Techfun

XML to the Rescue!

2007-09-12T00:03:57Z

First of all, thanks everyone who e-mailed expressing an interest in keeping up with my postings off LJ. I found a way to let you do that.

All you need to do is add techfunblog as a friend and through the wonders of RSS my posts will continue to appear on your friend's page.

I need to thank fyre for using his paid account to add the feed since LJ doesn't allow syndication additions by free account holders. Thanks!

This Journal Doesn't Exist

2007-09-06T20:46:35Z

anymore...

I've switched to Wordpress at http://blog.techfun.org/

Bash of the Day

2005-11-07T15:04:11Z

This amused me from Bash.org

Text only, but discusses sex.

shhhhhhhhhh

2004-12-11T20:17:16Z

Brian and I got his mom's Christmas gift today - thankfully the only one we have to get this year. His parents are making ours as usual - his father does amazing things with wood.

His mom collects Boyds Bears and she likes baby dolls so we got her this from a cute collectables shop in Maple Shade (next to the Tuesday Morning store there).

It looks just like Brian's baby pics.

Martha Stewart to Serve Time in West Virginia

2004-09-29T22:23:05Z

Martha Stewart to Serve Time in West Virginia

By MARIA NEWMAN

artha Stewart's prison stay for lying about a stock sale will take her to West Virginia, farther from home for the holidays, she said today, than she had hoped.

Full Story

Having driven through West Virginia many times I think that in this case her sentence there might count as cruel and unusual punishment.

Family update

2004-09-29T18:49:00Z

Yesterday I found my former sister-in-law Kathie's phone number. Some folks in Cherry Hill met her when she came for a visit several years ago when I was still in my condo. Brian and I stopped in to visit her and her husband and kids on our way down to Key West two years ago. Her new husband Scott is great - a far better choice for a mate than my drug addicted (in rehab thank the Gods), not real bright, older brother Dale. They are in Royal Palm Beach, Florida, a bit south of teamind and clan. I wanted to check in and see how they were holding up during the hurricane season.

They and their home have been fine but Kathie has been busy working as a storm chaser. She is an RN and when Frances struck she traveled to provide medical care there and then she went up to the panhandle to help after Ivan and then she was released early from that task to head home to get ready for Jeanne. She is now home and catching up with Scott and their two little boys.

The boys, Andrew and Colin are doing well. Andrew has been diagnosed with Angelman Syndrome (AS)

MeSH definition:
A syndrome characterized by multiple abnormalities, MENTAL RETARDATION, and movement disorders. Present usually are skull and other abnormalities, frequent infantile spasms (SPASMS, INFANTILE); easily provoked and prolonged paroxysms of laughter (hence "happy"); jerky puppetlike movements (hence "puppet"); continuous tongue protrusion; motor retardation; ATAXIA; MUSCLE HYPOTONIA; and a peculiar facies. It is associated with maternal deletions of chromosome 15q11-13 and other genetic abnormalities. (From Am J Med Genet 1998 Dec 4;80(4):385-90; Hum Mol Genet 1999 Jan;8(1):129-35)

This is a rare condition and means that chances are Andrew will never speak but on the other hand he will have a normal lifespan. That was a fear through much of the diagnostic hell they have gone through since Andrew was born. They are continuing the thearapy hes been gettign of course and the diagnoses should help them push insurance to pay for some other therapies that could help him communicate on some level even if he can't speak.

Colin is 2 1/2 now and doing fine. As Kathie put it, hes very very good at being two and loves to let you know that you are doing things wrong and that only he can do it right. He's also trying to help Andrew alot. When Andrew can't get out of a room Colin is more than willing to come help him by opening doors and such.

AND, I think I have convinced Kathie and Scott to come up for a visit next spring or summer!

Bush's Hometown Newspaper Endorses Kerry

2004-09-28T18:36:11Z

Bush's Hometown Newspaper Endorses Kerry
CRAWFORD, Texas (Reuters) - The newspaper in President Bush (news - web sites)'s adopted hometown of Crawford threw its support on Tuesday behind Bush's Democratic rival, Sen. John Kerry (news - web sites).

