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Write In Vote.
This has been on countless blogs this week but I have to share this. John McCain showed images of Paris Hilton and Britney Spears in a recent political ad, comparing Obama to the two women as “just a celebrity”. Paris Hilton decided to share her own political ad. I have to say I like her a lot more now. Props to Paris.
This is HOT.
See more funny videos at Funny or Die
Observation.
I am sitting on the back patio. I’ve been out here a lot lately, usually during my lunch hour when weather permits it. Tonight I mowed the lawn. I don’t particularly enjoy the activity but it has to be done and it takes less than an hour. It’s odd, I enjoy mowing the lawn in May. By August the chore becomes tedious. Nevertheless it gives my mind the opportunity to wander a little bit and explore creative things. As I get older I find that I rarely remember what I daydreamed about by the time the lawn is mowed. Maybe early senility is etting in.
As I sit on the back porch I’m watching the new Air Force folks that moved into the local base do some nighttime training missions. They are chasing each other across the sky, back and forth multiple times, in what appear to be very high-tech jets. They are rather loud but I find them entertaining.
Off in the distance I’m seeing “heat lightning”. I don’t know why we call it heat lightning in these parts but we do. It’s actually just flashes of lightning from a storm near the horizon. I guess that means we may get some thunderstorms tonight.
I wish I could say that sitting on the patio at night is a peaceful, quiet experience, but with the sound of the nearby freeway, the train tracks the run from Albany to Buffalo and the jets doing practice runs across the sky overhead, it’s anything but peaceful and quiet.
Oh well, at least I find it entertaining.
Debate.
I have mentioned before that I worked at the family business, a hardware store and lumber yard, during the middle of my teenage years. It wasn’t an expectation but something I chose to do. At lunch time we’d gather in the office for lunch; my grandparents, my father and uncle and me and a smattering of cousins. Lunchtime conversations were usually pretty tame; we’d talk about various customer projects or what was happening in the area. Occasionally there’d be a discussion about local politics or the two men that owned a women’s dress shop down the street from our store. Every once in a while a hot topic would come up for debate, the one that sticks out in my mind was the nuclear plant that we lived downwind from. The “atomic plant” was always a hot topic at lunch. My father and uncle would end up yelling at each other. Tuna fish would fly out of mouths. Coffee would be spilled. There would be threats of a two-by-four being flung against someone’s head. This was a rare occurrence but it did rattle everyone in attendance when it occurred. If my grandfather was in attendance, it’d be like an earthquake in Los Angeles to add some shake to the hollaring. My cousin Mike and I would finish up lunch and go out in the shop to get back to work. One of us would mutter, “the fucking atomic plant fight”. Then we’d go back to hauling bags of concrete mix or whatever. Everyone was fine an hour later and we went on being a dysfunctionally delightful family that owned a business together.
I learned a lot from those lunches. I learned to be passionate about what I believed in. I learned to listen to other points of view. I learned to stand my ground. I learned to be far away from two-by-fours.
There are a few topics I get passionate about. One of them is technology. Contrary to popular belief I don’t always believe in the latest and greatest technology. While I like to tinker, I don’t think that upgrading just for the sake of upgrading is always the answer. I do believe that technology, when used properly, say in the workplace, can make us more productive and make the company we work thrive. I firmly believe that many offices can go “paperless” but that the concept frightens people. They’re too used to having paper to shuffle around. They like trails. I believe some just don’t understand “electronic trails”.
Earl and I had a lively discussion about the paperless office today on the way home from Albany (where we had delivered boxes to the Capital District plant that he manages). As General Manager, Earl has grown his company to unprecedented levels in the 13 years that he’s been there. He’s pushed a lot of paper in the process of doing it. On the other hand, I’ve observed a list of ways that the company I work for could go in a more paperless direction. I was pointing out the advantages of a paperless office where I work by using Earl’s offices as an example.
At milemarker 185 we were having a calm discussion.
At milemarker 195 I was thinking of a certain atomic plant.
At milemarker 200 I was gripping the steering wheel and his hand was out in a “debate stance”. I couldn’t see if anyone’s veins were sticking out in our heads.
At milemarker 215 I was not thinking of two-by-fours or reasonable facsimiles, paperless or otherwise.
At milemarker 233 I had gone into silent mode and he was staring straight ahead.
At home all was well and we continued on with our evening.
I won’t bore you with the details of my grand scheme of tree hugging and saving trees here (at least not yet), but let’s just say that I learned a few things about Earl’s business tonight and he learned a few things about the company I work for, as well as my vision of a paperless office for everyone on the planet.
And no two-by-fours were harmed in the process.
Perfection.
I took another trip up north to do some computer work. The drive home was about 90 minutes of summer breezes and sunshine. I opted for the less traveled county routes and reveled in the corn fields flying by, the wind blowing through the car and the sunny mood I was feeling.
Life is good.
Bear Run: The Movie.
Earl and I just finished watching “Bear Run: The Movie”. Since we are both bears and attend several bear events throughout the year, it was “Must See TV” in our merry little home. It showed on Logo tonight.
“Bear Run: The Movie” is about the bear community, a sub-culture of the GLBT community. The movie partially features the guys from Bear Albany. Earl and I recognized several of our friends in the documentary. About five minutes into the movie I remarked to Earl that it felt like a surreal experience, because I was watching a movie about our friends.
