In addition to my real job, I've been building a recreation area (1000 SqFt) on the side of my house for the kids.

Each evening I put in an  hour or two. This photo was taken last night. I'm on my knees while my children are enjoying the hot tub :)

:)

For anyone that's interested.....

I've started a Social / Political blog at www.AmericanMisfit.com

I hope your join me over there as well !

I thought I'd share this while I'm waiting for VS2008 SP1 to Install .......

MeMe (pictures on the right) turned 5 yesterday. She had 3 parties in one day!

(Our morning family celebration, her classmates school party, and dinner at our local Mexican restraint which she chose !)

Code is fun, but producing truly HAPPY children is the important job !

This is the recently opened Apple store here in Boston.

I can't wait for until the Microsoft store opens, or the Zune Store, or the Windows store :)

For Sean who Tweeted early this morning that he's having and angry day !

I've pulled over 80 hours this week, doing all te normal stuff and writing a bunch of somewhat tricky PHP Code (and really missing C#)

Meanwhile, my Wife and children are hanging out in Southern California.

Jill sent me these this morning, looks like they're having a blast.

Great reminder of why I work hard !!

Meet my friend Armin He's the handsome your Iranian dude wearing the MSDN Event Would Tour Tee-Shirt shown here at Kandovan in a city called Trabriz.

Armin and I have been pen-pals for a couple of years now. We met when Armin emailed me to ask a programming question.

Now a senior in High School he is starting to pick up programming projects and planing for University.

Over time we have come to discuss much more than programming. We mail about life in our respective countries, family, freedom, and the meaning of it all.

It's been great for me to learn about the Iranian people from someone that is NOT The American press.

And a great reminder that governments and "people" are two completely different things !

Moer proof that Code CAN solve everything !!!

Yesterday my wife and my children left the house and my 6 year old asked where they were going.

When Jill told Mia they were going to the mall, Mia said "Good, I wanna get my ears pierced."

She went through with it with no crying and only a few tears and was excited to come home and tell me.

So what does that have to do with Software Development.

Well, it was a reminder to "go for it" !

A while ago I was asked to speak at a conference about something I didn't know if I could make work :)

I've been dragging my feet getting down to working out the implementation details.

So today, I'm going to solve some tricky interop problems !

I was supposed to leave on Wednesday for Mix Essentials South Africa next week.

Unfortunately, my paternal grandmother died early this morning and I'll be forgoing the trip to stay home, support my family and see Muth (as she was called - short for Mother) or Ginny (as I called her) off on her journey to whatever comes next.

I agonized a bit over the decision. Ginny was a strong, pragmatic women and would have told me to travel. Many Many thanks to my great boss Simon, who never EVER asks me to put work before my family, to Brad Abrams who was to be my travel companion, who is so completely understanding, and who will have to pick up much of the slack that my absence creates, and to Microsoft South Africa who is also being very understanding, and who I owe a visit in the near future !

I must confess that natural events such as these seldom catch me off guard, but this one has, I grew up just down he street from Ginny and she has always had a special place in my Heart.

I'll be a it slow reconnecting, but am already feeling a strong urge to settle in for the summer and PRODUCE !  The spring travel always leaves me feeling this way.

So....  Before I go prolific !  If you don't subscribe to my blog (www.MisfitGeek.com) I hope you will.

My summer is YOURS ! I have video series in the works on ASP.NET Security and Data Access, and some Windows Forms stuff.

What would YOU like me to add to the list ?

Patterns ?

Architecture ?

ASP.NET Themes and Skins ?

Controls ?

More AJAX Techniques ?

You're the boss(es) !

Nope, this is not an infomercial.

I've been on the road for lots of this spring. For the last two weeks I was in Seattle for the MVP Summit, then in Orlando for Dev Connections, then in Atlantic City for the Microsoft Health and Life Sciences.

I got sick about half way through the 2 weeks. Some sort of intestinal fun, probably a bacterial infection.

It make Dev Connections and the HLS conference interesting.

Have you ever tried to give a presentation while concentrating on not throwing up or having another kind of embarrassing accident ? :)

Usually stuff like this lasts for about 24 hours. Today is day 8 of the really "active" part and I'm feeling almost ready to try eating again after a week of Ginger Ale.

I just got on the scale and have lost nearly 20 pounds from last Sunday to this. Yuck !

In any event. I'm expecting to be back on line this week.

3 of my 4 sessions this past week were well received (considering) but the ListView talk was a bomb so I'll be doing How Do I videos of the material.

Since I'm in the office for few days, I'll be cranking out some videos. As always , feel free to send suggestions.

I've known Scott for almost 10 years but when he hired me a few years ago I had no idea how much work he gets done.

Apart from managing the teams that deliver a dozen products for Microsoft, he travels and speaks everywhere, writes these detailed blog posts, and seems to know everything that's going on everywhere. (Like if the www.asp.net site if down for 40 seconds in the wee hours of the morning.)

Well, I've finally figured it out !

Check out this rare photo that PROOVES Scott Guthrie is actually triplets !!!

This explains ALOT !

If you have ever been on hold waiting for a conference call with Microsoft to begin, then this video will ring bells for you, if not make you laugh out loud.

Since I was on campus last week I spent time trying to catch our Dev Leaders Like ScottGu, Shanku, and BradA doing stuff like you see in the video, but didn't have any luck !

Click Here if you need to see the video at YouTube!