We have new pictures posted for this years Summer 2008! Come share the Joy with us here (http://home.klump-pdx.com/ngallery/).

Thank you all for comming out to Neskowin again this year… And just to name a few names Lia by beloved sister from Salt Lake City with her two Sons Dalek age 13 and Stavros age 6. Well all a fantatic time in the Neskowing Parade, Singing Songs of Tribute to Old Glory, God, and Country, and just plain having fun during the sand castle building contest and kite flying contest!

Happy Birthday Good Old USA!!

You know your porfolio could be hurting when your shares of Apple Inc. stock does something like this:

It is times like this when I can’t figure out if I am awake or still dreaming when I see new cell phone technology like these. Sprint still requires the two year service agreement where TMobile does not and both phones would cost the same at about $300. I had a monthly discount with my previous employer Volt at about 8% off per monthly bill, and it looks like I have got another 8% discount with T-Mobile monthly bill with the new job I start with this Thursday for doing testing on Windows Vista with the Windows Division through Aditi staffing agency as another temporary Microsoft contract. This will most likely go to the middle of March, and then I’ll look for work again.

 

T-Mobile Wing: http://www.t-mobile.com/shop/phones/Detail.aspx?device=acc8102d-4506-4eaa-bc2f-9c7b8ec1b1e0

 

 

Sprint Mogul by HTC: http://nextelonline.nextel.com/NASApp/onlinestore/en/Action/DisplayPhones

 

Dear Friends and Loved one,

It has been a long time waiting for this, and I do appologize profusely for the delays. But it here is! Our very own highly prized and long awaited Complete Compendium of Jill Feyerherm and Matthew Klump’s photo gallery is back online at http://home.klump-pdx.com/ngallery for anyone that wishes to see some amussing history of our lives as well as the many challenges we have overcome and also the many good times we have shared. The comment feature is no longer available for this portion of our website, so anyone wishing to comment may do so by sending them to my wife Jill (jill@klump-pdx.com) or myself (matthew@klump-pdx.com).

Thank you all, god bless, and enjoy

-Matthew

If your favorite buddies are as happy as ours are in their sandbox-latrine:

 

 

 

Then you know what a headache life can be when you Litermaid Automatic cat litter box by Applica Incorporated can be when this wonderful consumer product since slice bread decides to break down.

If you encounter the same situation that I did where I couldn’t get the litter rake arm moving again regardless of whether the device was plugged into an AC power outlet or powered by batteries, then follow these simple steps to get your automatic Littermaid cat box rake arm moving again:

1) Un plug all power supplies from any AC outlet and remove all batteries.

2) Where the rake arm would normally move all the way up to the receptical side to depress to two switches: Press both of these rake arm retraction switches, simultaneously ten times, and in a row as shown in this picture. The switches are located at the end of each track on each side of the litter box:

3) Wait 5 minutes.

4) Plug you AC power back in or put your batteries back into the Littermaid cat box.

5)  Your scoop/rake arm should be moving once again, and everything as working again just fine!

If these touble shoot steps helpped for you, please feel free to comment your experience below.

In the infancy of my career as a beginner programmer, I learned from the very beginning that planning and design is usually 60% of our work, and following through with implementation is 40% of what we do. Deploying a server is no different from deciding exactly on the topology of the server, to the thumb twidling of waiting for the status bar to reach 100%. In the end, a machine that started out as a workstation will never be a server, and reciprocally a sever will never be a workstation. My reality consumed a good two months in the wrong direction, and my hope is will help as a warning from my experience.

I wish to dedicate this public message to all my friends of old who are continuing to try their best to make the most of life:

The first part of this post I would like to further dedicate to Karen Hansen, who I finally had the distinct honor of meeting with her new husband after 25 years of life in separate directions at Linda Gustofson’s Chocolate and Champagne party. Karen, if you are able to read this, send me an email, so that we add you to our Christmas Card list, and of course if you ever happen to be in the Seattle area or just wish to write back and forth. If you ever wish to chat, I can be found on MSN Messenger under my email for login (matthew@klump-pdx.com). If would also be great if we could get your email address as well as your husband’s so we can stay in touch. I will send an email to my sister Sara just in case you happen to contact her.

Erindale Cannon:

My wife Jill with Erindale’s new baby Angelina:

Joya was not with Erindale when she took baby Angelina with her that day to Jill’s and Erindale’s favorite Coffee Shop in downtown Monmouth. We did, however, finally get to meet baby Joya again that day since she was experiencing a “time out” earlier that day by the surigate parents Grandma and Grandpa. Joya is growing up very quickly into the young toddler she is now. I was not able to capture a picture of her, but the best was I could describe her is very healthy for a child her age, eyes of both her Mother and her Father, and long brown curls of locks.

