Sheep Guarding Llama

Well it is snowing this morning. The sky is still overcast but it is much brighter and whiter than it has been in more than a week so the change is nice. I am enjoying having enough light in the office to be able to see for a change. I love overcast but a little light is nice on most days. It is a little much when you have to turn on a lamp at noon to be able to read next to a window.

I listened to an interview with Eddy Cue, Apple’s VP of iTunes, as he talks about the iPod. And the bottom line is that he is super, ultra snotty. He is very cocky and obnoxious. His only answer to everything was that he and Apple were the best and that no one else was any good. But he couldn’t say anything of substance. And as a VP he must be embarrassingly aware that the Apple advertising engine sells all of their products and not their engineering and development departments. And especially as the VP of iTunes. iTunes? C’mon. iTunes is the top reason that so many people don’t buy iPods because that particular piece of the puzzle is such a problem. iTunes is just massively sad and pathetic. I might buy an iPod if it was able to interface with the computer in a simple, useful way like my Samsung YEPP does. Nothing compares with the devices that just act like a hard drive. No weird, difficult extra interface. iTunes just adds complexity. Sad. Cue also missed what I think is a super obvious need in the industry today: downloadable television content in high quality. He thinks that people will only use Apple’s television downloads to view on small screens in low quality and that people who are using 40″ plasmas and they like to say in the interview or as many people that I know use high quality LCDs and projection systems like ours at 168″. About half of everyone I know has as high or higher quality television as they are talking about in this interview and just about everyone of them all ready would like to use a computer as the source for television shows and all of them would like that to be of higher quality than what is broadcast not lower. I think that this just shows Apple really being condescending to their customers. Basically Cue is saying that people who buy Apple products just aren’t into quality and to them it doesn’t matter if Apple makes good stuff or not. But then again, he makes iTunes so he obviously thinks that.

I ordered some new toys today. One of the benefits of working in IT is that you constantly have to try out products so that your clients can turn to you to know how everything works and what is available, etc. Dominica and I decided that we needed some actual speakers for the upstairs office so we ordered a pair of Logitech stereo speakers that we figure will meet our needs quite nicely. Min and I also have our MiniSD cards on order so that we can store lots of stuff on our new cell phones. But my big new toy that is coming is the 2006 edition of Microsoft’s Streets and Trips with the included USB GPS unit. I think that that is going to be a lot of fun and with my expected upcoming sales schedule this year it will come in really handy for finding places when I am out of town. I can’t believe that I haven’t gotten any GPS before. There have been so many occasions when I have really needed to have one. Anyone who drives to client sites would really appreciate one.

I didn’t manage to get into Castile Christian Academy this week like I had hoped. I know that they have had some electrical work done but I don’t know how much is done or maybe all of it is. Dad and I were supposed to be at the school this week but with dad’s hand he hasn’t been able to do very much. I hope that I can get down there on Monday to get things moving.

Has anyone ever spent a day wearing full coverage headphones in a cold room? I do this all of the time because I don’t have decent computer speakers in the office, yet, and I listen to seminars all day long and I keep the house really cold. I have noticed that the headphones do almost as much to keep me warm as my fleece does. It is pretty dramatic.

I can’t believe that it is Friday all ready. The week seems to have just flown by. The weekend is just a few hours away. Not that I get to take the weekends off but I always feel better over the weekend because the phone calls that come in are almost always social and not disaster related. It is substantial what a difference that makes in your outlook on the day.

I saw the doctor this afternoon. It has been about nine months since my last checkup. My blood pressure is up and I have to deal with that. It has always been fine in the past but it was quite high this time. My weight is up too. Apparently our home scale doesn’t tell me anything useful since it showed me roughly holding my weight steady and not gaining like the good scale and the doctor’s office said. But at least my heart rate is way down. Only 72bpm. That is awesome. At least something is improving.

Dad came over at 4:30 so that we could get our regular Friday night fish fry at the Omega (hmmm…. I wonder where that extra weight has been coming from.) While we were at dinner he told me about a recent episode of NOVA on PBS (WXXI here in the Rochester area – Channel 21.) Anyway, on this episode of NOVA they were talking about a mummy that had been housed in the Niagara Falls Museum. The NFM was a super cheesy museum in Niagara Falls that I had been to when I was young. The museum was really awful. It was full of junk and everything was from a mid-nineteenth century personal collection of a guy who bought the stuff from grave robbers. This practice was decently popular at the time which in no way makes it any less appauling (kind of like slavery but not on the same scale.) Anyway, I remember this particular mummy from the museum because even being as young as I was I was mortified by the horrible conditions that the mummy was being kept under. It was under glass but the glass was not sealed so the air was changing in and out bringing fresh oxygen to the mummy making it deteriorate quickly. I was totally disgusted when I noticed flies crawling around on the mummy under the glass. I remember it very clearly. I remember thinking that it was really strange to have a “museum” that was doing less to preserve its artifacts than I would do if the mummy was stuck in my house! There weren’t even any decent environmental controls in the place. It didn’t even feel like a real commercial building but more like an old house. It was truly awful. Anyway, it turns out that in the 1930’s a German visiting the US who had a decent knowledge of Egyptian mummies identified the mummy as being important but no one would listen to him so the mummy went “undiscovered” again until a researcher from Toronto got involved just recently (for those who don’t know Niagara Falls and Toronto are right next door to each other.) After doing some extensive research it was determined that this mummy was truly important and a man in Toronto managed to buy the museum and close it down. The mummy was sold to a museum in Atlanta where it was identified as actually being Pharoah Ramses I! The mummy has been returned to its rightful home in Egypt after a brief display period in Georgia. But how cool is that? I mean I actually got to breath on Ramses I! It isn’t like I just got to be in a room with him in a big display where I couldn’t get close and lots of other people were around. I was probably completely alone with him in a little room at the Niagara Falls Museum just one or two inches away separated by some glass that wasn’t even remotely sealed. Just enough to keep you from spilling your diet soda onto him. And even that was possible if you tried hard enough. Its weird to know now that I was that close to the body of someone so important. You can learn more about the founder of Egypt’s Nineteenth Dynasty on Wikipedia.

