But maybe I’m a highly-functional geek since I also love sports and “back in the day” used to play basketball, and even played a season each of organized football and baseball.  On weekends in the Fall you’re very likely to find our TV tuned to a football game, be it college or NFL.  I’m also able to force myself to work through times when I need to be social for business, etc.

Worse for my geek creds, If you want me to build you a computer I find that a daunting task with too many options; I’d rather buy a Dell or HP box than build my own.  I’ve never gotten into some of the more popular geek/nerd TV shows; I’ve seen the Star Trek movies but never religiously watched all the TV series.  I’ve played D-and-D once in my life (back when I was 12 or so), and didn’t quite get what all the fuss was about.

But lately I seem to be reconnecting with the geek/nerd roots I’ve never had.  My wife Alicea has me reading a massive historical fiction series (Diana Gabaldon’s Outlander novels) and I’m loving it.  I’ve been spending time on some home tech projects like running network cables through the walls, upgrading our NAS, a power supply on our Media Center PC, and planning some other big projects.  I’ve started exposing our daughter Kaitlyn to the Star Wars movies – she loves them.  And I’m finally starting to get into Dr. Who.

The Who I remember from growing up were the episodes broadcast on PBS here in the States in the 80’s.  They had crappy production quality (even for that time) and just seemed way too weird.  But over the last year or so I’ve been periodically listening to Chris Hardwick’s Nerdist Podcast, and Chris is nothing if not a complete Whovian.  On top of that, over the last 3 months of being home with our newborn son, Alicea has been blowing through all the modern Dr. Who episodes on Netflix – and I’ve seen a few of them and loved it.

Today is a turning point.  When we got home from church I had a serious debate on whether to put on the Seahawks game or starting watching more Dr. Whos (I started watching the modern series yesterday with Kaitlyn).  Football won for a little while, but Dr. Who is on now.  Maybe we’ll watch some more football later – maybe not.

So it seems this is the season of rediscovering my geek roots.  Let’s build a computer and watch nerdy shows.  Will it last?  I’m not sure, but I hope so.  This body’s done playing sports.

This is one of the weirdest tests I’ve ever taken – it shows you a bunch of shapes and asks you questions that are not related to those shapes, but your answers are to choose between the shapes.  Sounds bogus, right?  Well, I think it nailed me pretty darn well.  WEIRD!

Here are my results…

Verbally and mentally fluid, you are refreshing and illuminating to those around you. This is occasionally somewhat discounted by the obvious pleasure that you take in exercising your mental acuity. Although generally peaceful you can often take a verbally aggressive tact in relations with the world, which can often be misunderstood by those around you. Innovative in the extreme, you can often think yourself right out of the correct answer to a given problem. Many times you are referred to as your own worst enemy. You tire very quickly of routine and so make poor clerks or administrative help. You also have no respect for authority and little patience for those you regard as inferior, most especially those in charge. Experimentation is your watchword and can occasionally lead to experience for its own sake and shallow decadence. Your thought can sometimes be scattered and disconnected.

From: Nathan Novak
Sent: Wednesday, September 08, 2010 8:52 PM
To: xxxxxxxx@united.com
Subject: Huge thanks to Louis for saving a horrible United experience

I called into the main United phone line this morning hoping to get our reservation (XXXXX) changed since we’ve booked an extra couple days at Disney World.  I was told by the rep I spoke to that there were no seats available on Dec 14^th for awards travel, and that the next available date to change the return flights to was Dec 20.  The agent then asked if I was willing to upgrade to Economy Plus “for $132”.  I pointedly asked 3 times if doing that upgrade meant I could fly on Dec 14, and I was told yes each time.  So I gave a credit card number and the transaction was completed.  I was told the flight numbers were the same with the upgrade – which reinforced the idea that the date had also changed.

I waited a few minutes after getting off the call for United.com to reflect the changes, and when they showed up the return flights were upgraded but were still booked for Dec 12.  The outgoing flights on Dec 3 remained in Economy.  I immediately called back and explained what had happened, and was again told that there were no seats available on Dec 14.  I was told to check back periodically to see if anything freed up.  I asked a few times if there were any regular seats available (not on miles) but I kept getting the same answer.  I also said that I wanted the upgrade backed out since I was misled into purchasing it.  I asked to be transferred to a supervisor but the agent got defensive and assured me he could help; I kept getting the same answers though – they wouldn’t let me even buy 3 seats at regular price. I gave up for the moment and said I’d call back after conferring with my wife.

