Diary of a Network Geek

The trials and tribulations of a Certified Novell Engineer who's been stranded in Houston, Texas.

8/15/2010

Review: Scott Pilgrim vs. The World

Filed under: Art,Fun,Life, the Universe, and Everything,Movies,music,Review — Posted by the Network Geek during the Hour of the Pig which is in the late evening or 10:56 pm for you boring, normal people.
The moon is a Full Moon


ScottPilgrim

Originally uploaded by Network Geek

The movie so good it got me to blog a review after months of slacking.

Yeah, I loved it.
So, right, this movie is based on the award-winning and very popular independent comic series of the same name. The comic, and the movie, follow the love-life of the title character, Scott Pilgrim, played by Michael Cera as he tries to avoid his under-age Chinese stalker, Knives Chau, played by Ellen Wong, and date, instead, the girl, quite literally of his dreams, Ramona Flowers, played by Mary Elizabeth Winstead. The only problem is, to date Ramona, Scott has to defeat her seven evil ex’s in a battle to the death. But, nothing is quite as easy as it seems, and each ex is more difficult to defeat than the last, much like a video game.

In fact, as Scott defeats each villain, he’s rewarded in video-game fashion with a glowing numeric display of points and then they burst into coins. Yes, coins. Oh, and there’s plenty of video-game themed music, too. But, don’t think you have to be either a gamer or a comic fan to “get” this movie! I mean, if you’ve participated in pop culture at all and are under the age of 60, you shouldn’t have any trouble keeping up.
But, speaking of music, the sound-track on this film rocks! Literally! For starters, a significant contributor to the soundtrack is Beck. Not only as a solo artist, but also as part of Sex Bob-Omb, the band to which Scott and his friends belong. And, that band participation is significant to the plot as they battle other local bands to get a recording contract and a big gig at a big club. Seriously, though, the music is all great and adds a lot to the film. At least, I enjoyed it. Mostly a rock soundtrack, but with the addition of video-game tunes, which enhance the movie.

The whole thing was fun.
Sure, it was sort of a chick-flick, but not in a bad way or as much as you might imagine. I mean, yes, it is about dating and romance and the trials and tribulations of ex’s, but it’s far more fun than it sounds. Because, it’s a comedy, in case Michael Cera being in the cast didn’t give it away. Frankly, the whole thing is just fun and, wow, I can’t remember the last time I saw that in a Summer movie! Seriously! I mean, that’s what Summer movies are supposed to be all about, right? Well, this one actually is! Honestly, I wish I were dating someone so I could have taken her to see it, because it was such a cute, fun film that I’m confident it would have gotten me laid. Seriously.

Mostly, I can’t go into the plot too much, because it would be 100% spoilers, but it’s all about Scott and Ramona, and dating, and love, and music, and the band, and defeating evil ex’s. But, the basic plot is, well, that last sentence pretty well sums it up. I mean, Scott trying to get Ramona and make music with his band and, well, again, defeat those evil ex’s, is pretty much everything that happens in the movie, but, somehow, that paltry description doesn’t capture the fun and adventure of this movie. Trust me, though, when I tell you that it was fast-paced, filled with action, and romance and even a life-lesson or two.

Long-time readers of this blog know that I rarely see movies more than once in the theater, so, they’ll get the impact of this statement; I would happily see this movie again, at full price. I loved this movie that much.
Seriously.
If you like pop music, or if you’ve ever been in love, or if you’ve ever fought against impossible odds to pursue the companion of your dreams, you will love Scott Pilgrim vs. The World. Go see it.
Trust me.

Update: Want to see what I’m talking about with the music?  Check out some selections from the Scott Pilgrim vs. the World Soundtrack.

8/6/2010

Fast is Slow

Filed under: Advice from your Uncle Jim,Career Archive,Geek Work,Life, the Universe, and Everything — Posted by the Network Geek during the Hour of the Monkey which is in the late afternoon or 5:38 pm for you boring, normal people.
The moon is a Full Moon

But, slow is fast.

