis is Just Plain Funky

I can't wait until Blake to releases his first album. This dude's rendition of "You give love a bad name" is as good (if not better) than Bon Jovi's version. Blake added a whole new beat-box / laid back funk groove to it and made it into a totally new song. He has a very percussive approach to his music and (as a drummer) I like it a lot!

If you don't believe me, then just see for yourself (jump to 1:19):

Jennifer and I rewound American Idol so many times that night just to make sure we heard what we thought we heard. The drummer that played beside Blake was awesome too. If you have ever tried to play kick drum standing up, then you would have more appreciation for this drummer too. Blake did this song on the final show too and I thought he did it better on it, but it was just a few minor things. All in all, this version says enough...

We will be buying Blake Lewis' album when he releases one. I'm already a fan.

My Second Running Injury

Well, darn it!! I screwed up my foot again. This time it's more serious, I went to the doctor today and doc says it looks like a stress fracture.

Everything was going fine. My Achilles tendon healed up quite nicely (more info) and I was adding miles, subtracting the pounds, and shrinking my mile-pace like crazy. I had all summer to look forward to... or so I thought. Jennifer and I went on vacation last week to Myrtle Beach and I screwed up my foot real bad.

Two days before Myrtle Beach, I went out and bought me a new pair of Chaco's and decided to wear them around for a bit before going on vacation. This would allow me to get used to them and "break 'em in". The weird thing about the sandal is that it has a section that covers the big toe and I wasn't used to this. I kept stretching my big toe up to loosen the straps and it was causing the muscles in the top of my foot to get sore. I decided to stop stretching the toe loop with my big toe so compulsively and see if the pain would go away. It did, kinda... but I had already made it sore, so it was a matter of "healing" it at this point.

Well when we got to Myrtle Beach, I decided to find a cool running path and I did. I found a 3 mile path that was right along the ocean. The first night I ran the 3 miles in 27:42 and I felt good; my foot didn't hurt and I felt rejuvenated afterwards. The second night I ran the same path only I cut 30 seconds off of each mile; finishing the path in 26:16. I felt this run a little more than I did the night before, but my foot was still fine. I decided to take Tuesday off and rest a day from running altogether. Of course Jen and I went shopping all day and I wore my Chaco's like a dumb ass. Half way into the day, I felt the top of my foot hurting a little bit from that damn strap. By the end of the day, my left foot was hurting. :(

I decided to try running on my foot Wednesday evening after a full day at the beach... in my Chaco's. I got about 100 yards into my run and had to stop. I limped all the way back to the Condo and put ice on it. It hurt bad!

Well I've been limping ever since that night. I actually had a doctor's appointment today and the doctor stated that I could have broken a bone in my ankle (at the front of my foot). He also proceeded to tell me that this is the worse kind of break because it takes so long to heal... great. I'm supposed to go in for another x-ray next week and they might do an MRI on it.

Until then, no running for me.

Kid Talk

It's amazing how kids learn the English language off of one another. Lizzie and Jazzy have a bunch of words that they both say the exact same way. I know that they feed off of each other too because they talk to each other all day everyday and neither one of them correct one another... therefore the words never get corrected.

Here are some of the words that they use that crack me and Jennifer up:

• Baff - Daizi needs a baff.
  
• Baxet - Put your dirty clothes in the laundry baxet.
• Beebing Soup - Jazzy, that's a purdy beebing soup.
• Bizzy - I like to spin around and get bizzy.
  
• Bruss - I have to bruss my hair.
  
• Checkup - Lizzie likes checkup on her fries and her eggs.
• Chicken - The wefwidgewaitew is in the chicken.
• Curly Flower - Mmm, I just love curly flower (aka: cauliflower).
• Dejert - Mmm, this is delichez dejert.
  
• Doze - Mommy, w'are doze?
  
• Gustusting - Eww daddy, beer is gustusting.
• Hot Tacos - Hot pockets.
  
• Kittar - Daddy, you play drums and I'll play the kittar.
• Parkly - I like your parkly shirt and parkly pants Jazz.
• Parrot Shoot - Look at that guy in that parrot shoot.
  
• Penses - She is such a purdy penses.
  
• Punge Bob - Eww gross, punge bob.
• Pupcakes - These are yummy pupcakes.
  
• Pydurman - Eww gross, pydurman.
• Rolletta - We have a lamb named Loretta Lynn and the girls call her Rolletta Lynn
  
• Sauchez - Lizzie doesn't like sauchez on her pizza.
  
• Sheme - Popcorn comes from a popcorn sheme.
  
• Smaquito - Daddy, Wizzie just got bit by a smaquito.
• Thayah - When are we going to be thayah?
• V'cation - We are having so much fun on our v'cation.
  
