mashby

A few weeks ago, I was leaving the Nashville Main Library when I ran something quite enlightening happened. I had been in between appointments, so I had stopped off at the library to get a little work done. It was time to go to my next appointment, so I packed everything up and headed to the elevators.

I had my usual two bag system with me that day. I had my APC Rolling Laptop Bag and my “jump bag“, which is a freebie bag courtesy of Microsoft. My laptop, tools and what not go in the laptop bag and the “jump bag” has all my paper stuff (Moleskines, etc) and my AlphaSmart Dana Wireless. The two bags go well together, because the “jump bag” can hook on to the handle of the laptop bag and I can just roll both of them behind me.

Continue Reading

Windows Noise Going through my RSS feeds this morning, I came across a very cool Flash video that I just had to share. The name of the video is called Windows Noises and was created by Clown Staples back in 2004. Using only the built-in Windows sound recorder, he creates an entire song out of manipulating Windows error sounds. Pretty clever use of a very simple tool and it’s fun to watch and see how he created the remix. Very cool.

Select this link to watch/listen to “Windows Noise”:
http://www.albinoblacksheep.com/flash/noises.php

On Monday of this week (February 27^th), I had had a very crazy morning. By the time I stopped for lunch at 2pm, I had been to Downtown Nashville twice and I was in Cool Springs for the second time that morning. It had been hectic to say the least, but at the same time I was feeling pretty good that I had accomplished so much in so little time. As a treat to myself, I headed to my favorite Greek restaurant that was in the area – the Greek Cafe.

I’ve been a customer of the Greek Cafe since they opened several years ago. At the time of their Grand Opening, I was doing a lot of work in the area, so I’d stop in at least once or twice a week. I’m not in Cool Springs all that often for lunch anymore, so when I am, it’s a real treat. It was after the lunch crush when I arrived, so I had my choice of seat and leisurely placed my order. Their french fries are really good, but since it was slow, they didn’t have any ready, so they had to make a fresh batch. No complaint from me! 😛

I took my gyro sandwich and Diet Coke and went and sat down in a booth. After taking my food off the tray, I began reading an article I had printed out earlier that morning just for such an occasion. There were a couple of other customers in the restaurant besides myself. There were two people in the far booth, one gentleman reading the paper at a table and there was one man standing near the register talking on his cell phone. The man on the cellphone hadn’t ordered yet, because his conversation must have been too important.

Continue Reading

It’s been awhile since I posted and that’s mostly due to the fact that I’ve been busier than a one-legged man in a butt kicking contest. So I thought it was high time that I at least posted a quick update on what’s been going on and give the much due “Thank You” that is long overdue. But first… the update.

» BRAT was awesome. I did all 350~ miles and had a blast doing it. The scenery was gorgeous and the riding couldn’t have been better.

» Holly and I rode the Jack & Back on our tandem Josephine and we rode the whole course. We ended up doing the short course each of the two days, and that worked out to be about 110 miles all totaled. We did the short course because I was suffering more than I ever have in my life. No kidding. Josephine was not setup for me, so it was nothing but pain, pain and more pain. I should probably write about it, because it was as humorous as it was excruciating.

» NPUG celebrated it’s 6th birthday on October 6^th. Hard to believe we’ve been around that long. I did the math just the other day, and I’d estimate that I’ve run approximately 60 meetings on Palm OS Handhelds during that time. Scary to think of it in those terms. I mean, who would have thought that there’d be THAT much to talk about? Who am I kidding? What’s my name?!? 🙂

» I became the editor for the BBC Hit Show Hustle over on TV.com. Since the bulk of my television viewing is done via downloads, I’ve stumbled across some real gems from the other side of the pond. Hustle is my favorite series that’s currently in production.

» My favorite television series that is not in production would have to be Firefly. My sister from another mother, Mary LaFleur turned me onto the show at Chris’ wedding and I think her pitch says it best. When I asked her what the show was about, her response was, “It doesn’t matter. Go buy the DVD and watch it.” Not one to leave well enough alone, I responded, “Yeah, but what’s it about. I mean isn’t it some kind of sci-fi western?” She just said, “It doesn’t matter. Go buy the DVD and watch it.” Well, she was absolutely right. If you haven’t seen it, then go buy it and watch it. It’s fantastic.

Continue Reading

Another quick post to get me back into the swing of things.

After being out of the office for most of last week, I had a lot of catching up to do one of which was to go through all of my RSS feeds. I’m currently subscribed to 131 feeds and after 7 days, you can imagine the hundreds of items waiting for me. As I was going the feeds, I came across an article on Anil Dash’s weblog regarding something called AIMFight!, so I decided to give it a whirl.

I’ve been really, really busy as of late, so I haven’t been posting to the weblog much. Most of the articles that I’ve started have been really long so trying to get back in the saddle has, more often than not, left me with my bum in the dirt. So in the effort to at least get something posted, I thought I’d do a quick little post.

Yesterday I started coming down with something. My throat was kind of sore and there seemed to be something in the middle of my chest with the added bonus of some coughing. My Mom had just gone through something similar, so I gave her a call to see what she recommended to combat it. She gave me a long list of stuff to take including NyQuil, DayQuil, Vicks VapoRub, Robitussin CF Syrup, and Mucinex.

Been buried in work for the past few weeks and I didn’t even really get to scan the web for any good April Fool’s Day gags, but thankfully my friend Renee Roberts, over at SacPUG brought one to my attention. Seem’s Goggle, did one on a fictitious drink for “surfing the web” called “Google Gulp“. Pretty funny if you take the time to read it. My favorite part is when they poke fun at themselves when they talk about “How To Get Gulped.”

Although it’s funny at face value, what makes it so priceless is that they did a FAQ , a Product History, not to mention details regarding the 4 Great Flavors too. Kudos to Google for doing such a fantastic job. In the immortal words of the Visa commercials, “Priceless”.

Oh and in a final note, as of this posting, it’s still not to late to get your Magic Supersecret Anagram T-Shirt!

Continue Reading

This past weekend began the new year – 2005. With a new year comes new promises. Promises that this year will be better than last year, so we make a long list of things that we plan on doing differently than the year before. I plan on making resolutions for 2004, just as I did last year, but before I do I thought it might behoove me to take a look back and see how I did with my 2004 resolutions.

Resolution #1: I Will Face Life Head On
Wow, was this broad enough? I didn’t go into a lot of detail in describing this in the weblog, but it was something that was very personal to me. I can’t say that I completed this resolution perfectly, but I’d say that 75% of the time, I did take the “bull by the horns” when it came to my life.

The biggest result of this resolution is that I made some pretty big changes with some of the projects that I was involved in. In that regard I was really successful. Some of the highlights include the following: InterPUG was all but shut down. NPUG now has an active Leadership Council and I’m now a co-host on the Computer Outlook radio show.

Continue Reading