Well, she’s here…. oh yes. The iPad2 arrived a day early and I have to say – it’s pretty awesome. I haven’t had much time to play with it as of yet, but I already have started using it for it’s intended purpose, checking iOS compliant web code for that big cool project I mentioned yesterday.
Another new resident arrived at Casa Kapeghian last night too, meet Swimmy – Viv’s brand new betta (this was her choice for a report card prize)…
But along with those two nice additions to the house, the joy/check engine light just turned on… crap! Time to take my ride back to Chad!
Oh boy, oh boy… my iPad 2 is almost here. I’ve been watching the FedEx updates on my phone and laptop for the past two weeks. She started off in Shenzen, China, made a quick stop in Lantau Island, Hong Kong, brief stop in Anchorage, Alaska, then quickly into Memphis, TN, arrived this morning in Philadelphia, PA and now she is just minutes away in Mt. Laurel, NJ. How did I happen to get an iPad 2? One of excellent customers purchased it for me, the iPad 2 will be awesome with the upcoming HTML5 projects I’ll be working on. ***NEWS FLASH – IT’S ON THE TRUCK!
Yesterday for that very same customer, I was stuck with a conundrum. We have a large media summit planned for this month. My task is to make all the web technologies work for the folks that can not attend the conference live. Ergo, I’m building the webpages and stuff – one tricky item is that since this is a faith based organization, a live chat during the presentations would have to be moderated. Now finding PHP/Flash/jQuery chats are easy, you can barely throw a rock in a schoolyard without hitting one. But moderated… now that’s a little tricky. I did find one script, plunked down the $7 for the script, but it was using SQLite and after spinning wheels with the script long enough – I cut my loses and wrote my own jQuery/PHP/MySQL moderated chat script from scratch. I’m hoping to actually use it on this fine website soon (among other places). Very excited about this project altogether too. I get to work with a dynamic group of REALLY smart folks. I’m learning lots.
Oh and that chat script? It’s going to be called vvvChat, after me and my kids’ first names… not the first time I’ve used that…
Movie Review…
The Fighter – great film, really solid performances by Bale, Adams, and Wahlberg. BUT… HOW THE HELL DO YOU MAKE A FILM ABOUT MICKEY WARD AND NOT INCLUDE THE GATTI FIGHTS?!?! Are you insane? I just can not imagine anyone thinking this was a wise choice. The film did fantastic at the box office and won Academy Awards, but two of those three fights were voted the fight of the year by Ring Magazine. The film is great, but that small part of me that is still a boxing fan was insulted.
This weeks is gonna be nutzo (to borrow a word from The Fonz) – two dance recitals, Knoxville hospital project, lots of work for EMS, Abbe has four orders she wants to get completed, one site for me to finish, guitar and piano lessons to teach, and the usual carting kids to school and such. It’s a shorter week, but plenty going on. In the meantime, here are pictures from the wedding Abbe and I attended this weekend in Coplay, PA…
Yesterday BLP (aka my buddy Bill from Dixon Hill) came over to discuss one of my favorite clients, EMS, have some lunch at Zinc Cafe (wow the asparagus and skirt steak salad ruled!), and then spend a few hours playing guitar together. I needed that. Every time I talk to Bill, I feel better. The guy just knows his stuff but also wants to make sure you understand it as well. We game-planned a slew of changes for our client and listened to some of my most embarrassing selections from my iTunes collection (wow, how did THAT much Aldo Nova get in there?).
I got the new cleaner Wheelies design up and implored my good buddy LarryMac to stop using Comic Sans (note to self, perhaps this is the impetus to remove Comic Sans from CKEditor in my furiousCMS installs). The email I got back from LarryMac made my day too, “this is the nicest thing anyone has done for me today!”). I improved a processor hog of a query for EMS by a factor of 300% reducing page load time from about 10 secs to less than 3 (need to stress test it a bit more still, but I think I fixed it!) And also, I fixed an extremely frustrating Vidiscript uploader problem for Pornsite Terry on one of his sites (NSFW).
Had a great lesson with Jan. The Phils won again. NJ’s own Frankie Edgar upset B.J. Penn. Mom returned home from her cruise and picked up that farting, peeing, and constantly licking things cocker spaniel of hers.
I didn’t have time to fit in a run yesterday, so today… it’s on. Also, today concludes the end of a frustrating season for the Flyers – a do or die game against the Rangers, winner gets the 8 seed in the Easter Conference playoffs. A part of me is actually rooting against the orange and black – I want change for next season.
