PhilRandolph.com

Wow, I'm on a roll today, so lets not stop now...

Finally got something to share, so here goes:

Had a user who wasn't able to comment on a blog correctly (either they would be refused when submitting, or the comment would go into blocked or draft comments).  Saw that the user had an apostrophe in some part of their name (like O'Shanahan, or D'Angelo).  I dug into the script libraries in the back end of our IBM Blog template and found where the comment form is rendered (inside the DXLiveContentEngine script library, and the renderCommentForm function).

This appears to be an issue whether or not you are requiring authenticated (logged-in) commenters or just anonymous.

The change to handle apostrophes (by just escaping them when they are found) is such, at least the way I did it:

If strUserName<>"" And strUserName<>"Anonymous" Then
   presetjs="prePopulateForm('"+strUserName+"','"+strUserEmail+"','"+strUserDept+"','"+strUserOrg+"');"
 End If

changes to:

If strUserName<>"" And strUserName<>"Anonymous" Then
    Dim escapedName As String
    escapedName = Replace(strUserName,"'","\'")
    presetjs="prePopulateForm('"+escapedName+"','"+strUserEmail+"','"+strUserDept+"','"+strUserOrg+"');"
 End If

Hope this is able to help someone...

Posted by Phil Randolph at 09:39:00 AM, in  Show-N-Tell Thursday  | S&TT - Handling Commenters with Apostrophes in their Names | Comments (9)

Wow, I just looked at my Statcounter widget and noticed that it's now past the five digit threshold, 10,000+ visits!  Woohoo!

Guess it's the time of year (Lotusphere) for a few more frequent hits to make their way here, and of course PlanetLotus.org is contributing greatly to the cause as well!  Oh, by the way, nice to meet the man behind PlanetLotus for a couple of chats on the showcase floor!  Good on ya Yancy!

Posted by Phil Randolph at 08:24:00 AM, in  Blogging  | Five Digit Territory | Comments (0)

I can't believe you guys!  You guys rock!

We all had a great time last week at Lotusphere 2008, and it was really great to be able to hang out with you all, but it's nice to have our nice social networking tools to be able to keep up with you all throughout the year.

What I'm amazed with, is that a bunch of you banded together to help a little girl (my daughter Katie), get her 100 days of school project done. FROM ALL AROUND THE WORLD!

Kath had a nice writeup about the project that she called to tell me about the last night of Lotusphere while the group of us was at ESPN for dinner. (and which I may add was a $136 less for me than last year's Thursday night dinner! w00t!) 

Here's some stats that she and the kids compiled that show the true power of social networking and how even a small kindergartener's project can pull a whole bunch of people together.

Quickest Email - Mrs Fields
From the Closest Location - Zachy My brother, downstairs
From the Farthest Location - Mr. Dan, Antarctica 10000 miles away
From the Coldest Location - Mr. Dan, Antarctica
From the Hottest Location - Miss. Whitlock, Anguilla
From a Doggie (and his Daddy too!) - Jessie and Mr. Carl (Tyler)
From the most people in one Family - Hamilton Family 5 emails
Favorite Email - Miss Kaitie Worlds' Best Babysitter
Multiple Locations - Coach Jim PA/NJ
Best Hockey Fans - It's a tie between all the Strongsville Mustang Fans and the Red Wing Fans

Mrs. Citro helped gather the most emails with all of her connections in New York

Mr. Eldred helped get the email from the farthest and coldest location

Locations, # of emails, Distance (based on our jr globe distance function)
States
Ohio 48
Alabama 1 530 miles
Colorado 1 1200 miles
Florida 3 880 miles
Illinois 1 360 miles
Indiana 1 180 miles
Iowa 3 550 miles
Kansas 1 840 miles
Michigan 3 290 miles
Nebraska 1 840 miles
New Hampshire 1 560 miles
New Jersey 1 460 miles
New York 16 480 miles
North Carolina 2 420 miles
Oregon 1 2100 miles
Pennsylvania 1 220 miles
South Carolina 1 400 miles
Tennessee 1 350 miles
Utah 1 1500 miles

Countries
Anguilla 1 2200 miles
Antarctica 1 10000 miles
Canada 2 390 miles
England 1 3900 miles
Indonesia 1 9800 miles
Mexico 1 1500 miles
New Zealand 1 8400 miles
Portugal 1 3700 miles
Scotland 2 3500 miles
Spain 1 3800 miles

Thanks again to all of you for making this really fun for our whole family!