I’m not sure where I heard that first, but boy is it true.
I’ve never served in the military, but I used to hang out with a lot of guys who did and, frankly, were pretty intense about it, when I was younger.  And, yes, I do love me some action movies with big guns blazing, so there’s no telling where I picked up that little bit of military wisdom.  I tend to associate it with BUD/S training, which is better known to the general public as the SEAL program.  In essence, the idea is this; the faster you try to rush something along, the more mistakes you make and the longer it takes to actually achieve your goal.  But, it also has some other connotations.  The one that I forgot to take to heart this past week was to not let circumstances rush me into doing a sloppy job.

This past week I was supposed to get a new server installed and configured for a sister company.  It’s a startup, really, so there’s not an existing network, which means I’m basically setting everything up from scratch.  Now, in some ways, this makes things easier.  I don’t have to worry about conflicts as much, for instance.  I mean, however I configure the first equipment will determine the entire network configuration.  Whatever naming conventions I set will be carried forward.  I’m working with a blank slate.
But, that blank slate has its disadvantages, too.  As an example, there is NO infrastructure in place at all.  So, not only do I have to setup the server, but also the switches, the firewall, and even the rack and UPS that will hold it all!  Luckily, I didn’t have to run the actual cable, but, pretty much everything else will be something I install myself.  Not that it’s all bad to do it myself, either, because I don’t have to worry about someone else doing it the wrong way or undoing something I’ve already done.  But, it does all take time.

Again, I’ve done this before.  Not only have I been a “department of one”, as it were, but I’ve setup networks from scratch for years.  I’ve been doing this since 1992, so, for the past 18 years, I’ve networked all kinds of crazy things together.  And, some of that was back in the old days before Windows clients and GUI interfaces made it all work together right out of the box!  Still, I forget things sometimes.
I forget that I should get help racking servers, for instance.  Getting the weight up into the rack isn’t so difficult, but doing that and getting those damn little pins into the recessed slots on the rails at the same time can prove challenging.  I should know that.  But, this week, giving into the pressures from end-users at a startup, I tried to rush things.  What ended up happening was me losing my grip on a server and twisting a rail all out of shape.  Luckily, I never throw out spares and I had another set of rails that I could use as a replacement.  And, the second time around, I was smart enough to get help to rack that server.  And the APC SMART-UPS 5000VA UPS that weighs in at about 130 pounds and has sharp edges.  With that help, nothing else got out of hand and I didn’t have to replace any more rails.
Of course, when I went to set everything up, it turned out to have the wrong power adapters to plug my servers into.  Why?  Because I was in a hurry and didn’t double-check the specs and trusted that someone else would do their job right.  So, now, @Dellcares on Twitter, who heard my rage at having the wrong UPS, is helping me get things straight.

Did I get the server installed?  Well, yes, I plugged directly into the wall long enough to setup and configure the server to meet my deadline for next week, but, I struggled with one of my most basic character defects first; sometimes, I just need to ask for help.
Of course, I also lost sight of one of the most basic principles of IT, which seems so counter-intuitive in such a fast-paced industry:
Fast is slow; Slow is fast!


Advice from your Uncle Jim:
"It is better to be approximately right than precisely wrong."
   --Warren Buffet

7/24/2010

Al Fresco

Filed under: Advice from your Uncle Jim,Calamity, Cataclysm, and Catastrophe,Life, the Universe, and Everything,News and Current Events,Personal — Posted by the Network Geek during the Hour of the Hare which is in the early morning or 7:45 am for you boring, normal people.
The moon is a Full Moon

We take modern plumbing for granted.

No, seriously.
I’ve spent the better part of this past week without a sewer connection.  That means that I’ve been pestering my friends who live nearby, all three of them, for showers all week.  It also means I’ve been urinating “al fresco”, under the cover of darkness.  Let’s not ask too many questions about other bodily functions though, okay?  Let’s just say I’ve been going into work early most days this week.

My point is, plumbing is what makes civilization even more than farming.
In school, they always taught us that modern civilization, as we know it, started with farming.  They taught us that as people stayed to tend crops instead of follow the herds, they built permanent camps which became villages which, eventually, became cities.
I would argue, however, that real modern civilization was born when the Romans first got the idea to enclose their plumbing.  When that first, genius Roman city planner decided to put sewers underground and replace the foul stench of open trenches, which had been the norm until then, and replace that malodorous tradition with construction projects, civilization as we know it truly began.
And brought with it a host of modern problems.

