Anger Incorporated

I’m over a hump today. I’m no longer angry. I’ve had a few people in my crosshairs for the past few years. Planning their downfall, plotting, etc.

I’ve never hated anyone before. I don’t want to hate anyone anymore. I’m done hating as of today. I’ve simply expended too much energy into something that I feel I can never satisfy.

Floyd Holcom, Larry Pfund, Daily Astorian (Yes, I even hated a newspaper). You are all forgiven. To me, you no longer exist and I will never speak of you again.

For those of you with the burden of anger or hate, send it through the exhaust pipe and move on. Life is too short for such a burden.

The Official Pink Floyd Thread

For those of you who don’t know me that well, I am a huge and devoted Pink Floyd fan. It appears we have several regulars here who are also Floyd fans. I can’t reveal his identity but CrazyWorld of John is a former college roommate of mine and we enjoyed countless hours of college mayhem, shenanigans and of course Pink Floyd.

My introduction to Pink Floyd came in 1980 in the form of their most popular song – Another Brick In The Wall from The Wall album. I don’t remember listening to the Floyd again until 1985 when my next door college roommates Charlie and Reece introduced me to Dark Side of The Moon. From there I was hooked. To this day there isn’t a week that goes by that I don’t listen to a Floyd album or one of the band members solo albums.

• My favorite Pink Floyd album is unquestionably Meddle. I have so many different live versions/bootlegs of Meddle I can’t even count them!

• My favorite Pink Floyd songe is unquestionably The Narrow Way from the Ummagumma album

• My favorite Pink Floyd band member is unquestionably Sid Barrett (followed closely by David Gilmour).

So please share your Pink Floydisms. After all, this is the official thread.

The Band Is Just Fantastic, That Is Really What I Think.

Open Sesame

Last week, and according to a very hectic and insane schedule, the Canby Cinema 8 opened it’s doors.

This year has found me with my fair share of challenges schedule-wise but it is the Canby Cinema that was really on my radar screen for achievement.

It all started when we got the invitation to bid on this project back in January. It started out that we would be bidding against two other companies. One who was what I would characterize as a consolation invitee from the republic of Kalifornia who specializes in theaters, and the other who I would (and still do) characterize as the bane of my competitive existence for the past two years. Before I knew it, this list of companies had grown to a total of six companies.

After the bids were evaluated, us and the “bane of my existence” were shortlisted. While the company I work for doesn’t specialize in theaters, we have done our fair share. I also had the advantage of working with this architect on multiple projects so that also helped. I have since found out my price was slightly lower than “bane’s” was so that helped as well. The only disadvantage I had was “bane” had built a theater for this client before.

So, we interviewed and interviewed well. We successfully negotiated the contract and started building the 20,000 square foot theater around the 1st of April of this year. Seven months later, the Canby Cinema 8 opened it’s doors.

I remember well when the owner of the company I work for and I were interviewing. The owner stared us down and asked “Can we open by Halloween?” Without hesitation, my boss said “of course”. In my head I’m thinking “no way”. Not without overtime and we don’t have that in the budget. After the meeting, I asked my boss if he just told the client that we cold finish by Halloween. He told me good luck and make sure it happens.

I was fortunate to enlist an extremely driven superintendent. Of course he had never done a project of this size but I had worked with him on some other smaller projects and he had always gotten them done on time. We work well together I told myself. We can do this. This superintendent surprised me. He rose to the occassion and made it happen on so many different levels. I’ve never been more proud of a superintendent in my life.

We are now working on the finishing touches and this project will be a total wrap in the next two weeks. This project has helped me immeasurably by showing me what true teamwork can accomplish.

So if you are the Canby vicinity and feel the urge to watch the latest movie, stop in, buy some popcorn and enjoy!

Welcome to Frickintardistan

I really don’t know where to start this rant. I guess I’ll just keep typing my thoughts and hopefully you readers can sort through it.

I was born and raised in what once was a great place to live known as Astoria Oregon. Yeah, it was a place of greatness. I was involved in the local politics trying to make a difference. Trying to bring industry and wealth to a town that was withering away due to its past ties to the fishing and logging industries. Unfortunately the same nut cases who are trying to sell us global warming had tried to make Astoria a ghost town by making salmon endangered and placing an owl with spots on the “not seen very often” page.

