/\/\/ A Day in the Life \/\/\

Yesterday I turned 27. Jannelle made me a nice dinner and a Boston Creme Pie. YUM!

Not much has been happening around here. I started playing Voodoo Vince on the Xbox last week. I broke down and spent the 20 bucks for it. Jannelle and I are hooked (again)! I got my new video card last week. I had been relying on an old system for entertainment (Geforce4m) since the 5600Ultra in my main box was slowly dying. Whenever the system would try and render anything 3D, it would eventually start artifacting and lock. It started locking up playing World of Warcraft, 3 months ago. Then, 2 weeks ago, it started locking up on the screen saver. I replaced it with a modest Geforce 6800 from newegg.com. I followed some guides, installed Rivatuner, have the extra pipes opened, and it's running at 400/800 beatifully.
I got Jannelle We <3 Katamari (katamari 2) for her birthday( on thursday 29th), and just could stand to keep it a suprise. Saturday, after we had dinner at Mei, a great sushi and sake place in Montgomery, I gave it to her thinking it would compliment our Japanese evening. After the F1 race on sunday, I don't think the PS2 got a rest. I'm glad she likes it!
J and I may go out for Thai tonight. Steph had mentioned something about it last week. We'll see whether or not she skips out on whatever she has planned for the evening.
I just found out that I need to have the 2006 fiscal year budget numbers together by EOB today. YIPES... back to work...

Ok, there's no vengeance....

I made it back in one piece yesterday, but it was a long trip. I decided to look into taking a earlier flight from AZ to Cinci, and It ended up a mess. I took the car back at 2:00ish, and took the shuttle to the airport. When I got to the airport the ticket counter for US Airways said, "Ticket counter closed till 7:45." GREAT! So, I hung out in Shitty terminal #2 at the Phoenix airport till 11:00 to catch my flight to Charlotte. Then, as precious as she was I still hated it, I sat next to a 14 month old. No sleep on the plane for me! In Charlotte, it was 5:45, so everything was opening up and more and more people were coming in to get their flights. Well, it ended up that I found a semi-quiet corner to "sleep." Sleeping upright in an uncomfortable chair, with "Due to increased safety restrictions..." Playing every 3 minutes, is not sleeping at all. I caught my flight and made it home. Safe and Sound, but sleepy.

The exam went well. I missed 1 question that I didn't remember covering in the book. The "highlight" of my exam was the fact that I exposed a bug in the Saleslogix administrator Console. The teacher who has taught this class for 3 years didn't know about it, and probably the support people didn't know about it. So I'm am a certified SalesLogixv6.2 Engineer now. Now I can actually help people! :)

Jannelle and I went to The Original Pancake House for breakfast. She had a spinach, Sun-dried tomato and Feta omelet, and I had pecan pancakes. YUMMERS! After breakfast, we took a 1.5 hour drive through the Indian Hills (RICH!) area while listening to prairie Home Companion. We saw the 37 million dollar house. It was about 5-7 big houses connected together..

Off to take a shower. J and I are headed to Greg and Stephs tonight for some pizza, beer, Family Guy, and a Fire!
Catch you all later!

Well, I've finished my SalesLogix Engineer's Cert Exam, and I am just waiting for my system/test to be graded. I think I have done well. If I have messed anything up, then I can spend whatever time I need, until 4:00pm, to finish. Once I am finished here, I'm not sure what I'll do. My flight doesn't leave until 11pm tonight. I though about heading south to Saguero National Park and checking out some cacti. I may also call up to US Airways and see if they have an earlier flight they can stick me on. I just hope someone is there to answer the phone when I call. I guess they've filed for Bankruptcy. If I can't get on an earlier flight, then I'll be home at 11:20 am tomorrow. I'll post an update on how I did, when I get back to my own PC.

Clark Gable You scored 14% Tough, 28% Roguish, 33% Friendly, and 19% Charming!

You're a pretty interesting guy, all man but approachable and friendly. You like the lovely ladies, but you're also a real stand up guy with a true sense of honor and duty. You're respected by most men, although they probably wouldn't trust you alone with their girlfriends and even wives. Women find you intriguing, drawn to your playful sense of fun and true-blue core. You think most women are rather silly, but strong dames with smarts really turn you on, and you tend to marry them. Leading ladies include Claudette Colbert and Vivien Leigh, women who find you somewhat charming but a little dangerous. Find out what kind of classic dame you'd make by taking the Classic Dames Test. Find out what kind of classic leading man you'd make by taking the Classic Leading Man Test

Looky Looky.

Google is at it again. A blog search tool. Ever want to find a blog on certain topics? well there you go!.


back to class!

I burned my mouth on some hot scalding Tofu! I walked around last night trying to find this burrito place I saw, but I ended up at the China Chili. I got a plate full of stir-fried veggies and tofu... it was yummy, but hot.
I woke up at 4:30 this morning when my internal clock went off. I got out of bed at my leisure as I didn't have to be in Scottsdale till 8:30. I ended up at IHOP for some french toast and scrambled eggs. Yum! I took a different route to class today, Indian School to Scottsdale ave, and still arived an hour early :) . This took me past a lot of interesting looking restaurants, including the Vegitarian Garden. I think I may stop by for some dinner on the way home tonight. Class is going well this morning. I'm getting a lot of good information.

Casey

I flew into Phoenix, AZ yesterday. Sage Software, the company that owns SalesLogix, is based here. I'm in town til friday night, for an "Administration and Implementation of SalesLogix v6.2". Woo Hoo, I finally have some real training.
Total travel time was about 10 hours after the layovers. I flew from Cinci to Charlotte, then to Phoenix. I got into PHX around 7pm local time. I picked up my rental '06 Ford Taurus and headed to my hotel. It's in the buisness district of PHX, and generally crappy. It seems like it was a nice place 5 years ago, but has not been kept up. Mirna booked me a smoking room so I can't even hide away in my room and avoid the "ick". The room, like all hotel rooms, is pretty stale and the smoke smell is strong.

I struggled to sleep in till 6:15 (8:15 ohio time), in time to head down to the restaurant for food. I was sad, but not suprised, to find that he restaruant is closed... for good. I decided to go ahead and head to Scottsdale (16 mile commute across town through traffic = SHIT ) to see if I can find some food. I ended up at a place called "Paradise Bakery and Cafe." It was Panera-ish. Coffee of the day was Black Raspberry Chocolate. YUCK, I ended up with a Crapuccino.

There are 5 other people in my training class. The class has 5 men, including me, and 1 woman. 2 people are Sage employees, one from OZ. Rest of us are from all over. Portland OR, San Jose, Cincinnati(me!), and Calgary, eh! Guess what, I'm the only out-of-towner not staying in the Gainey Suites (the hotel next to Sage's office.) So much for late night networking at the local bar(walking distance). I'll have to commute my ass back to Phoenix. UG.

I am really glad that I am getting some good information, but it's really hard for me to not be a little bitter about the situation. It's so frustrating that I can hardly stop thinking about it. The commute... the stupid flight times.. ug.. must... think.. positivly....

We just got done with Lunch. I had a crappy, but free, salad. I'm on a French dressing kick lately, and man that was some spicy french dressing.

Jannelle is in P-burg for a few days. She had some business to attend to there. At least she's not all alone in Cinci.

I only have connection to the internet in the class room. I'll be checking email and surfing on break and lunch.