In my case, the problem was one I initially tried to handle myself.
When the shower first backed up, thanks to several loads of laundry, I poured all kinds of hazardous and noxious chemicals down the drains.  I bought and used things that were so terrible, so dire that the warnings printed on the packaging sounded more like plans to deal with a spill in a chemical plant than something the average Home Depot shopper should be screwing around with in their bathroom.  In fact, these things were so bad at one point that leather gloves which had accidentally gotten soaked in water containing some of those chemicals actually started to melt away.  Seriously.  I have pictures!  And, I thought all was well.  For about two weeks.
That’s when the shower started to back up when I was, well, running the shower.
So, for three days, I took what we used to call “Navy showers“.  Basically, I got wet, then turned off the water and lathered up, then turned the water back on just long enough to rinse off.  I’m sure it helped the planet with all the water I conserved, but it was starting to get a little uncomfortable.  So, off I went to Home Depot to buy supplies.  I bought even more chemicals, a CO2-based plunger, and a plumber’s “snake”.  I used them in turn, spending the most time trying to get the snake working right.  It was one that you hooked up to a drill, to add extra power, and, though I hate to admit it, I screwed the first one up bad enough that I broke it.  Unfortunately, none of that worked.

So, defeated, I called a plumber Sunday afternoon.
I called Mr. Rooter, because I’d used them before and I knew they didn’t charge extra for working on the weekend.  I also knew they did good work at what I think is a reasonable price.  Sadly, there wasn’t anyone available in my area by the time I called Sunday afternoon, which meant waiting until the next morning, but I figured what was one more night wallowing in my own filth?
Well, the plumbing technician showed up early Monday morning and got right to work.  He ran through at least three obstructions and at one point I could hear things gurgling in my bathroom, which seemed an encouraging sign.  Sadly, it was not.  The technician called me out into the yard where he found the only “clean-out” in my line.  A clean-out, incidentally, that was far, far further out than it should have been.  He’d run his camera down that line and found the problem, or, at least, the first problem.  I feared the worst, but my fears turned out to be child’s play compared to what was actually wrong.

The problem was roots.
Not roots that had grown through the pipes, as I had feared, but roots that had grown under the pipe and lifted a thirty foot section of it.  Lifted it so high, in fact, that it made my shower the lowest point in my personal sewer system.  So, yes, it was a big problem.
The other two problems were with the main sewer.  First, when they built the house, apparently, a builder took a short-cut and lifted my sewer connection to link it up with the city sewer main.  So, it was higher than it should have been in the first place!  But, to make matters worse, when the guys from Mr. Rooter went to make the connection, the found the city main choked with roots!  I love the live oaks in my backyard, and, in fact, they’re part of why I bought the house with my ex-wife, but they certainly seemed out to get me this week.  In the end, there was really only one thing to do: replace the whole sewer line to the city main.

Now, for those of you who aren’t homeowners, let me tell you how this feels.
Imagine being neck deep in a mucky, fetid swamp, trying not to make waves because you know it could drown you.  Got that?  Do you have a handle on the perilous and uncomfortable feeling of knowing you’re inches from sucking stagnant water up your nose and suffocating on swamp muck?  Great.  Now imagine that someone is throwing stones at you.  Stones big enough to knock you unconscious.  Imagine having to hold your breath while that water with God only knows what kind of diseases in it is lapping at your mouth and nose, trying to find its way into your lungs.  Can you feel the horrible panic?  Can you feel your chest tightening from the fear of drowning in a sloppy, green sea of homeowner’s debt?  Fantastic.  Now imagine looking up and seeing one of those stones on a collision-course with your head.  You know it’s coming and you can already feel the lump forming even as your gut tightens because you’re about to be fighting for consciousness so you don’t drown, alone, in this swamp.
That was pretty much how I felt when the tech told me what was wrong.

