The DenWare Chronicles

I have a Blog? No way!

noreply@blogger.com (Dennis J. Patti) — Sun, 01 Mar 2009 23:47:00 +0000

I highly doubt that anyone is checking to see if I am still posting things or not. But just in case for the 0.0000001 person who will, if you want to follow anything about me or what I do, I suggest you find me on Facebook (http://www.facebook.com/dennispatti), or on Twitter (http://twitter.com/dennispatti).

I will be updating my Twitter status a lot more than I do this blog that's for sure!

Holy Cow! It's been that long?!

noreply@blogger.com (Dennis J. Patti) — Sun, 31 Aug 2008 03:39:00 +0000

I can't believe how long it has been since I updated my blog!

Let's see, what has been going on... After 15 years of doing Windows programming, I have made the jump to Linux/Unix programming which involves working with Java, Python, Shell/Perl scripting.

It's definitely something new and challenging for me, and I am sure that I will be just fine.

All Anthony Wants For Christmas...

noreply@blogger.com (Dennis J. Patti) — Sun, 18 Feb 2007 20:45:00 +0000

Is his two front teeth.

Anthony lost his two bottom front teeth within the last month. He looks like a hockey player who took a puck to the teeth. He is really excited because other kids in his class have been losing teeth too and he was kind of bummed out that he hasn't lost any yet.

I've said it before, and I'll say it again ... The time is just flying by!

Ingenuity

noreply@blogger.com (Dennis J. Patti) — Sun, 20 Aug 2006 14:26:00 +0000

It's Birthday Time!

noreply@blogger.com (Dennis J. Patti) — Sun, 16 Jul 2006 17:34:00 +0000

Where has the time gone?

My oldest son Anthony turned 5 on July 9th, and my youngest son Michael is turning 2 on the 16th. When they say the time goes by so quick when you have kids, BOY THEY ARE NOT KIDDING!

I remember the day Anthony was born like it was yesterday.

I'm expecting Anthony to come up to me and ask to borrow the car in about 2 weeks from now the way everything seems. :-)

Awesome Computer Animation Video

noreply@blogger.com (Dennis J. Patti) — Sun, 25 Jun 2006 04:40:00 +0000

This has got to be the best computer animation I have ever seen that was put to music.

Check out the Google Video of it.

If you have seen anything better, or just as good, share them in the comments section!

Anthony Graduates Pre-K!

noreply@blogger.com (Dennis J. Patti) — Fri, 09 Jun 2006 15:16:00 +0000

My oldest son graduated pre-kindergarten this week!

I still can't believe he will be starting kindergarten this fall.

Where did the time go?

Funny Pictures - Last One, I Promise! (For now)

noreply@blogger.com (Dennis J. Patti) — Wed, 31 May 2006 01:07:00 +0000

Here is one that I found when visiting Mick in the Atlanta, Georgia area:

(The sign says "Closed for Inventory")

Sorry for the poor quality. It was taken with a cell phone camera!

Thanks to Mick for having the "better quality" picture than the one I took with my Treo 650.

Funny Pictures - One More

noreply@blogger.com (Dennis J. Patti) — Tue, 30 May 2006 04:24:00 +0000

While going through my own photographs, I came across this one that I took during my trip to Bristol, TN for a NASCAR race:

Funny Pictures

noreply@blogger.com (Dennis J. Patti) — Mon, 29 May 2006 15:06:00 +0000

Every once in a while I come across a picture that's funny (to me at least), and since it's been over a month since I've posted anything, here you go:

Thanks Shar!

Google Calendar

noreply@blogger.com (Dennis J. Patti) — Fri, 14 Apr 2006 10:04:00 +0000

Google has once again made one of my dreams come true. I have been waiting for them to come up with a calendar application with the 'Google Interface' that I like a lot.

Thanks goes to Mick (Ellis) for finding this and sharing it with me!

Thank you Google!

The Next Video iPod?

noreply@blogger.com (Dennis J. Patti) — Thu, 16 Mar 2006 19:00:00 +0000

Engadget has a picture of what could possibly be the next video iPod.

If this is true, it's very nice looking!

Working for Google

noreply@blogger.com (Dennis J. Patti) — Fri, 24 Feb 2006 15:04:00 +0000

Check out this Time Magzine article about the Google workplace.

Now THAT is an awesome place to work!

