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mashby

The personal blog of Michael Ashby

Category / That Reminds Me Of A Story…

My Weight Is Going To The Dogs

Large Bathroom ScaleAs a child, I was always the smallest, skinniest one. Everyone was bigger than me. I’m not kidding, everyone. My father was 6 feet tall, so I kept waiting and waiting for this big growth spurt to happen so that I could tower over everyone I grew up with. High school came and went and no spurt. Then in college I figured I’d pretty much topped out at 5′ 10″ and that the spurt wasn’t ever going to happen. I was wrong. Since we’re three dimensional beings, growth can happen in many directions. My growth spurt did start in college, but instead of it making me grow vertically, I began growing horizontally. In other words, I started getting fat. 😛 Up until my senior year in high school, I was very active in soccer and other activities. Weight had never been a problem, so I could eat anything I wanted. Just before Christmas 1984 I broke both my knees (that a whole other story) and after that, I had to give up soccer and most activities involving running. I just couldn’t take the stress to the knees. So, after that accident my level of activity dropped significantly. When I was in college, I was either pounding the books, or sitting in a practice room playing my trumpet. Not a lot of activity, but I never really got too heavy, just a little out of shape. Continue Reading

Men Are Dogs

A Married Dog And CatWhen I was a kid, I used to believe that dogs were male and cats were female. I thought that dogs and cats got married, just like people do, and when they had babies, they had puppies and kittens. I’m not making this up, I firmly believed this. When my parents explained to me that this was not the case, I was crestfallen. As a child, that belief was not just a whimsical thought, but a governing rule of the universe, just like gravity. Of course, I also still believed in the Easter Bunny. 🙂 With all the talk of integrating our cats with Gracie, it made me remember this childhood notion and I have to say, I think I was on to something.

I know that dogs and cats don’t marry and I know that they can’t reproduce should they try to mate, perish the thought. But the core of what I was saying is that dogs are the males and cats are the females. Think about it, men are like dogs. We’re not always the most hygenic. We want affection all the time. We love to play and we’ll do the monotonous task of chasing a ball for hours without getting bored. Women, on the other hand, are just like cats. They are more complex. They like affection, but on their terms. They groom themselves a lot and are more hygenic. They’ll play, but they get bored easy. Granted these comments are broad generalizations and there are exceptions to every rule, but you have to admit that this makes a little sense. 🙂

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A New Leaf Begins With A Shiny Sink

My Shiny SinkYou may have noticed that it’s been awhile since I’ve made a post. The reason is that I’ve been focusing on straightening out some kinks in my life. I’m not going to go into all the gory details, but suffice to say that 2003 has been a bit of a hectic and crazy year.

There has been too much on my plate and I haven’t been dealing with it well. So I began about a month or more ago to focus and re-think on everything that I’m involved in and how I should be handling my affairs. I’m now on the downhill side of this process and I’m starting to see some positive results, which is encouraging. What helped me get over the hump and on the “downhill” side was something rather surprising and unexpected.

I was sharing my experiences with some friends of mine in the Palm OS User Council. We were chatting in IRC and I mentioned some of what I was doing. Jennifer Shelamer made the comment that if I was looking to get organized, I need to take a peek at FlyLady.net. Greg Gaub chimed in and said that he highly recommended the site as well. I had never heard of the thing and had no idea what it was about, but figured I’d go check it out.

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Life As A Weblog

The Emperor's New ClothesHaving a weblog is kind of weird. It changes how you look at your life and what you do in your life. As you participate in various activities, or as funny and stupid things happen to you, you find yourself stepping back and taking a look at what’s happening. You become a third person observing your own life. You evaluate what’s happening and think “should I post that on my weblog?”

I minored in creative writing in college and I had a similar feeling during that time as well. Everything I did, or saw could be used in a short story, poem or song that I was writing at the time.

I remember the first day in my first short story course. The professor said, “If you took this class because you like to read, you need to drop this class now. This course will change how you look at what you read.” In a nutshell, he was saying that we were going to peek behind the curtain and find out all the “tricks of the trade.” Once you’ve done that, it’s almost impossible to go back and blindly enjoy a good book. One of changes that the professor said would happen is that we’d develop this 3rd person perspective on our lives and that’s exactly what happened. It’s been awhile since I had that perspective, but its back with a vengeance since I started this weblog.

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Hi, I’m Troy McClure

Troy McClureI wear a lot of hats these days and normally I don’t think about it much. Sure I have three different business cards, but rarely does it dawn on me what that means because rarely am I wearing all three hats at once.

