random events

Random email address

2007-09-13T07:41:00.000-04:00

This is a random email address:

spamtest@leggmason.com

Please pay it no mind. :)

OK, maybe not.

2007-09-04T20:59:00.000-04:00

A little bit ago, I wrote about the Palm Folio. Basically, everyone thought this thing was going to die a quick death. I thought it might actually catch on. Well, everyone was wrong (including myself). It never even got born.

Palm today killed the Folio project.

Huh. I still think there is a good market for this thing. I like the idea. However, I do like Palm's reasoning. Palm really needs to take a step back and come up with some of the really cool stuff that they did for many years. The reasoning behind killing the Folio is that it is not based on their upcoming new platform, which is Linux-based and is quite a bit different than the current (quite old and very stagnant) PalmOS platform. The early developer stuff I've seen for the new platform is quite cool (alot of the early shots I've seen show a very iPhone-like interface). So when it comes out, the "Folio II" will be based on this new platform that is going into many of the new phones. That makes sense. Now let's hope they do the amazing job with this new platform that I know they can. :)

Can't Do?

2007-08-05T12:53:00.000-04:00

Now here is a good article, from The Washington Post. From the introduction, "The United States seems to have become the superpower that can't tie its own shoelaces. America is a nation of vast ingenuity and technological capabilities. Its bridges shouldn't fall down."

The Can't Do Nation

Damn straight they should not.

Bachelor Party

2007-07-08T16:19:00.000-04:00

Last night, we had my bachelor party.

I had no idea what the plan was. Danny (stand-in best man since my brother is in Iraq) and Jack (good friend) picked me up right at 1.00pm and we headed off to the first event. The movies. To see Transformers. Yeah, that was pretty kick-ass. Actually it was awesomely kick-ass. I grew up watching the Autobots battle with the Decepticons and seeing them on the big screen was great. Say what you will about Michael Bay, he makes a damn good action movie. I did tear up a little bit when Bumblebee lost some of his legs.

After that, we headed over to Danny's apartment where some other folks joined us and then headed to Gaithersburg for dinner. At the Dogfish Head Alehouse. Sweet. Dogfish Head is a craft brewery, based in Rehoboth Beach, Delaware. They brew some pretty crazy stuff - they are well known for their IPAs, especially their 120-minute IPA. That stuff is 20% ABV and also tastes really good. It is also $10 per bottle and only found in certain places (they did not have it at the Alehouse). They did, however, have Alehouse 75, which is a blend/mix of their 60-minute IPA and their 90-minute IPA. I had a pint of that, followed by a snifter of 90-minute IPA, followed by a Festina Peche, which is a BerlinerWeisse beer (you cannot find many of these anywhere anymore since folks just are not brewing them). I discovered that last one previously in the week; it is quite good. Anyway, once we had some beer and some food (bacon cheeseburger without the cheese), we went back to Danny's place to meet up with our rented van for the evening.

We piled into the van and headed to the next event, the Baltimore Comedy Factory. Danny got really lucky - the main act was Mickey Cucchiella, one half of the morning show on 98 Rock (which I listen to on the way to work every morning). He's quite funny (and Joe Robinson, who opened was really funny too). Now, the girls (Cin's bachelorette party was the same day/night) went to the earlier show at the same place. And they provided all sorts of information about me and some other folks in our group so he had plenty of material. I had to sit on the stage for a while. Great fun.

Finally, we went to a bar in Federal Hill. I don't think I ever saw the name of it. Oh well. It was fun and they had a couple good beers on draft. Around 1.00a we headed home. It was quite nice to have the van just drop me off at home.

So, that was it. I had a blast and Danny and company did a wonderful job planning this (all things I loved). Thanks guys.

The Palm Folio

2007-06-03T14:26:00.000-04:00

Last week, Palm introduced the Palm Folio. This thing is a "mobile companion," a new category of devices that Palm is attempting the introduce.

For those unfamiliar, Palm is the company that came up with the Palm Pilot, the first really successful line of Personal Data Assistants (PDAs). The primary line of business for Palm now-a-days is their Treo smartphones. Yes, they still have lots of other products, but the Treo is their main line right now. These things run either Palm OS (just like Palm Pilots do) or Windows Mobile. I have been using a Palm Treo 700p for the past couple of months and I really love the thing. There are a couple of issues (notably with Bluetooth pairing) and Palm OS is showing its age, but it's still a wonderful device. It has full PDA functions (calendering, etc), a mobile Web browser, a full Java JVM (from IBM), an email client, and multiple other cool capabilities. I don't really go anywhere without my Treo anymore.

