Charlie Gets A Buzz-Cut

Just in case you were curious, I did end up giving my lil' pooch a fur trim this weekend. I think it took over an hour but Charles got a full cut. I trimmed his body fur, beard and even tail. He seemed to like it he didn't try to run away at all during the whole process. In the past he use to not let the trimmer get close to his ears, this time around he had no objections. Below are some before and after shots - there are more on flickr.

What To Do Today?

I've had four days of rest and I am bored. I've cleaned and have organized my home. I've edited and posted many pictures, heck I even went jogging last night. All things I am really glad I did. I just always have to keep busy and having four days away from the office or not traveling is causing me to be a bit restless. Normally I would log into my work e-mail and work a bit. This weekend I am not able to for the simple fact that I resigned and have been cut off the network. I guess I should finally give Charlie the fur trim he desperately needs and I have been to lazy to give.

It's such a beautiful day I might go for another jog with sir Charles in a few as well. It has actually been over a month since I went to our favorite hiking spot the Des Plaines river in Riverside, which is only 15 driving minutes away. I'm supposed to go see a movie with Carson later. The new James Bond movie is supposed to be pretty good. That reminds me I haven't been going to the movie theater as often. Now that the cold weather is coming that is pretty much the main thing to do for fun - aside from shopping of course.

That's enough thinking about what to do, I'm off to do something!

Another Real Black Friday

This year I did not prepare to wake up before the crack of dawn to attempt to get a hold of massive sales from the many retailers, which is now very commonly known as black Friday. I thought about it last night but didn't feel in the mood to wait in long lines and deal with pushy people. The official beginning of Christmas shopping season, has increasingly become chaotic year after year. Today the New York Times Headline reads...

Attention, Holiday Shoppers: We Have Fisticuffs in Aisle 2...
"Customers behaved badly across the country yesterday,
but the mayhem can be traced in part to an escalating battle among retailers to be the first to open their doors and offer the steepest must-have deals.
Many merchants angered shoppers by trumpeting huge discounts like $70 portable DVD players and $600 flat-screen televisions only to announce they were sold out moments after they opened. The fact that so many people were sleep-deprived probably didn't help."

I rather pay a few bucks more this year and maybe even shop online. I think it's actually quite sad that such trivial priorities cause such behavior in the US while half way across the world there has been substantial life loss. Sunni insurgents killed 215 people in BaghdadÂ?s main Shia district. I am saddened as I read another article from Bloomberg.com...

A car bombing killed at least 22 people in the northern Iraqi city of Tal Afar today as the death toll climbed to 202 from yesterday's explosions in Baghdad, the deadliest coordinated attacks since the U.S.-led invasion of March 2003. About 250 people were wounded.

Continua Los Exitos Para La Oreja

Acabo de leer mas noticias sobre la oreja, y es por eso que no me queda mas que distinguir este no solamente la semana de exito para la Oreja De Van Gogh pero todo el año. Sin duda alguna me comprare un regalito para esta navidad. La Argentinidad... Al Palo reporta que LODVG reedita ‘Guapa’ con 12 temas inéditos...

Antes de terminar el año, La Oreja de Van Gogh quiere regalar a sus fans un nuevo álbum, Más guapa, un doble CD que contiene además de las canciones de Guapa, 12 nuevos temas y versiones diferentes de los cortes ya conocidos del último disco. La banda donostiarra no ha querido dejar en el cajón de los recuerdos el resultado del trabajo de los últimos meses y por ello ha decidido editar las nuevas canciones en un disco que saldrá a la venta el próximo 5 de diciembre. Amaia Montero y los suyos atraviesan uno de sus mejores momentos. Acaban de regresar de una gira de 13 conciertos en Estados Unidos y han recibido el Grammy Latino 2006 al Mejor Álbum Pop. Además, han añadido nuevos directos a la gira española. La próxima actuación tendrá lugar el 1 de diciembre en el Velódromo de Anoeta de San Sebastián.

LOS DOCE NUEVOS TEMAS DE MÁS GUAPA
1. En mi lado del sofá
2. Nuestro mundo
3. Amores dormidos
4. Canción desesperada
5. Coronel
6. La paz de tus ojos
7. Nube
8. Despacio
9. Déjate llevar
10. Aquella ingrata
11. El árbol
12. Escalera a la luna

Happy Thanksgiving

I am thankful for my family, friends and life. Give your close ones a hug and share a hug with me the next time I see you.

La Oreja De Van Gogh Chicago Concert

LODVG came to rock out at the Vic last night and fufilled my high expectations. Granted I am biased towards this band, which is my favorite Spanish or English. The crowd jumped along with Amaia, the band's lead singer, and sang through many popular songs. I was scared that I wouldn't be able to get a good view, considering were my friends and I were in line as we waited for the doors from the Vic theater to open. Fortunately we found a spot over the first step, which was only a few feet from the stage.

