Back to the Grind

For many people, yesterday marked the return to work after a long weekend, or maybe even a full week of holiday vacation. Today was our torturous trip back to reality. It began at 5am EST... and we finally arrived in Chicago around noon CST. I drove Adri straight to work and came home to prepare for my next trip which will begin tomorrow at 4:30am CST. I absolutely must be on the road by 5:30am tomorrow to reach my destination on time.

Welcome back to the real world! /me trout slaps myself. This saying may be a little old, or a little too techie for some of you, but wow did that just bring me back to my old irc days.

Anywho, the blogging will resume. I've got a few funny stories and some interesting things I've learned and explored over the past week on Cape Cod that I'm eager to share... when my eyelids aren't drooping so low you question my ethnicity.

Winning Streak!

Well boys, today marks my second fantasy football win in a row! I think two wins constitutes a streak, right? It sure beats my 7 week LOSING streak! In a league of twenty guys, I've been constantly getting pounded by the seasoned fantasy players in this intense league. Going in to this week my record was 2-8, the worst in the league. Now, with my second win a row under my belt, my record improves to 3-8 - tied with four other teams for the leagues worst records!

Nobody on my team had a particularly stand-out day today but everyone decided to show up for work and put in a solid shift today. The real disappointment of the year has been Laurence Maroney. For the entire season, he is my second WORST scoring player. With all the hype around him I hang on to him and play him every week waiting for the break-out performance... but it never comes!

And why should it? With Tom Brady and the New England passing game, they can continue adding wins week in and week out without Maroney! Randy Moss is a beast and Brady is not afraid to throw to everyone. I just might get the courage to drop Maroney from my starting lineup next week as I go for my third win a row.

My playoff hopes are a long shot but I can definitely be a fun "spoiler" for all the wanks that take this league too darn seriously!

Motorola Q

How many people have cellphones that can take pictures, video, browse the internet, bluetooth, infrared, beam contacts and do a thousand other features they will never use?

I've had a pda phone for over a year now and only in the last month have I begun the realize how much easier this little sucker can make my life. It had so many features that it overwhelmed me.... so I did nothing with the mini-computer except make calls. Well, occasionally I would snap a picture message and I love to text message.

A recent problem I had was the growing discrepancy between my calendar reminders in my phone and on my computer. I'm slowly stepping away from the paper lists and piles of sticky notes (I said slowly!) and beginning to rely more on my devices for scheduling my days. The problem was that I could be on the road and set a reminder or appointment into my phone or I'd be at my computer and copy/paste an event into my outlook and neither device was synced with the other.

I set out on the daunting task to install the Motorola Q software on my laptop and it was surprisingly easy. Then I thought that this software must be cumbersome and annoying to navigate... or at least hog my memory (RAM). And again I was surprised; the software was super easy to use, doesn't require a lot of resources and automatically detects when I plug my device into the computer.

A simple connection via usb, the phone syncs my contacts and calendar in about 30 seconds, does a cute little beep and I'm done. Voila! It's that simple to synchronize my life... I mean, my devices.

I had been holding out for an over the air syncing solution but for now, the manual syncing for contacts and calendar is OK. I won't even begin to mess with email until I can get over the air syncing. The possibilities for uber-cool scheduling over the air is nice for when I have a secretary, but for now, I'm glad I finally decided to install the software. It only took a year... who knows what I might discover about this device in the next year before my contract is up!

Lesson: maybe you should make it a goal this week to try one new feature on your over-featured phone and post the results of your attempt right here!

Marriage Is About Compromises - right?

Adri and I made a deal last week. Each night this week we will each take turns reading something the other really has no interest in. Well, it's a little deeper than that but here's the scoup. I've agreed to read a chapter in His Needs, Her Needs by Willard Harley for every chapter she reads in Rich Dad, Poor Dad by Robert Kiyosaki.

I think it's a fair compromise because it gives her an insight to my financial thinking - retirement, family planning, asset building, etc, and it gives me an opportunity to get an insight into the crazy mind of a woman through an unbiased third party. Really, it's a win-win for me; I can understand how to enhance our relationship and Adri can share in my financial plans for our family.

Random Bookmarks

As an avid reader, I find myself rarely using the same bookmark more than once. What's interesting, or strange, about this is the choices for my bookmarks. I typically just grab any random piece of paper within reach and stick it in the book and it stays until I'm done with it.

My current bookmark is a movie ticket from "We Own The Night" that happened to be on my nightstand when I needed to mark my spot. Other recent bookmarks include business cards, candy wrapper (Now and Later... mmm), sticky note, dollar bill and an express gift card.

Do you have a standard bookmark or do you use whatever is close by like me?

Partial Book Review - Crypto-Nomicon

My friend Jesse is a pretty smart guy. He's always reading these big titled books and whatnot so I figured that if I read a couple of the same books as him that maybe I could learn a thing or two... or at the very least have something else to talk with him about. Upon his suggestion, I've read End of Faith by Sam Harris and Ice Hunt by James Rollins.

The End of Faith is a nonfiction piece that attempts to dismantle the sanctity of religious faith and explains the roots of some of our worldly conflict (Israel-Palestinian, Shiite-Sunni, Muslim-therestoftheworld, etc). It's deep and the bibliography is almost as long as the actual text of the book. James Rollins is a fantastic fiction writer and a new favorite of mine. Brain-candy as I like to call it - easy, quick reads with suspense and no real factual basis.

