First Official Ride

DSC_3446
Originally uploaded by denovich.

I didn't realize this until today, but this afternoon was really the first official bike-ride for the Daytona. Or at least for the Daytona + Geis...

Either way, Denovich and I took a considerable ride up through New Bethlehem (much better than Old Bethlehem, if you know what i'm sayin). Although we had to cut the ride short due to time considerations (Dinner at the in-laws...), we still put a fresh 180 on the ol' odometer.

In summary, a great day to ride and a great bike on which to ride. I'm considerably pleased with my Triumph purchase at this point, and I don't see any changing that perception in the future.

BTW, thanks to Doc for the pic.

Geo-Cached Code

Geo-Cached Code
Originally uploaded by Geis.

GeoCaching Set

Jake and I decided to try out some geo-caching last Sunday out near his house in Plymouth (just outside Wilkes-Barre). The cache was located down at this place called The Seven Tubs which contained a large creek with a bunch of small pools which you can swim and jump into.
So we grabbed our swim trunks, Sue's dog Beaut, and a GPS device Jake was borrowing from his buddy and took off for the cache.

For being my first cache, it was definitely a good experience overall. We had to do some tree climbing and general foraging, not to mention the intense mosquito fighting (I don't know about Jake, but I certainly lost that battle as I currently have upwards of 50 to 60 bites on my legs, arms, and the webbing of both my hands - scratch, scratch).

Anyway, check out the pics.

Ps. If you plan to do this cache for some reason or another, I would advise against actually looking at the pictures since they sort of give away the entire thing.

I Got Married

Heather's Face
Originally uploaded by Geis.

It's been awhile since I blogged last and I decided to catch up those of you in the dark.

I got married.

This is a picture of my wife snorkeling in Hawaii during our honeymoon.
That's all you're getting for now.

New World of Geis

New World of Geis
Originally uploaded by Geis.

The best part is that if you go to the site right now, there's a picture of the worldOFgeis in my recent flickr pictures bar.

It's awesome.

Sushi Lunch

Sushi Lunch
Originally uploaded by Geis.

I went a little crazy and got some sushi for lunch today.
Although it looks prepackaged, it was actually made on the spot. The other nice thing is that sooo many people eat at the Sushi Shop that there's no way they have any stale food there since they get cleaned out so quickly.

La Basorouse

La Basorouse
Originally uploaded by Geis.

Dinner was a little bit more formal tonight.
I wandered into Old Montreal after the Agile Development With HCI class. I was amazed with how few people were over there, but was lucky enough to find Chez Suzette still open.
Everything at Suzette's comes in a Crepe. When I spotted La Basorouse which is a crepe stuffed with bacon, avocado, and sour cream, I decided to test Denovich's theory that 'any meal with bacon in it is a good meal'.
It was good stuff. I precluded the meal with a bowl of baked french onion soup. Also very good.
At the end of the meal, I got into a bit of a discussion with the waiter and eventually decided to ask what La Basorouse referred to. He said that it sort of meant like 'a meal of german liking'. I told him I just wanted to make sure it didn't mean 'A Fat American' (you know, with the bacon and everything) and that I fell right into the trap. He assured me that this wasn't the case.
He brought up the conference and we briefly discussed it. The woman at the table next to me wanted to make sure that there were representatives from Microsoft at the CHI conference because 'they usually dont do a good job with understanding what the user wants'. I ensured her of their presence.

XBox 360 Design Critique

XBox 360 Design Critique
Originally uploaded by Geis.

Microsoft showed up this morning to the CHI2006 conference to critique their own design process.
Interestingly enough, they admitted openingly that they did extensive user testing, and then decided to choose an interface that came in a distant third because of the difficulties necessary to implement the more usable interface in only 3MB of space (this was their restriction since they knew the wouldn't necessarily be shipping all XBOX 360's with harddrives).
It was an interesting talk. I've put up a bunch of photos on my Flickr Site.

Semi-Cool Dinner

Mmmm
Originally uploaded by Geis.

