Carleen and Mike » 2005 » January

Old Experiences Become New Again

Mike Huxley — Tue, 25 Jan 2005 12:10:27 +0000

I haven’t thrown up since I was probably 8 or 9 years old. Tonight, I threw up 3 times (once at work - I’m thankful for that cardboard trash box being there). Me throwing up is like Lance Armstrong not winning the Tour De France - It just doesn’t happen. So now I have to go see the doctor tomorrow so I can get note saying I saw him so I can get my sick pay.

That’s a pain in the ass. I have to get a doctor’s note everytime I’m out sick - company policy. What are we in 5th grade?

We also watched I, Robot tonight, which was surprisingly good. I heard it was just OK but not overly great - i thought it was excellent. It’s based on a collection of short stories by Isaac Asimov, the movie is about a techno leery cop who wants to peg a murder on a robot. Thing is all robots have several rules hardwired into them that basically make it impossible for them to harm humans in any way.

Very interesting implications brought up in the movie. I definetly recommend it.

Opera

Mike Huxley — Mon, 24 Jan 2005 15:05:46 +0000

I’ve been working on several websites recently and so I downloaded some new browsers this past weekend, one if which being Opera. While I still had a working Windows machine in the house I used Opera almost exclusively on that machine - I loved Opera - it’s also one of the more “web compliant” browsers out there (from what I’ve been told). However, after downloading the Mac version (and seeing some of the updates they’ve made to it) it’s sad to say I’m extremely disappointed.

They’ve added a large banner at the top of the screen that post advertisements, unless you buy the full version for around $40US. Now I’m all about simplicity. I’m a huge Safari (Mac OS X browser) fan. Safari gives you probably the most Browser “real estate” of any browser I’ve used yet. I like my space. Having a giant advertisement at the top of my screen invades my space.

They’ve also added a “Search Amazon” feature and a “Price Comparison” feature. The former takes you directly to your search results at Amazon, the latter, to a site called “DealTime”. If I want to search Amazon, I’ll go to Amazon. If want to compare prices, I’ll go to Froogle. Don’t take away my space.

Another area that Safari blows the competition out of the water is its speed. Every time I open any other browser I get the dreaded “spinny wheel” (”hourglass” to you PC users) and wait while the program loads. Not so with Safari.

Anyway, the point of this blog was not to completly trash Opera or raise Safari on a pedestle (it has its own faults too), but I simply wish that Opera would keep it simple, stay standards compliant (we need more browsers like that out there) and most importantly take users away from their Internet Explorer boxes.

Hugh Hewitt

Carleen Huxley — Sat, 22 Jan 2005 17:48:25 +0000

I checked out a book last week from work called Blog: Understanding the Information Reformation that’s changing your world by Hugh Hewitt. I was very excited when I saw this book because I am very interested in the blogging phenomenon and would like to learn more about its evolution, not mention how it has affected information retrieval behavior. As I started reading the introduction it became very apparent that the author was a staunch right winger, constantly taking stabs at liberals. I figured, what the heck, everyone’s entitled to their opinion, I’m sure there’s plenty of useful information in here anyway. But it just kept getting worse and worse, he starting getting more and more arrogant in tone and increasingly offensive. Finally, I got to the following paragraph:

“People don’t trust the old media with anything like the old level of confidence. There are plenty of books out there that explain what happened, but it basically comes down to the left-leaning ideaology that was always there and increasingly became so widespread, transparent, and arrogant as to repel half the country. If you want to argue the point, this book isn’t for you. Go watch your DVD of Fahrenheit 9/11 again. Trot down to the coffee shop to expound on corporate ownership of transnational media conglomerates. You don’t have a clue, and you won’t when the night is over. But you will be farther behind.”

I guess I’ll go back to Gone with the wind.

