Happy Halloween!

New Laptop

I have been wanting a laptop for quite some time now. There is a really good deal with Dell now through their EPP (Employee Purchase Program) where you can get 30% off $1299 and higher in addition to a few other discounts. I built my laptop and finally pulled the trigger. Here are the specs for what I got:

• Inspiron E1505, Intel Core 2 Duo processor T7200 (4MB/2.00GHz/667MHz)
• 15.4 Inch UltraSharp TrueLife Wide-screen WSXGA+, for Inspiron 6400/E1505
• 2GB, DDR2, 533MHz 2 Dimm for Inspiron 6400/E1505
• 256MB ATI MOBILITY RADEON X1400 HyperMemory, for Inspiron 6400/E1505
• 80GB 7200RPM SATA Hard Drive for Inspiron 6400/E1505
• Microsoft Windows XP Media Center Edition 2005, English without Media, for Inspiron
• Backup media for XP Media Center,Inspiron
• Integrated 10/100 Network Cardand Modem, for Inspiron
• 8X DVD+/-RW Drive for Inspiron 6400/E1505
• Integrated High Definition Audio, Inspiron
• Intel PRO/Wireless 3945 802.11a/g Mini Card (54Mbps) for Inspiron 6400/E1505
• 53 WHr 6-cell Lithium Ion Primary Battery, for Inspiron 6400/E1505
• 2 Year Limited Warranty
• Warranty Support,1 Year Extended
• Dell Hardware Warranty PlusOnsite Service, Extended Year
• Type 3- Third Party At HomeService, 24x7 TechnicalSupport, 1 Year Extended
• Dell Hardware Warranty PlusOnsite Service, Initial Year
• Type 3- Third Party At HomeService, 24x7 TechnicalSupport, Initial Year
• Warranty Support,Initial Year
• Dell Wireless 355 Bluetooth Module (2.0 + EDR),for Inspiron
• Express Upgrade to Windows Vista Home Premium, Free plus S and H payable at redemption

It is going to take about eight days to build and the delivery arrival estimate is Friday, November 10, 2006 - Tuesday, November 14, 2006. I don't think I can wait that long!

Halloween at the Tilden's

Last night, we went to Steve and Donna Tilden's annual Halloween party in Gardner. Steve is one of the guys I work with. We had a good time and I took a few pictures.

Megan dressed up as a pregnant lady. This kinda freaked me out a little and reminded me a lot of Morgan when she was pregnant. I dressed up as the one-and-only Chuck Norris. Jason and Megan were the big bad wolf and little red riding hood, respectively. They one best costume.

Steve provided the keg 'o beer and various mixed drinks and shots while us guests brought food. Megan and I brought Taquitos, rice crispy treats, and Honey-BBQ Flavor Twists. There was a lot of other "creative" food though. There were sandwiches that looked like fingers, BBQ chicken wings with gauze on the end of them, bubbling rum drink, and a bunch of other "normal" food. By far, the most interesting was the kitty litter desert that Jason and Megan brought (see picture). This was a mixture of cake, tootsie rolls, and who knows what else to look like an actual cat box. It was even equipped with a genuine pooper scooper for serving. Disgusting, but good.

There was a scavenger hunt towards the beginning of the night where we split up into teams of two and went searching for things like candy, candle, garlic, battery, straw, etc. We somehow lost as the other team finished in 8 minutes. I think they cheated somehow. Anyways, the best part was how I got the straw. I notice a guy made out of straw sitting on someone's lit up porch. So, I slowly walked up and went to quickly rip some straw off this decoration and make my getaway. The problem was, for the life of me, I couldn't rip the straw off. So, I did what any man with a few beers in him and the desire to when a "hunt" would do, I bared down on this fake man with my teeth and tore off some straw. I then quickly retreated back down the street to the house with my soggy straw!

IE 7

I went ahead and downloaded and installed Internet Explorer 7 today. The interface seems slicker and there is a lot of add-ons to download and choose from. The best thing though is definitely the tabbed browsing. This is something that Firefox has always done and IE just started with this 7 release.

I always like to have a lot of heterogenous windows open and being able to group all of the IE windows into one is going to be nice so my Taskbar doesn't get too cluttered. So far, the most useful thing seems to be holding Ctrl and clicking a hyperlink. This opens a new tab within the same browser instead of opening a whole new browser or replacing the existing page with the link that was clicked.

All of the new stuff and label locations is going to take a while to get used, but I think it will be worth it. Hey, in the future I can probably look back on this and laugh because MSNBC-Google-McDonald's Internet Explorathon v37 will be the dominating browser :)

New Google Toy

Being that I still have this in Beta, not yet ready to be unleashed, I just added a Google search bar in the right column (I also made the Google map longer, because bigger is better, right?). This new search leverages the Google AJAX Search API. I'm still tweaking the CSS stuff so that it looks right in the site, but so far I'm really impressed.

