Mikey

Live Mesh preview

Wed, 07 May 2008 18:22:11 GMT

I finally got my invite for Live Mesh today. I've been pretty excited to try it out, especially now that I have a laptop and a desktop I'd like to keep in sync. Unfortunately, after trying to run the installer, I was greeted with this message:

"Product does not support running under an elevated administrator account or with UAC disabled."

Why!? UAC is SO annoying when working on a development machine. So my choices are to constantly by annoyed by Vista or not use Mesh. So stupid!

This is the first issue post-SP1 that has made me regret going Vista over XP. Hopefully a future release allows non-UAC usage. Turns out there is a valid technical reason and it's fixed with Vista SP1. Hopefully the next Live Mesh release will take advantage of it. Just frustrating.

So busy!

Fri, 25 Apr 2008 02:30:28 GMT

My first week of self-employment has been too busy. Unfortunately, too much of that time has been personal errands. I've got about 25 hours to make up so far and am still burning the midnight oil for another gig. Tomorrow I'll be spending a good chunk of the afternoon at a nerd conference which may end up putting me further behind. I'm trying to stop thinking of everything in terms of "how much money could i have made working instead of doing this?" (where "this" could be anything from "dr appt" to "taking a nap"), but it's hard to turn that off sometimes.

Today I got a gum graft done to try and stop my implant from failing. My mouth's still achy and I'm cranky that I can't eat the foods I want until the gum heals up. But on the plus side, the implant's not sticking out up front anymore.

Resigned

Tue, 01 Apr 2008 23:01:27 GMT

Today was an emotional rollercoaster of a day. I gave my notice at work and will soon be dangerously self-employed, doing consulting work for some friends I used to work with. So tired. So happy and excited about what's ahead.

Goodbye, Ole Clanky!

Fri, 21 Mar 2008 16:00:57 GMT

Lowes got our new fridge in early and I just happened to have the day off of work, so they delivered it today. Hooray! No more clanking compressor driving me crazy at night. The delivery people were awesome and got everything set up in about 10 minutes. As one of them was demonstrating all of the features to me, she tried the in-door water dispenser and it didn't work at all. They futzed around with the shut-off valves under the sink for awhile before telling me I'd have to call a plumber. I swore to them the line was working before and showed them the ice that the previous fridge spit out literally as they were unloading the truck. They were stumped.

After heading back apologetically to their truck to leave, I tried it out and the ice maker and the water dispenser were completely dead. Then I noticed the "lock out" button was set to "lock". After turning the lock off, water started gushing out. I facepalmed and brought a cup of water out to the truck where they were finishing up paperwork. After telling the delivery person about the lock out button, she facepalmed as well. So hooray new, working fridge!

Monthly rewind

Thu, 06 Mar 2008 04:21:16 GMT

I've been with Tammy 12 years today. That's longer than any of her students have been alive. Another couple of years and the time I've spent with her in my life will outweigh the time I haven't. That boggles my mind. The only people I know (that I still keep in some semblance of contact with) who have been together longer are georgy and Rick. Tam and I often remark on how relatively drama-free our lives are. Hopefully that's a good thing, hopefully it keeps making us happy and content, and hopefully it continues.

We went down to SoFla last weekend to bring my nephew to the RenFest. He ended up going to a last-minute birthday party instead, but we got to hang with my fam for dinner. Tam, Dan, Sean, and I all still hit RenFest. The magic it once held for me is mostly gone and I can't really put a finger on why. I'm sure it's not much different than it was way-back-when, but somehow the whole tourist-trap aspect of it is so much more obvious and grating to me now. It was cool just hanging out with the TamFam for the majority of the weekend.

We finally got upgraded to TFS 2008 at work this week. I created a separate work blog so I don't keep spewing more Microsoft fanboy posts at everyone here.

Met up with jobu138 and zeekster for our semi-annual Wing night tonight. We've decided to do a Rock Band Block Party at some point in the very near future. I need to dust off the drums and get practicing again. Also, 6 master DLC Grateful Dead songs for Rock Band released last night? Well played, sir!

I started listening to the Harry Potter audiobooks back in December. I enjoyed the first 4 immensely, was bored with the 5th until the very end where it squeaked out a somewhat jarring adequate, and am (so far) much happier with the 6th. Rowling doesn't mind playing rough with her characters, which is refreshing.

IT'S OVER!

Foot-in-mouth disease

Sat, 01 Mar 2008 12:38:20 GMT

Dan, you're asleep in your room right now, so I'm leaving you this letter. Sorry for secretly blaming your Airport base station and Apple in general for our networking woes whenever Tammy and I visit. Hours of slow, painful, fruitless googling over my cellular connection finally led me to an article. While the content of the article itself was useless, it did contain this image:

And that's when I realized that the letters in your network key were all capitalized.

