This Should Work

Funny how memories come back. A friends recent post and a conversation with my wife about kids and guns reminded me of Boy Scout summer camp. One memory in particular involving star gazing, sleeping bags, ghost stories, and running faster than Michael Johnson.

As part of earning an Astronomy merit badge, the Astronmy teachers took us on a night hike to the different stars and constellations. There were probably about 15 of us this “night hike” in which we were supposed to bring a sleeping bag, a flash light, and our Astronomy merit badge book. When we reached a site far enough away from camp that we could clearly see the stars, we setup camp for the night.

We tried to pay attention as the leaders, but it was hard- we spent more times cracking jokes and trying not to laugh too loud- and the leaders didn’t do a good job of pointing things out( it was kinda like ’see that star. No not that one, that one. No over a little more, too far…).

ANYWAYS, at some point I/we fell asleep in our sleeping bags. Sometime in the early morning, I awoke needing to go to the bathroom and realized that I had somehow slid down a hill into a shallow valley. I said “Hey guys, I think I slid down the this hill and… Guys?…Guys?” There was no one in sight.

It’s at this moment that all those stupid ghost stories we told each other over campfire stopped being stupid and started to feel real. The madman who broke out of the asylum, I felt his presence; the dude who was looking to replace his right hand by cutting off someone elses, I was sure he was out there with me. And what’s that…are those howling wolves?!

I threw everything I brought with me into my sleeping bag, slung it over my shoulder and ran as fast as I’ve ran in my life. I’m pretty sure that I would have beat Carl Lewis had we been racing back to camp, even with the sleeping bag.

As I approaching our campsite I suddenly remembered why I got up in the first place- to go to the bathroom! But I couldn’ stop running, not until I felt safe. So I held it until I got close enough to camp to feel like the wolves, the madman, and the dude with one hand were not going to get me (or if they did, my troops would hear my screams). As I’m stood behind a tree taking care of business, I noticed that there was still a fire burning in our camp. Soon two of my fellow scouts (one of whom was KOM) emerged from near the fire. “Hey guys” I said.

“Carter?” They replied.

“Hey, I guess I fell asleep and slid into a ditch” I said, now heading into my tent to go back to sleep.

“Holy Crap, we thought you were came back with the rest of us.”

Once I awoke, I got the rest of the story: Apparently the Scout leaders woke everyone (except me) and lined up all the scouts to hike back to camp at 3am. My friends look around for me, but figured I was just somewhere else in the line scouts.

In the end, I got away with little emotional scarring and returned to camp the next year-mainly because my parnets forced me to go.

Once my work moved into a bigger space it won’t be this way, but for now all of our supplies (medical, computer, office) reside in one room. A room that I thought I knew pretty well, until today.

I needed to change out a color printer cartridge for one of our office printers and went into the storage room to grab the needed cartridge. The light in the storage room wasn’t on, and because the open door gave me enough light I didn’t bother to flip the switch. As I’m reaching into this box to pull out the cartridge, a doctor pops his head in asks if I need the light on. “Nope” I say and hold up the printer cartridge “I’ve got what I need.” OK, the doctor says and moves on.

I take a shortcut through the GYN clinic waiting room to get back to the office printer only to find out that what I have picked up is a Gards Maxi Pad and not a blue color ink cartridge! So I quickly cut through the GYN clinic waiting room again- this time with the box tucked in my pocket so no one would see- and turn on the lights in the storage room for a closer look. Yep, right next to the printer cartridges are Maxi Pads and Tampax.

Next time, I’m turning on the light.

That’s what I heard in the restroom yesterday as I washing my hands. And just before I walked out I heard the cellphone crack against the porcelain of the urinal then fall to floor.

Part of me wanted to stick around to see if the guy would stop doing his business and pick it up, part of me wanted it to fall into the urinal and ruin his phone. I didn’t stick around long enough to find out what the guy would do.

While some may see this little anecdote as excellent reason for getting a bluetooth headset for a cellphone, I see it as an opportunity for using one of these phrases:

• “Let me call you back in minute, I gotta use the bathroom”
• “”Hold on for sec, I’m putting my phone down…No I’m not putting you on speaker.”

It seems to me only courtesous to the person on the other side of one’s conversation. I’m not sure one wants to here anothers bowel movements.

image from inmagine.com

I was sitting on my couch watch the NCAA Tournament on my HDTV- it was Duke vs. Southern. The game’s pretty close, so I wanted to watch it in the basement while I folded laundry.

I went downstairs to watch the on our old TV only to find it was a different game! Indiana vs. San Diego State! I thought about bring the laundry upstairs and folding it in front of the big screen, but that seemed kinda ridiculous.

I thought all the games were broadcast in HD, but I guess it’s still too expensive to have 63 different HD broadcasts at one time.

[tags]NCAA, Tournament, HD broadcast, HDTV, CBS[/tags]

PC games used to include something called a Boss Key. A Boss Key is a key or key combination that changes the video game screen to something that looks like a spreadsheet or document, basically making it look like you were doing something other than screwing off at work.

Well the NCAA Tournament and CBS have brought the Boss Key back this week. CBS is webcasting the first two rounds of the Mens Tournament for free! Of course this means folks like myself and many others will be watching the games on our computers at work. So CBS has created a Boss Key! It’s very old school and very cool.

