Geek

Last night I did something for the first time in my 37 years of existence on this planet. I sat down and watched an entire episode of “Star Trek: Enterprise.” I know the series has been cancelled and unfortunately I couldn’t watch it during it’s original run so I’m relegated to reruns on the New York NBC affiliate on Sunday nights, but I figured it was a good way to get acquainted with the series. One of the reasons that I wanted to see the show was to see what effects they used for the transporter sequences. I know that the transporter is rarely used during ST:E, apparently the crew is hesitant to use it since this series occurs early in Star Trek’s history and the technology is apparently new, but the week’s episode featured transporter use and I found the effect and accompanying sound effects to be way cool. Very retro with an updated look and sound, not overly glitzy.

I don’t know if I’ve mentioned this before, but back when “Star Trek V: The Final Frontier” was filming, I sent a hand-written letter with accompanying storyboards to Paramount describing how the transporter effect should appear in that movie. Remember, this was 1987 or so, before massive adoption of the internet and web browsing and all that, and I can’t draw anything to save my life, so drawing out these storyboards was quite an undertaking. Surprisingly, someone at Paramount did write me back (though I’ve long lost the letter) and said that they would consider my idea. Unfortunately, I’ve never seen it used. I guess I’ll have to recreate it in Apple Motion 2 with myself as the subject and post it to my Video Gallery someday.

This past weekend I downloaded some trial versions of Adobe software to mess around with, mainly GoLive CS2 (for web page design and development), Photoshop CS2 (I currently use Macromedia Fireworks) and Adobe After Effects. I have to tell you that aside from GoLive CS2, I didn’t like using these programs at all. The thing I noticed right off the bat is that installing the software slowed down my PowerBook a lot. Is that normal? Even if the programs weren’t open the computer ran slower. Booting up my PowerBook seemed to take forever. Once I completely uninstalled the try-out software, my PowerBook returned to its old self. I was a Microsoft fanatic for many years before crossing over to the Mac side and I must say that I do not miss the experience of “installing” software. I like the Mac stuff that you basically just drag and drop into your ‘Applications’ folder. It just seems tidier. If there’s a reboot involved after installing the software, there’s a good chance you’re going to have issues.

I heard a piece on NPR over the weekend on how popular it has become to Google someone. If you’re not familiar with Google, it’s a search engine that allows you to search web pages on the internet and a whole lot more!

Here’s how it works. Say you’re going on a blind date with someone named John Doe. You go to Google and type “John Doe”, including the quotes, and then type the name of the city John lives in, like “Walla Walla”. There’s advantages and disadvantages to including the city name. First of all, it narrows down the search to “John Doe” in your city, rather than every John Doe in the world. However, if John Doe is on the web but that page doesn’t mention what city he’s from, Google is going to skip over it. This will turn up various results, for example what interests he may have, any criminal records that have appeared in newspapers and if he’s been really liberal with surfing, any sexual activities he may be in to.

Anyways, I’ve been Googling people for years and have passed many a night looking up old friends, old romances and everything. It’s particularly fun when you look up an old flame on Google’s image search. At times you can revel in how haggard that young stud has become!

My old college roommate recently found me through a web search. We haven’t talked in nearly 20 years and have been exchanging e-mails back and forth for the past week catching up on a little bit of our lives. I mentioned an old mutual college friend that was from his hometown (so he knew her much better than I did) and he said that she had become a opera singer. I haven’t even thought about her since college (except maybe fleetingly) and now I’m interested in hearing some of her work. That’s kind of cool.

I must admit that I’m vain enough to Google myself. This blog often ranks high up on Google’s search results, especially if you Google the title “Life Is Such A Sweet Insanity.” I even beat out the television show I stole the title from (it’s a line from the theme to “Valerie”/”Valerie’s Family”/”The Hogan Family” starring Valerie Harper and then later Sandy Duncan.) If you search the same phrase through Google groups, you see newsgroup entries I made as early as 1994.

I guess the moral of the story is to always be aware of what you’re typing on the internet. Anyone, anywhere, can find it at anytime.

I am typing this entry at work. Yes, it is 11:01 p.m. Eastern Time as I’m doing it. Our little network monitoring system here at work decided it wanted to go on strike and stop monitoring our customers’ systems. Figures. It runs on Windows.

I am probably going get a nice butt-kissing award for this, but I really don’t mind coming into the office at night if the situation warrants it. It gets my geek juices flowing. It lessens the stress of trying to do my work from home over a crappy VPN (connecting to my work computer) connection. And I like my job very much, which is a bonus.

Plus, I’ve got that ‘love to drive at night’ thing going on.

So I sit, wait and watch the network monitoring system for a little bit to make sure that’s its working properly before going home to get back in bed. While I’m here, I might as well make use of the really fast internet connection we have; there’s no one looking right now.

Sometimes its fun to work for the phone company that also owns an internet ISP!

