Financial Update

For those of you that have been keeping tabs on what I've been writing here, this topic should be familiar. Otherwise, suffice it to say that I've come into a bit of a windfall in the past couple of months from several separate sources. If you would like to review those details, you can feel free to review my prior posts entitled "Signed on the dotted line..." and "Mine, All Mine - Officially"

Well, all of the windfall has completed its journey in reaching us. This money has also finished its destination in being spent. As I have previously posted, my car is paid off. Well, in addition to my car, Angel's car is in the clear as well as my teeth. Yes, my teeth. Right before the wedding, I had some pretty extensive dental work done and took out a line of credit to make payment to the dentist.

Suffice it to say, we have quite a bit of extra money available on a monthly basis due to this debt clearing sweep. Unfortunately, the desired outcome of this activity was not immediately realized. My expectations from clearing these bills was to have additional money to clear out our debt on my credit cards that I have in my name for a home improvement, getting my car fixed, buying our house, and expenses from the wedding. Well, an underestimated debt came due. Angel's student loans.

Her loans came due in April. We had a enough money available at that time to make what we thought was the payment amount, a hefty $500. To get thru May and June, we used our economic stimulus check from the government. Then, to make matters worse, the previously assumed monthly payment of $500 was incorrect. We were later notified that it would be in the $725 ballpark. Well, right now, that is just not working properly into our budget. Therefore, we have since requested a forbearance for her student loans.

At this point, you may be asking, why get the forbearance? Well, student loans are a long term debt and they generally have a relatively low interest rate. While we can theoretically afford to make the payments to her loan and maintain the rest of our bills in a satisfactory status (according to the creditors); I find this to be a problem. To take our windfall and maintain our financial status quo is troubling to me. Therefore, the time we are seeking in forbearance will be used to pay down our other debts. Will it be long enough to pay them all down? I don't know, but I know that it will be enough time for two out of the three.

As it stands today, we have a 6 month forbearance with the ability to extend for 6 more near the end of this period. I desperately hope that in this first 6 month block of time that Angel will not only graduate from school, but also find a job in her field to accommodate the payment for her student loan. However, as always, time will be the dictator that will eventually reveal if these recent moves have been the right one or if we're just pissing in the wind.

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The Rediscovery of a Love - Hockey

So, I now bear the title of a "Damn Yankee", but that will never take the North out of me. I have recently discovered a location to play some hockey. Of any of the sports that I have ever participated in, by far, hockey is my absolute favorite. Albeit, the most physically demanding and potentially dangerous sport that I could have selected for recreational play. Yes, I know that there are more dangerous and more physically demanding sports out there. However, as an adult looking to play for recreation and not as an aspiring professional, I can't find it in my area. Additionally, I'll be playing roller hockey.

Personally, I find it interesting that I was even able to find the sport here. Yes, Atlanta has a professional hockey team, but I wasn't expecting to find the facilities or a place with enough participation to play once I moved. Well, I have recently discovered that in the metro Atlanta area, there are exactly three places to play. I have been lucky enough to move to the exact neighborhood of one such location. I am less than two miles from the facility.



Snell Park and home of the South Gwinette Athletics Association (SGAA) are just moments from home.

Please, don't think about the available leagues in the same light as you would down at Neville Island. I've played in a league down there before. They have several leagues for adults. They have the skill levels separated into 4 categories, D thru A. The D league being the entry level league. Well, the SGAA only has two leagues. They have an "A" league for those like me are looking for a recreational league and an "AA" league for those on a more competitive skill level. As it stands right now, I have full intentions of joining the "A" league. However, I will not object to moving up to the "AA" league if I find the competition too lax in the "A" league.

Don't get me wrong, I am not saying that I have a false impression of my skill level. I know that I'm not skilled enough to claim any type of good skill rating. However, I have my apprehension about what skill levels these "southerners" are going to have. I also say "southerners" because there are not many native southern bred people that I have met in Atlanta thus far (mind you my exposure is minor). Therefore, the possibility exists that other northerners with some youth bred skills could be participating. I guess I'll know more after the first open skate.