We wish you the best, Erindale, Joya, and now baby Angelina. May you all find room in your hearts to bring your father, Art Mcgee, back into your lives as a complete and loving family once again… In Jesus name, we pray for this to be a reality, ah men…

 

By now you probably noticed several new photos that were posted from events occurring over the summer. If you haven’t checked that out yet, it may be found here. I haven’t yet had a chance to clean up the comment spam left by several other visitor, so if you wish to comment on any of the pictures there, please use this link to do so. This particular gallery is hosted from home, so please be forgiving if your connection is slow. Thing started off with a BANG, this summer with the first event being the Renaissance and Fantasy Fare in Gigharbor, Washington, next it was off to the Yamhill Valley Winery for wine tasting through Neighborhood House Association with offices in Multnomah Village of Portland, OR. About three weeks later after that we went waver runner ridding with my man Greg Martin, and also hiking  out by Snoqualmie-Pasqualmie (sorry for the pun) Falls for a short Jill hike to see the falls, the power generation station, and the great Lodge that is there at Snoqualmie. Great prices I hear for the loading… A few weeks later after that it was off to Friday Harbor in the San Juan Islands where Jill’s parent purchased a new vacation home, soon to be retirement home. We most especially enjoyed the the sunset just over Victoria Island on the other side of the channel. It was also a tremendous pleasure to Orcas out hunting for food in the channel on just the opposite side of the Island. Too bad I wasn’t able to get a good enough photo to be seen to place with the other photographs. The light house you can see there is the vantage point from where we saw the whales. The final and of course must relaxing time I was able to enjoy with just one day with Grandpa and I fishing at the inlet to the Salmon River. The fish you seen me holding there is a 27 pound fish I caught out by a part of the inlet our guide called “The Trojan’s Helmet” and that I’m barely able to lift becuase of it being so full of meat and salmon eggs. Yes, I just so happen to catch and eat a fall Chinook Salmon that was on her way up river lay her eggs in louse gravel to continue the population of the Chinook Salmon species, right up until the point she smelled the herring bate at the end of my fish hook. The fish that you see Grandpa holding is a 15 pound fish that our tour guide, Scilus, had hooked and Grandpa had reeled in.

This first week of October has been kind of depressing is I lost my first opportunity at full time with Microsoft since I am still a hard working software engineer. This second weekend may even get more depressing since taxes for the precious year is due by the end of this month, oh woopty-do, lucky me. Generally speaking about life as a human on Earth, we must balance the good with the bad, and hope someday to be in a place we never have to worry about loss, hurt and suffering again.

 

Instead of our typical stay at home Friday evening and watch Stargate Science Fiction, we spent a wonderful and relaxing evening at the horse races when we were unexpectedly invited by Jill’s work place American Engineering to come on down and enjoy the races at Emerald Downs Horse Race Track. I have to admit to you all that I did my best to understand how to read the statistics sheet for who is going to be the next winning horse, but I untimately conceided to my own inability and left all the betting up to Jill:

 

I have lived in Portland, Oregon for nearly twenty nine years now, and it seems that no matter what we decide to do with our lives that God always has the final say in who stays and who goes including circumstantial events in our lives that just so happen to appear out of no where. Yes sir, whether we like it or not, God is always there helping us to get out of jam ups along the road of life.

That just so happened to be true at this time in my life because I have applied for and have been accepted to work at Microsoft in Redmond, WA doing Windows CE mobile development testing. So naturally Rory Blyth’s discussion on Windows Mobile will be a huge benefit for what I’ll be assigned to do. God is leading me North out of Oregon in virtually the same way he lead the Hebrews out of Egypt and across the Red Sea, and he is not being subtle about this since we’re having to leave many family and friends behind.

As we embark on this fantastic journey down the road of life, we remember all the good times spent in and around all of Oregon from the cost, to the cascade mountains to the high deserts and lava caves. We will miss you Oregon, and also be right next door!

I “again” need to remind anyone who may choose to read this online diary that all of the opinions, views, and feeling expressed here are explicitly my OWN and DO NOT necessarily reflect ANY ONE ELSE’S including co-workers, family, friends, or casual relationships. I strongly encourage everyone who does read my personal thoughts to leave comments at the bottom by using this link.

I write this entry publicly because I understand how important words and experiences like this can make other people (such as yourself who are reading this feel very good inside).

I can tell you that when I experienced my first Christian mass that took place in the middle of the chaotic work week, which also happened to be on All Saints Day of Celebration, I was converted inside my heart from an only partial belief to a full-fledged believer of the Catholic Faith. This took place just as I happened to be at one of my low self-esteem moments with still trying to find work.

