Monthly Archives: October 2007

Oct 19 2007

Adventures in Ubuntu-land…

This afternoon I’ve been downloading the new Gutsy Gibbon version of Ubuntu and Kubuntu.  I’ve been interested in using Linux, although I can’t really dive into it too much because all of my web design and audio and video editing software is Windows (Sony and Adobe).  I’ve got an older laptop floating around (with a Pentium M processor and 768MB of RAM) that can’t run Vista, but I’ve been told would be great for Ubuntu.

I’m a little nervous about tooling around in Linux, but I’ll keep y’all updated about the progress, trials and tribulations (as opposed to Tribune-ations).

WdW

Oct 17 2007

"It was so cold one winter, she froze to death."

There are two homeless, or home-challenged, guys who came by our house every couple of weeks this summer to pick our weeds for $15 or $20.  My fiancee and I didn’t have a problem with this, they were willing to work and we were willing to pay for their services.

As these guys came by, we would start to learn about one of them.  He was the more talkative of the pair and I picked up bits and pieces over the summer.  He and his wife moved to Albuquerque from Roswell, he had been out of work for a while, they were living with his step-sister while he walked around the city looking for odd jobs, he had been a car detailer before he was jobless.  I have to give him snaps, he hadn’t been coming around looking for a cash handout.

The summer moved on, and his pal stopped coming by the house to work (although I still see him every few days panhandling on Lomas), but he kept coming by.  However, he’s been coming by more often, and not just to work, but to ask for a ride when he missed the bus (which he did this weekend) or to ask for an advance on work to be done later (which, to his credit, he remembers the next time he comes back – which he has done a few times).

I don’t usually mind giving him a little bit of money, because I consider myself very lucky to have a few bucks to give him.  I’m lucky enough to have a home, food in the cupboard, clothes in my closet, a fiancee I love very much and who loves me back, a sweet dog who has been with me through my separation and divorce, and my return to college and graduation.  All in all I’m a very lucky guy.  I realize that for the grace of God/Goddess/Buddha/Sam, the bad breaks could have hit me and I could be in his shoes.

He was making a B-line to our house today when I was biking home and we bumped into each other across the street from my place and he was telling me he didn’t have any cash, and had gotten a message from one of the car wash/detailing places he had applied for a job at.  They wanted him to come in to talk with them, and he was looking for some money for a haircut and shave – trust me, he needed it.  But I didn’t have any money to help him out this time.  After talking a few minutes he moved on and went to another house where he works at to see if they had work (or money).

I felt bad for the guy, and I hope he gets his money and gets his job, that would make things easier on him.

What does this have to do with the title of this post?

Well I’ll tell you…

Continue reading →

Oct 10 2007

The Bell Might Not Toll for Thee, Tribune

This report is in from the Santa Fe New Mexican – Doug Turner, CEO of DW Turner Strategic Communications and Tom Carroll, President of DW Turner – are making a bid to buy the Albuquerque Tribune.  If this is true, it would be a very interesting turn in the saga that has been the potential closing of the Albuquerque Tribune.  In full disclosure,  I have worked at DW Turner before, and have many friends currently working at the Tribune.  Doug and Tom are great people to work for, and they know how to run a dynamic company that is capable of changing in the ever fluctuating media landscape.

As I said in previous posts, anyone buying the Tribune would be faced with many possibilities and pitfalls – they would not have any income coming in from the Joint Operating Agreement, they would not have access to the Journal’s equipment or advertising and publishing staff, they would have to start from scratch.  That said, they would also be able to publish a morning paper, print on Sundays, switch design from a broadsheet design to a tabloid design and they could remain creative with their design and online content.  In fact, who knows what they could plan to do with the Tribune!  It could be something completely different than what any of us are thinking.
I’ve got to jet to bed – long days today and tomorrow – but I am looking forward to  the future of the Tribune and media in Albuquerque.  As I said earlier tonight on DCF, It’s going to be an exciting time!

Oct 8 2007

I Hate Balloon Fiesta…

Damn, I was hoping to sleep in today -one of two days of vacation I am taking this week – only to have the dog go nuts at about 8 am.  She usually barks a little bit in the morning when the neighbors go to work or someone is walking a dog down the street.  But today she started going nuts. It was a non-stop cacophony of barks for about 10 minutes.  I staggered out of bed and looked outside.

No one walking a dog.

No neighbors slamming their front door to go to work.

What the heck was making her bark?

Then it hit me.  Early October, early in the morning.  It’s those damn balloonists again.

Every year they go overhead (regardless of where I am living) and Pickles begins to lose it. Barking her head off at the fortnight-long invasion of people with too much time on their hands floating overhead.

And that’s not to mention the traffic snarls and delays caused by people coming to the balloon fiesta.  At least I don’t work at the paper anymore.  The building is near the balloon fiesta grounds and when you would try to go outside and get dinner your ten minute commute turned into about 75 minutes of waiting to get onto the street, driving to get food and crawling back to work behind a line of cars filled with people pointing and saying ‘Oh look at all the preeeeeeeeeety balloons!”

Oct 6 2007

Halo 3: That's it??

This is a post I had been meaning to write last weekend. But I was busy with another project and with work that it got moved to the back burner. I bought Halo 3 the night it came out – I was in line until about 1 am to pick it up, then I came home and played it for a couple of hours before going to work. Since I was working hard to prepare a conference that was running that Friday, I didn’t get play much more Halo 3 during the week. An hour here, 30 minutes there, 10 minutes before work – you know how it goes.

Then on Saturday (afternoon, of course, no way I was getting up in the AM), after my conference had ended I sat down in front of the XBox 360 and dug into what I expected to be a couple of days of enjoyment.

Four hours later I said “What? After three years?  That’s it?!?”

Continue reading →