it's a christmas miracle!

in july we moved into our house in starkville, ms. in the backyard, there is a pecan tree of large proportion. from one of the limbs, there hung a reminder of what our house used to be. see, before the people bought our house to renovate it, it was a daycare center. and from one of the trees, hung a play telephone complete with touch pad dialing.

it has hung in this tree for over three years just waiting for someone to take it down. bethany has insisted that i climb the tree and remove it. so far i have resisted the temptation.

but now, thanks to my christmas miracle, i no longer need climb that tree. for you see, as we returned from the store, i spied, laying in the yard, that phone. now truly i have gotten all i could possibly want for christmas.

how i know it's christmas time

there are many ways that people know that christmas is just around the corner. some would say it's the sound of the bell ringing for the person collecting for the red kettle outside of walmart. others might say the sound of christmas carols on the radio. or perhaps the decorations that show up at lowe's in october.

for me, it's something completely different. i know that the christmas season has truly arrived when i clean out cleo's litter pan and i find tinsel from our christmas tree. it just wouldn't be christmas without cleo tasting things on the tree and seeing what she likes and doesn't like.

merry christmas everyone.

just a quickie

i must admit i was happy about the outcome of the elections this past week. i thought that all of the grumbling and complaining would fizzle to complacency when it actually came time to cast the ballot and people would choose to keep the status quo. to my surprise they actually spoke with their votes and changed the course for this country for at least the next two years. let's hope its for the better.

on a side note, i was standing in line waiting to vote in the overly long A-L line when a lady walked up to the M-Z line which had no one in it. the lady working the poll asked for her name which the lady provided. the worker looked up the name and made sure it was in the register and then handed the voter her access card for the voting machine. she never asked for any kind of identification at all. how weird is that? none of the races here were hotly contested but is it really that simple to commit voter fraud? just have to know someones name and get there before they do and vote for them. hopefully something will change before the next election to tighten up this process.

whirlwind

wow, i've done a bit of driving this week. i think i would like to share with you a couple of the things that stand out most. let's call it, the week in review.

let's start with monday. i had dinner with my parents in dillard, ga at a place called the cupboard cafe. i can highly recommend it if you are passing through the area and get a bit peckish. while dining, i made the comment to my parents that i could make the drive to blacksburg, va with my eyes closed. famous last words. while singing along to the boss, i completely spaced out and went the wrong way. needless to say, i won't be making that comment again.

tuesday was halloween and keeping with tradition at the office some people dressed up. i was not one of those people. i usually dress up but for some reason it just slipped my mind. however, it didn't slip vicky's. i was sitting in the cubby hole and she pops in wearing a shirt that is a optical illusion, shorts and sandals. at this point, i wasn't really sure what she was other than comfortable. then she showed me her toenails which she had painted blue and gold, the same color i painted my toenails for the virginia tech/georgia tech game last year. she came as me! i was so jealous. i could have worn shorts to work as well! but that costume runs a distant second to my all time favorite of hers; the whack-a-mole machine.

wednesday we went to troy's for lunch. enough said.

thursday was the beginning of our user conference. this is the second year that we have done one of the these. last year it was well received and it was no different this year. we took a tour of the metalsa-roanoke plant where they manufacture rails for big rigs. we walked through the plant and there were probably no more than 10 people watching the line. it is completely automated and one of the coolest plants i have ever seen.

friday after the user conference we went to the homeplace. it is a family style restaurant and one of the best places at making you miserable for eating too much. z.j. and christy were a bit later getting there and told the guy that seats people they were with the big group. so he took them to a table with about 20 folks eating. uh, wrong group. they did eventually make it to our table.

later that night i went to the cellar in blacksburg with some friends. while i'm sitting at a table i look up to the bar and this guy is waving at me. as i'm trying to place him (i have difficulty recognizing people out of context) another head turns around and its none other than tracy moran and immediately i place curtis. turns out, curtis works at metalsa-roanoke and was sitting in an office when our group walked by and he thought that he saw me. he asked who that was that walked by and his suspicions were confirmed when the fella answered "CCS".

and that brings us to saturday. i drove to gainesville to see my grandparents and nephews. always good to see the family. on my way around atlanta, i was searching through the radio stations trying to find the nc state/georgia tech game on the radio when i came across a station playing christmas carols! it's november 4th and they are playing carols already! well, i managed to get over that and made it home safely to find bethany and arty laying on the couch waiting for me.

