Intellectual Poison

Thanks to everyone for their thoughts and concern in the wake of my most recent work layoff. I am doing alright, just spending alot of time offline with my family while I can. Yesterday we went down to Monterey to go to the aquarium because our passes are just about ready to expire.

Grady has a set trail he hits at the aquarium and he ran from place to place at speed. My wife enjoyed the trip far more because I was doing the chasing and she was enjoying the relative calm with Sully.

I won't lie and say that I'm thrilled to be out of work but it is not the worst thing that could have happened. I am most bummed about not being able to be on the frontlines with my clients especially since one of them is poised to change how we all "internet" and to take some of the advertising thunder back from Google and put it back in the content creator's pockets, which would be nice.

But I definitely do not miss my morning slog to Scotts Valley on these cold, wet days.

Tags: offline, layoff, work, family time

Labels: offline, work

Especially when pinatas and candy are involved.

We went to a birthday party yesterday afternoon, the daughter of son of our daycare provider. She was turning 5 and was very much into the "Princess" birthday theme. Graydon has gone from being the littlest piker at the party to one of the mid-ranged kids.

I spent the party keeping an eye on Sully and then Grady and then Sully again.

When it came time to bring the bash down on the pinata castle, these previously cute little girls became demons possessed. One girl took five whacks at the castle in the space of time others got one in, and none of the hits were soft taps, these were candy-fueled precision blows intended on releasing more candy from the pinata.

The payout was pretty good, lots of mini candy bars and other goodness in that pinata. Grady didn't really get the idea of gather as much as you could so much as he'd pick up one piece of candy and ask to have it unwrapped for consumption.

But nobody got whacked with the stick, which was good because I was in the right position to be the whackee. And both Sully and Grady had nice good and long naps through the afternoon.

[Update: Here are a few cropped in shots to better show the fury that possesses the 5 year olds when pinatas are involved.
Pretty amazing really, she was such a nice little girl before the pinata came out. And she wasn't the only one, but she was the one I got the best captures of, she was nice enough to turn so I could get her profile. But it was fun to watch and fun to watch the kids have such a good time whacking the holy bejeezus out of the castle.

Tags: birthday party, pinata, possessed, candy

Labels: birthday

The big day of work was everything it promised to be, a big day with a good briefing, a good meeting with a client and then a tasty sushi lunch.

And, with about an hour to go before the weekend and two hours before my client was going to have dinner with one of his absolute heroes (and a rather luminous personality in technology), it was then, an hour to go, two hours for the dinner, that I was called into our operations man's office.

In pretty straight fashion he told me I was getting laid off. The recent departure of clients combined with the lack of a strong pipeline to replace them equals hasta la vista.

The topper is that I talked with my client after his dinner and it was awesome, he had a fantastic time and really made a connection with him.

I've been told I'm allowed to get angry about getting laid off but right now I'm just kind of bummed I don't get to do the PR for this company that is going to kick ass.

But at least maybe I'll get a couple of bike rides and a few mornings sleeping in out of this layoff. I wish I could write code as I've got a website that needs to be developed.

Tags: work, layoff

Labels: layoff, work

Photographer spots rare heavenly arc which looks just like a rainbow flipped upside down or Mother Nature's Smile, the reality is that its not really a rainbow but is called a circumzenithal arc, it is created by sunlight shining through tiny ice crystals.

Mother Nature is still able to wing us a curve ball every now and again and this is definitely curvy!

Labels: cool, nature

Today is going to be a big day, hopefully it will also be a good day. My CEO will be in the office for a long meeting and some lunch. Later on today he'll be having dinner with one of his top editorial folks ever. And yes, he's pretty jazzed on the prospect, so much so that he changed his travel plans to stay an extra night in California.

But I appear to be keeping all of the balls in the air right now, I'm still working on doing it gracefully though.

I will be excited when the end of the day comes and I can deflate just a bit and relax. This has been a short but very, very tough week. At least we'll have a really good lunch today.

And now, in addition to the rain, we've got a nasty cold snap coming through for the next couple of days. Whee!

Tags: work, crunch, meetings, editor

Labels: work

This is so cool that I might have to find out who built this and go steal it from them.

