Illuminatea

Man. Just shoot me now, because not only am I about to blog about Miley Cyrus, I'm about to defend her. Yup, that's right. I, as a parent of a girl about to be a teenager, am willing to go on record and defend the already infamous photo shoot which has been characterized as the result of villainous Vanity Fair exploiting a minor to sell ...

Stupid website, but it gives me a chance to taunt my co-worker Kevin. This morning I got a puzzled e-mail from him, asking me why this picture of me in Sydney from February (yes, that's Sydney, Australia; we were there for training for work) was the most-viewed picture in his online galleries (warning, probably not a worksafe gallery). I have no ...

Dear Big-Ass Bank, Many years ago, we switched our accounts to you from one of your competitors because they had crappy customer service and you did not. In fact, your customer service rocked our socks off. Sadly, it has become clear that you're more interested in trying to grab customers from other banks than you are in retaining your existing ...

Chilling at the conference.The lovely brownie-tart thingies they fed us today.My work blogs posts.   

So, I'm in Sydney for a training conference that I'm talking about in my work blog if you're interested. There's a lot of interesting small differences that have more of a mental impact to me than the big ones:The exit signs inside buildings are green with white letters. I'm used to the opposite.Didn't find a single country radio station. Of ...

I've been knocked off my sleep schedule this week -- I had to test some sleeping medication I need for an upcoming business trip and verify that I wouldn't have any unanticipated side effects before I was in Australia and unable to do anything about it. However, in the midst of all this, I had an interesting thought, spurred a discussion with my ...

The more Steph and I listen to Brad Paisley, the more impressed we are. (Those of you who don't know who he is, he's a country singer. If you don't like country, that's fine, you can stop reading, although I suggest you go to the video section of his website and at the very least watch Whiskey Lullaby, the duet he does with the incomparable Alison ...

Yesterday evening, I found out that author James Oliver Rigney died yesterday after a long struggle with amyloidosis (a disease where your body deposits insoluble proteins in its own tissues and organs). Mr. Rigney was better known under a variety of pennames; the one that touched my life the most was Robert Jordan, author of the best-selling ...

Summer is here and school is out, so the kids are looking for more to do. One thing they won't be doing for the next couple of weeks, however, is riding their bikes. You see, some bastard(s) stole their bikes at some point in the last couple of days (we were out most of Friday, so it could have been any time from Friday afternoon until Saturday ...

This isn't aimed at anyone in particular whose blog I read, or who I know reads this blog, but more of a general comment prompted by the reaction of a friend who just received a huge Battlestar Galactica season 3 (the current season) spoiler on Digg: If you're talking about the current season of a TV show, or a recent book or movie, do ...

Stephanie told me about this posting on Craig's List Seattle. I didn't believe her that it was real, so I had to go find it for myself. Posting here because who knows how long the entry will be active, and I want this sucker immortalized. Live in infamy forever, thanks to the power of the Internet! Anybody out there interested in hiking ...

For the past several months (maybe even year or two), I've been pondering an essay on how short and overt expressions of Christianity seem to be a staple feature of the country music genre and the severe cognitive dissonance this sometimes produces. Several events have happened recently that convince me I need to write this essay sooner, ...

I've never flown on Jet Blue, but I've heard a lot of good things about them. However, if the following turns out to be true, I will never step foot on their planes. From http://blog.wired.com/biotech/2006/10/experiment_o...:Jet Blue wanted to squeeze just a few more working hours out of its pilots but it needed the facts to prove that a ...

John Scalzi, via his AOL Journal By the Way, points out a news report on the Toxoplasma gondii parasite, which has infected an estimated half of the people on this planet. The vector? Cats. John doesn't quote it directly in his post, but if you follow his link to the original article and read all three pages, you'll come to this cheery bit of ...

I had a pretty nice weekend than has gone a long way toward getting my attitude back close to being fit for human consumption. On Saturday, despite the now-standard insomnia and sleeping in late, we got out of town up into the mountains to a party at a friend's house. They've got a lovely place right out in the middle of nature, with a ...

