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So what have you been doing this summer? I’ve been everything but blogging. My usage of Facebook and Twitter has really worn into my desire to blog. But after living on one sentence updates for the last 2 months I’m feeling the need to be more “verbose.”

This summer has been filled with projects, as usual. We rebuilt our hazardous deck. It was quite a learning experience. We’ve gotten closer to finishing up the kitchen floor and we reclaimed half our garage back with a bit of organizing.

Riles has started to come into his own. Over the summer he’s gained an opinion, that differs from ours most of the time. His vocabulary has skyrocketed and he’s starting to string words together. I’m convinced he’s a genius, but I’m sure all parents think that. Do you know what he’s talking about when he says, “Tree!….Monkey!….Tina!” I do. He’s trying to convince me our trees have monkeys in them because Tina told him a few weeks ago about the monkeys in the trees. Yeah, genius.

Other than that it’s been a quiet summer. I caught a Luther the Devil show a few weeks ago. It’s always nice to see their show. It’s good to see the crew again.

There’s other stories and information that needs to get told. I’ll tell them in time. But for now, I’m content to let this broad stroke of a summary cover what we’ve been up to.

With the lack of a Macbook Pro update at the WWDC 2008 conference I was safe to march down to the Apple store and pick up a new computer. I have been holding off for months just in case Apple announced something at WWDC. With my fears subdued, I proudly took Riles to the store last night to get it.

I chatted with the kid with an eyebrow bolt for about 10 minutes. We discussed the merits of a matte vs. glossy screen. I thanked him for the suggestions and ordered up a Macbook Pro and Apple Care. Like all magic Apple store employees he whipped out his little handheld cash register, took my card, and swiped it…Then he swiped it again..and again. I told him that I typically have this problem with my card wearing down. He insisted it was the device and we walked to the back of the store to try the real cash register.

A few swipes later he looked up at me with a bit of shame and said, “I’m sorry sir, your card is declined.” Embarrassed, I tried to not look like an idiot backing out of the store. I told them that we have had problems with credit card theft in the past. Whether or not he believed me, I’m not sure, but I quickly ran out of the store and to the nearest lounge chair to figure out what went wrong.

After a 10 minute navigation of Chase’s phone menu I finally received a person. I explained the situation and asked why my card was declined. He informed me that no charges had been attempted on the card and that my line of credit should easily cover the purchase price. I felt a bit vindicated, but I was still short one Macbook Pro. I took Riles home and griped to Courtney about the whole ordeal.

Assuming Amazon.com would solve my credit card woes, I hopped online and ordered up the same thing, except with a delivery date of Thursday instead of “RIGHTFLIPPINGNOW”. I waited for the email receipt to come from Amazon so I could take it into work and be reimbursed for the computer. What I received instead of the receipt was a notification that Amazon was having troubles processing my card. In a fit of Macbook Rage I called Chase again to give them an earful.

This time, though, instead of getting the phone menu I received from the mall, I was dumped immediately into a payment verification process. I was informed that a large charge was pending against my account and would I like verify the charge. I pushed “2″ and hoped for the best.

So, the computer was flipping some sort of fraud monitoring process at Chase. In the long run I appreciate the security that the card provides, but it would have been nice if at the store instead of getting a decline message at the register, that the card company could inform the cashier to have me verify the purchase. Even better, Chase should send me a text message when I charge something and allow me to respond with validation.

I was out in the yard cutting up some old lumber when Courtney yelled to me, “You should come take a look at this bush!” She was staring at a shrub on our side yard. It’s near to the driveway and typically looks like hell. It’s in a spot which gets all the snow thrown on it during the winter months. It’s always been a little sad and depressed looking. I went back to cutting wood.

A few moments later Courtney repeated her call, this time saying, “You should hear the worms on this bush!” I was caught a bit off guard, so I went to survey the situation. Courtney pointed out to me these little things which were laying on the branches of the shrub. “Tent worms,” she told me, ” They’re everywhere on the bush.” Sure, I thought, “Everywhere…” But as I looked closer I realized that she wasn’t exaggerating at all. These things were everywhere.

That’s when she said, “Listen to them…” We hushed and listened. I could hear the crackling of these things destroying our bush. It sounded like Rice Crispies in milk. It was utterly disgusting and creepy.

I went back to cutting wood while Courtney went inside to look for any sort of treatment online. She found a few sites which suggested killing one of them in front of the others, which would scare the others away. Or picking them off and putting them in a burlap bag. These options were nice, but a little more humane than I was hoping. I drove to Home Depot to find something a little more potent.

I found an insecticide which specifically worked with tent worms/caterpillars. It is a concentrate so I need to purchase a sprayer as well. I’ve always thought sprayers were for old farts with nothing better to do than walk around their yard obliterating the most minute annoyances. Now, I am that old guy.

When I began spraying the bush, I kid you not, the bush moved on its own. Leaves seemed to curl up, shunning away from the sprayer. With every motion the bush seemed to fight back, moving a bit in a different direction. The truth was that these tent worms realized what was happening and were quite pissed about it. They were crawling and agitated. I was grossed out.

