June 2005 Archives

I found a new widget that I love on the Apple site: Gas. So here's the basics on Gas:

This widget displays the lowest gas price where you live. Simply enter your US zip code and presto!

• Displays Regular, Premium, Plus, and Diesel
• Shows station logo and address
• Remembers your preferences
• Goes to Google Maps for directions to the station
• Tells when the prices were last updated

It's pretty clever, cool, and practical. In fact, I just found a station that's 30 cents below the average price I've been paying for gas. I'll check them out soon!

I hate it when I don't get to the gym; it makes me feel fat! But I did get a lot done on the web side of my world--yes, once again working for work on my vacation.

I even dabbled with my first encounter with XML and RSS 2.0! Pretty cool stuff. I think it's all working well. I even made a little template for publishing podcasts to the iTunes store. Now if Apple would just get that feature up and working!!

Tired. Sleepy. Going to bed early tonight!

Have you downloaded iTunes 4.9 yet? It has very nice implementation of podcasting subscriptions. I've already started my subscription list! I do have a suggestion though: when one subscribes, one should not be taken to the download and be forced to return to the subscription list to continue reviewing other available podcasts.

So now, naturally, I am pondering how to use this for the parents, students, and teachers at my school...

I'm supposedly on vacation, yet I am spending many hours every day working for work! Today I even went in for a meeting at the central office! But here's the good part. I got to see Carole. We worked together for several years, now, many years ago. I just love her. She's such a wonderful person. I am amazed by the sheer force of her will: she is a cancer survivor--throat cancer, though she never smoked a day in her life.

One day she noticed a tiny spot on her throat. Several doctor's visits later in which they told her it was nothing, she demanded a biopsy. The radiation treatments saved her life but severely damaged her throat. Here, two years later she produces no saliva and still finds eating extremely difficult, even after the doctors stretched the width of her poor radiated esophagus.

But she looks incredible, having returned to her normal body weight. In fact, I was stunned. She asked about my mother, "How old is your mom now?" She's 69. Carole said that she's 65, just four years younger than my mom. Unbelievable! She doesn't look a day over 40!

And she has the gene pool that will live forever too. Her father, who lives with her and her husband, is 105! She said he's a little forgetful and doesn't eat as much as he did but is doing well for 105. My god! How would anyone know?! I don't have any point of comparison!

Here's to an inspiring human soul, my friend, Carole!

I can't possibly workout on a regular basis unless I am listening to really great music, reading and listening to music for mass consumption, or just listening to an audiobook. I can't stand to watch television. It's just so wretched in so many ways, but I'll not get on that soap box!

I've become totally frustrated with my earbuds to my iPod. I have those little squishy kind that fit comfortably into the ear canal. (The ones that came with my original iPod, which I gave to the sistoid unit, were way too uncomfortable for my ears.) But the squishy ones, while comfortable, only deliver authentic bass response for about the first 5 seconds I press them into my ear canal. I suspect that the bass sound-waves actually push them slightly back reducing the delivery of low frequencies into the ear canal.

Today I bought a pair of ultimate ears--their super.fi 5 pro series. These guys are serious about earbud music reproduction and will even custom-make a set to fit perfectly in just your ears! Well, I read about several brands and decided on these. I am trying not to think about how much I paid for them!

But good lord! I am very pleased with the fidelity, comfort, acoustic spectrum, clarity of sound reproduction, spacial dimensionality (is that a word?) and bass response. I am not one of these pump-up-the-bass people, but I do enjoy accurate resonant bass performance. Additionally, the earbuds effectively block out about 98% of all ambient room sound in the gym! With music playing at a moderately low level I can hear nothing but the music to which I am listening! They remain comfortably placed in my ears with consistent bass delivery.

I like them! Listening to Il Divo today, I could hear nuances in the music completely lost to the previous earbuds--the gritty pluck of a string bass and the ambient split second fizzling fade of a high hat! The spacial spectrum of the music is just spectacular. Getting lost in the rush of endorphins and great, all-encompassing music--there's nothing better! (And my god! Nella Fantasia is without any doubt absolutely one of the greatest melodies, emotionally expansive, resonant yet ethereal, of the last century, even if it was written for a movie soundtrack!

