So, after 3 months of teaching Dylan to drive, I have to admit, he’s doing a great job. Over the next year, he has to get approximately 50 hours in various situations logged before his 16th birthday. So far, he’s sitting on about 25 or so.

We also purchased two driving games at Xmas for Dylan. To accompany the game, we purchased a steering wheel with vibrating feedback. Originally, it was a cheap version from GameStop. However, after just two days of driving, one of the paddle shifters broke because of poor design in the plastic that connected it to the main controller console. So, I returned it and upgraded it to the Xbox version. HUGE difference. If you’re considering a driving wheel game controller for Xbox 360, this is it.

One game, Midnight Club, Los Angelese is a street racing game. Not that street racing should be condoned, but in the game, it’s fine. Giving him a safe place to drive fast, this game is great. It’s very realistic in that the racing happens all times of the day & night. Depending on the times, the traffic ranges in heavy to light. As a 3-D world, it’s extremely realistic and the gaming portion is very engaging.

When I upgraded the driving wheel, I was talked into purchasing a used version of Forza2, which is a racing game as well as a racing trainer. We just purchased it, so I don’t have much experience with it yet. But, the first run looked very helpful. Giving the trainer the perfect line in various corners, it has to be great for driving fast.

So, Dylan is driving, both in real life and as a gamer.

Posted: January 5th, 2009 under Cars.
Comments: none

Well, it’s been quit a while since I’ve posted anything on this blog. Trying to figure out what I want to actually do with this forum now that I spend more time on Facebook for connecting and communicating with family and friends.

Even in the face of shame, I still use Facebook. The other day I was at a trade show working the booth and during some lag time I fired up my laptop, popped over to Facebook. Jodi had sent me some “flair” a little program that puts buttons on a board. Anyway, one of the other reps looks over my shoulder and says, “What…. are you 15 and a girl???” I guess Facebook has that connotation? I never really thought about it since all of my friends and acquantences are NOT 15 and not all girls. Of course I blew him off, but still thought his comments odd. I’ll go with, he’s obviously not aware of what all you can do on Facebook.

So, as my blog goes, not sure what will happen to it. Still trying to sort out ALL of the web sites I own as it is, the blog is just another to keep up with.

Posted: November 15th, 2008 under Personal.
Comments: none

I’ve seen these a ton and I believe any car enthusiast has seen these kinds of photos. We’ve heard about how stupid people are wasting such beautiful cars. The ONLY silver lining is, it keeps the numbers of the cars low and values high. Although sad, it’s unfortunately a fact of life with cars and speed.

Posted: August 16th, 2008 under Exotic Cars.
Comments: 1

Well, I stumbled upon (literally using Stumble) this article about how DeLoreans. Apparently, there’s a company in Texas that bought up all the old inventory and is rebuilding them using a combination of the old parts and modern technology. While I’m not going to go out and buy one, I thought it was interesting how a car manufacturer that went defunct can actually be brought back to life.

There is a video clip about it on YouTube, of course.

This was actually a segment/show on History channel.

Then, secondarily, there’s a DeLorean web site where you can purchase used and new cars. Cool.

History for car buffs and car enthusiasts.

Posted: August 16th, 2008 under Cars, Exotic Cars.
Comments: none

It’s a computerized, digital, connected world… and yet, we still accept mediocrity in our computing systems. Yes, I’m talking about the one, the only, crappy Operating System that exists on a lot of systems, mostly about 91.7% of the worlds personal computers, in fact, according to current market share statistics. And… this is a sad commentary on how much the masses accept such mediocrity. I have to admit, I gave up on the us versus them operating systems wars along time ago. However, truth be told, I never really completely gave up my bigotry for, yes, dare I say, the Macintosh operating system.

My disgust and frustration with Windoze came rushing back to me in spades over the past few months. You see, with my old position, I was able to use what ever system I wanted, which meant that I decided to purchase my own MacBook Pro so I could control what I installed and did with my system. Then, I went on a 6 month sabbatical from any corporate environment and back again most recently. Well, not so much true corporate life per se, but I went back to work for a great company. And… you guessed it, their standard issue for Systems Engineers is, yep, a Windows Laptop. IBM errr… Lenovo T61 running Windows XP Professional to be more exact.

