Recently I posted a review for Meebo for the iPhone because of how seamless it made the transition back and forth between desktop instant messaging to mobile instant messaging. In that post, I mentioned using GVMax with Google Voice. I had put off writing a second post about GVMax because I wasn’t quite sure what I wanted to say about it. But today I found a little nugget of information that I just HAD to share.

For those of you who have an iPhone or iPod Touch and have a Google Voice number, you know how infuriating it is that Apple has not only denied the official Google Voice app, but subsequently pulled all apps directly related to GV. Unless your phone is jailbroken, you are stuck using the web app. It works, but let’s face it, it’s a little clunky. I’m using an iPhone 3G and the site just feels painfully slow, even on WiFi. Plus, it uses the phone’s native dialer instead of allowing you to choose which phone to ring, so iPod Touch users are “out of luck”.

Until GVMax.

What you first find out when you read about GVMax is that you can use it to send your Google Voice SMS messages to the IM client of your choice (it uses your Google Talk account). So you can IM back and forth from your computer, from your phone, from wherever, and the person you’re talking to is getting text messages on their phone. Spiffy. Additionally, if you read the user’s manual, you will find that you can (by virtue of your contact groups in Google Voice) send group text messages.

What I somehow overlooked until today is that you can initiate your Google Voice calls from your instant messaging client. I didn’t see this in any articles I read about GVMax, and somehow I overlooked that when scanning the manual. This is an under-emphasized feature! (iPod Touch users…take note!)

So here’s how it works:

First, you have to have Google Voice. You have to sign up for GVMax. I’m not going to go into those details. Once you start working with the text messaging and getting voicemail transcriptions sent to you by IM, you start building up your GVMax contact list on your buddy list. In the initial stages, it’s a little frustrating as you are working on authorizing the contacts to add you to their “buddy list” since each GVMax contact is a new contact on your GTalk account. You can jump start the process if you read the manual and use the gga {number} command to add the numbers to your contact list (hint, don’t use the brackets). By the way, if that phone number is in your Google Voice contact list, it will show up on your buddy list as “ContactName [Phone]“.

So you get a text or a voicemail and you want to call the person back. First you have to designate which phone you want to use. If you don’t already know your phone index (which you probably won’t if it’s the first time you’re doing this), in any GVMax contact type “ggp” (without the quotes) and send the message. This will send you a message that says something like:

“retrieving available forward phones…”

“1. Home Phone 12145551212
2. Cell Phone 12145551314″

So if you want to use “Home Phone” you then type “ggp 1″ (again, without the quotes) and then send the message. You’ll get a response that says something like:

“Foward phone set to : Home Phone”

Now you’re ready to make a call. And as far as I can tell, it keeps that phone selection until you change it, so you don’t have to do it EVERY time you are ready to make a call, just when you want to change the designated phone.

So, if you already have the contact up on your IM client that you want to call (either because you got an SMS or voicemail transcript), you just have to type three little letters – “ggc”. Send the message.

You’ll get a response that says something like: “Placing call to 2145551919, +12145551212 set as forwarding phone”

Then – you wait. Your phone rings. You answer. Google Voice connects your call (the same way it would if you were using a desktop browser to place the call). Awesome.

If you want to call a number that isn’t on your contact list, no sweat! Just open ANY GVMax contact and type “ggc” followed by the number. Like this: ggc 2145558282. It’ll treat it like it did the call to your contact.

How awesome is that?

So using GVMax, you can get true FREE Google Voice SMS through IM. You can initiate calls through that same IM client (even on the iPod Touch!). Oh, and you can play your voicemail, too. The transcription includes a link to the audio. It’s not perfect, but in my opinion it’s more smooth than launching the browser, waiting for the page to load, clicking on a link for contacts, waiting for the page to load, clicking on a contact, waiting for the page to load, etc.

You know, I’ve been using GVMax for SMS and voicemail over IM for several weeks now…and I kept thinking “too bad I can’t just hit a button to call this person back.” If only I’d read the manual thoroughly!

Enter Meebo for the iPhone.

Before I go on, I just want to reference the hype out there about people doing paid reviews for iPhone applications (and in many cases not being up front about it) – this is not the case here. I found Meebo for the iPhone a few weeks ago and have just grown to like it so much, I thought others might benefit from knowing about my experiences (good and bad) with it. That’s it.

