Soupergenius

I had a little issue trying to get pictures of Gio up on the site, but there are a few there. As you can see, he is trying to push himself to be like by everyone. So far, Kayla and him get along pretty well and get into some spirited playing. Pharaoh is and always will be a little more reserved and is not Gio’s best friend, but they don’t fight and he tolerates him more and more every day. When we go to Deleware, they have gotten into some really good races, and it is difficult to determine who is faster. It could go either way but I think Pharaoh is a little quicker. Snicklefritz could do without any dog except Pharaoh. 

We have acquired a new Italian Greyhound named Gio. He is pretty big for the breed as he is 17 pounds right now. He is a little of a year old and very active. He has been wearing out Kayla, our mini Aussie. They get along pretty well, but the other IG is having dominance complex issues. Pharaoh has been the head of household since we got him, and he is smaller and less active than the new guy. They get along ok, but Pharaoh wants to remain the head of household. I get the impression that Gio does not care too much about it. We have continued to crate Gio during the day to try and lesson the impact he can have on the house (he likes to chew on things that he shouldn’t). We also want to help him on his way to house training. His only accidents recently have been if we don’t take him out right away in the morning or right after letting him out of his crate. He has gotten better since we got him though. He had a urinary tract infection and crystals, and those are being treated with antibiotics. I think clearing these up will help him greatly with his potty training. We have tried to be consistent in taking him out every couple of hours and praising and treating when he goes outside. I think he is getting the hang of it. He is a very laid back dog (mentally, not physically), and everyone that meets him likes him. He is a little rough with little kids, but not too bad. Both Pharaoh and Gio did do some running together, I think that is good for both of them, because I think every once in a while they need to really stretch their legs.

Well it looks like my site was messed up for the past week or so. I tried to update to WordPress 2.5.1 and did something incorrectly. I found a way to make everything work again so hopefully everything is ok again. I question what I had to do, but it seems like it is not a problem. I am not sure what is in the new version yet, but the admin definitely looks different. While I was at it, I went ahead and upgraded all the plug-ins as well. I should probably update my gallery, but that is for another time I think.

Ever since I started this site, I had dreams of writing all the time, boy was I mistaken in my commitment. Well, I just returned from my yearly golf outing to Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. I did not play well, but I did have some pretty good shots and a good hole or two. If only I can work on my consistency. Everything has been pretty hectic for me. I am trying to get into shape (very slowly working on that), I have a lot of stuff on my plate at work, and would like to try to play more golf than I have been to try and get a little better at it. I finally broke out the bike a week ago and rode it for 10 miles. That was a little too far for the first day, but I want to ride to work, so it was a decent start. I live about 12 miles from work so this should be easy to do, just need to commit to it. At work I have been learning about the new Server 2008 platform, playing with a lot of virtual servers, playing with Office Communication Server 2007 and VOIP. I finally believe everything is coming together at work since most of my projects are starting to work and be used. It was frustrating to have the learning curve for these all at the same time. Every once in a while, I would have to totally ignore something for a week just to think about the issue in a new light. I also had issues with my site in that I did not realize the administrator account was receiving spam email since I created the domain. There were over 400,000 emails in my account that I did not realize were there. I was not able to receive emails for a few days until I tracked down the issue. Now I have one more thing to try to remember so I don’t run into this issue again. My work is trying to start a blog related to Microsoft Sharepoint Server 2007. It is located at http://community.bamboosolutions.com.