That’s when it all began to unravel. Sure, I’ve always copped to the adage, “they’re just tools, use what works for you”, but I think I’m beginning to go back to my elitist attitude of “what rubbish”. Over the course of the past 3 years, I’ve not had to deal with Windows other than manage a server infrastructure, install enterprise solutions and trouble-shoot issues in that environment. However, I always retreated back to my trusted, reliable, all-encompassing MacBook, where I just got shit done, sans any Windows dependencies.

Now, it’s all changed and I have to beg, conjole and wish with all my might to stay productive. In a nut-shell, here’s a few items that Windoze users just have to “deal” with and yes, I’m going to say it with my nose in the air, Mac users just don’t have to deal with such crap. We just get things done.

Fist, I’ve used a laptop as my primary work tool for so long, I don’t recall my last desktop model or even what I did on it. Just about everyone uses a laptop now because of their flexibility and modern speed.

It’s all in the details, dummies!!!

• Expectation: To be able to work up to the point of having to jump on a jet, go to a meeting, leave the office, or any other activity that requires “sleeping” er… putting your laptop in “stand-by”, so it’s right there where you left it and ready to go the next time you need it.
  Reality: Not so much on the ole Winoze OS. “stand-by” is hit or miss and usually, 4 out of 10 tries, its a hit. I actually tracked this over a recent trip to St Louis and  yes, 60% of the time, the freakin thing wouldn’t wake up, wouldn’t connect to a network, operate with any stability or other “normal” expectation. Usually, had to reboot and it would be ok. So, stand-by is something I just don’t bother with any more. Full shut-down and reboot. Each process stealing 5 minutes of my productive life and over the course of a week, that equates to several hours.
  Mac: slam the lid, put in bag, leave. Open lid, start working. Every time. The end.
• Expectation: Plug in any USB device, say, a wireless mouse. That’s it, just plug it in and work.
  Reality: again, hit-miss. Fortunatey, it’s mostly a hit, but not without some anxiety involved, knowing little yellow pop up bubbles would bug me and/or tell me it’s ready, but on occasion, it’d have trouble and a “replug” would ensue.
  Mac: yep, plug it in and go. No boinks, beeps, yellow bubbles or otherwise. Done. No fuss, no muss.
• Expectation: get your software updates and have it all go smoothly.
  Reality: well, you guessed it, not always with good results. Mostly, it’s okay, but they all mostly break-stuff. In 3 months, I’ve had several patches and hot-fixes popup, get installed and I’ve had to reload my printer drivers and other dependancies. Some, I don’t find out about until I need them, which usually means, lost productivity going to the web site, downloading the software, installing it, rebooting, getting al kinds of annoying windoids on the update blah, blah, blah…
  Mac: in 3 years, I’ve had 1 serious incident, which royally pissed me off, but after redownloading the install/update an NOT going through the auto-update, it fixed itself. Besides that, I typically have little to no issue with their updates and they’re infrequent.
• Expectation: take a good screen grab/shot anywhere, anytime of anything.
  Reality: well, you of can do this, but it just takes the entire screen, sends it to the paste buffer, then what? Well, you could also send it straight to a printer wasting paper and not very useful. Oh, once on the paste buffer, you have to open some paint program, paste it in the window, crop it, sorta, then save it… and remember to save it as a JPEG or GIF rather than the default BMP (huge unusable file) and then your ready to go. Whew… now to take another shot for that presentation. Oh, screw it, I’ll go buy Snaggit for $39 bucks.
  Mac: Command shift 3 - JPEG of entire screen on desktop for use where ever. Command shift 4, gives you a cursor to specify an area of the screen and then a JPEG is sitting on your desktop ready to go. Free. Done. Going onto getting work done.
• Expectation: To be able to print or generate a PDF from any application, bar none.
  Reality: Yeah, riiight. You have to go download a freebie that only works with office, buy Acrobat Pro, if you happen to have Snaggit or something, you can print to Snaggit, then save as a PDF. DOH.
  Mac: Yep, you’re figuring it out, print anything anywhere and get a print-to-PDF option, which, you can actually send to a printer, or have it save to your desktop somehwere. Oh, and it’s free, built in, just works.
• Expectation: light weight and easy to use keyboard. After years and years of ergonomic studies, you’d think that Wintel boxes would figure out how to make powerful laptops lighter and more ergonomic.
  Reality: guess again. The T61 still has clunky, chunky keys, is about 2 inches thick, has clunky lid buttons, on/off buttons, locks and all kinds of other minuturized desktop features that just looks like they put a desktop into a vise and squeezed. No ingenuity.
  Mac: completely redesign years ago. Is less than 1 inch thick, light keyboard, illuminating keys and of course, the screen is probably one of the best around.
• Expectation: In this world of virtualization and heterogeneous environments, you’d think you could run a lot on an Intel box. Well, there are some hacks out there and of course VM Ware and other virtualization tools have helped the cause, but…
  Reality: so, so on Windows and it’s very slow for the most part. I have a VMWare demo I run of a Win2003 server runnign MSSQL, SQL Reporting and IIS that takes nearly 5 minutes to load and restore to usefulness. Same for any
  Mac: VMWare has a product called Fusion that’s workstation for the Mac. Same demo as above takes about 30 seconds to load and go. Even snap-shots only take about 1 minute compared to the Windows Workstation version that takes about 10 minutes some times.
• Expectation: drive fragmentation should be non-existant. You’d think.
  Reality: Lots of fragmentation on a well used laptop. Slows down, memory gets slow, everything just slows down… oh, yeah, gotta go defrag. Soooooo 80’s.
  Mac: One word. Journaling. Nuff said.

