One of my tech professors have been talking about a upcoming revolution in television technology, for quite some time now. It's called "Organic LEDs." This technology allows the creation of ultra thin TVs that are about 1/10th of an inch in thickness.
September 25, 2006 was my first day at Voicenet. I can't believe that a whole year has passed. It was an amazing year. God has blessed me with a workplace that I enjoy coming to... friends, co-workers and employers that are absolutely amazing and work that I actually enjoy doing.
I hope the coming years are just as amazing and fruitful.
I can't believe I just made an appointment for my senior portrait for my Grad school yearbook. If all goes well, I should be getting my diploma in May 2008. That's one more semester after this one. That's one more class (Project Management) and my Thesis.
My graduation ceremony, God willing, will be held at the Kimmel Center.
At my last count, there has been 289 homicides in Philadelphia, this year. I don't know how that number ranks against other cities in the U.S. but I'm guessing it's pretty bad.
The local NBC station here has a google map with exact locations and in some instances, photos of the murdered. And for some ironic reason, it's entitled the "Safer City Map."
Checkout club.live.com.... a promotion + ad campaign run by Microsoft to let the world know that they too, have a search-engine. There are about a dozen word games. All you need is a hotmail account, register for the game and start playing. Since a lot of people have created a million cheats for the games, now it takes a whole lot of points to win anything worthwhile... but if you have the time and the patience, hey...
So far, I've won:
A copy of Windows Vista Ultimate Edition
A wireless USB headset
A wired USB headset
And the best prize of all:
A Microsoft Zune media player for a whopping 20,000 points
The extended weekend (Yesterday was Labor Day in the U.S., a national holiday) was welcomed with open arms. However, the weekend was just as busy as the rest of them. My good friends Stan (from TN) and James (from FL) came up to visit. Had a fun time hangin' out with them over the weekend.
As for our church youth group, it was our first Men's Breakfast on Saturday morn. We cooked a whole lot of food - pancakes, waffles, breakfast sausages, hashbrowns, scrambled eggs and more... it was a good time of fun and fellowship.
Ever since we got Bryan as our youth pastor, things seem to changing as a youth group. There has been more participation for the various events, more enthusiasm and energy amoung the members and all in all, a great positive outlook.
Today - Back to work... and later on in the day, back to school (Data Security w/ Dr. Sherasb).
Tech Update Want to know how your personal computers will start to look and function in the very near future? Check out what Microsoft has cookin':
My second-last semester (hopefully) at Holy Family University started yesterday. I'm taking two night classes this semester:
1. Legal & Ethical Issues in Information Systems Management 2. Data Security
The Legal & Ethics class got of to a good start yesterday. The professor seems to be a very knowledgeable, interesting guy (his name is Tom too, ha); we hope to cover things like Intellectual Property Rights, Patent issues, Copyright issues, U.S. Legal System and other topics... this should be a fun course.
The Data Security class is taught in the Newtown campus, about 15 miles from here. The traffic is horrible in the evening, in both directions of Route 1, during that time. I've had the professor who's teaching this class for another class, earlier this year. It shouldn't be too bad either.
TV Evangelist Benny Hinn is in the news again. And once again, it's for the same reasons. A few years ago, one of the major TV broadcasting firms (NBC, I believe it was) did a story on how the pastor (and his organization) was collecting millions of dollars in donations each year and was spending it on a lavish, extravagant lifestyle, even by secular standards. Private Jets, frequent stays at five-star hotels and expensive restaurants... building mansions and others...
This time The Star has written a similar article with almost the same list of gripes.
It just reminds me how people of the faith, especially ones in leadership roles are under the microscope and under immense scrutiny, all the time. Growing up as a pastor's kid, I could sort of relate...
I don't make any judgements on Benny Hinn but it just serves as a personal reminder and point of caution to me:
The world is always watching... and you better have a good answer.
Last few days were awesome! I got to meet one of my favorite Bible scholars of all time - Dr. Chuck Missler; he was the guest speaker at Calvary Chapel, here in Philadelphia, this past Sunday, Monday and Yesterday.
