Aimless Wandering

I watched the return of American Gladiators.  When I was a kid, I never knew just when it was on, but would watch whenever I stumbled across it.

It’s not a great show by any means - but I think it’s one of those shows that can be considered a guilty pleasure…  It’s definitely not going to end up on the DVR’s record list…  But if nothing else is on - I’ll watch it

Oh, and I’m not sure that Hulk Hogan should get to play the big tough guy anymore - not with the amount of cosmetic surgery he had to have had done.  Seriously, the last time I saw him on whatever cheesy movie or TV show he was in he was much more wrinkled and aged looking…

First a little background…

Apparently at least one beaver has built a dam on a stream that passes near a local town’s downtown area, we’ll call the town Beavertown.  On Thursday, one of those beavers was reportedly “acting erratically” and some good samaritans caught the beaver and brought it to a vet.  The beaver’s condition was listed as “guarded.”  This actually made the news on our local NBC affiliate…

So Friday, I’m watching the wall to wall coverage that our local NBC affiliate is airing on the storm that rolled through.  Around 10AM they had the Vice-Mayor of Beavertown on via phone and asked him about the condition of the beaver dam, if the dam would be destroyed if the waterway threatened to flood the business district… and the condition of the beaver caught the other day.  The Vice-Mayor assured the anchorfolks that the dam which had been lowered in anticipation of the storm was intact.  The town did have cables around the dam that could be used to pull it down in the event the town was threatened, but he didn’t think that this would be necessary.  Finally, he was sad to report that the beaver had died an hour before…

I couldn’t help but watch this “drama” in a bit of stunned amazement…  When we lived in Virginia, the pond behind our home had a tendency to attract beavers, and they weren’t welcome.  They chased away the ducks and geese, and the dam affected the drainage in the pond.  Plus, they were destructive, killing several trees in order to get the materials to build their dam.

At 12:45 the situation got even sillier…  As the station had gotten a report that Beavertown officials had pulled on the cables AND DESTROYED THE BEAVER DAM!!!! :O  Then they recapped their conversation with the Vice Mayor and that he had told them that he didn’t think that they would need to take the dam down, and that the beaver caught Thursday had died but they didn’t yet know the exact cause of death… blah blah blah…  Finally they were trying to get in touch with the Vice Mayor for an update on the situation.  You’d think a bridge had collapsed or something…

Well, 15 minutes later they get the Vice Mayor back on the phone who informs them that no, in fact they have not torn the dam down.  The stream has risen to the point that it’s higher than the top of the dam and is flowing over it, however Beavertown officials believe that the dam is still intact - just under water…

Umm… News flash people-  BEAVERS BUILD DAMS!!!!  It’s what they do, and when nature causes their dam to fail, THEY BUILD A NEW ONE!!!  Thus is the circle of life…

The next reporter that they had on was explaining how the rain had made her wet - I really, really wish I was kidding, but no she was explaining that even though she and her cameraman had rainsuits on, since they had been out in the rain for the past 6 hours - shock of shocks - they were now wet…  At this point I decided it was time to switch to re-runs of King of The Hill…

Ok, so first you may be asking just what is a Pleo- Well it’s a robotic dinosaur that is supposed to be incredibly lifelike. Heck the manufacturer considers it to be a robotic life form - It’s probably also the start of the coming war between humans and robots too, but that’s a whole other story. You can check it out here http://www.pleoworld.com/ (turn your sound on, it makes a difference)

Anyway, engadget has one and they are posting things you shouldn’t do with your Pleo - however the comments are even funnier. http://www.engadget.com/2007/12/03/things-you-should-not-do-to-your-pleo/

Take a few minutes to read through them… highlights-

Do NOT let Pleo watch Jurassic Park 1, 2, or 3

Do not take Pleo to a natural history museum.

Don’t tell Pleo you just want to be friends. It’s really uncomfortable & awkward the final two times you see you see Pleo. And then later when you see Pleo in a bar with a new love, you feel really confused. Like you still have feelings for Pleo even though you’re the one who broke up.

So we’re back from another trip.  This was a rare one - The Wife, The Boy and I all traveled together this time.  Other than The Boy  awake and bouncing about his seat for 4 straight hours and The Wife dealing with a jerkwad who insisted on laying his seat in her lap the trip was pretty un-eventful.  However this trip was the first time that my exiting from an aircraft was delayed because of “problems with the jetway.”

