My dad is going in for another stent or two on Thursday. It's preventative this time and not the result of a heart attack like he had last year. My dad has not been so healthy these days, but he's not on his death bed by any means.

Regardless, I'm facing discussions of mortality with my parents. I suppose it is a good idea to be prepared emotionally and financially, but it doesn't make for a comfortable phone call at 8:00 in the morning. Now I'm investigating options for assisted living.. hopefully to be reserved for a time in the distant future.

Just under a year ago, I posted some resolutions I wanted to achieve. I've knocked off at least two of them:

1. "Work out and lose weight (190lb target). I just signed up at Club Fit in town and have a tentative goal to spend an hour a day, five days a week there."
   Not done, not even close. If anything I gained weight this year. This is going back to the top of my list for 2007.
   
2. "Formalize my freelance business and build a veil of financial protection."
   Negative. I'd like to blame it on how busy I was this year, but it really comes down to not wanting to do all the paperwork. I still need a business bank account for tax purposes, but I'm not so gun ho about this one anymore.
   
3. "Bring freelance business into the black."
   I don't know. I think I've done pretty well this year overall, but I haven't actually compared my expenses yet.
   
4. "Obtain an 11% raise at Canby Telephone."
   Well, it's a lot more than 11% but it is not at Canby Telephone. I'm going to say it counts anyway.
5. "Graduate from the Art Institute with a BS in Interactive Media Design."
   Done! Finally, though the reality of it still hasn't set in yet.

I'm actually pretty happy about what I accomplished. The two resolutions I did achieve are pretty significant, life altering events.

What I hope to achieve in 2007

1. Spend more time with family and friends.
2. Get back in shape, lose some weight, and be more active in general.
3. Manage my free time better.
4. Build a koi pond and deck in my backyard.
   

December has been a very busy month for me. I have started a new career, celebrated a five year wedding anniversary with my amazing wife Stacy, and graduated with a bachelor of science from The Art Institute of Portland. Throw in the typical holiday hustle and bustle and you have the recipe for a bewildered and displaced anti-social.

As disoriented as I may be I have nothing to complain about—so many wonderful things have happened to me in these past few weeks. Making the decision to leave Canby Telcom was stressful, but I believe whole-heartedly now that it was the right one.

For a little competitive entertainment Stacy and I decided to compare the companies company names we've worked under in the last decade:

David Frey	Stacy Frey
CTA Communications CTA Service Corp North Willamette Telecom Canby Telephone DirectLink of Oregon Canby Telcom Edge Design	OPB Store Fred Meyer Petite Sophisticate Koala Blue Gymboree Bath and Body Works Franklin Covey Cost Plus World Market Washington Mutual Brighton Collectables Anthro

I have no chance of winning this race, even with my 6-1handicap.

I really love what I'm doing at my new job. So far I have worked on 7 completely different web sites with their own unique challenges to boot. To top it off, the owners decided to close the office for the week of Christmas as an extra week of paid vacation for all of us. Sweet.

I have a hybrid mac/pc workstation I'm trying to get configured and personalized. I now have two 20" wide-screen Dell monitors. Once I get a new graphics card for the PC I'll be able to have the two systems working side-by-side. Synergy is my new favorite app in that regard. I can use one keyboard+mouse between the two systems with ease.

I'm ending the year without any regrets, though I do miss lunch time with the sparrows. Hopefully I'll be able to start working from home once a week pretty soon.

This morning I'm sitting in my class, patiently waiting for all of the other students to get back from registration.

Here's one who's really committed to the role:

[16:27] Weird Science Lab: Human/
[16:28] intuitiveye: oh no
[16:28] intuitiveye: he's back.
[16:28] Weird Science Lab: I have search many databases and I have found one who I feel may be on my level
[16:28] Weird Science Lab: Can you help me to contact your leader?
[16:28] Weird Science Lab: http://eur.news1.yimg.com/eur.yimg.com/xp/wenn/20060815/13/2923437296-hasselhoff-returns-baywatch-costs-7.jpg
[16:28] intuitiveye: oh yes
[16:28] intuitiveye: he's one of the greatest minds this world has ever seen.
[16:28] intuitiveye: and he's my best friend.
[16:28] Weird Science Lab: He has existing man/machine communication
[16:29] intuitiveye: here's is IP 1111.2222.3333.4444
[16:29] Weird Science Lab: Thank you human

BTW.

First update in.. a long time.

http://intuitiveye.com/

Stacy and I partook in a little pumpkin carving tonight. Here are the results. Let's see if you can guess who carved what.


Exhibit A


Exhibit B

So I've decided that I need to learn some C. I'm not exactly sure where I should start. C++ seems to be the way to go since it is inherently object oriented, but I really have no idea where to start with compilers. I'd prefer something free. If any of you have any recommendations, I'm listening.

