2007 And Beyond!

Well, the holidays (and 2007) are almost over and it seems like a decent enough point to post about 2007, what I have been up to the past week or so, and about the new year.

2007

2007 was a pretty big year for Em and I between changing clients for the first time in a year and a half , looking or thinking about looking for new jobs, having my company get bought out of the blue and trying to find out about who is signing my paycheck now, pushing through a transfer to STL, Em graduating with her Masters, finding an apt in STL and moving, me living in Cinci without Em for a month and finishing up work at my last client there, flying to STL for a day of interviews and flying back, staring work in STL, Em finding a job here and then finding a really great opportunity for an "real" job too, adjusting to life MUCH closer to our family, missing our friends back in Cinci and me adjusting to not living in Ohio like I had for the previous 6+ years, weddings all over, getting a promotion, beginning to look for a house .....

It was busy.

Holidays 2007

These were a whirlwind of activity. I feel like I have been going nonstop for over a week now. I should learn that my lofty goals for time off never come true and I should resolve myself to the fact that if I get anything done, its a win.

Em's Aunt's dog George tired out after too much holiday excitement

Being in town for more than just a few days meant that we could attend all of the traditional family events plus others and ended up getting to spend a lot of great time with family and friends. I can think of at least 6 different extended family functions we attended over the past week or so, plus numerous smaller get-togethers, meals, and interactions.

As far as Christmas goes, Santa was very good to Em and I once again. I won't go into too much detail of what we each got, but some of the highlights included: several new Wii games, tons of pants for me, a Pujols jersey for Em, the complete work of Calvin and Hobbes, a necklace for Em, new books, 2 1GB USB sicks for $10 via a great Buy.com deal and $10 off your first order w/ Google Checkout, and two sets of Tangram pieces and books for me. Thanks Santa!

Other than family and friend get-togethers, Em and I also took in two cultural events. The first was Wicked on the 23rd. Em and I went with her mom and siblings and everyone had seen the show once before except me and her brother. It was amazing (and according to Em, better than the first). After listening to Em play the soundtrack over and over after she saw it the first time I wanted to go, but man it doesn't do it justice. It really is amazing to see people perform live compared to any type of recording. Also, we saw the performance at the really cool Fox Theater. The place is pretty big and EVERYTHING is extremely ornate and decorated to the max. Its a really cool place to see a show.

I got one picture of the ceiling before the Usher got too close

Next up was Body Worlds 3 at the St. Louis Science Center. My Dad's company is one of the primary sponsors and he was able to get us some vouchers to go see it with Em's brother and sister. All I can saw is WOW and it was INTENSE. I wasn't sure I could handle it, but I was interested and am extremely glad I went. Its such an amazing process and well done. In talking with other people about the exhibit some people are too squeamish to go, others disinterested, and others feel like it goes against there moral/ethical ideals. I think all points are valid, but I found the exhibit to be very tastefully done with respect to those individuals to volunteered to donate there bodies to science. I felt like it showed just how beautiful the human form is and how amazing our bodies are beyond what we can see on the outside. The way everything inside of us works together to give us almost limitless abilities is inspiring. And how disease or poor decisions can wreak havoc on our bodies is frightening.

I have also posted some of my thoughts about the food I ate over the holidays, a new programming project I have stared, and have contributed to and thought about a number of puzzles.

2008

If you know me, then you know I love lists, I have tons of ideas, and while I get many things done, there are countless other tasks and ideas that never quite get off the ground with me. So, in keeping with tradition, I have put together a rather lofty list of goals for myself in 2008 and intend to post them here as a public reminder of what I wanted to do. Rather than extremely abstract "resolutions" I am going to try and come up with S.M.A.R.T. goals which I have a good chance to achieve and which I can formulate a plan to accomplish.

They are, in no particular order:

• Read 6 novels by different authors (books in a series don't count, but are a good thing)
• Read 4 non-fiction, non-technical books (can be on any subject, but not computers)
• Learn 2 new programming languages
  
• Play chess with my Dad at least once a month
• Spend 1 hour each week taking photographs of something, find the best 1 and get rid of all of the rest (the goal being to take more pictures and to try and make the decision process as hard as possible for myself by taking better pictures)
  
• Cook something new that I have never cooked before each month
• Attend a JUG meeting
• Keep up with my "tech blog" and post about something new/interesting at least once a month.
  
• Bike/Hike 200 miles
• Average 2+ workout/physical activities a week for the year
• Buy our first house
• Finish the Spedini Project
  

Some of these goals may seem hard to reach (and probably will be) and others might seem easy to accomplish, but these are what I want to try and do. If I fail to meet one of them, I won't count the year as a failure, but if I don't try, I might.

[EDIT February 10, 2008]

• I have read Foundation Forward and am currently working on the first book along with Harry PotterInspecting A House: A guide for buyers, owners, and renovators.
• I have completed a project with Python and am still reading about it and trying things out
• My dad and I have played chess a few times and I am trying to keep up with it.
• I have cooked a number of new things.
• 2 JUG meetings down, more to go.
  
• I have a ton more stuff to post on tech-related subjects, but am doing ok.
• I have NOT been working out twice a week, but have gone a few times which is better than nothing.
• No house yet, and project Spedini is on hold.
  

Goodnight Sweet Prince, Good Morning Big Mess

** here, Sweet Prince refers to Interstate 64 (or just Highway 40 as it is most often referred to here in STL)

On January 2nd, the Missouri Dept. of Transportations will be closing the the primary East/West thoroughfare through St. Louis.

Sound like your kind of fun? B/c I have yet to find a resident who is excited about it.

Highway 40 has long had its problems as more and more people try to use it each morning and evening to get to and from work. The traffic jams on it and our outer belt I270 can be horrible if there is any kind of accident near there intersection.

Its going to be a mess!

Overview of closed area and other impacted highways (ALL)

Thank God! I don't have to take it to and from work, but thats only part of the problem. The real problem is that no one really knows what kind of havoc closing the highway will cause all over town. In recent months (and as late as yesterday and today) MODOT has been working to increase lane capacity on some of the other major highways in town, but when you see the numbers on how many people take highway 40 right now on a daily basis, where in the world are all of them going to go? AND if they close most of the bridges at different times over the highway as they work, how are you supposed to get East/West let alone from one side to another!?

Its going to be a big mess.

I live in the South-West corner of town, outside of I270, but I work inside I270 North of 40. Normally I would leave early enough that I could take I270 North, past 40, to my exit and traffic would still be moving .... but I270 is going to be a parking lot in a few days b/c everyone who would normally take 40 in is going to need to get off at 270 and go north or south and everyone inside 270 who needs to go anywhere will need to either go in toward downtown farther or come out and go around.

My client is allowing employees and contractors effected by the closing (who isn't?) to do "alternative work schedules" if approved by there boss and will be paying for metro passes for employees who can use the bus to get to work which is nice.

Its going to be a huge mess.

Timeline Diagram

Oh and did I mention it is going to be shut down in phases for the next 2 years!? Roughly half (the outer half) will be shut down starting Jan 2, 2008. 2009 brings the closing of the inner half of the project and sometime the outer section will open. Fun! Who knows when overpasses and bridges will be done.

