This is all old news!

I'm a pack-rat so I can't see the point of deleting perfectly good, though dated, news items. So I put them here for reference, or google cacheing or whatever the all powerful Internet Overlords chose to do with it. Have a nice day!
UPDATE: All of my old-style news has been moved here.

February's Month End Thingy

I haven't been updating this log lately because I've been spending much much free time researching homes online. I'm in the process of trying to find a home that I can not only afford, but that is closer to work AND not going to fall in around me if I snore too loudly one night. It's a pain in the tail. None of the web sites list all of the houses, none of the sites (besides Zillow) actually tell you where the property is located, and none of the sites have all of the features I need. Heather's actually spending more time than me on the project so between us we've wasted a few weeks already in this young year. We got as far as placing a bid on a Spotswood home only to dropped into a bidding war by the Realtors. Don't trust them folks. They're in it for themselves! That said, they're also very helpful and a necessary evil. Damned if you do, SOL if you don't. I'm still doing the Geocaching thing and attended my first Event last week. Ericles & the Musclemusher met a few dozen other Cachers at a local Fuddruckers and talked up the sport. Good times! The week before we had introduced Aunt Claire to the sport and she had a ball and earned herself the moniker "Eagle Eye" by repeatedly spotting the cache before I could even zero in with the GPSr. Good times! Also within the past month I've won another Bag of Crap and upgraded my computer to 2gb of ram & 640gb of storage. Good times! I gave up pining for the fjords for Lent. I'm still doing my Pushups nearly every day. I'm not watching American Idol. I'm going to run a 10K this year. I'm shopping online 10% more of the time to beat NJ's sales tax increase. Oh, and most importantly, I'm still T.M. Ericles.

Cars are expensive...

My car let me sit on Monday. I had driven it on Saturday for many a healthy mile then parked it on Super bowl Sunday. Monday morning, with the wind-chill hovering in the single digits, the car wouldn't start. I turn the key... the clock goes blank... no "click"... dead battery! I checked the lights and everything appeared to have been off (I had arrived home on Saturday in the dark so I would have noticed the lights). The battery is only 3 months old and shouldn't have had any problems. Luckily I have a very helpful neighbor who was willing to give me a jump. Alas, her car had not the juice and my figers froze while we waited. Fortunately, she had the same problem not long ago and knew a guy at a garage nearby who has one of those truck-battery-in-a-briefcase super-jumpers and he got me going with nary a problem. 22 miles of high-way driving later I figured the battery would have had a decent charge, but it was still completely dead when I arrived at the office. Was the alternator not charging the battery? Another unsuccessful jump attempt had me calling the tow truck. The next day I found out that the battery had been completely drained as expected, but no cause could be found. The alternator was peachy and the battery responded well to the charge leaving the mechanic guessing that I must have left something on overnight. It cost me over $100 to learn these facts but they didn't kill me on the price of the tow. Only the headlights & interior lights work without the key and I had checked those that morning. So what I have here, gentle readers, is a mystery. I also have chapped hands. Cars are expensive, but frostbite can cost you an arm and a leg.

2006 Year End Wrap-up!

This is just the December wrap-up in a fancy candy shell... but it's HUGE nonetheless! For the Christmas Heather & I hung out with my sides of the families this year. Funny thing about having divorced and re-married parents: We have no less than six families to visit and/or to wish merry tidings. The best part is all the extra ham I get to eat, but the best part is all of the desserts, but the Really Best Part is Nana's Pierogies which is the ultimate Christmas Eve Tradition. Santa Claus (facilitated by Heather) brought me a nifty new Harmonica which I'll be happily playing for many years to come. I also received a gift certificate for some running gear which I plan on using to get some cold-weather stuff so I can keep active in the frosty-nipple months ahead. Speaking of running, I have achieved my resolution from last year - to run at least one mile/day for the entire year. If you read back, you'll see it was harder than it sounds (especially since I was only running once or twice a week for the first three months and my "long runs" were 3 miles). I survived illness & injury and blasted the final quarter mile at 11:52 PM on New Years Eve. My next physical resolution is 6000 pushups which should prove equally challenging. Heather & I went up to New York state to visit some of our friends & share in their celebrations as we kissed 2006 adios. We had a good time and even managed to visit with Heather's mommio on the way home. The NFL season wrapped this past weekend, and with it went Fantasy Football. I was quite successful again this year posting two championships, two 2nd places, a 4th, 5th & 7th place finish. I was also able to maintain my Dynasty in ESPN's Gridiron Challenge which I've won for a record 4 years straight finishing in to top 1% of all players. That's all I have to report at the moment. Thanks for reading and I'll see you next year! -TM Ericles

Survived another... can I say Christmas on the internet?

