This is how you do a staff photo

Perry and other Republican lawmakers have recently argued that federal disaster relief — such as aid for states hit by tornadoes and hurricanes — must be offset by federal spending cuts, but they have yet to make that argument in fire-ravaged Texas. The state recently cut funding for volunteer fire departments by 75% as a cost-saving measure.

FEMA’s budget got chopped by budget negotiations, and by debt ceiling wrangling. And then along came tornadoes, and Irene, and more rain and flooding and natural disasters, and some fires in Texas that budget-reduced firefighters couldn’t control. And now Perry is trying to turn the Texas fires into a Katrina moment for Obama.

Good luck with that, Rick.

In fact, good luck to everyone. Because since state and local governments across the country are on the precipice thanks to the recession and aided by a decade of fighting wars while cutting taxes, the whole country is running the risk of looking like the South Bronx circa 1982. No wonder fundamentalists keep talking about the Rapture– they’re ready to get the hell out of here before what was sowed by right-wing ideology is reaped.

For various reasons, I had ignored my instincts in taking this job for many of the reasons I’ve just mentioned: the economy sucks. I had been laid off about a year and a half ago, and had been working freelance; parts of me were unhappy with the instability. So when I was aggressively recruited by a certain company in DC, I eventually succumbed to the hard sell and took the job. The salary ended up being somewhat less than I had hoped for, the benefits insignificant, but it was steady W-2 employment with paid vacation and a paycheck every two weeks instead of Net-whenever. So who was I to complain?

It’s been 4 months since I started. And it’s grown steadily more like freelance, only without the benefits of freelance. I’ve worked 10, 12, 14, and even 16 hour days, 6 at a time. While I’ve done this as a freelancer, there was always a much higher reward; instead, there was just another unreachable goal laid before me with insufficient tools and emails from co-workers doing the “weekend grind” on their projects intended to inspire me as my family life slipped into oblivion.

After a particularly frustrating day last week, I did some math, and realized that on an hourly basis, I had made more in my first job out of the Navy in 1990.

I realize that my frustration is born of my self-reliant nature, thanks to years of freelancing and telecommuting. I have become entrepreneurial, which inherently makes me a bad employee for companies who treat employment traditionally (“do what you’re told, as you’re told, for what we pay you and be happy about it”). If I don’t have skin in the game, a stake in the success that goes beyond a paycheck, then the salary quickly feels more like a leash than a wage. I could see the flaws in the system, but the boss knows how he wants things. I understand the business model of the company in detail, and rather than being given room to expand on it I am constrained by it. I understand what it was about me that just did not fit, and had no way to apply my talents in ways that would fix that.

Then there’s the difference between the job market and the freelance market. I am highly aware of what I am worth on the market, and of what the best use of my skills is; I track the value of my words like some track their company’s stock. I know what my knowledge is worth. While others in this economy cling to their jobs like a liferaft, I began to see mine for what it was: an anchor pulling me down.

So, I am re-entering the world of self-employment in one of the most uncertain economic times in decades. And I am smiling, because I am in control of my destiny.

Zen Cat, warmer light, originally uploaded by packetrat.

]]> http://chaos.dendro.com/index.php/archives/2011/06/09/zen-cat-warm-light/feed/ 0 http://chaos.dendro.com/index.php/archives/2011/06/08/cats-can-lick-their-noses/ http://chaos.dendro.com/index.php/archives/2011/06/08/cats-can-lick-their-noses/#comments Thu, 09 Jun 2011 00:37:22 +0000 Sean http://chaos.dendro.com/index.php/archives/2011/06/08/cats-can-lick-their-noses/ .flickr-photo { border: solid 2px #000000; } .flickr-yourcomment { } .flickr-frame { text-align: left; padding: 3px; } .flickr-caption { font-size: 0.8em; margin-top: 0px; }

Untitled, originally uploaded by packetrat.

]]> http://chaos.dendro.com/index.php/archives/2011/06/08/cats-can-lick-their-noses/feed/ 0 http://chaos.dendro.com/index.php/archives/2011/06/04/doing-the-math-on-economic-recovery/ http://chaos.dendro.com/index.php/archives/2011/06/04/doing-the-math-on-economic-recovery/#comments Sun, 05 Jun 2011 02:26:04 +0000 Sean http://chaos.dendro.com/?p=1425 Continue reading →]]> Job growth is slow.  And in some quarters, they’re blaming (1) high taxes, (2) the deficit, or (3) a socialist conspiracy.  But if you look at the numbers, it isn’t taxes or federal spending that’s keeping job growth low. Taxes are at their lowest since 1992 for the top bracket, and are pretty close to where they were in the Reagan years.  But during the economic boom of the 199os, taxes were higher for the top bracket earners, and there was much higher overall employment.

The deficit certainly is an issue for long-term economic stability. And yes, US government borrowing does soak up capital. But the bond rates that the US pays on debt are minuscule, and, in a perfect neoliberal capitalist world, investors would make capital available for businesses looking to grow from a position of strength because of the potential return on investment. Right?

Yeah, I know. Theory is boring, facts are boring.  And we still have 9% unemployment.   Why is that, if it isn’t because the government is weighing down business with taxes and its bloated debt?

Here’s why:

1) Higher labor productivity means that companies can make big profits off of smaller revenues, so there’s not as much incentive to grow them.  Take a look at the Bureau of Labor and Statistics‘ numbers on productivity, and you’ll see that productivity has grown in some sectors by more than 100% over the last 5 years (and is starting to reach a plateau).  The cost of labor has trailed productivity during that time, and real wages have dropped on average — because of the larger pool of unemployed, salary cuts and other factors.  So, companies can make more with fewer workers.  That would theoretically lead to profits that fuel big growth, but…

2) Energy costs are high because of speculation and huge demand from China and India, who have economies that are rapidly growing. So the non-labor costs of production, which are largely based on energy and other commodity costs, have gone up.  So instead of ramping up production, companies have found that they can produce the same or less, with fewer employees, and rake in profits while holding production costs down.  And if they do ramp up their production…

3) Manufacturing has been shifted overseas, so the increased production has a lesser impact on US hiring. So job growth remains low. Job growth could take off if companies in emerging areas were hiring here, but…

4) Congress cut funding of green tech.  And there could be big gains in efficiency in healthcare and a significant reduction in the financial burden on companies from health insurance premiums, but…

5) The Republicans want to rescind the Affordable Healthcare Act and kill Medicare just as they’re starting to pressure a change in the business model of healthcare that will shift to value versus volume.  And of course,  we bailed out the banks, but…

6) The glut of foreclosed housing from the mortgage disaster and other factors have depressed housing prices, and the construction industry, which was a major employer of semi-skilled labor, is still recovering. And it’s been living on corporate welfare life support for the last decade, at least.

Screech Owl, originally uploaded by packetrat.

]]> http://chaos.dendro.com/index.php/archives/2011/05/02/screech-owl/feed/ 0 http://chaos.dendro.com/index.php/archives/2011/02/23/youtube-not-just-for-cat-videos-anymore/ http://chaos.dendro.com/index.php/archives/2011/02/23/youtube-not-just-for-cat-videos-anymore/#comments Wed, 23 Feb 2011 15:07:08 +0000 Sean http://chaos.dendro.com/?p=1422 Continue reading →]]> Google/YouTube is apparently in negotiations to stream NHL and NBA games live, turning the video site into an on-demand sports network, as CNN reports (Sports fans could soon tune in to YouTube – CNN.com ). Of course, CNN can’t let the story pass without a catty swipe: “Lately, weve been seeing YouTube seemingly getting more serious about being an entertainment hub, rather than a forum for cat videos.”

