This Weekend...

So I've got a few things I'd like to do this weekend:

TequilaCon 2008

I really hope I can make it to TequilaCon 2009....

I'm sad I couldn't go (again).

While I'm just home relaxing this weekend, last week was cRaZy, next week will be semi-crazy and I just went on vacation and I go again in June.

'TQ08 Schwag' uploaded by Blogography

Technorati Tags: Philly, Philadelphia, TequilaCon, TequilaCon 2008, TequilaCon2008

I'm SO happy it's the weekend!

I think this is my first Seesmic embed, so if it doesn't work for you (or even if it does) leave me a comment. If the embed doesn't work properly, try the direct link.

It's kinda boring just looking at my head, I'll have to work on visuals or scenery.

If you try the direct link you can see what the 10 video replies are (I haven't even seen them all yet); they're blog style start and the bottom and work your way up. You used to have to log in to see these and now it doesn't look like you have too...

Technorati Tags: economic stimulus, Seesmc, weekend

88888

It's the little things like this that brighten my day :)

That and the fact it's still running

'88888' uploaded by garylapointe

Technorati Tags: 88888, mileage, odometer

Photo Times

So when you take digital pictures, it records the date and the time with the picture. I'm a little slightly obsessive compulsive about the settings on the date and time and when my two cameras are both set for different time zones and neither of those are the correct time zone it tends to annoy me.

So from now on I'm keeping my camera's set to GMT (Greenwich Mean Time) so it'll always be consistent. If you don't know, this is the time zone where the clocks are set at "0", for example when you set you clocks to EST (Eastern Standard) it sometimes says "-5" hours, that's 5 hours off from GMT. I'm not sure how this will work for me in the long run but for now it seems like it will be consistent for me.

The biggest problem I see for now it is that other devices like my camera phone will till record in the current time zone. But since its a phone, the time on that should always be correct, unless of course I'm traveling in a country where I don't have reception and the clock would be wrong...

Technorati Tags: digital photograhy, GMT, photo, photos, puppy, puppy, puppy, puppy, Time zone

Working from home

I could work from home all the time, except for when broken stuff needs repair. We've got construction at work (and it's a skeleton holiday staff) so there are carpeting (glue) and painting (paint) so many of us are working from home.

I could really handle this all the time. But I think I'd need something to track what I'm doing so at the end of the week I know if I'm working too much or not enough (I think it'd be the former). Obviously meeting rooms would need to be setup for video conferencing and a day a two a week would definitely be on site.

Pros (for my imaginary job):

Being Nice

So my philosophy in life is pretty much just to "be nice".

Maybe 'karma' and 'what comes around, goes around' and 'do unto others as you want to them to do unto you' want you to do the same thing ("be nice") but they try to make you fear what might happen if you don't. Really, they're just slightly nicer versions of 'an eye for an eye' (the way most people interpret it).

Douglas Adams pointed this out in in the beginning of two of his books,
"nearly two thousand years after one man had been nailed to a tree
for saying how great it would be to be nice to people for a change"

I'm not pushing religion or any deep philosophies. I'm not even trying to figure out why we decorate and eat hard boiled chicken embryos or chocolate shaped in their image. I'm just trying to get people to think about being a little nicer, if for no reason other than they can.

A character of Neil Gaiman (another British author) one said something like 'It's not any harder to be nice than it is to be mean and it's not nearly as fun.'

Technorati Tags: be nice, Douglas Adams, Neil Gaiman

Spring Forward

As usual, it's that time of year when someone else thinks it's better to (de)regulate my internal clock. It's funny all the news stories this year that are commenting on the health issues, sleepy drivers and how much energy this is really wasting energy.

For those of you in other places in the world that don't know what I'm talking about, it's Daylight Savings Time (DST).

At least all my electronics seemed to adapt properly...

Technorati Tags: Daylight Savings, DST

Still on the mend...

Haven't blogged much, since not much has been happening around here. I've been sick for the last two weeks (missed a week of work) with bronchitis with a nasty couch and even nastier congestion. I feel like I've been eating lots, but I'm down about 15 pounds from where I'm usually at.

Life's pretty good otherwise, Work hasn't been too cRaZy so I've not fallen too far behind. And I've got my next Costa Rica trip to look forward too next month.

With the snow today it seems like an extra beautifully sunny day and that always has magical healing properties...

Technorati Tags: bronchitis, congestion, cough, sick, snow

The snow is beautiful here...

I'm home sick today, but the view is just gorgeous! And it's still coming down...