It's funny how everyone was just dancing around saying "Merry Christmas" this year. I signed many of my year-end-greeting-cards "Have a very merry" before I realized it had become a hip saying this year. That personally offended me as the kinda person who really hates trendy sayings. Next year I'm writing Merry Christmas. As if anyone would REALLY be offended, Jew, Hindu, Agnostic or Cthulhu Dude by your wishing them a happy 359th day of the year, no matter what it's called. Here's what I say: Call it Federal December Holiday! You see, "Christmas" is defined by our government as the 25th day of December and labeled an official national holiday meaning there is no mail & all government offices happen to be closed. It's the only one we get in December & they tried pretty hard to give us one day off per month back when they started handing out holidays. So it's a technical term to say "Happy Federal December Holiday!" Just like "Obese" is just a technical way to say Fatty and NOBODY gets upset by that word. Think old Kris Kringle, ole Donder Thighs himself would take umbrage? Nuh-uh! So I waggle my mouse as I type out a blight wishing a Joyous Fedechol to y'all & to all a good night!

November's month end wrap-up!

I've now run 345 miles leaving only 20 1/4 to go this year. Baring injury or serious illness I'm gunna make it! I plan to run the final mile+ on New Year's Eve just to say I have done it. Yay! In other sporting news, the Fantasy Football season is in the final run for the play-offs and I'm in pretty good shape. In my 7 leagues I have a overall record of 49 wins, 35 losses & 1 tie. I'm in the playoff hunt in all but one league and sit atop the power rankings in two of them. I'm also in three other football related games and have two first places and I'm tied for second in another. Not too shabby! I plan on adding at least one more trophy to my virtual trophy case this year. I worked the Waterford Wedgwood warehouse sale a few weeks ago and it really was an experience. Stacks and stacks of discounted luxury merchandise, hundreds of people dragging full boxes of the stuff around and every once in a while you hear the tell tale tinkle of what happens when crystal meets concrete. If you've never seen a warehouse sale (or sample sale) in action you should check out the next one. It'll be in the Holmdel Towne Center December 8th-10th 2006. It's an experience (and a bargain). On the creative front... For over a month now I've been attempting to master a DVD of the video I shot while at the workshop in Massachusetts. The excellent software that came with my DVD Burner was unfortunately two versions behind so I upgraded only to learn that the new version sucks and has all kind of bugs that I'm trying to work through. I'm down to manually editing the files by hand with a text editor just to avoid the issues surrounding the GUI. If you have unlimited patience and need a full-featured DVD mastering program I'd recommend Roxio's EZMC 9, otherwise I'd look elsewhere if'n I were you. A one sentence summary of Thanksgiving: 20 LB Turkey VS 4 hungry people. Winner: 20 LB Turkey. It's a good kind of defeat however as the leftovers were scrumptious. Heather & I hosted for the first time this year and her Mom & Aunt both came from out of state to visit with us in our home! We're thankful for that! On "Black Friday" we braved the roads to check out the Grounds for Sculpture. It's a well manicured garden with some interesting art. The way they blend the landscaping with the sculptures is the part that I love. I took pictures. Here they are! Till next month, this has been T.M. Ericles.

My goodness.

Have I really not written anything since the beginning of the month? Well, there's a good reason for that. I've been freaky busy, man! I've had weddings, warehouse sales, fantasy football double-headers, the dreaded plague of 1000 illnesses, oh, and of course Thanksgivingness. Rest assured, gentle readers, I am not off-line, merely well driven with many projects off of the old line. I'll be back in the next few days with the month end wrap up and all will become clear. Or at least we'll talk turkey.

What time is it? Last weekend of the month time!

Besides all of the insanity surrounding this morning's clocks, this month has run smoothly and very very quickly and next month promises to be even zanier! The big events were the Rat Race & Storytelling Workshop (see below). From these two I've learned that to foster my creativity, there's no better muse than mother nature. I plan on spending more time out doors and far away from New York City in the coming years. In November I will finish the "Why I Left New York" essay at which I've been barely toiling. Heather & I also decided to sing together more often, if only for fun. On the exercise front, I'll still be running exclusively outdoors, but I'll hit the trails more frequently than I had been. This past Friday I popped out of the office wearing my running outfit and, ignoring the rain, hit the Shark River Park for about 4 miles before it became so dark that it was dangerous. Danger running against the elements is invigorating! (See "Ernesto" below) As for the miles, I'm at 315 (and up by 15) right now. I'll set a new high water mark at +17 by the end of the month then begin my taper to 365.25! In other news Heather has had a birthday (31!) and my company was cleaning out old laptops so they bestowed me with one. It's an old PII Celeron, but it works, has a decent battery and will function as the media bridge from the mainline PCs to the entertainment center (The TV) in the living room. w00t! That's all for this month. See you in 5 weeks!

Returned! Changed? Better.

