Interaction.

The internet is a beautiful thing. When I was sitting at my desk at Digital Equipment Corporation back in 1988, I never dreamed that I would be discussing via electronic means the next Human League album (“Romantic?”) just two years later with a person living in the U.K. who wasn’t even on the same network I was. When I left that job I kept in touch with ex-co-workers via e-mail on AOL (my username was “JP”!). Then the whole web thing came around and the entire planet was connected, with a few clicks we were able to chat with anyone, anywhere. It that was just the beginning.

Luckily I learned very early on that anything you write via electronic means, anything at all, is stored somehow, somewhere and can turn up anywhere at any time. I have mentioned before that I can pull up Usenet discussions I participated in back in 1989 via a simple Google search. One such message barely contained my excitement that the series “Tabitha” was turning up on a new cable channel called “HA”. (It later became Comedy Central).

I love the fact that I can contact people with similar interests and maintain strong relationships with friends in Toronto and Connecticut electronically and with the same amount of ease and comfort level as enjoying a cup of tea together at the local coffee shop. It’s truly a brilliant thing. However, sometimes I think this new generation forgets that all this electronic interaction is permanent and relatively transparent. You find anything on anyone. For example, last night Earl and I had a few chores to do and ended up stopping at Applebee’s for supper. Because I have an eye for these things, I noticed right off that the server was a very good-looking man in a clean-shaven bearish sort of way. I’ve seen him around town before; he’s worked at other restaurants in the past and I’ve seen him at Saranac Thursday Nights. He’s really good at what he does and as I mentioned before, he is quite nice on the eyes. His name tag said “Scott”. The receipt added an “H” to his name.1

When I got home I pulled out my geek powers and did a quick search on Facebook. I now know that Scott is a few years shy of my age, lives not too far from me, is married (and I know his wife’s name too), was in a band in high school and college, has always had a unique thing going on with his hair, has always been a good looking man, has over 150 friends on Facebook from our area alone, including another waiter that I recognised because of his unique facial hair, who I now know to be named Alex (his profile didn’t have much more than that, though).

Far from malicious in my intent but armed with the right tools, I was able to easily find a relatively substantial amount of information on the person I don’t know. I always keep this availability of any information on the internet in the back of my mind whenever I post something somewhere. And I post a LOT of things. When I auditioning for Big Brother 4, one of the questions I was asked was if there was anything that would be considered “scandalous” available on the internet. I replied with an “absolutely”, which is true, which delighted them. They liked that sort of thing.

There are some reasons that I don’t engage in Facebook as much as one would expect. I mean let’s face it, there is a part of me that has always wanted to be famous and have some sort of notoriety, hence my previous career as a radio personality. Truth be known, Facebook itself is a little annoying to me. I’m not fan of those little applets thingees like snowballs flying around and something about green beer. Granted, I like to poke people to let them know I’m thinking of them. However, anyone can find anyone else on there with relative ease. I’ve browsed. I’ve looked up waiters. I have sought out old teachers and classmates. Aside from a select few from my high school years, there are not quite a lot of old classmates that I want to start chatting with again. I do things and say things that I never had the balls to do or say back in those days and quite frankly some would find me and what I’m about startling. This is not entirely a bad thing but a part of me wants to move on and embrace who I’ve become, not who I was.

Given a choice in this whole social networking thing I gravitate toward Twitter and, to a lesser extent, Flickr. I feel like I have more control with both of those services with careful use of groups and content filters, though Facebook does offer similar mechanisms. I really like the simplicity of Twitter (that’s what’s in the sidebar under ‘The Adventures of Machias’), though I tend not to get into the chat room atmosphere of the software (I liken that to having a conversation with a friend by screaming at each other to opposite sides of a restaurant). I state what I’m doing or thinking and leave it at that for the most part. And naturally, I have this blog that I write in with some regularity (without a prune assist). I think writing and sharing through this means (whether it’s words, photos, videos or whatever) is my favourite form of expression.

