Eclectic Aspirations

The bucket list

2011-11-06T14:51:00.000-08:00

A lot of people (my wife included) are kind of weird-ed out by the idea of a bucket list. I myself do not fall into this set of people. I think it is a fantastic way to periodically examine one's goals and aspirations (no matter how eclectic they may be). Even though my stance on the bucket list is generally positive, I've never actually set down to put one together myself.

Don't get me wrong, I always have things that are considered either once in a life time events, or milestone events. I have event attempted to do some of these things (with some successes, and more recently, spectacular failures).

Every time I contemplate putting my thoughts down on a full list I cant help but think of reasons why I shouldn't try or wont meet my goals if I do. Even now as I write this post (which, supports one of my goals of writing moar better) I feel my motivation dropping faster than a brick dropped from low earth orbit. Mostly caused by a sudden realization of the potential for the spectacular, or...not so spectacular failure.

While I take some time to re-contemplate a bucket list, why don't you let me know some of your top items?

Obligatory reddit related blogpost

2011-05-26T17:40:00.000-07:00

I have often quipped that the best way to tell if someone is a reddit user is that they will without a doubt start a conversation with "So, I read something on reddit ....." I've often made fun of several of my friends and coworkers for not being able to start a conversation without mentioning the site, but now I guess its my turn to talk about something on reddit.

If you are not familiar with reddit, the best way I can think to describe it is a community of communities (called reddits) where its members come together to share just about anything ranging from updates regarding current events, to the latest iteration of a photograph of a cat in a silly hat with misspelled captions. Each user can modify their version of reddit to be a part of whatever communities they wish, (and almost as importantly, ignore the ones they don't want to see). For instance - I am a member of communities related to network security, beer, comic books, charleston and the carolina hurricanes just to name a few.

In addition to posting links, comments, and questions relating to the community, the site also comes up with creative ideas for its membership to participate in. Many times people get together to refine a business idea and work together to implement it. One such idea was for a global gift exchange system. The system was originally used to do a reddit world wide secret santa. During this first run, over 4,400 gifts were exchanged from 58 countries. The most recent secret santa grew up to over 15,000 gifts sent, from 92 different countries.

Recently, this gift exchange system was scaled so that individual communities might create an exchange, and one of my communities was the first few guinea pigs (right after book exchange and craft exchange), which was snack exchange!

I was excited to participate, as I felt it would be a chance to send someone not fromt he states a unique taste of the south. I sent a package with Sundrop, a charleston chew, cinnamon roasted peacans, and salt water taffy (just to name a few).

I recently received my package of awesomeness from someone in the UK, who sent a metric ton (they use the metric system there) of fun snacks. Chips, toffee, cookies, candy, candy and more candy (and some chili flavored ketchup!). The last time I checked, around 1,600 gifts had been received, sent from 61 different countries.

Some people ask me why I am into reddit, it seems silly sometimes (alright, I do subscribe to a community where they have iron chef style cooking competitions, and one of funny images of cats), it's hard to explain without getting into a lot of depth of why I picked the communities I did and how easy it is for me to get the latest news and funny crap, or how I like being a part of a continual shifting social experiment. I guess the best thing I could say is to give it a try yourself!

Shameless Plug

2011-04-18T18:41:00.000-07:00

In an attempt to singlehandedly cure self boredom and create a location to archive good ideas for things to do/make, Danielle has created a blog. You should check it out, she has been pretty fierce with her updates, and Im sure she would like your comments or suggestions as well. Check it out http://randomaddi.blogspot.com/

The best advice I've ever received

2011-04-16T19:05:00.000-07:00

One of the most interesting ice breaker questions to me is "What is the best advice you have ever received." Sure, this ice breaker is probably not used at the most interesting social gatherings, but I find I learn a lot about a person based on their answer. It gives pretty good insight into a person, such as 1) Whose input do they value, 2) What type of advice they value and 3) How do they apply it.

For me, the best advice I ever received came from a former executive at U.S Steel who decided to retire and become a teacher. During my senior year he was a student teacher under some of the teachers who were a part of the Academy of Information Technology program.. Near the end of the year I was giving a presentation on my experience in the program, and he was in attendance. I had never really interacted with him prior to this day (he mostly helped with less technical classes). At the end of my presentation there was a question/answer/comment phase where all of the faculty had a chance to say their piece. It was at this moment that I was given a piece of advice that I strive to follow to this day.

"If you have the time to do something over again, you should have spent the time to doing it right the first time."

While the advice wasn't given to me as a critique, but a compliment regarding some praise I received from my former bosses. To me, when I have an important responsibility or task I strive for perfection, or at the least, getting it done to the level of satisfaction of whoever I am doing the work for. I hate doing things over again, it seems like a huge waste of time and money. To hear this validated in a bumper-sticker quotation has stuck with me over the years and I try to live up to it in all I do.

Its been awhile....

2011-03-11T18:08:00.000-08:00

I could have sworn Ive updated since July, but apparently not. Most likely I started to post, decided I was rambling too much and deleted it all. Despite it being awhile a metric ton has happened/changes in the past few months.

Went on a Cruise - In October we went on a pretty awesome cruise down on to Grand Cayman, Mexico (x2) and Honduras. The trip was amazing and I defiantly recommended anyone considering taking a cruise to go ahead and do it. The entire trip was well deserved

Got a major increase in responsibility at CGI - After several months of doing basic helpdesk work I was asked to take over as the task lead for the helpdesk. While the increase in responsibility was nice, and I got to work with a great group of people it quickly became apparent that several outside factors paired with an increase in stress from the job meant that it might be a good time to look for new opportunities, which leads to....

Getting a new job and moving - I received a job offer in December which required relocation to Charleston SC. I started at Honeywell during the first week of January and have been enjoying every week of it. I now have a 10-15 minute commute, depending on traffic, and drive less during an entire week than I would during a single leg of my old commute. I am also in the information security field now, which is a big deal since it is the field that I had hoped to be in even as far back as high school.

