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3/5/2009 Wow, customers read this?I met with acustomer today, in Mexico City, who told me that he expected my blog to be updated to show their country. After I got over the shock of realizing that my *customers* found this blog -- that I hadn't updated in two years -- i assured him it would be done promptly.
Accordingly, here it is:
visited 25 states (11.1%) Create your own visited map of The World or Best time to visit Śródmieście 9/26/2006 My travels...I updated my travel map after I got back from TechEd Australia and TechEd New Zealand:
create your own visited countries map 9/22/2006 Wow. I am so clearly not a blogger.The difference between "bloggers" and the rest of us... When life gets really, really busy, a blogger writes MORE. So, clearly, I am not a blogger.
I've felt bad about not updating the blog and keeping my two loyal readers informed, so I promise to make it up to you, somehow :)
Today is Andreas's one month birthday. We'd should have cake or something, but maybe we'll wait until he can actually eat it.
Here's what he looked like last weekend:
Darrian has started full-day kindergarten, and here's what he looks like:
Cool, huh?
Well, now that I've avoided actually working on "the book" for another 3 minutes, I should go and do that... or find some other distraction. 4/25/2006 New stuff from Microsoft...We'll it's been forever since I blogge. Millions of readers must be disappointed. It's been beautiful weather here the last few days; the rains have stopped, the sun is out. Oh, and I built a step. A couple of Microsoft things that might interest you: The Beta 2 version of Internet Explorer 7 has been posted: http://www.microsoft.com/windows/ie/default.mspx. Feel free to check it out. And, some of my work is going public. One of the teams I work with, System Integrity, has started a BitLocker team blog. You can read our insights at: http://blogs.technet.com/bitlocker. 3/17/2006 From Patti Page to Baha Men in one generationHere we are, back from vacation. I know, i know, "normal" people go away to the tropics in the winter, and we went back to the Arctic. Normal is over-rated.
We had a good time seeing everyone, and Darrian and I enjoyed our snowmobiling break. I've always liked late-season sledding (although the trails near town are in rough shape), and the bonus this year was a great deal on a new modular helmet for him. Last one in stock, they wanted to move it, ended up paying almost as much for the replacement defroster cable for mine (what I went in to get) as for his new, shiny, very cool helmet.
One night, we're beging to wind down, and he's cuddly... and for some reason I start humming and singing "How much is that doggie in the window" which was one of my favorites as a small child (lyrics: http://www.niehs.nih.gov/kids/lyrics/howmuch.htm, artist: http://www.arbproductions.ca/pattipage.shtml, audio: http://www.arbproductions.ca/mp3/pattipage/pattipage-doggieinthewindow.mp3) . I was a bit surprised that Darrain didn't mind it, and he'll even sing along.... but durring the chorus, he intersperses each line with "Who let the dogs out" (lyrics: http://www.lyricsdomain.com/2/baha_men/who_let_the_dogs_out.html, audio, via NASA [day 11]: http://spaceflight.nasa.gov/gallery/audio/shuttle/sts-104/html/ndxpage1.html), so the new verison is like:
And of course, neither of us get all the lyrics right. Our duet may not be very good, but hey, we work cheap.
2/24/2006 Who's not proud to be a Newf on a day like today?Well, congrats indeed to Team Gushue!
Now, to be fair, I've only been in a Curling rink about twice, and only actually on the ice once, but I can still tell a class act, and these guys are a class act. It also helps that the Canucks group at work has been getting daily updates from the coach, via family on staff here. It's been very cool seeing the story develop.
But, here's the coolest part, in my opinion: The province of Newfoundland closed schools so the kids could watch the game. (Now that may have been just practicality, because they all would likely have anyway.)
My dad, by the way, was born on a small island in Newfoundland's White Bay, (and lived on the Island for 40 years or so), so I'm sure that gives me some reason to join in the celebration.
