Everyone should believe in Brentopia...

Letter of Intent for Graduate School

2009-07-17T12:19:00.003-04:00

Over the past few months, every spare moment was devoted to completing and perfecting graduate school applications. To those ends, I'm pleased to announce that I was 100% successful and received acceptances to all schools to which I applied. The process to achieve those results, however, was grueling, particularly due to my own insistence on perfecting all aspects of my application materials. In particular, the graduate school "letter of intent" was one of the more challenging components of the application process, primarily due to the open-ended nature of the document and my desire to craft the "ultimate statement." (For me, half-way and second-best just isn't generally acceptable).

At some point, I do have to simply "let go" and submit what I have; that's what happened here. Granted, what I am supplying below is better written than many of the successful examples I gathered from peers, my employer and from internet sources. I don't think my example is perfect, but it may still be of assistance to others.

Obviously, this work is mine. I request that any reproductions of the following text comply with a Creative Commons 2.0 - Attribution and Share-a-like license. Note that small portions of the following text has been modified from the original, primarily to protect some limited degree of personal privacy. These edits are obvious.

-------------------------------
Letter of Intent for Application to M.S. of Instructional Technology Curriculums
-------------------------------

On March 9, 1832, upon the announcement of his candidacy to the state legislature of the State of Illinois, a twenty-three year old Abraham Lincoln stood and addressed a group of his political supporters. In his address, Lincoln would say: “Upon the subject of education, not presuming to dictate any plan or system respecting it, I can only say that I view it as the most important subject which we, as a people, can be engaged in.”

More than 170-years later, Mr. Lincoln’s sentiment remains common, and one that I can identify with personally through my own ambition and passion to become an educator. I believe an academic journey through ECU‘s program will help me achieve this aim.

My initial academic exposure to the field of instructional technology came during my undergraduate study within Mercer University’s technical communication major. The core areas of knowledge within the technical communication field are likely to be familiar for many within instructional technology, but it was the course work within my undergraduate major designated specifically to the study of the science of instruction and instructional content delivery that I found the most captivating. In my junior and senior years, I enrolled in as many courses as were offered within my major in support of these interests, and continued to pursue knowledge and query professors associated with the topics, eventually developing close academic bonds with Mercer faculty which remain active five years later.

The discovery of my passions for instruction and instructional technology have been cultivated and refined in the next steps of my career. Specifically, I found that my technical background in instructional content delivery, along with professional knowledge in the underlying technology of the Internet and a strong aptitude for acquiring new skills and knowledge, led to my employment at [the/a] College in Ashland, Virginia as “college webmaster.”

Within my role as the college’s sole webmaster, my duties in support of the college were, and remain, very broad. I view that attribute of my employment as a distinct asset to my development as both a professional, and also as a student. My position as webmaster for [the/a] College allows me to immediately apply and practice skills gleaned from studies inside and outside the classroom. This capability of my job provides an excellent platform to grow within ECU’s curriculum.

Among my responsibilities at [my employer], there are several that I particularly value. These include tasks in which I assist college faculty in the integration of technology into their coursework to improve instructional outcomes. Additionally, I have learned from opportunities to work with [my employer's] students in the use of instructional technologies. I find these opportunities, to help and enable faculty and students, some of the most fulfilling of any in my current job responsibilities. Over the last 5 years, I have enjoyed working with a number of student web interns, instructing the students in the development of marketable technical job skills upon graduation and aiding them through coursework at [my employer], then mentoring these students as they graduate and join the work force.

Without doubt, these roles have been the most rewarding elements of my work at [my employer], and the components I most enjoy. Each fall, I look forward not only to continuing the development of these interns and providing close individual instructional support to faculty members, but also guiding the the general student population through my efforts in support of the college’s academic support systems and web sites.

To that end, I view the curriculum at East Carolina as a means for greatly improving the services and instruction that I develop, one that offers exciting opportunities to learn how to contribute to learning and successful learning outcomes. In addition, I have become a trusted resource to the the upper administration of [my employer]. In that respect, I believe the knowledge, experience and perspectives that I will gain from ECU faculty and other students within the program will help me provide strategic technical advice to the [my employer] leadership, it will also help me add value to support that I provide faculty and students.

Outside of [my employer], my involvement with professional societies has provided another outlet for my interests in instruction. In particular, I have served within the Society for Technical Communication as the both the programming chair and, later, as chapter vice president and president. My roles within STC have involved developing broad educational programming covering the breadth of chapter membership interests, and facilitating and leading instructional seminars for the STC group. These experiences with STC reinforce my on-going commitment to instructional science that I have grown through my Mercer and [my employer] experiences, and provide yet another platform for practicing my skills in instructional development and technology.

Looking ahead, the desire to integrate curricula with the internet and other technologies is increasing dramatically, and I anticipate that this desire will only compound and accelerate with time. I believe now is the time to move forward with my life plan for graduate school. In particular, ECU’s specific emphasis on experiential learning and portfolio development makes its instructional technology curriculum very attractive. Additionally, the parallels between the curriculum and my employment allow me to build upon, but also focus and expand my existing technical capabilities and professional experience, maximizing the personal impact of the ECU curriculum.

I believe study at ECU will offer opportunities for substantial personal growth, particularly through practical application of what I learn from ECU. My work at [the/a] College provides me the capacity to immediately apply the knowledge learned within the ECU program to my existing work makes study at ECU particularly valuable. I look forward with great anticipation to the start of my education at ECU, and am committed to not only completing, but excelling within the online instructional technology program.

Review: Sushi O (Midlothian, Virginia)

2009-05-27T10:51:00.006-04:00

Below is the text of a review I originally posted to Yelp.com, and it relates to a dinner experience on my girlfriend's (age-redacted) birthday. She loves sushi, and I'm happy to oblige her at the local "bait shops." People do crazy things for the people they love.

