It's 3 AM. The Bananna Bread and the sourdough bread is in the oven. Dr. D' came home from work tonight asking what I was fixing for Thanksgiving Dinner tomorrow. What?Didn't he tell me NOT to fix a turkey the other day? Now he's asking about a turkey? Thank God I didn't listen to him. (sneeky grin.) It's okay honey, I tell him. Then the damn phone rings--
Here's how my day went. About 4 PM I decided I should go out and hit a couple of the major grocery sales. Pick up some stuff we would eat over the next week and get out of the house. So I headed out to the local Italian deli Giuseppe's for a sandwich and to add to my stash of meats, wine, cheese and Italian coffee for my latte's. I have my essential stash for holiday survival.
Life is good, so I decide to hit the local Big Lots to check out the holiday decorations which we need to buy for Dr. D's office. 30 minutes later and $20 lighter, I've picked up some gift bags, some decorations and other crap we will use over the holiday's. However I did not find the Salton Expresso machine Dr. D. wanted to give someone. The store manager says, it won't be on sale until Thursday. (They're open 8-10 PM. Jeeze.)
Next I head across the street to the local Ralph's and pick up on the groceries. While stolling the aisles I run into one of the neighbors who is a new bride trying to fix her first holiday dinner for the family. She has my sympathy until I see she's loaded to the hilt with several pages of new gourmet recipes, fresh off the internet. (Oh G*d!) Only thing is: She rarely if ever cooks. And.. she's in a panic. The recipe for Candied Yam's calls for 3 vanilla beans-- she can't find them. When I help her spot them, the price $11.35 nearly knocks her over. (It nearly knocked me over too!) I tell her while trying to pick out my aluminum foil, "Substitute a couple teaspoons of real good vanilla and bank the $9. No one will ever know the difference." She's about as greatful as she can be-- I tell her while tossing in the 2-12 packs of Coke into the cart, "No problem. Call me if you get stuck." (My mom would have been proud.)
But it turns out she isn't the only person I know the store today-- and nearly everyone's having some type of cooking question. What the hell am I? Julia Childs or what? Oh! That's right, my folks cooked in our own place for 40 years, I'm supposed to know how to cook! (Just don't ask Doug-- okay?) So I field questions like a tech support call on Windows while I try to remember everything I'm supposed to be getting-- everything from Pepsi, to TP is finally in the cart. I finally get out of the store and head to my next store:
Vons via the Hallmark store to pick up my ornament order. Patty the manager is in a happy mood today. Business is good today. We chat for a while and just as I'm about to head out the door, she calls me back into the store to give me a shopping bag full of Hallmark ornaments and goodies. Why? Because the owner whom I'd helped write a business plan several years ago, had just opened her 5th store. She had left it for me as a surprise. And-- I was.
But the funny thing is after over 14 years being in Diamond Bar and always feeling alone or disconnected from the community, for the first time I'm feeling more connected and appreciated. It feels pretty damn good.
Finally inside Vons around the corner I waltz through the store picking up the rest of the list, and still get stopped by several people I know. This is getting to be funny. I should have set up a 900 hotline or a Lucy Office in the meat department. At $5 a hit I could have paid for the cart of groceries in about 30 minutes. Finally has I throw the last two cans of coffee in the cart, I barrel for the check out.
Victor the store manager is playing checkout guy tonight. He sees me and it puts a smile on his face. (I'm beginning to think I've got a happy glow or something.) We chit-chat about business, customers and the holidays as he rings me up. When we get to the total, he looks over my purchases and says... "Mary Lu, where's your turkey? We owe you a free turkey." Huh? "Yep, you purchased enough stuff, we owe you one." In the next minute I explain, I don't want a turkey now, but he tells me I can't have a raincheck. Drat! So I end up going back to the meat department looking for the smallest turkey in the store, when the Cliff the Meat Manager spots me and hands me a nice small 12 lb Butterball. "Sorry Mary Lu, Victor called back. This is the smallest one we've got! Happy Thanksgiving girl!" I thank him and finally make it to the door.
