This just turned my stomach! Democracy?! Wondering how crazy laws come into existence? The video explains how Texas legislatures play a game on the floor to allow a single person to vote 2, 3 4, or more times. I particularly like the one guy who stands up to vote for two other people only to have the guy in front of him take his vote.
Year: 2007
I had a blast at the Orchestra!
Let me tell you. Maestro Lucas Richman is cool! I mean he’s just fun to be around. Stand beside him and you just feel better. Hug him and you won’t need your Prozac for a year! Top all that off with an energy on the stage that is captivating to watch. (I did joke with him that I thought there were a couple of times he was just plain having fun and perhaps channeling Jack Black.) Today’s featured performer was Jeffrey Biegel. He’s a pleasure also. He has personally worked with two of my heroes, Pete Fountain and Jerry Louis! To be in the same room with such talent as Maestro Lucas Richman and Jeffrey Biegel is very humbling. To banter with them almost felt like a breach of social protocol but we did get to share some laughs.
I have an official review of my evening at the Knoxville Symphony Orchestra to get from mind and paper to blog post but I think I am a bit too tired to be coherent tonight. If you don’t want to wait, in short, if you don’t make time to go see the Knoxville Symphony Orchestra, you need to make the the time! I can come up with all sorts of reasons to not go-the kids, money, deadlines, blah blah (just excuses!)-, but honestly, what a great way to spend an evening! Details tomorrow (or maybe Saturday).
Bloggers I saw tonight included Frank Murphy (review), Lissa Kay (review), Rich Hailey, Doug and Faye McDaniel, Byron Chesney (his review), Tish, Craig Thomas and Noah Caldwell. Who did I miss? The bloggers had 50 tickets allocated!
Getting Cultured Tonight – How many ways?
Thanks in part to Frank Murphy, Noah and I will be participating in the Knoxville Symphony Orchestra‘s blogger’s night.
Afterwards, thanks to Barry, in response to Cathy, I may be further cultured or drugged or just working.
Noah is particularly interested because of his new found love of percussion. I really hope he gets to interact with some of the percussionists during the post-concert reception. Noah will certainly be the youngest blogger in the crowd but I assure you, he will blog about it! In the realm of "it don’t get smaller than Knoxville" Frank Murphy performs with Einstein Simplified. I was one of the founding members of Einstein Simplified and performed at Manhattan’s for 2 years before life got in the way.
Free Gas!
I am big on doing the right thing. At the park Saturday night, someone left some trash on the ground. As I left, I took a moment to place their trash in the trash can. A small effort on my part. Yesterday we pulled into Weigel’s to get some gas. Cathy and I both noticed that the pump handle/hose had fallen off one of the pumps. I parked on the other side, got our gas going, then walked around to the other side and hung it up. As I turned to return to my side of the pump, it bleated out, "Please pay the cashier!"
Now I’m not typically naive but this one caught me off guard. I know people steal gas but it has never been in my face before. Frankly I never thought about the process. I stole gas once by accident. We went to Disney World in Dec 2000 and in north Georgia we stopped for gas. I thought my father-in-law paid; he thought I paid; About the Tennessee border we realize no one paid. We made a couple of phone calls and paid with a credit card over the phone. Of course, I fully expected a state trooper to pull us over before we ever hit the border! So I assume the process of stealing gas is to pump the gas, neatly put the hose away, and squeal tires as you make your escape. Apparently the real process is to pump gas, and not the lowest octane! This crook went medium grade. Only do half a tank. This crook pumped $24.95. 16 gallons right now runs about $35. And the important step! Do NOT return the hose/handle to the pump because that signals the cashier that you are done.
When I told the cashier about the drive-off. She looked up, shrugged, declared "looks like someone did drive off," then explained "it happens all day long." All day long! What kind of society is this?! I can appreciate desperation and bad luck but never could I imagine having to steal. I wonder if they steal because they are trying to get ahead, if they steal out of desperation, or if they steal for the thrill. It is amazing how many organizations exist to help people. CAC will help pay your electricity. Fish will bring you food. Churches will step up. There are many others but none really publicized. I wonder if these thieves feel out of resources and do not know where to turn, or are they just bad people? Maybe it is not enough to donate time and resources to these organizations. Perhaps we need to do a public service by informing the communities about these organizations.
