Dec 12

Great Hot Dog Experience

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My niece told me about Dormont Dogs, then I heard it mentioned by a Twitter friend. The kids where with my dad, so my wife and I finished Christmas shopping and drove to Dormont. We found a parking spot in the in a metered lot, there where not too many spots.

I was a little prepared for the place, I was told it was small and takeout is usually the best because it is hard ti get a seat. There are 3 2-person tables and a counter to place your orders, they son’t have a hood so no fries. The atmosphere is very friendly, we talked with the cook and a fellow customer. 


We both ordered the  ”The Parking Ticket”, my wife also ordered the “Louisiana Ave Dog” and I ordered a “Tennesse Ave Dog”. We both loved the Parking Ticket, it was so full of flavor, the fresh bun toasted to perfection and covered in cheese. Definitly a winner, so I ordered a second Parking Ticket.

Parking Ticket- Spicy BBQ +bacon chili, banana peppers, pepper jack cheese

Louisiana Ave Dog- Louisiana hot sauce, Cajun coleslaw

Tennessee Ave Dog- BBQ sauce, French’s onions, pepper jack

Like they themselves say, they are not the ordinary hot dog shop. Well worth the visit, the prices are great, parking can get very tough as well as seating. But I will be going back for sure.

Dormont Dogs on Urbanspoon

Dec 09

Dinner at Armstrong’s

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My wife and I had a wonderful dinner last night, just the two of us while the kids visited some friends. My work gives me a gift card for Armstrong’s every year for my birthday. We both started our dinners with wedding soup full of meatballs, chicken and spinach, sprinkled some cheese on it and warmed our bones from the cold outside.

My wife always orders stuffed hot peppers, which is so flavorful and spicy. She loves it and sometimes we just order takeout of the peppers. I had the seafood linguini which is full of scallops, shrimp and other seafood. I never finished the bowl and take half home for another day.

The night was nice, we sat and talked quietly and enjoyed each others company. Armstrong’s is a very nice place to go to eat, there is usually a line to get in but the food is great and I have always had good service.

Armstrong's on Urbanspoon

Nov 29

Blogging verse Private Journal

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This blog is public and as such I censor the content that I put online, I also like to journal and do that offline. I have read of people keeping their journals online but set to private and have and still am considering it. I think one of the reasons is that I really like the blogging app I use Blogsy and another is that the the journal is on the cloud and available to me anywhere I can access the net.
 
But, even if I setup the blog as private there is also a chance it can be access. Which makes me think who would want to hack my journal, reading my private entries is actuall pretty boring and is more for me as a theraputic act and hopefully for my kids later in life.
 
Right now I don’t know what I will do, I am writing more about loss, the loss of close family members we have and till are dealing with this year. This year turned into a very difficult year for my family as we grieve the loss of close relatives.
 
 

Nov 20

Starting to get active with Fitbit

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Being a technology geek and addict as my wife says, I decided to try the Fitbit to help get me more active. My goal is to loose weight and live a healthy lifestyle. I love food and can eat constantly so this is not going to be easy for me. I decided to first just try track what I eat and walk more (including the steps at work, no elevator).

I have had the Fitbit for 5 days now, it is a small device that clips in my pocket as you can see in the picture. The Fitbit is a very high tech pedometer that can also track if I am going up steps and measure sleep patterns based on my movements. A USB charger is used for wirelessly syncing information between the Fitbit and their website. Walking within 15 feet of USB connection and data is synced.

The website shows various displays of the data collected, such as steps, distance and floors. So far it seems pretty accurate and the main point of the device is for it to motivate me, which it seems to be doing. I like the size of the Fitbit and that it easily clips in my pocket. I am able to monitor the distance and floors and then share my goals with my friends on Facebook or Twitter. I am still trying to understand the sleep data and will write another post once I have more data.

The web site also provides a place for tracking what you in, which is very important. I am not impressed with the mobile app on my Droid it, I feel it is difficult to enter food. The iPhone app seems like a version 1 product and I usually switch to the web since I am using it on an iPad. But, overall I like this device so far, I clip it on every day and go around ,y normal activities. Next, I will begin to push myself more to make have myself achieve better goals.

I will write more about my progress as I move forward, I plan to commit myself more after Thanksgiving.

Nov 08

Why Vote

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Voting is a very important part of our country as well as our local communities. This election day is very important because of the local elections that are on the ballot.

Voting on school board has a great impact on you because it affects only your local district. This is the same for you local community board and judges and county. These are the people you have a greater possibility of being in contact with on a daily basis. Think of how these elections affects your police officers, teachers, roads and so much more. Your local real estate tax is affected by the people who are voted on.

Voting is very important, please everyone get out and vote. Take part in your community and help our.

