Still not laughing about the "3/14/2002 1:40:54 PM" comment. And though the deadline moved a week back, it's going to end up being stress.. Oh well. It's fun. And Joe started Monday so that's cool.

One Million Keystrokes - Between February 1 and March 20 (today) I typed one million letters.

Thanks. I'd like to thank all the little letters, and my shift key, without whom I would always be shouting. And I want everyone to consider the plight of the dvorak keyboards, and urge the world to stop the keyboardism and abuse they recieve. United We Type!

I was doing a scary "Find in Files" in Textpad and it complained about not enough memory. So I started the search again. But my mouse was acting funny so I tool the mouseball out to clean it, and while I was doing that it looked like my new search had stopped. So I moved the mouse to see if the machine was locked up. But the mouse didn't have a ball in it, so the pointer didn't move. I panicked. Good thing I didn't hit the reset button. :)

Took Eli to McDonald's for dinner last night, as Jill had a massive headache and we thought she might want some time to rest. We both had a lot of fun, and he thought the big cup and the little cup for our pops was neat. "Eli cup, Daddy cup" is a great example of how he's noticing size differences and attaching roles to things.

When we got to Calhoun square he immediately said "That's circle, that's oval, that's square!" and pointed at three benches that were just that. He's a smart kid.

We also went to Urban Outfitters, but didn't find anything fun. He liked the stairs a lot, though. And the whole trip he kept saying "Uptown!"

Right now I have to build business objects for this project, while also coming up with the Integration Requirements and the Detailed Design. I also have to learn and understand strongly typed datasets being used in leiu of data objects, and when I write code, I have to use c# - which I'm not at all familiar with. I'm out tomorrow and monday, and it's all got to be done by next Friday. And the front end developer needs my stuff before then so he can build the pages. It's not stress, it's supreme frustration and annoyance. I don't even completely understand what a Business Object is. Oh yeah, and everyone else knows what they're doing.

I'm hoping I can look back on this paragraph in a short amount of time and laugh.

So I was going to Grand to meet the 8:22 bus when I thought I heard a bus going up Grand, past my stop. I get to the corner and sure enough, there it is, gone by a block. So I look at my pocket schedule and it seems I was looking at the wrong column, and was one minute late for the bus. The next one came in 20 minutes, which would get me downtown at about ten after nine. Blargh.

But I see a guy standing on the corner for the "express" bus I'd never taken because it comes too infrequently and it's an express so it's $2.25 and I have a $1.75 pass. With no change I grabbed a dollar and headed over, ready to eat the 50 cents and see what it was like.

Turns out it's not an express, it's only a limited stop. And it was full of hip yuppies from Uptown. And it wasn't crowded. And quite literally ten minutes later I was dropped half a block from the front door of our building. I was actually at my desk with juice and donut at the same time the "next" bus on Grand would have been picking me up.

So I'm going to have to check it out on the way home, but I'm really a happy camper at this point. Yay!

Culture shift. Someone noticed my certificate stating that I am an ordained minister in the Universal Life Church (http://www.ulc.org) and after some conversation I kidded that people were probably using ULC ministers in Everquest. Ha ha funny, right?

Well, funny if you've heard of Everquest. "Everquest? Huh?"

I then got the "I haven't played games since 1996, too much to do -- play softball, waterski, whatever. Gaming is a waste of time, go outside" speech -- from EVERYONE.

I can handle being the alpha geek, and having people think I'm more nerdy than everyone else, but other developers should certainly KNOW about geek culture.

And I'm one of the only people I know of in the organization that has a personal web page/site. And I've looked. Pretty strange for an ONLINE UNIVERSITY.

I'm so pathetic. I just used the freakin' paperclip office assistant to find out how to do something in Word. The really sad part is that it worked and I found out how to make my change quickly and easily. Dammit.

My hand hurts. A lot. I think I bruised it chipping ice last weekend, but it's got me thinking about "What if I got Carpal Tunnel Syndrome" and that's a horrid horrid scary thought.

It's probably ok, as yesterday it hurt in one place and today it's in another, so it's moving. And I only have today and tomorrow to be typing for 10 hours (7-8 at work and 2-3 at home) a day.

And I have to pack for New York tonight, so I think I'll be okay. Might have to go out and get a brace or something at lunch. It hurts even when I'm not moving it.

Ever feel like you got hired to do something and they completely misunderstood your qualifications? "Do you know how to make Business Objects and understand Terribly Complicated Stuff?" "Uh, nope." "Great, you're hired!"

