Does This Make Me a Fanboy?

1
Posted by Man on the Door on November 11, 2009 – 1:22 pm
Filed under satisfaction
Tagged as , ,

my apple icon

Well, I did it. Actually, I’ll say we did it. The Woman on the Door and I were due to upgrade our phones, so we re-upped with AT&T and took the plunge on some iPhones. I’m really not sure if I’m completely sold on it yet, though. I mean, I like the thing and all, I’m just really not sold on the forced data plan. My wife’s company will pay for her data plan, so that helps, but I’ve yet to ask my company if they’ll cover mine (my hopes are low but I’ll ask anyway).

[I'm trying something new, click below to keep reading this post...]

Read More »

Dude, Weak

1
Posted by Man on the Door on October 14, 2009 – 8:42 am
Filed under Hockey, satisfaction
Tagged as

img177So I’m recording the Colorado Avalanche last night on the TiVo to watch when I get home. It’s sometime in the middle of the third period, so I rewind to the start of the game and I see this on my screen.

Sure, it is the preview of Center Ice, but come on. I was able to join the game about 1 hour behind ‘live’. It’s my understanding that the NHL would have the final say as to what TiVo can provide, but that’s pretty lame NHL & TiVo.

Also, with the TiVo I’ve got cable cards so buying Center Ice isn’t an option (only have 1-way cards around here). Seeing this just makes me even “happier” I will be saving $160 bucks again this year. What’s the point of being able to record something if it won’t even let you watch it later.

Been to Denver and Back

0
Posted by Man on the Door on October 7, 2009 – 7:58 pm
Filed under Uncategorized
Tagged as

Welcome visitors from Jibblescribbits. Take a look around and let me know what you think of the place (other than my, um, lack of content). Maybe there’s an ad that catches your attention (cough cough *ahem*).

————————————————————————-

So we finally did it. We loaded up the whole family and a friend’s family and drove from OKC to Denver. We went to watch our hometown boy Tyler Arnason the Joe Sakic retirement ceremony/first game of the year for the Colorado Avalanche. It was a great trip, but was way too quick.

We ended up leaving Wednesday morning at 3am hoping the toddlers would sleep in the car. Well, one of them did and it wasn’t mine. Well, eventually he fell asleep and got some restless sleep, but not before my buddy’s toddler looked over at him and said “Shhhhh, I’m trying to sleep!” We made pretty good time all said and done. We stretched out the lunch stop to let the kiddos play for a while. It was pretty obvious they needed the energy release and it was good to get out of the car for an hour or so.

There was a storm coming in over the mountains and there was some wicked wind that hit us somewhere in western Kansas. If it wasn’t 60-70 mph straight line winds, I would be surprised. This was ridiculous! There were flagpoles bent over, semis swerving all over the place, and it was hard to get out of the car when we stopped for gas. The amount of crap that blew into my eyes in the short time I was out of the car was just astounding.

I’ve got a friend in Denver that urged me to try to get into town before 4 or after 6 or we would be stuck in traffic for that length of time. We barely made it on the front end and got to the hotel with uh, minimal incident. We relaxed for a bit and let the kids run wild and then made the mistake of trying to make them sit still in a restaurant to eat dinner. That didn’t go well. The kiddos were so tired and stir cray that trying to make the sit still for any length of time was just mean on our part. P1030713What we finally decided on was letting the wives walk back to the hotel with the kids (just a couple of parking lots away) and my buddy and I went off to the drug store to pick up some decogenstants that my son was in desperate need of. Eventually we got them back to the rooms and they crashed hard – even on the pull-out sofa bed.

Thursday was the day of the game and I ended up leaving my wife and kid with my friends and went off to see my friend that lives in Denver. He just bought a house and I thought it would be a really good thing to go and see it. So he took me to some burger joint that was spectacular but unfortunately I can’t remember the name. We then went off to his new place and he had me try to play Madden on his Wii. That’s my first time to try to use the thing and it is pretty cool, but it sure was hard to actually use. Made me think too much to play a video game.