I would like to see more ways of learning about the people at this level of elections, I personally would love to see Facebook pages, Twitter accounts, Blogs, YouTube or any other way of getting their message out. Hopefully, a positive message so we can learn what their platform is and make a more educated vote.

Nov 05

Trying to start getting fit

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At the begining of the year I started walking and purchased two treadmills a an estate sale. I kept it up for a few months and my mother started also and stayed with for and is stilling walking almost daily. I am very proud of her and inspired by her dedication to exercising and eating healthy. My nephew has been looking at treadmills so we are giving him one if the treadmills we have, I don’t need two. I am going to try to get myself back into walking and hopefully running.

While I was walking I was able to loose 20 pounds, but gained 1/2 of it back. I need to loose about 30 pounds to be near the weight by doctor recommends. Well, I don’t know if I will start yet, but I am trying to get in the mind set so I can commit to it.

My other big problem will be portion control, just love to eat and eat way to much. My goal is to life a more healthy lifestyle and teach my children through example.

Oct 24

Writing posts with Blogsy

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I have been using Blogsy, an app for the iPad to write my blog posts and I have to says that I a, very impressed with this app. I wanted a way of easily writing posts and making use of the large amount of Flickr photos I have. Blogsy solved this and made the task if writing posts easy and enjoyable, that allows me to concentrate on what I am writing.

I have been using Blogsy for about a month now and have not had a problem with it. It is a stable and reliable application, this is the only application that I will highly recommend for the iPad. I like other apps, but this app is a 5 star app and if you write blog posts this is the app to use in my opinion.

What apps do you use to rite blog posts?

Oct 22

Why I Blog

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I have been professionally involved in technology for over 15 years. One of my earliest projects was implementing a BBS (Bulletin Board System) using Wildcat BBS for a business while the world wide web was in it’s infancy. I have set up networks and built database applications for small businesses when I started my career.

My wife calls me a technology addict. I have consulted with many Internet startups and large businesses concerning their technology. I never caught the blogging “bug” though.

This summer the company I work for decided to implement WordPress for the public Internet site and this was my push to learn this software and dive into blogging. So I decided to host a WordPress site myself and learn how to use it while testing a few plugins and writing a plugin myself. I have developed with PHP before but my speciality has always been in Microsoft technologies such as VB, .NET mainly C#. But my career never keep me isolated and had me working with Java on Unix though, I have been known to easily migrate between technologies throughout my career.

With my existing domain and newly installed blog I started to write posts, but what should I write about? I know all bloggers and writers in general run into this problem and so I decided to write about my family mainly and how important they are to me as well as just about anything else that comes to my mind.

This blog is my online journal, after all that is what blogging is. I have always liked to journal and to write, I feel it is therapeutic. So this exercise in blogging is for me and my family and friends, that is my audience. I will write about many different topics and hopefully will have my family write some posts if they want. My children can use this blog to write stories and maybe we can all learn something.

Why do you blog?

Oct 13

iOS5 Installed

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Yesterday iOS5 was released and next to impossible to download.This morning though I downloaded the 700 megabyte OS after backing up and syncing my iPad. The update warns you to back up and sync for good reason, once the update is installed it is like you have a new device with no apps installed. At least the settings are saved which makes it easy to re-add apps.

I have only had iOS5 installed for 45 minute now and will post my experiences later, it for now I am excited to explore and see how the new features function.

I like the idea of iCloud but will not pay for it, I currently have a PRO account on Flickr which is $25 for unlimited space and I have over 30 gigabyte of photos there so iCloud will be expensive in comparison.

Stay tuned for my posts as I explore iOS5!

Sep 21

RIP Grandma Hess – Sand

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RIP Grandma Hess - Sand by Lou Rain
RIP Grandma Hess – Sand, a photo by Lou Rain on Flickr.

This summer has been a tough summer, my wife’s grandfather passed away suddenly and her grandmother was hospitalized. Gramma has returned home in hospice care and constant monitoring, my wife has been there every step of the way. Sadly, she passed away 2 days before we would leave for vacation.

Seeing how my wife has been there truly inspired me and made me realize even more how much I love her.

We are a very close family and love to spend time with family and friends, which we believe is the purpose of life. Spending time with the people you love is the greatest gift of life and I don’t every want to miss out on that. There is no amount of money in the world that can replace the quality time you spend with loved ones.

Seeing the smiles of their faces, hearing the laughing of their voices and comforting them in times of sorrow. This is what makes family and this is what I value about life. There are so many sad things in the world that you have to make time to share in the happiness of life. The real happiness is something that can be remember and be stored in your heart.

May God Bless You and Rest In Peace Grandma Hess.

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