Category Archives: About Me - Page 30

Wasted Away

Posted by on April 27, 2014 No comments

Wow.  That’s about it.  Wow.

It’s weird when you look back at yourself and think, “I thought that was normal?”  In the case I’m thinking about, it was an unknown infection sapping me of my life.  I accidently got it resolved during a doctor appointment for something completely unrelated.  The prescribed antibiotic knocked out the primary infection.

Within one day of the medication, I was totally different.  I slept better, I woke up easier, I didn’t have any fog or haze in my mind – I was alert.  I didn’t need to nap all the time.  And it fixed other, grosser, things, too.  Digestion-related things.  And it fixed even weirder things: my hair color started coming back and I had a renewed desire to listen to music again (believe it or not, I had stopped listening to music).  When I did a follow-up with the doc, I told him all this, and he didn’t really care what the problem was, he was glad for me that it was resolved.  I don’t know for sure, but I suspect it was something intestinal keeping me from absorbing any nutrition.

So with that now behind me, I look back and think: that was what I considered normal life?  And looking at where I was after getting fixed, I realized, shit, I am in sad shape.  How sad?  Like not even able to walk for 10 minutes without pain.  So I got to work.  Within a couple of weeks of doing two 15-min walks a day, I was able to get past the pain to the point that walking is pleasurable again, and I think now I can start to begin a serious recovery.  I tried playing keyboards a couple days ago and was shocked that I knew how to play the songs, but my fingers wouldn’t cooperate, just being slow and/or inaccurate.  Not having the stamina to complete songs is probably a given here.  So, that’s on the mend as well.

As a point of reference, I looked at some pictures I took when I was hiking for miles.  That was October, 2012.  I’ve probably been inactive for over a year.  That’s over now.  Move it or lose it.

The Big, Happy Family

Posted by on April 26, 2014 No comments

It was just a couple of days ago that I was thinking about the Zune players and I wondered if I would ever see one for sale again.  I wasn’t sure if they were just being thrown away or if people just kept them and never did anything with them.  Maybe a year ago, I stopped at a pawn shop and saw a Zune flash player in the display case.  It was being sold for something ridiculous like $150, so I never even bothered looking closer at it.

Today, I stopped at a local pawn shop and saw another Zune flash player marked down from $99, to $59, to $29.  I asked to see it and it was an 8GB model.  Yes, I’ll take that.  And it’s probably best that I took it because the charger that they provided with the player was for an iPhone – doesn’t even fit.  Anyone else wouldn’t have the extensive accessories for Zune as I do, including cables and chargers.

So, I’ve added a new member to my family, which now consists of:

  • 1st gen, 30gb white (over 6 years old and still kicking every day)
  • 3rd gen, 32gb blue ZuneHD Originals
  • 1st gen, 30gb brown
  • 2nd gen, 8gb black

For accessories, I have two Altec Lansing speaker docks and a PC dock, and spare charging cables.  I also have 3 car audio integration kits.  If you want to stretch it a bit further, I have a Dell Venue Pro with Windows Phone 7, and a Nokia Lumina 810 with Windows Phone 8.1.  So really, I am the most qualified person to purchase that Zune.

I only have one more model to go before I have the entire Zune model collection: a 2nd gen 80/120gb.  When and if I find one, it will probably become my primary player in the car, since it can hold my entire MP3 collection.  Speaking of car integrations, I recently decided my next car stereo is probably going to be a CarPC, running a stripped-down install of Windows with the Zune software installed.

I’m sure a lot of people would like to ask, “What is this obsession with Zune?”  And there’s only really one thing that does it for me.  After all, the hardware is commodity – anyone can create an MP3 player.  And with so many choices of media player software, why Zune?

For me, the UI is unmatched in any other software program.  When you look at a now-playing screen of a player, there’s only so many ways you can lay out the screen, then you have to consider what elements will be shown.

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A large thumbnail of the album art, progress bar, song title, album name, and artist name.  Then a few icons for repeat, battery, and play/pause.  Simple and elegant.

I can imagine a lot of people say that every player has those elements and many have a similar layout and those people might be right.  It’s only extremely subtle differences that make Zune stand out.  The fonts, the size of the elements, the little glow on the current point in the progress bar.  To me, it is a perfect mix.  When I get the CarPC with the full desktop Zune software, the UI will be radically different, but no less unique and well-designed. 

