Download Hmmcast #73 mp4

Today our oldest teen turns that magical, mystical 17, happy birthday Jowl! His birthday present is described in the video.

We need to take him to get his picture ID so he can prove he’s old enough to get into R rated movies. He doesn’t drive yet and hasn’t really been that interested in getting his driver’s license (fine with us). He doesn’t need to drive anywhere when walking gets him all around town. Next year he’ll be old enough to gamble at some indian casinos in our state. And three years after that the master unlock birthday (21) arrives.

After 21, I stopped looking forward to birthdays but counted the days before that. Ahhh, the energy of youth. As parents we live through the eyes of our children and when they get excited about something it’s fun for us too.

As for my return to the EVDO? It’s not completely official yet as we need to stress test it this weekend, however if all goes well — and I believe it will — then I’ll need to take down the counter that says “without cell phone service” on the home page. In fact, I’ll do that right now and just stop at 78 days.

It’s well known to even casual gamblers that casinos don’t have clocks. Soon, we’ll be able to blame the Post Office for following suit. They are claiming it’s for different reasons, of course:

“Well, they’ve been removed,” confirmed Stephen Seewoester, a Dallas spokesman for the Postal Service, which is an independent agency of the federal government’s executive branch. “We want people to focus on postal service and not the clock.”

Great, and how long before the price of a stamp reaches 50 cents? Personally, I don’t care so much about the clocks because I wear a watch and I’m sure many others have cell phones with clocks, so it’s really just a matter of convenience having clocks. There probably will come a day that clocks just float in front of us whenever we want them to appear. All we’ll have to do is think “clock” and the time will appear, ticking off the seconds.

That technology isn’t here yet but I don’t rule it out someday. Wearing a watch is a bit bothersome and I don’t wear it while working, so it sits on the desk staring back at me. I only put it on when leaving my desk because I don’t carry a cell phone or any other timepiece so there is the process of taking it on and off every day. Do you wear a watch or do you use your cell phone as your timepiece?

My wife had a SPOT watch for awhile but canceled service because it didn’t work where we live, some 45 minutes south of the Microsoft campus. The watches were a bit bulky too.

My Pocket PC has the time too but I don’t always carry that around. The wristwatch is essential as my wallet with driver’s license. What about you?

Forget basketball, the real March Madness could be happening next Sunday, March 11 at 2am, in the form of a Daylight Savings Change.

Devices from the tiniest BlackBerry to the largest mainframe computer must be updated to ensure their internal clocks “spring forward” by one hour at the right moment rather than on the old date, which has been written into countless programs. Similarly, they must be reprogrammed to revert to standard time a week later than usual, on Nov. 4.

Who do we blame if this results in technological confusion? Congress, of course!

Google Calendar + Google Homepage + events
We’ll get back to this March daylight savings stuff in a second, but something more productive first. Have you checked out AmbientClock (free gadget)? If you use Google Calendar and the Google Homepage you can see your events at a glance, including help with drive times commute. Pretty handy. Thanks Lifehacker.

No daylight savings concerns here, you?
I’m not worried that I’ll wake up next Sunday and find any of our computers confused. My wind-up watch, which needs to be manually set will be wrong, but it’s showing the wrong date now too (pause to change from the 30th to the 3rd). The Washignton Post story makes it sound a little like another Y2K scare for some businesses:

At T. Rowe Price, about two dozen information-technology staffers have been coordinating with more than 160 vendors to make sure the 200 computer applications used in the Baltimore brokerage firm’s offices will operate seamlessly March 11 and beyond.

Yikes.

Perhaps a little hyperbolic, but just remember Y2K? The biggest non-event event in recent computing history. Back to basketball, the real March madness.

Maybe I don’t want to visit New York after all. The city can’t be all that bad, but then I still vividly remember the James Herbert novel The Rats.

An ADF-owned KFC/Taco Bell was closed by New York health inspectors last week after TV news crews peering through the windows recorded about a dozen rats skittering across the floors and climbing on tables and countertops. The restaurant wasn’t open at the time, and officials later said construction in the basement might have stirred up the rodents.

As someone who worked in the restaurant business at one time and fortunately never experienced any public relations meltdown to this degree, this is not going to be easy to rebuild business at these restaurants when/if the health department signs off on them. We had the occasional mouse sighting, which freaked a few people out, but nothing a call to the Orkin boys couldn’t resolve. It’s rare seeing one rodent, much less multiple ones. And the fact that a TV crew could document the sighting on video is even more unsettling.

Perhaps the most disturbing part of this story, once you get past the rats, is they got a clean report from the health department. The health department in our area was brutal — and that’s a good thing. I clearly remember this inspector making our lives miserable during his routine inspections. At the time he seemed to be a nuisance, but in hindsight I’m glad he was that way. It’s not only the right thing to do, it’s job security keeping a restaurant in compliance.

