Holiday Weekend

I'm on the verge of a nice long weekend. We have Monday and Tuesday as Holidays so it will be a nice long four day weekend. I will be traveling to Frostburg on Wed after the Holidays to get a few pictures more than anything else. We will be losing two employees that day. One has accepted a job with the Girl Scouts and will be working from home and the other just recently got married and will be relocating to Georgia as his wife starts work on her Doctorate.

I've been swamped the last couple weeks, but yesterday and today are and have been very slow for me because the guys who provide me my data that I process are all visiting New York City. They are from Indian and work 6-7 days a week, so they have more than earned a little break.

Hey, since it's the 4th of July weekend I can do a shameless plus of a webpage I did a few years ago with Fireworks at Mountianeer Field. Don't know why I thought of that, but right now is the appropriate time to put it up.

There are quite a few things going on this weekend, so I'll need to have my camera batteries fully charged.

Screw the NBA

I sat and watched the NBA draft last night, hoping to see and hear a couple WVU players name's being called out by commissioner David Stern. After about 23-24 picks, they had Mike Gansey listed as best available player. I'm excited, I don't know when the last time was that WVU had someone drafted in the first round of the NBA draft. There were six or seven picks remaining in the first round and I felt Gansey was going to be next....for about 36-37 picks.

Not only did he not go in the first round, but he didn't even get drafted in the second round. He spent about 60% of the NBA draft as the best available and never heard his name called.

I figured Kevin Pittsnogle, a 6'11" sharpshooter, was a no brainer. He would also get drafted. After the 60th and final pick, his name wasn't selected either. Sad part was, he was listed as 2nd best available by the end of the draft.

With Alumni like Jerry West and Rod Thorn or WV native Mike Dantoni making the selections for their teams that one or both of these players would have been selected.

No wonder no one watches the NBA anymore.

NBA Draft Today

Today is the day of the NBA Draft, it will be held on ESPN starting at 7:00 tonight. Unlike any recent years in the past, this year we have two graduates of West Virginia University that have a very likely shot at being drafted. Kevin Pittsnogle, the man who's name became a verb and Mike Gansey

This could be the first and second players drafted from the John Beilein era of basketball. I've watched Mountaineer Basketball since the days of Lowes Moore and Joe Fryz here in Morgantown and I've followed it a few years longer even. This class that has just graduated is the one I will most remember and the one I will always call my favorite. They came in when the entire program was in termoil and left with it in 2 straight sweet 16's and a final 8 and almost a final 4. It's not at the programs highest point, but it was pretty close to the days of Jerry West.

I wish these two guys the best and look foreward to watching them pllay in the NBA for years to come.

File Sharing Revolution

I mentioned this weekend that I had found a file sharing software that I liked, that the download has disappeared and the software no had an option to download. File Sharing Revolution is one that I found recently and liked.

They have a Website, but now they offer K-Lite Pro as the download. K-Lite is the spyware free version of Kazaa.

Of course there are other file sharing programs out there such as imesh, Kazaa, Morpheus, edonkey, emule, Bit Torrent, Napster and probably a few more that I have let slip my mind.

Rainout

We were scheduled to play softball this evening, but ole Maother Nature just decided she wasn't going to cooperate today. We're still 8-1 on the season, but now we have had four rainouts that we are going to have to make up. Last year we didn't have a single rainout, this year we already have four.

Our next game is scheduled for next Thursday, the last time we played was a couple weeks ago when we played against my former team.

I'm ready to hit the fields, I hear Boparc was 150 games behind because of rainouts, I guess we just added a few more games to that list.

Poker Night at the SanJulians Part 4

Well, tonight was the fourth Installment of Poker Night at the SanJulians. I went into the game with much confidence, I told everyone I had purchased my shirt from a Tibetan Monk and that it was hand woven by the dahlia Lama himself. He didn't bring me much luck, because out of ten players, I tied for eighth place. Kirby won his second of the three tournaments that I have been to. My game turned when I forced Ron to go all in and I had three kings with an Ace kicker. He had a Full House and that put me into a corner I couldn't play my way out of.

