News

Ok, this is a crappy teaser, but I have some really big announcements coming about business/professional things, and I can't wait to post publicly about everything that's going on!

But, you're going to have to wait for the news, just like everyone else.

Check back...oh...early-to-mid May and you'll see what the fuss is all about :)

Well, it took us long enough, but we sold our house! Ok, so we actually sold it a little while ago and I'm late (very late) in reporting it. But the last month has been quite a whirlwind. Here's how everything went down:

One Oct. 10, we got an offer on our house, not a fantastic offer, but not too bad. We countered it, our counter was accepted, and we sold for $168k ($4k more than my purchase price ~4 years ago). Don't be fooled - I didn't make $4k off the sale. Between realtor fees, home repair costs, closing costs, etc., we probably lost $5-10k out of the whole thing. If you're going to own a home, you'd better own it for longer than we did, and make sure you're not in the 3rd most depressed housing market in the entire nation (Canton. Ohio is an awful place to sell a home).

But we had our offer, we had our contract, and as per our contract, we had until Nov. 7 to be completely moved out of the house! To make a long story short, five days later, we put an offer on a house in Uniontown (we viewed 27 houses in four days), and after a little negotiating, we hit on a very fair price.

Leave it to Wells Fargo to f--- everything up at that point. Two weeks before our close (we were closing on both homes in rapid succession), Wells Fargo told us everything was in order and we were ready to close. During the course of the next two weeks, they change their minds seven times, sending more paperwork, then telling us it was an error and we didn't need to fill it out, then the next day telling us we did...after we'd thrown the paperwork away. That's how things went right up to the day we closed. In fact, we didn't get our closing costs totals until one hour before the closing attorney was closing up shop. If you can avoid working with Wells Fargo, I strongly suggest it.

In the end, we ended up with a fantastic house in a white picket fence suburb, nestled right between Akron and Canton. I'll be taking pictures and uploading them soon. We have our new house, and our new life can now truly start in earnest, no old baggage left. :)

www.paulhirsch.com/se_test.html

Today, we're conducting a little experiment in search engine term indexing. The link above will take you to the page on which the test is taking place. A full explanation of what's happening on that page can be found using this link - www.paulhirsch.com/key.html.

In the future, somehow, in some way, this will enable me to rule the world. Until then, enjoy trying to decipher what the heck is going on.

Well folks, I think I'm finally recovered from my weekend of fun and (mild) flu.

Saturday, Amy and I spent the afternoon watching Ohio State walk all over Penn State at Craig and Dawn's house. Erin came by with baby Roman too, and we had a crazy kid fest (no Amy and I did not bring our four-legged daughter with us). For those who don't know, Craig and Dawn are old college friends, and Erin is the wife of my best man at our wedding (Andrew). All three of them, Erin, Dawn and Craig were in our wedding, so we had a nice little nine-month reunion. With Craig and Andrew working physicians' hours and business going great on my end, we definitely don't get to hang out as much as we should. But we had an awesome time. Hopefully next time Drew can make it too.

Sunday, Amy and I went to the Browns game with my coworker Sarah and her husband Joe (also a physician, damn!). This was the first time Sarah had been to a Browns game - what a day to sit in the Dawg Pound :-) After the Browns lost, we went out to Sushi Rock for the first of Amy's many birthday celebrations. She turns 29 in a week, and the celebrating started about a week ago. That's how my family's always done birthdays. They're more like birth months, and I'd hate for Amy to miss out on that fun.

We stuffed ourselves with Sushi, eventually made our way back home after stopping for ice cream and a quick round of Sarah/Joe wedding pictures (they married in Scotland - the pictures were beautiful). And we both woke up the next morning with the flu. Oh well, poop happens, and we're just fine today. All in all, we certainly cannot complain about life.

In a month's time, if it doesn't sell, Amy and I will be taking our house off the market. We're pretty comfortable staying here for the winter, and frankly we don't want to bother with open houses during slush/mud season, or having to vacate the house for people to see it during a blizzard. We'll put it back up in the beginning of Spring.

