Five things people don't know about me

There's a challenge meme floating around the tech-blogosphere at the moment, and I have the dubious honor of being tagged twice. Thanks Karen and Jeff - you may see support for your departments slow down a little... Nick Bradbury introduced it into the NewsGator realm, and it has done the rounds. Basically the challenge is to state 5 things that most people wouldn't know about you...

I NEVER pass on chain letters. In fact, even if I totally agree with an email and the last line says "pass this on to every one you know" or "everyone in your contact list", the forward button is off limits to me. In the rare exception that I pass one on to a few select people (I remember it happening twice) that offending line was removed. Email chains are the social viruses of the tech world.

Now my rant is over, I think this is a little different. People can choose to go to my blog, or they can choose to stay away. Anything posted here is not forced upon them, so I don't consider this a chain. And along the meme I've learned some very interesting things about people I admire, so here goes:

1. Unlike Greg, though I'm a little white boy from Wollongong, Australia (just south of Sydney), if you look at my iPod you'll find an inordinate amount of HipHop, Rap and RnB. How on earth I got into the likes of the YinYang twins and Ludacris while growing up in a culture of Grunge and married to a woman who listens to Country, I'll never know.
   
   
2. I play guitar. Though I'm a long way out of practice right now, I used to be the band director at a fairly large Church, and was in a number of Rock bands. I even performed in concerts with crowds of several thousand. But to this day, I get REALLY nervous talking in front of more than about 10 people.
   
   
3. By the time I was a Senior in High-School, I had been in 9 separate car accidents. I was only driving for one of them (some guy ran into the back of me at a traffic light), and NONE of them were the fault of the person in whose car I was in... Damages ranged from 2 deaths to a busted headlight. The worst thing that happened to me personally was 2nd degree burns to my foot that put me in hospital for just over a week when I was 7. (Fortunately I don't carry any scars - physically or emotionally ;>)
   
   
4. The high school I went to was kind of small. My sophomore class had 10 students total. Though with 4 teachers we had a pretty good student-teacher ratio
   
   
5. Broad Australian accents grate on my ears... I know I'm from Australia, and trust me when I say I LOVE it. But when I heard a really strong, country bumpkin, Australian accent (particularly female - sorry ladies) I can't stand it!

So I'm going to try and move this conversation out of the company. I'm going to take 3 former NewsGator Employees: Jack, Mark and James. And let's see if we can get some of our most loyal customers in on this: Critter32 and Spyder, do you feel like playing?? Tag, you're IT!

The time nears

We close on our house tomorrow! The nerves are setting in as we are on the eve of signing many, many, many documents, which will result in us owing many, many dollars.

The house is packed.

The cupboard is bare.

The moving van is booked.

It's an exciting time!

The Internet is a scary place for homebuyers...

Through the process of buying a home, Realtors stress that they do NOT do any research on sexual offenders in the area. If they know of one, they will tell you about it, but it is something you have to take up with the police if you are concerned.

Megan's Law (or state equivalents) have made it so that the record of many sexual offenders are available online. This is certainly the case in Colorado, and since curiosity almost always gets the better of me, I decided to take a look.

Man, there are some scary people out there!! Looking ap the location of our new house, we are blessed with a very clean slate - there is no-one near us. So I had a look around where I live currently, and I got chills.

So here is the low-down: they publish the picture, name and last known address of all sex offenders in the area. If the person is a multiple offender, or failed to register, they also publish the crimes with which they were charged. Though they don't directly link to maps, taking the address and pasting it into Google maps is a 5 second task that did nothing but scare me. I walk past a number of registered offenders every day!

A little more research showed that none of them were violent, repeat or predatory offenders - one 20 year old got on the list because he had sex with his 17 year old girlfriend, which I'm not saying is right morally or legally, but he posed little threat to anyone else. I'm sure the end result is that not too many people look as far into it as I did, and get completely freaked out in the process.

