J.P.

Voting.

Today was Voting Day in Chicago. According to the results coming in this evening, today had one of the lowest voter turn outs in recent history. They’re thinking less than 35% of eligible voters in the city of Chicago voted today.

Earl and I made the trek to our voting location, which was just down the block in a vacant storefront. The lighting was sparse, the process was uneven, and the placement of the voting booths and machines was tight, but we did our civic duty.

The mayoral race is going to end up in a run-off in early April. I’m happy the candidate I voted for made it to the run-off. I haven’t seen what happened with the race for Alderman yet; I’ll be checking that out as soon as I finish this blog entry.

I think folks are soured on politics, even more so than usual. The constant bleating from cable news (which seems to be piped into every restaurant that has an early-bird special), the constant chaos from the White House, and the constant pearls clutching from the Democrats is exhausting. It feels like people want to escape from the cacophony of idiocy. Unfortunately that’s a dangerous thing because then our elected representatives don’t represent the will of the people. They represent the crazy, the determined, and the passionate.

Sometimes we need more even keeled individuals in public office.

I don’t know what we need to do to get more people involved with the voting process. Whatever we’re doing now is barely working. I hope it gets better in my lifetime. It’d be nice to exit stage left on a high note.

26 February 2019 by Political BS. 0

Music.

I’ve started playing around with Logic Pro X on the MacBook Pro again. I enjoy editing and remixing music. I don’t really feel the need to DJ in a club or on the radio anymore, but making remixes and exclusive edits of songs? Totally my jam.

25 February 2019 by DJ Fun and Games Dept 0

Effortless.

So Friday night the family got together and we went to Allstate Arena to see Kelly Clarkson and her “Meaning of Life 2019” tour.

What a thoroughly fantastic evening.

I’ve been a fan of Kelly Clarkson since her American Idol days. She has always seemed so genuine in her public persona; I’ve always felt that we saw as much of her ‘real self’ as we could on television.

The show was wonderful; the music was well balanced, wasn’t too overpowering, and she had a nice mix of her own songs in with a couple of covers thrown in for an extra nice touch. Her banter between songs was quite enjoyable and didn’t feel contrived or scripted. The pleasant personality I associate with her was intact and I felt like she’d be fun to share a lunch with.

One of the things I immediately noticed about her was that she really appears to love what she does. She loves to sing and she clearly enjoys expressing herself through her art. I’ve been to so many concerts where it was clear the performer was working (Madonna instantly comes to mind); Kelly truly felt like she was sharing her art while hanging with new friends.

I like that vibe. We need more of that.

At the beginning of her set she talked about all the chaos and turmoil in the world today, and that the space was an all inclusive space and that everyone was welcome to join in the fun for the evening.

She made the two hour show appear effortless simply because of her demonstrated love of her art.

More people need to do more of what makes them happy. Sharing joy; perhaps this is how we bring the world to a more positive place.

24 February 2019 by Fun and Games Dept People Impress Me. Ponderings and Musings 0

Self Service.

So I’m out exploring in the Jeep and I’m allowing myself one fast food experience to go with the vegetables and fruit and bottles of water I have with me in the Jeep.

I’m in a McDonalds in western Indiana.

Like many McDonalds, they have installed self service kiosks. If you use the kiosk to process your order you grab your own cup, get a number tent for your table, and they bring the food to you.

That’s the easy part.

As a software developer it is very interesting to see how the general public interacts with the large order screens. The screens appear to be 36×18 in size. The order flow of the software works pretty well, but users are struggling. I observed customers stabbing, sighing, and struggling at or with the touch based interface, seemingly perplexed by questions such as “Cash or Card?” and “What size fries would you like to make a meal or would you just like a sandwich?”.

The software is generally good, with plenty of pictures, brief but complete instructions and a natural left-to-right progression of the workflow. But it seemed the customers that were struggling just didn’t want to take the time to read the prompts. You can’t put everything in a picture or icon, sometimes you just need to stop and read a prompt.

Here’s an interesting new twist in the experience: the counter person put all the trays of food on the same table, even if it was for a different customer. We just sorted it out amongst ourselves.

No one stole a fry from my tray. Believe me, I asked.