It was a great evening and I want to thank Robert and Kim for being such great hosts. I'm ready for Poker Night at the SanJulians part 6 and already have my seat reserved.

A few Random pictures and a video of the final hand, enjoy.

Ahhhhhhhhh!!!!!

Talk about a nscary looking picture. Actually this is JB, the man who taught me GIS at the NRAC while I was in college and beyond. He left a few months before I did to work in Frostburg, MD where I guess my office is officially at, even though it's my kitchen table now. he left to work for the Appalachian Lab and I work for Infotech (formerly known as VARGIS).

He has been wanting to establish his own domain name and has asked me about mine a few times. He now has JBChurchill.com and WesternMdBirding.com also. He is probably the foremost expert that I have ever met on birding.

He has been very influential to my in my career, he also went to school later in life, but earlier than me. I'm 9 days older than him, we both are GIS people, we both have worked at the NRAC and in Frostburg and we both drive Chevy Cavaliers, although his is new. I'm glad to see he has his own domain, he's also a pretty good programmer, so his site might get interesting.

How about a little humor

Hey everyone, since it's Friday, I thought I would just post some entertaining links.

Brittany Spears

Mythbusters Tree Canon

Fat Kid on a Diving Board

Octopus vs Shark


Border Patrol Game

Larry the Cable guy before he pretended to be a redneck. Redneck wearing Khaki's?


Have a good weekend

One to go!!!

It's Thursday and we are peeking at the weekend again. Four days down and one to go. I will have to say that I have been quite busy this week at work and this week has basically flown by as if it hadn't happened. It still feels like it's monday morning, I guess that's better than it being Thursday and it feeling like monday.

Let's see, what is up for the weekend coming up. First of all BOPARC will be playing another in their series of free movies Friday Night. Zathura: A Space Adventure will be playing this Friday night for anyone who may be interrested in some free family entertainment.

Gary and Renee will be camping this weekend at Chestnut Ridge Park. Gary has invited me to come up, so I'll try to make an appearance at least once this weekend.

I am going to go and win a Texas Hold 'em tournament this Saturday Night. Kim and Robert are once again holding a little tournament and I'm going to go and beat everyone and take their money. I've played in two of their tournaments, and have made it publically known by showing everyone that I don't bluff. I make the point known on every hand that they think I am bluffing that I don't bluff. I guess big question is am I honest or am I setting everyone up to win some money. We'll have to wait and see.

It should be a good weekend, the weather report is calling for heavy thunderstorms tomorrow and a thundershower saturday, so we shall see how the weekend goes and how everything ends up.

A little entertainment for you

Sometimes you don't have much to say, but you still want to keep the BLOG fresh and interesting to give people a reason to keep coming back. Today is one of those days, so just enjoy:




How about an encore

Happy Birthday to my Home

West Virginia is 143 years Old Today

Happy Birthday Erica jean Nicholson

Today is Erica's birthday, but Val and Bobby had a nice little party for her yesterday because it was the weekend. It was just like last year and very, very hot.


Just a few random pictures












I did manage to get a few pictures of Gary's foot and his stitches from where he got his foot caught underneath of the lawn mower. If you want to see that picture though, you need to look HERE

Happy Fathers Day

Pretty Amazing

This makes you think. He can drive 100 miles on 4 oz's of HHO, that is 25 miles per ounce. There are 128 oz's in a gallon, so if you multiply 25 miles times the 128 oz's in a gallon that is 3,200 miles per gallon on the HHO fuel aka WATER.

Woo Hoo It's Friday!!!!

Once again we have made it through another work week and are approaching yet another weekend. It's time to celebrate and have a good time. The weather is nice and it looks as if it is going to be a nice weekend weather wise also.

* Sunday is Fathers Day.

* Sunday is also Erica Jean's 2nd birthday party. The party is going to be at Val's at 2:00 and it'll be nice to see everyone in the same place again. Monday is actually her birthday, but the party will be Sunday.

