We are half way through December and so far, I barely remember it.
Things are absolute “off the rails” busy at my day job.
Night projects have picked up.
And I barely have time to right a post about how busy it is.
Ain’t that some shit? (insert chorus here..”Ain’t that some shit”)
According to TechCrunch, retail spending is up over last year.
Thanksgiving brought record online retail sales for the holiday, with spending up 39.3 percent over Thanksgiving 2010. And today, IBM Coremetrics data shows a 24.3 percent growth in online sales on Black Friday compared to the same period last year.
Yeah. I don’t think so and here is why.
1. Unemployment has been steady at around 9%. That means that every week 9% more Americans are out of jobs. The numbers aren’t getting any better.
2. Food versus Retail purchases. I’m pretty sure that the massively unemployed are concentrating on buying food rather than anything else. Keeping their homes, cars, and the electricity on are going to win out over the black friday shopping craze.
3. Common sense. Common sense should tell you that retail sales HAVE to be down. Stores are going out of business at a record pace. Companies that are still keeping their heads above water are not hiring.
All the signs and environmental conditions point to a retail sales season that might make it out of the red and into the purple but certainly not the black.
I drink coffee so much that we had to get a Commercial grade Keurig that is tapped directly into our water system so that we don’t have to worry about “filling up” the coffee maker with water.
It’s great. Insert a K-Cup with whatever flavor of coffee, tea, apple cider, or hot cocoa you happen to fancy at that moment and in a minute or so, you have a fresh brewed cup.
I made a cup of my favorite (Chocolate Glazed Donut Coffee) this morning and after my cup was finished brewing, I couldn’t help but notice that the pump stopped working. The pot wasn’t bringing any more water into the water collection thingy (that IS a technical term).
Of course, my mind started racing. I have a guest coming. She’ll be here for 5 days. How will we make it without a coffee pot? Someone must be called, but who? What is my backup plan? What will I drink for 5 days?
I turned the pot off and stewed for a few hours.
I went downstairs and turned the pot back on. It worked just fine.
Panic attack was not completely avoided but the coffee pot lives.
Isn’t that all that matters?
I wrote the following paragraph about Earth Day back in April. It was a part of a much larger article that I never released. Not sure why I didn’t release it. This was good stuff.
Earth Day. You may celebrate Earth Day and celebrate mother Earth but I can assure you that Mother Earth will not hold a “Human Day” for you. In fact, at the pleasure of Mother Earth we will suffer plenty of death and destruction in the upcoming year. She doesn’t care about you. So, hug as many trees as you like. I doubt they will come to save you when the tornado sucks you out of your house in the middle of the night and deposits you into a neon sign on Borneo Blvd. Pretty sure she won’t give a rat’s ass about the iPod in your back pocket either.
Every once in a while I must bow to my occasional misplaced brilliance.
I recently blamed Blogsy for completely destroying the formatting on a post I wrote about internet radio. I jumped the gun and in the end, it wasn’t Blogsy’s fault after all. It was my website provider for stuckatmydesk.com. ALL of my other sites are on a different server that I have complete control over. My personal website was hosted somewhere else and I didn’t have total control over it.
I have since changed that. I’ve moved the site back to MY servers and Blogsy is working just fine.
I must apologize to Blogsy. Sure, you make me angry in other areas but you DO fundamentally work well on the iPad 2 so I actually have very little to complain about.
The Actual Issue
I believe the problem was with the server configuration itself. I reinstalled WordPress both automatically through the administration panel and then manually using FTP and neither one of those solutions worked or made a difference.
I changed the DNS servers and tried posting something and it worked just fine.
Combined with the extremely slow loading times I got last night around 8:00 pm, the decision to move things off of that provider’s servers became even more of an imperitive.
Blogsy is highly recommended and you can get all of the latest news at blogsyapp.com
Contrary to popular belief, I am still re-designing this site.
The re-design also includes a schedule for regular posting which, if I choose not to follow, will result in something really bad happening to me. Ok, maybe not.
I don’t believe that anyone can say that they don’t have time for anything. We all get 24 hours a day. It’s what we choose to do with that time that really matters.
I’m not writing as much as I should right now because I am choosing to do other things.
We are creating a massive media library here at “mini-Google” and I am spending a good bit of time on that.
The noise that goes around inside of this building also makes it very difficult to write. When I get motivated, something loud happens and I loose my train of thought. I’m old. It happens.
As I sit here writing, a big huge tractor trailer is driving through my neighborhood and I find myself wondering why no one has ever filed for an ordinance to stop it.
This is f&^%&^% suburbia. Big f^*^%$^ Mac trucks do NOT f^&%$^$ belong here.
I’ve moved the website from one server to another.
Most of my picture links are broken. I know. Shocker.
I’ll fix them in the next few days.
Thanks.
Perhaps you are following the desperate story of the innocent hikers that got too close to the Iranian border and then got arrested? (via CBS)
You know.
Because they were just hiking and happened to get too close to the Iranian border completely by accident.
Could happen to anyone. I’m sure.
Bullshit.
Hikers my ass.
I love hiking and I can tell you that the first place that pops into my mind for some great hiking does NOT happen to be anywhere NEAR Iran.
If you were “hiking” too close to Iran it was probably because you actually were spying because no sane person in their right mind would hike that close to the Iranian border. It’s amazing these idiots are still alive.
If I am from the United States, why would I spend all of that money for air fare to go that close to Iran to hike? The answer is that I wouldn’t.
So here we are listening to the American media and shedding a tear for these poor American boys who made just one little mistake. Those Iranian bastards had the nerve to capture “hikers” and prosecute them as spies?
Who are the unreasonable people here? I don’t like Iran at all. I’m not defending Iran here and that is not my intention but what I am defending is simple common sense.
We can’t admit that the kids are spies.
Logic can’t defend the “innocent hikers” meme.
We are left with the scenario that our boys are innocent hikers and the Iranians are bastards for arresting them and the real crime here is that neither statement is true.
The building I’m in has not flooded in the 25 years the current owner has owned it…
…until now.
In the basement of this building is our computer center. It houses work stations, film and video editing hardware, and our internet “cage.”
The basement got about 18 inches of water from this last week’s overdose of rain.
Damages are ranging from $15,000 to about $20,000.
The Take That! Media office is on the 2nd floor so my loses were minimal although I do have some things stored downstairs as well.
The attitude of the guy who owns the building is amazing. To him, it’s a great excuse to replace the flooring and get rid of a bunch of things he thought should have been thrown out anyway.
The video guy has taken a big hit and it may seriously impact his business in the middle of a seriously bad economy.
When nature hits us back I’m always thankful to be still standing and humbly reminded that we simple, stupid, puny, and arrogant humans are not in charge around here. The sooner we realize this and stop pretending that we are the center of the universe, the better.
Update (9-24-11): The flood water destroyed our new washing machine. So, instead of just replacing the washer, Chuck (the owner of the building) replaced both washer and dryer with models that I swear were dropped off by NASA. At least, I feel like I need training to use them.
Series: Tyrus Rechs: Contracts & Terminations
Authors: Jason Anspach and Nick Cole
