Jared W. Smith

It’s that time of year — the final stretch into the exam period and the end of the semester (and, for me, the long-awaited end to my college career). So, expect relative silence on the blog and in my social media space for a while. I’ll try to come up for air on weekends. (I do need to post a review of my BlackBerry Bold, but I’ll do that after a couple more weeks with it on my belt…erm…under my belt.)

So while I frantically conclude my undergraduate years, here’s a funny video to watch (BlackBerry-themed, of course):

Catch you in the valleys…

Rumors of my rapid descent from Earth’s surface have been greatly exaggerated. I’m alive, well, etc. Just — and stop me if you’ve heard it — insanely busy for the last month or two. I did a little pass on my site this morning and have noticed cobwebs beginning to grow in the biographical pages, for instance. This is something I certainly need to resolve. It’s just hard to work up the energy after putting in a great deal of time during the week doing little but sitting at a computer working on Web stuff. It’s just natural.

With school coming up in addition to the time I put in at work, it’s tough to say whether I can bring the Hiatus Train to a full stop or not. I’m going to try, though — I venture to guess that the return to classes will certainly make my life much more interesting and thus much more bloggable. It usually has this effect.

With a week left before classes, I can say it’s been a good summer. I’ve had a good time getting out and about, getting to know my new housemates, and watching a lot of baseball in between. My work has been exceptionally rewarding and has pushed me to be sharper mentally. Physically, switching to a desk job (and Blue Moon) has landed me about 15 pounds and trouble putting on some legacy pairs of pants in the morning. This is not a complaint, though — as most of you know, I’m quite the twig, so any enhancement to my physique helps.

A lot of other peripheral stuff has been going on. Take this weekend, for instance. I got my old (newer) car back Thursday from my brother after driving back from Columbia for work (long story). The car is somewhat humorous now that my brother has given it the “Pimp Your Ride” treatment. (Before and after pics later on, I think.) I then left the map lights on in the car overnight so that when I went to start it Friday to pick up a lady friend (who I am not dating but I can understand why everyone asks us this) it just went poot, rolled over, and died. Yep…I nailed that battery real well. So, I call my dad up and get his voicemail…but he didn’t get the voicemail until 2:30 Saturday. He came downtown and jumped my car, then I followed him back home to top off the battery (it was in good shape driving back, but we wanted to be sure). After verifying the battery charge was good, I made up for the previous evening with dinner and The Simpsons Movie, which is hysterical. Today started late and will end probably before midnight for me…yet another workday tomorrow.

Sorry to Charleston’s bloggers for not making it out tonight. I was just exhausted today, and had stuff to get done around the house.

Hopefully my next post will be sooner rather than later. Time will tell…

Last night at about midnight, I officially joined the Cult of AT&T, as my cell phone no longer reflects “Cingular” as my service provider. The last gasp of Cingular is the branding that was screenprinted on the bottom of the phone. That was a good brand…a lot more hip than “AT&T,” which just screams “giant corporate behemoth.”

And now, a random note that has nothing to do with AT&T or Death Stars: I don’t talk about my professional life much on here outside of the limited freelancing I do, but for the last month I have been the interim webmaster at CofC. It’s been quite exciting — definitely one of those “never a dull moment” kind of jobs. This has had a lot to do with the slowing of my blogging pace, because quite frankly, it’s just tough to get on a computer when I get home after I’ve been on one for close to eight hours a day.

I’m wondering if it’s going to rain on Charleston in a couple hours. There’s a cell that appears to be holding together as it traverses its way down the coast. It’s been quite the rainmaker, dropping a radar-estimated three inches of rain on portions of upper Charleston County. It’ll probably rain itself out before it gets here, but then again, you just don’t know. The clouds were fairly ominous this morning.

Back to the grind…

Well, it’s a late night in the office tonight. This evening marks the first time CofC has offered classroom support past 5:30 that included an actual direct phone call. Soooo, I get to be part of one giant experiment. Apparently it’ll be quiet on these nights, but you never really know when it comes to technological emergencies. I’ve gotta say, it’s a little weird being the only one in the office. Haha. All the lights are out except in the shop, which pretty much signifies that “I’m the man now, dog.” Thus, Extreme is playing at a low volume (so I can listen out for the phone ring).

I just hope the rain and the markedly colder weather hold off until after, say, 10:15PM or so, when I get to check out. The hour-by-hour breakdown on weather.com suggests it’ll be 52 downtown with cloudy conditions when I leave here. Let’s hope they’re on with that one. I don’t want to get caught in frigid, wet weather with only a sweater-shirt and khakis. My cold tolerance is admittedly faint below about 50 degrees or so, and when rain’s mixed in…look out. Very low on the Valuemeter. I really, really hope the icing scenario doesn’t play out. That stuff just isn’t fun at all. I’ll never forget driving to Greenwood from Charleston that March night in 2003, after getting back from San Diego for my grandmother’s memorial — by the time I arrived, my car was covered in ice and it took quite a bit of force to get out. That was nuts, especially for someone not versed in winter weather at all. Of course, the next month up there, we had tornado warnings on what seemed like a daily basis.

Last night was productive. I popped into the new Tanger Outlet in North Charleston, armed with a gift card that I received for Christmas. I left with four pairs of pants and four shirts (including the sweater-shirt I’m currently wearing) from the Gap for a shade under $130, most of which was absorbed by the gift card. Clearances really are a beautiful thing. It’s also nice to finally have some recent new clothing, to boot.

Everyone was extra nice to me at work today after the Chargers’ loss. I wonder why. :P

Hope you all have an enjoyable evening — catch you on the flip side of the front!

So yes, I’m still alive, despite my lack of bloggage over the last two and a half to three weeks.

Where to begin? We’re getting a new CIO in at work. Big, big stuff. Therefore, there’s just been a lot going on in the run-up to that. I’ve been working hard on a few projects for work in my spare time so yeah, things are pretty busy.

A few notes:

• Windows Live Messenger build 0566 is out, and it’s spectacular. The interface is much, much improved. No more green/blue/gray bubbly crapola. It looks Glass-ready, too. Good work Microsoft. I also have three additional invites available. ;)
• People who ride their bikes fast on sidewalks are teh suck. People who ride their bikes fast on sidewalks and give me, the pedestrian, nasty looks for not realizing they were there, are even teh sucker. Folks, it’s against the law to do it.
• Back to software releases: Windows Vista February (Enterprise) CTP was made available. It’s got a lot of great changes under the hood yadda yadda, but you know, looking at what they were originally going to do compared to what’s there now, it’s quite disappointing (especially the lack of the clear glassy taskbar and the current abomination of a start ORB). Nevertheless, ExtremeTech does its damndest to convince you otherwise.
• Regardless of my current thoughts on Vista, I would like to get my hands on it again soon, so I’m not just a detached pundit playing Monday morning quarterback about this stuff. :P

Hopefully I’ll have more blogging frequency in the next few weeks, but only time will tell.

J