* Looking at the Morgantown weather report for this weekend, it looks like it is going to be 90 degrees and sunny both days. Have I ever mentioned I hate snow?

* BOPARC finally announced it's Rain Out Schedule. It looks like both of our rainouts are scheduled for Saturday July 29th. It's nice that they have finally put the entire schedule up for everyone to see on the internet.

* Tonight BOPARC once again does it's free movie at the Hazel Ruby McQuain amphitheater and they will show the Disney movie Madagascar. It's free admission, just bring yourself a lawn chair, blanket or sit on the bleachers and bring your favorite snack and enjoy a free movie outside by the river.

* Saturday the Hillbilly Gypsies will be performing at Chestnut Ridge Park. There is a small fee of $5.00 for a general admission seat. Bring your own lawnchair.



Things should be made as simple as possible, but not any simpler.--Albert Einstein

And the winning streak continues

Tonight we played against my old team and managed to extend our current winning streak to seven games and run our current record to 8-1 on the season. It was nice to see quite a few former team mates that no longer play but have an association to both teams show up for the contest. We were a little of our pace in run production only scoring 14, but we still played a solid game all around and manged to pull out the win.

After the game, most of the team went out and ate dinner on the deck at Prime Thyme, our sponser. It was a great time to be had by all and as usual it was nice to be around this group of guys.

A little heads up for anyone who is interested. Mon Valley paintball is running a special for the 4th of July weekend if anyone is interested in the thrill of paintball. Either day Saturday or Sunday, play all day for $4.00 and this includes your rental equipment and free air. You will have to buy your own paintballs on site, but if you get enough people to pitch in and buy cases it lowers the cost significantly. A few team mates went out a few weeks ago and between four people went through two cases of paintballs (that's 4,000) throughout the entire day. I've played a lot of sports in my life, but I have never played anythign this intense.

When it rains it pours

Talk about a strange year. Earlier this year I decided to remarket myself just to see what my marketability would be on the open market. To make a long story short, I turned down an offer from a Company in Pittsburgh last week. I've been contacted this year about jobs in Tyson's Corner Virginia, New Hampshire, Charlotte NC, Pittsburgh and now add Raleigh, North Carolina to the list.

I just got off the phone with a company in Raleigh, NC about an Analysts job down their. To end any and all speculation I told them thank you but no thank you. I'm quite happy with the company I am working for now and the quality of life that I am now enjoying being able to work from home.

It's nice to know that I have very good marketability now. Something I did not have either time I was working in a Steel Mill that was shutting down or relocating.

I think it's another Rails to Trails day for me.

Life is what happens to you while you're busy making other plans.--John Lennon

Some technical stuff

Every once in a while, I guess I should do a little bit of a geeky post to help keep informed on what's new in the world of computers and maybe a few suggestions for everyone to try.

I think my first piece of advice that I could give to anyone is choosing a browser that it the most trouble free and least likely to get tou into any trouble. For any of you who I have not set up your internet account and you are still using Internet Explorer as your browser, I would suggest possibly getting away from browsing using IE and start using Firefox to surf the net with.

Firefox is an open source browser and you can pretty much customize it any way you want with different themes and extensions to fit your surfing needs. I personally use a couple extensions, one is forcastfox and that is a customizable weather station built into your browser.

Another extension that I tried today and actually like is Customize Google. As many of you already know, Google is arguably the best search engine out there on the net. They are at the forefront of internet technology with many of their innovations.

I was talking to Kim, the Queen of the Podcasts yesterday and she told me about a site that I bookmarked and really liked. It's a real estate search engine that ties in with google maps called Zillow that is pretty nice. It is something kind of similar to some things I have seen with some Assessors offices using ArcIMS (Web based GIS), but not to that extreme.

Some more technical stuff for some of you if you either don't have Microsoft Office, don't want to shell out $500 for a full copy of it or don't know anyone who has hacked it (looking away innocently) but would like a software that is just as, if not more powerful. I would suggest Open Office. Like Firefox and most non-microsift related products, it's an open source program (means they publically publish the source code unlike Microsoft) and is free to download and use. Of course if you need a full blown copy of office, I know a guy who has a Website that may help hook you up with a copy.