Every news outlet has there own web pages detailing the construction and how people "might" be able to plan there commute around it. This blogger reminded me of a Xkcd comic that seems odly appropriate. Check it out here.

Yep, a mess.

Reading

A while back I posted on the BForum about how I wanted to read more in the upcoming year and was looking to put together a reading list of sorts as way of doing that.

Between then and now I have finished reading Into The Wild and have started and finished The Hobbit (my thoughts below). I am still in the process of putting together a list of "New Years Resolutions" but tentatively I am thinking to try and read 4 new novels by different authors, 4 tech books (this will be easy) and 4 non-tech and non-fiction books between now and the end of 2008. This may be a lofty goal, but you know me. Who would I be if not for my lists and lofty goals. :-)

Hopefully I will put together an intended reading list soon, but until then Thanks to everyone who posted there and I have talked to in person. You all have given me a list of candidates that is much longer than I can even comprehend. Now I just need to pick a few to get me started.


Into The Wild - by Jon Krakauer

This book outlines the most unusual life and death of Chris McCandless. By recounting the information found while researching the book, and a previous magazine article which originally brought Chris' story to national attention, the author tries to piece together the events that lead to Chris's tragic end and tries to understand the man.

Big abstract words aside, I found the story very interesting and thought provoking. I won't spoil too many details here, but Chris' story hinges around his unusual lifestyle, his relationships, and his death in Alaska while attempting to live out the summer "in the bush," completely alone. I had a chance to see the recently released movie just before starting the book but didn't for reasons I have forgotten. I will definitely have to see it now.

I have thought before that it would be interesting to try and live off the land, go back to simpler times and see how well I (or someone like me) could survive if put into an extreme situation without modern comforts. Its probably why Robinson Crusoe always appealed to me. Its amazing how it took our ancestors thousands of years to figure things out as "simple" as carpentry, foraging, hunting, etc and how fast a person of today can fall if these things are taken out of the equation.

The idea of moving back to simpler times. without cell phones. without computers. without the "need" of prepackaged precooked preprocessed foods from around the world. Its very provocative. Like being at our cabin without the worry that in a week or 2 you have to go back :-p


The Hobbit - by J.R.R. Tolkien

Having seen and loved the LOTR movies and never read the original books or The Hobbit, I thought this was a good starting place. I was surpised to find the book fairly light given the depth of back story and details that the movies describe and which are found in the book.

I was surprised by how what I thought would be the climax of the book, wasn't, and how the last third of the book flew by in a flurry of action and plot changes. I thought it was a great story and helped to tie together a number of things that the movies (by themselves) left without closure or explanation. I can't wait for this movie either.

Let the holidays begin!

Yesterday was my first day off for the holidays. Since my client is off all of next week and Monday/Tuesday of the following week (and my office is closed) ... so will I. I would have preferred not being forced to take 5 days vacation without a choice in the manor ... but I guess it could be worse :-p.

Luckily I will have PLENTY to do during that time. The holidays season officially began yesterday with a family brunch during the day and later that evening when we setup my grandma's new TV (the whole family chipped in) at her apartment. They will continue tonight when a large portion of Em's family and the two of us take in Wicked at the Fabulous Fox Theater. Everyone has seen the production except for her brother and I, but it should be a blast. Tomorrow they continue with multiple Christmas eve family events and church. We are still trying to plan our Christmas day ... we currently have 5 locations to be at various times which we are trying to plan for. It is going to be a crazy few days.

Other than that, nothing too big has been going on besides working and getting things ready. After Christmas I am hoping to catch up on several small projects/tasks, find some time to work on a new programming project I have been working on, keep up with my reading and get things ready for the new year.

For anyone I won't see or talk to over the next few days, Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

Links - Do Caring-Apple Penguins have C.L.U.E.?

• I am debating this one right now for my iMac. We got it last January. Still can't decide, but I am leaning to "no" at the moment.
  
• Interesting collection of linux software (Ubuntu oriented) for the designer/developer.
• This was all over the net the other day, but is still pretty amazing how much money you can save with such a small change (given you do it a zillion times a day)
• Jeff Atwood discusses why Anti-Virus software is flawed (and unknowingly makes a case for Virus-Fighting-Autobots)
• I wonder if you could use some of these to put extra PC terminals around the house (kids rooms, living room, etc). Either way, its a pretty cool design.
• Do you have a C.L.U.E.? I have heard about this before ... might look into it more before we start house shopping for real
• This recipe might not quite up to our standards, but probably still better than the stuff in the store
• Cool idea for trying to find a new apartment (assuming there data is up-to-date).
• You don't need to get straight A's?? What did I work my butt off senior year for then? .... in case you were wondering, you also don't have to study 3 hours outside of class for every hour in class .... if you don't go to class, 3*0=0 :-)
• I wish I had known about this in high school (and it was available). Maybe Jeff would have started working for them even sooner ;-)
  

Pencil Productivity

I thought this was a great comic (click on it for a larger view) which got me thinking ....

Every single client I have been at has some sort of cabinets or closets for office supplies that anyone can freely get when they need something. They have contained the usual things (e.g. pads of paper in various sizes, envelopes, pens, highlighters, staples, folders, etc...). In addition to these, every single one also contained mechanical pencil lead refills. Most in various sizes. And yet, NONE have had ANY mechanical pencils. To make matters worse, a number of times I have seen packs of "normal" pencils but never a pencil sharpener.

Is there some pencil fairy wandering who lives in the enchanted cube land, flying around each night after everyone goes home stealing pencils which he/she uses for food? Are there little people living in the walls who burn them for heat? Why are there never any pencils?

I don't need or want pencils very often, but with me posting the cryptogram puzzle the other day, I wanted one so that I could try a few things without having to scratch everything out. I had to go without. :-(

................

Honestly, this hasn't been my most productive week (if you couldn't guess from this post). Monday and Tuesday were spent working on/thinking about the SCEA exam. Thursday morning was taken up by part III of the exam and a lunch meeting. Today I find out that the client is hosting a large Holiday lunch for everyone (including contractors ... chicken marsala, salad, soda, cookies, side ...) and that employees have been given the afternoon off (assuming manager approval). Good thing I am ahead of schedule on my work :)

The Chaz Effect

Definition: a singularity in time and space where all matter that one can deem classified as food is erased from existence without warning

Notes: The occurrence has most often been sighted in or around the area of Dayton, Ohio in recent years ... although it has reeked havoc on local food supplies all over the world at various points in time. Historians believe the phenomena was first observed sometime in the mid 1980's.

Artist Rendering:

I'mmm Back!

I have finally finished the assignment portion of the SCEA exam and other than the short essay portion which I am taking Thursday morning, I am done!

Hurray!

I plan to post some of my thoughts about the exam and technical certifications in general on my other blog in the near future, but for now I am done. I don't plan on touching a computer tonight. That was a lot of work to do; partially b/c I wasn't prepared b/c I wasn't expecting to pass the first part, and partially b/c its an assignment with a lot of details that have to be worked out and verified (it easily took up 30-40 hours of brain time over the past couple weeks).

But for now I am done and can hopefully get to some other things I have been putting off such as several posts I want to do, Christmas shopping, finish The Hobit, etc.