Other than that - I’ve been working on trying to install a Windows 2003 Small Business Server for the business.  I’ve installed countless servers in a classroom environment without much trouble, but for some reason when I try and do it for real I always manage to screw up some detail…  This time is no exception and after screwing up the domain naming - I’m restarting the process again.  It wouldn’t have been an issue except that there is an Exchange Server in the mix as part of the Small Business Server.  That Exchange Server is part of the reason why I’m trying to get a server up for the business.  Of course I also know next to nothing about Exchange Servers and that’s probably a large part of my current problem.

Once, again I’m sure the few who actually subscribe to the site were wondering if I had abandoned it.

I haven’t.

Actually, I’ve had three of four things I’ve wanted to post about over the last few days, but for a variety of reasons just haven’t.

First, the problem child I’ve now posted two rants about here still works for me.  While the incidents are “documented” I’ve been told it will take at least two more incidents before she goes away.

Some of what has been occupying my time has been figuring out how to re-design the photogallery over on the Cruise Planners site.  Neither one of us were really happy with how it looked (the wife hated it more than I did though) and I really was unhappy with how everything was organized.  Well after a weekend of work, the gallery there looks much better.

Well, after dealing with the CP site, and having TONs of photos from Paris to deal with I started on the Photo Gallery here.  I think there may still be some work to do, but the Paris photos are up - not all captioned though, and the Photo Gallery looks much better.

So The Boy has been working a Dirty Jobs addiction for about a year now. All things considered, I guess it’s not too bad a show for a 4 year old to be interested in. For some reason The Boy has really latched on to the “Leather Tanner” episode from July 17 which featured a visit with a guy who makes pots with faces on them, and a visit to a Leather Tannery. The tannery segment takes viewers through the process of tanning hides, from removing flesh from the hide all the way through to wringing them out and then “staking” to soften them up, to measuring.

Anyway the other night we’re sitting at dinner and The Boy is dazzling us with his new found letter recognition skills-

The Wife- What letter does dog start with?

The Boy- Letter D

TW- What letter does Joe start with?

TB- Letter J

Me (puffing up with pride along with The Wife) What letter does cat start with?

TB- Letter C

TW (pride welling up inside) What letter does chair start with?

TB- Letter C… (pause) … Staking Machine starts with Letter S.

TW- Wha?

Me- (Partly amused, still somewhat impressed) Um yes buddy, Staking Machine starts with the letter S.

TB- (with authority) De-fleshing machine start with Letter D.

TW- (now seeing where this is going) uhh yeah buddy it starts with d?

TB- (all serious like) Mamma, what letter does disemboweler start with?

Me- (trying not to spit my dinner across the table) …..

TB- Staking machine is my favorite!

Now before anybody really flips out, there is no disemboweler in the episode… It was a joke, of course the fact that The Boy picked up on it, well that’s another thing….

BTW, I’m putting the finishing touches on my acceptance speech for Dad of The Year in case you were wondering…

So in my daily blog reading I came across not one, but two ludicrous stories today…

I discovered the first one on of all places Apple Insider, as it loosely has to do with them. It seems that a South Carolina inmate with a history of filing wacky lawsuits has filed a complaint with the US District Court Middle District of Florida that accuses Steve Jobs of employing OJ Simpson as a hitman for the last 20 years! Oh but it gets better – supposedly Simpson has been Jobs’s hitman since the 1985 MOVE house bombing in Philadelphia, which Jobs started with borrowed pyrotechnics from Great White (I think he means the rock band).

The inmate Jonathan Riches who is serving an 8 year sentence for his role in an identity theft ring. He also claims that “O.J. has been providing Jobs with food blenders since the midwest flood of 1993″ (so?) and that O.J. also “paid Jobs to clone Dolly the sheep on April 20, 1998.” 

According to Mr Riches some of the other criminal enterprises that Steve Jobs is involved in:

Aiming nuclear missiles at Riches’ brain and Lance Armstrong’s bicycle.

Price gouging iPhone customers. According to Mr Riches: “On May 10th, 2007, I bought an Apple iPhone for $922.01 at the FCI Williamsburg commissary, now Jobs sells that same iPod for $199.”