It has now been three days since I was converted to the way of Christ in my heart from November 1st, 2005. And on that third day, I felt it very important to make a personal reconciliation with Christ that I now share with whom ever is reading this to make my penance more public in nature, and personally more real for myself that I will never consciously give into temptation ever again, and thank Christ for all my Earthly Blessings.

I ask that Christ and God forgive my biological father Fredrick for the things he did in life, and to seriously look at his last act of selfless sacrifice before he gave up his spirit in death for the safety of a perfect stranger. I also ask that Christ and God forgive my Cousin, Mark Arthur Hanna, for unwisely letting an impaired friend do the driving before the accident. I ask that Christ and God bless all our dearly beloved that have passed into your heavenly kingdom and your care dear Lord.

I have not yet found exactly who my Patron Saint is, but I sincerely hope through prayer, meditation, research, and my name which so happens to be Matthew James, that I might discover who this is.

On April 16, 2006, I will receive my full confirmation into the Catholic Faith, yet I am already prepared to give up everything to follow Christ.

Thank you for everything, and to you for sharing in this prayer to Christ our Lord, ah men.

It feels great to finally be back from our long June vacation back to the mid-west to spread the word about this monumental academic achievement. Oregon Tech truly has given me height for my level of skill with programming, and I know I can carry this with me like I mentioned in my commencement address “for the rest of my life,” as expected of me with the talents I’ve always had, and until now have been able to almost fully develop.

The two people I still owe a huge debt to for sticking with me through all the tough times with at home project dead lines, Jill my beautiful wife, and Jay Bockelman the Oregon Tech Portland, Software Engineering Program Director. I could not have asked for a better friend and mentor through over two years of a Mentor/Pier relationship as we walked through the whole software conception, design, development, and testing iteratively driven development process not once, but twice! Here are the two best photographs that captured these moments in time:

Of course none of the above exceptional moments in time would have been possible if it weren’t for the most software and logic puzzle project anyone may have conceived: The 3–Dimensional Hidden Word Puzzle Generator and Solver Ultimate Project: The Puzzler – 3D Style! Maybe some day, in a later version, this will also have the ultimate 3–Dimensional Hidden Word Cube Puzzle Displayer as well. In other words, actually use another 3D render technology some day such as OpenGL or FLASH! to make the cube more visible.

Here are my favorite senior project exposition photographs:

The entire endeavour took just slightly over a year to conceive the idea of, design from scratch, build, test, document, and release for the exposition. The binder itself is a little of a thousand five hundred (1,500) pages of original design notes, testing material, and documentation (all of which amounted to about two thirds (2/3) of the binder’s volume). The remaining third of the binder was code all done with .NET technologies.

For all of you who I did not name, and you most definitely know who you are, I thank you and appreciate you for helping to advance my software engineering career.

The Roomba Robot vacuum cleaner by IRobot has saved us more time by taking care of the vacuuming chore than any of our other house hold investments time ten! Like the self-propelled dirt-magnet that it is, it took care of all three levels of our house in the same day... As a result it has more than paid for itself.

As long as the brushes and its sensor are kept clean and the battery charged, our Roomba should last indefinitely and quite frankly as a result, we're going to donate or $250 upright vacuum! If you would like to REALLY take to steps to simplify keeping your house clean, you'd go here to check out the Roomba by IRobot. I'm not trying to be a salesman folks, for the money, this device could really make life much more bearable for you.

For years and years, my Dad has been a strong advocate of the “Work Hard and Play Hard” ideology, and quite frankly I couldn't agree more with him on the subject. So, for an entire weekend about a week ago while mom was out of town in Palm Springs with her friends, it was just myself and my Dad, John Klump.

Neither he nor his business owns or maintains a website of any kind, which is perfectly okay when you own and operate an Insurance Agency as successful and influencial in Oregon as Anchor Insurance & Surety Inc is. The link I've posted is for a google search of his business name.

It had been what seems alomost over a year since it was just the two of us playing hard at Neskowin Oregon after such a long time of working hard. Here we are with that over-spunked pooch of their's GRETA looking to see what car or person to chase after next:

When you've been working really hard and you need to take a break from it all on a Friday night, it's a fact that pizza just isn't the same without spending it at Nona Emilia's Italian Restaurant consuming mass quantities of peperoni and cheese pizza with Rich Claussen! Check us out...

