Nebraska for Thanksgiving!

Hi every one. And I literally mean every ONE. You're probably the only person who has come to read this blog. :)

We went to Nebraska this Thanksgiving and it was pretty cool. I must say. Me, Bet, and Em all flew up to Omaha(using points, I might add). Dad met us at the airport.

From there we pretty much just spent our days being together. Hanging around at the house. We took Emily to the nearby park. Dad showed me a buncha stuff on the guitar. I learned how to play Sweet Home Alabama. :) It might come in handy the next time I'm in a red-neck bar and need to get out of a jam. I'll play that song and while they're all going "woo hoooooo. yeah , bubba!", I'll use up those "3 steps out the door".

If you would like to see the rest of the pics from this trip, go here. I wish you well and please come back to read about my trips around the country. I've visited some pretty cool places and I love to talk about it!
Peace, Love, and Cranberry Sauce.
Alec

Go see the photo album from Thanksgiving 2008

VOTE FOR BARACK OBAMA

To all of my family in the deep south. I hope you get out and vote this year. Regardless of what you may think, your vote REALLY DOES count. Also, I hope you really think about the decision you're about to make this year when you push that button. Don't think that you have to vote for Bush(I mean McCain ) just because others do. Also, don't be scared that there may be a "black" man in office. Ask yourself this: 1. Do you want your loved one to stay in Iraq another moment longer? 2. Why did we go to Iraq in the first place? 3. Do you want 4 more years of George W. Bush in office? If you're reading this and you're my family, think about how well you know me. You know that I wouldn't be so vocal if I didn't believe so strongly in this. I'd be honored if you wanted to call and talk about it. Don't believe all all of the silly emails, posts, and horrible things that the opposition is saying out there. They're nothing but mud slinging in a time of desperation. Please make the right choice. Vote for Obama.

Travel: Chicago

Travel: Chicago
Ok, I just wanted to share these pics of old computers.  This is such a geeky thing , but dangit I love it!  These are located inside of a case at Dunn Solutions in Skokie, Il.  

Check these out...

This is an old Radio Shack computer. Look at those big floppy disk drives.  OMG. 

This is an old Commodore PET.  I'd love to see this thing fired up. 

Believe it or not, this is an old COMPAQ.  What a crappy monitor. Crappy UI design.  I'm sure at the time they were thinking this was being compact, but WAS IT?

This is an Atari 800.  I'm surprised that I never heard of this during my Atari video game days.  I'm sure this was probably less for the gamer market and more for the computer user market. 

Check out this old MAC.  I remember playing "Dark Castle" on this back in '86.  Rock on!

From 2008-10-22 old_computers

Honestly, I don't know what this is, but it looks pretty crappy.  COOL!

From 2008-10-22 old_computers

Anybody know the model of this mac?  It's pretty cool.  I remember this cube model vaguely. 

From 2008-10-22 old_computers

Check out this Commodore 154i with external 5 1/4" floppy .  hahaha nice.

From 2008-10-22 old_computers

Emily Close-up

I love this picture of Emily. She's such a cute, angelic little girly! :)

Travel: Washington DC

WHITE HOUSE: Hey Everybody! Recently I had to go work in downtown Washington, DC area. The job was for a company that tested software for Department of Homeland Security.
The job site was located right on Vermont Ave, in the heart of downtown DC.

I was like not even 10 minutes away from the White House. So, I took some time after work to go and see the sights! I saw the White House(didn't go inside), the Capitol, and the Smithsonian Air & Space museum. It got to see the module that John Glenn was in during his trip to the Moon. That rocked! You owuldn't believe how small it was. Seriously. In the movies they made it look like there was all this space. Not really!

In this picture, I'm standing in front of the White House. This is the back of the Casa Blanca.

THE CRAZY OLD MAN: This second pic is , again, in front of the White House. There was this old man(in the picture) who was just standing there with his cane raised to the sky and looking directly at the White House.
I asked the cop on guard there who this guy was. The cop told me he was just some local crazy guy and that's all he did...just stand there.