We decided that we really wanted to fly on Dec 14 since there were some special activities we’d booked (and paid for) at Disney on those extra days, so I called back.  I got the same run-around where I couldn’t get a straight answer.  I asked to be transferred to a supervisor because the agent again was not answering my questions, and after some considerable back-and-forth the agent relented and transferred me … to a dead-end in the system that hung up on me after 25 minutes.

An hour or so later I called yet again.  By that time we had decided to give up on United for the return flight and I had already booked return travel for my family on Alaska Air (non-stop for roughly the same cost as the $150 change fee United would charge us anyway).  I wanted to get my return trip cancelled and the upgrade refunded.  The agent again pushed the “call back again another day” line and I again asked to be transferred to a supervisor, and predictably they didn’t want to do that.  So the agent cancelled the return flights on Dec 12 (I saw them disappear on the website) and then transferred the call to the refunds department.  I explained the situation after I was connected and the rep didn’t know what to do.  She put me on hold for a few minutes, then came on line and said she was going to transfer me to a supervisor.  I was on hold for about 45 minutes … and then the same rep came back on.  She said she couldn’t figure out the phone system or had some technical issue, and then she tried to help again, and then tried to transfer to a supervisor again.  I was on hold for another 15 minutes and someone finally came on, heard what had happened, and said she had credited me $279.

I went to lunch, and when I got back I checked the reservation again and the return flights on Dec 12 were back, and now not only the 12/12 but the 12/3 flights were also upgraded to Economy Plus.  I checked the e-receipt online and found I had been charged twice – once for $279 and then again for $264.  Keep in mind that I was told the upgrade was $132, and of course that the upgrade would also get me on flights for Dec 14.  At that point I was fried, and I had real work to actually get done.

I called again tonight and was eventually connected with Louis.  He was the first person I talked to who could fully speak and comprehend English, and he quickly realized the pickle I was in and vowed to do what he could to help out.  He also let me know the ins and outs of the Mileage Plus travel program (1-way and round-trip flights are the same cost in miles) and that to get a 1-way ticket would be a change fee of $150 (I’m assuming per seat).  Louis worked with his manager to properly note the account with the erroneous upgrade charges and got our tickets put back in Economy and got seats assigned.  He also worked with me to get the security questions answered for the itinerary and let me know how to contact the refunds group via email.

Needless to say this has been a completely horrible experience with United Airlines, and this trip is likely the last I’ll be taking with United.  All that being said, I want to commend Louis for being exceptionally understanding, level-headed, comforting, and helpful.  Louis was remarkably professional and let me know that he’d do whatever he could to ensure things were set straight.  As I’d say to one of the guys on my team, Louis had a “gold star” moment.  Please thank Louis again for me, and share his commendable devotion to customer service with your management chain.

Thanks.

Nathan

Tuesday morning we saw the surgeon (a day earlier than scheduled due to the ER visits) to get evaluated.  Everything is going really well with my knee.  Just getting from the car to the doctor’s office was the worst part of the trip – I had to go probably 300-400 feet on my crutches.  That’s a long way to go for someone in pain.

They took all of the staples that were holding together the incision – about 20 of them.  This was a bit uncomfortable because a few had started to have my skin grow over them, but it wasn’t too bad.  Most I didn’t feel, and the ones that were the worst just felt like someone was pinching you really hard.

After the staples were out I had a few X-rays taken so the doc could see what’s up.  It was weird being outside of the brace and standing up (with my crutches).  Definitely unnerving and scary.  But it went well and everything is healing inside just fine.  In fact I’ve been very surprised with how well my knee is doing after surgery.  I think if I didn’t have the hematoma causing all the pain and swelling in my lower leg that I’d be absolutely fantastic, and probably back at work.

Unfortunately, I DO have that damn hematoma, and it’s been the source of 80% of my pain and issues.  As long as I’m sitting with my leg up I’m okay.  But as soon as I have to get my foot below my hip-level to stand or sit in the car or whatever, I can literally feel my lower leg swell and it turns into a huge source of pain and discomfort.  The doc said he wasn’t too worried about the hematoma, and that physical therapy (massage, stretching, etc.) will help alleviate that.  That being said, it’s going to add 2-3 weeks onto my recovery.

