Inside the Head of a TV Junkie

The Political Process

Daniel — Sun, 08 Nov 2009 04:12:55 +0000

This evening I was watching the live vote from the House of Representatives on HR3962 (Health Care Bill). Watching voting on an issue is exceedingly boring but, at the same time, very interesting.

So, here’s how the whole thing went down. The speaker asked for a verbal vote on the bill and people yelled “Aye” and “NO” respectively. The speaker then said that it appeared that the “Ayes” had it. Someone then made a motion for a roll call vote and the speaker asked for those in favor to stand. Enough people apparently stood to require a roll call vote and that’s what happened. House members then had to vote electronically during a 15 minute period. For some odd reason, it took 10 mins to pass before the necessary 218 votes were cast by the Democrats. There was cheering once this occurred but we still had to wait another 4 mins while the final votes were cast. Amazingly, one Republican voted in favor of the House health care bill!

Anyway, it was all very interesting even if a bit boring. Now the fight moves on to the Senate. There should be some fireworks in there over the next week. I may be watching more C-SPAN than any person outside of politics should!

Olympics

Daniel — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 15:39:20 +0000

**DISCLAIMER**

I totally planned on blogging yesterday but the time just got away from me. I have back dated this post to reflect that fact. Don’t judge.

**DISCLAIMER**

Below are photos of the medals for the upcoming Vancouver 2010 Olympic Winter Games. They are amazing. I’m aways interested to see what designs they come up with for medals for each of the games. Vancouver has to be one of my favorites so far. The fact that they are wavy makes them very unique and I also enjoy the artwork that is etched into them. An interesting fact, the artwork on each medal is part of a much larger work and, to see the whole thing, you would have to win every medal that is presented at the 2010 games. Kind of a nifty idea.

Google Dashboard

Daniel — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 18:02:43 +0000

Google Dashboard (http://www.google.com/dashboard) shows you how you are using various Google products. For a geek like me that likes stats like these, this is a wonderful surprise to have offered by Google.

Some interesting numbers from my Dashboard:

I have 170 Contacts.

I have created 66 Google Docs.

There are over 10,000 messages in my Gmail “All Mail” box.

I have 608 shared photos on Picasa Web.

On Google Voice, I have received 41 voice mails, 287 calls and sent/received 188 texts.

Check out your Dashboard and see how much you’re utilizingoogle.

Google Dashboard shows you how you are using various Google products. For a geek like me that likes stats like these, this is a wonderful surprise to have offered by Google.

Some interesting numbers from my Dashboard:

I have 170 Contacts.
I have created 66 Google Docs.
There are over 10,000 messages in my Gmail “All Mail” box.
I have 608 shared photos on Picasa Web.
On Google Voice, I have received 41 voice mails, 287 calls and sent/received 188 texts.

Check out your Dashboard and see how much you’re utilizing Google.

Tabitha’s Back!

Daniel — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 04:33:29 +0000

One of my favorite shows on Bravo is now back in its new season! Tabitha’s Salon Takeover. I love this show! The best part of the show is when she deals with the salon employees who are usually less happy about the changes she implements. The conflict is great. Maybe I’m just a sucker for that type of show but I can’t get enough.

If you’ve never seen the show, here’s the concept in a nutshell. Tabitha is a hair stylist who has been in the business for many years and runs very successful beauty salons on her own. She is asked to come into these salons by their owners to make them successful. Most of the places she goes into are extremely dirty and poorly run. The staff are disrespectful, lazy and most of the time don’t care about the state of their salon. She comes in, shakes things up, redoes the whole salon and sometimes fires people. I have to admit, the firing part is my favorite. It’s a good time all around. I suggest you check it out. It’s on Tuesday nights on Bravo.

Last night’s episode included a clueless owner and a bitchy stylist that ended up getting fired in the end. Good times!! If you watch Tabitha’s Salon Takeover, what are your thoughts on the show?

