Sunday, April 26, 2020

You mean to tell me this blog has been in a coma since 2014?

It's not so much that I have not had anything to say, but rather, like so many others, social media sites like Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube, Snapchat, TicTok, Vine (RIP Vine 2013-2017), Periscope, Kiwi, WhatsApp, etc. have become the places to offer opinion and healthy debate and discourse.
I kid.
They are largely cesspools of trollery and bigotry, with the occasional cute baby or cat video to sooth the mind.
Further, bloggers have largely gone the audio/video route rather than this old-fashioned typing of words upon a screen.
Anyway, let us get to the point of this post.  This semester among other courses, I'm teaching New Media Production at Pennsylvania Highlands Community College.
This is a setup for a bonus question on the course final exam.
Let us have a discussion of social media and blogging in general (whether written, spoken, or shared visually).  For any of my students in the New Media Production class, commenting here will result in some bonus points on your final.

Saturday, October 25, 2014

It would appear some site maintenance is needed

Day By Day appears to have done some changes to the embed code. I'll get right on fixing it.

UPDATE April 26, 2020:  I fixed it by the simple process of removal.

Monday, September 22, 2014

A video about blogging from the "Before Times" (2007)

Partly Internet archeology, this YouTube video from 2007 offers some advice that remains valid in today's world.

This clip is distributed by Common Craft.
Uploaded on Nov 29, 2007
http://commoncraft.com A video for people who wonder why blogs are such a big deal.
This video comes in an unbranded "presentation quality" version that can be licensed for use in the workplace.http://www.commoncraft.com/store-item...

UPDATE April 26, 2020: This video clip appears to have been tossed into the bit bucket.

Getting your attention in under two seconds

The headline above may or may not have enticed you to see why I have resumed posting here after a brief hiatus of only 32 months and change.
This post and several more will discuss the, to paraphrase Robert Heinlein,  shameful act of blogging.


In the early 2000s, blogging provided evidence of the Internet's democratization of news, information, and opinion sharing.  The democratization (some might say shouting in an echo chamber) continues, although the plaforms have changed.  Miniblogging on Twitter, Facebook, and other social media sites have largely replaced the blog.
However, blogs remain alive and a valuable part of the Internet ecosystem, especially in the business sector.
More about blogging in subsequent posts.
What do you think?  
Feel free to comment here.

Saturday, December 31, 2011

Farewell 2011, Hello 2012! Now what do YOU have in store?


For me, 2011 brought the worst and the best that life has to offer.  To describe 2011 as a year of transition is to take understatement to an entirely new level.
The month of August begins to take on new meaning other than simply "beach week".  In 2010, August highlighted the final chapter of one story.  August 2011 brought an emergency visit to the cardiac cath lab, and an entirely separate healing of the heart - a most unexpected and welcome one - the opening chapter to another story, the one I hope ends with "and they lived happily ever after."
To all who have touched my life in ways large and small, I offer my thanks. I hope that you will look kindly on whatever small impact I may have had on your lives as well.
This young lad now on his 60th circuit around the Sun has been blessed (or "blessed") with a life that is never boring. I expect that will continue in 2012. As somebody once said, God does answer our prayers; He does not take requests.  The answers are often not what we expect. ANd they are most often not easy. But they are there for us.
Happy New Year to all my friends, family, associates, collegues, and random online game teammates.
May your 2012 be the best year ever.

(About the photo: Taken I think in 1955 around Christmas.  I was then and am now "the thinker", Tom was and is "the doer", and Rick learned to live life on his terms.  This is part of a huge cache of old photos I am scanning and preserving.)


Saturday, November 12, 2011

Well, hello there.

Turns out that sentence has become music to my ears.
More on that at some future time.
Which leads me to the point of this post.  I'm giving the blog another go.
First, there's some tidying up to be done with the blog interface, as well as with my little addled brain.

Thanks to this blog for the inspiration.

Friday, June 3, 2011

One take

That's the claim.
This is awesome on so many levels.

Saturday, January 16, 2010

We interupt the silence for an urgent plea

The situation in Haiti is, well, nearly beyond words.
Two living saints from Pittsburgh are doing what they can to save the lives of a group of orphans and they need our help.

Ginny Montanez of That's Church is leading the effort to seek help for the BRESMA orphanage. Go visit and find out how you can help.

Monday, July 6, 2009

Sarah Palin

A thick layer of dust enshrouds this blog.
It's not that there's nothing to say. In fact quite the opposite. But others are saying it so much better than I.

Here's a new blog offering up one perspective on the Alaska governor's decision to step aside.

