I’ve been busy over on the other side lately, so be sure you are following along over there. There is some very cool stuff coming in the next month and change that is MINI related and I’m pretty excited about all of it.

I’m also going to making some changes (again) to this site. No matter how hard I try, no matter how many resumes I send out, I just can’t seem to make anything happen. So it’s time to take off on my own and try to generate some income anyway possible. I need a website that reflects that.

What does that mean to you? I’m not sure yet. Of course it will be cool, but that might mean that I move my more ‘personal’ blog posts over w(t)f and keep this more technical, which I’ve already started.

Anyway, go to the MINI sites and see what’s happening. If you are in SoCal, stop by and say hi when I’m at MINI of Ontario or catch me at AMVIV with almost the entire WRR crew.

Yet another anniversary of my time on the internet has passed. And by quite a bit.

Turns out, I have now, officially, been putting words to screen (and it’s verifiable) for just a bit over 7 years! If you were to go back through the archives here, you will find my first post, at what was windthefrog.net, happened on November 5th, 2003. Of course, I’ve been doing for a bit longer, but those were posts that were eaten by Blogger or vaporized by Greymatter when I switched over.

7 years and change. Anyone curious what that means? According to the handy dandy Wordpress Dashboard it means

• 1,428 posts contained within 41 categories
• There have been 1,927 comments made, 1,911 approved
• I’ve used 642 tags

I’m not really sure what the word count is, but figure that each of the posts that I make here is usually around 300, than means that I’ve typed out over 400,000 words. Staggering. And that’s just here.

To get the full look back, I need to include the posts from dbmini.us, which started September, 2002, those stats would look something like this.

• 2,491 posts contained within 68 categories
• There have been 3,760 comments made
• I’ve used 721 tags

Using the same math as above, but assuming an average word count of 200 per post, that gives me a grand total over the past 7 years of almost 500,000 words that I have put to screen.

And that doesn’t even count the 6,657 posts on Twitter or the 2,591 posts on Tumblr. It also doesn’t count the hundreds of posts at Motoringfile that I have my name of them, or the 658 posts at White Roof Radio. If I had to guess, that’s got to be close to 750,000 words that I have put to screen in the last 7 years (and change).

Amazing.

What a very interesting year 2009 was, at least for me. Amazingly I survived, but just barely.

Two Zero One Zero

Starting the new year with a brand new website gone live. Check it out at IntrepidCycles.com. Full Wordpress site, as you would expect, but will also include a shopping cart by the end of the week and a members-only section. Still all contained within Wordpress. Watch the Twitter for updates as they happen.

Besides that, I’m also starting 2010 the same way I started 2009. Unemployed. You might have seen it on Facebook already. It’s not that big of a deal really. They are a great company and I just wasn’t the right ‘fit’ for what they were looking for. At least I was able to get a few balls rolling for them to get them on their way. Still, highly recommend them for any of yourproperty management needs, especially if you are in Southern California.

That makes twice I had a job in 2009 and twice I lost the job. Time to knuckle down, revamp the resume and keep at it until something sticks. Oh yea, and get the MINI fixed.

I did some cool stuff for 2009. I got to go to England, which was pretty rad. Built a few websites. Got a new iMac. Started the 5th year of the show and met some great people.

Here’s hoping for a safe and prosperous new year. May she be a damned sight better than the last!

DonBurnside.com is open! What can we do for you today?

A quick reminder to all of you that the offices of DonBurnside.com Solutioneering and Tire Repair will be slowing down for this holiday season, like we like to do.

This furlough will affect the following sites:

• DonBurnside.com
• WhiteRoofRadio.com
• dbmini.us

All of us here at DonBurnside.com would like to wish you, your family, your friends, your co-workers,your neighbours, your friends of friends, your dry cleaner and dentist the happiest of [insert preferred holiday here]! If course, for those of you that, for whatever reason, do not celebrate any of the December Festivities, Happy Thursday and Friday to you and everyone that you will be spending those days with.

Normal service will resume in 2010. In the meantime, a few of us will still be posting to Twitter with some frequency and you might catch something funny, or not, over at w(t)f.

We would also like to take this time to thank you for utilizing DonBurnside.com for your solutioneering needs. Every one of us is looking forward to helping you maximize your synergy with webinars and social interaction in 2010.

Don Burnside
Lead Solutioneer
donburnside.com

A while ago I discovered the work of Merlin Mann. I’ve shared some of his more interesting things with your here and there too. He’s got it figured out and I’ve learned a lot, tried a lot and strived to be better because of him.

And now he is one of my followers.

Rad.

If you are thinkin’ about doing some shopping at Amazon this weekend, a good place to start would be by clicking the banner at the top of the page (or this link). It’s only going to be there until Monday, and yes I do get a kickback. But, since you are going to be shopping anyway, why not help me out a little bit, right?

This could go anywhere

Honestly. I’m sitting at my desk letting my fingers just dance across the glorious Apple keyboard that sits directly in front of my 20″ iMac. There are cables connecting the two that constantly get in the way, but I’m just too damned cheap to pony up the $80 for the bluetooth keyboard.

