January 2006

Mood.

I think I’m in a little bit of a mood today. Actually, I know I’m in a mood today. And it’s rather foul.

I try not to be foul. I try to be the happy, go-lucky, awwww shucks, swell type but sometimes there’s just a rant stirring inside of me that must be unleashed. For the first time ever I found work to be somewhat irritating and I’m sick of counting calories and fat grams so I’m going to let myself just enjoy my supper tonight and not obsess about what I am eating. Add the fact that Earl was out of town last night so I had to sleep without my favorite teddy bear and I’m finding myself rather snappish.

So BEAR with me but there’s some things going on in the world that I must get off my chest.

First of all, “ha ha ha ha ha Bush Lite!” Bin Laden made another tape and released it to the world, complete with threats of death and destruction. The man is a monster (Bin Laden, not Bush, the latter being somewhat debatable) and is damn near a perfect picture of Evil with a capital “E”, but the Bush administration wants us to forget about him and the fact that he’s still running loose in the world and concentrate on the people of Iraq instead as we introduce them to our (proper?) version of the Messiah. “Don’t look at the lunatic behind the curtain! He’s not important! It was Iraq! It was Iraq!”

Secondly, because of said activities in Iraq, there is a reporter from the Christian Science Monitor being held hostage with a mortal deadline of tomorrow. That just sickens me. I may not agree with the Christian Science Monitor, I don’t agree with the Iraqi war. I may think that it’s somewhat foolish to try to “get the scoop” in a war zone, but to hold someone’s life in the balance like that is very sickening. May the Universe save her.

Then we have municipalities here in Upstate New York looking to form their own utility companies, instead of relying on corporations like National Grid (which recently took over Niagara Mohawk), simply because utility bills are skyrocketing at an unprecedented rate this winter, and it’s not even cold outside! There are senior citizens living on their social security checks alone and finding that their energy bills are more than their entire monthly income! Now that’s showing respect to our elders if I’ve ever seen it before. Big corporations = big profits for corporations = begging and starving elderly! Beautiful.

While I’m on the topic of energy, I am officially boycotting a local oil company because they are artificially inflating the prices in the local market. They routinely raise their prices 3 or 4 cents above surrounding gas stations. The dumb folks around here still go to them, because after all, they are the most prevalent in the area, and then the other gas stations say “if they can raise the price 3 or 4 cents and still get business, them I’m going to also!” so then the price of gas goes higher for everyone involved. You can drive 20 miles in any direction from here and find the price of gas drop 10 to 20 cents per gallon. It’s horrible.

And lastly, it has been reported that the government wants access to logs of user’s searches on Google, in an effort to curb pornography on the internet away from children. HELLO! I don’t know about you, but I do not want Condocranky Rice browsing through logs of what I searched for on the internet, even if all I do is find answers to my Unix questions. (That’s what we all use Google for, right? Pornography? Why, I never even thought of that!) When did it become the responsibility of our government to raise our children? Funny, I always thought that it was the responsibility of the parents to raise the children. If you don’t know what your children are doing on the internet, you can’t figure out to know what your children are doing and you can’t do anything about it, then you shouldn’t have a computer in your house in the first place. If you can’t run the damn thing, then stay the hell away from it or learn how to surf responsibly and safely. This scenario is like expecting the government to keep track of the fact that you subscribe to Cinesleaze on the cable network, ignore the parental controls built into your cable box and then have a fit when your kid stumbles across a man, two women and a collection of bare breasts on the screen. Rumor has it that they’d also like to track how much anti-Bush Administration stuff there’s out there on the internet, but as I say, that’s just a rumor.

I feel a little better after getting all that off my chest. Thanks for listening.

Me Too.

Since American Idol is back in full swing, I thought I’d celebrate by doing my own little audition right here on my blog. My apologies for it being audio only, but here I am singing The National Anthem. It’s recorded with no tricks, no filters and no special effects used at all. It’s as live as if I was singing sweet nothings into your ear.

Small wonder the teams left town permanently after I sang at their sporting events back in ’99.

Planning.

With Earl out of town tonight I’m going to find myself with a little extra time on my hands. So I’ve decided that I need to plan out further details for our trip out west in May. We’ve finalized the route in that we actually know where we are going, now it’s getting the details of where we want to go and what we want to see that’s going to be a little bit of work.

We’re doing sort of a whirlwind tour in 11 days – driving to Phoenix, spending a few days there, then driving up to South Dakota to go to Mount Rushmore and then across I-90 to get back home. I’ll think all in all we’ll clock just under 8,000 miles.

I’m hoping to eat at local establishments, see some severe thunderstorms or maybe even a twister, meditate in the desert, do some videotaping so I have some cool shots for future video projects and add a few states to the shrinking list Earl and I have not visited yet.

