Today I learned:

• I can use my smart phone to track my location in real time.

If you are ever looking for me, I should be right about here:

Click here for a detailed view…

I was originally under the impression that I would have to purchases a subscription based service to make use of the GPS feature on my Blackberry Curve (either to access maps in real time or report my location to my personal site). Well, thanks to Doug McCune I found out that there is a great (and free) application from Mologogo that installs in no time flat. The app will display maps from either Microsoft or Google, and optionally feed your GPS stats (including elevation, etc.) to an URL of your choice. This allowed me to for instance embed a map of my location here. Any time you want to know where I am (and I have my cell phone with me), the map will reflect my realtime location. Doug’s inspiring post can be found here.

Some gotchas when I was trying to set things up:

1. The download on Mologogo’s main site wasn’t auto-install enabled for my Blackberry (.jad file), but if you go to http://bb.mologogo.com there’s a compatible installer you can navigate to with your Blackberry.
2. When setting up Mologogo to send data to an alternate URL it’s not enough to configure your profile on Mologogo’s site, you must also set the URL in the Mologogo app settings on the phone.
3. Earlier in the day Mologogo’s website was down, and I wasn’t able to log in. I ended up surfing around and found another similar service called BlackberryTracker. There app also worked like a charm on my curve, and after you’ve registered for a developer key you can use their API directly to access your saved location data - so you don’t need your own server. Works pretty good but at the time of this writing their developer site is down (so you can’t get a key). But all in all much faster (less slick) application.
4. For what it’s worth, the best tutorial to get you up and running and embedding your location on your own website or blog can be found in this wiki article.

Today I also learned:

• There are some gotchas if you change jobs mid-year.

I ended up finally gathering up all my W2s, 1099s, 1098s, etc. and firing up ol’ Tax Cut. To our surprise it turns out we’re getting back a bit more than we thought we would. A welcome surprise, certainly better than if we found out that we owed. I really didn’t know that if you’d maxed out your social security contributions, then moved on to another employer, the new employer really has no clue, so continues to keep withdrawing social security. Good times.

Today I learned:

• When two roads diverged for me in 1995, the road not taken would have led to interesting things.

Just ran across a game preview for Iron Man, pretty sexy. Then I realized that the development team was none other than Secret Level in San Francisco, now Sega of America’s premier studio in the US.

I was with the company back in 1995 when we worked out of the basement of a rented home in suburban Maryland. At they time they were known as HyperImage. Me writing MFC map editors for an Atari Jaguar game, and they living off cup of noodles. My how far they’ve come! When I was asked to continue working without pay (along with the rest of the startup), I possibly should have stuck it out.

• The economy is hosed.

Just decided to peek between my fingers and check out how my 401k is doing. Holy spiral staircase of doom Batman! I’ve lost 8%!! of my retirement savings in less than a month! Oh dear. Time to retrofit the mattress for a change purse. I’ll be working until I’m 80.

Today I learned:

• It’s not over til’ the fat lady sings.

So the television I bought over the weekend dropped in price by $200.00. Just like that, a couple days later! I really need to remember to check sale prices after I make a big purchase like that. Luckily my father sent me an ad for the deal, so I was able to call Circuit City and get the refund. Now…what can I buy with all this extra cash I have floating around?

• I’ve had a media center all this time…

I had no clue what Front Row on Mac OSX was until I accidentally hit command-esc today. What the… puts Windows Media Center to shame, and themz some good HD movie previews!!

Today I learned:

• DirecTV needs a better RMA system.

So back in October DirecTV decided that they were no longer going to support the HD TiVo based DVR (which I and everyone else I believe, LOVED). All new HD channels would be MPEG-4 and to decode them, you would be responsible for upgrading to a 5 LNB dish and their new (first generation) DVR. Even worse, customers have to PAY for this extreme downgrade (almost $300). Alas, to say the least, the new DVR is the buggiest device I’ve seen on this earth to date.

So I’ll spare you the gory details, but tech after tech came and couldn’t figure out the issue. I suggested swapping out my demon spawn for a new device, and magically most of the issues went away (though it’s still only “less buggy”). The tech told me that I would receive an RMA, box, and shipping label in the mail within the week. If I didn’t send it back I would be billed for the price of the new machine. Well… A week passed, then two. Then a month, then three months.

As you’ve read, I just upgraded my family room to HD, but I didn’t have a receiver, so I decided to take the demon spawn out of the closet, dust it off, and fire it up. Unfortunately it still has “the syndrome” it had months before but hey, I could watch TV.

Then the idea struck…

I called DirecTV and asked them if my account was in good standing and if I owed them any hardware. They said nope and that everything was in order. Hmmm… I decided for fun, to mention the technical issues Demon was having and the tech was kind enough to, after trouble shooting, send me another! So come Wednesday, I will now have three DVRs in my home (for the price of one). Of course, I was advised that I would need to send the non-working device back, or I would be charged for it. No worries, that will leave me with two.

So that’s how I turned one DVR into two. I won’t go so far as to say I’m stealing. I’m just borrowing it until they send me the Fed Ex box one day. ;o)

Today I learned:

• I’m going to die some day.

• Jet pilots can cheat death.

I took my two year old to his first movie this weekend, an IMAX flick called “Figher Pilot: Operation Red Flag” here at the Air and Space museum in Virginia. He loved it! Did you know that the risk of dying for fighter jet pilots drops significantly after ten combat missions? That’s why each year the United States takes part in intense simulated combat missions (with live munitions) four times a year. Over twenty nations participate in the exercises, called Red Flag, which take place in both Nevada, outside of Las Vegas and Eielson Air Force Base in Alaska. If you have some spare time one weekend you should stop by the Steve F. Udvar-Hazy center in Chantilly and check it out.

Today I learned:

• I’m still an impulsive buyer.

What a day… I decided to go to Circuit City to buy a new house phone, and came back with a 40" 1080p LCD television. Talk about impulse buy!

They wanted $400.00 to install it, but even then, they wouldn’t install any electrical outlets, so I decided to brave it and do it myself. Well to be fair I did invite a friend over to help since he’s a bit more handy than I. We’ll just call him “Handy Manny”.

• How to install a wall mounted flat panel television.

Before Manny came over, I was successful in fishing the coax to the new location. He showed me a thing or two about safely daisy chaining my existing outlet to a new location behind where the television would be mounted. We then installed several new wall outlets to be used for component cabling from the tv into the wall, and back out the bottom. All this went pretty smoothly, though once things started getting tight we could no longer fish the wires easily, so I just went into the adjacent room (luckily it’s our unfinished garage), and carved a chunk out of the drywall so I could feed the wires cleanly.

• Universal flat panel TV mounting brackets are for the birds.

Lastly we bolted the mounting unit to the wall and attached the brackets to the television. It’s a universal kit (Verge VFXLGMT) that Circuit City provides for this model, to support 40" to 60" televisions. The problem is, my TV is on the low end of this scale, so the brackets stick out like a sore thumb. So next time I do this I will make sure the mounting kit I buy is well short of the television height.

Next project? Hacksaw the ends off those suckers!