So, enter the Folio. The idea is that smartphones are great, but stink at typing long emails, reading big documents (like graphic-intensive PDFs), looking at big images, and so forth. And that is all true. Sometimes, you really need a big keyboard and a big screen. The Folio is a very small laptop-like computer. It connects to your Treo (wirelessly) and provides all of those capabilities (it's a full keyboard, a big - ~10 inch - screen). It also can run on its own and runs a stripped down version of Linux. It is also pretty low-power, done all in flash instead of magentic media, is instant-on, and has a very long battery life.

The Folio is getting slammed in the media. The Slashdot hordes don't like it. One pretty representative comment -> "It's too big to be a PDA, too small to be a laptop. This thing looks like a solution looking for a problem. Other than the fact that it's a portable device that runs Linux, I see no reason to spend $500 on this. I'd rather buy a sub-notebook and have the extra functionality." Engadget doesn't like the idea. ZDNet's bloggers are not big fans either.

Basically, people do not want to carry another device around. That is absolutely true. On a daily basis, I carry my Treo and my iPod around with me. I sometimes carry my laptop (12" inch model) with me as well. I would not carry the laptop and the Folio around at the same time, and if I am going to carry one, the argument would be to bring the one that has the most power and capability (the laptop). There are already capabilities to use the smartphone as a wireless modem for a laptop as well, allowing the laptop to connect to the wireless provider's network.

This seems pretty clear-cut. Everything in the media about this device is slamming it, including the biggest Palm fanboys you can find. But something seems off to me. This seems like one of those things that everyone will pan but then, a year or so later, everyone has one. I'm not sure why I think this. I don't have any plans to acquire a Folio myself.

But I do think this device could be a dark-horse success.

Indeed, TreeHugger has an alternate viewpoint on the Folio. From their, post, "All of the Gizmodo and Engadget geeks trashing this thing don't understand that we are entering an era where low power, long life and no moving parts are going to be huge advantages." They are right in some of this -> low power and flash instead of magnetic storage are the wave of the future. With the move of applications from fat-clients to the web, this could be an interesting approach (use the smartphone when that will do, when you need a bigger screen and/or keyboard, whip out the Folio, when you need a fat-client, do that).

When you are on the road, do you really need a fat-client? I think not. I think that easily 95% of what the average traveler does on the road can be done with a Folio. Even when I have my laptop with me, I loath turning it on since it takes forever to boot (even when it's just in hibernation mode and not "off"). Instant-on access, a full display and keyboard, always-on high-speed wireless, and instant sync with my Treo? That covers almost all I would do with my laptop anyway.

This will be an interesting area to watch.

Friends

2006-10-23T22:28:00.000-04:00

I've been thinking recently about a trend in my life. I've gone through alot of stages as to who was important to me and my life. First it was my parents and my family (for many, many, years). Then it was the fellow kids at school (elementary, middle, high, and then college). Then it was Cin. Now it's my current group. Now don't get me wrong. My family is still very important to me. Cin is easily the most important person in my life and she always will be. I love her very much and she loves me very much. That's why we're getting married. My "current group" is alot of people that I've know for quite some time that I spend alot of time with. I've worked with these people. I've gone drinking with these people. I've helped some of these people through tough times and they have done the same for me. I think of these people as my family (just as much as my "real" family).

For example, we get together on Wednesdays for LOST nights. It's alot of fun for two reasons. First, it's LOST. :) Second, I love each and every person there. They mean alot to me and I, hopefully, have some impact on them too. I look forward to LOST nights, going to our bar on Friday nights, our parties, movie nights with just a couple people, just hanging out watching the first Battlestar Galactica of the season on a Friday night, and many other days and nights more than anything else in my life right now (well, except for when me and Cin are just snugglin' early in the morning, completely unwilling to get our of bed since we're some comfortable just being there with each other ... NOTHING beats that feeling).

So here's to my friends. You are some of the most important people in my life. Thanks for letting me be a part of yours. And if you don't know if you're in this group, you probably are.

Four Questions

2006-09-21T19:39:00.000-04:00

Who are you?

What do you want?

Where are you going?

Why are you here?