Being how the rain has yet to relent, I decided to grab a few Guinness Draughts, a chicken gyro, and some rice (from a Mediterranean restaurant) and come back to the hotel to do some work and goof around on the internet a little bit.
I figure if I can finish up everything I have to do tonight, then when the weather's nice on Thursday and Friday, I'll get to run around a little.
It's supposed to be below freezing tomorrow morning (-1 Celsius) with a slight frost. Good stuff, Montreal.
Anyway, I'm not trying to over-blog this trip or anything, but I felt a need to post this at least.
And by the way, the dinner was awesome. If I wasn't eating it in my hotel room, it would have been perfect. I saw a Sushi place right in the Palais des Congres where the conference is being held and I think I'll hit that up tomorrow... I'm pretty psyched about it actually.

PAIX (This means PEACE in French, but I somehow doubt it translates into the attempted Gangsta sign-off that I'm trying to do here)

This Weather is so French

It's Crappy Out
Originally uploaded by Geis.

Est-ce que je peux avoir mon ticket de caisse?

Now that Vocollect has removed the per diem policy, I have to remember to get my check when done eating.

So far, I find myself marveling in my ability to spit out half-baked french sentences to the waitresses and have them actually respond to me in french, that I never remember to ask pour le ticket de caisse.

I've found out that by attempting to speak french, I simply put myself in a worse position because I often cannot decipher the return response. I then have to say something very obviously English so that they realize that I know about 10-12 commonly used phrases which I am pre-pending to an oftenly multi-lingual noun in hopes to saying something meaningful.

Oh well, so far I've spend about $12 that Vocollect won't have to worry about. But I'm staying at the Delta (Centre-Ville: in case you care to look it up) and living it large, which I can hardly complain about...

Oh yea, it's been terrible weather-wise. Hopefully things clear up so I get a chance to take some nice shots.

Sparks

Sparks
Originally uploaded by amyadoyzie.

its been too long since i've Sparks-ed.

Taking it all in

IMG_1703
Originally uploaded by Shaft0rz.

Just wanted to throw up a post with a link to Big Pete's Photo's from Las Vegas.

Matt's are located here:

The Loop

Seriously, you need to watch this show:





The chics are hot and the humor is completely inappropriate. It's a can't miss.

Action Jack

IMG_3956.JPG
Originally uploaded by Geis.

Heather and I picked up some sandwiches from Franco's and headed over to Boyce Park with Jack this afternoon.

Here are some good shots of Jack and Heather: Flickr Pictures

the World of Geis

So in case you are quite unaware of the concept of links, or simply have not taken a gander at the link module on the right side of this screen... I have a website called WorldOfGeis.com.
I finished it up last night while watching Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. Comcast is attempting to lure me into the wonderful world of Soprano's and free movies with a week free of HBO. So far I've been able to DVR Shaun of the Dead, iRobot, as well as the aforementioned flick.

I must say that, although slightly dry here and there, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind can really hit the spot if in the appropriate mood. The finale song, Everybody's Gotta Learn Sometimes (redone by Beck), was just PERFECT at finishing that movie off. I actually found myself watching the credits roll just to hear the whole song. Good stuff.

Anyway, the point is: Check Out My Website
I still have a decent amount of work to do here, but for now, its at least up and running.

Bacon for Brunch

While traveling to Philadelphia today on the Pennsylvania Turnpike, I safely zipped by 6 cops. Thanks to good ol' cruise control I was able to maintain a just-less-than-tempting 72 mph speed, keeping me out of reach of any purposeless ticketing.
I've been back and forth all day as to whether I should be pissed that there were 6 cops (actually, there were 5 regular state cops and one undercover, maroon-colored vehicle) out on the turnpike between the hours of 10am and 2pm.
On the one hand, the idea that I had to avoid getting pegged with a $100+ fine just for cruising at a reasonable speed on a 3 lane superhighway is enough to get on my nerves. Then again, it makes me feel better knowing that I've never seen so much bacon during my regular turnpike-traveling time.
So, as long as they're willing to stick to their side of the deal and make certain to work the hardest on humpday during ciesta, I think I'll let it slide.

