Curiosity.

So they were having this great deal on these little Asus Eee PC netbooks at work and I decided to jump in on the saving. Four weeks later, my new little netbook was sitting on the front porch waiting to be inducted into my little geekdom.

I dubbed it “scout-tux”. All of my Linux machines have tux in their name.

scout-tux came with Windows XP. I found this surprising, because not only is Windows XP 10 years old, but everyone has been telling me how wonderful Windows 7 is for these little machines. I decided not to care and loaded Ubuntu Maverick Netbook Edition on this little guy instead. Everything worked out of the box and he seems to be purring along nicely. Battery life was promised to be around six hours; he’s clock in around 3.5 hours. I can deal with that. He’s going to be a little test machine anyways, I use my iPad when I’m out and about on the road.

The built in webcam worked without any tweaking. I found this to be quite nice. The picture has that grainy quality of 2001, just like Windows XP, but I still like this little guy.

26 April 2011 by Geek 0

Bald.

I have a question for the bald men and their admirers. Do the cool kids still shave their head or has that been relegated to old farts and the younger, balding guys now go with the shadow buzzed look. Though I am never fashion conscious (Earl made me throw out my International Male parachute pants just last week), I am age conscious and while I am determined to age gracefully and without impediment, I don’t want to look older than I am. I have accepted the fact that my hair has gone from ginger to cinnamon and sugar and that the right side of my mustache is downright gray, but if I’m starting to look like an old fart before my time something has to be done.

I’m never going to comb over and I’m certainly never going to wear the high and tight flattop I had so long ago, but if I can save the minutes in the morning in an effort to look a little younger I’m going to do it.

26 April 2011 by Quirky. 0

Music.

Remember when Top 40 singers could really sing and play instruments and write music all on their own and then sound the same live as they did on the record?

A pure musical masterpiece, here’s Joni Mitchell with a live rendition of “Help Me”. One of my favorite songs of all time.

25 April 2011 by Music. 1

RSX.

Back in 2005 when we purchased the Acura RSX I talked about the fact that I had dreams of driving this car in the desert. I wanted to drive fast on the open road where I could legally do so.

It is six years later and I have not made this dream come true yet. The farthest west I’ve been in the car is just beyond St. Louis. Earl and I have been toying with the idea of getting a new car and I have been eyeing a new Jeep Wrangler. While this would be quite fun, it doesn’t quite make economic sense for a couple of reasons, including the fact that gas is damn expensive and I have a lengthy commute.

This morning before work I did a little research into all weather tires for the Acura, after all, the thought behind replacing it is because I don’t drive the car all year ’round. All weather tires aren’t nearly as bad as I thought they would be. I actually could buy all year tires and performance tires for the amount of money I thought just all year tires would be. The car is paid for and running quite well, so why would I want to add a car payment to the budget when I don’t have to? Just to drive something newer?

So I’ve been thinking that we need to keep the Acura for as long it’s economically feasible. Writing this down in my blog is my way of cementing that thought process. Besides, I look damn good behind the wheel and the car still handles like a dream. A little detailing and TLC and he’s ready to go vroom again.

Besides, we still have an appointment with the salt flats.

25 April 2011 by Fun and Games Dept 1

News.

I’m officially giving up on the American news media. This morning I listened to some woman use her “very spooky and scary” newscaster voice announce that stalkers are using the iPhones of mothers to steal children. The iPhone tags the photos with your GPS coordinates and when you upload your photo to Facebook, bad men are watching and will swoop in and steal your children right on the spot. At the very worst, they know where you have been.

The spooky and scary woman failed to mention:

– any sort of statistic as to how many of these abductions have happened
– how they’re getting the phones from the Moms
– the fact that most phones and many digital cameras do this, not just the iPhone
– the fact that the feature can easily be turned off
– any viable sense of urgency as to why this is headline news

Fox News is known for it’s rampant fear mongering (except to those that swear it’s the gospel) but most other news outlets are in it for the ratings and/or pledge money, so I don’t think any of them can be trusted. It’s kind of sad, but the most unbiased reports come from outside of the country… BBC, CBC, etc. Heck, even the English version of Al Jazeera gives a more balanced view. That’s kind of sad to me.

So for the morning commute I am sticking to tech podcasts, Stars on 45 and some of the GLBT podcasts. When I snap a photo of my ride, you’ll know where I am.

Just don’t steal my iPhone.

21 April 2011 by Let's All Rant. 2

Distraction.

I am totally addicted to Words With Friends, the Scrabble-like game on the iPhone, iPad, iPod and Android devices. I seem to recall reading that you could play through Facebook but I haven’t figured out how, yet.

I used to use a dictionary program to nudge me along but I stopped that a while back, it’s better to exercise the brain. I’m still kicking some major butt so all is well. Once in a while Earl will step in for one of my turns he’s gone on business so it’s all me.

If you want to play, my username is imachias.

Back to the game…

20 April 2011 by Fun and Games Dept 0

Confirmed.

The headache was due to a wonky caloric thing. I just had a cheeseburger breadstick at Dunkin’ Donuts and the headache is gone. The cheeseburger breadstick suspiciously looks and acts like a HotPocket but I can deal.

I need to adjust something in the diet this week. It’s fun living as your own science experiment.

The DD site does not list the calorie information for this stuffed breadstick, so I’ll just assign in 300 calories and leave it at that. I have no idea if that’s accurate or not.

19 April 2011 by Food. 2

Hungry.