WorldChanging

2006-08-22T10:21:00.000-04:00

One of the blogs/journals I read often is WorldChanging. It's written by a group of writers and is focused on a "bright green" (a better world through environmentalism and new, emerging, green technology) future, frequently covering environmental, humanitarian and design issues. You can read more about it in the small article in Wikipedia.

Anyway, they are publishing a book and having a tour to discuss it and celebrate its release. The book focused on seven major categories of bright green ideas: stuff/products, shelter, cities, communities, business, politics, and the planet. The tour is coming to Washington, DC, among other places.

I intend to buy the book and to attend the event. You should too.

PBS and the "Technical Virgin"

2006-07-27T18:01:00.000-04:00

So, PBS has fired Melanie Martinez, the host of “The Goodnight Show” on the PBS Kids Sprout network. This seems to have been a show for 2 to 3 year olds to watch at nighttime that got them ready for bed. There was a star puppet and a couple other cute things.

Melanie was fired because she revealed to PBS that she had created a couple of spoof advertisements for the website Technical Virgin. These were spoof public service announcements that described all of the things you could do in place of having sex. Some used graphic language.

Read about it on CNN.

Are these ads in "good taste?" Nope. Are they mainstream that you'd want your kids to hear? Nope. Do they exist solely on a website that noone knows about and would have a really hard time stumbling across? Yep. Would a 2 or 3 year old have any idea what they're hearing if they were stumble across one? Nope.

This bothers some folks. Read about one here.

This really bothers me. Here's a woman who, seven years ago, did some work that was questionable. She's now a stage actress with a toddler of her own. Having never seen this show, I cannot speak to how good of a job she did. But I know some folks that did watch this with their little ones and they love the show and Melanie. So this woman leads a respectable life, has cleaned up her past "questionable" acts, and VOLUNTARILY told PBS about this "video."

And they fire her.

Kids love her. She admitted she did something questionable (SEVEN YEARS ago!) before anything about it came out. She doesn't do anything like that anymore. There's a zero chance of anyone who watches The Goodnight Show would ever see one of these fake PSAs. So why should this warrant her getting fired from a job where many kids love her and she apparantly did a fantastic job?

Answer: It shouldn't. Let people realize they didn't make the best choices and move on. Additional fact: George Carlin (who is a dirty, dirty, comedian sometimes - both in his past and RIGHT NOW) is still on PBS shows, including Thomas the Tank Engine. WTF?

PBS - shame on you.

Mother Nature

2006-07-06T15:14:00.000-04:00

Sometimes the modern world needs to be shut off for a minute and one needs to remember that despite all the amazingness of the modern world, Mother Nature can still inspire awe like nothing else. For example,

There's a great discussion on this by Mark Morford, columnist for the SF Gate, here. This is well worth the read. And remember what LCDR LaForge said once on Star Trek: TNG, "I've always thought that technology could solve almost any problem. It enhances the quality of our lives, lets us travel to distant lands, even saves lives. But sometimes you just have to turn it all off..."

Developments

2006-05-29T13:12:00.000-04:00

Wow, lots of new and interesting things going on.

First of all, we opened the pools. Very successfully if I might say so. Things are going well - very well. TheSailor's replacement is working out really well. He fits in with everyone quite well and it seems he's been around forever. On the work side of things, TheNewGuy has alot of new and different ways of doing things and new ideas which are working out quite well. That's what you get when you bring in fresh blood and this seems like it was a very good selection on the part of TheCompany.

Next, and probably bigger news, is that me and Cin are engaged. I proposed last night after we went out for her birthday dinner. I gave her her presents and then we went on a The Amazing Race style hunt for her last present. Which was in my pocket. And was her ring. Then she said yes. Which totally rocked. So now the wedding plans begin.

I'm also going to be taking a weeklong, live aboard, sailing class in August, which promised to be alot of fun.

Whew.

The Raven

2006-04-14T15:14:00.000-04:00

Check out the Raven Run.

Raven is Robert Kraft, a resident of South Beach in Miami, Florida (who looks amazingly like my friend and co-worker, Trent). Since 1 January 1975, Raven has run every day on the beach for around eight miles. That's eight miles per day, every day, without missing one, for over THIRTY YEARS. Every day, for many years, people have shown up to run with Raven. He welcomes anyone that wants to come and run the eight miles (on one of four different routes) every day. There are some pretty cool pictures of some of the crowds that run with him sometimes.