Business, the other 40 work hours per week of my life, is going great! I've never been so busy, but it's all been manageable. We're looking at another two site launches coming up within the next few days. We're underway with our largest single phase project yet - the early results look promising, and we keep getting great feedback and good press along the way.

When life is good, it's good! And that's all I have to say about that.

That's right everyone; The Paul Michael has turn a rather unassuming 31 years old. My birthday was actually three days ago, but there was no way I was going to jump on a computer while up in Canada celebrating with Amy!

And we had a time of it, to say the least :-) We spent five nights at a beautiful bed and break (Wunderstruck, with our gracious hosts Margaret and Andrew). We toured the Niagara wine country, as we do at least once per year. We ate dinner at Peller Estates, a very fine restaurant located within a winery (with a disappointing subpar kitchen - it was still enjoyable, but I would not recommend dining there). We did some shopping in Niagara-on-the-Lake. We spent a day in Toronto. And we came home with four-and-a-half cases of wine!

Amy also bought me a wine cellar for my birthday. It holds 50 bottles in two compartments, with separate temperature controls. Very snappy!

Sorry about the lack of drama in my life, but hey, all in all, life is good.

Oh yeah. We just released two more Web sites - Vote Chuck Keiper and Bar Code Kent. Check 'em out, if you care :-)

Well, it took me long enough to get back to my site, but here I am safely home from Vegas. I have to say, Las Vegas is highly overrated. Maybe it was the 110F+ heat the whole time we were there. Maybe it was the enormous crowds everywhere (and this was the peak of the off-season). Maybe it was the nonsensical street layout (I should never have rented a car). Maybe it was the fact that slot machines everywhere made the whole atmosphere seem shallow, cheap, uncultured and plastic. Whatever the reason, Vegas is not on my list of places to visit again in the near future.

I suppose it might be fun for me and Amy to get away sometime when it's a little cooler. I didn't take in any shows, and I didn't have any time to gamble while I was there (not that I'm a big fan anyway). There's the whole "Vegas is for lovers" angle to explore ;-)

The conference went very well, in spite of its location. It's always nice to put faces on the names of people with whom you work online on a regular basis. If they do this in Vegas again next year, I'll probably go. It's worth it, I suppose.

It's almost that time...HostingCon 2006. If you're going to be there, please stop by the WHT area and say hi!

I just checked the weather report for next week in Vegas. The lowest it's supposed to get overnight will be 85 degrees. During the day, we can expect 110-F temps. Thank God we'll be spending days inside. Well, we'll likely be spending nights inside too. Vegas in July is B-R-U-T-A-L.

I'm looking forward to the Freemont Street experience, and maybe catching a show or two while I'm in town. I wish Amy could some too. The trip is mostly going to be work, but the evenings should be fun, and I'm pretty sure she could entertain herself during the day. Don't worry sweetie; the whole Bunny Ranch thing is just a joke!

Amy and I went to see An Inconvenient Truth with my parent last night.

Links:
International Movie Database listing
Wikipedia listing

I come from a long line of paleoliberals. Some members of my family embody the extreme characterization of this group. Others (myself included) fall into this category moreso because of our long-established roots in the liberal culture, not necessarily extreme, perhaps even nearing centrist, but being in the camp to some degree for many, many years.

Regardless, I like to believe I have the capacity as a reasonably intelligent human being to rationalize and interpret data presented to me and discern its plausibility, even if there is politically charged debate surrounding that data. I, and most people, have been presented with mountains of data confirming the existence of the global warming phenomenon, data that presents a profoundly strong correlation between human behavior and this phenomenon, and my own casual observations of world over time corroborate this data. So I find it borderline insulting when someone tells me the conclusions I've drawn from the data I've been presented are the result of a hoax and cannot show a shred of independent research or even commonly held factual information that agrees with their assertions. The kicker is that those who purport this data to be the basis of a hoax are attacking one of the most selfless, humanitarian and globally fulfilling agendas in history, the environmental betterment of the planet to the benefit of every human being on it.

