So it’s time for my birthday again and I’ve been asked for some ideas. This year, I would like to buy a Kindle, mainly to replace buying hardcover Cisco study books. I’d love it if everyone would get BestBuy gift cards as that would allow me to buy the Kindle and make up the difference on my own. There are plenty of other fun gifts to ask for, but of all of the things I need, the Kindle fits the bill. I guess it falls in to the category–something I want/need but won’t buy on my own–but I’ll probably buy anyway.

I know this sounds a little weird to announce on my blog, but I know many of my family reads this so I’ll make it easy on everyone. I’m not normally a gift card kind of guy, but just this once, I’d like to ask for an exception. OK?

Christmastime each year is an emotional conflict, a battle between the memories of the past and the hope for a new future. Christmas songs sometimes help and hurt, but today, I’m skipping my daily regimen of episodes of “24” while working. Instead it will be Pandora sending me Christmas variety and I’ll see how I end up by 5PM.

We’ll be spending the Christmas holiday with Tammy’s sister and her family this year, again braving the tundra that is Iowa in December. There’s really nothing quite like watching two adorable nieces open gifts and be beside themselves with joy.

Merry Christmas all!

I haven’t written much lately, mostly due to the fact it’s hard to find things to say without taking a lot of time to write. I’ll try to write a few small things each week and keep my few readers up to date.

I’ve been playing a lot of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 lately.  It’s a fun way to blow off steam and bleed stress at the end of the day.  Yesterday the MW2 “Stimulus Package” came out, a group of new multiplayer maps to explore.  I got the maps downloaded and installed without issue and played for about an hour.  It was certainly fun if not frustrating.  New maps mean new place to hide and I got wiped out plenty times when I forgot to check my corners.

I’ve hit level 64 and that opened up new weapons and challenges to make the final push to Commander.  After almost six months the game is still fun to play and I haven’t even tried the challenges or even a redo of the single player campaign.  This is going to make the upcoming Halo: Reach beta a tough choice–will I split my time?  Probably so.  I mean, it’s Halo and I’ve got a fond nostalgia for the game.

See you online!  My gamer tag is “houseofwarwick”.

Andy Ihnatko: “Apple sees its product line as a cast of characters, through which they tell a single story. If two products seem to do the same job, then one of them needs to go.”

Boing Boing: “The Socket Pocket is a replacement covering for your electrical outlet that includes a hinged pocket that sticks out of the side of the receptacle. The idea is to have a little pocket to stick your cellphone or other hand-held device in while it charges, keeping it off the floor”

I finished a bit of a milestone today with my [wife’s website](http://redbeedesigns.com). It’s now completely in the Rails framework of code! Each of the pages looks the same as it did a week or so ago, but now they use a common template and the HTML is built at the time of the request. Take a look at the bottom of the page–a simple Ruby “Time.now” command returns the time the page was rendered.

It’s not earth-shattering since things like this have existed for years. It just means that I made something hard look the same as something easy and sometimes, that’s the hardest thing of all.

Springfield GO Blog: “For what will likely be the hottest Art Walk so far in 2007, City Utilities and the Commercial Club are teaming up to provide free shuttle service between the respective First Friday events downtown and on Commercial Street.”