J.P.

Aspirations.

Business Insider recently published their list of the Top 11 Most Miserable Places to Live In America. The data is based on a recent Gallup poll. I’ll set aside the title of the article, which should say the “Top 11 Most Miserable Places to Live in The United States”, because Gallup didn’t poll anyone outside of the U.S. But that’s just me being nitpicky.

I’m kind of surprised at the placing of our area on this list as I thought it would be up in the Top 5 or so. I’m curious as to why they listed the “Top 11” instead of the Top 10; was it just to get the Utica-Rome area onto the list to begin with? Were people going to be crankier if Utica-Rome wasn’t included on the list? Perhaps the author of the article wanted to make this area feel special.

And speaking of this area, I always feel bad for Rome. This area is constantly referred to as “Utica-Rome”. It’s not like “Minneapolis-St. Paul” or “Dallas-Ft. Worth”; there are four villages, a couple of townships and 15 miles or so between the downtowns (and I use that term loosely) of Utica and Rome. Rome always gets the short end of the stick, “You don’t need a Home Depot since there’s one in Utica.” That’s not nice. I think the populations differ considerably in ethnic make up.

I don’t like living here. I moved here over 20 years ago because the same job here paid almost double what I was making in the tiny city of Jamestown. It was also closer to my family (no offense, but people ask ‘how close’ and I say ‘close enough’.) I don’t find the weather particularly enjoyable nor are we really active with the scant amount of gay community here. That last point is by our own choosing. They built an impressive road for the new microchip plant that they’re suppose to be building nearby, but word on the street is that deal fell through and their going to build a Pringles factory instead. There are even signs pointing to the exit that hasn’t been built for the chip plant that doesn’t exist.

We have an international airport on the old Air Force base. The government is shutting down the tower and there hasn’t ever been a commercial flight in or out of this airport. The last commercial flight was to the old airport and that was a decade or so ago. But we still have a customs’ officer.

Some positives of the area include there’s no traffic and if you look outside the city limits of Utica, it’s quite beautiful in the autumn. Oh, on a warm summer night you can take old fluorescent bulbs out and stand under any one of the many high-voltage power lines that criss cross the area and watch the bulbs glow in your hand.

The latest endeavor to spruce this place up is the construction of a monstrous neon sign (125 ft high!) along the Thruway with the words “Utica” on top. Apparently it was too expensive to tack on “Rome”. Perhaps the “-” put them over the budget.

I will admit that the cool thing about living here is that you can easily go somewhere interesting for the weekend. There are a bunch of major cities within a five hour radius of this place. Boston, New York, Philadelphia, Montreal, Toronto; all cities that are not that far from here if you don’t mind the drive. It’s a good thing that we love to travel.

What’s really a shame is that there are some quaint towns in the surrounding areas. They’re kind of small but they’re fun to walk around in once a season or so so there’s that.

But cranky people? Yeah, we have a lot of those. Most interactions with the retailing folks is a triad of experience: hostility, futility and stupidity.

So yes, here we are, living in one of the Top 11 most miserable places in the world and my two reactions are one of a lack of surprise and feeling bad for Rome having to be tacked onto Utica again.

I’m looking forward to my travels this weekend.

Sigh.

We have over three inches of snow on the ground now. Earl’s flight from Syracuse to Philadelphia has been canceled because they can’t determine if the plane has fuel or not so they have wisely chosen not to risk it. I am awaiting updates on his being rebooked for other updates.

So, to make the day feel that much brighter, we’ll enjoy the theme from The Love Boat. Notice Julie’s kicky hair style in this German version of the opening.

http://youtu.be/N3jpfOFW_QY

Connection.

When I woke up this morning I knew that we had snow on the ground before I had gotten out of bed and looked out the window. Armed with the dubious habit of checking my phone the moment I’m awake, I had scanned Twitter and Facebook and had already seen the photos.

There were many comments: “April Fools’ was yesterday!”, “C’mon, Mother Nature, enough already!”. People were clearly upset to see snow on the ground in Upstate New York.

Snow in April in Upstate New York is quite common, folks.

People tend to forget that we get snow in April. Moving the clocks ahead earlier than usual since 2007 and chants of spring from the journalists all distract us. Photos of our Facebook friends in the south enjoying their spring flowers and the like make us feel a closer connection to the rest of the world, but we’re nowhere close. Prideful comments such as “It’s 52º in New York!” may make us feel like we are in the Big Apple but in reality, we’re nowhere close.

