Well, what a day. I have been sick as a dog. Our external web server in Georgia got a virus and had to be rebuild. It is suppose to be up at 5pm PT. So I am sitting here, while everyone else left at 3pm because it is new years eve. I am going to have to compare all of the files, because the backup the Hosting Company has is from the day before. All in a days work right?

Well, I have got to have a little fun today, in between the stresses of the day I install "LongHorn" (next version if Microsoft Windows) in VMWare. So far it is pretty cool. It seems to be running in VMWare a little slow, but since I don't want to dedicate a machine to it right now, it will have to do. Funny enough, I think it looks like Linux.

So the quote of road trip was from the little boy. <quote source="the little boy">Stop the car, poopy butt </quote>

I thought that was funny. Of course the idea of hearing it every half-hour not so much. It was good trip. There is something so freeing about just hoping in the car and driving through to another place, another state.

Getting to see and experience a slower pace of life was really wonderful. And getting to see my Wife interact and spend time with her Sisters, and Brother was really heartwarming. I know that she had a good time. The little boy got to play with his cousins from Oklahoma, which was so nice for him. Sometimes I think that the open spaces and slower way of life is what I want. I don't really know. I mean I am so use to everything being just around the corner. In two miles from the house we have the grocery stores, wal-mart, home depot, movie theatre, restaurants even a guitar center. In Skull Valley it is a half hour drive into town. There is always the internet, I know, but, it's all what you are use to.

I was a little disappointed, but not entirely surprised that the Sprint Wireless modem didn't connect out there in Skull Valley, AZ. Being that the Phoneix was a good 100 miles away and it was 15 miles through the hills to Prescott. Since the card is completely digital, it couldn't connect to the analog signal out there. But the cellphone worked great, no problems there. Important lesson learned. <lesson_learned>Always take the laptop</lesson_learned>. It's funny how it felt weird not getting online for 4 days. It was probably a good thing though.

Worked on my C# project some more today. Man, I am really getting into C#. Ed said that he couldn't go back to VB after working with it, and I see why. The structure is just so nice.

Well, tomorrow is the big trip. We are going to Skull Valley, AZ. I am really looking forward to the trip. This will be the first road trip with the new car. I am looking forward to seeing my Wife get to interact with her siblings. It is always interesting to see how people are with their family. I like her family alot, they are good people.

It is going to be a 6.4 hour trip. That will be interesting being that we are going to have the little boy with us. A three year old on a 6.4 hour road trip should be interesting. I believe the math goes 3X6.4hours = how long the trip feels. I am happy to go all the same.

This is my post from the train. after tomorrow there won't be any updates to the xml/rss version of my blog. I will do those updates when I get back in town. From friday 26th till tuesday 30th, I will be updating my blog from my iPaq. Hopefully my Sprint wireless modem works in Arizona.

Today was good. I got through two chapters of my book on UML. It is really well laid out. It makes UML almost easy to understand. I want to get UML and the software analysis and documentation side of things complete down. That way I can avoid costly design mistakes.

I worked on my new project in C#. It went well. I had some help, Ed rocked, he must of been sick of me IMing him with questions but he answered them all. So C# is now part of my language set. Actually it is a really good step away from VB. It's more flexible because it doesn't hide things away from you. However on the flipside of that things there were just there like. VB.NETServer.MapPath(strName) Is not that simple in C#. Now you have to make sure that you are calling in the "System.Web" Namespace and then get the Server.MapPath from the HttpContext. using System.Web; ....HttpContext.Current.Server.MapPath(); Well since I hate writing the same code twice. I created a utility class and a function called getPath. using System.Web; public class WebUtil { public WebUtil() { } public string getPath(string strName) { string strPath; strPath = HttpContext.Current.Server.MapPath(strName); return (strPath); } }

Today seems to be one of those days. I mean don't get me wrong nothing bad has happen'd. It was just one of those days.

Well today, I am working on improving my skills. I got a book on UML and am going to work at modeling software before I ever start coding it. In the long run I know that it is going to so save me time. It is just hard to change the habits of programmers. I have also started to use C# instead of VB.NET. I know that at there root level of the CLR they are the same, but it just seems to be like C# is more flexible. So on the same project and I am going to use and learn UML and C#. Easy right? And if course I was writing PHP this weekend for my friends site. Then they have the nerve to make funny of me at work when I can't seem to speak english.

Well, have to do some adult things today. Take the car in to get serviced, get ready for work tomorrow. The weekends just fly by.

Yesterday, got to see Return of the King for the second time. I loved it as much as the first. Though I have to say, the next person I hear muse, "I wonder if there is going to be a Lord of the Rings 4" is going to get it. I don't mind little kids saying that but when adults or even teenagers say it , it drives me mad. The three books are in every library. Are we as a society so unread now.

I went with my brother and sister. It was great to spend some time with them.

Next weekend we are going to Airzona, we are going to spend some time with my Wife's family. That is going to be nice, there are still some of her siblings I haven't met. It will be a good thing.

I expect work to be a ghost town tomorrow. Most everyone is going to be on vacation. Who knows, maybe I will be able to get some work done.

Just got back from LOTR Return of the King...All the good reviews that you have heard...Absolute spot on! Rarely is there a book made into a movie, where you feel the same emotions in the movie as you did when reading the book. I remember the feeling of dispair, triumph, and contentment as I read through the book, and believe it or not the movies invokes the same feelings. The great thing about the movie is, you didn't have to read the book to get it. Peter Jackson did an amazing Job on this film. I hear rumors that after Jackson does the remake of <couldtakeitorleaveit value="true">King Kong</couldtakeitorleaveit> he is going to make "The Hobbit". I guess we can only hope so!

LOTR Return of the King tonight! My Wife and I are going to go and see Return of the King. <sad> This is the first movie in the trilogy that we didn't get to see the Midnight showing opening day. </sad>

It has been one of those days at work, where you feel like it is a fire drill, going from one issue to another, and not getting anything that you set out to do done.

<quote who="Arthur Dent">This must be Thursday. I never could get the hang of Thursdays.</quote>

It sounds like the CMS project is going to be a go! Going to be a good project, have to have it bought, installed and implemented by Jan, 31 2004.

It is nice to be back to work after being <hatebeingsick value="true">sick for a week with the flu</hatebeingsick> I have to work on the heloc app again. The project that never ends. Everyone seems so frustrated by it. We will have to come to some conclusion on it. I am about ready to re-write it to export the data as xml and then have the vendor parse my xml instead of dealing with thier strange file type.

It sounds like we are going to get to implement CMS. I am excited about that. I have enjoyed writing CMS and Content Management tools since I worked at ARTISTdirect
found a new site I love Computer Zen

It's the reason I started this blog. I am going to build my own blogger soon in either .NET or PHP. I haven't decided. I want to make sure that it has the RSS feature. I love the idea behind RSS. And of course since it is an XML system, I am on it!

Just did the bills... Either need more money or less bills or both.