Category: Personal

My favorite posts from this week.

Tariq Ahmed from Flexcoders linked to the this MXDJ Article about The Voices of the Community, where they asked a bunch of homeskillets industry related questions. Answers are interesting; more interesting when compared. I’m on page 1; pimp!

If you are going to raise livestock, I’d prefer Alpacas so you can saturate the knitting market with Alpaca fur, and thus lower the price of it’s fur. I have Alpaca thread coming out of the woodwork in this house because of my wife’s yarn obsession. I balled out laughing reading this post by Dynamic Flash, not just because of the text-book example of bad UI design, but the suggested career change for someone unsuccessful in the web design world just seemed… well, a 180 with a z-index. Anyway, I’ve never heard of meat goats, and I’m glad I did; now I have a random, weird statement to issue forth in times of frustration! Moo goo gai pan was getting old anyway.

Viewing the 1st video from Playfool’s post, I learned Goth’s could dance; I had no idea! Every 90’s movie I saw growing up had them head banging, and the paid goth dancers that dance on the platforms at clubs aren’t real goths. Anyway, some really really phat moves. Apparently, even Voltron can break it down; can you imagine the event model it took to code that shiz? Awesome…

Finally, making al Qaeda happy and then having them rave… dude (er, so, sorry JD) off the chain, yo!

Been up in Canada for the past week with no computer, nor internet access, celebrating my 1 year anniversary with her majesty. We hit Nova Scotia for a couple of days, then explored Prince Edward’s Island, and finally, came back to Halifax on the last day. It was a great trip, and I was only stressed when I checked voice mail; I should of sent better preparation emails to those who needed to know, and just left my phone at home.

We did and saw a lot, so to be brief, my 2 favorite things we did were hiking Cape Split, a 5 hour, 14 kilometer (8.6 mile) rugged trail. The second was visiting the Dutchman’s Cheese Farm; you could hike, play a game, and feed animals. Nice guy, too.

Things I found interesting about Nova Scotia:

• No chains; food establishments and hotels were ALL mom and pop affairs. The few we did find were few and far between, not expected like America.
• Canadians on NS have a different idea of distance than an American Southerner. “Just down the road” to me is a 2 to 8 minutes drive, whereas there it was 20 to 30.
• Sign placement in both Nova Scotia and Price Edward’s Island is f00ked; exit signs on highways are either 2 exits up, giving a “oh, it must be the next exit” impression, whereas it is merely giving you REALLY advanced notice. On the flip side, some road # signs are about 30 feet from your turn; my advice, either drive really slow or get used to turning around. We had a PT Cruisier convertible which doesn’t have a very impressive turning radius, but we managed.
• There are a lot of versions of exits. It’s not just Exit 5, Exit 6, Exit 7, but Exit 5A, 5B, 5C, and 5D…
• A nice thing about the roads, however, is that there are a lot of them. Most traffic in Georgia for instance sucks because you have a pretty linear travel path to and from the city, whereas in NS, you have a myraid of roads, reducing overall traffic, and giving you lots of options to get places.
• My scallops on the grill taste better than the Lobster Pound’s
• Finding dark beer was hard; my version of dark is Guiness, Bass, and Killians. Their Clancy’s was pretty good, and you can always get away with a Boddington’s if you want something light, but thicker tasting. The rest; Keith’s Red and Lablanc’s Blue tasted too light for my pallete.
• Country patronage and pride was abound. It reminded me of post-911 here in the states where American flags were everywhere. Every other farmhouse had a Canada flag, people had them all over their clothing to hat brims, belts, backpacks, etc. Apparently they are really proud of their country.
• Drivers in Nova Scotia are nicer than Atlanta. Here, it’s a rat race.
• Gas prices in Nova Scotia suck, and I thought they were bad here; almost $100 Canadian to fill up the tank.
• You have to ask locals where to eat since there aren’t many chains, and apparently it’s hit or miss.
• It was interesting to see Canadian Red Cross donations at gas stations for hurricane Katrina damage. Come to find out the Acadians who were exiled by the British went to New Orleans to become the Cajuns.
• It was neat to see full service gas stations; while I’m fully capable of pumping my own gas thank you, it was neat to see they still had that.
• Tim Horton’s coffee sucked; I’ll stick to my gas station waterey nastiness which I find tastes great.
• Like Australia, Canadian news showed more World News too; it would switch with the BBC, which was really nice. Typically, world events don’t get much coverage here in the US on TV, whereas in both Australia and Canada, watching news on the TV was neat because you could see what was happening all over the world. I wish the US news would do that.
• Make sure your map is up to date. 1 out of 14 people gave directions which were not up to our specific expectations.
• Nova Scotia rocks, Prince Edward’s Island is touristy, but has some nice parts.
• Both islands are so frikin’ beautiful. The insane tides are really cool to see too.
• There isn’t as much boat traffic as there is in the Chesapeake Bay, Maryland; I reckon it’s because of the tide, and since the bay is more commercialized whereas Nova Scotia’s more farming.