I went to Inconvenient Truth already having decided for myself on my own that global warming was a problem and a man-made one at that. I also went to it not particularly enthralled with Gore. For all of his intelligence and purpose, I just didn't like him. I'm glad I went. First of all, Gore is a bit more likeable when his message and purpose transends politics, but it is inspiring to see a movie that encapsulates in terms anyone can understand the problems we face, the reasons we face them and the roadmap to fixing those problems.

Unfortunately, I think it's going to go largely ignored. I think the choir will show up to hear the preacher and life will go on. It is in very limited release right now, so we'll see how many people are exposed to it and whether it has the impact it could have. But if you doubt global warming and humanity as the cause, please go see it! Go see what the evil scientists and their spokesperson have concocted in order to attempt to get us to live more responsibly. Once it's all said and done, take a good honest retrospective look at everything you'd been presented and everything you've been told that perpetuates the myth of the status quo, and see if you can still deny global warning in good conscience. For my money, I'd say if you still can deny it, your powers for subversive rationalization are superhuman!

After months of talking about it, I finally released the JavaScript breadcrumbs script for public use. I initially wrote this in August, 2005, but it was lacking in some functionality and not general enough to be applied outside of its original context.

But it works great now, so enjoy it!

Nifty Breadcrumbs Script

Normally I don't make other people's business part of my posts, but this is just too good to pass up.

How NOT to steal a Sidekick II

The gentleman in question, Evan, recounts how he collected the personal information of a cell phone thief who had taken his friend's cell phone. The thief/thieves (there are accomplices involved) did not understand how the phone works, and in the course of using it, managed to reveal personally identifiable information, made pictures of themselves available, and left a paper trail the whole way.

What a great example of e-street justice at its best! It pays to be honest :)

Amy and I have been talking very seriously about moving lately. That's not exactly a newsflash; our house has been on the market for the past month or so (getting a lot of traffic through it too - we are hopeful for a sale soon). But we've come to realize that in many ways, the grass really is a whole lot greener on the other side of the fence.

The question is this: whose lawn are we envying the most? We've discussed moving a little north, into the Green/Uniontown/Akron area. We've discussed moving a lot north, into, say, Canada. We've discussed the Pacific Northwest (Washington, Oregon), and most recently my stepfather suggested Colorado would be a nice place for them to come visit us.

Two things hold us here: our great job arrangements/customer base, and our families. I guess we'll see whether this is enough to keep us in Northeast Ohio or not. Have any insight for us? Share your two cents :)

It appears their Web host got the message. As of this morning, creonixmedia.com is down, hopefully permanently.

If there are any more developments, I'm sure I'll report back, but as of right now, this has concluded happily!

It was brought to our attention this past weekend that a pseudo-company, Creonix Media, decided to steal our Web site. Here are the details - creonixmedia.net. Here is another link to the details - creonixmediasucks.com.

To some extent, I suppose there's a level of flattery involved when someone decides to steal your work. But given the amount of time and energy we've put into establishing ourselves and our brand, it's an annoyance about which we're not terribly pleased.

The best part is that they stole our content almost completely verbatim. They changed some of the names on the site (Jamie, Pauly and I are still mentioned in places). But they even kept our personal bios as their own. Absolutely fascinating!

As our good friend Eric Bowman pointed out on WebHostingTalk.com, their core competency is their ability to completely rip someone else's design, and they're not even very good at that!

Other discussions of interest include this IWDN thread and the discussion on DigitalPoint. Add StyleGala to the mix, as well as Pirated Sites.

It will be interesting to see how this plays out.

Early this morning, Mike Beder (longtime friend, customer and fellow prankster) and I launched BeanJohnnyDamon.com, a site devoted to seeing Johnny take one to the skull during his first at-bat on May 1, 2006, in Boston.

Basically, Johnny owes everything career-wise to Boston, and he decided the best way to repay the city was to defect to the Yankees. It could have been any other team. But no, he went to the Yankees.

Ok, so truth be told, I don't really care all that much. It was Mike's idea. But I figured this would be a really fun one to take part in. Check it out!

