Roadtrip Recap (From Katies Blog)

Tuesday, August 29. 2006


For those of you that didn't make it to Katie's site, here is a recap of what she wrote.

My good friend Aaron....from college...and I decided to take an end of
the summer road trip. We left on Saturday the 19th with two
destinations Boston and Virginia days unknown...return unknown. Not
much of planners we are but so far it has been to our advantage.

Day one.
We departed Stoughton, Wisconsin after
getting within centimeters of taking out an unresponsible child on a
bike. SOO SCARY! I the driver was scared out of my mind after that but
made myself keep driving. I drove so long 462 miles later we ended up
in Sandusky Ohio at Lazy J's Campground.

In record time I put up the tent under the light of the headlights and a glow stick.



Day Two
After some careful...(quick)..planning we
decided to make our destination 2 Niagara Falls. Driving 277 miles we
ended up in the Town..yes there is a town (Aaron and I were Surprised
too) called Niagara falls. A much needed nap was apon us so we zonked
out for a good hour or so. After regaining cosciousness with my nifty
internet surfing skills I found information on the Falls. Thanks our
nonplanning skills we lucked out and were able to see a fireworks show
over Niagara. Absolutly beautiful place at night..check out the
pictures!

Now we are off to get all wet at the falls with a boat tour. After getting soaked our 3rd destination- Beantown!!

Day 3

Getting soaked was an understatement..we were drenched! But thanks to
our complementary ponchos we stayed relatively dry...pictures are there
to prove! We thought The Falls were beautiful at night, they were
breathtaking in day time.

After taking about 95 pictures we were on the road again....on the road again, I cant wait to get on the road again.. :-).sorry
couldnt help myself. Anyway.. We drove another 475 miles bringing our
overall mileage up to a hefty 1300 marker, ending up in my favorite
place in the US. BOSTON!!

Getting here at night we of course got a bit lost, totally expected in the curvy streets of beantown.

We met up with a Austin a local Bostonian (from Missouri) and his visiting friend Jacob...or Jason (sorry :-) ) Chilled at his house for a few and enjoyed a N/A Bloody Mary..yumm... (Thanks Austin)

Being back in Boston hit me like a ton of bricks, I love this city
because of the memories I have of it. Most of those memories are with a
family that I will not see for a very long time. Seeing simple places
like a toy store we shopped at, and a childrens barber that we had many
good and bad memories at while getting Henry's hair cut sent me to
tears. But life goes on and I will keep a smile on my face as I play
tour guide to a Virgin Bostonian (Aaron).



Day 4 and 5

The Tour was a success, we walked around for nearly 5 hours hitting up much of the Freedom trail and stopping to take pictures along the way. We even made it to my first home in Boston, 8 Otis of Beacon hill. Next was a walk through the Public Gardens, Boston Commons ( home of many many bums, and many memories of feeding Henry lunches and dinners), a trip to the craziness of Faneuil Hall for some good ol' Aaron sunglass shopping, lunch in Little Italy on the North end. A visit to the USS Constitution, Bunker Hill, a very enjoyable ride on the infamous T ferry/water taxi through the Boston Harbor. And finally a scavanger hunt to find my stuff in a storage compartment.

Since we had to drive through and around Boston, New Haven, New York, New Jersey, Phili, Baltimore, D.C. and finally Manassas VI. We decided to leave later in the evening and drive through the night. 9 hours of driving can do funny things to you especially when you do it with not even a drop of caffeine ( Didn't indulge in any, Aaron however had 3 Mountain Dews). Our final destination was met with only two stops, when the clock hit 3:30, 472 Miles later bringing our overall trips milege to 1700 we were greeted by wide awake Mike in Manassas Virginia. Not exactly sure how, the three of us stayed up till around 4:30 when I had to be a bad guest and retire to the guest room. I dont even remember my head hitting the pillow, actually I really think I was already asleep when I was changing into my pj's.

Finally for the first time since probably Easter I slept past 9am, and did absolutly NOTHING. Waking at 10:30 I stumbled out got dressed and did the best think next to sleeping worked on my tan at the pool.

Here are a few pictures from the trip so far. I do apologize now for how my voice sounds, If I do sound like this normally I really do apologize...especially for the amount of talking I do.
Just click the link thats aarons blog and then click each video and pray that it works :-) Just kidding Aarons a genius....and enjoy.

http://www.frozenpc.net/s9y/archives/220-Niagara-Falls-Videos.html

Day 6
We have done so much and so little in the last few
days it seems like a week has gone by just in the last two days. Aaron
and I worked on our tans for a few hours, well I worked on my
tan...Aaron worked on getting burnt. When Mike was able to astray from
work we trucked over to JTC and the famous site of Modevia, their
webhosting company.

After stuffing our faces with yummy
nonauthentic Mexican food we headed for the Metro. Talk about a clean
train system, I was much impressed over its cleanliness over the Boston
Train System. We didn't arrive there till after 3 but we managed to
cover so much ground and of course their are pictures to prove.

Wanting
to get out of the sun for a few minutes and settle our dehydration we
very quickly decided to hop into a bar. Now Im not sure if I believe in
fate but something brought us to this bar for a reason. We had just
planned on having one drink and very quickly that turned into an
appetizer and more drinks. Im not sure how it all started but we
started talking to a girl whom was sitting by us Sibu was from the
Greater Boston area and was such a character. Tony from Pennsylvania
joined the conversation midevening and quickly became one with our
"corner of the bar" group. We had such great conversation..nothing of
which had any meaning whatsoever but none the less it was a very
eventful enjoyable evening.