So, let me talk about Meebo for a bit. Meebo is a browser-based, multi-protocol instant messaging “client”. In other words, you can use it to sign into AIM, Yahoo, MSN, GTalk, Facebook chat, Myspace Chat, (and many, MANY more) without having to install anything on your computer. I used Meebo on occasion for the last couple of years, but was not really dedicated to using it because I didn’t like having to keep a browser tab open just for Meebo. I preferred having something I could minimize to my system tray (like Digsby or Pidgin) that allowed me to just get messages when they came in.

Well, AFTER finding out about Meebo for the iPhone, I discovered Meebo Notifier. The Notifier stays logged in to Meebo (with or without the browser open) and lets you know when you get a message. You double click the notifier icon to bring up Meebo.com in the browser of your choice (you can use your default browser or choose a specific browser. I use Google Chrome App Mode while my default browser is Firefox). As far as I can tell, Meebo Notifier is only available for Windows at this point.

Did I mention that Meebo for iPhone is FREE? That’s right – FREE. And it has push notifications and when you close the app, it will keep you logged in (for now) for about 24 hours (according to one of their blog posts, they’re working on the option to extend that). I have had 2 occasions in the last 4 weeks or so when I got a notification from Meebo that I’d been logged out due to inactivity when it hadn’t been more than an hour or so…not sure how or why that happened, but at least I was notified. I just opened the app and was logged back in.

Now here’s where it made my life a little more sane.

I downloaded Meebo Notifier to my computer. I downloaded Meebo on my iPhone. Like other iPhone chat clients with push, I can chat on my iPhone and get notified of new messages when the app is closed. But where Meebo really stands above the rest is when I open up my laptop, Meebo Notifier logs in, and pretty much instantly, my message notifications start coming through my computer INSTEAD OF (not in addition to) my iPhone. While you have Meebo active on your computer, they disable the push notifications. They even give you a nifty little message within Meebo that says “Push notifications are disabled while you are active”. And then, when I’m tired of being on my laptop. I just close it down, and without any effort on my part, push notifications start on my phone again. SWEET! If you have it on a desktop computer that you’re leaving turned on, 15 minutes of idle time will automatically re-engage the push notifications to your phone (or you can close the notifier or even shut down Windows…which will make it instantaneous).

AND, as an added bonus…all my chats are synchronized between my phone and my computer. All the conversations I was having on my phone show up when I open up my computer. When I close my computer and open Meebo on my phone…my chats are preserved. If I end up with too many preserved chats that are getting in my way, signing completely out of Meebo on both the phone and the computer will close all of the open chat sessions.

Now…the “gripes”.

1) Meta-contacts…it seems to me after my experience with other instant messaging clients, that meta-contacts should be standard. If you don’t know…meta-contacts are when you take multiple screen names on your buddy list and tie them all to one name to reduce the number of names showing on your buddy list. Because I’m logged in to at least 6 different screen names at once, I might have the same person on my buddy list in 6 different protocols and their name shows on my list 6 times. That’s a little obnoxious. Workable, but obnoxious.

2) Tabbed conversations. I’ve been using tabbed convesations for YEARS now. Going into the Meebo browser experience keeps all your chats in one window, but all your IM conversations are all over the place. Makes me feel cluttered.

3) The idle time setting for re-activation of push notifications to the phone. Fifteen minutes is ok, but if I have notifier running on my desktop and I suddenly leave my computer, it’s going to take 15 minutes for push notifications to my phone to re-engage. I would like the option to modify the idle interval at which Meebo will begin to push to my phone again. This is especially important if you’re taking advantage of Google Voice and GVMax for SMS messaging. (That’s a whole other post, but let’s just say I’m using SMS without using my AT&T SMS plan by leveraging Google Voice, GVMax and Meebo). If I walk away from my computer, that could mean that I won’t be aware of any SMS messages that come to me in that 15 minute period. I can always open Meebo on my phone and I’ll see them…I just won’t get the push notifications until then.

4) No Skype support (yet). Skype is not really all that important to me, but there are a lot of people out there looking for Skype integration. So far it doesn’t really look like it’s on the horizon just yet.

5) No ability NOT to save my password on the Meebo Notifier. That just bugs me. Every chat client I’ve ever used has had a little check box for “Save Password” except Meebo. It’s not a deal breaker for me, but I would prefer to have the option to make it so that if Meebo Notifier is launched on my computer, it’ll require my password.

Gripes aside – Meebo is, by far, the most mobile-friendly chat client I’ve used. You can chat with your friends on any computer with a browser without installing any local software. The way it shuts off push to the phone when you’re active on the computer is just awesome. And the seamless transition back to push when you close it on your computer just really makes this THE chat app.

