JodyBlog

Some people

2010-08-28T00:35:00.002-04:00

We had an interview today, and while I think this guy would probably not be good for the management position we were hiring for, I found him to be superficially plain, but utterly fascinating at a deeper level.

The thing that resonated with me the most was that it was clear he was a person who strives very hard to be true to himself and true to his principles - more than anyone I've met recently, and more than anyone I've known for such a short time. The last few hours have dulled the details of those principles, but I remember being struck more by how they shone through in his words - all of them. And while he seemed to lack much emotion or personality on the surface, I found him to be very thoughtful, careful, honest, and intelligent. As a manager he'd never had to fire someone, as he accepted responsibility for the employee and their performance - and would always work hard to ensure their success. And the one person he had to let go several years ago when the company's decreased profits dictated that there was no choice, his disappointment was still visible today. He offered no excuses. Expressed no regret over events that others would have. And said nothing negative - which is something for an hour and a half interview.

So now it is hours later, and while I may forget his name (assuming he doesn't get hired) I wanted to note here that there are still people who impress, whom you'd like to know more about, whom you would want to be friends with, and whose positive influence could make you a better person.

All of which brings up the self-analytical thought of why did this self-clarity impress me so? What deficiencies do I see in myself that I didn't see in him? Why am I not this person - or who am I and who do I want to be?

Maybe it all just serves as a reminder that I've got work to do.

garden lessons 2009

2010-04-25T15:19:00.006-04:00

i admit this post is long overdue, but as i get into the new garden and the new garden year, i really need to get this update out there.

the summary is that i consider the 2009 garden to be a success. but also it was an opportunity to learn many new things. here are a few:

potatoes:
i didn't actually learn this during the garden season, i learned it before. dad said that growing them was more trouble than it is worth because they are so cheap at the grocery. for this reason, we didn't buy or plant any. lesson: trust the experienced gardener.

garlic:
now this is the first thing i figured out for the garden. after i bought two garlic bulbs for 4 bucks, spit them up into cloves, and planted them in the garden, i was in sams and saw a package of 16 full grown garlic bulbs for 2 bucks. the garlic ended up being tricky to keep alive, and i never did harvest any. lesson: garlic is cheaper, easier, and less frustrating to just buy.

yellow onions & red onions:
by the time i got the bulbs into the ground i think they were starting to die. as a result, not many ended up coming up. about mid-july or early august, the dead rose again, and some of the onions mysteriously started growing anew. but i never got a good feel for when to harvest them, and i also didn't trust them since they had died off once already. and a bag of onions is fairly inexpensive at sam's. lesson: don't bother with onions.

carrots & radishes:
i planted these from seed, but decided (not sure why) that thinning them as the package suggested was not necessary. so i didn't. the result was that both crops were overcrowded, and many single vegetables fused together underground to make freakish looking carrots and radishes. additionally, we never eat either radishes or carrots, so there was never any real anticipation of harvesting. i left the carrots in the ground for a very long time, and they still tasted fine when i pulled them out, even if they looked a little odd. the radishes on the other hand get hotter the longer you leave them in the ground. so they were unbearably hot when i finally decided to eat one. lesson: don't plant stuff you don't really care to eat. thinning is done for a reason. harvest radishes before they become way too hot.

green beans:
the kentucky wonder variety sounded good. they grew pretty well too. and i was actually looking forward to some delicious green beans. i'm not sure what happened though. i suspect i waited too long to harvest, but i'm not sure. the result was that i picked them and cooked them, and they were tough. and i felt strongly that green beans shouldn't be tough. so i told the next door neighbor to pick all that she wanted. she did and said that she would cook some and bring some over. i never saw them. finally saw here a week or two later and she'd had the same problem. no matter how long she pressure cooked them, they remained tough. as an aside, green bean vines were the only thing that required pesticide thanks to some pesky little bug. they also required poles and strings to keep the vines busy and contained. more research is required before i abandon green beans forever. but i don't plan on growing them this year. lesson: don't grow stuff that's not worth the time to prepare properly. make sure you research the plant variety if you have something specific in mind so you plant the right thing.

corn:
i wasn't terribly eager about planting corn so i didn't plant a lot of it. the few stalks of corn didn't grow very well either, so by the time they had ears on them, i realized it was too small a crop to be worth the time. and keeping the green bean vines from growing on the corn was a daily task. corn is another item that sounds good, but that we never get or prepare. lesson: corn is not worth the effort.

cucumbers:
these grew well, and they spread rapidly across the garden. i think i had the fantasy of making some shirazi relish with cucumbers, tomatoes, cilantro, and lime juice - but i never did it. anyway, after eating the first cucumber from the garden, i realized that i like them in salads on occasion, but that i cannot possibly go through that many cucumbers. so all but one or two rotted on the vine or in the house once harvested. lesson: cucumbers take up more space than they are worth. if i try them again, i should try to grow them vertically. and not plant the whole seed packet worth of seeds.

squash:
we had quite a few little squashes come out of the garden. we even ate a few. but more often than not they rotted on the vine or inside once harvested. however, seeds are cheap, so we may be trying these again on a whim. lesson: they were tasty, but not sure they were worth it.

zucchini & eggplant:
i think the zucchini was from a small plant i bought at the nursery and i think the eggplant was grown from seed. no matter, neither of these made it. we saw the vines early on, but never harvested. i think the cucumber and maybe the squash as well ran over their space and kept them from producing. lesson: if we do these again, try to grow them vertically so they have plenty of space and remain visible.

now on to some successes!

tomatoes:
i planted these from seed (better boy hybrid) and they never came up. so i went to the nursery and bought several different types of small plants (where did i put those names...?) with the idea of comparing and contrasting to find out my favorite type of tomato. when i started to plant (the plants) i found that the seeds had come up and there were lots of little tomato plants all over the garden- which ended up catching up to the bigger plants much sooner than i would have expected. so now i had TONS of tomato plants. with as many tomatoes as we harvested, i think hardly any went to waste. this became especially true after we got a dehydrator from dad and started to dehydrate the extras. those were delicious - and we still have some left. at the end of the season, some of the plants started to die. dad said that it must be a fungus and now that they've caught it, the fungus will be in the ground for the next few years. so we're trying to plant them in a different part of the garden to see if that will help. lesson: if you have a dehydrator handy, you can't grow too many tomatoes. and all tomatoes taste just about the same.

peppers:
green, yellow, and red pepper plants. all of them did well. amusingly, i thought the red peppers would start out green, then turn yellow, then turn red. i don't know why i had this traffic-light progression in my head. seems silly now. but the lesson here is simple. lesson: plant red and yellow peppers only. if you want a green one, pick these before they turn color.

lettuce:
the s.o. started planting lettuce as a border for some of our flower areas. these turned out beautifully - particularly the bright-green black-seeded simpson variety. however, if you let lettuce keep growing, it becomes too bitter to be edible. and then it gets an ugly flower on it and it is not a pretty plant. but before it gets to that point, you have ample opportunity to eat (turkey bacon) BLTs with fresh vegetables. and since we're big salad eaters, growing lettuce can save a lot of money on lunches and dinners. lesson: keep lettuce on a constant planting/growing/harvesting/ripping-out/replanting cycle. and grow as much as possible. the border was universally appealing.

there are more things that didn't come up last year - flowers and herbs mostly. but the success of the peppers, the lettuce, and the tomatoes was so high that it easily trumped the not-so-successful items. gardening was work early on, but the longer the season went on, the easier it became - such that the net work in the end felt like practically nothing. which is a good thing to remember as i begin the new gardening season and wait for the seeds i planted last week to come up.

i understand why my dad claims that gardening is when he feels closest to god. it's a wonderful experience to work in harmony with nature to produce something that you benefit from. like any other thing, it can be stressful at times, but once the garden is set in motion it really is just nature in action.

life lesson: some things that you do are forced to do as a child that help out your family and 'build character' turn out to be things that you can take comfort and joy in as an adult.

so thanks dad and thanks mom. the kid who griped and complained and went to work in the garden kicking and screaming is finally grateful.

quote on the decline of civilization

2010-04-06T16:33:00.001-04:00

I'm pretty sure every generation decides they invented fucking, and their parents are always worried that it's the end of western Civilization.
- Mugsy Kudzu, 2010

gay pride flag

2009-07-08T11:02:00.003-04:00

i've long thought that the rainbow symbol of the gay pride flag was silly. the rainbow has meant numerous things to people over the years, so how can it suddenly be repurposed by a subset of society? it just doesn't make sense.

but i just re-discovered a recent article discussing the history of the rainbow flag, and how gay people get a sense of safety when they see it. i initially dismissed that as silly as well, but then i remembered when i travel to larger cities and i see it, i actually _do_ get a sense of safety - a feeling saying "it's okay, there are other gay people around here. you're not alone."

since gay people are not uncommonly targets of hate crimes (gay bashing), the feeling of security can be elusive. i've not yet been a target of any hateful incident myself, but the rumors and reports do affect my sense of security from time to time. indeed, i suppress my expression of affection for my significant other depending upon how "safe" i feel in the area at the time.