My friend Chris is photographing the Olympics, while my biggest accomplishment this week seems to be surving three days of single-parenting. Either that or cleaning my desk before vacation next week. 1/30/2006 Did you notice the change?MSN rolled out a new verision of Spaces... one of the really handy things about a web-based application is that upgrades don't involved going and touching every desktop. The most useful change, in my opiion, is that the URLs are simpler. You can now get to my Space at http://spaces.msn.com/byronphynes, or for example, directly to the blog at http://spaces.msn.com/byronphynes/blog.
Read more about the changes at the MSN Spaces Team blog: http://spaces.msn.com/thespacecraft/
By the way, what do you think of team blogs from Microsoft. At work, I provide writing support to a number of technology teams, some of which are actively discussing the benefits (versus the work and effort) of team blogs. Do you like team blogs? Do they help you get information you need? Let me know. 1/19/2006 Week 15 Already?!?Today marks the start of week 15 in my 20/20 program. That's very nearly 4 months. The weight result seems to be slowing down a bit -- I only lost one more pound this week -- but I did get great news this week. I now take two less regular medications. Yipee!
1/6/2006 Happy Three Kings DayOr Epiphany, if you prefer; or even call it the 12th day of Christmas. There are a couple of families on our block who still have a Christmas tree, and few more with lights up, but I think the lights have more to do with not wanting to climb on ladders in torrential downpours.
Since we were away for Christmas, we still have presents to open. We thought it would be kind of nice to save them until the end, sort of spread out the excitement a bit. Our 20/20 dietician, Lida, mentioned that she spent part of her childhood in Argentina, where Three Kings Day was almost more exciting for children than Christmas itself. Of course, we're not organized enough at our house to do it in the morning. 1/5/2006 Week 10 (or 12, depends on who's counting) updateIt's been a good past few weeks, even in the midst of the holiday season. The holidays have wreaked great havoc on our routine, and, when trying to loose weight, routine is good. As of yesterday's weekly update, I have lost 52.4 pounds, or about 4 and 1/3 pounds per week. My blood tests are all normal, except my HA1C, which is 0.3 above normal. I even let Darrian drag me up to the top of the water slide on Monday (three times, actually). So, I'm feeling pretty good. 12/26/2005 Cool Christmas StuffMany years, I don't start getting into Christmas until about the 23rd, so Boxing Day is still the middle of the season for me! This is my first Christmas in this area, so I though I'd blog about some cool Christmas things we've found here in Redmond and around. (We actuallly spent Christmas day with relatives in BC).
1. The Santa Train:
With images of the Polar Express fresh in his mind, Darrian got to ride on the Santa Train, a seasonal tradition (since 1969, I'm told) run by the volunteers at the Northwest Railway Museum. The line for Santa took a while to move, but it was still an ultra-cool afternoon.
2. The Redmond Firefighter's Union
One Saturday night, we're sitting at home, and suddendly, Santa appears at the top of our Court. No reindeer, but another great group of volunteers, this time in an antique fire truck. Darrian rushed out (along with the other neighborhood kids) and got to meet Santa again. These fire fighters (like most) and their helpers are also ulta-cool.
  3. The Tree at Church
Maybe it's a small thing, but so much of Christmas is all about the small things. There is a huge tree at the Church we've been attending since we moved, and that's a bit cool. But, the majority of the decorations on the tree are family and individual photos of the church family... and some that aren't able to be with us any more. It was cool to be asked to pose to our photo to be added to the tree.
4. Snowflake Lane at Bellevue Square
So, I you know me, you are probably surprised to read the words "cool" and "Bellevue Square" in the same sentence. However, it's hard to beat having 60 live drummers (talented musicians dressed as toy soldiers) march in and line 4 city blooks performing Christmas melodies to synchronized giant snowflakes being projected onto buildings.
Yes, I know it's a gimmick to get me into the mall and buy stuff (and it actually worked -- amazing, since I *hate* malls at Christmas), but it was still a pretty impressive thing to take the five year olds to see.
 
They even had fake snow.
Speaking of snow....
5. Cool thing number 5: The Weather.
We had to walk to Church on Christmas morning in the rain. In our shirtsleves.
Belated Merry Christmas, Happy Boxing Day, and best wishes for 2006!
