Navel Gazing, tips tricks and suggestions
I just started this blog on Tuesday and by Saturday blogging had become such a big deal that Google has purchased Pyra labs, the company and owns Blogger and Blogspot. I doubt it was just because of me. But this move is all the talk of the web today, that is for sure.
Metafilter
The breaking story
Confirmation from the Blogger founder.
As the slow hands of time advance, I am finding it harder and harder to go out on a Saturday night and drink a few beers. Not that a few beers aren’t enjoyable. No sir. Rest assured that I am still a beloved beer drinker. However, as I get a bit older I find it nearly impossible to get a full night’s sleep after having a few beers. I toss and turn and am generally miserable. Such was the case this morning as I lay in bed at 5:00 a.m., fully awake and bored. It is a bit early to get up and make coffee and breakfast. I’d wake up the rest of the house, which would probably not be appreciated. So I roll over, turn on the lamp and read – knowing that around 3:00 p.m. I will crash and need a nap to keep up with the day. It didn’t used to be this way. I used to be the life of the party. In my 20s, I used to be the guy who organized a booze fest on a Friday night and with my beer drinking buddies I could hold forth with a three day bender most any time. My Army days, my college days, even my early newspaper days were punctuated with a love of the drink. But now, at 38 years-old, I find I dread the inevitable hangover, I dread the inability to sleep and I must accept that as friends gather at a pub for stories, lies and talk, I will no doubt be the first one to go home. No longer the king of the party but perhaps the wizened one who can sit in the wings and watch with a knowing smile and retire early knowing that perhaps I can still enjoy the day after.
4:00 a.m. I had to run as fast as I could to the bathroom for some intestinal maintenance. But this doesn’t give Ed permission to say “I told you so.” I am blaming it on the Mexican dinner at Sams no3. on Havana.That is all.
I spent the greater part of this morning trying to solve a rather pesky system glitch with my USB external drives. The Sony Spressa CDRW drive I use is installed with the wrong driver. Windows 2000 automatically installs a different version of the driver to my system and I think that is what is causing my system from time to time lock up and spit out my external hard drive and external cdrw drive. But getting a correct Win2K drive has seemed to be impossible. This isn’t the end of the world and the hardware works 99 percent of the time, but on occasion, for no reason at all I will get this pesky error message that my hard drive and my CD drive were improperly unplugged. Since they work most of time, I am assuming it is a software issue not a hardware issue. And the best “first” place to go to fix the problem is to reinstall the drivers. But hours later I have made no major headway. But I will persevere.
On MSN chat this afternoon, the discussion turned to Olestra and specifically the Frito-Lay companies Olean branded fat-free chips.
See, I kind of like them.
And I am discovering that I am nearly all alone in that endeavor. I may be their entire consumer market.
There was talk of seeing how many chips it takes for an entire colon blow. But that conversation passed (…)
But come on! A handful of yummy fried tater crunchies for just 75 calories! How lucky can a guy get. Sure, it can be a gastrointestinal disaster if the entire bag is eaten in one sitting, but then if that happens, it serves a guy right.
Speaking of blowing it all in one sitting – the weekend has crept upon us and with that comes plans. For most it is a three day weekend whereby we honor past presidents. Let’s all pause for just a second and give a shout out to 93-year-old Ronald Reagan, who just had a birthday. And, as always, take some time to pour a 40 down for good old Richard Nixon, one of my favorite dudes. A despicable person with few morals and virtually no charisma who forced himself into the global spotlight. How that guy became president is something I will never understand. And for that I love him. It ain’t easy to become an icon.
Just ask Charro.
Snow is forecast for Saturday, but otherwise the weekend looks like a fun warm one. I may propose to the posse a trip out of town somewhere. Perhaps up to Longmont to enjoy some microbrewery guzzling. And I think, in honor of Crabfest at Red Lobster, a sea food buffet somewhere may be in order.
The tool of the average serial killer has now been given new life due to terror . Apparently Duct Tape is now the equivalent of aspirin and band aids in our society (AP). The media is reporting that it is selling off the shelf as fast as they can stock it in hopes of making our home terrorist attack proof. I don’t know about that but I do know that while in the Army, the tape was sold in camo, green and black as well as the traditional gray and quite honestly held the entire military establishment together. Rare it was when a ranking sergeant in the field did not have a roll of duct tape in the cargo pocket of his pants in order to fix a truck, a tent, a computer. But really. Besides its incredible strength and useability, does anyonethink that the tape will be able to prevent anything? I doubt it.
I have lost the link in a housekeeping frenzy, but recently I stumbled on a web log site whose life’s mission was to find and taunt online auctions. Much like Disturbing Auctions but with snarky photos and the ability to comment on delicious finds. It was while on the that mysterious site that I happened upon this. Shop Goodwill. Wow. What kind of gold is this! An online thrift store auction. I doubt the site makes much money and I imagine the web site itself and the bandwidth are donated, but still . . . where else can you find such wonders as Clippo the Clown. Perhaps he would make a perfect companion to Ed’s houseboy Pedro.
If nothing else, the Goodwill store will now be a site to go to for odd pictures to brighten up any template.
heh heh heh.
Okay, I have shared a severe bit of nerdiness already, so it isn’t too much to go further. Besides chess, the Bee Gees and the very fact I have created a self-obsessive blog, I have spent the better part of the Tuesday and Wednesday watching the rebroadcast of the Westminster Dog Show.I dig the dog show. Always have. A few thoughts. Joe Garagiola used to host the show every year. He was replaced with Mark McEwan, the former CBS weatherman. Not bad, but in terms of pure geekiness, I thought that it would be hard to beat ol’ Joe. But McEwan did a fine geeky job. His broadcast partner, David Frei, was a bit annoying, however. Standing there proudly displaying his Denver Broncos Super Bowl ring as he does the doggy-do play-by-play was a bit surreal. The former Football PR flack turned dog show competitor (the term he used all the time was “Breeder/ Owner/Handler”
– as if it were a coveted role.) referred to the dogs as “fabulous” on more occassions than you might expect a world champion football dude would.
I was cheering for the Pomeranian. I don’t necessarily like them as a dog, but I figured their day had come and frankly, that dog, to use Frei’s term, was “fabulous.”
But in the end the Kerry Blue Terrier won the show.
Okay. Links are up.Changed the template to be easier to read
Fiddled with the Title header.
Now for an explanation of the title.
It is from Walt Whitman. In the preface of Leaves of Grass.
It needs a whole table of its own right here, but that is on the to do list.
So, the job hunt is looking up a bit. In the past few weeks, I have been able to send out more than a resume or two a week. There are actually job positings! Although in this market that means some fierce competition, but I think I can at least claw my way to the top of the pile.
Sent off three resumes to Nextel this week for three supervisor positions. And several more similar positions were sent off last week. Not my dream job, but I am qualified, so might as well give it a shot.
I have about three weeks of paid unemployment benefits left. Short of getting an extension (which I can’t apply for until the money is gone) the first job that comes along will be my new career. So reach out to your favorite psychic and send me a note on what is in the future, for I can’t fathom it.