MacBigot Cached Glances

After many fruitful years with a not for profit educational association, am now pursuing opportunities for growth and technical training in remote access, remote meeting, and VOIP (preferably Cisco).

Seated in the Indianapolis area, but would welcome telecommuting situations as well. Comfortable with on-call (24/7) requirements and some travel.

WordPress, FileMaker Pro, Adobe Creative Suites and ‘the cloud’ are favorite environments; big fan of open source deployments and low-footprint workflows where high functionality / low risk & cost are sought for distributed and volunteer efforts. http://www.scribd.com/dan_oblak

This is what I’ve set up at http://twtbizcard.com/macbigot . The service is free and simple to use: Just add the hashtag ‘#twtbizcard’ to a @reply to any Twitter user, and they will receive a link directly to your card, with as much information as you can cram into it.

Then, the site keeps track of which cards you have received, and who you’ve sent cards to.

Why is this so attractive to busy networking people? It’s a lot easier to exchange Twitter handles than phone numbers or even email addresses… so if you’re not active on Twitter yet, it’s likely time to at least set up an account: http://Twitter.com .

TwtBizCard Demo from Felipe on Vimeo.

Now, we completely acknowledge that there are some Democrats who are above average; and should add that we are personally aware of more than a handful of Republicrats that think they will continue to get away with fooling Conservatives into believing they are represented in Washington D.C. — much the same way that most minority and low-income voters are continually courted into believing the Democrat Party is A Good Thing (and that their adversary, the Republican Party, hates anyone without a Platinum card).

“The poor have been voting democrat for 50 years and they’re still poor.” -Charles Barkley

I wonder what happened to the people in Congress who used to believe our actual enemy was tyranny, famine, pestilence, and foreign invaders? Must no longer be ‘cool’ to think that any more.

I have had dozens of conversations in the last year in which my Left-leaning friends are SHOCKED to learn that we Conservatives don’t want orphans to starve, immigrants to drown on their way here, and oil barons to rule the world with an iron money clip.

And those conversations make me angry — not just because these caricatures are baseless; but because I have a higher expectation of my fellow man than to believe the average American can consider divisive people like Katie Couric and Keith Olberman to be moral arbitors.

Can the country really be so weak-minded? I keep hearing Republicans call Glenn Beck a liar (apparently he is too much Conservative and too little — if at all — Republican); yet from the dozens of his shows I have caught, I have never once heard him say anything that I could not independently verify.

So everyone seems to prefer to sell lies for votes, and mistrust for allegiance. Impressive.

I will say to both political parties the same thing that I said to the Dems when John Kerry was running against Bush: ‘Is this truly the best you (we) can do?’ And to the Republicans, now: McCain? Really?

Finally, here is one writer’s take on the dichotomy of the Liberal mind (h/t to IOWAHAWK for sharing), and the reason I am thinking today about cranial misfires:

Why I Am A Democrat

I sometimes hear the question, “Why are you a Democrat?” and frankly, I have to laugh. Laugh and laugh, because perhaps this person may tire of my laughing, and he will eventually wander off. Sometimes I ponder seriously when I hear this question, because I’ll look around and around and there’s nobody there asking the question. Why am I a Democrat?

I am a Democrat because I believe everyone deserves a chance. And if necessary, a second chance. And if, by the eighth or ninth chance, this guy needs another chance, I mean, come on. This guy is due.

I am a Democrat because I believe in helping those in need. All of us, you and I, have an obligation to those less fortunate. You go first, okay? I’m a little short this week.

I am a Democrat because I believe in the equality of all people, regardless of their race. That is why I think we should give free medical degrees to minorities because, well, duh. Like any of those types are going to make it through medical school.

I am a Democrat because I fervently believe in tolerance. Tolerance is critical in our diverse society, and if you have a problem with that, mister, then I will inform the authorities and I bet that after a few hours in their “special room” you too will agree that tolerance is critical.

I am a Democrat because I believe that we should take our noses out of other people’s bedrooms. I say we move the noses to their banks and storage sheds and scout troops, and so forth.

