Outraged Parent

Here is an clip from an episode of "A Bit of Fry and Laurie" that I found very funny. It was pointed out to me that the father is played by Hugh Laurie, who is currently portraying Dr. Gregory House on the TV show "House".

Social Networks

One of my New Years resolutions was to better communicate. In addition to finally getting some contact information that I was missing, I have recently joined a few social networks. Specifically, MySpace, and FaceBook. I am also on Plaxo\Pulse and LinkedIn, but I had been on those for a little longer. If you're on them, you can search for me using "Don Hayward" or "Donald Hayward". There will probably be a lot of cross posting between different sites, because the whole goal is to increase ccommunication.

So.....can I get your number?

When I left my last job, I made backups of all of my Outlook data (email,tasks,calendars), gave one copy to the other developer, left one copy one my laptop's hard drive, and made one copy for myself. This was all of the data that I had acquired in the five years I had worked there. The only thing I did not leave a copy of with the developer was the contacts that I had created, as most of them were personal. With all of this, the data spanned 9 CD's for each set.

When I went to load the contacts onto my new computer, I went looking for the CD's. I found disks 1-8. The last disk, the one I had made on my last day, was missing. It was also the one with the contact data on it. I wasn't completely out of this data, because I had uploaded some of the information to Plaxo. Unfortunately, not all, and some of what I had uploaded had changed, since my boss and a few other friends had changed companies, or moved. And some were just newer then the last push to Plaxo.

I had resigned myself to having to rebuild some of the information. I did not want it to happen again, so I again tied my email to Plaxo, and then set up bidirectional syncs with other resources, including my personal machine at home. This also allowed me to update the information to my iPod and my phone, which is a very nice addition.

I found the CDabout 30 minutes ago, while looking for something completely different.

Microchips are great

After dropping my daughter off at school (Ben is home until Monday due to his surgery. He doesn't like it. There is way too much homework!), Tammy came across a dog in the middle of the road. The dog was trying to eat something off of the road. She brought the dog home, and fed it, and said that we were probably going to have to put up signs. Since I have recently insisted on chipping my pets, I suggested that she take the dog to the vet, and see if it was chipped. It was, and the vet's office has attempted to contact the owner. I'm hoping to hear back from them later today.

Update: 2008-01-15 8:31:00 PM - I meant to update the blog to say that the dog's owners came to pick him up around 5:00 PM. He was very happy to see his family. He had apparently been out since early afternoon the day before.

Busy, Busy, Busy

Things have been hopping around here over the last week. In addition to trying to clear my good name, re the ticket, I have been trying to help with a bunch of stuff around the house. In addition to all that, my son is having a hernia operation tomorrow. He's a bit scared, and this evening, decided that he doesn't need it. I don't blame the little guy. Just sad to see him have to go through with it.

Ticket

One of the tings that are really motivating me to get more organized is the fact that I got a ticket for expired registration last Wednesday. I have already taken care of it, though it should never have happened. It's one of those things that you can plan on yearly. You can even set up a reminder to dig around for the form, set to go off the month it expires.

On Books and Podcasts

One of the things I will be sharing is interesting podcasts, books, or audiobooks that I am reading or listening to. (That was a bad sentence. Structurally, I feel like I should have typed "reading or hearing", but thats not right either.) In that vain, I want to include a recent series of audiobooks that I have enjoyed. These are the three books in the 7th Son Trilogy. I found them via podiobooks.com, while looking around to fill my iPod up with stuff when I was driving to the YRUU Rally in Baton Rouge. There are three books (1, 2, 3). The epilogue to the third was posted about 1 month ago, so I had caught up with the author about a month before, so waiting for each of the last four episodes was like waiting for new episodes of 24 during the fourth season, when you caught up with the series by renting the DVD's from Netflix (Yep, that's how I did it. It was a killer waiting for each week to roll around when I was used to watching two episodes a night.)

A New Year and New (Old?) Promises to myself

I don't even remember what my "New Year's Resolutions" were last year, so I don't know how well I did. I can say, that since I don't remember them, I either accomplished them early, or totally failed at them early. While I'd like to think that it was the former, I bet it was the latter. In the hopes that I can at least be certain next year, I will write a few down.
1) Eat healthier and exercise - Yeah, I have a weight goal. It's the top end of the "healthy" range for me.
2) Get more organized - I can be a bit of a scatterbrain and forget/overlook things I am supposed to do.
3) Exercise my communication skills - In the Christmas Party post, I mentioned how I need to do more with my friends. As a first step, I need to work on my communication skills, and start communicating. I didn't send out Christmas cards, but I had hoped to send them out as "New Years" cards. Nope, didn't happen. I won't let it not happen again!

Actually, of all of them, by far, I want to do the last one most.