We're back from the creativity/storytelling workshop & I haven't posted anything about it until now because I've just been trying to drink it all in and absorb it's goodness. Jay & Mandi were great, I had an unbelievable time, met lots of fantastic people & learned a good deal about myself. From day one the creativity was flowing & I'm really hoping I can remember to keep it turned on. This website will reap the harvest whenever I can go against the grain & plow through a new posting. I might even have the confidence now to think that I have something worth sharing with the world. Until I decide to fully accept any of this, I'll just continue to edit the video, admire some of the photos that were taken during the trip & continue to practice on the Harmonica. To all of my fellow attendees... Thanks!

Hashy Saturday - The Rat Race

In other news, this past Saturday Heather & I entered the "Rat Race" - a 5 mile Run/Hash through the woods of Shark River Park. I had never Hashed before and was quite ill prepared. First: It's not a race. There is no bibs to wear or official starting line. I have no idea how long it took me, how far I ran, or even if I "placed". Secondly: This is not a trail run. I've been on those. They include trails. This was cross country, cross swamp, cross briar-patch and crossed paths. Half the fun is getting lost because the trail you are supposed to follow loops back on itself, goes off in random directions, ends abruptly and intentionally leads you through the worst of terrain - including UNDER the parkway... TWICE! This resulted in dozens of nature induced lacerations over my legs and hands, a seriously jacked up pair of sneaks & a pair of socks that I couldn't even salvage. I friggin' loved it! The "cow-de-gra" is that the entire thing ends in a huge picnic beer bash with all-you-can-consume buffet, dancing & general mayhem. As soon as I forget the poison-ivy itch covering my southern half I'll definitely be back next year!

September's Month End Update!

The only news from this past news that matters is that Heather & I are officially married & receptioned & happy. This is why I haven't been posting frequently & why I'm not going nuts with typing. Besides THE MARRIAGE I've been continuing to run towards my goal of 365 miles this year. Last month I stated I wanted to be at +15 by the end of this month. I didn't make it! I'm at +14 right now which is just fine with me. I'm in training to run the Rat Race/Hash this year which is a 5 mile trail run followed by a beer bash. I'll skip the bash but enjoy the hash. The other big plan is attending the Creativity Through Writing & Storytelling workshop in a few weeks. Hosted by living legend Jay O'Callahan, the workshop is 4 days in a B&B in a small town in Massachusetts hanging out, swapping stories & sharing meals with other storytellers. I feel like a poseur & I'm starting to get really nervous. I'll post back with how I did when I return. Wish me luck! In other news Football season is in full swing & I'm off to my worst Fantasy Football start since my rookie season. Sad! Right now I'm 12-9 but at least I have a winning record. I'll say no more for fear of jinxing my scores tomorrow. You see I'm playing my Arch-Rival in the Big league & the fate of the world hangs in the balance. Really. I'll close with a short story. After sitting in the inspection line at the DMV for 20 minutes a car in front of me had the misfortune to break down and block the lane bring our crawl to a complete stop. Fortunately, there's a 2nd lane that we could use to go around internal-combustion-challenged-road-block. Unfortunately, it was coned off. Fortunately, the spaces between the cones were big enough to let cards pass through. Unfortunately, this lane is reserved for cars getting re-inspected and for commercial vehicles only. Fortunately we only had to go around the broken vehicle & then get right back into the proper lane. Unfortunately, people being what they are, too many cars would attempt to go around & end up blocking both lanes. A few re-inspection folks actually drove off the road, over the grass and around a stand of trees throwing dirt & ripping up the turf. When it was my turn to go around I chose to sit in my lane & not block both lanes. As you can imagine, this looked to the folks behind me like I was completely insane since I was thinking of the express lane folks instead of concentrating solely on myself like everyone else stuck at the DMV. The result was after exactly 30 seconds the ass clown behind me went OVER a cone to get around me so he could move 12 foot forward & happily block the lane with his monster SUV. Needless to say this pissed me off & since it was a warm day we all had our windows open. He heard a few mouthfuls of honesty & refused to look in his mirror where he'd have to see me. It's all ok when you can see everyone on the road as an obstacle instead of a human being. This trick was easy for Mr. SUV since he has no idea what it means to actually be a human being. Wanna know something great? With him in front of me I had a great view of his break light. The one on the right. Typically only cars with a pair of break lights will pass this inspection. Muahahahahahahaha! Now if the original person in front me had a blown tail-light I would have let them know that they didn't need to waste the hour in line. I did no such favor for the new "person" in front of me! 20 minutes of fuming later our single lane became 6 funnels into the various inspection chutes. I ended up right next to my new friend. He avoided me entirely standing 20 foot away until the inspection workers told him he had to wait in the official waiting area where the rest of us were stuck. Just as he started walking my way my car got finished & I was told to leave. How about that? If I had been one car position further along I would have ended up in the slow line and been delayed further. Mr. SUV actually did me a favor. Know what else? When he's going back through the inspection line after fixing his broken tail-light he'll have to use the Re-Inspection line. I can only hope that he runs into a bunch of people as inconsiderate as himself & enjoys a merrily blocked lane. Happy endings all around! Until next month web folksies!