• Wefweshing - Mmm, this lemondade is wefweshing.
• Wiji - Daddy look, Jazzy has a wiji.
  
• Wizzie - Daddy, Wizzie just got bit by another smaquito. :)

There are so many more (like 20 or so) that I can't think of right now. Some of them were so funny that they had me in stitches for days afterwards... I'll be sure to update this blog post as they pop in my head...

Update: I remembered what it was that had Jennifer and I laughing so hard about the other night. Jazzy was trying to get us to play her favorite song in the van when we were on v'cation. And the only thing she could think of was a song about "cheese" and a "4 wheel drive". Jennifer and I could not think of what in the world she was talking about. Then about an hour or so later, the song came on:

I dug my keys (aka: cheese) into the side of his pretty little souped up 4 wheel drive. - Carrie Underwood (Before He Cheats)

Also, I think it is only fitting that I also mention something that I overheard tonight while watching Discovery's Planet Earth with the girls. They were trying to tell each other just how big Earth was and Lizzie said: "Huh-uh Jazz, the Earth is even bigger than our house." :)

MyrtleBeach 2007 - Hardbarger Vacation

Hardbarger Vacation 2007 - Myrtle Beach

"Hardbarger Family Vacation to Myrtle Beach, South Carolina '07. We spent 8 days in a condo, 1 block from the ocean. We had a blast and here are the pictures to prove it. Many lifetime memories were made..."

Devscovery Denver 2007

James and I just got back from Devscovery last night. This was the first of four Devsovery conferences that we will be exhibiting at this year and this one was held in Denver, Colorado. It was the first time that either of us had been to Colorado and we were pretty excited about it.

Our trip started off pretty tough again. It was no where near our last trip, but it wasn't looking good at our gate. We were scheduled to leave Columbus to Chicago at 9:30AM. Of course, the flight got cancelled due to "maintenance problems" and we had to reschedule our flight. I called Expedia.com and talked with a guy for 30 - 40 minutes before our call got dropped. Finally I heard an announcement over the loud speakers about a direct flight to Denver. I rushed over to the gate where this flight was scheduled to leave and I was able to get James and I on the flight at the last minute. YES!! Finally something is working in our favor. We will actually get to Denver earlier than if we would have gone through Chicago.

We arrived in Denver around 2:30 on Monday afternoon and got settled into the Hyatt Regency Tech Center. James checked into his room and I checked into my room. James' room had a plasma TV and an iHome theatre system for his iPod. My room had a better desk, but that is about all it had going for it compared to James' room. I had an old radio alarm clock and a 27" TV. I guess I had a little better view, but... whatever. The first thing that we did was catch up on some shut-eye. Neither one of us got much sleep the night before and we didn't have anything to do until tomorrow morning Tuesday, so I went to my room and slept from about 6PM Monday until 7AM Tuesday. I felt rejuvinated that next morning.

Tuesday morning, we got our breakfast and walked over to the Microsoft building (which was about 100 yards from the Hyatt) and got our booth setup. We attended the keynote which was hosted by Jeff Prosise. It was very motivating to see what Microsoft plans to do with SilverLite. After the keynote, James and I basically sat at our booth most of the day and worked on our presentation for Wednesday's lunch session. Once the sessions were all over, we went back to the hotel and got ready for the Colorado Rockies game against San Francisco Giants (thanks Wintellect!). The game was pretty uneventful other than the fact that Jeff Prosise got to be on the big screen and the "chicken guy" got kicked out right next to our group. :) "Free the Chicken Guy!!". It turned out to be a great game because the Rockies came back and won, 5-3! :) When we got back to the room, we tried to work on our presentation a bit more. James and I worked on it until about 2AM then I went back to my room and crashed.

Wednesday morning came way to quick and we actually both slept in a bit. James called me about 7:30 and I had some major cotton chops from drinking at the game the night before. We ate our breakfast, headed over to the Microsoft building and started finishing up our presentation material. We worked most of the morning and afternoon on our presentation and eventually rescheduled for the Thursday since we had broken the functionality a bit. Once we rescheduled and didn't have anything else to do, James and I headed out for the mountains. This is where our "Colorado Experience" really started. I'll definitely have to post the details of this trip in a separate post (trust me, it deserves a separate post). When we got back from our AWESOME trip, we tried to finish up the presentation yet again. :) We worked in James office until 2AM again and actually had some really cool stuff working, but we'll finish the fine-grain details of it tomorrow... I went back to my room and crashed hard.

