Geeky Bob

Here's your election thought of the day from the good folks at www.despair.com...

My friend and fellow cycling enthusiast Keith shared the following security camera footage from the good folks at Woodinville Bicycle which captures the hilarious antics of a would-be thief attempting to steal a bicycle... I think we have a future Darwin Award recipient in the making.

There was a brief period when all three of our adult children were living with my wife and me in Seattle. Our youngest was starting college, our middlest had just returned from a year living in Peru, and our oldest had relocated from Texas to Washington following her graduation from college.

Things are different now; our children have all left home, married, and started lives of their own.

However, when I was recently going through several folders on my computer with collections of old files, I discovered a Word document with a note that I had typed up for my children during that short boomerang season when they were living with my wife and me as adults.

Do you think this note this made any difference in their behavior?

OK - I have to make a shameless admission: I really like Jonathan Coulton's music. Jonathan's style is sort of like modern-day-Internet-geek-cyber-folk-pop, as if that's a real genre.

Anyway, years ago he wrote a song called "Code Monkey," which became something of an Internet hit. (Hey, I'd call over one million downloads a hit.) If you're curious about the song, you can browse to http://youtu.be/MNl3fTods9c in order to see it with the lyrics.

That being said, fans of "Code Monkey" might not be aware that Jonathan teamed up with Greg Pak and a few additional artists, and together they converted "Code Monkey" and several of Jonathan's other songs (like "Skullcrusher Mountain," "Re: Your Brains," etc.) into a weird little graphic novel.

Truth be told, I'm not a graphic novel kind of guy, but I love the song - so I ordered a copy through Greg Pak's online shop.

My signed copy of the graphic novel just arrived, and it was a great read; it was fun to see the characters from so many of Jonathan's songs brought to life, even if it was just for a hundred pages or so.

For those of you who are familiar with the song, you're probably wondering to yourself, "Does Code Monkey finally tell his manager to write that @#$% login page himself and win the heart of Matilde, the girl of his dreams?"

Well, you'll just have to order the book and find that out for yourself.

(FYI - The graphic novel was a Kickstarter project in 2013 which was fully-funded in just 12 hours; it eventually reached $340,270 of it's original $39,000 goal.)

Earlier today our organization participated in a unique "Team Building" exercise: our organization hosted a Drum Circle, wherein a motivational speaker walked various members of our organization through a set of various polyrhythms with the intended goal of creating music as a "team." The idea seems plausible enough on paper, and I am fairly certain that if I was participating in-person I might have received something of value from the experience.

However, I work remotely, as do several dozen of my coworkers. Instead of hearing music and a motivational speaker, those of us who could not attend in-person heard nothing but noise. Lots and lots of noise. The entire experience was reduced to hours of mind-numbing cacophony for anyone attending the meeting via the conference call, and my only takeaway was that I had lost several hours of my life.

Shortly after the meeting had ended I put together the following animation to show my coworkers what the meeting was like for remote attendees:

With that in mind, please take my advice: take a look at https://binged.it/2s4KbLd for companies who offer team building exercises such as this, and avoid them as much as possible if you value your remote employees.

(Note: I found this on my computer, which I had posted to our refrigerator several years ago when my wife and I were going out of town for a few days and I wanted my son, Peter, to remember to put out food for the squirrels while my wife and I were away.)

Bob 21:15 - The lord of the house said to Peter Joshua, "Peter, do you love me more than these?" "Yes, Dad," he said, "you know that I love you." Bob said, "Feed my squirrels."

Bob 21:16 - Again the lord of the house said, "Peter, son of Robert, do you love me?" He answered, "Yes, Dad, you know that I love you." Bob said, "Take care of my squirrels."

Bob 21:17 - The third time he said to him, "Peter, son of Robert, do you love me?" Peter was hurt because his dad asked him the third time, "Do you love me?" He said, "Dad, you know many things; you know that I love you." Bob said, "Feed my squirrels."

(Note: If you don't get the reference, I'm not explaining it to you.)

So I watched this video...

And that inspired me to create this image...

Enough said.

Note: A friend had reposted the following list on the Internet... I love these kinds of lists, because they always provide you with a chance to laugh at your surroundings in a way that only someone with intimate knowledge of the area can appreciate.

You Know You're From Arizona When...

