Visitors to the actual site of the blog will note that I have changed the visual theme of the site again and I think I have found a theme that I am pleased with. This theme is called iTheme2 and I think it looks good and represents my Mac tendencies very well.
I have also added a couple of widgets to the side (even if I’m a little late on my Happy Pride Month! widget this year). Feel free to browse around.
The first time I pumped gas at a self-serve station was at the Hess on the corner of Henry Clay Blvd. and Buckley Rd. in the town of Salina, outside of Syracuse. This station sits in a more industrial part of town. I was riding with Grandma City in the Ford Granada she had just purchased. It was a used car from Canada. She advised me that she was only doing 60% of what the speedometer said because the gauges were in metric. 60% of very slow is still very slow. Grandma City had a tendency to drive slow. We were going to a warehouse sale at Fays Drugs on Henry Clay Blvd. There must have been a discount on African Violets or something.
I have probably pumped gas a couple of thousand times since that first time at the Hess station on Henry Clay Blvd. We have a Hess station relatively close by, but there’s a Fastrac station about a mile from the house so we go there. I just filled up the Jeep in preparation for my commute to work in the morning. I don’t like starting out the day with the need of gas. I like to be prepared.
The gas at all of the local stations is 10 to 15 cents higher per gallon than it is in nearby Syracuse or Albany. I once asked a very important person at Fastrac why this was the case and they told me it was because our area doesn’t have any terminals near by and therefore the gas has to be brought in by truck. I thought all gas was brought in by truck. I didn’t mention the fact that River Road, the same road that the Fastrac is on, is lined with huge gas tanks that are marked with signs that indicate it’s a terminal. Today I paid $3.589 a gallon, which is marked down from $3.659 because I have a gimmick card from Fastrac. I’m not a big fan of the gimmick card, but every few cents per gallon helps the budget. When you commute as much as I do, you watch your fuel budget and hope that heaven doesn’t require you to be completely green. My carbon footprint should be getting smaller soon.
I think gas might have been $1.099 that first time I pumped it myself on Henry Clay Blvd. Far from the $0.299 that Goober pumped in Mayberry but even farther from the $3.589 price tag I pumped today. When I was graduating from high school there was some quick reduction of gas prices for a little while during some sort of event in the Middle East. I once paid $0.799 a gallon to fill my 1976 Pontiac Astre. People called it “the Disastre” because it was a Vega in a fancy suit. It got me from point A to point B so I didn’t care so much. It was a really weird green color. When I wore my red snowsuit while driving it I looked like an olive with me in the starring role as the pimento.
One of my relatives has a computer running Windows Vista that is spamming my email with random factoids and address book information. Windows Vista was touted as Microsoft’s “most secure version of Windows ever!” I’m so glad that it’s doing its job so well and I’m happy that the person that owns the computer is attentive to the required upkeep and maintenance of a Windows-based operating system. Despite claims to the contrary, owning a computer is a responsibility that entails a fair amount of hard work. I still believe that users should be required to own a license to operate a computer.
But then again, licenses don’t seem to mean much these days. I just watched an elderly couple barely miss being flattened by a Wal*mart truck that was well within the speed limit and right of way because they apparently didn’t see the monstrosity coming through the light. Truth of the matter is, they didn’t even look. The light was green so they went. They probably got their license to drive 60 years ago. I’m sure at age 77 or whatever that they still have the stamina, reflexes and intact thought processes to navigate a 2000 pound hunk of metal down a roadway. Silly licenses.
I recently saw an online letter to the editor where a man was upset that the Department of Transportation had installed “Deer Crossing” warning signs on a busy roadway. The writer thought that this was foolish and that the signs should be installed on a roadway with lower traffic so the deer would cross where there weren’t as many cars.
Wow.
I bet you think I’m nuts. Here ya go.
I can spin a tall tale like the best of them, when suitable motivated, but lately I haven’t felt the need to make any of this shit up. We are in Rome, the bricks are falling but the general public keeps fiddling.
