Happy Anniversary!!!

Today is the one year anniversary of this blog.  My first post was February 22, 2008, and it is now February 22, 2009.  In celebration, I thought I would delve into some of the statistics WordPress compiles for the blog.  (I know, it is kind of nerdy, but I am such a stats geek.)

First up is Busiest Day.  That would be November 18, 2008 with 28 views.  That is the day after I posted my Should We Bailout The Car Companies post.

Next is Busiest Month.  That distinction goes to January 2009 with 259 views.  I think that is because I had pretty much taken December off, and people were obviously excited to see my return.  That is the only possible explanation.  Really.

Now, for some more interesting stuff:  Most Popular Post.  This one has always surprised me.  Care to take a guess?  I’ll bet you did not guess, “White People Don’t Use Hair Oil” did you?  Well, that is, in fact, the number one post on this blog with 110 views, 10 more than Obama Is A Cylon.

Most Popular Search Term is the search that brought people most often to my blog.  It is “Obama is a Cylon.”  Number two is “how to use hair oil.”

Some other random information is that this will be the 85th post to my blog.  So, I have been averaging one post every 4.3 days.  I also have 33 comments made on my blog.  So, I seem not to garner a lot of discussion.  Oh well, I do not usually try to be controversial.

So, there you have it, one year under my belt, and I managed to top 2,000 page views.  I am not primetime, or even small time, but I am happy with that.

Trying More Social Networking

Well, since I’m over Facebook, I have decided to try something else, Twitter.  You can follow me here.  So, if you ever want to know what random thoughts pop into my head, look there.

Life Update

I do not have anything too deep to post about today, so I will give you a rundown of some of the random things that have been happening:

• Had my Facebook profile disabled for some yet-unstated reason.  I am still trying to get some kind of response from Facebook other than the initial auto-response message.
• Kept up on all my homework and most of my reading.  (Business Law is an interesting course but REALLY dry reading.)
• Watched some Hulu on my 22″ LCD monitor (Christmas gift from my wife) on my Ubuntu box using Boxee.  Now I just need Netflix to get their act together and support Linux.
• Got a new general manager at work.  I think he will work out better than if the interim general manager had stayed.
• Nursed my wife through her bout of flu.  Now I just hope I do not get sick.
• I think we are cancelling a trip to New Jersey because my wife missed two days of work this week.  It is kind of a bummer, but I get another Dungeons & Dragons game in this way.
• I have not been able to have lunch with my friend Chris, but due to the pending trip cancellation, I might be able to this week.

I Wish I Could Make This Stuff Up

The other day I received a rather… emphatic comment in response to my two Amirah stories.  I will post it verbatim here:

“Wow. You cannot possibly see how mean you are. Forget race or gender or culture, you’re just straight up mean. You seem like one of those girls in high school who just doesn’t “like” someone. That’s passive aggressive bullying. And you think SHE has the attitude. From “Look b@#$#, white people don’t use hair oil” to “Oh, lookie here, I’ve been ‘cursed’ by an Ethiopian”, you demonstrate how low you feel about yourself. It’s like you’re trying to find something about her to hate. She just rubs you the wrong way, but you don’t know why. You would think it’s about her. But your meanness goes deeper than that. You discomfort goes deeper than that. What you perceive to be an attitude is actually her picking up on how skilled you are at being a bully. And you got away with it. If you were one of my employees, you’d be the one getting the axe. Stop living in high school. Grow up and learn to live with people other than yourself. Travel. Read a book. Learn a new language. Do something. But please, spare the world of your bullying ignorance. I’m glad she got fired. Now she can find a place less hostile to work at.”

I know some of those who actually know me are laughing right now.  I love the “travel, read a book, learn a new language” line.  You can tell a total stranger wrote that since they would know I have traveled all over the United States and visited two other continents.  They would know I can communicate fairly well in Spanish with the Bolivians and Peruvians I work with.  They would also know I speak a smattering of Greek as well.  They would also know I am a voracious reader.

Instead, a total stranger decided to harangue another total stranger over some misperceived slight against yet another total stranger.  It is almost as ridiculous as someone calling someone else a Devil Person and telling them God will make them pay because they were told to ring customers up at the cash register.  Shine on, you crazy diamond.

I may or may not be a mean person, but I know myself a hell of a lot better than some stranger on the Internet.  So pardon me if I do not take what you say to heart.

