Today is my anniversary. Lucky 13, to be precise. Mrs. Digital and I will be celebrating this evening, with a (hopefully) quiet, intimate dinner. Not much more to say about this anniversary (after all, it’s 7 in the ahem…it hasn’t even gotten started. However, I’d be remiss if I didn’t share with you something that happened almost ten years ago, regarding our anniversary… [Read more…] about Happy Anniversary, Baby…
Humor
Six of one…
When I was a kid, things in politics seemed much more simple. Republicans were the party of small government and low taxes. Democrats were the party of big government and big taxes. If you were for personal responsibility, you voted GOP. If you thought government had all the answers, you voted Democrat. Today, it’s not that easy. The GOP has been largely taken over by the RINOs (Republicans In Name Only), where conservative ideals and big government (and big government spending) have learned to peacefully co-exist. The Dems have been bushwacked by the lunatic left, with the George Sorros/MoveOn.org/DailyKos/Huffington Post crowd holding it hostage. [Read more…] about Six of one…
How to start each day with a positive outlook.
[Editor’s note: Mrs. Digital forwarded this to me, and I liked it so much I thought I’d share it with you.]
HOW TO START EACH DAY WITH A POSITIVE OUTLOOK
1. Open a new Word file in your computer.
2. Name it ‘Barack Obama’.
3. Send it to the Recycle Bin.
4. Empty the Recycle Bin.
5. Your PC will ask you: ‘Do you really want to get rid of ‘Barack Obama?’
6. Firmly Click ‘Yes.’
7. Feel better?
GOOD! – Tomorrow we’ll do Nancy Pelosi!
Leapin’ Lizards!
I’m back from the family reunion, offspring in tow. Along the way, we made her first pilgrimage to the Mecca for women, young and old, a place called “Sam Moon.” What is a “Sam Moon,” you may ask? Sam Moon is a phenomenon in the Dallas/Fort Worth area. It’s a chain of stores that sell women’s accessories – jewelry, purses, luggage, belts, earrings, necklaces and the like, at wholesale prices. “Wholesale prices” is a term that is bandied about in the retail game, sometimes with a sense of mendacity that would make a professional liar blush. No, Sam Moon has got the goods. They are the real deal, the genuine article, the Real McCoy. But this is not a post about the wonders of Sam Moon, the upsetting of the natural order when it comes to baubles, bangles, and bright shiny beads. No, gentle reader, this is a story about awe, shared experiences, and fatherhood. [Read more…] about Leapin’ Lizards!
I am outta here…for a long weekend.
It’s family reunion time, and I’ll be away from the blogosphere for a bit. I have to make a pilgrimage to Captain Digital’s ancestral home – Shreveport – which is Hell-n’-gone from Amarillo (Centrally Located Between Two Oceans!™). The offspring (our Digital Mini-Me) is making the trip with me (should be fun), but Mrs. Digital has opted to stay behind and convalesce. I may – or may not – have a chance to log-in, tune-in, and write-on (this blog), so it may be a week or so before I’m expounding on whatever is bugging me. (Not to worry…I’m sure I’ll have plenty of stuff to write about, after dealing with my family for a week.) So enjoy the weekend. Lord knows, I’ll try to, between the scheduled spontenaity of the reunion, a 10-year-old on HER first pilgriage to Sam Moon (the merchandising Mecca for All Things Jewelry), and the joys of driving two-lane-blacktop for several hundred miles. Catch you on the flip-side.
(Why) Wonder, Woman?
My wife thinks she’s Wonder Woman. Not the cartoon character. Not the Lynda Carter TV icon. But she does think she’s invulnerable, super-strong, and impervious to pain. And she’s not alone. A lot of women that came of age in the 70’s and 80’s bought into that superheroine myth.
In the five decades I’ve been on God’s green Earth, I’ve learned that what you believe is every bit as influential regarding how you react to something as is the stimulae itself. In other words, the way you react to a given situation is largely going to be dictated by your belief system. Here’s an illustration that I think will clear things up…Three people are locked in a room. One grew up around an uncle who ran a snake attraction, and was used to handling snakes. The next grew up traumatized, as a favorite relative died on a camping trip, from a snakebite. The third has no exposure – positive or negative – to snakes.
A panel opens in the ceiling, and a snake is lowered into the room. One event: three dramatically different reactions. The first person says “Oooh, what a cute snake!,” and picks it up to play with it. The second person hyperventilates, panics, and attempts to claw their way out of the room. Third goes back to reading a book. [Read more…] about (Why) Wonder, Woman?
My two cents.
I’ve been in the business of using computers, in one way or another, since 1982. I wrote my first college paper on an Apple III. I owned one of the original IBM PCs (Hercules Graphics Card! 512K RAM! Two full-height 5 1/4″ Floppy Drives! Dot Matrix Printer! DOS 2.0! Ashton-Tate Framework! All for the low, low price of $4,000!!!). I’ve worked as a software engineer, product manager, project manager, marketing manager, and user interface evangelist for software publishing companies. I was around for the birth of Windows 1.0, the life and death of COMDEX, the rise of the common user interface, the Year of the LAN, and a slew of other things, long consigned to the dust bin of computer history. I’ve been a user, author, coder, beta-tester, evangelist, designer, and planner. In short, I’ve held just about every job you can hold in the software industry.
Now I’m writing reviews. [Read more…] about My two cents.
There’s no place like Home (Depot).
I like to build things. Particularly out of wood. I grew up in a woodworking shop – it was my Dad’s hobby. (Kind of a weird hobby for a musician – using tools that could end your career in a split second – but I digress.) I love everything about woodworking – the smell of fresh sawdust, the math skills needed to take raw stock and turn it into something useful, the feel of a piece of wood just sanded – you name it. I’m there. I like to work from a rough sketch, working things out in my mind, then putting down the bare minimum info on paper. It’s more fun that way, rather than creating some really detailed, isometric drawing, with dimensions accurate down to a 64th of an inch and so forth. I find that when I work from a rough sketch, that I oftentimes improvise solutions to problems I’d not anticipated, and end up with a better finished product. Some call that “listening to the wood,” but I’m not so mystically inclined. Still… [Read more…] about There’s no place like Home (Depot).
Mumbo Gumbo.
My wife is brilliant.
And it’s rubbed off on our daughter.
Now, you might be thinking at this moment, “Yeah…sure. Everybody thinks their kid is brilliant, and a lot of husbands feel that way about their wives.” That’s probably true, but I have proof of my family’s brilliance. They’ve started their own language. And it’s…it’s…absolutely brilliant. Allow me to explain. [Read more…] about Mumbo Gumbo.
My friend ran for President, and all I got was this lousy TShirt.
I’m not easily impressed by most marketing. It’s not that I’m jaded…I’ve just seen a LOT of pitches, promotions, and “new” (read: “recycled, old”) ideas. No big. But every now and then, something comes across my desk that makes me sit up and take notice. Such is the case with http://www.news3online.com. This thing is brilliant.
Few people that are hip to the capabilities of Photoshop and AfterEffects are undully impressed with seeing their photo munged into another. Fair enough. But what if you created what appears to be a legit news story about a grassroots Presidential campaign, and built a dynamic database to capture emails, with the viral “news” story as the lure? Now THAT’S marketing. [Read more…] about My friend ran for President, and all I got was this lousy TShirt.