Thursday, June 18, 2009

Soccer! Or football, if you want to get technical about it. Some call it the beautiful game, and others call it really boring. I've decided to become a fan. So what lucky club gets my support?

That's a tough one. I can't cheer for Manchester United, since one of my co-workers has claimed them already, and really, that kinda seems like cheering for the Yankees. Another co-worker has Chelsea already too (the two of them like to argue about it during the season). So I'm not going to be a Blue or a Red Devil, but that still leaves a lot of clubs.

Premier League (England): Arsenal and Liverpool. Both are great teams. Liverpool has Fernando Torres, but Arsenal's majority stakeholder is Missourian Stan Kroenke (though the club is literally racked with debt).

La Liga (Spain): If I put down Man U for being the Yankees, then I can't very well go with Real Madrid. FC Barcelona is probably my best bet here. Plus, they have a young winger named Lionel Messi that's scoring goals like crazy.

Bundesliga (Germany): Only one choice here, Bayern Munich. Their stadium may look like somebody stepped on Epcot Center, but it's still cool.

Serie A (Italy): AC Milan or Juventus are my choices here. I'm leaning towards Juventus because I like the uniforms better. Yes, that's a totally legit way to make a decision.

I think this is going to take some more research. Suggestions are welcome.

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Saturday, June 13, 2009

Change Congress is worth supporting. It's an effort to reduce corruption in Congress resulting from the influence of special interests.

The founder of the effort is Larry Lessig, who also founded Creative Commons. And though Lessig partnered with traditionally Democratic consultant Joe Trippi to produce Change Congress, it is still very much a non-partisan effort. The first two politicians targeted have both been Democrats, which bodes well for the project's independence.

I'm excited about Change Congress. I try to follow politics as closely as I can, including the money flowing in and out, and it's very disheartening most of the time to see what appears to be rampant and open graft. When I am able to trick somebody into a political discussion with me, and the topic turns to money, almost inevitably their feelings are the same: Money and power corrupt, most politicians are corrupt, there is nothing we can do about it. So the feeling of being powerless over the system is pretty common, but it doesn't have to be that way. The internet and age of information is changing the game, and opening doors that didn't even exist before. Change Congress is one of these potential game-changers, so I encourage you to support it.

It's not the only one, though. There are several great sites out there that make it easier to learn about your district, your reps, and the money involved. You really should take a look. And if you don't think you need to know what's going on, then who exactly should? Aren't you the one being represented in Washington? Aren't you the one paying the taxes?


Other resources:

opensecrets.org
The site that started it all for me; it was useful when I found it years ago as a wee poli sci major, and it's even more useful today. They take publically available FEC campaign donation and disclosure data and make it relevant and understandable. Want to see the link between who gets appointed as the US ambassador to a foreign country and if they happened to donate money to that president's campaign? Want to see where the federal bailout money is really ending up? OpenSecrets has it.

watchdog.net
Another money in politics mashup. Not as comprehensive as OpenSecrets, but very slick in its simplicity. It also brings in US Census data to make some very interesting connections.

followthemoney.org
Similar to OpenSecrets and Watchdog, but it tracks STATE level financial data - something that can just as easily be corrupt, yet typically receives much less scrutiny.

factcheck.org
A great NON-PARTISAN site that checks political ads and speeches for factual accuracy. During the 2008 presidential cycle, this site was quoted so often in attack ads, that the site had to actually go and debunk some of the ads that were quoting the site.

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Tuesday, June 09, 2009

Fantastic bit from last night's Daily Show on the 24 hour news networks:
(Clip is preceded by 30 second ad, but it's worth the wait fo sho)



Speaking of Hulu, I've tried out their desktop app for a couple of weeks now and it isn't half bad. There isn't a ton that you gain from the app that going full screen on their website doesn't give you, but it is a bit more slick of an experience. Worth a try if you use Hulu often, or ever, for your TV on PC needs.

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Thursday, June 04, 2009

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Tuesday, May 12, 2009

I wish I could sing.

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Sunday, May 03, 2009

I am not a big pro basketball fan; the Lebron highlights on Sportscenter are typically the extent of my NBA viewing. I've watched the Bulls/Celtics series, though, and that was about one of the best playoff series, in any sport, that I've ever seen. KG is the only Celtic that I'm a fan of, and he's hurt, so I was pulling for the underdog Bulls. They lost the series tonight, but it was still a very entertaining seven games.

Also, congrats to Lil' Benjamin Bratt, aka Manny Pacquiao, on his victory over Ricky Hatton for the IBO and Ring Magazine titles. Magazines have belts to offer now?

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Saturday, April 04, 2009

I'm watching a show on Current called InfoMania. The host, Conor Knighton, just said this:

"If you saw something you liked, hit us up at feedback at current dot com. If you saw something you didn't like, hit us up at suckit at youtrytodobetter dot jerk"

Good stuff.

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Tuesday, March 31, 2009

The lights and occasional siren from a police car woke us up this morning at about 5:30am. It parked in the middle of the intersection outside of our home as up to 6 other police vehicles patrolled up and down our cross-streets.

According to the EPD Dispatch Log, it was a stolen vehicle situation. The suspects abandoned the vehicle just down the street from our house and took off on foot, hence the mini-manhunt. I took a picture of the patrol car, double-checked that our windows and doors were locked, and went back to sleep.

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Friday, March 27, 2009

Mizzou beat Memphis to get into the Elite Eight.
Kansas lost to Michigan State to stay out of the Elite Eight.

Both nights, Digger Phelps matched his fluorescent highlighter to his fluorescent tie. Pink last night, and green tonight. Digger picks MU and their 40 minutes of hell to beat UConn during the game tomorrow. I'm hoping that when I turn on College GameDay in the morning, I'll see Presage Phelps in matching gold, er.. yellow. Go Tigers!

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Thursday, March 26, 2009

I was driving home tonight and a pedestrian walked out into the street down the road from me (not at a crosswalk). I was going about 20, slowing towards a red light at the end of the block, and the pedestrian was about 150ft away. He scurried across my lane and was almost across the other lane and to the sidewalk when I got up to where he was. He turned towards me and flipped up his middle finger, while shouting something I couldn't understand. For a half-second, I considered stopping to roll-down my window and ask him what I had done to offend him. I was probably already down to 10 mph at that point, so it wouldn't have been difficult. He looked like a spitter, though, so I thought better of it and just kept on movin'.

In unrelated news, last week I twittered my frustrations that CNN wouldn't clarify if Lisa Ling had been abducted in North Korea or not. I was in the lunchroom at work and CNN gasbag Rick Sanchez was apparently too busy between playing voicemails from his call-in line, listing tweets in a word document, and showing a closeup of comments from his myspace site. Three times, they went out to a commercial break with a very misleading teaser about Lisa Ling's "connection" to a detention in North Korea. I suffered through many minutes of commercials and Sanchez-pomp while I waited for a story that ended up being not at all what they had implied. Minutes of my life I would like to have back.

