Paul R Smith Dot Com

This Is Why You Don't Want To Travel With Me

April 4th...

It's a first for me.  I missed a flight for the first time. Normally, I'm at the airport 2 hours before hand.  I'm not feeling great about that but it beats almost causing a national news scare in  a Philadelphia airport.

I explain.

The morning did not start off great as I woke up late.  I didn't follow my code of using my phone as my alarm clock.  I trusted the hotel clock and it got me up an hour late. 

I showered and cursed for a good 15 minutes to run down to an empty front desk.  I ran out later than expected.  But I was okay, as long as nothing else went wrong. 

Right.

So, I discovered that Pennsylvania state law requiers that all gas stations have to be hidden.  None were found on the way there.  It was making me nervous because Avis has an aggressive gas return rental policy.  It was something like 9 dollars a gallon and a good shot to the kidneys.  And it was raining and everything was hard to see.  I'm driving, and my GPS is guiding me to the airport.  I pushed the button to find me the nearest gas station.  It was then I learned that my GPS hates me.
     "Why don't you ask your mac?"  it read.
    I look down quickly and saw the screen quickly change.  She then guided me to a gas station well lit and welcoming Sunoco.
    It was closed for the next hour.  Crap.
    I hit the button to find another place, and the GPS sighed, 'Whatever!"
    It took me to a very scary Hess station next to some boarded up buildings.  I think I was in the heart of crime section Philadelphia.  I was reassured because a police officer was parked  in the other gas lane.  I started  gassing up with my corporate card and tried to hide it.  Nothing spells, "soft white guy" like American Express.  I leaned on my car and breathed a sigh of relief.  I needed to look cool . Like I belonged here.  I leaned against the car and watched a car pull up behind me.  His license plate read, "DIE GEEKS"  or something to that effect. I turned around.
    I continued to play the part like a confident martial artist without being one until I heard,
    "YO!" Coming from behind me. 
    I turned and saw gas spitting out of my rental car all over me.   I quickly yanked the pump out of the car and quickly pressed for a receipt.   The receipt never came.   My only thought was how much gas spilled out.  I looked around me and it didn't look like too bad.  No huge puddles.  It looks like I soaked up a majority of it. 
    "uh...I guess it's full now" I said.
    He didn't laugh. 
    I quickly got back into my car and told the GPS to take me to the airport.  It decided to take me past some more scary neighborhoods and then took me to a highway to the airport.  I was real close.  Whew.  I was so relieved I decided to make two wrong turns into the rental car return.  I stopped my car behind another and waited.  And waited.  The guy appeared from over at the kiosk I.   had to wait for took his time getting to my car.
    "How are you doing?" I asked which really meant, "COME ON!  WILL YOU HURRY UP!"
    "Oh, man I'm hurting," He told me. And then decided to hang a bit and explain his aches and pains for a good too many minutes.  He then let me know I needed to walk over to the end of the kiosk to get my receipt"
    "Okay, thanks"  I said. Die now.
    I ran to the rental bus which almost got away and to the Southwest terminal.  I sped to the electronic kiosk.  It spat out a, "you've got to be kidding me." receipt letting me know the time.  It then gave me a stern lecture concerning airport arrival times.  I rolled my eyes.  Now, the kiosk was really mad.  It would not take my luggage.  Fortunately, the good people of Southwest convinced the computer to let me go.  Well, until the guy asked, "Do you smell gas?"
    Oh no. 
    "Yep, my rental car spit up on me." I smiled trying to remember to look as calm as a dead man.
    He shook his head and pointed me to the security gate. 
    Before I went through, I headed for the bathroom and tried to wash my legs and sneakers off.  It worked a little bit. I scrubbed my jeans succeeding in removing 1/100th of my new 3.24 a gallon cologne. 
    I headed for the security gate.  I grabbed my three bins.  One for shoes and jacket, the other two for my two laptops.  (Yes, I travel with two.  Now be quiet.)
    I went though the first guard and no problems.  I said a prayer to St. Bernie, patron saint of the common cold to give the other TSA agents a temporary sinus infection. I smiled at a professional woman who was about to comment on my three bins. I loaded my laptop and bag in without paying attention.  Again, playing it cool.  I was calm, relaxed, and one with the airport. 
    "Hey!" I froze.
    "You have two laptops?" She asked.  A TSA agent who was breathing normally.
    "Yes, I thought I put them in correctly." I offered.
    "No, you stacked them." 
    "I'm so sorry."
    The professional lady frowned. I went over and corrected it and waiting far off on the other end.  Now it was until now I thought the gas went mostly to my legs which I spent much of my time washing off. It occured to me that my sneakers might have gotten nailed to. Actually, my sneakers got the worst of it.  They were in bin number one.  I knew this because the agent stopped the belt and shouted,  " I smell gas!"
    They stopped the line.  My laptops were stalled. She called over other agents.  Professional lady looked at me like I was her ex-husband.  The words, "gas" and "Call Fox news" were floating up and down the line.  I tried to tell them it was me.  They didn't hear me.  I tried to walk up to her and explain as discreetly as possible where the gas smell was coming from.  She told me to step back and called over her supervisor.  Oh crap.
     "IT''S ME.  I SPELLED GAS ON MYSELF GETTING HERE." I shouted.  All conversations stopped.  Every comutter delayed fixed rays of pure hate in my direction.  I felt like Pee Wee Herman at a Harley rally. Professional lady grabbed her stuff and checked me into the x-ray.    
    The TSA officers looked at me.  Started the belt back up and handed my stuff back.  I got everything together.  I waited to be arrested. 
    Nothing happened. 
    I waited for a detainment of "you smell funny."  But nothing happened. 
    So with stinky Nike's in hand I slowly walked away.  No search.  No arrest.  Not even a stern lecture.  I smell like a lawn mower and that was it.   
    I walked over to the bathroom and through my sneakers in the sink and scrubbed them as much as I could.  It greatly improved.  I got my flight rescheduled.  And now I'm off for a  10:35 AM and I got here for a 7 AM flight. 
    Oh, well.   The fun part will be the flight coming home.  But don't worry, I'll look calm and cool and...

