Weather forecast could be better for the big day....

Okay, so Saturday's forecast says "mainly cloudy and rainy." Fine. I'll deal.

But does Wednesday's have to say "abundant sunshine?"

But I keep telling myself... It's really too early to tell what the weather will really be like on Saturday.


Oct 26 Friday
Showers. Highs in the mid 60s and lows in the low 60s.
Oct 27 Saturday
Mainly cloudy and rainy. Highs in the low 70s and lows in the upper 40s.
Oct 28 Sunday
Plenty of sun. Highs in the mid 60s and lows in the upper 30s.
Oct 29 Monday
Sunshine. Highs in the low 60s and lows in the low 40s.
Oct 30 Tuesday
Sunny. Highs in the upper 50s and lows in the low 40s.
Oct 31 Wednesday
Abundant sunshine. Highs in the low 60s and lows in the mid 40s.

You can't make this stuff up!

2 cell phones - $150
Family Share Plan - $70 a month
Calling your other half and finding out he's on stage (where you're supposed to be!) - PRICELESS!

(Ring!)
He said: Hello..... We're on stage. No, really - we're on stage.

This event occurred through a miscommunication, but it was pretty funny, nonetheless.

Vonage is PC Magazine's Editor's Choice!

http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,1759,2177608,00.asp

Great, honest review.

Come to the Skyliners Membership Day!!!

October 14th - 10am! Dover, NJ American Legion

Home Sweet Home

Tomorrow I will be a home owner.

There is one downside, however... Since my home page is on Comcast and I have to switch to Cablevision, I need to find a new home for my page. So, please keep checking and I will let you know where I'm moving my corner of the web to. It will probably happen within the next couple of weeks.

This is GREAT news!!!

We settled with Sprint!

http://money.cnn.com/news/newsfeeds/articles/prnewswire/NYM06608102007-1.htm

Bridal Shower Pictures!

My Mom is a great toilet paper bride, isn't she?

These girls sure do know how to throw a party!

This is bad news...

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=aWUB.EINZuKk&refer=home

Random Gibberish

Haven't posted in a while so I figured I'd jot down some quick notes on what's going on.

For one, my bridal shower was on Saturday, and it was awesome! I have such a great group of friends and family supporting me!

I decided to accept a position as secretary for the 2008 New York Skyliners. I want to do everything in my power to help this corps get back on the field.

My closing for my house got pushed back. It's all good. I didn't have anything packed anyway.

So, yeah - after all this time, that's all I got.

DCA Weekend!!!

Well, it's DCA weekend, and you can tell I've been having a good time since it's taken until Sunday for me to hook up to the hotel's Internet.

First of all, let me mention (to get it out of the way) that Fusion is run by truly classless individuals. Ron and I had decided that we were going to be cordial to them and that was about it. So, Holly decided to make it a game to try to get us to talk to her. I used to consider her a friend. Now I can see that she had me completely bamboozled and I'm glad that I made the decision to not associate with her or (con)Fusion Core.

Besides having to associate with the above unpleasantness, everything else has been a blast!!
Skyliners mini-corps was EXTREMELY fun and we actually placed 11th out of 18. When you think that we only had 6 rehearsals, that was a HUGE accomplishment. I enjoyed watching prelims and I'm wondering how on earth Cabs placed above Empire. I'm hoping for the flip flop tonight at Finals.

Back to having fun - later gators!

Here's an awesome picture of Empire that I took.

Welcome to Ticket World

Ticket World is a mystical realm where systems type people live. They make their living by fulfilling tickets. They fulfill their tickets in the order in which they are received, blissfully unaware of why they are being asked to do what they are doing.

Sometimes, what a person is asking for cannot be fulfilled in a ticket. This is a BIG DEAL, requiring management interference and meetings that cannot possibly take place this week because they are too busy.

I'm sorry - if I performed my job as if I lived in Ticket World, I'd probably be fired. Sorry to all the systems type of people who don't act as if they live in this bubble.

It's all about the money

I thought this was an interesting article...

http://www.slate.com/id/2172342/fr/rss/

It seems that the way government and finances work is something that we should all understand, though few of us bother to. I am quite guilty of this.

The Day We All Got Screwed...

