| Randomosity |
[May. 20th, 2008|10:52 pm] |
Conversation overheard at Target as I was walking quickly down the aisle:
First guy (talking REALLY LOUDLY): "...I got fired at Walmart...I work at Home Depot now..."
Second guy (normal voice volume): "...mumble...mumble...mumble?"
First Guy: "[some guys name] told management that I threatened him..."
I was (thankfully) out of earshot after that.
Did I mention that the first guy was six foot seven and sporting tats? |
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| Good Deed Doer |
[May. 14th, 2008|09:40 pm] |
Last week I did a good deed. I was leaving work with John, a coworker, and, while we were leaving the building we spotted a woman walking back toward the building. "Aren't you going the wrong way?" John asked. The woman (Kaitlyn) answered that she was walking back to find someone with jumper cables. "I have jumper cables", I said. So she pointed out where her car was and, while she walked to it, John and I went to fetch my car.
Kaitlyn's car was a Toyota hybrid and it had a teeny tiny battery. It was used to start the small gas engine in the car (the fuel cell or batteries for the electric motor were in the back somewhere under the seats). The car was a 2003 model so it's not surprising that the battery was no-good: it's a 5-year battery and it reached the end of it's normal life.
John and I hooked up the cables and Kaitlyn started up the car easily. I told here to drive around for at least twenty minutes or to give the battery a chance to fully charge. We also discussed that it was time to replace the battery. She had over 80,000 miles on the car. Wow! After only five years. I was impressed (my car has 180,000 miles on it but it took 16 years to reach that). She said she lived in California for three years. That makes sense.
We unhooked the cables and closed the hood of Kaitlyn's car. John went to his car and I drove off in mine leaving Kaitlyn while she was talking on her cell phone (probably to tell her sweetie that she was going to be late). Altogether it took ten minutes of my time. That felt good.
I bought those cables for purely selfish reasons: they replaced an older set I used several times on my first car, which had problems starting. That first car was a Mazda Mizer and it wasn't doing all that great as it got older. I probably only needed the old jumper cables two or three times but the lessons were burned into my brain. When I bought my first new car (a Plymouth Sundance) I transferred the cables to the new car. After a couple years, the old cables broke and I replaced them with a new set. Last week was the very first time I ever used the new cables. I don't regret that investment one bit. :)
I felt particularly good about this good deed because I was finally able to pay back a good deed a stranger gave me four years ago. In 2004 I bought 13 yards of landscaping in order to Xeriscape my back yard. Company policy dictated that they dump the rocks in the street in front of my house. They can't put the rocks in my driveway because it might crack the concrete driveway (13 yards of rock weighs a LOT). After they dumped the rocks I started hauling them back, one wheelbarrow at a time. I figured it would take about 90 loads to finish the job and, at the rate I was going, it would take 8 or 9 hours to do the job: 4 hours that evening and the rest the next morning (they delivered the rocks late in the afternoon).
After about two hours, this guy shows up in a van with his preteen son and takes a wheelbarrow and a couple shovels out of his van. He told me that he just wanted to help out. I offered him something to drink but he wasn't interested. His son grabbed a shovel and helped load the wheelbarrows. Together we worked for about 90 minutes until it started raining. I thanked the man and his son and they took off. This guy was much more physically fit than me and was able to fill and push his loads at a much quicker rate. I figured he completed 20-25 loads in that time compared to my paltry 10-12. Although his help was brief, he saved me at least two or three hours work. Due to the rain, I was only able to work 2 and a half hours that night. If it wasn't for that man's help, I would have spent all the next morning and some of the afternoon completing the job. Instead I spent slightly less than 4 hours on it the next morning.
