Oops

It seems I can't add to the "Miami/SF" photoset on flickr directly from my phone, so use this link instead:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/36207981@N04/

Holy crap it's nice out, bye!

and we're off!

Holy crap I am so excited to be leaving this afternoon for Miami and then San Francisco -- 2 places I've always wanted to see and to which I'm now traveling to decide where I want to live for the next couple of years. It's very surreal that this is actually happening.

Because I'm a big dork, I'll be uploading (hopefully many) photos onto Flickr to document my trip. I can upload and comment on the photos right from my crackberry so this will further fuel the addiction. Keep an eye on this:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/36207981@N04/sets/72157615071046278/

because that's where the action is. P.S. Check out the crazy bearded/non-bearded pics.. I'm 14 years old again apparently

Warmth..

It's 60 degrees outside, and I can't wait for everything to turn green again. I was looking at some random "this is my life in 2008" photos this morning and they made me wish for nice weather. I've been trying to make a conscious effort to savor and appreciate the winter (and snow in particular) this year because I know I won't have a real one for a while, but I can't help but get excited for spring to spring.

Making the Crackberry Dance

On the off chance that any of my fictional readers care, I recently figured out how to link my work calendar to my BlackBerry. This is huge because my work calendar has basically my life on it--appointments and events scheduled way out in advance, all my school work and readings, stuff for my consulting, and all manner of tasks for work and play. It's central to how I keep organized. For instance, here's today. Non-time specific tasks are on top, and scheduled things are on the bottom. Perhaps I'm too busy to be making a useless blog post..




Previously, I couldn't find a service or hack that would let me easily share my work calendar (based on Exchange) to my BlackBerry without using a BlackBerry Enterprise Server--a big expensive setup that UConn won't let me use because I'm a lowly undergraduate. The BB's e-mail client setup (if you have outlook web access, you can put in the address and it taps in) made it seem like it might synch the calendar, but no dice. Ever since I got the thing for christmas, I've been fruitlessly trying to get it to usefully connect to my calendar.

The linchpin ended up being google. Specifically gmail and google calendar. I opened a gmail account, then installed Google's Outlook Calendar connector, which runs on my work PC (which stays on all the time anyway) and synchronizes my work calendar to gmail. It all came together when I realized google had released a downloadable app for BlackBerry that would run in the background and sync my BB calendar with my gmail calendar. Awesome!

So now I've got a 3-way synch, where I can edit anything either on my work PC (where I spend much of my "organized" day), on gmail from anywhere I have PC access, or on my BlackBerry from almost literally anywhere and within 20 minutes it synchs up for reference wherever I like. Having these things listed in my pocket (as well as the ability to edit and add on the go) has already proven to be very convenient and productive, being that I have very little time to sit and organize.

I sincerely hope that someone on das interwebz has the same frustration and stumbles across this solution. It negates Apple's push-to-iPhone service "MobileMe" and has more functionality than Microsoft's forthcoming My Mobile service -- this works better than both and is free.

Wikipedia

So I love wikipedia. Honestly. It used to be that to find an answer to a trivial question about something you had to pore through google results (before that, it was askjeeves or something, and before that... you actually had to open a book). Now with wikipedia you have a consolodated source for all your useless knowledge, and the ability to follow links to related articles makes it addicting and enriching.

And there's no advertising. That's pretty incredible for one of the most trafficed websites. My point is, wikipedia has no revenue generating activities and a lot of cost overhead. Every time you visit wikipedia, it costs them money--granted not much, but the bandwidth and server capacity you consume isn't free. Multiply that by millions upon millions of users and it's quite expensive. So if you love and use wikipedia as much as I do you should consider making a donation. It's quick and easy, I made a $15 donation and you should too. Look, I'll even give you a handy little button:

And who gives them the right?

So for some reason there are still signs by the side of the road that say something along the lines of:

VOTE YES TO QUESTION 1!
Paid for by the Catholic Church

and that got me thinking. First of all, it looks silly to have that sign still out there when the state has already made it clear that they're not falling for it this time and defeated the proposition for a constitutional convention (which likely would have outlawed gay marriage, among other things). This was a surprisingly liberal move for CT, particularly in the face of California voting to ban unconventional families from marriage (for now) and Arkansas voting to deny same-sex couples the right to adopt. So.. put your sign away, it makes you look stupid--go back to Arkansas.

But here's my point (finally): It's reasonable for the catholic church (and any other group for that matter) to take a stance against homosexuality and non-traditional families. If based on their canon, their doctrine and their interpretation of the Bible they choose to disapprove of and not recognize same-sex couples that's their business. But what (or who? interesting question) gives them the right to try to influence public policy to outlaw it? Why should they be allowed to try to force their discriminatory rules on the state? (I'm sure it happens elsewhere too) Don't they realize how harmless such a thing is and how ridiculous it is to oppose something that will only make people happy and allow them to express their love? I realize they have the legal right to voice their opposition, but from my own moral point of view it seems like they should stay out of it. Good call Connecticut.

Roooommbaahhhhh

(the collective) We think if my new roomba was in the movie wall-e, they'd call it "rooommmbaaaaahhhhh" all stretched out in their tinny electronic voices. Just some food for thought.

It's a cool little robot with a vacuum and floor/mild carpet brushes and wipers that goes around and bounces off of things and eventually learns how to navigate and clean your room. It does a surprisingly good job but I don't think it will ever take the place of actually cleaning, as it doesn't do stairs (but it does have built in sensors to avoid falling down them.. cool!) and tight corners--although it does clean under couches and chairs that allow enough room (about 4in).

I like gadgets, obviously.