As I finally start driving home, I wonder what is Doug going to say or think when he see the bird in the 'fridge. Oh hell, tell him the truth. We won the turkey lottery. No big deal.
Then he comes home and asks what I'm fixing for dinner tomorrow. (grin) Now he's off the phone, I point him to the fridge and hand him the Vons reciept for the free bird. "Honey, I've got good news and bad news. The good news is, I'm glad you got the turkey. The bad news is we need to drive out to the pharmacy because they forgot a delivery. The better news is-- I'm taking you out to dinner tonight vs. tomorrow."
Good! I'm too tired to cook tonight after all the shopping today! (grin)
At dinner tonight I tell him about my day-- and for the first time in years I'm pretty thankful things have started to look normal for living in California. Southern California, that is.
Happy Thanksgiving Everyone. Gotta go the timer's going off!
It's 2 PM and I'm still running around the house in my flannels. I have absolutely no desire to get out and join the rest of the world in the 24 hour mad dash to Thanksgiving or the holiday maddness. Last night I spend most of the evening preparing two full sized (13x9) trays of Tiramisu for Doug's Thanksgiving pot luck lunch at work. From the phone call I just got, they seem to like it. Which is good-- thank G*d.
Last year we were on the road coming back from Illinois, somewhere between Kansas City and Oklahoma City. Dinner was a Thanksgiving Buffet held at a Flying J's truckstop in Joplin, MO. I remember we didn't stop that night until we got into Amarillo, Texas and checked into a La Quinta. We spent the rest of the trip back to Diamond Bar, following I-40, the old Route 66. We spent an entire day in Albuquerque, NM doing some shopping at Old Town. It was an enjoyable trip-- and a lot less stress than flying. When we thought about the fact we were making the trip, in the context of everything that had happened that Fall, we were very thankful we were able to make the trip-- especially after 9-11.
This year Turkey Day will be spent going and doing whatever Doug wants. We have absolutely nothing planned. He asked me not to make a Turkey this year, and joked we might even drive out to the truckstop for an Anniversary Dinner at the Flying J's in Barstow. Who knows what we're going to do? All I know is I'm not going to kill myself in the kitchen preparing a meal. Doug is on call all day and when we don't have family and friends to share it-- so other than the leftover factor, why should I?
As for the rest of the weekend-- Doug works all weekend. "Sick people don't go home for the holidays." The old saying goes. This phrase is one of those things we agreed to when he and I signed up to work in healthcare years ago. For Doug it's a way of life with over 4000 patients to oversee and one I retired from it nearly 15 years ago. I can suck the life out of you if you aren't careful. At times I see him getting far too tired because of the lack of staff, but I'm greatful he's got a wonderful job.
I figure I'll spend the rest of the weekend at home. I'm going to attempt to clean out the garage and get some of the yard work finished up. I have always shunned the mall shopping sprint and never had the desire to do the 6AM shopping game since Mom died.
If I get bored I have the following options:
1. Go play with my computerized sewing machine and finish a couple quilts I'm supposed to be making for Christmas and a friend who just moved into a new house.
2. Go to the Pharmacy and decorate the office for the holidays.
3. Clean out my office from all the crap I have from Comdex's past and present.
I see Halley's been writing up a stellar set of cribnotes for answering that burning question which is bound to be asked around the holiday dinner table. "What is a Weblog?"
Allow me to add a couple more comments/answers to the list--
Weblogs allow me to say what's on my mind and in my own way without large volumes of editorial BS or political correctness. Cliff, I don't want to be edited or commented to about my writing style here. Get over it. This is not printed work, it's a running thought. Get it? (Wonder how long it will take him to read that? Bets?)
A blog gives me instant feedback and help-- generallyfrompeople I respectandadmire. It does not mean we always agree, but we have learned to debate-- not flame one another.
My blog has given me the opportunity to put all nearly all of my interests online under one roof. One never knows where the feedback and assistance is going to come from-- and you stand a chance of meeting some really neat people.
Blogging can be a place where your family could come to read what's going on in your life-- vs. call. If only they could figure out the URL... Eh! may be not huh?