Additionally, we are both enjoying living in Charleston. It is such an amazing place with amazing food, activities and loads of interesting people. Living at the coast is a pretty big change from living in the mountains for 5 years, and then living in the piedmont for 15 before that. The pace of life here is very relaxed, well except on the road, people down here need to learn how to drive.

New Car - The old camry is no more, the engine decided to throw a rod and catch fire at 180k miles. While I am sad that I did not get to 250k miles before its untimely demise, I am happy to have a fairly new car. I was able to get a 2009 Toyota Yaris with just under 30k miles on it.

Ok, so maybe not a metric ton of things, but all pretty big. Ive been relatively happier these past few months with the new job and location. I do miss the friends I made up in Va, but I'm confident that this was the best thing for both me and Danielle.

Aficionados and Snobbery

2010-07-25T17:39:00.000-07:00

I had a very interesting, if not short lived conversation at work the other day with one of my new coworkers. I say it was a quick conversation because she pretty much stunned me silent with an excellent point that I had trouble coming up with an argument to refute.

The lot of us were talking about what television shows we watched and subsequently what shows we want (or would want) our children to watch. She mentioned mythbusters and how she loved that it got her child interested in science. Letting out an audible sigh, I began lambasting the show.

To me mythbusters started out as a pretty decent show, the urban legends that they were testing were commonly known myths that had a fairly straight forward way of testing (ie: go out and try it). However, as the seasons went on I felt that the format of the show had degraded into an explosion of the week format with the actual science being done taking a back seat. Instead of testing myths that might help someone get over a fear of not doing something /or stop them from doing something stupid, they became along the lines of testing some really crackpot idea, oh yeah and we break stuff doing it way cool right? When they attempted to go 'viral' after the success of the coke + mentos videos, it became apparent that it was a self serving explosion and ego show.

All in all, I declared "Id rather someone get science from somewhere else, because I don't feel that what they do is real science." To which my coworker replied "So? Why is it a bad thing if it gets people/ kids hooked on science?"

DUH!

She was exactly right. I may not enjoy the show, but I already have an interest in science and have a basic enough understanding of the scientific process that I can make the evaluation that the show isn't 'real science'. As a tool, this show is not geared towards me, its strictly in the realm of entertainment. For a child the show might be the gateway, with its explosions and weird experimenter to get them thinking critically about problems. Which is defiantly a step in the right direction.

Ive been thinking about this conversation and trying to apply it to some other areas where self proclaimed aficionados tend to hold a firm grasp on what "is ______" and what "isnt ______". The answer came fairly quickly, and Im going to call some of my friends out on this too, foodies.

When it comes to food shows, foodies can be the most cut throat when it comes to bashing the cooks and chefs on the air. Especially when you reach the level of worshiping the ground that Anthony Bourdain walks on. The time you realize the culinary genius of Bourdain, is the moment you have made it as a foodie. Part of this process generally involves entering in some form of serfdom with Bourdain as your feudal lord where you embrace all that he embraces and shun everything he shuns.

So began my tumultuous love-hate relationship regarding Rachel Ray. The great Tony has shunned Rachel and, despite my previous enjoyment of her food I now had a laundry list of reasons not to like her.

~~Tony~~ I think she cant cook.
~~Tony~~ I don't like her voice.
~~Tony~~ I don't like that she made up and uses the words "EVOO, yummo" and, "sammy."
~~Tony~~ I think you should only fresh ingrediants that you prepare yourself.
~~Tony~~ I think shes dumbing down food.
~~Tony~~ I think shes mediocre at best, and is just a face to sell things.
~~Tony~~ I think shes not a real foodie.

So?

Rachel is a tool for another set of people, I know this because she and Emeril (another common Bourdain target) were really the first people that got me to start cooking outside of daily "Throw meat and potato in oven" routine, falling back on going out for "good" food. Their shows gave me something new to try and add my own twists to, a gateway into exploring food even deeper.

Even today my biggest hurdle for deciding on dinners is a certain inability to think of something outside of my top 5 favorite dishes. Despite rallying behind Tony's peasant food philosophy, and a rejection of the TGI McFunsters dinner plan, I'm not ashamed to say I find myself looking at Rachel's recipes for ideas.

Sure, they are simple, and yes, they do have a tendency to utilize ingredients that are preprepared, (pre sliced veggies, partly cooked meats, etc), and yeah in large doses she can be annoying - who cares? She gets people started in the right direction - away from McKentucky Bell Hut for the 5th time this week. Her food is easy and her prepared ingredients can be switched out for fresh fairly easily. After awhile you cook through her best recipes and you branch out to bigger and better things from other chefs.

Rachel has her place as a gateway cook. If we didn't have gateway cooks and people had only people like Tony, Jonathan Waxman or Hubert Keller (to name a few of my personal favorites) - so many would not get started because what these masters do is so (seemingly) advanced that they would never try. The state of our national diet would be (while hard to imagine) worse than it is today!

Mythbusters and Rachel Ray may not be your cup of tea, but they have their place. It doesn't make sense to bash the people who could be the gateway for the next generation of masters just because they are too simple for you.

*Note- I do have to draw the line at Sandra Lee. There is a fine line between using some preprepared items and what she does on her show. Also, she oozes a level of OCD that I can not withstand, cooking should be messy, and shouldn't require an entire room full of tablescapes that cost more than the food itself.*

Local food and CSAs

2010-05-09T15:28:00.000-07:00

Since moving to Abingdon, Danielle and I have not kept our eating habits very private. I'm sure my coworkers will tell you some of my weekend highlights often included a trip to the farmers market, or local restaurant the Harvest Table. In fact, we generally take all visitors to the Harvest Table.

