Inconsistancy as a Rule

1:59am: Finally Using Twitter

Originally published at Mine Road. Please leave any comments there.

I was finally convinced to start using twitter so make sure to follow me!

2:56am: Aggregator Test

Originally published at Mine Road. I'd appreciate it if you left any any comments there.(you can leave them here too though!)

Testing an aggregator on another website.

12:11pm: Bluejackets vs. Penguins

Originally published at Mine Road. I'd appreciate it if you left any any comments there.(you can leave them here too though!)

As an early birthday present from the girl I got to go see the Bluejackets vs. Penguins game down at Nationwide Arena. It was a good time and we had some really nice tickets. Sadly the Pens lost, but such is life.

2:52pm: LiveJournal Crossposter Hack Comments On/Off

Originally published at Mine Road. I'd appreciate it if you left any any comments there.(you can leave them here too though!)

For all of you waiting for the next version of the LiveJournal Crossposter I've posted a little hack to hold you over.

I've added the ability for you to select if you want the comments to be on or off via the LiveJournal Crossposter options in Wordpress. I've passed this along to Evan and mayhap he will include it in the next version if he doesn't already have it done.

Download it here.

3:08am: Resolutions ++

Originally published at Mine Road. Please leave any comments there.

It’s late so I’ll most likely keep this short and sweet. I finally sat down yesterday to nail down this years new years resolutions and I felt I needed to post them on here. I think by writing them down where people “might” actually read them I’ll feel a little more accountable with them

Resolutions 2006:

• Be more organized (yes, I know cliche as possible)
• Hike, Bike, and Fish more… this is really to get outdoors more in general. I was at one of those huge outdoor with my family a few weeks back and realized how much I miss those activities.
• Get on a regular sleep schedule. If any of you know me really well you know that my sleep schedule is about as wonky as can be.

I know the list is short but I think that by keeping it this way I’ll most likely be able to keep them. Well I’m off to work on the “sleep” resolution.

3:08am: Resolutions ++
It's late so I'll most likely keep this short and sweet. I finally sat down yesterday to nail down this years new years resolutions and I felt I needed to post them on here. I think by writing them down where people "might" actually read them I'll feel a little more accountable with them

Resolutions 2006:

• Be more organized (yes, I know cliche as possible)


• Hike, Bike, and Fish more... this is really to get outdoors more in general. I was at one of those huge outdoor with my family a few weeks back and realized how much I miss those activities.


• Get on a regular sleep schedule. If any of you know me really well you know that my sleep schedule is about as wonky as can be.

I know the list is short but I think that by keeping it this way I'll most likely be able to keep them. Well I'm off to work on the "sleep" resolution.

View this post on my blog

7:23pm: A New Year, A New You

Originally published at Mine Road. Please leave any comments there.

Happy New Year Everyone! Be safe, but make sure to get into, at least a little bit, of trouble!

7:23pm: A New Year, A New You
Happy New Year Everyone! Be safe, but make sure to get into, at least a little bit, of trouble!

View this post on my blog

2:42am: A Night At Mineroad

Originally published at Mine Road. Please leave any comments there.

I decided to brave the evils of a dial up Internet connection and spend the night at my family farm tonight (it’s amazing what lengths you will go to in order to get home made cookies). I’d put up some pics to show you the place that inspired this domain but I left my digital cam at home and it’s being flaky anyway. It always amazes me how much productivity will increase when you are placed in the middle of nowhere for short periods. Tonight I sat down to finish a logo for a client and actually managed to not get distracted from the task at all. If you know me then you know that this is a rare feat. I generally tend to take mini breaks a good bit when I’m working. If you can’t tell there really wasn’t any point to this post. I just felt like putting some words to screen for some reason. Oh well I guess that just happens sometimes.

2:42am: A Night At Mineroad
I decided to brave the evils of a dial up Internet connection and spend the night at my family farm tonight (it's amazing what lengths you will go to in order to get home made cookies). I'd put up some pics to show you the place that inspired this domain but I left my digital cam at home and it's being flaky anyway. It always amazes me how much productivity will increase when you are placed in the middle of nowhere for short periods. Tonight I sat down to finish a logo for a client and actually managed to not get distracted from the task at all. If you know me then you know that this is a rare feat. I generally tend to take mini breaks a good bit when I'm working. If you can't tell there really wasn't any point to this post. I just felt like putting some words to screen for some reason. Oh well I guess that just happens sometimes.

