Month: February 2007

I’m a big fan of real irony. Situations where the outcome is the opposite of that which is expected. That’s irony. The fact that Alanis Morisette’s “Isn’t it Ironic?” song actually contains no irony? That’s irony. You know what else is irony? This.

Dick Morris recently noted, regarding the four leading GOP presidential contenders in 2008 (John McCain, Mitt Romney, Newt Gingrich and Rudy Giuliani):

“And then there are the personal lives – the only one of these guys who hasn’t had multiple wives is the Mormon.”

Ironic. And kind of funny, too.

I had the most bizarre dream some time ago (the night of December 30-31, to be exact)…

I received a telephone call from my brother, Jay late at night. “Matt, we really need your help over at Wahoo Studios” — the old name for Ninjabee — “and could offer you a good salary to help us get our network under control.”

So I took a vacation day from my day job a big, nameless, faceless corporation, to show up in a dingy basement suite similar to my bygone days at Singletrac. Since I am an early riser, there were not many people there yet. Yet I had forgotten something important that morning.

I had shown up in my pajamas.

Luckily, being the prepared person that I temporarily pretend to be when I show up at a new job, I had a nice pair of slacks, dress shoes, and a freshly-pressed red shirt in my duffel bag. After visiting the restroom to change, and the briefest of introductions to the boss — who seemed completely unruffled with me having shown up in pajamas, as if it were the most normal thing in the world — I was shown my cubicle.

Not really a cubicle, though. It was a desk, shoved up against two other desks, their sides to this one’s back. I had a lone LCD monitor perched atop this rickety contraption, and next to it was an absolutely massive joystick. Something vaguely unsettling there, as this particular joystick has a strong phallic resemblance. And it’s a “force feedback” joystick, in that when you try to move it around, it sometimes stiffens up in response to in-game events.

Anyway, I started typing away, and suddenly a hand reaches from the desk abutting mine and spins my LCD monitor 180 degrees, leaving the back facing me. I peeked around to see Michael Jackson (not the pop singer, but a graphic artist resident to the Salt Lake City area) staring at me over his goatee. “We practice Extreme Programming here, sport,” he said snappily, “and now it’s my turn to use the monitor.”

So I got up and walked around. I stumbled into a conference room and sat down to look above me. Much to my consternation, rather than air conditioners in the windows, there were Sun V240 servers hanging out, exposed to the wind and rain, with their rack screws screwed into windowsills.

“Boy, do I have my work cut out for me,” I muttered softly, aghast at the spaghetti mess of wires above my head.

“Always nice to meet a man who knows his work,” said a jovial, fat fellow I did not know who appeared next to me. “The network in this place is an absolute abomination, I tell you! Just wait until you see the data center!”

He led me through hallways to an area with a raised floor. He explained that this was where the servers which hosted their massively-multiplayer online game resided. I peered through the windows into the dimly-lit, humid room beyond. A gigantic black widow was perched on the blue and yellow CAT-5 cables, whistling softly to herself and polishing the glassy end of a thin orange fiber-optic cable. She peered up from her work, over her horn-rimmed glasses, and grinned at me. “That’s Sheila,” explained the fat man. “She’s eaten our last two network admins, but she never smiled at them. She likes you.”

“Black widows eat their mates,” I said softly.

Yes, I know it’s bizarre and surreal, but aren’t most dreams?

About ten years ago, I performed (with Matt) a song I wrote for my new wife. “Kelly’s Song”, it was called – and it became generally recognized as one of the best tunes I had ever written.

So today, I present its answer: MASTERPIECE

Although I have referenced “Kelly’s Song” in a number of ballads, this is the first one I ever wrote as a specific answer to the original. I figured a retrospective of the goals set out in the original song, and a “State of the Union” was in order for the 10 year anniversary.. and already, those who have heard it seem to like it, so I hope you like it just as much.

Oh, and here’s the original Kelly’s Song as a reference. Please note the production on the older song is 7 years old, aso its not as hot.. and also that I do owe Matt for some of the piano ideas.

Following in the steps of other reuniting 70s bands, The Police have announced that they will in fact tour this summer, to celebrate the 30th anniversary of the release of “Roxanne”.

Music fans are already speculating whether 2009 will bring a 20th anniversary reunion tour of Wayward Sun.

I typed an eloquent post the other day about my recent job change. And just when it was good and done, ready to publish, down went IE on me and away went a few hundred words of carefully-crafted prose. Ahh, such is life, right?

So, here’s the short version – I left the association I had been with for going on three years, and have settled into a new communications position at Charles E Smith Jewish Day School in Rockville. I’m a member of a new Institutional Advancement office, and work primarily for the head of school and the department director, but the interesting side of the business will be getting involved with the students, and exploiting (I mean, carefully positioning) their activities and successes to advance the larger agenda.

I didn’t want to leave where I was – but things there had gone off the deep end in the last few months, and events since I’ve left have validated my decision. It was one of those things though – do you tough it out and hope that the association politics smooth themselves out? I didn’t see that happening. There are more gory details – aren’t there always gory details? – but its too convoluted to get into right now.

