My wife and I attended several Christmas parties this year where we were asked to bring a gag gift or something you have around the house.  For one party, I decided to run to the dollar store and find something to give as a gift.  I ended up putting together a holiday party survival kit.  We placed each item in a box layered in tissue with a letter on top for the person who received the gift to read and reveal each item in turn.

The letter we included follows:

Happy Merry Christmas to our dearest yuletide friend –

What you have in front of you is a holiday party recovery kit. Please be so kind to read this note aloud to those within earshot and hold each item from the bag high in the air so that we can all share your gift with you. And Merry Christmas.

Now, this is a recovery kit. You’ll likely be utilizing these wonderful items on the morning after a glorious celebration. If you managed to make it home with a clear mind and conscience, pour yourself a cup of warm coffee and welcome the morning like the champion you are…

Remember those appetizers you couldn’t stop eating? Was there a tray of food you didn’t sample? Maybe you should have paced yourself a little or shown some restraint. Well, never fear, your stomach will eventually stop that churning. For temporary relief, we’ve included for you some Pepto – chewable pink bismuth.

Did you stick to soda? Maybe a couple glasses of wine? Did you, possibly, as some have been known to do, partake of a little too much holiday Yule? The morning after could be a looooooooooong one. Over-consumption can lead to dehydration which causes joint pain, especially in the extremities, and throbbing, pounding head-aches. Grab the bottle of water, take two Excedrin and climb back in bed; try to get some rest. You abused your system and it’s getting revenge.

Those caustic, mood-altering beverages can encourage even the most reserved individual to say and do some things he or she would never do in a normal state of mind. What exactly did you say last night? What exactly did you do? Perhaps it’s time to lay low for a bit. We’ve included a disguise – if you must leave the house, perhaps you should go incognito.

Finally, how’d your date go? How much fun did you have? Did you have THAT much fun? Did you let her or him take advantage of your impaired state? Well, we don’t need any little surprises in 9 months. Better to find out now and start picking out nursery furniture. Included is a home pregnancy test for you or your mate that’s guaranteed to be at least 50% accurate.

Well – hope you had fun. Maybe next year you’ll have a little less fun. We can hope.

I got home from work a couple days ago and my laptop wouldn't boot.  I had an RFP to work on and wanted to play some Travian and all kinds of things - all related to my laptop.  A friend of mine saw my note on Facebook that I was having bad luck with computers lately and, probably jokingly, asked "What would you have done if you were born during a time there were no computers?"

I started to think about that and tried to decide what I would do if I was born at a time before personal computers and, perhaps, before any computers.

I wanted to be an architect before I got to high school.  I went to a summer camp in middle school where we had two tracks to select.  I chose architecture and aerodynamics (I took architecture an aerodynamics - there's a good chance that Mom picked for me...).  I loved the architecture part of the camp and we went out and toured some unique buildings but I learned then and in a course in college that there was a lot of art to architecture and, while I'm creative, there's not much designer in me.  I'm almost fully functional and not too much aesthetic.

I went to A&M to study nuclear engineering.  I loved drafting and mechanical design but I only had patience for one model revision.  If I was going to enjoy what I did, it was going to be CAD - I couldn't do manual drawings.

I don't think I have the creativity for architecture...  I'd probably have started out doing some kind of  drafting or civil or mechanical engineering because when you start a design or model, it's a lot of fun - just like starting out solving a problem with code.  If I didn't know any better, I may have even gotten accustomed to revision after manual revision of designs and models.

Maybe I'm being uncreative.  Maybe I would have ended up as  a lobbyist or something.  Maybe a lawyer.  Maybe a studio backup singer!

So - most of the people who would read this are heavily involved in computers, development, social computing, product design...  If there were no computers, what would you be doing to earn a living?

Why not today? Why not right now? I woke up this morning and checked a few things using my brand spankin' new Dell e6500... My CPU spun up to 100% which it had done several times in the past thanks to some of the Dell-installed utils like SMManager.exe.

I looked around for the culprit but couldn't find anything fishy. "I'll do the safe shutdown and reboot - everything will be fine," or so I thought. When the box finally got through closing the open apps, finished shutting down and started going through the restart sequence, the thing blue screened right when I'd expect the Vista logo to show up. I rebooted a couple times, ran some diagnostics, ran some more diagnostics, ran the really hard-core ones that take hours...

So, while my diagnostics were running, why not play a little NCAA'09 - nothing soothes like pounding some t-sips and listening to that nationally famous Fightin' Texas Aggie band play Noble Men of Kyle with every touchdown (custom stadium sounds = teh coolness)... except that a few minutes into my game, the system shutdown (black screen). "Ah man!" I rebooted the XBOX, restarted my game and a few minutes later, black screen... I called 1-800-4My-XBOX - their systems are down right now so I can't open a ticket but the guy is pretty sure I'm going to have to send it back. Great.

