The Electric

When Good blogs go Bad

Slubber — Thu, 01 Dec 2005 05:56:14 +0000

There has been some discussions about blogs reviling too much personal information.

A good example has been the sparring between Chris Pirillo and Ponzi while the two of them are on vacation in Hawaii’. Granted their on Maui which drove Jean and I to snip at each other due to the insane amount of effort it takes to move around on that island. For me, when I think about going back to Hawaii’ it comes down to three places that call out to me Windward coast of Oahu, First Christian Church of Honolulu and Pescatore in downtown Hilo on Big Island. But I digress.

Twice I have let too much personal information out on a blog and had it bit me in the butt. Now was what I posted meant to do damage or hurt folks? Nope.

It was written and posted for me by me in an unfiltered format without thinking how it would be taken by someone else. Notice that I’m not doing my usual apology which is an interesting development for me since in the past I would all but take other’s views above my own. Plus I tend to hold too many things in rather than get them out. So that’s why I post my rantings here. Even if I’m the only person to read them, I can at least look at them and try to find just where the feeling that produced the post came from. Plus it helps me remember where I’ve been and how far I’ve come.

Plus there have been times that I’ve gotten to know someone much better because I mentioned something on my blog that started us talking about other things we had in common.

Of Merry Go Rounds and 3D glasses

Slubber — Thu, 01 Dec 2005 05:16:03 +0000

It is interesting to see what memories are starting to take hold in John.

For example, last year when we went to Disney, we took John to the “It’s tough to be a bug” show under the Tree of Life at Animal Kingdom. Now if you’ve gone to the trouble to shoot in 3d, you want to show your audience that it’s working by doing a ‘pop’ effect in which someone or something comes at you from out of the screen.

We had forgotten about this and while John didn’t get upset, he didn’t want anything to do with the glasses. Not for that show or when we saw the new 3d show inside the Magic Kingdom.

Fast forward to Monday night. We decided to take in Chicken Little in 3d. I knew that John might not like the glasses. After all, while at Wildlights Sunday, we took John’s cousin on the merry go round. The last time we took him, he didn’t like it. 8 months later, he still doesn’t like it.

Yet I had to try and sure enough, he wanted no part of them. The irony is that if the sun is out and bright, John is the first to let you know that the sun is in his eyes and he needs his sun glasses.

Thanksgiving wrapup

Slubber — Wed, 30 Nov 2005 03:54:31 +0000

Wednesday: - Sold bass and amp to Sam Ash. As Mike Doughty posted to his blog, instruments are meant to be played and loved. My bass was just gathering dust.

Drove to Cleveland which took close to 5 hours thanks to traffic
Brined the turkey

Thursday - Yanked the turkey out of the brine

Looked over sale ads
Cooked herb rubbed turkey along with helping Jean with the other items
Dinner at the Shull’s

Friday - Ran up with Terry to Best Buy to get Studio 10 for the computer.

Met Kathy and Mike for lunch at Ruby Tuesday’s
Got a spindle of DVDs from CompUSA which then needed to be returned since they were not the ones on sale
Returned Studio 10 to Best Buy since I didn’t qualify for the competitive rebate and got a spindle of DVDs which this time were on sale
Had leftovers at the Shull’s

Saturday - Drove home with the Shull in time for the Gahanna Holiday Lights parade

Sunday - Went to Wildlights at the Columbus Zoo with the Shull’s

Monday - Shull’s head home after some shopping at Meijers

Jean and I take John to see Chicken Little in 3D at the new Rave Motion Pictures @ Polaris.

The catch-up post

Slubber — Wed, 30 Nov 2005 03:33:44 +0000

Too many things in the hopper the last few weeks but here is a sampling of the fun stuff I was able to sneak in:

Books: We3: Interesting angle. Reminded me of the rat-thing segments from Snow Crash.

Batman War Games Vols 1-2: I’ve never liked the character of Robin. So a few of the subplots ring hollow but its got some interesting twists.

Games: Call of Duty 2: Messed with the pre-release demo on a Xbox 360 and on my new rig. Very hard for the untrained eye to tell the demos apart (both demos are from the El Daba mission). I’m already jonesing for the new 360 controller since it will work on both the 360 and my PC (thanks to the 360’s use of USB and the new XNA game developer toolkit)

TV: I got my AMD X2 to play nice with Windows Media Center Edition thanks to a patch from AMD that keeps both CPU cores from trying to handle the MCE video calls at the same time. I also got WinTv2000 working with my VCR so I’ve started the process of going thru my tons of video tapes, dubbing what I want to keep over to the PC for future burning to DVD and then chucking the tape. For the really valuable stuff, the master tape will be kept but 80% of them are hitting the curb.

