Happy Blogiversary to Me
I started Half-Life and Times 14 years ago this week, as UConn was beating Dook then Georgia Tech for the nattie championship behind Emeka Okafor and as we were mired in the early stages of two Middle Eastern wars with a preznit that we were sure was the worst we'd ever see in our lifetimes. Ugh.
This actually wasn't my first blog, though. In '99 and '00, I maintained a static webpage that I updated every couple of weeks with bloggie thoughts. I also maintained a very subjective restaurant guide of Chapel Hill/Carrboro and a bit of Durham, primarily for the folks that I worked with that traveled here for meetings (my boss at the time was an Ann Arbor-turned-Chapel Hill guy and used to insist that we meet in CH rather than out in RTP). I've looked but I'm not finding any of those old pages, despite the idea that nothing on the web ever disappears.
After starting this blog on Blogger, I actually hand-built pages for it for a couple of years until Blogger got better and stopped eating my posts. Those are archived as well (there's a link).
If there is a highlight of this thing for me, it was the series of posts I published in August 2014 about our time with Rhythm Alley (actually a thinly-disguised love letter to Jeannette) - they're still out there if anyone's interested.
Given the way FB is going, it's quite possible that Half-Life and Times will outlive my FB presence, so here's to another few years at least.
Labels: Blogging, Life, Rhythm Alley
Blogger size limitation
Lex pointed out that some of the Rhythm Alley posts seemed to be missing - I apparently ran into a Blogger limitation on the size of a "page" which includes both the main page and the archive pages. To resolve that, I switched from a monthly to a weekly archive - they should now all be available by scrolling way, way down to the bottom and looking through the August archive links.
Labels: Blogging, Rhythm Alley
New King of the Internal Blogosphere
As I posted on FB a few weeks ago, I've had the dubious honor of co-chairing our committee on improving collaboration and cooperation between departments within IT. One of our focal points is trying to resuscitate our moribund IT Community page, which was launched 18 months ago with some initial success but which has lain relatively dormant for the past year or so. Given that my track record with this blog has been similar for the last few months (in part due to spending more time on Facebook, I'm afraid), this will be quite the challenge but one that I'm actually looking forward to.
Had a meeting this morning with a few folks who have been among the only regular contributors to talk about revamping it so we'll see where this all goes, but in the meantime, I'd better get back into the habit!
Labels: Blogging, Work
You Told Me So
Yes, David B and others bugged me for some time to join Facebook. Having had a web presence for 10 years, a blog for at least 5 years and an active profile on MySpace for a couple of years, I wasn't anxious to add yet another portal to monitor and update. But after one of my buds from high school tracked me down and convinced me to join (thanks Jeff!), I'll now admit that I was wrong and you guys were right and I owe you a beer or something. I'm finding that without a lot of effort or time, FB is allowing me to keep up with folks I worked with at Nortel and CSC, catch up with folks from college and Governor's School and best of all it's been a prime mover in reconnecting me with some of my best friends from high school, many of whom I haven't seen in almost 30 years. That resulted in a mini-30th reunion of a dozen or so folks from my class and the one after in Charlotte last weekend that was an absolute blast!
So, you all have the right to say "I told you so!"
Labels: Blogging, Friends
Vantage Point
Via BoingBoing. Those more literate than myself are refering to this as a real-life Rashomon moment - I'll admit that I had to look up what the hell they were talking about, but I'm a doofus.First Jeff tried to order what he wants from the Murky Coffee in Arlington and when the barista snootily won't let him have it his way, he creates his own solution to the problem, makes a bit of a scene and then blogs about it. I just ordered my usual summertime pick-me-up: a triple shot of espresso dumped over ice. And the guy at the counter looked me in the eye with a straight face and said “I’m sorry, we can’t serve iced espresso here. It’s against our policy.”
The whole world turned brown and chunky for a second. Flecks of corn floated past my pupils, and it took me a second to blink it all away.
“Okay,” I said, “I’ll have a triple espresso and a cup of ice, please.
He rolled his eyes and rang it up, took my money, gave me change. I stood there and waited. Then the barista called me over to the bar. I reached for it, and he leaned over and locked his eyes with mine, saying “Hey man. What you’re about to do … that’s really, really Not Okay.””
Then we hear from Carl, another patron who was at the Murky at the time, writing in his own blog.
After the customer left the counter, the barista was fuming and told his coworker, “I almost told that guy not to come back.” Thanks, Nick, for hiring such helpful young people who uphold basic tenets of customer service. Where would the world be if customers could get what they wanted? This young fellow did a good job protecting the ignorant customer from cold espresso.
Barista guy - get over it. It’s just coffee, not a matter of safety or health, and the guy knows how he wants it.
Of course, Nick, the owner of the Murky, has to get his two cents in on the store blog:
Okay, we don't do espresso over ice. Why? Number one, because we don't do it. Number two, because we don't do it. Mostly for quality reasons. Also, because more than half the time, it's abused (Google "ghetto latte").
...