The Boss Button is last on the menu. Clicking it reveals this

My favorite part of the spreadsheet is “5- Remember, cheering in the office gives you away”

[tags]NCAA, Tournament, CBS, Webcast, Boss Key, Boss Button[/tags]

There was a buzz around the office that the local Starbucks that they would be giving away free coffee. Of course I heard about this after I purchased my coffee, but I thought ‘another cup of coffee won’t hurt.’

So when I heard from others in the office that Starbucks started handing out free coffee, I left my office to get my free cup of coffee. I’m waiting in line listening to doctors and nurses coordinate on cell phones with their colleagues “No, you have to be here in order to get the free coffee- they won’t give me two cups. Just get down here before they’re out!”

I didn’t really understand why Starbucks was giving away free coffee, afterall this one is always busy. So when I got up to the fromt of the line I asked them what this was all about.

“I don’t know,” the woman replied “something about National Coffee Day. I guess every Starbucks is giving away free coffee for two hours or something.”

She handed me the coffee and said “have a good Coffee Day.” Who knew that even coffee has it’s own special day for celebration? Either way I got a free cup of coffee out of it. Happy Coffee Day!

“Do you think a car can go 75 miles on one gallon of gas?”

This was a question that my wife and I were asked last night while waiting to re-order a matress in Sears. The woman asking this question was pretty frantic and looked very desperate, so I tried not to look at her and say ‘Are you Crazy?’ but I couldn’t help but wonder if Ashton Kucher was hiding somewhere with a camera.

She starts to tell us about her car problems and the more she says, the more I’m thinking ‘Um, maybe you just need a jump start if you’re tank reads half-full’ at the same time I don’t want her to think I’m one of the guys from Car Talk so I keep my mouth closed. But she keeps talking about how she has no money because she left her purse at home, and she’s gotta get home to her mom, and her cars making a noise when she does this and…and finally the sales woman chimes in with “Mall Security can probably help you more than us.”

Poor girl, I hope she made it home.

Earlier today I was at the Toyota Dealership getting some work done on my car. I’m walking around looking at cars and come to the Prius. Now here’s a car that girl could have used yesterday; a car that gets 60 miles to the gallon (allegedly) , she would then be only 15 miles from home!

I don’t know which is worse:

• feeling so desperate that the idea of a car going 75 miles on one gallon seems plausible, but let me just ask these two strangers first, or
• That the most fuel efficent car in the US gets only 60 miles to the gallon in perfect conditions (and that’s in the city. On the Highway it’s 51 miles).

And while I would like to see more fuel efficent hybrid cars, I’d settle for hybrids that are not egg shaped. How about designing a car gets great mileage and looks good instead of stuff like this:

In an effort to help me remember how I solve certain computer problems and share some solutions with others, I started another blog. You may think I have too much time on my hands (and you may be right), but I find this a good way to keep a log of what I’ve done to solve problems.

The URL is http://www.thisshouldwork.net/tech.

It is really tech focused, so if titles like Using NetBios over TCP/IP and LMHost files to eliminate NetBEUI overhead mean nothing to you, then you may want to skip it. But if you think it sounds interesting, check it out. These solutions worked for me and hopefully they’ll help you out. Also if you’ve got any ideas or solutions that have worked for you, I’d love to hear about it.

It’s an ugly site right now, but maybe in the next couple weeks I’ll make it look pretty.

[tags]Tech Support, Tech Solutions, Tech Should Work[/tags]

Even though Apple announced a new Mac Mini with an Intel processor, Front Row and remote, I’m still in love with the one I bought right before the announcement. I’ve tried not to read every review and blog article about the new mini, but I couldn’t help it- I wanted to see just how much I was missing.

And while I may miss the speed of the Intel processor, here are the things included on the new Mac Mini that I can live without:

• Gigabit Ethernet port: This allows the mini to travel the network 10 times faster than usually, but only if you have the correct equipment. I don’t own networking gear that can travel that fast, and I’m connecting to the network wireless. So no use for me on this one.
• Front Row with Remote: After doing some research on the web, I’ve found a way to put Front Row on my Mac Mini (it’s not just a straight install). As for the remote, I have a wireless keyboard and mouse that I use from the couch; and if I want something smaller, I can download a free program like Romeo and use any Bluetooth device as a remote.
• Larger and Faster Harddrive: While a faster harddrive would be nice, I don’t need anymore space (at least not right now). I’ve placed most of my music collection on the Mini and I still have about 70 Gigabytes left.
• Two Extra USB Ports: I’m not using the ones I have now, why would I need more?
• Digital Audio Jack: Great for movie to give you the best surrond sound, but I’m just playing my music from my mini into my stereo.

When it’s all said and done I also saved about $250 by buying the older one, which will do everything I need it to and more.

[tags]Mac, Mac Mini, Intel, Front Row[/tags]

I’ve been playing around with a couple of different programs to get my iListento… page back up and running. Before I was using iTunesblogger on my PC with a Wordpress Plugin and it worked flawlessly.

Now that I’ve moved all my music over to the Mac it’s a little harder to find things that will work. One solution that I’ve found is last.fm. They have a really easy plug-in for iTunes and a really simple file to add to your blog that basically does the same thing. But I was looking for something with a little more flexibility.

Currently I’m trying iTunesSpy which works sometimes, but the program that runs on my Mac sometimes gets hung up. Also I’m playing around with formatting the albums and tracks into a nice grid. You can still see what I’ve been listening to, it’s just not as pretty as before.

[tags]iTunes, iTunesSpy, Music[/tags]