what happened?...

well, i find myself here on friday afternoon taking inventory on what i have accomplished in my one week reprieve from work. the fact is, i didn't have a lot planned so from that perspective i have totally hit the mark. i was able to get in my annual ski trip to afton alps this past monday, i spent a good part of tuesday in tech mode revamping the blog, something that would have never happened had i not had a week off, on wednesday i met up with some co workers for someones going away party, yesterday was the much-hyped local "snownami", and today i've been puttering around with my acoustic guitar. i should also say that i've spent a couple of hours with my son playing and working through "lego batman" on the xbox as well as finishing career mode in guitar hero world tour, and leveling up on call of duty pretty much every night. i had an 8 day beard going which i have since retired, not only because it was grayer than i'd hoped but also because it was really starting to bother me. so all things considered, it's been a relaxing week and a much needed respite from the monotony of the weekly grind. i have always said that although a vacation is nice, i need the structure of work to remain on top of my game. if given the chance to be lazy, it's easy to do and bad habits begin forming (i.e., ridiculously late nights and later than usual mornings). the week really did seem to blow by but it's been a good break and i'm ready to resume the corporate beatdowns.

getting closer...

i've pretty much made most of the changes i'm going to make. may do some more fiddling with adding\editing\removing some widgets in the sidebar. a couple of noteworthy changes:

the email address "skip@thirdthoughts.com" is no longer functional. emails cannot be received at that address by me, ever. it's certainly not my primary email address anyway but i had email forwarded from that mailbox to the email address i actually use, which hopefully you know, if you need to. this was an unwelcome surprise when i discovered i had to edit the dns settings at my domain and create a CNAME to re-route my blog from blog spot to my actual domain name. so sorry, if i don't respond to email at thirdthoughts anymore it's because i can't receive it. not sure of the ripple effect this may have with other sites around the web that i have used this address to register with, but there's no going back now.

my official email address is skipdotpriceatgmaildotcom, (how it sounds, not how it looks - duh).

there is no more separate "about me" page, other than the generic "about me" blogger profile link. most of you know all you need to know about me by now and if there's anything you've missed just ask. in addition, there is no more separate "links" page. this was the most useless of all pages on my site anyway.

for those desperate to see the old website again, it will be frozen in time indefinitely at the sub domain i created here.

my blog posts in general have subsided somewhat from the early days. i've been itching to make some changes here for awhile. perhaps this will revitalize my posting frequency, perhaps not. either way i like the ease of use of the new layouts and page elements as well as how simple it is to snap-in a new widget in the sidebar.

if you happen to see anything broken or weird, let me know. most of the images should be viewable now. onward and upward!

changes...

as you can see, i'm making some big changes to the blog. i decided to take a great leap here, since i happen to have a little time this week. i've switched to blogspot as my host and am forwarding the blogspot address to my custom domain name. this will allow me to more easily change and edit the elements to my blog but there will be some growing pains until i work out all of the kinks. i need to figure out my host file settings so that all of the pictures i used to publish via ftp will forward correctly. in the meantime expect broken links, missing pics, etc.. i hope to have this wrapped up in a day or two because i don't want to spend the rest of my vacation updating this blog. i have other plans too, plans that don't involve computers. more later...

it's now later. i am waiting the 24 hours to register a subdomain so that the host file i created will properly forward the missing pic information. at least that's the plan. i'll then have to re-create the external link pages that i want and create the missing side-bar information and links. i wonder if i waited to long in the week to start this?

to-do list for the week...

due to new corporate policy we are required to use pto days every quarter to avoid losing the hours. with that said, my usual work week routine has been altered to the following activities:

go skiing

work on blog

not check work email

change pictures in digital picture frame

not check work voice mail

game on xbox live

create new playlists in itunes

not work

grow temporary beard

not work some more

happy birthday sistuh!

slumming with my valentine...

whether you go all-out as some folks do, or consider it a hallmark holiday i hope you enjoyed your valentines day weekend. the wife and i usually do cards and token gifts and this year, being it was on a saturday, we decided it was as good an excuse as any to go to a movie. i like going to the movies it's just something we don't get a chance to do very often. it's a real treat when you get to spend $8.50 on a ticket, pay the outrageous mark-up for concessions, and be treated to the sights, sounds, and distinct smells that a movie theater has to offer. i did notice that the film was shown in digital format so there was no whirring projector or eyelash moving about on the projector lens, so that was kind of cool. we saw "slumgdog millionaire", which i have to say, i enjoyed a lot, which should be significant coming from me as i generally hate most movies by default. i'm hoping that slumdog gets the oscar nod for best film, because i'm sure it deserves to, even though i haven't seen any of the other films that have been nominated.
i discarded my #1 rule, and payed the price until 1:45 am this morning. no caffeine after 6 PM! why do i continue to challenge this?? gave me a chance to catch a new show on msnbc called "dead men talking". still, should have been sleeping by then.
the rest of the weekend saw alaina's hoops squad go 0-2, a 30-36 thriller, and a 50-5 beat down. she continues to improve and play sound defense so i'm hoping she'll want to play again next year.
today i played home repair guy (with some help from father in law) and replaced some parts on my toilet to prevent it from running constantly. a seemingly small victory but things like this give me more satisfaction that they probably should due to my handyman skill deficiency.

action packed saturday and a buck a post...

this saturday started out like most saturdays for me, at midnight friday night with me gaming online with a few pals. after a few hours sleep my crew started out at 9 am with noelle playing her final intramural basketball game of the season. after a quick trip home to regroup i then headed back to school to drop off alaina and noelle in time for alaina's noon game, and then drop off owen at one of his buddy's birthday parties. from there i took the car to the shop to get a slow leak fixed in the tire and an oil change. the wife picked me up and then we stopped by the house to get my camera and alaina's water bottle which she had forgotten (again). from there we headed back to school in time to watch alaina's game, which by the way, was their best game of the season by far, even though they ended up losing to a team that outmatched them size and talent-wise. we left alaina at school because she had volunteered to help with the concession stand for a tournament that was going on all day and headed back to pick up owen at the party, and then my car from the shop. we headed home, i did a few chores around the house and then had to head back to school (no less than 4 trips to st. charles today) to pick up alaina. now the wife has headed out to meet a few friend's at caribou and i finally have a few minutes to slack.
i did some math recently and realized i pay about $60 a year to my web host. my rate of posts lately has been about 4-5 a month which comes out to roughly $1 per post. i'll leave it to you to determine if there is $1 worth of information here.