Charmed

Tue, 05 Feb 2008 13:41:20 GMT

With Australia's wacky timezones, I think it's safe to assume it's Thursday (maybe even Friday) there by now, so Happy (possibly belated) Birthday, Martin! May this year be as full of 6.5 sigma significance as your last.

Doughty

Sat, 02 Feb 2008 13:33:35 GMT

Tammy and I hit downtown to see Mike Doughty at The Social last night. We decided to try out Urban Flats for dinner, which ended up being so, so yummy. With half an hour to kill before the doors even opened at The Social, we decided to pop into a tattoo parlor so I could finally get my star touched up. When I got it a year ago, it healed horribly, with prominent white streaks all throughout the black portions, radiating out of the center. After what couldn't have been more than 10 minutes of touch up, my wrist was back to beautiful.

Finally, we headed into the Social and stood in the same spot for four hours. Doughty put on an amazing performance. He played a handful of older songs from the Soul Coughing days and a LOT of his solo stuff, including what seemed like most of Haughty Melodic. The show was so much fun and the atmosphere was very laid back. It was like Mike was just some guy several hundred people were friends with (most of them MUCH better friends than me, it seemed too) and he decided to jam at your block party. He was obviously enjoying himself and having a good time bantering with the crowd.

So leg&back achy from standing in one spot for 4 hours. SO OLD.

Hooray!

Wed, 30 Jan 2008 16:36:25 GMT

So excited to finally get to see one of my favorite movies on the big screen! The Big Lebowski is playing at The Enzian as part of their "cult movie nights" series.

Shine, unsingable name

Fri, 18 Jan 2008 01:58:53 GMT

Just bought tickets to see Mike Doughty in two weeks. I was surprised when I saw Orlando listed in the tour dates, we usually get passed over by the smaller acts. I'm not complaining, though. I'm tapping my feet, as a matter of fact. :)

How not to take advantage of a bargain

Mon, 07 Jan 2008 23:27:10 GMT

After trading in most of our games for Rock Band (my first real trade-in experience), I realized that keeping the games I'll never play again was dumb. I recently posted a few games for sale on Craigslist for fairly cheap compared to Gamestop. I got another nibble on Halo 3 and Assassin's Creed today...

-------------
FL to Mikey Cooper
> Number to call u

Mikey Cooper to FL
> Feel free to email me any questions you have. They're both still available, $40/ea, no scratches.

Thanks!
Mikey

FL to Mikey Cooper
> If I wasn't interested I wouldn't have asked for your number that's common sense right?
-------------

Kids today. So rude!

Thanks, Santa

Mon, 31 Dec 2007 04:00:49 GMT

The holidays were good to me, we went down to SoFla to see both the TamFam and MyFam. Got tons and tons of swag for X-day. The most practical gift was a lot of clothes and a $100 gift card to Kohl's. Tammy helped me raid the clearance section yesterday and I came away with an entire wardrobe worth of new clothes. I've never bothered buying more than enough shirts to make it through the work week. I now easily have 2, possibly even 3 weeks worth of clothes that are all work-acceptable.

Also came away with a cornucopia of gift cards, more ram for my laptop which will make XP more enjoyable once I finally give up on Vista, a variety of one-a-day desk calendars, a programmable thermostat, The Orange Box and Scene It for the 360, Colbert's new book, and more.

Caught up on a few movies as well. The first two thirds of I Am Legend were phenomenal but after that it fell apart. The entire essence of the story was different than the novel as well. Disappointing. Going to give the audio book another listen next week since I was too young to appreciate the novel when I read it as a wee tot.

Tried watching Transformers, couldn't get past how hokey and campy it was. Gave up around the "Sam's Happy Time" masturbation chat. Another notch on the headboard of disappointing childhood franchises.

Fared much better with 12 Angry Men. I'm not much for classics, but the simplicity of this movie and the compelling story were fantastic. Henry Fonda +1.

Thu, 20 Dec 2007 11:46:09 GMT

Today marks the end of my week-long experiment with public transit, and probably an end to constant, inane blog posts. Even the annoying things about the bus are offset by how much less stressed I am by my commute and the daily, bizarre stories I have to share with friends. I'm definitely doing it for another month and will strongly consider getting rid of my car if I'm still up for it at the end. Since I'm saving at least $200 over the course of my week+month of bus rides, I figured why not blow it all on a new laptop backpack and a second laptop AC adapter I can keep at work. Fiscal responsibility is silly.