That is another thing that I find interesting. They call it "open skate". I've always knew of open practice time as "stick time". I can go skate anywhere, but I can only play hockey with other people at very few locations. When I hear open skate, I think of a roller rink. All you do is skate. I guess it is all about exposure and interpretation of the terminology used.

Back on topic. Another difference between the league here and those at Neville is that this league is a draft league. You do not bring a team into the league. You bring yourself. Therefore, the league is providing potential players three two hour blocks of practice time. This way, the teams can be drafted on an observed basis. I look at these periods as an opportunity to shake off the rust. I'm going to need it. I think it has been about 4 years since I actually played a game last. Maybe longer.

Anyway, talking about shaking of the rust. This past Sunday, I decided that I was going to throw on the skates and find my legs again. Well, for the most part, this went well. I even had some help doing so. The neighbor's dog was out and wanted to play with my ball. I figured that I have enough ability with my stick that playing keep away with the dog would be safe enough for it. Well, this did turn out to be true, unfortunately, I didn't have enough skill to keep the ball away from the dog very well. She was faster, more agile, and more determined to get the ball than I was to keep it away from her. I must have been outside for about an hour and I either didn't push myself hard enough or I'm in better condition than I thought because I wasn't even sore (in the legs) the next day.

However, the skate didn't go completely without incident. I discovered that the road in front of my house is not exactly level. There is a bit of a grade that I was unable to perceive by eye or while I was running. This was an unfortunate oversight. I decided that since I'm a defense man that I would need to brush up on my backwards skating. Well, this didn't end well, no, not well at all. It all started in the uphill direction. This worked out just fine as I was able to control my speed for when I was going to switch back forward. Well, during the return trip, things were not so peachy. I was gaining speed and fast. I wasn't even pumping and I was going faster. At this point, I knew I was in trouble. However, waiting to slow down was not an option. After my driveway, there is a steep downhill grade that I enjoy going down forward. However, going backward meant certain road rash. I had to attempt to swap over. No two ways about it. Well, I got to about my mailbox and figured it was now or we're going over the hill. I got my first foot over, but as I was pivoting my body and trying to swing my other foot around, something went amiss. It wasn't pretty. I ended up falling on my left hip and left hand.

Before you ask the obvious question here, the answer is a resounding "No!". Of course I wasn't wearing any protective gear. I was wearing exactly the following (top down - no assumptions, complete list):

• sunglasses
• jean shorts
• boxers
• socks
• skates

Nope, no gloves, no helmet, no shirt, nothing at all that would provide padding.

Well, this fall was not horrible. However, it did leave me unable to continue to work on my stick work. I got a very minor strawberry on my left hip. It was almost not worth mentioning. However, then there was my left hand. Apparently, my first reaction to falling was to break my fall with my hand. I guess some instincts never are completely removed. I learned during my days as a pole vaulter to just land without trying to break the fall. Well, that thought wasn't what was crossing my mind as I fell this time. By the time I knew what I had done, it was already too late. I had my hand firmly planted on the ground trying to stop myself from sliding down the road. The result was that I had some scrapes on the meaty part of my thumb, finely sanded skin (not broken or bleeding, just shaved down a few layers) on the heel of my hand and then the real injury. I had a hole on the palm side of my hand where my middle finger knuckle is. Apparently, it was in this location that I had applied all of my pressure in effort to stop the slide.

While the attempt was marginally successful in that all of my other wounds were minor, this injury was pretty evident. It was the only place on my body from which I was bleeding. This hole was several millimeters deep and has since made holding objects tightly in that hand difficult at best. Even the pressure required to handle a hockey stick as my rear hand was too much contact for this guy. A short period of time after this happened, I had enough for the day. Tomorrow (or today, depending on your standards) is going to be my first attempt at holding a stick again and my first at-speed re-introduction into the world of hockey.

