My blogmate Jamie Gaines posted about Bill Gates starting a blog. Reading that got me wandering around to other tech legends whom I thought would have more interesting blogs.

One of those characters is Steve Wozniak, the wizard engineer who built Apple Computer (hell, the whole damn computer industry!). According to his website, he visited the Pack Macintosh Users Group at N.C. State on April 26th.

I can’t believe this legendary man was in Raleigh and I didn’t find out about it until two months later. Life is just not fair.
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This weekend I tackled a large yard project. There were waist-high weeds in front of the treeline, making a jungle out of a significant part of our backyard. My mower and I spent a few hours and three tanks of gas to tame that jungle. Successfully, I’m happy to report.

As I was mowing, I kept finding these golf balls near the woods. I figured the previous owner liked to tee off into the woods behind the house, just for practice. After I discovered a few, I picked one up and gave it a look.
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Smart move on the part of Paul Bremer and the U.S. to give the reigns back to Iraq two days early. Sounds like just about everyone was surprised.

I hope this transfer can begin the long process of settling things down over there.

Talk in the office this morning about the television classic Mutual of Omaha’s Wild Kingdom. I remember watching this show every Sunday, right before Disney came on.

Discovery’s Animal Planet channel hosts a new Wild Kingdom, but it’s not the same without Marlin Perkins. Anyone know if the old show is syndicated anywhere?

I spent 48 minutes on the phone this evening and talked (no lie) to five representatives, but I think Bellsouth may finally have straightened out my phone reference message mess. The key to the mystery was the repair rep telling me my five-years-gone phone number was somehow attached to this order! I think its because I initially ordered this change through Bellsouth’s (confusing!) webpage, and the site had my old number cached in it somewhere.

One rep told me the order had already processed itself through, whatever that means. Then I found out about the old number issue. I then spoke with a very helpful representative who filled out a “pink slip” change request, which bypasses the bureaucracy, I assume. She checked and double-checked my information just to be sure, and apologized profusely for the mix-ups.

In short, her attitude went a long way towards rescuing Bellsouth’s butt. If I didn’t make progress with this call, my next call was going to the N.C. Public Utilities Commission.

Now, the promise is by midnight Wednesday. Keep yer fingers crossed!

A religious coalition has put together an ad that has run on Arab TV which apologizes for the abuse of Iraqi prisoners. It’s thirty seconds of powerful, beautiful words and it has already been warmly received by the Arab world.

The ad states:

“A salaam aleikum [peace be upon you], As Americans of faith, we express our deep sorrow at abuses committed in Iraqi prisons. We stand in solidarity with all those in Iraq and everywhere who demand justice and human dignity. We condemn the sinful and systemic abuses committed in our name, and pledge to work and right these wrongs.”

I don’t think anyone could say it better than that.

Today I start a new contract with an old client. It’s going to keep me busy for the next few weeks. There’s a good chance it may lead to more work.

While I’m thrilled to be doing something again, I am also going to miss the time I’ve spent here with Kelly and Hallie making this house our new home.

Catcha later.

The woods behind our backyard is home to multiple rabbits. At dusk yesterday, we saw a half-dozen of them running rampant throughout the neighborhood. We don’t have any plants (or grass) to speak of yet, but once we fix up our yard, these little guys will become unwelcome in a hurry.

Makes me wonder if Wake County has any plans to release foxes into the wild. That would take care of the problem pretty quickly, I think. N.C. State’s Cooperative Extension service has some good info about what to do with rabbits, too.

It may come as a surprise to the dozen MT.Net readers, but I was a founder of the A/V Club. Yep. Yours truly was an O.G. : Original Geek.

The highlight of my A/V geekness occured about twenty-one years ago. My family had just moved to Charlotte, and I was a lonely geek in a world with far fewer geeks than now. I decided that sitting in homeroom at Quail Hollow Junior High was about the most boring thing I could possibly endure, so I volunteered for a mission.

Each morning, the face of the principal, Charles Dannelly, would appear (in some form or another) on the ancient black and white televisions throughout the school. When an opening came up to run the video for his show, one of my teachers recommended me. Viewing this as my ticket to escape homeroom hell, I agreed.

My job was to drag some stage lights and this primitive black and white vacuum-tube video camera out of a storeroom, hook up it and the microphones, and film Dannelly as he spoke. Another student (whose name escapes me now) was my partner.

The A/V stuff was old hat to me, as I’d been wired pretty much from the day I was born. What was really hard was keeping a straight face as Dannelly went off on his usual morning tirade.

The man would pick the strangest topics to talk about, some so off the wall that my partner and I (and likely, the rest of the school) would be left scratching our heads long afterwards. This was live TV, too! Unlike blogs, he had no safety net and would often go off on a tangent with no means to get himself back to a proper closing statement.

One topic was about kids who were “nice” one minute, and “nasty” the other. I forgot the gist of the message (if there ever was one), but his repeating “nice-nasty, nice-nasty” over and over again will probably stay with me the rest of my life.

Stuff like this made my morning interesting, compared to homeroom, to say the least. I only wish we had recorded his tirades. We had this sony Betamax recorder, but I don’t think we ever used it for anything but playing the National Anthem tape.

As for Dannelly, I remember thinking two things as I was filming him:

a) he craves the camera, and
b) he’s certifiably nuts.

So, where does a certifiably nuts school principal go when he’s outgrown his junior high school? To the Charlotte City Council, that’s where. His name is on the wall of the Charlotte Coliseum.

What happens when Charlotte is too small a pond for this big fish? How about promoting him to the State Senate? Dannelly’s been there for five terms now. He’ll probably be there for many more (perhaps I may work with him again?)

What reminded me of him was a recent blurb in the paper about his support of a bill requiring kids 80 pounds or less or less than 8 years old to sit in a child seat in the car. While I think this is just another case of the government assuming it can raise my child better than I can, it was interesting to be reminded of Dannelly’s morning antics.

The principal’s office is now the State Senate. Who’da thunk it?