Before reading the review, note that I have no relationship with Sushi O, its employees, agents, its competitors and/or competitor employees/agents. Further, I do not hold, nor held, any ill will toward Sushi O, and the details relayed below are an honest accounting of my experiences and should be interpreted strictly as personal opinion. Further, I intend no harm to the Sushi O organization, its employees or agents.

And as one should surely expect with any review, your individual mileage may vary.

-------------------------
Original review appears here: http://www.yelp.com/biz/sushi-o-midlothian#hrid:DJcKaea6ExXfMLqcAvuEmg

It appears that I will be the first to review this restaurant at any level short of perfection; indeed, my experience at Sushi-O (Midlothian, Virginia) was certainly less than perfect, and I take no pleasure in what I am about to report.

We arrived roughly 90-minutes before closing time (10PM on Weekdays) and were seated promptly in an empty dining room. At that time, there were a few bar flies drinking and watching basketball on the bar's 40" LCD, but my girlfriend and I were otherwise alone. And as the boyfriend to a woman who greatly appreciates sushi, I've eaten in all of the sushi establishments in Richmond, and VERY few are THIS quiet. The lack of activity here certainly doesn't indicate a rosy future for this establishment, which is unfortunate for the owners, but also could be seen as an indicator for the quality of the food and the relative pricing thereof.

Let me state up front here -- Sushi O is expensive, and a quick glance at their menu will show their pricing is between 20-50% higher than equivalent sushi restaurants in our area.

Generally speaking, consumers can accept some hike in price when it can be attributed to a restaurant's atmosphere and hard-working wait staff, but that's a stretch here. In the latter respect, we report that we did have much trouble attracting the attention of the wait staff during our meal -- Why? They were all gathered at the bar, watching basketball on the TV. Now, perhaps the basketball game on the TV was a nail-biter, but its hard to excuse a wait staff from their responsibilities to paying customers on the account of basketball, particularly at a restaurant where the entrees can cost upwards of $30/plate. Really, watch the game on your own time and dime, and at least present the illusion that your customer's are worth your efforts by filling their water glasses occasionally. Poor form.

I also report that the food at Sushi O is somewhat lacking.

Priced at the lower end of Sushi O's available options ($16), my girlfriend ordered "Second Base" (oddly, this is absent from the restaurant's web site); the plate consisted of 3 rather diminutive rolls: 1 California roll, 1 Spicy Tuna roll, and 1 Vegan Roll. And as a woman who does NOT enjoy heavy spicing, my girlfriend inquired about substituting the included spicy tuna roll (individually priced at $6) for salmon ($4.50) but was told that there would be an additional charge of $2-3 for the downgrade substitution. Considering that the roll she desired was *cheaper* that the included roll, this seemed an unusual charge -- and she elected to keep the original setup.

When the sushi arrived, she noted that the rice was old and had become pasty, almost like half-dried Elmer's glue. As an explanation, I suppose the restaurant had held off on cooking additional rice that evening on account of the slow dining room; again, this is rather hard to excuse.

For my entree, I decided to order the chicken Teriyaki, priced at $16. The low-brow "sizzling" platter on which my meal arrived was reminiscent of the same one might find in an Applebee's or low-cost Mexican establishment, and was unexpected from a restaurant of Sushi O's presumed stature. Further flogging my senses and expectations was an obviously store-purchased 6-oz chicken breast fillet so horribly overcooked to the point of requiring a steak knife to consume. Also included were 5 broccoli florets and two carrot slivers, over which at least 12-oz of Teriyaki sauce was applied. It left the meal and my mind swimming: did I order soup?

Moreover, I was left searching for the value in our experience. The quiet dining area was appreciated, but the same attribute can be found elsewhere in Richmond, and in locations in which the wait staff is attentive and the food properly cooked. Portions seemed small, given the pricing, and not up to the "fine dining" taste Sushi O is apparently attempting to produce.

In the end, the capstone on the evening came at the conclusion of our meal, when our waitress presented a bill for my signature, along with a pen advertising another of Richmond's restaurants (Can Can). I can only assume that this gaff was a will-intended attempt attempt to do us a service by subtly inviting us to take our business elsewhere next time.

Indeed, we will.

Braised Balsamic Chicken

2009-04-07T14:17:00.001-04:00

Braised Balsamic Chicken
Originally uploaded by phi1317

Since its been a while since I've created any new content, I thought I might write today about a meal that I created last night. Those of you who know me, also know that I enjoy cooking quite a bit.

In that respect, I've been on a "healthy cooking" kick of late, and have been rediscovering lots of foods that I enjoy, but in a healthier format. In this case, I combined the taste of balsamic vinegar, chicken, tomatoes and mushrooms with rosemay, basil, oregeno and thyme to create the entree meat. The "mashed potato" stand-in is actually organic cauliflower that has been steamed, then blended into a consistency very similar to that of mashed potatoes. The asparagus was also steamed, then topped with some of the chicken sauce.

In total, the meal comes out to 220C (including a side salad with dressing - not pictured) and I was FULL after eating this.

The Quest for a New Web Server (And 3-month Review of Krypt.com)

2009-03-18T09:39:00.013-04:00

The long process of finding a new web host began back in December of 2008, and continues into March 2009.

My goal remains to cut my fixed costs associated with hosting my personal web sites and those of my family/friends. Note that I have not experienced a single problem with my dedicated server at ThePlanet, and they continue to provide excellent service -- I've retained their services as a "life boat" to which I can return in crisis while I search for a permanent solution. After a brief sojourn from their network from January 2009 until a few days ago, I'm back with thePlanet for the moment.

