LaserBlog.com

A sea of old people. Canes. Walkers. I want to live in a younger state!
(side-scroll the photo)

You’d think I had lunch in a nursing home today, wouldn’t you???

I get home and there is no internet. So I’m writing this in wordpad for now. There were some bad storms here today before we got home, so the dsl model or wireless hub must need to be reset. As I write this, let’s just say that I’m not in a position to walk over there and reset them. (tiny laptop, wifi, you figure it out.)

Nice to be home. But every time I get home from a road trip, or whenever company leaves, it’s always a let-down. Like, you’re used to all this social stimulation, then next thing you know you’re alone w/ your cats.

I really enjoyed the road trip. It was good to see M’s friends. It was good to get out of town and have a change of scene. M’s friends have a baby now, and that is something I don’t think I’ll ever get used to: my friends having kids.

It was hot, hotter than hell. It’s nicer on that coast than where we live. For one thing we’re a bit inland so we don’t get the sea breeze. For another, it’s the Gulf on our side, so you never really do get a real big nice sea breeze. They were on vacation so they were at the beach and pool all day, and when they saw us they’re like “what are you doing in a sweatshirt?”. (It’s wasn’t a sweatshirt, it was a hoddie of t-shirt material, but anyway…) and I’m like “Don’t you know that you’re supposed to come to Florida and stay in air conditioning all day???” They thought I was kidding, but I wasn’t. I don’t do pools, beaches, boats, or anything else that puts me in either heat or sun.

I’m burnt-out tired. Friday night we were supposed to go to bed early, but there was a wild fire, so the guy who was on call was evacuated from his house. So M had to be on call instead. But since we were going out of town, M had to get my teeny laptop working so that it connected to the net through my cell phone using bluetooth, and using the cell phone’s gprs. I’ve been wanting to get that working, and I’M SO GLAD it is now. But poor M was up until 4am trying to get it to work, when we had to get going early for our trip.

Then in the morning, it was hard to get up, and then, being on call, a client called and M had to spend some time on the computer and phone instead of getting ready. So we did not get to our destination until later.

But it was still good to get out, get a change of scene. I’m BEAT though. Yesterday I was so tired I was dizzy, and then when I went to bed, I was too tired to sleep. I layed awake for an hour. I hate that, and it’s happening more and more.

Nice to be home and get some snugglies from my kitties.

Every time I come home from canada, or after visiting w/ friends or family from canada, I feel depressed. I don’t want to live here, it’s too hot, it’s all OLD people, there’s nothing to do. I want to cry. I’m sitting here in Swiss Chalet and it’s all OLD people. This would not be the case in Toronto. Walkers. Oxygen tanks. Hearing aids. Living here SUX!

Greetings from Ft. Lauderdale. We’re on our road trip. Came to see friends. Got this killer hotel room suite w/ broadband, video games, and a kitchen. Tired as sh*t, feel like death warmed over. Must hurry to get ready before checkout. Bye. See moblog for peeks into my weekend.

I love i love i love i looooove AbeBooks.com!

It’s a network of used book stores, and I swear I’ve gotten books (that I was looking for) for $1!

I just bought three books, and if I’d gotten them from amazon, it would have cost $38.49. But it only cost me $18.76 off abebooks.com.

And what’s really cool is that each book came from a different seller, but I only had one shopping cart, one checkout process, it was SO painless.

Yeah, the books are used, but so what. I’ll crinkle a new one in five days. You can search by ISBN number to ensure that you are getting the right one (i.e. the newest version).

You can search by country (or state or whatever), list by price, etc. One book was $2 more to buy in the states rather than England, but it’s better ’cause it’ll come MUCH sooner than if it were shipped from the England.

I highly recommend abebooks.

I’m REALLY friggin’ mad. Like I said before, I ordered my ipod mini from amazon.com on April 5th and it’s still not here. I got it with $100 OFF for signing up w/ Audible.com for a year. That was a big mistake.

According to ipod forums I am reading, OTHER Amazon customers are getting THEIR ipod minis MUCH quicker than I am! I think they are pushing me to the bottom of the list because mine was discounted $100, i.e. they make less off of me so I’m a low priority customer! Why else are other amazon ipod mini customers getting their mini’s before me??? People who ordered AFTER me got theirs already, and got theirs in like 30 days. It’s been 3 MONTHS and 3 days for ME!

