April 2007

There were 50 posts published in April 2007 (this is page 5 of 5).

Cheap Thoughts: Portable Electronic Devices

Why do flight attendants call electronics “portable electronic devices?” Is it to make themselves sound smart or authoritative? When they say “portable electronic devices,” does that mean that if I managed to drag my 30-pound console stereo onboard then I can keep using it being that it isn’t portable? Can I crank up a tube amplifier?

And isn’t “electronic” and “device” redundant? I mean, you’ve never heard of an electronic rock or an electronic sheet of paper. Its pretty much a given that anything electronic is going to be a device. Why not just call them simply “devices” or “electronics?” Doesn’t that get the point across?

Why isn’t a digital watch considered a “portable electronic device?” Electronic devices don’t get much more portable than a digital watch, you know. At least you wouldn’t know how late your flight is.

Hearing aids are even more portable. Perhaps flight attendants are courteously reminding the hard of hearing just how noisy jet engines can be when heard through a hearing aid.

Or maybe they’re suggesting we all tune out the important-sounding but supurfluous words populating the bizarre and annoying world of commercial aviation.

Slow Start Today

I’m getting a slow start this morning due to my long day of travel courtesy of U.S. Airways. The plane landed at 11:15 PM, I wasn’t home until 11:45 and didn’t get to bed until 1 AM since I had to cover outside plants against this morning’s freezing temperatures.

Google Maps tells me I could have driven here in less time. Ah, the wonders of the age of jet travel!

The Thousand Dollar Bus Ride

Useless Airways has lived up to its nickname today. I flew to the Wilkes-Barre/Scranton “International” airport today for a morning of work at a client in Exeter. Since Exeter is in the middle of Nowhere, PA, I thought it would save time if I could fly here rather than fly Southwest into Philadelphia and then driving here.

Big mistake. Getting to Wilkes Barre was easy enough this morning but the problem is getting home. I got done with my work about 15 minutes too late to catch an earlier, 3:20 PM flight to Philly and then RDU. As I killed some time at the truly beautiful, brand new Wilkes Barre airport terminal, an announcement was made that the incoming plane was grounded in State College, PA due to maintenance issues. We’d be bused from there to Philadelphia.

Thus, the thousand dollar bus ride. I paid almost $1000 so that U.S. Airways could put me on a bus to Philadelphia.

Now I’m in Philly I learn my flight has been delayed an hour due to the plane departing late from Toronto. Miraculously, the gate sign lists my flight as being “On Time.” U.S. Airways simply changed the time it was departing to an hour later than it should have left. Sneaky bastards.

This will teach me not to fly Southwest. This would never happen with them.

RTP 2.0 Tonight In Derm

Everyone I know is reminding me of RTP 2.0 occuring at Tyler’s Taproom in Durham tonight from 7-9 PM. I’ve got nothing better to do so I’ll go hobnob with the local geeks and vulture capitalists.

Hey, its free food and drinks, right? How can ya go wrong?

Aw Yeah

Don’t you love it when your plan comes together and the results exceed all your expectations? I sure do.

More Doctors Dump UnitedHealthCare

The bad news keeps getting worse for UnitedHealthCare insurance subscribers. Last week Kelly’s OBGYN, Kamm, McKenzie, Harden, Smith, Bass. Marston, and Saacks, PLLC, dropped UnitedHealthCare as an insurance partner. The practice does all of its deliveries at WakeMed, and since UHC dropped WakeMed from its coverage it left Kamm, McKenzie with little choice but to drop UHC. A coworker reported his wife’s OBGYN has done the same.

Today we received notice from UHC that Wake Radiology, another practice closely aligned with WakeMed, is no longer honoring UHC insurance. Wake Radiology is where I got my latest CT scan performed – just last month, actually. Count it all up and its clear that my UnitedHealthCare insurance has made itself worthless to me.

I’m beginning to think that UHC’s idea of a well-run hospital is Walter Reed. In an effort to “control health care expenses,” perhaps UHC could trim the eye-popping golden parachutes it provides its departing executives through backdated stock options before shaking down fine hospitals like WakeMed.

Bastards.

Ubuntu: Linux For Humans

Being that I had a laptop around that needed an OS, I figured I’d try out Ubuntu, the Debian-based Linux distribution, on a regular basis.

Boy do I love it! It seems to be speedier than the Fedora systems that I’m used to using. Ubuntu’s UI is Gnome-based and has been designed with simplicity in mind. There’s a KDE-based version of Ubuntu, too, if you’re a KDE person.

I’m also quite pleased with Ubuntu’s use of the apt package manager. I only started tolerating Red Hat RPMs with the use of yum, but yum has its own quirks and can be described as a hack to a hack.

My main beef with Debian was the difficulty of installing it. Ubuntu seems to polish that up considerably – it even runs on a live CD. Not only that, but you can install the complete OS from that one CD. Amazing.

If you’ve been meaning to check out Linux, you can’t go wrong by downloading Ubuntu. You might never go back!

Raleigh Police Bike Patrols

I came back from running errands at lunch to see two Raleigh Police officers patrolling the neighborhood on bikes.

“I’m glad to see y’all out!” I told them and waved as they passed by. They seemed pretty happy to be out, too.

The office for most cops is their car. Cops on bikes have the great outdoors! The odds a thief could win a footchase with a cop on the biking beat would be pretty low, too, I imagine.

One of the things I noticed last year in Holland and Australia is how accessible police in those countries seem to be. They’re visible. They walk the sidewalks. They’re interacting with the citizenry. American cops spend too much time in their cars. Cars may get them around faster but they get quantity at the expense of quality.

Having police cruising their beats on bicycles builds stronger community ties and that makes everyone safer.

Spring Has Sprung!

I’m so delighted that spring has arrived! I missed the greenery around here. Trees are what makes North Carolina so beautiful. I don’t think we can have enough of ’em.

I spent some time this winter replanting some trees and bushes. The azaleas that came from my grandmother’s yard by way of a long van ride were split up and moved from the backyard to the southern side of the house. They are now in the process of blooming, which really warms my heart. I’ll always think of Grandma when I see them.

I also obtained some hydrangeas from her yard which now are also at home on our southern side. In spite of looking a little shocked at being moved they are now greening up nicely.

We moved the apple tree from the front to the back to make room for our new redbud tree. I was worried that I didn’t get enough of the root ball to keep the apple tree alive but just like the others it is bursting out with leaves (and blossoms! Future apples, woot!) now. The apple tree should be more at home in the back as its now fenced in from its natural predators: hungry deer. Did I mention that the deer are really getting on my bad side?

The most fantastic result of spring is our crepe myrtle trees! They went in in early fall and soon looked overwhelmed. All winter long I thought for sure we had killed them. I ran to get Kelly when I saw the first leaves on them. All three have established themselves!

The crepe myrtles went in to replace the cherry trees we had near the street. We made the mistake of planting the cherry trees in midsummer two years ago, which doomed the already-stressed plants. What the move didn’t kill, the hordes of Japanese beetles finished off. The crepe myrtles should have a much easier time and provide some real character to our front yard.

Other projects on the list include adding more shade to the backyard. We still need some screening trees along our fence to hide the townhouses behind us. Also, adding an autumn blaze maple to our backyard should provide us with some reliable summertime shade and a breathtaking display of golden leaves in the fall.

We’re in the midst of shopping for a sunroom to replace our tiny deck, too. The stormwater creek in our neighbor’s yard is perpetually filled with water – making it Mosquito Breeding Ground Central. An unprotected deck holds no promise of keeping us safe from bites, so some sort of screened-in something is needed. If we can decide what to get there it will make the job of landscaping around it much easier.