Ramblings and Random Thoughts

Blogging is addicting as hell :)

2008-09-04T10:26:00.003-07:00

I haven't had much time to put anything over here in my personal space, I've been spending a lot of time in the new tech blog, Geek Talks Tech!. I'm having a great time, and it's really working well for a blog that's only two weeks old. It started off slow, looks like friends and family were giving me most of my traffic between 10-15 page views a day. I posted a good story this weekend and began trying to optimize my posts' data for search engines, and boy did things take off. I started getting 50 page views a day, even on days when I didn't put new posts up. Yesterday I basically increased my traffic over 6x with a single post on a funny thing inside Google's new web browser, "Chrome". With the SEO (Search Engine Optimization) techniques, that's where most of my traffic was coming from. My blog is actually the top hit in a Google search for "chrome easter egg". Wasn't one of my original goals to be a top hit on even a simply Google search, but I'll take it, pretty excited about it.

From my initial traffic, I was thinking that the first goal of the website was going to be tough to attain, 1,000 page views in a month. I'm counting that as a calendar month, even though I only had 12 days to count. Chalking that up to a ramp up month, and was going to make September the first real month that I was going to benchmark against that goal. Based on the activity in the last 4 days, I'm going to hit that number easily by mid-month, so I'm counting this blog as a success in my eyes, and fun as hell . . . but I need to come up with a new goal for page views. Once I hit this goal, I'll probably switch it over to 5,000 page views per month.

So, next up is going to be the podcast. I haven't really started in on planning it yet, though I've got my shopping list for a small mixer and microphone. I'll have to come up with some theme music as well, which will either mean getting some pod-safe music to use as an intro or writing my own (which I'd love to do).

This is really getting fun. Once it gets more traffic and popularity, I'd love to see how I could monetize it to make it something I can get some extra cash out of. Thanks for all of your support in getting this off the ground, and stay tuned!

Blog is live, but still a work in progress

2008-08-19T08:43:00.004-07:00

Finally, I've got the new blog up and running! Working on the first real meaty post, but I wanted to at least get it online and where the search engines could find it. It's called "Geek Talks Tech!", mainly as I'm a geek and I love to talk tech (go figure). Go check it out at http://geektalkstech.com but you'll see it's still kind of in progress. I should have the new logo up tonight (the first letter in the "Geek" is the picture I have on this post, my lovely bride Teri made it for me), getting the blog-roll, links, and archives all worked out, and starting my posting routine should also come tonight or tomorrow. I'll be talking about tech news, how-to's, cool gadgets I've seen or used to review, entertainment stuff I think is relevant to geek culture (movies and TV), sci-fi, games, all that kind of stuff. Should be pretty light hearted and a good general source of information. Comments, constructive criticism, and suggestions are more than welcome. In fact, anything you can add I would love to hear. Once I get used to the writing, I will start putting the podcast together that will initially be a more in-depth discussion of topics covered on the blog, maybe within the previous week's posts.

Wish me luck, check out the site, and let me know what you think!

Launching blog soon

2008-08-11T20:45:00.002-07:00

I hope . . . I'm going to be trying to get the design of the page customized off of default or widely used templates to at least make it look original, but I'm not going to wait until it's perfect before I launch or, knowing me, it will never get off the ground. I'm too much of a perfectionist for that, so it winds up taking longer than I anticipate. Anyway, should have the logo and header bar finished soon, and I'm tentatively planning on trying to launch the blog this coming weekend.

