A shameless live action kitty cat post.
[MEDIA=65]Another Saranac Thursday Night.
Earl and I are back from our weekly outing to Saranac Thursday night. It’s actually after 2:00 in the morning and I have just awoken from several hours of sleep. I was apparently put to bed immediately after supper, around 9:00 p.m. That should give you an idea of how the evening went.
It is Boilermaker Weekend in these parts plus the weather was picture perfect, so the brewery was packed to the gills with people. Earl and I hung out with friends, where we discussed everything from Obama to sex to work stuff. Earl didn’t do a lot of talking as his voice is pretty much shot from a “lively” discussion he had with one of his employees earlier in the week. He still takes a good picture though.
I let Earl play with my iPhone for a few moments during the evening. When I was downloading the photos from it I noticed a photo of someone I didn’t recognise. Earl was apparently taking stealth shots.
I always enjoy the people watching on outings such as these. I noticed that there aren’t as many people wearing the trendy, big sunglasses found elsewhere. Most of the guys have aviator or ‘biker’ sunglasses and many of the women are opting for the modern looking sunglasses rather than the aforementioned big, bulky retro glasses.
The music wasn’t bad. I don’t know who the band was but they focused on country music. They were in tune for the most part, which is always a good start when you’re singing on stage. Unfortunately the lead singer had a really bad habit of whistling into the microphone between phrases of any given track he was singing and it was making my ears hurt. We had to go to the outer limits of the crowd to keep me from doing the Pavlov’s dog trick. I don’t find it appropriate to drool in public.
After a few beers we headed over to Zebb’s, where I apparently ordered a delicious meal. Much of it is in the refrigerator in a take away box. I guess I’ll have it for lunch tomorrow.
Candid Camera.
As I continue to revel in full out geek mode this week, I take great delight in getting a webcam working on my Linux computer for the first time in my computer history. Naturally I made a goofy face for such an occasion.
The addition of this webcam will certainly make it easier for the warrantless wiretappers to keep track of my conversations online. Perhaps I’ll moon the new camera repeatedly to make it interesting for them. I hear my ass is quite identifiable.
I joke about the bill that was passed by the Senate today but in truth I am saddened by it all. I feel like our great democracy is crumbling before our very eyes. Most think that 9/11 was the greatest crime against the United States; I believe the greatest crime is her citizens willingly giving up their freedoms, all in the name of freedom. It’s interesting to note that last October Obama said he would filibuster this bill, today he voted for it. (Kudos to Clinton and Schumer for their ‘nay’s.)
My choices in November are increasingly feeling like “the lesser of two evils”, once again.
Steamy Night.
It is currently 79 degrees fahrenheit. I should be in bed, I have to get up early tomorrow. I feel tired. I’m "fading" somewhat in front of the computer. Still, sweat beads on selected spots on my body. This has kept me from hitting the hay.
Tomorrow a cold front should make an appearance in our area. It will be preceded by thunderstorms starting around 2:00 a.m. This will make for a busy day as Mr. Telephone Man tomorrow.
I should get some sleep.
Someday we’ll buy an air conditioner.
Market This.
As a person that used make his living by writing ad copy for radio commercials I occasionally feel hypocritical for having no tolerance for marketing ploys. I’m not a fan of clever commercials of any type; I don’t feel inclined to buy a car from a man that can belch out the word “huge”, I don’t feel the need to add two blades to my razor just because Tiger Woods swung a ball at it and I certainly don’t find my work day infinitely cheerier because one of the Baby Bells has populated their software interface with pictures of happy people.
Now, I don’t mean to sound like a crank but is it really necessary to put all these smiling, fake, airbrushed people throughout a software application? I’ve been asked many times why I don’t use Microsoft products and while I’m not a fan of their products I don’t hate them to the point of disuse. I just don’t like the fake happy people on their packaging. Their boxes always have pictures of people nearing orgasm over the data in a spreadsheet. Now I know every office has interoffice hanky panky going on but how often is Microsoft Excel included in the fun? I hope not very often.
The aforementioned software interface has pictures of people staring at you no matter what screen you are on. Most the models are of Asian decent and I often wonder why this is the case. Are they reinforcing a stereotype that Asians are more “techy”? Once in a while a white man will pop up on the screen, he’s grinning from ear to ear next to his ancient Sperry text terminal. I hope he’s not saddled with that clunker today! The pictures rotate in a seemingly random fashion, today I had three Asian women staring at me seductively, as of if my attempts to add “speed dial” to a customer account was actually one click away from a steamy session on X-tube.
I think I’m offended by the fact that marketing folks try too hard to make the picture balanced. There’s a token black, a token woman, a token Asian and a token man. Why not just have a group of “people”? Where’s the Native American? Where is the Russian? Where is the Irishman? Where is the Indian? Where is the lesbian? Where is the gay man? The fact that they are trying not to offend me by including an unlikely cross section of people in these photos offends me. If you have to include pictures of people on the site, just make sure they’re human. That’s all I ask.
Now, back to my date with PowerPoint.
Test Post.
So I’m in pure geek mode this week. I’m relatively obsessing on my armada of computers at the house. I have an excuse, it’s coolest in the cellar and I can’t think of a better way to beat the heat than to spend time in the cellar doing things I love to do.
This is a test post from my Linux computer to see if the free software Drivel fits the bill. So far, so good.
