Let Me Tell You About This Meal I Had…

Posted by on June 14, 2013 No comments

It’s never good if I have a story to tell after a meal.  This is one of those meals.  This is one of those long-ass stories, too.  Tonight, I was deep in my usual gyrations over what the hell I was going to eat.  Running through the mental list of eating places wasn’t triggering anything.  I went on UrbanSpoon and listed everything in my area.  Nothing did it.  I started to get a bit sentimental over places in PA that I used to love eating at and couldn’t get to anymore.  I remembered some of the non-chain restaurants that I enjoyed and wished I had something like that here that I could rely on.  Unfortunately, despite searching, I have yet to find a good mom-and-pop.

But, a light came on.  There was one place I could try.  It was an Italian restaurant that had replaced a sports bar I used to go to.  I’d been there once before and was sorely disappointed.  At the time, they had just opened up.  I think I went within the few couple weeks of their opening.  My impression of the staff was that they were clueless.  The waitress acted like she didn’t know what a waitress was supposed to do, like checking on tables.  The kitchen was backed up beyond comprehension.  I think I heard “an hour” mentioned.  At least one table walked out during the time I was there.  I was on the verge of leaving, myself.

But I got my drink order in (I’m stuck now!) and then after a while, my waitress was ready and able to take my order: spaghetti with meat sauce – nothing amazing.  Yet another extended while after that, the waitress comes back and says they don’t have any meat sauce, would I like marinara?  No, I wouldn’t.  This is an Italian restaurant.  How do you not have meat sauce?  I ended up getting my drink and salad for free, and I left a $5 tip on the table and walked out.

Why would I want to go back to that?  Well, it’s been at least two years since that first experience and the place is still around, so surely they’ve got it figured out, right?  So I revisited the restaurant with elevated hopes.  And I don’t have any desire to go back again.

I show up in the front of the shop and walk up to the counter.  I say I’m dining in and I don’t know whether to order here, be seated, or seat myself.  Right off the bat, this is something that shouldn’t happen.  The waitress says, “You’re dining in?  You can go to the back room.  It’s much nicer back there.”  So, now your employees are saying that the restaurant has a nice section and a shitty section.  They’re still freaking clueless.

I seat myself and place my (same) order.  I’m kind of excited because their house dressing is a homemade creamy Italian – that’s hard to find.  But when the salad arrives, it seems weird.  Lettuce, onion, carrots, and… a hot pepper and chickpeas?  Odd, but no hassle.  I eat the lettuce and the carrots, but the house dressing is not to my liking.  Flavor-wise, it’s super sweet.  Makes me think of eating Vidalia onions.  Second, it’s warm.  That doesn’t sit so well with me.

My opinion is wavering at this point when my entrée comes out.  It’s soup!  I’m not saying that the meat sauce is runny, just that it’s a bowl full of sauce.  Like I can’t see the noodles, full.  And the sauce is really dark.  The first thing I think is, “Did they burn this sauce?”  Then I smell it and think, “Did they burn this sauce?”  Then I taste it and it’s… different.  Probably burnt.  Seasoned, yes, but I can’t put my finger on what it is.  Doesn’t really matter what it is because I just. don’t. like it.  Then the breadsticks came out.  I didn’t think you could screw up bread, but these sticks were completely tasteless.  They had parmesan cheese sprinkled on top and butter and/or oil poured on them.  It looked like oil, but darker.  I didn’t watch to touch it.  What the hell is up with this place?

I eat what noodles I could fish out from the depths of the sauce pit and at one point in my search mission, I found a leaf.  Yeah, a full leaf.  I think it’s the kind they use for seasoning, but I also think they’re supposed to be finely chopped?

Has the service redeemed itself after the “get out of the slums and go to the back room” direction?  No, not really.  My entrée was brought out by a different waitress that again didn’t understand the finer points of service.  She asked if I had spaghetti with meat sauce, which I confirmed, and she left it with me and bolted.  Waitresses with experience will first ask if everything’s ok and handle common requests, like cheese, napkins, or refills.  My main waitress that brought the breadsticks asked about cheese, but had to take care of multiple things before actually getting around to it.  Even then, she had a lot of trouble finding the cheese. (Who moved my cheese?)  Fascinatingly, although my salad dressing was warm, the cheese shaker was refrigerated .  Also, since I had the table next to the open kitchen, I was able to deduce that the cook didn’t seem to know how to be a cook.  I heard a shout at one point and I heard an exchange where he had to scramble because he forgot to make an appetizer.  Bad night?  Or just another night?

