Ken's Journal
[Most Recent Entries]
[Calendar View]
[Friends]
Below are the 20 most recent journal entries recorded in
Ken's LiveJournal:
[ << Previous 20 ]
| Monday, July 6th, 2009 | | 10:46 pm |
Day 1
of the training was today. I will be chronicling what I can, mostly for me but feel free to read. There's a lot I won't be able to talk about due to confidentiality agreements but I'll still re-cap what I can. ( Session 1 - Intro ) Current Mood:  excited | | Monday, June 29th, 2009 | | 9:12 pm |
The Interview
is over and all went well. Thanks to all who wished well. I really wasn't that worried because I do well in person but this was very important to me so I was nervous. So, the details. On Monday July 8, I will begin training as a volunteer for the Sexual Assault and Crime Victims Assistance Program for Rensselaer County hotline. Over 6 weeks there will be 45 hours of fairly intensive training before I can start to man the phones. I will put in 3-4 12 hour shifts per month and have some minor paperwork to fill out. With my history, Clue's history and many of those around me, this was extremely important to me. I didn't want to say specifically what I was interviewing for as I wanted any real commentary to be after I was accepted to the program, not before. I am really excited about this. Not the bouncing with energy, happy glee kind of excited, but excited none the less. As I said, this is important to me. Current Mood:  happy | | Sunday, June 28th, 2009 | | 9:35 pm |
It has
been a good weekend. We have the guest room put back together, so we can have guests again without putting them on an air mattress in Clue's office. Well, if we get a bunch at one time that will happen but usually we get one person or a couple, so they now has bed. We also took a 4 mile round trip walk to get breakfast yesterday and that was quite lovely. I am glad that we both can and will decide to do such things. The laundry was started and while not finished, even today, a huge dent was made. Additionally we watched several episodes of Top Gear and thoroughly enjoyed them. I'm not a Petrol Head, nor am I a Gear Head however, the more I see, the more convinced I am that I want a Porsche 911, especially one of the all wheel drive models. Someday that will happen. Today was breakfast at Java's, which is always enjoyable, but especially so with the crew working this morning. After food was shopping, which turned out surprisingly well. A lot of Pyrex from Kohl's (it was on sale), 7 new patterns (at $0.25 a piece), sandals for Clue, a dress for Clue, an under bust belt support thing for Clue, a pair of linen pants and 1/2 a dozen new short sleeved shirts for me and a French Press coffee maker. I also priced out a replacement to my dead iPod, which will be a bit yet. None of this broke the budget either. Tonight was more laundry and TV and basically a relaxing evening. Tomorrow after work I have an interview. This is not for a new job, well, not one that will replace my day job anyway. I'm interviewing for volunteer work and yes, it is the kind for which you must interview. I will give full details tomorrow after I know my status but please wish me well, this is very important to me. Current Mood:  accomplished | | Thursday, June 11th, 2009 | | 8:30 pm |
I am
finding of late that I am finding far more enjoyment with pages and print than I am with electrons and keyboards. I'm still here, still reading and occasionally commenting though these days I find books far more to my taste. Current Mood: content | | Sunday, June 7th, 2009 | | 4:53 pm |
The weekend
so far has been quite excellent. Friday I left work, came home and we planted two roses that needed to get in the ground. While we waited for the holes to drain we went up to the market for dinner stuffs and to the liquor store for wine and we also ended up with a new bottle of scotch. Finished the rose planting, and then ( I did this )Yesterday Clue and I worked on the clapboard above the Porch of Doom (TM). For the photos of that, head to ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/community.gif) middle_street. Aside from a bit of excitement with bees, it went well. The upshot is; yes, I got stung. Yes, I'm still allergic. Yes, the allergy is still mild. Yes, topical Benedryl is my friend. Yes, Benedryl pills are my friend. No, a trip to the ER or Dr was not required. Painting will wait till later in the week since we must wait for the caulk to dry. Last night I'd planned to game but wasn't into it, so I farted around on the interwebs instead. Today was coffee at Java's as normal and then we came home to be domestic. We policed the downstairs and then started working on the closet. We had bought some spacebags a while ago and today we put them to use. Color me impressed. The closet is a much nicer place right now. We still have a bit more to put away, which will happen shortly and then I'll be off to try out the new grill as the one I moved up from TX 7 years ago (it was 3 years old then) has finally died. ( Charcoal Grill of niceness. ) Current Mood: accomplished | | Monday, May 25th, 2009 | | 3:00 pm |
Another of
the cats taking over the world.
