Jimmy Mancusi Dot Com http://www.jimmymancusi.com/ The world according to Jimmy Mancusi. This website provides a glimpse into my life and my interests. I hope to share all my good, and hopefully only a few bad times, my knowledge, what little there is, and my humor. I hope you enjoy your stay at my site. en Copyright 2010 Thu, 01 Oct 2009 15:42:04 -0500 http://www.sixapart.com/movabletype/ http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss Like a Good Neighbor? State Farm regarding a mold issue in my basement. A bit of brief background information: 1. We have had a mold issue for the past few months (maybe 4-6) and it has recently gotten worse. 2. I have never really thought about what caused this issue (until I had to deal with State Farm), just know that it is there. 3. We recently had it analyzed by MASLabs , who we have been very happy with, and it turns out to be black mold, which is not good and we need to get it out of there. 4. Treating the mold is not going to be cheap]]> http://www.jimmymancusi.com/2009/10/like_a_good_neighbor.html http://www.jimmymancusi.com/2009/10/like_a_good_neighbor.html Life Thu, 01 Oct 2009 15:42:04 -0500 NHL 09 Review NHL 09 Ok, this review is completely pointless because it has already been reviewed about a billion times since it has been out for almost a year, and NHL 10 is coming out soon. But since this game took a TON of my time over the last 6 months, I wanted to give a quick review and some spots I think they could do better for NHL 10. Then I will get into the game that is currently stealing my sleep...]]> http://www.jimmymancusi.com/2009/06/nhl_09_review.html http://www.jimmymancusi.com/2009/06/nhl_09_review.html Video Games Wed, 10 Jun 2009 18:36:42 -0500 CityMove.com CityMove is a great site if you are looking to move, especially in the city. The site lets you go through everything you have, room by room, so you will be better organized, and then it lets moving companies bid on your job. You can get flat rate quotes or hourly rate quotes. Really pretty cool, and the design is awesome (props to our designer Mabe).]]> http://www.jimmymancusi.com/2009/06/citymovecom.html http://www.jimmymancusi.com/2009/06/citymovecom.html RustyBrick Tue, 09 Jun 2009 17:33:00 -0500 I have a blog? I know that I haven't written anything here in a while, so I finally opened it up today and saw that the last entry was from January. Time really flies, I really didn't think it was 6 months already since my last blog entry. I really need to try to get into some kind of rhythm with this blog thing, lunch time updates or weekend updates or something.... Anyway, a lot of stuff has been going on recently, so let me give quick updates to anyone interested: 1. Just went on vacation with my whole family (my side) to Williamsburg VA. Emily's first amusement park, and first water park. Was a blast! Thanks Mom and Dad! 2. A lot of people know, but not everyone since I wasn't as diligent calling everyone I know, so if you don't know and this is how you find out you can call and yell at me if you want. Amanda is pregnant, so we are expecting our second child in December. #2 should really be #2 - #50 since keeping up with Emily and taking care of my pregnant wife is taking up much of my time :) 51. Video games! Anyone that knows me knows I have a problem when it comes to video games and lately they have taken lots of sleep away from me :) I will get into this more later with some video game review posts.... Well thats just a quick update, hoping to get some more up later, and try to actually use this blog for a while... So maybe I will update later, or in 6 months.... http://www.jimmymancusi.com/2009/06/i_have_a_blog.html http://www.jimmymancusi.com/2009/06/i_have_a_blog.html Family Life Randomness Tue, 09 Jun 2009 12:19:06 -0500 NFL Cutting Jobs Unemployment Rate This is old news by now, but it was something that riled me up a while ago so I created a post for it and never got around to it. Obviously the economy is not doing well, and many companies, if not most companies are having to lay off employees and cut costs. It bothers me though when companies use the down turned economy as an excuse to be able to cut costs and stream line things. For instance The NFL is cutting 14% of its staff . Really? The NFL, a multi-billion dollar business has to lay off some staff members because of this economy? The NFL's revenue last year was 7 billion dollars. I realize that is revenue and not profit, but do you really think they need to cut 150 jobs because they may only make 6.9 billion in revenue this year? I feel bad for the people that got laid off and their families. The layoffs were early - mid December, perfect timing for the holidays. I am sure the top execs in the NFL were happy though, no better way to cut costs than to cut people. Business as usual I suppose.... ]]> http://www.jimmymancusi.com/2009/01/nfl_cutting_jobs.html http://www.jimmymancusi.com/2009/01/nfl_cutting_jobs.html Life Thu, 15 Jan 2009 12:00:08 -0500 Houston Round 2 I created this post quite some time ago, but life has gotten a bit hectic again lately so I haven't been able to do much of anything. Just a quick update, my father flew out to Houston again on Monday, had another procedure (the same one he had last time, just patching up some smaller leaks this time) and everything went well. My parents are probably sitting in the airport in Houston now getting ready to come home. Pretty amazing that they can preform a surgery on your heart and a day later you are discharged from the hospital. Hopefully this will correct the issues that my father has been having. There is a good chance that he will have another procedure to help more issues that his heart is having, but this one should correct the serious problems. Here's hoping the problem stays solved this time.... http://www.jimmymancusi.com/2009/01/houston_round_2.html http://www.jimmymancusi.com/2009/01/houston_round_2.html Family Thu, 15 Jan 2009 12:00:00 -0500 Home Remodelers Group - Customer Service, or lack there of A few months back we decided to get new windows in our house. Our house was built in the 1950s and the windows in the house were still original, so as you can imagine they were a bit drafty and inefficient. So we began the process of getting estimates and had some really poor experiences, and a few fair ones. First of all our worst experience was with Castle Windows. They seem to like to use guilt as their main selling tool, and would recommend you look elsewhere if you are looking for new windows. I could go into this estimate