No room to complain -

Ok, so they recently had a re-organization at work and my manager is in Austin now. He came by Dallas so we had Steak for lunch...YOU KNOW it's bad when they pay for lunch :-). Although it's not as bad as I originally thought it would be but would definately prefer a manager and team that would be local to where I'm at. This means in many ways that I can work from home but the flipside is that you're disconnected to the "local happenings" and other political events, etc.

And this is my rant? What the hell has happended to New Orleans! I heard people (at school and at work] talking about this last few days saying that we [America] should just leave New Orleans the way it is and NOT rebuild. Yes, people took a risk living there. Yes, ultimately a hurricane would come that would wipe out the area based on current infrastructure. Yes, some people are so poor their only hope is to HOPE that it won't be so bad because they cannot afford to leave. Are people who are saying "just leave New Orleans the way it is and NOT rebuild" UNeducating themselves? Is this what it has come to? I'm not so intelligent to say I have a solution to [people saying this and for the current issue at hand] this . I just have thoughts... And this is my rant.

"Back to School Sunil", this is what they call me

Hey folks, I have Terrific News. I didn't save any money on my car insurance but I got away with paying UNT $0.00 this semester (with books) for 3 classes! Someone is paying for it - just not me :-).

Ambiguity

Yes. I hate it but any of you in diverse and adverse locations know what I am talking about. "What are you talking about?", you say. From a career vantage point, I say reality is once you get to a place in your life when you make a decision that will affect the positioning you have in the future. Frightening...I know. Ahhhh, the reality which sets the tone of where you're going to be. I refuse to faulter and persist the inevitable... No less.

My name is Sunil, and I neglect my blog

I think I have neglected my blog’s usefulness these last few weeks. Ahh. It’s the daily evils though im not blameless and such is human. See, did it again!

Anyhow. I’ve been realizing more and more that the bullseye, for lack of a better word, is more prominent as you’re working yourself towards something. I don’t like that dammit! Ahh, but it’s the daily evils. one day the bullseye will be gone -- or not...

So anyway, the next conquest on April 14 is the Portal Administration (347) exam. I'm just going to go take it and likely fail it. I'm not going to study this time around - i've discovered this really cool hobby...sleep!

Hopefully, this should pacify the blog...

Happy Hour

Happy hour is terrific. Today my buddies Lucas and Bryan went to happy hour and ole Lucas ordered something other than what was covered under the happy hour umbrella. Bryan and I told him that it defeats the purpose of happy hour but apparently it tasted better than what we had...hmm? alcohol vs. flavor.........alcohol vs. flavor.........hmm?

It was a good evening. I had a good time with buddies and chatting -- much better chatting with someone outside of work than AT work. Bryan, if you're reading this, hope your wedding initations turn out ok! I hope mindy, joe, nita(my wonderful honey if reading), and me are innvited b/c we are going to be at your doorstep from 2,000 miles away!

Lucas, "happy hour = INexpensive alcoholic beverages". No more $7.00/drink orders!

Just call me Mr. P. -- Portal Developer

Test 348, WebSphere Portal V5.0, Application Development.

Showed this test who its daddy is - haha. It was definately difficult - there is a reason they require a 54% to pass. I can't imagine the number of people have failed it for them to put this as the passing grade. I survived it with a 72%.

I made notes AFTER i took this exam so I can see what I missed and what I got right. Let me just say...if you're going to be taking this exam, know the Portlet API inside/out. If you have questions (about exam topics), get a hold of me or post a message.

Almost forgot to mention - I used redbook "WebSphere Portal V5 - A Guide to Portlet Development" to prepare.

Best of luck to anyone to takes this test.

I'm back -

Yes, you can relax, im here.

So I don't know about any of you lil troy's out there but geez, I don't look forward to doing my taxes this year. In fact, I'm going to wait until the last day of filing before I submit. The unfortunate truth is that this year will cost a pretty penny...I wonder if they'll accept the firstborn as the first installment payment.

Test 348: IBM WebSphere Portal V5, Application Development

Test date is set at March 24. aint no turning back so lets see how this goes :-\.

Elvis run and training record

My friend Kim got me hooked on running and I even went as far as run at a 5k run a few years back at a thing called the Elvis Run. I just so happened to break my record - 24 min and 12 seconds!

this year im gettign ready to break another personal record of less than 23 minutes. Today I ran 23 mins 11 seconds!!! woo-hoo!