And the new job has a great hidden benefit – snow days! My very first day was a two-hour delay. Since then, another delay, an early dismissal, and three closings (including today). And this holiday weekend includes Friday and Monday. Score!

It’s interesting being in a school environment – my office is in the Lower School, so I see lots of little kids every day. We’re considering sending our oldest there next year for her first grade year.

Anyway, that’s the news I’ve been meaning to post about for a few weeks now. (That, and the wife’s car finally died, and the dealer took it in trade – suckers! – when she bought what I am thinking is the new chick car for the 21st century – the PT Cruiser (with only terse apologies to Cruiser owners.))

TEC

Slow news day…

So checking out the headlines this morning, I didn’t see anything which really pulled me in. I mean, there was some nerdy stuff about how people aren’t clamoring to have themselves implanted with RFID chips. There was the story of the conviction of the former Mormon bishop who went snowmobiling in the nude with kids from his ward. Drake Tungsten blogged about Mordenkinen’s Plot Hammer and how he hates being railroaded when playing a video game. A bunch of NASCAR racers have been found to be cheating (I think they were just doing what they were used to doing, and it had always been given the nod, and then someone got a burr in their butt to strictly enforce that rule regarding airflow holes).

In other news today, Wal-Mart’s “Great Value” and Peter Pan Peanut Butter cause food poisoning. A quantum computer plays Sudoku. And finally, a Japanese company creates beer from milk.

For those of you who have trouble waking up in the morning, I present: The Danger Bomb Alarm Clock.

Yep, that’s right, this alarm clock makes you connect three wires in the correct sequence before it shuts off. If you fail your mission, it blows up! Well, not really, it just makes a loud “explosion” noise. These days, I use an old-style “clanger” alarm clock in the bathroom which gets me up and out of bed on time, but I’m always open to new, creative methods to get me going in the morning.

I still think a coffee maker with a timer might be a better investment, though 🙂

Thought for the day:

There is an inverse correlation between: A) The likelihood of someone calling me on the phone to obtain the resolution to a technical problem (rather than using IM, email, or blog), and B) The likelihood that I can fix the problem remotely.

In other words, the more likely someone is to call me on the phone to help them with a computer problem, the less likely they have the technical competence to carry out whatever instructions I might give them.

There is another inverse correlation as a result of this… The more likely someone is to call me on the phone about a computer problem, the less I want to talk to them.

True for you?

Well, finally, after 9 YEARS I bit the bullet and got new headshots. And so far I like the results. 5 locations, 6 looks, 500 shots, 200 bucks. You will not find a better deal than that.

Anyway, I am now faced with the task of which headshot(s) I’d like to use. So, taking a page from Justin’s blog, I’d love to enlist all y’all, if you’re willing. If you have a spare moment, please go to

http://picasaweb.google.com/arthur.rowan/Headshots

and take a look. I posted 15 shots, each one sort of representative of a “look” that I might go with. Just drop a comment here letting me know which ones you liked the look of. Keep in mind that things like brightness and blemishes can easily be photoshopped, so really what I’m thinking of right now is expression (eyes being a big thing), color, general composition.

Also, even though headshots have in the past been just black and white, the general trend now seems to be moving towards color, so thankfully I don’t need to worry about how well these would translate into B&W.

Finally, this is 15 of 500, so if you see one where you generally like the look of it but don’t like the exact expression, let me know that too, since I’ll probably have at least 5 other shots similar to it.

Tonight, a lone gunman with no clear motive opened fire in Trolley Square, a popular, up-scale mall about thirty miles from my house. Five victims dead, several hospitalized, and the gunman dead. Random. Senseless. Bizarre, and kind of surreal that this just happened about five miles from where I work. We go to this mall to have dinner a few times a year.

I feel for the families of the victims, and yet perversely I’m most curious about the motive of the shooter. What possible explanation could their be for walking into a shopping mall and gunning down random customers?

I don’t get it.

Maybe that’s a good thing.

Because so many people are searching for it and this page ended up on the front page of Google when people search for “Trolley Square Shooting Victims”, let me share the info most people are looking for.

ID of the shooter: Sulejman Talovic, 18, Bosnian refugee living in the US. He left Bosnia two years before the massacre in his home village, though some relatives are certain this had a profound effect on him and factored into his killing spree. Yes, he is Moslem, but his family escaped here to get away from the war and turmoil of their home country and live in peace.

Gunman stopped by: Kenneth Hammond, an off-duty police officer from Ogden (a town quite a few miles north) exercising his right to carry a concealed weapon in Utah. He was on a date with his wife. Hammond saw the shooter, told his wife to get away, and was shot at by Talovic. He returned fire with his Kimber sidearm, and then with the help of local police eventually killed the gunman.

Killed: Jeffrey Walker (52) Vanessa Quinn (28) Kirsten Hinckley (15) Teresa Ellis (28) Brad Franz (24)

Wounded: Carolyn Tuft (44) Stacy Hanson (53) Shawn Munns (34) Alan Jeffery Walker (16)