We had Amanda and Drew's birthday party this weekend, probably the last year we're going to be able to put them together before they want their own party. Fun was had by all, but Dairy Queen damn near screwed the pooch on the ice-cream cake for Drew. All three kids have a severe food allergy, and conveniently it's not all for the same food. Alex (oldest) is allergic to tree-nuts, and we've had to use the Epi-Pen twice since we've been here in AZ and he's taken a few trips to the ER. Amanda is allergic to peanuts (moderate, but we've got Epi-Pens just in case), and Drew is allergic to both peanuts and eggs (eggs are severe for him). So, since he can't have eggs that rules out most cakes. So Amanda gets the regular cake and Drew gets an ice cream cake. We ordered an Oreo Blizzard cake for him and I picked it up on the way to the party place. Later, after they were all played out and ready for the pizza/cake/presents part, everyone's eating, cake flying like a tornado is going through. Drew later comes over to me and said that his cake had a peanut in it, but it was ok because he put it aside to save for later. Damn good thing he knows about how peanuts and eggs make him sick and can recognize the foods he shouldn't have, because we looked at the ice cream cake and they made it a Reese's Cup Blizzard cake instead of an Oreo!

No harm done, but it could have been tragic if he wasn't as alert or Amanda got a piece (though she would have recognized the peanuts too). I talked to the manager at the Dairy Queen, and she fell all over herself knowing how serious that could have been (that's points for me, if she'd have been nonchalant about it I would have had a much more serious time with her). They had a help wanted sign in the window, and she explained that they were training new people last week when my cake was staged. She was taking the order back to talk directly with the person who made it and the supervisor who helped with the cake, and did not take the situation lightly. I got a few free cakes out of the deal (obviously got full refund for the first cake and coupons for a few more free ones), so I might get Drew another cake for his actual birthday on Thursday - one of the pre-made ones that I know what it is.

Validation that I'm not crazy...

2008-08-04T12:00:00.002-07:00

So, I'm reading through CNN today after reading about Morgan Freeman (one of my favorite actors), and I see this article talking about just what I mentioned my only real issue was with the movie - Batman's voice. This article shows that others noticed it too and it seems to have become a topic of discussion. Apparently, they even added modulation to Bale's "Batman" voice to make it deeper, I think they took it a bit overboard if people really seem to be noticing it. I'm sure it won't be as pronounced in the next movie.

http://www.cnn.com/2008/SHOWBIZ/Movies/08/04/mondaymoviebuzz.darkknight.ap/index.html

New blog is coming along

2008-07-30T17:02:00.003-07:00

Hi everyone, just wanted to post an update to my blog creation and what I'm doing. I'm planning a tech/gadget/gaming/sci-fi blog (basically, all the things I think are cool and love to talk about). I've got the site name and domain all registered, but I don't want to release that until it's ready to start having visitors (which, based on my Wordpress coding skill, might be a while...).

I've always had a certain aptitude for technology, I just kind of know how things work and how stuff fits together, and love talking about new developments, so that will be one side. Any of you who know me also know that I love my toys, so gadget discussion is also on the menu. I was brought up on video games and am always amazed at how far we've come since Donkey Kong and Space Invaders, and now that I have kids myself I love seeing how they interact with games out there today. And lastly, I'm a huge sci-fi/TV/movie buff, so I'll be talking about Battlestar Galactica, Lost, Heroes, 24 (when it ever comes back on the air), and other things like that.

My initial plan is to have a daily post, Mon-Fri. I might be able to squeeze more in there, maybe some on the weekends, but I'm not pushing myself for that yet. My metric for success in the blog will be to have 1000 unique hits in a month period. If I get a story on Digg, I'm golden, as I'd most likely get that number in a day. If I can keep up the quality of my posts and bring something new to the discussion then I should be able to meet that goal.

Once things settle in, I also want to get back into audio production and do a weekly podcast. Most likely, 10-15 minutes and based on posts on the blog, maybe other topics at hand. Again, I'll use the same metric (mainly as I'm not sure how to best measure audio podcasts at this point) and start with a goal of 1000 downloads in a month. With a weekly podcast, that would mean 250 downloads per podcast. Doable, without too much pain, I believe.

My long-term goal is a big one, though. What's really inspired me to take this on has been Leo Laporte and his "This Week in Tech" podcast, basically his whole TWiT network of podcasts. I listen to those each week, and have always felt like I could add to those discussions. He'll have people on, I'll hear some good stuff, but someone will come up with something that just doesn't sound right or complete and I know the answer. I'd like to get big enough in the podcast so that Leo brings me on as a guest panelist someday. Long-term goal, I know that's not going to happen overnight. Cali Lewis is another one, I've been inspired by her "Geek Brief" video podcast for a while as well and would love to do an interview with her on my podcast, or be a guest on hers someday. Again, long term goal.

