Whatever Comes To Mind

planet clearance
Not sure what store we're in. Maybe Filene's? Somewhere on Michigan Ave. in Chicago. It's about 0 degrees farenheit out there, I think. So the clearance racks are warm. Until my phone battery gives up the lithium ghost, that is. Then I'll be without internet, txt, camera, etc.

Then what?

I'm not a shopper, not even for things I like and/or want. Don't like features pitted against each other, don't like sales "associates", etc.

Whatever. I have 2 of 4 bars of battery left. I can make it.

more bellyaching on how techie stuff never really works the way you'd like it to
Doing a little technical exercise, here. The hope is discovering a reasonably efficient way to upload a bloggish post with a picture to several places at once.

It would appear the notion of "groups" (associated with my "contact list" on my phone) is the key.

Except, of course, nothing ever works the way you'd really like, especially with Verizon.

What's nice about the notion of "groups" on this phone is that a single group becomes an alias of sorts for one or more contacts. Fine. Wonderful, even.

But what sucks is that you can't simply put a group name in the To: field of a txt message. Rather, you select a group, and that brings up a dialog where you have to check the contacts of the group you want included in the To: field. And the default isn't for all to be pre-selected, but for none to be selected.

That means you have to waste time clicking in little checkboxes, when you already knew in advance that you wanted the txt to go to ALL in the group, and generally do.

Bah....

http://thesteveandmaryshow.blip.tv ... journal entry prepared @ the Tremont
Yeah, we're really excited to be signed to blip.tv for regular installments.

That's Mary writing a journal entry. blip.tv really takes video sharing to new heights, making youtube look like some Fischer (sp? Fisher? neither looks right at the moment) Price equivalent.

mall environs
I think this is called The Castleton Square Mall, but I'm not positive about the "square" part.

No matter, really. I'm at peace in the chaos. Mary and I, and her daughter and son in law came here to handle a couple returns, and then we're off to enjoy each others' company in saner ways.

I'm rather floored that I imagined Fye having a good selection of kd laing, only to find just ONE disc. I never have been much in sync with what the masses have considered good. At least, not *when* they considered it so (e.g. The Beatles).

Ate too much chilli dip and cookies. One of those "I can't imagine ever being hungry again" kinds of fillings.

I guess I grew up in such a small town that crowds will always seem like madness to me.

It's so hard to imagine ever really believing I have anything of importance to write, again. It's not a new feeling. It's been with me for at least 5 years, I'd say. Not that I haven't babbled plenty in that time, mind you.

But it mostly seems like futility.

Saturday minus the park
Oh my, December 15th, already. Time has never flown so quickly, is how much fun I know I'm having.

Inexplicable zits mean something non-indigenous thrives in me.

Work is mostly under control, after inordinate efforts last week. But experience predicts it won't last for long. Software design is a sky rife with anvils, and their paths are hard to avoid when you don't pick up on them in time, which generally needs to be in some ounce of prevention moment before their inception.

Mary and I ate delightful food at a nearby "Mellow Mushroom", last night. But the pizza, she was salty. Best hummus I've ever had, though.

It began snowing this morning, and I think I heard the forecast is for semi-significant accumulation. We'll take our sweet time with lunch and musical excursions, and ready ourselves for a Saturday mass, and see what the evening holds, probably mostly depending upon the afrementioned precipitation.

But I feel like I'm up for anything, so long as Mary is with me.

Yay!

the joy of software development
Yeppers: yet another bug. More projects needing to slip to tend to the unexpected.

Developing software is cool in that it's "clean" and doesn't require a ton of physical power.

But beyond that and the semi-decent pay, it's a hell I suspect even the most vile of sinners will never experience.

About the only thing worse is dealing with printers.

Am I rite?

Well, even if I'm not, I've got to be close. Or, at least, it comes close to describing how I feel about allegedly tested software having been released, and now (before it's even in anyones hands - yet too late to stop the delivery processes already in motion) discovered to be defective.

Don't merely just shoot me. Shoot me with something that scatters all my atoms to the forefront of whatever it is the universe is allegedly expanding into.

Bah....

night parking lot
I just left Barnes and Noble, reading more of 'The Journal of Joyce Carol Oates." My copy is in the car, but it's a bit cold outside.

I'm not sure how many of her books I've read. Probably something like ten. No vivid memories. But I have so few vivid memories of books, regardless of who wrote them. Except Asimov's "Foundation Trilogy" (which I read many times before allegedly becoming an adult), and "Blindness" (authored - I think - by one Jose Saramago... ?). Fond memories of "The Saskiad" (?). Well, not memories of details, so much as memories of the fondness.

Oh, right. There as a book (whose title I can't remember) about a man who lives several hundred years in Manhattan.

Anyway, my Mary will be calling soon, and I don't recall if an incoming call will cause me to lose what I've written, so I best save it now.

(later) I do love sitting alone in the car at night.