I won an N scale model locomotive (GP-38 #51) on eBay today. It is a model of one of the engines from the Genesee and Wyoming that is used right down the street in Retsof. We got a really good deal on it. I am really excited. I have always wanted to have some models of the G&W trains but have never gotten any. There have never been very many available but recently they have started to appear a little bit more often. Atlas is starting to model a number of their engines so that is encouraging. But finding rolling stock is still a challenge. One thing at a time, I guess.

I finally sat down tonight and got a change to sit down tonight and record a new podcast. It has been several weeks since I have had a chance to record a show. I know that you all have been missing me. Sorry about that but it is almost impossible to just keep the dailies flowing let alone the podcast during the holiday season.

Dominica got home at her usual time and we watched a couple episodes of TNG. At this rate we will have completed the first season in just a few weeks. Tomorrow the plan is that I will be home with Oreo all day. I need a nice, relaxing day at home.

Another dark and gloomy winter day here in Geneseo. And the record continues to climb. No end in site. Good for me; bad for everyone else. I am just about the only person in the world who would prefer to live in a world without direct sunlight. Except for Wilfort Carrol who used to work for Nicklin Associates a few years back. He didn’t like sunlight either. Just thought that I would mention him in case anyone ever does a web search for him they will discover one thing about him. That he likes rain and overcast days. There you go Wilfort.

Coldplay screws its customers. Yet another story of a band and record label, in this case Virgin Records, who produce a CD that isn’t really a CD and make it not work correctly in an attempt to keep the people who paid for the album from being able to enjoy it to the same level as those people who just stole a copy. What are they thinking? If they want to make more money why don’t they go after pirates instead of going after their customers. Basically what the manufacturing of this album is all about is making something that people will buy without knowing whether or not they have any way to use it. Its like buying music in an unknown format and hoping that they put it into a format that you just happen to own a player for but they might have put it into a format that no one has ever heard before so no one even known what it is. This is totally obnoxious. I hope that no one ever buys their records again. I sure won’t but then again, I have never heard of them.

I listened to a talk by Robert Lang who spoke at OSCON this year. Robert is an absolutely amazing oragami artist. You could spend quite a bit of time on his site looking at some of his artwork.

My biggest project today was working on a database design for the company’s new purchase ordering system. I really like database design work and this is pretty fun. It is really nice when you have total knowledge of the domain and don’t have to go to anyone else for extra information. That lets things move forward pretty quickly.

I worked most of the afternoon and then at 5:30 I ran downtown (downtown Geneseo that is) to look for an art supply store that Dominica remembered being down there. Apparently that was some time ago because all of the stores that were near where she remembered it being have been there for quite some time. So I grabbed some dinner at Micelli’s Deli on Main Street. The girl making the subs was wearing a Station 42 tee shirt which I thought was really strange. I asked her about it and she said that it had been her grandfather’s. She didn’t even know Station 42. She said that she was born in 1985. Josh and I along with Steve Romano, Michael Slane and Heather Shaeffer had worked there during the summer of 1992 but the restaurant had closed by the end of the summer never to have opened again. Now it is just someone’s house. It was located between Avon and York in a little crossroads called Fowlerville on Fowlerville Road. If you look at the area on Google Maps you can even see the railroad still marked on the map that the building used to be the passenger station for but that railroad is long since gone. It is too bad. It would have been so neat to have had a railroad go there.

Oreo and I sat on the couch and watched the Star Trek: The Next Generation episodes that Dominica watched last night without so that we would be caught up. These early episodes are so incredibly cheesy. I can’t believe that we all thought that this was the greatest show ever when it was first one. But the reality is that nothing was ever like this at all back when it first aired. It is actually from the 1980’s which is actually pretty hard to believe.

It has gotten colder outside and there is actually snow falling here again. It has been at least a week since I have seen any snow come down. Maybe the sky will clear a little by tomorrow. Speaking of tomorrow: I have a doctor’s appointment (just a regular checkup) tomorrow afternoon in Batavia at 2:15.

