Three-Letter Acronyms & Four-Letter Words

So Gina and I went to the farmer's market again this weekend, Jeremy and Nicole met us there as planned.

Gina and I got there a bit a head of schedule (prolly like 20 minutes), so we had actually gotten most of our shopping done before they showed up.

It was fun. We bought some more bread. Hopefully, with a little luck Emma will not get a hold of it this time. I think I might have forgotten to mention up here on the blog that Emma managed to get a hold of the baguette that we bought last weekend. When we realized it was missing our first thought was "EMMA!!!" Gina found the remaining 1/3 of the baguette in the backyard.

We bought some more tomatoes and more basil. Gina is planning to turn most of the fresh basil into pesto (and freeze) it.

We also bought some snacks and drinks while we were there. I ate a tofu dog that had been rolled in dough with sauerkraut and mustard, it was pretty good. We also bought a beef "arm roast", which will be pot roast on one night and then it will magically turn into Gina's tasty beef and barely soup another night (most likely the following night).

We also went over to IKEA today, I have been wanting to get a laptop table so that when I am sitting on the couch I can do stuff on the laptop without it being on my lap (like it is right now). This laptop table is apparently called DAVE.

Well the Round-Rock IKEA is out of DAVE tables, they were also out of the computer desk that I thought would be perfect for Gina's new room. I guess I probably haven't mentioned that either. Did I forget to mention that Gina bought a Bass recently? Not a Bass Guitar but a string bass, some times referred to as a "double bass".

And with that, she has cleaned out our guest room, as to house her bass and her music stuff. Given the extra room that is now in there (seeing as the queen bed has been removed) I think this one corner desk from IKEA would be perfect in there. Gina has been needing a place of her own in the house, so I am very excited to help her get the room into order to help her feel a bit more at relaxed when she is at home.

The desk I have in mind is the TOVIK.

Jeremy and I will be heading over to Fast Eddie's soon to try and get a spot to play Guitar Hero III before it comes out tomorrow. I have no idea how busy this will be, but I probably actually need to call him in a few minutes and see about us heading over there, cuz I think it is probably going to be swamped. I have enjoyed playing Guitar Hero at the stores and at the Webmaster Jam Session.

Oh yeah, so I had the idea and it is just an idea right now as I haven't had the chance to really look into the details. But here is the idea, Gina makes really, really good dog treats. I mean our dogs love them and from what I heard Kelly's dogs loved them too. So we bought some dog treats down at the farmer's market. They are honestly not very impressive. I think that Gina should make treats and we can sell them down there. I would have fun being down there on Saturday mornings and being part of the local commerce scene.

We have tossed around the idea quite a bit today and Gina seems interested, but skeptical that the dog treats are good enough to sell. I am believe the dog treats are excellent and worthy of selling. Given the number of dogs we saw there last weekend and this weekend, I feel it is safe to say that it is a good venue for us to try and break into the market.

Gina has on occasion also made dog beds, so I think that would be another thing that can be sold. The other thing would be the "belly bands" that Gina has made for Basil. The ones that Gina made do not seem to bug Basil, but the one that she bought at PetSmart did. I mean the one from PetSmart used some elastic in it that looked like it was painful to wear for long periods of time, while the bands that Gina makes do not. Another thought would be to also allow John to sell some of his handcrafted pet furniture down there as well.

In my opinion the folks buying from that particular market are more likely to be interested in good dog treats and dog beds and hand crafted pet furniture than any other farmer's market I have been to. Then again I could be completely wrong.

Like I said, haven't done much investigation. But if the cost of the booth isn't too much, I would be willing to pay for at least a couple of weekends of experimentation.

More to come on the idea of the farmer's market booth.

Time to give Jeremy a call.

Laterz

I just finished installing 2GB of RAM into my laptop.

It has been a fine, fine laptop, thus far.

I have been using it since August of 2005.

And with this memory upgrade I am pretty sure it will definitely last me until August of 2008.

My plan is to get a new laptop at the end of next year.

Gina is making dinner. Veggie Fried Rice and pot stickers.

She has been cooking more and more asian food lately. It has been really, really good. Because of the increase in our rice consumption and the fact that Emma is still eating rice and cottage cheese for meals, we bought a rice steamer at CostCo.

It works really well, simply drop in the rice and water, close the lid, push the button and about 20 minutes later bada-bing you have cooked rice.

Well it is time for dinner, I need to step away from the laptop and eat.

Laterz.

I got back from Dallas last evening at about 5:30 pm.

Gina and I had dinner with Nicole and Jeremy @ Pluckers (near Lakeline mall). It was good, had a few extra wings that I might eat for breakfast.

I was in Dallas pretty much all this past week for Jaduka meetings and the 2nd annual Executive Retreat. Jaduka is a subsidiary of NetworkIP. NetworkIP has three sister companies, Encompass, Centris, and Network Communications.

The retreat was centered around team building and leadership, with an additional emphasis around synergy between the companies.

All good stuff.