I'm all for new media, and web 2.0, but not for CNN. I want CNN to tell me something insightful or late-breaking, or give me something that only they with their massive news organization can provide me. If I wanted to know how my friends or co-workers felt about an issue, I'll just ask them myself. Or if I wanted to get the web 2.0 take on something, I can go to Wikipedia. I don't need it from CNN.

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Friday, March 20, 2009

Twitter Search: http://search.twitter.com/

Twitter allows people to post what they're thinking, about anything, very quickly and easily. Twitter search allows you to search those posts by keyword. Imagine having a football stadium full of people who are willing to tell you their thoughts on anything you want, as soon as you ask. It's kind of like that. Not always useful, but usually interesting.

Try searching for something big, while it's happening, like "AIG" this week or the name of one of the teams in the march madness game you're watching. You'll see what I mean.

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Tuesday, March 17, 2009

Happy St. Patrick's Day! Beannachtaí na Féile Pádraig oraibh!

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Google Voice is here!

It was announced last week that Google Voice was coming, and that current Grand Central subscribers would be migrated automatically over the next few days. I checked my Grand Central account twice a day, every day, since that announcement, and up to yesterday I was getting a little worried. But no more! My old Grand Central account became a new Google Voice account effective this morning. Happy St. Patty's Day to me, indeed.

So what is Google Voice?

It's a forwarding service on steroids, basically. They give you a free phone number, in most any area code that you can think of. Then you can attach your other existing phone numbers to that new number, based on rules.

For example, if my mom calls the new number, I can have a rule set up that will forward that call to my cell, work, and home numbers. I can also set up special voicemail greetings and she'll only hear the one meant for her. If my office calls, I can make sure that it forwards only to my cell and never my home, and maybe I have a special VM greeting for them too. And if I have a telemarketer harassing me, I can send that number straight to VM without ever going to any of my phones. Better yet, I can actually send that call to a "your call cannot be completed as dialed" error message to really throw them off.

So my callers only ever need to know my one Google Voice phone number. If I get a new cell, or I move, or I change my rules around, that doesn't affect them at all. They just keep dialing that one number.

It also works with SMS (text messages). I can forward those to specific phones, or even just have them emailed to an email address I specify.

Sound cool, right? That's not even the best part. It has voicemail speech-to-text transcription! This means that when you leave me a VM, Google will translate what you said into text, and email that to me. It will also save the VM itself so I can listen it like normal, but if I'm not in a position to make a phone call (like a meeting) - the email feature will really come in handy.

If you want to help me test out the service, click on the button below. It will call the phone number you give it, and then connect you directly to my voicemail (and since the rule I've set up sends it straight to VM, and not to my phone, you don't have to worry about disturbing me from another time zone).

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Sunday, March 15, 2009

Reason #147 that where I live now is nothing like where I grew up:
The local bike shop gives away tofu with every bicycle or tire purchase.

You get five pounds of tofu free with the purchase of a bike, and one pound of tofu free with the purchase of a bicycle tire. Paul's Bicycle Way of Life has been running the promo every March for about 10 years now.

Apparently, Paul's runs the promo as a response to the regional auto tire chain that gives away free meat with each tire purchase every February. The tire chain has been running their applewood smoked promo for 46 years.

Wonder what I can get free in April...

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Saturday, March 07, 2009

Ken Marino, the "I want to dip my balls in it" guy from The State, was on an episode of CSI:Miami tonight. It was a pleasant surprise. Marino and Caruso only needed to find somebody to bring the bagels and it would be just like old times on Avenue A.

Also a surprise is how much you can get for your .22 caliber pistol these days. A seller of a Bowflex in Eugene wants $299 for his home gym, but he would be willing to instead trade the Bowflex for a pistol. Or Ruger rifle. I guess some things are recession-proof, after all...

This is the actual Craigslist ad for the Bowflex:

(click to enlarge)

And if you really want to upgrade your home gym setup, but you just don't have an extra firearm lying around, maybe you have some firewood to spare instead?


(click to enlarge)

These are real ads, and I found them in about 10 minutes of random Craigslist browsing earlier today. I can't wait to see what I come across when I go on actually looking for craziness.

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Tuesday, March 03, 2009

While driving to Target today, I found myself waiting at a light behind a large red Ford F-350 pickup truck. Being a pretty tall truck, I could barely see over the lift gate to the cab window. But I could see, thankfully, and what I did see was ridiculous.

On the left side of the cab window was a sticker that had "Barack Obama Hates America" printed on bright yellow. On the right side of the window was a "this is my peace sign" sticker, featuring the cross-hairs of a scope instead of an actual peace sign. The peace sign one I get; it's a 2nd amendment pitch. But the BO hates America I don't get. Is it a reference to the flag pin deal? Or just that's he's a Democrat?

It was a long enough light that I probably could have snapped a picture with my phone, but I decided that might be a good way to get shot at. I also decided that asking Mr. F-350 to clarify his stickers in the Target parking lot was another potential shooting opportunity, so my descriptions alone are going to have to do for this post.

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Sunday, March 01, 2009

Want to buy an Asus EeePC 901 netbook for cheap? I've got your fix right here.

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Friday, February 27, 2009

Why is universal health care such a politically poisonous idea?

Does America really believe that it's "socialism" and we'd all end up waiting for hours at government clinics for the only MRI machine in the city? What about public schools or public mail? Those seem pretty "socialist", but nobody seems to care about that. Or is it really just that private health care and insurance is so profitable for those running the current system, and the politicians they lobby, that both sides would perpetuate it at all costs?

I doubt that a strong case could be made that I'm a "left wing nut job" or some sort of hippie ideologue. I don't attend protests or rallies, or regularly write my congressman. In fact, I'm a pretty moderate guy. I have a good white collar job, with great private insurance coverage. As far as health care is concerned, I've got it pretty good. And I use that coverage, regularly. I'd be in a lot of trouble without it. So you'd think I wouldn't want to upset the status quo, yet I still think universal health care is a good idea. A really good idea. How are there not millions of other people out there like me? How do we, as a proud and responsible society, not consider health care a fundamental right for other citizens?

It doesn't have to be anti-capitalist, or an all or nothing proposition. Health care professionals could still be wealthy, and health care service companies could still make money. Provider choice could still exist. Quality of care could most certainly still exist. Some very smart people have some very good ideas about how we can make this a reality, but most politicians won't touch it with a 10 foot pole. Why not?

I know it would be very expensive. Nothing is free. Would you be willing to pay higher income taxes for health care, if it meant you wouldn't have to pay for insurance? Or prescription drugs? Or if it meant that your community would be healthier? Or that fewer people in your community would fall into poverty or turn to crime because they didn't have outrageous health care costs to deal with? I would. And maybe I'm naive, but I really think most other people would too, if they took a serious look at the idea.

Are there better ideas? Maybe. And maybe those ideas are all private care based systems. I don't know. But private care is what we have now, and it's got some pretty gaping holes in it. So any new private ideas would need to be pretty drastic to make a difference. Regardless, I'd be happy to champion another idea if somebody can convince me that it's better. As long as we do something.

