Yea, I wish I could say "Hardly Workin'". Instead, it's been a crazy week with lots of time critical projects, meetings, and face-to-face time with clients. Between Monday and Wednesday, I put in over 32 hours of work!

Thankfully things are calming back down now, but I really don't have many urges to go near my computer this weekend.

Back when I was in high school (which was a decade ago now...yikes), the Damon's in Hilliard, OH was the place where we went to hang out and get dinner.  We went there so often that one of my friends only asked for Damon's gift certificates for Christmas and his birthday.  Back then, we would get plates of sloppy food (including the fabled Onion Loaf), and we'd huddle around the NTN trivia unit to compete against all comers.  We'd then follow that up with a movie, pool, or any other mischief we'd get into.  Lots of fond memories of that place.

Well, tonight my wife and I went to the Damon's by us in Pittsburgh, and it will suffice to say that the place was barely recognizable.

Now, we had been to several other Damon's restaurants in the past, and we had gotten pretty much what I expected.  I hadn't walked away disappointed from a visit...until today.

Today, we were greeted by a new menu (not sure how old, but it had probably been a year since we were last there), with many un-Damon's like options.  Their pulled-pork-like sandwich was covered with extra crap like jalapenos and cheese, with no plain pulled-pork sandwich option.  The ribs, a former feature item, were buried in the menu.  Even the Onion Loaf was missing...replaced by the mysterious Onion Tower (???).  Heck, they didn't even have a plain hamburger on the menu.

Even my Buffalo Chicken Sandwich was not what I remembered, as I got a piece of chicken about a quarter-inch thick which I barely even noticed when I took a bite.  It left me yearning for the former hearty cut of chicken breast that was once used.

As I told my wife, they appeared to have "Tyler Florece-ed" the whole menu, with staples being replaced by more "interesting" but less appetizing entries.

Damon's, you were once a fun and enjoyable part of my life, but you've changed.  I'll always cherish the memories, but for now it's probably best we got our seperate ways.

So I'm here in Seattle for the next few days, tagging along as my wife attends a nursing conference. Seems like a nice area, and the surrounding environment, with all the thick evergreen forests, is definitely different from the normal view I'm used to seeing back in Ohio and Pittsburgh. This afternoon, we'll be spending time exploring the city. Expect some pictures to follow in the next few days.

Until then, I'll just be enjoying myself on this little vacation.

Well, late last week, I had my first excuse to take a business trip.  I went with a  small team of people (my boss, our lead sales guy, and I was the technical guy) to give a presentation on our product down in Alabama.

As a guy who spends most of his working days staring at code, there really hasn't been an occasion when I've needed to travel for anything.  However, this time my boss told me he wanted to get involved as a contact for the company.  Seemed like a good thing to me, so I went with it.

I'm sure it wasn't your typical trip though, because we were asked on Wednesday to come down for a Friday meeting, so we scrambled to get arrangements to get down there by Thursday night.  After a few hours of meetings in the morning, we then made our way back.

It was a nice change of pace to get out of the office for a little while, and I'm already looking forward to my next opportunity to travel.

Well...once again I've been bad about posting on this blog.  While the holiday season has kept me busy, I've spent most of my posting efforts doing daily posts for my Advent Project over on If Jesus Had A Website.  It's been an interesting project, and I don't think I've ever posted so much.  Some days, I've gone for more informative posts, and others I've been more reflective.  All in all, it's been a great way for me to ponder all the different parts of the Christmas season and what exactly they mean.

I've also been working on the first version of my Last.Played pod for BlogCFC, which allows you to display the information and artwork for the most recently scrobbled song on Last.fm, and its nearly complete.  I had been using the now playing plugin and display through iTunes, but since I found out about WinAmp 5.5, I've gotten away from iTunes.  Since I'm a Last.fm user anyway, I thought this would be the best solution.  I might not get it done until after Christmas, but I'd rather be spending that time with family anyway.

Anyway, as the title of this post implies, today is my birthday.  Yep, another year older already, but at least I'm still the spring chicken at work.

Feel free to drop me a line with your birthday wishes, and let me know if you'd like to send me any gifts.

Just kidding!  I mean, unless you really want to!  That'd be awesome!