Biggest Loser: Don’t know why I’m so hooked on this show since it makes me feel bad about finding the time to workout.

Cooking: In time for Thanksgiving, I’ve been messing with an herb paste turkey rub that I got from the good folks at Cook’s Illustrated. I used it at our church Thanksgiving and came out so well that Jean has me cooking it again for Thanksgiving itself. It’s a fun recipe plus it does make the turkey so yummy.

What you read here, stays here

Slubber — Thu, 10 Nov 2005 03:48:58 +0000

Ok, so the title is a bit naive but here’s my point. What you read here is about as close to a running chain of thought as I can get while staying in full sentences.

About 90% of the stuff is pure brain dumping of the get it off you’re chest variety. This dumping is spurred on by my counseling sessions as well as by folks who happen along and check me if I’m out of line or give me a shout out if we’re on the same page.

While I’m honest here, it’s not the whole picture and I never mean it to be. Mostly I use this to every now and then look to see where I’ve come from on a certain thing and to see just how it’s playing out. At times, I’m wrestling with 30 years worth of stuff that I stuffed inside because I either didn’t want to deal with it or it was just too tough to admit. So as I’ve been dealing with it, the near lava-ish flow sometimes spills out here. But like lava, it cools, forms into a mass, becomes soild and things can grow on it. That’s my goal, not to nuke anyone but to get stuff out so that it can cool rather than leave it burn in my gut.

Need to get since I’ve got email to get to..

From out of the blue

Slubber — Wed, 09 Nov 2005 06:08:10 +0000

Man, it’s been a crazy 6 weeks between trying to get the computer squared with Dell, the office rebuilt at home, waiting for the new rig to arrive plus finishing my business writing class.

You’d think I’d catch a bit of a break but the answering machine had a message that caused me to about flip.

It was my brother-in-law, the one I haven’t talked to since April 1, 2003 when he all but gutted me over the phone over a family dispute over money. The details of said dispute I won’t rehash.

Since that call, I’ve pretty much taken a ‘never want to see him again’ stance. Fear is part of it. The fear of getting drilled again since he knows what buttons to push on me (he lives with my Mom after all) mixed with the fear of not standing up for myself.

Yet here is the message. I couldn’t even play all of it. I paused it and waited for Jean to come home. My brother-in-law was asking if we could maybe get together, have dinner to try and mend fences.

First thing that hit my mind was “what the rub”? I know he’s a Decon now, maybe God’s hand is in this? Or is it what my gut is telling me, that there is an angle in play. A reach out because something is coming and my family wants to bring me back into their corner. I feel I’ve got to check my credit report just to be on the safe side.

The worse part of this is that I just wanted to be done with it all. I walked away for a reason. My brother-in-law wanted to be the man, well, be the frigging man. I don’t care. Just leave me alone. My roll as first born and family enforcer I willingly quit because I found it was the thing killing me.

So what to do? Jean’s take is to set the ground rules. - Sister and brother-in-law only - no issues between my Mom and myself on the table

If they want to talk under those connditions, then we might have something…

Why does anything envolving my family feels like a rejected Mafia subploit?

What’s wrong with this picture?

Slubber — Fri, 21 Oct 2005 18:37:41 +0000

In the Oct 24, 2005 issue of Time magazine, there is an article featuring a round table of some of the leading trendspoters in technologies.

Here’s the group: Tim O’Reilly: publisher and technology advocate Esther Dyson: editor of technology newsletter Release 1.0 for CNET Networks David Brooks: author and New York Times columnist Clay Shirky: writer and technology consultant Mark Dery, author and cultural critic Moby: pioneering electronic musician Maclom Gladwell: author and New Yorker writer

Notice anything other than Gladwell’s egg head fro?

Where are Africans? Folks like Omar Wasow Only one woman? Was Xeni busy? Most of these folks are based on the east or west coast. Anyone from the Asian tech powers of Japan, China and Singapore? Is India in da house?

Just as Dare pointed out when he returned from the Web 2.0 conference, the ‘leaders’ in the field that appear at conferences and in articles are white, middle class, college educated and mostly male.

This presents a clear case where bias comes into play yet we don’t acknowledge that it is a bias. Not saying we need to have a limit or a minimum on the ethnicity of presenters but rather we need to make sure we don’t forget anybody.

My question for the week is how does the bias of ethnicity along with those of geography (most of these folks live on the coasts in major urban centers) impact the views these people give?