View this post on my blog

5:23am: SPAM Annoyance

Originally published at Mine Road. Please leave any comments there.

Well I couldn’t sleep tonight so I decided to check in on this dusty corner of my server to see how it was holding up. To my dismay I found somewhere in the arena of 600 or so Spam comments spread across the site. To say the least I am slightly annoyed at this. So until I update Wordpress to it’s newest version and get some new, improved Spam filter plug-ins commenting has been turned off on the entire site. I hope to have this taken care of by the weekend.

5:23am: SPAM Annoyance
Well I couldn't sleep tonight so I decided to check in on this dusty corner of my server to see how it was holding up. To my dismay I found somewhere in the arena of 600 or so Spam comments spread across the site. To say the least I am slightly annoyed at this. So until I update Wordpress to it's newest version and get some new, improved Spam filter plug-ins commenting has been turned off on the entire site. I hope to have this taken care of by the weekend.

View this post on my blog

4:37am: Insomniac (sadly no bars or Dave Attell in this fun filled episode)
So I've had some major problems keeping myself on a normal sleep schedule over the last few weeks. This normally wouldn't be a problem but I'd finally gotten myself into the mindset of working during the day and taking my time off after 5 like normal people tend to do. As I'm still awake at almost 5am on a Weds morning this is more than slightly annoying. So does anyone have any good recommendations that they have used to get on a normal/semi-normal sleep schedule that they could pass along? I'd appreciate any ideas/advice you guys would be willing to pass along.

- Nick

Also, is it just me or do 90% of really great ideas tend to pop into your head after 3am?? Thank goodness for having copious amounts of writing material on your nightstand.

1:09am: no longer turkey day
Happy It's No Longer Turkey Day Everyone!

6:56pm: New Google Sitemaps Toys

Originally published at Mine Road. Please leave any comments there.

I was poking my head around Digg.com today and ran across a story saying they had added some new functionality to Google Sitemaps. Now considering I’m a Sitemaps advocate with all of my clients I had to go take a look and see what all the fuss was about. Upon verifying your site by FTPing a empty HTML file to your root directory you are able to access some statistics for your site. These include query stats, crawl stats, page analysis and index stats. Inside of these base options you can see how well your pages rank, what your top queries were and where Google ran into problems indexing your site. Right now the information is vague but anything helps when it comes to Google in my opinion. I hope to see expanded functionality and more detailed information in the future.

Oh on a side note you don’t actually need to have a sitemap up to use this feature. Just add your site and verify it within your account and you are good to go.

6:56pm: New Google Sitemaps Toys
I was poking my head around Digg.com today and ran across a story saying they had added some new functionality to Google Sitemaps. Now considering I'm a Sitemaps advocate with all of my clients I had to go take a look and see what all the fuss was about. Upon verifying your site by FTPing a empty HTML file to your root directory you are able to access some statistics for your site. These include query stats, crawl stats, page analysis and index stats. Inside of these base options you can see how well your pages rank, what your top queries were and where Google ran into problems indexing your site. Right now the information is vague but anything helps when it comes to Google in my opinion. I hope to see expanded functionality and more detailed information in the future.

Oh on a side note you don't actually need to have a sitemap up to use this feature. Just add your site and verify it within your account and you are good to go.

View this post on my blog

11:07pm: MMMM Humanism....

You fit in with: Humanism Your ideals mostly resemble that of a Humanist. Although you do not have a lot of faith, you are devoted to making this world better, in the short time that you have to live. Humanists do not generally believe in an afterlife, and therefore, are committed to making the world a better place for themselves and future generations. 20% spiritual. 100% reason-oriented.

Take this quiz at QuizGalaxy.com

2:55am: It's November! aka add 504eastmoor
It's November! YAY? Ok, the month of November isn't the real reason for this post. The real reason is that all of you need to add 504eastmoor  as a friend in LJ. Why you may ask? Because 504eastmoor  is the LJ for my apartment and we will be putting all of the crazy hijinks, videos, and technological marvels we partake of on this blog. The videos are funny so if anything you should add us just because of that. If you feel really adventurous you can actually visit us over at 504eastmoor.com and partake of the insanity directly. Be careful insanity hurts in large doses if you aren't used to it.