Take my advice, unless you have a pressing and relevant need to check out your area - STAY AWAY.

Patriotic to be mad

Normally I don't get particularly passionate about politics, especially in the country that I have only recently adopted as my own, but it's because I love America that I'm angry.

Glenn Berry, a workmate of mine who served in the marine corp said it beautifully:

When I was growing up and when I served in the Marine Corps during the Reagan Administration, there was never any doubt in my mind that we Americans were the "good guys", and that the United States was a force for good in the world.

But last night the senate passed a bill that suspends Habeas Corpus. No, this isn't the President's bill, but one that has been a more reasonable alternative. The Daily Kos has a very insightful article.

What is Habeas Corpus? Basically it is the right to a fair trial. It gives detainees the right to appeal to a court about the validity of their incarceration. Without it, any "enemy combatant" (who, by the way is anyone the government decide to call one - no evidence needs to be presented) can be detained indefinitely.

Furthermore, though this bill doesn't try to redefine what constitutes torture (like the bush bill) is denies the right of anyone who IS tortured to appeal to a court about their treatment. [Section 6, Page 55 - PDF]

America has long prided itself on it's morals and it's fierce defence of individual human rights. This has been the lynch pin of the judicial system since the Founding Fathers declared independence. In fact they though it to be so important that in Article 1 of the constitution they wrote:

The Privilege of the Writ of Habeas Corpus shall not be suspended, unless when in Cases of Rebellion or Invasion the public Safety may require it.

If we win a war by playing by the same dirty rules as others, does that make us better? or just a bigger bully?

Time for a first house

Wow, the posts have been few and far between recently... So the biggest news for the moment is that Abby and I are getting towards the end of the process of purchasing our first home. This has been crazy, exciting, nerve-racking and a huge adventure, but through it all we have really had a lot of fun.

Starting with an idea
After talking to many people with a lot more experience than ourselves (my parents, Abby's parents, and friends who have recently moved), when we began the process of looking for a home. The first thing we looked for was not the house, but the area...

My parents like to remind me of the three most import rules of property investment - location, location, location - and point out that it is equally import in a home, not just an investment property. Learning from their mistakes, their best advice was that even though they have loved all the houses they have lived in, they have missed a little on the locations. To echo this, Abby's sister, Molly, has a friend who recently moved into the general area we had decided we wanted to live. My father-in-law was talking to her only a month after they had moved in and asked how they were liking it. Her answer was sad. She said they love the house, but really don't like the subdivision they are in.

So we decided to keep this in mind when looking for our first home: houses can be fixed, carpet can be replaced, walls can be painted and yards can be landscaped - but you can't change your neighbours, their houses, the cars parked out front, the traffic flow or where an access road flows.


Starting the Process
Keeping the above in mind, we started a little differently to some people. Not on the Internet, not with a realtor, but on bikes and on foot. We knew we wanted to live fairly close to where we currently rent in the Westminster/Broomfield area, so we walked around the communities that were close to us.

While walking we took note of the feel or ambiance of the community. We looked at whether they had community facilities (pools, gyms, tennis courts etc) and how high the HOA fees were. We picked up fliers for any houses for sale in the area and got a general idea of the age/size/cost of the area.

One thing we took notice of, was how the community member took care of their cars, and funnily enough this was one of the BEST indicators of what a community was like! I'm not talking about whether they were expensive or cheap, but whether they were in good condition and well cared for. What we found was that a community with older cars that were in excellent condition ended up being nicer than a community with new/expensive cars that had been neglected a little. Expensive cars that had been cared for only seemed to be in communities way outside our price range - go figure ;)

One of the areas that we looked through was where Molly's friend lived, though we didn't know it at the time. Just going through it I turned to Abby and said that I felt it had a transitional or transient feeling to it. Later when we inspected a house or two there, the Realtor was telling us about the area and said it was almost completely first home buyers, and after a few years they moved out. Now this isn't necessarily a bad thing! There is always a market for that area, and houses sell quite often which means it will be good when it is time to move on, but it isn't what Abby and I were looking for. It was also nice to get confirmation that our "get a feel for the neighbourhood" plan was working.