This leads me to my next book, an epic of 1100+ pages titled Crypto-Nomicon by Neal Stephenson. I'm only a hundred something pages into it and I ran across a quote today that got me thinking. It's about the super smart main character, Lawrence Waterhouse, who is a genius cryptographer (Page 90):

"At about the same time, Waterhouse has made a realization about himself. He has found that he works best when he is not horny, which is to say in the day or so following ejaculation. So as a part of his duty to the United States he has begun to spend a lot of time in whorehouses."

This got me thinking - is there a real correlation between the cycles of when you are horny and your measurable productivity? I've never thought about it before but I think I'm going to conduct a self-study about the relationship between my relative level of horniness and my productivity - or at least my drive for productivity.

I tried to find some legitimate research online to support either position of this suggestion but the only thing I found were a bunch of porn sites. I guess it's up to me to develop this theory in more detail!

Blondes and Automobiles

The following is a transcription from a real live conversation that took place today, November 8, 2007 at approximately 2:13pm:

ME: Hello?
Adri: hey dave, I think I'm locked in my car...
ME: Huh?
Adri: I just had the battery replaced at autozone
ME: OK...
Adri: and I drove the car back to work, parked in the parking garage and now I can't get out
ME: Are you serious? Quit messing around
Adri: I really can't get out... what should I do?
ME: stick the key in, start the car, use the keyless entry button, roll down the window
Adri: nothing works
ME: put the car in ACC mode, does anything come on?
Adri: No. and I have to pee!
ME: call the autozone guy and tell him what's wrong... [me thinks: there's no way I'm driving all the way up there]
Adri: Will you google the number? oh wait, I have it on the receipt.
Adri: Dave, I really have to pee and I'm starting to freak out...
ME: I can't believe you are locked in your car. I guess the battery came loose and the alarm is triggered or something
Adri: I just called my boss and told him I'm stuck in the car and he's like "you're locked out?" and I had to tell him that I was LOCKED IN!
ME: did he believe you?
Adri: He said he would send a search party if he didn't hear from me in 20 minutes.
ME: Haha, it won't be hard to find you if you are actually locked IN your car!
Adri: OK, let me call autozone, I'll call you back.
ME: Good luck!

[approximately 25 minutes pass]

ME: hello?
Adri: I'm so embarrassed!!
ME: What happened?
Adri: The autozone guy drove out here, knocked on the window and told me to unlock the window. I pushed all the buttons, banged the steering wheel and threw up my arms...
ME: ok...
Adri: He told me to manually move the unlock lever and not push the electronic button. I did and the car opened.
ME: HAHHAahhaHAHhahahHAhaaaahHAHHA... so you spent 25 minutes, locked inside your car in the parking lot of your work? hahahahaaaa!!!

I Am A Pepper Freak

I LOVE peppers. I love hot peppers, cherry peppers, crushed peppers, pepperoncini, pepperoni, mild peppers, jalapeno peppers, banana peppers, green peppers, red peppers, yellow peppers, chili peppers, bell peppers, sweet italian peppers, stuffed peppers, habanero peppers...

I think you get the idea. I LOVE peppers. I have peppers in every sandwich I ever eat from Subway, Jimmy Johns, a deli or wherever; I put peppers, hot pepper sauce or a pepper derivative on almost every meal I have. And, I often eat peppers just for a snack.

In fact, I stopped having Adrienne buy me the little jars of peppers at the grocery store because I am buying the HUGE restaurant size jugs of peppers from Sam's Club. This is my quirk; hear me roar... I AM A PEPPER FREAK!

This picture is exactly what I have in my refrigerator. Even though it says 1 gallon, it dwarfs my milk container.

Summer Semester 2007 Dean's List Letter

Dear David,

Abraham Lincoln, the 16th President of the United States, is known as one of the most important leaders of our great country. Many would consider his life a legacy of success; however, this could not be further from the truth. According to several historical records, between 1831 and 1859, Lincoln lost 5 political bids and suffered a complete nervous breakdown. In 1860, after many failed attempts, he won the bid president of the United States. President Lincoln once said "If you give me six hours to chop down a tree, I will spend the first four sharpening the axe". Through your continue academic growth and excellence, you've been preparing the way for your future ambitions, hence... sharpening your ax. Your superior academic achievement during the Summer 2007 semester proves that this is true.

Because of your dedication to your future and to your academic studies, we at DeVry University feel that you deserve to be recognized for your accomplishments. We know that achieving a term GPA of 3.5 or higher is not an easy task. This distinction makes you an academic leader among your classmates, so we are proud to recognize you on the DeVry University Dean's List. Congratulations! We hope that you continue to be successful throughout your academic and business career.

Sincerely,

Judy Kristin
Dean of Academic Affairs

Turkey Day Countdown

I'm so stoked to be in Massachusetts for an entire week this Thanksgiving. It will be the longest stretch on Cape Cod since I was in high school, almost 10 years ago. Speaking of which, we will be having our 10 year (9.5) year reunion the friday after Thanksgiving. Sandwich High School class of 1998 and 1997 will be having a joint reunion. Oh, and Adri's birthday is the Saturday after Thanksgiving, too. Fun times will be had!

T-minus 13 days, 20 hours until I land in Providence.

Halloween Grinch

I am officially the jerk of Halloween. I did not expect to be home during Trick or Treating hours so we didn't even get any candy. As it turns out, I ended up at the house. If it was anything like last year, we might get one doorbell ring. This year it was four doorbell rings but I didn't answer any of them because I didn't have any candy for the kids! I felt like such a jerk. I thought for a minute that maybe I could run out and get some candy but by the time I would get back it would probably be over. Then I thought, maybe I could trick the kids instead of treat them... open the door with a chainsaw or something and scare the crap out of them. As much fun as that sounded, kids these days wouldn't appreciate the horror humor of 'trick'.

Anyway, I guess that makes me the grinch of Halloween.