Posted by Phil Randolph at 08:01:00 AM, in  Blogging  | The Power of Social Networking | Comments (1)

Bruce over at Red Wings Corner offers up news of Darren McCarty being offered a tryout with the AHL's Griffins after a 3 week stint with the Flint Generals.

More power to ya Mac...love to see you back in the Winged Wheel...but you gotta earn it!  Keep up the fight!

Posted by Phil Randolph at 08:40:00 AM, in  Wings  | McCarty on the way up... | Comments (0)

Will trickle in slowly as I gather my thoughts (and notes) from last week's very busy and exciting Lotusphere.  My laptop screen decided to go wonky on me in an afternoon session on Wednesday and I've thereafter been without an easy means to get anything published.

I'm planning on backdating my posts for relevancy's sake...so if you see some seemingly older stuff crop up, thats just going out there for posterity and such.

Loved hanging out with all of you (you know who you are).  Can't wait to do it again next year! 

Posted by Phil Randolph at 09:04:00 PM, in  Lotusphere  | Session/Day Recaps from Lotusphere 2008 | Comments (1)

Saturday morning the boys nabbed their third shutout in as many games, as they defeated Cleveland Skating Club 3-0.  Goals were tallied by Joey, Wyatt and Ian.  I was behind the scoring table by myself for the first time, in this game, and attempted to rein-in my excitement (I may have done a fair job...nobody complained), but it was nice to see the lines clicking and pressuring CSC most of the game. 

This win brings our record to 9-2 in the divison, which is good for 2nd place, two points behind Shaker Heights who finally have caught up to us in number of divison games played. Unfortunately they only have one divisional loss (to us) from the very beginning of the regular season.

Our last game of the regular season is Saturday, February 9th at Mentor.  Then on to our first out-of-state tournament in Niagara, New York.

Posted by Phil Randolph at 08:51:00 PM, in  Zach  | Regular Season - Game 13 | Comments (0)

I know I set a torrid pace blogging the sessions that first day, obviously I haven't been able to continue it as dilligently...ok, not at all..

There's notes on paper, and notes captured in calendar entries, and eventually they'll get up here for posterity and such. 

Amazing stuff being seen and learned here.  Some amazing people showing it and really innovating.  Such powerful tools for all of us to use to be more efficient and productive.

Hope everyone has been enjoying the 'Sphere so far!

Posted by Phil Randolph at 09:43:00 AM, in  Lotusphere  | The torrid pace has slowed... | Comments (0)

My wife has a wonderful write-up about our son Zach's hockey weekend and tournament WIN!

Go check it out here.

Posted by Phil Randolph at 09:31:00 AM, in  Zach  | We (They) are the Champions! | Comments (0)

JMP302 All Things Mail with IBM Lotus Domino
Speakers: Susan Bulloch, Paul Mooney
SW Pelican - Sunday 4:00pm - 6:00pm

Even though I'm not an Admin, and have little to do with Mail stuff, thought I'd take a look at this to "Expand my horizons", and secondarily, decompress at the end of the "zeroth day of Lotusphere" by not killing myself to understand everything.  Let's see what I can glean though...

NRPC - Notes Remote Procedure Call (Port 1352)
SMTP - Simple Mail Transport Protocol (Port 25)
MIME format - Multipurpose Internet Mail Extensions
Notes 7 & 8 can do MIME format messages natively now
mail.box - specialized LN database
Router - server task
Mailer - client side task
LDAP - Lightweight Directory Access Protocol
Message Recall task on by DEFAULT in Notes 8
Notes Named Network - a group of servers in the same Domain, sharing the same network protocol, sharing a constant LAN connection (ideally)
 Used for control
 Mail within a NNN routes automatically
 Use connection docs to control the flow of mail
Mobile Dircat - a small, fast directory
 can be a combo of directories
 created on a server
NRPC routing exists only between Domino Servers - otherwise it turns into SMTP
Mail routing requires two Connection docs
 One for each server on each end
 Replication requires just one
Each server holds "rooting" - sorry Paul... routing tables for every other Domino server primary Domino Directory
Two types of mail routing: Static and dynamic
 Static mail routing is the first method used by the router - based on Connection docs
 Dynamic routing uses NNN topology - used if no Connection docs exist
Routing path is determined by
 Cost of path
 Hops needed to complete the path
 Alphanumeric value of the server name (tie breaker)
Hops are the stops the message makes along the way
Server mail settings are in lots of places
 Server docs
 Connection docs
 Config docs
 Domain docs

