A New "Do Not Call List"

With the 2008 election now less than a year away it won't be long before the campaigning for candidates and issues starts intruding on our personal lives. Whether we want it to or not.

The TV commercials will be bad enough. Wouldn't it be nice to avoid all of the phone calls we'll be interrupted with? That's why I'd like to see a new "Do Not Call List" similar to that which is available to avoid calls from telemarketers. This list would be an "Election Do Not Call List" that would prevent any political candidate, action committee, whatever, from calling us and extolling why we should vote their way.

Today's Peeve

It's gotten so I cannot watch a pro football game on Sunday without turning the sound off and listening to music instead. Other than the top groups, the announcers usually suck. The commercials seem never ending (especially the break after a touchdown, come back for a kickoff, then back to another 3-minute break) and half of them are the networks plugging their crappy television shows.

Corollary: Ads for the network's new shows: "everybody's talking about ...". How is that possible when THE FIRST EPISODE HASN'T EVEN AIRED YET!

Panoramic Fool

Since Photoshop CS3 came out with its fantastic photomerge feature to blend layers, I have been having a ball with my digital SLR in creating panoramic photos from some of the vistas to be seen near Estes Park and Rocky Mountain National Park. I have added a bunch of them to the Larimer County photo gallery.

Five Weekends, Five Snowstorms

Enough already! What did we do to piss Mother Nature off? This was the fifth weekend in a row where it has snowed. This is not normal, nor welcome. The Porsche hasn't been out of the garage in over a month. I'm going to forget how to drive a stick-shift. Golf won't be played till April.

At least Saturday was decent for the first snowshoe outing of the year. In fact it was practically perfect. Thirty-two degrees up in Rocky Mountain National Park and not a whiff of wind. Did Mills Lake, on the back side of Long's Peak. Bob brought his fancy GPS unit so we could see how far we went and what our elevation gain was. Unfortunately somewhere along the trail he hit some button that made it think we had a "man overboard" and it would not get off that setting the whole time. In fact, by the end of the day I think he said we had 9 men overboard.

The Networks Sucked Me In

I'd never watched so much network television as with the new fall season, when I started watching a number of the serialized dramas that carry on from week to week, like set by "24" and "Lost". My DVR was recording practically nightly.

So what predictably happens? Yep, I staked the wrong horse. Of three that I'd been watching, one was cancelled and two were moved to different nights, a precursor to their cancellation, after three episodes.

So here's my future plan - I'm watching NONE of these from now on. If there's one that appears to be watchable, I'll wait till the following year and watch them on DVD. Take that networks!

Waiting on Concourse B

I wanted to get to the airport early, but not necessarily this early. I get to the counter to check in at 1:45 and the touchscreen says I can't. I ask an agent what's up. She says I missed the check-in window. I say I have two hours. She says my flight left 15 minutes ago. I say my itinerary I printed when I booked the flight says it leaves at 3:23. She says go to Special Services. I go. I ask what's up. She says my flight left at 1:31. I say that's what I get for not checking the departure time except for what I printed off three months ago. She says the next flight leaves at 5:45 and there's room, so I'm now on that one.

We finally lift off at 6:20 and all is good after that. Hope that's the worst that goes wrong. (p.s. the 1:31 flight was delayed and didn't actually leave till 4:00)

Travel Tip #1: always check the departure time of your flight the day before in case they've changed it.

Zoom Zoom

I knew it was going to happen, though maybe not this soon. My first speeding ticket in the new Porsche. Zooming down the frontage road at 80. Should have looked down the Interstate so I could see the Highway Patrolman down the road. Need to pick and choose my fun driving spots a little more carefully.

Now Driving a Porsche

After deciding a Corvette wasn't for me, and getting spoiled in Vail, I was very intrigued when a used 911 showed up on a used car lot on the way to work. I stopped by one morning and discovered a beautiful 2004 Carrera 4S convertible with only 9,000 miles on it. This was way more car than I was really looking for, but what did I have to lose by driving it? Nothing.

I took a short 20 minute drive, it was about out of gas, and loved it, of course. I went back the following day for a more extensive hour-long drive. This puppy had all-wheel drive with 315 horsepower and shifted like a dream. I couldn't help feel that it was just more car than I was really after, plus the $79k price tag was on the edge of my affordability.

I wanted to compare it to a Boxster S while the impression was still fresh and stopped at the local Porsche dealer to see if they had one. Did they ever, a new one on the showroom in the exact same color as the 911, loaded with everything except a navigation system. I came back the next day to drive it, and fell in love immediately. It was exactly the car I was after. I had intended to wait a couple of years, but this one was just too good to pass up. So I'm now the owner of an incredibly fun and beautiful Porsche Boxster S.