My web site is done. Yes, done. All future content can be integrated using administrative interfaces or ACDSee for labeling descriptions of items. All sites have error reporting and rerouting options, all have statistics reporting systems, and there are common controls among them all to manage 'new' items, navigation, style sheets, etc.

I feel so.. completed.

There is still a bunch of stuff to be moved in/built, but it's all additional content, nothing that's crippling any portion of the site. I'm quite pleased.

Yup, Jill and Eli home today, maybe again tomorrow too. I'm fine thus far, crossing fingers, sacrificing chickens, etc.

Getting into some cool stuff at work, but of course it all starts with Documentation, doesn't it? :)

New York this friday! Woo!

What a weekend! Eli sick with a feverish cold, Jill sick with a feverish cold and cough. Jill's Mom just back from African Safari, lots of interesting stuff, and she watched Eli while Jill and I went to C&J's housewarming. Was fun. Today Ann and Erik and Gatsby (Erik's dog) came over and we played Nascar (it's Ann's birthday) -- lots of fun, but at 7:30 Jill and Eli were in bed, and by now I'm sure they're both fast asleep. Time to play my new game -- Harry Potter.

I'm working on the Kaboomery, a Toontown Online fansite -- and I can develop the site well enough, but every time I hit the site my computer turns itself off. Yup. Works just fine on everything except hitting that one site. Yeah, it bothers me too. My CDROM no longer works, either. I'm getting a little worried I have to buy a new PC. I don't want to buy a new PC. I want to buy a new Scooter.

Unsettling: You are just sitting there when your glasses pop a lens and you sense a Very Very Very small screw fall into the darkness beneath your desk. And you can't see well any longer.

It's the human equivalent of throwing a horseshoe. You'll live, but not well.

I somehow managed to find the screw and screw it in using my wits and a fingernail.

I also got a SPAM that advertised a special deal on carpet that was actually tax deductable.

I made a "lost page" -- and I'm suddenly remembering my past. I just have to edit the page to reflect anyone I've thought of, so I don't offend anyone. But then, they are all lost, anyway..

I'd love to be at a startup again. I keep telling myself the market will turn around some day and I'll be able to do the smaller, faster, more reckless company thing again. But I have another little voice in my head that tells me a lot of people trudge through their lives with that carrot-on-a-stick, and that I should either try and make the current situation into a Great One! or look for my next BigCharts experience. I guess the thing I'm trying to say is that if I read this in a year or ten and I'm still here, thinking things will get better "soon" that I should kick myself in the butt and change things. And if someone else out there reads this in more than a year and I'm in a rut or something -- kick me in the butt.

My Cel Phone rings about once a week. I have one meeting per week. How did they happen at the same time? Odd.

When I got home last night (After the "Honey I'm home!") I did the typical "Hey Eli, can I get a hug?" at the door and he did the typical "No" and went back to eating, er playing with his markers. So I got down to his level and started bouncing up and down and saying (loudly) "Hey Eli can I get a hug? Pleeease?" -- it didn't take long for him to launch into my arms and give me a big hug. Thanks, Eli. It's good to be loud and fun.

Oh yeah, Joe Corbett interviewed at Capella today. I guess it went well -- it'd be nice to know more people at work!

Ok, so it's almost a year and a half later, and I'm looking for a place to call my 'home' (page.) So I think I'll start using this again. For those of you not familiar with it, this is a blog. Like Weblog. Like Web Diary. Some people use these things for posting links to interesting sites, others post waay too much personal information.

I, myself, think I'll use this as a "this weekend we went to the fair" kinda of journal. Works for me. That, and it allows me to point http://robert.craig.net at something and not feel like I'm wasting my web address..

What's new in a year and a half? Oh, so much. The Plural office in Minneapolis got shut down, I went without work for a month and a half, spent that time super-bonding with Eli (loved it!), got a job at http://www.capella.edu, learned a lot about dotNet, got new glasses, found balance in life, got new gadgets of this kind and that, etc. It's been a wild ride, and it's probably going to get even wilder as life goes on. Fun stuff.

Eli is awesome! He's a little boy now. He runs around, talks (sometimes coherently) yells, throws temper tantrums, says "Eli loves Daddy" once in a while, loves his Fisher Price Little People, can't get enough of the "Two Cool Cows" book his Aunt Mary sent him for his birthday or the "Butter on Pancakes" that came from Aunt Lisa -- and Jill and I are so happy not to have to read "Sammy the Seal" Every Single Night.

Not much else new, except for the fact that I sing "The Itsy Bitsy Spider" ever night to Eli and then he hugs me and it makes my heart explode with happiness. S'Cool.

Blog dead. Cliche' maximized.