Finally – the weirdest part to me – the owner made his way around asking everyone if their food was ok.  I go to other “real” Italian places, and I know the owners do this. They love chatting you up in their heavy Italian accents.  This guy, no accent.  Didn’t look Italian at all.  Didn’t even look like an owner.  He could have been just another patron, I don’t know.  I lied and said the food was good.  Had he pressed harder and asked if it was “good” or “great” or “amazing”, he might have gotten the truth out of me.  But he seemed satisfied.

In summary, there wasn’t one redeeming piece of my entire meal experience.  As crazy as it sounds, this place is a sports bar that serves Italian food, with bar-quality food and service.  And that’s speaking badly of bar food.  It’s usually really good, I just can’t handle the atmosphere.

Responsive and Slow

Posted by on June 13, 2013 No comments

A recent discussion with a co-worker resulted in the phrase “responsive, and slow.”  This came about from using Microsoft Office 2013.  Office 2013 is some kind of a pinnacle of where software development seems to be going, and it seems that’s just a bit too far.

For years now, asynchronous programming has been shoved down developers’ throats.  “It must be done this way! It’s how you achieve a responsive UI!”  Seems like desktop applications have always had background work being done.  The original idea was to do processing in the background, so you could cancel the work if you needed to and so you could display a progress bar.  This is fine. 

Then there’s the case of background loading tasks.  Lets say a dropdown list needs filled, so the dropdown list is disabled while the data is being loaded in the background.  Meanwhile, you have your mouse hovering over it waiting for it to finish and become enabled.  Now we’re starting to see the effects of async programming. 

Now, take everything and make it load async.  Your application opens and nothing is there, then things start magically appearing all over the place as they finish loading.  This is how Office 2013 feels, although that’s not literally what happens.  The best example is marking emails read in Outlook and there is a significant delay in updating the unread message count.

As long as I’m griping about Office 2013, I find the new Lync 2013 client to be ridiculous.  I keep my conversation windows on the left side of my monitor, which Lync is great about remembering.  The problem is, the new message notification shows up in the lower right of the screen, so I have to click there, then the chat window does a wicked-smooth slide all the way across my screen to where I keep them, then it does a fade in.  So, in addition to having to move my mouse the full width of my screen, I have to wait for the animations to finish.

But anyway, back to asynchronous coding.  It’s all supposed to be in the name of responsiveness, so the UI doesn’t get blocked by anything.  The problem is, maybe the UI isn’t ready for use yet!  Have you seen a UI with 20 “loading…” placeholders all over?  if you haven’t yet, you will soon.  T-Mobile’s account management section does it.   This is stupid.  How can computers be so fast and yet so slow?

Thought Followers

Posted by on June 7, 2013 No comments

I got an email from LinkedIn with a title that struck a nerve with me: “Don’t miss out on updates from thought leaders” and it went on to list a bunch of successful businesspeople and a link at the bottom that said: “See more thought leaders".  This newly-coined term, “thought leader” infuriates me.  What does that title mean?  Who designates these people?  Why should we even care?

The title “thought leader” can be taken a couple different ways.  The way that initially perceived it was condescending and elitist, as in “you can’t even think at the level of these people.  You need to listen to them.”  Screw that.  Like I want anything to have to do with Richard Branson and Arianna Huffington.  You could also take the term to mean that these people have ideas that shape the entirety of industry, finance, and technology.  That’s a bunch of crap, too.  Everyone has ideas.  These people are just in a much better position to execute them because of their money, power and influence.  I just did a search on “thought leader” and discovered this is a “thing", going back to at least 2010.  Another Dilbert-world industry buzzterm so we can discover that this is what we must aspire to and buy books and seminars.

From a website: “To be a thought leader, you need to immerse yourself in your professional domain and search for new things to say that add value to your organization’s objectives.”  Search for new things to say…  All you have to do is say shit.  Sorry, this is not sufficient.  It seems to me that you can’t get anything done by having a bunch of “thought leaders” in a conference room coming up with new things to say.  Meanwhile, there’s a bunch of awesome people keeping their mouths shut and getting things done.