I'm not kidding... Someone came around today and screwed everyone's nameplate to their cubicle...

I am one of the luckiest people alive...

I just can't believe the goodness that is coming in my direction. It will be challenging as hell, but it will be great. I will soon be changing job titles to business analyst, I am buying a house and I am getting married. I am very very thankful.

Whoosh!

Between work and the wedding and the house, things are moving very quickly! I hope we can keep up!

Sorted through wedding addresses today and got an almost finished list together. (Groan)

Went to a Trenton Thunder game last night. That was fun.

I think I need to either go do something productive with the rest of my day or get out of the house.

Errrr stuff

Finished Harry Potter. For a few minutes, I thought it was going to be the most sick series I ever read, but things turned out okay.

The closing on the house is scheduled for September 17th.

I switched my cell phones from Verizon Wireless to Sprint.

Went up to CT to see Billy and Erica and had a really nice time.

That's it.

YES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The offer was accepted! If all goes well, I am indeed moving to South Amboy!!!!

And I am on page 176 of the book that must not be named.

Harry arrives safely in my mailbox! (and other stuff)

Here's the latest headlines:

Still Waiting on House (more details on Monday)

Harry Potter Arrives Safely to the Highlands

Skyliners Mini Corps is Going to Be Amazing

Vonage Throws Great Company Picnic

Cousin Michele Gets Harry Potter at Barnes and Noble Harry Potter Party, Meets Life Goal


I could elaborate on these topics, but nah. A pretty awesome weekend was had by all. Happy birthday, Billy.

Poof!

http://blog.washingtonpost.com/washbizblog/2007/07/sunrocket_reportedly_will_ceas.html

Wow... Business comes at you fast...

Aaaack!

Somebody else made an offer! We gotta move fast!

Who says you can't go home?

Well, Ron and I are going to make an offer on a home in South Amboy. Wish us luck!

Con-Fusion Core: my analysis

So, Fusion competed in their first contest last night in Clifton, NJ, and I was desperately trying to stay objective while watching. However, it's difficult to get past the cloud of suspicion surrounding their formartion, so this review might be a little biased.

Overall, the performace was not as bad as the monstrosity that the directors put out on the field when they were the directors of the Skyliners last year. The performance level was good. Everyone seemed confident in their marching and playing. They had low numbers in the guard and drumline which probably affected the score.

The show itself was boring. No highs or lows and it seemed like they played forever. But then again, a lot of DCA corps are boring to me and they do okay, so maybe that is not a problem.

The soloists sucked. They were mainly former Skyliners and played just as poorly as they played solos for the Skyliners in previous years. They have a lot of young players that seemed like they had talent - I think that maybe the folks they had out in the spotlight last night should put their egos away and let the kids do the work. There was a young soprano soloist in their corps who did brilliantly for his one solo, while a veteran player kept coming out for a million solos sounding like he was "choking a chicken from the inside" (don't ask!)

In the end, it seems that a mediocre era for the Skyliners was ended so that a mediocre Fusion Core could be born. Makes me glad that I stopped wasting my time with marching competitive weekend corps.

Shopping for houses

We are in the "looking" phase of buying a house. It is quite an interesting and tiring process to visit other people's homes and figure out for each how you can make it become your own. Thank goodness there are so many options in our price range! If we can swing it, we'll move before the wedding.

You have not experienced life....

...until you have brilliantly played the ending of a song you have played on a weekly basis for two years only to find out you were five measures early. And then I played it again (yay for recovery!) :-)

Fourth of July was fun. Second parade went much better - must have been the beer.

Just want to go home already....

4th of July in the middle of the week blows....

More about the patent case

I thought this was extremely well written, and I totally agree.

http://www.patentlyo.com/patent/2007/06/injunctive-reli.html

Vonage and Verizon presented their oral arguments on June 25th. Now, a decision can take up to 90 days.

Kazoo Band!!!!

Yay - it's a kazoo band!!!!

http://gigawords.com/index.php?cat=1

Almost as cool as drum corps!!!

Congratulations, Aunt Karen and Bill

My aunt just got married on Saturday. A good time was had by all. :-)

Woo Hoo!!

My webpage has reached 500 hits!! (Okay, so 490 of them are me, but so what?)

New Photos Available!!!!

