Four Years Old!

Today is Delaney's fourth birthday.

Happy Birthday Delaney!

I remember well having Thanksgiving dinner at our house with the whole family over when Melissa said it was time. We kept it quiet and waited until everyone left and then called our doula and headed to the hospital. Delaney often asks us to tell her about the day when she was born and we're happy to oblige.

Labels: family

Posted by Chris on 11/24/2004 09:51:00 AM :: Permalink   

Pack Hoops and Parking Passes

Last night Katie was kind enough to get tickets for Dave, Wayne, and me for the second round games of the BCA Invitational at RBC Center. The 19th ranked NC State Wolfpack whipped Elon 71-45. Watching the game just made me want to get more tickets for this season and reminded us not to wait till the last minute to get NCAA Round 1 tickets this year.

In the second game of the night, ECU Pirates played a back-and-forth game with the Oregon State University Beavers who apparently have quite a budget for long-distance travel. They sent the coaches, team, and four fans - yes, four - all this way to play a few games. It's a big difference in the arena when the majority of the Pack fans leave, and there are no cheerleaders or pep band. I mean, how much more would it have cost to send a few horn blowers or cheerleaders? I will say that the ECU fans were quite vocal and enthusiastic even when down double-digits. ECU pulled out a win 64-62 as it went down to the last second.

On the way in to the game I was reading the parking pass to find our designated spot when one of the attendants called to us, "Hey, I can't see that parking pass in your lap!" Huh? Apparently you can see it, since you not only knew I had one, but you also knew it was located in my lap. What else can you see that you're not fully aware of?

And the game was played under international rules and the semi-circle in the lane we discussed is there for jump-balls, which are obviously not used in the collegiate game - well, at least not in the lane. Posted by Chris on 11/19/2004 02:32:00 PM :: Permalink   

Photo of the Day

This past weekend, I spent some time shopping with Victoria. The shopping trip was largely unsuccessful as I didn't end up with any great gift ideas, but I had a great time with Victoria!

Going down the aisles, she would always ask for something from the shelves, then she would ask "Two?" and I would sometimes hand her another. Immediately, she would demand "NINE!" Well, that wasn't going to happen. She counts 1, 2, sometimes 3, sometimes 5, then always 9. So 9 is her way of asking for "many more". Time to move to another aisle.

When she got this ball, she would start throwing it to me down the aisle and watching it bounce. She kept doing this for quite a while down several aisles, smiling all the time. It was simple. It was really fun. And it was free, since I put the ball back on the shelf!

Labels: family

Posted by Chris on 11/18/2004 01:43:00 PM :: Permalink   

PalmBlogging

PalmInfocenter posted some good info on blogging from your Palm. I haven't had a chance to try these out yet and my current Palm Zire 71 isn't wireless, but it would still be nice to be able to compose an entry anywhere and then upload to the blog at Hotsync.

I also started playing around with podcasting earlier this week (What's podcasting you ask? I'll save that for another entry.) and realized that there's an opportunity for me to actually write a Palm program that could become very useful - not only to me, but to a growing number of podcast consumers.

I'd like to write a program that runs on a PC, probably via Task Scheduler, reads a list of RSS feeds, pulls down new entries, extracts encapsulated MP3's (the podcast audio), parses metadata and inserts this as MP3 tags where appropriate, adds the files to a playlist and then puts all these files in the Hotsync queue to be synced to your Palm Memory Card at the next hotsync.

It's all very doable and it's already been done for iPods, but not for Palms. Now I just need to find the time to do it before someone else does. And the way things are now, I have no idea when that will be. Posted by Chris on 11/18/2004 01:41:00 PM :: Permalink   

Comic of the Day

This could be Delaney next month...

Posted by Chris on 11/16/2004 11:25:00 AM :: Permalink   

It's Gonna Be Segway or the Highway

...err...I mean, Segway on the Highway.

Josh Caldwell took a three month journey across the United States aboard a Segway. There's going to be a documentary, tentatively called "America at 10mph".

I still haven't had a chance to ride a Segway, but they're obviously meant for short urban commutes, not for cross-country treks. 10mph through city streets is one thing, but 10mph on the open road would put me to sleep real fast. Oh wait, I'd have to sleep standing straight up. Posted by Chris on 11/16/2004 11:19:00 AM :: Permalink   

Master Chief slays Spider-Man record

Halo 2 sold $125 million in it's first day. By far, the highest initial gross for a video game, it also surpassed the highest opening gross for a motion picture, Spider-Man, which only took in $114 million over three days.

I've played it for a few hours so far and it's great, no doubt. But I haven't quite figured out the need to sign in before the game menus are presented. This is fine for single-player or even Xbox Live play, but in our Xmadness multi-player setup at work people come and go a lot during the 90 minute session and it's not always clear who has control of each box.

I also can't figure out how to enter symbols for profile names. The 'Symbols' button is there, but grayed out. Any one got an idea? I know you can use Shift but that's only for symbols over the number keys. For example, how do I add a dash (-) to a profile name?

And the extended stats are great, but why do I have to go search the web to find out what the medals I've earned mean? I have a printed manual right in front of me, but there's no mention of it there. Why even produce a manual if you expect gamers to find answers to their questions on the web anyway? Maybe it's in the Strategy Guide, but why even produce and sell that when I can get it for free off the Net?

Get Halo 2 game stats via RSS.

