Geekonablog News

I can't believe that I haven't posted since April 23rd.  It doesn't seem like it was that long ago, but I guess that I've let things go around here for a while.

Well, let me tell you what's been going on in my life.  In April, I started on a new team at work, which I mentioned in my last post.  We're creating a new web page configuration app for the new web platform that Best Buy (me included) has been working on for over a year.  You may have noticed changes to Best Buy's product pages, I had a hand in that work and now I'm on the team that is going to allow more pages to go to the new cloud-based platform by having a tool to configure those pages that isn't based on the old platform.  I know that this description is a little hand-wavey, but I'm not sure how much I should be sharing.  I figure that just mentioning I'm doing this work is safe enough.

Since April, my family and I have gone on two vacations.  The first one was with my family and...my family.  Meaning the family that I started with my wife and the family I was born into (mom, dad, brother, sister and her family).  We stayed at a cabin that my sister found online.  It was awesome!  Fishing every day, hanging out, playing games, relaxing.

The second vacation was camping at the Hayward, WI KOA.  We stayed there three days and two nights with some friends.  I've stayed at that KOA and the Hixton, WI, and I would recommend either of them for anyone looking for a good time.  They have plenty of activities and they are reasonably priced.  We stayed in a small cabin (basically four walls and beds).  When the kids grow up a little, we'll probably try it with a tent.

Other than that, it's summer, so some more fishing, swimming, working in the yard, etc.  Busy, busy.  I have missed writing here and writing stories.  I've been wanting to get back to some of my serial stories (Uroth, Candy Land, maybe even Thaw Deal).  I've also wanted to do more Chuck Wendig challenges, but haven't had any weekend time to do those.  Look for something (hopefully) soon.

In the non-fiction realm, I think I might write a post about Pair Programming.  I used to be against the concept, but my new team does it and I think that I can see the benefits, but more on that when I write that post.

Yes, I Am Lame

Yes, it's been five months since my last post.  You guys deserve better than that.  So, I'm here to tell you that I'm working on a non-fiction blog post right now that will go up this week.  I'd like to tell you that I'm working on another story, but that's just not the case.  I don't know what it is, but I really, really, really haven't felt like writing for the past few months.  Not just writing fiction, but also regular blog posts either.

It's not that suitable topics haven't come up.  A lot has happened in the past five months, but my desire to write just hasn't been there even though I could have had interesting things to share.  I'm going to turn that around, not because I'm filled with a desire to write, but because I'm filled with a desire to have a desire to write.  Does that make sense?

So, check back later this week (or subscribe via email, using the widget on the right, or using RSS) for a non-fiction blog post.  I'll keep my brain working on ideas for a fiction piece, but I can't make any promises on that.

Twinkle, Twinkle, Little... Pancake?

I don't often post about my personal life, but I decided that this was too cute and funny not to share.  My daughter, who is now 5, likes me to sing "silly songs" at night for bedtime.  Her favorite song is "Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Pancake", though sometimes she suggests different objects for me to sing about.  For example, Benny (her brother), Daddy, Teddy, Miss Fishy (her fish, who is a boy, btw), etc.

Here are the lyrics for "Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Pancake":

Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Pancake

How many can that little man make?

Up above the plate so high

With some syrup in the sky

Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Pancake

How many can that little man make?

This song often starts a short discussion about how many the man can actually make.  Most of the time the answer is 10,000; which he sometimes shares with his friends, unless they are dead or he wants to eat them all himself.  When he does eat 10,000 pancakes himself, he will explode, of course.  That many pancakes is too many for one person to eat, obviously.

Just a few of the 10,000 pancakes.

These discussions are very fun and show her creative and storytelling side.  They remind me of "Written By A Kid".  I can imagine the man making 10,000 pancakes and getting ready to deliver them to his friends to either find them dead, or to decide to eat them all himself and explode.  Sometimes her stories vary wildly, too.  He once fed them all to everyone in town, another time he fed them to all the animals.

Her creativity and ability to tell a story about what she's thinking about make me one proud daddy.  I can't wait to see what she's going to come up with next.

Random Pictures

In honor of having my best month on the blog ever (in terms of page views), I've decided to post some cool pictures.  If you're not interested in this kind of stuff, feel free to skip it.

The first item isn't a picture, but rather a video of my daughter signing the Mahna Mahna song with me.  Every now and then I hear her signing it, which means that I've raised her right.

This picture is Link from Link to the Past made out of Perler beads.  I've made quite a few 8-bit characters from them, but this is one of my favorites.

