January 2011

There were 62 posts published in January 2011 (this is page 6 of 7).

Capt. Honors and his videos

Capt. Owen Honors

When I first heard about the controversy over Capt. Owen Honors and the videos he made when he was Executive Officer of the carrier USS Enterprise (CVN-65), I immediately thought of the irreverent videos made by my captain and senior leaders right before our ship would pull into a foreign port. They usually had some costumes in it or a skit of some sort. Looking at the same horizon, the same haze-gray paint, or the same windowless compartments for months on end can make you crazy, so adding a little humor is a good thing. Especially if it conveys important information in a compelling way.
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Amazon Video on Demand

Now that I’ve played around with the Roku for a few weeks I decided to check out the Amazon Video on Demand (or VOD) store. Amazon offers fairly new movies for “rental” or “purchase,” and through the magic of Roku these rentals get automatically billed to your Amazon account. They have content for standard-definition as well as high-definition. I checked out a few of their free offerings (an HD promo for The Office) and was impressed by the quality.
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Slain Pakistani governor retweeted my brother in law

I was reading the Twitter feed of the fearless, assassinated governor of the Punjab province, Salman Taseer. He seemed like quite the technically-savvy politician.

Just three days ago, Taseer retweeted a status update from my brother in law, David Swanson, sent on New Years Day:

@SalmaanTaseer Salmaan Taseer
And not iin 2011 either RT @marvisirmed: Sweet na! RT @davidcnswanson: The United States has not launched any new wars all year

Pakistan’s increasing instability worries me greatly, and the U.S. military has lost whatever clout it used to have there. I fear Pakistan’s troubles will boil over in the next few years. Time to try a different approach, and fast.

Smoking in Parks interviews


As I mentioned yesterday, I did two interviews for the Smoking in Parks (in addition to the News and Observer’s).

The News 14 interview with Jessica Cervantez was posted yesterday afternoon and came out nice with the exception that my name was not mentioned during the interview.

The WPTF interview came out well, too. The interviewer took perhaps 3 minutes of my time to discuss the issue and didn’t ask any biased questions. I spoke calmly and with authority, which I think conveyed that this issue is no big deal. I was even impressed that our Voice over IP phone connection sounded fantastic. The clip aired during their next top-of-the-hour news update, where their newscaster repeated nearly everything I had said verbatim before playing the clip of the rest of what I said.

I laughed when the newscaster twice referred to me as “Councilman Turner” on the air. I admit I liked how it sounded, though!

Highlights of 2010: Parks board

Lions Park Playground Dedication

This year marked the start of my second term on Raleigh’s Parks, Recreation, and Greenways Advisory Board (a.k.a. PRGAB). Service on this board has led to an amazing set of friendships and a greater understanding for all our Parks department does.

It has been challenging but rewarding work. The board meets every month, and each member is also expected to serve on one or more committees. My committee of choice is to act as liason to Mordecai Historic Park, which is a mile away from our home.
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Southern Culture’s Rick Miller interviewed

Here’s a great interview of Southern Culture on the Skids (a.k.a. “SCOTS”) frontman Rick Miller.

I love reading Miller explain how SCOTS is forging its own way in the music industry. You can tell by watching them play that Miller and the band truly love what they do – and that makes a SCOTS show such a blast.

Southern Culture On The Skids – guitarist Rick Miller, bassist Mary Huff and drummer Dave Hartman, plus recent recruit Tim Barnes on second guitar – is a North Carolina institution, Tarheel rock ‘n’ roll ambassadors determined to preach the gospel as espoused in that none-too-subtle, ever-evocative moniker. Put another way, their goddam reputation precedes them, and folks coming out to a SCOTS show aren’t there because they want to furrow their brows and ponder the deep metaphysics of life itself (well, unless you’re talking some esoteric Duane Eddy, Dick Dale or Tony Joe White musical reference; then you’re welcome to go deep). No, they’re there to shake their asses, and maybe toss a few chunks of fried chicken back and forth like crispy brown frisbees.

via BLURTING WITH… Rick Miller of Southern Culture On The Skids on Blurt Online.

City council considers smoking ban in parks

The Raleigh City Council is considering a recommendation from the Parks board to ban smoking in city parks. Ray Martin of the News and Observer wrote a story about it that ran today.

My quote:

Mark Turner, vice chairman of the board who presided over that meeting, said littering was the board’s chief concern.

“We don’t have the resources to clean up all the cigarettes,” Turner said. “If people can’t be responsible, this has to take effect.

“I think there’s also a big health benefit of the ban, but I’m the kind of guy who does not like making health decisions for other people.”

Considering the circumstances I’m pleased with the interview. Ray caught me literally minutes before we walked out of the house for our New Year’s trip. I was racing around to find last minute items as I talked with him. I’m surprised I sounded somewhat coherent.

One thing I would like to point out is that for this issue it was about litter for me. Other board members might have different concerns but for me it was litter. Ray writes that “littering is the board’s chief concern,” but I don’t know that to be the case. I was only speaking for myself and I tried to make that clear.

Since the story ran today I’ve spoken with News14 Carolina and WPTF. We’ll see how those turn out.

Another CFL bulb bites the dust

I was not happy Thursday when I learned another CFL bulb in our home had met an untimely demise. We’ve gone through a spate of them dying far too early. It had gotten to the point where I began to write the date of purchase on each bulb so that I could track how long they were lasting.

The one that died Thursday made it 12 months. Pathetic! That’s the worst-performing bulb in the house. It would be a short life for even an incandescent bulb!
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Highlights of 2010: room remodel

Painting crew

This fall brought us more room in our home, as we turned some of our unfinished attic space into a new room. This came in very handy when I began working from home and now we have a room for guests.

When we moved into our home we saw that some of our attic was mostly framed for a room, so we got a few quotes from local contractors to see what it would take to finish it. When the quotes came in higher than we expected we put our remodel off. Then when I got a job working mostly from home it became clear that a separate office would be important.
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Proposal

Wow! I can tell it’s going to be a good year! Here it is the 2nd day of 2011 and already someone’s going to split 105 million Euros with me!!!

Received: from 41.220.69.5
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by webmail.dixie-net.com with HTTP;
Sun, 2 Jan 2011 07:59:07 -0600 (CST)
Message-ID: 39941.41.220.69.5.1293976747.squirrel@webmail.dixie-net.com
Date: Sun, 2 Jan 2011 07:59:07 -0600 (CST)
Subject: Partnership.
From: “C. Y. Ling” kreid@dixie-net.com
Reply-To: cy.ling53@kimo.com
User-Agent: SquirrelMail/1.4.5 [CVS]

Good day,

I am Mr. C.Y. Ling, alternate CEO of the operations of CITIC Bank International, China. I have a proposal for you in the tune of One Hundred & Five Million EUR, after successful transfer, we shall share in the ratio of forty for you and sixty for me. Please reply for specifics.

Yours,
Mr. C.Y. Ling.