While the guy and his son were filling his wheelbarrow, the son asked why they were doing this. The father answered "Sometimes you perform a good deed for a stranger and you hope that stranger will pay it forward by helping another stranger with a good deed." Last week I felt like I finally paid it forward. |
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| My Struggle with Eyeglasses |
[May. 11th, 2008|01:42 am] |
(Yes, I know this wasn't on my list of topics from my last post. Sue me. :P)
I haven't had much luck with my eyeglasses in the past past year. I've been doing even worse with the clip-on sunglasses that came with them. Since July of last year I've broken one pair of glasses, lost another pair and broke two clip-on sunglasses. As a result I've spent nearly a grand replacing what I lost (to be honest that cost also includes a visit to the eye doctor).
( Read about my glasses misadventures ) |
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| Busy. Topics. List |
[May. 4th, 2008|04:01 pm] |
The last two weeks have been pretty busy. I finished the semester at CNM which was a big deal because of the final project in my OpenGL class (3D Rube Goldberg device). I drove to OKC for OEGE and Rob's after party. Work. I went to a Rush concert. I've also been working on digitizing my cassette collection and my albums. And other things. Too busy to blog, that's for sure.
Now I got time to blog but I'm so confused! So many things to blog about. Let's make a list so I can prioritize and pick and choose my topics for the next few weeks.
- Another CNM Semester bites the dust and my big OpenGL project.
- Drive to OKC, OEGE and Rob's after party
- PIAOOM
- Robert Reed (the author, not the actor)
- Digitizing my records and tapes
- Rush concert
- Google Maps street view
- Google maps, Breaking Bad and No Country for Old Men
- A confession
- Mr Flibble's takes a bath
- Which one is the real Mr. Flibble?
- The great break up.
That'll keep me busy for a while. I'll do the OEGE one first but I'll need to process my pictures beforehand (some of them need to be developed first). |
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| Sugar High |
[Apr. 16th, 2008|11:31 pm] |
Mental Note to Self: The next time I'm at Costco, make sure to avoid the Rice Krispies bars. Last week I bought a case of them. 48 RK bars. Today, six days later, I just ate the last one.
I can't just eat one! Or seven. |
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| Falling in Love Again |
[Apr. 12th, 2008|12:22 am] |
I know I'm behind the times here but tonight I saw the first episode of "The Sarah Jane Adventures". The show is OK. Kinda meh and cheesy in some parts of the show (Sonic lipstick - give me a break!). What got my attention was Sarah Jane herself (well, actually, the actress who played Sarah Jane: Elisabeth Sladen). Man, she looked hot! I remember when she was on a new Doctor Who episode two years ago and I was not impressed. She looked like a middle aged news anchor. She had the newscaster helmet hair, the newscaster makeup and it looked like she may have had plastic surgery. I was not impressed. I was disappointed, in fact.
Not tonight. She looked a lot better. More natural and a lot prettier. I realized then that, two years ago, they did a poor job with her makeup and hairstyle. They've made up for it with this new show.
When I first saw Sarah Jane on Dr. Who some 25 years ago (when they re-ran the show on my local PBS station), I was enamored. She was and still is my all-time favorite Dr. Who companion. On the nights I watched her on Dr. Who, years ago, I would go to bed and pretend that I was in the TARDIS with her, having all sorts of adventures fighting Daleks and giant robots. That was a long long time ago.
Time for bed! :D
Welcome back Elisabeth (Sarah Jane)! |
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| Pi Day |
[Mar. 14th, 2008|08:46 am] |
Today is March 14th. 3/14. Also known as Pi day.
Pi is one of the most important mathematical constants. So important, in fact, that Larry Shaw - known as the "Prince of Pi" - decided to celebrate the number by starting off the "pi day" celebration at San Francisco's Exploratorium. On this day you can eat fruit and pizza pie at the Exploratorium.
Pi is an irrational number. That means it is composed of a sequence of numbers that never repeats. Heck, it's more than that, it's a transcendental number which means its value cannot be reproduced with a finite sequence of algebraic operations using integers. That puts it in a special class since only a few transcendental numbers are known to exist ("e" is another one).
