notbob

A brilliant criticism of the medical system and, more importantly, of all of us. This wasn't written by Corinne but it might as well have been.

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This post is going to be boring for most. It's mostly for me to capture my thoughts on this new fancy device and I'm only putting it in on the off chance someone is considering buying it. You've been warned.

( My evaluation of the Palm Pre after one day's use... )

Snow in San Francisco? http://picasaweb.google.com/seanmcleary/HailInSanFrancisco Almost. It's hail left over from last night.

NL Cy Young Award goes to Lincecum

In your face, other teams who don't lose all the time, have at least decent hitting, and don't try to rip my heart out of my chest on a regular basis, including the 2002 World Series which, yes, I'm still bitter about. At least we have a Cy Young winner!

What the hell is wrong with you, California?? Do you not learn from your mistakes? It ... is ... wrong ... to ... discriminate! By race, by religion, and, yes, by sexual orientation. If you're black or asian and you voted for Prop 8, shame on you. It wasn't that long ago that your rights were denied under the same, tired arguments. I can't believe you, any of you, conceded to have this hate, bigotry and fear written into the California constitution. And whose brilliant idea was it anyway to only require a simple majority to change the state constitution??

Idiots.

Yes, I'm a little angry. A lot angry. I just can't understand how people in my state can be so blind, ignorant or just plain mean. Geez, you suck. Bleh.

Last night was fun. We elected a smart, sensible, inspiring black man to the office of the President. (Holy shit!) Unfortunately, the Prop 8 hangover is pretty fucking painful.

Oh wow, if I thought Julia Allison and her clan were vapid before, this takes it to new heights:

http://www.tmiweekly.com

My soul hurts from watching the few seconds I could get through.

I'm home. New York was ... well, I barely saw it. Work, work, work. Then cab, plane, car. Then zzzzzzzz...! I was half a block from Bryant Park and the Fashion Week hub-bub. That was semi-interesting.

Got home at 1:30am last night. The flight was fine. Got upgraded for once. Watched two movies and a TV show, then ate two Double Doubles at In-N-Out when I landed. And I realized as I was finally falling asleep in my own bed that I'm home for less than 48 hours. This is my life.

I broke the rule in upgrades: I talked about. No business class for me. Doh.

Looks like I have a good chance at an upgrade on this flight to NYC. Fingers crossed!

It's the sixth anniversary of my first date with Corinne. We're meeting (arriving separately) at the Orbit Room, the same place we met at six years ago, and then having dinner at the same sushi boat restaurant. And just like our first date, I'll be sleeping alone. (She's working a night shift.) Maybe at least I'll get to kiss her this time.

Wow, the US Passport Agency really got their shit together. After hearing all the news about delays in passport renewals earlier this year, I wasn't sure how long it was going to take mine to get back to me. But I sent it in a couple weeks ago, they received it about 7 days ago (I put a delivery confirmation on it), and I just received my brand spanking new passport in the mail today. Damn, that's fast!

Finally, it's summer. And by summer, I mean fall. The sun is out, it's warm, shorts and a tshirt are required gear. It was a long, cold, foggy winter in San Francisco this year. And by winter, I mean summer. It was getting a little old, this winter/summer thing. I love my city but there are times when I think of moving just to escape the incessant grey. More vitamin D next year, for sure.

Speaking of cities, I got back from Seattle last night. Work sent me up there to teach a class and since Corinne had never been, we decided to make a little trip of it. We left last Thursday and spent three days plus being tourists. Lovely city. I never realized how much I like that place. Of course, it was ridiculously nice weather while we were there so that biased the trip a bit. But it was hard to look past the super, genuinely nice people -- even the bus drivers! --, the great food, the beautiful location, and the much lower cost of living. (It made my wallet hurt to look at what we could get for the same price as our house in San Fran.) We left thinking about ... moving. Seriously.

We'd never do it until the Bay Area market rebounded and Corinne researched the job market. Five years, maybe? It's really tempting. Everyone I know who lives there (including a couple former San Francisco dwellers) says it's incredible. "Best place to raise a kid." "The food is fantastic." "It's cool but it doesn't know it's cool." There's a thread on Yelp comparing the two cities started by a guy like me thinking of moving. A lot of the arguments for staying in San Francisco strike me as snotty -- just the kind of attitude I've been growing to loathe.

But then there are arguments that make a great deal of sense. It's pretty fucking rainy up there. The rumors are true. I might get used to it (I love the rain) but I might also hang myself in the garage. It's got great food and good culture "stuff" but not as much as San Francisco, or so the pundits say. We tasted delicious stuff (I mean, really delicious) but Seattle might lack the depth that our current home town has. I'd be pretty foolish not to listen to all the people who praise San Francisco as the most European city in the United States, the best city to live in, etc. Maybe I don't know what I've already got?

On the other hand, maybe Seattle is just that undiscovered. I gotta say, even knowing that I was in vacation mode, it was pretty easy getting around, getting into places, doing stuff. I saw more racial diversity that any given day in San Francisco. (San Francisco may have more actual diversity but it seems to be very segregated.) Even though it rains however many days out of the year, there was way, way more outdoor seating at restaurants than here. And people used it along with all the outdoor free concerts, the outdoor public art, the outdoor festivals. People seemed to get out more. And eat later. In San Francisco, it's rare to see people sitting down to dinner at 10:00pm. In Seattle, we saw it everywhere ... even on weekdays! How European is that?

