My dilemma is this; my twitter handle (and Internet personality really) was born out of my Nissan Versa 3 years ago.  I am known as @VersaDave.  Recently I’ve been getting some flack about keeping that name in spite of abandoning VikVersa.  My mindset is that I’ve already created the “brand” of my online persona and changing that name will confuse people who follow my tweets, blog, etc.  At least that’s what I think.

So, I’m brining it to you.  I want to know what you think.

This past Friday’s #BATTL was not limited to just one; in fact, we had 15 people (albeit 5 of those were kids). Speaking of kids, one particular spawn amazed a few of us that were lingering around post party. We were standing around talking when someone noticed that Drewbie (a 1.5 yr old boy) looked as if though he was planning a war. He rounded up all the sterling silver spoons within his tiny little reach; he pondered what position to place them in and at the precise moment, he’d strike the spoon in it’s new home. The table, you see, was of the patio variety; metal grated with the surface made up of hundreds of diamond shaped orifices. The act in itself was rather amazing to watch.

At one point, Drewbie decided apparently that a few of the spoons were just not sitting right, and like a brain-stopped artist who destroys his painting, he began to rip the spoons from their holes and created a new design. If you studied him closely, you could clearly see that Drewbie was plotting, thinking, concocting and organizing; this was not merely the ramblings of a toddler, but the birth steps of a genius.

We look forward to seeing your development Drewbie. Word of advice though, as you get older, I would advise your mother @ekcutshall that “Drewbie” may not be the most suitable name for the next Stephen Hawking.

When I got to my gate, I checked in again at the boarding counter.  The agent told me everything would be fine and just to hang out.  So I did.  And I did.  Oh, and then I waited some more.  Then they boarded.  And boarded some more.  Finally, the agent called my name and assigned me a seat…in the very last row.  Great.  Awesome.  Right by the bathroom.  He said “Oh and if some lady’s baby is sitting in your seat, tell her that’s your seat.  The baby has to sit on her lap.”  This didn’t have the words ‘happy ending’ written anywhere on it.

As I sat down, the woman was sitting with the baby boy (maybe 10-12 months old) bouncing on her lap…screaming….and crying.  The woman’s 12ish year old daughter sat in the other seat.  I took my seat and attempted to ignore the situation.  I thought if it were me traveling with one my girls as a baby, I’d hope people would have patience with me.

I checked the weather prior to lifting off and saw that NYC was having some rainy weather.  My coworker also texted me and said there were high winds in the area.  The plane took off about 20 minutes late; not exactly sure why though.  I had my doubts on the comfort of the flight with the screaming baby next to me, but after about 45 minutes in the air, he finally fell asleep.  I focused on my movie on the MacBook Pro and everything was fine.

Then, it happened. <queue suspense music> All at once, the plane dropped, hard.  I saw heads suddenly go up out of their seats and felt my whole body raise.  With that, the eminent seat belt light came on and the familiar radio voice came over the loud speaker suggesting we buckle up for a bumpy ride.

I’ve had my fair share of turbulent rides on the airplane, but this one takes the cake.  Over the next 20 minutes, it seemed like we went from plane to roller coaster.  My stomach is not particularly weak, however I soon found out that the 12ish year old girl next to me, was not as lucky.  She did her best to jump over me and dart into the bathroom.  Clearly, by the sounds I heard, she was giving birth to a gallon of toxic spew.  The flight attendant helped her out of the bathroom and back to her seat (since she wasn’t supposed to get up in the first place).  The attendant gave her a big plastic bag and said it would be better than the paper bag in the seat pocket.  I agreed since it was bigger.  A few minutes later, the woman in front of me was exhibiting the same signs as the young girl and requested one of the bigger plastic barf bags.  3 minutes after her, the woman 3 rows in front of me, jumped on the bandwagon for the puke parade.  I know what you’re thinking, “Wow, 3 people puking around you…that’s gross.  What did you do?”  Well, what could I do?  And then it happened…the baby’s head starting spinning and pea soup came shooting out, but not into a bag.  “Are we there yet!!??” crossed my mind but I chose restraint instead.  The plane landed a few minutes later.  I’m sure you wish there was more to this tale, but I’m happy to report there’s not.   Isn’t that enough?  You people are sick.

A few weeks ago, my oldest daughter’s counselor at school spoke with me and asked if I’d be interested in speaking at Career Day.  At first, I felt immature and inexperienced, but I realized that I was able to do this.  I’ve been in my field for 7 years now, and I think I’m qualified to talk to elementary school students about the perils of IT.  I agreed to do it.