I leave you, faithful readers who number in the high single digits (if you include myself), with a link to the Chicken Spedini recipe I used the other night to make a very yummy dinner for Em on her birthday.

Happy Birthday Em!

I would like to wish a
very Happy Birthday to my wife!

I hope she liked everything I got her :-p
(the preceding was in pink b/c its her favorite color)

Tonight I am cooking her Chicken Spidini ... if I don't screw it up, I will post the recipe.

On a much sadder note, I must inform everyone that our fish, Unagi (aka Ooogy, Ooog, and Ooogster) passed away this week. He hadn't eaten over the preceding week and had obviously been suffering from some type of medical problem for aprox. two weeks. Our best efforts couldn't help him, but the little guy hung on for much longer than we expected. He was a great little fish who loved to watch Em do the dishes and show off his fins to me when I came home from work. We will miss you Unagi!

............

I haven't posted many life/work updates recently b/c I have been very busy working on my SCEA exam which is due a week from today. I made some good progress last week, but the shear scope of the project and trying to figure out how to explain a piece of software's architecture with just a few UML diagrams is hard when you are being graded.

Other than that, not a whole lot has been going on. Last weekend was my company's Christmas party at our bosses house (he has a huge house) which was good. I just gave blood so my arm is still hurting a bit (gotta love the RedCross coming to your work every 2 months and doing a blood drive in your building). Last night I had to give two technical interviews for possible employees who would be coming out to my client. It was an interesting experience.

Links - Cream-of billion-dollar crazy-Japanese pork-products

By Me:

• Yummy Cream of Cauliflower Soup Recipe - 5 step soup for a cold day
• My thoughts have turned to professional worth and value in the work place lately.
• myAtoI function ... hurray for randomly remembering a use for logarithms.
  

By Others:

• This would have saved me from almost setting my room on fire. Note to self: wiring custom electronics to your computer's parallel port is best done with a well laid out plan, and an idea of what you are doing.
• Is it really Christmas, if there isn't snow on the ground, presents under the tree, and a few hundred pounds of pork products hidden in your garage?
• Those crazy Japanese are always working harder than us! All well, might as well give up and eat a twinky.
• I wish I new a guy like this in high school. Pretty impressive what he has accomplished and he is my age. $1,000,000,000. Thats a lot of moolah.
• Personal Finance rules on the back of business cards. If they are this easy, why can't more people understand them?
• 3g? Great, now I just need them to open the iPhone to all carriers and give me one for free. If only.
• I spend too much time at the computer all ready. I don't need my desktop staring back at me even when my monitor is off!
• Half a million copies sold in the first week and its a failure? Wii would like to take over the whole world? (I have heard its pretty darn good ... some day)
• This product should come in green. A tiny PC that can run off solar power is pretty sweet. Makes me want to buy one and mod it into a tree. I wonder what distro goes best with Oak. Probably Solaris w/ tons of Java apps ;-).
• Wooden plates to go with my wooden mugs! Hofbrauhaus has a great appetizer that comes on a large wooden plank. Makes everything taste better!
  

Links - Gaming Wii Safari Without-the-risk-of-losing Pluto

Semi-weekly misc links I found interesting

First, links to my own content... ;-)

• Agile Management? Lots of little bosses jumping around, never getting hit by your sword.
• My computer might have a cold, or a flu, or a W32.Welchia.

And those by others...

• I wonder what we could have accomplished in the time we spent playing DDR, IceWind Dale, DAOC, etc ... Probably dancing wizards who love to boss people around.
• My mom did this, bless her heart. It is nice to be able to turn off the Wii without walking over to it, but thats kinda lazy, and against the whole idea of a console that gets you up and moving isn't it? A better label would have been nice.
• I forgot to try this at home last night, but if it actually works, its fairly funny.
• Static? That is soooo 1990's. I have thought about this before and its funny how many sites "could" be made static given some good tools to update/regen them and a public that was less needy of having all information all the time. While I didn't end up using it, I always thought JAlbum's approach seemed smart for most users.
• No Risk? Sounds too good to be true. But something to look into at least.
• I love this T-Shirt! It might even be better than my NFJS and ACM shirts :-p
  

New Cell Phone Numbers (phones coming)

As of today, Em and I have new cell phone numbers. I will try and send out emails/calls to everyone with the new number, but in case I don't and you read this, let me know.

Its annoying how hard it is to maintain correct addresses, email, phone, etc for people over the years.

Anyway, we got new numbers today in preparation for new phones later in the week. My client has contracts with all of the major carriers for discounts which they graciously extend to contractors. We were planning on switching from Verizon Wireless to ATT since thas what Em's family has, but Verizon had a rep assigned to my client so I didn't have to deal with the stores at all, and this way we didn't have to switch or pay new activation fees.

When it is all said and done we should still have our old plan (yay for not having to get a new more expensive one when we don't use all of our minutes now) minus a 17% discount, 2 new phones, a 25% discounted car charger and no extra fees. Not too shabby. :-)

Misc Links

Just a few links I recently found and thought others might enjoy...

• Secret to career happiness? So very true. Its amazing how far you can go in life on the confidence (or at least pretending to be confident, which is pretty much the same thing)
• Em loves to watch home buying/selling/fixing shows and its amazing how many people feel they need to spend a small fortune on a home .... and how entittled they feel to getting one the exact way they want. Last night the couple blew right through their "ceiling" and assumed they could make the payments .....
• Its Tetris, in your living room!
• Some very creative ways to save money. I had a large ceramic crayon.
  
• Could this be the perfect solution to my hanging pictures problems I previously wrote about?
• Is nothing constant? I remember reading long ago that during the New Madrid Earthquake back in 1812, the Mississippi actually changed directions in some areas and shifted its cours miles. Pretty crazy to think about.
  

Trusted Trio

Lifehacker consistently has interesting articles and life tips.

A while back I saw this article which caught my attention and am in the midst of trying to implement it in my life. I often have trouble staying in touch with people (be it via email or any other method). Its not that I don't care, or don't want to talk .... its a bigger problem. I procrastinate replying and within a short amount of time some combination of the following happens: I find that I have a large amount of things to say and never feel like I have adaquate time to say them and/or enough time passes that I am unsure on how to respond. Its completely of my own doing and I am trying to deal with it.

To help me, I am going to try and follow LH's method of dealing with email (and used in other areas) by separeating all of my incoming communication into three bins (archive, hold, and followup) and returning all emails that just require a quick response as soon as I read them. No excuses.

You can read more about their suggestions (especially about keeping your to-do list out of your inbox) here ... but be warned. If I start sending you way more emails than I used to, its b/c of this. :-)

Sooo Full

Tons of time with the family +
Thanksgiving +
second Thanksgiving +
leftovers +
lunch at the new Original Pancake house in town +
Em's grandparent's anniversary dinner =
lots of food.

Granted, there are worse things in life than having too much food ;-)

I was able to cross a number of my to-do list items off this week: adding window insulation things, errands, Christmas and birthday shopping, looking at a few more houses, etc.