So since nobody has convinced me yet, I'm still voting for (public) universal health care. And I think you should too. But don't just take my word for it. Go do some research. Watch this. Come to your own conclusion. And if you're conclusion is different than mine, convince me I'm wrong. But if your conclusion is the same as mine, lets do something about it.

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Sunday, February 22, 2009

I made a red vines run to my local Chevron the other day, and I found myself waiting in line behind a bearded guy who really enjoyed chatting up the lady clerk. As I stood there, pretending not to hear their conversation about beef jerky flavors, my eyes came to rest on this gem:



That's right. It's Jolt Gum, which is apparently the official sponsor of USA Water Polo. The first thing I thought was, the Jolt brand is still around? And the second thing I thought was, USA Water Polo has sponsors? Who knew?

I picked up a pack, of course. I'll report back after I give it a chew.

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Thursday, February 12, 2009

My flight to Fort Lauderdale left Eugene at about noon on Monday. After a short layover in Salt Lake City, I landed in FLL at just around midnight. I met up with a colleague that flew in from St. Louis, and the next morning we drove our rented Kia Rondo to the Microsoft building. The meeting lasted 6 hours. That night we had dinner with an old friend of my colleague, which was unexpectedly pleasant. On Wednesday I got up at 4:30am, or 1:30am according to my internal clock, to catch a cab back to the airport. By noon on Wednesday I was back in Eugene.

So to recap, in 48 hours I spent two nights in a hotel, had a 6 hour business meeting, ate a delicious seafood dinner (plus some really crappy airport lunches), and flew 4600 miles.

Seasoned business travelers might scoff at my trip as nothing different from what they do every week, but seasoned business traveler I am not. That was a long 48 hours. Previous business trips of mine were not nearly as hectic as this one, and those weren't so bad. But the frenzied pace of this trip is not something I would want to repeat. I think now I have a better understanding of why my dad never seemed to enjoy the business trips he went on when I was growing up.

Despite my negative tone, the trip was definitely worth it. And not just because of the Bang Bang Shrimp from the Bonefish Grill. It was a very productive meeting. Just one of those productive meetings that had to happen in person.

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Thursday, January 29, 2009

It's been a while...

Last week was a good week. Ladyfriend and I went and did a bunch of grocery shopping at the beginning of the week, and we actually used what we bought to prepare meals. No ordering in at all.

Barack Obama also became our 44th President. And that's a pretty big deal. Now the commemorative plate and coin industry will have something to do for the next four years.

Not to be outdone, Comedy Central introduced HD programming the day after the inauguration. Which is nice, since I've always wanted to see the veins really "pop" on Stewart or Colbert's foreheads.

I asked a bunch of co-workers if any of them would want to get back into shape with me by signing up for a team (relay) triathlon. The response was overwhelming - I have 12 people. So that's good. Now we just have to get through the actual exercise part.

And to end the week, my office had a talent show. You never know how these things are going to go, but this one was a pretty decent success. None of the acts bombed (some were pretty good, actually), and nobody did anything grossly offensive (so HR was cool with it). Plus they gave us free popcorn.

This week, some ass clown ripped the badge reader off of our office's front door. And that's a pain, not just because it will cost us money, but because one of the managers will have to stand at the door and open it for employees until the security company can install a replacemet. Gotta love this "up and coming" neighborhood that I work in.

I have hope that this week can pull itself up, though, since we've still got a few days to go. And Friday is one of those days - so there's a good chance that's going to be good. Everybody loves Fridays.

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Friday, January 02, 2009

A Muslim family was removed today at Reagan Airport from an AirTran flight bound for Orlando. Apparently they were overheard discussing where the safest place in a plane would be to sit and this made some of the other passengers uncomfortable. Those other passengers contacted the Air Marshalls who then contacted the Airport Police. Shortly after that the FBI boarded the plane to remove the family and investigate. Another Muslim passenger, who was a family friend that just happened to be on the same flight, was also removed because he was seen talking to the family.

After investigation, the FBI completely cleared the family of any wrongdoing. According to one of the family members, the FBI was quite courteous and professional about the ordeal - even going so far as calling the airline to plead for the family's re-booking.

The airline, however wouldn't budge. AirTran would not rebook the family on another flight or reimburse them for the added cost of the flights they had to book through a different carrier. An AirTran spokesperson defended the company's reaction and said that since the FBI had cleared them, the family would be welcome to fly AirTran in the future.

Sources:
Washington Post
CNN
WJLA / ABC 7

It would be very easy to read these articles and point the finger at AirTran for clumsily handling the incident. And certainly, their stance to not allow the family to rebook was a disappointing one. But I'm personally more disappointed with the other passengers on the plane. Specifically, the ones that lodged the original complaints with the Air Marshalls. One of the men in the family had heard it was safest to sit by the wing, but his sister-in-law said she had heard it was safer to sit in the back of the plane. That's it. No mention of bomb, or gun, or down with America, or praise Allah. And it was all spoken in perfect non-accented English, presumably, since the the family members were American - born in Detroit. I've had that conversation on a plane before, more than once, and nobody batted an eye because I'm a clean cut looking white guy. The family removed from this flight were removed because they were brown, the men had beards, and the women had headscarves. Plain and simple.

So are the prejudiced passengers entitled to their misguided views? Sure they are. They have as much right to believe Muslim=terrorist as I believe they=stupid. But we're not just talking about free speech or free thought. We're talking about civil rights. This poor family had their day very rudely and embarrasingly disrupted, and were forced to pay extra to get to their destination. And worst of all, there were children involved. The adults in the family were certainly able to understand what was happening, and were probably a little too familiar with the stares and whispers they were getting. But how do those adults explain this incident to the children? Some of the other nice passengers think Mommy and Daddy are evil killers? No apologies will ever undo the impression this incident will have on those children.

Airport security is obviously a very complicated issue, one that requires much more consideration than I will give it in this short post. But I for one am certainly less comfortable knowing that other passengers could get me yanked from a flight because they don't care to understand my beliefs or something else about me. I'm also less confident that our airport security measures, increasingly draconian as they may be, will ever be enough for the type of passenger that would be uncomfortable next to a Mulsim in any situation. Should that even matter, what we as passengers think? I don't think so, since I'm not qualified to determine what is and isn't safe for air travel and you probably aren't qualified to do so either. But more and more it seems that the security measures in place are just as much to make us feel safe, as they are to make us actually be safe. Maybe even more so.

I don't know about you, but I think it's time to start taking the train...

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Thursday, December 25, 2008

Happy Christmas to everybody out there on the interwebs. Hope it's a good one.

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Thursday, November 27, 2008

Happy Turkey Day!

Are you excited about the turkey and green bean casserole? I am. Another thing people get excited about around Thanksgiving are the "Black Friday" shopping deals. And for good reason, since the discounts are typically pretty deep. Here's the secret though - most major retailers (Best Buy, Walmart, Amazon, Circuit City, etc) run similar sales on their websites, sometimes even for the whole week leading up to Thanksgiving. Go to bfads.net for more information. And this year, should the shopping bug bite, stay home instead and shop online. You won't miss the crowds one bit, and you get to spend more time hanging out with your loved ones. It's a win win.