I checked on the progress of the death spray. I was having a hard time dealing with the fact that these things might still be crawling around our bushes. I went outside to find small piles of the worms laying underneath the bush. Victory was mine!

As I stood up I noticed ants starting to carry the carcasses away. I thought about cleaning up the dead bodies so the ants might go away but then I figured nature would take it’s course.

Congrats and best wishes go to Mike and Jennie who welcomed their Daughter, Kaylee, into the world this weekend! The fun is only beginning…

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.

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:

Every day Riley tells us something new. We just hold our breath every time and hope it’s not a curse word.

Through my career I haven’t seriously focused on getting any certifications. While I always find time to play with and monkey with new technologies I haven’t taken the time to get any official “stamps of approval”, specifically in Microsoft technologies. Not to mention, working as a full-time employee doesn’t give me much incentive to get certified. Once hired, companies seemed to forget how much official training you’ve had.

Once I started as a consultant I was told that certifications, regardless of what or how many, help to start the conversation with potential clients. Certs aren’t necessarily used to prove you understand everything about a particular topic, they are used to help categorize ability and fit within projects. So that I can understand and respect.

So, finally, after all these years I’ve scheduled up my first exam, 70-315 Building Web Applications with C# .Net. Now, no laughing at me. This test is quite old and barely applies anymore. There have been a few newer tests which supersede this one but I’m taking it for a moral victory. I actually began studying for this test 5 years ago. After 7 years of actual development experience with C# and web applications I’m pretty sure I have the skill set to pass. I just need to polish up on the official Microsoft answers.

So May 5th is the day that I hope I will finally pass my first certification exam. Wish me luck

I’ve made no secret about my love of coffee. My coffee snobness has gotten so bad that I can no longer drink the coffee at work and must purchase a dark roast from the local coffee chain every morning.

For the last 9 months after dropping of Riley I head over to the Dunn Bros. near daycare. Every morning I order a large dark roast and I pay with my credit card. Most mornings I run into the barista, Aaron. We don’t say much to each other. I place my order, he gets me my coffee. Most mornings the moment my car rolls into the parking spot my coffee is ready.

On the mornings that a new person is working the counter I get asked if I want their punch card frequent buyer card. I always turn them down citing that my wallet is already large enough. Every once in awhile Aaron will give me a free coffee “just because.” And every once in awhile I’ll drop in a $5 dollar tip in for the good service.

So this morning I roll up to Dunn Bros. like I do every morning. As I walk in the store I grab for my wallet. Unfortunately all I grab is my ass, there is no wallet. After losing my wedding band (a story for a different day) I’m a little nuts about my things. I panic, wondering if I’d dropped it at the gym last night. I hightail it back to the car to give Courtney a buzz.

While this is happening I notice the daily routine of my coffee being poured inside. I felt bad but I was going to need to blow off Dunn Bros. this morning. I just didn’t have the money.

As I waited for Courtney to pick up her cell phone one of the baristas walked out to my car and handed me my daily coffee. I looked at her and thanked her and explained my situation. She said it was on the house anyways. While a free cup of coffee isn’t an extraordinary  gesture, I appreciated the fact they went so far as to walk it out to my car.

Aaron and his cohorts are good folk. If you’re ever looking for coffee in the morning, I’d head over to Dunn Bros. in Maple Grove.

Let me get you up to speed on our life, as it stands today:

Courtney and I went to Cancun in February with Chad and Tina. It was probably the single greatest time that we’ve had in a very long time. Here’s the proof that we were there, and here’s me swearing off booze and Mexico. When in downtown Cancun, I would highly recommend La Habichuela. We had quite an excursion trying to find our way to the restaurant but it proved well worth the adventure.

I have recently been rolled off my first consulting engagement and was quickly put on a “tweener” project, something to keep me busy while a more permanent engagement was arranged. In the beginning I was quite reluctant about the short-term project. I was told that I was supposed to be a hired gun for some legacy VBA work in Excel, both of which I have little to no experience with. I was told that I needed to put on a good show because if all went well, I would be a good “foot in the door” for other projects. Now, over the course of my career I’ve heard this excuse uttered hundreds of times but this was really my first experience with the “foot” working. I cranked out the project for the client quickly and successfully. They were so happy with the work that they promised future engagements. w00t!

Now, for Riley. As it stands today he’s just passed 17 months old. He has entered toddler mode fully, which means just about everything with him is a struggle. When he laughs, he laughs long and hard. When he’s frustrated he throws himself on the ground in a tantrum as only a Motylinski/Angerer offspring could. He’s more fun then I ever thought he would be. But he’s also mind-numbingly infuriating a the same time. He’s beginning to talk, so we can rationalize with him in a small way. He loves being outside. A few times we’ve caught him running out he side door, which he can open without trouble. We spend the majority of our time trying to keep him entertained. Sadly, he’s not one for spending lazy afternoons coloring. He’s more the type to go splash in a puddle or the dogs’ water bowl.

Lots of stuff going on in life to update you about. But until I find the time to actually document it all, check these out:

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