Today was the day. It finally happened! All the waiting has paid off. Here's how it happened…
Around 3pm I was sitting at work and I got notified (notifywire.com) that there was a new bundle for sale on WalMart.com. I definitely didn't want to buy 6 games and all the extra stuff they were selling just to get the 360, but I had this plan to return everything except the console. It was a risky move though and I've been holding off in hopes of getting one in a store with no bundle. While I was searching around looking for information on Wally World's return policy, I saw a couple links to inventory searches at Best Buy and Circuit City. The Best Buy site said there were two stores that had them in stock! I immediately called the one in Northeast Philly and he said there were two premiums and three cores left. In about 30 seconds I had vacated my desk and fled the building. It took me a half hour to get there (thanks to Cho for navigation help on the phone), but I was too late. There were only two cores left by the time I got there. For those that don't know, the Core version is $100 less than the Premium version but it comes with a wired controller instead of wireless, no hard drive, and no HDTV cable. In short it's not a good deal. My willpower won out and I didn't get the Core. I flew back home, jumped on the computer, and saw that the second store still had them in stock. I called the store as I ran down the stairs armed with my GPS, but he wouldn't tell me how many they had. Oh well, I didn't have anything else to do. I drove up to Levittown (about 30 minutes up the interstate), walked inside, and was greeted by empty shelves. I decided to at least ask if they had any Premiums and he went in the back to check. Sure enough, he walked out with a box. It was too good to be true! I picked up a copy of Call of Duty 2, and I was on my way back home.
So why am I blogging instead of playing? I was able to play for about an hour, but now I'm headed off to dinner in Philly at the Melting Pot to celebrate Kristin's birthday. Believe it or not, there are a few things in life better than a new game console. Large pots of cheese and chocolate in the company of good friends qualifies.
It's going to be a fun weekend.
I've been known to complain about the weather forecast around here not being right. This weekend was no exception. Oh it rained just like the forecast 
I'm no weather expert, but I think this is a bad forecast when you're looking to go camping. There's a flood watch out. I guess I'll have to really pound those stakes in so I don't float away. It's not all that bad. I mean tomorrow there's a 1% chance that it won't rain at all!
If you're not playing fantasy football, you should be. No excuses. For those people who are in my league, I've set up a nifty little RSS feed that I think you'll enjoy. I wrote a program that logs into Yahoo every once in a while and pulls the latest standings, transactions, and scoreboard for our league and spits it out into an RSS feed. The URL is 
There's rumor going around about a camping trip for the weekend of October 8 so I figured I should buy a tent. I did some shopping around and found one I liked at LLBean but it wasn't cheap. I decided to head over to SportsAuthority to see what they had and boy was I surprised. They had a Coleman 12'x7' tent for $50. This was normally a $100 tent (I have seen it listed online for as much as $200.) I decided to go ahead and buy it. When I got up to the register, I found out they were having a 30% off sale on most of their tents so the final price was $35. Not too shabby considering I had been looking at a $160 tent from LLBean.
2005 Year In Review
This is the third installment in my "Year In Review" series. You can head back in time to read 2003 and 2004 if you're interested.
2005 has come and gone. It's sort of memorable for it's lack of a major life changing event. For the past twenty-something years of my life, I've had something big happen every year or two. This year just kind of slid by while I sat at work. I guess that's what happen as you get older. You work more, you play less, and time starts accelerating. While I'm thankful that no tragic events engrained 2005 in my memory, I also look back and wonder what happened to all that time. What did I accomplish this year? Well let's see…
Last winter was the first year I really took skiing seriously. I was on the slopes 11 different days which probably doubled the number of days I'd skied in the previous 24 years. Jay and I capped it off with a fantastic trip to Colorado. Not only did we get to experience Rocky Mountain skiing for the first time, but I got to spend some quality time with Chris. Chris and I have both come a long way from building those bike ramps into the rocks, but it's good to know that we can always sit down and pick up where we left off.
Springtime came with a fun decision. Pilot's license or motorcycle? I've wanted to do both for a long time, but I decided this year was the year for the motorcycle. The pilot's license isn't out of the question though. I figured I knew what the reaction to the motorcycle would be. I did it largely in secret only revealing the news once I had the bike in my possession. In retrospect I don't think it mattered much, but it was nice to prove to myself that I can actually keep a secret.
Two weddings kept me busy at the beginning of summer. The first involved an overnight trip across the country to the scorching desert of Tucson where it was about 300 degrees. It was worth the near death experience to watch Chris get married. I even ran into an old friend that I hadn't seen since my time at John Deere. The second wedding was Rachel's, and I now have a brother. He's a Settlers fan so I guess I'll give him my stamp of approval. The wedding was a blast. I got to play "crazy single older brother in a tux" which turned out to be the perfect role for me.
I played a lot more golf this year than I had in years past. Unfortunately, my golf game did not improve at all. Golf is probably one of the most frustrating things I do. I've played it since I was a little kid and even had lessons twice, but I never get any better. At least once each round I question why I even play, but the answer is always right there: the people. Golf by itself isn't all that great, but hanging out with friends for a couple hours in the sunshine is alright by me.
In the fall I headed out on a camping trip. The fact that we left while it was raining with a forecast of three straight days of rain should have been a warning, but it wasn't. It was fun to be out camping again, but pouring rain and near freezing temps are not fun. One of my goals for 2006 is to do more camping, but I guarantee it won't be done in frigid rain.
The year saw some fairly significant changes in my responsibilities at work. I became the unofficial team lead by default when the rest of my team moved on to other positions. It meant a lot more work, a lot more responsibility, and no extra money. We've hired a little and brought some more people on to the team so I'm learning how to divide projects and keep everyone busy. It has been a great experience and definitely a benefit to my career.
And as for that question that I'm always asked when I'm back in the Midwest, yes I'm STILL single. I had enough dates this year to keep things interesting, but none that grew into anything more. I seem to be the only one who is ok with that. Sure I'd rather be in a meaningful relationship than running around by myself, but I'm not freaking out about it. That's a whole post in itself and I'll save it for another night.
As I mentioned before, I did finish grad school this year. I now have a Masters of Science in Software Engineering. I completed my degree this December at Drexel. It feels good to be done, but it's also a little bit disconcerting. It's the last definable milestone I can come up with. In high school, I looked forward to graduation and heading to college. In college I looked forward to internships each summer and graduating. Then it was off to Lockheed where I couldn't wait be finished with the ELDP program. Then I started grad school and I had a completion date in mind that I was working for. What's the next major goal? A wife and kids? A new job? Retirement? Those are all pretty vague goals without solid dates. Now that I'm done with school, I need to find a new way to set goals and work toward milestones.
Thanks to all of you who visit my site. I've had a website since 1996 and a blog since 2003, but in this past year I've really started to see some increased interest. I've said previously that I do this for my own personal benefit and it doesn't really matter if people read or not. I suppose there is some truth to that. There is a lot of therapeutic benefit in this for me, but it's encouraging when I look at those statistics and see how many of you are reading. Plus I really enjoy the interaction with you and the great people I've met just by writing on this site.
2005 was a year of friendships for me. Some were old, and some were new, but they all made the year rewarding. I don't know if 2006 will bring any of those major life changing events that 2005 lacked, but it's comforting to know that I'll have some great friends experiencing it all with me.