So, more on this as it develops. Leave me a comment here, Facebook, Twitter me, email, whatever, let me know what you think. Until the next time,

Andy

The Dark Knight was awesome

2008-07-27T22:36:00.003-07:00

Great movie, if you haven't already seen it. We didn't get to see it in the IMAX, I underestimated the crowd there. Of course, it's only playing at one IMAX theater here in the Valley, so that should have told me something at least. We got there around 5pm for the 5:35pm showing, but it was sold out. So was the 9pm showing. They had a few seats left for the 11:55pm showing, but that's way past our date time and Alex wasn't feeling good so we didn't want to stay out too late. I made Teri laugh by using my iPhone to quickly find another theater close and their showtime, so we got over there for the 6:10pm showing. Great movie, Heath exceed my expectations for his performance as Joker. Aaron Eckhart was surprisingly good as Harvey Dent, too. I haven't really liked him much in other roles, but he knocked Dent out of the park. Wouldn't be surprised if you see both Ledger and Eckhart get nods for supporting actor. Eckhart will probably get nominated for the Golden Globe while Ledger gets the nomination for the Oscar, just my guess. But there's no way that they won't be recognized for their performances.

Morgan Freeman remains one of my all time favorites, though. He really had some great parts. Christian Bale was good, but sounded like he was trying too hard to talk like the Batman . . . disguising the voice is one thing, and he did it well in the first movie. But, especially near the end of "Dark Knight", it seemed like he was just getting too gravely-voiced, just too much really. Great overall performance, though, just started getting annoyed at the voice.

So, as I posted earlier from the ER, Alex was having a really tough time with the croup this morning. Had to take him in wheezing to the ER, where they gave him a shot and a breathing treatment. Both of which went over like gangbusters, you know. The shot was kind of funny, part of me wanted to laugh but I waited until we got it over with and he'd calmed down. He's lying on the bed face down when the nurse comes in and she's going to give him the steroid shot in his bottom. I say to Alex, "Is it ok if I show the nurse your bottom?" as I sit down by him and get ready to hold him down. We pull his pants down a little and she starts to stick him and he flips out, a lot faster than I expected with as lethargic as he was. The nurse says she'll get some help to hold him down, and when she comes back, Alex yells, "I'm not going to show you my bottom!!!" I just about lost it when he said that.

We wound up getting him in the thigh, but it took three of us. It's amazing how strong a 61 pound 8 year old can be...

ER adventures

2008-07-27T09:23:00.000-07:00

Went to the ER with Alex this morning. Croup got really bad this
morning, he was having trouble breathing. So, one shot, a breathing
treatment and x-rays, he's feeling better now. Needless to say, he's
missing Sunday School today :)

Sent from my iPhone

New blog is being created!

2008-07-24T10:36:00.002-07:00

I'm so excited right now, this is pretty cool. I've decided to try and pursue something that I'd lost track of in my life. Looking back, I remember how much fun I had when I did radio back in college. I've decided to take that old love of audio production and talking about things that I have passion for and make a "Tech Blog" of sorts with an accompanying podcast. Tech talk, gadgets, how-to's, sci-fi geek stuff, all the things that make my wife's eyes glaze over as I talk about them. I've got the name of the blog and will premier that once it's ready to go live, got my domains, hosting for the podcast, all sorts of stuff getting ready. More to follow as I progress on the site design, format, and Podcast details. Don't worry, not quitting my day job, this is just going to be fun.

Only problem, since I'm not quitting my day job, it might take a while to launch. Bear with me, and I'll keep checking in here with progress. I'll probably keep this as a personal-blog, a place where I can talk about the kids and still link to all the other stuff that isn't necessarily going to be relevant to the main blog. Stay tuned!

