Daily Doings at the Line of Death Bar & Grill

Last night, some of the co-workers gathered at the Beer Engine in Lakewood to give a good send-off to someone who was leaving the company. I was there two weeks ago with some of the same co-workers to celebrate Friday evening. This is rapidly becoming one of my favorite bars in town. They have at least 24 specialty brews on tap, and plenty more in bottles (and a few in cans). And the food is decent, too. I had some of their hot chicken wings and they had the authentic Buffalo flavor to them.

I also found out that one of the senior programmers on the team is only 32. Compared to him, I must be an old geezer. :-) I'm reminded of the passage in the Silicon Valley Guy Handbook that said that 35 was old age in the computer biz.

I welcome any level of human interaction with my co-workers. I don't get a lot of that during work, as programming is mostly a solitary activity, and we've got a deadline to get the code done, so we're all hunkered down.

" 'Today I am accountable for everything I do and every word I utter. It's my responsibility. ' Try it one day. Mark it on your calendar. Draw a circle around one day next week and declare it Total Accountability Day. Don't blame anybody for anything and take total responsibility for everything that happens that day."

Little Crow, 1933-2004;
from The Sacred Hill Within,
ISBN: 0-9635440-5-5

As a New Warrior, I strive to live a life of accountability and integrity. What is accountability? It is when I take full responsibility of my thoughts, actions, and words. What is integrity? It is when my thoughts, actions, and words all align. If I said I'd do something, and did it, then I'm in integrity. If I said I'd do something, and didn't do it, then I'm out of integrity.

If you believe I am out of accountability and/or integrity with you, now's your chance to call me on the carpet. Responses are screened.

[Updated 21:55] If you want to have your own Accountability/Integrity Day, feel free to post this in your LJ and link back here. Thanks.

There are two major grocery chains in Cleveland: Giant Eagle and Marc's. No Tops, no Kroger, no Meijer. There's a Super K Mart around the corner from me on Brookpark Rd., and there's an Aldi that's not too far away.

So tonight, after having my usual Monday evening meal at Tucky's, I went to the Marc's in the Parmatown shopping center. I was wowed by some of their closeout deals, but my joy was short-lived as I found out the hard way -- in the checkout line -- that Marc's accepts cash, check, and Discover card only. No credit or debit cards. WTF? So I had to take back some of the items I wanted to purchase. At least the cashier and the people behind me were gracious about it. My excuse? "First time here."

I think I'll stick to Aldi and the Super K Mart for my future shopping needs.

.....but it was labeled "Files", had an "01" sticker on it (to denote that I last accessed it in 2001), and had an "X" in the destroy date field.

Tonight, I started going through it. It had files from 1990-2001, all well-organized. Lots of old computer organization stuff (ACM), stuff from GEnie, some computer humor, maps of the levels in the Wolfenstein 3-D game, and other papers. My goal is to keep only half of it, and recycle the rest.

Information is only useful to me if I can get to it easily. If it resides in a place I can't get to easily, how useful is it?

I knew today was going to be rough when I inadvertently spilled some of my coffee on my seat before heading off to work.

Then, while I'm in the right-hand lane at a traffic light, a guy behind me in a white car wants to turn right and get on the on-ramp to I-480. I pointed straight ahead to indicate to him that I wasn't turning right on red. When the light turned green, I went ahead, but the guy behind me flipped me the bird. What an impatient [fill in your favorite epithet].

Spent most of the morning idle, waiting for work while the senior team was busy handling a crisis. (Wasn't totally idle. I looked at some of the unit tests to see how they worked, and considered doing a write-up on merging software -- vimdiff, WinMerge, meld, et al.) Finally got a trouble ticket in the afternoon, which got resolved at the end of the day.

This afternoon, I made a visit to the NASA Glenn Research Center at Lewis Field, adjacent to the Cleveland Hopkins International Airport. I had heard the Visitor Center was closing next month due to budget cuts at NASA, and wanted to make a visit before it closed.

NASA Glenn is home to several laboratories dedicated to jet engine and rocket propulsion research. As a government research and development facility, it has the usual and expected security precautions -- US citizens only, no weapons, cameras allowed in selected locations (such as the visitor center) only. There was a tour of the microgravity Drop Zone laboratory that day, but that required an advance reservation.

I watched a 15-minute summary of the STS-117 mission, narrated by one of the astronauts. I then wandered toward the static display area. They had a display honoring the facility's namesake -- astronaut and senator John H. Glenn. There was an operational scale model of a wind tunnel. They also had scaled-down mock-ups of the Ares I and Ares V rockets, which will be used on the missions to return mankind to the moon.

Naturally, much of the exciting way-cool R&D stuff currently going on in the labs hasn't been cleared for release to the public, and the other buildings on the campus were off-limits to us visitors. (Even though I used to work at Wright-Patterson AFB and GE Aircraft Engines as a contractor, I don't have any current credentials to prove this to the NASA Glenn staff.)

The visit lasted about 90 minutes, ending with the requisite stop at the gift shop.

I plan to post my pictures to my Webshots page soon.

There's some way cool music they're airing during "Local on the 8s" on the Weather Channel this month. They have a list of it here: weather.com/tv/music.

One song that I really dig has a slow, seductive synth bass line. It's got a techno/electronica sound to it. Some web searching, along with some trial-and-error listening on Rhapsody, have brought me to the band's web site. STS9, or Sound Tribe Sector 9 to use their full name, is a quintet of jam rock musicians. The song they're using on the Weather Channel this month is called "Metameme", from their 2008 album "Peaceblaster".

I'm gonna have to buy this CD now.

It's good that these guys are getting some airplay somewhere. Jam rock bands don't get much airplay on the radio.

Some time ago, I used a graphic in one of my posts as part of a meme. The graphic came from an astrology website. (I won't name names, but part of its URL is tarot.com). In order for me to use the graphic, I had to sign up for their mailing list. Okay, no problem. So I did.

It's been over a year, and I'm still getting messages from them, at the rate of one every few days. I have two problems with their mailings.

First, the messages are image-oriented. For someone like me who (1) cut their teeth on Unix sendmail back in the 1980s and (2) still use dialup to this day, I don't see the value added in sending an image-oriented message when a text-oriented message will do. Also, image-oriented messages disenfranchise the small number of internet users who are blind and/or visually impaired.

Second, the frequency of the messages. In the 14 months that I've been getting email from them, I've received nearly 200 messages. I think that averages out to about two a week, maybe more. Is it really necessary to send that many email reminders to me? My memory isn't that short. I'd be comfortable receiving one reminder a month at the most from them.

Yes, I'm aware I can choose to unsubscribe from them. But that doesn't mean someone else can bombard me with their spam. Grr! Argh!

First of all, I want to thank the wellwishers: bikergeek, thatcrazycajun, and mseuphrates.

I ended up inadvertently sleeping in yesterday. I got in to work at 9:15. Oops. I didn't have time to wait for coffee to be brewed, so I downed a can of sugar-free Red Bull. I should call that stuff Liquid Luck, because that morning, I was able to solve two problems that had me stumped on Friday. After work, I headed to the local IHOP for my traditional birthday meal: steak and eggs. (Hell, it's what the astronauts ate when they were in training!) Then I did some grocery shopping. And then it was back to the hotel.

http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/apollo/apollo11_40th.html

I think I already posted my memories of that day elsewhere/elsetime in my LJ.

(My current music -- Ethereal -- features the conversation between Mission Control and the astronauts of Apollo 11, juxtaposed with some hauntingly beautiful Gregorian chant.)

Shout-outs: Happy birthday stevemb!