familia et al

Things have been good in Charlotte, March gets a lot warmer here than in Cincinnati/Columbus.  Nothing explicitly exciting or of note but there's been lots of miscellaneous stuff.  

My ski/snowboard trip was great!  I went to snowshoe with Patrick 3/12 - 3/14 and we had a blast.  they had record snowfall this year so there was plenty of base.  the weather wasn't perfect--a bit wet but we did kind of procrastinate and put things off...  it was still great though, all their runs were open including the big western territory which features their two longest runs, 1.5 miles or so--needless to say they were amazing.  did make me tired though...lol

Next, my desktop computer has been acting up.  I've kind of gotten overwhelmed trying to keep up and maintain my desktop, home theater pc, BlackBerry, iPhone, work laptop, work netbook, etc...  not to mention I've got about 5 TB worth of HDD space and stuff to manage.  I think XP started to become corrupt over time which consequently made my backup image corrupt--at least for the operating system, no data was actually lost.  just the time and frustration with trying to restore all my programs, itunes, firefox, movies db, etc.  do i want a new computer?  maybe.  i just want to simply and quickly be able to do all the things i used to be able to do...

Last weekend was great, went to the Charlotte Checkers game on Friday and then went to Strike City to watch the Buckeye's game with the Charlotte Buckeyes.  good work OSU, bummer Cincinnati lost last night to Dayton in the NIT though.

Tonight is the CYP (charlotte young professionals) quarterly event where the guest speaker is the city mayor, Anthony Foxx.  Tiffani, Kyle, Brandon, and I are planning on going.  Unfortunately I haven't been feeling well and think I need to go to the doctor, but I still want to go...in part because I already paid $10 for it!  Q4 last year I registered because Tiffani did but then she got sick and couldn't go and I was more interested in seeing her than whatever the event was so then I didn't go, $15 wasted on that one so not this one too!


This weekend is exciting, my parents are coming to visit!  I thought Barbi and the kids might come too but I guess she's not up for traveling being pregnant?  Evan may still come if he wants to, my Mom said she'd ask him. lol.  


New video from The Lonely Island on youtube,  Boombox.  

Bugatti keeps pushing ridiculous to another level:





Breaking Bad Season 3 started, haven't watched it yet but am excited--was trying to get others here into it.  

That's all I can think of for now

update fail

ahhh, I hate that I haven't posted in so long I can't decide what to post and keep procrastinating.  I actually tried posting from igoogle last week but it failed, :(.  it was a simple post, to get me back in the game...saw this sweet Audi RS5 on uncrate.

http://www.uncrate.com/men/cars/coupes/audi-rs5/

I think it looks sweet and have been jealous of Hanno's A5 he got in '08 when I got my 128.  The S5 alone is a beast pushing 330+hp, awd.  the "racing"? s5 is even more ridiculous...  also, here's Hanno's car...  i hate (love) him...

also, apparently that's his driveway?  beautiful!  Hanno, do you ever get to drive or are you always have your license taken away for speeding?  lol, j/k!

onto more news!  i decided to switch back to Cincinnati Bell Wireless (CBW) after my latest stint on ATT.  over the last few years cbw has significantly aligned with t-mobile--previously being with Cingular but that relationship seemed to start eroding after the ATT/Cingular merger which created the nations largest wireless carrier -- AT&T (Mobility), surpassing Verizon until Verizon purchased alltel to again leapfrog at&t...i think  that's where we are today ;)  further sidetrack...the FCC long ago messed up our wireless frequency spectrum allocation in regards to cellular availability--specifically when it comes to 3G space.  it's pretty much also the reason that cdma carriers exist but that's another story...  T-Mobile decided to wait for the advanced wireless spectrum (AWS) that was finally cleared to begin deployment of 3G service in the USA, this would be in the 1700 & 2100 MHz ranges.  whereas att and canadian gsm utilized 800-850 and 1900.  a decent article about this parity was written by boy genius report (BGR) last month.  anyways...cbw roams on both at&t and t-mo but 3G is available on t-mo, cbw has been "soft" launching 3G service in Cincinnati for the past year or so.  when i was downtown at the DE office my speed test rang in over 4000 Kbits/s down and 300+ up.  however, it wasn't even available at my parents house in Monroe so they're obviously still adding base stations.  as for the t-mobile service in Charlotte, well it was good enough for me to switch.  actually, i pretty much receive superior coverage anywhere i've been.  I'm a member of root mobile's beta (http://www.rootwireless.com) so it was cool to be able to see my service plotted on maps, t-mo vs att.  the only thing att was better at was peak speeds with equal (strong) signal.  att seems to be 300 or so kbit/s faster.  i think att has rolled out HSPA whereas t-mo is hoping to do that this year, so we'll see.  i haven't really noticed the slight difference.  the fact that i can hold calls solidly from my desk at work and maintain calls in elevators at my apt and work has made me happier.

Other cellular/cbw news is that when i was in town i saw that CBW was advertising/promoting the google nexus one.  you can't buy it from them, you still have to buy it from google unlocked for $530, but, they will let you sign a two year data plan for $15 off each month, just for getting the GN1 --which i think is an awesome deal cuz that adds up to $360, trying to make that $530 not so bad.

Still waiting for Will to get my Slingbox up and running...

Oomph! has a new CD/compilation where they re-recorded 16 of their songs in english.  cool/weird since i'm used to it being in German and kind of sing along in german, lol.

Planning a ski/snowboard trip with Patrick to snowshoe 3/12-3/14, anyone else interested?

if you run your own mail server, check out blackberry server express.  how about a video!?

I also enjoyed this article by popular mechanics, The World's 18 Strangest Airports.  which, is just part of their "strange" series.  http://www.popularmechanics.com/strangearchitecture/.  strange isn't the best word, imho, i'd go with interesting/cool :)