A very light, somewhat frozen drizzle has begun falling. There's nearby human activity in peripheral vision.

slow steady progress
"Oh, that's neat", said Mary, examining the black and white night shot.

I must admit, it came out better than I imagined it could, what with using the flash toward the windshield, on this chinsy phone camera. But sometimes you get the luck you so desperately need.

Indeed.

We're a few miles from getting on OH I-670W, around Columbus, connecting to I-70W.

163 miles of that, and we'll be mostly home.

We've dreamed big music dreams on this return trip. Really looking forward to them.

Mary's amazing.

Back to the road, as is our custom when driving....

going home
NY I-84W mm34.

Just passed Newburgh. Pretty windy. Mostly cloudy. No precipitation. Just the grind of the drive.

Mary's on the phone with one of her daughters, trying to instill some confidence.

More later.

handing out 'vouchers'
Funny. I volunteered to hand out what my son referred to as "flyers" at Barnes & Noble, in Poughkeepsie, NY. But given how communication usually goes between so-called "free-willed individuals", it turns out they're vouchers which, if presented at time of purchase, result in the school music program receiving a percentage of the purchase.

The woman "manning the booth" before me was quite aggressive in her approach. And so was I, imitating her (I received no word from anyone connected with the school about what I'd be doing, or how I should do it).

But then the manager came over to me to inform me that I wasn't to solicit anyone to the table (I'm located near the front door). Rather, I should offer the vouchers only to those who freely come to the table and show interest.

Heh!

Well, that's music to my ears (ha ha), 'cuz I don't have the sales gene. I was mostly just hoping to do something nice for my son, who will be performing here tonight, on his violin.

yeah a little varicose
After all, there was a time in which it was often exclaimed, "The boy can drink!"

Mary and I took my sons out for dinner, then to Toys 'R Us and Best Buy. Surprisingly, we bought nothing. We had a good time. Then Mary and I returned to our room, and blew too much time on digital camera reviews, being bitten by the digital camera bug at Best Buy.

It didn't help that Verizon Wireless reception in this area is suckass.

We need to arise early tomorrow. Mary has a business meeting in Manhattan. I'm going into the office in the morning, then handing out flyers for my son's orchestra performance at Barnes and Noble later that night.

Then we leave for home Tuesday morning.

I think I'll be satisfied with the photos the 2.0 megapixel camera on the LG Voyager phone can take, which I'm pondering upgrading to, pending seeing one in action.

Until then, the photo quality of my LG VX9800 has been plenty fine. They've gotten the idea across.

The gravy beyond that is mostly imaginary.

the room Fishkill NY
We arrived safely and soundly. Late supper at the Cracker Barrel. 'Tis rather cold out.

Looking forward to sleep.

PA I-80 mm171
Well, how about that. It worked. I'm back.

I'm back!

So now do I mess with spacing and html tags, hoping they affect appearance similarly in each domain.

Not that anyone reads me, mind you....

PA I-80E mm143
So, good. Back in blogging business. To a degree, anyway. Flickr will have to do in that respect, since it doesn't seem to want to forward posts to livejournal anymore. I guess I should try sending to both in the To: line. Yes, I will try that this time.
Thing is that I've tried posting directly to LJ before, and the picture doesn't come out looking as nice as it does when preprocessed by flickr. Always something.
It's been a good trip, although my tummy is illing from fast food. Traffic has been tolerable, and no road construction of detrimental consequence.
I'm in this ongoing state of amazement over how disconnected we are from survival realities, how we don't see them in our seemingly higher-level social interactions and collective beliefs.
Oh well. It ain't easy realizing things in the vacuum of individuality.

when you don't know what you're doing

when you don't know what you're doing
Originally uploaded by jethrick.

The purpose of this post is twofold. First, I'd like to admit I'm the suckiest cook of all time. My girlfriend gave me instructions on how to bake some fish, because she's running late. Something like put it in a pie dish with butter and seasoning (I have no idea what kind, and was too embarassed to ask), and bake for about twenty minutes, or until it "flakes". I'll be skipping the seasoning part for obvious reasons. But anyway, the second reason for this post is to see whether flickr ever once again became capable of receiving and posting a photo with the full 1000 characters of text buffer from the "create pix message" dialog on my phone. It's something that once worked, and then mysteriously stopped working (as computer-related things generally do) a few months ago. The hope is that enough Verizon customers to whom this matters - and who also don't mind playing the squeaky wheel role
- have helped flickr get their act together on this matter. I rather miss it. Fingers are crossed!

real life

real life
Originally uploaded by jethrick.

This place I'm living in is so incredibly cool. I can't believe how much of my life I wasted being "taught" by others I never belonged with how to live in "nice". I don't want "nice". I want COOL....

getting ready for nyc

getting ready for nyc
Originally uploaded by jethrick.

Yep, there's still nothing simple about getting teens ready for anything but you know what. But I do know a magic word: ToysRUs. I shall invoke that as soon as I'm good and done with the internet.

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