I'm looking for a new laptop...
I've been researching laptop computers lately. I'm in the market to buy a new laptop and have finally decided the specs on what I think I want, but unfortunately, I can't find a notebook that matches what I want. I'm looking for the following:
- Intel Pentium M, preferrably w/the Centrino chipset
- ATI Mobility 9600 Pro (or higher)
- >= 60GB Hard Drive @ 7200 RPMs
- >= 768MB RAM
- 15" display (undecided on widescreen or not)
- 802.11a/b/g (at least b) and Bluetooth enabled
I've heard that HP/Compaq is coming out w/a new nc8000 model in the "Evo" case and from the spec sheet I download, it seems to match my requirements. Also, I heard that Voodoo PC was going to update their Envy m460 notebook to match those specs.
My life in a nutshell...
Ok, I haven't had much to say lately—haven't really been spending much time doing anything worthwhile on the 'net lately. Anyway, here's what's going on with me in a nutshell:
- Still trying to find work. I'm hoping to hear something this week back on a possible contract. If I get this contract, it'll be a huge weight off my shoulders.
- Played golf w/my dad on August 28th at Longaberger—one of the countries best public golf courses. This was the first day of some stomach virus I had. I enjoyed the golf course—but was really feeling crappy all day.
- I was sick over Labor Day Weekend—that really stunk. Jenn & I were sick together, but that meant we missed my family "get together" for Labor Day—which is where we celebrate Labor Day along with my parent's Anniversay, my cousin Stef & Scot's anniversary and my grandfather's birthday (my mom's dad.) I was really dissappointed to miss seeing the family.
- I went out dinner w/my parent's on their 35th Anniversary on September 3rd. My mom came to town to finally use the Kenneth's Spa certificate I bought her last year for her birthday. My dad and I had planned to play golf, but it was overcast and with being sick, we decided it was best to just skip it. I was really glad to be able to eat dinner with them since I had missed the Labor Day cookout. We ate at La Scalia's on RT161 up in Dublin.
- The weekend of the 7th, Jenn & I went up to Niles to celebrate her sister's birthday and her parent's 31st anniversary. It's funny, her parent's anniversary is like 10 days after my parent's and her birthday is like 10 days before mine. Our families seem to have a lot important dates right around the same time. We also went w/her parent's to an R/V show. They ended up buying a really nice 27' R/V. They do a lot of camping and travelling and I think they'll really enjoy what they bought.
- I've been playing bass pretty frequently as of late. We practice the other day and have a few tryouts for a drummer in the comming weeks—the first tryout is this Friday (9/19/2003.)
- Maddie broke out in hives once on Friday night and once on Saturday morning. We ended up taking her to the Vets to get some shots to take down the swelling. She looked really bad Friday morning. We're still unsure to what caused it, but the mosquitos have been extremely bad lately—so that's a definite suspect. (The mosquitos have been eating me alive as of late. I've got bug bits all over the place.)
- Finally got together with Todd, Monica and Nicholas to give Nicholas his birthday presents. I've said this before, but Nicholas is great. Todd & Monica are really doing a great job. Nicholas is also the first fan of our band. Whenever we get to the bridge of The Beatle's "Getting Better" he smiles real big and starts dancing—like only a 12 month old can. :)
Ok, that's about it. I promise I'll try to get back to updating my blog more regularly!
Rainy days... Soaked apartment...
Ok, once again I've been pretty silent over the past week—its been a busy week! It all really started on Friday. Jenn's parent's were coming in to town to go to the Ohio State Fair. I got home from work and immediately started cleaning up the house and doing some yard work. I wanted to get the house somewhat respectable before her parent's got there. I didn't get everything done I wanted, but got enough done that I was satisfied. Part of the reason I stopped working is the temperature dropped like 15 degrees within a 30 minute time frame and these dark clouds starting rolling in. I could see lightning and hear thunder in the distance. It looked like the storm was heading our way, so I wanted to start putting stuff away before he got to the house. Well, the storm never ended up hitting the house, so I thought that was the last of it. Boy was I wrong!
Anyway, Jenn's parent's got to town around 9pm or so—maybe it was closer to 9:30pm. They got in a little later than planned because they had waited to eat at the restaurant outside the Mohican State Park they kept hearing about. While they said the food was ok, they said it wasn't worth the wait. We sat around until about 11:10pm or so and then they (with Jenn) headed over to her apartment to call it a night.
Right before they left, we had been watching the news and heard about all the flood damage in the 161/Minerva Lake area. I remember making an offhanded joke to Jenn about her apartment being flooded, but being as her apartment is not at the bottom of a hill, we didn't think much about it—so all joked about it.
