This is cool:

While other buildings that house vital services — hospitals, local government emergency centers, radio and television stations — remained functional during the blackout thanks only to backup power generators, one New York City Police precinct in Manhattan wasn’t even fazed by the sudden electrical disruption.

“We weren’t affected by the blackout at all,” says Dave Giordano, a community affairs officer at the Central Park Precinct in Manhattan. “We were still shining.”

The secret to staying powered up throughout the blackout? For the past four years, the precinct has been generating its own power with a clean-energy fuel cell.

I read in the News and Observer that a grand jury has refused to indict a teenager involved in the I-540 deaths two years ago. Four teens were killed when the car they were racing spun out of control on I-540.

Chris Peterson, 19, was charged with involuntary manslaughter, largely due to the work of Dee Welch, the mother of one of the crash victims. Through civil lawsuits filed against Peterson, she gained testimony from friends who claimed Peterson was racing the car in which Welch’s daughter was a passenger.

While Peterson has a history of racing, having previously been convicted of it, it doesn’t change the fact that it takes two to tango. Bryan Reaves, the driver of the other car, was under no obligation to race Peterson. Peterson didn’t hold a gun to his head. It was fully Reaves’s choice to race Peterson, a choice that led to his death and those of his passengers.

Welch claims her crusade against Peterson is about “taking responsibility.” The responsibility lies in Reaves for his own driving, and in his passengers for not keeping him from racing. Charging Peterson for their deaths ignores this responsibility.

The pain one must feel in losing one’s child is unimaginable. I can sympathize with Welch’s need for closure: her need to convince herself that her daughter was not at fault. There is no good to be gained by locking up another teenager and blaming him for her daughter’s death. It doesn’t bring her daughter back, it makes her look spiteful, and takes away someone else’s child. I hope Welch can come to terms with her daughter’s death.

The Business Now folks came and went without too much disruption in the business day. There were a few times when our fearless marketing leader, Darrek, came out to hush us all, since the noise from people actually working was interfering with the interviews being done in the conference room. But all things considered it wasn’t too bad. The crew seemed nice enough. A few of our stellar resellers came in to say nice things about us. It should be a good story once its done.

I was disappointed that the “B-footage,” the framing shots that will fill in the space around the interviews, was so short. The cameraman shot maybe 10 minutes of footage around the office, mostly of people staring at their monitors while they were filmed from behind. It makes for boring video, to be sure, so I’m guessing not much will be seen in the final edit.

Another interesting thing is that Business Now is shown in all of three markets: NYC, Raleigh, and San Francisco (not to mention nationally on TechTV). While it might get watched in Raleigh (when Andy Griffith isn’t on, naturally), I’m sure it will get lost among the millions of cable channel choices in NYC and SF. So while Darrek was making this out to seem like they were doing us a favor, it could actually be us doing THEM a favor! Still, I’ll hold out judgement until it airs. Then we’ll see if it creates any buzz.

I’m glad its over so that the company can get back to work.

You’ll notice that when I can’t think of much to say, I’ll pull out some statistics about the site. This is one of those posts.

You’ll be interested to note that Mark Turner Dot Net chalked up a record month in June, dishing out almost 18,000 web hits during the month. Just ten hits shy, actually. That works out to an average of 599 hits per day.

The average number of visits for June was 46. That number has been steadily rising: last month it was 54 and this month it is currently at 61. Thus, mt.net is on track for yet another record-breaking month. And its all for you, don’t you know.

As far as Google stats, mt.net has leapfrogged those Mark Turner wannabes by becoming the third website on a query for Mark Turner. Soon I will RULE the WORLD! BWAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!!1!1!!11!!!

Um, sorry. Got carried away there! Anywho, thanks to the great content you get here on Mark Turner Dot Net, you’ll always find a reason to return. Thanks for reading!

Today is the day the producers for Business Now go roaming through our offices, filming a segment for Tech TV. While its a great opportunity for the company, I’m kinda missing the personality the office showed before it got spiffed up for its close-up shot. The walls have been scrubbed clean. Most of the desks are clean. The pig’s sty of a snack area has been cleaned up and is now spotless.

Now the cleanliness is all fine and good, but the bell we ring for sales has been taken down. The white board, typically sporting clever movie quotes, has been wiped clean. Even the humor I added to the break-room bulletin board (an airline safety card printout to go with the other official notices), has been taken down. Bummer.

The saving grace is that my buddy Greg came in unshaved and wearing one of his festive shirts. He panicked when he remembered today was filming day, and ran out to grab some shaving cream.

I wish I would’ve stopped him before he cleaned himself up. We’re gonna come off looking like dorks if the film crew doesn’t have anything interesting to film. Maybe I’ll spill coffee on my slacks so I can walk around the rest of the day with no pants.

I went to work behind a van for RentoKil Tropical Plant Services. In my morning fog, I read that as “rent-to-kill plants.”

I came up with a great marketing idea for them: Why take the time and expense to kill your own plants when you can use ours? Try Rent-To-Kill plants! Pay only for what you abuse!

Let Rent-To-Kill provide the compost-to-be! You provide the neglect!

I’m surprised nobody’d nominated Bubb Rubb for California governor. With Little Sis as Lt. Gov, the state could be back to party-ville in no time!

I read an interesting story in last week’s Noise And Disturber about a robber who got shot by a passerby. A woman was depositing her paycheck into an ATM in town when a man approached her from behind, pushed her in the back, and said “I’ll take that,” grabbing $400 in cash from the woman. The woman spun around and grabbed the man’s shirt, pushing him to the ground. She then began to scream that she was being robbed.

A man in a nearby car saw the altercation, pulled out a small-caliber gun he keeps with him, put his arm in the robber’s car, and ordered him to stop. When the robber tried to drive off with the man’s arm still in the car, the man shot him in the leg.

Police got the report and alerted local hospitals to be on the lookout for the robber, who was subsequently apprehended. When the would-be thief was asked about his wound, all he could say was “It’s wrong, man!”

Uh-huh. It’s wrong to get shot while stealing someone’s money, but stealing it is okay? Too funny.

The bystander won’t be charged for shooting the dumbass robber, and the robber lived and thus hopefully will learn something from this little encounter. Kudos to the quick-acting bystander for getting involved.

Speaking of the news media, this Tuesday my office will be inundated with news crews. Seems we’ve been chosen to be the topic of a Business Now profile, which should be shown on Tech TV and then perhaps in certain ABC News TV markets. The gist is that Oculan is succeeding in a tough business market. I suppose the producers will be coming to find out what our secret is.

I can save them the time in saying it right here: we’ve got good, smart people. It’s a fantastic team. The chemistry is right in this company, and chemistry often makes the difference between success and failure. Great people can do great things together. It certainly is worlds apart from the situation at $FORMER_EMPLOYER, that’s for sure.

Take Microsoft, for instance (“please! Bah dum-bum!”). They became the world’s biggest tech company through the sheer talent of their workforce. As much as I love to hate them, I give them credit for their ability to hire some extraodinarily talented people. Once a company gets a lock on the talent, it’s “game over.”

I hope the daylong filming that takes place Tuesday can convey that to the audience, that we’re a (work)force to be reckoned with. I hope our so-called competitors quake in their boots after seeing us on national television. Suckas!