Sam Gentile: Sam::Personal and Family

Sun, 17 Nov 2002 14:21:21 GMT

Happy Sunday! The 2 day storm continues up here in New Hampshire. Everthing's covered in snow. Looks like an icy mixture of sleet, freezing rain and snow right now. I got the new extended edition of Lord of the Rings yesterday at Best Buy. All the additional materials on the the other 3 CDs is incredible - lots of new insights into the books and the movie.

Sun, 17 Nov 2002 00:05:30 GMT

Snow [Hugh's ramblings] Yes! Its been snowing all day up here in NH!

Sat, 16 Nov 2002 18:36:48 GMT

Baby.msi Installation complete, reboot?

I'm proud to announce that at 1:07am this morning Christina and my first major release went gold. Claire Elizabeth Whittington was born at 8 pounds even. Mom and baby are both doing fine and are asleep. Dad is sooo sleepy. Guess I've got plenty more of that to look forward to :) What, you thought you were going to get away without having to look at pictures?

[Managed Space]

Jason! In all our emails you could have told me you were expecting-) Conrats!

Mon, 04 Nov 2002 14:14:48 GMT

Ticket to ride. 9:30pm Sunday @ Gate 89, Terminal 3, San Francisco International. I'm sitting here with a one-way ticket to Seattle. One-way. Wow. Seems slightly unreal... [Peter Drayton's Radio Weblog]

He's off. I got an email last night too. Good luck Peter. I'm sure you will have a lot of fun as well as making a big impact.

Sat, 02 Nov 2002 12:17:24 GMT

I can't believe I have been up since 6AM. Jonathan got me up at 6AM to build castles with him. He got this castle set last night and was so excited. He doesn't understand that 6AM is like the middle of the night for me -)

Fri, 01 Nov 2002 13:23:30 GMT

Earthquake in Italy Kills at Least 20 Children. At least 20 children were killed when an earthquake in southern Italy on Thursday caused the sudden collapse of a nursery and elementary school. By Frank Bruni. [Headlines From The NY Times]

Thu, 31 Oct 2002 18:06:02 GMT

There has been an earthquake in Southern Italy. Right now we're pretty scared as it was centered in the Campobasso area where most of my wife's family is from and where some of her cousins live. My family is in the Abruzzo region, which is actually quite close and where there were some evacuations as well, so scared there too. Calls being made...

Update: Whew, everyone in Campobasso, Fossalto, Terelle del Sannio, and Boiano is OK...although the earthquake was very strong and they are fearful of after shocks.....

Mon, 28 Oct 2002 03:28:03 GMT

WIN-DEV - Part 2. [Ingo Rammer's DotNetCentric] with pictures

Sun, 27 Oct 2002 16:17:20 GMT

Boy, AT&T Broadband has not been doing too well lately, at least not in this area. After the problems Friday, we lost all Cable service (TV & Internet) in the entire city Saturday for 18 hours into today. At least it kept me off the net-)

Fri, 25 Oct 2002 16:20:11 GMT

I've been having really bad cable modem problems the last 3 days and mostly can't upstream. A very big (- The AT&T guys will have to put a Repeater on the pole tomorrow. I also have been real busy with work. I have also been in machine hell the last few days. For work, I needed to install a future version of VS.NET on a future version of some Microsoft OS. I took some excellent advice and installed VMWare to run that OS inside it. Its pretty cool and seems to have come a long way since I last used it. The problem is that I made the "regular" NTFS drive on my system writable from VMWare and then tried to install that VS.NET back on top of the existing one on that drive. Suffice it to say that everything got trashed and I saw literally hundreds of files indicies being rebuilt (- Then I was in this strange state where I couldn't uninstall VS.NET and I couldn't install because it said there was an existing installation! After 6 hours of work with some Microsoft setup guys, suffice it to say that I know much more about msiexec.exe, msiinv.exe and msizap.exe and windowsinstaller than I ever cared to know! -)

Tue, 22 Oct 2002 17:22:41 GMT

Overdue congratulations are in order for Pactrick on pregnancy #3!