After you commit the search, I have programmed it so there are five tabs displayed in the main column: This Blog, The Web, The News, Videos, and All Blogs. These correspond to the different domains that can apply to the search you made and can toggle between them. The neatest thing about this is the AJAX technology allows the results to just be "pushed" on top of the existing content in the main column seamlessly and without refreshing the page. The same goes for toggling between the different search domain tabs (This Blog, Videos, etc.).

Here's my current list for the main things I need to tweak/add before I'm taking this thing out of Beta:

• Fix the new search so that the results colors, styles, etc. look good with the site.
• Add feed links for both the blog piece and my photo gallery.
• Create a subtitle.
• Integrate my calendar into the site.
• Finish new BIRT report design for my movies.

Amusing Note

So, I got home from a very loooooooooooong day at work that involved working frantically on one hot issue all day, and Megan had left me a note because she had left to go to class:

Hey,
Got home later than I planned. Please take the dogs out. I didn't have time to. Hope you had a nice day at work. I didn't get fired. See you later.

Thought I'd share this cause it really cracked me up.

She was referring to the fact that she was maybe going to get fired due to showing up late / leaving early lately. Nevertheless, mentioning it so casually in a note made me bust up.

Long Week!

Ah, been so busy this week. On Sunday (10/15/06), I had to stay up pretty late working on my homework for EECS 767 - Information Retrieval that was due the next day. I didn't even get it all finished and had to work on it during my lunch at work and the whopping two hours I have between work and school on Mondays. I did finally get it done though.

At work this week, we hit the 200,000 case! They had a contest to see who could guess the closest time when we would hit the 200K threshold. Jason and I both forgot to put in our guesses. I was planning on submitting my guess right before the deadline, 9PM Central, but we ended up going to see The Departed at 8:35PM at AMC Studio 30 and I totally forgot about it. Trevor ended up winning but we don't know what the prize is yet. The next day, we were all treated to Chipotle.

Work has been super busy. I was put on two hot issues in one day in addition to delivering my part 1, 1 and 1/2 hour training on Performancesoft on Wednesday. Performancesoft is the new company we acquired a few months ago and I was put in charge of learning their product and training the rest of support on it. Quite a task, let me say. Part 2 is next Wednesday.

Now, I've got to work on a 30-45 presentation for my class. Two people are presenting per class and of course I was "randomly" choose to present on the first day we are starting. ARGH!

Funny random quote for the day:

The day's not quite gone, but the night's not quite here and somewhere, Scott Baio is plowing a woman he doesn't love.

-Peter Griffin, Family Guy

Bulls vs. Supersonics at Allen Field House

Megan P., Megan M., Morgan, and I went to the Chicago Bulls vs. Seattle Supersonics game in Lawrence. Mind you, the game was at 1PM in the afternoon and Megan and Morgan and I didn't get back from Westport that morning until 3:30AM :(

It was really cool to see Kirk Hinrich and Nick Collison playing in Allen Fieldhouse again. They both started the game and every time they did anything of note, the crowd cheered like crazy. Likewise, every time they committed a foul, the crowd booed loudly.

Going into the game, they have a new addition to the front of Allen Fieldhouse, the Booth Family Hall of Athletics. This is really cool and contains all kinds of KU basketball information and memorabilia. They have a piece of the original court (see pic below) in addition to the original "Beware of the Phog" banner. There were too many people so we didn't really get to check everything out. I'm definitely going back sometime to look through everything.

The Bulls were the acting hometeam and had a rather lively mascot, "Benny the Bull". There are a few picture of him up on my site in addition to other pictures from the game. He was quite the dancer, although he probably couldn't keep up with me ;)

I also really liked seeing Ben Wallace. That guys is freakin huge but talented at the same time. I'd hate to catch an elbow from him when he's ripping a rebound off the glass.

Anyways, the Bulls lead most of the game by 10, but right towards the end of the game, the Supersonics caught up and but the game in overtime. The Bulls end up winning in overtime.

Although I definitely like college basketball over the NBA, it was a good game to watch and seeing all of that talent on one team was impressive. It was also good to see that Hinrich and Collison are making a difference at the professional level.

Friday the 13th

I'm not really that superstitious. I'm just really weird about numbers like walking an even number of steps, tapping each finger on my hand an even number of times, rubbing my tongue against each side of my month an even number of times, and setting the alarm clock such a way so that the number is even or falls on a quarter hour. I don't have OCD, promise. Anyways, I knew it was Friday the 13th when I walked into the apartment and immediately stepped in shit! Sugar had pooped on the landing at the bottom of the stairs and I stepped in it right as I walked in. With that said, nothing else has gone wrong today...yet.

Megan Got a Job!

Finally, after more than a week they told her they would get back to her, Megan found out she got the job at Missouri Department of Social Services this morning. She starts some time in the beginning of November. She is pretty excited and ready to move on from waitressing to a real full-time job with steady M-F hours. It will make taking weekend trips easier, but I'll miss the discount she gets at Old Chicago and having some evenings free :) I'm definitely happy for her though.

BTW, I hope they catch that Adam Gadahn guy and kill the shit out of him!

Dwarf Dancing

This is the funniest shit I've seen in a while!