We finally found a subdivision that we really loved. It's called College Hills/Stratford lakes (they are interchangeable). It's an older subdivision which presents it's own set of challenges, but it has wide quiet streets, no through-traffic, well established landscaping and it back's onto the Big Dry Creek trail and open space. On top of that it is almost halfway between Abby's workplace and mine, and has easy access to some arterial roads.

We'd found where we wanted to live - next came the challenge of finding a house.

OK, That'll do for this post - more to come later...

FeedDemon 2.0.0.25

Nick Bradbury released FeedDemon 2.0.0.25 yesterday. This update includes both security and performance improvements, and is a free upgrade for existing users. Check the release notes for more details.

FeedDemon in the premier stand-alone RSS aggregator for the Windows platform. If you visit a number of webpages regularly, you can save time by having all the new and updated information delivered right to you desktop. Go ahead, check it out...

Colorado Camping

I’ve never been camping with dogs before. Believe me, it’s an experience! I’m thinking that when you take two house-raised, definitely spoiled boxers who at the same time think they are puppies, humans, rulers of the world, guardians of the campground and hunters of anything that moves, it MUST be good training for eventually having kids… You can’t take your eyes off them.

Bailey is the younger of the two. She is 6 and has only been camping once. I’m told, however, that she believes that every time the back of an SUV opens up she’s heading back to the camping trip that is so fond in her memory. Sometimes she’ll spend hours laying down in the back of the truck with the tailgate up, waiting to go on a road-trip. For once she wasn’t disappointed.

The funny thing about Bailey is that she also thinks that she weighs about the same as a miniature poodle.

We decided to stay at a fun little campground called the Sweetwater River Ranch. It is nestled on the lovely Texas river, exactly halfway between Canon city and Salida.

Once there we had to cart our gear across a rickety little suspension bridge. NOT super fun with 2 cowardly dogs, but once there is was wonderful.

There’s not too much to say except there was peace and quiet. Plenty of beer, bugs and burgers. Hot dogs and hyper-active dog (at 5:00am no less) but it was a great time.

More photo’s here.

3:30am on a Sunday

3:30am is an ungodly time for an alarm to go off on a Sunday morning, but the day had finally arrived: Abby’s first triathlon.

Fortunately the clothes were set out, the bike was already in the car, the coffee was brewed (strong and plentiful), the supplies for the day were packed, and so all we had to do was quickly dress and run out the door.

Driving at 4:30am in the middle of summer is strangely reminiscent of driving to the snow fields in the middle of winter – only 3 hours earlier. It was dark and quite, and although I wished I was still in bed there was caffeine buzzing through my veins and an air of nervous expectation in the car. The energy was contagious.

Abby, myself, Molly and Matt drove out to Aurora Reservoir – the site of the race – arriving at 5:45, just in time so see a beautiful sunrise:

Bikes and gear were lined up with care. Fortunately the transition area only opened at 5:30, so the girls were able to get a great position.

Molly, Abby and their friend Jen (who managed to get lost on the way – but that’s another story) pose while waiting for the race to start. One of the problem with being in a race with 2500 other women is that they can’t just let everyone go at once. It would be absolute chaos, especially in the swimming leg, so there were 25 waves of women a few minutes apart. Unfortunately the girls were in the 24th wave which means they had to wait until 8:20 to actually start the race.

It’s not often that my wife asks me to draw on her with a big fat marker – So I had fun with the opportunity.

Though there were smiles all around, Abby was wearing a full length wet suit and pink rubber hat in 102F (that 39C for all you at home) heat. She had sweat pouring out from her wrists and ankles. I’m not entirely sure how she did it. We were hot enough as it was just sitting under a marquee drinking. 2 iced coffees, a Starbucks doubleshot, a Fresca and a beer later (sure it was 9am, but I’d been up for over 5 hours) and I was still boiling hot.