The night ended as all nights should,
Mike broke his sandal at the bar and honestly I dont think I've seen
anything as funy as that before. I took way too much video footage
because it was just so damn funny I couldnt help myself. He had to gimp
around D.C. with a broken sandal because he needed it to get on the
metro. We made it back, broken sandal and all. By the time we finally
hit Manassas and did what all people do after leaving the bars, hit up
the Taco Bell.

Day 7
We Lounged around the pool for a
few hours in the morning and headed back into D.C. to finish seeing
what we missed the day before. Arriving late afernoon we again hit up
many more interesting sites. Nothing makes you feel more patriotic than
breating down glass of the Magna Carta, Constitution, Decleration of
Independence, and the Bill of Rights. The rest of our stops are all
documented by photographs so please do look.

Day 7 ended with a feast of 4lbs of crab legs and baked potatoes prepared by your very own, me.

Day 8
800 Miles to go and we're off. Sleeping in till 12:30!! I think we
should be able to cover some serious ground. Wish us safe driving.

over and out Katie and Aaron

Aaron and Katie Roadtrip Update

Saturday, August 26. 2006


We have been in Virginia the last few days, and made a couple trips to DC. There are alot of new pictures in the gallery. Again, Katie has done a good job of posting updates on her blog, so go check out what she has written about our trip (www.katiestravels.us).

Niagara Falls Videos

Wednesday, August 23. 2006


Click the links below to view the awesome Niagara Falls Videos:

Maid of the Mist 1

Maid of the Mist 2

Niagara Falls

Niagara Falls Fireworks

Road Trippin with Katie

Monday, August 21. 2006


So far we have had a great roadtrip, started out camping in ohio, then stopped at niagara falls, and now we are in Boston. There are plenty of pictures in my gallery.

Since Katie already wrote about the trip so far in her blog, im cheating and saying just go read what she has to say: Katies Blog

Today Cool Links

Friday, July 28. 2006

Here are a few of the cool links I came accross today:


Cheat Sheets

Wednesday, July 26. 2006

I stumbled accross this site this morning on Digg, and they have a cheat sheet for just about every programming language and anything else you can think of.  Very useful.  CheatSheets

Videos from Tara's Birthday

Wednesday, July 19. 2006


NOTE: May not work right in IE. Designed for firefox.


NOTE: If the video does not play back, make sure you have the latest iTunes/Quicktime installed: http://www.apple.com/itunes/download.

Snieg and Spanish Humping Natalie



Attempt 1 at Tara's Tidal Wave



Attempt 2 at Tara's Tidal Wave



Snieg doing what he does best

Goodbye Cingular

Monday, June 26. 2006

As of tonight I am no longer a Cingular customer.  I have ported my number to T-Mobile.  They seem to be a much better company and offer better services than cingular did.  Not to mention they promised not to send a "we are closing your account" letter to us.

Now I just have to patiently wait for my razr :-)

Web Development Breakdown

Friday, June 23. 2006

This is so true:

So Funny

Hunt for a SmartPhone

Thursday, June 15. 2006


So far, I think I have it nailed down to a few different smart phones. I decided that the blackberry is out of the picture. Here are the smart phones i'm looking at:

There are also the Palm phones, but they look to be a bit on the bulky side. I think my overall pick from those 3 is the A780.

What do you think? Let me know!

A package with a journey

Tuesday, June 13. 2006


It's not everyday you see this on your UPS tracking page:

If GM had developed technology like Microsoft

Thursday, June 8. 2006

For all of us who feel only the deepest love and affection 
for the way computers have enhanced our lives, read on.

At a recent computer expo (COMDEX), Bill Gates reportedly
compared the computer industry with the auto industry and
stated, "If GM had kept up with technology like the computer
industry has, we would all be driving $25.00 cars that got
1,000 miles to the gallon."
In response to Bill's comments, General Motors issued a press 
release stating: If GM had developed technology like Microsoft,
we would all be driving cars with the following characteristics
(and I just love this part):

1. For no reason whatsoever, your car would crash twice a day.

2. Every time they repainted the lines in the road, you would have to
buy a new car.

3. Occasionally, your car would die on the freeway for no reason. You
would have to pull to the side of the road, close all of the windows,
shut off the car, restart it, and reopen the windows before you could
continue.
For some reason you would simply accept this.

4. Occasionally, executing a maneuver such as a left turn would cause
your car to shut down and refuse to restart, in which case you would
have to reinstall the engine.

5. Macintosh would make a car that was powered by the sun, was reliable,
five times as fast and twice as easy to drive -- but would run on only
five percent of the roads.

6. The oil, water temperature, and alternator warning lights would all
be replaced by a single "This Car Has Performed An Illegal Operation_
warning light.

7. The airbag system would ask, "Are you sure?" before deploying.

8. Occasionally, for no reason whatsoever, your car would lock you out
and refuse to let you in until you simultaneously lift the door handle,
turned the key, and grabbed hold of the radio antenna.

9. Every time a new car was introduced car buyers would have to learn
how to drive all over again because none of the controls would operate
in the same manner as the old car.

10. You'd have to press the "Start" button to turn the engine off.

Please share this with your friends who love -- but sometimes hate their
computer!!

Easy Tunneling with Putty

Monday, May 22. 2006

Putty makes it very easy to tunnel your programs over ssh.  Check it out: http://thinkhole.org/wp/2006/05/10/howto-secure-firefox-and-im-with-putty/

MySQL Cheat Sheet

Thursday, May 18. 2006

Very handy MySQL Cheat Sheet: http://nparikh.freeshell.org/unix/mysql.php

Thanks for the Birthday Wishes

Tuesday, May 16. 2006

Thanks everyone for the Birthday wishes!  Besides the grey hairs I found, it was a good birthday. (j/k on the grey hair) :-)