Then back to the hotel to get ready for the game — the whole reason for the trip. There was a meet up with a bunch of the posters off of Mile High Hockey (the friend that we went up there with writes for them). That was a bit strange — a little too much like a Star Trek convention. I had to introduce myself as my avatar and then “you can call me Chris”.  That went pretty well though. The room the restaurant had reserved a side room for us and there was a small raised platform area that we were able to let the kids run on and not disturb too many people. Then we walked back to the Pepsi Center for the retirement ceremony.

The ceremony itself was really nice. Our seats were in the lower bowl and there was someone sitting above us in the “club” level (I think) that kept yelling “I/We love you Joe!” His man-love for Sakic was a little too much.

Goal #5 (I think) - you can see the puck in the net!The game was great. The expectations for the team are pretty low this year and they were playing the President’s Cup (regular season champs) winning team (regular season champs) from last year. The Avs are full of young guys – coaches and players – and they actually looked organized and played actual good hockey! I was trying to take pictures of some of the action and actually pulled this picture of a goal – you can see the puck in the net!

We turned around and started heading home Friday morning – way too soon. We should have stayed a little longer and gone to the mountains. We were sooooooo close and my wife really wanted to make the detour, but we ended up not adding the time to the trip.

Heading home was uneventful all said and done. Parents were tired, and so were the kids, so the DVD player got a whole lot of use. We fortunately found an outlet in the back of the van to plug in the car charger. The batteries ran out on the way to Denver and the kids were much less than thrilled about it.

We had borrowed my mom and dad’s minivan for the trip and once we got home and got unloaded (around 11 pm), I had to go and get gas and wash it because my folks were going to take it on a trip the next day. Guess we got the engine warmed up for them.

All in all, it was a great trip. The price we ended up paying for the tickets was well worth it. The price we paid by sitting in a car for that long and not enjoying the city – not so much. We’ll do it differently next time – and there will be a next time.

Petey’s Teeth

1
Posted by Man on the Door on September 12, 2009 – 12:13 pm
Filed under Uncategorized
Tagged as
Petey's Teeth

Well, it’s time to get my dog’s teeth cleaned. It’s been a while for him and they’re pretty grimy. A vet we used to go to tried to get us to put some polish-like stuff on them after we had them done last time, but that didn’t last long at all. So, now we’re back to paying to get them cleaned.

More than anything, I just wanted an excuse to post this picture.

The last vet we went to was the one located in the local PetSmart. They (of course) are good at sending out the reminders that we need to get a booster shot of X and a dose of Y and a couple of Z whenever it gets close to time.They for sure want to remind you to come and spend some money! We had to get the shots and were planning on getting his teeth cleaned up already so they talked me into their yearly plan. Now I hope they keep sending me the cards to get the services I will be paying for.

We had our 2 dogs under out name at the vet, but when I went to the vet last time I had to tell them that our female went to live on the farm. And that’s not a metaphor — she’s out living on my in-laws farm now. She was just a little jealous of our toddler and we just didn’t have the time to give her the attention she needed. So, now she’s a farm dog and has a pack to run with.

Anyway, it really is amazing how the small costs of a pet adds up. From food to shots to the time-cost of training and exercising them. I wouldn’t change it though — it’s really amazing how fast a dog becomes part of the family.

Traveling on Their Dime

0
Posted by Man on the Door on August 21, 2009 – 6:38 pm
Filed under Uncategorized

Radio-Flyer-WagonThere’s nothing quite like taking a trip on someone else’s dime. I really wish that my family could have come along though. A week away from those you love is a long time!

I’m writing this while I’m gone but not posting it until I get home…

I got a couple of projects finished up the week before last and then I kind of fell off of the edge of the world. There was nothing really pressing on me at the office so I was helping someone else out when my boss walks in to my office. “What are your plans for next (this) week?” Well, now I’m sitting in a hotel in Spokane, WA two time zones later than what I’m used to. The one good thing is that our architect really treats us well. I’ve got a hotel room with 2 queen beds (not sure why, but hey — it keeps my stuff off of the floor) and they take me to so many of the really good restaurants. Up here in Washington, the restaurants are really heavy on the sea food since they can actually get it fresh. The problem is that if it swims, I generally don’t like it. I’ve tried to branch out and try the appetizers for the table — calamari so far — and it has been pretty good, but I don’t know if I can really “risk” a whole meal on fish. If I would ever get a good dish to retry seafood I’m sure it would be here on a coastal state, but it’s just hard to actually order it.

