Congratulations to Josh for the recent award on one of his New Balance shoe designs.
The Running Network – Product Reviews: “New Balance has focused its attention on the trails for several seasons now; in fact, some of its greatest successes in recent years have come in this category. This spring’s introduction of the new 1100 marks their best effort to date.”
I wonder if A&E; new show Airline is helping or hurting business for Southwest Airlines. It seems every episode I have seen shows a paying passenger being refused boarding because he or she has had a few drinks prior to boarding. In tonight’s episode a 72 year old man was denied boarding by Southwest because he had a little too much to drink at the airport bar while waiting for a 3 hour delayed flight. Because it was the last flight of the night the old man had no choice but to either sleep in the airport or find a hotel.
I for one typically visit the airport bar when my flight is delay by hours. And I have been known to be a little tipsy by boarding time, but once I am on the plane I sleep through the flight. However I can’t help but wonder if I would have been denied boarding if I had been flying Southwest Airlines.
And what of these individuals denied boarding a Southwest flight for throwing back a few frosty brews as they wait for their flight? Do they pose a threat to the other passengers? Does Southwest believe these individuals will cause a disruption on the plane?
In one episode a gospel singing group took a Southwest flight. On the flight the group sang songs. These individuals were sober. However in my opinion the sober singing group seemed more disruptive then the beer drinking individuals who denied boarding.
There’s probably more to the story then what is aired on the TV show. However it seems that Southwest has a strict policy against drinking prior to flying, which makes me glad I don’t fly Southwest.
Melanie and I just returned from a fun weekend in Killington, VT with her family. The snow was good Friday and Saturday but so-so on Sunday. But the views on Sunday were great. Our next trip is Park City next weekend with the Murphy’s. Can’t wait. It’s our first Park City run.
Pictures from Melanie’s surprise fourth 26 birthday party are now in the gallery. Check them out now before she has me pull out the embarrassing ones.
Today I spent time comparing Logging frameworks. I looked at log4net and one developed internally by my employer. log4net is the clear winner. It is easier to setup and configure. And it has features to watch for configuration changes so you can change log settings without restarting your application. Sadly though I may be “forced” to use the Logging framework developed internally.
I finally got in some quality Xbox time last year thanks to Melanie. The awesome Tony Hawk’s Underground (THUG) was the game of choice. That game is so addicting. I couldn’t stop playing. I’m not far in the game but I have hit New Jersey, Manhattan, and Tampa. I’m really starting to get the hang of the controls which means better tricks and higher scores. But I need to continue playing it to maintain and improve my skills. Taking two months off between sessions is no way to finish a game. Maybe I can squeeze in another hour sometime tomorrow morning before work.
I have been working on making an automated build environment for a customer project and I have to say NAnt simply rocks! I am able to do some many things with it should as touch redist files, send e-mails on success and failure events, and build different targets. Later I will try posting complete details on the continuous integration environment I have built using NAnt, NUnit, CVS, VMWare and more.
I have used TurboTax for a number of years to do my annual federal and state tax returns so this year should have been no different. But from the start I had a bad feeling about using TurboTax. First it seems Intuit only provides a web version of the product. Not that I have anything again doing my taxes on the web. It’s just I prefer to use a desktop application.
As if filling my return on the web wasn’t bad enough I struggled with various worksheets as Melanie and I are now filling as a married couple. What does one do when a question ask for information from the previous year’s return? Do you add the total from the two returns? Anyway, combine this with the sell of some stocks last year that resulted in long term capital gains and losses and I started finding bugs in the online software. In all cases I found I had to completely delete records of information and re-enter the same information to get around bugs. An example of a bug was when I answered a question only to later learn that I answered the question incorrectly. When I returned to the question to answer it correctly it seemed the software ignored the new answer. Regardless of what I tried the software continued to ignore the corrected answer. So as a last resort I deleted the section of information and re-keyed it. A major plan but nothing compared to the final problem I had with TurboTax for the Web.
While completing my New York return I was asked to provide information from my New Jersey return. Note: I did some work in New Jersey over the summer which requires I complete two state returns. No problem I thought. I’ll just stop work on my New York return and complete my New Jersey. To my surprise there was no way for me to create a second state return. I searched the online help and FAQ but found no answer. I tried an online chat with tech support but after waiting a very long time I gave up waiting for someone from Intuit to reply. I would have called support over the phone but noticed that a $19.95 charge applies. And I refuse to pay $19.95 to a company only to learn there is a limitation in their software or they designed a poor user interface.
In total frustration and after wasting lots of time trying to navigate the pains of TurboTax I decided I am better off paying a tax professional to complete my return. Yes it will cost more than the TurboTax software but at least I know it will be correct and it will not take up a full day of my time. And it’s sad that I can’t use TurboTax given that our taxes when compared to many others are not complex.
Looks like I am no longer a TurboTax user. Maybe it’s time for me to look at Microsoft Money 2004 as well and dump Quicken.
Finally some new pictures. Check out the new pix from Whistler in the WASTED 2004 folder. Enjoy.
Melanie’s good friend Chris Hart has started a new travel site. Check it out.
Travel Journal.org - Experience, Advice & Tips for Cheap International Travel: “Advice on cheap international travel from a backpacker who has “seen it all” is here on Travel-Journal.org.”