Xbox Live engineer blog Posted by Chris on 11/15/2004 04:17:00 PM :: Permalink   

Happy Anniversary

On this day nine years ago, I began a new chapter in my life. Melissa and I got married. On this day, today, I went out to eat lunch with her at The Cheesecake Factory.

It's been wonderful. A lot has happened in the last nine years and there's no one else I would rather share it with than her. She's the most caring, thoughtful, beautiful and creative person I know. I just wish I would slow down more often to spend more time with her just enjoying life.

If you seriously think about it, there are only a few things in this world that really matter to you. She's certainly one of them.

Just this past weekend I found one of those tiny little keychain attachments that you hold up to a light and look inside. There was a picture of us taken at Kings Dominion one summer when we were dating. It brought a smile to my face. And I think I still have the belt I was wearing in the photo.

It was great to be able to spend half a day shopping with her and having a nice lunch while the kids were at home with grandparents. And even though I didn't eat any cheesecake, the meal was excellent as well.

Labels: family

Posted by Chris on 11/11/2004 11:09:00 PM :: Permalink   

It's Out! Firefox 1.0

If you're still using Microsoft IE and you don't work for Microsoft, I really recommend you try Firefox. Mozilla just released 1.0. Right now, it seems their servers are overloaded by the number of people trying to download the new release. Don't give up, just try later. Firefox is excellent.

I've been using earlier versions for a few months now and rarely switch to IE. Once you've used the tabbed-browsing you will understand how much better it is, and there are lots of awesome plug-ins and extensions to enable great features. My favorites are:

• googlebar (for all searches)
• ieview (for when you really, absolutely must view a page in IE)
• web developer (if you code web pages)
• tabbrowser extensions (to really tweak the tabbed browsing)
• download statusbar (to keep track of downloads)
• google pagerank (if you're curious - I'm still a 3)
• webmail compose (redirect mail links to Gmail compose)
• adblock (block those inline ads)
• copy plain text (strips formatting for cut-and-paste)
• image zoom (for a closer look)

I can't link to these directly right now, since mozilla.org is overwhelmed, but you should be able to find these from the Tools->Extensions menu in Firefox. If not, just use Google. Posted by Chris on 11/09/2004 11:21:00 AM :: Permalink   

It's Out! Halo 2

Last night at midnight over 7000 stores opened their doors to hundreds of thousands of Xbox gamers who had to get Halo 2 as soon as it was released. Here's TeamXbox's in-depth review.

Here's an overview of the multiplayer maps, the general multiplayer game options, and the specific game options. The sad thing is, we may never play the original Halo again. Posted by Chris on 11/09/2004 11:09:00 AM :: Permalink   

Fairies That Fly, TiVos That Talk

Here are the Halloween 2004 pictures. This is really only part of the story. With there being several Halloween parties this year, each of the girls actually had two costumes. I thought it a bit odd, but they didn't seem to mind. Plus when one of the non-washable ones got dirty, they could switch, and it gave us more time to finish the TiVoGuy costume.

Not pictured here is Victoria as a pumpkin (or "pump" as she calls it) and Delaney as a fairy of the non-winged variety. If you click through the pictures individually, you'll see a few comments telling you who's who, or you can view the slideshow.

Labels: family, tivo

Posted by Chris on 11/04/2004 02:55:00 PM :: Permalink   

DracuLaney

I'll try to get up some Halloween pictures tomorrow.

Victoria was a pumpkin and a fairy. Delaney was a fairy and a TiVoGuy!

Labels: family

Posted by Chris on 11/02/2004 02:48:00 PM :: Permalink   

The TiVo Hot 100

You probably already know that TiVo collects aggregate viewing data on what you watch, what you fast-forward through, and what you back up to watch again. It's all anonymous and is increasingly used for the same purposes as Nielsen viewing data.

Well Tivo has now published their own list on the web - The TiVo Hot 100. You can view the top Season Passes of your fellow TiVo viewers. There's also a Top 25 recorded shows for the recent week.

See how many of your Season Passes match up or get ideas for other shows to add to your list.

Labels: tivo

Posted by Chris on 11/02/2004 10:32:00 AM :: Permalink   

DirecTV FreeView (Again)

Hot on the heels of the last DirecTV freeview weekend, here's another. November 5-8 you can watch Showtime, The Movie Channel, Flix, and Sundance free. I don't know about you but I still haven't watched all the movies I TiVo'd from the previous freeview weekend.

And later this month (Nov 26-28), you can get the Sports Pack free. That's all the specialty and regional sports channel (but not the premium ones like NFL Sunday Ticket). Posted by Chris on 11/01/2004 11:37:00 AM :: Permalink   

Vote! Vote! Vote!

If you've been living under a rock for the past year and a half, you might not know tomorrow is Election Day. Get out and vote! Sure, the lines might be long, but come on, you'd wait longer than that for your kid to ride The Mad Hatter's crazy Tea Cup ride at Disney, wouldn't you?

One cool resource I found was PBS News Hour's Issues Quiz. You take a short (I think it was 15 questions) quiz on where you stand on several issues, then it tells you which candidate you most agree with. Pretty neat.

More resources:

• 2004 Presidential Election Guide - good links to PBS and BBC info, among others


• Wake County Board of Elections


• Wake County Ballot

Posted by Chris on 11/01/2004 10:07:00 AM :: Permalink   
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