Well, a few days ago, I was over at the PalmGear offices meeting with a few folks. As is usually the case when I’m there, I get introduced to other people that I haven’t met yet (the place is really hopping). That’s when it gets a little confusing. First off, I’m most known there as the guy who runs InterPUG. Not that that is a big deal or anything, just that’s how I’m normally introduced. However, I normally bring up that I also run NPUG because these guys live in Nashville, so I’d love for them to come to our meetings – not as PalmGear employees per se, but just as fellow Palm OS enthusiasts. Then if any of the folks I meet are in their IT department, I usually bring up the fact that I run a small IT consulting firm, because I’d love to support their Intranet. There’s even an occasion or two where I’ve brought up the Palm OS User Council, so you might imagine how confusing it is when it’s time to beam someone my business card. 😛

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Drive Thru Trauma

Warning! Corrosion!Coffee seems to be a theme with me this month for some reason. I’ve been drinking more of it and posting a lot about it, not to mention all the coffee shops that I’ve been frequenting as well. Luckily, I’m not alone. Anyway, keeping this coffee theme alive… “a funny thing happened on the way to Starbucks.”

Although I can get excited and talk your ear off about something, when I’m by myself I like to think of myself as fairly self-contained. As a customer, I’d like to believe that I’m one of the better ones. I don’t take up too much of your time, I’m polite to all the other customers and carry myself in a professional manner. Being a frequent customer of Starbucks, I’d like to think that although they may not know me by name, the staff think of me fondly as one of their better customers. Well, that may have changed today. I was running a little behind yesterday, which is fairly typical for a Monday morning, so I decided to swing through the drive through there at the Cool Springs Starbucks. It’s the only location in town with a drive thru, so I was thankful that it was on the way to my next appointment. I placed my order and then pulled around to pickup my Venti Columbian roast coffee. The person at the window took my $2, gave me my change and then handed me a hot cup of hell. Continue Reading

Starbucks Millionaires Club

StarbucksAll this week I have been on a bit of a coffee binge. You see, I pretty much gave up coffee a few months back and switched to tea. I did it because tea is supposed to be healthier for you than coffee. It wasn’t that I felt I was drinking too much, or had health problems; I just thought it would be a healthier choice and help me to maintain my “relaxed state” after my morning yoga. I love the taste of coffee though, so even when I wasn’t drinking it as my morning beverage, I would still have a cup every now and then.

Anyway, this week I got the hankering for the taste of coffee, so I was stopping by my local Starbucks every morning on my way to my client site visits. I would order a doppio (aka double) espresso and a Venti (aka large) Coffee Of The Day. I joked one day with the Barista that I was ordering the coffee equivalent of a shot of tequila with a beer chaser. 😛 I would drink the espresso immediately and then sip the drip coffee the rest of the day after it cooled off for about 20 minutes. I find their drip coffee too freaking hot when it’s first handed to me, but that’s another story.

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When Did I Become Old School?

I’m only 35, but in the past few weeks I’ve noticed more and more that in some aspects of my life, I’m a bit old school. Some might call it being a fuddy duddy, old fart, or even a stick in the mud. Call it what you will, but in my book, I’m simply old school.

What strikes me as funny about this is that I’m a computer consultant by trade so I’m always involved with new technology on a consistent basis. Everyone has heard of the cutting edge, but in most things related to technology, I’m considered on the bleeding edge. For example, I have close to 30 handheld devices and typically carry at least 3 with me at all times. In my office I’m running Wi-Fi and Bluetooth wireless networks. The 802.11b network has been up for over a year and the bluetooth network for close to 6 months. Both my main workstation and my laptop both dual boot to Windows XP Professional and Red Hat Linux and as I type this I’m downloading Red Hat 9.0. 🙂 Continue Reading

Speaking Of Marketing Nightmares

South African Revenue ServiceAt the end of my last post, regarding Maximus Herbal Blend, I made the comment that ‘I’m just glad that I don’t run a company like Maximus Management Services.’ To me, it would be a bit of a marketing nightmare to have your company name used for a male libido supplement. Can’t you see walking into a potential customer’s office and when you go to introduce yourself, you have to explain that your company isn’t the same company as the one that gives you, “improved stamina.” 😀

Well, that got me to thinking about some other marketing nightmares. One of my early jobs was as a clerk for Eckerd Drugs. I worked in the pharmacy department, and I remember a diet suppressant that was designed to be a small chocolate like candy. The concept I guess was for you to eat a little piece of candy that no only gave you a candy fix, but suppressed your desire to eat as well. The name of this little wonder? AYDS.

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Snake Oil Is Alive And Well

Recently, I’ve seen a bunch of infomercials and even received plenty of spam on the subject of ‘boosting the male libido.’ I’m sorry, but I just don’t get it. Since when do men need a bigger libido? If I took something like that I’m afraid Holly would make me sleep outside. 🙂

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