it was a good trip but it is nice to be home.

is anyone paying attention?

i'm actually watching a playoff game. this might be the first baseball game i've watched all year. i'm not sure why i've been completely uninterested in baseball but it might be the fact that they are using more performance enhancing drugs than the WWE.

speaking of drugs, what were the players in the miami(fl) - florida international rumble on? it started with a fi player body slamming the placeholder for an extra point attempt and ended with a miami player swinging a helmet. i think somewhere in between a crutch was used and it soon looked like the fight from the movie anchorman.

we have great seats at the mississippi state football games. we sit on the 48 yard line 9 rows up from the field behind the visitors sideline. one of the things that i've noticed is how much equipment all the football teams bring to the games. and then on saturday we played jacksonville state, a I-AA school. what did they have on the sideline you ask? 4 coolers of powerade.

but they brought their band. if you are ever in the neighborhood of jacksonville, al on game day i highly recommend getting a ticket and enjoying the show. hit'em with a little flight of the bumble bee!

tis the season

no, not that season. though i was at lowes the other day and noticed that they have already put out christmas stuff. it's early september and it's still in the 90's here. can we get through halloween before we have to start worrying about christmas?

i'm talking about football season. we're only a couple weeks in and so far i seen the following games:

saints vs colts (nfl preseason)
sc vs ms state (first thursday game on espn)
notre dame vs georgia tech (oh, they should have won that one)
auburn vs ms state (ugly)
tulane vs ms state (almost one of the best comebacks ever)

and my falcons have started the season 2-0 and face the longtime rival saints this coming monday in the first game back in the superdome since katrina.

for a long time the saints and falcons were so terrible that the only good game you would see the other play would be when they played each other.

things have changed a lot since then and both teams are pretty exciting so i'm looking forward to it.

oh, and if you are wondering about my next game, come at visit me in blacksburg when georgia tech comes a calling.

sometimes it takes a little prodding

emails can be like cattle prods. first, they both are powered by electricity and can be used wirelessly pretty much anywhere on earth. secondly, you probably won't remember everytime you use it but are almost guaranteed to remember the very last instance. finally, it's best when used on someone else.

so next time you reach for the email program, weild it with the confidence of a wrangler with a cattle prod. and always remember it is better to give than to recieve.

trip the light fantastic

nope, not a very good dancer but i'm pretty good at putting one foot in front of the other. and i did quite a bit of that this weekend in d.c. my parents came up for a visit and we all went to d.c. to see all the monuments and museums and the zoo.

we managed to get through the indian museum, ww ii memorial, korean memorial, lincoln memorial, and fdr memorial in the span of 5 hours (we also detoured and checked into our hotel during that time). i was quite impressed since it required quite a bit of walking and my folks aren't quite a spry as they once were.

sunday we woke up and went to union station (more of a mall than a transit facility) and the zoo. we spent about 4 hours walking around the zoo. i was hoping to see the hippo wandering about but he spent most of his time just swimming around his pool.

it's always good to get to d.c. and get that feeling of exactly how big and diverse we are. helps to keep all things in perspective.

a topic...about topic maps

i was reading in one of my trade rags the other day about topic maps. i don't recall ever hearing anyone mention them before so i thought i would read on and see if there was anything there of interest.

to my surprise, it was quite interesting. topic maps give you the ability to create associations between, well for lack of a better word, topics. see, in a topic map, everything is a topic. people, places, documents, web pages and the list just goes on and on.

so you create your topic instances and the you can create associations between two topics and add scope and all kinds of crazy stuff. it seems to me like a really interesting tool for linking all your information so you can easily find and follow a certain thread of knowledge.

the hard part now will be finding an easy way to integrate them into qualtrax and make our customers jump for joy!

ok, maybe not jump but at least wiggle in their seat.

a hiking we will go

this past weekend bethany and i went hiking with chad and susan. we decided to hike up the cascades as that is one of our favorite hikes (and it's easy). it was one of the first hikes we enjoyed over five years ago when we moved to blacksburg so it only seemed fitting to wrap up our time here with one last stroll though the woods.

chad and susan just returned from the grand canyon where they hiked 10 miles (1 mile vertical drop) to reach the bottom so the 4 mile round-trip to them was a piece of cake. and not one single time to susan get pouty or express and interest to give up.