The weekly Lone Star Iconoclast criticized Bush's handling of the war in Iraq (news - web sites) and for turning budget surpluses into record deficits. The editorial also criticized Bush's proposals on Social Security (news - web sites) and Medicare.

The publishers of The Iconoclast endorsed Bush four years ago, based on the things he promised, not on this smoke-screened agenda," the newspaper said in its editorial. "Today, we are endorsing his opponent, John Kerry."

It urged "Texans not to rate the candidate by his hometown or even his political party, but instead by where he intends to take the country."

Bush spends many of his weekends and holidays at his Crawford, Texas, ranch.

The Iconoclast's publisher and editor-in-chief, W. Leon Smith, said the newspaper is sent to Bush's ranch each week. "But I don't know if he reads it," Smith said.

The Kerry campaign welcomed the endorsement in an email to reporters.

techfun @ 2004-09-26T22:47:00

2004-09-27T02:47:19Z

Today

2004-09-25T20:37:45Z

Brian and I just got home from Center City. We went down to the Ritz East to see Uncovered: The War On Iraq. It was pretty interesting. Its done with no narration at all. The documentary opens with each person who is part of it introducing themselves and detailing their background. The speakers were "U.S intelligence and defense officials, foreign service experts, and U.N. weapons inspectors – including a former CIA director, a former ambassador to Saudi Arabia and even President’s Bush’s Secretary of the Army."

It's quite enlightening to see all these people share their perspecitve on the media coverage and the Bush administrations statements leading up to the way and during the war. A good part of it is criticism of our media for giving Bush and his officials a free pass on the information they provided to justify the invasion.

Then we walked down to South Street and stopped in at Hosue of Tea and got another half pound of Star of India. They have raised the price on it again //sigh// but there is nothing that compares to it to my tastebuds. then we stopped at a restaurant supply store we liked to add to our air tight little French jar collection so the new tea can be stored airtightedly.

We’re Not in Lake Wobegon Anymore

2004-09-24T13:22:13Z

xpost from: whtliberalmedia

We’re Not in Lake Wobegon Anymore by Garrison Keillor

The 'NEW' Draft

2004-09-24T13:17:36Z

Search Engine "Bill Number" HR 163 here:

http://thomas.loc.gov/

made me smile

2004-09-23T15:57:37Z

From my friend David at work - he got it from a listserv hes on.

David S. (tu) says:
I met the Buddha yesterday. He
was sitting at a table in the middle of Wendy's, eating a bacon
double-cheeseburger. I know if you meet the Buddha on the road, you
are supposed to kill him, but I'm not sure what is proper procedure
at a fast-food restaurant.

"Aren't you Prince Siddartha, the 9th Avatar of Vishnu??"

"Who's counting??"

"In the drug-oriented society of today, is the use of drugs part of
the middle path to enlightenment, or are drugs a distraction away
from that path??"

"Yes."

So there is your answer. Then again, I just could have been
harassing some random Indian dude trying to eat lunch.
I'm not really sure.

Mr. Allawi goes to Washington

2004-09-23T15:47:37Z

I heard Allawi addressing Congress on my drive in this morning. NPR covered it live. I swear he was delivering a Cheney stump speech.

Edit at 5:08pm: Looks like I wasnt the only one!

From The Daily Mis-Lead:

===============================
THE DAILY MIS-LEAD
< www.Misleader.org >
===============================

IRAQI PRIME MINISTER PARROTS DISHONEST BUSH TALKING POINTS

Today, speaking before a joint session of Congress, Iraqi interim Prime Minister Ayad Allawi parroted the Bush administration's talking points: "We are succeeding in Iraq."[1] The facts on the ground, however, suggest otherwise.