P.S. – in case there IS anyone out there who wants to pay me for this post…just let me know…I’ll tell you where to send the check! LOL

It’s been a pretty quiet (blog-wise anyway) several months for me. I’ve been pretty busy and when I haven’t been busy, I just haven’t been sure of what I want to say or how I want to say it. So, if you’re reading this post after my 7 months of silence, THANK YOU for stopping by!

I have a little story to share that warms my heart and I am hoping will warm yours. Before I get started I want you to know that while I am one of the subjects of the story, it’s not about me. It’s about the other person. I don’t really like talking about when I give to others because, to me, it cheapens the experience…but this particular experience just needed to be shared. So please don’t focus on me or my actions in this story…it’s really not about me.

So – rewind a few weeks…

It was early in the morning…it was cold (yes…even cold in Texas). The digital display on the dash of my company vehicle said that it was 34 degrees (Fahrenheit) out. That’s almost FREEZING by even technical standards! I was headed to San Antonio to work for the day, but needed to pick something up at my office before making the 2.5 hour drive. My office is downtown, so it’s not unusual to see (in the wee hours of the morning) a homeless person sleeping under the shelter of our front door (which is recessed such that there is probably a 20 by 40 area that’s under a roof. There are three walls of protection from the weather, but open such that you can see the street from the conference room. Despite the three walls, it’s STILL COLD.

So I drove up to the office and saw a man sleeping on some cardboard, wrapped up in several blankets on the sidewalk directly in front of our office door. I would have had to step ON him in order to get in the door. Under normal circumstances when I come across someone in front of our door like that, I will politely inform them that I need them to leave. Not this day…it was FREAKING COLD!!! I needed to get into the office, though, so I told him that I needed him to move. He said, “Yes, sir” and sat up and started unwrapping the blankets, getting his shoes on, and packing up his gear into a tattered backpack he had with him. As I walked by and unlocked the door, I said “It sure is cold this morning, isn’t it?”

I know…lame. But what else can you say to some poor homeless dude sleeping in front of your office when it’s 34 degrees out and you’re actually in a hurry to get in, get out, and get on the road for the next few hours?

So I walk in, I think about locking the door behind me, but then change my mind. It’s REALLY REALLY COLD outside, and if he feels the need to walk in and warm up for a minute while I get what I need…I just don’t have the heart to refuse him that. My heart was already breaking at the thought of someone having to sleep outside in this kind of weather.

As I finished loading the items into my car, he gets up and starts walking away. This guy can barely walk. I know pain…I experience it all day every day because of my back injury. This guy was worse off than me. He COULD have been faking it…but it seemed real enough to me.

So, I walk over to the door to lock up and he’s stops and says, “Excuse me, sir…do you think you could spare some change? Just a few quarters or something so maybe I can get some coffee?”

Did I mention just how cold it was outside? I think I saw a penguin walk by…shivering…

I am hesitant to give money to the homeless. If someone asks for something, I would much rather give them what they say they need…so if they’re asking for money to get something to eat…I would rather buy them something to eat. That way, they can get something that their body really needs (sustenance), and not go waste it on alcohol. So I said, “You know what…it’s pretty cold out here…let me take you down to (restaurant chain I work for) to get some breakfast?”

“Really?” he asked?

“Yeah…”

“Oh, wow! Thank you! (Restaurant chain I work for) is my favorite!!!”

I think he thought I was going to walk down there with him (it probably would have been a 15 minute walk for me by myself…with him it probably would have been 25-30. But that was never my intent anyway…haven’t I told you? IT WAS COLD!!! My car – THAT was warm…I said, “Climb in!” and unlocked the door for him.

Now let me tell you…I hadn’t really thought this next part through. It was a short drive, I was blasting the heater (especially to warm my guest) and…because of HOW COLD IT WAS…the windows were not going to be rolled down…

…but his aroma was a little south of heavenly…

…ok…a LOT south of heavently…

…ok…heavenly shouldn’t even be in the same sentence as this guy’s odor…

Not that he could help it…he’s living on the streets wearing the same clothes day in and day out, sleeping in who-knows-what when he’s moving from one place to the other…it wasn’t a pleasant smell, for sure. But I didn’t let that discourage me. He wouldn’t be in my car for long.

So, after he put his seat belt on, he offered me his hand and said, “I’m Marco!” (at least that’s what I thought he said). I accepted his handshake and said “I’m Dustin!”

He proceeded to tell me how he used to live in Houston, but that it was pretty rough in Houston. He was hit by a car. He showed me his leg.

