It was the ninth frame and I was well on my way to a throwing a Dutch 200. I threw a strike, to continue on my alternating strike/spare pattern. This is when I started to get nervous…

Next, the tenth frame. I needed a spare and a strike for what I coined “A Windmill Game”. I joked with my team that if I threw a strike, I’d intentionally cross the foul line and go for the spare (effectively meaning I would have to throw 3 strike balls in a row).

The instant I let go of the ball, I knew I was about to get a strike (which hadn’t happened on that lane for the entire game). It was a perfect release, and sure enough, all 10 pins fell down. I looked down at the foul line as my team groaned… but I couldn’t do it. It came down to not being a good sport to intentionally foul. I watched my windmill game go down the tubes with that one strike.

I finished with another strike and a 9, to finish with an evening-high 219. Woohoo. No windmills for me.

In October, 1998 I started a freelance technical support web site at work. I was running a web server on a spare PC, serving up pages of documents and links that I used in my day-to-day job. It started as nothing more than a few pages of things I used all the time. Within a couple of years, the site exploded into one of the most popular intranet web sites and was being used by technical support engineers, sales teams, and engineering teams worldwide.

At its peak, my server was delivering over 2.5GB of data and handling over 40,000 requests per day (not much by most standards, but quite a lot for a self-run intranet site). Over the years, the site grew to include two regional sub-sites, discussion forums, mailing lists, automatic troubleshooting tools, and more. I started with static HTML pages and ended with a PHP/mySQL-driven portal. In order to keep my artistic license with the site, I maintained it outside of work and in my spare time. This caused periodic grief as snobby execs attempted to shut the site down, but it allowed me to post what I wanted and in a manner that would allow me and my team to do our jobs more effectively.

A few moments ago, I shut down what many employees affectionately knew as Worcester (I named the server after where I went to school). All of the content and interactive scripts had been migrated to other servers over the last 6 months, and today was the day I set out to remove the re-direct and informational page. I was the sole maintainer of the site since its inception 29 quarters ago. After I moved out of my role as a senior technical support engineer in July 2004, I started the process for shutting down the server. I no longer had the time (or motivation) to maintain the site in my free time. Besides, it wasn’t of any benefit to me anymore.

So now I move on to the next big thing…

Leanne and I were at L.L. Bean’s flagship store in Freeport, ME earlier this evening. Gift certificate (a Christmas present) in hand, we wandered the store set out to buy a pair of jeans (for her) and a jacket (for me). By the end of our shopping trip, a few more items had found their way into our tote bag. Funny how that happens.

We spot an open register and head on over. I empty our tote bag onto the counter and the cashier proceeds to ring everything up. Leanne hands the cashier the gift certificate (which would end up covering about 25% of our spree) and then things get interesting.

The cashier asks, “May I have your phone number?”

“No,” says Leanne, rather politely.

“Well, we need your information in order to redeem the gift certificate.”

“Why do you need my phone number?”

“It’s for security reasons. Don’t worry, we won’t sell your number or anything.”

Ummm… for SECURITY REASONS?? WHAT!?! This made no sense. After some back and forth a few more times, the cashier explained that we could just “make up a number” – which struck me as quite odd given the highened security surrounding this transaction. So, Leanne gave her parent’s number, I paid the balance, and we were on our way. I was surprised they didn’t run a background check!

It was bad enough when Radio Shack asked for your phone number when buying simple things like batteries… but to claim it is for security reasons is absolutely absurd. Even if the gift certificate were reported stolen by the original purchaser, how would they track down the person who redeemed it (especially since the cashier suggested we make up a number)??

I hear retina scanners will be installed next week…

Well, the trip down to Hartford was well worth it. We drove down for Whalers Appreciation Night, a special cermony hosted by the Hartford Wolfpack (an AHL team) at the Hartford Civic Center. There were an amazing 12,206 in attendance for the ceremony (the Wolfpack’s average attendance this season is just over 4,600), with the first 12,000 fans getting a great Whalers poster. Ronnie, Kevin, and Ulf were given keys to the city, a framed proclamation from the Governor, and a painting depicting the three players.

Brass Bonanza lived on and was played during some classic Whalers video clips and the full version was played as the new banners were hoisted to the Civic Center rafters. As if that wasn’t great enough, Brass Bonanza was played after each Hartford Wolfpack goal. It didn’t hurt that the Wolfpack went on to score 5 goals last night!