Let me leave this post with a little humor:


The Procrastinator's Creed:

1. I believe that if anything is worth doing, it would have been done already.

2. I shall never move quickly, except to avoid more work or find excuses.

3. I will never rush into a job without a lifetime of consideration.

4. I shall meet all of my deadlines directly in proportion to the amount of bodily injury I could expect to receive from missing them.

5. I firmly believe that tomorrow holds the possibility for new technologies, astounding discoveries, and a reprieve from my obligations.

6. I truly believe that all deadlines are unreasonable regardless of the amount of time given.

7. I shall never forget that the probability of a miracle, though infinitesmally small, is not exactly zero.

8. If at first I don't succeed, there is always next year.

9. I shall always decide not to decide, unless of course I decide to change my mind.

10. I shall always begin, start, initiate, take the first step, and/or write the first word, when I get around to it.

11. I obey the law of inverse excuses which demands that the greater the task to be done, the more insignificant the work that must be done prior to beginning the greater task.

12. I know that the work cycle is not plan/start/finish, but is wait/plan/plan.

13. I will never put off until tomorrow, what I can forget about forever.

14. I will become a member of the ancient Order of Two-Headed Turtles (the Procrastinator's Society) if they ever get it organized. --Author Unknown

Softball team does it again.

I'm going to have to get some more team pictures, these ones are getting old. Anyways, we entered tonights game with a 6-1 record and a five game winning streak in Boparc softball. We have managed to mercy rule a few teams in a row and have a bit of confidence going for us right now. Tonight's game started slow in the first few innings, but we caught fire late in the game and won 20-7. This extends our winning streak to six games and runs us to 7-1 on the season. I have missed one game this year and it is the one game we lost.

Thursday is going to be interesting because we are playing against not only mine, but three other team members former team. We play the Kountry Kreme Hillillies thursday night at 7:00. That is the old remaning remnance of the Walnut Lane-Recourse-Judies Lounge-Sports Page softball teams that I used to play for for years, so it will be interesting for me to finally get a chance to hit against a pitcher I worked with for about 15 years. Thursday Night at 7:00 if anyone is interested.

I played pretty decent tonight going 2 for 2 and making a hustling catch on a popup. As a team we are playing pretty decent and aren't making too many if any mental errors.

After the game a group of us went up to Prime Thyme, our sponser, for dinner and a few drinks. I love this time of the year and I am on a team that everyone gets along with one another. It's almost as if it were an extended family.

It was also nice to see Mark Devault's mom and dad make the game, they have always been very supportive of our team and it is a pleasure when they, and actually all of our dedicated fans come out and support this team.

Been a while

Wow, I just realized it has been nearly an entire week since I last did a BLOG post. To my standards that is not really acceptable and I need to get my butt in gear and make a worthwhile post for everyone to read.

Let's see where to start. We ended up not going to the Jimmy Buffett concert this week, Mark couldn't make it and it just wouldn't have been much of a tailgate if I were the only one there. It would have also been very hard to unload tickets for a Tuesday Night Concert on Monday. I heard it was a heck of a concert, but we'll try to do it again next year, maybe with a little more success.

We had another good week of playing softball, I ended the game with a walkoff double to secure a very good hard fought victory. The bat felt light to me that night, but then again I always seem to come up with a big stick when it's cold and raining for some strange but odd reason. I can't complain as we are currently 6-1 and have two games coming up this week including one Thursday against my old team. I'm looking foreword to that one. Hopefully the weather will be a little more cooperative with us than it has been in the past couple weeks, but then again I play well in bad weather for some reason.

As everyone can tell, I spent a few hours on the Rails to trails in the past few weeks. Ever since I started working at home I have had more time to actually spend on the trails and enjoying myself. I can't think of anything more relaxing than real nice weather and having my iPod loaded with my music and enjoying the fresh air on rails to trails. It is by far one of the most aesthetically relaxing things that is part of my schedule. It's because of the inability to do these types of activities that I hate the snow so much and enjoy the warm weather seasons. It helps you clear your mind out, get healthy and put some good clean oxygen into your system.

