Inside The Perimeter

Being the grandson of Irish immigrants allows me to be obnoxious on St. Patrick’s Day. And don’t ya know I will be.

Top o’ the morning morning happened when I awoke at 4:30am. I managed to get a little reading done before settling in for a “nap” at 5:15am which lasted until nearly 7:00am. Not a great way to start my day.

Encounters Of A Hasher Kind
Yesterday I forgot that I had a lunch meeting, my body-clock was still thinking it was Monday, so a coworker and I headed to the Chinese Food Court. Wouldn’t'cha know that it being Tuesday I’d run into One Ball, BWanA (aka ITP-Reader Harold), and Little Willy eating there as well. It was good to chat and hear news both good and not so good from the lads. (which reminds me, Willy, email me you contact information).

My coworker Duke (of Asain decent, Thai if I remember correctly) and I ordered a lamb hotpot and a chicken with wood-ear mushroom dish. My lunch buddies always joke about the food we order when we go out, and yesterday Duke lamented that we had ordered “round eye” food at the Chinese food court. Wouldn’t you know not five minutes later a wonderful elderly Asian woman came to our table and asked us about the lamb hotpot. Of course she asked Duke, in Chinese, which he does not speak, and the hilarity ensued. “Round eye food?” “I don’t think she thought it was round eye food.” I joked with Duke.

Word on the food street is that green beans are still hard to come by. Dangen!

While I Contributed, I Felt So Far Behind
Last night I attended my first Atlanta iPhone Developers Meetup (ironically, the website for this group is almost impossible to read using an iPhone). The meetup was held in Midtown, and since I knew nothing of the agenda nor the post-meetup proceedings I chose to park in a pay lot (the one which collapsed a few months back I was told). Have I ever mentioned how much I hate to pay for parking? $6 was my fee last night for my three-hour stay.

The meetup was good. Last night there was no real specific agenda to be followed so the assembled nerds conversed about iPhone development, the iPad and what it will mean, and other associated nerdy topics.

Even though these nerds are light years ahead of me when it comes to Mac and iPhone development it felt okay being among them. I had a brief moment of glory as one of the topics last night was how the group was moving to putting stuff on GitHub and since I’ve been teaching myself how to use Git recently I was able to point the members toward Scott Chacon’s excellent online book Pro Git. Nerd pride, to me only falling in love is a better feeling.

ITP Flickr Pic
I get a lot of packages delivered to the office.

Sometimes I think that UPS hates me for that.

I’m Thinking Of Taking An iPhone Development Vacation
No, not a vacation from iPhone development (the learning thereof), but rather an intense week of doing nothing but iPhone development learning. I’m thinking of taking some vacation days and going nowhere except to my computer. I’m very serious about learning iPhone/iPad/Mac development and don’t feel as if I’m capable of dedicating enough time to it given the small window of free time I have each day. Unfortunately the earliest window of opportunity which appears on my calendar is late May, around Memorial Day.

Ho’ever Tonight I’ll Be Swinging My Sheleighly At Trivia
Tonight I’ll be joining some coworkers after work for some beverages and hopefully some Team Trivia near the office. Dangen! Had I thought of it I could have packed a bag and slept the night in the office instead of driving all the way home. O’well…

Oh, and if you know me you also know that there will be no green-tinted Bud products going down my gullet tonight. Paulie don’t play that game…

Stats & Goals
Daily
Current Mood – o’meh
Current Music – I’m listening to a CBCRadio 3 podcast
Website Of The Day – St Patrick is believed to have driven the snakes out of Ireland. North Carolina had no such luck so the Davidson Herpetology Laboratory has put up a web site to identify the amphibians and reptiles of North Carolina.
Mode Of Transportation To Work – my car
Exercise (b)Log – nothing
Morning Weigh-In – 203 pounds
Pages Of 1001 Paintings You Must See Before You Die Read – 52

Monthly
Foot Mileage – ~4 miles, Wheel Mileage – 0 miles
Pushups – 0, Situps – 20
Consecutive Days Of Bed-Making (Longest Streak) – 17 (17)
Vegetarian Days – 2, Carnivorous Days – 14
Marta Rides – 0

March Goals
- Not get fired from my job
- Ride my bicycle no fewer than 100 miles
- Get the new LLC moving…

2010 Goals
- Reduce my weight to 185 pounds (starting weight was 198 pounds)
- Completely read the book 1001 Paintings You Must See Before You Die
- Earn at least $150 through photography sales in order to cover the cost for the renewal of the Jalapeño Beach SmugMug account I opened the other day.
- Save $500 for the sole purpose of donating to charitable organizations of my choice
- Attend at least one professional photography workshop
- Enter no fewer than three photographic competitions / gallery showings
- Get the Black Sheep stats out of Excel and online
- Ride in no fewer than two 50 mile or 50K bike rides
- Complete my Taco Mac Passport requirement of 125 beers

The Unmeasurable
- Continue backing up all data, including the off-site storage
- Become a proficient programmer in PHP and CSS
- Do not create a solution for something which is not a problem

Cheers,
Paulie [eatl/ga]

Ah homeownership…

Some Things Are Super, Others Notsomuch
Yesterday was a fairly long day of waiting for AT&T to install U-Verse service. Needless to say the ITP Estate put up much resistance — I’m not sure if anyone who worked on the house after its construction ever knew what the fuck they were doing! — and after much wire-tapping and head-scratching the technician figured out where he could install the gateway. As it turned out, this was not where I paid to have a new outlet installed (dammit!) as it got installed into the “game room” (where I cleverly hid it once the technician left), but that new outlet was used for the powerline broadband connector which connects the gateway to the data central nervous system of my house.

The U-Verse internet connectivity was/is fantastic! Last night I streamed a movie from Netflix and watched it on my laptop. NEAT! (fwiw – I watched a 2006 indie film called Cashback. I rather enjoyed it, but it definitely won’t be everybody’s cup of tea.)

After successfully reconfiguring my internet connections within the house I called my, soon-to-be-former DSL provider to cancel my service with them. The person to whom I spoke was almost astonished that anyone would ever cancel their service and directed me to a PDF on their website which I must fax to them today in order to execute the cancellation. Unbelievable.

