Last weekend Heidi, Rhys and I went to the 17th Street Market here in town. I can’t believe I have lived in this stupid town for so damn many years and have never patronized this place. It is PERFECT. It has all the Asian food that I desire (I bought my self a new wok pan while I was there — but that is another story), fresh produce (yes, I eat plants), and fresh meat (GOD, I love fresh meat)!

On top of those things, it has a nice gift selection. You know the kind of touristy bullshit that us Americans fall for all the time. I almost bought myself yet another set of chopsticks. As much as I make fun of it, there were some very nice things there. Did I mention I bought a new wok pan? :-D

Lastly, it has a music shop too… You know, you can buy CD’s, musical insturments, and even see performances. All of this wonderful crap in the industrial district of our little shit hole of a town.

So, while we were there, we saw The Can Crushers. Rhys absolutely loved them! At first I thought it was your typical hippie street performance art, but soon found myself getting into it (damn my drumming roots). We didn’t purchase a CD, but we will be, and in the meantime I thought I’d give the guys a free plug on the ol’ website here. Pretty cool stuff, guys!

I love my son very much. Heidi and I decided we would get him a new big boy bed, to help coax him to sleep in his room all night long (he’s starting the nights there, but ending up in our room now). I got home a tad early today, and jumped right into construction.

The box was huge! It’s a metal bed which is nice. I’m not a big fan of wooden furniture. Not when I have to assemble it anyway. We had to move his dresser into his closet since the bed was so frakkin huge! You see, it’s not just a bed. It’s basically a fort with a bed for a roof. Oh, and it has a slide, too. Heidi gets credit for this awesome find, and bonus we found it on sale over the 4th of July weekend. Saved big bucks on it.

So, it’s all built. Rhys is uber happy about it. I’m super jealous of his fort and now thinking about how to make one for me. My back is KILLING me. I swear, if my boss wants me to do a lot of walking tomorrow, then I’ll … uhm… well, I guess I walk around a lot, but ‘ll give him the finger while I’m doin it. :) heh Night night, gang. No coding for Slack tonight.

Here’s the new bed.

Here’s a night vision shot of the inside… Not the best, but it’s surprisingly spacious!

So, where have I been? Just doin the same ol same ol. Work has been a bit busy. It has been necessary to work at the call centers this week and last, and that burns me out pretty quick. I like my nice office! Today I get a repreive from the call center smells, sounds, and situations and get to work from my office so this is a nice change of pace.

I’m still plugging away at my studies every chance I get. Trying to breathe new life into my home schedule so I can get many of my side projects goin proper again. One site I’m working on right now was so near completion, and in the same spirit of the apprentice painter always putting that “last stroke” on the painting, I’ve had to tear it completely down and redesign it! Ahhh learning… :-D

Rhys’ big thing lately is fear. He’s scared of everything.  Like EVERYTHING: bugs, shadows, birds, shadows of bugs, being alone, his basketball hoop, the dolphin mobile in his room. You name it, and this kid will jump 20 feet in the blink of an eye! I guess it’s a phase. We are working with him, of course, but it’s slow goin.

He has found his new favorite game. His first real computer game that he fully understands! As a gamer dad, I’m so proud. We’ve been playing Peggle. It’s a PopCap game. If you like puzzle games, I’d recommend checking it out. It’s a good one.

Both Heidi and I have readjusted our outlook on things. Kinda stepped back to look at what is truly important in our lives, where we want to be, etc… So, we’ve redoubled our efforts to get back on track, as we both feel like we may have lost our way a bit. Things are goin good in that area, and we feel like we’ve got some good direction for once in a long time.

Ok, obviously I’ve lost my mind. But, I’ve got two things to report with Windows Vista and Microsoft in general that now allow me to feel a bit better about my move back to the darkside.

1) I was listening to a podcast (Windows Weekly) which was talking about some of the new initiatives Microsoft was making. The key one that caught my ear was their move to opening more of their APIs! Well, that may not be “Open Source”, but it’s definitely a step in the right direction! They are a for-profit company, so I certainly don’t expect them to open their source, but open APIs are a step toward a more conformed marketplace. Conformity is good when it comes to computers. I prefer to use the term “Standards” but it is what it is.

2) Symbolic Links! No shit! There are symlinks in Vista! This has to be the #1 feature that bothered me about Windows ever since I discovered the wonders of Linux. Symlinks are such a useful feature and have been in use in the *nix world for SO freakin long! It really bothered me that Windows did not have this functionality. Especially since it was such a trivial thing to implement! But, now it’s here! I discovered it thanks to a post on the How-To Geek. Here’s the gist! Oh, and you have to run the command window as Administrator.

C:\Users\username> mklink
Creates a symbolic link.
MKLINK [[/D] | [/H] | [/J]] Link Target
       /D      Creates a directory symbolic link.  Default is a file
               symbolic link.
       /H      Creates a hard link instead of a symbolic link.
       /J      Creates a Directory Junction.
       Link    specifies the new symbolic link name.
       Target  specifies the path (relative or absolute) that the new link
               refers to.

A real good friend of mine is training for an endurance event to bring forward awareness about leukemia, lymphoma, Hodgkin lymphoma and myeloma. She’s asking us to spread the word and help collect donations for a great cause! So, I thought I’d share her site, and see if I can’t help send a bit of web traffic her way.

Way to go, Guapa! Hope you get your goal!

Devina Garrity’s Team in Training Page