I woke up this morning and saw the Tub Cat was in the Christmas spirit, so I figured it was time for me to get there, too.

As such, I decided to send out a quick email pseudo-personal card to folks that I talk to and folks that I don’t normally get a chance to talk to and catch up with people. A few might be coming in to check out the site, even, which would be cool. (Plus, I get to see who has changed their email addresses and NOT TOLD ME. I’m already getting bounces.)

I’ve gotten a comment already on how sad this tree looks. A little background there… It’s a small, plastic tree that we’re using as a test for our Tiny Cat (not pictured). We want to see how well she handles this tree - how many times she knocks it over, how much of it she eats, etc. - so we can determine what kind of tree we could get next year. Every morning we wake up to the more plastic pine needles all over the floor, so the chances of getting a nicer, larger tree next year are not looking good.

I’m in training next week, so I’m out of the office. The following two [holiday] weeks, I’m on vacation, so I’m out of the office. What that yields is not unlike a month-long mini-sabbatical from work. The anticipation is killing me. Freedom from the ridiculous commute. Freedom from the daily grind. I can hardly wait.

Of course, I’ll be missing the company outing to Lord Of The Rings next week, but I suppose that’s the price I pay. If I was on vacation, I’d actually come back just to see the movie… but I’m in training, and I can’t really skip out on that. It’s for my last MCSD test, and I want to get it over and done with.

I’ll do my best to continue posting to the blog while I’m out, but don’t expect daily updates. I mean, I’m on vacation for goodness sake. What do you expect?

Some of you (but probably not a lot) have read Max Barry’s novel, Jennifer Government. If you haven’t, I highly recommend it.

For those who have read it, there’s a web game out, written by the author, that’s based on the novel. Check it out: http://www.nationstates.net

After a nice call to Microsoft Developer Support, I learned the root of some of my web part development troubles and thought I’d share the [undocumented] wealth with the community.

Web part properties can only be:

• string
• bool
• int
• float
• enum
• System.DateTime
• System.Drawing.KnownColor

The reason for this is that they use their own custom XML Serializer, not the standard one that .NET Framework ships with. (That’s why I keep getting errors when I try to save custom classes as properties. Even if they’re marked Serializable and have all the XML Serialization info attached to them, you can’t do it. This is all you get.)

So I guess my way around that’s going to have to be to XML Serialize my custom class, then save that as a string in the web part. What a pain.

I’m sure you all remember the SharePoint Portal Server work that I was doing for several months in a row just a little bit ago. Well, that was part of the “Rapid Adoption Program” for Microsoft Office 2003. Today, in the mail, I got a plaque for my efforts:

It says:

Microsoft Office Worldwide Office System Rapid Adoption Program Thank you for your outstanding contribution

I’m sure they printed like a million of these things, but I don’t care. Normally my reward for putting up with shit is… more shit. This time I got a plaque. (I’m still dealing with Portal Server, but the difference here is the recognition that I’m doing it.) I think that’s pretty cool.

(Oh, and it’s actually rectangular; it’s just the camera I used to take the picture has a bit of a fisheye to it.)

Minor geek moment:

I’ve been working on this project at work where I want to read RSS (syndication) feeds and display them inside SharePoint Portal Server 2003. Thank goodness for RSS.NET. I was fearing I’d have to try to implement the RSS Bandit parser, and that’s just a little more than I was ready for.

Okay, enough of the geek moment. I may have to blog in more detail on that one later, though. I’m pleased with my work (it’s not done, but the stuff that is rocks), but most folks out there aren’t going to “get it.”

Sidetrack: A form just came through my cubicle and the shipping instructions on it said “Second Day Error.” Like that’s a new service FedEx offers or something - lose your package on the second day. No extra charge! Too funny.

I got my copy of the Alias Season 2 DVD set last night. Six discs this time. I’ll have stuff to watch while I’m on vacation at the end of this month. They have a $10 rebate offer where you get a refund for buying both Season 1 and Season 2 (which I did). Time to send away for that.

My mom called me up this morning because she was reminded of a funny childhood Christmas story about me. I guess they were sharing kid stories on the radio and she thought of it. Apparently when I was five years old I went to see Santa Claus at the mall. Santa was wearing a bad pair of rubber boots instead of the nice leather ones that quality Santas wear. When I got done, I came back to Mom and said, “That’s not the real Santa! Santa Claus doesn’t wear irrigation boots.”

She didn’t call that one in because most five year olds don’t know what irrigation boots are, so she didn’t think they’d believe her. I think it’s pretty damn funny, though.

I’ve been ripping all of my CDs into AAC (MP4) format so I can listen to them on my iPod. I’ve been working on it for a few weeks now and I’m only about halfway done. I’m doing it alphabetical by artist, and today I’m working on the end of the m’s. I’m glad I’m there, since that means most of my holiday music is done (love the Muppet holiday stuff!) so I can at least transfer that over to the iPod and get in the Christmas spirit.

I tried watching the Tracy Morgan Show last night and it sucks. I love Tracy Morgan on Saturday Night Live. I think he’s great. One of my favorite skits is “Brian Fellow’s Safari Planet.” But his new show is like… well, have you ever tried to watch The Cosby Show now that it’s been off the air for 10 years? It’s not funny. It’s predictable and tame. That’s what Tracy Morgan’s show is - predictable and tame. I suppose if I was sitting down with my kids and wanted something on prime time television that would be guaranteed safe for all of my kids, yeah, that’d be the show. But I’m not, so it’s not. Very unfortunate; I had high hopes.