Greetings from the Dominican Republic

So let me recap the last couple days real quick:

Friday: Got up at 3:45a and my dad drove me to the airport at 4
The plane took off right about 6a as planned, and after a quick stop in Pittsburgh we were on our way to Punta Cana, Dominican Republic.
After landing and going through customs, I found the driver that was waiting to whisk me off to Santo Domingo. A 3 hour car ride later and I was in the city.
My mom had been waiting for weeks for the bank to be ready with this cheque, and of course they claimed to be ready and an appointment was made for almost exactly the same time as I arrived in the city, so she hopped in the cab and we were off to the bank.
5p and after some hassle, the people at the bank are finally ready with the cheque. We finally head back to the apartment and chill for a bit before heading to a nice restaurant called La Bricola for dinner. After some delicious freshly made Chicken Cordon Bleu it was time to head back and call it a night.

Saturday: We get up in the morning, have one of the bagels that I brought for breakfast and head off to the airport to catch our flight from the brand new La Isabella Airport to Portillo.
No problem, we get on the plane, get in the air, but something seems wrong. We're flying really pretty low for the size of the plane we were in (approx 20 passenger two-prop). Then we start to turn around and head back towards the airport. Yeah . . . .
So we land back at the airport and hear something about something was wrong with the plane and they couldn't get it to climb high enough. 5 of the passengers went off in a smaller plane and the rest of us just had to wait another 10 or 15 minutes for them to ready a different one.
After that we were up and off without a hitch. Landed in Portillo 40 minutes later, met up with my bro and headed up to the hill.

Had a little bit of lunch, chatted for a little while before heading into Las Terrenas. The goal was to hit the beach after stopping by what will be my brother's new bungalow in town and running an errand or two. Stopped by the bungalow to put together some of the things that my mom had purchaced while she was in Santo Domingo, met some of the very nice neighbors; and then we were off to the grocery store. By the time we were done at the grocery the weather was kinda gross and rainy, so we decided to skip the beach and head back home.

Scott and I watched some episodes of "Flight of the Conchords" -- hilarious. Then took a quick nap before dinner, after which we played some rummy with mom, followed by the film Juno.

So all in all, a nice little trip so far. Besides the plane having to turn around and land again, not too much excitement at this point. Tomorrow morning the plan is to do some Yoga, then have a bagel party before finally hitting the beach. So we'll see if we have any better luck with that then.

I've taken a number of pictures, but I'm not sure how well they'll upload from the satellite connection we have here on the hill. I'm gonna give it a shot tomorrow, so stay tuned.

One day down, one to go

Alright, one more day before I head off for my big trip to the Caribbean. Yesterday I got a bunch of pairs of shorts, some new $12 sunglasses, and some tshirts. I think I'm all set.

Must remember passport. Must remember passport. Must remember passport.

I'm gonna try my best to keep up the blog challenge while I'm down there. Unfortunately, the internet connection from my mom's place isn't always too reliable.

Every body excited about tomorrow's Lost Finale? I know I am! :)

Two more days

Its just two more days of work before fun and sun in the Dominican Republic. Wow, am I really looking forward to this trip. Especially after two more days of reading through our requirements document and making comments . . .yeah I'm gonna need a break.

Update on GTA: So I've had it for almost two weeks now. My biggest impression is a game mechanic that they added that I absolutely love. You can take taxi cabs. On your in game map you can set up way points and your little radar screen will give you GPS style directions to get you where you're going. But, you can set a way point, hail a taxi, and for a few bucks you can just be there. It seriously takes down the time it takes just travelling around the city. Though, how sad is it that in a game called Grand Theft Auto, I'm spending the bulk of my travel in a taxi. Although, it is supposed to represent NYC, and seriously who drives in NYC anyway?

Lazy Dog Danglin' Sunday

So I had two thoughts for today. The first was that it was finally feeling like summer was beginning. I've been wearing a t-shirt all day and haven't even been cold. The second while playing GTA 4 was that they really reproduced times square really well. First time driving through there almost gave me chills.

Tribe won at the game last nite, woot! No pictures though.

