I went to Fred Meyer on my lunch break yesterday to get a few grocery-related things I need at work (coffee creamer, mostly). While I was there, I went to the deli section to get something to eat. The woman behind the counter was almost finished weighing the order of the person in front of me, so I studied the food behind the glass while I waited. While she was down at the end of the counter ringing up that customer, a man came up and pushed his cart between me and the glass case.
A bit rude, I thought, but I figured he just wants to see what’s there for him to order, like I had done minutes before (though I hadn’t squeezed my way in between the other customer and the glass, I had just looked at the food around her.)
When the clerk came back, she looked me in the eye (obviously recognizing that I was the next to be served) and said “What can I get you?” As I was about to speak, the other guy started listing the things he wanted to order. The clerk shifted her gaze to him, but didn’t move to start getting his food.
“Did you seriously not see me here? You really didn’t notice that I was standing here waiting even before you pulled up with your cart?” I said. Which kind of surprised even me, because I’m RARELY confrontational. Something about this guy just set me off, I guess.
He said “I’m sorry, my mistake, where are my manners?”
Just kidding. What he actually said was “You were standing so far back, I didn’t think you were in line. You should have been standing closer to the glass case if you were waiting to be helped.” It was true that I hadn’t been standing right next to the glass, but I was standing close enough that he had literally inches on both sides of his cart when he pushed it between me and the glass. Plus the fact that I was just standing there waiting in that one spot, not shopping, not browsing, not wandering, should have been one of his clues.
“Oh, I guess they took down the sign that said whoever is standing closest to the glass gets served next, regardless of who was here first.” Turning to the woman, I said “I’ll have a bean burrito and a snack stick, and a fountain drink cup.” She smiled, got my food and took her sweet time ringing me up, which was just fine with me.
Add commentOctober 21st, 2008 at 06:46amPosted by Bill
After the show, we had dinner, checked out a few more casinos, gambled a bit more, then headed back to our suite to wind down.
Kathy woke me up about 6:00 AM the next morning, fully dressed, asking if I wanted to join her down on the casino floor. I politely declined (”Heck, no! Wake me back up at a decent hour!”)
She came back into the room and woke me up at the crack of 9:00, and I showered and got dressed. We had breakfast, then took a relaxing walk through the botanical garden at Ballagio’s conservatory. It was decorated with a display highlighting “Wonders of America” (or something like that.) We then walked through the Paris Las Vegas casino across the street.
We then drove to the Venetian hotel and took a ride on the gondolas through the canals. There are actually two separate gondola rides; one outside, and one inside the Grand Canal Shoppes. We decided to do the indoor ride.
Since the gondolas seat four, we shared ours with another couple. Our gondolier was very obviously faking his italian accent, but was still entertaining. At several points during our trip, he belted out some really loud, operatic songs that seemed to echo through the whole building. He was actually pretty good. He reminded us to kiss as we crossed under each bridge, which he explained is a romantic tradition in Venice, Italy. Is it really a tradition, or was he just playing up the whole “Look at me, I’m a blonde-haired, blue-eyed, Italian gondolier” thing? I have no idea; I just know I got to kiss Kathy many, many times.
We also went to the top of the Stratosphere tower. There is an outdoor obervation deck at the very top, with several thrill rides. Just below that level is the indoor observation deck. The windows here are floor-to-ceiling, and they are angled in, so that you can lean out just a bit and see straight down through the glass to the ground 1000 feet below. Kathy doesn’t appreciate heights very much, so she stayed near the interior walls while I awed and got a bunch of pictures.
After that, we took in a Fountains at Bellagio performance, drove toward Hoover Dam (then turned right back around when we saw that traffic was stopped to a crawl with six miles left to the dam), then ate dinner downtown. We then wandered through the amazing Fremont Street Experience for a while. We watched speed painters, browsed a few booths, rocked to an amazing cover band, saw a couple drunk guys come this close to fighting, and then watched the show above us as the canopy of millions of LEDs lit up in animation.
The next morning, we returned the car, caught the shuttle to the airport, and flew back home.
I uploaded a bunch of photos to my flickr page. Go check them out!
Add commentOctober 15th, 2008 at 06:21amPosted by Bill
We left our room and got back in the car to find a place to get breakfast. It was after 9:00 AM, and we had both been up since before 4:00 with nothing to eat yet. We drove to the Flamingo and had an excellent champagne brunch. We walked to the nearby monorail station and rode it to another casino, then later rode it back. When we got back to the Flamingo, Kathy took a quick pit stop, and I took that opportunity to find the will call counter where show tickets are picked up.
We walked around the casino for a while, gambled a bit, drank a bit, gambled a bit more, then had lunch. When 3:00 rolled around, we walked to Nathan Burton’s Flamingo Showroom to be seated for the show. I wasn’t discreet enough earlier when I had been looking for this theater as we were wandering through the casino, so Kathy had figured out that we were seeing a show here. Of course, the whole time we were waiting in line, she thought we’d have some sort of nosebleed seats. The Flamingo Showroom is pretty intimate, however; there really aren’t any bad seats. I had purchased seats in a booth right at the front of the theater.
Nathan Burton’s show was great. It was funny, without being stupid. His illusions were amazing, without being too over-the-top. His assistants were beautiful, without being slutty or relying on nudity.
Toward the end of the show, he asked who in the audience was here on their honeymoon; there was a smattering of applause. He then asked who was here for a birthday; again, a few people clapped and cheered. He then asked who was here for their anniversary, and as Kathy continued to sink lower into the booth in a futile attempt to blend in with the upholstery, I clapped and cheered loudly. The audience spotlight was turned to shine on us, and Nathan asked, pointing at Kathy, if this was my wife. The audience laughed as he said “Hey, this is Las Vegas, you never know.”
He then asked how many years we’d been married, and I shouted “Twenty!”
The audience applauded, then he asked me what the secret to 20 years of marriage is. I said “Do everything she says!” He then closed the show with one final trick (turning a glass of water into white confetti in front of our eyes. You can see the confetti still in his hair in this photo.) As we were filing out of the theater, other audience members were coming up to us wishing us a happy anniversary. It was a wonderful ending to a perfect day.
I told Kathy that the show was the last surprise I had planned. The rest of the day, and the entire next day, we were free to do anything we wanted to do.
We put our bags in the car, and spent the next few minutes figuring out how to adjust the seats and start the car (there’s no “key” in the cut-piece-of-metal sense, just an electronic fob that looks like a thumb drive). Once we got going and got on the road, I told Kathy I’d booked us a room at a place somewhere here in town. I asked her to punch in 2000 Las Vegas Blvd into the car’s in-dash GPS, so it can tell us how to get there. As we passed many of the large resorts, Kathy kept asking if this was where we were staying. I faked innocence. “Is the GPS telling us to turn here? No? Then I guess this isn’t it. We’ll just have to keep driving until we find it.”
Last November, the whole family drove to Las Vegas and stayed for a couple days as part of a larger road trip vacation. We rented two cheap rooms at the El Cortez hotel, right near the heart of downtown old Las Vegas. It was fine for what it was, a really cheap place for the five of us to sleep. It wasn’t the least bit romantic (nor was that trip intended to be). We don’t have any bad feelings about the El Cortez, we just think of it more like the “McDonalds” of Las Vegas hotels, I guess. We mentioned to each other at the time how great it would be to be able to stay at a nice place on the strip, rather than having to settle for just a bed and a TV downtown.
While planning this trip, I knew that Kathy would have been happy just being with me no matter where we stayed, even if it was some fleabag far removed from the strip. I decided early on in, however, that I had just one chance to really blow her away. So, as much as I could afford it, there would be no compromises.
