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TGBdad
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Name: micah
Location: Michigan, United States
Gender: Male
Interests: Church and Family, Geocaching, Live Sound Reinforcement, Theatrical Lighting and Stagecraft, Audio Recording, Drag Racing, Linux, Web Design, oh look... something shiny...
Occupation: Computer related (Internet)
Industry: Computers (Internet)
Message: message me
Member Since:
8/2/2005
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| Moving On...
Well, I only created a login here so I could comment on a relative's blog. I've redone my own site with Drupal now, so I'm moving my blogging activities there. Bye now... | | |
| Gun Control Means Using Both Hands
They're shooting at the rescue helicopters in New Orleans. It's complete anarchy, the kind of news we almost expect out of the impoverished sections of Africa. Or the Persian Gulf. Not the Gulf Coast. (Why do my fingers keep trying to type Gulf Ghost?) An entire urban metropolitan center gone, wiped out, destroyed. But the urban population remains, for the most part, although they're either already out or trying to get out. Maybe the real crazies are the team at web hosting outfit directNIC.com. There's a report on The Register about how the staff at directNIC are still working away in their tenth-floor data center in New Orleans. This morning's blog entries tell the tale:
Can confirm: The National Guard, FEMA, the NOPD, and City authorities DO NOT have the city under control. There are live radio feeds for the National Guard comms and NOPD comms which have been circulating the web, and you can listen to the chaos and disarray for yourselves. I am not going to post the links, but I'm sure others have and will. I doubt the government's ability to reestablish order without a full active duty military presence to crush the mob mentality. This of course will mean no civil rights and everyone being treated equally -- as a criminal. Rock | Hard Place.
And a little earlier:
It's like Mogadishu out there, but we're in a fixed defensive position and prepared.
And perhaps the best quote in the midst of it all:
A local company called us because they heard we still had the datacenter operating. They asked for our help. We went to their office and brought back their most critical server. We are in the process of transferring 40 gigs of data from their most critical server at this time. Of course we have no experience with Macs so this will be interesting.
Realistically, it appears that directNIC is backing up their operations elsewhere, and I'm sure that their best approach in the end will be to shut down the New Orleans datacenter and get out. But I really gotta wonder if they're gonna give up.
Securing a 27 floor high rise with no elevator support is not fun. I am totally worn out. I am gonna chill for an hour, eat dinner, then perform maintenance. But never fear, Outpost Crystal and Team SOTI have knuckled down and will never quit. Never. We are prepared to go all the way to see this thing through.
What Does It All Mean?
Like I'm gonna try to answer that right now. Honestly, I am very tempted to draw conclusions here. Or at least parallels. Biblical, political, or just my plain old stubborn opinions. Maybe later. Too bad I didn't have a blog back in September 2001. Or maybe it's good that I did. I learned a bit back then from "fletcher", a regular from the rec.audio.pro Usenet newsgroup when he said:
I have never before experienced a week where I've responded to so many posts, held the sending of the response for an hour, then reread the response and not sent it. It works just as well as having sent it for getting s*** off your chest...but you look like a little less of a buffoon to the outside world.
Some days, getting a little older and wiser doesn't suck...on the other days, my *** knees hurt.
So rather than post rashly here, I think I'll just ponder this day a little more. And say a prayer or two. | | |
| Strategic ReservesTrue to predictions gas prices are soaring. At least I'm in a part of the country where gas prices are the biggest concern, and not on the Gulf Coast, where they have real problems to deal with. Still, the Bush Administration has tapped into the Strategic Petroleum Reserves. For all those who supported tapping those reserves just because prices were rising, I hope (but highly doubt) that they see now that it was better to wait until we had a real emergency.
 Speaking of emergencies, here in Michigan, where panic buying has drive gas prices to more than twenty five cents above the national average, Governor Granholm has declared an "energy emergency". I don't know if that is good or bad. Sure, things are pretty grim, but will declaring an emergency make things better?
The way prices were rising didn't make much sense to me, either. It seemed like the CheapGas Alternative stations went high first, while the BigChain Mainstream Stations had a slower climb. That was actually explained in a WWJ Newsradio 950 AM interview with the manager of a local Shell station (listen to the podcast here)
who explained that panic buying began at the independent stations, and when they started running out of gas - or raising their prices to slow things down - people then started returning to the big chains. To add credibility to his story, his was among the two or three lowest stations I passed on my way home tonight.