The reason I’m up here is to inspect an existing 4-bay airplane hangar that was built somewhere around the 40’s. This thing is really beautiful on the inside — at least to a structural engineer. The main hangar bays are barrel vaulted trusses and and the simplicity of the structural system is just astounding. What is even more amazing is that this facility was completed with a slide rule and drawn by hand. I know how to use a slide rule and have done hand drafting, but this would just be ridiculous. We are now adding a fire suppression system to the building. It would be a highly expansive foam system, similar to this:

Our space is much much MUCH bigger though. Maybe not square footage wise, but volume wise for sure. Hopefully I can make it through a week of being on my feet and get back to my family in one piece!

I Feel So Unsatisfied

0
Posted by Man on the Door on August 6, 2009 – 7:58 pm
Filed under Accidents!, Cars, satisfaction
Tagged as , , ,

Teddy KGB: Want a cookie?Although “favorite” might be a stretch, I really like the movie Rounders. There are so many one liners that and parts that just stick with me. Especially John Malkovich’s awkward accent as “Teddy KGB”. The most relevant of the one liners to me recently is what  I titled this post. I feel so unsatisfied.

We got the Mrs.’ car accident taken care of. Well, the “we” part was a bit lacking — she did 99% of it. First call to insurance led us to a Friday appointment with an adjuster (the accident happened on Monday the 27th). That was too long to wait, so she got it to another adjuster that had walk-in type hours the next day (Tuesday). He got the paperwork taken care of and said that the car was probably going to be totaled. Friday (still taking the same week here) we got a call from the total-loss guy and got that paperwork started. The settlement they offered was dead on with what we were prepared to argue and we accepted the paperwork through email and hand delivered it back to the adjuster. We picked up our check today. Way to go Farmers! Really, I was prepared for an argument — or at least to back up the Mrs. in her’s.  Nothing like getting worked up for a fight an then nothing.

Well, in the midst of all this, we’ve been looking for a replacement car for the Mrs. for a while now. My brother is a salesman at a local dealership and we’ve been talking with him about it and we even had his ‘guy’ out checking auctions for us. We had also been checking his dealership’s website looking at what was out there. After driving an Equinox and an Escape (both used of course…), we decided that the cars were essentially the same other than looks. The Equinox held the lead in this category slightly, but we never ruled out the Escape.

Well, last Friday, we checked the dealership’s website and found an 06 Escape in the miles and (almost) the price range we wanted. They also had an Equinox on the lot that was a little more, uh, loved, but cheaper for sure. It felt like that was going to be the day. We drove both and it came down to my short wife being able to see out of one of the car better. The Escape was the car for us and our car fever was about maxed out. Now, we were working with my brother and it was the last day of the month, so good time to deal, right? Well, not so much. The vehicle was already priced really low for the mileage, age, and condition it was in according to our research. But we tried anyway. We started out the back-and-forth with about $1500 off of what they were asking and sent my brother out for the approval. Well, the general manager was not so, well, pleased with it and basically said, “Thanks, but no thanks”. We tried again and again a couple of times, but we ended up not getting much off of what the dealer had it listed for. But like I said it was still a good deal according to our research ($2k+ less than KBB, among others…)

So all that preparation for the fights and nothing, really, out of either of them. Insurance treated us well, and I still feel my brother did the same. I still, just, feel so unsatisfied.

Birthdays and Car Accidents

0
Posted by Man on the Door on July 27, 2009 – 7:45 pm
Filed under Accidents!
Tagged as

img135So today I turned 30. Horray for me.

Well, I’ve already talked about how my car repairs have sapped all our car savings. So, now it’s the Mrs.’ turn. She and our toddler were on the way to meet me for dinner to celebrate my birthday and I get that phone call. My first reaction was the good one — I asked where she was and if everyone was OK.  (Brownie Points!)