25 cent slots

Guess who I saw playing the 25 cent slots at the MGM Grand:

Michael Buble (Boob lay [TF...DPTF])

The Denoviches Are Weird

Denoviches Being Weird
Originally uploaded by Geis.

But so are Heather and I ( aka. the Soon-To-Be-Geislers; aka the 36 Mafia ).

We took a quick trip this past Sunday up to Deer Lake. It was pretty good times. The major benefits were being able to get outside and enjoy some nature. Unfortunately, the afternoon seemed more like the drab winter days which I keep hoping are over with. Considering the dullness of the sun and the chilliness of the temperature, both Mark and I were able to get some decent shots.

Cingular 8125

Cingular 8125
Originally uploaded by Geis.

I recently decided that my Sony Ericsson T637 just wasn't cutting it. I've been looking around for awhile at a number of "smarter" phones to handle my desire for internet access on-the-road.
Furthermore, I've been itching for a PDA to keep track of my meetings and email, while allowing me to browse the internet over WIFI.

Enter the Cingular 8125. Although not necessarily the best thing since sliced bread, it has definitely taken care of both of my prerequisites so far. The use of WIFI is perfect for checking my POP3 gmail account when at home on my couch or at work during a meeting, and the ability to dial in to Cingular for a quick price check while perusing through Best Buy has been crazy delicious.
Being the absented-minded, forgetful, internet-dependent nerd that I am, I find the soothing presence of internet access stashed in my pants to be blissful.

Enough about that. Let's take a tour around the extremeties of the Cingular 8125.



The top is relatively boring. Power button and a Mini-SD slot.



The right side of the phone, from top to bottom, contains a soft key for voice dialing; the stereo-right speaker; an infrared port; a reset button which I believe resets the soft keys; and the camera button.



The bottom of the phone, from right to left, contains the stylis pen inside its holder; a USB charging/syncing port; and the headset jack for hands-free or simply listening to mp3 and movies.

The syncing process is relatively painless with the provided Microsoft ActiveSync software.



The left side of the phone, from right to left, contains the stereo-left speaker; the volume adjuster; and the WIFI/Bluetooth soft key which basically just allows you to access appropriate menu for turning on or off WIFI and Bluetooth.



The camera is 1.3 Megapixels and is accompanied by the typical mirror and the soon-to-be-typical "flash" which is really just a bright light that gets brighter when a picture is taken. Its more of a flashlight than a flash though.



Probably the coolest physical feature of the Cingular 8125 is the pull out full-QWERTY keyboard with plenty of thumb room. When the keyboard is slid out to the left of the phone, the screen rotates 90 degrees to allow for a widescreen view. I apologize for the face that has been left on the screen in this photo. The one down side to using the phone is that the screen you then plan to use to browse your email is smeared with face-grime.

Other than the physical features, there's not too much more to talk about. The Cingular 8125 runs Windows Mobile CE version 5.0 and has a typical interface to most CE devices. The audio through the external speakers is relatively impressive. The dual speakers allow for some stereo quality, although since they face directly outward from the phone, its likely that you will receive a stronger left or right signal than a fully stereo signal.

Anyway, thats all I've got for now. I may post more later if I discover some amazing feature I have forgotten about.

Pyramat PM220

Pyramat PM220
Originally uploaded by Geis.

Finally got it. Dj informed me that they had this down at the Target in West Mifflin. I was able to convince Heather to take a late Sunday trip over there and pick one up.

Appraisal: so far, so good; Its comfortable and keeps you in a good position for your back, as well as providing some insane bass.

Downtown

downtown
Originally uploaded by Geis.

On my return from the unsuccessful trip to Target in order to get one of these: PM 220

geis is a blogger, I guess

Looks like I'll be starting to blog. We'll see how it goes. At the very least, the hookups with Flickr should be interesting...