Category Archives: me + myself + i

Stuff about me, myself and I. If this isn’t enough you can find out more ’stuff’ in the meme category! If it’s in the me category, I generally do not put it in the meme category (except for when I do).

Working from home

Posted on March 28, 2008 | Leave a comment

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):

  • I don’t have a specific time to be there, just times to be available. Similar to college professors, but more hours (and I’d actually be there).
  • It’d make others plan ahead and be more self-sufficient. No last minute stuff since I wouldn’t be there to swoop in and set up (what I probably shouldn’t be spending time on anyways).
  • When I’ve got a block on something, I can do something else (like laundry). Or solve some personal concern that might actually be distracting me from working efficiently.
  • I’d save gas and time on the road. If I just stayed home 3 days a week, I’d probably save 2 hours on the road and 4 gallons of gas. And less gas/money on going out to lunch.

    Cons:

  • I might not get out of the house at all. Unless I found some good restaurants/cafes/bars with decent internet access (and good lighting).
  • Not enough human interaction.
  • I’d need to buy more pajamas.
  • Ummm….

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    Biorhythms

    Posted on March 26, 2008 | Leave a comment

    Biorhythm April 8 2008I wish I really believed in this stuff. Because in two weeks, on April 8th, I’d be having an awesome day!

    03 25 2008Although if you look at the second chart, it might explain why I’ve been so sluggish this last week.

    Actually, now that I think of it, on April 8th I should be having an awesome day!!! But you’ll have to wait until then to find out for sure.

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    Being Nice

    Posted on March 23, 2008 | 1 comment

    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”

    So maybe the above is an appropriate quote for this weekend, but it’s stuck with me for the last 20 years since I read it. It’s a pretty simple concept, be nice. all that confusing dying for our sins and betrayal really can confuse the whole simple concept.

    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.’

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    This is why I love the Internet

    Posted on March 22, 2008 | Leave a comment

    Over the last 24 hours:

    • I’ve been watching live video from DeLoach winery (in Napa Valley?) watching Kevin Rose, Robert Scoble, Gary Vaynerchuk (wine guy) and Tim Ferris ( The 4 hour work week ). And typing questions and getting answers from the live video! Plus we all got an invite to a wine party tonight, but I didn’t get on a plane and go, I really really should have. I think they’ve gone to several vineyards actually.
    • I’ve also sent comments to Alison Sudol of A Fine Frenzy and gotten responses.
    • I’ve also provided some tech support to a MySpace musician in Kentucky, I’m not yet sure if that solved her problem.
    • Ordered some Blu-Ray DVDs for only $7.99 each: Stargate, Terminator 2 and Total Recall. Now I need a Blu-Ray player…
    • Ordered a (probably mismarked) outdoor George Foreman grill that I probably don’t need for $45 shipped. Deal appears dead or I’d link it.

    And that’s just the out-of-the-ordinary stuff.

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    Jobs I’ve Had

    Posted on March 12, 2008 | 2 comments

    I’ve had a lot of jobs in my life, even since I was little. Not that Mom didn’t buy me stuff, but I always had some hobby that needed ca$h so I often had jobs. Beside maybe shoveling show or leaves and stuff like that I’ve started pretty early. I was thinking about this since I saw Miss. Britt do a section like this for her 100 things list so I started thinking about it.

  • I delivered the shopping news once a week (maybe every other week), a local ad newspaper, it didn’t pay much but it got me some money. I know I was pretty young but I really don’t know.
  • The little bookstore down the street gave me stuff to do here and there. The wonderful lady who ran it gave me cash or credit for books.
  • I had some paper routes for the regular newspaper too, The Detroit Free Press, but I hated the mornings. I think I gave it up for a while and then got it back a few years later (the money was pretty good). I quit the second time because the Lions club (or some other organization) did a fundraiser by selling subscriptions and they tripled my route size. I couldn’t get it done in the morning and the manager wouldn’t shrink my route (the assumption was after the 20 week promo ran out, many would drop, but I didn’t have three hours every day before school for the larger route).
  • I baby sat for my younger cousins pretty regularly in the ninth grade for a while.
  • I worked at the local bowling alley, Hartfield Lanes, in the evenings just picking up bottles and stuff as the leagues drank their way through their frames.
  • Eventually, I started working at the snack bar. This was a much better job and George pretty much let us run the place so it was a great job.

    These were most of my jobs up to the time that I started getting computer jobs (not that there weren’t some non-computer jobs later on too). So I think I’ll wrap this up for now and make that a second (or third) part, this gets me through age 15…

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    Spring Cleaning

    Posted on January 19, 2008 | 1 comment

    I’ve been trying to filter out some of the “stuff” at my house that I don’t use any more, today was the clothes closet. Some stuff will be bound for Goodwill / Salvation Army, some for the trash and a few things for the vacation pile (clothes that I take on vacation but don’t bring back).