His estimate was not much more reassuring.
Let’s just say it started somewhere over $10K.  In the end, because the folks at Mr. Rooter are fantastic, caring, decent human beings who haven’t lost their humanity in this tight economy, I ended up owing less.  I won’t say how much less, but, less than the original $10K.  Still an impressive sum for which I needed a lot of help.
Sadly, the finance company was less caring and more cut-throat.  I won’t give them any free advertising by mentioning their name, but I will say that, until dealing with them, I thought loan-sharking was illegal.  Apparently, not if you do it right.  Thankfully, I had some benefactors who were willing to lend me the money I needed at lower rates.  They’ve asked to remain nameless, otherwise I’d sing their praises, too.

In any case, I got enough money together to get them started and WOW, did they!
The next afternoon, there was a crew of four guys digging up my backyard with a small backhoe.  They dug a trench easily 120 feet from the back of my house, around my ponds, between my trees and to the city sewer main at the back of my yard.  I took pictures of it because words leave the spectacle of the thing,well, in the dust.  This trench started out about three feet deep and got down to almost five feet deep near the sewer main.  It runs at least four feet deep for a significant portion of it’s length and was dug in less time than it’s taken to write this entry.  It was amazing!  If not for the roots in the city sewer main, I’d have had service restored that first night!  Unfortunately, the rest took longer.
The city did come out the next day to clear the roots and make the connection to the city sewer main, but, by then I’d had to make a nuisance of myself with friends to beg showers so I could get into work and not knock people out.  I didn’t shave, really, but used my beard trimmer to keep my stubble under control.  Still, I looked pretty rough by the end of the week.
And, yes, I really did get tired of “urination al fresco” and holding it until dark, or going in to work hours early for the same reason.

So, the good news is, now, I have a working sewer line and I can flush my toilets!  Not to mention shower, shave, do laundry and dishes, all of which I was frantically doing Thursday night.  Friday afternoon, the main technician who was working on this project the entire time, got my second toilet hooked up, so everything in the house should be working now.  I still have the trench until the city inspects and approves the work according to the permit.  I’m not as worried about that, frankly, since I’m able to bathe and eliminate with the modern ease with which I have rather grown accustomed.
Other good things of come of it, too, though.  Some I won’t got into in detail except to say that I have a new appreciation for my friends and family who were all more than willing to come to my aid.  I was pleasantly surprised, to be honest, at how willing everyone I knew was to help.  Since my divorce, I have felt pretty alone down here in Texas, so it was nice to be reminded that I did have friends and, though they may be a little way away, family who really do care.

I also really was reminded about how well I live, really, and how comfortable I am.  That’s sort of a double-edged sword, though, as I’ve gotten, I think, a little too comfortable with things that really needed to change.  I’ve gotten a little stuck and a little complacent.  My financial situation, for instance, has been just good enough for me to not really feel the need to really grab hold and make some positive changes.  I’ve just gone “with the flow”, if you’ll pardon the metaphor in a post about sewers, for far too long.  I need to relearn to set my sails and make my way regardless of the current.

Of course, I do still have a huge bill to pay before I’m done, but that may turn out to be a good thing, too, since it’s finally motivated me to actually start selling my ex-wife’s abandoned jewelry.  Yes, I have finally listed my first item on eBay.  In this case, it’s my ex-wife’s gold and ruby ring.  If you’re interested, go bid on it and help me out!  Don’t worry, stalkers, there will be more items if you want to own a piece of the Network Geek’s history.


Advice from your Uncle Jim:
"If God is for us, who can be against us?"
   --Romans 8:31 (NIV)

7/16/2010

Write a Better Bio

Filed under: Fun,Life, the Universe, and Everything,Red Herrings — Posted by the Network Geek during the Hour of the Tiger which is terribly early in the morning or 5:55 am for you boring, normal people.
The moon is a Full Moon

Think of all the social media bios you’ve written in the last five years.

I bet they all suck.
Well, maybe that’s just mine.  But, there’s no reason you can’t make a better one!  Check out How To Write A Killer Bio by Marci Alboher.  She has some great suggestions.  Then, just get creative!

7/2/2010

Atomic Rockets

Filed under: Art,Fun,Life, the Universe, and Everything,The Network Geek at Home,Things to Read — Posted by the Network Geek during the Hour of the Tiger which is terribly early in the morning or 5:03 am for you boring, normal people.
The moon is a Full Moon

I love science-fiction.