I've been lousy since last Tuesday and I've been home yesterday and today. Yesterday and Sunday were the worst, I'm way congested in my lungs which cuts into my sleep time, drugs help when I'm sick but sleep and Creamy Tomato Soup help the most. The doctor thinks it's something viral but still kept me on the anti-biotics she game me last week..

I wish health was more of a science (I'm serious) and we knew more about it. Like, if I had stayed home on Friday (when the cough had started getting really bad) would I have gotten better over the weekend? Or would that have been minor on my road to recovery? Or did I need to get worse to get better?

Back to the snow: It's really thick on trees and bushes and railings. It's times like this the I wish I lived with a view and I could sit by the fireplace and watch the snow fall over the landscape (and not have the "Palace Liquor & Deli" be my landscape).

Technorati Tags: landscape, sick, snow, snowfall

Random Stuff...

The Magic of The Internet

The Internet is truly magical:

My Remote Start Was Broken

My remote start has been broken on my car for ages (12-18 months) I finally went in today to get it replaced at Circuit City, it was going to be close to $300. They just called me and they were able to fix it!!! I'm pretty sure that there is no charge for that, so I just saved a few hundred dollars! I have no idea why I procrastinated this long, I could have had it working for ages now...

I have to say it's really nice to have the remote start in the winter, but it's just as nice in the summer to have it start cooling the car (especially when I'm wearing a tie or a suit). Mine didn't really have much of a range but it was enough to start it from inside at work and that's when it's outside the longest so that's when I need it the most.

Let's hope it really works as well as the guy said, he said to give them about a 1/2 hour to put it back together (I'm at the Border's across the street) so I'll find out soon.

Later: It works great!!! They didn't charge me anything! It was a fused fuse in a spot that wasn't user-replacable...

Technorati Tags: auto, remote start

Vegetable Orchestra

This is so cool! An orchestra composed of fresh vegetables for instruments!! They show the shopping, the making and the playing...

I found this over at Mrs. Who's blog.

Technorati Tags: instruments, musical instruments, Vegetable, Vegetable, Vegetable Orchestra, VegetableOrchestra.org

Lazy Day

What a great (non-productive) day! I computed, watched TV, did a little web maintenance, computed some more and got nothing practical done. Haven't had a day like this (that I wasn't sick) in a long time. I'm still in my sweats too.

I also got to relax and drink Coca-Cola from a glass bottle^*, that's such a treat! I got a case of it for Christmas.

Back to the regular work week this week, the number of people in the district where I work will jump from about 20 to about 4,000, so it'll get significantly busier...

It'll probably be a long while before I get another day like this.

^* For those of you reading from other parts of the world, glass bottles for soda pop are pretty rare in the United States.

Technorati Tags: Coca-Cola, Coke, Glass Bottle

When Geek is the New Chic!

There's hope for me yet!!!!

Tango magazine on-line has a fun article on why dating nerdy guys is actually a good thing....

Two of the points made me laugh since they apply to me:

Gloom & Doom

It's such an extra blah/yucky day outside. It looks more like the end of the world instead of the end of the year.

Technorati Tags: puppy

Stupid Rain!

The stupid rain washed away all my Christmassy snow :(

I found my ring!!!

I found it! The ring I got in Costa Rica was buried in my luggage! I was showing Mark the cool features of my new security backpack and out it popped.

It wasn't even anything very fancy, it was just one that I liked. I picked it up at a store in Jaco called Guajira, the word Guajira means a few different things so I'm not sure what the name means, they're right on the main strip so you can't really miss it.

As I said before, it was the only souvenir that I had picked up (besides my peanuts) so I was extra disappointed that it hadn't even make it home. So I've been wearing that this weekend so I'm a happy camper :)

Technorati Tags: found things, jewelry, Restaurant Tabacon, ring

Snow!!!!

I forgot to mention that it was snowing a little on the way home from the airport. It's nice and white out there today!!

A Whole Row to Myself!

I can't believe how empty this plane is! It's the plane from Costa Rica to Atlanta. I had an emergency row seat with a little more legroom (but it's got the funky trays and they seats don't recline), so I ended up moving and have a whole row to myself. I put up the armrests and stretched out, that's enough legroom for me!

Now if I only had kept that old pillow that I brought with me and discarded back in Costa Rica...