At age 40 I’m finding myself to be more confident, opinionated and expressive than ever before. I feel more comfortable discussing things that I used to just file away in my head. I think this is a good thing and it is because of the internet allows me to have a voice and a rather loud one at that. Though I’m loud, I’m also cautious. And all this freedom translates well to the old-fashioned human interaction I have in the “real world”.

1I think the inclusion of this “H” is generous in today’s climate (and rightfully so). Just think, before the year 2000 EVERY customer receipt from Ames Department Stores contained the Social Security Number of the cashier!

4 March 2009 by Gayish. Geek 1

4000.

I started off the morning with my 4000th Twitter update. It looked something like this.

4000.png

Ironically, I was just formulating a blog entry about Twitter in my head this morning. This was inspired by dan’s LiveJournal entry on the subject. I’ll be writing the entry when I’m a little less foggy headed.

4 March 2009 by Geek 0

Whacked.

I am sure that I am not the only American citizen that thinks our government is completely out of control and out of touch with the reality with what is going on in our country. Now my use of “the government” is a broad generalisation of a whole lot of people, and I truly believe there are some good people working for the people, but for the most part I am finding government agencies to be completely nuts.

Consider the following.

1. Driving home from Albany yesterday on Interstate 90 was a bit of a challenge. The Capital District had quite a bit of snow falling and blowing due to the Nor’easter wannabe that was blowing up the coast. Traffic was moving slowly as I progressed west. The roadway was clogged up with a combination of slush and snow. Just beyond the first Schenectady interchange was an accident. No one appeared hurt but there was no emergency response to the incident. The drivers of the vehicles had enough time to get out of their cars and appeared to be exchanging credentials. About 3 km later there was a state policeman sitting in one of the median crossovers. Was he responding to the accident? He was not. He was sitting in his cop car with the radar gun aimed at the eastbound traffic.

Traffic was moving at around 35-40 MPH. The roads were clogged with cars, accidents, snow and slush. The posted speed limit is 65. I really don’t think we need to be looking for speeders in this type of weather, unless they are looking to grab someone that is moving too fast in this type of weather. But no one was doing that. I’m sure there were more accidents in progress that needed tending to.

2. I believe it was last Thursday afternoon that it was raining. The grass et. al. is still snow covered for the most part. There are no hints of leaves making an appearance yet. Why is it that the city feels it is necessary to have their parks department crew sit in their trucks and water the trees in the median along a prominent boulevard? There they were, with a tank of water in the back of a pickup truck, watering trees on the snow covered ground. Come on. I don’t know why I’m surprised, I have seen them do the same thing in the middle of a thunderstorm.

3. The local city government (of which we are not represented by, thank god) is considering raising the sales tax to 9% to cover increasing governmental costs. Such costs include raises for elected officials. There are many, many people losing their jobs or at the very least not receiving cost of living raises this year. I think these elected officials should suck it up like the rest of us and learn to cut back a little bit.

4. The Commonwealth of Massachusetts has mandatory health insurance. All citizens of the commonwealth are required to have health insurance of some sort else they pay a yearly $900 fine. I have a big problem with this. Whilst I think that it is important that everyone that needs health care has access to health care, I don’t believe that forcing a person to have health insurance is the answer to the equation. Now, I will admit that I am not well versed on this law, but from what I heard this morning on NPR, this requirement sounds a little crazy to me. I guess it’s been around since 2007.

I think the founding fathers had a grand idea when it came to forming these United States. Unfortunately, I believe that over time their good intentions have been perverted and slowly destroyed in the name of greed and power.

3 March 2009 by Political BS. 1

Q&A

Over the past year or so I have maintained a file on the home server called “curious.txt”. It contains questions that I copied and pasted from a smattering of e-mails I have received in response to blog entries or my various internet profiles I have going. I took the time to take a look at these while I was working out and thought I would answer a few of them. Some of them are definitely PG-13; don’t say that you haven’t been warned.

They are in no specific order.

Are you gay? (this appeared below a picture on Flickr of Earl and I making out in the Jeep)
As a matter of fact, I am. So is Earl. It’s fortunate that we are compatible in that way otherwise we’d be wicked bored.