The MSM and the Beltway insiders are incapable of comprehending how somebody might wish to effect change without the trappings of insider power.

It will be interesting to see how this plays out.

Friday, March 20, 2009

Credit where credit is due


Finally, I have an opportunity to say something nice about Obama.
Not the President.
First Lady Michelle Obama offered some good advice to students in one of D.C.'s under performing schools. The details here.

(Huge h/t to Betsy Newmark)
(Photo from the White House collection)

Thursday, February 19, 2009

Is it really a jar of mayo?

There are so many urgent matters taking our time these days. A nasty recession (but not the worst since the Depression - but keep talking it down,) the rise of socialism, the man made global warming myth, I could go on.
However, today there are bigger fish to fry. And after frying, slathering them in tartar sauce. But tartar sauce made with mayonnaise or with a revolting substitute.
Like me, Christopher Taylor at Word Around the Net is a purist when it comes to condiments.
Miracle Whip is one of those nasty fifties products that was marketed with dozens of recipes that James Lileks loves to mock. It is the same sort of bastard demon child of real food as Sandwich Spread and Spam.

Some people, dump this industrial waste into recipes such as cole slaw to get that nasty sweet assault on your senses.
His full article may be enjoyed by clicking here. Come back when you're finished, if you don't mind.

I'll wait.




Oh, you're back. Thanks. Let me pick up where Mr. Taylor left off.
Miracle Whip is an abomination.
Because several misguided members of our extended family suffer from the delusion that this pitiful substitute condiment tastes good, my dear wife makes two types of potato salad for family gatherings. One version is made with pure, delicious mayonnaise (Hellmann's of course) - while the other is slathered in that toxic waste called Miracle Whip. Invariably, the bowl of good potato salad is emptied first.
Similar family feuds also erupt over butter and substitute spreads (yes, I'm looking at you, yellow container. And I can and do believe it's not butter!)
For so many things in our society, the pale imitation has been marketed so well, that it is often preferred over the real deal.
Come to think of it, that might explain why we have the president we do.

Thursday, February 12, 2009

Windy and living right

Lincoln Day 2009 brought a rather intense wind storm to western Pennsylvania -much of the eastern U.S., really - causing power outages and other mayhem.



We had some odds and ends blown around our porch and the wind got under the the grill cover, all too briefly turning it into a light than air craft. It landed face down in the muddy back yard.
The more interesting development was noticing a neighbor's trampoline parked in the spot where my car usually spends the night.



For no particular reason, the night before, I had parked the car a little further back in the parking area than usual. The result was a near miss instead of lengthy conversations with the neighbor and insurance adjusters.



I count myself fortunate.

Thursday, January 22, 2009

We're here to help

This old yarn has been around awhile. I needed a good chuckle; this delivered:

A cowboy named Bud was overseeing his herd in a remote mountainous pasture in California when suddenly a brand-new BMW advanced out of a dust cloud towards him.

The driver, a distinguished looking man in a Brioni suit, Gucci shoes, RayBan sunglasses and YSL tie, leans out the window and asks the cowboy, “If I tell you exactly how many cows and calves you have in your herd, Will you give me a calf?”

Bud looks at the man, obviously a yuppie, then looks at his peacefully grazing herd and calmly answers, “Sure, Why not?”

The yuppie parks his car, whips out his Dell notebook computer, connects it to his Cingular RAZR V3 cell phone, and surfs to a NASA page on the Internet, where he calls up a GPS satellite to get an exact fix on his location which he then feeds to another NASA satellite that scans the area in an ultra-high-resolution photo.

The young man then opens the digital photo in Adobe Photoshop and exports it to an image processing facility in Hamburg , Germany .

Within seconds, he receives an email on his Palm Pilot that the image has been processed and the data stored. He then accesses an MS-SQL database through an ODBC connected Excel spreadsheet with email on his Blackberry and, after a few minutes, receives a response.

Finally, he prints out a full-color, 150-page report on his hi-tech, miniaturized HP LaserJet printer and finally turns to the cowboy and says, “You have exactly 1,586 cows and calves.”

“That’s right. Well, I guess you can take one of my calves,” says Bud.

He watches the young man select one of the animals and looks on amused as the young man stuffs it into the trunk of his car.

Then the Bud says to the young man, “Hey, if I can tell you exactly what your business is, will you give me back my calf?”

The young man thinks about it for a second and then says, “Okay, why not?”

“You’re a Congressman for the U.S. Government”, says Bud.

“Wow! That’s correct,” says the yuppie, “but how did you guess that?”