It appears from this story that certain Time Warner periodicals are thinking of joining their adoptive parent, AOL, in a suicide pact.
AhemDoc! Don't know if you remember, but CompuServe was the first online service to ever carry Time Magazine. At that time we carried about 85% of the entire magazine including the pictures. But then again, there wasn't a browser-- yet.
Should AOL fold in Time as exclusive content after being free for all this time, it will go over like a lead balloon.
DING! The email bell goes off while I'm making a batch of my killer Tiramosu for Dr. Doug's office party tomorrow. I finally wipe the custard off my hands, grab a cup of coffee and wander over to the computer to see who's pestering me at this hour-- "Hmmm! It's Rageboy. It figures." I tell myself. "RB is the only person I know who's more of an insomniac than I am!" With that, I open the email from the virtual chickmagnet to find out he's talking to Halley and pestering poor Donna Wentworth of Corante about why he's not on her Bloggroll. I want to scream-- "Jeeze Chris! *I* am still not on your bloggroll! And I've loved you sooo much longer than most. Some men! Humph!"
To add insult to injury I go over to Ye Old Blogboy er Rageboy's blog site to see he's harassing Donna publically-- and he's showing off his new collection of porn from eBay. Showoff!
A solar coronal mass ejection (CME) swept past Earth at approximately 21:50 UT (4:50 p.m. EST) on Tuesday, Nov. 26th, and triggered an ongoing geomagnetic storm. When the CME arrived, the interplanetary magnetic field near Earth tilted south--a condition that favors Northern Lights. Sky watchers in northern Europe, Canada and northern US states (where night is falling as the geomagnetic storm intensifies) should therefore be alert for auroras. Visit SpaceWeather.com for more information, photos and updates.
Also check out Duane Clausen's site www.northernexposure.net for great Northern Light photographs.
Barbie's Got a Brand New Blog or Blogging's No Longer Cutting Edge:
Doc and Phillip are reporting that Barbie's got a brand new blog! Jeeze! Now I get to compete with a blonde plastic-headed bimbo who appears to be trying to pick up every man in cyberspace. Lovely.
For years the week between COMDEX and Thanksgiving has always been a slow week for me, and normally we take this week off to get a few things done before the holidays and end of year. However this week the gods of Murphy have had their hands in my time.
Murphy announced his visit when the Santa Ana winds kicked up late Monday night. For those of you not from around here let me give you an idea what they're like. Imagine a 50-60 mph wind of warm air picking up without warning. With the dryness from the fires this summer in the mountains above us, the wind picks up all the dust and garbage, and then proceeds to blow it down into the valley.
In the process over the past couple days the Santa Ana's have blown down power lines everywhere, including the high power lines which normally float over the CA-60 Freeway in Chino, less than 2 miles from us. This did two things: 1. It took out all the power in our area for nearly 20 hours. (I fired up the generator.) and 2. Knocked out all traffic on the 60 Freeway yesterday, pictured above. Just getting to the local Von's was a disaster.
Thankfully I have gas powered lawn tools, a cell phone, a generator to power the fridge and other important things-- all which allowed me to get something done without relying SCE. Thanks Gray Davis, you've made it possible for me to not need your damn high priced power all the time.
True Confession: We finally got home from COMDEX on late Wednesday night. The drive home was uneventful, which means at the I-15 between LA and Vegas was lacking the normal bozo drivers and traffic jams. It was nice to be in Vegas on our first "paid vacation" in years, even if it was COMDEX. Dr. Doug had to be back to work as a drugpusher on Thursday morning. However the trip to Las Vegas left me very worn out I couldn't figure out exactly why until today.
COMDEX Fall 2002 will go down as one of the smallest shows in history. Rumors from some LV finest with a badge told us the official number of registered attendees was about 70,000 people. A far cry from the 100,000 they had hoped to attend or the 225,000 attendees of the past years. While the volumes who attended previously were a blessing for the Las Vegas hotels and service industries, I for one, didn't miss the "clueless masses" who attended previous show turning it more into a circus vs. a bazaar. The shear numbers made it impossible to conduct business which was real reason I was at the show. Doug and I had nearly given up going because COMDEX had become a major waste of time, money and effort. I'd have rather saved my money and went to Tahoe for a week of skiiing in January.
