It’s the beginning of March and we get snow in Texas. I’d say I’m surprised, but you really can’t ever predict the weather here.

Now on with the usual rigamaroll:

Good candidates on both sides
I’ve been known to lean left in some elections, and lean right in others.. it all depends on the candidate. I can tell you now that this election is going to be a tough one for me to decide, because there are 2 candidates on each side that I’m really pulling for. For the Democrats we have Barack Obama (my hopeful front runner) and Denis Kucinich (my maybe possibly no-shot-in-hell left candidate), and for the Republicans John McCain (the republican who I’ve always admired the most), and Ron Paul (finally a traditional conservative who isn’t hell bent on destroying our liberties at every turn). I’ve been watching each primary / caucus religiously, with the live statistics and punditry comment.. what political geek wouldn’t be in heaven? The thing that makes me laugh the most is watching the media collectively scramble to predict winners (days/weeks ahead of time) then get it all wrong and quickly find who to point the finger at, as if it wasn’t their own self-indulgent curiosity that sparked the insanity to begin with. To be fair, not just the media’s pollsters have been dead wrong, but pollsters working for the candidates themselves seem to be in the wrong at the same time. In general, I think this is just a great thing for this election.. unusable poll results will mean we probably have the best chance of an un-influenced, high-participation vote this time around. I’m looking forward to an insanely active campaigning year. Let’s let the candidates and the issues speak for themselves for once..

A new found respect for General Motors
As it’s my geeky habit to do, I’m starting to feel the car upgrade itch (had my current car just a notch over 4 years). Since Paige and I are building a new house w/ more space that’s close to a lake, and we’ll be having munchkins running around eventually.. I’ve set my sights on a mode of transportation that is more flexible. Originally I thought I might go with the new 4-door Jeep Wrangler (and I still think that thing is damn sexy). After some battle with my conscious, I’ve decided I won’t be able to buy ANY larger vehicle (Truck, SUV, CUV, whatevs) that doesn’t have at least some alternative energy source attached to it. So naturally, being the geek that I am, I started searching the landscape to see what the current offerings are, where the automakers are going, and where the promising technology lies. My basic conclusion is that E85 fuels (up to 85% ethanol, 15% gas) seem to be the most promising in the near-to-mid term. FFV (flexible fuel vehicles: cars that can take any combination of Gas and Ethanol) allow us to start using renewable energy that is lower on carbon foot print, more effecient in energy spent vs energy gained, and is beneficial to our domestic economy, all while reusing current infrastructure. And that’s all just based on the current batch of “ineffecient” corn-based ethanol. There are already companies like Coskata who are revolutionizing biofuel with forms of cellulosic ethanol that are 6-7 times as effecient as corn-based ethanol, and all we need to do to make current FFVs support this is change the mixture! So I’ve set my eyes on the current supporters of E85 (GM, Ford, Nissan) as the bearer of our energy independent future, as they are taking on not only alternative fuel sources, but they are also embracing hybrid and battery technologies that further supplement and decentralize our energy concerns. That Chevy Tahoe Hybrid with E85 engine never sounded so sexy.

Today I am honoring the woman who gave birth to the person I hold dearest in this world. It has been 10 years to this day since her passing, and if I could meet her today, I would hug her and tthank her for bringing Paige into my life. Without this woman, I never would have understood the true meanings of devotion, love, or the fulfillment that comes with a long-term commitment and bond.

Rest in Peace Mom.

• Location not too far from Paige’s work (Coppell/Lewisville area)
• A sizable lot (>= 1/2 acre)
• A good size home with lots of features to grow into with a few kids down the road (and to serve my technology lust).
• New construction under $100/sq. foot
• “Country setting” .. big lots, quiet area, not a lot of traffic
• No HOA if possible

I had originally thought we’d end up along the northern outskirts of the DFW metroplex, which would’ve made it impossible for Paige (or me) to have any kind of possible commute. We started looking at towns like Celina, Prosper, Parker, and other rural areas. We ended up finding a small Dallas-based builder called Sumeer Homes in Celina that had good quality construction at a stellar price-point. Unfortunately, Celina was too far for us, so we put our search on hiatus for a little while. I eventually came back to Sumeer’s new construction map, and saw an image next to Lake Lewisville in a small lake-town called Shady Shores that was only 10 miles from Lewisville. To our luck, the neighborhood fit the bill on pretty much every single point. The lots were 1/2 acre, no HOAs were involved, Sumeer was the builder, and it was within a short driving distance to work / shopping / play.