I am a Democrat because I hold sacred freedom of the press, as well as freedom of the TV and freedom of the movie. Where I draw the line is freedom of the talk radio, and don’t even get me started about that damn Internet business.

I am a Democrat because I recognize that education is important. Very, very, extremely very important. We must increase spending on education and enact important education reforms, such as eliminating standardized tests. Because we can never hope to measure this beautiful, elusive, important thing we call education.

I am a Democrat because I believe in the separation of church and state. We must stop the religious extremists who want school-sanctioned prayers. Now, you tell me – with all that chanting and praying and incense-burning going on, how can our kids concentrate on the big condom-and-banana midterm?

I am a Democrat because I believe in the rights of women, be they lawyers or housewives or skanky interns. For too long women have been the victims of discrimination, and we must target programs to help these women, and also the various people who have descended from women.

I am a Democrat because I believe in women’s right to choose. I mean, not a church school or a tax shelter, or something like that, obviously. Let’s be reasonable.

I am a Democrat because I believe in the rule of law. Or, at least, lawyers. Because hey, according to my attorney, I could have been on the Number 7 bus when it crashed yesterday. As far as you know.

I am a Democrat because I believe a healthy economy depends on good jobs at good wages. So fork ‘em over, you fat b@stard boss man.

I am a Democrat because I believe the government should step in to create good jobs when that fat b@stard boss man moves my good job to Mexico. Hey, I know! Maybe we can take all the money that boss man spends on non-job-creating stuff, like solid gold yachts and mink spats, and use that money to create jobs.

I am a Democrat because I fear the power of giant unrestrained monopolies, such as Microsoft, Nike, Parker Brothers, Univac and the Erie Canal Company. The government must wage an unrelenting, all-out war to crush these scary monopolies to a pulp before they get too powerful.

I am a Democrat because I believe in a strong military. Strong, yes, but caring and thoughtful too, and ready to face new challenges. A military that enjoys long strolls on the beach, cuddling in front of a warm fire, unafraid to show its vulnerable side. Must be NS/DDF.

I am a Democrat because I believe there is too much violence in society, especially in our schools. To avoid another Columbine tragedy, we should have mellow “rap” sessions with at-risk teens, such as the Goths. The violence will only end after the teen Goths see that we adults really care, and are “hip” to their groovy teen Goth scene.

I am a Democrat because I believe in campaign finance reform. Sadly, our politics are dominated by advertisements, paid for by the contributions of giant corporations. All too often, these drown out legitimate grassroots opinions, like the kind heard on TimeWarner-AOL-CNN, TimesCorp, or Disney-ABC.

I am a Democrat because I believe in public support of the arts. By “the arts,” I of course mean those things made by, or excreted by, an artist of some sort. It is especially important that art be provocative and take controversial stances, like opposing Jesse Helms, and so on.

I am a Democrat because I believe in the environment and conservation. For instance, we must raise the price of gasoline, like they do in Europe, to increase conservation. If we don’t, there will soon be a big gas shortage, and this will mean higher gasoline prices for you and me.

I am a Democrat because I detest greed. Especially the sickening greed of those who struck it rich in the 1980s, and greedily refuse to give me any of their stuff.

I am a Democrat because I… hey look! A new episode of Survivor! Geez, I hope they don’t vote off Jenna, she’s my favorite.

This year, please do some homework before you vote. If you are one of the many who are disparaging Fox News — because you think they are being unfair — perhaps you yourself can let up on the countless hours of inhaling the fumes at Huffington Post?

Another gem from the mailbag…

The ANT AND THE GRASSHOPPER (OLD VERSION)

The ant works hard in the withering heat all summer long, building his house and laying up supplies for the winter.

The grasshopper thinks the ant is a fool and laughs and dances and plays the summer away.

Come winter, the ant is warm and well fed.

The grasshopper has no food or shelter, so he dies out in the cold.

MORAL OF THE (OLD) STORY: Be responsible for yourself!

———-

The ANT AND THE GRASSHOPPER (MODERN VERSION)

The ant works hard in the withering heat and the rain all summer long, building his house and laying up supplies for the winter.

The grasshopper thinks the ant is a fool and laughs and dances and plays the summer away.

