My 3rd anniversary gift to Vicky arrived yesterday: a Garmin StreetPilot III GPS with 128MB memory card. I installed maps of Maryland, Virginia, and the I-95 corridor from Baltimore to Orlando, Florida. I'm really impressed with it, and I know she will be as well.

I particularly like the "Find" feature for nearest ATM, gas station, or restaurant by type. I was also impressed with how quickly it autoroutes to new addresses and handles deviations from routes (no U-turns, but recalculates). It's very cool. I'll be installing it on the dash of her 2003 Nissan XTerra next Monday.

Thankfully, my wife doesn't surf the same sites as I do. I can actually tell you all about my gift while keeping it a secret from her. :P ...don't anyone tell her. She's just going to "find" it installed in her XTerra.

Found this preying mantis outside while we were on a break. Seems a lot of sidekickers are spotting preying mantises... Is this the year for them?

Some Spectacular *I Think* Views The "red sun rising" pics are taken from the fifth floor at the Washington Technology Park in Chantilly, VA. The atrium pics are also taken from the fifth floor.

BTW, should any of you come out this way, I'd highly recommend the "Blue Water Grille" nearby (in Sully Station Plaza). I had the seared Ahi tuna for lunch yesterday, and the crabcakes with mango chutney & diced tomato for dinner... truly, some good eats. :D

I got the JamJacket for the 30GB iPod yesterday. It certainly does a superb job of protecting the iPod, but has all the rubbery feel of a Trojan. :P

I wonder if "iPod Condom" would have been a bad PR move, so "JamJacket" is a better name?

Pictures from my New Commute... This is how my drive looks from Sterling, VA, along Route 28 to the Washington Technology Park in Chantilly, VA. It takes me a half hour without traffic, up to an hour with traffic. At least the iPod keeps me company now. :)

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*sigh* Here's the pics of the "dimpled black" eGrips on the Sidekick that hiptop Nation didn't accept in that last post.

eGrips for T-Mobile Sidekick? The eGrips for my T-Mobile Sidekick arrived yesterday. This is how the "dimpled black" eGrips look on the Sidekick. It definitely has a good feel to it, feels like a heavy rubber despite how slender it is, and looks very techy/cool.

Similar to what Leigh Klotz reported on hipme.com, I've experienced a loss in signal strength since applying the eGrips. The metallic backing on the eGrips (which allows for it's reflective look) dampens the radio antenna in the back of the Sidekick casing, causing a roughly 10dB loss in signal. Considering that I typically get 4-12 ASU (-80 to -110dB, with the Sidekick threshold being <= -113dB) it has certainly impacted performance.

For high signal strength areas where I got 22 ASU (like my old office), I'd be very happy with the eGrips. For low signal strength areas, the metallic backing covering the already weak antenna is definitely a problem for me.

I'm not sure what to think of the eGrips yet, or how I might restore or improve performance.

While we're crammed six to a room, at least the views are nice. Here's the atrium and the view from the 5th floor.

Just as we were told, there are now four of us working out of a conference room. We arranged the desks and bookshelves so that we're not intruding on each other. My area sort of looks like a wooden cubicle. :P

Our server room consists of a small closet with computers stacked on each other. A spot cooler is at the end of the closet keeping our servers from overheating. We don't have shelves yet to complete our rack system, so the cabinet is sitting empty.

Fun fun... Any bets on how long we'll be like this? Or how long six programmers will tolerate being closed in a room together for months on end? :)

It's nice to sit outside in our backyard and unwind. It was a long week: we were first infected by the Welchia worm, innundated by thousands of email from the SoBig.F virus, and we had to prepare offices, servers, and the network for the move from Reston to Chantilly, VA. My week at home was no less hectic: from installing overhead lighting, to disinfecting our home server from Kwbot.worm, and then losing our machine altogether when the motherboard burnt out.

I bought a new Soyo Black Dragon motherboard and 1GB of DDR, but now Windows XP Professional hangs when it gets to mups.sys. Booting in safe mode and changing BIOS settings doesn't affect it, it always hangs when it attempts to load mups.sys ...I'm figuring I'll need to get the Windows XP Professional CD from work tomorrow to repair my Windows installation.

But the backyard is nice... It's relaxing to sit on the swing and watch the sky grow dark. The lighting I installed around the garden turned itself on, and I lit the citronella candles to keep the bugs at bay. It's a beautiful night, the air is cool, and despite there still being problems in my world, I have a chance for a slight reprief. It's nice.