Today is my Dad's 85th birthday. I called him this morning but my Mom said he was out walking the dog. Lordy, I'm just hoping I can still sit up, work the remote and eat solid food by the time I'm 85. Maybe that's just me? Good on you Dad, happy birthday!
February 2, 2010
How fast are the elevators in the world's tallest building?
This fast!
(as demonstrated by The Living Dolls, an international hair sensation fashion model singing group).
*saffy*
And the girls have spawned a new craze: Elevator Hair by Johnny. Named after high speed elevator operator Johnny Johnson, who once boasted that he could rev 'em up to the point where, "Their dresses would come flying off, but so would the dudes' suits. I couldn't stomach that," offered up this tip. Women should use an industrial strength hairspray and lacquer-up between floors 159 and 12 to permanently hold that I'm-falling-a-hundred-miles-an-hour-straight-down look. Thanks Johnny! But could there be a dark side to Elevator Hair? It seems that most of The Living Dolls have recently expired from organ failure, and when asked if there might not be a link between organ damage and the elevator's preposterously high speeds, coupled with the toxic effects of massive amounts of industrial strength hairspray used within a confined, unventilated space, Johnny Johnson refused comment and terminated the interview, prompting us to wonder, What price for beauty?
February 3, 2010
So I'm introduced to this guy and we shake hands, but he doesn't let go. He says, "Wow, may I?" holding my hand and turning it over. I figure he's going to read my palm, but instead he says, "You don't meet a lot of guys in tech with rough, well used hands. Wow, yours look like a truck driver or something," and he chortles, while the hockey player in me wants to ball up my rough, truck driver hands and introduce them to his person at full speed for...for saying... aah, he's right, I'm a physical guy in a field of lily-livered handshakers and office dwellers. A man among thinkers and typers. Boo! Hear me roar.
February 4, 2010
For many years I just used a door blank on top of two files cabinets as my desk.
And I must say, the quality of my work on that door was magnificent.
Toward the back of the door-desk I found the predrilled hole for the lockset to be a handy thing for running the wires of the computer, monitor, printer, modem, router, lamp, and speakers through.
Even though I don't use the door-desk anymore, amazingly, I do still have a hole drilled in the back of my current custom desk to run the wires through. And my work on this desk is, well, into another heavenly realm as yet unnamed. Notice the pattern? (Eerily similar wire holes, silly!) A coincidence? I think not.
February 5, 2010
One of the things I like about working in tech is that everybody knows something you don't.
February 6, 2010
We're in the last few days before the Vancouver Winter Olympics and I should be eagerly awaiting the Opening Ceremonies, but instead I find myself focused on work matters with little to none of my attention going toward Games anticipation, due mainly I believe to the loopy weather we've had all Winter - a complete and utter absence of any snow and consistently balmy temperatures above freezing. What's that? The Olympics, you say? In Vancouver? Really? Why, I hadn't noticed.
February 7, 2010
Someone talking about some accomplishment of theirs said they were born to do it. How would they know that? How would anyone know they were born to do anything? Could there be more ways to receive news than just the media? Why, I'm shocked.
February 8, 2010
slava
The little bulldozer decided that it had worked enough for one day and headed to the beach to soak in some sun and burnish its beautiful yellow tan.
February 9, 2010
Someone asked me if I was an influential blogger. Haw! It's way beyond that. I control everyone who reads me. But I only use my powers for good. For instance, I might write that a beer sure would taste swell now, and everyone sends me beers! See, that's what I'm talking about. Only for good.
February 10, 2010
I have a virtual computer inside my real computer. It is literally the ghost in the machine. It's not real, but it's totally real. It's a product of my real computer, but it's fake and completely separate from my real computer. It does real stuff, but it doesn't really exist. The virtual computer, like today's politician, a modern marvel of fakery.