Las Vegas Media, and relayed via several Vegas natives that Key3 Media, the owner of COMDEX was likely to file bankruptcy in December or January. Speculators are thinking original owner of the show might buy it back at fire sale/bankruptcy prices and be able to revive it. Knowing Las Vegas-- it wouldn't surprise me.
The show floor lacked the number of businesses and vendors services of the past. The showbook which normally has 1 inch of vendor information was only 1/4" thick. Every company (excluding those in private suites and media only shows) were contained inside the LVCC's and didn't not spill over to the new South Hall. It was a small show.
However small shows can be better. The past year has shown us smaller gatherings from Gnomedex to Digital Video are far more productive and targeted. My only concern is the cost of these smaller shows (over $1000+ to attend,) actually prohibit people from attending-- and the show from growing.
How will COMDEX reinvent itself to become an asset to the Tech Industry? From where I sit-- COMDEX needs to lose the circus and get back to business. While the stock value and related 9-11 problems may have taken care of some of downsizing in short order, the majority of the real show was never shown on the convention floor anyway. (Even Carly mentioned it in her keynote.) The products, services and minds where tomorrow's hot trends and real solutions were being shown or discussed were always off in conference rooms and suites all over town. The real creators and thinkers has always shunned the spotlight.
Why? Because you can't create a solution for a customer on the showfloor where the noise level is akin to sitting next to 747 warming up. Customers need to talk to companies. Companies need to listen and recommend. Trust and accountability has to be established on a human level between the company and the company. This is the only way true solutions can be created for a customer. The hype of the show floor never stood a chance. However until this year, you couldn't have proved that by previous Comdex shows.
If COMDEX is smart and they will attempt to fold the real people COMDEX back into the show in some way. Key3 Media has announced this week they are starting "COMDEX Innovation Forums" which will focus on emerging technologies impacting the IT business in the next five years and will begin in April 2003. Hopefully this will allow the real converation to solution to find a true venue.
We arrived about 45 minutes before the Debate started. The set up went without a hitch and I even had time to balance out the XL1 and set up the shots. Doug took Doc's mini-DV to take some digital stills as well as record the audio on the MD Recorder. I even got some digital stills with the Nikon.
More on the actual Great Debate later. I can't blog, comment and shoot at the same time. However Aaron was crowned as the youngest speaker at Comdex ever, beating Bill Gates by 6 months. Honestly Aaron was a better speaker than Bill at his age.
The shoot went very well and I'll put those pictures up with the blog on the Debate later.
After the conference we found out Aaron's flight wasn't until late in the evening. Since the show was closed after the Debate concluded-- he didn't have anywhere planned to go.
So Doug, Doc and I took Aaron with us to Showstoppers at the Hilton for a closer look at the new products. Thanks Steve and Dan.
Picture left: Aaron, Doc, Dr. Doug and me. (A first as I'm never in front of a camera.)
There were several new products at Showstopper's worth mentioning, and I'll review them more this weekend.
Noteworthy: JASC's is introducing the new PaintShop Pro 7 .(Gosh has it been 10 years, Bob?) Excellent product. If you don't want to learn or buy Photoshop-- but you need to work on your pictures without needing a master's degree in graphic arts-- Paint Shop Pro is for you. Very easy to use, but also very technically creative. Doug and I have been testing and using PSP since it was in its first beta on CompuServe. JASC's offering a freebie 30 day try before you buy here. I will review the new Version 7, when I get my review copy.
I believe a good time was had by all in our posse. Doc was even able to stay on his diet. After a couple hours of schmoozing with some wonderful vendors and seeing friends it was time to go.
Since this was Aaron's only day in Las Vegas, we decided after a quick trip to CompUSA before closing. Then Doc decided it was time to give Aaron his Official Tour of the Las Vegas Strip. Doc and Doug did the Official Tour Guide routine, while I played Driver and tried to avoid all of us becoming Roadkill.