So Thursday came and we slept in... again... at least I did. I woke up around 7:30ish and called James. I got all my stuff ready to check out and we met for breakfast around 8:30AM. We got to the Microsoft building around 9:15ish and really worked on finalizing our presentation. We had hyped ourselves up too much, I'm sure. The presentation went "OK". There were lots of things I would have done differently, but at least we now know. James and I are going to work on the presentation of the topics so that we can do better for Day of .NET and Devscovery - New York.

Wintellect has some great speakers and their speakers are very knowledgable. The Devscovery conference is a great conference for anybody that wants to learn about up and coming technologies. James and I sat through Jeffrey Richter's session on C# 3.0 features and learned a lot. That dude, knows his stuff. :) I must admit that it's quite humbling to sit through a session about some of the "next-level" .NET topics, and then turn around and drink beer and talk with the speakers in a social setting. This is especially true for me, because I'm a huge book junky and I've see their names on so many books that I just kind of put each of them up on a virtual pedistal (right or wrong, it's true). It was very cool to actually talk with them in a casual setting. For example, I actually got the opportunity to "shoot the shit" with Jeff Prosise at the Rockies game and he is a very personable guy. The whole time I was talking with him I knew that this guy was a "coding god" to many people all over the world. I (personally) have a couple of Richter's books and James actually claimed that he learned MFC from Prosise's book. When I told this to Jeff he stated that he didn't know whether to stand tall and proud or duck. :) Oh yeah, I had a moment of realization that Jeff Prosise looks like Mark Miller (mainly their profile). When I told Jeff this, he indicated that he had never heard that before. This was suprising to me, because they could almost pass as twins... Am I crazy? Keep in mind that the two pictures I've linked to give the similarities no justice. You would almost have to see them together in person to find the similarities.

On the last day of the event, Wintellect had a raffle. James and I threw in a t-shirt for each attendee and John Robbins had everybody put on our t-shirt for a group photo (pictured above). How cool is that? What would be really cool is if they use this photo on their site, because everybody in the picture is wearing a Data Dynamics t-shirt. I'm no marketting guru, but I think that would be a "good thing". :)

In conclusion, we made it back to Columbus late last night, ON TIME and unscathed. The trip will be one to remember for sure. Be sure to look for the next post that describes our drive through the mountains...

Update: John Robbins posted the same picture and gives his rendition of the event: Excellent Devscovery Denver

Columbus Distance Classic 5K - My Fourth Race

As race day approached, I wasn't sure if I was going to be able to race in this race or not. I pulled my Achilles Tendon the day after my last race. :( I wasn't able to run for almost a full week and had to resort to biking only. I had lost a lot of momentum from not running everyday. It sucked too, because my race times were getting faster and faster and I really wanted to do better this race since it was my birthday and all. Up until the injury running was getting easier every day and I could go faster and longer than the day before. However, I think ultimately this is why I hurt myself; I thought I was invincible and pushed myself too hard. My ankle spoke up and said "WTF!? Chill out!!" It put me out of commission for almost two full weeks and gave me a nice little reality check. :)

Since I didn't want to go out on race day and completely rupture my AT, I decided to do a couple of training jogs last week before the race. I did a 2 miler one day and a 3 miler another day, both at a snails pace, just to prove to myself (and my ankle) that I could. I did a lot of research on my injury and got all kinds of mixed advice. Most people said "STOP RUNNING!", but I decided to ignore that advice and "run it off". I was actually quite surprised at quickly my Achilles Tendon healed. Of course, it still is not 100%, but it's good enough to run on. Here is my story...

The Columbus Distance Classic is was a huge event for Columbus. There were 3,107 racers running in the half marathon, and 739 people running in the 5K. The half marathon brought an elite class of athletes from all over the world. For example, one of the winners (yes, it was a dead-even tie) was from Kenya, Africa!! Cool. Needless to say, I was surprised at how many people I had to run with. This was the first time I had to strap on an electronic device to my shoe for recording my time. I had always wondered how they kept track of times for the people in the back of the pack. I know for the Boston Marathon (which is tomorrow), it takes hours for everybody to get started. Well, I learned how... for these big races, everybody is assigned individual monitoring devices. The devices are called ChampionChips, and each runner has to tie them onto their shoes. When you cross the start line, it records your time and then when you cross the finish line, it records your time again. This gives you your time down to the milliseconds. This device allows each runner the luxury of having a floating start/end time. So this means that for all the people that were in the back of the pack, there time didn't start until the crossed the start line. For the Half Marathon, some of the people in the back didn't even cross the start line until 10 minutes into the race.