Wish me luck. As I'm sure most of you already know, I'm going to need it.

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Google Junky

Ok, I have to admit. It has recently been brought to my attention that I have a Google problem. Well, not a problem, but more like a strong affinity. I had recently been introduced to a new Google Gadget. When I was talking it about to a co-worker, I came to realize that I use, on a regular basis, many of the gadgets that Google has developed and have made available.

In the arsenal of Google Gadgets, I use the following:

• Blogger
• Documents
• Gmail
• iGoogle
• Image Search
• Maps
• Notebook
• Notifier
  
• Picasa
• Reader
• Talk
• Web Search

The newest gadgets that I've begun to use are Notebook and iGoogle.

iGoogle
I was introduced to iGoogle by CW2 Thompson while I was at my annual training this year. He had all of these widgets setup to view news and cartoons at a glance. It was like an interactive bookmark area. Well, I have further come to find that it is a wonderful way to quick reference all of the tools that I already use by Google and incorporate them all into the Google web search interface. Yes, iGoogle replaces the functional centric design of their search bar interface.

For example, I have the following items in my Home tab on iGoogle:

• Google Reader
• Gmail
• Reuters: Oddly Enough
• Google Notebook
• Google News Sci/Tech
• News - Top Stories
• Rotten Tomatoes
• NYT > NYTimes.com Home
• Google News - Technology

They each show up in their own little box that I can drag & drop into whatever order or configuration that I choose. It is pretty nifty. the only bad thing is that navigating to www.google.com for me now is much slower loading than the non-iGoogle interface. However, since I use Firefox, I have found a work around for this issue. Instead of navigating to Google each time I want to search, there is a nifty little search engine bar built into the browser. Therefore, instead of using the address bar, I just hit the search bar (which I have configured to Google) and fire at will.

I've come to hold my iGoogle page open more often than not instead of the Gmail window I've become so used to having open. Within iGoogle, I can interface into my Gmail account without having the entire page open. This is not a fully functional interface, but it is enough to quickly check to see if I have new mail waiting. Using iGoogle has also helped me to keep up-to-date with my Reader selections. Before, it might have been once a week or so I would check my RSS feeds for updates. Now, since I glance at iGoogle periodically through the day, I can see what's new without any particular effort. Additionally, I have become quite the fan of the Reuters: Oddly Enough news feed. I have previously gotten these updates from the RSS feeds at the top of Gmail. Well, I don't have to wait for the ROE items to have their turn in my mailbox any longer. I can just reference my iGoogle page.

If you are feeling that you need just a bit more organization within your Google experience, iGoogle is a wonderful bridge to put all of the Google tools you use in one quick reference heads up display or dashboard. Also, iGoogle doesn't just do Google plug-ins. You can incorporate other widgets from other websites into your iGoogle interface. You can review the list of items that I have on mine where it is pretty easy to spot that they are not all Google.

Once last word on iGoogle. You can skin the way that your Google search bar appears. The skin/theme that I'm currently using is "The Beer Journal Theme #2".

Notebook
So, I have found 2 reasons to be interested in the Google Notebook application. I work on multiple computers. I have one for work and one for outside of work. Well, I have bookmarks on each and neither list contains everything from the other, but there was a little bit of overlap. Anyway, I got frustrated with having to run upstairs or downstairs depending on the machine I was on and the machine that had the information. So, I decided that I would find a place to put all of my bookmarks somewhere machine neutral. Since I'm such a supporter of Google and their products, I thought I would check to see what they had available before going elsewhere. Within their gadgets list, Notebook grabbed my attention. So, I just had to check it out.

I honestly don't know what Google had intended this application to be, but it immediately appeared to be what I was looking for. Once I added my account to the service, a book was created for me. Well, I immediately deleted it. I didn't need a book called "My first notebook" as I had other books in mind. The application not only allows users to create books, but also segment the books. There is also a place to put bookmarks without being in a notebook.

