Don't EVER Use Avis

This has been the worst trip ever.  It started out with my GPS getting swiped out of my luggage.  Thanks US Air.  Then ... AVIS took over and REALLY made things go down hill.  I called to make a reservation (to RESERVE a car) and also asked to RESERVE a GPS (cause someone else was enjoying mine).  When Now, I am an Avis Preferred member ... doesn't mean a whole lot, except that you don't have to talk to the monkey behind the counter.  They have the car ready with the keys in it when you arrive ... supposedly.  When i arrived at the Avis disaster zone, the screen where they usually display the names and assigned cars was empty.  Darn.  Now i have to go talk to the monkey.  Well, the old bag behind the counter was about as motivated as a rock.  You also need to understand it's 2 AM.  I'm THE ONLY ONE THERE.  She starts with "Can i help you?" ... uh ... yeah, i need a car (thought that would be somewhat obvious ... being at AVIS and all).  She gives me this blank stare ... like i just asked for the Space Shuttle.  "I'll need to look to see what we have available" ... uh ... i have a reservation.  I even have my handy AVIS account number handy.  You want that?  "Oh yes, that would be helpful."  She plugs away at the keyboard like she was re-writing Tale of Two Cities.  She then starts asking me for my name, address, phone, etc. ... uh ... don't you already have all that info on my reservation? "No sir, I sure don't" ... uh ... ok.  She then asks me how many days, what type of car, etc. ... WHY DID I MAKE A RESERVATION???  Then she has to go outside to see what cars are available!!  Are you kidding me???  I felt like i was being punked ... she comes back ... found a SUV.  Then tell her i also reserved a GPS.  "Oh, we don't have any.  They are all out" ... uh ... but I RESERVED one????  "Sorry sir."  Fine, give me the keys.

Thought i was done dealing with them, as all i needed to do now was drop off the piece of crap at the end of the week.  Wrong.  I go out to the junk box this morning ... won't start ... dead.  I check to see if i left a dome light on or something.  Nope.  Just dead.  I call the Avis "who cares" line.  I tell them their piece of chevy crap just died.  The monkey tells me help is on the way.  I make sure he knows I need to get to the airport.  "I understand sir, i'll make sure we rush to help you" ... uh ... yeah right.  They RUSHED right over 60 minutes later ... THANKS AVIS ... I missed my flight!!!  Now i'm stuck in Denver airport.  I hate you.

Vacation

climbing the ladder
Originally uploaded by dbageek

What a great week at Lake Winnipesaukee! My family has been vacationing at the lake since I was little and this year mom, dad, Donna, Kris, Sydney, Wendy and Brandon were all able to go. We had a perfect week. The weather was pretty decent, so we were able to ski quite a bit; we celebrated mom and dad's 40th wedding anniversary; and we even had time to do some shopping. It was so nice being able to spend the whole week together and see Sydney and Brandon playing together; they don't get that opportunity very often with Donna living in Florida.

Passing of Samuel

Owning a dog is one of the most enjoyable parts of my life. I had always wanted a dog growing up, but because of sports and school, i was never home long enough. When Wendy and I bought our house, looking for a dog became a priority. I had always wanted an Australian Shepherd. We found a rescue in Turner, Maine, that specialized in Aussies. It took almost a year to find Sir Samuel, but he was worth the wait. We adopted him right from the home that was giving him up. At the time, he was a five year old tri-color Aussie.

As i mentioned in a previous post, just a few weeks ago, I took Samuel to the vet to check on a lump. It tunred out to be cancer. Samuel's health deteriorated very quickly over the past few weeks. Yesterday, I had to make one of the toughtest decisions i've ever made. I knew he was suffering terribly, so I had him put to sleep. It's a horrible thing watching your beloved pet suffer. I will miss him terribly.

Touch Decision

Two weeks ago I took Samuel to the vet for a check up and to get a lump on his rib checked out. Unfortunately, after taking an x-ray of Samuel's ribs, the vet told me he has a cancerous tumor which had already eaten up an entire rib bone. There is nothing that can be done to stop the spread and i must now decide when to put him down. Since then, he has deteriorated quickly. His back legs are starting to give out on him now and i can tell he's really starting to suffer. He's been a great dog ... my first. Everything i ever wanted in a dog. This will be one of the toughest decisions i've ever had to make.

Mobile Blog

Chck out my new mobile blog ... it'll be even easier to post pics now from my Treo on the go!

My Mobile Blog

Bouncing Brandon

Brandon got a new toy this week!

Brando!

Baby Brandon

Well, Wendy and I finally parents :) Brandon Christopher Beane was born Saturday morning at 6:07 am, 8 lbs 6oz, 20 1/2 inches long.

More pictures here

Baby Shower Slideshow

I put together a slideshow of pictures I took at the Baby Shower and the baby's room. Some of the pictures are kind of dark - not my best work :( To view this slideshow, you will need Windows Media Player 10. Enjoy!

Overwhelming

The baby shower!

King of the hill

I'll bet your dog can't do this!

I need a bigger yard ... not for my dog to play in but so that I'll have more room to put snow! Well will it ever stop snowing??

Here's a couple pics of how the baby's room is coming along. We have pretty much finished the painting ... just a few touch ups here and there left. This week we'll be working on getting the borders up.