There were lots of big time people at this race. I started right behind Mayor Coleman at the start line. I mean I was directly behind him. Before the race, I actually tapped him on the shoulder and shook his hand. Chris Spielman gave a little speech before the race too; he was about 10 yards away from me. I'm still waiting to see my picture in the paper because there were all kinds of reporters and camera men taking pictures of Mayor Coleman before the race, as we were standing at the start line. If you see any pictures of Mayor Coleman at the starting line of the race, let me know!! I'll be that guy in the shades and green tobogin right behind him. :) Not that it matters, but I finished almost 5 minutes before him. :)

Before the race, I decided that I wasn't going to try and beat my last time because that would only put strain on my ankle and could have possibly put me out of commission even longer. I didn't want that because 2 weeks of no running was already bumming me out. I was starting to get stir crazy and couldn't wait to get back on the black top. The first mile was a breeze, I basically jogged it just to make sure I didn't strain anything right away; my first mile was 9:07. I knew that I could go a little bit faster than that because my ankle didn't show the slightest bit of strain. I bumped it up a little bit and increased my stride. At one point I gave a huge power burst for almost 100 yards during a kick ass Tool song on my iPod. I just got in tune with the music and passed about 12 people or so. Once I got pretty winded, I set back into a nice pace and kept up with my new neighbors. I know my second mile was much better than my first mile. Unfortunately there was no 2 mile marker and I wasn't able to accurately record it. If I had to guess, I would guess it was about a 8:30 mile. The third mile was a little longer because I was getting winded and there a slight uphill slant for most of the last part of the race.

As I got closer to the finish line, the crowd got louder and louder and the finish line itself was pretty impressive looking. They had the big sign above the finish line showing the time for all the spectators. I crossed the finish line at 27:28!! (this calculates to a 8:51 pace). I came in 117th place. :) Here is the results page: Columbus Distance Classic 5k Results Page (bib #10242)

My time is very respectable given my ankle injury and my "weight class"... if there is such a thing in running. Of course my time was much longer than I had originally wanted it to be, but I am (by no means) disappointed with it. Honestly, I was just happy to finish the race without limping or crawling. Believe it or not, I had no pain at all. The cool thing was that once I crossed the finish line I saw that there was a HUGE FEAST for all of the runners!! There were apples, bananas, all kinds of pizza, bagels, pretzels, water, gatorade, etc... To be honest, the last thing I wanted to put in my stomach after an exhausting run was a greasy piece of pizza. I grabbed an apple and a water; both of which were very refreshing.

To wrap it up, the one thing that I liked most about this race was the crowd. The Columbus fans were awesome!! At one point, there was a group of people sticking out their hands to give the runners high fives as we passed, almost as if we were celebrities or something. I thought that it was very cool and (of course), I obliged. :) Seriously though, every step of the way, people were cheering the runners on and it really did help give an extra "umph" when I ran by someone and they clapped for me and said "good job", "keep it up", "almost there", etc...

I will be running this race again next year. However, I plan to do the half marathon instead...

Holographic Advertising

I found a cool link today of a car company advertising their car using holographic designs. Vizoo appears to be the company behind the creation:


The Hole - video powered by Metacafe

It's cool to see this as a reality today; it used to be a 'futuristic' concept. Now I'm just waiting on the software and hardware that is used in The Minority Report.

April Fools Day 5K - My Third Race

My 5K race times are getting better and better. Today I ran the Hilliard April Fools Day 5K race and I WON!! Ok, that was a cheap shot at an April Fools joke, but c'mon...

Seriously though, my goal today was to break the 25 minute mark. This would shatter my last race time (and personal record) but would require about an 8 minute mile pace (or less). I've never tested myself with these times before... When I run, I average a 9:20 pace, so 3 consecutive 8:00 miles is really pushing it for me. I know I'm getting faster, but today was the day to prove just how fast I really could go...

Tyler (my best bud) came with me for moral support and it helped immensely. I started the race very smoothly. Last race I darted out in front of lots of people and it drained me way to fast. I know that my first mile (last race) was around a 7:00 mile, but like I stated before, they didn't have the mile markers placed yet. Anyway, this time I just kept a fast (yet comfortable) pace the whole mile. My first mile was 7:38! I know I could have gone faster, so that was good to know when I clocked it (mental note). Up to this point, I was about the 5th place and there was a huge group of runners right behind me. I backed off a bit and let some of them pass me. My second mile was 8:02 and I was slowly fading into a stooper by this point... At about the 2.5 mile marker, I just about switched to an all out jog, but changed my focus to my hard pumping music instead and kept pushing my legs. The third mile was a nasty 8:24 and I knew that if I was going to beat the 25 minute mark, I was going to have to dig really hard for this last 1/10th of a mile. The final stretch (aka: last 1/10th) was a stellar 44 seconds (that's a 7:20 pace!).