Got a haircut, had a shower...

I went back to my laptop - diagnostics all finished - nothing is wrong with the laptop according to the diagnostics. There's no temp meter I can find in the BIOS but I'm sure now that the CPU is overheating - I've let the laptop cool - we'll see later. Go back to the XBOX - it's been a few hours since I played it last. Power on - the mythical Red Ring of Death... Well, at least I know what the problem is. My XBOX got the red-ring-worm... My second one... Thank you MS for the three-year-warrantee... Starting to wonder how many times I'll get to use it.

Laptop status? Man, I don't care anymore. I'm going out.

Thanks to an acquaintance I follow on Twitter, I learned about an addictive little site called Twitter Grader.  I'm currently an 84 but I have a feeling I'll be spending more time marketing my personal brand to get my following and my score up!

I'm out checking out some of my followers now...  Ugh!  I'm an adict!

We're launching a new concept in Community Server 2008 called embedded forums (currently dogfooding). What you see right here is how this embedded forum works. Check out the post and create a comment - the comment will be posted to a test forum on CommunityServer.com....(read more)

I met Coach Billick in New York this week at the Sports Marketing 2.0 Conference (sponsored by Telligent). At the post-conference reception, I was able to tell the coach that I enjoyed his talk and he stood and talked with me and a couple other Telligenti (Jason and Burt) for 5 or 10 minutes. He's really approachable and it was great to meet him.

By the way, I think Coach Billick is about 8 feet tall. His college playing height in 1976 is listed at 6'4"... I think inches were bigger in the 70's. This man is HUGE.

"If you kill the joe, make some mo!" This is Marcus Glover, the creator and man behind Reebok's Terry Tate, the office linebacker.

Marcus told me that he just finished doing some new stuff with Terry Tate and it was launched today!

www.returnofterrytate.com/

This is a test post from , a fancy photo sharing thing.

I'm not sure how I was able to launch Windows Live Writer to write this post since Vista doesn't know what to do with an EXE but I guess that's ok...  It's a mystery.

Now we do the reboot dance...

I'm the son of Linda Whitehouse.  My Dad Floyd and my sisters Stephanie and Heather are here.  My other sister, Anne, is resting somewhere in south Florida - she just had a baby this weekend - Linda's 8th grand-baby.  I think she may hit double digits eventually. 

We're all here to celebrate Linda's retirement from the world of corporate accounting - I guess it's really just retirement from this fine company.  She'll be keeping plenty busy with the Whitehouse Cattle Company but I think the returns might be slightly less complex for the farm than for oil and gas holdings and the variety of related companies - all the things she's been working on for the last 21ish years.

I have a lot of memories of this company.  I spent quite a few days during busy season sitting in the Bass offices entertaining myself on an old Tandy computer, playing DOS games.  Those days probably played some part to making me the computer geek that I am - so thank you. 

I learned that the little black button under the desk shouldn't be pressed unless you want armed visitors to come and have an embarrassing little chat with you.  I got to know some of you at office parties at my house in Weatherford and at company picnics where we had gunslingers and horse-back rides and live music and barbecue.

When I got married, I brought my wife Dawn up to meet you all.  She had to meet the extended family.  When we found out that we were having triplets, the people at this company were excited for us and when our babies were born 9 weeks early and placed in the NICU, you encouraged us, cared for us and prayed for us.  I know that if I have warm memories as I look back on the time my mom has spent with this company she must remember her time here with great fondness and great pride.

It is certain that she has left an indelible mark on this company.  She's always had a knack for seeing what needed to be done and set herself to the task of making sure things got taken care of.  She's always believed in getting her hands dirty.  She's added rooms onto our houses, replaced fixtures, painted, laid tile...  Her daddy was a carpenter; a roofer.  I guess it's always been part of her personality to have a vision, set a plan of action and work to complete the process.

I know that she has a vision for what lies ahead.  Linda is not retiring to the farm to rest and watch the cows graze - she's embarking on her next adventure.  She has in front of her a blank canvas and a picture is starting to take shape.  She'll spend her time putting paint to canvas.  She'll go camping and hiking and site-seeing with her husband and best friend.  She'll attend most of the soccer games her grandsons play in and she'll attend more princess parties than she can count (and she's an accountant so you know that's a lot of princess parties).  She'll plant new gardens and may eventually cover the entire farm in sandstone pathways.