On my uncle's suggestion, I went to an local IBD user group meeting which was very interesting even if it was way over my head. Its funny .... go sit in a room of people who track the stock market everyday, probable work(ed) in a field related to it, are heavily invested themselves and you find that despite all of there ideas, they still have no idea what the next big thing will be or can keep from losing some money. Granted, they seem to do much better than the average Joe, but not as much as you might think. Its also crazy to think about how despite how much faster a computer can track and analyze pieces of information, they still can't outdo there human counterparts by much when it comes to picking stocks.

Other than doing family stuff and errands I found out some very interesting news. You may remember that a while back I took the SCEA exam offered by Sun b/c they were beta testing a new test and it was free. I knew at the time that I would fail b/c I hadn't studdied and while the material was not very tricky, it involved knowing how and where all of the Sun sanctioned Java technologies fit together. Well, as it turns out, I passed! Yeah, I couldn't believe it either. To make a long story short (which will hopefully be the prompt for a longer discussion of technical certifications on my other blog) I now have the privelage of trying to pass the second and third parts of the certification. Without going into too much detail, the second part is a architecture assignment while the third is an essay regarding your design choices in part 2. Wish me luck! So far, I have even less hope for part deux. :-/

This week I have a ton of work to do while my boss is around trying to get things tied up before the holidays really hit and everyone is gone for weeks at a time. I am also waiting for a shipment from Amazon.com. I while back I asked for suggestions on how to use a $25 gift card I had received. Well, in the end I threw caution to the wind and purchased something on none of my lists. I ordered an immersion blender which I saw had been given high praises on America's Test Kitchen. Some of the other choices were more practical, but I love creamy soups and going back and forth between the pot and the blender is a pain. Not much other than that besides gearing up to watch more Mizzou football next weekend. Last night's game was great (I don't pretend to be anything more than a bandwagon jumper, but hey, its fun to watch teams with a hometown feel do well).

Happy Thanksgiving

My Content, Other Sites

I just posted a lengthy post on my tech blog here,
an evidently interesting thread post here,
and finally a new puzzle/question here.

Finally, I cleared out my del.ico.us account
and am starting fresh in case anyone cares

Park Photos

Harry in fall colors


Here's looking at you, kid!


This one was titled "Cubed Squared"


Babe, I got you some new pearls!


The biggest one there, some HUGE red things :-p


Really tall numbered guy (artists numbered each work)

Parties and Parks

This past weekend was packed full of stuff.

Friday night Em and I went out to dinner and the Funnybone w/ my cousin and his wife. We saw Tim Northern who was decent (although not great). The people in the audience were actually funnier than the comedian for some of the show. This reminded me of when Em and I saw Ian Bagg in Cinci with Sark (b/c we saw him at the Funnybone there, not b/c he was bad, he was Hillarious!). I wonder if he has any CDs ... not sure if they would be the same compared to seeing him live.

Saturday we ran errands, helped move some furniture, put our bikes into winter storage and spent some time enjoying the mild November weather at Laurmier Sculpture Park. Its a nice park here in town where they have large outside art exhibits and sculptures along with a couple short trails and a lot of green space. I will post pictures once they get uploaded to the computer.

Sunday my Mom and I put together a surprise birthday party for my dad. Yes, his birthday was last weekend but some scheduling problems resulted in it being this weekend (which made it all the more surprising!). Mom was able to get a fair number of his friends, family and coworkers to show up. We had it at a nearby bowling alley that had a separate lounge area you could reserve. Fun, food, and pie were had by all.

....

This week is a short one. I would normally get Thursday and Friday off from my company, but since my client also gets off Wednesday and our office is closed, its forced vacation time for your's truly. Not that paid time off is the worst thing in the world. :-) So the rest of today and tomorrow will be the extent of my week. I have a fairly large list of to-do items I want to check off this week so wish me luck with that. Also, I have to start my shopping for the upcoming holidays and Em's bday.

I will probably either post a ton or not at all over the next few days depending on what I end up doing. If you crave more to read, check out the puzzle blog myself and a few of my college roommates are contributing to. I will probably get rid of my "food blog" in the next few days and try to resurrect the never quite alive professional/tech blog I started. I am envious of how Kev can find the time/energy to post his thoughts in an interesting manor. I have a ton of ideas I would like to talk about but can never seem to actually write them up.

Misc things from the past few days

• This past weekend Em and I were invited to a coworker's son's 2nd birthday party. Besides being honored by the invite and the pleasure of getting to spend time in Toys-R-Us and Target's toy isles like a little kid (we got him a Sponge Bob ball set) .... it was a very interesting and fun experience. The coworker is on my team at Monsanto and he and his wife are from India. Getting to spend time with people from a culture completely foreign to you, but in a low stress and calm setting is nice (I will admit I was a bit nervous about the whole thing prior). We did all the normal American stuff (cake, baloons, etc), had some DELICIOUS homecooked Indian food, chatted about schools, kids and sports (having conversations about football and American football can get confusing). All in all it was a really cool time.
  
• We got my dad a "bike computer" for his birthday. Its pretty sweet. It gives you current speed, average speed, max speed, trip distance, total distance ..... all in a small thing about the the size of a watch. The best part about this model was that it had no parts to rub on the bike (other simple odometers rub against the wheel to determine speed/distance). This one comes with a small magnet you clip onto a wheel spoke and a sensor you clip onto your front fork. When the magnet goes by, the sensor detects it as a revolution and walla! no rubbing.
  
• This past weekend we went out looking at houses closer to the area we currently live in. Most of the developments are out of our price range, but there were a number of good ones around (a few with some very unique layouts/exteriors).
  
• Yesterday, somehow a recruiter got my work phone number and called me about a job in Nashville. I didn't recognize the company he said he worked for and was too surprised to think about asking him how he got my number. Very strange.
  
• Two different times this weekend, we came home at night to find 1 or 2 possoums sitting on a neighbor's front porch. Funny little guys didn't even move when we walked by. One night I snapped this shop without the neighbors or animals finding out. (Its been cropped and adjusted so that you can actually see the possom. I didn't want to get too close or point the flash right at the window of the guy downstairs...)

Customer Service

Its been a great 24 hours for customer service.

Last night we went out for dinner with my parents and some other parts of my family to a great restaurant here in town to celebrate my Dad's birthday and had an exceptional meal, time and service. The Piccolo Fritto had some type of pumpkin in it as one of the vegtables which was amazing. I had a bite of my dad's terrine which was pretty good, Em loved her goat cheese and beet salad. She had the gnocchi which melted in your mouth, and I had the amazing New Zealand rack of lamb. mmmm mmm good. Em had a great mini chocolate cake for desert and I had Affogato (espresso over ice cream). Soooo good.

Today I called USAA (hands down the best phone customer service of any company I have ever dealt with) and was able to close my old checking account, transfer funds, and find out some other info in just a couple minutes. Example of above average service ... the first guy who answered couldn't cancel my account and let me know I would have to talk to someone else. Instead of transfering me, or giving me some other number or whatever, he put me on hold for about 30 seconds, got someone else on the line who could do what I needed, explained the whole situation and then asked me if I had any other questions for him and let the girl take it form there.