My total time today was 24:51!! My watch actually showed 24:49, but the results were posted on the site with an additional 2 seconds. Oh well... The most awesomest(?) news I beat my personal record and met my 24 minute goal. It was a bonus that I got 1st place in my age group and 24th overall. Tyler was able to capture the moment that I crossed the finish line above... Thanks Ty!! :)

So to conclude my last couple of races...

1. Arnold 5K - 26:25
2. Shamrock Shuffle - 25:49
3. April Fools - 24:51 (a full minute faster... read above if you're confused on the math)

My goal is to continue to get faster each race and beat the last race. I have another race in 2 weeks. I plan to do a lot of endurance training for this one because I know this was was really hard for me. I was really beat after today's race. I know I can do better and I will, but it is going to take some physical and mental training. Like I said, there were a couple of times today that I really thought about switching to a "jog" to give into the nasty pain in my side, but I'm glad I didn't. The end result of seeing that 24 on the beginning of my time was worth it. I've been on top of the world all day.

...the Columbus Half-Marathon is in October, which is a lot closer than I think.

Google TiSP

Google does it every year, and this year was no different. They take full advantage of April Fools Day and have fun with a professional looking site and all the realness you would expect from a regular announcement... The funny parts are the actual content and overall ideas they come up with. As Larry the Cable Guy would say: "I don't care who you are, that there's funny"

Check it out: http://www.google.com/tisp/install.html

Unfortunately, I have a septic system and I'm not able to connect to TiSP. Apparently it requires a central sewer system to connect my house to the internet. :(

Good one.

DevConnections Traveling Whoa's

James and I are currently in the Charlotte Airport waiting on our flight home; we only have 9 hours left. Coffee Time!

Ahh... where do I start? I guess the beginning. I'm going to break down the last 2 days into a couple of paragraph's here and know that the actual reality of all these situations was much worse (at the time) than how you might think. If you are not one that likes reading pity party stories, look away. However if you are one that appreciates a good mini 'drama', please proceed to read this post... Here is an outline of what all went wrong, here you go:

1. Airport Computers Down
   
2. No Cell Phone, No Credit Card
   
3. Bumped from Flight
4. Wrong Hotel
5. No Booth or Supplies
6. Lacking Customer Service
   
7. No Internet at Resort
8. Delayed Flight Back
9. Slumber Party in Charlotte

If you'd rather have the whole story in all it's glory, here it goes from...

The Beginning
So I woke up around 6am on Sunday morning and got all my stuff ready and walked out my door at 6:45 to go pick up James. I got to James' place around 7:30 and we leisurely drove to the airport and parked the car in the 'Red Lot'. We got a great parking spot, so immediately I thought "by golly, this is gonna be a great little trip, things are already working in my favor.".

Airport Computers Down
We arrived at the kiosk check-in at 8am, and our flight didn't leave until 9, so we had plenty of time... or so we thought. The line to check in was HUGE. Apparently, the computers weren't working and the line was backed up and wrapped around all the ropes, spilling out into the main hall area. We just got in line and began waiting... As time got closer to 9am, the customer service reps called all passengers heading to Charlotte to jump to the front of the line (this was us). It was obvious that we weren't the only ones that was being inconvenienced by the computer problems, so this made it "ok" for me.

We got done checking in around 8:45 and bolted toward the security check point. This gave us approximately 15 minutes to get through the security line and run onto our flight. This is where the trip got off course.

No Cell Phone, No Credit Card
At some point I realized I had forgotten my cell phone in my car, there was no way I could go back now, I'll just have to use Jame's cell to call the family and do all my business networking calls once in Orlando. Damn! I also realized I didn't have my credit card with me, nor did I have a company credit card. I was going to have to put this whole trip on my debit card (directly out of my own checking account. Luckily, Jennifer and I just got our tax refund back and had some extra money. I'll have to get reimbursed once I get back... Double Damn!

Bumped from Flight
So, back to the whole "airport" scene: We made it through security and rushed up to the gate to get on the plane before it took off. Luckily (sarcasm) the flight was delayed a little bit, so we had plenty of time. To top it off, the workers at the gate had no computer system; they were using dot-matrix printouts with old-school pencil style seating confirmation checking. James and I didn't even have seats yet, nor did we have tickets from Charlotte to Orlando. We were supposed to get these taken care of with these ladies at the gate. However, they clearly didn't have time to deal with us (not their fault by any means). It was crazy!

Oddly, we weren't the only ones with this problem either; there were approximately 10 other passengers that had tickets, but no assigned seats for this flight either. Fwhat!? It was obvious that the ladies working the gate were stressed to the max and at their wits end. They had all kinds of people waiting to get seats assigned to them (including James and I). To top it off, they were dealing with impatient passengers that were upset due to the delayed flight, no computers, and crappy dot matrix print outs to manage the seating arrangements.

