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By coscooper
A movie, —really!
Air-conditioning, wherefore art thou? Ours is a big grey lump sitting stoically on the side of the house, silently waiting to spread it’s goodness throughout our interior. However, the truth is, having the house cooled down is NOT the real reason it should be on. Colorado summers aren’t that bad, A/C is for wimps. Noise abatement is my one argument for turning the beast on.
Sleeping with the windows open is a challenge, even for small town living. Longmont is only about 80,000 folks, give or take. For such a family oriented, small metropolis, you’d think with all those kids and retired folks, everyone would be settled in for the evening early, but nooooo, they sure don’t follow the rules of the campground. Settle down after 9pm. Instead, it “seeeeems” the general population likes to crank up to a roar by testing their varied street vehicles, motorcycles, thumping boom boxes or sports car. If they are home, sitting on decks yammering until the wee hours of the morning must be the other memo I didn’t get. Our towns “cruising” laws don’t seem to really work and miss manors book on common courtesy must not have made it’s way around our neighborhood.
Lying with warm skin on top of cool sheets really isn’t that bad. Colorado nights cool off quickly making it bearable, usually down right chilly the next morning. So the real issue is the noise. Unfortunately, we know every dog in our neighborhood by name, though we’ve never seen them personally. Our little slice of town seems to be made up of home bodies who like to sit on their deck until late talking in low murmurs like Charlie Browns teacher or those Sims from the popular game just loud enough for sleepus, interuptus.
Some emergency provider didn’t discover his GPS last night, or it must have been on the fritz as sirens wailed endlessly tapering off into the distance, then seemingly headed back into our audible circle, turned into yet another direction bouncing around town trying to find their mark. After multiple attempts, they must have stumbled upon the emergency.
Town officials at some council meeting way back in the stone age voted a law into action that requires train engineers to announce their embedding approach even if blinking lights flash or long red and white arms are spread across the road. Engineers who wonder into Longmont seem to take the timing literally, blasting their warning horns for hours on end as they meander through town. Five crossings later, they’ve made their point.
Cost be damn, I’m lobbying for the A/C to be ramped up, not because it’s hot, but because our town doesn’t follow the campground rules. Settle down after 9pm.
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By coscooper
Job hunting is almost a full time job, but the tasks are tedious and frankly boring. I mean, if you were asked by your current employer to search through a myriad of job sites, poke through every company web site you’d like to work with looking for that perfect job description hoping that they magically posted a new option, writing compelling, relevant cover letters and going through every variation of a job application, you’d tell your boss you were nuts, right? Well, that pretty much sums up my mornings, among other things.
When people ask how it’s going or what’s your status, I tell them I’m still “underemployed”, meaning, I work, but not enough to pay the bills. Besides reaching out to my network, following up on leads and the dreaded seek and apply work, I also do other things to stay busy. While it’s not a stigma anymore to be “underemployed” for a period of time, it does look good that you’re busy filling in your time with related work rather than catching up on the latest soap-opera or catching all those “new career” commercials. (Okay, I watch a little daytime TV, but not much.)
Besides the job hunt, I find myself writing a lot more than before. I bang out more blog posts, like this, and I pump out a number of articles for various online venues like Examiner, eHow and several others. Elance also has some freelance optional work, but it’s hard to land projects with all the “off-shore” contractors. Along side the article freelancing, I’ve been really catching up on those two novel projects I’ve worked on and off the past few years. In fact, I’m finished with one, High Lies, it’s now on the back burner, I’m letting it settle out of my brain. I’ll pick it up in a few weeks to review my handy work and decide if it’s worth selling to an agent or not. Jodi says that being a novelist is my retirement plan, we’ll see.
In my spare time, I also come up with every business idea I can think, Pro-Services company, news website, IT Project Management company, several software ideas for the iPad, to name a few. I hearken back to the early days of Jeff Bezos and J.K. Rowling thinking that if something pops into my mind for a good business plan or a great book, maybe that will work out. Pipe dreams to be sure, but I’m busy, underemployed really.