The rats have to go somewhere, I’d just like to think it’s never going to be “skittering across” the table where I’m chowing down on a burrito.

None of our children like to read.

I’m saddened somewhat by this reality, but it’s time to face facts. We’re now having to force our youngest teen to sit and read aloud to me for a minimum 15 minutes each day. It’s the first thing he needs to do when he gets home is come see me and start reading aloud.

I never much cared for reading aloud, but love reading otherwise. My reading these days isn’t for adventure and suspension of belief like it was when I was younger as much as it is news (RSS feeds), documentation and nearly all non-fiction.

Blame it on … ?
What’s to blame for children not being excited about reading? When both your parents love to read and you are surrounded by books, I don’t think parenting is to blame. So what are the other distractions? What are driving kids away from the wealth of information and amazing places you can only visit in your mind?

Computers
I had a computer when I was younger (Vic-20 first) and started programming at a young age. There were lots of times I chose reading over tapping at the keyboard. The presence of a computer can’t be the main culprit. Or can it?

TV
Not in our house. We’ve had no TV service by choice for 250+ days. I’m not sure TV is stealing reading time like it did 15, 10 or possibly even 5 years ago. When I was a child I liked to watch TV, but I still enjoyed reading more. Give me a good Ray Bradbury story over anything on TV. Well, maybe except for Twilight Zone.

Internet
The internet could be guilty. Last night I went to help a friend with is LAN. The christmas present for his teenage daughter was a laptop and she felt like the computer was broken because it couldn’t get connected to the internet. Where was the first place she went to test the internet in the browser? MySpace. I’m glad none of our teenagers are that into MySpace.

Cell phone / Texting
At least in the case of my friend, this was non-stop while I was working on his network. His daughter was going back and forth text messaging with her friends. I could tell by the annoying sounds the phone made. She switched it to vibrate but it still made noise that even annoyed her father. His daughter seemed disturbed that our boys weren’t into text messaging. Is this trend more common with girls than boys? Our teens can’t get into text messaging because we don’t have cell phones. When I told my friend’s daughter this you’d have though my name was Fred Flintstone.

Video games (Xbox 360, Wii, PS3, etc)
In our household this is the primary reading time stealer. Our kids would much rather play videogames than read. Maybe games should have more reading rather than cinema type video. Text games like Zork would encourage reading. How about choose your own adventure type games. So much emphasis on graphics these days and not text.

Other
There are other activities like sports that could take away from reading and I’m sure readers can think of more to add in the comments below.

I told our youngest son (pictured above reading) that what would make us really happy parents is if he read not because we told him he had to but because he wanted to read. I don’t believe forced reading exercises work. Forced anything with teens can meet with unpredictable and undesirable results.

Idea: family book day
I think a family trip to the book store is on tap for this weekend. Everybody picks out at least one book. We pick a day each month and unplug from the games and the internet and read for pleasure. Think something like shutdown day but every month, not every year.

Any other ideas for positively promoting and encouraging reading in kids? Perhaps some incentive plans for them for reading books? To me the biggest incentive was being fascinated by the storyteller, but maybe today’s younger generation requires something more?

Been trying something experimental this morning with my virtual worlds identity. I signed up for Kaneva.com which is a 2D world that has a 3D world you must be invited into (thanks Harold).

The experimental part for me is I’m accepting any friend request and getting into this whole voting for people’s profiles and communities which they call ‘rave.’ Unlike my MySpace profile which has like two friends, one of which is Tom, I already have 19 friends on Kaneva. The thing is, none of these people are actually friends. I don’t know any of them at all. It’s almost scary how fast I went from 0 friends to 19 friends, but strangely compelling. Have I been bitten by the social networking bug?

(no, but my virtual worlds identity might have been)

Rave whoring? It seems so. What sort of social low point (or is this normal?) has my virtual worlds identity slipped to? Is this the kind of thing people do at MySpace? My Kaneva profile is here, rave me and I’ll rave you back. Add me as a friend, even if you’re Charles Manson, my virtual world identity doesn’t seem to have any bounds to whom he’ll call a “friend.” Rave, I tell you. Rave, rave, rave!

(say it isn’t so!)

All this and I still haven’t been active enough to get an invite to see the 3D portion of the Kaneva. Maybe that happens tomorrow? Hmm.

Update 1:54pm PST: Within a couple hours and 25 or so “raves” from others I was sent an invitation by email. I’m putting together a separate post with pictures and additional details of my findings inside Kaneva 3D.

Argh, oil changes.

Don’t change my own oil, never have and probably never will. I’m not a mechanically-oriented guy. I don’t mind getting my hands dirty doing physical work, but I don’t like grease and grime under my fingernails. I understand that oil changes are necessary car maintenance but it’s one of those things in life I’d rather pay somebody else to do. In fact, I’ll describe my dream oil changing scenario.