From the mouths of babes
Dad: "Evan are you okay?"
Evan: "Hai"
options
I could sit in the barn and be hot and uncomfortable with the flies. or i could sit on the porch and be hot and uncomfortable. or i could sit in the van for half an hour listening to the comedy channel and contributing to global warming while painfully typing a blog post over my cell phone. hmm.
Warning to cat owners!
Keep your cats indoors at night if you are in Columbia SC! I’m sure we will see this announced on the Psychozilla Tribune soon. (Russ?) I have seen the photographic evidence! Columbia, SC has a cat vampire! Remember, vampires cannot enter your house unless you invite them in so as long as kitty stays indoors, they will be safe from Catdrakula. Oh the humanity!
How to untangle headphones
Cool! AIR meets Analytics
Programmers, particularly those Adobe fans, know about AIR apps. People who deal with websites know about Google Analytics. Now AIR meets Analytics and you can get in on the beta!
MyQuire only wants links to the front page
If you sign up for MyQuire and actually read the Terms of Service, you might notice the section forbidding "deep linking." This means they only want you linking to the top level of the website, like http://realityme.net/ rather than directly to functionality or articles like http://realityme.net/2007/09/22/warning-on-blogrush/. I am sure their intent here is to prevent people from using MyQuire functionality within their own domain but it is phrased such that if MyQuire has a discussion forum, you will be in violation of the terms of service if you link to a forum discussion.
Wearing down
This machine is breaking. I need more rest. Throat raw.
Today’s focus: ColdFusion! (with a side of Access)
Today I will use ColdFusion for PDF manipulation of data received by fax and saved as gifs or jpegs. I will also generate lots of reprots with ColdFusion, I will make data dance on the screen, and I will get MS Access to produce a printed book from its 14 tables of data.
This evening I’ll take the boys to their scout meeting.
Break into a Dodge Caravan? No problem.
Today we took the children to church. Typically the younger four go with the grandparents while the heathens, Cathy, Tommy and I, stay home where I work on client projects or the house while taking the Lord’s name in vain; everyone sins right? When Tommy was younger, multiple churches requested that he stay away so he never formed a church habit. My religious upbringing is a different story culminating with me tending to keep my religious views to myself. Tommy has discovered that he is comfortable at Two Rivers Church’s youth group and goes there on Wednesday nights although conflicts have kept him away recently.
The grandparents enjoyed the UT Vols game in the stadium last night so we had the responsibility of getting the children to church this morning. Tommy chose to stay home of course. Cathy and I dropped the children then looked at Sunday school options for ourselves finding 4 possibilities for our age group. The one we picked at random turned out to be the group devoting themselves to getting the word out through activities like car washes and entertainment at festivals; anything to get an audience then try to get them to convert or accept the Lord. That directly conflicts with my "keep religious views to myself and let others make their own decisions" mindset.
After class, I went to the van to get some Alavert and Cathy joined me to get some Tylenol. I opened the tail gate for the medical supplies. Cathy took the keys and let herself into the car for a drink to wash her medicine down. I close the tailgate. Then I see someone waiting to get into their car and tell Cathy she is in the way. She jumps out of the way and closes the door. I ask for the keys and her face goes blank. Then she giggles. I think I’ll start carrying two sets of keys for the car! Cathy’s father came out to help me which is good otherwise God and I might have had a lively discussion.
Consistency, who needs it!
So I work in ColdFusion a lot. I also work in PHP a lot. Just did a round of work on ASP. Working on web applications involves integral knowledge of Javascript, CSS, HTML, and a variety of other buzz words like Flex, AIR, AJAX, and so forth. It also means decent familiarity with databases such as MS SQL, MySQL, and MS Access and others.
Tonight I work in the one I dread the most…MS Access! I wonder what it would be like to go to work and do the same thing day in and day out.
I DO need a Macbook!
Because I also want to follow 5,700 Twitterers!