Here’s the other issue with this idea.  In our polarized, black-and-white world we live in today, you are a leader or you are a follower.  If you’re not a thought leader, all you are is following someone else.  And that’s exactly what LinkedIn is suggesting I do.  I need to follow these “leaders”.  I need to do what they say, because my thoughts are not at their level.  Obviously, because I’m not a multi-billionaire.  You know what the real thought leaders say (and have said in the past)? “Don’t listen to me.  Think for yourself.”

English, Motherfucker, Do You Write?

Posted by on June 7, 2013 No comments

Ok, you idiots.  You want a job?  Do you know how to get a job?  You have to present yourself well.  No, you have to present yourself as perfect as you can be.  There’s a lot of conflicting advice as to whether you have to answer questions 100% perfect in an interview or whether you should just be yourself.  The answer is both.  Be yourself and be 100% perfect.  If you’re good, this should be easy for you.

Now, the reason for this bitching is because I’m doing interviews now.  These are interviews for decent jobs.  I don’t actually know the pay scale, but 50-80k is not out of line.  The jobs are for computer programming, so a level of precision is somewhat expected.  Why then, of the last four resumes, do I see spelling and grammatical errors?  Why, you stupid people? 

The two resumes I got today each had at least five mistakes in them, and I even purposely ignored punctuation and poor sentence structure.  How can this happen?  The one resume was five pages long – which is ridiculous to begin with.  Apparently, all the technical terms were generating spell-check warnings, so spell-checking was probably turned off for the document.  Stupid.  Are you in some kind of hurry?  Do you not understand proofreading?

You’re not solely to blame, either.  Your resumes are being submitted by recruiting firms.  They missed the errors as well!  Do you realize you are literally giving money to people who are doing nothing but sitting between you and an employer?  This recruiter is doing nothing for you.  They copy your resume text into their template and call it a day.  In one of the two resumes from today, the document formatting changed midway through.  The recruiter’s standards are just as low as yours.

It gets better.  The first interview for today has cancelled.  You don’t cancel an interview unless you got a great offer.  Someone out there looked at the resume, either didn’t notice the mistakes or didn’t care about them, interviewed this guy and hired him.  This is what we’ve come to.  We’ve had candidates come in wearing business casual clothes instead of a suit.  We have resumes submitted with multiple mistakes.  We have to accept these shortcomings from candidates because if we don’t someone else will snatch them up?  Screw that.

But I’ve been instructed to not point out these problems in the interview.  So go ahead, fools, see how low you can take the standard.

On Advertising

Posted by on June 6, 2013 No comments

I got into a conversation about email and spam, which led me to think about advertising in general.  I don’t like unsolicited sales pitches – at all.  To me, the amount of effort you put into selling your product or service is directly related to its worthlessness.  Obviously, if something is completely useful, all you should have to do is show it or briefly explain it and it should sell itself.

But on the other hand, I don’t particularly hate advertising.  I actually appreciate and enjoy clever, well-crafted messages.  This difference of opinion made me think of three different types of advertising.

  • Hard Sell – This is the worst kind of advertising, done via phone call, street selling, mall kiosks, or even direct mail.  The ads that urge to to buy and sometimes warn, scare, or threaten you if you don’t.  There is always a consequence to not taking action.  Think about it.  Why would you ever want to attach a negative image to your product or service, even if it’s true?  Some people can’t afford the product or service or may not be in a position to buy it at all.  Now all your advertising has done is made them feel miserable.
  • Informational – This type covers a wide range.  There’s a fine line between Informational and Hard Sell and it usually depends on how much negativity or fear the ad generates.  However, in the median of this range, the primary intent is to simply inform the recipient that your company exists at all.  This type of ad combats the “I would’ve called, but I didn’t know such a place existed!” problem.  This is why I enjoy browsing random shops, because it’s good to know what’s out there.
  • Reminder – This type of ad is for well-established brands, like Coke, McDonalds, and most beers.  All the ad does is make you think of them.  These brands will also use Informational types of ads when they introduce new products, but lots of times, it’s just to evoke a mood or make you consider buying their product again.

The one that I was most interested in was the balance between Hard Sell and Informational.  When you are starting a business, you have to get your name out – Informational.  But at what point does it seem like desperation and start entering into Hard Sell territory?  The exact example I am thinking of is a former co-worker, who fell hard for real estate.  His focus within the broad scope of real estate is kind of in the scummy part: “We buy homes for cash!” “Invest with me and get a great return on your money!”  So, because his business focus is questionable, he’s going to have to push harder and yell louder for anyone to hear him.  This just moves his messages into the Hard Sell, where they are naturally resisted.