It really started first with us reading Animal Vegetable Miracle and having a sort of "a-ha" moment (no, neither of us were pulled into a comic book). I mean seriously food from here tastes better than the same type of produce that is grown and trucked in from places on the other side of the country or world! We started small with our local farmers market, getting a few odds and ends as long as it fit our meal plan, and leaving a meal or two open to meal planning at the market. But alas, spring, summer and fall went by quick, and as the year went by, the food bill piled up (I blame impulse meat buys, seriously, seeing a whole, fresh chicken is awesome, but at $4 a pound, it cuts the budget quick) but we were getting a lot of mileage out of our food with more efficent meal plans.

We defiantly missed the fresh food during the winter, and used it as an excuse to eat out a lot more. About half way through the winter I realized that a whole chicken at $4 ($20-30 total) a pound could offer several meals, where as a trip to TGI McFunsters for the two of us would cost about the same. It was obvious, I missed the fresh food.

The farmers market season started back up fairly recently and I am excited. In our anticipation, we also found out that there is whats called Community Shared Agriculture in the area. A CSA lets families buy a share of whatever produce comes out of the farm(s) being supported by the CSA. Each week the families get a new box filled with fresh produce. I was initially worried about the cost, but it turned out to be a good deal for about $20 a week.

This past week was our first week and we received huge box of several types of lettuce, chard, kale, spinach, dill, thyme and I think asparagus! I wanted to post a photo of it, but Danielle had already unpacked the box by the time I got home tuesday. I know exciting right? Ok, yeah greens are not the most inherently exciting types of produce, but this produce was worth way more than $20 and it gives me the chance to play Iron Chef when we discover what we get. Seriously, having ingredients handed to you is so much easier than trying to come up with a meal plan and subsequent grocery list.

I need a hobby

2010-04-13T16:41:00.000-07:00

I spent the majority of my 'Weekend of Bachelor Freedom' doing chores and sitting in front of the tv or computer trying to figure out what the hell I should be doing with my free time. The answer to that question this weekend was a resounding "Sit in front of the computer or tv and think about hobbies". Yeah, that seems like an infinite loop of awesome. It wasn't.

This feeling has been exacerbated by a tweet exchange between a friend and I. In this exchange I had mentioned that I was getting excited about the farmers market opening in town this weekend, to which he replied that I was old. Now let me start off by saying farmers markets are awesome because shopping at them leads me into my main "hobby" of cooking. Unfortunately, getting excited about it and anticipating getting through work just to see if the peppers in my container garden have sprouted yet (they haven't) makes me feel rather dull.

But cooking as a hobby can only go so far, especially with a full time job. My opportunity for sitting down and planning out and experimenting with new food is rather limited to the weekends. Its not like I could cook 5 meals on a Saturday, that would be expensive and wasteful. Weekends are also prime time to go somewhere and eat out.

At night, Danielle and I both sit on the couch like blobs staring at the tv having a convorsation that goes about like this "What do you want to do", "I dont know, what about you", "I dont know", "A movie?", "Eh, its too late to start a movie, what about going to exit 7", "Everything is closing, besides, how much time can you really spend in target and books a million?"..... *tv plays*

I guess we both need something to do, but since this is MY blog, Im really just addressing myself.

I don't have the rhythm, dexterity or coordination to play an instrument.

I get bored playing games, especially if Im not playing with people I know (being abandoned in MMOs is how I have avoided getting addicted to WoW 3 times now).

I don't have the money or time to invest in photography beyond my point and shoot.

I could write, but I don't feel creative

I could draw, but I don't have much of any natural talent.

Digital video/image editing is also expensive to get into, and while I have ideas my patience for teaching myself these things is low (I mean come on, GIMP is backwards Photoshop, and I haven't shoped since PS7).

Golf is expensive, and exercise in general is out because I'm generally too tired to get motivated.

I have ideas, but just as many reasons not to get into them. Alot of them are time and money related, or self confidence. One thing is clear though, with the recent departure of our neighbors (and reliable entertainment opportunities), I need a hobby.

Falling short of my own expectations

2010-02-10T13:17:00.000-08:00

Sometimes I feel that I fall short of my own expectations. This is double true for anything that is not really that important in the first place. For instance, trying to keep up with posting here. I have lots of opinions and neat stories, but I can never drive myself to sit and post. I feel like I should have a theme or something that I can consistently talk about. I could use it as a personal shoutbox to tell the world of people who know me what is going on in my life. I could also do what so many angsty teenagers do and treat the blog like a psychologist that tells everyone about their conversation (which, is kind of what I feel like this is doing in a round about way).

I always feel gung-ho about starting new projects, but fall into a slump about half way through. Maybe this is somewhat universal as a middle school teacher of mine called it the third quarter slump. You do awesome enough at it awhile, you grow slack and let things slip. Its only until you get the third quarter report card that you realize how bad off you really let things slip, buck up and pull it out in the end.

This is kind of how I feel about this weightloss plan Ive put myself on. For the most part Ive been eating well and for the first few weeks exercising quite a bit. Since Ive started, I have lost 15 pounds, but now I find myself slacking, and regaining and then losing the same 3 pounds these last few week. I just find other things that are more entertaining to do (I still feel like Im eating well, so I definatly feel that the exercise is whats been pushing the weight down) than going to the gym and walking, or playing the same DDR songs over and over again and getting slapped with stupid challenges to unlock new songs.

I have a short attention span.

A new year, a new me?

2009-12-22T18:09:00.000-08:00

Ive already started looking to the new year to make the commitment to get active. This past year since Ive moved to Abingdon, Va and with the encouragement from my darling wife and a book by a local locavore and her family (animal vegetable miracle). As the stress of the wedding got closer, followed by the excess of a all inclusive cruise, followed by the excess of the holidays, Ive fallen off the health food wagon so to speak.