And that 'S' would stand for 'stupid', as in the recent 'Adults-Only' rating given to Volumes 1 and 2 of Sesame Street, recently released on DVD.  That's right, the loveable, timeless creations of Jim Henson that aired on PBS for 38 seasons, starting in 1969, has been deemed inappropriate for children.

Shame on them for trying to help kids learn and teach them values.  Though times have changed, the lessons found in Sesame Street have not:

• Don't be mean to others (try being nice instead of simply taking more prozac).
• Learning can be fun (yes, as fun as your PSP).
• Sharing is important (even if you love what you share...right Cookie Monster?)

Look, if you sit a kid down and they come away thinking that smoking while reading (followed by eating the pipe, as Cookie Monster did in the Monsterpiece Theatre segments) is a good idea, maybe you need to spend more time teaching the kid about reality and humor.  Otherwise, Sesame Street is still a great series for children.

Well, after a 3 year hiatus, I've rejoined the Pittsburgh Curling Club!  I'm very glad  to be back and playing, and seeing many familiar faces as well.  Technically, this is old news, as we're already 5 matches into the season, but I hadn't written about it yet, so I thought I'd let y'all know.

In our league, I'm with a group of relatively inexperienced curlers, so we're struggling a little bit.  However, I did get to spare in a few matches this past Saturday and I was reminded that I can throw some nice stones still.

Hopefully I'll get a chance to hit up some bonspiels in the coming year.  It's always fun to meet curlers from other areas (and get a chance to curl on some real curling ice instead of converted hockey ice).

Anyway, if you're interested in curling and live in the Pittsburgh area, feel free to contact the club on their site listed above.  It doesn't matter if you haven't played before, as they'll arrange a session for you to come an learn.  Plus, the leagues almost always need subs, so you could even get into some competition relatively quickly.  So drop them a line and tell them Greg sent you!

Well, last weekend, I got my first W2 of the year.  That's right, a bit earlier than usual.  However, there was a good reason for it.  It turns out that my previous employer, Express Financial Services, had closed their doors for good.

Now, I can't say that I'm shocked.  They invested heavily in some custom designed software built by a extremely small company who didn't do a very good job.  In fact, just a few months after deploying the system, they were already encountering scalability issues with the database as some tables already had millions of records, and there were no archiving considerations yet built.  Since I was the in-house DBA, I decided that was a good queue for me to make my way out instead of somebody pointing the finger at me for something I didn't design or maintain.

The irony of the whole situation was that they put over a year into designing and implementing this system to better server their customers, and they ended up losing one major customer while designing because they got tired of the poor service and they lost another one not long after the new system was put in place.

Thankfully, I saw the writing on the wall, though it came much faster than I had expected.  Anyway, I got back to software development in ColdFusion, which I enjoy more than just doing DBA work anyway.

Hopefully all my former co-workers (200+ employees when I left) have or are able to land back on their feet after the closing of the company.

Wow, it's been well over a month since I last posted. I guess I'm not a very good blogger because time goes by faster than I can keep track of it!

Anyway, there are a few things I want to update you with:

1. Over the past several months, I've lost 20-25 pounds. I feel a lot better about myself, but there's still more I'd like to lose.
2. I'm still working on my new blogging platform using ColdFusion 8. I'm enjoying playing with the new features, but some of the AJAX features take some getting used to. Still getting them together correctly.
3. Work is great, and I'm nearing the point where I'm going from contractor to full employee. My boss can't wait to bring me on, and I'm really looking forward to being aboard.
4. As a Pitt alumni (at least from grad school), I'm cheering for Dave Wannstedt to get fired. My wife will testify that I questioned the move since Day 1. He's an awful head coach that has made every team he's coached worse. I got to go to the Pitt-Navy game on Wednesday to witness the debauchery, and I can't imagine him staying around much longer. As a Pitt fan, I did my duty and rooted against them so they can get better under a new coach.
5. Oh, and chocolate chips and pumpkin don't mix!

Just a quick update, but I haven't posted much this month because I've been working on some other projects. Experimenting with the new ColdFusion 8 and all that. I'll be sure to let y'all know when I'm gettings somewhere with that.

In the meantime, hold tight!