The Carney's Blog

I am starting to dislike more and more the fact that you have to be a Vox member in order to leave a comment.  The only person that leave comments on my blog, are Cayusa, since he is the only one who reads it AND is a member of Vox.  Aaron's and my tech blog is hosted on Wordpress software, which I am starting to like more and more, so I may have to pressure WebGirl to get Carneyland.com up and running.  She may be one of the few people busier than I am, but I am really impressed with Wordpress so far, and I would love to have ANYONE leave a comment, and that is such a BASIC feature I am really disappointed that Vox has chosen to strong arm people into joining just to leave a comment!  :-P to you Vox!  For that at least - :-D for the multimedia lovin'.

I found this interesting site, Newsvine.com.  It's a news portal that you can customize, and each user can rate stories, "seed" stories, which is to say, let other users know of a story you think is good and put it on Newsvine for rating.  You can even write your own stories and have your own column.  I am going to start using it for my news over the next few weeks, and see if it can replace the various other sources I go to - CNN.com, CNET.com, News.com.com.

This is also the sort of site I can write about on Techsplatter.com, it's an interesting twist on user-input and news.

Ok I found this website, Futureme.org, on TechCrunch.com, and thought, this is useless, who would even use a website just to email themselves reminders?  It reminded me of another site shown me by my websavvy, uber intelligent friend, RememberTheMilk.com.  I at first had a hard time trying to figure out why anyone would use these sites instead of a calendar like Outlook.  I then later realized, not everyone has access to the full blown Outlook client, so I suppose there may be SOME need for these types of site.  But WebSavvy girl has a mac, and if you know a mac user, you know they love them some iCal, their precious calendar.  I will have to pry deeper into this mystery.  If you have any thoughts, or use any of these types of services, or websites, please contact me at ron.carney@gmail.com, let me know what you use, and why you use that as opposed to another option, like desktop calendar.

Luckily, it can be one of my first posts to our new blog, TechSplatter.com.  It isn't set up yet, so no clicky clicky linkage, but it will cover technology that shapes how we interact with society.  Or Society.  Not sure if I respect it enough to capitalize it yet, I will have to think about that...

We had a few good suggestions for names, but we kept changing the focus, so once we decided on the above mentioned scope (which I love)  we just jumped on the closet name that happened to not be taken, so TechSplatter won.  It is very similar to TechCrunch.com, who's focus is emerging Web 2.0 companies (or something along those lines) so hopefully there will be no ill will about the similar name.  The man who started that website, Michael Arrington, is actually one of the people who influenced me into starting this new venture.  Once TechSplatter is up, I will post you all, relentlessly, don't worry.  And, with the new scope, Social Technology, I think more of you will be interested in the content, as opposed to Corporate Technology *yawn*. Besides, M Arrington mentioned in a Business 2.0 article that he might start a blog in that arena anyway, and I have NO desire to go up against him.

Well, we went camping in Lee Canyon last weekend, and it was COLD! 33 degrees overnight...Luckily, Nancy had insisted that we pack every blanket that we owned, so we weren't too cold.  Unfortunately, we were camping with some friends who were camping for the first time.  They decided they would try it at the behest of their 3 year old son, Matthew's best friend.  I think they really enjoyed most of it, the food was good, the campfire was warm, and the husband even went searching for firewood with me! We ended up lugging this HUGE heavy piece of wood back probably 500 yards to the camp, and it just refused to burn!  At least, until a few hours before we were leaving the next day it did, then it decided it would just burn burn burn.  But overall, they were having fun, until we went to sleep - and the temperature plummeted.  The son was NOT happy about being so cold and in his own sleeping bag, I guess he wanted to be in the sleeping bag with his Mommy, who already had a 3 month old baby girl in the sleeping bag with her!  But once he got in too, he was much happier it seems - however, their night was mostly spent trying to find out why he was so unhappy, and debating whether they should make the 45 minute trip home right then and come back in the morning to help us break camp, or tough it out until the morning.  Once morning broke, and I was able to get a fire going, and the sun came out, they were in better moods, but I think it will be a long time before we can talk them into camping with us again! For that matter, I am in no rush to go back up there until the overnight lows rise about 50!

Oh, and today was Internation Talk Like A Pirate Day! YARR!