Today at work I received an email about a "get healthy" drive going on through work. They are giving us some incentive to get active and healthy. They are providing discounted weight watcher memberships, a weight loss competition over 3 months, a reward system for activity and, what I think is an even bigger motivator, a partnership with the share our strength campaign (http://strength.org/). For every pound lost, a dollar is being donated. Now individually who knows how much I might be able to donate through weight loss, but I know that Ill be doing my part.

Its going to be hard, but I think its worth it, and I think I can do it.

So do, I will.

Late night musings with a mad man

2009-09-06T19:56:00.000-07:00

It is 11:00pm, and I consider this late...what has happened to me? It wouldnt be uncommon for me to stay up to 2 or 3 each night to get back up at 8 and function fully. I find (and it really seems to be the theme of this blog, when I have the time or desire to write) that during my 'growing up' of sorts, things have drasticly changed in a matter of months. I dont know if I like the things that come with change - More on that shortly.

Change, as it is happening for me seems to touch everything within me and around me. There are the obvious things: New Job, New Place, New Living Arrangement, New Challenges, New Bills etc. For the most part these things are good, minus the bills - those suck and dealing with the utilities suck. I actualy overall find myself happy in my new situation.

Because of these things I have also gained a new insight on people and events from my life. This is where I start running into trouble and find myself unhappy. I find myself unhappy because I look to the past and see people who mean a lot to me and thats where they stay, in the past. Despite all the contact I attempt to make with old friends and co workers, all history and convorsation beyond the initial ten minute "what's new?" sticks striclty to the time before I moved on to the next part of my life. All the while since Ive moved on, it always feels like they are stuck there, rehashing the same jokes, stories, living as if the progress of time has come to a stop. I see people who still obsess over the things we used to obsess about years ago.

Is it that uncommon for people to move on? Why should I feel guilty that I went on to new things?

Adulthood?

2009-07-09T17:13:00.001-07:00

My feelings of unemployment came to a crashing halt about a month ago as I started my new job. Working so far has been both a blast and a huge frustrating/fufilling challenge. I definatly got thrown into real work with a steep learning curve. Im getting the hang of it tho. For those of you who dont know my company is a consulting group and who does various IT consulting for different goverment groups. I work with a pretty fun team who remind me a bit of the atmosphere of TSS (nothing is sacred) but not to the full extreme of say people like leander. It was nice to get a paycheck, especialy since the bills werent waiting for them to pay me.

I have my own cube, which for a lot of people a cube sounds like a prison, but to me its a little oasis. Its my space and its private, but not so private that you cant go without talking to people. I still need to get some more things in my cube, so far I only have a plant, a photo and my ITIL certification. Whitney (http://short-stack.net/) posted something about cubecraft, which looks like it could be a lot of fun and, not to mention, cheap!

Ive found a lot of neat stuff in the town to do as well in the surrounding areas so if you are looking for a cheap vacation come on up or over, we have a guestroom, and we live next to guest parking!

Feeling unemployed

2009-05-22T12:00:00.000-07:00

I have a job lined up, and have had it lind up since around March/April. The weird thing is, right now I feel like Im unemployed in the classical sense (not the new, recession caused sense). My start date isnt until June 15th so I hav several weeks of nothing ahead of me. I had thought that getting unpacked and settled would take a lot longer than it did. Now that we are, and the tv is set up, I feel Ive exhausted my quota for ER, Las Vegas and Law & Order repeats.

Weve spent our time finding things to do: took a drive out to where Im going to work, found the farmers market, found the local organic farmers guild/ store and resturant. But still these things only last so long.

Next week we are going out to california to visit Danielle's sister in SanFran. It should be a good trip, especialy since tickets were half price. Ive never been out that far west. I hate flying tho.

This down time has given me a lot of time to sit back and reflect an all of those who are really unemployed. For me atleast there is an end in sight. I can only imagine what its like for those with no end in sight.

Abingdon, here we..are?

2009-05-19T18:46:00.000-07:00

Well, the last two weeks have been hectic at the least. After completing my senior project (which, has not seen the light of day on the real internet yet due to the guy who owns the domain name messing up), graduating, entertaining parents, grandparent, uncle, and future inlaws, moving two places and combining them into one super place, we are finally here and mostly settled.

I got to drive a truck up here, we rented one from budget and got the next size up for free because they didnt have any 10 footers. This was a good thing because we pretty much filled the whole 16 feet. After trucking all of danielles stuff up, I started to unload it all lazily, not really knowing where to put most of it. I noticed our water was still off, so I called around and figured that mess out (Our water company turned the meter on but forgot to hit the actual valve. I then tried to sort out our power issues (they decided that 2 phone calls from duke energy, and 2 letters that all stated that we never missed a payment or were late, was enough to waive their 300$ deposit).

Our good friend Fletus came up during the day and helped to offload most of the truck with me. It took a lot shorter amount of time to offload it than to load it up, which is kind of weird I think. Once offloaded, we began putting together all the furniture we got from Ikea, with one exception, the bed. Apparantly in our rush to get the truck away from I85 before 5pm rush hour traffic, we forgot to check for the crossbeam to the bed, meaning we couldnt sleep in it the first night. Danielle arrived later that day to help put things where they belong, then had a cookout.

Fastforward to today (nearly a week later) and all the furniture is set and we are starting to get into a routine. Its nice to have routine for the first time in a long time, itll be even nicer to finally get to start at work in a few weeks. Till then we are exploring the area and putting our last boxes of decorations up and getting the home feel going.

At first glimpse, Abigndon doesnt seem to hold a lot to do, but if you spend some time and do your research. We found a farmers market, and a grocery store that sells local produce, which is awesome! There is also a local winery which we plan on visiting, and tons of outdoors stuff too! I cant wait.

Before I can start having all that fun, I still have to do the adult things like, getting new insurance, a drivers liscense and getting bills paid and switched to this address. No fun! Im still not sure when the student loans are going to pile up on me, but its bound to be soon.