Prior to today, my blog web site was hosted on a virtual private server (VPS) from Krypt.com. As my readers may have noticed, service over the last few months was less than stellar (terrible, in fact), as I experienced a number of quite protracted and unexplained outages, during which my VPS was entirely unavailable/unresponsive to all web traffic and any administrative connection.

Indeed, even Krypt's own technicians were unable to restore the VPS during those outages and, at one point, arbitrarily (and with no warning whatsoever) assigned me to a new server with a new IP address, requiring that I scramble to update DNS settings across my web portfolio.

At the same time, they entirely deleted all my site materials and left me to re-configure the entire web server on the new VPS from scratch -- no setting or software was carried forward onto the server. Fortunately, I maintain an off-site backup, so restoration of site files was relatively simple, though re-configuring IIS was a bit of a pain and a waste of time. I completed the work, however, believing that my troubles were drawing to an end.

As it would turn out, my troubles with Krypt.com were not complete as the new VPS began to settle into the precisely identical pattern of unresponsiveness as its predecessor with Krypt. Only this time, I added documentation to my technical support requests at Krypt by sending in tracert outputs to demonstrate that the connectivity problems were not on my end as certain Krypt technicians had implied. Take note of the last network "hop" to my server and the associated ping times.

Tracing route to customer.vpls.net [98.126.15.X] over a maximum of 30 hops:

1 <1 ms <1 ms <1 ms 10.10.32.1

2 1 ms 1 ms 1 ms 192.X.X.X

3 2 ms 2 ms 2 ms X.hsa1.X.level3.net [64.X.X.X]

4 2 ms 2 ms 2 ms ge-7-0-X.mpls1.X.level3.net [209.244.22.1]

5 * 6 ms 4 ms ae-2-0.bbr1.washington1.level3.net [4.68.128.201]

6 5 ms 6 ms 5 ms ae-24-79.car4.washington1.level3.net [4.68.17.70]

7 5 ms 5 ms 6 ms 10ge-3-1-0.was10.ip.tiscali.net [4.68.110.98]

8 70 ms 70 ms 69 ms so-4-0-0.lax10.ip.tiscali.net [89.149.187.93]

9 76 ms 74 ms 74 ms vpls-gw.ip.tiscali.net [77.67.68.98]

10 74 ms 74 ms 75 ms vlan2099.br1.lax3.vpls.net [67.198.200.18]

11 1353 ms 227 ms 383 ms customer.vpls.net [98.126.15.X]

Trace complete.

After supplying this documentation to Krypt.com, they were still unable to address the problem, though my opinion of the root cause had changed (to oversold servers and/or bandwidth). There is very little else which can explain the slow response in the last hop to my VPS -- that is, the most rational and most likely condition to create such a large spike in ping time in the last hop is a destination server overburdened with other client's applications and email (SPAM) servers.

Although my experience with Krypt's "quality" of service may not represent the VPS industry as a whole, I believe my server usage and technical requirements are such that a VPS environment will be unacceptable to me, regardless of the provider. So with that in mind, my mind is set to leave Krypt behind and continue my quest elsewhere, only using revised terms of search that now are revised and include only dedicated servers over which I will be master of my own.

I've already placed the order. More to come soon.

Housing Bail Out.

2009-02-19T11:49:00.003-05:00

Maybe I'm being a jerk for even thinking this way, but with all the talk of bank bail outs and now homeowner bail outs, I can't help but think: what of the the homeowners who have kept up with payments and weren't aggressive in pursuit of unaffordable properties and mortgages?

Frankly, I reject with extreme prejudice any notion that banks suckered home buyers into adjustable rate or other types of "exotic" mortgages.

When I purchased my house in 2007, I was offered these "deals" too but managed the foresight and financial maturity to recognize that down the road these offerings would pose problems for my personal finances. To that end, I selected a traditional 30-year mortgage, and found a great interest rate that has given me some stability in our current troubling economic times.

Now, was my decision somehow driven by an uncommon financial wisdom? Do I have peculiar powers of prognostication? Hell no. I'm just not stupid.

Yet, somehow we're now in a position where our federal government is going to swoop in and "make it all better" for people who were short sighted and irresponsible in their real estate transactions. At a minimum, that's how our President's presentation read to me yesterday.

Moreover, it at least feels that, as a responsible adult, I'm being asked to subsidize these failed and failing real estate dealings with my tax money.

Can someone explain to me why am I paying to support homeowners who accepted poor mortgage terms?

I'm sorry, but it isn't a requirement to own a property. I mean, if the banks aren't willing to offer decent mortgage terms, walk away and go find an apartment, townhouse or house to rent until you can find better offers. Nobody put a gun to my head and required me to sign on the dotted line at Wachovia; that's something I freely selected.

If a mortgage is something we must freely enter into on our own terms, then why am I paying to support a third-party homeowner who overreached his/her financial means by purchasing a home they never had any business owning?

Let's be frank here -- adjustable rate mortgages and interest-only mortgages were predominantly offered to buyers who either had low incomes to begin with or were preparing to purchase homes larger than their budgets could support. In both cases, it was the buyer's fault that they ultimately wound up in financial trouble.

Those buyers got greedy and accepted insolvency in favor of more house then they afford.

Granted, some of the blame does belong to the bank for allowing the transaction in the first place, and even more blame where the bank faked income records in order to have the mortgage approved. But I'm still not willing to fault the banks with more than a small portion of the blame. Its still an individual decision to enter-into a mortgage, and bad terms are recognizable.

These individuals should have known better.