Where do I fill out an application, and when can I start? :-)

The Rise and Fall of a Restaurant

noreply@blogger.com (Dennis J. Patti) — Fri, 27 Jan 2006 14:24:00 +0000

When the Lonestar Steakhouse located on Route 46 in Wayne, New Jersey opened, it was a happening place. Besides the great food, the environment was a very friendly and exciting experience. About every 90 minutes, they would raise the volume of the country music and the waiters and waitresses would start dancing for everybody. It really made for an enjoyable dinner out with the family. Unfortunately those days are long gone and forgotten for some reason.

We decided to go out to Lonestar one Friday evening with the kids, and we were expecting it to be extremely crowded and a long wait just to sit down and order our food; however when we go there, it was shocking.

There were maybe 5 tables in the entire establishment with people eating. While we were waiting for someone to take our drink order, I took a look around the restaurant. There were several tables that had not been cleared yet and had dishes all piled up on them. Looking around some more I counted 10 waiters and waitresses standing around and talking with each other. I even noticed the manager walking around as well, noticing the dirty tables, and not doing a single thing about it. At one point, a customer picked up all of this dishes and walked them up to one of the waitresses. I figured she would apologize for not cleaning them up, but when he handed them to her, she replied, "Thank you." The man walks back to his table in complete disgust.

Skip forward about 10 minutes... Somebody has still not taken our drink order, and the kids are now getting a little crazy because they are just sitting there with nothing to eat or drink. My wife and I are doing our best to keep them busy. We played throw the crayon off the table and Mommy and Daddy will pick them up. That amused them for about another 10 minutes and finally a waiter came to take our drink order. With all the time we had waited, we gave him our entire order. After about 10 more minutes of "throw whatever you can find off the table and Mommy and Daddy will pick it up" our drinks arrive and our appetizers arrive. Now everyone at the table is happy.

After all this waiting, my oldest needed to go to the bathroom. This bathroom was worse than one you would have seen in the Port Authority Bus terminal in NYC back in 1980. I glanced at the cleaning log that they keep on the door, and the last time the bathroom was cleaned was in the early morning. I had to hold the door to the bathroom stall closed because all of the locks on them were broken, and appear to have been broken for quite a while.

Skip forward about 20 minutes... A waitress finally shows up to clean off the one table that has had dirty dishes on it since we first arrived. As she was cleaning up, two forks fell on the floor and were left there. I figured she would get them once she cleaned off the rest of the table. When she walked away I glanced at the floor and noticed those two forks still there on the floor. The waiterss came back a few minutes later with a broom and a dustpan and proceeded to sweep up the food on the floor around the table. When she got near the forks, she just swept them up into the dustpan and threw them away.

It has been over an hour since we first arrived and our food finally came. Since the kids were going crazy because we're lucky if they can sit in one spot for 15 minutes, we ate as much as we could, and had the rest wrapped up and we left.

After this experience, it was no surprise to me why there were so little customers in the entire place. I can't see this place staying opened for much longer at this point but we will see.

Top 10 reasons Geeks make good fathers

noreply@blogger.com (Dennis J. Patti) — Tue, 24 Jan 2006 11:15:00 +0000

Here's an ego boost for the "geek" in you:

Top 10 reasons Geeks make good fathers

Letter to the IRS

noreply@blogger.com (Dennis J. Patti) — Tue, 24 Jan 2006 00:45:00 +0000

Dear Internal Revenue Service:

Enclosed you will find my 2005 tax return showing that I owe $3,407.00 in taxes. Please note the attached article from the USA Today newspaper; dated November 12th, wherein you will see the Pentagon (Department of Defense) is paying $171.50 per hammer and NASA has paid $600.00 per toilet seat.

I am enclosing four (4) toilet seats (valued @ $2,400.00) and six (6) hammers (valued @ $1,029.00), which I secured at Home Depot, bringing my total remittance to $3,429.00. Please apply the overpayment of $22.00 to the "Presidential Election Fund," as noted on my return. You can do this inexpensively by sending them one (1) 1.5" Phillips Head screw (see aforementioned article from USA Today newspaper detailing how H.U.D. pays $22.00 each for 1.5" Phillips Head Screws). One screw is enclosed for your convenience.

It has been a pleasure to pay my tax bill this year, and I look forward to paying it again next year.

Sincerely,

A Satisfied Taxpayer

Working my way to Level 60

noreply@blogger.com (Dennis J. Patti) — Tue, 17 Jan 2006 22:40:00 +0000

For the first time since I have been playing World of Warcraft, I finally have a character up to level 51.