Picked up Madden 2004 for the PS2...
Well, I picked up Madden 2004 for the PlayStation 2 last night. The new features—especially the "Playmaker" feature—are awesome. I only got to play one game last night, but my Steelers killed the Bengals in an exhibition match.
It Lives!
Well, it's been about a week since I've blogged. I took several days off from work in order to "re-energize" a bit. Anyway, I'm back now, so you'll probably here a little more from me again. So, let's see, what's been going on?
Well on Wednesday of last week I did some work around the house during the day and then at night I babysat for Nicholas. That kid is just so funny. He gets laughing so hard that he starts wheazing and rocking back and forth—it's classic. He's really a joy to babysit. He's about as easy to take care of as you could ask.
Thursday I met up w/my buddy Jason and we took our dogs to Antrium park in here in Columbus. I wanted to get Maddie out and let her play and swim a bit. Unfortunately, a thunderstorm starting rolling through so I couldn't let her swim for very long. I know she was pretty bummed about not being able to swim—as we made are way around the lake she kept sneaking back in the water. I just didn't want to risk her getting struck—I know the odds are against it, but what can I say, I wanted to be safe.
Personal Update...
It's been awful quite her the past week, but only quite in my digital life. My dad's mom went in to the hospital on Friday and had a valve replacement and a double bypass surgery on Tuesday (7/29/2003.) I've been over to Springfield the past two nights to visit with her. I got to see and talk to her last night after her surgery. The surgery went as well as can be expected and she seems to be recovery nicely. They were planning on making her sit up for her meals today and they wanted to get her up and moving around a bit. I haven't heard from my parents today, but I suspect she's right on target. If all goes well, she should be home by early next week—if not this weekend.
Jenn & I did a bunch of yardwork on Saturday. I cut down the lilly tree right outside my front door. I'm trying to figure out what I want to put in it's place. It was just starting to become tedious to upkeep.
The past week and a half has just been so hectic, but I can't think of what else major went on, so I guess this is it to my personal update. :)
Mozilla v1.5 (Alpha) Announced/Firebird Delayed...
Mozilla v1.5 (Alpha) was just announced. There's a couple of new features, but the biggest news to me was that they've had to delay the release of Firebird. According the official Mozilla Roadmap:
It's clear now that we will not be able to switch to Mozilla Firebird by the Mozilla 1.5 final milestone. Instead, we expect Mozilla 1.5 to coincide with Mozilla Firebird 0.7. But we intend to implement the new application architecture in the next several milestones, till most of the community is won over to the new apps.
Saw Todd, Monica and Nicholas last night...
I went over to Todd & Monica's last night to hang out. I haven't seen Monica and Nicholas since the 3rd. Nicholas is pretty much walking all the time now. He's only crawling occasionally. He's also really starting to comprehend what you say to him. You can pretty much ask him for any toy and he'll go track it down and bring it to you. You can also ask him where people are and he'll look for them. I just love watching little kids learn. It's such an amazing thing.
Also, I got to see him ride his big wheel. I can't believe how well he manuevers that thing—and he's not even a year old yet! He stayed very close to me the whole time I was there. He'd sit on my lap, then get down, bring a toy over for us to play and then he'd want on my lap again. When I got up to leave, he jumped off Monica's lap and klung to my leg. He then held his hands up for me to pick him up. So I picked him up he gave me this big hug. When I gave him back to his mom, he just started bawling. It made me both very sad (you hate hearing a little kid so upset) and made me feel really good that he was so concerned that I was leaving. Anyway, Monica and Todd are doing a great job w/that kid! :)
Love Pump/Band Practice
Well, we had band practice again last night. I ended up burning the recording from last night (and the practice before that) to CD. I was a bit off all night last night—my timing was really bad last night. Not sure why either, I had practice a couple of times over the past couple of days. I had a bit of a headache last night, so maybe that contributed to things. Regardless, when we play out live I can't afford to have off nights.
PS - "Love Pump" isn't the actual name of the band—we still haven't decided on a name—it's just our joke reference from the movie "This Is Spinal Tap."
Weekend of the 4th
First, I hope everyone in the U.S. had a nice, relaxing Fourth of July weekend. I spent Thursday night w/friends, Friday (the 4th) with family and spent Saturday and Sunday with Jenn's parents in Niles, OH. Busy weekend, but I had fun.
Jenn & I went to see T3: Rise of the Machines today. I've been hearing lots of good things about it of late, so my desire to see it really increased. It turned out to be what I originally thought it would be—just a big budget action flick that's very short on story. It was definitely the worst of the three. I'm not saying there's not good action, it's just very predictable and I found myself losing interest. If I were watching it at home, I probably wouldn't have bothered pausing if I left the room. I just wasn't fond of the story at all. I think they could have done something much more interesting. Why are all these action flicks being done like we're all cerebrally challenged?