Check out the Steampunk Keyboard and, for more steampunk slickness, check out Technorati's Steampunk tagged blog posts.

I am just dying for that keyboard. Its so very 1984 and Brave New World-ish! I have steampunk lust!

Labels: 1984, cool, keyboard, steampunk

This is the third time I've started writing this post. Part of the reason is because I start writing it while Graydon is suffering from his malady that I've come to call "Little Effer-itis" and it is the rare child that escapes at least some of the dread disorder.

The disorder is marked by an utter inability to follow direction and extremely selective hearing and seeing. It is also marked by a distinct desire to act in direct opposition to the wishes of your parents and also to laugh like a drunk hyena while doing it.

He doesn't demonstrate symptoms all of the time, in fact, most of the time he is as sweet as can be, a loving, funny, goofy little kid. But, as the time interval between nap and bedtime stretches out, he's more and more likely to start showing symptoms.

Luckily the treatment is mostly just patience and time. He'll grow out of Little Effer-itis before too long and we'll have our sweet little boy back fulltime, until he starts spouting off about hating us.

Tags: Little Effer-itis, childhood, terrible twos, selective hearing

Labels: child, fake disorder, little effer-itis

Tormented first by hiccups, now by media

A fifteen year old girl started hiccuping four weeks ago and hasn't stopped. This is, somehow, news. And the media is going after her like a bunch of pitbulls.

What in the name of sanity is the news story here? Who cares? I know I don't care at all.

The bigger story is the freaking over-reaction by the news agencies to "get the story". ABC called her house 57 times on Sunday and slipped notes under her hotel door.

All of this is over a girl with the hiccups.

I don't get it and I'm pretty sure I don't want to get it. The media needs a big, fat timeout to get its sense of reality back in place.

I don't know if this is art, but I like it!

Labels: dance, dancing boy, video, youtube

Daring Fireball: Translation of (selected portions of) Macrovision CEO Fred Amoroso's Response to Steve Jobs's 'Thoughts on Music'

This is about the funniest fisking I've yet read (apologies to Ryan "Nick Coleman is a F*cking Retard" Rhodes).

I don't usually laugh out loud of stuff I read online but I laughed a couple of times reading this.

And I don't know about you but I can use all the laughter I can get.

Labels: Apple, DRM, fisk, Macrovision

Mummified body found in front of blaring TV

Vincenzo Ricardo's body had been sitting in front of the tv for a year before anyone noticed him.

That's really quite sad to think that a year could pass before anyone noticing you are dead.

It also raises questions like: How were his bills (specifically the electric one) being paid? Why had nobody noticed that his tv set had been on and blaring for more than a year?

Its a good thing he didn't have cats or he wouldn't have been quite so well preserved. Either way though, this story just makes me sad.

Labels: death, sad, unnoticed

Astute readers may have noticed that last Wednesday's strength benchmark test didn't take place.

I haven't forgotten, I've just gotten momentarily sidetracked by everything else going on in my life these days. And the lack of sleep isn't helping. But I do plan on hitting the benchmark later this week, time (and children) willing.

Tags: strength, benchmark, testing, reschedule

Labels: benchmark, reschedule, strength

I can't imagine anyone who doesn't love a three day weekend. But the short week ahead has at least 25% more to do because of the missed day. And there was already alot to do.

But, with some luck, it'll be a good week.

Though I'd be lying if I didn't say that I could very easily go back to bed for another fifteen hours of sleep.

In good exciting news, I found out that a couple of friends are expecting a new baby. Its very early in the pregnancy but we are really excited for them to have some babies. So yeah, that's pretty awesome.

And we did have a nice weekend. It was chilly but we got some sun and got alot of stuff around the house done too. Still plenty more to get done but we made a little dent in the pile.

We've also got to get our passport applications taken care of so there's no crunch come June when we're heading to Mexico for a week.

Happy Fat Tuesday and Happy Pancake Day!

Tags: work, catchup, pregnant, Mexico

Labels: catchup, pregnant, work

The VirtuSphere is a fully immersive virtual reality sphere that enables free movement in any direction for military and first-responder training (gaming), tourism (gaming), education (gaming), real estate walk-throughs (gaming), the possibilities are only limited by your imagination (gaming). You can run, jump, walk or otherwise locomote (i.e. roll a wheelchair) through an endless virtual world. And look like a total dork doing it but who cares? The videos make it look totally badass and fun and great exercise too! Though I do wonder what happens if/when you trip and biff.