Our vehicle contacts the oil changing company of my choice when it’s time for an oil change. The person contacts me using my preferred method of communication to setup an appointment to come and get my car from our work or home. They change the oil, charge my credit or debit card, clean the inside of the car, wash and wax the exterior and return the car to my office or home location.

I’d pay a minimum of $100 USD for this service every 3,000 miles or three months. Does such a service exist?

Instead the process I usually face is going to one of these drive-thru oil change places or visiting the local mechanic. The waiting rooms for these places are never clean and don’t have WiFi, so it’s BYOI (Bring Your Own Internet). The process doesn’t take that long, but it’s the whole process of getting in the car, driving to the shop, waiting the few minutes for the oil change (and it doesn’t take long), paying, then leaving. The process is an hour easy and if you do that four times a year on average that looks something like this:

Age 16 - 86 = 70 years
70 years x 4 hours per year = 280 hours
280 hours / 24 hours per day = 11.66 days

11.66 days over the course of my life gone for oil changes, assuming I spend 4 hours a year on oil changes and live to age 86. It’s much worse if you go to most dealers to get your oil changes done. If you change your own oil and love doing it, then this really isn’t “lost” time. Nor if you schedule lunch around getting your oil changed, I suppose. Do you like changing your own oil?

Perhaps my dream oil change system will be realized in the next 5-10 years. In the meantime, I don’t want to waste sands in the hourglass of life in some unkempt waiting area for some greasy-handed dude/dudette to come tell me my car is done and break out the plastic.

Ok, I’m out of here to go burn an hour. Maybe when I return some smart reader will have pointed me to something close to my dream oil change system.

Download Hmmcast #63 mp4

Mr. Freeze Hmm review, Maximatic

If others cannot depend on you, particularly in the workplace but also in life, that is a trait to work and fixing ASAP. Having a good work ethic trumps so many other flaws.

In my history employing others one of the most common problems people have had that either self terminated, were fired or had to be reprimanded (written up) revolved in some way or another around their dependability. Could we count on the person to show up on time, be willing to give more when other employees were undependable and let the business down? Or was the person habitually showing up tardy or calling in sick.

I realize everybody gets sick once in awhile but when someone is calling out sick 30-40% of the time, you know something is amiss. If it’s a legitimate health issue that’s an exception, so let’s focus on “sick” without doctor’s orders to stay out from work. How about someone calling in sick that you see out and about in town? I remember this one employee that was so clueless he called in sick for his shift and then showed up at the end of the shift to go party with his other friends at work. Argh.

People not showing up for work or late really sucks. It can force others to stay later or the business to be short staffed which could generate inferior customer service and ultimate increase the liklihood of dissatisfaction and complaints. No business that wants to stay one wants the number of complaints to increase.

If only all parents taught their children the importance of dependability
If there is anything I can teach our children about work, I hope it is to be dependable. Be on time every — or the vast majority of — times. Be reliable. Be the one that is willing to come in when others are saying no. Be the one to skip something perhaps more fun to answer the call at work. That doesn’t mean never turn down your boss, but pick and choose those times very carefully. Make sure whatever else you are doing is more important than helping the people putting the food on the table.

And yes there are times things in life are more important than work, so please don’t anybody think I’m saying to be a slave to the job and boss. That every call from the boss should be the butt kissing yes. Not saying that at all.

From experience I’ve learned that dependability is a highly desirable work trait and it’s something no matter how skilled one is or isn’t everybody has the ability to offer their employer. It’s amazing how many forget this and are undependable in the work force. If you want more from your job, ask yourself honestly how dependable an employee you’ve been?

Don’t think if you are self-employed like me that we get a free pass on dependability. If anything the self-employed have to be even more dependable and driven. If you are undependable in your business then the business suffers and that means reduced profits. It is also hard demanding employees be dependable if the boss is the opposite. The fish stinks at the head.

I can tell you from past oportunities, advancement and raises from a management perspective that it is very difficult to pass over an employee that is dependable. It’s equally difficult to pass over somebody qualified that does a good job when they are there, but has dependability problems. I remember having to make a choice between two employees one time for a promotion and I chose the one who was less skilled but more dependable. A big part of job performance includes dependability.

It isn’t how good you are if you aren’t there most, if not all, of the time. I’m going to share this post with our teenagers who will be entering the work world (outside helping out in our offline business here and there) and hopefully it resonates.

Enter your Zip Code, keyword and spin the wheel of food to figure out where to eat locally this afternoon. Mashup developer Krazydad explains:

I’ve used Yahoo! Local to power the wheel. Enter your zip code and a query string, such as lunch, steak or vegetarian and the Wheel will discover many of the local establishments that fit the bill.

Gotta love the Wheel’s disclaimer that knows where you live. Nice one.