Dr. Mike's Steak Dinner

Jen Learns the Importance of Backing Up Her Data

Thu, 27 Nov 2008 20:45:48 +0000

Yup, still here. Doing the Salvation Army bellringing so updates may be a few days apart. Plus it appears my camera is now busted. I guess leaving it in the backpack wasn't a good idea.

My sister, Jen, got a write up about her experiences with writing her novel for National Novel Writing Month. Turns out her computer "crashed" and she lost the work that she was working on. Now she's got a "new, shiny flash drive" and is working on a new novel. No news if she will rewrite her lost work.

What's actually interesting is that I've given some thought about trying to find older, used flash drives and giving them out to the local homeless who need or want them. Not sure what folks do with their older ones. Seems like I use all of mine but I only have a couple. I do get asked occasionally for one and, if I have one to spare, I give them out.

One of these days I'll have to finish my writings.

Most Read Posts of About Five Months

Mon, 17 Nov 2008 22:11:16 +0000

It's been awhile since I've done one of these Most Read posts. Back in May in fact. Five months. Heck, I've started this post a number of times as well only to push it back further and further along.

So anyway, let's see what's popular around here for the last 5 months.

(And let's see when I'll remember to do the next one.)

Oops, Did I Do That?

Mon, 17 Nov 2008 19:58:53 +0000

Just a quick note to let me know if something's broken so I can fix it. Hopefully within the next few days, I'll have time to run through the site and fix all of the broken links and videos and whatnot.

Just let me know what's busted.

Image from here.

New Webcomic - Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal

Mon, 17 Nov 2008 17:52:42 +0000

I haven't added this to the link list but I wanted to give a quick plug for Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal. It's one of those once a day, random topic webcomics. I don't normally read those but the comics did give me a chuckle.

I found it as it was one of the Project Wonderful bids that came across that account. I've been finding a number of new webcomics via those folks.

Man Gets Stuck in an Elevator at Charlotte WordCamp

Sun, 16 Nov 2008 22:35:29 +0000

Charlotte Wordcamp appears to have gone without a hitch. Well almost. Kevin from Peer in Counseling got stuck in an elevator in the Charlotte Observer building.

edit: Image from that post.

Who Will Get Comment #300?

Sat, 15 Nov 2008 22:01:41 +0000

It's been a while since we passed comment #200. Who's going to get comment #300?

Minus all the ones that WordPress.com ate way back when. I try not to think of those. *sniff*

Edit: Looks like it's me.

Look at the Pretty Pictures

Sat, 15 Nov 2008 01:04:53 +0000

The gallery is fixed and back on line. Had to give it a new subdomain as I couldn't get the hosting panel software to reuse the old one. Feel free to take a look.

I'm getting a lot done today. I do need to give them descriptions one of these days. That and figure out how to turn on comments over there.

Who is This Strange Dr. Mike?...

Fri, 14 Nov 2008 23:58:36 +0000

Since I'm telling folks about my upcoming plans for this holiday season, maybe I should introduce myself.

I finally got around to updating the About Me page in case you're interested.

Ringing a Bell For the Salvation Army

Fri, 14 Nov 2008 20:53:46 +0000

Well, I'm ringing a bell this year for the Salvation Army this holiday season. It'll be the 5th year I've done it in the last 6. It's not a great job but it;s better than nothing, it helps folks out this holiday season, and will hopefully put a few bucks in my pocket. We start on the 22nd.

It's going to be really bad this year and I have to admit that I'm a bit concerned. Wal-Mart is only allowing the bellringers outside their stores for a few days this season instead of every day like they did when Target stopped allowed the kettles. (But yet, no one is reporting on that. Hmmm...) That's a big chunk of change that the Salvation Army isn't going to get. There's also five less days to rind as well this year. Another big chunk gone.

But yet the Charlotte Salvation Army has something like three times the number of children signed up this year over last for their Christmas gift program. And they're still signing families up. We do get some idiot bellringers who steal out of the kettles. I wonder if they'll ever realize that they're stealing from little kids.

And yes, I do get paid. Have to admit that I've always been bothered by that as I wish I could do it for free but what money I do get really helps me out, gets me caught up on my medical bills, and gives me a bit of extra cash for the first few months of the new year. We're lucky to get maybe 4 or 5 local volunteer groups on Saturday every week that'll handle 4 or 5 of those buckets. Of course we have nearly a hundred every day for six days a week. Without those who get paid, there really wouldn't be any kettles out there and no money would get raised. Necessary evil I guess.

If you would like to stop by and say hello, most days I'll be at the Macy's at South Park Mall here in Charlotte. I'll most likely be on the side towards Morrison Blvd on the back side of the mall. Sounds like a rather poor location but I usually do fairly well out there. If you feel like bringing by coffee, I won't complain. (Cream and sugar please. Carmel shots would be a plus. ) Have to admit that I'm wondering how I'm going to eat for the first week or so. Not sure if folks remember but I live off a very small check that I get at the beginning of the month. I won't have any money for those first two weeks and, since I won't be doing any volunteering, I know I'm not going to be getting any food from them. Not looking forward to it.