Firewall Fail
 | | Sunday, May 24th, 2009 | | 8:40 pm |
We came home
from dinner to find the cats are taking over the world...  | | Saturday, May 23rd, 2009 | | 7:59 pm |
I am
tired and a bit cranky. I realize that this largely has to do with my forgetting to take my thyroid with me to Boston but it really changes very little. I took my thyroid when we got home well over an hour ago but these things take time to equalize. This means Star Trek is likely tomorrow night. I'm sure I'll find something to lighten my mood tonight. | | Saturday, May 16th, 2009 | | 1:16 pm |
I have
come to the conclusion that LJ or some other such environment will remain my primary social networking site.... I don't have family or co-workers friended here. Yes, I rarely lock my posts and yes it could be found with a search but the searcher would need more information that just my name. One of the other reasons is that facebook and myspace have size limitations on their posts that I find hard to work within. It's a good place for quick messages and to keep in touch with some people but I can truly post what I think here, no matter how many words that takes me. Current Mood:  tired | | 1:04 pm |
| | Saturday, May 9th, 2009 | | 11:35 am |
I have
started reading John Adams again. It is a book that I need to read in small doses to digest. Anyway, last night I hit the following passage, which is a direct quote from a letter Adams wrote to James Warren. It is so incredibly pertinent to todays politics. We may please ourselves with the prospect of free and popular governments. But there is a great danger that those governments will not make us happy. God grant they may. But I fear that in every assembly, members will obtain an influence by noise not sense. By meanness, not greatness. By ignorance, not learning. By contracted hearts, not large souls....
There is one thing, my dear sir, that must be attempted and most sacredly observed or we are all undone. There must be decency and respect, and veneration introduced for persons of authority of every rank, or we are undone. In a popular government, this is the only way.
We have lost this in recent times. I see some efforts to restore this and if we fail, to quote Adams himself, we are undone. Current Mood:  contemplative | | Tuesday, April 28th, 2009 | | 9:16 pm |
The only
reason I know this isn't Sirocco is that's not my porch. Color and collar match... plus, she's still breathing.  see more Lolcats and funny pictures Current Mood:  amused | | Sunday, April 26th, 2009 | | 5:49 pm |
The Weekend
so far: - Got the grass cut... finally. Several weeks ago, while the construction was going on, we found an amazing deal on an electric lawn mower. I'm very happy with the mower. It is quieter than the gas mower, about 1/2 the weight, I can do the whole lawn on one electric cord, and it seems to have slightly more power than the mower we have. - Purchased grass seed, tomato plants, herbs and dirt. Then put them all to ground, so to speak. - Made an adult decision about getting a BJs membership. Not for us. We would not use it nearly enough to save the cost of a membership. - Used that BJs membership money to buy a juicer for the Kitchenaid which we will use often enough to get the cost back out of it :) - Refilled the body on both Sushi and Vodka. Both meters were running dangerously low. - Found and purchased a Wii Fit and pre-ordered EA Sports Active with the insurance money. It qualifies under the 'games' category of my chess board that I can't really replace (but should be able to repair). Clue also got to embarrass the poor youngin' of a clerk. He was telling us what came with the set and the other clerk said "Don't forget, it comes with a strap too." To which Clue replied "Oh yes, because everything is better with a strap!" The poor boy was pretty flustered for the rest of the transaction. - Went to Java's this morning for breakfast, always a good time. - Cooked on the grill last night. Chicken, apples and onion. Oh my was it tasty. Ate outside as well. Gods I do love Spring in the North East. - Rode our bikes at The Crossings of Colonie. I'm so very glad we spent the money on the bikes we did, it makes riding such a joy. I'm sure I've forgotten some things but well, I did not sleep well last night. Way to hot for my body to cope. Not hot by TX or AZ standards but well, I've not lived in either of those two states for 7 or more years. I remember hot and this ain't it. I also know that my blood has thickened and thinks this is hot. Current Mood: happy | | 5:15 pm |
I have
