Wow…. it has been a long time since I have “spoken”.  I had been good about blogging this year until something just got in the way.  Hell, I don’t even remember what that something was.

So here are some things that have been happening with me:

Though I have been playing guitar since I was a teenager, I never really got any better.  I was satisfied with the skills I had learned and, though I always wanted to get better, I never really had the drive to do what it takes to get there.  Not any more.  I decided about two months ago to pick up the guitar after a long hiatus and to learn the theory of lead guitar.  It has been really enjoyable and led to a purchase of a new guitar…More on that later.

After changing my diet late last year, I managed to lose about 50lbs.  My goal was to lose 70lbs, but I was having trouble getting past my first plateau.  I decided that I needed to begin exercising and regularly.  I joined the company gym and am now working out Monday through Friday including swimming laps daily.  I just started this, so I haven’t had time to see any benefit from a weight loss perspective, but I know it takes patience and persistence to achieve this goal.  I am on my way.

My 20 year class reunion is supposedly this year, though I haven’t heard anything formal about it.  Interestingly enough, I have heard more from the High School that I attended only one year at, then I have from the High School where I graduated.  Hopefully, they can get their act together, because I am looking forward to it.

My wife and I are going on our first vacation as a married couple (excluding our honeymoon).  This is pretty significant since we have been married for 9 years this coming August.  I don’t really know why we have never taken a vacation before now, but I suspect it has to do with schooling, certifications, and a few other impacting events that we have endured throughout our marriage.  We are both really excited about it as is our son.

That’s about it for now, but, hopefully, I will get back on the “blogging horse” and dedicate more time to putting things out there.

And there you have it.

I am huge fan of Major League Baseball and as a fan I decided that, this year, instead of just watching what was available on cable and following online, I would purchase Comcast’s MLB Extra Innings.

I started looking for this option on their website towards the end of January.  I even called them to inquire about it only to find out that the representatives that answer the phone know no more information (and probably less) than the website offers.  To my delight, on the first day of Spring Training, Comcast’s site provided information on purchasing this package and offered a $50 discount for signing up before the season started!  I called immediately.  Although the Comcast rep didn’t know about the promotion or the availability of the package, he was able to look up the details.  This, of course, was after several back-and-forth’s of me telling him that I could see the “Sign up today” statements on their site, and him trying to convince me that I didn’t.  All-in-all it wasn’t a terrible experience signing up… yet!

Since I called from work, I had to wait until after to verify that I had been setup correctly.  I don’t think waiting until I had gotten home to sign up would’ve had any affect on the outcome.  Once home, I discovered that I couldn’t find any baseball games on my TV.  I consulted the TV listings on Comcast’s site to find out that MLB Extra Innings games should reside on channels 771-784.  Interestingly enough, NHL Center Ice should also reside on channels 771-784.  Of course, I found only hockey on my TV.

DAY ONE

I called Comcast’s support to remedy the mistake.  Surely, someone accidentally gave me hockey instead of baseball.  After some amount of time on hold, I spent the better part of an hour troubleshooting the problem with the support technician (I use that term quite loosely).  I was eventually promised a call-back in an hour.

DAY TWO

So I called back the next day.  Incidentally I didn’t expect my promised call-back to ever take place.  I still have hockey.  The new “technician” removes MLB from my account and asks me, “What do you see?”

“I see the ‘You don’t have this subscription’ message”, I replied.

“How about now?”

“Hockey.”

“And now?”

“Call Comcast to order this subscription”

“And now?”

“Hockey, again.”

This repeated meander took place for about 30 minutes.  I started recounting the many times I have heard Benjamin Franklin’s definition of insanity:  Doing the same thing over and over expecting different results.  I wasn’t surprised to eventually be offered a call-back and was even less surprised to not receive one.

DAY THREE

I called back and spoke to a semi-competent service agent who explained to me that Comcast offers NHL Center Ice and MLB Extra Innings on the same channels.  There will be no coverage for spring training games, but once the regular season is underway, the games will be available.  Without any significant rebuttal to offer, I was forced to accept the explanation given to me and wait to the end of the month to verify it.

