I was recently chatting with a consultant I work with who travels across the country nearly every weekend. When I informed him that I was in the market for a carry-on suitcase, he didn’t hesitate to recommend a manufacturer named Eagle Creek, as he’s been using their luggage for nearly a decade. During that time, he’s had two bags replaced completely free of charge (they were damaged by airline employees) by the manufacturer – no questions asked, thanks to Eagle Creek’s lifetime warranty. Needless to say, I was intrigued and began my investigation.

After shopping around at a number of popular e-tailers and seeing the ORV Trunk 22 listed at over $275, I became hesitant as I feel that’s simply too expensive for a 22” suitcase. Enter Amazon.com who was listing the suitcase for nearly $100 less! After reading all of the positive reviews, I ordered the bag on a Sunday evening and received it the following Wednesday afternoon.

As for the bag itself, I am extremely impressed. Aesthetics are important to me, and the ORV Trunk 22, in dark green, couldn’t be a better looking piece of luggage. It almost has a utilitarian, military style to it that just reinforces the fact that this bag was meant to withstand any and all abuse you plan to put it through. As “manly” as that might sound, surprisingly, my girlfriend actually commented on its good looks a number of times as well, so ladies, don’t automatically assume that this bag isn’t your cup of tea.

From a functionality standpoint, again, I’m a happy camper. The ORV Trunk 22 is primarily constructed of heavy-duty, ballistic nylon which means it’s practically impossible to make it rip, fray, scratch, etc. It’s an incredibly resilient material that will undoubtedly stand up to many years of travel. The bag’s zippers are labeled as “self-repairing coil zippers” and I’m here to tell you that these things are heavy duty. They have to be used to truly be appreciated.

Once the four exterior straps are unbuckled, the entire front of the bag unzips for easy packing. It also features a small compartment on the bottom of the bag that’s sealed off from the main compartment which is perfect for storing damp or dirty items that you don’t want touching the items in the main compartment. It even has small drainage holes for those really wet items that didn’t have the time to completely dry – awesome attention to detail!

If I had to point out a few shortfalls of the ORV Trunk 22, they would be the following:

First, it’s an expensive suitcase. You’ll have no problem finding cheaper bags out there, however I’m of the mindset that I’d much prefer to purchase one expensive bag that will last me a lifetime than constantly purchase cheap suitcase after cheap suitcase over the years thereby drastically increasing my total cost of ownership.

Secondly, I would have liked to see more ancillary storage space. In addition to the main compartment, there are two smaller compartments, but Eagle Creek could have easily added a few more small zippered compartments to contain and better organize things like keys, my wallet, passport, cell phone, and whatever else I didn’t want to empty out of my pockets when going through airport security.

Lastly, and this is a very minor gripe, the telescoping handle has a habit of pinching my hand when I retract it. For some reason, a small part of skin on my hand gets caught in between the plastic handle and one of the metal rods as the handle goes down, but that’s easily remedied by just being a little more careful with it.

While I admittedly haven’t had the opportunity to travel with it at this point, I do plan to put it to good use on a 4-night trip to Negril, Jamaica next week. Given the ORV Trunk 22’s outstanding construction, good looks, and Eagle Creek’s lifetime warranty, I don’t have the first hesitation about its ability to hold everything I need for a quick jaunt while stylishly protecting my gear for years to come. In summary, I couldn’t give the ORV Trunk 22 a higher recommendation for anyone looking for a piece of top-of-the line, carry-on luggage.

Purchase the Eagle Creek ORV Trunk 22 from Amazon.com

Having recently spent over $800 on a gut-wrenching car repair, my objective last weekend was to take advantage of the beautiful early fall weather without spending an arm and a leg. Naturally, my first thought was to go hiking and as many folks in metro Atlanta will attest to, there aren’t a whole heck of a lot of places better than Amicalola Falls in Dawsonville, GA.

Located just about an hour and a half north of Atlanta, Amicalola Falls is a pretty popular hiking destination for those looking for an escape from the endless hustle and bustle of the city. Not only are there some beautiful waterfalls along the main trail, but if you can muster the eight and half-mile hike, you can actually reach Springer Mountain which is part of the Appalachian Trail which leads all the way to the state of Maine. In other words, it makes for a perfect day trip if you’re looking to get outside, get some exercise, and take in some truly gorgeous scenery.

My girlfriend and I were joined by one of her friends from work and her husband. We headed for the mountains at around 11:30 on Saturday morning and after taking a couple of wrong turns (GPS is kind of spotty up there – surprise, surprise), we made it there just a little after 1:00.