“No guessing required.” answered the cowboy. “You showed up here even though nobody called you; you want to get paid for an answer I already knew, to a question I never asked. You tried to show me how much smarter than me you are; and you don’t know a thing about cows…this is a herd of sheep. .

Now give me back my dog.

(h/t Duncan at And Rightly So!)

Monday, January 5, 2009

Hello world. I'm here.

I haven't had much to say; still trying to digest the reality of the election.
Although, either way we would have a Democrat in the White House. So there's that.
Also, I don't think BO would approve of my views:




I'm an embarrassment to Barack!


I only scored 15 on the Obama Test



(h/t Cassy Fiano)

Wednesday, November 19, 2008

Sad day, PittGirl hangs it up

How sad that I should break my silence with news that one of the brightest, most talented, and entertaining bloggers I've had the pleasure to read has abruptly closed her blog.
The burghblog has been taken down.
Here's a portion of PittGirl's final post:

I don’t know what I want to say here, but I know I have to say something so I’ll just start writing and you guys read along, okay?

I’ve got to say goodbye to you all.

And that really sucks and I’d be lying if I said I’m not incredibly sad about it because I didn’t realize how much a part of my life this blog has been for three years. It seemed like a little side thing I did and not a very important thing, but now that I’m cutting it away, I’m realizing what a big cut and a deep cut it really is. And how much it is hurting to let it go.

I hope you’ll trust me that I’m doing what I must do, for my comfort level, for my privacy and for my life.

Her perspectives on all things Pittsburgh will be missed. It may be her success that led to this sudden end. Pittsburgh Magazine featured her in a recent cover story, and she was to have been the focus of an article in another Pittsburgh-themed site, Pop City, from where we learn more about why the anonymous PittGirl called it quits:
I don't know what I can tell you other than my identity has been compromised and that means shutting it (the blog) down because of my job. It's important that I be proactive in removing all traces of my writing from the web if there is any risk of my identity becoming public.

Therefore, the blog was nuked this morning after five days of deliberation on my part. It wasn't an easy decision, but I know that it was the right decision for me. I can't say who learned my identity because I don't want that person being the subject of inquiries as to his/her knowledge. It's better this way.
Dennis Roddy, a writer for the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, a journalist I've known for decades offers this succinct recap:
In a retirement worthy of Greta Garbo, PittGirl, the sassy and clued-in high priestess of Pittsburgh blogging, called it quits yesterday in a bid to preserve her status as an anonymous celebrity.
I, for one, enjoyed the fact that she chose to remain anonymous. What is most surprising, I guess, is that she managed to retain that status for so long.
We'll miss you PittGirl. I do hope you find a way to share your voice with us on your terms.

Wednesday, November 5, 2008

Class act

"Tonight — tonight, more than any night, I hold in my heart nothing but love for this country and for all its citizens, whether they supported me or Senator Obama — whether they supported me or Senator Obama.

I wish Godspeed to the man who was my former opponent and will be my president. And I call on all Americans, as I have often in this campaign, to not despair of our present difficulties, but to believe, always, in the promise and greatness of America, because nothing is inevitable here.

Americans never quit. We never surrender.

We never hide from history. We make history." -- John McCain, November 3, 2008.


God bless America.

(h/t Deacon Greg)

Tuesday, November 4, 2008

Vote!

Update: 10:30 PM
So much for my prognostication skills. The Obama Machine did a stellar job of getting out the urban and youth vote. Much higher turnout that I would have thought. Overall turnout seems extremely high - and despite the outcome, that is a good thing for our nation. We will survive four years of BO, but I suspect it is not going to be pretty.

And John Murtha has no intention of going quietly into the long goodnight. With just over a quarter of the votes counted, the controversial Democrat is pulling away with a landslide victory over challenger Bill Russell. I picked the winner, but missed badly on the margin.

----------
Do it.


Predictions:
McCain takes PA, VA, OH, FL. Tops 330 Electoral votes.
Murtha takes PA 12th by <>
Keith Obamarman melts down live on MSNBC.
That is all.

Tuesday, October 7, 2008

Autumn in Washington DC

On the job at an event in DC.
I snapped this picture with my phone. It was a Marine helicopter that had just unloaded members of the news media. Another chopper landed nearby and disgorged a party of men in dark suits. VIP of some sort. In the foreground is my work project - a tricked out Hummer filled to the gills with IT gear.

Thursday, October 2, 2008

Palin versus Biden

If only . . .
Wouldn't it be great if they put away their rhetoric and decided the winner in ritual combat, like this: