Yup. Today's my birthday. 27 years old. And how will I spend it? At home with my family, as it should be.

Well, maybe a nice dinner with my wife. Just the two of us. For a change.

I know. It's a controversial topic right now. But why the big deal about it?

Ok. Let's back up. The company I work for uses off shore developers to help on projects. Not every project. Just some of the bigger ones. Why? Well, first, it is cost effective to do so. We aren't a huge company. With off shore, we can ramp up people quickly and don't have to worry about what happens when that project goes away (I'm a consultant. Projects come and go on a weekly basis around here). Before we started off shoring, we were struggling. We dropped over 10% of our staff in a month because of hard times.

Now, with off shoring, we have grown over the past two years by over 50%, and projections (yeah, I know) have us growing by 100% over the next 5 years. Why? Because we have the capacity to take on bigger projects. Of course, the jobs we're hiring aren't the same jobs we hired for in the past. They're actually for more skilled positions (and hence, higher pay). We don't hire people who don't have the experience we need. We need lead developers and architects who understand how to implement big systems. The "Commodity work" goes off shore. Anyone can code the easy stuff; so why pay someone a lot of money and underutilize thier skills? Our clients definitely don't want that.

So while everyone talks about how off shoring costs us jobs, I think it saved mine. And I can look around the office, and see a handful of people who are employed because of off shoring.

My daughter turned two today (at 4:22 - oddly enough, about the time she tried to wake up today!). She's my first, and only right now. It has been an absolute life changing experience. Definitely for the better.

Anyway, we got her a battery powered Barbie Jeep, and she loves it, even though she gets scares herself when she first starts to go. She'll get used to it though - and we'll never get her out of it!

First, here's the link: NY Post Article.

Now, after reading this, it's pretty obvious what perspective this was written from. Yeah, it says Larry Brooks, but it could just as easily be Bob Goodenow, the head of the NHLPA. Basically, it says the union has made every attempt to get a new CBA in place, and the NHL has refused, despite how fair the NHLPA has been.

But put aside the bias in the article, and focus on one paragraph:

Bettman and the league have made it clear to the teams not to expect grandfathering of pre-Sept. 15 contracts into the league's new age. Indeed, as we first reported two full years ago and reconfirmed this weekend, Bettman's plan is to hold a dispersal draft with teams able to protect players who earn up to an aggregate $31M in payroll, with the remainder available to be drafted — and, get this, with the original clubs on the hook for the contracts of both those players selected by other teams and those who might go unclaimed.

I haven't seen this anywhere else. First, the Post pats itself on the back for breaking the story two years ago, but that's a small issue. The biggest part in this paragraph is that the original club will still have to pay the salary of players taken by other teams. Read that again. OK, now one more time. The original club will still have to pay the salary of players taken by other teams. So let's look at the Wings. Between Hatcher, Joseph, Lang, McCarty, and Lidstrom, that would just about be the $31 million. That means the Wings could potentially be paying a guy like Draper to score against them next year.

Now, do I think Bettman could get away with that? No way. He couldn't even get the owners to agree with it, let alone the union. Last year, 6 teams had payrolls under $31 mill. He can't expect every team to get under that number. On another note, the lowest payroll was the Predators. Very impressive for them. Anyway, back to the issue at hand. The NHL had a total payroll of over $1.2 billion dollars. A 31 million cap would leave $930 million dollars to spend - a difference of almost $300 million.

Where does the $300 mill go? You have to have the same number of players, unless we start talking contraction (something I would favor). Let's take another look. There are 20 players per team, and 30 teams. That's 600 players. Now, spread the $300 mill over those 600 players. That's an average paycut of $500,000. Now, players under contract have no incentive to take that, and with a minimum salary, some players can't take that. So yeah, a guy like Lidstrom could take that, and still make $9 mill a season, but what about the guys making less than a million? I think the league will be hard pressed to find enough players who are willing to reduce their salaries to make up that $300 million. So what does that mean? Out with the old, and in with the new. Guys like Yzerman, Hull, and Messier may not be around next year. That definitely helps the salary situation. If a $500,000 player replaces Yzerman, then that's 12 players who don't have to take a cut. But how can a $500,000 player replace Yzerman? The talent pool will get shallower than it's already gotten in the post-expansion era.

NOTE: According to the article, the union has already proposed a reduction for new draftee salaries by that $500,000 (well, $450,000 plus a reduction in signing bonuses).