YouTube!

As teased in my last news posting, I'm using YouTube while it lasts to host all of my videos from the wedding... and while I'm doing some massive uploading, why not all of the videos I've ever made just for the fun of it? Oh, and I think I'll convert many of my Flash movies into video format and post those too. Whee! YouTube still free (as in beer) and a free-for-all (as in free beer) so use it while it's there folks! Click HERE to view my wedding album OR click HERE to see ALL of my uploaded vids.

Ernesto!

Its been a while since my last posting here and it's been crazy with all kinds of wedding activities so I'm going to get all caught up by the end of this week. First, I'll celebrate the one time Hurricane Ernesto that blew through Old Bridge on Sept. 2nd. Anytime a hurricane blows through it causes lots of problems. While I feel for those hurt by Hurricane Ernesto, I couldn't help but play in the rain and wind when it made it to my neck of the woods. Heather whipped out our new video camera and shot some video while I jogged out into the storm. The video doesn't do the wind justice. Click here to view the video. The storm played havoc with our porch too - everything was blown to one end. Click for Pic!

Augusto!

Hello & welcome, once again, to the Month End Wrap-up, issue Ocho. August just flew right by this year with visits from my mom, camping trips & marriage planning. Zoom! My quest for 365 miles this year hit a snag when I pulled my Flexor Hallucis Longus muscle while jogging on the beach. The Flexor Hallucis Longus wraps around the ankle from the back of the calf under the foot and attaches to the toes making a throb when I walk or run. It's much better now, but I still feel it when I first start to run. For my miles count I'm at 251 right now which is +6. I expect to turn this into +15-20 or so by the end of September so I can have a good head start going into the cooler months. Today is RSVP day for our wedding reception! The wedding planning is going fine as there are only a few fiddly bits to work out yet. It's also Football Time, and once again I'm in a half dozen fantasy football leagues. I have two drafts done, one more tonight and 1 each day this weekend. It's a sickness, but in this day and age, who wants to be healthy? I'm still in the process of learning the ropes (and software) regarding digital camcorder footage editing. I'll post my YouTube page sometime next week. 'Till next time!

Digi-Vid-Madness!

I now own a video camera. It's just a simple point-&-shoot type model (Canon ZR500) but I hadn't realized how friggin' tiny these babies had gotten. It not only uses the same batteries that my digital camera uses, but fits into the same case. It's digital, wide screen, sports a 25x zoom & uses the "Mini DV" tapes - just like the tape backup system we have at the office. Just a quick estimate, but I think each tape might hold up to 200mb. I'll be posting some VIDEO very very soon. =] As much as I like Google, their video upload service is quite limiting (and currently broken) compared to the mayhem of YouTube so I'll be using both, but only linking to YouTube until they go belly up sometime next year.

July's HUGE Wrap-up!

Yeah, big changes. First: I'm married! Heather & I tied the knot on Sunday July 23rd. There's a lot of story to tell here, so I wont repeat it in the news. Just check out the official pages regarding The Ceremony & The Reception. Actually, that's the only really big change. Besides that I'm proud to have fulfilled my vow I made in the June Wrap-up by not only running my monthly quota of miles, but drawing even with where I should be at this time of year. We're 211 days into 2006 and I have run 211 miles. Even up baby! I ran 10 days in a row (in pretty awful heat I might add) and 19 miles last week to pull this off. That's the last time I make a mileage vow though. I'm tired! Look for lots more changes in the next few weeks as I update my life, my wife, and my various web pages.

Ocean Grove Bi-Athlon 2006!

Despite getting only 4 good hours of sleep the night before thanks to airline delays, I decided to run in the OGBi again this year. I had a pair of brand spanking new New Balance 767s to break in and thought this would be a darn good way to do it! Some morning rain kept some of the crowd away, but it also made for beautiful running weather. I kicked some tail in the two mile run and then thrashed my tail and swum well before sprinting up the beach for a new Personal Record time of 21 minutes 3 seconds. Hooray! I finished 54th out of 128 overall. Clicky here a picture taken in my final 100 yards of run.

Busy busy busy arts fest busy busy busy...

I'm up late adding this news entry when I should be sleeping. Tomorrow morning, bright and early, we're heading off to Arts Fest in State College, PA. It's a big Art Show, sure, but it's also the time that all Penn State Alums come back to visit and hang out. Heather will be visiting with her Frat for the first time in many years! I'll be returning to Lock Haven for a day during this trip for the first time as a Jogger and jogging the Dyke/Levee and the Stairway to Haven. I can't wait! I'm also having my Bachelor party while in town courtesy of Ethan. Planning for this took some time, but mostly I've been working on getting the Wedding Invitations ready & this includes the Wedding Website and the Wedding Gift Registry coding. It's been a lot of work, but it's done (enough for now) so I'm off to bed. G'nah!

