How Do You Spell That?

Anyone who has kids has collected it. You know, the cheap toys that somehow always end up in your house even though you make the promise with your wife/husband/significant parakeet that it will never happen. No, you know your kids are better than collecting useless trinkets, unlike the common masses.

So six months later as you are literally shoveling the various happy meal/birthday present/"I-bought-it-with-my-money" crap out the door and into the garage to be hauled away into a landfill (and in the process pissing off a environmentalist...double points!), it's entirely understood that you might hear a variety of noises coming from the bag.

Today was no exception. Yesterday, during the first real day of spring the kids brought out all their usual toys and a few unusual ones. Somehow during last night's cleanup, we missed a few. So as any good parent would do on a cold rainy Monday monring, I sent the kids out to clean up what was left behind. (hey, it's cold out there!)After Tyler came back in with a variety of items (baseball glove, jump rope, small little electronic noisemaker), I told him to put the first two away in the garage and pitch the last one.

Fast forward about 20 minutes. I'm standing in the kitchen trying to get Hannah out the door when all of the sudden I'm flashbacked to college physics when several small bursts of static start raining through the room....

"Dammit, it's AlQueda, they blew up a nuke. You hear that? See it wasn't such a dumb idea to buy a geiger counter and leave it out in the kitchen on all the time for just this situation. Now everyone throw on the lead-lined clothing I bought last month and get the duct tape out."

Well, it didn't happen exactly that way. More along the lines of "What the heck is that noise?" and "Why is the garbage can radioactive?" (nope, no little one in the house yet and besides, the diaper pail is upstairs). A quick survey found a small electronic toy which apparently wasn't quite 100% waterproof. No, it was still functioning, but instead of a variety of noises that usually spout from it, we had flashbacks to "The Manhattan Project". Hannah looked at it rather dejected, but moved on in her usual way and left me to dispose of it.

Too bad I was the only one who thought Geiger Counter....would have been interesting to watch the kids dive for cover from the garbage can.

Posted by Brian at 12:40 PM | Permalink

So while enjoying a quiet Sunday afternoon, a group of protesters invaded Karl Rove's property.

If it was me, this would have been the conversation:

"Hello, Mr. and Mrs. Protestor. This is your official notice to leave my property at once. If you do not leave immediately, I will only assume that you are hear to hurt my family and my property. Be sure of this, my brand new shotgun and I will make sure that this does not occur. You have 20 seconds to leave the grounds. Please stay off the grass, and have a nice day."

Posted by Brian at 8:51 AM | Permalink

A hard drive enclosure that has firewire, USB, and ethernet built in and can act as a file server.

No, I'm not asking for much. :-)

Posted by Brian at 6:04 PM | Permalink

I've always tried to be a good person. I try to be considerate, to understand what people are going through, why people behave the way they do. While being empathic has helped me in my career, it has done crap when it comes to living in my neighborhood.

Here I am on a wonderful Sunday afternoon, the first one of hopefully many this year and I realize what a social outcast I've become. DeAnn and I have pretty much known that it would be tough to have friends up here since we don't do the usual things (drink, smoke, go to church, play in any sports, etc) so we really don't fit into the muppie set (mortgaged up to my pituitary gland types, of which thankfully we are not one of those).

But I look at my kids and with the exception of a couple, they are wonderful kide to be around. I get to listen into their conversations sometimes and to watch them defend the picked-on kid, be friendly to everyone, and just have fun without doing something totally stupid, dangerous, or evil is great to see.

But I guess I don't see it in me. I know everyone on this block, all the parents and the couples and we don't really talk to any of them. When I was a kid in Chicago, I knew all the neighbors. Some of them were really cool, others were older and just kept to themselves. Out here on snob hill, everyone talks to everyone else except us. We invite people over, but never hear back, strike up conversations but get dismissed with a parting wave. And the ones we do become friends with tend to part quickly because we are different (this we have been told by people on the outside who know our neighbors, we're the Weird Wohlgemuths).

I guess I'm venting this to the outside world since the insular one doesn't care. Maybe when the kids are gone DeAnn and I can seriously think of moving someplace nicer. Or maybe we'll lose the moniker. Don't take bets on either one......

Posted by Brian at 5:54 PM | Permalink

My Laptop, a late March afternoon, and 802.11b all from the back of my house. Pic to follow later....

