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Back from Vegas

This weekend was one of my smoothest returns from Vegas in my life. It probably helped that Julie joined me there on Friday and we flew back together on Saturday. My BOF on Friday night was very well received and I heard a lot of positive comments about it afterwards. What do you expect when you give people free beer.

After the BOF, the Virtuas Crew had a kick-ass dinner at BOA Steakhouse in Caesar's. Before we were done, a college buddy of mine arrived in Vegas, so Julie and I met him at Harrah's for some blackjack and craps. We had an fun night of gambling with my buddy, who started with $5K at the first blackjack table. Apparently, Julie brought him luck and he ended up winning a few grand by the time the night was over. We had breakfast and walked back to Caesar's as the sun was coming up. We saw Gier and Hani catching cabs as we were walking in. 5 hours later, we'd had a good night's sleep and headed to the airport. We got sidetracked at Emeril's for lunch and enjoyed some good laughs with a couple friends before leaving.

When we got home last night, both kids had just fallen asleep. Of course, we wanted to wake them up, but also realized that sleeping children is quite a blessing. They were tickled to death when they woke up this morning and we were home. Today was a great day, and a big reason why it was so easy to transition from Vegas to Denver. The kids and I let Julie sleep in a little and took a stroller ride to the local bagel shop (a mere 3 blocks away) for a couple hours. It was a windy walk and we arrived home motivated to do some kite-flying at the park. We had fun at the park and it was super cute watching Abbie fly her first kite. After that, we headed to Dave & Buster's for lunch. Abbie never let me sit down because she wanted to play games the whole time. 2 hours later, we were on our way back home.

The day ended with Jack and I running errands. I needed to buy a new laptop backpack since mine got shredded in the wash a couple of weeks ago. We headed to Gart Sports, where I shopped and Jack stabbed stuff with a tent stake he found. He was like a hunter on the loose, crouching, jumping and yelling at stuff throughout the corner of the store we were in. It's a good thing no one else was around.

I ended up with the only backpack that could fit my laptop, which seems quite strange. I've been to the Apple Store, REI and Gart Sports and I've found the laptop backpack situation is abysmal. A couple of years ago, the selection was quite good. Oh well, I only paid $35 and I'll probably look for one online this week. The ideal backpack would have a built-in camelback and laptop holder (since I use it primarily when commuting on my bike).

After Garts, we headed to the Apple Store in Cherry Creek. I had to buy a new power cord for my MacBook Pro. I left mine in Vegas, possibly at the BOF. The Apple Store is pretty close to the "breakfast playground" - so I had to let Jack play in it. 15 minutes of jumping on eggs, waffles, climbing on bananas and sliding down bacon made Jack a very happy camper.

It's great to be home. AFAIK, I'm not travelling for a couple weeks, possibly more than a month. My next big trip is to The Ajax Experience and JavaOne in May. This week is supposed to be in the 60s, so I'm looking forward to a nice week of Colorado spring weather. With any luck, I'll get a signification amount done on both AppFuse and Spring Live this week. It might take a couple of late nights to make it happen, but I feel pretty motivated right now.

Back from Boston, getting ready for Vegas

I had a fantastic time in Boston this past weekend. A college buddy of mine lives there with his girlfriend, and another college buddy flew in from NY. Friday night was a ton of fun, and I found it amusing that the bar we were at used the default background from Windows XP as their "mood setting theme" on many of their TVs.

We survived the night quite well thanks to Berocca and enjoyed our Saturday touring my friend's hometown, Gloucester. The flight home on Sunday was nice and it was awesome walking into a house with kids screaming "Daddy!!". I took the day off yesterday to spend some time with the fam. We made the most out of it with a trip to the Natural History Museum, and some sledding in the fresh snow.

Today, I'm back in the office with no motivation to work. I can't believe how many things I have on my plate right now. Unfortunately, the 100+ e-mails I need to answer, the AppFuse bugs I need to fix, and the Spring Live chapters I need to update will all have to wait. My schedule doesn't permit any real work this week. Instead, I have to fly out to Vegas tomorrow for TheServerSide Java Symposium. The schedule looks really good, so I hope to learn a lot at this show. Julie's flying in Friday night, so it should it be another fun week. With March Madness in full force this week, Vegas is sure to be a crazy place.

Made it to Boston

I had a nice uneventful trip to Boston today. It snowed in Denver last night, so I got up and headed to the airport a few hours early. I was rewarded with hardly any traffic and a seat on a standby flight. Emily was on the same flight, which made it easier to navigate this place once we arrived. It's been rainy and dreary since we got here, but it sure looks like a nice place. Dinner at Legal Sea Foods is highly recommended.

I got to talk to the kids via webcam tonight, which was nice. Too bad none of them work very well (where's Skype 2.0 for OS X!?). Before I left, I got Yahoo working - but there's no voice. iChat doesn't work - even when I do both Macs in the same room using Bonjour. I'd like to blame my iSight, but Yahoo works fine b/w the Macs. Oh well, at least I can see the little munchkins.