Because of this extended recovery period it’s going to be a lot longer than expected for me to become independent (I can’t really move without help).  My wife Alicea has been absolutely awesome, but I know she’s had to make a lot of sacrifices for her work and personal time, plus take care of our daughter.  Thankfully my folks are going to be able to come out and stay with us and help out.  They should be here middle of next week (they have a trip to Myrtle Beach this week).  It will be great to see them and have the extra help around the house.  Shhh – don’t tell Kaitlyn. 

I had hoped to be working from home a lot this week, but that didn’t materialize.  My team has been reluctant to task me up with anything, and frankly I’ve been too doped up to be really useful anyway.  I did get a chance to start working through the hundreds of emails that I got and started to make some small contributions though.  Maybe this next week will be better.

Friday (yesterday) was a long day.  It seemed like my pain was worse than it had been and the frustration of my situation really bore down on me.  I missed a dose of pain meds overnight and that just made everything worse.  Mentally it was a very hard day for me and I broke down before Alicea had to go to work.  In the evening me leg was super-itchy and we decided to do some brace-off time to let things air out.  Alicea also gave my leg a massage and put some lotion on to help the dry skin.  In hind sight we probably should be doing that more often to help with the skin and itchiness.

By the time Friday night rolled around we decided to try to get me upstairs.  After 11 nights (and 12 days) on the couch I REALLY wanted to lay down in a real bed.  The problem is that our bedrooms are all upstairs and our stairs have a few steps that are very shallow (tough to maneuver on crutches).  We figured out a solution, though.  I sat on my rear at the bottom of the stairs and Alicea held my bad leg up.  I used my arms to lift me up to the next step up, sat, moved up, sat, etc.  We had to stop a few times because I got so tired, but we finally made it.  Then I had to stand up, but couldn’t figure out how.  I ended up just scooting over to the bed and using the bed frame to get me up.  Not pretty, but effective!

Lying down for the first time in the bed (we have a Tempurpedic mattress) was like being in heaven.  I even got to cuddle with my beautiful bride for a little bit.  Wow, had I missed her.  She’s been so busy and I’ve been in so much pain and out of it that we really haven’t had too many chances to talk or have some “us” time for the past couple weeks.  It was great.

In the morning we figured out how to get me into the tub (we got a shower bench for me to use) and I took a shower.  Ahhhhhhhhhh.

That’s about all there is for now.  Physical therapy starts on Tuesday morning and my parents fly in from North Carolina on Wednesday evening.

The surgery actually went very well and as-expected.  Well, that’s not true, there was something unexpected – the anesthesiologist offered me a nerve block in my left leg in addition to everything else.  This has never been an option I’ve known about in my previous procedures, and let me tell you: IT’S FRIGGIN AWESOME!  Essentially right before they knock you out they put a nerve block into your hip through an artery (either near the groin or your butt – or in my case it ended up being both).  It doesn’t really hurt at all, but what it does for you is gives you about 12-24 hours of ZERO feeling in your leg.  No pain, and the first day is always the worst!  After we learned of this option it made sense why this surgery is now outpatient, where as in 2001 I stayed 1 or 2 nights.

The weird thing with the nerve block is that you have absolutely NO control over your leg for about a day.  It’s like a dead appendage down there.  But it doesn’t really hurt, so it’s well worth the trouble.

Getting home I realized I forgot to do something – practice with my crutches going up and down the few steps to get from the garage to the house.  Oops.  If it’s been a while since you’ve been on crutches get some practice time in before you go to surgery.  Also make sure to set up where you will be when you get home.  I’ve been on the couch for a week now, but we’ve made it pretty comfortable.

Monday night went pretty well.  I didn’t know when the block would wear off so I made sure to keep up with my pain medications, but only at the low-end dosage.  I woke up about the time for a medicine dose and was very sweaty.  I had my wife take my temp and it was 100.5.  I usually run colder than normal, but a minor fever is expected after surgery. 102F fever is the red line for when to call the doc.  I also started noticing some discomfort at the bottom of my calf on my left/surgery leg, but nothing major.  I figured it was just how my leg was propped up so we adjusted some pillows. 

