Spring Cleaning Storms

Hard hitting, Spring Cleaning storms have struck the home recently. With a whirl wind of activity we have finally started throwing out junk and looking to sell some stuff in a garage sale.

Here's the kicker, the stuff was not expected to return no matter what. That's right, we had items that we are hoping would have brought us a little bit of money and help us clear up some room around the home.

Things don't always work as they are intended to though. Sadly the Garage Sale was a bust pretty much and didn't net any real profits at all. But things did clear up a bit just the same.

Now some of these items have returned to the garage, in effort to still sale them somewhere. But its not all bad, the Garage looks a lot better then it has and shows signs of improvement. Spring Cleaning is in full effect or infecting the house with luck as well. A need to reduce the clutter and get rid of things that are not really needed should continue to spread around the house.

By the time you read this, you might notice a couple minor changes here as well. For one the simple URL is now available for those of you visiting. Still in the same familiar place, just thought I'd clean up a little on the net and make it easier for those wanting to visit. I hope to make a lot more use of this as well. I also need to look back at my Podcasting, I'm sorry those have come to a screeching halt and I think it's time to mash that pedal and get those in gear again.

Wish me luck now and think about cleaning up a little in your life too, you might find a little less clutter could give you a whole new perspective on things. It helped me, I can see the floor now and that's a nice foundation to build upon.

Where does the time go

Time flys by when your having fun or no matter what in fact. So to say I haven't been busy would be an under statement. Last weekend we had a little family camping action going on. This weekend we'll be a father/daughter camping event.

I've been working on setting up a fundraiser for my wife to raise money. I'm looking to tap some friends in the gaming community to donate to this effort. It's a big effort of mine to take on, but I'm going to give it my best. Cool thing is I've lined up a pretty cool gift to offer as a raffle to those that donate. I think I can get a nice package together for this effort.

This past week the garage went through some changes and looks like we are getting a lot of junk thrown out and hopefully sold at the Garage Sale this weekend. I sure hope it all goes and makes us a little bit of money at the least. All of that money is slated to help with donations for my wife's walking event. Did I mention the fundraiser thingy I'm working on?

I've got a little one on the side that I'm working on I'll at least make a personal donation myself and be riding in the St Jude ride again this year. I'm part of the motorcycle friends that will be helping out. Would be cool to do on a horse sometime, but I'll stick to two wheels for now.

My movie script is way behind and its going to be interesting to pull this one out. Lucky for me the next weekend looks open so far and I'm going to need to try and do some serious writing over the next days and make an amazing comeback. I've been dealing with a few other things that take up time, but not needing any mention here.

Who's a Hero Now?

An awesome launch event from Microsoft for IT Developers was held today in Dallas and I was fortunate enough to attend this event. The Heroes Happen {here} event helped launch Visual Studio 2008, Windows Server 2008, and SQL Server 2008.

The Key Note given by Jon Roskill was excellent and was themed around Dynamic IT and outlined goals that all IT departments should shoot for. Best of all the latest products from Microsoft showed how easy it could be for IT departments to reach those goals. Most IT departments spend 80% on keeping things going and 20% on creating new solutions. The Dynamic methods goal is to switch those percentages around with each other and with this selection of tools, you can reach those types of goals.

Various tracks were available to showcase the latest tools and various guests were on hand to talk about how these tools are helping them in their daily workloads. The Vendor expo had a variety of sponsors on hand to showcase some of their products and the event wrapped up with a number of free goodies for all to take home and start using.

Free SWAG

• Windows Vista Ultimate
• Visual Studio 2008 Standard
• Windows Server 2008 (1yr)
• SQL Server 2008
• Windows Mobile Dev Kit
• Microsoft Forefront (trial)
• Microsoft System Center (trial)
• and more goodies

Events like this not only inspire you, but they also put a lot of the tools in your hands to start working with. If you get a chance to attend one of the events I recommend you jump all over it and fast. You can look at some of the information online and most of these products have basic versions or demos available for download as well.

It's an HD thing

Amazing about sums it all up and interesting at the same time. Sometimes you just have to stare and take it all in and I'm talking the tiny details that come from a really nice HD picture. Only thing is not all shows are broadcasting in HD and that means you see a lot of shows in SD (Standard Definition).

Now if you don't take those shows and try to stretch them out, its not so bad. I do notice things in the area of text from SD broadcasts, they just look bad in that area. Also just because a channel is in HD, doesn't mean that they are broadcasting programs in HD all the time. In fact I've even seen some HD stuff, like the Today Show for example and their cuts to stories appear as SD. In most cases that format switches auto for you and then switches back to HD, but you still notice a difference in the quality of the picture.

HDMI is pretty much the defacto connection and we are talking about 1 cable to rule them all so to speak, sending both HD video and Audio in a single neat cable. Only thing is I'm not setup with HDMI all around, so I'll have the best picture I can to my TV via HDMI and then send my all my audio out to my stereo via digital audio. We are still going to have a great experience all around, just a few more cables.

So when you start looking at upgrades to the world of HD, keep in mind HDMI and how many connections between all your devices. Over time you'll also see more and more Channels switch over from SD to HD content. DirecTV is pretty much leading the market with the number of channels available in HD, but you could still see some stuff in SD.

Gaming in HD or at 1080p is the best and I'm enjoying this a lot on the LCD tv and my Elite Xbox 360 handles it great. Games are pretty much designed for this format and you can't go wrong with this combination. PC connections are also a nice feature in some of these HD TV sets too.

Last is the area of HD DVD or I should say Blu-Ray. I'm in no hurry, I know Blu-Ray has one, but until these drives drop way down in price, the media drops and pretty much we see SD DVD leave the market, which I don't see happening, I'll be fine with normal DVD and in fact a lot of DVD players upscale to 1080i or 1080p and look great.

Lets make a movie

That's right, its time for Script Frenzy once again, having moved up to April form June. Same as last year with only 30 days to write a movie script from scratch. I had a great time last year doing this and have decided to make a sequel to my blockbuster from last year.

No it wasn't produced or anything like that, but come on now, that is what all writers want to do, make part two of their great project. So its time for me to dust things off and wake up my characters from last year and see what adventures they can get into this time.

Last year was fun and tough at the same time, I'm hoping that I'll have it easier in April and looking forward to the break afterwards leading up to NaNoWriMo. Today is the start and if you ever thought about writing a screenplay, then why not take the plunge and join in on the fun. Take a look at Script Frenzy and just write daily.