1. A community starts to be created around some new site or service. Early adopters bring in their friends, and theree is a flurry of initial creativity.
2. The community  is “discovered” by a (tastemaker/early adopter/alpha blogger). The (site/app/service) is hailed as the “next big thing” by that (tastemaker/early adopter/alpha blogger). Expectations are inflated, often with the aid of the company that has launched the (site/app/service).
3. The hype bubble attracts large numbers of additional users, whose expectations are colored by the hype.  Many of them have no idea why they’re there, other than it’s cool.
4. The (site/app/service) loses its shiny newness, strains under additional use, changes to accomodate additional use, and/or fails to live up to the inflated expectations, dissapointing the (tastemaker/early adopter/alpha blogger), who then declares the (site/app/service)is (doomed/not good/not as good as the latest thing that came out).
5. Early adopters decide that it’s time to find something else to do with their time.  Only a few “old-timers” hang on, mostly for the sake of complaining about how good the community was before all these “newbies” showed up.
6. A newer, shinier place is found, and community is created around it, and the cycle starts again.

Something like this pattern is  currently playing out with Quora, a Q&A crowdsourcing site.  I recently introduced it to consumer readers on TechGoesStrong as the first salvo in a series on the whole genre of Q&A sites, which are legion. Unlike sites like Mahalo and Answers.com, anybody can answer a question on Quora (much like Yahoo! Answers (which is notorious for its spam) and Facebook Questions).

But unlike Yahoo! Answers and Facebook Questions, Quora’s answerers have been, at least initially, pretty high-caliber people who actually know what they’re talking about. Mostly. And Quora accounts are tied to Facebook and Twitter accounts, so there’s an extra social fabric to things. It’s sort of like a cooler, smarter Facebook Questions…started by two guys who left Facebook.

Anyway, Quora got heavy buzz early from alpha blogger Robert Scoble. He called it “the biggest blogging innovation in 10 years.”  And, lo, Quora saw a flood of new users pouring in.

Then, recently, Scoble reversed his assessment of Quora:

Turns out I was totally wrong. It’s a horrid service for blogging, where you want to put some personality into answers. It’s just fine for a QA site, but we already have lots of those and, in fact, the competitors in this space are starting to react. Mahalo just released a new version that has been getting lots of praise and at DLD I met the CEO of Answers.com and he said to expect a major update from his service (which has 1000x more users). Stack Exchange is growing faster than Quora and has many many times more questions and answers, plus I’ve found the answers are broader in reach, and deeper in quality (especially for programmers).

Also, he noted, people were getting “pissed” that moderators were mucking around with their stuff, and that people were lowering the importance of their answers to questions by voting them down or marking them as “not helpful”.

In this case, however, the usual hype/diss cycle took a different turn. As David Chen details in his post, The Ridiculous Takedown of Robert Scoble, the rabid pack of technorati turned not on Quora, but on Scoble, who was forced to back down from his less glowing assessment.  Another alpha blogger, Michael Arrington,castigated Scoble for “Scobleizing” Quora (in the original meaning of the term “Scobleized,” as anyone who ever attended a conference Scoble worked on in the late ’90s and early 00?s would use it):

“It’s a horrid service for blogging,” says Scoble. Yup. I agree. Quora isn’t a very good place for blogging. Because other people can edit or remove your stuff. It’s the sort of place where you have to behave yourself if you want to be heard. That’s exactly not blogging. The thing is, most of us have always known that. Quora is ostensibly a Q&A site. But that’s like saying a car is a device for burning gasoline.Or, in Robert’s case, he’s mad that his car won’t cook him dinner.

Touché, Mr. Arrington.  Scoble had a specific vision of what he thought Quora was, and then it didn’t work that way, and he lost his enthusiasm.  His misconception of how he could use Quora (primarily to extend his own personal brand) led to his dissatisfaction. Arrington is right.

However, one person’s “crowdsourcing” approach to make “a better Wikipedia”, as Arrington puts it, is another person’s “mob rule”.  A group with an agenda can, acting in concert, manipulate which questions get promoted to the top and which get buried…much like what used to happen on Digg. Remember Digg?

The problem with any community that depends on the kindness of the crowd is that the people who make the most noise generally end up having the least to contribute.  Instead of the “network effect”, you get the “unruly mob effect” — the value of the conversations happening in the community is diluted, and the interesting and useful content is drowned out by the noise of the crowd.

So…Scoble is right, too.  Sort of.

I’m not a big del.icio.us user.  Back when I worked with a certain Gillmor, he raved something about del.icio.us and the “attention-economy” and what-not.  I found it to be interesting when combined with other social media of the time (I think we called them “blogs” back then), and it demonstrated itself to be innovative enough that it gained a few copycats along the way. But I had this other way of sharing bookmarks with friends: by posting them to my blog and tagging them.  That way, I owned the data, and it was searchable, and anyone who cared about what I thought could subscribe to my RSS feed or see it on my blog (or eventually on Facebook or Twitter). And I had permalinks and all that jazz. Oh, and I could do that for free with several blog platforms. But that wasn’t playing in the attention-stream, I was told.  I guess I have attention deficit disorder or something.

Fast forward 10 years.  We have so many cloud-based social media tugging at us, wanting us to connect to friends and share that del.icio.us has long been lost to most people in the din of Facebook this and Twitter that.   Del.icio.us has evolved a little, but other services like StumbleUpon and Reddit.  And, while some brave pioneers have hung around, the fickle masses have wandered on to other things.

No wonder Yahoo has gotten bored with del.icio.us and has labeled it “sunset”.   It’s that attention thing again, or a lack of it–people have stopped paying attention to what people pay attention to on del.icio.us and would now rather pay attention to what their friends are doing in Farmville.  And since  del.ico.us  lives at the whim of a provider, with no terms of service and no export tool other than code-scraping, there’s the potential for all the attention that’s been spent on curating del.icio.us — curating, the latest buzzword for collecting links –there’s the potential that it’s all been in vain, for naught, and bound for the bit bucket in the cloud.

Of course, that’s the whole problem with magical cloud services, anyway. There may be terms of service out there, but there is not a whole lot that looks like a binding contract between cloud provider and user.  I could wake up tomorrow and find that Yahoo has lost interest in Flickr, and all my photos from the last 5 years have evaporated into so many purged pixels with no contractual recourse than, say, a refund on what’s left of my annual pro fee.  Google could turn off my mail. Facebook could declare me dead and purge my page. Like the Maryland Lottery, it could happen to you.

Do I have your attention?

At least providers like WordPress let me back up and export my site, and I have the code to run the blog someplace else, where I own (or at least lease) the server. But if the cloud is going to be both a metaphor for where applications live and a description of the substantiveness of legal protection that we have as users of the thing from having our digital works exist or not at the whims of questionable business models, then we need to have a way to own our data and move it and replicate it to cover our pixilated assets.

Wikileaks adds new focus to that — it is a model of what data portability should be.  Government siezes your URL because you pissed them off? No problem! The Bolivians will gladly give you a domain, and you can mirror–because YOU own the data, and can move it or duplicate it at will.  Sure, it costs something — money, in WikiLeaks’ case, to pay for hosting and domains and lawyers to fight extradition. In your case, it might cost sharing some of your data, and maybe your…attention.  To advertisements, or to other people’s sites, or whatever.

We pay sites like Facebook with our attention and our data. Mark Z. and his crew keep our attention with new features, and extract value from our data and our ad views to pay the rent.  We should have the ability to take our social network data and replicate it elsewhere, both while we’re using Facebook and when we leave, because it’s part of our identity.  There’s phone number portability by law… why not data portability?

Me, in 1987 on the bridge of the USS Iowa in New York City

My grandfather served in World War II, fighting in Europe from D-Day to the Battle of the Bulge. He was battlefield commissioned, rose to 1st Lieutenant, and received a medical retirement from the Army after the war. And despite the memorabilia he kept on shelves, he never really talked about it that much.

I, on the other hand, served during other sorts of conflict.  I was aboard a battleship escorting Kuwaiti tankers during Operation Earnest Will, and then was in Panama in the days leading up to the short conflict with Noriega.  I never fired a weapon in anger, and the closest I ever got to personal danger were those hours spent with a gas mask on as we traversed the Straits of Hormuz waiting for an Iranian missile attack or for a mine to explode.

