I want a vacation

I want to take a nice, long vacation. I want to work on some technical projects, and I also want to spend a few hours each day in intensive cardio work. I'd love that.

I'd also love to catch up on my readings. For example, I'd love to read a bunch of books on marketing techniques, philosophy, physics, chemistry, and history. I'd also love to read some poetry and plain old fiction.

And dang it, my driveway and yard need work. Dang it.

Legal advice on immigration

On more than one occasion, this certain young lady has asked me to analyze her immigration proceedings and explain what she should expect. Several times now, in fact. While I was willing to help -- up to a point, that is -- I did strongly advise her that she needs to read up on immigration law if she wants to avoid difficulties.

"Oh, but I don't want to have to do that!" she said.

"Well, if you want to avoid problems with your immigration proceedings, you're going to have to read up on the matter. You need to knwo what to expect, and you can't expect your attorney to do everything."

On the one hand, I understand that she wants to avoid the effort required. On the other hand, it seems to me that if your entire future is riding on such matters, you SHOULD do your very best to educate yourself. That's just common sense.

Trying to keep cool

Keep my head cool, that is. I'm under a lot of stress.

I find myself getting really frustrated with equipment around the house, for example. I got really infuriated at this shoddy piece of wiring used in my satellite dish service, for example. After tugging and tugging on the thing, I got really upset and pretty much blew up for a while.

Now I'm trying to calm down. Getting upset often leads to medical problems down the road, after all.

I remember getting infuriated a few day ago when a car cut in front of me on the highway during a pouring storm. I had to press on my brakes to avoid hitting him, and I started to skid a bit. I pretty much leaned on my horn to let him know that he had done something really dumb and placed me in danger.

It took me a while to calm down after that.

Love the new Discover promo

I just love the new Discover Channel promo -- the one that goes "Boom de yada, boom de yada."

I want to make up my own lyrics to this song.

"If you don't like this tune,
Then something's wrong with you.
You have no freakin' clue.
You must be dead inside.
Boom de yada. Boom de yada. Boom de yada. Boom de yada."

I'm exhausted

I'm exhausted. I'm beat. I'm really, really tired, and I'm not getting enough sleep. In part, it's because I have so much work to do AND I'm also trying to squeeze in extra exercise so that I can slim down for a change. It's tough.

If I were more attractive, then I might not be as concerned. One has to work with the hand that one is dealt, though. One has to do one's best.

Difficult people

I remember way back when I had to work with two labmates, D and G.

D was an arrogant loudmouth with a horrible temper and extremely poor people skills. Everyone was constantly concerned that he would mouth off to the wrong person and get himself fired or chewed out. (Amazingly, he was fairly popular with the ladies. This goes to show that some women do love the dominant types who don't treat people well.)

G was a racist bastard. He was active in his church, but outside of his church, he was cruel and harsh. He would continually refer to Indians as "Hadji," as though oblivious to the fact that he was uttering a racial slur. (Honestly though, I'm sure he was aware of it. He just didn't care.)

Both of them were supposedly adults, but they acted more like 14-year-olds. I'm glad I don't have to deal with them anymore.

AT&T DSL: I'm annoyed

Well, AT&T finally fixed my DSL connection. Finally. And they didn't have to enter my home to do it.

The thing is, I wish they had figured that out beforehand. It seems to me that they should have been able to do so. The customer support rep said that other subscribers had been affected by this outage, so I'm surprised that they didn't make that connection.

Of course, I don't know the whole story, so I won't say that for sure.

The AT&T junction box is across the street from me. From past experience (yeah, it's happened before), I know that the repair techs sometimes have to go to this box in order to effect repairs. Well, I saw an AT&T van right by this box yesterday morning, so I suspect that they had some idea that it was a hardware problem outside of my home. I also saw a van there this morning, right after my network access started working. Go figure.

My DSL connection

I am deeply annoyed.

A few days ago, my DSL connection degraded into a slow trickle. It was worse than dial-up... many times worse. Argh.

I called tech support, but they couldn't really help. After trying a few unhelpful tests (tests which I could pretty much tell were shots in the dark), they agreed to send a technician over in three days. (I was going to be out of town for two days; hence the delay.) Unfortunately, this required that I leave work early and wait for the guy.