There’s around an inch of snow on the ground this morning. No sense in complaining about it, it’s what we do. It’s why we’re here. So sit back and enjoy the moment that Mother Nature has given us.

Keep Calm and Carry On.

Bewitched Remake.

Sources close to Sony/Screen Gems have confirmed the greenlight for a remake of “Bewitched”. Beyonce has signed on to star as Samantha Stephens, the famous role originated by Elizabeth Montgomery.

Dionne Warwick has signed on to play Samantha’s mother Endora. When asked for comment, Ms. Warwick simply said, “gurl, I knew all those years at the psychic network would pay off!”

Sherri Shepard has been approached to play nosy-neighbor Gladys Kravitz, however, her commitments to “The View” are preventing her from joining this reimagining of the top-rated 60s series. The source could not firm further rumors that Barbara Walters is considering releasing Sherri from her contract. In moments of senility, Ms. Walters said she could be persuaded if she was considered to play the role of Mr. Ed.

Sony expects the series to debut 4/1/14.

Joke.

So today is the 1st of April. Folks on the internet are just yukking it up with their April Fools’ jokes and everyone else is suppose to laugh. It’s not a ha ha or ho ho laugh, it’s more like a bouncing jaw type laugh that’s kind of like one of the ghosts on Scooby-Doo before they’re shoved into the washing machine via the gang’s latest trap.

You can’t believe a word of news today. So far there have been stories about transparent iPhones, something called Google Nose, Kirk Cameron’s new TV series and some article about gay marriage threatening the sanctity of the tried and true institution that’s been around for millions of years. These pranksters, always a barrel of laughs.

Personally, I’m not a fan of April Fools’ Day. I don’t remember why we have such a hardy-har-har-har time on the 1st of April and quite frankly I’m too lazy and not really that invested in the subject to bother to Google it. It’s not that important to me, though I have to admit that if anything else was such a pain in my ass I’d go look it up so I guess I’m just lazy.

There have been a scant few good April Fools’ Day jokes, the best being when we told the employees of our restaurant that we had decided to close down the business the morning of 4/1/00. That was a hoot and there was no punchline! Nothing makes your jaw jump up and down like a good cry.

Years and years ago there was a radio station called KG104 that told the world that we had converted to metric time. They had ads running from sponsors and everything telling customers how to reprogram their VCRs for metric time. I thought that was kind of clever, but perhaps we did funny better in the early 90s. I mean, look at the laugh riot of “Saved By The Bell” and “Charles In Charge”.

So today, this first day of April, I sit here and stare at a computer screen trying to decipher what is real and what is not as I read through the various blogs.

Such a hoot.

Just stuff me in the washing machine and get it over with.

Hue.

So last night while we were at Destiny USA we stopped at the Apple store. I spent a few moments lusting over my next computer, which is a 13-inch MacBook Pro with Retina display. Earl outlined the budgetary concerns with such a purchase and told me when I will be able to buy it. I can at least say, “at least there’s hope.”

But I digress from my original intent of this post.

During our last couple of visits to the Apple store we have looked at the Philips Hue Lighting “system” (for lack of a better word).


The Philips Hue Personal Wireless Lighting starter kit consists of a puck-sized controller that connects to your home network. This puck can control up to 50 LED light bulbs that have the ability to communicate with the puck. The puck communicates with your home network via an iPhone, iPad or Android app. You can also communicate with the light bulbs via the Hue webpage.

So what’s the deal? Well, these LED bulbs can be programmed to throw off any color you can imagine. The apps let you program “scenes”; press a button and it looks like sunset in your room. Press another button and it looks like you’re sitting in the beach. There’s millions of combinations and some that are suppose to give you a “therapeutic” light, such as lighting to urge better concentration or destress you before hitting the hay for the night. You can set an alarm and wake up to a simulated sunrise. It’s all quite nifty.

The starter kit comes with the aforementioned puck and three light bulbs. And it costs $200. Additional lightbulbs are $59.99.

Pricey!

However, remember that these are LED lightbulbs and they’re allegedly going to last a very, very long time. Regular LED lightbulbs at Lowe’s or Home Depot are in the $35-$45 range, so this isn’t completely out of whack but it’s definitely an expensive toy.

The system took less than three minutes to install. I have installed apps on my iPhone and iPad and on Earl’s iPhone. You don’t have to use your smartphone or whatnot to control the lights, turning the lights off and on with the switch make them behavior as expected, however, they “dim up” and “dim down” instead of just snapping on and off, which I think is wicked cool. If we want to use the simulated sunrise approach in the morning we have to leave the light switch on and turn them off via the app. I can handle that since I sleep with my phone anyway.