February 11, 2010
It was early evening and very cloudy. I was up in our field with the dogs when we heard the motor of a light aircraft hidden in the clouds. After listening for 15 seconds, it was obvious the plane was getting closer, and it didn't sound very high up. As everything started to magnify - the plane was clearly loud, low and very near - I started thinking about how to evade what I couldn't see, when a floatplane bursts through the clouds, right there! Whoa! A mile off the lake and way too low for comfort, the pilot immediately climbs and banks toward the water. The dogs and I are like, Did you see that! A rush for all. We continued to talk about it for the rest of the walk.
February 12, 2010
schoschie
Self help guru Jimmy "Things are looking up" Krazinski advocated that if you really wanted your personal fortunes to rise up (from where they were), you had to look up (to a better day). The problem with that? Chiropractic bills up the wazoo. The problem with that? "Things are looking up" Krazinski just happens to be the owner of Crackin' Krazinski's Chiropractic Centre in the Beakman Mall. It's speculated that conflict of interest lawsuits will be the next exciting personal development in Jimmy Krazinski's life.
February 13, 2010
A religico told me that if I live a god fearing, righteous life, all will be well in the end. I told him that, 1.) living in fear of anything is counterproductive to having a wonderful life, and 2.) righteousness is in the eye of the beholder, it's subjective see, but more importantly, 3.) I sure as hell wasn't going to wait until the end of my life for anything, except the end. I want every moment, every day to be my reward. Why wouldn't you live your life that way? I don't think he had a clue what I was talking about.
February 14, 2010
With the most opprobrious start possible (an athlete's death, the Olympic torch malfunctions, incessant rain), the Vancouver Games are on. Jeez.
February 15, 2010
You have to serve. It's the law of the realm. But you have a choice. You can sail into unchartered waters in 1510,
23am
or you can sail into gut wrenching waters in 2010.
mikebaird
Your call, matey. What's it to be?
February 16, 2010
A hard core business associate came into my office for a meeting. When he spied the tarot cards on my desk, he asked me what they were for. I told him that if I ask myself a question, I can get an answer through the cards. He laughed. I told him to try it. He asked a business question and then selected several cards, which I read and interpreted for him. He scoffed at the information given and dismissed the whole thing. Two days later, I received an e-mail from him where he told me that what the cards had suggested would happen, actually happened. He wanted to know where he could buy a tarot deck. Now it was my turn to laugh.
February 17, 2010
I have been a best man thrice. All of them were second marriages. None of them lasted. Yucky track record to be sure. Am I alone? Are there other best men out there batting zero? Are we the dirty little secret of the wedding industry? Should I start a club? bestmanflameouts.com? Sadly, these are my thoughts this morning.
February 18, 2010
I thought I'd fill you in on how the new social network is coming along. In a nutshell, nicely. That's because when all is said and done, we will be in the right place at the right time, so whatever it took to get there was just what was needed along the way, so regardless of exasperation, delay or accomplishment, it's all coming along nicely and will continue to be coming along nicely until it's built and launched and we are finally in the right place at the right time. Make sense?
February 19, 2010
lepiaf.geo
I know what you're thinking: If this is the result, how did it all start? Well, there was the moon, and Anton of course, and that infamous bed sheet, the one Maria found after Anton and Maria had their fight and Maria stormed out and Anton went loco and invited over the tarty Lila whereby the two of them messed up the bed clothes something awful, which it turns out, Maria had returned to take with her because she'd decided to stay at her sister's indefinitely, but after finding the sheets, um, sticky, switched that to permanently. So here we are at Anton symbolically hanging himself with said sheet, not because he so much misses Maria or even Lila, but because he is an artist. And he is French. And he cannot bear to waste a full moon and this golden opportunity to express himself.
February 20, 2010
This girl geek told a story only an IT person could love. It went something like this: she overclocked her evil stepmother's computer and it blew up. But before it fried the motherboard, her stepmother was in mid-marvel about how her computer was suddenly so much faster! and how it had to be a gift from god! kaboom! lock up, burn up, knock out. Girl geek 1, evil stepmother 0. And in the blink of an electronic eye, the evil stepmother revenge tale gets updated for the modern digital age.