No modifications to the Classic Cappuccino. No questions will be answered about the $5 Hot Chocolate (during the months we offer it). No espresso in a to-go cup. No espresso over ice. These are our policies. We have our reasons, and we're happy to share them.
There's much more, including comments in some of the above blogs from additional vantage points and Jeff's stupid comment about coming back with kerosine and matches (not smart to even joke about) being taken as a threat by Nick. Gotta say that I'm with Carl. It's just coffee. But then I delight in going into Starbucks and insisting on ordering small, medium or large. What the fuck is a "vente" anyway - is that medium or large? Why should I have to remember that? It's just coffee.
Labels: Blogging, Teh Funny
Brad DeLong is Shrill (But We Knew That Already)
It's unfortunate that the demands on my time the last couple of years have reduced the number of worthwhile blogs that I read, Professor DeLong's being one of them. So I was happy to be reminded of not only how right he can be but also how funny by Kevin Drum. After being asked on very short notice to be a talking head on BBC/Newsnight, he found out that he was on with Grover Norquist...
I trot over to the J-School TV studio as part of the sober, sensible, bipartisan consensus, intending to carry water for Ben Bernanke and Hank Paulson. And what do I find also on BBC/Newsnight when I get there?
I FIND THAT I AM ON WITH GROVER-FRACKING-NORQUIST!! I FIND THAT I AM ON WITH GROVER-FRACKING-NORQUIST!!! WHO HAS THREE POINTS HE WANTS TO MAKE:
- Barack Obama wants to take your money by raising your taxes and pay it to the Communist Chinese.
- Oil prices are high today and the economy is in a near recession because of Nancy Pelosi: before Nancy Pelosi became speaker economic growth was fine--and she is responsible for high oil prices too.
- Economic growth is stalling because congress has not extended the Bush tax cuts. Congress needs to extend the Bush tax cuts, and if it does then that will fix the economy, and if it doesn't then the economy cannot recover.
I am not paid enough to deal with this lying bullshit. I am not paid enough to deal with Grover Norquist and his willful stream of defecation into the global information pool.
Now go back and read that line again, only in the voice of Samuel L. Jackson in his Jules Winnfield character from "Pulp Fiction" and it's even better. Fuckin' A, brah! Of course, Winnfield would proceed to pull out his piece and shoot Norquist in both kneecaps, an activity that I cannot in good conscience advocate, but it would not bother me in the least to see Mr. Norquist get a nice cream pie in the face.
Brad reminds us of the obvious ploy that the Repuglicans have used quite successfully for at least the last 15 years - pick a problem, say teen pregnancy, that everyone will agree is a bad thing. Now pick something totally unrelated that you favor - say making the Bush tax cuts permanent. Now claim far and wide that the problem you've picked (teen pregnancy) is getting worse (it has actually declined, but that doesn't matter), blame it on liberals, claim the thing you favor (tax cuts) will improve things, and step back and watch it work. In no time the mediots on the cable news channels will be asking Obama why he doesn't care about teen pregnancy since he's not for extending the tax cuts. We're so fucked.
Labels: Blogging, Politics
IraK
Not only has my blogging been sparse, my blog reading has as well. I'm sorry to admit that after getting a verification from my high school bud Special K that in fact he was NOT in London, broke and asking for money (someone stole his email account and spammed his distribution list), I hadn't gotten around to reading his blog in a few weeks. So imagine my surprise after his comment in the preceding post to find that the sucker's been working in Iraq the past 2+ weeks!! Holy crap!
Mr. K and I may be polar opposites in terms of politics, but that should never get in the way of friendship and I admire the hell out of his fortitude in taking on this assignment. Dude, keep your head and your ass covered and get on home safe! And the rest of you - go read his Iraq posts. Now.
Labels: Blogging, Friends
Hot Blogging
Yeah, so I haven't been blogging much lately - not that I haven't had anything to say, but I just haven't felt like making the time to say it. Today I shouldn't have felt like doing much of anything, but instead we ended up running around all day. Got up before it got too hot just to take the motorcycle out for a spin since most of my riding has been start-and-stop commuting. Took the Old Greensboro road from University Lake out to 87 and then up to Saxapahaw before riding back. With the old mill there now turned into really nice looking apartments and shops, they've been doing a farmer's/craft market and live music on Saturday evenings - too hot today but worth a ride out some Saturday when it's a bit more temperate.
We then drove out to the North Carolina Museum of Art to check out the Far From Home exhibit - very nice and definitely worth a visit before it leaves next month. So now we're home and I'm sitting out back on the porch listening to Dave Brubeck and chatting with you guys while sweating my ass off.
I suspect that now that we're down to two candidates left for the presidency (apologies to Bob Barr fans) that I'll probably start blogging a bit more frequently. I just didn't feel like getting into the internecine warfare that seemed to be going on more on the blogs than between the actual candidates - now that I can cover up my Kerry/Edwards sticker with an Obama in '08 sticker, I'll be talking more about what a horrible disaster John McCain would be as president...
Labels: Blogging, Politics, Stuff
