Enthusiasm

Corrigo integration is done. It was pretty frustrating because I couldn’t find any methods. I had classes coming out of my ears but no methods. I’ve contacted support hopefully and just before they responded back I found the methods. It’s all working great. On a good note, I found a good PoP3 class from SourceForge that I think will work. Funny thing though is now that they sent me test emails, as it turns out the emails are Base64 encoded and even though I’m using a decoder it’s not decoding properly. Hopefully Brian’s ISPGUY knowledge will help with my lost in translation.

So for 375 ($500 -$100 Costco discount -$25 gift certificate) I am going to have Emeriprise financial completely work out an entire financial plan for me getting my house. They are going to evaluate my expenses, how I’m saving money, where I should be saving it, and how I van get into that house as quickly as possible and what kind of options I have for getting there. They will check my credit, evaluate when I should pay or my car or whether I have to or what. I’m so excited about this and looking forward to seeing good or bad what it’s going to take.

REI is an outdoor person’s dream. I think I looked at 20 or so boots and tried on 8 before I decided on one. I also picked up a pedometer which you can plug into your computer and it tracks not only all your steps by day but by TIME. So it will show you your activity times during your day and even calculate MPH based on steps over time. How friggin cool is that? I think just knowing how much I’m walking every day is going to make me push myself to hit that 10,000 mark or get close to it every day.

XML web services is just one of those things that I just never got a chance to truly use while learning Visual Studio .NET and studying for my certifications. Corrigo’s XML web services are truly a joy to work with. I’m learning so much in such a short period of time working with their wSDK. I mean I’ve already learned this stuff but finally getting able to apply it is truly awesome. On the other hand the SQLMail stuff Brian is having me take advantage of is annoying. I’m pretty close to saying screw it and just using POP to access the SQL Mail.

Muddy, stinky at parts, but overall a great hike. I think we 3 about 3 miles in an hour and a half. I think we would have covered more ground but at parts we went through some really muddy stuff and half to carefully navigate the swampy terrain. At one point I really thought we were going to get poured on by the rain kept away and it just got cold/windy. We’re going to get hiking boots for next week and are planning on hitting REI some time later this week.

I think it’s completely bullshit that because I don’t itemize my deductions I basically get jack shit for buying a Hybrid this year. I mean seriously if I itemized my deductions it was 3450 deduction for purchasing a new Hybrid. But because I’m a middle class single guy who doesn’t own a house and I really don’t have much to itemize I get screwed. All things aside though I did end up paying less in taxes than I thought I was going to have to. I ended up paying 216 or so in taxes when I thought I was going to owe near to 800.

Today Brian interviewed 3 potential new people to replace Josh. I felt really good when he asked for my opinion on a few even before interviewing them and after my input actually scratched off 2 people off the list. One person who was more of a coder and another person who was really heavy into server management. We need someone who loves help desk and isn’t going to get distracted by the integration stuff Brian and I do that will throw them potentially off course. In the end it came down to 2 candidates. Brian wanted my “untainted opinion” so I gave him my opinion before he gave me his. We basically came to the same conclusion that the younger kid, though cheaper and easily moldable wasn’t a good fit because it would take a long time for him to gain the user’s trust. The other guy Steven has a long history is just doing desktop support and loves it. The only reason why he left his old company was go get away from California. So we both agreed he was the best fit. He starts Monday morning.

So you know those “put your card in here and win a free lunch” fish bowls at restaurants? Well today I took myself and 7 other of my co-workers to lunch at Henry’s with a little catch. We had to listen to a short presentation from Mark of Emeriprise Financial planners. I really liked what he had to say and I think that I might just pursue their services to help me plan toward getting my house. I know I could get Dad to do it, but if I do it with these guys, I dunno I think I might have a greater chance of sticking to it. I mean paid advice you have a tendency to follow because well you paid for it. Free advice you more easily toss aside or don’t follow as regimently.

So originally my folks had planned on taking me to the island later this year just like they had taken Ray and Carrie. Well I guess they are to tired to go again this year and are tired of so much flying and jet lag. So instead they offered to send Kerrie and myself on an Alaskan cruise. I was kinda floored about he whole thing but that’s fine with me. I mean I haven’t had a real vacation since I started working at PREM so this will be really nice. Kerrie was kinda floored by it too because it’s like… ok?!? Well we’re gonna have a great time and we’re starting to figure out when we’re going to do it. Good times!

So today is “the day” that PREM’s supposed to have all our shit together for the launch of the Meriwether. What’s disappointing (and should almost be expected) is that we DO have our shit together but other people (*COUGH* hoffman *COUGH*) don’t have stuff like the O&M’s and other things that the facilities group needs to finish setting up the warranty information. Apparently the information the DO have which is mostly incomplete is only 70-80% accurate so they are going to have to go into each unit and verify ALL of the data. Well at least I got my end done and I’m pretty happy about that.