We got back from Washington D.C. a little while ago, much longer of a drive than I thought it would be.

I resized and uploaded all 447 photos I took. I didn’t label them all yet, so you’ll have to figure out what’s what, until I get around to that. But, enjoy!

Update, I’ve begun moving all my photos to Flickr, so I can display them at full size. (My host doesn’t have the processing power to resize a 10.1MP photo for thumbnails.)

Here’s the new link: http://www.flickr.com/photos/mikejandreau/

Though Christine was bummed it got here late, I didn’t care.  Technically our anniversary doesn’t exist, because we got married on leapday, last year (February 29th).  So, we just celebrated all weekend.

Christine’s anniversary gift to me showed up yesterday, and it’s a very sweet gift.  She took one of our wedding photos of us, and had it printed on M&Ms.  Knowing how enthralled I was with the M&Ms with the RockBand logos on them from the RB2 release party, she had ours made.  Check ’em out:.

[singlepic id=906 w=320 h=240 float=center][singlepic id=905 w=320 h=240 float=center]

It’s nice that the M&M detail is so great you can tell I needed a shave by the time that picture was taken. Damn 5 o’clock shadows.

As of right now, I’ve got two webhosts.  My previous webhost, that I’d had for almost 4 years now screwed up pretty majorily over the last 10 days, losing 20 of my MySQL databases, twice.  That, coupled with their terrible MySQL speeds forced me to look for a new host.

Over the weekend, I signed up for hosting with a relatively new hosting company. The price was right, and I figured what’s the worst that could happen? It couldn’t possibly be worst than that other company, so I went for it.

I moved over 6 domains so far, and the majority of them are lightning fast, including those using MySQL.  I’ve never had a host that utilized MySQL on the same server as my website before, but it’s nice having “localhost” for MySQL.  It’s certainly much faster.

Their support, so far, is great.  My new server went down last night. I noticed it (because I was working on moving stuff), and contacted their live chat.  It’s evident that the live chat people are in India somewhere (but really, who doesn’t outsource?), so they said they’d notify an admin.  The server was back up 3 minutes later, literally.

That, and they promise a 30 minute response time, in most situations.  You can buy premium support, but I’m sticking with the basic stuff for now, to make sure I don’t end up hating these guys, too.

So far, so good.  Only another couple dozen domains to move, and I’ll be canceling my other hosting package early.  I really hope they ask why.

-9 is colder than normal for Boston

That’s the widget on my desktop that tells me the temperature outside.   It says -9 right now.   I thought it was bad enough when it said 4 yesterday, but I guess not.   Bundle up, Bostonians.

I wonder what the temperature is with the wind child.   -9 is without it.   I’m pretty sure someone’s going to freeze to death today.   I’m thankful it won’t be me.

Now that Facebook’s becoming more and more popular, I find myself often leaving the window open.   It’s a great way to reconnect with old friends, or keep up to date on what others are doing.

Earlier today, I got a message from the boyfriend of a friend of my wife’s.   Confusing, I know, but follow me.

He and I have talked on occasion when the girls get together, and generally get along fine.   We’re not, however, close enough that I’d ever ask him to borrow money, and vise versa.

I was surprised when he Facebook IM’d me, and asked to borrow $600. After chatting a bit, it was evident that I was talking to someone in a third world country.   Using phrases like:

well i just want to tell you that i needed some money to transfer to one off my good friend

and

ok like how much can you raised for me

It was pretty evident that this wasn’t the guy I knew, seeing as how he’s pretty well spoken.   So I asked “him”, if I could meet him at his office to drop the money off. (He lives and works in New York. I live in Boston.   Pretty unlikely I’d drive down there to lend him the money.)   Mr. Spammer didn’t know that, and immediately signed off.

I sent a message to his girlfriend (my wife’s friend) to let her know that he’d gotten hacked.

So be wary.   An odd Facebook message should be treated the same way as an odd e-mail.   Just because it comes from a friend of yours’ account, doesn’t mean it’s your friend.

It’s true what they say, the older you get, the faster the years go by.   I can barely remember 2008. It seems to have gone by so fast.   I’m not complaining, just pointing it out.

Another new year brings all sorts of new things, for a lot of people. New Year’s Resolutions are a big thing, of which I made quite a few, and am doing okay 6 days into the year.   That’s a good thing.

I’ve begun the official job hunt yesterday.   Now that the end of the year’s happened, more people will be filling open jobs, and I’ve got to get one pretty soon.   As much design work as I’ve been doing the last 6 weeks, I’m getting pretty bored sitting at home all day.   Hopefully something good comes along soon.

As you may have read in an earlier post, I’ve been typing up buttloads of lyrics over the last few months.   I’m about halfway done.   I think, at last check, I had completed the J lyrics.   And am going alphabetically. So it’ll be a while longer before anyone can get to that page, and read some of them. (Unless Google already indexed the hidden page, and you happen to search for something I’ve written about.)

There’s still been no update on the Peerflix/LiveUniverse situation.   I’m giving them to the end of the month to contact me to pay me, or I’m going to Channel 5’s “Buyer Beware” to see if they’ll do a piece on the situation.   From what I’ve read, there’s at least 60 people that have been vocal about being screwed out of money.

We launched the new design on MovieSnobs back in late December, ahead of schedule. I think it came out pretty nice, and there’s a bunch of new feature which I’m proud of.   It may look pretty similar to the last design we had, and that’s intentional.   It’s just more streamlined now, with more information, and a better UI to help find stuff faster on the site. (At least I think so, anyway.)

That’s about all I can update on my life right now.   Not much else is going on in the life of me.

Those that have known me for years recall the not-so-great fire of 1996 at my mom’s.   Home alone, in a blizzard, I took a shower after a long day at school.   After the shower, I found the house full of smoke. So I did what any normal 16 year old would: I opened windows to let smoke out, assuming it was due to the fire in the wood burning stove I’d had earlier.

When I went upstairs, the smoke was much thicker, and I was eventually hit in the face by flames, when I opened the door to my sister’s room.

Eyebrows burnet away, shoeless, and shirtless, I ran back downstairs and made a call.   To mom, at work. She told me to call the fire department, which should have been my first reaction, but I panicked.   Once I got outside, the neighbors began to gather, and watch, as the top floor of our house burnt to a crisp.   Not fun times.

This past Saturday, around 3:30, my mom called me to tell me that her house was on fire again.   Christine and I jumped in the car, and started rushing over there, while Mom was still on her way home from work.

When we got there, we didn’t see a lot of smoke, of flames.   Everything seemed okay, aside from the four cop cars, and three fire engines.

Come to find out, there was an electrical fire that started in the wall, behind her wood burning stove.   The firemen had to pull down most of the ceiling in her living room, and floor and walls in her bedroom upstairs.

When all was said and done, her entire living room and bedroom are going to need to be redone.   Everything’s a mess, and stinks like fire.   It’ll be a while before she can live in the house again, she her and Walter are staying with us for the time being.   I put up some images at Christine and my site (link here) of the damage and whatnot.