I found a lot of the information useful. Some of the information was brand new concepts for me, while I had heard of some before and a few I had come that a similar conclusion on my own. (Which it is always nice to find out that something you feel that you came up with is reinforced by others having the same idea, particularly when they are trainers.)

It was a fun time. And while it wasn't grueling coding work. It was work, meeting a bunch of new people, learning new concepts, and basically the sessions started at 8 am every morning. Breakfast ran from 7-8 am every morning, I barely made it to breakfast the first day, the second I was lucky that the start of the session had been pushed back until 8:30 am, and then on Friday morning I completely missed it. Luckily I had a case of the late night munchies on Thursday night and had half my room service sandwich left, so I didn't go hungry.

The accommodations for the retreat were top notch, it was a the DFW Lakes Hilton Resort. The format of the hotel very much reminded me of the hotel that ETel was hosted earlier this year. (Note, ETel '08 has been canceled, bummer!)

The Retreat had activities planned throughout the day (training and social) and night all week, so I haven't had the chance to really do anything on the Weasel site.

However, before I left for Dallas I did make some good headway by switching from coding everything from scratch to using Drupal & Ubercart. This has definitely reduced the amount of time it will take to get a working site up for John. I have about 1/4 of his products in the database and need to work on getting the rest in there today, that way I can work on the 'homepage' part of the site as it isn't looking quite the way I want it. I also need to work on testing out the PayPal integration, Ubercart is PayPal certified, so I am not concerned about it not working. Just wondering how it all looks.

Best get to it.

Laterz

Gina and I had a bit of an adventure today (all good, nothing bad).

But I wanted to put a quick post up, just in case anyone is reading my blog who also knows Jeremy.

Jeremy and Nichole are on their way to Texas.

Earlier today (around like 1:30pm central I think), Jeremy called me and told me they were in Virginia and were planning to make it to Nashville tonight before stopping.

Well, MSU is playing Indiana right now and I best get back into the living room.

Laterz

Well I got what I deserved earlier this afternoon in my follow-up tooth cleaning session. The flossing that the technician did hurt a little bit, as to be expected.

However, she gave me a lot of praise that I really didn't deserve (yet) about how good a job I am doing taking care of my teeth.

I definitely have to attribute the health of my teeth to my parents. Between giving me apparently GREAT genes for fending off tooth-decay, they also took care of my teeth early-on in my life (regular dental visits), taught me the importance of brushing and flossing (though I always slacked on that part).

I have definitely been blessed with good teeth. Everyone knows that I have a bit of a sweet tooth and at one time had a penchant for Jolt cola (not sugar free either).

The amount of scraping that went on today was very light.

I scheduled my next appointment for 12pm on April 15th.

Well I just finished dinner and need to get cracking on the Weasel site.

Laterz

I don't remember exactly when the last time it was that I went to the dentist before I moved to Texas. I think it was in the middle of 1997.

I know that since I moved I had not been to the dentist until Tuesday at 8:20 in the morning.

Ultimately the reason for me not having been to the dentist was one part laziness and one part fear.

Not having ever had a cavity or any real dental problems before moving down to Texas, I was worried that the long-time absence from regular dental care I might have a cavity or need some sort of more extensive dental work. Needless to say, all the work that Jeremy has had on his teeth made me fear the worst.

For the first 7 or so years I didn't have dental insurance. These last three years I have had it, but it was the fear of them finding something horribly wrong that kept me away.

Well, after what has to be 10 years of not having been to the dentist, I lucked out. I won my game of dental roulette. No cavities and nothing wrong with my gums that can't be fixed with regular flossing.

Let me tell you that it is quite interesting how much the technology has changed in the dentist office since last I had been.

1. Digital x-rays, instant availability. It would be cooler if it was wireless, but I have a feeling the x-ray beam would likely cause a problem with the wireless signal.

2. The "ultra-sonic" water thingy. Last time I was at the dentist the only option available for getting the plaque and tartar off my teeth was the metal scraping tool. This time the technician cleaning my teeth was able to get most everything off with just this tool.

They had a flat screen computer hooked up in each little room, with their scheduling software availble.

Oh yeah, they took some before and after pictures of my teeth.

The front of my teeth did not have a ton of plaque and tartar in comparison to the back of my teeth.

I can also say that I could feel the difference of how clean the back of my teeth were after the technician was done.

Needless to say, it won't be 10 years before my next visit. I will be taking proper care of my teeth from here on out.

Almost forgot, due to the amount of build-up I will be going back to the dentist tomorrow at 1pm to get the rest of the build-up off. I have a feeling the technician is going to end up using the metal tool more than the ultra-sonic.

I gotta get back to the Weasel site.

Laterz

I think I have finally kicked the funk.

It was a long, long week.

We launched the new Jaduka corporate site, this meant a few late nights this past week, which when combined with still being a little bit under the weather was just not fun.

But with the corporate site launched and me being over the funk will let me to focus on getting John's Weasel site prototype finished.

I plan to work on it all weekend (no Halo3 till it is done.)

Laterz