1. You can say "Hohokam" and no one thinks you're making it up.
2. You no longer associate rivers or bridges with water.
3. You know that a "swamp cooler" is not a happy hour drink.
4. You can contemplate a high temperature of 120 degrees as "not all that bad, after all it's a dry heat."
5. You have learned to expertly maneuver your vehicle under any traffic conditions using only two fingers; a skill usually learned initially in July.
6. You know that you can make sun tea outside faster than instant tea in your microwave.
7. You have to run your air conditioner in the middle of winter so that you can use your fireplace.
8. The water coming from the "cold" tap is hotter than that from the hot" tap.
9. You can correctly pronounce the following words: "Saguaro", "Tempe", "Gila Bend", "San Xavier del Bac", "Canyon de Chelly", "Mogollon Rim", "Cholla", and "Tlaquepacque", "Ajo".
10. It's noon on a weekday in July, kids are on summer vacation, and not one single person is moving on the streets.
11. Hot air balloons can't fly because the air outside is hotter than the air inside.
12. You buy salsa by the gallon.
13. Your Christmas decorations include a half a yard of sand and 100 paper bags.
14. You think a red light is merely a suggestion.
15. All of your out-of-state friends start to visit after October but clear out come the end of April.
16. You think someone driving while wearing oven mitts is clever.
17. Most of the restaurants in your town have the first name "El" or "Los."
18. You think six tons of crushed rock makes a beautiful yard.
19. You can say 115 degrees without fainting.
20. Vehicles with open windows have the right-of-way in the summer.
21. People break out coats when the temperature drops below 70.
22. The pool can be warmer than you are.
23. Most people will not drink tap water unless they are under dire conditions.
24. Monday Night Football starts at 7:00 instead of 9:00.
25. You realize Valley Fever isn't a disco dance.
26. People with black cars or have black upholstery in their car are automatically assumed to be from out-of-state or nuts.
27. You know better than to get into a car/truck with leather seats if you're wearing shorts.
28. Announcements for Fourth of July events always end with "in case of monsoon..."
29. You have to explain to out-of-staters why there is no daylight savings time.
30. When someone asks how far you live from a location, it's always in terms of minutes/hours, not miles.
31. Your biggest bicycle wreck fear is, "What if I get knocked out and end up lying on the pavement and cook to death?"
32. You can say "haboob" without giggling.
33. You realize that asphalt has a liquid state.

Ah, so true, so true... ;-)

Over the past few years I have sat quietly and watched a lot of people argue across myriad political issues on Facebook. There are people who love portions of our government and its policies, while others detest them. The current scandal-of-the-day is that some see Manning and Snowden as heroes, while others consider them traitors.

I have tried my best to keep my silence, because the last thing that anyone needs is another person adding their opinions to a cyber-sphere that is already saturated by divisiveness, ignorance, and paranoia. But eventually an issue arises where I simply cannot remain silent; sometimes our government has unquestionably gone too far.

With all the dangers and terrors in this world from which we need protection, how is it possible that German Kinder Eggs must be banned by the Federal Hazardous Substances Act?

Somehow I am sure that Communists are to blame. ;-)

My oldest daughter just reminded me of something that I hadn't considered in years: when my children were young, my wife and I raised our kids somewhat differently than other parents. If you know me personally, then you're well aware that I'm not revealing anything surprising by that admission.

But let me explain what I mean: every parent has to choose which traditions they want their children to experience, and which traditions they want to skip. For example, some parents let their children celebrate Christmas, while other parents might not let their kids participate in Halloween festivities. My wife and I decided that Christmas and Easter were great, albeit with no Santa Claus and no Easter Bunny.

Now I know what many parents are thinking, and you can put the phone down - my children are all grown and you can't call Child Protective Services just because my children didn't set cookies by the Christmas tree in hopes that St. Nick would drop by.

But we had one tradition that we didn't skip, we just changed it a little; instead of the Tooth Fairy, we had the Tooth Werewolf. That's right, instead of Tinkerbell, we had Timberwolf.

I don't know why I chose to raise my kids with the belief that a big, hairy wolf snuck into their room and absconded with their baby teeth, but what's even more surprising is that my wife let me do it.

In all actuality, my children knew that it was me - I made sure of that. But it was pretty amusing when they would tell their friends that the Tooth Werewolf was coming to take away their teeth.

By the way, after a few successful years of the Tooth Werewolf, I decided that he needed a friend, and I invented the Easter Vampire.

Years from now, someone might need therapy.