Soccer Dog

In between painting and cleaning this weekend, I took Samuel out to play some ball - his favorite past-time. Here's a little video he and I put together :)

Click here to watch the movie

Smileys for firefox

I'm not a huge fan of smileys ... the little emoticons we use to portray moods or expressions. It's not the smileys themselves, mind you, it's the software you have to install to use them. Many programs come with a sufficient set of smileys (eg. MSN Messenger). But sometimes you just can't find the right one and you'd like to have more to choose from. The unfortunate thing is that ALL the smiley programs I have seen are LOADED with spyware. Load the smileys ... welcome to spam world and spyware central.

I finally found a tool that defeats this problem. I use firefox almost exclusively now as my web browser. One of the extensions you can load is called Smiley Xtra. This little gem adds a button to your toolbar which can be used to toggle a window used to list/insert/preview your smileys. The smileys are NOT loaded on your machine, but simply linked to from many of the popular SMILEY servers. Very cool.

So, you want smileys? Get firefox then get Smiley XTra.

Woohoo!!!!

Another busy week

Yet another busy week ... teaching day and night. The bright side is that this is the last week I'll have to do this until next January, so I console myself with that fact.

I'm also starting to study up for a few more exams. My plan is to achieve two, possibly three, more certifications before the baby comes. I'm trying to finish MCDST (Desktop Support), CRCP (Crystal Reports), and possibly MCAD .NET (Application Developer).

Microsoft exams are never fun, but I need to pass some exams before I can start teaching some of the classes I'm already scheduled to teach :| It will open up more opportunities so I am happy I'm doing it, but I just don't like the studying part!

This weekend is our lamaze class - that ought to be a good time :) I'm interested to see what kind of exercises are tought and what other types of individuals show up. That's during the day Saturday, then our church has an annual Stewardship banquet Saturday night.

AND Sunday is the big dance!!! Go PATS!!!!

Lewiston is completely frozen

I don't know how cold it is you all are, but for crying out loud ... I'm sick of this cold. It was -10 again last night. That's FREAKIN cold!! And it seems like it snows everyday. We have about 18 inches on the ground now, after the last two snow storms. It will probably be June before we see the bare ground again.

This week has been amazingly busy ... I've been teaching day and night. I guess that's a good thing, though. The training business had been pretty slow there for a while and now it's really starting to pick up again. Next week I'll be teaching day and night as well, but I won't have to do that again for a while. It will feel like I'm part-time when I go back to teaching just during the day!

The training last week in Tampa was definitely the best training I had ever attended in my 10 years of computer work. The instructor was from Belguim and was extremely knowledgeable and interactive. We all had plenty of time to ask our own specific questions, which really made the training interesting. At night, as I posted before, most of us would go out to dinner together and just talk geek speak like the IBM commercials you see. It was such a great time of networking with other trainers.

Samuel is doing much better this week! He's pretty much back to normal now. He was extremely lethargic when I got home; didn't each much, didn't want to play, just downright depressed. After lots of belly rubs and time playing soccer, he's back to his old butt waggin self (wags hit butt cause he doesn't have a tail).

Well, hope you are all having a great week and have big plans for the weekend. Wendy and I are going to go see Hide and Seek tonight - can't get enough of horror movies :)

SQL Server 2005 TPrep

This week I'm in Tampa, Fl, attending a Trainer Prep course for SQL Server 2005. Great group of people and a pretty good class so far. We all went out for suppah tonight at a place called Rockaway Grill in Clearwater. Great little dive of a place with an awesome piece of steak.


What an exciting group of geeks.

Personal Update

Since I haven't posted in a while and now have reason to ... I thought I would do the same as everyone else and give a blurb on what I've been up to since high school.

I'll start with college :) As most of you know, I graduated from PCC with a BS in Computer Science, whadda geek. The summer of 1995 was AWESOME! On one of my many waterskiing trips that summer, I met up with a camp director who was looking for a computer instructor. After talking with him, he was also looking for an experienced waterskier who could teach competition level skiing to campers. Well, what a perfect fit that was. AND - the camp was an all girls camp. This was the most amazing camp I had ever seen - shocked it was in Maine. They had professional size water slides, olympic size pool, 8 tennis courts with tennis pros from Florida, gymnastics with the Russian olympic coach instructing, photography, rops courses, equestrian, acting, radio and video broadcasting, computer programming (me), competition waterskiing and so much more. I loved it!

Through that job, I met a programmer who recommended me for a job in Lewiston. A company called FISC that handled financial services for over 60 banks in Maine. I was the network and database administrator there for almost 5 years. Learned alot but it was a very high pressure job. Before I got burned out, I found a job at VTEC in Portland. They are a Microsoft Learning Solutions Provider. I've been there almost 5 years and have achieve several levels of certification along the way - enjoying every minute of it. I split my time between teaching Access, SQL Server, Crystal Reports, Visio, Visual Basic .NET and working as a contract developer for several of our clients. Through VTEC, I've worked at Irving, Sappi, Anthem, LL Bean, State of Maine and several other companies. It's something different everyday and I really do believe I have the perfect job. It does require lots of studying, to stay up with the latest greatest, but I love technology, so that's fine with me.

Once I moved to Lewiston for my first job, I started attending Auburn Baptist Church, where I met my beautiful wife Wendy, the pastor's daughter (we all know how they can be). We married October 4, 1997 and are expecting our first son this April :) Me as a parent?? Wow, THAT ought to be interesting.

As I've mentioned on Friends Cafe we have an Australian Shepherd - who's pictures you can see on this site. We also have 3 guinea pigs - had six but they are getting old and have started dying off.

Well, I think that pretty much sums up the past 10 years. Questions?