fooWare!

Here in Boston, it’s a beautiful day. Perfect spring weather, warm in the sun and cool in the shade. But I’m working my cha-cha off because of three different major projects, each with critical deliverables this week. Blood pressure spikes everytime the Blackberry buzzes. Worked 70+ hours last week, expect in the 80s next week, have only had two days this year I haven’t done any work. My wife and son are in FL with her family for Passover…I gotta get out of Dodge…

My first car was a 1977 white Mustang II that I had in high school. An amazing piece of crap, leaked oil like Exxon Valdez. But it had doors that were about 9 inches thick and made of pretty solid metal. Came in handy when I bounced off a cement truck. Fast forward almost 20 (yikes) years. I now drive a Ford Mustang GT, perfect for going for a drive to the coast.

So packed everything up and hopped in the car. The great thing about where I live is that I can get to the ocean in less than 45 minutes. I end up on the patio of a coffee shop in Tiverton RI, right on the water. You know it’s a good coffee shop when the dark roast is called Honduran Hero. It was a good “airing out”…

Now, back to my oars…Red Sox game in an hour!

When U2 released “The Joshua Tree”, it was a pretty cool album. It was 1987, sophomore year at HHS for me…

It was so cool, I thought, I want to go find and see the Joshua Tree. It’s not shown on the album cover (I checked to be sure). Nobody told me there was more than just one…way more…

Fast forward to the late 90’s. I’m a software engineer, and I end up with a consulting job in Los Angeles. I spent 3 weeks out of every month there for about a year and a half. My wife was not thrilled. But, I did get to do a lot of hiking and general wandering about SoCal, up to SF to visit a longtime friend, out to San Bernadino to visit another friend, and made the most of it.

Soon after I started going out there, I felt the absolutely need to drive out to Joshua Tree National Forest. National Forest. That should have been my first clue. There’s tons of Joshua Trees. They’re all over the place. I don’t know where they took the album cover photo, but they must have looked at JTNF and figured, that’s no bloody good, there’s too many Joshua Trees there for an album called “the” Joshua Tree.

JTNF is a really cool place to wander about. Even better than hiking and trekking during the day (Ryan Mountain at 100 degrees F!) is staring at the sky at night and watching satellites fly by.

“It’s In The Way That You Use It” - Eric Clapton

Nice guitar riffs (of course, this is Eric Clapton we’re talking about) and a good drumline.

“Bleed It Out” - Linkin Park

I wasn’t so impressed by the iTunes clips of the other songs on the “Minutes To Midnight” album (except “What I’ve Done”), but this is a good screamer; even though it’s only about 2 minutes long.

“Tarantula” – Smashing Pumpkins

Another good screamer, reminds me of some of the tracks off “Siamese Dream”.

“You’re Not Alone” (Airplay Mix) – ATB

This is a song for driving down the West Side highway in New York City at 1am. It’s been a while since I’ve done that, but this is what I would have on the stereo.

“Werewolves of London” – Warren Zevon

This is a Chuck’s song. If you went to Syracuse in the early 90’s, you know what I mean. Long live Hungry Charley!

This is a test posting from Word 2007. I’ll go ahead and admit it from the start, I’m a Microsoft fan (quick, get the flame-retardant trousers). How can I not be? For more than a decade I’ve been writing software for Windows using all kinds of Microsoft technologies. Say what you want about Microsoft being the evil empire, but they help me keep a roof over my head and food on my table.

I’m sure there are other tools out there to do the same thing, but one feature that I like about Microsoft Word 2007 is the fact that I can write my blog posts from it, and post them right to my site. Nice integration folks, seems to work like a treat. While I’m at it; a comment on the RibbonBar. I read an article in the Wall Street Journal before the release of Office 2007 about Microsoft’s gamble on the RibbonBar, being a major UI change to such a widely-used piece of software. I like it. Very much so. Took maybe a day to get used to, and mainly because it changes where you find things. Now I’m used to it, and I actually find it tough to go back to a regular menu.

This is the new foo-Ware! Well, as of summer 2007…

foo-Ware! started out as a site supporting my shareware development, and then supported my consulting and contracting jobs. Now I work full time as the Application Development Manager for a global economics consulting firm, CRA International. CRA keeps me pretty very busy, so foo-Ware! has taken a backseat for the past 3 years or so. But, after feeling guilty about letting the virtual cobwebs grow, I decided to rebuild as a site for me periodic thoughts and interests. We’ll see how things go with foo-Ware! v3.0…