There's a good article on this guy at the Miami New Times, which explains Raven's life and the benefits and hardships this running has given him. His streak shows amazing dedication. While I don't think I could ever do that (I have enough trouble running eight miles once, thank you very much), I stand in awe of this. I am also somewhat amazed that he has not left South Beach since starting and feels very anxious whenever he leaves the beach even for a couple hours. He hasn't experienced much outside of his area. But that suites him and I cannot judge that; it's good for him so it's good.

Wow.

John Bolton

2006-04-13T21:45:00.000-04:00

On Monday I went to a special event at UD that was a speech by the US Ambassador to the United Nations, John Bolton. I've disagreed with alot of what Bolton has said over the past couple of months. However, I found this talk to be very enlightening. Two of the main issues that Ambassador Bolton sees facing the UN right now - 1) Iran and its nuclear program, and 2) the current genocide occuring in the Darfur region of the Sudan. I was very pleased to see the inclusion of Darfur in this list. It's a big problem and the US isn't doing anything about it. I understand the problems with doing anything in a country where the government doesn't want any intervention, but the horrors that are occurring there are insane.

Anyway, I found this talk to be very good. I learned alot about Bolton's perspective on the UN, which I think is the same position as the current administration. Bolton views the UN as one tool in the arsensal of US foreign policy. If the US wants to do something and the UN could get to that goal, we'll do it that way. If not, we'll do it some other way. It's just another tool in the toolbox.

Now to agree with that point of view, you need to accept that the US has a solution to almost all of the world's problems. And you have to accept that we're right and we'll do what we know to be right no matter what method we take. Now that's not the perspective I tend to take when thinking about world affairs. But I do now understand John Bolton's perspective and, based on that understanding, I understand alot of what he has said publically alot better.

Good talk, Ambassador Bolton. Thank you for being so frank and so honest. It is very refreshing. I don't agree with all of your prespectives, but I understand where you are coming from alot moreso than before.

I have a sister in law

2006-04-09T21:33:00.000-04:00

The result of all the fast-paced developments concerning my brother and his wedding was that he got married this weekend and me and Cindy had to go down to Greenville, South Carolina, for the wedding.

I had used some Hilton Honors points to reserve a room at the Embassy Suites in Greenville for May, which is when the wedding was planned for. After finding out the wedding was now going to be this weekend, I called Hilton and pleaded for them to move my reservation to this weekend and explained all of the circumstances. They were very happy to change the reservation and all worked out very well. Kudos to Hilton for handling this situation very well. I knew there was a reason why I always prefer their hotels.

So we left on Thursday afternoon around 4.15pm, which meant we sat in DC traffic for hours. Luckily, we got to use a new bridge of the always-under-massive-construction I-95/I-495/I-395 Springfield interchange, and that was cool. Then, once we got south of the Capitol Beltway, we got to use the HOV-3 lanes despite only having two people in the car, since my new hybrid car gets mad benefits from the state of Virgina. Very sweet. So, we drove down I-95, to I-85, stopped at a Subway for dinner, stopped at a BP for coffee and a bathroom break, and eventually pulled into the Embassy Suites parking lot around 1.15am. It was painful but the drive wasn't that bad and we got to sleep in on Friday. Very nice. The night manager was waiting for us, knew I was coming and the details of why, and we got our nice room. All very well handled and off me and Cindy went to bed.

On Friday, we woke up around 11am and went to Cracker Barrel for lunch. Delicious. Then we drove into Clemson to see Jim. We met up with him and Sara, got some Clemson-logoed merchandise for Cindy, and went to his favorite bar for some beers. I had a Highland Mocha Stout that was really good. From there me and Cindy headed back to Greenville and the Manager's Reception with my parents where we enjoyed free beer and wine, as well as popcorn and vegetables. They left to have dinner with Sara's parents (first meeting!) and we ordered a pizza from room service, ate it, and went to bed after watching some crappy TV.

We woke up on Saturday early (7.15am), expecting to go shooting. It was Jim's wedding day and he wanted to go shooting. Plus neither Cin or my dad had ever done this so it would be fun. But it was raining and that became a no-go. So we went back to sleep. Then we got up, went shopping so Cindy could get a new dress for the wedding, got some Cold Stone Creamery ice cream, and headed back to the hotel. We got dressed, I picked up Sara's ring (I was the best man!) and we got dressed, met mom and dad, and headed to the church.

