A little catching up to do.

I have been a little busy the past couple weeks and have not had the opportunity to touch on everything that I wanted to touch on, so this will be the catching up blog.

Last week we had a big thunderstorm up here on Scott Avenue. So big that many of the leaves were knocked off of the trees and there were green leaves everywhere. This is a picture that I took of my apartment complex, and no our roof is NOT green.


Last week I had to travel to Sterling Virginia to the home office and work with an old friend. Srinu, the guy sitting down, and myself managed to get the pilot area for New York City completed. It came with a lot of headaches and frustration, but the pilot is mostly done with the exception of some minor tweaking the client is wanting us to do this coming week. They made a few changes on how they want it submitted, it's minor things. I can do it from Morgantown.

Friday I went to the balloon festivals fairgrounds and walked around for a few hours. I did manage to find a 12" Hot Sausage Hoagie that was calling my name. It's the ones like you used to be able to get from the roach coach that used to park in front of Lowes. A think meaty hot sausage link on a 12 inch soft roll with fried green pepper, onions and mushrooms on top of it. maybe I should go back up today and double check if that was the ingredients it had.

Yesterday I didn't get into too much. I watched the Mountaineers beat Syracuse on TV and a few other teams ranked ahead of us fall. Maybe we can move up in the polls this week.

This morning I started my day out early so that I could be at the Airport for the mass balloon ascension from hart Field. I think I counted twenty-one balloons that took off this morning in the last launch from the airport for the festival. There will be one last launch scheduled for today at 4:30.

Lest we not forget that the Pittsburgh Steelers will be playing the Seattle Seahawks today in a Super Bowl rematch of a couple years ago.

Have a good day.

Finally a BIG, Ole Hairy Friday

This is the last day of a twelve day stretch for me, tonight I start a long awaited weekend and finally having a day off. I'm not really that busy today, but I'm here if they need me and not out running around enjoying the Mountaineer Balloon Festival.

Mom and a couple of my siblings are planning on taking a relaxing shopping trip to the Springs Festival today in Springs PA. I'm sure they will enjoy their trip and spend a little quality time together.

In case you haven't noticed, there are a lot of hot air balloons around Morgantown this weekend. Their schedule for today.


All Day Carnival Rides Field
All Day NASCAR Display Field
All Day NASCAR Simulator Field
All Day Paintball Field
All Day Chad Pitts - Glass Blowing Field
All Day Howard Davis - Chainsaw Carving Field
All Day Pre-1840s Living History Demonstration Field
All Day Gifts and Souvenirs Montgolfier Tent
All Day Cheat River Outfitters Climbing Wall Field
7:30am Garfields Race Morgantown Airport
Noon Gates Open ---
12-5 Morgantown Police Department Crime Van Field
12-6 Kid's Day ---
12-6 Pony Rides Field
12-6 Marble Shooting and Competitions Field
12-6 Raptor Center Field
12-6 Children's Museum of Pittsburgh Tent 1
12-6 Morgantown Public Library Crafts & BOPARC Sandbox Tent 2
12-6 NASA with WVU Ballooning Club Tent 3
12-6 Beekeeper Tent 3
12-6 FBI Fingerprinting Field
12-6 WVU Entomology Field
12-8 Face Painting Field and Montgolfier Tent
12:30-4:30 Tethered Balloon Rides Launch Area
12:30 Carnegie Science Center Stage 2
1-4 Jenny Wilson's Kid Concert Main Stage
1:00 Oglebay's Good Zoo Stage 3
1:30 Chip Bryant Stage 2
2:00 Carnegie Science Center Stage 2
2:00 Chip Bryant Stage 3
2:30 Chip Bryant Stage 3
3:00 Oglebay's Good Zoo Stage 3
3:00 Chip Bryant Stage 2
3:30 Carnegie Science Center Stage 2
4:00 Oglebay's Good Zoo Stage 3
4:30 Chip Bryant Roaming, Field
4:30 High School Band Launch Area
4:30 The Sign Factory Race Launch Area
5:30-8:30 Band - "Brad Crow and the Cut-Ups" Main Stage
6-9 Karaoke and More Stage 2
7:00 Second Night Glow! Launch Area

Back Home

I finished up the pilot area yesterday around 5:00 and decided to get a nights rest before I started to drive back to Morgantown. If you know me, at 3:00 AM I was up and wide awake, I had just woke up rather than didn't go to bed, so I figured that was about a good as time as any to start organizing my trip home.

