My Resumé.

I’ve been slowly working on getting my ‘curriculum vitae’ written up in L^AT_EX in order to easily publish it in PDF. I will most likely be working on getting it published in HTML format as well and have only thought briefly about publishing for Word. Luckily all of this is relatively simple since I know how to use some tools which can automate much of this process.

I’m posting the document(s) here so I can later reference it (them) using a hyperlink and so that my friends and family can have a look over all of it. If you find anything which might be improved I encourage you to let me know.

• PDF
• DOC
• HTML

These links were also published on Google’s Page Creator so I could get a nice looking url to put on my resume. http://monaghan.david.googlepages.com/myresume

YAU – Yet Another Update.

As usual I'm catching up, I promise to get better about writing good sized articles about specific subjects in the future but I hope you understand and can live through the frustration (actually I hope there isn't any frustration). Here we go, another multi-topic article to get back up to speed (there's actually more than usual about more than just myself, until my Mom starts up the family blog I'm going to have to be the official Rogers family news center). 

So last monday (May 16th) I went in to the Dentist's office yet again and did the usual (actually please contact me privately for information which I can't disclose here at the moment) and I'm one step closer to having dentures. In about a month I'm going to get checked up and possibly molded for the top row.

This can't be overly exciting for anyone but that's it.

I've been applying for part time work close to home recently, that's somewhat new. Nothing is solid yet but I'm hoping for a job at DJ's Smoke Shop which is very close and already employs a good friend of mine. 

Oh can't forget, I started using Skype not long ago so that's another way I can be contacted for those who have it or who decide to try it out. I'm not big into chatting really but it's a very efficient way for me to keep in contact with people b/c I don't have a cell phone and spend a great deal of time on my computer at the moment. I'm also very proficient at typing so I find it very comfortable. I currently have almost all of my family here in Arizona using Google Talk but I'm not overly excited by how the application has progressed since it's release. Skype is certainly a bit more powerful but I only have two friends using it so far and don't care for the interface at all. One thing which currently must be noted when talking about Skype is the fact that they offer free calls to anywhere in the US and Canada from Skype to a normal telephone until the end of the year. I've tried it once, not with perfect results but it does work without question.
You can find me on Skype easily if you know my first and last name but it's best if I give you my user-name, "WilliaMonaghan".

That brings up another subject; My user-name at WordPress is MonaghanDavid and that's what I use most places. Sometimes either I forget the order or someone has taken it and I use DavidMonaghan but that is pretty rare. The problem is that many times I try to sign up for a service and choose a user-name I find that either one or both of my usual names are taken (e.g. Yahoo! IM). So, I decided a while ago to start hunting for names which haven't been used anywhere at all so I could eventually use the same name everywhere with little worry of later ending up with the same problem (while it's never completely avoidable it is possible to minimize it greatly). So that's that, I came upon WilliaMonaghan and upon quick inspection I do believe this one will be a bit more safe from being registered before I register it.  Hopefully posting it here and just the fact that people know I will be using this in the future won't cause the same problem (I would be surprised if this is currently happening), I'm also not really happy that it can easily be guessed what user-name I use at any given place but seeing as how the information is already public I can't imagine any harm actually coming from this single technicality. So that's it, I'm not sure how easy it will be to communicate this orally but I'm not expecting too much difficulty. As usual let me know what you think.

Samantha's nearing 'year' end of her eighth year so she's entering High School very soon (she's on year round so about two months I think). Besides that she's going to be taking math over the summer in order to be eligible for the IB program at 'year' start of her ninth. Good fun, it was her choice BTW…

Kevin and Kate were in Hawaii for the week before last, they had a very good time and came back with a good amount of pictures.

Jay – a friend of mine from back in HS whom I recently got back in touch with after many years on MySpace – came over last night and we spent some time watching a documentary about a plane he repairs and builds electronics for. After that we just sat in the back yard and passed notes about various technologies (mostly internet based). That was a lot of fun and can't wait to get back at it, "Come back over anytime Jay, I'll get out to your side of town soon I promise."

So that's about it for now, hope everyone is doing well and has weather as fine as I'm experiencing at this moment (outside here in Chandler at night during the Summer is very tolerable, I especially like going outside when it's dark out).  Be sure to check out Skype or Google Talk, if you're wishing you had a GMail invite I'm sure they're available almost anywhere but I'd be happy to extend mine to anyone who sends me a request and provides me with an email address to send it to. Good day all, over and out.

Happy Mothers Day 2006.

