Insight FTW

Sure enough, my cable modem died late Thursday. It was giving flakey connections to instant messaging services and then failed altogether. The lone blinking Internet light being the only indication that it it was getting power. After a phone call last night, Insight sent a tech out to check my setup. He gave me a free brand new cable modem and we were back in business. They even called me to let me know he'd be by in 20 minutes so I could head home instead of just giving me a 5 hour window like other services do.

Good job Insight. Too bad you're selling out to Comcast, you will be missed.

It Tastes Like Tuna Sadness

Not like Tuna Helper. I didn't remember this stuff taking a half of stick of butter, but my memory is NFG anyway. But tonight I watched the worst movie (in my opinion) ever: Griffin and Phoenix. Only seeing it could fully make you appreciate it's awfulness, but I wouldn't wish that on my worst enemy.

And so my dinner was bad, my movie was bad, and it makes me feel alone. Lonely. Empty. Hollow. Incomplete.

As You Can See

I went to the dentist on Monday. They didn't do anything to my teeth. What they did, was show me my teeth. You see, I'm going to a new dentist, Dr. Guido, who incidentally is the father of a fellow fencer I know at IU Bloomington. Anyway, they've got LCD screens attached to the patient's chair. Then they use marvels of modern science to take pictures of my mouth digitally. They can also get x-rays into the computer pretty quickly. So they can show me exactly what the dentist sees, maybe even better with the magnification.

So now instead of the dentist saying "Well there's some wear on your teeth, and some tooth decay here and there, I can literally see the gaps and holes. I can see the hairline cracks in the tooth where the old school metal filling has expanded and contracted enough to damage the tooth. I can see where the sealant I got as a kid has chipped away and needs replacing. I can see all of that.

Then on top of it, they had a laser that they used to determine density. But it didn't just crank out a number, it made a noise when it found something hollow. I could "hear" just how bad my teeth are. No longer do I have to trust my dentist on assessing the quality of my teeth, I can see exactly what his concerns are, and judge for myself if it's worth the cost to fix.

I no longer need faith in my dentist. I like that, it makes me feel comfortable.

I wish that they could find a way to apply this technique to auto shops and eye care places. Places where I have to trust someone else's visual assessment.

I thought it was a fart...

I was wrong. Home Depot is not a good place to make mistakes like this.

Boots With the Fur (With the Fur!)

I've had this song stuck in my head. So if you hear me talking about apple bottom jeans, boots with the fur, baggy sweat pants, or Rebock's with the straps, this is why:

Bon New Year Buddy

I'm not gonna recap my holiday, but suffice to say I had a good one. What this post is about the human interactions. My friend Heather just wrote an entry in her blog about all the random people who talked to her today. I think it's because holidays like New Year's where you want to spend time with people reminds you how important those interactions are, and perhaps leaves one feeling a little lonely, a little wanting afterwards.

I just watched Ocean's Thirteen. In the movie they have a super computer to monitor people to detect if they're genuinely excited to win, or if it's an expected win. It bases it's judgement off pupil dilation, body temp, blah blah blah. It got me thinking that having a human there, instead of a bajillion cameras, would probably be just as good. You can tell when someone is lying. But then it also got me thinking, that I can more easily tell that someone is lying when I'm interacting with that person. If I jump up and down and scream with a winner, I can use it as a reference for how the other person is reacting. It's an advantage I have over the guy standing on the other side of the room.

So I encourage you to interact with someone new, someone you just met, someone you may never see again. Say "hello", say "I shoot lasers from my eyes", say anything. And then listen.

I want to go to work

When I say I'm going to work on the weekends, people look at me as if a puppy died. When I say I want to go to work, because I have an obligation to finish what I committed to, the expression changes from sympathy to skepticism.

You may think I'm crazy, and it's true, I like my free time as much as the next guy, but I think what's important to this story is my sense of duty. If I don't do the things I say I'll do, if I don't be the person I say I am, then I'm nobody.

Invention

When I was in elementary school, there was a contest, Invent America! (yes, with the stupid exclamation mark just like Yahoo!, only Yahoo! wasn't around then). It was a sweet contest. The challenge: Solve a problem with an invention. My first year I came up with a table that you load up with all the plates and silverware. It was an "[Alr]eady Set Table", no need to get the dishes from various places throughout the kitchen. The task of setting the table was eliminated. It was brilliant. And the cool part is you have to make it. So I got some wood working bonding time in with my dad.

I think that was 3rd grade. Between 4th and 5th grade I made a floating chess set with magnetic pieces (a product I later saw in a Sky Mall magazine), a trash can that attached to your belt so you could throw stuff away at any moment, a zip line for garbage bags to take your trash to the curb... I was brilliant.

I've been thinking I want that for the kids here, but maybe on an older scale. Imagine the same contest, but for high schoolers. And throughout the contest have people in from the patent office, or bring in a venture capitalist, or an angel, a lawyer to talk about legal ramifications/insurance, and maybe a marketing guy. Maybe hook them up with college kids who can draw their stuff up in CAD and crank it out in a CNC machine, or crank out a program that makes a sweet web site.

Maybe make it a summer program... at the library? Hmmm.

Self: Too Low Maintenance?

I was listening to the [not so great] DJ's of Sunny 107.7 FM and they were reading Cosmo's tips for the month. One of the tips was "Don't be too low maintenance." The follow up went a totally different [and vapid] direction, but it got me thinking.

I thought the point they were going to make was that people need to feel needed in a relationship. I think in a relationship I've learned to do many things well, but one thing I do not do well is let others know I need them. I know I want to feel needed, appreciated, but I don't do it well myself. I want to correct this without going overboard and becoming a needy wet nap of a person.

The Little Things

I told her I don't like talking on the phone, so Melanie sends me text messages. It's the little things that can make a big difference.