Geek

Since I didn’t come home for lunch yesterday and because I had school last night, I am catching up on my daily blog reading this morning. It has been very interesting, and as usual, proves yet again that I am completely clueless about some things as I exist in my own little rosy world.

Apparently some bloggers are accused of plagarizing material from another blogger. They change the names, alter the location, and viola “the very same thing happened to them!”. Word for word! To me that’s just wrong. Now I will admit that I have found other blog entries quite inspiring over the years, inspiring enough for me to write a similar story of something equally as interesting/humorous/etc that happened to me. But the thought of lifting material from another blog without giving the original poster their props has never crossed my mind. I’ve borrowed pictures, I’ve lifted quotes once or twice, but I’ve always directed my gentle reader to whereever I lifted the stuff from.

I guess I’ve never thought of blogging as a competition. But then again, I’ve always lived in my own little existence.

I think I’m going to go ballistic about spam. Lately I’ve been getting several hundred e-mails a day offering me all sorts of pills, potions and other mists and assorted self improvement items. Then we have the wainkers telling me my Key Bank ATM card expired. Of course it did, I closed the account in 1988 when I moved to Massachusetts. It’s funny how these things catch up to you.

I’m thinking of relying solely on the .Mac e-mail account and getting rid of my jpnearl.com e-mail account for a month or two so that I can tell the spam to basically shove off. But then I feel like the spammers have actually won.

Do people really believe these spam messages or are they just out there now to annoy people? I can’t imagine anyone really believing that they can forward an e-mail and get paid by Microsoft for doing it. Hello? Where did Microsoft get your mailing address to send the check? Please people, think before you click. I blame AOL. They’re the ones that brought the internet to the masses with their caps lock nimrods and ridiculous abbreviations. Personally, I don’t believe a single person that says LOL to something I type. I find it hard to believe that they actually laughed out loud. They might have smiled, perhaps giggled, but if I was “LOL” funny I’d be doing stand-up as the warm up act for Rosie O’Donnell or something, not sitting here venting in a blog that probably no one reads.

Spam? Feed it to me, don’t send it to me.

While at work today I stumbled across this article that gives ten tips on how to be a good blogger. I found it quite interesting and thought you would too. Maybe I’ll even take some of the advice and incorporate these points into “Life Is Such A Sweet Insanity.”

I rarely do these type of blog thingees, but I saw this on Karl’s blog and I thought I’d give it a whirl for myself.

I think I’m a little surprised by the response!

You Are Austin

A little bit country, a little bit rock and roll. You’re totally weird and very proud of it. Artistic and freaky, you still seem to fit in… in your own strange way. Famous Austin residents: Lance Armstrong, Sandra Bullock, Andy Roddick

On Monday I was speaking with one of my work associates in Syracuse when she had mentioned she had seen my name in the local newspaper, The Syracuse Post-Standard. Now I haven’t been arrested lately nor have I done anything more erratic than usual that would cause a public stir so I couldn’t imagine why my name was appearing in the newspaper. She couldn’t remember the article, just that she had seen my name and said “I know him!”.

It turns out I was mentioned on page A-2 of the *Sunday* paper this past weekend, in reference to my roadgeek website, Upstate New York Roads.

Apparently, I have been named “York Stater of the Month” for my contribution to Upstate New York.

I have to admit that the recognition makes me feel good.

My work associate sent me a clipping of the article via interoffice mail, where it will now be displayed on the refrigerator, next to the printout of my first CAD drawing I did in my first class at school last night.

Dash Home.

Originally uploaded by bluemarvel.

For the past year or so I’ve been in the habit of running home at lunch time to catch up on blogging and any light household chores I might have to do. It’s also a great way for me to break my work day up, lose some stress and keep my head focused on whatever I’m suppose to be focusing on.

I’m fortunate in that my work building is only six miles or so from the house. As you can see by this photo, the roads aren’t very busy when I dash home from work and time the traffic lights just right.

Even though traffic is light, sometimes I feel like I’m driving through a video game where random objects are thrown in front of you and you have nanoseconds to make a split decision; should I run over the little old lady from Pasadena that’s driving 25 on the freeway or should I slow down and give her some navigating room. It can be a tough decision to make.

One other thing that I’ve noticed on the “mad dash” is that people are not turning right on red anymore, something that’s been perfectly legal in these parts since 1974. I don’t know if it’s from a lack of education for our younger drivers or because people are too busy trying to drive, put on makeup and/or shave and talk on the cell phone while driving their Land Yacht through the city. While I used to become frustrated by this, I know chalk it up to another obstacle in the aforementioned video game.

