I was really happy with my time, and looked over my results from the past 6 years:

2008 was 2 seconds slower than my best time of 41:36 (in 2006). Like we’ve done the past few years, we started at my house, ran to the starting line, ran the race, caught the bus back to the Big Lots plaza at Hertel, then ran home. The long downhill at mile 4 was much appreciated and even though the starting line was mobbed, I still finished the first mile in 8:04 (which worried me, because that was faster than I wanted to do it in). My last mile was 8:06, so I managed to somehow find the energy to finish strong.

This year, we relaxed by laying in the hot tub for a bit. I wish I was able to do the Reindeer Run next weekend, but I’ve already got a few things going on that day. I’ll have to look for other runs to do but today, I need to get ready to turn the Christmas lights on at 7pm!

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So we did 4.56 miles at a 9:22 pace, and only hit ice once.

Unfortunately, not too many changes from 2007’s show. I dropped the swag lights from the roof and replaced them with snowflakes. I really hated those old swag lights. They were just a tangled mess. I left out the blue icicle lights, which hung from the porch, because they just looked out of place.

But we did add the 6 strings of commercial lights that we bought last year, but didn’t use. Man, those things are bright! And strung in the tree in the front, they look cool. So we’ve added about 10% more lights this year (4,387), and really have things maxed out now. I ran the system will all lights on for about 20 minutes today, to see if I’d blow a fuse, but so far so good.

So if you’re in the neighborhood, stop by on Black Friday (Nov 28th) when we turn the lights on for the first time this year. I think it’s going to be 7:00, like last year. Hope you can make it!

First, you need a temperature sensor for the Hot Tub. I use the Wireless Temperature Sensor with Cabled Probe. The temperature sensor is secured inside my filter, and the transmitter is mounted to the outside of the tub. Now I did have the Waterproof Floating Remote Thermometer, but they’re not really waterproof. Soak it at 105° and turn the jets on, and water gets in there.

Now you need something to grab the signal from the wireless transmitter; I’m using the WMR968 Complete Wireless Weather Station. I also have all the other sensors hooked up, including the outdoor temperature sensor. This is important… I’ll show you why later.

OK, so the transmitter is sending data to the receiver, which then feeds it into your PC. We now need to make this data readily available, which is where VWSql comes in. This handy bit of software sends the data to a MySQL database. Oh yeah, almost forgot… you need MySQL and some sort of hosting.

NOW, write a quick PHP script… get the data “select * from weather order by RecDate desc limit 1″ and check the temperature:

if (
($rsWeather['CH2Temperature'] < 70) &&
($rsWeather['OutdoorTemperature'] < 50)
) {
echo("too cold!");
} // ends
else {
echo("OK");
} // ends else from


What this says is if the Hot Tub is under 70, and the outdoor temperature is under 50, it’s too cold! Otherwise, it’s OK. This is why the outdoor temperature sensor is important, because if its 80 outside and the water is 70, that’s OK… it’s not going to freeze.

Finally, set-up a check in pingdom. I have pingdom check my page every 30 minutes, and under “Optional Settings” I set “Check for string on page” “Should contain” “OK”. If it’s down just 1 time, I get a TXT message to my phone.

So if you’ve got some unused checks in pingdom, put them to use!

What bothers me about Chrome is that it’s not integrated with other Google products nicely. Two prime examples:

1. I can’t write an HTML email in Gmail because Gmail doesn’t recognize Chrome as a browser that supports their WYSIWYG editor. Didn’t the Gmail people know Chrome was being developed? Don’t you think at least ONE of the Chome developers uses Gmail and realizes this is going on?
2. Bookmarks are not integrated with Google bookmarks. So now I have Google Bookmarks, Chrome Bookmarks, and del.icio.us bookmarks. Right now I’m cleaning up my Chrome bookmarks, which are typically temporary things that I just don’t want to lose as I find them, and either moving them into del.icio.us or Google Bookmarks. This needs to be integrated better (user option).

Common, Google. At first, I was joking about being your Director of Common Sense, but maybe you really need one…

Also, you must tell me what 4+3 is, so I know you’ve read this entire description.

It’s so easy now to weed out those applicants who just paste their cover letter without any regard as to what the job entails. oDesk even has a reason for rejection, which goes like: “Applicant ignored instructions in job description”. I used that a LOT when rejecting applicants for this job.

If you can’t follow this simple instruction, how do I expect you to follow instructions on real tasks that I assign you?

The kids have both started school. Becca cried a bit the first couple days on the bus, but she’s doing great now.

Jason is doing good in school so far this year. He’s also in soccer, Cub Scouts and started viola lessons. Yeah, for some reason, he wanted to play the viola this year.

Becca lost 2 teeth & the tooth fairy had to make 2 trips to our house in the past couple weeks. She started ballet this week with a few of her friends from school. Laura is also starting a Daisy troop for her to get started in Girl Scouts. She is also playing soccer (she’s a Timbit!), although he’s a bit nervous at games.

Morgan is taking ballet with Becca. She and Laura take long walks almost daily, and seem to be at the library 2-3 times each week.

Laura is busy organizing the new Daisy troop with Becca and her friends. She’s also lugging the kids all around town to all of their various events.