Kathy and I were still heading north on Las Vegas Blvd. in the Mercedes, passing resort after resort, with the GPS telling us how much more distance was left to our destination. Kathy started thinking that we might be staying at some cheap hotel downtown, maybe the El Cortez again. Soon, however, the GPS told us to turn left, and I dutifully followed its guidance into the parking lot of the Stratosphere Hotel, at the north end of the strip.
We went inside and walked up to the check-in desk. I handed my credit card to the agent at the counter, and a few minutes later we were off to find the elevator to the 18th floor. When I opened the door and let Kathy in to see the room, she said “Wow, this is bigger than our first apartment!” I had rented a 650 square foot suite, with a king sized bed, a couch and chairs around the TV area, a small kitchen area, a dining table/work table and chairs, and a gigantic marble bathroom. The windows faced south, so it had an amazing view of the strip. It was perfect.
As Kathy started to unpack, I told her to hurry, we really need to get going. She tilted her head to the side, squinted her eyes a bit and asked if I had even more planned. I just said, “I’m really hungry right now, we haven’t had breakfast yet. And remember, don’t worry, I’ve taken care of everything.”
We park the car at the airport and I open the trunk, and only then does Kathy realize that I’ve already packed for us both. She still doesn’t really know what’s going to happen or where we’re going, since I won’t tell her anything ahead of time. Whenever she asks anything, I just say “Don’t worry, I’ve taken care of everything.” She asks if she needs to call her boss to let him know she won’t be in.
“Don’t worry, I’ve taken care of everything.”
As we take the escalators to the ticket counter level, she asks if we need to stop at one of the ticket counters. I had already printed our boarding passes online the evening before, of course. “Don’t worry, I’ve taken care of everything.”
As we are about to go through security, I mention to the TSA guy that Kathy doesn’t know where we’re going yet, and ask if it is possible for him to verify that she is a ticketed traveler without letting her see the boarding pass. He obliges, and this part of the surprise is safe for a bit longer.
We arrive at the gate so early that the agents haven’t even updated the board for the flight yet. This works in my favor, since it is that much longer that Kathy is kept in the dark. We sit in a section of seating near the next gate over, so Kathy still won’t be able to see the board once the agents do update it. She still doesn’t know where we’re going until an hour or so later when they finally announce the boarding over the intercom. “We’re going to Las Vegas?!”
The flight left on-time at 6:00 AM sharp. It was a great flight; quiet, not crowded (we had the entire row to ourselves), and relaxing. Even though she had only slept about four hours and I had slept only three, we were too excited to snooze. It’s pretty rare that we get to take a plane anywhere, so it’s always a treat to look at the scenery go by 30,000 feet below. She wanted to know what we were going to do once we got into Las Vegas. “Don’t worry, I’ve taken care of everything.”
We land, and I tell her that we should probably see about renting some cheap wheels to get around town. We catch the shuttle to the off-airport rental car center, and I find the Dollar Rent A Car counter. I tell her to wait in the lobby, which is far enough away that she won’t be able to hear the transaction. She tilts her head to the side, squints her eyes a bit and asks if I’ve already reserved a car? And if so, what kind? “Don’t worry, I’ve taken care of everything.”
Ten minutes later I have the rental agreement in hand, and we make our way out to the garage to get the keys. As we’re waiting for the attendant to tell us which car is ours, we are standing right next to a new Corvette. I joke about how cool it would be to drive a nice car like that for the week-end. She groans, in a “Yeah, right” kind of way. I don’t think we’ve ever driven anything nicer than my Volkswagen or her Honda. “Sir, here are your keys. You car is right there, three spaces down.”
As we approach the CLK500, Kathy says “No way! You rented us a Mercedes?!”
Add commentOctober 7th, 2008 at 06:09amPosted by Bill
July 9th, 2008, was our 20 year anniversary. I wanted to do something big for Kathy, and I started planning early. After discussing options with many people, including her best friend Lori, I decided to surprise her with a weekend in Las Vegas. My grandparents lived there years ago, and other family and friends still live there, so we’ve been there many times, and always have fun. Every time we’ve visited however, there has been something “missing”. Kathy’s hinted that she would love to see a show sometime. We always seem to stay with family, or in the cheapest room we could find. We always seem to make one compromise or another. I hoped to make this a trip that she would remember for a long time.
I arranged with her boss for her to have Saturday July 19th off (she has Sunday-Monday off normally.) I told him what I was planning, and asked him to keep it quiet until we were back from the trip. I also arranged with Lori for her to pick up Lexi sometime after we left the house and keep her for the week-end. I knew the boys would be OK on their own.
She figured that I was planning something, but I wouldn’t give her any sort of hints, or even confirm whether I was actually planning anything or not. When it came time to actually start booking and purchasing the trip, however, I finally had to acknowledge that I was up to something. The only thing I told her was that I had some plans, and that she was not allowed, under any circumstances, to go on-line and look at the checking or credit card accounts. This was about 2 and a half weeks before the trip. I told her that all would be revealed soon (but I didn’t say exactly when), and not to ask any questions. Any at all. Not a single question. None.
That didn’t last long. I was able to deflect almost every question with an answer of “You’ll see” or “You’ll just have to wait” or something else along those lines. At some point, she even asked point blank “Does my boss know what’s going on?” This wasn’t a question I could sidestep without it being very obvious that I had in fact arranged for some time off with him, and since this was to be a big part of the suprise, I had to lie to her.
“Your boss? No, of course not! Why would I involve him? He doesn’t know anything about the plans I’m making!”
I did make it clear that when the surprise started, she would very definetely know it. If she ever thought to herself, “I wonder if this is part of the surprise?”, the answer had to be “No”, because I was going to make it VERY obvious when it did start.
The morning of Saturday July 19th, I woke her up about 3:30 AM and said “Get up and get dressed, your surprise is starting right now.” She asked if she should wear her work clothes, and I told her just to wear something casual, that we’d be back in time to change clothes before she had to go to work. Since she wasn’t going to be working again until Tuesday, I didn’t technically lie. I said not to worry about packing anything, just to get in the car so we can start the suprise. In the trunk of my car were two suitcases I had already packed with several changes of clothes for both of us. I had even purchased travel size toothpaste, toothbrushes, soaps, etc, so I could pack absolutely everything ahead of time without her noticing that stuff was missing from the bathroom.
We drove from our house in Beaverton to 26 East, then to 405 South, then to 5 North, then to 84 East, then to 205 North, the whole time trying not to be too obvious that we were heading in the direction of the airport. Once on 205, I tried to stay in the left lanes. Just when we were about to pass the off-ramp to PDX, I swerved across all lanes (remember, it was about 4:00 AM and the freeway was empty) and took the exit. She just about screamed, “I knew it! We’re flying somewhere!”
Kathy and I had a blast in Las Vegas in July for our 20th anniversary. I’ll blog much more about it soon.
Add commentSeptember 20th, 2008 at 04:15pmPosted by Bill
Saturday morning, Billy and Matt left on a road trip to L.A. They stayed overnight at a motel in Redding, and got back on the road about 5:30 or so Sunday morning. They called us at 7:30 AM, saying that his car broke down, and they were on the side of I-5, just outside of Williams. We called for a tow truck ($145 for three miles), and arranged for a mechanic to look at the car ($120 to say “Yup, it won’t start, and we can’t do any more until Monday.”) The tow driver took the boys to a motel and they checked in until we could figure out what to do.
At church a few hours later, we mentioned the situation to a few people, including one of the youth pastors (who sings in the band the boys play in), who mentioned that he grew up in Williams, and whose parents still lived there. Within ten minutes, they had arranged to pick up the boys, and got them a full refund for their unused motel room. He also happens to be a mechanic, and confirmed that the engine was, in fact, destroyed (a broken connecting rod punched through the engine block, which, as I understand it, is AVery Bad Thing.) They fed the boys and put them up over night.