So, I didn’t view my military record as being anything worth noting.  At the time I got out of the service, the Gulf War was still over the horizon, and the military was trimming back. I hadn’t exactly been a model for success in the Navy–my most notable achievement was managing to avoid being killed by a combination of stubbornness, dumb luck and my fundamental unsuitability to military service.

And most people just treated my time in the Navy as a curiosity–until 2001.  And suddenly, being a veteran meant something different.

When people started saying, “Thank you for your service”, I felt like an impostor.  It felt like being thanked effusively for a gift that I hadn’t given, or one that I had purchased at the last minute and wrapped badly.  All I did was make a few Omani smugglers nervous and make them jettison whatever they were carrying in their dhow.

As the ”thank you for your service” greeting became more and more like a political genuflect, it began to irritate me. It not only served as a reminder of how my own service seemed less than deserving of thanks, but it rang hollower, less sincere with each repetition, like an American flag lapel pin hastily added to an Italian wool suit.

At the same time, I started to have a little more perspective on what it means to be a veteran. While it may have taken years to take hold, the whole experience of serving with others in the cause of our country (be she right or wrong) fundamentally changed me as a person.

I look at the snapshot my mother took of me on the bridge of the Iowa 23 years ago, just as I was really beginning to understand what I had gotten myself into, and I don’t recognize myself. That was me before the turret explosion, and before Panama, and before a lot of other things that would transpire in the years that followed.  I want to shake Ensign Gallagher by the lapels and tell him to square himself away.

There’s a whole new crop of veterans now whose service dwarfs my own.  And again, I feel like an impostor when I’m counted among them as a veteran.  But  while I may not share their particular experiences, I at least feel like I can understand how they’ve been changed by it, in a way that only those who’ve served in the military can.  So I’ll thank them for their service, and mean it.

Location:W Ridgely Rd,Lutherville-Timonium,United States

Location:W Ridgely Rd,Lutherville-Timonium,United States

For various reasons I couldn’t sleep last night. I sat up and stared out at the squatting cinderblock boxes with tarpaper roofs that pass for garages in this town, lining our alley in Siamese-twin pairs, and the false gloaming of the city lights diffused through the low-hanging clouds. And I cursed the grey night and laid back down, trying to block the alley street light’s amber glare with a wedged pillow.

I’ll be glad when this winter is dead and gone. The snow has finally thawed away from the shadows under the relentless rain, and the storm drains are clogged with urban jetsam and runoff with no place else to go, but there are still places where grey icebergs stand like Lot’s wife at street corners, like they’re waiting for the crossing light to change before they give up and melt into mud.

I know now why Brutus did in Caesar on the Ides. The goddamned Ides. It was the waiting for a change that drove him to do it. Something has to break, and let things start again.

Ides of March, originally uploaded by packetrat.

]]> http://chaos.dendro.com/index.php/archives/2010/03/15/ides-of-march/feed/ 0 http://chaos.dendro.com/index.php/archives/2010/03/11/damn-glenn-beck-found-me-out/ http://chaos.dendro.com/index.php/archives/2010/03/11/damn-glenn-beck-found-me-out/#comments Thu, 11 Mar 2010 16:59:18 +0000 Sean http://chaos.dendro.com/?p=1335

Siblings., originally uploaded by packetrat.

]]> http://chaos.dendro.com/index.php/archives/2010/02/25/siblings/feed/ 0 http://chaos.dendro.com/index.php/archives/2009/10/01/more-fun-with-yahoo-im-robot-scams/ http://chaos.dendro.com/index.php/archives/2009/10/01/more-fun-with-yahoo-im-robot-scams/#comments Thu, 01 Oct 2009 15:11:41 +0000 Sean http://chaos.dendro.com/?p=1330 Continue reading →]]>

lianabonetti

7:31

is there anything you want to do?5yvwhpbf7h

Sean Gallagher

10:33

I would like to write a 500-word essay on how Yahoo Messenger has become infested with webcam-phishing robots.

lianabonetti

10:33

Hello there!!!

Sean Gallagher

10:34

Are you familiar with the Turing test?

lianabonetti

10:35

Nice to here from you 

Sean Gallagher

10:35

I see you are. Let’s play.

lianabonetti

10:35

soo what are you doing right now???are you alone or busy????

Sean Gallagher

10:36

I am busy, but I am alone. My business is being alone and busy.

lianabonetti

10:36

I not doing much im actually bored of chating around will you like to join me

Sean Gallagher

10:37

I would, in fact, be curious to see what sort of enticement you are trying to lead me into like a lamb for the slaughter.  What is your favorite color?

lianabonetti

10:37

IDK any ideas???

Sean Gallagher

10:37

I think it might be beige.

lianabonetti

10:37

weeelll hmm…

Sean Gallagher

10:39

I know! I will send you a check, which you can cash, and then send me part of the money as a money order. And you can keep the rest! That would be fun.

lianabonetti

10:39

Im in the mood to be a bad girl maybe we can talk naughty to each other..like what are you wearing right now???…

Sean Gallagher

10:43

I am wearing a chicken mask.

lianabonetti

10:43

Really  well im in little shorts and tank top .. its not much im kinda hot right now and i look cutie in it.

Sean Gallagher

10:44

I somehow suspect you are not, in fact, wearing anything but several lines of  script.  But I find well-written script attractive.  Also, I love fraud!

lianabonetti

10:44

I got new thongs too that i bought at the mall and there the cuttest little things…expenseve too…

Sean Gallagher

10:50

Expenseve is an interesting choice of mispellings.  As is cuttest.

lianabonetti

10:50

Lol so you wanna see me try them on ???it would be real sexy..lol

Sean Gallagher

10:53

The quick red fox jumped over the lazy dog.

lianabonetti

10:53

Are you alone??? I dont wanna anyone else to see im kinda shy…but ur okay besides..

Sean Gallagher

10:53

Are we not all alone, in the end?

lianabonetti

10:53

Yeah i im kinda horny im in the mood right now..lol

Sean Gallagher

10:54

I would prefer not to engage in chat if you have horns.

lianabonetti

10:54

Im gonna put cam up hold on…ill put something sexy and ill put my cam on and you can judge it for me and tell me wich one is the best???

Sean Gallagher

10:55

Oh, here comes the denouement, eh? Where you attempt to lure me off to a malicious website and Russian hackers infiltrate my computer and make it part of their evil zombie botfarm?

lianabonetti

10:56

kk, lemme see, okay go herehttp://tinyurl.com/hotdixi make sure you accept my free cam chat invite on the left hand side, it expires in 10 mins to be free, click it k?

Sean Gallagher

10:57

Oh, it’s a tinyurl link!  Oh, my.

lianabonetti

10:57

Its http://tinyurl.com/hotdixi and remeber the time limit!!!

Sean Gallagher

10:59

I’m sure you’re lovely.

But I do not accept time limits.

lianabonetti

10:59

yup, you gotta put in your info so the system can verify your age, got it?

yea cc is just to verify your age, don’t worry it won’t charge you are on the free cam session, u got in before the 10 mins expired. you in?

Sean Gallagher

10:59

My age can only be verified by God.

I have no credit card.

lianabonetti

10:59

nice, k don’t keep me waiting, im burning up in here!! might have to take off more clothing 

welcome to the 21st century… might wanna move out of mom’s house and catch up on current times!

Sean Gallagher

11:00

So silly. My Mom’s house is in the 21st Century. Plus, I like her drapes.

lianabonetti

11:00

k let me know when you get in so We can invite you directly to my cam sesssion.

Sean Gallagher

11:01

I would prefer to invite you to my cam session.

At http://doyouthinkImanidiot.com

lianabonetti

11:01

k, you in yet babe??

sweet k

Sean Gallagher

11:02

Are you going to look at my webcam?