Not all was perfect with yesterday’s installation, however. The phone line contains massive static so I’ll have to have AT&T come back out in order to fix it. I fear that this will be deemed an “inside wire” problem which, by the terms of their service, is not their problem to fix. Anyone know someone who is good with phone lines?

I wish that I could commit to this house for another five/ten years; if so I’d start the sort of major improvements that I planned and should have done when I bought the house eleven years ago. My current commitment to this house is to sell it, though I admit that I might become addicted to super-fast internet connectivity.

A Flickr Pic Of ITP
Something a little different today. This is a photo of me, positioned fittingly in front of a sign which reads “Island of Misfit Toys.”

This shot was taken by ITP-Reader Maigh.

Pimpin’ The Hood
If you are a Scoutmob user you should check out today’s deal for 50% off a purchase (up to $10) at Urban Cannibals (no real website but they do have an Urban Cannibals Facebook Page.

Urban Cannibals is a market of sorts in East Atlanta; they provide ready-to-eat meals and such niceties as locally-produced honey, milk, and bread.

While I’ve known about Urban Cannibals for months I’ve yet to make it there. Perhaps this Scoutmob deal is just the sort of nudge that I needed.

And Tonight For Something Completely Different
Tonight I’ll be dipping my toes into the unknown waters that are the Atlanta iPhone Developers group. The group’s meetings are held at 6:30pm on the third Tuesday of each month in an office building in midtown.

I’ve really been trying to catch on to iPhone development. I’ve been spending a lot of time and effort, but thus far have seen little in the form of results. I plan to soldier on, and perhaps meeting other similarly-committed geeks will help me.

Stats & Goals
Daily
Current Mood – mixed
Current Music – silence as I get things situated
Website Of The Day – Well I’ll be darned! I just realized that I’ve never picked Scoutmob as a “Website Of The Day.”
Mode Of Transportation To Work – my car
Exercise (b)Log – nothing
Morning Weigh-In – 202 pounds
Pages Of 1001 Paintings You Must See Before You Die Read – 52

Monthly
Foot Mileage – ~4 miles, Wheel Mileage – 0 miles
Pushups – 0, Situps – 20
Consecutive Days Of Bed-Making (Longest Streak) – 16 (16)
Vegetarian Days – 2, Carnivorous Days – 13
Marta Rides – 0

March Goals
- Not get fired from my job
- Ride my bicycle no fewer than 100 miles
- Get the new LLC moving…

2010 Goals
- Reduce my weight to 185 pounds (starting weight was 198 pounds)
- Completely read the book 1001 Paintings You Must See Before You Die
- Earn at least $150 through photography sales in order to cover the cost for the renewal of the Jalapeño Beach SmugMug account I opened the other day.
- Save $500 for the sole purpose of donating to charitable organizations of my choice
- Attend at least one professional photography workshop
- Enter no fewer than three photographic competitions / gallery showings
- Get the Black Sheep stats out of Excel and online
- Ride in no fewer than two 50 mile or 50K bike rides
- Complete my Taco Mac Passport requirement of 125 beers

The Unmeasurable
- Continue backing up all data, including the off-site storage
- Become a proficient programmer in PHP and CSS
- Do not create a solution for something which is not a problem

Cheers,
Paulie [eatl/ga]

Last week I upgraded TextExpander for $15. The hope was that this version would play nicely with Firefox 3.6 (yes, my Safari experiment ended as quickly as I predicted). You might correctly gather from today’s title that my $15 will not be the best $15 I spend this year.

A reboot of my computer has corrected the problem. But this is a Mac and rebooting in order to get something to work is such an inelegant solution — this isn’t Windows after all.

I Believe That I Made The Right Decision
Aborting my plans to attend the Black Rock campout was a big one for me.

On Friday night I attended the Drive By Truckers show at Variety Playhouse. As you may remember I was all geared up for the opening act, David Barbe and his collection of players known as the Quick Hooks. Unfortunately their set was rather boring, I never got into their sound. I wound up leaving the DBT show early since I had an early-morning gig arranged for Saturday.

At 8am I found myself meeting up with ITP-Reader Maigh to help out with her photoshoot of our friend Kim. The rest of Saturday was spent (fighting naps while) making all efforts to learn iPhone development. I’ve downloaded a series of classroom videos from a German university (spoken in English) and have started to watch them.

Yesterday was a cleaning and organizing day before heading over to my friend Bill’s (aka High Dicker) house to celebrate his 50th birthday. The birthday party was well-attended (and the chicken wings were looked so delicious that they turned a vegetarian day into a carnivorous day) and I was able to see many friends that I don’t get to see all that often these days.

ITP Flickr Pic
One of the “behind the scene shots” from Saturday morning.

Just What Was/Is ExSE?
If you follow my Twitter stream this weekend you would have been hard-pressed to miss my coverage of ExSE. Many people have asked me what ExSE is.

If you follow the interactive media / indie music scene you will undoubtedly know that this is SxSW season; this past weekend was the Interactive Media weekend, next will be the Music weekend.

What better way to celebrate the SxSW hipsters from afar than to have your own exclusive, and of course fictitious conference… ExSE.

AT&T Cometh, Or So I Believe
Today is scheduled to be AT&T U-Verse installation day at the Inside The Perimeter estate. I’m hoping that the install goes well and that the resulting internet connection will be much faster than my current DSL speed.

Faced with all that is wrong with my house it may seem frivolous to be improving my internet connection first. However, slowly but surely I’m started to put efforts in place to fix up this old house.

RealiTV Update: The Amazing Race – I Was So Going To Pick Them!
I returned home from the birthday party late last night but I was able to watch my recording before going to bed.
SPOILERS INCLUDED
Last night I chose Team One, Team Gay One to be my “Pick To Be Eliminated.” Had I remembered that Joe (of Joe and Heidi) had suffered a bum knee after last week’s bungy free-fall I would have picked them, even though they have been a strong team. Playing off her previously strong picks ITP-Reader Stacy picked Team Big Brother (which seemed like the right choice given that they’d have to perform an extra task as a penance for not getting eliminated last week). ITP-Reader Terri decided to give up on Team Noun and chose Team Lesbian.

In a strange move all teams boarded a bus in Hamburg and were bussed to an undisclosed location (it turned out to be France). What, Germany is not good enough for The Amazing Race?