Come winter, the shivering grasshopper calls a press conference and demands to know why the ant should be allowed to be warm and well fed while he is cold and starving.

CBS, NBC , PBS, CNN, And ABC show up to provide pictures of the shivering grasshopper next to a video of the ant in his comfortable home with a table filled with food.

America is stunned by the sharp contrast.

How can this be, that in a country of such wealth, this poor grasshopper is allowed to suffer so?

Kermit the Frog appears on Oprah with the grasshopper, and everybody cries when they sing, ‘It’s Not Easy Being Green…’

ACORN stages a demonstration in front of the ant’s house where the news stations film the group singing, “We shall overcome.”

Then Rev. Jeremiah Wright has the group kneel down to pray for the grasshopper’s sake, and whimpers, “Gawd DANG the hill-makers!”

President Obama points out that it’s clear the ant ‘acted stupidly’ and blames President Bush, President Reagan, Christopher Columbus, and the Pope for the grasshopper’s plight.

Nancy Pelosi & Harry Reid exclaim in an interview with Larry King that the ant has gotten rich off the back of the Grasshopper, and both call for an immediate tax hike on the ant to make him pay his fair share.

Janeane Garofalo appears in half a dozen YouTube videos, ranting about ‘Green Hate’ being the only reason the ant has no moral barriers to being an Oppressor.

The ant is fined for failing to hire a proportionate number of non-ants and, having nothing left to pay his retroactive taxes, his home is confiscated by the ‘Green Czar’ and redistributed to the grasshopper.

The story ends as we see the grasshopper and his free-loading friends finishing up the last bits of the ant’s food while the government house he is in, which, as you recall, just happens to be the ant’s old house crumbles around them because the grasshopper doesn’t maintain it.

The ant has disappeared in the snow, never to be seen again.

The grasshopper is later found dead and in possession of some bad grass — and the house, now abandoned, is taken over by a gang of spiders who terrorize the ramshackle, once prosperous and peaceful, neighborhood.

The entire neighborhood collapses, then the city, then the county, then finally the state takes notice and steps in to restore order — but the Federal Government intercedes to inform the State that Congress has finally disposed of the rest of the Constitution and the State no longer has the right to police itself. The country falls to chaos, bringing the rest of the free world with it. The only survivors are half of Congress, most of Hollywood, and the major news networks (from this point on, there is never a lack for bad news to report).

MORAL OF THE (NEW) STORY: Be careful how you vote in 2010.

Last night I found I could no longer access GMail, YouTube, etc. (any of the services that use Google’s login) while using Firefox. But, I could log in just fine from any other browser. And in Firefox, I could still log into any non-Google service with no issues.

It’s a good thing that I have more than one browser. I avoid using Microsoft’s Internet Explorer like the plague — it’s a puss-filled excuse for a portal to the world. My weapon of choice is Firefox, which I use about 95% of the time; but I also have Chrome and Safari to test any dramatic changes I’ve strong-armed on web sites I create. Each of them excel in their own way — too bad I can’t pick their advantages ‘a la carte’ and leave the dross behind.

I tried all the standard browser troubleshooting through the morning (rebooting, FLUSHDNS, clearing history and cookies, etc.) — but saw no improvement.

After a bunch of searching, I found lots of people chiming in about disabling the GMail Notifier. So I tried disabling it under Tools/Add-ons, and now GMail and Google Calendar are working again. I even turned the GMail notifier back on later, and nothing broke this time.

If you’re interested, GMail Notifier is a service that camps out in your Windows system tray (bottom-right-hand corner of your screen), or in the menu bar of your Mac to show a pop-up when you’ve received incoming messages. There are also a bunch of other tools that do the same thing; one of them might be more to your liking, so check out this list at “15 tools for the Gmail addict” (CNet.com).

Oh, and because I love you, here’s a quick tip for everyone on other platforms: “How to flush DNS cache in Linux / Windows / Mac” (TechieCorner.com).

This morning, when I tried to go to Facebook.com, I was sent instead to a third-party who had designed their web page to look exactly like one on FB — BUT IT WASN’T. (This spam domain was created on 7/6/2010 and sits on a server in the Bahamas that hosts many other similar scams on other domain names.)

