Bryan's Weblog of Stuff

Cabin Fever
We've been iced in here for the past two days. All of North Texas has been under a layer of sleet and ice since Monday.

Though I love winter weather, and really miss the quantity and quality of winter weather that we had while living in Colorado, there are a couple of things I had forgotten about that I absolutely don't miss:

1. Constantly cleaning the dogs feet off when she comes in.
2. Forgetting that my shoes are covered in ice and tracking it into the house, then walking in a puddle of water a little later with just my socks on.
3. The extra time it takes to get anywhere.

By Bryan at 2:31 PM , in In General - Permalink
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Divine No More?

Unable to staunch continual financial hemorrhaging, divine is reportedly close to declaring Chapter 11 bankruptcy (perhaps even today). As a premier CMS package, we think divine's...
[Trends and Features from CMSWatch]

By Bryan at 12:36 AM , in Technology - Permalink
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Amazing Artwork
Brian Northum pointed me to this site: http://www.hybridmedicalanimation.com.

The site contains some incredible medical animations and illustrations.

By Bryan at 11:20 PM , in Cool Stuff - Permalink
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FW .NET Users Group
Rob Howard is presenting at tonight's Fort Worth .NET Users Group meeting. Looks like he will be talking about ASP.NET Performance Best Practices.

I've not attended a FWDNUG meeting since I went to the very first one, but I will not miss this one.

Out of curiosity, if you are a .NET developer in the Dallas/Ft. Worth area, shoot me a note either via the comment system here, or email. If you belong to either DDNUG or FWDNUG, let me know as well. Also, if you have a personal weblog, or site, please include the url. I am just curious at to whether any local .NET developers are coming across my site.

By Bryan at 1:02 PM , in Developer Stuff - Permalink
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Stacey's Cafe
Went to Stacey's Cafe for dinner this evening. Scott Adams is a co-owner. Surprisingly, aside from the menu (you must read the menu, which is available at their website), there was very little to tip you off that Scott Adams is involved in any way.

By the way, the food was really good, I had the filet mignon -- cooked to perfection.

By Bryan at 11:30 PM , in Eats and Drinks - Permalink
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Well, I Made It
I made it safe and sound to pleasant Pleasanton, California. The flight was quite rough, but the scenery was amazing. I had abosultely gorgeous views of the Grand Canyon. One of these days I will have to visit on the ground.

Pleasanton seems nice enough. I did some driving around after checking in to my hotel. There's a nice little downtown area with a lot of places to eat and shops -- it was very busy when I went through there. The one thing that really caught my attention was the number of shiny new office buildings that are sitting empty.

All right, time to pay attention to Alias.

By Bryan at 11:25 PM , in In General - Permalink
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Going To California
I will be in the Bay Area all next week (2/9 - 2/15) attending some training for my 9-5 job (training is at Documentum, if you must know). I wish I was going out there for VSLive! this year, but such as life. Anyway, my evenings will be free, and I'd love to hook up with any of you .NET bloggers that live out there or are in town for VSLive.

By Bryan at 11:47 PM , in In General - Permalink
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Tech·Ed
It is great that Dallas is one of the cities on Microsoft's Tech·Ed Conference rotation, but I don't know that it is so great when you live only 30 miles away from Dallas.

I usually look forward to attending conferences, not only for the cool stuff I will learn about, and the great people I will meet, but also as a time to simply get away and unwind. I just don't know that that is possible when attending a conference in your home town. I mean, do I hit my company up for a room downtown so that I can be close to all the action? If they agree to that, what will my wife say? And my son? "Daddy's gone on a trip...to Dallas." Gee, that is something we do all the time. And what if my company doesn't agree to that? What if they say "no, you are less than 30 miles away, we can't get you a hotel room." Then what? How likely am I to spend 12+ hours a day around the conference when I am waking up at the crack of dawn to get there and then not getting home until 10 or 11 PM? Where is the chance to unwind in that?

Perhaps I am off base, and I get a little too much pleasure from attending conferences. Maybe I should just be glad that I have a job at a company willing to pay for any of it at all.

What have y'all done when faced with the option of attending a conference in the same city you live in, or in a nearby city?

What I'd really like to do is attend this.

By Bryan at 10:58 PM , in Technology - Permalink
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