Alicea took Kaitlyn to daycare on Monday morning and while she was gone I was able to get myself to the bathroom without too much trouble – great!  My calf was still hurting though – bummer! The block wore off sometime overnight so I was totally on my Percocet for pain management now, but I was keeping up.  I slept a lot during the day from the pain meds, etc. but every time I woke up I was sweating.  My temp got up to 101.8.  Hmmm – that’s not good.  Also my calf was starting to be more painful than my knee.  HUH?  We did some looking online and started to match some symptoms up with a possible blood clot in my leg.  Pain in my calf when I moved my foot up/down, massive swelling of the calf and foot and toes, and my calf was VERY painful to the touch.

We talked to the surgeon’s nurse, a 24 hour nurse line, and a few other resources and decided that we needed to go to the ER and get this checked out.  The last thing I wanted was a blood clot to break loose in the middle of the night when I was asleep and do some nasty stuff.  On the way to the Swedish ER in Issaquah I started having a bit of pressure (not pain) in my right chest; like someone had their thumb on the right side of my sternum.

The Swedish ER in Issaquah is absolutely fantastic.  If you’re in the area and need an ER I highly recommend you go there.  Staff is very professional, knowledgable, and super friendly.  The ER doc said he was pretty sure I had a clot in my leg as I had all the telltale signs and pain.  They took off my leg brace and wraps and everything looked normal with my incision site – though there had been significant “seeping” of blood into the gauze pads, which is expected.  With the chest discomfort they decided to do a CT Scan with some special radioactive dye in my veins to find any clots.  But none were found.  The ER doc said that was about 98.5% definitive that there was no clot, and that the best thing to do was wait and see what happens.  They put humpty dumpty back together again and said I should see my surgeon or primary care doc again at the end of the week.

Wednesday and Thursday were more of the same … lots of pain in my calf and not too much in my knee.  We got a urinal from the ER on Tuesday so I didn’t have to get up to go #1 any more.  This little piece of plastic is a life saver.  My calf was pretty bad for the pain so I was on max Percocet, to a mostly positive impact on pain.  We also called the surgeon and he said seeing my primary care on Friday was fine, but to keep him posted.  Our scheduled follow-up with him isn’t until this coming Wednesday, 10 days out from surgery.

At my doc’s office (www.villagefamilyclinic.com – Kristina is absolutely an incredible care giver for my family) we unwrapped everything again and found lots more seeping.  I’m not sure if that much on top of what was there at the ER 3 days before was expected, but there were definitely a few spots still seeping a little blood between the staples.

Kristina didn’t think it was a clot anymore since she found my whole leg was swollen and hot, not just my lower extremities.  She called and talked with my surgeon and they decided to put me on a high-powered antibiotic thinking that perhaps there’s some infection deep within the joint system (the incision looks totally fine).  She also wanted me to go on a more powerful pain medication and get an ultrasound of my leg to completely rule out a clot.

Due to scheduling and resource availability we ended up having to go the pharmacy, then get Kaitlyn from daycare, and then roll to Bellevue’s Overlake Hospital for an outpatient ultrasound.  The timing was bad and I missed a dosage of pain meds.  Unfortunately my leg “went downhill fast” with pain and we ended up going to the ER at Overlake first.  They were able to get my pain under control after an hour or two and wheeled me back for the ultrasound.

The ultrasound on my leg was not able to show any blood clots – hurray!  But what they did find was a large hematoma – a pool of blood – between the muscle layers in my calf.  This is likely from internal bleeding after the surgery that made it’s way there via pressure from swelling.  Another possible cause is a tear in the calf.  In fact I talked with the on-call doc from my surgeon’s group today and he said that we’re effectively battling two different injuries now: knee and calf.

There’s not much to do about the hematoma over the weekend.  I’ll be seeing my surgeon or someone from his group most likely tomorrow.  I’ll know more in the morning when I can talk with my doc’s nurse to see what his schedule is like.

The bottom line is that I’m in some minor-ish pain (2-4 out of 10) from my knee and calf as long as I’m lying down with my leg propped up.  If I need to get off the couch as soon as my leg dips below my hip level it feels like someone has lit off a pain grenade in my whole leg; definitely a 10 on the pain scale. 

But these issues are not surprising for me because this was my 4th surgery on my left knee.  The more you mess with the joint the more issues surgery can cause.  If this was my first surgery and just having a patellar realignment I would be doing great, most likely independent for movement within the house and maybe brave enough to go upstairs to sleep in a real bed.  I’d definitely be ready to start working (from home) in the morning to feel like I’m actually still involved in the world out there.