Quick Update

Here's just a quick update before I head out. Going up to Lakewood for dinner with some friends, and then my first Cleveland Indians game of the season. I'll have updates -- and maybe pictures -- later. Go Tribe!

The Changing Face of Facebook

So Facebook is planning a big Profile Page redesign in the next few months, and I for one am excited about it.

I'd had a MySpace page for a while, but eventually I stopped visiting most of the pages on MySpace for a few reasons. 1. Music that starts playing on page load. I think this was the most annoying of all the reasons. Imagine surfing the web, listening to your music on Rhapsody or whatever, and all of a sudden your ears are assailed with the latest AFI that someone decided must play for every visitor to their myspace page. It became a race for me to find the music module and make it stop before the first note. More often than not, I lost. 2. No standard on background, text, font, javascript, or layout. I'm not sure who the first person who thought it would be clever to change your cursor to the + all the time, or make it a <-> thing over links, but this is ANNOYING. When i'm on a website I should be able to expect to not lose something as important as my mouse cursor. Also, having something like your text not disappear into your background image . . . even though it is a cool image of a sunset or something, is important if you want people to visit often and read the things that you've taken the time to write. 3. Everything just seemed to be so cluttered, I didn't know where to look to find friend's updates, or comments, or new photos, there was stuff just everywhere.

This is exactly why I loved switching to Facebook over a year or so ago. They had locked down the bulk of the profile look and feel, and I thought it was a great idea. Everything was easy to read, I knew where to look on a page to find things like Pictures or Wall Posts. It was organized, convenient and made sense. Over the past year though, they added the Facebook Application API, which I thought was a really cool idea. You could customize your profile page with a few apps and widgets that represented you, or allowed you to do neat things, but still in an organized layout with some standard rules applied. But wow, did the whole apps thing explode.

Now, I may have to scroll for 2 minutes to find a person's wall after running past their list of 10 different sports teams they follow, two flower gardens, three gift giving applications, 23 pieces of flair, 14 "I'm [Character X] from [Show Y]" Quizzes, Zombie Attack, Pirate Attack, Pirate-Zombie Attack, fun-wall, no-fun-wall, pain and misery wall, then finally the thing I'm interested in. Half of which the apps that I'd actually be interested in seeing the details of, I can't unless I sign up for that app; thus possibly cluttering my own profile page with. Oh and did I mention I have to nag 5 of my friends to sign up for the app too, well only if I want to take the test that will tell me that I'm like Buster on "Arrested Development".

This is why I'm very looking forward to the new redesign. Everything is going to be broken up into convenient tabs. If I want to see what's new with my friend, I click on the Feeds Tab; right at the top. If I want to check out their pictures, bingo, another tab at the top. Perhaps they updated their profile, easy that's on a tab too. Which character from "The Office" are they most like? Well I can head to the application tab for that, or if they've made their own tab just for "Which Character Quizzes" then bravo, even simpler.

Anyone else out there agree with what I'm going through, and looking forward to this improvement as much as I am?

Death Cab for Cutie - Narrow Stairs

So, Death Cab for Cutie's new album Narrow Stairs was released and i've had a chance to listen to it over, and over, and over, and over again. Don't be fooled by their name, even though the word Death is right in there, they aren't infact Death Metal, or even Metal for that fact. You've probably heard some of the tracks from their last album Plans on shows like "Grey's Anatomy" or "Chuck" but anyway, on to the new album.

Overall, I feel that Narrow Stairs is great. Very dark. Very beautiful. It may not be everyone's cup of tea (especially mainstream pop listeners) with songs like the one in the video above that has a full 4.5 minute intro. But to me, that's exactly how long that intro needed to be. You've got songs on the album about the sadness of growing up (No Sunshine), getting married could be a mistake (Cath. . .), giving up on the chance of love (Your New Twin Sized Bed); I told you it was dark. But overall, full of emotion and great music.

Again, might not be your thing but, definitely worth a listen. And if you watch the video just remember, the lyrics start to come in about the 4:45 mark but please wait it out, it's definitely worth it.

Monday Night Finales

Alright, this will be my last post about Television for a little while.