I have to say that OVERALL downtown DC was REALLY NICE. Seriously... maybe it was something in the air, but this whole area appealled to me. Now, there are areas that are NOT SO APPEALING, but I did like it. In many ways, it was similar to New York City. And yes, I'm a HUGE fan of NYC. It' s my favorite city in the world. It's up there with Madrid. IF you want to see more pictures... go here.

Travel: West Palm Beach, FL

WPB ROCKED! I taught a Using QTP class there for like 3 days. The class was for some IT people in the county courthouse. I stayed at a REALLY nice full-service Marriott Hotel. The view was awesome. Most of the tall buildings in the area have palm trees on them! Can you believe it? Palm Trees!
Anyhow, the class went fine. This was like my second or third time teaching this class, so I was just a wee-bit nervous about it. The class , however , did go just fine and everything worked out.

While I was there, I met some really nice people. Their names were Nicole and Roman. They were engaged to be married. Both of them worked at the courthouse. They invited me to meet them downtown at the weekly street party in WPB. It was a blast. I had the most awesome Churrassco at a Cuban restaurant there.

I think the coolest thing about that area in general is that the wind was always blowing. Even though it was like 100 degrees outside, the wind made it feel so cool.
I really hope to go back there soon!

Hey People! Don't Be in a Hurry!

I found this great article on the web that talks about how many books there are out there with the title " Learn 'SOMETHING' in a Few Days". He did a search on a bookstore website for a title that begins with "Learn" and found that 95% of the results were computer books. The author says that to learn computer programming in a few days is just not possible. He mentions that if the title said something like, "Learn ABOUT computer programming' then maybe it would be more true to heart.

I completely agree with his opinion. It's true that we , as a society, in this country always want things NOW, not later. The truth of it is that if you want to be good at anything, you have to take your time and BE PATIENT. Remeber the old addage, "Good things coem to those who wait"?

So, instead of trying to learn soemthing in a fewdays, why not try and learn it in a few YEARS.
:)
-alec

Welcome

Thanks for visiting. I'll be featuring blurbs about my family, friends and travels. If you know me, then you know that I travel for a living. During these travels, I try to learn as much as I can. I want to share these things with other people.
Also, I'm very fortunate that I have so many great people (family & friends) in my life. This site is for them and I want them (YOU) to know how much you matter to me.

--Alec

Travel: St. Louis

St. Louis has a pretty cool downtown area right within the area of the Arch there. I can't say I'd wanna go outside of the immediate downtown area. You can tell that there's a lot of partying that goes on there, right by the river.

Just downtown, by the river, you'll also find a mall, with tons of cool shops. Inside the mall, there's a chocolate store where they show you the guys smashing out the goodies on a big table and they have these guys who do like an act in front of everyone to draw attention. And it works! They always have crowds around them and they give away samples too! Good stuff.

You might be thinking that, with the picture of the arch and all why I haven't written about it yet. Well, I didn't go in. :) To be honest, I just didn't feel like going up there. I guess being there, for the first time was good enough. It wasn't that I was scared, I just didn't really care to go up. It is a very high structure though!

Oh, I can't leave without mentioning the airport. The St. Louis airport was pretty easy to get into and out of. The security was pretty laid back and standard. I stayed at an Embassy Suites close by and to be honest, for an Embassy Suites Hotel, it kind of sucked. One thing in particular was that I called in that the Internet was down and they acted like I had no clue what I was talking about and it must be me. Sure enough, many other people called in and they didn't fix the Internet and all during my stay. I was there on work and NEEDED IT. grrrr. :)

Oh, I was originally there to observe my buddy Rene Lopez teach a class on Mercury's Dashboard application. His way of teaching is pretty cool. He does more demos than anything and I like his style.

That's all for St. Louis. Peace!
--alec

Travel: Seattle

April 2008
This is the very first Starbucks in Seattle. It's located in a famous section of downtown Seattle called "Pike Place Market". It's a little cheesy to go straight for the Starbucks, but I just HAD to see it. I guess I'm a little cheezy!

The next pic is of the inside of this place. I was surprised at how small and how PACKED this small area really was. The girl at the counter said that it was actually kind of slow that day! Sheesh!

The third pic of some fish their at the Market. Pike Place Market is world-renown for it's Fish Market. This is the place where the guys throw these huge fishes across the way. I didn't get to see any of that live. Only on the tube.