Yes, you can be laid off from work. Yes, you can get hurt and not be able to work, or you may have medical expenses that make paying bills difficult. There are lots of reasons why a homeowner can fall behind on mortgage payments that are truly "no fault" issues. But more often than not, the stories being told are really about those homeowners who have mortgages resetting to higher rates along time lines they've long since known about. This is a risk those parties accepted.

So why am I, the responsible, mature tax-payer, supporting these people? I have my own problems, and I don't have the extra money to support someone else in their real estate idiocy.

I say we let them fall flat on their faces; let them deal with the consequences of their own actions, and (hopefully) learn from the experiences. The rest of us shouldn't have to "pass the hat" with our tax money, particularly when we have our own financial concerns, in order to bring solvency to a broken equation.

Miguel Tejada Is Yet Another Cheater

2009-02-11T16:11:00.003-05:00

As a baseball fan, I'm once against disgusted by the headlines.

We've yet another cheater in the sport and, this time, he's conceded guilt to not only knowingly consuming so-called "banned substances" but also lying to Congress about the same subject while under oath. Accordingly, Miguel Tejada faces up to 1-year in prison for his lies, though his plea agreement and federal sentencing guidelines call for less of a sentence. He may also face extradition under US Customs and Immigration Enforcement. Good!

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090211/ap_on_sp_ba_ne/tejada_steroids

Frankly, I'm all for Miguel's immediate, permanent expulsion from baseball too, and I'm growing rather weary of MLB's complete lack of action on this front.

So, add Miguel Tejada and Raphael Palmeiro to my earlier list of professional baseball players whose records, in my opinion, should be expunged. After all, they are all disgraces to the sport, and are not worthy of any further consideration.

A-Fraud: New York Yankee, Liar and Cheater

2009-02-09T16:09:00.005-05:00

Over the weekend, Sports-Illustrated released information that Alex Rodriguez, third baseman for the New York Yankees, tested positive for steroid use in 2003.

As reported by Sports-Illustrated, this information was leaked to SI by four, indepenent and anonymous sources who have access to a list of major league players who've tested positive for banned substances under MLB survey testing. This list was seized by federal agents using search warrants as part of the recent doping investigations.

At the time of his positive tests, A-Fraud (formerly known as A-Rod) was playing shortstop for the Texas Rangers under what was the largest contract offered a major league baseball player. Coincidentally (not really), that was the year of A-Fraud won the American League home run title and the AL Most Valuable Player award.

Approached at his gym over the weekend, the Fraud denied everything.

Today, ESPN is reporting an interview with the cheater in which he concedes to the drug-use over a 3-year span (2001-2003). He attributes the poor decision to his youth, the baseball environment and the pressure created by the expectations of his team in Arlington, Texas. I attribute the decision to greed, pure and simple.

As a fan of the game, I'm disgusted and disheartened.

In fact, this past weekend I concluded a discussion with another baseball fan that MLB Commissioner Bug Selig should buy stock in BIC as soon as possible -- the Wite-Out BIC manufactures is going to be in short supply soon, because as far as I'm concerned (and there are many who share my position), there are now at least ~~two~~ five players ~~(Barry Bonds and, now, A-Fraud)~~ (Barry Bonds, A-Fraud, Andy Pettitte, Jose Canseco and Jason Giambi) whose records and names need to be expunged from the record books entirely. There are a lot of record books in print.

Moreover, based on the information provided in the stories listed above, there's plenty more players who should be erased from baseball. 104 total players were included on the same list of "positive test results" as A-Fraud.

They're all cheats.

Edit: There are five players on my list. What an exclusive fraternity the Yankees are building! (Four of the five were/are New York Yankee players).

Things You Don't Know About Me.

2009-01-22T19:13:00.004-05:00

My friend Anna tagged me to play along in a "blogging game" (for lack of better terms) in which I'm supposed to share some bits of information about myself that might otherwise go unnoticed.

As I'm a bit unclear as to precisely how many things I'm supposed to list here for the amusement of my readers (all 3 of you), I'm just going to go for it and stop where I find an appropriate place. As per my norm, I'm procrastinating on a development assignment and I've got some good tunes on Winamp anyway.

What the hell. Here we go.

1) I'm a fan of the blues, bluegrass and country music, plus I know the words to almost all of Jimmy Buffett's songs. I don't particularly enjoy rap, hip hop or R&B.

Ok. So my music tastes probably won't shock anyone, but the fact that I've been known to sing along with Jimmy from time to time may be surprising. It doesn't even take a Margarita to get me started.

2) At the age of 12, I stole some baseball cards. To this day, I consider it one of the worst things that I've ever done in my life, and I have not forgiven myself.

Yes, I'm being serious. It really does bother me and no matter how many ways I've tried to rationalize the event, particularly considering my age at the time, I can't escape the fact that I feel now that I knew what I was doing then. Of course, I would and will never steal again, and in that respect the event has changed who I've become as a man. Truly, I won't even download MP3s off the 'net unless they come from Amazon or iTunes, and in this day, that's something significant.

3) When I drive, I tend to drive way too fast.

During college, I got to know one of South Carolina's finest (80mph in a 65mph) and some years later, I met a Hanover deputy too (54mph in a 45mph). Oops! Now that I'm paying my own bills and for my own auto insurance, I'm (somewhat) reformed.

3) I consider myself to be one of the most open-minded people I know when it comes to culinary decisions.

I've eaten the Goober Burger. 'Nuf said.

4) In college, I was (and am) a member of Phi Delta Theta.

I consider it one of the better decisions I made during my course of study down in Georgia. I met some great folks, had plenty of fun and developed leadership skills that I use today. I also credit Phi Delt with getting me through undergraduate amid some pretty turbulent times in my personal life which made me want to quit school desperately.