Posted by Brian at 5:29 PM | Permalink

From CNN's Front Page:

Separately a Palestinian boy was killed early Saturday after Israeli forces entered the Balata refugee camp in the West Bank, Palestinian and Israeli military sources said.

But if you read the entire story....and you have to to get to this part at the absolute end of the post:

The commander of the Israeli forces returned to the camp in a jeep to retrieve his troops, the IDF said. As the Israelis were leaving the camp, a Palestinian with an AK-47 rifle fired at the vehicle, missing his target, the IDF said.

After driving away, the commander said, he heard screaming. He turned around to see a young boy being held by crying women and a man.

So basically, a Palestinian gunman opened fired on a Israeli jeep, missed, and hit a kid. And how is this the Israeli's fault???? Where's the security council condemnation for the damn jeeps not coming to a complete halt so they can be better targets for the Palestinians?

Update: Oops, the Palestinians can't really claim this is an Israeli plot....this time someone got it on tape.

Posted by Brian at 11:08 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

I had good plans for tonight. Tonight I was planning on going to see Sean Hannity talk downtown at the Scottish Rite, then maybe go see Jersey Girl at the uber movie-plex (I had free tickets for the first one).

Nope, guess who get paged at 15:17. Massive outage, chronic, icky, bad.

Not bitching, just a thought for those who think working from home is an absolute dream.

Update: So what did I do tonight? Spent five hours escalating a ticket with SBC and in between watched the new Looney Tunes movie with the kids. Thank God DeAnn only rented this movie... :-)

Posted by Brian at 4:42 PM | Permalink

So as I'm working today, my Internet connection went down again for the third time in two months. After resetting my computer, router, and finally radio to the tower; I called the ISP to ask them what's going on.

Me: Hi, this is Brian Wohlgemuth out here in Huntington. Are you guys having problems again?
Tech: Yeah, we noticed a huge spike in your bandwidth so we shut you off.
Me: Excuse me?
Tech: Yeah, we shut you down, thought you might have had a virus.
Me: Or it could have been that I was downloading a huge file that I need to print and sign and get out to UPS by noon.
Tech: Oh, well I guess it could have been that.
Me: And seeing as how I'm the guy who works on Global Networks all day long, has my machines firewalled to the gills, don't you think a phone call to me might have been more appropriate.
Tech: Umm, yeah, we'll try that next time.

Now I have to decide between SBC and Comcast...decisions, decisions.....

Posted by Brian at 11:29 AM | Permalink | Comments (3)

Of course, this is already illegal in the US under the Ashcroft Justice Department...

Update: Dean Esmay did some more digging on this and apparently the story left out that the guy that was being robbed was a drug dealer and he chased his robber several blocks before stabbing him. Quite a difference from what the story originally said...

Posted by Brian at 2:41 PM | Permalink

I've always been under the opinion that rss feeds are best viewed through e-mail/news clients. I open and close browser windows all day long, but Thunderbird remains open over 18 hours a day.

For months I've been using nntp/rss as a bastardized reader which gave me what I've wanted. Today there is something better. Forumzilla is an extension in Thunderbird. It frigging rocks. The only major problems I see is that there is zero control over polling and to add a blog to the list requires you to edit a txt file buried in the profile folder.

Posted by Brian at 10:14 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

From LGF:

Notice the picture

Now read the rest of the story

Posted by Brian at 12:56 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Yes, we are insane. Welcome to the family Nathan....

Posted by Brian at 11:21 AM | Permalink

Of Styx, at least.

I've always been a big Styx fan. But tonight while screwing around on the guitar, I happened to figure out the song Renegade. Four chords, grimace musically. So I went on to a few other songs (Blue Collar Man, Heavy Metal Poisoning, Fooling yourself) in about 20 minutes.

I don't think my guitar playing has improved that much, so I can gues that most of the original riffs on this were written in about 30 minutes. Stick with either D, F, or A minor and you have at least those four figured out.

Posted by Brian at 11:03 PM | Permalink

So as I was channel surfing tonight (after a rousing run at Jak and Daxter), I suddenly see Horatio Hornblower talking to a bad hologram of the Psychologist from Law & Order. Not something I expected to see...

