The office where I work has never been a thing of beauty. There was the time we had a freak rainstorm and the place nearly flooded. Then there was that spring where the floors were crawling with millipedes. The power goes out probably once a month, which became only a minor irritation after the generator was installed. Its freezing in the summertime and cold in the wintertime. And a few weeks back, a rattle in the plumbing shook the office with bone-jarring noise.

The latest addition to the office is … mold. I’ve been reading up on mold, using sites like North Carolina, the CDC, and the EPA. In any office or home, mold is present. Its a natural part of the environment. Only when it begins to sprout legs and crawl across the ceiling does it become a problem. And its been a problem for a while now. A few ceiling tiles have always been a bit moldy. Most people who work in this office have had (or are having) headaches and sinus problems. This winter, I spent a few weeks on antibiotics to chase the moldy buggers out of my head. Sneezes happen frequently. Eyes burn. It’s nasty.

Lately its gotten worse. The rattling pipes have shaken some stuff loose in the ceiling space, which has left a growing line of water stains on the ceiling tiles. There is a large growth of mold on four or five tiles. My fix-it nature drives me to take a look up there, but I don’t dare without a respirator and gloves. Or maybe a full-body suit.

The office landlord has been notified and has promised to look into it. I hope he gets someone out here before we all get carted off by this alien fungus. Only time will tell if we survive or if we …. ARRRRGGH fjkl.;23462k,obmj

I’ve gotten lots of inquires regarding Asterisk since my presentation two weeks ago. It’s taking up what little free time I have left. Not that I’m complaining, mind you. I love being a phone geek!

Seems that people are getting wise to the benefits of the Asterisk system, and how VoIP can really save them money. More importantly, it can fit their business, rather than the other way around. Why use anything else?

On my morning commute Friday I passed a large tanker truck with “powered by biodiesel” written on the back. It was owned by a biodiesel company, the name which escapes me now. I thought it was pretty cool running a vehicle on vegetable oil. Today, I got an email from the City of Raleigh’s recycling mailing list with a link to the Greasecar, a kit that will let you burn biodiesel in your your diesel engine.

Like a lot of things, there’s a trick to it. The diesel engine has already be warm in order for it to burn biodiesel. And it only works with mechanically-injected diesel engines. All in all, these are small caveats for the privilege of using essentially free fuel!

Maybe there’s an upside to having a McDonald’s on every corner, after all.

I had a busy, but fun day, overall. Lots of variety. I started “making hay” around 6 AM and didn’t stop until 9 PM. I won’t bore you with details. I’ll only say that I’m feeling pretty good about things.

I’ll be accompanying the family up to K’s parent’s house this weekend. They’ll stay the week while I drive back with the car I’m buying from my in-laws: a Honda CR-V. While it will be nice to have the car, I’m sure gonna miss the daily dose of smiles and laughter from the kids and wife.

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The other night, Kelly and I watched the movie Sideways. While it was an okay movie, I remember one particular scene where the characters drove past a California gas station. The price for a gallon of gas was $1.81. Whoa! Can you say ‘dated?’

Gas is now $2.58 per gallon at the cheap places in Raleigh. A picture in today’s paper shows gas at a California station at $3.15. A little while ago I wrote about peak oil. Perhaps its closer than I thought?

Take a minute to participate in my gas price poll on the right of the page.

Robert Cringley looks at the effects of the FCC ruling on DSL that I mentioned in my previous post. Like me, he is doubtful that this is anything but a giveaway to the phone companies.

I believe larger companies are in general too conservative in rolling out new products. This has been especially true with phone companies. Telephone companies missed the broadband boat by 5 years at least. Cable companies aren’t much better. Countries like Korea and Japan are eclipsing us.

In the software industry, the startup comapnies lead the way with inovation (sorry, Bill G.). They do this because they have to, because brains are their biggest weapon against entrenched old-school companies. How many startup phone companes (outside of pure VoIP ones) can you name?

Giving the keys to these larger players will, in my opinion, further accelerate our slide into becoming a broadband backwater.