5) I've broken my left arm in 4 places, my right elbow and the big toe of my right foot.

Ok. The left arm was broken at the age of 13 while riding downhill on a bike and doing something pretty stupid. (I was standing up, hands off the handle bars and doing about 25mph when I hit the pothole). My right elbow was broken while playing basketball -- a friend jumped on my back and another onto her back. I couldn't carry all three of us and came down pretty hard. The big toe was also a basketball accident on a separate day -- another friend came down on me.

6) I don't enjoy basketball.

Do you have to ask why? Flashbacks...

7) I don't want to be a developer for the rest of my life.

In December 08, I took the general GRE and am preparing to make application to three different schools now. My undergraduate GPA is somewhat embarrassing and that bothers me greatly, but hopefully my strong GRE scores and references (plus age and working experience) will weigh into a positive outcome. I know further education is the road out of the full time development world.

8) I had my first drink of my life in a bar with saw dust on the floor.

I don't remember the name of the place but they had pool, country music and boots were a part of the dress code. I played pool with some friends, but I think I had standard issue Nikes on at the time.

9) Discounting the 4.5 years of undergraduate study in Georgia, I've lived in Richmond for almost all of my life.

I was born in Asheville, NC, and lived there until the end of 1st grade. I remember when there were only two Allen's in "Allen, Allen, Allen & Allen" law firm, and when the bag delivery kids at Ukrops accepted tips.

10) I first kissed a girl at the age of 7.

I was such a little player. True story.

11) Although I spend most of my day on the internet, I've never "twittered" and only recently expanded my Facebook profile and started to take Web 2.0 seriously.

Somehow, I'm still a whole person, albeit slightly behind the times.

12) I drive a pickup truck. Never in my life do I want to own or drive a van of any sort. Death is preferable.

People carriers are for soccer Moms, delivery men and parents who carry far too much kid junk around. I mean, the kid can make do without the stroller, special diaper bag and awkwardly sized toys, just like children have made do with far less for thousands of years.

13) I really enjoy gardening and I made my own tomato sauce last year.

Ok, so making the sauce had more to do with who was with me at the time as it was a chance to do something fun with her. The garden part has always been a hobby of mine; in fact, high school aptitude testing showed that I was supposed to be a farmer of some sort -- programming came second.

14) I plan to shave my head rather than have that ridiculous bald white guy ring of hair around back of my head.

That day isn't quite here, but I know its coming. I'm not taking pills and I will not use the creams for hair loss, and I will go down gracefully. I'm not going to fight it.

15) I don't have that many friends who blog.

That makes this next bit harder...

---------------------
Anyway, that's all from me. Now, following the meme rules on Anna's blog, it looks like my next step is to pick a handful of people to go next.

1) Thomas Becker (you knew it was coming, didn't you?)
2) Liz Frazier (via Facebook)

Circuit City Officially Being Liquidated?

2009-01-16T11:41:00.003-05:00

Given the nature of earlier reporting on the subject, I suppose there is a chance that the news circulating about Circuit City's demise could, in fact, be incorrect; however, also given that the sources for the more recent reports, it officially appears that Circuit City is to be liquidated.

Without a doubt, this is definitely a sad day for the 35,000 employees of Circuit City, all of whom will be out of work as soon as the liquidation process is completed.

Circuit City Story Withdrawn

2009-01-15T15:46:00.002-05:00

The Richmond Times-Dispatch has pulled their original story as pure speculation, which indicated that Circuit City was to be broken up and sold in pieces . Unfortunately, this is not how the information was originally presented, but it appears that -- for now -- my original post was incorrect.

http://www.timesdispatch.com/rtd/business/local/article/CIRCGAT15A_20090115-130809/179162/

Richmond.com was also pulled into the blunder as they, too, have created a post on the subject. So I guess the moral of the story is to treat RTD stories like Microsoft Service Packs -- only be an early adopter at your own peril.

Circuit City to be broken up and sold in pieces.

2009-01-15T12:37:00.002-05:00

A Richmond Times-Dispatch article published only a few minutes ago delivers news of a severe blow to the Richmond economy: "Circuit City to be broken up."

Obviously, this crushing news impacts the lives of thousands of workers in Circuit City retail stores, and I feel terrible for the hundreds of workers in the corporate offices in Richmond as well. Hopefully many have already left, or will quickly find work once they do.

http://www.timesdispatch.com/rtd/business/local/article/CIRCGAT15_20090115-122410/179100/

As a consumer, I'm also quite concerned at what will become a much smaller market in consumer electronics with the exit of Circuit City. Those who have read my blog for a while are familiar with my opinions on Best Buy, and allowing their status as the only electronics retailer in many markets will only compound the service issues previously noted.

This is certainly a bad to be a consumer of electronics, and its definitely a bad day to be a Circuit City employee.

Interesting, New Experience... Blueberry Cobbler Cheddar.

2009-01-07T13:39:00.004-05:00

Photographic Proof for the Existence of a Culinary Bigfoot

Earlier this afternoon, I made a run at the grocery store to acquire additional caffeine to fuel my dependency, but also some napkins for my contribution to the office birthday party for my boss. While there, I happened to notice a rather peculiar and intriguing form of Cheddar cheese that I have never before encountered or even considered.

In this particular instance, I wonder who it was that devised then concocted this potpourri of aged milk and cobbler of wild blueberries.

Having sampled this Frankenstein's monster of cheeses, I have to say that its not a foul creation, though certainly unusual. In that respect, the sugary sweet of the blueberry cobbler flavoring dovetails into the mild cheddar flavors nicely, and neither overpowers. This is more than a standard cheddar, of course, but the addition makes this is a great cheese to be eaten with a small glass of desert wine.