Blackfriday.info is another popular website you can use to figure out where the deals are. It's got mostly the same info as bfads, I just prefer the interface at bfads better.

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Wednesday, November 26, 2008

Courtesy of Collegehumor.com and Ladyfriend:



A pretty funny personification of the fonts we office dwellers deal with every day. Me, I'm a verdana kind of guy.

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Thursday, November 20, 2008

The internet is a great thing. The amount of information that is available, and the collaboration and communication it allows, have changed the way our world works. Not that you didn't already know this.

In another specific example of why the internet is so great, this week Google started hosting 100+ years of LIFE Magazine photography. The link is here:

http://images.google.com/hosted/life

Most any iconic photo that you can think of from the last few decades is in there, now freely available for searching and viewing from Google. Good stuff.

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Friday, November 14, 2008

Have you seen these drives?

Name: Corsair "GT" 4GB or 8GB drives
Height: 0.4 Inches
Weight: 3.8 Ounces
DOB: Spring 2007

There are two main types of NAND flash chips out there; SLC and MLC. SLC is much faster, but MLC can have a much larger capacity. The thumb drive you picked up at Best Buy, or the one your company gave you at the last meeting, contains these chips.

SLC, or Single-Level Cell, has a max of 4GB per chip. And you can squeeze two of these chips into the standard sized thumb drive. So that means 4GB (1 chip) or 8GB (2 chips) are the largest capacity SLC based drives you can get.

Last year, or the year before, 4GB and 8GB drives were great. That was about as big as you could get, and consumers were happy to shell out for them. But the drives kept on getting bigger, and consumers started to demand bigger and bigger drives if they were willing to shell out. Today you can get 16GB, 32GB, and even 64GB drives. Which is huge, but these drives are slow as molasses. Remember, SLC maxes out at 4GB or 8GB, so these are MLC based drives. And MLC writes at two or three times slower speeds than SLC. So for somebody running apps off of a drive, or constantly writing backup files to a drive, that difference in speed is very noticeable.

So consumers want big big big drives, and when there is a 16GB or 32GB drive in front of them they aren't willing to pay almost as much for an 8GB drive just because the 8GB is way faster. Most consumers don't notice the speed ratings, just the big bold capacity emblazoned on the package. Is this just simply supply and demand? Sort of.

When you buy a flash drive and it is made by a certain manufacturer, that's just the company that put the thing together and wrapped it in plastic to sell to you. The individual components within the flash drive are usually made by different manufacturers that specialize in that component. In a flash drive, that NAND flash chip, either MLC or SLC, is usually made by Samsung. And in response to consumer demand for ginormous flash drives, Samsung scrapped the SLC manufacturing to focus solely on MLC. Since they supplied most of the flash drive industry, this means that most flash drives became MLC based. AKA slow based. And even nerd-lovin' flash drive makers like Corsair or OCZ had to switch too, even though their nerdified target audience prefers and would pay more for the SLC goodness.

This brings me back around to Corsair's Flash Voyager GT and Flash Survivor GT product line. Like FOX's Arrested Development or Jesus of Nazareth, these drives weren't properly appreciated in their own time. The 4GB and 8GB versions, at least the ones manufactured Spring 2008 or earlier, are blazing fast SLC, and they are almost impossible to find. The 16GB and 32GB versions of the same product line are way slower MLC, and they're everywhere. Every online merchant I normally use is out of the 4GB and 8GB GTs. eBay has only 16GB and 32GB versions. Only one fly-by-night online store I've found has the 8GB, and they want $160 for it. And I won't pay that because these drives are sold in stores, and I know some CompUSA or Circuit City has the 4GB or 8GB GT drives in a clearance bin collecting dust somewhere (for way way less than $160). Plus $160 is a ridiculous amount of money to pay for a flash drive.

So help me out, friends. If you see a 4GB or 8GB Flash Voyager GT or Flash Survivor GT in a store or online (they have red/black logos), AND the price doesn't make you spit your drink out, please let me know. I will buy it, and then I'll also be able to take down the RIP GT poster I have hanging above my PC.

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Friday, November 07, 2008

If you're like me, and you can't get enough of the raw election results (the numbers not the spin), then you'll appreciate Google's Election 2008 mashup. It's an interactive map that gives you popular and electoral counts for whatever state you highlight. You can zoom in and get the results county by county, or city by city, or switch from presidential results to house or senate results. Kind of a fun time-waster.

http://www.google.com/2008election/

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Kitty Piercy won re-election as Mayor of Eugene, Oregon. And that doesn't make me particularly happy. The city issues that I care most deeply about, downtown crime and downtown revitalization, are issues that she fails miserably on.

Mayor Piercy beat Jim Torrey by two percentage points, 50 to 48. And voter turnout was only around 72,000 for the race, which is about 50% of the city population. For such an activist town, I expected a higher turnout. And for such a supposedly liberal town, her victory over Torrey (a closet Republican) was surprisingly close. Hopefully she will understand that if liberal Eugene can come so close to electing conservative Jim Torrey, then people probably aren't as happy with her as they could be - and changes should be made in her second term. Supporting the city police would be a good start.

In other news, the jury is still out on who won Minnesota's senate race between Norm Coleman and Al Franken. The two are currently separated by less then 250 votes, in a race where almost 3 million votes were cast. Franken is on the bottom of that 250 vote deficit, and I really hope he can pull off a win. Not because I know anything about his politics, or because I don't like Norm Coleman, but because I watch CSPAN and a Senate floor with Al Franken is bound to be more entertaining.

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Thursday, November 06, 2008

Barack Obama was elected President on Tuesday. And that's great news.

Obama was my choice, since the John McCain of 2008 is not the John McCain of 2000. The John McCain in 2000 who truly did reach across the aisle (even when his party did not want him to), who spoke out against "agents of intolerance" in the republican base, who was a political maverick by any definition. The John McCain of 2000 who was rightfully infuriated at the tactics the Bush campaign used against him in South Carolina, the same tactics that John McCain of 2008 stooped to against Obama. I really liked the old John McCain, and I used to wish he would break free from the Republican party and run as an independent or third party candidate. Instead the opposite happened, and he sold his soul for the chance at the highest office in the land.

That's not to say that I am trying to take this victory away from Obama. He ran a solid campaign and motivated people to get involved that had never been involved before. I agree with many of his policies, but above all I hope he can successfully reach across the aisle to try and bring our fractured country closer together. I heard many political pundits on TV referring to this as a landslide, or a mandate for Obama. Compared to the last election, the popular vote difference was greater this time around. And if you look at the Electoral college votes, then yes, it's a drubbing. But the popular vote was 65 million to 57 million. There is a very clear margin of victory there, but there are also 57 million people who didn't want Obama to be president. And that's a lot of people. So we're going to continue this stupid trend of pigeon-holing each other, and trying to break very complex grey issues into simple black and white sound bites, unless somebody can break the cycle.

I hope that President Obama is that person, and that he can use his "mandate" to do some real good.

