'Simonela'...is that somehow related to that ass on American Idol?  I know this story is a bit late, this was floating around my briefcase and I forgot to scan it until now.

Here's a great use of technology.  There's a young guy who's trying to break into local politics...using a modern pitch he's appealing to a nationwide pool of people to help him win.  Of course it helps if you find XKCD funny.  I gave him a few bucks to defeat the old dinosaur. 

In other news, I continue to struggle sometimes with technology.  I have a Creative Zen since I love subscription music, but sometimes it irks me.  The video converter is awful.  It doesn't convert anything...fails constantly.  I am trying to use the Creative tool that allows you to subscribe to various free 'channels' but none of them can be transferred from the Creative channels, without conversion, and most conversions fail.  I just want it to work.

And Yahoo is getting out of the music business.  They just made me transfer my subscription to Rhapsody.  We'll see how this works.  Might be time to get an iPod.  But I really want subscription music b/c I don't want to spend thousands of dollars on a music collection.

 

Chiggers....nasty little bugs, harvest mites actually..  Got into some recently as evidenced by a wealth of irritating little itchy bumps. 

Cortisone really helps control the maddening itching...then I wondered, what is cortisone.  Turns out it's derivation of cholesterol and suppresses your immune system.  Why that blocks itching and why suppressing your immune system is a good thing is beyond me...but I'll take the benefit.

 

PowerPoint can be a very useful tool.  However, normally it's a tool used for evil purposes.  Some companies get it and provide some form of training to best maximize their use of this tool.  But most don't. 

Most companies spend money on the tool, then don't train people on them.  PowerPoint is an even larger issue, communication.  Communication is the key to successful business, yet most people are very poor communicators and most companies don't do anything to address this other than perhaps sponsor a toastmasters club where you can give up your lunch hour to work on this topic.

I spend a lot of time in sales meetings these days, and in this area, more so than others, communications skills are key.  However, most people really struggle to put together a logical presentation and to succinctly present their points.

A lot of wasted potential.

Had a dinner party last weekend.  Cooked chicken 'Coq a vin' ...not a rooster as the original calls for.  It's a dish that I think I should learn...and I'll have to make it a few more times to see if I can master a recipe.  The focus of the dinner was a vertical of Marimar Torres Pinot Noir.  We had the 1999 and the 2002.  The 1999 had very reserved fruit in comparison to the 2002....but I liked it better.  There was still a decent backbone of tannins and it was full of flavor.  Very surprising.

 Finished with a Chocolate port mini cake (well, I cheated and used Pedro Ximénez sherry...a bit sweeter than most ports).

Not a bad evening.

 

What exactly is the point of 'Airport Friendly Shoes'?  I travel a lot, and at no point in the last couple of years have I been able to go through security with shoes on.  No matter what style of shoe I've been wearing.  Yet, companies are still marketing 'airport friendly shoes' with no metal in them. 

I had a really gross taxi cab driver the other day.  I think he last showered when Carter was in office...just a bit ripe he was.  And he spent most of the trip hocking up phlegm in a rhythmic fashion...like he was trying to play a tune with his sinuses. 

 Best part, he was explaining to me between snorting fits how taxi drivers are ambassadors for cities.

Lately I've been fixing a lot of things around my life...

 The pop-up flash on my camera stopped working.  I thought I had to send it in for repair.  Found some instructions online and hacked away....worked HowTo.  BTW - there is ALOT of juice locked up in the flash capacitor.  Zapped myself something good with that one.

 I replaced all the guts in my grill BBQ Parts.

 Replaced the keyboard on a Sony Vaio laptop (not so enamored with the Vaios anymore)

And I got to reinstall everything on my main home computer thanks to corrupt key security file in Windows.  That required me to borrow an old school PS/2 keyboard and buy a new floppy drive.  I hadn't used the floppy drive in years...it was full of dust and even after a good cleaning wouldn't work.  What a pain.  

Thankfully, I've been using Mozy for online backups.  It's taking a while but all my stuff is being restored to my computer.  I am very happy with that service.

Seems like something to wear to a singles bar.

Day trip to Boston today.  Work issues.

Still fighting with my phone and getting it to sync.

Same with my MP3 player.

My sister is in the hospital.

Kinda bummer today.

At least the sunrise was nice.

So I have friends who berate me for not reading the local newspaper that gets tossed into my driveway.  In the interest of trying to learn more about the community I live in, I read it the other day.

What stood out was a photo/article about the local cable company, Comcast, opening a new customer service center.  The fellow they photographed I think sums up cable tv service nicely.

Just in case you can't read it, the shirt says "I'm gonna need you to back off".

Meanwhile, I'm fighting my computers to get them talking with my PocketPC correctly.  And Yahoo Music isn't updating the music on my MP3 player correctly.  Every day I grow more fond of the Apple computer commercials.  All we want is for this stuff to work.  Regedit shouldn't be in my vocabulary.

