TBone’s weblog!

Happy Anniversary to my post

Wow, a whole year since I last posted!

Yeah, well, a lot has gone on since then. Um, let’s see, here’s the highlights:

- Tommy started at Mizzou and he’s reporting that he’s doing very well so far. We took a family trip to Columbia to get him oriented at Summer Welcome in July, and a good time was had by all. Tina flew back with him in August to help him get settled, and he’s been having a great time ever since. He says his grades are doing great, and he’s made a lot of friends. We are all looking very forward to seeing him at Thanksgiving.

- Tina started school and is in her second semester at SCC. Whenever she takes a new class, she always changes her mind on what she wants to study. It’s nice to see her enjoying all the learning she’s doing. Not hard to believe, but she’s already surpassed my writing ability.

- Simon joined the marching band, and went to a camp for saxaphone players in July. It’s been a real hoot going to Lake Mary football games (home and away) and seeing Simon play. He’s doing great in school and really has taken a liking to physics.

- Olivia is doing great in school and has continued as the best lil’ flyer in the whole wide cheer world. She’s really enjoying her math class and learning algebra. We also set her up a blog over at http://www.carbonefamily.com/oliviasblog if you’re ever interested in checking up on her.

I hope to write more often, although I spend more time on web backends these days than actually using the applications. I’m done with my PhD classes, passed my qualifiers, but I’m too busy with FIEA and 360ed to work on my project. Such is life.

October 11th, 2008 | Category: General | Leave a comment

Finally. A Yard.

Well, we’ve been waiting for - well - ever - for a yard of our very own. It only took 20 years. And by our own, I mean how good, or bad, it is, is our fault. Period. Nobody else’s. The sod got done today. All the sprinklers work. The lighting works. So now, when stuff breaks, do we fix it? When plants overgrow their spot and obscure something, do we trim it? Do we maintain the grounds? I think Tina and I will be the greatest yard people in the world since we’ve waited this long for a yard of our own. I really genuinely do. Joey doesn’t. But I do.

It looks completely awesome. Grass everywhere, no weeds. Trees where trees should be, trimmed. Beds tidy. Sure, we have a little work to do. But man does it look great. I went out tonight just to watch the sprinklers sprinkle and I stayed for 15 minutes just watching them.

We have 888 watts of transformers on the front of our house, of which we are using 304. No really. Maybe one day I’ll find a use for the other 584. Maybe in the fountain if we ever get one. I just realized that’s almost a kilowatt.

I’ve decided to make a new category - “yard”. Whoever had money on me never having a category named “yard”, you just lost.

October 11th, 2007 | Category: General | Comments (1)

Busy week

So this is our busy time of year at FIEA - we go out to grad fairs, career expos, professional school gatherings, and the like to talk to prospective students. Yesterday I was up in Tallahassee talking with Seminoles about becoming Knights. Tomorrow, I talk to Gators about becoming Knights. We’ve had several success stories about Gators becoming Knights and then getting paid well to make games, so I hope to talk to some of them about coming to Orlando. I’m heading back up to Gainesville 3 MORE times in the next 4 weeks, which should be fun. The ride is not that bad, especially since all trips will include someone else to talk to.

I’ve been doing quite a bit of development work with something called WPF (Windows Presentation Foundation) and C#. I’m writing programs on a tablet computer, doing things like recognizing handwriting, shapes, and gestures using the pen interface. For the final project in the class, I’m going to write a game I’m designing to teach algebra with the pen - I’ll post more about it as I do it. For now, I’m recognizing shapes, numbers, and some letters pretty well using an algorithm designed by a guy named Rubine. Fun stuff.

October 10th, 2007 | Category: General | Comments Off

4.0…I think

Olivia got her progress report, and I’m pleased to report she got all As. She’s a very organized, determined young lady, so I’m not surprised by her early success. She makes her mom and I proud every day of the week.

Tonight, I took the boys to college night over at SCC, where we checked out some local (and not so local) colleges. Most intriguing of the bunch was West Point - man does that sound tough. The guy made no apologies about how difficult the road through there is. I also talked at length to the gals from UF and SCC about logistics of applying and whatnot.

I’m heading over to Tampa tomorrow for a full day at USF, home of the #6 football team in the country, believe it or not. I’m actually not speaking at all - but I setup all three talks, so I’m going in support of those. Ron is giving a talk on C# and XNA, Brian is talking on MEL, and Michael is talking about Master Plan, our last game at FIEA. Should be a fun, albeit long, day. Todd hooked me up with a bunch of new recruiting material to hand out - I think we’re finally getting on the ball on this whole FIEA thing.

October 3rd, 2007 | Category: General | Comments Off

Chugging right along…

So we finally got up enough energy and whatever else it takes to try to make our yard OUR YARD. Tina and I have always kind of blamed the previous owners for our lousy grass and landscaping, but in reality, it’s just been our laziness that has made it go from a C+ to a D- in 4 years. That’s all changed, and we’re two weeks away from having a kickass new yard. Today, with Joey and Mark’s help, we laid out some new beds and planted a really nice new palm tree in the front yard. We have a lot more work aheads of us, but we’re making steady progress, which is always a great feeling.

School is going good - both the teaching and the taking. I’m in a pen-based computing class, which has been hard but interesting. The professor leaves a lot of the details to us, which has led to some difficulties on the first two assignments. I’m learning a lot though, so it’s a small price to pay. This is my second to last class before all I have is thesis hours left. A year of those and I’m done with my PhD. If all goes well, we’ll have three straight years with graduations in our house: 2008, Tommy. 2009, Me. 2010, Simon. Very exciting times indeed.

September 30th, 2007 | Category: General | Comments Off

Geez

Has it really been two months?? I guess it has…

Quick recap - things are going great. Finished up the semester with my two classes, only have two left and then my dissertation. I’m looking forward to working on that, as it’s something I’ve always thought about doing but never really had a good reason to do.

Brian and I went camping in the Keys when the semester was over, and that was fun. It was my first time in that part of Florida, and I’ll definitely be back. It made me wish I had a different kind of camper - one that you are comfortable in when the windows are sealed up to keep out the bugs. We had two great camping spots, and enjoyed our time in Key West as well.

I’ve been busy working on a unit I’ll be teaching in July, as well as getting ready for our fall cohort of students. This will be our fourth group, believe it or not. Time flies.

The kids have been rotating between the lake and the boat, with Simon at the lake this week and Tommy on the boat. So Tina and I have Olivia all to ourselves - what a treat! Last night she went to a sleepover, so Tina and I went out on a rare date to Smokey Bones to use our $10 gift cards from Christmas. It was pretty good - Tina just loved the waiter.

I went away from DirecTV recently in favor of Brighthouse, and I have to say I’m happier. The onDemand stuff is really cool, and since I blew out the HD package, I’m loving up the sports and movies in HD. Granted, I could’ve gotten that on DTV, but it was kind of like our move to Florida when we bought our big house to guarantee that we would like it down here, and that worked well.

I want to get rid of my dedicated server with hard drives in it, and go to a NAS system to kind of clean things up. I promise to update you when I do - and hopefully before then.