DAY TWENTY-THREE

Opening day for Boston in Japan.  I consult my listings.  Hockey and no Baseball.  Remembering the lady on the phone told me that it would be April, I decided to wait until then.  Maybe the all-intelligent sports reps at Comcast didn’t know that opening day would be in March.

DAY TWENTY-NINE

Today was the New York Yankees 2008 season home opener.  April 1st.  Today was the day that the hockey listings would be replaced with baseball. 

Results: Hockey.

DAY THIRTY

I started thinking about it and wondered if I had missed something.  I consulted the listings once again.  Hockey…AND baseball!  Ok, I get it now.  They are intermingling to the two packages.  I discovered this a bit too late to catch opening day, but now I can watch my Yankees.  All is well.

DAY THIRTY-TWO

At $40 dollars discount, the $159 dollar price tag on MLB Extra Innings is worth it to me.  Especially since it can be broken up into three easy payments of $53 dollars.  Even the frustration of spending three, or so, hours (excluding hold times) on the phone with Comcast trying to resolve the issue weren’t enough to break the deal now that I can watch baseball.

However, discovering that I am being charged 3 counts of MLB Extra Innings and 1 count of NHL Center Ice totaling $526 dollars on top of my regularly monthly payment makes me start thinking strongly about changing to DirecTV.

Obviously, I will not pay these erroneous charges, but the thought of having to call Comcast and spend another 30+ minutes on hold, only to try to convince the resulting customer service representative that I should not be charged for these things makes me want to jab ice-picks into my ears.  Not to mention that they are surely going to suggest that I pay the bill now and will be credited the amount next month to avoid late penalties. 

I switched to Comcast from DirecTV because, at the time, they had a more HD channels than DirecTV and DISH and better prices.  I sacrificed many things that I loved about DirecTV for HD/Comcast, but the for switching back may be at hand.

It will, however, have to wait until baseball season is over!

</rant>

I just wanted to test Jott with Word Press. This seems like an interesting way to blog, and I’m not sure that the length message will be long enough to actually make it worth it, but just want to see if it would be successful. listen

Powered by Jott

At the beginning of this year, I made a resolution to blog regularly.  During that time, I have being discovering my public image.

Getting started, I really liked the way that Maigh’s Blog looks, so I decided to use WordPress for my blog.  I originally started off with a WordPress.com subdomain, but that was very short lived.  I am too much of a gadgeteer to withstand the inability to customize my blog.

Now I am self-hosting WordPress and that has suited me for the last month or so, but I am in need of something richer.

Since I am a .Net developer by trade and know very little about PHP, I get frustrated with the things that I am unable to do with my blog…albeit from lack of trying, not from the shortcomings of PHP.

If you have been paying attention, my blog was down for the last 3 days.  I managed to completely botch my environment in way that caused me to have to completely rebuild it.  The entire experience made me realize that I do not want to be hosted with WordPress or with anything else out there.  What I really want is a custom built site that I can freely update.

Microsoft just released Silverlight 2.0 to beta.  Though my experience with XAML must be measured in grams, it is a technology that greatly interests me. 

Now that I have remedied my WordPress problems, I will be dedicating some evenings to creating my own blog hosting software using Silverlight 2.0.

During this development process, I will keep you posted on my progress and, hopefully, will be able to switch you to my new site in a few months.

This should be fun and will allow me to publish what I am learning about Silverlight.

And there you have it.

Joe.

“I only need 4-6 hours of sleep a night”

I have made this statement countless times to many people.  I have argued that I wake up without an alarm clock therefore I am not sleep deprived.

Studies show that lack of sleep induces hunger.  There are endorphins that are released when one is awake for extended hours that increase appetite.

Americans, in addition to being the most obese nation, is also one of the most sleep-deprived.  Connections between these two things are being discovered.

Maybe that explains how I got to be 240lbs at only 5’8″.  Every night I would do a considerable amount of snacking.  Even today, after losing 50lbs and being disciplined eater, I still have an overwhelming urge to snack after midnight.

Regardless of the maybe’s, I think I will try to get more sleep to at least reduce the cravings.

And there you have it!

Joe