This complaint was dismissed, but it’s not his first. The guy has a HUGE assortment of insane complaints in the past, all documented on his Wikipedia page. Check this one out:

On March 9, 2006, Mr. Riches filed his most famous^] and largest lawsuit. The civil rights lawsuit naming George W. Bush et al as defendants. The “et al” list continues for 56 more pages and includes 783 defendants (both living, dead, and non-entities) such as the survivors of the Holocaust, Pizza Hut, Dane Cook, Three Mile Island, Paris Hilton, Dennis Hopper, Mount Rushmore, the Ming Dynasty, Mein Kampf, “Various Buddhist Monks”, Medieval Times, The Da Vinci Code, and the celestial object Pluto.

The New York Times says that Google is also getting slapped with an insane lawsuit (probably not the first). Dylan Jayne alleges that his Social Security number turned upside down and scrambled spells the word Google… So he wants $5 billion in damages!!!! The HANDWRITTEN complaint (which is hysterical in its own right) that not only is his right to privacy being violated, but that the Plaintiff and defendants have a responsibility to fight the War on Terrorism. The complaint also details the plaintiff’s numerous run ins with authorities in his area, what’s unclear is if Mr. Jayne believes that Google is responsible for those incidents as well.

So once a month a co-worker and I give a presentation to one of our incoming classes.  As part of the presentation members of the class are required to introduce the two of us and read short bios about us.

It’s always interesting to hear what happens to our bios when one of the students tries to ad lib and make our introduction their own…

Take my co-worker, shortly after graduating high school she toured Europe with the group Up With People.  However, one person who introduced us decided to rename the group Up With THE People.  Which sounded like some sort of people’s liberation revolutionary group.  Up With The People, empowering the downtrodden massses and toppling governments in every nation they visit!

Then there’s my latest intro, instead of being introduced as graduating Magne Cum Laude, I’ve now graduated Magne Cum Latte.  I believe that was a grande, whole milk, full cafe latte - but it was my college years so I’m a little hazy on the details now.

This evening I wandered into the Apple store in my current undisclosed location in order to kill some time.  I figured I would get a little hands on time with the iPhone.  As I start groping an iPhone a perky Apple Store Employee (iEmployee?) approached me.  So not expecting any real information, I ask her if she has heard anything about when the iPod Touch was shipping..

And she tells me “oh we got them today, they’re on display on the other side of that wall…”   … and I left a vapor trail over to the indicated wall where I WAITED IN LINE to check out the new Touch.

When I got up there, initial indications - it’s SMALL.  Typing is a little difficult, mainly because I was trying to use my fingernail to do things on the screen, however with the Touch (and probably the iPhone) you need to use your actual fingertip.  The only other negative I had in my first look was that the high gloss screen did pick up quite a bit of glare from the bright lights in the Apple store.

Soon… I’ll get one soon…

So I’m off on another trip, one I haven’t been looking forward to. Well, that’s not completely true the first half of the trip was to Washington DC and that part of the trip I was very excited about. I got to see some very good friends that I haven’t seen since we moved.  It felt good to be back with them, I only wish that The Boy and The Wife could have come along for that.

But I’m jumping ahead- because the trip didn’t exactly get off on a great start.  Let’s see… there was the mad 30 minute scramble to find the sync and charge cable for my phone… then the discovery that the battery in my noise canceling headphones had leaked - badly, so they no longer noise canceled.  Heck, they barely functioned as headphones…

Up at o’dark thirty to get to the airport because we’re a solid hour away from the airport, and as I’m loading the car I manage to break my cell phone case.  (When I informed The Wife of this story while I was in Chicago on my layover she freaked out… She thought I had managed to break yet another expensive cell phone, however it was just the belt clip on the case.  Phone is fine).

Thankfully for me that was the worst of my pre-flight incidents, so I commenced to people  watching….

First off, what’s up with the Clear Traveler program?  From what I’ve seen, all you’re doing is paying to go to the head of the line at security.  You still have to go through the metal detector, still have to take off your shoes, and still have to unpack your laptop…  BFD…

Note to other passengers - even if you speak Mandarin, the folks in the terminal around you STILL don’t want to listen to your cell phone conversation THAT YOU’RE HAVING ON SPEAKER PHONE!!!!  I thought that was the pinnical of cell phone rudeness right there.

Other than playing “spot the people coming back from Hawai’i” there wasn’t a lot of interesting stuff in the airports the other day.  It was kind of a let down…

BTW if you want to figure who is coming off the Hawai’i flights just look for the ABC Store and Hilo Hattie’s bags, they as easy to pick out as the Hawai’ian shirts…