This time, I'm not offering up solutions for the NHL like I did in the past. Those were rules based solutions. This is a financial crisis. I don't have visibility to all of the details, and can't make an informed decision, other than this: $31 million is too low, and the current system is not sustainable. So I guess we meet up in January (my prediction) someplace in the middle.

Thanks again to Adam, I'm on Orkut (bizzy10510). He also got me gmail (rossjoel at gmail dot com).

So, apparently, all things Google flow through Adam!

I've been (inactively) wanting a gmail account for a while now, but hadn't actively pursued it until Adam offered some up on his blog to the first people to contact him. Since he's the only person to ever comment on my blog, I felt the connection! ;-)

So I got it, I got POP access to it, and have been using it a little bit. It's nothing special - it's standard web-based email, but with a lot more storage.

Anyway, I finally got it! Thanks, Adam!

Now if I could just get that Orkut invite...

For now, I'm giving up on IntraVnews. Why? Because I discovered I could just as easily compose in w.bloggar and it (pseudo) integrates with RSS Bandit, my current aggregator of choice. It would have been nice to blog from within Outlook, but the main benefit of doing it was that I could compose in HTML. That didn't work, so I was stuck using plain text anyway.

So I guess for now, I'm stuck writing blog posts with either no formatting, or manually writing HTML when I need formatting (for example, once my NFL picks come back).

Have you noticed that my posting has increased lately? That's what happens when you stay home with your wife while she recovers from a viral infection. My job right now is to be in the office, so when I'm at home, I don't have much to do other than type and get Tina water so she can get better. I hope to continue that once she's better, as I've been lax. I have a ton of topics in my head. I just need to get them down on paper...err...the screen.

I was listening to Rush today on my way into work. Actually, it was whoever was sitting in for him. Give you an idea of my political slant? Anyway, he mentioned what he called the Fast Food Economic Indicator, and I found it rather humorous, despite being true. Here it is:

The worse the service gets at fast food restaurants, the better the economy is doing.

Why? Well, when McDonalds or Burger King can't find anyone else to hire, they settle for whatever they can get. In bad times, they can be picky.

Based on this, I think Spring Lake must be doing good. The service I get at McDonalds and Arby's here is less than spectacular!

My family and I recently went to Baltimore to visit my wife's cousin and her husband. We drove. From Michigan to Maryland. With a two year old in the car. How did that go? Surprisingly well, actually. We got a DVD system for our van, so while she wasn't sleeping, she watched The Wiggles.

We planned our driving time so she would sleep for most of the trip. We left Tuesday night, around 7. And Maddie fell asleep around 9, somewhere around Ann Arbor. She woke up after a 45 minute "nap". Normally, she goes to bed around 8:30, and doesn't get up until the next morning. I guess she was just as excited as we were about our vacation. She was up for the rest of the night. Rightfully so, I guess. It was her first trip out of the state.

We stayed the night in Independence, OH, and Maddie finally fell asleep around 1:30 - in our bed! We have never allowed that to happen. It's been a rule since she was born. First, because we didn't want her to get in the habit of sleeping with us, and second, because I roll around at night a lot, and I didn't want to roll on her. Now that she's a little bigger, that's not as much of an issue. We did learn one thing though. She's a bed hog!

We rolled into Baltimore around 6:00 on Wednesday night. Driving through Pennsylvania was pretty cool. Our wedding anniversary was the next day, and we spent our honeymoon in the Pocono's, so it was pretty cool to be back there 4 years later. The views are awesome, even from the highway. Wednesday night, we walked around Baltimore. My wife's cousins live in the Federal Hill section of Baltimore, so we walked down to Federal Hill Park, which overlooks the bay, and stayed there for a while. The cool thing about the area is that, even though it's a big city, it has a small city feel to it. Within a couple of blocks, there is just about everything you could want - Cross Street Market, which offers fresh fruit, meats, various other local restaurants, a CVS, real estate offices, and even a magicians shop!

The house that my wife's cousins bought is nice. It was built in the mid 1800's, but is in very good shape. It has wood floors throughout, and the floor on the main floor is the original floor. It's in pretty good shape considering people have used it for 150 years. I'm not sure I could handle living in a place like that. Don't get me wrong. For some (like everyone in the neighborhood) it's great. I even loved the fact that we could walk less than a mile, and be right downtown. But their place is about 10 feet wide. It's definitely a different lifestyle, something I'm not accustomed to. I guess I would prefer living in the 'burbs, and either driving in, or using public transportation to get into town. But for a lot of people, living in the middle of the action is worth it - evidence? Houses in Federal Hill usually sell within a week of going on the market! And the places are not cheap!

