MacBook Adventures II

Actually, my MacBook adventures have come by way of professional adventures from hell. First, the good, Mac-ish adventures.

So I bought my MacBook - the white one, since to own a black one will cost you $200 more! Jesus Christ! - last Thursday, in a panicked but clear-headed frame of mind that damn it, I am going to finish this report I've been hacking away at since May, and that technically was due at the end of June. So it totally helped me - saved me! I befriended Starbucks, and our relationship evolved into something much deeper. Oh, we shared laughs, we shared tears, we shared frustrations - you have to stop what you're doing, save your work, close up the computer, put it in your bag and carry it with you to the bathroom every time you have to pee. Yes, you're right, Jeff, I thought - you never leave your laptop alone for ANY reason. Oh we people watched, Starbucks and I, especially all those amused students enjoying their half-caff venti skim lattes, deconstructing $10.00 films. What bores. And then those conversations come streaming in, you know, the ones in foreign languages just to distract me from my typing. Oh, fine. By the way, did you know that these new computers automatically find free WiFi networks? Well, most times they do. And did you know that they have names? Names like pastawater, giraffe, and - I really liked this one - getyourown? Oh, and if you log on to the one called TMobile, you get sent to the Starbucks website featuring free wifi with your TMobile phone service, or if you pay just $29.99 a month, you too can surf the web at Starbucks worry-free. Um, no thanks. And how annoying? If you try going to any other website, it sends you back to the Starbucks site. Lame. I also learned that Icahn Stadium in Randalls Island Park has free WiFi. In fact, pretty much everywhere I've been with this thing there has been free WiFi. So go suck it, TMobile! So anyway, I finished my report on my laptop, and though I was home at the time, it was Starbucks that came through for me when I needed it most. Just find a table with access to a nearby outlet, plug in, and stay as long as you need. It's quite a community, us laptoppers. I know, I never thought I'd be ONE OF THOSE people. But I was this week.

Now, the not-so-fun professional adventures. I had no office time in which to work - I was sent to the field at the beginning of June. Fine, I said, I'll work at home, after I get home from bridge inspecting, I'll do what it takes to finish by the magical date of June 30th. Could I maybe make it to the office on occasion to work a late night and get some things done there I couldn't otherwise, like PDF management on Acrobat Professional and AutoCAD drawings? Well, no, since the office opens no later than 8, and if you aren't one of the chosen ones with the master key to the office you gotta leave, them's the rules. And trying to get someone to open the office on Saturday or Sunday had limits, too, because then you're at the mercy of personal schedules, appointments and errands that just will not be interrupted no matter what. Yes, the administrators are king, you see. Damn them peon (oops, I almost just wrote porn engineers, which, when you think about it, is fucking funny) engineers, the ones who actually get the work done so that we can busy ourselves administrating. Okay. Way to run an office, don't you think? Okay, so time goes, by, avoidance behavior starts setting in, and I keep doing small tasks that I can get done at the office, telling myself I did a lot of work, I can enjoy a nice night doing whatever it is that's not getting my report done. Finally I said enough, I'm getting a laptop. Yes, the Mac kind of course. I was worried that trying to get done what I needed to get done efficiently required a Windows machine. But then I thought, the new Macs all come with the ability to install Windows on them, so fine...

More later.

Neo-Nazis in Our Midst

I just read this snippet from Micheal Moore's website. These stories infuriate me, as well they should anyone. The (I'm assuming) men who attacked this man are some of the sickest, sorriest people one could ever (hope not to) meet. In essence they are abusers. And abusers have no place in this world. Their appropriate residence is in hell. This man's attackers do not deserve and are unworthy of any type of debate. They only deserve contempt. And dare I say should I ever come across someone who, unprovoked, willfully beats up or helps to beat up a grieving parent of a dead child, I should like to think I'd be the one to pull him off and proceed to bash the living shit out of him. Not all violence is bad, only violence perpetrated on the unsuspecting, the unprovoked, children. Like that done by wars of aggression. Basically, that which is perpetrated by the abuser to the abused. You know, by George W. Bush- and Barbara Pierce Bush-type people. Violence visited upon the abusers themselves, and only the abusers, IS justified, IS moral.

Always remember that.

MacBook Adventures

Just bought a MacBook (laptop) and loving it. The East Village is wired, too. Way wired!

More to come on this post...