We also plan to do the touristy stuff like visit sightseeing and whatnot. Isn’t the largest bale of twine in the world somewhere out in that neck of the woods?

I know to some it seems like we’re doing a lot of driving in a short amount of time. And we are. But who cares, life is too short to sit and dream about the things you could do. Instead you should just go ahead and do them.

What.

Back when I was still in my single digits, we used to play around with our cousins once removed that lived down the street. Looking back on that sentence and arming you with the knowledge that I grew up in farm country, I suppose the term “play around” is a little odd and conjurs up thoughts of something kinky. We used to hang around with them, there was nothing odd about it. Now that my mind is out of the gutter, why don’t you join me?

Anyways, these family members used to play this game that I still haven’t figured out over 30 years later. If a person said “What?” in response to anything anyone said anywhere, they would say, “You have five minutes to get rid of that word.”

I could never get rid of the word (assumedly “What”) because I didn’t know what on earth they were talking about and I didn’t know how to do it. I would invariably become upset and frustrated. Even today I don’t know what they were talking about and if it was a game that other kids played in the mid 70s, like “punch bug” where you slug the person next to you when you spotted a VW Beetle. I don’t know if this damaged my psyche in any way, and I haven’t the foggiest idea why I thought of that today, but there it is.

What?

You have five minutes to get rid of that word.

* My more “proper” cousins insisted we play “Fruitbasket” (right up my alley?) where they would yell out a random fruit and if you were it you had to jump on the bed. I found it incredibly boring.

Revolve.

I have a habit of judging people. It’s not a habit that I’m proud of and I certainly shouldn’t be judging anyone on cursory observations, but it’s just something I do and I keep to myself. Except when I write about it in my blog of course.

For instance, consider the people that work in the same building as I do.

We have three doors at the main entrance of our building. In the middle is large, revolving door which is flanked by two standard doors. The revolving door is the “old kind” in that a little effort must be given in order to actually push the door to make it revolve so that you’re not stuck in the middle part looking like a window display on Fifth Avenue.

Quick side note: believe it or not, I’ve seen people push the door a little bit expecting it to start moving on its own and after a few moments do realize that something is wrong once they’re stuck between the inside and outside between two panels of the door. They finally figure out that a little effort is required and starting pushing the door, which contradicts my theory that…

… People that don’t use the revolving door are dumb, people that do use the revolving door are smart.

There’s a couple of reasons the revolving door is there. First of all, it gives the appearance of a classy building. Important places have revolving doors. “There’s no common door to our building, we’re too good for that, we have a fancy revolving door.”

Secondly, revolving doors keep the outside air on the outside and the inside air on the inside. At a place such as the Carrier Dome, which is somewhat pressurized, this is important so that the roof doesn’t come crashing down on 60,000 football spectactors. In a building such as the office building I work at, it helps keep the temperature in the lobby under control; in the winter the warm air stays in and the cold air stays out. Using the standard doors on either side defeats any attempt at a happy environment in the building lobby. “Boy, I wish the landlord would heat this lobby!”, clueless people think.

The other day when it was extremely windy outside, I heard a woman complain that the standard door was hard to push open to get out of the building because the wind was holding it shut. She really felt that the landlord should build a vestibule of some sort so that the entrance of the building was protected from the wind. I bit my tongue to refrain from pointing out a couple of things to her; the entrance of the building is inset into the rest of the building by about 15 feet, creating an outside vestibule to protect those coming and going by the elements until they can get appropriate raingear or whatever on.

Secondly, the revolving door works just fine in windy conditions because that’s what it’s designed for.

So at quitting time when the offices in our building are emptying out and people are pushing those standard doors open and complaining about the cold air blowing in, I’m going to continue to bite my tongue and refrain from telling them that they should be using the revolving door. But I’ll continue to think that they’re a little dumb, stumbling through life without a clue as to what is going on around them.

I’ll save my theories on elevator etiquette for another time.

Happy Geek.




I Saw The Sign.

Originally uploaded by macwarriorny.

I’ve mentioned before that I am a big geek when it comes to maps and roads, especially signs. In fact, I maintain a whole website dedicated to the roads in Upstate New York. The website gets quite a few hits from travelers, tourists, chambers of commerce and whatnot and from time to time I get requests to feature product placements on my page.

Usually my answer to these product placements is a hearty “no”, because I want to keep my sites as ad free as possible. However, one sign company here in Upstate New York requested that I put a link on the site for them and offered to pay me for the link. I turned down the payment and asked if they could make a sign or two for me instead. They happily agreed to make two signs for me for one year of “advertising” on my site. One of the signs I requested was the Interstate 81 sign you see in the picture (the second is still under construction). They also included a couple of others signs for my collection, including WRONG WAY, that I’ll be hanging on the garage wall with the others I’ve picked up at various places over the years.

