Where I've been Somehow, this map became all cracked out. Contrary to popular option, I haven't been to Angola, Tunisia, and Libya...nor Chile or most any of the countries that are currently showing up in red. I guess just ignore the map until it gets fixed.



create your own visited country map
or write about it on the open travel guide
  ¶ 1:28 PM

  New Ride Well it was time...and I honestly can say that I'm not sad to see it go.

R.I.P. 1988 Toyota Cressida

To replace it, I picked up a brand new Acura TSX today. Carbon Grey with a Grey interior. I spent the entire car ride home singing the new Outkast song... I love the way you move...I love the way you move


love it! LOVE it! LOVE IT!

...now, I just have to pay for it :-/  ¶ 7:35 PM

  Wow and a month goes by... It is kind of funny. There is so much that I wanted to write in my blog, but I never seem to have the chance. And now that it is almost snowing here .... and I have some time, all the stuff that I wanted to write seems so...boring. To write about the end of September or October is pointless...too much happened and somehow the month just flew by. Oh well.

We'll see if I do any better this month. When I go to work each day, I literally spend 8 hours in front of a computer and so most afternoons when I come home, the last thing I want to do is spend more time in front of the computer typing out what I did. Besides that, most of what I do would be boring to just about everyone else. meh.

I had kind of a revelation today. For some reason, the scene from American Beauty where Mina Sorvino asks Kevin Spacey how he is doing just popped into my mind. You know, the one where the thinks introspectively for a second, smiles, and says that he's just fine. I think this whole thought came from the fact that one of my acquaintances from college IMed me yesterday morning and asked me how I was doing -- and what I was doing. And I did the exact same thing. I'm...just...fine.

Most of y'all don't realize, but that is a big jump from where I was a month or two ago. The first few months of building for my company have been very difficult. My mentor is never around -- he's overworked with 7 or 8 clients...and most of my team members, while being cool, were too busy to really show me what I needed to be doing. I was very frustrated that I had no clue what I was supposed to be doing...or what order to do it in...or even how to do it. To say that I was frustrated was a huge understatement. My what a few months can change.

One thing that I realized is that this is the exact environment that I thrive in. Once I got over the initial pissed-off-at-the-world mood, I gathered my resources and used them effectively to create a great project. Unlike some of my new teammates, I worked independently to get done what needed to be done...and I did a darn good job doing it. I've gotten kudos e-mails from people on other solutions thanking me for helping them (some from much experienced people). I got a really surprise e-mail last week from my mentor (who CC'd my boss) saying how good a job I had done w/ my client's system, especially considering that he hadn't gotten a chance to help me as much as he wished he could have. And in a response to that, one of the big project executives replied that the clients had traveled with her to another hospital to see how they were implementing our software and all they could talk about was how much they loved me....even the nurses who are always pissed off at me during our meetings. I guess I have been doing this all my life -- give me my work and a reasonable deadline and I'll do what I can to get the project done one time with good quality. Still, it is nice to hear it from neutral, or sometimes decidedly pessimistic, third-parties.

And now it is amazing how everything has changed in the 2 months since I've started building. All the new people come to me to ask me how to do something.... Yesterday, I taught a class that I took during my July training and got great ratings from the new associates who were there. I also took a look at my ratings from the multiple clients who I've started teaching when they come in for their visit 4's and I was consistently getting very positive comments. Who knew that when I started in my department just over 2 months ago that I'd be teaching classes to the clients and to new hires? Who knew that I'd be the expert in just under 2 months time of building? I still have my issues -- and I still use my resources, but it is fun to be needed. And it feels even better to be successful in an environment where I could have been very unsuccessful.

I'm just fine! Thank you, UT friend, for bringing that to my attention. You just made my day.

  ¶ 3:56 PM

  New Blanket Oh...so much to write about...and not enough time to do it in.

But here's a quickie....

Should I be disconcerted if my new blanket's washing directions say: Maching wash warm delicate separately. Do not bleach. Do not use water or fabric softeners....

Things that make you go hmmmmmm  ¶ 7:37 PM

  Time flies... So today I get to my desk not really feeling like doing anything and basically feeling/looking like shit. And as I sit at my desk, I start to think about what I have to do. Since my client hadn't turned anything in yet and none of my co-workers had anything, I just kind of spaced out. I mean, it looked like I was working. I was clicking a few websites and tweaking a program that I wrote 2 weeks ago (no, not one to rip off the company of fractions of pennies) and then looked up and realized that it was 11:33

It is kind of scary when you look at the clock at 8:30 and then the next time you look at it, it is 11:33 -- and you don't know what you did with that time.

Oh well...my afternoon was semi-productive  ¶ 6:13 PM

  Weekend of Labor Last weekend my father came to visit me in KC. It was fun...he was just like me, expecting an intellectual wasteland only be surprised with the amount of stuff that KC has going for it.

Really, it makes sense since there are fields of grain for hours around here. Everyone descends on the city in the weekend...and make it a pretty happening place.