I don’t think that’s a big secret, either.  What you all may not realize is that I have attempted to write it on more than one occasion.  Usually, I fail miserably, for any of a number of reasons, but I still love to do the research.  I figure, it may eventually get used, so it’s worth doing, right?

Well, in my searches for interesting bits of thought on many, many things science-fiction, I came across Atomic Rockets; or So You Want To Build A Rocket? Wow!  What a site!  This guy has collected all kinds of ideas and research into possible future spacecraft and weapons and, well, just about anything you can think of that relates to the “crunchy” parts of science-fiction!  I mean, he references actual physicists and chemists and engineers who are actually trying to make the future happen on this site.  But, he doesn’t lose the fun that drew most geeks like me to sci-fi.

If you’re a fan, it’s well worth a look.  And, if you’re a BIG fan, make sure to check out the rest of his site, too!

6/1/2010

What, no superpowers?

Filed under: Criticism, Marginalia, and Notes,Deep Thoughts,Life, the Universe, and Everything,News and Current Events,Personal — Posted by the Network Geek during the Hour of the Dog which is in the evening time or 8:35 pm for you boring, normal people.
The moon is a Full Moon

So, I almost didn’t even mention this, but, I got scanned again today.

I’m on a six-month rotation now for my cancer re-staging scans.  For those of you who might be relatively new to this blog, that’s a CT scan to check and see if my diffuse, large “B”-cell lymphoma has become active again.  To see if I’m still in remission or if I’ll need treatment again.  And, I can tell you for certain, as much as I piss and moan about having to go get this very comprehensive, very invasive, very uncomfortable scan, it still beats six months worth of chemotherapy.  Trust me on this.
Now, I won’t say that I’m getting used to doing this, but, well, I sort of am.  If getting a barium enema, however, becomes something that I start to think of as “normal”, then it’ll be time to put the old dog down because something truly terrible will have happened to my life.  I don’t want ingesting radioactive materials, or having them injected, by any method, to ever become something I get real casual about, because it is a pretty serious thing, and being done for a very serious reason.

Of course, that’s not to say that the entire day was torturous.  For one thing, I did get to spend the day with one of my very most favorite people.  In.  The.  Entire.  World!
Seriously!  I adore her and hardly get to see her or talk to her even.  She’s working and in school and, before you ask the question, dating someone who is most certainly not me at all.  And, of course, I tend to be going a zillion miles a minute, so we tend to have some trouble connecting.  I miss her, in short, and today was a fantastic opportunity to catch up with each other a little bit.  Though, I have to admit, I’m afraid I may have been a little distracted by the aforementioned radioactive material and, so, I don’t think I was as fully present with her as I might have liked.
But, outside of that, it was as good a day as it could possibly be.

Though, I am starting to wonder just how truthful all those comic books I read as a kid were.  After all, with all the exposure to radiation that I’ve had, I really feel like I should have developed some kind of super-mutant-power by now.  I mean, I don’t turn green when I get mad or have any early warning of impending peril or anything!  I figured that I’d at least be able to function as my own night-light by now!
*sigh*
Well, maybe in six months when I go back again something will finally happen.
I guess I’ll just have to check with my new oncologist in three weeks when I go see him for the results of this test.  Maybe he can shed some light on just how many more times I have to do this before I can start picking out my costume for my super-identity.
Until then, though, I’ll just try not to set off any metal detectors at the airport….

5/23/2010

I Don’t Live Here Anymore

Filed under: Advice from your Uncle Jim,Criticism, Marginalia, and Notes,Deep Thoughts,Life, the Universe, and Everything,Personal,Red Herrings — Posted by the Network Geek during the Hour of the Monkey which is in the late afternoon or 5:02 pm for you boring, normal people.
The moon is a Full Moon

Wow, after ten years, it really seems like I’ve run out of words here.

I lost my idea notebook the other day and, while I’d like to use that as an excuse for being out of words, that’s not really it.  Actually, I’ve probably written more in the two or three days since losing it than in the more than eighteen months of recording stray thoughts in it.  Thoughts, incidentally that never made it out of that notebook and into any other form.  Sort of was defeating the purpose of keeping a notebook, wasn’t it?

