Thursday, December 19, 2002
10:15 p.m.
A couple of days ago I got to meet someone I've been wanting to meet for years. I've been working with her over the phone since I started doing access and booking for Conus over four years ago. When I moved to Relay House I called her to keep in touch, and then finally got to meet her while I was on a trip going through Indiana.
First, I was blown away by her intelligence and beauty. I knew she was smart, but you can only learn so much during short phone calls. Why she's in Indiana and single is beyond me. I can't believe she's not married to Harrison Ford or Russel Crowe.
We talked quite a bit about the sat business and where it's going. And we talked about a ton of other things, like music and art, and even animals and alfalfa. And I don't think I've ever talked to anyone, much less any woman about alfalfa. And I hang around a lot of horse lovers, and ride quite a bit myself!
I got the nickel tour of Indianapolis. It's a nice little city, not unlike K.C. We get through there once in a while, but it's hard to get a good look at a city when you're trying to drive 13 tons of vehicle down the road.
After Indy, I made it up to Minnesota for a quick job at The Mall. I have another on Saturday, Sunday and Monday and will hopefully get some time off to see family on Xmas. Tomorrow night, I'm also hoping to squeeze in some snowboarding with my cousin Reese and my brother Drew. We invited my cousin, Travis too. But it appears that he has not yet learned to ski or snowboard (except when you attach a motor and a tread).
I'm thinking about a snowmobile trip myself this year. But since Minnesota has yet to get any snow, I may have to plan something out at Jackson Hole or up to the Yukon.
Sunday, December 15, 2002
10:32 p.m.
It never ceases to amaze me how much the world is changing, and the rate at which it is changing.
In an effort to better understand the evolution of communication, I spent the day at the bookstore, reading up on all of the latest gadgets in our line of work. The list is endless. There's VOIP, or Voice Over IP. There's FTPing. There's new compression techniques. There's Expensive, there's middle of the road, and there's cheap.
I'm hoping that not only I can understand the basics of these new devices and techniques, but also begin to understand the new language. If I'm lucky, I will be in and become part of the new language, but I am probably already too old and too out of touch.
For instance, using a very simple example, we could look at the way cell phones are used. They are largely used to exchange information. They are probably secondly used for entertainment, and thirdly or somewhere down the line you will find that cell phones are used for gaming (I seperate this from entertainment only because it deserves seperation. If you do not accept this, you will never understand this generation or any generation after this one.)
In the first example of information exchange, we use our cell phone to call home and tell a loved one that we will be home early or be home late. We provide information on the type of day we've had and what type of mood will be expected before walking in the door. We may also use this cell phone to call work and walk somebody through a technical problem. We might call to provide information about an upcoming meeting or a time change. The cell phone, whether advertent or inadvertent, turned our information age into an even better, easier and faster information age.
For entertainment value, the cell phone provides us with not only with the ability to call up movie theatres and other entertainment values to book seats or buy tickets, but they use it to prank calls and leave funny voicemails. If anyone sets up their phone to dial their voicemail automatically, and then proceeds to leave it unattended, others can go in and change their greeting. That's a great source of entertainment. The newest generation is using the text messaging, and has come up with a whole new language that's wholly misunderstood by their older cell-using colleagues.
For gaming, more people can call their bookies. They can play games on their phones. I've even heard of people text messaging moves for chess games and role playing games to keep the game going while they are working.
There's a whole bunch of people who have thought "outside the box" on using their cell phones. Their phones offer a limited bandwidth, but a nearly unlimited use of an item like text messaging. Text is very difficult to write on a phone pad, so messages are not very long. Teenagers have shortened the language and created a virtual "shorthand" to make their text messaging easier and faster. Some have the language down so well they can multitask and carry on several messages at the same time with several of their friends, setting up movie dates or meeting places without using even one minute of their cell phone time.
If some of us in the communication business could use even a small portion of these ideas, whether it be compressing our information streams or using the available information streams to their fullest capacity.
Doing the latter would further encourage our providers to increase our bandwidth, even though it seems impossible to use our existing bandwidth. It would also encourage different levels of service, so that those of us who don't need or can get away with a smaller bandwidth, can pay providers less for their "throttled down" connection.
Therefore, going back to our original example of using a cell phone, those of us who only need voice and/or text capability can buy a "throttled down" phone and coverage for less than the people who will buy the "third generation" phones where you can hook up laptops and stream large loads of data. If you create a cell phone that will potentially allow you to send a whole 9 Gig DVD across the country so some friend's Tivo player, you can guarantee some dork is going to try it, just because it's possible.