Just wanted to take a few minutes to say, "Happy Mothers Day" to everyone, hope you could spend some time with your kids and/or mother today, I'm certainly glad I was able to. I'm over at my Grandma's house spending time with not only my Mom but also her Mom and her Mom's Mom as well (I am very fortunate for this). My Grandma did a bit of cooking but overall everyone relaxed a great deal. Many of us spent some time in the temperate pool and worked on our tans.

On another note tomorrow I'm going in to get more teeth pulled, I was due in last Monday but some plumbing problems at the dentist's office postponed that. I'm excited to get the rest taken out, it's a bit of an annoyance to be going through this for so long but I'm happy to put up with anything to reach a solution.

One more, "Happy Mothers Day!"

What I’m Up To.

I've been doing many things lately, I've got a lot on my plate and not enough time to discuss it with everyone. That's why I maintain this blog as you may have read in my earlier post Why I Blog. I've been trying to let people know in any way possible that if they're interested in what I'm doing that it would be easiest on both of us to see my information on the various web services I use. Obviously this blog is one of those services, and I treat it like it's a mailing list about my life.

Unfortunately I'm not very good at keeping it up to date and there's really too many things for me to mention. Some of the most important projects I am involved in that I haven't mentioned are; My reviews of web services on my other blog (Upgrade Technology Blog). I haven't fully reviewed any of the services yet but I have posted an explanation of the project which I am also using to collect the pieces of information I will be collecting. I'm also learning Ruby – a programming language – and some of the tools associated with it.

Besides these projects which I hope to soon profit from I have also been doing many things for entertainment; I love to watch movies in a home, most often I do so with my friends Scooter and Jessica who also let me borrow a few of the DVD's they have almost every time I'm there. Another thing I do to relax is play Day of Defeat: Source which is a multi-player online first person shooter game which was created by the makers of Half Life and the many expansions which have evolved from it. I got hooked on multi-player first person shooters playing Duke Nukem 3D and moved to an internet multi-player FPS with Counter Strike and later Condition Zero (all of these but Duke Nukem were created by Valve). Day of Defeat is very similar in style to Counter Strike and Condition Zero but the time period and place are entirely different which is a welcome change from the same old CS and CZ teams and weapons. My favorite thing about DOD:S is the game style, rather than having to wait for a new round to begin as in CS and CZ. The style is a capture the flag scenario rather than a bomb plant or hostage extraction mission. I'm not big in to games but I like to play DOD:S every week or so and about once a month I spend some time on a free web based MMORPG called Runescape. It's not really my style but it's free and I can play it while doing other things. Today I'm over at my Grandma E's house with my Mom, George and Sam. We're not doing anything special, actually everyone but me and Grandma Durst are in the pool, I'm in the back yard at the patio table writing this article. Lately I've been getting in touch with a bunch of friends I haven't talked to in over five years, all from my high school days at Deer Valley and Valley Academy. The reason it's happening so much now is because of MySpace, I have a profile and many other people do as well, on MySpace you can invite other members to be your 'friend'. I've had an account at MySpace for a while but never really used it until I started finding all of these friends. It started with Jolie adding me as a friend and sending me a message, I looked at her friends list and found a few people I knew so I invited them to be my friend. Repeat the friend finding process on each new friend you make and you'll most likely be surprised to find so and so that you haven't seen in X years, very fun stuff. While most of the people on MySpace are teens or close to it there are plenty of 'adults' there as well. I recommend that anyone check it out if only to find long lost friends (or if you're looking to meet new people in your area, for whatever reason).

I spend a great deal of time researching different web services, especially now that I've been focusing on reviewing them. I've got almost (if not more than) 300 different web services identified and bookmarked on Delicious. I keep track of them according to how well I know them (heard of, seen and used) and I also mark the ones that I personally use frequently. I have another Delicious list specifically for keeping track of the web sites where I have public content you can see.

Wondering how my teeth are doing? Thanks for asking, I've been following the same routine, one extraction at the beginning of every week. I've another appointment this monday in the afternoon but I have an update which I can't really explain here. It's nothing huge but you may be interested especially to know that things will be much easier and less time consuming. If you'd like to know please inquire via email or phone and I'd be happy to indulge all of the secret facts for you.

Another Tooth Extracted.

Today I had another tooth extracted, I was out of the house almost exactly thirty minutes. The office is pretty close and the dentist I’m seeing is amazing.

When I got home my Mom thought something must have gone wrong, I’m so excited to have found such a great place.