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Family Portrait, 2014.

Blog Checkpoint

Posted by on April 1, 2014 No comments

So, now I’ve been blogging over six years.  And in that six years, I’ve skipped 12 months.  I mean, there’s only 12 month-long periods in that six years where I have not made a post.  It seems to be a pattern of a sort.  A lot of the gaps are due to what’s going on in my work and personal life – if I have time to think for myself.  You know, sometimes you get a long stretch where you can’t think of anything but what you’re working on right then.  Then there’s other times where you want to think about anything but what you’re supposed to be doing.  Hint: This is one of those times.

I have over 200 posts in my blog.  I remember getting an email from WordPress congratulating me on reaching 100 posts.  Maybe I have to get to 1000 for another pat on the back?  The number of posts I’ve made over my blog’s lifespan isn’t a significant number, and there are the gaps I mentioned before, so I guess I wouldn’t classify myself as “prolific”. 

I’ve recently been finding that my tags aren’t sufficient anymore.  Either I’m wanting to discuss different topics now, or I have been applying tags only tenuously to posts that don’t deserve them.  I never wanted my tag cloud to be huge – I always wanted it to look balanced, but it might have to grow out of necessity.

I’m really light on comments, and that’s ok with me.  They say that the best blogs have a strong community and a lot of conversation, but I don’t think that suits my blog.  Mine is just a notepad or journal kind of thing.  I envision my blog as if you the reader are overhearing me at a restaurant bitching about or explaining something about my day or the world or whatever.  And, like that scenario, I’m not exactly expecting you to approach me and comment on what I’m talking about.  But if you find the topic interests you, discuss it with others.  I’m certainly no authority, so you don’t need to clarify or seek guidance on a topic from me.

On blogging itself, there is more and more rabble that the medium is dead.  Short-form messages are “better”, “more concise”, “more timely”, and to me, more bullshit.  One of my favorite tags on my blog is “overpopulation”.  There’s way too many damn people out there.  And because of this, no one can possibly take it all in.  But there’s this expectation that you should take it all in. 

Look, there’s nothing wrong with having a very tight filter on your incoming data.  And you shouldn’t feel bad that you are not absorbing or are missing something.  If you could absorb everything, how boring would your life be?  Every time someone would mention something to you, your answer would be, “yeah, I read about that.”  That also makes it shitty for the other person, too.  That sounds like a great future post: Diversity vs. Unity.  When everyone knows all the same stuff, where does that take us?

In closing, I am still a fan of writing.  I’ve been getting better about proofreading – reading my post in its entirety to make sure it makes sense and has a decent flow.  There’s been plenty of times that I’ve reworked sentences, and when I do, it makes me feel better that I took the time to proof it.  And finally, thanks to you for reading.

It Has Come To Pass

Posted by on March 23, 2014 No comments

So, something I’ve been expecting has finally happened and now I don’t really know what to do about it.

Back in April of last year, I made the decision to use unique passwords for every web site and at the same time, use a unique email address for every web site.  This wasn’t difficult to do, I just made a catch-all email address on my mail server, then started using unique emails on every website.  For example, amazon.com@mydomain.com would indicate to me that the email was from my amazon account registration.

And yesterday, I get a piece of spam from paypal.com@mydomain.com.  How many people have I shared this email with?  Exactly nine.  I don’t make a bunch of purchases via paypal.  So now, I don’t know what to do.  I don’t know exactly who sold off my email address or if they didn’t even sell my email, but their computer was hacked and their address book stolen.  Maybe they use a 3rd party cloud-based POS system and that was hacked.  The bottom line is, I don’t know. 

I’m going to work on the assumption that they were hacked.  Someone got into their EBay account (like they did for me) and mined their recent customer list.  This makes sense because I can’t imagine any of the people I dealt with having a large enough customer list to monetize it for any decent value.

I would love to email each of them and tell them what’s happened.  Someone out there has compromised my personal information.  They wouldn’t be able to do a whole lot of damage, but they probably have a full profile of me: name, address, phone, email.  That sucks.

So now, I have to set up a blacklist on my server for paypal.com@… and create a new email, like paypal.com2@…  That sucks, too.

I’m a Gamer

Posted by on March 21, 2014 No comments

I’m actually the worst kind of gamer, the casual gamer.