Figuratively, she'll spend time putting paint to canvas and literally she'll be continuing to explore her artistic side.  Last month, my wife had a friend, Renee, over to our house from Boston who found one of Mom's paintings hung prominently in our living room and said, "only in Texas would you find someone with a painting of an oil rig in their home."  And just like you see the work of her hand as you walk through my house and see the amazing paintings hung on my walls, and as you meet her children and grandchildren and see the work of her hand in the molding of our lives and our personalities and our work ethic and our creativity, I know that, for years to come, you will walk around the halls at Bass and see her hand in the makings of organization, processes and quality.

Mom, congratulations on everything you have accomplished here.  You leave a legacy, a master work.  You now move your focus away from the department and away from the company and onto things that of personal significance.  We look forward to hearing about and seeing what you do next - whatever you decide to focus on, we know it will be remarkable.

I love you - congratulations!

I got a new phone recently (January?) - my 3rd or 4th Pocket PC...  Anyway - when asked to register my OS, I went ahead and went through the process...

At least they'll let me know...

I clicked on an ad about a GTAIV sweepstakes.  Well, turns out the sweepstakes entry period has expired but I thought the prize information was a little odd...

 

On or about April 23, lucky winners will be chosen from all entries to receive the following prizes:

Four Grand Prizes: Four winners will score a four-day/three-night trip for two to New York City to attend the Xbox LIVE Gold Party. Trip includes round trip coach air transportation for winner and a guest from a major U.S. commercial airport nearest winner's home, three (3) nights standard double occupancy hotel accommodations (one room, two people), ground transportation in New York to and from the airport and hotel, and $200 cash, awarded as a check from the Sweepstakes Administrator

1.       One Hundred First Prizes: Custom Xbox 360 Elite console
2.       Two Thousand Second Prizes: A Rockstar baseball bat
3.       Five Thousand Third Prizes: 500 Microsoft Points
4.       Three Thousand Fourth Prizes: 1000 Microsoft Points
5.       Two Thousand Fifth Prizes: 1600 Microsoft Points
6.       Five Thousand Sixth Prizes: One-month Xbox LIVE Gold subscription
7.       Three Thousand Seventh Prizes: Three-month Xbox LIVE Gold subscription
8.       Two Thousand Eighth Prizes: One-year Xbox LIVE Gold subscription

So, first think I saw was the baseball bat - sweeeeeet.  The console would be awesome (can't have enough 360 consoles). 

The wheels kind of shoot off around 3, 4, 5 and then 6, 7 and 8...  Aren't those groupings kind of backwards?  Why is 5k 1month gold subscriptions the sixth prize and 2k 1 year subscriptions the eight prize?  Shouldn't both groups be in the other order?  How much you want to bet MS legal had to get involved and there's actually some reason to put those in backwards order? 

I don't know - I wish I saw this before the 14th so I could enter.  I'd probably win but miss the notice and have the prize pass on to another winner *cough*SXSW*phizzpop*GH3*cough*...

Tonight I've been thinking about that face Deryl gives me when I try to explain that it's OK for me to say some feature request is "easy".  It's that look that says, "silly PM, you're dangerous and you should be destroyed."

First off, I'm no PM (never really was <rimshot />).  I am, however, probably dangerous but that's why I'm trying to redefine Easy and Hard.   They sound like opinion words - you would think you could convince someone that some problem has an easy solution and some other problem's solution is hard. 

I theorize that "easy" and "hard" are statements of fact.  Here's how:

An easy problem is one that's been solved before by someone who is accessible to consult on solving the problem again.  A hard problem is one that hasn't been solved before by anyone who can be consulted with.   Moderate problems fall somewhere in the middle.  Where else?

An easy problem may have a solution that requires months of effort to implement.  This is something the feature requester typically doesn't understand.  They see the feature implemented right over there.  They just want the same thing.  That's ok - it's an easy problem but it's going to take months to make it happen.

Likewise, a hard problem may have a solution that requires minimal time to implement.  The New York Times Sunday Cross Word is a hard problem but give me a week and I'll "implement" the solution (I'll get the answer from the key in the new paper)...

So, within a closed set of consultants, it's possible to ascertain to 100% certainty that a proposed problem has an easy or hard solution (assuming there's no debate on the congruence of the two problems - give me a little wiggle-room here).

So, using my definitions, there's no need to go around putting down rabid PMs (at least not for saying something's easy)... 

It's tax time!  I know you're about as excited about it as I am but it's can be a little better...  If you do your own taxes, you may use TurboTax online which is a great, easy tool to get your taxes done even if they're a little complex (I itemize my deductions, have 4 kids, sold stock...).

Every year, the first thing I do when going to start on my taxes is hit google for "turbo tax discount" - this year I found a 25% discount on filing my taxes through Fidelity.  I think I've found up to 45% in years past but I'm happy with 25%.  If you're going to use TurboTax this year, use this link to get started through fidelity's website: http://personal.fidelity.com/planning/tax/do_your_taxes.shtml.cvsr