gay people have a constantly-scanning highly-developed sixth sense to detect potential danger for displays of "non-standard" sexual orientation. but upon seeing an area where there are several rainbow flags on display, gay people are able to let that guard down somewhat. so while i do not actually like the rainbow gay pride flag, i do appreciate it for what it is, and for what it does.

horoscopic

2009-05-31T10:08:00.002-04:00

i'm not into astrology - i just don't buy it - but several people are, and it's something to have small talk about since everyone knows their own zodiac sign, and everyone knows a little something about one or two of the other signs.

i'll occasionally read my horoscope, but never as more than a random curiosity. i gave up the notion long ago of them having any genuine relevance. i think the best horoscopes are written in such generalization that the reader can't help but to apply it in some way. after all, change is in everyone's future in some way or other.

as for astrological generalizations, i also tend to think they're all bunk.

but i like to consider ways in which it might be possible for people born at a certain time of year to have similar traits. and the only possible way i have figured out is that the timing of certain seasonal events during our formative years could in some way play a part - since this would affect each child the same each year.

for example, a (normal) baby born in early august (like i was) would be around four months old for the christmas/new year holiday, and would be around 16 months for the next one. all 'normally maturing' children will be at the same development stage for this holiday, and perhaps this gift-giving exercise at this stage in their development affects all similarly aged children in the same manner. that is, this gift-giving exercise at this stage imparts on Leo children the trait of 'give me gifts, and tell me how wonderful i am'. and other children in other stages of their development are affected in similar (but different) ways.

and this is the only way i can come up with for astrological generalizations to be remotely accurate. do i believe in them? no. not really. i tend to think they are also generalizations that would apply to anyone if they were given them. but since they had to come from somewhere, maybe there is a certain small bit of truth to them somewhere along the way.

A Traffic-Free Broadway - The New York Times Slide Show

2009-05-29T09:11:00.001-04:00

A Traffic-Free Broadway - The New York Times Slide Show
i have mixed feelings about changing parts of broadway to a pedestrian only street. part of me thinks it's great for the city, but another part of me enjoyed the hustle and bustle as part of the times square experience.

ramsi's menu disappointments

2009-05-27T16:00:00.001-04:00

ramsi's is the probably the most unique restaurant in town (louisville). claiming to be the 'cafe on the world', they serve a distinct cross-cultural menu which describes each item accurately.

at this restaurant more than any other, i read the description of the menu item and get an image of something particular which i think is going to be delicious. then the ordered item arrives and it is entirely unlike what i had imagined. the description was not inaccurate, but my expectations were set for something different. they inevitably manage to take the ingredients and assemble them in a way that i find unappetizing or unpalatable - even when i think that is not possible.

speaking with some friends recently, it seems that i am not alone. so perhaps it is the work of a skilled menu writer.

no matter, the net result is i'm not a fan of ramsi's. it's inevitably disappointing.

(edited 2009 05 29 - ramses is supposed to be ramsi's.)

plunger access

2009-05-25T11:00:00.000-04:00

any time you use a toilet, there is a distinct possibility that your flush might not be successful - whether you caused the clog or not. nobody knows what went down the toilet before they got there, nor how close to being clogged any toilet is. when someone needs a plunger, they need it immediately and don't need to go on a search to find it.

in light of this, as a courtesy, any restroom should have the plunger readily available and easily identifiable. this is a rule. the only exception is if you have commercial toilets - those high powered types that you find in businesses. but if your business has the small domestic-sized toilets, then providing a plunger is an absolute.

so to that cafe last summer, i did what i could.

tony hawk brand jeans

2009-05-22T12:22:00.000-04:00

i recently purchased some tony hawk brand jeans because they were on sale and they looked nice. and they still do. the only problem i have is that the fly is constantly coming undone. i mean, i zip up, and in single digit minutes, i have to zip up again.

so, tony hawk, wherever you are, your fly is undone.

ups speak and spell

2009-05-19T15:30:00.000-04:00

does anyone else think that the electronic things that UPS wants you to sign to get your delivery looks like a Speak-N-Spell? when the UPS delivery person starts punching into the thing, i expect to hear a word spelled out by a mechanical voice.

forum solutions

2009-05-16T17:18:00.000-04:00

i have several pet peeves - but one of the biggest is when you log in to a technical forum to get a solution for a particular issue, and they tell you to solve it by doing something completely different - sometimes including an insult to the thing you are trying to do.

for example, log into an apple forum (the worst offenders i've seen) and ask 'how do i play wma files on my mac?' the first response you should expect is 'wma sucks, use mp3.' or 'wma sucks, you're an idiot. use mp3.'

these are not solutions.

when someone asks for directions to st louis, you never receive the answer of 'st louis sucks. go to new york instead.' so why does this happen so much in the technical realm?

before you answer a forum post, i recommend you stop and ask yourself if your answer is a genuine solution or a 'forum solution'. if your solution doesn't answer the problem, then at least offer it as an option instead of a solution.

happy together

2009-04-09T08:06:00.001-04:00

has anyone else noticed how potentially disturbing the lyrics for the turtles' "happy together" are? it's about an obsessive type of love that may or may not be reciprocated. the original recording suggests this with the build at the end of the song. nice. and subtle.

article: no silver programmers

2009-03-21T19:08:00.001-04:00

this is a well-written article on programmer productivity.

article: Zoo's baby giraffe making progress

2009-03-17T15:30:00.001-04:00

this article has an odd title - and i'd parsed it a different way than intended. i grouped the words 'baby giraffe making' together - giving it an entirely different meaning. sounded like too much info, but i had to know so i clicked the link.

imagine my disappointment.

this is just stuff you gotta watch out for when you are a journalist.

hillbilly with a bad haircut

2009-03-04T22:24:00.001-05:00

on my last trip to new york (which was an embarrassingly long time ago) i still had my mohawk and wore it up the whole time. like good tourists, as jerns and i were running around the city we took some photos of ourselves. and like good tourists, we tried to get out of the photos others were taking.

once we did this on times square, and jerns pointed out that i was in someone's photo of times square, so he pulled me out of the way. of course after we did this the people in the photo moved once again so i would be in the background - it appears the photo wasn't so much of times square as it was the family in front of the guy with the mohawk in times square.

and then the next day we were in the subway and had the exact same thing happen - a family taking a picture, we move to get out of the way, and then they move so that i am still in the background. it's pretty comical to watch. and after that second time i gave up moving.

the funny thing is that i was part of someone else's defining new york experience - they are showing the photos to their family and friends with me in the background.

but i'm not a rebellious new york counter-culture native. i'm from kentucky - i'm just a hillbilly with a bad haircut.

link: making house music from the number pi

2009-02-26T14:51:00.001-05:00

this was a nice surprise. it's the little things in life.

happy birthday, Darwin

2009-02-12T17:48:00.001-05:00

i expect that he didn't expect to be as reviled as he is. and i also expect that he would have been very distraught about how misunderstood he is today.

but the core of his theory is the very simple:
those most and best prepared and equipped to survive are more likely to produce offspring.

simple. and elegant in its simplicity. but the ramifications of it are pretty incredible.

well done, Charles. well done.

movie review: city of ember

2009-02-09T22:31:00.001-05:00

we caught the opening sequence/intro to the film the night before, and found it interesting enough that we wanted to see the rest of the film asap. unfortunately that opening sequence was the only really compelling piece of the film. this is not to say that it was a bad film, just that if the rest of the film had been as strong as the setup, it would have been immensely enjoyable.

the setup is a city of people sent to live underground for 200 years, after which time the citizens would come out with no knowledge of what went on above ground before - restarting the world with a blank slate. but of course the container with the instructions for leaving the city gets misplaced/lost, so the city remains lived in for longer than its original design - and starts to fall apart.

novel to film adaptations have two challenges that must be overcome. if one adapts it too faithfully, the movie might be boring to watch as a film. if one adapts it too creatively, then the two no longer resemble each other. a very delicate balance between the two makes the best adaptations. without having read the novel it's hard to know exactly, but i suspect that this movie suffered from an adaptation that was too faithful to the novel - leading to slow discoveries that are very exciting to read, but fairly boring and uneventful to watch - with several small details that are explained in the novel, but left off of the screenplay. surely shifting some of the plot around, and amping up the action, adjusting some of the amazing co-incidences, and pealing off the layers of the onion in a more appealing way would have made a much more enjoyable film.

once again, the film wasn't really bad. it just made me curious to read the novel - to get the detail - to feel the culture that was only hinted at of this select group of people destined to keep the underground city self-sustained.

so if you find yourself in the mood to watch something low-key and escapist on cable some late afternoon, perhaps this is a good movie for you. if you're going to read the novel, then perhaps this is a good introduction for you. if you want to see two pretty good young actors, then this might be a good movie for you. but i think perhaps you should wait for a better adaptation when someone with a better screenplay adapter decides to do a remake of the property in future years.

friendbar

2009-02-08T10:06:00.001-05:00

this add-on seems to be quite handy for keeping up with facebook and twitter (but not quite as handy as digsby with the facebook and twitter add-ons). warning: change the update frequency in the preferences otherwise you may get a bit dizzy from the constant, rapid barrage of updates scrolling across the top of your screen.

get on your boots

2009-02-08T09:50:00.001-05:00

wow. judging from this video on the new album, U2 seems to be nowhere near the band that once they were. or maybe i'm just getting old. their peak was joshua tree, rattle and hum, and achtung baby. guess they'll never achieve that type of relevance for me again.

scribefire

2009-02-07T00:16:00.001-05:00

scribefire looks like it may be pretty handy. i can always use a firefox plug-in that makes me a more productive blogger. maybe...

