Fun and Games Dept

It is Friday and I am working from home today. To keep everything in the spirit of my typical lunch time activities, I went down to the local Dunkin’ Donuts and treated myself to a sandwich on a french roll and a large, unsweetened iced-tea with lemon. Oh, I added a side of hash browns. They’re not quite tots but they’ll suffice.

In order to enjoy some lunch time sunshine with this little lunch, I decided to take my impromptu picnic to the local park, which is officially called The Lock 20 Canal State Park. Lock 20 is situated along the Barge Canal, which stretches right across the waist line of New York State, from the Capital District to the Buffalo-Niagara Falls area. The Barge Canal is the big brother of the older Erie Canal. Lock 20 is seeing some traffic as I enjoy my lunch hour; there is a boat being raised up in the lock as we speak. They must be heading west because the water level is higher in that direction. There’s a dog barking on the boat, he or she must be sensing that something is going on and they want to talk about it.

I am enjoying this relaxing time during the last lunch hour of the work week and I am eagerly anticipating the weekend. We have plans to go to the New York State Fair after work tonight. We always enjoy the fair, though it’s a reminder that summer is winding down.

As I sit here enjoying my lunch hour I’m watching an elderly couple have a picnic. The older man and woman got themselves situated at a picnic table in a shady spot and then the woman came back and decided to sit in their SUV, leaving the man at the picnic table. I’m a little bit curious about that.

I’m not the only one sitting here working on an iPad or laptop. There’s a couple of other folks doing the same at other picnic tables in shady spots. This seems to be a common practice on beautiful days like today.

Perhaps I should do this more often. We forget that this park is down here, sometimes.

Update: I’m trying to include a little map of our adventures in case you ever want to seek the same spot out on your own someday.

The original wallpaper that came with Windows XP was inspired by Bill Gates’ childhood. He wanted something that reminded folks of laying back in a field and watching the clouds go by.

I totally get that. I’m kind of enjoying sitting in the Jeep and watching the clouds go by today during my lunch hour. I’m accompanying it all with one song on repeat. Naturally, it’s “Follow Your Bliss” by The B-52s. I’d share a video of the track with you, but the Verizon Wireless connection near work today is just awful.

But I’m not going to let that ruin my bliss.

Tonight is my third attempt at trying out Windows 8 on my laptop. Since the developer preview version is out and I have a spare laptop for this sort of thing, I decided to give Windows 8 a whirl again. After all, the third time is a charm, right?

I think I’m too smart for my own good.

One of the things that I need to remember is that even though this is Windows, it doesn’t behave like Windows, it behaves like a mobile phone I’ve never used before. From my earlier attempts at using Windows 8, I am lucky to remember that you fling your mouse off the right hand side of the screen (either corner, actually) to get something called ‘Charms’ to appear. The charm in the middle is the start menu. When you click that, or press the Windows flag button on your keyboard, you’ll get big lego blocks that have information rotating about in them. These big things replace icons. You click them and magic happens. The magic involves your screen waving around as anything you were working on disappears and then the new application presents itself full screen. It’s a lot like the iPad when it comes to multitasking; you’re not going to do it.

If you want to search for something, there’s no search button or key, you just start typing while the lego blocks are displayed. If you want to go to the desktop, you click “Desktop” and that brings up something that looks like a cheaper version of the Windows 7 Desktop, but it’s so cheap that you don’t get a Start Menu ball down in the corner. You’ll need to keep flinging that mouse to the right to bring up the charms, which will then bring up the lego blocks. So if you want to open, say Skype for example, you fling the mouse to the right and click start, which will cause the desktop to go away, and then just randomly start typing “Skype”, which will then bring a lego block with the Skype logo on it and then you click on the block. The blocks then go away and you’re back to the Desktop and Skype will open and complain about “fonts” being called “font”.

I’m not making this up.

