My friend Miss Fluffy

Received the sad news that Ramona Horn passed away. She was my friend and we became close over the years by bonding by bacon. In addition to pretty alliteration, her friendly, loving nature just made both P and me want to hang out together.

She apparently had a heart attack and passed away.

The world is missing an Angel.

RIP my friend Mona.

Hello Dollies!

Diabeetus Alert

My Mother, if that is her real name, makes delicious tasty morsels of pure ecstasy commonly known as Hello Dollies.

Not shown actual size

These delicious little creations are routinely bequeathed to me and my siblings on special occasions such as Thanksgiving, birthdays and Christmas.

To say that the Hello Dollie is delicious is like comparing Dr. Ruth to Jessica Alba.  They are, in a word, heavenly.  Some kind of graham, buttery crust on the bottom, with chocolate and then this indescribable buttery sweet caramelized layer topped with coconut.  Oh and interspersed with chocolate kisses or some kind of chocolaty nugget things.  It just makes me want to cry not having one right now.

Lots has changed.  But there are STILL no flying cars.  Dammit.  Regardless, I have some help for JP finally so I decided to do a little housekeeping and visit my old friend.  Might write a little again.  Who knows.

Been a while

Hi again, dear old friend

I sure did enjoy typing stuff on this blog.  Enjoyed learning and doing the one thing that I dreamed of someday pursuing, writing.

But life gets in the way and the next thing you know you're an old bastard and although you're a pretty happy guy, you realize that there's just a whole different set of priorities that come with really growing as a person and a family.

But I still thought about coming back periodically and putting my thoughts on this wonderful, fun and sometimes elucidating thing called a blog.

Well, I am one hell of a happy guy.  Found a wonderful (and really, wonderful) girl, have two little doggies and business is going well (in spite of the prevailing crap economy lol).

I did a little traveling this last year and I want to put some of the trip up.  Why not put it up here?

Sweet P at O'Hare ready to board, first leg to Japan

We flew Japan Airlines and it was simply the best flight I've ever been on.  Super polite, extra comfortable seats, we drank like fish and they didn't care!  Great flight, I highly recommend it.

Me in my underwear at 4am talking to the guys at the office.  She couldn't resist.

We visited Mt Fuji

You'd think I could figure out how to rotate this.  But apparently not...

This was the last pic because it was, I kid you not, 28 degrees and there was a 40MPH wind.  The cold was unreal.  Literally took your breath away.  I ran back to the warmth of the store thing after this.  Yes I am a wimp.

Thomas Pedicini

Visited New York. Stopped by the 9/11 memorial. Found Thomas Pedici on the list of names. Took a photo. I remember you Thomas...  More later.

Axiom

If you have to call someone to determine if you've pissed them off...

You have.

The preceding was a PSA from Captain Obvious

Delirious Happiness

“Happiness is a warm puppy.” 
- Charles M. Schulz 

I think I've lost my ability to blog with any effectiveness.  I still enjoy putting words down but it seems like I could once envision what to write and some part of my brain just took over and crafted the words needed into finger motions which produced that vision.

That doesn't happen anymore.

Now I have an idea, begin to consider ways to articulate and something happens like Ali jumping around being cute or Halle playing hide and seek or my beautiful sweet girl will do something that will just derail all thought and I end up doing everything but writing down that idea.

It's not that I don't have ideas.  It's not that I can't write or take a few minutes to do what I'm doing now, it's just that something has happened and planning seems to be going out the window in favor of some really good stuff.

So I want to just say this; if you are reading this, be happy.  It's a choice.  Trust God, because you might not have a plan but he does; for you.  I may post something or I may not, but regardless of who you are and what your situation is, I hope good things happen in your life.

And I hope you're happy.

-Stew 

Merry Christmas 2013

Verti Gaaaaaaaag!

Had a little surprise a while back.  It was pretty scary too.  Imagine just cranking along, going about your daily business and suddenly you start feeling a little queasy.

Next thing you know, you can't walk.  The world is spinning and you're puking anything that gets near your stomach.

I had vertigo.  It. was. horrible....

Turns out it was a benign form of proximal vertigo that comes and goes on

it's own.  Scared the beJesus out of me.  Doc prescribed me something and I'm feeling a lot better.

But I tell you, going through this really makes me appreciate living.  Whereas I would once write off a day that wasn't going well, I now take a little more time to understand what's going on.  I can perhaps see the bright side of that downside.  It's helped me, perhaps it can help you too.

Berzerk!

Remember this game?


Play Berzerk

Many quarters perished in the (vain) pursuit of escape.  Berzerk is sad by the standards of today's games but the strategy and tactics are timeless.

Ironically in the current world of free games, this one would never survive.  But when a kid, and a quarter had to be earned by mowing the lawn, cleaning something, picking up five bottles from the roadside and getting your parents to take you to a store that would give you the redemption, the amount of time spent per quarter was a HUGE factor.

It's laudable that gaming publishers figured out that with the advent of ubiquitous access, giving the game away, getting the user hooked and then offering an in-app purchase would work.

ทรูมูฟ เอช " การให้ คือการสื่อสารที่ดีที่สุด " Giving

Problems with Cloud Services?

Intermedia didn't think so, before they went down...

For over half a day, from 4.30am to around 6.30pm on Tuesday, the third largest Cloud Service provider was down.

The problem was so bad that you couldn't even call them.  Calls to the tech support line resulted in fast busy or a "Your call could not be completed" RVA message.

Intermedia blamed the problem on "an update" to their core routers.  They said that the update propagated down to all the connected routers and just took their entire network down.  MILLIONS of users were affected.

I'd like to offer an alternative to the identified problem; Hubris.

The folks at Intermedia, while mostly nice and fairly knowledgeable, are in utter denial when problems are presented.  I know this first hand.  When reporting problems to sales or management, the incredulous denial is simply infuriating.

If Cloud Service providers don't learn to listen and drop their pride, this is going to become a trend.  Without exception every Cloud Service provider is currently suffering from a case of "our sh*t don't stink."