Mobile Blogging

My how adventurous I've become. I am writing a post on my phone for the first time. And of course, in geeky fashion, I am doing it not because I have to, but because I can. I am sitting in front of my computer and typing on my new iPhone.

The yet-to-be-renamed Ms. Fiancé is going to be interviewed tomorrow by ABC about one of her patients. She's a pretty big deal. :-)

As for me, going to Viking's training camp was great. I'm always excited for football season. I just bought tickets for the Stielers preseason game at the dome. The inlaws are Stielers fans and are coming up for the game. My parental units are also coming with to help me cheer for the Vikes.

I finished the summer softball season with the highest on-base percentage on the team. Not a bad change from last year, when I was near the bottom. I'm getting luckier with age.

Deal of the day: Vikings training camp in Mankato. Free to get in, you just have to pay $5 to park all day if you park at the stadium.

Removing Viruses, Trojans, and Spyware!

A late night post from the Mac Man while I attempt to remove internet viruses, trojans, and spyware from a friend's computer. It's loaded. You boot up the machine and you instantly start getting flooded with pop-ups, fake security warnings, etc. Reminds my of one more reason I really enjoy my Macs.

The wife and I got a bunch of pictures and wall-hanging-things hung up Sunday night. Those are the kinds of things that I just don't think about, but they add a little character to the otherwise empty walls. 

My volleyball team won 2 of 3 games tonight, which was a nice change of pace from the previous few weeks. We started off undefeated for a couple of weeks, and then it went downhill fast, to the point that we didn't win a game for a few weeks. The ref has some sort of family emergency, so he left right before we were about to start. The people we played were good sports, however, and we were all pretty easy-going on calls.

The new iPhone was announced yesterday, as expected, and I'm super pumped. My contract with Verizon has been up since April and I've been waiting for the new iPhone to be announced to switch. The new version has faster internet (3G), GPS, and longer battery life, among other things. It costs a lot less up front than the old iPhone, but the data plan now costs more so over the span of a 2 year contract it really ends up costing the same. The math still works out in favor of it over my Treo, however, since Verizon's data plans are more expensive and a new Treo wouldn't be that much cheaper up front than the new iPhone. The release date of July 11th can't come soon enough, although I'm going camping that weekend and will not be near a store for the launch.

DotD: Musical pillow for $1.19. Just plug in your MP3 player and fall asleep to Kutlass.

My Bad

You tried to warn me, but I didn't listen. You tried to tell me that I was making a mistake, but I ignored you anyway.

Turns out, you were right. Serenity is an awesome movie!

Mr. Da Coops and I got to talking about movies on our drive up to camping, and he brought up Firefly. I mentioned seeing one episode, but not liking it much because I had no idea what was going on. Well, Mr. Da Coops, I'm ready to start watching Firefly now. It might be a bit weird, since according to IMDB, Serenity supposedly takes place after the last Firefly episode, but I guess that just makes the experience somewhat like Memento. And there's nothing wrong with that!

For what it's worth, I'm also now just one episode away from finishing season one of Star Trek: Voyager, with season one of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine waiting in the wings (backwards again, I know). Yeah, I'm a bit behind on a couple of shows... ;-)

Oh, and if you run into Ms. Fiance, don't forget to tell her happy birthday. The official day is Sunday, but everyone except me gets a free buffer of a couple of days to let her know that you didn't forget. Because you didn't, right? Right?

And because I completely forgot about Deal of the Day in my last post, you get two today. And what better way to spread the savings than with two more Apple deals!

DotD: Apple iPhone - $399 - Just 2 months after being introduced, it's now available for $200 less. Plus, the people that already bought an iPhone get a $100 credit at the Apple Store because of the sudden and massive price drop. First time I've heard of that happening!

DotD Part 2: 40 free digital prints - Sign up for York Photo (a sister company of Snapfish) and get your first 40 prints free.

KKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKK

The great and powerful families have finally met. This past weekend Ms. Fiance's parents met my parents for the first time. It went swimmingly well. Not that we were worried or anything, but it's nice to have that past us.

We did a little steak and corn-on-the-cob grilling on Saturday, and then played a few games of cards. No, Cooper, not THOSE cards. ;-)

On Sunday, Ms. Fiance and I were on worship team at church, and we sang a duet during offering. It went really well. We had some issues getting to that point, however. The first plan was to sing along to an instrument-only CD track, but the range was too high in a couple spots, and if I dropped down an octive, it was too low in a couple spots. Basically, the worst possible range for me. The other option was to have someone play the piano (actually keyboard), but then Ms. Fiance had some trouble with the harmony since it was in a different key. In the end we slowly worked out the harmony and sang with the keyboard, guitar, and drums from the worship band backing us up. It was really cool that both of our sets of parents were there for our duet debut.

After church, we headed down to the Metrodome to see the Twins play. Wow, what a game! This was the Johan Santana performance you may have heard about, where he struck out 17 people in 8 innings. Think about that. He had to get 24 outs, and 17 were strikeouts. Crazy! And only Sammy Sosa caused it to not be a no-hitter, as he had both hits that the Twins allowed.

And you thought all it did was rain this weekend!

DotD: Refurbished iPhone - $399 or $499 - For a hundred bucks less than a brand new phone, you can have a just-like-new, factory-refurbished iPhone, in either the 4 GB or 8 GB version. Yes, it is still expensive, but it's an iPhone! Why aren't you running yet? Oh...yeah...it's on the internet... Why aren't you clicking yet?