Instead, I’m not sure when I’m going to be okay to work from home.  I’m hoping it will be sometime later this week, but time will tell.  Until then I’m going to be stuck on the couch taking Dilaudid 4-8mg every 6 hours for pain, 800mg of ibuprofen every 8 hours for swelling, and a horse pill of antibiotics every 12 hours.

I’ll try to write another update in a few days.  In the mean time feel free to follow me on Twitter – @nanovak.

Back in August of 1992 I was playing a friendly game of volleyball on a sand court at my mom’s company picnic in Charlotte, NC.  The CEO gave me a beautiful set from the back line which I proceeded to spike into somebody’s face on the other side of the net, scoring the point in the process.  And really, that’s the important part of the story – I won the point.

Unfortunately on the way back down to the ground my femur decided to explode at the knee joint.  A week later I was having my first major surgery on my knee to pin everything back together and try to reattach all the tendons and ligaments that were damaged in the trauma. Three months on crutches and 6+ months of physical therapy humpty dumpty was back together again.

Everything was okay for about 8 years and a move to Seattle, but then I started having my knee dislocate on rare occasions with no major impact or event.  I would be standing and talking to someone in the office, turn to leave and wham-o.  At first it was once or twice a year … then once a quarter … then monthly, weekly, … you get the picture.

So in 2001 I had my second major surgery – a patellar realignment.  Essentially my kneecap was not in the right place so the doc went in and cut the patellar tendon off the bone on my lower leg and reattached it in a better spot (about 1.5cm to the inside) with a couple screws.  They also shortened a few tendons to try to pull it further into the right spot.  Another 5 months later (my last physical therapy appointment was the morning of 9/11) I was good to go and my knee was stable.

Over the next 5 years my knee was mostly okay, but by 2006 there was a lot of grinding a swelling in the joint causing some pain.  So I had arthroscopic surgery to “clean out” the built up scar tissue and smooth out the surfaces in a knee that was already starting to see some moderate arthritis buildup.  Unfortunately when all was said and done this procedure really didn’t seem to make much difference for the quality of my knee pain and comfort.  What’s worse is we discovered that the tendons that were supposed to be pulling my kneecap into the right place had “released” that adjustment.

Fast forward to a month ago and my knee was telling me that it was time to go see a doc again.  I was avoiding putting our daughter to bed at night because I didn’t want to walk up the stairs in pain.  So I went to a new doc from the past 2 procedures (thanks to an insurance change, and I felt it was time for another opinion anyway) and we’ve decided that we need to do another patellar realignment.  My kneecap is nowhere near in the right place and the innards of my knee have undergone “significant arthritic change.”

So tomorrow morning I’m having surgery … again.  My kneecap will essentially be disconnected and then screwed back in at a different spot and I’ll have a ton of work done inside the joint to clean things up and adjust the tendons.  I’m looking at a month or so in a big leg brace and on crutches, then months of PT.

My hope is to blog about this experience so other folks know what this is like.  I’ve done a lot of looking online and there are not a lot of good resources (I’ve found) on what a patient should expect from this ordeal.  Should be fun – for you, not for me.

I’ll start out with a picture … we’ll call this one “Before”.  I’ll try to post “After” tomorrow.  You can see how much swelling is in my knee – and I’ve been sitting on my recliner with my leg in this position pretty much all day.  The scar on the outside (left) of my knee is the original surgery from 1992.  The one on top is from 2001.  The theory is that the doc will use the 2001 line for another incision tomorrow – have to keep my legs pretty you know.

Update 1/17/2010 – here’s the report from 1 week later: http://nathan.thenovaks.net/2010/01/17/week-1-the-expected-and-the-unexpected/

It seems I do this every year or so, but I really do want to get back to writing often on my blog.  There’s something about a long-form blog post that just doesn’t come across with a 140 word Tweet.

Ironically I always used to wish there was a venue for short posts, links to interesting articles, an easy way to share a picture, etc.  I’ve taken to that pretty well with 2600 Tweets so far (www.twitter.com/nanovak) and an active Facebook account too (www.facebook.com/nanovak – and no, it’s not public, much to Facebook’s chagrin).

I’m hoping to use the blog as a forum for posts about both technology (I’m a gadget geek and an operations engineer for Windows Live Messenger) and my personal life.

Speaking of my personal life, I’m 48 hours away from having knee surgery so I’m going to blog about what’s going on and my recovery process over the coming months.  Months…bleh.

