October 2006

There were 44 posts published in October 2006 (this is page 2 of 5).

Net10: My Perfect Cell Phone Plan?

I’ve blogged before about replacing my expensive SprintPCS plan with something more reasonable. It looks like I’ve found “reasonable.” The company is called Net10 and the plan is pretty unique. Net10 is a prepaid service, an MVNO that uses T-Mobile and Cingular‘s GSM network. The service costs 10 cents a minute, period: no daily charges, no other fees other than the usual taxes. Plus, minutes don’t have to expire in 30 or 60 days. You can buy minutes which don’t expire for a whole year, making service cost as low as $12.50 a month.

I did an analysis of my calling habits and figured out I could save money with pay-for-use. We’ll see. I ordered a reconditioned Motorola phone for $40 which should get here any day now. With it comes 300 free minutes (that alone’s worth 30 bucks). Thus, it’s an amazing value.

Oh, and my favorite thing about Net10? No contract! If I don’t like them I’m not on the hook (no pun intended).

I’m going to use both services side by side for a while to evaluate them. I’ll let y’all know how it works.

Indelible Blues

We took the kids to the Halloween Trail event at our neighborhood Durant Nature Park (motto: “come see nature before Jesse Taliaferro paves over it!“). As Hallie and Travis worked on creating styrofoam bugs to hang on the giant web, I noticed the guy next to me looked familiar.

Sure enough, he was familiar. It was Scott Reston, my former coworker at Indelible Blue over seven years ago. Scott built the website thingies and I handled the Linux products and support.

Scott and I talked about how cool it was to go to work and start the day off with a mountain bike ride with the company president, Buck Bohac. Though I never biked with Buck, I did rollerblade with him from time to time in the parking lot out front.

Buck used to bike the 15 miles into work each day. His and his wife Katy let their dog Einstein, a Great Pyrenees, have the run of the place. There were beanbag chairs only in the conference room, too, and onsite daycare once-upon-a-time.

In short, Buck and Katy were two of the best bosses I’ve ever had. I took a huge pay cut to work there just for the experience of working for them, and to this day I don’t regret it. The job didn’t pay much at all but it showed me that money isn’t everything (something I should have remembered in November 2002). It was a blast.

It was good to see Scott and recall that fun place to work, gone forever but whose building now sits less than a mile from our home. Word has it that Buck is still busy with Prism Data Works, though I haven’t kept up with him (or he, me).

(Interesting how when one does a web search for Buck, his words appear on porn websites designed to spam the search engines.)

White And Nerdy

Werd, Al. (View the video here)

White And Nerdy
Weird Al

They see me mowin’
My front lawn
I know they’re all thinking I’m so white and nerdy
Think I’m just too white and nerdy
Think I’m just too white and nerdy
Can’t you see I’m white and nerdy?
Look at me, I’m white and nerdy
I wanna roll with
The gangstas
But so far they all think I’m too white and nerdy
Think I’m just too white and nerdy
Think I’m just too white and nerdy
I’m just too white and nerdy
Really, really white and nerdy
Continue reading →

A Sunday Spent Safely At Home

Yesterday was Sunday. For once it was nice to have a Sunday where I wasn’t either rushing out the door or trying to plan for rushing out the door. I actually enjoyed the whole weekend for once, not just half.

Of course, it didn’t hurt that it was my son’s second birthday party, and the 34th birthday of my brother, either. Always good to have family over!

I don’t have any upcoming trips on the horizon, which is an even better thing. I look forward to enjoying my breather.

Cheap Thoughts: Cell Phone Puppet

I was on my way home Friday afternoon when I got stuck behind a woman who thought lazily chatting on her cell phone was more important than driving. As this is one of my pet peeves, I thought about how to best get my point across to her.

A hand gesture seemed appropriate, though not the obscene kind, as the point would be lost. I thought holding up my hand and making talking movements would be better, but that still wasn’t right.

Finally, I figured out the perfect foil: a cell phone hand puppet! Imagine a puppet with a phone glued to its ear and a vapid look on its face. Upon encountering a jabbering idiot paying no attention to the road, simply hold up the idiot-resembling puppet and make wild talking gestures, perhaps punctuated with some falsetto “blah, blah, blahs!” It’s sure to get the point across and will be fun to boot!

But wait a minute, you say. What happens if the idiot in question pulls over and gets in your face? No worries, you’ve got deniability! “Oh, sorry man,” you could explain. “Yeah, that was the puppet. He has a mind of his own, you know.” Follow this with a few crazy-as-a-loon expressions and you’re home free.

I see the puppet idea really taking off and providing a good way to communicate your concern about the dangers of cell phones and driving. In fact its almost perfect, except for one tiny little flaw: fumbling with a puppet is as bad as fumbling with a phone.

Whoops. I guess I also need to invent a hands-free puppet.

Frank Zappa

I was playing my MP3 collection when “Valley Girl” by Frank Zappa (and his daughter, Moon Unit) got selected. I was reminded of what a fantastic musician Zappa was and how righteous he was standing up to Tipper Gore’s PMRC in the mid-80’s.

Read more about Zappa at this excellent Wikipedia article.

Dali Museum

I had some time to myself this morning before my flight to Buffalo, so I opted to visit the Salvador Dali Museum in St. Petersburg.

Oh. My. God. That was awesome.

I was somewhat familiar with his work, but seeing it in person completely blew me away. I was thrilled to marvel at each tiny brushstroke in his paintings. The level of detail he painted is just phenomenal. His use of light and shadows is masterful. No art book or print could possibly do his art justice: you simply have to see it for yourself to truly appreciate.

I was amused at the sense of humor evident in his work. His Venus De Milo with Drawers had me laughing out loud. A photo shows seated Dali in a deep-sea diver suit with wine glass balanced on his helmet, surrounded by others (including what appears to be Orson Welles) who don’t seem to be in on the joke.

He also had an intense interest in science, even incorporating DNA strands in some of his later works. Dali was also one of the first artists to use holography in his work.

There is no question the man was a genius. If I’m ever in Spain, I would love to visit the egg-topped Dali Theatre in his hometown of Figueres. And if you ever have the occasion to visit the Tampa-St. Petersburg area, do not – I repeat – do not pass up a chance to visit the Dali Museum.

In Buffalo

I’m in Buffalo now for my next leg of the trip. What little snow is left is piled shoulder-high in wet parking lots around town. Trees still had leaves on them when Sunday’s freak snowstorm hit. The heavy snow subsequently ripped many branches off the trees. Driving the three miles from the airport, the place looked like it had been hit by a hurricane. Power is said to still be flickering in the area, too, with lines still down all over town. Fortunately for me the hotel is still powered up (though some of the staff’s homes are not).

Buffalo is an interesting place, the freaky weather being just one aspect to that. There is so much history to see here, so many stately, turn-of-the-century Victorian homes that have withstood the pounding of countless similar snowstorms.

So much poverty, too, in areas.

I was amused at how many New York accents I heard aroundb Tampa. They fit in so much better here.