25 random-ish things

2009-02-03T11:08:00.001-05:00

this made the rounds on facebook, with most everyone putting up their list. i found the exercise fascinating and entertaining, and was proud enough of my list to include it here. since it's elective reading, i didn't mind going all out.

1) i am a very creative person, and enjoy creating all sorts of stuff. in particular, i like creating music. but i've also been known to write (i even wrote a bad novel once long ago). and i like coding (software) and cooking (food, of course) for the same creative reasons. and i like baking because it's a creative task and it reminds me of chemistry lab. (you know, put some liquid together. add heat. and it comes out as a solid. how cool is that?) given endless time i'd probably create all sorts of stuff - like animation, movies, visual art, remodeling, plays, operas, etc.

2) while searching for myself in my early 20s, i decided i was irish and wanted an emerald ring to signify this - going so far as to visiting jewelry stores to have a look and get some prices and ideas. when i finally went to ireland, the natives thought i was german or something else, but definitely not irish. good thing i didn't get that ring.

3) in junior high school i got diagnosed with a mild case of scoliosis and was given some exercises to strengthen my muscles to help correct the curvature. this is the only time in my life i ever had a six pack. the six pack is long gone now. i assume the scoliosis is too.

4) i wish i was more productive, and it frustrates me that i am not.

5) i love louisville; i think it's a great place to live. for a while i wanted to move away, but i slowly came to realize that wherever i moved i would probably just sit at home anyway - so i might as well do it here where the cost of living is good, my family is nearby, and my friend-base is already established. but if i were to move anywhere, it would probably be to NYC, London, San Francisco, or if i spoke french, Paris.

6) i put a lot more thought into constructing this list than i thought i would. but i loved the concept and enjoyed reading my niece's list so much that i knew i was going to participate - even without being tagged. but i've deleted just about all of the supplemental facebook applications that i can because i don't have time to keep up with them. given endless amounts of time though, i'd probably do them all.

7) i am an atheist, but i don't generally mind religion and religious people - it is a matter of faith and you either have it or you don't. however, i do expect people to be morally consistent with their faith, and to understand thoroughly the dogma to which they profess - including the strengths and weaknesses of their argument. i also expect everyone to respect the beliefs of others because everyone's beliefs look silly to someone. and i ask that people not push their faith or lack thereof on others. faith is believing what you can't prove, so what is there to argue about? so a message to that famous atheist richard dawkins who is constantly telling religious people that they are wrong: i think you're an ass.

8) i've gotten to where i almost hate to talk on the phone. and i've gotten to where i'm not really good at writing emails since i tend to get caught up trying to write well - making it take much longer than i feel i have the time to spend. despite this, i've still got friends that i'm very loyal to, dedicated to, and close to, even though we rarely speak.

9) i enjoy singing, and if i was young enough i probably would've done the local american idol auditions - 'cause it looks like the easiest way to a career in music. you know, without all that hard work and starvation. as a kid i used to grab a jump rope to use as a microphone with cord and would stand on a footstool (my stage) and perform for nobody in particular - but because it was fun for me. i guess it still is - audience or no.

10) out of high school i wanted to be a music teacher. fortunately after spending some time helping out my friend andy with his choruses, realized that i lacked the authority to keep control over a classroom and the ambition to actually want to lead a classroom. i also wasn't quite ready to move away from home to go to college. it's a good thing, too, 'cause i think i would've hated that job.

11) i became a computer programmer not because i loved computers, but because a friend of mine (the drummer in my band) was a programmer and made a comfortable salary once he got out of college - which was way more than i was making at the time.

12) i have a mohawk because it's fun, people enjoy it, and i enjoy it too. i spent years feeling like i couldn't do what i wanted to my hair, so getting the mohawk was very liberating. and since my hairline will one day have receded so that i cannot have the mohawk, i figure i'd better do it now for as long as i can. or until i think of something else interesting that i'd like to do. 'cause i know my hair is going...

13) i find that birth order theory can be enlightening, entertaining, interesting, and accurate - sometimes all at the same time. and i find horoscopes to be a silly diversion devoid of any real value.

14) i try not to drink often, but when i do, i like rum (capt morgan's spiced rum and old monk rum), red wine, and margaritas - these make me happy. bourbon makes me not happy so i avoid it.

15) i enjoy sitting at the piano making up stuff - hitting the keys - trying to tie them together musically. and it's a bonus when i'm playing the piano in the dark. (cue music)

16) i think beethoven is awesome, mozart is overrated, grieg is good, and howard shore's score for the lord of the rings movies is some of the finest music ever written.

17) i don't really like candy, except dark chocolate, good quality white chocolate, starburst fruit chews, and skittles.

18) i was very homophobic until i finally accepted the inevitable. sometimes you don't have to look very far to find someone's source of self-loathing. i've gotten over that since. coming out is very therapeutic that way.

19) the libertarian political philosophy makes the most sense to me, but in practice they fall very short so that i still haven't voted libertarian yet.

20) i've actually enjoyed all the jobs that i've had - including working at mcdonald's right out of high school for five years.

21) i think it's a good practice to give up something for lent even if you're not religious - because discipline is a good thing to have - and to remind yourself how difficult it can be. (if you find this exercise easy then you gave up the wrong thing. try again next year.)

22) i enjoy driving distances alone. and enjoy solitude in general. this is not to say that i don't enjoy being around people, just that i enjoy my time spent alone. this is not the same thing as enjoying loneliness though. nobody enjoys that.

23) i don't consider myself a nostalgic person, but i do have a box of items of things that i've kept through the years and i occasionally will toss something into it.

24) i tend to keep boxes of products that i purchase - just in case something happens and i need the box. i try to do this less now, because those boxes from star wars toys that i bought as a kid take up too much space.

25) there was a while when i would get pissed off when people called me 'skinny'. we're all aware (sometimes painfully) of our differences and you never walk up to someone and call them 'fatty', so why was it acceptable to do something similar to me? i think i've gotten over this now though. i am what i am. but i think the name is wrong. 'skinny' to me should imply someone who has excess skin - like someone after gastric bypass surgery. and by the way, i've got a nice layer of fat around my waist now, and it looks ridiculous. so stop asking me why i watch what i eat and stop telling me i have nothing to worry about. it's just not true.

earl gray

2009-01-23T09:37:00.004-05:00

i just had a thought that earl gray tea is the dr. pepper's of tea. just like dr. pepper is coke/pepsi/cola with a little extra flavoring, earl gray tea is just lipton/regular black tea with a little extra flavoring. and once you get used to that flavoring, you're hooked.

yeah, i love me some dr. pepper. and i also love me some earl gray. hot.*

* out-of-nowhere reference to capt. jean-luc picard.

typical media hype

2009-01-17T12:40:00.003-05:00

okay, the crash of an airplane into the hudson river and everyone surviving is a neat story.

i have a small problem with the media hype about what a hero the pilot is. i'm not saying that i could have pulled this off successfully if i suddenly found myself in the pilot's seat. i'm just saying that someone doing what they are prepped for, prepared for, trained for, and paid to do generally does not justify the title 'hero'. pilots are certainly familiar with the possibilities of birdstrike (there is a name for it after all) and the best way to handle it when it happens - especially given that most emergency water landings are successful, low-casualty events.

this is not to say there is a lack of gratitude from those who were or could have been directly affected. but by willingly choosing aviation as a career the pilot chose to be responsible for the lives of the passengers. this responsibility was no different this flight than the hundreds or thousands of other successful flights in his career. and keep in mind that it was in the pilot's best interest to survive too.

here are some of the additional stray thoughts i have about this event:
- where's the hype for the passengers sitting in the emergency evacuation rows? are they heroes too? air traffic controllers? port authority? other folks involved in this event?
- did the pilot announce to the passengers clearly "prepare for landing in the hudson" or was it the typical garbled, almost inaudible, incomprehensible message typically delivered by the pilot?
- now that it looks like the pilot is becoming a celebrity, will he have a place of honor at the upcoming inauguration ceremony? a guest judge on american idol? center square in hollywood squares?
- how many passengers on board were wishing they'd paid more attention to the emergency instructions that are typically ignored when taxiing for takeoff?
- three years from now will anyone recognize the pilot's name?
- will the pilot get tired of any pointed comments everytime someone sees him as their pilot in the future? "hey, buddy, try to miss the birds this time, will ya?"
- if there had been any casualties, would the media spin have been different?

so to pilot Chesley B. "Sully" Sullenberger, i say job well done. and if you willingly chose to land in the water where you alone knew the ferries would be nearby to get you before hypothermia set in, then that is impressive. but in my definition of the word hero, you're just probably not getting paid to do it, and you're putting yourself in harm's way to save someone else.

but then, i'm an asshole.