Sun, 13 Oct 2002 17:15:15 GMT

Ingo, Katja, Sue, Jonathan and I went leaf peeping yesterday up in the White Moutains. Here is Sue and I up on the Kangamangus

Here are the two geeks, Ingo and I

Jonathan enjoyed the ride in the car

playing around with a headband

but what he really loved was climbing on the rocks

and the wall

They got me to wear a silly headband:
After we went to North Conway to get some good coffee and let Jonathan play in the park:

Mon, 07 Oct 2002 16:55:47 GMT

Calibrating Next Step for 'The Sopranos'. HBO executives are pondering how best to seize the moment for a series that is a cultural phenomenon on par with the most successful television programs of all time. By Bill Carter. [Headlines From The NY Times]

I would go as far as saying The Sopranos is the best written show in 25 years. There are episodes of this (the first 3 this year among them) that rank up there with some of the best works of literature - surealism, deep examinations of the pysche, the relatiionship of parents and children, examinations of the soul etc. Don't be confused by this show: this is not just a simple mob show.

Sun, 06 Oct 2002 05:51:22 GMT

Sue and I just got back from a night with Ingo and Katja. Ingo has pictures on his site, including a picture of me (yikes!). You'll have to get through a bunch of scary assembly language code from the JIT compiler to get to it though which seems only appopriate-). But, seriously, Sue and I had a great time in the North End and Harvard Square. We got to talk about all sorts of things and I am looking forward to the DevCon where we can properly disect Rotor in the hotel room-)

Thu, 03 Oct 2002 21:13:47 GMT

Ingo has his First day in Boston.

Today's been our first day in Boston. This city rocks!

Yes, we know, that's why we live here-) Well, grew up there but up in NH now

Let me tell you just one thing: if you like seafood and ever come to Boston, you really have to check out "Legal Sea Food" in Prudential Center (and two other locations). This restaurant really is great.

Legal is the best seafood resterant in the country, period.

Update: Ingo and I talked. Not only is he coming up to NH for leaf peeping, but he will be coming to my talk next week. Brian Graf also said he would be in town by then and coming! Man, its going to be quite an audience-)

Mon, 30 Sep 2002 00:46:41 GMT

Ugo Cei says "Atkins: It Works". I think I need to switch back to it. Even my doctor is behind it now wheras a year ago he thought it was the worst thing on the planet.

Thu, 26 Sep 2002 19:38:27 GMT

Just got off the treadmill. 44 min run = 3.06 miles = 457 calories burned off. Timings off (slow) but haven't run in a week or so. Hoping for a nice weight loss at WW this Saturday.

Sun, 22 Sep 2002 20:49:01 GMT

Whew! A Big Fall Cleaning. Sue and I have spent the last 4 hours cleaning out the spare bedroom of 9 bags of papers (trash), filed all the boxes of technical books back into the office, and refiled more than 400 Science Fiction books in alphabetical order in the office. Finally had to make an entire shelf and more just for Philip K Dick books and a few for Bruce Sterling and Rudy Rucker! Also uncovered in the rubble was my long lost HP Jornado PocketPC so now I can start playing with Smart Device Extensions and .NET Compact Framework Beta 1

Wed, 11 Sep 2002 13:55:42 GMT

My wife and I just stepped out onto the dark San Diego balcony to observe a moment of silence at 8:46AM EST. I never wrote about this. My best friend from childhood was late to work in WTC because he missed his train by 20 minutes that morning. It saved his life. Man, I can't write anymore. What else is there to say today? Anything geeky would be nonsensical today. Guliani is reading the names on TV now. Can't write anymore.

Tue, 10 Sep 2002 01:31:46 GMT

We're outta here off to America's Most Liveable City - San Diego for a week. I'll be working with one of my clients and then Sue and I will get some vacation time. Blogging will probably be non-existant or spotty at best.