Anyway, I don't know that I would go out of my way to purchase this product in the future, but its worth trying once.

Little Bobby Tables

2008-12-19T16:46:00.004-05:00

This comes from the archives of one of my all-time favorite web comics, XKCD. A recent post on "the Daily WTF" made me think of it.

(The click goes to a larger version.)

New Web Host

2008-12-05T22:38:00.002-05:00

As of this afternoon, I am now hosting my blog on a new web server. I'll provide additional details later, particularly on the technicalities of the move itself, but this post is primarily to serve as an update to the blog's text which will help me notice DNS changes when they do occur.

That is, my original blog is still technically available on its former web host and on its new host simultaneously -- the goal is to have all web connections see the blog at its new host eventually, so this post update has only been applied at the new host. Hence, when I can see this post, then I know the new host has taken over for the old.

Again, more later...

Ted Stevens can STAY home.

2008-11-19T10:04:00.004-05:00

I realize that I'm a bit behind the times in writing this, but Christmas came a bit early for me this year.

Ted Stevens has not only been indicted, but convicted of by a federal grand jury on seven counts of failing to report gifts received from VECO Corporation and its CEO Bill Allen on his Senate financial disclosure forms.

But the gravy on this giant pile of awesomeness is simply that Senior Senator Ted "Series of Tubes" Stevens has lost his reelection bid officially as of November 19.

He's not coming back to Washington, DC, folks, and there's a chance his replacement might be intelligent enough to hold intelligent debate on technical subjects. After all, it's not that I dislike the man, personally; in this case, I dislike Stevens' propensity to ram ignorant opinions forward in support of ignorant legislation that has had and will have profound impacts on my professional life.

Anyway, have a nice retirement, Ted! Good bye, sir!! Good bye.

Long time?

2008-11-03T14:56:00.001-05:00

IMG_0848
Originally uploaded by phi1317

It has certainly been a while since I updated my blog, and there have been lots of little updates in my life.

For starters, I recently acquired by first dSLR camera, a Canon Rebel XT (8MP); as a result, I've made myself busy over the past few weeks with taking photos in the area and learning all technical capabilities of my camera.

A lot has changed since I took photography in college on an old 35mm SLR.

On other fronts, softball season has ended, and I feel that we have a great group of folks who will return to play again next year. In my mind, the only question is what night of the week I want to play on; the Tuesday league really was a much more friendly crowd, and I feel drawn back to that environment.

I've also got a decent "hitting streak" going with geocaching and as of this post, now have a 13-day consecutive find streak.

Pretty neat. Anyway, that's all for now. I'll try to update again later this week.

Death Penalty

2008-10-14T16:35:00.004-04:00

Not a long post on the subject of the death penalty today; only my desire to point out the current story of Troy A. Davis as one sterling example of why I think the death penalty should be eliminated wholesale.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/15/washington/15execute.html?hp

I have no idea whether Mr. Davis is indeed guilty of the crimes for which he is sentenced to die, and I'm not party to or particularly informed on his case. But, I do wonder if there's even a minute chance he could be innocent of the charges or, at least, innocent of killing the deputy.

Now, I'm certainly not one to advocate for "going easy" on murders, and I'm not suggesting that Mr. Davis should be set free.

But my concern in this case, and those like them, is whether the state (or a jury of a defendant's "peers") can ever be totally 100% positive of guilt? Positive enough to kill the convict?

I doubt we can ever know for certain. And anything short of absolute 100% certainty opens the door for sentencing innocents to death. And I, for one, don't want that blood on my hands. Ever.

Outlook 2007 Rendering Engine

2008-10-09T15:40:00.010-04:00

At work last week, I kept busy creating what ultimately became the new, R-MC Alumni newsletter. We've been working with a third-party vendor on this project, primarily for infrastructure support (sending out the emails) but they were also in charge of assembling the templated design (or "email stationery" in their marketing vernacular).

During the design process, however, we hit some snags.

To preface what is to follow, I need to point out that when it comes to CSS and HTML, I'm anal. Yes, I admit it.

I feel that <style> belongs in the document <head>, not the <body>.
Properly formatted XHTML tags should be in lower-case.
Anything that SHOULD be CSS controlled... should be... (drop the friggin "align" from then "<div>" already)
I hate bgcolor attributes. (see above #3 too)
etc.

I guess I'm just crazy tough like that...

The email vendor on the project doesn't share my same view of web code, and that lead to some disagreements on implementation. As it would turn out, only some of my arguments about properly formatted code were valid in the realm of HTML email, and a few were incorrect.

With that said, however, I'm not convinced that our email vendor knew that what they were doing incorrectly was --in fact-- going to be right in the end. In my opinion, I think it was happy coincidence that their invalid markup wound up being ideal.

And we can thank Microsoft for that.

Yes, the "kings" of standards compliance are at it again -- to that end, Microsoft has found a new front for their war against the W3C and web developers.

This time though, they're not using their maleficent web browser rendering engine to make a mess of the web and to wreak havoc in the development world.

This go-around is strictly with Outlook and Microsoft has done well. And, once again, the platform in which the problem exists still reigns supreme in its genre, so its not something that can be ignored.

The issue, in a nutshell, is that Microsoft's Office development team elected to remove Internet Explorer as the rendering engine for HTML email in favor of the Word 2007 rendering engine.

So, what?

Well, the Word 2007 rendering engine has extremely spotty rendering capabilities for CSS. Positioning is completely gone, but some fundamentals are basically gone or horribly bugged too (object backgrounds, for one).