Tags: virtusphere, virtual reality, gaming, technology

Labels: gaming, virtual reality, virtusphere

Note to self, do not take refuge in a minivan if an elephant is on the rampage. Maybe a tank but not a minivan.

Labels: elephant, minivan, rampage

Cingular Wireless can blow me.

I got into work this morning and, during my commute, my phone turned from a usable device into a brick. I didn't do anything to it, I didn't get it wet or bash it on anything, it has just stopped functioning.

So I call Cingular to see about getting it replaced, repaired or whatever.

And, because my account was added on to my wife's several years ago, I cannot get access to support because I don't know her friggin' password. This is on top of the long annoying fact that I can't change what appears on other people's caller ID when I call. Its an add-on line that has to display my wife's name, they can't change it or, much more likely, they won't change it and my add-on line feels like a red-headed stepchild.

Nice work, Cingular, you've just lost me as a repeat customer. I will be going into one of your stores tomorrow and if you do not deal me right, I will never even consider buying services from your company again.

[Update: After much fiddling and irritation, the battery has decided to accept a charge again and my phone is theoretically back in business. We'll see how it goes but I'm still annoyed.]

Labels: bad customer service, cellphone, cingular

The smartest thing the California State Lottery did was install automatic lottery ticket machines in supermarkets.

I no longer have to deal with anyone when I want a lottery ticket. I just step up, insert my buck, select a quick pick and out it shoots.

I have an issue with the bill insert thingie though. It seems overly sensitive sometimes and, instead of just pushing the bill back out, it spits it out onto the floor. This gets rather tedious after about fifteen seconds.

But today, as I was prepping my bill for insertion (you know, rubbing out the folded bits, straightening the edges) when I noticed that the previous user of the machine had inserted a five dollar bill and only taken one ticket. Their four dollar loss was my four ticket gain!

Now let's just hope that my luck holds and one of those tickets is the winner!

Crimes Reported To State Not Forwarded For Prosecution

A psychiatrist who has admitted to having sex with female patients will never be prosecuted for his crime.When Dr. Kim Nagel surrendered his medical license in 2004, he admitted to having sex with at least two of his female patients, 7NEWS reported.

Yet since neither the medical board nor the attorney general's office reported Nagel's apparent criminal behavior to the local district attorney, it is now too late for prosecution.

Which is, of course, ridiculously insane. He's admitted to his crimes but, because someone in the AG's office and another in the medical board office was too lazy or incompetent to file the charges, he gets off (yes, pun intended) scot free.

The deeply wrong nature of this situation irks me in ways that make it hard to sit up straight (no, that might not make sense).

Whoever was negligent in filing the charges should be held accountable for their inaction. How many other criminals got a Get-Out-of-Trouble-Free card from the office? Any murderers? Rapists? Child molesters?

This is a serious breach of the process of law and an affront to justice.

Dr. Kim Nagel is free to reapply for a license to practice medicine anywhere in this country and that is grotesquely wrong. People in positions of authority who abuse that authority should most definitely be tried and punished for abusing that authority. Anything else condones thier activity and sends the wrong message to victims and potential perpetrators of similar crimes.

Labels: crime, law, malpractice, sex

I wanted to get this stake in the ground before too many would-be daddies come out of the woodwork to claim potential paternity of Anna Nicole's baby daughter.

My prediction, when the dust settles from the stampede of lovers finally stops, is that Anna Nicole turkey bastered herself with sperm from her late billionaire husband.

Why do I think this? Simple, in a video when she'd just gotten pregnant, she said she had been pregnated. Which I'm thinking was about all her brain could hold when the doctor said she had been IM-pregnated.

So there's my prediction for Anna Nicole Smith's surviving child.

But I kind of hope the photographer is the kid's father. He seems like the least skeevy of the entire bunch.

Hey, there's a reality show in all this ridiculousness, isn't there? Someone should pitch Fox!