My gosh, there is a ton of details and settings to this stuff...Lots of info in the slides...

Posted by Phil Randolph at 05:18:00 PM, in  Lotusphere  | JMP302 All Things Mail with IBM Lotus Domino | Comments (0)

While I'm at it...Happy Birthday Bill...thanks for working on your birthday...things don't change do they?

JMP206 Web Services Bootcamp
Speaker: Bill Buchan
SW 7-10 - Sunday 1:30pm - 3:30pm

My Notes...

What's Web Services?
App to App protocol for exchanging structured data
 Usually using http protocol
 Usually using XML
They are
 Language Independent
 Platform independent
 Data format representation independent

Players
 Server - answer questions, accept requests, repond to requests
 Client or consumer - knows where the web service server is located

Client drives the conversation, server cannot initiate a conversation with the client

Testing a Web Service
 SoapUI is recommende - http://www.soapui.org
 Allows you to interrogate a web service
  and build test case with real data

Using Domino to provide Web Services
 Using LotusScript as a Web Service
 Coding a Java Servlet
 Using an agent
 Simplest is to use a LotusScript Web Service

Web Service agent profiling - very nice item to use

Don't want to change a web service, once it's out...instead, rollout a new web service

Don't asume the consumer can perform a lot of data manipulation
 i.e. Blackberry smartphones/ Windows Mobile?

Best to put complex code in a script library, and surface it via a web service
 put a normal test harness agent around it and debug it

Bill shows a Contacts database
 Architecture question - Do we:
  Pass all fields back as web service items?
  Pass back an array of fields?

CAUTION: Web services built or compiled in Notes 8 designer won't run on ND7 anymore
 So be careful about what web services you hos on which servers, and which version of designer you use

ND8 now supports code in Java Libraries

WSDL - Web Services Description Language
 It's an XML document
 You can query the LS webservice for it's WSDL

Why construct a Web Service in a Servlet?
 Persistence
 Performance
Downsides?
 Very old servlet engine in Domino
 Old Versions of Java
 Complex
  More difficult to support

REST - Representational State Transition
 It's an architectural proposal - not a standard
 The query part of the web service is respresented using a URL

Why consume web services?
 To gain access to info in other systems
 To prevent the sync and replication of external data sources to Notes
 Real time, up to date data lookup
Where?
 Could use a sched. Java agent in Domino to interrogate external services
  No UI means you have to monitor and shck
 Could use client-driven code on the client workstation
 
Easy to consume in Notes8

What if we don't have ND8?
 COM - using MSSoap Toolkit - a dll for each workstation
 COM - using MS XMLHTTP
 Stubby on 7
  Project on OpenNTF.org
  Generates the relevant java stub files to allow you to consume java web services
  Runs on the Notes Client - and only in 7
 Use the helper form to create the necessary stub files... 

So much stuff in the slides, can't do it justice...so..go get them...

Posted by Phil Randolph at 03:14:00 PM, in  Lotusphere  | JMP206 Web Services Bootcamp - and Happy Birthday Bill! | Comments (0)

JMP205 AJAX and JSON for IBM Lotus Domino Applications
Speaker: Scott Good
SW Pelican - Sunday  10:30am - 12:30pm

My Notes...

