Sweet 16

imageAmy’s cousin Katie celebrated her 16th birthday today so we attended yet another party (I think that’s three this month). Connor had fun getting passed around to relatives again. We had a small battle about putting him on a trampoline, which I disapproved of (I don’t think many medical professionals would recommend it so I’m not sure the idea would sound too good in the ER). It’s quite a drive to Wilson Mills, NC where the party was held plus we got lost when we missed an exit on the way. Luckily they had cheap gas in Clayton ($1.89/gallon).

imageKatie got a jet black 2004 2-door Honda Accord from her father as a birthday present. I’m sure the insurance on that scenario is a lot of fun$$$. Connor’s getting to be a lot of fun. He’s even getting better about having his nails trimmed and I’m getting faster at doing it. Now if we could just find a way to get him to quit biting… I’m open to suggestions.

First Haircut

imageBefore: My dad took Connor to get his first haircut today. He was really okay with it. He didn’t fuss at all. The women at J.J.’s Kids Cuts even commented on how well behaved he was for his age. We were amazed. He took a 2 1/2 hour nap before going which probably had something to do with it.

imageAfter: Amy has his first curls in a bag to divide among grandmothers. We left some of the curls in the back. When he was done he got this balloon that was promptly released to the stratosphere once we got in the parking lot. Luckily his attention span is so short right now he didn’t even realize it was gone.

I voted today.

imageI’m glad that NC decided to let people vote early. I won’t have to face any crowds on Nov. 2nd. It took me less than 20 minutes today at the NC Board of Elections headquarters, one of the benefits of working downtown in the state capital. I’m not going to post who I voted for (big mystery huh?) so all I’ll say is it would be great if NC turned blue this year.

New Catagory: Local Music

I’ve just added another catagory to file entries under. I’m going to use it to write reviews of live performances I attend which will be pulled from the raleighmusic.com and Independent music calendars. It should help give this blog some purpose and direction. I promise to be fair but honest in my opinions. And that’s all it will be is opinion. Anyone who doesn’t agree is welcome to respond with their own comments.

NC State Fair 2004

imageMy prediction was correct. There were a lot of people in Raleigh yesterday. The fair was packed. Sometimes the crowd got so large all movement would just stop in a human traffic jam. Amy and I rode the Zambala (or something like that), the large Farris Wheel, the Orbiter, and the best ride I’ve ever been on – The Fire Ball. Some young girl told Amy she could just close her eyes if she got too scared. I want to go back and ride it again. The best part was that I got to go do something with fun with Amy by ourselves. I”m glad we didn’t do a group outing.

There must have been 3000 pair of overalls in attendance. Amy had a good point: if you’re not feeling good about yourself, go to the fair. In general the American public scares me. Most people claim to go for the food – and it shows.

Not so terrible 2’s.

imageMy niece Skylar turned 2 yesterday and today we went to her birthday party at 2:00 in a park way out in Zebulon, NC. It was nice outside and the kids all had fun but it was cut short when another group showed up at exactly 4:00 with reservations for another birthday party in the same place. It was a quick packing job, we didn’t actually get out of there until 4:30.

imageAmy and I had planned to go to the fair after the party. My mom and dad were going to take Connor home with them for the evening. But then Connor got quite upset when mommy left him held by a “stranger” (Tim’s Uncle Junior). After that we didn’t have the heart to separate from him for the rest of the day. We’re going tomorrow instead. My prediction is that it’s going to be crowded, crowded, crowded.

Microsoft dot what?

imageToday I looked real hard into the possibility of using Visual Basic dot Net for the new Dillon Supply intranet, primarily because we utilize MS SQL so heavily. I was thinking it would be nice to just create and maintain a new MS SQL database on an existing server. Then I quickly saw how much Microsoft really sucks at conforming to web development standards.

I’m not too bad with MS SQL Enterprise Manager so how weird could it be? Could the Visual Studio interface get any more cumbersome? For someone like me coming from a background of Perl and PHP edited mostly in Dreamweaver – it’s no less than a freakin’ nightmare. I felt quite stupid – It looks like KDeveloper (or vice-versa)??? I couldn’t even figure out how to connect the stupid Visual Studio project to an IIS server without using “Frontpage Server Extensions”. ugh! choke! gasp… your killin’ me here.

Not for me. I will load MySQL for Windows and head down the path of simplicity and conformity. Now I know why these dot net guys come interviewing with their guns loaded for Visual Studio. You really have to be a “Microsoft Guy” to get into VS.

My “Taxpayer Advocate”

imageA few weeks ago the IRS assigned a “Taxpayer Advocate” to my case opened to investigate why I haven’t received the copies of my 1999-2000 returns I paid $78.00 for over two months ago. I was told to provide copies of the processed checks and the “original form 4506 sent at the time of the request”…. Uh, exactly how do you send the “original” form they claim they can’t find.

Anyway, much to my surprise I was able to easily find the checks in my August bank statement – go TD Waterhouse – So today I called to tell my “Advocate” that I had the stuff he requested. That’s when he told me “there’s been a change in policy recently and we don’t need proof of the payment to provide full copies of the returns to you. They’re free now.”

Well, do I get my money back? Hell no. Organized crime.