(Editorial Note: Due to problems with networking I was unable to post while at COMDEX FALL 2002. The following postings are catchups. Enjoy! MLW)
Doug and I landed in Las Vegas late Sunday evening packed to the hilt with the XL1 and enough recording equiptment to be a full mobile production facility. Our mission for Monday was to get the entire Great Debate at Comdex with Doc and Aaron on tape.
On Monday morning at 9 AM we sailed through Comdex Media Registration. Total time: 10 minutes. A new world record. We picked up our Comdex list of press events, check out the press releases we've all ready seen online.
It's now nearly 11 AM and decide to cruise back across the street to Pat Meier's wonderful media only event Lunch@Pierro's. This is the first of several face to face meeting where we're able to see the newest products and see what will be next rising star in the technology world. Here's a couple hot picks:
Laplink is celebrating over 20 years in the industry. The one thing about the wonderful folks at Laplink build products that made your time MORE productive. Laplink introduced several new variations on their excellent products.
LapLink Everywhere is the best product I saw at COMDEX. LapLink Everywhere is the keystone which allows you to access your Outlook or Outlook Express e-mail, contacts and calendar – even access the drives on your PC and transfer files – from anywhere usingany device. The program allows you to leave your laptop at home and access your PC from the Web browser on your Web phone, PDA, Internet café, airport kiosk – everywhere you have access to a Web browser. I will review this product shortly. So stay tuned.
Interact-TV is the answer to John Robb's request to be able to consolidate everything in one place. Interact-TV, which runs on Linux, specializes in software products that make it possible to centralize your entertainment and information needs in a common location. Their products blend digital media, broadband, and home networking, and present them to the end-user through an easy to use television interface, creating a more relaxed and accessible environment for anyone interested in movies, TV, music, photography or home videos. Interact-TV's vision of the future is aligned with the increasing availability of broadband access to the home, and a pervasive demand for higher-value digital entertainment. Interesting concept.
Global Caché, creates products that enable technology in homes. They showed their new GC-100 Home Network Adapter, which provides the means for PC-based software to access, control, and deliver services to diverse and previously unconnected devices and appliances. Global Caché is leading the way with the industry's first hardware solution aimed at connecting a network to the most common household devices. Utilizing Global Caché's Home Network Adaptor, devices used for Audio Video, temperature control, irrigation, security, and more can be IP-enabled, allowing them to be managed and accessed via PC-based software. Global Cachés unique modular mix-and-match design allows integrators, installers, and OEMs to simply and cost effectively connect diverse systems to any PC and the Internet. This appears to be a rising star in connecting all those "devices" to a network controlled home environment.
Next Up: The Logistics of Getting 35 lbs of Video Equiptment Into the Convention Center Without a Cart.
Something to note: Comdex does not allow carts on the show floor unless you happen to have NBC, CNN, ABC or major network tattooed on your forehead or around your neck. So planning on getting all your camera equiptment into the Las Vegas Convention Center to tape an event takes on the the logistical planning of a 5 day Outward Bound trek.
For weeks I'd figured exactly what I needed to get our professional video camera, MD Recorder, still camera, cables and tripods into the show. Parking at the LVCC is alway iffy proposition especially if you have Mercedes Benz doing a test track (left) in the front 50% of the major parking lot across the street from the Convention Center. When we came over to the convention center I couldn't park in the normal convention center lot. So instead I got permission to park at Piero's Resturant , thanks to Fred Gusman, the real Mr. Piero. It turned out to be a blessing.
I ended up loading the camera into a protective wrapping and into my wheeled backpack. The rest of the equiptment was put into the backpack pockets and in Doug's beltpack. I gave up carrying a purse and loaded my cell phone and other necessary stuff into the backpack. We wheeled into and through the LVCC without a hitch. In fact we even had time to stop and talk to several vendor-buddies from ATTO about their new SCSI controllers and make a pit stop.
It turned out that the technology decline had also thinned the herd of companies at COMDEX. This made the convention floor easier to navigate, but also gave the Great Debate Theater the dubious honor of being held in a far back corner of the main convention center. For some reason I was thanking God, for the lack of people and that I'd put the XL1 in the wheeled backpack. The idea of lugging 30 lbs of camera through the show floor didn't thrill me. (More on the Taping of the Great Debate...)
