How many cookies is too many cookies?
September 2009
The ARRRRR! Line pub crawl
I’m looking for a few good pirates for a pub crawl Saturday night. I sent this email out to some neighborhood lists today:
Whereas, Saturday, September 19th is International Talk Like A Pirate Day.
Whereas, Raleigh has downtown circulator bus known as the “R Line.”
Whereas, Saturday marks the first International Talk Like A Pirate Day since the R Line came into being.
Whereas, said R Line has served as transportation for many a downtown pub crawl.
Whereas, it’s been a while since the last organized R Line pub crawl.
Whereas, pirates like to spend their silver on grog in pubs.
Whereas, Raleigh being miles from any sea is no excuse not to drink grog.
Whereas, Raleigh could use an annual costumed event like the one in that
Triangle town over the horizon.
Therefore Be it Resolved That, Saturday, September 19th is hereby declared the start of the First Annual Raleigh ARRRRRR! Line Pub Crawl.
Meet at the Seaboard Station ARRRRR! Line stop at 9 PM (Peace St at Wilmington). Pirate costumes optional this time around, but lack of them next year t’will be a flogging offence.
See you there, mateys!
Mark Turner, a.k.a.
Scowlin’ Bailey Hornigold
Cookie Judge
As part of my service on the board of the Mordecai Historic Park, I’ve been asked to be a “cookie judge” for Saturday’s Baking Contest. There are over 40 entries in this year’s baking contest, so I’m not so sure I won’t have a stomachache when we go to the They Might Be Giants concert later that afternoon. My fellow Parks board members sounded jealous of this assignment when I mentioned it last night, but I’m thinking the only recipe I’ll be interested in is a recipe for a ton of extra exercise the next day!
Come out and visit Mordecai Historic Park if you can. Once the judges have a taste, the contest entries will be distributed to the public. Dig in!
Juggling things
I was late for work this morning but I still had to spend a minute or two juggling. Am I obsessed or what?
Also, is it too early to consider getting a unicycle?
The Federal Commission of T-Pain
Auto-Tune The News, which edits news clips through with Apple’s Auto-Tune to create music videos, has released it’s latest episode, this time featuring T-Pain himself. Check it out!
Bonus! Evan Gregory, who is part of the Gregory Brothers who created Auto-Tune the News, once delivered a commencement address partially in pirate. Saturday is International Talk Like a Pirate Day. Arrrrrrr!
Sad, sobering news
I’ve been dreading the day I had to post this. For over two years, the daughter of our friends and former neighbors, the Balis, has been battling cancer: an inoperable tumor that was slowly taking over her skull. Four-year-old Meena passed away Sunday afternoon after battling that tumor two full years longer than doctors had expected. We’re all going to her memorial service this afternoon.
It made me realize just how crazy it is when I complain about the things I complain about. Being ten minutes late to work this morning could’ve set me off. Or the lack of progress in the economy. Or frustration with my job. Or a perceived slight from someone. Or any of a million things that I could bitch about, simply because I wanted to bitch about something.
None of that is important. Not a damn bit of it. All that matters is that we love our life and the people that share our life. Life is far too precious to spend it doing anything else.
American Express’s mail servers are broken
Like a lot of American Express customers, Kelly and I receive email notifications from the company. Most of the time, these emails arrive with no trouble. Occasionally, though, they mysteriously fail.
We run our own mailserver, so I checked the log files to find out what might be happening. I found Postfix logging this message (and highlighted the important part):
Aug 17 01:23:45 maestro postfix/smtpd[22090]: NOQUEUE: reject: RCPT from localhost[127.0.0.1]: 450 4.7.1 sppim501.ipc.us.aexp.com: Helo command rejected: Host not found; from=sppim504@welcome.aexp.com to=blahblah@blah.edu proto=ESMTP helo=sppim501.ipc.us.aexp.com
You see, I’ve configured Postfix to reject incoming email from servers that do not properly identify themselves. It’s been my experience that 99.9% of the time an email arrives from a server that doesn’t identify itself, the email is spam. American Express’s servers are part of the few legitimate servers which do not properly identify themselves as required by the email RFC. The host sppim501.ipc.us.aexp.com does not exist in DNS and therefore email from this server gets flagged as suspicious.
I’m hoping American Express gets its servers fixed but in the meantime I’ll have to create my own hostnames to keep their emails from bouncing.
Juggling
As I mentioned in my last post, I’m now juggling! As an anniversary present Kelly bought me my own set of juggling balls, having seen how much I liked it last month. I’ve been practicing with them whenever I get a few minutes. I’ve found it’s easiest to park myself in front of our bed when I practice: I don’t have to stoop to pick up the dropped balls that way.
Another thing I’m finding about juggling is the meditative aspect of it. It requires a focus that is far more intense than I anticipated. If I let my mind wander – boom! – I lose the rhythm and balls go flying everywhere. I can see the very nature of juggling will help my concentration skills. Pretty cool.
Yard work and other work
I’d been holding off on doing much with our yard as I was thinking we’d be getting zoysia grass put in this week. When the landscaper I’d been talking to about zoysia suddenly pulled out of the project, I decided to take advantage of today’s gorgeous weather to make the weedy mess that is our yard look like something special.
After mowing the lawn, I edged it and blew the clippings off the sidewalk and driveway. Then I got out the hedge clippers and trimmed the woodsy cut-through between neighborhoods next to our house, which was something I’d been meaning to do for weeks. Once the clippers were in my hands, it made sense to turn them on the overgrown vine quickly enveloping our front porch. Now the yard and the porch both look awesome!
And in the middle of all that, I still found time draw with the sidewalk chalk with the kids, Rollerblade (and bike) around the neighborhood, shoot a few baskets, practice juggling, help a neighbor move furniture, take home a free bed, and visit with the neighbors.
It was a very full and productive day and I made the most of it!
Ten year anniversary
On this day ten years ago Kelly and I were married. The luck that allowed our picture-perfect wedding to take place between two hurricanes (Dennis and Floyd) has continued to serve us well. As the man standing before that beautiful bride, it would’ve been hard to fully comprehend how blessed I would become – how blessed we would become. Even now I can’t fully comprehend it.
Thanks to everyone who helped make that day special, and to my lovely wife who has made every day special ever since. I love you!