This is a portrait that Kate, my daughter, drew of me.  Pretty accurate, I think.

My wife and I saw this deer in our backyard the other day.  Pretty awesome!

This is a small walking trail near our house.  Kate had just said, "We're on an adventure!"

I was behind this Lotus in traffic the other day.  You don't realize how small they are until you're close to them.  I don't think that I'd even fit inside!

These are my kids looking at the penguins at the Minnesota Zoo.

More Perler bead characters that I've made.

Hope you enjoy these pics.  I'm working on a story that I'll post here in the next few weeks, or, if Chuck Wendig posts another interesting story challenge, maybe you'll see on of those on here soon.

Social Anxiety

If you've read my blog before, you'll realize that I'm a geek, or, if you prefer, a big nerd.  I'm cool with that.  It's who I am.  One of the reasons that I am who I am is because of social anxiety.  In high school, I would escape social situations by playing video games alone at home and only hanging out with the few close friends that I had.  I've always felt anxious in social situations, but only lately have I realized that even though work is obviously a social situation, I don't feel anxiety about going to work or meetings at work.

I started to wonder why this was true.  I thought that if I could figure out why I felt different about work that I could somehow apply that to normal social situations.  So far, the only thing that I can think of is that I don't see the people I work with as social entities.  That's hard to explain; even though I like most of the people around me at work, I guess that I don't feel like I'm there to be social.  I'm there to work.  I'm not a psychologist by any means, so I don't know if that's the right answer or not, but it presents a problem if that's true.  If that's true, it means that I can't apply it to other social situations because I am in those situations specifically to socialize.  I'm also not saying that I don't feel social anxiety while at work.  Running into someone you know just walking down the hall at work is quite an awkward situation for me.  Do I look in their direction?  When should I acknowledge them?  How do I acknowledge them?  I don't know how other people do it so effortlessly.

Just to be clear, the anxiety I feel about social situations isn't just a tiny amount of stress.  It's a nearly crippling, hard to breathe level of stress.  Just yesterday I had a company social event (we bowled at a fancy bowling alley place called Pinstripes).  Before the event, as I was driving there, I was practically in a panicked state.  I was thinking over and over that I didn't have to go and that I should just skip it.  Once I was there, the stress lessened, but I could still feel it in my gut the whole time I was there.

So, what do I do?  I push through the feelings as best I can.  Yesterday, I just forced myself to go inside and talk and bowl and try to have fun.  I still felt terribly awkward the whole time and hope that others didn't pick up on that.  In many social situations (such as parties), I can just stand around and not talk to anyone.  In these situations, I'm afraid that I come off as a pretentious jerk who doesn't want to talk to anyone.  That couldn't be further from the truth.  I would love to talk to people and get to know them, but I'm crippled by anxiety over saying the wrong thing, or not being able to follow social customs.  So, I just stay quiet and out of everyone's way.

Just writing about this is hard.  I don't even know why I decided to write about this at all.  Maybe I'm wondering how other people who have social anxiety handle it.  If you feel like sharing, leave a comment.  Maybe I hope that getting this off my chest will help me deal with the issue.  I don't know.  Sometimes I feel like Raj from The Big Bang Theory, but not as extreme and more general than just not being able to talk to pretty girls.

Recent Inactivity

Hello everyone.  As you may have noticed, it's been quite some time since I've posted on the blog.

I'm a creative person.  Creative people have to have creative outlets, or we go insane.  I have several creative outlets: software development (my job), writing (on here), and crafts.  Over the past year or so, I did a lot of writing that I've posted on here and a bit that I haven't.  That, along with work, was my main creative output.  Lately, though, I've been into crafting with Perler or iron beads.

I don't know if you've heard of these beads before, but they're used to create little trinkets.  I've taken the liberty of posting some of my creations below.  My wife and I have opened a joint Etsy shop where I plan to post these and future creations up for sale.

Is this the end of Story a Week?  Yes.  Will I continue to write and post stories up on my blog?  Most definitely.  I will continue to write because I love to do it.  I will just do it in my own time.  After all, I still have at least three storylines that I want to wrap up for you all.  I can't just leave you all hanging like that.  :)

So, enjoy these photos of my little creations.

I've also created a Mega Man, a Yoshi and a Princess Peach, but the camera battery died before I could take those pics.

Goodbye 2011!