While in France the teams had to drive (an automatic!) to a nearby town and find a specific bakery in order to buy a baguette (I love how contestants can butcher foreign languages) into which the clue was baked. Often I wonder how teams figure out where clues are when they are hidden, this seemed fairly obvious but tripped up at least one team.

From the bakery the teams had to play war. Most teams wisely chose to crawl on their bellies through a battle field instead of trying to decipher Morse code. It was at this point that I started to root for Terri to be correct and have Team Lesbians get sent home; those two are so full of negativity. In a somewhat surprising move Team Clousteau (so fitting for the French countryside) U-Turned Joe and Heidi — I just never came up with a clever name for those two — forcing them to do the Morse code Detour as well. At first I thought Team Clousteau had bungled the situation, after all Joe and Heidi are intelligent, were well ahead of many other teams, would certainly figure out the Morse code and not get eliminated, and would exact revenge for being U-Turned. I was so wrong…. Effort after effort to resolve the Morse code message failed and they were indeed eliminated without ever making it to the Pit Stop.

As other teams completed the War, What Is It Good For? Detour they had to march South to get their next clue before mounting vintage bicycles and riding four miles to the Pit Stop. Of course Team Model Citizens didn’t follow directions, literally, and were forced to ride their bicycles back to where they picked them up, complete the march to get their clue, and then ride their bicycles back to the Pit Stop. I wondered if this blunder would be their comeuppance but they took their mistake in stride and still managed to finish in sixth place out of eight teams. I’ve come to really like Team Model Citizens’ Miss South Cackilacka because she has a real “can do” attitude, but those two are so clueless some times. If I get the opportunity I think I know which team I am going to pick for elimination next week.

Stats & Goals
Daily
Current Mood – out of touch and really tired
Current Music – listening to “The Story” podcast
Website Of The Day – I have long loved Design With Reach‘s website and the products they offer therein.
Mode Of Transportation To Work – my car
Exercise (b)Log – nothing
Morning Weigh-In – 203 pounds
Pages Of 1001 Paintings You Must See Before You Die Read – 52

Monthly
Foot Mileage – ~4 miles, Wheel Mileage – 0 miles
Pushups – 0, Situps – 20
Consecutive Days Of Bed-Making (Longest Streak) – 15 (15)
Vegetarian Days – 1, Carnivorous Days – 13
Marta Rides – 0

March Goals
- Not get fired from my job
- Ride my bicycle no fewer than 100 miles
- Get the new LLC moving…

2010 Goals
- Reduce my weight to 185 pounds (starting weight was 198 pounds)
- Completely read the book 1001 Paintings You Must See Before You Die
- Earn at least $150 through photography sales in order to cover the cost for the renewal of the Jalapeño Beach SmugMug account I opened the other day.
- Save $500 for the sole purpose of donating to charitable organizations of my choice
- Attend at least one professional photography workshop
- Enter no fewer than three photographic competitions / gallery showings
- Get the Black Sheep stats out of Excel and online
- Ride in no fewer than two 50 mile or 50K bike rides
- Complete my Taco Mac Passport requirement of 125 beers

The Unmeasurable
- Continue backing up all data, including the off-site storage
- Become a proficient programmer in PHP and CSS
- Do not create a solution for something which is not a problem

Cheers,
Paulie [eatl/ga]

I wish that I were more prepared. That’s actually not accurate because I am often prepared, but rarely ready to put my preparedness into effect.

This Is Not A Test
This morning I realized that I was not making a secondary backup of my main computer. No worries, all I had to do was plug in an external drive and run Carbon Copy Cloner on it. Because of the robbery last year I made extreme efforts to thwart another robber, so I’ve encased my computer and hard drive in a cage making any alterations, as well as extractions, very difficult.

I went to insert a USB cable into the computer and heard a thump. I noticed that I had knocked over the drive on which I store all of my media. No worries, all I had to do was stand it back up and reboot the computer (something that was in the works even before I knocked the drive over).

When I rebooted I noticed that the media drive was not showing up. I rebooted again, no luck. Fuck! I made the assumption that I knocked the drive over while it was being accessed and crashed the drive.

Time to test my extensive backup strategy.

I had to tear apart my cage, remove the old hard drive, insert a new USB drive, and start copying data from my nightly backup.

I have successfully recovered my iTunes library — music, podcasts, videos — and am currently in the process of recovering my photos, documents, and other miscellaneous data. All in all I’ve determined that my backup strategy works and that I can recover to a working computer in about eight hours.

ITP Flickr Pic
Um, I don’t have one today. Well, it’s not that I don’t have hundreds of photos which have never been seen, it’s that exactly zero of them were post-processed and available to be uploaded thanks to my morning SNAFU.

Camping, no; Drive By Truckers, yes; Photography, yes
Last night I made the final decision that I have no intention of going camping this weekend. Unfortunately I also decided to skip last night’s Cymbals Eat Guitars show at The EARL.

To make up for this I’ve decided to join my friend Kevin (brother of ITP-Reader Randy) at tonight’s Drive By Truckers show at Variety Playhouse. Additionally I’ve also decided to join ITP-Reader Maigh photographing our friend Kim tomorrow.

With any luck I’ll also get motivated to get the house prepared for Monday’s AT&T U-Verse install. Stay tuned..

Yet Another Domain Name, This Time It’s Personal
I just bought a domain name related to my home address. It will be part of “The Package” when the house is sold.

Oh Yeah, This Weekend We Move In To Daylight Saving Time
I look forward to having ITP-Reader Steve remind me on Monday that I forgot to change the time for my comments.