I got lost once on the trip down due to a wrong turn, minor error mileage wise, and it was broad daylight then. I figured I would try my luck backwards in the middle of the night and didn't have any troubles.

Sterling was nice, I liked it there as this was my first trip to our US Geospatial headquarters. It was a very busy week, needless to say other than work on this project, drive, sleep and eat I really didn't have much free time. The two slots of free time I did have was Friday night to watch the WVU game and Sunday afternoon to watch the steelers go down in defeat. That and last night where I wanted to get to bed early so I could get a good start on the trip.

I guess that is the closest thing I've had to a vacation since I went to DC on a class trip in 2003. However this one was all expenses paid =)

Right now I am installing the latest greatest version of the ArcGIS software that I brought back with me on my home PC. I'm back to working on the VPN.

Here in Sterling

It was a busy day yesterday as we were setting up the methodologies for the pilot area. Fortunately I found out that other than me assembling the pilot area, I will only be doing Quality Assurance Quality Control on the rest of the project. Most of it will be done at the home office, I'm just here in a pinch.

Sterling is a beautiful town, it is pretty spread out and there are numerous things to do, places to shop and eat. However I have spent most of the time in the office working on this project as I am already here this Sunday morning awaiting on fresh data.

I have my camera with me so I'll be sure to get a few photographs.

My Hotel room is pretty nice, it has a full kitchen and a couple double beds. It is an extended stay hotel, so some amenities that you would find in a full service hotel are not there. However there is a Wal-Mart on the back side of the hotel, so I am good to go for anything I need.

Gallagher is coming to Morgantown

yes Morgantown, the madman of the watermelon is returning to Morgantown for the first time in 25 years when comedy legend Gallagher come to town for two shows at the Metropolitan theater on November 9th and November 10th. Tickets go on sale October 1st at Ticketweb. Gallagher is probably the one comic that personifies my generation in comedy, and is arguably my all time favorite comic from all the Showtime Specials he used to do.

Anyone else interested in going let me know and we can all go together. This is one show where I want to be front and center....with lots of plastic.

Going out of Town

I will be out of town from tomorrow morning until probably Wed of next week. I was going to leave tonight but have decided to wait until tomorrow morning to leave.

I'm not going on vacation, I'm going into the Sterling Office to complete the Pilot area of a project before Tuesday so we can submit it and get approval from the client. I just found out earlier this morning, so it was a little bit of a surprise. I guess this means no weekend for me as I will be working at the Sterling Office both on Saturday and Sunday as well as Monday and Tuesday and Tomorrow. I should return Wed.

This is a project that was introduced last month and was one of the two projects I really wanted to work on and be associated with. One of the two was inside the Country and one was building a digital image of a world known city outside of the country. I will be doing the Quality Control work of the City inside of the US. I don't want to say where it is on a blog for professional reasons, but it's the same place Kim, Brittany, Mary and Danielle went last November Christmas shopping. So, I am a little psyched to start this project to say the least.

I'll be taking my camera with me and will be staying close to Dulles Internation Airport.

What a storm last night

When I walked out of class last night is smelled of moisture. I drove home and saw a lightning storm just lighting up the sky.

About a half an hour later, a ravaging storm came through with large hail that was knocking leaves off of trees and raining acorns on my roof. This reminds me of the storm 23 months ago, I'm just very glad that the temperature wasn't below 32 degrees.

Class tonight

Once again it is the middle of the week, hump day and the day the day of the week that my class meets. Last week I did manage to obtain Business Plan Pro Premier edition, this is a really nice software that basically writes your business plan for you, you just type in what you want to say and put your figures in, it builds your charts and graphs, formats it and installs any tables that may be needed. It does it in a format that banks prefer from what I understand.

It's enjoyable being back in the classroom, I really like this one because there are no grades or anything like that to worry about. It's not like it affects a collegiate transcript. Less stress makes it more enjoyable.

A little Magic trick

What a day

This is one of those days at work that you wish you could just forget about. The day went quick but it was one problem after another on a previous project that we are trying to wrap up.

Talk about headache city, too many people have managed the data and have left the company before we got to this point. Only problem is I had to go and find all the latest greatest versions of the data and try to assemble a composite dataset for the client.

