Memorial Day Weekend

I decided to finally re-seal the driveway pavers this weekend. On the way home I thought I’d stop at Lowe’s and pick up all the stuff I needed so I could get an early start on Saturday morning.   We  were let off from work early Friday,  around 2pm, which was a nice gesture from senior management.  So, I had a good chunk of the remaining day to really get an early start on my project.  (Yes, I know this is boring stuff, but need to keep the blog cops off my back for not keeping up with my posts).  Anyway, I went ahead and power washed the driveway pavers thinking that this would provide at least a head start for the next morning’s work.  I finished the wash job around  4pm and  sat down to  cool off. (It  was pretty hot here yesterday).   About  4:20pm I inspected the drive and  found it had dried up very nicely.  Merry wasn’t home yet so I decided to go ahead and get started with the rest of the application.  I donned rubber gloves, face mask, old clothes, hat, and sunglasses and got started.  The store clerk warned me about the fumes and insisted I have a mask.  Glad I did, because about half way through applying the sealer I was getting pretty loopy. Fortunately, it appears I applied the stuff in the right places and didn’t do too bad of a job.

Now, we hadn’t had rain for many weeks and the forecast was pretty much the same for this weekend.  As my luck goes, I awoke around 1:30am to hear the sound of pouring rain.  I got up, turned on some lights to look outside just to make sure I wasn’t dreaming.  Yep, big pouring rain.  I checked the drive this morning and it looks like the rain didn’t do any damage to my sealer job.  I guess it had dried enough before the downpour. Whew!

Between 6:30am and 7:00am this morning we heard an explosion (big bang).  This shook us both up and we jumped out of bed.  First thoughts were that the remaining sealant I had in a 5 gallon can in the garage had exploded.  I checked and everything AOK.  We went outside and checked to see if anything else was blown up or missing.  We couldn’t find anything disturbed or missing.  We don’t know what that noise was.  Was the shuttle up and coming home today? We sometimes hear a sonic boom when it flies over on approach for landing on the other side of the state.

Anyway, we hope everyone has a safe Memorial Day weekend.

- Tim

My mother…..the blog cop!

Yes, I do have a college degree, and just recently received my MBA; but apparently, I have forgotten how to spell, or maybe more appropriately “how to type”. I was reading my email this morning and was taken by surprise by my mother’s email subject line: ‘Just playing “Spell-Check” ‘.

I didn’t even know such a game existed and I’m not even quite sure how this game is scored. However, “Spell-Check” gamers apparently target public internet blogs and go after low-hanging fruit by checking for typo’s and grammatical foibles. Once they find these typographical anomalies, they then copy and highlight the offending verbiage in their chosen color (red is often used) and fire an email to the offending blogger. I assume a copy is also sent to the international word and grammar police, which I believe reside in Geneva, Switzerland, along with all those other well-known global monitoring do-good organizations.

As for me, I am also intent on comma and semi-colon proliferation, as you can see by this post. This new “Spell-Check” game now has me nervous and cautiously watching over my shoulder just in case I use an incorrect tense or flub a computer key. I now know never to use my iPhone to post a blog due to its perverted aggression and proclivity to alter my typing based on its own belief system and interpretation of my thoughts.

Sew, just four those spatial “Spill-Chick” gamers out their who are hooked on this new gaming fad, I’ve included a few spilling errors in this post. I have hidden these errors carefully sew yew won’t bee able to find them easily. Good Luck!

BTW, I can’t find out how to correctly spell “BLOG”, any ideas? And yes, I did correct my last posting atrocities.

Thanks Mom ;o)

Ok, so I’m a little behind……….

So, the family’s been emailing flak about me not keeping up to date with my blog.   I didn’t know that signing up to do a blog was accepting so much responsibility )  Anyway, just to keep ya’ll posted, I had a bout with the infamous “Collier County Crud” that made national news.  Seems everyone in this area is or has come down with a strange flu-like virus that lasts about 72 hours or so.  I got mine on Thursday and kept the darn thing until Saturday afternoon.

Merry had booked us to help with the postal worker food drive from 4pm to 8pm on Saturday so we trucked down to Naples and chipped in.  It was a little more than I counted on, but made it through somehow.  We unloaded 12 trucks of donated food, sorted and repacked for distribution to shelter for the needy and hurricane relief.   My arms felt 2 feet longer by 8pm.  Glad that’s over.

Tried to call Julie (my sister) on Mother’s day, but seemed all of Texas had shut down their phone lines.  Never did connect, but she kindly sent me an email.  Maybe I’ll get another chance later this week.  Sounds like she’s got her hands full with Ali’s graduation.    Way to go Ali!  Merry and I are very proud of your achievements.

All for now!

Tim

More Opportunity……

You will all probably think we have gone crazy, but I’m putting this multiple streams of income theory to the test. Not only has Merry embarked on her business adventure with MerryTimeTravel.com, but I now have a new website that I am promoting labeled MyMedication4You.com.