Ok, what is coming up for the following week:


* Saturday June 17th, The Hillbilly Gypsies, a band that is part of the band that plays at Nick and Terri's every Thursday Night, is playing at Chestnut Ridge Park. A small sample of their Music

Start looking at about 9-5-05 and beyond

* Sunday June 18th is Father's Day

* Monday June 19th is Erica Jean Nicholson's second birthday.

***UPDATE***

Erica's Birthday party will be next Sunday the 18th at 2:00 at Val and Bobby's house. (Thanks for the update Val)


Advice is one of those things it is far more blessed to give than to receive.--Carolyn Wells

Happy Birthday Gary

A very happy birthday with to my younger brother Gary. everyone needs to make sure that they give him a call today, his cell phone number is 276-0236, and wish him a very Happy Birthday today. I do have to say that I could not ask for a better brother than what Gary is and he is definately a one of a kind brother.

Happy Birthday Nute



The happiest moments of my life have been the few which I have passed at home in the bosom of my family.--Thomas Jefferson

Tidbits and whats coming up.

* First off, tomorrow is Gary's birthday. Gary was born June 5th and this will be a little reminder to everyone that tomorrow is his birthday.

* Tuesday, June 6th it will be off to my second Jimmy Buffet concert. I went last year and had a great time at PNC Park. This year the concert is back in Burgettstown and at the Post-Gazette pavilion. If it is half as much fun as last year, it will be well worth it. We are planning on going up early and tailgating most of the afternoon. I should be able to provide a picture or two from the days festivities.

* This coming Thursday I will be in my office in Frostburg. We're trying to iron out the process of a rather large project. We are trying to deliver it in the quickest, most efficient and uniform manner without corrupting any of the data during the process.

* Our softball team is off to another great start this season. We have managed to pull out victories in our last four games and have ran our current record to 5-1. There are two teams in our league that are still undefeated. One of which is our one loss and the other is a team we were scheduled to play and we had a rainout. We scrimmaged them earlier in the year and handled them quite easily that day, but we'll see how it goes when it actually counts.

* I was planning on working part of today and take off part of Tuesday for the concert, but the IT guys have the network all tied up right now. Probably the main reason why I am blogging rather than testing a few scripts.

* School is now officially out for the summer for all of the kids. If you know a kid that just completed the year, give them a pat on the back and encourage them.


* The weather isn't very good today, it's not really that warm and it's not really that cold. If the IT guys don't hurry up it's going to be a good day to visit rails to trails. They have been doing some construction this summer on one of the main parts of the trail as you can see by this picture. The detours not that bad and walks you through the streets of the Wharf District.

* For those of you not being able to make it to the Jimmy Buffett Concert this Tuesday, there will be a Jimmy Buffett tribute band playing later this week.

* For you bread lovers, and unfortunately I am one of them, Daily Kneads has their website back up and running.


Happiness comes when your work and words are of benefit to yourself and others.--Buddha

A night at the ballpark

A fun little night at the softball field tonight. I went out a little early, we were scheduled to start at 10:00, but I went out a couple hours early. I saw my old team and decided to stop in and say hello. Seems like one of our old teamm ates, Josh Judy who started playing outfield for us is being looked at heavily by the Seattle Mariners in this June's draft. I blogged about Josh a couple years ago when he signed with Indiana Tech. I guess if this happens I will have to become a Mariners fan.

Our softball team hit the field at 10:00, there were a few mild sprinkles, but by the time the game was over, it was a full thunderstorm. We managed to win 16-4 in the swamp and ran our current record to 5-1 on the season.

I did get a chance to run into an old NRAC co-worker at the game. Kelly Street was there and keeping the books for our opponent DP Dough. It was nice to catch up with her, we will eb adding each other to our instant messengers tomorrow.