** NOTE: The following my contain spoilers, if you watch "Bones" and "House" but have not seen the finale's yet come back after you do **

The Season Finales of "Bones" and "House" were on tonite, and after spectacular part ones the second parts did not disappoint. Actually, both were rather upsetting, not because they were bad by any means, but the direction they took the finale was just very sad. I think that its a sign of excellent writing when you can actually feel upset by the outcome of an episode. Betrayal, disbelief, empathy, sadness; these are all things that I'm feeling right now. Its one thing to kill off a character, but to do what they did in "Bones" I mean, wow. I did not see that coming.

It'll certainly be something to see what they do in the next season, I guess that's what makes it a real finale. Although, I wouldn't say either show had a real cliffhanger, at least not a traditional one. It just really makes you wonder how everybody is going to cope with the future.

Bravo Fox on a season well ended, bravo!

Movie Review: Prince Caspian

Tonight we saw the sequel to The Lion The Witch and the Wardrobe called Prince Caspian. Its one of the books from The Chronicles of Narnia series and I believe the movie was excellent. It takes place 1300 years after the first movie for the people of Narnia but only one year for the children. Many things have changed in the land, namely a group of humans has rendered control and have all but killed off all of the Narnians.

The story revolves around a young prince that has recently had an attempt on his life by his evil and twisted uncle, who wants to rule Narnia himself. In a last ditch effort the prince ends up summoning the Kings and Queens of Narnia (the children) to return and to help him reclaim his rightful position.

All in all, the film was very good. Lots of good battle scenes, especially the one between King Peter (the Magnificent) and the evil King Miraz. The special effects were excellent as well, I believe comparable even to the later Lord of the Rings films.

Indiana Jones

So, I'm watching Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade on the Sci-Fi Channel. I remember the first time watching this movie. We had rented it I believe and I was 9 or 10 years old and it freaked the hell out of me. Specifically, I remember the scene where the bad dude was having his lackies try to access where the grail was, and there were all kinds of traps and things, and I just remember the dude's head rolling back out.

Its strange now watching them as an adult. Especially in this movie. Its very much comedic and has some cheesy kind of slapstick humor, but is also a significantly violent movie. Indiana, even though he's a total bad-ass kills people left and right w/o even a hint of remorse. They are all nazi's I suppose, but he doesn't even look back.

It will be very interesting to see the new one The Kingdom of the Crystal Skull and if they have a different take on the humor and violence, and what time period its set in.

Anyway, planning on seeing the newest Narnia movie tomorrow. I'll let you all know how it is tomorrow nite.

Dominican Plans

So, I'm heading out to visit my family in the Dominican Republic in a few weeks. When I asked my mom if she had any plans for us to do while I'm down there, she only had three things on the list; and I think you all are going to want to see pictures.

1) Hiking to the cascades in El Limon
2) Taking a Yoga Class
3) Taking a Salsa Dancing Class

Yeah, I'm excited (except for number 3)

Blogging Blurb

I don't know what the strike did to those writers but man . . . both Bones and House were absolutely incredible last night. It was like they were able to write two consecutive season finales. I think I'm going to watch them again over lunch.

Winking Lizard with a LINQing Wizard

So I just got back from lunch with a few co-workers, one of whose last day with the company is Friday.

Its no secret that the company I'm working for is in a period of financial uncertainty. But at this point, I personally have no plans of leaving. I had left the company once before a few years ago, but that was for an opportunity that found me, more than something I was looking for. It was no wonder that I came back after that job went so far south we met Santa Claus.

I currently really am enjoying where I'm at here. I'm getting to work on a brand new project in a technology space that I've been interested in for a while. We've been given the chance to start things fresh and really evaluate the latest and greatest technologies, which is all very cool. So what reason would I have to even look someplace else? Oh, right . . . financial uncertainty.

Well for now, I think I'm just gonna keep going with the good thing I've got. I'll try not to think about the uncertainty that may or may not be waiting down the road in the next year or so. Plus I've got faith that something else will come up when I need it to.

Oh, by the way, I was thinking about shaving my 'burns and van dyke this morning . . . any thoughts?

