Category: General

This morning I have the chorus to this song going ’round in my head.

Since embedding on that video is disabled, I think I’ll share this dude’s cover instead.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VYv-oG18hjg&hl=en&fs=1&rel=0&color1=0x3a3a3a&color2=0x999999]

I could be singing it to her… or I could be singing it to myself. Not sure it matters.

My technical clothes are laid out.

Cliff Bloks and PowerBar Gels are stashed in my Camelbak – and the bladder is full of water and in the freezer.

Inspiring music is loaded on my iPhone.

Toenails trimmed. Face shaved.

Coffee set to be made automagically in the morning.

BodyGlide is waiting for me.

It’s still early-ish enough for me to get a good night’s sleep before getting up around 5:30 AM and waiting for dad to pick me up, and take me to the Hillsboro Stadium so I can run my very first half-marathon.

…I need to stop procrastinating and go to bed, already. Not much more I can do at this point.

Good night.

Here’s how out of it I am; I had no idea these top three stories on Google News were such a big deal:

1. Elections in Iran: what the hell? They have elections in Iran? Did President #43 know about this? Or is this something new since Obama took over? Good job, President O! I knew there was something I liked about him.
2. Analog TV going the way of the dinosaurs: This seems to be a big deal, which may explain why Comcast has felt the need to mail me a flyer every day for the last several months announcing it.
3. The Holocaust Museum is opening its doors again after the crazy man shot it up: Wonder why all these crazies are running around shooting off their guns? Couldn’t have anything to do with the unfounded rumors that President Obama wants to take away all the guns, does it? Ugh.

What’s the top story to you?

Man, I used to love this show!

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rYntjR4-pY4&rel=0&color1=0xb1b1b1&color2=0xcfcfcf&hl=en&feature=player_embedded&fs=1]

Every Tuesday night at 8 PM, I’d tune in to see what whacky adventures Solo got into. Remember that episode where the Millenium Falcon broke down on some podunk asteroid, and Solo and Chewie had to go into town to get stuff to fix it, and they ran across Lando Calrissian, who used to own the Falcon only now he’s, like, mayor of this town, and Lando’s all, like, I’m gonna get you, sucka! and Solo was all, like, No way! and then Lando was all, like, I’m gonna turn you in to Vader! and Solo and Chewie were all, like, Uh-uh! No way!

Man, that was a great episode. And there was a murder or somethin’ they had to solve. I think it was Threepio who got shot. Or somethin’.

Yeah. Man, what a great old TV show.

Lately I haven’t been able to remember any new stories, conversations, or tidbits, about which I could blog.

I mean, there’s things going on in my life and my friends’ lives, but nothing that would be appropriate for posting to the world wide internets.

Things are still going well with Lindsey; this coming Saturday will mark our 12th week together and we’re only just begun.

Lindsey will be meeting my dad and my sister this Saturday, too, since they’re all going to be at the finish line for my first-ever half-marathon.

And that Saturday night, provided I’m not blotto from 13 point something miles of running, I am going to be participating in my third World Naked Bike Ride, something that has become a bit of a tradition for me, since I did it in 2007 and 2008. Lindsey will not be joining me (she’s a bit shy about appearing in public naked) and I don’t think she entirely “gets” why I want to do it – it’s not sexual, at all; it’s just a crazy bit of anti-authoritarianism and euphoria for me – but she understands that I want to do it and is being very supportive.

Joe Donlon, a reporter for KGW here in Portland, appears to be doing the Naked Bike Ride, too, in fact. He may just be doing it for the free pie from Whiffie’s Pie Cart, though. At least, he hinted as much when I challenged him to a race there.

Some of my friends are still having troubles and I’m trying to help them keep their spirits up and suchlike and whatnot. Still tweeting over on Twitter, about 5-6 tweets a day, I think. Maybe I just have short, 140-character stories lately?

And right now I’m very tired and have to go to work. Bleah.

As I prepare to catch a bus that will begin a one-hour ride to today’s work location (ugh), one thing is on my mind today.

And that is that my good friend Kevin will be undergoing an 8-hour surgery to have one part of his body removed and grafted onto another part of his body in order to remove the threat of cancer. That surgery starts at 7:30 AM. Then he gets to spend the next several days in Intensive Care along with some cute nurses and a MacBook Pro full of all eight seasons of Scrubs (a gift from his work IT group), and ocassional visits from his wife and kids, and other family and close friends.

So if I seem distracted today, that’s what’s on my mind. Just letting y’all know.

Sorry for being a bit absent ’round here. Haven’t been feeling much like writing, if you can believe it.

About the most interesting thing that’s happened to me this week is getting a new hard drive installed in Sterling, the MacBook Pro that, three years later, I still call my new sexy thing. Truth is, it’s not quite so new anymore, but it has character. A few scars – the dent from where the idiot on the “fixie” ran into me from behind, a spot just under the keyboard where the paint is coming off, other random stains and scratches – but it still works like a champ.

In the three years I’ve had it, other than the above incidents, Apple has replaced the following under warranty:

1. Logic board
2. Battery (twice)
3. Hard drive (which was damaged in my nasty car accident so shouldn’t have been under warranty, shhhh!)

…which seems like a good record for a laptop that gets used daily, and lugged around everywhere. It’s been to New York and Cancćn, on road trips out into the Nevada desert, to the beach and Seattle.

And last night, my friend Hollie popped off the top case and showed me what was inside, and installed a Seagate Momentus 7200.4 500GB hard drive, smooth as silk.

I finally got to see the inside of my new sexy thing.

Damn… I should have taken pictures!