One of the finer places in Portland to relax in Portland is most definitely the Portland Chinese Garden. Although we haven't made it a habit of going on a regular basis, but right around this time of year, the garden erupts with music, song, and dance. This year for Chinese New Year's, it is the New Year of the Rooster. The song and festivities most definitely reflected this! In this photo, both Jill and I are taking our time in Tao's Tea House at the Garden with afternoon Emperor's Gold Tea and Tarra Root Moon Cakes.

You know you're a nerd when:

1. In order to get its attention, you have to turn them on.

2. It has a lot of data but is still clueless.

3. It is supposed to help you solve your problems, but half the time it IS the problem.

4. As soon as you commit to it, you realize that, if you had waited a little longer, you could have had a better model.

5. No one but you understands its internal logic.

6. The native language they use to communicate with other computers is incomprehensible to everyone else accept you.

7. Even your smallest mistakes are stored in long-term memory for later retrieval.

8. As soon as you make a commitment to one, you find yourself spending half your paycheck on accessories for it.

 

Special Thanks to Tanja Markwart and Lunch Break Commics.

Last Wednesday night, our gang (Jill my wife, Friend Erindale with her daughter Joya), had the distinct pleasure of hanging out with Heather Alexander for the night listening to some great Celtic Fiddle Tunes and Johny McEldoo drum beats at the Luck Labrador in Multnomah Village!

Having to deal with Senior Project on a near full-time basis was the perfect distraction for just a few short hours. Here is our portrait:

 

This is in my response to the revolution started by Rory's post here. I know this is a little late reaction with senior project in progress, but here goes:

I'd have to say that the best damn book *ever* I've read, the one book that turned my life upside down, the one book that forced me to throw away the chains of emotional survitude to people that did not care, the one book that made me strive to climb to the highest levels of being the “nerdy engineer” I am today is: <<drum roll please>>

“You Can Become a Super Salesman!!” by Paul R Kenian

You guessed it folks, when I was handed this by the multi-level marketing freek show at Quixtar, it made more sense to have choice B) the life of a dedicated engineer, than choice A) their way, or any one else's (no reference to my current employer is being inferred in this post or any other for that matter).

No one at “the phone company” reads my blog of any kind, so I'll leave that blasted disclaimer off.

If any one reading this has a similar story to tell, please do! Blog it, email it, comment on it, but DO NOT keep it caged! Let the animal out every once and a while WITH OUT the disclaimer...

Last weekend we found a gorgious feline friend that we just had to rescue from the Sherwood Cat Adoption team. Her name is "Beta." Her name was inspired by the up and coming "beta" test phase for my Senior Project, The Puzzler - 3D Style.

Check it out, more pictures available at this location.

We had a great time on Halloween Night! My wife Jill went as “Arwen” of Rivendell, I went as “Aragon Son of Arathorn” complete with props, and friend Erindal with her young one Joya went as “The Good Fairly” and “The Princess To Be” respectively.

Calling all Hallow's Eve party throwers! If you're throwing a Halloween bash next year PLEASE EMAIL --> matthew@klump-pdx.com.

We had a great time at the Hillsboro Community Halloween Party, here's our gang (Art Mcgee was behind the camera at the time):

 

We just got back from London England Not long ago, and what a tremendous adventure it was! Our photograph collection is available for your inspection here. Have fun and don't forget to leave comments!

I could see it now just as the plane pulls up into the London Airport:

An observer just happens to look upon our group disembarking a 747 just in from Seattle International Airport, “Sweet heart, who's that guy over there with the two quart tankard hanging from his belt, the fourteen megapixel camera around his neck, and the custom build Pocket PC on his other belt? I'll bet he's one of those traveling tourist nerds we've heard so much about!”

We any way, I hope we don't sick out (like a handful of soure thumbs) that much while we're in London, but I do hope to make a lasting on the people I meet of how much I love technology. Especially while being a tourist!

We'll be off this Saturday the 4th returning the 11th. Please take note every one, I hope to see all of you back to our site to comment on said photos that could very well be six megapixel or better! So visit now and often, and we'll see every one back here in the not so distant future.

For our generation 9/11/2001 was truely an event no American will forget. This blog entry is dedicated to all the thoughts and events going on in our lives on that fateful day.

I implore any one reading this entry to reach back into your mind to that day. Where were you at the time, and what were you thinking when you first got the news?

For myself, I got a call from my wife about 7:45am exclaiming, “Quick, turn your radio to 820am!” The next thirty minutes completely stunned me. The rest of the that day was sent home from work, glued to the television...

Was Bush's reaction adequite? Did the 9/11 Comission correctly rule that this event had no one to blame other than Osama and Al-Qiada?

Scott Hanselman just got back from a vacation at Disneyland, CA and offers his perspective on visiting The Magic Kingdom. I must say I really got a kick out of it! Check it out here.