Inspired by discovering the fan film “Star Wars: Revelations” yesterday, I did a little research online and found an absolutely wonderful fan film project in the spirit of Star Trek. There’s a complete episode documenting an adventure of the “Starship Exeter”, with a second episode in production. Like the Star Wars fan film, I am in awe of the cinematography and special effects involved with these productions! You can take a peek at the Starship Exeter project at starshipexeter.com. I’m particularly impressed with the teaser/titles clip of “The Tressaurian Intersection”. Go all the way to the end and watch the opening credits and listen to how good the music is! Wicked cool! I haven’t had goosebumps listening to music in a long while, but I got goosebumps when I heard that original piece.

These projects remind me of a lame attempt to film a “fan film” of Bewitched back in 1988 with myself as a flamboyant long lost relative of Samantha’s. Using an 8 mm camera, a few lights, some helpful friends, an old DEC Rainbow computer and a cat, I popped in and out, zapped a change of clothes and basically kicked up my heels as a witch like the best of them. ‘Tis a pity I lost the films in a breakup 15 years ago. I fear that they’re going to show up somewhere, someday!

I feel another project stirring on the horizon…. Hmmm….

When I was a kid, I always had to be reading something. The newspaper, a magazine, my grandmother’s “old ladies’ paper” (Enquirer, Star, etc.), a sci-fi book… it didn’t matter, if I wasn’t watching television or goofing off in the back 40, I was reading something. My mother one time came down as we were all getting ready for the day and I was sitting on the toilet reading the phone book. (Don’t ask why she walked on me while I was sitting on the john, now that I look back on it it seems kind of odd.) When you grow up in a small town like Pulaski, N.Y., there’s not much of a phone book to read, but I like to think that reading that phone book prepared me for my present career as a telephone man.

Anyways, I’ve found my reading habit has translated well to the world of bits and bytes. I am adding more and more blogs to my blog roll on a daily basis. I’ve shunned making fun of people in the reality television message boards and usenet groups in favor of peering into the life of someone else that is living their life out loud on the internet. Why audition for CBS when you can put it all right here, forever archived on a computer backup tape?

I have a feeling that my current enjoyment in blogging will continue. I find it all so fascinating. People talking about comics, men talking their latest conquest, writers sharing their latest toys. It’s a wonderful way to keep your finger on the pulse of the people.

It’s also a great outlet for rambling on about the most trivial of things. It’s right up my alley.

Ain’t technology grand. I’m finding myself using iChatAV more and more these days. Now my mother is on there (through AOL Instant Messenger) and we’re video chatting back and forth. Once my sister gets her internet connection going while she’s in Russia, it will be a much cheaper way to keep in touch!

My little indicator over there on the right side of my blog page lets you know when I’m online if you want to drop a line and say hello.

Now I have to remember to keep my clothes on.

No internet connectivity from 4:00 p.m. yesterday until 5:30 a.m. today due to a widespread outage in the area. I’m still recovering. But looking at the bright side, the shakes have finally subsided.

O.k., I’m baffled by this one. According to this article, those affected by Hurricane Katrina that wish to apply for aid online from FEMA MUST use Internet Explorer 6.

For those not familiar with the software, Internet Explorer is a web browser bundled in with Windows, which allows you to browse the internet. It’s what lurks behind the big “E” on the Windows desktop.

So this FEMA website can not be accessed by anyone with a non-Microsoft (Mac, Linux, Unix, etc.) computer, as well as those running Firefox instead of Internet Explorer (usually due to security concerns like adware, malware, viruses, etc.) or any older computer that hasn’t been upgraded to the latest version of the software.

While the internet was designed to be accessible by all, regardless of operating system or platform used, Microsoft has introduced several proprietary extensions to Internet Explorer that stray from the standard, and leave other web browsers out in the cold.

Nice planning FEMA. If you don’t have a Windows computer, you can call FEMA directly at 1-800-621-FEMA (1-800-621-3362).

I’m trying to be a good little soldier at work and play by the system administrator’s rules. This is unusual for me because after all, I know it all, but nevertheless I figured I should set a good example by using all the correct tools provided on our computers for our job. Unfortunately, this means I must use Windows XP, Internet Explorer and Microsoft Outlook.

I’ve installed the “MSN Toolbar” so that I can have tabs in Internet Explorer. Since I’ve done this, it’s hosed my “Internet Options” screen so that every time I try to make a change, the program freezes and I have to “force quit” it. (Sorry for the Apple lingo there).

In Outlook, when I delete a message, it stays there until I “Purge Deleted Items”. Sounds like a supermodel fantasy, but it’s an unnecessary extra step.

Also in Outlook, whenever our database program tries to send an e-mail out automatically, I have to answer “Yes” to a “Another program is accessing your e-mail!” dialog box twice, wait 10 seconds and then do it again. I must say that’s a glowing example of productivity.

Then we have Updates automatically downloading, virus programs installing new virus definition files and all other sorts of bits and bytes horseshit.

Can you tell I’m getting a little frustrated here?

Nevertheless, I’ll get through it. Can’t guarantee that the monitor will make it in one piece though.

I’m going to give my PowerBook a hug when I get home tonight.

Never fear, jpnearl.com is back online again. I logged on from our hotel suite here in Buffalo and to my horror, discovered that our domain name registration had expired! A few frantic keystrokes of credit card numbers and voila, it’s back, and renewed until 2015. The world is suppose to end in 2012, so now we’ll be able to give up to the minute coverage of armageddon.