Carl Hutzler’s Blog

…one night’s stay at the Nick Hotel, $160. Winning the Nick Talent Show and seeing your kid get slimed on stage in front of 100 people…. Read more

My buddy Phil just sent me this video…don’t know why he sent it today….maybe he found it on a long lost memory card? Fun.

I started using Skype last year because I found it very convenient for technical support and other 1-800 type calls where you might be on hold for a long time. Skype also was nice as on a Mac Laptop it performs VERY well as a full duplex speakerphone without any additional things to buy/plugin. This allows me to do stuff while I talk to a tech support person.

Anyway, I quickly realized that it would be great to be able to call any number. So I subscribed to SKYPE OUT and found it was great and I used it more and more.

But the only issue I found was that sometimes when I called someone using SKYPE they would not answer. Why? Because the called id would come across as “not available” or some weird number like (123) 456-7890.

Today I had a similar experience and decided to look into it. I found that you can assign a caller ID to your SKYPE out calls by typing in the number you would like to use (like your cell phone #) and then confirming you own that number via an SMS confirmation code process.

I just did it and the process worked perfectly. They said my caller id would be activated within 24 hours and they would send me a confirmation when it was complete. Nice!

The family went downtown today for a little walking around. We went to the US Botanical Gardens and saw the amazing model train exhibit. We have gone pretty much every year, but this year they really expanded it a lot. Something to see if you are in DC for the holidays next year…or maybe catch it before it closes for this year on Sunday the 4th.

Then we walked up to the Whitehouse to see the national christmas tree. But just as we got there, we noticed the police were moving everyone off the elipse and not letting anyone walk around near the Whitehouse’s south lawn. We asked a guard what was going on and they would only say it would be closed for a short time.

So we walked to the north side of the Whitehouse and saw the viewing stand for Obama’s innauguration that was mostly complete. As we walked back towards Constitution we saw the helicopters (three of them) coming in and two of them leaving (one landed on the whitehouse lawn). One of George’s last flights in Marine One :-)

On to the mall again for one last look at the US Capitol where the stands are well underway for the big event on January 20th. Very exciting.

… Desnil Wodry??!?!

Well, not really true. This is my friend Kenny who stopped down for the holiday with his lovely wife Michelle. Still a fun picture :-)

Rylan made arrangements for a trip to Longwood Gardens last weekend. They are having their annual Christmas Lights Festival which was quite impressive. We took in the ice skating show which was well done if not a little “eery” on our somewhat foggy evening. And then we ate at the Yuletide Buffet before touring the grounds and returning to Wilmington and our hotel. All in all, I would recommend the visit to anyone in the local area….Longwood is just 30 minutes west of Wilmington, DE.

My buddy, Josh Sarubin, up in New York sent me a collection of photographs of his family from the past year entitled “The Year in Sarubin”. It was a great collection of shots from the year. Tough to believe his kids are so cute! (I love you, Josh)

Anyway, I happened to be putting together a set of images from the last year as well, mostly to print out and put into several frames in our family room. But Josh’s idea made me think about posting them online. So, without further adoo, The Year in Hutzler…

Don’t know about the rest of you, but my blog seemed to load very slowly of late. I tried a bunch of things but could not figure it out and started to suspect my hosting company (1and1.com). Being Christmas Eve and all, I decided today would be a good time to find out.

I went with Dreamhost and signed up for their yearly plan ($10 a month…same as 1and1 business hosting). I heard they were a good provider and I was hoping that the speed issue was indeed 1and1.com and not my blog set-up itself.

My blog was hosted as a directory off of my main site (carlhutzler.com/blog). I wanted to be able to move the main site (my photo business) and the blog as close to seemlessly as possible. I was a little nervous as I had not moved a Wordpress blog before. My website was simple…just a bunch of html files, but the blog had a MySQL database with all kinds of data in it along with my configuration settings and even a little .htaccess rewrite rules for the pretty URL stuff.

I read up a little on the subject and decided to go with the steps after the break… Read more