Geek

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.

Earl and I have been talking about this for quite some time. Today I received confirmation. I head back to school in September with my first class – AutoCAD I.

I’m going to become a Traffic Engineer with a Civil Engineering degree.

I’m taking it one step at a time.

I need to get some AutoCAD under my belt so I can hit the ground running in January when I start hitting the college books. Assuming of course, that I survive AutoCAD I and then AutoCAD II later this fall.

As an avid motorist, I want to do my part in designing and marking roads so they are safer and easier to navigate. I’ve dabbled in the trade all my life, it’s time to get serious about it.

And at 38 years old, I’m sure I’ll be very popular at the keg parties.

I am writing this blog entry on a Windows computer this afternoon. That’s right, I said Windows computer. And said computer is in my house. It’s running one of the latest builds of Windows Vista Ultimate, pre-Release Candidate 1.

As a computer support tech, one of my responsibilities is to know what’s going on in the world of computers. That makes sense, right? Well, since Microsoft Windows is the operating system on most of the computers across this great land, then I need to be familiar with the ins and outs of the operating system. So I figured I’d jump ahead and start seeing what this Windows Vista thing is all about.

I’ve been messing with it for the past two hours and I do have a few comments.

1. It sure is pretty. I really like the aesthetics of using it. It looks good.
2. I’m still trying to figure out why things have been moved where they’ve been moved to. For example, to change your background picture, in Windows XP, you right click on the desktop and click “Desktop Properties” and go from there. In Windows Vista, you right click on the desktop and click “Personalize” then jump around in some dialog windows before getting to the familiar Windows XP screens. It’s a few extra clicks and may seem intuitive to a newbie, but I’m hoping Microsoft builds an “Express” option into the final product that lets power users click around like they’re used to doing in Windows XP.
3. For a pre-release candidate version of software, it’s pretty stable and responsive. I wasn’t expecting that.
4. It’s still Windows.

I’ve also installed the Office 12 Beta, as I’ve heard wonderful things about the latest incarnation of Office. For those that have grown up with Office in the corporate environment, when you first fire this baby up you’re going to have a few moments of panic as EVERYTHING looks different. But once you start jumping around a little bit and start figuring out where everything is, it isn’t as bad as it first appears. Just for fun I’m typing this blog entry in Microsoft Word and then I’m going to cut and paste it into my blog entry screen. Let’s see if I can successfully do that before switching back to Ubuntu Linux.

This all being said, I must say that Microsoft is making great strides in the world of Windows. Windows Vista is going to take some hefty horsepower to run with all the bells and whistles (my test computer barely makes the grade with a 2.0mhz Processor, 768MB RAM and a Radeon GeForce 7600 GS video card), but there are quite a few improvements in the system that should make surfing a more pleasant experience for Joe User.

However, I’m still very much in love with our Mac hardware and offer you a toast of Apple Kool-Aid.