More of the same

Tue, 18 Dec 2007 23:44:44 GMT

Day 6 of not driving. Commute to work was uninteresting and productive, finished up and mailed out my SQL Server High Availability Options document to our VP. The bus home was 30 minutes late picking me up and thus very crowded. I inadvertently sat down near my first Mass Transit Proselytizer, who asked me if I went to church, had accepted Christ as my savior, etc. When this continued in spite of my assurances to him that I didn't feel like discussing religion, I moved seats and broke out the laptop to get some more work done. I don't know what it is about gorgeous women and wireless internet connectivity, but the streak continued today with one asking me details about how much it cost, if I could get internet everywhere, etc. The bus broke down briefly, but the driver got it started back up and limped us into the terminal.

While walking through my neighborhood, a woman beckoned to me for help and explained how her daughter had thrown her keys way up into the branches of a tall palmetto tree by mistake. Hopefully she found someone with a 40-foot tall ladder, because shaking the tree did nothing more than give me bunches of splinters.

Best. Commute. Ever.

Mon, 17 Dec 2007 23:27:23 GMT

Today kicked ass! It was a frigid (for Florida, at least) 40F when I left for the bus this morning. The cold walk really got me awake and happy, for whatever reason. I got to watch 4 people struggle mightily for a few minutes trying to get one of the fold-down seats to fold down. The guy wanting to sit eventually gave up and stood. 30 seconds later, a woman got on the bus, pulled on a lever and had the seat down in about 3 seconds. Everyone struggling gave a collective, figurative facepalm.

Then on another bus, I was literally sitting in the middle of the BEST FIGHT EVER. The girl was berating him about showing up for work so late and telling him he was lucky to still have his job. She felt like he made her look like a fool for recommending him. She kept yelling at him to stop touching her. They were THROUGH. He was getting NOTHING tonight, or ever again. I just sat, cornered between them, pretending to listen to my mp3 player and transcribing the entire fight to a friend on IM. The boyfriend eventually moved up to the front of the bus and proceeded to call her on her cell phone from the front of the bus before getting off at his stop. She had the most OBNOXIOUS ringer. She just kept answering the phone and hanging up on him. Eventually she got off the bus and a black man sitting near us remarked to his girl "White women are crazy." I apologized on behalf of my race as I walked toward the exit at my stop.

I decided to buy a 30-day pass today. The experiment is already a wild success.

It got better...

Fri, 14 Dec 2007 22:14:32 GMT

The new morning route worked great today. Got a nice half mile walk in, got to work by 9am, the bus was a little bit fuller than I'm used to, but eh.

The ride home has been a bit more of an adventure. The first bus arrived 20 minutes late, the bus driver was clueless (new driver maybe?) and everyone on the bus was yelling at him. He kept missing turns, not stopping when people pulled the stop cord, etc. I had a few brief eyeroll bonding moments with some of the other passengers.

Now on the Curry Ford bus and the laptop seems to be a conversation starter on any ride I use it on. The talker this time was a guy who decided to sell everything he owned in Miami and move to Thailand. He spent a few years there, met his girlfriend, and decided to move back to the states, settling in Orlando. He was telling me about the guitar he sold, how he had a band down in Miami that he's gotten back in touch with and is starting to learn ProTools to produce his own music.

I need to work on the whole "small talk" thing. I think my minimal responses are being taken as "stop bugging me".

The first day

Fri, 14 Dec 2007 01:22:46 GMT

The trip home was uneventful. Caught a 3:20pm bus right outside my office and was home by 5pm. Time flies when you're not driving. Read a bunch of clustering white papers on the way to make it feel more worky. A nice hour and a half, just like I planned.

The morning route is a bit trickier. The route I planned out to coincide with Tammy's commute didn't work. Leaving with her at 7:30am, I ended up missing the earlier bus I wanted and have to wait around an extra half an hour. Getting into work at 10am won't fly with management for long, I'm sure. I think I found another route that will have me leaving the house at 7am to walk to a stop half a mile away and will get me to work by 9am. So half an hour off the total commute time and I get a little exercise. I should probably bring deodorant tomorrow. How do people wait for the bus come summertime?

Overall, very do-able so far. Still worth saving $160/mo so far. If I decide to do this for good and can figure out how to get my car stolen/totaled, I'd save $440/mo with no car payment or insurance.

Things I still haven't figured out... How to be able to hang with friends who live WAY on the other side of town, nowhere near a bus line. How to easily do happy hour after work.