I’ve been working with the Cub Scouts & getting the year started. And working - a lot. I also found out earlier this month that I don’t have an eardrum in my left ear anymore. Instead of getting a replacement from a cadaver, I’m going to wait to see what modern medicine can offer in 5-10 years. Oh, and I start going to a new gym on Monday - can’t wait. It’s so nice… there’s TVs in the locker rooms, along with leather benches and wooden lockers. If that’s the locker room, imagine the rest of the gym! I’ve been doing 5-mile runs once / week (in addition to my weight-lifting workouts) to get ready for the Turkey Trot.

I think I’m going to try to get the pool closed this weekend, since it’s getting pretty cold at night and the solar heater isn’t keeping it warm enough to go in (especially when the hot tub is SO inviting).

We’ve got a camping trip scheduled for later this month, then we take a deep breath for October, which is going to be a whirlwind month (birthdays, wedding, lots w/ Scouts, and a Bills party at the end of the month).

If you were looking for something related to affiliate marketing, this isn’t it. Remember I have an RSS feed strictly for those things (if you don’t want to read about my family & other random thoughts). I’m open to topic suggestions, too, especially if it’s from a programming (PHP) angle (although next may be part 2 of the geo-targeting post).

Unique Blog Designs has been in business now for 1 year, and to celebrate they’re having a contest! I love contests, especially when I win Rebecca has been borrowing my iPod quite a bit, so it’s about time she gets her own. Then I don’t have to keep High School Musical and Camp Rock on there at all times.

So if you’re looking for a Wordpress theme that truly reflects your style, check out Unique Blog Designs; and if you’re looking for a way to win an iPod, check out their 1-year anniversary contest!

The easy (but ghetto) way to do this to put the city & state in the query string. So it’d be like page.php?city=Buffalo&state=NY. Then in your code, you just echo the city and state variables, like < ?= htmlentities(stripslashes($_GET['city'])) ? >. But what if you just want 1 landing page, without using the query string? It’s actually pretty simple, and I’m going to walk you though it.

So first, you need a database. Here’s a good free one. So from your ssh line, you’ll want to get this database by typing:
wget http://www.maxmind.com/download/geoip/database/GeoLiteCity.dat.gz

Cron this to run monthly (looks like they do updates on the 1st, so run your cron on the 5th or so) and then unzip it:
gunzip GeoLiteCity.dat.gz

OK, now you’re going to want to get the PHP module to use this data. From this directory, download

• geoip.inc
• geoipcity.inc
• geoipregionvars.php

So in a single directory, you’ll have these 3 files and GeoLiteCity.dat. Now you’re about to see how unbelievably easy this script is:

include(”geoip.inc”);
include(”geoipcity.inc”);
include(”geoipregionvars.php”);

$gi = geoip_open(”./GeoLiteCity.dat”, GEOIP_STANDARD);

$rsGeoData = geoip_record_by_addr($gi, $_SERVER['REMOTE_ADDR']);

echo(”<pre>”);
print_r($rsGeoData);
echo(”</pre>”);

geoip_close($gi);

You’ll see I just do a print_r to show all the variables available to you, but for me, I see:

geoiprecord Object
(
[country_code] => US
[country_code3] => USA
[country_name] => United States
[region] => NY
[city] => Buffalo
[postal_code] => 14217
[latitude] => 42.9761
[longitude] => -78.8727
[area_code] => 716
[dma_code] => 514
)

So now your landing page will say, “Find singles in < ?= htmlentities($rsGeoData->city . “, ” . $rsGeoData->region) ? >”.

With the latitude & longitude, you can even show a map of the area using the Google Maps API. Having the Zip Code would be great for zip submit offers (only 2 1 left in 14217! - Enter your Zip Code to claim the prize!) or lots of other great ideas using a Zip Code database.

Beware of foreign IPs, though. If you’re not in the US, I don’t know what city or region will give back. You can replace $_SERVER['REMOTE_ADDR'] above with a known IP to see what it returns.

In case you were wondering, I started this installing this script at 3:40 and had it done at 3:50. It took me longer to write this blog post than it did to install the script, so don’t be afraid to try it yourself. If you have problems, though, just contact me.

Ah, Ashley Madison. We love to hate you. I chose this one not because of the card, but because of the potential. The kiss on the card got me thinking… they should’ve handed out cocktail napkins with the Ashley Madison name and number on it, either handwritten or mass-printed looking like handwriting, with a red lipstick kiss on there. There you go, Ashley Madison, that’s what I want to see next time (if I have to see you again).

This network ran with the baseball theme, including handing out baseball cards, instead of business cards. Stats on their top offers is on the back of the card, and they were handing out baseballs, too. They win the “theme” award (but next time, get the right texture of the card, not just the size!).

John Hasson’s card made me do a double-take. I really thought he forgot all his cards at home & handwrote this thing. I think the funny thing is that each side of the card says, “Flip me Over”. Reminds me of the card that on both sides says something like, “For hours of amusement, flip this card over”

Charles Ngo wins the Quality Award. Rounded corners and glossy texture are both nice touches.

My choice for Best Business Card of Affiliate Summit goes to Parked. Sorry I wrote on this before scanning it, but I’ve got some domains I may park with them. Maybe I should’ve used the “notes” section on the back. Anyway, this card looks like a parking ticket. I probably studied this card for 3 minutes when I first got it. Very cool

Someone else is going to have to take over this list for Vegas, as I can’t put myself on my own list, and my card in Vegas will be the one everyone’s talking about. A guaranteed winner