gotshoo?

Last night I signed my name 22 times, gave more personal information than you should ever share with one person, confirmed that the bank would get my first born, and that doesn’t even include the contract we had to draw up for the devil.

By the end, my signature, which includes 20 letters (I counted), was becoming less than a recognizable “C” and a “S”. Now I understand why some family members’ signatures resemble a Picaso artwork more than our full last name. So the ball is rolling and I don’t think there is anyway to stop it, I am going to become a homeowner.

Talking to my Mom over the phone she reminded me my life was going to change. “Ya, I know, but for the worse?” Obviously not. But I am reminded of weekend projects of working with my Dad and brother to replace windows, wire outlets, put in ceiling fans, replace the seal for a toliet, removing wallpaper..ect.

The realtor, who has done a lot of work for my family, would make mention to what it would take to hire someone to fix or replace an item. I’d have to remind him that in one way or another that I had had experience in replacing, gutting, and/or fixing that particular object. And it didn’t hurt that I spent almost a year in the home design / roof truss design business.

Luckily, the house that I am buying does not require a huge amount of TLC other than some much needed work to the yard, a fresh coat of paint inside, and replacing a circuit breaker box with some updated wiring. No, I am not replacing the breaker box myself. I’ll leave that to a trained professional. Yes, I do know what a current of electricity feels like.

The ever popular joke has been that I don’t need a work bench. This came about while driving with GTG and telling her about the houses I had been through. I told her that I was not too thrilled with one house because it did not have the much needed space for a work bench. She turned to me, “Why do you need a work bench?” My reply, “To fix stuff, of course!”

To this day, she still does not understand why I need a work bench.

Everyone around the family of Shoo’s has been buzzed with excitement and anticipation of the new house. My mom has already taken stock in what she has, and what she can give to me, so that she can buy new. I think I am getting a “preowned” vaccuum cleaner. My ultimate goal though has been to get a new Weber charcoal grill. You thought it was bad when I posted a video of my popcorn maker…. just wait.

Move-in date has been scheduled for August 5th, which just happens to be my birthday.

Last weekend my company finally migrated over to a full Microsoft Exchange environment. A project that yours truly oversaw and is administrating. The project was kind of just tossed in my lap. Other than setting up some email addresses through an ISP, I had no prior experience. They did buy me two books though.

The migration went seamlessly this weekend. I was expecting some kind of disaster, but other than a few emails being marked as SPAM when they weren’t, everything worked out great. I’ve got some interesting statistics from my first full day as being an email administrator.

Using a licensed spam filter: Out of the 1038 emails inbound (today was a light day), 762 were marked as no-doubt-about-it spam, 18 suspected spam, and the rest (258) were genuine emails.

That works out to be 73% of our email was junk.

I have read the statistic many times that around 75% of all emails that travel through the internet are SPAM, but never really thought “this includes my work.” But then, I don’t get SPAM at work.

Number one reason why I don’t get SPAM at work… I don’t post or use my work email address to register for anything on the internet… including those animated gifs, flash games, or travel deals.

My coworkers are happy with the new filter, especially the chronic spam collectors.

Via www.stltoday.com

Was camera tipping off White Sox to pitches?
ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH
06/23/2006

CHICAGO — If the Cardinals never solved Freddy Garcia in a 1-0 loss Thursday night, they may have settled a conspiracy.

The White Sox were 40-for-88 with 15 extra-base hits and 33 runs the first two games of the series. The outburst not only heightened suspicion that Mark Mulder wasn’t sound, but also that the White Sox dugout may have been exercising gamesmanship.

During Wednesday’s rout, the Cardinals dugout became convinced a center-field camera at U.S. Cellular Field was tipping pitches to the home team.

Signs were changed after the fifth inning, and the White Sox went four for 36 with one extra-base hit and one run after the switch.

“Let’s put it this way,” one Cardinals source said Thursday night. “They looked like they knew what was coming the first two nights. They looked like they had no idea tonight.

“You figure it out.”

– JOE STRAUSS

GAH!!

Finding out a guy you went to high school with was Miss Bloomington 2006 is way too gross.

Learn something new everyday.

(Note: Casual readers who are not nerds: The following post is technology !intense!)

I do a lot of work with MySQL for data dependant websites. One of my biggest qualms with MySQL is the lack of a good admin tool. MySQL has an official “MySQL Administrator” program, but depending on the ISP and how MySQL is hosted depends how much functionality you are able to get out of the program that is deathly slow and locks up occasionally. There is also PHPMyAdmin, a web-based program, but it still lacks some functionality in transferring data between databases.

I wish I was getting paid or a free copy, but I am now endorsing using till I have to pay for SQLyog. So far it has been a great program and more importantly it has not locked up on me on large data transfers. Whoo-hoo! Lots of functionality and a good comparison is that it is the Enterprise Manager for MySQL.

Right now, I am using the free edition which just requires clicking on a dialog acknowledging that you are using the free version. No limits on how long or what functions you can or can’t use. If you want to be legit it is $27 for a non-commercial license and $47 for a single user.

Russ, Dave or anyone else using something different?

Dear MySpace,

I am a Firefox user. I cannot watch the booty-shakin’ music video that you so proudly display on your front page because you require IE and Windows Media Player. Do I have the little e sitting in my quick launch taskbar? Yes, I do but it does not warrant me opening a new browser window to log in just to watch the booty-shakin’ video.

Please fix this…

Sincerely,

Shoo