Geek

Sign Geek strikes again.

Originally uploaded by macwarriorny.

I’ve mentioned before that I am a huge “road enthusiast”. I love driving. I love roads. And I especially love road signs.

ADOT, otherwise known as the Arizona Department of Transportation, has the best signing practices in the entire country, bar none. Whenever I complain about another signing gaff to NYSDOT, I always tell them, take a vacation in Arizona and see how they do it.

To the average motorist, you probably don’t see much of a difference in the design of this sign from those on your own commute. But there are subtle differences that makes this sign better. I won’t bore you with the details, but I just had to say that ADOT rocks.

By the way, I climbed up an embankment at a rest area to get this shot.

Today I had a typical IM conversation with someone I often converse with:

Them: What are your plans for Easter?
Me: Earl and I are doing our traditional Easter picnic close to home, probably at the Town Park, because I’m on call.
Them: What?
Me: (cut and paste) Earl and I are doing our traditional Easter picnic close to home, probably at the Town Park, because I’m on call.
Them: I can’t hear you.
Me: What?
Them: They’re running a floor sander over my desk.
Me: What?
Them: I have to watch for blinking lights.
Me: I have no idea what you are talking about.
Them: Good-bye.

When I got home for lunch today, I was unfortunately not surprised to find that our high speed internet connection was dead once again. It typically goes dead during the day, a fine example of the quality service from Adelphia Communications, the local bankrupt cable provider in our area.

I called their tech support number, on my cell phone which I thankfully have not canceled as of yet, though I do intend on doing so, and reached their automation hell. I was prompted to enter my ten digit phone number and then select from the 65 or so options as to what my problem was. After jumping through several menus and numerous hoops, their system bonked some touch tones in my ear, apparently in an effort to transfer me to a human. I reached friendly Dave, who the inquired as to my home telephone number (which I had already punched in), my address, my account number (let me check the tattoo on my ass for that one) and my social security number. Asking me for my social security number always makes me bristle. I mean, what does my internet connection have to do with the benefits I’ll receive or my tax return? Is that number suppose to be a guarded number and not thrown about like something trivial like one’s net worth or age? Dave demanded the social security number so that they knew they were talking to the right person in the interest of security. I gave him the last four digits and told him that I strongly object to this method of confirming one’s identity. I highly recommended that everyone make the same amount of noise when it comes to your social security number; no one except select organizations in the federal government should care about your social security number. Everyone screams about a National ID card and then gives out their social security number to just about anyone. It’s just wrong.

Anyways, Dave pittered and pattered on a keyboard within his reach while my modem was unplugged and ran some diagnostics. He couldn’t see my end of the circuit. I resisted the urge to say “No shit, Jiffy-Pop, the modem is unplugged.” but instead I went along with his script. He needs to send a technician out to the house. On Thursday. Between 1 and 3 p.m.

This is not good. I’m on call this week and I rely on a working internet connection. Dave didn’t care. I have to be here at the house on Thursday between 1 and 3 p.m. Yeah, yeah, whatever. I’ll leave a love note for the Adelphia tech to get a clue.

Earl has joined the blogosphere. I never thought I’d see it happen, but he loves the new version of MovableType and is now maintaining his own blog. You can see it here.

I am writing this blog entry as Earl and I are in transit on our way home from Northern Virginia. Sometimes I’m amazed at how much technology has really changed our lives and changed society in general. For example, I was able to talk to my sister today while riding between Carlisle and Harrisburg, Pa. along Interstate 81. She was in Toronto at the time. The first time I rode that stretch of road, in the summer of 1976, that conversational feat would have been unheard of. Today it’s commonplace.

Further up the road, I received a call from our friend and fellow blogger Terry. He lives in Michigan. He called to tell us that he is going to be featured Wired magazine next month, reaching the desired übergeek status. Congratulations to Terry!

As I’m typing this blog entry on the PowerBook, I am making changes to our planned trip next month out west and tweaking our route. While doing that, I am tracking our progress along Interstate 81 via GPS. At this moment we are 1503 feet above sea level, with 169.6 miles to go until we reach home. Our expected time of arrival is 18:03 (6:03 p.m.). We are traveling at 70 MPH.

Isn’t technology grand?

You may have noticed that I’m sprucing up the graphics on the site. I just took a gander at the site here at work and see that Windows is rendering the new graphics way too dark. I guess it’s a Windows vs. Mac sort of thing. I’ll be working on it more tonight, please be patient.

I was looking for a desktop background to spruce up my work computer and went back to a site I hadn’t been to in a number of years. Take a look at Digital Blasphemy if you want to see some really creative work. They have a free gallery with quite a few scenes to choose from. My favorite is “The Grid”.