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By coscooper
Pumping Gas
When I was back in college and beyond, my monthly gas budget for my car was always up in the air. At college, I spent most of my time between classes, walking. So, my old clunker sat near my dorm parking lot, for the most part.
Ah, the old red Ford, I fondly remember it well. It was a “hand-me-down” to be sure, but it ran great. In fact, it was so reliable, I took it on a long road trip from Texas to Florida one fall (Big Sandy to Pensacola, to be exact). With over 150-thousands miles on the engine, it made the trip with little excitement, except for the Porsche 911 we followed to make good time, but other than that, it was rock-solid. Graeme, my good friend, and I pushed it to the limit a few times, but by and large, it was a strong running car.
So, way-back-when, I was on that tight gas budget, I would only put about five-bucks worth of gas in the car at any given time. Today, as I look for a new job and/or work from home I rarely drive my cars (yeah, surprise, surprise considering my recent past with cars). Stopping at the local Connoco or Shamrock, depending on which side of Target I find myself, I’ve dug up memories from those, oh-so-frugal college days of putting gas in the car I hardly drive.
Even though it’s been, (clearing throat), over twenty years since I attended college, keeping gas in the older SUV today requires a slight adjustment in gas price thinking. With regular income, my MO was to just keep the tank topped off all the time. Now, not so much.
Today, I only throw in about $15 bucks worth of gas in the old tank, so I call it, “15 is the new 5″.
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By coscooper
No more Dish
No, not talking about the stupid reality TV Show with Paris Hilton or Nichole Richie, I’m talking about going back to simpler way of watching TV without all the costs.
We’ve killed our TV! That’s right, we no longer have a TV entertainment system like we did last week. No, I didn’t smash, destroy or burn, them (We have four in the house). Instead, we turned off the Dish Network service, the Satellite Dish is gone, literally. I took it off the roof and it’s being stored in the garage, just in case.
We made the switch to Over The Air (OTA) service, good old fashion free television. Of course, the first order of business was to buy a digital antenna, which was about as expensive as one month of Satellite service. Here’s the kicker, the HD signal we get directly from the local stations kicks satellite and cable to the curb. I mean, sure, we only have 26 channels, (most of them in spanish) but the main 5 channels (NBC, CBS, ABC, FOX, CW) are crystal clear and “real” HD. The draw back, we’re seeing some skin blemishes we really don’t need to see, but hey, it’s like the newscasters are right there in our living room.
So, what prompted this? Two things. Um, well, no income (err job) and we’re tying to par down all expenses for the foreseeable future (No, I don’t think the end is here or an apocalypse is eminent, can you say COLLEGE TUITION), even if a steady stream of income starts back up, it’s just ridiculous the amount of money we have spent on things in the past, including TV entertainment.
We’re two days in, so far, so good. We’re having DVR withdrawals, but on the bright side, we’re watching commercials we didn’t know existed. Some funny, some not so funny and pausing TV is non-existant. Next order of business will be to build a DVR with our old PC, but there’s costs involved, so that’ll be a while.
In the mean time, we watch “LIVE” TV, (what a concept) and if there’s nothing on, then we have NetFlix online (Ok, we kept one thing), there’s the Xbox360 with loads of games and of course, (clearing throat) there’s always books to read, bikes to ride and outdoor activities to do.
Now, I have the old “Green Acres” theme song running in my head. Dunt-dunt, dunt-dunt-dunt, DUNT-DUNT… Greeeeen Acres is the place for me! (Wait, that should be Dylan with his summer job. – For those that are lost, Green Acres was a sixties sit-com and Dylan is working at a local organic farm (9-News piece coming soon, will update when schedule of Dylan on News is released.)
So, that’s it, we’ve gone back to free TV, no DVR, using NetFlix, the Internet, games, books and outdoor activities for our entertainment. What next? Cooking over an open fire, oh, wait, we do that with the grill nearly every night.
Stay Tuned!!! (Pun intended)
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By coscooper
My morning pretty much starts with a set of common rituals I’ve done for years. During the week, I like to catch up on news, read about new technology and get ready for the day. Right now, that ritual includes my iPhone, but… the screen is too small.