Left Behind

In addition to the few books I brought I left some other things in Costa Rica. I always bring a few things to leave behind. When I've got some stuff that I know it's near time to get rid of it, I'll take it on vacation and leave it there. This includes books, an old pair of shoes, the jeans I wore to get there, a few old shirts (etc.), a few wash cloths (the hotels don't always supply them here), a pair of beach shoes, and a pair of sandals if they don't hold up. The clothes are stuff where when you pull it out of the dryer you can see it's only god for a few more washes and are starting to fray and you think it won't last many more washes. I even brought an old pillow that I almost got rid of last time I was cleaning (I'm kinda fussy about my pillows, if I travel by car I always bring one of my own). It lightens the load as the trip goes on :)

As I get close to emptying things out at home I'll save them for a trip. Toothpaste, shaving creme (not as empty as I'd like so if I have room, I'll bring it back), shampoo, etc. Why carry down all that stuff full and bring it back 1/4 empty? I just take it 3/4 empty, which is a heck of a lot lighter and leave it when it's more empty.

I travel heavy, I blame my mother for this, I was an only child and we usually traveled by car so I could bring anything I wanted as long as it kept me entertained (quiet). I think that's when I probably started bringing my own pillow too (that might be something I got from Grandma).

The Long Day Home....

I'm up early in the morning to catch a 5:30 am cab so I can catch a 7:00 am ferry so I can then drive to the San Jose Airport for my 2:00 pm flight to go to Atlanta and then to Detroit. That's going to be a really long day...

I've never taken the ferry before so that'll be something new at least, I think it's about a 75 minute ride. Maybe get some good photos as I'm doing that at least. I think I'll have some idle time at the airport because of the ways the times work out...

Technorati Tags: airport, airports, San Jose Airport, travel

Beautiful Sunrise

So while I'm never thrilled to get up at 4 am, it'll be nice to arrive at my destination in the early afternoon. But the best part is that right now we're up above the clouds and the sky is all orange in the distance.

I used to love looking at the clouds when I flew and thought I'd never tire of them. These days of bringing all my stuff on the flight to entertain myself, getting an aisle seat generally outweighs the window option.

So the clouds all look like now or water out thee, i'd love to skydive through it sometime to just see how it feels, it all looks so solid. It's such a bright orange and red and pink off in the distance and the lights kinda coming from below it almost looks as if the slow in the distance is on fire.

Later - It's mostly up now, but there's still this burning orange in the distance and the color of the clouds has this icy blue look to it in the light. Out the opposite side of the plane it still looks dark and you can see the cities lit up.

More later - Now it's got that normal icy/snowy look to it that I'm used to seeing when I fly at a reasonable hour :)

Technorati Tags: airplane, beautiful, clouds, Costa Rica, sunrise

Digital/Photo PostCards

Has anyone used of any photo sites (like SnapFish, etc.) where I can upload a photo and I can type in some text and address and it'll mail it to someone as a post card? Just to clarify, they will mail the photo as a single paper postcard (with my text on the back) and it'll be delivered to their physical mailbox by their mail carrier.

It looks like SnapFish will do it for 99 cents, I've never used them. Has anyone tried this? Found anyone they like better?

Technorati Tags: Digital Post Cards, Post Cards, postcard

I beat my Traffic Ticket!!!

So last Saturday I got a ticket from a Wayne County Sheriff on Hines Drive (for passing a Road Closed sign). I knew they were wrong and of course they didn't want to listen to me.

On the way to the Helms Haven park area, I drove around a gate that says "Road Closed" but also says "Entrance Only Helms Haven area", but he just didn't care to listen about that park. Hines Drive is a huge long road that has a bunch of parks, when they close it on Satudays in the summer (so you can bike ride / walk with no traffic) or for flooding (etc.), they block off the main access road and you're supposed to drive around it to get to the closest park and then the road is really closed (big barricade).

But he didn't want to listen to me (I said it politely twice and pointed towards the sign in the distance but he didn't care) so I went to the courthouse. I printed something from the County Parks site that said that you could go around it for certain events, and sent an e-mail to verify it (which they confirmed) and took that with me along with a few pictures I took (the sign and road layout) and I got it waived. It's just an annoyance since it was more than a few hours of time to beat a ticket that never should have been written.

I do have to give him a little break, he was probably distracted by the decapitated head they just found....

Technorati Tags: decapitated head, decapitation, Helms Haven, Hines Drive, Road Closed

Free magazine subscription to Details, Lucky or Teen Vogue

Get a free magazine subscription to Details, Lucky or Teen Vogue from Amazon.

What is the catch? None. We are pleased to offer you the benefits of our partnership with top magazine publishers. Your credit card will not be billed for this subscription, and there is no automatic renewal.

And get a free digital subscription to MacWorld (from Zinio digital Magazines).

A busy week...

It's just been a bit of a cRaZy week: car troubles, busy at work, being sick, an out of town guest and few other things I can't remember. It's just kept me from blogging and even reading the blogs I read.