We got to the church and met some of Jim's friends and Sara's family. There were six folks from my family (me, Cin, mom, dad, Anne, and her boy, Ross). There were about sixty folks from Sara's family (most of them live in SC). Here's Sara's family...

And for comparision, here's our family...

After the wedding, in the receiving line, Jim looked very flustered when he was meeting them all. Sara's family seems very nice and very large. The wedding was short and went off without a hitch. It was quite good and my responsibilities as best man were minimal. Sara's dress looked wonderful.

Here's a good wedding picture of the bride and groom...

And here's the wedding party (bride, groom, maid-of-honor, best man)...

After the short ceremony, we headed off to the reception.

The reception was at the Westin Poinsett. Ross told us that when he was in high school, this place was an abandoned building where homeless folks lived and his friends would all bet each other to spend a night there. It's really nice now. The reception was beautiful and looked like it was planned for months. They did have a cash bar, largely because the open bar would have been multiple thousands of dollars. The dinner was steak and was delicious. The cake was from Sara's favorite cake place and was really good. There was no DJ; for dancing they used Jim's iPod. The dancing time was kind of short, but that was OK. The best man (myself) gave a rather short and ill-planned toast, but I think it was OK. The maid-of-honor gave a much better one. Sara's dad explained the legend of the Nurenberg Wedding Cup and Jim and Sara did it and succeeded (it didn't look that hard) - this was the first time I had seen this and it was pretty neat. After some dancing, we all headed back to the hotel and Jim and Sara went up to their free Westin room.

Here's Jim and Sara entering the reception...

Well, they absolutely pulled this off. I was so concerned after a wedding planned in one week. Yet they had a full wedding. They were in a church with alot of people there. They had a full reception with a sit-down dinner, a bar, dancing, toasts, a (small) wedding party, a real wedding cake, presents, and everything else that's normally at a wedding (except a DJ :)). It was really impressive. If Jim and Sara could pull this off in one week, a wedding planning in two months would have been amazing.

So, congrats to James and Sara Six. Sara's the most recent addition to our family since Jim. And she's very welcome.

total randomness

2006-04-02T13:45:00.000-04:00

Things have been very strange in my family for the past couple of weeks.

A couple weeks ago, we got some indications that my brother, Jim, was going to propose to his girlfriend (not dating a year yet, if I recall). Now I like Sarah, as does the rest of my family, but this couldn't be real, could it?

Yep, it's real. Originally they were going to get married in May in Greenville, SC (right outside of Clemson). The wedding was going to be right after they graduate. The day after. So they had a wedding to plan in less than two months. This is largely because it looked like Jim's Army Reserve unit was going to get called up in the summer and Sarah (who is in Air Force ROTC) was going to Florida for two years of training right after graduation. So they needed a wedding quicker than the usual year or so away. That was going to be amazing if they could pull it off. And they were doing a good job. Jim asked me to be his best man, they selected a church and reception location, started on the food, Sarah ordered her dress, and so on. Progress was being made and the mood changed from "what the..." to "this is actually going to be a good time."

Until Friday night.

Jim's Army Reserve unit got called up. To go to the sandbox. In the middle of April.

Ouch. So much for those plans. Now, we're heading down to Greenville next week. Yes, one week from now, I'm attending my brother's wedding that we just started to think might possibly happen some day in the future about two weeks ago. I'm really, really, happy for my brother. But I'm very disappointed that this is how he's getting married. He deserves a ceremony and a reception and a shower for Sarah and lots of family and friends at the wedding, and so on. With one week to go, I have no idea what this wedding will look like. And then he's off to the sandbox (before college graduation that is only weeks away!) while his fiance stays here. This is a very strange situation and it's evolving so quicky that I cannot even figure out how I really feel about it.

Well, atleast I don't have to give a speech. :)

excellent Italian food

2006-04-02T13:38:00.000-04:00

Me and Cin have found a wonderful new restaurant, the Aida Bistro in Columbia. Some folks from work had been talking about this place so we tried it out a couple of weeks ago. We went back for the second time last evening and it was just as good as the first time, discounting the possibility of a fluke.

The place is Italian and it shows. They make all of their pasta (most of their menu is pasta or includes pasta) homemade, each day. It is absolutely delicious. Cindy can explain much better than I why freshly made pasta tastes so much better than packaged stuff but she's right - it's delicious. The first time I had spaghetti in a garlic and olive oil sauce. Last night I had the same thing but with whole-wheat linguine instead. It was incredible. The whole-wheat pasta had a much different taste than the "normal" pasta and I liked each on its own, so I have a good choice between the two next time I go there. The table next to us had a salmon dish that looked fantastic, so I might try that next time.