[Update: And there's another would-be poppa coming forward, a former bodyguard has admitted to doing the nasty with Anna Nicole. That brings the total to five. And I think someone should have mentioned to Anna that she didn't have to sleep with every single man that crossed her path.

Also, why is anyone paying any attention to her mother? Anna Nicole ex-communicated her mother years ago and hated her, why should her wishes be heard now?]

Tags: Anna Nicole Smith, paternity, turkey baster, impregnated

Labels: Anna Nicole Smith, paternity

It is inevitable. As babies get their teeth, they look for anything and everything to try them out against. If you are letting your baby crawl around your legs and they're teething, you are going to get bit.

Sully is teething right now, he's also been crawling for a few weeks now and is as fast as he needs to be. He can track a pair of legs from the living room to the kitchen and back and knows just when to pounce.

If I'm in shorts or boxers, he gets a couple of fistfuls of leg hair to help pull himself up. I've pretty much given up on wearing shorts for a while.

The worst part isn't really the bite since he is, afterall, a wee little baby. Sure, he could cause damage but it would be accidental. But it is knowing that he could sink his teeth in at any time. In your shoulder, in your thigh, heck, he doesn't know any better and could bite your butt.

It doesn't make me love him any less but I will be happier when he's not trying out his choppers on everything and everyone.

And, as a funny aside, Graydon is at the age where he will do whatever to get attention so if Sully gets rebuked for a bite, you can almost bet on Graydon trying to take a bite for kicks as well.

Tags: infant, teething, bite, baby

Labels: bite, infant, teething

National Pancake Day is February 20th and the International House of Pancakes is giving away one free short stack of pancakes to everyone who wants one.

And free pancakes are totally kickass! They'd like you to donate the money you would have spent on the cakes to the Children's Miracle Network and they are shooting for $500,000 this year.

Need help finding an iHop,? Don't forget to bring your iPod to the iHop.

Labels: free, pancake

Dear Mr. Too Fucking Important to Stop Talking On Your Cellphone While You Piss, please take a few minutes and read the guide to Bathroom Etiquette for the Workplace.

Rule the First is No Business in the Bathroom. Read it, learn it, live it.

Besides, they can hear you pee, they can hear the bathroom echo and they definitely can hear you flush. And though they may be too polite to say it to you directly, they think you are a manner-less bore. Also, they hear you when you don't wash your hands after handling your junk, see Rule the Second.

Tell them you'll call them back in a few minutes or whatever. Just hang up the damned phone and piss.

And don't try to strike up a conversation with me (or anyone else) in the bathroom. At best, you will get a "Hi", at worst, you'll be added to the list of skeevy nutters who try to make friends in the bathroom. Not a good list to be on. Also, at worst, I will take your picture and post it on websites as a bathroom etiquette transgressor and then strangers will point at you and laugh when you are out in public.

Stop talking, do your toilet business and call them back. It isn't that hard.

How To Shave The Modern Male and he's not talking about faces or backs.

When I was growing up and in those uncertain late teens early 20's, the very thought of trimming, shaving or otherwise addressing the unkempt pubis was a clear and sure sign that you liked the boys. I can clearly remember reading a response to a letter in a men's magazine, probably Details, that said "By all means, trim your pubic hair, we're sure your boyfriend will appreciate it." Not so thinly veiled, attending to the male "secret garden" equals gay. Which, at the time, was pretty undesirable. Nowadays, I don't really care in the least what people think of me or my supposed sexuality.

The reality is that an untrimmed or attended pubis looks, well, frightening and not appealing at all. Some guys get pubic dreadlocks because of all the sweat and salt and nastiness that accumulates and stays there.

And, let's face it, a schlong at half mast is already comedic, a schlong at half mast sticking out of a tangled nest of coarse pubic whiskers is downright hilarious looking. Sorry, it is. Men may be physically stronger but we are also incredibly goofy looking naked. And I'm not counting the idiots who keep their socks on when they strip down because that's a whole 'other universe of goofy looking.

As for me (and we just might be veering into Too-Much-Information territory), I've run the gamut from the wildman unkemptness to the clean-shaven to several stages in between. Shaven looks strange and is a pain when the hair starts growing back in but it feels pretty nice. The maintenance is a hassle though and its about fifty times easier and simpler to trim short every few weeks or so.

