Back From VA

We got back this afternoon from Virginia and DC after a tremendously fun weekend. We visited Kelly’s parents, left our happy kids with them and then had a blast at the wedding last night. Kelly works as an editor and one of her long-time authors, Maya Ajmera, married David Hollander last night in an Indian and Jewish ceremony. Two weddings for the price of one! Kelly and I agreed it was the most fun we’ve had attending a wedding. The dancing and drumming was infectious, the food was fantastic, and the drinks were plentiful. It wasn’t long before everyone was enjoying themselves! It was fun to catch up with Kelly’s former Charlesbridge colleagues, too. I know now what made it such a great place to work.
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In Virginia

We’re spending the morning with Kelly’s parents in Warrenton before Kelly and I leave the kids with them and head to DC for a wedding this afternoon. We’ll stay overnight in DC at a fancy hotel before heading south again.

Been a while since we’ve been to a wedding, this one Kelly’s boss’s. Should be fun!

Cheap Thoughts: Craigslist

After responding to a few ads on Craigslist and receiving no response I’ve hit upon the fundamental problem with free ad services: the seller has no “skin in the game.” Since the seller’s cost to post is free, he or she has nothing at stake and therefore doesn’t feel as compelled to respond to queries as he or she might when using paid ad services.

Maybe the problem is that email is too easy to ignore. Perhaps if Craigslist offered a better way of contacting sellers this could be alleviated.

Hurricane Fran, 11 years ago

I thought today’s date looked familiar. Today’s the anniversary of the morning after Hurricane Fran came ashore. For some like me, the night it came ashore and the following day blended together, as I didn’t get much sleep after a tree came to rest 3 feet away from my once-sleeping head.

(I blather about this every year, don’t I? A sign of geezerhood?)

There’s a weak storm churning off of Wilmington now which hopefully will bring rain to the parched state. Let’s hope it stays weak, but brings the rain.

Day four for the missing Steve Fossett

It’s day four for millionaire adventurer Steve Fossett, reported missing when he failed to return from a routine flight. His friend Sir Richard Branson calls Fossett “a tough old boot,” and its true Fossett has possibly more experience at cheating death than anybody. Still, with the search stretching on this long I’m starting to doubt that Fossett is alive.

If he is gone, the world will have lost a great aviator.

[Update]: Its actually day, four, not two. Even worse for Fossett, unfortunately.

Cheap Thoughts: Using pictures to express emotion in IM clients

Macintosh OS X instant-messaging (IM) clients display your login picture during chats. If you’re having a chat, the traditional way to express smiling is to use a emoticon like this: 🙂 . Why not make your login picture smile, instead? Take different shots of yourself expressing various emotions and provide an easy way of changing them during a chat.

Nothing expresses emotion better than a face. Why not put this to use?

Koopman meet-and-greet

On my last deployment to the Persian Gulf, a pair of TAD (temporary assigned duty) guys joined my ship for the countless doughnuts we did there (the Persian Gulf, in spite of its fearsome reputation, is unbearably dull 99.9% of the time). One of these guys was Chuck, a wet-behind-the-ears E-4 who thought he knew it all. We delighted in proving him wrong with the typical “new guy” pranks.
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Rodger Koopman

I was delighted to find out today that Raleigh’s District B has some real choice for next month’s election: Rodger Koopman. I think Koopman will bring a breath of fresh air to the Raleigh City Council, something it desperately needs. He gets bonus points for being a veteran and an IT geek like me.

Koopman is also steadfast against paving our nature parks, like Horseshoe Farm Park and my beloved neighborhood park, Durant Nature Park. In other words, Koopman will actually listen to his constituents. Imagine!

Koopman is attending some meet-and-greets tonight. I might show up to see what he has to say. For those who can’t make it, you can watch the Youtube campaign video from his run for Wake County Commissioner last year.