All in all it’s a nifty gadget albeit and expensive one. But I like it a lot and it was actually Earl’s suggestion that we get the lights.

If you’re in the neighborhood you’ll have to see our simulated disco in the bedroom. It’s a hoot!

Upgrade.

We have lived in our house for nearly 10 years. Our kitchen has twice the amount of cupboard space as what we had in the old house. Still, we managed to find the need for just a little more space. There was a section of wall in the kitchen that was just begging for a baker’s rack or a small cabinet.

Thursday night we finally found what we were looking for. We found a 36-inch cabinet at the local Target, which could only mean one thing.

Some assembly required.

Earl and I spent our Easter morning assembling our new cabinet and getting it into place. Having been together for nearly 17 years, we’re pretty good at doing this sort of thing without killing each other, though I did ask Earl once if we were ever going to be rich enough to have a houseboy do this sort of thing for us. He said “yes, now get back to work.”

In the meanwhile, we are enjoying the new cabinet. We used all the parts and everything!

IMG 4005

Ride.

So yesterday morning Earl and I woke up at the Hyatt Regency in downtown Buffalo. We had driven to Buffalo the afternoon before for Jamie’s big photo book and gallery debut, which was a great success. It is always good to be amongst friends and family.

Normally the drive from Buffalo to home is a little over three hours.  Yesterday it took us around 11 hours to get home. And it was wonderful.

Our first stop was at the Buffalo haunt of Anderson’s for Beef on Weck. A western New York staple, it is one of my favorite sandwiches.  A pretzel type roll with some pretzel salt.  Delish.

IMG 3948

From Anderson’s we should have headed east on the Thruway but instead we headed south on US Route 219? Why? Because they extended the US 219 freeway by a mile or two a couple of years ago and I hadn’t seen the completed work yet. Eventually the freeway will make it all the way to the Pennsylvania state line but the progress is slow.

IMG 3962

When we got down to Ellicotville, the quaint little town that is home to the Holiday Valley Ski Resort, we finally turned east and started heading in a general direction towards home. The ride took us through the little town where, in 1990, I narrowly missed a cow, went into a ditch and was rescued by a guy that kind of changed my life, even though I only saw him only one more time after that encounter. Here’s the sign that standards where I went off the ditch. The man didn’t remember my name the second time I saw him, so he just called me Machias. 

IMG 3967

North of Machias we ended up in Arcade and drove on my second favorite stretch of road in the Empire State, NY Route 39 from Arcade to the little hamlet of Pike.  It is much like my favorite road, NY Route 177, in that it passes through nothing but farmland, has an “open” feeling to it and it even goes through a wind farm!  Look close and you’ll see two farms in this photo.

IMG 3969

IMG 3970

We then stopped in the college town of Geneseo, where we had a little snack at Tim Hortons and we washed the car. It is spring, after all!

We continued our trek through the Finger Lakes, driving through the small cities of Canandaigua, Geneva and Auburn, where we finally ended up at Destiny USA in Syracuse. Syracuse had just made it into the Final Four, so the mood was celebratory at the Gordon Biersch at Destiny USA. To celebrate, I tried their Golden Export while Earl tried a sampler flight of each of their beers.

IMG 3990

We then walked all three floors of all of Destiny USA, making an obligatory stop at the Apple Store, where we bought a new toy. (That will be highlighted in a separate post).  Sam the Apple store genius was very helpful. I really like the folks at the Destiny USA Apple Store. They are always courteous, always helpful and the facial hair on the guys is quite impressive. Unfortunately I didn’t feel assertive enough to take a photo of some of the impressive beards, so instead you get to look at my smiling face.

IMG 3996

After touring the mall until its closing, we decided we should head home, but not without a stop at Turning Stone Casino to meet our step count for the day and perhaps have a little dessert. Surprisingly, we didn’t gamble at all!

We finally made it home around midnight. We were exhausted but happy. Earl called it our “date day” and quite frankly, it was relaxing and very enjoyable.

We both feel recharged.

Screen Shot 2013 03 31 at 2 55 11 PM

Minimize.

One of the cool theories behind excessive use of technology is that it should reduce the amount of paper we use. Hasn’t that always been a mantra, to try to go as paperless as possible?

I just stood in line at the post office awaiting my turn. The customer in front of me had a parcel waiting. The clerk scanned it and the parcel came up COD. Theoretically, there was money due. The customer should not have been given the parcel until he paid for the contents.

