Happy Halloween

Ghouls and goblins out to play,
And witches come at end of day.
Ghostly patter of little feet,
And tiny cries of "Trick or Treat!"

Picture

Picture

Picture

Picture

Picture

Picture

Picture

PIcture

Or Not

If you're reading this, then the world did not end.  Hmmm....  How could a radio evangelist be wrong?

Eat, Drink, and Be Merry!

In case you haven't heard, Harold Camping, the fellow who predicted the end of the world last May, revised his prediction so that it ends today.  I guess this is goodbye or something.

Google Minus

Our company has a number of large locations around the country.  Due to the standardization of job titles by our Human Resources department, there are quite a few people with my job title or a job in my "job family" whom I've never met, and probably won't, given the first premise of this paragraph.

Yesterday, a fellow we'll call Brad Wood added me to his Google+ circles.  This concerns me somewhat.  I do not know Brad, and I'm pretty certain he doesn't know me.  When I read his Google+ profile, I discovered that he is pretty much my mirror universe counterpart.  He even has a goatee.

I think he went through our company directory and beplussed everyone in our job family.  He has something like 350 people in his circles, but only about 100 returned the "favor."

Postulate of a Day

Kind of like when I was in college, and finals week was the week where I NEEDED to rearrange my sock drawer, I find that the day before the first review of the roadmap is the day I need to tackle several other assignments.

I Want to SING

After a couple of years of slow going, our new crop of officers in the Corporate Choir is injecting some energy into the group.  One concern, though, is that introducing change to some of these long-time members is a task roughly as easy as pushing a garbage bag full of jelly up a hill.

It helps that all of the older women happen to like the young-middle-aged gay man.  I'm their Liberace or whatever.  Of course, the young-young gay man may come along and usurp me with his better hair and skinnier frame.

Erma Bombeck I Ain't

I'm finding it difficult to spin Son's escapades into fodder for a humor column.  I think I'd rather stick to the work humor.

Ye Olde Fest

GPop, Son, and I joined some friends at Ye Olde Renaissance Faire yesterday.  During the joust, our Lady Jessica was dehorsed twice.  The second time, she didn't get up for a while.  There was much disappointment and hope for her speedy recovery.

Demographic of One

I am sometimes a bit saddened by the idea that many of the teevee shows I like lose their luster when they devolve into sex comedies.

I've never THOUGHT of myself as a blue-nose.

Like Varicose Veins

One of my assignments is to do an IT Roadmap for some of our in-house applications.  This will supplement the Business Strategy Roadmap and the Marketing Roadmap. 

But wait, there's more!

These are to be living documents, updated on a cadence of...

Oy.

Terra Nova Predictions, part 2

Prediction 3:
The series will be canceled before they resolve many of the plot lines introduced in the first five episodes.

Ye Olde Time

We're planning a trip to the Renaissance Faire this weekend, but many of our fellow geeks are dropping out of the trip.  The best-laid schemes o' mice and men...

Olden Times

Tonight, Son and I spent some time poring over old computer games I'd collected in the nineties and naughties.  He was very interested in seeing if some of these old games could play on the laptops we have that are running 64-bit versions of Windows 7.  As you might have guessed, some of these games would not run out of the box.

It seems that in the old days of dial-up and proprietary frameworks for a lot of development, there were assumptions about file locations, library versions, and supporting program installations that game developers made that were not portable or sustainable.  It made me not miss the good old days at all.

Instant Messages of the Stars

Mary: yep. if we only knew then what we know now

GDad:  The human race would be walking among the stars.

Lazing

I think there's a difference between the act of sitting down while tired and the act of resting.

Meet the Baby

Many congratulations and best wishes to Baldo and Geekina McNerdy on their new son that they've adopted into the world.  The party today introduced the boy to friends and family.

Similar to the RoBet appellation for Mandy and Mr. Mandy's daughter, I've settled on Xandael for Alexander Michael.  Friends now know to work on the name combinations to make it harder to come up with these portmanteaus.

Foto Phriday - Product or Warning

Is this the name of the product or a warning about its contents?

Terra Nova Predictions

If you haven't watched Terra Nova, and you are planning to watch up through the third episode, read no further.  Otherwise...


Prediction 1:
Hunky guard - daughter's potential love interest - is the Sixer mole.  They said there was a mole, and there are only three non-main characters with any lines. 

Prediction 1a:
Guard will try to corrupt girl, but The Power of Love will make him turn back to the main colony.


Prediction 2:
The Sixers say that the commander knows about the carvings on the rock, because that's the only way he keeps in contact with his son.  This leads us to believe the son is out in the jungle.

The smart daughter also mentioned that the reason they know they're in a different timeline is because the future world sent back a probe that was never found.

The Sixers also said something to the effect of "Control the past (now) and control the future (2149, presumably).

I contend that the commander destroyed the probe's ability to broadcast to the future in the 150+ days when he was alone in the past so as to make the future THINK there was a separate timeline, and that he's writing on the stones to communicate with his son in the future, so his son will be able to wield immense power of some kind.

Howling at the Not-Moon

Baldo and Geekina have a dog named Daisy.  Daisy is pretty smart for a dog, but she's one of those dogs who barks a lot at things that interest her.  Recently, a hot air balloon company has enjoyed some success in Small Town, and Daisy believes that hot air balloons are there for her barking pleasure.  This is all well and good, except that when Neighboring Town started building a water tower, Daisy confused the tower with a hot air balloon and would bark at it whenever Baldo would drive past it with her in the car.

Favor? Sure!

Neighbor Rusty found a pickup truck that he wanted to buy.  It was only $700.  I'm not sure if that was OBO or not.  He asked if I could drive him "there" to pick it up.

I visited a county that I rarely enter.  Rusty claimed a 40-minute drive.  I forget that I drive the speed limit, and Rusty... does not.

And Out the Other

Tonight, we had a special dessert.  I picked up a can of Spotted Dick from the store and served it up, nice and hot.

On the Ground

These were in a corner on the sidewalk.  Notice the masking tape with the size on them.

The Cake is not a Lie

Wedding cake from the wedding of our neighbors' son.