Here are a few more things that Outlook 2007 won't be doing:

no support for background images (HTML or CSS)
no support for forms
no support for Flash, or other plugins
no support for CSS floats
no support for replacing bullets with images in unordered lists
no support for CSS positioning
no support for animated GIFs

Now, I'm sure some readers will look at the examples in the above list and thinks "so what?"

Or, even more likely, "Good! I never wanted animated GIFs or Flash in my HTML emails anyway!"

That's beside the point, in my opinion; to me, the real issue is the removal of basic functionality, and the restriction of what one person can decide on their own to consume (or not to consume) via HTML email in Outlook. That is, if a recipient wants to receive Flash and/or animated GIFs in their email, then the more power to them. They should be allowed to read what they please, and Microsoft shouldn't be permitted to make arbitrary decisions to the contrary in overruling that user.

From a code perspective, I'm also extremely disappointed to see a forced return to tables-based design and deprecated HTML. That said though, I've grown somewhat accustomed to the general lack of respect on the park of Microsoft to web standards.

Anyway, we were ultimately able to make the email stationery consistent from Outlook 2007 to all the other mail clients out there, so it was mission (basically) accomplished and the newsletters went out on Friday.

Under the hood of the final newsletter product, however, you'll find a kludge of tables, font tags, in-line CSS and div aligns. I'm not happy about that, but resigned to the reality of Outlook 2007.

Incoming!

2008-10-07T10:01:00.003-04:00

If you live in the Sudan, be sure to avoid falling bolide debris today.

http://neo.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news159.html

According to the Minor Planet Center, a 2-3 meter wide asteroid will enter Earth's atmosphere today, October 7, and should put on a spectacular show for the locals of Africa's Sudan region. The asteroid, designated "2008 TC3," was discovered on October 6, and was almost immediately given a 99.8% chance of impacting with Earth.

Of course, there is very little danger posed to inhabitants of the Earth's surface as this very small asteroid has no real chance to reach terra firma as a whole, particularly given its relative small size and massive energy upon entering our atmosphere (to the order of a kiloton of TNT). The main body of "2008 TC3" will simply disintegrate.

But asteroid and meteorite collectors can rejoice! The Minor Planet Center and other researchers at the University of Arizona have predicted that very minute amounts of this asteroid may reach the surface of our planet as meteorites, allowing collectors and dealers a chance to touch and possess a piece of this object.

Yet, what I find the most interesting, however, is that this space object was entirely unknown just 24-hrs ago, and yet it will impact our planet.

So along those lines; I wonder how many other objects are out there with the prospect of touching our planet? Should we be concerned?

Or perhaps the question should be; how many times have asteroids hit our planet in modern times and we have remained unaware?

Shea Stadium (NY Mets) - September 13

2008-09-19T13:40:00.004-04:00

Shea Stadium (NY Mets) - September 13
Originally uploaded by phi1317

I intended to write this post sooner, but I've been extraordinarily busy this week playing softball, organizing professional society meetings, completing house work and running errands. Nonetheless, here I am with a few minutes to spare and an interest in sharing my experiences at Shea Stadium with you.

To begin, its important to note that my attendance at the NY Mets game on September 13 almost didn't happen. As the day of the game approached, I found myself more and more under the gun at work, at home and at play -- the stress of outside life quite nearly forced me to pull the plug on my trip and stay at home to deal with life.

Afterall, I'd been to a New York baseball stadium, and I hadn't been impressed. (Yankee Stadium is a dump, and the fans left a lot to be desired, in my opinion).

Staying at home for this game, however, would have been an enormous mistake.

Not only did my visit to Shea Stadium completely upend my prejudiced impressions of New York baseball clubs, but also the fans and stadium staff.

Shea stadium, as a whole, is just as run-down and shabby as some of the other baseball stadiums I've visited. But the condition of the facility doesn't even come close to resembling the slum in the Bronx.

Now, people who know me well, can say that I'm a bit of a baseball snob and I'm a bit hard to please when it comes to stadiums. I just won't compromise on the setting. And, along those lines, this place (Shea) just felt *right*.

To me, its the smells of hot dogs and beer that make a ball stadium; its also the sounds in the roar of the crowd, the call of the vendors and child laughter at the "wave."

The feeling also comes from stadium seating, especially in the upper deck, and also from chips in years of paint over paint along every railing.

Its also in the way the stadium lights slowly fill the field with amber then argent glow in the early twilight hours of a game.

---

To me, there's more to baseball than the players on the field and outcome of the game; watching the event on TV just doesn't hold the same sway with me as *attending*. There's some particular about *being there* when all the pieces fall in place. It brings a smile to my face, unlike anything else can.

Shea stadium has all the pieces. I found that out on September 13.

Front Page Extensions

2008-09-16T17:00:00.002-04:00

I received this in an email over a professional society listserv, and had to share it here. The basis for this message is almost universal hatred for particular afflictions common among .EDU web developers, and administrators. Those familiar with the working environment will immediately recognize the culprits, easily, but the underlying frustrations will also ring quite true as well. Enjoy!

Bill -

Did I mention that my department has about 12 FrontPage forms that broke the other day when IT turned off something called "FrontPage Extensions?" Not sure what that is, but they were grumbling about obsolescence and "heinous security risks." Would you mind fixing them up to write to our Access database again? The database is on my laptop. The administrative login is "english" and the password is "department."

We get 2, maybe 3 of these a month and the forms are just a lifesaver. Help me, Bill. You're my only hope!

Dr. Connie
English Department Chair

Office 2007, MIME Types & IIS6

2008-09-09T10:03:00.007-04:00

Server administrators running IIS6 have likely noticed that with the new version of Offices 2007 comes a new array of document extensions; these delightful new extensions must be added to IIS6 as, by default, IIS6 is configured to throw a 404 error for any MIME-types not found in its list of supported formats. That's a solid, "makes sense" security feature, and I'm not complaining about it one bit.