Well, after waiting for over an hour, I called and asked where he was. The customer support rep didn't know, but he did ask me to wait longer. Argh.

A few minutes later, I got a call, stating that the problem was traced to some circuits outside my home. I was informed that they would not be sending a technician over after all.

Grumble. They couldn't have figured that out sooner? After all, it had been three day since I reported the problem. You'd think that they would have made the logical connection by then.

Now, I won't be hasty to judge. I don't know the whole situation after all. Still, it was bloody annoying.

Travelling alone

I wish that I had someone to travel with. That'd make all this travelling a bit more enjoyable. Flying by myself and staying in a tiny hotel room by myself gets to be pretty lonely at times.

Noisy kids on airplanes

Today I had the unpleasant experience of sitting in front of a loud, noisy kid on an airplane. This child was talking loudly through most of the flight, and was carrying on conversations with children in some of the other rows (his siblings, presumably).

What's more, he kept tapping my seat. (Remember, he was seated behind me.) On more than one occasion, I had to to turn to him and say, "Please stop hitting my seat."

Unfortunately, some parents don't bother to keep their children under control. They'll let the children talk loudly during flights, as though they were oblivious to the fact that other passengers are trying to rest or get some reading done. Argh.

Eating while on the road

Eating lean while you're on the road can be a challenge.

It's hard to find a restaurant where you can eat non-fattening food at a reasonable price. When I'm lucky, I find myself in a hotel that has a microwave oven and that's close to a supermarket. Usually though, that's not an option.

Tonight I'll be trying a seafood restaurant. Seafood offers a good number of lean, nutritious options, but it isn't cheap. I'm trying it anyway, though; after all, I went cheap for lunch. (I brought my own sandwich, thus saving my employer the cost of my lunch.) Besides, I figure that if I'm going to be travelling, I should same some of the local cuisine instead of always eating at generic chain restaurants.

Carrying luggage around

There's a certain piece of luggage that I normally use on business trips. It has wheels and an extendable handle, allowing the weary traveler to simply wheel this thing around.

Guess what? I almost never use that feature.

I'd rather carry the bag around. First, this helps build up my shoulder and forearm muscles, and it helps burn calories. This is really helpful when you've spent most of the day sitting in an airplane with no place to go.

And second, I can get around much more quickly when I carry this bag around rather than dragging it behind me. Ditto for my heavy laptop bag.

One of my co-workers -- a fairly tall fella -- said that he needs a small laptop. "I don't want to get tired from carrying my laptop around," he said. "That's why I need one that's very small and very light." I won't begrudge him that, but since you pay a price premium for small laptops, I'd rather own a larger one and then build up the strength needed to carry it around. Heck, my laptop is very heavy, and I carry a massive amount of other stuff in the same bag. Do I travel a lot? Not really, but I do have to carry this bag to work everyday. I honestly don't mind.

Heavy duty work

I've had a pretty intense calorie-burning weekend. It has involved heavy resistance training, shoveling mulch, tree planting, mowing the lawn, turning over compost, filling up driveway cracks, and more. Later today, I will do more lawn mowing, shovel more mulch, and get some cardio work done. A lot of that will be in the blazing sun.

I hate this.

Ten Common Copyrighting Problems

Here is another list from that book I mentioned earlier, Copy Writing For Dummies. The author's wording is a bit awkward, though. In some of these item titles, he describes the problem. In others though, he hints at a solution. The full cures for these problems are described in the book.

• Establishing focus when your message is diffuse
  
• Getting specific when your writing is vague
  
• Getting real when your copy is jargon-filled
  
• Speaking the customer's language when the tone is wrong
  
• Talking about the customer when your copy is self-flattering
  
• Using active words to fight the "flat"
  
• Being bold when your pitch is too soft
  
• Trimming text when your copy is wordy
  
• Making an offer when your conclusion is wilting
  
• Going back to the source when you have writer's block
  

It's Friday the 13th! Whoopee-doo.

It's Friday the 13th. Eaugh. You know what that means.

This entire week has not been going well for me, so I'm not exactly fazed by this omen of bad luck, though.