Soon you’ll discover that flinging your mouse to the upper left hand corner will give you a picture of the last application you had opened but flinging your mouse off the left side of the screen will bring up pictures of all the applications you have open so you can move to another one, HOWEVER, if the application is open on the desktop you just go to the “desktop” window which makes the blocks disappear and the start menu taskbar without the start menu appear. Then you can pick the small icon of the program you want to go to.

NOW. If you want to shut down your computer, you go to settings by just randomly typing “Settings” at a lego block. OH! I did figure out that when you have pictures of all the applications you have running along the left side of your screen you can right click on them and it will ask you if you want to snap left, snap right or close. I did three snaps in Z-formation GURL! That wasn’t an option but I threw it in there for kicks.

I think it’ll be easier once everyone has their grubby little hands all over their screen and you can actually touch the blocks and move them around.

Honestly, I can see the direction that Microsoft is going with this “shift in paradigm” (I love big words) with Windows 8. They’re heading towards my always coveted dream of being able to take a presentation on your laptop and swiping it up to the presentational board in a conference room. It’s not quite like a Bewitched-like magic move but it would still be uber awesome. (I don’t know how to put the umlaut over the ‘u’ in uber).  I LOVE the vision of the future that Microsoft is working towards, I just hope it’s not as rocky of a road as it seems it’s going to be getting there.

Because this Windows 8 experience, though it has not ended with the completion of this blog entry, is making me reach for my iPad. Very quickly.

For a palette cleanser, here’s what Microsoft sees us doing with technology in 2019.

So last Saturday night Earl and I went on a spontaneous road trip to the former Carousel Center in Syracuse, which earlier this month officially became Destiny USA. With the new branding of the mega mall was the official opening of the massive expansion to the place. Banners and colorful signs proclaim all the new attractions that are now part of Destiny USA: PF Chang’s, an IMAX 3D theatre, a bowling alley, a bunch of other restaurants, all wonderful things. Except most of them haven’t opened yet. Right now, the new part of Destiny USA is a whole bunch of empty storefronts. They are making progress, though, and progress is good.

One restaurant that was open was a Mexican restaurant, Cantina Laredo. This restaurant is known for their guacamole that is made table side. You must simply have that guacamole. After a 90 minute wait, we were seated and answered in the affirmative when asked if we wanted fresh guacamole. Earl actually had to answer the question because the exceedingly perky blonde server spoke in a frequency that was shrill enough to open garage doors on command or make the ears of any dog within a two county radius perk up. I couldn’t hear a damn thing she said so I resorted to reading her lips. She asked what we wanted to drink and whisked away the ingredients for the table side guacamole assembly.

Perky came back with Earl’s unsweetened iced tea and assured me that my Corona would be brought by momentarily. She then took our food order. Earl casually mentioned the table side guacamole as our appetizer and when he stopped talking, I barked out my entree choice.

A few minutes later a person dropped a bowl of tortilla chips on our table with two dishes of salsa. No words were spoken. I had a chip and salsa, Earl did the same. Earl then commented that the salsa was very spicy. I was surprised at this, because I found it bland. Come to find out, the silent one hadn’t mentioned that there were two different kinds of salsa on the table. I always love a good mystery.

The beer still hadn’t arrived when a few moments later our entree came out. Earl informed the runner that we hadn’t gotten our guacamole yet when she decided that she must be at the wrong table. Turns out she wasn’t at the wrong table, she just had our food out of order. Earl sent her back with the food.

The shrill one came by with a Corona Light, and expected me to laugh along with her when I read her lips as she told me that she had given my beer to someone else. She wanted a response, apparently. I just looked at her. Her lips made a laughing motion as she sped off.

The manager then came by and said, and I quote, “Fellas, why don’t we skip the appetizer tonight and we’ll buy you dessert instead.” The runner that wasn’t at the wrong table was still carrying around our food, begging someone to take it. Earl said, “How about we have the guacamole we keep hearing about first?” This was a verbal shooing if I ever heard one. The manager, the runner and our food went to parts unknown.

The shrill one came by and wanted us to laugh about the mix up.