Other nice features: they have a large wine list that starts quite cheap and gets really expensive, they have "small entree" selections which cost somewhere around $12 for a smaller portion of a delicious meal than you'd expect elsewhere (the pasta portions are smaller than most restaurants which is wonderful since they always give you too much pasta - this smaller portion approach is apparently much more inline with how they approach pasta in Italy), and everyone there is very friendly and helpful.

In short, this is a wonderful place. It's also small and hard to get into so if you wanna go, call and make reservations atleast a day or two early, even for a party of two.

Galactica

2006-03-11T11:50:00.000-05:00

Last night was the season finales of all three of SciFi's original shows, Stargate SG-1, Stargate Atlantis, and Battlestar Galactica. Wow. That was some really good TV.

Yesterday reaffirmed my belief that Galactica is the best show on television right now. We had a really difficult choice by Laura about fixing the election. The moral choice won out over the choice that both her and Adama knew was the best for the survivors. President Baltar has already shown himself to be a very poor choice, thanks to the "one year later" jump. We've got a new Cylon model and it's Al from Quantum Leap. The fleet has been decimiated, not by a Cylon attack but by neglect. The colonists now on New Caprica are revolving against their leadership. And we now have a huge Cylon fleet in orbit with an occupying force on the ground and a total surrender by Baltar.

Damn good TV. All that and no new episodes until October. What the frack is that all about?

DVR (take two)

2006-02-20T08:58:00.000-05:00

After the fiasco with the previous Digital Video Recorder (DVR) box, I was quite pleased when the cable man came over the replaced my DVR box with a new one (still the same Scientific Atlanta model) a couple of weeks ago. This guy really worked for the cable company and not a subcontractor. He knew what he was doing. He understood how I had the box set up, he was polite and well spoken, and he talked all sorts of stuff about this model box being the older model that they always have these types of issues with and the newer ones being much better. I did ask what I had to do to get the newer box and he said that he would have brought me one but the warehouse was out of them that day. Nuts, so close to a better box. Of course, my research tells me that it would have been a Scientific Atlanta Explorer 8300HD, not the Motorola box that the next county over gets. Still, that would have been nice.

This box has worked well for almost a month now. I love it. Right now I have it configured to record every show that I really enjoy watching, regardless of if I normally watch it live or not (in case I miss it). Right now that includes Stargate SG-1, Stargate Atlantis, Battlestar Galactica, 24, Drawn Together, and The Shield (I don't have Lost on there because there's no way I would miss an episode of that show since we have weekly Lost-watching parties/dinners for that purpose). I love that I can watch things when I want to. For example, I got home on Friday early enough to watch Galactica, but realized that I hadn't yet watched the previous two weeks' worth. So I went to bed and on Saturday morning, while Cin was at a swim meet, I watch all three weeks worth. Sweet.

The ability to pause live TV is really growing on me too. I finally caught an episode of The Simpsons that I hadn't seen but once. So I started watching. Then I realized I had something very important to do that if I didn't do it right then I would forget and trouble would follow (empty my cat's litter box). So I paused TV, did that business, and came back to watch right where I left off. And since I had been gone five minutes, I could fast forward through the remaining commercial break and still finished at the same time as the live show. Double sweet.

DVR = really cool technology. Highly recommend.

(No Title Provided)

2006-02-20T08:53:00.000-05:00

MrSideshow has appanently let his emotional side show through (for what I believe is the first time. ever.). His story is heartfelt and it's something that anyone with any relationships, be they with pets, family, friends, or anyone else goes through from time to time.

When it's Time to Say Goodbye

I know somewhat of what that man was going through. However, I will never know exactly what he was going through as I think those feelings are never the same for any two people.

Everyday is very often...

2006-02-19T22:28:00.000-05:00

The What Jeff Learned Today blog is dead. It was way too hard to try to keep up with. Oh well.

