A needed vacation

Just got back from a much needed break visiting family for Christmas up in Seattle. Puget sound is very beautiful and everything is much greener there than here in Chandler. Oddly though, I had a sense that everything was slowly rotting away in a pile of mold from all the humidity. Chalk it up to growing up in a desert I guess.

While up there I had a chance to meet up with "MojoMonkey" (Mark) from the jME project. Mark graciously showed us around a few places like Pikes Place market, Pier 57, and some curiousity shop where they had a giant whale penis on display (hanging right next to the walrus penis.) Despite that ;-) we had a good time and got a chance to throw around some ideas and stories. Looks like he'll make a good dad soon.

Unfortunately we all brought home a great cold and are rolling around in bed coughing up some kind of weird marmalade junk. So I'll leave you with that lovely visual and get back to bed. :)

holidays and other fun stuff

Well, here it is almost Christmas time. I've recently sung in a church choir performance, passed out cookies, read the Christmas story, watched sappy Christmas movies and had my fill of holiday candy and treats. So, why doesn't it feel like Christmas this year?

Maybe it's because I have no real idea what is going to happen next month with my job. I want to continue my education at ASU on the side and I'm signing up for some classes, but with mounting debt and no idea if income will cover expenses next month I really feel a bit anti-jolly. Even my favorite part-time hobby, contributing to jME has lost its appeal lately. In some ways, this makes me regret taking on contract sweat-equity type work (my main job,) especially since I had thought it would be paying out a lot more now that I'm three years into it. I also feel like my talents are just wasting away and I want to move on and really be challenged and work again with people who will push me and appreciate my work as peers. I know I've got the skills, but is there work out there like that?

Sigh...

Today is special...

...because it's my wife's birthday! Happy birthday sweetheart!

Sinus pain

I'm sure all of you want to read about my health. No? Well too bad. I've had major sinus pressure for a week or so now and it is just killing me. Sort of like a cross between being hit by a farm truck loaded with cabbages going 65 MPH and being hit by a farm truck loaded with turnips going 45 MPH... You get the picture.

Frustrations and relief

Today has been a mixed day of good and bad. First the bad... My young son knocked the laptop onto the floor, totally bending up mac's fragile male power plug. I took it in to the Chandler Apple store and they informed me that the power cable was not covered by Apple Care. They told me my only recourse was to buy a new cable ($80!) So of course I did, since my battery is only going to last so long... Man.

At least that was balanced by some good news. Yesterday I had a major breakthrough with Crystal Reports. I was able to rig up a system for queuing up and executing reports, exporting them to any of 8 formats... all through a Java servlet based system. So now the underpinnings are mostly ready, I still have to get these exports attached to internal messaging and actually build a system for providing real data to real reports (right now I'm using a bogus test report.) But hey, after fighting CR for a few weeks, it's a welcome breakthrough.

I actually write this from the middle of a mall, just outside the aforementioned apple store. Waiting for the wife to finish shopping is usually quite boring... Fortunately they have an open wireless network and a couple comfy chairs outside the store. :)

Happy birthday Mom!

Yep, it's my mother's birthday today! Love ya Mom!