After gawking at the giant rattle snake in the nature center for a while (and the guy wearing the coon skin hat), we hit the trail. It started out pretty easy, but at about a mile in, it became a little strenuous as we made our way to the top of the falls.  At one point, we ran into a gentleman who must have been in his seventies who was literally running up the mountain as fast as he possibly could – it was pretty amazing considering that he probably could have beat me to the top on his worst day.

Amicalola Falls

When we finally made it to the waterfalls, we oohed and ahhed for a while, took a few pictures, and climbed up the remaining 400+ stairs to the top of the mountain which had some pretty amazing views of the valleys below.

425 steps to the top

View from the top of Amicalola Falls

The descent down was a much-needed reprieve from the workout we received on our way up and also provided awesome views of the landscape below.

All said and done, the hike might have taken just a hair over two hours, and before I knew it, we were back in the car and on the hunt for a bar-b-q place to replenish the calories we lost on the hike. Again, due to spotty GPS and cellular reception, we missed a few of the lesser-known, hole in the wall places (typically my favorite), but we did manage to make it to a small chain called Jim ‘N Nick’s Bar-B-Q which really wasn’t bad at all (for a chain). I got some kind of double-decker sandwich with pulled-pork on the bottom and super-tender brisket on the top and needless to say, it hit the spot. As an added bonus, they had a bottle of Chipotle-flavored Tabasco sauce on the table which I had never seen before and after drenching my sandwich in it, I can honestly say that it’s probably one of the most delicious hot sauces I’ve ever had. It’s available by the gallon jug if you’re interested in buying some for a friend or family member (hint hint, wink wink).

While it’s been in the works for the last few weeks, it was just made official yesterday morning when my current manager informed the rest of my team that I’ll be joining my current employer’s Electronic Document Management System (EDMS) implementation team as a Senior Systems Analyst.

What’s most exciting to me is the fact that I’ve really been wanting to break into the enterprise content management world, in a more permanent role, since 2005 when I was more or less forced to leave Delta Air Lines due to their impending bankruptcy filing. Since then, I’ve worked with a couple of companies on various web content management assignments and really enjoyed the work, so it’s incredibly exciting to be part of an implementation team responsible for every single aspect of the project from planning, to design, to development, to post-production support.

On top of that, I recently saw a brief demo of the EDMS system that we’ll be implementing and the technology behind it is incredibly cool; it’s going to make a tremendous positive impact on both our clinical and business users and I can’t wait to be an instrumental part in that enterprise-wide transformation.

My official start date is September 12th and needless to say, it can’t come soon enough.

I’ll be working on a team of three other Systems Analysts and the first order of business is to head out to Kansas City in the later part of September to attend system training provided by the vendor, Perceptive Software. Speaking of which, if anyone’s familiar with Kansas City and can recommend any must-visit restaurants and/or bars we need to check out while we’re out there, I’d be eternally grateful.

Anyhow, being that I’m in a transition period until my start date, I really don’t have much more information at this point, but rest assured that I’ll write more about it as the details surface.

On the internet, four years is an eternity. As a web developer in my previous life, nobody understands that better than myself and after looking at the same old website for the last few years, I decided it was time to freshen things up a bit around here.

The Impetus for Change

Don’t get me wrong – I absolutely loved the previous version of my website and it was well-received by my clients and colleagues. It boasted an eye-catching design, well-written, search engine-friendly content, and even some pretty hilarious pictures of my dog doing everything from chowing down on a handful of ham to raft surfing (Don’t fret though - you’ll still find plenty of Jake pictures in my Flickr photostream).

The thing is though, over the last few years, I’ve been very fortunate to have the opportunity to expand my skill set beyond simply website development. That being the case, it was time to create a more accurate and complete overview of my full service menu and rework the rest of the site content accordingly.

The previous iteration of JimmyDay.com

So What’s Changed?

A new look and feel. While I was relatively happy with the previous design, it simply wasn’t flexible enough to accommodate the type of content that I wanted the new site to feature (more on that below). In addition, I wanted the new site to have a more natural, organic, “light” feel to it. Looking back, the other design was just a little too drab for my taste. While the current design is still kind of in flux and is far from perfect, it accomplishes most of the goals I had in mind and provides a clean, stable foundation to build upon.

More interaction. I’ve literally spent years trying to decide if I should integrate a blog into my website. I finally decided to take the plunge with this redesign for a couple of reasons. First and foremost, it provides a layer of interaction between myself and those who visit the site and I hope to eventually spur some thoughtful / useful dialog in future posts. Secondly, maintaining a blog, or Journal as I’m calling it on this site, provides an additional creative outlet for me to practice my writing skills…and god knows they could use some serious practice.