Though Abby was worried about the 750m (.46 mile) swim, she did great! She and Molly started right at the back of the pack and had to fight their way through. They did the swim in just over 18 minutes and were in the top 40% – Next year I think she will do it without a full wet suit, and try to start at the front of the pack. I imagine she would easily come in the top 30%

The bike leg was where she had her biggest disadvantage. The course is 20km (12 miles) long, and Abby had a mountain bike with slick tires, while most of the competitors had road bikes. She put in a HUGE effort and completed the bike leg in under 45 mins, and in fact came in the top 35% of the field. But best of all, she was still smiling as she jumped off her bike and went into transition.

The run leg was where the heat was felt the most. By this time the girls had been racing for over an hour, and the sun was beating down. The air was thick and hot, but both Molly and Abby put in another tremendous effort and pulled the 5km (3 Mile) leg in 29 mins. That’s crazy fast, and in fact they came in the top 17% of all competitors.

Overall, they girls came in the top 24% of the race which personally I think is awesome for a first effort. With the right equipment and race experience, I know my wonderful wife will not only be able to enjoy more triathlons, but also be in the top section.

Just one side note – there were 449 people in her class, and she came 39th!

2 Weeks of Festivals, shows and Fairs

Wow, the last few weekends have been CRAZY! I have been to fairs, festivals, shows and more! In order:

• Territory Days in old Colorado Springs
• The Old Gaylord Festival in Denver
• Colorado Medieval Festival in Ft Collins
• Denver Exotic Sports Car show in Littleton.

Now three out of four of these were fantastic.

It was my second trip to Territory Days. Last time I had my best friend Tim with me, and he was really missed on this trip. Eating a Turkey leg by yourself just isn’t the same.

So even though I was bummed that Tim wasn’t with us, we really had a fun time. There was food on a stick, turkey legs, ribbon fries, ice cream and many fun things. There were stalls, dancing, music and face-painting – just about everything you could want in a street fair! The only down side was that there was a tiny little fenced off area, and any alcoholic beverages had to be consumed within the fence. We were panning to have margaritas, but we wanted to keep walking around (there was so much to see) that we decided to go sober.

We actually had a big group of people that day. There was Myself and Abby, Molly and Matt (brother and sister-in-law), Abby’s parents (Gary and Karen), her Aunt and her Aunts boyfriend (Kathy and Greg) as well as Abby’s cousin Victoria and her two beautiful kids.

Here’s Ella and Brenson – Great kids!:

 

 The day after Territory days, we went to The Old Gaylord festival. Now I have to tell you, I didn’t really know what to expect, but I didn’t care one bit! As soon as I found out about a street fair with that name, I had to go and check it out.

I was more than pleasantly surprised. Right from when we first got there, it was so much fun; we parked at a nearby school, and several taxi drivers had volunteered their time to shuttle people back and forth to the festival so that parking wouldn’t be a problem. We arrived to the sounds of live music pumping from the closed off streets, and immediately fell in with the crowd. The first thing I noticed that was different from Territory Days was that almost everyone was walking around with a beer in hand. My face lit up as I thought about how freaking hot it was, and that I would be able to have a nice cool one while we wandered.

Soon I realised that the festival was partly sponsored by Dos Equis a popular Mexican been (that I had never tried before). Then, foaming Lager in hand, we walked through all the fun stall, the rides and games, sat and listened to the local jazz band Dotsero before finally ending up in the food area.

How could I turn down a chance to eat Monkey Balls at the Gaylord Festival?? Not only is it food on a stick, but it sounds dirty!

I have NOTHING good to say about the Colorado Medieval Festival. We drove 50 miles in blistering heat into the middle of nowhere. We then had to drive along a dirt road, pay $12 per person to enter, and finally found there were about 12 tents inside – each was either selling something or was a place to rest for the so called “actors”. There was a tiny area in the middle where occasionally a “show” took place. 