Of course, moving to Seattle would mean no more Giants games, no more ocean, no more Golden Gate Park, no more familiar street corners that I've known for almost a couple decades, no more beautiful Golden Gate Bridge, no more Palace of Fine Arts at night, no more memories of where we met and where we married, no more wonderful smell you get when you step off the plane.

Yes, but you're two hours from Vancouver, there's Bainbridge Island, there's friends and family there, too, and Washington State has no income tax.

Well, we're not moving any time soon, that's for sure. But it's really nice to know there's another place we like, that we feel we could live in happily. It's exciting.

Hm, I think I hate my job.

I have two free tickets to tonight's Giants game. Email me if you want them.

The guy next to me on the plane keeps looking at me either like he thinks I'm reading what he's typing on his phone or he wants to do me. I'm yelling inside my head, "I DON'T CARE WHAT YOU'RE TYPING AND I DON'T LIKE COCK." This should be a fun flight.

Hallelujah, I'm on a plane!

My travels have not gone well today. So far I have had tickets on United, Northwest and back to United. My first flight was so delayed that I wasn't going to catch my connection in Chicago so I switched my tickets to Northwest -- or rather the agent did -- and then the Northwest plane promptly broke down. I have gone through the same security three times. (The ticket agents are only outside security here in Cedar Rapids.) The last time through they patted me down and searched my bags.

As of now, I'm waitlisted on a flight that leaves in 30 minutes and goes through Denver. If I don't get on that flight (please, please, please), I'll have to wait until 7:20p to flight out of here and won't get home until around midnight. I was supposed to be home by 2p.

I have one thing to say and that is, "Thhhhhpppppptttt!"

(At least all the agents have been really nice and extremely helpful.)

I'm in Iowa to do a webcast on e-commerce. Our company headquarters are here in a little town called Fairfield. In the three years I've been working for them, I've never been here. It's about time!

The town has been putting on quite a show since I arrived. Last night was littered with fireflies -- so many that trees were lit up like they were strung with Christmas lights. As I came home from dinner (not good greasy burger but free ice cream cones), the sky began flashing with lightning. Very dramatic.

It's hot and wet today. The forecast says 91 and rainy. I'm moving between air conditioned indoor spaces so it won't matter much, thankfully. Not big on the whole humidity thing. At least not when I have to wear real clothes.

The town here is so small that there aren't a lot of places to stay. I'm booked at a bed and breakfast owned by friends of my boss, who's also here for the webcast. It's a grand old mansion with huge ceilings and doorways, lots of beautiful woodwork, and, in my room, a ridiculously comfortable four-post bed. I slept well and woke to peach crepes with cream and sausage. If you're ever in Fairfield, Iowa, I highly recommend the Seven Roses Inn.

We're heading over to the office in a bit to set up and get a tour. In my three years, I've talked to a lot of people in marketing, in HR, in logistics, but I've never met any of them in person. In fact, I've only seen pictures of a handful -- the rest are figures in my head that surely have nothing to do with reality. I'm excited to put faces to the names. (Maybe this will also help eliminate some of the terse emails I get.)

Corinne's home safe and sound. She looks sunny and beautiful.

It is definitely beer o'clock. Cold, refreshing beer, you are my new god.

Ok, it's way too hot up here in the office to work. Even with all the windows open. I'm going to run errands outside.

With the birth of the big blue circle, it's now time to give it a name. My old red machine was dubbed "Spock" and I'm having a hard time coming up with something better. "Hal", because of the way the blue circle looks at night, is an obvious but not particularly appealing choice. I might just go with "Spock 2".

Ideas?

Spent yesterday building the new computer. It's done and really nice. Very happy with my component choices. Here are some pictures from the unpacking and build:

New Computer and Lian Li PC-B25B Review

I spent a silly amount of time comparing parts on my fancy spreadsheet until I made the purchase. The only part that didn't have a ton of reviews was, unfortunately, the chassis. Thankfully, it was definitely a good buy.

Here's a list of what I bought:

• Chassis: Lian Li PC-B25B


• Power Supply: Antec NeoPower NeoHE 550


• Motherboard: Abit IP35 Pro XE


• Processor: Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600


• RAM: G.Skill 4GB (2x2GB) PC2 6400


• Hard-Drive: Seagate Barracuda 250GB/32MB Cache


• DVD Drive: LITE-ON LH-20A1L w/ LightScribe


• Video Card: Gigabyte GeForce 8600GT 256MB Fanless


• Operating System: Windows Vista Ultimate (Free!)

At the moment, I'm using the stock Intel processor cooler but it stinks (noisy, hot) and I ordered a Noctua NH-U12P which should get here by the weekend.

Everything I've used so far is great. I really like the PSU -- it's silent and modular cabling rocks! I need to see if the video card is running too hot. The whole thing flies and is pretty quiet. (Compared to the jet engine that is my current machine, it's only a quiet "whoosh.") Hopefully the new cooler will help bring the noise down even further. I might replace the front and base case fans if it's still not silent enough.

Oh, and I got Vista for free by participating in some program Microsoft had going where they snoop in your computer for a few months. Using it isn't that bad, though the UAC is certainly as painful as advertised. Ask me again in a few months when I'm using it every day, however.

Computer stuff is here! Unboxing photos and major geeking out to follow...

P.S. The computer case I finally, after much spreadsheeting, decided upon is beautiful! Very happy with my choice so far.