Dr. Chuck Missler is not your typical pastor. For the past 40 something years, Missler worked as an Engineer, an Information Technologist, held several prestigious positions (according to secular standards) as CEO of several companies, held top-level management positions in the Department of Defense, Ford Motor Company and several others.
Having such a scientific/technical background, can you imagine one of his Bible Studies? I've been absolutely amazed by his expositions on everything from cryptography, spread-spectrum analysis, bio genesis, strategic/political trends, history, philosophy and current-events and how they all amazingly fit together with this old Book, written over a span of several centuries by over 40 different authors, which we collectively call the Bible.
You probably know by now that I love my new job... the nice folks over here are always finding new ways to surprise me and keep me extremely happy. Like for instance, the other day, I received a shipment from Microsoft. And what was inside, you ask? A brand-new MSDN Starter Kit with about 30 discs (mostly DVDs) that contain the latest and greatest from Microsoft! And being a windows geek such as myself, I was almost in tears...
- Microsoft XP and Vista. - Microsoft Office 2007. - Visual Studio 2005. - SQL Server 2005. - MS Virtual Server. - and several others.
But here's the ironic twist to the story... I just realized that my computer here at work doesn't have a DVD drive! Doh!
The mercury has significantly dropped in the past two weeks... and today, there was a crisp coating of snow/ice outside... not too much but still enough for you to have to break out the brushes and scrapers to move it off of your car.
I'm not too fond of the winter anymore... I'm eagerly awaiting the arrival of spring. I like the feeling of walking outside and not having to worry about your ears falling off.
Yes, I know... I'm over three seasons late on this post... but better late than never.
I'm absolutely in love with the NBC TV Show, The Office. My co-workers and friends refer to it, all the time and I was starting to get tired of missing out on all the jokes. So, recently, I acquired the recorded copies of the first three seasons and now I can't stop watching it. I'll decide to watch one episode per evening and end up watching like five in a row. This stuff is absolutely golden and I recommend it to everyone, especially my working-professional friends.
You know how people used to refer to "Office Space" all the time, at work? This is definitely the new "Office Space."
After about a month of waiting, my car finally arrived at the dealership yesterday. Thanks Vince, for tagging along to pick up the car. It's a 2007 Toyota Camry XLE (Black Exterior / Bisque Interior) with all the bells and whistles.
Like Vince said, "I'm like a little kid with his brand new toy!"
Our roof at work is getting re-done. There are over a dozen workers on the roof with heavy machinery. And I do mean heavy - huge rolling pins, scrapers, automatic saws and all that good stuff. Each bang and thud startles you a little bit; it feels like it's all going to come down any second.
I finally got around to reading The Purpose Driven Life By Rick Warren. I've heard so much about the book in the past year but now I finally got the chance to read it.
The book is a very easy read. It's divided into 40 short chapters (most of them two or three pages each); the author recommends that you read one chapter a day so that you have enough time to reflect on what you have read. I've gotten through 1/4th of the book and it has been very interesting so far.
I wanted to share a quick thought that I encountered from my reading today: Do everything as you were doing it for God. Even the most menial tasks in your day to day life.
Chew on that for a moment! That certainly changes your outlook on things/tasks, doesn't it? I mean, opening the door for someone... doing that boring task at work... driving... washing dishes...
Out of all the different things we do on a daily basis - how many of them do we do whole-heartedly? How many of them do we sort of "sweep under the rug"?
I haven't written in a while... I have posted some pics here and there but very few written words.
Well, it's been a little over two months since I started my new job and I've been enjoying every bit of it. Been busy all along but I'm glad that I can be passionate about my work again. I'm glad that I can concentrate on the programming and not worry too much about the politics.
Ah, what else... Oh, yes... bought a new car. However, I won't have it in my possession until the end of the month since they couldn't find an exact match for my specifications; one has to be shipped in and that takes a little bit of time. I can hardly contain the excitement.
In the mean time, you can take guesses on the make and model :-)
Hint: Very few people have considered it an "exciting" car in the past (although the new model will change a lot of that) but it's been rated to be highly reliable.