Done… i could go on, but this is enough to show that productivity on a Wintel system just isn’t that great. The time savings and other cost reducing affects of using a MacBook or any Apple product is just staggering and seems to only be recognized by a few. Oh well.

Everyone can pick on Apple and the Macintosh all they want, but the reality is, they put so much thought into the details that many things become so ubiquitous that you don’t even notice how productive and stable the system is until you’re forced to dink what 91.7% of the world deals with daily. And the cost of ownership doesn’t even start to compute. Most WIndoze users/purchasers are being penny-wise and pound-foolish. But, of course, if Win products weren’t around, we’d all be more productive, IT would be run by about 5 guys and they’d just sit around playing Texas Holdem or “hoping” for a breakage. So, I guess all-in-all, Windoze is a good thing, right?

This is why I drive a Mercedes, it’s all in the details, dummy.

Posted: June 27th, 2008 under Business, Hardware, Personal, theMac.
Comments: none

With age comes maturity, age appropriateness, sacrifice, boredom, jazz music, humming show tunes,

HAHHHH…. NAH!!! WTF did you think I was going to write next?? Like that’s really me. While the business persona might have a conservative facade, that’s not the REAL ME.

I love rock, head nodding, head banging, loud ROCK! always have and always will. Hard core, metal, head-banging was pretty influential in my youth. While I like a lot of different kinds of music, I still love a good hard rock song. I’m NOT into roaring and growling, well, not constantly through the whole song. However, a modern metal rock band has really caught my attention the past few years and they’re about to release a new album.

I’m speaking of the venerable, “DISTURBED“. While they hit the hard riffs and rapid fire drums, they also have a mix of melody and you can actually understand their lyrics. With a mix like that, you can’t miss. I’ve seen a few interviews with them on music shows and their lead singer appears to be a decent guy.

I typically switch between two or three local radio stations, but my favorite that’s on in my jeep any given day is KPBI, the local rock station. They’ve been playing the new single “Inside the Fire” and it really hits it hard. While the subject, suicide, is sensitive, it’s something you hear about daily. They hit it head on and rock the speakers. Check out their videos on YouTube.

If you love metal and the Disturbed, then check out their new album, Indestructible . NUFF Said!

Posted: May 27th, 2008 under Music.
Comments: 2

One full month. I’m now past the first month on the new job, Sales Engineer for a software company focused on data governance solutions. I have to admit, working from home is, for those who remember what a “valley girl” is, TOTALLY AWESOME!

Flexibility is the word that bubbles up in our conversation a lot. Jodi and I both work at home and it’s great being able to balance work and life needs. Some things just have to be taken care of during the day, business hours and is more convenient. Setting your own hours and schedule really helps.

Being able to work from my home office and still provide great value to both my company and customers is something that I never thought was possible. In my previous position, there was “telecommuting” available, but it basically meant, providing remote customer service at 10pm when someone was panicking, usually my old boss. It meant upgrading servers on Saturday nights from 11pm to 5am. It never meant, I’m going to sit at my home office desk for 9 to 10 hours on such-n-such day and actually get work done. No, my old boss had to “see the whites of your eyes and see you sitting at a desk in his office space” to feel like you were doing something. He was paranoid that if people worked from their home office, they weren’t focused on their work, were goofing off, not focused on him, can’t drop what ever their doing to go to an ad-hoc, unscheduled meeting to hear him drone on about how smart he was and/or sit there waiting for him to finish his “all-important” call, all the while mulling over the work you need to get done wasting valuable time starring at your colleagues waiting, waiting on him to pontificate and show everyone how he’s the smartest man in the room. However, what he didn’t realize is that paranoia drove others crazy and actually produced the opposite. Resentment and really lack of interest in actually wanting to help the cause and ultimately him succeed. His old school mentality was, well, OLD-SCHOOL.

