Ploafmaster General

Mugs has pur-chased his own domain in order to resurrect The Writing on the Bathroom Wall. Go check it out, quickly, before he uploads something useful...

Just writing a short post to congratulate my brother, Mugs, for his new job. For the sake of his online privacy, I'll not name the company, but it's a definite step up in his burgeoning IT career. His new employer will provide plenty of opportunity for growth and continued education, and represents a more stable work environment than the job from which he resigned today. He'll be spending this week with his family before continuing to take the computing world by storm on Monday the 14th.

Rock on, bro!

After today my posting may get a little light...

Early tomorrow morning I'm heading down to Florida for the third time this year (!!!), this time because my sister-in-law is graj-muh-laden from FSU. She has WiFi at her joint where Val and I are staying, but I don't know how much time I'll be spending parked on the couch with my laptop :-)

I'm hoping to use the travel time to catch up on some reading, so I'm brining Eugene O'Neill's The Iceman Cometh, Chesterton's Heretics/Orthodoxy, and Jane Jacobs' The Death and Life of Great American Cities (maybe I'll actually read the whole thing this time!).

In September I revealed my personal agony at the apparent loss of my Nikon F camera. In October, I felt solace at the purchase of another classic camera.

Today, while digging through boxes to find some DVDs, Valerie discovered my wedding gift - the camera bag and everything inside. My 1960s Nikon F, my first Moleskine (ahead of the curve, for once - I was using it for notes on shutter speed, location, etc.), and my three awesome Nikkor prime lenses. Clearly I'd forgotten what lenses I actually had. I do indeed have a 135 (which rocks my face off). My 50mm is f1.4 (!!!), and the last one is actually a 45mm wide angle.

I'm psyched to be able to hit the streets with my camera again, and now Val and I can both rock the classic Nikon hotness. I'll scan some pics and uplaod to Flickr once I get some rolls developed.

Happy Thanksgiving everybody!

Posting will be light over the next few days while I'm in Northern VA (and DE on Saturday!), but then I expect reading will be light here as well while everybody does what I'm doing, spending time with family and friends.

Have a blast, watch some NFL Football, eat too much food, and relax all night.

My older brother just called to let me know that he and his wife are expecting a girl!

This is significant since she will be the first female born on either side of my family since my late cousin Amy (God rest her soul) twenty years ago.

Otherwise, the concentration of males in my family is quite high - my dad is one of five and has three brothers, one sister. My mom is one of three and has two brothers. Each of my aunts and uncles that have had children have boys except for my Uncle Brian who fathered my cousins Tara (Mugs' age) and Amy.

Now there will be a little girl by late March to be doted on and spoiled by a large family of semi-old-fashioned guys. Heaven help the grandparents :-)

Mugs is working in ActionScript like a madman. He's constructing a proof of concept app right now which he calls Photo Wallet, and he's just set up an SVN repository on Google Code.

Chickity check it.

Oh yeah, and keep an eye out on on his site, because next he's planning to build a silly little game as another test.

So I'm admittedly a bit jealous of my brother Mugs because today he's attending this mini ActionScript conference in New York.

I'm not really jealous that he's going to learn a lot about ActionScript. I'm not really interested in learning ActionScript. I am a little bit jealous that he's spending the day in Manhattan, but that only accounts for a small portion of my envy.

I'm really jealous because he's actually spending the day learning stuff that will further his career, and having fun in the process.

The last time I had any training? About two years ago. That's frustrating. Sure, I could go get some training on my own, and I'd probably be reimbursed...but I'm not going to take a week of my vacation and three grand (or more) of my own money (which I can't really do) to go get some technical skill. I know there's self-study as well, and I already possess a number of useful programming/development texts on subjects I like. For me, though, nothing beats a slightly more formal atmosphere with an experienced professional providing direction.

Of course, Mugs isn't on a company-sponsored training day. As the link explains, he's at a free workshop. He's taken the day off to attend, but the day otherwise only cost him gas and subway fare. He lives in Delaware, but he stayed at my Dad's house in Jersey yesterday which makes his travel today pretty easy.