The fourth pic is a Caramel Cheescake Truffle!!!! Yummmmmmmmm! I couldn't resist. I love cheesecake. but with Caramel too? Oh man. ! It was mines for the takin'. So, just think, Esspreso and cheesecake sugar/caffeine rush. buzzzzzzzzzzzz. After that, I went to get a massage(legimate!) by this really weird lady. I mean weird in the nice way. She did the Chinese Art of refexology and told me that my liver was dirty and needed a cleanin' . She would press an area and say... "Does this hurt?" . If it hurt , that was an indicatro that something in my body was "off". Apparently, the areas of the feet reflect different areas within the body. I left very relaxed and then went and had a Gyro for dinner. Man, that thing was good too. :)

Then finally is the picture of some nice looking veggies they sell there.

Emily with Glasses

I couldn't resist posting this picture. I love how Emily looks when she puts on my glasses. :)

Travel: New York City - Sumo WTH?!

25th-Jul-2006 08:41 am
I saw these Sumo dudes standing on W44th between 5th and 6th. *SHRUG*. There weren't any cameras or anything, so I don't what the point was. Whatever.

Travel: New York City - Lady in the Window

So I'm walking back to the Hotel from the Office today at around 5pm or so. I found a street to get me back to Hotel that few tourists use. All of a sudden, I noticed this crowd gathered around the window of this shop. Being the fun-seeking dude that I am, I went over to check it out. Upon stepping up to see, I saw this tall, skinny lady in a wedding dress dancing to Axel F (behind the window like a mannequin). She had this serious face and kept striking poses and all. Then all of a sudden, she started to pour food all over herself. First she cracked a couple of eggs. Then, all hell broke loose and she poured milk, flour, bread, and other generic products from the corner supermarket. It was so weird and honestly, I didn't know how to react at first. All I could do was laugh. And I wasn't the only one. All these people were laughing. It was hard to tell if this lady serious or not. I mean, her face looked serious, but what she was doing was completely ridiculous. hmmm.
When the song ended, she bowed and I walked off to hotel to get outta the heat.

Travel: Minneapolis

Minneapolis.
Minn doesn't suck. I can say that. It's pretty big. If I had to compare it to another city, I'd say that it was very much like Houston without all of the poor people.

I've been here like 6 times. Each time, I'm here for work. So, I'm inside of the Wells Fargo building all day. Huge building, by the way. I really don't get out as much as I should when I travel for work. I really love the travel, but only to a point.

Whilst here, I 've gone to Mall of America. Now, this is a FREAKIN' MALL, mannnn. Besides the fact that it's HUGE-MONGOUS, it also has an amusement park inside !!! No joke. The park is Nickelodeon (TV)- themed. There are SpongeBob and Jimmy Neutron-type of rides. The most amazing thing about this is that there is a full-fledged roller coaster there. no joke. Other than that, it's the shops inside are very typical of a mall. They did NOT have a Dave & Buster's or Gameworks! Can ya believe it? WTH?!

Somewhere you HAVE to visit here, especially at night, is an area called E BLOCK. Eblock is to Minneapolis as Times Square is to NYC. It has some pretty nice shops, restaurants, movies theaters, clubs, pubs, so on and so forth. There are a lot of people buzzing around. I also noticed that there are a ton of pubs. Hey, nothing wrong with that!

Young Family 2002

Young Family...
This is when Emily was about 2 + yrs old. We were living in a 2-bedroom apartment in Macon. These were the beginnings!

Bet and I never thought we would be ready for a child, but we decided to go ahead and take on the challenge. I'm so happy that we did. Life after the baby wasn't as difficult as I thought it would be.

Things just kind of fell in place. I wish had known that when Betiana was pregnant. ANXIETY was the word of the day back then!

I'm pretty sure that my Dad took this photo.

This is my sweetheart , Emily. There's no one else like her in the world and I'm such a lucky daddy to have a daughter like her!!!!!
This is from her school picture. What a cutie, huh?! You should see her mommy! :)

The Beginning

Hi! It's me, Alec Brindell! Rock on! HEre I am. Until I get this thing up , with more content... you can go here for now....
myspace.com/alecbrindell

later.
alec