Apparently this new show takes place about 35 years in the future when all sorts of new advances in genetics, and this show is about a law firm in that time. Imagine "LA Law" with really bad futuristic clothing or "The Practice" with holograms.

The big case tonight involved a guy who had cloned himself in Singapore years before, then did it again when his son/brother clone needed a liver transplant. Turns out the feds have a law against that, and arrested the guy and wanted to destroy the embryo. Of course since the States Attorney was going to lose either way ("You win the kid dies, you lose and you set precedent") so they settled and let the guy run off with his son/brother clone to get his liver fixed.

Either way, the show has an interesting premise (and using one of the guys from Stargate SG-1 was a nice touch) and might be worth watching again. Unfortunately, the show airs on regular TV and I can't Tivo it. Seeing as how it's just showing up in March, my guess is that CBS doesn't have any faith in the program and will pull it soon for "Survivor: Fort Wayne Nightlife".

Posted by Brian at 10:10 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

And this is rolling in....

Yes, that is snow.

Posted by Brian at 4:58 PM | Permalink

From Fark

Today the Caribbean, tomorrow the World!

Posted by Brian at 4:49 PM | Permalink

Say you come up with an idea of a service that would complement your company's services. Suppose they want nothing to do with it. What's the next step? Would it make money? It depends, it definitely would not complete with your company's services; in fact it would be see as a big bonus to new leads.

Guess I have to e-mail my boss and start up that tree....

Posted by Brian at 4:01 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

While down in Indy today for various events which will be blogged about as soon as final confirmations come around, I had a chance to stop by CompUSA and spend 30 minutes looking at the latest and greatest technology out there. After deciding that I'm going to wait for a Verizon Bluetooth phone (so I could then use the new Ipaq with Bluetooth and 802.11 which is compatible with my company's VPN), I decided to see Jason's new toy (the 23" Cinema Display).

Now, if I had $5k of extremely disposable income, I would most definitely put in the cash to buy that new G5 and the display. The whole box rocks, expect for the price tag. So after a couple of minutes of changing the song lists (from classical to anything with death metal in it), the CompUSA serf asks if I need help with anything.

Serf: So, can I help you.
Me: No thanks, I'm just wondering what crack Mr. Jobs is on to charge $2k for a monitor.
Serf: Let me guess, a Windows guy.
Me: Yeah....and....
Serf: Don't worry, you will have to pay just like the rest of the others...
Me: Rest of "the others"????
Serf: Yeah, when Mac takes over.
Me: Dude, does selling the Apple stuff give you access to the same crack Jobs gets? Seriously, what's the penetration rate for Apple? 3%? 5%?
Serf: Yeah, but it's at least a real OS.
Me: I guess it's not the right time to ask if you are salesman of the year....

Apple will never gain a single digits of market share until they:

#1. Either port OS X to the PC or drastically lower the price point of their machines. Anyone who read my venture into a Mac sees how even the power user can get frustrated and pissed off enough to swear off the boxes. Especially since I can buy a few 22"+ monitors for the price of one 23".

#2. Realize that pushing the OS X as the "real OS" and being arrogant about it will not cause people to switch. More likely, they will tell you to piss off.

Posted by Brian at 8:33 PM | Permalink | Comments (8)

Posted by Brian at 6:50 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

From TPM

This should send Derek and Jason into convulsions....

Posted by Brian at 3:41 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Today was the biggest repair expense that I've ever put into a car. But it was all preventative. Since the Honda turned 100k, I knew it was time to get the timing belt replaced along with the major flushing of the systems. Normally that would cost $500 by itself. But I was upsold into replacing the water pump and the primary engine seals (which also required them to check the valve clearence to make sure there wasn't any damage).

As I was leaving, I asked the guy what I could expect mileage wise out of this car.

"Oh with that Civic? Keep getting the major maintenances done and you can easily get 200k+"

I guess it's time for my car to go through it's mid-life crisis.

Posted by Brian at 10:53 PM | Permalink

Emily has officially turned the corner and become a sullen, grumpy teenager (not by age, that doesn't happen until August). This morning while driving her to school, she sat speechless and when it was time to get out it was "Bye Dad". This wouldn't be a big deal, except it's been happening for the past few weeks more and more often.

Into the abyss....