But here's the kicker - sure, today will be helpful for Mugs. He's a burgeoning web developer, and ActionScript is useful knowledge for him. It's not his primary job skill, however. He's more of a PHP/CSS/XHTML kinda guy (at the moment), and even though ActionScript is a very real skill he can and will add to his "developer's toolbox", this is more ENTERTAINMENT for him. He's in the process of teaching himself, for leisure, everything he can about object oriented programming and associated technologies, so he enjoys this at the core.

I want that - I want some of my day dedicated to learning about something that I enjoy. This notion actually makes me miss certain aspects of college, where I could choose (to a certain extent) what to study and down which path my education traveled.

Maybe I'll just have to sign up for some classes at J-Sarge to get my learnin' fix.

Typically, I hate those tacky cards that play music our sounds. They just grate on my nerves. Except this one:
(I've added appropriately styled titles in case Val's writing isn't clear enough in the video)

http://vimeo.com/moogaloop.swf?clip_id=372635&server=vimeo.com&fullscreen=1&show_title=1&show_byline=1&show_portrait=0&color=01AAEA

Proof positive that my wife is cooler than I will every fully comprehend.

P.S. Yes, my middle name is Courtney. Yes, I'm okay with that.

Well what a fine cap to the end of a long but not-so-bad day! Val and I recently returned from the annual Maize Maze at the Belvedere Plantation. We hung out with our dear friends the Mansfields and wandered in the dark through...well...a giant maze cut out of a huge corn field, essentially.

The weather was perfect, and it was actually relaxing and entertaining to wander about through the narrow lanes, leaves brushing past our faces. Afterwards, we checked out some of the peripheral farm-like attractions and the little shop, and headed back to the casa.

I'm pretty sure tonight will be one of the finest nights of sleep I've had in ages.

P.S. As an epilogue on my Saturday of work, here's my verdict: Not so bad - at least this time. I didn't really have any daytime plans this weekend, so I don't as if I'd missed out on anything, particularly when the Mrs. would have put me to work in other ways about the house :-) I wouldn't look for this on a regular basis by any stretch of the imagination, but at least this first time was pretty easy on me.

These past two days I've driven over a thousand miles, watched my favorite NFL team win an away game, and discovered a tiny glimmer of what appears to be a really cool Southern city.

Dave, Chris, Nate, and I left Richmond yesterday at 5:00 am and headed south primarily along I-85. Along the way we moaned about how much of North Carolina we had to drive through, took pictures of many hilarious signs in North Carolina, and champed at the proverbial bit as we covered the last leg in Georgia. The Georgia Dome was an excellent stadium, MARTA is a clean and efficient metro system, and I just became conscious of my redundant sentence structure :-)

Ultimately, I had a great weekend with some of my best friends. It's my sincere hope that I can make many more such "mini road trips" with my friends, because the break from routine was just what I needed. I also hope to attend more NFL games, because this was a reminder of just how exciting it is to attend a major sporting event. Go Big Blue!

Driving back was better than I expected, too. Between the music on my iPod and the conversation with my friends, it was easy to stay awake. We made sure to stop in South Carolina so Chris could snag some fireworks (and the rest of us grabbed some peach cider), and met my friend Robert in Greensboro for an early dinner at New York Pizza. I am glad to finally be at home now, however, in the company of my lovely wife.

The bonus surprise for me when I returned, however, was discovering a link from 37signals' Signal vs. Noise blog for my "Screens Around Town" submission about Facebook. It's cool enough to be linked up by one of my favorite blogs...but having my crazy mug visible for the world to see? Hilarious!

Okay, so here's the big news, and I'm sure to some of you it's no big deal...but I'm excited.

You may recall my mention of a certain lost picture taking device last month...

Well today I received as good a replacement as I could hope for. I purchased a 1969 Nikon F with Photomic T finder on eBay last week, and after thorough testing to ensure it's in fine working order, I surprised Valerie with it when she arrived home today. She was pretty psyched, and I have to admit that I'm just as excited. Taking the test shots this afternoon got me jazzed up again about manual photography and fine optics.

I never expected this camera to take the place of the original, but I'm glad Valerie is happy with it, and now we have two SLRs again (her N65, remember?) so we can both go walking around taking pictures together. Of course, the old school camera has a much better lens :-)

It's 10:54 PM as I start this entry - Sunday night, before Val and I head back up the highway to Virginia.