 Today we are going to a state park about 30 minutes north of Las Vegas.  It's part of the largest forests in the lower 48 states, Toiyabe National Forest.  We went there last weekend as well, and it is beautiful.  It's such a change from the climate of Las Vegas.  It was about 30 degrees cooler last week when we got there, it rained a bit, then the sun came out and it was a beautiful day in the high 70's, low 80's.  Today it should be sunny all day, and in the mid 70's at th most - as opposed to about 100 here in the valley.  There is even a ski area about 5 miles from the trail we are going to today.  As a matter of fact, there was an avalanche there last year.  I took a ton of pics last week, and I will take a ton more today - I will post some here, and the rest on Flickr. 

Last week, and even this week, the decision to go up to the forest was made by the unlikeliest of sources - the self proclaimed "city boy" friend of ours who is the father of one of Matthew's best friends.  We were happy to hear he wanted to get out, as Nancy and I love going camping, hiking, etc.  After the walk last week, he even said he might be willing to go camping up there with us!  So hopefully, we will have some camping buddies.  I know his son is starting to want to spend more time outdoors, and Matthew is always asking us to go camping, so I am sure the boys would love it.  Summerlin has these 2 "campouts" each year, held in a Summerlin park.  We love those, but we want to get a little more "out there" into the wilderness, so hopefully we can start doing some more camping.  They (our potential camping buddies) even said they wanted a pop up camper, which Nancy and I have wanted for years!  

Considering one of the reasons I moved out here was the great access to so much outdoor recreation, I am glad I am finally starting to actually take advantage of it!

Ok, so I, like some of you, am watching this cheeseball show in SciFi, Who Wants To Be A Superhero.  Its down to 3 characters, and my favorite got eliminated tonight.  I was sad, but there was a happy ending - the reason the guy was on the show was to try to show his estranged daughter that he could be a hero, trying to reconnect with her.  Well, after he was eliminated, Stan (Lee, the comic guy who is the judge, jury, and executioner) called him back, and directed him to pick up  phone hidden on the set.  It was his daughter, and she told him she loved him, and that he was her hero - it was very touching.  It made losing him from the show a little easier to take, he was very funny, and cheesy - reminded me of someone I know. 

Well, I have talked to some people, and gotten some positive feedback, and promises of contributions, so I have decided to move forward with my idea of a blog centered around Business Technology.  However, we need a name!  And, to be more specific, a URL.  My initial idea was CorporIT.biz, but I am not in love with it.  BC's idea, ITChallenges.biz, doesn't stoke my fire either.  So, I come to you, my loyal reader. 

I am asking for submissions for an idea for a URL, and therefore, a blog name.  The rules are:

1.  The name must include the top level domain - .com, .biz, .org, .us, whatever.  A list of top level domains is here.  That link is also an excellent place to fulfill rule two...

2.  The name must be AVAILABLE.  I wanted Orange.com or Orange.biz, both are taken.  I even tried Orang.biz and .com, both not available...which is ok, as those 2 last names broke rule 3...

3.  No "Flickr" type names - by which I mean, a normal word, drop a letter, call it done.  There are a RASH of these since Flickr, which I am not picking on, as it is the originator.  If you have a killer idea, and its breaks this rule, it WILL still be considered, but the odds are somewhat against it.

4.  Nothing to clever, or worse, l33t.  if you don't know what l33t means, then that is good. It means you probably won't break this rule no matter what you do.  If you do know what l33t means, you're a nerd. 

Now, it isn't a contest without a prize is it?  Sure it is, just a lousy one.  And we don't do lousy.  However, we aren't the Rockefellers, either.  So, the prize will be awarded once we have some sort of viable cash flow, be it from ads, subscriptions, or whatever income we can create.  Now, since the rumour of a prize at some possible date in the far future is about as enticing as, well, nothing, we will make it a decent size - $500.00.

Yes, American. 

If and when we make ANY money on this, the winning URL submitter will be given 500$.  Yes, thats a big if - but its a big reward for simply thinking of a URL, isn't it? 

I suppose I should have some boilerplate legalese about how by submitting a URL, you are releasing all claim to that name, and renouncing any rights to it, and won't ever sue us for dozens of dollars, or more, if we use it. 

Apperently, to post Comments to this blog, you have to belong to Vox.  That is Dumb. However, I likey the video and photo posting goodness.  So feel free to just drop me a line at ron.carney@gmail.com with your ideas, snide comments, insults, and hygiene suggestions. 