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Monday, October 27, 2008

Do you like food? Or eating? Are you afraid that with our economic downturn that you won't get out as often? Poppycock! Besides, everybody knows that if you stop spending then the terrorists win. And we don't want that.

So listen up. You need to go to restaurant.com and get you some gift certificates. Some crazy cheap gift certificates. They have tons of non-chain and local restaurants to choose from, and you just print out the gift certificate and take it with you. What's that, you say? So what? Keep reading, friend. Your stomach (& wallet) will thank you.

Lifehacker, a favorite blog of mine, posted this tip. Go to this restaurant.com page: http://gift.restaurant.com/index.asp, and follow the instructions below.

The normal price is $10 for a $25 certificate. Pretty good price by itself. Use the selector at the middle of the page to pick the number and price of certificates you want. Me, I'm going with four $50 certs. I know, I'm a glutton. Now put in the coupon code TREATS. It's 80% off. Yes, that means I'm getting $200 of restaurant lovin' for $16. You order $50 worth (dinner for 4? nice dinner for 2?), and you're really only spending $4 of your own money. That's crazy.

What's the catch? Most restaurants have $35 or $50 minimums for using the certificates. Or at least if you spend less, they probably won't give you change. And some have restrictions on when you can use them, like no Saturdays or no Fridays. Big deal. I eat every night and I presume you do to. Find a few restaurants in your area (STL, KC, and Nashtown all had 70-80 each) and get to chowin', fools.

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Sunday, October 26, 2008

I voted today. It was kinda weird.

Here in Oregon we have a mail-in ballot, for everybody. You get the ballot sent to you about three weeks early. You have anytime between then and election day to fill it out, seal it back up, and drop it in one of the ballot boxes all over town.

It was great. I took my voter info guides to tell me all about the candidates and the ridiculous ballot measures, and spread out all over the kitchen table. An hour and a half, a red bull, and several trips to Google later, I was done. No lines, no other people. But it was also a little weird. What if the campaigns find out I already voted? Do I still get to watch the campaign commercials? Will the crazy lady with too many political buttons still come to my door and tell me to vote no on 64? Can somebody tell her? And what if something happens between now and the election? What if a partially nude McCain gets caught in the loving embrace of Joe Lieberman, or Obama gets caught sharing a milkshake with Bill Ayers, Reverend Wright, and the Unabomber Ted Kaczynski? I'm locked in. Nothing I can do now. Oh well.

So go vote. Now, if you can. Or wait until election day. Just as long as you do it sometime.

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Thursday, October 09, 2008

I gotta give Microsoft props for their new "I'm a PC" commercials. I'm not really a huge Microsoft supporter, but I'm getting a little tired of Apple's PC versus Mac commercials and MS's new counter hits back very nicely. Well played, Ballmer. Well played. Much better than those weird Seinfeld-Gates commercials you were running.

Speaking of commercials, comedian and atheist Bill Maher has a new movie out called Religulous. In one ad for the film, a Jesus impersonator says to Bill, "what if you're wrong?" and Bill snaps back "what if you're wrong?!" It's supposed to be a witty gotcha from Bill, but I'm pretty sure that's called Pascal's Wager and it's one that Bill loses every time. If Jesus impersonator is wrong, then it doesn't matter. If Bill is wrong, he basically goes to hell. So from a rationalist standpoint, it makes more sense to believe. Probably not the "religion is stupid" message that Maher had intended to convey.

Combined with my recent commentary on an American Airlines commercial, I'm pretty sure this post qualifies me as somebody who needs to watch less TV.

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Thursday, October 02, 2008

Immediately following last week's Presidential debate I jumped into blogger and wrote up a response. Then I re-wrote it. Then again. Every version I've come up with is clunky so I'm basically scrapping the whole thing. I will say this, I was disappointed. Too many sound bites, too few answers. Not that I really expected anything more, but a citizen can dream - right?

On to the VEEP debate!

I am very excited about the VP debate tonight in St. Louis. Palin is politically unpolished, and Biden loves to say what's on his mind - no matter whether it is something politically advantageous to say or not (i.e. his recurring gaffes). So I'm expecting a shootout. They're both going make at least one ridiculous comment, and I can't wait. Tune in tonight at 9pm EST (I'm personally going with coverage on BBC America since I think they're most likely to openly criticize both candidates equally).

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Saturday, September 27, 2008

This is real. I have been to this and it's just as painful as it looks.



It's an American Airlines commercial that parodies the "team building" exercises that corporations do. Pretty spot on, too.

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Sunday, September 14, 2008

Ladyfriend and I went down to the Eugene Celebration today, a festival held in downtown Eugene. It was right in front of our office, actually, and our company had also loaned out our parking lot for use as the bicycle valet lot. A group of "misunderstood youths" were sitting on the sidewalk as we walked by, and one of them shouted out at me.

Kid: Hey sir, I need to cut my penis off. Will you give me some change for a sex change operation? (his friends all giggled)
Me: No
Hippie woman: I'll give you change for a prophylactic to make sure you don't reproduce.

The woman, who was accompanied by her very small children, just happened to be walking by and offered that response without missing a beat.

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Saturday, September 13, 2008

Dual-boot is back! And so is Windows...

Warning to my non-nerd readers: you might not be terribly interested in what follows. Nerd readers, even you might not be that interested.

A few months ago I built a new desktop. It was my first foray into system building, so I spent weeks researching the vendors, components, and pricing. An E7200 C2D processor with 4gb RAM, wireless NIC card, 80 Plus PSU, etc etc. One thing I did not want to spend money on was an OS. With so many free options, why pay if you don't have to?

Well, I tried to go without Windows on my new desktop. I really did. First Ubuntu. Then OpenSuse, OpenBSD, OpenSolaris, and even no permanent OS at all with a KNOPPIX live CD. Then back to Ubuntu again. There are just things I cannot do in Linux*. Specifically:

- My company's VPN will not work outside of Windows.
- My scanner is not supported by SANE, so it is Windows/Mac only.
- No Garmin Linux support, so my GPS interface had to be done in Windows.
- Yahoo Messenger for Linux is about 5 years behind YM for Windows. Maybe 10.
- NBCOlympics.com was not Linux compatible.

These things are not major. None of them are tasks that I perform every day, or even every week or month. The company VPN is the most critical, and I have a company laptop that can get me into the VPN. So on a day to day basis, Linux was great. I was able to surf the web, check email, listen to music, watch videos**, and edit/upload pictures or videos. But those things I couldn't do in Linux, they kept me from completely cutting the Windows cord.

(*Yes, I've heard of WINE. It doesn't help me with the VPN, and I'm not an advanced enough user to get the other items to work with it. So it's useless to me.)

(**NBCOlympics.com was designed, IMHO, to highlight Microsoft Silverlight more than to get the videos to as many people as possible. Every other major video site on the planet works out of the box with Windows, Linux, and Mac - but somehow this one managed to exclude Linux and force most Windows and Mac users to download a plugin.)