Over the last year the number of insurgents in Iraq has quadrupled.[2] Attacks on U.S. troops are up 100% since last winter.[3] Major Iraqi cities such as Fullujah have become havens for insurgents and are completely inaccessible to U.S. troops.[4] Security situations have stalled reconstruction - Iraq still has less electricity than they did before the war.[5] Even some Bush administration officials have acknowledged that elections planned for January may have to be delayed.[6]

Sources:

1. "Allawi Says Elections Will Happen as Scheduled," Washington Post, 9/23/04, http://daily.misleader.org/ctt.asp?u=2240124&l=57907.
2. "Mission Still Not Accomplished," Time Magazine, 9/20/04, http://daily.misleader.org/ctt.asp?u=2240124&l=57908.
3. "Iraq: A Quantitative Assessment," Brookings Institution, 9/17/04, http://daily.misleader.org/ctt.asp?u=2240124&l=57909.
4. "Green Zone is 'no longer totally secure'," Financial Times, 9/15/04, http://daily.misleader.org/ctt.asp?u=2240124&l=57910.
5. "Iraq Power Grid Shows U.S. Flaws," Los Angeles Times, 9/12/04, http://daily.misleader.org/ctt.asp?u=2240124&l=57911.
6. "Bush puts Iraqi leader forward," International Herald Tribune, 9/22/04, http://daily.misleader.org/ctt.asp?u=2240124&l=57912.

Visit www.Misleader.org for more about Bush Administration distortion. »

Had to share

2004-09-22T21:32:47Z

Message from God(s)

New Nephew...

2004-09-22T21:26:21Z

My younger brother Chad and his wife Rhonda just had their fourth child:

LADD CHANDLER THOMAS - 8 lbs 14 oz, 22" Long.

Each pic is a thumbnail - clicking a picture brings up the full size picture. Relationship in captions is from Ladd's perspective.

Ladd

Left: Miles (Brother) and Ladd
Right: Mallory (Sister) and Ladd

Top: Layton (Cousin) and Ladd
Bottom: Miles (Brother), Ladd, and Layne (Cousin)

Layton and Layne are brothers

Blatant Advert

2004-09-21T18:39:55Z

A worthy read...

2004-09-21T14:55:49Z

When Fascism Comes to America

An Evening in Camden

2004-09-21T14:14:06Z

Last night Brian and I attended the "An Evening with Michael Moore" event at the Tweeter Center in Camden. We decided to be 'smart' and parked our car in Pennsauken and took the Riverline down to the Tweeter Center since it lets you off right there. Getting there was a breeeze.

The event itself was great. There was a huge crowd and even though he was preaching to the choir there was some good stuff there. A major focus, of course, was on getting out the vote. At one point it reminded me of an evangelical service when he invited unregistered voters up on stage and gave away prizes for those willing to register to vote on the spot. Since a major part of his focus was on getting out the "Slacker Vote" he gave away things like Tostitos with Dip, Kraft Macaroni and Cheese, Ramen Noodles, and new underwear (since Slackers apparently hate doing laundry). He also gave away copies of Bowling for Columbine and his books to folks who registered on the spot.

Leaving the Tweeter Center to go home around 11:00pm is when the real adventure began. We went out of the center and boarded the Riverline. The destination sign said 36th Street (the last stop in downtown Camden) and we both saw it and in discussing it we figured it meant that the first stop once it started moving would be 36th Street and it would be skipping the other downtown stops such as the Aquarium since its closed that time of night anyway. Nope!

The FULL Riverline (Camden to Trenton) line only operates until 9:30. After that the Riverline will take you from the Tweeter Center to - at most - 36th street, but mainly its meant to take you to the Walter Rand Transportation Center in the heart of downtown Camden. In theory, you should be able to get almost anywhere from that stop. Thats where you can pick up PATCO out to the NJ burbs or into downtown Philly, or you can take a bus to almost anywhere else. The problem is that at 11:20pm there is nobody there who knows what bus goes where. We eventually figured out with the help of a bus driver that we needed the 419 towards Burlington (as opposed to the 419 towards Philadelphia) to get back to where our car was waiting.

We waited, and waited as it got scarier and scarier. The area, as midnight approached, was becoming a center of an odd type of commerce. And everything was under $10.00 - be it oral sex, cigarettes, weed, or a shiny gold watch. When we got to the Rand I had about 16 cigs left in the pack I had on me. By the time we left there I was down to three - people kept asking me for them and unlike when it happens while walking on a street in Philly - we weren't walking - and trying to explain to people that they should buy their own didn't seem a good plan.