Wave

Daniel — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 21:55:52 +0000

I’ve been fortunate enough to get a Google Wave invite and I just signed up yesterday. Now what? I think I a lot of early adopters are asking themselves this question. The concept of Google Wave is intriguing and I think we make up wild ideas of how we’d use the service but then we’re at a loss once we get it. What exactly will I use this for? Who will I use this with? What makes this any better than a threaded Gmail conversation or a collaborative Google Doc? I don’t have answers to those questions yet.

What sort of situation can I see using Wave? Well, maybe to setup some travel plans with a friend so that we can keep all our wishes and wants together. Or, maybe to plan a party with a group of people where all the details will be visible, etc. I’m not 100% sure how I could use it in my personal life.

What about my professional life? While sitting at work today I have come up with a few examples where having Google Wave in the enterprise environment would be great. For me, I am always opening tickets to get implementations completed or fixes in place for previous implementations. It would be great if the entire history of an implementation was available to anyone who wanted to view it. Right now, I have to search through thousands of tickets and hope I can find the one that has the specific request for the change I’m researching. To have this all in one collaborative location would be great. Another way I can see it benefiting my work would be in our billing guidelines that we have to create for every customer. It would be so great to have the history of how the requirements have changed for a customer over the months and years. When someone leaves the company, they wouldn’t take the billing knowledge with them. Do I think I’ll ever see something like this where I work? No, not unless such technology can be housed inside of the corporate firewall. These days, companies are too paranoid about information to allow such collaboration to take place outside of their firewalls. In the mean time, I can dream… can’t I?

Question: Do you have Google Wave? If so, what do you use it for?

New Puppy Update

Daniel — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 16:57:16 +0000

The hardest part about having a new puppy is dealing with the frustration that comes with it. I find myself frustrated with the dog when she has an accident in the house. I know it’s not really her fault because she is so young and that the training process is not something that happens over night. You think you’re making headway in the right direction and then accidents happen and you feel dejected and that you’ve made absolutely no progress. Can you see how this would become exceedingly frustrating?

I also can’t recall how long it took for Olive to get the hang of the whole house training thing. It was almost a year ago that we were going through the process with her so my memory isn’t so good. She’s such a good dog now that it’s hard to think back to when she was just learning.

Anyway, I know that it will get better and that it is only a matter of time before Beezus catches on is just as good as Olive is. Fingers crossed she’ll learn faster since she has a role model in Olive and because I’ve gone through the whole process before.

On a positive note, Beezus seems to be getting the hang of “sit” and I think that, with a few more days of training, she’ll be an expert!

National Blog Posting Month

Daniel — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 01:39:26 +0000

I’m making November my National Blog Posting Month where I will post one entry in my blog every day for the month of November. The hope is that I will develop a habit of posting more regularly. I think that it will stick. If you’re game at trying to accomplish this feat, feel free to start today as well. If you miss starting this month, you can always try for December. Wish me luck!

National Blog Posting Mon th official site – NaBloPoMo

My profile at on NaBloPoMo – tlvsnjunkie

Coming Soon…

Daniel — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 16:05:09 +0000

Something exciting is coming to this blog in the next couple of days. Stay tuned.

New Puppy – Trials and Tribulations

Daniel — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 00:40:55 +0000

Okay, so having a new puppy is a lot of work… a lot! For some odd reason, I forgot how much work it was having Olive when she was 12 weeks old. Beezus came to us as an 8 week old puppy. Let me tell you, a month makes a huge difference!

So, I find myself driving home at lunch every day to take the puppy out for a poop. It’s not so bad but it has become more difficult, especially when Beezus refuses to poop when I take her out. Wednesdays are the hardest for me though because I have a management meeting at 1:30. I have currently recruited my sister to stop by and we’ll see how long that can last. Today, Beezus decided not to poop for my sister and I was dreading the present I would find in her crate when I got home from work this evening. To my relief and surprise, the crate was clean.

Anyway, our late night potty breaks will soon taper off but it’s a bit of a challenge at the moment. The accidents will be fewer and fewer and her training will begin on the basics. Beezus is well on the way to becoming just as good as her big sister Olive. More updates will follow along with some photos (if I can get her to settle long enough to take one).

One important thing to remember – New Puppy = a whole lot of work!

11 Years of Google

Daniel — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 05:55:55 +0000