Exactly forty years ago my mom and dad brought me into this world. As I recall (from their stories, not from personal memory), my dad went to park the car and by the time he got to the delivery room I was already in preschool (not really, but it was a very fast delivery and dad actually got there real quick). I'm told that when they handed me to my mom, I peed in her face, and the rest is history. What a great way to kick things off, eh?

It's been quite an interesting journey so far, with lots of life lessons, trials, tribulations, successes, fun and great experiences. I am blessed by the many terrific people, friends and family members who are and have been a part of my life - and for that I am truly grateful. Thanks everyone. I only hope I can give as much back.

I suppose it's just about time for a mid-life crisis, so... I think I will sell my motorcycle. How's that for backwards? And the spur of the moment trip I made this past weekend to Las Vegas with my good friend (and with less than an hour's notice)... Well, lets just try for a bit more of that kind of fun.

Mostly it's just another day, and it's always nice to keep adding those on - one at a time. I don't plan to do anything particularly special, other than to maybe getting outside and enjoying the day for a while and hanging around people I work with and a couple friends.

Maybe I should shave my head or get (another) tattoo or something?

Or maybe not. Heh.

Here's to another forty, if I'm lucky enough.

What better way to spend your "I am officially old" day than doing something completely new? As of today, a new podcast called RunAs Radio, hosted by Richard Campbell and co-hosted by Yours Truly, is being launched. Richard writes in a bit more detail about it on his weblog.

It's a weekly IT podcast with a Microsoft technologies focus. Richard and I will discuss all sorts of relevant topics with a variety of smart and interesting people. I am excited and looking forward to being a part of this project.

RunAs Radio was launched on April 11, 2007 with a nod from its sister show, .NET Rocks!, which started as a weekly downloadable mp3 in August, 2002! Coincidentally, the first RunAs Radio show features Patrick Hynds, who was also the first guest on .NET Rocks!

I have acquired a nice new mic and accessories to make some high quality recordings (but I will save the details for another post).

We hope you enjoy the show, and of course you should let us know what you think. The show is professionally produced by the great people at Pwop Productions.

Show #1 | 4/11/2007 (46 minutes)
Pat Hynds on Storage Technology

Patrick Hynds from Critical Sites kicks off this all-new Microsoft-centric IT podcast with a discussion about storage. This show is atypically long. We're trying for 30 minutes per show.

Links: RunAs Radio web site and RSS feed

My friend Chris forwarded me recently. Apparently I need to get in touch with myself so I can figure out how to get some of what I already got. Also to find out why I am dead. Identities below changed to protect the "innocent" (and by that I don't mean "Harry." I mean people who read this and might for some reason email or call "Harry").

From: Harry Traore [mailto:haruna_traore309@yadayada.com]
Sent: Wednesday, March 28, 2007 3:03 AM
To: htraoreabcs.com
Subject: From Harry

My name is Haruna Traore (27), I work as houseboy and steward to Mr. GREG HUGHES. He was come from America, and who use to be contractor at big oil servicing bureau here in Cote D’Ivoire. Last year {Jan. 2006 }, my master die of a terribly illness , but before him death, he tell me in confidence of money,  $8.5 Million dollars he deposit with a bank here.

He was very sick and afraid to die and lose all he has in foreign land. He make me to promise he that if him die, I go should try everything possibly to make the money at bank to gets to survivals 1. the earthquake of Pakistan (where he work for long before come here to Africa) and 2. hurrycane of America and he handed over bank document of this deposit to me with letter carry instruction.

I go bank before but they refuse to release money for me unles I appear one of Mr. GREG HUGHES relationes. This hard for me, because since I live with master he no mention any name of family. i try for one year now but no succeed so therefore I want to appear you to bank as my master relation because you are foreigner.So that my master wish before death will ok be done.

I am an ordinary houseboy and not fit reach the survivals in Pakistan and Amerika. If you able to do it for me thank you and respond back immediately so we talk on what will be give to you from the money.

Please telephone me for 225-04-123456

Thanking you for agreement.

Haruna Traore

Oh wait. I'm dead? Wow, I sure missed something here. Hmmm.

Call me, Harry. We should talk.

Um. Yeah, right.

For some reason the subject of "seats parts that may be used as flotation devices" has come up in conversation a number of times lately. Maybe it's because a number of the flights I've been on recently have been over-water, so the portion of the safety briefing that admonishes you to follow crewmember instructions and whatnot just stands out a bit more: "In the event of a water landing, your seat bottom cushion may be used as a flotation device."

Water landing?

Let's be honest. There's no such thing.

I mean, it's nice that this ultra-comfortable seat has a couple straps and that I can take it with me as I leave my carry-on luggage behind, and the emergency exit slides that convert to rafts are pretty cool as well. But if the airplane I'm on right now (as I type this) "lands" on the water, what's likely to happen, really?

Water weighs a little more than eight pounds per gallon. By the time you put an airliner into the water at somewhere around 200 miles an hour and displace thousands of gallons of water with just the engines, and when the wings make contact (assuming a flat, relatively gradual contact with the surface), the plane might as well have hit a mountainside covered in heavy, wet snow. Airplanes break when too much stress is applied, and if they happen to float, it's not likely to be for long.

But it sounds nice to remind us that in the event of a water landing (like it's a perfectly normal, happens-occasionally, hey-what-the-heck kind of thing) that the seat bottom is there for you. It will make exiting the gaping hole right behind you where the rest of the aircraft used to be that much more memorable and safe.

It's called a crash. Not a landing.

Kind of funny, the level of ridiculousness that gets injected into our little world nowadays. Avian flu pandemic contingency planning, seat bottom cushions... All for edge-case scenarios. Not that those are bad things to do, but when you can't get your freakin' luggage from one place to another reliably, it seem as if there are perhaps a few other things that could also use some attention.

However, if my plane ever lands on water, I promise you I'll be glad for the floaties. And they have a heater built in, too - right? Oh.

I'm not a programmer (a fact that for some reason sometimes surprises people when I tell then), and I used to be a hands-on IT guy, configuring and setting up complex systems and troubleshooting. All that respectable, "real" work is - for the most part - in the past. Now I supervise teams that do all that legitimate work.

But now and then I have to do things myself. In setting up a dedicated server for this blog, I found I needed to run applications with multiple versions of the .NET framework - in my case v1.1 and v2 both. I know how to assign the versions of .NET to the applications, but what I did not realize (because I had never had to worry about it on a single server myself) was that there's a bit more to the game than just assigning a framework version to your app and web server instance.

Luckily for me, Scott Forsyth covers just this on his blog in a post entitled "Running Multiple Versions of the Framework in .NET," which I found most useful. Thanks to Scott for the easy to follow post. Apparently it's a IIS v6 thing. I don't remember this behavior in IIS v5.

We all have tell-tale signs that the level of difficulty, stress, work or just plain old "stuff" is too high. Maybe we spout off, maybe we forget things - It's different for all of us.

For me it happened on Sunday: I got in my truck, drove down the driveway, turned right and headed for town. A few minutes into the drive something just didn't seem right, and after trying for several seconds to put my brain on what was amiss, I realized I was still wearing my slippers. Luckily I had fresh socks on and shoes in the car. Heh.

Ever done funny or crazy things thanks to the amount of active clutter going on in your brain and life? Here's your chance to admit it. :)