Ennio Morricone's Academy Award-nominated score captures the conflict between 18th-century Jesuit missionaries trying to convert the native Indians, and the slavers who want to destroy them. In keeping with the serious subject matter and epic scope of Roland Joffé's film, the score is by turns grave, lyrical, and tense. Ever inventive, Morricone mixes liturgical chorales, native drumming, and Spanish-influenced guitars, often in the very same track, to capture the drama of the culture clash. His trademark lyricism also comes through, notably in the beautiful themes for "Gabriel's Oboe" and "The Mission." Not as over-the-top as his well-known spaghetti Western scores, The Mission shows Morricone at his dramatic best. --Heidi MacDonald

And the story of the movie was deeply moving--one of Robert De Niro's greatest performances.)

At first I was sort of glad, happy, even perhaps a bit smug: Today I am wearing a blue Polo pullover shirt that I've had for 21 years. I can still fit into it! This is no small feat for someone who has gained and lost a lot of weight over the past 21 years.

But then I started thinking: 21 years! Twenty-one years have passed since I first bought this shirt. What have I accomplished in those 21 years? What goals have I met? Now I'm all depressed! There are just so many things on my to-do list that have not been done. Many haven't even been started!

Twenty-one years ago I interviewed for a job as a music director at a church. We went through my resume as part of the interview. I recall one of the people serving on the interview committee saying to me incredulously, "It's hard to believe that someone your age has done all of these things!" Yet, I had, and many other accomplishments that were not listed on the resume.

Twenty-one years later, it's a different story! Damn, I need to get busy!

The work site makes its official debut. Check it out.

Here on my personal blog I use an older version of Movable Type (v. 2.6x), the blogging software that "runs" this place. I've been using Movable Type 3.x for all of the work I do for school. I've discovered a little-documented feature in 3 that is fantastic: linked template files.

You can type in an appropriate URL and file name in this field on the templates page for an individual template and then use your text editor to edit the file. Editing in a text editor is radically easier than using the tiny web form window. What makes it really scream is using the same template structure for multiple blogs, as I do on the work site. In this way, I only have to edit one place and it impacts every file on the entire site that uses that template!--sort of like css!!

The term "scaredy cat" would not apply!

Talk about your bad hair day!

This is just cute!

I normally hate getting those "this-is-so-cute/funny" or whatever blanket emails that I routinely dump from my mailbox without ever opening. But I received a collection of cute animal pictures in just such an email. I will share them over the next few days.

Am I just now learning this? Has it always been there? Am I the only one that would even care? These are the questions that perplex me.

Of what am I speaking you ask? If you hold down the option key and click on a link, Safari downloads the linked file--immediately, no questions asked, just poof!

This is as exciting as breath itself! I've saved a great deal of time in the past 24 hours with this little shortcut as I have had to download hundreds and hundreds of files that I can not get to with my FTP client--a sadness that deeply wounded me.

Hmm, you don't seem to care... :o)

Tonight I saw this bumper sticker:

One Nation
Under Educated

I saw this on the Apple website as a cool widget for 10.4. It really is. Buzztracker is a map of the earth with hotspots graphically so indicated. Even if you don't have the widget, you can check out the website to see the data. The more news stories related to an area, the more intensely the hotspot "glows." The widget is just more accessible and convenient.

I was sitting in Starbucks feverishly working away this evening on the new school web presence I am developing. I love those T-mobile hotspots!

This guy came in, sat behind me, and began talking on a cell phone. He was virtually arguing rather heatedly with the other person. I was becoming increasingly annoyed as he was laboriously going over and over the same things. If I had been the person on the other end of the call, I would have long since hung up.

His comments were grandiose, overstated, and indicative of a highly inflated sense of importance. He was angry that the person with whom he spoke had wrongly presumed to set policy in a meeting with civil rights leaders thus exceeding the authority he had been granted. He belabored his displeasure and admonitions.

After about a half hour of this never-ending phone call, the man relocated in the coffee shop and now sat directly across from me where I could see him. I had not turned around to look at him when he was behind me as I was trying to stay focused and productive.