So, now, the question is, what to do next?
I don’t seem to be doing too well writing here, do I?  And I’m certainly not writing anywhere else, so, what to do?  I suppose, out of habit, I’ll keep trying to write here, though God only knows about what.  After ten years, it’s almost impossible to stop writing here altogether.  Maybe if I can get back in the habit of it, the words won’t seem so hollow and shallow and wrong.  Maybe something will eventually ring true.

Or not.
Sweet Jesus, I thought I’d outgrown all this angst as a teen-ager.
Well, maybe next year.


Advice from your Uncle Jim:
"No matter what goes wrong, there is always someone who knew it would."

5/5/2010

10 Year Anniversary

Filed under: Career Archive,Certification,Criticism, Marginalia, and Notes,Deep Thoughts,Fun,Life, the Universe, and Everything,Linux,News and Current Events,Novell,PERL,Personal,The Network Geek at Home — Posted by the Network Geek during the Hour of the Horse which is around lunchtime or 12:08 pm for you boring, normal people.
The moon is a Full Moon

Yesterday marked this blog’s ten year anniversary.

In ten years, I’ve made more than 1,700 posts and had more than 1,900 comments, many of those from years when I blogged almost every day.  But, it was ten years ago when I uploaded my first entry. I edited it in a text editor of some kind, probably Notepad, and used FTP to push it up to the server. That was back in the days before blogging software and when most of us still called them journals or diaries. I started doing it to try and game the search engines. Mostly, it worked, I think, since the majority of my readers have found me via a search of some kind.

Since that first entry, a lot has changed.
I’ve been through two different kinds of blogging software. After months of doing it by hand, I converted to Moveable Type. I used that for several years, until the Time of the Troubles, when there was a big fuss over how Moveable Type was going to charge for previously free software, even after promising to keep it free forever. Like most converts, I changed over to WordPress, which I still use today. Moveable Type does have a free version, but, frankly, after learning how easy it was to style and customize WordPress, I can’t imagine moving back. Not to mention how much easier it is to make plugins for WordPress. Frankly, I love it.
Ten years ago, I did quite a few entries from the road via my old Palm IIIc with a folding keyboard. I typed them up and then synced that with my PC and pushed the entries from there. That old IIIc doesn’t hold a charge too well any more, but I’m still using the same PC I was ten years ago. Of course, I’ve added a much newer laptop, several other machines, and an iPhone to my technological stable since then. In fact, I was a beta tester for the new iPhone WordPress app!

A lot of other things have changed, too.
For one thing, I married and subsequently divorced the woman I was living with at the time. I’ve changed jobs, count it, five times, finally staying at my current company for about five years. I survived cancer. But, ironically, after several ups and downs with weight, I’m probably in better shape now than I was ten years ago!
Sure, I’d have liked to had a few more dates in the past ten years, but, I think I’ve done okay considering the divorce, not to mention the less than stellar marriage and, you know, the cheating death and all.  You’d be surprised how tired you get dodging the Grim Reaper!

I’ve upgraded my Novell certification at least once in that time as well as added a Linux certification.  My original plan of using this blog to boost my rankings in the search engines has largely paid off, as I’m consistently the number one or number two hit on Google for the search term “network geek”.
In that time, I’ve taught myself Perl, which is a scripting/programming language that’s been called the “duct tape of the Internet”.  In fact, as of this post, I’m a Level 8 PerlMonk.  (It’s a geek thing.) I’ve also gotten reasonably proficient at PHP, since that’s the technology which makes WordPress go.  At least, I’ve gotten good enough to write a few simple plugins and even a rough theme.  Frankly, I hope to do more of that soon, too.

I’ve taken up photography since starting this blog, too, and I think I’ve gotten fairly good at it.  Naturally, there’s room for improvement, as I’ve only been doing it for about two years, but, still, it’s something I’ve wanted to do for a long, long time.  I’m not very artistically skilled, but photography lets me tap into that in a less intimidating way.  I suppose, in a way, so does my obsession with blog themes and logo design.

