Changing Templates

Look at how I'm using my new found time!  I'm playing with my blog's templates.  My wife wrote a while back that she didn't like my blog template.  My stock blog template.  The one with terrible use of whitespace.

She found a nice looking one for Wordpress and I started to look into the Wordpress migration.  I hear its a headache, but not impossible.  And a friend of mine showed me Wordpress and it has a pretty nice set of features and is quite extensible.  I was about to really start the migration when, Mashable had a post about free blogger templates and Blogger in Draft released a template designer.

Some of them looked pretty nice, in my design challenged opinion.  So this morning, instead of running, I changed blog templates.

Apurtus

Clean Type

Awesome

Daily Notes

Indicator

The current stock template

Let me know what you think.  They all need a little bit of tweaking for my existing widgets (color, number of tweets posted, etc.).  Apurtus was my favorite based upon the preview, but seeing it with my blog, I really like Indicator.  Heather has weighed in that Daily Notes seems to fit my inner geek.

I have a modern, clean design aesthetic, bordering on minimalist.  On my computer, I use a dark theme (Dust for those who use Gnome).

Let me know in the comments.  It's not a democracy, so it won't be straight up votes, but your voice will be taken into consideration.

Best.MBA.email.ever

I checked my grades this morning and they've all been finalized for the quarter. Then later this morning, I got this email.
Good stuff.

Now, I need to have a party.

Hitting the road

Now that I'm done with my MBA, I'm getting into those other things that I want do. This morning, I got up earlier (made easier by no late classes) and ran 1.7 miles this AM.

On the good side, I ran intervals, which felt pretty good considering that it had been a really, really long time since I ran last. And as of the writing of this post, I have no soreness, muscles, knees or otherwise. On the downside, I couldn't find my running pants this morning and my watch/heart rate monitor needs a new battery.

So, I've got a few rough spots to work out, but it felt really good to be running again.

Thanks to joshjanssen for the image.

Done with my MBA, now I've got some free time

After a long 2-1/2 years, I've completed my MBA at the Foster School of Business. On Sunday evening I turned in my last final exam, though Monday morning, I immediately left on a work trip to Oakland. The change in my life is finally sinking in and I'm looking forward to the freedom.

There will be fewer posts and tweets about studying at Starbucks on Saturday mornings, though I'll probably still be hanging out there while my kids are at swim practice. I'm really looking forward to putting back some things in my life that the MBA program pushed aside.

• Eating dinner with my family - the kids have been quite excited about this one, though we've yet to be able to do it. Family time is important, and I forwent a lot of it for the MBA. On the downside, they're so often at swim practice so, we might get to eat together, but it will be late.
  
• Cooking dinner for my family and friends - I really enjoy cooking and with evening classes, I haven't been able to cook for a long time. I've been clipping recipes for a while without trying them out, so I'm ready to get going on this one.
  
• Cocktails - I enjoy making cocktails, but I'm a lightweight. With all the late classes and early weekends, I've not been able to enjoy many cocktails. I recently purchased some bakon vodka which I'm excited to try out (Bloody Mary's for Easter Brunch) and a mojarita, a blend of a mojito and a margarita.
  
• Putting physical activities back into life - while I was focusing on the mental part of my life, I let the physical part slip. I've not really ran since I started the MBA program. I'd really like to get back in shape and increase my endurance. It will help with the outdoor activities I'd like to do too.
  
• Recreational reading - I picked up The Road by Cormac Macarthy and Contagious by Scott Sigler when I was at the library yesterday. It will be nice to read for fun and to read non-business texts. With this weekends swim meet, I've got plenty of time to do that.
  
• Adding outdoor activities - I really enjoy hiking, camping and snowshoeing. I've missed our rather weak winter here in the Pacific Northwest, but spring time is coming. With no more weekend study groups, I'll be able to get out with some Meetup groups and take advantage of the Mountaineers membership my wife got me for my birthday. Its probably time to get my snowshoes off the floor in my office and put them away until next season.
  
• Geeky tech stuff - I've got some computers that need new power supplies and new hard disks, it will be nice to be able to take care of them. I'm planning on learning more about php and play with the newly created secure areas on my home webserver (and figure out what its actually good for). I'll continue to learn more about Linux; this completion of school is timed perfectly with the release of Ubuntu Lucid 10.04b1. Expect to see some posts about my experiences with that!
  
• Blogging - I'm looking forward to having more time to blog. Sure, I've been doing the micro-blogging thing on Twitter, but I enjoy sharing my thoughts and experiences. Maybe I'll migrate to Wordpress and fix my template, because Heather so hates my current template. For any of you that might have done that, how did it work out?

The MBA program was a great learning experience and also a great networking experience. Sure I learned all kinds of great things about economics and finance, but the best lesson was that the problems that plague my industry also plague everybody else. Making ice cream has a lot more in common with airplanes, software and coffee than you'd think!

My Kids and Jello, Biafra that is

Warning: This post contains links to hardcore punk rock, which might aurally offend some of my fairer readers. In most office places, schools and churches, this music might not fit in. Just don't click on the links, they aren't necessary for the story. And if The Dead Kennedys fit in your office place and you need an MBA with Supply Chain Management experience drop me a line!

Yesterday, as I was driving the kids home from swim practice, we were listening to Moon Over Marin by the Dead Kennedys.

Kid 2 says from the backseat, "Is this guy part goat?" I had to smile, because I can hear where she's coming from.

If you haven't already, click on the link. I'll wait, while you listen. Listen to the way his voice warbles on the long drawn out words. Can you hear the goat, that my daughter hears?

We drove on and Kid 1 said, "Hey, isn't this the guy who sings..." As the gears in his head were turning, I fatherly pride started to build up. "... Holiday in Cambodia?" Even though we were driving at highway speeds, I gave my son a high five.

Yes, my son recognized The Dead Kennedys. How cool is that.

Shortly thereafter, the playlist moved ahead to a Jay-Z and Alphaville mashup, Young Forever. Yes, Alphaville from your high school prom (I didn't go to mine, so I can't be sure if it was the song at my prom). Its pretty cool. I won't put a link to it, since my warning message was all about hardcore punk, which Jay-Z and Alphaville most certainly are not.

But what was really cool, was that my daughter was signing along with the Alphaville part! It might be "recycled" but if old is new, it's still cool when we can share a musical moment.