We had a good time, even though it rained like 15" during the weekend. We saw President Truman's Library and Home in Independence, MO (just a short 15 min drive away). The next day we went to the Nelson-Atkins and the Kemper Modern Art Museum. Now, I really have been spoiled by the Kimbell Art Museum, the Modern Art Museum, and the Amon-Carter Art Museum in Fort Worth and the DMA in Dallas. I just expect other museums to be as large - with huge collections like these in places that I live. And places that I have traveled to have had huge collections too - London, Paris, Madrid, Amsterdam, NYC, Chicago...

Well not KC. The Nelson-Atkins has to have been a WPA project - so it reminds me of Fair Park in Dallas. I constantly think that I'm at the State Fair (I'm waiting for Big Tex to welcome me with "Howdy folks, welcome to the state FAIR of Tex-As!"). Still it only has one Renoir, one Monet...some artifacts and then several good pieces of art from minor painters. Right now they have a decent show from Baltimore, MD with more minor works from semi-major painters...but it just doesn't compare to Monet in the Mediterranean or Matisse/Picasso, A Gentle Rivalry or Renior: Portraits of an Age. I guess I was disappointed...but it is better than nothing.

The Kemper Modern was a little better. It is much smaller than just about any museum I have ever been to. It is jsut big enough to not be called a gallery, but it isn't really a museum. They have a restaurant that looks good there and has been given the best Zagat rating ... so I need to go try it. But they had these works of art from a guy who uses a lot of fun colors to represent normal things. He paints cupcakes and highways and hills (a lot of stuff looked like the hills of San Francisco) but he paints them in a way that their perspective is really odd. For example, the hills looked to be straight up and down, but they have cars and trucks still on the road. From a realist standpoint, there is no way that the cars could be on that road...but if you stood at the right vantage point, you could probably see how his perspective is really possible. It's cool!

We also ate our way around town. I finally tried KC BBQ. Man, what a mistake. We went to one of the two original BBQ restaurants in KC to try the famous stuff. It was horrible. The meat was completely dried out and didn't taste very good. They also didn't have the usual BBQ fixins: no pickles, no onions, no potato salad, no cole slaw, no nothing. They have meat and french fries. That's it.

The actual sauce that you could put on your meat was pretty good. It is a lot sweeter than I'm used to, but it was good. Still, even with good sauce, you can't make up for bad meat. Man, I miss Texas.

We also went to eat at this really, really good steakhouse. I called about 30 mins before we went to get reservations at this place. When we got there, they made us wait another 30 mins before seating us. So they gave a free $10 appetizer and $10 piece of cake. Plus, it was Prime Rib Sunday so we got a pound of Prime Rib for $16 and it was to die for. KC was once a huge meat area (heck, the Chisolm Trail came here from Fort Worth to slaughter cattle) so I'm not really surprised that KC beef would be as good as TX's.

Past that, I spent most of the weekend keeping my dad busy and trying to stay dry. All in all, it was a good vacation.
  ¶ 8:53 PM

  Clients A few weeks ago, I was so excited to hear that I was the first one of our group to be given a client to work with through their implementation. It was exciting because it means that I’ll have purpose in my life as soon as they get their act together and sign off on their deliverables (as opposed to doing random projects until I was assigned one). It also means that I’ll have a full implementation under my belt faster = more experience. So I hoping that will make me look better for a possible overseas stint. I’ve already decided that if I get the chance to be in the UK for an extended period of time, that I’m going to spend every penny that I make on traveling Europe. It would be better than Spain…I’d have the time and money! Que guay, no?

Anyway…so two weeks ago, the clients came in town for their 2nd meeting (of 5 total meetings). I was introduced as their builder for my part of the implementation…which was a trip considering it was my first week of real work in my new position. They started asking me questions which were a little too much for me so I had to really rely on my mentor to take the reigns and help them.

In a week or two, they’ll have most of their stuff on and I’ll get to start building it. Unfortunately, my client is here in KC…so that means that I won’t get to travel to some far off place (one of my co-workers is going to the Caymans for her client – rough life huh?) for the last integration testing and cut-over. But that’s okay, because when I have questions, I can literally go right across the street to get the answers.
  ¶ 8:14 PM

  Couch When we last left Mr. Swingline, he was waiting for his PB couch to come. And it finally came. After 3 or 4 delivery attempts, I was the proud owner of a PB Basic couch. And I love it.

I had to sell my soul to the devil, give away my first born, and curse the delivery people to get it here – but oh what a wonderful piece of furniture.

During our OC/Real World nights, my apartment friends take over the couch before I even get a chance to sit on it. So it is now been deemed THE couch of couches.

Thank god.
  ¶ 7:59 PM

  Bum I know that I've been a bum because I haven't written lately...so I'll try to update everyone in multiple posts this weekend....

Does that satisfy you?  ¶ 7:56 PM

  Okay, enough waiting I've been waiting for hours for the delivery people and they still haven't come. Enough already, I want my couch!  ¶ 5:33 PM