I’ve exceeded my quota for the month, but 80% of my photos are up that I took with my Nokia 6680 at Flickr. I’ll upload the rest in 2 weeks.

No petrol. Katrina had shutdown enough oil refineries here in the southern states to knock out 10% of our gas supply. I read on a CNN sub-title today that a few are back in production. I saw $3.09 at a small local gas station, and laughed, remembering just last week it was $2.69, and remember dreading the news her majesty said about it reaching $3.00 by the end of the year.

I was going to be snobbish, and refuse to pay, but now apparently I can’t; there is none. 2 west coasters had emailed me asking if I was ok. Yeah, I’m fine. Georgia’s fine. Not sure what TV show people had seen, but the hurricane missed us; the only thing we got were heavy thunderstorms, lots of rain, and high winds. We get that every 10 minutes, that’s why everything’s green here, so no worries.

Her majesty and I had the flu since last Thursday, and only yesterday have we felt good enough to leave the house.

However, the gas thing was weird. First, there were “rumors” of a gas shortage, and some quotes on the AJC that people were running out of gas near the perimeter (the highway that loops around Atlanta). Apparently, it was later a false rumor. Now, it’s a self-fullfilling prophecy; even as far north as I am, gas stations at the end of the day were taking down their signs and numbers.

Sushi & Mexican are 5 miles from my house, so we don’t use any gas going there yesterday and today, but for work, it’s different. Her majesty’s boss didn’t go yesterday, instead working from home. I think a lot of other people are following suit. Crazy waterfall effect on Atlanta.

Imagine that; the first time there is no traffic on Atlanta highways, no one can see it! At least the people that have to deal with it, anyway…

Me? Well, I’m unemployed, so no where to go anytime soon anyway… cept’ to see the Transporter 2 tomorrow; got half-a-tank, so we’re good to go!

Besides, I’m a geek, internet works just fine.

Still, my heart and prayers go out to those affected by Katrina’s deadly wake. If the terrorists attack, it’s now confirmed it’s every man for himself in the aftermath… at least until 5 business days. Her majesty and I discussed over dinner the quantities of water, canned goods, and ammunition we could stash to survive stationary, as well as exit stategies in case of a nuclear/biological attack far enough away from the fallout; any excuse to go camping.

Here are some pictures of the local grocery store’s gas station closed, and my favorite local corner store with closed gas pumps. Parents talked about stuff like this happening before I was born, naturally assuming it’d never happen in my lifetime.

Tim Price

Quote from his family’s statement:

“1LT Timothy E. Price, leader of the 3rd Platoon, 127th MP Company, was killed in action in Baghdad, Iraq, on Tuesday, Sept. 7, 2004. At the time of his death, Tim was attempting to secure a defensive perimeter around a disabled Army vehicle that had been struck by an IED (Improvised Explosive Device) and was in flames. Tim, who was 25, was serving his second tour of duty in the Baghdad area.”

My friend Derrick from high school, who broke the news to me 2 weeks ago after finding me by searching on the internet, said he was shot down by a sniper. During high school back in Richmond, Virginia, Tim and I were good friends. He was the only guy I knew more high strung than me, and he was always happy and upbeat. A lot of good memories.

I miss you, dude! My deepest condolences go out to Tim’s family and friends.