Linking them all together

2008-07-22T14:49:00.003-07:00

Ok, I think I'm working out how to put everything together here. So, my Facebook page (where most of my friends read these posts) imports this blog as "Notes". You can click through them to my full blog to see more, though. My Twitter is active both in the sidebar here and on Facebook, so you can either see my updates there or get to my profile where you can follow me there for quicker updates. As a last piece, you can also add this blog to any RSS feed reader to see when I post something new, there is a widget in the sidebar that will help set that up as well.

I'm on a roll getting everything connected and organized into as few places as possible. I want this blog to be the place where my friends, family, and really anyone who stumbles across me on various forums and clicks through to here, the friends that I haven't yet met, can see who I am and what I'm about. My pictures, my music, what's important to me. Maybe I can entertain some of you, maybe I can give you things to think about, maybe I can be a source of information for the things I'm passionate about.

Andy

Going to make a change

2008-07-22T10:23:00.002-07:00

Ok, those of you who see this blog will obviously notice that I've made a lot of "test" postings today. Well, I'm going to make a new effort at this outlet for my thoughts based on some changes that I'm going to make in my life. I've been feeling rather lost over the last 6 months (longer than that, but I didn't really identify that feeling at that point) and need to get myself back on track with what's important in my life and what I need to be doing to be happy and feel fulfilled in life.

I've started (as of today, actually) seeing a coach to help me figure things out. When I was younger and had this same feeling and experience, I was able to take some time and look inside myself to see who I was and what I wanted to do. I had that luxury then, as I was 20, single, had a group of supportive friends that I saw daily (back in the local music scene), and most importantly, time. These days, I have a family that I love more than anything that needs my attention. I have a demanding job that needs attention as well, and I don't really have a close group of friends like I had before. I have co-workers and friends in the office, but it's not really like the same group of friends that I had before as a support group. So, in short, I've lost my focus and simply don't have the time or ability to get it back without the help of a coach that can help me focus.

As time goes on, I'll be posting my thoughts here as part of my introspection and revival of focus. Some of that is around accountability, as well, as when I put something on here the intent is to follow through - and for those of you who read this, please help keep me honest.

I'll also be around to follow on Twitter with updates. I'll post some other shorter posts here with some of that information, as well as asking for suggestions for good places to maybe aggregate things so I'm not having to update twenty sites when I want to do something. I'll get into that more later, this post has already gotten too long, I want to keep most of my posts short and sweet for you all to read. More to follow later today.

Andy

Spouting Horn

2008-07-22T10:22:00.001-07:00

Spouting Horn
Originally uploaded by andymartin826

This is a picture from when Teri and I went to Kauai last November for our 10th anniversary. Just testing how the post will look when I blog it from Flickr.

Testing mobile photo uploading

2008-07-22T10:02:00.002-07:00

I want to see how this handles attached photos. Another good thing to
try would me to upload the photo to Flickr and embed it in the post
like I'd done before. I like having things all in one place, you know.

Works well, I see. I think I would like to embed the Flickr image instead, just cleaner, but it would be more work to put the embedding tag in there from a mobile device. Definitely easier to attach it instead and just upload it to Flickr in a separate send from my iPhone.

Testing mobile blogging

2008-07-22T09:59:00.001-07:00

I'm posting this from my iPhone, just trying to see how well the
mobile portion of this works. If it works well then I might start
trying to update this more often.

Sent from my iPhone

eBay sellers plan revolt over new policies, strike 2/18-25

2008-01-29T23:58:00.001-07:00

Teri does a lot of eBay selling, she's a "Power Seller" and does a lot of work keeping her 100% ranking with over 6100 feedback points. This new policy from eBay has her, and the majority of other sellers on eBay, fuming. They are organizing like never before, and planning a "no-selling" strike for February 18-25, when these new policies take effect.

read more | digg story

Man, I hate Statistics & listen to my tunes

2008-01-15T22:33:00.000-07:00

Taking a break while finishing a paper in my Statistics class. I'm going to get through this class if it kills me, the MBA classes start getting more fun after this crap. There's a reason I went into Humanities in college, mainly that I couldn't get out of 2nd level Calculus.