- update 2009 01 19 - 10:09 AM EST -

so you knew this was coming, but according to this video by the bbc, the water landing was extraordinarily skillful and successful execution is rare (contrary to what i'd read previously), so maybe this guy is a hero after all.

and i read today that the entire flight crew is invited to the inauguration. who didn't see that coming?

winter allergies

2009-01-06T17:16:00.001-05:00

this link describes the difference between the common cold and winter allergies. according to this, i've been experiencing winter allergies all these years. i figured as much, but never knew. thanks, webmd!

productivity ahoy!

2009-01-06T17:07:00.002-05:00

i recently reviewed an old journal of mine where i categorize my time spent into one of four buckets as described:
* producing - actively creating something
* consuming - consuming someone else's creative effort
* maintaining - fixing food, laundry, cleaning the house, and other "life maintentance" tasks
* ignoring - napping, wasting time, etc.
i'd decided that my goal was to spend as much time as i could in the "producing" category - since i want to feel like there are results, that is, i have something to show for my time spent.

i have a backlog of some 14 items to blog about that i've kept since the summer of 2008 (that's some six months ago now) that i still haven't found the time to do.

what's up with that? can i really not find the time? these blogs shouldn't be taking this long to write!

this is why i am actively choosing to try to spend less time in the "consuming" state. "ignoring" used to be the big culprit, but now i've gotten comfortable with the concept of the occasional nap. but i am once again no longer comfortable spending time "consuming" other people's work since it doesn't give me anything to show of my own. the creative efforts of others is not more important to me than my own creative work, so why would i balance my time that way?

in light of this, i think i'm going to significantly trim down some of my rss feeds. i lived my life without keeping up with (for example) aintitcoolnews regularly before, so i can probably do without it now. my "consuming" has gotten too great.

so expect several potentially anachronistic posts soon.

links

2008-12-27T21:27:00.002-05:00

i'm reviewing my blog and finding that i used to link to articles, websites, other things of note, and sometimes even post entire copies of articles in my blog. i'm now doing this pretty much via google reader, by sharing items in my rss feeds. and as for copying nytimes articles, they opened up their web site links so you can go back and see the articles yourself now without being a paid subscriber.

all this just in case you want to know. if you need my gmail id to see my google reader shared items (and notes), let me know.

old family photos

2008-12-27T20:19:00.004-05:00

over the holidays my sister visited from out of town and stayed with mom. while there she scanned in a lot of old family photos - some dating from more than forty years prior.

my siblings and i are all in our forties now. and there's something about looking at photos from when we were young that hits me with a sense of loss.

i'm not sure what exactly that sense of loss is - all of us are still alive. but thinking about it, i think the loss i'm feeling is a loss of innocence. these were from older, simpler days in our lives. mom and dad were still married. we were all kids - oblivious to the harshness that life can sometimes bring.

and we were happy. i had a very happy childhood. sure, i may have a few sore points, but still, i consider my childhood very happy. this is not to say that i'm not happy now, but just that things have changed so very much.

growing up certainly allows for many joys, but at the cost of responsibilities, obligations, and also some sorrow as life has passed by. and i realize once again that those more innocent days are truly gone forever.

flares

2008-12-26T20:40:00.002-05:00

several years ago i realized buying products with the latest style was not practical since their value didn't last. i mean, i'm fashion conscious enough that i don't want to wear out-of-date clothes, and i'm cheap enough that i don't want to not wear clothes that i had. so i decided to skip out on fashion trends when i could spot them, and try to stick with more conservative "timeless" choices.

then it came to pass that i was hanging out with some friends that owned, wore, and looked good in flared jeans. i'm old enough to remember flared jeans back in the 70s when they were called bell-bottoms. and then later when they were revived in the late 80s or early 90s. but knowing this, i decided to go ahead and purchase this style of pant anyway.

and i got several.

and now here we are several years later, and this morning i see someone walking across the street with the exact opposite of flared jeans - these were tapered and progressively got closer below the knee, so that by the ankle it was right at the skin. i'm sure there's a name for these, and i'm sure you've seen them by now. and if you're reading this far enough from the post date then it's entirely possible that this style has receded into the background once again and is about to be cool again in a retro kind of way.

but it was this morning that i realized that even though i really love the way my flared jeans look (still), that i was still looking hopelessly out of date when i wear them. damn. i knew better than to buy them in the first place.

looks like goodwill is going to get a few new pants soon.

christmas post cards

2008-12-26T20:17:00.002-05:00

one of the cooler "inventions" of the last few years is the ability to create custom christmas cards with photos of the family, pets, both, etc. it's really nice to get photos of those you don't see every day, and to have them in convenient card form (which are easier to keep than pictures placed inside the card). i keep considering making a christmas card myself for the next christmas.

unfortunately, these christmas photo cards are always post cards, and since i stand all christmas cards on my mantle these post cards don't behave quite so well. i end up leaning them up against the wall, but this year i had so many postcard christmas cards that i ran out of space.

hopefully sometime in the near future the price and availability of the non-postcard type of custom card will be available and popular. i'd hate to have to change me, after all.

alarm clocks

2008-12-26T20:13:00.002-05:00

i have decided that the perfect alarm clock does not exist. all of them have different features, but they are never exactly the features that you are wanting. the closer they are to being feature complete, the more likely the style or quality will be lacking. but in my case, i never found one.

however, this little sony clock i got as a present seems to come pretty close. the only feature it is lacking is the constant projecting of the time on the ceiling.

the star wars holiday special

2008-12-26T13:56:00.003-05:00

i watched this with rifftrax (think mystery science theater 3000) last night with a group of friends, and it is as bad as (or even worse than) i remembered it being from years ago.

you cannot disassociate the holiday special show from the time it was broadcast. george lucas wasn't involved at all. the show was created by handing the property, characters, actors off to the network variety show teams - variety shows were all the rage at the time - and letting them come up with something. so there are several musical numbers, celebrity cameos, bad story, bad special effects, and bad acting. it's REALLY bad. i mean, REALLY, REALLY, REALLY bad.

but 10 year old me that caught the only time it was ever broadcast thought it was awesome. at the time, there was no way to watch star wars without going to the theater. videocassettes hadn't shown up on the scene yet, so there was no rental and no purchase. if it wasn't at the theater or on network tv or hbo, then you didn't see the movie. so showing these characters on tv was a luxury. by november 17th, 1978 i hadn't seen the characters that had become such a pivotal part of my life for months. so there was huge demand for this property - as star wars was such a hot property at that time.

i won't recommend that you watch it. ever. but if you DO watch it, watch the rifftrax version with commercials. and watch it with a big group as things tend to be funnier in groups. and maybe have a little something to drink too. because despite the quality of the show, it can make for a very entertaining evening with friends.

the ghosts of christmas cards past

2008-12-21T19:17:00.001-05:00

i found several christmas cards from 5+ years ago and decided to do some culling. it was interesting to see the changes in peoples lives just by their christmas cards. in these years several have gotten married, some have kids and no longer sign their pets names, and one has passed away.

and a couple of them i didn't even know who they were. i guess i was a bit more social then.

maybe next year i should send out cards saying "happy holidays - here's hoping i forget who you are later than sooner."

cystoscopy

2008-12-01T22:54:00.000-05:00

maybe i know someone who has had one of these, but we don't talk about it. well, they've never mentioned it and i've not asked around. but today i got to have this unique experience, and i'm going to share.

my day started out with a urologist appointment at 7:30. first up was a cat-scan, which i'd never experienced before. the tech let me know the plan: scan once as is. scan the second time with a dye into my blood stream. scan a third time for..., well, maybe because i was already there. i was warned that the dye would cause a metallic taste in the back of my throat, and then a warming sensation in my stomach. the warming sensation was noticeable, but i missed out on the metallic taste. instead, i got the bonus of nausea and vomiting. apparently a small percentage of people react that way to the dye. so i am laying on the table, injected with a dye, and hurling - well, hurling is too strong a word since i hadn't eaten anything for 8 hours or so. but the nausea passed shortly and fairly cleanly (my stomach was empty), and while i was worried i was going to get ill on the second scan, the third one went better. i was glad when it was over - scanning was worse than i thought it would be. for those who get to have a cat-scan in the future, they are sneaky in that each pass through the scanner can be a different speed, so when you hold your breath, take a full breath each time. i started to base my breaths on the speeds of the previous (quick) passes, and then i found myself struggling for the next ones which were much longer. and the dye is supposed to be hell on the kidneys, so drink plenty of fluids for the next day or two.

so, cat-scan completed. next up: cystoscopy.

a cystoscopy, for those of you who don't know, is a medical procedure to look inside your bladder, and the tubes that lead to it - making sure that everything looks okay. in my case, this meant that the doctor was going to insert a camera-on-a-very-small-tube into my penis, having a look along the way to and inside the bladder.

