Yellow Leadbetter, Misheard lyrics

This is priceless. I love youtube.

Mini Golf Half-Champ!

Last night Katie and I were prepared for a night of boredom again. HBO, computers, pacing, and maybe housework. On her way home though, she talked to Ann who said that they were going to play some miniature golf, and that if we wanted to go along we were welcome. So, we went home, changed clothes and went on our way to get some dinner with Chris, Ann, Ashley and David before mini golf. On a side-note, we ate at the wing place at the entrance to What's on Tap 2 on Airline Dr... great stuff.

So, after dinner we went out to Party Palace or Party Central... or whatever the place was called... and decided to kill some time playing arcades while we waited for a few other fellers to show up. The highlights are as follows: Chris and I both beat Katie at mini-basketball (she thinks she's unbeatable), David and I beat Area 51, Katie won a 4 player version of Cruisin' World Exotica, and I played a game of Simpson's pinball (I need a pinball machine).

After everyone showed up we took a couple swings at the batting cages, then decided to move on to the golf. I'm proud to say that after 18 holes, Leslie and I were tied for the winning position. Of course, Leslie was keeping score... so, I'm sure an extra point or two was added when no one was looking.

We had a pretty darn good time, and I think everyone else managed to have a good time too. The only down time we had was after the night was over and I started talking about buying a pinball machine... and katie shot me down:(. I think $4,000 is a reasonable price for years of entertainment. Don't you?

Britain's got talent winner - Paul Potts

This guy really blew me away. I watched a few of the standouts from the show 'Britain's Got Talent' on youtube, and this unassuming phone salesmen just belted out one of my favorite Andrea Bocelli songs. Have a look.

If you liked what you saw, check out some of the others on youtube. Search for Britain's got talent. Check out the Puppet Monkey one, the 6 yr old (Connie), and the few others that show up in the top of the results. They're all great.

The new kid on the block

So, after all that talk of cars on the blog, all the resolve hardening I needed to do... I gave in to impulse at the Toyota dealership last week. I didn't get hosed on the deal, but didn't walk out of there with the salesmen crying either. Here she is.

Ultimately, I got a lease with no money down and didn't give up my car for the trade-in price in the process. So, now I need to start getting the accord prepped for sale. I'm considering ebay, autotrader or maybe just the old fashioned method of sitting the car in a lot with a sign on it. However I choose to sell it, I'm hoping to get fair value for it.

Know anyone who wants a used 1997 Honda Accord?

The haps

So, a lot's been happening lately. As I've said on the blog, I went to Microsoft's Tech Ed 2007 last week. We (Thomas and I) took two flights to Tampa from Shreveport on the first Sunday in June, where Tim picked us up and drove us to Orlando.

The conference started the next morning, which I posted about already, and pretty much continue with the same ol' conference same ol' until Thursday night. That night was our attendee party, where Universal Studios shut their islands of adventure to the general public and let everyone from the conference have at it. Two problems, though... 1) I don't like roller coasters 2) It rained for most of that night anyway. So, I abstained from the attendee party, which I originally though would be great, and ended up hanging out in the hotel room watching the first game of the NBA playoffs. The game was a bust, but the night was a much needed break from noise, people and computers.

Somehow, whenever our company scheduled our return we ended up with a full 24 hours between the end of the conference and our departure from Tampa. So, Thomas and I hung out at Tim's house for most of Friday night and Saturday. We really enjoyed our time at Tim's house... but man, I wish we could've just gone straight home and had a full weekend. Instead Katie and I didn't get home from the airport until 10:30 on Saturday night... exhausted.

This week's been much better. Tuesday, after work Katie and I headed to the toyota dealership here in town to ask about an advertised deal that I'd been e-mailing someone there about. We ended up modifying the deal a little bit, but I came away with a lease on a new camry. I think we got a decent deal, and a much better deal than we were offered at holmes honda on a new accord. The car drives much more comfortably than the accord I have, and noticably better than the accord EXL we test drove.

Anywho, it's been a pretty good two weeks. I enjoyed the conference, but got tired of it at the end... and now I've got a new car that should take my mind away from financial concerns with the '97 accord. I do have to sell that car now, but I don't think that'll be too difficult. Wish me luck.

Tech Ed 2007 - Day 1

Today was the first official day of Tech Ed. We were on the bus at 7:30 AM (Eastern), ready to head over and get some breakfast with the other 10,000 attendees. Surprisingly, the lines were manageable thanks to a large staff, large amounts of food and a huge amount of planning.

The keynote was directly after lunch, which opened with a ~10 minute intro spoofing back to the future and poking some good natured fun at microsoft. The production values were surprisingly good, and Christopher Lloyd actually drove up in a delorian replica on stage with the keynote speaker. It was pretty darn sweet. Here I am describing it... and I've got a video to post.

Later in the day we attended a session giving an intro to Visual Studio 2008, another session for "painlessly" upgrading from Microsoft SQL Server 2000 to 2005 (wrong choice for us developers), and a final hands-on lab letting us build an ASP .NET 2.0 page from scratch.

The only noticeable problems so far have come up with trying to find a restroom without a line and the software glitch in our first session that almost made it a waste of time. Other than those, I really can't complain (except for being away from Katie for so long). I'm having a good time, learning new things, seeing the Orlando sites (last night, and again tonight I suppose)...

I'm going to spend some time on the computer until one of our programmer's gets back from a run, then we're going to meet up with one of our company's IT guys for dinner tonight. After dinner, walmart. After walmart... Jam Session at Universal's Groove.

Gotta harden my resolve on this car deal...

For a while now, I've been talking to Katie (probably seems endless to her) and posting on my blog about my quest for a new car, which was primarily driven by fear. You see, some time around 4 months ago Katie and I both took our cars to the shop. I had noticed that when turning my car would make knocking noises in the wheel wells. $600 later my car was no longer knocking. Paying $600 for the first time on a car that's 10 years old put the fear of the never ending repair visit in me.

So, when my air went out a few weeks ago, I got spooked and started considering more quick car deals... most of which involved a trade in so I don't have to deal with private parties who will probably question why the transmission shifts so hard. Anywho, here I am after another $700 (actually, much lower thanks to parents help) visit to the shop, with a running car, albeit with a few non-critical problems that I chose to wait to fix.

I'm trying my best to hold out, and I think I submitted a plan to Katie for approval (she actually has an "APPROVED" stamp) that may work for us. I'm looking forward to saving up money for 6 months or so, then going to Dallas and trading in my car for a 2002-2003 lexus es/gs 300. The IS 300 I mentioned on the blog previously is out... not what I want, I don't think. Dallas has a much larger used car selection and I figure with a trade in and about $3-4000 in cash, I can get a car with a loan that our budget can digest fairly easily.

I'd love to find some pics of the cars in question, but I have to get showered up and head out the door to make my flight to orlando. Hope everyone has a good week.

No (real) work for a week

Tomorrow I'm going to be leaving for Orlando for a week to attend Microsoft's Tech Ed 2007. I haven't been to a big conference like this before, so I don't really know what to expect. I only know that it's supposed to be huge (10,000+ people), and that it looks like I'll be learning more about ASP .NET, the new visual studio, and the .NET 3.0 framework.

I hope to be able to take a few pictures... though I'm still debating on whether to take my camera or not. I'll definitely have the laptop, so I'll be sure to make a couple blog posts (if things don't get too wild, that is :-o).