I think the reason why I was not leveling as fast as I could was due to me losing interest in the character class.

My first attempt was a Night Elf Druid (Karzak) where I made it to level 38. I wasn't too happy with this character after a while.

I then decided to bring up another account/character so I could 2-box (play two characters at the same time). That character was a Human Paladin that I brought to level 44.

Then some friends of mine and I convinced me into bringing up a character on the Horde side. So I started an Undead Mage which I am still playing today and is at level 51 after 12 days of game play.

I am having a lot of fun playing this character! Hopefully I will be level 60 soon!

Smoke Free NJ - 90 Days to Go!

noreply@blogger.com (Dennis J. Patti) — Tue, 17 Jan 2006 22:16:00 +0000

One of the final things New Jersey Governor Cody did before relinquishing his command to Corzine was signing into law a ban on smoking in restaurants and bars.

While this was done primarily for the non-smoking workers and for the patrons, I am thrilled!

The one thing I always could not stand was sitting in a non-smoking section that was close to the bar or the smoking section and the smoke traveling over to where I am eating.

I visited Florida last year and it was a week after the law was passed on a Friday night. The establishment I visited was dead for a Friday; however it was a very enjoyable experience.

I am sure that this law will upset a lot of smokers out there, but for other non-smokers and I can breathe a "clean" sigh of relief.

Verizon Wireless - Cell Phone Mafia

noreply@blogger.com (Dennis J. Patti) — Tue, 10 Jan 2006 00:57:00 +0000

I use to be a customer of Verizon Wireless, and was very happy with the network coverage. For the time I was a customer, I never ran into any dead spots while I was out and about. The one thing I could not stand was they were always locking down features on the phones that other wireless carriers were not. This was done so you would have to use their services/software and incur additional charges. I have since moved to Cingular and I am quite happy with them overall.

Well, the folks at Verizon Wireless are at it again. It appears that if you subscribe to their music service, they will lock down the ability of your phone to play MP3 files. This is yet another reason why I will most likely never go back to Verizon Wireless.

read more

Video iPod Purchased

noreply@blogger.com (Dennis J. Patti) — Mon, 02 Jan 2006 01:47:00 +0000

I decided to go with the 60GB Black Video iPod.

My iPod skin/cover is going to take another few days before it comes in so I am trying my best to leave the iPod in the box and not use it until then. I don't want to take a chance of it getting scratched at all.

File this one under the "Stupid Criminal" file.

noreply@blogger.com (Dennis J. Patti) — Thu, 29 Dec 2005 21:47:00 +0000

BERLIN (Reuters) - German police Thursday captured two men suspected of stealing from 15 cars and two garden sheds by following their footprints in the snow for several miles.

Policemen were checking up on a car whose alarm had been set off just after midnight in the town of Hoentrop when they found a smashed window and two sets of footprints which they followed more than ten streets.

"At one point the tracks disappeared because someone had cleared the pavement outside their home in the middle of the night," police said in a statement.

After this minor setback, the officers picked up the trail again. The two sets of footprints led them directly to the entrance of a flat where the burglars not only stored their booty but also left their shoes and gloves to dry.

Video iPod - But which color?

noreply@blogger.com (Dennis J. Patti) — Mon, 26 Dec 2005 18:26:00 +0000

I received two Apple gift cards for Christmas which will allow me to buy the 60GB Video iPod for the price of the 30GB! I now have the decision as to which color I want to get.

The white one has always been my favorite. I didn't quite like the "U2" version which was the first one with the black case.

The white doesn't show scratches as bad as the black one will, however the black one will be less distracting if I am watching a video on it. Though the black case will have more light/glare reflecting off of it compared to the white one.

Decisions, decisions...

noreply@blogger.com (Dennis J. Patti) — Tue, 20 Dec 2005 23:33:00 +0000

Do you think you know what this is? Post your guess in the comments!

QuickTime without iTunes

noreply@blogger.com (Dennis J. Patti) — Tue, 20 Dec 2005 11:22:00 +0000

For those of you who are annoyed as I am with Apple bundling iTunes with QuickTime, here is a link to download a "standalone" version of QuickTime without iTunes.

Quicktime Standalone

Portable Firefox

noreply@blogger.com (Dennis J. Patti) — Tue, 13 Dec 2005 10:47:00 +0000

Want to bring Firefox with you whever you go even if the machine you are working on doesn't have it installed? Well if you have a thumb drive, you're in luck!