As some already know, my grandmother Dot passed away last week. I left for Memphis as soon as I heard the news to be with the family. Although it is sad that Dot is no longer with us, she is in a much better place now.
Dot was an amazing woman and a wonderful grandmother. I still have fond memories of summer times at her place with a frig packed with Jell-O, Easter Saturday dying eggs, and nights playing Aggravation and watching Carson. I can’t think of a better person to have as a grandmother. I love you, Dot.
I just finished the latest in Microsoft C# beta exams, 71-315 Develop and Implementing Web Applications with Microsoft Visual C#.NET and Microsoft Visual Studio.NET. The test was easier than the last one but still had challenging questions. Those planning to take this exam should have a working knowledge of Web app setup projects, security settings via the web.config, working with DataList, Repeater, and DataGrid server controls, how to write custom user controls, and once again ADO.NET, some XML, and how to consume Web services.
And yes, for those wondering…I rescheduled the exam so I could take it this morning in Memphis.
Death in the family - will be in Memphis for the next few days.
“I was in one of the most beautiful places in all the world, the Himalayan mountains. Several months before, in my endless quest for the perfect snow, I had left my home in America and traveled by plane to Nepal with my two snowboards, to have the ultimate experience in snowboarding.”
This is the first paragraph of Frederick Lenz’s book Snowboarding to Nirvana. I read this paragraph and had to buy the book. I can’t wait to start reading the book.
Melanie and I have returned to the Big Apple after a 4 day trip through the green mountain state of Vermont. We started the road trip with a drive up the west side of the state ending at Stowe. On the way we took a sneak peek at the Mad River Glen ski slopes. The scenery was wonderful with views of lakes and green mountains all around. We ended the night with a 4th of July firework show in Stowe. Don’t be fooled by this small town. The firework show could easily rival big city firework shows. For those wondering, we spent our nights at Three Bears at the Fountain, a truly wonderful Vermont B&B.;
The next day we drove out to Burlington to see Lake Champlain. Burlington is a cool college town. Interesting people walking the streets and again nice scenic views. We left Burlington to return to Stowe via Smuggler’s Knot. What a cool drive! Large rocks, big trees, and some very tight turns that made driving a bit scary at times.
We explored more of Stowe the next day. We checked out the ski slopes and hiked down a blue run on Mt Mansfield. Riding the slopes is still a better way for getting down though. We did a little shopping and got some great deals on some ski/boarding wear. And we ended our visit of Stowe with Melanie kicking my butt at miniature golf.
From Stowe, we headed down to Killington where we stayed at the Birch Ridge Inn. Our dinner at the Inn was excellent. We highly recommend it to all Killington visitors. After picking up Melanie’s skis, checking out the Killington slopes [yes, we are obsessed], and a drive through Killington to see homes, we headed back to NYC.
Our scenic drive home took us through the southwest corner of Vermont. Unfortunately we could not see much because of the smoky haze. We later learned the hazy was caused by forest fires in Canada. This was followed by a lengthy drive in traffic between Albany, NY and NYC. This 2 hour drive took us only 4 hours. East Coast holiday travel by car can suck at times, especially returning home.
Overall the road trip was great. Vermont is great. And Melanie is great. I can’t wait until we return.
After a full day of research, learning the ins and outs of writing Windows Services using .NET, and using more about WSDL, it is time for me to sign-off for a few days. Melanie and I are driving up to Stowe, VT for the holiday weekend. And no we are not leaving the city because of the various terrorist threats. We are leaving town because we have a 4 day holiday and I have wanted to see Vermont in the summer time for a very long time.
If we have time and are able, I will post entries about our trip but don’t count on it. I am hoping for a geek-free weekend.
I am jealous of my friend Darren who signed off of IM with the comment “My work week is only 35 hours.” How did he get so lucky? Cool new place in Sarasota, FL. Cool new job. And Jeff is cool too.
thecave.com is now running ASP.NET. This enables me to enhancement this weblog site beginning with the blog comment feature. You can now post your own comments for the world to see to any weblog entries on this site. Simply click the word “comments” below the entry to view and post comments.
Let me know what you think of this new feature. If it well received I will add more features to it such as e-mail notifications and such.
Kirbyland.net, WASTEDBoarding.com, and WCAV Radio are back online. The DSL work required a reset of my modem, but since I have been away for a couple of days I could not reset it sooner. Still not bad. This was the first major outage in over a year.