As you can see, the front end of a Chevy Malibu is no match for the back end of a pickup. She was in stop-and-go traffic and was looking to merge. The pack started moving and she looked over her shoulder and, well, the traffic was in ’stop’ mode and she was still in the ‘go’ mode. Like I said, everyone was OK. The pickup should just need a new bumper. Blue Betty here is drivable, but the hood is a hazard right now. My wife’s only 5′-0″ tall so seeing over it is questionable right now. I’m thinking I might take the hood off and switch cars with her until we get her new one, but I’m not sure it’s legal to drive without the hood. (The Oklahoma Driver’s Manual doesn’t really say…)

The one thing that the Mrs. didn’t do was take any pictures of the truck’s damage. She’s got a camera phone, so it would be easy to do (and it’s what I did when I got sideswiped last year). We are really hoping that the driver doesn’t all of a sudden develop a case of whiplash. The Mrs. thinks that he won’t be that type of person — he seemed nice enough apparently. Guess he gave off the honest vibe. That’s all well and good, but he didn’t have insurance. I just won’t say anything about it.

Well, one ‘good’ thing may have happened to me on my birthday — my current deadline probably will slide to Friday. I say probably because the architect told me that’s the assumption he’s working under. I could really use the extra time to finish (especially without working late tonight because of the accident).

So now we’ll have another panic purchase — and that’s a story for another time…

The Impression of Completeness

0
Posted by Man on the Door on July 16, 2009 – 8:05 pm
Filed under Revit, Work
Tagged as , , , ,

100_percent_override-782395So I recently “met” a deadline on the project I’m working on. This was supposed to be a 100% Review set — i.e. should be pretty much done. Well, my to do list is currently getting longer instead of shorter. This simply turned into a “submit-where-I’m-at” submittal. There are some estimates being made off of what I’ve turned in that will be off, but there is nothing I can do about it at this point. I do have time to finish up before sealed drawings are due and will be done by then, but this probably won’t be a good impression — if my stuff is reviewed (and more often than not, it isn’t).

It seems like there is never enough time to do everything that is needed to put a structure into a building. It seems like our clients and the owners think that what we do is just pushing a button. Changes aren’t that easy to incorporate especially late into the project. Luckily, I have a really responsible client/architect this time and there are no changes at the last minute. My problem this time is that I’m learning a new 3D modeling software: Revit.

Revit is a really great tool. It allows me to actually model the building in 3D and cut a section through any part of the building and most of my detailing is there right away. From there it should just be adding notes to the section and walking away — but we don’t model everything. This is because unless the owner is going to use the model to building the structure, there isn’t enough time or money in the project for us to do it.

So, with the learning curve for this software, I keep finding myself working toward giving an impression of completeness. I detail various parts of the building with no calculations to back it up. Some of this is OK due to my “engineering judgement” (i.e. I’ve done this before and this solution worked last time). But when I do get around to finally checking things, any changes I have to make to my stuff affects more than my drawings. The architect has probably detailed around what I’ve ‘guessed’ at and now they’ll have to make changes as well.

I would have to say that, when it comes to this type of submittal, working to give the impression of completeness is better than leaving item completely off the drawings. I know that as I keep getting more and more experience, my “engineering judgement” will get better and the changes will become fewer. Right now, I just hate having to back track and apologize to our clients for having to make changes.

So I Nuked Everything…

0
Posted by Man on the Door on July 11, 2009 – 9:04 pm
Filed under ramblings
Tagged as , , ,

explosionWow — I blew up my site with extreme prejudice. I know what happened. and the highly ironic thing is that I was trying to be proactive to keep this from happening.

If you came to my site from the afternoon of Thursday the 9th to this evening (the 11th), they would have been greeted with a nice Fatal Error message and nothing more than that. B-E-A-utiful. Especially because I didn’t notice it until Friday morning…

So here’s what happened: I had backed up my site via copying everything through my FTP client. I then tried to make an automated backup. But instead, I ended up setting a sync. So, when it ran Thursday, it synced over the top of what I had previously copied off – and it did so very poorly that it corrupted my backup. So now my install of WP is nuked and I don’t know what to do. And to top it off, I have a deadline at work that day and can’t jump on fixing anything other than submitting a help ticket until I get home.

Well GoDaddy is slow in responding to my ticket, so I just uninstall WordPress and reinstall. That works and I get things mostly set back up Friday night. Then Saturday morning I get a response from GoDaddy telling me how to revert back to their saved versions. So, I think I have a working WordPress now, let’s just revert all the files — blew it up again, but this time with a different error. So I repeat my steps from the night before, and now here I am.