That said, adding seventeen individual new file types to each of my Windows 2003 / IIS6 installations is a bit much. A hotfix from Microsoft to automatically add these types into IIS6 would have been great.

Nonetheless, there is another way. Here's how to do it in a much easier method.

Stop the IIS6 Windows service and open the metabase XML file (C:\WINDOWS\system32\inetsrv\MetaBase.xml) in a text editor. Search for "iismimemap" and append the following to the appropriate node. Save the changes to the Metabase and restart IIS. Problem solved.


.docm,application/vnd.ms-word.document.macroEnabled.12
.docx,application/vnd.openxmlformats-officedocument.wordprocessingml.document
.dotm,application/vnd.ms-word.template.macroEnabled.12
.dotx,application/vnd.openxmlformats-officedocument.wordprocessingml.template
.potm,application/vnd.ms-powerpoint.template.macroEnabled.12
.potx,application/vnd.openxmlformats-officedocument.presentationml.template
.ppam,application/vnd.ms-powerpoint.addin.macroEnabled.12
.ppsm,application/vnd.ms-powerpoint.slideshow.macroEnabled.12
.ppsx,application/vnd.openxmlformats-officedocument.presentationml.slideshow
.pptm,application/vnd.ms-powerpoint.presentation.macroEnabled.12
.pptx,application/vnd.openxmlformats-officedocument.presentationml.presentation
.xlam,application/vnd.ms-excel.addin.macroEnabled.12
.xlsb,application/vnd.ms-excel.sheet.binary.macroEnabled.12
.xlsm,application/vnd.ms-excel.sheet.macroEnabled.12
.xlsx,application/vnd.openxmlformats-officedocument.spreadsheetml.sheet
.xltm,application/vnd.ms-excel.template.macroEnabled.12
.xltx,application/vnd.openxmlformats-officedocument.spreadsheetml.template

Sunday Games - Rain Out?

2008-09-08T15:57:00.006-04:00

There were no softball games this weekend on account of the "bad weather" that rolled through on Saturday.

To that end, Tropical Storm Hanna really turned out to be much ado about nothing; it rained practically non-stop from Friday night/morning into Saturday afternoon, filling rivers, streams and the like, but the storm cleared out quickly; but not before the Richmond-area weather hysteria kicked into high gear.

So, yes, our softball games were canceled, and local grocery stores were moving all of their frozen goods out of freezers in the aisles to the backup freezers in their back inventory areas. Its like they were preparing for a major catastrophe.

But Hanna wound up being an extended rain storm with some low- to moderately-high wind gusts. I mean, I didn't even hear lightening.

But with all that said, the rain was gone by mid-afternoon and a few disgruntled softball players from our Sunday team wound up stopping by the fields after the rains parted.

Their report? Clear, dry fields.

Indeed, the fields were in great condition for the little league and youth softball games at the same complex on Sunday.

The adult fields had fresh line chalk too.

How do I know all this? I stopped by to practice with one of the other teams in our league; I was invited by a player from our Tuesday team, and the adult softball fields were just fine for us to play on for more than 2 hours.

So, if the fields were fine and the youth league games were in full swing to boot, why were the adults sitting out for the weekend?

Well, the scuttlebutt on the field wasn't good. Suffice it to say that several of the teams who did show up on Sunday for team practices weren't pleased by the "rain out," and shared several, independent, yet eerily similar theories about why games were canceled.

Now, I don't know whether or not I should fully attribute their negative comments about the decision to frustrated conjecture or absolute truth. My guess is that the theorists are probably not accurate in this case and that reality is somewhere in between what was noted on the field and what actually happened. With that in mind though, the sources for the on-the-field gossip are, at least, typically good to their word, but their theories don't bear repeating here.

Either way, there wasn't anything we could do yesterday, except to enjoy the nice day and relaxed softball practice; that much was great.

Hopefully, we can get some playing time in on Tuesday, but the weather report doesn't look promising.

Aouili Sauce

2008-08-29T11:46:00.003-04:00

I'm doing the end-zone touchdown dance right now, as my 6-month quest to discover the identity of the mystery white sauce served at local Mexican restaurants may be finally drawing to a close.

To that end, I have information that preliminarily identifies this culinary arcanum as "aioli sauce."

Now, it appears that there are myriad variations of this simple oil and egg-white based sauce, but the photographic proof is almost indisputable. The task may now be to reverse engineer the particulars of the variety served at the local Mexican restaurants.

But all that said, I think I finally have the name of my sauce.

Gatorade. Mmmm. Gatorade...

2008-08-25T13:43:00.004-04:00

Brent thirsty
Originally uploaded by eclecticlibrarian

Despite the great weather and early game time, our opponents did not show up for softball yesterday. Unfortunately, we did not find out until 2:00 p.m., when Tom spoke to the league administration -- they called "Got Skills?" and received word that their team was not showing up.

Pity.

But we did manage to salvage the afternoon by scrimmaging against an all men's team who were practicing nearby. The group, lead by "Travis," were all nice folks and it was a pleasure playing them for about an hour and a half.

We had a good laugh at their first baseman who was trying to cover his position with a beer in one hand and the glove in the other. Never seen that attempted before...

Pitching for our team was lead by Beth M., a new player this fall -- she did rather well. Catching was anchored by Anna C., and she also did very well.

Overall, I think we've got a good squad on Sundays, and it should be a great fall season -- win or lose.

PS: I made a great batch of ice cold Gatorade for our team and brought it out the field, only to realize when I was 90% of the way there, that I'd forgotten the cups. Oh well. It tasted great coming right out of the cooler. Ha ha.