JSON
JavaScript Object Notation
 Extends power of Js Arrays
 Viable alternative to XML as a data transport
 Smaller/Faster, much easier to work with
JS Variables don't have to be single value, can contain arrays
 Array elements are identified by position number, starting with zero
 var myChild = ["Sydney", 14, "female"];
 var sydneyAge = myChild[1];
 Array elements can also be identified by name
  myChild["name"] = "Sydney";
  myChild["age"] = 14;
 Named array elements can also be identified in a single statement:
 var myChild {
  name:"Sydney",
  age: 14,
  gender: "female"
  };   THIS IS JSON, but that's not all there is to this...
JSON is a means of describing JS objects which can be filled with pretty much anything JavaScript
It is a good idea to put quotes around the identifiers
 i.e. "name" :"Syndey", "age" : 14, ....
One set of named-pairs can contain others:
 var myKids={
 Corey: {age: 21, gender: "female"},
 Thaddeus: {age:21, gender: "male"},
 Sydney: {age: 14, gender: "female"},
 Cameron: {age: 7, gender: "female"}
 },
Can also add more named-pair sets...extended as far as you want
Also can use [text] instead of "dots" (when you don't perhaps know the value)
Comparatively, the JSON vs. the XML for some data can be about half the characters, and also you would have to parse the XML before you can use it
Some data formats that JSON can't support - audio and video
JSON much easier to work with
How do you use JSON in web apps?
 In JS Header
 In JS Libraries
 Computed info from Lookups (shown via pass-thru html inside script tags), or WebQueryOpen agents
 From Notes Views, along with AJAX... (embedded view, formatted to look like JSON object)
Beginning with 7.02 you can get JSON from web views
 .../ViewName?ReadViewEntries&OutputFormat=JSON
 You get out a JSON object, but you can't get directly to it...so what can we do?
  Can only get the JSON code with a URL
  NOT as a DBLookup or an embedded view
  But, you can use the NotesView JSON with AJAX

AJAX
 Asychronous JavasScript And XML
 Works independently of the UI - that's the "async."
 CAN use XML as the data transport, but doesn't have to
  Can be JSON or plain text even
 Lets you dynamically retrieve data from the server while the user is busy with other stuff...
 Older browsers can't to this stuff (IE before 5.5 and others around that time)

Scott now goes into alot of the syntax of the calls...darned if I'm trying to type most of that...go get the slides of this stuff... 
Demos too...stuff we can check out in the database he'll give us to download I'm sure.

Where can you get JSON from Domino?
 Notes Views using ?ReadView...
 Custom JSON objects
 Notes Pages
 Notes Agents
 JavaScript Libraries
 JS Header
 Computed Text on field in the form

Posted by Phil Randolph at 12:14:00 PM, in  Lotusphere  | JMP205 AJAX and JSON for IBM Lotus Domino Applications | Comments (1)

JMP401 QuickStart: Warp 9 -- Getting Up to Speed on Social Software and IBM Lotus Connections
Speakers: Ted Stanton, Gia Lyons
SW 1-4 - Sunday  08:00am - 10:00am

Pluggins to Connections all over
 Notes, Sametime, Quickr, Websphere Portal, RSS Feeds, MS Office Apps & Explorer
Profile card
 Links to each of tools in conected of person - their blogs, dogears, activities, etc...
Blogs
 Hot Blogs (recent hits) (sidebar widgets)
 Most Commented
Dogear
 Watchlist - tags, people
  Anytime new dogears are made which match what you're watching for, they'll show in watchlist
Activities
 Integration with ToDos, Emails, ST Chat, Files
 Templates of Activities - items (even involved people) can be pre-populated
Deployment of Connections
 Don't have to deploy all services to take advantages of individual ones (can pick and choose)
Adopting inside and outside the organization
 Multi-generational organization, need to understand what each age group is "about"
 Social networking = Making trusted relationships with others in the organization
 Teams do not necessarily equal "communities" - but they are complimentary
  Teams - get things done
  Communities - share knowledge
  Team members leverage knowledge of people in communities to get things done on their team
There is a 12 step adoption plan (see slides for details)
 Step 2 - not everyone needs to be active contributors
  90% are lurkers/readers, 9% active participants, 1% early adopters and evangelists

Posted by Phil Randolph at 10:17:00 AM, in  Lotusphere  | JMP401 QuickStart: Warp 9 -- Getting Up to Speed on Social Software and IBM Lotus Connections | Comments (0)

Right after my plane landed in Orlando this morning around 10:30, I called my wife's cell phone to find out how Zach's game went.  Katie answered the phone "hi daddy" in her cute little princess voice, and asked if I was in Orwando, and said she was gald that I was safe.  Then she said, "Zachie won".  Then she asked if I wanted to talk to him.