And that'll be enough about me for today.

I ordered some flowers for today's Valentine Day holiday from ProFlowers.com because it was pretty easy and a pretty good deal.

I'll leave my annual rant about the mad run up on rose prices in the last few days for next year. The annoying profiteering just pisses me off. A dozen roses last week was ten bucks or so, this week, that same damned dozen roses will cost you forty or fifty bucks easy.

Anyway, I put my order in to ProFlowers which included a vase and chocolates, since what is Valentine's Day without chocolates, right?

When the box arrived yesterday, the roses looked fabulous and the vase wasn't broken, which was a nice touch. But there were no damned chocolates in the box and that annoys the hell out of me. I called them and the chocolates are on their way but they won't be here until next week. Will I use ProFlowers again? It depends on what kind of a deal they have and I'll make for damned sure to remind them that I'd like everything in one shipment all at the same time.

Tags: Valentine's Day, ProFlowers, roses, chocolates

Labels: holiday, shopping

Spring Training to Begin This Week

Pitchers and catchers are due to report for spring training this week in a no-doubt-about-it sign that spring is, in fact, on the way.

My boys and I are planning our Opening Day outing to the park complete with tailgate action, barley pops, bleacher seats and gloves set to catch the first home run balls of the Giants amazing 162-0 season (hey, fans are supposed to be optimistic before the season starts).

Steroid controversies aside, I just like baseball.

Also, to that end, Yahoo's fantasy baseball leagues kick off on Thursday. I want to see how low a league number I can get. If you want to play some fantasy baseball, leave a comment with an email I can send an invite to.

Labels: baseball, spring training

Albert Einstein - The difference between genius and stupidity is that genius has its limits.

Check out this sobering map of Murder 2006: Boston Crime. Someone's mashed Google Maps and murder stats for Boston, Baltimore, New Orleans and New York.

Sobering.

I guess they can't do the same for Oakland or it'd be impossible to see the map underneath all those pistol symbols.

And Watsonville wouldn't be pistols, it would be knives because that's how they roll down here!

.....you have lane split at night in the rain during a fun-filled Monday evening commute.

It has been said that riding a motorcycle in the rain is the very definition of crazy. They may be a little right.

Such was my joy this evening. I left in the quickening dusk and spattery rain, stopping once for a WTF start and stop gas pump. The pump started, gave me $1.30 in gas and then stopped and told me to go see Mr. Man inside. He said the network was down, eventually, until I found that out, I thought he was saying my card had been denied. Oh yeah, there was a guy on his Harley, not prepared for rain at all, he said he left all his gear at home. Woops. I wonder how he feels about tight black leather? Hehehe.

Anyway, I need some motorcycle boots. No question about it. That was the one thing that kind of sucked about it. Well, that and jumping around in the skinny middle lane dodging pickup trucks (white, again, natch), debris and the occasional oblivious housefrau in her Explorer, Yukon or Escalade. But then, that part is the norm on a dry day. But add water, lots of it and in drop form and people are cranky and do not like you or anyone else. I had a couple of bozos in a Civic jump in line in front of me on the turn on to the highway. What do I care? Once we got on the highway, I jumped over, gunned it, spun out some and then launched down the center. I bet they hadn't gone two miles by the time I got home.

So yeah, boots are a requirement. Waterproof shoes are only waterproof if the water isn't wind-forced into it from above, side and back all at once.

And, now that it's over and my feet are warm and dry again, it was kind of fun to do. It wasn't fun while I was doing it but it was fun after the fact, you know how that works?

Still, I think I'll drive tomorrow anyway, that way I sit and watch it rain through the sunroof. And feel bad for the biker who gets caught out.

Tags: commute, motorcycle in the rain, rain, you have not lived

Labels: commute, motorcycle

Shopping Cart Handles Have More Germs Than Public Restrooms which is why many places of business are setting up a cheap and easy to use moist towellette station just inside the doors of their markets. Its a simple thing to grab a wipe and murder all those nasty germs.

Its not that people didn't know shopping carts are germ-machines, its just that there wasn't a news story proclaiming what we already knew.

And now that you know, protect yourself and murder some germs the next time you go shopping.

