What’s New With Mick

Saturday I drove down to Happy Valley to pick up Graham following an overnight at his friend’s house. On the way there I saw a monstrous building and noted it was a church. On the way back home, we stopped so I could get a picture. I posted the first picture to Instagram (warning: link opens iTunes). In that picture, I included the sign as a point of reference but it somewhat eclipsed the gigantic church so I moved a few steps east and snapped another:

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All I Got For Xmas 2010
Originally uploaded by rynosoft

Once again I had a very bountiful Christmas. Click the picture to see the details but my gifts included:

• Earth: The Book
• Microwave safe soup bowl
• Soup spoons
• Chopsticks
• Microwave safe coffee cups
• Instant coffee
• My four favorite Beatles albums remastered
• $75 in cash
• Personal audio mixer
• Let It Be…Naked
• Sugar free candy
• New earphones for my iPhone
• Six pack of grilling sauces/rubs
• Two iTunes gift certificates worth $45 (not pictured) – redeeming for various apps and songs
• Amazon gift certificate for $50 (not pictured) – redeemed for iLife ’11

Thanks to Buddy, Leroy, Tom, Jan, Michelle & Ric, Tina, Thomas, Graham and the Kittens. I know I’m hard to shop for and appreciate when people do so anyway.

If you were a teen in the 80s like me then you probably remember the short-lived sketch comedy series, Fridays, on ABC. Although it only lasted two seasons, it left an indelible impression on my young brain.

Sadly, a DVD release of those two seasons is reportedly held up by Michael Richards. Luckily, YouTube has most of their great sketches including the ones I’ve included below the fold:
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While chatting with my old friend, Rob, I noticed he was typing a weird character combo. So I asked him about it:

Rob uses Apple’s default chat client, iChat. It supports AIM and Facebook.



I use an open source chat client called Adium. It has support for almost every chat service but evidently doesn’t know how to give the thumbs up.

I spent most of last week in Milwaukee (actually Menomonee Falls), Wisconsin, searching for the cause of a crash in our software that is adversely affecting a client. I flew into Milwaukee on Monday, spent three days on the client site and planned to fly back home Thursday evening. Thursday morning I glanced at my Google Calendar on my iPhone for my departure time. This is what I saw:
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Can you tell when WiFi stopped working on my iPhone?

N E R D
Originally uploaded by rynosoft

Last Thursday morning Tina and I got new tattoos in downtown Troutdale. I have a free touch-up which I can use in a couple of months if it starts to lighten. I may get the letters draw bolder then.

If you’re not on Facebook, this is a couple of screenshots from my “feed” there. This particular person first became a “fan” of  ”Fox Business and 11 others” which included Sean Hannity, Steve Doocy and Fox News. Two minutes later they posted their message opposing the new health care reform law. Subsequent comments revealed that it’s extremely unlikely this person understands anything substantial about the debate.

Shoes & Gloves
Originally uploaded by rynosoft

Yesterday I donned gloves and shoes for trimming back some of the blackberry vines in our yard. As I put them away in our shed, it occurred to me that I regarded them in an equally utilitarian way — occasionally useful for protection but usually just an encumbrance that I don’t need.

Future programmers of America
Originally uploaded by rynosoft

This is a picture of my second grade class that appeared in our hometown newspaper, the Riceville Recorder. There were many more of us but I suppose they couldn’t all be in the picture with the newfangled computer they had us using. It was actually a teletype terminal that connected to a “mainframe” computer at Luther College in Decorah, IA (via an acoustic modem hookup). The terminal was kind of mounted on a dolly that let the teachers wheel it all around the school. We played Oregon Trail and a MasterMind knockoff called Bagels.