Apopheniac

Low intensity trick-or-treating

We had a total of two trick-or-treaters come to the door tonight, one of which was our grand-nephew from next door. Pretty low intensity stuff. There are just not many kids of that age in the neighborhood. Oh well, more tootsie-rolls for me.

We usually hang out in the den where the computers are, but can't hear a knock at the front door from back there. Our normal procedure when we are expecting someone is to leave a post-it on the door telling them to come on in or come around to the back. This doesn't work for the halloween kids so we spent the early part of the evening watching tv in the living room where we can see the door. Now that it's later and the good tv is over we have gone back to our compu-lair but I have set up a videocamera through the glass storm-door with a wireless feed to the tv in the den. We monitor the front porch for candy seekers even as I am blogging the experience. Oh these high-tech times we live in. I hear Sony just hit the market with little portable flat panel wi-fi tv's you carry around with you and watch anywhere.

Costumes at work

Andrea (fatigues) and I made the rounds of the people who wore costumes to work for Halloween. Cowgirl Ranita was a good match for the cow from the class nextdoor. Ranita didn't wear a costume, but the same tack she wore when she killed an 850lb bear from horseback. The big-bellied security guard was great.

Costumed smokers gather at breaks. This woman made a nightstand costume and said she came as a "one night-stand"

Halloween

I wasn't going to wear anything "costumish" to work for the festivities tomorrow but this afternoon I decided I simply had to participate.

Brain teaser

It is altogether fitting that the apopheniac site should ask you to find the pattern in the following and tell me what movie title is represented.

Fairy
Wolf
Duckling

Check comments for answer.

End of my first week on the new job

I completed my first week at the call center. I will be in the classroom for 5 weeks and this ends the first. The training is well designed, predominately computer based and well presented. I've previously been exposed to a good bit about customer service but this is well enough done that I am getting insights I hadn't gotten before. It was the best presentation that I had seen on using open and closed questions to move the conversation to a successful resolution. A lot of the training will be building familiarity and skill on their systems so it will be practice, practice, practice.

RFID for the people

There has been a lot in the media about stores going to rfid tags, little radio scanning devices in products to aid in scanning and inventory control. BoingBoing reports mit is working on technology that can lead to a purse or briefcase that will scan your items as you're headed out the door and tell you if you've forgotten any, like announcing, "cellphone: yes; wallet: yes; carkeys: no."

Voted early

Well, Jean and I just returned from casting our votes for this season. I will be so glad when the mud hosing is over. I actually cast my vote in one of the races to vote against a candidate because their negative ads were so over the top.

I like the early voting process. We did it at our regular United grocery store on the way in to shop. It was easy, with literally no waiting. The attendants were courteous and pleasant because they weren't overwhelmed. Now its out of the way and there is no chance of being side-tracked by some urgency on election day. Hopefully no one I voted for will be caught flagrante delicto with a girl scout between now and the election.

New Job

Today was my second day at my new job. I am working at a customer service call center.

Grown kids at home.

I got an email from a friend who mentioned that his grown kids living at home were on notice because he and his wife were moving to senior housing in 3 years. This got me to thinking how current economic and social realities had grown kids staying at home even longer. It also reminded me of a conversation from when Jean and I were in grad school.

One day Mary, one of the students in our psych class, arrived simply beaming. She was a slender nurse in her late 40s who we had enjoyed visiting with. When we asked what she was so excited about, she said her last child had just moved out and was setting up housekeeping on their own. She was thrilled that her life, and her home would be her own again.

The discussion continued about getting started on your own and kids moving on until someone asked Mary, "What will you do when they move back?" It was fascinating to watch the emotions play across Mary's face as she processed her memories of friend's children moving home. It was clear she had never thought of it.

I stayed with my parents for a few weeks when I got out of the navy. My brother, sister and I came home for a while when we each divorced, so even the baby boomers used their folks' house as a port in a storm.

In areas like New York, LA and San Francisco it is so incredibly expensive to set up housekeeping and its no cake walk in the rest of the country, so many kids were staying home longer.

I remember when I went was stationed in Maine in the late 60's I encountered a pattern among some families. Kids lived with their parents until they married. When they married, another bedroom was built onto the house and that's where the new couple lived. I found out about this when I asked some of the locals in Lewiston about these houses with extra wings and stories added on.

William Gibson is blogging again.

William Gibson, creator of cyber-punk and and author of Pattern Recognition
and Johnny Mnemonic has started posting to his blog again. Today's post is as follows:

President Bush is speaking at an elementary school.

After his talk, he offers to answer questions. One little boy puts up his hand and the president asks him his name.

"I'm Billy, sir."

"And what's your question, Billy?"

"I have three questions, sir. Why did the US invade Iraq without the support of the UN? Why are you President when Al Gore got more votes? And whatever happened to Osama Bin Laden?"

Just then the bell rings for recess. Bush announces that they'll continue after recess.

When they return, Bush asks, "OK, where were we? Question time! Who has a question?"

Another little boy raises his hand. The president asks his name.

"I'm Steve, sir."

"And what's your question, Steve?"

"I have five questions, sir. Why did the US invade Iraq without the support of the UN? Why are you President when Al Gore got more votes? Whatever happened to Osama Bin Laden? Why did the recess bell go off twenty minutes early? And where the heck is Billy?"

Google your desktop.

While browsing the blogs that Gregg listed in his comment to the previous post, via www.fark.com I discovered that Google now has a downloadable beta that will allow you to search your own computer with Google-like efficiency. I downloaded it and it seems to be pretty cool. At present it only searches outlook (& express) email files, office files (excel, word, powerpoint), aim chats and a few others, but they are expanding and you can submit what searches you would like them to develop.

Accordion Guy is engaged.