Driving a Million Dollars Worth of Cars

Via an outfit called World Class Driving, I got to drive six exotic sports cars for 30 minutes each up in Vail. Included in the six were a Lamborghini Gallardo, Ferrari 360 Modeno and an Aston Martin DB9 Volante.

Read all about it

No Corvettes In My Future

I'd been thinking that in a couple years I'd be ready to upgrade from my Eclipse convertible to a Corvette. So what shows up on the local dealer's lot? A vette that is exactly what I would have ordered: red convertible, manual transmission, Z51 sport package, everything. I wasn't quite ready to buy yet, but this was too good to be true. I had to check it out, and visited them for a test drive.

I was impressed with the interior, amenities and smooth ride, but that was it. The shifting was not particularly smooth, this particular car made a ticking noise in the engine under hard acceleration, and the fun to drive quotient through the gears was just missing.

I wanted something to compare it to so went across the street to the Porsche dealer to look at a Boxster. They had a base Boxster with the 240hp engine available and I took it for a test drive. Now we're talking! This baby was quick, agile, rev-happy and had the fun to drive experience I was after.

Wanted one more car to drive and luckily the BMW dealer just got in last week one of the new Z4 M roadsters, just raved about in this month's Car and Driver magazine. They let me go by myself, and holy shit, does it go. I've never driven a car this quick and responsive. With 330hp this thing took off like a bat out of hell and never quit, with quick acceleration out of every gear. I definitely went faster than I should have, but who was watching.

Since the Corvette on the lot didn't meet my desires, I'll plan on upgrading later like originally, but who knows, if I get the bug and the right Boxster S shows up I just may take it.

Sounds Like Someone I Know

Have you ever picked up the phone and someone says something and from what they say and the sound of their voice, you think you know who it is? Notice I said think you know.

I had a major f***up yesterday by doing just this and making some smart ass remark, only to find out, of course, that it wasn't who I thought it was, but a public citizen calling me about an issue with my employer's website.

I didn't make some innocuous remark either, I said "what do you want jackass?". Oh my god, the silence on the other end immediately told me I'd made a mistake. I apologized profusely but the citizen was duly outraged and I'll bet I was red as a tomato. Luckily he accepted my apology and I was later able to help him with his issue.

This bothered me for the rest of day and I can gaurantee I won't be spouting off on the phone anymore. Turns out I was the jackass.

Favorite Band

Finally got a chance to see my current favorite band, Porcupine Tree, in concert. They had played down at the Fox Theater in Boulder back in May, but I didn't find out about it until after the show, so when I saw they were returning, I could not miss it. Thank goodness I didn't. I was blown away. They were awesome. Hard driving guitar riffs. Soft melodic vocals. I wore my calves out jumping up and down. Truly a band to see every chance I get.

Can't I Buy A Pair of Socks?

Sittin' in the office today and noticed a big hole in the heel of my socks. Went to my local haberdashery, OK, Kohls, to buy a replacement pair. Found out it is not possible to buy a pair of socks. You must buy 3 of them, because that is the only way they are packaged. All brands. Three at a time. Either the same color or a mixture of colors.

Instead, I think I'll get out the needle and thread.

Every Cell is Sacred

I cannot believe the James Dobson of Focus on the Family has equated stem-cell research with the Nazi experimentation on humans. To compare research on a single cell for the benefit of mankind to the wanton pain and torture inflicted on living human beings is beyond my comprehension.

And there are millions of people who follow this wacko. It brought to my mind the song from Monty Python's "The Meaning of Life", with a word substitution: Every cell is sacred, every cell is great. If a cell is wasted, God gets quite irate.

Do Ads Have to be So Stupid?

Don't you just love the drug ads on TV where listing the side effects of taking take as long as the commercial itself. My favorite new one is for Lunesta, a sleep aid. One of the mentioned side effects is "drowsiness". Jeez, I hope so.

Do Ads Have to be Everywhere?

Can't any activity be free of advertising anymore? The latest encroachment hit me Sunday while playing golf. I regularly use a cart because of bad feet and love the GPS units when they're available to give precise distance to the flag and hazards. I played Highland Meadows in Windsor and after driving and stopping to hit every shot, it didn't show the yardage, but was displaying an advertisement for some local outfit. I had to hit the "Show yardage" button on the display everytime in order to get rid of the ad.

I made a pact with myself that I would never do business with any company that interferes with the enjoyment of my round of golf. Take that!

Thank You Deep Throat

The identity of Deep Throat, the man who provided information to Bob Woodward to blow the cover of the Watergate affair, was revealed today. W. Mark Felt, the number two man at the FBI, revealed that he is the source of the information. We, who became politically aware during this period of history, want to publicly thank him for not letting the Nixon administration get away with this coverup.