23 February 2019 by Geek 0

Oriented.

If Apple wants the iPad Pro to be taken seriously as a laptop replacement they should probably look at some of the smaller details in iOS. For example, displaying the Apple logo and update progress bar in the proper direction when one has a keyboard attached to the device.

To be fair, I don’t know if the latest iPad Pro corrects this issue, but this has always bothered me on iPads.

22 February 2019 by Fun and Games Dept 0

Lust.

I’ve lusted after this dancer since I first spotted him in a music video in 1990. His name is Paul Surety and at the time he was a ballet dancer, though here he’s a pop music dance instructor. Today he’s remixing instrumental trance music in Europe.

Bonus points if you can name the (obscure in the US) dance track from 1990 in which appeared with the singer in the music video.

I always thought he looked like a fifth Baldwin brother.

21 February 2019 by DJ Gayish. 4

Lift.

Please are sometimes surprised when they find out I don’t like elevators. They say, but you fly small airplanes miles above the ground, yet you’re nervous in elevators? The truth of is, yes, I don’t like elevators. Actually, I don’t mind elevators as much as I don’t like confined spaces. If I can see outside, I’m fine.

We live on the fifth floor of our building. I walk the stairs a lot but I also take the elevator at least once a day. I’d enjoy the experience a little more if it had a window, but I know every nuance of how this elevator works so I don’t sweat it too much.

Now, on two occasions I’ve been riding along with a “belt slipped” or something and the elevator rapidly dropped a couple of feet. The emergency brake snaps on, the panel lights and indicators do a quick reset and the elevator slowly descends to the closest floor. Pressing the open door button will then open the door or you can press the floor you’re going to again and it’ll try to sort things out. I’ve read several maintenance manuals on this particular brand and make of elevator (Kone EcoDisc) and a month or so ago I watched numerous videos of elevator geeks going up and down in broken versions of these elevators. They didn’t panic, so why should I, right?

I just don’t do well in confined spaces if I don’t know my way out. If I can see beyond the space I’m good, even if it’s through a small crack in the door or something.

That’s what I like about airplanes, I can see out all over the place. The only time I’ve ever not enjoyed an airplane flight is when I ended up in a row without a window.

You’ll never find me on an airplane where they substitute the windows with large LED screens to simulate the outside.

By the way, tunnels don’t bother me; I can see my way through and I know there’s a light at the end of the tunnel. I really want to drive through that 20+ mile tunnel in Europe.

In the meanwhile, I’ll keep riding up and down in our Kone Eco-Disc elevator to try to break this concern.

20 February 2019 by Fun and Games Dept Ponderings and Musings 0

Enjoyment.

I couldn’t help but look around this evening and marvel as to how much I’m enjoying life in Chicago. I’m a very lucky man to live here.

19 February 2019 by Fun and Games Dept 0

President’s Day.

Today is President’s Day. Or is it Presidents’ Day? Perhaps Presidents Day?

I’m old enough to remember when we had Lincoln’s Birthday and Washington’s Birthday, but I think we had only Washington’s Birthday off. Later in my elementary years we started getting the whole week of Washington’s Birthday off; since that was usually the snowiest week of the winter. Sometimes, but not always.

Whatever we are calling this holiday this year (it varies from state to state), I still don’t feel compelled to buy a mattress, a car, or Turbo Tax. I’ve never understood why mattress companies go right crazy during this week in February. It’s not like anyone is going to want to haul a heavy mattress in and out of their home at this time of year. Is it because we’re working our way through the winter and we should have worn out the mattress by this time? I’m getting old, we don’t bounce the box spring as much.

Today was not a work holiday. Today was a normal day at work and it was fairly intense. I could probably handle it better if we had a new mattress but I still don’t feel the need to buy a new mattress.

I could go on a political tirade at this point of the blog entry but we don’t really have a president to talk about, so there’s no sense on going on a tirade. The country is pretty much on auto-pilot with occasional threats of the complete and utter destruction of democracy as we know it, but as long as La Marmalade can tweet the news channels are happy and the speed limit IQ folks feel vindicated.

I look forward to when we have a reason to celebrate Presidents’ Day again.

18 February 2019 by Everyone's A Critic. Fun and Games Dept 0

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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