9:42pm: Journey to the Center of the Earth
Well this post should have been for last Sunday but I totally forgot to write something about it. Last Sunday I went caving in Laural Caverns out in PA. It was one of the hardest things I've done physically in a long time. 3 miles down underground and then 3 miles back to the surface. By the time I was done walking was rather hard and my legs hurt for most of the next week! It shows that I really need to get back into shape. I haven't changed weight in the last few years but my muscle mass is pretty much MIA. That aside, it was a great time. I haven't been in a cave in a goodly bit of time so this was a nice reintroduction. It's a quasi tour scenario so you know you won't get lost and never find your way out. They give you enough freedom that it doesn't feel very tour like and lets you know that you are still in a wild cave. There are some pictures behind the cut, nothing to exciting but feel free to take a look.

( Looky Behind the Cut )

10:11am: Ocean City Maryland?
So I'm sitting on a balcony looking at the Atlantic Ocean today... I am in no way complaining about this fact I just find it rather odd. I'm poor as hell (see earlier post), my car isn't running great, and I've got alot of work to do. That doesn't seemed to have stopped a good series of events to lead me here. Those being free hotel room, someone else driving, and just having to pay for food, and owning a laptop so I can work anywhere. We did have a helluva trip down this way though. We roamed over to Wildwood, NJ to drop off a Large Talking Animatronic Sea Turtle for a put put golf course through rain and all kinds of hell. We then got bored and took a ferry over the bay down to Delaware and about 30 minutes later here we were. Now it did rain all day yesterday which put a damper on thigs but it's pretty nice now and I think I may wander down to the beach in a few before we have to leave (I've got a 6pm meeting, so we have to go by 1 at the latest). I wiSh we could stay longer as it looks like the weather has broken finally. I don't think that will be happening though. Sorry if the spelling and grammer are horrid, I don't feel like checking over everything thise time through. Well I'm out, lata.

2:04am: 1600 Dollars and Why I don't Trust People Anymore.

So, yesterday at about 2pm I got an interesting phone call from a collections agency. They were looking for a friend of mine who had his number disconnected and owed them a bit of money. I found this to be surprising but I told them I would relay the message and tell them they were looking for him. I remember him giving me an account to check prices so I figured they got the info there.

I thought this was the end of it and went on with my day as usual. OH HOW WRONG I WAS.

Later the same day I get a phone call back from said collections agency saying that I was a personal guaranteer for my friends account. At this point I'm getting a bit annoyed (wouldn't you?). I tell them patiently that I wasn't a part of this business and that I hadn't signed anything saying I was a guaranteer. They said, "Oh, sorry for the mistake" and I figured it was over with again.

Again I was wrong.

I call my friend and inform him of the situation. Tell him to get this taken care of as I don't want/need to deal with his crap. So night comes and goes and I call the collections agency back to see the status of this. They say that they have proof that I was a guaranteer and that someone needs to pay this today or it will reflect badly upon both my friends credit, and more importantly... mine. At this point my annoyance level is rather high. I had just got done signing a new lease for an apartment about 15 minutes beforehand and I did not want to deal with another bill. So I have the company send me a copy of the application where my name is on it. OH MY IT SEEMS MY NAME IS ACTUALLY THERE.

Then it all comes back to me. The one night I filled out the wrong form when I was acting as a witness. My friend saying that it wasn't a big deal and he had it taken care of. Me not worrying about it as I was no longer a part of this. Or so I thought.

It seems that this was not the case if you've been following me this far. Yes my friends I just had to pay a $1600 dollar bill for something I hadn't purchased NOR HAD ANYTHING TO DO WITH.

SIXTEEN HUNDRED DOLLARS
.

How do you pull together 1600 bucks in under one day? You thank whatever you god is that you have good friends, an understanding client who will pay your bill a few days earlier than normal, and sheer luck that you made it home in time to pay this bill. I spent my entire morning pulling together my resources and then 3+ hours in a car driving home (I had just driven to Columbus the night before) in order to get this taken care of.

I will most likely get this money back eventually but until then I'm pretty poor by the way. I spoke with said friend, well more like berated, yelled, freaked out on, etc. and got something worked out. I'm still not happy needless to say.