come to the realization of why I do not post that often..... My job. No, seriously. And it's not the time I spend there or the fact that posting from the office is a bad idea career wise. No, I am by trade a Database Architect. Let's start with the fact that due to proprietary restrictions and HIPAA rules I can not speak of a sizable portion of what I do. The second part is that what I can talk about would bore to tears 95%+ of my flist. While I find the work fascinating I doubt the majority of you consider my R&D work related to inserting XML documents into the database, registering the schemas and then indexing searchable fields for use in SQL statements joining relational and XML data. To a large number of you, that was probably a bunch of alphabet soup. The second part is that the stuff most of you would be interested in happens after I get off work. The problem is that by the time I get done doing it, it's past our designated "shut down the computers" time and thus it doesn't get posted because after I sleep, it reads as "I did some stuff yesterday that I haven't finished but it brings me closer to being done with that." The weekends I tend to post more since I do A) more interesting things and B) tend to have the time to post about them in the evenings. All that being said, after the open house is over next weekend, Clue and I have decided to set aside 2 days a month for "creative works". For me this will amount to leather work, wood work and yes, photography. I will also be taking my camera to work a couple of days a week and using lunch time to go shoot somewhere. So, we'll see where I get with the posting, other than with photography. Current Mood: contemplative | | Thursday, April 23rd, 2009 | | 10:22 pm |
Today was
completely made of win. Due to furniture delivery, I took the day off. Clue and I spent the morning puttering, doing dishes, going and getting the rental van (explained later) and then waiting for the delivery guys to bring us the new TV credenza. It got here much later than we expected but get here it did. While we waited for the furniture, we also started a pot roast. Clue made a killer rub for it and then we pulled out the cast iron dutch oven. While the meat was searing, the delivery guys showed up. I finished searing the meat while Clue handled getting the door set. She then set to braising while I oversaw getting the credenza in the house. I wouldn't sign the release papers until after the box was opened and all was checked. Everything in shape, the deliver guys left and we spent the next hour getting it out of the box and getting the electronics in place. The doors don't fully close yet, but that will be fixed this weekend as I wasn't up to the fix today. Next was trip to Huck Finn's to get the buffet we bought over the weekend. Really it's a dresser but it works better for us as buffet. Including the fact that we still have an empty drawer and another that's 1/2 empty. This pickup is why we got the van. We had planned to have ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) dodging_fate help us move it into the house but she ended up being a good Mom today. Anyway, we got the piece into place and then set about loading, which mostly entailed getting things off the dining room table. This continued and we both realized we were headed towards the goal of clearing the table. We did and had our amazing roast while sitting like grown ups at the table. The table being cleared will likely mean that we eat in more as well. Something about Clue and I, when we can sit at a table and eat, we're more likely to cook in. The other thing is that this is a land mark. We have not eaten at the table since before the flood. Progress is being made. So, ( the furniture ) Current Mood: accomplished | | 3:27 pm |
Oh look
a wagon... with a band on it... I'll join the parade -- I've little else to do while I'm waiting for the cabinet to be delivered... 1 question. 1 chance. 1 honest answer. That's all you get. You get to ask me 1 question. Any question, anything, no matter how crazy, dirty, or wrong it is. One catch, for me at least. i will not reveal anything that will get anyone else in trouble/drag their name through the mud. But I dare you to repost this. R epost this if you wanna. CK And see what people ask you! Comments are screened until I answer. If you want my reply sent to you instead of answered in the open, I will honor that if you tell me. Current Mood:  curious | | Sunday, April 19th, 2009 | | 7:43 pm |
So, it has
been a fantastic weekend. Clue and I have spent the weekend getting the last furniture from the insurance money as well as spending a bunch of time working on the house. Saturday started with mending the fence that was damaged in the ice storm in December. Our back door neighbor's tree came down on it and Saturday the four of us spent time putting it back up. We did a whole lot more than mend a broken fence and I'm quite glad. Just as we finished, it started to rain so Clue and I went shopping for said furniture. We found the perfect coffee table for me and my predilections :) We also found a computer hutch that is perfect for our DVDs, that cost $15 and we found a dresser that has a damaged top for $50. The top will be covered by a slab of granite and no one will know it isn't a $3000 piece of furniture.
Sunday was our normal Javas run then to Sears to buy a chain saw... Yes unclesiko, you should be worried. Clue now has a chain saw. After several hours clearing a poor ice damaged tree that it turns out was also rotting from the inside out, we came inside to straighten.