Iron Chef Exposed

Megan and I sometimes end up watching Iron Chef America on the Food Network late at night. Besides make me really hungry, it's pretty impressive how the Iron Chef and the challenging chef can come up with such exquisite 5-course meals in one hour given that they did not even know the ingredient. At least this is the impression that the show gives. How do they suddenly just start working on complex recipes and have all of the ingredients and tools available to them? "Ask the Reality TV Experts" from MSNBC explains:

Q: Regarding "Iron Chef" the series, how is it possible that the chefs can think of 5 dishes to make using the secret ingredient in less than a few minutes? --Colin, Ontario

A: Although "Iron Chef" makes it seem as though the secret ingredient that must be used is pulled completely out of nowhere, the chefs do have a little bit of advance knowledge.

A Food Network spokesperson tells us that the chefs are given a list of five ingredients in advance, knowing only that the secret ingredient will be taken from that list. We're told that this was the practice on the original "Iron Chef" as well as "Iron Chef America."

That doesn't mean it's a cakewalk, though. Chefs have to plan multiple recipes for each ingredient. Sometimes, especially on the original show, the ingredient is some form of live fish, which must be killed on-air. Yet the chefs have to produce a variety of dishes as well as often desserts. I think watching a chef feed trout into an ice-cream machine marked the time I decided to take a break from watching "Iron Chef," at least for a while.
--G.F.C.

KU Homecoming

I decided to take Ember and go down to Lawrence yesterday for KU's homecoming. I have a few friends that still live there and several other friends that were coming into town. I followed Marsh and Tina (my friends and neighbors) down to Lawrence pretty early in the morning. We were at the liquor store by 10AM :) We headed down to the stadium to tailgate. I ended up meeting with my sister, Megan, there. We stayed until the end of the first quarter and left.

We went to another bar, The Wheel, to watch the rest of the game and have more beers. It was dissapointing and we lost in the last quarter. We left and made our way to Teller's for an awesome lunch. I had the Chicken Pancetta. A little too chewy, but hit the spot after a morning's worth of beer drinking!

Everyone ended up hanging out at Johnny's for the rest of the afternoon and then we went to the Yacht Club for more drinks :) and dinner. Finally, we went to Louise's West which seems like where we always end up in Lawrence at the end of the night.

Tina had left earlier in the day so I agreed to take Marsh back later that night because they had engagement pictures this morning. We took off around 10PM and made it safely back to OP.

Just when I thought the night was over, I get a frantic call from Tina around midnight and I quickly headed over to their place. Marsh had tried to make something to eat when he got home and apparently passed out in the middle of it. Long story short, he set the smoke alarms off and the cops showed up. I swear, I can never have a normal day/night out!

New Car Stereo

So, a couple of weeks ago, I finally decided to break down and get an after-market CD player. I had been going about 6 months without the ability to play a CD. I was forced to listen to the crappy radio. Nothing I did seemed to fix it. I tried one of those CDs with the brushes on it and I think it made it worse. The worst part about it was the stock Bose stereo my P-Finder was upgraded with is really nice. Anyways, I have always been a fan of Pioneer and decided to go with the DEHP6800MP model:

I was able to save about $100 by ordering it from Crutchfield and installing it myself. I was a little reluctant because of the shitty nature of my back, but I decided to anyways. I also had to get a special piece because of the built in amplifier the speakers in the car have. For the most part, the installation went smooth and I was able to do a majority of the wiring sitting on the recliner. After finally hooking the player into the factory harness, the unit powered up but there was absolutely no noise and my telescoping antenna did not go up. After a quick call with Crutchfield's technical support, which by the way are super helpful and free, the problem was the built in amplifier for the Bose system has to get a signal from the deck to turn on in order to power the speakers. The same goes for the antennae. So, after hooking up the signal wire from the deck to the appropriate wires to trigger the amp and the antenna, my garage was transformed into a sound studio.

I haven't had a CD player in a while and love all the new stuff that is available. Albeit the only color with my stereo is the organic blue, the animation is really cool. I have it set right now to the animation so that it pulses with the music that is playing. The player will pick up the meta-data from the songs and display the authors and songs on the LCD. The round knob allows me to quickly traverse through all the songs, not just the numbers, but the names of the songs. You can also configure just about every sound setting imaginable with helpful little graphics that visually depict what you are changing. The absolute best feature for me is the fact that it can play MP3 CDs. All I have to do is load a CD with about 200 MP3 and presto! I have more than 10 albums on one CD. You can create individual folders in the CD and navigate through them via the Pioneer deck.

I have yet to read the user's manual and expect to find more cool features. Who knows, maybe I'll now find a use for my two 12" subwoofers I have laying around. That's another project though. All in all, I am having a much better experience driving the P-Finder.

Welcome to My Brain!

http://www.brain-dump.com/ explains that a brain dump is "The act of telling someone everything one knows about a particular topic or project." While I definitely don't claim to know everything about a topic, I will do my damnest to dump all I have. Welcome to my brain, don't stay too long :)