The boys were still anxious to get to L.A. to see their grandpa who had a stroke back in February, so the family they were staying with helped them book airline tickets for a one-way flight on United from Sacramento to LAX, leaving at 9:30 AM on the 18th. When they got to the airport this morning, they discovered that they had accidentally booked the tickets for July 18th instead of June 18th, and were non-refundable, non-transferable and couldn’t be changed. It was at this point that Kathy officially freaked, and I arranged to leave work to straighten this all up from home today. By the time I got home, Billy had booked two new one-way tickets for tomorrow morning on United, and were on the stand by list for every other flight. Kathy was going to have none of this, so she called and raised hell, and had these new tickets refunded (which is going to take 30-60 days, even though they were able to charge Billy’s debit card within 30-60 seconds.) She then arranged for one-way tickets on JetBlue to Long Beach Airport. When the boys went to retrieve their luggage from United, they found that it was already on its way to LAX. They took a cab from Long Beach to their grandma’s house in Carson. When they went to LAX to get their bags about an hour ago, the United luggage office had no idea where their bags were, and didn’t know anything about their situation. The boys finally found their bags on one of the United carousels, still going around in circles like they had been for the last seven hours.
The little repair shop in Williams that had the car quoted $3500 for a rebuilt engine to be installed. The lowest figure I could find, calling in several favors from people here in town, would have been about $800 labor and about $400 for a replacement engine, but I would have to get the car here from Williams, about a nine hour drive each way. The car is worth about $1800. Because the car is pretty much in the middle of nowhere, there aren’t a lot of options for salvaging it, and it seemed like we were actually going to have to pay someone to take the remains of the car off our hands.
The family in Williams once again came through for us, and had the car towed from the repair shop to their house, and arranged for a company to come and pick up the car for free. Our friend from church is driving down there this Friday to visit, and is going to take the DMV title to them for us, and will bring back the rest of the boys stuff that was left at their house.
Now we have a full month to arrange to get the boys home.
So, how was your week-end?
2 commentsJune 18th, 2007 at 09:20pmPosted by Bill
I started getting undeliverable message notices today at about 4:50 PM, coming to various email addresses ending in “@igetsomad.com”. All of the original emails had been sent using a forged FROM: field, and were identical very-obviously-spam messages, which was an ad for a Russian pirated software website.
I setup an SPF record on my DNS server tonight, and I have reported this to godaddy.com, my hosting provider. As of now, I’ve received 119 NDRs (undeliverable notices.) So if 119 messages (so far) couldn’t be delivered, imagine how many of these bogus emails did in fact get delivered to people’s inboxes.
More to come.
Add commentJanuary 12th, 2007 at 12:33amPosted by Bill
10. Miracle on 34th Street (the 1947 original)
The 1994 remake was just so-so.
9. The Santa Clause
I know it’s pretty cheesy, but I still get a kick out of Tim Allen’s first Christmas movie. Stay away from the sequels, though
8. Santa Claus Is Comin’ to Town (the 1970 TV special)
I love how it kind of answers all of the Santa Claus questions I had as a little kid.
7. Simpsons Roasting on an Open Fire (The Simpsons, Season 1, Episode 1)
The very first episode of the best TV show of all time just happens to be a Christmas special.
6. Frosty the Snowman
Watching this as an adult, I was a bit surprised that this is just a half hour show. As a kid, it didn’t seem like it was that short.
5. How the Grinch stole Christmas (the 1966 TV special)
The 2000 live-action movie was just O.K., even though it starred the wonderful Jim Carrey.
4. Marge Be Not Proud (The Simpsons, Season 7, Episode 11)
One of my favorite Simpsons episodes ever.
3. Rudolph, the Red-Nosed Reindeer
Very old-school, but I still love watching these stop-motion characters.
2. A Charlie Brown Christmas
A wonderful story about the true meaning of Christmas.
1. A Christmas Story
The family and I just watched this movie over the week-end (an annual tradition). If you’ve never seen it, you NEED to rent this, or better yet, buy it; you’re gonna want to watch it over and over. I TRIPLE-dog-dare ya!
2 commentsNovember 27th, 2006 at 09:57pmPosted by Bill
Word: “Turkey Day” Usage: Used in place of “Thanksgiving”. Example: Conversation with a co-worker:
Him: “Hey, Bill, what are you guys doing for Turkey Day?”
Me: “Nothing, since there’s no such holiday. For Thanksgiving, however, we’re having dinner with my brother and his family.”
Please, everyone, don’t call it “Turkey Day”, “Spanksgiving”, or anything else cute or funny. It is supposed to be a day to gather with friends and family, to share wonderful meals, make memories that will last forever, and to think about and appreciate everything that you have. It is supposed to be both solemn and joyous at the same time.
It is NOT supposed to be diminished to a stupid, not-so-clever, unfunny phrase. It’s “Thanksgiving”, OK?
2 commentsNovember 21st, 2006 at 11:51pmPosted by Bill
Turn up the sound (the song I chose for the video is appropriate.)
Billy and I created and built this marble run for an assignment in his science class several years ago. I then made this video of it.
He got an A in the class.
1 commentNovember 16th, 2006 at 07:17pmPosted by Bill
Number two in a continuing series I call Supporting Corporate Users Sometimes Exercises My Endurance
Or, ‘SCUSE ME? for short.
Ned* called the Help Desk the other day, saying his account was locked out. I looked it up and sure enough, he was in fact locked out. I unlocked it, and he was able to log back in just fine. Now, the only way anyone’s account can get locked out is to enter the wrong password three times in a row. Ned knows this, because this has happened before. It happens all the time. It even happened to me once when, in a blur of flying fingers, I tried to log in one morning (before my bucket of coffee) without realizing that Caps Lock was on. (Which raises an interesting question: Who does the Help Desk call for help? If the Help Desk unlocks accounts, who unlocks the Help Desk? This is a subject for another post.)
So aaanywaaaay, Ned apparently is one who will absolutely never admit that there is the slightest possibility that he may be, gasp, at fault. Our conversation went like this:
Ned: “So what caused this?” Me: “Well, the only way your account can be locked out is for the wrong password to be used three times in a row.” Ned: “But I know I entered it right. Could there be something wrong with the server?” Me (in my head): First, we have more than 200 servers altogether. Second, there is not a single server that is responsible for verifying your login credentials, there are many. Third, they are all working just fine. Fourth, even if they were all simultaneously off-line or malfunctioning when you were trying to login, it would not lock out your account, it would simply not allow you to login. Fifth, it’s O.K. to admit that you fat-fingered your password. You don’t have to try to blame the technology when you make a mistake. I know better, and it just makes me think even less of you. Me (out loud): “Maybe, Ned. Maybe.”
Sometimes, it’s just easier to agree.
* All real names have been replaced with names of Simpsons characters.
2 commentsNovember 3rd, 2006 at 05:10amPosted by Bill
My 9-5 job (which is actually 7am-4pm, but whatever) is computer support. More specifically, there are six of us who support 800+ users, 1000+ PCs, 250+ printers, and various other pieces of networking equipment, spread out over many locations in the Portland area.
Doing tech support in a corporate environment is interesting, and is very different from supporting the general public. I did that for several years, taking calls on Gateway’s 800 number for general tech support, and I know I’ll never go back. There are too many uncontrollable variables to contend with when trying to help Joe Sixpack get the kid’s new computer game Santa left in the stocking to run on the old family PC.
In a corporate environment, on the other hand, especially in-house on-site support like I and my co-workers do, we have a great deal of control over that which we support. All PC are generally configured identically; users don’t have the ability to install any software (since it may be incompatible and/or unlicensed, or may break the computer); we can take remote control of any PC on the network from our own desk; and we are all certified to troubleshoot and submit warranty parts replacement requests to the PC manufacturers. And generally, we are respected by our co-workers, the users that we support.
