Thousand Roaring Moths

I've spent the last couple of months working on site at a client's location. I've spent most of the time in a conference room up on the 12th floor of the client's building. The view from the conference room is nice, but I was kind of freaked out during the first week in the room when several turkey vultures landed on the ledge just outside of the large glass windows right behind where I was sitting.

I normally don't blog about myself much -- I mostly blog about my projects, etc. However, Rick tagged me. I don't know where this whole "tag, you're it" thing started. Oh well. Guess I'm on the hook now to respond. Read more to see how I answered the "fours".

Hey. After seeing that the last article posted was in December of 2004 (!!!) maybe you thought I'd given up on my web site. Not so fast! I've been busy with work, life, and everything in between. However, I've got some new content to post soon. Look for updated Geek Plates (yes, I'm still collecting them!), notes on my Wifi network at home, and other general geek-type stuff.

My good friend Rick is an avid bicyclist. I suppose that isn't very out of the ordinary. However, he lives in New York City and when I saw him last he said that riding his bike is his primary means of transportation. After seeing how crazy the people in NYC drive and the wide variety of dangerous vehicles (like the taxi cabs with the tank-like armor bumpers), I was concerned about his health. I wouldn't be able to visit him as often if he was permanently lodged into the hood of a large delivery truck. After conversing with him and Robb, another friend in NYC who bikes around town, they assured me that most drivers are aware of bicyclists and that riding is quite safe. However, Rick forwarded me this link (local copy) today which now makes me think that the people driving cars are the ones who should actually be concerned.

One of my good friends David has an uncanny resemblance to someone famous. Every time I get together with him I always give him a hard time by telling him that he looks just like Dave Mustaine, the lead singer of the heavy metal group Megadeth. I dunno. Maybe I'm smoking crack, but if David had long hair and shaved the goatee, I think he'd be the spitting image of Dave. See for yourself.

It has been quite a while since my last entry here. I guess the reason is that this page really isn't a blog -- its more of a content management system for me. I only post articles when I have something useful to say or point out, not to document my life.

There are some blogs out there that I enjoy reading but in general I'm not much of a blog person. I like reading the blogs of my friends and those blogs where the author has a theme and consistently good entries. However, most of blogspace seem to be a wasteland. I suppose the reasons I'm not much into blogging are the same reasons I can't stand Reality TV. Reality TV is filled with random ramblings, forced situations, and superficial people who annoy me. I guess I'm just not interested in reading about where someone had their dog pedicured today, how bored they are, or how much their work sucks.

Anyway, I guess this entry itself is kind of hypocritical. Oh well. Back to some real content soon...

Today I came to the realization that Northern Virginia is full of burbclaves. I guess I always knew I lived in one, but today I was given solid evidence. I spent the afternoon walking around the new neighborhood going up near my house. This new neighborhood seems to be the epiphany of a burbclave. So, what is a burbclave you say? Neal Stephenson, in his cyberpunk-esq book Snow Crash, describes a future where neighborhoods don't really exist any more. In their place are self-contained city-states that are corporate run. He gave them names like Mr. Lee's Greater Hong Kong, Nova Sicilia, and New South Africa. So, while I was wandering around the snaking side streets that interconnected the rows and rows of generic-townhouses, McMansions, and drab apartment buildings, the corporate presence and homogeny of this new neighborhood was uncanny. With one entrance and a grand 'Welcome to blah blah blah' sign, the only burbclave item missing was the Rat Thing... What is the Rat Thing? I don't think I can do it justice in a summary, you'll just have to read the book.

A couple of years ago I bought a memory dongle. You know, one of those little devices you can plug into a USB port on your computer and it shows up as a disk drive. It is damn convenient and I always carry it with me. For a while, it was attached to my keychain, but the little clip that held it in place snapped. So, ever since I've been carrying it around in my pants pocket. So, I'm sure you can imagine what happened recently. When I was doing laundry last week I heard this nasty sound coming from the dryer. After the cycle was finished, I found the little memory dongle inside. I figured that there was no way it could have survived the soap, hot water, spinning, rinsing, and drying. But on a whim, I decided to plug it into one of my old computers. To my surprise, it still worked! Amazing! I guess if it ever gets dirty, I now know that its washer-safe. :-)

I spent the last couple of days in Detroit. What a lovely place. Here's a picture that sums up my experience in Motor City:

Snow, Cars, Traffic; repeat.

My friend Dave sent me a link to a web site titled the Insanity Test. Check it out for a laugh. Oh, I guess you won't get that pun until after you visit the site.

In any case, I admit it, I did laugh within about 2 seconds of visiting the site so I guess I'm insane. Oh well.