Well, these are the last few minutes of 2011, so I thought that (like most other bloggers) it was time to write up a year-end blog post.  Considering that I don't read most year-end blog posts, I don't expect a lot of people to read this one, but I'll continue nonetheless.

This year has been a great year for me and my family.  My wife and I took a great vacation, we bought a new house, I got a new job, and we got a new car.  That's just the short list.  I've written about each of these things in this blog.

Of course, there's always some bad that comes with the good.  This year, my wife found out that she was Hyperthyroid.  She went in and got a radiation treatment to calm down her thyroid.  It turned out to have calmed it down too much and turned her Hypothyroid.  So, now she has to take a pill every day for the rest of her life.  It's been difficult for us and particularly for her.  Of course, it could be worse, so we'll get through this.

For myself, like I said, I got a new job.  So far, I'm happy with the change.  Also, I've been doing this thing called Story a Week.  I've been a little lax during the holidays, but so far, I've written 40 stories and I LOVE doing it.  Most of my stories fall into part of one of a few story arcs that I've been working on.  That wasn't my plan when I started the project, but overall I'm happy with what I've done.  In my opinion, the experience has really improved my writing.  It has also allowed me to share with you all some of the stories that I've had floating around in my head.

So, now's the part where I make some resolutions.  It's also the part I hate the most about New Years.  But, it's a tradition, and I do like the sentiment of it.  So, here's a list of resolutions from me:
-I will finish a novel this year.  I have a few started, and I could probably turn some of my storylines from Story a Week into novels.  I'd also like this to be separate from my attempt at NaNoWriMo this year.
-I will get healthier this year.  I've already started this by joining the YMCA and I've even gone a few times in the two weeks we've had the membership.  I have medium-high cholesterol and I'm a little bigger than I'd like to be, so that's pretty much why I'd like to do that.
-I will be less crabby this year.  I've been turning into a crabby old man and I need to stop that before it's too late.
-I will attempt NaNoWriMo again.  I can't do much worse than the 3,000 words that I got to this year.  I think that I know what I need to do differently; I need to do my research first and write about something that flows easier.

I think these are attainable goals.  Plus, this year I've documented them on my blog, so I have more motivation to stick with them.  Hopefully.

It's a New Car!

2012 Honda Odyssey

Last night, my wife and I did our civic duty to improve the economy by buying a new 2012 Honda Odyssey.  We had an...interesting...car buying experience and I wanted to share it here.  Before I delve into the story, I need to tell you that my wife is the negotiator in our family.  She's good with money, finances and figures, plus she doesn't take any shit from anyone.  I cave in negotiations at the first sign of a struggle.  Not to mention that if you add a dollar sign in front of a number it transforms somehow into an unintelligible figure for me.  I'm good with numbers, but not money.  Not a good thing.  Also, she's a really awesome negotiator.

Our experience started on Saturday while the kids were staying over at their grandma's house.  We knew that we wanted to get an Odyssey, so we headed on over to Walser Honda in Burnsville.  We walked in and were immediately greeted.  We were told that they are a best price dealership.  That means that they don't negotiate on price.  Okay, that's cool; we don't like high pressure sales pitches anyway.  So we saw a couple of Odyssey's and test drove one.  We were already sold on the idea of buying one, and we were trading in our 2004 Honda Accord.  We gave them the keys and they drove it and looked it over and came back with a very low offer.  Well, we thought that this was where the wiggle room was and my wife told them that we needed a certain amount to make this work.  They "reminded" us that they are a best price dealership and didn't negotiate.  Well, long story short, we left without buying the van.

We were a little disappointed by not having a new van, so later that day (with our kids in tow) we headed over to Inver Grove Heights Honda.  My mother-in-law bought her Civic Hybrid from there and we'd had our Accord serviced there a few times, so we thought it would go smoothly.  Ha!  It started out good enough.  The kids were behaving well and we saw a good Odyssey and the kids seemed to love it.  They literally climbed over every inch of the interior.  Next came the negotiation part.  The kids were starting to get restless, so I took them to the little kids area that they had there while my wife negotiated with the sales guy.  So, I wasn't there during the negotiations, but from what my wife tells me, the guy was forceful and conniving.  At one point, he made her initial a hand written note that she would accept a certain price so that he could bring it to his manager.  Guess what?  He came back with a price higher than that!  She called it quits then and he tried to rally with "one more attempt" to talk his manager down.  Well, guess what dude, you had your chance.

