Personal

10 Years!

Gerry Heidenreich — Fri, 13 Jun 2008 13:29:38 GMT

And here's to 60 more... I love you Jeanne.

They're coming right for us!

Gerry Heidenreich — Tue, 15 Apr 2008 18:18:34 GMT

Milwaukee news has been going on about cougar sightings, like this one from about a month ago... Lists of local cougar-related news are here and here.

From that article: "According to the DNR, the last known wild cougars in Wisconsin disappeared in the early 20th century."

Today (via Guy Kawasaki on Twitter), a 150lb cougar was shot and killed just south of here, in Chicago.

From the Gospel of Wikipedia:

... large male territories of ...58 to 386 sq mi...

Male ranges may include or overlap with those of females but, at least where studied, not with those of other males...

Cougar is also known as puma, mountain lion, or panther...

I wonder how likely it is that it's the same one...

My thoughts went, "Why did they kill it? Chicago cops should have tranquilizers", which triggers the segue to:
Peppers: She's a beauty, ain't she?
Frank: Yeah, what kind of gun is this?
Peppers: It's a tranquilizer gun. If any of these little f***ers decide to freak out on the kids, I get to take them down. Ain't that right?
Peppers: [yank's on the mule's reigns]
Peppers: Oh, what? That's what I thought. Shut up.
[Frank cocks the gun]
Peppers: Hey, hey. Careful with that. That's the most powerful tranq gun on the market. Got her in Mexico.
Frank: Cool.
Peppers: Yeah, it is cool. They say it can puncture the skin of a rhino from...
Frank: [Frank shoots himself in the neck with the dart]
Peppers: YES! That's awesome!
Frank: What?
Peppers: You just took one in the jugular, man.
Frank: What? I did.
[feeling his neck]
Peppers: YES!
Frank: Oh my god. Is this bad? Is this bad?
Peppers: You better pull that s**t out man. That s**t is not cool.
Frank: Wait. What? Pull what out?
Peppers: You got a f***ing dart in your neck man.
Frank: [laughing] You're... you're crazy man. I like you, but you're crazy.
[imdb old school quotes]

Reading, Writing, Arithmetic, and Business

Gerry Heidenreich — Thu, 10 Apr 2008 00:15:21 GMT

The land of opportunity, land of the free. The land of 40 million children between the ages of 5 and 15. The land where 85% of those children go to public schools [1]. 34,000,000 creative, open, trusting, impressionable minds with little or no education in business or financial responsibility.

There is something that occurs in a small percentage of these children. It is unfortunate, in this country, that it is such a small percentage. It is also unfortunate that by the time it happens, they are no longer children. They get the itch. It is opportunity. It begins with an idea, and often ends in a lesson. Whether it is the wrong ideas or the wrong execution, these lessons can be expensive. The expense is some combination of money, reputation, and time. The amount of this expense is proportional to the age of the recipient. The younger the student, the lesser the expense, and the easier the recovery.

Business is not about calculus, sociology, or accounting. For that matter, it is not about reading, writing, or arithmetic. In fact, it adds context to every other aspect of education. Math now has a purpose. Reading, writing, and typing provide communication skills that can be put into real practice. It is engaging, like a child's game. There are risks and rewards, tactics and strategies, successes and lessons. There are no prerequisites to learning these things. The concepts are as effective to a grade schooler as they are to a college student. It is easy to teach that business is about the exchange of money, for goods, services, and information, in a mutually beneficial transaction. It is easy to describe demographics, product positioning, reputation, relationships, profit, expenses, and negotiation in simple terms.

Twenty years ago, our trial-by-fire was the Lemonade Stand. Over a couple summer days, we tossed some lemonade together and sold it for a quarter a cup. The new Lemonade Stand is online. Services like Ebay and Amazon, Lulu.com and Google's AdSense provide an inexpensive, flexible point of entry into business. With a little guidance, any child could set up an account and start selling online.