we came across a snake (black with yellow racing stripes) and a bunch of *pedes (we weren't sure it they were centi or milli, none of us can count that high). we also saw many of the pedes' brethren along the trail that came under the wrath of someone's hiking boots. when squished, they kind of look like a really bad fake mustache.

we we reached the falls i mentioned to bethany that it would be the last time we would hike the cascades. she smiled and said yeah but that we could do it when we come back to visit. so until then...

shake that bleep for me

i was listening to the radio the other day and found myself once again very irritated about what was playing. a local radion station was playing a radio-edit version of eminem's latest release. it contains about one bleep for every four words so i feel that i'm getting jipped by them playing the song.

it seems as though this radio station has decided that some of the lyrics would be offensive to their listeners but have also decided that the entire section that creatively describes oral sex is acceptable. i'm not sure how they came to this conculsion but i would like to think that their listeners would be less offended by the continual use of "ass", but i've been wrong before.

i guess my thing is that if you have to use bleeps, you don't need to play it in the first place.

code-slapping monkey

wo. it's been almost a week since i last put something out here. what the heck have i been up to? well, i'll tell. i've been working like a code-slapping monkey. working on the workflow engine for the qualtrax product and it's been a bear.

monkeys and bears do not a good combination make. just the other day i was reading about a zoo in the netherlands i think where some bears at a zoo got after one of the monkeys. the zookeepers tried to distract the bear but to no avail. it got the monkey and took it back to the den where the other bears joined in for a nice afternoon snack. hopefully i won't come to the same fate.

and they're off...

well, it was derby weekend and as usual my horse took the race off. i picked bob and john and he might as well have just gone for a walk in the park. i picked him mainly because he was trained by baffert and he's had pretty good luck. until now.

we did our usual get-together at a friends house for the watching of the derby. i made burgoo, kentucky pie, and cucumber sandwiches. i was quite surprised how much everyone like the sandwiches. not a whole lot to them but people kept gobbling them up. the burgoo is kind of weird (i kept referring to it as bird goop, whatever that is). it is a pot full of all kinds of meat and vegetables cooked over low heat until you are ready to eat. seems quite similar to beef stew, only not.

my sister-in-law actually went to the derby as part of her job and came out pretty well. she bought a dress and hat and the hit the trifecta with 2 of her co-workers. all in all i'd say she had a pretty good weekend. now if she can just get lulu feeling a little better.

what's that in my ear?

while at work i genearlly have some form of music playing the background to break the monotonous drone of the air conditioner running when it's only 60 degrees outside and approaching the 50's inside.

what's been catching my fancy lately is bruce springsteen's seeger sessions. everytime i listen to it i can't help but think that only someone of his musical stature could have pulled off such a jump from their norm.

i've always considered bruce one of the best songwriters ever and this album give you a glimpse into what his influences are. now if i could just figure out who the mary is in bruce's songs i would be even happier.

all in all, i give it two bigfoot stomps. not everyone will like this but just like collard greens you'll never know unless you try it.

first time for everything

well, having now jumped on the blog bandwagon, i guess i should start posting stuff. i'm not really sure why i decided to start doing this but i figured i'd give it a shot since just about everyone else in the world is doing the same. nothing like being the last person on the bus.

anywho, as time goes by i'll put up some things that pass through this vast emptyness that i like to call a brain (i think other call it that as well). so, for the first go-round i would like to share a recurring dream that i have. i told my wife that i thought it would be recurring until i figured out how to get out of the situation. so all you text-based gamers or dream readers, send along any thoughts you have about how i can get out of this recurring dream and i'll work in your suggestions and see if it works.

here's how it goes:

i'm in my childhood bedroom (been having this dream for quite a while now) and there is a party going on outside in the front yard. it is dark but the people seem to be having a good time anyway. just to the left is a really big water oak and the road we lived on is visible. a UPS truck is driving down the road and i happen to notice it. nothing special, big and brown. i go back to watching the party. the truck drives back up the road (guess it didn't take long to drop off the package). it does this another time without any big changes. the third time it starts down the road it veers into the yard knocking people out of its way and finally come to a crashing halt in the water oak. and then i wake up.

like i said, it's been going on for years and i'd like to move on to another recurring dream so if you have any thoughts let me know.