Zach apparently scored two goals in a 7-2 win over Parma.  Not sure what the goal distribution was across the periods, but I'm hoping they won each.  If so, they'll have gained 5 more points, for a total of 7.5 after two games.  Should be in good shape.  Wyatt had a hat trick (would have like to have seen that), Joey scored one and so did Gavin.  Great job boys....sorry I can't be there for the rest of the tournament, but work and Lotusphere calls!

Posted by Phil Randolph at 02:53:00 PM, in  Zach  | Cleveland Heights Tournament - Game 2 | Comments (0)

Chris Whisonant just outed the new site BleedYellow.com via a post on his new blog hosted on Lotus911's new Lotus Connections based site.

Ooh...and Sametime too...gotta try it out...

Head on over and get onboard, let see how it'll work!

Posted by Phil Randolph at 02:08:00 PM, in  Notes/Domino  | Here we go...BleedYellow.com | Comments (3)

How can a division in a tournament be completely tied after each team has played one game?  Here's how...

Parma and Cleveland Skating Club skated themselves to a 0-0 tie in the first game and therefore managed to come away with 2.5 points each.  Each team getting 1 point for the tie, and 1/2 a point for each tied period... Ok, that makes sense...

Then Zach's Mustangs team played the following game against Euclid.  After the first period - no score, so 1/2 a point each.  Euclid won the second period, getting out to a 2-0 or 2-1 lead, I don't totally recall which, so 1 full point to them. Strongsville came back to tie the game at 2-2 in the third, and that's how it finished.  So, 1 full point to Strongsville for winning the third, then a split of the final 2 points which would have come from a win, because the full game ended in a tie.  Confused yet?  Nah...no problem...

So, after the first day of the tournament all 4 teams in the Mite A3 division are fully knotted up at 2.5 points!  Crazy!

Ian scored on a flukey play with the puck bouncing around and then into the net. Zach scored what turned out to be game tying goal on a quick backhand flip just a couple feet out from the net.

The next game in the tournament for us is Saturday morning against Parma, then a Sunday game against Cleveland Skating Club.  If all goes well the rest of the way, they could make the championship game on Sunday evening. 

I'll still be in the air on the way to Orlando and Lotusphere when our boys are taking Saturday's opening faceoff, but should be able to get game recap from Kath not long after I get off the plane.  I'm sure I'll tweet about it!

Posted by Phil Randolph at 01:32:00 PM, in  Zach  | Cleveland Heights Tournament - Game 1 | Comments (0)

Chris has hooked us up with a great tool to keep in touch and up to date with all everyone's tweeting about at Lotusphere, even if you're not actually there.  Check out his instructions and sign yourself up!

Oh, One more thing...in case anyone is looking for it last minute (like I was just a few minutes ago), here is the Mears Coupon for transport to your hotel from the Orlando airport.  Just makes it simple...done it many times.

Posted by Phil Randolph at 09:25:00 AM, in  Lotusphere  | Lotusphere Twitter, come one, come all | Comments (2)

I believe Lotus911's own Chris Whisonant is celebrating the big 30 today.  That's of course assuming my math is correct...

Happy birthday buddy!  See you in just a few days!

Posted by Phil Randolph at 09:12:00 AM, in  Blogging  | The Whis’ Birthday | Comments (2)

But someday perhaps I will...so Notes on the iPhone and other Apple devices is great news! 

IBM plans a formal announcement of the Lotus Notes e-mail package for Apple's portable devices at its Lotusphere conference in Orlando, Fla, next week. The software, which requires use of IBM's Domino e-mail server program, will be free for users who already have a Lotus Web-access license and start at $39 per year for new users.

IBM also plans to release Lotus Notes and the free Lotus Symphony "productivity" package which includes documents, spreadsheets and other Microsoft Office-like software for Apple's Macintosh computers.

With these moves, IBM is trying to find more avenues for its software and take advantage of Apple's natural affinity for Microsoft alternatives.