I'm back at work at 110% time while I've previously I've only been there about 70% time the past year or so (that's how I've managed to find time to teach other classes and try a few other things). But I can really see the difference in being at work that much. I'll get used to it in a few weeks, I guess...

So the car was acting up earlier this week, it's an automatic and it wasn't shifting (stuck in first) this was due to the speedometer not working so it was a relatively cheap fix ($187) compared to needed a whole new transmission.

I've been fighting some kind of cold and not even realizing it, I just been sleeping a lot but I thought I was just tired. On Friday, I really started being hoarse and coughing so I broke down and went to the doctor. He gave me drugs so we'll see...

I had an old friend from college come into town and while that was excellent, it certainly would have been better if I was feeling better and didn't need naps. We spent most of the time eating, chatting or watching movies (Becoming Jane and Martian Child).

The latter movie raised a few issues for me because I've thought so much about adopting in the past, it's mostly been this last year or so that I haven't been thinking so much about it, but I have been recently thinking about it again so this movie hit home...

So coming up soon - I'll probably have some postings on keeping in touch with old friends, adoption and two movie reviews.

Technorati Tags: adoption, auto repair, Becoming Jane, car repair, Martian Child, automobile repair, puppy

It's a beautiful day out!!!!

It's so so so bright and sunny out! If it'd just get a little warmer I'd go play outside (bike or blade). I'm just going to go run some errands though and see if I can get me some Vitamin D at the same time...

And give my car a badly needed cleaning, both inside and out.

Technorati Tags: puppy, sunshine, Vitamin D

The Funeral Was Interesting...

So the funeral last week was really interesting. There were a lot of Native American Indian portions, I wish I had written this up earlier (or taken notes) since I don't really recall many specifics. There were bits of singing and chanting and dancing and talking about the Indian ways. There were a lot of people speaking about him too, most funerals in my family no one ever speaks (other than reading a few verses) so I liked that part a lot. It went about two hours, and it certainly didn't feel that long.

There were tons of people there, lots of family, friends and coworkers the place was jammed and they had to keep adding more and more chairs. It's always nice to see that a lot of people show up for a funeral, but this was just huge. Of course, there was all the obvious sadness and all that goes with it, but I'm not going to get into those specifics here...

Technorati Tags: funeral, Indian, Native American

My Shirt has WiFi!

Actually it's more that my shirt detects WiFi. I hope for the next blogger meetup we go somewhere with WiFi so I can wear my WiFi shirt! Watch the animation to the right...

Yes, I know I'll look like a total dork geek, but isn't that the point of a shirt like this?

Technorati Tags: ThinkGeek, shirt, t shirt, T-shirt, WiFi" rel="tag">WiFi, wireless

Please Don't Ride Your Bicycle on the Train Tracks

So my friend who was in the Train Crash last year tends to have more problems on the train than most people I know. Delays at the start of the trip and at the end so we tease him about it. Today I called him after he left for his parents and the train left about 20 minutes late, no crisis. But, he calls me about an hour later, they're stopped west of Ann Arbor and they hit someone on the tracks. He didn't have much in the way of details.

So I just called him for a status and it turns out it was a guy on a bicycle (I'm assuming on the tracks); I guess the conductor said he saw him before they hit him (I'm surprised they gave them that much info). The train was stopped for a while (I'm guess less than 2 hours) while things were checked out; he could see flashlights and cameras going off. The odd thing is they never found the guy, but they found the bicycle.

Update - This mLive Ann Arbor Article says no one was hurt and contradicts a bit of what my friend says that he heard the conductor say. It's the only article I can find and it was from early last night, so I have no other way to verify info. (This is the right link, their whole site just seems to be having problems right now)

Technorati Tags: accident, Amtrak, Ann Arbor, Michigan, train accident, train

What a Wonderful World

Wow! I never could really do shadow puppets myself...

Amazingly well done! You will be impressed.

Technorati Tags: shadow puppets, What a Wonderful World

The Final Issue of Stuff Magazine

So I got the last issue of Stuff Magazine, no big loss, it was just a gadget/girls/media magazine (and it was free). It was marked "final issue" and "collectors item" so it wasn't a surprise or anything that it was the last issue (and a lot of the similar magazines have been dying lately).

The weird thing was (wait for it...) there were still subscription cards inside the magazine! What are they going to do charge me and then send me a substitute?

Technorati Tags: subscritption cards, stuff, stuff magazine, subscritption

A Plethora of Things.