As Earl and I compared the nameless salsas that were still on the table, another person came by with another round of chips just as the guacamole table side service cart came up.

They were out of avocados. She’d be back.

She did hurry back but not before the shrill one asked if we wanted our meals yet. We answered in the negative.

The guacamole was made (and I was doused in the squirtings of a lime in the process, that might be part of the gag) and we both agreed that it was quite good. The shrill one had been in orbit around the table and as soon as the first chip with guacamole was consumed, she asked if we were ready for our dinner. We asked for a few moments to enjoy our guacamole first.

After we were done, the shrill one descended out of orbit and asked if we were ready for our meals. We answered in the affirmative and that’s when the runner, undoubtedly using Asbestos gloves, brought our plates of food. These plates had been sitting under a warming lamp for a really long time.

Earl couldn’t cut his steak. I never question anything that is put in front of me when it comes to food for I learned as a child to eat what I have been given, so I sawed my way through the chicken and had a decent meal. Understandably, Earl sent his back, asking if the plates had been under a warmer. That’s when the shrill one went from shrill to a Bea Arthur like sound and stammered her way through a lie, saying “I’m not sure I don’t work in the kitchen.” On her way back to the kitchen, the manager who likes dessert asked what was wrong. No longer shrill said, “it’s like rubber.”

I took the opportunity to order another Corona because quite frankly Corona Light tastes like piss. I asked for “hi-test not unleaded”. I’m funny like that. She didn’t get it. Neither did I, really, because I wasn’t buzzed from that piss.

Not too long later, the shrill one went back to being perky as she brought Earl a new plate. Five minutes later, as she descended from orbit again, she asked about dessert but we passed. The manager stopped by and gave Earl his meal for free, apologizing along the way, and with that, we had our first meal in one of the new restaurants at Destiny USA.

Next time we’re going to try the fondue place. It should be a hoot.

Traffic has been backed up in front of the office all day due to construction at the intersection down the street. My office building is just off a road ambitiously called “The Arterial”, but “The Arterial” means that it’s a two-lane road with traffic lights and no businesses directly connected to it. It’s the cheap version of a freeway. It behaves cheaply.

Since traffic is backed up, the driveway coming out of work was blocked. When a space opened up for looking to get out for lunch time opened up, a woman zoomed her ugly red Taurus ahead and then glared at the woman waiting in the car in front of me. It’s apparently all about her in the red Taurus. The woman waiting in the car in front of me drove up the shoulder and found a gap to scoot out into the free lane that headed in the direction away from construction. I did the same with the Jeep, though I did stop, point and glare at the red Taurus woman. She glared back. I shook my head disapprovingly but I didn’t call her any names. She knows what she is.

Since “The Arterial” is all over the place and under construction, I drove into the countryside, found a brand new Dunkin’ Donuts where they didn’t have my iced tea ready and then drove just inside the Adirondack Park, stopping at the parking area I found a couple of weeks ago on an exceptionally hot day. The cell service is spotty for my iPad, but I’m able to crank this blog entry out under the shade of big pine trees that are making the whisper noises I love so much and the wonderful scent of the forest. I think this weekend might involve walking in a forest somewhere where there’s pine trees. I haven’t done that in a while. I miss it.

Unfortunately there’s a lot of trash along the parking area here just inside the Adirondacks. This would be a good spot for NYSDOT’s “Adopt-A-Highway”. I’d adopt it if it wasn’t almost 70 miles from home. Maybe someone will find a kind spot in their heart and adopt this lovely spot.

I wouldn’t bet on the woman in the red Taurus doing that though.

If someone doesn’t do it by a year from now I guess we’ll just have to do it and make a trip a couple of times a summer to clean this spot up. I’m enjoying it a lot. The bright side is that whoever is dumping trash is doing it on the side OPPOSITE of the “NO DUMPING” signs. At least the litterer can read.