I'm done. I have a broken tooth and no set date for geting it fixed, so my phobia of dentists is free to whirl in full force. I'm constantly slurring, and the tooth next to it needs pulled as well. I've not been this self-conscious in years. I have had the most difficult week of work I think I've ever had in my life. None of that difficulty is ...

...but one that is not entirely unexpected. It seems that the Boston Globe is announcing a change in their domestic partner benefits coverage for gay employees. Specifically, they will no longer be extending coverage for unammried gay domestic partners as of January 1, 2007. From a recent story in the Boston Herald: Benefits for domestic ...

SF editor Jim Baen is in the hospital after a serious stroke on Monday. The folks at Baen Books are posting updates on their web forums (registration required to follow the link). Specifically, here's the latest info: Jim Baen is in the ICU after a stroke, it is serious, Toni and a relative are there with him. Now you know as much as we do ...

I'm home from Europe a couple of days early; I was originally supposed to be in Oslo today, doing a second presentation, but I got really sick once I got to London and my bosses couldn't take the chance I wouldn't be better (sorry, Jim, for making you go to Oslo!). Lisbon was interesting. Paul talks about it a bit and relates some of the ...

I've not been blogging much lately because I've been buried under a ton of work. One of the things I've been busy with has been developing a full day of content on Exchange 2007 to present in Lisbon (May 30th) and Oslo (June 8th). Astu Are thte readers will have noticed the timestamp of this entry, done some math, and realized that I'm probably ...

I've never been a big fan of the whole zombie genre. However, I've finally found a bit of zombie-themed entertainment that makes me giggle. A very talented musician by the name of Jonathan Coulton has taken the basic zombie concept, mixed it in with office meetings and lingo, and set the whole tasty thing to music: Re Your Brains. You can listen ...

As you may remember, the local bookstore closed down last year. Today, I found out that our charming little hole-in-the-wall CD shop will be closing down in 6 weeks or so. This bites, because Steph and I try to support small local shops even if it means paying more, as long as we can get what we want there. On the good side, they're holding a 15% ...

So far, this has been an eventful, confusing, and difficult year. It hasn't been all bad, of course, and when it has been good it has usually been pretty good -- but there's been a lot of crap to cope with. On top of the big issues, today I just dealt with one of the smaller, more bittersweet issues. During my time at Premier1, I became the proud ...

Today was a day of mileposts. It was my first working day of 2006. Because Paul and I got our various projects wrapped up before vacation, I went into the 3Sharp offices and spent a good part of my day doing something I've never done before -- pack up my office. No, we're not moving locations, and yes, I'm still with 3Sharp. However, we're ...

With a week left until we fly away for the holidays, Steph is beginning the final process of ramping up for travel: finding and cleaning the luggage, making checklists, and all the other steps that she needs to be sure that she feels we're ready to leave the house. Since this is the first time we'll be flying as a family (first time on a plane ...

Love your Enemies End the OccupationRelease the Peacemakers

If you haven't yet heard about the brewing conflict between the IRS and the congregation of All Saints Church in Pasadena, California, go now to this article by Robert Freedland and read. Since Bush has been such a staunch supporter of Christian churches, I expect him to immediately call off the IRS any day now. Oddly enough, I just got back ...

This last week (Monday through Thursday), I was in San Diego for the Windows/Exchange Connections conference. It was my first Connections conference as well as my first trip to San Diego. San Diego was a nice town; it reminded me somewhat of Honolulu with enough elbow room. Mind you, I didn't see too much of the city; we were at the Hyatt down ...

This article in NewScientistSpace.com talks about research into why astronauts are more prone to infections. They now have data that suggests that microgravity interferes with the activation of T-cells. This explains why NASA needed to institute 10-day quarantines for all of their astronauts. Worse, the article concludes with this: No one is yet ...

Remember back to the Gonzales nomination? Well, at the time, a bunch of bloggers -- around 500 or so -- put up a banner on their site protesting the Gonzales nomination. I was one of those bloggers. After the dust had cleared, a bunch of the bloggers started talking via email and decided to keep a loose affiliation together -- the Indie ...