Chookah

So, if you've tried calling my cell phone...

and haven't gotten a response, it's not because i'm ignoring you.  I've complained before about my POS super-gadget/uber-geek/email/whiz-bang phone. 

Apparently there have been some service issues.

Check out this (modified) service impact from my IT department:

Service Impact Notification

* What is happening?

• Blackberry service never works.

* What is impacted?

• Non-existant Email delivery. Cell/Voice service is still not working.

* Start Time:

• 6/17/05 6 AM

* Who is working on it?

• IT guy, telecom dude

* How long until service is expected to be restored.

• No ETA.

 

* Possible steps for resolution (try one or multiple options listed below):

• Throw blackberry device on floor, ground or hard surface repeatedly
• Dispose of blackberry device through window of moving vehicle (preferably vehicle exceeding the speed limit by 25 mph or greater)
• Give blackberry device to e-commerce director's toddler-age daughter and tell her not to touch it.

New Look and Feel

You may have noticed a new look and feel for Chookah (if you see some garbled mess, click the "refresh" button on your browser).  I've been playing with colors and content for a couple of weeks (when I have time) and have finally come up with a combination that I'm relatively happy with.

The banner still isn't top-notch but it's updated to reflect Sebastian's blossoming personality and toy preferences.

I've asked for help with the design of the header (hint, hint) but haven't gotten any feedback on what to change, how to make things better, etc. So, please feel free to throw comments, suggestions and barbs my way.

Any feedback is better than no feedback.  Ya know?

Oh! And if you want to know what to get me for my birthday or Mother's Day (because, contrary to popular belief, they are different holidays) there is a link on the bottom left-hand side of the page which links to a list of items I update on Amazon.com.

Photos

The notorious fiends who started this whole mess....

Yes, I pinky swear that I will be uploading more photos soon.  Recent photos, photos with current relevance, even!

It just takes time to get them all optimized and sized correctly so that it doesn't take an hour and a half to browse through an album cause you're still in the stone-age with a dial up connection through AOL. <poke poke>

They're coming!  Promise!

Prediction from 1954

The lovely and talented Mr. Potter (Hi, Matt!) sent this to me.  I'd thought I'd share. 

It kind of fits in with the way that the weathermen have been predicting that Aaron and I are going to have to wade our way to the mailbox this past week (6-12" my ASS! How about 1 measly inch.  Suckas)

Here's the caption (since I had to reduce the image to the point where you can't read it - unless you're super human and can read highly pixelated text.)

Scientists from the RAND Corporation have created this model to illustrate how a “home computer” could look like in the year 2004. However the needed technology will not be economically feasible for the average home. Also the scientists readily admit that the computer will require not yet invented technology to actually work, but 50 years from now scientific progress is expected to solve these problems. With teletype interface and the Fortran language, the computer will be easy to use.

Anyone care to take a stab as to whether or not the RAND corportation is still in business and whether it's run by crooked old men who throw wistful, lustful looks at their secretaries (yes, "secretaries")?

Thinking Technologically...

Right now I'm using Blogger to create this blog.

I've spent a lot of time thinking about how to add a photo album to the site and spent a lot of time monkeying with CSS (something which I obviously don't have the patience or the technological skills to complete). With this in mind I'm thinking about moving the blog to a different provider - one that allows me easy access to modify the template that I'm using and allow me to create photo albums (and even optimize the images for me!).

This, of course, comes at a price. Blogger is free, the other option is not.

I guess it comes down to figuring out how much my time and frustration is worth.

I'm also trying to come up with a clever domain name that isn't already taken. Everything that I've thought of has been registered.

More to come....

Web Monkey

So, I've decided that since I'm too lazy to actually print out some of the thousands of photos that we have in our archives that I would monkey around with the Blogger template and make it work to display the photos.

Any bets as to how long this little project will take me?

The link is on the left for the photos. The page is lame at best and needs a LOT of tweaking (and yes, if you look at the source code it's a total hack job). I've never claimed that I can code and this page is a perfect example of why business managers shouldn't code. lol. If you click on the photos make sure to hit the "back" button instead of closing the window. I need to screw around with some Java Script to launch a window of the larger photo instead of taking you to a new page altogether.

I know what I want the page to do, figuring out how to make it work is something else altogether.

Stay tuned...