So I've had my head buried in some code at work for that past couple of weeks, barely escaping pulling my hair out and looking like Kojak.

Let's step in the wayback machine. A few years ago I was tasked with implementing ITIL, at least in terms of Change Management and Incident Management. We had been using a web based app written by the medical center to manage changes, but were unsuccessful in getting them to make any modifications to the software, because they wanted us to migrate over to HP Service Desk with them. They wouldn't even give us the source to let us host it ourselves. The basic idea was that we would eventually get tired of using a bad tool and migrate to what they perceived was a great tool. The only problem is that we could recognize the web app for what it was - something that had flaws, but that we could mold to our own use. The new tool was a fat client app that couldn't be touched via API unless we went through the medical center's support groups and competed for time on their calendar along with all of the well funded doctors. I'm sure it's not much of a stretch for you to realize that we preferred to stick with the old system.

Now step back to the present. The medical center is tired of maintaining really old hardware running a really old version of IIS. They sent us the source and told us to get it hosted locally ASAP so that they could retire the old server. Yay! Er, wait. We don't want to run IIS 5.0 and interface to an Access DB backend! The first thing that I tried was to migrate to SQL server, which was a step in the right direction, but ASP recordset code doesn't quite work in an ASP.NET environment. I kept getting odd, inconsistent results back from queries.

I had to make a choice - convert all of the ASP to ASP.NET, or rewrite the entire thing in PHP. Since I don't really know ASP.NET that well and don't want to, either, I chose to rewrite the entire thing in PHP. I built class libraries around all of the database objects and built methods for everything but rendering HTML. Yesterday we rolled out the new system into production and the most common thing I keep hearing is, "It's so much faster now!" I've also managed to integrate two other tools that I had hosted locally for Change Management into one seamless interface, and get rid of all of the libcurl web scraping routines that I had been using. Yeah, the only way I was able to automate some tasks was to go back to the old school ways of screen scraping. Fortunately now, however, it's just a class method away.

Woot. I used to have the domain phpimp.com. Too bad I don't anymore. heh.

I think the video clip speaks for itself.

I've had OTA (over the air) HDTV for a while at my house, but whenever the smallest amount of cloud or rain activity came in I would lose the NBC station. I also had issues with picking up what used to be the UPN station at times. I'd been trying to coordinate with Mirage for months to make it over, but either it was raining on his weekends off, or he was sick, or I was sick. Anyway, that finally happened yesterday afternoon. We moved the Winegard SquareShooter (this antenna rocks) from the corner of the house to the very front of a dormer extension at the front of the house. Now there is a true clear line of site all the way back to Nashville, save for a few hill peaks. Since I'm near the top of a hill already, though, I'm picking up signals like nobody's business. With the HDHomeRun I'm now showing 100% signal strength on every channel except for the NBC station, but I've gone from 55% to 75% on it, now.

Mirage also helped me out in finishing up Batch #6 so that I could free up the keg and put Batch #8 in it! Publix has Juicy Juice on sale this week so I plan on going by there and picking up 5 gallons so that the next batch will be Apfelwein. I'm almost out of Batch #7, but Apfelwein stays in the fermenter for so long that I might even be out of Batch #8 before I keg it.

There's one thing that I think everybody can agree on when it comes to strategies for paying off debt - you stop going out to eat.

I think there's one thing that everybody employing that strategy can agree on - they miss going out to eat.

So, I started scheming and plotting to come up with a way to continue to go out to eat without impacting the bottom line in an adverse way. When I was a teenager, my parents knew someone at church that worked for the corporate office of a company that owned some restaurant franchises. They got hooked up on a schedule to mystery shop one of their locations once a month, and we would be reimbursed for our meals. Knowing that having to send a paper letter to corporate headquarters to ask about mystery shopping was antiquated and frankly, barbaric, I started looking out on the internet.

The first thing that I found is that the top hits on Google for Mystery Shopping will yield you the sites you don't want to visit. First and foremost, never pay to get listings of mystery shops, because you're not dealing with the schedulers - you're dealing with information scavengers. Actual mystery shopping companies pay you, and you never pay them to get started. Certification is the only thing you should ever pay for, and that is through just one company, the Mystery Shopping Providers Association. There's also a job board on their site and it's where I got my list of places to sign up for shopping.