Lots of other things to talk about, but its getting late (well not really, but Im tired), so Ill post a few more, non rambly, organized posts tommorow

The future is now?

2009-04-23T20:21:00.000-07:00

Holy crap, I graduate in 2 weeks and Im done with class in a week and 2 days. These past few weeks since spring break have shot by. My project class and strategic management classes have kept me busy and I mostly completed my paper for competition. Unfortunatly my paper was not selected to compete at the national conference in oklahoma city, but I still won an award there for submitting the best tech/geek video.

Instead of throwing that hard work out, Ill be rewritting it (this weekend to be exact) for submission in an academic journal/conference. Who knows if it will be accepted, all I know is Im ready to be done with it.

Im about 90% done with my final project, as I dumped one of the major parts of it that wernt really a requirement for our client. This just means I have to be masterful in how I state what our project really does to our professor who wasnt too pleased that we did it.

In moving news, Ive found an apartment and have applied for and paid for the deposit. Its a pretty nice place, built in 03 in Abingdon Va. After taking Danielle up there a few weeks ago, we both agree its going to be a really exciting place to be with lots of adventure to be had (you know, when Im not working my tail off).

Its just weird to think that Ill no longer be in boone by the 14th, and that Ill be living in a brand new state and starting a big boy job a few weeks later.

Twitter as a weapon

2009-03-19T19:01:00.000-07:00

Over spring break I was at my parents place, a good time to rest, while catching up on some emails and other things Ive been neglecting as the tornado of IS project, Strategic Management and paper work came to a stop. While there, my dad worked at home for a bit, and an interesting event happened.

For those of you who don't know, twitter is an online 'micro blog.' Essentially its a blog where you update with one or two sentence updates from a text message or from the website. Its supposed to be a place where you post any profound ideas you have during the day or major successes or problems etc. However, as most people lead mundane lives, it ends up mostly being about what kind of cereal you ate that day.

Anyways, my dad, who is in charge of the North American customer support group for his company, stumbled (I have no early idea how) on a twitter account who had been complaining about the support he received in a single post. From there, he found the mans full blog which had a more in depth post about what happened (in his eyes) and how my dads support group was rude/unhelpful.

Immediately, he was off to the phones calling the guy who handled the support case. He found that the problem had been solved and was due to client wiring the product incorrectly. This information pretty much nullified the clients claims of ignorance from the support tech, but it didn't combat the problem of a negative review still sitting on the net. (The twitter account had roughly 200 followers, and the blog is a featured blog on a popular networking website.)

This is interesting, because when you have consumers using twitter like this, posting their experience, which may not be uniform, or correct, there is no real way to fight it. You cant make an account and have a twitter fight, you cant post on their blog, you cant sue, nothing. Well, you could do those things, but it wouldn't work. This can be an especially huge problem for companies (like my dads) who are not huge industry juggernauts (say like Cisco). I mean, if your company has very specific industry and product segment, and the only thing to come up on a google search for it is some guys negative review, you would be inclined to seek a competitor.

So my question to you is, what would you do if you were in this situation?

Spring Break, Seriously?!?

2009-02-26T14:14:00.000-08:00

Next week is spring break? Where has the semester gone, seriously. Having 2 class meetings a week and 3 days of work plus all this travel has made life fly by pretty quickly. As of this weekend my big research paper will be done and sent off to be judged before competition. Hopefully getting this out of the way will give me more time to focus on some of the more fun things in life. Ive been missing a series of AITP social events in favor of working on the paper.

Big things left in the near future:
(Hopefuly) presenting paper at conference
IS Project completion
Graduation
Moving to Va. / Starting job.

The wedding of course is looming in the distant future, but we are plugging along grabbing up a DJ, photogropher and booking our honeymoon (yay!)

WHOAMYGAWDBUSY

2009-02-04T20:09:00.000-08:00

So, I want to apologize for not getting some updates up sooner, but these last few weeks have been WHOAMYGAWDBUSY! Because of being whomygawdbusy, I do have quite a few updates.
Ive gotten settled in and classes are going great. Originally I was going to do 12 hours of class, taking IS project, Strategic Management and Business Ethics, and a independent study. As I sat in my business ethics class, I said to myself: "Self, why the hell are you doing this? you dont need the hours, or the class" So after confirming with my apartment (who has rules about being full time student status) I dropped the class. Now I only have 6 hours of actual lecutre, giving me more time to concentrate on IS project and my paper. In IS project I have been assigned as project leader for the development of a wesbite for a friend of mine's golf course in Kings Mountain. This weekend Ill be heading down there (weather permitting) to get an idea as to what he wants.

The wedding planning is still going strong. We have a dj in theory, he just needs to send us a contract. We are meeting with two photogrophers over the next two weeks as well!

I have yet to find a subleaser, which has become a bigger prirotiy given the biggest news I have to share:

I HAVE A REAL LIFE JOB AFTER GRADUATION

Yes, I contracted with a company recently. Ive been asked to be a fuctional analyst (business analyst) for a fairly large sized company who recently opened an office in Lebanon, Va. Ill be working with goverment related IT projects and doing various things with that.

Yes, Lebanon, Va. which, I somewhat equate to Boone Jr. The town we are looking at moving to is called Abingdon, who sports a population at half of what Boone has. Its a little bit crazy to think after all this planning to move torwards Charlotte that Ill be living in a place in the mountains, that is smaller than Boone.

In any case, I am still excited, it looks like a place that will challenge me, treat me right and that I can get a lot of good expirence out of. As I start to research the area, I find it not being as bad as I thought, and if it is, I can always ask for a transfer after a few years.

Anyways, Im very excited and will be starting there in June, which seems really close, but maybe thats just the senioritis kicking in.

CES 2009 and Vegas!