But that made for a pretty fun little joke.

I'm kind of surprised our little "news" tidbit about Mozilla buying Microsoft actually got the attention that it got. As expected, people were thrown off by the fact that most of the world saw it on March 31, not April 1.

I initially argued with Jamie about posting our news story before April Fools Day, but he kindly pointed out that the places people would see it most had a heavy global contingency, and by the time we actually got around to posting our little prank, it was already seven hours into April Fools Day in Austratlia.

In retrospect, good call Jamie!

Judging by the traffic logs on EquentitySucks.com, JamieHarrop.com and PaulHirsch.com, it looks like we caught a few suckerfish with our bait :)

I don't think I've ever been so excited about an industry development in my life; this is tremendous! Microsoft has sold the rights to its Internet Explorer brand to Mozilla. Apparently, development efforts within the Microsoft team have stalled. Microsoft will continue to develop modules for the browser, ActiveX and some of its integration features that link the browser to various Microsoft products, but the general browser environment will now be developed on the Mozilla platform.

Finally, we have the possibility of a consistent Web experience for all Internet users, and a stable platform for Web developers to exercise their skills. This is big news. Really, really big news!

Three cheers for Firefox Explorer!

Happy St. Patrick's Day, everyone!

I don't suppose there's anything all that happy about it for me. See, I'm stuck here getting work done all evening, on a Friday evening, because as usual, I've overloaded myself. It's a good thing I really enjoy what I do.

So instead of cabbage and corned beef and green beer, I'm working on my laptop, watching my Kent State Golden Flashes get pounded by the Pitt Panthers in the first round of the NCAA tournament. Kent State isn't supposed to win this game. Pitt is the most underrated 5-seed in recent memory, let alone this tournament. But I was a student at Kent State (final year of grad school) the last time these two teams played, in the Sweet 16 round back in 2002. Kent won that day; the university about closed down!

It would sure be nice to have that experience again. I guess I'll just have to hope for it again next year, since right now, with 15 minutes left in the game, Kent is down by 24. Oh well.

No real point to this entry. I just felt like having a little stream of consciousness to break up my evening :)

I went to NBC.com to see what events were being covered this evening on the Olympics. I clicked on the big headline "Go to the NBC Olympics site." It's a banner right at the top of the content area about 400 pixels tall. Seems like the right place to go to get scheduling information, right?

The idiots post the results for events they are covering right on the front page of their Olympics coverage site! I now know exactly who won and lost every event I was hoping to see later this evening! Dude, NBC are *******! I was looking forward to a couple hours of coverage - now...who cares?

I'd ruin the night for everyone by posting the results right here, but why bother? Just go to NBC, and let them ruin the magic for you.

(Honeymoon pictures!)

And so it's done. I'm a married man, and I couldn't be happier.

Everything went great. The ceremony was beautiful and it went very, very fast. Amy was absolutely stunning! I can't wait to post wedding pictures. We won't have the professional photographs for a while, but we have some nice pictures from friends I'll post in the next couple of days.

The feedback on the reception was just as positive. Chance (that's the name of the band that played at our wedding) put on an awesome show for us, the food was great, the party went on into the wee hours of the morning and ended at the hotel bar around 3 a.m. Did I mention Amy was absolutely breathtaking?

Three hours of sleep later, we were on our way to the Caribbean for our honeymoon cruise. We got to our cruise ship, the Infinity, and promptly crashed and slept right through dinner. Good thing the boat has buffets open 24 hours.

After a frighteningly choppy day at sea, we arrived in San Juan. We only had a few hours of time to spend there, but after walking around the old city for a while, visiting San Cristobal and Pigeon Park, we met up with Gerrit and Candy (Gerrit runs an online community for people seeking computer advice, Computer Newbies). Our hosts were particularly gracious, given our slightly foul mood from having no sleep and getting sick from the extremely choppy waters. They took us for drinks to a little tucked away restaurant, Ostra Cosa, and we progressed to Carli Cafe, a jazz club owned by prolific Jazz mucisian Carli Munoz. We were feeling much better by the time the evening ended, and Amy and I appreciate their hospitality and wedding gift tremendously (even if it might not have seemed at that way at first - sorry guys!).