Have you ever done it with a woman? (in response to a mention of my high school girlfriend)
Not all the way, so technically in the “let’s get biblical” sense I suppose I am a 40-year old virgin. I have tried to “go all the way” with a woman twice in my life. The first time was in high school, the night of my senior prom and it did not go the way she intended (I chose to engage myself afterwards whilst thinking of her brother). We broke up a few days later. The second time was in college. Her name was Kristi, she was fairly hot but she was missing the duplication of parts that I imagined would be involved in that sort of thing.

How many boyfriends have you had?
I’m assuming the interrogator is referring to long-term relationships so I’ll go by that. I have lived with three different guys in a long-term romantic situation. The first one’s name was Tom. I think he’s still named Tom but I’ve called him other things. When he was with me he was bisexual, but by the time we broke up he was all the way gay. The guy after me with him had it easy as I broke him in. By the way, I consider the guy that followed me to be a good friend. The second one is “first Earl”. A truly great guy, Earl and I had some really good times together but I didn’t think that we were completely compatible in the long-term department. Earl and I are still good friends with “first Earl”. We’ll probably have dinner with him again soon. We like to do that. “My Earl” is my life and my last. As of this writing we have been together, happily I may add, for just shy of 13 years.

Do you still ride your bike? (originally asked last summer)
Finally, a non-sexual question! I didn’t ride my bike that much in the summer of 2007 but did a bit more riding in summer ’08. I have around 3,000 miles on the same bike since the summer of 2002. I am planning a multi-day trip for this summer. I was mentioning it to my friend David today, I haven’t told Earl my plan so I’ll save that for a future blog entry, but I have been training to ride about 400 miles on a ride this summer.

Why do you spell words with an “s”? (from December 2007)
Apparently the person asking this question was cranky or something because they missed the fact that not only do I use an “s” but I also throw a “u” in some words just like the user’s manual of my Commodore VIC-20 Colour Computer from 1982. Actually, I choose to spell things in the non-American English way for a couple of reasons: it sets me apart from the crowd, I have a desire to live in either Ireland or Canada and I think that saying “car park” sounds much more civilised than “parking lot”.

What do you want to do when you grow up? (from an entry regarding my return to college in 2007)
I have no freakin’ idea and I like it that way. This experience we called life is entirely too short to pigeonhole yourself into 50 years of monotony.

Have you ever ridden a motorcycle? (this was referring to a picture of me in my black leather jacket)
I am assuming that the questioner was referring to being in control of the bike and not just a passenger, because I used to ride on the back of my Dad’s bike (while he was on it too) since I was around eight years old or so. I’ve only ridden a motorcycle alone a couple of times; once was when I was in high school with my friend Jeff. It was around midnight on a June night and I rode from the Springbrook Road to the Peck Road and back on a Yamaha that had no headlight. I didn’t tell my folks (hi there!). In my early 20s I rode this little Honda my ex-boyfriend had on a couple of occasions and I loved it. I have mentioned to Earl a couple of times that I want a motorcycle. He recently mentioned that perhaps I should get one someday.

We’ll get into the wilder questions the next time I open up the file.

2 March 2009 by Ponderings and Musings 1

Clean Keyboard.



Clean Keyboard., originally uploaded by iMachias.

I have been a tech guy for a really long time. In fact, I’ve been using instant messenger and e-mail since 1984 when I used a service called GEnie to send e-mail to my cousin who lived 10 miles away. I have been connected to the world via computer since that first day of dial-up (and a huge long distance bill) and have always obeyed once cardinal rule: Never Get Thy Computer Wet!

This has all changed. A while back I saw a on one of the regular tech shows that I watch that you can clean your grimy keyboard by running it through the dishwasher. I thought this was outright blasphemy, but last year when I was cleaning out the cellar and throwing away old crappy keyboards I had inherited over the years, I found one that was particularly grimy. Since the keyboard was destined for the dustbin anyway, I decided to put the suggestion to the test and I ran it through the dishwasher.

That keyboard is now a prized possession in my server room!