now i know what you're thinking: OUCH! but i had read up on the procedure to discover that it wasn't supposed to be painful so much as uncomfortable. but i knew i didn't want to watch the procedure. so i think i looked at the ceiling, or something. i know that i DIDN'T see any of this happening.

the beginning of the process is the application of the numbing agent, which i think is a syringe full of something or other that gets inserted into the opening of the penis. as you might expect, i flinched. this is actually the most painful part of the procedure.

the doctor then asks if i'm ready for five minutes of extreme discomfort. i said 'sure'. i guess i was as ready as i was going to be. i placed my hands on either side of me on the table and gripped very, very tightly. the doctor tried to have small talk with me, but i'm not sure i spoke very much except for 'uh huh' and 'yeah' and all the other autonomic vocal responses one does when one is not really paying attention but is trying to ... or trying to pretend to.

words cannot express how uncomfortable and unpleasant the cystoscopy is - cause it is EXTREMELY uncomfortable to have a camera inserted into your penis (which was numbed up a bit) and to feel it moving along on its way to your bladder (which i could feel quite distinctly). i suddenly felt the need to urinate - despite draining my bladder ten minutes before giving a urine sample. having already thrown up in the cat-scan, and worried that i was going to pee on the table, on the equipment, or on the doctor, i figured i'd better give them a warning. he reassured me that the sensation was normal. i read after i got home that they insert water into the bladder to fill it up so they can see the full bladder. this explains the strong urge to urinate that came out of nowhere. this would've been handy to know beforehand.

mercifully, less than five minutes into the procedure the doctor says "all done". he said i was fine, scans were clear, nothing showed up, nothing bad to be seen. not really sure what all he said - cause having a camera inserted into your penis is enough to distract you for a good while. but i got that i was fine. everything was fine. life was good. and i could now go to the bathroom to relieve my bladder.

i felt pretty beat up. but more than anything, i just wanted to be home. i finally decided that being home was worth the risk of peeing in my car - so i made the twenty minute trip in fifteen minutes. i felt rough for the next several hours. and peed and peed and peed and peed.

sometime around noon i felt back to normal. the urge to pee subsided - guess the bladder was finally empty. i had originally thought about going into work after the procedure, but looking back there was just no way.

and this is the end of my tale. it was a unique experience. and if anyone else has a cystoscopy and wants to commiserate, speak up.

next up: colonoscopy.

link: tall or not

2008-11-02T21:01:00.000-05:00

this was more interesting than i would have expected. i guess that's because the camera for movies is always at the actor's height, so one assumes that every actor is our height. that's definitely not the case.

Star Wars TV Show

2008-10-04T01:00:00.002-04:00

Tonight I got to see what the 12 year old me dreamed of. Star Wars The Clone Wars debuted tonight on tv. As a bonus there were two episodes. And they were good. Not flawless, but enjoyable. I'd forgotten how rich that universe is - so many story choices. I find I'm looking quite forward to it.

(well, this was written several months ago, but managed to not get posted. so i'm posting it months late anyway.)

restaurants fail

2008-08-27T09:32:00.000-04:00

this article reminds me that most restaurants fail. so when i retire from programming and want to throw away my retirement savings pursuing a dream, remind me of that fact. so i can do it anyway.

olympic medal sweeps

2008-08-22T10:22:00.000-04:00

i have seen some posts lately about medal sweeps for the USA - in that they are events that we always seem to win. some of these make sense because they are probably more popular here than in other parts of the world - a part of our culture. (hard to imagine much bmx bike racing or beach volleyball in some landlocked country in africa.) so i wonder how many olympic events there are that non-USA countries sweep - olypic events so far outside of our culture that we've never even heard about them.

bug fixes

2008-08-18T23:12:00.000-04:00

there is a new iphone update today, and the detail of the update is "bug fixes". uh, thanks. why not tell us exactly what the bug fixes are? why the secrets, apple? microsoft releases detailed information about what's in each release and patch. how is it that apple can get away with the secrets?

at least they admitted there were bugs to be fixed. the update could have just said "update".

caloric intake increase

2008-08-01T15:35:00.000-04:00

something about birthdays and getting much dessert things here at work. yesterday a coworker brought in a cheesecake for me to eat, so i had 3 pieces. today another coworker brought in an ice cream cake from dq for me to eat, so i had another 3 pieces.

how many baby cokes is that?

muscle-y fat

2008-08-01T09:52:00.000-04:00

this article speaks about making muscles respond like they have been working out when in fact they have not. it's one of those things that i think people are already running away with. however, muscle tone is only a part of our physical appearance. the other is fat content - which is (to my knowledge) not affected here. so the net result of this scientific finding will be very overweight people with very large muscles. at least they should be able to support the extra weight...?

county extension office

2008-07-31T10:29:00.000-04:00

i'd never been to the county extension office before. i've heard of it, but never been. what a great idea. where else can you go with a question in hand (dying branch of a tree), they happily take it from you, look at it, and tell you what's wrong. if only everything in life worked this way.

the result of this visit is that the biggest tree in my back yard has caught a fungus which must be addressed at the beginning of the season otherwise it's done for the year. so much of the tree has died now that it will probably be best to just remove it. rats.

article: our obscene city

2008-07-31T10:13:00.000-04:00

this article is excellent and gives louisville a new reason to be proud. we apparently search for obscenities through google more than any other city - so our morals must be _way_ low. awesome.

(thanks emmy)

nightly prayers

2008-07-30T16:44:00.000-04:00

growing up, mom was the primary caregiver, but i recently remembered something that dad and dad alone would do - nightly prayers. if dad did not say them with me, then i said them alone.

prayers were said in mass style with dad starting each of them off and me finishing the rest of it as a type of responsorial.

they were also said in the same order starting with the lords prayer followed by the hail mary. and they always ended with:

dad: god bless mommy and daddy
me: make them good parents
dad: god bless t and v (sisters)
me: make them good girls
dad: god bless jody
me: make him a good boy
dad: god bless everyone
me: amen.

as i got older (and started saying prayers alone) i placed additional material at the end, but that's another post.

nytimes article: OPEC 2.0

2008-07-30T08:11:00.000-04:00

is bandwidth the next energy crisis? we do seem to be using a lot more than ever before.

interesting read.

iphone

2008-07-29T09:24:00.000-04:00

okay, i've had the device for a week and a half.

to say it has changed my life is a grand overstatement. but i can honestly say that it has affected it in the most positive way that a device can. this is the internet appliance that i have been wanting for the past several years, and what i was hoping to get when i go the blackberry pearl a couple of years ago, the palm before that, etc.

with the iphone, i'm able to check email, browse the web (google reader, wikipedia, etc), and even twitter. i can write email (only quick brief notes, thank you, that keyboard is too difficult to manage for any length of time), and twitter (twinkle with gps). and i can use the phone, not as elegant as a dedicated phone, and the voice dialing of the pearl is noticeably absent, but i can do what i need to do.

there are also games (which i don't use since i am using this drains battery and my goal is to find _more_ time in which to do things, not burn up time i have).

since i got the iphone, i've actually found that i can go without my laptop for a day or two. got a couple of free seconds? check google reader. i'm in lowes looking for a plant, do i want perennial or annual? wikipedia.

and while i don't plan to really use it as a proper ipod, yesterday i finally used some of the ipod functionality to listen/watch apple development seminars (just out of curiosity).

for where i live and work and normally find myself, i always have a 3g connection. so your mileage may vary. i'm very interested to see how it goes traveling to/in new york next week - where i expect i'll be in and out of 3g range.

iPhone 3g

2008-07-19T23:28:00.000-04:00

wow! I LOVE this device. So far it's everything I hoped it would be. Jerns got it for me for my birthday this morning. Thanks, Jerns!

synthpop genre

2008-07-02T08:04:00.000-04:00

i use windows media player pretty much exclusively. i love it. it's a nice start, but the key to enjoying the wmp experience is to correct the metadata - including the genre tags. i recommend narrowing the genre tags to a limited set (not the infinite variety that you get by accepting the default genre tags). i hate creating and maintaining playlists, but do use auto-playlists sometimes. but mostly i play a single artist, or a single album, or a single genre.

anyway, i have created a synthpop genre - which is consistently my favorite genre of music in my media library. it's nice to have a genre where i can load up and start hearing some of my favorite musics. instant good mood.

mesh. lowe. melotron. shiny toy guns. vnv nation.

life is good.

(btw. thanks (and love) to the s.o. for exposing me to wonderful music that i didn't know existed.)

adsense ahoy!

