The Lighter Side of Code

We just went to Mt. rushmore, and yes it is pretty amazing. Here is a shot of the sculpture. Off to Omaha!

Finally! We have some CF8 to roll with, and I can’t wait to get it on my account with GoDaddy. If I can’t get it there soon, I will have to go elsewhere…I need the features for a project I am going to launch soon. If you need any of the plugins and extensions for CF8, check them out here.

Yesterday I saw an article about how some celebrities were shopping at Target. The author talked about the celebrities as if they were trash and beneath everyone else in Hollywood. I began to think about how the US is on a fast track back to the class system. Not only do the super rich get off of drug, DUI, murder, and abuse charges…they also look down on the rest of the population, as if they were peasants. Apparently, this behavior has rubbed off on the wannabes that cover the super rich.

Anyway, today I ran into something truly ridiculous! What is it you ask? Bling H2O, a bottled of water in a frosted glass with Swarovski crystals on the bottle. This has to be the dumbest thing I have ever seen! The water costs 55 bucks, and it is bottled in Tennessee and the water is coming from a “natural spring”. The problem I have with this marketing is that Dandridge, TN is right next to Douglas Lake. Seems odd that they are near a lake and bottling “spring water”. The product is marketed to the super rich who want to show their wealth off by walking around with ridiculously over-priced water. That is about the same concept as $200 flip-flops. Anyway, the website for Bling H20 has one redeeming quality, the nice pair of legs holding up the Bling bottle.

Rich people are pretty idiotic if you ask me. That $55 could be used for something more meaningful than to show that you can blow it for water! I wonder if they know that there is no class system in Heaven or hell.

I finally got to the movies to watch The Transformers. Holy crap was it a good movie. The special effects were insane, and although the transformers themselves looked different, it didn’t matter. Megan Fox was hot of course, but the non-stop action during the movie was way more engaging than her part in the movie. Even the wife liked it, and that is a big deal! Go see it, NOW!

I have been a fan of Dell for a while now. I have never had an issue with their service or products until yesterday! I ordered a car charger for my laptop and asked if I could get it delivered by Saturday. I was told that it would be no problem since the product was in stock. Good stuff, I was excited and went about my day with a smile. Fast forward to Saturday, I go online to check where the package is and it is still in Fort Worth, TX. Hmm, how will it get here today…yea it won’t! So I call to find out what happened and I get sent to the Dell call center in India. Not a problem, I got things taken care of with the India call center before…so let’s do this thing. Come to find out, Dell uses DHL for everything. EVEN when a Saturday delivery is specifically requested. Ok, fine, I decided to ask why they didn’t use UPS. this dude has the nerve to tell me that UPS doesn’t deliver on Saturday. At which point I got pissed off, because the dude doesn’t even live here! Truth is, UPS does deliver if you request a special Saturday delivery. So, after all this BS, I have to say…DELL, if you are going to outsource your call center, train up your staff. Oh, and make sure that they know something about computers instead of just regurgitating the same drivel back to the customer. Oh, and don’t let your offshore folks talk about delivery times and dates for US deliveries. They might not deliver on Saturday in India, but they do here. If you want to save money by offshoring, then don’t half ass it with poor training.

Oh, yea, after the scariest trip from Yellowstone to Billings, MT we are in our hotel! Here is a map of the road we took to Billings, try and find the worst part! Here is a hint, a 4 year old had a part in the planning of the road. Our whack trip up and down a mountain, in the rain, at night! YAY!

We have tons of pictures from Yellowstone, but here are a few that were really neat!

Well, after a nice long trip we finally got to Ft. Collins, CO. Of course Isabell was great in the car and turned into a monster as soon as we got into the hotel room…just like yesterday. Yay us! Anyway, back to the trip. We saw a ton of corn today and a lot of cows, and it was the most boring trip ever! I really don’t know how people live out in the middle of Nebraska. There was nothing there and I can bet that nothing will be there 20 years from now. I really can’t wait for Yellowstone now!

I am not a fan of using frameworks mainly because of the idea of using xml files to run the system. That and the idea of coldfusion code running coldfusion code. However, ColdBox a framework for ColdFusion headed by Luis Majano is sick. The debugging info, dashboard, logging, and the reduction in XML parsing overhead is very impressive. I just saw a presentation and I am interested in trying it out. This project has a lot of man hours behind it and given my brief introduction I think it is the next big thing in the ColdFusion framework world. You should check it out…better sooner than later.

Well, we are now in Lincoln, NE. Yep, that’s pretty exciting considering we are 2 days away from Yellow Stone National Park. So, we went through the rest of Missouri and then Iowa. What did we see you ask? CORN! That’s right, corn. I guess everyone is right, there is nothing to see for the next 2 days of our trip. Here’s a nice pic of a fast food establishment here in Lincoln. Somehow I don’t see this place taking off in the East…just my opinion and I could be wrong.