More to come … honestly this time.

I wouldn’t trade it for anything.  How lucky am I to wake up every morning next to my best friend in the whole world?  My soul mate?  My partner in trying to do the right things in raising our daughter?

9 years since saying “I do” on a perfect Spring night in Charlotte, NC.  9 years since one of the happiest days of my life – I’m still on cloud 9 (ha!) every time I even think about that day.

We were talking about it last night, and these past 9 years have gone by so fast, and at the same time we’ve done and been through so much. 

• An awesome honeymoon in Charleston, SC
• Starting our post-college lives and careers in Charlotte, only to get moved 3000 miles away at the drop of a hat
• Cross-country drive (arriving in Seattle for our 1st anniversary)
• Finding the perfect church on a whim on day
• 10 day road trip to California and back on US-101
• Buying a house when we never thought we could (we got our mortgage rate locked 2 weeks before they bottomed out!)
• Finding out we were pregnant on on your birthday
• Flying to the top of a snow-capped mountain in a helicopter
• Having to go to the hospital a few weeks later for “some testing”
• Having Kaitlyn born 3 days later; 5 weeks in NICU for her and over a week in the hospital for you
• Getting to celebrate a “0th birthday party” because KC was home a month before her original due date
• Spending a week on Maui while Grandma watch Kaitlyn for us (we TOTALLY need to go back!)
• Raising a healthy and beautiful 4 year old daughter
• Getting to spend each day knowing we have each other to come home to, rely on, vent at, care for us when we’re ill, and make us laugh.

9 has always been my number – I was born 9 pounds 9 ounces on the 9th day of the 9th month.  I don’t buy into superstition too much, but I’m betting that this is going to be a pretty awesome year none the less. 

Here’s to you hon.  Thanks for being there every day.  Thanks for being my best friend.  Thanks for being the love of my life.  We’re still smiling!

Kaitlyn got a beautiful, shiny, purple bead stuck in her right ear yesterday at preschool and didn’t tell anyone until last night as we were putting her to bed. We spent the next few hours at the Overlake Urgent Care in Issaquah where they tried a few different techniques to get it out – didn’t work. Lots of pain for KC though in the process – not good. We got asked to head to Overlake ER in Bellevue, where the doc took a look and said him messing with it would just make it worse. Got referred to an ENT doc in Issaquah – went there this morning. Consulted with him and everyone agreed the best course of action is to remove the bead while KC’s knocked out so she doesn’t get even more traumatized. Fun times!

Kaitlyn isn’t in any pain as long as someone isn’t prodding around in her ear, and she’s being a trooper about the whole thing. All the nurses love her and she’s gotten a bunch of new stickers out of the whole deal! Awesome ENT doc too – even had Kaitlyn look in her stuffed bunny’s ears to make sure no beads were in there too. The procedure is early on Tuesday (no worries about leaving it in until then), and we should be home by 9 or 10a.

What a trooper.  Kaitlyn told us last night, before we even left the house, “that was a bad thing to do – I shouldn’t ever do that again.”  At least we’re good enough parents that when she messes up she’s willing to tell us about it, and figure out self-corrective action for the future.

Good lord, my daughter is ready for the working world!  She just did a post-mortem on a high-priority incident!!!

In the mean time, time will continue to be spent sitting and waiting … and fuming.

One issue that I haven’t liked is the Windows Live Messenger client wants to live in the taskbar with the rest of my running apps instead of the system tray where I’m used to it staying.  But  I just came across a way to make it work like I want and stay over by the clock in the system tray: compatibility mode!

Here’s what to do:

1. Close/exit Messenger
2. On your local computer browse to C:\Program Files\Windows Live\Messenger\ (or \Program Files (x86)\ on a 64bit OS install)
3. Right-click on msnmsgr.exe and choose Properties
4. On the Compatibility tab click the “Run this program in compatibility mode box and choose Windows Vista.  Click OK at the bottom.
   
5. Now you can start Messenger again from the Start Menu.
6. In the System Tray click on the “Show hidden icons” arrow and then click Customize.
   
7. In the Notification Area Icons dialog find Windows Live Messenger and in the dropdown to the right choose “Show icons and notifications”.  Click OK at the bottom.
   
8. There you go!  Messenger back in the System Tray!

Credit to www.mess.be for the tip!  Unfortunately they don’t have URL’s directly to their posts.

