On the exercise front, did a bit of cardio and a few reps of various situps, pushups, etc. I’m way, way, way too out of shape for that stuff.

Tomorrow, I’m adding Wii Sports to my rotation, hopefully thats going to make it possible to do something other than jogging through inertia

Calorie wise, no idea what I ate – I know I burned about 400 in jogging and a few more in other work and walking around town today.

Let’s see what I get out of the Wii.

Problem: I’m not sleeping well. Last night I was up reading till 1AM. Then my first born woke me up at 1:30 AM with a dead mail server. Then my second born woke me up at 3 AM – it took about 30 minutes for him to go to sleep. Then my wife proceeded to wake me up at 6:00 AM, 7:00 AM and eventually the office at 9 AM.

Just gotta push through it and look forward to Wii today. I’ve committed to giving this at least 2 months before trying something else / more radical. Just gotta get into the swing of things.

Damn you nature!

From the mailbag (which due to the overload of everything I participate in nowadays with Facebook/Twitter/Newsgroups/Blah I have committed to only checking once a day):

If money can’t be made on infrastructure sales or support, where would you make it if you were me?

Interestingly enough, I spoke about this very thing with my wife yesterday. She’s pretty aware of what I do and how, so I explained my ten year plan to her:

"I’m going to be 30 this year. I intend to work to death over the next 10 years and at that point I’m done. I’m getting a new car and a new wife and I haven’t come up with the rest yet."

Then I put my hand on her tummy and said: "Kick if you’re with me!"

If you deal with reality and face your problems head on you start to find humor in your doom. No sense getting all down about things if they are bad, if you’re depressed how can you find your way out of it. I know what is in my plans but damn if I’m about to spill it here. What I think the reader asked was: "What would you do if you were me?"

If I were in the IT field, running a small business and made most my revenues from the product lines that are rapidly approaching zero (hardware commissions, SOHO tech support, smallbiz technology advising, desktop software support, hardware monitoring… basically everything that is either currently or soon will be done by someone for $0.85 an hour in India or $0.25 in China) I would sacrifice next few months of gravy train sales and pitches for a retraining in development of business solutions software. Actual training on development, not some bootcamp that teaches you how to add webparts to a SharePoint page or another regurgitation of Idiots Guide To ____.

Small businesses are getting, and rightfully expecting, more and more crap for free. And in that process of taking advantage of the lower cost of technology, they still have a huge overhead of monkeys running around like McDonalds employees around a fryer. Even a minimum wage earner is still a $20,000 hit to the payroll, so would you get a sit if your marketing read: "Are you really using the technology you bought? Give us an hour, we’ll save you $20,000"

Now I have an advantage because I already know how to develop software and I know a ton of people – but say you didn’t. Your first goal would be to find out who the regional MicrosoftBS rep is (I think they went away from MicrosoftBS because the name gave it away, I think its now Microsoft Dynamics). Track that person down and in your best reenactment of a cheesy porn movie go to their office and say the following: "I run a successful, profitable company and I want to be the biggest private sector whore for your products in this market."; One thing MicrosoftBS division has been able to do, as the name implies, is get a ton of marketing money for anyone that will promote their solutions. Remember the posts about "Sold you a dream" – MicrosoftBS is that! They have sold the upper management the dream that MicrosoftBS can be the next SAP/Oracle, they just need money. They already sold three Biztalks, with a few billion they might could sell the fourth. Go into the meeting with the same premise – "I AM the fourth Biztalk sale!" Sell that dream, baby!

Now you’ve got the cash, free training, Microsoft contact person.. time to look at what Microsoft Dynamics actually sells. Shit, nothing you can sell to the SMB. Ok, ok, new plan. We figure out how to make the crap these people already bought work better. Ok. I need a minimum wage monkey to function like a pedometer. Just tag one of the office workers and follow them for a week and find out wtf they do. Take notes. Here’s $100 if you try to get them in English. Woop.

Week later you got a $200 portfolio of savings you can produce by tuning their Office apps to move data along so they can process 5,000 widgets a week instead of 800. On the way out spill coke as you leave the office, let the business owner see his staff hanging around cleaning up the floor and dreaming about 5,000 widgets getting done on their own.

Keep on dreaming… all the way to the bank.

No, not the kind of drinking addiction you may think, Bacardi and I are just fine.

Over the last few days I have given up a little drug I had become quite dependant on – caffeine. It’s your usual case of replacing one problem with another. First, I gave up coke for diet coke because I was a fatass. What I didn’t give up is the unusually high consumption of diet coke, probably to the tune of 5-6 cans a day.

Anyhow, I figured I’d kill that habit before it kills me, and frankly, its been pretty ugly. I’ve had a headache-migrane for the past three days. It’s not getting any better either..

After we decided to have kids earlier last year I went through a pretty self-destructive phase. I hate to break out into a full Michael Jackson moment here of missing childhood and all, but I didn’t have the kind of experience most people have when they go to college. I pulled two full time gigs, an engineering degree and a business degree, and a daytrading hobby/lifestyle to boot. So when we decided to grow up, get married, have kids (in a nutshell, past 14 months) I knew I had to grow up, and in that process, try every drink available. Sadly, the alcoholism thing never took and now I have hundreds of dollars of liquor I’m never going to drink (my drunkass friend is always shocked when she comes over and sees full bottles of alcohol)

Anyhoo… I’m going to be 30 this year, I’m also going to be a father, and I’m happy to kick a few of the bad habits. Thank god I’m healthy, not too fat and don’t have a drinking/smoking problem.. and now I’m kicking caffeine. I’m happy, I just wish it didn’t hurt this much.