Posted by Brian at 9:37 AM | Permalink

Last night as I'm flipping through the channels, the Tivo popped up with TechTV. I used to watch ZDTV pretty often back when it first came on the air on DirecTV, but it fell out of my lineup when the shows started getting really old (same show aired eight times a day, for a week). It also had the distinct honor of hosting the worst interview of all time.

So tonight as I'm looking at my late night choices, there's a new show (at least new to me) called Unscrewed with Martin Sargent. Feeling bored and lacking any other choices of entertainment, I decide to watch it as I'm falling asleep.

To start with, they are going through vaious practical jokes to pull on your computer geek friends (like putting a smoke generating oil in your target's monitor, swapping keys on the keyboard, putting .bat shutdown files into the startup folder in Windows to cause a constant startup/reboot scenario, etc). It's obvious that their target audience are those from the ages of 12 to 21 which is interesting since the show airs at 11:30 EST. But the final thing that pushed this show out of the realms of techie crap was the Girls Gone Wired segment which showed soft-core porn with pixelization over the naughty bits.

Now WTF is the point of this show. I know that TechTV's rating are in the toilet, but resorting to soft core porn just makes this 32 year old geek want to watch it less (especially if there are little ones in the house). What's next, Leo and Patrick hacking a Tivo in loincloths?

Posted by Brian at 8:54 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Of which, mine is one of them. At least she's in training....

I've always had an idea of running for political office. Maybe it's the prestige, maybe it's a way of getting acceptance, or some other form of psychosis. I'll let the voters be the judge. :-)

While writing on this blog, there are many times where I really want to write about "controversial topic #387" and really rail into it. However since the Internet has a long memory, there have been many a time where I start to type in a long-winded mindless rant, save it, come back to it, and then promptly delete it because it's pointless and only inflammatory. I guess this does fall into a form of "self-censorship" since I am the censor and the audience I'm censoring from is the possible voters of Huntington County and Indiana as a whole.

I'm starting to pull things together for a run in 2006 for a vacant School Board seat. Right now it's just learning how to get my name out and not make myself look like a complete idiot. But at least I have the politically-savvy Mrs. right there with me.... :-)

Posted by Brian at 9:49 PM | Permalink

California is now opening another Pandora's Box by creating an state amendment allowing kids 14-18 the right to vote. 14 & 15 year olds would have their vote count as 1/4 vote, and 16 & 17 year old would have their vote count as one-half.

First of all, what's the point? Giving someone less than one vote is pretty much pointless and will only cause more confusion when counting ballots. Imagine the recalls if we had a close race in California.

Second, it's painfully obviously these geniuses have never heard of Section One of the Fourteenth Amendment which covers equal protection under the law. Since this is the Amendment that was used in allowing gay marriage, how much of a leap would it be to envision "1/4 vote is discriminatory". And how soon would it be that a 14 year old kid from California could move to Arizona and push the courts to allow them to vote.

There is a reason why we don't allow kids to vote, they are not ready to make an informed decision on where the candidates stand. I can easily say that I was nowhere near ready to vote when I was 14, the biggest thing I was worried about was having enough money to go bowling on Friday night. How fast are we going to see an erosion of laws that specifically govern kids behavior? In California, it looks like a few months....

Posted by Brian at 10:27 PM | Permalink

The Scene: A quiet day at home typing away at work stuff. Hannah is in the other room getting over a migraine....

Hannah: Dad, how can I record American Idol on the Tivo????

Someone shoot me now...

Posted by Brian at 5:07 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

CALLING ALL SPACE GEEKS WITH TELESCOPES!!!
FIND NEAR EARTH ASTEROIDS! MAKE $3,000 EVERY TIME YOU CLOSE!!!!!
From SpaceRef

The house has just passed the Charles "Pete" Conrad Astronomy Awards Act which awards $3,000 to each Near-Earth asteroid found by amateur astronomers.

Last time I checked, the LINEAR team has found 1,127,759 asteroids of which 951 of them were NEO's. Wonder how much it would cost to put together a one-meter scope and some software....

Posted by Brian at 2:25 PM | Permalink

Yesterday afternoon around 1:30, my house was raided...