Congraduations Class of 2008

No -- I didn't misspell Congratulations -- it's a portmanteau

Ah, commencement time . . . the end of one thing, beginning of the next. It's crazy to think that this time of year, five years ago, I was standing cap & gown with the Hiram College Class of 2003. At that point, I already had a job lined up, a couple of roommates and a plan to sign the lease for an apartment the morning of our Senior Trip to NJ & NYC.

Little did I know exactly what I was getting into.

Five years later: I'm in a house, I'm making my first car payments, at the same job I had after graduation (pretending those few months at the Bingo Factory never happened). Life is good. But seeing all of my friends who kept going with school, and who are received additional degrees this week, I have to wonder; is that for me?

I recall in one of my high school classes, we were taking a poll of those going to college. Who has a parent that has never been to college? Both parents? Who will be the first in their family to get a degree? I believe that my generation has a major advantage in that everybody that I knew growing up who wanted to go to college was able to find a way. I don't think that the same can be said for the generation of our parents. Both of my parents have been fortunate enough to each have a Master's Degree. But, what does that mean for me? Its a little bit of pressure.

I'd thought about grad school before. In fact, months before that time five years ago, I had applied to a program at The University of North Carolina. I was very excited about the program involving virtual reality there. But, I was not accepted to the program; and into the working world I went.

More recently, I'd been thinking about taking some art/design classes. One of the most difficult things for software engineers is to come up with user interfaces that are both attractive and functional. If I were to ever get serious about venturing into writing software for a small business of my own, I think a background in design would be extremely useful. But, am I ready to actually go back to having class, doing homework, reading assignments, ugh! I don't think so, not quite yet. Maybe someday.

But I digress . . . Congrats to all who graduated. Its a lot of hard work and I have the utmost respect for you. As you start the next step in your lives, remember to never stop learning. . . and something about sunscreen.

My Thursday Night Problem

*NOTE: THIS POST CONTAINS NO SPOILERS*

Dear person in charge of Television Schedule and Microwave Programming:

Every Thursday night now, I have a problem. I'm not sure why they've decided that all good television must air on Thursday night, but here we have it.

My computer records:
Smallville (8-9)
Scrubs (8:30-9)
Grey's Anatomy (9-10)
The Office (9-9:30)
30 Rock (9:30-10)
Lost (10-11)
ER (10-11)
The Daily Show (11-11:30)

Yes, that's 6 hours (4 hours w/o commercials) of television in one night! How in the world am I supposed to watch all of that? You may say, since its recorded, I could spread it out over the weekend. The problem with that is, I don't want to be the guy on Friday morning at work, that misses out on all the good watercooler conversation, cause "I didn't see it yet".

So please, Television people; spread it out a little bit. Wednesdays are pretty open, you can go ahead and move Lost back to Wednesday Night's. There's only so much medical TV you can take in a day so please split ER and Grey's Anatomy up (careful to avoid Monday Night's House). Smallville should be careful to avoid Heroes (I enjoy Smallville, but as far as superhero epics go, it can't compare). Scrubs, unfortunately, we won't have to worry about since the Series Finale was just aired. Just spread it out to 2 hours of good TV all week long, that's all I'm asking.

Thank you.

Who knew?

I had no idea that a volcano can erupt LIGHTNING! Freaking SWEET!

It sounds like something out of a Powerthirst commercial.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/worldnews.html?in_article_id=563975&in_page_id=1766&ito=1490

Required: GTA IV Post

Since last week's release, I think that there must be some requirement for anybody that both games and blogs write a post about GTA IV. So this is mine.

I'll start out by saying that I have not yet bought a copy of the game, nor played it, nor seen any actual game play besides what they show in the commercials. So -- you must be asking -- what could the content of this post be, if I've never played the game?

I've purchased and played each of the Grand Theft Auto III series games. With III and Vice City, I played all the missions that I could find, found all the briefcases or whatever stuff is hidden around the city to give you bonus weapons, spent a lot of time seeing how high I could get my stars before the army was able to take me down. I've used guides, codes, I've caused mass havoc and chaos in the tank, I've even managed to get the invincible car that you can manage to get in that one race near the beginning of GTA III. One of my favorite things to do was to fly the difficult to get off the ground Dodo.

