Ben Drawbaugh

I know it seems pretty obvious, but still I am excited. You see I have never been a very good writer, people who I grew up with never believe me when I tell them that AOL actually pays me to blog. I have never had trouble getting good at anything I put my mind too and although I usually am not the best ever, I do alright. But there is something about writing that has always escaped me, I would like to think that it is because I never really committed myself to it. I never intended to start blogging in fact when I approached Kevin Tofel about doing a HD podcast and he asked me if I would be willing to blog for HD Beat, he actually had to explain to me what a blog was. I attribute any blogging skill I have to him as he was a great coach and helped me find my voice. It looks like all this work might have paid off and I mean other than the payment advices I get from AOL. You see I still take college courses — you could say I am on the 15 year plan and I just received earned the highest grade on any written assignment in my life. Part of this is because I convinced my instructor to let me write a essay on the current format war, no he doesn’t read my work, but part of it is because my wife proof reads my essays and the last part, the 10% part that makes a B and A is my improved writing skill, or maybe it is his lax grading technique. Either way I did better than the class average and I have the Internet to thank, so thanks.

Download Blu-ray Vs. HD DVD: Can either win?

I love to blog and podcast when I have the time and do most of it from my home. I podcast in my mess of an office and blog from my couch while watching HDTV, which explains why I don’t get many posts done.

This is where all the magic happens, ok not all, but you can see from the worn spot in the couch that I sit there alot, enough that I ran the power cable under the couch and bought an extra power supply so I woldn’t have to keep running the wire. Here is the distance shot for some perspective.

I love to podcast as well, but I have manged to run off every cost I have ever had, so until I find my next victim co-host I won’t have a show. Either way here is where I record, and I am sure this is as messy as it has ever been. I have been meaning to clean it up, but yeah heven’t gotten to it. One day.

I still remember the first time I used Gmail or even heard about it, it was great, the threaded view changed the way I use email and the new features continue to impress me, but there has always been one problem and still to this day I am sure it annoys everyone else as much as me.

The inability to access my mail via IMAP or some variation that is similar. Even Hotmail has a a feature like this, sure it only works in MS products, but still it’s there. I know this will bother me even more when my iPhone arrives and I will want Push email to my device, I guess I will just have to go on using forwarding and a second pop account to filter what mail I want from my Gmail to my portable device.

I have worked as a systems engineer for DSM.net for the past two years and today is my last day. While I enjoyed working at DSM and certainly learned alot, I am looking forward to my new job at Talbots. Since they are a publicly traded company you will probably not hear about them again, but we will see how it goes. I am excited, but at the same time I don’t really know what to expect and will be happier once I get settled in. This shouldn’t impact my blogging on here or EHD.