Secret Garden of Earthy Delights

Last week Heather surprised me by digging a pit in front of our home, filling it with soil, plants and flowers and calling it a garden. This weekend we finished the project by laying a stone border and overlaying the soil with mulch. Highlights of the construction: Imagine if you will 18 feet of stone border & 8 bags of mulch being bull rushed up the hill that inexplicably doubles as a parking lot in front of Lowes. Picture if you can the rabid mosquito attack that forced us indoors on our first try to get the wall erected. Note if you will that we used a friggin' level to get the wall Just So. Finally, click, if you would, this link that has pictures of our little Garden of Earth & Dark Mulch.

June's Wrap-Up

It's the last weekend of the month again and I'm back with the June Update. 
First I just have to admit that I didn't really realize until TODAY that this is July 4th Weekend and I don't have to go back to work until, like Wednesday. Sweet. Wish I had made plans though. Secondly, Ethan & I played paintball on Saturday and got creamed but good times were had by all. Maybe it was all the paint I ate, but on Sunday I got sick. The drive home did nothing to make me feel better. By Monday the cold was in full bloom and I took my first sick day in 16 years. I hadn't missed work since my Junior year in High School! Heather was the main reason for this as she told me a fever of 100.2 is nothing to be ignored. She also bribed me with chicken soup! I've been to work a bunch of times when I really should have stayed home - just because of The Streak. Now that the streak has ended I can stay home and stop infecting my co-workers with my ill-germs. Because of my sickness & lots of hot weather and lots of rain, my running mileage hasn't increased this month. I'm currently at -30 and only gained +6 overall this month. I hereby decree that I shall be even by the end of July! In yet other news, we're working on Wedding Invitations this weekend. Look for something in your mail in the next 6 to 8 weeks. *wink* Happy July 4th Weekend!

Poison & Paintballs

I gotta say that, short of Leprosy, not much is worse than Poison Sumac for general nasty skin problems. I ran afoul of some Poison Oak a few weeks ago and had a bit here and there. Then sometime about 10 days ago I found some Sumac and things got when from itchy to mothers covering the eyes of children as I passed on the street. It's all healing up now and most of the itch is gone, but ironically, my hand looks like chewed meat with Leprosy. Yum! In other news, I'm running away this weekend to torture myself with a peppering of high powered paintball pellets. Me & Ethan and a co-worker's son are entering a 3-Man tourney and I'll feel good if we do as well as the US Team in the World Cup. What's that? First round? Only 2 goals total!? I'm in trouble here folks. . .

Day of the Beast!

I've had fun here in these news playing with dates with fun counting or patterns in the past... but today is NO FUN! Look at it this way... I'll be getting out of my home (33 = 3+3=6) and getting on Red Oak (6 letters + "RED"), turning onto 516 (5+1=6), then onto 9 (Upside down 6), then onto 18 (6+6+6), after that, Rt 66 followed by 33 (6 again). Should I be worried? Nah. It's only superstition. Nothing bad could happ...

May Wrap-up

It's that time again - the final Friday of the month - and I'm back with with a zesty wrap. I've now run over 100 miles on my quest to see 365 miles come and go this year. I'm still more than a month behind but look to make up some lost miles in June before it gets too hot for long runs. At my new job I have a nice meaty project merging Waterford/Wedgwood with Royal Doulton. Considering my name is Dalton, this result was only logical. I've been listening to music while at the office and I'm happy to say that I'm enjoying music again now that " emo" is on its way out (again) and I'm old enough to completely ignore the "pop" stations*. I received Bruce Springsteen's "We Shall Overcome" collection of the Seeger Sessions for my birthday. I love any music that the musicians are loving as they play it. More importantly, It's a DVD/CD Combo disc with lots of extra goodies besides the excellent music. Note to the RIAA: If you want my business - give me something worth buying. A plain vanilla CD does NOT cut it ITD&A. Also, Heather has purchased her wedding dress! Click the link to see just one of the reasons I've chosen her.

Go Eric, It's your Birthday!

It's my birthday so worship my 31ishness. That's right! I'm in my prime folks because NOTHING divides evenly into me! I had an excellent birthday this year. It's always nice when it falls on a Friday and, thanks to "Summer Hours", I end up with a half day of work. On top of that, I was gifted with lots of fun stuff - and no clothing! Heather picked up some BBQ sauce & 2 "Flintstones" racks of ribs and we had a cook-out. I made the mistake of bringing marshmallows - which made this some kind of camping trip and therefore brought the rain. We got soaked, but it was warm and the fire was nice and the marshmallows, roasted on kabob sticks, were tasty. Happy Birthday To Me!