2008-07-02T07:31:00.001-04:00

taking lead from emmy, i've decided to enable adsense advertising on my blog, just for the joy of getting a check for 10cents every 6 months or so. so friends, just ignore the ads like you do on the rest of the internet. i'm sure you're conditioned to do it anyway...

disjointed morning pleasantry

2008-07-02T07:19:00.000-04:00

woke up early, so decided to come on in to work rather than tossing and turning and keeping the s.o. awake and then finally getting to sleep and waking up at 9:30 all groggy and wishing i'd gone ahead and gotten up when i woke up early. you know the story. anyway...

i just had a disjointed run-in where i almost collided with a coworker. the conversation went like this:

me: excuse me. good morning!
coworker: very well, how are you?
me: thanks!

i wonder if he's blogging about it now too.

counting calories

2008-06-30T11:34:00.000-04:00

i'm really trying to prevent my layer of fat from expanding, so i've starting keeping an eye on calories.

calories by themselves have no meaning, so it's nice to have a gauge. mine is a baby can of coca-cola, which is 100 calories. i can then translate everything into how many baby cokes it is. but i also know a couple of other things, like a nestle tollhouse chocolate chip cookie ice cream sandwich (which is a pain to type, but delicious nevertheless) sits around 500 calories.

i have some coupons for arby's, so i thought about going over there to get 3 beef'n'cheddars for 5 bucks. i could eat 1.5 today and the rest tomorrow, and look at the money i've saved! but i wondered how many calories that would be, so i went to arbys.com to find out.

445 calories in a beef'n'cheddar! holy cow! for that i'd rather have the nestle tollhouse chocolate chip cookie ice cream sandwich which is probably infinitely more delicious.

so this is what counting calories has done for me.

article by suzanne vega

2008-06-26T10:01:00.000-04:00

this article is by suzanne vega about her experience luka - and being a dubbed a two-hit wonder despite having a career in music. it's a good read for aspiring musicians. and maybe others as well...

rip: george carlin

2008-06-23T09:31:00.000-04:00

george carlin was one of the first comedians i remember watching and laughing at/with. i always thought it would be fun to see him live, but never took the initiative to do so, never thinking that it was a limited opportunity. hopefully this serves as a reminder to not miss out on other limited opportunities...

mccafe

2008-06-20T09:25:00.000-04:00

mcdonald's has introduced a new line of coffees - you know, to compete with the starbucks craze. i had a coupon for a free small mccafe coffee today and boy is it tasty! not quite starbucks. not necessarily inferior, but just slightly different from starbucks. if there wasn't a starbucks around i would not hesitate to swing into the local mcd's. or if there was a starbucks around and i was feeling economical i would not hesitate to swing into mcdonald's and grab a mocha.

however, mcdonald's biggest challenge is quality control. all it will take is one bad mccafe and i'm off to starbucks. and i'm confident in mcdonald's ability to deliver that bad coffee.

in the meantime, yummmmmmmmmmmm.

roomba

2008-06-18T10:32:00.000-04:00

i finally got a roomba once the s.o. found one for a clearance price at the local target. (note that all targets run their own clearance items, so different targets will have different items on clearance for different prices.)

i let the roomba run around yesterday. it's kinda cute, but not something you want to watch do it's job (since it does it kinda randomly and passes over the same spot of carpet over and over again).

the cats did not like it. one of them even gave it a good hissing - knowing that it was unnatural. after a while i put them on the bed to get them out of the way (and so they wouldn't be traumatized). they remained interested for a bit, and then largely indifferent. but that was probably because it didn't come near them.

the death of white lily

2008-06-18T09:19:00.000-04:00

how dare they?!

okay, i got hooked on using white lilly flour thanks to shirley corriher's excellent book 'cookwise' and i haven't turned back. it's the only way to make biscuits. will i notice the difference?

damn you, j m smucker company!

go katie!

2008-06-12T12:04:00.000-04:00

i love katie couric and if i actually watched the nightly news i would probably choose to view her show. this link is a very nice little blurb about the recently ended clinton campaign - and sexism. and probably a pointed commentary about what she has to deal with every day in her job.

windows quick launch

2008-06-11T13:56:00.000-04:00

in windows, i use the quick launch icons extensively. i keep them in a certain order, and i keep them all shown - sizing the quick launch icons into a grid of 4x4 (since i have my taskbar on the side).

somehow in the windows world it has become acceptable for any and all companies to release products and automatically add icons to the quick launch. it's an amazing annoyance. and how did it come to be this way? how did this become acceptable?

i don't see anything like this in mac os x-land. apple wouldn't allow it. and yet, they are one of the worst offenders in windows. (a quicktime update is what prompted this blog.)

i swear, at some point i'm going to switch to linux and code everything i need myself...

ikea room planner

2008-06-09T12:40:00.000-04:00

how cool an idea is this? download the ikea room planner, launch it, alter the room dimensions, place in the windows and doors, and then start placing in ikea furniture to see if it fits.

bonus: upload the furniture selection to the ikea web site and have the list waiting for you the next time you're in ikea.

awesome.

(windows xp only. no mac. not as awesome. but still awesome enough to have xp running in parallels.)

great meal post

2008-06-09T11:59:00.000-04:00

i just got back from the twig & leaf diner (a staple restaurant in louisville, kentucky for those who aren't in the know - aka twig and leaf). and once again the meal was incredible.

i got the pancake platter: two eggs (over medium), bacon (not sausage), and three pancakes. perfect. delicious. i'm not sure where they get their bacon, but it is for reasons unknown the most excellent bacon i've had at any restaurant. and also, there is no place in town that can cook eggs over medium like the twig & leaf. strike that. there is no place in the world.

also, the pancakes were incredible too.

good to see you again, twig & leaf. it's been too long.

quote from rowling on parental blame

2008-06-06T17:05:00.000-04:00

"There is an expiry date on blaming your parents for steering you in the wrong direction; the moment you are old enough to take the wheel, responsibility lies with you."
- JK Rowling at Harvard commencement speech

credit card lessons

2008-05-12T14:51:00.000-04:00

reconciling my credit card bill last night i found an anomoly. an annual charge was put on my account using an expired credit card. i knew the card had expired as the company had sent me plenty of reminders about it, but i didn't update the billing information since i didn't plan to renew.

so imagine my surprise when i saw this charge on my bill, referencing a credit card that expired sometime last year. i called the credit card company to discuss with them. their response was enlightening. it appears that it is a valid charge, and they will approve the charge even though the card has expired. they apparently allow for this so that recurring charges will actually go through.

for the record, i find this policy is both mysterious and absurd. be forewarned.

painting

2008-05-05T09:03:00.000-04:00

i finally hired a contractor to paint the inside of my house. he started this morning, and i gotta say i'm quite excited. i've been in the house for two years now. that's two years of planning to paint and not following through. at some point, i just had to accept that i wasn't going to get it done any time soon, and that my painting skills would not be up to snuff.

so he should be painting now. and i'm quite excited to get it done.

earthshake

2008-04-18T14:23:00.000-04:00

yeah, everybody's talking about it. they have been all day. me too.

i knew when it happened this morning that it would be the conversation for the whole day. and that people would tell stories about how they figured out it was an earthquake and what they did or didn't do.

i knew while it was happening that this was one for the record books.

i also figure that since it happened this morning around 5:30 and that most people are in bed, but after that shaking they're too excited to sleep but too early to go ahead and get up, that many people took that opportunity to get a little action. so i expect we'll see a bunch of babies born in mid-to late january 2009.

regardless, it was the biggest quake i've been involved with. and a really big one for this part of the planet.

i think everyone survived kentucky earthquake 2008.

digsby

2008-04-15T08:59:00.001-04:00

wow! this is actually an excellent instant messaging client. i've tried others but haven't stuck with them. this one i'm sticking with because it's useful and works very nicely. i'm eager for the os x version.

www.digsby.com

yeah, i'm really recommending a product. this isn't spam.

which one's pink?

2008-04-15T08:40:00.000-04:00

it's funny how you can know the lyrics to a song, and then suddenly out of nowhere you get some sort of clarity about their meaning. since i'm not a lyrics guy (lyrics tend to fall far behind chords and melody) i find that this happens regularly. but today was a fairly big one that i'm sure most people long ago figured out.

song: pink floyd "have a cigar"
lyric: "by the way, which one's pink?"
real meaning: which person on stage is named "pink"? probably a common question from clueless record execs.
my previous understanding: what an odd lyric. that doesn't really make sense, but that's okay. it's a pink floyd song. maybe it's not supposed to.

yeah, i'm sure most people figured that out long ago.

subprime bailing

2008-04-02T14:43:00.000-04:00

i waited for years to buy a home - until i was in a good spot financially and knew that i wouldn't have any problems with the payments, etc. and now there is talk of legislation to help lenders and borrowers of money that cannot pay it back. yes, it is unfortunate for people to get in over their heads, but it is clear that the banks should not have taken a risk on these people. hell, i was approved for a loan amount that was _far_ greater than i could have possibly afforded, but i was wise enough not to get a home requiring that.

anyway, i guess it just irritates me that these people are being saved from irresponsible behavior - both on the part of the lenders and borrowers - when i acted responsibly.

i'm certain i would feel differently if i was on the other side of this issue. but hopefully people on that side can see my side too.

tiers

2008-03-22T12:07:00.001-04:00

some friends and i went out to the local irish pub on monday to celebrate st. patrick's day. i had not been out to a bar for quite a few months; this was the first time i noticed the tiers of ages below me. up until this night, i'd grouped people into three categories: older than me; about my age; younger than me. but this night i noticed several subdivisions in the lowest category: early 30s, mid-to-late 20s, early 20s - like a survey that asks you to check your age.

the net result of this night was that i got home and was kind of depressed. i'm now old enough to notice that people younger than me are not a single grouping of people.

for those of you who don't quite understand, you will....

