Shaun Hoggan

Life in Telecom
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Archive for June, 2007

Back to DVC

June 25, 2007 By: Shaun Category: DVC No Comments →

I am now back at DVC after being out of town for several years.  I really enjoy how close it is to my home.  I can typically get on my bike and be in Class 8 minutes after leaving the house and that includes the time it takes to lock my bike.  I paid ~$63 bucks for 3 credits which will transfer to UOPHX.  Compared to $1,600 for 3 credits at UOPHX I feel really good about the DVC courses and their cost.  The only trick now will be working in SLC half the month while talking my teacher in to allowing my absence.  So far so good. 

Knock Knock, Whose There?

June 25, 2007 By: Shaun Category: Technology No Comments →

Google Analytics (GA) is one of the leading free sites which tracks incoming and outgoing traffic patterns on a web site.  GA offers stats including how often your site is viewed, which pages are viewed, and what demographic the viewers are coming from.  All in all it is a good package for those who want to know traffic stats and don’t own crystal balls or know any gypsies or part time gypsy temp agencies. 

 Word press is also one of the more popular packages for blogging.  Recently I stumbled on an easy way to get GA onto Word-Press sites without having to know anything about code or needing to change theme based code.  One of the disadvantages with theme based changes and GA is that all GA stats go away if the GA code snippets are plugged into a specific themes. 

The answer to this delima is Ultimate GA written by Wilfred van der Deijl.  Ultimate GA creates a simple plug-in that will remain in effect despite themes that may change.  It is very configurable and even better, it automatically includes outbound tracking without creating JavaScript onClick event handlers manually. 

Ultimate GA can be found here:
http://www.oratransplant.nl/uga/

links for 2007-06-25

June 25, 2007 By: Shaun Category: del.icio.us No Comments →

Fortune Cookie

June 16, 2007 By: Shaun Category: Life No Comments →

You will always get what you want through your charm and personality.
Daily numbers: 3 9 1
Lotto Six #’s 18 37 35 16 13 19

You are an exciting and inspiring person.
Daily Numbers 6 5 4
Lotto Six #’s 45 37 2 4 34 23

You are a deep thinker with a knack for problem solving
17 19 27 30 32 39

Delayed Flight

June 13, 2007 By: Shaun Category: Running No Comments →

It is Wednesday and I am flying home after an already long week. I was looking forward to getting home tonight and gripping the pavement with my newly purchased, white, Nike, running shoes. As usual, I get to the airport right on time. To my surprise there was no reference to my flight on the departures screen. A moderate level of distress crossed my mind as I verified that my phone which was fixed to pacific time zone had not secretly thwarted my attempts to get to the plane on time. I went to the counter and noticed the same Polynesian looking fellow that is here every day that I take off from Salt Lake. He indicated the flight would not take off till 10:40PM. Seeing that I had an hour and a half. I called Amber indicating my changed itinerary.

My window of opportunity was shrinking for my fourth chance to free my mind from the oppression of being locked to a PC all day. Knowing that I had no control over the flight schedule, I made an empowered decision. I got my bag, strapped on my backpack and set off to briskly walk every terminal of the Salt Lake City airport. I left terminal B walked down A then,C, then D, then E, and then back to B where my plane was in the process of boarding.

Day 4, 30 minutes, estimated length 2 miles briskly walking

Sprinkler Leak

June 13, 2007 By: Shaun Category: Running No Comments →

Changing a sprinkler head because of hitting the riser with the lawnmower can be a contra speed factor when doing yard maintenance. When in my teens, I mowed lawns all summer for my entrepreneurial brother who owns his own a landscaping business among other successful ventures. We would speed though the day starting out early in the morning to beat the summer afternoon heat. The goal was to get in and out of the clients homes before they realized that we were there. At times we would go so fast that we would accidentally hit sprinkler heads breaking them. The act of changing a sprinkler head would slow us down by at least 20 minutes which is the time it would take to perform maintenance on 2 small homes. Two broken heads could easily turn into an hour of lost time.

While running tonight I noticed the sprinklers turn on at the commercial parking lot where the lawn met the concrete parking structure. The risers were only coming up about an inch which is a sure sign that there is not enough water pressure to push the risers all the way up. I feel sorry for the maintenance company who is will need to find and replace the break especially if they are the ones that broke the head. They have some hot summer afternoons ahead of themselves.

Day 3, 30 Minutes. Estimated length ran 3.0 miles.

Felt dizzy after running, I am going to sleep well tonight

Nachos and Cheese

June 11, 2007 By: Shaun Category: Running No Comments →

I am a human of simplicity. Unfortunately that also means simplicity with the food I eat and the time it takes to prepare.

Looking in the fridge there were several options of which I would have had to prepare for at least 5 minutes in the microwave. Looking on the door of the fridge I found an old friend which I had purchased several weeks ago. There was the Nacho cheese which I knew would taste really good with a bowl of tortilla chips. It did not take long to whip out a bowl and the bag of chips and after no time at all I was enjoying my dinner.

About 2 hours later I reminded myself of my commitment to jog regularly and tonight was no exception. After the second lap I was reminded of the nachos and cheese had shortly before adventuring out tonight. I don’t think that I will think of Nachos the same way I did before the jog yet, it was not bad enough to stop future nacho consumption all together. Perhaps I will reconsider nachos prior to my jogs.

Day 2, 30 minutes. Estimated length ran 3.5 miles.

So far so good!

To Run or Not to Run

June 10, 2007 By: Shaun Category: Running No Comments →

Walking off the plane today was not unlike any other day walking down the jet way. It was just a week ago while sitting in my isle seat the bloke sitting next to the window extends his reach over his wife, pokes me and says, “you know who that is four seats in front of you”. Awakened from my daze of running to get on the plane only to find out it was late, I simply had no idea what he was talking about. He says, “That is Steve Young, the foot ball player”. Not really caring, I pasted on an interested look of wow, you don’t say while I watched him extend his cell phone camera up into the air to take a shot of the quarterbacks balding head.

It was just last week when I recall walking right behind the superstar foot ball player noticing he was wearing shorts and seeing the rock like chiseled calves just above his running tennis shoes. I reflected on how flabby my legs had gotten since high school when my calves would have looked similar to the retired foot ball addict. I had plans that week to go running but being buried in the mire of month end telco and mountains of homework I never seemed to get out. That has been the excuse for what has seemed to be an eternity.

At 11:45 PM I pulled into the office complex on the corner of 7th and 45th and pulled around back and ran for 20 minutes in the massive lighted parking garage. Smiling inside about the experience I am thinking, How many days should I run per week?