At least this time, these jerks were kind enough to leave their URL visible in the address bar. But they’re not always in such a nice mood. Sometimes, they will leave ‘facebook.com’ at the beginning of the address and hide their real destination further down the line. Most users will not pay attention to what’s on the address bar, or what URL is behind a link they’re about to click on… And that’s how they get to you and your computer.

Let’s be careful out there.

Another from the mailbag:

THIS IS HOW YOU FIX CONGRESS!!!!!
A friend sent this along to me. I can’t think of a reason to disagree.

I am sending this to virtually everybody on my e-mail list and that includes conservatives, liberals, and everybody in between. Even though we disagree on a number of issues, I count all of you as friends. My friend and neighbor wants to promote a “Congressional Reform Act of 2010″. It would contain eight provisions, all of which would probably be strongly endorsed by those who drafted the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, and would be violently opposed by virtually if not all of our incumbent Senators and Representatives.

I know many of you will say, “this is impossible”. Let me remind you, Congress has the lowest approval of any entity in Government, now is the time when Americans will join together to reform Congress – the entity that represents us, and were ‘hired’ by us.

We need to find a Senator with enough integrity and intestinal fortitude to introduce this bill in the US Senate and a similarly disposed Representative to introduce a similar bill in the US House. These people will become American hero’s..

Thanks,

A Fellow American

***********************************
Congressional Reform Act of 2010

1. Term Limits: 12 years only, one of the possible options below.

A. Two Six year Senate terms
B. Six Two year House terms
C. One Six year Senate term and three Two Year House terms

Serving in Congress is an honor, not a career. The Founding Fathers envisioned citizen legislators, serve your term(s), then go home and back to work.

2. No Tenure / No Pension:

A congressman collects a salary while in office and receives no pay when they are out of office.

Serving in Congress is an honor, not a career. The Founding Fathers envisioned citizen legislators, serve your term(s), then go home and back to work.

3. Congress (past, present & future) participates in Social Security:

All funds in the Congressional retirement fund moves to the Social Security system immediately. All future funds flow into the Social Security system, Congress participates with the American people.

Serving in Congress is an honor, not a career. The Founding Fathers envisioned citizen legislators, serve your term(s), then go home and back to work.

4. Congress can purchase their own retirement plan just as all Americans.

Serving in Congress is an honor, not a career. The Founding Fathers envisioned citizen legislators, serve your term(s), then go home and back to work.

5. Congress will no longer vote themselves a pay raise. Congressional pay will rise by the lower of CPI or 3%.

Serving in Congress is an honor, not a career. The Founding Fathers envisioned citizen legislators, serve your term(s), then go home and back to work.

6. Congress loses their current health care system and participates in the same health care system as the American people.

Serving in Congress is an honor, not a career. The Founding Fathers envisioned citizen legislators, serve your term(s), then go home and back to work.

7. Congress must equally abide in all laws they impose on the American people.

Serving in Congress is an honor, not a career. The Founding Fathers envisioned citizen legislators, serve your term(s), then go home and back to work.

8. All contracts with past and present congressmen are void effective 1/1/11.

The American people did not make this contract with congressmen, congressmen made all these contracts for themselves.

Serving in Congress is an honor, not a career. The Founding Fathers envisioned citizen legislators, serve your term(s), then go home and back to work.

I often use Microsoft Excel, FileMaker Pro, and a strong text editor to do data cleansing — for things such as managing out bad contacts in mailing lists, locating duplicates, and detecting syntax errors. These may seem like trivial tasks which could be done by eyeballing the data — but when you deal with files containing more than a handful of fields and thousands of records, you need to trust your tools.

Because the fine folks at Bare Bones Software do not have Windows versions of my favorite text editors (they are a MacOS-only developer), I had to audition about a dozen tools to manage the same kind of powerful search-and-replace features that I had been accustomed to on the Mac.

The winner turned out to be an open source (free) utility called Notepad++, which does just about everything that I am used to having in TextWrangler — with the exception of the ability to sort lines (which I can still do in Excel if necessary).