Photos of the current Living Room/Library are here: http://community.livejournal.com/middle_street/8438.html#cutid1
Photos of the coffee table and Clue with a chain saw in front of the carnage are ( here )
Current Mood: accomplished | | Monday, April 13th, 2009 | | 8:39 pm |
Thoughts on AmazonFail
Through today I've been thinking about the Fail and the focus that people are placing on it. Now, in my opinion, no matter whether the issue is a computer glitch, a troll or any other reason, they screwed the pooch. That however, let me to other thoughts regarding Amazon, Barnes and Noble or any of the other super stores. I keep coming back to, they own the industry. We have given into the convenience of a single location web store where we can get it all. Then we get pissed off when they change the rules to something we don't like. The fact is, we've given them the power.
If either of the big two decides that it will not carry a book from Author X, their publisher suddenly drops them. No, seriously, they do. You know why? 47% or more of their sales base just said no. I'm not talking about the author's sales base, they might have 10 million people that want that book. I'm talking about the publisher's sales base. You see, the publisher doesn't sell to people, it sells to book stores. If one of the big two says no, the author gets dropped because the big publishing houses require big sales to keep in business. This is even more so when the big stores decide to become "Family Friendly".
The real focus here, should be to get out of your house and get to the local book store. If you want to search one of the big houses for your book, do so but then go to the local store and buy. True, you may spend the cover price instead of the "super low rate because I'm holding a publishers feet to the fire and I'm buying at a reduced rate because I bought 50% of their stock" price. You won't have Harry Potter delivered to your door by a person you never have to lay eyes on. No, you'll have to go down to the store, walk by dozens of books you might never have otherwise seen, pick up a book and possibly the one next to it because you liked the cover, go to the counter and talk to the one of 6 employees the store has who works there because they love books not because they get a 401k and possible start a conversation. That person might actually be able to do the "If you like this one, you might also be interested in this one" trick better than Amazon. Why, because they can ask, "Why were you interested in this book?" That happened to us, just recently. Oh, and your local book store might just have a section of "Local Authors" or non-traditional authors. Hell, the owner of our local bookstore started a print on demand company because she saw the need.
Thus, after much consideration, AmazonFail made me realize, I need to support my local bookstore so that I will continue to have a local bookstore. You know what, if more people stopped at their local brick and mortar, more of them might even crop up again. So, Clue and I are going to start with taking our spreadsheet of books to replace down to Market Block Books or The Book House and have Bookstore Win. I'm willing to bet that after a few thousand in book sales, we'll get a discount of some sort from them as well. Current Mood: enlightened | | Sunday, April 12th, 2009 | | 2:41 pm |
Voting with my dollars
Amazon.com has recently started removing the sales ranking information from "adult" material without notification to publishers, authors or quite frankly the general public. Additionally, they do not seem to be evenly targeting adult books the same way. A scan today of my adult wish list showed some books having their sales ranks removed while other did not, all with the same theme of bondage. I chose to check this out myself after reading the following post: http://community.livejournal.com/meta_writer/11992.html which lead me, via link to the source, http://markprobst.livejournal.com/15293.html.
Today, I sent this letter to amazon.com:
To Whom it May Concern: Due to recent actions by amazon.com, my wife and I will be limiting our purchases from this site as much as possible. The recent decision by the company to remove sales rank information from "adult" material is prompting us to take our business elsewhere. Specifically, the apparently random nature of the removal and the fact that the removals and the reasons were not done in a transparent nature has lead us to believe that Amazon is starting a censorship campaign since many search criteria use these sales ranks to generate lists. Due book damage in our home, we will now be taking our approximately $x,000 in replacement purchases to other locations. If Amazon chooses to change their policy towards these sales rankings, we will reconsider our purchase options as well. Sincerely,
Do I expect this to change their policies? If it is just me, no. If others vote with their wallets, perhaps this form of passive censorship, likely lead by the religious right, can be reversed. If not, well, protect your books in the long run and remember, the flash point of paper is Fahrenheit 451
Current Mood:  annoyed | | Wednesday, April 8th, 2009 | | 10:03 pm |
Vs an actual post
| You Are a Cougar |  You have more strength than most people, and with it, the ability to inflict a lot of harm.
Your power gives you confidence, and you find leading others to be easy.
You believe that you need to the best, and you are very driven to excel.
Most people immediately admire you, but some people feel very envious of your abilities. |
Current Mood: amused |
[ << Previous 20 ]
|
