Geek

It was 130 years ago today that Alexander Graham Bell held the first telephone conversation known to man.

“The number you have reached is not in service. If you wish to make a call, please deposit 10 cents, 30 cents if you’re calling Alaska, Hawaii or Puerto Rico. This is a recording.”

How far we’ve come in telecommunications in 130 years. Where will we be 130 years from now? Heck, where will be 10 years from now?

Sign Geek.

Originally uploaded by macwarriorny.

I mentioned a a month or so ago that I am an avid road geek. I love all things roadly, including maps and especially signs.

I maintain a road site about the roads in Upstate New York. While it’s an ad free site (and shall always remain that way), I was approached about advertising for a local road sign manufacturer. Not wanting to accept money, I traded a couple of signs for some premium space on my site. Here’s the last of the signs they sent me, a custom sign with our hometowns on it.

I’m a happy road geek today!

Latham Circle Diner.

Originally uploaded by macwarriorny.

Earl and I went to Albany this afternoon basically just to goof off. We stopped at Crossgates Mall while we were there and made a very necessary stop at the Apple store.

I’ve been thinking about getting my computer skills officially certified so that I would be more valuable as I follow my career path to employment nirvana. Because of this, I’ve been toying with the idea of getting a Windows based laptop to add to our stable of computers so that I’d have something to practice my PC skills on.

I’ve been looking around online for the past week or so and had a couple of ideas in mind. Earl and I went to Best Buy, CompUSA and Circuit City in search of this particular Gateway Tablet PC I had decided on.

I couldn’t bring myself to make the purchase.

I’m in love with my PowerBook G4. We’ve been through a lot together and I couldn’t stand the thought of casting it aside when it came to improving and enhancing my computer skills. So instead we quadrupled the memory in my PowerBook so that I could run Virtual PC if the need arises.

After a five minute install job, I’m now kickin’ the limit at 2GB of RAM. (That’s a really big chunk of memory for those not familiar with how this sort of thing works. It’s a good thing.)

My PowerBook and I have a solid relationship once again. Once you go Mac, you never go back.

Here I am pictured at the Latham Circle Diner, ready to have a Greek salad after enjoying a cup of French Onion Soup. Below is a picture of Earl enjoying his salad. We love the Latham Circle Diner. If you’re looking for it, take I-87 toward Montréal and get off at Exit 6 and head toward Latham. It’s on the circle about 3/4 mile east of the Northway (I-87), hence the name. It’s your basic diner, but oh so good.

At last! It has been announced that The Secrets of Isis will be out on DVD soon!

Oh Zephyr Winds which blow on high
Lift me now so I can fly!

Over the past week or two, I’ve been thinking about my career and what certifications I’d like to get in my field so that I can be a better employee to anyone that will have me. I’ve determined that I am going to get my Cisco certification, as a CCNA to start out (that’s sort of the entry level certification) and then go on from there in an operating system.

I had been thinking about becoming Microsoft certified.

My workplace is becoming all Microsoft centric, slowly losing all connections to its original Unix and Linux roots, and since I’m a good little worker bee (when I’m not rebelling), I’ve been trying to keep my computer within corporate limits and play the Microsoft way.

It’s a lot of work.

While I definitely can see why Microsoft does the things it does, I just find myself enjoying my computer much more when I come home and play with our Macs.

Thank the Universe for Mac OS X.

Last night Earl and I, along with our friends Tim and Steve, stopped at the Apple store here in Rochester (it’s a new one!) to take a look at the new Intel Macs and such. I was REALLY tempted to by something, especially during tax return season, but we did not. And that’s o.k.

I didn’t really need to buy anything for me to know deep down in my heart that once I went Mac, I’d never go back.

So bye bye to any thoughts of Microsoft certification after I do my Cisco stuff, I’m moving on to something else.

O.k. I admit that I’ve O.D.’d on technology over the past couple of days. I’m at the point where I want to throw out all the non-Mac computers I have in the basement. (I’ll probably just give them out to family members as presents though.) I’m selling off unwanted clocks in my collection. I haven’t turned on my cell phone in quite a few days.

Pretty sad when your job is technology based, isn’t it?

I think I’m going to read a book instead of surfing the internet tonight. Perhaps Earl and I will play a board game. If we watch the State of the Union we could call it a Bored Game. I won’t watch the State of the Union though because I can’t stand Bush Lite’s “I can’t believe I’m President!” look whenever he speaks in public. I read his expression as “These dumb asses voted me in!” I’ve seen more intellectual expressions on roadkill.