Today was the day of doom.  It started off with an introduction to the Smart Board; which was a little embarrassing since the IT guy had no clue how to operate it.  Eventually I decided against it since we ran out of time.  I was scheduled for 4 classes to come in and listen to my presentation.  I came prepared with 5-6 bullet point items, a poster board with some pictures, a router and an HP DL360 server.  I was provided lunch by the faculty and staff, but quite honestly, I was looking forward to the cafeteria food.  Today was taco salad.  I was hoping they were having the rectangular pizza so I could dip it in ketchup; mmmm good.  My daughter’s class was the last one to come in and turned out to be the least talkative.  I had a hard time getting my daughter to shut up and an even harder time to get the other kids in her class to talk and ask questions.

I opened each class presentation the same way though. “Hi I’m Mr. Mills and I run the Internet.”

At the age of 8, the doctors wanted me to start using hearing aids. I adamantly refused; by 14 I said yes. And as my Mom drove me home that afternoon, with ears filled with miracles of audiology, I stuck my head out the car window like a golden retriever; my eyes, closed, but my ears, open…to a brand new world.

Over the years, I’ve gone through many hearing aids.  For about 10 years though, I went without a hearing aid in my right ear because of an extreme case of cholesteatoma. It completely disintegrated all the bones and my ear drum was nothing but a lifeless flab of flesh. Fortunately, an awesome doctor in St. Louis at Washington University named Dr. Joel Goebel, was able to bring new life back to that ear; and now coupled with the experience and talent of audiologist Jennifer Listenberger (again, of Washington University), I can now hear in my right ear with the assistance of a hearing aid.

When I first got the new hearing aid for my right ear, I had the option of picking a color for it. A color? Hearing aids are flesh color aren’t they? Jennifer asked me if I was going to grow my hair out. I said “Hell no!”. “Gimme the blue one” I said. And since then, I’ve been asked, no less than twice a month, by someone, if whether or not my blue hearing aid was some kind of a new bluetooth headset.

The day has come however, where I can answer that misguided person, “Why yes…it is bluetooth…but it’s a hearing aid too”. As of today, I’m now the proud owner of a Phonak Versáta SP for my left ear; along with the iCom communication accessory.  In short, I can talk on my iPhone, via bluetooth, without ever picking up the phone, putting on a headset, or plugging in an ear piece…it all goes right through my hearing aid. I can even listen to the iPod on the iPhone through the iCom. As I sat in front of the TV tonight, with Rhyen leaning over my shoulder and Dylen laying against me, I was able to pair my bluetooth hearing aid and iCom with the MacBook Pro and listen to videos…yep…right through the hearing aid. I’ve already paired up with my Cisco phone at work too…worked flawlessly. In short, I’m happier than a puppy with two peters that I can hear.

I had never eaten at The Atomic Cowboy before and quite honestly didn’t hold my standards for them very high.  However, afterwards, I was sold on their flavor! I only ordered guapo fries with cheese sauce and cheeseburger sliders but Oh.My.Goodness! They were soooo good. I believe @mdhugo helped me eat the fries but I have no doubt that I could have finished it off.

As we left, it was decided that we’d go to Novak’s which is a gay bar across the street.  In fact, most of the bars in this neighborhood are gay bars. Not really a problem for me to be in a gay bar but as we were leaving, I made a comment like “Ok, let’s go to the next gay bar”. Everyone kind of got quiet for a second. I believe it was @tojosan that said “What do you mean ‘next’ gay bar?” As I explained that I thought The Atomic Cowboy was a gay bar, everyone began laughing at me. I really had no idea that it was NOT a gay bar. It really didn’t matter to me one way or the other…but the whole situation was comical and provided a laugh for the rest of the night.

As the night moved on, so did the fun. A few people had to take off, but a few more hitched on for the ride. Novaks ended up being alot more fun that planned on since there was Karaoke. We had a few of our party goers sing, like @SgtHotPants and @AngeBird.

The end of the night came sooner for me than the rest of the party animals because I had to be up for work by 4:30 in the morning. Sonya and I had a few minutes to say our goodbyes. It was very emotional for me and caught myself shedding a tear or two. I know that she needs to do this, but selfishly I want her to stay. We wish you well Sonya Kim and hope to see you very soon! Todd mentioned making a road trip to Seattle one day…I’m totally down with that!!

I tried to take a bunch of images throughout the night and managed to capture some really good shots. You can even check out the video below of some of the Karaoke happenings. Click on the image to the right to view the Flickr album.