Author: Joe

Categories
Adventure

Bought a Car

Finally decided to get a new car on Saturday.  My trusty 2000 Honda Prelude has begun showing some age, and was due for some pricey fixes/maintenance.  So it made sense to move onto something new versus pouring a hefty sum into my existing car.

After doing a bunch of research, the Nissan Altima Coupe seemed like a decent fit.  It looked cool, seemed reliable, is good on gas, safe, and fairly fun to drive.  I actually decided to go with the 4 cylinder instead of the mean 6, due to the better mileage and not requiring premium fuel.  I’m not sure it that means I’m getting old or gas is getting too expense or perhaps a combination of both.

2009 Nissan Altima Coupe
2009 Nissan Altima Coupe

The trip to Admiral Nissan wasn’t bad at all.  The main reason I’d been putting off this purchase was that I just didn’t want to deal with the who car salesman experience.  Never been a fan of the salesman.  However Doug the salesman at Admiral who I dealt with turned out to be a pleasure to work with.  Not too pushy, didn’t talk to me like a retard, and pretty straight forward and to the point.  Amazingly we came to an agreement rather quickly and things went pretty smooth.

Categories
Uncategorized

Goodbye Adrienne

AdrienneSadly Adrienne passed away today.  She was a one of the kindest dogs I’ve ever had the pleasure of knowing.  I can’t sum her up better than just the fact the she was a good dog.  Extremely friendly, gentle, obedient, and just one of the sweetest dogs. 

She was twelve years old and had some gray hairs to show for it, but her passing came rather unexpected today.  She will truly be missed by myself and all those who were so very fortunate to of met her.

Categories
Development

Blog Redesign

I’m in the process of redesigning this blog.  The basic colors and layout are in place.  There’s still a couple of areas I need to finish up.  No amazing new features in this upgrade, just tried to make things a bit cleaner and easier to read.

  • Widened the layout of the site
  • Increased font size and spacing
  • New colors used sitewide
  • Plan to make my portfolio easier to navigate too, but haven’t gotten to that quite yet.
Categories
Adventure

AFP Seminar

Attended the AFP (Association of Fundraising Professionals) Luncheon and Meeting Seminar today.  It was at the Frog Rock in Hammonton.  Normally I wouldn’t be found at such an occasion, but the seminar was “Online Communications: Pipeline to More Revenue”, so I figured I’d check it out.  Sean and I drove over, he seemed to know who lived in every home on the way there.  I just knew that we were in Southern New Jersey.

I’m so terrible at small talk and avoid people I don’t know, so the whole networking thing was a big awkward to me.  But, everyone one there was really nice and extremely friendly.  Of course I had to be one of the first people to introduce myself to the room, but I just kept it simple and think I did an ok job of not getting myself into too much trouble while addressing the room.

The presentation was pretty good.  I thought the speaker did a really good job.  You could tell that he was comfortable with what he was presenting and not just reading a PowerPoint presentation.  Although the information that was presented was nothing new to me, it’s good to see what others are up to and any latest trends going on.  I personally don’t agree on the room’s whole capture someone’s email address approach, I think that a user should be told upfront exactly what their email address may be used for up front.  No surprise emails down the road, that doesn’t build trust with users at all.  

While I can’t say I learned anything new today, it did get me thinking to developing some projects online that I have lost track of due to a lack of time.  So that’s a good thing, and hopefully I’ll get working on those soon.

 

Categories
Sports

What happened to football Sundays?

Today was the first NFL sunday of the 2008 season.  This used to be such a major event for myself.  Usually my friends and I would all get together rig up 2 TV’s in one room and make sure one of us had the NFL Sunday Ticket and we’d watch football most of the day.  Every weekend it seemed we were greeted by some special guest appearances.

We had many stadiums (aka: a living room) over the years, some great others not so (I always left with headaches from the TV bigger than the room).  The camaraderie always kept things fun, despite how poor the game on may have been.  

Slowly but surely the past several years there has been a steady decline in faces on Sunday.  No longer must you call fives if you must get up from your couch seat if you don’t wish to be banished to the floor.  Nor any singing of the Ford Truck Man song nor the Ring of Fire (popular commercials from a few seasons ago).  Or any of the other nonsense that was to be had.

This year I went to Charlies to watch the early games with Wes and Jared.  They’re both Dolphins fans and didn’t want to miss their game.  It was cool, to see all the games on the various TVs.  While the tradition is not as strong as it once was for me, it does survive.  

Categories
Development

Working From Home

With some renovations being done at work I’m not working from home for three weeks.  Right now I’m in the middle of my second week working from home.  It’s not too bad so far.  I actually find that I get more done with less interruptions at home than I usually find in the office.  Nobody asking stopping me and asking me, “This is a really dumb question, but my computer is doing…”.  While it’s cool being a nice guy and helping to figure something out, it does take time away from projects I’m usually trying to get done.

I wake up at the same time (ok I do sleep in a bit, but barely) and go through the normal morning routine.  Then I get dressed like I’m going to work (many would say it’s the same attire than if I were staying home) and have to put my sneakers on.  Not sure why, but if those sneakers are off I’m just not in that work mode.

I’ve stopped into work a couple of times to meet up with people and take care of some of the things that require being in person for.  So that’s pretty cool, I feel bad for the people who couldn’t work from home due to what they do. Everyone is crammed into the cafeteria, and with the start of classes, it’s really crazy in there.  I wouldn’t want to be working in that environment.