My short career as a uniform salesman

I just got back from Boston yesterday. It was a really short trip. I flew out on Sunday night after leaving early from the TEC meeting, had an all-day UML training class to attend on Monday, and then flew back Tuesday morning.

The class itself wasn't really worth the trip, since we've covered UML in my undergraduate and graduate level courses quite a bit, but the entire software team was required to go. I could have condensed the useful-to-me training from 8 hours to 30 minutes. Basically all I learned was the new changes to UML 2.0 (which are actually quite nice). I did, however, get to have dinner with a former coworker who lives out there now, and I got to play with his new iPhone on Monday night. That was fun. 

I did have some travel-related quirks to the trip, however. Because of the storms that rolled through on Sunday, instead of arriving in Boston at 10:30, we were delayed and arrived at the hotel at 2:00 am. Then, when I went to check in, they couldn't find my reservation. As I was searching for my confirmation number, they desk clerk found my name, but said I'd already checked in.

Say what?

Yep, according to their records, I had checked in early that evening, and that person was in my room. Furthermore, when that guy checked in, he said he worked for a company that sells uniforms, not exactly my company's line of work. That room was already switched from my credit card to direct billing to the uniform company, so I didn't have to worry about being charged for their stay. But still, very odd.

The guy at the desk was very apologetic, however, and was joking with me about my career change and my apparant multiple personalities. He also upgraded me to a room with a jacuzzi. 

Now, since I had to be up in about 4 hours for the class, I didn't get to take advantage of it that night. But I did try it out the next night. It was nice, but a big small for my legs. There was no way to completely stretch out my legs, so either my feet or my knees had to be out of the water. Such poor living conditions, I know... ;-)

And thus, Tuesday morning, my career as a multiple personality uniform salesman came to an end while I checked out of the hotel. It was a nice run while it lasted.

Oh, and watching episodes of Star Trek: Voyager on an iPod is an excellent way to pass the time at the airport and on the airplane. I decided to start watching the series from beginning to end, since I've only seen a few of the epidodes up till now. I made it through about the first 5 on my trip. Favorite moment so far: the doctor slapping Tom Paris in the face to show that holograms aren't just images. It was hilarious!

Oh, and Baron thought I looked very manly at the TEC meeting when I ran into him in the hall. It made my day. I'm not sure if it was because of my handsome good looks, or because I was holding onto Ms. Fiance's purse for her. Or it could be because he was so excited to see me that that's the best compliment he could think of as his brain shut down in wonder. I'm going to assume the latter.

DotD: Free Squishee (Slurpee) at 7-Eleven today-only to celebrate the 80th birthday of 7-Eleven.

Wedding Blues

Come on now, don't get so carried away already! I never said these wedding blues had anything to do with my upcoming wedding. Get your facts straight before you jump to conclusions like that!

Anywho, Ms. Fiance was in a wedding this weekend, the much-hyped 7-7-7 thing. As wonderful fiance, I attended the rehearsal dinner and wedding reception. I did not go to the wedding itself, since I did not know the bride or the groom at all (hadn't even seen a picture), and since Ms. Fiance was in the wedding, I would have been sitting by myself, not knowing anyone (except a couple of people I met at the rehearsal dinner), in a Catholic wedding. I get a little nervous in Catholic churches, always a bit afraid I'm going to be standing or sitting at the wrong time, or doing something that only Catholics are supposed to do or something. I think I need a Catholicism For Dummies book or something to help me out.

The rehearsal dinner itself was fine, although as previously mentioned, I went into it knowing nobody besides Ms. Fiance. I did get to chat with a couple guys who were going to be sitting near me at the reception the next day. Yep, because Ms. Fiance was a bridesmaid, I got to sit at a reserved table, having my own name card and everything. 

And where, pray tell, did Mac Man get to sit?

Wait for it...

Wait for it...

Oh, none other than the front-most, center-most table other than the head table. In other words, here were the guests at my table:

1. Bride's mother

2. Groom's mother

3. Groom's father

4. Groom's grandmother #1

5. Groom's grandmother #2

6. Priest

7. Scripture reader and husband of one of the bridesmaids (no, not Ms. Fiance)

8. Me

Oh, and my chair was the absolute closest to the bride and groom of anyone in the entire room, other than the wedding party. Even the parents were farther away than me.

Don't get me wrong, it was a nice reception, pretty good food, and Ms. Fiance and I enjoyed a little swing dancing, a little polka, a little YMCA, a little Chicken Dancing, and a little slow-dancing. But man, was the whole ordeal uncomfortable at times. 

Random happy thought from the wedding reception: I saw two iPhones in use. A husband and his wife each had one, and the husband, who was also the Best Man, also made reference to Steve Jobs in his toast. Nifty!

DotD: 320 GB hard drive - $59.99 - A great price for this size hard drive. You can either install it inside your computer, or buy an external case for it (like this one, free after rebate) and be able to move it from computer to computer.

Here we go!

I begin my new adventure as a member of the worship team this morning (approximately 2 hours). Hopefully that goes as well as Baron's day at KT.

Also, today is the first team meeting for TEC. My sister, fiance, and I will be in the conference room, and my Dad will be in the Support room. Can't wait!

DotD: iPhone - $499 or $599 - Couldn't resist. Buy one already!