I need your credit card # to verify your age.

lianabonetti

11:02

when u login click LIVEWEBCAMS k?

yup

Sean Gallagher

11:03

Okay, give me your credit card #

lianabonetti

11:03

k

Sean Gallagher

11:03

Can you speak portugese too?

lianabonetti

11:04

k

Sean Gallagher

11:04

I have a thing for chat robots that speak portugese.

Still waiting for your credit card info.

I have this skateboard I want to buy for my cat.

11:08

Well, you’re no fun anymore. Thank you for failing the Turing test!

[block user nina.skies]

He was most excited about the “home brew” applications he had installed, which required him to get to the Linux command line on the Pre.  And how he had installed a hack of the GPS and the networking on the Pre that allowed him to remote login to his Pre, and fetch the GPS location of the phone if he had lost it.

He let me look at his for a few minutes, because–surprise–I have been so deep in the world of defense tech lately, I haven’t even had a chance to look at a Pre on a store shelf, let alone evaluate one.  And yes, after a cursory examination of the Pre, even with its microscopic keys, the Pre has moved up on my list of potential replacements for my Blackberry 8700c. (I absolutely loathe screen-typing on the iPhone–I need physical feedback, being a touch typist.)

That is, if I ever get free of AT&T, what with every other member of my family on an AT&T phone, and two of them on iPhones.

Caterpillar on the grape, originally uploaded by packetrat.

]]> http://chaos.dendro.com/index.php/archives/2009/09/08/caterpillar-on-the-grape/feed/ 0 http://chaos.dendro.com/index.php/archives/2009/09/08/mr-fuzz-dines-on-grapeleaf-salad/ http://chaos.dendro.com/index.php/archives/2009/09/08/mr-fuzz-dines-on-grapeleaf-salad/#comments Tue, 08 Sep 2009 13:14:06 +0000 Sean http://chaos.dendro.com/index.php/archives/2009/09/08/mr-fuzz-dines-on-grapeleaf-salad/ Continue reading →]]> .flickr-photo { border: solid 2px #000000; } .flickr-yourcomment { } .flickr-frame { text-align: left; padding: 3px; } .flickr-caption { font-size: 0.8em; margin-top: 0px; }

Mr. Fuzz dines on grapeleaf salad., originally uploaded by packetrat.

I went out to retrieve the paper the other morning, and saw this caterpillar working through a broad grapeleaf on my handrail. He was a leisurely diner, and still there when I returned with my camera.

M is for Manhole, originally uploaded by packetrat.

]]> http://chaos.dendro.com/index.php/archives/2009/08/26/m-is-for-manhole/feed/ 0 http://chaos.dendro.com/index.php/archives/2009/08/23/jones-falls-under-jones-falls-expressway/ http://chaos.dendro.com/index.php/archives/2009/08/23/jones-falls-under-jones-falls-expressway/#comments Sun, 23 Aug 2009 23:26:21 +0000 Sean http://chaos.dendro.com/index.php/archives/2009/08/23/jones-falls-under-jones-falls-expressway/ .flickr-photo { border: solid 2px #000000; } .flickr-yourcomment { } .flickr-frame { text-align: left; padding: 3px; } .flickr-caption { font-size: 0.8em; margin-top: 0px; }

_MG_6361, originally uploaded by packetrat.

]]> http://chaos.dendro.com/index.php/archives/2009/08/23/jones-falls-under-jones-falls-expressway/feed/ 0 http://chaos.dendro.com/index.php/archives/2009/08/23/bustin-out-bricks/ http://chaos.dendro.com/index.php/archives/2009/08/23/bustin-out-bricks/#comments Sun, 23 Aug 2009 15:14:57 +0000 Sean http://chaos.dendro.com/index.php/archives/2009/08/23/bustin-out-bricks/ .flickr-photo { border: solid 2px #000000; } .flickr-yourcomment { } .flickr-frame { text-align: left; padding: 3px; } .flickr-caption { font-size: 0.8em; margin-top: 0px; }

Bustin’ out bricks, originally uploaded by packetrat.

You can’t wall over Baltimore’s red-brick soul, apparently.

Sunrise on the Hereford Water Tower, originally uploaded by packetrat.

]]> http://chaos.dendro.com/index.php/archives/2009/08/15/sunrise-on-the-hereford-water-tower/feed/ 0 http://chaos.dendro.com/index.php/archives/2009/08/15/the-mists-of-soccer-tryout/ http://chaos.dendro.com/index.php/archives/2009/08/15/the-mists-of-soccer-tryout/#comments Sat, 15 Aug 2009 13:11:40 +0000 Sean http://chaos.dendro.com/index.php/archives/2009/08/15/the-mists-of-soccer-tryout/ Continue reading →]]> .flickr-photo { border: solid 2px #000000; } .flickr-yourcomment { } .flickr-frame { text-align: left; padding: 3px; } .flickr-caption { font-size: 0.8em; margin-top: 0px; }

The mists of soccer-tryout, originally uploaded by packetrat.

Arriving just before 7 am at Hereford School (after getting up at gods hour in Hampden) to drop off my son for soccer tryouts, we discovered tryouts didn’t start until 8– and the field was barely visible.

Cavy love, originally uploaded by packetrat.

]]> http://chaos.dendro.com/index.php/archives/2009/08/14/cavy-love/feed/ 0 http://chaos.dendro.com/index.php/archives/2009/08/14/small-mammals-in-the-house/ http://chaos.dendro.com/index.php/archives/2009/08/14/small-mammals-in-the-house/#comments Sat, 15 Aug 2009 01:36:04 +0000 Sean http://chaos.dendro.com/index.php/archives/2009/08/14/small-mammals-in-the-house/ Continue reading →]]> .flickr-photo { border: solid 2px #000000; } .flickr-yourcomment { } .flickr-frame { text-align: left; padding: 3px; } .flickr-caption { font-size: 0.8em; margin-top: 0px; }

Hyrax, originally uploaded by packetrat.

We got brief relief from the sun at the zoo in the Small Mammal House, where this hyrax was demonstrating the leg-dangle chill with the 100-yard stare. I often wonder how even small mammals can deal with the boredom and stress of being in the same space all day long, every day. And then I look around my office….

cuttlefish, originally uploaded by packetrat.

The place to be last Saturday in DC was the National Zoo, and apparently everyone got the memo. We tried to slip into the Invertebrates exhibit, but anyone with an endoskeleton could not move around much. That bit of over-strained air-conditioning and claustrophobia inducing closeness came quickly to an end.

However, we did get a chance to say hello to the cuttlefish before we dashed off to see the vertebrates outside.

Some background: Apparently, rather than taking a bunch of kids from a mostly-affluent, mostly-caucasian Catholic elementary to Baltimore’s National Great Blacks in Wax Museum, the 5th grade teacher decided to have the students act as the school’s very own “wax museum”. Each of the students was supposed to dress as a particular African-American figure, and stand at their desk in the classroom as students from the other grades filed through. They were then supposed to give a minute presentation when someone pressed their hand with a finger, like they were some animatronic display.

This, as you might imagine, didn’t go very well. One of the students got in trouble for presenting as Ray Charles, and including information on his drug problems. Another (a boy) wanted to be Oprah, but wasn’t allowed to. One student dressed as George Washington Carver brought a basket of peanuts, which visiting students lined up to take (and which triggered an allergic reaction in one student–something that didn’t get reported in this interview). And 8th graders used the exercise as an opportunity to abuse the 5th graders, squeezing their hands hard instead of pressing their “buttons”.

Meanwhile, the 5th grade teacher hung out in the hallway, doing God knows what.

This exercise in insanity lasted more than two hours. When I asked him if he had learned anything, Jonah said, “That I never want to do Black History Month at St. Pius again.”

Crow, originally uploaded by packetrat.

