Bobby – Page 2 – Bobby Magnusen

September 15, 2009May 25, 2024

Techno (lack-of) Luck

Talk about a bad streak of techno luck. My laptop dies. My XBOX 360 dies (again) and my desktop computer decides to go on the fritz. Pretty much out of nowhere. It’s weird because it all happened at once!

At least it’s football season. Go Steelers.

August 11, 2009

Google

I’m one of those people who has bounced from “new shiney” to “new shiney” over the years when it comes to on-line tools and email providers. I’ve tried everything from using my ISP (blarg.net at the time) to Hotmail to just about everything in between. I went through a long phase where I was a huge fan of Yahoo. I was wholly against Microsoft buying them because I didn’t want to slip into the second coming of Hotmail. Yahoo had just released their Ajax-like version of their new mail system and I was QUITE happy with it. It wasn’t broke, don’t freakin’ fix it.

Anyways.

So. I decided one day, in a fit of boredom, to check out the services Google offered. You know, like most people are doing nowadays anyways. The last time I had really “checked out” Google was when Gmail was in early beta and you needed an invite to use it. I had received an invite from a friend of mine and wasn’t overly impressed with the early version of the mail client. It was just … mail. If I was going to switch from my beloved Yahoo!, it needed to be more than just … mail. So I decided to look into it a little more and, wow, I had no idea. From Google Documents, Google Calendar, Picasa to Google Voice, this is what I was looking for. I didn’t have the unlimited storage or the mega-sized attachments but I didn’t really need those, considering I have my HostDango.com email to use for (overly) large attachments. Not to mention, I picked up an iPhone 3G and pretty much everything I use in my Google account(s) works VERY well with my iPhone.

What is this post all about? Rambling, basically, about trying new things.

August 11, 2009

Nerd Toys

So today I ordered this thing from NewEgg.com. It’s supposed to make it so you can get an Internet connection through walls, or at least extend the crap out of your wi-fi range. Where I’m at when I’m at work, I’m probably 15 feet from the end of the Internet connection. Talk about frustrating. I had a room a while back that was able to (sometimes) get and keep an Internet connection. THAT was frustrating. At night, I like to sit and talk with the fam. There’s limited seating where you can do this and not have people walking by peering over your shoulder. It’s frustrating enough being away from the family but then having to share it with everyone else?

I think this will be well worth it.

March 11, 2009August 11, 2009

Kind of an update…

Guilty as charged. I haven’t paid any attention to this thing for weeks. I will say, believe it or not, I’ve sat down to post twice. The last time was just the other day when I was sitting in the airport trying feverishly to catch a flight to Anchorage from Seattle.

Long story short, I started my journey back on March 26th (my birthday). Canceled that night. Two nights later? Canceled. Another two? Canceled. One more two night stint? Yeah. You get the picture. I finally got up here on April 2nd (I was due April 3rd but caught a break). That whole “Me vs. The Volcano” bit was all about this little tidbit.

So here I am, working my third hitch. The two weeks on and two weeks off are making the calendar fly by at an incredible rate. I would have never thought that would be a byproduct of what I’m doing. I would have thought time would come to a slow stop but quite the contrary. It’s absolutely FLYING by. I was on the phone with my wife tonight and she told me that Isabelle is getting more teeth. Then you get to thinking that in the fall, she’ll be in preschool. Then the following year, Kindergarten. Dude! Slow down!

January 27, 2009

One week, two weeks, three weeks, four?

So here we are. Two weeks into it, sort of.

I left Seattle on January 11th (with a bit of good grace, I’ll add. Getting on that plane was an interesting adventure) and here we are on the 25th. I had set off for a three-week crash-course in the new life I had chosen for myself and my family: Prudhoe Bay, or “the Slope Life” as they like to call it. I was optimistic about it (and still am, I’ll add) but I’ve come to learn that I’m one of those creatures who, when it comes to change, isn’t as adaptable as I used to be. Well, sort of. Change, I can handle. It’s change after change after change after … you get the picture.

The meat and potatoes of this post is that I came up here for a three-week stint. Got two weeks into it and was notified that it had been turned into a four week stint. What’s the big deal? Pretty easy. I hadn’t planned on missing my family as much as I do. Especially Isabelle. See, as time rolled on, there was this hole that wasn’t being filled. I realized that Isabelle had created and filled quite the large hole. One of the many new things about being a new parent. I always made a point of making a really big deal out of when I got home every day from work when I was working at Microsoft. Now what I’ve got is just … a dorm-like room (for those of you who went to college and stayed in the dorms, that’s what I’m staying in basically. It reminds me a LOT of the room I had at the U of North Dakota and even more of another dorm room I spent some time in as well.

I’ll survive because I’ve got a great support system. Technology is really saving my behind on this one with the use of Skype, a laptop, a crappy Internet connection and a webcam (oh boy does the Internet suck up here!). Getting to talk to and see my family every night has been a thrill. Tonight was the first night I didn’t get to see Isabelle because she had partied too hard and passed out a little early. It gave me an opportunity to have a nice, uninterrupted conversation with my wife, which never happens. So there was totally a plus side to that. I still definitely look forward to talking to Isabelle tomorrow night.

Speaking of which, it’s about 10pm. 5am comes early.

January 25, 2009