February 21, 2010
So I'm at this place and somebody has the nerve to ask me what my faults are, like it's the Miss Canada contest and my breasts aren't big enough or something, but the truth hurts, and indeed, he winced when I said I had no faults, I was the perfect human being, and he was very fortunate to be in my company. Was it painful? I think so.
February 22, 2010
Surfed onto a TV preacher screaming about how we are being bathed in cosmic radiation and it's got to stop! He went on to elaborate that because heaven is located "out in space somewhere", cosmic radiation will fry us all when we're dead and laying around on the clouds playing our lutes. Go to heaven and get fried?! No sir! he screamed. No sir! the audience screamed back. His plan was to send rockets into space and then blow them up "at just the right places" to disturb the evil cosmic radiation. "I don't know about you," he spewed, "but I want to relax in Heaven, not get burned! That radiation has got to go!" By this point I was pretty sure my coffee had LSD in it because I'm thinking this is the greatest TV preacher show ever, when preacher dude lowered his voice, got all humble, and told his audience about how gosh darned expensive it was to buy cosmic radiation busting rockets, and to maintain an active rocket program at the ministry....now he hated to ask for money, but...
And with that, the spell was broken, crazy preacher dude became just another con man fleecing people who aren't thinking for themselves. Click.
February 23, 2010
The Vancouver Olympics seems to have hit its stride.
February 24, 2010
Are aliens among us has been a hot topic of conversation around here as some new neighbors seem to be from another planet. I took a welcome-to-the-neighborhood pie over to them and they didn't know what to do with it. Literally. She kept holding it like a Price Is Right model waiting for bids, and clearly had no idea whether it was a decoration for the living room or a game they were supposed to play. They all kept looking worriedly at the pie and then at one another like, What does this mean?! Ok, that was pretty freaky, and I tried hard not to take it personally, like my pie was weird or something, but then she handed it back to me and everyone stood there anxiously watching to see what I would do with it. They kept looking at the pie, then up to me, then back at the pie, then up to me. Ok, by that point I was pretty sure they weren't from around here. And by around here, I mean Earth.
February 25, 2010
dexxus
They'll be times in your life when you will yearn for an out of season season. Will too. Like you've never been in the middle of a hot, humid Summer when you're sweaty and clammy and disgusting and stinky and said, I sure wish it was the middle of a bitterly cold Winter right now! See, that's what I'm talking about. Where was I. This morning, I was thinking about the Fall and the way I feel at that time of the year, as opposed to late February and the way I feel at that time of the year, then, now, which is currently now, so it's how I'm feeling now I guess, ooh that's revealing, eh?
February 26, 2010
Too many things going on at once around here. Triage. Ta.
February 27, 2010
I have plans, and to reinforce them, it's a beneficial exercise to imagine where I want to be a year from now, with my plans played out to perfection (me atop the podium, play biting my gold medal, as it were). As well, it's also useful to imagine where I'd be a year from now if my plans played out poorly and things went south (I crashed in my event, injured innocent spectators and brought disgrace to my country by setting fire to the ski jump after my failure to execute, as it were). After visualizing both scenarios, because the latter feels so god awful, it reinforces the will of creating the former. It's a good psychological tool. Saaaay, where do you want to be a year from now?
February 28, 2010
The Vancouver Olympics are over this evening. A slow start coupled by a big finish would be the recipe for a successful staging of the 21st Olympic Winter Games. So I have figured out the perfect big finish for the Closing Ceremonies. Since the torch malfunctioned at the start, why not have it be unable to be extinguished at the end? I mean the thing won't shut off. At first it`s funny, then the athletes start to mill nervously, the crowd murmurs, everyone wants to go home. Sweaty, the IOC are forced into declaring a new tradition - an endless burning Olympic flame in a retired Olympic city! Everyone cheers. Some boffo big finish that would be, eh?
Bravo Vancouver and beautiful British Columbia for inviting the world here and giving them something to remember.
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KeithSpeak March 2010