Finally a 419 bus arrived - but, damn it, it was heading to Philly. I did manage to snag a 419 schedule from the bus and we realized that we had about an hour wait all together before we could get out of there. Now keep in mind itchynet and I are both big guys, over 6' feet tall and strong as well. That didn't matter. I was getting a bit scared. I've always been a bit skeptic about people's negativity about downtown Camden. I'd been there many times with no problems at all. However, I had never been there at midnight and on foot.

I finally couldn't take the idea of standing out there another hour waiting and phoned the justabear and professorbird household. I woke up professorbird I think and justabear came down and rescued us. There was a bit of difficulty in directing him to us since none of us knew exactly where we were. As I was trying to guide him in via cell phone we lucked out and Camden's friendliest crack addict, out of gratitude for some money itchynet had given him, helped us out with landmarks based on justabear's descriptions of what he could see and he found us.

La Minita Coffee

2004-09-20T16:23:00Z

A few weeks ago on our anniversary Brian and I went to Dessert in south Philly and had a pot of Costa Rican coffee. It got me thinking about La Minita - a coffee plantation in Costa Rica. I had met the owner of the plantation in Bar Harbor, Maine back in 1991. William McAlpin, the owner, had very idealistic dreams for his plantation. I was telling Brian about him and it made me start wondering where I could get his coffee since I'm so far from my old source in Bucks County.

I came upon his website - www.laminita.com and found a speech he gave to his workers in 1994. With all my thinking about Peak Oil and the resulting problems that will come from a reduction in access to cheap petroleum, I foud his speech pretty intereting - ESPECIALLY since it was given 10 years ago this year.

Its right here if anyone else is interested in reading it.

Back to work

2004-09-20T14:56:17Z

It's my first day back at work after being off for two weeks. Luckily things went pretty well while I was gone although I have had two requests so far that I not take two consecutive weeks off again. :)

I think it went as well as it did because I didn't go away. Since I was home when I wasn't at Festival events I was able to answer emails and such and avoid things getting out of hand. The only problem has been the opposite of usual... Typically I go home to my computer there and type my work network login password by mistake, but now, having been away from the office for so long I find myself typing my home password here. I will know my vacation has fully worn off when I go back to the other way of mixing up my passwords.

It's over...

2004-09-19T01:00:54Z

Today I worked my last event at the Live Arts Festival. Brian went with me into Center City and hung out while I handed out the Will Call tix for Philly Fan (its been sold out completely for a week).

After settling up at the box office we went to the Ritz at the Bourse and saw A Touch of Pink - it was nice if you like romantic comedies.

Broken Hipsters

2004-09-18T04:46:06Z

No volunteer work today. Instead I used some of the vouchers I had accumulated over the last two weeks to get a bunch of tickets to see The Broken Hipsters. The Broken Hipsters is " An indie rock opera about geriatric punk rockers, a young photographer, and their fight to free some giant babies."

That about sums it up. It does fail to mention that its extremely hilarious and a LOT of fun to watch. It's playing one more night - tomorrow - at 7:30. I wouldn't mind seeig it again but not two nights in a row. I saw it with itchynet, justabear, kitnicepaw, cyanidetablet, m0nster, and Mike K. from my office. I think everyone enjoyed it. I took pity on professorbird and didn't try to get her to go becuase, well, its an indy-rock opera and I know her opinion of my musical tastes. :) I also knew she had homework to do and crowding into a former microbrewery production floor to watch a show was not the best way for her to start her weekend.

During intermission cyanidetablet bought a "You Suck!" tshirt.

She also did an amazing girl thing trick and changed into it in the middle of the audience without any exposure. During Act 2 the cast comes out into the audience to dance while two cast members pseudo-hump in stage and I think her t-shirt grabbed the attention of one of the grannies because she was pulled out of her chair and danced with while one of the other grannies humped kitnicepaw's knee while he remained in his seat.