You can check out many other Lotus bloggers' reactions to this...and likely most of them will show up in the nifty-neato sidebar widget over there on the left for PlanetLotus.org

Posted by Phil Randolph at 09:08:00 AM, in  Notes/Domino  | Not that I have one... | Comments (0)

As of yesterday Katie's 100 email collection kindergarten project stood at 95.  She's still got a while (a couple of weeks) to turn it in, and I'd love to see just how many come in over the long run.  Zach's all ready to help out with the statistics tracking and such, so we can do a full analysis on the results.

Zach's Flat Stanley project is still going on as well.  This time he's turned up in - New Zealand!

Posted by Phil Randolph at 09:59:00 AM, in  Family  | Updates on the kids’ projects | Comments (0)

Good information for Lotusphere newbies (how to get around, where to go, what to watch out for) and veterans (Lotusphere Idol, new Jamfest location, new dining plan) alike. Get that yellow blood pumping...

Bruce, Julian, Rocky, "Wild" Bill and a brief snippet with Paul are a part of this 74th podcast by the Taking Notes guys

Posted by Phil Randolph at 09:40:00 AM, in  Lotusphere  | Lotusphere newbies gotta listen...or anyone else for that matter | Comments (0)

Team Cleveland has been formed for the Lotusphere Barmy Bloggers Boat Race.

We'll be racing in 2nd Heat on Tuesday at 12:55.

There's still many more slots open, join up!

Posted by Phil Randolph at 10:39:00 AM, in  Lotusphere  | Me and Gregg in a boat with guns...heh... | Comments (2)

Just logged in seconds ago, just making sure you are aware that you may have an email waiting for you.  Here's the link we'll be spending some time at for the next couple weeks - LS08.net

Things look interesting, I'll have to take a full look around tonight.  I'll post any interesting findings by me or others, and any gotchas as well...hope there aren't too many of those.

Can't wait to see all you 'Spherians in less than a week!

Posted by Phil Randolph at 04:52:00 PM, in  Lotusphere  | Lotusphere Online for ’08 is...online | Comments (0)

Warren tells us about what's new for this year at the Lotusphere Barmy Bloggers Boat Race.  Sounds like it's to be a slalom now, with electric boats. Oh, and FREE!!!!!!

Yay! Doesn't seem to be a disadvantage to be on the "slight" side weight-wise, like Sean and I were last year...couldn't dig into the water with the pedals, we were sitting too high in the water. 

I was all ready to request a larger partner in preparation for this year...guess I don't have to do that now.

Anyone want to team up with me?  Let me know, via email or comment...

Registration is here

Posted by Phil Randolph at 11:16:00 AM, in  Lotusphere  | Boat Race time again! | Comments (0)

The old chick Francie Whitlock and Jake Howlett both celebrate birthdays today.

Happy birthday to both of you!

Posted by Phil Randolph at 09:23:00 AM, in  Blogging  | Francie’s and Jake’s Birthday | Comments (0)

See the news on his blog.

Posted by Phil Randolph at 07:56:00 PM, in  Notes/Domino  | Devin Olson to Lotus911! | Comments (0)

Katie, our little Kindergartener is quickly approaching the 100th day of school for the year.  We were talking about what kind of collection of 100 things she could take to school on that day.  My wife and I seemed to be on the same wavelength, because as I was thinking to myself, "100 emails", she asked Katie, "How about we ask people to send you emails, and see if we can get 100 of those".  Katie agreed, and an email to our distribution list was created. 

My thought was to see how many of you might want to participate in this as well.  Won't hurt I'm sure that readership is way, way up over here with the proximity of Lotusphere.

Here's Katie's message to you:

Hi I'm Katelyn, I'm in Kindergarten and we are trying
to collect 100 things.  I thought it would be fun to
try and collect 100 emails to ME!  Please send me an
email at my Mom and Dad's address.   Just say Hi and
tell me where you are sending me an email from.

Thank you,

Katelyn
randpkz@yahoo.com

I'll followup in a future post about how many we get and perhaps what the farthest places from us were...

Would you believe we received a response less than 5 minutes after we sent the initial email?

Thanks again from Katie and all of us!

p.s. - Remember, this is a Kindergarten project, so nothing in there that you wouldn't want read by their teacher to a class of  impressionable 5 year olds...OK?