Anyway, Thursday, my wife, my daughter and I walked around Baltimore, including a trip to the Baltimore Aquarium. My daughter loved it! They have a very large tank that's viewable from all floors throughout the main area, and we spent a lot of time watching the "fishies" swim around. They are in the process of adding on, and someday, we hope to go back once the addition is finished. They have an outdoor section that has quite a few birds in it, and I think that's what they are adding on to. My only complaint about the aquarium? The dolfin show. And it wasn't that I didn't enjoy it, but they spent a lot of time talking about the process they go through to train the dolfins. That's fine, but I thought they could have showed that ahead of time, when most people were just sitting around waiting for the show to begin. It would have been a good distraction. Of course, my opinion is slightly affected by a daughter who kept losing interest when the videos were on, and completely enthralled when the dolfins were performing tricks! Not to mention, I saw the same type of show at The New England Aqaurium, and they did the show right (only with Sea Lions).

We also went to the Baltimore Zoo. It was good, but I didn't think they used their land very effectively. They have a lot of areas that are wooded, with nothing else done with it, but they have four or five giraffes in a rather small area, on mowed grass. Again, maybe I'm spoiled, but I feel Binder Park's set up is much nicer for the animals. Other than that, it was a rather fun morning / afternoon. What was Maddie's favorite attraction? The roosters, because of one of her favorite Wiggles songs.

Saturday night, we went downtown to walk around after dinner, and ended up in the ESPNZone in Baltimore. It's in an old power plant, along with a Barnes & Noble, and the Planet Hollywood there. By the way, I think that's an awesome idea - using an old power plant for retail space once the power plant's usefulness is over. The feel you get inside is unique. Kind of a factory type feel. The wait for dinner (or desert, as we could have been convinced to have) was two hours at ESPNZone, and probably the same at Planet Hollywood, so we decided against going to either place. I did get an ESPN shotglass (I collect them), and a shirt for Maddie - "I watch Sportscenter with my Daddy." Awesome, because she does. Always has. Of course, that will probably change, most likely once she outgrows the shirt.

We left Sunday morning. We didn't use our van the whole time we were there, which was nice. Parking was not a pretty picture in Baltimore. As we were packing up, our gracious hosts were getting chewed out by the block's parking nazi. It's amazing how giving someone a sense of power changes them. Here's a quote from him. "You didn't get that parking pass legally, but I'll let it go this time." What? Are you telling me that my cousin-in-law is involved in some black market parking pass scheme? Of the two of them, one's primary job is the beautification and restoration of businesses in Baltimore's historic district (which Federal Hill is a part of) and the other works for the government, I find that hard to believe. Maybe what he meant was, "You somehow thwarted my parking nazi power, and I'm not happy, but there's nothing I can do about it." The better question here is why he was bothering two homeowners in the neighborhood at 10:00 AM on a Sunday.

The trip home was uneventful, other than the tornado warning while we were in the hotel. Nothing came of it, and I watched the Pistons pull out game 4 on Sunday night, before heading home on Monday morning. We made it home Monday afternoon, and while it was a very fun trip, it was nice to be back home.

I'm considering removing all categories (except the general one). Why? Well, for anyone who subscribes or reads this site, I'm testing my ability to blog directly from Outlook using IntraVnews 1.1 beta. Will I stay with it? I'm not sure. Why? Well, for one, my blogging system. It verifies that the HTML is XHTML compliant, so I have to post in plain text mode, meaning I can't link to anyone. Second, it doesn’t support setting the category (as far as I can tell), either.

I wonder how NewsGator does it. I use b2evolution, and right now, I’m not sure if it’s IntraVnews or b2evolution that is giving me the problems.

I try to keep categories so people can subscribe to a particular category, but I’m starting to rethink that. Do you subscribe to particular categories or to a whole blog? Personally, for me, it’s all or nothing. I’m also considering making multiple blogs, and having an aggregated one that sums them all up, so if you want just one piece, say technical, you get all technical content, and if you want everything, then you use the main feed. That won’t be for a while, but for now, posts from IntraVnews will only be in the general category, regardless of content.