Popsicle's Departure, 1989

2004-09-17T04:24:32Z

I just got home from selling tickets for Popsicle's Departure, 1989 and I stayed to watch the show. Its a one woman play? spoken word? umm not sure what you'd call it. It's a day in the life of a young woman and her boyfriend in Boston in 1989. Madi DiStefanon plays both rolls and with amazingly subtle lighting changes and positioning of her ski cap its perfectly clear what character is talking - add in the fact thatthe boyfriend character has a Boston accent and its super easy.

I loved the show. It's not something that everyone would like but the dialogue was clever and the audience laughed alot.

While I was there I was working under an older gentleman named Ron. He was the house manager and I had thought at first that he was just another volunteer like myself. Everything went well for the most part - about 3/4ths of the tickets went to college students so that meant more work for me. Each ticket sold with a discount - be it student, senior citizen, artist, or Festival member - has to have the discount written on the ticket in three places to make sure the torn stubs and the raw stubs all match up and the money blaances out. The number of student discounts made it a rough night with people waiting til someone else bought a ticket with exact change so there would be enough change for them to give me a larger bill. I've decided that $15.00 - the full price of the show tix - is a bad price. Everyone wanted to give me a twenty so the 50 dollars in change I arrived with from the box office was gone fast. Add in the students who get a $2.00 discount so I have to give back $7.00 for a twenty and it gets worse. It all worked out though and my ticket sheet and cash all balanced out.

While waiting for the show to start another volunteer sat down next to me. Her name is Pearl and shes 79 years old, and, she informed me, she is the oldest straight woman supporter of the arts in Philly. She was fuill of energy and delicious gossip about the state of the festival this year. She's been working for the Fringe since day one. Another older gentleman arrived about thrity minutes before seating. I didn't recognize him but he came in and started strighting up flyers and making sure programs were ready to be handed out. He looked like he knew what he was doing and since Ron was house manager I figured if anything was wrong he would handle it. It turns out the other gentleman is named Ray and he is Ron's lover of 12 years. (and the term gentleman truly fits for both Ron and Ray.) Ron and I had chatted during the 14 block walk from the box office to the venue (Plays and Players on Delancey) and he was a really nice guy.

After the show was over and I was getting my stuff organized in the lobby for the hike back, Pearl came over dragging Ray and told him he needs to "recruit this one" - meaning me. Thats when I found out that while Ron IS volunteering his time for the festival, he is als the regular house manager for The Philadelphia Theater Company, and Ray is house manager for the Prince. Ray told Pearl he had already planned that because he liked how polite and friendly I was to the audience members buying tickets. We chatted for a bit and Ray wrote down his (and Ron's) home number on a paper and told me that anytime something was playing at either venue that I wanted to see I should give him a call and he or Ron would schedule me to act as an usher for them and I could see any show I wanted for free. I told him that Brian and I had alreayd pretty much decided to get season tickets for the Prince (The Prince Music Theater) and he told me that I should come usher for him instead. He insisted that it's easy to sell tickets to good shows, but a good friendly usher is hard to find.

I might take him up on that, he said to bring Brian along and he can usher too.

And Pearl, shes a sweetheart. I hope I meet up with her again, it's a treat just listening to her talk.

Adshock

2004-09-16T18:07:42Z

Brian and I went down to the abandoned transit station at Front and Spring Garden last night to see Adshock. This time though, were were ticket bearing audience members. My volunteer shift there on Monday (where I ws outside the door and only heard the music) in no way prepared me for the show. It was beautiful.

I had never seen JUNK (the dance company that created Adshock) perform before and since neither of us are huge fans of dance we weren't sure how we'd like it. Based on all the press coverage and word of mouth at the festival box office and the fact that shows were selling out - it sounded good. It was GREAT. Unlike so much of the dance we have seen at the festival this year JUNK was dance meets Cirque Du Soleil. The troop consists of three rather small women and two medium sized men. (I only mention this because the other mostly dance show we liked this year - Babel - consisted of very tall women.)

The show was definately dance based but the sheer athleticism displayed by all five dancers blew me away. There are still tickets (a huge bargain at $20.00 each) for the Saturday night show - all other shows are gone. If you are local and want a real treat, get out to see Adshock.

And the shiny silver breasts (4 in total) were not at all scary.

I can't believe...

2004-09-16T17:58:06Z

That this exists...

Link to Amazon.com