People…he was not faking about hardly being able to walk…

His leg looked AWFUL. Looked like the muscle had been ripped right from it, then cauterized, then healed. It looked like he was a severe burn victim, but just on part of his leg. I was truly heartbroken at the sight. All I could say was “Marco, that’s awful!”

He then told me that it wasn’t the only time he was hit by a car. Said he was hit by a second car before he decided to leave Houston. So…he doesn’t have a bum leg…he has TWO. He didn’t show me his other leg, but I had no reason to doubt him at this point. I saw the way he was walking. This guy didn’t have a good leg to stand on.

During the short drive (where I noticed that the smell was either starting to fade, or I was starting to get at least partially used to it), he also told about how he was sleeping on the grass across the street from a nearby church and another homeless person came and just started kicking the crud out of him. Kicking him in the stomach, the head…he said he wasn’t sure why. The other guy was making wild accusations that he had heard that Marco was saying some bad things about him.

I didn’t think my heart could break any further for one guy. Hit by two cars…kicked awake while sleeping…sleeping on a piece of cardboard on a cold sidewalk in weather that was so frigid it would make an ice cube look like a warm ember of coal…This guy had it bad…and I had only talked to him for about 2 minutes at this point.

So we get to (restaurant chain I work for) and I get out of the car. As he’s getting out of the car, I say “Sir, I really don’t mean to offend…but I don’t think they’re going to want you in the dining room.”

Without even the slightest bit of offense in his voice (he sounded merry!) he said, “Oh, NO NO NO…I’ll just wait outside. It’s no big deal at all!”

So…I ask him what he wants to eat…I ask him if he prefers bacon or sausage on his sandwich…what size coffee. He told me that he just wanted the small coffee. I asked him if he was sure…cuz, in case he didn’t realize it…it was just a little bit freezing outside. Nope…he wanted the small. He wanted the warm drink, but could only handle so much caffeine.

So…I went in and bought him a meal…I ordered extra sausage on his sandwich cuz I don’t know how often he gets to eat. I take him his meal. He thanks me again…and again…and I tell him I hope he has a blessed day. He reciprocates the sentiment and I get in my car (which still smells like Marco) and head out to San Antonio.

Even if I didn’t have the odoriferous reminder of the man I met that morning in my car…I would have thought about him during the entire drive. I felt so very bad for him. I couldn’t stop thinking about how I wished I could go back, take him to my house, let him use my shower, wash his clothes…or burn them and get him some new, clean clothes and see what else I could do to better his situation.

By the way…the smell didn’t last the whole drive…

It lasted most of the day…

But that’s just the intro…

Don’t groan…it’s a long intro, but the part I really wanted to share is much shorter. But the intro was important to the story.

So fast-forward to Christmas Eve (yesterday)…I had thought about Marco a couple times in the couple of weeks that passed. I wondered where he was at…I wondered how he was holding up…I wondered if I would ever see him again. I mean…even if I wanted to…how do you drive around looking for a homeless guy who could be anywhere in a city? Especially when he told you he was going to try to move to the other side of the bridge (I left that part of the conversation out…but he wanted to move across to the other side of the harbor bridge. I can’t even imagine how he’d pull that off with TWO bum legs…)

So I was at work…at the office. I was less than happy because it had been a very long couple of weeks, and I was tired, and I was the only one at the office because our office was actually closed for Christmas Eve, but I just had too much that just needed to be done.

I was busy analyzing some numbers when I heard this loud pounding on the front door. It was incessant. I figured it was someone I worked with trying to knock long and loud enough to get my attention to let them in (I had the door locked). I didn’t know WHO would be trying to come in to work besides me…but thought maybe my boss had shown up or something and didn’t have his key in hand or something…who knows?

It was not someone I worked with.

It was a homeless man…in a wheelchair…with the biggest grin on his face you could even imagine.

It was Marco.

I was astonished. First of all, I couldn’t believe I had a second opportunity to see and talk to him since I hadn’t been able to get him out of my mind. Secondly…he was in a wheelchair. Not a very nice one…looked pretty worn…but a functional wheelchair. I unlocked the door and opened it. Before I could even say anything. He grabbed my hand and, with the biggest smile I’ve ever seen on a homeless man, he said “MERRY MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!” He didn’t just shake my hand. He grabbed my hand like a servant might grab a king’s hand…brought it to head forehead like an act of praise or even worship.

“Marco, right?” I asked.

“No…MICHAEL” he grinned.

