I got Comcast back around May 1st, signed up, created my email account. I never once gave it out. I just wrote it on the card so I wouldn’t forget and put in in the drawer. Well tonight for the first time in 2 months, I signed in not expecting to see any mail. I had 254 unread messages. All of which were spam. Thanks Comcast. Good thing I have my own web server and private email addresses and don’t use yours!

Update: As I continued to delete messages, I got to the beginning date, May 16th. Its not like I had a recycled username, if I did, I would have been getting spam from day 1.

Google maps has just relocated the “Map” and “Satellite” buttons from the page to on top of the menu itself. Something tells me this probably has something to do with the Google Maps API.

Also, going along with my previous update, It shows Continents > Countries > States > Townships depending on how far you’re zoomed in. I noticed the township names after playing around some more.

New relocated map buttons (click for larger image)

Well its a good thing we bought season passes to Hershey Park. We were there two Saturdays ago and had a great time until it rained. We were getting ready to leave and it looked like it was going to rain. The only thing we had left to do was stop by the fudge shop on the way out.

We began walking across the park to the fudge shop and main gate and one of the “shows” was starting. It was a new one this year and Kim wanted to stop. I protested and we sat down for a few minutes. After about 3-4 minutes she finally realized they sucked and she was ready to go. Now that we delayed a few minutes the clouds were beginning to look a bit more ominous.

We got about half way to the fudge shop (about a 7-10 min walk across the park, depending on how many idiots were in front of us at the time) and all the sudden it started to rain. We watched people dart under the trees and seek shelter and we kept heading to the shop. We were almost there and the floodgates unleashed on us. By the time we got to the fudge shop we were completely soaked. After the hot day, we thought it felt good, and I liked watching the looks on peoples faces as we kept walking through the rain.

We bought our fudge and since we were already soaked we decided to keep walking to the car. As we continued downhill to the main gates we were fighting against the water rushing past our feet. We even had to catch some girls sandals after she dropped them and they were swept away in the current. Our own sneakers were beginning to get heavy and the rain was starting to get cold. We got out about halfway to the car and wouldn’t you know the rain stopped. We finally ended up taking off our heavy shoes to finish the journey across the parking lot to my car.

Since then we’ve been back two nights during the week and gotten to park right by the gates thanks to our season passes. Its very enjoyable to just hop on a few rides, no rush, no idiots and then go home. If anybody is in the area and is going to the park this summer let me know and maybe I’ll get over there and meet up with you for a while.

Kim and I went out Monday night to the mall to get a few things done. While there we agreed to stop and look at new cell phones if there was a Nextel dealer there. We were just about to leave and as she came out of the bathroom we both noticed the Nextel dealer.

We stopped by to see what they had to offer and they had just came out with a real family plan. After looking at phones, Kim got the thinner i830 and I got the camera-enabled i860. Both phones are pretty slick.

The i860 has a built in camera that takes both still and video clips and has a massive amount of storage for photos, ring tones and wallpapers. It has an extra large color screen on the inside (262k colors, 176×220 pixels, 2.2 inch diagonal) and a smaller (what is considered normal size for most phones) color screen on the outside (4k colors, 95×65 pixels, 1.4 inch diagonal). The external screen is great for photo caller-id.

It also has built in GPS and an interface for getting your current coordinates. My previous phone had GPS but no way of updating it or viewing it on the phone. It only kicked in when a 911 call was made. The battery life isn’t as long, but thats a given with an two color screens. Here’s a few shots of my latest kick-ass phone.

Well I’m just about done school. Finally, after two long years. As of today, I have five more days of class. We’re just finishing up some testing and labs in the next week and the eight of us left can’t wait til its over.

I already have a job lined up and officially start next Thursday. I did it for benefits reasons and because my boss was fine with me taking my exams those mornings. Thursday I’ll have my final lab exam and then my boss is taking all of us out to lunch. Friday I just have my final written exam and then get to go out to my new office in Harrisburg and enjoy the rest of the day.

I got my new laptop for work today and the rest of my necessary “toys” to do my job; cell phone, sweet IP phone for my desk, etc. I spent most of the day setting up my laptop and copying over all of my files from my old laptop. I even got hooked up with VPN and was on doing some stuff from home tonight just for kicks. I think I can say I’m ready, open the gates and let me go!

I was messing around using Google Maps again today and noticed a few new features. Firstly, there are now directional arrows on the on and off ramps of highways. Secondly, states and countries are now labeled. If you’re zoomed in to a certain level on the United States you can see the states by name. If you zoom out some, you can see countries by name; and if you zoom out all the way you can see continents and oceans by name.

Before now, you could just see land masses with no labels. The only areas truly mapped are the United states and UK. Some of the Caribbean islands have roads drawn on them, but not labeled. I did find a few oddities though in playing around with it tonight. I found an island with its roads mapped, but no land under it. If you look at the satellite image, its there, just not on the map portion. I also found an island where the roads weren’t quite in sync with where the island was drawn and some of the roads extended over the ocean.

Google has made great progress with this and hopefully it will eventually cover the whole world.

Update: I just discovered the arrows indicate one-way streets too.

Maps Copyrighted by Google, Inc

Exit ramp arrows (click for larger image)

One way street arrows (click for larger image)

United States labeled by state name (click for larger image)

Country Names (click for larger image)

Island roads on the water. The island mass is missing in the map but not the satellite (click for larger image)

This islands roads extend over the water (click for larger image)

I was finishing up my exit paperwork today at school and while I was in the Career Services office my student adviser walked in. He was joking with everybody about finally being done when all of the sudden he told one of the career services ladies that he thought I should be on the Advisory Board. I thought he was joking but he sounded serious.

After I finished filling out all my paperwork, I went down to his room to ask him about it. He told me that he thought it’d be great if I joined their advisory board. So basically I get to meet with a handful of IT-related people and decision-makers at the school about twice a year and discuss whats going on in the industry and what would be useful for the school to bring into their curriculum.

It sounds pretty neat, and I was pretty excited at the whole idea. Thats just another way to keep networked with other professionals in the industry and build a few more relationships.

Apparently my previous post on Live8 was ranked 8th on google for “live8″ (now down to 34th). I had a bunch of lunatics post thinking that I am somehow associated with the Live8 event in some way. I just had a lady email me about broadcasting some Live8 show where they’re at and giving donation money to me. She sounded frantic and “needs an answer ASAP.”

For clarification, I AM NOT, IN ANY WAY, INVOLVED WITH LIVE8.

I went to see Kim at work the other day and they had a pizza box from some little pizza place around the corner. I was amazed when I looked at the box and the whole box was an ad for Verizon’s new FiOS service. I wanted to take a picture but had left my camera at the apartment, I figured I’d just order from there so I could get a box.

Anyway, Owen posted about seing tables that had the same advertisement at the Exton Mall the other day. He’s got a picture up and lucky for him, he’s already got the service.. If I see more, I’ll be sure to post. Watch out, FiOS is about to take over!

I came home to my parents house today for lunch and checked weather.com for the current temperature… this is what it was reporting..

In actuality, it was about 78 degrees out and was only supposed to reach 81 degrees. Somebody needs to fix that thermometer!