Think Pink 5K

I had some trouble finding the registration form for this one, so I'm sharing it.

Click Here. Hurry and register!

The End of the Weekend

It sucks thinking about it - back to work tomorrow. Due to furloughs, I had a four-day weekend and it seemed pretty long. I thought I'd have forever to get things done, but reality is to the contrary. I'm getting ready to run the Labor Day 5K in Valdosta, and then the day is pretty much over after that.

What's worse is that I don't enjoy my job anymore. When you don't look forward to going to work or talking to people about the work, it may be time to move on. My career is at a standstill at present and has been for some time now. I'm not allowed to touch computers in fear of a contract violation (sounds like a court order, doesn't it?) and I don't manage anyone. I manage information that is painfully extracted from those who care about these things less than I do. I see the job now as a futile effort to get things done and make things right. IBM has hosed this all up and there is almost nothing else to take apart. I'll say this: it takes at least five days to install a desktop printer and there is nothing I can do to make that any faster. Everything is officiated and nothing is efficient in State Government I.T.

So I just don't like it anymore. All we've been doing for three months is bitch and moan about how IBM/Dell/AT&T have come in and screwed everything up and GTA let them do it. And nothing has happened as a result of it. We are absolutely powerless. The things we say make a whole lot of sense, but no one hears it. It's like telling the CEO that the server has a security issue, to which he replies "...hmph. We'll have to look in to that," while never making eye contact. He doesn't care what you're saying. The sun is up and people are at work, aren't they? Everything is grand!

I am beginning to feel as if I'm rambling. I am losing the organization of my thoughts and that means it's time to quit writing for now.

Facebook Experiment Conclusion

The experiment didn't exactly go as planned, and I think the fact that I conceived, planned, and executed it within two hours could have contributed to its demise. The entire point of my exercise was to see how far and how quickly something can spread on Facebook. There is no other way (that I know of) to measure the note-sharing than to do what I did.

I like data and wanted to see the numbers grow. I expected more than 30 to respond, from all of Facebook. Turns out that my idea wasn't so well received as I'd hoped it would be.

Anyway, here are the final numbers, as the experiment is finished today with dwindling results:

30 Absolute Unique Visitors
All sourced from Facebook except for my own direct entry
Every visitor was from US or Canada (only one Canadian)

Overall result:



And by the way - if you want to shoot those numbers up, tell all your friends to go to http://fb.49times.com. There they can read all about it and continue the experiment, though I won't be watching or reporting on it unless it blows up as I had expected it to the first time.

9 Unique August 25

Sorry - I was reading it wrong. Google Analytics (hereafter GA) says the FB page has had 9 absolutely unique visitors yesterday. Again, more tomorrow.

12 Visits

Google Analytics shows 12 visits yesterday, and I guess that could be considered good since I sent it out at 1700 EST and not everyone uses Facebook every day.

We'll have to wait until tomorrow to see the results of today's visits. The counter was just at 36 page loads so I expect more than 24 unique visits as of today. We'll see.

Until then,

The Facebook Experiment Starts Now

I just thought of this today and will now begin the experiment. I've tagged 30 people in a note on Facebook that asks them to copy the note, paste it in a note of their own, and tag 30 people with it. Then they should follow the link in the note that goes to a single page I created.

I won't give the page away because I want every reference to come from Facebook itself. What I want to happen is to see 100,000 or more hits to that page over the next week. I expect this because social networking is viral (if people cooperate) and word can spread very quickly. I want to see just how quickly that is.

I will publish the results here and under the label "Facebook Experiment" as the project progresses.

Better Verizon Coverage

I went to check my BlackBerry last night for new messages, and couldn't help but notice a full signal meter. This was odd.

When we moved to Adel three years ago, we had great service in the then-out-of-area part of Verizon's network. We weren't charged for roaming or anything, and the signal was usable.

