June 2011
Weekend.
So first the first time this season I am sitting on the back patio with my MacBook enjoying the late spring day. It’s funny to think that it is still spring, but it is for the next 10 days or so. After all we have had record heat this past week. Of course the weekend has been rainy and chilly. It’s only 66º F right now.
I’m still quite content.
The weekend has been mostly about relaxing and getting stuff done around the house. While everyone was still asleep I relocated two computers and extended the range of the wireless network to all points in the house so I could easily watch the “Batman: The Brave and the Bold” cartoon on the kitchen computer. That computer is named hestia. Hestia replaces our old television we had in the corner before we remodeled the kitchen earlier this spring.
Last night we went to see “X-Men: First Class”. I enjoyed the movie very much and was delighted to see Rose Byrne as Moira. We had just seen her a couple of weeks ago in “Bridesmaids” and I have to admit that she has moved to the top of the list of my favorite females. She is stunning.
Rose Byrne as Moira MacTaggert.
There are a lot of birds singing here in the back yard. They are probably spreading the word that the five bird feeders have been refilled and are now quality rest areas again. Occasionally a random bird will stop by, examine the situation, poop and then move on. On the feeders closest to the house they seem to favor one feeder over the other but I don’t know why.
Time to get back to relaxing.
Grounded.
I just became a site project leader for a huge, company wide project at work. Right before this current lunch hour, we had our kick-off conference call. Not completely comprehending the scope of the project, I had a little silent freak-out when I found out what this project is going to entail.
Step out for lunch, and call the husbear.
He is my rock, he is my anchor, he is my voice of reason. I trust him like no other person on the face of this planet. When my head goes into overdrive, he is there to pull back on the throttle and say, “believe in yourself, you can do anything.”
He’s right. I can do anything. Especially when I’m surrounded by the people that love me. This project is going to give me the opportunity to grow professionally in ways and directions that I have never grown before. This is playing with the big boys.
It’s time to act like one.
Relief.
When you work with a large group of people, there is seldom going to be complete agreement when it comes to politics. Our office is no different from the norm. The office as a whole leans conservatively (typical Upstate New York) but it’s nothing radical or extreme. Those that are very right wing are countered by those on the opposite side of the scale.
However, one thing that everyone seems to agree on is this: Sarah Palin is not going to be the next president of the United States. Folks either find her amusing or a complete mess and they find her as a good source of a chuckle but no one takes her seriously.
I have to admit I was kind of happy to hear that.
Test.
This is a test blog entry via the iPad. I am trying a new blogging app called Blogsy, as recommended by Andy Ihnatko on the latest episode of “MacBreak Weekly” on TWiT. It has pretty cool integration with Flickr, Picasa, YouTube, Google Images and the iPad photo library. I must admit that I find the inter fact rather confusing.
I should probably read the tutorial.
Turn.
Last night as I was driving home from work I passed through the small village area before getting out to the much preferable countryside. The village has five traffic lights that I have to pass through. The lights are mostly unnecessary outside of the traditional traffic hours, the usual time that folks are driving to and from work.
I sat at the first light with two vehicles in front of me. The vehicle closest to the light was a red, mundane vehicle. The driver looked to be a young girl. Behind her was a man around my age driving a pickup truck. Pickup trucks are popular in this area. The truck was signaling that he wanted to make a right turn.
After about 15 or so seconds at the light, the truck pulled into the left lane and made a right turn AROUND the vehicle in front of him. He flipped off the driver on his way around her. She looked aghast. It was then that I noticed that she was also making a right turn, as indicated by her blinking directional lamp. The man was obviously pissed because the woman was just sitting at the red light instead of making a perfectly allowed and legal right turn on red.
New York State (outside of the city of New York) has allowed legal right turns on red since the early 1970s. I’m going strictly by memory, but I believe it was 1974 when this law was passed. Technically, you can also make a left turn on red, as long as you are going from a one way street to another one way street. As Earl is quick to remind me, one is not obligated to turn right on red but you are allowed to turn on red.
Personally, I think if you are incapable of handling a right turn on red then you should be relieved of your driver’s license, because it isn’t actually brain surgery to figure out how to turn right on red. It works just like a stop sign. You stop, see that there is nothing coming, and then you make a right hand turn and continue on your merry way. The reason this law was enacted so many years ago was because it kept traffic moving freely and decreased wait times at traffic signals for the traffic that wasn’t turning right.
