Joe gets a call from a personal hero

Let's talk about the amazing power of new media to do some truly, in a personal sense, earth shattering work. Allow me to explain.

If you know me then you probably know that a very close friend of mine and many, Joe Murphy, was recently diagnosed with a particularly nasty form of cancer -- leiomyosarcoma. His prognosis went from bad to worse, and we're literally facing the final stages. As in days. Or even hours. Yeah, it's that bad and no, there's nothing to be done at this point.

A few days ago, I was contacted by a powerhouse of a podcaster, Leann Mabry from Tag in the Seam (a great podcast which I highly recommend), looking to do something special for Joe. She had heard our comment about getting Joe to see Penn and Teller, or getting Penn and Teller to come see Joe before he passed -- sort of a Make A Wish™ for a grown up.

Leann then reach out to a friend who lives in Vegas and has access to the aforementioned Penn and Teller. He indicated that he could attend one of their shows and pass along a note to the duo and was looking for some guidance on what to include in said note. That's when Leann wrote to me (and to Mike). My reply was something like "it's a great idea, but I think we're too close to the end to make it happen."

Heh. I must have forgotten who I was speaking to.

Tonight, Leann did it. Or should I say her friend did it? Dunno, but I love them both. Tonight at around 8:00 MST, Teller (yeah, the one that you've probably never heard speak) called Joe (currently in hospice) on his cell phone. The two chatted for 5 - 10 minutes, about favorite science fiction works and some serious fan-boy geeking as I understand it. Not to be outdone, Penn Jillette called and left an amazing voice mail on the Wingin' It! show line.

So yeah, I'm pretty jazzed about the power of new media to... make shit happen! It put a positive spin to a pretty crappy day. And thought the outcome of this will not be as anyone would like, I'm a little warmer on the inside knowing that Joe finally got a chance to speak with one of his personal heroes.

Much thanks, Leann. You rock!

Jamaica photos up on Flickr

Part of my responsibilities while I'm here in OK is to share photos from the wedding in Jamaica with my sister. We transfered a bunch to her and received her shots as well. Since she took a lot less than my Lovely Wife, I went ahead and posted those on Flickr. More will be posted as I get them done -- and weed out the ones that make me look like a total fat ass.

But the kids look good. A damned sight better than my old ass...

Twitter wants

I'm starting to see some pretty cool applications for Twitter. Days ago I posted my first "twittereview" of a movie, but that meme doesn't seem to be catching. I'll keep trying it.

Today, I discovered that Luke Skywalker and Darth Vader both have quite active Twitter accounts and routinely show up on the big Twitterholic list. (I graced this esteemed list one day but have been posting slower while I'm on vacation. I'm back next week, so we'll see if a repeat is in order.)

Macworld has a group Twitter account and I've heard tale of someone using Twitter to post live comments and notes from a conference.

While it's true that many folks use Twitter to post the inane moments of their lives (guilty as charged), I think that's part of the process. You start by posting everything and then start slimming down to things seem to fit the parameters you assign to Twitter. Of course, mileage will vary from person to person -- which is one of the things I find most appealing about Twitter.

Enough singing of praises. Time to put down some things I'd like to see implemented to make Twitter even more useful to me:

• A "six degrees of separation" widget or recombination that shows the common connections between my Friends and Follow list. Sorta like how it's done on LinkedIn.
  
• A way for the poster to set "priority" levels of posts and for the "friends" to determine what priority levels they receive. For example, Charles Cadenhead just posted that he's returned from IHOP. He could set that as "mundane". I know that Charles posts pretty damned frequently and can opt to not get his "mundane" updates, but that I do want to get his "important" updates.
  
• Individual assignment of SMS updates. I'd never put Charles on that list (not unless I could control SMS by priority -- add that, too), but I may want to get a text message when Wil Wheaton posts something, for example.
  
• Direct message notification goes to Twitterific. Right now, it doesn't. Pain in the ass. I want all Direct Messages to hit Twitterific and to send me an SMS.
  
• A better filter across all Twitter updates than the Yahoo! Pipes thing I threw together. If someone is mentioning me in their Twitters, I want to know about it!
  

Twitter is quite the cool tool. For me. These additions (and probably more) will make it even cooler.

Five O’Clock Shadow 8

Five O'Clock Shadow 8

Originally uploaded by evo_terra.

I love my grandparents. 61 years of marriage, each pushing 80. Grandma is about as much a teetotaler as you can get, and grandpa's crazy as a loon. But I love 'em.

I don't get to see them very often, as they live in eastern OK and aren't big fans of airplanes. Right before this recent trip to OK, one of my grandmother's sisters passed away and we made the long haul to up by the panhandle (look at a map) to pay respects.

During the five hours in the car, Gramps regaled all of us with stories. -- and he's the king of stories, let me assure you. Though he has a penchant for incorporating recent news bits into his work and war tales, his memory of his childhood is quite amazing; and what stories he has to tell. This picture was taken during the "herding turkeys" story (totally true). Ask me to tell it to you some day.

Five O’Clock Shadow 7

Five O'Clock Shadow 7

Originally uploaded by evo_terra.

From a beer/burger place in Moore OK, awaiting some old (and I mean old) friends (of my wife, but close enough) to arrive.

I'm constantly amazed at our need, as a species, to reminisce about the past. And I mean the short past, not the long. Long past is called History, and most of us claim we hate the topic. Yet the short past, that past which we can still touch with our own memories, is different.

Or is it? Maybe we don't hate History as much as we think?

Five O’Clock Shadow 6

Five O'Clock Shadow 6

Originally uploaded by evo_terra.

Today's is a whimsical post for a few reasons:

• I'm off to see Joe in the hospital. Must have a good sense of humor. Plus he likes this shirt.
  
• Podiobooks.com was nailed by a DDoS on Friday. We struggled through the weekend and managed to get linked by Digg and Lifehacker this morning. I love live stress-testing the server
  
• Headed to see the family this week and just learned that another of my great aunts passed away. Second one in as many months. Ill health as of late, so it was only a matter of time. She was a hoot and would have liked this shirt.

That's it for now. Internet connectivity in Bumpkin Land will be spotty at best, so you may have to live with Twitter updates from me until I return. I may back post.

Update: Just realized that Photo Booth was flipping images. Whoops. No, it's not printed backwards. Too lazy to fix. And it's kinda fitting.

Not all tech support calls are created equal

Background: I've been having serious connectivity issues for the past two weeks. No less than six technicians have been to the house -- none of them could find a problem. Part of the challenge is that the outage is sporadic, with the highest concentration of outages happening around 8:00 and 5:00. Yes, I too see the pattern. So this last call was to arrange to get some out here as early as possible next week when I've returned from a trip.

ISP Knuckledragger: It looks like the earliest we can get someone out to you on the 26th would be 1:00.
Me: What does the schedule for the next day look like?
ISP Knuckledragger:You mean the 27th?
Me: Yes. On most calendars, the 26th is in fact followed by the 27th.

And before you start firing up your email clients or readying the comment bots: relax. Yes, I realize that the majority of tech support calls are the fault of the STK interface making the call. But this exception to the rule was too great not to share.