First thing this morning I put in some time making sure that the dailies were caught up. Dad IM’d me around 11:00 to say that FedEx had just dropped off my new cell phone. It is the LG VX8100 just like Min’s. So dad came over to Geneseo at 11:30 and we did lunch and I got the cell. It will take me a while to get used to having this new phone and to learn how to use all of its features. I have never had a cell phone that was so feature loaded so I am looking forward to carrying around so much power with me. It should be really cool. I like being able to have a 1.3 megapixel camera that I will have with me always because there is often moments that you would like to get a quick picture of and are not able to because you aren’t carrying your camera. But I always have my cell phone. So now we will have to wait and see whether or not I actually end up using that feature. I can’t really do anything with it until I get a MiniSD card for it so that I can actually store things on it. The included internal memory is really small so it isn’t very useful. But having a MiniSD expansion port is awesome. Time will tell whether or not this is actually a good phone for me. I am really hoping that I find the extra features handy but somehow I imagine that they will not actually be all that useful when I try to use them in real life.
Today is a super grey or maybe even a brown day here in Geneseo. There is a light rain and it is incredibly warm for January. When I went out for lunch I didn’t even need to wear a coat. I am wearing a sweatshirt and that was plenty to keep me warm. I don’t remember ever having a January like this. Normally we would be heading into some pretty serious snow weather. The Weather Channel just reported that Buffalo has just had its longest sunless stretch in over thirty years! Now that is some serious overcastness. Overcastness?
Today is my day to get back into the swing of things. My first regular day of work since the holidays began.
I found a really neat Java application today called jlGUI. It is a neat audio player that you don’t need to install onto your computer that you can run through Web Start that allows you to listen to Internet radio streams or listen to podcast or other localized content such as MP3s and, even cooler, Ogg Vorbis files. So for those of you who want to listen to high quality OV files but aren’t happy with other OV players should check out jlGUI and see if it meets your needs.
Some days I find all kinds of cool new stuff. The Amazon folks who make the A9 search engine have block level views of a bunch of US cities. It is a really neat idea to not only see a map of where you want to go but be able to get a view of what it looks like there. Go check it out at A9 Maps.
I spent the afternoon and evening working in the office. Nothing exciting just the usual drudgery (actually I really love what I do.) I managed to listen to several hours of tech seminars and conferences while I was working. I get a ton of stuff from IT Conversations and I am trying to catch up with their back catalogue. The content that they provide is just so good that I don’t want to have to have missed any of it. I am getting closer to having listened to the whole thing. There is a lot to go but it is small percentage wise.
Mary called and asked me to run her over a soda from Tim Horton’s because she really likes their shaved ice. I made a run to Walmart to look for some special Scotch brand spray adhesive that Dominica and I need for our model train layout but I had no luck there. Then it was over to Timmy Ho’s and then to the hotel. I hung out at the hotel for about an hour before coming back to the house.
Dominica got home and we popped in Star Trek: The Next Generation and she got to work on painting the train station that she has been working on. I am still working on the database design for our new purchasing database. It is always fun building new systems.
Mary stopped by after work. She gets out at 11:00 tonight. Next week she starts her new three days a week Friday through Sunday schedule so that she can go back to college at GCC. She hasn’t gotten her schedule at school adjusted yet but her plan is to pursue an IT/CIS degree program. We talked some shop until half past midnight. Then she headed home. Dominica and I stayed up to watch one last episode of TNG before going to bed.