After a rigorous process of looking through floorplans that Sumeer has built, and figuring out the price point we can afford, we made an offer for a floorplan with some small customizations and a good amount of upgrades. Our offer was accepted late last week, and we are now officially in the process of building our new house. I’m hoping to keep an active photoblog over at flickr of the entire build process.. this will be a very fun process indeed. In the coming 6-7 months, we are attempting to sell our current house as soon as possible, saving, and doing all the leg work for getting the house built.

For now, you can see the beginning of the Shady Shores photo album that has a drawing of the house and floorplan here:
http://flickr.com/photos/arcaner/sets/72157601420015316/

jbug talk #2
i got a chance to show off our new packaging tools, the new jbossas adapter, and our visual designer / jsf kickstart project at the dfw jbug right before my birthday, and the presentation went really well. i tackled the demo from 2 angles: completely custom project structure vs. rigid / wizard generated project structure. both have their advantages and disadvantages, and i showed our wealth of flexibility by seemlesly supporting both methodologies. the key to the preso was “RAD for people who don’t like RAD”.

feliz cumpleanos a mi
the 15th was my birthday, and i couldn’tve expected a better 25th. paige gifted me with my best gifts yet: a set of fyreballs, and a set of flaming torches. needless to say you will see a flurry of new videos and images of me juggling things that are on fire :). to add to the fun, we had a small get together over at fox and hound where we had some tasty chimay red, played some pool, and headed over to the studio movie grill to eat some grub while we watched the new harry potter flick. after the movie, i did a small fyreball presentation that we should have available on video Real Soon Now(TM).

other miscellany
our house is now officially on the MLS.. though the showings are moving a little slowly. we’ll probably have to lower the price a little bit to attract more people, but i’m keeping my thoughts positive on the subject. paige and i are also eyeing a nice lot / custom builder in a small lake-town called shady shores, and we’re hoping to get a good deal there. in other news, i’ve created a facebook profile, because facebook’s interface is about 10 million times better than myspace.. feel free to add me: http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=727671517.

background info
paige and i have been working with larry mowatt, a great/honest/ex-engineer realtor based here in dallas, to get our house sold and start looking for a new house. yesterday afternoon larry came over to give us a presentation and to sign some paperwork for putting our house on the market. rob is also in town on business for some tech meetings / side-by-side work for the next build of jboss tools. the night before rob came into town, i discovered that rx bandits were coming to oklahoma city (a mere 3 hour drive from dallas — a pittance for a true fan!). so the plan was for rob and i to leave for okie town once the realtor meeting was over.

fiberglass isn’t resilient
the meeting with our realtor was running a bit later than we had expected, and rob and i had to rush out to make to OKC in time to see the venerable bandits. as i was reversing the old corolla out the back of our garage, i failed to glance in the rear-view mirror, and felt a large “bump”. sure enough, as soon as i look out the mirror, i see larry’s honda pilot parked slight over the halfway mark in our driveway, and i had perfectly nicked the front bumper. i returned into the house sheepishly where i had to explain to my wife and larry the dumbass mistake i made.. luckily larry is a first class gentleman. took it all in stride and was very understanding and even joking/smiling about it. after i called and filed the claim with the insurance company, it was time to (safely) rush like hell to get to OKC. at this point, it was 6:30PM and the concert started at 8PM.

apocalypse please
to blow some steam, we put on tiger and the duke as long as we could stand, rolled down the windows and did some fun screaming on our way out of dallas. the poor peaceful commuters of denton county might think they are harboring a pair of white-boy psychotics, and they probably wouldn’t be wrong. once we had all the stress out of our system, we did some chatting and listening to some more music, and we made it to the venue a little after 9PM, just as rxb was tuning up and prepping for their show. as usual, rxb puts on the most energetic and amazing show ever.. 5 hours of driving time for 1 hour of live rxb is a steal in my book.
 

driving home
we got out of the concert around 11:30PM and stopped by at a b-dub’s for some grub before taking the 2 1/2 hour plunge. rob’s “1 job” for this trip was to make sure that i stayed awake and alert during the ride home. thankfully rob performed his task admirably, as we blasted fast-paced punk and sang along with the windows down the whole way home. we got back into dallas around 2:30AM, and it was time to call it a night.

http://rickrockson.blogspot.com/2007/04/my-15-minutes-of-fame.html

Just a quick rundown of the tech specs to wet the appetite:

• 5 megapixel camera
• HSDPA, WiFi, EDGE, Bluetooth
• Integrated GPS
• 2.6″ 240×320 265k colors
• Slider form factor
• Series 60 v3 Feature Pack 1 (A2DP, major droolage)