My Cousin Brandon

Mike Huxley — Sat, 22 Jan 2005 14:37:51 +0000

A few pics of my cousin Brandon playing Hockey. They won, 4-3 with Brandon having scored 3 goals!

blogging

Carleen Huxley — Fri, 21 Jan 2005 01:46:23 +0000

I have to admitt, I’ve become rather intimidated with the whole blogging thing lately. When I first started blogging I was never really concerned with how well written my entries were or whether I had chosen to write about topics that were worth reading about. I never really had an audience in mind other than my close family and friends. But after spending a lot of time reading other peoples blogs, I started to feel a little unsophisticated. I started to wonder if I should have a blog that had more of a purpose, with entries that offered more relevant thoughts and profound ideas rather than just me jibbajabbing about my life or throwing out a few links here and there. I didn’t realize that I had been scrutinizing over this for so long that I have failed to post much of anything for the past few months, thereby denying any reader who happens upon this blog a lovely little glimse into the current situations of my lovely little life. Besides, I’ll leave the “profound ideas” and epiphanies to Mike. He’s much better at them :-). I especially like the one on Degenerative Momentum.
The only real New Years Resolution I made this year was to check out less books from the library so I can actually read the books I have sitting on my own bookshelf at home. I have a rather nice little collection of fiction, including several classics that I am ashamed to say I’ve never read. I don’t think I’ll ever be able to break my habit of trying to read three or four books at a time, but I have made a vow that no matter what I am reading, at least one of them has to be a “classic”. First on the list is Gone with the Wind. I think I’ll work on the Bronte sisters next, then maybe Hemingway depending on my mood.
Mike has been working very hard on the house. After weeks of applying some stuff which is supposed to smooth out our textured wallpaper and which I can never remember the name of but keep calling “compost”, Mike has finally applied the first layer of color. We chose a beautiful green gray blue, very “Maine-ish” as Mike says. Unfortunately, the textured wall paper still shows through so after all that work, it looks like we’re going to end up replacing the walls completely.
In other news, I may have a chance to attend the ALA conference in Chicago this summer. In fact, from what I’m told it’s almost a sure thing. The Oklahoma Department of Libraries is offering grant money to certified librarians who earn less than $35,000 a year. Yeah, I didn’t have any difficulty meeting the salary criteria, that’s for sure. Anyway, if all goes well, me, and three other co-workers will be attending. I am very excited. In fact, I’ve been giggling about it for most of the day.

Programming Programming….

Mike Huxley — Sun, 16 Jan 2005 12:02:16 +0000

Wow. Quite the holidays. My brother in law Mitch came to town for several weeks and naturally there were programming lessons abound. This time it was MySql, which is a language used for communicating with databases. PHP integrates with MySql in such a way as to allow for very dynamic, very cool websites. I can’t wait to get better at this, as I’m still very new to it - sort of at the “staring at the code for hours” stage. I’ve been able to do very simple stuff with it, but it seems like a fairly simple language to learn once you understand the logic (eeeew) of organizing data.

Blog Look

Mike Huxley — Sat, 08 Jan 2005 09:51:17 +0000

Sorry about any screwyness in the blog in the next couple of days, I’m working on site design - and learning what/where everything is. Please do not be alarmed. If a sudden seizure strikes, DO NOT LOOK AT THE SCREEN! I hope to have everything looking smooth again by Sunday.

Mike Huxley — Mon, 03 Jan 2005 14:29:39 +0000

This is a picture of the house right next to my parents house. The owner lives with her daughter in St. Croix, Virgin Islands, so the house is unoccupied. Me and Carleen are considering buying the place when we’re ready to move to NY, which is now sooner than we originally planned for. So the thought of house buying/selling is now on our minds. The house is absolutly gorgeous (though admittedly it does need a major face lift - and a new roof - but otherwise it’s rock solid). The plan right now is for Carleen to finish school and then we move to NY, then pop out some kids. So if anyone in CNY is going to be having a house for sale in a little over a year - we want to hear about it!