Anyway, rediscovered a site I'd done that I'd almost forgotten about. Those of you who knew me back in college (or just after, when I recorded these) might like to hear a couple of the old songs that I recorded after my band, Delusion, broke up . . . when I thought I was some kind of guitar god . . . anyway, I set up an account on a site called "SoundClick" last year when I was having my Carvin built and talking with other guitar players on their forum. It's a site for artists to share their music, so I put a couple songs on there for people to hear and basically forgot about it after the topic died down. Well, here they are if you want to hear:

http://www.soundclick.com/bands/pagemusic.cfm?bandID=661301

I looked at the song stats and it looks like one of them made it up to #38 on their charts for that genre, so I guess that's good, looks like there are a lot of songs there so that's a pretty high ranking. Maybe I didn't suck as much as I thought I did :)

Sickness takes its toll...

2008-01-11T12:20:00.000-07:00

Well, Monday night I started coming down with this nasty funk that everyone seems to be dealing with. Knocked me on my butt Tuesday, but I managed to make it in the office the rest of the week. Haven't made it to the gym, though, I'm going to start that back up tomorrow. I hate working out when I'm sick. I know some people who can do it, hell, Teri has to be coughing up blood before she'll skip the gym.

I got my bike back, too. They were able to straighten the wheel pretty well, not bad for $30 instead of the $200 for a whole new one. It's not as strong as before, but it should hold until I get a new bike altogether.

School started back up this week, probably another reason why I haven't posted here as much. No new videos, no playtime for Andy. Get up early, exercise, go to work, come home, have dinner and play with kids until bedtime, then it's time for school reading and posting to the classroom. I really need to focus on it now, I want to finish this up, it's just been going on too long and I haven't really been concentrating on completing it like I was doing before in my old position. I should be, so kick-in-the-ass #1 . . . time to do some work :)

Andy

More lost movies

2008-01-07T21:47:00.000-07:00

Ok, this is getting to be fun. Using DivX converter software, I'm importing the video from some DVDs that I'd made for Teri for Valentine's Days over the years. I've done one of these photo-slideshow-set-to-music-for-no-other-purpose-than-to-make-you-cry videos every Valentine's Day for the last four or five years, though I didn't get one made last year. My actual goal is to pull these 5 DVDs in and combine them into one DVD (selecting the different years as chapters, basically). Again, just trying to help with the overall clutter cleaning and packing. So, without further ado, here's the Valentine's Day video for 2006. Photo transitions are a little fast, I was trying to get too much in there. Covers our move to Arizona so you see some of shots we took on the drive cross-country.

Weekend fun

2008-01-07T09:26:00.000-07:00

Well, they are working on my bike today so no commute. But I did get to hit the gym this morning, so that's all good. Now that my Dell it back up and running, I decided to finish importing all those old 8mm tapes so I can get rid of that camera. In starting to generally declutter the house and get it ready for listing (hopefully by the end of the month) I found a bunch of old VHS tapes that I decided to to the same thing to, import them in as digital video and toss the old tapes. The first one I tried is this:

There's an embedded YouTube video above, but I don't know if it shows up on Facebook. If not, click through to my actual blog and it should be there. This was originally done by my ex-brother-in-law for my parents 30th anniversary in 1996. Funny that it took him a whole video studio to do this just 12 years ago (he did professional corporate video production) and now practically any computer can do this easily. That's technology for you.

I also found a few videos of some concerts my old band, Delusion, played back in the early 90's. I'm going to cut some clips out of the individual songs and get them up on YouTube as well, it's REALLY funny to see my back then, long hair, thrash-metal playing head-bangin' . . . I'll pick some of the good songs we did to post, though. There are some songs on there that, frankly, show why we never made it past the club venues :)

Biking, the good and the bad

2008-01-04T18:32:00.000-07:00

Well, I managed to do the bike commute today and overall it worked out pretty well. The ride there was good, showered at the gym and got ready for work. The ride home, however, my back brake was rubbing against the tire a bit, making it kind of hard. I got home, and saw that the back wheel was warped pretty significantly. New wheels . . . might as well go ahead and get a new bike.