So I am curious as to how people prefer to “follow” other people on the Internet these days. Do you prefer to follow Twitter? Facebook? Google+? Individual blogs (like this one)? Are you more inclined to use the more adult sites and apps like bear411?
Personally, I think the best way to reach out to another person is still to meet them in person and talk to them face to face. But with the ability to make friends far away where meeting face-to-face isn’t a readily available opportunity, we rely on electronic means to communicate. Twitter is my go to for “snappy” blurts of information and it’s also the source for much of my news these days (which, of course, I follow up with fact checking after reading something on Twitter). It’s also the favorite of my social networking sites because it feels the least intrusive. Facebook creeps me out with it’s advertising. I occasionally see an ad that pops up in the sidebar on Facebook that is very much tailored to my lifestyle but in theory, Facebook shouldn’t know about my interest in product X because I’ve never discussed anything remotely like that on Facebook. Unless Facebook was tracking me around the internet, they’d never know that I was searching for a weather radio, for instance, because I don’t believe I’m a member of any storm chasing groups on Facebook.
I favor Google+ over Facebook simply because I like the interface better. The walls ring hollow since there’s a lot of people over there that aren’t saying much, though. My relatives and friends are on Facebook, so that’s why I use that. I wish more people were on Google+.
As far as the “adult apps” go, I have a few of them on my phone but I rarely use them. If Earl and I are traveling I might fire them up and see who lives nearby, asking Earl if Man X is cute in the process, but other than voyeurism I don’t really have an invested interest in those apps.
So, I’d like to know what apps and social networking sites my gentle readers use. Let me know what the cool kids are using these days.
This was the best scene of the first season of “Smash”, in my opinion. This song and the choreography are spectacular. It makes me smile.
This is a notification of the SigAlert system. I have changed my Twitter and Instagram names to DJSuperCub. I repeat, I have changed my Twitter and Instagram names to DJSuperCub (update: I lied.). What’s old is new again. What resonates will always resonate.
Keep on resonating, baby.
I’m pretty good at much my job*. I can say that with confidence because during my last annual review I noticed that I scored well on all the important parts and my numbers were all headed in a positive direction. That’s a good thing. It’s better to have high numbers on the review instead of high blood pressure numbers because that just leads to a fast track to the big cubicle in the sky. I’m not much of a cubicle person so we are trying to avoid that.
Because I’m good at my job and people like the work that I do (I build applications that make you go “woo!”), I tend to get a plethora of suggestions on how to make my applications even better. “Can we make this turn red when there’s an issue. Can you require that field to be filled in and pop up a warning when they do it wrong.” I get that sort of thing and since I’m the architect that builds to the needs of the occupant, I do my best to accommodate. It’s kind of what makes the career side of me tick.
The problem with all of this is that I have a hard time admitting that I’m going to need help on a project. I’m a bit of a control freak (surprise!) and while I love being part of a team that comes up with the direction of the project, I like being the one that builds the code. I have a vision, I usually have an idea of how that vision is going to be executed, and I like to be the one that executes it. For all of my career I’ve usually been the lone programmer or system administrator for a group, so it’s kind of weird for me to think that I might have to write code with someone else that has the same or comparable skill set as me. After all, loner tendencies + control freak = me. It’s simple math.
At nearly 44 years old I am trying to find a way to share my toys a little bit and to allow others to play in the sandbox with me. If I don’t do this, I’ll make myself insane, have some sort of fit and then go off and find another opportunity. In reality I don’t want to work for another company. I like what I do, I just need to find a way to be realistic of what I can handle and to let others help me out. I want to be the guy that’s really awesome at his job because he had it all under control and he bit off exactly what he could chew without spitting it out all over the audience. I don’t want to be the guy that they think is awesome because he’s spending 80 hours a week working. That’s not who I am. I want to be fueled by passion, not control freakiness.
I guess I need to make a concerted effort to manage these projects better. Something to ponder.
I do know that the cookie I just had made me feel a little bit better. Nom nom nom.