That’s all, just wanted to let everyone know it went very well. I have appointments for next Tuesday and the one following for the same procedure, and will continue until they are all out.

An Extraction Every Week.

Today (as I wrote yesterday) I had an appointment with a dentist to have my remaining teeth examined, and I’m happy to say this visit went extraordinarily well. This dentist did agree with me and the oral surgeon; None of my teeth are worth recovering, and my situation was not caused by my lack of dental care, as many people have already agreed with me, some people have a genetic disposition which basically makes enamel on their teeth more brittle than average. Besides the obvious genetic traits of my family, I also have a problem with grinding my teeth uncontrollably while I sleep which as you can guess doesn’t help the situation.

So why didn’t my earlier dentists see this? Was it too hard to know until my situation grew apparently out of control, or could an educated doctor have guessed that a young person with obviously more decay than is normally experienced by other patients might have problems which actually inhibit the use of restoration techniques? In any case this dentist (who I am purposefully not naming until I get permission to) agrees that I do have teeth which are not in any case something to be saved or built upon, and that any dentist who tries to build upon them is only trying to make more money for their office or themselves. Now that I have enough personal and professional opinion backing up my theory, I feel comfortable not accepting any dentists solution which I do not feel is adequate, and I urge anyone else in the same position to do their own research and get second, third, etc. opinions before simply taking the doctors orders. I had luck by doing this, and feel my situation will improve dramatically because I have done so, not only in the immediate future but for many years to come. It is important to remember during any experience that you are the only one who can truly understand your problems, and it is up to you to decide if a doctor’s recommendation is really best for you. If you feel other alternatives are not being equally explored by your doctor, it is up to you to get a second opinion and this doesn’t mean asking the same doctor again, go see another doctor or even call a few and try to verify the authenticity of the recommendations you have been given before taking them, especially if you feel the advice is somehow biased.

This dentist was amazing, we talked, laughed, shook hands, and I firmly believe that he cares more about getting me healthy than receiving my money (which is good for him because he will actually get more money from me as a result). After this visit my feelings towards the future of my teeth are much better, I truly feel like the situation will be completely under control in less than six months. Every week I will be returning to get one tooth extracted, today we started on the top-right molar furthest back (it already felt loose and came out pretty easy) and each following visit we will be working our way across until they are all out. There wasn’t any pain during or after the extraction, even now two hours after the procedure and the novocaine having worn off, I don’t even really feel the slightest bit of irritation. I’ll have to let you know more after I eat, but so far so great.

I’m truly excited about this now, and feel no fear over the procedures or over the incompetence of the dentist. Now that I think of it, I should probably post the names or at least the offices of the dentists
I have had problems with, if only as a reference for myself (though I’m sure many people would like to avoid them as well).

Thank God for caring people, and thank you everyone for your support in this long process.

A Little Catching Up.

It’s been months I know and I’m sorry if anyone has been let down, but in my own defense; I don’t really have any way to know if anyone is reading without getting messages of one form or another. Please let me know if you’re taking the time to read this blog, which I am using to deliver information about happenings in my life to anyone interested en masse. With more knowledge of readership I would be happy to contribute more of my time to this project, otherwise I’m afraid quarterly updates may have to do…

To start, I moved back in with my Mom, George and Samantha back in January. Since then I’ve visited the dentist and had eight teeth removed and have another appointment tomorrow. I’m hoping to get them all removed which is why I am seeing another dentist, the first I saw (who referred me to an oral surgeon) thought only four teeth should be removed and that dentures weren’t a suitable solution, where I and the last oral surgeon disagree.

George had his birthday mid-January, in February I turned 23, and my Mom had her birthday in March. My Mom and George also celebrated their anniversary in February a day away from my birthday.

Last month Sam went to Disney Land and stayed in California for a week, the first of her two spring break weeks, she undoubtedly enjoyed this extremely. She went with family we have in Tucson and paid only for her Disney Land ticket.

Hope everyone is hanging in there, goodnight.

Happy New Year 2006.

Well, resolutions have been made and the ball has dropped and that marks the end of our fabulous year of 2005. To be honest not many people feel that last year was all that great but I see things moving forward, and although much more must be done in order to call this or any other year a complete success, much has been done to get here and I am thankful for at least that.

Last night Jessica, Scooter, and my Mom came over here to Kate and Kevin’s house. It definitely wasn’t a wild night, but we did have plenty of wine on hand and I think we all enjoyed ourselves, that is until Jessica ended up with a headache (at which point she abandoned the party which again wasn’t very extravagant with exception to the great dinner Kate made us). Like our get together I’m going to keep this post short and sweet, hope everyone had a pleasant new year, and that one of you will figure out why there is a beaver in the Google New Year 2006 logo.