The lack of turning right on red has become a huge pet peeve of mine. Again, Earl reminds me that no one is obligated to turn right on red. There are people that have printed bumper stickers up that say “I CHOOSE not to turn right on red”. I’d like to smack them. Hard. I guess I have a violent streak.
I overheard a mother telling her friend that she wasn’t letting the teen in her house (who presumably had a learner’s permit) turn right on red. “It’s too risky.” This is bad. It is when these young drivers have their learner’s permit that they are learning driving habits that are going to stick with them the rest of their lives. If they don’t turn right on red now, and don’t properly learn how to turn right on red, they’re never going to turn right on red. And then they’re going to clog the roads.
The City of New York doesn’t permit right on red because it’s too damn crowded. There’s pedestrians and all that. The drivers claim they can’t see. The folks that live in the City of New York need their nanny laws to tell them what to do and how to keep safe. The right on red law is, thankfully, something that was still considered for the rest of the state, we are allowed to be freethinkers up here. At least when it comes to right on red. The reason that I mention this is because over the past several years numerous folks from the five boroughs have been migrating northward to get some fresh country air. They are easily identified by (among other means) the different inspection stickers on their car windows. They never turn right on red. They clog up the streets. If it’s good enough for da city, it’s good enough for the world. I don’t like them.
One thing about right on red that baffles me, though, is that the younger drivers are interpreting the sign that indicates a “right turn only” (the arrow with the word ONLY under it) as “you can only turn right when the light is green.” The two concepts are completely unrelated but then again, driving and texting at the same time should be completely unrelated and not done in tandem as well, and we know how well that is turning out.
So as we continue to dumb down society by making mundane chores seem scary with nanny laws, we are also apparently reducing the average IQ.
The next time I choose to rant about something traffic related, we’ll discuss the “KEEP RIGHT EXCEPT TO PASS” concept that is completely ignored on America’s freeways.
Take The Lead.
I don’t know if I have ever mentioned on here that I work for a rather large telecommunications company. I work for Frontier Communications, on the largest, rural telecommunications providers in the states. The company tripled in size last year with the purchase of several Verizon properties in 14 states. We are still in the middle of transitioning those customers over to our systems.
Like many other companies, Frontier offers an incentive program to the employees that bring new customers to the company. This program is called “Take The Lead”. It’s a cool program and if Earl and I lived in Frontier’s territory we would definitely be using the services that contribute to my paycheck. The small town I grew up in is in Frontier’s territory. Many of my family members use the products that I help support everyday. By the way, I work in one of the nationwide Network Operations Centers.
The reason I am bringing this up is two-fold. First of all, if you live in Frontier’s territory and you’re looking to switch to their phone, internet or satellite television service through Dish, let me know so that I can “Take The Lead”. Company incentives are always good and it always looks good on my year-end review when I have a couple of these I can list on the various forms in HR. Plus, right now Frontier is offering double the incentive on leads, which can actually lead to triple digit incentives. Wicked cool.
The other and actually primary reason that I mention this is because I have pledged to take any monetary incentives given to me from “Take The Lead” and donate them to the National Multiple Sclerosis Society. This is my independent effort. You see, Earl’s mom died of MS 20 years ago. I never had the opportunity to meet his mom but this is my way of honoring her and thanking her for providing the man that still makes me see fireworks everyday. In addition, I know of other people that are living with MS and any contribution I can make to finding a cure for this disease has to be a good thing.
So please, if you feel so inclined, help me Take The Lead. If you are interested, please send me an email so that I can make sure you have the proper information and so I can answer any questions you may have. My email (translated to standard format) is: jp (two letters in front of) at jpnearl dot com. Take that spambots trying to figure that email address out.
Websites for your enjoyment:
Frontier Communications
National MS Society
Thank you.
65 Miles.
I have been determined to get back into a regular cycling routine again this summer. I have slacked off for the last couple of summers, mainly because of work obligations but with some additional contributions of laziness. However, I felt that this was the year that I needed to get back on my bicycle and make some strides in the fitness department doing the one sport that I love the most.
I set some pretty lofty goals for myself this year that I haven’t really discussed all that much. My first goal was to ride a 100 mile route (actually 105 miles) from our lovely little home in the Mohawk Valley to Binghamton. This jaunt would take me from north to south, downward on the map, of course, which in my head means that it’s downhill. Now I don’t really believe that but I like to think that’s the case once in a while.
