Well, as cool as it was to have the web on my phone, I have canceled the service.  We mostly use the messaging, which I retained.  I also dropped the number of minutes on the plan, as we rarely make any actual voice calls.  By doing this, I cut my cell phone bill in half, saving around $70 a month.

Of course, this also means I no longer have email on my phone, but I do still have the messaging which my wife and I use all the time.

Every so often, I stay up very late.  No good reason.  Just get busy online and I don’t stop.  Tonight is one of those nights.  They are much more rare now that I have kids, but it is nice every now and again to just stay up and play with stuff.  I don’t really accomplish much, and I end up very tired, but it is sort of refreshing.  I guess it reminds me of my days in college staying up late to study and finish assignments.

Though in all honesty, I don’t want to go back to college.  Homework? Ugh.  What is worse is making sure you make it to all your classes and don’t forget anything.  I have very vivid dreams every now and again of me registering for classes and then just not showing up because I forgot there even was a class.  Not something I look forward to.

But yes, the staying up late can be nostalgic.  But I think it is time for me to go to sleep now…

I’ve started watching 24 this season.  I’m actually quite interested in it this season due to the lack of CTU.  For some reason the whole CTU setup just bothered me.  I’ve not even sure why.  But this season is great.  Jack Bauer is a great character, and I really appreciate the entire “yes I did horrible things and I won’t deny it or try to cover it up” motif that is going on.

Though, I do have to say, no one puts all their SCADA systems in one basket, so you can’t go and shut down the nations water and sewer systems with just one access.  Power on the other hand can be overloaded, and if the grid doesn’t act fast enough to cut off the overload you can cause very large blackouts.  But then, you don’t need a computer to cause a black out.  Cars, planes, and explosives would be much easier, quicker, and makes a really nice visual. 😀

I seem to make this same resolution every year.  To get organized.  To stop having stuff overflowing from every horizontal surface.  To know what is going on, to keep good notes, do things on time, and not forget stuff.  It never quite seems to work out the way I want it to.

Right now at both work and home, I have stuff piled up on my desk that needs to be done, filed, or just plain thrown away.  My filing systems are in disarray, my email is overflowing, and I am exhausted from information overload.  I keep far too many things for no good reason, and am loath to toss or get rid of anything that I once thought was cool, or that I used a lot, even though I don’t use it anymore.

Still, I need to get a handle on all this stuff.  I plan to sell off, give away, or toss most of the physical.  It has all become stuff I rarely use, or just plain don’t need.  I’ve already cut down on my books, and have even disposed of my collection of Analog SF magazine.  There’s lots more to get rid of, and of course to organize into some semblance of sanity.

Wish me luck.

So if you have kids, you end up watching lots of kids shows.  Perhaps more than you really should.  But then, you would never find out that the Backyardigans dance very well to Metallica.

Another day has gone by.  I got quite a bit more done on backup at work on Friday, but I’m not sure the configuration I set up is working correctly.  We are also on track to be completely moved out of the old buildings soon.  I’ll have to head over there again soon to assist with the cleanup.

Then go to Tight Cuts.  Yea, they are a bit pricey, but the girls do a great job of cutting your hair.  Did I mention they do it while wearing mini-skirts and tight shirts?  No, really.

But here is the best part.  The place is set up for men (ladies, you can go there too).  That means nice leather chairs, complementary beverage (non-alcoholic, sorry), and big screen TVs.  Did I mention the chicks in mini-skirts?  The atmosphere is very relaxed and low pressure.  They don’t try to sell you a bunch of stuff, and they aren’t always trying to get you on the mailing list.

The hair cuts consist of the cut, a shampoo with scalp massage, hot towel, straight blade neck shave, and to finish it off, and nice shoulder rub.  It is very relaxing, and while the girls will chat with you if you want, they will also leave you alone if all you want is a haircut without any chat.

It really is a great place, and I highly recommend it.  If you go to the South Hill Tight Cuts, ask for Erin and say Chris sent you.

Shut off email.  No seriously.  Shut off email.

I’ve been trying to get backups reconfigured at work for months now.  Everytime I try to work on it, something else comes up.  So today I put up a “Do Not Disturb” sign, and ignored my email.  I actually got real work done for the first time in about a month.  My day usually consists of one constant interuption after another and “please, will you do this little thing” which “little thing” invariably takes over the rest of the day preventing me from finishing the work I really need to do.

After getting backups where I wanted them, I checked my email and realized none of it was very critical, though everybody thought they had a really really important thing that had to be done right away.  I think I am going to keep the “Do Not Disturb” sign, and next time shut off the phone as well as email.

So last night I was looking through the Sunday Paper fliers, and found that Circuit City was running a sale on the laptop I had just bought.  The new price is what I actually wanted to pay in the first place, instead of what I ended up paying.  So I checked their website and they have a 30 day price guarantee.  Yippee!

So what does this have to do with dentistry? Well, I had the first half of a deep teeth cleaning done this morning.  Not lots of fun, and they numb up one side of your mouth/face.  It took about an hour and a half for the cleaning.  I listened to music on my Zune so I wasn’t totally bored (an idea I got from Steve Roberts). After the cleaning I headed over to Circuit City, and with half a numb face requested the price guarantee.  Which they gave me.

After I got my refund I headed out into the mall and joined up with my family for the end of their walk with the grandparents.  Then we did a bit of shopping and we came home.  I decided to play with the websites a bit, and sometime while trying to figure out Joomla to get a start on the GeoCon site, I could feel my face again.

Yes, I know, GeoCon is dead. Has been for lots of years. But, I like playing with web stuff, so I now have a site back up for GeoCon. Why? Because I can.

Someday I plan on putting up all the content I have for GeoCon, which will include scans of the program books as well as what pictures I took.  If I can ever find any of this stuff.  It has been a while.