Ten Things To Do Before Writing Marketing Copy

The following list is from the book, Writing Copy for Dummies by Jonathan Kranz. He calls these "Ten Things You Should Always Do Before Writing" (by which he means copywriting).

• Creating the Team
  
• Clarifying the Purpose
  
• Setting the Benchmarks
  
• Gathering the Facts
  
• Resolving the Format
  
• Establishing the Copy Points
  
• Turning Features into Benefits
  
• Profiling the Customer
  
• Identifying the Marketing Challenges
  
• Setting the Tone
  

Merging in traffic

Quick! What is the most important thing to remember when merging onto a highway?

The most important thing to remember, of course, is that you should only merge when you have an opening. In other words, look in your mirror and over your shoulder for a gap into which you can merge.

The next most important thing to bear in mind, however, is that you must match the speed of the highway traffic. In other words, you should accelerate until you match the highway speed and then merge. Sadly, so many people don’t seem to understand the importance of this.

I remember being stuck behind this woman on a highway in California once. We were both on the on ramp, but she apparently decided to come to a complete halt before merging into the traffic stream. In the meantime, I was freaking out. I was yelling, “Don’t come to a complete stop before you merge, lady!” Why? Because that just makes merging more difficult. It’s also plenty dangerous, since it greatly increases the risk that someone will ram into your rear.

Made things difficult for me too, since I was stuck behind her. In other words, I had to come to a complete halt as well, even though I knew better.

Just last night, I had to keep tapping my horn at this one motorist. He was trying to merge into my traffic lane, but instead of accelerating, he slowed down practically to a crawl. In the meantime, I felt like yelling, “Go ahead and merge, already!” He apprently didn’t understand that if vehicles like mine slowed down because he was moving at a snail’s pace, then we risked being rear-ended as well.

Conversel, there was this one other fella who was trying to get off the highway. Instead of driving firmly onto the off-ramp though, he slowed down and changed lanes slowly, almost painstakingly. The result? He occuped both lanes for an obscene amount of time, so my car, as well as the ones behind me, had to slow down to dangerous speeds as well. Ugh.

Feeling irritable

I'm busy doing housework again late tonight -- laundry and cleaning. I have so much tidying to do, and I finished a good amount of yard work and digging as well. And it's warm and humid as well, which is making me feel very, very irritable. Ugh.

Gotta get ready for a business trip as well. Argh.

I am feeling so very irritable. I know I've said that, but I'm really on edge right now. I'm going to start running the air conditioner again, even though it'll drive my electric bill up. Yeesh.

Watching movies as a kid

When I was growing up, our family almost never watched movies right from the start. Rather, our parents insisted on walking into a movie midway through the story. Only once did I ever catch a movie right from the start -- an obscure Pinocchio movie that I watched on my fifth birthday. Little did I know at the time that I would never get that experience again until I reached my teens and could watch movies on my own.

I can understand missing the start of a movie once or twice, but consistently? Clearly, something is wrong.

The problem was that our family never properly appreciated the artistry that goes into a good movie. Start watching midway through, and you don't know what all the backstory is. You wind up guessing needlessly, perhaps missing some of the humor and dramatic subtleties.

Oh, and of course, you have to sit through maybe 15-20 minutes of idle time between films as you wait for the next showing. Talk about poor use of time!

Ultimately, this was all caused by poor use of time. We'd be out and about, shopping or having dinner. Well, with judicious planning, we could have taken a break from the shopping to watch the movie, and then resumed shopping afterwards if necessary. That never happened, though.

So what's the big deal, one might ask? After all, you still got to watch the film, right? True, but one is robbed of the experience of seeing the story unfold as it should. One can still enjoy the film, but one cannot savor its full experience. It's like hoping for a rich steak and settling for hamburger instead.

Sledge Hammer

Just finished watching the final DVD of the 80s cult hit, "Sledge Hammer." Now that was a clever show. David Rasche is a comedic genius who should have won an Emmy. Anne-Marie Martin was also perfectly cast in her role.

Too bad this show didn't get the exposure that it needed. I do have to give the network credit for airing it in the first place, though. That's more than what most TV suits would have done.