Here’s the entire bracket of crazy shit I’ll do depending on how much money I raise.

$500 – I’ll give myself a mohawk.

$1000 – I’ll dye that mohawk hot pink.

$1500 – I’ll shave that hot pink mohawk into a horn on the front of my head.

$2000 – I’ll get a tattoo of a puzzle piece (an icon usually used in the Autism community) on my right forearm.

I hope to have a donation meter on this site soon, but you can always see how much I’ve raised on my Walk page.

Yikes. I don’t know anything about .NET.

Thankfully our lead developer does, and I’ll be provided with proper resources to learn it.

I never saw myself as ever developing in .NET.  Ever. That’s about to change, and I’m hoping it’ll be an overall positive experience. At the very least I’ll have a new skill to list on my resume.

I have to admit I was a bit disheartened by this news at first, and a bit resistant to it.  In the end the important thing is that I keep my job, so I might as well jump into this full hog, and be the best damn .NET developer I can be.

You can probably expect to see more on here about my journey learning C#, ASP.NET, and whatever other Microsoft, .NET, mumbo-jumbo keywords there are out there.

All this week is Read an RPG in Public Week. It’s meant to get the hobby “out of the basement” and into the public eye.

I already game at work, and keep a few of my RPG books there on my shelf, so this week is kinda like every day for me.

If you’re participating in the glorious week, make sure and snap a pic of yourself doing it and entering the contest over at Purple Pawn.  The prize pool is pretty slick, and contains a Tremorworks bundle that includes the above HDL Basic Rules.

Well we’re starting to take donations again.  Along with general donations, events, and raffles we have scheduled for this year, I decided to do something special.

Last year I took donations at work, saying that if I raised a certain amount I would wear a Snuggie to work for the day. I raised that amount, and had to suffer wearing the Snuggie.

This year I’ve got something a bit different planned.

Something bigger, and more permanent.

This year, with the help of all of you out there, I’m looking to raise over $1000 under my name. If I hit the $1000 mark, I’ll dye my hair hot pink for a full week.

7 days of hot pink hair.

“Wait, Rob.  You don’t HAVE any hair!”

That’s true, but starting today I’m growing my hair out just for this occasion. I’ll also be taking daily mugshots so people can track the growth of my hair, and if it gets dyed, keep me honest for the full 7 days.

I’ll also be doing some other, minor crazy things for other landmarks on the way to $1000, but I haven’t gotten them all figured out yet.

Keep an eye out for a donation meter on this blog soon.

The walk for Greater Hartford takes place on 06/06/2010, so I need to raise the $1000 by then.

Remember, only donations posted directly under my name will count towards this.  You can also use the link to sign up for the walk if you’d like to walk with our team, Aiden’s Awesomeness.

Who knows. If I can surpass the $1000, maybe I’ll even dye the beard.

What’s Buzz?  That’s a hard question to answer.

What does it feel like?

It feels like a more streamlined version of Google Wave and Twitter.  You have a timeline, followers, and people you follow, like in any Twitter like site.  You also have the ability to post all sorts of neat shit into your Buzz, and with no character limit.  Conversations are threaded, and you can pull information in from other sites, like Flickr, Twitter, Picasa, and more.

Do I like it?

Yes, I do, but there’s a problem.

I’m already on SO many social sites that I don’t think enough people from each of those will be moving to Buzz.  Right now I use Twitter, Plurk, and Facebook as my 3 big social sites.  I have a unique set of contacts on each one, with very little overlap.  Will they move to using Buzz? Maybe, but I doubt it.

Where does this leave Buzz?

Who knows.  It’s really cool, and I’d love to use it, but after the fiasco that was Wave…I’m not sure what the adoption will be.

It’s wonderful (and frustrating) that I can look back at my first project and realize all the things I did wrong. The good part about that is a lot of the first-time mistakes I made are easily fixed. I’m pretty sure I’ll be saying the same thing about my current project once I’ve moved on to the next.

While I’ve come a long way, I still feel I need some proper training so I can really get into the deeper stuff with Rails. While I’m sure I can do pretty much anything I need to, and anything my job requires, I’d really like to grow my skills so I can start REALLY using it. I’d love nothing more than to let a client know we can go above and beyond for them, and really make their interactive shine.

What did I see in 2009?

Plenty.

Beatrice is pregnant with our 3rd child. It’s an amazing thing.

Beatrice and I put our house on the market. We’re still waiting for it to sell.

Aiden was diagnosed with mild PDD-NOS, and is making HUGE strides. He’s in a new preschool, and is thriving.

Delfina gets bigger every day. It’s amazing how smart she is. It’s a shame she was too young to start school in 2009.

I lost two amazing women in my life. Both my grandmother’s passed. Even though I didn’t get to see them much, it’s very strange not to have them around anymore. The world will be a worse place without them.

Beatrice became a full-time, stay at home mom. With 2 kids, and one on the way, I’m sure she’ll be working much harder than she ever did at an office.

After 2 layoffs in a six month period, I became fully employed, and have been for over a year.

I started moving away from PHP to program in Ruby on Rails. I’m finally coming into my own as a web developer with my own technique and preferences.

I’ve made/kept some amazing friends, some of whom I’ve never physically met, though I hope to remedy that in the future.

2009 had its ups and downs, but then again, so does every year. I’m thankful to have my amazing family, and to continue moving forward in all that we do, even if it doesn’t always feel that way.

I grew up on video games. I’ve supported, advocated, and played video games a huge portion of my life so far.

I’ve grown. You’ve grown.

There’s a problem, though. You’ve grown a little too big for me in a sense.

Let me start off by saying this. I love epic 60+ hour games.

I love them a lot.

I even love beautiful cutscenes. I never said I didn’t.

I’m married now. Working full time. I have 2 kids, and another on the way. I still game, but my time is REALLY limited. All I’m asking for is for you to allow me to suspend my games when I don’t have time to reach a save point.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m not asking you to allow me to save whenever I want. All I want is the ability to suspend my system, turn it back on at a later time, and pickup where I left off.

I know it’s not THAT complicated to do. I love that I can do that with my DS and PSP.

Why can’t I do it with my Wii or 360? Why must I always feel rushed when I play more in-depth games, frantically trying to find save points when my time is almost up?

Seriously. I love playing your games, but I’m missing out on more and more gaming because I can’t afford to waste time playing, and not knowing if all that I’ve done over the course of an hour or two will matter, or if I’ll have to do it all over again.

It seemed to help.

I started up my workout routine, and everything was going fine…then the leg pain returned. I’ve gone from working out 4 nights a week to 2, and it’s still no help.

Guess it’s time to see my doctor. I hate skipping workouts, because it makes me feel like I lose so much more progress than I’ve gained.