More Curious Than Worried

Week in Review: March 24, 2009

It’s nice to finally get through a relatively normal week at the new house. And it’s REALLY nice to get this posted on time for the first time in 3 weeks.

Things I Think I Liked

• Had my birthday/St. Patrick’s Day party at our house. Lotsa fun and lotsa beer.
• Meeting some cool people on Twitter.
• I really want to see this: Badass cop car of the near-future.
• Ordered my new motherboard and processor for my desktop so I can geek out with friends better. Thanks Dan!
• My new neighbor, Mike, is a cool guy.
• Chevy started production of the new Camaro.
• Found Splinter Cell for the XBox. Now I can turn my XBox into XBMC …as soon as I find the cables for it.
• Flowers are starting to spring up in our backyard.

Things I Think I Didn’t Like

• WiFi should be a free service! You hear me Starbucks!!
• Ashlynn’s leg went all tingly Saturday morning, but was better by Monday so we couldn’t get the doc to look at it. So frustrating!
• Is there anyone who likes the new Facebook home page? I don’t.
• I had to struggle through 3 REALLY slow nights at work. Good for citizens, but boring as all hell for me.
• Spent at least 3 days updating my newly installed Windows XP. Installing Ubuntu has spoiled me.
• Dealing with dozens of towed vehicles at work due to greedy tow companies!
• Hearing about police officers getting killed hits home a lot more when I work with cops all the time.

Things I Think I Think

• As I get older I care more about having friends and family around for my birthday than gifts.
• I’m gonna have to do a stand-alone post about Twitter.
• People involved in social media really seem to enjoy talking about people involved in social media.

This Week Made Me Wonder…

• How many devices can I connect my phone to at once via Bluetooth? Right now I’m listening to a podcast on my phone with my Bluetooth headset and loading a podcast on my phone from my laptop via Bluetooth.
• Would Englewood let us set up a Twitter account for the police?
• It’s getting easier and easier to find stuff to post on this weekly blog. Are these posts getting to long?

Things to look forward to

• Hanging out with my half of the wedding party tomorrow night and getting measured for tuxes.
• Finding a furry, fluffy, feline friend for family fun. (This bullet was brought to you by the letter ‘F’)
• Installing my new motherboard and processor!

Gothic Theatre Parking

Going to a concert at The Gothic Theatre? Then there’s a couple things you need to know about parking.

For one, there is hardly any parking provided by The Gothic. It’s on the south side of the theatre and is hard to notice.

Secondly, there are 3 parking lots close to The Gothic where you do NOT WANT TO PARK.

• Smashburger/Mattress King lot at Broadway and Floyd – 3299 S. Broadway


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• Englewood Beauty College – 3200 S. Acoma St.


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• Tablesteaks – 101 W. Floyd Ave.


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If you park in any of these parking lots, it is VERY LIKELY your car WILL BE TOWED. There are 2 tow companies that enjoy making lots of money towing cars from these lots. You’ll have to pay around $200 to get your car back and it will pretty much ruin any fun you had at The Gothic.

Week in Review: March 17, 2009

(NOTE: I really wanted to post this on Tuesday, when it was supposed to be posted. So some of my comments are a little bit dated.)

Happy birthday to me. Happy birthday to me. Happy St. Patrick’s Day to you! Happy birthday to me. One of the great things about having a birthday on a holiday is that when people wish me a happy birthday, I can wish them a happy back.

I’m now one year away from 30. I have a house; a kid; and soon, a wife. I’m ready for my 30s. Why is everyone so afraid of those round numbers?

Things I Think I Liked

• St. Patrick’s Day Parade was fun. Nothing says Irish like waving to ….. Darth Vader?
• Went to the dentist with Ashlynn for the first time. She enjoyed it and wants to go back again. She has pretty teeth.
• Someone at either Grease Monkey or Big O Tires left a flower in Ashlynn’s car seat for her.
• Mottistone was a hit at the parade, and they had beer for me afterwards in celebration of my birthday.
• Like a 13 year old’s wet dream come true, Denver now has our own lingerie football team.
• bit.ly – It lets me know when people click the links I leave on Twitter.
• Google Analytics – It’s just fun watching when, where and how people come to this site.

Things I Think I Didn’t Like

• Plumbing problems caused water to flow into our guest bedroom downstairs. Might have to rip up carpet.
  Ashlynn’s leg still hurts pretty often.
• Going have to forsake my ‘puter upgrade for preventative car repair.
• Installed XP on my desktop so I can play games. Had to call to activate it because I’ve installed it so many times.
• In the past 3 weeks, I haven’t watched or listened to any of the podcasts I like.
• I haven’t been to the gym in about 2 weeks.

Things I Think I Think

• Stress is a lot harder to deal with when I’m working graveyard shift.

This Week Made Me Wonder…

• Is it ever going to snow?!
• Will I ever be confident using semicolons? I never know if I’m using them right.