Blue is Blue

Slubber — Fri, 21 Oct 2005 15:16:23 +0000

I love this bit of banter between Mike Doughty and his band:

Mike: What flavor of gatoraid are you drinking? Dan: Blue Mike: Ever notice that blue is the color of gatoraid that is also the flavor? Red is punch Oragne is Organe Green is lemon What flavor is blue? Blue is blue

Well, at least the monitor is now working

Slubber — Thu, 20 Oct 2005 04:13:21 +0000

Update on yesterday post involving my DOA XPS 600.

Rather than wait for a call from Dell, I call them at lunch.

My options are to either return for credit or exchange. Problem with the exchange is twofold. First the clock is still running on my 21 day return policy in case something happens like this again (the rep told me that it would be fixed after 21 days rather than replaced) and I won\\’t be able to upgrade the system (I saw the new Creative Xi sound card is now available and I wanted to switch out the Audigy for it since it\\’s only $50 more).

So I opt for a credit but that means I have to wait for UPS to ship it back (they pick it up on fried), 10 to 15 days from the time its checked back into the system for credit to appear on my Dell account before I can start the order process just in time for the christen rush!

Yet I was able to get the monitor (which I\\’m paying $360 for while it lists by itself for $590 on sale this week) to work with my XPS B733r. So at least I now have a wonderful image while I wait for it to process.

Keeping this all in propective. Folks all over the gulf coast would love this problem rather than the ones their facing. So I gotta remember to be thankful for what I got and not care about what I don\\’t got…Got it?

One very unhappy geek

Slubber — Wed, 19 Oct 2005 03:23:55 +0000

I am a unhappy geek.

UPS shows up at quarter to 5 so I have about an hour to get the the new rig, a XPS 600, unpacked before Jean needs to leave for her first client.

The box is frigging 75 pounds and the UPS guy struggled to get it up the drive way.

Unpack the monitor and see the first sign of trouble. The VGA cord that is already attached to the monitor has parts of the Styrofoam packing fused to it. Since Im going to run in DVI, I shake this off and put together the rest on the monitor.

Unpack the beast. Notice right away that the media card reader is three inches deep in the computers chassis. Since the box wasnt even nicked, this had to have been something at the factory.

Hook everything up and fire the beast up. Monitor is stunning. Notice the machine is running about the same as my P4 at work which is strange not because of the dual core but because the 1 Gig of RAM at work vs 2 GIG of DDR2 RAM in the beast. Oh and the DVD burner isnt working. But my does that screen look nice. John even thinks that the fish are real in the aquarium screensaver.

Since Jean has to work, I close the office door to avoid temptation and play with John till about 8:15 when its time to start getting him ready for bed. I first call Road Runner to double check the network settings so that I can bring the beast online. In the middle of rebooting I hear two beeps and the status light reads a solid 4. Time to call Dell tech.

As this is to be Dells primo system, its said to have its own dedicated support team. Hunting for the phone number, I snake my way into the Dell tech support queue and get a guy in India.

This goes about as well as could be expected. He has me unplug all the USB lines, nothin. He then has me unplug the monitor, nothin. Next we open the case

I want to stop here and mention that it was between Dell, Alienware and Velocity Micro for my business, Dells monitor deal plus this primo XPS support was what tipped the scales to Dell.

Now my worse boutique vendor fear has come true; the rig is on its side, case open and I\\’m digging for something in the bowels because the stupid thing doesnt work.

We try about 10 different ways to reseat the RAM. One dim allows the system to boot while the other one doesn\\’t. When I move the good dim to another slot on the board, nothin.

So now the tech places me on hold so that I can be transferred to the Customer Care team for a PC replacement.

The hold music is so bad it must be intentional to get the weak of will to hang up. 5 minutes and zip. The tech comes back to tell me hes on hold and that it will be just awhile longer. 5 more minutes and I\\’m in full buyers regret mode, the hold music now taunting me. While this is going on I\\’m repacking the system for what will be its now inevitable return trip to Round Rock Texas. Thoughts of even if I had gotten that HP from Best Buy, I would have the satisfaction of running it back there run thru my mind. .

The tech comes back. Customer Care is now closed. Theyll have to call me tomorrow.

So now Im back on my Dell Dimension XPS B733R. Can\\’t even use the monitor since my video card can\\’t push an LCD screen.

So if the Dell Customer Care person isn\\’t willing to comp me something. After all the rig has already dropped $100 and their kicking in Office basic for free. Then I\\’m just going to tell them to take it back.

I feel sick.