I have a work laptop, with Windows on it, but obviously I don't want to try and use this as a personal PC. So it was time to put Windows on the new desktop. I found the hard drive I saved from my old PC, and extracted the Windows product key. This was a legally purchased copy of Windows that came with the Dell PC my parents gave me. Installed a copy on my new PC, and it wouldn't activate. Two calls to Microsoft did me no good - they told me to call Dell. Then a MS user forum online helped me figure out what my problem was. My copy of Windows was an OEM copy, since Dell installed it when they built the PC. The Microsoft license agreement prevents that from being transferred to another PC, even if the original PC is dead. Even in certain cases of upgrading the original PC, you'll void that agreement.

So non-user friendly and anti-consumer license agreement or not, I needed a copy of Windows. And I can afford to buy one, so I did. Microsoft Windows XP Service Pack 3, a system builder's copy, from Newegg. It showed up on Friday. I re-formatted the PC and set up the dual boot: Windows and Ubuntu. Now if I could just figure out how to get TrueCrypt's whole disk encryption to work with multi-boot...

Ok, the super nerd-out is done. I'll get back to my regularly scheduled semi-nerd posts now.

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Saturday, September 06, 2008

So as ladyfriend and I watched John McCain's nomination acceptance speech on Thursday, we wondered what the giant mansion was that displayed behind him at one point. Actually, we wondered if the images had shut down, since when zoomed in on McCain the green grass looked more like a blank green screen. Either way, it seems that many other people also wondered what that building was. The Talking Points Memo seems to have broken the story, and has the most informative post on the subject.

Anyway, the image is of Walter Reed Middle School in North Hollywood, California. Did the McCain campaign goof in an effort to put up an image of Walter Reed Army Medical Center? Probably. The principal of the middle school released a statement denouncing their school being used, and insisted that they were not supporting McCain or any other candidate. What's the best part? This middle school was used as a backdrop in The West Wing when the Matt Santos character announced his presidential campaign. That character, according to the producers of the show, was based on Barack Obama.

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Thursday, September 04, 2008

Google Chrome!

Google announced yesterday that they were releasing their very own browser. Being a fan of Google, and also being more or less permanently attached to the internet at all times, I was naturally drawn to this new offering.

Is it any good? Probably. I am using it right now, but I need much more time to really tell if it's going to knock Firefox or Opera off their rotating top spot in my browser lineup. So far I'm pleased with it. Google has taken what most people like about other browsers and combined them, in a nice clean way. The browser is based on the Webkit rendering engine, just like Safari. It's an open source browser, with tabbed browsing, just like Firefox. And it's fast, and features a "speed dial"-esque startup page, just like Opera. Worth a look, if you have a PC. It's all still beta, so no mac or linux yet, though the S60 version and a portableapps port would be what I'm most interested in seeing out next.

You can download it here: http://www.google.com/chrome

Also of note, Google rolled out the browser along with a comic strip that introduced all of the key features. It manages to keep some rather nerd-tastic topics at least sort of interesting, so you gotta give them credit for that. You can get to the comic by clicking here. All credit goes to L for passing me the link.

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Monday, September 01, 2008

Have you seen the Walk it Out remix?

It's not really a remix, but somebody applied the Unk track "Walk it Out" over a clip from the sixties of three women dancing on a variety show. Somehow, the melody actually works and matches up pretty closely to the dancers steps. Even if you're not a hip hop fan you might think the juxtaposition is funny. Or at least clever.

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Saturday, August 30, 2008

McCain-Palin 2008 is official. Senator McCain announced Alaska Governor Sarah Palin as his choice for running mate yesterday.

I think that as Republican choices go, she's a great pick. She's young, popular, known as a reformer, and very conservative. Her youth is a nice counter to Obama, though there is almost a risk that she'll make McCain look older by comparison.

She's also from Wasilla, Alaska, the former home of a co-worker of mine. It's easier to remember that city name if you think of it as "All I Saw" backwards.

Besides her youth, there is another surface level gain to McCain picking a woman - it's a supposed boost to his continual courting of disaffected Clinton supporters who are threatening to leave their own party. But I think if you dig a little deeper, that claim doesn't hold water and borders on sexist. Senator Clinton's supporters were in her camp not just because she was a woman, but because she spoke to issues that they cared about. Sarah Palin is conservative; she supports gun rights and a constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage, and she battles with environmentalists over land use and animal protections. She is the opposite if Hillary Clinton. To imply that Hillary supporters will flock to her just because she is a woman really belittles what the Clinton-ites stood for, in my opinion.

In any case, I'm pleasantly surprised with this pick. I think it threw many pundits for a loop, and it helps connect McCain to his reputation as a former maverick.

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Wednesday, August 27, 2008

Updated my pictures on Flickr.
Added a Twitter update and badge to the left of this page.
Watched hours of DNC convention coverage.
Sleep.

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Saturday, August 23, 2008

The results are in; it's the Senior Senator from Delaware!

Senator Obama has picked Senator Joe Biden to be his running mate. The campaign leaked the pick to the media very early this morning, and the story broke on CNN at 12:30 AM (EST). The official campaign text message was sent out only a few hours later, at around 3:00 AM (EST). Supporters who signed up for the text alert were told that they would be the first to know, and as it turns out that wasn't exactly the case. They still received a somewhat rude early morning text though, so that should be some consolation.

Hopefully this announcement will mean that the McCain camp will soon follow up, if for no other reason than to one-up the Obama camp. It's a Veep Off!

Sidenote #1: Why are the CNN anchors saying "Senator McCain" and "Senator Biden" or "Senator Clinton" but then just "Barack Obama" to refer to Senator Obama? I don't know about other networks, but now that I've noticed it - they do it all the time on CNN.

Sidenote #2: How is it that Senator Biden joined the Senate a full 10 years before Senator McCain, yet McCain looks like a much older man? That's because Biden was elected to the Senate when he was 29. That's crazy. I'm 28, so it looks like I've got some catching up to do.

Sidenote #3: I swear, CNN "Senior Political Analyst" Bill Schneider is reading directly from Wikipedia. He is giving us background on Senator Biden and it might as well be verbatim from the Wikipedia entry. Not cool, Bill. Tell me something I can't Google. Or WIkkle, I suppose.

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Sunday, August 17, 2008

Go Olympics!

I just finished watching the swimming events tonight. Michael Phelps won his eighth gold medal, and was immediately crowned the greatest person to ever live. I exaggerate, of course, but so does NBC so I figured it was okay.

The other big swimming story, at least according to NBC, was Dara Torres. She claimed her third silver tonight, which was an impressive feat considering she was battling swimmers half her age.

I probably sound like I'm not happy with the NBC coverage of the games, but that's not totally true. Yes, they did show beach volleyball. And badminton. And 439 hours of boxing. All while they could have been showing more swimming. Yes, I would actually watch an empty pool if there isn't an event going on. But I'm sure they did the best they could, considering how disinterested most Americans are in most Olympic events. I just want as much swimming as I can get, since it won't be on TV again for a while.

Anyway, I mentioned Dara Torres earlier and there is another reason that I bring her up. A side note to her story is that her coach went into the hospital for a routine surgery, and ended up with an aplastic anemia diagnosis. I perked up immediately when I heard that, since I too have aplastic anemia, and it's something I hear mentioned on TV about once every never.