in great detail with a lot of ranting and raving... perhaps another day... Come to think of it though, I don't have a recommendation for you since the company we decided to go with, Home Remodelers Group seemed like a good choice at the time, and the windows are nice, but their customer service is absolutely horrendous. For anyone that has been lucky enough not to have a window estimate, let me fill you in on one thing. They all take 3-4 hours. Seriously. These sales guys come into your house and want to put on a complete show. They go into detail about their competitors, how great their windows are and why their competitors are no good, warranties, service and so on. My first consultation ran close to 4 hours, and 2 family members of mine received consultations from separate companies and also ran over 3 hours each. So after our first horrible experience we would tell the sales guy we already knew all of those things and wanted to get right down to it, and were able to get through our next couple of estimates in under an hour. ]]> http://www.jimmymancusi.com/2008/11/customer_service_or_lack_there.html http://www.jimmymancusi.com/2008/11/customer_service_or_lack_there.html Life Sun, 16 Nov 2008 10:10:22 -0500 Long Time No Blog It has been a very long time since I blogged about anything, over 2 months. The problem isn't that I have nothing to blog about, its that I have too much to blog about! To many things are keeping me way too busy and I haven't had any time to update this site. I think I am going to try to post much shorter to the point things for a while and see if that can get me going again. I have a lot to say so hopefully getting the juices flowing again will help! Anyway... I am back! At least for a couple of blog entries :) http://www.jimmymancusi.com/2008/10/long_time_no_blog.html http://www.jimmymancusi.com/2008/10/long_time_no_blog.html Randomness Tue, 14 Oct 2008 13:16:16 -0500 Houston Update Houston has a big heart The title of the picture to the right is "Houston Has A Big Heart", and I find that very fitting with everything that has transpired over the past week. As I mentioned in an early post, my parents flew out to Houston so my dad could have a "procedure" to fix a leak in his heart. As with most things in life, there were a few speed bumps in the process. Once my dad got out there, they ran some tests to get an idea of what they were dealing with before they jump into his heart. When they did these tests they found what turned out to be tissue from one of his original valves that was removed years ago. With this tissue in the heart, the doctors weren't sure if they could preform the procedure as they planned and it looked like we were heading toward another open heart surgery...]]> http://www.jimmymancusi.com/2008/08/houston_update.html http://www.jimmymancusi.com/2008/08/houston_update.html Family Life Fri, 01 Aug 2008 21:10:24 -0500 Houston has a solution Fixed Heart Many of you that have known me for a long time know my father has had some heart issues over the past 6 years. For anyone who hasn't known this here is a quick recap of what has happened so far. About 6 years ago (not exactly sure on dates) my dad wasn't feeling well and ended up going to the hospital. They ran tests and found out that there was bacteria growing on one of the valves in my father's heart. Since there was risk that the bacteria could break off and cause a major stroke, he needed open heart surgery the next day. Everything went well and we were out of the hospital and on to recovery. Then a year or so later they found that he had bacteria on another valve, so once again we were off to the hospital for a second open heart surgery. My father has had a few issues or side effects from the two surgeries, including some memory problems and fatigue. The fatigue continues to get worse since one of the valves in his heart is leaking. This leak is a condition that normally only people who have multiple heart surgeries get, or as we like to call them, the lucky ones.]]> http://www.jimmymancusi.com/2008/07/houston_has_a_solution.html http://www.jimmymancusi.com/2008/07/houston_has_a_solution.html Family Life Wed, 23 Jul 2008 19:09:14 -0500 Plurk! Plurk For all of you who are loyal, die hard readers, you obviously noticed the new addition to the site since the last time you visited. OK, I am not fooling anyone I really don't have any die hard loyal fans.... yet :) I just signed up for Plurk a couple of days ago because Barry wanted another friend sign up to help him get a red star in his profile. Anyway, after joining I figured I would give it a go for a little while to see if I could understand the fascination behind it. Applications like Plurk and Twitter have become very popular lately. For anyone who is unfamiliar with either of these services, they are basically away messages (think aol instant messanger) on steroids, or another way of thinking would be its like mini blogging. You can update what you are doing at any time during the day and other people see it comment on it and so on. Yet another form of communication to reach all of your friends that are sitting behind computers all day long. Since most of my family and friends don't spend their entire day behind their computer, I don't have a lot of friends on Plurk yet, maybe I will make some new ones... But anyway, I figured I would add it here so that anyone is interested can see what random things I do or what random thoughts I have throughout the day. As long as I am plurking, might as well blog the plurks. Did anyone catch that?]]> http://www.jimmymancusi.com/2008/07/plurk.html http://www.jimmymancusi.com/2008/07/plurk.html Randomness Barry blog plurk Thu, 10 Jul 2008 12:46:31 -0500 All work and no play php code Lately work has been taking up most of my time. Thankfully I enjoy what I do, most of the time. For anyone that doesn't know I am a PHP and MySQL engineer. Say what? Just a fancy way to say I am a Web Developer, or a Web Programmer. One great thing about my occupation is there is no need to be in a specific location to do work. Everything is done with computers, and therefore you can be anywhere as long as you have internet access. This also provides plenty of opportunities for side work, which is a great thing and a horrible thing all at the same time :) ]]> http://www.jimmymancusi.com/2008/07/all_work_and_no_play.html http://www.jimmymancusi.com/2008/07/all_work_and_no_play.html Work Amanda Emily MySQL PHP relax side-work work Wed, 09 Jul 2008 20:52:35 -0500 Surprise! Happy Birthday Sheryl Surprise

Surprise!