Stats & Goals
Daily
Current Mood – frustrated
Current Music – listening to this week’s “Net@Night” podcast
Website Of The Day – While cleaning up last weekend I stumbled upon some Jordi Labanda inspired notebooks; I love his artwork
Mode Of Transportation To Work – my car
Exercise (b)Log – nothing
Morning Weigh-In – 203 pounds
Pages Of 1001 Paintings You Must See Before You Die Read – 52

Monthly
Foot Mileage – ~4 miles, Wheel Mileage – 0 miles
Pushups – 0, Situps – 20
Consecutive Days Of Bed-Making (Longest Streak) – 11 (11)
Vegetarian Days – 1, Carnivorous Days – 10
Marta Rides – 0

March Goals
- Not get fired from my job
- Ride my bicycle no fewer than 100 miles
- Get the new LLC moving…

2010 Goals
- Reduce my weight to 185 pounds (starting weight was 198 pounds)
- Completely read the book 1001 Paintings You Must See Before You Die
- Earn at least $150 through photography sales in order to cover the cost for the renewal of the Jalapeño Beach SmugMug account I opened the other day.
- Save $500 for the sole purpose of donating to charitable organizations of my choice
- Attend at least one professional photography workshop
- Enter no fewer than three photographic competitions / gallery showings
- Get the Black Sheep stats out of Excel and online
- Ride in no fewer than two 50 mile or 50K bike rides
- Complete my Taco Mac Passport requirement of 125 beers

The Unmeasurable
- Continue backing up all data, including the off-site storage
- Become a proficient programmer in PHP and CSS
- Do not create a solution for something which is not a problem

Cheers,
Paulie [eatl/ga]

We are only given so many waking hours with which to work. Unfortunately for me there are not enough hours to accomplish all that I desire to accomplish.

I’m Out!
I knew signing up for the Black Sheep Hash Black Rock Mountain campout was risky at best. It was a $50 gamble that I was willing to take. It will be a(nother) $50 gamble that I will lose.

This morning I decided to pull the plug (again) on my Black Rock campout experience. Time is the biggest factor, followed closely by weather.

This has been an incredibly busy week, even if you don’t factor in all of the attempts I’ve been making to improve my software development skills. Monday night I (briefly) attended a concert. Tuesday night was consumed by laundry. Last night I spent the evening with my Atlanta Photography Exhibit friends and, while I enjoyed myself, was bushed by the time I walked in the door. Tonight I have not one, but at least two options — tonight is the annual Black Sheep Founders Day hash, and I have a ticket to the Cymbals Eat Guitars show at The EARL. Even though I am only scheduled to work a half-day tomorrow there is no way that I’d want to rush home, pack, drive to Black Rock Mountain State Park, and sit around in the predicted thunderstorms; I have another plan up my sleeve. And yes, I feel guilty for backing out of camping…

I’ve made an executive decision to not sign up for any more events in 2010 as they seem to handcuff me and make me feel guilty when I can’t/don’t participate..

ITP Flickr Pic
Yeah, another car shot from Sunday.

I have about two hundred more if you are interested…

I’m In!
One of the discoveries that help to make my $50 hash donation palpable was noticing that David Barbe’s band is opening up for Drive By Truckers this weekend. I’ve been a hugh fan of Barbe’s music for nearly twenty years.

Not familiar?

David Barbe was the bass player in Bob Mould’s band Sugar.

David Barbe had his own band called Buzz Hungry for a while. Buzz Hungry was the band who introduced me to the seedier part of Atlanta — Dottie’s (old school!).

During the recent past Barbe has concentrated on producing other people’s music. Recently I heard that Barbe had started playing out again and had been hoping that he’d be doing an Atlanta show sometime.

That time is this weekend. And since I don’t know when the next time I’ll be able to see Barbe perform I’ve decided that his performance trumps hashing.

Stats & Goals
Daily
Current Mood – bothered
Current Music – silence at the moment
Website Of The Day – In photography timing is everything as Perfectly Timed Photos will prove.
Mode Of Transportation To Work – my car
Exercise (b)Log – nothing
Morning Weigh-In – 204 pounds (WRONG DIRECTION, PAULIE!)
Pages Of 1001 Paintings You Must See Before You Die Read – 52

Monthly
Foot Mileage – ~4 miles, Wheel Mileage – 0 miles
Pushups – 0, Situps – 20
Consecutive Days Of Bed-Making (Longest Streak) – 10 (10)
Vegetarian Days – 1, Carnivorous Days – 9
Marta Rides – 0

March Goals
- Not get fired from my job
- Ride my bicycle no fewer than 100 miles
- Get the new LLC moving…

2010 Goals
- Reduce my weight to 185 pounds (starting weight was 198 pounds)
- Completely read the book 1001 Paintings You Must See Before You Die
- Earn at least $150 through photography sales in order to cover the cost for the renewal of the Jalapeño Beach SmugMug account I opened the other day.
- Save $500 for the sole purpose of donating to charitable organizations of my choice
- Attend at least one professional photography workshop
- Enter no fewer than three photographic competitions / gallery showings
- Get the Black Sheep stats out of Excel and online
- Ride in no fewer than two 50 mile or 50K bike rides
- Complete my Taco Mac Passport requirement of 125 beers

The Unmeasurable
- Continue backing up all data, including the off-site storage
- Become a proficient programmer in PHP and CSS
- Do not create a solution for something which is not a problem

Cheers,
Paulie [eatl/ga]

I’m registered to camp this weekend at Black Rock Mountain state park. Unfortunately the rain has arrived and is pretty much predicted to remain until Sunday. Ugh.

Another Successful Laundry Night
WooHoo!

Last night I performed my weekly routine of doing laundry and eating dinner at Lee’s Bakery. The night was uneventful as always, and once again laundry consumed the lion’s share of my evening.

Next week I’m thinking of shaking things up enough by trying out a new laundromat so that I can eat again at a Mexican tortas restaurant I discovered this week.

ITP Flickr Pic
This is another shot taken last Sunday.

While none of my photos came out as sharp, or as with as little noise as I desired, I do like the way that the sun is illuminating the car in this shot.

Blame Canada
Tonight I’ll be attending the annual silent auction put on by Atlanta Photography Exhibit. Unlike last year I decided not to donate a print for auction. It’s not that I don’t believe in the cause, but I just didn’t want to give away another one of my prints.

Tonight’s silent auction is being held at a Buckhead bar/restaurant called Saskatoon, which most of you will recognize as one of the many fun-to-pronounce Canadian city names. The auction starts at 7pm, if your schedule permits you should come out and say hello.