* Thank god I’m not a professional proofreader.
So Earl, Scott and me just got back from a Friday night field trip. After watching two episodes of “Hot In Cleveland” on the DVR, I declared that we were going to go for a ride (though it had nothing to do with what we just watched). I grabbed two fluorescent bulbs from the basement (after confirming that they worked) and we hopped in Earl’s car and headed out to the countryside not too far from where we live. When I found the perfect spot, we pulled over on the side of the road. Earl asked me to put on the warning flashers.
We were parked under the Marcy-Massena Power Lines. The lines are 765kV and are among the highest voltage lines in North America. The voltage is so high on these lines that the experts call this line an Ultra High Voltage line.
Earl and Scott stayed in the car and watched as I hiked into the field headed toward the closest tower. The first thing I noticed is that there was a slight crackling sound coming from the tower itself. Apparently an insulator was losing a little bit of current to the air around it. Once away from the headlights of the car, I noticed that the fluorescent tube in my hand was somewhat illuminated around my grasp of the tube. Once I touched the tube to the ground, the tube lit up impressively; there was enough light coming from the tube that I could see the writing on my t-shirt. Earl and Scott were able to notice the light.
I then walked back to the car, crossed the road and into the field on the other side. I was now walking away from the closest tower (and the crackling noises coming from the insulators) where the three spans start to dip down a little bit. I noticed a repeat of the tube lighting up around my hand, but it was brighter this time. This makes sense, since the wires were a little bit lower than near the tower. I touched the tube to the ground and it lit up impressively, much more than it did the first time I tried it. Earl and Scott were my witnesses and noticed that it lit up. I picked it up, reducing the light to just around my hand again, and swung it around whilst making light saber noises.
My video didn’t come out good at all. Because I was standing in complete darkness and the light coming from the tube was being powered by EMF (Electromagnetic Field) Radiation coming from the lines, I didn’t have a lot to work with in capturing the video.
I need a better setup without being paranoid about the crackling noises coming from the tower and being questioned for my eccentric activity. I need to borrow a friendly farmer’s field.
Update Sat 21 Apr 12 0006 EDT: I forgot that it was Friday night and not Saturday night. I updated the blog entry accordingly. Duh.
Warning: This blog entry is super geeky.
I have always been fascinated by power lines. I’m surprised that I haven’t been overly fascinated in the “Transformers” movies and the like, because as a little kid I thought that the poles and towers that carry powerlines across the country side kind of looked like people.
After taking care of some family business up in my hometown today, I took the opportunity to take some of the less-traveled backroads home. The ride is actually shorter if you can successfully navigate your way through the twists and turns of the Tug Hill Plateau and I was able to do this successfully. It was a beautiful day for this sort of adventure and since I was off from work, I wanted to savor every moment.
The route home included driving by the Bennetts Bridge Hydro-Electric Plant, one of two power plants on the Salmon River in Oswego County, New York (the other plant is the Lighthouse Hill Power Plant).
Built in 1932, Bennetts Bridge has two sets of powerlines coming out of it. The pair of towers carry a total of four circuits. By the looks of the towers, one set was installed before the other.
When I see the pairing of these towers standing along the side road, I actually see a “couple” with one wearing a hat.
I decided not to take photos of the power plant itself because there were warning signs all over the place discouraging such activity and I wasn’t in the mood to get into a hassle with the security patrolling the area.
If you’re ever up in that area, the Department of Conservation has built a wonderful park area around Salmon River Falls, with a ranger stationed nearby to answer any questions you may have. When I was in high school it was common for some of my classmates to go up on the falls to party on the weekend. I lost a couple of classmates that fell off the falls.
It’s an especially beautiful drive in autumn as the leaves turn gorgeous shades of colors in this neck of the woods.
Just a guy with a husband. We’ve been together 28 years and he still makes me see fireworks on a daily basis. Hiker. Storm Chaser. Private Pilot. Tech Guy. Hackerish.
Weird? Eccentric!