Much to my shock, he was not on the phone at all. While seated in front of me, he began another vigorous conversation with an imaginary person. I thought that he perhaps had a tiny wireless bluetooth headset for his cell phone. No, he was having yet another conversation with no one.

This conversation was on a completely different topic. He would gesture to the imaginary person, lean forward speaking in greater earnest, pause as if the person were replying to him and then respond to the imaginary reply, he even looked directly into the imaginary person's eyes as if in an attempt to discern some true or deeper meaning as he spoke.

At this point, I was becoming very annoyed by him. He was talking a little bit too loudly for me to tune him out. So, out came the iPod headphones, which I plugged into my laptop and cranked up the volume. I could now easily ignore the poor man.

This was very sad. After about an hour, he left. Who takes care of this man? What caused his problem? What exactly was his problem? He was rather educated in that his vocabulary was sophisticated and was at times highly specialized: medicine, military operations, and the civil rights movement.

Sad indeed.

HELP! I need HELP! I think the tribal gods are all upset with me somehow!

As it turns out, my little knife incident last Sunday night slightly cut my arm. (Read my post about how the bad karma all started.) I didn't discover it until Monday morning when I took my shower.

Monday evening, at the gym, I got off of the elliptical, and while turning around while getting off, banged the very devil himself out of my shin. Tuesday morning I notice a large, stinging, deep scrape and bruise on my shin.

Tuesday night (or more accurately Wednesday morning at 5:30AM) I had a seriously low blood sugar. En-route to the kitchen, stumbling through my dark home office, I slammed my little toe against the desk chair. It hurt like hell! I am certain that I broke it. The slightest suggestion of any pressure within 20 yards of the swollen toe is excruciating! I can barely walk on the foot. Seldom has something so little hurt so big.

What have I done to madden the deities? Is there some sort of naked dance my readers need to start doing to protect me from these horrid evil spirits?! I need someone to do something to rid this bad karma!

I am stunned and excited by the announcement today that Apple is teaming up with Intel and will begin using Intel microprocessors and architecture to drive their OS and apps!

This could change everything! The implications are huge.

I've mentioned before how much I enjoyed, quite unexpectedly, the widgets in OS 10.4 (Tiger). Well, some new ones have come out. I especially like Backpacker.

I want this guy's job. He travels to amazing locations and takes 360º panoramic pictures which he makes available for the whole world to view through QuickTime's Virtual Reality (QTVR), 372 of them to date.

So what is a QTVR? Simply put, a QTVR is a picture that goes all the way around where you are standing. It is as if you were standing in one spot and rotating around (360º) while looking straight ahead. Using the computer, you can even zoom in and out to see things closer or from a greater distance. In some, you can also “look up” and “look down” by manipulating the computer keyboard.

His web site, Long Fingers, is located at this link. You can also link up to his QTVRs through 2 RSS feeds!

Very nice!

I have used the CVS pharmacy for many years now (seven-ish). Like half of America, I have routine medications that I procure monthly. I have to say that in all of these years, I can count on one hand the number of times I have had my medication refilled at CVS without any problems, and that's no exaggeration at all! In my opinion, CVS is the worst pharmacy on the planet. Virtually every time I'd go, I'd swear I would never use them again. But, because they're so close to my house and have such convenient hours (24/7), I returned time after time.

Last Friday was the final “straw that broke the camel's back.” I called the pharmacy at six o'clock in the morning to make sure they would have my insulin ready for me when I stopped by on my way to work. As is ever so typical, they did not have it in stock. I cannot be the only diabetic that uses this type of insulin that does business with this CVS. It's just way too common!

They were unwilling to find out if another CVS stocked the insulin. When I called the next-closest CVS pharmacy, they too did not have it in stock. I would be without insulin for days.

On Saturday, I went to the Walgreens nearest me. I explained my frustration to the pharmacist. I asked him if he could do a better job than CVS has done all of these years. He assured me that they would.

Not only did they have my insulin in stock, (He stated that many people use this type of insulin so they stock it regularly.) he was friendly, called me by name (which I found shocking because CVS never did), and made every effort to work with my former pharmacy, me, and my doctor (a prescription had lapsed--CVS would rarely call the doctor to renew a prescription for me). Later that afternoon, the pharmacist called me to assure me that my medications had all been successfully transferred to Walgreens.

