Charlie’s Haus

Day 2 at MMS was awesome.  A little backlog to day 1 opening party, it was crazy.  Everyone was all about getting free swag from the vendors and getting food/drink.  It was pretty fun.  I managed to snag myself a myitforum.com button for the party tonight. 

Today I learned a lot of cool things.  I mostly attended sessions on SCCM (System Center Configuration Manager….aka SMS).  I somehow managed to be in Wally Mead’s classes all day long.  He is a good guy and very knowledgeable.  I got a good idea of stuff I will be implementing once I do the upgrade at work. 

I also saw a demonstration on the new System Center Virtual Machine Manager.  VERY cool.  You can manage both hyper-v and vmware servers from it.  They really have a good thing going.  You can provision new servers automatically if it detects a bottleneck, move servers from vmware to hyper-v with a few clicks, etc.  I cant wait to see the finished product.

They also announced a cross platform management pack for Operations Manager.  Now operations manager can get alerts from linux, unix, solaris and a few others.  It can also fix problems on those systems.  Like I said, they really are getting their stuff together!

Tomorrow is more fun sessions with lots to learn.  I have met a lot of cool people during the day, but nobody to hang out with at night (lots of people have their spouses here).  So I feel a little lame at night with nothing to do.  Tomorrow Im thinking of going out at night and taking some pics on the strip.  Gotta put the camera to use!

Last week, our friend Tim was in the Budweiser regional finals RPS (rock, paper, scissors) contest.  We had a good showing of people to cheer him on, and he had an excellent showing.  Unfortunately, he did not win.  He took second place though.  If the winner cant make it to Las Vegas for the finals, he gets to go.  Pretty funny.  I have some pictures of the breathtaking action that I will post later.

I got a lot of work done on the boat motor.  The power-head is back on, and its all mounted.  I now just have to put the trim unit back on and the lower unit.  Sunday hopefully I can finish that, and then take it out someday next week just to run her. 

Saturday Mandi and I went to the new Gander Mountain on the north side of Madison.  Its really big and its really nice.  The only bad thing is its kind of far away…no running for a quick item or two.

I am currently in Las Vegas at the Microsoft Management Summit (MMS).  This morning I registered and got my Swag Bag.  Its a pretty nice laptop backpack and a few other trinkets.  Today is a pretty slow day and my first hands on lab is at 10:30am.  Too bad I had to force myself to sleep until 6:30am.  My body hasn’t gotten used to the time change yet.

Most people would think Vegas is a great place to have a conference, but the reality is that I’m not much of a gambler, and when I came here a few years ago with my Mom and Sister I did everything I wanted just about.  We didn’t have time to see the Shark Reef at the Mandalay Bay, so I am going to do that on Friday after the conference closes.  I really wanted to see the Neon Sign Graveyard, but its closed except if you make reservations because they are adding on.  The 1 time they have for reservations is right in the middle of the day and I cant go.  Oh well.  So Im trying to find some things to do, if anyone has any advice, please feel free to let me know.  Im looking for low cost or free things.  The only other thing I want to look into is going to the new Bass Pro shops that is out here.  I talked to the lady at the front desk and she said its awesome, but its kind of far away.  In other words, unless I can find a bus that makes it out there, it will be a no go.

I was going to post pictures of my nice suite at the Venetian, but I forgot any method to transfer pictures from either camera to the PC.  Boo.  Maybe I can find someone to help me out.  Nice room though.  3 flat screens in it, 1 by the bed, 1 in the sitting room, and 1 in the bathroom (but not in a place you can watch it on the can…doh!).  Fun times.  Oh and I got a surprise last night.  9pm I here someone coming in the door.  Im like wtf.  I get up to find room service coming in.  It was my turndown service!  So I got my yummy chocolates and ice.  Now thats service!

Well unfortunately there was no celebrity jeopardy taped on Friday, only the real college edition.  Alex Trebek was an awesome guy.  He walked around the crowd and answered questions, and he was actually very funny.  It was pretty fun and Im glad I got the chance to go.  Thanks to Lisa for aquiring the tixs!

This week I have been mostly working on my boat.  Im in the process of converting my 25″ shaft 150hp evinrude into a 20″ shaft.  I purchased the midsection last year and never got around to it.  Earlier this week I tried to aquire the last two things I needed, a driveshaft and shiftshaft, and found out that they are expensive!  For an extra $100 I ended up just buying an entire lower unit.  It actually ended up being cheaper because it comes with a new water pump which I would have had to buy anyways, not to mention all the time I would have spent ripping mine apart.  So I got the powerhead off the old engine, and this morning finished up the paint on the new midsection.  This weekend I will be putting the new midsection on and putting the powerhead back on….fun stuff.  Hopefully early next week my lower unit will come so I can get it all ready for the opener.  I was going to buy my new sidescan fishfinder this year, but I think I will wait an extra year.  Two reasons, 1 is I dont have enough bass pro points to buy it outright yet, and 2 is I want an onboard battery charger.  I figure Ill pick up the charger this year, then get the fishfinder next year.  There may be a new model or sale on it by then.