This weekend we had a surprise birthday party for my sister in law Sheryl. The party went really well and we think she was surprised but I haven't heard the verdict on whether or not we really got her. I wont tell you how old Sheryl is, that wouldn't be nice, but if you were to say take 20 and double it, you would be on the money ;) The surprise plan went off pretty seamlessly but I think she may have been onto something. One of her friends was suppose to get her out of the house around noon, and return around 2. We left our house with the intention of getting there to help set up around noon, but we ended up circling random neighborhoods in the area waiting for a text message letting us know she had left the house. As soon as she left the house we had to circle a bit more to make sure she passed us on her way out. This is when Amanda got a call from Sheryl asking what she was up to today. We found out later that she had placed a few of these calls to different friends trying to figure out what they were doing today/tonight, which is why I think she might have been onto us. Even if she was onto us, I still think she was surprised. We had all the cars parked off site, and shuttled everyone to the house. So when she pulled up there were no cars. She opened the garage to park, and we were all standing there waiting for her. Either way we all had a blast so it was a success. Happy Birthday Sheryl.]]> http://www.jimmymancusi.com/2008/07/happy_birthday_sheryl.html http://www.jimmymancusi.com/2008/07/happy_birthday_sheryl.html Family Amanda Party Sheryl Surprise Mon, 07 Jul 2008 12:30:41 -0500 New Look for JuicedMooseLax.com Juiced Moose Over a year ago now I put up a site for the lacrosse team I play for every summer, Juiced Moose. The team was started almost 10 years ago now and I have played in the Glastonbury CT summer tournament every year. When I put up the site, I did so very quickly with intentions of making things prettier and more functional as I went along, but life has been so hectic lately that I really haven't had much time to do anything with it. Well finally I took the first step toward making it the site I want it to be. Thanks to Mabe, our fantastic designer at RustyBrick, the site got a much needed make over. If you had seen the site before you know it was UGLY. Now it actually looks like a real website. I even left out a few of the touches that Mabe added, so as soon as I can add those the site will look even better. I wanted to get the information out there since the tournament is at the end of this month, so I had to rush a bit. I also have plans to redo the entire picture section (which I left out for this rush launch) and add a content management system so that I am not the only one with the ability to update the website. Hopefully these changes will come over the next couple of weeks but between RustyBrick and a few side projects I am working on including JuicedMooseLax and a site I am building for the Edison Cares charity, I certainly do have my hands full.]]> http://www.jimmymancusi.com/2008/07/new_look_for_juicedmooselaxcom.html http://www.jimmymancusi.com/2008/07/new_look_for_juicedmooselaxcom.html Lacrosse Programming RustyBrick Sports Work Edison Cares Juiced Moose Lacrosse Lax Mabe RustyBrick Thu, 03 Jul 2008 22:18:14 -0500 Belly Flop 101 1stBirthday 029 So at some point during Emily's party I started jumping into the pool with my niece Cady, at first mimicking the jumps that she would do and somehow it lead to me doing belly flops for the amusement of my family and friends. Last year I tried a couple of times to get the perfect picture right before impact on a belly flop and came up a bit short, so I figured I would try again. After 2 or 3 flops with my dad trying to snap a picture with his camera (I will add this pictures to flickr soon), I remembered that my camera had a multi-burst mode which takes 16 pictures in a couple of seconds. It was still really hard to get the perfect picture since it was normally to early or to late to get everything, but I think they came out pretty well. You can see in the picture above I had pretty good form on that one, unfortunately the 16 frames wasn't near enough. Another picture after the break and a little more after math...]]> http://www.jimmymancusi.com/2008/07/belly_flop_101.html http://www.jimmymancusi.com/2008/07/belly_flop_101.html Family Humor belly flop brother in law Cady Emily family Party Wed, 02 Jul 2008 14:15:58 -0500