First off, 5:30am is just flat out stupid. That’s what time Abbe and I had to wake up on a Sunday morning to get into Philadelphia for the AIDS Walk Philly 2009. It was frigid and raining prior to the event start and mercifully, the rain let up right around start time. It was cool to meet some of the folks that Abbe works with, especially all gathered together for a good cause. Abbe and I finished fine and a little sore. I didn’t realize how badly my pants were chaffing me until we stopped walking but OWWWW! I’m walking around like a cowboy right now due to a crotch of fire. Anywho, it was fun, gave Abbe an excuse to wear her sock monkey hat (she got tons of compliments on it), and the day cleared up for some beautiful views of Kelley Drive…
Afterwards, I watched two games while recovering from my crotch o’ fire… both teams from Philadelphia, but their efforts could not have been more different.
The Eagles were facing the 1-4 Raiders, a franchise that is the embodiment of dysfunctional. Coaches attacking other coaches, former players coming out in the media talking about how poorly run everything is within the organization from top to bottom, a rookie quarterback that has looked awful (and he also held a lengthy contract holdout to boot). All signs seemed pointed towards the Eagles trouncing another team on their very weak early season schedule. But oh no, see the Eagles forgot you are supposed to prepare every week and play the game too. They lost and they deserved to lose. The only positive aspects of the Birds’ performance was the defense played decent and when BWest was given the ball, he looked quick and maybe finally healthy again. Michael Vick is a distraction, both times he was brought into the game he did nothing and during one horrendous red zone possession seemed to confuse McNabb. That red zone possession included a Chris Webber Moment for McNabb, calling a timeout with none left to spend. The offensive play-calling was terrible, they were in a one-score game for basically the entire game and they got away from the run (a recurring theme under Andy Reid). There were two just flat-out wrong calls in the game, but absolutely no excuse for the Eagles letting the Raiders take this game from them. First one was an uncalled intentional grounding, Raiders QB was in the pocket, threw the ball at a receiver that was behind the line of scrimmage – the ball must make the line if the QB is in the pocket. Raiders kicked a 45 yard field goal after that play, the penalty would at least have made the kick extremely tough even for a strong leg like Janikowski’s. Later, David Akers was thrown to the ground after kicking a field goal and roughing the kicker was not called. Again, maybe the Eagles end up with a closer field goal, but that’s potentially 7 points taken away.
BDawk is in a Bronco’s uniform and we have this 3rd string convicted felon quarterback taking what should be #20′s salary. But here’s the truth about the 2009 Eagles, they are an 8-8 team(if they’re lucky), with a cupcake schedule (at least the early part), a weak division, an even weaker NFC (excluding the Vikes and Saints) and they aren’t doing anything about it. If the Eagles had played this game in my backyard, I would have drawn the blinds.
Now the good… the Phils absolutely pounded the Dodgers last night. The Phils offense jumped on the Dodgers starting pitcher early and Cliff Lee dominated the Dodgers batters, fanning 10 and only allowing 3 hits over 8. The Phils beat them with hustle and playing hard. And to me, the embodiment of what the personality of this Phillies team was in the sequence of a Shane Victorino at bat. Taking a wild cut at a pitch, Shane lost his grip on his bat, sending it helicoptering into the stands, a couple of fans got knocked pretty good, but they were OK. They handed the bat back to Shane, who then drew a walk. While jogging up the first base line, Shane handed the bat to the bat boy and told him to give the bat to the injured fan. Seems small, a nice gesture like that doesn’t it? Well, I think that’s what makes these guys play hard and ultimately a portion of what made this team win a World Series last year.
Oh, and the other reason the Phils are going to win this series? IT’S CHOOCHTOBER!!!!
I am running the 2012 Philly Marathon in honor of my fiancee, Abbe and everyone that has had seizure disorders affect their lives. Please donate if you can
– great film, really solid performances by Bale, Adams, and Wahlberg. BUT… HOW THE HELL DO YOU MAKE A FILM ABOUT MICKEY WARD AND NOT INCLUDE THE GATTI FIGHTS?!?! Are you insane? I just can not imagine anyone thinking this was a wise choice. The film did fantastic at the box office and won Academy Awards, but two of those three fights were voted the fight of the year by Ring Magazine. The film is great, but that small part of me that is still a boxing fan was insulted.