(another older post from st patrick's day 2008. not sure why this never published.)

elevator dreams

2008-03-12T09:59:00.000-04:00

i'm sure that we all have really odd dreams, and some of them will qualify as recurring. so here's my latest recurring dream that i remember.

i get in an elevator and the elevator goes up _past_ the top of the building and then settles back down to the proper level - sometimes creatively (think balloons). but i always arrive safely at my destination after taking a little detour into the sky.

i'm not one who believes that dreams mean anything. i think they are the side effects of your brain defragmenting or some such biological task. still, usually i can trace them back to something. so where the hell did this one come from?

i guess when i die in that tragic elevator accident the blogosphere will know that i should have heeded the warnings.

disappointing apocolypses

2008-02-21T14:51:00.000-05:00

for the last day we've been warned of the impending winter storm that is arriving today. well, it finally arrived. schools closed early. the mayor declared that downtown businesses should leave early. and now, several hours later, the winter storm has changed to rain, pedestrians are briskly walking, and traffic is moving fluidly.

one of my co-workers (bantu is one of the only ones left in this floor of the building other than me) came over to say that he expected more from this apocolypse. i had to agree (which led us to an amusing little exchange such as "is this all?" and "i expected more fire and brimstone" and "where is all the death and destruction?").

i figure all apocolypses are destined to be disappointing. hype can make anything appear less than what it really is.

kitchen messes

2008-02-15T10:56:00.000-05:00

this was a weeek for much experimenting in the kitchen.

for valentine's day i wanted to make a cheesecake for me and the significant other. in an attempt to make the cheesecake more healthy (rather, less bad for you) i used fat-free cream cheese and splenda. hours later i open the oven to find a small ugly excuse for a cheesecake. the taste was close, but the cheesecake was cracked on the top and looked like hell (having been baked extra long because the first time i checked it was still liquidy).

thinking splenda may have been the culprit, i get online to find another recipe with splenda in it. i had enough (fat free) cream cheese to try again, so away i go with cheesecake number 2. hours later i open the oven to the same thing. at least it was cooked throughout, but the surface more resembled a baked, cracked bit of mud than a cheesecake.

so that's two cheesecakes thrown away in one afternoon. but the takeaway is that fat-free cream cheese is NOT to be used for making cheesecakes. at least, not exclusively. there may be some combination of regular and fat-free cream cheese that would work and one day i may have the energy or ambition to try.

but wait, that's not all.

the second cheesecake left me with some egg-white. i'd been wanting to try homemade mayonnaise for a while now, and i used this as the excuse to try. so i whipped it up, adding lots and lots of oil to the mixture, waiting for it to emulsify. finally my arms get tired, so i i get out the mixer with the whisk attached. having used LOTS of olive oil, i switch over to something lighter. i run out of that. so determined, i shift back to the olive oil. _finally_ it looks (consistency) properly like mayonnaise. but how does it taste? well, with that much olive oil it tastes almost exactly like olive oil. also, it's green. also, there's a TON of it. hmmm. so we tried to eat it, but since it tasted pretty much like olive oil it didn't make for a very good condiment. and now it sits in my fridge, still looking alright, but not tasting any better. i'll throw it away this weekend. the takeaway here is that homemade mayonnaise may be really good, but an egg and a half shouldn't make that much mayonnaise. and maybe oil with less of a taste would work better.

and for mess number three.

cooking the chicken in the skillet left some oil and such behind, so i decided to add some sour cream and try to make a sauce. oily mess. maybe if we add flour we'll get gravy. nope. oily mess with flour. one day i'll learn to make a proper sauce. or gravy. but this was not the way to accomplish it. the mess went straight into the trash can.

but all is not lost. the purchase of a sam's size jar of artichokes (from sam's club) was a success and has produced some _excellent_ chicken with artichokes. of course, that's the significant other's cooking, not mine.

and last night was my first attempt at making mashed potatoes. and that was quite successful too. not perfect, but still a very satisfactory result.

so this is the kitchen. a fun place to create a mess that's sometimes, but not always, edible. it's good fun. like chemistry lab.

tri-annual snowstorm

2008-02-11T23:34:00.000-05:00

some things i'll never outgrow - like the love of a good snowstorm. i think it's one of those residual childhood things; since we rarely get snow here, it has remained a novelty.

over the last several hours we have gotten probably 4 or so inches of snow - starting during rush hour making my 4 mile trip home take 70 minutes or so. a snow covered lawn and street is beautiful, i think it's the silence snow seems to bring that i love best. there is little to no traffic outside. and since the snow has largely turned to sleet, i can hear it hitting the house.

i'll sleep well tonight. and hope for no school - which for me means that i hope the mayor declares a snow emergency so our office is closed. i don't expect it will happen. i'll probably just work from home. but for now i'm going to go to sleep. and try not to be giddy from all the snow.

lincoln the atheist

2007-12-19T18:50:00.000-05:00

quotes from abraham lincoln. he was an atheist? how did i not know this? does the GOP know?

norman rockwell's home for the holidays

2007-12-18T13:05:00.000-05:00

norman rockwell was a pure american talent. his paintings are amazing - brilliant capturing a moment or telling a story.

a local museum is showing an exhibit called "norman rockwell's home for the holidays", which is on loan from the norman rockwell museum. "This exhibition, featuring 40 original saturday evening post magazine covers, includes many of norman rockwell's most memorable and enduring holiday images."

i was excited and eager to see the original paintings that made it to the magazine cover. i didn't read the description well enough though. the exhibit is just the magazine covers themselves. whoopty-fucking-do. if i wanted to see magazines, i dig through the thrift stores. color me disappointed.

as a bonus, the exhibit also had some really cheesy real-life reproductions of christmas events - like a dinner table set with a plastic turkey.

is there anyone who actually enjoyed this? anyone who was _not_ disappointed? is there a group of people who yearn to see old magazine covers?

hmm. maybe so. that might explain the group of senior citizens that came in while we were there.

some day i may find myself near the norman rockwell museum, and if i pay good money for admission and i don't get to see any original paintings, then hell will be raised.

christ mass cardboard sent via post

2007-12-18T12:34:00.000-05:00

i sent out my holiday cards last week. i do this because i celebrate christmas, not as a holy day, but as a holiday - because i find it fun to do. i'm an atheist, but i can still join in the celebration. i have a beer on st. patrick's day, but i'm not irish. same thing. just bigger and much more festive. and gifts are sometimes exchanged.

my holiday cards (i usually call them christmas cards) have a generic message like "seasons greetings" or "happy holidays" because i'm not christian, and most of my friends are not christian as well. but today i get a christmas card from a christian cousin, and all is fine and well, but on the back is a sticker saying:

"Merry Christmas" with a capital "C"
and X's drawn overtop of the words "season greetings" and "happy holidays".

it feels like a personal attack to me, but it probably is just done to everyone on their christmas card list.

i think the primary reason it bugs me is that one of my personality traits is to try to be inclusive of everyone, and to make everyone feel welcome. i try to find common ground, and while i appreciate differences, i don't focus on them negatively. and i definitely don't tell someone that what they are doing is wrong and try to correct them.

bah. humbug.

52 big macs

2007-12-14T16:37:00.000-05:00

since i'm on vacation, i'm able to spend my time on valuable things. for instance, the new area mcdonald's had its grand opening on thursday at 12:01 am. they offered all sorts of promotions on the first day of operation - including one free big mac every week for a year if you were one of the first one hundred customers between 3 am and 4 am on that first day of business.

of course this wouldn't be worth mentioning if i didn't get one of these coupons. i did. so once my vacation is over, i'll have a souvenir of my vacation for the next year - each week. 52 big macs. yum yum.

it's good to be alive.

bizarre recordings

2007-12-11T18:06:00.000-05:00

hopefully this link remains here for a while. bizarre sounds from things back in the day. (where "back in the day" is the dawn of recording mediums.) where else are you going to hear a castrata?

christmas cards

2007-12-10T13:57:00.000-05:00

i've just spent the last few hours online trying to create a custom christmas card, which could be delivered this week! very exciting. i spend all this time creating a card i'm happy with, and then proceed to checkout. at this point i find out that it would cost an additional 30 bucks to get the cards delivered to me this week. ouch. so that would be a total of 80 bucks on xmas cards. ew. no. i don't think so.

so i'll be heading to target or kmart or someplace with a much more economical selection. and i'll swear that next year i'll be more proactive.

the site i used was http://www.vistaprint.com, which was pretty decent. 50 cards for 50 bucks. not bad. and i could customize the photos as well, so maybe i'll take lots of pics this year for next year's cards.

maybe.

but we all know what that means.

hotkeyz

2007-11-27T10:02:00.000-05:00

i'm now using mac osx regularly since i bought the macbook pro. while several things have been hard to get used to, the one new mac feature that i really liked is the command-h shortcut to hide a window. this is handy. sometimes i don't want to minimize it - i just want to hide it. the difference is subtle, but once you get used to it, it's fantastic. so i found an application, HotKeys, that enables this functionality for windows. i use this and set the shortcut to be alt-h (since ctrl-h is search/replace), and it works great.

i need to write a more formal review of the switch at some point. maybe over my xmas break.

link: The Nerd Handbook

2007-11-19T15:39:00.000-05:00

Rands In Repose: The Nerd Handbook - is interesting. some of it is applicable. some of it is not. but anything that refers to vacations and people as life content can't be totally off-base.

article: swarm theory

2007-11-12T21:11:00.000-05:00

this article about swarm theories has some fascinating implications regarding the human condition.