In the land of the American Dream, opportunity is everywhere. Unfortunately, most people are oblivious to it. I strongly believe that it is our obligation to our children and our country to illuminate the young minds in the ways of business and financial responsibility.

[1] U.S. Census Bureau, http://www.census.gov/Press-Release/www/releases/archives/education/004214.html

Noun-Verbing!

Gerry Heidenreich — Fri, 04 Apr 2008 13:28:11 GMT

In the spirit of my last 2 posts... things are too serious around here, and it's bugging me...

Deeper In .Net 2008, 7AM tomorrow, Marriott in Waukesha, www.wi-ineta.org for details!

The headline to this video is the best part: Biker Nails A Perfect 380. Been there... concussions, dislocations and all... good stuff. They should have kept rolling, because it's not funny until he gets up and walks away from it.

life hard to any - concept album meme...

Gerry Heidenreich — Wed, 12 Mar 2008 16:26:33 GMT

It was the randomness that sucked me in... I had to try this out.

Found this on Brownie's site, who found it on Jeff's game blog.

Band: Fisterra
Quote: "Make yourself necessary to somebody. Do not make life hard to any." - Ralph Waldo Emerson [link]

Back???

Gerry Heidenreich — Sun, 24 Feb 2008 01:52:55 GMT

I had to bring the blog down because the spam was killing me, and I couldn't find the time to upgrade to SubText until now.

The upgrade was a pain in the neck, went smoother after deleting over 11,000 comments I didn't need anymore.

Links referencing the site still work, syndication works...

Strange path issue I have to deal with, and I need to get a good skin going, but I'm happy to be up again.

Webkinz, Netiquette 101

Gerry Heidenreich — Wed, 12 Sep 2007 22:02:00 GMT

So my girls are loving Webkinz, the latest pre-adolescent internet phenomenon. They each have some animals, and are always asking if they can jump on to play. Most play entails competitive games with other anonymous webkinzers for webkinz cash, and spend the cash on cool things for their “house”. Gambling, materialism, and consumerism for the youngsters... We used to have to use our imaginations for those things.

Anyway, my younger, is trying to sneak into the older one's account, because she “knows how to make a bunch of money real fast.” I had to explain that logging into someone else's account is bad manners... thought it was funny.

My Nerdian Archetype

Gerry Heidenreich — Mon, 10 Sep 2007 18:14:00 GMT

Had to try this one out...

The test can be found here. The dork metrics are inaccurate... I'm way more dorky than 3%. Also.. I read all of The Odyssey, The Prince, and Atlas Shrugged, cover-to-cover... that should put my Literature at least over 50%.

Ramification of being a hotkey freak...

Gerry Heidenreich — Thu, 23 Aug 2007 16:07:00 GMT

Just discovered ctrl + alt + left (try it... )

In Windows (and in Photoshop for that matter)... I live and die by the hotkey (comprehensive list here).

You're probably familiar with the same windows hotkeys I use most often:
- alt + tab (switch apps)
- ctrl + tab (switch tabs in current app)
- ctrl + esc (open start menu)
- alt + f4 (enable turbo mode)
- ctrl + (auto expand rows, for example in details view in explorer)
- ctrl + home or end (quick jump to start or end of document)
- ctrl + arrows (move cursor by word)
- shift + arrows (select by character)
- ctrl + x, c, v (cut, copy, paste)
- ctrl + z, y (undo, redo)
- alt + esc (minimize current window)
- shift + ctrl + arrows (my favorite, select entire line / word)
- windows key + r (run), e (explorer), m (minimize all)

I somehow messed that last one up and hit ctrl + alt + left, turned my screen sideways, and quite by accident, discovered how to fix all those sideways smilies that are scattered all over the internets.

Back for good now...

Gerry Heidenreich — Tue, 14 Aug 2007 22:35:00 GMT

... if there is anyone out there that hasen't de-aggregated me by now...

Finally, got a real hosting provider, stopped trying to do it all myself.