Finally, I called Charter Communications (cable) to cancel our digital service. Currently we have digital + showtime (freebie for 3 months) for ~$50. We don't watch too much cable and would rather do other things than sit in front of the TV all night so I wanted to cancel. Well the lady I got wanted to try and keep me as a customer and offered me several deals. I wasn't trying to get a better deal, just cancel it after our current bill was up, but she was determined and very nice about it so I let her talk for a couple minutes. In the end I got december free via a credit and if I don't cancel I get the digital - showtime for $39.99 garaunteed for 12 months. Not bad for a 10 minute call.

Now its time to run errands. Tonight is a coworker's son's birthday party. Gotta go get a toy!

Happy Birthday Dad

Happy Bday. Mmmmm dinner at Atlas. That is all for now.

Wallach Family Apple Butter Extravaganza

This weekend was all about the Apple Butter.

My wife's family has a tradition of making this wonderful nectar of life each fall over the course of a hard work/good food/fun stories weekend.

I will recount the major events and steps below. Some of our pictures from this weekend can be found here.


Step 0: Coordinate many family members schedules, the procurement of the proper apple butter making tools (100+ year old copper kettle, cast iron stand, fire wood, apple peelers, mason jars, huge old wooden paddle for stiring ...), and the purchasing and storage of the perishables (3 bushels of apples, 10lb sugar/bushel, secret blend of spices ...)

Saturday:

Step 1: Gather at great-aunt's house to peel apples. 3 bushels of apples needed to be peeled, chopped, and cored. Luckily, two good apple peelers and two tired arms made short work of most of the work and two more people skilled with pearing knives finished it off. It didn't take nearly as long as I would have expected to go through the the boxes of apples (one box = one bushel)

Step 2: Em's mom was kind enough to take home the some of our mountains of apple peels to be boiled down to pull out the remaining juice an color from the peels. The result? A couple gallons of bright red apple juice which was added back to the process later.

Step 3: Prepare fire and rest of tools for tomorrow.



Sunday:



Step 4: Around 7am, a few members started the fire, got it going good, and put the huge and very old copper kettle on filled with the apples and enough water to make them start to float.

Step 5: Cook. Stir. Cook. Stir. Repeat - For the next 8 hours we joked around, told stories, ate some good food, and stirred the pot constantly. The pot needs to be stirred constantly so that the apple mixture doesn't burn or begin to stick to anything as the fire maintains a good rolling boil. It doesn't take long for the apple pieces to quickly break down and go from pieces of apple in water, to tiny specs of apple in apple juice, to apple sauce......

Step 6: After the apple mixture had lost several inches of water due to evaporation we added back the apple peel-juice and cooked it some more



Step 7: When the mixture had once again lost the water, we added in the 30 lbs of sugar and stired virgorously.

Step 8: 8 hours after we started cooking, the mixture was a beautiful redish-brown color and had reduced in size almost a good foot down the sides of the kettle. When spooned onto a dish, no ring of liquid could be found around the plop (meaning it was done and good and thick) and the apple butter was finished.

Step 9: After carying the kettle over to near the garage, we setup a packaging line which consisted of scooping the sweet nectar from the kettle, filling mason jars, putting on the lids and screwing them down as tight as possible ... all the while trying not to burn ourselves on the moltan apple butter.

Step 10: EAT. I love food. I love all kinds of food. But I have found few food in life that compared to fresh hot apple butter spooned onto a hot biscuit. Mmmm Mmmm Good.

This was my first experience with the making of the apple butter (I have had the joy of sampling this lovely food for several years, it makes a great chistmas gift) and it was a blast.



Now I just need to find some more biscuits ... :-D

Flaming Coyotes

Today I attended a fire safety class at Monsanto (partially b/c it was Friday and allowed me to spend time outside and partially b/c we had the kitchen fire the other day and I thought it might be interesting).

They gave a talk on fire safety and how to use fire extinguishers (and info on how we can order them at Monsanto's discounted rate ;-) ) and then we went outside for a live demonstration and examples.

As we were walking outside to an old parking lot on campus that is no longer used, one of the teachers joked that they had seen a coyote when they had arrived that morning. Well there it was still, in a small field between us and the parking lot, laying down. The thing was small/medium in size (think decent sized dog but very lean). When we got closer it got up and trotted off a bit watching us and eventually jogged away toward some wooded areas.

Now, I have seen foxes and such on several occasions (mostly up at our cabin) and have seen various wildlife in urban and semi-urban areas numerous times (seeing a deer with Josh in Oakwood and one walking around our apt. in Cinci come to mind) but I can't say I was expecting to see a decent sized predator in the middle of St. Louis. Even considering some of the nearby semi-wooded areas.

After that we got to put out a 3'x3' pan of gasoline fire. All in all it was an interesting morning. :)

Senior Consultant

As of today, I am officially a "Senior Consultant". :)

Which means doesn't really change much for the time being, but as of Jan 1st I should be getting a decent raise (TBD end of November...), I have some more responsibilities, and I am generally WAY COOLER!

I am also taking over the role of "Activities Coordinator" for the unit in a official capacity. First event, a November bowling outing :)

Its begining to look a lot like Hallo-ween

Boooooo



If you could't guess, last night Em and I carved our pumpkin. I think it turned out really good given its been many a year since I have carved one and it was a more classic design. The really great thing was how orange our pumpkin has gotten over the past week or so. When we got it (you can see in past post pictures) it was orange on one side and almost all green on the other. We didn't mind at the time, but sitting on our balcony it got orange everywhere. :)

** The poll has closed on the "What should I do with my $25 gift card" without a definitive winnner. Cast-iron skillet and B&D laser level were the leaders with 2 votes each, while the silicone bowl set, pasta machine, indiana jones dvds and batteries all had a single vote (stupid poll widget lets you let people either enter a single or multiple votes, but does its result percentages assuming you just vote for one, ie wrong).

I am currently leaning toward the batteries, indiana jones dvd, skillet or laser level. I would have just picked on by now but the other day I got an email from my work's 401K provider asking people to be part of a focus group for their website and the reimbursement for your hour's worth of time is another $25 gift card to Amazon.com! So I am going to wait and see if I get into it and find out what I can get for $50 or get my top two choices.

Nothing much going on other than that .... waiting to hear the official results from my promotion review board meeting, working, and anticipating this weekend when I finally get to join in on the Wallach Family Apple Butter Making Extravaganza!

$25 Amazon Gift Certificate

I have narrowed my list of possible uses for my $25 Amazon gift certificate to those found on my Amazon wish list (found here).

Anyone have any suggestions/thoughts on what I should get?

If your interested, I will try and setup a poll on the side bar so you can suggest what I should get. You will have to use the wish list link, however, to see the items.

[EDIT] The poll has been added. Stupid thing allows you to click a link and add more entries, but if you add any more than one, it only saves the first "new" one. It took me several tries to get them all to show up.

Also, a couple of them are much cheaper than $25 and are meant to pad any that are under $25 so that I can get free shipping and use the whole gift card.

"en fuego"

I would like to think I was "en fuego" in my Promotiono Review Board meeting this afternoon, but we will have to wait and see about that (official announcements coming in the next week or so, but I thought it went really well).

...

In a much less figurative sense and more of a "holy crap the apartment is going to burn down" kind of way .... last night Em and I had a minor kitchen fire. Everyone is ok, so don't worry. From the experience I have come up with two good life lessons:

1) If you are going to put something in the oven that could at some point melt or burn, your responsible for making sure it doesn't

2) If you turn on the oven, your responsible for anything is was already in it, put into it, or maybe put in it in the future so long as it is hot.