“Oops…I had it wrong! But you see how they sound the same…Michael…Marco…easy mistake right?”

“How about Margaret?” he smiled.

“No, Michael…that doesn’t sound quite the same!” and I laughed.

We had a short little reunion and he told me how he had not made it to the other side of the bridge yet, but that he was sleeping under it. Told me how he got hit by yet ANOTHER car. Showed me his foot…he couldn’t wear a shoe on it because it was so swollen. The swelling had gone down some, but he still couldn’t put his shoe on it. My heart broke for him again. He told me that he was blessed though, because he found this wheel chair and was still able to get around.

So, he had seen my car parked in front of the office and recognized it and came to say hi. After our short conversation, he said he didn’t want to keep my from my work, but wanted to wish me a merry Christmas. He did ask me if I could bless him with a couple of dollars. I felt comfortable enough to give him a little money at this point, so I gave him a 5 dollar bill. He thanked me for my generosity and grabbed my hand again. “HAVE A WONDERFUL, MERRY CHRISTMAS” he proclaimed. Then he said “No,” brought my hand to his forehead in that same way a loyal servant might with his king, “have a BLESSED Christmas!”

“Thank you, Michael…you have a blessed Christmas as well.”

And he rolled away, I locked the door, and I went back to work.

I don’t know if he realizes just how much that made my day. Yeah, ok…he got a few of bucks off of me, but so what? A homeless man in a wheelchair stopped by my office on Christmas Eve to wish me a merry Christmas because he recognized my car in front of my office. That really touched my heart in a way I can’t even really describe. I sat at my desk nearly in tears because of how touched I was. Here was a guy who has things so much worse than I have…and he had such joy on his face when he greeted me.

So – that’s my story. I hope it was able to bring some light into your day. I wish all of you out there a safe and merry Christmas.

“Religious” note follows:

Remember why we call this holiday Christmas. Take a moment and forget about all the decorations…the lights…the gifts…and remember the man who came for our salvation, paid the ultimate price, but before His sacrifice told us “Inasmuch as you did to one of the least of my brethren, you did it to Me.” If you ask me, there are few greater joys than sharing the love of Christ with others by doing what Christ would do. To me…that’s what this season is really about.

Merry Christmas, everyone!

There are people out there who might imply or blatantly state that I am not capable of rational thought…and they may be correct to a degree. But, I have had a lot on my mind lately.

I’m not sure it would be best to talk about it all in one post, as it could result in quite a long post. But I did want to talk about something in particular.

Recently, a friend posted a link on facebook about a man by the name of Eric De La Cruz. Eric was diagnosed at the age of 22 with dialated cardiomyopathy. At the time of the artical, he was in congestive heart failure and incapable of getting on a heart transplant list because no private insurance will cover him, and medicaid would not cover it – and of course he did not have the money to pay for it himself.

Through his sister’s reaching out to basically everyone, they have come a LONG way in the last week. You can read the updates on the website http://lifegiverproject.org. Some of the updates I read there had angered me beyond description. They got to a point where they had raised over $500,000 and it was STILL not enough to get him on a transplant list. I have no idea how much a heart transplant costs…but half a mil is a LOT.

As of the last update they are just over $870k. That’s a LOT of fundraising for one person in one week. He is now in a hospital where he could potentially get the heart and he is on a transplant list. Good news for him and his family (we hope and pray).

I have had a very hard time with this whole ordeal. Not just because of this one man’s story, but because of all the other stories out there like his. I made a comment to a friend the other day that “I hate money.” I understand that money is necessary in the world we live in these days (well, at least in the society that those of you reading this are a part of…I mean, let’s face it…might not have access to my blog if you’re in a place where you have absolutely no need for money). But I hate that MONEY is such a driving force. I hate that because of money people die. I hate that because of money people suffer. I hate that because of money, people that have a real need for help get ignored.

I know I’m only one person, and I know I can’t save everyone, but I’ve decided that it’s time for me to figure out what I can do to help. I haven’t solved that riddle completely just yet, but I have some ideas I’m working on.

Anyway, that’s what I felt like blogging about tonight. You may hear from more in the future on this subject on this blog, or I may mention some other blog I start for the sole purpose of fulfilling a desire to reach out and help someone. In the mean time, I hope to get back into my normal style of writing and hopefully entertaining my readers.

By the way…the three of you who have already subscribed to my blog since I moved, THANK YOU! If you know who the other 18 readers are that haven’t yet joined us over here…let them know I’ve moved! How sad that I have no idea who my readers are…lol.