For anyone that wants to join, a group of us are getting together for drinks at Henry's Tavern in Portland tomorrow night at around 7:00 p.m. Actually, this is a research trip for NWBrew.org so if you show up, you will likely become an NWBrew volunteer.

Heh, PC World rated MySpace.com the #1 worst site of all time.

Nice.

I've been working on a billable WiFi product that is planned to be installed at the Clackamas County Fairgrounds. Despite my previous experience and vehement objections to using the Nomadix AG3000 that gave us so much grief during fair time I have been reassigned to the project to implement automated billing using none other than the Nomadix AG3000. I was given 15 days to make a crippled product work in its production environment. Now in my sixth day, I am no more confident in this piece of junk than I was a month ago after spending an entire day hunched over my laptop in a dingy wiring closet.

Last Friday I finally got billing tied in with Authorize.net. The user experience for billing would confuse Stephen Hawking, but hey, it worked--sort of. It seems that by activating billing for a user on the subscriber side the user's session would never time out. Billing could expire, and days could go by, but access to the Nets live on. Buy one hour, and get a lifetime for free!



I'm sure it's just an undocumented feature.

Frustrated and tired, I went home for the weekend. This morning, I found the infernal thing frozen. Ping worked for about 10 seconds before it caved in too. So, a network subscriber management device that's plugged into UPS has now failed twice in the last week.

So what's the big deal you say? Just call support?

Yeah, about that. We paid $300 for premium support and the good people at Nomadix refuse to let me use it. They claim that the problems I am experiencing are "installation related," which apparently is supported by another department that has a policy of returning calls within 15 minutes to 2 weeks.

The President (currently my direct superior) is expecting me to have billing ready to test by Wednesday. Right. Should make for a fun day at the office.

I've been a fan of VMWare for a while, but definately not very keen on their prices. About a year ago they released VMWare Player, a free download that would allow people to open Virtual Machines created with the expensive paid version, VMWare Workstation. I didn't think it was very useful back then, but this past weekend I discovered that it's very much my new favorite app when coupled with Qemu. I got Ubuntu and KUbuntu virtual machines up and running within a half hour (plus 2-hour downloads). I feel like I can finally set up my own alternative to BrowserCam and simulate just about any browser environment I want... well maybe not OS X, I'll have to try that some other day if I can get my hands on an ISO.

In a fishy twist of fate I have been reclassified as a non-exempt employee after two years under exempt status. This means I will finally be paid for over time hours. Maybe now I can enjoy a little extra income for my long hours above and beyond.

I'm thinking about how to put together my online portfolio and thought I might as well ask everyone that reads my journal what they think. So, what do you think?

Poll #810280 What's in a name?
Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 7

Which domain name describes me better

If I created my own professional blog outside of LJ, would you read it?

If I published industry articles about standards, accessibility, and my design/development process would you take them seriously?

What symbol do you think identifies my character best?

If other, what?

No one has seen a Barry Manilow fan until they've seen my wife watch him win an Emmy. I'm truey scared for my life.

I have less than 31 class sessions to attend before the end (my friend). I say "less" because I'm too lazy to figure out if any of my classes fall on a holiday or not. Regardless, it's been confirmed. The Fall term of 2006 is my last.

w00t!

15 years ago today, the WWW was publicly released by its inventor Tim Berners-Lee.

Webvisions 2006 was pretty cool this year, although I somehow couldn't help but imagine last year's content was perhaps a little better overall. I did get to see some amazing people though. DL Byron, Dan Cederholm, Nate Koechley, Derek Powazek and Matt Haughey to name a few. There were several sessions that I really wanted to attend that overlapped with others I really wanted to attend, which is probably why it seems last year's content was better. Next time it would be nice to go with a friend, split up, and compare notes. My biggest complaint about this year, is that I felt rushed through the whole process. I didn't really feel like there was any time after sessions to chat with anyone.

I wonder how many people were there. It seemed like more than last year—especially since many of the sessions were standing room only.

My latest class (and one of the last - w00t) is essentially the development of my personal identity in the industry's cess pool of job seekers. For those that know me, even a little, how would you describe me as a person and professional.

Be honest, I have thick skin.

Farmers all over America, especially California, have become increasingly concerned with a rise in missing cows. Many bellieve their precious dairy cows are being stolen. Some call it cow terroism, some call it abduction. Where have all the dairy cows gone?

www.cowabduction.com

Backyard Fantastico

This is a reminder to anyone I haven't spoken with recently. Our little social gathering will take place this Saturday, 7 p.m., at 424 SE 7th. Ave. in Canby. Stacy and I will take care of the main course grillin' along with a couple of side-dishes. Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to bring the refreshments.