12/22/2005 Are you brave enough to be a beta tester?One of the cool things about my job is that every once in a while I get to give something away. I've recently got word that I can nominate a small number of people into the Windows Vista Beta program. (Perhaps you've heard of Vista? It's kind of the all-encompassing 800-pound gorilla at work right now.) You may also know that Vista is a closed beta at this stage (although it will open up in the future, I'm sure).
But there's an unusual catch... the testing program is looking for novice or home users. So if you're an ITPro, hang in there, but this offer's not for you. The program includes full support from our PSS group. Now, I don't know exactly how many people can get in, and I don't know how quickly the program will fill up. You also should realize that Vista is going to require a fairly modern computer, and, like all pre-release or beta software this will occassionally misbehave and could potentially even corrupt data. So, although we are looking for novice users, if you get easily frustrated or flustered by software, you might want to pass. On the other hand, Vista is really cool. This is a friends-and-family program, so my nominations would go first (obviously) to my friends and family (who I figure are about the only ones who read my blog). Drop me a note by email if you're interested. (This blog posting is provided as is, and conveys no rights. No one's acceptance is guaranteed, and the offer can be closed at any time.) Seen on I-5Now, I don't want to put down the fine people in my adopted state of Washington, but, back where I come from, we don't need to put signs up to identify every day objects. Maybe it's an ISO 9000 thing.
Oh, and we call these "trees". 12/15/2005 Got a gigabyte or more of memory? Get this fix.For a long time, when asked for an example of bad error messages, I've quoted "Insufficient System Resources Exist to Complete the API". -- Which resources? How many do you need? I have flippin' gigabytes of memory and oodles of disk space... what's the problem? Oh, and by the way, which API?
Now, my loyal reader, you either know *exactly* what I am talking about, or you have never heard of it. The first group has a laptop or tablet with a large amount of memory and tries to hibernate... often unsuccessfully. I'm pleased to be able to tell you that the problem is fixed!
Microsoft has released a supported hotfix and a KB article, which you can find here: http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=909095
I was fortunate enough to be in the pre-release test group for the fix, and I have not had a failed hibernation since installing the hotfix, it seems very stable, and I recommend it. 11/14/2005 Can't get to Barcelona? You can still play!Here's the survey game I'm discussing in our Documentation Chalk-Talk on Tuesday. It will only take 100 responses, so please, if you're not an IT person (but one of my loyal family members or perhaps just my stalker), please skip the survey.
If it does happen to be "full", please let me know (by email) so I can reset it.
Thanks!
11/13/2005 Week 4I arrived in Spain today, and i'm sure a 30+ hour day with airplane and airport food, followed by a conference party/dinner with MCTs will *not* be good for week 5... but I digress.
At the dinner, I found I had a *second* loyal reader. He greeted me by the name "skinny". Another friend (unprompted, separately) told me I "looked good". (Hey, every little compliment helps.)
Week four was pretty encouraging. Blood pressure and blood glucose are both trending down, pretty much into the normal range (although I still have prescriptions), and I lost another 7.8 pounds! Yipee!
This totals 26.2 pounds (about 12kg), or 6.5 lbs/week. This is also over 6% of my body weight... gone. I'm not calling it "lost", I don't want it back :)
I fear that ITForum may "find" some of it again, but we shall see. Starbucks ObsessionBefore getting married, we had a list of "Things not to do on our wedding day/night". Number one was "Go to our boss's house to watch the hockey game". If we still had a list, this would be on it. 11/3/2005 Week two and three resultsWeek two was good, another 7 pounds or so gone. Week 3, however, has been a bit of a let-down. I only lost about a pound and a half. :(
As I've been telling everyone who'll listen, if I'm going to put this much time, energy and effort into it, it's not about a pound a week!
Oh, well. The dietician thinks that adjusting the calorie count will fix it; the trainer and I are working on keeping the "intensity" up, so we'll see. No buying new clothes just yet.
Random fact learned today: wild salmon and farmed salmon are quantatatively different in nutritional makeup. Yet another reason to be very suspicious about how foods are developped, especially in North America. 10/21/2005 Week one resultsI'm down 9.6 pounds from when I started. I don't think the rest will be so easy. |
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