I am not much of a religious person. I went to catholic school from Kindergarten through 10th grade (and plan on sending my son), all of my grandparents were religious, and my aunt is a Franciscan nun.
Having said that, I came across this moving piece by my friend Rob Bushway and figured I would share it. The Bushways are a great example of a close knit family and his is a story of perseverance, no matter what your faith is.
RobBushway.com
Just trying to set up WordPress here. It’s pretty impressive so far.
I have absolutely no creativity when it comes to things like design, clothing, conversation, etc. I am at a loss for how I should layout my home office. I have a pretty decent sized space to work with, about 24 ft. x 15 ft. I have a desk and two bookshelves and I want to fill out the other half of the room. I really want to make it “feel” like an office. I’m currently thinking about:
But I don’t want it to be too crowded or too sparse. The couch would be a nice place for me to lounge and read books (can’t do this upstairs in the living room with a 2 year old and wife) but a conference table in my basement would be so cool.
Of course there’s the issue of how to pay for it all. We have so far resisted the urge to put anything on our credit cards and everything we’ve bought has been with cash, so we don’t have a lot of extra spending money right now.
EBay has some good deals…. hmm…
I haven’t really been very good at keeping a blog and pretty much nobody that I’ve invited into my Windows Live network uses the cool new social networking features because they’re all grownups and social networking is for teenagers and nerdy dorks who didn’t have real friends in school. So that’s a long way of saying probably nobody is reading this and if you are, I just pissed you off.
But anyway I’m super pumped because I’m finally all moved into my new house. I think we got a great deal on it. It’s about 2 years old and the previous owners lived here about a year before losing the house to foreclosure. Fortunately they didn’t trash the place because it’s in brand new condition and we got a great deal on it.
While I hate to see anybody lose their house, it was pretty clear to me a few years ago that the prices of homes were way out of control and despite enormous pressure from friends and relatives and a screaming 2 year old, I held my ground and we lived in our little condo in Deptford until I was pretty sure of 2 things:
In fact, I was even offered a job at Microsoft about 2 years ago that I would have loved to accept, but the prices of homes out there were, (and to an extent still are) ridiculous. The house I am living in now for under $300,000 would have easily cost me $700,000 or more out there.
Right now I’m holed up underground in an undisclosed location that I have claimed as my "command center". I will post some more pictures up soon but this basement freakin rocks. There is a divided space that is about the size of my living room and a half which I am reserving for my office. And since Office Depot is closing their doors, I got some nice new furniture and office supplies on the cheap.
Now the trick is staying employed. I’ve been working my ass off at the job, but if money tightens up, none of that matters. So hopefully they find ways to prosper in the shrinking economy and hopefully our fearless leader will find ways to work across the aisle in Washington so that we can pull out of this slump soon.
I’m finally "allowed" to say it because we told our parents. I’ve known for a month actually. Heather is 9 weeks pregnant with our first child and I can’t be more excited. I even made a stocking for "Number One" mostly as a joke but I put an absolute beginners C# (programming) book in there too.
Heather has been constantly sick but hopefully that will subside soon.
Of course this changes things for the wedding, and we’ll probably have to do it sooner than expected. We’re thinking about doing it in Vegas with immediate family present then having a reception back home. Who knows. Need to get TEO 3 out first.
I’m really happy to be starting a family with her. I can’t wait until "D day"!
Yesterday I asked my girlfriend Heather to marry me and she said yes so we are officially engaged. There is no date set at the moment but it will be within a year. I wanted to wait until TEO 3.0 was finished but it’s been taking longer than I hoped and I couldn’t wait any longer.
Heather is a great woman and I am very lucky to have her. I don’t think things will be too much different since we already live together but now I can feel better about us working on a family which is the next step.
Rob Bushway is a good friend of mine. He even recently helped me out in a big way that may have saved TEO by going to bat for me with some of the Infinotes issues I had.
So I am always glad to hear good news about Maggie, Rob’s daughter who has (had actually…) brain cancer and has been on a really brave and inspirational road to recovery. A few months ago she was declared “cancer-free” after several risky procedures and now she’s making great progress in getting back to her normal self. Go read Rob’s post about it because I can’t really capture the relief and joy he must be feeling.
Read Rob Bushway’s Blog
Stay up to date with Maggie’s progress
I’m off to go camping for the weekend with Heather. I will have my cell phone with me but I don’t know if there’s any EVDO coverage so I may or may not be checking support email while I’m gone. I am gonna be working on TEO there cause I’m not really into camping much.
Made a ton of progress last night (thanks, Stacker 2) but I’m still having some trouble with DynamicRenderer.Refresh(). It’s just an annoying visual glitch right now. But anyway, the new window management is completed and working and TEO forms are loading much faster in 3.0. I had to scrap the standard XP-themed tab control (again) because it does not paint quickly when using transparent controls. Since there’s a lot of tab switching going on, there’s a lot of paint operations. So I’m back with SandDock again.
All of you who have asked for larger input areas will get your wish! But those of you with ultra portables, don’t worry there is a special layout manager for smaller screens that will optimize the UI for your display.
I’m "thrilled" (pun intended) that MJ (Whacko Jacko, whatever you wanna call him) was found not guilty on all of the charges. To be honest, I thought they’d at least get him with the minor charges but ever since the beginning of this whole mess I maintained he was innocent.
Why? Cause the guy is just too naive. He really thinks he’s a kid. He’s done so many great things for charities and kids with terminal illness and it makes me sick to my stomach to think that most of the country would turn on him just because some fat ass lying bitch who has a track record of screwing people over for money made some allegations that she knew would be easy to convince people were true.
The only child abuse going on is the way that woman is corrupting her son. I’m glad the jury looked at this case from a technical perspective and did not let their emotions or the sweeping waves of popular opinion taint their verdict.
And don’t write me saying "Oh I guess you think OJ is innocent too." I am sick of people comparing this case to the OJ Simpson trial. They have nothing to do with each other. There was tons of evidence pointing to OJ and the jury in that case was affected by fears of how the public would react (cough… Rodney King… cough…) but in this case there was no evidence except the inconsistent testimony of the accuser’s family who has a history of lying and cheating, and the testimony of a bunch of former employees that tried to sue MJ before and lost the counter suit.
Okay I’m glad I got all that off my chest. Though I wish he would have moon walked out of the courtroom. That would have been such an awesome finish.
Trailer Trash Talkin’ Turleen
If Barbie makes you want to puke, and memories of your childhood being forced to play with Barbie dolls induces nightmares, we have the cure. Introducing Trailer Trash Talkin’ Turleen. Yes that’s right, a burping, beer drinking, cigarette smoking, 12 inch tall doll, the exemplifies true American White Trash. Press her belly, (it’s big because she’s got one in the oven) and she will share some pearls of wisdom with the sophistication and style that makes her family and third grade teacher proud.
"..Pour me a double, I’m drinking for two..."
- Turleen
A little biography about Turleen:
She didn’t just fall off of the turnip truck! Turleen is a sophisticated and patriotic American and a model working mother. After hours of hard work gathering carts at the Honk & Holler and waitressing at the elegant Bowlarama, she still finds time to spend quality time with her kids. With seven children and one on the way, she recently won the Mother of the Year Award from the Pink Flamingo Trailer Park Homeowners Association! This special trophy sits proudly on the kitchen window sill in her luxurious double-wide next to her six first place Little Miss Guzzler Awards from the county fair! Yes this honey has grown up! She’s got a bun in the oven and she’s ready to hit the town! Just push her belly button and Trash Talkin’ Turleen will share some pearls of wisdom with the sophistication and style that makes her family and third grade teacher proud.