AND! AND! I can’t even USE audible.com that I’m now locked into for a freaking year WITHOUT the freaking mini!!!! Oh, they SAY you can use the Clie ux50, but it doesn’t work. I ‘ve been on customer support with them multiple times and for HOURS, like over TWO HOURS one day and they can’t make it work.

I’m f*cked! If I cancel the oder I throw away the $100 gift certificate which is ONLY for THIS ORDER of an IPOD MINI.

Taking a road trip to Ft. Lauderdale this weekend. Not sure if we’re staying over Friday night or Saturday night.

Of course I’ll moblog the whole thing, not that it’ll be exciting or anything. I’ll just be glad to get the h*ll out of Dodge for a while.

I’m also hoping we can do a weekend trip to St. Augustine. It’s quite a drive but it’s nice, old, historic, and probably a great photo op.

Can you believe I ordered my iPod mini on April 5th and it’s STILL NOT HERE?!?!? WTF!?!?

It’s been one of those days, weeks, months, years.

I’m trying to move my business away from web design and toward pro photography. It’s a slow process, and while things are slow, I’m going out of my mind.

I hate being idle. And since I’m not busy I feel obligated to do all the housework while M is at work and I HATE THAT. I am no June Cleaver and don’t want to be.

On top of that, I set my mind to DOING the June Cleaver shit today and lo and behold, the dryer has decided to stop working so I sit and sit and sit and sit only to go unload the dryer and find it full of wet clothes.

It’s not enough that I’M TRYING to be productive! NoooOOOOooo.

I hate being idle. It’s not enough for me to have hobbies and projects and books to read. I need to be DOING something constructive, I need to be working. If I ever won the lottery I’d go nuts, I’d still have to work. I can’t stand being unproductive.

I’d go back to school but that was the worst nightmare of my life and anyway it’d get in the way of my business transition.

I’d go get a job but it’s hard to find good jobs in this town (M was lucky) and I don’t know if I can stomach reatil again. I did it for years. I’m sure I could find one, but I’d need part time so that I could still grow my business, and the “good” jobs are full time and require wardrobes. I need a jeans-and-polo-shirt kind of job, that’s part time. It’s a pipe dream.

I am angry today. Angry that I have nothing productive to do. Angry that I can’t even get the f*cking laundry done. It’s like a sick joke.

Too cool, a broadway version of Monty Python’s The Holy Grail, or: a “musical lovingly ripped off from the motion picture, ‘Monty Python and the Holy Grail’”. The play is called “Spamalot”.
http://www.cnn.com/2004/SHOWBIZ/07/07/stage.montypython.reut/index.html

via slashdot || slashdot article

This is interesting:
From slashdot:

“Imagine a world where computers become so ubiquitous that the idea of carrying a laptop will almost be laughable, a world where any computer could be your computer! According to the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, this is the goal of Intel Research Pittsburgh’s Internet Suspend/Resume (ISR) project, a project that may one day let your work jump from computer to computer without interruption by using the Internet, distributed file systems, and virtual machines. When the non-proprietary technology becomes available, a user will suspend a task on the computer he’s working on, and resume this work using another computer in another part of a city or several thousands of miles away. The second system will look identical to the first one, with the same files and applications opened.”

Whole story: http://slashdot.org/articles/04/07/08/1324225.shtml?tid=126&tid=185

From slashdot, travelling salesman tries to visit every company-owned starbucks.

His website: http://www.starbuckseverywhere.net/

He’s going to be on CNN Headline News Thusday, July 8, [tonight] at approximately 7:45 PM EDT.

His photos of himself in front of various starbucks made me think of the Phoons.com website. I think he should do a phoon in one of his starbucks photos and submit it to phoons.com.

Hey, any Orkut members come by here? If so, want to add me as a friend? I joined Orkut a while ago but have only one directly-connected friend (besides M who never logs on). I’d like to make friends on Orkut, but so far no luck. To look me up on Orkut, I’m “laserone” using the email address
LaseroneNetworkingTAKE-THIS-PART-OUT@spamex.com

Calmer.
Still bummed out.
Wasted my day, slept most of it, read.
Too sore for the gym.
Went to Linux meetup.com meetup. Fun. Except food caused major, uh, digestive problems.
Once again, it’s late, I’m tired, and I don’t want to go to bed. I just… my brain is a tornado. Too many thoughts.
*sigh*

I f*cking hate the world today. I’ve had it. I swear to god I’ve had it. I am SO SICK of people being mean to me. People on message boards, people in my family, people in public, people on the roads. I have JUST F*CKING HAD IT with people being mean to me! I’VE HAD IT!!! I don’t know what to do. I mean, what’s the fucking point of getting out of bed in the morning when everybody HATES me and is constantly SHITTING on me! HUh? WHY?! Fuck!