All this makes for a pretty enjoyable work environment.
However, there are always going to be frustrations. After reading Tanya’s recent blog entry, I was inspired to share some of my tales of frustration with you. So here begins a continuing series I will call…
Supporting Corporate Users Sometimes Exercises My Endurance
Or, ‘SCUSE ME? for short.
Here is the first of many stories…
Lisa* is a user who travels between many of our locations, so her computer is a laptop, and she has a docking station, monitor, keyboard and mouse that stay at her desk. She called me a few mornings ago:
Me: “IT Help Desk, this is Bill.” Lisa: “I need to log in to Lenny’s* laptop, but Lenny is already logged in to it and he has locked it with his password.” Me (seeing from the phone display that she is calling from her own desk):
“You need to log in to Lenny’s laptop at your own desk? Is something wrong with your own laptop?” Lisa: “No, but it’s too heavy this morning, so I left it in my car. When I got upstairs, I saw that Lenny wasn’t in the office today, so I took his laptop and brought it here.” Me: “I can force Lenny’s account to disconnect from his laptop, but he will lose any documents he may have open that he has not yet saved. I’m not really comfortable doing that without checking with him first.” Lisa: “Well, he’s going to be out all day, and his manager said that it was OK, he probably won’t lose any important data.”
After verifying with Lenny’s manager that he does in fact approve of this, I forced Lenny’s account off, and helped Lisa log in. Keep in mind that the laptop weighs a little over four pounds and is in a lightweight case that has a padded handle and shoulder strap, and she travels with it almost daily. For some reason, it was just “too heavy” for her that day.
* All real names have been replaced with names of Simpsons characters.
2 commentsOctober 18th, 2006 at 08:21pmPosted by Bill
10. Monitor tan.
9. You become physically ill at the mention of the RIAA, and visibly excited at the mention of object-oriented programming.
8. You have a poster on your wall of the Linux penguin.
7. You’re mad because all your friends got goodnight kisses after prom, but your sister just slugged you in the arm and said “Thanks, bro.”
6. You think having twice as many computers as there are people in the house is a bare minimum.
5. You feel that living life like the movie “Tron” would rock!
4. In your little black book, you list (both) the girls you know in order by IP address.
3. You can type faster than you can speak
2. When your shrink says “Mother . . . ” you say ” . . . Board.”
1. If, by some happy accident, you someday have kids, you want to name them after your favorite fonts.
3 commentsSeptember 14th, 2006 at 05:26amPosted by Bill
I was on MAX last week on the way home from work, and something strange caught my eye outside the train. This punk looking guy, straight out of the ’70s-London-Sex Pistols-The Clash-era, was walking down the sidewalk. He had the full meal deal going on: Skintight black jeans torn and cut in all the right places, huge heavy black boots, spiked dog collar around his neck, all kinds of piercings, and a tall spiked bright red mohawk.
And wrap-around sunglasses. And a white cane with a red tip, sweeping side to side.
Yup, being blind, the poor guy had no idea how ridiculously stupid he looked. I can picture his friends, all of them grown up and business men now, with their suits and briefcases, keeping this guy in the dark (so to speak) about how silly he looked.
“Yeah, man you look wicked tough. You still got it. Oh, yeah, sure, of course I’m spiking my hair too. I’m slathering on the hair gel right now. Yup, we both look like real hooligans. Now go on, get out there and STRUT!”
2 commentsSeptember 10th, 2006 at 03:02pmPosted by Bill
Yay! Non-blogging brother Josh is here! He and his kids drove up from Orange County, and they arrived this afternoon. My dad and step-mom are flying in tomorrow night. It’s gonna be a great week end!
2 commentsAugust 31st, 2006 at 06:58pmPosted by Bill
I know I haven’t posted anything yet about my diet routine. Sorry, still been kinda busy. I can report that I’ve lost 9 pounds so far since the first of August. Yay me!
One of the things that kept me busy recently was a family reunion organized by my Aunt Carolyn and Uncle Don. Every family member in the state was there, and aunts and uncles from Texas and Nevada even made it. Everyone had a great time. Photos are in the photo gallery:
1 commentAugust 19th, 2006 at 09:51pmPosted by Bill
No, I’m not changing the name of this site, but I am going to change the focus of my posts for some time.
“What posts, Bill? You haven’t posted in two and a half months!”
I know, but I will be posting much more often from now on. Hopefully every day, but at least several times a week. Been a little busy with work and the move into the new house, but I do now have time to post more often than I have been. Now, on to the announcement:
I am going to lose a bunch of weight, and I’m going to document it all here. I weighed myself recently, and I was 290 pounds. I’m a pretty tall guy at 6′2″, but 290 is still way too much. I am going to lose at least 75 pounds, and I’m giving myself 18 months to do it.
Today is August 1st, so by my 39th birthday in February 2008, I will be down to at least 215.
In upcoming posts, I’ll give many more details of what I’m changing, what I’m going to be doing, and how I’m going to be doing it, and what I’m going through.
Keep reading!
2 commentsAugust 1st, 2006 at 05:38amPosted by Bill
YARD WORK - AS VIEWED FROM HEAVEN
(overheard in a conversation between God and St. Francis):
God: Francis, you know all about gardens and nature; what in the world
is going on down there in the U.S.? What happened to the dandelions,
violets, thistles and the stuff I started eons ago?
I had a perfect no-maintenance garden plan. Those plants grow in any
type of soil, withstand drought, and multiply with abandon. The nectar from
the long-lasting blossoms attracts butterflies, honeybees, and flocks of
songbirds. I expected to see a vast garden of color by now. All I see
are patches of green.
St. Francis: It’s the tribes that settled there, Lord.! They are called
the Suburbanites. They started calling your flowers “weeds” and went to
great lengths to kill them and replace them with grass.
God: Grass? But it is so boring, it’s not colorful. It doesn’t attract
butterflies, bees or birds, only grubs and sod worms. It’s temperamental
with temperatures. Do these Suburbanites really want grass growing
there?
St. Francis: Apparently not, Lord. As soon as it has grown a little,
they cut it….sometimes two times a week.
God: They cut it? Do they bale it like hay?
St. Francis: Not exactly, Lord. Most of them rake it up and put it in
bags.
God: They bag it? Why? Is it a cash crop? Do they sell it?
St. Francis: No sir, just the opposite. They pay to throw it away.
God: Now let me get this straight…they fertilize it to make it grow
and when it does grow, they cut it off and pay to throw it away?
St. Francis: Yes, sir.
God: These Suburbanites must be relieved in the summer when we cut back
on the rain and turn up the heat. That surely slows the growth and saves
them a lot of work.
St. Francis: You aren’t going to believe this Lord, but when the grass
stops growing so fast, they drag out hoses and pay more money to water
it so they can continue to mow it and pay to get rid of it.
God: What nonsense! At least they kept some of the trees. That was a
sheer stroke of genius, if I do say so myself. The trees grow leaves in the
spring to provide beauty and shade in the summer.
In the autumn they fall to the ground and form a natural blanket to keep
the moisture in the soil and protect the trees and bushes. Plus, as
they rot, the leaves become compost to enhance the soil. It’s a natural
circle of life.
St. Francis: You’d better sit down, Lord. As soon as the leaves fall ,
the Suburbanites rake them into great piles and pay to have them hauled
away.
God: No way! What do they do to protect the shrubs and tree roots in
the winter to keep the soil moist and loose?
St Francis: After throwing the leaves away, they go out and buy
something called mulch. They haul it home and spread it around in place of the
leaves.
God: And where do they get this mulch?
St. Francis: They cut down the trees and grind them up to make mulch.
God: Enough! I don’t want to think about this anymore.
