My father, Howard J. Colson, Jr., retired recently and I got a copy of the newspaper article! I've read it several times and couldn't be a more proud son. I love you dad.

Follow the link to see the article! Read More...

I haven't updated the site in a while, been a bit busy. However, I came across the Seven Deadly Sins Combined illustration and just HAD to link it from here! Enjoy.

It looks like the iPhone announcement and then the Synchronoss press release that followed has helped bump our stock up quite a bit! Here's to hoping it keeps going!

I was talking to Denise and reminiscing about the 'old days' when we used to stay up late and watch one of the news channels on TV 'track santa' across the globe..... when she asked me "isn't there an 'on-line' Santa Tracker somewhere?".

Sure enough.... we've spent a good portion of Christmas Eve tracking Santa in Google Earth! With the Santa Tracker! Great stuff!!! Connor LOVES it.

Connor has been working really hard at learning his first basic form (1), and tonight he tested for his yellow belt and did fantastic! Here is some video.

Connor doing his Basic Form (1)


Connor receiving his Yellow Belt

I've successfully moved the mail server over to google now. If you had your email at karma.net, you can now get to your email from the new tab (KarMail) above, which should redirect you to the google site. If that tab doesn't work, come back to this page and hold your 'shift' key and click on the reload button in your browser, and THEN click on the KarMail tab (this will refresh your browser's local cache).

You can also get to the google hosted email server by clicking on this link.

Good picture of Uncle Chad's good side ...

Here are all the kids and me at Chucky Cheese.... how do ya like the 'Comic Book' look?

Well folks! Big news! Denise got a promotion at T-Mobile and now she's a 'big-cheese' manager type person For the occasion I created this little PDF and sent it to her at work. It's inevitable, I'll be a stay-at-home dad soon, I just KNOW it!

CONGRATULATIONS BEAUTIFUL!

Connor, Riley and Jordyn did all their chores all week and as a reward (besides the quarters that they get for doing their chores at the end of the week) we went "Apple Picking" at Strawberry Acres. It was a fun trip and, as you'll see in my "professionally shot video" (hehe) of the event, the ride through the orchard was very interesting (convertible school busses).


Download the video here --> Podcast

I finally got around to encoding my directing and filming attempt during a 'snow day' this past winter (after Christmas in 2006). I've beautified it within iMovie and made it much smaller (but it's still pretty hefty at ~150 MB). Feel free to download it and tell me what you think of my 'transitions'


Click Here To Download --> Podcast

My coworker and friend Tony Pags convinced me to run a 5k this morning. It was the first time I've run over 3 miles at one time!

Here are the results of my Nike+ run statistics (there where a lot of hills).

Just wanted to get an update out in regards to my continued running. I, today, ran over two miles in under 18'30"! Average pace of 9'04"!! Woohoo! Nike+ for the win, it has really been a great motivator to have little competitions with others that you know.

Here's a picture of my last run:

I decided around New Years that I was overweight and needed to start getting to the gym again on a regular basis. So a couple of colleagues and I have been going to the gym and running (them outside, me on a treadmill for the most part). I really enjoy the feeling after a good run, but getting to the gym is still sometimes a chore with work commitments (we try to go over lunch).

I think I found my 'carrot', so to speak! I just got the new Nike+ device for my iPod Nano. SUPER COOL. You can setup challenges with other people you know for distance runs, times, number of runs, etc, etc. It really makes it 'rewarding' (beside the fact that it's already rewarding personally) to force myself to go to the gym! Today was my first run with it and the lady's voice telling me that I've made it to .5 miles, and then 1 and then 1.5 and then 2 miles was really nice! I didn't feel like I had to look at the treadmill HUD at all! I definitely recommend this for others! I also recommend, upon getting one, that you should calibrate it. During my calibration I ran .25 miles and my iPod had thought I'd only run .19 miles.... that would add up!

Here's a sweet pic of my first run with Nike+ (from their website). Notice, me being a noob, didn't turn off the run during my cooldown!

This video has been up for a week or so, but I figured I'd put a link to it here so it would be easier for folks to find it! Connor is now riding his bike without training wheels!

Two Saturdays ago he decided that he didn't want them (training wheels) on anymore and told me to take them off of both of his bikes So I did. By the end of that Saturday he was riding his bike (with no help from me, mind you, he wouldn't let me!).

Here is the link.

This installment is of a fondly remembered debate on the definition of a sport.

Thank you Eric and friends for a drunken, entertaining evening.

See the RSS Feed for the podcast! Or for the podcast challenged a smaller .mov .

Enjoy!

This last New Years, we had a lot of fun at our yearly shindig. We had several people that helped video tape the night, and I just RECENTLY got everything I needed to suck the DVD video from the 3 inch DVDs that my video camera burns to out to DV format so I could play with it in iMovie.

The podcast here is a good friend of mine that was Green Machine challenged that night. You remember the old Green Machine from growing up? Well I got my son one and after a few (maybe more) we took it for a test-ride.

If the above podcast link doesn't work for you, here is a link for the iTunes Challenged of us.

Enjoy!