I also recieved my Spock's BeardFeel Euphoria: Special Edition today. The special edition included two bonus tracks and also included a sampler CD of a bunch of other artists being distributed by InsideOut Music.
Comedy Club/Missed Concert...
Jenn & I went to The Funny Bone last night for the second time in 5 days (we went Saturday night and saw Heywood Banks.) Mark Sweeney was the headliner last night and was funny as hell. The feature act was just as good, but I can't recall his name. I know he was one of the ten finalist for a contest on Comedy Central. He's also from Cincy, so there was a lot of "local" humor.
I'm really bummed I missed the Fates Warning/Dream Theater/Queensryche concert last night. They're playing in Cleveland and Cincy this month as well, so I think I'll have to hit the Cincy show—which is on a Friday. Part of the reason I'm so bummed, is I just found out that Nick D'Virgilio, who's the drummer and now lead vocalist for Spock's Beard, is playing drums for Fates Warning on this tour. He's probably my favorite drummer at the moment, and Spock's Beard is definitely one of my favorite bands. Anyway, I want to see the show even more now.
BestBuy, Bad Idea...
I just went to BestBuy's website and got the screen below. Talk about bad ideas. Why would you purposly limit the number of users to your site—especially for an e-commerce site? Come on guys, why not pop a few more servers on the ol' server farm? This is ridiculous.
Popovich's In Town/Nicholas Walking...
The Popovich's came in to town Sunday—they're going to be staying at the Gazvoda's for the week. Since Jenn & I were out and about all day Sunday, last night was the first time I got a chance to visit with them. (Honestly, I wouldn't have contacted them on Sunday anyway, I'm sure they just wanted to kick back and relax for the day.) Eric & Krista were already over at Todd & Monica's house when Todd called me. Jenn had some reading to do and Tuesday's are here long day (w/work and then school right afterwards,) so she decided to stay home.
Nathan was already asleep when I got there, but Nicholas was still up. When I walked in the room, Nicholas' eyes just let up and he got this huge smile. There's something about a baby smile that can wipe away even the worst of moods—not that I was in a bad mood yesterday, I wasn't, but those smiles make you forget about everything else on your mind. Jennifer Popovich, Krista and Monica were all in the living room together.
Monica was giving him his bottle when I came in. I ended up taking over the feeding—which itself is so sweet and innocent. When you give him his bottle he holds your hand (or finger) with one hand and then he gently caresses your arm with the other—you can just tell he's going to be very empathetic, caring and kind to others. He then would also put his fingers up to mind—he seemed to be comparing the differences in the size of our fingers. First, he'd put his finger against mine length-wise, then he'd just push his finger tip to mind. You could just tell he was processing something.
Track My Days Left Being Employed!
I added a little "Employment Tracker" to the top of the page which will countdown the number of days I have left at my current job—provided they don't decide to walk in and shorten my stay further. :)
My job has been "abolished"...
Ok, so last night I'm sitting at my desk getting a lot of work done—I'm finishing up some contract work that's due Monday. Low and behold I get an e-mail from the director of our organization—he wants to meet with me in the morning. I immediately have a bad feeling about this—especially considering the fact he's never sat down and talk to me. Anyway, I sent an IM to a follow co-worker in my department to see if he got a similar message, and he did. Again I'm thinking to myself, "this isn't good."
You see finances at my current employer have been pretty bad. We had a former director who pretty much spent all of our capital and used up our reserve funds like they were going out of style. On top of that, there's been legislation on the table at the State level that essentially says: Gov't funded entities can't compete with private industries. I understand this and from an entrepreneur standpoint, but this has pretty much tied our hands with who we can do business with as a web group working for my current employer. So the last year has been pretty rough—at least as far as bringing in real cash to the department. We've stayed busy, but it's all been very nickle and dime projects—enough to keep you busy, but not enough to really cover costs. We already had one round of layoffs last year, and although management had insisted that there we no foreseeable cutbacks in the future, I've been through this before (although never have been affected by layoffs,) so I know how the process works—there's almost always a second round of layoffs.
Anyway, there's been a lot of buzz around the office. Quite frankly, every since last October-ish, my group has been through a roller coaster of emotions. One week it looks like our jobs are secure, the next it looks like we won't make it until the end of the week. We're in the middle of several contracts that would taken us through December, so as of recent time, I thought we'd be safe until the end of the year. (Also, since our fiscal year starts July 1st of each year, I figured they would have down layoffs to coincide with people ending their tenure at the end of the fiscal year.)