He’s ALIVE!!!

Well, two weeks go by and it seems like just yesterday I was writing a post, explaining that summer class were over… etc.

Anyway, I’m back in Florida, and ready to start this semester. Classes will be starting today and I’m actually looking forward to it. After two weeks of running around Illinois and West Virgina, I am ready to get back to working daily.

As for the vacation itself, it went good. I rode Greyhound Bus for about 26 hours before actually getting there. That experience can be described in one word = HORRIBLE. It wouldn’t have been that bad, except every time I finally fell asleep the bus happened to be stopping. The smell was absolutely disgusting, I rode for those 26 hours with no shower, nor suitable sanitary facility. Never again will I give Greyhound the $76 it costs to ride [to West Virgina]. In fact my inner child has suffered from this experience. Gross…

On to more fun! I didn’t get the chance to do anything productive on the computer these last 2 weeks. Unfortunately I was in Illinois, in the middle of the wilderness, and was unable to connect to the internet. Which was cool in a sense, but I didn’t get any progress done on the Coldfusion 8 PDF Editor. I did pick-up a copy of Dawn of War, and its expansions. Its a pretty cool game actually, taking form of an RTS and feels very similar to a StarCraft or WarCraft experience. (Hey what can I say, I was on vacation!)

Finally, I flew a plane back last Wednesday and enjoyed the last few days I had in Saint Cloud. Everyone was sad to see me go. I look at it as a learning experience. Friday was my move-in day at Pegasus Pointe. Everything went well, but I wasn’t staying there until (supposedly) Saturday night, because of the concert I was going to. The concert was awesome, and me and my cousin Boomer had a great time. Even though I locked my keys in the truck, and I wound up breaking the window in….

Saturday I went and took more stuff to my apartment, and hung out for the “last time” with Ross. All of a sudden, I learned that my timing belt, and timing belt tensioner needed replaced, and the part isn’t available until Tuesday.

So I was stuck in Saint Cloud until Sunday afternoon, when my family and I spent a few hours at my apartment. My dad let me borrow his truck, and my mom even bought a bunch of groceries. The UCF Wal-Mart is crazy at 9:00pm!

It was awesome! That first night was tough, but it worked out nicely. I even woke up this morning in my own home.

Life is back, vacation is over, school is starting, and I couldn’t be happier.

A glance at the day…

Well it was just the same old regular day. I woke up as usual, drove to work, as usual.

Its weird, I always refer to my day as a monotonous cycle. Today would prove to be different.

When I was at work, everybody seemed pretty busy, it was a Wednesday, and their was a big meeting in the conference room, so I kinda was stuck in a hard situation. After attempting to resolve the issue, I gave up and moved on to another task I had waiting.

On a side note, I was looking into Coldfusion 8 some more today, which will hopefully build confidence in me to write about it in depth. So far, Abode claims applications will now require less code, and these applications are tuned for optimum performance.

Now taken directly from Adobe, Coldfusion 8 will offer:

• Server monitoring to help identify server bottlenecks, allowing for tuning and improved performance.
• Step through code debugging in a new Eclipse plug-in debugger.
• Adobe Flex™ and Ajax features that let ColdFusion power personalized, multimedia-rich applications to enhance users’ experiences on the web.
• High-quality, dynamically created on-demand multimedia presentations.
• PDF document and form integration for a printable, portable way to intelligently capture and share information.
• Image creation and manipulation with more than 50 new CFML tags and functions.
• Native support for .NET objects to easily integrate ColdFusion applications with enterprise data and infrastructure services.
• Significant application runtime and server performance improvements.

As I experience more of the technology, I’ll share my input on it. As for now, I can only say that I am rooting for its success.

Now by the time I had finished working on the second ticket of the day, I realize everyone has left. There was maybe 3-5 people on the web side of the building. It was lunch time… …which for me meant time for class.

So wrapped up what I was doing and got on the road for class, when I-4 suddenly was covered with cars, including a hearse!

Then all of sudden traffic did that whole, “EVERYBODY HIT YOUR BRAKES!” thing, and I had to swerve, (and I must point out that a pile of sandy, dirt-like granular substance made the truck drift into the lane for the East-West Express way…)

So after surviving the road trip across Orlando, I get to UCF and park my car exactly when it starts to rain. After going inside to get a classmate of mine from his dorm, we step outside to reveal the most rain I have ever seen falling at once during the afternoon. I walked through this rain, with my Laptop tucked into a pillowcase, which was in my waterproof bag, underneath my shirt.

Now at this point I must stop to explain something. You know how in movies, you see somebody standing on the sideway, and a car will drive by, splashing a wall of water on the unlucky fool…

Well you get the point by now don’t you?

So, sitting in class soaking wet, freezing from the A/C (which was better than the heat during the day…) was a difficult two hours. My laptop stayed dry though…Plus I got a 96% on my test, which is Awesome!

After class (the sun had literally dried everything.)I hung out with my classmate and his roommates for a bit, before heading home in terrible 4-17 Traffic.

So finally at home, I receive the best part about today that makes it all worth it. Last weekend I ordered Pink Floyd: The Wall (The 25th Anniversary DVD). Today it was in the mail. So I spent the evening, watching the wonderful cinematic interpretation of Pink Floyd: The Wall.

After watching that film, I took a hard long look at my day and said, “Wow, it was worth it.” And I like they way that sounds. I guess everything isn’t so monotonous after all.