My Dell story

2008-01-03T16:32:00.000-07:00

Ok, I've been hinting at this so I might as well come out with the story now that it's over (I think). Tell me if I'm being out of line.

Back in August, I get a new Dell Inspiron 1720 laptop. Works pretty well, though there are some weird hardware and software quirks that pop up every so often. I got a Bluetooth mouse and keyboard, and the keyboard especially would act funny sometimes, stop typing, repeat the same letter a bunch of times, but it was always kind of intermittent stuff. Overall performance didn't seem to be as good as I'd expect either. It's billed as able to watch HD movies, but when I'd try to watch a trailer in HD it would lag pretty hard. So, I talk to Dell the first week of December about the video performance. The guy walks through a few things and determines I've got too many background applications running, some even duplicated. Some things are Dell-crapware that I thought I had removed. Oh well, I look at it and decide to just reload the system. I've built computers in the past, so formatting a system and starting from scratch isn't a daunting task. So here's where the fun starts.

I back things up and boot up from the Dell / Windows Vista installation DVD. Repartition the drive space and format, and start the installation process. All's well . . . at first. It gets through its first reboot, and gets to a spot in the installation where it just stops. The system's not locked, I can move the mouse, but after a minute or so all activity stops. It's not reading from the DVD, it's not writing to the hard drive. Nothing. I hit "ESC" and a window pops up saying I can't exit from the installation at this time. So, the system is still responsive, but nothing is happening. I leave it for an hour. Nothing. Two hours. Nothing. I power down and start again. Dies in the same place.

I start with Dell Tech Support, and after a few minutes the tech walks me through a "hard drive debug", putting in the utilities DVD and booting to a DOS prompt, and typing a weird set of instructions that made absolutely no sense but they did something, I guess. I started the installation back up, and pow, dead in the same place. They were now going to ship me out a new hard drive, thinking there was a bad sector on the drive or something that caused the installation to stop when it go to that point. Ok, a couple days later I have the new drive. Swap it out, try the installation again, dies in the same spot, same symptoms. When I called back, they were going to send me out a new drive, thinking the replacement got damaged in shipment. Took me 5 minutes to convince them that wasn't the problem (no damage to the box or packaging, and the installation was dying in the exact same spot). So, now they decide it's my installation DVD or the DVD drive, and they will send new ones of those out. Two days later, I have those, but still dies in the same place. I call back, and now they are going to send a technician out with a new motherboard/processor/memory. Surprisingly, he comes out the next day. Swaps them all out, but still has the same problem. He's stumped, tells me he's done all he can and I need to call Dell back.

Ok, so now it's been a week without a computer. I have school work to do, and those of you who know me know that I can't go an hour without checking my email, so I'm flipping out by now. But, calmly flipping out. I call Dell back, and they say they will send me a new laptop, same configuration as I had if available. If not available, they would go one step up. Nice, I'll take it. The catch is, it's going to be at least a week, up to 15 business days to get it. I just about faint, but what else can I do? My first thought was that I'd go out and get that MacBook I've been thinking of and just sell the replacement Dell when I get it. I limped along on my work laptop, which is getting a bit long in the tooth, until the day my new Dell came. Oh joy! Looked like they had to kick the processor up a notch since the version I had wasn't available anymore (went from 2.0GHz chip to a 2.2GHz chip). Everything else was the same . . . except the screen. My original one, I had upgraded to a higher resolution glossy screen and they sent me one with the lower resolution matte screen. Put the two side by side, and it's a world of difference.

So, I call back and tell them they missed something on my configuration. The rep says the "guys in the warehouse messed up and sent the wrong one" and that he'll place the order for a replacement-replacement. Again, another 5-15 business days. Well, I got it yesterday, and it looks good and works, so I'm back up and running.

After a full month of not having a working computer.