In the old days —well about two years ago — after pouring my morning coffee, I’d plod out to the driveway, rain, snow, shine or cold and retrieve the paper. After grabbing the paper, I’d make some breakfast, update my coffee, sit at the table and read through my favorite sections. Of course, to be honest, I started with the comics, THEN went to the real news, or what ever the local paper had decided to pick up from AP and local happenings. After finishing the paper and breakfast, I’d track down my laptop and fire up my email, check through the evenings spam, then move to the important stuff.
That was then, this is now. First, I bought an iPhone last year. Second, we canceled the paper. I had to go looking for other ways to get my morning news. That was one thing about the paper, it didn’t cover all the things I like. Today, I read a lot more about subjects I’m interested, feeling that I’m more informed than before.
Today, I start my day with that cup of coffee, that wont ever change, then I pick up my iPhone, first thing. Starting with the AP application, I sift through their top reports reading what looks interesting. I also like USA Today. Same thing, I sift through their top reports, sports and then tech sections to hit the highlights. All the while, I’m making breakfast, but I’m not as compelled to sit at the table anymore. Now I sit at the bar or in the family room. Kind of anywhere I plop. My last stop on my iPhone is All Things Digital, which is extremely focused on the tech industry with such articles about who’s buying who, new gadgets, what Apple employee left a new iPhone at a bar, new startup interviews, plus they have videos at current conferences and more. I then pop open an aggregate news tool called Fluent News. It pulls in feeds from CNN, ABC, CBS, FOX and others, which I use to fill in any gaps missed by my favorites.
More… so, once the world news and technical news is up-to-date, I’ll check the weather, even though I can see what it looks like outside, it’s still good to know what’s going to happen. Next, I switch to email, usually quickly review due to the screen size. Final stop is Facebook and LinkedIn to see if anything interesting is going on there. Finally, I end my morning with OmniFocus. Since I try to adhere to the GTD strategies, OmniFocus is for planning my daily todo and projects.
That’s pretty much my morning most days. I rarely fire up my laptop until I’m ready to get going with projects and other activities. So, why did I title this blog “I want an iPad!” — well, I do a lot on the iPhone and since I use it more of a mini-computer than a cell phone, an iPad would do all of this better, I think. In fact, since I hardly fire up my laptop until later in the morning, I could probably do just about everything on the iPad. I primarily use Pages, Numbers and Keynote, so since those are available on the iPad, I’m nearly there. I also use OmniGraffle, OmniFocus, a web browser, a writing tool (Scrivener) and dictionary most days. So, looking at what I primarily do, an iPad would just about do it all for me.
My problem is: I just purchased a new laptop last fall, like most, I just can’t justify an iPad no matter how much I’d like to have and use one. While I’m not advocating ditching a laptop or desktop (yet), I’m advocating that 80% of what I do on a daily (morning) basis could be done on an iPad. I still use Fireworks, Photoshop on occasion and many other activities that crank on this laptop, but my morning would be easier if I had an iPad. I WANT AN IPAD!!
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By coscooper
I am one happy camper today!! Why, you might ask? Well, after 3 long months with a cracked screen, I finally got it fixed yesterday. Now, I can catch up on so much lost time with my iPhone. Whawhoooo!
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By coscooper
I was just talking with a good friend the other night and asked if he and his wife had plans for the weekend. Without provocation, he stated, we’ll, we’re just going to hunker down. Yeah, he’s from Texas, so I fully understood the term.
Hunker down is what most people are doing these days. I know we’ve been hunkered for a year now and trying to limit our spending to “necessities”. When talking with my buddy, Dave, I told him, our new definition of a night out is stopping by Panda Express or going to Chili’s. Back in the “good-ole-days”, Chili’s was our last resort, now it’s our first stop.
When will we stop the hunkering? We’re not sure, but I think our mind-set has changed dramatically. I’m sure many will criticize and say, yeah, well, you guys should have been more conservative back when money was good. Well, hind-sight is 20-20. If everyone whose in financial peril had taken that view, then this country would probably be in better shape.
Just to be clear, we’re not about to loose our house, far from it. We do not miss our bills, still have great credit and are not in financial ruin. We’re just hunkering down.