I remember looking around me and absorbing the moment. I have to tell you it is the best feeling to be at a concert for a group you enjoy and who are also at their peak. I want to fly to their next tour city now! This concert will be remembered as one of my happy moments.

La Oreja canto casi todos sus nuevos exitos de su disco reciente - Guapa, pero tambien emociono el publico cantando sus mejores classicos, como 'Rosas'. Amaia pego todas sus notas comprovando su qualidad como cantante. Me asombre como fue tan sureal y parecido a su DVD de un concierto que tuvieron hace años en Madrid. Disfrute ahora ser parte de un gran concierto como fue el de a noche. Todavia sueño con volver a verlos, pero me encantariar verlos en su pais de España.

Thanks to a recent myspace friend here is a clip of the concert. After a couple minutes of screams from the crowd pleading for an encore, LODVG came back to play two additional songs. Shown in this clip is one of their most successful singles - "Rosas".

Seven Years Of Service

I packed the last seven years of my office belongings into a box today. I left a few items behind but threw out a substantial amount of knick-knacks, papers, books, files etc. It has been a bit hard to realize that I will no longer see the same people I had come accustomed to see on a daily basis. I’ve seen many people come and go during my tenure and it feels funny to be one of them now. Everyone has been great and told me how much they will miss me. All are supportive and have warm wishes, I'll miss them as well. I have never published where I work, there is no need to do so now. Tomorrow is my last day with the company – I look forward to a new beginning with my new employer.

My New Nephew

My sister finally delivered her second baby - five days after his due date. I left work a bit early, picked my mom and headed towards the hospital this evening. Due to traffic and crappy weather we didn't get there till seven pm. Visiting hours ended at eight in the evening but we decided to stick around until they kicked us out. The nurses hadn't brought the baby by and we were eager to see him.

I'm glad we stuck around, a few minutes before the time I had designated to wait till my little nephew was brought in. A few minutes after that my camera phone was already aiming at the cute kid :)

Where's The Baby???

I'm excited to welcome the new addition to our family the only problem is that he's not here yet. My sister's due date was yesterday and now we are all on high alert for that time to come. I feel bad for my poor sister though, everyone keeps calling asking if she has had the baby yet. It seems this baby is very comfortable in his mom's womb and hasn't shown any signs of wanting to come out. Perhaps he wants to wait until his room was completed. My sister changed the carpeting in Julian's room and had to wait for the installation this weekend. I'm not sure if she is going to stick with the name she and her hubby were thinking about. So far I've just been calling him peanut. We are going shopping later, I think I'll get peanut a welcome home gift - Let the spoiling begin!!

I missed the Latin Grammys

Last night my friend 'L' and I had rsvp'd to a Latin Grammy award ceremony party. Unfortunately it seems the turn out was so great that the viewing section was filled to capacity. We were sent to the upper section of Bravo's Tapa's bar to await access. Unfortunately I only had an hour to spare, since I had accepted another invitation to go to a comedy show clear across town. AT least we made the best of it and ordered and enjoyed some delicious tapas and wine.

I was looking forward to see if my favorite band - La Oreja De VanGogh (LODVG) won any of their three nominations. I was waiting for my friend when I overheard one of the categories come up and heard that LODVG won for best pop album by duo or group. Congrats! I can't wait to see them live. I've already purchased my tickets for their upcoming concert in three weeks.

Unfortunately I did miss many performances and presentations, but I caught some highlights through the Grammy website and highlights on MTV3. It seems it was Shakira's night she won Album Of The Year, Song Of The Year, Record Of The Year and Best Female Pop Vocal Album. I hope the replay the entire show this weekend. I had fun last night anyway, the comedians at Riddlers were great and I'm glad I went.

Carousel Ride

It's moments like these when I wish I were a kid again. I don't even remember how much fun it truly was to ride a wooden horse on a carousel. By the excited look on my nephew's face it apparently is wonderful. I love seeing things through his eyes, things are usually more fun that way.

Spam Attack

I don't think I've been as annoyed with spam as I am now. My domain has been hacked, I keep getting e-mail messages for non-delivered e-mails that I DO NOT SEND. In addition to that I have a form on my freelance site that has been hijacked. I keep getting fake quote request filled with links for products and other nonsensical garbage. I hate that I will have to spend my weekend either adding more validation on my forms or adding more server-side code to combat this internet spam. I truly feel bad for the recipients of these e-mails that are coming from my domain. The sad part is that I just renewed my domain for another three years, so I really wouldn't want to cancel it. I think I will have to place a call to my hosting provider as well :(

Feelings - woe, woe, woe, feelings

It's funny when you see a person you haven't seen in a very long time the feelings you usually think have past rise again with great strength. You not only remember the reasons for having those initial feelings, but you feel them once more. Two close friends surprised me this Friday when they suddenly showed up from out of town. I think it's been two or three years since I had seen them last. I'm not saying that I forgot about them, I just feel our friendship revived again. It's weird I didn't realize I needed that - the direct contact that is. E-ail and IM is fine, but you can't beat actually hanging out. D&V hope to see you again soon - don't be strangers! (Meow!)