How Was Your Christmas of 2005?

I hope everyone had a good time this December 25th (or on any other festive days you have celebrated this month) just as we all did here. This year everyone seems to have gotten spoiled, Samantha got a bed she’s been craving which she is probably now enjoying through the large amount of space she regained in her room, Kevin got a DSLR (digital single lens reflex) camera with two lenses along with a computerized and motorized telescope which makes Kevin a happy camper! Besides that Jessica and Scott got some nice dish sets to match their collection which they didn’t even know existed, both Kathrine and Jaimie got a fountain for their house, and I got a laptop. These were the hot gifts on this side of the fence, besides that there was much more little stuff which if I mentioned would put you to sleep, but know there was some good stuff in there.

The important thing which is the family getting together and making each other feel welcome and loved has been achieved, and I can’t wait until the next chance we get to congregate again. Each time I see my great-grandmother I feel blessed to have the chance again to let her know how much I love her and experience her wisdom. June has been through hard times and good, both on personal and national scales, besides that she’s been everywhere in this country from the farm to the city. I can’t explain in words how lucky we are as a family, apparently inseparable by differences of opinion, social habits, or political views. Many other families struggle to even keep in contact with their members, in fact some families have not just lost touch but have lost each other completely.

Did we celebrate Christ this Christmas? I don’t think so, not that we didn’t put up a tree and say his name a million times, but why do I have to look so hard to see where we kept him in mind? Why is the meaning of this tradition lost in the hustle and bustle? Perhaps it’s the confusion which surrounds the holiday (or should I say the shady history of the day it is celebrated on) or is it that my family has lost touch with their spirituality? I myself wasn’t given a formal Christian education, but instead have had to gain the experience and knowledge myself from other family members and the word from the bible itself. Why don’t we pray for forgiveness before opening the boxes of presents that we idolize rather than the moment this holiday celebrates? I know that some if not most of my family believes in Christ, but it somehow doesn’t shine through even in the most important times. I don’t mean to patronize anyone, I myself suffer the same disease, but I am changing that this year with a real new years resolution to devote myself to God’s will rather than my own. I don’t want to portray that I don’t already aim to do so, but this year I want to dramatically improve that my obedience by showing my faith before everything I do by praying and celebrating in his wisdom rather than focusing on small personal problems.

That’s that for now, let me know what you got, I would love to listen and be interested in whatever you would like to talk about without imposing any of my personal affections on you, although if you know me you will agree that I have been known to do so on just about every occasion we’ve met. Hope all is well and getting better where ever you are and who ever you may be.

2005 Christmas Greeting from David Monaghan.

2005 is almost over and done, as today marks Christmas day. I apologize for not being in better contact with all of you, I hope you can forgive me this holiday. I created the Christmas tree image which hopefully you can see to the left, hope every body enjoys! Anyway just so you know I didn’t write this post on Christmas day, I’ve been doing housework and getting everything lined up (like this post) so that both Christmas eve and day are as smooth sailing as possible. This post which I am starting on Friday the 23rd of December will be posted on Christmas at 12:00am sharp, and those of you who got here via the email link know, that is when I sent out the invitation to view my Christmas greeting.

To those of you living where it is cold, I hope the house is nice and toasty and that you are inside it, comfortable and relaxing. We could use some cold weather here in Phoenix, it has been lingering in the 70’s (F) and I can’t speak for everyone but I am certainly wishing for it to drop at least a few degrees (doing my best to send this weather your way). Traffic this last week before Christmas was terrible, on the road, in the store, although apparently on Friday there wasn’t much traffic mid-day, maybe everyone has finished their shopping on time except the young ones who didn’t get any time off this last week. I know while I was out Monday and Tuesday there was a great deal of people on the road, and the stores we’re filled with slow moving crowds (one of my worst nightmares). I’m glad most of what little shopping I did was over the internet, if you didn’t take advantage of it this year, you might think again next year (looking for deals, try eBay, other than that price shop on the normal retailers in your area before going in, or order from their website, not many retailers don’t have a web store these days) especially when you consider that not only can you save on time and gas, but you can help to fight pollution while saving money on what you buy. I will warn anyone who is trying out internet purchasing for the first time; there are some rules you should follow (I won’t explain them here, Christmas is for play not work, but please comment on this article or email me if you have any questions about this, also I will write another article about this at some point).