I read the clients feedback and they were not to happy with the quality of the work, compared to the data that we had submitted before. I asked for the clients latest greatest version a couple of months ago, but they did not want to do that thinking it made us look bad. Ever tried to look at as many as 10 different databases of the same data and try to figure out which ones had the latest corrections. There is a time stamp, but that isn't accurate. Talk about headache city today.


Oh well off to some other things. I checked on the availability of Klaer Lodge at Chestnut Ridge park and it is still available for Christmas Eve if everyone is wanting to start planning for that night.

Good football weekend

Morgantown High and University High both won Friday Night.

WVU looked real good against ECU, while defending Champion Louisville lost to Syracuse.

The Steelers ran their record to 3-0 on the season. Maybe I do like Mike Tomlin.

Another Big Ole Hairy Friday

Woo Hoo, my workday is over with and it is time for my weekend.

Tonight is University High School's homecoming and there should be a parade downtown, nothing confirmed on this though. That means they will be playing tonight at Pony Lewis.

Morgantown travels to Preston to take on the Knights. The Mohigans have been quite sluggish this season so far and are 2-2 on the season officially. One of those wins coming because Martinsburg was stripped of their win and the other was a late 4th Quarter comeback.

I actually hit rails to trails for the first time yesterday. It was the first time in probably a couple of months. I need to work myself back into that routine now that softball is over and the weather is cooler.

Happy Anniversary Kim and Robert

Today is Robert and Kim's fourth wedding anniversary. I would like to wish them both a happy anniversary and a speedy recovery to Kim.

Two new restaurants for Morgantown

There will be two more additional new restaurants coming to Morgantown in the following months, both will be at the University Town Center in the coming months.

One is already in the process of being built, the frame is already completed and it sits back from the entrance road a little bit. It's the new construction that is on top of the hill when you look down from best buy and it will be the first to open up. The Cracker Barrel has always been one of my favorite places to eat. It's a place I consciously look for when traveling. There is one in Fairmont, now we'll have one in Morgantown.

The next one was an announcement in todays paper and will built in the lot beside the Olive Garden. It's is a restaurant that has rumored to been coming to Morgantown for fifteen years or better, but the demographics of the area prevented us from getting the franchise until now. Red Lobster will finally have a location in Morgantown.

Happy Birthday Calvin

I would like to take this chance to wish my Nephew Calvin a very happy 12th Birthday. Pam and George had his birthday party this past Sunday, being that his birthday is in the middle of the week.

He wanted video games and received quite a few PS2 games as presents.

Sunday Morning

I have concluded my traditional Sunday Morning routine already and I am getting ready to head over to Krepps Park this afternoon for Calvin's Birthday Party. His birthday is Tuesday, but Pam is wanting to have the party today.

After that I am going to take a trip up to Mon general hospital to visit Kim. I stopped in to see her yesterday afternoon, but both she and Robert who have been through a lot were both resting peacefully and neither Terri nor I wanted to disturb them.

Hopefully she will have the chance to go home within the next few days, they are trying to reduce the fluid that she has in her right now.

Friday

Sorry I can't update anyone on what is going on this weekend. I've been doing a little running around and haven't been on the net as much as I usually am.

Anyone see the WVU game last night? WOW. We have the First Team All-American running back and Heisman finalist in our backfield, and his backup may arguably be one of the bets running backs I've ever seen. High School, College or NFL, past or present, Noel Devine has moves like I have never seen on anyone before with maybe the exception of Barry Sanders.

We're in good hands.

Update on Kim

They removed the tube in her nose today and have now given her the option of eating ice chips as opposed to before when she wasn't allowed anything orally.

When I went up yesterday morning she was still in pain and the doctors were wanting her to sit up in a chair for the first time. By yesterday afternoon she looked full of life and has started walking. She mentioned trying to walk a lap around the hospital corridor this morning. Slowly but surely she is recovering from the surgery.

I have stayed with Brittany the last couple of nights and will do so again tonight, then she is going to be with Ed for the weekend.

I left Kim my iPod buds yesterday and she has a little adapter where you can plug two sets of buds into one iPod, so yesterday her and Mom sat down together and listened to an audio book.

Don;t forget, WVU is kicking Maryland's butt tonight on TV.

Quick update on Kim

For those of you looking for an update on Kim, she had her surgery today. They had to make an incision and go in, so she is currently staying in the hospital and recovering.

For those of you concerned, Robert said he will send out a e-mail to everyone explaining everything.

Stay tuned

September 11, 2001