The night before last I put a plate (happened to be plastic) in the oven with several pieces of bread on it so that the bread would dry out by the next day so that I could make apple-bread-pudding last night. I then forgot about the bread (BROKE RULE #1).

Last night Em was making dinner and turned on the oven to preheat so that she could make bisquits and didn't think to check to see if anything was in there (BROKE RULE #2).

We were equally at fault with regard to the events that transpired .... several minutes into preheating Em noticed a horrible smell coming from the oven and opened it to find a small fire in the bottom of the oven (coming from the pool of now molten plate) and a cloud of fumes. She yelled for me and I ran in, grabbed our fire extinguisher (EVERYONE SHOULD HAVE ONE) and put it out. We turned off everything, turned on every fan/vent we could find and went out onto our deck to wait out the fumes and cloud of fire extinguisher dust. Fun.

The rest of the night involved cleaning up the fire extinguisher dust from everything, letting the apartment air out and trying to peel/scrape/pull/tear/etc the now hard again plastic from the oven. As you can see from the picture above ... it was quite the abstract art piece. The bread got slightly toasted and bonded along with the paper towel to the plate and the rack.

...

Other than battling fires and preparing for my review things have been pretty normal around here. Last weekend Em and I spent Friday helping her grandparents move and unpack things at their new place.


Saturday we went to an area farm to pick apples, but after I was laughed at by a worker for suggesting that apples were still in season, we ended up picking a great pumpkin instead and picked up several nice apples that were destined for the apple-bread-pudding but which will now be eaten by themselves.

On our way home we drove through Colinsville and saw the worlds larget Catsup bottle. It made me hungry for some fries! (Its a water tower made by the catsup company)


Sunday we went out to Bable state park and hiked a few miles on its trails which was fun and relaxing.

Hodgepodge

Main Entry: hodgepodge
Part of Speech: noun
Definition: mixture
Synonyms: collection, combination, goulash*, hash, jumble, medley, mess, miscellany, mishmash*, mixed
bag, mélange, patchwork, potpourri
>> Taken from Thesaurus.com

In continuing with my companies Employee Appreciation Week I have received the following things:

• Sogeti Frisbee
• Sogeti Mug
• Sogeti Keychain
• Sogeti Monitor-Picture-Frame-Thing
• Sogeti Badge Holder
• Lunch (x2)
• $25 Amazon Gift Card
• CEO talk/webcast w/ information on Sogeti's new employee incentive program starting next year and our YTD fiscals.
• Option to buy/sell PTO - Not going to, but its a nice option. Gotta keep my 21 days for vacations.

:-D All in all, not some bad swag over a few days. Especially the gift card (granted it can't buy you too much, but it buys exactly $25 more than a bag of rocks). The new incentive program is fairly complicated but boils down to a yearly point system where at the end of the year you are ranked against your peers of the same job level and the various top XX% get bonuses. The bonus amounts are pretty reasonable. My only problem would be that I should be promoted in the next few weeks which would mean I would be compared to others who have been in the higher position much longer. But all well, those are the breaks. I have scheduled my meeting with the Promotion Review Board for next week so wish me luck ;-).

One thing I forgot to mention about the NFJS conference from a few weekends ago was that I was lucky enough to win a brand new iPod Nano (new fat video kind). I was hoping for the iPhone but was very happy with the new Nano. It is truly amazing how far they have come in producing these things. My last one was a 2G or 3G 4GB iPod without color or anything and at the time it was amazing. My new on is half as thick (if not more), half the height, holds 4GB of music/video/photos on flash memory and has an exceptional color screen.

This morning I went over to a testing place a took the Sun Certified Enterprise Architect (SCEA) exam. No I didn't pass, nor did I expect to. A corworker found that Sun was beta testing the new exam for free so we signed up. It was interesting to take it without the preasure of passing and without studying. I was happy to find that the areas I hadn't work in I didn't know and the areas I had, I did. I have to wait ~6 weeks for the results but it was a worthwile hour and a half (they give you 4.5!).

On the food related front ... yesterday I had to get 2 fillings from the dentist. Em and I have been making the rounds at the doctors/dentists/optomitrists since we have moved. Getting the novacain from a huge needle wasn't pleasent but wasn't too bad. What was worse was how dry my mouth had to be during the procedure and the 5+ hours half my face was numb afterward.

Also, we were just sent emails about a charity Chili cookoff being held here at Monsanto in a few weeks. $3 for a bottomless bowl and free entry if you want to try and win the prizes. I may just have to make up a batch ;-)

Finally, a few of my college roomates (who also make up >60% of this blog's readers) and I have started up a new blog/website devoted to programming, logic, and math puzzles to keep our brains awake during work. Any and all are encouraged to participate. Check it out here.

When your blog ... (Finances)

... no longer shows up in your history ... you need to post. In an attempt to NOT have just one really long "month+ recap" post, I am going to do individual posts for various topics and whats been going on in my life. That way, no post seems too big to do and I will actually post them. Pictures to follow.

Finances

Em and I are trying to decide how best to use our new found income. Various plans/ideas we have been tossing around including paying off a good chunk of her student loans, socking the money away to go toward a house next spring/summer, investing it, or blowing it all on an amazing trip to either Alaska or Hawaii. ;-) Unfortunately, paying off debt and saving for the house are the most likely candidates.

The trip is a real idea, for next year or the following one at least. I have mentioned before that we starting initial planning of a trip to Glacier National Park and Yellowstone but we will probably put that on hold until the following summer so that we can focus on getting the house and won't have to worry about reservations, dates, cash, etc.

I am also begining work on trying to hammer out some more concrete numbers for a house budget. Our goal is to figure out our best guess at how much the house could cost us and to start working toward saving that extra money each month starting now. Its a lofty goal, I will admit, but it will make things so much easier when we don't have to change any of our spending habits later ... just cancel the automatic savings and write out a check instead.

Along with the budgeting, I am trying to consolidate some of our money into fewer accounts and make sure its not wasting away in low yield accounts when we dont' need it. I had put together a spreadsheet of online savings accounts & CD rates but that was about 2 weeks prior to the interest rate drop by The Fed and soon after everything changed. If/when I start shopping around again, I will post what I find.

Finally, over the past month or so I had a lovely run in with our Health Insurance provider and some rather imcompetent sales people. To try and make a very long story short, over a month ago Em had an eye exam performed and got a pair of new glasses. Over the ensuing weeks I had to battle with the eyecare people to get them to understand the coverage that our Health Insurance people quoted me every time I called, to charge us the rates that they told Em when she was there, to NOT charge us for stuff Em didn't ask for, to teach them how taxes worked, and to convince them that I was NOT going to pay for things they had already submitted claims for and had been paid for. It was a big hassel but after numerous phone calls and me sitting in front of the guy for 45 minutes telling him I wasn't leaving until it was resolved ..... it got straitened out. Stupid Clarkson Eyecare.

When your blog ... (Work)

... no longer shows up in your history ... you need to post. In an attempt to NOT have just one really long "month+ recap" post, I am going to do individual posts for various topics and whats been going on in my life. That way, no post seems too big to do and I will actually post them. Pictures to follow.