Suffice it to say, in all the years I've worked with CVS, they never called me. I anticipate having a much more productive patient/pharmacist relationship with Walgreens than I have had with CVS. But then, things just couldn't be any worse.

Sometimes life just has a strange energy. Tonight at dinner, I proved to be a danger to myself and others. When I finished giving myself my insulin injection, somehow I lost control of the syringe. In the process of flailing about trying to catch the syringe in the air, I stabbed myself in the hand. Before the incident was over and all flying objects at rest, the needle was completely bent and the syringe rested on the floor.

About 30 minutes later, while attempting to cut my steak with a knife, somehow I lost control of the knife. It went flying through the air and landed about five feet from the table. Fortunately, no one was in the path of the flying knife. I still have no idea how any of this happened.

I am not much of a party-goer. In fact, truth be told, I hate them. But I was forced to go to this one. I'm no sure actually how, but somehow, in a delirious moment of lapse, I agreed to go. I would guess there were maybe 35 - 50 people at the party.

Now, I'm glad I went, actually. Not only did the host have a garden, the product of many years of hard work and love, that was the most beautiful home garden I've ever seen, (I even got a tour.), but I got to meet several people about whom I've heard a great deal over time.

I've been reading:

“Blink : The Power of Thinking Without Thinking” (Malcolm Gladwell)

Malcolm is right. In a very short observation, we can take in a massive amount of accurate information if we will just pay attention. In fact, my doctorate was closely related to micro-analysis; so, I know a little bit about this.

All this to say, in very little time at all I knew I had met 2 amazing human souls--a man and a woman (not a couple, though they know each other because they run in downtown Atlanta every work day at noon) who were people of depth and the wisdom of life experiences well-attended.

In virtually the blink of an eye, you know when you have bumped in to an unusually good soul. I love it when that happens.

I've been delinquent in posting a photo album of my recent New York City trip. I promise to do one, as I took over 300 pictures in my brief visit there. I haven't even made an iPhoto book yet of the trip, though I've started it. Hopefully the pictures I posted while in the Big Apple will give you a taste of things to come.

And now for the excuses:
I've been incredibly busy building a new web presence for my school--hence my posting to my personal blog has suffered, and my house has been an absolute wreck--until this weekend that is! The new web site for work will be pretty cool when all is said and done. The site will appear to be a web page, but the back end will all be driven by blogs.

It's pretty outrageous, if I say so myself. When it's nearer completion, I'll share the new link. I've purchased a domain name, related to the school's name, for the site, and done all of the server work myself: installing the blogging system, setting up the MySQL databases, rewriting the code in all of the template files, setting up all of the blogs that will run the front end, and setting up the individual teacher blogs. It's been a huge learning experience, which of course, I love (when I'm not cursing at it!). :o)

Everyone can now relax. The re-repaired lamp, which I clutched to my bosom all the way back to my office, now rests safely on the end table by my office sofa. Aaron was very nice. For this second repair, he charged me just a fraction of what I paid to have the lamp initially repaired. The lamp is pictured here in my office at home awaiting the terrifying pilgrimage to work!

I mentioned I had the lamp in my office repaired. One couldn't tell at all that the lamp had ever been damaged. I took my lamp to the office this morning. On the way in to the office, on the last turn into the parking lot, the lamp, which had been carefully wedged between the front and back seats of Big Bird, my car, slid over and broke in the same spot!

I was beside myself!

So was Aaron when I took it back to him. He had that look on his face, you know, the “I can't believe my customer is such an idiot” look. But he was ever so gracious.

May was another banner month. I had 2,388 unique visitors, excluding robots, visit 3,354 times hitting 10,009 pages 74,268 times and using 1.2 gigabytes of bandwidth--a record high.

A new search string, Il Divo, hit my site 10 times this month. (Again, I highly recommend their music!)

And, for some inexplicable reason, I've had a surge in visitors from Spain this month--866 hits! ¡hola, y recepción a mi Web site! ¡Espero que usted goce el leer de mi blog!

Keep reading and sharing your emails. I find it fascinating when I get emails from people I don't know who say they read my site regularly.