I’m home but our internet is down. I feel so isolated without it. I am on
my Clie connected to my cell phone’s GPRS internet connection via
bluetooth… just because I can. I guess I can read or something.

I’m about halfway thr this book I got called “Holy Cow”about this Australian
girl’s experience in India. It’s really addicting. At least for me. I
love learning about other cultures.

I hope the Internet comes back by tomorrow. I’m in mega research mode re.
my upcoming trip right now.

Oh, great show on tv, on A&E: “Airline”.

[ Posted by mail via qmail2mt.pl ]

My “My Backyard” photoblog and my Laserblog/Photoblog have been updated.

I’m trying to figure out of there is public internet access in the town in Ireland where we’re supposed to be staying. I want to blog while there and upload photos WHILE THERE, not just when I get back. There’s a public library and an internet cafe, and someone was nice enough to call the internet cafe for me and inquire, and you can’t use your own computer. So how the hell am I supposed to upload pix to the net?

I may have to resort to war walking, but if it’s a small town (and I think it is small) warwalking may be fruitless. I can get one of those image-tank type of things that burns CDs in the field (literally, in a field or forest or desert), but I have no idea if these places will even let you stick a CD in. I bet they won’t.

What I might also do is “blog” to a text file on my teeny laptop throughout my day, and then when I finally hit an internet spot, copy/paste my blog entry into my travel blog so that it’s real quick, and so that also I’ll be writing things as I think of them. But if I can’t use my computer or find any means of transferring text and pictures from my laptop to a borrowed pc, I’m screwed.

It’s possible that we’ll be at a hotel w/ internet in the rooms, but we STILL have not been given the itinerary, so I have no idea. I hate not knowing. It’s terrible to be given a gift like that but NO DETAILS!

This guy who’s giving us the trip travels all the time (even to Ireland) so it’s all old hat to him, and he has NO idea that we’re chomping on the bit, dying for details so we can plan. It’s maddening.

Happy 4th of July! I’m not a big fan of the 4th. It’s always hot, and I hate crowds and I hate traffic. So I’ll probably stay home. We may go get some lite hot dogs and grill them out. Yay. Lite hot dogs. Thrilling. But we’re on a diet. Yay. Probably clean the house and catch up on some reading. Or play Scrabble.

In the past I had read this great book about Canada called “Culture Shock! Canada“. So I was wondering if there was a “Culture Shock! Ireland“, and there is. So I called around and a Borders had it. So we went to dinner and then to Borders. I got that book and surfed the wifi to find out that another book I wanted, which was $25, I could get online for like $8. Wifi rules. Who knew it would cause them to lose business! LOL.

BTW, abebooks.com is a great website. It’s a network of used bookstores so you can find books you want cheap (used) and you can find hard-to-find books.

The book I want to get online that was $25 in-store is called “The Irish Way: A Walk Through Ireland’s Past and Present“ and it’s all about this 80 year old guy who walked the entire length of Ireland and the people he met along the way. I’m dying to read that.

My mom god “Wicked Irish“, it’s a riot.

Sorry guys, they went fast! All gone! If I get any more, I’ll send them to those that already contacted me but missed out.

BTW, this sure is one engenious marketing tactic on gmail’s part, isn’t it?

I got four more gmail invites to give out. I’m sure they’ll go faster than I can write this post, but if you would like a gmail invite, leave a comment here. The first four get it, that is unless someone from RL (real life) beats you guys too it. No promises. Leave a comment here or email me at the addy at the top of this page.

Does anyone who reads this travel alot? What I’m trying to figure out is what do I need to know before facing airport security. I have not flown since 9/11. I’m not afraid to travel, but I AM afraid of being one of those horror-stories you hear about where some overzealous uninformed aiport security person makes me drink breast milk or strip in public. I have a general idea of what is a bad idea to take on a plane: knitting needles, nail clippers, guns, etc. But you always hear weird stories about things they make people do or leave behind. I don’t want to get there and find out I have to leave my laptop or $2,100 camera with aiport security.

I’m trying to find a concise travel web site that tells me all kinds of USEFUL things about international travel, things I might not have thought of.

I’d love any tips on international plane travel and/or visiting Ireland.

I STILL have no idea of where I’ll be or what stuff, if any, is already planned for us. As soon as I know, I can plan more.