Good Kind of Monster

Just finished watching the 2-DVD set of "Metallica - Some Kind of Monster", the documentary on the making of Metallica's St. Anger disc. This is a fascinating movie that surprised me in how much I enjoyed watching it and how much I enjoyed the music. I've kind of pooh-pooh'ed metal music as only for teenage boys and certainly nothing I could get into, but after watching this, I'm singing a different tune.

I knew nothing of the band or their music, only the name and them being the kings of heavy metal. This film allows you to get to know them as real, feeling people and not as some image of metal masters. Even if you hate metal music, rent this DVD and watch it and the extras. It is time well spent.

Now I've got to go download some Metallica music...

Music Technology Obsolescence. Ouch.

What was a great idea back in the mid-80s is now biting me in the ass. They came out with a great noise-reduction system for cassette tape decks called "dbx". This was better than Dolby at reducing the inherent tape-hiss of cassettes. I recorded hundreds of albums & CDs using dbx, even though I could not play them in any other device except my home stereo.

Now my old tape deck has gone out and "dbx" went out a long time ago. I'm left with scrounging e-bay for dbx decks so I can burn all of this material to CD. After losing out on 4 bids, including a Yamaha deck exactly like the one I had, I finally won one for a reasonable $40. Seemed to work fine for two burns, but now it's speed keeps fluctuating while playing. I've wasted two recordable CDs trying to get one tape burnt and am not wasting any more.

Back to the e-bay listings. Poop!

SUV Free

I said goodbye to my SUV of ten years, a GMC Jimmy, and hello to my new ride, a Volvo V50. I really wanted the body style of an SUV because of the flexibility of hauling things, but was tired of driving a truck. I really liked the styling of the Volvo (I looked at a Passat wagon too) and the safety track record was unbeatable.

Along with the standard owners manual that covers everything from soup to nuts, with warning disclaimers about anything that could possibly cause harm to you and your children when not used properly (yes, I'll look behind me when I back up), they included a slick CD-ROM full of Flash videos about operating the car. This was really well done and answered a couple of questions that weren't obvious from scanning through the manual.

My only complaint so far is the short distance between the brake pedal and the center console wall at foot level. Its almost impossible to step on the gas without rubbing off the brake pedal to get to it. It's a good thing I have narrow feet. Somebody with wide feet could not drive this car.

New Years Resolution - More Posts

Well, I started this blog last year with the intention of posting personal observations, web/Cold Fusion tips, etc. Unfortunately, I found posting regularly to be a pain and went weeks without adding anything.

This year will be different (in theory). And I plan on updating more frequently.

Feedback to Pop-Up Advertisers

Jakob Nielsen lists the kind of ads we hate the most in The Most Hated Advertising Techniques.

I especially like the feedback to give to web sites that use pop-up ads: "You people should be ashamed of yourself! I did not ask to have 3 pop ups come across my screen when I visit you. I do not visit singles sites, and I don't want to add 4 inches to my penis. As a matter of fact, I don't use any of the services that pop up on my screen. I think it is disgusting that you money hungry bastards have infringed on my computer for your own selfish gain. From this moment on, I am boycotting you, and I am advising EVERYONE I know to do the same thing. Down with you and your pop up ads."

My Dad

My Dad was a good man. I would not be where I am today without his support. He felt he had the obligation to pay for my college education. So all I had to do was focus on studying, and maybe a little paryting too, but without worrying about the financing.

My Dad ? he sent me to school to learn to be on my own, but it never failed whenever I came home for a weekend, that the first words out of his mouth were: ?get that kid a haircut?.

My Dad ? he really liked cars. I don?t think he ever owned a car for more than three years. And he treated them like fine china. All manual transmissions had a practically virgin third gear. Not wanting to rev the engine too much he always would shift from second to fourth. Not wanting to wear out the turn signal switch, he would just engage the lane change signal, and hold it while making a turn. His used cars were like new cars for everyone else. Friends & relatives would anxiously await the chance to buy one of his rejects.

My Dad ? he was spoiled rotten by my dear Mother. He would?ve starved if he had had to make his own meal. I remember going to an Italian restaurant, he?d open the menu, look and then ask my mom ?What do I want?? And such a picky eater you never saw. If he even thought he caught a glimpse of a mushroom or piece of tomato in something, that was the end of that meal.

My Dad ? he wasn?t much of a talker, and I wasn?t either. Much of our conversations went like: ?Nice weather today, supposed to rain tomorrow?, 5 minutes of silence, ?Broncos looked pretty good Sunday. Elway played well?, 5 minutes of silence, ?Saw a new Toyota yesterday, nice looking?, end of conversation.