Well, as you may or may not know, I returned safely from my trip to Vietnam. The return flight was difficult because I slept the first part, and was awake the most of the second leg (14 hours). I highly recommend having noise cancelling headphones on any flight though. I finally put pictures of my trip into my gallery. www.soupergenius.com/gallery2 I am still trying to get caught up on work and still have a lot to do. It might actually be time to hire someone to assist me, boy, I never thought I would say that. I moved into an office at work because we got some new servers. The fans always running makes it very hard to concentrate. I also have a new fish, a naked percula clown fish. He/she looks like Nemo without the stripes. I had gotten a second blue neon, but the first one chased him around too much and stressed him to death. I also got another peppermint shrimp. He already has eaten my problem Aptasia’s. I would like to get a bigger tank since this one has been working out well, but it will be awhile before I do anything on that front. We took Pharaoh to the doctor to get his teeth cleaned. What a difference in the smell of his breath. Money well spent there. Just as a side note, I have decided to try to walk/jog/run at least 500 miles this year. As of today, I have travelled 68 miles. This means I am over 1/10 of the way to completing this goal. I also would like to bike at least 500 miles this year, but I have not been on my bike at all this year. I really need to get a light, but I don’t know enough about them. I am also considering getting a heart rate monitor. I can not decide between getting a Polar or a Garmin. They both have advantages and disadvantages.

Another day and it was fairly productive. I now have a few tasks that need to be completed when I return to the U.S. Some things are just easier to do from home. We ate at a different crepe restaurant. I tried the snail, which is low on my list of foods to eat again. These crepes were not as good as the street vendor. They had a lot of shrimp, squid and mushrooms that looked like squid. My stomach was not feeling very well after this meal, but I got better as the day went on. After work we went to Ashima which is a mushroom hot pot restaurant. What this means is they put a pot of hot water in the center of the table over a flame. They then add 6 to 8 different kinds of mushrooms and some chicken and let it simmer for a little while. Then they serve that as the first course. They then add more vegetables and supply some beef (from Australia, which was very tender) to cook by dipping in the soup. This continues for a while until everyone is full. It is surprisingly tasty even though mushrooms are not my favorite vegetable/fungus. We then went to the embroidery store. The works of art that were on display were fantastic. I will even plug their website. www.xqhandembroidery.com . We also caught the rush of people leaving the hotel where we were staying. There was a fashion show that we missed. Overall, another exciting and fun day.

Today was the most productive work day for me. We got the three main tasks that I had done and working throughout the company. It makes me feel a little better about being here. For a while I thought that I was going to not get anything done right. Everyone was happy because we should make their job easier and faster to complete with the new updates. There were a few hiccups, but luckily not too complicated to figure out. There was only one computer that we did not get running yet. Hopefully before we leave it will be working. For lunch we went Pho 24. This is your basic Vietnamese noodle restaurant. They ordered me extra meat for my soup. I did not need it, but was appreciative none the less. For dinner, we went to a place that both my boss and co-worker were very excited to go to. This was the highlight restaurant for them. Their specialty is duck. Large roasted bone in whole duck. We also had sparrow? or some kind of small bird. Of course they way they order food over here, I never know when the main course is coming. It is usually a bunch of different dishes throughout dinner and I always get full on the first one or two, but more end up coming. This night, they ordered a special beef dish that came after everyone was done eating, and they insisted that I eat some of it. It was good, but I was full. When we got back to the hotel, we went to the market. It was a little late, so most of the booths were closed. Hopefully we will make it there before we leave for home.

Today was a big work day for me. I have some things that need to be finished before we leave, and I hope to have them done soon. Unfortunately, I am having some issues and there is limited documentation or forum posts related to the issue I am having. Hopefully I have found a workaround for this issue, but will not know until tomorrow. On to the food for the day. We ate at Mama’s at Superbowl again. The interesting food I had there is called a bitter fruit. The Vietnamese use this fruit to cool down when it is really hot outside. The bitterness causes the body temperature to cool down. It apparently is an acquired taste, and it just so happened that I thought it was not too bad. For dinner, we ate at an authentic German restaurant. Apparently it is the place that had the first foreign chef to work in Saigon after the normalization. The food is very authentic and I believe my parents would have really enjoyed this place. I had a strip steak that was very good. Every once in a while it is nice to eat something that I am familiar with. The beer was also very tasty. This is causing another early night and hopefully another early day. If I can get the work done, then I will have some free time to explore and shop. I did get some video of the traffic from the top of the hotel and will put that up once I get home. Around 11 pm I had to call into the office to help diagnose some network problems. It costs $5 per minute for me to use my cell phone to call home. Luckily the network came back online by itself, so the diagnosis was short. Finally it was bed time.