I was able to get Google’s cashed versions of my posts, but didn’t get a chance to grab their cashed version of my Debt Snowball Spreadsheet page. I did grab one at work on Friday, so I can go back in time once I get back to work on Wednesday (short vacation time!).

At least I was trying to be proactive about it.

Getting Motivated

1
Posted by Man on the Door on July 10, 2009 – 8:49 pm
Filed under ramblings
(Note: this post reuploaded after I nuked my site)

My company paid/acquired tickets for me to go to the “Get Motivated!” seminar yesterday. What a disjointed bunch of speakers. Alone, the speakers would have been good to listen to and informative. Instead, they were jam packed into a 8 hour day. On the ticket, there were 9 speakers listed, but three mystery speakers showed up as well. They were there to motivate you to buy their products and/or sign up for their seminars. After hearing from Joe Montana and Colin Powell (probably 20 minutes each at most) we heard a 45 minute overly energetic diatribe about what basically amounted to day-trading. “All you have to do is buy at 3 green arrows and sell at 3 red arrows. It’s that simple.” I’m sure it really could be, but where am I supposed to come up with the $10k to play with your website? And where is the (what amounts to) $50/month to subscribe?

Then came lunch — nothing like unleashing thousands of people on Bricktown when they are summer staffed and apparently unaware that a large event is going on. We ended up missing Zig Ziglar and lost our seats. The ushers apparently decided that my stuff sitting on my seat wasn’t good enough to hold it. That’s fine, really it is, but then when I ask for my stuff back, people look at me like an ass? Really? So, we moved up to the nose bleed seats, and I sit next to a cliché. No problems though until the next salesman comes out. This guy comes out all religious-like and pseudo-preaching. Then the Cliché starts with the “mmmmmm-hmmmmm” and “You preach it!” Then she tries to (loudly) complete his sentences and fails miserably making it very hard to pay attention. This guy is pitching real estate as a good investment and if you aren’t buying property you are a damn idiot and “should be run over by a bus”. Yes, that’s still the pseudo-preacher. He starts off “You should not buy foreclosures because you will be taking advantage of people when they are in the most need.” Wow, sounds admirable — let’s give this guy a shot. and he completes the circle of WTF by saying “I live in a foreclosure” and “I hope [someone leaving early] dies so I can buy [their] house cheaply out of probate.” To top that off he says “renting provides you no benefit and is a complete waste of money” Well, I’m sure he says that to his tenants. That is where I turned off my brain to this guy. Sure, renting doesn’t build any equity or provide any tax benefits, but it puts a roof over your head! That is a tangible benefit! Urgh, — I’ll just leave this one alone. This is the guy that also said if he couldn’t make $50,000 on a deal, “he’d rather pick corn out of vomit and put it back in the can.” (At least I’ll be able to use that quote somewhere…)

More speakers then the last sales pitch of making money on the internet. Oh son of a … Well, OK, let’s hear what he has to say. Well, there’s no content here. Basically “my seminar will teach you how to get on Google’s first page” and “you need a online storefront.” To sell what? Who knows? Wait for it, wait for it, DROPSHIPPING!

And the sheep in the crowd bought all of this. “Hurry to the guys waving their lights and sign up for more seminars.” And if you hurry right now I’ll give you my seminar that’s normally priced at $3,200 for $100. Or $49 or $29 depending on how late in the day it got. I hate to break it to you, but if you can offer something that steeply discounted, it’s not a $3,200 value. Just like the infomercials that can keep “throw in a second tube for free” — the product isn’t originally priced correctly to give an impression of discounted value. But only if you act NOW NOW NOW NOW!!!!!11111

I understand the need for these sales pitches in this thing, you don’t make money on letting entire companies of people in the door for $19, but good grief people. The worst part was the constant preaching. Now, I’m a Christian and, yes, I think everyone should be given the opportunity to hear the “good news” but to have everything just short of an open alter at a MANAGEMENT SEMINAR is offensive.

Anyway, if the speakers could have just built on each other and had some sort of continuity it would have been worth missing the day of work. As it is, I’m just further behind at work on a short week anyway.