New Job Update + Stuff

It's been two weeks now and the job is going fine. I'm positively reveling in all the free time (not that you could tell from my entries here *grin*). I actually watched television this week! TWICE! It just gets better. Just yesterday they introduced a summer "Business Casual" dress code. In other news: It's official, Heather & I are going to not just enjoy a Jay O'Callahan show... no, this October we're set to actually perform with him and live with him for a few days while he teaches us his art! How cool is that? More info can be gleaned here. Finally, we're off to break in the weather proof camping gear this weekend. Wish us luck!

One Year Anniversary!

5/5/05 was the day last year that I threw open the doors officially on this website. Since then I've had tens of thousands of hits, added an image gallery, posted a few dozen news & brain drippings and increased my Google Page rank by a few clicks. I enjoy making the periodic updates and sharing a bit of myself. I hope you've enjoyed your visits! For archival purposes, here's some stats for my first full year in operation! 

• Current number of hits: 36586 page loads & 1830 official hits. 
• Greatest number of one day hits: Over 800 after the Heather & I got engaged and EVERYONE hit the brain dripping & photo gallery. 
• Most popular page: madea.html in the ego surfing cache. Lots of people search Yahoo for "black gospel plays" and I'm the number one link for some reason. *boggle* 
• Most popular page that I created: Monkeys!  They're so awesome and sweet. 
• I chose "Fusion" as my logo/motto as this website is a "Fusion of Thoughts & Emotions". I pay attention to this while I write and make sure everything has a bit of both. 
• Not to be left out of pop culture, I can be located on MySpace & Blogger.
• Comments? Drop me a line by clicking the link on the left. See ya'll next year!

April Massive Update Wrap-Up!

I waited an extra day to do this wrap-up because I could then say that I've started my new job, and it's all good. It's tough going from a job where I set the administrator privileges to being a peon where I don't even have access to my own "My Documents" folder, but that's just one of the secret perks. =] Anywhat, here's the wrap-up! On Earth Day I planted a tree! Actually, I replanted the tree I had used my Christmas Tree. Besides the new albums posted over at my Photo Gallery, and the massive April Fools brain dripping, much of what I set out to accomplish this month slipped through my fingers. By this time next month I *WILL* have a wedding date, an update on my news-years resolution(s) and I'll even clean up the old drippings & news postings. Andale!

Notice Given! Uno De Mayo Approaches!

I have officially given my 2 week notice to Spiewak. My last day is this Friday 4/28 giving me a fresh start at the new (old) company Waterford Wedgwood. I was a contract employee for Waterford for a few months before making the switch to New York City & Spiewak. I'll miss the Spiewak folks, but not the commute and certainly not The City that Never Sweeps. As The Song says, "Live in New York once, but leave before it makes you hard." I've been fighting the hardening for nearly a year now and it was just time to move on. Thanks for the memories Spiewak! Don't forget Jon's Bookings & Off-Price report come June.

Back from Colorado!

Yes, as the title says, we're back! Good times and much adventure had by all. There were mountains & mole hills... ok, Prairie Dog Mounds. We might not have had hot water for the entire trip, but that was just the water heater's way of saying "Hello". We capped the week off by spending a few days camping with friends. I'll drop a photo bomb on the Gallery in a few days when I get all of the shots cleaned up.

Happy Countupday!

Today at 1:02 and 3 seconds the date/time was 1,02,03,4,5,06. There was a lot of email circulating saying how exciting this is and how it will never happen again. Well it will happen again in just 100 years! Further more, only in our backwards country is the date written Month/Day/Year. The rest of the world will "celebrate" Countupday on May 4th. I personally plan on checking the timestamp on my computer right at that magical moment when it will read 2006050403020100. You see, that's the fun of being a computer geek... while the rest of the world is celebrating Countupday, I'll be blasting off with a countdown!

March Wrap-Up

Not a lot to wrap-up from March that isn't covered in the blurb below. The big thing is that we've set the wedding date - it'll be the first week of August! Sorry I can't be more specific, but that's what being me is all about. =] There will be a small ceremony in August and a huge party/feast probably in September. We'll Honeymoon the following summer. In other news, Jay was awesome as always, I'm ready for my Colorado vacation, and Old Bridge has a major Tick problem. I've picked three off of me already this season and it's only March. #2 got his head in there and got the darn thing stuck when I plucked his body out. Here's a scan of his head when I dug it out a week later! (Around 100x magnification). The final bit of news is that with George Mason's stunning upset victory over Connecticut, I won an NCAA pool for the second year in a row! No money exchanged for this one, but braggin' rights is braggin' rights even if it took a loss to give me a win.

Busy Busy Busy!

Taxes are done (why in the blue hetch does New York State's taxes require a slide rule?), planning on a weekend get-a-way to see Jay O'Callahan (Bloomsburg, PA), getting ready for the longer Vacation out to Colorado to hang with Heather's Papa (I can't resist singing "Leaving on a Jet Plane" whenever I fly into Denver for some reason), Keeping an eye on my March Madness Bracket (as defending champ, it's my duty to point out that NC was too Young to make it past the Sweet 16 this year), Spring Cleaning (Including the junk surrounding my desk at work), Oh, and there is the minor detail of planning my wedding this summer. . . Anyone up for a pig-roast or vegetarian Tofubeque?