Sun, 08 Sep 2002 14:39:06 GMT

Fustrated by a continual reluctance of my body to lose any more weight I decided to return to my old ways and declare a weekend of fitness. I got on the treadmill and did a 44 minute walk/run for 3.12 miles and 427 calories on Friday night. Then Sue and I had the good fourtune of getting lost in Nashua's Mines Fall Park for an hour walk. Still fustrated with no weight loss I picked up Runner's World magazine last night and on the cover is Running With the President - Secrets of Our Fastest President. This may sound corny but this story and this guy really impressed me. Almost 56 and he runs every day and runs 6 minute miles!!! He ran a 20:29 in the certified 3 mile course in the article. He mentions that it helped him give up drinking, lose ten pounds and deal with this years stress. He then says the thing that got me "If the President of the United States can make the time, then anyone can." How true. I got my butt up this morning and just peeled off a 45 minute run in the hills around the house.

Wed, 04 Sep 2002 23:14:04 GMT

Thanks to the awesome Russell Beattie for his kind words of encouragement on my weight struggles. Russell, you rock!

Wed, 04 Sep 2002 23:11:17 GMT

Don't stop Blogging, Sam .... Don't stop Blogging, Sam
Well, Sam yours is one blog we goto for .Net related stuff. Your blog has become a huge knowledgebase of .Net news and articles. So keep the ball rolling while you try to find what you need to do with your blog. Cheers !! [WebJives :: Me & You]

Well, that's very nice to say. You've got a deal. I'll keep the .NET stuff going as I figure out things. Also, keep a look for some new original .NET material on VS.NET Automation, COM Interop, Managed C++ and more!

Sun, 01 Sep 2002 14:59:32 GMT

...that kids (4 and 1/2 year olds) always pick Sunday mornings after Dads pull a near all-nighter on the computer to wake up early and want to play with the intensity of a thousand suns? Arghhh

Sat, 31 Aug 2002 20:45:33 GMT

We booted Jonathan's (our 4 and 1/2 year old) computer this morning and realized that I had long ago installed some trial version of XP on it that I had gotten from Microsoft. So we went to CompUSA and got him XP Home Edition and I got 100 feet of Ethernet cable that I have now got running down the hallway to my Cable Router. He'll be on at Cable speeds, gosh darn it!

Update: 35 "Updates" since XP released! Damn good thing I connected his PC to the cable router to get the 49.3 MB of updates!

Sat, 31 Aug 2002 18:14:20 GMT

Ok, time to go a little deeper and talk about non-technical things. Its inspiring to read Russell's chronicle's with weight loss and Dave with smoking. I have been battling my wieght too and its real, real hard sometimes. I joined Weight Watchers about 10 months ago on the advice of a real good doctor who explained that it was not a diet but a way of life. It focused more on building a life and getting good education and support than numbers. It has been awesome. I lost 40 pounds in the first 6 months. Thats good. But the sad part is that its only 1/2 way. I have to lose 80 pounds total. The problem is that for the last 4 months. I have not been able to budge. Well, it oscilates between 42 and 36 pounds off but stays for an average of -40. I am so frigging fustrated as I am doing everything right. Three people in WW have looked at my food diary. Everything perfect. 2 doctors and a Nutrionist have looked at. Perfect. There's really nothing to change. The only thing the nutrionist said was to add vegtables which is good but won't change things much. Today I gained 0.6 again. Sometimes I just want to give up on it.