Almost all of the web sites I manage are sitting on inexpensive accounts with BtoBDomains.com. It’s a reliable host, and includes free click-to-install applications like WordPress, and free email. Unfortunately for small organizations, there is a cap on how many emails you can send with Outlook (or any other desktop email client) in a 24-hour period. Fortunately for those same organizations, it’s forcing many of them to stop sending their promotional emails using Microsoft Outlook — which is a great tool for business correspondence, but a crappy one for managing your message.

The following instructions are to answer two questions:

1) How do we get around the host’s limit of 250 SMTP (outbound messages sent with email software on your laptop) messages per 24-hour period? [Note that there is no limit to outbound messages sent from the host's webmail interface.]

2) How do we format the body of a message so that it will look presentable on all/most email clients? [A high priority is to include inline images -- that should not appear to recipients as attachments.]

——————————————————————–

For part (1), realize that there are actually THREE methods to send email with your hosted email account:

A) Using the webmail client provided by the host

B) Using email software on your PC/Mac/handheld (Outlook, Apple Mail, Thunderbird, Entourage, iPhone, Droid, Blackberry, etc.)

C) Giving your GMail account access to send and receive your hosted mail.

For this exercise, we will be concentrating on (C), which gets around usability issues (A) and SMTP limits (B) of the other two options.

You will need:

- Your hosted email username (NAME@YOURDOMAIN.COM) and password
- A free GMail account (go to http://GMail.com to create one if you don’t have one yet.)

After you get logged in on Gmail.com, navigate this way to add your hosted email account to your GMail account:

/ Settings / ‘Accounts and Import’ tab / ‘Send mail as:’ section / ‘Send mail from another address’ /

After you go through the steps as GMail will prompt you, there will be a new feature added to the top of every new message you compose — which is, a pull-down menu that lets you select WHICH email address this message will be sent from (your hosted account, or your GMail.com account).

There are no limits to how many emails a day you can send this way; though we recommend that you put no more than 100 recipients in the BCC field each time you send.

OPTIONAL: In the same area under ‘Settings’, you can have the GMail account receive inbound messages that land in your hosted account. This is not necessary for this exercise; but may be convenient for some users. To do so, navigate here:

/ Settings / ‘Accounts and Import’ tab / ‘Check mail using POP3:’ section / ‘Add POP3 email account’

——————————————————————–

For part (2), you’ll need to make a minor change to your GMail account to add an ‘Insert Image’ button to the toolbar.

Instructions are here:
http://gmailblog.blogspot.com/2009/04/new-in-labs-inserting-images.html”>

Some things to remember when designing the message body:

- Not all email clients present content the same way. Keep things as simple as possible.

- Graphics should never be larger than 600 pixels wide. Resize them BEFORE adding them to the message.

- Some email clients will block images no matter what you do. Remember to include enough appropriate text content so every recipient understands your message.

The following was written in response to a responsible, well-worded apology from the President of the NAACP for certain choices and previous statements regarding the recently-outed video of Shirley Sherrod. If this letter is truly representative of the ideals of the NAACP’s membership (rather than the behavior on the video), then we hope to see this light shine more often in the future. Unfortunately, the surprise that many are expressing over it indicates that they have kept this light under a bushel basket for far too long…

—–
While having a race-based association mete out moral judgments might sound like a good idea to some, it never has been — and the fact that they can come out with this ‘apology’ and try to sound authoritative and humane makes no difference to the reality that the NAAWP was not around to comment on everything that self-serving jerks like Sharpton and Jackson show up to soil with ‘their good names’ (they are not about any issue; these men are only about Sharpton and Jackson).

The Black Panther folks, as one example, are to the Black culture what the terrorists are to Islam — they remove doubt in those who wonder whether to fear another race or culture. The NAACP itself has done nothing but make this worse for the people it supposes to serve, by not loudly correcting, in public, the notion that all Black people stand together to support prejudice against those who don’t look the part.

Maybe I’m just not paying close enough attention, but I have never heard the leadership of an American mosque come to CNN and repeatedly share not only that the actions and the hate of the terrorists are not representative of their faith — but explain to non-Muslims what Islam is really about and why they believe so strongly what they practice. All we hear are the terrorists. All that reaches the microphones and cameras are those separatists preaching blame, hate and death.