Once I realized that they didn't have enough seats for all the passengers waiting on seat assignments I spoke up and said "If you need volunteers to take another flight, you can reschedule us to a later flight. As long as we are in Orlando by 2pm". She was cool with that, and James appeared to be cool with it too. I'd rather be on a more 'relaxing', less stressful flight anyway. As it turned out, we got a flight through Pittsburgh instead and there were like 12 people on the flight. It worked out just fine after all.

Wrong Hotel
So we made it to Orlando and we got a cab to the "Marriott". Unfortunately I didn't know which Marriott it was, but I was 95% sure it was the "Marriott Grand Cypress"; that sounded right anyway. I told the cab dude (Alex) to take us there and he did. Once we got there, I quickly realized that this place wasn't the right one. I took my laptop into their lobby and pulled up devconnections.com to see where the convention was being held at. It was the "Marriott World Center". Duh! I asked Alex how much he would charge us to go there, and he said $12. Cool, this would keep at or around $50. Deal!

No Booth Supplies
So James and I got checked into our room around 5pm (3 hours after we needed to be there). We rushed up to the room and then rushed down to get our booth setup. As it turned out, I still had to give our product giveaway to Heather before the keynote (which was in 20 minutes)... The product was back up in the room. The tricky part was that the "booth" people left in 30 minutes, so I had to hustle. I ran up there, got the product, ran back down, gave the product to Heather, and busted my butt into the expo hall to get our booth setup before the "booth people" left for the day.

We found our booth number, but there were no boxes or crates there for us. I thought, "no big deal, they took them back behind the scenes since we hadn't shown up to setup the booth". I went back to the back to gather up our crates, but they had no record that anything had been shipped for Data Dynamics. What!? This isn't right, Tim sent me an email indicating that the crates should arrive in Orlando by the 21st (which would have been 4 days ago). I called around to find out what was going on, but this was a problem. It was Sunday evening and not many companies would be working on a Sunday night (it was around 6pm by this point). My expectations were very low that I would get this resolved tonight. I called the Marriott shipping department and they had closed for the day. Exhibit Pro would more than likely be closed for the day and Hellmans (the "booth people") were leaving for the day real soon. It was obvious that we weren't going to have our booth setup for the 'Welcome Party' at 8pm tonight. CRAP!!

Lacking Customer Service
I decided to go back up to the room and call Exhibit Pro and leave a message for Elfi. I needed somebody to call me first thing tomorrow so I can get to the bottom of this. The booth needs setup before 9am tomorrow morning before the expo hall opens the flood gates. The booth isn't the easiest thing to setup and it is going to take us some time to get everything organized.

We got up to the room and I called the number that 'Elfi' gave me in case there were any problems. When I called, I was quite surprised that somebody answered the phone at Exhibit Pro. I asked for Elfi and the the guy on the other line (Randy) said she wasn't in and won't be in until tomorrow; he recommended that I call back then. I politely asked him if he could help me real quick. I needed to find out where my package was sent... I feared that it had got sent somewhere else in Orlando. Randy, very quickly wiped his hands clean by saying "I'll have Elfi call you because I don't know anything about your package". It was clear to me that I was interrupting something because he was talking to somebody in the background as he picked up the phone to answer it. Judging from his immediate response to me, he wanted to get off the phone as quickly as possible; this was not his problem. I (very politely) asked that he try to help me...

Even though I was at wits end with all that had gone wrong with my day so far, I was very cordial to him because he didn't know what I had been through so far. I just wanted to get to the bottom of this. I asked if he could please try to help me through this and I explained the 'booth' situation from the beginning. He was very annoyed by the fact that I didn't just accept his invitation to just "forget about it until tomorrow". He got a bit rude with me and I ended up giving up the fight, for I didn't see a need to argue with him as he clearly couldn't provide me with my booth supplies tonight anyway. Once I hung up, James could tell that this guy had just about pushed me over the edge. This was piss-poor customer service. I would have been much happier to have left a message for Elfi than to have put up with his incompetence. I do not hold the grudge against Exhibit Pro, they've always been very professional with our our supplies and have offered great service; this grudge will just be applied towards "Randy".

No Internet at Resort
I decided to get online to email Tim and try tracking the package myself. Wouldn't you know, there is no internet working. I fought with it for a little over an hour. James and I did all we could think of to try and get an IP address, but nothing was working. I called tech support and talked with a very nice lady. She stated that she was going to setup my account and that I should be up and running in about a minute. I hung up and waited for about 5 minutes or so before trying again... Still nothing. I called back and she put me through to "Dillon", the tech support guy that handles the hotel's network. He was absolutely awesome! He and I worked through all the various options for about 10 minutes, and it turned out that the problem was with east wing of the hotel and it wasn't just my computer. He reset the router to see if that would work and told me to give it about 30 minutes or so.