Fri, 30 Aug 2002 16:31:25 GMT

Ok, all those .NET Stories seem to be "lost." Well, not lost in the sense that they are up on the server at Radioland as I see when people find them with Google. But they are lost in that they are not listed locally here on my local machine and I have no control over them. This must have happened when I switched over to my laptop as my main development machine. I'm going to try to re-create some of them as some actually seem quite popular (at least they get a lot of hits!) -))

Here's they are:

Intoduction to .NET Languages, VS.NET and Extending VS.NET

Mixing VSIP Unmanaged Code with Managed Code

Is COM interop Fundamentally Flawed? Parts 1 and 2

and the all-time favorite:

It's The Runtime Stupid

Wed, 28 Aug 2002 22:57:34 GMT

As the Animals sang in the 60's. Some people interpreted my entry this morning as I am quitting my blog and saying goodbye. Its not so. Either I am not explaining it well (probably) or people misunderstood. I think Brad (Brad, how do I link to specific comments) gets it: I want to expand, go deeper, write more original material, not cross-index so much, be myself, not stop. I don't want to be just a list of .NET links. I have a greater vision for my blog and myself. Here are two examples of where I would like to get to. There is more to me than just .NET too. I want to blog about "deeper" things as well. I'm feeling fustrated and blocked and want more. Capeche? Comprende? -))

Wed, 28 Aug 2002 13:29:04 GMT

I haven't posted in a week. Frankly, it took a lot to post this. I'm pretty bored with the whole blogging thing right now. I'm not sure I want to be the "lister" of .NET news anymore, posting news of .NET stuff fom all over the place. Its getting old. I want to go deeper, to write things that count, that matter. And I'm not sure that's even in .NET or even technology for that matter. The whole "He said X, she said Y, I say Z" paradigm of lot of blogs is just not stimulating, to me, right now. I think blogs can be a very important vehicle for communication if we can get to those deeper places. I'm going to try to figure out what I want my blog to morph into.

Wed, 21 Aug 2002 17:51:25 GMT

I will be in Redmond from tomorrow through Sunday seeing this character and his team. If any of you Microsofties or other area resident bloggers want to get together, send me some email!

Wed, 21 Aug 2002 00:30:15 GMT

The life of the Dead. Band insider Dennis McNally talks about his new 600-page biography of the Grateful Dead, and answers questions about their long, strange trip. [Salon.com]

The wealth of anecdotes powering "A Long Strange Trip" is reason enough to take it for a spin. One of the most surreal images comes from McNally's tale of the day Sens. Patrick Leahy and Barbara Boxer invited the Dead to lunch at the Senate Dining Room: "As the group entered and sat at a table near the door," he writes, "everyone noted the presence of the 1948 segregationist Dixiecrat candidate for president, South Carolina's very senior Strom Thurmond. He, of course, noted Senator Leahy's party, and as he passed the table on his way out, turned to Garcia with the remark, 'I undastand you're the leadah of this heah organization.' Jerry Garcia and Mickey Hart shaking hands with Strom Thurmond was something the wildest acid trip could never have included."

Mon, 19 Aug 2002 20:59:31 GMT

The SF Site has posted their "The Best SF and Fantasy Books of 2001"

I agree with all the books on the list except "Memories of Ice." Huh? Their order is of course wrong and I would have given #1 to Gaiman's American Gods.

Mon, 19 Aug 2002 16:11:39 GMT

Groove Press Release: Groove Networks Announces Add-In Toolkit For Microsoft Visual Studio .NET

Here it is!! This is what I was referring to . I am even wearing my autographed shirt today with the team's signatures and Ray's. The team at Groove rocked, every one of them and it was such a honor and a fun time to work with them on this. This is going to be a big win not only for existing Groove tool vendors who will be able to slash their time by 75% but to the development and .NET community at large who will be able to build collaborative tools with managed code. This is VSIP at it's finest!

The Groove Toolkit for Visual Studio .NET is going to be an extremely important tool for .NET developers who can now build truly collaborative applications in the same time it takes them to build any WinForms application today," said Sam Gentile, a .NET development expert who helped Groove Networks create its toolkit. "Developers can use the same technologies they already know - C# or Visual Basic .NET, WinForms and such - to add collaborative capabilities to their applications in a very straightforward, easy to follow manner."

Go to the Groove v2.1 Press Page for screen shots, datasheets, and more.