In a way, it's a lot like those people who you work with in the corporate world who rise through the ranks to the level of their own incompetence. In the information age, it will be possible to rise to the level of our own originality. Sure, that DVD could be 9 Gigs of extremely important company information, but more than likely it will first be a lot of DVDs of movies like "Gettysburg" or "Dumb and Dumber."
We'll hear things like, "Look what I can do!"
Big deal. That was really original. Did you think of that all by yourself?
Hopefully I can set up some time tomorrow or Tuesday to get broadband installed here at my house. After that I can only hope that I will be able to use even a decent amount of bandwidth to make it worth my money. I have a feeling it may take a while, but it should be better bang for my buck than this old 56k connection. It's enough to do quite a bit online, but I know it leaves me with a lot of wait time, and supposedly these days time is money. I probably spend about 5 to 10 minutes per day just waiting for the dialup to access or reaccess my ISP. And that's pretty ridiculous.
Saturday, December 14, 2002
05:20 p.m.
I made it home in time to pay some bills and catch up with some friends. It looks like I may have a couple of days off, and if that happens I'm hoping to get broadband at my house, and see about a few other projects I've had simmering on the back burner.
I was able to visit with my Aunt Joanne for a while before I had to head back here to Kansas. She has been pretty busy with her newest job, working at a clinic in Great Falls, Montana. My cousins, Sarah and Katy are busy with school and after school activities. My uncle Rob keeps busy with his job at the hospital.
I will need to make my way back up to Minnesota by Thursday or Friday.
I received a few Christmas cards, which means that I am already late in sending mine. That should be a good project to work on tomorrow. I'd be happy to send out at least fifty, so maybe I'll make that my goal this week. I may have to take that project on the road with me.
Tonight I think I'll head in to Lawrence. What to do, where to go. Hmmmmm.
Wednesday, December 4, 2002
10:50 p.m.
Last week during Thanksgiving we had just heard the good news that my cousin Travis and his fiancee Loni were engaged and were expecting another child. Now, seemingly out of the blue, I found out today Loni and Travis had a baby. This was a little shocking, since they didn't expect a child for a few months, and she was not showing.
I am going up there tomorrow, and I hope to be able to stop in for a short while to see everyone. I only got the news from my mom this afternoon, and I haven't heard any more. But I'm sure I should hear more by tomorrow.
On Friday and Saturday I am scheduled to cover hockey at Mankato's Minnesota State. That is all that I know right now.
Saturday, November 30, 2002
12:33 p.m.
We had a nice Thanksgiving Dinner this year, and a full house. Grandma figured about 29 or 30 at the farm this year.
We are thinking the most about my Aunt Pat, who has undergone surgery. They found lumps in her brain and went in last week to take out what they could. Now, my Aunt will travel to Duke in North Carolina to see a specialist and get his opinion. We are all hoping for the best.
Right now I'm packing up and will be heading up to Duluth for the day. The Bulldogs are playing Alaska-Anchorage in Hockey tonight and I will be sending the broadcast up to Alaska via Galaxy 4R (that's a satellite for anyone who didn't know).
We got a little bit of snow overnight last night, but as I look out there now I can see it melting already. It doesn't appear that this will be a good year for snowmobiling, but we'll see. Things can sure change in a hurry here in Minnesota.
Tuesday, November 12, 2002
11:49 p.m.
It looks like I'm heading off to another job tomorrow. It came at the right time, I guess. I'm not sure how much I have to do in the next few days, but it feels like I'm treading water here at home. I have too many things on the back burner. I guess they'll have to wait.
Despite the projects I'm working on, I was hoping to catch up with some friends and neighbors. I guess that will also have to wait.
This looks to be another mild winter. If things work out, I should be able to fit in a snowboarding or snowmobile trip out west. Otherwise, I'll have trouble finding snow or ice anywhere in the midwest.
I was just reading an article about a study done in Britain, I believe the University of Glasgow, on the effects of "beer goggles." It basically said that with a few beers or a few glasses of wine, you perceive that people look 25% better because of the way alcohol messes with a certain lobe of your brain.
It made me laugh, and I thought back to all of the different bars and different people I've watched over the years. I have probably put on the beer goggles a few times myself, however I have never become "grabby," or "swarthy."
I was accused of this once after one of my own going-away parties. The two women making the accusations could only be described by making puking noises or saying that you could not have hit them with an ugly stick to make them look any worse. They also made these accusations once they knew I was no longer there to defend myself. When I heard of the accusations more than two years later, I called up my close friends to see if they could remember. The only thing I recall about the party is that I was really drunk. Of course, despite that, I have never been "grabby."
When I asked the several friends who were keeping an eye on me that night (and allegedly buying shots), they said, "Hell no. You were really wasted, but you weren't THAT drunk!."