Stats & Goals
Daily
Current Mood – meh
Current Music – listening to this week’s “MacBreak Weekly” podcast
Website Of The Day – MacBreak Weekly just introduced me to Big Nerd Ranch. Huh.
Mode Of Transportation To Work – my car
Exercise (b)Log – nothing
Morning Weigh-In – forgot to check
Pages Of 1001 Paintings You Must See Before You Die Read – 52

Monthly
Foot Mileage – ~4 miles, Wheel Mileage – 0 miles
Pushups – 0, Situps – 20
Consecutive Days Of Bed-Making (Longest Streak) – 9 (9)
Vegetarian Days – 1, Carnivorous Days – 8
Marta Rides – 0

March Goals
- Not get fired from my job
- Ride my bicycle no fewer than 100 miles
- Get the new LLC moving…

2010 Goals
- Reduce my weight to 185 pounds (starting weight was 198 pounds)
- Completely read the book 1001 Paintings You Must See Before You Die
- Earn at least $150 through photography sales in order to cover the cost for the renewal of the Jalapeño Beach SmugMug account I opened the other day.
- Save $500 for the sole purpose of donating to charitable organizations of my choice
- Attend at least one professional photography workshop
- Enter no fewer than three photographic competitions / gallery showings
- Get the Black Sheep stats out of Excel and online
- Ride in no fewer than two 50 mile or 50K bike rides
- Complete my Taco Mac Passport requirement of 125 beers

The Unmeasurable
- Continue backing up all data, including the off-site storage
- Become a proficient programmer in PHP and CSS
- Do not create a solution for something which is not a problem

Cheers,
Paulie [eatl/ga]

One, Two, Out
I was set to enjoy Over the Rhine at Eddie’s Attic last night. I purchased a ticket for the “9:00pm” show, which I didn’t realize meant that doors would open at 9:00pm and the show would start at 9:30pm. The reason I chose the late show was to avoid the hassle of trying to navigate traffic from my Perimeter-area office to Decatur in order to make it to the early show.

I should have followed my rule “When there are two shows always attend the first.”

I arrived in Decatur around 8:20pm and felt fortunate to find a free parking space near Twain’s. With not nearly enough time (so I thought) to eat and enjoy a beer somewhere other than Eddie’s Attic I decided to head straight to Eddie’s and relax before the show. When I arrived at Eddie’s I was surprised to see it rather crowded, in fact so crowded that I couldn’t find a table at which to sit and eat, or even a stool at the bar. I did manage to find a chair and decided that I’d do a little iPhone surfing until the doors opened for my show.

As I sat there people continued to stream into the building. Over time I realized that, even though I had a pre-purchased ticket, I should talk to the guy at the door. This was somewhat smart as I discovered (a bit late) that he was putting names on a list in order to organize entry into the music space; I landed at number sixteen.

As the 9:00pm hour drew closer we were informed that the first show started “15-20 minutes late” and that our show would be pushed back. More people arrive crowding the already crowded space.

Do you know that Eddie’s has one way in and one way out? Do you know that when you have a roomful of people trying to leave by navigating a roomful of people waiting to get in to the space they’re vacating that everything becomes a royal clusterfuck? You do now.

When the time finally arrived for my group to enter the music room the table purchasers were called to enter first (I suppose they are the First Class / Medallion Guests for Eddie’s) and then the Coach Class were called in the order they appeared on the list. Remember, I was number sixteen; this did not mean that I was the sixteenth person, it meant I was the sixteenth name. By the time I was allowed entrance there weren’t many great places left to sit, in fact I was further ticked off that Eddie’s sold their middle-counter stools as “tables” thus blocking my ability to take one of those seats. I took one of the remaining stools at the bar, was almost immediately crushed into the corner, and then proceeded to watch people come in and stand in front of me obscuring any view that I had of the stage.

I won’t go as far as to say that Eddie’s illegally oversold the show, but they certainly sold too many tickets to make the evening comfortable and enjoyable for all.

After two song’s worth of trying to crane to see the stage while also trying to avoid having food dropped on my as the staff weaved their way delivering food to other customers I relinquished my stool at the bar. With virtually no place left to stand, I decided that having a good time was a lost cause and that I’d leave. Two songs.

“When there are two shows always attend the first.”

ITP Flickr Pic
One of my (many) shots from Sunday’s autocross.

This is not one of the many shots that I consider to be a failure.

The Tax Woman Cometh
Another factor for my early departure last night was the fact that I have a 10:00am meeting with my tax preparer today. Another reason I chose the late show last night was because I knew that I wouldn’t be heading in to work early, and figured that I’d have all of my tax paperwork gathered and ready to go well before today. To say that I am both unprepared and extremely fearful that I’ll be writing big tax checks this year based on some financial moves I made last year is an understatement.

I shan’t whine about my financial situation. Knock on wood I’ve not missed a mortgage payment in the eleven years of living in my house, and I’ve enjoyed enough financial freedom to do things like take up photography as a hobby.

I will whine about the amount of taxes we are forced to pay (they will be going up in the future, mark my word) especially given the lack of services I feel I get for my tax dollar. I also whine about the fact that filing taxes is such a royal pain in the ass. Seriously, FairTax may seem like an oxymoron but it’s time for us to head in that direction. Of course I realize that the people who’d have to enact such a change would never benefit from this change, so it’ll never happen in my lifetime.

A Week With Safari May Be A Week Too Much
My frustrations with TextExpander not consistently working with the latest version of Firefox has led me to make an effort to break free from Firefox for the first time since I started using it years ago.

It seems counterintuitive that I’d throw away the browser based on another piece of software, doesn’t it? I mean, TextExpander is the problem child, why not replace it? Well, because I’ve paid for TextExpander, have become reliant on its functionality, and know of no replacement for its functionality on the Mac.

I’ve currently switched to Apple’s Safari browser. While nearly feature-compatible to Firefox it does have a couple of huge quirks features which may have my running in horror by as quickly as today.

Safari is a multi-tabbed browser, so when you click on a link it will open the page in a new tab, right? Nope, it opens a whole new window which is a royal pain in the ass when working on a 13″ laptop. In order to open a link in a new tab one must “command-click” (formerly known as “apple-click”). The likelihood that I’ll retrain myself to “command-click” instead of just clicking is very low.

Safari likes to ignore some user configuration. There are buttons in the toolbar that I reordered. To my surprise and dismay the next time I launched Safari my button ordering had be replaced by Safari’s default order.

Safari is also a bit of a resource hog. I use my browser a lot, often with many tabs. Even with 4GB installed in my machine I can’t afford to let my browser run roughshod over my memory.

Only time will tell if I’ll adopt Safari as my go-to browser. However as of right now my Magic 8-Ball answer would be “Not likely.”

