Take some time today to learn about SOPA and PIPA and sign Google’s petition.

I don’t typically listen to NPR but my wife got me listening to “Wait Wait” about a year ago. But whereas she listens on the radio, I download the podcast. Regardless, we were both excited to attend a real live taping of the show.

In addition to host Peter Sagal and judge/scorekeeper/announcer Carl Kasell, the panelists for the evening were Roy Blount, Jr., Adam Felber, and Faith Salie. Rumor had it that Bill Cosby would be the celebrity call in for the “Not My Job” segment but Peter told the audience that the Cos had cancelled at the last minute. Instead, comedian Mark Maron from the WTF podcast called in to answer Florida-related quiz questions.

As we expected, the show just as much fun to watch live as to listen to … maybe even a little more fun because a) you’re in a room with 2,500 other people laughing and appluading and b) the broadcast show is edited down for time and content so there’s a lot more riffing going on live than you hear on the radio. It was also interesting to see how the producers had Peter and others re-record some lines/sections at the end of the show. It will be interesting to see what’s changed and what did (and didn’t) make the cut when the show airs on Saturday (much like when I attended a TV taping of Good Eats Turns 10).

After the recording, they brought an audience member up to the stage to play a limerick challenge, which won everyone in the audience a Wait Wait! tote bag. Then Peter and Karl took some questions from the audience, which was cool. Overall, it was a fun, enjoyable evening.

I can’t recall if we we were sent home early, or if we finished the rest of the workday. I do remember going over to a colleague’s apartment (I was staying in a hotel) where we had dinner and sat watching the news coverage for hours into the night.

From my office window I could see the downtown Chicago skyline and would usually watch all the planes on approach into the two airports. Few the next few days, while all flight traffic in the US was grounded, the skies were eerily empty. Since I was didn’t even want to try and fly home to Florida that weekend, I drove to my parents’ place in Cleveland just to be with family instead of by myself in Chicago. When I did finally fly for the first time after the attacks (and for weeks afterwards), O’Hare was a crowded mess of long lines and weary passengers and security screeners. It’s hard to remember there was a time when we didn’t have to take off our shoes or walk through full body scanners.

But this 10th anniversary of the worst terrorist attack on American soil is not just about “where were you?” but about the over 3,000 people who lost their lives on 9/11 and the men and women who continue to work to keep America safe at home and abroad.

Never forget.

He beat me to it! Doh!

The idea came to me a few months back while I was organizing videos (complete with metadata files) on my NAS and I realized just how many files I have squirreled away in various places. Thankfully no more floppy discs in plastic organizers but I do have a flip-folder full of CDs which includes an original Windows NT 4.0 install disc and a disc full of old DOS games (like Lemmings and The Incredible Machine) that would probably run inside DOSBox  if I ever had the time to mess around with it. Oh, and if anyone needs the Creature Shock 1.0a patch, I’ve got that on there too.

Don’t even get me started on the photos (almost 10,000 of my daughter alone!), but at least those can be considered important and useful (and most are irreplaceable). As expected, those, along with my digital music and video libraries account for most of the space used on the home network.

So, what are you hoarding digitally?

I wasn’t lucky enough to be selected for KSC tickets in the raffle so I had to settle for watching the last launch live on NASA TV on my iPad. I love listening to the live feed (although there were a lot of prepared speeches this time).

It’s hard to believe STS-135 is the last shuttle mission, ending a 30-year program. Sadly, it will be years before another manned spacecraft blasts off from U. S. soil. I wore my Constellation polo shirt to work today as a little reminder of what could have been (or what still might be).

At least I got to see a few launches live, although only one up close and personal (well, from Titusville … a spectacular night launch of Endeavour in 2002 for STS-113). And, of course, I’ll always remember Challenger and Columbia (the very first shuttle launched for STS-1).

I was an IBMer for just over a year, part of the Global Services division when they purchased PwC Consulting (my employer at the time) back in 2002. I remember it being a big adjustment, going from a large, private (formerly a partnership) firm of 30,000 employees to a giant public company of over 300,000 people. At the same time, as a tech guy, going to work for one of the largest technology companies in the world was an exciting opportunity (and the employee purchase program was nice, too). In hindsight, it was better than working for Monday or being bought by hp … it couldn’t hurt having IBM on my resume’, right?

I left IBM in 2003, not because I didn’t like working there but more because I was ready to get out of consulting. I still look back with pride on being a part (albeit very small) of that company for 13 months. So, happy 100 Big Blue! You don’t look a day over 50.

I was not really a WWF fan when I was a kid but of course it was impossible to not know about wrestling and its flamboyant characters like Macho Man, Hulk Hogan (who also lives in the area), Andre the Giant, “Rowdy” Roddy Piper, Jesse “The Body” Ventura, etc. It’s weird that this happened less than two miles from my house … sad.

The crew of the space shuttle Challenger honored us by the manner in which they lived their lives. We will never forget them, nor the last time we saw them, this morning, as they prepared for the journey and waved goodbye and “slipped the surly bonds of earth” to “touch the face of God.” – President Ronald Reagan

25 years ago today, the space shuttle Challenger exploded seventy-three seconds after liftoff, killing all seven astronauts aboard. January 28, 1986 is one of those days that I will never forget where I was when I heard the news.

I was in the eighth grade. We had been studying the Challenger mission STS-51L for weeks before the launch, in preparation for watching Christa McAuliffe‘s teaching broadcasts from space. I’m not sure exactly why, but we weren’t actually watching the launch in class that day (as so many other schoolkids were). Instead, I was in the band director’s office during the lunch period working on the school newspaper (the director had Newsroom by Springboard Software on his Apple II which we used to publish the paper). The principal’s voice suddenly came over the PA system announcing that the shuttle had exploded during take-off.

The enormity of what had happened really didn’t sink in until I got home from school that afternoon to watch Dan Rather and the video replay on TV over and over with my parents.

I actually found a scan of that issue of the school newspaper I was working on when we heard the news:

Reading that again reminded me that just a few days later was the Cleveland earthquake. I remember being home from school that Friday (I don’t recall if we had the day off due to Challenger or if it was previously scheduled) when the house started shaking! My sister and I thought our younger siblings were jumping on a bed and shaking the house but it was an actual earthquake. What a week in January that was …

If I want a personal webpage with all sorts of information about myself, I’ll go to WordPress.com and make one. By doing this, I don’t turn over any data, control, or information to an onerous third party to sell, use, or exploit. I can close down the site when I want. I can say what I want. I can pretty much do whatever.

If I am the least bit worried, I can use my various providers or other services to post a WordPress blog right from my own server. None of this is possible with Facebook.