Got some Melrose pictures up from Memorial Day / Elks / Legion weekends. Check it out:

http://home.comcast.net/~leftylmv78/Melrose2007/

I finally found software to create web albums that doesn't make it a big production and actually produces something simple and functional!! JAlbum rocks!

http://jalbum.net/

Wildwood Weekends

Okay, so I haven't posted in a while. But I did spend two really great weekends in Wildwood. The first was for the Elks parade and the second was for Legions (we won 2nd place - woo hoo!). And the folks who came in first were ringers from Ct (Park City Pride - I enjoy watching them), so I feel pretty good about it - they only beat us by 8 points. I have some pictures but some of them aren't ...ehrm, nice, so we'll see what I end up posting here.

Smile!!!

Memorial Day

It's Memorial Day, folks! If you have not been to a parade or ceremony this weekend, YOU'RE WRONG!

I Love My Puppy!

Helmut and me hanging out on a great day!

PS - I totally should have stayed outside with my dog instead of fighting with my comcast ftp server... Apparently I have a quota. So much for the media files I wanted to upload...

This is why my job is important

I received this email from XM today...

XM Service Update As many of you know, XM customers have experienced service outages or significantly degraded service since Monday mid-morning, May 21. We quickly identified the problem and are working hard to return to our normal levels of service. The problem occurred during the loading of software to a critical component of our satellite broadcast system, which resulted in a loss of signal from one of our satellites. We expect normal service to resume midday today (eastern daylight time). XM apologizes for any inconvenience this has caused. For updates, please go to http://www.xmradio.com. In the meantime, you can enjoy many of our music channels on XM Radio Online (http://xmro.xmradio.com) if you are close to a computer. Again, we regret any inconvenience for not having your XM Radio service fully available.

Java vs Rails

This is pretty funny

http://www.railsenvy.com/2007/5/14/ruby-on-rails-commercial

(posting as I'm running a process to build a bunch of jars...)

Retrial Denied

I sort of figured this would happen, but you know we had to try it. It is good news that we will be allowed to bring up the Supreme Court's ruling as part of our appeal.

http://www.cbronline.com/article_news.asp?guid=13FE96A8-7748-425A-9DAA-6ABA5347E0B9

Free To Compete!

http://www1.freetocompete.com/index.php

WE GOT THE STAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=anjLr7Wohds0&refer=home

This is only a rumor, but I think it makes sense...

http://blogs.zdnet.com/ip-telephony/?p=1545

Patent Reform

http://www.pcworld.com/article/id,130930/article.html

Tech companies have decried large patent infringement awards in recent years,
saying a court system that has allowed patent holders to get injunctions on
projects with a small piece of infringing technology has hurt innovation. In May
2006, in a infringement case against eBay Inc., the U.S. Supreme Court
overturned the long-held practice of issuing injunctions against infringing
products in nearly all patent cases.

Prior Art - proof that Verizon's patents are invalid

http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20070417/005814.shtml

Virginia Tech

If you think your life sucks, do not take it out on other people.

http://www.cnn.com/2007/US/04/16/vtech.shooting/index.html

i vs Pi

Here's the Recap

http://gigaom.com/tag/vonage

(Death by) Taxes

Even though I usually get a refund, I HATE doing my taxes... It's such a pita... At least it's just about done. I'm thinking all these people who send me all these fricken forms should just send them to the IRS and let them figure it out. And screw deductions... I don't qualify for most of them anyway.

Maybe I'm just too lazy...

Pretty Classy

http://www.courant.com/business/hc-vonage0414.artapr14,0,294380.story?coll=hc-headlines-business

The other thing that impressed me about Citron is that he actually gave the same presentation he gives to colleges to his employees. I personally don't know of any other executive that's ever shared internally what they present externally.

Verizon Claims the Internet

http://www.mediachannel.org/wordpress/2007/04/12/al-gore-can-rest-easy-verizon-claims-the-internet-2/

Missed the Axe

Today is not a good day, but I am safe for now.

Interesting Analysis

http://www.thestreet.com/_googlen/funds/followmoney/10349461.html

April 24th is the day

http://www.app.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070411/BUSINESS/704110381/1003

Patent Analysis

Again, many thanks to the people who actually want to write about the facts of this case instead of misleading stories.


http://blogs.zdnet.com/ip-telephony/?p=1517

How Could Anyone Not Love This?

