Live from Ballston Spa

Slept late. Didn't have to meet my contact until 10:00 am. Saratoga County (pop ~250K)the sheriff's department is in the community of Ballston Spa, a beautiful little town with coffee shops, cafe's, a general store and tall steeples. The sheriff's dept is out on County Farm Road. A newer facility (not as new as New Bern, NC). Memories of being a parole officer flooded over me as I approached. The building just oozes JAIL. Luckily, today was Visitation Day. An older lady got caught trying to pass her grandson a baggy of suspicious white powder during their visit. She was promptly charged and arrested. Chalk one up for the home team and yet more proof that the apple doesn't fall too far from the tree. I should send that in to News of the Weird.

Grabbed lots of data. Grabbed lots of screen shots. Saw a competitors products in production. While I was there, a tech from ACS was dialing in remotely to try to fix an issue with CAD not persisting data. They were dialed in via PC Anywhere. We're all doing the same thing! We're all dealing w/ the reality of complex databases and patching as we go.

Drove around Saratoga Springs some this afternoon. What a beautiful town! I've never seen so many Victorian mansions. Downtown was hip and bustling.

I ran outside for a while. I struggled as I'd had pizza for lunch and all of my running since turning 40 has been on a treadmill. So, I ran out and walked back. I didn't run that far. My gut was killing me. Later, I went down to the fitness room here at the hotel and ran two miles and did some time on a stairmaster (which I did not enjoy). On the treadmill, I varied the incline to sim running uphill and downhill (I liked the negative incline.) Got to keep pushing so I can run in the Burnsville Town Scamper on 10/28/2006; my first 5K run.
After, I laid in the hot spa then jumped in the the pool...ah, hot and cold! I should sleep like a baby tonight.

Trip to Saratoga, NY

Flying out of Asheville today for 2 days in Saratoga, NY. Doing a gold level legacy data collection for Saratoga County Sheriff's dept. Waiting in the Asheville airport at 4:45 pm for my 5:20 Delta flight to Cincinnati, then from Cinci on to Albany. Pick up an avis rental to drive to the hotel in Saratoga Springs.

I'll spend all day Tuesday and Wednesday at the site, collecting their data (SQL), gathering screen shots, collecting reports, and getting familiar with how Saratoga uses their data.

Weather in Asheville is absolutely gorgeous. I'm using the open wireless network provided by the airport. Weatherunderground says its currently 74 in Albany. The high tomorrow is listed as 60. Good thing I brought my jacket. We leave for Morocco in about a month. Our plans are starting to come together.

Getting throught security here was fine. I pushed through the laptop, and a 300GB external hard drive without a hiccup. No one wanted to see my liquids. Did have to remove my shoes. What a pain. I'm always afraid I'm going to forget something when I'm re-assembling on the output side of the Xray. Other passengers' stuff keeps pumping through. I'm trying to move my stuff out of the way, get the laptop back in its case. Re-stow the hard drive, grab my shoes, don't forget my keys and wallet! Arggghh... And this is little old Asheville.

This is the first Gold Level Data Retrieval trip. Chris goes to Pennsylvania next week. The hard drive arrived in Asheville today. Took about an hour to format 300G. Yowza! I'm set to download the whole 'net. Or, at least store a heck of a lot of podcasts.

TTFN!

6:55pm
updating from Cincinnati. Err....well, actually I'm sitting in Kentucky..in the Cincinnati airport. Huh? Did I bang my head? Don't I know where I am? I had to ask the flight attendent to make sure Monie hadn't booked me into the 'wrong' Cincinnati. Turns out that the city of Cincinnati, OH sits on the north bank of the Ohio river, while the Cincinnati airport rests across the river on the south bank. Since the river is the boarder between OH, and KY, you land in KY to fly to Cinci.

Wow..what a mouthful. And, I'm trying to get to NY state. The flight to Albany is currently overbooked. They're asking for 2 passengers to give up their seats for compensation.

This airport is a zoo. Landed at terminal A. Took a shuttle over to terminal C for departure to Albany.

Got a pretty good view of Cinci on the final approach. Very smokey. In fact, the last 20 minutes of the flight were very hazy and smoggy. The rust belt is hard at work polluting North Carolina's air. Very smooth flight. The pilot said take off to landing woudl be 45 minutes and damn, if he didn't nail it. 45 mins exactly. Every seat was taken. Basically a lear jet. They had to ask a guy to move from the front 5 rows to the rear to help 'balance' the aircraft. Personally, I think its some sick sociology experiement to see who has the guts to stand up and move, announcing to the flight...I"M FAT, but I'M going to move to keep you guys safe!