Happy Easter

I just want to shout out a Happy Easter to everyone out there.

Lessons Learned From 2007

1. I can do a marathon.

2. I can finish a marathon a lot better when it's not 89 degrees with high humidity.  But I can still do a marathon.

3.  Asking for blog comments is like geek dating in high school.  Highly unlikely.

4. I love Nike plus.  This website is up there with Mr. Pibb, my Mac, and Oreo cookies.

5.   Blogs are more for the people writing them then the people who read them. But I'm very grateful for the 9 people a day who come across my site. You rock! Keep up the good work.  It's very good practice for me coming up with these entries. 

6.  Make time for thine self.  Getting pulled apart in 50 directions was one of my favorite hobbies this years.  Learning to say no is very hard for me.

7.  Never put off a lunch date.  You may never know when you're forced to write a blog entry telling everyone how cool he was post-humorously. 

8.  Wake up earlier so I don't spend all my time in Dallas traffic. 

9.  Being married to Brenda is really awesome for over 12 years.   I'm sorry Paula.

10.  I need to take more pictures with my camera phone.  I'm apologizing ahead of time to anyone who finds me capturing images offensive.  That'll teach you to leave comments next time. 

11.  I gained 10 pounds this year.

12. It's going to become, “Question of the Moment” just to make things interesting.

13.  People are often caught off guard by caller id.  I need to abuse this more.

14.  When I travel, write more.  But do it out in the public. 

15.  Friends are really cool even for geeky hermits.   I'll be calling more often in 2008, but that's another entry.

16. Macs are really cool.  It really makes computing fun again.

17.  I should have bought the iPhone in the late summer.  Curse you Metrocake!  (Not jealous...not jealous at all.)

18.   I need to twitter more.

19.  Despite the horror that CompUSA was, I can't help but feel for the people who used to work there.

20.  Car repairs suck. 

21.  Wordpress is no fun.  I still need to move those journal entries back.

Smart Car Test Drive Cardiac Arrest

The new Smart car is coming to the US in 2008.  It's one of the candidates to replace my not so trusty Saturn of 10 years. I like the tiny size and the gas mileage.  And I can officially announce a premature midlife crisis by getting a convertible one on the cheap, as long as I can take the heat stroke.   Also, the car has good pickup for a lawn mower.  Plus many of the advertisements stated this tiny car is very safe if you can ignore a few of Newtons laws. 

Well, this picture was the fun line we stood in for 2 hours to get a chance to "test drive" the car.   They shortened the test drive so everyone could get a chance to sit behind the wheel and drive for a few feet.  If you were really lucky, you got to turn the steering wheel.   Oh, and the drive was in a really ugly traffic area near downtown Dallas.  This is a part of Dallas they are trying to "re-vitalize" with expensive restaurants and vacant storefronts. 

Well, after a couple of hours we made it to the trailer.  Jade walked in with me and mom walked to the other side to wait for Jade and I to come out.  That was until Jade did her little ninja trick and disappeared.  So after I'm frantically looking underneath every object in the trailer, I overhear indignant non-parent types shouting phrases like, "Can't believe the parents aren't watching.".and "I never would have yatta-yatta out of sight for more than..." oh and "Let's call Fox news." 