Although I do some work on the side, I don’t advertise anything.  In fact, I rarely even bring it up in conversation.  But somehow, whenever I am needed, an opportunity arises.

Gunnars

Posted by on May 30, 2013 No comments

I’ve been a Woot buyer for a while, from back when Woot was cool.  But even now, you can still get some good deals.  Anyway, that aside, it was a few months ago that I saw one of my co-workers wearing these yellow glasses.  He said he got them on Woot.  I recognized them as Gunnars and was curious as to whether they were worth the money.  He said he noticed the difference.  I tried them on and because of the slight magnification of the lens, I took them right off and said “no way.”

Weeks go by and my co-worker is wearing his Gunnars every day.  Every once in a while I ask, “they’re working ok?” and he says they’re great.  The joke in our department is that they are future glasses and when wearing them you can “see future.”  On a more practical level, if the glasses didn’t work, he would’ve stopped using them.  So, the next time Gunnars showed up on Woot, I went for it.

I purchased the Groove model.  When I got them, I was slightly underwhelmed.  The arms were simple rubber and the nose pads were stationary and tiny.  But I got over that and wore them to work.  After an extended time, the nose pads started really hurting me.  I adjusted them over and over but couldn’t find a good position.  So I ended up wearing the glasses less and less and eventually they just ended up in a drawer.

Another Woot sale came along and I decided to purchase another pair, one with a different bridge.  I decided on the e11vens, since they had a solid plastic bridge.  When I got the glasses, again, I was slightly underwhelmed.  The whole frame was a glossy black plastic and felt a little on the cheap side.  But the glasses look like something Tony Stark would wear, so there’s that, anyway.  At the time I ordered the e11vens, I played around with my Groove’s one more time and found a very comfortable nose pad position.  With that modification, I started wearing the Groove’s consistently.  Now I had a pair for work and one for home.

The real question is, do they work?  Yes, they do.  You’ll see a lot of reviews saying that Gunnar’s are overhyped, overpriced, and pointless.  After using them, I have to disagree.  I’ll admit, when I first researched Gunnars, I was totally put off by the hyper-aggressive, buzzword-laden marketing they used.  Since that time, the company seems to have toned the hyperbole down and the message is a lot more palatable.  I read some quotes from their founder and they made a lot of practical sense.  Basically, Gunnars are safety eyewear, and that’s not sexy.  It wouldn’t be very cool to be wearing “safety glasses” at work, and who would ever buy them with that label?  So I understand why they did what they needed to.  Now, with some real testimonials and word-of-mouth behind them, they can afford to be more realistic and practical with their message.

Now, some of the arguments against Gunnars say that that all they are is tinted glasses and all you need to do is go out and buy blu-blockers from the dollar store to get the same effect.  That’s fairly untrue.  Some of the features that Gunnars profess (and probably way over-hyped) are actually beneficial.  I’m not going to look up what their special marketing words are when discussing the features, because they don’t matter.

One feature -  I ‘m pretty sure they call this “microclimate” – is the wraparound style of the lenses.  It doesn’t need a buzzword to be effective.  I know this works because my eyes don’t dry out throughout the day.  You may think it’s a placebo effect, but physical proof that my eyes aren’t drying out is that I get “sleep” in my eyes at the end of the day, which means my eyes are tearing more than sufficiently.

Another feature is the slight magnification, the part that freaked me out when I first put the Gunnars on.  This magnification is optimized for up to about a 3 foot distance.  Don’t wear Gunnars for driving or even for walking around, they don’t work for far distances and you’ll get a headache. 

Gunnars hype the optically pure lens material and anti-glare coating.  Eh, I would hope glasses would be clear and anti-glare, especially at that price.  And the tinting, it’s not sunglass tint, it’s like shooting glasses.

So, can you use blu-blockers?  Sure, but you won’t get a wraparound fit, so your eyes will dry out.  The tinting will be darker and more pronounced, which I can’t see that doing any good.  You could use shooting glasses, but you won’t get the near-range magnification.  Cheap sunglasses probably aren’t as optically pure as specialized glasses, so maybe there would be a bit of distortion.  And, purely for vanity’s sake, in an office environment, wearing Gunnars may be considered edgy, but wearing actual sunglasses would be either tacky or plain weird.