"When we began this project earlier this year, we felt our Groove Toolkit for Microsoft Visual Studio .NET might cut the time it takes developers to build Groove tools or applications by about 75 percent. We may have exceeded that goal," said Jack Ozzie, Groove Networks' vice president of developer services. "Sam and others tell me that in some simple, straightforward cases, they've actually created a lightweight application with just a few mouse clicks. With this toolkit, we have taken a significant step forward in helping developers spend less time on the mechanics and more on the business rules."

Sun, 18 Aug 2002 16:20:41 GMT

As I mentioned, in about an hour and a half, Sue and I will be renewing our marriage vows on our tenth wedding year. We both spent some time writing up some vows from the heart. Its a lot different than the huge Italian wedding and long, long, long Catholic mass of 10 years ago! It will just be immediete family and some friends. It will be short! And I think it will be beautiful because we will be reading our own written vows from the heart. No middleman. I'm certainly not as nervous as the first time-).

Sun, 18 Aug 2002 16:07:42 GMT

Tomorrow is John Robb's 40th birthday. The festivities are starting up. And by an amazing coincidence, the day after John's 40th is my mother's 70th birthday. She didn't think she'd make it this far, but we all knew better. [Scripting News]

Happy Birthday John! The Big 4-Oh! Just celebrated mine too. And happy Birthday to your Mom, Dave!

Sat, 17 Aug 2002 13:29:42 GMT

Sue and I are getting married again-). In celebration of our tenth wedding anniversery noted earlier, we are renewing our vows tomorrow. The cool thing is we can do it our way this time. Just right from the heart.

Tue, 13 Aug 2002 20:48:51 GMT

As Muddy Waters said, and the Rolling Stones covering, "You gotta move chile." I had lost about 40 pounds in Weight Watchers until about 3 months ago. Then I hit a huge Plateau. For the last 3 months, I have stayed between 42 and 38 pounds lost - average 40 pounds no matter what I ate. So today I decided "I gotta move." I just walked and ran for 44 minutes = 3.20 miles = 444 calories. Yay!!

Sun, 11 Aug 2002 20:20:58 GMT

We had a great day with Jonathan today. I'm blogging from the bathroom to test out the new wireless and it works! Jonthan is in the tub after covering himself in ice cream at the local Friendly's. I was in with him for a 1/2 hour or so and it was good to squirt water at him and have fun! Temp is at 100 degrees here! It's hot! We took Jonathan to the playground and he was on the swings. Of course, no matter how hard I pushed and higher, he went, he wanted to go higher. Then it was too darn hot and we took him to Friendly's. I see that Lisa has pictures of her and Brad's abode - nice place! I have never seen so many movies in my life! Sue is off shopping - got to get Jonathan out of the tub and dressed here.

Sun, 11 Aug 2002 17:03:26 GMT

Signs.

I was going to write a review of Signs, but this one pretty much says everything I would've said. I thought the suspense aspects were very well done, and overall the movie was quite enjoyable (when it wasn't bashing its pseudo-intellectual New Age "morality" over your head). [link via Sam Gentile]

[The .NET Guy]

Sun, 11 Aug 2002 07:41:30 GMT

Locus Online 8.03 Claude Lalumière objects to M. Night Shyamalan's Signs...

— "The worldview Shyamalan expounds in Signs is a kind of wishy-washy New Agey theism meant to mindlessly comfort and reassure. If you do evil things, don't worry: God meant you to, it's not really your fault."

Fri, 09 Aug 2002 17:04:49 GMT

Friday Five. [Lisa's Weblog]

1. Do you have a car? If so, what kind of car is it? 1997 Grand AM GT. The Red Porsche that my wife should have gotten me for my 40th birthday did not materialize!

2. Do you drive very often? 102 miles roundtrip to work has ended. Now working out of my home office.

3. What's your dream car? Hmm, see Item 1. I also fancy Jettas.

4. Have you ever received a ticket? Not in 5 years.

5. Have you ever been in an accident? Once, about 7 years ago.

Fri, 09 Aug 2002 17:00:36 GMT