Sometimes it felt like work (when trying to collect all the cars for the dealership or down by the docs) but that work had a feeling of reward to it. I've never been one that would be content with just driving a sports car for hours off bridges to see how many times I could get it to flip in mid-air (like one of my roommates). But the missions and the plot were usually pretty solid, and kept my attention enough to drive me (pun!) to see what's coming next.

After my 40something's hour of playing San Andreas though, I think I just lost steam. The map in that game was so large, I think it took upwards of 10 minutes just to drive through the country from one big city to the next. I think that really large scale and time involved in each mission is what made it the most difficult to keep my attention. One mission, I recall, was a truck delivery from one big city to the next, which of course was a timed mission. Not only would it take 15 minutes to get to the other city, but failing would mean that you would have to drive back to start over again, putting a singly retry and completion at 45 minutes. That kind of time sink, ceased to be fun for me so I stopped playing.

Now, I understand that IV takes place in a fictionalized version of New York City, which actually sounds pretty good. I've been to NYC a few times (not that I would pretend to know the layout) but I'm certain that there aren't huge stretches of farmland in between the Statue of Liberty and Times Square. The reviews for the game have all been favorable, and I know that its still open ended enough that really its up to me to enjoy the game however I see fit, and the suck I can just skip.

But its been out for a over a week and I still haven't picked it up. Will I at some point? probably. For now I'll just be content to use my time playing World of Warcraft, trying to get enough pvp Honor Points and Marks of Honor to buy some Epic Gear when I hit lvl 70. =)

Extremely Cool Game

I just played a very cool game that you can find here:

http://www.kongregate.com/games/Scarybug/chronotron

Its a puzzle style game where you're a robot with a time machine, and you have to collect a piece of a circuit board from somewhere on the level and return to your time machine. The caveat is that you can't do it alone. To help you, you can go back in time to when you started the level, and work with your former self to open up trap doors, flip switches, hold boxes, whatever you need to do to get that circuit board. But, if all the copies of yourself can't get back to the time machine, you've created a paradox and the universe explodes.

Its really one of those games that I wish I had come up with. Very fun!

Twitter

So a month or so ago, a co-worker got me into Twitter. I had heard about it before, but resisted yet another thing that I was going to start out with and then completely fail to update or look at again after a few weeks.

Basically, Twitter is a micro-blog. The idea is that it is a service in which you can provide short -- under 140 character -- updates from anywhere, and all of the people that subscribe to you will receive those messages as soon as you post. Really, you're just supposed to answer the question "What are you doing right now?"

I figured that I enjoy updating things like my Google Talk display message, or my Facebook Status message, and it is basically the same thing. In fact, there's even a Facebook App that will synchronize your status message with your latest twitter. You can even update your twitter and receive friend's messages through Google Talk by adding a Twitter account to your friends list. Updating becomes as simple as sending an IM.

Additionally, you can reply to other people's twitter posts (or tweets) using their username with the @ symbol, and they'll get your reply even if they aren't subscribed to your feed. All in all a neat little app. If you enjoy putting short little quips up in random places at random times, I suggest you give it a try -- and subscribe to me of course ;)

Starting Again

Yesterday, in the mail, I received a book that I had ordered titled "How to Make Webcomics". Its a book that's all about turning your idea and artwork for a comic strip into an actual webcomic. The book isn't an instruction manual on how to draw, or how to write; but, more of the approach to webcomics and how it differs from syndicated print comics. It also covers a lot about the business sides (sales, marketing) to it.

A big part of it, is doing something with regularity. Making a promise to update on a specific schedule and making sure that you stick to that schedule. This has always been something difficult for me. As you can see in this blog for example, the last time I posted was nearly a year ago when I was visiting my family in the Dominican Republic.

So, to start small instead of trying to write and draw something; I'm going to update this blog every day. Gonna start with an update every day for the rest of May, if that goes well . . . every day for the rest of the summer, year, etc.

So this is Day 1.