Nathan's Occasional Blog

I’ve been trying to attend Microsoft’s premier IT professionals conference for years.  This year is finally it!  Woohoo!  I won’t bore you with the details but it’s a week of geeks talking about servers, security, email, etc.  It’s being held in Orlando this year, so there’s Disney stuff too.  Most importantly there’s lots of shwag!

Hurray free stuff!

Give me a yell if you’ll be there!

Alicea and I got back from a week in Maui on Wednesday morning.  This was our first time to Hawaii for either of us.  What did we think of the trip?  We both shed a tear or two when the plane left the runway in Kahului.  It was incredible!  Here are a few things that you MUST SEE/DO if you visit Maui…

• Sail & Snorkel charter out to Molokini crater.  There’s nothing like snorkeling in a tropical ocean with visibility measured in hundreds of feet.  And there’s nothing better than getting there on the wind at 18+ knots.  LOVELY.  Take the Paragon II out of Maalaea – check out www.SailMaui.com.
• Road to Hana: swim in the Seven Pools, take the side road down to Nahaiku, visit Waianapanapa State Park, hike through a bamboo forest.  It’s a LONG day to make the trek to Hana and back, and we’ll probably not do that again when we make it back to the island.  But the sights were amazing.
• Hit downtown Lahaina around 6a in the morning to catch the Banyan Tree when nobody’s there.  Once you’ve got a lot of pictures of that, walk across the park to the marina and watch the boats head out and the kids surf.  At 7a the Pioneer Inn Restaurant, next to the tree and the marina, opens.  You can’t go wrong with the Hawaiian sweetbread french toast or the gargantuan pancakes.  🙂  After breakfast continue to loll around Front Street as the shops open – you’ll have the street and the shops to yourselves.  When you’re done go back to your room and sleep for a while … you’ll still have most of the day left to do other stuff (or nothing).
• Go to a luau.  It’s cheesy, but you’ve got to do it just once.  We went to the Old Lahaina Luau and from what I’ve heard of the others this seems like a good bet.
• And this is a must … GO TO WARREN AND ANABELLES!  It’s a nightclub and magic/comedy show.  21 and over only, so find a sitter if you need to. Simply amazing and a LOAD of fun.  The first half of the entertainment (nightclub parlor) was a bit lame, but the show is indescribable.  You’ll need reservations well in advance … as in when you book your trip a couple months in advance.  Go to www.warrenandannabelles.com.
• Go to a time-share presentation.  Everybody does it.  😉

Alicea and I stayed at the Westin Maui Resort and Spa in Kaanapali.  Awesome place, but a bit pricey (we had a special package deal otherwise we wouldn’t have been there).  If you can afford it, though, stay there.

On the flight over (United from SFO to Maui) they did a “Half way to Hawaii” game.  The pilot gave us the distance we were covering, our speed, the tail wind, and the time we lifted off the runway from SFO to the second.  Whoever guessed the correct time we’d be half way won the prize … unfortunately they didn’t say that they were doing it closest but not over.  Anyway, Alicea was the runner up – she was about 6 minutes off.  Someone else was the winner.  BUT I was closest … I was 5 seconds over (I did a lot of math in Excel on my laptop and rounded the seconds for .982344565… of an hour – should have figured it out!).  I got a runner up prize too!

Yeah – we need to find a way to do that trip again.  Special thanks to Alicea’s mom for staying with Kaitlyn back here at home so we had a week to ourselves.  I love Kaitlyn … but it was awesome to have some time without her to be “us” again.

Well, that’s enough rambling for now.  Mahalo (thanks) for the memories Maui!

So I’m going to make another try at trying to blog consistently … at least a few times a week if not daily.  I just installed the new Windows Live Writer build, which got me thinking about blogging again.  🙂  You can see some of what they’ve added here.  I was going to start using BlogJet again, but to use the new version I’d have to pay for it again.  So we’ll see what WLW will do for me for free.

Wish me luck!

Pharoah T. Cat 2003-2007   (the ‘T’ stands for The)

I got to realize one of my worst fears this evening … coming home and finding a beloved pet dead.  What a craptacular moment in my life.  We miss you already little buddy.  Our bed will be awfully empty without you tonight.

Why? Because of idiots like this.

In a story posted today by WorldNetDaily and promptly commented on by a zillion bloggers, he blames soy for everything from homosexuality and smaller penises to early menstruation.

Why? Because “soybean products are feminizing, and they’re all over the place. You can hardly escape them anymore.”

I just got this forwarded to me at work.  It’s from the building management group.  I’ve been invited to “A Festive Day of Holiday Celebration”.

Holy crap.  That’s the worst title for an even EVAR!  Even WalMart figured out that they need to wish people Merry Christmas when they arrive at a store.  They didn’t last year and the uproar caused them to have a 6% drop this year in same-store-sales for the day after Thanksgiving.

When will people learn?

This is an absolutely amazing post from Scott Adams, the author of the famous Dilbert cartoons.  In summary he lost his ability to speak under normal circumstances because of a rare neural disorder.  Basically his brain forgot how to communicate to his vocal cords.

Well, the other night his brain made the connection again.  I can only imagine his excitement at the time.

MUST READ. 

When I say my brain remapped, that’s the best description I have. During the worst of my voice problems, I would know in advance that I couldn’t get a word out. It was if I could feel the lack of connection between my brain and my vocal cords. But suddenly, yesterday, I felt the connection again. It wasn’t just being able to speak, it was KNOWING how. The knowing returned.

I still don’t know if this is permanent. But I do know that for one day I got to speak normally. And this is one of the happiest days of my life.

Source: Good News Day
Originally published on Tue, 24 Oct 2006 14:32:07 GMT by Scott_Adams

File this one with a sarcastic “ya think?!?”

Baby’s death raises mom’s suicide risk

Mothers whose babies die at birth or in infancy are at higher risk for suicide attempts, according to new research from the Harborview Injury Prevention and Research Center.
     Source: Baby’s death raises mom’s suicide risk

They did go on in the next paragraph to state “also found that complications with labor and delivery, or having a Caesarean section, did not put women at higher risk for postpartum suicide attempts.”

THAT is actually a little surprising off hand, but to lead with baby death = suicidal mom is more sensationalism from the PI.  “Yeah – lets headline with dying babies and moms!”  ARGH!

Courtesy of Autoblog

You MUST check out this video of a 3D desktop engine that runs on Linux.  Simply amazing.  I have to agree with the commenters on Chris’ post – I wish Vista was going to be this slick.