Stuff I wouldn't want to live without
I see Andrew Connell (AC) has pinged me and I'm next on some e-chain letter of sorts with a focus on "stuff" I wouldn't want to live without. It looks like they focused on tech gadgets, but I find that a stretch for me, but I'll start with that.
It's tough for me to talk about these material possessions and think it's cool to brag about 'em. If anything in this day and age, it's cool to be able to disconnect and show how few dependencies you have. So with mixed emotion...
My 4GB Laptop. I do love my laptop and it's ability to keep me in touch with all things. It has been incredibly reliable. Can't wait to replace it with something faster as well, defintely not tied to the technology.
The Internet. I'm less particular of the device, the browser, even OS. I've been a huge fan of the internet and feel very disconnected if I can't use it from day to day (not necessarily hourly).
My big screen TV - yep it's big - 65 inches. It's a Toshiba HD Ready and all that. It's flat, but rear projection. My wife wasn't a huge fan, but she's come around. My surround sound system isn't anything to write home about. It's a simple Sony surround sound system. Think Matrix, Star Wars (all episodes, especially Jedi), tops in my collection are UHF, Goonies, Princess Bride, Napoleon Dynamite, and any Adam Sandler or Chris Farley movies basically anything connected to SNL and of course Netflixing old school movies.
My DVR - I'm not necessarily sold on my DishDVR with 100GB of disk for 100hrs of later viewing, I do hate commercials, but if it meant not paying for the all the channels I want on Cable I'd deal with it (meaning I do believe in free Ad based models.) I've got one upstairs and in my bedroom. Without it I couldn't consistently watch Lost, Heros, Amazing Race, Ghost Hunters, Simpsons, SNL, MAD, the Soup, Daily Show, Colbert Report, and one of my new favorites The Andy Milonakis Show on MTV2, now that kid has humor that makes me laugh out loud. I love movies too. It does a lot to improve my morale and break up the monotony in a week.
Zune - I do love to Zune on the plane and when I have time to kill. I recently added a second Zune to my collection when conducting a training course for a large partner. Now I can let my wife or kids borrow one. I have synced about 20GB of songs, all the CDs I and my wife own. I have a playlist that is only the best songs that's about 10 hours of songs. I'm a Weezer, Greenday, and Les Miserables Fan.
Travel (soon to aquire a Nuvi) - is a BIG hobby of mine. I did make a goal a few years ago to go to a new country every year. This year I'll be up to 30, (16% of the world) getting closer to my current age. I'm really making up for lost time. More on my newest trip in a subsequent post. I'm going to be getting a Garmin NUVI which I already know I'll love and cherish. It's my next gadget purchase.
Email/Blogs - I do love email and feel connected when I can get at my mail. My Treo 700W allows me to get email pushed to me. I use it mostly for email, looking up movies, resteraunts, things to do, and driving directions (till I get Nuvi). Blogs and community/social networking sites like facebook in some ways are fulfilling some of this connected need. I've had plenty of competitions with the Exchange folks in IT, so it's a love/hate relationship. SharePoint can sometimes get burried by an exchange deployment/upgrade, so I try not to over emphasize what's going on in the mail space. Mail is good, in fact its great for users, but that's like so last decade, how about SharePoint :) Sorry, I knew I couldn't finish this post without mentioning it. Wish I could say I can't live without my "my site," or some portal dashboard, or a shared document extranet, in business it's a must have, but in my day to day consumer life, I find alternatives a pain, but no real good alternative to online storage for documents (I'm frusterated with current offerings small size limits), pictures (there are some good options), and custom list hoster (not impressed with G's offerings, yet.
Kids and Wife - my wife and kids are awesome. My kids love to go swimming, camping, play games, TV, movies, travel, whatever. I take them everywhere I go... Unless they have school. My son Scott helped me add this one. :) I have drug them around the globe with our most recent family global trek to Marrakech, Prague, London, and Vienna.
Let me pass this on to a few others...
Bill Baer (Good IT buddy, thanks for the top scoring upgrade sessions at TechReady5 last week, they really helped the IW track scores. You're making a name.)
Bob Fox (Thanks for the Windows 2008 WSS/MOSS walk through... your screencasts and common sense logic are tough to beat. Congrats on getting passing your SharePoint Exams.)
Adam Buenz (Mr. Security, nice roles post! Watch for my MOSS deployment project plan... coming soon! Angkor Wat is my next destination thanks to you!)
Chandima Kulathilake (Awesome night out in Sydney, thanks for the GIF didn't realize that existed)
Angus Logan (I hope you don't completey abondon us in Office live, we'll do lunch next week)
Mike Gannotti (Thanks for passing on my good posts, and saying nice things. I hope you enjoyed the sessions.)
Mike Watson (Mike if you wanted to do this so bad you should have let me know. Welcome to the blogosphere, don't let anything hold you back! Your blog has SERIOUS potential.)