What was I saying? Oh yes, technology. I’m in the mood where I don’t want to touch tone my way to a phone call. I want to DIAL the phone. There’s too much in the way of beeping and flashing lights going on around me today. “Thank you for calling Diggem Funeral Home. If a family member has died, press 1. If you’re still breathing, press 2. If someone close to you is ready to flat line, press 3.” Why can’t people answer the friggin’ phone anymore? Don’t screen me, I’m important.

Now I’m babbling. On a computer. Maybe I’ll shut the Powerbook for a while.

Serious Geek.

Originally uploaded by macwarriorny.

As I whittle the day away playing on the computer, taking care of work stuff and catching up on laundry, I’m finding that my eyes were getting a little tired.

So here I am in my Clark Kent persona. Savor the picture, it’s rare that I wear my glasses.

The geek in me is shining through this week as I jump back into “Sim City 4”. For those not familiar with the game, you basically build your own city, your own little country actually, with residents called Sims and money called Simoleons. Being the “road geek” that I am, I have the “Traffic Jam” add-on pack which allows you to build more complex highway networks in your city.

I can never get the budget to balance correctly (small surprise there), so I unashamedly use cheat codes to give myself free money. Sort of like the current administration at the White House. I figure if Bush Lite can do it than so can I.

Anyways, in the past when I’ve played Sim City until all hours of the night I’ve had odd dreams afterwards in that I would dream that I was actually living in the city that I had built. I’d hear the music in the background. I’d wander aimlessly around the streets that I had built to nowhere or to the airport that was bigger than the city itself.

Even though I thoroughly enjoy the game, I do have a problem with my “Sims”. For example, I put two male Sims in the same house and I can’t get them to hook up with each other. There never seems to be an interest, despite the flowers and candy. It’s not as bad in Sim City 4 as it is in the game “The Sims” where attention is paid mostly to the residents (Sim City focuses on the city itself); I never remember to give my Sims in that game a toilet and then they bounce around and eventually poop on the living room table. Then I feel bad.

Nevertheless, as winter has finally arrived and I deal with trouble calls this week, I’ll probably pass some time playing “Sim City 4”. It’s a good way to exercise my inner geek.

I think Earl wants to kill me tonight. I was home for maybe 15 minutes and I started trying to apply all the knowledge I learned in my computer network seminar. Click, click, apply. “The internet is going down for 2 minutes.” Click, click, apply. “The internet is going down for three minutes.” (Audible sigh from his area).

I gave him a glass of Bailey’s to ease him through the rough spots. I took a shot myself to ease me through the rough spots.

Things are working faster though. 🙂

Earl and I have been talking about my cell phone for the past couple of weeks. It hasn’t been the primary focus of all our conversations or anything like that, but the contract with Cingular is finally coming to an end in a month or two (after a seemingly eternity of the ‘basic’ plan that costs more than our high speed internet connection) and we’re trying to decide if I should continue to have a cell phone or not.

I’m not a big talking on the phone type of person, even though I work for a telephone company. Isn’t it ironic, don’t you think? I’d rather gab over e-mail or instant messenger than talk on the telephone. I’ve always been that way. I remember my sister urging me to call a school friend during summer break between 4th and 5th grades and I didn’t know where to start or end the conversation so I think I just hung up after asking for the boy and then saying hello. I had broken out in a sweat and everything. Nevertheless, he stayed my friend all the way up through graduation.

I’ve never been a fan of cell phone use in public. I believe that if you’re having a phone conversation, you should be doing it in private. I’ve mentioned before that I’ve tripped people up that were not paying attention to anything except their phone conversation while they’re walking through the mall. I’ve stood in the middle of Miller Court at the New York State Fair and have loudly proclaimed, “Oh my GOD I’m at the State Fair and I must make a cell phone call RIGHT NOW!” just to irk those yakking on their phones around me. I’ve held my ground and not yielded to drivers trying to change lanes while talking on the phone, forcing them down an exit ramp.

You get my drift.

I had been waffling on the idea of going cell phoneless because of the worry of how would I get in touch with Earl in the event of an emergency. But then I think that millions of people survived for the past couple of milleniums without cell phones and I probably can as well. Plus, I’ve been inspired by fellow blogger Jimbo who has recently shunned his cell phone and he hasn’t lost any geek points for doing so.

Next time I see someone walking around with one of those flashing headset things in their ear (because they are very important you know), I now won’t feel a bit of remorse for slapping them for looking like a fool.