For anyone that is not familiar with the bear community (or even if you’re a bear yourself), I highly recommend this documentary. It’s showing on Logo (check your local listings for the specific channel), and will run again on 04 August at 6 p.m. and 24 August at 8 p.m. I think it shows just how inclusive the gay bear community can be. I enjoyed it very much.
Here is a link to the website for the movie. If you enjoy the movie, please drop a note to Logo and let them know that you enjoy bear oriented programming on their network.
The cell phone thing.
Ok this is my second rant about cell phones this week. I apologise if I sound repetitive.
I am currently sitting in the waiting room of the dentist’s office waiting for Earl. There’s five people in here with me. We are all minding our own business. I am amusing myself on my iPhone chatting with a young guy that was staying in Oriskany (nearby town) last night and he couldn’t find anything to do. Apparently the girl at the front desk was trying to get him drunk. He enjoyed it but he is back next week and needed something else to do. I suggested Saranac Thursday night.
But I digress.
I am silently playing with my iPhone. The only other noise you can hear is the flip of pages of a magazine and an occasional scream of torture from the back. That is to be expected at the dentist. As long as I don’t recognise the voice I’m moderately ok with it.
So in walks a woman who can only be described as appearing trailer trashy. I know that’s a somewhat harsh statement but it is what it is. She flops in a chair and sighs. She cranks up the television and sighs again. I can deal with the sighing; I hate going to the dentist too. Then her cell phone rings. Loudly. A rap tune. She foghorns out a greeting and carries on a conversation loudly. She discusses her day a bit and then about a minute into the conversation she asks who is calling.
Good grief.
The foghorn continues the conversation at her high decibel level and then her name is called. She heads into the exam room and continues the conversation on her phone. I started this blog entry as soon as that occurred and I can still hear her talking. I wonder if she’ll stop to make room for the drill.
I’m such a technology snob but I miss the days of expensive cell phone plans.
Capital Semi-Colon.
Talking to a computer user that you have never met before through a computer problem can be a challenge. If you know the person you have a relative idea of how the person thinks and you can bark out the appropriate commands for them to respond. If you don’t know the person, you could easily find yourself speaking in a way that they don’t understand at all.
Yesterday I was talking a customer through a DSL issue. He couldn’t get connected to the internet. He was an older gentleman that yelled into the phone when he spoke, I think he thought yelling made the string between the cans vibrate faster. I had him open up his web browser (in which he shrieked, “I use FoxFire!”) and type in the address of his DSL modem. This went beyond his comprehension, because there was no “www” at the beginning and no “.com” at the end, it’s just a series of numbers. To make it easier I had him type out the “http://” at the beginning of the address.
He asked, “Is that the upper small letters or just the small letters?”
I responded with, “just the small letters. Don’t use ‘SHIFT'”.
He gave me an “o.k.” and we were doing well for a few seconds until I arrived at the colon in the address.
“Is that one with dots?”
“Yes”.
“How many dots?”
“Two in a stack.”
“Where is it?”
“Next to the ‘L'”.
I heard him fiddle around and he replied, “I keep getting a comma in there!”
“It’s a capital semi-colon”, was my reply of resignation.
“Oh yeah!”, what his delighted response.
Thank goodness we didn’t have to approach the lower-case question mark for the “slash”1.
1 This is a particular nitpick of mine: the slash on the question mark is the “forward slash” and the other slash is the “backslash”. You use “forward slash” in web addresses. For the most part you only use backslash in Windows filenames (and yes I know about backslash use in other operating systems).
Ringy Dingy.
I own an iPhone. I use it a lot. I don’t talk on it so much, rather, I update my Twitter and check my e-mail and chat with various people through the built in chat mechanisms. I try not to be obnoxious with my phone, but I admit that I can be from time to time. I usually get a “look” from Earl when I get that way. I have important things to say to important people.
Anyways, I find people yakking on their cell phone in public spaces to be obnoxious. Where is it written that people should carry on mundane, ordinary conversations whilst standing in the middle of a restaurant? I don’t know if it’s because I’ve had a cell phone for a really long time or what, but I always thought that a cell phone was for important, earth-shattering conversations. “My wig is on fire.” “I’ve fallen and I can’t get up.” “I’ve ran the car out of oil and it isn’t moving now.”
“What are you doing?” in a monotone, uninterested voice is not a conversation to have on your cell phone while standing in the middle of Wendy’s, balancing a Big Gulp on a tray loaded with fat with a newspaper wedged under your smelly armpit. I resisted the urge to bump into the tray by mistake. I would have forgiven her if her wig was on fire.
While Earl and I were enjoying our quick lunch at said Wendy’s today, I noticed that there were 11 people talking on their phone out of the 30 or so in the restaurant. Three of them were at the same table. I envisioned them in a conference call with one another.
I tried calling my friend Greg the other day at lunch time. The call went to his voice mail. A little while later I got via text, “I couldn’t talk, I was in a restaurant.” Now that is the type of response that I would expect. I’m glad he didn’t yak at me with his mouth full. That would be improper.
So the next time you see me in a restaurant and I happen to be talking on my phone, slap it right out of my hand and declare “Practice what you preach.”
Unless my wig is on fire.