Posted by Phil Randolph at 07:40:00 AM, in  Katelyn  | Katie’s School Project | Comments (2)

Sometime you lose unexpectedly, sometimes you win unexpectedly.  Fortunately last night our boys came out on the good side of that equation, and took their exhibition game against Rocky River Mite 2 from the A2 division by a score of 2-1.  They must have been inspired by their trip to the Monster's game on Sunday night and the Monday skills practice they spent with #14 Mark McCutcheon - a Monsters forward.

Gavin scored a first period goal assisted by Anthony, and then Blake proceded to blank Rocky River for the rest of that period and the next.  Rocky River took a couple of penalties and their second one which occured in the 3rd period cost them, as Zach got a shot on net that squirted through the goalies legs.  A powerplay goal!  It turned out to be the game winner, as later in the waning minutes a seemingly harmless shot by Rocky River off the endboards deflected toward the goalpost and between it and Blake's paddle.  Blake really saved the game for us in the closing minutes and seconds making two awesome chest saves on hard shots by our opponents.

This brings our team's regular season record to 9 - 3, and they still stand at 8 - 2 in division games.  They don't play again until the Cleveland Heights tournament which takes place over the weekend that I head off to Lotusphere.  After that they still have two more division games against Cleveland Skating Club and Mentor to finish up the regular season. 

Go Mustangs!

Posted by Phil Randolph at 03:02:00 PM, in  Zach  | Regular Season Game 12 | Comments (0)

Hope they really do follow through on this during or after Lotusphere...

"New for 2008! We've listened to your feedback about how you'd like to have access to sessions, to either listen to the replay of sessions you attended, or listen to sessions you didn't make it to while at Lotusphere. This year we'll be delivering both MP3 files as well as the PDFs of most sessions from the Futures and Innovations (INV), Application Development (AD) and Managing Your Collaboration Infrastructure (ID) tracks."

I know this will be a big boon to me, as after perusing the session database I'm double or triple booked at almost every time slot for something that pertains or is of interest to me and what I'm doing in my job. 

Posted by Phil Randolph at 09:27:00 PM, in  Lotusphere  | Session MP3s and PDFs - This is gonna be nice | Comments (3)

Coming to the Lotusphere after party on Thursday the 24th?

Let John know if you are coming...a ton of us will be there!  

See the current details and who's on the list on this entry.  Also leave your RSVP there, not here...I disabled comments on this entry.

Posted by Phil Randolph at 07:00:00 AM, in  Lotusphere  | Thursday night after the ’Sphere | (0)

The boys played game 11 on Saturday afternoon at Euclid.  This game didn't go so well, and even though they shut them out two weeks ago, this time they fell 3-1.

Zach scored our lone goal on a trickler that made it through from at least the top of the faceoff circles.  It was a strange game and our boys just we're quite on for some reason...maybe their trip to Pump-It-Up on Thursday night took too much out of them...I don't know... 

Zach also gave us quite a scare late in the third period when we went hard into the end boards with his lower back and then his helmeted head snapped back into it too.  He and a Euclid player were going after a puck sent deep into our offensive zone.  When he hit, he pretty much immediately crumpled, which has never happened before, so I raced down out of the stands to get over to the glass at the far end to see if he was ok.  He layed there for 30 seconds or more, but by the time Coach Mark got over to him from the bench he was starting to get up and told his coach "I'm ok".  He skated off gingerly.  He was back out for a couple more shifts though until the end of the game.  His back was really bothering him in the locker room and in the van on the way home, so we gave him a nice hot shower and some Motrin, then got some Icy-Hot stuff all over his lower back before bed.

Amazingly he was up and ready (pretty much) for his 6AM practice the next morning.  Boy, that kid is resilient!

Sunday night our boys got to participate in the "Starting Lineup" with the Lake Erie Monsters at The Q.  They got to skate through the big blow-up Monster head ahead of the Monster's players, slap hands with them, and then stand at the blue line with the starters for the National Anthems.  After the game there was a post-game skate and autographs session and Zach got about 6 or 7 signatures on his hockey gloves and the collar area of his quasi-UnderArmor shirt.  I even caught a probably 2X size shirt thrown by the team's mascot late in the game, and we put it on Katie and it hung down all the way to her ankles. Very cute. She wore it for a nightgown last night.  Hopefully I'll be able to get a few pictures, and maybe even a short video up when I can get them off Kath's laptop later on.