Nowdays I behave myself at the local pub. I usually tip pretty well. I try to talk to anyone and everyone, pretty or ugly. Of course, I'm not looking to meet anyone at a bar. Unless they meet a pretty strict vocabulary requirement.
Sunday, November 10, 2002
08:59 p.m.
I just got home from a whirlwind tour of the states, most recently my own state of Kansas. I also made it through Minnesota a few times, and I was able to see some friends and relatives.
My little brother Drew invited me to sit in on his class last week. I always knew he would be a really good teacher, but I had no idea that he would become that good, that fast. He was trying to tell me that a lot of the credit should go the the nice school, good surroundings, nice town and a supportive staff. But I think he should give himself a little credit, too. He loves what he does, he works hard at it and he's good at it.
When I got home today, I did a little bit of work on my pickup. Somewhere and somehow I picked up something sharp, and now tomorrow I will need to replace one of my front tires. While I'm at it, the front tires needed replacing anyway, so I'll rotate the right front to become the new spare, rotate the backs to the front and get a couple of new ones on the back. It'll be sweet. Someday I'd also like to get the bed rhino coated, but I'll keep the purchases to a minimum for now.
I'm getting pretty good at being on the road. I've been able to make quite a lot of new friends, and I'm getting pretty good at keeping in touch with friends I've had for years. I wish I could see everybody I want to see, but there are apparently only so many hours in a day, and only so many days in a week.
When I was up in Duluth, I was able to see a couple of former coworkers, Gary Holt and Hartley Schilling. Unfortunately I wasn't able to talk to them for very long, and I was hoping to stop and see some other former coworkers at WDIO, but I was in and out of there without even a few minutes to stop for something to eat. Maybe, if I'm lucky, I can stop in to see everyone when I go up for snowmobiling. Of course the trip will only happen if we get enough snow this year. And if there isn't a ton of consistent snow, then I'll head to Wyoming or Colorado or something like that. They'll definitely have enough snow. Of course, I'll need to rent a sled, but it'll mean not having to trailer anything out there.
Right now I'm only thinking of the millions of things I need to fix, order or install. And it's a long list.
Sunday, November 3, 2002
11:36 a.m.
I'm still on the road, and there appears to be no end in site! Isn't it great!?
I stopped in for game night on Halloween at my friend and former roommate's place. They were able to write me in for a round, and somehow I managed to not get "killed" in this episode.
Brett invited me over to game night, and I called James to make sure it was Okay. Brett camed dressed as a Gungan (all of us were playing Gungans), I came dressed as a cowboy. It was good seeing everybody again. Normally I didn't sit in on too many games when I used to live there. They went pretty late, and I usually had to get up early or had a long day. If the way I played shows how much creativity I have, I lack a lot of creativity. It was still a lot of fun.
This weekend I'm in Wisconsin. Then I think I'm heading through Minnesota and into North Dakota for a day or two. I just might make it back to Kansas this month, but we'll see. More than likely I will be there if we are booked there. Otherwise, who knows?
I got a letter from an old friend Mike Kulstead. He's apparently taken the high road and is working in the Big Apple. He must have done a Google search to find my name. Luckily right now I'm the only Sam Sinke in the world, so it's not too hard to find me.
It sounds like Mike is doing very well. I'm hoping to hear more about him in the future. I often bump into people we used to work with, and it's great to keep in touch with friends and colleagues. I still wonder what happened to many of my college friends from Duluth. I haven't spoken to Forrest Wollack since he graduated. Dan, Jeremy, Brian and Grant have disappeared off the map, as far as I know. Hopefully one day I will bump into some of them in the future. I didn't leave my last college roommates on the best note, but there was a series of misunderstandings that left us all on a bad note. With the exception of one of those roommates, I really miss those guys.
The only people I have kept in touch with from college are Andrea and Steve Little. They were in a few classes with me at the University of Minnesota, Duluth. After that, I worked with Andrea for a few years. I hope they are both doing well. I should email them!
I actually keep in touch with more friends from Rochester College (it's changed names so many times... I think they now call it RCTC). Brett and James went there, and we've kept in touch. I also had dinner with Bob Wilbur the other day. He has now moved back to Rochester. He does a really good job of keeping track of everyone we went to school with.
I have a High School reunion coming up this summer, and I'm really looking forward to seeing everyone. I'm doing everything possible to get to this one. I get back to Spring Valley once in a while, but I only seem to see any one of my classmates a few times per year. (and most are younger or older than I am) My mom does a pretty good job of keeping me updated about who in my class has gotten married, had kids, divorced, etc... That will last, I guess, until she retires and moves to Lake City.
I'd better get off to work. They're expecting me at the shoot in a matter of hours and I need to clean the truck.