My AA is idiopathic, which means that the cause is unknown or at least very obscure. Nobody has been able to pinpoint for me why I have this condition, or where I got it from. Exposure to radiation or certain chemicals is known to sometimes cause AA, so I've always joked that my years exposed to pool chemicals as a lifeguard and a swimmer was what secretly did me in. Now that there is a "public" diagnosis of another individual who has likely spent much time exposed to pool chemicals, my "joke" has to at least be upgraded to "conspiracy theory".

And yes, I do recognize how many millions of people spend time in pools and do not get AA. I also know that the condition is much more common in Asia, a part of the world not necessarily know for an over-saturation of pool chemicals. But it's all I've got, so give me a break.

If you found this blog because you were Googling aplastic anemia info, my AA blog would probably be of more interest to you. Please email me (fight aplastic anemia at NOSPAM gmail dot com - remove the NOSPAM to convert to an address) for more information or to share your story with me.

Dara Torres' coach is Michael Lohberg. I wish him and his family the best.

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Saturday, August 16, 2008

As I mentioned in my last post, I have a new phone. A Nokia N95. N95-3 to be exact. The "-3" is a sort of a version number. It means my phone is compatibile with 850/1900Mhz UMTS/HDSPA, aka USA 3G. The N95-1 was released in Europe, and only compatible with the Euro flavor of 3G. So the N95-3 is the USA version of the phone, basically.

The first thing I did after I ordered it, before the package even arrived, was start looking for a case. And reliable case information wasn't terribly easy to come by. This phone is not carried by any US wireless companies, so there isn't much of a market for accessories here. And Nokia does have two flagship stores in this country, Chicago and NYC, but I'm not near either of them. So I had to resort to other blogs and review sites, and find a case without getting to play with it first. For the sake of other N95 owners out there, I want to share what I found.



Silicon Cases
Silicon cases, or skins, fit onto the phone and stay on. You don't remove them to use the phone, so it's important to have full phone functionality through the case. They're good because they protect the phone well - a case that's always on is safer for the phone. But they're bad because they're usually ugly, and dirt/dust sticks to them. If you bought the phone at all for aesthetics, you lose some of that when you wrap it in silicon.

There are no shortage of silicon cases on eBay, some as cheap as $1 USD or less. But you have to be careful to not go too cheap, at least when it comes to quality. The N95 is a dual slider, meaning it can slide up to reveal the number pad, or slide down to reveal the media controls. A case would need to fit precisely so as to not impede the movement of that slider. I passed on the eBay silicon cases. I did find what seemed to be a higher quality silicon case from BoxWave, you can get it from Amazon (click here for link). I didn't purchase it, but if the prices comes down I will.



Holster/Hip Cases
For me, wearing your phone on your belt isn't particularly attractive. But for my job as a "roving" tech guy, a holster is the way to go. I clip it to my belt in the morning, and I don't have to worry about leaving it in my desk or on a shelf or a drawer around the office. It's unattractive yes, but I'm at work. I'm not being paid to be attractive. So a holster made my list. I took a chance on a cheapie from eBay, and so far that's paid off nicely. The case was a bit tight when I first got it, but after a couple of days use it fits perfectly. And for $13 including shipping, it was a steal. The seller's name was BestSources, you can find his eBay store here. I highly recommend. Check out pictures of the holster with my phone here.



Slip/Pocket Cases
These cases look good, but they're less utilitarian than the other types. They do protect well, but you typically remove the phone to use it. Not wanting to have to wear my phone on my belt at all times, I wanted a "slip in" case for use on the weekends. Something I could throw into a pocket or a bag without worrying about the phone. I found two options direct from Nokia.

The Nokia CP-191. It's a hard leather case that your phone clips into, and the front cover flips open to reveal the phone. Being from Nokia it is bound to fit like a glove, but I couldn't figure out how I would hold the phone to my head while it was in the case. The flip open cover would probably cover part of my face, and if I was constantly removing the phone I could risk scratching from the clips. I passed.

(Another Nokia model, the CP-235, has a similar design and likiliness to cover your face. Click here for a picture from Flickr user Andrew Currie, of the case covering half of his face)

The Nokia CP-208. It's a soft leather case, with an elastic band that keeps the cover closed. As a bonus, it also comes with a small credit card/license wallet that that fits into the case with the phone. The catch is that this particular case is made for the N95-4, an N95 version that is slighly longer than mine. The other size specs are almost identical, so I gave it a shot. And I have to say, I'm not dissapointed. The case does have a bit of room at the top, but since it's a soft case the phone doesn't really move around. The leather also seems to be of decent quality, which I think I'd expect from an actual Nokia branded case. You can get it online from buy.com or Amazon. Click here to see pictures of the case with my phone. I like it, and if you have a N95-3 you won't be unhappy with it. If the extra space at the end if the case is a big deal, you can always put a chap-stic or something in it.



Crystal Cases
These are hard cases that snap on to your phone, usually clear. They're nice because you can still see the phone, and the hard case will protect against scratches. But the cheap ones are very breakable. I dropped a phone with a cheap crystal case on it once; the phone was fine but the case was destroyed. I suppose if they're cheap then you can buy several, but I would get annoyed with that.

A nice twist on the crystal case is the Alu-Crystal case by Proporta. It is a crystal front, with an aluminum back. So it allows you to see the face, which is nice, and the metal back will take much more of a beating than all crystal cases. I didn't get one, but the reviews I read were almost all positive.


Other Cases
The Invisible Shield, by Zagg. It's like a screen protector, a film, that you can get for your entire phone. It is so thin and transparent that it adds no bulk to the phone, which is nice. The problem is that it doesn't work, at least not for me. I bought their shield that was custom cut for my phone. It comes on a piece of paper, like stickers, that you peel and affix to the phone. Simple, right? Not really. I tried and failed 4 times to apply the screen protector. It bubbled up, wouldn't affix when I wanted and did affix when I didn't. There is an application lubricant and squeegee in the box, but they didn't help. It certainly could be just me, but I've never had a problem with the half-dozen other protectors I've applied to other devices. All was not lost though. I applied the pieces to the back of my phone and they work perfectly. It adds a bit of gloss to the normally matte finish, but for the protection I don't mind. As for the pieces that fit to the front of my phone, they turned brown after 3 days so I pulled them off. I don't recommend this product, especially for the high price.

Another company to consider is Vaja. They make a beautiful case for the N95 called the Grip. Little more than a leather shell that finds only on the back of the phone, it provides nice protection and adds a look without killing the existing style of the phone. It comes in dozens of colors and with or without a belt clip, and even with a name or logo if you like. What's the catch? It starts at $60 USD and goes up. A bit pricey.

The link to find pictures of my phone and cases is in the post, but if you missed it you can click here.

Wow, that was a long post. I hope it will be useful to somebody. Enjoy your phone!

Want more N95 info, and from people that might actually know what they're talking about? Try the forum at N95Users.com. Do a search and you'll find almost any N95 topic you can think of.