The healthy eating bit is moving along fairly well this week. I am maintaining am building new eating habits again. They don’t really stick unless you’ve done them for at least 30 days in a row, and it’s only day 10. Ock. The only issue I’m having right now is I have a constant urge to gnaw on the side of my desk or something because I am always hungry. For lunch I had a beautiful sandwich made by the husbear and a little granola square chocolate thing that I ate in two bites. I have an apple waiting at my desk for when I get back to the office, despite the fact that I am not a teacher. Nevertheless, I am hungry right now, have been hungry for the past 20 minutes (since the completion of said granola square consumption) and I am eyeing the myriad of drive thrus that currently surround me. I am reciting the venomous chant of “saturated fat, saturated fat” to keep me motivated.

I added fruit back into the diet yesterday: a banana at breakfast and an apple at lunch. First of all, I am discovering that I’m not really an apple fan unless it’s in a pie or in a crisp. Raw apples do very little for me. I blame the fruit for making me feel hungry; I always feel hungrier after I eat the fruit versus prior to eating it. I do okay with bananas but the thing that bothers me about a banana is the “banana stomach” that comes about 30 minutes after consumption. Plus, I’ve heard that bananas might not be the best fruit for one to snack on. It’s got to be better than durian.

I’m trying to decide if the oncoming headache is related to being hungry or instead to the fact that the outside temperature yo-yos between 30 and 70 depending on the hour. Today I’m wearing a winter coat, tomorrow I’ll probably be want to be wearing my shorts to work.

I think I need to go through the DD drive thru and get an iced tea or something. I don’t want to be surly.

19 April 2011 by Ponderings and Musings 0

Family.

On the drive in this morning I took the opportunity to listen to the news. I don’t do this very often because hearing about the stupidity that is rampant in our country has a tendency to raise my blood pressure and sure enough, this little nugget of news did the trick.

The Town of Clifton Park (outside of Albany) is defining what constitutes a family in an effort to control the number of people living in a residential home. They’re trying to avoid the problem of single-family homes becoming boarding houses. They’re apparently worried about the wrong kind of urban sprawl (in their eyes). I see a veil of masked white supremacy, but then again, I can be cynical at times.

Quite frankly I hate this kind of shit.

Here’s the thing. First of all, I have the best biological family and in-laws in the world. I would not change one branch of my biological and related family tree. I love them and they love us and I am always quite grateful for that. But in addition to that which we were born and or married into, Earl and I have our own family. It might not be the traditional family unit that could be found next door to The Cleavers back in 1961 but it’s our family nonetheless and as a family unit, we are quite happy. There’s common ideals, there’s common hope and most importantly, there’s love. So if we lived in the Town of Clifton Park, we wouldn’t be able to have our family living under the same roof. Our home, which contains Earl and me, Jamie, Scott and the regular visits from Dave wouldn’t be possible, because we’re not blood related, Earl and I haven’t adopted anyone and the state of New York isn’t letting anyone of our ilk get married anytime soon. So basically, if we lived in the cranky town of Clifton Park, “do-gooders” (as my grandfather was fond of calling them) would be serving us papers, people would be picketing, Girls Scouts wouldn’t be allowed to sell us girl scout cookies (not even a box of Samoas) and then there would be lawsuits, a lack of a finely manicured landscaping around a beautiful house in ways only the gay can do and then I’d have to end the whole ordeal by firing a shotgun in the air like Ma Ingalls did when they were fighting over who was going to own Walnut Grove.

Why can’t the Town of Clifton Park just let people live and let live and not worry about defining the “family unit”. What makes a family? I’ve seen blood relations damn near kill each other. Would you want your neighbors to be the group that lives with one another in harmony, even though they’re not blood related or married, or a bunch of biologically related people who hate each other, throw knives, blow up cars and let their dogs poop in the lawn, but by god they’re blood related and/or got married in Vegas at a place where the Minister yells the vows back through the clown’s mouth at the drive thru stand?

Thought so.

Just another reason to add to my famous quote of: “Albany blows”. (I know, it’s Clifton Park, but it’s still in the general area, and if they’re going to be general, I’m going to be general).

18 April 2011 by Let's All Rant. 2

Cycle.

As we entered the office a week ago last Friday, we found one of our third shift co-workers holding the door open and watching for an ambulance. One of the technicians on the floor was experiencing chest pains, numbness and shortness of breath. The ambulance arrived just after we did, in the meantime I went int my stash of aspirin and offered the technician two of them, because I heard that’s what you should do when you’re having those kinds of symptoms. The ambulance came and the technicians did their thing before taking him away on a stretcher. They took him to a hospital in Albany.

I had spoken with this person only a couple of times since our shifts didn’t really allow us to cross paths, but he seemed nice enough and appeared to have a pleasant disposition. He probably would have been considered a ‘straight bear’. He had thanked me for the aspirin.

He passed on this past Friday evening. He had been in the ICU since arriving at the hospital. We had taken a collection for his family to help with the cost of staying in a hotel near the hospital. This morning one of his sons was given the money to help with the cost of the funeral arrangements. Services will be out of state near Chicago.

The cycle of life.

18 April 2011 by Ponderings and Musings 1

About J.P.

Just a guy with a husband. We’ve been together 28 years and he still makes me see fireworks on a daily basis. Hiker. Storm Chaser. Private Pilot. Tech Guy. Hackerish.

Weird? Eccentric!

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