Hi there everyone, sorry it’s been so long.

Dave and I have been working on some cool / Super Secret web site stuff lately and that has been taking most of my computer time as of late.

Expect some more information on that in the coming weeks.

In the meantime have you all been checking out the photos??

No one has commented or rated any. That’s ok I guess, but don’t hesitate to leave a caption or rate your favorite. I plan on getting such things added to the “What’s New” list sometime soon.

But I digress… on with Blogging.

Which oddly enough today I think, is going to be about the difficulty Blogging.

I mean honestly, not a lot happens to me during the week that is Blog worthy.

Back in college that wouldn’t have been the case.

Fraternity hall parties, bar hopping, and final exams.

It all would have been pretty good material.

I could have Blogged about that time I woke up naked laying in the middle of my fraternity room.

(except for a sheet that had some how ended up mercifully twisted around my special spots)

I had no idea what transpired the night before… or the day before for that matter… but there were a good number of people in the room waiting for me to come to.

Yeah… that would have been a good Blog.

Thank God I’ll never have to write it though.

The thing is, now that I’m older (just a little) my days are pretty standard.

I work.

This realization bothered me a little last night.

I think it’s only gonna get worse right?

Am I somehow going to get interesting again all of sudden?

I can see kids someday adding some new material to life, but what will my future children think of Dad’s Blog?

Kids today are pretty tech savvy and I’m sure their peers will easily find this site.

I’m sure they will get ridiculed and beaten up at school over it.

They’ll probably never go to prom or anything because their Dad’s too weird for them to ever get a date.

If I have girls that’s just fine with me I guess, but seriously…

Who’s the oldest Blogger out there?

And is it any good?

How long can I keep up this site before it just gets to weird for a “person of that age” to be doing so?

50?

70?

98?

Will I have to limit my audience and only allow registered members in here when my kids get to 5th grade?

Honestly I’m asking here.

I’m already getting to the point where I can be recognized as the “old guy” at Harry’s.

College people assume I’m an alumni now…

Damn that’s sad.

Wasn’t it great when you were fresh out of school, and you could go back to campus and blend right in. Hell you probably knew people there.

Everyone accepted you as young, and “in-play”.

The only difference was you had more money than most of them.

I’m not sure why this “I’m OLD” cloud has descended upon me today, but I hope it clears out soon.

I absolutely plan on living forever so this is WAY WAY WAY too soon for this to be becoming an issue with me.

Well I guess that’s all for now.

By the way the sheet was green.

Just to help you picture that glorious image.

Well it’s been a busy weekend for web work.

I’m very pleased to announce that the Photo section is back up!!

It’s been down for a VERY long time (thanks to the hacking bastards that ruined my last site) so this is a great moment for DougMeade.com

It’s got a lot of cool new features, and that’s not the only thing that has changed.

For the whole story please see this news announcement.

Here’s the caveat…

I have to rebuild these albums by hand… one image at a time.

It may take a bit of work to get all of them loaded.

Check back often, as I am loading them as quickly as I can.

I think I have the most requested albums already restored.

ENJOY!

I’m very pleased to announce that the Photo section is back up!!

It’s been down for a VERY long time (thanks to the hacking bastards that ruined my last site) so this is a great moment for DougMeade.com

Please explore the new and improved photo section and let me know what you think!

You can comment on any of the images you want right from the photo album.

You can also rate each picture!

It’s Hella cool.

Also The Quoteboard has been moved over from the Wiba platform to the current phpBB/Wiba 2.0 system.

That means you member logins will work with it, and we can do cool things later like vote for our favorites!

At the moment though the biggest advantage you’ll see is that the What’s New list will now be updated when the Quotes are.

There a couple new quotes already. (Dave and Myself have new ones!)

That’s all for now, but stay tuned.

There’s a lot going on in our Data center.

Ok here’s what will probably be another late, and short Blog.

1) According to Google this is “World Water Day”

Are we supposed to drink lots of it to celebrate? Or are we supposed to drink none of it to conserve it?

I’m very confused, and sadly I didn’t make a theme for this prestigious event.

2) I’m very glad that Robert Blake was found not guilty.

I have no Idea if he did it or not but give me a break!!! No forensic evidence puts him with the gun or even near the shooting. The prosecution’s case was entirely circumstantial…which by it’s very nature raises REASONABLE doubt. Nice to see the Legal system work as intended. I hope if I ever get accused of something my jury is as level headed.

3) Watched 24 on my new HD TV last night!

It was pretty cool I guess… but I’m a bit upset.

Don’t get me wrong the picture was AWESOME… but no more awesome than “Nanny 911″ that proceeded 24.

That doesn’t seem right. Nanny 911 can’t possibly be broadcast in HD could it??

Maybe I did something wrong.

I switched to the antenna to get the digital broadcast.

Taylor? What do you think?

4) Tivo in my house just went to the next level.