I follow the muggle's babble until I find my very frightened daughter in tears lamenting she can't find her mommy and what horrible parents she must have.  If I was just a few minutes too late, she could have had a mini-series and book deal all signed up.  I quickly picked her up and hurried over to where Mommy was waiting before HBO showed up with a half finished script.  The whole experience lasted about 1 minute 35 seconds, but it haunted me for the rest of the day, including the test drive which was a disaster.  Apparently, I can't follow directions after I caught the Smart car rep in a lie.   But that's another story.

For now, I'm typing away next to the small one who is complaining that my typing is keeping her up.  And that is okay with me.  She still has to worry about my future book deals.

Paul 2.0: Apple Fan Boy Sorta Kinda Project Manager Sans PDA

Why is it when I have things I want to blog, I have no time to blog them?  And when I have time to blog, there's nothing to write about? 

No, I don't have an answer either question.  But here's the latest updates and major changes in the Life of Paul or Paul 2.0:

Helpdesk, I'm sorry I don't want to help anyone anymore:
In the bigger news departments, I've gotten the position I've pursued for about a year.  Okay, not all at once.  The job posting came up and I gave up on trying for Script Frenzy for the month of June.  (See more broken promises or as I ike to call it, my to do list.)  So I prepared resumes, researched software development, and practiced interviewing.   This time I was successful.  I'm now working for the same company with more responsibility, much more money, and a different job title.  Now I get to help setup systems in our company and make sure they play nice with our computer network system.  I get to work on really big expensive medical equipment in the labs across the country.  I get to have business cards and a company credit card again!  I've got a desk with a window in an office (okay there are three other cubicles are in the office, but you get the picture.)  The theme song for the Jeffersons keeps playing in my head.  In short, I get to help finish really cool projects.

How To Test All My Friendships Based On PC Gaming:
That's easy, buy a Mac.   Or in my case, a MacBook Pro.    Suddenly I find myself an outcast among my friends for letting Steve Jobs into my life.  It's the computer equivalent of telling a conservative family, you're gay.  This is what it's been like:
Friends:" Did you get a new Toshiba? A Dell? Not another Alienware?!"
Me: "No, I got a  MacBook Pro."
Friends: "I knew we should have never let you near the Apple store.  What's the matter didn't you like right clicking?"
Me: "You can right click with a mac."
Friends: "It's just...not...natural. It doesn't feel right.  All those silver colors.  Everything is too shiny.  Well, fanboy, you can kiss gaming goodbye."
Me: "Not since the Intel processors.  Look not to sound like a commercial but I can still game on a mac with a Windows partition.  I just played Half Life 2 on it."
Friends:  "That's so wrong!  What happened to you and the Alienware you've been with these last few years? "
Me: "That laptop.  I had to spend half a day fixing it to sell on eBay.  That computer broke my heart so many times.  It was such a bad relationship.   I spent more time re-installing windows than anything else.  Heck, my blog has been a desert since I bought it."
Friends: "But what did it matter to you.  You always fixed it!"
Me: "She used me."
Friends:"You're too weird man...Listen maybe I'll call you later."
Me: "On an iPhone?" (smirks)
Friends: "Arrrggh!!!! I don't know you anymore! I'l never leave comments on your blog anymore!"

Money, What Money?:
I thought I was in the clear to drop my pound of flesh at the Apple store thanks to  my raise and the illusion my laptop was dying.  I was wrong on both accounts as fate dealt me a few heavy bills. Because within one week the price for airfares to Long Island went up, my dentist hugged me in our last appointment and said I would have to come in for more. Oh, so .much more.   And the Check Engine light on Bren's car landed on Broadway and Park Place on the same turn.  Both are still owned by Frisco Automotive Services with hotels.  Still I've got a great laptop, one less kidney, and Jade might have to do a few life Insurance commercials.  I'm just going to be eating tuna fish sandwiches for a while.  Even after the air conditioning unit needed repairs too.

Dell Axim...precious....Bilbo maximum bidder
Yes, anyone who knows me, knows I always carry a PDA.  Until now.

Well, like my falling out with Microsoft and watching things not work  I decided to say goodbye to  my PDA.  You can see it on eBay over here.  This was hard to let go.  I like having a tiny computer doing my bidding where ever I go, but like my laptop, Windows Mobile PC's ate more than helped me produce.  I tried to get it to sync with my mac, but it was more trouble than it was saving me in time.  So for now, it' a bunch of 3x5 cards that never crashes and loses my work.  And I carry my laptop with me where ever I go.  My older laptop was 14 pounds.   Now when I carry around my MacBook, it's like carrying a PDA.

Comments?  Who knows maybe I'll be writing more?