]]> http://chaos.dendro.com/index.php/archives/2009/07/16/crow/feed/ 0 http://chaos.dendro.com/index.php/archives/2009/07/16/chandelier/ http://chaos.dendro.com/index.php/archives/2009/07/16/chandelier/#comments Thu, 16 Jul 2009 14:47:28 +0000 Sean http://chaos.dendro.com/?p=1260

Singing for his supper, originally uploaded by packetrat.

]]> http://chaos.dendro.com/index.php/archives/2009/07/16/singing-for-his-supper/feed/ 0 http://chaos.dendro.com/index.php/archives/2009/05/28/tag-team/ http://chaos.dendro.com/index.php/archives/2009/05/28/tag-team/#comments Thu, 28 May 2009 14:00:57 +0000 Sean http://chaos.dendro.com/index.php/archives/2009/07/16/tag-team/ .flickr-photo { border: solid 2px #000000; } .flickr-yourcomment { } .flickr-frame { text-align: left; padding: 3px; } .flickr-caption { font-size: 0.8em; margin-top: 0px; }

tag team, originally uploaded by packetrat.

]]> http://chaos.dendro.com/index.php/archives/2009/05/28/tag-team/feed/ 0 http://chaos.dendro.com/index.php/archives/2009/05/28/starling-mob-corners-the-suet-market/ http://chaos.dendro.com/index.php/archives/2009/05/28/starling-mob-corners-the-suet-market/#comments Thu, 28 May 2009 13:59:31 +0000 Sean http://chaos.dendro.com/index.php/archives/2009/07/16/starling-mob-corners-the-suet-market/ .flickr-photo { border: solid 2px #000000; } .flickr-yourcomment { } .flickr-frame { text-align: left; padding: 3px; } .flickr-caption { font-size: 0.8em; margin-top: 0px; }

IMG_2716, originally uploaded by packetrat.

]]> http://chaos.dendro.com/index.php/archives/2009/05/28/starling-mob-corners-the-suet-market/feed/ 0 http://chaos.dendro.com/index.php/archives/2009/05/27/hello-fledgie/ http://chaos.dendro.com/index.php/archives/2009/05/27/hello-fledgie/#comments Wed, 27 May 2009 13:57:10 +0000 Sean http://chaos.dendro.com/index.php/archives/2009/07/16/hello-fledgie/ .flickr-photo { border: solid 2px #000000; } .flickr-yourcomment { } .flickr-frame { text-align: left; padding: 3px; } .flickr-caption { font-size: 0.8em; margin-top: 0px; }

Hello, fledgie, originally uploaded by packetrat.

1st wave starling fledgeling, perched on my window suet feeder.

_MG_2217, originally uploaded by packetrat.

]]> http://chaos.dendro.com/index.php/archives/2009/05/25/farmers-market-asparagus/feed/ 0 http://chaos.dendro.com/index.php/archives/2009/05/24/heres-the-present/ http://chaos.dendro.com/index.php/archives/2009/05/24/heres-the-present/#comments Sun, 24 May 2009 15:26:15 +0000 Sean http://chaos.dendro.com/index.php/archives/2009/07/16/heres-the-present/ .flickr-photo { border: solid 2px #000000; } .flickr-yourcomment { } .flickr-frame { text-align: left; padding: 3px; } .flickr-caption { font-size: 0.8em; margin-top: 0px; }

…here’s the present., originally uploaded by packetrat.

]]> http://chaos.dendro.com/index.php/archives/2009/05/24/heres-the-present/feed/ 0 http://chaos.dendro.com/index.php/archives/2009/05/24/i-brought-you-a-present/ http://chaos.dendro.com/index.php/archives/2009/05/24/i-brought-you-a-present/#comments Sun, 24 May 2009 15:25:36 +0000 Sean http://chaos.dendro.com/index.php/archives/2009/07/16/i-brought-you-a-present/ .flickr-photo { border: solid 2px #000000; } .flickr-yourcomment { } .flickr-frame { text-align: left; padding: 3px; } .flickr-caption { font-size: 0.8em; margin-top: 0px; }

I brought you a present…, originally uploaded by packetrat.

Mooch demands attention to his trophy

mantises!, originally uploaded by packetrat.

]]> http://chaos.dendro.com/index.php/archives/2009/04/24/mantises/feed/ 0 http://chaos.dendro.com/index.php/archives/2009/04/24/stop/ http://chaos.dendro.com/index.php/archives/2009/04/24/stop/#comments Fri, 24 Apr 2009 14:03:12 +0000 Sean http://chaos.dendro.com/index.php/archives/2009/07/16/stop/ .flickr-photo { border: solid 2px #000000; } .flickr-yourcomment { } .flickr-frame { text-align: left; padding: 3px; } .flickr-caption { font-size: 0.8em; margin-top: 0px; }

_MG_9189, originally uploaded by packetrat.

]]> http://chaos.dendro.com/index.php/archives/2009/04/24/stop/feed/ 0 http://chaos.dendro.com/index.php/archives/2009/02/25/this-explains-the-banking-crisis/ http://chaos.dendro.com/index.php/archives/2009/02/25/this-explains-the-banking-crisis/#comments Thu, 26 Feb 2009 03:16:02 +0000 Sean http://chaos.dendro.com/index.php/archives/2009/02/25/this-explains-the-banking-crisis/ .flickr-photo { border: solid 2px #000000; } .flickr-yourcomment { } .flickr-frame { text-align: left; padding: 3px; } .flickr-caption { font-size: 0.8em; margin-top: 0px; }

this explains the banking crisis, originally uploaded by packetrat.

]]> http://chaos.dendro.com/index.php/archives/2009/02/25/this-explains-the-banking-crisis/feed/ 0 http://chaos.dendro.com/index.php/archives/2009/02/25/retro-space-heater/ http://chaos.dendro.com/index.php/archives/2009/02/25/retro-space-heater/#comments Thu, 26 Feb 2009 03:13:28 +0000 Sean http://chaos.dendro.com/index.php/archives/2009/02/25/retro-space-heater/ .flickr-photo { border: solid 2px #000000; } .flickr-yourcomment { } .flickr-frame { text-align: left; padding: 3px; } .flickr-caption { font-size: 0.8em; margin-top: 0px; }

"Retro Space Heater"…, originally uploaded by packetrat.

]]> http://chaos.dendro.com/index.php/archives/2009/02/25/retro-space-heater/feed/ 0 http://chaos.dendro.com/index.php/archives/2009/02/25/hooray-for-bargains/ http://chaos.dendro.com/index.php/archives/2009/02/25/hooray-for-bargains/#comments Thu, 26 Feb 2009 03:10:45 +0000 Sean http://chaos.dendro.com/index.php/archives/2009/02/25/hooray-for-bargains/ .flickr-photo { border: solid 2px #000000; } .flickr-yourcomment { } .flickr-frame { text-align: left; padding: 3px; } .flickr-caption { font-size: 0.8em; margin-top: 0px; }

Hooray for Bargains, originally uploaded by packetrat.

]]> http://chaos.dendro.com/index.php/archives/2009/02/25/hooray-for-bargains/feed/ 0 http://chaos.dendro.com/index.php/archives/2009/02/25/hooray-for-bargains-2/ http://chaos.dendro.com/index.php/archives/2009/02/25/hooray-for-bargains-2/#comments Thu, 26 Feb 2009 03:10:45 +0000 Sean http://chaos.dendro.com/index.php/archives/2009/02/25/hooray-for-bargains-2/ .flickr-photo { border: solid 2px #000000; } .flickr-yourcomment { } .flickr-frame { text-align: left; padding: 3px; } .flickr-caption { font-size: 0.8em; margin-top: 0px; }

Hooray for Bargains, originally uploaded by packetrat.

]]> http://chaos.dendro.com/index.php/archives/2009/02/25/hooray-for-bargains-2/feed/ 0 http://chaos.dendro.com/index.php/archives/2009/02/25/tite-shoe/ http://chaos.dendro.com/index.php/archives/2009/02/25/tite-shoe/#comments Thu, 26 Feb 2009 03:09:15 +0000 Sean http://chaos.dendro.com/index.php/archives/2009/02/25/tite-shoe/ .flickr-photo { border: solid 2px #000000; } .flickr-yourcomment { } .flickr-frame { text-align: left; padding: 3px; } .flickr-caption { font-size: 0.8em; margin-top: 0px; }

Tite Shoe, originally uploaded by packetrat.