Saint Catherine, you’re in charge of the arts. What movie have you
scheduled for us tonight?
St. Catherine: “Dumb and Dumber,” Lord. It’s a really stupid movie
about….
God: Never mind–I think I just heard the whole story from Saint
Francis!
Add commentJuly 28th, 2006 at 03:58pmPosted by Kathy
Big apologies for not posting regularly for quite a while. Things have been quite hectic at work.
My department used to have about 15 people in it, then a reorganization moved some people to other departments, cutting us down to about 12. Another reorg resulted in several layoffs, cutting our numbers to 8. Then, economic factors outside the organization’s control resulted in management making the decision to layoff 10% of the workforce. Because of federal, state and local laws governing our financial structure (we are a large public agency), the 80+ positions would be removed from departments that made up about 50%-60% of the organization. My department was hit the hardest, with half being laid off, including my infamous manager Ted. You can read more about Ted here (and here, here, here, here, here and here.) We were all not so surprised that Ted somehow managed to be the only laid off employee interviewed on the air by KOIN 6 news on the day the layoffs were announced (yup, it was that big a deal when that many people were laid off here, it was one of the top news storys on that day back in September 2004.)
So aaanywaaaay, at that point there were four of us, in effect doing what 15 people used to do, doing all the end-user IT support for an organization with close to 1000 users. Just recently, after our industry’s economy started picking up again, it was announced that we would be hiring another Technical Analyst like the four of us, as well as a supervisor, bringing our number up to six. We all applied for the supervisor position as well as many people from outside the organization, and one of my co-workers got the position. I’m not at all upset at the decision (you know I would have no problem venting my frustration here otherwise), and I’m really glad that management and HR decided to promote from within.
However, in addition to all that is happening at work, I have even bigger news: we bought a house. It is a three bedroom, 2.5 bath common-wall (one half of a duplex) here in Beaverton, with 1480 square feet. It sits right next to a greenspace that will never be developed, so the kids have literally acres of fields right outside the back door to run and play. It was built in 1995, and is in great shape.
Several things were found when the home inspector walked through the place. Most are pretty minor, like the garage door opener not working, but a few were pretty serious, like failing LP siding. So far, the seller has agreed to all of our requests for repairs. If nothing goes wrong, we will be signing all the paperwork in a few weeks, and we will pick up the keys on May 18th.
I’ll post some pictures of the place here as soon as I can, so keep checking back!
2 commentsApril 7th, 2006 at 10:11pmPosted by Bill
I’ve mentioned before how much of a geek I am, and that number patterns fascinate me (click here to refresh your memory.)
Another one is coming tomorrow! Two, actually; one in the morning and another in the afternoon. You see, at three seconds after one oh two, the date and time will be 01:02:03 04/05/06.
3 commentsApril 4th, 2006 at 07:36pmPosted by Bill
See if you can solve this brain teaser:
The setup: You are at the entrance of a large house. At the far end of the house is an empty room with a single light bulb. The door to this room is closed, allowing no light to escape. On the wall next to you are three standard on/off electrical switches. One of these three switches turns the bulb on and off. The other two switches do nothing.
The goal: You must determine which one of the three switches controls the bulb.
The limitation: You can only make one trip to the room with the bulb, and you can’t come back to the light switches once you are in the room. Before you go to the room, however, you can do whatever you like to the switches (without disassembling, of course: no cheating!), and you can take as much time as you like.
So, what would you do? How exactly would you determine which of the three switches controls the bulb? Post your guesses and questions as a comment, and I’ll do my best to respond quickly. I’ll post the answer next Saturday.
6 commentsMarch 18th, 2006 at 08:33pmPosted by Bill
I read the text of this story last week somewhere else, but it wasn’t until I saw the photo that I felt I must share this with you. Click the link above to see it.
It is mildly interesting that you can buy a whole chicken in a can in England. It is slightly more interesting that this couple saved a can of chicken from their wedding day, and only vaguely more interesting still that he kept his vow, so to speak, to eat the chicken on their 50th anniversary. What really tickled me, however, is the photo accompanying the story.
It’s not so much that he looks like he’s about to fall down. It’s not even the fact that he looks like he was just woken from a deep sleep, and came straight from bed, grudgingly, for the photo shoot. It looks like he’s still wearing a robe over his pajamas, even.
No, it’s the look on the wife’s face behind him that cracks me up every time I see it. “You old coot, you’re embarrasing yourself, and me, in front of the whole world.”
3 commentsFebruary 27th, 2006 at 05:49amPosted by Bill
So something happened the other day that, for the first time that I can remember, actaully made me feel old. Having two teen-age sons? Nah. One of them a sophomore in high school? Nope. Getting his driver’s license in 3 months? Still doesn’t make me feel old.
Kathy and I were watching American Idol the other day (Breanna got it right, by the way, Paris and Taylor are the two best performers by far), and something one of the gals said made me frown. She was singing “Never” by Heart (which of course is led by my all-time favorite female vocalist, Nancy Wilson), from their self-titled album (which I bought on vinyl when it was first released back in 1985, by the way).
So why did this make me feel old? It was referred to as a classic rock song. Classic rock! Whenever I hear the phrase “classic rock”, I think of Woodstock and free love, and singers and performers who’ve died choking on their own vomit, or at least a ham sandwich. (And, yes, I know the “ham sandwich” thing is a myth. It still makes for a better end to the previous sentence.)
But a song that I dug when it was brand new is considered classic rock?
Now I feel old.
Add commentFebruary 24th, 2006 at 09:31amPosted by Bill
I am 37 today. As always, life itself is good (see my previous birthday posts here and here). However, in a different development from past years, I have now joined the ranks of folks who hate their jobs. I may go into detail some other time, but then again, maybe not.
5 commentsFebruary 22nd, 2006 at 08:09amPosted by Bill
The Halloween pumpkin on your porch has more teeth than your spouse.
You let your twelve-year-old daughter smoke at the dinner table in front of her kids.
You’ve been married three times and still have the same in-laws.
You think a woman who is “out of your league” bowls on a different night.
Jack Daniel’s makes your list of “most admired people”.
You wonder how service stations keep their restrooms so clean.
Anyone in your family ever died right after saying, “Hey watch this!”
You think Dom Perignon is a Mafia leader.
Your wife’s hairdo was once ruined by a ceiling fan.
Your junior prom had a daycare.
You think the last words of the Star Spangled Banner are, “Gentlemen start your engines.”
You lit a match in the bathroom and your house exploded right off its wheels.
The bluebook value of your truck goes up and down, depending on how much gas is in it.
You have to go outside to get something from the fridge.
One of your kids was born on a pool table.
You need one more hole punched in your card to get a freebie at the House of Tattoos.
You can’t get married to your sweetheart because there’s a law against it.
You think loading a dishwasher means getting your wife drunk.
Author Unknown.
1 commentFebruary 6th, 2006 at 11:47amPosted by Kathy
Well, we are back and I for one am glad to be. I have to rant a bit about the chaos that we encountered.
It was very chaotic and stressful for us this year. All the plans that were set in stone before the trip were either changed or cancelled at the last minute. The time at my parents home was total chaos with all seven grandchildren gathered in front of the Christmas tree in a 900 sq ft trailer. I cleaned and cooked all the meals up to Christmas Dinner. After that dinner, I limited the amount of time and energy that I spent on helping out.
My family painted a very grim picture of my sick mother, but in reality she spent more time driving or at the store than visiting with us. She is oblivious to how sick she is and continues to smoke like a chimney. If inclined to do so, pray that she will see the light before it is too late. She states that the doctors told her that her lungs were clear. But, in reality, the emphysema does not go away. So, she is still in total denial.
