Musings

General-purpose musings

There are 780 posts filed in Musings (this is page 58 of 78).

Highlights of 2007: Turner family reunion

The “next generation” of Turner family reunions took place in Pine Mountain, Georgia in June. This was the first family reunion organized largely by my generation of Turners. We had a great time visiting with all the other Turners, though it ended way too soon they way these things tend to do.

Our kids have it good in that they’ve got so many cousins nearby. Its good to get them acquainted with their larger family, too, so reunions are important. From all accounts, they had a ball playing with all of their extended cousins.

We’ve decided to do these things every two years. They’ll get more valuable as we go, I’m sure.

Highlights of 2007: Blog homeruns

This list naturally draws most of its material from the blog. Thus, it makes sense to recognize the posts and changes that are significant here at MT.Net.

From the propeller-head side, I migrated my blog’s software from its old Drupal beginnings to WordPress. With this change came the addition to the archives of my very first blog posts, originally posted in some of the first primitive blogging software, bplog. I think its fun to read how my blogging has progressed over the years.
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Time for the Highlights of 2007

Its time for me to write my annual recounting of this year’s notable events. Putting this list together this year has amazed me at how many things I have to write about. Just to give you an idea, the AT&T billing nightmare and the bogus car warranty calls that I’ve been incessantly blogging about didn’t even crack the top ten! The Chinese proverb “may you live in interesting times” certainly applied to me this year.

With all that said, let’s get on with the list!

Goodbye, Smitty: 1 Jan 1993 – 12 Dec 2007

Smitty

[Warning: Long, sappy, cat-focused blog post ahead.]

We all bid goodbye to our family cat, Smitty, today. It was a sad occasion, one that I won’t get over for a while. She was a part of my life for fifteen wonderful years: a significant portion of my life. I took it for granted that she was always there, that she would always be there. Its so hard to say goodbye.
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Vista piracy way down – for good reason

Microsoft is doing away with the “kill switch” feature in Microsoft Vista, according to the Beeb. According to Microsoft, its anti-piracy features have served their purpose:

Microsoft said efforts to tackle piracy had seen numbers of fake copies of Vista at half the level of XP, the previous Windows operating system.

What doesn’t get mentioned is that perhaps more people prefer XP over Vista, hmm?

Anti-piracy tools have never, ever been a match for determined crackers. Pirates consider these measures to be mere speed bumps. In light of this, how bad does an operating system have to be to make even pirates not interested in it?

Thieves don’t want THIS credit card number

One of my first jobs was a part-time position stocking and cashiering at Dart Drug in Sterling, VA. It was a throwaway job in many respects, working for minimum wage with some shady characters and finally quitting after being falsely accused of helping myself to the till. The job was useful in that while working there I once helped track down a killer, but that’s a story for another day.
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Q+E Software Photos

I was rummaging through my bookshelf this weekend when I discovered four photographs from my first software company, at times called Pioneer Software, then Q+E Software, then Intersolv. These shots are from around 1994 during the Intersolv days. Carolyn Sparano, director of technical support, asked me to take photos of the department to include in our customer newsletter. I don’t think I ever really looked at the shots until now. Look closely and you can see Jeff and Scott, as well as see what I looked like with a full head of hair.

That company was a wonderful one to work with. It set the standard for me for all the startup companies to follow. Someday I shall write a nice long post about my time there.

Rams Head surprise

For my first night in Annapolis I went for dinner at my usual hangout, the Rams Head Tavern. As I waited for the staff to notice me (more than five minutes – service was terrible tonight), I glanced at the wall I was leaning on and saw a plaque which read:
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