Never Surprise a Police Officer

Check out this funny clip (well I think it's funny)! See how an attempted surprise party goes terribly bad.

Google Blog Gets Hacked

Everything in Google is not all a bouquet of roses. After news of the purchase of You Tube ran accross all news wires, another news alert went out. Turns out that the Giant can be succomed to hackers. I worry about my many blogs here on blogger.

A hacker broke into Google's main official blog and posted a false message on Saturday, saying that the company had decided to cancel a joint project with eBay.

The intrusion marks the second time this year that Google's official blog has fallen into unauthorized hands. In March, Google staffers deleted the so-called Google Blog by mistake and someone briefly took control of the Web address.
Blog Carries Corporate Messages
In Saturday's incident, someone exploited a bug in Blogger, the Google Web log publishing service on which Google Blog is hosted. The hacker published a note riddled with grammatical and spelling errors that said Google had ended its click-to-call advertising project with eBay because it was 'monopolistic.'
The next day, Karen Wickre, from the Google Blog team, alerted readers about the false posting and said the Blogger bug had been fixed, without detailing the breach. The eBay project remains alive and well, she wrote on the blog. | source: Yahoo! News

Record labels in deals with YouTube, Google

Several media companies announced licensing deals Monday with YouTube Inc., potentially clearing copyright hurdles as Google Inc. (GOOG) reportedly is set to acquire the popular Internet-video site. Under agreements with two record labels and CBS Corp. (CBS), YouTube will track copyrighted material incorporated in its user-created videos and share advertising revenue with the media groups that own the content. Amicable partnerships could help pave the way for the YouTube acquisition, which has been pegged at $1.6 billion and could come as early as Monday afternoon.
...
Napster shuttered its pioneering music-download service amid a barrage of lawsuits from the major record labels. In echoes of the controversy, Universal Music Group had hinted it might sue YouTube for copyright infringement. Instead Universal Music, a unit of Vivendi (12777.FR), and Sony BMG Music Entertainment were part of the deal flurry announced Monday. The companies will make their music-video libraries available on YouTube and share ad revenue for user-generated content that use their music. Google's video-sharing site reached similar arrangements with Sony BMG, a joint venture of Sony Corp. (SNE) and German media giant Bertelsmann AG, and Warner Music Group Corp. (WMG), which recently signed a licensing deal with YouTube. | source: Marketwatch

Oh Yeah, There Is The Dial-up Option!

I have been using broadband internet for such a long time now that I forgot that I could connect online via dialup. These past days I have not had access to anything online. I don't recall if I checked on Friday night but Saturday morning my connection was not there. I figured my brother-in-law must have moved a cable again from the main router upstairs. I was busy all day preparing my sister's baby shower and didn't have time to check any settings or see if the connection came back. Saturday night after all the guest had left and everything was clean I opened up my browser only to receive that familiar error message of page cannot be found. It was too late to bother so I went to sleep. Today Sunday I tried a couple of times and finally went upstairs to check things out.

Everything seems to be in place all lights are flickering properly. The computers recognize that there is a signal but for some odd reason connection itself is not happening. There must be something wrong with Comcast or the router itself. After feeling defeated and just killing time with a good old fashion game of solitaire I remembered my trusty AOL. I have never been so happy to have dial-up :)

Everything is obviously slower but it's true - something is better than nothing. Too bad I realized it on Sunday night instead of Friday night.

My Cubicle

Parody from James Blunt's - You're Beautiful

Did My Trainer Beat Me Up?

Today was my first session with a physical trainer - EVER. Yep you read correctly. I not only joined a gym but I've also commited myself to workout with a fitness trainer twice a week. I had joined a gym before, but was never able to stick to a schedule. I would often feel lazy and wouldn't go to hardly any workouts. I considered it a waste of money and ended up cancelling my membership. This time I wanted to make sure I stuck with it. So I bit the bullet and forked over some cash for a personal trainer. I think that having to meet with a trainer will help me stick to my schedule this time around. Brian (my trainer) made me work every muscle in my body. The workout was so intense for me that at one point I think I seriously felt like crying. Now I feel as if I got hit by a car or as if I was beat up BADLY! Well, as they say - No Pain, No Gain!

The Birds & The Bees

Every now and then a cartoon is included in a one of my many newsletters. I think because I live in a world of cubicles and 'proceses' this one made me chuckle a bit. I figured why not share it with you, enjoy...

CEO Dad by Tom Stern

Click on image to enlarge.| Source: Monster.com
For a real kick in the career, listen to Tom Stern's "Opportunity Knocks" podcast on Monster.