February Wrap-Up

Last weekend of the month again, and I'm back for another go! Not much to report methinks.
• It took me a year to listen to all 7 books & 134 HOURS of Steven King's The Dark Tower series in audio-book form, but I'm done, say true. It's not his usual stuff, but I highly recommend it to all fans of religious study (or spaghetti westerns). Thankee Sai King for a job well done!
• My computer desk is currently decorated with a dozen paper roses that I had hidden around the homestead for Heather to find on V-Day. I think that makes my computer my own Dark Tower.
• In a few days the last of my cassette tapes will have been converted to digital either by CD or digital download. Hooray! Now should I sell the old tapes on ebay?
• I had a lovely day today: "Hungy Man Special" at the Roadside Diner (Just north of the Rt 33/34 Circle - featuring a sculpture by Jim Gary) followed by a few hours of hiking the Allaire.
• Oh, and I did end up in Ruleville again & the News Years Resolutions are alive and well!

Happy Valentines Day!

Today it has been 1 full year since I last rode the elevator up to the office. We're on the 10th floor and I know all 196 steps. I know them very well. I also know the 145 steps above our floor that lead to the roof. I walk the steps for a few reasons: Fitness, Stress Relief, Bragging Rights and most importantly, to avoid that awkward "I'm waiting for the elevator and don't really have to make conversation with the 12 people also waiting for the 10 person elevator" moment. Oh, then there was that day that the elevators were completely out of service... I marched past 20 stranded 'vader riders and I did laugh out loud as I hit the steps I'm sorry to say. :-)

January Update!

Welcome to the first monthly update - look for it on the last Weekend of the month!
• Heather & I are flying out to visit her father in Colorado in a few months - about time!
• Our TV is dead and we barely miss it. Fortunately, the superbowl is right around the corner so everyone is having a sale. I'll probably wait anyway... the ones worth owning still cost too much.
• New Years Resolutions: Run 365.25 miles, Get my google rank up one point, keep my data backups current, keep my web-page entries frequent and current, And finally, remove the word "GOT" from my vocabulary.
• I might be going back down to Ruleville in a few weeks. More videos anyone?
• Me, Heather & her Mom went to see Stomp tonight in NYC and followed that up with late night pierogies & night-seeing from the observation deck of the Empire State Building. Good times!
• For the first time ever, I have all the materials I need to do my taxes - In January! They're simple... I'll buck the current computer trend and do them myself. Scary enough, but I'll also be comparing joint filing if I was to *ehem* get married sometime this year. Now THAT'S scary! :-)

Where is Ruleville, Mississippi?

Last week I was whisked away to my company's factory to do some general IT stuff. It was a whirlwind tour of the La Guardia, Memphis, and a few hours of Mississippi countryside. I declare the trip a success as I have finally seen the factory and they have their new plotter set up as well as plans for many technical upgrades over the next year or two. See the official Brain Dripping for more info.

Christmas Shopping!

It took a week longer than I thought it would, but that's Ok, for I AM DONE with my Christmas Shopping! I over-spent again of course, but I do every year because I have no idea what money is for if not for sharing around the holidays. I pulled it off this year without so much as one trip to a mall. Long Live The Internet!

Credit Reports!

For those of you who haven't yet got the credit report that you are entitled to annually... why not? I fetched mine and learned that I have a score of 810, ATT never cancelled my "universal" card, and that I'm now married to Heather according to Experian. Interesting.

I'm going to see Jay!

... my favorite storyteller Jay O'Callahan TWICE this weekend! He's putting on shows on both Saturday & Sunday and I'm going both days. For more information, contact the East Brunswick Library - 2 Jean Walling Civic Center, East Brunswick, NJ (732) 390-6789

Presenting the new Fusion Photo Gallery!

I've installed Gallery 2 photo album software on the website and it kicks tail. I'll eventually convert my old photo albums to the new style, but for now the first thing is Heather's surprise party pictures. Check'm here:

http://pix.ericles.com

Google Sitemap Test Initialed!

I've noticed that after finally getting listed by google that they don't index the majority of my site (including this page and the Drippings) so I'm trying out their new get-indexed method of adding a google sitemap. I'll post back when I learn the results.

Rules of Engagement

When proposing marriage to your girlfriend, there are a few rules you should follow:

1. Get her the ring she asked for (Including Size)
2. Respect her wishes for "a few" witnesses to the event
3. Get key family members permission before proceeding.

With the big three in mind I went way over the top on each. Seeing is believing!

Ocean Grove Biathlon Success!

