Twitter Updates for 2008-06-09
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Let the experimentation begin
After about 8 months and several notarized letters, I finally received the settlement on the insurance claim for my pond-enabled iPhone. $249 which is the cost of getting it repaired. I figured that would be the amount and wasn’t holding much hope for a complete reimbursement of purchase cost. I had long replaced the phone and now that it’s all settled, I’m free to pursue my options.
Repairing the phone is kinda silly as I would be lucky to get $250 selling it. Becky doesn’t want it and there’s no way I’m letting the kids have it. That leaves me with the “parts” option. There are a few websites that sell parts for iPods and iPhones can since the outside is pristine, I could probably get at least a little bit for it.
Since you can’t kill a dead patient, I will be cutting into the Davey Jones phone and see if I can restore more (full?) functioning. Remember, it did work as a shuffle for a while (it’s been completely dead for the last 2-3 months) so there’s a chance I can have some luck if I do a little refurbishment.
I’ll let you know the status of the cadaver in a follow-up.
Twitter Updates for 2008-05-23
Go Speed Go
Part of this weekend’s 8th birthday festivities for my son Brian included a “friend party” on Friday. We took him, and five of his friends (all boys, unsurprisingly) to go see Speed Racer and then go for pizza afterwards. In short, the movie was a blast and the boys were a handful.
Disclosure: I am a Speed Racer fan. In fact, one of my earliest memories is seeing part of an episode when I lived in Chicago (about 2.5-3 years old). I have also wanted a Mach 5 since before I could drive.
Having disclosed that, I think that is why I liked it. I had heard and it is quite obvious that the Wachowski brothers also love Speed Racer. They produced a live action movie that has all the styling and impact of the animated series. The story is thin but any more “meat” would have felt strange. Emile Hirsch did a nice job as Speed and the rest of the characters were well cast (it doesn’t hurt that I like Christina Ricci).
I may have to go see it again when it hits our budget theater and will most definitely pick it up when it is released on Blu-ray probably around Christmas.
Terror in the not-so-deep
While I haven’t blogged about our pond as much as I originally intended, I have mentioned it before so I’m sure you are already aware of its existence. There has been a development over the last few months that I haven’t mentioned. An evil development.
About two months ago we noticed that the fish were hiding in their “tunnel” (a 6″ wide pipe about two feet long underneath the waterfall for them to hide in) all day for a day or two in a row. We concluded that they were hiding from something. Fortunately, our dogs have been good to not bother the fish so it wasn’t them. The active theory was a racoon.
We were out as a family and came home one day and saw a rather large haron flying away from our yard. It’d didn’t take much deduction to make it our suspect #1. Shortly thereafter, one of our two butterfly koi was missing. A week or two after that, the other one was gone.
Research began on the predator and learned that they are one of the more common visitors for pond owners. We also learned that they are quite crafty even going so far as to vomit into the water to lure out less cautious fish. We may be missing more but with about 27 (mostly goldfish around 4-5″) it’s hard to keep an accurate count.
We have determined the best defense is to get ourselves a scarecrow. We should receive it this week and shall hopefully reduce the tension among the inhabitants.
I also need to get some more fish.
Am I ready for this?
Monday is the beginning of a transition for me at work. I’ve mentioned previously the group I work in which is called SAS-DEV. That particular group is made up of myself, three colleagues and our manager (who is also the manager of the larger SAS group). Monday, a fifth team member joins us and I start the process in becoming the SAS-DEV manager. I’m not sure how long it will take but the “official” (e.g., HR) designation won’t change until I am doing at least 51% of the work of a manager.
The whole thing is going to be a bit odd for me. I’m generally o.k. with the manager thing as I used to have two direct reports when I was at RedZone. The strange part, initially, is the fact that I’m going to be the manager for what up until now have been my peers. Ultimately, I feel this will work out for the best as I already know them, they know me, and we get along quite well both personally and professionally. If there was one time in my life where I can start this next step and not stress about it, it’s here with these folks. Yes, I know that each of them generally follow my blog but I am honestly not trying to suck up.
The other part that has me wondering is how things will look when everything is said and done. I don’t believe there is enough “managing” to be done to fill a whole workweek so it’ll probably be a half manager, half sys admin kinda thing. One of my friends referred to it as being a Sergeant which sounds about right. I’ve never stressed about my career and we’ll all feel our way through things as the weeks and months come.
To give you and idea of the support, Kristin was kind enough to put the following comic up in the window of my new office:
It hasn’t been the first ribbing since all this came up and I’m sure it won’t be the last. That’s just how we roll.
Can’t get enough of office humor
I’m fortunate enough not to have to sit through too many Powerpoint presentations. This one, however, is concise, informative, and entertaining. I think everyone could learn something.
Found at Johnnie Moore’s Weblog
Twitter Updates for 2008-05-06
- I feel like I’m not getting that much done today yet I’m not just sitting around. #
Twitter Updates for 2008-05-05
Why didn’t anyone tell me?
I discovered the magic of Google Analytics over the weekend. I had heard of it many times, but never got around to setting it up. Phssh, a click or two and a small piece of javascript to add to your site and you start getting some really nice site tracking. It’s generally intended to be used for determining advertising rates, but I just like the idea of know who is visiting my site and what they’re looking at.
The coolest feature is an overlay display which they’ll show your site and put the percentage of click-through for each link. With that you can get a good idea of what is getting people’s attention.
I’m using the Google Analytics for WordPress plugin by Joost de Valk which automatically takes care of things for a WordPress blog. I’ve added it to all the sites I administer (including this one, of course).
For those of you that knew about it but didn’t suggest it to me, harrumph. I could have had so much data by now and you know it’s all about the metadata.