I’m such a happy geek today.

Attitude.

It’s amazing what a good attitude can do for one’s day. Why here it is after 12 noon already! The day is humming along nicely. This morning I went into the office with three primary goals. The first was to get my desk as organized as my state of mind this past weekend. So while I was Mr. Homemaker Saturday and Sunday and doing all sorts of domestic chores, I took that attitude into the office and did the same. I filed away extraneous papers, I cleaned out useless e-mail messages and I labeled file folders and folder bins. I wiped 18 months of crud off the back of my computer and I basically just got my workspace comfortable and organized again. The change is refreshing and my water cup no longer sticks to my desk.

Today is the day that two of our tech support groups combine into one and I approached the integration with a positive outlook and an open mind. At the very least there’s a huge opportunity for learning with this re-organization, as while we were for the same company, our two groups supported different types of customers (voice and data circuits vs internet and network connectivity). I believe our two groups now unified, while having different approaches to similar tasks, can learn from each other and be one step further ahead in this rat race we call the telecom industry.

And lastly, I’m pushing negative vibes and gloomy thoughts aside and ignoring them. I’ve jokingly (at least I think jokingly) been referred to as “Mary Sunshine” around the office in the past because of a positive outlook, a springy step and a smile on my face. Perhaps others not as content in their job would find me a little much. I don’t care. Enjoying your work makes the day go by much faster, helps you sleep better at night, makes the atmosphere around the office much more amicable and probably aids in digestion as well. A number of years ago I was known as the “Gloom and Doom Guy” because I always looked at the negative side of a situation. I like to think that I’ve changed since then and am now a positive influence on those around me.

I don’t know why I’m feeling more upbeat today; it could be because I’m eating healthier, I’m wearing new clothes or because the sun is shining. Who cares? Life is good.

Domesticated.

Well it’s happened again. I’ve turned into Mr. Homemaker. Earl went to play poker with a bunch of buddies tonight so I did the following:

  • Finished all the laundry, including the placemats on the kitchen table and the towels in the guest room.
  • Made tomorrow night’s supper of vegetable stew.
  • Made four dozen cookies to take to work tomorrow in honor of our department tripling in size as we combine technical teams.
  • Divided out my Progresso soup into individual, easy to pack lunches for work this week.
  • Changed Tom’s litter box.
  • Swept the kitchen floor. (Notice I didn’t get crazy and announce that I had mopped the floor, however sweeping is a start).

I don’t know what’s going on with me. We don’t have a party planned in the future, no one is coming to visit and I haven’t the vaguest idea of whether the planets are aligned or not. I just feel like cleaning the house.

Oh well. The activity is a good excuse for exercise.

Arise.




Arise.

Originally uploaded by macwarriorny.

Every morning Tom and I go through this little ritual before getting out of bed. He has to rake my beard with his claws or tap at various parts of my face until I am up and out of bed and downstairs filling his bowl with food. Of course I have to make a pitstop on the way down, so he just sits on the edge of the tub and screeches his dissatisfaction with my going the bathroom.

Thankfully, he’s the only creature that’s ‘screeched’ at the sight of my dink.

What I find curious is that while I was in Massachusetts this week, Earl did not have to go through the same sort of routine. Apparently Tom patiently waited for Earl to get out of bed, do his thing, take a shower and get dressed before getting his kitty chow breakfast.

I think we know who does the spoiling in this family.

Muse.

Olivia Newton-John in Xanadu
Earl and I have kicked back and relaxed most of the day. After the busy week we’ve both had, it’s just what we needed. After having supper at the local Greek restaurant, we came home and settled down to watch a DVD we purchased from the bargain bin a couple of weeks ago.

The movie was “Xanadu”.

While Earl and I had seen bits and pieces of the movie, neither of us had ever sat down and watched the entire movie from beginning to end. Being the fantasy and special effects buff that I am, “Xanadu” is right up my alley. The music is an added bonus.

“Xanadu” has 1980 written all over it in big, bold, colorful magical strokes. It’s not Shakespeare by any stretch of the imagination, but it’s a great movie to escape to. The special effects are outrageously wonderful, the roller skating is wonderfully dated looking and the escapism of the movie is welcomed. I loved the movie and would watch it again in a minute. The crazy special and sound effects in the movie have furthered my interest in making my own videos; had I’d been old enough in 1980 and perhaps a little more focused in my creative endeavors I probably would have been making 8mm films in the spirit of “Xanadu”.

There’s nothing wrong with doing that in 2006. I’m inspired.