So, as many of you know, I work  for a large casino in the Downtown section of Las Vegas.  For those not "in the know" about Las Vegas, there are 2 main concentrations of casinos.  The one most of us think of, that is featured in all the commercials, tv shows, movies, et cetera, is The Strip.  This is where all the Mega Resorts are, Bellagio, MGM, Mirage, Caesars Palace, Wynn, so on and so on.  The OTHER area is Downtown.  These are the Golden Nugget, Lady Luck, Binions, Four Queens, The Plaza.  These are much older, much more run down, and have a much older clientele than the Strip Casinos.  All of this has absolutely nothing to do with the drama other than I work at one of the casinos Downtown.  When I first interviewed for my job, the Director of IT Engineering was SC. He was one of the smarted people I had met in the IT industry here in the valley, and I knew I could learn quite a bit working for him.  That was the main reason I took this job instead of another one I think I could have had. 

After working at the hotel for a few months, it becomes clear that there are political issues between my new boss, and HIS boss.  There were several times he was sure he was going to be fired, but it never happened.  Eventually, most of the drama calmed down, and we hummed along, putting out fires and making improvements.  Then, Monday, out of the blue, they did it.  They fired him!  Everyone in my department was very upset, as we are a very tight team and every one of us has a great deal of respect for SC.  There were many cries of "Update the resumes!" from my coworkers, fearing that either we were next on the chopping block, or SC's replacement would be incompetent, intolerable, or bring in his own people. 

Well it didn't take long for us to find out - his replacement started the NEXT DAY.  We have a sneaking suspicion his termination was in the works for a while (sarcasm.)  Well his replacement is not intolerable, nor incompetent.  He is, however, new to the casino industry, which puts some extra weight on me and my teammates' shoulders to get him up to speed on the quirks of the industry ASAP.  Oh, and all of this happened in the middle of a complete changeover from one vendor to a different one, on one of our most critical systems.  So, we are bringing the new Director up to speed under somewhat less than ideal conditions.  I have a feeling for a few weeks, I'll be working my tuckus off.   However, at least I will be working!

Web2

I have been searching for an idea for a business to start up.  I have been reading a lot of "Web 2.0" sites, like Digg and TechCrunch.  Both are very good resources, as well as being very well done 'blogs.  I got my new Business 2.0 magazine today, and the cover article is... Blogging For Dollars.  It goes into many of the sites I read daily, like the ones mentioned above, as well as Fark, BoingBoing, and others. 

So, I see this as a sign - my original idea was a good one.  My initial idea for content was enterprise technology - the software and hardware necassary to run a large, corporate network.  There is also mention in the article about the guy who started TechCrunch - Michael Arrington - having plans for a similar site.  While that adds some validity to my idea, it is also daunting to think about trying to get into a space the same time that Arrington does - he DOES have a slight head start.  But, I will talk to my techie friends, all over the country, and get their input, and see if we can hash out any better ideas or hone that one.  While I will probably never make millions of dollars a year, it may at least be some decent side money.

So the past few weeks, aside from the flake from California, we have had VERY little action on the house.  So, we decided to post an ad for it on Craigslist.  So far we just did one on the Las Vegas site, and we haven't even uploaded pics to the add yet.  We put it up last night, and this morning, we got a call!  That is promising.  I need to upload pics to it, and add the ad to the LA site, as well. 

Matthew is getting VERY good at driving.  We are trying to take him to the park to ride his tractor at least once a week, and now he can put it in reverse when he needs to, shift from low to high on the fly, and he wants to drive off the sidewalk onto the dirt a lot.  I'll be the first to admit part of my motivation in getting him the tractor was that I always wanted one when I was little - but it's reassuring to know he loves it as much as I would have. 

I have been studying so much lately, trying to expand my knowledge of the areas around which my career revolves, which is to say, networking.  In the dot-com boom, certifications became at first this hot commodity, but just as quickly, they turned into a joke, because so many people had so many, yet had no practical knowledge of the material.  So, while I am (once again) pursuing certifications, I am doing it differently this time.  I am trying to learn a certain Body of Knowledge (BoK) well enough, that I can pass the certification tests withough studying JUST TO pass the test.  Does that make sense?  Well, it does to me :-P   I guess what I mean is, I am trying to truly LEARN the material, not just pass a test.  And the certifications are more for my satisfaction than to impress any possible employer or whatnot.  They will be my equivalent of a college degree, since I never did get one of those.  And, they may help me GET a degree, I know places like Strayer and U oh Phoenix give class credit for a lot of the certifications I am studying for...just a though for someday.  I think I would PREFER to do well enough without a degree that when I do go back to school for one, it can be in photography.