You may have noticed that I’ve added a couple of links/feeds to the right of this page.  The first one is my Twitter account: http://twitter.com/nanovak.  I have actually been quite active over there as I find the 140 character short post syncs up well with my usual desire for blogging: oh that would be a cool thought or quote to share.

The other feed is a “link blog” feed of blog posts and articles that I find interesting to share.  Some good stuff there! http://feeds.feedburner.com/NathansLinkBlog

I’m starting to get motivate to write a 2008 year in review post, so stay tuned for that.

For now, it’s off to bed to try to get rid of a head cold.  Joy.

Funny Pic: The Financial Crisis Piggy Bank

That’s from the homepage of www.nytimes.com right now.  What’s the most impressive, not the “OBAMA” line.  To me the most important is “Racial Barrier Falls in Heavy Turnout”.  One of the most proud moments I’ve had in my 31 years.  Proud of our country.

Thanks to all who voted.  Remember this feeling, what it’s like to play a part in the process.  No matter if your choice is victorious or not, it’s PARTICIPATING that’s the key.

And thanks to everyone who finally was able to put the “race card” back in the deck with all the other issues.  Especially after living in the South for nearly a decade, it puts a big smile on my face to see Virginia and (at this point in the evening, possibly) North Carolina vote for an African American for the highest office in the land.

As John McCain is saying right now in his concession, let’s all “find ways to come together” to help restore our prosperity, enhance our security, and make this country a better place.  “We are all fellow Americans.”

Congratulations America.  Job well done.

It’s nice to have that paid off, but at the same time it was kind of my last connection with being a decade younger than I am now. 

My career seems to be taking me in a more technical direction than I once hoped, and where I used to think that getting my Masters some day was good goal, now I’m not so sure.  Sure I could be wrong, but at this point I don’t really see a big benefit.

So here’s to the good old days of just worrying about making it to classes and determining the best strategy for winning a game of Spades at 3am.   But at the time, here’s to having a few glasses of a nice merlot while answering the door on Halloween while my wife and daughter are out raking in the goods!

Of course I just thought of another interesting tidbit: I’ve come full circle.  When I was in college I thought it would be the coolest thing to work at Microsoft, but knew it was pretty darn hard to get hired there.  In the last 10 years I’ve done a lot, and even reached the point where I thought Microsoft wouldn’t be the right place for me.  Today I can’t think of anywhere else, or another team I’d rather work on than Messenger Ops at Microsoft.

That deserves another glass of merlot.

The best post I’ve seen just came in while I was at lunch, and is in response to my beautiful wife pointing out that a newspaper article said people in Snoqualmie were driving half an hour to get to a grocery store.

But then he got a phone call from a retail developer at Snoqualmie Ridge, who said the community’s only supermarket had closed and residents were driving a half hour to shop for food.
-Puget Sound Business Journal

What a load of bull the retail landlord fed these people!  There’s a small organic grocery in downtown Snoqualmie (3-5 minutes) as well as a QFC and Safeway 6 miles away in North Bend.  The response?

“Not sure where people would get information line that…”

Thanks Chris!

To intro the page the have a great graph that espouses what I’ve been saying for a long time … if your company is having issues or entering tough times cut early, cut ONCE, and cut deep.  I’ve lived through not doing that in the last dotcom bubble burst in 2000-2001.  The company I worked for went through seemingly endless layoff rounds and morale was totally shot.  We were eventually purchased for about half the amount of cash we had on hand … bought with our own money.

Essentially, if you make a deep cut in workforce early in a downturn sure there’s a morale hit, but at the same time the core group of folks who are left know that management is serious about preserving the company – and their jobs.  If management decides to cut a few jobs here and there “so as not to make anyone worry” they’re actually doing the opposite – who knows when you could be next.

So in the last couple weeks we’ve heard of lots of layoffs from companies that are well funded (Zillow for one).  While a lot of folks are viewing this as a sign of the economy tanking (and I don’t disagree there), I think this is more of a sign of CEO’s making the right decisions for the good of the business and the majority of their employees.  Sure it sucks to be the 1 in 4 employees laid off from Zillow, but 3 in 4 now have a good fighting chance of riding through this recession in one piece.

If only my former employers heeded these lessons…

Here’s a look at where the Dow has gone in the last 12 months.  We’ve bled out about 28% of the value of the index in a year.  That can’t be good!  I’m not worried about my retirement – heck we’ve got another 35 years before that’s going to happen.  This does SUCK for folks like my parents who are recently retired.

