May 27
Congrats and best wishes go to Mike and Jennie who welcomed their Daughter, Kaylee, into the world this weekend! The fun is only beginning…
Archive for May, 2008
May 23
For those keeping score, I passed my first Microsoft certification exam. I am now officially a Microsoft Certified Professional! After taking so long to to the first exam, I’m pretty pumped to take more. I used both UCertify and Transcender to prepare for the exam. In the end neither of them fully covered exactly what was on the exam. But I did find that the UCertify prep exams were a bit more helpful because the prep exams provided many more types of questions than did Transcender. I’m just glad to have it over with. I’m now ready to move on to more interesting exams.
On a side note, once certified MCPs are supposed to gain access to an official Microsoft MCP site. You provide you Windows Live ID, your newly acquired MCP ID, and an access code. I received all my MCP ID information a few days after passing the course. So I immediately attempted to log into the site. The process to logging in requires linking your Windows Live ID to your MCP ID. To the company which tried to centralize all login processes with Passport, I’m blown away by how complicated this has been.
I received a few different errors while attempting to log in. The final message I received told me to contact my regional MCP representative and linked me off to some sort of “contact us” page where I could find the rep’s contact information. I explained my problem with logging in and sent off the email. I received a response 2 days later asking for me to provide my “CURRENT” information as well as my “PREVIOUS” information as it existed in their database. I’m not joking, I was asked to send the info as it was in their database. I wrote back and told them that I have no idea how or what info they are storing, but I provided my “CURRENT” information. I also told the not-so-english-speaking rep that I have no idea what “PREVIOUS” information they might have stored, so I could not provide any more details than my “CURRENT” info.
Since then I’ve exchanged numerous other emails, all without resolution to my problem. At one point I was asked to log onto Passport.com and retrieve my “Unique ID”. Apparently my email address, first name, last name, address, and MCP ID have not been unique enough to locate my account information. Finally I was told that it would take 5-7 business days to have my problem fixed. Today is business day 7 since I last heard from Microsoft’s regional MCP representative. I don’t hold out much hope for a resolution today.
May 22
It’s been too long since I’ve posted last, but honestly nothing all too exciting has been happening. Riley has been keeping us on our toes this spring. Every waking moment he’s telling us that he wants to go “out-si” == outside. When we went in for his 18 month checkup the doctor asked me how many words Riley knew. I thought about it for a second and said, “6″. The doc gave me a funny look and said he should easily know 10-20 by now. So I started counting again and came up with 12 easily. He said they didn’t even need to be actual words, but some sort of gibber-gabber that we understood the meaning of.
So here’s my attempt at a translation table between Riley-speak and English:
| Riley’s Word | English Phrase |
|---|---|
| out-si | Outside -He wants to go out side NOW, not later. NOW. |
| Mor | More – He wasn’t done with what you gave him. Give him it back or give him more of it |
| Pees | Please – This is a new one. He’s learning quickly that he can get anything he wants by just saying “Pees” all cute like |
| Jew | Juice- He knows the difference between juice and water. He asked for “Jew” but you gave him water. He’ll tell you that you’re wrong..quite loudly |
| No | No |
| Cuck | Truck – It took him awhile to figure out the difference between a truck and a car. But he’s got it down |
| Choo-Choo | Train – Any large moving object that is pulling a trailer, e.g. semi trucks, are Riley’s version of trains |
| Car | Car – What he hates getting into in the morning. He uses it as a sort of warning shot. If he says “car” to you and you were planning on putting him in one, you have been found out and he’s about to show you exactly what he thinks about getting into one. |
| Poop | Poop – First thing to do is to check Riley’s pants. If he has no poop, then check for poop around the house that might have been left by a dog |
| Coat | Coat – Always accompanies “Out-si”. We have him trained well that he needs a coat and a hat to go outside. |
| A Tree | A Tree – Just found this one out while typing this up. He pointed to a tree and told me it was “a tree” |
Every day Riley tells us something new. We just hold our breath every time and hope it’s not a curse word.