By now, we were frustrated with the whole process, not disappointed.  We talked it over on Sunday and decided that come Monday, we'd try one more time at Walser.  Monday came and my wife called them and asked them if they had a certain color Odyssey and they confirmed that they did.  After I came home from work, we went there (sans kids, thanks to grandma again).  We walked in and wanted to take a look at the van and the same sales guy we talked to on Saturday went to get the keys.  About ten minutes later he came back and said that they couldn't find the van.  Apparently, sometimes the computer gets updated to say that the car is on the lot even when it hasn't arrived yet.  How stupid is that?  They literally had no idea where the vehicle was or when they'd get it.  UPS can track packages and tell you within the hour that they'll arrive, but a car dealership can't tell where their $35,000 car is?  Well, after discussing the color options (which were not satisfactory), we asked if they would let us have a loaner for the weekend if the van hadn't arrived by then.  They said no.  No negotiating power at all.  What a waste of time.  We left as frustrated as before.

On the way home, my wife called the third dealership that's relatively close to our house and asked if they had the color we were looking for.  They didn't, but they told us that the Hopkins Honda had two.  We drove the ~20 miles to Hopkins.  My wife was on the phone with the sales guy so that he would have all the paperwork as ready as he could for when we got there.  We were hoping for a relatively quick process with no negotiations involved.  We had two prices for the van and trade-in and she told the guy upfront what they were and what we were expecting.

So far, we'd had two extremes.  We had Walser which wouldn't budge on anything price-wise.  We had the Inver Grove guy who was getting to the price we wanted, but only after jumping through hoop after hoop.  We got to Hopkins and found something in between.  They are also a "best price" dealership, but the guy wanted to sell us a car, so my wife did a little negotiation with him on price and we all agreed on a price and trade-in value in record time.  We had to wait on a finance person, so I unloaded the car seats and other stuff from the Accord and put them in our new Odyssey.  Once the finance guy was ready, we went in and signed everything and drove off in our new car just before the dealer closing time.

Overall, I'd say that we saw a wide range of strategies regarding negotiation.  We had Walser, on the far end of the spectrum with absolutely no negotiations.  Then we had the far other end of the spectrum with over-negotiations at Inver Grove.  Finally, we had a good mix at Hopkins Honda with limited negotiations in the middle of the spectrum.

When we bought our G6 two and a half years ago, the dealer had the same kind of strategy that they used in Hopkins.  We were in and out in a couple of hours and everyone was happy.  While we ended up with a good deal and a good van, the experiences that two of the dealerships gave us were anything but good.

Job Change

Those of you who know me personally probably have heard the news already, but here it goes: I've started a new job!  This time it's for real, unlike last time.  :)

The decision to leave the company that I'd been with for nearly five years was a difficult one.  There have been many frustrations over the years there, but the number one reason that I chose to leave (at least at the start of the process) was travel.  I've been travelling almost constantly for work for five years now.  I've had a couple of slow periods where I would get to stay home for a month or two, but overall, I'd say that I have spent about fifty percent of my time with Wyde on the road.  By itself, travelling isn't that bad.  I do enjoy visiting new places and meeting new people, but with a family (and especially two small children), travelling is very taxing.  Now, don't misunderstand me, I'm not saying that my family makes it hard to travel; I'm saying travelling makes it hard on my family.  I just couldn't live with it any longer.

The other thing to understand is that I wasn't looking for a new job.  One of the things that I hate the most in life is job hunting!  When I graduated from college, it took me ten months to find a job in my field!  Ten months!  Granted, that was at a particularly tough part of the recession, but the hardest part is getting your hopes up and then being rejected.  I couldn't count how many times I heard, "we're very interested," or, "we'll be in touch," or any other saying that leaves a candidate with hope just to have it all come to nothing.  A couple of times I had been told that they wouldn't give me a formal offer right away, but that I would get one within the week, but never heard back from them.  Well, I'm getting a little off topic here, so I digress.

My point is that I wasn't looking.  I've been getting a call from headhunters about once a quarter for the past year or two and I would go through the motions, maybe have an interview or two and then not hear anything.  I took it all in stride, not getting my hopes up for any of it.  This last time, about a month ago, I had another head hunter call that went a little differently.  The recruiter handed me right off to the interested company and they wanted to interview me right away and in person.  I was, unfortunately, out of town, but they were cool and we scheduled for the next week.  They acted fast and got me an offer the same week that I had the second interview.  Now, I'm not going to go into the details of what happened next, but there was a counter offer and then a counter-counter offer and I ended up accepting the new company's counter-counter offer.  That's another thing that I wasn't trying to do (get a bidding war over me going), but it's nice to feel wanted!

