Geezer

There are 380 posts filed in Geezer (this is page 31 of 38).

Highlights of 2010: helping out the community

It was a productive year for helping out in the community.

The biggest and most rewarding thing I did as the CAC chair was help organize the first East Raleigh Community Day event along with Ronneil Robinson, Raleigh Police, Raleigh Parks, WakeMed, and others. It was so much fun seeing everyone out and having a good time. I had a silly grin on my face all day long.

Part of the Community Day celebrations included the grand opening of the Police Department Field Office in the Raleigh Boulevard Food Lion shopping center. This was the result of an initiative I took two years ago to work with the city and the property owner to get it done. Now the shopping center is thriving, new businesses moving in, and the neighborhood has a nice local place to shop.
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25 years of compact discs

Photo by Arun Kulshreshtha

This past Christmas marks the 25th anniversary since I got my first compact disc player. I don’t remember exactly what brand it was. Maybe a Teac. [Update: It was a JVC.] It was the single-disc variety and didn’t do much error-correcting, if I recall. It lasted for years, though. I remember it still spinning discs into 1995 or so.

Word when they came out was that CDs would become as affordable as albums were (~ $10) once their manufacturing reached a certain scale. Like a lot of things the music industry says, it turned out to be lies. The suits in the industry chose to maintain the high prices of CDs even as their manufacturing costs dropped through the floor.
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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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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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Highlights of 2010: weather wrap-up

Even though I’ve only had my weather station graphing on the Internet since December, it has actually been gathering weather data all year long. Let’s look at the highs and lows, weather-wise, for 2010.

The year 2010 was an exceptionally hot year, with more 90°F + days than any other (the official total was 91 [PDF]). The MT.Net weather station marked its hottest temperature of 106.2°F on 7 July at 1:03 PM. This roughly coincided with the driest recorded humidity of the year: an astoundingly dry 14% (at 1:15 PM that day).
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Highlights of 2010: break-in

This year brought an unwanted visitor when our home was broken into while we were away for Thanksgiving. Miraculously, we knew about it the instant it happened. It had only been hours since I completed my alarm script, which meant our alarm panel called our cellphones the second the burglar opened the window.

While we in the dark about what was really going on at home, we soon learned that the damage and impact was actually very, very minimal. We didn’t even cut our vacation short. What we did do was add a few more components to our alarm system and a few more security enhancements to our windows.

Later we even got video of the suspect leaving the scene, which was distributed to all the downtown police officers.

I look at the incident this way: the break-in was in reality a free evaluation from a seasoned security professional. A man who makes a living breaking into homes showed us just how he would approach our home. He showed us where the weak spots are. This guy gave it his best shot, and ultimately he failed. He failed!

So now that I know how a pro would approach our home, I have made our home even stronger. We’re now better off as a result.

Highlights of 2010: Social media

This year I will once again celebrate my blog highlights, but also will give a nod to the other social media sites.

On the blog front, MT.Net collected 1.73 million hits over this year, translating to 260,000 unique visits. That’s an average of 711 visits per day and about 30% traffic growth from the year before. It’s been a good year, traffic-wise. On the posting side, I estimate I’ve written about 450 new posts this year.

I’m always amused at what brings people to my site, too. I’m still one of the top search results for the Sugarhill Gang’s epic rap song, Rapper’s Delight. I’m also still collecting plenty of web hits for Jefferson’s Bank Quote. I also draw web searchers looking for Bradley Manning, 1Gb Internet, 99% of people can’t watch this video more than 25 seconds, free iPad scam, and TSA cavity search.
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Tour of the USS Elliot (DD-967)

A few weeks ago I unearthed a videotape I made while I was a sailor aboard the USS Elliot (DD-967). Taken one night in 1991 while the ship was in port in San Diego, the tape was meant to give my parents a virtual tour of the ship.

The quality isn’t the best as I had owned a videocamera for all of 6 hours, but I still found the video to be a fun look into the past. Careful viewers will see what I looked like when I had a full head of hair and big, dorky glasses. I’m also not sure what’s up with the Kermit the Frog-style narration, but it is what it is.
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Elizabeth Edwards

The Edwards family reunites at RDU Airport

Elizabeth Edwards lost her battle with cancer Tuesday. She was 61. As one of her friends remarked, it was fitting she died on Pearl Harbor Day, having grown up a Navy brat.

I got a chance to meet her during the 2004 Kerry/Edwards presidential campaign and she made quite an impression on me. Here’s what I wrote in my blog post from that day:

Last, but certainly not least was Elizabeth Edwards. This woman radiated warmth like you wouldn’t believe! She seemed genuinely pleased to meet me and bragged about her father’s 30 years of Navy service. Her sincere, upbeat personality just blew me away. I thought Edwards was electric, but he doesn’t hold a candle to his wife.

After they had made their way down the line of veterans, the campaign photographer had us all bunch up and get a picture. John and Elizabeth Edwards ran up to the group for the picture. Elizabeth stood just in front of me, so I thoughtfully put my hand on her shoulder. Hopefully, that shot will serve as proof I was actually there.

I tried tracking down that picture but have yet to find it. Maybe someday it will turn up.

Elizabeth was one of a kind. I’m glad I got a chance to meet her.