I got my database completed by 10:15. I am really happy with the work that I did. I am sure that I will have to do more with it later on once I really start testing it but so far so good. I love it when projects actually work and move forward. I need to do more of that more often. I have also had really good luck today making my way through tons of content from IT Conversations. I am making a point of trying to catch up with all of their old content. There is just so much to learn. Once in a while there is a totally ridiculous interview with someone who doesn’t know anything about the technology that they are talking about. Just as I was writing this paragraph I came across one of those that I decided to delete. I save almost everything and burn it to DVD so that I have it archived because I think that the content is so good. The interview I last heard though was some idiot complaining about all kinds of things from low emission fuels to American broadband. He went so far to say that DSL and Cable are not even broadband (I guess that he thinks that they narrowband) and said that in Korea that they have 8Mb/s and that that is true broadband. Of course, just about everyone that I know has speeds like that and at prices close to what he was saying that they pay over there. He was saying things that would lead one to believe that Americans only ever get 200Kb/s. I suppose that some people with satellite service might end up with speeds like that but that is totally unfair to compare super rural America to high density urban Korea. And to only compare us to the most densily technologically deployed nation on earth is a bit over the top. How about comparing us to average or something. I guess we are pretty near the top as far as average high speed deployment.

Dominica got home at 10:45 and we were off to the living room to watch more of TNG. We think that one of the funniest things ever is “Acting Captain Wesley Crusher” taking control of the ship. That bit is really hilarious. No trains tonight. We were both kind of tired and just looking to relax.

Just before turning in for the night I came across this interesting blog entry on one word descriptions of UNIX variants. Being a UNIX guy this is close to my heart I guess. Most of you probably won’t even know what he is talking about but I thought that this was kind of cute but quite authentic. Anyway, I liked it. Very, very true. Hit the nail on the head, I think.

First thing this morning I put in some time making sure that the dailies were caught up. Dad IM’d me around 11:00 to say that FedEx had just dropped off my new cell phone. It is the LG VX8100 just like Min’s. So dad came over to Geneseo at 11:30 and we did lunch and I got the cell. It will take me a while to get used to having this new phone and to learn how to use all of its features. I have never had a cell phone that was so feature loaded so I am looking forward to carrying around so much power with me. It should be really cool. I like being able to have a 1.3 megapixel camera that I will have with me always because there is often moments that you would like to get a quick picture of and are not able to because you aren’t carrying your camera. But I always have my cell phone. So now we will have to wait and see whether or not I actually end up using that feature. I can’t really do anything with it until I get a MiniSD card for it so that I can actually store things on it. The included internal memory is really small so it isn’t very useful. But having a MiniSD expansion port is awesome. Time will tell whether or not this is actually a good phone for me. I am really hoping that I find the extra features handy but somehow I imagine that they will not actually be all that useful when I try to use them in real life.

Today is a super grey or maybe even a brown day here in Geneseo. There is a light rain and it is incredibly warm for January. When I went out for lunch I didn’t even need to wear a coat. I am wearing a sweatshirt and that was plenty to keep me warm. I don’t remember ever having a January like this. Normally we would be heading into some pretty serious snow weather. The Weather Channel just reported that Buffalo has just had its longest sunless stretch in over thirty years! Now that is some serious overcastness. Overcastness?

Today is my day to get back into the swing of things. My first regular day of work since the holidays began.

I found a really neat Java application today called jlGUI. It is a neat audio player that you don’t need to install onto your computer that you can run through Web Start that allows you to listen to Internet radio streams or listen to podcast or other localized content such as MP3s and, even cooler, Ogg Vorbis files. So for those of you who want to listen to high quality OV files but aren’t happy with other OV players should check out jlGUI and see if it meets your needs.

Some days I find all kinds of cool new stuff. The Amazon folks who make the A9 search engine have block level views of a bunch of US cities. It is a really neat idea to not only see a map of where you want to go but be able to get a view of what it looks like there. Go check it out at A9 Maps.

I spent the afternoon and evening working in the office. Nothing exciting just the usual drudgery (actually I really love what I do.) I managed to listen to several hours of tech seminars and conferences while I was working. I get a ton of stuff from IT Conversations and I am trying to catch up with their back catalogue. The content that they provide is just so good that I don’t want to have to have missed any of it. I am getting closer to having listened to the whole thing. There is a lot to go but it is small percentage wise.

Mary called and asked me to run her over a soda from Tim Horton’s because she really likes their shaved ice. I made a run to Walmart to look for some special Scotch brand spray adhesive that Dominica and I need for our model train layout but I had no luck there. Then it was over to Timmy Ho’s and then to the hotel. I hung out at the hotel for about an hour before coming back to the house.

Dominica got home and we popped in Star Trek: The Next Generation and she got to work on painting the train station that she has been working on. I am still working on the database design for our new purchasing database. It is always fun building new systems.

Mary stopped by after work. She gets out at 11:00 tonight. Next week she starts her new three days a week Friday through Sunday schedule so that she can go back to college at GCC. She hasn’t gotten her schedule at school adjusted yet but her plan is to pursue an IT/CIS degree program. We talked some shop until half past midnight. Then she headed home. Dominica and I stayed up to watch one last episode of TNG before going to bed.