So, what's different now that wasn't when I'd gotten other interviews?  Well, for one, the new company has a different outlook on what it takes to be a good developer.  They feel, similarly to how I feel, that if you know the theory/concepts of object-oriented programming that a language is easy to learn.  It's surprising to me how most other companies don't grasp that.  I hadn't done Java programming since college and this company was willing to take the risk based on my interview and hire me as a Java developer!  I was amazed!  Another reason is that I am more experienced now than I was out of college.  Duh, right?  Well, I didn't really fully realize that until I started talking to this company and they asked me certain questions that a newbie might not know about.

You may have noticed that I haven't mentioned the name of my new company.  The reason is that I'm not sure how they would take me writing a blog about this whole thing.  Maybe after I've worked here for some time I'll share with you all that information, but for now I'll keep it quiet.

Another main benefit to switching jobs is that I get to work using Java again.  I've been reading training manuals now for a while and the more I read the more I remember why I liked Java.  It's also made me realize how important a good design is to having a successful product.  I'm just going to leave it at that.

So, it's exciting news!  At the same time that I'm sad about leaving Wyde and leaving the friends that I made there, I'm happy for this new opportunity to return to Java and do something different.  It's a good opportunity to grow my skillset and to see how other companies do this consulting thing.  Also, yay for no travel! :P

PS: It still amazes me that Word likes "travelling", but Firefox wants it to be "traveling".

Change is Inevitable

I've been told before that change is inevitable.  I don't disagree with this, but there are times when I absolutely hate that things change.  Change can be good or bad, but it always brings with it a level of uncertainty.  I hate uncertainty.

There has been a major change at my company today.  Wyde has been bought by an Indian company called MphasiS, a subsidiary of Hewlett-Packard.  You can read more details about this here and here.  We had a companywide phone call this morning when the news was dropped.  I tweeted about it here.  Needless to say, it was quite a surprise.

I've been with Wyde for four and a half years now.  Being with a company that long gives you some idea at what your career prospects are like within the company.  I knew where I was and where I was likely to go and I was happy with that.  Now, though, this change has introduced a large amount of uncertainty to that path.  Sure, management told us several times that we would remain a separate entity and that nothing would be changing.  I'm not so sure.  I'd like to believe that, but if management didn't want anything to change within the company, why would they sell it to MphasiS?

They explained that MphasiS would bring us more opportunity and I do believe them.  One of our problems of late is getting large insurers to take us seriously due to our size.  While the company has at least grown by four times in the time that I've been there, two hundred employees doesn't make us a large company.  MphasiS will solve that issue because of their numbers.  They will allow us to create an off-shore team in India that can support Wynsure development efforts.  Their size brings a certain amount of credibility to Wynsure and a guarantee that Wyde won't just disappear off the face of the earth at any moment.

I never really write about my personal life, so why am I writing about this?  Good question.  Well, I have been filled with a tumultuous sea of emotions ever since I heard the news and I thought that getting it all down into a blog post would help me sort out my feelings on the issue.  Also, because I don't really write a lot about my personal life.

So, what are my feelings about all this?  Well, I don't really like the uncertainty that this change brings to the table.  I'd like to think that I've cemented my reputation and career path within Wyde and this has cracked that foundation.  Why would Wyde use me as a project manager when I'm sure MphasiS has many project managers chomping at the bit to get on one of our projects?

Of course, there is the feeling of hope that this change brings.  Lately, I haven't been terribly satisfied with my job.  Sure, it pays well enough and I certainly am good at it, but I've been having a lot of trouble lately caring about it.  I do the job from day to day, but I haven't been putting any feeling into my job.  The hope here is that this change forces me to care or forces me to find something else.  Since I'm kind of lazy and hate job hunting, I'm hoping that this shakes things up a little for me and gives me a reason to care again.

So, what does this change mean for me right now?  Nothing.  Right now I'm going to play the wait and see game.  I'll be prepared, of course, the best I can.  I've tried to stay positive and that's the best that I can do right now.  Is this change good or bad?  I think it's too early to say, quite yet.  I'll let you know as soon as I know.

PS: I almost titled this post "How I became a third tier HP employee".  Is that a better title?  :)

PPS: Since change is inevitable, I've changed my Twitter handle.  I'm now @geekonablog!