I should also mention that you should expect to find a pretty wide variety of journal entries. I don’t plan to keep it 100% work-related. After all, what fun would that be? So on any given visit, you might discover posts on everything from recent trips I’ve taken to random musings about the degredation of American culture due to the proliferation of reality television.

A more narrowed focus.  Lastly, as I alluded to above, while I’ve been incredibly fortunate to work in over a half-dozen industries in various capacities over the years, I really want to focus my career, and subsequently, this website’s content, on my passion for enterprise content management (ECM).  That being said, I plan to explore a variety of related topics as I discover the latest and greatest ECM tools, technologies, and insights.

Your Thoughts?

So what do you think? Love it? Hate it? Couldn’t care less? Either way, I’d greatly appreciate your thoughts in the comments below!

The Miller Analogies Test doesn’t appear to be as prevalent as other graduate program admission exams, but let me assure you, it’s still a formidable opponent that will undoubtedly have you limping away from your local testing center battered and bruised, badly damaged sense of self-worth in hand.

If you’re anything like me, you’ve probably never even heard of the Miller Analogies Test (MAT). It was just recently, as I began researching graduate programs in Instructional Design, that I stumbled upon it. As it turned out, the program that I was most interested in (M.Ed. in Instructional Design at the University of Massachusetts Boston) had it listed as an admission requirement and after speaking with a couple of folks in their admissions department, I realized that I had to sit for it relatively soon if I was going to have a shot at being accepted for the Fall 2012 semester.

So, What is the Miller Analogies Test?

In a nutshell, the ultimate goal of the Miller Analogies Test is much the same as any other graduate-level admission exam: in essence, it determines overall candidate aptitude by grading answers to a series of questions, however there are two significant differences that make the MAT stand out from the rest of the crowd.

First, all 120 questions contained on the MAT are presented in analogy format, so instead of being asked, “What is the name of the largest bone in the human body?”, you’ll see an awkward looking statement, more along the lines of:

Sahara : Desert :: (a. Ulna b. Radius c. Femur d. Tibia) : Human Body

See, analogies are all about relationships. There has to be a correlation of some sort. If you read the question to yourself, you’ll probably remember that the Sahara is the largest desert in the world and therefore, your mission is to identify the largest bone in the human body. If you have an elementary understanding of human anatomy, you know the answer to this question is c. Femur. Unfortunately, this is about the easiest question you’re ever likely to encounter on the Miller Analogies Test as the analogies tend to become extremely complex. Take this one for instance:

I : (a. V b. X c. D d. XX) :: C : M

Give up? The answer is b. X. Why? Well, first you have to realize that what you’re looking at are all Roman numerals. Assuming you know your Roman numerals, the analogy becomes a little easier:

1 : (a. 5 b. 10 c. 500 d. 20) :: 100 : 1000

So there you have it – 100 is multiplied by 10 to get 1000. Multiply the other side of the analogy by 10 and you get b. 10.

The other thing that makes the Miller Analogies Test such an interesting one (i.e. extremely difficult), is the fact that it pulls questions from a dozen different subject areas including vocabulary, geography, religion, literature, science, art & architecture, math, philosophy, mythology, music, and history which means that it’s practically impossible to study for, but that’s by design. See, the MAT is designed to assess overall educational background. If you think you’re going to be able to cram for a month or two to compensate for a “less than stellar” education and do well on this exam, you’re in for a bitter disappointment.

Preparing for the Miller Analogies Test

Based on the research I conducted, it appears that two months is the recommended time to prepare for the MAT. Being in a bit of a time crunch, I only allotted two weeks to study and while I managed to score pretty well, I do feel that I would have done even better had I had a little more time to prepare.

Upon registering for the exam, I immediately headed over to Barnes and Noble and picked up a Miller Analogies Test study guide that included 8 practice tests on a CD-ROM. Over the course of the following two weeks, I took at least one practice test each day and for the questions and concepts that I struggled with, I made flash cards and made sure to review them a few times a day until I had them virtually memorized.

I was actually surprised to see that a number of the concepts and vocabulary words in the study guide I purchased were on the actual exam, so if you’re taking the Miller Analogies Test, it’s definitely worth shelling out the $20 for the book.

Final Thoughts

There’s no doubt about it – the Miller Analogies Test is a daunting exam, but I feel that it’s an accurate way to assess a person’s logical and analytical reasoning abilities, which in my opinion, is probably one of the more surefire ways to gauge an applicant’s overall aptitude.

All of that being said, if you find yourself having to take the MAT as part of your graduate program’s admission requirements, don’t stress out about it. Instead, pick up a study guide or two, give yourself ample time to prepare, and just give it your best shot. Although you’ll likely feel as if you were ran over by a truck when you complete the test, you may just surprise yourself as to how well you do.