Wed, 18 Feb 2004 07:28:07 GMT

Ok, here's the scoop.

It's been months since I last posted a blog update. This has partially been due to the acquisition of new hardware, and I've never gotten around to reinstalling the Radio Weblog software....

OK, so that had everything to do with it.

The unfortunate thing is I've just reinstalled it the day before heading out to Russia and Germany for 3 weeks, so there won't be any updates from the road. Does anyone out there know of a better blogging tool, that would let me blog from any client?

Some random news on me - what's happened in the past 3 months since the last update?

- The Portland Area .NET UG has almost reached 2,000 registered members (how come only 5% show up for regular meetings?)

- My daughter Lauren has earned her Horsin' Around Brownie Patch ('nuff said)

- I've been awarded Microsoft Most Valuable Professional (MVP) in Visual Development - Visual C# (thank you to whoever nominated me!)

- I finally found out where my post-hole digger has run off to. Standing in my neighbor's garage with a couple others (picture the King of the Hill opening), and there it was, hidden behind a large rake. Bastard... now I'll have to give back the bolt cutter I borrowed a few months ago.

- My hobby project has been affiliated with the Microsoft Empower Program for ISV's (I do have to say this is one of the cooler Winform apps I've seen in a while, but I'm biased - can't wait to start converting to Avalon, wondering how DX is going to fit)

- Tried my hand at making authentic Indian dinner. My coworker recommended a place locally to pick up the spices. He said, quote, "just use the pre-boxed spice packs, they are great - dump them in and all you need is the actual ingredients". So I did this, and it all turned out great; butter chicken, rice... BUT I grabbed a box of pure curry, and I thought it was a potato curry recipie as it showed a steaming, tempting bowl full. I dumped a whole box of curry powder thinking it was a pre-packaged spice. I was wrong, and we could barely gag it down. Not wanting to give up I ate too much and paid the hefty price.

- I'm going to get to actually stay in Germany for a week - this will be great. Flying into Frankfurt from Russia, and taking train (that apparently travels at 250mph) down to Ulm, the birthplace of Albert Einstein. I meeting with the Intel embedded compiler folks to do some training and also gather requirements for an upcoming project. Can't wait.

- I won the neighborhood football pool!! Within the next three months, all of the guys from my neighborhood have to show up at my place and wash the house windows inside and out, both floors. I get to recline on the couch with a beer in hand and soak it all in. Such sweet victory...

- As 3-year old son bolted out of the house buck-naked and I started out after him, I broke my right pinky toe. This was about 2 months ago and it still lets me about how pissed off it is about it.

- I learned a very cool - SIMPLE - mechanism to provide seemingly asynchronous feedback to user for long-running activities via a web app.. will be posting this soon (hopefully before I fly out!)

- Completed the INETA Content Repository db schema specification for the INETA overhaul currently underway by the Infrastructure committee. Now to just find the time to code the SDK to go along with it...

Well, that's about it sports fans. This is all the generally non-technical items that come to mind since I posted last. I have a ton of very cool code snippets I will be posting shortly. If this isn't updated through March, blame it on Radio's Weblog.

Chris Goldfarb's Radio Weblog