Stats & Goals
Daily
Current Mood – Extremely nervous that I’ll be writing big tax checks this year. Oh well, water under the bridge…
Current Music – listening to the “Mac Geeks Gab” podcast
Website Of The Day – Dipity is a really interesting way to present world events using a pictorial timeline.
Mode Of Transportation To Work – my car
Exercise (b)Log – situps, 20 (hey, it’s better than none)
Morning Weigh-In – hadn’t checked by the time this blog was written
Pages Of 1001 Paintings You Must See Before You Die Read – 52

Monthly
Foot Mileage – ~4 miles, Wheel Mileage – 0 miles
Pushups – 0, Situps – 20
Consecutive Days Of Bed-Making (Longest Streak) – 8 (8)
Vegetarian Days – 1, Carnivorous Days – 7
Marta Rides – 0

March Goals
- Not get fired from my job
- Ride my bicycle no fewer than 100 miles
- Get the new LLC moving…

2010 Goals
- Reduce my weight to 185 pounds (starting weight was 198 pounds)
- Completely read the book 1001 Paintings You Must See Before You Die
- Earn at least $150 through photography sales in order to cover the cost for the renewal of the Jalapeño Beach SmugMug account I opened the other day.
- Save $500 for the sole purpose of donating to charitable organizations of my choice
- Attend at least one professional photography workshop
- Enter no fewer than three photographic competitions / gallery showings
- Get the Black Sheep stats out of Excel and online
- Ride in no fewer than two 50 mile or 50K bike rides
- Complete my Taco Mac Passport requirement of 125 beers

The Unmeasurable
- Continue backing up all data, including the off-site storage
- Become a proficient programmer in PHP and CSS
- Do not create a solution for something which is not a problem

Cheers,
Paulie [eatl/ga]

The event I expected to be done by 5pm yesterday lasted until about 7pm. After that we wound up heading to Fox Bros BBQ for dinner. After a quick catch-up with The Amazing Race and I was ready for bed. I’ll be spending my lunch hour digging through tax documents in preparation for tomorrow’s appointment with my tax preparer.

If It’s Monday It Must Be Dietday
And so it begins. Again.

Today’s weight, 203 pounds. Target weight by July, 190 pounds.

Mixed Scoutmob Experiences
This weekend I decided to try out the services for a new(ish) local company called Scoutmob. Scoutmob essentially provides a new local deal each day, many of which are available to use for a longer period than that.

On Saturday I decided to eat breakfast at Sun In My Belly (who has some really beautiful photography on their site — none of which is mine) because they had a 40% off deal from Scoutmob. While driving to Sun In My Belly I was disappointed how slowly Scoutmob’s iPhone app was responding. By the time I got to the restaurant I had finally pulled up the screen for Sun In My Belly and was able to ask the attractive waitress how to claim the discount. As usual the food at Sun In My Belly was outstanding! I order the BLT where the ‘T’ is fried green tomato, which comes with a side of potatoes, and I added a side of Sun In My Belly’s delicious bacon.

I tried to repeat my success on Sunday with a 50% off breakfast at Radial Cafe. Again Scoutmob’s iPhone app was incredibly sluggish and this time I never could get the damn thing to complete the process necessary to claim the discount. Luckily for me my waiter was standing by as I tried multiple times so he had the manager apply the 50% discount anyway. At Radial Cafe I ordered one of the day’s specials, the vegan sweet potato pancakes and added a side of vegetarian sausage. (This was supposed to be the foundation of a vegetarian day, but you may correctly assume that my trip to Fox Bros BBQ involved pork.) The pancakes took a really long time to come out (about 25 minutes), but I had a magazine and give kudos to my waiter for apologizing for the delay.

Oh, and of course I tipped my servers based on the pre-discounted total. On each occasion my server helped me to get the discount and provided excellent service so she/he deserved proper compensation.

Here’s something that I learned yesterday, you only get to use each deal once — so make it count.

Overall I think the Scoutmob experience is a good thing to introduce people to new places (even though I’ve been to these two restaurants many times before others probably have not). However, they really need to improve their iPhone app otherwise I can see people becoming frustrated and leaving them in the dust.

ITP Flickr Pic
Yesterday’s planned event took me to the parking lot of Six Flags Over Georgia

My coworker ITP-Reader Rich and I were able to get one attempt at taking photo of this rollercoaster from an awesome point of view before security kicked us out. WTF. I realize that the security was only “doing their job” but seriously if the location is dangerous fence it off and if it’s not fenced off then let people photograph from there. Stupid litigious society.

Sunday, Sunday, SUNDAY
As I mention at the beginning of this blog entry yesterday turned out to be a rather long day of activities.

After breakfast I loaded into the Jackmobile and headed to Six Flags where I was to attempt to shoot some of my coworkers doing an autocross event in one of its parking lots. I guess having signage leading to the proper parking lot was too simple, hell even an Amazing Race style marker would have helped, and the person from whom I got instruction led me on a wild goose chase. I was directed to go into the main parking lot, and upon seeing no autocross nor having no desire to pay to get in to Six Flags I headed out.

I decided to use this time to look for some abandoned cars or houses, and to investigate the area for potential hashing opportunities (not that any part of this state shall be considered “virgin” territory at this point). At one point heading east on I-20 I saw the parking lot with autocross people in it, and attempted to get to it from another direction. This was a tactical error, although it did produce the only photo of the day which could satisfy the theme of “abandoned or discarded” — and the subject has nothing to do with houses, cars, or machinery.

On my second pass around the Greater Six Flags Area I decided I was going to give up and head back ITP. At that point I spotted a yellow Corvette towing four tires and used my incredible powers of deduction to conclude that he was probably headed to the autocross. I watched him turn into an park exit road and realized that if someone had only provided a sign, or clear an proper directions for me earlier I wouldn’t have spent so much time driving around.

The day was long, mostly because the organizers were behind schedule. In fact by the time my coworkers were about to begin their runs around the autocross course daylight was almost beginning to slip away.

I took about four hundred photos yesterday. Last night I culled at least one hundred from that group and shook my head at the similarity that 80% of them possess (same shot, different cars). Throughout the week I’ll continue to cull and work on those which are incredibly sharp, posting the best of the day’s work in this space.

