October 2, 2013

There were 5 posts published on October 2, 2013 (this is page 1 of 1).

Activate Good responds

Activate Good

Activate Good


The director of Activate Good, Amber Smith, reached out to me almost immediately after my Color Run post, having been alerted by a mutual friend. We chatted some this afternoon about the run and the aftermath.

It seems Activate Good was given the same deal that most other charities get from Color Run. That is, they got a donation based on the number of volunteers they provided. Activate Good contributed over 180 volunteers and performed a lot of the heavy lifting for the run, including the “color toss.” Amber says their volunteers were not involved in the clean up as that was done by others.
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Flare flare are you tonight

Ok, so the title is a reference to a staple of the old Hee Haw show.

After speculating that the flares I saw Saturday night might have been launched by the Raleigh Fire Department to gauge the wind currents before the Wide Open Bluegrass fireworks that night, I reached out to department officials this morning to learn if the FD did this sort of thing.

I got a call back this afternoon from the official who approved the city’s fireworks permit and we had a good chat. He told me they don’t normally launch anything to gauge the wind but rely on observed conditions and the weather forecast. He said that the location I guessed the flares were coming from would’ve been too far away from the fireworks site to be useful, anyway.

The bottom line is that the mystery flares are not the work of the fire department, after all. Now I’m really going to have to work to track this thing further.

Photographing a Color Run Will Destroy Your Camera Gear–Don’t Do It

Yikes! This color run powder is nasty stuff on camera lenses. Imagine what it must do to your lungs!

If there hasn’t been a Color Run 5k or 10k race near you, there probably will be soon. And with all that color, you certainly want to take some pictures, right? Not with your camera you don’t.

I’m never one to worry much about lens dust, but the color bombs they throw out at Color Runs are different. In the last month my lens rental business has had over 20 lenses and several cameras nearly ruined by these things. For what it’s worth, all of the renters tell us they really weren’t near any of the major ‘color bombs.’

via Photographing a Color Run Will Destroy Your Camera Gear–Don’t Do It.

Obamacare

Stethoscope-2
Fourteen years ago I was a young know-it-all Linux geek working for an incredible employer, Indelible Blue. Once a leading retailer of IBM software and one of the fastest-growing companies in the area, Indelible Blue treated its employees like family. Even as a tiny company, it had on-site day care and some afternoons I could be found roller-blading around the parking lot with the company president. In 1999 it seemed Indelible Blue had a lot going for it.

You can imagine my surprise when a long-time employee, “Phyllis,” suddenly announced she was leaving. Phyllis was with the company right from the start and was an expert in the arcane IBM product known as MQ Series. Phyllis was a great person and her expertise was bringing lots of money to the company so I was baffled why she was leaving.

One rainy afternoon I sought her out as she stepped outside for a smoke break. She tearfully told me a heartbreaking story of how she loved her job and didn’t want to leave it but she had no choice. Her husband was suffering from a life-threatening health problem and Indelible Blue’s insurance coverage had been maxed out. Phyllis had to find another job or lose insurance coverage, which could lead to even worse consequences. A few weeks later she moved on.
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Silence and sound

I’ve mentioned this before, but lately it’s been delightfully quiet around the neighborhood. This is the time of year when indoor and outdoor temperatures match up, meaning the constant drone of air conditioners is pleasingly absent.

You don’t tend to notice the noise until it’s gone. Our world is full of so much constant noise that it can be a shock when it’s suddenly quiet again. I wonder how all this racket affects one’s health.