I just talked to my dad. They’re just outside of Danbury, CT.  (map) I’m going to have them meet me at my office. That’s going to be easier for them.  I figure I’ll see them in about three hours.

I posted the story about my shoes to Pug Village. That thread has gotten really funny.

I have a pair of shoes that have been with me for a very long time, probably close to ten years. They’re made by Nunn Bush and have a SKU of 83985 on them.

These shoes have obviously seen better days, and I’m afraid we must part ways. It’s like putting down an old dog. You just don’t have the heart, but you know it’s best because your friend just can’t survive many more days.

A while back, I brought a puppy into this analogy, a pair of Kenneth Coles. The old dog knew the puppy was young and vibrant, and the old dog knew that the old ones were still my favorites. The Kenneth Coles are nice, but they just don’t fit my feet the same way.  Heck, I even tried finding the same model of shoes with no luck. Florshein (who makes Nunn Bush) no longer makes these shoes.

I feel like I’m about to kill my best friend.

Farewell, old friends.

I don’t envy our helpdesk staff.

IBM, Lenovo announce recall of 526,000 ThinkPad batteries

Guess what a big chunk of our environment is? Thinkpad T43, and T60 notebooks. We still have a bunch of older T30s, R50s, and a ton of T42, as well.

I’m at home today, having taken a couple of vacation days. My parents arrive tomorrow afternoon. I need my place to look a little less filthy. Yeah, it’s been pretty bad. In the winter, I tend to be more clean around the house because I’m cooped up. In the summer, it’s harder to do that.

Last night, we got some really hard rain, and it was hitting both air conditioners pretty hard. It reminds me that I need to take them out of the windows soon. Maybe I’ll get my dad to help me while he’s here.

Here is my tentative plan for this weekned. I’m going to have my parents meet me at my office, which will be easier to get to than my apartment. I’ll show them where I work, walk to Copley Square, showing them the South End, and then take the Green Line to Haymarket. They can see Haymarket and we’ll walk to the North End for some food.

Sunday, we’ll either go to Salem or, depending on the weather, take a drive up I93 to see the leaves. We could take the Amtrak Downeaster train, but it doesn’t take you right INTO Portland from what I hear. We’ll see. If the parents would rather take the train, we can do that, too.

I bitch and complain about our project management system (PMS) quite a bit, but the fact of the matter is that it works rather well for what it’s supposed to do. If you look at it from my perspective, it sucks. But if you look at it from the perspective of our users, it’s not a bad system. And we’ve done a lot to improve the functionality over what the vendor provides. So on that note, the vendor just announced that their annual user’s conference will be this April in San Diego. I may be presenting a session. Well, at least we’re going to offer. We have one of the largest databases of any of their clients, and we’ve learned a few things about managing their system at this size.

Having said that… I got some advice this morning from their support center that was just bad. And I told them that. I don’t think he liked that. I need to call and talk to somebody above him about that. If they’re giving customers the same advice they gave me, their customers are going to have very fragmented disks on their SQL servers. And that’s bad. Very bad.

Turn the sound up and listen to this one. It’s NOT safe for work.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nPXx2ceFr1k

In the first season of Star Trek: The Next Generation, Tasha Yar (played by Denise Crosby) dies. Her memorial service always gets me a little choked up.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gPE2yaNP9hY

Look how young Wil Wheaton was.

I was transferring from the blue line to the 120 bus. The bus driver
pulled into the square, turned off his lights, and killed the engine. I
heard one of my fellow passengers mutter “Please don’t go out of
service.”. The driver stepped off the bus and lit his cigarette. He said
that we could wait on the bus, but he wasn’t leaving for another fifteen
minutes. I guess this bus has some wiggle room in his schedule, but
really, in fifteen minutes, he could make it to Wood Island and back.

Its a good thing this driver was kinda hot or I’d be really pissed
instead of just slightly annoyed.

This is a moblog entry.

I just saw something on the silverline one should never see.  There is a
reason I tuck in my shirts. You should, too.

This is a moblog entry.

The 2007 Boston MS Walk will be held on Saturday, April 29. My goal this year is to raise $3000.

Stay tuned for details.