With any luck, this laptop should serve me well for the next year or so. Sure, I’d like to upgrade to a new unibody MacBook Pro. But I don’t have to.

And, besides, I think I have the oldest MacBook Pro in Portland. What’s not cool about that?

Want some new/old music?

Through the magic that is Delicious Library 2, I’ve scanned a bunch of my CDs, and exported them as a web page. I love magic.

Rather than post a giant list here, I’ve put the page on the interwebs.

Most of what I have isn’t very rare, though I do have some local/independent artists, and some Radiohead imports.

If there’s a bullet in the first column, I’m asking $7 each.

If there’s no bullet in the first column, I’m asking $4 each.

If you want to buy a bunch, say, 10 or more… I’ll consider your offer.

If you think my price is too high, make an offer and give me the info I need. I have to admit that I haven’t researched every single one of these gems to be sure they’re worth selling. I’m half-assing it. Sue me. Or rant and complain and call me names. That might be entertaining for everyone!

Whatever doesn’t sell in the next couple of days is going to end up on Amazon Marketplace, per anomar’s suggestion. Thanks, anomar!

I have another hundred or so CDs that weren’t recognized by Delicious Library for various reasons (shitty compilation, bar code is damaged, or promotional copy). Still have to manually enter all those.

My friends call me the most wired person they know. I’ve had an email address for longer than anyone they know. I’m always on top of the latest memes and tools on the internets. I’ve got RSS feeds, automated searches, and email lists that keep me updated on what my friends are doing, what’s happening around town, the latest political news. I use SMS/texting as a tool, and as my primary means of communication with friends who aren’t right there in front of me.

The majority of my past girlfriends were met through online dating; my love, Lindsey, and I met through Twitter, as a matter of fact.

I can google like no one’s business; it takes me minutes, at most, to find relevant results to any search. When those random questions come up in conversation, like “Who won the World Series in 1983?” or “What’s the population of Mexico City, anyway?”, my friends turn to me, no matter where we are, and expect me to look it up on my ever-present iPhone.

I’ve spent years building up this… skill set? Is that what it is? To me, it feels like breathing; it’s just what I do. Computers and networks of information have been a part of my life for so long that I can’t really imagine what my life would be like if it all went away. That’s probably a bad thing, to be so dependent on it, right? And since you’re reading this, I imagine that your life, too, is much the same way, to some degree or other.

But you realize that not everyone gets this, right? I’ve come to the realization that this is indeed, a skill set, and some people have it, and some people don’t.

But what am I really using it all for? Fun, entertainment, and random questions here and there. Fun and games.

So this raises two different lines of thought for me:

1. Can I, y’know, get paid for this? Are there people out there who need this done, either on an ad hoc basis or on an ongoing basis, and are willing to pay for it? Even if the pay isn’t that much, it would supplement my current income and give me some satisfaction in doing something well.

   Sadly, one answer comes back immediately: yes, there are people who get paid for things like this. They’re called marketers, or “social media experts”, or various other phrases that, in many people’s minds, translate into “spammers”, even though what I’m talking about is research and analysis and data-collecting, not sending out information.

   I’m thinking along the lines of “online researcher” or “finder of online things”. Or even “online private investigator”, although that gets into privacy and ethical issues that I find I’m less and less comfortable with.

2. The other idea I had was to consider the areas of my life where I am not currently using these skills, but which could benefit from their application. The primary one that leapt to mind was writing. I would love to get paid to write. Short articles, short fiction or novels, instructions and how-tos, all sorts and types of writing.

   I can use these skills in finding information on how to approach writing markets, to finding and becoming part of writers’ markets online, finding out about job opportunities, ways and means to polish my writing and to share all this information with others.

   Now that that thought has occurred to me, I’m surprised that I am not already doing it.

Consider this post my first step in this direction. Yes, there are things I can begin doing to help me, but there’s also the idea that I need to put myself out there. By writing this post, I am hopefully attracting some attention to my desire; perhaps someone else’s search will turn up this post – though I admit that the chances of that are low. I have not written this post for “search engine optimization”; it’s just my random thoughts barely organized at all. I haven’t included “keywords” in my headers and tags. I’m just a guy spilling my brain out onto the internet.

But that’s my strength, too. I’m not going to charge an arm and a leg for something that seems so simple to me, and if there’s some way my skills match a problem you’re having and you can’t solve it, just let me know. I’ll probably do it for free or cheap at first, as a way to figure out the shape and scope of the work, the ins and outs.

Should be interesting…

I had not seen her all week, though we had been in touch via instant messaging, texting, and email. She had been busy, I had been busy. It happens, and it is a normal thing with two people dating.

And so we planned a simple night of watching videos on my giant TV¹, a simple cheap night together.

And I missed her.

Then I started to get a cold sore.

I know it’s irrational, but even though the majority of the population has the virus and gets outbreaks from time to time, when I get an outbreak… I feel bad. Like I’ve been marked out. Dirty. I know, I know! It’s inaccurate, but I feel it all the same.

I warned her before she came over, and she teased me a bit for taking it so seriously, and she reassured me that she still loved me no matter what.

And then she showed up on my doorstep with flowers.

She brought me flowers. She. Brought me… flowers.

We did not kiss all night, but we did not lack for showing each other simple affection. Holding hands, looks, words, the act of spending time together. It was wonderful.

No one has ever brought me flowers before.

¹ My 32″ Sony non-HD CRT TV seems so much larger than her 15″ non-HD CRT TV. We both love tech, but so far it hasn’t extended to our television sets. Ask us about our laptops or smart phones, though…