Longwait

Thu, 13 Dec 2007 16:03:32 GMT

I officially sucked at mass transit my first day to work. A misunderstanding of how the buses run their routes here meant the bus I thought was 5 minutes late was actually the next bus and I had to sit around in it for an extra half an hour. After that, it was smooth sailing. On the second leg, a cute Kenyan woman in a sharp suit chatted me up about my ability to get to "the google" on the bus, before telling me about her family immigrating here when she was very young. Other than that, it was a quiet trip and the bus was only about half full. My laptop battery just barely lasted the whole trip and I got lots of good research done on SQL clustering, which our VP is really gung-ho about.

Other than the morning mix-up, a success so far.

Lynxin

Thu, 13 Dec 2007 00:31:13 GMT

Tomorrow will be the start of a week-long experiment that will either end in spectacular triumph or go down in flames. Or something in between...

I hate how much money I waste on gas and tolls (and my car in general) just to get to work and back every day. I figure with my 15 miles each way, 3 miles to the nearby restaurant alley for lunch, and the 408 tolls, I spend about $200/mo in gas and tolls just on commuting to and from work. I'm spending a car payment a month to sit in grid-lock traffic for 40 minutes in the afternoon.

I've decided to try taking the bus to work instead. Sure... with the 25 minute layover at the central terminal, it'll take me an hour and a half each way, but it's time I don't have to be frustrated driving. I'm also planning on bringing my laptop so I can just VPN into work and get some hours in on the way to and fro. This'll hopefully justify to my bosses my leaving at 3:30 in the afternoon to make it home at a reasonable hour.

My trial-sized 7-day bus pass cost $12. If I decide to do this on a regular basis, a month-long pass is about $40. So I figure I could save around $150/mo. I've become so cheap lately.

Maybe I'll load up a season or two of The Office on the laptop in case I get bored. :)

Tue, 20 Nov 2007 21:43:43 GMT

So Rock Band! Wow! I'm a little disappointed in the character builder. I wanted to make a fat, balding, middle-aged dood to match my Mii, but the "weight" slider only made him buffer. For some reason, "weight" makes the female character fatter, so I'm a fat chick instead. Not impressed with the customization options you can buy in the store either.

The drums utterly and unequivocally kick ass and totally make up for the personalization flaws. I don't get quite how you're supposed to play the kick pedal without your leg falling off, because my calf is SORE and I only played through like 6 songs.

And Bon Jovi(!!!!!)

Toof

Mon, 19 Nov 2007 19:58:38 GMT

Meh, I need to get one of my older crowns redone and I've been trying to wait out the clock until 2008 for my new insurance to kick in and my flex account to be filled up so it's nothing out-of-pocket. The tooth hasn't really hurt much at all for the last few months, but today I started feeling a lot of weird, uncomfortable pressure back there. I'm really hoping it holds. :(

7 more weeks...

Rock Band

Mon, 19 Nov 2007 15:55:46 GMT

I hate Thanksgiving and Christmas weeks at work, they're dreadfully slow and boring with everyone being out on vacation.

Tammy picks up Rock Band tomorrow. After purging ourselves of the old Xbox, Gamecube, and tons of games, we ended up with something like $160 in trade-in to apply toward it. Then Wednesday, we pack it all up along with Halo 3 and the 360 and head down to Boca to visit Dan and Sean for Thanksgiving, where we won't actually play in a cheesy cover band, we'll SIMULATE playing in a cheesy cover band. Should be fun!

Stupid kids

Sun, 04 Nov 2007 05:58:56 GMT

I'm officially crotchety. I just called the police on a loud party for the first time ever.

Kvetch

Sun, 28 Oct 2007 22:57:11 GMT

Last night we saw Sarah Silverman at Hard Rock Live. It was a much nicer venue than the House of Blues. Sarah's set was disappointingly short though (about 40 minutes) and almost entirely devoid of new material. She complained about being warm and Tammy said she looked uncomfortable on stage, maybe she just wasn't feeling well or just had an off night. Doug Benson opened for her and had me laughing my ass off for a good 15 minutes though.

So long, girl

Sun, 23 Sep 2007 02:46:36 GMT

We had to put Pudding to sleep today because of kidney failure. She was the best pet I've ever had and was easily our favorite cat of the house. Everyone that visited wanted to take her home, spurning offers to take "any other cat but Pudding". I miss her terribly, but she's better off now.

When she bit me HARD right on the bridge of my nose the first day I got her, I knew I had picked the mischievous kitten of the bunch. Today, she got in one last laugh when we went to visit her for the last time. Tired of being held and cried over, she decided to pee on me... right on the crotch of my pants. So I had to walk out of the animal hospital looking like I'd just soiled myself. I'm sure she was looking down on us and laughing.

It's been an exhausting week.