BizTalk, LittleBigPlanet, Facebook, etc

Hello everyone!

This past week I was up in Irvine at a training class for work. The class was on Microsoft BizTalk, a business application used to pass data between systems. It's something I've been using at work for a while now, but with no formal training, so while lots of the class was review, it was good to get baselined.

It wasn't totally awful being gone, but it kind of sucked. I missed my family. The classes were long, and by the end of every class, my thoughts of going out and finding some fun had vanished, and all I wanted to do was get takeout and sit in the hotel room. The first or second night I was there, I went out and bought dinner. Then stopped by the store for some beer. At that point, I realized that I didn't have access to my mini-bar (it was locked and I didn't get a key), so I bought a single 22 oz bottle of Corona. When I got back to the hotel, I realized I didn't have a bottle opener. I was hungry, thirsty, and a little desperate, so I used my key to pry off the top, slicing my knuckle pretty good in the process. It all felt a little white-trashy.

I had the forethought to borrow my parents webcam for my trip. Every night, I talked with Diana and Allison via Skype, and it was great to see their shining (if squirmy) faces.

The weekend before I left, I spent some time with my boy Baditude, who introduced me to a quirky game called LittleBigPlanet. On the surface, it's a quirky physics based platformer with a fun atmosphere. But it comes with tools to create your own levels. Under the surface, though, there is a huge amount of potential for creating FUN. With a few switches, buttons, motors, pistons, and virtual foam, rubber, metal, stone, and other materials, there is a lot of room for creativity. I pretty much read all I could and watched every video on YouTube during my week away. Baditude pointed me at a place where I could get access to the open beta, and I got that up and running when I got back (it ended on Sunday). I haven't been this geeked for a game in a long time, and that's including Rock Band 2. Wow.

Work is pretty hectic. We're in a little bit of a perfect storm with the market tanking and lots of accounts closing right during quarter end tax season, and there is something that's causing the database to fall over. Bad news. So it's been kind of busy as we try to monitor and figure out the problem, and come up with a solution. I think we're on the right track. It's kind of funny that on Monday, we had major database problems. Monday night, we set up all kinds of logging and tracing and diagnostic tools. Tuesday (today) had no issues. Ha.

Little Lovely is doing great. Daycare continues to go well, and she's a full-fledged walker now. She'll still crawl and bear walk sometimes, depending on what surface she's traversing, but in the house, she's all over the place. No English yet, but lots of sounds, and a comprehension vocabulary that grows every day. Still no teeth yet either. I remember seeing my friends kids go from toothless to toothy, and am always shocked at how much it changes their look.

Changing the subject: at some point recently, I decided I was going to accept any Facebook friend request that came my way. My previous strategy was to limit my friends to, you know, actual friends. I even denied a friend request or two (which at least one person found absolutely hilarious). Now that I've added some people, the requests keep coming in! I find it all totally fake and lame, but also fun to see what old friends are up to. My love-hate relationship with social networking continues.

Bedtime. G'night.