The other real question is, are they worth it?  For $100, I wouldn’t think so.  Luckily, they are a Woot recurring item, so you shouldn’t have to pay that much.  At Woot prices, they are definitely worth the money.

An Honest Try

Posted by on May 22, 2013 No comments

I’ve played around with Linux in a few different forms on and off in my computing years.  Recently, I’ve been pretty impressed with the Ubuntu and Mint offerings, since they are really starting to look like polished pieces of software, with friendly installers and GUI management tools.  So, I happened across an older laptop and decided I would make it an Internet machine.

My biggest problem with Linux is that I am a Windows developer.  That means I spend a lot of my time in Visual Studio and SQL Server, neither of which are suitable for Linux.  I could probably get by with Wine emulation for most other applications, but developing is what I do, so I need Windows.  But I figured I could have a laptop that is just for Internet, and with Linux, it would be a speedy little device.

I keep an Ubuntu USB stick handy for disk diagnostics, so I booted that up on the laptop with no problems.  The laptop’s hard drive was dead and I was waiting for a new one.  I figured I’d try something fun and try installing Ubuntu to a 16GB naildrive stuck in the laptop.  Just so you know, it’s impossibly slow when running off a USB drive acting as a hard drive.  No SSD speed here.

Last night, I got my new hard drive, installed it, and downloaded the newest Mint version onto a USB drive.  I went to install and the system froze.  Tried again under compatibility mode and Mint essentially said the machine was not compatible.  So I tried with the newest Ubuntu.  Same thing.  I should have figured as much since Mint is built from Ubuntu.  So I went and installed the older version of Ubuntu I had on my diagnostic USB drive.

Mind you, I went into this install with a pretty positive attitude.  Maybe I was a little unrealistic in how lightweight and fast Linux is supposed to be, but lots of things started adding up.  Downloading the ISO images was so slow.  I thought Linux was huge in universities and they had lots of bandwidth.  I guess that’s not as true anymore?  I was surprised that newer versions were less compatible with older hardware.  I thought things always got better with time.  Then, the install itself took a surprisingly long time to finish – over an hour.  Again, maybe I’m being unrealistic, but I think that my expectations have been molded by the enthusiastic Linux community.

Finally, after install, I have a desktop and everything’s working pretty well.  I map a network drive and try out a few application.  Then the Update Manager pops up.  Yeah, I’m using an older version, so I have to update.  Woah, 471 updates!  That’s almost four times as many as Windows XP’s post-install updates (~120).  Alright, go ahead and update me.  Another hour passes and now I have to reboot.  Linux needs a reboot?  I restart and when I get back to my desktop, I’m prompted for my wireless network passphrase.  That’s odd, I thought Ubuntu would save that.  I re-enter the password again and Ubuntu prompts me again.  Oh.  The 471 updates broke my wireless network driver.  Where do I go from here?  Which update did it?  Not knowing the details of Linux, how would I even begin to troubleshoot this?  Can you even roll back updates in Linux?

So here’s where I picture myself at: I can reinstall fresh then either skip all updates or try to find (guess) which updates botched the wireless and exclude them.  Looking through 471 updates is not high on my list.  The other option is to install Windows XP, which I know will work.

The Future Is In The Past

Posted by on May 3, 2013 No comments

Today I was forwarded an article about a new computer input device utilizing gestures and the article was teasing with a headline like “gestures replace keyboard and mouse.”  Uh huh.

Go ahead and pile this technology on an ever increasing pile: Stylus, touch, multi-touch, swype, and Kinect.  All of which are supposed to be revolutionary and every one has not replaced the keyboard.  Or maybe that’s not true.

Long ago, computers were for highly-skilled people – researchers, academics, scientists.  Then they went mainstream.  Personal computers took over every household.  Then, people started demanding less “computer-looking” devices, so the style element of PC’s was addressed.  More recently, it seems the public has been clamoring for simpler interfaces, reducing the need for input devices.  Enter gesture and touch input.

Depending on which camp you are in, this advancement – or decline – of computers is only a subset of the reality.  Throughout all of it, the standard computer, with boxy tower case, keyboard, mouse and monitor (or monitors) is the mainstay of the creative computer users.  The alternative input devices are too imprecise and too inefficient to actually create anything of quality, whether it be art, code, or engineering.  The sacrifices made for aesthetic purposes limit the raw power needed to actually do work.  So because of this, the computing landscape has split into creators and consumers.