It just so happens that the domain “braindungeon.com” was available! Sooooo, I made the purchase and got it all set up today! I haven’t moved it over yet, so if you happen to try to find it before I do, you may get an error message, but I promise it won’t be long before I get everything moved over.

I know I’ve been pretty quiet lately, but I have a feeling that’s about to change because of some things that have been on my mind. So, if you like my blog, and you wouldn’t mind, if you subscribe to my blog here, please visit my new site and subscribe there. Currently the actual URL of the blog is http://braindungeon.com/blog but you can also get there by going to http://braindungeon.com

I hope I see you there!

I want to thank you for your generosity in thinking about Stacy and the people she works with. Working in an office all day long can actually be quite draining and sitting in front of a computer all day can literally make people lose all will to actually even move their fingers to type…I think that’s why voice recognition software was created. Having liquid energy in 16oz cans sitting in our office fridge is hugely convenient.

Anyway, while I am appreciative of the gesture, I thought I would let you know what happened after consuming my first 6 cans during my lunch hour yesterday.

First of all, I was mildly amused by the moniker of “Earth Shattering Energy” on the can…at first. After the third can or so, I realized that this was no “amusing” matter. Truth be told I am a little concerned that my internal organs may not stop violently spasming. I probably should have stopped after the 5th can as the MRI at the ER last night revealed severe bruising of my brain. They asked if I had been in an accident of some kind because it was like my brain had bounced around in my skull violently for hours. I guess it’s a good thing they’re low-carb…imagine if I’d had all that sugar too!!!

Also, did you know that one serving of that energy drink has 100% recommended daily values of Niacin (B3), 190% of B6 and 180% of B12? Did you also know that there are 2 servings per can? I guess consuming 1200% of B3, 2280% of B6 and 2160% of B12 in under an hour throws your vitamin balance a little off. I couldn’t touch a computer for the rest of the day because my body actually absorbed all the A’s, C’s, D’s and E’s off every screen and keyboard I came in contact with. Imagine that! I had the energy and will to work, but COULDN’T!

I did some reading on the symptoms of overdosing on B vitamins, but there is one side effect that I suffered that I couldn’t seem to correlate and was wondering if you’d heard of it. After about 2 hours and 8 more cans of energy drink, the two separate hemispheres of my brain seemed to begin operating independantly of each other…and without regard to my willful operation of the finer motor functions of my own body, my right arm ripped my left arm clean off my body and started beating me in the face with it. I ran around the office screaming for help, but no one would come near me. And when I say “ran” I’m using the term loosely. My left leg ran, but my right leg stubbornly stood in one place so really I was just spinning around in circles. Have you ever beaten yourself in the face with your own dismembered arm while spinning in circles and screaming? Apparently others see that is “crazy.” The blows must have been pretty forceful too because, although the bruising and cracked bones in my face will heal quickly, I am still having trouble finding the middle and ring fingers of my left arm. I think it is important to note at this point that my right arm was the prosthetic one.

As I can generally be a little crazy at work, it took a while for anyone to realize just how serious a reaction I was having. I must have told them over and over I really needed help, but apparently it was coming out as “FADA BADA BADA BADA BLUH BLUH BLUH FFFF THBBBBBB”. While this isn’t completely unusual for me in the office, this time I hadn’t been on a tech support call for the last hour.

Lastly, I thought it interesting to note that until the final 4 cans yesterday I thought the term “jumping out of my skin” was just a euphimism. Did you know seeing a living human body with no skin can actually make people vomit? Although it probably didn’t help that my skeleton wasn’t much support for all the meat because it had vibrated to almost complete liquification.

Anyway – sorry to go on and on, but I just wanted to thank you again for thinking of us. Aside from the missing fingers, the doctors seem confident that I will be mostly back to normal after a heart transplant, brain surgery, and after they reapply my skin and re-attach my left arm. I look forward to trying the other flavors of that energy drink!

A few weeks ago I purchased iBlogger which would supposedly let me create posts for my Blogger account. Unfortunately, I just can’t get it to work. I got it to work on a Wordpress blog, but every time I tried to get to this Blogger blog, iBlogger would just crash. I am confident that the developer can solve the problem, given some time. I only reported the issue last night.

I was going to just wait for a response, but I accidentally came across another app called SkyPetr Lite. I was searching to see what apps existed out there that provided access to Skype. While I found something earlier today that did just that, I was curious what else was out there.