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By coscooper
Some may know or may not know, but I’ve been a closet writer for several years. I mean “closet” in that it’s just been a hobby and/or passion that I’ve kind of had for years and I’ve not really talked much about it, so “in the closet” in that as a general rule, it’s not something discussed in open. I talk with Jodi, Dylan and have recently mentioned it a few times to people I know, but have kept it on the down-low for the most part.
I guess you could say, I’m kind of “coming out of the closet”. Not because I’m getting over embarrassment or shame or anything like that, but in that I would like more people I know to be aware of my interests as it becomes more “real”. I kind of use the “closet” metaphor (sexual orientation aside) because it sort of fits. I’ve been dabbling for many years with several novel ideas, but rarely if ever discuss it with anyone. I’ve written a ton of short stories, started a few novels, wrote a bunch of outlines & synopsis, but haven’t started or finished any real project. I’ve also worked on formal proposal stuff for work (boring), but nothing in the non-fiction arena. So, I’ve spent time honing skills, but never really done it for more than just that, honing word skills.
Right now, I’m working on three different projects. Two are in the outline stage (I attempt to outline to give myself direction, but find that I deviate a lot). One project I’m working on heavily, like I dream about the story, different scenarios and scenes, that kind of heavy. I took a short story idea and have expanded it. Here on my blog I put out a short story, Snow Blind… and have re-titled it, “White Rain”. I’m very close to getting the story down on paper, err electrons anyway.
Synopsis: In the middle of a snow storm, Nate Sheridan, an aimless, college graduate, ski bum, discovers a young woman, a twin, sitting along the narrow mountain road near his cabin, shot, but alive. Nate is threatened, then forced to kill her assailant, a Russian mobster tangled in a sorted kidnapping ring, who’s brother attempts to exact revenge. Nate, caught between being accused of attempted murder by a vengeful sheriff and the truth, gets entangled with the kidnapers, then becomes the only link to other victims. Taking matters into his own hands, Nate chases the Russians across various Colorado ski resorts only to discover there’s a connection linking the towns, where he and the twins sister, Sam embark on finding and freeing the kidnapped.
So, where do I stand? I’ve had a goal of finishing the rough draft by the end-of-the year, 2009. I’m close. Just today, I’ve banged out a number of chapters, nearly 8,000 words this weekend alone. Whew. I’m right at about 75,000 words and normally 100,000 is average for a full length novel.
So close…
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By coscooper
Chrome Download
I’ve recently upgraded my MacBook Pro to a newer model. Previously, I had purchased the first generation MBP back just months after Apple released the new model back in 2006. It’s served me well, had the mother board replaced, twice, has been dropped several times, jostled around in a back-pack, travelled as much as I did, helped me make a lot of money and then, it finally kept over-heating. It still runs, but if you run YouTube or anything that pushes the graphics, it just shuts-down.
I digress… so, with the new shiny model having sat on my desk for 3 weeks now, I’ve been much more inclined to get back to having fun with my computer. With 8gb of RAM and a hugemongous hard-drive, I’m back to trying all kinds of applications.
Just a few days ago, I’m logging into my GMail account and get presented with the announcement that Chrome is now available on the Mac OSX platform, about time! So, instinctively, I hit the download button and fire it up. I’m met with the fastest launch of any browser installed on my system. Now, it could be the blazing fast new machine, but, I tested a browser launch war. Chrome won hands-down.
So, what makes it so special? Basically, it’s super light-weight, whicked fast, simple and has a few cool features.
- Google Search (Well, any search as you can specify your favorite) is integrated right into the URL field at the top.
- Did I mention it’s blistering fast?
- Rock solid. Supposedly it’s in “Beta” for MacOSX, but it seems more stable than FireFox, my other favorite browser.
- Download Manager – With security checks.
- Popup blockers that are smart. Meaning, if a site has a Java popup or something related to the site, it seems to be smart enough to differentiate. Haven’t tested this fully.
- Kind of goes without saying, all of the Google apps rock in Chrome. They’re fast, responsive and have no issues. IE… GMail, Picasa etc…
- Great looking theme system and the start page with cached history of recent sites is actually useful.