There were a few shortcomings that I found pretty quickly. These shortcomings are not showstoppers, but rather, annoyances. The items that I will discuss as issues revolve around sections, bookmark creation, and bookmark management.

As with just about any other Google application, the organization scheme that they provide to you is based on Tags or Sections. Tags are pretty straight forward and as flexible as I think they should ever need to be. However, the sections are where I have a complaint. A section cannot be created within a section. Therefore, these sections do not have the same attributes as a folder/directory would have. Folders or directories can be a parent and/or a child at the same time. These sections are not so. Therefore, one of the things I was attempting to do failed miserably and I had to reorganize. I wanted to create a notebook for items for my jobs. Then, create a section for each job with subsections of bookmarks. Well, the work notebook plan had to be junked and each job now has its own notebook.

Bookmarks. Well, bookmarks are a wonderful feature. Unfortunately, they have an annoyance about them. You can only create a bookmark within the "Unfiled bookmarks" area and once created, you can move it into a notebook. I don't understand why I can't create a bookmark within the intended destination. I can create notes there, but I can't create a bookmark. Why can't there be some UI option of creating a new note and converting it into a bookmark? Furthermore, why, once I create a bookmark, can I not modify the URL? I found this to be a bit on the surprising side. Once a bookmark is created, you can create notes related to the bookmark, but you cannot edit the URL that it points to. One of the things I was going to do during the creation of one of my notebooks was create a set of named bookmarks with bogus URLs and edit the bookmark once I got the correct URL for it. Well, a few days after I created the bogus bookmarks, I finally remembered to get the URL off of my work computer. I was quite surprised when I was unable when I tried to edit it. I deleted what I had and started over.

The last thing I would like to mention as an annoyance is the management of the bookmarks. Once you have a bookmark created into the Unfiled Bookmarks, you have two options for relocating them. You can grab the bar on the left and drag & drop them to a notebook. Note that I didn't say notebook section. If you wanted to move the bookmark into a notebook and a section within, you cannot accomplish this in one step via drag and drop. Instead, you have to use the dropdown menu for the bookmark. There is an option for move. Once move is selected, you can select the notebook and optionally the section via an AJAX interface. The only bad thing with this is that you have to do this for each individual bookmark. There is not a way to multiselect the bookmarks and move them in a bulk fashion. If there is such a way, someone please let me know.

So, now that I have my beefs outlined to you, lets talk about the other fine features of this application. Notebook will allow you to publish your work in multiple fashions. You can create a Google Document or HTML or PDF via Google Documents or even provide an RSS feed directly to your notebook. Honestly, I'm not so sure about the value of the RSS features, but I guess that would depend on what you were writing in your notebook. For my personal list of bookmarks, I doubt that there will be much use in attaching an RSS feed to any of my notebooks.

So, I have published one of my notebooks. I have utilized the HTML export of one notebook to generate an index for my development server. I had previously left my third level domain empty for except a message saying that my server was working. I think the message said, "Welcome to my space. Please come back when I have something to show you." Well, that message is gone. It has been so kindly replaced with my Projects notebook that I created more for myself than for others. There is a projects that I'm working on, slowly and intermittently, and have been slowly forgetting the URLs to find our developed code to this point. I would have to FTP into the server to find the paths that I needed to view what I wanted. Therefore, I decided that I would log this information somewhere. The problem wasn't that I had forgotten where the information was, it was that I couldn't remember the capitalization to get there. The site in question is on a Linux server and enforces case sensitivity just about everywhere. Therefore, if you knew the name of the directory for the information you seek, you still didn't have enough info.

Anyway, if you would like to see the published notebook, you'll find it here. Or you can view the export of the document here. I haven't looked, but I'm pretty sure that they should appear exactly the same.

So, there you go. I'm addicted to Google tools and can figure out ways to make their tools work for me. If you have found any information here useful, please leave a comment.

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