I ran in the Ocean Grove Biathlon Saturday which is a 2 mile run and a quarter mile swim and I'm proud to report that I tore up my old personal best! I finished (which is all I require of myself) 62nd of 136 with a time of 22 minutes and 51 seconds. Hooray! Here's links:

Picture 1 (Profile after a half mile)
Picture 2 (At the 1.95 mile mark before the swim)
Ocean Grove Biathlon 2002 Results
Ocean Grove Biathlon 2003 Results
Ocean Grove Biathlon 2005 Results (coming soon)
UPDATE! The JSRC has posted photos from the race!
The gun sounds... (I'm in the red shirt on the far right)
I set a measured pace...
Then nearly take out the photographer!

I'm now protected by a Creative Commons licence!

My little website isn't worth the trouble of getting a Copyright (©) on all of my unique works (like the Fusion logo or the little 'newspaper' thing that I use for news). I'm proud to say that I've created every image for this site except where obvious or incidental. Exceptions: The little black/white arrows in the menu to the left & the "external link" icon next to links that open in new windows (see below). Anywho, because it would piss me off to no end if someone used something from here commercially without credit (or royalties *grin*) I got a Creative Commons licence. It goes like this:

 
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 2.5 License.

Phonetic Coincidental Riddles

Two days ago at work, a co-worker of mine read aloud a joke she had received in her email. It went something like this:

Q: "What's the difference between a alley cat and a punctuation period?"
A: "One has claws at the end of it's paws and the other is a pause at the end of a clause."

Boo. Yeah, I know, but I hadn't heard it in years. Funny thing was that a few hours later while reading a Steven King book, I found the same riddle in the pages of the book. What do funny coincidences like this mean? Got me, but I'll tell you this: I had my cat's claws clipped this weekend just to be safe!

Starter home for sale, 86% off!

It seems that "starter" homes in and around Pacifica, CA are averaging 650-700 thousand dollars. That's a lot of loot! As an alternative, I'd like to recommend a different kind of starter home: http://www.craigslist.com/pen/rfs/76714407.html

If this page goes away, check out: http://www.ericles.com/fsbo/

Ok, I'm getting off the pot and releasing this beast!

I've made some final changes to the Ego page and added yet another Dripping so I have no excuses left... it's time to tell everyone that I'm here and await the "Well Made!"s, Parades & Accolades. I'd also like a few condolences as I'm aging out of my 20s tomorrow. Sucks to be me. I tried to stay up to watch "Saturday Night Live" last weekend one last time, but fell asleep. Getting old sucks.

Classic Web Cam Cinema!

I changed the 'classics' section of the webcam page to be more recent. The old shots were all from a Previous Place of Employment and I wanted more fun, more motion & lots of bandwidth hogging animated gifs. Wish I had captured something more interesting, but well, the government confiscated the REALLY good ones.

Been a while....

Since I last added anything here, so... I'm back from my trip out west, over the mother of all head-colds plus been very busy catchup up since. So, here comes a flurry of activity to set things straight. New additions:
• A page about Ethan Canner (that was way over-due)
• A Brain Drippings entry about Nature, Littering & Human Nature
• A crash course on How NOT to Fall Off of a Bike
• A quick/dirty page on the word MUNG (Rhymes with Tongue)

NC! No Contest!

Huzzah! The North Carolina Tar Heels have won the NCAA "March Madness" tournament and therefore given me the most points in my office pool! I've had a string of Silver Medals this year and I was due for a gold. Bet my horse places 2nd on Derby Day.
• 2nd place - Fantasy Football League
• 2nd place - friendly poker tournament (Chris' place)
• 2nd place - Eagles lose to Patriots
• 2nd place - friendly poker tournament (Rob's place)

Anyway, to celebrate the victory, I picked up breakfast for the company. Donuts, muffins & bagels courtesy of North Carolina.

Sink or Swim

Now I might be taking this out of context, but I can't help but wonder what secret message my Mother is trying to send me. Here's one sentence out of three of her recent emails:

• "BTW, you can camp right on the beach..."
• "The National Weather Service is calling for high surf conditions..."
• "we thought you might be prefer sleeping on our queen size, camping air mattress;"

  Yeah, that'll help with the floating when we're swept out to sea by a mini-psunami. *grin*

Redundancy!

Hitting the road - in the sky!

Latest News

The "Somewhat-CSS" re-design of the website is coming along nicely. I've a few problems that I can't get CSS to work with however. It mostly looks like browser inconsistencies. Little annoyances like Cell-Padding being ignored in I.E. and background-image not loaded in Firefox. When I encounter these I must adhere to my original HTMElegance principle - No Broken Code. There can be browser specific niceties, but no broken code! That said, I haven't tested any of this with Opera or Safari. Sorry.

I've also been adding more Javascript than I would like. The hit counter, email masker & style-sheet switcher are all java-script. I'm not sure why I'm resistant to using more script. Probably because all of the script kiddies out there doing bad things with it. They ruin it for the rest of us.