James Doohan, most notably known as Scotty from the hit series Star Trek, passed away earlier today. He will be missed by many fans.

Here are a couple links detailing more information: CNN and a good obituary on BBC.

Last night I drove up to Newton, MA (just outside of Boston) with Jeff Houser to celebrate ColdFusion's 10th birthday Macromedia-style (it was only a 1.5 hour drive from where I live in CT). I remembered to bring my camera and take a few pictures. However, we were there a little early, so we hung out with Michael and Judith Dinowitz and Simon Horwith until MM's security would let us through the door at 4pm (EST).

After taking a few pictures (only a few early ones) I got tired of carrying around my camera and decided to temporarily put my camera in Jeff's car until later (not smart).

Well, I didn't remember the camera again until a few minutes into the interview presentation. I was talking to Steven Erat earlier in the evening and he mentioned that Jeremy Allaire was supposed to be there earlier in the day but was delayed in Philidelphia (flight delays). By the way, if you watch the Breeze presentation, I'm the second guy that walks by at around the 10-second mark. My 1 second of fame... w00t.

So after missing about 100+ awesome photo ops I went out to Jeff's car during break to get my camera (what seemed like a mile-walk. Man that place was huge). I walked out the front door of the building and instantly realized that I forgot to bring Jeff's keys (d'oh).

There getting out of a cab in front of me was Jeremy Alliare. Did I say hello? No. Did I say "Hey Jeremy, it's a pleasure to meet you." No. Instead, the first words that came out of my mouth were "Dude, you're late" (nice one).

Luckily Jeremy has a sense of humor. Even though he had an awful travel day, was probably exhausted, and very likely did not want to have some guy cracking tardiness jokes on him... He laughed and said some joke about airlines (don't recall it, sorry).

We went to the front door (there was another attendee who had just shown up as well) and found it locked. I'm thinking "Okay, I'll just call Jeff. No wait; he's not carrying a cell phone". I turn to Jeremy, "Do you know anyone's cell number up there?" "Nope." Okay, we're screwed. Jeremy smiles and says, "C'mon, I know a side entrance". Of course! He did actually work there a couple years ago.

After a long trek to the "side entrance" we made our way back in the building (to which I was missing part of the second-half of the presentation) and Jeremy was able to make a grand entrance.

Tim Buntel did a great job the whole time improvising the presentation without Jeremy there and made Jeremy's timing look planned. All-in-all it was a great event. MM provided food (lots of pork. mmm... ribs) and of course beer (and of course wine and soda for the light at heart). Aymii (if I spelled that right) sitting next to me at dinner commented that they didn't have water. I had my beer, so I was good :).

To many people there it was sort of a farewell to Macromedia ColdFusion. Who knows what will come with Adobe ColdFusion. I'm not one to speculate or get into the debates. I'll just ride it out and go with the masses.

So ColdFusion, this ones for you (/me holds up a beer).

Mozilla today released Thunderbird v1.0.5. Not sure what happened to v1.0.3 or v1.0.4, but I'm sure I just missed it along the way :).

I went to Wal-Mart the other day to pickup a card for my wife (mother's day coming up). When I entered the building I noticed they added a new Dunkin Donuts. That makes 3 Dunkin Donuts within two blocks (on the same road). You can count a 4th if you go down an extra 1/4 of a mile down the road. I know this is common in many cities (I've seen 4 Starbucks on four corners), but I live in a semi-rural area.

So how many do we actually need? This just goes to show that we as a society (including myself) cannot go about our daily lives without relieving our daily caffeine addictions. Man I love coffee. Just thinking about it (even this late in the evening) makes me want a cup. Time for some decaf :).

When I saw the site yagoohoogle.com last week I got a good chuckle (note: His router goes down at times). Then last night a friend forwarded me a link to gizoogle.com and I couldn't help but bust out laughing. I wonder how much time people actually spend on writing these things.

By the way, if you're a PSP fan like myself you might get a kick out of this photo.

Due to the massive amount of time I've been spending working on this site (and now putting out fires and bug fixes) I hadn't had time to celebrate my birthday.

Technically I wont be able to even think about it for at least a week or so when things calm down a little.

My wife asked me what I would like for my birthday. I hadn't even thought about it. I couldn't think of anything. Until.. I read the latest rumor that the Apple iPod bluetooth device might actually be coming out soon.

Now if I could only get her to read my blog... :)

Well we got the site out on time. There are a few pieces missing from site launch (still in development; almost done), but for the most part I am quite pleased with the final product.

Have a look and see what all the fuss is about.

The site was coded in 100% Farcry. Okay, technically there are some old pieces they wouldn't let me incorporate into Farcry just yet, but we'll just pretend they aren't there at the moment :) .

The site uses all sorts of fun things... From web services (SOAP on the Your Health pages) to dynamic promo boxes in the right pane (and much more).

Now its 2:30am and I need to get home and get some sleep (and its my birthday :) ).

Here I am one day before site launch. I see the light at the end of the tunnel, but its still far off in the distance. There is so much coding left to be completed and content entered into the system. Its going to be another long day+night.

Two months of 18-hour work days really puts a toll on the human body. When this project is complete I plan to take some time off and rest. I won't want to see another Email or script for a while (maybe I'll go to a tropical island for a weekend with the wife... no computers :) ).

I am crossing my fingers and hoping we get this site completed on-time. We are to go live sometime tomorrow evening (after Spike leaves) so I am crossing my fingers we wont run into any major bugs during launch.

The website has to be live by Monday morning to cooincide with a large marketing campain (TV commercials, radio adds, newspaper, etc) advertising many of the hospital's technological features. The website needs to reflect that image.

Wish me luck.

So last night Spike and I took a break from coding and went to the UCONN backetball girls game at Gampel Pavilion (vs Boston College). UCONN won 80-55.

It was great to get out and not think about coding for a few hours. We're back coding again, however we have only a week and a half left before launch and what looks like weeks of coding left. Time to increase my daily dose of caffeine :).

Yesterday I was asked to give a presentation to the board of directors at the hospital the day after the website launch. So, not only do I have to get all of the coding done, but I'm going to have to find time to prepare a presentation. Fun! :).

There is another meeting two days later. I'm going to see if I can postpone a presentation until that day.