Needless to say, I downloaded SkyPetr Lite (which is free). It’s meant for use with MySpace, YouTube, and of course Blogger. I haven’t checked out the first two yet, but this post has been successfully and entirely composed using SkyPetr Lite.

The only downside I have seen so far is that you are required to register an account with SkyPetr before you can sign in and access the other items. I am not sure I understand that logic other than a means of getting your email address.

Nonetheless, for now I am ok with it. At least I was able to compose this post on my phone!

For the past week, I have been visiting several of our restaurants before opening time and at closing time to perform some updates to the databases in their registers. This is a fairly arduous task and has been the cause of some sleep deprivation I’ve had this past week. Every day I have been up some time between 3AM and 4AM (for those of you who are particular about it, that’s Central Standard Time), so that I could be in the stores and have the full process completed before they opened their doors at 6. THEN, I would visit a store at 10 and perform the updates and get out of the stores around 12 or 1 (again, central standard time).

There was also work to be done during the day, and I did my best to catch some Z’s when I had some down-time, but 2 things kept that from happening: 1) I have a very hard time sleeping during the day and 2) People have a very hard time calling me without making my phone ring. So…even if I did happen to doze off, my phone would ring within a few minutes and wake me up. Even sleeping at night was tough this week because of all the thinking involved in getting this done right – it was hard to turn my brain off when it was actually time to sleep. So most days I was on less than 4 hours of sleep and even one day I was on 1.5 hours of sleep.

I’m not sure why I’m telling you all this except for maybe it sets the stage for the kind of mood I was in this particular morning.

You see, Friday night was the first night I was able to get more than 4 hours of sleep. I probably would have slept until 9 or 10 had my phone not rang at 7:20. I had also taken my pain medicine the night before so I was pretty groggy. But…all in all, I was in a decent mood because I was going to GO HOME (3 Hour drive from where I was).

So I go down for a continental breakfast and sit down with a bagel, some yogurt and a banana. I turn to the large, flat-screen tv mounted on the wall which has the sound turned down. I am watching what appears to be some kind of shopping network or something. I can’t really tell what’s going on since there’s no sound, but usually, one can deduce what’s going on in an infomercial, right? WRONG!

There are two people on the screen. One man and one woman. The man appears to be the informercial salesman and the woman appears to be the infomercial oooooooh-and-aaaaahhhh person. I see the man take something that looks like a large phone receiver and stick it to a wall. When I say it looked like a phone receiver, I mean it looked a lot like the photo to the left, except the color was white, there was no cord, and the round parts were much bigger. It looked like some make shift wall-handle. My first thought was, “Oh, yes – because I’ve always wanted a handle…ON MY WALL!!!!” Funny, yes, but I thought I’d continue watching to see what the purpose for this phone-receiver-looking wall-mountable handle might actually be.

No such luck. The man moved on to another bizarre task. He took 4 or 5 rectangular and brightly-colored sponges and put them on the table in front of the woman. He then takes a chef’s knife (as pictured to the right) and presses down on the stack of sponges. I think “Oh – the guy is going to cut sponges with a knife…but what’s with the handle on the wall?”

Patiently I wait for the answer to the wall-handle question and continue to push down on the stack of sponges and nothing happens. Well, the sponges compress but there is no cutting going on.

So the guy reaches over and starts sharpening the knife. I think to myself, “Ohhh….he’s going to sharpen the knife and THEN cut the sponges. He’s selling a knife sharpener! But what’s with the handle ON THE WALL????”

So he finishes sharpening the knife and presses the knife down on the sponges. This time quite a bit harder. I’m thinking “If pressing harder did the trick then how am I supposed to know if your sharpener worked, bright guy?”

But, once again, nothing. The woman is smiling and nodding and saying something, but I don’t know what. For all I know she could be saying, “If you keep trying to cut the sponges, maybe people won’t notice the large plastic handle on the wall right next to me!”

So the guy starts sharpening the knife again. If it’s an informercial for the knife sharpener, this is not going well.

So he takes his twice-sharpened chef’s knife and pressed down really hard on the sponges this time he starts sawing at the sponges…NOTHING! The woman picks up the top sponge and looks at a tiny cut in the top of it and looks like she’s impressed that he was actually able to cut a small slit into the sponge. I’m thinking “Yay, he sharpened it enough to cut a SPONGE; NOW I can use it to cut MEAT! NOW WHAT’S WITH THE HANDLE ON THE WALL?????”

As if to press my insanity over the wall handle to new levels and confuse everything that makes up my mental capacity, the guy then reaches over and picks up a generic can of cola and a square of carpet. “OHHHHH…”, I think to myself, “He’s selling SPONGES. He’s going to make a mess and clean it up!”