So, I could continue on with this longer but I honestly would just ramble more and get pissed off again.

So the moral of the story kids is many fold.

1. Don't trust your friends in matters of money, always check up on them. Your credit score can get ruined.
2. Always keep some extra money back, you may just need an extra 2 grand  or so for a random reason.
3. Always shred documents when you mistakenly fill out the wrong part. It may come back to haunt you if you don't.

That's it for now. I may update this later to be more coherent. Oh and none of you who know me out in the real world will be seeing me too much for the next few months. I'm working my tale off to recoup the cash I lost and will be eating alot of Ramen Noodles. Later on people.

1:52am: Odeo Beta

Originally published at Mine Road. Please leave any comments there.

I received an Odeo invite a few days back now. I skipped over it initially and didn’t think anything about it. A day later I started seeing people comment about it variously over the net. So I went back into my email and followed the link and joined up.

It seems this was a wise decision on my part. I’ve never really gotten into the “podcast” scene but I think that Odeo has changed my ways. It’s easy to use interface coupled with high quality podcasts have made me a believer.

The Odeosyncer, which I’m told is like Ipodder, makes life easy by downloading any podcasts that you subscribe to on the site. Finding and listening to podcasts are accessible to everyone by having an elegant yet simple navigation system. Too top it off they allow you to listen to the podcasts within the site itself. Just click the play button under the image representing a various podast and you can get a taste to see if you like it.

I hope that some of you out there also get/have an invite to Odeo and decide to try it out. If not when it comes out of BETA I recommend you run out and give it a try.

1:52am: Odeo Beta
I received an Odeo invite a few days back now. I skipped over it initially and didn't think anything about it. A day later I started seeing people comment about it variously over the net. So I went back into my email and followed the link and joined up.

It seems this was a wise decision on my part. I've never really gotten into the "podcast" scene but I think that Odeo has changed my ways. It's easy to use interface coupled with high quality podcasts have made me a believer.

The Odeosyncer, which I'm told is like Ipodder, makes life easy by downloading any podcasts that you subscribe to on the site. Finding and listening to podcasts are accessible to everyone by having an elegant yet simple navigation system. Too top it off they allow you to listen to the podcasts within the site itself. Just click the play button under the image representing a various podast and you can get a taste to see if you like it.

I hope that some of you out there also get/have an invite to Odeo and decide to try it out. If not when it comes out of BETA I recommend you run out and give it a try.

View this post on my blog

4:20am: 4:20?
Hmm yeah, nothing exciting happening on 4:20 tonight. I just finished an all "nighterish" (10pm-4pm) of coding and designing various projects. What does this mean to you? Nothing really, I'm pretty much brain dead though. First thing in the morning I have to go get fitted for a tux for Reiber's wedding. Then I have to drive back to Steubenville, though, and do a few meetings down in Wheeling. They shouldn't be too bad. I think the one will mainly be picking up some image cd's for upload at a later date. The other should go pretty smoothly as well. After that I have to trek up to Steubenville and answer emails, missed phone calls (from during the meetings) and some work. Then I'm off to The Dale to do some farm work. Yes, it's that time of the year again and I will be confined to a rather large John Deere tractor or on a wagon moving around various forms of hay. I'm hoping that we're doing round bales tomorrow or that I just have to do some raking. After that I plan on promptly passing out. Well off to try and get some sleep before 8:30 in the AM comes around.

10:26pm: bi-monthly
AH, the bi-monthly blog update. I'd like to thank Casey for reminding, by having such a well updated blog, that I need to actually put something in it every once in awhile. So what's new?

1. I no longer live at 806 College when in Columbus. Our lease was up on the 15th and we had no option (nor desire) to renew it. I'm going to be living out on Eastmoor Ave. as of July 15th; feel free to contact me for the exact address.

 2. I'm going to have a new roommate at said apartment. Aside from Spencer, we now have the great and almighty Chris Flohr moving in with us. He will be testing out his "big city" legs out and I hope him well.

3. I will be in good old Steubenville Jun. 22 - July 15th. During this period I will most likely begin going quietly insane due to boredom. As of right now I've only got some hay bailing, work, and a trip to Pittsburgh planned. So please please find things for me to do.

4. Thats it for now. Hope everyone enjoyed the update, I'll try and update more often.