As you may know, you can order an iPod from the Apple Store with a custom, laser-engraved message. However, not everything gets engraved. Apple has been rejecting some messages for editorial reasons.

The following is a collection of engravings that were actually rejected by Apple, and some that probably should have been. Enjoy!

* 10,000 Stolen Tunes Inside* ~Anonymous
* Not to be used as a suppository.* ~Umbralkin
* I cost more than three hookers.* ~Umbralkin
* When my battery dies, so will you.* ~Umbralkin
* Not responsible for prolonged damage to the ear & brain.* ~Anonymous
* iPod Limited Edition: Retard Compatible. * ~Jimmy4Kim
* Rip, Mix, & Burn Down RIAA Headquarters* ~Anonymous
* Cocaine and razor blade not included.* ~Carl
* Lick My Shiny Metal Ass* ~Anonymous
* karma is a bitch* ~Anonymous
* Bad Mother Fucker* (settled with “Bad Mother Fucka) ~Ben
* Something small & white that Enrique Eglasias Isn’t In.* ~wiredgargoyle
* I play with myself.* ~ leonardom
* Steal this? Will self destruct when used.* ~Anonymous
* iMasturbate five times a day* ~rjones
* F uck Osama.* ~Anonymous
* Screwing The RIAA One Download At A Time* ~Mike P.
* I cost more per ounce than cocaine.* ~dgcole
* This iPod will self destruct in 1 year.* ~dale
* Practice safe sex… Go FU*K yourself!* ~whocares590
* Controls on reverse side, you STUPID FCUK!* ~Christiaan

THE FOLLOWING WERE NOT REJECTED, BUT STILL VERY CLEVER and/or FUNNY

* “One time at band camp.” ~JLOVE
* 49 20 66 75 63 6b 69 6e 67 72 75 6c 65 ~TehSnarf
(translation: I fucking rule in HEX)
* I don’t need good taste, I’ve got selection.~Umbralkin
* Kiss me, I’ve got Irish music.~Umbralkin
* “To all the Chinese children who made my iPod, Thanks!” ~ Plaid Speed
* George Bush Hates Black People ~Kayne West
* fatti i cazzi tuoi (Mind your own f-ing business) ~gatherings
* I Don’t Do Windows ~Anonymous
* Trapped in iPod factory. Please send help ~Pheenix
* Me vs. RIAA: Exhibit A ~ukealii50
* My other iPod is a Millenium Falcon ~commongiga
* Steal At Your Own Risk. Bomb Installed ~Nick A.
* Tom Cruise is a couch humping homo ~Anonymous
* Mic0s0f7 5ux a$$ ~Anonymous
* I may be small and white but at least I’ve got a big disk! ~Jesse S.
* Don’t fsck with me or: $find / -name u | /dev/null
* Scratch your balls, not my metal. ~Anonymous
* Who said Apple sucks? ~Jaeboy
* Save water, drink beer and shower together ~ Jquinn825
* Now you have two little white pocket rockets.
* People will pay more to be entertained than educated. ~DulceDLeche16
* WARNING: Contains Yanni Box Set
* 10,000 reasons to ignore my wife
* If only women’s buttons were this easy to push.
* This iPod makes up for my small hard disk.
* Once you go small and white… ~Anonymous
* 98% Liberace-free
* Harmful If Swallowed
* Dear [insert name], Thanks for the iPod idea. Steve Jobs ~IFC1
* I’m so trendy look at my white headphones! ~sjs
* Size Does Matter ~Anonymous
* Musically Disturbed ~Joe F.
* Weapons of Mass Distraction Inside ~wiredgargoyle
* Contents Under Pressure from RIAA ~wiredgargoyle
* My other handheld is a PocketPC ~vostinar
* CDs are for amish people! ~mustachioman
* Quarter free jukebox ~mustachioman
* FCUK WINDOWS ~lancew
* Why drink and drive, When you can smoke and fly. ~tipx
* I last 8 hrs. You last 2 minutes. Who’s the man?
* My iPod can beat up your honor roll student
* Your mamma uses a walkman.
* “Say hello to my little friend” ~iiikora
* FCUK THE SHUFFLE, WTF I Ordered a 60 Gigger! ~dilpreet64

Katie: Are you blogging it right now? I am talking to you about how you don’t talk to me,and you’re blogging our conversation. You’re not even responding.

Vlad: Hold on, “I am talking to you what?”

So we had a talk about her reading the blogs, she was apparently miffed that I didn’t instantly approve her comment on one of my blogs. Basically, I asked why she read my filth and the response was:

I read to find out what you’re up to, because you don’t happen to tell me you’ll be gone for a few days at a time.

Ooooooof.

This dude went to an AT&T or Apple store, waited in line for a long time hoping for a big profit by flipping it on eBay. He bought the $599 + Tax for 8GB iPhone and likely got stuck with cancelling a phone plan… for the grand total of $710.00 USD to the winning bidder.

So, before he pays the taxes on the sale,  eBay listing fee and the % proceed from the auction, Express Mail shipping with insurance (at least $17) this guy goes in a hole big time, depth depending on the AT&T contract terms.

Whatadumbass.