And What A Drive It WasWhen I first started driving tonight, I thought that the gas prices had actually caused a reduction in traffic. Then I realized that I just hadn't gotten to where all the cars were, yet. Okay, so a motorcycle crash took the nightly Novi mess to new highs, so I diverted and drove through the Mixing Bowl instead. Oh well, at least I got to see a couple of guys riding on their Segways. Now that's cheap transportation!But Transportation Costs Aren't the Real Problem, Are They?Not according to the news. It looks like it's also going to cost 20% more to heat our homes this winter. (podcast) Good thing I've got a lot of dead elm trees to cut down. Our first electric bill was something like $180! Gotta stop letting the kids air condition the outdoors, I guess. Wow! That's insane. We're really gonna struggle with the heat this winter, I think.
Alaskan OilOkay. I brought it up. Love me or hate me, I dunno. I think it's time to research the issue and find out if my opinion is right. Maybe I'll ask Keith when he gets back from racing at Alaska Raceway Park this weekend. Or maybe I'll read the info at this website I found.PodcastMaybe I should podcast. Heck, I think up most of this stuff while I'm driving. Then again, I think up most of this stuff when I'm listening to the radio in the car. Maybe if I turned off the news, I'd think about more important things... | | |
| Racing the WavesThe big news this morning, of course, was how Katrina is affecting oil prices,
so I was one of the ones driving around making sure to fill up before
the price at the pump jumps again. I passed on my first choice at
$2.699, nervous because I knew it was a long drive to the next station,
and I was approaching the time of day when the franchise owners roll in
and start changing their prices for the day. WWJ radio
started running a story on the long lines at the Firebird station near
the office, and so I figured I would be driving into a circus. My
hesitation paid off, though, when I got a tankful for a mere $2.559 a
gallon. I found it interesting that the pump prompted me for my zip
code (which, because of the move I got wrong on the first try) before accepting my card.
I could have held off for the two stations that were all the way down
to $2.499, and that Firebird station was $2.549 - not that great a deal
for no-brand gas. Still, reports are that prices could jump by as much
as 20 to 30 cents per gallon during the day. No doubt a direct result
of those same reports. Good grief!
Is Google the new Microsoft? Who cares? The talk has gone on for a while now, and The Register has a pretty good article
covering the topic. Big whoop. Thanks to some early paranoia from my
cousin's husband, most of my personal info is fairly well hidden from
Google's database nowadays. I'm still one of the most findable people
on the web, but most hits are work-related, or archives of my one post
to bugtraq.
If you ask me, much of Google's malignment stems
from people's own stupidity. To quote the instructor from a recent
training course I attended, "When you make something public, you live
with it." Yes, I find it amusing that Google still has links to
documents I moved eight years ago. So does The Wayback Machine
at archive.org. When the web was new, idiots like me raced to post our
personalities online before deciding if it was wise to do so. I'm older
and (hopefully) wiser now, so I've started paying more attention. Goes
back to what I will and will not blog, I guess.
Speaking of Blogs...I posted a fun update about our Geocaching travel bug over on thegreenbag.com last week. I need to blog about our day with the Sam Grant TB and the Woodward Dream Cruise when I get a chance. That entry will be at thegreenbag.com, too. | | |
| Christopher Walken for President?
I was a bit startled this morning when I spotted the Walken 2008 - Official Website atop this morning's Bloglines Toplinks. (I'm subscribed to my own Xanga site. Does this mean I just helped propel the site higher for tomorrow? Probably.) But yes, it appears to be true that Christopher Walken is running for President.
Of his nearly 100 films, the first movie where I really noticed him was the 1983 Sci-Fi thriller Brainstorm. I will probably best remember him for the infamous "Sicilian scene" with Dennis Hopper in True Romance. I must admit the thought of such a sit-down between a US President and a terrorist leader is somewhat appealing.
According to the FAQ, the Walken campaign is starting out quietly via the Internet because, "The major media are bloodhounds, and once they get wind, Mr. Walken will be forced to start actively campaigning to balance an inevitable onslaught of criticism from opponents. For the time being, while Mr. Walken is finishing some film projects and we're establishing our campaign, we'll stick to word-of-mouth communication. Believe me, it works very well."
Perhaps too well. Or perhaps exactly as well as the purveyors of this apparent hoax had hoped it would. And it probably would have been fun to watch, no matter how his politics had turned out. | | |
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