I blogged a while back that I witnessed a lady waived through a TSA checkpoint without ID.  Apparently, that's OK, or was.  LINK

 However, as I mentioned, the lady wasn't checked at all.

 Stinking hot here in DC at the moment.  Lightning show going on outside...not as cool as those in Colorado or Kansas...but relatively nice.

I was in NYC a while back and was having a tough time getting a taxi...so I ended up taking a bicycle taxi...as I was riding to the train station I thought, here's a great thing to satisfy greener living.

Went to the National Park close to the house on Sunday.  Picked up a few bags of trash.  Amazing how much of it is plastic. 

Got me thinking...we create plastic, often out of oil that has taken millions of years to create.  Then we use the plastic container once, recycle it (rarely...less than 15%), throw it into a landfill (often) or throw it into the open world (too often).  Plastics last a long time....there are some biodegradable options but they have their limitations. 

So, should we be using glass, plastic, steel?

TSA Romance

No place to go but up.

Very quiet weekend.  Mostly did projects around the house.  It rained hard most of the weekend and that kinda put the brakes on doing much of anything outdoors...or at least it did for me.  I guess I wasn't feeling adventurous enough to armor up and go wading into the storm.

I was reading some photography stuff and got motivated so I spent a good deal of time this weekend shooting and editing.  I am pretty happy with the results.  I wanted to try some techniques and had a vision for some images.  And of course the dogs get their pictures taken all the time anyway.

I've seen ice cream in vending machines....but not Dippin' Dots.

It's the ice cream of the future.

This is in a mall/foodcourt attached to a large office building.

More about them.  Wikipedia.

$6.8 Billion dollars is the proposed TSA budget for 2008. 

This morning I was going through security at National Airport and the screeners were using flashlights and lopes to examine ID's closely....however....

A middle aged woman showed up and stated she didn't have any ID, or her wallet.  'No problem' said the screener...and sent her through.  I figured she was going to be detained for some sort of secondary screening.

Nope, went through the metal detector, picked her bags up off the belt, and off she went.

She was going to South Carolina.

Ah, your dollars well spent....I feel safer.  Don't you?

Meanwhile, took the boat out for the first time this season.  Works like a champ.  Didn't go fishing, just cruising, but I did take a few photos.

Happy May Day. 

I was at Mt. Vernon recently and I was struck by the thought of how larger than life many famous historical persons were.  The question is, are things the same today?  It seems many of the historical figures were renaissance men.  Accomplishing much across varied fields.

Were they getting credit for other people's work?

Do we have equivalent people today?

Crashing, banging, thumping....what the heck.  Kuma, the little dog, has an old wheel from a golf cart as a toy.  He likes to throw it around the yard and up into the air.  Well, apparently, he's just small enough to fit inside the wheel himself still.  I don't know how he did it, but it was impressive.

I did take if off him, but I was tempted...

I was in Chicago earlier today.  Now I'm in Birmingham, AL.  A surprisingly popular destination for me this year so far.

I got off the itty-bitty plane this evening and had one of those 'something is not right' feelings.  It dawned on me as I was heading for the rental car that I didn't remember booking a hotel for tonight.  Now, after a long day hunting for hotel rooms isn't high on my list of things to do.  Luckily the Marriott I was intending on staying had a room and I'm all set.  Call me lucky.  I don't think I've ever done that before.

I found a new musician that I like Butterfly Boucher.  I must admit I like female singers with her sort of sound.  I'm still a heavy user of Yahoo music and sometimes when I actively troll the gazillions of songs and artists there I find interesting stuff...I do really like the fact I don't have to pay by the song.  I have no idea how many thousands of songs I've got stuffed into my computers now because of Yahoo music.  The fact that they're all subscription doesn't really bother me.  It still costs less than 1 CD per month for all that music.

Being individual and independent sometimes takes a bit of effort.  I think its worth it.

It's Azalea season where I live.  Signifies the beginning of the summer season (which ends in what we call leaf season).  I have many Azaleas in my yard.  All different colors.  I quite like it.

I was reading about the increase in bio-fuels and the challenges that they create.  Apparently, everything has it's costs.  The increased use of bio-fuels like Ethanol are increasing the prices for grains across the board.  That increase in price has farmers scrambling to cash in and bring as much land into production as possible.  So, lands that we as tax payers have been paying subsidies to remain out of production are coming back in because it is more lucrative for farmers to actual farm again.  Also, there is a growing problem of marginal lands being put into production.  Marginal lands are a problem because they require more input per measure of output.  More fertilizer, more fuel, etc. 

Link to an article
and of course, Wikipedia

I've been reading a bit about Algaculture also, another version of Bio-fuels that has some better promises.  But, I'm just waiting for the researchers to figure out that if we go down that path we're likely to help evolve some intelligent algae that will take over the world.

Several people asked me how I took the picture of the consultant from the major consulting firm who had the ratty Dockers on without him noticing.

I guess I forgot to mention that he was nodding off in a meeting room with about 20 other people in it.