It's been a fine weekend, but I'm not looking forward to a day spent in the car and a return to the office on Tuesday. Here's how the weekend went, however:

In general (Ploafmaster General?), we hung out with Val's sister and one or more of her room mates who were all pretty cool. Actually they were all pretty goofy which suited me just fine as it allowed me to be my eccentric self. Yesterday, of course, we attended the Florida State University football game...or at least until the lightening delay late in the third quarter. I must say, attending such a spirited sporting event made me wish even more that VCU had a football team. The sight of tens of thousands of fans pouring into the castle-like stadium made me excited enough to be a vicarious Seminoles fan, standing up and cheering heartily at every first down, tackle, and score.

It's all temporary, of course. At least I have VCU's men's basketball season to anticipate.

Oh well, bed time, and I have a long drive ahead of me. I'll be back to my usual internet shenanigans soon enough.

My posting will be a little slim for the next several days. Val and I are making our second trip to Florida this year (and we have two more after that! Really!) to visit her sister at FSU in Tallahassee.

Tomorrow we shove off at the butt crack of dawn - 5 AM - and make the 12 hour drive down the Atlantic Coastal Plain. We'll hang out, we'll eat out, and we'll see the Florida State Seminoles take on the NC State Wolfpack. Then we'll make the long drive back to Richmond on Monday, hopefully in time to catch Heroes :-)

I'll have the laptop with me since I plan at least to write up the football game. This'll be only my second major college game (I caught VT at UVA when I was in high school), and I'll try to get into it despite my alma mater's lack of team.

Anyway, enjoy the weekend everybody. I'll enjoy not working tomorrow and Monday.

Alright...gushy alert.

Today I celebrate my third wedding anniversary with my awesome wife, Valerie. Tonight we're heading to dinner at Cabo's Bistro on the corner of Addison and Broad - the same place we had our rehearsal dinner before we were married.

Three years of marriage of left me just as surprised that Valerie would want to spend the rest of her life with me, so I believe it's purely by the Grace of God that we're still together.

She only reads my website about once every few months, so this isn't to fulfill some spousal sense of obligation...I just want to share with everybody how much I dig being married :-)

So my brother Mugs is blogging...again! Check out "What the Thunder Said" in the side bar.

He's started and stopped several times, but each new incarnation compels me to notify my visitors. You see, Mugs is a total computer nerd like me now...except he has an English degree because he loves to write, and is WAY better at it than me. Don't believe me? Just check out his stuff, and keep an eye out as he updates the world about his scripting and programming exploits and whatever else strikes his fancy.

I'm currently experiencing the same pride that warms my heart after introducing a friend to a band I love (particularly when they have the same resulting musical epiphany I did). But my satisfaction isn't musically related.

Yesterday, my mother-in-law bought her first Mac.

After plenty of build-up over the past year as her 8-year-old Gateway accelerated towards its own demise, she came down to Richmond and rode to the Apple Store with Valerie and I where she purchased a 20" iMac. Yes, that glorious new iMac clad in soft-toned aluminum with the hot new keyboard. Val's mom also purchased a copy of iWork '08, and I spent the better part of yesterday evening and today helping her set it all up and transition files from her old machine to the new baby.

I have to say, after using that keyboard yesterday and today - WOW. I want one. It's more than simply usable - it's enjoyable.

Now I have the pleasure of playing tech-support to my wife's mother while she learns the joy of computing on a Mac :-)

It was about five o'clock late yesterday afternoon when one of my best friends, Jake, arrived at my house with his girlfriend to watch a movie with Valerie and I. We watched Blood Diamond, a heart-wrenching story which revolves around illicit diamond trade during Sierra Leone's civil war, which was quite a good movie (and four out of five stars in my book).

By the time the movie was finished, however, it was near eight o'clock in the evening, and none of us had eaten dinner. I didn't really feel like cooking that late, so I suggested the four of us all go out to eat. Valerie, ever practical, didn't want to go out and spend more money at a restaurant when we'd already eaten out quite a bit during the weekend, but my suggestion won out (this time). We decided to try our luck with the ever-crowded Kitchen 64, even as the darkling sky threatened a storm outside.