All we hear from the ‘Black Community’ is Sharpton, Malik Shabazz, et al.

Imagine if everyone in a house was murdered, and the Capulets had a Montague arrested. It was proven, by evidence and witness accounts, that it would have been impossible for that Montague to have committed the crime — and in fact, it was a Capulet who had in a rage, killed his own kin. But instead of exonerating the man and clearing his name in as much a public manner as his was soiled, the arrested, his accusers, and the Leader of the Land all got together for a beer summit to discuss and agree that ‘this kind of family-on-family murder happens all the time’. Where is the NAACP now? Where is the Advancement? Where is the leadership they profess?

If the NAACP came out with letters like this one every time a public individual acted as selfishly, egotistically, and hatefully as Shirley Sherrod, America might start to think that we are to be judged only by the content of our character.

But just as it takes longer to ‘unring a bell’ than to ring it, those angerly shaking their fist in the air must be left to whine on their own, unsupported, for the damage to begin to unravel. You can’t buy progress with a single letter any more than you can purchase justice with three beers.

(This in response to the ZDNet article, ‘Report: Apple prepping 11.6-in. MacBook Air, new iPod touch‘…)

I’ve been on this rampage for a while now (http://macbigot.com/?p=911 – to catch you up, I believe the market wanted smaller not thinner — or, I’d rather have something that is easily carried vs. one that is easily mailed).

For those who have seen HP’s mini 210 HD (10.1″ display at 1366×768), it’s clear the notion of all netbooks being too much compromise and too little value is fading fast. On HP’s build-to-order site, I got mine with the upgraded video card, added bluetooth, and left everything else standard — and now carry a $409 netbook (sporting an Apple sticker) that I wish had come not from HP, but the company known for leading industrial design and refining ideas left to wither due to poor quality. Netbooks would have been a perfect area for Apple to say, “HERE — THIS is what all those other companies would have created if they’d had Jonathan Ives…”

Instead, they created a whole new space in the market (which Microsoft had failed at, though they’d tried) with the iPad — and I think that’s great, for consumers. But for Creators, it would be much more of a tool if it ran Adobe Illustrator, and could connect to FTP sites, and standardized ports, and (you get the idea).

The Air getting ‘downsized’ may be a step in the right direction for people like me — so it would increase my optimism in the platform. But with only one USB port and no ethernet, it might still be seen as an executive toy.

What about those of us ‘in the trenches’? The netbook format has many features stripped already (horsepower, optical drives, screen real estate); Apple should be looking to improve upon that — not simple remove MORE. To me, the whole concept of the Air was a lame attempt at getting maybe two people in the enterprise to notice the Apple brand. Now that we’ve done that (or not), let’s move on…

What is the biggest thing you worry about when you’ve just recently acquired some new technology?

Perhaps it’s a power surge?

Accidental baptism?

Food poisoning?

Succumb to the effects of poor workmanship?

I’ll bet you never worried about the perils engendered by leaky glow sticks!

My daughter brought home some of those dollar-store toys that you bend to activate, with little plastic joiners to fashion bracelets and necklaces that glow in the dark (some for several days, if you’re lucky), and found that one of the rods was a dud, and another was leaking when she opened the package. I had her take the leaking one immediately to the trash can and warned her to wash her hands thoroughly — but in our haste I never considered that the ‘dud’ might be leaking too, and it lay near the hinge of my brand-new laptop for about five minutes before I threw it away as well.

Not seeing any residue at the time, I put the notebook away and was surprised the next morning to fine a large, gooey streak of chemical nastiness across what used to be gloriously clean and sparkling HP-branded plastic. It took me half and hour and a bottle of Goo-Gone (Mommy keeps it in the house for just such emergencies) to completely remove the slime trail that persisted; and when I was done the gouge was deep, and permanent.

Rather than worrying only about strong magnetic fields and open containers of liquid, I will now also be paranoid about chemical attacks.

Buy it durable, but treat it like it’s brittle.

My HP mini 210 HD arrived the other day, and I am slowly migrating my life onto it from backup disks, etc. I haven’t repartitioned it yet for multiple operating systems; but that can wait, since I now know how to do that with GParted which was included, gratis, on my Ubuntu-based bootable thumb drive.