The concept of COD still being around is quite humorous to me. I haven’t bought anything COD in a couple of decades. The last time we had any sort of postage due was when an overzealous couple didn’t put enough postage on their wedding invitations and we had to pay for the privilege to RSVP, but even that was eons ago.

The clerk scanned the package numerous times and the computer insisted that it was COD. There was some drama about trying to get out of the proper screens and the like but the clerk didn’t believe the computer because there was no COD paperwork attached to the package. So she just gave the guy the package.

This is the same postal service that just eliminated the priority mail confirmation form to go as paper free as possible.

So after the guy got the free COD package it was my turn. I had one envelope to send with confirmation. The clerk put a little sticker on my envelope. I paid in cash and then the same postal service that is trying to go paper free spewed this monstrosity of a receipt at me.

20130329-125657.jpg

This is your government efficiency at its best.

Thoughts.

I have not been able to get fully into the groove of work after returning from a most excellent vacation. Part of my brain is still in “Mickey Mode”, which is actually a good thing because it helps make each day a zippity-doo-dah day. In that respect, I’ve been smiling a lot. But the biggest obstacle to getting back into the work mindset has been the fact that I have been in training since Monday morning. I didn’t get to go anywhere exotic for this round of training; for seven hours a day this week I’ve had my headset on and I’ve been staring at a computer screen as the trainer goes through another assault of information. Luckily, this is the last bit of training for a while.

When you’re sitting in an office, staring at a screen, listening to someone talk and then doing the occasional exercise, your mind can wander, especially since there’s nothing to make you go “SQUIRREL” every once in a while. The squirrels hide behind the corporate firewall. So this makes my brain just go into daydream mode and the like and I start thinking about a whole range of topics. This isn’t a bad thing, in fact, it’s a good way to get things sorted out in my head. Luckily, the training wrapped up early and I will be able to get work sorted out this afternoon and hopefully get some things done. Incomplete items on my to-do list distracts me.

So what have I been thinking about? Lots of things: politics, better ways to use my blog, my growing disappointment with tech journalists, the simplification of my life, the reassessment of who is important to me and who is not, all sorts of stuff. Deep stuff. I tend to think deep when I get into a pondering mode.

I was happy to see all of the red avatars in support of Marriage Equality on Facebook on Tuesday and Wednesday. I was also happy to see quite a few people wearing red. Marriage equality is obviously a topic that is near and dear to my heart, so it’s always encouraging to see the support. There might be hope for the populace after all. For the life of me I can’t figure out why some segments of the population feel the need to spend millions and millions of dollars to try to force their personal beliefs on the entire country through a constitutional amendment that would be contrary in spirit to every other piece of the Constitution. Many equate this behavior to the GOP, but that’s only because the whack-jobs have hijacked the GOP because the Republicans have become such a mess. It’s not the Republicans per se as much as it is a segment of the Republicans, much like it’s not all Democrats that go on television spewing that they voted for President Obama because they got a free phone. There is a tendency to divide everything into two distinct camps. It’s black or it’s white. It’s negative or it’s positive. People need to realize there’s lots of gray.

I’ve decided that as I get older I must be getting a touch more cranky because my patience of basic asshattery is quickly dwindling. When I see two cars nearly smashing into each other because both drivers are jockeying for the closest parking spot to the door, putting nearby pedestrians in danger whilst doing so, I want to pull them both out of their vehicles and smack them upside the head. Especially since they’re parking at the gym. But then I realize that they’re not going to the gym to workout, they’re going to use the tanning services the gym provides, which is stupid in itself. Get outside and get some sun. I don’t even know why I go to the gym. Well, I know why I go to the gym, it’s because I sit in front of a computer all day and I need exercise. I’m counting the moments until I can get on my bike and ride on a lonely country road, enjoying the smell of “fresh country air”.

I’ve pretty much divested myself of any interest in what most tech journalists have to say about anything. The latest trend is to just bash Apple to death and make broad proclamations as to why said journalists are switching to whatever platform is the soup du jour. I’m happy with my Apple gear and I have no intention of switching to something else just because it’s the hip thing to do. The closest thing I’m getting to being hip is the handlebar mustache, and that’s still a few months down the road. My “tech reading” has been focused on productivity stuff lately. I’m becoming a productivity geek and for me, what I have on my Macs and my iDevices is what works best. I’m in the process of building my own “cloud” anyways and trying to get off of as many ad-supported services as possible. This helps me keep my brain exercised.

I have o many thoughts going through my head. This blog entry has probably been very rambly and all over the place, but that’s the kind of week I’ve had. Not bad, not good, just rambly.

I’m looking forward to the weekend.