As if it wasn't blatantly obvious, this was not a "good day". :) The good news is that I didn't blame anybody and I was still smiling.... See? :) I realized that today's problems were nothing more than a series of unfortunate events. Before anything else went wrong, I put on my running gear and went for a run to releive a minor stress level. After my run (which did help my stress level by the way) I tried the internet again and still nothing... I called tech support yet again and they sent up a new network cable. Needless to say, this didn't fix it either.

James and I had no internet the whole time we were in Orlando.

Delayed Flight Back
Ok, so we made it through Sunday after all. Monday had minor problems, but nothing like Sunday. Tuesday came and again, no problems... at least until we got back to the airport. James and I had joked the whole time that if we had anymore problems with flights and travel plans that we weren't going to travel together anymore.

The show ended at 2pm and James and I went directly to the airport. We got to the airport around 3ish and checked in at the front desk. We asked the lady at the counter if there was any chance that we could get an earlier flight. She said that we could take the 5:20 flight (1 hour and 30 minutes earlier) for a $25 fee. We thought, "Ehh, what's an extra hour and a half?". We grabbed a bite to eat, killed some time in the book store, and then decided to go pass the security check point and wait the remaining 2 hours by the gate. We hung out there for about an hour and a half. Just as the flight was getting ready to board, we decided to go get some coffee because I was just about to fall asleep.

We got some coffee and came back to the gate, as we got closer to the gate we saw that a huge line had formed at our gate. OH NO!! Say it ain't so!!! The flight was delayed! It was pushed back to 8:45 (2 hour delay). We couldn't believe it. We are never traveling together again. We waited in line at the desk for about an hour and a half so we could see what our options were. We met some very nice people. Some were very upset at the way that US Airways had handled the whole thing; there were no announcements as to what was going on and this has been happening a little too often with their airline. For example, see 'Bumped From Flight' section above... that was also on US Airlines...

Once we got up to the booth, the lady at the gate informed us that the next flight to Columbus wasn't going to be until 9:45am (+12 hours from then). We decided to get to Charlotte and wait, rather than staying in Orlando. This is going to be a long night...

Slumber Party in Charlotte
Right now it is 2:30am and James and I are waiting patiently for the sun to come back up so we can prepare for the 9 o'clock hour...

A Rather Sloppy "Getaway"

Jennifer and I saw a hit and run tonight. It was a silly teenage fender bender, but it was a hit and run none-the-less. We stopped to get gas at a local gas station around 11:30 tonight and there were all kinds of loud teenagers hanging out by their cars just "being teenagers". Anyway, they all started driving out of the gas station parking lot and it looked like some of them were pretty drunk. They were all talking to each other through their windows as they were driving and were crowding out of the parking lot all at once, no order at all.

All of the sudden we heard this loud HOOONK, then as we looked up we saw a pick up truck back into the front of a moving mini van. The mini van had some older fellow driving with (what appeared to be) his son in the passenger seat. The pick up truck had two hillbilly teenagers in it that looked as though they were "up to no good". Once the crash was realized by the kids in the truck, the driver of pick up truck threw his truck into drive and hit the gas with everything he had. Keep in mind that it has been raining all day, so he went no where fast. He pealed out for about 5 seconds and was all over the place; his truck jumped up the grass and he pealed out into the street without even looking. Granted it was late and we live in the country so there were not many people out and about. Bottom line is that it was the sloppiest hit and run get-away I've ever seen. :)

The funniest part of the whole thing is that Jennifer and I looked at each other and cracked up. :) I don't know what got into us; we should have felt bad for the older guys in the mini van. We should have tried to yell at the kids in the pick up truck as they spun their tires around in place; but we just watched it all unfold in slow motion and laughed hysterically for a while instead. The reaction is probably due to our deep appreciation of Jerry and Elaine humor. :)

Eh, whatever, I thought this was worth sharing...

Update: March 28th, 2007
I realized that I needed to update this post to indicate that nobody was hurt. It was merely a minor "fender bender". :)

Shamrock Shuffle 2007 - My Second Race

Well, I did it... I signed up for another race. This time, I was out to beat my time from my first race. This race was called The Shamrock Shuffle and it was ironically held on St. Patrick's Day. It started at 4pm and it really was a "great day for a run"... a little chilly and a little windy, but all in all great running weather.