Actually, no it wasn't raided, but the doorbell did ring. Hallie went into her usual mode (bark, hide, bark, hide...) and standing outside the door were two police officers. Now it's been years since one has come to my door, so I was especially interested in what two policemen were doing at my door.

Well first they busted down the door, sprayed me with mace, beat my dog...

Actually no they didn't. Earlier while I was working like an idiot, I had fat fingered dialing a Kansas City number (area code 913) and had accidentally hit the "One" button twice. That was enough for 911 to go nuts and send two squads to my house because they couldn't call me back on my fax line (I was trying to conference in a customer with a tech).

The officers were really nice and asked some basic questions (is your wife home, are you the only one home, are you an idiot, etc...). I voluntarily showed the guy my ID, lavishly apologized for wasting their time, and they went on their way.

Let the comments begin, yes I do work for the phone company and I don't know how to use the telephone... :-)

Posted by Brian at 11:01 AM | Permalink

Everyone knows how much I rail on inept school systems. While I know the amount of bureaucracy forced upon these schools by the Department of Education is enormous, the almost communist mantra that permeates throughout most systems is nauseating. Case in point (from Drudge).

"A Michigan school district told a teacher activated for military duty that he must cover the cost of a substitute during part of his absence and give the district some of his military pay."

I know school districts are under the gun to make ends meet, but one teacher is going off to serve in Italy for two weeks isn't going to break them. Esentially he has to pay his employer to go serve his country. Notice the excuse the superitendent of the school district.

"It's a fact that he's not losing money, that he's making money. Whatever way you look at it, he's still making money," he said.

From each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs...

Posted by Brian at 8:40 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Former WorldCom CEO Bernard Ebbers is escorted from FBI offices in New York, March 3, 2004.

Posted by Brian at 2:00 PM | Permalink

Driving home this morning from dropping of various scripts/paperwork/etc, the odometer broke out the big #1. Biggest expense I've put into this car? $250 for brakes back at 75k.

Oh yeah, my next car will be another Honda.

Posted by Brian at 9:24 AM | Permalink

Some time between the drive to basketball practice and the gas station, I picked up a nail in my tire. Not just your everyday "Oh lookie, what's that silver thing in my tread?". No, we're talking about an old galvanized roofing nail that was stuck in a neat 45 degree angle on my sidewall. Immediately I knew that was going to be one very expensive nail seeing as how in most cases, sidewalls can not be repaired. So swearing to myself with Megadeth in the background, I rush over to Wal-Mart to get it fixed. The time? 18:07 EST.

OK, walk in the door and notice a bunch of people sitting around with four cars inside. Bad. Noticing that there are only two techs working. Really bad. Noticing the second tech is following the first tech around like a lost puppy...aww #@*&@# it's training night.

Get up to the counter, two hour wait at least. Start wandering around store (electronics, lawn & garden, hardware, GUNS???? (no sorry, can't sell to you if the wait is longer than thirty minutes in Tire & Lube), back to electronics, cell phone guy, and to lube hell. Nope, same four cars are in the same spots and "Junior" is looking really confused that the oil dipstick isn't in the glove compartment.

Wifey shows up, gotta get clothes for the oldest one. Take youngest to do homework and load up on caffeine. Complete that part of the mission and head back to lube hell. 19:45. Nope, car isn't on there. Wander around to find wife, find her in dressing room with daughter and somewhere close to $500 in clothes. Mumble to self that this is going to be the most expensive tire in history. Walk around the store two more times (can't work out tonight, have to get my walking in somehow) and crash back at lube hell.

Wifey comes back, she can't wait around any longer and wants me to pay for everything. Fine, no big deal, have fun. Wait another 30 miuntes. Finally at 20:35, the guy walks in with my keys. Final total?

Tire & Oil Change $61.02
All the other crap $125.76 and 2.5 hours of my life.

Posted by Brian at 11:53 PM | Permalink | Comments (4)

Because here comes WISE-33.

During tonight's newscast, a scene from the Fort Wayne Women's Bureau art fair was shown. There were a variety of pictures of people, flowers, and a vagina. Glad my girls were in bed because it would have been an hour of "DAADDD, WHY ARE THEY SHOWING A VAGINA ON TVVEEE??". And no, I didn't get a copy of it on Tivo since I was watching the High-Def version of the news.

Discuss...

Posted by Brian at 11:18 PM | Permalink