Work

[for info related to Em, see the end of the article]

Yesterday Em and I went to a Sogeti picnic up in St. Peters. I was a little worried about it since I wasn't sure how many people would be showing up and how many of those I would know, but it turned out to be a great time. Some of the highlights included trying to setup a large airfilled-bouncing-tent thing for the kids despite none of us knowing how, the persistant posistive urging to play volleyball, the great weather and the food!. It turns out that one of our consultants competes in Barebeque contests and has his own large smoker trailer ... and he made all of the meat. It was SO good. Beef brisket, pulled pork, chicken, bratwurst, baked beans, potato salad ... I was full for hours.

To go along with our picnice, this week is Sogeti's Employee Appreciation Week. I stil haven't figure out what exactly that means but we have several national phone calls and the promise of fun and excitement ;-)

Some interesting stuff has been going on with work (Sogeti and my client). Over the past few weeks I helped out with our office's first try at the wonderful world of college career fairs at SLU. It was a lot of fun, just like the ones at UD, even if the computer related programs there are pretty small. I wasn't able to make it to one in Rolla the next week but our recruiter said it was very good.

Also, a few weekend ago I was lucky enough to attend the No Fluff Just Stuff conference here in town. Basically its a small traveling conference devoted to Java and Open Source technologies with an emphasis on being drivin by pasionate individuals and not corporate sponsors. I was able to go last year on Sark's dime and with a little encouragement to Sogeti, got to spend F/Sat/Sun listening to guys from around the country talk about what they love. Without delving into too much detail, I saw some great talks on Java Memory managment, the Eclipse Rick Client Platform, Java Security frameworks and contributing to Open Source projects. Yeah I am a huge nerd and gave up 24+ hours of my life spread over a weekend to my nerdly-persuits. But it was worth it. :-)

Helping out with the fair and going to NFJS couldn't have come at a better time b/c our annual reviews are starting now. I had to turn in my review paperwork last week and have to fill out some promotion paperwork this week. A big change from what Sark did, Sogeti has a Promotion Review Board which anyone who is seeking a promotion must go before and "state their case". Its not as big of a deal as it sounds but it is definetely different than what I was planning on.

A couple things have also been going on at my client. Not long after my last posts I was finally able to move into a real cube here at work (being my first in 2.5 years of consulting). I am proud to say I have 3.5 walls now and if I turn my chair around I can see a window. :-D The other day I had my second installment of TDD/TFD classes which was a whole day of hands on examples in TDD. It was interesting (even more so in seeing some of the other developers work with IntelliJ and use shortcuts I didn't even know existed) but a bit long given how much I took away from it. Hopefully soon they will start using it on my app or I will be reassigned.

Finally, but far from least, Em started out at her new job this past week and its going well. Each night over the dinner table I try to unravvle a little bit more of the mystery that is School Counseling. So far I have been able to find out that 3 things: 1) It really takes someone who cares about kids to do, 2) There is NO WAY I could ever do what she does and 3) the fact that I work with software problems every day makes it hard to relate to your everyday office problems. I have a TON of respect for Em in making it this far and for still wanting to try and make a difference. Also, a big second paycheck is going to be great for our personal finances... ;-)

When your blog ... (Play)

... no longer shows up in your history ... you need to post. In an attempt to NOT have just one really long "month+ recap" post, I am going to do individual posts for various topics and whats been going on in my life. That way, no post seems too big to do and I will actually post them. Pictures to follow.

Play

Wii. Yep, we got a Wii.

Em and I had been discussing/planning on getting one for some time now and a while back on the weekend of my cousin's wedding we noted that if we had one then, we could have had a great time playing it with some of our in-town family. Well, that finally pushed us over the edge and after a few calls I was able to determine that Best Buy "should" be getting a shipment of them the following day (Sunday).

The next morning I was at our local Best Buy about 15 minutes prior to it opening and saw a small line had already formed outside. I debated if I wanted to actually be that guy and if I really thought they were all waiting for Wiis. Well they were and I was. Luckily the store was getting a shipment of ~15 and I was around the 10 person there intending to pick one up. 30 minutes of waiting later, I was the proud owner of a brand new Nintendo Wii and Wii Play pack (console comes with one controller but I knew we needed two. A "Wii-mote" costs ~$40 but for $50 you can get a controller plus several small games).

So far, I am really happy we made the purchase. I will admit that the day after we got it I was sore in a few places but it is a blast to play. The games that came with the console (Wii Sports: golf, baseball, tennis, bowling, and boxing) are very simple but easy to pickup and fun to play with other people. The small mini-games that came with Wii Play are decent and well worth the 10 bucks extra.

It really is amazing how sensitive the controllers can be. Just the fact that I can hold the controller like a baseball bat and have it pickup the exact orientation I have it at and time my swing is crazy. Its not 100% perfect, but I don't care. I can't wait until they come out with some more sports games that have had a decent amount of testing time put into them. I have borrowed the Harry Potter game and Zelda from Josh (thanks again) but have really busy the past week or so and haven't gotten very far into them but they are pretty cool.

Other than playing Wii, Em and I went hiking a few weekends ago at a local state park along the Maremec river which was pretty cool. The views from on top of the bluffs were great. Next weekend we are planning on setting aside some serious biking/hiking/Frisbee/pumpkin carving time which should be fun.

Just yesterday we were throwing the Frisbee around at a picnic for ....

When your blog ... (Family & Friends)

... no longer shows up in your history ... you need to post. In an attempt to NOT have just one really long "month+ recap" post, I am going to do individual posts for various topics and whats been going on in my life. That way, no post seems too big to do and I will actually post them. Pictures to follow.

Family & Friends

It seems like a ton of family and friends related stuff has been going on ever since we moved back to St. Louis. Granted, much of it is probably just b/c we are closer to our family and therefore are involved more .... but it has still been a lot.

Em and I have gone to a total of 3 weddings. We both attended my cousin's wedding here in town which was a great smaller wedding in a cool little church. The groom's mother is a semi-professional singer which meant some amazing singing during the ceremony. More recently, I flew to Cleveland for my college roomate's wedding which was a blast. Its always great to get back together with the guys, sing some old songs, have a few drinks, reminisce about old times and end up covering the groom's car in 900+ feet of streamers and ~40 balloons. The only thing that could have made it better would have been if Em could have gone with me. She had a wedding of her own here in town for a sorority sister of hers. From all accounts it was also a great time and she was very happy to be able to see all of her college friends.

Along with the weddings, there have been several family birthdays including the 0-th birthdays of my latest two second cousins. They were born a while back and although still very tiny, are doing well.

Other than that, lots of misc family functions and get togethers. Em's grandparents are moving so a lot of time has been spent helping to plan the move and make sure there new place is setup correctly (note: running a new water line for a 'fridge's ice maker is pretty easy assuming you have the right size drill bits, the drill bit extender fits through the hole, and you can accurately measure distances on multiple levels of a house).

Finally, a fair amount of time has been spent with my family playing our brand new ....

Ouch! My arm hurts!