Pi is an obsession to many mathematicians, who have gone to extraordinary lengths to calculate the next digit of Pi. So far Pi has been calculated to 1.24 trillion digits. In other words, it would take a Terabyte disk drive just to hold that number. This is the kind of thing that makes you wonder why they do it. Are they trying to find the impossible "last" digit of Pi? If we calculate Pi to the 10 gazillionth digit would God show up, thank us for our effort and close up shop (like what happened in the Arthur C. Clarke story The Nine Billion Names of God)? Scientists try to cover themselves by saying that, although this level of accuracy for Pi is of little practical use, it contributes to "improving calculating methods". Ya, right. Whatever. We all know the real reason, you geeks.
I have to admit to my own geekiness on this matter. I know Pi to 14 digits from memory: 3.1415926535897 (I swear I didn't look it up). That's nothing compared to a few people I know who've memorized it to 20 or 30 digits.
Pi day is also important to remember because it's the birthday of Albert Einstein, my all-time favorite scientist and personal hero. He was born on this day in 1879 making him 129 years old if he were alive today.
Billy Crystal and Kirby Puckett were born on Pi day. A bunch of other notables were also born on this day too (like the Austrian composer Richard Strauss) but those two stick out in my mind. Mostly because I'm from Minnesota and Kirby played for the Twins (Billy Crystal is notable to me because, well, he's Billy Crystal).
The most important reason I like Pi day is because...well...it's my birthday. :D Perhaps I should celebrate by eating some (pizza) pi(e). |
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| Sothy Before the War: A Poem |
[Feb. 25th, 2008|07:38 pm] |
I wrote a little poem about our friend Sothy.* I was inspired by the song "Germany Before the War" a song written by Randy Newman.
Here it is:
Sothy Before the War
In Germany before the war,
There was a dood who owned a gun
In Nineteen Hundred Ninety Four
in UR base
And Every night at five-oh-nine
He'd kill ur doodz to pass the time
and sit by the river of blood
I'm looking at the river
but I'm killin your d00dz
killin ur d00dz
killin ur doodz
I'm looking at the river
but I'm killin your d00dz
killin ur d00dz
A little d00d has lost his way
With hair of gold and eyes of gray
Reflected in Sothy's visor
As he aims his gun
A little d00d has lost his way
With hair of gold and eyes of gray
I'm looking at the river
but I'm killin your d00dz
killin ur d00dz
killin ur doodz
I'm looking at the river
but I'm killin your d00dz
killin ur d00dz
We lie beneath the cloudy sky
My little D00d and I
And he lies very still
*Sothy is a regular on the Digital Press forum. If you don't know what I'm talking about, don't worry about it. |
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| Don't Drive Angry |
[Feb. 2nd, 2008|08:12 am] |
Every year on the morning of February 2nd I get on the internet and find out if Punxsutawney Phil saw his shadow. Every year it's becoming more and more difficult to find the story revealing this tidbit of information. I couldn't find the story on my MySpace page or on the front page of the Google News website. I had to do a Google news search and found the story on the tenth link. What superseded the proper article were stories titled: Groundhog Day Events in Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania, FACTBOX: Groundhog Day -- popular non-science, All you need to know about Groundhog Day, How animals gauge the weather and so on. Perhaps the above articles had the information I sought but I wasn't willing to read through the articles to find out. I wanted my information NOW (obviously I take news about a large squirrel predicting the weather very seriously)!
This tradition of mine started back in 2003 in the shadow of the Columbia shuttle disaster. I was on pager duty and, thanks to an early morning page, I was awake and online. I turned on the TV and, naturally, the news was all about the disaster. That was understandable in light of the gravity of the news and I wasn't complaining. If they talked about Phil I probably missed it while I was talking to a customer about some IT problem. After the problem was resolved I decided to give the Google News search engine a shot and before long I found out whether Phil saw his shadow (I think he did, I can't remember). It was from that experience that I learned to really appreciate News search engines and I use it all the time now for news topics that interest me.