Am I wrong to be a little peeved about how long it took to get this fixed? I mean, honestly, they tried in the support process, basically changing out everything you can change out and still not fixing the issue. And, having to wait for the first one was bad enough but having to wait again because they sent the wrong one to start really ticked me off.

We'll see what Steve Jobs has up his sleeve at MacWorld on the 15th, maybe I will just end up getting that MacBook Pro or iMac anyway. Regardless, I honestly think this will be my last Dell...

Andy

Secondary blog

2008-01-02T09:47:00.000-07:00

Well, I just set up a second blog here that kind of serves as an aggregation point for all my various online presence. Things like FitDay for my overall health/eating/exercise, BegginerTriathlete for my detailed training plans, that kind of thing. So, if you're really interested in what I'm up to you can always see more detail there. And kick me in the ass when I'm slacking :) I haven't populated those other sites in that second blog yet, literally set it up a few minutes ago. I might also link to my "digg" account so you can see what I'm digging or commenting on if you're a fellow digger. Gizmodo is another one of my favorites, so I might link to my user page there so you can read what I'm commenting on.

Good thing about letting people see my profiles on these other sites, helps keep me accountable for getting my fat butt back in shape. I'm determined to drop these extra 25 lbs that have crept in over time.

And if you're reading this on my Facebook site, click over to my real blog to see all the posts, blogs, ramblings, etc. I'm not going to link that second blog (or any others that I create) directly to my Facebook Notes like I have this blog, don't want to spam everyone with stuff if you're not really interested in seeing it anyway. I'll probably mention in my post here when I add stuff to the other ones so you can check them out if you want.

Story about my nightmare with Dell over my weird laptop problem maybe later today. Got an email from the escalation team that was pretty much like, "Well, it looks like your second replacement shipped out and you should receive it soon. We just won't mention the fact that this has been going on for about a month now and call it closed out. Thanks for your business!". Still trying to digest it and make some coherent thoughts. Maybe I'll write it up and submit it to Consumerist or something, see what they have to say.

Time to get back to work, more as I write it!

Andy

New Year, and a new blog

2008-01-01T23:31:00.000-07:00

10 cls
20 print "HELLO WORLD!"
30 goto 20

This is my first real attempt at blogging, so bear with me. My goal here is to try and at least say something every day and use this as a way that my friends and family can keep up with what's going on in my life, if they really want to know. See, that's the interesting thing, maybe people read this, maybe I'm just here talking to myself. I guess that doesn't really matter anyway, this is kind of a cathartic thing to do so I can just let my stream of conciousness go and get things off my chest. If people read it and get something out of it, great. If not, well, that's fine too as I'll at least have an outlet to get things off my mind so I can think of other things.

So, I'm going to start off the obligatory exercise thing again. I'm carrying about an extra 30 pounds that I really want to get rid of. I used to run, and after we moved to Arizona I did my first triathlon and had a great time. Finished next to last in my age group, but the important thing was that I finished, and I'm proud of that. I got a bit of plantar faciaitis after that, and took some time off doing serious workouts. And I paid for it. So, I took my first big step at getting back into it, today actually. For Christmas, I got a rack and bag for my bike so that I can pack a change of clothes for work and commute instead of driving every day. My plan is to do that once, maybe twice a week, and hit the gym the other mornings that I'm not commuting. So I hopped on the bike today with my new Garmin 305 bike computer to track my route and make sure that I could really do it. Well, 25 miles later, my ass is killing me. But, again, I did it. I rode all the way to the gym just past work, where I'll shower and get dressed for work, and I rode all the way back. Of course, it was harder today than it would be normally, as I did there and back in one fell swoop. Normally, I'd have the workday to recover and refuel for the ride home.

Also, with just my bike at work, I can't really go out for drive thru Taco Bell anymore :)

Ok, it's late, and this is already a little longer than what I had planned to start with, so Andy's signing off for now. Stay tuned for more stuff going on (should have my replacement Dell tomorrow, that's a long hell-like story of laptop support that I'll share) and various ramblings on my life in general and things I think are cool.

May the Force be with you,

Andy