March 2009 – ::: jeffphillips.org :::

Back To Bills

Getting back from Vegas means going through stacks of mail and entering many transactions into Quicken.

I think I’m finally done. It’s taken all evening to work on and now I don’t have a pile of debit card receipts in my pocket.

Returning from travel also means returning to work, and work I did today. Especially since I had so many unread emails to deal with.

Returning to work means EXPENSE REPORTS! Yay. Fun. So, I’m now done with that, too. I learned early on in my 100% travel days at IBM to not dally with the reports – it only hurt me in the end. I now stay clear. Zero balance on the Amex once the reports are approved.

So now I’m done. And I’m tired.

Life In A Posh Hotel

Normally, most of my business travel is, well, business travel. This time, though, as part of the convention I’m attending, I opted to stay in the convention hotel – which is a Casino/Resort. I have to say that it’s a couple of steps up from my regular hotel fare. The room is larger, more fancy, and the clock radio is a Bose wave-thingy which is a CD player with an MP3 input jack. Sweet!

Some of the decor is over the top, but I expect that as it’s Vegas and it’s a “resort” [which I think in Vegas just means fancy casino].

So Laura is exploring right now and I’m in a hands-on lab getting some good “experience” with Microsoft’s upcoming ILM “2” product. Fun! [… if you’re into that kind of thing like I am…]

We took some pictures yesterday of our room and we’ll certainly be taking more as we visit some more places.

And now, back to my geek time.

Viva Las Vegas?

As Winter can’t quite make up its mind about when to die this year, Laura and I will be heading out west to Las Vegas, or more precisely Henderson, NV.

I’m going there for a Directory and Identity conference, hoping to learn new things and Laura’s going… well, just to hang out with me! Isn’t that cool?

When I’m not in my conference, we’ll be heading out to the desert for some photo ops and possibly some night light shots of the strip, so it’s doubling as a photography trip. We might even go back to Red Rock Canyon. And I think I’ve been persuaded to do some indoor skydiving.

This year, unlike last, we’ll be staying in the hotel which is hosting the conference. Last time, I tried to “maximize” our Hilton points, but the hassle just wasn’t worth it, and this hotel looks to be VERY posh.

Is Winter Really Over?

It’s probably not, but it certainly feels like it. After the post below, many of you outside of our area might be thinking it’s still cold up here. Not so! In fact, it’s now 73 and a warm Spring day, even though it’s not really Spring yet. Not only that, we already have our US tax return sitting in the bank!

On that note, Laura and I will be heading out to go shopping! Well, to buy a couple of new lamps for the bedroom. Not that big of a purchase, but something we need.

With Spring knocking on the door, Laura has been moving furniture around and thinking about what our next home improvement project should be. I’ve hijacked that thought and decided that we’re going to wire the living room for surround sound speakers. I finally figured out a way to make it work with a minimum of effort and cost.

—- UPDATE —

I forgot to hit “publish”, but we’ve just gotten back from a nice shopping day. We have a pair of lamps now that look to fit the bill.

Winter Ain’t Left Yet

Last night, some fierce winter storms blew in across the entire eastern part of the country. We had an unseasonably large amount of snow: over 6 inches, maybe more in parts. With quite a lot of snow [for our area anyway] headed our way, it looked like I would be snowed in for the day. Sure enough, I was!

Until I made Laura shovel the driveway!

Well, I didn’t make her. [Don’t worry, Norma: I’m not a slave driver!] I started it, and she started taking pictures so I offered to take pictures of her doing it. Well, she had fun and I had fun. Did I tell you I love snow? It smelled like a ski resort here today. And we even had hot chocolate in our “lodge”.

And when I say she had fun, I mean it! Notice the snow flying through the air?

Ah, well. It was like a mini vacation, but I have to go back to work tomorrow. As you can see behind her, the roads are now clear – they sent trucks to scrape all the roads just so I could make it to work.

How kind of them. [Darn]