As soon as we stepped out of the car I knew I'd made a fantastic decision because there, on the patio waiting for a table, were our friends Nikki and Joel, and Kevin and Tiffany. We hadn't seen these two fine couples in several months so we happily sat down with them after putting in my name for a table of our own.

The sky gave us a drizzle as we started to chat, and as that drizzle turned into rain-in-earnest, our four friends were called in to their table. Content with our serendipitous encounter, our original party continued to chat it up.

Not five minutes later, however, Joel popped his head back out of the door back on to the patio and told us to come in and squeeze into the huge booth they had acquired, and to our joy, our party of four became an octet. What followed was a fine couple of hours of reminiscence, food, wine, the news of Nikki and Joel's impending parenthood, and plenty of crowd noise in this young Northside hot spot.

We said our extended good-byes afterwards, as friends often do, varying our farewells a little after just one more topic of conversation, lingering in the parking lot during a break in the rain storm. Finally we parted ways, returning to our separate places of residence, all attempting to mentally forestall the work week that lay ahead.

Tonight Patrick hosted a rap show/house party at his digs for Sintax the Terrific. Now Sintax is a member of the Deepspace5 family, and I have to say that his performance tonight was totally killer. In addition to bringing a DJ (who was great), he mixed some short readings from assorted books and Scripture in with his hip-hop excellence.

I seriously wish I had brought my digital camera so I could've recorded some short video clips. For now, this will have to suffice:
[youtube [www.youtube.com/watch](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xe3dsZnuLF8&w=425&h=350])

Those loyal half-dozen readers of mine may notice today that I have a new link in the side bar (unless you're pimpin' the RSS goodness).


Gentle Graffiti is the online presence for a little arts magazine published by my friend Stephanie DeSocio and her cohorts. The web site is updated with reasonable frequency and typically contains entries about photography, music, art exhibits, and the like. Quite fascinating, and a lot of it quite up my alley. I hope you feel the same way. Go check it out.

I've gotta shout a HUGE congratulations to my older brother, Tom, and his wife who have informed the family that they're expecting a baby!

As we understand it now, they're looking at an April due date, but I'm sure more details will emerge after a series of doctor's visits.

Anyway, Tom, I love ya, and I'm so happy for you that you're going to be a father.

I'm pretty psyched...I have a killer weekend ahead of me.

Besides the fact that today is Friday, I'm looking forward to a number of events and activities.

One of my best friends is getting married this weekend, so:
1. Tonight is the rehearsal, followed by
2. The rehearsal dinner, which should be quite a blast. Then,
3. Tomorrow afternoon is the wedding itself, and I love weddings (and participating!). Finally,
4. The reception, tomorrow evening! Party Down! That should be loads of fun, and I'm really excited about seeing a lot of friends there as well. Some of us may even go out afterwards to Capital Ale House in Innsbrook afterwards if it's not too late :-)

As if that wasn't excellent enough, Valerie and I expect to take delivery of the final installment in the Harry Potter series tomorrow. Any moment not involved in Wedding festivities will be spent reading. Huzzah!

Gotta get sappy for a moment, because, well, I'm proud of my wife.

Valerie is a commercial interior designer - not a decorator - a real designer who uses drafting software, Photoshop, and other such tools.

Well last September my wife started studying for her professional certification exam - a two day horror of a test with three parts and more building code than most people know exist. She took this exam in the past few months, and finally received her results yesterday. She passed all three sections!!!

Now all she has to do is formally apply for certification in the state of Virginia, and she'll have the letters "CID" to tack on to her name.

Hooray for you, babe!

My brother Mugs just received his first job offer today!

The crazy guy just graduated with a BA in English from Longwood University and after months of applications and interviews, has received a formal offer for an IT position!

I'm totally proud of him, and whether he takes this job or a different one, I'm glad he finally has a chance to get his foot in the door.

UPDATE:
Mugs took the offer. Way to go bro! Welcome to the inescapable world of the nerds!

So today was excellent, and the full weight of it just struck me: Brian Warshaw, my brother, just graduated from Longwood University with his Bachelor of Arts in English. Magna Cum Laude, 3.7 GPA, rocked the house. Oh yeah, and he did it in 2.5 years. With a little baby to care for this past year, and a wife to care for.

Congratulations, man, you deserve the recognition, and I'm really proud of you as your brother.