Technically Speaking

I received the following e-mail forward today from my co-worker, Cordell. It made me laugh, so I thought I’d post it here for your enjoyment.

MY DIAGNOSIS

I had a physical the other day and was diagnosed with A. A. A. D. D. – Age Activated Attention Deficit Disorder. This is how it manifests:

I decide to water my garden. …. As I turn on the hose in the driveway, I look over at my car and decide my car needs washing.

…. As I start toward the garage, I notice that there is mail on the porch table that I brought up from the mailbox earlier.

…. I decide to go through the mail before I wash the car.

…. I lay my car keys down on the table, put the junk mail in the garbage can under the table, and notice that the can is full.

…. So, I decide to put the bills back on the table and take out the garbage first.

…. But then I think, since I’m going to be near the mailbox when I take out the garbage anyway, I may as well pay the bills first.

…. I take my checkbook off the table, and see that there is only 1 check left.

…. My extra checks are in my desk in the study, so I go inside the house to my desk where I find the can of Coke that I had been drinking.

…. I’m going to look for my checks, but first I need to push the Coke aside so that I don’t accidentally knock it over. I see that the Coke is getting warm, and I decide I should put it in the refrigerator to keep it cold.

…. As I head toward the kitchen with the Coke, a vase of flowers on the counter catches my eye–they need to be watered.

…. I set the Coke down on the counter, and I discover my reading glasses that I’ve been searching for all morning.

…. I decide I better put them back on my desk, but first I’m going to water the flowers.

…. I set the glasses back down on the counter, fill a container with water and suddenly I spot the TV remote. Someone left it on the kitchen table.

…. I realize that tonight when we go to watch TV, I will be looking for the remote, but I won’t remember that it’s on the kitchen table, so I decide to put it back in the den where it belongs, but first I’ll water the flowers.

…. I pour some water in the flowers, but quite a bit of it spills on the floor.

…. So, I set the remote back down on the table, get some towels and wipe up the spill.

…. Then, I head down the hall trying to remember what I was planning to do.

…. At the end of the day:
* the car isn’t washed
* the bills aren’t paid
* there is a warm can of Coke sitting on the counter
* the flowers don’t have enough water,
* there is still only 1 check in my check book,
* I can’t find the remote,
* I can’t find my glasses,
* and I don’t remember what I did with the car keys.

…. Then, when I try to figure out why nothing got done today, I’m really baffled because I know I was busy all day long, and I’m really tired.

…. I realize this is a serious problem, and I’ll try to get some help for it, but first I’ll check my e-mail.

Overall, I like Apple. I think that they have done some pretty innovative things, and someday I wouldn’t mind owning a Mac G5 and an iPod. There is one thing, however, about Apple that drives me crazy. Let me explain.

Last week we got Christina a Dell laptop so she can work on her thesis during her 3 hour daily commute. We updated to the latest Windows service packs, and installed Firefox, AdAware, and MS Anti Spyware. When you install Firefox, you have to reinstall the versions of the media plug ins (like Flash and Quicktime) that work with Firefox. So, I went to Apple.com to download Quicktime. I learned that Apple now only bundles Quicktime and iTunes together. You can’t get one without the other. In fact, when you download Quicktime, the installer is called iTunesSetup.exe.

I’ve used iTunes a few times, and it seems to be okay. I don’t love it. It bugs me that it makes copies of all my music in the iTunes folder (taking up twice the disk space for my music), so I don’t use it unless I need to. I do really like Quicktime, though.

Here’s my question: why can’t Apple bundle the products separately? Why can’t I just download Quicktime without iTunes? If they are really two good pieces of software, people will download them independently. Apple, please don’t force iTunes down our throats just so we can use Quicktime. Let your individual products stand on their own merits. If people like them, they’ll download them.

Yesterday I blogged about the proposed Quarry Bend development in Sandy. Last night I wanted to verify some of the information I had written, and right now I want to correct some of what I wrote previously. I’ll also update the blog entry, deleting the wrong information and inserting corrected information.

First, yesterday I stated that my parents had received a letter from their state representative. That was not true. The letter was actually from Bryant Anderson, of the Sandy City Council (district number 3) and the letter was titled: “Information and Observations About the Gravel Pit Mixed-Use Project. Mr. Anderson’s election website–which includes more information on this issue–is located here.

In yesterday’s post, I alluded to comments made by Mr. Anderson. I have crossed those out, and have replaced them with an excerpt from Mr. Anderson’s letter, straight from the horse’s mouth, so to say.
Read the rest of this entry »

In the upcoming municipal elections, residents of Sandy City will vote on referendum 1, which will be a vote to allow a zoning change to the gravel pit area of Sandy that would allow so-called “big box” retailers to build on the land.

I’m having a hard time knowing who’s who and what’s what. There has been so much mudslinging and misinformation in this campaign that I’m not sure what information is really true.

I’ll start by stating that I’m biased towards allowing a Wal-Mart on the site. I would love having a Super Wal-Mart closer to where I live. I don’t have anything against Wal-Mart in general. Just so my bias is clear!

As far as I can tell, the gravel pit area of 9400-ish South and 1100-ish East was originally zoned for a mix of residential and commercial uses. However the commercial uses were limited to things like medical offices, office complexes and the like.
Read the rest of this entry »

So tickets to _Harry Potter 4: The Goblet of Fire_ are now on sale. I’m okay telling you this now because I have purchased _our_ tickets. I didn’t tell you sooner because I didn’t want there to be a stampede on the box office, resulting in us not getting the show time that we wanted. But, no worries. I now have my tickets. But they are going fast. Maybe you should get yours.

That is, only if you are as much of a fan (notice I did *not* use the word _freak_) as I am