Joey deVilla is Accordion Guy and posts his exploits on "The Adventures of Accordion Guy in the 21st Century" which is responsible for my discovering blogging (see below). I think Joey met Wendy Koslow (who blogs as "the redhead") via bloggercon, a convention for bloggers. It was held at Harvard Law school, where Wendy works. They met, long distance dated and just announced their engagement. Their wedlog is wendyandjoey.com.

How I found blogging through Accordionguy. OK, imagine you google some passing whimsy and one of the links comes back, "The Adventures of Accordion Guy in the 21st Century." Could your resist clicking? OK, well that's you, I couldn't. So I followed the link and among the miscellanea about his life, his roomates, his job, his karaoke and his romantic misadventures are references and links to other bloggers. My natural curiosity and my mouse led me to the world of blogging and after lurking on the fringes for about six months, I launched this blog a year ago next month.

That's my story and I'm sticking to it.

wikipedia - free encyclopedia

A wiki (or wikiwiki) is a website that can be updated or edited by anyone. Wikipedia is an wiki encyclopedia which is a very useful resource. The entries are well written and hyperlinked to other resources. Check it out.

When I first encountered the concept I was skeptical, thinking that pranksters or people with an agenda to push could re-edit and contaminate the content. While there seem to be attempts at this (George W. Bush and John Kerry are among the most edited entries.) it seems to be self correcting because others can correct and invalid edits can be removed.

So far most of the entries I have read have seemed accurate and valuable and some have provided unexpected insights. For example, I was reading the entry on the first amendment to the constitution which included interesting information on the use of "free speech zones" to limit the activities of protesters which has arisen since September 11. I have found multiple wikipedia entries to be more current and comprehensive than the corresponding entries in traditional encyclopedias.

Impending Grampa-ness

I just got off of the best instant messenger exchange of my life. Jessica just let me know that she and Jason have a baby on the way for next May.

She will be such a wonderful mother.

I'll fill in more details as they arrive.

Hot puppies!!!

The other edge of the sword of political info on the net

Yesterday I spoke of how the net enabled us to fact check and find other perspectives to find the truth in political stories. This story in Wired tells how a college professor wrote a report with political implications in the Dan Rather CBS Broohaha. He and and his bosses at the university were swamped with hate mail filled with namecalling and cries for his resignation.

It seems that just as we can have electronic truth finders and voices crying in the wilderness, there can be electronic mobs storming the castle with torches and pitchforks.

Cheney had met Edwards despite what he said.

VP Cheney delivered what looked like a body blow to Sen. Edwards when he attacked him for not attending the Senate and said that though Cheney presided over the Senate, he hadn't met Edwards before they walked onto the stage that night. It was a powerful statement. Unfortunately it wasn't true.

ABC News reports they had met at least 3 times before:

"On Feb. 1, 2001, the vice president thanked Edwards by name at a Senate prayer breakfast and sat beside him during the event.

"On April 8, 2001, Cheney and Edwards shook hands when they met off-camera during a taping of NBC's "Meet the Press," moderator Tim Russert said Wednesday on "Today."

"On Jan. 8, 2003, the two met when the first-term North Carolina senator accompanied Elizabeth Dole to her swearing-in by Cheney as a North Carolina senator, Edwards aides also said."

Is the VP having senior moments. This seems unlikely given his clear grasp of so many other facts, figures and dates. Or is he willing to sacrifice the truth for a political victory, a charge which seems all to familiar.

Unfortunately, as the fact checks show this is too common all the way around and we should be able to expect more from our leaders and those who wish to be our leaders. Fortunately we live in the era of the internet. It is much harder to get away scott free with misrepresentation and we citizens have sites like factcheck.org to get the straight skinny and we can google the news stories to see more than one perspective.

VP debate

I watched Cheney and Edwards debate this evening. This debate seemed more even than the presidential debate last week. I am really impressed with the caliber of the debates so far this year. They have been substantive with real exchanges on real issues and the voters who watch them have been presented a clear choice between competing visions.

Gray day on the plains.

It drizzled all day today with no appreciable accumulation. That won't be true for long as the radar shows a major storm on its way from the west.

We are right at the middle of this image.

Thinking of putting up wood for the winter?

Found this great picture of a house surrounded by firewood at woodheat.org which is a great resource on firewood, from how to split it to which woods burn hottest.

Pig's Tomato legacy

Matt and Carol did their usual Sunday feast today. Matt announced that, because the wild pig has been getting fed so many tomatoes and been eating them in his smash and run style, that liteally hundreds of tomato plants have been sprouting in his run and now he is feasting on the plantlings.

Kirk's replacement hard drive

Kirk's replacement hard drive arrived yesterday and he has restored his computer as a linux machine and is happily plugging away.

The reason I am blogging this is that not many people know about getting their hard drive replaced under warranty. If your hard drive goes out during the say 3 years of its warranty, you can, for the cost of shipping it back to the manufacturer, get a replacement, frequently a larger and faster drive than the original.

When most people have a hard drive failure, they simply go to the computer store and buy a replacement, or their computer repair guy does. But when Kirk was working for a computer repair service some years ago in Atlanta, we discovered that most hard drives have pretty extensive, full replacement warranties. He even found that in one case the warranty had expired but if a $20 upgrade fee was paid the manufacturer would replace the now dead and out of warranty drive with a newer, faster, larger one. Since then, every time a hard drive has crashed we have gotten a replacement.

At first, because we needed the first replacement in a hurry, we bought another for quick installation, but then we got the dead one replaced under warranty and installed it as a secondary drive. Now, years later, each of our machines has at least 2 hard drives, some 3 or 4 and when a drive goes out, it can be temporarily replaced with one of the others until the warranty unit comes.

I hope this is as exciting to somebody as it was to me.