After much research and several conversations with representatives of Online Medication RX, I decided to sponsor MyMedication4You.com. Online prescription needs are filled by U.S. licensed physicians and U.S. licensed pharmacies. Please read the FAQ section when you browse the site. Admittedly, buying prescription medication online is not for everyone, however there are individuals and groups that may not have other means to supplement their health needs. The FAQ’s can answer most questions, but live online help is always available.

- Tim

Opportunities Abound

Just before going up to Orlando for the Rails_for_all conference we were contacted by old friends Daryl and Chris Eastburg. Chris introduced us to YTB (Your Travel Biz). Merry and I were pretty skeptical at first but did some research and found the company and concepts to be totally legit and decided to participate. Since we do quite a bit of traveling, we found the idea of getting checks back when you book your own travel to be quite a nice enticement. Yes, YTB is a multi-level marketing organization, and Yes, if you want to be a success in the business then you have to recruit others into the business. Such is the way of American business anyway. Can you imagine only one McDonald’s restaurant in America? Outlet franchise is how business in America has grown. Multi-level has received it’s share of reputation problems over the years but our personal investigation has proven to us that YTB presents a legitimate opportunity, if not only just to get checks back when you book your own travel through your own web site. Ok, since Merry and I are just getting started with YTB, this is probably the most lame and weakest pitch you will hear from me. The more I learn about YTB, the more I am convinced that there is really no down side. Anyway, Merry now has a new YTB site located at http://www.merrytimetravel.com

Ok, so it’s a kind of corny name, but it is something you should be able to remember. Check the site out and play with the travel booking to see that you can get airfare, hotel, car rental, etc. as cheap as you can on other online sites. In some cases, package deals are less expensive. When you book travel arrangements through Merry Time Travel, you will also be putting some cash in Merry’s account. For that, we thank you very much ) You might want to also check out the opportunity with YTB. Who knows, along with getting checks back when you travel, you could also get some bucks when your friends and business associates get clued in and become part of your organization.

- Tim

Back From Orlando and then Back to Orlando (again….)

So, I did have a great experience in Orlando at the Rails_for_all conference. I met several other Ruby on Rails developers and even became acquainted with a team from a healthcare organization that my own company had prior litigation experience with. This team has already established Ruby on Rails in their enterprise for all new application development and I am attempting to get clearance from the legal departments of both companies to allow our two development teams to get together and exchange ideas. I think it will eventually work out, but I am keeping my fingers crossed.

I met some very interesting developers, one happened to be with NASA and is contemplating using Ruby on Rails within NASA’s information systems development process. This chance meeting was an especially interesting moment for me as this fellow’s father also happen’s to be highly connected with the Moffitt Cancer Center and Research Institute.

Jim James, another developer that I met, has established a social web site => http://www.mytripscrapbook.com. Take a look at it. The site is clean and easy to use allowing you to post an online scrap book of your trips and vacations. Jim is a seasoned web developer and a pretty nice guy offering many suggestions and answers on topics I had many questions about.

I also met a few great folks from ThoughtBot and Connextions. Sun Micro systems had a dominant presence at the conference and I found out that their involvement in JRuby has really bolstered development in that area. Essentially, JRuby can now be deployed in a Java environment with the Java folks not knowing that the JRuby applications are actually running Ruby code. (i.e. the app acts like java). I admit that I am having trouble running the native ruby and Jruby environments on my Macbook (Intel OS X) as well as my Dell laptop (Windows XP Pro). There seems to be a problem with RubyGems (at least in my environment) playing nice in both environments at the same time. Maybe I’m just not getting it. If anyone has any ideas how to overcome this little issue, please email me at tprentis@mac.com.

- Tim

Getting Ready for Orlando – Rails for All

I’ve been experimenting with Flex on Rails this week. I admit that it seems to add a little more work to creating a RoR project. I understand some of the benefits of using Flex over just using AJAX but am not totally sold yet that Flex is the end all. I plan to discuss this aspect of programming Rails with some of the other attendees at the Rails for All – acts_as_conference in Orlando this weekend.

Here’s to hoping for an enlightening conference and making some new acquaintences in the Ruby on Rails community )

I’m finally starting my first Blog.

Never thought I’d be doing this, but what the heck? Anyway, I’ve been dabbling with Ruby on Rails for about a year now and have deployed several quick and needed applications on my company’s intranet. I find that I am somewhat addicted to the RoR style and philosophy. The one thing that I do find difficult is keeping up with releases and all of the new plugins, gems, and syntax changes that seem to be regurgitating almost daily.

I am also going to my first Ruby on Rails conference in Orlando on Feb. 8 & 9. This conference is labelled Acts_as_conference and looks to be quite interesting. I even plan to attend the charity session offered and found myself compelled to donate to the prescribed charities.

My nephew, Joel Watts, is a Python/Django developer and is embarking on some interesting concepts. I’ll let the reader determine the relativity of http://quiltid.com. Joel has created a quilt analogy using favicons and allowing users of quiltid to claim association, or even ownership, of related or non-related websites. I envision this concept as allowing a user to capture and present their presence on the web. Joel has leveraged OpenID into his grand scheme. I think there are some more exciting things to come from this. Keep Dreaming, Joel )

That’s all for now.

Tim