Now, it’s nice to be treated like an adult with respect and dignity knowing that you’re putting in a good days work for the value. Because of that respect and treatment, people who are self-motivated really want to work harder and provide on-going value to the company and ultimately to their customer.

Working from home is AWESOME!

Posted: May 10th, 2008 under Business, Personal, Sale Engineering.
Comments: 1

Web site building is technical work and something that comes easy to me. However, I’ve noticed a trend amongst clients.

“Make me a web site, have all of the content magically show up and have it do exactly what I want all with very little input or work from me.”

This client ideology is both frustrating and can lead to lengthy deployments. Every client so far has some notion that if they “pay” me to build a web site that I will magically understand everything they want and to somehow come up with the exact message and content that makes sense.

Truth is, it just doesn’t happen that way. I’m a technician, not a mind-reader, nor do I fully understand every detail and nuance of my clients business. While I do get things rather quickly and do grasp the high level overview of a given business, I am by no means an expert. So, I have to rely on the client to actually communicate and review the site(s) for content and appropriateness.

Well, this tends to drag-on and by extension, makes the process really drag on. Therefore, I DO NOT do it full time. If I built sites full time, my family and I would die of starvation.

Enough ranting… I have to finish another site for a “family member”…

Posted: May 5th, 2008 under Personal, Rants, Technology, Web Site.
Comments: 2

Every day, I log into one of my several computers (both Mac and Windows) and the first window or windoid that is there greeting me is the “There are new updates ready”. Plus, to add insult to injury, every application I launch displays a message that a new version is ready.

Good grief. If things start going south on one of my laptops, I’ll never be able to trouble shoot and figure out where the culprit is.

So, WTF do you do when this happens nearly every day?

• Accept the download and hail-merry it. (Which is what I do too often)
• Never accept the download and keep running with Windows95
• Plan on just allowing it to only update your system on Friday night. (That way you have the entire weekend to recover and rebuild if necessary.)
• Research each request and make an informed decision. (What we all should do, but, then 8 hours later you’d never get any real work done.)
• Change the settings in the control panel to just update at say 3am in the morning, reboot and plead ignorant bliss when on the phone with tech support.

Or a combination of all of the above. Which, is basically what I do. I decide how much pain I’m interested that day, how much time I have and how dumb I want to play when calling support.

Have fun out there…. it’s the wild-wild west of code!

Posted: April 23rd, 2008 under Personal, Rants.
Comments: none

Well, today was my first day with my new company. I woke up this morning with the Jitters. Mostly, my head was swimming on all of the things I had to get done. I was also wondering if I was going to find everything okay, how was the new office space going to work out and if everyone was going to be nice to me. I wasn’t so sure about the commute and how quickly I’d be able to make it. All those thoughts quickly went “poof” standing in front of the coffee pot sipping on that first “wake up” cup.

Smiling, I realized, none of that would matter. My commute was down one flight of stairs to my new basement office. I didn’t have to wonder much about people in the meetings as they would be done via conference call and webex meetings. I wouldn’t even have to figure out where the kitchen and restroom was. That, I know by heart and can run around here in pitch dark, most of the time.

First day was, well, easy as they come. I actually felt like I got more done than any time in the past. Not that I’ve started a lot of new jobs. However, even with my old company, I had actually moved to different divisions and/or started working with new people/teams or even in a different office on several occasions. It took days and weeks to get it all down on what you could/couldn’t do and where everything was.

Working from home is AWESOME!!! Okay, now the reality will eventually set in and I’ve been around the block enough to know that there’s the “Honeymoon” period. Still, I’m in it now, it’s good and if I play my cards right, it’ll be great even after the newness wears off. Hey, I did stay at my last company 16 years and I’ve been happily married for over 20 years. So, hopefully that pattern continues.

First day Jitters, first day smitters….Forget about it!! I’m off to the races.

Posted: April 7th, 2008 under Business, Personal.
Comments: none