Riding to work in the rain

Today is a cold n' dreary day in Denver. It's been raining since about 8:00 this morning and it's supposed to turn to snow by this evening. Did that stop me from riding my bike to work today? Hell no! There's nothing like riding in cold rain to make you feel alive.

We have a SNOW AND BLOWING SNOW ADVISORY in effect through 6pm for the I-25 corridor and Denver Metro Area. Heavy, wet snow for the downtown Denver Metro Area with 1-4 inches on the grassy areas by this evening. Roads will get slushy by this afternoon in the Denver Metro Area. Western Douglas, western Jefferson and Boulder counties may see icy and snowpacked roads by later today with colder temperatures and 3 to 6 inches by this evening. We may see 4 to 8 inches above 8000 feet.

My pants and coat were pretty soaked when I got here, but I brought a change of clothes, so I've been nice and dry ever since. I'm heading to the Denver JUG meeting tonight after work. I expect 2-3" of fresh snow on the ride home later tonight. With lots of snow in the hills tonight, tomorrow might have to be a "ski day".

Update: No ride home for me - I forgot my keys in my office when I went to DJUG. No access to the office == no bike ride home. Took a cab instead. Too bad, it didn't snow much and would've been a nice ride.

Nice Weather

Yesterday was 70°F, today is going to be even nicer. You couldn't ask for nicer weather for the ol' bike commute.

Smashed Fingers

Today we took the kids to Dave & Buster's for lunch. They're not quite old enough, but they do good. Abbie and I race cars and she can't even touch the gas. After a few seconds of waiting, her car takes off and she's driving - hooting and hollering the whole time. Jack isn't quite tall enough - he can peer over the edge and see a bunch of coins in the machine - but has no idea what it does. He does know that the machine takes coins - and loves putting them in. When he won 100+ tickets today, he was ecstatic - pulling the tickets out and giggling to himself the whole time.

I carried both kids to the car on the way out. We have a Honda Odyssey mini-van (they might be cheesy, but they make awesome cars - spoken like a true dad, eh?). Holly opened the door with the remote. It stopped after opening a few inches - and I reached to open it manually. As soon as I got my fingers around the door, it shut. Youch! I screamed like a little girl. After a few seconds, Holly was smart enough to open the front door and I pulled them out. No dropped kids, which was pretty impressive. It's been a couple hours since then. It was only two fingers, but one is still numb. The good news is I'm still able to type - but they're still throbbing.

Dear Elena

James Duncan Davidson:

Daniel Steinberg has bravely started writing about his daughter, Elena, after she died of bacterial meningitis.

I've known Daniel for a couple of years now, through conferences and his writings at java.net. Reading his opening entry "Dear Elena" is a very emotional experience. As a parent, I can't imagine what I would do in the same situation.

Rough week for Jack

Last week, I flew out to San Francisco on Monday evening to meet with a client. My meeting was on Tuesday, and I spoke with Julie shortly before flying home on Tuesday night. No, she wasn't mad I missed Valentine's Day - we're both aware it's a Hallmark Holiday. She said that Jack had a rough day - going through something like 20 diapers. When I arrived home at midnight, he still wasn't feeling very well.

The next morning, he threw up on me after drinking a bunch of milk. The vomiting continued for 2 more days and got really bad on Thursday. He couldn't even hold down water. Thursday morning, Julie took him to the doctor, and they said it was probably Rotavirus. He'd lost 3 pounds, which is a lot for a guy his size. Thursday afternoon, we noticed he was turning white and was very lethargic.

Julie and her sister (who is a nurse) took Jack to the emergency room Thursday evening. They were planning on waiting a few hours for anyone to see him. Instead, they took him right away and hooked him up to an IV. His glucose level was at 36, which is way below "very bad". He recovered nicely after getting some fluids and was back home by 9:00 p.m.

Today, he's back to his normal self - laughing, crying and bugging his big sister. I heard Rotavirus lasted 7 days, and it appears to be true. Here's a picture we took of Abbie and Jack yesterday - you can tell he's not 100%, eh? ;-)

Bluetooth Rocks

If nothing else, bluetooth is good for one thing: using your phone as a modem to connect to the internet w/o wires. I'm blogging this from my airplane to San Francisco. Scheduled departure: 25 minutes. My Phone - a Motorola V330. Instructions are here. The speed is definitely slow, but most sites work (GMail is really the only one that has serious issues).

3 Peat?

It's been great watching DU Hockey that past couple of years. Ever since we moved back to the "ol' neighborhood", we've had season tickets. They've won the last NCAA Title the last two seasons, and they're making a comeback this year.

Abbie and I went to the game tonight, along with a number of other friends (Julie and Jack stayed home - Jack has a respiratory infection). They're definitely looking good. Let's hope they can keep it together through the playoffs. It looks like I'll be watching a lot of hockey next weekend.

With 32 points, the Pioneers are one point ahead of No. 1 Minnesota for first place in the WCHA. Those two teams will face each other in Minneapolis next weekend for a two-game series with puck drop for both Friday and Saturday's games scheduled for 6:07 p.m. MST. [Read more...]