Flock

I just downloaded the Flock browser, based on the source for mozilla firefox. It has blogging built in, and rss aggregator, integration with del.icio.us, and a couple other cool features, but it is currently pre-beta. It seems pretty fast loading web pages, so we'll see how it goes.

Technorati Tags: browser, flock, beta

Eryn and Riley on the beach. 

Vacation photos

Meagan, Brenna, and Sarah on the beach 

Vacation

We got back from vacation last night. We all had a great time, although
the first couple of days weren't too fun for me. The first day I got a
migraine, the second morning around 5am I got a kidney stone. The
doctor there said it is described as "incapacitating" pain, I'd have to
agree with that. The doc is also a pilot, and he said they ground you
for about 6 months if you get them, because you'd be in trouble if you
had a recurrence in the air. Other than that we had a great time. The
water was cool, but not too cold to swim in, so we had a good time body
surfing the waves. We went to Jockey's Ridge, I got some pretty good
pictures there that I'll post later. We played a round of putt-putt,
and went to the pool at the rec center almost every night. The three
oldest girls got to go shopping with Deanna and Debra an afternoon each,
they all enjoyed that. All in all a good vacation, I'll post pictures
in the next couple of days.

Soccer Saturday

Meagan did much, much better playing soccer today. She kept after the
ball, and was paying attention to the game the whole time she was in.
Unfortunately they were playing a team that had them by a good bit in
average age, so they lost despite playing a good game. Meagan took it
better this time, and enjoyed playing, so I think that's good progress
also. Brenna's team tied, but Brenna didn't get to play much, she's not
very fast and doesn't go after the ball. Sarah's team was playing the
second best team in their league, AND evidently completely forgot how to
play between our early practice on Monday and the game. They were
running around the ball instead of kicking it. Ah well, they did have
fun, that's what counts.

After the game we took Riley and Eryn to get their hair cut. The cut
off about 10 inches from each of them, it's around the bottom of their
ears now. It looks really cute on them, I'll post pictures after we get
back from vacation.

Vacation

Well, its off on vacation I go.  Should be having 3 soccer games tomorrow, hopefully Meagan's team will win this one.  After that the 3 older kids are going with my parents for the night, and the rest of us are going to finish getting ready and pack things up to leave in the morning.  I am hoping to get in a night or two of camping while we are down there, as it's supposed to be sunny until next weekend.

Robotic Car

http://www.blog.speculist.com/archives/000478.html
Wouldn't we all like one of these?  I think we are a number of steps closer due to the DARPA Grand Challenge.  I've been following the Virgina Tech Smart Highway project since it got started, it being my alma mater, and me hating driving AND having to drive about 90 minutes a day.  Hopefully that will soon be a thing of the past.   I'd love to be able to get in my car and tell it where to go too, I can think of a lot of things I could get done with an extra 90 minutes a day.  I could probably even get part of my work done, what with wi-fi being offered everywhere.

More Rain

Meagan and Brenna's soccer practice got canceled for the night.  Sarah's coach moved her practice to last night, so she at least got hers in.  It's looking like rain here for the rest of the week, but Saturday looks like it's going to be sunny, so they will get their games in before we go on vacation.  Sarah's team is starting to really understand the game, we've been working on getting them to pass the ball, not get in each others way, and to play defense.
We're going to Corolla on vacation starting Sunday.  I need to get our tent dried out so we can get some camping in during the week.   We have a house directly across the street from one of the recreational centers they have in the communities.  The weather is looking good for the week down there, sunny through next Thursday.
Work is going pretty well.  I'm doing some that is at least more interesting than converting procedures from MSSQL to Oracle.  I am working on converting an application from VB6 to .Net that talks to a DTC (Depository Trust Company) mainframe.  We have two options to talk to it now, using files (basically EDI), or message queuing.  I am, of course, hoping for the latter option, but the odds are currently very much against it, as their data team does mostly file moves, and doesn't know much about message queuing.  You'd think a large company like Wachovia would have people that know about pretty much everything, but I guess not.  I'm trying to read up on security some more in my spare time, I'd really like to get a job in that area until I can move into the bioinformatics or biotechnology fields.