Anyway, if anyone is interested in the run or cares to make a wager on running a certain record, u know where i be...sup!

http://www.elvisrun.com it's only $15 and benefits cerebral palsy so you know, it's a good cause

Java Certified!!!

sup!

just address me as the Mr. Java.

Next time, we use the Star Trek card deck

Adam and Steven beat me in poker again!!!! NOOOOOOOoooooo! Hey - at least I'll get some pretty good tasting free coffee monday/tuesday :-).

Anyhow, I hope yall are happy b/c i'm gonna sleep in the doghouse tomorrow -- Nita's asleep so im safe tonite...thanks a lot! Punky Brewster should have folded and let me win so she wouldn't have knocked her woman out of the game...muhahaha!

Drop down and gimme 20!

Colleges are around to make your money and just when you get the interest to join in their not so elite club, they give you hoop after hoop to jump just to take some classses. I've applied for the Ph.D. program and the university has accepted me but now the college/major is looking at my application and after talking to them it sounds like it's a done deal but they want about 10 pages of writing, copies of all publications, 6 copies of resumes, 3 letters (6 copies each) of recommendation letters, and the list goes on...

If you survive the acceptance process, you'll definately be able to cut it when it comes to the rest of the program!

but there are times you gotta suck in your gut, be a 'Panzy a$$', and do what the man says.

2 nickels

What is sad is true...unfortunately. What we have is a game where the good guys lose and the folks who cry the loudest, win.

I don't tolerate this much and never really have. But at the same time instead of managing the concern (however small) many people often deal with it...as I sometimes do myself. So what's the real problem? I think the people who deal with it are "panzy a$$es." :-) As someone told me today (in nicer words of course), manage it and stop being a panzy a$$ otherwise you lose to the folks who cry the loudest... Because what is sad is true...unfortunately.

Momma always said...

Forrest Gump kicks tail! I find something new in that movie every time I watch it...like that Elvis scene at the beginning where Forrest is doing the hounddog dance and Elvis later uses that in his performances when he becomes famous.

"that's all I got to say about that"

Java Cert Notes Chapter 1

I have uploaded chapter 1 of my Java study notes.

http://www.geocities.com/prodigy018/JavaStudy/Chapter1Final.doc

FYI - I am using the "Java 2 Sun Certified Programmer and Developer" book written by Sierra and Bates -- Excellent book!

Java Certification Study

I hear people say certifications are not [that] valuable. I beg to differ. There are some VERY good Java programmers where I work and after speaking to them, I found that the amount they gained preparing for the Java cert was well above what they use Java for in everyday tasks and that it definately helped them ramp up on becoming a developer. The net of it is that if you have the cert, you will be able to tackle the majority of coding tasks -- not to mention that jobs right now are abundant for people who have the Sun cert :-).

Since I am preparing for my Sun Java Certification (If my boss is reading this, im not out looking for a job), I thought I would also post my notes to help others who are preparing.

I'll update the site as notes are created. Best of luck!!!

Remove those annoying balloon tips / tooltips in Win XP

Windows XP has annoyed me for the VERY last time with it's not so helpful "balloon tips" tooltip popups. If any of you use Windows XP, you know what I mean. Actually, it's not so bad if you have a desktop with XP, but if you have a laptop - well, .

So after 20 seconds of searching online, I found the registry key needed to wipe out these balloon tips. You can edit registry using the following steps...If you need more detailed steps than these, leave a comment and I'll just email you the file you need.

1. Edit the following registry key to add the EnableBalloonTips dword

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\
CurrentVersion\Explorer\Advanced] "EnableBalloonTips"=dword:0

2. Logout and login.

WOO-HOO!

Yes, you can relax... I'm here

I've been wanting to start my own blog for some time now.

I was browsing the web (newsgroups mostly) about 6 months ago looking for information on a PDA emulator that Bill makes. After about a week of searching, I found the answer! What I also found was Bill's entourage using blogging... everywhere! -- it's like they were under mandate or something :-. Anyway, this is to help even the score! :-) One small step for Sunil, one giant leap for all IBMers!

P.s. I'm going to try to update the contents from this blog to the IBM internal blog as I have time. Someone needs to sit down and write an API to convert the Atom XML to something useful...RSS?