So I normally don't put too many topics per post, actually I generally only put one topic per post. But I've been sick and all my little post-its on things to blog about are getting too long. So I'll steal the Bullet Sunday idea from Dave for this week.

WordPress - WordPress is one of the larger blogging platforms, lots of plug-ins and looks well supported. For example, on Wednesday Matt (a WP developer) is having a WordPress 2.3 upgrade party in San Francisco

WordPress 2.3 is coming out on Monday, so come out Wednesday evening and upgrade your blog with the pros. How badly can you screw it up when the developers are right there? If you upgrade your blog before Wednesday come and help out others and make feature requests.

I think it's kind of a cool idea I'd go if I were in the area and I don't even really use it. I'm hoping I can hold off to really using it until after Lisa Sabine-Wilson's WordPress for Dummies book is published. What I don't like about WP is that it's all dynamic (but that's part of what I do like about it too). The dynamic-ness is just going to slow things down; I liked that in MT you can make some pages static and some dynamic but the cool part is MT will cache the pages once it generates them until the next post so it's semi-static. Keep in mind you break some important dynamic function, everything is probably going to break. I think my next blog experiments will be with WP....

Legion of Super Heroes - Season one was great but season two (started yesterday) has the Superman from the 41st century (actually a clone of the 21st century Superman) who has traveled back to the 31st(?) to work with Legion and (I'm assuming) the SuperBoy/Man of the 21st century. It seems like it's going to be a little two complicated. They characters seem liked the characters have gotten a little bit older too (Duo Damsel is so cute).

Snakehead - A new Alex Rider novel is coming out. They've definitely gotten better as the books went along, I recently re-read the first one and it's no where near as good as the later ones.

My Sebring Convertible Rear Windshield was peeling from the roof

So the roof on my 7 year old convertible was starting to peel between the back window and the roof (I purchased it about 5 years ago). This seems to be a problem with many of the Sebrings when they start to hit the sever year mark (I should have taken a before picture). I will admit I am rough on the car and drive it through the car wash which probably has more to do with it than the weather although I'm sure Michigan ice buildup has something to do with it too.

I starting asking people who had Sebrings from the 7+ years range and most of the people I asked had replaced the whole roof since that was what was recommended to them!!! I figured, what do I have to lose if I muck it up if replacing it is the only option? After a while of googling around and asking at car places, I finally purchased some Permatex Black Super Weatherstrip Adhesive which was suggested by my oil change guys (about $5 for a tube). It's great, I've survived many major storms, done a road trip or two and gotten the car washed a few times over the last month since I've done it and it still looks great. It could be better but that's my fault, I'm not so good at that stuff, if I had taken better care I'm sure it would be good as knew. If it starts to peel again I'll just squirt in some more glue, even if it gets messy it's better than how it looks when peeling.

In case you're interested in my process - I cleaned the window and the cloth part that I needed to affix to the window (the latter still had some some kind of plastic strip which I assume was attached with some kind of heat welding). I then just did a tiny bit of sanding on both parts (the plastic and the glass) to make sure the glue would had something to stick to. I applied a thin strip to both the glass and the plastic keeping them seperate and letting them dry for about 30-45 minutes (I think). Then I applied another thin strip to where the glass already had glue on it and stuck the two sides together. I then taped it down with vertical strips of gaffer tape (think duct tape but more easily removable) and let it sit for 24 hours. I probably could have driven an hour later but I'd wanted to put the roof down (and I wasn't willing to do that) so I just walked, rode my bike and made someone else drive when I went out that night.

There's also 3M Super Weatherstrip Adhesive, but it's more $$ and Permatex was specifically recommended to me.

Technorati Tags: 81850, Black Super Weatherstrip Adhesive, Permatex, Permatex Black Super Weatherstrip Adhesive, Convertible, Rear Windshield, Sebring Convertible, Sebring Convertible Rear Windshield

Only 1 year left...

I've only got 1 year left in my 101 in 1001 list and I haven't made much progress lately. I've used about 2/3 of my time but only done about 1/3 of my items.

It really has helped me get other items done in my life, they don't get on the list since it's static but they are the kinds of things that would be on the list...

(Later - Actually it's a few days less than a year, for some reason I thought the 9th was "the day", I guess it's September 4th, 2008.)

Technorati Tags: 101 in 1001

More winners!

So I mentioned the other day that as an assignment I made the students in the Tech Leadership class I taught write a grant (submitting was optional) and three students won. I just found out there was a fourth winner!!!! That's brings the class total up to about $5,300. I think only seven applied so that's awesome (at most ten applied since that's all I had in the class).

I'm so geeked!!!

Technorati Tags: education, grant writing, grants