My dad was pretty helpless these last couple of years. And I want to thank my mom for the care she gave him. I know it was not easy on her. Every 10 minutes he?d be calling ?Shirley? wanting something or just wanting to know she was still in the vicinity. This prompted her to proclaim once: ?I?m going to change my name to Esmerelda?.

My Dad ? he wasn?t a great man, but he was a good man. He was, my Dad.

Perfect State Coin

I'm sure the Louisianans will disagree, but this seems like the perfect design for their state coin. I mean, you think of Louisiana, you think of New Orleans. You think of New Orleans, you think of Mardi Gras. You think of Mardi Gras, you think of debauchery.

If this became their state coin, I'd start sucking on quarters instead of chewing gum.

Bands Reunited

This VH1 show has become one of my favorites. The premise is to try to round up original members of rock bands that disbanded years ago, and get them to play a one-off concert.

This week they've done two bands that I really liked, Haircut 100 and ABC. It's very entertaining to hear the history of the bands and see what each of the members are doing now. All the episodes I've seen that got them to agree to play has been a joy for me, the crowd at the concert, and the band members themselves.

And He's Our President

Another great Bushism to make us proud of our President: "Too many good docs are getting out of the business. Too many OB/GYN's aren't able to practice their love with women all across the country."?Sept. 6, 2004, Poplar Bluff, Mo. How can the American public possibly vote for this man for President. I think the answer comes down to something simple: people are stupid. Half of the American public still believes Saddam Hussein had a hand in 9/11. Don't they read the paper, watch the news (other than Fox), or scour the Internet? Apparently not.

I hate to say it, but I don't think Kerry has enough appeal to defeat him. If only Kerry had the charisma of Edwards.

Campaign Slogan Transposition

Heard about a campaign bumper sticker that I really liked: Buck Fush! It got us to thinking about applying this to some of our local county politicians. "Buck Fender" works pretty good. "Guck Fibson", not quite as well. And applying this to the local law enforcement head honcho, whose name begins with a vowel, doesn't work at all.

When Did Cellulite Become so Important?

Seems like every week when I pay for groceries, the latest copy of the Enquirer or Globe or something has a big splashy cover about some female celebrity's cellulite, with closeup photos of their rear end. Is this what it takes to sell these magazines? My God, what a news scoop. The first one I saw a few weeks ago was full of photos of Britney Spears ass with the shocking story of her cellulite. And she's only 20! How horrible.

Maybe she gets all the attention she craves, but I can't imagine how her life must be when photographers are just falling over each other trying to get closeups of every inch of her body every time she goes out in public. What if you were subject to such close inspection, with every blemish plastered on a newspaper cover for every one to see? In this regard, I feel sorry for her and the other divas who have to put up with this kind of public attention.

Weekend by the Bay

Memorial Day weekend was "guys weekend out" for my friend Gary & I as we hit San Francisco for a Rockies away series. The worst thing that happened the whole trip was they lost all the games with the Giants. Everything else was fantastic.

Congratulations Newlyweds

Congratulations to all the new, legal newlyweds in Massachusetts today. Its good to see that justice and equality for ALL is now practiced in at least one state. I hope it spreads to all the rest. Now these couples can live a normal married life like other couples who love each other.

That's really what its all about, loving each other. Not promoting a gay lifestyle on others, not threatening the institution of marriage, whatever that could possibly mean.

I fail to see what opponents are so threatened by. "What's next, bestiality?", one ditz interviewed on TV said. Why do they always use the "what's next?" argument. Who is advocating anything else?

As soon as these people understand there's a biological reason for homosexuality, not a choice to "live in sin", then we can move beyond this trivial issue.

Rolling Pigeons

While discussing birds stuck in window wells over coffee this morning, my friend Bob relates how he had to remove a pigeon stuck in his uncovered window well one time. "Why didn't it just fly out?", we asked, thinking it was hurt or deformed. Once he put it on the ground, it didn't fly, it performed sommersaults. Yeah right, another tall Bob tale. Nope, there is actually a type of pigeon, known as parlor roller pigeons, that don't fly, they roll. Check out this quicktime video to see for yourself.

Not Another Blog

Not wanting to be one of the dozen or so web designers without a blog, I've joined the ranks with this one. Now I've got to decide just what I want to do with it. No one wants to read about my personal life and I'm not sure I have the writing skills to attract any regular readers on Cold Fusion or web design issues, but maybe an entry or two will entice someone to come back once in awhile.

This will be place where I do make a comment or two about my 27 years in IT, currently devoted to all things web. I will also throw in a personal note here and there in case friend or family drop by to see what's going on.