The Mustang's next game is on Tuesday night, where it again will be an exhibition (non-divisional) game against Rocky River who plays in the A2 division, one level up. 

Posted by Phil Randolph at 08:43:00 AM, in  Zach  | Regular Season - Game 11, and Monsters stuff | Comments (0)

We're almost up to Game 11 (tomorrow) and I'm just getting out the info from Game 10.

This was the team's first exhibition game of the regular season, and they faced the Mite AA team from Garfield Heights.  That's playing up 3 levels...wow!

The game started out very well, and our boys actually emerged from the first period keeping Garfield Heights off the scoreboard, we didn't score either, probably due to the fact that the puck was in our defensive zone probably 85-90% of the time.  But a scoreless first period was very impressive.  Blake was making lots of saves and the boys really were making a good effort to block shots or passes and keep it out of the net.  Garfield put several quick ones in at the beginning of the second period, then Andras slipped one past their goalie and we stood at 3-1, wow, we were really still in it... 

This didn't last too long, and our boys really started to get tired with all the pressure Garfield was putting on, Gavin did come in pretty hard toward the net and almost got one in, but instead he crashed into the goalpost pretty hard...but he got up and kept going.  When all was said and done, we took a 9-1 loss, but we were still very, very proud of how the boys played and kept their heads up in a game where they were clearly outmatched.

This gets us to an 8 - 2 record in the regular season, but still 8 - 1 in division games.  We play Euclid at their rink on Saturday afternoon.

After our Mite 3 game, the next day, Zach and a couple of his teammates were given the opportunity to play with the Mite 2 team in a scrimmage game against Mentor, at least I think it was Mentor...it was early on Sunday so I don't recall so well...  They ended up taking a loss as well, 7-0 but Zach had fun joining up with the next level up team.

Posted by Phil Randolph at 01:02:00 PM, in  Zach  | Regular Season - Game 10...and more | Comments (0)

Late last night I took the couple seconds necessary to give the new PlanetLotus.org widget a prominent spot just below Idea Jam in my left sidebar.  I still need to do some height tweaking to let it show the number of entries I want, but I'm happy to direct people to other blogs via this great tool that Yancy has created.  Can't wait to hear what he talked about with Bruce and Julian on the next Taking Notes Podcast.

Posted by Phil Randolph at 12:54:00 PM, in  Notes/Domino  | Planet Lotus Widget | Comments (0)

My vote is in, is yours?

Posted by Phil Randolph at 09:58:00 AM, in  Blogging  | Who will it be? | Comments (0)

"He absolutely put Marty Turco's jock strap in the rafters"

- Mickey Redmond following Johan Franzen's goal in the second period of Detroit's 4-1 win over Dallas

Posted by Phil Randolph at 08:14:00 AM, in  Wings  | Quote of the Day | Comments (0)

Looks like I haven't been checking my social networks close enough lately.  It seems Ray celebrated his birthday yesterday on New Year's Day.

Happy Birthday Big Guy!

Update - Sorry for that old link above...gotta keep a better handle on my blogroll links, just too much consumption via rss anymore.... Here's the right link to Ray's Blog

Posted by Phil Randolph at 08:56:00 PM, in  Blogging  | Ray Bilyk’s birthday yesterday...oops | Comments (2)

Well, to kick off the new year yesterday, I decided while I had a few free moments to get my RSS feeds put into feedburner.  It'll be nice to take advantage of the statistics I'll be able to glean from them, and see how many (or how few perhaps) of you are coming my way via the feeds instead of the blog page directly. The links on the left are now pointing to the new feeds. 

Posts: http://feeds.feedburner.com/philrandolphposts

Comments: http://feeds.feedburner.com/philrandolphcomments

Please switch your readers over to these new feeds so that my stats are as correct as possible...thanks!

Posted by Phil Randolph at 12:00:00 PM, in  Blogging  | Feedburner feeds built | Comments (2)