So last week I started a campaign to raise money for the Ali Forney Center. I am doing this by letting you decide the fate of my mustache with the ‘Stache On-‘Stache Off Campaign. Through the 24th of August, you can make a donation to the Ali Forney Center by voting on whether my ‘stache stays or goes. If it is determined that my mustache stays, I’ll let it just keep growing through the end of the year (though I might clear some brush from my lips once in a while so I don’t miss important kisses.) If it is decided that it’s time to go, I shave it off completely and then probably grow a little mustache because I can’t being completely clean shaven.

As of this writing, ‘Stache On is winning.

If you would like to contribute, and again, it’s for the worthy cause of helping homeless LGBT youth (click here for more information), here’s what you do:

Follow this link to vote ‘Stache ON.
Follow this link to vote ‘Stache OFF.

And thanks in advance for helping the Ali Forney Center.

So today is the 11th anniversary of my blog here at Life Is Such A Sweet Insanity. It seems like only yesterday that I decided to start an “online journal” which I would later find out was properly called a blog. It would be a few years before I share pictures taken with my flip phone. My original blog entries were written in HTML code and manually uploaded to the server.

If you want to read my very first blog entry, you can do so here.

‘Stache On-‘Stache Off Update: ‘Stache On is ahead right now with some nice contributions to the Ali Forney Center. If you wish to contribute, please see this blog post and/or click ‘Stache On to vote for me to keep my mustache or ‘Stache Off for me to shave it off.
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So when I arrived at work this morning I immediately started sneezing. I wasn’t completely surprised by this because the building I work at a few days a week always makes me sneeze; it has that “70’s Sealed In Charm” that is so prevalent in office buildings these days. The problem is, the sneezing wasn’t the only event, my nose started running and I became rather sweaty.

I tried really hard to tough it out through the day, but shortly after 3:00 p.m. I asked my boss if I could leave at 4:00 p.m. so I could go home and try to sleep it through so I’d be ready for a fresh start on Friday. He approved my departure and I headed home.

When I got home I downed two cold medicine tablets. I hate taking medicine and I don’t really believe in it, but since my symptoms had gotten to the point where they were making me beyond miserable, I decided I had had enough and that I would just sleep through the weird side effects that these types of pills give me.

I get really weird on these things. Sometimes I get mean, sometimes I get loopy and at other times I just hallucinate my way through a drug-induced haze and then in 24 hours all is well and I am back on track. When I got home I immediately crashed and slept a few hours before Earl woke me up to let me know that supper was ready. Just after his waking me up, I started thinking about work as I got my wits together. This is where the loopy comes in.

I decided that it would be perfectly acceptable if the software I’m writing used graphics to denote approved or rejected requests that it processes. In my head I figured out what I would need to do to implement this:

1. To approve the request, drag the row to the image of Glinda the Good Witch.
2. To deny the request, drag it to the Wicked Witch.
3. To edit the request, drag it to Toto, who will then open up a paper icon with his paws.

Yep, these are the thoughts that were going through my head upon waking and a problem that I was trying to solve logistically.

Can you imagine the looks on the users’ face if I had gone through with it? Maybe it would have spiced up their day with a little bit of an over the rainbow experience. Perhaps everyone needs that sort of inspiration.

So Earl, Jamie and I are sitting on UA 54 on our way home from San Francisco. I just waved out the window at our friends Tim and Gordon in Cheyenne, Wyo. It helps to be a road/map geek. I can sometimes spot a city from the air. The map on the monitor in front of me helps a bit.

According to the rotating display in front of me, the air temperature is currently -57ºF. For some reason this doesn’t seem right to me. That’s damn cold. But, I’ve never been outside of an aircraft at this altitude so perhaps it is that chilly.

I have been watching the passengers mill about the cabin for the distancia recorrida of 1585 Km. There is one particular woman who became cranky when the flight attendant wanted to get around her as she just stood in the aisle. The cranky woman wasn’t going anywhere in particular, she was just standing there. Perhaps she was looking for an ATM or a bus or something. She didn’t head to the wash room and she didn’t look to concerned about being seated, she just kind of hung out and looked crabby. I took a picture of the back of her head and posted it on Instagram (actually, it will post to Instagram when we have wifi again) because I think it’s rude to post a person’s face unless they’re hot and she’s not hot.

