Today I was browsing eBay looking for a new cell phone, and I came across an interesting description. One seller, apparently charges one flat rate for shipping to all 52 states. (Click on the graphic for a larger version.)
Where have I been? Now there are 52? What are states number 51 and 52? Did I miss something here?
So you’re an Adobe Photoshop user. You like the power of Photoshop, but you don’t like the price tag. You’ve heard about an open source alternative called “Gimp”, but you are afraid you might not know how to use it. Or maybe you actually installed Gimp, but you found that it was so different from Photoshop that you didn’t know what to do.
Enter Gimpshop. A mod of Gimp, Gimpshop is an attempt to blend Photoshop-like menus with Gimp functionality. Produced by the folks over at Plastic Bugs, Gimpshop does a good job renaming Gimp functionality so that when you g0 looking for a specific Photoshop function, it is about where you think it ought to be.
Best of all, Gimpshop, like Gimp, is open source, so it is totally free and legal. The developers _want_ you to download it for free and use it.
Refreshing isn’t it?
I’ve made something like 220 posts in this blog since I started it in June 2004, and what has been interesting is how open I’ve become to sharing my life with anybody who is willing to read it online.
However, I’ve come to realize that there are occasional times that I would like to share things about my life with my close friends and family, without necessarily sharing them with the entire world. Therefore as of today I’m implementing a new feature for registered site users: hidden content.
Effective immediately, there will be certain occasional posts that are hidden from public view. If you log in to your account, you will be able to view all content, including the hidden posts. In order for this to work, you’ll have to have an account level of 1 or higher, which is an admin-set level. I’ve set all the levels for my regular registered users to level 1, so all of you should be able to log in and view the additional content.
There are two major reasons for this change. First, requiring you to log in to view certain posts keeps those posts from being indexed on any search engine. Second, it will let me speak more freely about certain topics than I feel comfortable doing in the standard open forum provided by a blog.
I don’t imagine I’ll protect very many posts. This will just be an occasional thing. And there will be a regularly posted notice letting you know when there is added content that you must be logged-in to read.
Thanks for reading. And thanks for being understanding.
Now, go log in so you can view the post I made yesterday… 
Update: 1/10/06
I upgraded to a new version of WordPress, and that changed how this functionality works. If you currently have an account on this blog, nothing will have changed for you. However, as of today, new users will have to contact me in order to get access to the hidden content.
What do you have to do? It’s simple:
Remember how computers looked in the early 1950s? (Okay, I admit, I don’t actually ‘remember,’ since I wasn’t actually there…) but the computers took up entire buildings–or at least entire floors of buildings. The dream of a ‘home computer’ was a long ways off.
Check out the following image reportedly from a 1954 Popular Mechanics article. The picture is said to be of a model of the home computer dream as it would probably look in the year 2004. Click on the image to view a larger version, and be sure to read the caption.
However, now you have to read this article, that shows that this image is really a hoax (albeit a funny one). The image was submitted to an image-modification contest, and has since been taken as truth, instead of fiction.
Ahhh. Internet rumors and falsehoods. But I thought this was pretty funny anyway.
Let me start of by saying this: we didn’t buy. I just wanted to make that clear before I said more.
Last night we went to a timeshare presentation. You’ve heard about them, and maybe you’ve even attended one. This was our second one, and we are still time-share-less.
How did we get conned (and yes, I did say conned) into attending yet another time share presentation? Simple. I can’t walk past a mall “Win this car” display without entering the contest. I figure that SOMEBODY has to win, and if it doesn’t cost anything, then it might as well be me, right? (Sometimes I forget the saying cross stitched on the wall at the Urie’s house: “there ain’t no free lunch.”) So at the Harry Potter premiere, Christina and I were walking through the Provo Towne Centre mall and I saw one of these displays. I entered the contest knowing I would get a call from a timeshare company. The other night they called:
“Hello, Mr. Pehrson? I’m calling to inform you of the prize you won from a contest that you entered. You won a $50 gift card plus a hotel stay, or you won airfare and hotel accommodations at one of our selected resorts.”
“What’s it going to cost me?” (Last time we “won” a trip to Vegas, but we had to pay $99 up-front for the trip.)
“There is no cost involved. You just have to arrange a time to come pick up your prize at our Draper office. We never even get your credit card number.”
“What’s the catch?”
“The only thing you are required to do is to attend our 90-minute time-share sales presentation. At the end of the presentation, you will be presented with your free gift.”
(Whispered conversation between me and Christina)
“Ok. We’ll come listen.”
Such is how we were reeled in.
Maybe now is a good time to tell you that I’m not opposed to the concept of time shares in general. We attended the presentation in Las Vegas, and were impressed by what we saw. We liked what we saw. We just weren’t willing to commit, up front, for that kind of obligation. But for some people, I think the concept is pretty cool. That said, however, I am VERY put off by their sales style.
We arrived at our appointment last night and were ushered into the “theater” where we got to sit with about 10 or 12 other couples and listen to the first sales pitch about how important vacation is, and how wonderful time shares are, and how this company’s time shares are different from any other in the industry, and how life should be about family time and good vacations, and how our kids only remember the vacations they had so that should be most important to us, and yada yada yada.
What was interesting about this part of the program was that the speaker did something very interesting. He said, “I know what conversation some of you had in the car on the way down here. You said that you were just going to come in here and give the right answers and try to get out with your gift in as little time as possible.” He also said something like, “I know that some of you spouses were dragged in here rather reluctantly.” I thought it was interesting that they would point this out, but Christina pointed out that it was a way to put you off your guard. By identifying these patterns, it was like they were saying, “We know what you’re thinking and its not going to work.”
After the ra-ra session, we were introduced to our “representative” (whose name I didn’t actually catch.)
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My name is Paul Pehrson and I work as a technical writer for a non-profit organization in Salt Lake City. I graduated with a degree in English. Someday I plan to continue my graduate studies in a MS program for technical communication. I am happily married to the love of my life and we are the parents of two wonderful children.