The next day, we moved on to Antigua, and took a catamaran out to a reef for snorkeling,and then to a local beach for a little tanning and rum punch (mighty powerful stuff, I might add).

Our final stop was in St. Maarten. We spent the day on Orient Beach (a clothing-optional facility), where I finally got to do a little swimming.

Two more days at sea (again, very rough voyaging) brought us back to Florida and eventually back home. Here are a few more pics of our trip:
Me and Amy on formal night.
Dinner guests with whom we dined all week.
Amy on deck.
The last picture, before leaving the boat. She loves her geek!

Feel free to check out the rest of our pictures if you'd like.

And that's that. We're married...woohoo!

I know what you're thinking. What in the hell is this guy doing typing into his blog on this day of all days?

It's simple really. I'm relaxing, which is what I've been doing all day. I've set up all of my "out of the office" email autoresponders, packed up everything for the honeymoon, arranged for care for my cats, dropped the dog off at my parents, and now here I am, at my parents' house, waiting my turn to take my last shower as a single man, to put on my last suit as a single man, while making my last blog entry as a single man. About an hour ago, I ate my last meal as a single man. That was tasty :)

The fact is, I am so ready for this. I can't wait to be married and to start a whole new life with Amy. I can't wait to call her Mrs. Hirsch, instead of "the future Mrs. Hirsch." And, to be honest, as much as anything, I can't wait for our honeymoon, a week in paradise (the Eastern Carribean) courtesy of Celebrity Cruises. The past year leading up to this has been blur, and I'm hoping the first couple years of married life will slow down, so we can really enjoy each other before we considering expanding our happy little family.

Yes, I know it won't happen, I know life will continue to speed along at an ever-increasing pace, but I suppose a man can dream. It's been said that in relative time, the first seven years of life feel to a person like the same time span as ages seven through 70. If that's the case, I consider myself lucky to get to marry Amy now and still enjoy many of those years with her, regardless of how quickly they fly by.

Well, this is it. Time to go shower and get tuxed. When next we meet, I'll be living a whole new life, the one I was meant to live all along!

Well folks, it's 2006, and your friendly neighborhood Paul Michael hasn't made any resolutions for this year...been too busy, to be honest.

Now, there's an idea; I should resolve to be less busy! Eh, once Amy and I sell this house and get our lives settled as a married couple (only five days to go!), things will slow down enough.

I never quite understood the whole idea of a New Year's resolution. What is it about the makeup of one's character that makes you more likely to achieve your goals if you start on January 1? From what I understand, statistically, there's nothing. If you've ever made and kept such a resolution, please let me know and I'll...erm...congratulate you privately :)

In the spirit of political correctness, I wish each and every one of you a happy Ramakwanzukamas :)

This is the first time in many years we were not graced with a white Christmas. It was sort of a soggy, muddy Christmas, certainly not the kind about which I've been dreaming, nor like the one Bing Crosby used to know.

On a more technical note, apart from enjoying a little bit of a break over the holidays, I've been playing with some interesting JavaScript techniques that I think need to be turned into white papers for others to use. I figure I have one, maybe two more blog entries before wedding bells start ringing. Maybe I'll use one of those to actually post something useful to others!

Until next time...

Well, it's not really much of a secret. So I suppose it's ok to talk about it here. I recently finished writing my wedding present to Amy; I composed the recessional music for our wedding :-)

Bill, the church organist, says it sounds great live. Apparently he was practicing it last night. I've only heard it the tinny, digitalized MIDI version that my computer squeezes out of its sound card when you play the sheet music in the notation software.

I'm meeting with Bill next week to hear him perform it in person. I want everything to be just right!

You may be wondering why I'm making this public. Well, Amy knows about it. Part of our responsibilities as a couple was choosing the music for our ceremony, and there was really no way of disguising my intentions, especially since she would also be a part of proofreading our ceremony programs. So...I told her.

