linkerjpatrick

When I was in college my room mate had a what was known at the time as a “Word processor.” Think of it as a primitive computer that could only run word processing software and the disks that came with it would only work on that kind of machine. if you think Apple has a closed system this one would make Apple look like a free for all. This particular machine was made by panasonic. It not only had the word processing software but it was essentially an electronic typewriter with a screen on the front and disk drives on the side. If I recall correctly this was around 1988. Needless to say it’s use was very limited but one think my room mate did was create a list of things that got on his nerves. If I recall correctly this list was several hundred items long. I’m sure today he would have been blogging about those items. Lately I have been pondering on things that get on my nerves as well and I am going to blog about them so here goes;

1. People who want to debate or argue against everything I say ( Let’s just say I know someone who will argue with me that the sky is red when I say it’s blue, etc.)
2. Running out of milk
3. Forgetting to save something after I have made a lot of edits
4. Neighbors with a subwoofer that runs all night (Yes, I called the police on them)
5. When almost all politicians running are “middle of the road”
6. Podcasts that sound too much a like a business conference call
7. When they run really stupid specials during pledge week on PBS
8. Running out of hard drive space
9. Having to run programs I really don’t want to but have to for business (Windows XP under VMWare Fusion)
10. Programming tutorials that spend too much time on the basic and not enough on practical application
11. High gas prices
12. Alternative fuel sources that are more expensive than gas
13. The rooster who lives in the brushy area behind my house
14. Not having enough sidewalks where I want to go walking
15. Having to fold clothes after washing them
16. Paper jams
17. Burning a CD or DVD only to have it turn into a “coaster”
18. My car leaking oil after getting it ‘fixed”
19. Too many DVD’s that try to be “cultured” at the library
20. Having to get up earlier on one day of the week which totally messes up my sleep schedule
21. When TV stations tend to rerun a particular episode of a series more than another
22. A cough that keep coming back because of allergies
23. When you have a “hankering” to cook a special treat and discover you don’t have a critical ingredient like eggs.
24. People who take forever to check out in the express lane
25. People who’s hair is too perfect to the point you want to mess it up out of spite
26. The muggies
27. old beets
28. toe cheese
29. weeds growing in the garden
30. When traffic backs up and then you can figure out why it slowed down or stopped
31. Having to smell cigarette smoke in places where it is supposed to be banned
32. Trying to explain cool technologies with stupid names to people
33. Getting poked
34. People who use e-mail to send massive photos or other files I’m not expecting
35. People who fall for Internet hoaxes (sometimes these are the same people in #1)
36. Getting asked stupid questions about my last name - No! I am not from Greer,SC!
37. Uncomfortable chairs in hospital waiting room - They should have recliners and big screen TV’s.
38. Driving half way to get to somewhere you need to go and then realizing you forgot something
39. Running out of hot water in the shower
40. Getting too tired in the middle of the day when I need more energy to get stuff done
41. Too much back and forth discussion over e-mail to accomplish something
42. people who like stale Dunkin Donuts better than hot, fresh Krispy Kreme Donuts
43. When people take the cheap route when buying products or services and then complain to me about how something doesn’t work even when I told them not the go the cheap route
44. 1970’s sci-fi movies that are hard to find
45. Getting charged an arm and a leg or a glass of tea
46. Just smelling cooked onions gives me heartburn
47. My teeth hurt when other’s clip their nails
48. Falling asleep in my chair and waking up with a sore neck
49. Having to pay people to do taxes as if paying the taxes wasn’t bad enough
50. Drivers who don’t understand the 4 way stop sign rule

This is a short post. Today is be almost totally devoted to business. Right after I write this I will be making a visit to the tax preparers office concerning some business issues since last year we changed our business structure, then to the downtown office where I will make preparation to contact a client about a possible video project and also gather information for church leadership meeting tonight using services my company provides to help with their outreach efforts. Around 2pm I will travel with my wife, Heather to her doctor’s office for a brief checkup and then back to the home office for short bit and then back to a small business forum meeting at our Chamber of Commerce. Right after the Chamber meeting I will attend the Upstate Entrepreneur Forum for about an our and also take photo’s there and then to my church leadership meeting. This kind of busy schedule, spending time on the road traveling over town and personal family issues is causing me to evaluate my time management habit better. I am trying out an online service combined with a desktop application called, Rescue Time. Let’s see how this goes.

As I write this I am in the waiting room at Greenville Memorial Hospital. I’m not online as I don’t have an Internet connection but I am creating this post in a desktop blogging software called, Ecto which allows me to write offline and also save posts on my own computer.

My father in-law is currently undergoing a second surgery this month to remove a tumor. Afterwards he will need to undergo additional therapy for the foreseeable future. So far I have listened or watched the following podcasts on my iPhone this morning;

• Mac OS Ken
• Grammar Girl
• GSPN’s Weekly Lost Podcast
• Geek Brief TV
• Mahalo Daily
• and the last part of Podcast Answer Man that I started listening to yesterday

I’m also listening to CocoaCast, a podcast about Macintosh OSX program and the current episode is about the iPhone and Aperture software development kits.

