Jimmer's Revenge

An unexpected package arrived this morning. Inside were two pieces of paper, no other explanation.

All I did was mention on Facebook that I had never watched Jimmer play basketball for BYU. Now this?

Watch what you say about yourself on Facebook.

Dust in the Wind

Sunshine coming through the stairwell. Pretty, but time to vacuum.

The Best Stuff 8: E-mail

I almost invented e-mail. In 1993 I was a frustrated Boy Scout leader desperately trying to relay details about upcoming activities to parents of the boys in our troop. (It turns out 12-year-old boys are not the most reliable messengers). It was near impossible to reliably get information to everybody without spending hours on the phone.

I dreamed of a system where everybody had a fax machine connected in their home near the front door, where the mailbox used to be. You could key a message into your computer and then blast it out to multiple people electronically. When they got home from work or school, all the family’s messages would be waiting for them in a pile of transmitted “mail” by the door.

When e-mail came out and everyone started getting addresses, it was heaven. E-mail complemented my introverted side by letting me “talk” to others without the requisite courage and involuntary biochemical side effects involved in making actual eye contact or uncomfortable small talk. Plus I’m an excellent writer (I rocked the GRE writing element) but only an average speaker.

E-mail now makes my current career possible. I work 400 miles from my actual office and collaborate with colleagues all over the country.

There are some downsides. I get 200 messages a day, many of which require action. My Blackberry tethers me to work whether I want it or not.

E-mail was the killer Internet app that led to further advances. Yesterday at a national web conference in DC I met Scott Heiferman, founder of Meetup.com. After living through 9/11 as a New York City resident he realized it shouldn’t take a disaster to befriend your neighbors. His site helps you organize face-to-face activities in your area — it uses the Internet to get you off the Internet. In 2004 this guy from Illinois used Meetup to successfully organize people to help him run for the U.S. Senate; later he moved on to higher office.

Yesterday the AP Stylebook officially recognized the word “email” without a hyphen.

• This is a terrible precedent. Are we now supposed to write “ecommerce,” “ebanking”? Ick.
• I was a philatelist, but even I don’t know how much a first-class stamp costs these days. At this point isn’t it redundant to use the “e”?

Ear Today, Gone Tomorrow

If you're friends with me on Facebook and have been wondering why I had my ear as my profile picture for the last couple months, it's because I was playing with the new layout that adds photos across the top. This screenshot of the big picture may help explain it.

When a friend I haven't seen in 20 years tried to find me last week, and had to go on remembering what my ear looked like, I figured enough was enough.

There Goes The Neighborhood

It's like a war zone out my office window.

Albany Medical Center across the street is tearing down the original portion of the hospital. Huge cranes with buckets pick off chunks of the building throughout the day as workers hose things down to trap dust. I'm assuming it will be construction time again once the de-construction has ended.

Meanwhile across the street they're putting up a giant physicians office tower. Right next to the new parking garage, and across from the new VA administration building they traded us the garage land for.

If you don't go to the hospital that often — first of all, good for you — but next time you're headed to Albany Med you may not recognize the place.

Coating

Starting around noon on Sunday it started raining. Overnight it turned into freezing rain and started coating everything. After which we had several inches of snow on top of that. Getting to work Monday was interesting.

Almost to the office I got trapped in a line of cars as a guy in front couldn't get traction to climb a short hill. A couple people in front got out and pushed him up.

The screens on my office windows were with rippled over with coatings of ice blown sideways into the building. It was pretty to look at.

This is a tree in the parking lot that had diagonal icicles.

I Remember Nothing

Found doodle atop math study notes on the kitchen counter.

Milk in Bags ... Bags!

The Canadians are among us. Joanie's parents arrived to hang out with us this week, and didn't want to let their delicious milk from chilly cows go to waste while they were away.

You can get milk up there in a standard 4L jug (looks suspiciously similar to an American gallon) but it's got a 25¢ deposit hooked to it.

They mentioned milk in bags on 30 Rock the other night, and I'm here to let you know it's for real.

God Who Gave Us Life Gave Us Liberty

It's always good to go back to a previous subject for a reshoot. I was amazed today to look at my Jefferson Memorial photos from 2008 and see how my focus had changed. It wasn't just what I photographed, but also how I handled the interpretation once back at the computer — in the "developing" of my pictures.

Last time it was all about pulling all the flavor-blasted color I could out of an all-gray monument.

This time I've acknowledged the gray and instead emphasized texture and composition. It's Founding Fathers meets Battlestar Galactica.

"God who gave us life gave us liberty. Can the liberties of a nation be secure when we have removed a conviction that these liberties are the gift of God? Indeed I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just, that his justice cannot sleep forever. Commerce between master and slave is despotism. Nothing is more certainly written in the book of fate than these people are to be free. Establish the law for educating the common people. This it is the business of the state to effect and on a general plan."

So say we all.

We Hold These Truths To Be Self-Evident

"We hold these truths to be self-evident that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights, among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, that to secure these rights governments are instituted among men. We ... solemnly publish and declare, that these colonies are and of right ought to be free and independent states ... And for the support of this declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine providence, we mutually pledge our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honour."