I’ve mentioned this keyboard many times in the past. I really enjoy using it. I mean, really enjoy it. I actually like this one better than the one that I have at the office, which is about 2 weeks old. Why? This one is all broken in. The buttons finally work as I expect them too. The keys are smooth and silky and have a pleasant feel about them as my fingers press. The action is fluid, quiet and yet, at the same time, slightly mechanical in a very satisfying way.

Yes, I do love my keyboard.

Don’t get me wrong. That old IBM keyboard that came with my 286 back in the early 90’s was a wondrous piece of gear. It was loud, solid and keying on that board was almost the same as using a typewriter back in high school. Connected with a tightly coiled cable that was forever getting in the way of something, it was still an awesome keyboard. You could get a serious rhythm going with that board and once in the groove, man, the places it could take you.

Between the boards, there have been others. I even tried one of the Microsoft Ergonomic Keyboards for a spell. While I didn’t dislike it, I’m a lazy typist that doesn’t know where the numbers are without looking, and taking a hand off of that thing to work the 10 pad was inconvenient and really slowed things down.

There was also a slew of Logitech boards with the myriads of PCs that I have used over the years. Not too bad either. Satisfying sounds and feel, wireless, comfortable and good to type on. Hell, most of the posts on this site and this one before ‘07 were made with a Logitech board. And there was some good stuff.

But, and this is just my own humble opinion, not as good as the stuff that came after.

Yes, I do love my keyboard. Is that strange? Maybe. If you don’t love yours, then perhaps you should take some time out of your day today and get to shopping. If your computer is a tool, then the keyboard is the handle and you really should find something that works for you, fits well in your hand and is pleasing to use. Otherwise, you might as well use a pencil. I shudder at that thought.

You should be able to use a keyboard like you use your car. When you reach for something, it’s just there. You didn’t have to look because your hands knew what it would find when it landed. A good keyboard is exactly like that.

And I love mine.

After hanging out with the mouth breathers and other “car people” at SEMA last week, I think I caught a less virulent strain of Ebola. I got home on Friday and after the adrenalline and booze wore off, it hit me with a fever that lasted from Monday until sometime Wednesday. Aches? Yea, had those too. Plus a terribly annoying cough that felt like every rib in my rib cage was cracked when I coughed. This was a something that would have put Col. Potter’s horse to the ground!

During this, I made an attempt at installing PHP and mySql on a Windows server. My fever addled brain thought it sounded like a good idea. It took 2 days, but I did achieve success on our dev server. More sleep and advil later, I attempted the exact same thing on our production server, only to have it blow up on me. Wordpress, on this day, was not my friend.

Finally, after more sleep, even more Advil and some well placed cuss words, I achieved success!. Even managed to get the layout up and running in the same day. I rule.

Remarkably I made it to today. Also during this week I experienced some of the worst Southern California driving ever. It was epically bad. Add to that the fact that I don’t remember the drive to and from work on Monday and Tuesday, and it’s a wonder I survived. No kidding.

Finally, I woke up this morning too early thanks to teh lad’s alarm clock going off at least an hour before I wanted to wake up. Took advantage of that time and put the finishing touches on a website that I hope to take live within the next week.

So, in 1 week I finished 3 sites, wrassled with a Windows Server, battled traffic (and won!) and survived Ebola.

What’s next?

You could play along with the home game you know, right? Easiest way is to follow me on Facebook, but that’s not the only way. There is also Twitter and w(t)f, both of which I’ve been using quite a bit lately. Follow along. It’s fun!

So, a fever plus 90 degree temps in SoCal plus a cough so bad I think I might have cracked a rib or two. Add in a few idiot drivers and suddenly I’m Mr. Crankypants. Sheesh.

This is the other reason I don’t get sick very often. I don’t handle it well. Nope. No sir. Not even a little bit. Not.

Worry if you see me walking around with a baseball bat. If you see said bat, running might be a good choice of actions. At me or away, your pick. I’m really not that accurate with a bat.

I’m not one that gets sick. I have not the time or interest in getting sick, being sick or anything else pertaining to the word sick. Honestly, I have better, more productive things to do with my time.

For example, instead of being sick, I could have finished installed php, mySQL and phpmyadmin on the dev server at work. I got it almost done, but couldn’t finish because I was about to pass out.

When I got home, a journey I barely remember completing, I did, in fact, pass out for about an hour. That is time I could have used to work on my next Wordpress project.

When I woke up, I had enough energy to prepare the evening’s meal, completely drenched in sweat, before, again, going back to sleep. Oh, I did manage to watch Castle, but that’s as much as I could handle.

Slept for 9 hours after that.

I’m feeling pretty good this morning. Enough so that I was able to make a few more tweaks here, screen shot twitter and type up this approx 200 word post.

But that’s it. I have no more time for sick. I will still stay hopped up on Advil and OJ for the day to make sure I get something done.

Oh, I would appreciate any feedback on the changes to the site if you have any. If you don’t, that’s ok too.