The last three days of the trip were awesome. My brother-in-law Josh and sister-in-law Shawna were such a blessing to us. They made us feel very welcome after the previous weeks ordeal. We had a great time with them and we were all very saddened that we couldn’t spend more time with them.
To top the trip off. Our trip home started about 2pm. Leaving Josh and Shawna’s home and driving about 1 hr to the airport. The flight was 30 minutes late, then arriving in Vegas for about 1 hr layover we found out our plane was in deed cancelled due to mechanical problems. The next flight out was over 2 hrs later, so needless to say, I gambled a little on the 5 cent slots and lost but it was fun. The flight out from Vegas ended up being 30+ minutes late so we didn’t end up getting in until 2:15 am. Our pastor from our church had to come and rescued us from the airport which ended up being a blessing in of itself.
So, overall, I think I can speak for everyone, “There is no place like home”. This trip sure has taught us who and what you can depend on. I wish to personally thank my friend Teri for being willing to house sit for our animals. You are sure a blessing to our family. With all the pain you have suffered in the past 2 yrs with the loss of your son, you helped us without wanting anything in return. Hopefully someday I can repay the favor.
1 commentJanuary 4th, 2006 at 01:33pmPosted by Kathy
Yesterday, we drove by the house in Redondo Beach where I lived when I met Kathy. At one point (on November 13, 1985 to be exact), a section of the sidewalk in front was replaced, and we carved our initials in the wet cement. Take a look (click to open up a larger 450K picture):
In case you can’t make it out, it says:
BH {heart} KS
JH 11/13/85
GH
BH is me. KS is Kathy. JH and GH are brothers Josh and Gabe.
We also stopped for lunch at In -N- Out burger. For anyone who has never been to Southern California, and who doesn’t know about In -N- Out, I can only describe it as the best hamburger in the world, ever. The picture below is so typical of Los Angeles (click to open up a larger 450K picture):
1 commentDecember 21st, 2005 at 09:37amPosted by Bill
We fly to LAX today, then it’s two weeks in warm sunny Los Angeles. We fly back late on new year’s eve, with a one hour layover in Las Vegas. Maybe the plane will have mechanical problems, and we’ll be forced to stay the night…
Add commentDecember 17th, 2005 at 08:47amPosted by Bill
Several years ago, it was my normal routine to stop on the way home from work to refill my 44-ounce plastic cup with Diet Pepsi. As I’ve recounted before, I stop at a place where refills cost $0.69. On one particular occasion, I walked up to the cashier (a young woman in her early twenties), and she announced the price of the refill, with the intonation of a question: “Sixty nine?”
A quick side note: For those unaware, I may very well be losing some of my hearing. This is absolutely true, and is normally no laughing matter, though it does make this particular situation all the more funny.
I didn’t hear her actual words when she spoke the price of the drink, I just heard the change in the pitch of her voice, indicating that she was asking me a question. That, and the general number of syllables she used, made me think that she was asking me something like “Is that all?” I was buying nothing else, so my response to the perceived question was “Yes, please.”
I’ll pause here while you take a moment to re-read her question and my answer.
I paid my $0.69 and went out to my car, wondering why she was looking at me with a look of surprise, embarrasment, and disgust. It wasn’t until I started driving away that I finally figured out why the heck she looked so darn shocked at my answer. Once I realized how embarrased I should be for my mis-interpretation of her question, and my oh-so-wrong response, I laughed myself stupid.
I’ve never gone back inside that store. Now, whenever I happen to drive by, I can’t help but giggle uncontrollably.
4 commentsDecember 13th, 2005 at 07:27pmPosted by Bill
Word: “Sexy” Usage: Spoken by our friend’s two-year-old grand-daughter, who was trying to say “Lexi”. Example: “Hey, Sexy, let’s go play with all the fun toys in your bedroom.”
Note: I realize it is pretty creepy to hear someone call my (at the time 5-year-old) daughter “Sexy”. It’s still pretty hilarious, though.
1 commentDecember 12th, 2005 at 07:16pmPosted by Bill
To honor the return of the random Simpsons quote (on the sidebar at right), I have also made a small update to this site: Graphical titles, using the Simpsons font. Very pointless, but kinda fun.
3 commentsDecember 10th, 2005 at 12:17amPosted by Bill
Thank you for all the well wishes and prayers sent our way. Mom was discharged yesterday. They received some of the results of the numerous tests and found that her carotid artery on the right side of her neck is 100% blocked and the left side is not that bad. Surgery is not an option since the right side artery attaches to the brain. On top of all that, she has an abdominal hernia and emphysema. She was told not to smoke, to lose weight and to exercise.
Well, I called last night and found out that 3 hrs after discharge, she lit up. But, she said “it made her sick”. Needless to say, our family’s conversation to her were not very friendly. I think that it may have sunk in because she has not touched it since last night. I told her “we have gone through enough this week and I don’t want to have to visit everyone for your funeral”. This morning while I was on the phone with her, my Dad said, “she sealed her cigarettes in a box and wrote “THESE WILL KILL YOU “. For me, that is an accomplishment.
My Dad wanted us all to be there for the holidays. He purchased all of us airline tickets to California. Mom doesn’t know what is going on. So, it will be a surprise to her.
We still need all your prayers for a safe journey. Also, pray that if she decided to not be very responible for her own life and try to smoke again, the cigarettes will taste horrible to her.
Kathy
1 commentDecember 7th, 2005 at 02:32pmPosted by Kathy
We got a call a few hours ago from Kathy’s dad, to let us know that Kathy’s mom is in the hospital. She collapsed this afternoon while they were shopping, and she is currently in the ER at Torrance Memorial Hospital. As of now, the doctors think she may have had a stroke, so they are giving her all sorts of blood thinners and other medications that are supposed to reverse some of the effects of a stroke. We are supposed to get an update tonight from Kathy’s dad when more info is available. I’ll post any updates here.
She will be 59 in February, and has smoked two to three packs a day for more than 40 years. They (plus our nephew Jonathon) were planning to come up here for a week and a half on the 18th of this month, but it looks like we might be making an emergency trip down to L.A. instead.
Know this: Even if Kathy and I have to tie her up ourselves and poke her with sharp sticks, I swear on my cat’s tail she is not smoking another cigarette again in her life.
Please pray for a full and quick recovery.
3 commentsDecember 4th, 2005 at 06:22pmPosted by Bill
So I’ve done it again. I still have a few things I need to fix, but I’m really happy with the new look.
What do you think?
4 commentsNovember 27th, 2005 at 09:34pmPosted by Bill
No, I didn’t switch to Geico. I changed the brake pads on my van instead of paying a shop to do it.
The front brakes have been squeaking like crazy for a few weeks now, and I’ve been too busy to do anything about it. Kathy called Les Schwab to see what they charge for a brake job, and they quoted her $200 something dollars. That’s just completely nuts. I called around to auto parts places, and found the brake pads for as cheap as $13. Kathy picked up the next best pads yesterday for $20. Now, since they were going to charge me ten times this much to do it, I thought I was going to have my work cut out for me. I went out to the van today expecting to be working on it for hours. I mean, why else would it cost $200, unless it was really difficult, right?
30 minutes later, I came back in the house, greasy and dusty, with the old brake pads in my hands and the new brake pads on the van. So if an all-thumbs complete amateur, with only the stock spare tire jack and a basic socket set, and without benefit of hydraulic lifts and pneumatic tools, can do this in 30 minutes, how can they get away with charging $200?
6 commentsNovember 19th, 2005 at 01:11pmPosted by Bill
Word: “U.P.S.” (As in United Parcel Service) Usage: Spoken as a word (like the plural of “the opposite of down”) instead of just initials. Example: (A conversation with my mother-in-law many years ago):
Her: “I read that deliveries have been delayed quite a bit since the ups drivers have been on strike.”
Me: “Umm, since the what drivers?”