The Shirley Temple picture is from here. I wanted to use this picture but there's a big old copyright on it with no permission to reuse. Oh well. At the very least, I can link to it.

You Want Fries With That?

Wed, 12 Nov 2008 19:39:38 +0000

It's being reported that a child was left in a local McDonalds restaurant restroom this morning here in Charlotte. Go read the article first and then come back.

Finished? Here's my problem with the story. In North Carolina, it's legal for the mother to hand over her newborn child, up to 7 days old to any complete stranger who's responsible and walk away.

Any complete stranger.

Think about that for just a second. Now I don't mind having this law and to some extent think it's a good idea. Wouldn't it be a better idea though for them to hand the kid over to, or, oh I don't know, maybe a hospital or a police officer or maybe even walk over to the local fire station and hand the child off there? How about a church? Or a school? Or heck how about a bank branch since we're here in Charlotte?

Nope, not here in North Carolina. It's legal to drop the kid off at a pool hall with the bartender or the stripper working the table dances. Or the homeless guy sleeping on the bench? Or how about the parking attendant working the booth? Or the McDonalds store manager who's trying to get folks through the drive thru first thing in the morning? Or how about the bus driver? (Actually that's legal here in North Carolina as well.) The baggage clerk at the Greyhound station? Heck, Bush is a responsible adult under North Carolina law.

Look, I'm glad the child's being taken care of or hopefully will be but I have a problem with a wide open loophole like that. Sure, there are a lot of responsible people out there who would do anything for that kid or any other child dropped into their lap. But let's make sure about it, OK? I would think that would be a better idea.

Image from Calm Your Screaming Baby.

College Alums Get the Blahs

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 20:26:46 +0000

So here you are, the president of a university's alumni association and you've got to raise some bucks for your school. Of course with money being tight and everybody worried about their own situation, you've got to do it in such a way that will get noticed and folks will respond in a positive way. (ie Send you the money.)

What do you do? You send out a letter with the word "blah" in there 137 times.

Not the letter 137 times of course. The word "Blah." As in "With the recent economic downturn and loan crisis, it has become even more important for Framingham State College to receive your support. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah,"

The school has stated that the September 5th letter was an attempt to inject a little 20-something humor into the effort to raise money for its Legacy Fund. Of course the college's advancement office quickly apologized when the MetroWest Daily News brought it to their attention, saying the letter's attempt at humor was misguided. (Don't they always.)

But hey, guess what? It worked. The school collected about $2,000 from nearly 40 alumni who had never donated to the school before. In exchange though, some alumni said they found the letter insulting, unprofessional and ridiculous.

Was it worth it? Gotta admit 2 grand isn't that much.

Picture from here.

How Many Posts Are on Your Front Page?

Sun, 09 Nov 2008 20:34:02 +0000

I find myself wondering about this, not only because Problogger asked about it way back when, but because I'm sitting here looking at this site. One of the features of WordPress is that you can have multiple index pages. Movable Type doesn't do that out of the box but it's a two second fix with Alden Bates' Paged Archives plugin, a plugin that that I've blogged about before. If you check out the main index page for this site, you should see the links near the bottom of the content column.

It's not a big change. I mean we already use category pages as well as monthly ones. I also have a complete post list, something that WordPress doesn't do out of the box. I did a test of 5 Posts on the front page instead of the normal 10 but quickly changed it back. I hate it when the sidebar is longer than the content. You're usually stuck with that on individual post pages unless you normally write a bloody book each and every post.

The image is from Sue's post about Blogging Tips with EDUBlogs. It came up when I did a few keyword searches for an images to use on this post. Maybe we can get her to do an article on the subject.

Looking For Guest Bloggers

Sun, 09 Nov 2008 19:53:23 +0000

I mentioned this in passing a few days ago but I'll be pretty much AFK for about 5-6 weeks while I ring the bell for the local Salvation Army. I'm looking for a few Guest Bloggers if anyone is interested. By now, if you haven't noticed, this blog is random quite often.

No money is going to change hands. Sorry if that upsets you. It'll be a cool way to reach out to different folks and promote yourself if you're interested.

Feel free to leave a comment and I'll get back to you.

Can We Beat It With a Stick?

Sun, 09 Nov 2008 18:54:18 +0000

The stick has been inducted into the Toy Hall of Fame recently along with the Baby Doll and the skateboard. It was chosen for "its all-purpose, all-natural, no-cost qualities and its ability to serve either as raw material or an appendage transformed by imaginations into something else."

Of course you can always find a stick up someone's ass if you need one.

Hattip: Sheldon which I posted about recently.

Yet Another Webcomic Plug: Sheldon

Sun, 09 Nov 2008 08:12:24 +0000

I actually added this to the webcomic list a few days ago but never got around to blogging about it. I've been reader the Dave Kellett webcomic Sheldon for a bit. I can't remember where I came across it but it's good for a chuckle.

It's about a ten year old boy for writes a computer program that speeds up the Internet and jumps his net worth up to $1.2 billion. The story line gets away from the basic idea of the comic from time to time. Looks like the comic restarted when it got picked up by United Features Syndicate in 2001.

Hmmm, that story line sounds a bit familiar.

Do you have any webcomics you want to plug?