Month: February 2013

Posted on

It’s a chores day

20130217-100025.jpgToday in the mountains it’s heating up quickly.

Already in the 40s and just past 9.

It’s a chores day. I’m doing Laundry, poo patrol, general cleanup before the storm that’s coming in on Tuesday.

Some of the weather reports are saying this storm will be rain. Others are saying that it could drop 18″ of snow in the higher elevations. The problem is, which higher elevations, and what do they consider higher?

Since I’m at roughly 6000ft it might be a big deal.

On the other hand, they might be talking about the ocean facing mountains and where I’m at will get whatever makes it over the mountain behind me. That puppy is 8000ft I think.

It’s possible that the bulk of the storm is just going to crash against the mountain and leave us with nothing more than decorative snow.

That’s the problem with these things, you can’t ever tell what’s going to happen.

So I take the opportunity to handle outdoor chores when I can during the Winter and then I hope I don’t have to go anywhere. It sounds like some of the neighbors below me are doing the same thing.

We’ve had a pretty mild Winter so I’m not complaining, however I’ve been dreaming about warm Caribbean waters, beautiful beaches and diving.

This morning I was dreaming about being naked in the sun, and this big Komodo Dragon looking lizard was walking along a fence coming right at me.

The lizard did a double flip off the fence, stuck the landing took a bow then climbed back on the fence heading the other way. It had a tattoo on its tail that said “Mac”.

I was thinking about how odd it was for a lizard to have a tattoo then I woke up. Somehow the double flip and all that seemed perfectly reasonable.

I don’t know anybody named Mac. I did, but he died many years ago. I’m sure that the Freudian psychologists in the crowd are all sharpening their pencils.

Maybe tonight I’ll have another dream that will shed some light on what exactly my twisted subconscious is trying to tell me.

In the dream I was excited. The sun felt great on my balls. Happily when I woke up I was just as excited. After taking care of that… I feel much better and ready to tackle the day.

I hope your day started out as pleasantly.

Posted on

So I splurged…

This week has been a real winner.

I say that sarcastically.

Monday started with the death of the multifunction printer in the office. For me this wasn’t a big deal. But for the other halfs business it was a major deal.

This meant that it was time for shopping!

Ultimately the replacement printer worked out to be simply an updated model of what was there before. I’d have preferred a laser printer but when you start talking about multifunction color laser printers and then say you want the ability to do duplex printing, the price jumps really fast.

20130216-163001.jpg
The inkjet printers on the other hand give you a lot of bank for the buck, but the cost of the inks can be pretty steep.

So Monday night saw me integrating the new machine with the network here. Well, that was one thing. The other was that while shopping, well there was the visit to the Apple Store… Uhhh Oh!

Yep, so there is now a new iPad mini in my life. I’d been looking at the iPad mini for a while, I really like the updated machine and IOS.

I’ve had an iPad Gen 1 for awhile I liked that machine a lot, but I couldn’t update it anymore, and frankly the battery was starting to get a little tired.

20130216-162626.jpg
I like being able to FaceTime with my Mom from not only the my computer but also from my iPad. This little iPad is a perfect size, it’s fast, and just a whole lot of fun.

And the new printer works perfectly with the iPad without needing some hacked together program to print.

Expensive week, but WTF? You only live once.

It looks like spring is very close at hand. The snow is melting and it just “feels” like spring is here.

Posted on

Who do you trust?

NewImage

I was reading Twitter last night. (I have no idea how else to say that. You really don’t read twitter you scan it.) Anyhow… while scanning the hundreds of tweets, several started jumping out at me.

The strange part was that these tweets were from Anonymous, or someone claiming to speak for Anonymous.

I thought to myself “whats Anonymous doing reporting the news?”

Not that it’s inconsistent with their charter, but most of the time you think of them as making news by hacking into governments or corporations that have drawn the ire of Anonymous.

These tweets were reporting meteorite explosions over Russia.

I went to the first link thinking I was probably going to get infected by some kind of virus.

But no, there was a great video all in Russian showing a really bright streak with a glowing head. thick smoke trailing after it.

NewImage

I thought “wow” I wonder if it’s real? Call me suspicious of Russian websites.

There are so many Russian sites that seek to infect your computer with malware, I’ve gotten very wary of anything in Eastern Europe.

It’s a pity too, there are some excellent English language sites that report on world wide events with a lot less bias than the American media.

However, because I’ve been infected too many times from Eastern European websites I’ve stopped visiting any of them at all.

I’d forgotten how straight-up the Russian reporting usually is. 

The first video I saw was impressive and at first I thought it was a promo for some new SciFi movie.

The next videos dispelled that thought. It was amazing, there were obviously cell phone videos pouring into a Russian YouTube site.

They were all taken of the same event from different angles, it was obvious that this was a real event. Then the photos of the damage appeared.

NewImage

I flipped on the TV in time to catch the 11 O’ Clock news. 

I was disappointed, not one word of the event.

We could see the overflowing toilets from the Carnival Cruise ship, when the cabin Christopher Dorner was occupying was still burning the local news was saying that his body had been removed and identified.

But in a situation where something “REAL” was happening and it was ever more obvious that the event could be verified… Not one stinking word.

This might have simply been a local news phenomenon but even CNN was silent.

This morning of course, the American news agencies are all abuzz, probably because of the damage and the fact that 900 people were at last count reported as injured. 

Anonymous, has been reporting other things too.

Things like contrary to the official police statement the cabin in the Dorner case was purposely set on fire.

Like most people, I dismissed the Anonymous report at first, but now even the local news is saying the police might have intentionally used weapons known to cause fires.

NewImage

The Anonymous news items have been pretty egalitarian, and unbiased. They simply point to information and leave it to the reader to make up their own mind. No spin, just “hey, have a look at this.“

Does anyone else think it’s strange that a group of hackers is ahead of the curve on news stories and they’re publishing those stories reliably?

Our media tries to portray Anonymous as criminals, or disgruntled technology people. The network news makes Anonymous sound like a bunch of nerds hiding out in a basement creating problems and chaos for their own purposes.

Is that a true representation? I’m inclined to say no, maybe not.

I’m not willing to take everything Anonymous says and does as honest and true. But I’m willing to look at them in a different light. Perhaps Anonymous is just about information being free, unbiased, and presented to everyone.

NewImage

It’s funny. I hadn’t paid any attention to anything that Anonymous said or did until recently when I kept seeing their tweets retweeted by others. I saw time and time again their uncanny accuracy in reporting so I started following them.

It’s been an education. If nothing else, Anonymous has made me think and question. 

Perhaps that’s their point.

Keep questioning, keep thinking, keep an open mind, keep learning, just because the TV or the computer says something is true doesn’t mean that it is.

You don’t have to trust anyone or anything just because they’re “Authorities” or authoritarian, you can make up your own mind.

Before you decide the world is flat, do the research! You owe it to yourself. 

After all “There be monsters here…”