Not only did the keyboard survive the dishwasher, it looked sparkly and shiny new like it had never looked before. I have now started up a “rotation system” with the keyboards in the tech center at work and have promised to replace any keyboard that I might bork by running it through the dishwasher.

Here’s how I do it with a couple of tips that I have found along the way.

  • I have that this works with both PS2 and USB keyboards. I HIGHLY recommend that you don’t put your entire notebook or laptop in the dishwasher to clean the keyboard. That’s just silly.

  • I have only put one Apple keyboard through the dishwasher and that was an older Apple Pro Keyboard with the black keys. I have another one (with the white keys, but still the older kind) that I’m going to try soon. If you’re interested I’ll post the results).

  • Do NOT use the ‘heated dry’ cycle. That will melt things.

  • I have tried this both by including the keyboard with the dinner dishes on a cycle and by running it through alone. Both work, but watch out if you have rice or something on your plates, it ends up under the backspace key and doesn’t make a very good at desk snack later on.

  • Allow your keyboard to dry with the keys facing down for ONE WEEK after you run it through the dishwasher. Don’t try to plug it in when it’s fresh and shiny as that will definitely short something out. Just pull it out of the dishwasher and put it on a dish towel or something with the keys facing down so any extraneous water can drain out.

  • As I said before, I’ve done this with USB keyboards as well as PC/2 keyboards. I have even cleaned a Dell keyboard with a volume knob, two extra USB ports and a bunch of extraneous lights without an issue.

  • I assume no responsibility for any experience you have with trying this.

Having a keyboard that’s devoid of the typical geek grime one finds on a heavily used keyboard is a beautiful thing. Happy cleaning!

27 February 2009 by Fun and Games Dept 2

Soup’s On.

There is something satisfying about a Thursday night to me. I don’t know if it’s the knowledge that tomorrow is the last day of the work week or if I’m cosmically tuned to the concept of Thursday or what, but I always feel most at peace (outside of the weekend) on Thursday evenings after work.

The schedule has been hectic this week; last night Earl and I worked on a “secret project”1, Tuesday night we went shopping for kitchens (as we are redoing the entire kitchen this spring) and tonight I’m going to work on some things in the cellar.

Earl has just started cooking supper. Tonight he is making homemade vegetable soup because rumour has it that there’s a member of the family that is trying to avoid eating meat. To help out with the project, I did as my mother trained me as a child and made the appropriate hor d’oeurve to go with soup: I made a really big bowl of popcorn. Microwave popcorn is not allowed in the house, I always make it with a popcorn popper, copious amounts of oil and too much corn. It came up pretty well, if I do say so myself. Making the popcorn keeps me out of the way and let’s Earl concentrate on his cooking.

It’s going to be a good Thursday night. It always is.

1 The fruits of my “secret project” will be shared soon enough.

26 February 2009 by Ponderings and Musings 2

… Money …

So on the way home from work I decide to do something really daring and start punching around the “terrestrial” radio stations on the old-fashioned radio in the Jeep. Traditional radio doesn’t offer much to a guy like me these days, what with all the merging and divesting and changing of the formats going on. There’s my old station that went to outright Top 40 and became very less gay, they play Britney Spears’ “Circus” 24/7. Sometimes they throw in a commercial or two to keep it interesting. There’s the “Good Times Rock ‘n Roll” station called “Oldiez” that plays that car cruisin’ music like “Girls Just Wanna Have Fun” by Cyndi Lauper and “I Ran” by Flock of Seagulls. Then they play “The Twist” followed by “The Lord’s Prayer” by Sister Janet Mead. I think they should change their name from “Oldiez” to “Sybil”, as it would be much more apropro.

Four of the ten or so primary stations in this area have gone to an all religious format. Sometimes I get a kick out of hearing what they have to say on these stations because quite frankly I find them exceedingly absurd. One of my favorites, “Faith and Hope for the New World” or something like that was offering financial advice to callers. The call I listened to was from a man who was over his head in debt and didn’t know how to deal with it.

