Mar 29

Ok, so I don’t have anything against the French. In fact, the only French guy I’ve met in person is a really great guy. However, my dig on the French yesterday reminded me of a good joke.

Now for reference, my dad is an avid gun collector (not the scary kind though) and collects mostly WWII, WWI and previous era rifles. One night we were just going through his collection while he told me about all of them, where they were from, what year they were made, what military used them, etc. and he brought out this French rifle from WWI, I believe. He was showing me all of the cool features, one of which is how it had a hollowed out section in the butt of the rifle where it was filled with holy water so that it was readily available for the dying soldier. So then while he’s putting it away he asks me, “You know what is great about a French rifle, don’t you?”. “No”, I respond. “It’s never been fired and only dropped once!”

So there’s my random humor for the day.

Mar 28

I have to file this under both work….and travel. Recently I was graced with the opportunity to travel to Chicago, which might not seem like a huge deal to most, but for me it was! Blend Interactive, the company I work for, sent me on my first “work trip”. Which is sort of a big deal, due to the fact we are still a very small company and we don’t have that kind of money to be just throwing around for what may or may not be a good reason. Well a month or so ago, the decided it was a good reason for myself and Joe to attend an eZ Publish Partner meeting in Chicago which is a very small deal as far as the rest of the world is concerned, but is a big deal with the North American eZ Publish community. Basically the major players and the eager starters in the North American market were there to half get the new happenings of eZ Publish in this very fast growing time period and also submit opinions on what will help this system grow in the US. So that was the business side of things.

The travel/personal side of things was the fact that I got to go there a day ahead of time to see the city in it’s full glory. Now I’ve been to the Twin Cities, SLC, San Francisco, Denver, Charlotte and a few other “big cities” previously, but I have never seen the “down town” atmosphere like there is Chicago. This place has the quintessential big city feel to it. It’s great to see the rising skyscrapers and the grand view out of the corner office in the UBS building in down town. (thanks to the guys at Duo Consulting) Then to cap it all off, we had some cocktails and a small dinner at the John Hancock Center (the second tallest building)…where the quote of the day came from Joe. “The problem with the Sears Tower is, you can’t see the Sears Tower from the Sears Tower!” Touche my friend, touche.

Mar 28

There is a great quote from a great bar in Brookings. “Life is too short for cheap beer!” Which I have to agree with. Although, contradictorily I have to also agree with “I fear no beer”. However, in the spirit of the former, I took up a the offer from Ben to head down to Monks bar here in Sioux Falls for a couple of drinks after work. Let me tell you, this bar is phenomenal!

Great features start with the fact it serves great beer and continues through to the point of not allowing smoking! So you can not only sit back and enjoy a premium beer after a day of work…in addition to that, you get to breathe clean air! Win - Win as far as I’m concerned! Of those fine brews they serve up to the town folk, I indulged in of course a Chimay (which I have found to be one of my favorite since my trip out to Sacramento/San Francisco) in the “Reserve” blue cap variety and also (a new favorite) a St Bernardus Abt 12. This is a great brew created on the border of France and Belgium in of course a Trappist Monastery. I don’t care what I do in my life….some day I want to take a tour of that little hole in the wall of Belgium and see what this country has hiding up it’s sleeve. Also, you really can’t help but love a country that is really there just to piss of France and Germany…now am I right, or am I right?

Mar 27

Well I spent a large portion of my night trying to figure out how the mod_rewrite worked on apache to get rid of this pesky index.php in my url…but when I decided I was spinning my tires a little too much, I decided to console myself by throwing down a new design for the site. So here it is….check it out, kick the tires.

It doesn’t work in IE6…..and I don’t really care. Cause IE6 really should die a slow death anyways ;)

So if you’re down with that idea….check this js out and throw it in… END6! \m/

UPDATE: index.php is now gone.  rewrite.load was available…just not enabled.  So we got it rolling now.   (thanks Joe!)