Thirty-Eight

Gone 75% of last 32 days

Matthew — Sun, 15 Aug 2010 05:27:20 +0000

Today I returned from the last of my summer travels. I was only home for 8 of the past 32 nights. Here’s a picture of where I went:

July 13-16: Orlando for Blackboard Conference
July 16-22: Boston for Campus Technology Conference (after 3 days of sight-seeing)
July 22-29: Family Reunion a John Brown University
July 29-Aug 4: Home for a couple days
Aug 4-10: Minneapolis and Lake Vermillion – houseboat trip
Aug 10-11: Home
Aug 12-14: Las Vegas (driving)

That’s eight flights plus four road trips of about four hours each way.

Blog is Five Years Old

Matthew — Tue, 03 Aug 2010 16:14:04 +0000

I started this blog in July 2005, a little over five years ago. It looks like I have about ~~500~~ 165 posts/pages, so I’ve been averaging about ~~one hundred~~ thirty-three per year.

(My friend Dave pointed out that it didn’t seem like he had read that many posts. Sure enough, I counted wrong.)

When You Can’t Afford the Best

Matthew — Tue, 03 Aug 2010 16:11:55 +0000

When you can’t afford alpha-level security, and second-best is good enough:

Pink

Matthew — Sat, 31 Jul 2010 03:26:17 +0000

Girls: does your brother keep stealing your soccer ball? Is he always borrowing it without asking? Just get this pink one, then you won’t ever have to worry about him using it.

Angel’s Flight is Open Again

Matthew — Sat, 10 Jul 2010 13:30:49 +0000

I learned two things when I went downtown L.A. on Thursday. I was down there after I visited a friend in South Pasadena and before meeting some other friends at Philippe’s. The first thing I learned is that the downtown Angel’s Flight Railway is open again. It’s the world’s shortest railroad. It closed for about 9 years, but opened up earlier this year:

If you look on the hill in the above picture you’ll see the other thing I learned: that goats live in downtown Los Angeles.

Trying to be Relevant

Matthew — Fri, 25 Jun 2010 05:59:54 +0000

I’m not sure what’s going on here. There’s a sign on a local church advertising a sermon series on the 10 commandments:

It seems like they’re trying to make the sermon series seem relevant to popular culture. The only problem is that the TV show “Father Knows Best” hasn’t been on since 1963. No one I asked about this knew the reference.

I’m not sure they really mean it

Matthew — Fri, 25 Jun 2010 05:39:00 +0000

Archiving My Page

Matthew — Sat, 12 Jun 2010 21:42:21 +0000

I’ve had a web page for more than ten years now. I was updating some things there today, thinking I should change it. I decided to first make an archive of what it’s looked like at several points over the years, before I make any big changes:

See this link for some more detailed images, along with some commentary about how some things have changed, and some things haven’t. Even from just the image above, you can see that the basic look of my page hasn’t changed much in *ten years*! That makes it ancient, in internet time.

Part of the reason I haven’t updated it much lately is that I post more content here, on this blog, rather than on my main page. Also, it’s much easier to put pictures on Facebook. Still, I think there’s a place for traditional, static web pages for more detailed content.

I Won!

Matthew — Thu, 10 Jun 2010 07:27:29 +0000

A new grocery store opened in our neighborhood. It’s a Mexican grocery store called Bestway. They have good prices on fruit, and it’s closer than the Valu Plus store I mentioned last year in this post. Their ad this week says they’re giving away a free bag of groceries every hour to a lucky customer:

I went there at lunch time to buy stuff for a crock pot I made (chicken curry), and then I went back there again with Daren and Eddie after dinner, to buy Mexican sweet bread. I bought 4 for $1.00, and the cashier announced that I was the lucky winner, and handed me a bag of groceries. Here’s what was inside:

Tea, Ramen, two pens, little sample sizes of things, a jar opener, paper goods, etc. Actually, the thing I’ll use most is the reusable grocery bag.

It’s not much, but still, I’m excited that I was the one who won. It made my day.

Why I don’t watch cable TV

Matthew — Tue, 08 Jun 2010 04:50:55 +0000

We used to have cable TV. I liked some of the channels. Discover, National Geographic, History, A&E. They had good shows about fascinating things. But that was 4 or 5 years ago. Tonight I looked up what’s on cable TV tomorrow, since I’m hanging out with a friend who has cable TV, and we might watch something. I looked up A&E (Arts & Entertainment), and this is what’s on tomorrow, June 8th, 2010:

I’ve never seen “Billy the Exterminator.” But even if it’s a really great show, who’s going to watch 10 hours of it? I guess they plan their lineup expecting people to be constantly channel flipping? Who watches TV that way still? Most people I know pick a show, time shift it (TiVo, hulu, Netflix, etc.), and watch it when they want.

And all my former favorite cable channels are like this: the same show on most of the night. I’m really surprised, it had been a couple years since I’d looked up the cable TV schedule.

That’s why I don’t watch cable TV anymore.

(But I find myself drawn to that show “Hoarders.” I want to watch it sometime.)