For a while I thought I was going to be late for the race. I got to Polaris and parked at Hoggys Restaurant (where we were supposed to park) and then by the time I got everything ready, it was 3:55pm... I was still at my car! The racers were already at the starting line! I rushed over there and we all ended up waiting for about 15 minutes while the coordinator got volunteers ready for various tasks. The good news is that I ran into Chapel and Phil (The Presson's) and Phil and Heather Hanegan before the race. I work with Chapel, Phil, and Phil, so it was great seeing them there as well. Chapel was there to run the 10k (you go girl)! And Phil Hanegan was there to watch his daughter Ashley run the 5k and I'm sure to support Chapel as well. I tell you, Chapel was braver than me... I'm not ready for the 10k's yet. I'm still working on my 5k stamina... Chapel elected to run the 10k because she will be running the Peachtree 10k in Georgia with her sister on July 4th. The Peachtree race requires a qualifying time from another race to be eligible... Anyway, that's gonna be a hot one (July + Georgia = Hot)! :) Good luck girl!

So the race started and we all took off. My first mile was FAAAAAST, but I don't know exactly how fast because they didn't have any mile markers set out yet!!! They didn't get the mile markers laid out until the 2 mile marker. I was so bummed because I know that I beat my Arnold 5k fastest mile (7 minutes 47 seconds); no big deal I guess... I actually screwed up the lap counter on my watch anyway. Rather than hitting the 'Lap' button I hit the 'Start/Stop' button and stopped my watch at "what I thought should have been" the 1 mile marker...

Luckly they had a huge stop watch at the finish line and I saw that my total time in big bold numbers: 25 minutes and 45... 46... 47... 48... 49 seconds!!

I couldn't believe how much I beat my last time (by almost a full minute). Surprisingly enough, I came in 28th place overall and 21st place in overall mens. My pace calculated out to be an average of 8:19 per mile!!

Afterwards of course I got drunk at Claddagh's Irish Pub with my buddy Tyler.

Ok, so this race was a good one for me. I improved in all categories: fastest mile, faster overall time, faster mile pace, and best of all, I felt better during and after the race. I've already signed up for 2 more 5k races, so look for the blog entries. :) One is on April 1st, and the other one is on April 14th (my birthday). Stay tuned...

Just downloaded ScribeFire...

So far it's pretty cool. It's going to take some getting used to, but I'm willing. I found out about it from a post on HongKiat.com about The Top Blogging Tools to blog better. This is what got me:

Application I like best of blog desktop publishing is Performancing for Firefox.

I was subconciously attracted to it and read it. :) This is the result.

Update:I'm changing this note to a post so I can see how it works...

Powered by ScribeFire.

Think you have a cool program?

Whenever you think that you've written a cool app, think again...

I wonder what OS and framework this runs on. I couldn't help but notice the seamless video feeds and responsive UI capabilities from hand gestures. I truly doubt this runs on Windows... I mean c'mon. The mask has been pulled from my eyes, and I want to create apps like that. Good link James...

Hiking the Appalacian Trail

Wow... I was watching public broadcasting station again tonight (I know, I should stop what I'm doing and send them money to "show my support"). Anyway, tonights program was about hiking the Appalachian Trail. A group of hikers gather up around March - April in Georgia and begin walking through the Appalachian Mountains, across 14 states, all the way up to Maine. The hike is 2,175 miles long and it takes about 6 months to do.

I called my buddy Tyler and told him that when we're ready for our mid-life crisis', that is what we're gonna do. Jen didn't seem to care, she just made a "valley girl" face and said "keu-oooool". :) Something did weird me out though... the half way point was 1087 mile marker. My house number is 1087. It's a sign... I gott a do it now. :)

People from all walks of life do it every year. It really did look like a lot of fun, except for the whole "nasty feet' issues along the way. One thing I noticed throughout the whole show was that after 2 or 3 months, they all looked like every other hippy I've seen at all those various Ekoostic Hookah shows. They all had "trail names" that they went by too (just like at the shows) and some were pretty funny: Loony, Blaze, Nothing Special, Morph, Stride, and one guys' trail name was... Jason.

My New Map App

I've been very loyal to Google Earth and Google Maps in the past, however I think I might have found my new online map app: http://local.live.com. I can add paths and place markers all over the world. I can also see my farm from the images on their servers (not possible with Google Maps or Google Earth.

The best thing for me (as a programmer) is that Microsoft allows developers to use this API without having to sign up and get a key, or even sign an NDA to use the API. Of course I have yet to do anything with it, but the concept is very appealing. The API is very simple also... simply create a DIV tag on a page and pass that DIV tag ElementId to the VEMap() constructor like so:

var map = new VEMap('myDiv');
map.LoadMap();

Here is a full article on how to use the VEMap API on your own site... for free.