]]> http://chaos.dendro.com/index.php/archives/2009/02/25/tite-shoe/feed/ 0 http://chaos.dendro.com/index.php/archives/2009/02/25/because-a-porch-is-like-a-living-room/ http://chaos.dendro.com/index.php/archives/2009/02/25/because-a-porch-is-like-a-living-room/#comments Thu, 26 Feb 2009 01:50:51 +0000 Sean http://chaos.dendro.com/index.php/archives/2009/02/25/because-a-porch-is-like-a-living-room/ .flickr-photo { border: solid 2px #000000; } .flickr-yourcomment { } .flickr-frame { text-align: left; padding: 3px; } .flickr-caption { font-size: 0.8em; margin-top: 0px; }

Because a porch is like a living room…, originally uploaded by packetrat.

I know we do a lot of things on front porches in Hampden. But I’ve got to admit, this is the first time I’ve seen taxidermy on one.

Someone always has to ruin the pattern., originally uploaded by packetrat.

]]> http://chaos.dendro.com/index.php/archives/2009/02/25/someone-always-has-to-ruin-the-pattern/feed/ 0 http://chaos.dendro.com/index.php/archives/2009/02/25/setup-for-next-jackass-stunt/ http://chaos.dendro.com/index.php/archives/2009/02/25/setup-for-next-jackass-stunt/#comments Thu, 26 Feb 2009 01:44:20 +0000 Sean http://chaos.dendro.com/index.php/archives/2009/02/25/setup-for-next-jackass-stunt/ .flickr-photo { border: solid 2px #000000; } .flickr-yourcomment { } .flickr-frame { text-align: left; padding: 3px; } .flickr-caption { font-size: 0.8em; margin-top: 0px; }

Setup for next Jackass stunt., originally uploaded by packetrat.

Funny, I don’t see Bam around…

Mooch at the door, originally uploaded by packetrat.

Our steady customer, back for more.

The jersey wall of misfit toys, originally uploaded by packetrat.

]]> http://chaos.dendro.com/index.php/archives/2009/02/15/the-jersey-wall-of-misfit-toys/feed/ 0 http://chaos.dendro.com/index.php/archives/2008/12/13/megabus-and-the-ogre-that-sang/ http://chaos.dendro.com/index.php/archives/2008/12/13/megabus-and-the-ogre-that-sang/#comments Sun, 14 Dec 2008 03:24:26 +0000 Sean http://chaos.dendro.com/index.php/archives/2008/12/13/megabus-and-the-ogre-that-sang/ Continue reading →]]> today, I rode the Megabus with P and Z from White Marsh, .MD to Manhattan. The double-decker discount bus fills seats on the internet with pricing based on demand, so. For about 30 dollars each today we were able to be to Penn Station In NY by around 9:30. That required us to be up at 5 am, but sacrifices must be made for value.

Sacrifices were made to some other god at the musical we went to see iin .Manhattan. “Shrek”, now a stage musical, officially opens tomorrow. And it, as the Big Bad Wolf said in one ensemble set, is a hot tranny mess.

Yes. The Big Bad Wolf apparently watches Project Runway.

The musical was entertaining for Z. But at a time when we’re taking the discount shuttle to go to NY for a day trip because it’s the closest thing to a vacation we can afford, it would have been nice if it had been a bit better done. Some scenes worked, others were AWFUL. I guess we got our money’s worth just from the entertainment of watching things go awry.

I will leave the full review to the critcs, or at least until later as I am typing this on a crackberry while hurtling down I-95 …it was a good day on the whole, and there were some talented people getting a paycheck there, so I guess it was a win all around. But the show was best when it focused on the two leads, and worst when it broke out the puppets.–the Dragon in particular.

But I’ve been going out of my fucking mind.

My current company is at least geographically relatively close, compared to previous employers — a 75-mile drive, an hour-and-a-half commute off peak. I spend most Mondays in the office just so people know I exist. It’s certainly less of a grind than my last corporate gig, where I spent nearly every other week flying to New England, and the folks at the office park Sheraton knew me by name. That job drove me to the edge, to dark places I never want to go again, with the lost hours in airports, on Southwest, on the 128 to Needham, in a bad hotel restaurant, in cubeland trying to figure out why things were so fucked and what it was exactly I was supposed to be doing since nobody knew I existed even when I was there.

But I digress.

There is a great deal of what I do that is best done in isolation, with no interruptions. I find that I write best in the dark hours, when the house is quiet, and there are no interruptions– or at least that’s when I am *able* to write. But the inspiration for writing has to come from a more social world, and my brain needs other people to engage it sometimes.

That became clear to me when I stood up and guided a session at the recent SocialDevCampEast here in Baltimore, and then participated in several more. Part of it is ego, and part of it is just plain human need — I like the feedback that comes with gettting up and talking and thinking on my feet, and I like talking about things I’m passionate about. As solitary as I am most of the time, I am a social animal, and given my usual isolation, I find that I need approval and acceptance all the more so when I get the opportunity.

In other words, I’m a needy, egotistical serial loner. Quite the personality profile.

But, as it turns out, a lot of other very smart people are also needy, egotistical serial loners looking to be more social. One of the conversations at SocialDevCampEast was about co-working.

Dave Troy, who I used to occasionally co-guest with on the Marc Steiner Show (on what was then WJHU, along with Eric Monti) , is leading ab effort to bring co-working in the style of Philadelphia’s Indy Hall to Baltimore. Co-working, for the uninitiated, is a social approach to independent info-working, providing the professional and creative benefits of networking and idea bouncing for those who might itherwise spend the day talking to their cat.

So far, the Beehive group has been meeting at Blue House, a Fells Point coffee shop, and doing Tuesday and Thursday “jellies”-sessions where people loosely show up and work in each other’s company and leech off the establishment’s wifi. But plans are in the works for an actual shared space in Canton.

I, unfortunately, have yet to get to a jelly. But I think I’ll be trying to frequent the shared space when it opens, being as it beats driving to Falls Church for a day in the office.

Mayor Dixon does not look amused, originally uploaded by packetrat.

]]> http://chaos.dendro.com/index.php/archives/2008/12/09/mayor-dixon-does-not-look-amused/feed/ 0 http://chaos.dendro.com/index.php/archives/2008/11/28/lucky-penny/ http://chaos.dendro.com/index.php/archives/2008/11/28/lucky-penny/#comments Fri, 28 Nov 2008 12:40:33 +0000 Sean http://chaos.dendro.com/index.php/archives/2008/11/28/lucky-penny/ .flickr-photo { border: solid 2px #000000; } .flickr-yourcomment { } .flickr-frame { text-align: left; padding: 3px; } .flickr-caption { font-size: 0.8em; margin-top: 0px; }

Lucky penny, originally uploaded by packetrat.

]]> http://chaos.dendro.com/index.php/archives/2008/11/28/lucky-penny/feed/ 0 http://chaos.dendro.com/index.php/archives/2008/11/27/lucy-the-cat/ http://chaos.dendro.com/index.php/archives/2008/11/27/lucy-the-cat/#comments Fri, 28 Nov 2008 03:07:14 +0000 Sean http://chaos.dendro.com/index.php/archives/2008/11/27/lucy-the-cat/ .flickr-photo { border: solid 2px #000000; } .flickr-yourcomment { } .flickr-frame { text-align: left; padding: 3px; } .flickr-caption { font-size: 0.8em; margin-top: 0px; }

DSCN0709.JPG, originally uploaded by packetrat.

See previous post.