What Jeff Learned Today

2006-02-01T23:01:00.000-05:00

New blog.

http://jeffsfacts.blogspot.com

The idea here is that I'm going to post one thing that I learn everyday. That means I'll have to learn atleast one thing every day and post it as well. Hope this goes well. :)

I have DVR ... for around 36 hours

2006-01-28T16:57:00.000-05:00

I broke down and ordered Digital Video Recorder (DVR) service from (big cable company) a couple of weeks ago. After getting their "soonest available" appointment (over two weeks from when I called), I stayed home from work on Thursday, for my 1pm to 5pm appointment. You see you need to have your DVR converter box "professional installed" by (big cable company). Apparently, they used to let people install these things and nobody did it right so they do it now. No exceptions. OK, fine.

5pm comes. And goes. No technician. One call to (big cable company) - OK, we'll page the technician and have him call you with an ETA. 5.30pm comes. No call. Second call to (big cable company) - OK, we'll call the technician and tell you, please hold, OK he'll be there within 15 minutes. OK, fine. He shows up, at 5.45pm (for my 1pm to 5pm appointment). He looks at my digital cable box (the one he's replacing with the DVR box) and immediately looks confused. Apparently, he's never seen one hooked up where the Cable Out isn't directly connected to the TV - I guess nobody besides me has a home theatre system. So I hook it up myself. I asked if he had a S-Video cable I could use to hook this thing up - "You mean that thing?" as he points to a RCA cable. Huh. Well I can clearly see why (big cable company) needs this guy to come out and install the DVR boxes because customers can't do it themselves.

So, after I install the thing myself and pay the man for his professional expertise, he leaves and I cook dinner for me and Cindy. Then we watch TV. I experiment and get the box to record a show. And then realize I don't know how to access the Recorded Programs list. So I hunt around on the Internet and find out that the installer left me the wrong remote - the DVR buttons are missing. Wonderful. So I had to go out the next day to (big cable company) and swap out the remote - atleast I didn't need to schedule a technician visit for that. I get my new remote and all is well. I setup the box to tape both Stargate shows and Battlestar Galactica and head on our for the evening.

I wake up Saturday morning, go to my Tai Chi class, run some errands and then come home, ready to watch some TV before starting working on Chapter 2 of my thesis. I look at the cable box and it's all flaky. The front, instead of the nice display of the time, keeps alternating between "boot", some funky symbols, and "HAL2." It will not turn on and it's not putting out a video signal. I do some WEBINT and find out that this pretty much means the box is hosed. I call (big cable company) and their technical support claims not to have ever heard of this before, they try to contact the box over the cable network and fail, and then say I need to setup a service call - a week from now. Oh joy. Nope, I can't swap the thing out at the lobby - I can't be trusted to hook it up myself (although I did when my installer didn't know what he was doing).

For those interested, the box is a Scientific Atlanta Explorer 8000HD. It you want to see what others think of it, try Googling "8000HD." You'll find alot of people with the boot/HAL2 cycle and alot of other problems. Apparently this box has a reputation for being very unreliable and very flaky.

I sent (big cable company) a lengthy email detailing every problem I had since day one of DVRness. Their response - call the 800 number and let's talk about it. I did that. The guy was quite rude and was unrelenting in his "policy is..." statements. He did credit me the $17 I paid for the "professional installation" since that was not quite up-to-par. He didn't seem to think that waiting two weeks for something to be installed, having to do that myself anyway, only to have the thing break after 36 hours, was a big deal.

Bottom line - another day I have to take off work, the loss of those shows I already recorded, no digital cable for a week, and alot of frustration.

(big cable company), you don't have a very good reputation for customer service. This is why.

Television!

2006-01-16T14:51:00.000-05:00

I try to watch a small amount of television. I used to watch alot and now I try to minimze the amount I watch. That being said, I find that hard to accomplish this time of year because there are so many good, compelling, things on television right now. Here's a sampling.

NFL Playoffs.

We've had a couple games so far and they are quite good. The Steelers/Colts game was fantastic. Plus the Colts lost. Sweet. Seriously, this is the best time of the year for football.

24

Jack's back. Two hours into the new season and it's just as good as last season.

Stargate SG-1 and Stargate Atlantis

Even since SciFi has taken these shows over, they air them in half-seasons. This January saw the premiere of the second half of season nine. And it's good ... it's really good. I'm still more into SG-1 than Atlantis, but both shows are really good. The new storylines with SG-1 focusing on the Ori are very compelling.