Things to look forward to

• Good beer (Guinness, Harp, Fat Tire), good friends (too many to name), good movie (Boondock Saints) tonight at my house!
• Learning how to use my sprinkler system.
• Figuring out my swamp cooler.
• Sleeping at night every night next month.
• Spring starts on Friday. Maybe spring will give us some precipitation.

Waving at Darth Vader at St. Patty's Parade

Doesn't she have the prettiest teeth?

3 Pub Jokes for St. Patrick’s Day

Irish Pub Joke #1

An Irish man shows up in a pub one day and orders three pints of Guinness. He takes sips from each glass until they are empty and calls the bartender for three more. The bartender says, ‘Sure it’s up to yourself, but wouldn’t you rather I was bringing them one at a time? Then they’ll be fresh and cold.’
‘Nah…’ your man says, ‘ I’m preferrin’ that ye bring ‘em three at a time. You see, me and me two brothers would meet at a pub and drink and have good times. Now one is in Australia, the other in Canada and I’m here. We agreed before we split up that we’d drink to each other’s honour this way.’

‘Well,’ says the bartender, ‘that’s a grand thing to do, all right. I’ll bring the pints as you ask.’

Well, time goes on and your man’s peculiar habit is known and accepted by all the pub regulars. One day though, he comes in and orders only two pints. A hush falls over the pub. Naturally, everyone figures something happened to one of the brothers. A group of the regulars corner the bartender and finally persuade him to find out what happened. With a heavy heart, the bartender brings the two pints and says, ‘Here’s your pints… and let me offer my sincerest condolences. What happened?’

The Irish man looks extremely puzzled for a moment, and then starts laughing.

‘Oh, no, no, no! ‘Tis nothing like that. You see, I’ve given up drinking for Lent…’

Irish Pub Joke #2

 An Irish man has been at a pub all night drinking. The bartender finally says that the bar is closed. So your man stands up to leave and falls flat on his face. He figures he’ll crawl outside and get some fresh air and maybe that will sober him up.
Once outside he stands up but again falls flat on his face. He crawls home. Reaching the door he tries to stand up, and yet again, falls flat on his face. He crawls through the door and up the stairs. When he reaches his bed he summons the last of his strength and tries one final time to stand.

It’s no use. He tumbles into bed and is soon sound asleep, only to awaken the next morning to the sound of his wife standing over him shouting.

‘So… you’ve been out drinking again!’

‘How did you know?’ he asks, his head hung in shame.

‘The pub called– you left your damn wheelchair down there again!’

Irish Pub Joke #3

An Irishman, an Englishman and a Scotsman go into a pub. Each orders a pint of Guinness. Just as the bartender hands them over, three flies buzz down and land– one, two, three– in each of the pints.
The Englishman looks disgusted, pushes his pint away and demands another… the Scotsman picks out the fly, shrugs, and takes a long swallow.

The Irishman reaches in to the glass, grabs the fly between his fingers and shakes him as hard as he can, shouting ‘Spit it out, ya bloody bastard! Spit it out!’ 

I’m not this funny by myself. I took these from http://islandireland.com/Pages/folk/sets/toasts.html

Happy St. Patrick’s Day everyone!

Emergency Alerts in On-Demand World

I’ve been thinking about the digital TV transition and why it’s a big deal. It’s just TV, right? It’s just entertainment! Why does the government care if the public can’t get their American Idol fix? The truth is, it doesn’t care about that. They’re concerned that the public won’t get their emergency alerts without their TVs.

The government, and especially us involved in public safety, have become dependent on people always having a TV or radio around. With so much on-demand content out there now, we can’t count on that anymore. More and more people are watching TV episodes online and listening to their iPods while driving. They’re not connected to radios or TVs constantly anymore. So how do we alert the public now?

Until it’s possible for public safety agencies to send messages (text messages, email alerts, etc) to people based on their location, it’s up to the public to seek out ways to get their information. Some ways to get this info:

• Twitter – Search for your local law enforcement/fire agencies on Twitter and you might be lucky enough to live in the boundaries of one of these progressive agencies.
• Check your agency’s website. Even some of the smallest agencies have their own websites and most have many ways to stay connected (email, RSS, text messaging, online reporting, etc.). I just found out my sheriff’s office is on Facebook! (Looks like they haven’t done much with it though.)
• Check your local news websites. They will probably have breaking news email alerts/text messaging/rss feeds.
• amberalert.gov - You can view current Amber Alerts and even sign up for mobile alerts on your cell phone.
• weather.gov - The National Weather Service is using RSS feeds as a supplement to their normal emergency alert notifications. You can find them here.

 I wonder if people will ever be comfortable with the government providing real-time location-based communications. Would that be too much Big Brother looking over your shoulder? Maybe public safety agencies could use services that are already out there like Google Latitude or Brightkite.