For a while I watched another United plane fly alongside us, about four miles off our wing and probably 2000 feet lower in altitude. It then veered under us and headed off somewhere else.

We are flying on a Boeing 757. While our flight to San Francisco had DirecTV available, this plane does not. We have touch screens that have movies on demand. I’m declining the offer, opting to listen to music and answer emails and write blog entries instead. Jamie is napping and Earl is watching a movie. I don’t know what he is watching. Since we have our own “family row” on this trip, I’ve spread out a little bit and am enjoying typing on the keyboard I brought along for the trip. It’s much easier than trying to type on an iPad keyboard.

San Francisco was absolutely lovely. We made new friends, met a few that were online only friends but unfortunately we did not have the opportunity to meet everyone we wanted to meet. I think we need a couple more weeks in San Francisco to meet everyone we wanted to touch base with. We’ll have to go back soon.

Cranky ugly sat down with a haughty huff. It was hard to discern the haughtiness through the puckered facial expressions, but when you’re a people watcher, you get better at these things. I hope she’s more pleasant at home. It would suck to go through life in a constant cranky state.

I’m starting to fall victim to that growing trend of microblogging instead of just writing things down in my blog like I have normally done in the past. When I then start to write the intended blog entry, I start thinking that what I’m writing is repetitive and that it might offend anyone that may have read the contents of said blog entry in a different context via a different channel (Google+, Twitter or Facebook) but then I decide that I don’t care. Here is where I am my most expressive.

I’m complicated like that.

Anyways, yesterday was touring day. Our first stop was the Union Square Shopping District because I lost my mind Wednesday morning and packed only a few t-shirts and nothing with longer sleeves. I was relieved to find that I had remembered jeans and underwear and socks, so I had at least some of my wits about me. While at Union Square we went to places like Macy’s, the Apple Store and the Art of Shaving, where I made a purchase, didn’t make a purchase and made a purchase, in that order. We did take the obligatory photograph at the Apple store, using a 13-inch MacBook Air.

After Union Square we made a pass through the Golden Gate Park Area and then headed over to the Golden Gate Bridge. The visitor’s center on the San Francisco side of the bridge was a madhouse, so we crossed the bridge a parked in the lookout area on that side. Earl and Jamie busied themselves a bit while I went for a walk across the bridge.

View from the lookout area.

Starting the walk across.

There were a number of signs letting folks that might be feeling despondent know that life was worth living and that jumping from the bridge would be a fatal and tragic event, for themselves and for others. I’ve seen these types of signs before but I think this is the first time I’ve seen two clergy-type people stationed on a bridge. At least they looked clergy-like with flowing robes and an important book in their hand. They appeared to be pleasant.

After I returned from my walk across the bridge and back, we drove up to one of the higher lookout points to take a couple of photos.

We then crossed back into San Francisco and enjoyed a little down time before heading to Fisherman’s Wharf for supper. We were going to take a Cable Car, but all hell broke loose when a large tourist group came by and took up the whole Cable Car, so we decided to take a taxi. It was cheaper and less stressful.

We ate at No. 9 Fisherman’s Grotto where we had a pleasant view.

Earl looks sophisticated while perusing the menu.

Cub makes his choices quickly and then uses his iPhone.

I’m not a huge lover of seafood but I found my supper to be tasty. I don’t know what I ate but there was a butter sauce involved.

After dinner we walked around Fisherman’s Wharf for a while and tried to not be like the other tourists that were milling about. I guess we’re snobby like that. After a bit we hopped a cap back to our hotel where we relaxed and then decided to call us a night. This Pacific Time Zone thing is kind of hard.

So far I really like San Francisco, though I don’t really find it to be a place that I would want to live, though I know I would enjoy visiting it on a regular basis. I guess I’m a country boy at heart and find it a little crowded. I love the vibe of the city though.