It doesn’t cloud my clarity if I keep things in perspective.

I was flipping through the channels the other day rather disgusted with what our hundreds of channels were offering in the way of “entertainment”. Reality shows, depressing news, infomercials, commercials, commercials and more commercials; it seemed like there was nothing on.

And then I stumbled across one of our favorite channels, Logo. And there she was, larger than life as always, and looking just as good as she did a little over 10 years ago when I first discovered her.

Welcome back my TiVo To Do List, Xena: The Warrior Princess. Thank the Universe for reruns.

By the way, the rumors are true, I do have my own chakram. It’s a cheap imitation, it never returns to me when I throw it.

Providing technical support to customers can sometimes be very interesting. Working in the telecommunications field, you get all sorts of people asking questions you could never even begin to imagine. With part of our company devoted to telephone and toll-free service, we have lovers leaving voice messages in “secret voicemail boxes”, sex line operators calling in with sexual harassment complaints, the list goes on and on.

Today was an exercise in tacky.

Now, I’m going to tell you up front that I’m not going to provide a link to the website I’m about to discuss. But the site in question is for a funeral home and it is an exercise in tacky right from the start.

Normally, when one thinks of a funeral home, they think of a somber, respectful place where family and friends can pay their last respects to a loved one. Personally, I think the website for a funeral home should be an extension of that atmosphere, it should be designed to be informative and respectful and should maintain a certain amount of dignity.

The website is nothing like that. There’s scrolling messages proclaiming sales. There’s a timer/clock thing that follows your mouse around the screen and when you land on the site, a woman’s voice comes booming through your speakers in an effort to sound God like. I found it so startling that I don’t even remember what it says.

Mind you, as I’m browsing this site, I have the customer on the phone and am trying to address some technical issues.

So I take a look around the site, which gives the weather in both fahrenheit and celsius, and then I jump to a registration page where music comes blaring out and it’s, get ready for it…

… “Dust In The Wind”. In glorious “I bought it at K-mart in 1987” Casio Keyboard splendor.

After listening to some music I then notice another link on the site.

TO THEIR WEBCAM.

The webcam shows the front steps so that people may get a glimpse of “pall bearers, the hearse, the automatic sprinklers or someone shoveling snow!” The cam can be repositioned to face inside the funeral home if requested.

Groovy.

I am proud to say that I maintained my professionalism the entire time while working with the customer on his website. Thank goodness the music and floating doodads are relegated to the Internet Explorer users.

Well here it is Saturday night in our merry little household. Tom is asleep at my feet. I noticed today that the fur around his ears has a new reddish tinge to it, obviously someone put a little too much hydrogen peroxide in his skunk cleaning solution (hydrogen peroxide, baking soda and dish detergent) and gave the cat a dye job. We’re the trendiest folks on the block. He smells much better these days, has highlights to match. Next thing you know he’ll be “soaking in it”, the dish detergent that is, just as Madge said for all those years.

I’ve been nothing short of a full blown geek today, working on some road related stuff for my road enthusiast website and designing new sign panels for suggestions to NYSDOT. They must love me. I wonder how that first interview will go after I’m a real traffic engineer. “Oh yes, we remember YOU. GET OUT PEASANT!” I hope it doesn’t go like that as I try to be quite constructive with my comments. Anyway, I’ve been doodling on Fireworks, here’s a sample:

No big deal to the common motorist, but a vast improvement over the signs that currently stand at this location.

Earl is off to the local casino hopefully winning lots and lots of money. He’s been working on his poker strategy. I’m hoping that he’s having a good time. He is much more talented than I could ever dream of being when it comes to gambling. I think I feel too guilty when I lose and that impedes any strategy I might have.

The wind is blowing like crazy and it’s a cold wind. There’s a definite chill of autumn in the air tonight, courtesy of the remnants of Ernesto.

It’s going to be good sleeping weather tonight!

Last weekend I mentioned that I was giving the latest version of Microsoft Windows, Vista Ultimate, a spin on the lone PC in the house. I had found the newest offering to be “pretty” but a little confusing for the seasoned Windows power user. It also caused our Airport Extreme base station to lock up. Talk about not playing nice with others! I’d browse the internet a little bit and then I’d find that none of the computers in the house could communicate with the outside, nor with each other.

Hasta La Vista, Vista Ultimate.

I haven’t quite figured out what I’m going to do when I start school and have to run Windows based programs in the name of education, but for the time-being I’m back to Ubuntu Linux, and it’s running better than ever. I have it looking just as pretty as Vista Ultimate did. In fact, I think it looks even better.

If you want further information on what Ubuntu can do for you, drop me a line.