Don's Journal

So previously I was on an unlimited blackberry plan that gave me unlimited minutes and data for $129.00 a month.  I used my mobile phone for just about everything work related, including meetings.  Since I work from home, I do all my meetings over the phone.  This way I probably used close to 3,000 minutes a month.

After having a conversation with Tom Sheppler, I decided to make some changes to the way I did business from home.  I already use VoIP for my home landline so decided to add a second line and drop my Blackberry plan down to the minimum 450 minute allotment (with unlimited data).

Cost of second landline: $19.95/month.
Savings in plan change: $60.00/month.

The nice thing about my VoIP provider is that not only do I get unlimited calls to the USA and Canada but I also get unlimited calls to Australia, Germany, and 18 other countries and with my home office based out of Germany, I still make quite a few calls to there and Australia, where I was on a project for several months (and may have to go back).  All for $20.00/month.

So the new plan is to use my landline for all my business needs and to just use my mobile when I'm actually away from home.

So profound I don't know what it means!

Zaichiki na stene 
Posle zakata umirayut 
Myortvym legko vdvoine 
Zaichiki gasnut, i zamykayut 

Dvesti dvadtsat' na sebya 
Obmotalsya, i vperyod! 
Dvesti dvadtsat' na sebya 
Dvesti dvadtsat' na neyo 

Ty menya uchish zhdat' 
I govorish smeshnye frazy 
A ya vsyo hochu otdat' 
Esli lyubov' - znachit tol'ko srazu! 

Ty ne poimyosh vo sne 
Esli lyubov' - znachit vsyo sgoraet! 
Zaichiki na stene 
Posle zakata umirayut 

Dvesti dvadtsat' na sebya 
Obmotalsya, i vperyod! 
Dvesti dvadtsat' na sebya 
Dvesti dvadtsat' na neyo 

The one issue I have with these types of stories is that if I saw a ghost, I'd gtfo of dodge.  These people continue to live/stay there.

New Line Cinema founders making a big budget adaptation of Isaac Asimov's Foundation novel!

http://entertainment.slashdot.org/entertainment/08/11/29/0323248.shtml

Despite increasing my meds, my Hemoglobin A1C went from 7.6 to 7.8. This means my body is no longer producing enough insulin on its own to keep my blood glucose levels down. This also explains why I've been so freaking tired lately.

( Education on insulin beneath cut )

So I go to see the doctor next Wednesday to talk about going on insulin. YAY ME!

It's a complete ripoff of Werewolves of London and Sweet Home Alabama, structurally it blows, and I'm not particularly a big fan of his singing.

But every time I hear it I tap my foot to it.

Damnit.

My buddy webrat made a post in his journal about yardwork so I figured I should probably post an update on the progress of my yardwork.


For whatever reason we pretty much let the yard go last year, particularly the backyard which is not a good thing when you live in the south and are bordered next to an overgrown wooden lot.

They say the south is covered in 7.5 million acres of kudzu and the good acre overgrown lot next to mine is no exception.   Kudzu is horrific.  It grows like crazy and form these really thick roots that go deep underground.  The typical treatment for kudzu involves an eradication program involving herbicides, pulling, and clipping, and is estimated to take 5 years.

Kudzu has invaded my back yard.  Last year it got so bad that it made it into the pool before we took action.   Now it's firmly entrenched into our azalea bushes, fence, and about damned near everything else.  Fortunately kudzu doesn't grab onto bamboo very well so our bamboo grove is thriving quite nicely and is firmly entrenched along the creek that runs through our property.

Right now we're spending about 2 hours every day working on the yard trying to get it up to muster.  Most of the kudzu is grown but I have to get out there daily to take out the 18 inches or so of new growth that sprouts from a vast array of tunneling roots firmly entrenched in our property.

Between the kudzu, some wicked azalea munching fungus, and moles, we have our work cut out for us. 

This is just in our relatively small back yard.  The HUGE front yard which was well maintained last year looks great thanks to frequent mowing, a decently wet season so far, and chemlawn. ;)

Iron Man had more of a profound affect on my wife than it did.

She even mentioned that if we had another kid she'd name it "Tony Stark Stauffer".

She's a nut.

I started to do a meme but got disgusted about halfway through and stopped.  Stupid meme's.

Singapore airlines is now offering suites on their A380 planes.  Right now the only route is out of London but a quick fare lookup came out to $13,500 for a round trip flight.  Heh.

Still the suites are pretty impressive.

Stolen from bpeace

xkcd has a great statement on it.

Just finished playing Portal. I'm behind on the curve since I was out of the country for four months.

Cute song, but the lyrics are probably a lot funnier if you've played the game.

Oh, the lyrics also contain spoilers of a sort so don't clickeh unless you've already played (in which case you know the song) or don't plan to.

I'm not actually scheduled to leave Rochester until 5pm tomorrow but I don't have to be at the client office so I get to sleep in.

As I stare out the window I am greeted by gray skies and a ton of snow coming down outside.  It is 35 degrees and they expect 1-2 inches of accumulation here on this first day of spring with more lake effect snow tomorrow morning, finally tapering off sometime tomorrow afternoon.

My impressions of Rochester are strictly limited to the downtown area as I didn't bother to rent a car but the gray skies are a pretty good reflection of the downtown area as well; desolate and depressing.

It looks as if the city hit a high point somewhere around the early 70s and then began a slow decline after that.  Like many cities it's size (roughly 200,000 and declining) most of the folks have migrated to the suburbs leaving a rather sad core of a downtown.  The sidewalks are wide enough to support chairs and tables but many of the buildings stand empty.  There is a nearby "mall/food court" complex that is about 70% empty, to be fair, it is being demolished in about 90 days to make way for a new corporate headquarters for some company but being one of the few consumer areas, I'm not sure it is necessarily a good thing.

An excellent statement to the hard times that downtown Rochester is facing can be reflected by the fact that I saw the governor of New York (the new one, not Spitzer), give a speech at the aforementioned mall.food court speaking of the need to revitalize the urban areas of New York's smaller cities (note: Rochester is the 4th largest city in New York behind NYC, Albany, and Buffalo).

To get to the customer site, I walk past large buildings hosting JP Morgan Chase and other large companies but these buildings seem mostly empty.  Even during the lunch hour, I don't see many people walking about.  It's rather sad really because this city has so much potential and it's wasted.  The affluent people live in the suburbs while the poor and desolate have been left to the city center.

It's pretty depressing.

Delta has now managed to misplace my bag *3* times in the last 3 months.

ffs!

Long story short, my gaming system is up and running.

It's huge in Australia and it's catchy.

I like it.

It makes me lol.  It's a Hulu link so I hope non-hulu folks can watch it.

Having been the brunt of many a jokes for the past 18 months or so because my gaming rig was "an HP Pavilion?!" I decided to order a new system.

I think I may have just sprouted another chest hair or two (bringing the total to about 15):

This system is gunna scream.

The flight from Australia was a long one but one I've made a few times now.  Eighteen hours later I'm home and am on a completely messed up sleep schedule that doesn't even make sense on Australia time.

Thanks to those who wished me a safe journey.