The media keeps hyping that tablets are the future.  This is actually probably true.  The majority of people are not going to need or want the power of a full computer setup.  Combined with the news that there are fewer students with computer programming skills than in previous years, this forms a scary trend.  In a few generations, it’s entirely possible that the use of an actual computer becomes exclusive, just as it was in the early days of computing.  If you have a full computer, you could be viewed as old-fashioned, or maybe you’d be viewed as a genius.

The media also keeps saying that the PC is dead.  This in absolutely not true.  If this were true, there would be no way to create future software and hardware.  However, if they were to say, the consumer personal computer is dead, they may be on to something.

To me it’s very sad to think that we almost had something.  It’s as if we were right on our way to having a super-intelligent global society and a huge shockwave hit and lowered the bar for everyone.

Payback is a Bitch

Posted by on April 25, 2013 No comments

Yesterday during work break, I went on a walk.  It was a strange, rather painful walk, as my feet were killing me most of the time.  I resolved that I would wear different shoes if I was going to go walking again.  After getting back and settling down, I found that I couldn’t sit.  My back would twinge in that way that says “get ready, here it comes…”  So, I did what was reasonable.  I put some ice on my back and left work to get home and lie down.

At home, I applied the TENS belt and was disappointed after an hour that it wasn’t doing any good.  So I did some leg stretches and then knocked myself out with my in-case-of-emergency-take-these medpack and slept the night away.  I woke up in the morning very, very slowly.  During this extended period of reflection, I found that the stabbing pain was still there, recurring every 10-20 minutes.  Additionally, I found the pain radiating down my leg.  Ohhhhh….  Nice to see you again, sciatica.  How have you been?  I thought I kicked you out years ago.

In my experience, I have two types of back problems.  One affects me when I move and one affects me when I stay still.  It’s my good fortune these two problems don’t occur together.  The first case is severe.  It starts with little warning jabs like I had, then when you don’t expect it, bam.  You are frozen solid and then immobile for about a week.  These incidents have been chronicled in older posts.  The second case isn’t as bad.  I mean it’s not awesome or anything, but it’s not debilitating.  I can take care of it with a few weeks of leg stretches, focusing on the hamstrings.  The important thing is that since I know it’s the second case, I don’t have to necessarily be cautious about moving about.

However, the timing of this recurring injury is interesting since I’m scheduled to take classes this weekend for Reiki.  Reiki, for those that don’t know, is energy healing.  I have a series of pages that I’m writing for this blog on my Reiki experiences that aren’t released yet, but will be shortly after my classes.  This is going to be an excellent first test of the healing ability of Reiki.

No News is Good News

Posted by on April 23, 2013 No comments

Having a hyper-connected civilization is a double-edged sword.  On the one hand, we have been able to share knowledge and ideas at an unprecedented rate, which has certainly advanced the technology of our world.  On the other hand, we have been able to share stories of misery and fear wider than what is prudent.

Many people are reluctant to consider humankind as a global civilization, but these people are constantly bombarded by news (almost always bad) from other countries around the world.  Even more common, is the reporting of news across our country, again, almost always bad.  I seems it has become normal to worry and fret and become angry over people and situations that we have no connection to and will never have any connection to.

A shooting here, a dying child there, animals running from a wildfire, record cold temperatures way up there.  These things don’t matter.  They are daily trivia and conversation starters.  They do not have an impact on a national scale.  Yet, the news is full of these stories every single day.

It is not helping that the news is becoming more entertainment-oriented.  Fox News is moving towards more of op-ed reporting, instead of reporting the news, they have a personality delivering their opinion and analysis of the news.

In discussing what I felt as strange about my workplace leaving the news channel playing the Boston bombing all the time and my co-workers streaming live news at their desk on the manhunt for the bomber, I created a really long sentence.  No, seriously, it was suspected that these people who were glued to the news coverage were trying to feel connected to a national tragedy, like “where were you when 9/11 happened”?  I can’t really understand why it takes an event of misery to make people feel more connected.  And oddly, it doesn’t really work that way when the event is local.  In those cases, people tend to shut themselves in.

Think local, do local, care local.  Those are the people that really matter.  And if we all do that, everyone is covered.