I so look forward to the day I can turn down $65,000 per year for sitting on the board of directors of something.
From the mouths of babes
Sarah, who has lost her cellphone somewhere in the house: "Well, I don’t know what to do!"
Dad, blink blink: "Find it?"
Do you still have a land line?
Have you done away with your land line yet? We have a land line that is mostly for the kids. I use it because it is more clear than my cell at times and conveniently located beside my workstation with a nice headset. We are horrible about checking it for voicemail. There are actually two lines. One is the primarily line and the other is a line dedicated to the children and a fax machine. We mostly use the fax machine for making copies. This setup runs me roughly $80 per month (which is nearly $1000 per year!). The primary reason for keeping it is that I’ve had the main number for over a decade. Even people that haven’t been in touch with me in years can call me. By the same rationale I used to hang onto a post office box that took me nearly a half an hour drive in one direction to get the junk mail out of it. In the same vein, the primary caller to the land line is the ever present bill collector.
Yes, sometimes I have a hard time letting go. Today unless I miraculously pull $200 out of my hind quarters, that piece of nostalgia goes away forever. At least I have the convenient excuse of telling people "we only use our cell phones" instead of "my cash flow is so screwed up that I can’t hang onto basic utilities."
As I write this, I become increasingly comfortable with the idea of simply arming each family member with their own cell phone (3/7s the way there already) and never again using Hellsouth (aside from their relationship to Cingular).
Watch for this weekend’s followup installment: Learning how to live without electricity!
Convenient Passing
In case you haven’t yet heard about Ken Lay, see Latte Man for the details and the seed of the coming Oliver Stone movie.
I rode The Dragon
Julie posted a reference to The Dragon. Years ago I rode The Dragon on a 1981 Honda CM400C (the C apparently means "custom" and is bored out to have the displacements of a 600…basically means a 600 will take me from the line but at cruisiing speed we pull the same RPMs). Sometimes a comment deserves to be a post so I repost here:
I rode the Dragon once. It tightens your butt cheeks quite well.
Motorcyclists have a rating system called “pucker factor” which is the degree to which your gluteus clings to your seat. The Dragon has a high pucker factor.
Once thing about the Dragon is you come out of it knowing how to take a turn. I was loaded down on an underpowered bike really designed to stay in the city and heading to Atlanta and I recall this one turn that I went into with a lot of lean. It was graffitti defying antics nearly dragging peg (that means the piece of metal your foot rests on drags the ground). That turn kept on going and going and going. It felt like I made a full circle three times! I certainly surpassed my comfort zone on that one but really learned the capabilities of my bike.
I hope to high heaven that I-3 gets shot down and does not destroy the Dragon.
Wear my shoes!
“Where we stand depends on where we sit.” -Stephen R Covey
“For every thousand hacking at the leaves of evil, there is one striking at the root.” -Thoreau
Lame Technology
Why can’t I reach through the phone and strangle the idiot on the other end? I should be able to do that!
Since the pundits will have covered N Korea’s missle test already
Original MASH movie poster.
Yikes!
I guess $85,000 per week makes partnership relations difficult.
Of Grasshoppers
Student: I find separating tiredness from weariness difficult.
Master: Those who hide under the covers are not tired.
What’s the deal?
I have a brain cloud.
Free ebook on depression
Wow! Ellen, as noted here, is really talented! (and provides some great information on depression)
Electro-graf from Graffiti Research Lab
This video is fascinating on many different levels. I am in wonder at the ingenuity of the circuitry. I’m impressed at the skill of the artist and the time put into his work. The video editing with the side notes and smaller video is well done. I caught myself rewatching parts just to consume all the juicy information such as the links to more information like http://stencilrevolution.com/.
Warning! The audio portion of this video contains adult language used by the US president, GW Bush, and may be offensive to some. The video itself contains nothing inappropriate and can be enjoyed by those with sensitive ears and virgin minds by simply turning down your speakers.
Siblings are good
Busymom links to how siblings shape who we are.
[Our brothers and our sisters] are our scolds, protectors, goads, tormenters, playmates, counselors, sources of envy, objects of pride.
They teach us how to resolve conflicts, and how not to; how to conduct friendships and when to walk away from them. Sisters teach brothers about the mysteries of girls; brothers teach sisters about the puzzle of boys. [Source]
We have told our children many times that nothing is thicker than blood. Cathy and I have pondered if Sarah will run to the remote edges of the world to evade Tommy or if she will be near and check on him when we are gone.
Our spouses arrive comparatively late in our lives; our parents eventually leave us. Our siblings may be the only people we’ll ever know who truly qualify as partners for life. [Source – same as above]
Sibling rivalries can be good. Fighting teaches "how conflicts, once begun, can be settled" With siblings, you negotiate things from day to day. Unlike that best friend through middle school that disappears in high school, your siblings are always there.
Multi-child households can be nothing short of palace courts, with alliances, feuds, grudges and loyalties, all changing day to day. Perhaps the touchiest problem in most such families is favoritism. [Source – same as above]
As role models, siblings fail pretty badly.
On the whole, siblings pass on dangerous habits to one another in a depressingly predictable way.
A girl with an older, pregnant teenage sister is four to six times likelier to become a teen mom herself. [Source – same as above]
We have seen the influence both ways. Noah will take to school Tommy’s behaviors while Tommy will take to high school elementary humor that he missed which Noah is now enjoying. I love seeing my family stand together. There are so many times I observe them from afar and take pleasure is watching their interactions. They are really good to each other and for each other.
Bloggers are terrorists
The Air Force Office of Scientific Research recently began funding a new research area that includes a study of blogs. Blog research may provide information analysts and warfighters with invaluable help in fighting the war on terrorism.
The cost of this study is $450,000! You know, I do good research For $450,000 I could give them some very pretty reports. Thanks to Newscoma for pointing this one out!
3-year project entitled "Automated Ontologically-Based Link Analysis of International Web Logs for the Timely Discovery of Relevant and Credible Information."
One of the problems analysts may have with blog monitoring, Ulicny noted, is there is too much actionable information for the analyst to properly analyze.
“We are developing an automated tool to tell analysts what bloggers are most interested in at a point in time,†Ulicny said.
Does this sound a lot like Technorati? Maybe they should just buy Technorati.