RealiTV Update : The Amazing Race —
SPOILERS
I’m glad that ITP-Readers Stacy, Terri, and I all forgot to make our The Amazing Race Elimination Picks this week. I think that Stacy must have something going on in her life because she failed to assign us songs for the past two weeks as well. I’ll assume that Terri was just more interested in last night’s Academy Awards. The reason that I am glad is that because my whipping boys, Team Clouseau, somehow managed to get their heads out of their asses and finished first. Naturally I would have picked them to get eliminated for the third week in a row. It turns out that one Clouseau is good at eating and one is good at drinking beer, who would’ve guessed that?

I’m beginning to like to Team Noun (Team Brokeback) more though I’m wondering if their “Aw Shucks” attitude is not quite what has been showed of late. I’m curious to know why they chose to take a train to the statue of Klaus Wilhelm instead of hailing a cab.

Did anyone not believe that this was going to be a non-elimination leg? I’m not saying that the rules are altered throughout the game, but I find it “convenient” that Team Big Brother (a CBS franchise) staved off elimination for coming in last place.

What’s your take on this season’s new challenge, The Intersection? I’m not sure I like it because I’ve always wanted The Amazing Race to outlaw alliances, not encourage them.

Tonight Will Be A Late One At Eddie’s Attic
Not that my life needs to get any busier than it already is, but a really good band called Over the Rhine is playing two shows tonight at Eddie’s Attic in Decatur. I’ll be at the 9pm show.

Stats & Goals
Daily
Current Mood – meh
Current Music – listening to the “This Week in Tech” podcast
Website Of The Day – I heard about Foodie Kits on a recent podcast. Foodie Kits are essentially spice kits for travelers. Neat.
Mode Of Transportation To Work – my car
Exercise (b)Log – nothing of note
Morning Weigh-In – 203 pounds
Pages Of 1001 Paintings You Must See Before You Die Read – 52

Monthly
Foot Mileage – ~4 miles, Wheel Mileage – 0 miles
Pushups – 0, Situps – 0
Consecutive Days Of Bed-Making (Longest Streak) – 7 (7)
Vegetarian Days – 1, Carnivorous Days – 6
Marta Rides – 0

March Goals
- Not get fired from my job
- Ride my bicycle no fewer than 100 miles
- Get the new LLC moving…

2010 Goals
- Reduce my weight to 185 pounds (starting weight was 198 pounds)
- Completely read the book 1001 Paintings You Must See Before You Die
- Earn at least $150 through photography sales in order to cover the cost for the renewal of the Jalapeño Beach SmugMug account I opened the other day.
- Save $500 for the sole purpose of donating to charitable organizations of my choice
- Attend at least one professional photography workshop
- Enter no fewer than three photographic competitions / gallery showings
- Get the Black Sheep stats out of Excel and online
- Ride in no fewer than two 50 mile or 50K bike rides
- Complete my Taco Mac Passport requirement of 125 beers

The Unmeasurable
- Continue backing up all data, including the off-site storage
- Become a proficient programmer in PHP and CSS
- Do not create a solution for something which is not a problem

Cheers,
Paulie [eatl/ga]

I’m not going to try and paint myself as the biggest fan of Pavement. Sheepishly I have to admit that Pavement is one of the handful of really popular indie bands (see also: Sonic Youth) that someone all-but missed my radar “back in the day.” I guess I was doing more of the punk and grunge things back then. However, this won’t stop me from being one of the masses who hit Ticketmaster’s website to buy a ticket, and get reamed with “convenience fees”, for the show at The Tabernacle later this year.

Beware Of The Ides Of March
Last night I placed an order for AT&T’s U-Verse service. Once installed on March 15th I’ll be subscribing to AT&T’s 12Mbps internet service as well as digital phone service with unlimited minutes throughout the US, Canada, and Mexico. These two services will cost $80/month (before obligatory taxes and fees) and will cost me another $149 to have installed. Why do it?

Well, first and foremost my current DSL delivers 1.5Mbps at best for $60/month, I have an analog landline (for the DSL and alarm system) which costs about $30/month, and I have a long distance calling plan which costs $6/month plus a fairly nominal per-minute charge for long distance calls I place. So, in theory I’m getting better services for $16 less than what I’m paying now. And as a bonus I will only have to pay one provider instead of the three with whom I currently do business. I like!

There are one or two concerns I have however. First, unlike analog telephone service digital telephone service requires electricity from the home. Therefore, if the power goes out, I better be getting cellphone service so that I can call Georgia Power to reinstate services. Second, I will have to contact my alarm company to make sure that their service can be used with a digital phone line. If not, this may be another opportunity for me to change companies and lower my monthly fees.

ITP Flickr Pic
Last Saturday I went abandoned car hunting based on a tip given to me by my friend Jill (aka “Supersuck”).

This gem was located up in Norcross.

RealiTV Update : Survivor — The Race For Immunity Is On
For some reason it’s difficult for me to remember what happened last night. It must have something to do with the fact that I was working on my computer all night while the tv played in the background.

Spoilers Follow
I do remember that it was a rather lackluster episode.
I do remember that each team received a fairly straightforward “clue” to the location of an Immunity Idol at their camp.
I do remember Tom finding the Immunity Idol at the Heroes’ camp.
I do remember the Villains winning immunity.
I do remember Tom cleverly playing his Immunity Idol, which probably saved his ass from elimination.
I do remember the joy of hearing that Cerie was voted off. I’ve never liked her for some reason…

I Won’t Be Fooled Again
I’m looking at the weather forecast for Atlanta this weekend, a weekend of sun with a high of 57ºF on Saturday and a high of 61ºF on Sunday. Perfect bicycle riding weather, right? Not so fast, my friend. Check out the lows this weekend 28ºF on Saturday and 38ºF on Sunday.

I might have to wait another week or two before getting the Red Rocket back on the road.