Getting the Groundhog news last year was easy. Why? Two reasons. Last year they replaced the Grand Marshall (or whatever his title was) of the ceremony with a new guy. Secondly, and more importantly, Phil - for the first time in many years - was unable to see his shadow. Big news in the Groundhog world and I was able to learn of his prediction very quickly. A third reason might be because it was a slow news day but I'm sticking to my first two reasons.
It's not a slow news day this morning. I tuned into the Saturday edition of the Today Show and all they talked about was politics. Super Tuesday this, Clinton vs. Obama that. I understand that politics is important with the election near but I gleaned all the important information on that topic in the first five minutes. I turned away from the Today Show after thirty minutes of not hearing about Phil (I already knew about Phil's prognostication but I wanted to see video on it).
After reading all my bitching and moaning about the lack of proper coverage on the topic, you're probably getting a little impatient. Did Phil see his shadow or not? Let me tell you now without hesitation: he did see his shadow. Six more weeks of winter. Darn. This winter will never end. |
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| For the want of a nail |
[Jan. 22nd, 2008|10:32 pm] |
Today, while I was driving to class, I noticed that the truck in the lane next to me had a really loud engine noise. "Dang", I thought, "He needs to replace his muffler." A few minutes later the truck turned left and drove away. Unfortunately the noise stayed with me. Damn! My car needed a new muffler! @_@
( My adventure with a car that sounded like a hog in heat ) |
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| 2007 Year in Review |
[Jan. 3rd, 2008|09:36 pm] |
Let's get all this 2007 stuff over with
( Yeeehaw!!! ) |
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| 2007 Big Five Anniversaries |
[Jan. 1st, 2008|11:20 am] |
Back in 2006 I did a Big 5 anniversary post. Basically it was a post about events in my life that I remembered from 5 years ago, 10 years ago and so on. For each 5 year mark I'd also post what happened that year in computing. Here's a link to that post.
I was planning to do the same for 2007 back in December but I got distracted by Mr. Flibble's twin (or replicant, I can't tell yet). Better late than never, I guess.
( Let the memories begin ) |
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| Ubik Christmas |
[Dec. 30th, 2007|08:35 pm] |
A little late with my post but here's what I did for Christmas.
First I did a little last minute shopping on Christmas Eve. Went to three places, got everything I needed. After a meal at Wendy's, I gassed up the car and went home. I spent a good part of the rest of the day wrapping presents.
( Mr. Flibble repeats himself ) |
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| Favorite Snickers Commercial |
[Dec. 14th, 2007|04:32 pm] |
Lately this has been my favorite Snickers commercial:
What can I say? As a Minnesota native I'm partial to Vikings. :D
Turns out that there are a whole host of Snickers Feast commercials out there. I've only seen a few of them on TV. Here's a link to the other Snickers commercials. Most of them are meh but one or two are pretty funny. |
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| More fun with my toy camera...sorta |
[Dec. 5th, 2007|02:43 pm] |
Fun With my Camera
In my spare time I've been having some fun with my new $10 camera.
Since my last entry about the camera I've taken another 100 still shots and about 200 or 300 more action shots for gif movies.
( More pictures and the BSoD ) |
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| New Cheap Camera |
[Nov. 26th, 2007|07:42 am] |
On Black Friday I visited Walgreens to get a few groceries. While I was there I found this camera:
How much did it cost? Ten dollars. That's $10! Only ten dollars. OMG! Naturally, I bought it.
( Fun with my new cheap camera ) |
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| Too Much Harry Potter |
[Nov. 25th, 2007|06:41 am] |
Since July until about a week ago, Harry Potter and his friends have been on my mind pretty much on a daily basis.
( Here's why ) |
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| New userpics |
[Nov. 22nd, 2007|08:16 pm] |
I've been negligent in keeping my userpics up-to-date. For the longest time I've only had the four and I've been adding avatars at Digital Press and other boards and yet, not here. So, without much ado, my current list of userpics (the first four were my original pics):
( See my library of new and old userpics ) |
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