On my Windows Phone, I recently installed the Microsoft Solitaire pack and naturally, I’ve been non-productive ever since.  What a stupid game and why must I spend so much time on it, trying to get a “high score”?

And the scoring is the really horrible part.  I mean, yeah, I can finish the game, but maybe I’ve taken too long, or I got distracted and let my timer count up too far so I don’t get crap for a time bonus.  So I abandon the game.  Why?  Like finishing the game just isn’t enough.  I have to finish and get a high score.

One of the interesting quirks I found is that if a finish a game in a decent time, I’m getting a score of something like 3000 or 4000.  However, if the game is shot right off the bat and I run out of moves, I end up with a score like 190.  What stupid scoring model is that?  It’s bad enough you were unable to finish, but not only that, your score is so low, you don’t even want to mention it to anyone.

But anyway, I am really one of the least competitive people I know.  I don’t really see a need for it.  It’s just for bragging rights and what’s the point of bragging?  I gave that crap up a long time ago.  And yet, I challenge myself to get a better score?  Is this going to get to the level where every time I see myself in a mirror I have to point and yell, “Fuck you, I’m going to kick my ass!  In Solitaire.”

Being a Part of “the Part”

Posted by on March 18, 2014 No comments

I’ve noticed an odd parallel between my work dress and my work status.  By status, I mean how I am viewed within the company.  While that may seem somewhat obvious, I don’t think it is.  I’m also saying, I don’t think this path can be shortcut.

When I first started working in a professional capacity, I didn’t know much of anything as far as fashion sense and business sense.  I wore polo shorts, khakis, white socks, and sneakers.  The next job, I changed to dress socks and dress shoes (I think I was counseled on this early in my tenure).  This job was a significant advancement in pay and my responsibilities grew steadily while I was there.

The next couple jobs I wore the same level of attire and my work position was pretty stagnant.  In that time, I learned the fashion importance of a belt, even if I didn’t need one.  I learned about undershirts and how they improve the look of your shirts.

Then with my current job, I eventually ditched khakis and went with jeans every day.  Then I started phasing out polos and wearing dress shirts most every day.  This is when things really started taking off.

Where I work, it’s a relaxed business casual environment.  Jeans are fine every day and no t-shirts, except on Friday, as long as the t-shirt doesn’t have a message (the “no-words rule”).  So, where other places have a casual Friday to offset every day of formality, we have an un-promoted “Tie Tuesday”, to offset the everyday casual.

I participated in Tie Tuesday because I figured, “I have ties and I never wear them except for funerals.”  There’s only a couple other participants in my department.  But, and this is pretty important, people notice.  You’ll hear comments like “oh yeah, it’s tie Tuesday.”  Lately, I’ve been getting direct compliments on my ties or my shirt and tie.

There is a saying: you have to dress the part if you want the part.  I gave this saying some consideration today.  My attire does project a higher-than-average level of confidence and… what’s the term… authority?  When one person in a group of people is noticeably better dressed than the rest, it’s natural to assume that’s the person in charge.  And in my experience, it’s seeming to be true.

The part I’m trying to figure out is if I am dressing to the position I have, or if my dress is taking me to the level I am at.  I am very sure that if I started wearing dress shirts with ties in my earlier jobs, it wouldn’t have made me any better off.  I would look (or maybe feel) geeky and awkward – out of place, even.  This is why I say I don’t think it can be short-circuited.  I think it has to be a gradual refinement over time.

But!  Back to the dressing the part.  I am pretty certain that I would not be where I am now if I was still wearing simple polo shirts and sneakers.  I look at some of my co-workers and think, they’re not dressed for management.  It’s an interesting balance.  If you don’t look the part, no one will take you seriously.  But you can’t just dress the part and instantly be that guy, because you have to be casually noticed, then accepted into that position. 

Even if you’re the leader of a group, wearing business casual, and you come in the next day in a suit, it doesn’t jump you up in stature.  If anything, it makes you look suspect.  You need to evolve.  You need to be almost unnoticeable in your changes.  Then one day, when the executives take you out to lunch because you look like one of them now, you’ll know that you got the part.

Writing About Writing

Posted by on March 13, 2014 No comments

I’ve taken up a new project that I hope I can complete before burning out.  It’s a book.  Not a fiction or story book, it’s an instructional guide on using a financial application.  Holy snore.