Lost

Hands down, best television show to appear on network for many, many, years. It's like one huge, multi-season, episode of The Twillight Zone, but with really good, compelling, character development.

seaQuest DSV

This one is cheating, as it's not on television anymore. But, thanks to alot of fan persering to Universal, seaQuest DSV, season one, is now available on DVD. I really miss this show. And this is the first season, when seaQuest has stories that were very grounded in science - it was believable science fiction that you could really see happening in twenty or thirty years. No aliens, time travel, or anything else that we'll see starting in season two. This was (and still is!) damn good television.

Three Books

2006-01-07T12:19:00.000-05:00

I got alot of books for Christmas. Here's three that were really good and I suggest reading.

Dancing Barefoot by Wil Wheaton. ISBN 0596006748. 116 pages.

This book is a collection of five short stories by Wil Wheaton, who is best known as Ensign Wesley Crusher in Star Trek: The Next Generation. I say five short stories lightly; it's really four really short stories followed by one much longer story. The four short ones are all things that happened during Wil's life, both before and after TNG but focusing on Wil as Wil. The long one is about his experiences doing TNG itself. Some are funny, some are sad. One is cute. This book took me about an hour and a half to read on Christmas evening at Cin's grandparents house. It was an excellent read and I highly recommend it. This book is one of two of Wil's published works, the other being Just a Geek, which I also received for Christmas but isn't to the top of the queue yet.

The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference by Malcolm Gladwell. ISBN 0316346624. 304 pages.

This book is all about how various things - ideas, trends, viruses, and so forth - tip, or hit that point where they just take off. There's three key factors into making something tip, "The Power of the Few", Something's "Stickiness", and "The Power of Context." The power of the few is important - some people's opinions matter more than most peoples'. There are three types of people that matter the most, Connectors - who know vast numbers of people from all different social circles, Mavens - who stay up-to-date on current happenings and supply information on "things" willingly (these are the Consumer Reports-type people) and Salesman - who are really good at influencing people. Stickiness is a simple concept to understand - the presentation of ideas, as well as the idea itself, can be tweaked in very small ways that make the idea so much more appealing. The power of context is also simple - the context an idea is received in changes ones perception of it. All-in-all, this book was really good. The best part about it is that Gladwell uses real-world examples all over the places to explain things. He'll use an example to illustrate an idea, then talk about the idea, and then use more examples to drive it home. Really good writing. Highly recommend. The book took about four or five hours of serious reading - it goes fast though and it was easy to understand as I went along. The most interesting part for me was the section on the three types of people that matter in making an idea tip - now I know that I'm a Maven (with some Connector properties). :)

On Bullshit by Harry G. Frankfurt. ISBN 0691122946. 80 pages.

This is one of the shortest books I've ever read. It's written by a professor at Princeton University. It is an academic examination of bullshit - what is it and what role does it play in language and modern communication. It's not intended to be funny, but a serious examination of the role of bullshit in moden culture. It's a very short read - took about thirty minutes (it's only 67 pages of text and the book is very tiny - it's only 6.4 x 4.5 x 0.5 inches). Nevertheless, it has got alot of good content in it and really makes one think seriously about both lying and bullshitting and how they are very different, both in goals and in effects. It was a very good examination of the subject and worth reading for anyone. Highly recommend.

One Chance Encounter

2006-01-01T14:28:00.000-05:00

Me and Cin got up this morning and drove up to Cracker Barrel in an attempt to get breakfast. No luck - the wait was over a hour, probably since it's New Year's Day. So we headed back to Columbia and went to Boston Market for lunch. While Cin was paying and I was filling up our drinks, I hear someone come up to me and say "Jeff, it's been a really long time."

Turns out it was Jan, a girl I knew for years and went out with for a while, many years ago. We've lost touch. So in the course of ten minutes, we kinda caught up. I found out she's working for the Department of State right now, which is really cool. It was really good to see her.

What bothers me is how I handle situations like this.

Even once in a good while, I'll see someone I haven't seen in a long time, someone that I'd love to catch up with and learn more about. Jan was very special to me, and I'll always consider her a good friend. Yet I don't know much about how she's spent the past couple of years. And yet I spent this chance meeting learning a little more, but that's it. No attempt to see her again and catch up. No way of contacting her in the future. It'll be the next chance meeting that I'll see her again at, if that ever happens. This is usually what happens when I run into someone I haven't seen in a while. While I'm really glad I ran into her, part of me feels like I messed up a good chance to reconnect with an old friend.

Oh well. One of these days, I'll get better at this kind of thing.