The man was living under the following circumstances. He and his new bride had four children in five years. They lived in a small house in the country that they absolutely adored but it was a little small and far from the city where their church was. So instead of selling the house and relocating, they decided to rent the house out and then buy a new house in the process, something newer, bigger and located in the city (he didn’t say which, I’m guessing Paducah). Due to their financial considerations, owning a house, having four toddlers, etc., they were unable to come up with a downpayment for their new house, so they got an 80/20 mortgage to cover that. After a couple of years they realised that they couldn’t afford the bigger, newer house that was located in the city so they decided to sell it.

O.k., they have two houses, one presumably being paid for by the rent they are collecting from their tenant in the small house in the country and another house that they have two mortgages on and can’t really afford. They decide to sell the second house. So what do they do?

They rent an apartment.

That’s right, they rented an apartment so they could sell the new house, because they didn’t know that you could be living in the house when it was being looked at by prospective buyers.

So they are paying roughly three mortgages and rent on an apartment that is presumably big enough to handle two adults and four toddlers.

They were curious as to where they went wrong with their finances.

The kind gentleman on the “Faith and Hope for the New World” gently told them that they didn’t need to move out of their house until it was actually sold and that they should bag the apartment and move back into the house to save a little money.

He was way too kind, I would have just called them a dumb ass.

And I wonder why the United States is in such financial disarray today. Just think, this brainiac has made four more just like him for the next generation to enjoy.

24 February 2009 by Why. 1

Money.

The more I read about these government bailouts and stimulus packages and such the angrier I get. I am no economics whiz by any stretch of the imagination, and the universe knows I like to spend money, but it seems like the U.S. government is throwing billions and billions of dollars out like some weird, demented lawn sprinkler. The automakers need more, more, more; banks need more, more, more, big businesses that have apparently made bad business decisions needs more, more, more. All of this is the from the fear that if one large bank or auto manufacturer or other large company closes down then the whole big stack of Jenga blocks are going to come crashing down with them.

Perhaps we shouldn’t have built our economy using big Jenga blocks. Sometimes little Lego blocks stick together better.

Now I don’t want to see the U.S. go into a depression. I don’t want people losing their homes, their jobs or everything their life savings as they try to weather out this economic mess. But this money that the government is flinging out all over the place is going to the very people the created the mess in the first place. And where is it coming from? I have always suggested that we just print more money when things got bad, because I obviously have no handle on economics, but when I say that I’m told that you can’t do that because you’re flooding the economy with too much money.

Isn’t that what we are doing with these stimulus packages?

I know we are a big modern society now that thrives on big business and conglomerates and a Wal*Mart (Always White Trash, Always) on every corner. And I know that as a gay man I wouldn’t have the relative freedoms I have to be an outspoken gay man if I didn’t live here and now, but sometimes I really think that the small businesses from yesterday: the mom and pop stores, the small car lot in the village, the neighborhood bank, was a safer investment in our future.

Perhaps if we had stayed within that mindset, we wouldn’t be rewarding the greedy by bailing them out of their own mess.

Now excuse me while I go sock away more money in my mattress.

24 February 2009 by Political BS. Politics. Ponderings and Musings 1

Back to Work.

It is 5:18 a.m. I am getting ready to head back to work after a week’s holiday. I guess I must be a little anxious about heading back to work because I could barely sleep all night. I kept waking up to see how much longer I had to sleep.

How I dislike alarm clocks.

My body naturally wakes up around 8:00 a.m. It used to be closer to 9, but now I seem to do well with waking up an hour earlier.

I think I’m going to take a nap. I don’t have to be work until 7.

23 February 2009 by Ponderings and Musings 0

Notabus.

Tonight we are celebrating Earl’s birthday! It seems like it always snows on this joyous occasion, but nevertheless, it is here and there is much cheering.

For the occasion, I share one of my favourite photos of us. It’s from 2003. We look younger.

P1010090.jpg

After returning from Orlando we promptly went to Red Robin, where Earl enjoyed the free hamburger for the birthday boy without much fanfare. Tonight it’s about finishing the laundry and watching the snow fall.

We need to relax after our vacation.

20 February 2009 by Fun and Games Dept 1

About J.P.

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!

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