2009-01-16T09:11:00.001-08:00

At the end of my winter break I got the extreme privladge to attend the Consumer Electronics Show in fabulos Las Vegas through the Association of Information Technology Professionls student chapter. We were scheduled to arrive a day and a half before the show started to give us time to explore the city and then we would leave a day before the show ended so we could get out before everyone else (and give us a day to travel back before school started on monday).

Travel wasnt a big problem beyond the 4 hour delay in the Cincinati Airport (which, contrary to popular belife is actualy in kentucky). We ate dinner there before we realized that we could get meal vouchers.

When we arrived in Vegas, we got in a cab because some of the people on our flight chickend out on getting a limo (which would have been cheaper than both of the cabs we had to take). And, as we found out from a casino dealer, the only rule at vegas is to never trust the cab drivers! I asked for the most direct way, which went on the interstate apparantly. It was the quickest way, but not the most direct, so a 30 dollar fare +tip turned in to 40.

Our casino was very nice, we had a pretty good view of the rockies and industrial district. Its weird seeing mountains come out of nothing in the distance. I mean, I live in the 'mountains' and the drive there always seems very gradual until the last like 10 miles. Good service, friendly staff etc. So I would definatly reccomend the Main Street Station Hotel/Casino if you are looking to not stay on the strip.

The day before the show a group of us went to the strip to get their entry credentials taken care of at the Sands Convention Center (I got mine at the airport!) So we went around to a lot of the casinos between Encore/Wynn up to the Billagio that day. Of the ones we went into I think the Venetian was my favorite, the indoor canals were really cool and the rest of the place was immensly classy. Plus I got 10 $ to play slots for free there. In the evening we went back to the main street station, and I then re fell in love with the game of roulette. After my first endevor at tunica, I knew somewhat what I was doing and while I didnt win much, I actualy stayed at the table for over 20 min,.

The next day was the convention, I must say that the guides and things I read about going were fairly accurate and to not have high expectations. This was especialy true because we went the the sands/venetian convention center first. We finished the area in 2 hours, not getting much free stuff, seeing any booth babes, or seeing any of the big names we wanted to. We thought that the area was all there was to the convention and were really pissed off. On our way back to the strip to catch the bus back, we found the shuttle to the Las Vegas Convention Center, decided to take it, and then found the main attraction. We didnt even get half way through there that day.

The next day we tried to find our way through the rest of it. We saw lots of cool stuff (which Ill recap at the end), got lots of cool stuff, but still not many booth babes :( .

Some of the really fun/embarassing stories out of the trip didnt come out of me or the people I hanged out with (ie: the guy who went to a strip club, and had to overdraw 100 dollars because he didnt know you had to pay for a lapdance, and got 3.) Altho, someone in our group did lose 80 dollars playing 3 card monte at the bus stop.

I played enough at the casinos to get meal comps, which was awesome not haivng to pay for some of my food. I just wished I thought to ask earlier.

Some of the cool stuff we saw:

Credit card thin tvs

NBC stands that deliver shows to flash drives

Microsoft Surface

Gaming vest from TN games that lets you feel the impact from the games

Game that moves a ball around just on concentration

Windows 7

Microsoft Sync for the car

and much more!

You Rogue!

2009-01-14T18:28:00.000-08:00

I was sitting at work today and noticed that of all the machines I was working on only one of them did not have the exact same problem as the rest. Upon closer examination, a vast majority of the machines in the office had a very nasty little problem that takes hours to fix. And so I thought I would share with you a little lesson:

Presenting: Rogue Spyware!

-What is rogue spyware?
Rogue spyware is an absolutely dreadful piece of software that tricks you into installing. Often times it will present itself in the form of a popup add on a website offering a registry cleaner, spyware sweeper or virus scanner. Many will even go so far as to say that they have already done a partial scan of your computer and display 30 to hundreds of viruses, spyware and registry errors. Once you install their software, it will go ahead and place more actual spyware on your computer and in order to clean that up, you have to pay the ''company'' money. Much of the time the ''company'' is an organized crime unit or hacker overseas in a country that would make it impossible for you to ever think of suing (china, russia, korea). And if you do decide to pay you are leaving yourself very open to identity theft.

There are several types of it, some of the earlier versions are quick and easy to remove with simple file deletion. Other types, the most recent types (and the types that apparently hit during the winter break) can not be easily removed without causing possible damage to system folders, system restore files or even requiring an outright reformat.

-How do you get them?
Besides the "click the link to remove spyware" method as mentioned above, these programs can be bundled/wrapped within other programs that you may download. CD Key generators for pirated software are a favorite place to bundle these programs. Porn sites that ask you to download a 'special' codec for instant viewing or a remote dialer are fronts for getting this software. FILESHARING through limewire is also a major source, and where I think the bulk of people on campus have been getting this. While I have not yet seen them in downloaded games or through email, that doesnt mean they cant come through there.

-What are they called?
Too numerous to list, but some of the most common ones I have seen have been: Win antivirus 2008/2009, Spyware Guard 2008/ 2009, XP Antivirus, AntiVirus Pro

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MS_Antivirus and http://www.wiki-security.com/wiki/Parasite/Antivirus2009 have more extensive, but not nearly complete lists of names.

-How do you know if you have it?
Frequent pop ups about viruses/spyware even when not browsing, taskbar icons that cannot be closed with the names of the above programs. Legit antivirus/spyware software no longer runs, certain sites are no longer accessible and redirect to no longer active websites. Something that asks you to pay after the initial scan

You may also notice a drastic slowdown in your computers speed.

-How to avoid it?
In general common sense should apply to your browsing habits, if its too good to be true it probably is. If you dont know about the source of the product, or the name of the product, take 5 seconds to google it. Usually if it is rogue malware, that program name will return results about how to remove it, and possibly a few with where to pay to get rid of it (more than one person sends these things out ).

-I dont have the money for antivirus software or the time to research free antivirus or anti spyware, what should I get?
AVG Antivirus http://free.avg.com/ offers a great free antivirus software program that does many of the things its competitors do, it also offers a paid service which do everything else. Trend-Micro offers a free online scanning service, which could be useful if you suspect your antivirus software has had its files corrupted.