I started the document with an outline of what I wanted to instruct on.  Then, because I hadn’t used the application before, I had to figure out how to use it and how to apply it to the specific business I was targeting.  So I started writing a story about a fictional user and performing the actions in the application as the user would have.  I did a story spanning a six-month period presenting different challenges each month and explaining how to address them in the application.  That turned out to be a pretty enjoyable part of the writing.  I guess it was a fiction book after all.

But then, I had to do “the rest”.  It’s a very well-known fault of mine that I am able to work on a project by either making big brush strokes or by focusing on the detail and finishing touches.  I can’t do both.  So in this case, as is most typical of me, I’m painting huge areas of text, and now I need to go over it again and touch up here and there.

Actually, it’s more like I’m putting on multiple coats.  At this point, I’m re-running through the story, capturing screen shots and making sure the instructions are explicit and accurate, so I’m trying to read it from a end-user’s perspective.  Then, I have to fill in the actually reference part of the book, explaining each task in greater detail, without the context of the story.

Then I want to incorporate other financial perspectives from other companies, in case I didn’t think of a certain scenario.  Then I need to get it technically reviewed by a finance person to make sure what I present is correct.  Then I need to create a website to promote it and provide updates and answer questions after the release.  Then I publish it.

I certainly don’t want to get overwhelmed by the amount of work that lies in front of me, even if I do realistically have to know everything that is still to do.

Moving Pictures

Posted by on March 3, 2014 No comments

If there’s one application that I can identify as one of the longest-lived applications I ever used on any computer, it would have to be ACDSee.  This photo viewer, then photo manager, has been installed on every computer I’ve ever had.

Like all software exposed to time, the program started to get too big and tried to do too much.  I tried out different versions, sometimes dropping back to really old versions to avoid the bloat.  Then one day, I had a change of heart and I purchased the newest version.  What a sucker move that was.

So now I had the newest version, with all of its new, sparkly, excessive features.  I also had a nice, shiny new computer, so they played pretty well together.  Then slowly, it didn’t.  The software started getting slow.  It started nagging me to upgrade.  It maintained a link with an online account set up with their website.  It never got any more updates, because the world had moved on to higher version numbers.

Things started to get really out of hand when ACDSee started taking upwards of 15 seconds to open a single image and over a minute to enumerate a couple hundred files on a network drive.  So, in the spirit of my other biggest and bloatedest posts, ACDSee is getting the boot.

So what is its replacement?  I’ve tried a program called Phototheca and it was really nice, but it requires you to work with a local photo store.  It would be great if all your photos were on the local drive, but that’s not my situation.  Then I tried Faststone Image Viewer and I stopped looking.  I’m extremely happy with this application.  It’s almost exactly like the old ACDSee versions – it’s fast and lightweight, but unlike those old versions, it’s made for modern CPUs and OS’s.  What took ACDSee many, many seconds to open, Faststone opened immediately.  The only issue I have with it is the way it handles zoom-clicking in the viewer.  But I’ll adapt.

Oh, it’s also freeware.  It has no online integration, no licensing, no hidden installers during setup, nothing extra.  It’s just good, clean, fast software.  And it’s free.  I always find it odd that nothing is allowed to stop.  It has to keep growing until it collapses under its own weight.  So, goodbye ACDSee, you’ve been replaced with a new version of your older self.

Missing The Creative

Posted by on February 25, 2014 No comments

It happened again.

Quite a while ago, I wrote about inspiration and timing and how life gets in the way of being creative.  This morning, I got stuck in a traffic jam from an accident and was watching some of the cars jockeying for position and stealing any small space they could get.  It got me thinking of the typical sociological study of humans dealing with scarcity of resources.

A short story started to form in my mind with all the elements I typically rant about: overpopulation, class warfare, unwillingness to work together, entitlement (not of the typically-accused have-nots, but of the have-enough-demand-mores), all set in a dystopian future, which seems closer every year.  But the more I built the elements up in my mind, the more they got crowded out by the things I had to do today at work.

Ah, what if I wasn’t working?  I could get out of the traffic jam, grab a notebook and jot down ideas.  Then when I got home, I could start writing a nice, depressing short story.  I recently read a Stephen King book – I think it was “On Writing.”  King talks about his experience being a writer and some of the ways to be an effective writer.  The biggest thing I got out of the book is the balance between being alone so you can create and getting out and building experience and inspiration to create.