Labels: germs, nasty, shopping

So I've got a new project that I'm starting to think about, how to convert a porsche 914 to electric.

I've always wanted a 914. I like the tiny body style and go-kart feel to the cars. I'm not a large man so the cars are very comfortable for me. But they aren't great on the performance side of things. Switching one to electric would solve several issues at once.

Electric is very, very quick. Electric is efficient. Electric is quiet. But its not a cheap process to convert a car to electric and the batteries would need to be replaced every few years.

But still, how bitchin' would it be to pull up next to some of the Fast & Furious wannabe's in my town in a dead silent 914 and then dust them off the line? I bet it would be more satisfying than shredding them on the motorcycle, which is still great fun and pretty efficient too.

So there's a new project I'm filing away until we have more space to start to engage some of these ideas. I need more space, a big, flat lawn and alot more free time to make them happen. Damnit, why can't I just buy the winning lottery ticket so I can get to the important and fun stuff?

Tags: electric vehicle, conversion, Porsche 914, commuter

Labels: conversion, electric vehicle

Dan Gillmor asks an important question in today's blog post: Fantasy Predictions of Sports Payback.

Why should a county or city or anyone but the franchise owners be buying a new stadium for a baseball or football team?

Aren't these massively for-profit enterprises that generate hundreds of millions of dollars of revenue? Why in the hell do they need to get a town or county to pay for their new home?

What is the benefit to the town? More traffic, more crime, more congestion. Sure, there's the name, the additional revenue that'll get to the town but it'll take a long, long time to pay off a $300 million stadium.

The more I think about this, the less sense it makes for anyone but the owners and team to pay for their own damned new stadium.

Unless I get free tickets, I don't want my taxes going to build a new stadium, I want my taxes to go to repairing our roads, improving our schools and actually going towards making my life and family life's better. That's what the tax contract is all about, not funding new homes for superrich sports franchise owners.

Labels: paying the rich, sports, stadium

This'll be quick as we had an unscheduled very awake baby at 3 this morning and he didn't go back down until nearly 4. Tired? I sure am!

Anyway, last night's premiere was good. I like the twist of having them all work together to build a kickass shelter and camp and then throwing half of them out.

My early likes include: Yauman and Rocky.
Early dislikes include: Dreamz.

And, because in this day and age, even Fijian islanders will have blogs. Check out some insider info about the shoot, the Survivor Boomtown effect (warning, looooong entry). Here are some maps someone put together and then some Google hi-res satellite images to enjoy as well. I like having some maps to refer to although it looks like the Ravu tribe has a really, really long way to travel to get to tribal council which makes us wonder how they can safely navigate home afterwards, in the dark, on the ocean. Seems kind of incredibly dangerous to us.

Tags: survivor, Fiji, reality tv, premiere

Labels: reality tv, survivor

Today is the one year anniversary of my last day at my last job.

Today's the day I walked out of a job just before four complete years of working there. An eternity there. One other employee had been there longer.

I don't really know what to say about it. I'm still very pissed off about getting shafted, I have yet to see my old boss in the street but I'm sure it will happen eventually.

I'm still pissed off that she dealt me so poorly and I'd love to know if she regrets her actions. I kind of doubt it, she never struck as one for personal reflection.

If it were happening now, I would do my best to hold on and stay until Sullivan's birth three months later, that's right, today is Sully's nine months birthday. I would do my best to suck it up, swallow my pride and stay for a few more months to get six weeks of paid time off. But that's an impossible dream, I couldn't have done it then and I don't think I could do it now. She had sapped every last drop of my willingness to toil for her.

And, in the interim, I've welcomed another son, spent alot of time with my family and dog, took care of a whole bunch of house projects, got another job making more money though I have a commute and the jerky neighbors had to leave because the dad was being forced to pay child support to his daughter who he was somewhat abusive to. Oh yeah, and we just got a cat.

On the company's side, they reaped the financial rewards of my putting on a great conference, hired three people in series to "replace" me and are working on the last one right now. They canceled the next conference the week it was supposed to begin and moved the February conference to April. Oh yeah, they've also gone through a whole bunch of other staff in the process. Not the least of which was one friend I managed to rescue and bring along to my new place of employment, which she absolutely loves!

So Happy Anniversary? Y