I haven’t made time to write!!! On the upside, everything is on the up-side 
I like staying busy, and although it gets a little stressful, I love the direction that my life is heading, so I’m willing to put in the time! Talk to you all soon!
February 3, 2010
So Much Going On!!!
January 7, 2010
Well, we know who the real twit is…
Honestly, I run into the weirdest things by reading Whedonesque…
Lets talk about Felicia Day and Twitter. Felicia is known for the webseries The Guild, and for being one of the Potentials/Slayers on Buffy the Vampire Slayer, but I noticed her when Joss tapped her again for Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog. She’s a prolific Twitter user (and WordPress user!!), and a huge supporter of social media, so when this article came out in Vanity Fair about business women using Twitter as part of their presence on the net, everyone got excited. Disappointingly, its horrible (and not in the awesome Neil Patrick Harris sort of way).
Felicia was understandably disappointed and posted her thoughts about the incident on her blog. She was very polite about the entire incident considering how livid she must have been, and only crowed once about how the magazine was being made redundant in the spate and growth of new media. Talk about a great lady! I doubt that I could have been that reserved if I had been the subject of the VF article, especially with quotes like this:
In order to stay in touch with, and keep intact, their legions of “followers”—that’s twitspeak for the number of people who have signed up to read one’s tweets—these civilian twilebrities must, you know, tweet a lot.
Wow. That’s deep. I’m now inspired to, you know, tweet a lot. If there is ever a course that focuses on gender presentation in modern technology, this would be an excellent cautionary tale of how to alienate every educated and enlightened individual that reads your publication. Congratulations, Vanity Fair.
ANYWAY, the comments on Felicia’s blog get super interesting after a bit – apparently some of her commenters believed that in taking that photograph (in which the girls appear as stylized ‘virtual reporters’ in trenchcoats and heels with their phones in hand) and appearing attractive/sexy in it, they were deserving to be completely patronized and dismissed in the article. Enjoy the debate.
I also liked the comment (via 2 Twitter posts) from one of the other picture “Twilebrities” Sarah Evans, who managed to put a nice and positive spin on the whole experience.
Thank you to all who posted thoughts & reactions to the Vanity Fair piece. Hopefully this serves as a launching pad… …to highlight real accomplishments by these women. It’s sparked topics that really do need to be discussed, & for that, I’m glad.
December 4, 2009
It’s Snowing!!!
Well it was!
Not just on my blog, either. When I woke up this morning (late), and took the dog out, I heard the tip tip of tiny raindrops, and saw that they were actually little snowflakes 
I bring proof, even (see attachments)
-
- taken from Yahoo
November 30, 2009
Attributions
I really love Flickr and it’s support of various kinds of Creative Commons licensing, which I’ve used to share my photos with various websites. My favorite site that I’ve shared with lately is Oddly Specific, which I heard about at the Microsoft PDC09 keynote speech, and to which I submitted my favorite sign ever: 
I really love their site, and will be submitting often. But this posts is about the times that I see my work in unexpected places.
Occasionally, I look through the referrers to my photostream, though, and find very amusing (and usually fully attributed) uses of my photos. For instance, I have never been to Foley, Alabama or the Magnolia Hotel, and yet they used one of my photos -
is the same as 
Of course, I’m extremely flattered that they used my photograph, and will now have to visit both their hotel and their Antique Rose Trail – I might even offer them a new photo from in, instead of them having to use this one from the Antique Rose Emporium in Independence, TX.
This Digg post cause my Flickr photo of a funnel cloud jump to 35 thousand views in a couple of days. Imagine my surprise when I stopped by my Flickr statistics, and saw all those views!!!!
Oddly, I also sho
w up on several flower referenc
es like for Bells of Ireland and Indian Blankets. I love taking pictures of flowers, so I really enjoy seeing my pictures being used as examples on these sites.
I guess the moral of this ramble down Flickr lane is to keep an eye on your statistics and referrers – you never know where you’re going to see your own photograph looking back at you!!
November 10, 2009
The Dollhouse and the Rossum Corporation
Wow, this is a really awesome viral campaign!
Rossum Corporation launched a web site in apparent reaction to Senator Perrin’s Senate investigation of both the corporation, and the allegations of a Dollhouse (or Dollhouses). According to Whedonesque, when the Rossum contact number is called, and a message left, you will receive a message imploring you to “ditch the tech”.
The wicked smart poster (Dev – name, not function) then went back to the web, and searched the phrase…and found this truly eerie site. If you open up the link at the bottom, there’s a few little posters to paste around town, and possibly highly confuse folks
Finally, commenter Arison noticed a link leading to a site called Wipe the Future. This site seems to have to most activity, since it said only “Soon” this morning when Arison saw it, and it says “ROSSUM KNOWS THAT YOU KNOW.” now.