Geeky Awakening

I've been a geek (or nerd, if you prefer) my entire life. I never had an issue with this. I always accepted that this was who I was and it was who I wanted to be. It wasn't until relatively recently, however, that I "discovered" the broader spectrum of geek culture.

Sure, I played D&D, video games, read sci-fi (or syfy, if you prefer) and fantasy books, etc., but I wasn't directly connected to geek culture, I was just moving on a parallel path. My journey into exploring geek culture started just over a year ago. I was looking for reading material or blogs or something about raising kids (we had an almost two year old and our son was on the way) when I did a search for geek and dad or something like that. I then stumbled upon the Geek Dad blog. I was immediately hooked and began to read it every day. I had found my first connection to the greater geek community, but it didn't stop there...

Through that blog I found their podcast that included regular episodes featuring geeky music. I really enjoyed listening to the podcasts, but I didn't make an effort to find out more about the artists or music. This was partly because I didn't realize at the time how big the scene was or that the information was readily available through quick searches. Nerds and geeks rule the internets, of course our music is going to be easily accessible there.

I was just starting to delve deeper when my son was born. I remained in a far orbit of the geek community for a long time during the first few months of his life. I didn't venture further inside, nor did I drift out of it to my prior state.

After a few months, things settled in my house and I got more free time (aka sleep). Also, I began to travel for work again, so I had more time to surf the net and listen to podcasts. That's when I started listening to Radio Free Hipster. Z, the geeky personality behind the podcast, introduced me to a lot more music that is right up my alley. Also, through Z's blog "Hipster, Please" and a few other blogs and websites that I found, I am getting more into the greater geek culture.

I discovered (or was led to) geeky icons like Jonathan Coulton, Wil Wheaton, Adam Savage, MC Frontalot, and a lot more. Of course I knew of Wil Wheaton and Adam Savage before my geeky awakening, but I hadn’t read much about them and didn’t know about wootstock either.

A couple of months ago I picked up a RSS reader, FeedDemon, which has helped me keep up with all of the websites that I am now fond of visiting. I've also often considered joining Twitter since a lot of my geeky idols are on there, but I can't bring myself to pull the trigger on that one.

My new affinity to the greater geek culture has led me to a dilemma of sorts. I've always known about PAX and Comic-con and other geeky gatherings, but the more I read about them from the websites I am now visiting, the more I want to go to them. I haven't been able to work going to any of them into my schedule, but maybe once I'm not regularly traveling, I might be able to work do just that. The problem is that with my travel schedule, I don't get enough time with my family as it is, much less taking a weekend out of that time to do something frivolous, not matter how much fun it might be. Going to PAX this weekend would be awesome, but at this point I don't want to take time away from my family to do that.

I find that I may have reached the pinnacle of my connectedness to geek culture by not going to one of these gatherings, but at this point, I can't convince myself to spend the time and money to travel out to something. If only there was a big convention like that in Minneapolis coming up soon! I've also read about people like me putting together small geeky conventions, such as Nerdapalooza, but I don't have the resources or time to do that, much less the connections or anything to get something like that going.

So, that’s the story of my geeky awakening. I feel like I identify more with the greater geeky community, which is good, but I also feel like I might be missing out on a lot of fun by skipping the awesome sounding events occurring around the country.

And, like always, I will be sharing my favorite song of the moment: The Grammar Club – Balloon Flight. The reason that I do this is to possibly introduce you to a song or artist you may not have heard before. I encourage you all to do a quick google search or youtube search for these songs/artists. You might like what you hear.

Welcome/First Post

Hello world! (A little programming humor there!)

I've been wanting to start a blog for quite a while and what was holding me back was trying to choose a topic/format that I wanted for my blog. I've decided to go with NO TOPIC and NO FORMAT! :) This frees me up to talk about whatever I want, whenever I want. I am going to try and post at least once a week, so stay tuned. I have the idea for my first real post in my head and after I organize my thoughts a bit I'll be turning that into a blog post later this week.

Now for an introduction to me. I am a Geek. I proudly admit that and I have been this way for as long as I can remember. I've been playing D & D forever, using computers with skill for almost as long. I have other geek cred too, I like Star Trek and Star Wars, among other things. You will learn all about that in future posts.

As the first line alludes, I am a programmer. I have a CS degree with a Business Admin minor, and I have been in the workplace for over three years now. I like programming, but my real goal in life is to open a hobby/gaming shop.

I think that is all for now. Like I said, stay tuned for my first real post later this week!