So, my meeting in Houston went very well today; and, as is customary for me, it went long. Like a madman I dashed off to the airport, hoping to catch my flight. Getting to the rental drop off was no problem and getting to the terminal was even easier. So far, so good. Crap! Should have kept my thoughts to myself!

While going through security, I take my flip flops off an place them in my tray, along with my brief case. Shouldn’t be a problem. But… this is me we’re talking about. The TSA agent takes out my flip flops and places them in someone else’s bin, on top of his briefcase. When I point out to the TSA dude that that wasn’t my bag. He looks at me cock eyed as he comforts me with, “It’s okay”. Well, I took him at his word. That was until the bin got flagged by the scanner and required a re-run through the scanner. Great!!! So there I am with only a few minutes to catch my flight and I’m dealing with this nonsense. I eventually got my flip flops back and headed towards my gate.

So, I get to where my gate’s supposed to be and wonder why there’s so much confusion. As it turns out, United can’t fly plains in the rain– especially when it’s now dry. My 5:30pm flight was now delayed to 7:20pm. So, out of shear desire to get home, I called up United to see if I could catch an earlier flight. Yah, right! The customer service dude informs me that the next flight out is on July 1st. “But it’s June 29th!” “Yes, I know that Sir”, the dude responds. Well… that doesn’t sound like an earlier flight, now does it!!! I’m flabbergasted.

So here I wait. Not sure for how long. Apparently, United has convertible and sun roof options on their jets. It rained a while ago, like when I landed. But it’s been dry for hours. But in trying to compete with the rental car market, they’ve come up with planes that can’t go through overcast.

I just wanna go home.

I hope the new site layout isn’t throwing any of you off in any way. I simply got to a point where the older layout had gotten… well, old. I wanted something different that was a little easier on the eyes to read as opposed the darker background. Plus, the subject matter I write on has expanded considerably and I wanted a theme that was a bit more neutral.

Besides the fact that I’ve gone to a 3-Collumn layout with both left and right Sidebars for easier navigating, I’ve added a most recent comments list on my right sidebar. This way, if you’re a comments junkie like I am, you can simply see if any new comments have been added without having to actually load each post.

Since moving to Wordpress a year ago, I have been repeatedly told there are two huge commenting features that I left behind. One is the ability to preview a comment before posting. This can be huge for those who actually like to utilize HTML in their comments. I have to admit that I’m quickly becoming one of these individuals. I will routinely provide hyperlinks and images in my comments. Then for my techy things, I may even place code in my comments. 9 times out of 10, these items can get screwed up by Wordpress.

The other feature, and it works hand-in-hand with the comments preview, is comment editing. I have been repeatedly told that, and even witnessed, some folks have prematurely hit the submit button, only to realize there were errors in their comment. This usually results in an additional comment to clarify. But the clarifying comment is usually made in such haste that a new error is introduced. Hmm… maybe I should leave things the way they were. I like lots and lots of comments. . There is one caveat with this. You must be a registered user of this site to use this feature. And you must log in to leave a comment. I realize this is a pain in the butt for some of you. But it really does make things easier in the long run.

Well, that’s pretty much it. I hope you enjoy!

Okay, so I really don’t do meme’s. But then again, I’ve never been tagged before, as far as I know. I’m so wrapped up with the new company that I’ve been lousy at blogging lately. My poor friends must think I don’t care, which is hardly the case. I’m just working from 5am to midnight every day.

1. I have to post these rules before I give you the facts
2. Each player starts with eight random facts/habits about themselves
3. People who are tagged need to write their own blog about their eight things and post these rules
4. At the end of your blog, you need to choose eight people to get tagged and list their names
5. Don’t forget to leave them a comment telling them they’re tagged and to read your blog
6. (optional– as in just my case) I can’t disclosed who tagged me 

Well, here goes:

1. I’m a workaholic. I cannot, cannot, cannot sleep in, even when I’ve already determined I’m going to. After 5am, I start getting restless. If 6am comes around, I’ll hit a panic mode and most of my day will be shot. I’ve been this way since I was a kid. My parents’ idea of letting us sleep in was 5:45am. That included during the summer time.
2. Doing a new company, Sullego. This is my 5th startup company, but the first one where it looks like I’ll stay at the helm.
3. I have a notorious habit of hiring my own boss with the companies I start. It has worked alright over the years; but there have been some challenges.  As the visionary, not just the technical lead, we’ve run into issues of doubt and second guessing in the past. Every single time, we’ve listened to critics and modified our game plan. Then when things get grim, I end up pulling us back to our original plan. It’s strange how it happens. 
4. I love to bike. My real love is for mountain biking. However, I haven’t been able to find anyone to bike with in my part of Colorado. And the trails by my house are much too rough and laden with huge rocks the whole way. And let’s face it, mountain biking on roads isn’t that thrilling. So, I’ve been pretty much riding my road bike exclusively. My typical ride is now 25 miles. I’ll do that at lunch time, though I need to start doing it earlier in the morning as it’s been much too hot by afternoon.
5. I bite my nails. I don’t do this out of nervousness. And I always wash my hands and scrub under my nails like a freak. Call me Monk. But when I get really tired, that’s what I do. And I hate them getting odd-shaped as they grow out, so I actually round them better this way than with clippers. I then will follow-up with a file to make them look neat. Strange, gross… I know.
6. I shave my legs. Yep. I started doing it back in Florida when I was into bodybuilding. I haven’t been able to stop since then. If you saw how sparse my body hair was, you’d tell me to shave too. For being Scottish, my dad has amazingly little body hair. And I’ve inherited that from him. I can remember growing up jealous of my friends for their hairy chests, legs and arms. To this day, I don’t have to shave my chest at all. Once every two months, I pull out the single hair that grows near each nipple. I’m not making this up. That’s all there is. Two hairs every couple of months.
7. I cannot write software (program). I have an M.S. in Computer Information Systems and I used to write my own games when I was in junior high school. And I can hack code all day long in C, Perl, PHP, Python, C++, C#, Java, Lisp and who knows what else. But I cannot start from scratch. I was born for an Open Source and Linux kind of world where I have tons of sample code to get ideas from. I simply go in and make changes or glue various programs together. 
8. I love candy. I have a very definite sweet tooth and I go nuts if I can’t get some Necco Wafers to munch on every couple of days. I got 9 rolls for Father’s Day and they disappeared in just two days. These are by far my favorite since I was just a child. I never seem to get tired of them.

So, I don’t really have eight people to tag. I’ll do what I can: 

• - Gordan
• - Robin
• - Tink
• - Ming
• - David

That will have to do. I wasn’t going to tag anyone. But I figured I’ve played along this much, I might as well go a bit further.