I’m waiting (or would have waited by the time you read this) with my wife, her mother and sister while her dad undergoes surgery. I hope this surgery will get the remainder of the tumor which came upon very suddenly in the past couple of months. Well her mother and sister just returned from the cafeteria and we are headed down for breakfast. Don’t be surprised if you see a lot of blog posts flowing in later today and over the weekend as I plan on doing a lot of writing today. Earlier this week I was focused on my still photography and video.

The video I mentioned I was putting together from my staff reunion is finished, well at least the first draft anyway. I may do a “special edition” later.

I had a great weekend at the Camp Old Indian Staff Reunion. I had actually been looking forward to this reunion for two years since the last reunion around the last part of March in 2006. We had a rather small and informal gathering during a Wed. during summer camp of of 2007 but in a lot of ways this years was better than the 2006 in a lot of ways; the weather was warmer, some people showed up who did not show at at the original one and the group of attendees stayed together in groups more to share stories, etc. I like to compare it the the original Star Wars trilogy in that nothing can surpass the experience of seeing the first Star Wars movie but the Empire Strikes Back was better in it’s story depth, effects and characters.

I was better prepared for this particular reunion was I was able to take better photos and made a point to compose them better than the previous time. Another project I attempted was to photograph the staff leathers in the dinning hall as a photographic attempt as preservation. I also took my video camera and I’m currently in the process of putting together a short video. I’m having fun with that but it may still be several days before it’s ready to be shared.

I was also happy to see two of my best friends and cabin mates from my days of working on camp staff and finally I got to see a waterfall that of course had always been there but during my time of going to summer camp and working on camp staff I never saw it because there was not good trail access as it was on the backside of an old lake which for all practical purposes is a swamp. right before I left I took a photo of the camp as the sun was setting and the day was coming to an end. I great weekend for connecting with friends and for perfecting my photography and video skills.

Last night Heather and I attending the first and somewhat informal meeting of a group of people desiring a Christian Artists Guild in Greenville,SC. For a first time meeting where we basically discussed an overall mission and introduced each other it was very well attended. After we had our meeting we spent some time together in fellowship at Snap Shot Cafe in Greenville. One of the people in the meeting as a former co-worker at a non-profit organization I worked at in the 90’s. I enjoyed meeting some other people from his church and others in attendance including a fellow web developer in the community.

It’s always great getting reacquainted with people you haven’t seen in a very long time, in fact as I write this I am preparing to leave for a great day at Camp Old Indian for a Camp Staff reunion that I mention in a previous post. I’m charging up one of the backup batteries for my Canon Digital Rebel and also charging up my Canon Digital Video Camera to record some events of the day and preserve the memories.

I’m listening to some podcast on my laptop and also drinking a cup of coffee while I write this and will soon be taking the morning shower and getting dressed before I head out the door between 9 and 9:30pm. The camp is not that far away for me. A 30 min drive at the most. I’m thankful to live so close and on top of that I love driving up to the mountains and back on Sat. The sights are wonderful and Saturday is my day to tune in to my local PBS/NPR Radio station. On the way up I will probably be listening to Click and Clack and one the way back down the mountain I will probably be listening to Prairie Home Companion. I mentioned that last sentence as that is one of the unique things about my life I enjoy doing. Driving in the local mountains on a Saturday and listening the Sat. programming on NPR.

This weekend I will be attended the second official Camp Old Indian Staff Reunion. The last large scale reunion was two years ago and was attended by people who worked at Camp Old Indian from the late 1960’s to the present day.

I worked on the staff of Camp Old Indian, a Boy Scout camp in Northern Greenville County, SC near the North Carolina border between 1983 and 1989 during my high school and college years.

I am looking forward to reconnecting with former co-workers, writing some drafts for my Camp Old Indian blog and doing a lot of photography, maybe some video as well as posting an audio to this blog via Utterz.

At the risk of sounding like I’m being blatantly commercial I would by lying if I didn’t say a recent software package purchase has been very enjoyable for me. The MacUpdate Promo Package include 10 Software titles but if it had only been one title I still would have saved money. For the most part we (my wife and I) bought the bundle for two software programs. Sound Studio Pro which we will be using for podcasting and Parallels which Heather needs on her MacBook for occasional tasks that require windows.In addition I have been enjoying Leap, a great search utility for the Mac. In fact last night I was using Leap to help me discover the contents and deleted some unneeded PDF files and I found one for a purchase of a program that I deleted a while back for helping me blog without logging into the blog itself. Out of curiosity I went online and discovered their was a much improved version and my old registration code still worked! I’m actually using the program Ecto to write this right now.

The program called StoryMill looks interesting for writing stories and screenplays so I will be checking it out too. I’m also running Menu Calendar Clock, Hazel and DVD Master Pro while Heather is enjoying Typinator, Art Text and BannerZest in addition to Parallels. She still needs a copy of Windows XP but this purchase saved us a lot on our goals for programs we needed to run our business more efficiently as Mac users who also run Windows virtually.

I hope to post some less commercial stuff later today.