Rain

Well, soccer got rained out on Saturday. On the good side we got to finalize the plans for the house, and it looks like we signed our contract at just the right time, as we avoided being screwed by the cost of materials increases due to everything going to Louisana. I also heard that FEMA has bought up all the used recreational vehicles. Don't even get me started on that. My parents were planning on doing a cross country tour next summer in a used RV, so I don't know if they're going to be able to go that way with it.
I saw a summary of the Kaine vs. Kilgore debate that was on TV, which finally allowed me to make up my mind who I'm voting for. After looking at their web sites and what they have done, it was very difficult to tell a difference between them, fortunately something came out in the debate, Kaine and Warner raised taxes in order to balance the budget, so I'm voting for Kilgore. I'm all for a balanced budget, but I don't think we need to be raising taxes to do it, there are plenty of programs and wasteful spending that can meet with the axe instead of raising taxes.

Parents back from vacation

My parents and one of my cousins got back from vacation last Sunday night.  They spent a week with my great-aunt in Michigan, in the "north woods."  My great-aunt has a cabin on a lake, where they spent the week.  There is no electricty and no phones, they cook with gas or on a grill.  They had a good time, and really like the area.  They went to Mackinaw island and a bunch of small towns in the area, got some really nice pictures.  We are going to go visit them next summer, and maybe stay in the cabin in the woods as well.  

Front picture, from the left, Meagan, Brenna, and Sarah. 

Picutres of the girls soccer uniforms, Meagan's team is the Sharks, Brenna's is the Soccers, and Sarah's team is Spike. 

Soccer Saturday

Kids and I went camping in the back yard last night.  This was the second time, and I think we're ready to go to a campground next time.  We got new sleeping bags for the kids, as they youth ones they had are only good down to 50.  The tent was a bit smaller than I thought, and only 3 of the 4 air mattresses fit in the tent, but we did OK on just the 3.  I cooked hot dogs and hamburgers on a little propane grill while the girls set up the tent.  They did pretty good with it, only couldn't figure out how to get the pieces to hold the front and back flaps up, which even took me a few minutes to figure out how to do.

We had soccer games today, 2 at 9 and 1 at 11:30.  Sarah's team won, but we only had 3 players, and the other coach was a really good sport and gave us 2 of his (he had 7) so we played 5 on 5.  I think one of his players scored as much as the rest of ours, but half of them were for the wrong team.  He would just kick it into any goal whenever the ball got close to one.  It was a really fun game, all the kids had a good time, I don't think they cared if they won or lost, I don't even know if they knew when the game was over, which is how it should be at that age.  Meagan's team is getting better, but they couldn't get the ball into they goal, they lost 2-0, but kept the ball on the other teams side of the field most of the game.  I didn't catch most of the game, I help coach Sarah's team, so I only got the last 15 minutes of Meagan's.  Deanna watched some though, and what I saw was the same, she is still not going after the ball, just walking around most of the time.  Brenna's team played at 11:30, and they were up 2-0 after the first half, but ended up losing 3-2.  Brenna is doing a better job keeping her mind on the game, but she still needs some work on running, that or working on where she needs to be, as I don't think she's ever going to be the fastest player.  She does pretty well on defense, keeping between the ball and the goal most of the time, but once someone gets behind here, she can't catch them.  The coach put her on offense, and she doesn't do so well with that, she's a bit timid when she's playing the game, but not when we practice at home, hopefully that will go away with experience.  They all said they had fun, that's the most important thing, but I do hope Meagan's team wins one soon.

RateMyProfessors

http://www.wired.com/news/business/0,1367,68941,00.html

I love this idea, maybe this will get some of the profs that are just there to do research out of the classrooms, where they stink.  If you're just there to do research, go find a job in industry, academies are for students to learn, not sports, not professors pet projects, not clubs, and not social groups.

Robie believes universities would be better off collecting formal faculty ratings and disclosing them only to students.

Swapceinski, who got the idea to start RateMyProfessors following a bad experience with a professor at San Jose State, doesn't think that's a bad idea. However, he fears students would withhold negative opinions if the university is the one collecting evaluations.

But Robie insists there's a better solution than putting evaluations online for the world to see.

"What other job are your performance records up to public scrutiny?" he asked. "Just because many professors are being paid by taxpayers, does that mean they give up all rights to privacy?"

Absolutely, everyone in private industry has performance reviews where their employer reviews how they are doing, why should that be different if you are employed by taxpayers?  That means that the taxpayers should be able to see how you are doing in your job.  If you are going to take a position serving the public, the public should be able to find out how you are performing in that position.

Space Elevator

http://www.space.com/businesstechnology/050923_spaceelevator_test.html

This looks pretty awesome, once someone actually completes building one, it will dramatically reduce the costs and dangers of getting people and materials into orbit, and once in orbit, you are "Halfway to Anywhere in the Solar System".  I hope to go up one day, and maybe even to mars if the price is right, can't afford that yet though.