And, of course, I’ve started several other blogs or websites in the ten years that I’ve had this blog.  But, don’t worry, those sites have been languishing just as badly as this one has the past several months.  It’s not that I haven’t wanted to write, or even had things to write about, but I’ve just been too busy to sit down and do it.
Though, I do have to admit, part of that sort of writer’s block has been about my audience.  I mean, if you hit that search function over in the sidebar, you can get pretty interesting access to my life for the past ten years.  Oh, sure, not everything makes it into the blog, but I’ve been pretty candid posting here.  I try to keep it clean, mostly, and nothing that would embarrass my mother, but, I have been honest enough to shock a few friends.  So, if there’s something you want to know about me, just search for it.  You may be surprised what you find here!

So, wow.
It’s been an interesting experience blogging for the past ten years.  I started before the trend was as huge as it was and kept on even when the shine had worn off for many.  I can say for sure that I didn’t anticipate many of the twists and turns this blog took over the past ten years, much less my life, but it has been an interesting ride.  Many of you have been with me for quite some time now and I appreciate you reading along with me here.
I don’t know what the next ten years will bring here, or elsewhere in life, but I do hope you’d come along for the ride.  I’m sure it will be as big a surprise to me as it is to you!

4/13/2010

TSA Has Sticky Fingers

Filed under: Adventures with iPods,Criticism, Marginalia, and Notes,Deep Thoughts,Life, the Universe, and Everything,News and Current Events,Personal — Posted by the Network Geek during the Hour of the Hare which is terribly early in the morning or 6:59 am for you boring, normal people.
The moon is a Full Moon

Well, I guess this is what happens when you don’t adequately screen candidates.

Of course, most of what the TSA does is make us feel safer, not anything that really makes us safer.  Still, I think we should draw the line at TSA employees ransacking our luggage for electronics.  And, no, before you ask, I didn’t lose anything this last trip to San Francisco.  In part, because I brought every bit of camera gear on the plane with me in a carry-on bag.  Might have been a good thing, considering the fact that the TSA did go into my checked bag to, uh, check my underwear or something.  After all, my boxer-briefs are quite possibly a threat to national security.  No, really, they must be.

Seriously, this is a huge problem and it has been for ages.  Photographers all know that you should never, ever check your camera gear through Baltimore, among other places.  Frankly, I have too much personal “disposable” income invested in my camera gear to check it through anywhere.  I’ve heard too many stories about things going missing from bags.  In fact, when I got into Houston and collected my bag, I was making small talk with a fellow passenger who was apparently shocked to discover that TSA baggage inspectors had been caught taking things out of people’s luggage.  Though, he had to admit that he had noticed some things had gone missing from his bag while traveling.  He figured, however, that they were just so over-worked that they’d forgotten to put it back in the bag.  Yeah, that’s actually what he told me.  Maybe it’s just me, but, well, I just don’t trust the average government employee.

I used a ThinkTank Airport Ultralight v2.5 to get all my photography gear into an overhead bin.  I ended up not using everything I brought, but I was glad to have it, just because I might have wanted it.  So, it was worth the investment.  I’ll probably get around to a review later.

Anyway, if you’re traveling, watch your bags and what goes into them.
Seriously.

4/9/2010

The Superhero Store

Filed under: Art,Fun,Life, the Universe, and Everything,Red Herrings — Posted by the Network Geek during the Hour of the Dragon which is in the early morning or 8:29 am for you boring, normal people.
The moon is a Full Moon

In Brooklyn?

So, I can’t believe I haven’t written about this before, but there’s a store in Brooklyn that sells superhero stuff.  Like a gallon of gravity.  And capes.  And invisibility by the jug.  Yeah, the Brooklyn Superhero Store is like Acme, but for the superhero world.  And it’s real!

Okay, it’s mostly real.  You get something for your money, but it’s not super powers.  What you get is to support a not-for-profit organization that helps kids in New York get into creative writing.  The store is how they fund it.  You can read more at the FAQ.  And, you can read more about the program they support at 826NYC.com

(And, yes, I know I owe you all a bunch of updates and pictures about my trip to WonderCon this past week, but I’ve been sick, so just give me a little time, okay?)

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