I’ve confirmed the time off of work and booked the hotel room for Grand Prix Richmond the first weekend of February.

So now the grand question is, should I get there by plane, train, or automobile? I’m very much leaning toward driving down right now, since it looks cheapest, but I’m not looking forward to a 10+ hour drive. Is there a good cheap alternative somewhere that I’m missing? Money’s the main factor that I’m looking at, as I am willing to drive down. But it seems like there ought to be a better way. I think that if it were just me, it might be just as cheap to fly, bus, or take a train down, but with two of us, it costs the same to use the car, and costs twice as much via mass transit. I may be carpooling with others in the area that are going down, but that’s very up in the air right now.

My good record at that GPT I went to a couple weeks ago pushed my rating in limited just shy of 1700, ranking me within the top 250 limited players in Massachusetts. That’s kind of exciting. I’m not a pro by any stretch of the imagination, but I’m above average.

We’ll see if my success continues at another GPT this Saturday in Hartford, and we’re currently planning on heading down to Richmond for the actual Grand Prix. Anyone want to come with us?

The Perils of JavaSchools, by Joel Spolsky

New Year’s Day is such an odd holiday. Most other holidays celebrate or recognize some event or occasion in the past. But this one just seems to celebrate that the Earth successfully completed another orbit around the sun. It seems so unworthy of celebration in some ways. But it’s kind of nice to have a time set aside to reflect on accomplishments of the prior year, and what you intend to do in the year ahead.

Ah, Christmas. For some, a time for joyous memories with family and friends. For others, known for having some of the lowest ping times of the entire year.

Merry Christmas, everyone! Happy Birthday, Jesus!

Perhaps this picture shows my head more accurately?

Apparently my email provider accidentally rigged up their virus scanner such that after scanning incoming email, instead of delivering it to the next step of mail processing for delivery, it got forwarded to /dev/null instead. This occurred with incoming email “from circa 12/23 11am ET to 12/24 12pm ET”.

If anyone sent me an email during that time, I’d appreciate you resending it.

On more than one occasion, people have mentioned things like “I
have your cell number,” thinking that our phone number (774-490-7314)
was a cell number instead of a home number. My only guess is that
since the area code is 774, and the numbers Verizon gives land lines
are still in the 508 area code (I think), that it must be a phone number that
isn’t a land line, and thus a cell number. (Verizon owns most of the
508 area code, leaving the newer overlapping 774 number for newer
phone companies, like our VoIP provider.)

It continues to amaze me how often people get confused when I tell
them that my email address is
pete@cooperjr.name. I’ve
received comments like “You mean, .name.com?” and “What’s .name?”. I
had some issues setting things up with my hosting company since they
hadn’t handled a .name domain before.

The .name top-level-domain has been around for 3 years now, with
planning for it several years prior to that. What do people expect a
personal domain to end with? Am I really the only person who uses
it?

Illegal income. Illegal income, such as money from dealing illegal drugs, must be included in your income on Form 1040, line 21, or on Schedule C or Schedule C-EZ (Form 1040) if from your self-employment activity. — IRS Publication 17, Your Federal Income Tax