EngelFish.Net

This will be just a quick post to catch up.  The company Christmas Party was Saturday night, and we all had a good time.  Dinner was at 518, and the meal was excellent as ususal.  After, there were drinks at Sullivans, and dancing at The Dirty.  Taryn and I bailed prior to the dancing, but since it was 1:00AM when we left, I doubt if we missed much.

There was much work done with house related stuff this weekend, with Mom’s garage being sorted out… or at least cleaned up a bit in advance of packing.  Taryn has also just about finished the unpacking and holiday decorating of our place.  I never thought I’d live in a place that was this “done up” for the holidays, but it certainly does look nice.  And we have our first Christmas Tree!  I’ll post a shot of it later this week.

I also got Mom back online again.  Her computer is setup, and now she can shop QVC to her heart’s content!   She has a new email and yahoo chat login, so if you want to converse with her, you’ll have to call her and ask for the info.

To top it all off, it’s in the 70′s here in Raleigh.  It’s way to nice to be in an office, and they’re calling for temps in the 50′s with rain for this weekend.

Christmas-wise, I’m way behind.  I haven’t done any shopping, and although we’re doing cards for just about everyone (buying a house makes us too poor) I do need to do some shopping for both my lovely wife and my soon-to-move-away mom.  Ugh.  I hate shopping.

I’m trying a new voicemail service, which is free while it’s still in beta, called YouMail.  It allows for a great deal of flexibility in how you use your voicemail, including remote retrieval, customized greetings based on the caller, and saving your voicemail messages to your computer.  So if you call me and get my voicemail, don’t be surprised if you get a personal greeting.

Okay, I just find this to be compelling.  I’m not on the “daily picture of me” bandwagon, but after seeing something like this, I can see why someone would want to do it.  With the generation of children growing up in this digital age, it wouldn’t surprise me to find something like this done for someones entire life.  It would take a “special” parent and and equally “special” kid to pull it off, but the payoff would be totally engrossing to watch.  Or am I just slightly twisted?

This is a pretty cool interview done by Inc. magazine with the two folks that started my favorite website, Flickr.  If you’re at all interested in Flickr, you’ll find this to be really interesting.

Here are two other things I liked.  First, a squirrel proof birdfeeder.  Second, a table that’s too d**n cool for words.

Most of this past week and weekend were spent working.  Lots to do at the office, and we’re running out of time for this year.  I don’t mind working so much, especially when I’m making such good progress.  I have to admit, however, that I’m looking forward to taking some vacation time during the holidays.  I see some painting, yardwork, and home repairs in my future!

I got to spend some time last week hanging out with Cupcake & Solace.  I haven’t seen Solace since Taryn & I dropped Cupcake off at the trailhead a few years back.  He’s working for Jet Blue, and was in town for a couple of days.  We got together at the Rockford, and had dinner and a few drinks.  It was fun.

Taryn also went up into Mom’s attic and pulled down a bunch of Christmas decorations.  I imagine we’ll be putting them up this week.  Such fun!   She’s looking for a tree for us today, so we’ll probably decorate it this Friday night.  Have a fire in the fireplace and spend a few hours untangling lights.

A new addition to the website is the chat feature (via meebo.com).  I think it’s pretty freakin’ neat.  I hope you guys use it to drop me a quick hello when you visit this site.  If I’m logged in to meebo when you visit the site, you’ll be able to tell, so don’t be a stranger.