La vie, c’est bonne!
Putting the lap in laptop
I’ve been enjoying posting and editing Wikipedia tonight from the recliner, thanks to my Thinkpad T61 work laptop. My personal Thinkpad is still desk-bound due to its tendency to have seizures.
Work tomorrow should be interesting as it will be my first full week. I should have a better taste for the job (though the taste of the Winter Ale I tasted at the company’s Friday “beer bash” at the company was pretty hard to beat).
Cedar Waxwing!
Cedar Waxwing
Waxwings travel in large flocks in search of berries. There must be berries somewhere because I think our trees are full of these birds right now. Maybe I can get a picture before they’re gone.
Update: I wasn’t able to get a pic, sadly enough. The one in this post is from Ken Thomas, courtesy of Wikipedia..Thanks for sharing, Ken!
Greenway Parade
After I returned from the Inauguration Parade, I joined the rest of the family (and neighborhood friends) for a family bike ride down the Middle Crabtree Creek greenway. Unlike all the other times the kids joined us for rides, this time they pedaled their own bikes – thanks to the amazing invention known as a Balance Buddy.
Kelly and I jogged after Hallie and Travis as they rode their bikes along the boardwalk and back. It was about 3 miles total (to add to the 6 I already walked) and left us all feeling great.
Inauguration Parade
This morning K and I split up the things needing doing. She took the kids on errands and I was given the task of wearing out our dog. After seeing F/A-18s fly over our home this morning, I got the idea of taking the dog with me to see the Governor Perdue’s Inauguration Parade. As I remembered that local amateur radio operators would be assisting in the parade, I grabbed my dual-band HT and Rocket and I began walking.
The walk from here to Fayetteville Street takes a little over 30 minutes. We got there just as the parade was beginning. I must have made the security teams nervous with my backpack and a radio on my belt, but also having a big, dumb Labrador kind of evened that out.
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Conn victory!
I did my GPS talk for Ms. Jarrett’s GPS module class at Conn Elementary today. It was teh awesome, just as I expected it to be. I got the kids involved in the talk, gave some examples, and timed it almost perfectly at one hour. I also got to say hello to Hallie at the end of my talk.
My efforts rewarded me with the great feeling I helped kids learn something. I also took home the famed Conn Volunteer Water Bottle With Ribbon, a photo of which I’ll post soon.
I’ve been told I’ll be invited back soon, which is fine by me. It was a blast!
Cheap Thoughts: Traffic light outages
A cold front blew through two nights ago, knocking out power with freakishly-strong wind gusts. Police all over the city were directing traffic through dark intersections. As I drove through my third dark intersection, I questioned why we were tying up police officers in a dangerous job like directing traffic when efforts could be better spent getting the traffic lights up quickly.
Police could arrive with a small generator which could be plugged into the box to provide temporary power to the intersection’s traffic lights. Perhaps chaining the generator to the nearest telephone pole.
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Busy but fun day
I had a great first day at Large Network Storage Company today. Everyone was cool and the hardware makes it geek heaven. My day was over before I knew it.
I hopped in the car and dashed home for a quick supper before dashing right out again for my first meeting of the Mordecai Historic Park Board. After the board meeting, I got a tour of the Mordecai House, including a look in the basement. Had I had more time I would’ve seen the whole house, but time was short and I had to head home. I arrived home right at the point Kelly had to leave for drinks with her friends.There was just enough time for me to tuck the kids in bed but not much more, sadly.
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Unclear on the concept
A few weeks ago I returned downtown for a CAC meeting. Parked near my meeting place was an official-looking Crown Victoria with a North Carolina license plate identifying the owner as a member of the Court of Appeals. I couldn’t help but notice this same car sported a high-end radar detector on the dashboard.
So much for respect for the law, eh?
Mystery Shopping scam
Here’s another scam email I received today. “Mystery Shopping,” indeed.
Date: Thu, 08 Jan 2009 01:11:55 -0700
From: Richard Gras richard.gras2755@hotmail.com
Reply-to: richard.gras2755@yahoo.com
To: undisclosed-recipients:;
Subject: Mystery Shopping JOB
User-Agent: Internet Messaging Program (IMP) H3 (4.1.6)
X-Identified-User: {2065:host193.hostmonster.com:cpanelhorde:host193.hostmonster.com} {sentby:program running on server}
Hello,
Am Richard Gras, and working for a company (Shoppers Guide Int.) that conduct
surveys and evaluates other companies which can be simply called mystery shopping.
What is Mystery Shopping…..?
A vast amount of companies are interested in knowing what their customers/clients think of their services and/or products in order to right what may be wrong and help them to improve customer service and productivity. To obtain this crucial data from a non biased view point they hire Mystery Shopping agencies/recruiters like us, who are trained market researchers, to gather the information on their behalf. We get hired to go to other peoples companies and act like customers in order to know how the staffs are handling their services in relation to their customers. This is where you come in…
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