While I wish that Mom was still around, I do think that her grave marker is very precious and dear. If you’re in Arlington Cemetery anytime soon, go visit and say hi to the most wonderful Mother that I know.
You’ll always be my Mother, I’ll always be your son… forever, and ever.
So I haven’t seen either of these films, but have seen the trailers for both and then came across this and thought that I felt I had to share it with you all…
At the Memorial Service for my Mom last November, my brother had three things to share that Mom had taught him. I would say that Mom definitely emphasized those three things to me as well, but that she also went on to emphasize three other things that I should seek out and try to work on.
1 – Finish Well in all things… whether it be a project, or job, or a tasking, finishing well to ensure that there was no question of whether or not I had really had my heart in it and honored the request of what was being asked of me.
2 – Kill them with kindness… It may sound odd, but for those instances where I would disagree with my brother, or with a friend, or just didn’t understand where someone was coming from with their viewpoint, rather than continuing to stir things up through an argument – kill them with kindness. It’s amazing what you can do to make amends when you’re dealing with someone and rather than being critical or spiteful, just loving them unconditionally, they start to wonder if everything is okay in the way that you’re treating them, and they typically will become more open minded.
3 – Trust in Him… through the good, the bad, the ugly, the scary, the frightening, the joyous, the amazing. Trust in Him. Pretty simple, but yet so often we put our trust in ourselves, and we become controlling and want to control how things come out. We see things from our vantage point and not in the perspective of God, and we don’t understand and we get frustrated. Simply trust in Him, and He’ll present the understanding, He’ll present the course of action to follow.
So these three simple life lessons, hard to chew on at times, but Mom seemed pretty adamant about them. Hopefully I can continue to grow in these three life lessons, though they be hard to swallow at times.
The night of my parent’s car accident last October, I was out to dinner with a few friends in Herndon when my Mom called. It was sometime around 7:45 PM or so and they had just passed Petersburg, VA, a far ways from their destination stop for the evening – Greenville, SC. I didn’t hear or see my phone ringing as I had turned it to quiet and flipped it on it’s “stomach” so that I couldn’t see the face plate to keep from distracting me from the present company.
During that time at dinner, Mom had called and left a voice message. It was like most of Mom’s calls, one where she expressed her love, told me something random about what she was doing, and then re-expressed her love for me.
While I realize it’s a private message, it’s also the only thing that I have left with my Mother’s voice that hits me with such impact. I thought I’d share it with you all as well.
So I have this voice message to hold onto, a memory that I will cherish always.
So I spent the weekend in Boston for a neat event semi related to work, but not really. Anyway, while wandering around last night I remembered seeing some of the places I’d seen four years ago when I went up in Spring of 2005 for a training class.
Anyway, I figured that when I’d get home I’d look through some of the photos of how I remember Boston and what I saw over the weekend. While doing so I went through my “picture archive” which spans back to early 2003 when I bought my first digital camera.
The first picture is gone – I’m guessing I took a picture of the inside of the lens cap. 
The second, third and fourth pictures though… all Mom. They’re all of Mom at Immanuel Bible Church, a community that she deeply loved and cared for.
So I figured I’d share them with you all.
So I figured, it’s been a while since my last South Park representation (April 2005), so it was time to come up with a little more professional and something that was a little more me. The previous representation was a little too playful 
It’s that time of the month again where I start pondering what gadget I could buy that may increase my social networking and collaboration. And I’m thinking that a MacBook Pro would probably be too much for me. So really it’s a question of a MacBook, a MacBook, a MSI Wind, or an HP NetBook.
Right now I’m leaning toward an aluminum MacBook, but the choice is a hard one. My requirements are pretty much to have Office available (I already own a copy of Office for Mac 2008 Professional) and I own a copy of Enterprise for Home Use from my company for 2007. Outside of that, web browsing and the ability to write articles for my blogs as well as to be able to enjoy a crisp user interface.
Thoughts?
So last week my e2c’s essentially became unsafe for use with the wiring coming out of one of the sides. So I decided to take the plunge and give myself a little pick me up with everything going on and bought a pair of new SE530s from a seller on eBay located up in NYC.
They were brand new, unopened, perfect condition and sound incredible. Not to belittle my e2cs, but these are seriously phenomenal and I’m not quite certain that I could go back unless forced to.
It’s quite nice to listen to the Moses Hogan Chorale and hear the basses rumbling in their solo section as well as the sopranos adding the icing on top of the melody. While I may not be an audiophile, music is in my soul and it resonates with these buds.
I knew that it was a matter of time before my head phones finally broke, but after two and a half years of heavy usage my Shure e2c head phones have developed a tear in the right headset wire. It’s not shorting out, but I guess I’d prefer not to take my chances since the wire is exposed 
So what does this mean?
Option A: I suppose I could get them repaired right? Well, upon checking out Shure’s support policy because they’re greater than two years old, it’s $49 to get them repaired. For that cost, if I can find them on the market or on eBay, I would pay about $55, so it would basically be the same as buying a new pair. Oh and by the way, the e2c, they’re no longer being manufactured so it’s off to eBay to find them.
Option B: Go ahead and get my Christmas / Birthday gift that I’m giving myself a little early and order a pair of the SE530s off of eBay. Granted, you might call them a little overkill, but being an audiophile, I like my music to be pristine.
Option C: Give my iPod Touch to a friend of mine and no longer use headphones for when I’m listening to music.
What to do…
Now Playing: Switchfoot - The Beautiful Letdown - Meant To Live
If you’re a vigilant reader of XKCD.com, then you more than likely already saw this, but it cracks me up to no end…
For those of you that like to graph everything, if you’re in the SharePoint or asp.net world, I’d recommend Dundas Chart. If you’re into utilizing web based APIs, Google Charts is pretty cool.
Please note that the “Point” that our friendly XKCD author is speaking of is not the use of SharePoint, though I’m sure that SharePoint has also had it’s mix of throwing monkey wrenches in relationships
No honey, we’re not going to use the BCD to solve this problem, I’ll write the data connection manually using custom code that doesn’t match any other schema we have…