Actually, its fine. But I did give blood today. :)

Em donates with some frequency and usually tried to guilt-trip me when she gets home each time. This time, the American Red Cross was taking donations on our campus (in the basement of my building in fact) ... so I had no excuse not to go. I was happy to see they had a steady stream of people coming through, and they said it had been that way since they started with no signs of them slowing down. I still don't like the sight or the feeling of the needle going into my arm but everything was pretty painless and I was in and out in a jiffy.

Hurray For Em!

Proudly, I would like to let everyone know that Em received a really good job offer yesterday for a school counselor position at a great high school here in town!

It has been a long road for her to get this (crazy schools start posting jobs in February but don't have HR departments who will contact people when the position has been filled) but she was finally given a chance to show her stuff in a couple interviews the other week and nailed it. :-) A current counselor at the school is going on maternity leave in October so Em will be filling in for her for the remainder of the '07-'08 school year and thus will have first dibs on interviewing for positions for the following year. The job should be some great experience for her, and will let her really help some kids.

Congradulations Babe!

Labor Day Weekend Wrapup

Happy Belated Labor Day (and congrats to all of us American who are working too hard ;-) )

Em and I had a rather lazy Labor Day weekend which I think was perfect. Between actually getting to sleep in, getting cable near the end of last week (finally) in our new apartment, 2 different BBQs with Em's family, Tempura night with at our apartment with my parents and watching Em beat my dad at XBox .... it was a good weekend.

** Tempura night went better than I was expecting (I feared large amounts of grease everywhere and a few days of food smell, but niether happened luckily). The second grocery store I went to had tempura batter which made making a TON of food a piece of cake. Between the peppers, broccoli, cauiflower and sweet potatos, we had plenty of food. I also tried out a recipe for PopCorn Chickpeas. Flavor was good and a fast and easy snack ... but they didn't turn out crispy like they should have. My guess was that I needed to have the oil hotter before I put them in. Definetly going to try these again. **

Today I was supposed to have an allday follow-up class on TDD/TFD (Monsanto offers an internal certification which this class is a step toward: 3 day class, 1 day class, X number of hours of using the technique with mentor review...), but the instructor was sick so it was back to my normal work.

I have some more house-hunting info to post and I want to get a post or 2 about personal finance topics up soon, but I haven't finished any of the posts yet. Thanks Kooz for the tip about the county websites (assesments and tax info). STL county has a real nice website and a ton of information on it.

This weeks goals are to actually secure a safety deposit box, finish up scanning our important documents, and get them to the bank. Also, hopefully I will be able to catch up on my scanning/shredding of bank statements/bills so that they are in the computer and not in our filing cabinette.

Completed Projects!! #1 - "Book" Book Shelf

Thats right folks. Step right up and see the 8th wonder of the world! An amazing feat that may never be seen again in the history of the humn race!!!

A completed project!

[someone go make sure Josh is still breathing]

I have been wanting to do this project ever since I saw the instructable for it a long time ago. I believe I may have posted about it in the past (but am too lazy to search for it), but here is a brief description again: Basically, the project was to create a self supporting bookshelf from an existing book in such a way that the supports can not be easily seen from a normal viewing angle, thus making it look like the books were stuck to the wall without any support.

This past weekend, while taking some books back to the library I glanced through the old books they had for sale and noticed two that were a decent size, had good hardback covers under their plastic coatings, and one had a perfect title ;-). For $0.5 a pop, who could resist? So I picked up two that were the same size (my first attempt would be on the other one, just in case).

The process for building the shelf went like follows:

1. Measured everything about the book (outside and inside dimensions)
2. Went to the hardware store and found some suitables "L" brackets that I thought would work for ~ $1.50. I decided on a couple that were about 3" long and two screw holes per side. Smaller ones would have nice since they would have been hard to see, but larger ones would make it stronger and easier to use both screw holes. I decided to use two b/c I wasn't sure how sturdy they would be or exactly how heavy the books would be.
3. Decided how far through the book I wanted to mount the brackets (lower on the book meant that more of the book was supported by the bracket, but also meant I could only get a screw into one of the holes. I compramised and positioned the bracket in the upper half.
4. Outlined the brackets on the top of the page where I wanted the top of the bracket, and using a razor blade, cut out rectangles from the pages going down until the brackets could sit flush with the desired page.
5. Next I had to notch out the pages that would be above the bracket (so that it could sit flush with the wall) and the top cover slightly.
6. I had some small nuts and bolts laying around so I drilled out two small holes through the middle pages of the book and thread these through so that the inside part of the bracket would really be mounted to the pages instead of just glued.
7. I made up a mixture of elmer's glue and a bit of water (to thin it out) and painted this on every page so that they were glued together, with the brackets mounted in their correct posistions.
8. I let this dry overnight with a large stack of books on top to make sure that the pages were glued together and that any extra glue squeezed out.
9. The next day I found some pages I had missed so I used some clear tacky glue on the outside edges to fix these. This also helped to make sure that the sides were clean and smooth.
10. When that was all dry, I mounted them to the wall with 4 x 1.5" screws and I was done!

Yes it was a decent amount of work given the size and utility of the shelf, but I think it turned out great! Here are a few more photos of the finished product (the rest can be found here). Sorry I don't have any during construction (Em had the camera with her that weekend).

Some words of caution and things I will change for next time from the build:

• Given the weight and size of the books I have put up right now, I probably could have gotten away with just one bracket. The size ended up good; bigger and you might have be able to see it. If you took the time to find a stud to mount it to or used special dry-wall mounting brackets it would have also worked with a single bracket. As it stand, I can put a fair bit of weight on it without any worries.


• Cutting the parts out of the pages was time consuming but easy. I put a piece of cardboard under the pages where I wanted to stop, and it was pretty easy to cut through them. Drilling through the pages for the bolts was way faster than cutting, but MAKE SURE that you have everything lined up and measure properly before you do. Also MAKE SURE you have the pages lying flat like they are when the book is closed when you drill. I did it by myself so neither of these things happened exactly right and the holes were a bit on angle. Everything ended up ok, but it took a lot of forcing to have the book lay flat when closed.


• Glueing all the pages took a long time and was a pain. Thinning out the glue helped a ton when used with a small paint brush. The problem was that when you painted a page and flipped down the next one (while holding up the dry ones) the new page doesn't land flat like it should when the book is closed. Its pulled back a bit. Well, this is fine until you go and try to close the book and the pages can't slide anymore b/c of the glue. Luckily I was able to fix this. I don't know of a better way, but if anyone can think of one, let me know.


• Adding the bolts took some time, but really made the whole thing much more secure.


• Mounting the brackets lower inside the book would have made the page gluing process much easier since they the pages would have been suppored by the brackets instead of hanging below the brackets stuck together only by glue.

Overall, I was very pleased with how it came out and will try and do the other one soon. The jury may still be out on how asthetically pleasing they are or how well they go with the other stuff in the office, but I am please and Emily doesn't hate me :) Love you babe.

One thing somone mentioned I believe in the comments to the instructables page was that someone could add strong magnets to the inside of the book and mount another book (also with added magnets) underneeth the one mounted to the wall. That way, if someone came by and tried to remove the bottom one to see how they were mounted, the bottom one would slide away like magic with the others still hanging there. Funny idea, but too much for me ;)