Well it kept me up pretty much all night but finally the New TV is up. The satellite is working everywhere, and our 2nd Tivo is hooked up! Which means (because I have them networked on my LAN) we can watch things recorded upstairs from our downstairs TV, and vise versa.

(This is important because all of our “Season Pass” stuff can be recorded upstairs allowing us to watch and/or record something else at the same time)

ATTENTION BROADCASTERS:

Schedule conflicts be Damned! I will no longer participate in your petty ratings wars.

Hmmmm … would you look at that…

Not TOO late, and perfectly sized!

Hooray for me!

That is all…

I know return you to your regularly scheduled lives.

Let me try to give everyone the top ten list of happenings in my life.

(I’m too busy at the moment to REALLY Blog)

1) My new TV got delivered today. I plan to go drool over it at lunch. JUST IN TIME FOR 24 BABY!

2) Jess commented and said I was almost like Jean-Luc Picard … Did I mention that I love Jess.

3) We’re in the process of getting the other Tivo setup… FINALLY!

4) Smoked a really nice cigar the other night… FINALLY

5) Fixed some virus / spyware problems that industry leading software packages couldn’t even find. All thanks to a new tool from Microsoft.

6) Tested out the new Matrix Online Game… the jury is still out, but so far I am not impressed.

7) Everyone at the office is REALLY sick… but still here… which means it’s only a matter of time before I get it.

Apparently I “slept wrong” two nights ago and my neck still hurts like I was in a minor traffic accident.

9) I’m depressed because I can’t think of 10 solid things to tell you about.

10) Did I mention that Jess said I was almost like Jean-Luc Picard???

Well I just got off the phone with yahoos that have my TV… again.

I won’t be getting it until Monday.

MONDAY!!!!

DAMN IT!

All I can say is it better be ready for 24 in HD Monday night!

So I didn’t wear green but I pretty much turned my site all leprechaun.

Hope you enjoy the new theme.

Sorry it took so long to get launched.

I know the day is half done but…

HAPPY St. PATTY’S DAY!

Hope you like the new theme, I threw it together in about 10 seconds.

It’s been a very busy couple of weeks.

So recently I saw something weird on the Internet.

It was supposedly a “game“.

A stock market simulation if you will.
But this market traded in souls.

I won’t list the URL for reasons that will become apparent, but here’s how it worked.
It was terribly simple in it’s valuation of souls.
Once a soul is on the open market it’s bid on and traded.

All you have to do to get started is sell yours via an HTML form to the guy who runs the site.

I have several problems with this site.

First…

Why would I sell my soul to this guy to get started?!

Why can’t I place it on the open market?

Why should that guy get an instant and exclusive IPO on my Immortal Soul?

Second and most importantly….

I’m somewhat worried that this may be a clever method for Satan himself to trick people into releasing their soul.

I mean how do we know the guy who runs this site isn’t Satan?

Even if he’s not I would think that once I “agree” to sell my soul to ANYONE it becomes slightly easier for the Prince of Darkness to get ahold of it.

(All he’d need to do is get the soul of the site owner, or one of his loved ones… then he could leverage that to get all souls in this twisted little game)

Certainly one of the weirdest uses of web technology I’ve seen.

Having said that…

I wish they had a ticker available. It WOULD be kind of cool to see the traffic in the soul market dance across the screen.

Well we finally did it.

We bought a new TV.

Even though we REALLY can’t afford it.

It’s all Jana’s Brother’s fault.

He ordered one.. and since I friggin’ work for RCA I couldn’t let him out do us!

Well what ever the reason I’m both excited and worried about it.

It’s a gorgeous TV and I CAN’T WAIT TO SEE 24 IN HD!!!

On the other hand that’s some cash that I would have rather used to pay some things off.

I got one helluva deal of course since I work for RCA so at least I didn’t pay retail… but still it hurts.

Jana’s been working so hard to get things paid off I hate to see any money being used on non-essentials … but still we seem to have our fair share of non-essentials.

Jana was actually on the “let’s get the TV” side of the debate though. She made a very compelling argument that she empties a lot of bed pans and gets little no sleep or time with me.. so she may as well get to enjoy SOME of the money. She’s right so I guess I’ll stop worrying about it.

Who am I kidding, no I wont. (I’m a regular scrooge)

The down side is that this is only the beginning.

I’ll be happy getting HD off air for awhile but soon we’ll be paying an extra 10 bucks a month for the HD feed from Direct TV.. .then we’ll need to upgrade all the Tivos to their HD recording big brothers…

It’s a damned money pit.

I need something to make me happy…lets look at the TV some more…

It’s a 61″ DLP High Def TV.

But even on it’s stand it takes up less space than it’s comparable projection TV.

Check this out:

Click Image for larger view

And it’s only 120 pounds!

Here’s another pic:

Click Image for larger view

If you would like a better image and more details you can read all about it here.

I guess TV’s about to become a bigger part of my life.

Hey next year we’ll have a Super bowl party or something.