Malwarebytes Anti Malware http://www.malwarebytes.org/ offers a pretty good anti malware program for free. This program is what weve been using to remove a lot of these rogue malware things, but it is getting harder as the programs evolve. Spybot Search and Destroy and Adaware are also good, free anti malware programs

Ccleaner http://www.ccleaner.com/ is a interesting program that will clean out any old, unnessicary files that could be slowing your machine up (temp internet files, old history files, and more) as well as provides a simple registry scanner that will remove bad registry entries.

These three programs that I linked to can be used to help increase the performance of your PC, even without a specific threat in mind.

-How do I get rid of them?
If you have them, and you need to get rid of them, start out with malwarebytes, a program called combofix: http://www.bleepingcomputer.com/combofix/how-to-use-combofix and vundofix: http://vundofix.atribune.org/ . You may have to run each of these a few times, and in safemode. You can also search the internet for instructions on how to remove your specific flavor of nasty, and find more information out about it. Some of these instructions may take you into the registry and a few config files, if that is the case I highly recommend that you 1: back up your important data and 2: seek a professional out for advice.

300

2008-12-25T17:51:00.000-08:00

Well, 303 days to be exact. That is how many days left until I tie the knot with Danielle. Planning has been interesting, fun and stressful. Our first hurdle was finding a place to actually hold the wedding. This process was very complex as neither of us really knew what kind of wedding we wanted. At first we were very against an outdoor wedding after seeing the issues a friend of ours had when it began to rain at her outdoor wedding. We then tussled between using a hotel, reception hall and even the grand lobbies of several uptown Charlotte sky scrapers. After seeing the skyhigh prices of sky scrapers and the inaccessibility of these places we then came to rest on a place called The Orchard House in Concord, NC. It was a very strange find in both how Danielle discovered it and that it was a stones throw from Danielles Concord home.

Working with the ladies at the Orchard House has been interesting as they are a family who all specialize in different aspects of wedding planning. Through their guidance they pointed us towards several caterers and we just signed our contract with one.

The next challenge, for me anyways, is finding a DJ and photographer in the area. It amazes me as I do my research how little information some of these companies have online for me to look at. Going to a few wedding shows only netted me a handful of leads and their promotional information does not give me a good starting point. One would think in this day and age that web presence would be a primary place to advertise with nearly limitless amounts of information.

So if anyone knows of any good Charlotte area DJs or photographers let me know!

t-minus 1 semester and counting

2008-12-20T11:30:00.000-08:00

I really shouldnt have started blogging so close to the end of the semester. Ive been so busy that I have not had a chance to do any updating. However now I am done and am on break! so Im glad to have a bit of time to do a bit of updating.

Got all of the marks for my classes and Im back on the deans list. I probably could have even made chancellors list if I bothered showing up to one of my core business classes more than once a week. Next semester I have a much lighter course load with a twist - an independent study on identity theft. Im sure more is to come on that as well as a few sneak peeks at some of the research find.

So, for winter break Im in Charlotte right now with Danielle until the 23rd. While here, Ive been working on wedding stuff, helping Danielle with some chores and errands, and appeasing the future inlaws (which is always fun and interesting). Ill be heading back to Cary on the 23rd and spending time with my family (and possibly cleaning out some old things and taking it to good will.) Danielle will be coming down shortly after the new year before I jetset off to vegas for a few days for the consumer electronic show.

I look to posting a few more updates about the job search and wedding planning over the break

Nostalgia

2008-11-29T19:16:00.000-08:00

Nostalgia is a funny thing. What is it about going back to places, or talking with people that brings up the past. Sitting back and looking at times that I remember being depressing, and now thinking that they were the good times in life. I guess that hindsight is 20/20 most of the time.

Looking back I can judge predictions I made in my life about myself and others, as well as those predictions made about me by others. It only seems that being here in Cary again is the catalyst for this kind of thinking. It also gives me a chance to attempt to evaluate how my life would be different if certain events went differently.

Through all this nostalgia, I find that Im happy with the way my life is turning out, and couldnt imagine it being as satisfying as it is now.

The line forming in the sand

2008-11-23T17:19:00.000-08:00

For those of you not interested in politics, you might want to give this one a pass.

Its been a few weeks since the election ended and the nation sent a resounding message against the republican party. The state of foreign policy, the economy, civil rights and more over the past 8 years championed by the republicans has been mediocre fizzles to drastic failure. Why is this? Some might say incompetence, others corruption, and still more a fundamental change in the American people and what they demand from their government.

I believe that they all play parts in the problem, but I think that a major cause had been overlooked. The makeup of the republican party has been changed drastically since the time of Regan. The Regan presidency championed fiscal conservatism, as well as brought social conservatism into the mainstream fold of the party. He got his start in California as an answer to the anti war protesters and other social liberals (read: Berkeley) who had been gaining power and voice.

His presidency and that of Bush Sr. were won on economics and national unity, and were pushed over the top by evangelical Christians. When the economy took a turn for the worse, Clinton was elected. Social liberalism came into play during his presidency at the same time as a new economic prosperity.

With the prosperity in tact, W. was able to run a campaign based on social issues (as the economy wasn't an issue). Winning a slim margin because of his coalition using the evangelicals. And he pulled it off again against Kerry.

This election, McCain still tried to court the evangelicals, but he lost the true base of the party (fiscal conservatives) had become disenchanted with the party. Now that McCain has lost, and the congress is in democratic control, it gives the republican party a "nothing left to loose" period to restructure.