11:34 pm
Saratoga Springs, NY. Flight out of Cincinnati was delayed over an hour as it was overbooked. I went up and talked to the clerk but the arrangement was too far fetched: They'd pay your hotel room and put you on a flight to Albany....at 3pm the next day. Or, they'd fly you to Atlanta tonight and um...uh..they'd do something.
Watching Katt Williams throw down on how life is too mf'n short!

Tamara Had Her Baby!

Victor Jerome "Jerry" Muccia was born at 6:20 Monday morning weighing 7lbs 3oz and 20 inches long. Baby and I came through delivery with flying colors -- and no drugs. This picture is within an hour of his birth and he's even cuter now -- though I might be a little biased :) Jerry is having a little trouble adjusting to life on the outside -- nothing major just the normal jaundice and stuff -- but we are hopeful that everything will be settled down soon. When it is, we'll get pictures up on his website (see he's a geek already) and send out a link.

Thank you for all the positive thoughts and prayers sent our way -- Tamara, Charles, & Jerry

Old Stuff

7-27-2006

Blogging...

Wow, as those early posts of mine illustrate, I didn't 'get' blogging when it first blossomed. I was still thinking forum, guestbook, etc.

This entry is about my sense of doom and foreboding. Living in the Bush/Cheney/Rumsfeld world is frightening. We are still kiling muslims in Afghanistan. We are still killing Muslims in Iraq. We are now helping Isreal kill Muslims in Lebanon. Oil is at $75/barrel. Gasoline is $3+ per gallon. Meanwhile, the oil companies are recording record proffits. They are enriched by this turmoil. They are stuffing their mattresses with the blood of poor Muslim Arabs. I read that oil companies are less interested in finding oil and more interested in finding chaos (war). Finding more oil puts more oil in the supply and lowers the price. War, turmoil, disruptions take more oil out of the supply and raises prices. Our oil co's know this. Our govt. knows this. Iran's govt knows this. Likewise Saudi Arabia.

I can see the world drawing closer to a nuclear exchange. Bush has publicly stated that he has considered nukes as a viable option concerning Iran. India and Pakistan are making noise. Isreal could nuke Lebanon or Syria. N. Korea could nuke Japan. As unbalanced and uncentered as Bush Co is, this could happen. They are driven by greed and sick Christo-centric arrogance that reads like "we are god's chosen people and as such we know what is right and good and we act with god's blessing....yada yada yada yada..."

The entire country is baking under record temperatures this summer. Likewise Paris, Europe, etc. The Amazon basin is drying up. Amazonia is dying in draught. The polar ice caps are melting. The Greenland Ice Shelf is melting. Last week I flew up to Baltimore for a week. The visibility, the haziness, the smog was so bad during the flight. It was scary. Baltimore looked like how I remember LA from the summer of '87; shrouded in a brown smudge. The mountains this summer are far more hazy/smoggy than last summer. I'm wondering when our atmosphere will reach the tipping point where it becomes so incredibly toxic that we all die from poison or asphyxiation. We are poisoning our planet beyond its ability to recover and beyond its ability to support life.

4-30-2004

Good Stuff by Norman Mailer as to why we went to war with Iraq....the wounded white-male ego...
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,482-662789,00.html

4-29-2004
Boo's playing his 4th year of little league. He turns 8 on May 7th. I can't believe he's nearly 8. We had his bday party this past Sunday as we leave for Belize on May 8th.

Boo's a little upset about being on weak baseball team again. We're 0-2 after starting out against the two best teams in our division. Boo will play in one more game then miss the rest of the regular season as he and Loo plan to be in Belize for a month. He should be back right before the tournament starts.

He's practiced so hard. He's so good w/ his glove and so good w/ his bat....while he's at home. He falls off some in team practice, then freezes up more so during the games. He's playing for Richard Taylor...very nice guy, but not terribly organized. He's not really evaluated our team strengths/weaknesses. He's just put the kids in the field and hasn't changed many positions. He's stuck Boo out in left field, even though Luke clearly has the best glove on the team. He's letting Luke catch half the game and he's done great. Tagged a kid out at home each of the first two games. Got a hit his last game and scored our first run. He's such a cutie!!! I've been telling him how major leaguers who hit .300+ are having a great year..and that translates into 3 hits out of 10 at bats and how many teams start out slow. I just want him to experience success. Travis wanted him to play on the U-8 All Stars last year, but that was the same week Cassidy came to stay so we didn't let Luke do it.

I'm a little concerned about traveling right now w/ the SARS virus roaming the globe. So far, there is no confirmation on exactly how the virus is spread, but it is extremely contagious and often fatal.

4-29-2003
This article pointed me to the Project for the New American Century...the organization that is writing the scripts for our current government to follow.



"How NeoConservatives Conquered Washington and Launched a War
http://sf.indymedia.org/news/2003/04/1598940_comment.php