Her: “You know, the ups drivers. The ups drivers are all on strike, so the ups managers and ups secretaries are all trying to make the ups deliveries.”
Me: “Huh?”
2 commentsNovember 17th, 2005 at 05:55amPosted by Bill
This is the first in a series of posts about how I’m so old.
As promised way back in early September, here are a few games that we’ve found make road trips a bit more enjoyable, especially with kids cooped up in the car.
1. License plate game, Hayes style.
I took the standard license plate game, and kicked it up a few notches. I created a page with a picture of every state’s license plate, as well as Washington DC’s plate. You can download it as an 840KB PDF format here (and yes, I’m aware that I have North Dakota twice, and that there is no South Dakota. Sue me. Or create your own.)
I printed five copies, one for each of us. When we would see a car from a certain state, we would put a line through that state’s plate. The first person to cross off all 51 plates, or the one who crosses off the most plates by the time we reach our destination, is the winner. We only count single-family passenger vehicles, like cars, pickups, SUVs, minivans, and even RVs. No busses or semi trucks. We only counted cars that we saw driving, not parked.
2. Alphabet game.
The standard alphabet game can be played on road trips of any length. The basic rules: Find words on signs that begin with each successive letter of the alphabet. It is a collaborative game, with everyone helping to find words in order; in other words, each person does not have his own alphabet to run through. You can’t use any word on any part of any car, including the make, model, or any ads or logos printed on the car. You can only use one word on any single sign, so if a sign has the words “Alpha” and “Beta”, you can use “Alpha” as the A-word, but you then must look for a B-word on a different sign.
On shorter trips, including trips that include driving through town, the game can be more fun when several rules are relaxed. It can take a loooong time to find an X-word for example. You can choose to either allow a word that has X anywhere in it to be the X-word, or you might purposely drive near a sign that has an X-word, like a copy place that has the word “Xerox” in the window, or by a hospital that has an “X-ray” sign. You can even choose to find the X-word out of order if you come across it before you’ve reached X in the alphabet.
Happy driving!
Add commentNovember 5th, 2005 at 01:48pmPosted by Bill
Word: “John Henry” Usage: Slang for “signature”, used instead of “John Hancock” Example: “Hey Bill, I need your John Henry here on the dotted line for this delivery of new computers.”
Understand this please, folks: “John Hancock” is the accepted slang term for one’s signature, because John Hancock is famous for his large, flamboyant signature on the Declaration of Independence.
4 commentsOctober 28th, 2005 at 05:55amPosted by Bill
Just before I left work today, Kathy called to tell me that Lexi had a concert at school tonight, and that I should rush home so I’d be able to make it. Apparently, the kids in music class at Lexi’s school have been working with the great Michael Allen Harrison for the last several weeks, writing songs based on the Dr. Seuss book Oh, the Places You’ll Go, and this was the first I’d heard of it. Actually, the other day, Lexi was singing a song I’d never heard before, and I asked her what the song was. She said “It’s a song I’ve been singing with Michael Allen Harrison.” I thought it was cute that she was singing along with the radio; little did I know that she had been actually truly singing it with him in person.
It was an amazing concert, and I have a new appreciation and respect for all that this amazing musician does. Check out the pictures in the photo gallery.
3 commentsOctober 25th, 2005 at 10:11pmPosted by Bill
Several of my bloggingbuddies have been playing what I have dubbed the Google Images Game recently. I decided to join in the fun. Here are the rules: Go to Google Images, and do a search for the following:
-Name of the town where you grew up
-Name of the town where you live now
-Your name
-Your grandmother’s name
-Your favorite food
-Your favorite drink
-Your favorite song
-Your favorite smell
Then you post the first image that Google found, and also your favorite image. Here are my results:
2 commentsOctober 21st, 2005 at 10:57amPosted by Bill
I’m going to have a new poll every week, on the right side of this page. Why? No real reason, I guess just to see if I could make it work with this site.
Have fun!
Add commentOctober 17th, 2005 at 07:49pmPosted by Bill
So Billy was doing something, I don’t remember what now, that was really getting on Kathy’s and my nerves. Lexi did her best to diffuse the situation by writing a note to help us remember that it’s not all that bad.
It worked:
jerck
(Click to enlarge)
3 commentsOctober 15th, 2005 at 10:22amPosted by Bill
4 commentsOctober 14th, 2005 at 11:57amPosted by Bill
There are so many things that are great about this story, I couldn’t possibly point them all out.
Add commentOctober 14th, 2005 at 11:55amPosted by Bill
Comment spam blows. I’ve seen it becoming more and more common on many blogs that I read daily, and it was also slowly increasing in numbers on this site. Back when I was using Blogger to manage this site, there wasn’t much that I could do other than simply delete the offending comments from the post. I understand that Blogger now has some sort of comment spam detecting system, though it doesn’t seem to be making a difference. Either most people aren’t aware of it, or maybe they have to manually enable it somehow, or maybe it just doesn’t work very well.
Since I converted my blog to Wordpress, I have only occasionally had to deal with comment spam. Recently, though, it has increased to the point that is almost unbearable. Wordpress has some basic comment spam detecting features built-in. I recently configured my blog to hold for moderation any comments that contained any links at all. The comments are first delivered to my email address, then I can approve them or delete them. There were several significant problems with this method. One, while I was on vacation recently, there were several legitimate (and very helpful, thanks RM!) comments that were held and didn’t get posted for a few weeks. I can imagine that the comment writers weren’t sure why their comment didn’t immediately show up.
The bigger problem with this system is that many spam comments didn’t actually have a link in the body of the message itself, so they were still posted without being held for approval.
So I had a choice. I could configure my blog to allow comments only from people after they register as a user, but I didn’t want to force people to do that. I know that when I want to leave a simple comment about something on a blog I’ve stumbled upon, if I’m forced to register with the site first, I’ll usually just click away, keeping my comment to myself.
I could moderate each and every comment. This means that I would have to approve every single comment that someone leaves, filtering out all the garbage comments left by spambots. I don’t get a huge number of legitimate comments, but I’ve been getting literally 35+ spam comments each day. I felt that this method was also unaccaptable.
What I chose to do is implement a Captcha system when leaving comments, using the SecureImage plugin. Captcha is a goofy acronym for an even goofier phrase that I’m not going to bother spelling out. What it does is pretty cool, though. When you leave a comment, you’ll be prompted to fill in the usual stuff like your name, email address, etc, as well as verify a random string of characters that is generated on the fly and presented in a graphical format that spambots can’t read. No registration required by you, no moderation required by me, immediate posting of comments.
Try it out now by leaving a comment on this post.
14 commentsOctober 5th, 2005 at 05:25amPosted by Bill
We were driving over the mountains, after leaving Yellowstone and Grand Teton National Parks, heading to our motel in Idaho Falls, Idaho. It was near the end of our road trip, and we had already driven 4800 miles or so in 14 days. I had tried to plan all of our driving time each day to arrive at the motel at a decent hour. Unfortunately, I hadn’t considered the fact that on that night, we’d be driving very slowly in the dark over the passes and through the mountain roads. Needless to say, we got into Idaho Falls very late. In addition, we couldn’t see the motel when we got off the freeway exit that was given to me back when I reserved the room. We saw a cluster of other motels off to the left, so we turned left to see if our motel was tucked away in there somewhere. It wasn’t. Luckily, in a fury of planning foresight, I had printed copies of everything, including the motel’s phone number.
Using her cell phone, Kathy called the motel and talked to the woman at the front desk to find out just where the heck the place was. Kathy was given brief directions, and she hung up and directed me back across to the other side of the freeway and down a small gulley, where the motel was completely hidden from view of the freeway.