This is totally going onto my digital photo frame! (A birthday gift from Ron)

I cannot stress this enough...

When relying on a computer for your important documents...

SAVE EARLY AND SAVE OFTEN!!!!!!!!!

Happy Birthday Lisa / Welcome Back Jesus

So, yesterday was Easter and my 29th birthday.

Earlier in the week, Ron told me he ordered my cake, but he was worried he had given them some incorrect information and that the wrong thing could be written on it.

My response was, "With my luck, it says 'Welcome Back Jesus.'"

After he stopped laughing (which took a while) he said, "What I was going to say is that they spelled your name Asil."

After all of that, I found out that my dad had gotten me a cake, too. So, I gave my dad a special request. As a joke to tease Ron, write "Welcome Back Jesus" on the cake.

He did, and my brother has declared that it shall thus be a new Easter tradition that we should have a cake that reads "Welcome Back Jesus."

Anyway, I had a really great time w/ my family yesterday, and I also had a good time w/ my brother and his wife, her friends, and my friend Tom at the Colorado Cafe on Saturday night. I also received a multitude of gift certificates, a photo frame, a candle and a necklace and earings for my wedding.

Yay - something in our favor!

http://jurist.law.pitt.edu/paperchase/2007/04/appeals-court-stays-vonage-injunction.php

For those who are following...

Computing at Bear Rock

Having a nice evening computing at Bear Rock Cafe in South Plainfield. Nice place. Back to helping out the Skyliners with web stuff. It's a good thing.

Breakthrough!!!

I've (sort of) figured something out that I've been banging my head against the wall for about two weeks over.

The cool part about my job is that I get to play w/ stuff and try to make it work... The hard part is that things that I *have* to make work by a certain time.

Ah well.

More Vonage Stuff

Here's another good thing to read if you want to read the news that makes sense and avoid the stupid things analysts make up for headlines.

http://www.lightreading.com/document.asp?doc_id=120412

2007 NY Skyliners Season Kickoff Dance

Woo hoo - it's time to paaar-ty!!!

2007 New York Skyliners Season Kickoff Dance

Date: April 21st, 2007
Time: 8:00PM - Midnight
Place: Dover American Legion (2 Legion Place Dover, NJ)
Cost: $35 per person
Price Includes: Hot and cold buffet / beer, wine and soda / coffee, tea and dessert
For tickets contact: Ron Lawrence (908)756-0289 / ronlfrmnj@aol.com

You do not have to be a member of any of the Skyliners organizations to attend. This event is limited to 150 guests. Must be 21 or older.

Verizon vs Vonage patent case

For anyone worried about the future of Vonage, this article sounds the most truthful of any I've seen online.

http://gigaom.com/2007/03/16/vonage-rocky-road-not-road-kill/

Got a new laptop!

Went to a computer show on Saturday and bought a refurbished laptop. It was making me crazy not to have my own...

I stayed with the idea of wanting something small, so I got a Dell Latitude C400. It's nice and light.

Pluses: Software on the machine itself is worth what I paid for it - MS Office, XP Pro, and Symantic Antivirus all included.

Minuses: I need to buy a USB card to support USB 2.0 (1.1 is not fast enough for anybody, sorry!) CD/DVD bay is external. Don't really use that unless I'm installing new software, so it's not a big deal for me.

Also, the folks I bought it from are very interested in buying the broken one from me.

Overall, it's a downgrade from what I had before, but for $450, it's worth it to have a machine. Someday when I'm feeling "rich" I'll get a shiny new one with all the features I really want...

Thank you, Vonage!

I had $1.15 of Vonage money left on my id card, and I am now enjoying a wonderful short Starbucks hot chocolate with whipped cream. Life is good.

I am a very lucky girl!

Now that I am recovered from being sick on Valentine's Day, I can write about how good Ron tried to be to me. In return for buying him a pot he really wanted (which is good for me because when Ron gets his cooking toys, I get yummy food), he bought me Legend of Zelda Twilight Princess for the Wii!

And flowers, and chocolates (small box bc I'm going back on weight watchers), and a Snoopy, and a balloon (that was feared by the dog and eaten by the cat) and a really nice card.