But anyone who knows me knows I always have something extra up my sleeve! She'll just have to find out in a couple weeks...

The sheet music (pdf), for anyone who cares.

It doesn't seem like it's been two months, but today Sophie lost her first little puppy tooth, three of them to be exact.

I really need to take more pictures of her. She's grown quite a bit since those pics from the first day we brought her home.

Oh yeah, one month from today, Amy and I will be married!!!

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

I know it's a day late, but I wasn't going to go a-posting stuff on the actual day, and besides, Thanksgiving is a four day holiday where I'm from.

In the spirit on the holidays, I have a quick recipe to share with everyone, my own culinary contribution to the day's festivities.

World's Easiest/Tastiest Brownies

Buy a box of cheap brownie mix (store brand will do), and buy three Hershey's Symphony bars - almond toffee works best. Make the brownie batter according to the box instructions. Pour half the batter into a coated 13x9 pan. Then, unwrap the three Symphony bars, and place them in a layer across your brownie mix (it should require you to break one of them in half to get a nice fit). Pour the rest of the batter and bake. You'll probably want to bake the brownies 5-10 minutes longer than the instructions say.

That's it! You'll be the hit of the party with this recipe. Thanks to my co-worker and friend Leslie Sutula for this brilliant idea :-)

I just couldn't resist :)

My New Plates

It's just a little show of devotion to my online baby. And it's a $42/yr. roaming billboard too!

Amy and I had our wedding shower this afternoon. I have to say, I was quite overwhelmed by it all, the people I got to meet for the first time, the food and the presents...apparently, it's "non-traditional" for any males to be at a wedding shower, but Amy thought it would be nice for me to be there, I was down for the cause, and it really was a nice time :-)

I was looking forward to two things today, the shower and the Browns game. Given how badly the Browns played, I'd definitely say the shower was the highlight of the day!

Well, we made it! One full year of online success was realized today as the International Web Developers Network (IWDN) turned one year old. It's been a good year for us. Growth has been steady, but manageable. Most important, the members have made phenomenal contributions to the greater Web development community's knowledge base, which is why IWDN exists at all.

Here's to another year of success and growth :)

Not that the greater online community cares, but I'm thinking about starting a Web site for my family, and any close branches. I'm thinking about creating a closed community chocked full of open-source applications, like a nice list-serve, a family forum, a family calendar, CMS to handle individual family lines, photo gallery, all that stuff.

Really, the only big reason I came up with this idea was that I'm sick of not having a central place where we can look up birthdays and family events without sending around a thousands emails and calling everyone 50 times just to make it to brunch one Sunday.

If you've done something like this in the past as you'd like to share your experience, tell me all about it!

The reinvention project has begun, and I've accepted an invitation to be the lead consultant on coding and a moderator in the forum dedicated to the project on Web Hosting Talk - Reinvention Project.

Here's how reinvention works. A site is chosen for a full makeover. The makeover is attended to by recognized professionals, and input is given along the way by the greater development community. All aspects of the makeover are handled publicly, with discussions and debates as part of the deal.

The project is being conducted by Template Monster, and has a few sponsors as well. I've made it very clear that I am doing this completely independent of any company, group or organization, including my own IWDN. I'm excited to see how this will turn out, and I'm optimistic there will be much for other developers to learn from it.

Keep an eye on Reinvention. It should be quite interesting :-)

Sunday afternoon, we brought home Amy's last birthday present, an eight-week-old Papillon named Sophie.

She's a cute little pup, maybe three pounds (her adult weight will be 8-10 pounds), and so far the cats have been tolerant of her.

Here are our first pictures :) - Sophie

Well, it took me long enough, but the new PaulHirsch.com site is finally up and live.

Like pretty much everyone who has his or her own Web site, I promise to keep the site updated regularly with mildly interesting tidbits about whatever the hell's on my mind. Like pretty much everyone who has his or her own Web site, I'll probably forget to keep this promise and only post every few weeks. But hey, at least my heart's in the right place, right?