A lot of people wonder how the hell this all happened.  I’ve been sticking my head in the sand on that one, other than to know that a lot of banks made a lot of bad loans to a lot of people who should have known better than to buy a $500,000 house when they only make $50,000 a year.

If you really want to know the precipitating events that lead up to the meltdown in the recent months head over to This American Life and listen to their show from this past weekend entitled “Another Frightening Show About the Economy”.  Alicea and I heard the first 10-15 minutes and were enthralled at the story being told in a way that a normal person can comprehend.  Just because I used to work for an investment firm doesn’t mean I understand it all!

It’s so awesome to actually be involved with something that millions of people use every day! 

If you haven’t tried it yet, you can get the new version by visiting http://download.live.com/messenger.

The real reason this appeared is that I have a number of restaurants in my contacts so it’s easy to place takeout orders while we’re driving home.  Microsoft has integrated our Office Communicator platform with the phone system, so if I wanted I could click on the phone icon next to the restaurant’s listing and call them.

Still, it got a good laugh out of me that a restaurant would show up in my IM client!

Jaw-dropping demos of technology that your company (maybe even YOU) helped put together?  Steve Balmer running around the room chest bumping people, screaming his head off, and inadvertently knocking defenseless women over?  (seriously – that was funny as hell!)

I can’t wait to get using the next versions of Windows, Windows Mobile, Office, and a bunch of the other stuff I saw.  I can honestly say that coming from the outside (of MS) recently, that while you may think the Microsoft has lost “the touch” I can tell you you’re wrong.  Just wait for this stuff to get out.

Speaking of – check out the new beta version (public) of Windows Live Messenger (and the other WLx products).  Head over to http://download.live.com.  Messenger is WAY cleaned up from the UI of old, you can leave it logged in on multiple computers (chats appear on both and when you close a window on one it closes on the other – great for folks like me with multiple PC’s), and you can see “What’s New” with all the people in your address book.  My extended team runs Messenger, the address book platform, as well as the stuff that makes “what’s new” work.

Lastly, I’m so happy to see Microsoft finally get off it’s ass and compete in the marketing space.  Far too long, IMHO, have we countered Apple’s Mac v. PC ads with either nothing or the kind of over-detailed over-engineered non-passionate advertising Microsoft is known for.  It’s time to stick up for ourselves and the fallacy that cool people use, and cool things happen, only on a Mac.  Great things happen on the PC platform every day, and I’ve heard lots of stories about just as many issues on Macs as Windows boxes.

I’m a PC … and I help tens of millions of people every day connect to their friends, family, and community … one IM at a time. 

Tonight we watched the closing ceremonies on NBC in HD – the fireworks and other bits of eye candy look so much better in HD.  That being said, for the past 2 weeks we’ve been pretty firmly planted “north of the border” watching the Games on CBC.  That’s right, Comcast carries Vancouver, BC, Canada’s CBC channel here in the states.  AND THANK GOODNESS FOR THAT!

We’d watch an event one evening live, and then notice that the same stuff was getting replayed 18 hours later on NBC.  Especially crappy was when NBC did decided to show something live they only did so for for the east coast of the US.  They tape-delayed EVERYTHING for the west coast, but still kept the “LIVE” banner on the screen.  Can’t the FCC get them for false advertising?  And don’t get me started on the inappropriate and moronic comments that Bob Costas feels like filling airtime with.  Spare me.

Next time, especially with Vancouver hosting the Winter games in February 2010 we’ll be watching a LOT of CBC.  I only hope Comcast starts carrying their HD feed here in the states by then.

I read a story this evening on Engadget HD that at least gives me hope … ESPN is thinking of bidding for the 2014 and 2016 games and promises to never tape delay anything.  NICE!  I can’t wait to watch Olympic dodgeball on ESPN 8 … The Ocho!

For those frustrated by NBC’s arrogant mishandling of its broadcast rights, there exists one slim ray of hope (other than living somewhere lucky enough to get Canadian television so you can actually see the events before reading about them in the paper or on NBC’s own website), ESPN. That’s right, with Brett Favre finally on an NFL roster, the sports giant has apparently found enough free time to consider taking a run at broadcast rights for the 2014 Winter Games and 2016 Summer Games.