So the guy proceeds to dump the entire contents of the can of generic cola onto the square of carpet that is now sitting ont he counter right next to the sponges in front of the woman. “I called THAT!”

Nope!

He then reaches over and picks up a large chamois and starts mopping the cola up off the carpet. At this point I’m thinking “Ok, so the guy is nothing more than a raving lunatic who wants to cut sponges and when that doesn’t work he has to throw a tantrum by dumping his soda all over the counter and then feels guilt-ridden enough to mop up the mess…BUT WHAT THE HECK IS WITH THAT FREAKING HANDLE ON THE WALL?????????”

I am sorry to report that I have no idea what that was all about. I don’t know why the guy dumped out the soda and mopped it up. I don’t know why he tried THREE TIMES to cut a stack of colorful sponges. In fact, had the sound been on, I’d almost be willing to bet that he tried to cut the sponges the woman remarked “WOW! Those are some TOUGH SPONGES!!!” and then he would have replied, “Yeah…too bad they can’t clean for CRAP! So here’s a chamois!!!”

And…I.DON’T.KNOW.WHY.HE.PUT.A.HANDLE.ON.THE.WALL!!!!!

Please…PLEASE…one of my readers out there…PLEASE tell me that you’ve seen this infomercial and can fill me in on what it was all about! My mental wellness may very well depend on it!!!

What a silly question. I didn’t intend to start my post by contradicting myself, but I got to thinking about that question as I was typing it and thought to myself, “Time doesn’t go ANYWHERE!”

I know – I’m a goof. But it’s true, you know. Time doesn’t go anywhere. Time “stands still” if you will. Time is one of those things that everyone has and you can’t save it or store it. You can just use it or waste it. Hopefully how you’re satisfied with how you’re using your time.

I really didn’t mean to go there. How drab!

Anyway – it’s been yet another month since my last post. What’s Dustin been doing? Where has Dustin been? What’s been on Dustin’s mind???

Lots.

I’ve spent quite a bit of time doing the new-store-opening thing. It can be pretty stressful to work on opening 2 restaurants at the same time. And all I have to worry about is the technical side of things! I did develop a new favorite saying during these last two openings, though. I can’t really remember what the circumstances were surrounding my comment, but the conversation was surrounding the completion of the equipment installations and whether the employees were ready for the store to open or how they were handling the opening or something. I made the comment “I only installed the equipment. I didn’t install the employees.” It elicited a laugh and all was well.

A few weeks ago, I jumped on the iPhone bandwagon as well. I have to admit, I was kind of a nay-sayer when the iPhone thing started happening. I saw the phone, I thought it was kinda cool, but really…what was the big freakin’ deal???

It’s a heck of a phone, that’s what!

Seriously – this thing is fantastic. I have only downloaded 2 paid apps, and everything else I have on my phone I downloaded free. I haven’t jailbroken my phone and I don’t know that I intend to because so far, I’m happy with what I can do with it.

So, I’ve been working, iPhoning and that’s pretty much it.

OH – except for one thing…I just want to whine a little bit about my xbox 360. It got the Red Ring of DEATH. That’s right – my xbox 360 died last week. Well – I’m not 100% sure WHEN it died. All I know is that after about a month of no use (because I’ve been out of town too much to watch movies or play games), we were going to watch a DVD on it last weekend and got the dreaded red ring. The one that lights up 3 of the 4 quadrants with red light and basically means “general hardware failure”. It’s not as big a deal as it could be because Microsoft declared about a year and a half ago that anyone experiencing this problem within 3 years of the original purchase date will have the problem fixed at no charge because apparently they screwed up when it came to putting these things together properly.

We boxed it up and sent it out yesterday. They told me it’ll be 2-3 weeks before I’ll see it again. It could be worse, but now we have to move a DVD player in from a different room to watch our DVDs – and it won’t be as good because our other DVD player doesn’t have composite video or HDMI so now I’m so spoiled that just watching it with a regular dvd player is going to disappoint me…lol

Anyway, I guess that’s all I have to say for now. I just thought I’d check in and let my fans (really, Dustin…fans?) know that I’m doing well and have just been really busy. Hopefully I’ll be around a bit more for a little while and you can hear more from me really soon!

Oh – and happy December 21st everybody!!! Today is the shortest day (daylight hours) of the year. The sun will start shining longer starting tomorrow! (Well, for those of you in the Northern Hemisphere anyway…)