Jott.com might be the...

2007-11-09T21:49:00.001-05:00

Jott.com might be the answer to all of my needs. listen

Powered by Jott

link: gubernatorial gambling silliness

2007-11-08T09:28:00.000-05:00

in this article: Beshear calls on lawmakers to consider casino issue, steve beshear (governor-elect) takes his victory as a championing for gambling and casinos in kentucky. the reality is that the current governor was so dispicable, that he could have had a modest proposal and still won easily. his election victory is not an indication that everyone likes his policies. his victory simply indicates that more people found him to be a better choice than fletcher. nothing more.

link: windows home server dev video

2007-11-07T13:12:00.000-05:00

this video is an excellent resource for this kick-ass product. i know, i know, i sound like a complete whore for whs, but i _REALLY_ like it.

emmy's minister

2007-11-06T09:15:00.000-05:00

as i was walking into work this morning, i hear the person i just passed on the sidewalk call "excuse me" to get my attention. i turn, and she tells me "you were emmy's minister". it's the first time i've been recognized as being a minister anywhere other than at the wedding itself. and it's funny that people know me only as that.

i've been meaning to blog about the wedding, because it was great. i've been in just about every role imaginable at a wedding: singer, groomsman, best man, usher, and i even stood up for the bride once - which kinda made me the maid-of-honor. but of all the roles i've been, my favorite was the role of minister.

it was through me that the bride and groom met, so when they asked me to officiate i was honored. i got my certification online (which kentucky recognizes as legit), and practice the ceremony that they had written themselves. (it was a very nice ceremony, with no religious references at all.)

the wedding itself was in late september, but it was 95 degrees and in the sun, so my biggest concern quickly became not passing out. there were some amusing things that happened (like there are at any wedding), including me moving the mic so that it didn't obstruct the bridesmaids and the readers standing at the spot where the mic was instead of going to the new location, the bride's barely intelligible cackle warning me not to start crying as she arrived at next to the groom (i had told her i teared up the first time i read through the ceremony and thought i might cry if she did. and she was.), and my fabulous word replacement while reading a particularly difficult passage at the end of the ceremony. oops. but that's a story better told in person.

all in all, it was an excellent thing to do. and it's one of the nicest weddings i've seen.

windows home server

2007-11-05T22:30:00.000-05:00

i made a comment on gizmodo today. i'm sure it will generate lots of hate mail. oh well. the comment sings the praises of windows home server, which is quite an excellent product.

the comment is at gizmodo.com. it hasn't shown up quite yet though...

link: quick hidef rundown

2007-10-31T16:18:00.000-04:00

this article, "Wired Test: 720p, 1080i ... What Does It All Mean?", does a quick and good job of explaining the differences in hi-def video without all the unnecessary fluff.

interviews

2007-10-17T21:43:00.000-04:00

at work it appears that we are in a perpetual state of hiring. this would not be a big deal, but it tends to mean that i get dragged into the interview. when they go okay, it's not a problem. but there is a rising trend of absolutely painful interviews. i don't know why it is such a challenge to find someone whom can speak clearly about what it is that they currently do. this shouldn't be that difficult.

or maybe all the good ones are taken, so we're left fighting for the scraps. eh, i guess we should just continue to go hungry.

windows home server

2007-10-16T19:19:00.000-04:00

got windows home server installed and up and running. really groovy. nice backup solution. next i'm going to rebuild all the windows pcs in my house and back them up there. also to get the mac backing up there too.

haven't mastered the art of accessing files remotely using the browser. but i don't have much up there yet either.

last.fm

2007-10-16T19:13:00.000-04:00

last.fm is something that sounds like a good idea, but figure it will take too long to payoff. i'm a big music listener so i installed the scrobbler to log all the songs i've played on my pcs. and now is the second time that i've just launched the last.fm player and selected to play songs from my neighbors libraries. this is now my favorite radiostation. some of my neighbors have some albums that i have, but mostly the player skips songs that i have and plays others. it's a great chance to hear something that i didn't know but i would probably like.

except for the foo fighters. what gives? why do people actually like them.

that theme

2007-09-30T14:25:00.000-04:00

i just heard the kid next door playing in the yard humming the star wars theme. this makes me happy.

the switch

2007-09-13T23:47:00.000-04:00

so i'm making the switch to mac. this post is not about the reasons why i switched. this post is about some of the pains i'm going through.

for example, i found out tonight that my lexmark printer does not work with os x. what gives?!

another issue is time spent deciding what email application i should use: mac mail or thunderbird. i have to use outlook still since that's the only way to synchronize with hotmail accounts (of which i have several).

i think it's a good move, on the whole. just a little frustrating at times. and now i have to go get a new printer. damn.

Life coach

2007-09-10T08:42:00.000-04:00

i regularly see people do things that i think are not good moves. these can be behaviors, decisions, and thought processes that my experience tells me are wrong. it makes me just want to sit down and say "here's the way the world really works. this is what you need to know. maybe this will help you. here's a tip."

sometimes i think i should just offer my services as a "life coach". so many people seem to really need one.

cancer-i-fied

2007-08-06T11:17:00.001-04:00

i went to the dermatologist last wednesday, the day before my birthday, to have him look at a spot on my forearm. i was fairly certain that it was cancerous, and i just got back the results today. it was "basal cell carcinoma", which is the most common type of skin cancer. the dermatologist removed it completely, which is the cure for it. it appears that it would have continued to spread, but isn't particularly life threatening.

it's just odd. in my family, i'm the first (age-wise) to develop something. this is my penance for all those times getting sunburned and for not wearing sunscreen.

i shall try to be more cautious from now on.

i like nothing

2007-06-28T15:50:00.000-04:00

i've discovered that with the exception of the occasional pop song, i like virtually no music on the first listen. but i will grow to like stuff quite a bit.

not much on that fact, and wish it was different, but i am what i am. and i like what i like.

or not.

(note that this does not mean if i don't like something initially that i am guaranteed to like it later. but it does mean that i need to listen to music more than once to get a feel for what it is.)

disruption of service

2007-06-21T12:56:00.000-04:00

from this courier-journal article:

"McDonald's officials plan to demolish the existing restaurant in August and open the new one in December. Service will be disrupted during construction, said Jon Rump, a spokesman for McDonald's USA in Indianapolis."

service will be disrupted as the existing restaurant is demolished? i would have guessed that. nice that they clarified though.

virus

2007-05-23T15:58:00.000-04:00

my primary personal pc (redundant?), my tablet pc, has caught a virus. probably from a friend's visit to allsp.com (all south park videos like youtube), but maybe it had been coming on for a while. if it was allsp.com, i would've gone there myself sooner or later, so it was probably inevitable.

during the middle of the night saturday night (after visit to said site) my pc started playing much audio. i crept downstairs, closed the browser (firefox) down, rebooted, and figured the pc software (microsoft's one care) would take care of it all for me.

nope.

day four of the fight, and it's clear that i'm losing.

i've addressed viruses on other's machines before. and usually i have to give up and wipe the hard drive clean and do a fresh install of windows. but this is _mine_. i'm cautious. i'm careful. what kind of solution is wiping the hard drive anyway?

i really want to use outlook 2007, i want to remote in to my work pc, and i'm excited about the upcoming windows home server - so these are my primary reasons for sticking with windows.

the tablet doesn't have an optical drive, so re-installing xp (or linux) will be difficult at best. the system restores had all been cleared out (i don't remember doing that), so there's nothing to roll back to.

for linux, i'm waiting for freespire 2.0. for mac, i'd be waiting for leopard which supports dual booting to vista (where bootcamp isn't a beta product). so the timing is just bad. couldn't it have waited a few months?

yeah, this is all word vomit. i just wanted to vent. or to whine.

interview

2007-05-08T09:18:00.000-04:00

jerns shaved the sides of my head last night, so the mohawk looks all fresh and trim and is sticking up in the air all proper-like. one of my coworkers asked me if i had an interview. this made me laugh.

link: dinosaur comics (marriage edition)

2007-05-08T09:00:00.000-04:00

this comic made an interesting comment about marriage. is it really a commercial endeavor?

good point, t-rex. it may have merit.

link: how to own a number

2007-05-08T08:46:00.000-04:00

with all the recent hubbub about the dmca and the cracked encryption of hd video (and the public posting of the decryption key - a number) this is brilliant! it shows the weakness of the dmca. it's interesting to see how all this plays out.