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Sunday, August 10, 2008

Go dig out that old TV with the VCR built in - it's A/V Club fun time! I just uploaded some new pictures and one short video...

Click here for my flickr photostream. I added a half-dozen photos of contact center build progress, Barack Obama's local campaign HQ, and Relay for Life.

I have a new mobile phone, again. This time it's a Nokia N95. I shot a picture with the phone while waiting for my hawaiian take-out to be ready, and then uploaded it to flickr directly from the phone. The picture itself isn't anything to write home about, but I am excited about the "all-in-one" features of my new toy. You can see the picture here.

Ladyfriend got a new bike, a beach cruiser. You can see a short video of her trying it out here.

That's all I've got. Go watch the Olympics.

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Friday, July 25, 2008

Luddites rejoice!

The director of the University of Pittsburgh Cancer Institute issued a warning to his employees this week about the possible connection between cancer and cell phone usage. He was especially concerned about affects on children, and his suprisingly specific advice ranged from recommending the use of bluetooth headsets to how a phone should be oriented if it must be worn on the body. He also warned against using cordless phones, since they too emit electromagnetic energy.

His advice is notable not only because he is a recognized medical expert, but because his warning is one if the first that anybody seems to want to take seriously. Other warnings in the past have come from the, shall we say, less than mainstream crowd. You can read El Director's warning and advice here:

http://www.environmentaloncology.org/node/201

The market and increasingly advanced technology will make cell phones safer, if they need to be, so this warning isn't going to make me swear off my beloved cell phones. But I might at least fire up the bluetooth headset a little more often from now on.

In unrelated news, I want to welcome a new visitor to my blog - former co-worker Bill. That should bump my readership up to right around 4, if my math is correct. I think when I crack 5, I'm actually required to issue a set of commemorative glasses. I'm thinking brandy snifters...

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Thursday, July 10, 2008

We have a smoker hut at my office. It's a small steel structure in the middle of the parking lot, not much more than a corrugated roof on four 10 foot poles. Since our building is non-smoking, and you can't smoke within 20 or 30 feet of the building entrance, our smokers use this hut to be protected from the sun or rain whilst they smoke a square. Also in the hut are one or two ashtrays.

Anyway, our security guard has taken it upon himself to start cleaning the butts out of the ashtrays during his shift, and gone so far as to to purchase a kitty litter sift scoop for this purpose. His objection to the butts is not driven by some sort of cleanliness OCD or sanitation fetish, though. The used butts were attracting bums who wanted to salvage one or two last puffs from the discarded cigs. Since there were often also employees in the hut at the same time, whom the security guard was tasked with protecting, this was obviously a problem. Hence the kitty litter scoop. No available butts meant no scavenging bum bait.

However, what it did apparently mean was retaliation. Twice now, since the butts have been cleaned out, we've found human poop in the smoker hut. Retaliatory poops, we can only assume. Since that would be the obvious course of action. I know if somebody removed my source of free used cigarettes, then my first thought would be to poop on their property somewhere.

If there is an upside to these fecal finds, then hopefully they will mean a decrease in the amount of poop we find in the stairwell for our parking garage across the street. I can't imagine that presumably underfed bums would have enough ammo to hit us from both sides. Sort of a zero sum poop equation.

It is also important to note that when walking out of the parking garage stairwell and towards our lot (where the smoker hut is), you have to pass by a public bathroom. A free, public, bathroom that is cleaned daily. It's about 15 feet from the stairwell and 90 feet from the smoker hut. Fantastic.

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Thursday, June 26, 2008

I live in Oregon, and gas is $4.35 per gallon here. AAA has OR tied for 4th highest in the nation, while GasBuddy places us 6th. What state has the lowest gas prices? Missouri, according to GasBuddy. Where I just moved from. I'm actually thinking about riding my bike to work on Friday. Not because of anything to do with the gas prices, though. It's a casual day at work, so I could do it and not worry about wrinkling my dress shirt.

I really would consider the bike commute as a real option if I could just get past the dress code thing. I dress in slacks and a dress shirt, often a tie, things that I can't bike in. And I don't really have a place to clean up and store clothes at work. Besides, it's very difficult to eat breakfast or talk on the phone or shave while riding a bike. Those things are much easier to do while driving a car.

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Sunday, June 22, 2008

Do you know what Geocaching is? It's a sport. Sort of. The basic idea is that you go online and get coordinates, then go to that location and see if you can find the prize. Usually you use a GPS to get to the coordinates, but Google Maps or a compass will do if you're really handy with the navigatin'.

The prize, or cache, is typically a container with smaller items in it; you can take one so long as you leave one, or you can just sign the log to prove you were there. If you find the cache you can go back online and record that you found it, and if you don't find it you can go back online and get more clues.

I'm pretty sure that one of my friends got into this for a little while after college, but at the time I had no idea what he was talking about. Now that I live in the state that started the movement, I figure I should do as the locals do. So I bought a GPS and set out yesterday with ladyfriend to find three different caches.

The first was literally down the block, right along where we walk the dog. So we took said dog and set off for the spot. Nothing. We walked back and forth in front of a neighbors house and couldn't find a thing. We would find out later that this was a puzzle cache, meaning that the location we went to was only meant to provide a clue towards finding the end location where the cache was. 0 for 1.

I didn't want to have the first day be a total bust, so I went online and found another cache to seek. This one was rated easy, and located in a park that we were familiar with. So off to the park we went. The GPS led us down a trail, and to a three with three large branches - just like the clues online indicated. We were looking for a small container, and look we did. A couple of times, when hikers would pass by, we had to stop looking and pretend like we were doing something else. Didn't want to give away what we were doing, you know. About 30 minutes in this creepy baldwin looking homeless guy wandered up to us so we decided it was time to cut bait on this cache as well. 0 for 2.

Before we left for the second cache, I wrote down a third one just in case. Good thing, too, since this was our last hope. It was located near the train station down the street from the previous park, and that's where we headed. But something wasn't right. I walked up to the train station and realized the GPS was pointing in the opposite direction. The clue online was "I think I can" which of course would fit with the train station. So we had to be in the correct place, right? Wrong. Across the street from the train station was a theme restaurant where you can eat in old train cars. And the GPS was pointing right at, or under, those train cars. Like the previous two caches, we called it off. I didn't feel like explaining to the restaurant manager what I was doing under his dining car, and it was starting to get dark. 0 for 3.

Ouch. So a rough start, for sure. But that's okay. It was still fun, and it got me out of the apartment. I need to do some more research, but I'm looking forward to trying again next weekend.

You may not have heard of geocaching before (unless you are Ben), but I can assure you that it's in your neighborhood too. The site I use, geocaching.com, has something like 330,000 registered users. Within the Eugene metro area there are over 500 caches to find, and that number keeps going up as you head farther out. I did a quick search in some other metro areas; St. Louis, KC, Nashville, Denver. All of them returned 500 caches, which is as high as the results will go. And that's just this one site, albeit one of the biggest sites for the sport.

Anyway, if you have time to kill and a need to get outside more, you should check it out. Just be sure to watch out for those muggles...

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