Test picture blog

Ok, here is my first picture blog. This should be of an osprey nest I took over the summer while we were at Naylors beach off the Rappahanock river. If this comes out ok I'll be posting more. 

Weekend

Had a busy weekend, soccer Saturday, Sarah's birthday on Saturday, and
we went to the state fair today. The kids did well in soccer, Sarah's
team won 6-3, Brenna's team won 8-0, and Meagan's team lost 5-1. Meagan
got hurt twice, she caught one on her fingers, hyper extending her
wrist. Then she got hit in the eye, and then hit in the head while on
the sidelines. Not her day. Her wrist swelled some, but went down with
some ice. It was still sensitive to move this morning, but I don't
think she needs to go to the doctor. Deanna seems to think otherwise,
but we'll see how she does tomorrow.

The kids had a good time at the fair. We took the twins on the kiddie
rides first, then had some lunch, and then I took Meagan and Sarah to
ride on some big rides, Brenna didn't want to go, she's not big on the
roller-coaster rides. We got in 3 rides, then went back to meet up with
the rest of the group, and then everyone got to pick 1 more ride before
we went home.

My parents left for Michigan right after Sarah's party, they'll be gone
for a week up to the north woods.

I'm signing up for Picasa and Hello, so hopefully I'll be able to get
some pictures up on the blog before long.

Rick's 40th

Just got an evite to Rick's 40th birthday, should be fun!  He's one of my friends from the old Whitlock group, one of the quake gang.  He was the only one that consistantly had a chance to beat me.  Ahh, I miss the good old Quake days.  I added about 10 people to the list on eVite, hope I didn't over do it, but his wife said the more the merrier.

Soccer

Kids all had their first Soccer games yesterday, they all played well, but all lost.  Meagan got bent out of shape over it for a while.  I wouldn't mind if she lost a bunch, she needs to learn how to have fun whether she wins or loses the game.  I think she had fun playing, just got mad that they lost.  Brenna did ok, but she needs some confidence and to learn to go after the ball.  Sarah's team did really well, the other team had a ringer that kept running away with the ball and scoring for them, but we did ok, lost 5-3.  Sarah did good, she knows to go to the ball and which way to kick it.  The whole team needs to learn defense when the other team starts running away with the ball.  They all go running toward the goal, even passing the ball carrier, but don't know to kick it away from them!  We all had a good time, but it was a bit hot, got up to 34, and sunny with no shade.  I'm going to look for a couple goals to practice with them, one the big girls size and one Sarah's size.  I'm going to start leaving at 3:00 again, I was working some overtime to make up for the day I missed, I've made up all but 3 of it, so I can go in 30 mins early for a week and have it done.  Should be able to get in some practice then before we have to come in to let Deanna fix dinner.

RMS, etc.

Well, the RMS portal kinda fell through.  I didn't really have the time necessary to get the parts they wanted working 100%, and BigOak didn't get a chance to review it until the week before they wanted to go live.  RMS decided to keep the calendar part, and I refunded the rest of the money to them.  I'm still going to work on when I have time, but that won't be for a while I think.  Getting the house built is going to take quite a bit of time and attention.  I need to find time to go to dinner with a guy that contacted me middle of August about doing some freelance work.
We got the location for the house marked, and the loan stuff is going through.  The land should be getting percolation tested sometime in the next 2 weeks. I just got in touch with one of the people I used to work with at Albright & Wilson, and one of my friends from Patrick Henry.  They guy from A&W is down in Baton Rouge, LA, they came through the hurricane ok, lots of wind and rain, but they aren't below sea level.
I've been keeping in touch with one of the guys from Amentra that I worked with at NTelos, Rich.  We like to discuss politics, he sends me the dems viewpoint, I send him the reps.  We get into some pretty good discussions.  Haven't talked to the others that much, email once in a while.
I'm going to lunch with the old Dynex gang this Friday, haven't seen them in about a year now, will be good to talk with them again.  I went to lunch with the Suntrust gang when I first moved over to Wachovia, they're still putting up with the same old stuff.  Glad I got out of there, just wish i had done it sooner.
Wachovia is going ok, nothing too exciting at the moment, converting an app from MSSQL to Oracle, and can't use stored procedures, which is somewhat of a headache.  Dunno if they are going to keep me on after this project or not, we'll see.  One of the PM's there is looking to maybe form a startup after his contract is up, and may be looking for .Net people, not sure if I want to do that or not, but if it takes off there may be some money in it.