She was part of our family for 12 years, and a constant companion of mine. She would curl up on my feet while I worked, and would burrow into the crook of my arm at night. She would climb on my chest and rub her head against my bearded chin. She was our first pet as a family, but it was always clear that she was mine. My wife, P., used to refer to her as my “girlfriend.”

A few weeks back, Lucy started showing less and less interest in food, until she wasn’t eating at all. I started feeding her, despite her protests, by hand, pushing food into her mouth with a syringe. When I had to travel on business, P. took over the hand feeding, and I hoped that whatever was causing the loss of appetite would pass. I scheduled a vet visit for when I got back.

But she was 15 years old, and had been in declining vigor for some time, and I knew when I got dropped off at the airport that things were probably not going to resolve happily.

When I returned on Wednesday, it was clear she was in trouble. She hadn’t eaten on her own, and her skin was jaundiced. I took her to the vet the next morning, alone, trying to steel myself.

Her liver had shut down. There was no telling, really, what had caused the loss of appetite without sending out bloodwork, and maybe a thyroid test, and several days of hosptitalization. The vet told me even then, the outlook was probably grim, and that her quality of life would suffer dramatically no matter what the outcome.

Plus, it would likely cost over $3000.

I was being asked to make a choice between Scylla and Charybdis. “It wouldn’t be the wrong decision to have her put to sleep,” the vet said, softly.

I assented. The vet left me with Lucy for a few minutes, and I cried some more. I pulled myself back together before they took her out of the room to catheterize her, leaving me with the paperwork to sign authorizing everything, and a number for a pet memorial service to set up cremation.

I could have brought her home for a day of goodbyes. But it was clear that would put everyone else in the family through even more emotional turmoil. I called my wife at work and told her what was going on, trying to stay calm, but failing.

She came back in, catheter in her forepaw. “She was very good,” the technician said, as she put Lucy down on a fresh blanket on the table. An assistant stood by as I called the memorial service and gave them my credit card number. And then they all left me with her.

I cried. A lot. There’s no getting around that. I pulled her into my lap and held her, with minimal protest from her, and cried. “I’m sorry,” I whispered. I stroked her ear, then put her back down on the blanket on the table when it was clear she was uncomfortable with this sort of attention. She never stopped purring, though.

I stroked her ear. She purred. The vet came in to see if I was ready. I asked for a few more
minutes. I got them. Finally, I assented, and the vet began the procedure. First, a “twilight” anesthetic to put her in a relaxed state…her eyes dilated, and her purring faded slowly. Then the overdose of anesthetic….”She is no longer with us,” the vet said, after what seemed like seconds.

I was left alone with her. “You can stay as long as you need to,” the vet said. “Just turn out the light when you leave, so we know.”

I stayed another 15 minutes or so, stroking her, looking into her darkened eyes, and then quietly gathered up the cat carrier, turned off the light, and left.
wooden

Yesterday, I picked up her ashes from the vet’s office. They were in a small box engraved with flowers, with a brass plate to affix with her name engraved. And there was a card with a poem that made me weep again when I read it. I took her home, and put her on a picture shelf.

And here I am now, all worked up again having recounted her passing. Today was a day of thanks, and I am thankful that I had her for so long, and terribly sad at the hole she left behind. The other cats here — including Pixel, the 12-week old kitten we rescued from the streets last month — have big pawprints to fill.

_MG_7007.JPG, originally uploaded by packetrat.

]]> http://chaos.dendro.com/index.php/archives/2008/11/08/fall-has-fell/feed/ 0 http://chaos.dendro.com/index.php/archives/2008/06/03/googlement/ http://chaos.dendro.com/index.php/archives/2008/06/03/googlement/#comments Tue, 03 Jun 2008 13:17:27 +0000 Sean http://chaos.dendro.com/index.php/archives/2008/06/03/googlement/ Continue reading →]]> I’m listening to a speaker from Hampton Roads Transit sing the praises of Google Transit. Last night, the folks from Alabama’s Homeland Security showed off Virtual Alabama, a statewide geospatial application built on Google Earth, which incorporated county data and aerial imagery with utility, law enforcement, school district and other data to create an all-seeing first responder’s application–allowing users, for example, to overlay sex offender data on school bus routes.

Government, especially local and state, loves the word free. And Google’s geospatial and other data standards have made them even more dear to them, since local government data has been locked up in GIS and other databases that would cost millions to integrate independently.

Also, it’ll make the transition to googlement that much easier when the googleplex takes over the world.

And as I type this on my Blackberry, folks from the Navy, State Department and GSA are talking about blogging. You wouldn’t think there would be so much regulation standing in the way of government talking to itself–let alone the public–via Web 2.0 tech. Procurement, congressional oversight, policy and administrative rules are all tooled against direct communication.

*and an edit from a real computer*

After taking in the whole conference, and looking at what 3 cups of coffee and a crackberry wrung out of me, I figured maybe I should expand on the buzziness above.

I had been away from covering government stuff for almost 15 years before this January. And as much as things have changed, the people in government IT largely haven’t. The average age of the Federal IT workforce is 47, according to a factoid I heard yesterday–which I’m going to have to get a cite for, but based on the folks I’ve seen at various events, it seems on target. Unlike the commercial world, there has long been a culture of risk-avoidance, and resistance to change is embedded in both the regulations and culture. One person I spoke to talked about how regulations are to the point that government employees now have to basically break them in order to get anything done.

Another problem is that there’s a dependency on contractors to do much of the deep technical work in government IT, and contracts are generally driven by specifications from within government. Cross pollination of new ideas — and a flow of fresh blood into the Federal IT gene pool– is something that hasn’t been made easy by the way the government does business.

But now, I have a Blackberry.

And those trapped moments are now bloggable.

I have no one to blame, really, but myself. Just because you can do a job doesn’t mean that you should take the damned thing. And sure, the first six months were filled with energy, ego-stroking attention, and other good things.

But the travel killed me. It really did. And the more I travelled, the less I slept, the less energy I had, the more introverted I became, the more useless to pretty much every freaking person in the universe I became. I imploded.

Unfortunately, I denied much of it up until the end. And then one day, WOOSH, it crushed me into a little tiny ball and spit me out.

I should have seen it coming. But few trapped inside the event horizon can see beyond it. Thankfully, the collapse freed me from the things that had prevented me from seeing the problem — a problem that, admittedly, I’ve struggled with before. I had fallen down the not-writing rabbit hole again, and it took all my creativity and ability to think rationally along with it.

And now I have emerged. Well, I emerged last month, really, but I’m still sorting my shit out.

Ninjas love pesto, originally uploaded by packetrat.

It reminds Pocket Ninja of wasabi, only oilier — so he can use it to sustain himself *and* pick locks.

Ninjas Don’t Mind Knockwurst, originally uploaded by packetrat.

]]> http://chaos.dendro.com/index.php/archives/2007/03/11/ninjas-dont-mind-knockwurst/feed/ 0 http://chaos.dendro.com/index.php/archives/2007/03/11/pocketninja-with-a-fan/ http://chaos.dendro.com/index.php/archives/2007/03/11/pocketninja-with-a-fan/#comments Sun, 11 Mar 2007 21:12:51 +0000 Sean http://chaos.dendro.com/index.php/archives/2007/03/11/pocketninja-with-a-fan/ .flickr-photo { border: solid 2px #000000; } .flickr-yourcomment { } .flickr-frame { text-align: left; padding: 3px; } .flickr-caption { font-size: 0.8em; margin-top: 0px; }

Pocketninja with a fan, originally uploaded by packetrat.

]]> http://chaos.dendro.com/index.php/archives/2007/03/11/pocketninja-with-a-fan/feed/ 0 http://chaos.dendro.com/index.php/archives/2007/03/11/ninjas-need-choclolate-too/ http://chaos.dendro.com/index.php/archives/2007/03/11/ninjas-need-choclolate-too/#comments Sun, 11 Mar 2007 21:12:19 +0000 Sean http://chaos.dendro.com/index.php/archives/2007/03/11/ninjas-need-choclolate-too/ .flickr-photo { border: solid 2px #000000; } .flickr-yourcomment { } .flickr-frame { text-align: left; padding: 3px; } .flickr-caption { font-size: 0.8em; margin-top: 0px; }

Ninjas need choclolate too, originally uploaded by packetrat.