I’ve also learned (the hard way, over the last few years) to keep important documents backed up by saving them ‘in the cloud’, or to multiple drives, before risking any change to my main system. [Get the t-shirt! Live The Agony!]

So for now, I’m starting out with just the basics — Skype, DropBox, OpenOffice, GIMPshop, ClamWin, PDFCreator, VLC, VNC, iTunes, Firefox (with TinEye, DownloadHelper, and other favorite plugins); all at a cost of… zero dollars.

Today was my last day, at what had been my ‘day job’ for the last nine years. Aside from the emotional shock of Change itself, I am starting to feel good about the options ahead of me. The shop is left in good hands, and I’m off to find a different place to leave little silver bullets behind and damsels in distress to rescue.

I didn’t even whine when it was time to unplug the laptop for the last time; but I did get a bit choked up handing over the Blackberry — which has been within arm’s reach (except when showering — we didn’t opt for the ‘deluxe’ model) day and night for many years. It was the last tech I touched every night before bed. I woke up to its alarm applet. I shamelessly set it to ‘vibrate’ when everyone else was turning their phones completely off during church (what if God sent me a text?). I found comfort in the fact that I could play ‘field medic’ for any crisis that could be resolved with a quick trip to Wikipedia or Google, and even learned to post quick web edits on it’s tiny screen. Inbound emails were responded to within minutes, and eventually I became quietly snobbish toward people who only checked their email ‘once or twice a day’.

It took about 45 minutes for the withdrawal symptoms to set in — I keep feeling my hip buzz and reach to find nothing there. At the kids’ swim practice this evening, I had to scrounge for a scrap of paper in my wallet to take notes (… with a PEN) for the brain-storming and list-making I’d become used to typing all through the day.

Now well into the evening, my breathing has normalized and I’m thinking about all the projects I will take on around the house and around the city — I’ve dutifully transcribed my chicken-scratch from that crumpled receipt to my Google Docs account (where it belongs), and my wife is verbally inserting honey-do’s wherever appropriate.

My resume is nearly polished, and my shingle ready to re-hang. With a deep breath, I am looking forward to finding new opportunities and challenges that will make me a better professional geek than I was yesterday. The enemy of hi-tech people is getting so comfortable with your current tools that you lose the flexibility to grow new and stronger skills.

But ‘comfortable’ is nice, when it’s the well-worn leather of a Blackberry holster.

(click above image to download 1024×768 wallpaper)

I get a lot of crap in my (many) mailbox(es); but every once in a while I receive something so heartwarming that I can’t bear to keep it to myself. BUT, I don’t want to be one of those people who forward little cat pictures or unbelievable stories to my entire contact list — so, I post them here, on my blog (which you may visit or ignore).

From the mailbag:

Just when you have lost faith in human kindness, someone who teaches at Pine Street Elementary in Spartanburg , SC , forwarded the following letter.

The letter was sent to the Principal’s office after the school had sponsored a luncheon for the elderly. An old lady received a new radio at the lunch as a door prize and was writing to say “thank you.”

Forward to anyone you know who might need a lift today.

—–
Dear Pine Street Elementary:

God bless you for the beautiful radio I won at your recent senior citizens luncheon. I am 84 years old and live at the Rosecrest Retirement Home. All of my family has passed away. I am all alone now and it’s nice to know that someone is thinking of me. God bless you for your kindness to an old forgotten lady.

My roommate is 95 and has always had her own radio, but before I received one, she would never let me listen to hers, even when she was napping. The other day her radio fell off the nightstand and broke into a lot of pieces. It was awful and she was in tears. Her distress over the broken radio touched me and I knew this was God’s way of answering my prayers.

She asked if she could listen to mine, and I told her to kiss my ass.

Thank you for that opportunity.

Sincerely,
Agnes Baker

There may be a few of you out there who didn’t grow up watching the A-Team on television — but are thinking about going to see the new A-Team movie in the theaters soon.

I thought it might be helpful if you saw what it was like before it was ‘just another cover of just another show’… enjoy!