For those of you who don't know-- but need to know, Doc's computer HD is FUBARed at the moment. Should you need to reach him, please email me at mwehmeier@compuserve.com and I will relay the message.
For those of you with nothing better to do with yourself, come out to Las Vegas next week and join several thousand of your fellow computer nerds at COMDEX Fall 2002.
Dr. Doug and I will be traveling to the city of Lost Wages to partake in the annual nerdfest on Sunday. For us the highlights of the week include:
2. The Las Vegas Astronmical Society is hosting a Leonid Meteor Shower Party out at Lake Meade on Nov 18, Monday night/Tuesday morning. Despite the fact David Em, Doug and I have watched several meteor showers out in the desert. Nothing beats getting away from the city lights and seeing them in the night. This is the first time I've ever seen COMDEX do anything to foster a little offsite gathering for the fun of it.
"No deed goes unrewarded."Send AOL 1 Million Sign-Up CDs.
Every now and then that phrase comes to mind when I hear about something, and nothing could be closer to the truth when I heard today that two guys, Jim McKenna and John Lieberman from El Cerrito, CA are fed up with AOL's constant CD mailings. (Who isn't?)They are attempting to collect 1 million AOL CD's and returning them to AOL's corporate HQ in Vienna, VA to personally tell AOL to stop sending them.
They've even set up a website with pictures to show the growing heap of unwanted and unnecessary CD's. This is music to my sick little ears. And I'm seriously considering adopting these guys! Let's help 'em out!
Send your unwanted and unrequested AOL CD's to: NO MORE AOL CDs!, 1601 Navellier Street, El Cerrito, CA 94530 USA
Why? Because several years ago a when AOL was bought CompuServe a group of Forum Operators told the new AOL management team about the NUMEROUS complaints we were getting from members about the large number of AOL CD's loyal CompuServe members were getting in the mail from CompuServe's targeted membership lists. Members were ticked, to put it politely, about the diskettes and CD's they were recieving. CIS Management to our surprise were defensive about rocking the boat and moving the message upstream in the corporate ladder. We were all puzzled until we found out that our new CompuServe President, Audrey Weil, was the person who had "invented the AOL sign-up program!"
In muffled voices the staff referred to the AOL sign-up program and Weil's, the former PR person as the "CD Carpet Bombing Queen of AOL" by the staff. Audrey justly deserved the title, as she single handedly put CD's, (and previously diskettes,) in the hands of every household in America with a pulse and a credit card. It might be rightly said, Weil's helped put more CD's into the landfills of the world than any other corporate exec in history.
Recently Weil's resigned as President of AOL Broadband, the title she got after she gutted left CompuServe. Too bad, otherwise I'd have suggested another address to deliver the unwanted AOL CD's.
For what it's worth... I've had a cold this week. Between feeling like dishrag and dealing with a runny nose. I haven't been able to concentrate on stringing two sentences together to save my tailfeathers.
Three things I've learned this week. 1. Puff's are better than Kleenex. 2. One can not concentrate when pumped full of cold meds. And 3. Monica Mancini's,CinemaParadisois something worth listening to over and over again. Her phrasing is stellar and delivery is breathtaking. Another major score for Concord Records.
With the weather here in SoCal is cold, wet, rainy and foggy at the will of Mother Nature in any combination she chooses. I'm going back to bed to get some sleep. Blogging in bed isn't an option here. I don't have wifi-- yet. But we're working on it, thanks to Glenn.
Happy Turkey Day - Part II
Something to note: Comdex does not allow carts on the show floor unless you happen to have NBC, CNN, ABC or major network tattooed on your forehead or around your neck. So planning on getting all your camera equiptment into the Las Vegas Convention Center to tape an event takes on the the logistical planning of a 5 day Outward Bound trek. 
Wagon's HO! It's COMDEX Time!
Byting the Hand That Feeds Me: I Want to Adopt the Guys Who Are Collecting 1 Million CDs to Send AOL a Message
Achoo!