Thursday, October 17, 2002
03:45 p.m.
I have a place in Kansas, and my neighbors say it's a nice place. I haven't seen it for about a month! Actually, that's O.k., since I am making money when I'm on the road.
Last Friday I happened across Le Center, Minnesota where I could stop in to see my Aunt Pat and Uncle John and even my cousin, Terrianne. While there I also went over to watch my little brother help coach the football team from Jordan. After the game, I saw my older sister Rachel, Jesse and the two boys.
I was hoping to see a lot more people on this trip to the cities, but we were pretty busy every day. I also stopped in to get a little bit of periodic maintenance done on my truck. That was a long time coming. And since Winter is here (there is snow falling here in Minnesota today) then today is a great time to get this type of thing done.
Sunday, October 6, 2002
02:00 p.m.
Sorry to anyone who checks in on this site to see what I've been up to. I've actually been on the road since my last post. Right now I'm in the Chicago area.
I have a lot to write, but very little time to write it. The big news in the last few weeks was regarding Conus, a place where I used to work. They are shutting down operations for the entire company, which means we will probably be affected in some way with our day-to-day operations.
I'm sad to see the company go, in part because I worked so hard while I was there. And despite the fact that I left to work at a competing company, I do care a lot about all of the people who were working there who are now hitting the bricks and looking for a new job.
Tuesday, September 17, 2002
12:07 a.m.
I got a lot done today. I got my sat truck washed, waxed and polished. I even got my pickup done, and I just might work on my s-10 tomorrow. I will probably do that after I get some errands done. The little truck has been sitting in storage for a while, and the gas needs to be run out of the engine.
I also got my motorcycle out today. It still needs some work, and I should probably order some parts for it before it's winter and I can't enjoy that I got some new parts for my bike. I'd still like to trade it in for an old beeser, but then I'd be spening all my time working on the beeser.
I talked to my dad today. He was babysitting my nephews and I could hear them screaming in the background. I'm hoping they outgrow that phase. Or I would hope that they eventually take it outside where the neighbors can tell them to be quiet.
Speaking of neighbor kids, I introduced a couple of the boys to the fun of metal polish. I needed to get a large amount of diamond coating done, and they wanted to help, so I got some rags and we went to town on polishing the truck.
Jake and Stone both talk in their own language. They yell at each other a lot, and ride their bikes up and down this neighborhood like they own it. And I think they're actually right.
Do is the coolest kid. I guess his parents call him "do" because he doesn't "do" anything. But today, when I went by to talk with my neighbor Terry, the boys came out and asked if they could go riding on my motorcycle (to which I and their mom said no-way). Do came riding up on his John-Deere green tricycle with half a face full of mud, and a missing cowboy boot. I came home from a college party like that once.
Somehow, the other boys managed to keep the blackening metal polish off of their clothes. Half the time those kids go home they're full of mud or dirt. I just hate to get their mom and dad mad at me because I might have had something to do with it. Let's just say the pressure washer and my slightly muddy yard were not a good mix. Boys will be boys.
In an effort to give our company webpage a little more content, I'm working on a couple pages that will probably keep me busy until the end of time. In retrospect, they were bad ideas, but at some point, whenever I feel they are ready to be placed online, I should be getting a lot of feedback.
I also wanted to work on a document on my linux box, and found out that I can't yet use my floppy drive. Well, I can read items, but I can't write to the disk. I was able to format a disk, somehow, but I struggled for a while to find out what it really did to the disk. It turns out that I still need to put in all of the info and install the proper driver for the drives before the computer will fully recognize the drive. AAAaaarrrrggghhh! I'm learning, and the process is so slow! But I'm hoping that I'm getting there. I'll know this if I can get some of these programs to work the way they are supposed to work.
Tuesday, September 10, 2002
10:02 p.m.
Work is getting more exciting, in part because of equipment upgrades, and in part because we are getting a few more jobs here in Kansas City. And that means I get home more often, and get less burned out in years to come.
I spent part of the day rebuilding and recompiling a new linux system. The next step in the evolutionary chain is to finally get broadband, and then start hosting my own site. But that will take some time.
I also need to work on a DOS box, but since I know so little about dos, I will be starting with a clean slate.
My little sister is taking on more and more at her new school and that means doing a bunch of computer work. She was able to learn some of the basics behind HTML so quickly, that I wouldn't be surpised to see her programming in a few years.
Football season is upon us, which means that my weekends are pretty much shot. But it also means fun jobs and working with some of my favorite colleagues.
This season also means harvest time, which means good food, drinks (I like a good hot drink), and a quiet neighborhood where the kids next door have gone to school and aren't knocking on my door all the time. I will miss them, a little.