Command Central.
I added a computer to the studio this afternoon. I found a really good deal on a display computer at Best Buy whilst I was browsing around. I had been toying with the idea of adding a Linux desktop to the stable and this computer was perfect for the project so I made the purchase.
The new computer is made by eMachines and has a decent AMD 64-bit processor with 1GB RAM. It has room for upgrades which I’ll most likely being doing over the next year or so as needed. I have it running OpenSuSE Linux 11. I’m liking the experience thus far. It’s good to have a computer to play with without mucking up the Macs too much as I tinker.
Summer Memories.
Many of my vivid childhood memories are pre-1977 which was the year we moved into the new house. Before moving we lived in a 10×55 mobile home with a 10×50 addition that my Dad had built shortly after my sister was born. The mobile home sat on a piece of property next to my grandparents. It was in the middle of a cow and horse pasture. Two sides of our back lawn were surrounded by electric fence. My Dad built the new house, a two-story colonial that he still lives in today, across the street from the trailer. Aside from some help from the two guys that worked at the family contracting business, my uncle and my grandfather, my Dad built the house pretty much on his own. It took him two years.
Four people living in a small mobile home was an interesting experience. During the summer we’d have one more living with us; one of my city cousins would come up for some “fresh country air” for a week. There was one bathroom and if we needed to go when someone was in there we’d run across the lawn to my grandparents and use their guest bath near the side entrance to their house. The addition to the trailer allowed for us to have a laundry room, but it was small and only had room for the dryer. The washing machine was in the bathroom. My parents’ bedroom was in the addition and utilized the original back door to the trailer. I don’t know how they had sex because the door was rarely closed. There was a gun rack built into the wall. The third room of the addition was the living room. The old living room in the original trailer became the dining room. It had a small round table that barely sat the four of us. My sister and I shared a bedroom, complete with bunk beds that took up the length of the north wall. Mom once tried to give my sister her own room by splitting the bunks and using the small bedroom behind the furnace, but it wasn’t long enough for a bed. Only a crib would fit in there and she had outgrown that years ago.
I like to think that living in the trailer kept us a close family as there wasn’t really any place for us to escape away from each other. Summer afternoons were spent romping around the farm; I’d hop up on a tree stump and jump into the fenced in pasture and do my own version of running with the bulls. The cows didn’t care if we were in the pasture, but once in a while a bull would get cranky about it. If I yelled “boo” in his direction really loud, he’d stop heading towards me. I’d then run to another tree stump in the pasture and jump back over the fence to my own side.
One of my favorite memories from the trailer was a birthday party for my sister and I. Our birthdays are five days apart and we shared a family birthday party. My city cousins and aunts would come up with Grandma and Aunt Jenn; it was one of the rare times that my city cousins would mingle with my country cousins, who lived relatively close. We’d have a cake that my Mom made, complete with those pure sugar candy letters and numbers from the Acme.
When I think back to the happiest times of my childhood, it’s often to a time when we lived in the trailer.
Sylvan Beach.
Earl and I headed to Sylvan Beach for the afternoon to celebrate Independence Day. Upon our arrival I immediately discovered that the battery in my digital camera was dead; thank the Universe for a relatively decent camera in the iPhone.
Sylvan Beach has a year-round census of just over 1,000 people. Located relatively half-way between Utica and Syracuse, Sylvan Beach is a village and popular summer resort destination on the eastern shore of Oneida Lake, the largest landlocked lake in New York State. Though close to the Finger Lakes Region, Oneida Lake is not considered to be one of the Finger Lakes, as it has a primarily east-west orientation (the Finger Lakes run north-south).
Oneida Lake is a popular destination for people of all shapes and sizes and socio-economic standing. The “downtown” area is populated with several resort type shops, restaurants and beach side bars. The radio station I used to work for would hold it’s annual Summer Bash Concert on the beach each year in the late 1990s. The largest artists we had at one of these gigs included Alisha and Kim Syms.
There is also a 1960s era amusement park reminiscent of Seaside on the Jersey Shore (not Jersey Shore, Pa.) Earl and I kicked off our afternoon with some games of Skee Ball. We’d never played Skee Ball together before; I like to think that he was impressed with my Skee Ball skill. The “270” on the machine to the left of Earl in this photo is my highest score of the 10 games we played. We gave all of our prize tickets to a youngster that was playing at the machine next to Earl.
After our fun with Skee Ball and walking the beach a few times and admiring the scenery, we stopped at Eddie’s Restaurant, a large restaurant with it’s original 60s motif. To be seated we stood in line under the sign that said “Parties of 1 to 4 ↓". The other line said “Parties of 5 or more”. If memory serves correctly, Grandma and Grandpa Country would head to Sylvan Beach several times during the year to eat at the restaurant. I had the broiled salmon with cole slaw and french fries.
One of our stops along the walk was to snap each other’s photo along the Barge/Erie Canal. It’s at Sylvan Beach that boats traveling along the famous canal are dumped into Oneida Lake, which they must cross it’s entire length to pick the canal back up in Brewerton as they head towards Buffalo.
Even though Sylvan Beach is relatively close to our home, it’s rare for us to make the drive to hang out in the area. With today’s gas prices, I’m certain that we’ll do it more often this summer. There are more photos available on my Flickr account and they can be found here.