There are more things in heaven and earth, Topher, than are dreamt of in your Dollhouse.
November 10, 2009
Final Update on the Drive
They did it!!!! The Geek Squad rescued all my data!!!! They’re mailing it back to me on a portable drive. I <3 the Geek Squad.
I <3 Seagate, too. I checked on them, and they were really laid back. Don’t worry about the drive, they said, we’ll take it when you get it back.
I <3 you guys, and your prayers. Thank you SO MUCH for your support, and guidance <hugs!>!
November 5, 2009
Update on the downed drive
Thank you all for responding to my previous post! I was going pretty crazy over that, I can tell you, but all the support both here and on FB really allowed my temper to calm!
So, the drive is in Level 3 Data Recovery at the Geek Squad DRD Lab. Apparently, they had to take it apart, re-mount the plates, and try to get stuff off. Please join me in my prayers to St. Anthony and St. Jude that they can get all the information off. It will be weeks before we know 
but I’m prepared for whatever they tell me now.
Either way, both Seagate and the Geek Squad have been wicked awesome about all of this, even through my hysterical phase. Seagate is even going to replace the drive after all the hulabaloo is done. And the Geek Squad has given me everything that I’ve asked for, and more.
Super companies + Super customer service = much calmer me.
I’ll update y’all when I hear anymore.
October 22, 2009
Seagate is making me a little psychotic
My 1.5 tb Seagate external drive decided to fritz on me today. I’m freaking out. I’m talking thousands of pictures, all of my schoolwork, archived emails, music, you name it. I’m guessing that I’m going to need professional data recovery services, which I’ve never done before. I don’t even want to think about what that’s going to cost, but it’s not really optional. Any ideas? Let me know in the comments. Thanks!
Update: tried another drive in a USB enclosure. It didn’t work either. Turns out that it’s a Maxtor, owned by Seagate. Oh, and they don’t feel like they need to put drivers up on their site. So, day one, no Windows 7; not by any fault of the program. I’m heading for bed or I won’t sleep tonight.
October 9, 2009
Why I watch Dollhouse
Originally posted here.
There’s always something that brings me back to a series; usually for a smarty-pants character (Dean Winchester of Supernatural, Rodney McKay of Stargate Atlantis) or for someone who surprises me by surviving despite the odds (the crew of Serenity, Sydney Bristow and Will “One in ten, you little …!” Pippin from Alias). But almost any screenwriter can do this. All my old standbys have failed me – Judd Apatow seems determined to sink to the lowest common denominator, JJ Abrams is getting a little strange, the list goes on and on.
But Joss is a different creature. Oh sure, he’s got his standby’s of kick-butt girls, hapless ‘quirky’ guys, watchers (both with a capital W and without), we know his familiar tunes well. But when he wants to hook you, you feel it catch, and the bottom drops out of your stomach. He draws his plotline in the sand, there’s a moment of clarity and stillness, and then the whole world is irrevocably changed. And he’ll do it three or four times a season. You know the moment when he just accesses something primal and universal in you…
…Buffy walks in and sees her mother on the couch, just lying there…Mal rips off the lid of the shipping container, sees River, and says “huh.”…Horror dawns on Lorne as he listens to Fred sing “you are my sunshine”…
In Dollhouse, it’s an answering machine clicking on and a crisp voice saying, “There are three flowers in a vase.”
It’s the casual and fluid flick of Alpha’s wrist in the most shocking and unexpected bit of violence that I have ever encountered.
So, there are a lot of things I like and dislike about Dollhouse, but there are a couple of things that I LOVE. I love the unexpected talent – Enver channeling Reed was as brilliant as it was surprising…update, his channeling of Topher was even better!- and the sheer diversity of the cast. I fell a little in love with Miracle Laurie the minute they focused on her exquisite and expressive eyes. I love that the sociopath isn’t even the worst bad guy, and that he has a drawer of inappropriate starches. I love that I’m not the only person that finds lentils completely incomprehensible.
Most of all I love Joss’ work. He has not wandered so far that I can’t follow. He writes characters that are full of Grace and fallibility, and the most enticing and occasionally brilliant dialogue. Even when I fundamentally disagree with Joss, I want to hear what he has to say. I’m sorry that it took six episodes of Dollhouse before he was able to speak, but then his world bloomed into technicolor with the words, “The third flower is green.”
So yes, I came to the party for Joss, and stayed for good TV. I wouldn’t have it any other way.
Update – I almost forgot! You can watch Dollhouse for free on Hulu…please do! Or catch it live on Fox on Fridays 9/8 central, or Fox on Demand.
September 22, 2009
Finished XML!!!
For better or worse. I’m fervently praying for an A, but there’s a great feeling of catharsis when you just let something go into someone else’s hands. This class plagued me all week, and so last night’s letting go was especially lovely.
On to Java, but I don’t have to think about it yet!!!!