Downside:
- Certain plugins I use on other browsers aren’t supported. IE… XMarks my book-mark sync tool. I’m a little lost without it in Chrome.
- No cool add-ons just yet. I’ll be patient.
- Can’t come up with anything else negative to say.
There you go. If you’re into Macs and want to run the fastest browser out there, give Chrome a spin. I’ve used FireFox for years and it’s still pretty much my GOTO browser.
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By coscooper
So, I’ll put it right out there, I had a small accident the other night. Yeah, accident, but fault is sketchy. I know many know my “old” driving habits, which have morphed, where others are still with me no matter how old and “mature” I get.
To start, road raging is something that I’ve put behind me. Some years ago, not sure when, but I completely started ignoring other drivers who rage out of control. I’ve had some near misses and a few “situations” in my past. One, the soccer mom in her mini-van incident while commuting to my office and car-pooling with my good friend Dave Hix, comes to mind. (I’ll let him fill in the blanks.)
Long story short, somewhere around that “indecent”, I changed my views. I finally figured out that trying to teach strangers a lesson while driving was becoming a mute point, if not a waste of time. A majority of people are selfish, stupid drivers. I can’t fix stupid or selfishness and decided to stop trying.
That was several years ago, now fast forward to Friday night, November 20th, 2009. Quick back story, I’m now involved in an IT Consulting company whereby we all work virtually. One of my partners lives in far south Denver, Lone Tree. We’d just finished several business meetings near his home office. We’d gone to Jing, in the DTC. I retrieved my car at Scotts house. I now drive Jodi’s old car, the Infiniti and was heading home around 5pm. On the radio, the announcer mentioned several parking lots along I-25 corridor meandering through downtown. Deciding not to be late for dinner, I chose to just ride the far reaches of E470 toll that circumnavigates Denver’s east side.
So, with that decision made, I stayed facing east on 470 rather than make the turn north on 1-25. Within minutes, orange construction signs announced the left lane would disappear. I am an observant driver. Staying in the middle lane, I noticed a newer white truck with business lettering in the soon to disappear left lane crawling along. Another “mossier” in the left lane. He signaled, moved in front of me and maintained the slow pace causing myself and several behind me to slow by about fifteen miles per hour. Posted speed is around sixty. The white truck fluctuated it’s speed between forty-five and fifty.
Cars flew by on our right. With several cars on my own tail twitching to move right and pass, I was somewhat stuck. My phone rang. It was easier to just watch the slow tail lights in front of me than figure out if there was an opening in the high-speed traffic flying along in the right lane. Speaking to one of my partners about a few aspects of our recent meeting, I continued to follow the white truck figuring as soon as the cones end their lane blockage, I’d just pass and go on about my business.
Within a few minutes, the rear cargo light came on somewhat blinding me, but it didn’t make a major problem for moving forward. While on the phone, I glanced in my right mirror to see if there was a break. There wasn’t. I continued on at the lower speed, while everyone on the right flew on.
Once the cones stopped, the left lane became available, so even with multiple cars on my tail, I signaled to go left, figuring I had first right of refusal behind the poking truck. Changing lanes, I noticed the sixty-five sign and punched it while still on the phone.
In my window frame, I saw the white truck drop backwards knowing I had wide open road in front and there was no one in front of him in his lane. Finishing my call, I hung up by placing my phone into the cradle on the dash, glanced over my shoulder looking in the right mirror and saw blackness. Not looking over my shoulder, I changed lanes.
Everything changed with the crunch sound as my cars ass shifted left and I was looking too far right. Turning into the sixty mile an hour slide, I didn’t brake. I’ve been driving for years and know that braking can be as damaging as anything. Swinging back in a more straight line, I was processing what just happened, looked in my rear view mirror, I saw headlights drop rapidly indicating who ever I’d just bumped slammed on their brakes.
With commuter traffic in near full swing, I eased to the side of the road to inspect and see what happened. Initially, I thought maybe someone who’d used the right lane for passing had merged back and we’d bumped. In my mirror a set of lights followed me with emergency flashers as we hit the emergency lane. Flipping my visor down to find my paper work, I saw something in the corner of my eye. A guy standing there in the dark waving his arms pointing.