I went in to the office to check in, and I swear I am not lying when I repeat the woman’s comment: “So you were the ones that called for directions? I’m usually no good at giving directions over the phone, so I was a little worried that I would get you more lost. You did find the place, though?”
Uh, yeah, I’m pretty sure we found the place.
Add commentSeptember 30th, 2005 at 11:05amPosted by Bill
I have a new photo gallery on line. I’m still tweaking it a bit, and getting it to fit with the look of this site. All the pictures from the old photo gallery software are here, though. One of the main reasons I changed to a different photo gallery is to have the ability for anyone to leave comments on each photo.
Click the link at the top left of this site to check it out, and be sure to leave a bunch of comments!
Add commentSeptember 30th, 2005 at 05:28amPosted by Bill
Moving from our rental house into an apartment last week-end was quite an experience. We’re finally now all unpacked, and just last night I got the boys’ beds put together. We’d been too busy at night after we got home from school and work to put them together, doing things like moving the last of the smaller stuff from the old place and getting it ready for the landlord. They’ve been sleeping on the mattresses on the floor, so it’s nice to finally have their room presentable now. We’ll see how long it lasts.
But anyway, back to my story. To help save money to buy a house in a year or so, we moved from a 1700sf house to an 1100sf apartment. The apartment comes with a refrigerator and washer/dryer, so we had to also rent a small space at a self-storage place to put our fridge, our upright freezer, our washer/dryer, as well as the lawnmower, and all the other things we won’t need while living here. The storage place has sturdy wooden carts to use for making it easier to get a stack of boxes from your car to your storage unit. When we were loading up one of those carts this week-end, I kept cracking up remembering something that happened to Kathy and I years ago, when we lived in the L.A. area, before we had kids.
We had rented a storage unit in a huge self-storage complex that sprawled over several acres, and was several stories tall. While I was at work, Kathy had made all the arrangements to rent the place, and the manager had taken her around the huge complex in a golf cart. The next week-end, Kathy, her sisters and I were going to start to move things there, and it was the first time I’d actually been there myself. We backed the car up to the door nearest our unit, and Kathy said she’d go get the cart to help unload things. The carts were kept chained up around the corner from the office, and she went inside to get the key.
A few minutes later, Kathy and her sisters come ripping around the corner almost full speed in the golf cart. With a puzzled look on my face, I asked if she was sure this was what they meant when they said we could use a “cart”. She was sure, and besides, the key that they gave her fit the golf cart’s ignition. It didn’t look like a regular key, though, it looked more like a padlock key. She put the key back in the ignition, but it wouldn’t turn this time. We couldn’t get the golf cart to move again.
I went to the office to explain the situation, to tell the guy that the key wouldn’t fit in the cart anymore, and so we couldn’t move it out of the roadway. The guy couldn’t understand why I couldn’t get the key to fit in the padlock, and why we couldn’t just move the push cart out of the way. When I was finally able to make him understand that I was talking about the golf cart, and not one of the push carts, he refused to believe me. “That key is to open the padlock on the chained up push carts. The golf cart uses a completely different kind of key. There is no way that you can make that padlock key fit in that golf cart’s ignition”, he said.
“You’ve never met my wife, have you?” I said.
3 commentsSeptember 16th, 2005 at 11:12amPosted by Bill
It’s moving day, and I’m just about to take the computer down. We’ll be in the new place today, but we won’t have Internet hooked up until sometime Monday. This is the last post I’ll be able to write until probably Tuesday when things start to begin to slowly seem to maybe consider think about getting back to normal.
2 commentsSeptember 10th, 2005 at 07:43amPosted by Bill
Many of you close friends know that we are moving out of our rental house and into an apartment tomorrow. This is to help us save money for the downpayment and closing costs as we are in the process of buying a house next year in Wood Village. The apartments that we are moving into has a deal with Centex Homes that if you rent through Equity Residential they will set aside 20% of your rent towards closing costs.
Well, we have lived in the house for about 2 yrs now. The owner has been very nice to us. We have never been late on a payment and we have kept the place in decent shape. Also, we gave him 6 wks notice of our move. Since he has found out that we are moving it seems upset and very rude towards us. I don’t know what is with him. He already has the place rented and he received our partial payment for the rent this month. We even let him show the place to prospective tenants on three occasions.
On tuesday afternoon, I received a call from him and he wanted to know if he could bring someone over to look at the carpets because they needed to be cleaned. The owner would be here also. I said “sure”. When they arrived the guy had a clipboard and said they will clean everything. After about an hour I told the owner “I was feeling uncomfortable because I felt he didn’t think we would clean the place up when we left”. He said “no, he only wanted a quote for the carpet cleaning”. Then, I receive a call the next day from the owner saying that “he was pretty upset about the way the place looked”. I said “we just got back from vacation, so that is why the lawn was brown and needed to be mowed”. He then said “don’t do any additional repairs on the nail holes because they weren’t up to his standards and he is going to have to fix all the walls now”. If anyone has seen my house knows that there is shabby patchwork on the walls anyway with the drywall and nails showing through. What is up with him and is it legal, what he is doing to us? I feel like he is to the point of harassment. Can he do this legally? Having people coming into the house invading our privacy.
Let me know your suggestions or opinions. He was a nice landlord up until the point that we notified him we were moving.
5 commentsSeptember 9th, 2005 at 04:18pmPosted by Kathy
Well, they are finally all done. There are a lot of pictures for you all to enjoy in the photo gallery. Now maybe I can finally catch up with all the posts required by law from when a bunch of people recently tagged me. Patience…
Add commentSeptember 7th, 2005 at 09:10pmPosted by Bill
Seven things I plan to do before I die
1. Buy a rv and travel all the states with Bill
2. Take a vacation to Paris with Bill
3. See my children and grandchildren grow up
4. See Gone With The Wind
5. Have a b***** reduction due to back pain
6. Buy a corvette and it will be mine (my all time favorite car)
7. Have enough money to live a comfortable life with Bill
Seven things I can do
1. I make an awesome Thanksgiving Dinner
2. Use a pogo stick
3. Give medical advice
4. Have compassion for the sick and elderly
5. Name over 900 trees and shrubs
6. Hiccup consistently about 10 times in a row
7. Love my family forever
Seven things I can’t do
1. Work on the computer without icons or without the help of Bill to guide me
2. Cart wheels
3. Find time for myself
4. Study for school without being interrupted
5. Listen to speed metal or rap music
6. Miss an episode of Days of our Lives (I have watched that show since I was about 9-10 yrs old)
7. Stop beating myself up for not being there when Grandma passed on.
Seven things that attract me to the opposite sex
1. Pretty eyes
2. Sensitivity
3. Compassion
4. Good listening skills
5. Dancing around in your underwear (Risky Business)
6. A good sense of humor
7. A nice butt (Years ago that is one feature that I looked for) I know “How shallow!”
Seven things I say most often
1. I love you
2. Did you brush your teeth today?
3. Can you understand the words that are coming out of my mouth?
4. Money doesn’t grow on trees
5. Give me some time to myself
6. Goodnight sleep tight don’t let the bedabugs bite to Lexi
7. Do you know what sounds fun, swimming in Stephanie and Justin’s pool!
Seven celebrity crushes
1. Tom Cruise (I don’t care what a certain someone (DH) thinks of him, I have always thought he was the best)
2. Toby Keith (He is so rugged)
3. Richard Gere (Love the grey hair)
4. John Travolta (I loved Grease)
5. Kenney Chesney (He is the cats meow)
6. Tim McGraw (Enough said)
7. Mel Gibson (He is just hot)
Seven people I want to do this
1. Bill
2. Stephanie
3. Justin
4. Gabe
5. Danielle
6. Billy
7. Matt
3 commentsSeptember 7th, 2005 at 11:48amPosted by Kathy
“ Whats the point of going out, were just going to end up back here anyway?
“