I’m not sure what global warming will send us. Listed salmon sent fishermen elsewhere and the owls with spots drove a nail into millions of acres of perfectly cuttable timber. And Astoria almost ceased to exist.

But we found our way. We worked hard and reinvented ourselves. We diversified.

Enjoy The Bubble

On February 17th, 2009, the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act was signed into law. In a nutshell, this made it possible for our elected representatives in DC to earmark nearly a trillion dollars (mark my words it will be a trillion dollars by the time this is over) to “stimulate” the American economy. Hold on though. That’s just the portion from that particular act. All in all, you and I have pumped in about $19 Trillion to bail ourselves out of the mess we got ourselves into. Go HERE to find out who got it all. 

Computer Security

As a faithful reader of Bill Mullins Tech Thoughts, I am constantly reminded about how important it is to be diligent about protecting my computer from the thousands of nefarious nasties that are at every turn on the web and email. Today’s post highlights a few of my favorite security applications.

Postbox

Since I made the move to Windows 7, I have made every effort to use open source software. Other than the Win7 operating system and the other programs it comes with as part of the Win7 installation, I am proud to say I don’t use any other Microsoft products.

The two main Microsoft products I am training myself off of are the Windows office suite and Outlook which was used to host my email, calendar and contact management.

At home, I have little use for the Microsoft office suite or Outlook. Most of my home office routine is web based when I need to draft a letter or check my email. Google office, Gmail, Calendar, etc all take care of my minimal home related office tasks.

I still have a POP3 email account through my internet service provider although I have switched all of that email to head toward my Gmail account. I still like to check it on occasion.

Enter a new lightweight Email program called Postbox. Postbox is an email, newsgroup, tasks, and contact manager that has a simple user interface and is the easiest Pop3 email program to set up I have ever used. The program is based on the Mozilla platform (same folks who brought you Firefox). Not only will it check your Pop3 account but will also set up all of your web based email accounts as well. If you like your email via the local desktop rather than the cloud, this program certainly is a strong contender.

If you find yourself without a good trusty local email client, check out Postbox. It is still in beta but so far I haven’t had any issues. It runs on Windows7 x64bit just fine.

FilzMail

Last week, I set up a new user account on my computer for my oldest daughter who is almost 10. She has been after me to get her own user account for about a year or so. I told her if she could compute responsibly and not cause any significant registry damage, I would go along with her request. She has shown excellent computer resonsibility and so I followed through and set up her own user account.

Along with the user account she also wanted her own email address. I was somewhat indecisive if I should or not but ultimately set one up for her at Gmail.

Gmail is a real pain to set up if you don’t have another email address (non gmail). They wouldn’t let me use my pop3 email address because it was already being used for my wife’s gmail account.

So I’m thinking, wow. I need a disposable email address.

Enter FilzMail. After doing a little research on the web, I came across this simple web application that gives you a free email address that self destructs after 24 hours. Using it to set up my daughter’s email account worked fabulously.

In this world of spam, if you come across something that you don’t want to give your regular email address to, head on over to FilzMail and create a disposable email.

The Yellow Gun Project

Since I don’t have much time on my hands to blog. I will point you in the general direction of one of the most hilarious articles I’ve read in awhile.

Venture on over to Alligators In The Sewer and read all about the Yellow Gun Project.

It’s HERE

Happy Birthday Kevin Bacon

Those who know me, know that I’m rarely serious in anything I say. If I could use one word to define the way I am, it would be the word “satire”.

That being said, back in the day when I frequented establishments whose sole purpose was to provide alcohol, my brother and I would sit in the middle of everyone and strike up a conversation about how great of an actor Kevin Bacon is and how we couldn’t understand why Kevin never received an obvious choice for an oscar nomination for his role in Footloose.

Many would look at us in sheer amazement and unable to believe what they were hearing. Others would join in with a few nods and would rattle off other notable Kevin Bacon movies they believed were also deserving of the coveted Oscar.

Well today is Mr. Footloose Kevin Bacon’s 51st birthday.

If you haven’t been in a film with Kevin, chances are someone you know or have met, has (or knows someone who has). Over at the Oracle of Bacon, you can type in someone famous you have met and find out what your Bacon number is. I have no Bacon number (I have never been in a film with or have met Kevin). The two famous people I have met are actor Greg Evigan and golfer Peter Jacobsen (who both have appeared with actors who have appeared with Bacon and both have a bacon number of 2.

So swing on over to the Oracle and see what your number is.