I suppose it could be possible that I could carry this idea for the rest of the day and work on it after work, but I’m in a profession where you have to use your brain pretty heavily throughout the day, so I can’t keep these ideas up in the air like juggling balls.  Back in the old days of pizza delivery, absolutely, I could.  But, life gets in the way.

Further Adventures In LinuxLand

Posted by on February 11, 2014 No comments

Well, as I previously noted, I didn’t give up on putting the incredible Linux on that older laptop.  I spent a bunch of time searching online for info and found someone who installed a  version of Mint on the same model laptop as I had.  So now I have a viable candidate.

It took me a couple attempts to discover that the laptop doesn’t support USB booting, so CD-R it has to be.  I install the new Mint version and on reboot, it doesn’t boot.  No GRUB recovery bullshit, just “Error 18,” which, amazingly, is a greater bunch of bullshit.

In researching the highly-specific error #18 of the boot up process, I find a discussion that answered all the boot problems I’d had up to this point.  The hard drive partition was too big.  Yup.  Linux, the most advanced OS ever, the OS that runs massive server farms, massive web servers, massive file servers, massive everything… has an issue with the 250GB drive in my laptop.  The answer is to make two partitions, one small one for /boot and the other for / (the root? I have no idea).  So, another install with some manual partitioning steps and holy shit!  I have a booting, running, complete Linux laptop.

This is hardly my first foray into Linux, so I somewhat understand a few of the quirks.  I mean, I am somewhat prepared to be disappointed.  However, this install had some new wonders in store for me.  First up, connect to the network and get on the Internet.  Wireless connects without any issue, although the prompts for a password for some keychain were unexpected.

Firefox is installed by default, so I kick it off to get online.  The first thing I notice is that things are actually pretty slow.  This is consistent with my previous attempts to enjoy Linux for its lightweight, incredibly speedy performance (that never materialized).  Because the Linux version is pretty much in line with the age of the laptop, I have an abhorrent version of Firefox – 3.03.  This could be why things seem so slow.  I launch the Mint software repository to get a new version of Firefox or at least a different browser.  It fails to load.  Ok, I go to Google and download the latest Chrome.  It won’t install because of some invalid dependency.  Ok.  I go to Mozilla and download the latest version of Firefox there.  It downloads an archive file.  Huh.

Let me step aside here and point out the two competing mindsets with software development.  One side is Microsoft’s, where backwards compatibility is paramount.  For this choice, you can use nearly every version of Windows on nearly every piece of hardware out there.  The obvious downside is that the code is more bloated than it needs to be and contains code that is obsolete or vulnerable to hacking.  On the other side is Linux, which includes Apple and Android.  Here, you have a specific version made for specific hardware.  Once the next version of hardware comes along, you’re left behind.  You get the benefit of having the best code of the day working on your current device, but you are forced to upgrade hardware to get the latest software.  Right now, as I install Linux on this old laptop, I am relegated to the past, with an unrefined UI and outdated tools.

Now, back to the present, I have this Firefox archive file that I don’t know what to do with.  I try the obvious action of extracting the files to the desktop and look inside the folder contents.  I can’t tell what I’m supposed to run.  There’s no setup, no install, no run-this-to-make-go anywhere.  So I click on a few things and nothing happens.  There’s also no installation instructions in the file.  So, I give up on that.

As I’m struggling with this, an issue that happened a few times during my install attempts bit me again.  I know from experience that Linux has some odd fascination with multiple desktops.  Somehow – I still don’t know how – I triggered a “change desktop” command through the touchpad.  All the shit I was working on is gone and I can find no way to get it to come back.  There is no icon anywhere to change desktops.  FUCK THIS.  THIS is why Linux is reserved for geeks and nerds and will never be mainstream.  I consider myself to be a geek, but this lack of usability offends even me.  I looked through the sparse help information provided and couldn’t find any answers there.  Eventually, I found some way to make windows from all desktops appear in the task bar, so I could switch to them regardless of where they were hiding.  By that time, I was pretty much done for the night.

However, now that I’ve discovered the key to making Linux boot on this laptop, I think I’m going to try out a version called Joli Cloud, which looks kind of like a tablet OS, with a greatly simplified UI.  Stay tuned for more anger.