My blogger friend Thom posted a little bit about himself from A to Z today and I found it so interesting that I thought I would do the same.

Here we go.

Accent: I have a touch of Toronto, Ontario in the way I speak because I had a Canadian voice coach in college and when I was trying to neutralize my Central New York nasal sound when I was in radio, I paid very close attention to disc jockeys on Energy 108 from Toronto and the CBC’s “As It Happens”.
Booze of Choice: I’m not much of a drinker, but I do like beer or two from time to time. Or five.
Chore I Hate: Folding whites. Too many darn socks!
Dog or Cat: Cat. Tom is our son. I’ve only had one dog in my life; when I was growing up we had Sunshine, a German Shepherd/Husky mix. She liked to sleep in the snow.
Essential Electronics: If it beeps, bonks or flashes, I’m interested.
Favorite Cologne: Not a huge fan of cologne, I prefer to just smell like myself.
Gold or Silver: Gold. It works better with my skin coloring.
Hometown: Pulaski. I’ll let you guess the state.
Insomnia: Rarely. Earl is jealous of the fact that I can say I’m going to sleep and be asleep within three minutes, anywhere, at anytime.
Job Title: Officially I am a Network Operations Center Technician II at a local telephone company. I prefer “Mr. Telephone Man”.
Kids: Thought about it, never pursued it.
Living Arrangement: In a beautiful house with my partner of almost 10 years.
Most Admired Trait: I have no idea. I have been called “Mary Sunshine” at work but not in the last couple of months. Maybe I need to work on that.
Number of Sexual Partners: Not as many as you would think. I tend to add to the number in groups. Kidding.
Overnight Hospital Stays: It’s been a while, but quite a few when I was a kid. The last one was when I was 17. It was two nights. Bionics Upgrade.
Phobia: I used to have a huge fear of elevators but I got over that. I guess the only phobia I have is electric shock therapy; I can’t think about it and I can’t stand the sight of anyone getting it. I have to leave the room if I see it occurring on a television show or something.
Quote: “Life is such a sweet insanity.” Totally stolen from the theme song of “The Hogan Family”, as performed by Roberta Flack in the late 1980s.
Religion: Baptized Methodist, now I just focus on spirituality, but if it had to be nailed down I’m probably closest to Wiccan.
Siblings: A younger sister.
Time I Wake Up: 1 1/2 hours before the start of work (it varies). On the weekend, between 8 and 9.
Unusual Talent/Skill: I can roll a barrel across my folks’ back lawn without falling off.
Vegetable I Refuse To Eat: None. Bring ’em on baby.
Worst Habit: Venting my frustration. Loudly.
X-rays: Quite a few, the latest was in 1992 when I had to be tested for TB for a job. I’m allergic to the TB test stuff, so I always ended up getting an x-ray every year.
Yummy Foods I Make: Anything that you would find in a diner. I love to make french fries. Unfortunately, I don’t do that much anymore. My arteries were becoming too clogged.
Zodiac Sign: Cancer.

Ever since I entered the corporate world back in 1988, I’ve been hearing that we are eventually going to switch to a paperless office. No matter where I work, we’re going to do our part to save the trees and go electronic. I heard this back when I worked on dumb terminals connected to a mainframe and I’ve heard it as recently as yesterday.

Today I decided to do something about it.

I’ve mentioned before that I’m saddled with a Windows XP computer at work in all it’s unstable glory, complete with Office 2003 with all the bells and whistles. When taking trouble calls, I usually keep a pad and pen near me so I can jot down particulars before creating a trouble ticket. I’ve always found this process time consuming. So today I downloaded a trial version of Microsoft OneNote, which is specifically designed for taking notes.

OneNote is geared more towards college students and from what I understand really shines on a TabletPC, which allows you to save handwritten notes using an electronic stylus as a pen, much like a credit card signature pad found at the market or your favorite department or electronics store.

So now I’m poised at the computer electronically jotting notes into OneNote. I’m finding the software interface a little clunky as I retrain myself to click and type instead of just writing, but if I can save a tree or two in the process then it’s all worth it.

It’s a heck of a lot different than that Manpower gig I had back in 1988 where the manager I worked for (as an administrative assistant) asked me to print out all her e-mails for her!

I think I’ll hug a tree in celebration once the weather warms up.

I am a fan of web portals for my start page when I open my web browser. I’ve bounced around between a couple, Google, My Yahoo and My MSN being the three that I like the best. I also like the direction the new Windows Live portal is heading, though I’m still a Mac fanatic through and through.

Today I found a portal that I absolutely love. Take a gander at Netvibes. It has clean, simple to configure interface that works with the majority of popular browsers.

Way cool.