Category: General

It’s almost December

…and that means a whole lot of things. We went to Michelle and Henry’s for Thanksgiving. We had a great meal, laughed at the collective ineptitude of Tony Romo and Ryan Sanchez, and celebrated...

Madeline’s first photoshoot

Here are a few pictures from Madeline’s first photoshoot, which I described in agonizing detail last month. Click on any picture to enlarge.

Time flies…

Since my last post, a lot has happened. We had a great visit with Kirk, Petra and their three girls – we even made it to the Jack-O-Lantern spectacular at Roger Williams Zoo, on...

Madeline : Home at last!

Today we were finally able to bring our daughter home. Huzzah! It was another busy day – discharge took a lot longer than I expected. Of course, just as we were paperworked up and...

Madeline : Day 3

Today was a little quieter for our little girl. Lots of commotion in the morning but a relatively uneventful afternoon and evening. She’s getting the hang of the whole eating thing, and her ability...

Madeline’s 2nd day was a busy one

I tried to shower at the hospital this morning. Really, I did. But I failed to distract the one 5th floor nurse’s attention away from the clear anguish of returning a fake Gucci purse...

Baby Madeline is here…

I’m glad I can stop calling her SheBert, though I will probably still refer to that way from time to time. 🙂 We named our first daughter Madeline Autumn Pearl Bertrand. She was born...

A weekend in the city

Nicole is due on September 28th, so we thought we could take one last weekend while we could to get away. I’ll be in Cambridge for a SQL Saturday this coming weekend, then a...

Please update your password strategy

A few weeks ago, Mat Honan changed my life. Okay, it wasn’t that drastic, but he really made me step back and really take a look at how I manage my digital life. Because,...

Some more European adventures

Last week I spent in Germany, Austria, Slovenia and Croatia. The purpose of my trip was a work conference: SQL Server 2012 & SharePoint Connections in Berchtesgaden, Germany. The conference was interesting, though there...

Re-Blog : The cost of reinventing the wheel

Since my blog content at my old company’s site seems to be selectively disappearing, I’m grabbing the content that I can and re-publishing here, before it all goes away. This was originally published on...

Re-Blog : Using a Mac in a Windows World

Since my blog content at my old company’s site seems to be selectively disappearing, I’m grabbing the content that I can and re-publishing here, before it all goes away. This was originally published on...

Why I am switching from Google to Bing

I’m switching to Bing today. Both Google and Bing are fast (the differences in performance are unnoticeable to me). And they both produce near-identical results for me, at least for the searches that I...

Desperately seeking a decent battery caddy

I want a battery caddy. I know initially it seems like a bizarre thing to want, or maybe it is difficult to even determine what the h-e-double-hockey-sticks I’m talking about. I have several items...

Some help for Melody

UPDATE February 26, 2012 We are organizing a Pub Trivia night on Sunday, March 11th at 6 PM at Ciro’s in Woonsocket. This event is a fundraiser for 2-year old Melody Corbett, recently diagnosed...

My first blog posts

Today, Denis Gobo (@DenisGobo) tagged me in Meme Monday. The topic: what is the first blog post you wrote, and when did you write it? I have two answers.   My first personal blog...

A few unrelated updates…

Kirby at 80% Last month, I talked about Kirby’s car accident and initial recovery – I am happy to report that Kirby is doing very well, and is returning to a lot of his...

A sad case of poor customer support

In November we bought a Dell for my mother, against my better judgment. The computer was a Christmas gift, and we ordered it in November to be sure I had it before I drove...

A quick update on Kirby’s progress

Just wanted to give a quick update on Kirby. He came home on Saturday night – much to the delight of Quigley, who had been rather lethargic in his absence. A few pics (click...

The (abridged) tale of a beagle

Meet Kirby. Kirby is a 6-year old beagle in the Bertrand home. As a puppy, he was rescued from an abusive home in Tennessee. He’s had some socialization and other personality issues with strangers...

An open letter to my fellow bloggers

Please turn comment moderation off. A few weeks ago, I left a comment correcting a Microsoft Tech Evangelist’s blog post, where a suggestion was made to unnecessarily expose a surface area of SQL Server....

NHL realignment : Hell yes!

I’m very excited about the realignment of the NHL. Let me tell you what has changed, and then I’ll tell you why I think this is going to be good for everyone. Currently, the...