Entries Categorized as 'General'

2008 goals recap and 2009

Date January 13, 2009

Last year, I wrote a post about things I wanted to do in 2008.

Lose 30 pounds (I’d be fine with losing 10 this year, but close enough!)

I lost 10, then gained back 5. 

One blog post per week - I tend to do more than that, but occasionally slip for more than 7 days [...]

Couple of thoughts on music piracy

Date December 23, 2008

Was reading a couple of blog posts on music piracy recently, and the same tired old threads kept coming up. “Music tracks are just advertisements for the artist - they should make their money selling T-shirts and tickets to live shows.”
I’ve contributed this rebuttal, as have others - “what about music that can’t be [...]

Line-item tipping

Date December 16, 2008

Was talking with my brother today and got on the subject of tipping (apparently it was on NPR today). We discussed the lousy experience we sometimes get, and there’s no way to indicate that in any way that anyone will notice. I’d like to suggest restaurants start “line-item tipping”.
When you come to leave [...]

Hypocrisy of the Detroit automaker bailout status

Date November 20, 2008

I could write about the execs flying in on private jets and how dumb that looked, but I won’t.  They *could* have driven a small cavalcade of Ford and GM cars from Detroit to Washington, doing a small 2-3 day roadshow building public support for their cause, visiting dealerships and parts manufacturers along the way [...]

In Vermont for a couple days

Date October 10, 2008

I’m in Vermont (near Thetford) for a couple days.  Beautiful foilage here.  :)  (spelled like Marge Simpson pronounces it).

Catch up…

Date September 10, 2008

I knew it’s been a while since I’ve blogged, but 2 weeks!  There’s been so much going on it’s been hard to keep up with life, much less a blog, but here’s a few highlights (mostly geeky):
* Wrote a small C# app for a client, and had to deal with all the lovely intricacies of [...]

Introspective few days - learning about “TMA”

Date May 31, 2008

I’ve had an introspective few days, taking stock of life and whatnot.  The recent IQ tests (and first set of results) played a part in this renewed self-examination, but it’s been brewing for a while.  I stumbled on this page and it was as if someone had been following me around for the past 15 [...]

Election year time of year

Date May 31, 2008

Around this time (heard some rumblings last week) we start hearing about candidates’ vice-presidential choices.  Inevitably talk turns to the candidates’ weak areas and speculation abounds about what VP options might best shore up said weaknesses.  Should Barack choose Edwards, who would be stronger in the South and among the poor?  Should McCain choose someone [...]

Driving speeds and $4/gallon gas - are you slowing down?

Date May 22, 2008

I currently don’t drive much, so when I do I tend to be more aware of others’ driving habits than I used to be.  Maybe it’s the speeding tickets I’ve had over the years, or maybe I’m just getting old, but I don’t tend to drive very fast anymore.  If anything my wife thinks I [...]

Reset vtiger 5.0.4 default admin password

Date May 12, 2008

I had to seach around for this, and still had to piece together the info.  Apparently people have some sort of reluctance to just give you the actual SQL statements to run.  Yes, the table names *might* be different if you choose non-default prefixes, for example, or you’ve done major modifications, but I suspect you’ll [...]