Unbelievable.
Once again Verizon has proven that they are completely incompetent and deserve absolutely NO customer base whatsoever.
Last Friday I came home to enjoy my weekend (which generally means spending time with my beautiful family and a little computer/surfing time as well). To my dismay I had NO internet service! I checked my router, it was having trouble PPoEing. So I check my DSL modem and find that the 'data' light is not solid, this is a bad sign. I call Verizon and they say that my account is inactive. INACTIVE! What?? You are kidding me right? No, the Verizon representative was not kidding. She couldn't give me any details and said that I should call back MONDAY. Great!
No internet access all weekend (except via Bluetooth DUN to my Samsung i730, but I'm not in an EVDO area so it's absolutely PAINFUL).
Needless to say, Monday morning I spent 2+ hours on the phone with various Verizon representatives getting transferred back and forth. Finally it comes out that they screwed up my billing (I use PayTrust and they sent my bill to the wrong place two times). I had three SEPERATE bills for some reason. One with a credit of over $200 and the other two bills had balances of about the same. Verizon had shut my service off because of the two bills with balances (instead of transferring the credit to the other bills and 'fixing' the billing problem).
The best part is coming. I asked how soon I could get my DSL turned back on. Five to seven business days is the answer. FIVE TO SEVEN BUSINESS DAYS?? Is this a joke? I immediately asked the representative why I shouldn't just order cable modem and get it sooner. Guess what her response was? "That's not a bad idea, you probably will get it sooner..." No kidding! I asked to speak with her boss and she immediately transferred me to "Sales". What a complete nightmare. After getting transferred back and speaking with her boss, he could really care less about the fact that his employees are sending customers away.

I'm fine with all this, the only reason I had ever gone back to Verizon was because my wife wanted a 'real' phone. I'm sorry, but a real phone is just not worth it. Truly, it's not.

I have already ordered cable modem service through Service Electric Cable and expect it this Thursday. 7 megabit too! Woohoo!

As for phone service (yes, I disconnected EVERYTHING Verizon had coming to my home) I'll be reactivating my Ericson f251M over T-Mobile again. Only reason we switched was because the T-Mobile coverage wasn't very good at our house. I just checked this morning and all our T-Mobile phones look like they are getting 3 bars or better! That, of course, could be because of the winter and no trees blocking signals, but I'm willing to give it another shot. If it doesn't work out I'll switch over to Vonage.

Wish me luck! And if you have Verizon, get RID OF THEM!

I decided that it was time for my oldest daughter and son (Jordyn and Connor) to learn how to ski a couple of weeks ago, so committed to taking them about once a week to a local ski slope (Blue Mountain). The first afternoon/night we went we where lucky enough to get two personal trainers (one for each of them), and I just hung out on the bunny slope (as it's been a few years since I've skied myself, so that wasn't such a bad idea anyway). Jordyn had picked up the basics before the end of the first day and was asking me when we where going on the 'big mountain'. Since it's just myself and the two kids, I can't commit to going on the lifts until BOTH of them are ready. Connor amazed me as well. On the first day he was skiing very well. He needs to work on his turning and stopping, and by the end of the day his poor legs where so tired that he was just constantly falling down.
The second trip was definitely a different experience. The ski-school was evidentally too busy to accomodate us with two teachers, so instead we just headed directly out to the bunny slopes ourselves. Jordyn picked right up where she left off; and was constantly asking to go on the lift Connor took about an hour before he got his ski-legs back, and then when he did, he did VERY WELL. He didn't fall once on the small lift that brings skiers up the bunny slope! That was awesome. By the end of the night, his turns where looking good and his stops where looking a little better. For some reason he can not 'get' snowplowing. So instead he either cuts to a stop or falls to a stop! Oie!
We're planning the third outing for this coming Wednesday or Thursday. I have GOT to remember to bring my brand new video camera!! I forgot it TWICE already. Grrrr. Anyway, hopefully I'll have some footage for my next ski adventure blog!

Well, I've finally given in to the simplistic nature of a 'blog'. It's a great way to easily dump the brain every once in a while, so I think I'll try it out and see how it goes.

Little about me:
I'm a software engineer and have been writing code since my parents first purchased me a VIC-20 instead of an Atari, umpteen years ago. I had wanted an Atari game console ("all my friends have one!") and my mother and father decided it was in my best interest to learn how to "make" the games, not just play them.

So from the VIC-20, to the C-64, to the Amiga, to the IBM XT, to the IBM AT, to Novell, to Solaris, to Windows 3.1(.1), to Windows 95, to NT 3.5.1(and 4), to HP/UX, to Linux, to OSX.... It's been a fun ride so far! And I don't plan on quittin!

If you notice, you've caught me in the year 2006.... when the Apple Intel Mac (MacTel) became available to the public. I purchased a PowerBook last year (2005) as the lure of BSD with a gorgeous UI was just too much for me to stand. I instantly fell in love with the PowerBook and would have never looked at another OS again had it not been just too slow for me. Compiling large enterprise size projects would take four times as long on my PowerBook as it would on my Gentoo P4 box. I finally gave in and currently use my Gentoo boxes (laptop and desktop) for all the day to day 'work' that I do (coding/etc). And I use my PowerBook to play with new 'code' ideas. (I've recently been playing a bit with Xcode....)

However, 2006 is here. And I ordered a new MacBook Pro!!! It has a dual core processor, oh my!! I am completely stoked. My ship date is recorded on my order as February 15th. Actual delivery date is expected to be around February 23rd (man, where you think these things are coming from??!!). I expect once I have my new MacBook Pro and all the things I 'need' in Universal Binary I'll be dropping my two linux distro boxes on their heads, and can't WAIT!

In the future, I will be blogging articles in how the MacBook Pro will be working out for me in my 'developer space', so feel free to come and check out the, ahem, "progress".

Later,
J