And I was too sick to enjoy any of it for a couple of days. But that is over now.

And Zelda is AWESOME.

Which leaves me to ask... If you were a princess of a kingdom and some nasty looking creeps break in to your castle and tell you to answer for your entire kingdom, "surrender or die," what would you do?

And what if you find out that surrendering will put your people in a fate worse than death?

Waiting for Wii

Yes, I finally broke down and realized that the only way to get a Wii would be to go to a store early in the morning and stand in line. So, I chose Target based on my web findings of who would have them on Sunday. Ron and I arrived about 7:15am and were about 9th in line. I hoped that the store was going to have more than two of them! As my feet grew colder, I found that the folks I stood in line with weren't derranged freaks. They were a combination of parents, college students and e-bay sellers who understood that the reality of life was that you have to stand in line to buy the Wii.

As we waited, the line got a little longer. I wondered if I would have to run past a crowd of disappointed Wii seekers in order to get my prize to the car...

At five minutes to eight, the store staff took pity on us and let us in early. (Or maybe their clocks are fast - anyway, we got in!) They seemed to have a good number in stock, so I don't think anyone in line was disappointed (I didn't exactly wait around to find out!)

And a good time was had by all!

blogging from my wii

I can`t believe that I finally have Wii and I`m blogging on it!

Another step closer....

Picked out bridesmaid dresses for the wedding!

Sean Holton, you'll be missed!

Sean Holton, someone I met in the Skyliners, passed away this morning. He was a very good man with many friends in drum corps. I'm always at a loss for what to say in these situations. :-(

Mmmm... Computer languages....

http://www.levenez.com/lang/history.html

Rubik's Cube

Wow - I'd like to try this some time...

http://www.chessandpoker.com/rubiks-cube-solution.html

Wii ownership justification for adults...

http://jims-empire.com/main/?p=255

Yes - that must be the reason I want one - exercise!

It's sort of like that old shredded wheat commercial where the adult wants it for the health benefits, but the "kid within" wants it for the sugar coated side...

Hey, Wii-der! Strike up the band!

Wii would love to play... However, Wii cannot obtain a Wii because Wii don't think that it's becoming of a 28 year old with no children to line up in front of a Circuit City before it opens to snatch one up. Wii also are quite annoyed at all the folks who buy up all the Wii's for the sole purpose of selling them at a bloated amount on Ebay + exhorbitant shipping costs.

I'm really not quite sure why I want one of these so badly besides a bizarre desire to relive my childhood on an adult income level... I guess maybe because I didn't catch the iPod bug...

I also enjoy....

The sweet sound of everything falling properly into place on a Friday evening...

Or maybe that doesn't have a sound...

Dammit - I want a Wii...

Can a person fall in love with a single note?

There's something I've been wondering ever since the first the I've heard the song "Drinking Me Lonely" by Chris Young. It's a good song, but my absolute favorite thing about it is whatever note he's singing on the "lone" part of the word "lonely."

I'm trying to figure out why it is that I like this note so much? I mean, I could be driving along, not really paying attention to what's playing on my XM Radio, and then all of a sudden, there's the note, and it's like the greatest thing in the world... (And why should a sad country song make me happy? I think I'm a strange, strange person sometimes...)

Is it the the jump in range between the word "me" and the word "lonely?" Is it the voice of the singer? Is it the key the song is being sung in? For someone who has played music for so long, I really don't know much theory... (haha - the one time I tried to take a theory class, it was unfortunately being taught by a teacher who had previously had a stroke... Took the whole semester for him to figure out why if he wrote on the marker board with a hi-lighter, it would disappear...)

Maybe some mysteries will never be solved...

Inherit the Wind

I added the proverb that provided the title for the play "Inherit the Wind" to my blog description not because I have any sort of close affinity for the Bible. I added it because I have noticed that it is very often applicable in situations where people I feel close to do things that I do not think are right. Not that I necessarily should judge them, but I feel that as my mom always says, "What goes around, comes around."

Ever wish you could just do this all day?

Was going to try to write something meaningful, but meh.

Bed came in!

The bed's in and I like it. Got over my cold (finally!)

Bowling's tonight. It's time for us to start picking up. Hopefully Dad's new ball will help.