Stats & Goals
Daily
Current Mood – fair, feeling a bit ill but hopeful that it’ll be out of my system by tomorrow
Current Music – listening to the “Grammar Girl” podcast. If you’ve read this space for some time you know that I should pay more attention to this podcast.
Website Of The Day – A Is For Atlanta is a real estate blog that I stumbled upon while contemplating loft rental the other day.
Mode Of Transportation To Work – my car
Exercise (b)Log – nothing
Morning Weigh-In – didn’t check
Pages Of 1001 Paintings You Must See Before You Die Read – 52

Monthly
Foot Mileage – ~4 miles, Wheel Mileage – 0 miles
Pushups – 0, Situps – 0
Consecutive Days Of Bed-Making (Longest Streak) – 5 (5)
Vegetarian Days – 1, Carnivorous Days – 3
Marta Rides – 0

March Goals
- Not get fired from my job
- Ride my bicycle no fewer than 100 miles
- Get the new LLC moving…

2010 Goals
- Reduce my weight to 185 pounds (starting weight was 198 pounds)
- Completely read the book 1001 Paintings You Must See Before You Die
- Earn at least $150 through photography sales in order to cover the cost for the renewal of the Jalapeño Beach SmugMug account I opened the other day.
- Save $500 for the sole purpose of donating to charitable organizations of my choice
- Attend at least one professional photography workshop
- Enter no fewer than three photographic competitions / gallery showings
- Get the Black Sheep stats out of Excel and online
- Ride in no fewer than two 50 mile or 50K bike rides
- Complete my Taco Mac Passport requirement of 125 beers

The Unmeasurable
- Continue backing up all data, including the off-site storage
- Become a proficient programmer in PHP and CSS
- Do not create a solution for something which is not a problem

Cheers,
Paulie [eatl/ga]

Something about repeating the same process and expecting different results?

Well, today I’m replaying the “Waiting for the electrician game.” It turns out, so I was told, that the electrician had written me in for 8am today and not yesterday. So, with an apology and an offer to do the work at a discount I decided to see if we can get this deal done today.

As I watch today’s Flickr pic crawl its way onto the internet I can only hope that a switch to U-Verse will make my internet experience much more enjoyable. Dangen! The first attempt to upload the photo failed.

Oh, and it’s now 5:30am and I’ve been up since about 3:30am. This doesn’t bode well for me today. I see a nap in my future.

I Found The Night, Now I Need To Find Some Game
The “Plan” last night was to see the play “Shooting Star” at Horizon Theatre. The “Sub-Plan” was to see if I would at least be close to the median age of the people in attendance. It was the suggestion of ITP-Reader Lisa, who used to go to the Horizon when she was an Atlanta resident many years ago, that younger people (read “women”) would more likely be in attendance during the week when ticket prices were lower.

She was right of course, though early returns had me believing that I’d never see a show at the Horizon at which I wouldn’t be one of the youngest patrons. Last night there were two groups of women who were in attendance, the younger of which were adorable but way too young and perhaps out of my league, the elder of which were all married and talking about children. Of course I wasn’t feeling well last night either with a dry cough and some intermittent chest pains. Of course none of that matters as I have no “game” and would have done nothing even if I had felt on top of the world.

The play was very good. Acted well by the only two people in the play, it ran for eight-five minutes without intermission. If you don’t know the plot of “Shooting Star,” it’s a about a chance encounter of two former lovers (twenty-five years later) who are stuck in an airport waiting for a huge snowstorm to subside so that they can catch their flights — coincidentally to each other’s home town. The two people’s lives have gone in opposite directions, he, has become corporate businessman with a wife and daughter while, she, has attempted to maintain the hippie lifestyle they shared those many years ago. Of course each is suffering at the present time and an attempt to rekindle the old times, perhaps the only awkward portion of the play, when the airport shuts down for the evening proves to be fruitless. There is a major plot twist toward the play’s end which I shan’t disclose in case you want to see the play, which gives it an air of “ABC AfterSchool Special” which I found unfortunate. Overall I’d recommend the play if you can handle plays which are not necessarily comedic.

ITP Flickr Pic
I should have known better than to believe that Pomegranate Fruit Bars would be made from pomegranates.

RELATED: I don’t read packaging well.

Too Much Of A Good Thing Is Not So Great
Yesterday was a weird food day even by my standards. I started the day with a “breakfast bar,” which is not all that unusual.

When my regular lunch crew decided not to go out for lunch I chose to stay in as well, eating a bowl of shredded wheat cereal, banana, and “pomegranate” bar.

I didn’t budget nearly enough time for eating dinner before last night’s play and wanting to chalk up a vegetarian day I unfortunately ate another “pomegranate” bar and a different brand of cereal bar for dinner.

Hungry when I arrived home post-play, I made a cup of tea and ate the final two spoonfuls of peanut butter straight from its jar.

Too much sweet, not nearly enough savory. Not good.

I Wish I Were Handing Out Happy Birthday Greetings Today
Today would have been my father’s 87th birthday had he lived to see it. I think I should call my mother tonight to see how she’s doing.

Stats & Goals
Daily
Current Mood – meh, life is not thrilling me at the moment
Current Music – listening podcasts when I should be sleeping
Website Of The Day – With a switch to digital phone service I might also make the leap to a digital alarm company such as Next Alarm.
Mode Of Transportation To Work – my car, at least it will be when I go in to work
Exercise (b)Log – nothing
Morning Weigh-In – didn’t check
Pages Of 1001 Paintings You Must See Before You Die Read – 52

Monthly
Foot Mileage – ~4 miles, Wheel Mileage – 0 miles
Pushups – 0, Situps – 0
Consecutive Days Of Bed-Making (Longest Streak) – 4 (4)
Vegetarian Days – 1, Carnivorous Days – 2
Marta Rides – 0

March Goals
- Not get fired from my job
- Ride my bicycle no fewer than 100 miles
- Get the new LLC moving…

2010 Goals
- Reduce my weight to 185 pounds (starting weight was 198 pounds)
- Completely read the book 1001 Paintings You Must See Before You Die
- Earn at least $150 through photography sales in order to cover the cost for the renewal of the Jalapeño Beach SmugMug account I opened the other day.
- Save $500 for the sole purpose of donating to charitable organizations of my choice
- Attend at least one professional photography workshop
- Enter no fewer than three photographic competitions / gallery showings
- Get the Black Sheep stats out of Excel and online
- Ride in no fewer than two 50 mile or 50K bike rides
- Complete my Taco Mac Passport requirement of 125 beers

The Unmeasurable
- Continue backing up all data, including the off-site storage
- Become a proficient programmer in PHP and CSS
- Do not create a solution for something which is not a problem

Cheers,
Paulie [eatl/ga]