Starting The Sell-Off

I have been wanting to do this for awhile, but in order to clean out the apartment and pump up the bank account, I have listed some of my books on Half.com.  I also listed some textbooks the campus bookstore would not buy back.  So, hopefully things will sell well, and I will have a less cluttered apartment.

I Love It When Irony Strikes

Today we were driving home, and passed the local National Wholesale Liquidators.  The funny and ironic part is they are closing the store and were being liquidated.  That kept me chuckling for a few minutes.

I Bit The Bullet Yesterday

I signed up for Facebook.  I figure it’s the college thing to do.  So, if you want to friend me, my profile can be found here.  At least starting Facebook is good for the ego.  In the first hour I had three friends.  24 hours later, and I had 11.  I’m pratically a celebrity!  😉

I’m still trying to keep myself in the blogging habit.

How Nerdy Am I?

With my wife in Ethiopia, we needed a cheap way to talk to each other, voice to voice.  Enter Skype.  It is a handy little program that looks a lot like any other instant messenger program, except it also lets you make voice calls.  Voice calls from one computer running Skype to another are free, so we decided to try it while my wife is in Ethiopia.

There were some complications, though.  Nothing technical, other than my wife getting an echo of her voice, like you would on a bad cell connection.  The complications came in time differences and sleep schedules.  My wife was not certain when she would wake up, since she had just arrived in Ethiopia.  Add in a seven hour time difference, and… well… Things get complicated.

So, what was my uber-nerdy solution?  Easy:  hook the computer up to the stereo so I can hear the computer “ring” when my wife calls on Skype.  Then, I slept on the couch with the headset next to the computer.  So, when my wife called, the stereo woke me, I groped my way over to the computer, plugged in the headset, put it on, and talked to my wife at 5 in the morning.

All of that so we did not have to pay international calling rates.  Worth it?  I think so.

Not The Best Buy

Last night I took all the Best Buy gift cards I got for my birthday and a RewardZone rewards certificate to buy a file server.  I was looking for something with modest specs but as large of a hard drive as I could find.  I settled on a clearenced eMachine.  When I asked the associate for the computer, he gave me the wrong one.  I noticed it right before I got into line to buy it.  I brought it back, and after some hemming and hawwing, it was decided that all that was left was the floor model.

Since it was the floor model, I got a discount.  So, we had to wait for a manager to show up and modify the price.  That is standard operating procedure.  However, I do not think it is SOP to have to wait 5-10 minutes for a manager to show up to modify the price.

The computer is now purchased.  Now, since it is the floor model, the demo software needs to be removed and the “normal” operating system installed.  Basically, it needs to be re-imaged.  I was told it would take 15-20 minutes.  That sounds reasonable.  I’ve re-imaged computers before, but those were XP installs from a single CD.  This was a Vista install, and I am sure it came on a DVD or it was on a recovery partition.

My wife and I ran off to a Borders Books across the street to kill time.  We returned almost a half hour later, and from the sheepish look the Geek Squad guy had when the associate asked him where my computer was, the re-image had not been started.  This was 5 minutes before closing.  I am told it is taking longer than expected, which is highly unlikely.

I would have picked the computer up the next day, but I was scheduled to be at work the entire time the store was open.  So, I stood around and waited until almost a half-hour after closing for the Geek Squad to work their “magic.”

I then took it home and installed Linux on it.  (I thought I would give OpenSUSE a chance, but I may switch over to Ubuntu.)

It will take quite a bit to make me want to go back to that store.

The Party Went Great!

So, everyone survived the party.  The only bad part was when I was mixing some drinks before the party.  I had mixed up the pomegranate and cranberry juice in the pomegranate martinis and cosmopolitans.  Two new drinks were born:  the Crantini and the Posmo!

One thing I did learn at the party is that it is harder to get too drunk when you have to mix your own martinis.  The drunker you get, the less motivation you have to get up and mix yourself another drink.  Since they are martinis, they do not get stronger as you get drunker.  They are pure alcohol the way it is.

It was great to see everyone that showed up.  Some of them I had not seen for months, however it had been one whole night since I saw one person there.  We had a suitably nerdy conversation, mostly about TV shows and movies.

And a special shout-out goes to my wife and sister-in-law for making some amazing food.

It was a fantastic 30th birthday party.