Opening my door, I heard a verbal assault with multiple “F” bombs being dropped in staccato delivery. Standing up at my full six foot three inch stature, the assault stopped immediately as the five foot six guy realized he was verbally berated someone much larger than he and started backing up towards his vehicle. He did continue with his verbal abuse stating things like, “…what, you in a such a big “F-ing” hurry…” – “…just couldn’t wait to get the “F” around me? You ‘F-ing’ idiot…” and a few other choice string of words.
Still not fully comprehending what had happened, and to all those who may have been around me well past ten years ago, I was the epitome of calm. Then it hit me as I looked back at his vehicle, the car I’d bumped was of all things, the white truck that had crawled along causing the earlier backup. All I could think was, he’d sped up out of my vision and I’d not been expecting a vehicle in his lane. Things happen pretty quickly at sixty plus miles per hour.
Anyway, he walked back to his truck where both doors to his truck were wide open and a small child sat in a car seat. He pointed and said a string of explicative’s about his sons safety and all he could think about was his kid. He continued the F bombs, some son-of-bitches as he inspected the scratch on his bumper. He was setting a wonderful example for his son. Hopefully one day, he’ll grow up to follow in his fathers footsteps. I trailed him with a completely calm dameaner. Jumping into the safety of his truck, he glared back at me expecting a return of his own rage. I did nothing of the sort.
“Sorry man, hope you guys are all okay.” I showered him with kindness. Mentioning I hadn’t expected him to be there after his earlier slow speed, “was just passing” etc… he retorted about speeding and being a jerk and a few other derogatory comments, which I assume he was berated my driving style. “I asked him to calm down so we could rationally sort this out.” – he continued with his verbal assault from the safety of his truck. I blinked a few times figuring he was out of control. I told him I was going to return to my car and call this in. He actually got more upset again shouting, “yeah, go ahead call the cops…” He said some other stuff as I walked away, but I’d chose to just ignore him.
At this point, I called the police who asked of course, if anyone was hurt. I told them it was a true fender bender just a few bumper scratches. The operator said, they’d be there as time availed. Translation; you’re low priority, so don’t hold your breath. I walked back to the truck and updated the other driver about my call. He was seathing, but left the verbal comments to a stern, “Fine”.
Sitting in the car, I called Jodi, let her know the situation, texted my partners back and forth and waited. After thirty minutes or so, I saw a car pull up behind the truck. Getting out in preparation for police questioning, I walked back a few feet, but realized it was the guys wife picking up the kid in the truck. I returned to my truck. Wasn’t going to deal with a she-bear and her cub. At this point, I figured if he was out of his mind, his wife probably wasn’t any better.
After another thirty minutes, I was not happy about being late for dinner and the seriousness of the situation did not warrant the time waste. I returned to the truck, where the guy was on the phone, apparently with his boss. He’d calmed quit a bit and actually apologized for his behaviour earlier. My belief is, he was ragging and out of control, which actually caused the situation even though my lane change caused the actual bump.
We agreed to just exchange information and not drag this out any further. I called the police operator back and stated that we were leaving where I was put into a recording system which I left the particulars and details, time, location, vehicles involved, plate numbers and call back numbers.
I took photos with my iPhone. Wrote down all of his details, gave him a business card etc… he did the same. He’d returned to a rational sane demeanor which eased any tension. We parted ways.
- Reflection: on my hour drive home, I revisited what happened and best I can figure, he was one of the many drivers who like to sit in the left lane and show all of us who drive fast how to do it. I’ve seen these before but never actually “run into” one. Well, that luck ran out Friday night. The situation could have escalated, but I chose to keep my cool (yeah, I can see the eye balls rolling now). Mostly, because I’d not given the earlier activities any thought what so ever. I’ve learned to just ignore people on the road. The only thing I can figure was, he’d gotten pissed that I was tail gating, then passed him and decided to increase his speed to either shoot the finger, follow me, maybe even jump in behind me and flash his lights. Who knows, but his car in the other lane was the last thing I was expecting.
It takes all kinds.
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