]]> http://chaos.dendro.com/index.php/archives/2007/03/11/ninjas-need-choclolate-too/feed/ 0 http://chaos.dendro.com/index.php/archives/2007/03/11/ninja-infiltrates-wegmans-garden-department/ http://chaos.dendro.com/index.php/archives/2007/03/11/ninja-infiltrates-wegmans-garden-department/#comments Sun, 11 Mar 2007 21:11:55 +0000 Sean http://chaos.dendro.com/index.php/archives/2007/03/11/ninja-infiltrates-wegmans-garden-department/ .flickr-photo { border: solid 2px #000000; } .flickr-yourcomment { } .flickr-frame { text-align: left; padding: 3px; } .flickr-caption { font-size: 0.8em; margin-top: 0px; }

Ninja infiltrates Wegmans Garden Department, originally uploaded by packetrat.

]]> http://chaos.dendro.com/index.php/archives/2007/03/11/ninja-infiltrates-wegmans-garden-department/feed/ 0 http://chaos.dendro.com/index.php/archives/2007/03/05/snoh-boh-man/ http://chaos.dendro.com/index.php/archives/2007/03/05/snoh-boh-man/#comments Mon, 05 Mar 2007 17:24:11 +0000 Sean http://chaos.dendro.com/index.php/archives/2007/03/05/snoh-boh-man/ .flickr-photo { border: solid 2px #000000; } .flickr-yourcomment { } .flickr-frame { text-align: left; padding: 3px; } .flickr-caption { font-size: 0.8em; margin-top: 0px; }

DSCN1654.JPG, originally uploaded by packetrat.

the perfect Hampden snowman, if I do say so myself.

Really Big Apple, originally uploaded by packetrat.

]]> http://chaos.dendro.com/index.php/archives/2007/02/14/really-big-apple/feed/ 0 http://chaos.dendro.com/index.php/archives/2007/02/14/vermont-curry/ http://chaos.dendro.com/index.php/archives/2007/02/14/vermont-curry/#comments Wed, 14 Feb 2007 18:15:34 +0000 Sean http://chaos.dendro.com/index.php/archives/2007/02/14/vermont-curry/ .flickr-photo { border: solid 2px #000000; } .flickr-yourcomment { } .flickr-frame { text-align: left; padding: 3px; } .flickr-caption { font-size: 0.8em; margin-top: 0px; }

Multimedia message, originally uploaded by packetrat.

]]> http://chaos.dendro.com/index.php/archives/2007/02/14/vermont-curry/feed/ 0 http://chaos.dendro.com/index.php/archives/2007/02/14/no-comment/ http://chaos.dendro.com/index.php/archives/2007/02/14/no-comment/#comments Wed, 14 Feb 2007 18:14:52 +0000 Sean http://chaos.dendro.com/index.php/archives/2007/02/14/no-comment/ .flickr-photo { border: solid 2px #000000; } .flickr-yourcomment { } .flickr-frame { text-align: left; padding: 3px; } .flickr-caption { font-size: 0.8em; margin-top: 0px; }

No comment., originally uploaded by packetrat.

At Han Ah Rheum.

A little bit of phun with photobooth on my new iMac.

the tableau on the sofa at Atomic Pop, Benn and Rachel’s new store

A display at the new location of Hampden’s arts & crafts shop

“All Reserved Train”, my ass. There aren’t enough seats; they must be short a car.

Newark, thou art Hell. I’m at Newark Penn waiting for a train home, after slogging back from Somers, NY in a rental car to EWR and having to travel north one stop (for *$7*, for chrissake) on NJT to catch an Amtrak that’s a half hour late.

Um….. yeah.

Uh…. yeah.

J. scored the carousel brass ring and a free ride yesterday during our farewell to summer at Knoebels.

…and for that matter, school of all sorts. Zoë has her first full day of Kindergarten on Tuesday, and P, K & J are back to the full grind. I’m the only one not lugging a bag of books to school in this house.

Once I gave my notice, it was like a gauze that had shrouded the world had been removed. The world seemed brighter somehow, its hues intensified by the absence of bullshit.

Quitting a job is one of the few empowering moments most people get in their lives — they are able to demonstrate their worth to an employer by denying him of it. It’s even more empowering when you leave to take a job where you can finally feel you’re getting the chance to show what you’re capable of, rather than what someone just needs you to do five days a week.

The new job is almost revolutionary in the ways it is different. Here’s hoping I still feel that way in a year.

Salesforce.com sent me a press release that arrived on a 100-degree day. Enclosed–something brown and molten.

Patiently, I am waiting. There’s been a shift in the wind, and I can feel an uplift coming. I just have to wait a little longer…

We’re on the train from NYC. Zoe scored some Pirate’s Booty at the Whole Foods at Union Square, and she’s willing to share.

wave your claws in the air like you just don’t care… Look out! The TONGS are back!

Somebody in marketing must have spent minutes coming up with that name.

uh….

mmmmm, crunchy.

Han Ah Reum is like a food museum.

yeah, yeah, I have a camera phone now. Yeah, yeah, I’m an idiot with it.

…to dinner in NYC, Monday night at the Black Duck in Flatiron.

…and don’t even think about moving it.”

I was in NY for work on Ash Wednesday. As I was uptown around noon, I figured I’d catch noon mass at St. Patrick’s Cathedral. When I got there, I saw that the church had set up an express lane, labelled “Ashes Only”.

Here I am back at the office, as captured by Ryan Naraine.

“Remember that thou art from ashes, and to ashes thou shalt return.” Ash Wednesday is the most existential of the church’s rituals.

(Via papercasting.net 2.0.)

(Via papercasting.net 2.0.)

”

(Via papercasting.net 2.0.)

The only problem now is teaching my colleagues the finer points of blog style.

When you just got a nice, shiny, black Video iPod for Christmas, and have a house with no less than five functional computers in it (plus an ailing Titanium PowerBook), and find yourself trying to figure out how to squeeze a preorder for a MacBook Pro into your budget.

Sure, three of the computers in my house were bought by my employer. Sure, P.’s iBook isn’t nearly as fast as the new Intel Duo-based systems will be. (And, btw, I remember the last time Apple did something with the name, “Duo” – it wasn’t pretty. I had to pry mine out of its dock once when the engaging motor failed in the locked position.) Still, as someone with more computing resources on each floor of his house than it took to support all of the Apollo missions combined, I find it disconcerting that I am drooling over computerporn again.

Maybe that’s why Apple’s stock price is doing so well.

It’s less a pure blog and more of a mash-up of blog and aggregation portal. I’m using XSL transformations and RSS feeds to create a topical site that combines a regular blogger with all of the “traditional” editorial coverage we do on a topic. And, much to my chagrin, it’s all based on .NET.

One down, nine to go. This month.

I look at this, and I hear….“EXTERMINATE! EXTERMINATE!”

On the parking lot sidings of the B&O museum

So, big changes come with the new year. I’m now the point of the spear for my company’s weblog and Web 2.0 strategy, which basically means that I’m no longer managing editorial products–I’m writing the code to drive them, or dictating the architecture of how they’re put together. Hopefully, this means I’ll get to do some interesting writing as well.

On the personal front, well…

I’ll try to catch up on everything here over the course of this week. When I’m not in NYC, that is.

By “fixed”, I mean I am now able to post to my thus-far experimental blog at blogs.opml.org.

Desi escaped Tuesday night when he got spooked by the storm and the wind blew the door open. He didn’t go far, but I looked for him almost all of Wednesday, and when I spotted him Wednesday night he was scared and cold. He took a nice piece out of my hand when K. and I finally coaxed him out from under a neighbor’s porch.