Tuesday night I had dinner with my Mom, Sister, James and Haiden and the Great Dane in Fitchburg.  I recommended the Dane Bacon Brat burger on the pretzel roll (I get it everytime) and everyone ended up getting it!  It was so good.  Afterwords we had some delicious Cold Stone….mmmmmm!!!!!!!  It was good to see everyone.

This weekend we are having dinner with Mandi’s Parents and brother in Janesville.  I cant remember the name of the place, but Mandi was reading me some of the menu and it sounds like a pretty swank place!  Should be delicious.

Tonight after work we are meeting some friends at Samba Brazillian Steakhouse.  Its the kind of place where its all you can eat meat, and they come to your table and chop some off of a big piece and give it to you.  My Mom said she ate at a place similar and it was awesome.  Im still not sure if I am going to do the meat option or just stay with the salad bar…probably depends on what everyone else does (I dont want to be the only one enjoying the delicious meat!). 

Other than that, not too much is new.  Today I started working on our family tree.  There is this cool site that is free.  It is http://www.geni.com  Im adding my family, and will eventually email all of them so they can help and expand it.  I thought it would be nice to see how far we can get it back.  The site is pretty slick for being free.  So any family reading this…expect an email from them, or if you dont get one and want to see everything, let me know (I may not have your email).

So in parting, I leave you with the new “Charlie the Unicorn” video:

In a few hours I will be heading down to the Kohl Center to watch Jeopardy with Lisa.  (Thats what your mom said last night Trebek!)  It sounds like a lot of fun.  In case you have no clue about the mom joke or the title of this post, SNL did “Celebrity Jeopardy” a few times with Will Ferrel as the host, and “Sean Connery” was one of the contestants.  The contestants were always in the negative and were dumb as a box of rocks.  Its a classic series of skits.  For those who havent seen it…below is one of my favorites!

I recently got caught up in Battlestar Galactica.  In the last couple of weeks I watched the first 3 seasons and the miniseries and razor.  It is a phenominal show.  Too bad its in its 4th and final season right now.  Tonight is a new episode, last week was to be continued so I cant wait to watch that.  The acting is excellent and you really feel for the people and the decisions they have to make.  Its good stuff.

This weekend is working on the boat weekend.  I will be taking the engine off and dismantling it so I can put on some new parts I have for it.  Hopefully it will help with some of the problems I have had with it.  Eventually I will be redo’ing the entire trailer too.  It looks pretty good for being 21 years old, but I am going to freshen it up with some new paint.

OK, I didn’t catch it for you, but Lisa did catch me one for my birthday cake!  Lisa was awesome and got Mandi and I each our own birthday cakes on Saturday night.  Mine was almond flavored, Mandi’s was chocolate.  The almond was the clear winner too.  It was delic!  It was a good time and I’m glad that everyone came.  Its been awhile since we have seen many of them (including the O-town duo).  I got a very special treat too.  Mandi bought me a shot of whiskey I have been dying to try for a few years.  Old Midletons.  Its pretty pricey ($25 a shot), but I can definitely see why.  It was silky smooth.  I could drink that forever.

Sunday I wanted to watch the Badger hockey game, so we decided to head down to Kurts on Main (the local bar).  We were shocked to find it was closed.  But as we pulled out of the parking lot, Sheltons across the street (a bar/restaurant) was open!  And we could see the game on through the window!  So we went and had a few beers with the townies, and watched the Badgers lose =(  They looked awesome for the first two periods.  There is always next year.

Last night we went to Bluephies for Mandi’s birthday with my Mom. They had excellent food there. I found a new favorite dish (and I’m finding new ones all the time lately). I had the shrimp jambalaya quesadilla. It was phenomenal. The flavors were spot on and I couldn’t stop eating it. I wish I had some right now it was that good.

I did a bunch of behind the scene things with my site last week.  One thing I added was just for Lisa.  On the right side there is a subscribe button.  If you toss your email in there and hit the button, you will be signed up to get an email whenever I add a new post to my site.  I also added a “what I’m listening to” area on the right.  It shows what song I am listening to at that moment while I am at work….I know…everyone was dying to see that!

Last but certainly not least, here is some entertainment for the day:
Lions vs Midgets news article

Fun video: Things but very slowly. Taken from a european tv show called brainiacs.