    What I really hate getting rid of is shirts with stuff printed on them for several reasons. One, I probably paid more for them. Two, I didn’t pay anything for them but they’re pretty unique. (But) Three, I rarely wear them. Some of it’s a mish-mash but today I noticed a bit of what I had in odd quantities:

  • Apple Computer T-Shirts (5): Most of these I got as promos or won at a conference but they’re all to small, it’s either all they had or it shrunk the first time I washed it. I keep hoping they’ll magically it some day, but…
  • Tori Amos (5): A few from concerts or that I found at a music store. I’ve got one that I got autographed at a concert.
  • Indigo Girls (6): Mostly from concerts, something from an on-line group and an autographed one that a friend bought for me at an fund raising auction.
  • Domestic Violence (7): I either purchased these at an event, they were given to me for volunteering at an event or came in a ‘thanks for donating’ package.
  • Costa Rica (1): I’ve been there 4 times and only ended up with one shirt from my first trip (from one of the Zip Line through the Cloud Forest adventures).
  • Blogography (3): Cool shirts that Dave from Blogography created.
  • Sandman related (6): Shirts inspired from the Neil Gaiman Sandman series (I think they all have Dream, Death or Delerium or some combination of them).
  • Tech Shirts (10+): Other tech shirts from vendors, tech conferences (part of registration or gift for presenting), organizations or something or another.
  • My job (6+): Shirts that one of the departments printed up for work or some kind of fund raiser event.

    I so rarely wear them out (in both interpretations), I usually just wear plain (colored) shirts. If I’m changing into something to wear after I come home and shower I’ll throw one on but wearing one out and about just doesn’t happen so often. Actually, other that wearing a music one to a concert I think the only ones I’ve worn outside in the last year is probably wearing a few of the shirts that Dave made. Continue reading →

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    Busy Day

    Posted on January 12, 2008 | 1 comment

    So my back and shoulder has been killing me all this week (stayed home two days). I really haven’t even been on-line much since sitting at a keyboard has been uncomfortable. You know if I haven’t been on-line it’s gotta be bugging me…

    I went to the OMT (kind of the opposite of a chiropractor, they do the muscles not the bones, Osteopathic Musculature/Manipulative Therapy?) twice this week but that’s not really fixing it. The drugs that really work knock me out, so that’s not a great option; I bet I’ve averaged 18 hours a day the last few days. So today I went to my “regular” Doctor’s office, but she wasn’t in (they rotate on Saturdays) but they guy who checked out took care of me, a few shots into the muscle seem to be helping.

    So since I was out (and not on the dizzy drugs) it seemed like a good time to run over to work to make sure some stuff that needs to run overnight was a-okay (you can’t upload if anyone is actually using it and it won’t run if you don’t upload it) but it looked like everything was uploaded just fine. Now I’m grabbing a Wendy’s Spicy Chicken, with free WiFi (Joy & Telegraph in Redford, MI), and then a quick stop at the grocery store…

    It’s not really such a busy day in general, but it’s pretty busy for lately…

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    Visacalc changed my life…

    Posted on December 29, 2007 | 2 comments

    Visacalc, I think it’s one of those products that changed the world. I’m certain that it changed mine…

    For those that don’t remember it – Visacalc was the first really popular spreadsheet program (maybe the first), it was before Lotus 123 and Microsoft Excel (it was probably be fore the was a Microsoft). It ran on Apple and Atari home computers (probably TRS-80 computers too). There were some other spreadsheets out there (anyone?) but I’d say that Visacalc was one of the first easily accessible ones. It put really powerful calculations into the hand of anyone allowing them to do a variety of “what if?” scenarios. I’d say that what 99% of what the average people does with spreadsheets these days do not exceed the capabilities of Visacalc from almost 30 years ago (other than graphing).

    How did VIsacalc change my life? Jack Parish, the owner of The Doll Hospital and Toy Soldier Shop (a hobby and toy shop two blocks and five houses from my house), was shown Visacalc. I think he bought a computer that day and shortly their-after starting carrying the Atari 800 and 400 computers at his store. He knew they were the things to come, he didn’t know all the details but he knew…

    So some of us kids started hanging out at the store more and we probably sold as many computers as the sales people. A few months later Jack offered me a job, they were going to start giving away training as his value added benefit to shopping at the store. I was going selling computers and teaching computer classes, teaching classes to kids and adults. My one condition was that I get a computer ASAP, they took a chunk out of my check every week until it was paid off, I got an Atari 800 with a cassette(!) tape drive. Continue reading →

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