We had 2 pulled pork sandwiches, I had a beer and Abby had a lemonade, then we tasted some mead (for which they charged us $1 for the privilege) and sat down to watch the show. It was the crappest thing I have ever seen – and I absolutely love the medieval period! There were 2 girls play-fighting with small swords and slapping each other. I’ve seen four year olds have a more convincing fight with plastic tubes! We really couldn’t take it any longer, so we left

All in all we spend $40 for about 45 of boredom out in the middle of a dust-bowl. I really, really hope that someone from the festival is reading this because I would recommend that no one ever go close to the place again!

And to make matter worse, they had the gall to sell 3–day passes!!! Who in their right mind would want to be tortured for that long?? Take a hint people: make it 1 day, spend some money and get a big crowd for a single day and you’ll find that people will return every year.

Fortunately, I have been informed by Abby that the Renaissance Festival later in the year is about 16 times as big, and a whole lot more fun, so I’m holding out for that.

 – Yep that’s right! 750HP and 700fp it’ll push the eyeballs out through the back of your head! 

My faith in Festivals was restored by this beauty the very next day! This gorgeous $600,000 (US) Saleen S7 was standing at the doorway of the Exotic car show in Littleton. The $10 entry fee was more than worth it with several hundred classic and new sports cars. If I thought that I missed Tim at Territory days, it was nothing compared to this – He would have been in HEAVEN!

I’ll post a couple of pictures, but they don’t really show the scope and the magnitude of what was there. I believe there were about 20 Porsches in the Parking lot – let alone in the show (there must have been more than 50 on display)!

There are some more pictures on my Flickr Site.

 Lovely Lotus Exige

 The Elise

 Yes! That’s an original 1965 Shelby Cobra signed by Carroll Shelby

 Mmm Ferrari Enzo

 2 of the 157 50th anniversary Corvettes converted to have the 1953 body by former Corvette lead engineer.

OK, That’s all for now!!

Please comment and write to me if you haven’t for a while!

NewsGator is a baby factory

More big news is in the works. Anita, one of the original three people to start with NewsGator just posted an exciting announcement on her blog. Congratulations babe!!!

Picture of Conner

Jack has finally broken the silence and posted! including a picture of Conner Zack Brewster.

New NewsGator Baby

A huge congratulations to my comrade-in-arms Jack here at NewsGator Support on the birth of his first child.

Yesterday, Jack and Keley Brewster announced that Conner Brewster arrived on this earth at 11:00am

Best wishes Jack! Make sure you take some time off to enjoy being with your family, because you won't be getting much sleep for quite some time...

Yard Of Ale

Originally uploaded by jonathonmcdougall.

The other exciting thing that we did this weekend was go to an Old English pub...

Now don't mistake me here, it's not a bar that LOOKS like an Old English pub, it was actually packed into crates and shipped to the US in the early 1800's. The Golden Bee was GREAT fun, and since I was at a place with such an inviting name, I decided to get a Yard of honey-wheat beer from a local Colorado Springs brewery. Damn it was good. All 48 ounces of it!

Ruby at Garden of the Gods - Landscape

Originally uploaded by jonathonmcdougall.

Last picture of Ruby for now

Ruby at Garden of the Gods

Originally uploaded by jonathonmcdougall.

After we gave Ruby a bath; Abby, Karen, Gary and myself went for a picnic to Garden of the Gods.

Between going for a walk and eating our picnic lunch, we decided to take a few portraits of the newest member of my family

Ruby Front

Originally uploaded by jonathonmcdougall.

From the front

Ruby is Dry

Originally uploaded by jonathonmcdougall.

Ruby the Honda VTX all clean and dry after her first Road trip

Ruby's Tank

Originally uploaded by jonathonmcdougall.

Ruby is a deep red color called "Candy-Apply Red"

The paint also has a metalic fleck running through it that makes it just POP in the sunlight.