Watching the news coverage, there's a definite split forming. Mitt Romney is a definite leader of the fiscal conservative wing of the party, and there is no real leadership from the remaining evangelical section (other than incumbent republicans who still believe that's the way to win). I would have said Huckabee would take this segment, but hes making more money and getting his message out much better as a pundit on fox news (which, if you haven't seen his show, its quite interesting, especially his interview with Bill Maher). Eventually I think there will be an official split, but I'm unsure as to if either will survive it. In 5-10 years you will see a new party surface (or one of our current third parties: libertarian? constitution?) and replace the republican party.

It should be an interesting few years for us political junkies.

The future of the Green Movement

2008-11-11T17:20:00.000-08:00

An interesting idea came up today in one of my classes. One of my professors was recently promoted to the dean level and is going to be working with the MBA program. He pitched an idea about gearing the MBA program at App towards Green Business. What that would mean is that the same core MBA classes would be offered as now, but with a focus and application to "Green" businesses, products, services etc. When the professor asked what we thought of the idea, I offered a concern that the need for a "Green focused" degree in business would not necessarily be relevant in 10-15 years. To which another student in the room (a sustainable development major) rebuked quite passionately. Now I don't write this as a rebuke to that student (other than to say "This is how debate works"), but more as a soapbox for my thoughts and to share with you my vision of the future of the green movement.

In regards to the business world, the green movement is temporary and fleeting. For the time being, its the big fad that all businesses are going after trying to edge into a new market segment of "Green people." What businesses do not realize yet, is that by going Green, they will be saving themselves quite a truckload of cash, be it on using recycled materials, using more energy efficient equipment, as well as gaining more public goodwill by offering these products. The green movement (as it relates to business) will go the way of the "No Asbestos", "Seat belts" and "No Lead in paint" movements; becoming the standard. Current events aside when was the last time you went out and tried to find a product being marketed to you because it was lead free, or tried to buy a car because it was being marketed on the safety of its seat belts? The answer is you have not: its the standard (for products originating outside of China).

The World and to a lesser extent, the U.S, has moved to a point where Green technology is not so much a request but a demand with price being the decision maker between similar products. And no, a hummer is not the same as a hybrid civic, (un?)fortunately. I would predict that the prices of Green goods are going to come down significantly in the next few years because overall demand is increasing. The funds generated by the first and second generations of Green products will go into creating better products that have similar, if not lower cost of creation to the producer, driving down the cost to the consumers.

Now does this mean that specialized Green engineering, design, production etc will no longer be needed? Not quite, phasing out the need for specialized Green jobs will take much longer, multiple generations. It will take the current generation of Green oriented students to move into academic positions and seamlessly integrate Green into the lessons of product design, creation and disposal. From there, the older non Green generations of the workforce will have to age out and the more recent generations will have to retrain/adapt. This process could theoretically take 20+ years and depends greatly on the speed of the 'Greenization' of the academic world.

So, why develop a long term focus in business academics towards a short term business trend? I mean, it takes us years to get new classes officially on the books in the CIS department beyond special topic type classes. By the time the material comes out for an emerging subject, the development and trend is already a year or two ahead of academic material.

The best way to mix the Green movement with a degree program for business, would be to take the current approach and offer special topic courses as you go. (ie: there are a few ethics courses geared to current topics in the College of Business that have a Green focus).

The last question I ask, is if the Green movement does follow the trend I predict; does having a MBA with a Green Business focus mean anything? Or would it be taken as a joke by the future employers?

The roadmap to everywhere

2008-11-11T12:28:00.001-08:00

I am directionally challenged, so when I go places I need to have two different sets of directions (tom tom GPS that hasnt been updated in a year, and google maps print out). Im not sure what it is about getting frustrated with directions, because I know where the destination is in my mind, and know how I want to get there, but roadblocks and other things come up taking me off my path. And when you travel and get lost, sometimes its best to stop and take a look at where you really are.

So where am I?

Im in my senior year, at Appalachian State University as a CIS major. I have one semester left in which my course load will consist of group project classes and doing research to submit to an academic journal. On top of the academic stuff, I am heavily involved in a professional group and the Lutheran student group on campus. I also work on campus doing technical support which pretty much eats up my spare time during the week.

I became engaged just under a year ago (February), and am now in the middle of wedding planning (Im sure you will see many more posts on the joys trials and tribulations of that process later). We have just under a year to go (Oct. 24) until the ceremony, and I will be moving in with her shortly after graduation depending on the....

Job Hunt! In my spare time of class, work, traveling to visit Danielle to take care of wedding stuff; I am actively seeking employment for when I graduate. My hope is to get something in the Charlotte area, which would make life simplest for all of us, but really would prefer something in the south eastern region if I cant do Charlotte. I had one good prospect awhile ago, but the company in question in the middle of interviewing became one of the poster children for the economy. Now I am interviewing with two more companies, that I believe are a bit more recession proof.

That is the route my life is taking at the moment, and will probably be where the majority of my venting, thinking and topics go towards thrown in with some special topics here and there. I really enjoy talking about politics and religion, so you may see a few posts about that. My professional interest rests within technology (how to keep your electronics running, security and privacy, as well as new technology and their social impact). I also love to cook and experiment with food, so look forward to that as well. Plus, Ill write about anything else that pops into my mind with the randomness of life.

Begin at the beginning?

2008-11-10T13:02:00.000-08:00

Why would you want to do something like that? I dont really know, so instead Im going to begin at the end, the end of my last blog. I used to have a livejournal that until I went to college I updated quite frequently (and, in retrospect, quite creepily). I decided that it was time to leave the livejournal behind, it was nice while I had it, but my circle of friends who actualy blog have moved over here. Besides, the old livejournal was a fairly mundane rehashing of my day with a sprinkle of partial insanity, that and emo lovesickness that really makes me want to go back in time and punch myself.

So anyways, its time to put the old live journal to rest. Now what? Well, I aim to give meaningful updates on my life and the baby steps that I take in becoming a real adult. Its interesting to think that in a few months, Im going to have a job, wife and real responsibilites. Its a very drastic contrast from the whiney crap over on my old livejournal.