I can tell you that it is certainly not all downhill.
The 105 mile ride was a lofty goal, and the wet weather we have had this spring didn’t give me many chances to train for this ride, but I figured that I would make a go of it. So with only a few of double digit rides under my belt this season, I set out at 7:30 a.m. on Saturday morning. The goal was Binghamton with an intermediate goal of Sidney (65 miles). I was geared up and ready to go
My plan included tracking my ride using the iMapMyRide app on my iPhone, as I have done earlier this season, because it keeps track of the terrain, my average speed, the actual distance and how many calories I am actually burning during my ride. About two hours into the trek I stopped to take a photo of a road sign that features the new Clearview lettering that’s popping up all over the country (this sign is the first one in this area using it, to the best of my knowledge).
It was then that I realized that while the iMapMyRide app is quite good on the iPhone, it kills the battery dramatically. Taking this photo, 25 miles into the ride, completely killed the battery on my phone, the phone that was fully charged when I left just two hours before.
Sigh.
I turned the phone off so that I would have enough juice in the case of emergency and continued my way down NY Route 8. I said hello to cows, greeted barn cats that stalked me from the ditch (though one was quite friendly and wanted to greet me in a warm, cat-like way) and enjoyed the cloudy but not overly cool weather.
I made a stop in the small village of New Berlin to pick up an extra bottle of Gatorade, as I had gotten through the one I had packed as well as a bunch of the water I had brought along. When I snapped out of my pedals I noticed that my left shoe was loose. I took a look and discovered that I had lost one of the bolts off the clamp and the other two had loosened up. This would explain why my right leg was hurting, it was working hard than my left leg because there was an extra bit of wobble in the left shoe. I tightened up the remaining bolts, rested for a bit and continued on.
Earl and Scott stopped by in the truck shortly afterwards and checked on my progress. This is a tradition with my bike rides. I start out and then Earl leaves three or so hours later, hoping to find me somewhere along the route. He then drives 10 or so miles ahead and we leap frog to the final destination.
All went well with the ride until the stretch between Mount Upton and Sidney. There I ran into some raindrop, which isn’t bad in itself, but that’s when my body started talking to me.
“Daddy”, my body said, “I know you think you’re 25 but you’re 42. 65 miles is very impressive for the first ride of the season and I think we should call it a day when we get to Sidney.”
“But Binghamton awaits!”, was my reply.
“You’ve made really good progress but I really think that we should call it a day so that we can ride again next weekend without having to pass through intensive care on the way.”
The body won. I stopped at Sidney at 65 miles on the nose. It was an excellent ride and I was most pleased with the progress. I plan on doing a 100 mile trek before my birthday in July. I’ll just have to continue to train so that all my parts start working together properly.
My ride was rewarded with a stop at the Neptune Diner in Oneonta and then Earl and Scott drove home while I slept in the back seat.
My body screamed in pain Saturday night but it wasn’t anything that a couple of Advil couldn’t cure. Now I’m ready for the next trek. I’m going to scratch Binghamton off the list and try a different location. Something west to east, perhaps, so that it seems more flat.
Dance.
Dance with me on this Sunday night.
Here’s DJ Spiller featuring Sophie Ellis-Bextor with “Groovejet (If This Ain’t Love)”.
Aggregate.
I was looking around the iPad app store last night and I saw that Microsoft (actually MSN) has an app called MSNOnIt. It’s an online magazine designed for guys, featuring cars, beautiful women and things that guys care about. It’s free so I decided to download it.
I’m a little surprised to say that I actually like it.
The front page of this electronic magazine features a scantily clad Bridgette Bardot which was alright, but once I started flipping through it I found some other interesting things inside: recipes from Men’s Health (much like the recipes in a book my friend dave gave me for Christmas), dating advice, geek and tech toy reviews and the like. Though I have to admit I don’t ever remember reading a Playboy in my life (I’ve never been interested in anything that tame when I’m looking for that sort of thing), I suppose this is like a PG-13 version of Playboy and that you’re actually encouraged to read it for the articles. The software pulls the information in from the various traditional men’s magazine (Men’s Health, Popular Mechanics, etc) so if you’re so inclined I say give it a try. You can always delete it and as they say, hey it’s free, so what do you got to lose?