The second thing that I discovered is that there's a heck of a lot more out there than restaurant shopping. Department stores, big box retailers, pet stores, entertainment attractions, and even casinos. From September, 2007 through December, 2007, I have personally been reimbursed between $900 and $1000 to eat steak, seafood, pizza and fast food; buy household goods and pet supplies; shop for a motorcycle; and gamble. Even nicer is the fact that since most of that is reimbursement, and not income, it's not subject to income tax. While some of that $900 is for things that I wouldn't have otherwise spent the money on (like eating at expensive restaurants as often as I have), at least $600 of it is, which means we've been able to pay $600 more off of our debt in a 3 month period of time.

Now I'm sure that everybody has skipped the bulk of my post and is looking for the URLs to sign up. It's not ethical for me to say what companies are represented by the shopping companies listed in these links. However, it's perfectly ethical to simply list them and let you find out for yourself.

Nearly every provider requires a valid SSN to sign up. Some require a bank account for direct deposit. Practice safe depositing - set up a separate account for mystery shopping that isn't linked to any of your other accounts.

Best Mark
BARE International
National Shopping Service
Speedmark Vision
Nationwide Service Group

There are lots and lots of other companies out there, but these are the ones that I've found work best for my area - Middle Tennessee. One thing that you have to remember with every company, though - you have to do some of the smaller, pain in the ass shops before you'll get assigned the easy, high paying shops. For example, you may have to do a fast food shop that will take you an hour to complete and only pays for a burger combo meal just to get "rated" in the system, but once you've done that, you can get the $100+ steak house reimbursement.

Good luck.

Heroes fans! Check out the following:

Yamagato Fellowship

This is a website set up for the charitable organization that Hiro Nakamura's father runs. There's some neat back story on Takezo Kensei that will be relevant to Season 2.

(oops, corrected the URL)

I have been trying to get Al Gore to speak at PhreakNIC for the past several years, and have had conversations with his personal assistant, but could never make it past him. He was either busy with the book tours, or political campaigning, or out of town for a board meeting (since he's a board member for Apple, Google, and others). So when I heard that he was doing a book signing for his new book, The Assault on Reason at Davis-Kidd in Green Hills, I came up with my plan.

First, I had to buy a copy of his book early enough to get a ticket to the book signing. Check. Then I had to decide what to do.

My wife thought that I should give him some schwag. I thought that sounded good at first, but then regained my principles (well, kinda). I've had some "lively discussions" with our Treasurer about what we should and shouldn't be selling as part of PhreakNIC. He wants to help build up the funds, and I can appreciate that because it's his job, but I'm resisting because PhreakNIC is not a brand, per se. It's an event, and if you come to the event you can get some schwag. We don't need to have a catalog of goods available with the ever present "Hacker Inside" logo on it. We also discussed re-issues of past items and I threw a hissy fit about never ever ever reprinting something that was a speaker/director gift. The gifts that we give out are for those who contributed in the past, and not as some trinket to try to buy favor with. Last year I had extra pocket knives made so that I could give them away to people who had been a big part of PhreakNIC in the past, even if they weren't participating that year, so that one's a grey area, but I also didn't want to be wrestled to the ground when I pulled out a knife to hand to Al.

The argument really boils down to the same reason why I won't sign the petitions to draft Al to run for President. To me, the job needs to be about someone who feels that they can be the most effective in that position. Participating in PhreakNIC needs to happen because you are passionate about a subject and want to convey it to others. We don't pay people to speak at PhreakNIC, nor do we pick up their travel expenses. Those of us who organize the convention do it through volunteering a vast amount of our time and in many cases, our money, to pull it off. It is all about a labor of love. I would absolutely put my support behind the man if he were to run for President again, but only if he truly wanted to do it. My hat goes off to him for being able to joke about the entire experience of 2000, but I truly think he's happier doing what he's doing now and that he can actually do more good as a private citizen.

So anyway, back to my diabolical plan. I decided to simply go up to the table, and tell him the following and see what he would say.

Al, I've been inviting you to speak at my technology conference for the past 4 years, but I can't ever get past Josh. Oh, hi, you must be Josh. All I ask is that when you get 5 minutes, give me a call and let me talk to you about it. Here's my card.

That's pretty much exactly how it went down, and Al did say, "sure" when I asked him for a phone call. Oh, and I had to knock some people down just to exit because they were blocking the exit. Hopefully that just showed him that our Goon Squad can reprahzent!

Oh, and I got my book signed by him. It says, "OMG You Are My Hero!" on one page in crayon, and then "Al Gore" on the next written with a Sharpie. Yes, that's his handwriting. I can't help it if he can't write consistently with a crayon...