Some time last year, Verizon thought it would be a good idea to move in. They took Valdosta and put up towers in Adel and up to Tifton, covering a large area where they did not previously. I don't know how everything works, but their moving in and activating towers really changed things about service quality. For instance: I could not talk on the phone in my house. To send a text, I had to move toward an open door or window while holding up my phone until I got "Message Sent." I held conversations with people, but only in the driveway or the back yard.

So yeah, last night was odd - my personal phone also showed a very good signal level. I haven't confirmed any of this, but I believe it has to do with Verizon's acquisition of Alltel. We'll see if this lasts. And for their sake, Verizon better do something to keep service at this level - I was determined to switch at the end of this contract after five years with them.

But now I guess we'll stay. Seems a lot of nothing to blog about, but I'm pretty excited about my new ability to talk on the phone inside my house.

8 Mile

Well that sucked. Good movie, theatrics, whatever. I expected more at the end, like him getting a record deal or something.

At least I can say it sucked now having seen it. People who don't like movies they haven't seen tend to carry that mentality to other aspects of life. And that's why I try my best to watch every movie through to the end. I'm not a generalist.

May 12, 2009

It took the entire eight weeks of the 6-8 weeks for delivery to get it, and I'm still not sure it was worth all the time, tears, and money. It was just a few minutes ago that I decided to post it here to be archived.

The arrival of my undergraduate degree certificate was not a very special occasion. I thought I would cry when I finally reached that point in my life. After all, I did spend about eight years working on it. But no tears. Just back to work.

No raise, no added responsibility, no prestigious stance about me. No speeches. Just calls from Sallie Mae. No period of enlightenment or revelations. Just me. Same as I was out of high school, but with a whole lot more debt. And more kids.

I could be for and against higher education at this point, but either perspective is useless. The pursuit of education is at the personal level, and some people will sacrifice more than others to achieve their academic goals. Even after all of this, I still want to go to grad school. I might be borderline psychotic for that reason.

But Only So Much...

In these times of cost-cutting, I don't have a home phone. My company has no overhead or monthly bills beyond those services it provides to its customers. At home we don't really have or do anything extra. We live on one income and thrive on information from books and the Internet. No cable TV or satellite. I have a subscription to Xbox Live and Netflix - a combination unparalleled anywhere. I have considered cutting that, but tonight I am forever changed.

I'm sick today as I have been for the past two weeks with vertigo. I don't want to go anywhere and I slept all day. Beth is away with the kids at her parents' house, and I am left with nothing to do but put a Website proposal together (boring) and watch television. We don't get PBS because the DTV antenna I built doesn't face the right way. No public TV = no TV. I don't have the money to go to the video store, and that's usually not worth it anyway. Besides - I'm dizzy, remember?

Enter Netflix. Tie in Xbox Live. I picked at least 15 titles to watch this evening, to include movies I have only heard of and television series that I missed while in college. No, I don't think I'm going to cut that expense. I'm not out spending money when I'm on the couch. I just fell in love with technology all over again.

Now if you'll excuse me, I've got to go get my money's worth while keeping my head as still as possible.

Needs Improvement

This was me near the finish line yesterday. I clearly need some training before the next one. Look at me - my stride is so short - stamina needs improvement. My cool Army PT shirt is getting soaked; I don't think it does what I was led to believe. Clothing needs improvement. I have two weeks until the Barnes Health Care 5K on the 18th, and I intend to finish a lot sooner. At least by a minute.

Off to RunnersWorld.com to get some training tips.

Post-Valdosta 5K - 34:18

The run was fun, as it should have been. Last night I decided that I wasn't going to go because I hadn't taken enough time to prepare. If you look back two posts, I ran 5K in 35:22 six days ago. Having not trained any since then, I still ran a faster time this morning: 34:18.

Now that I'm finished with college for a while, I actually have time to make this a hobby. I tried to do it in 2007, but as soon as I started back to school all the physical activity ceased. I don't have any more excuses to run more often. If I'm still going in to Federal service I had better get going.

Valdosta 5K

I haven't run any more but I guess I'll go anyway tomorrow. In all consideration, I don't need to be the fastest guy running (even though it would never happen anyway). I really just need to go and be there. As long as I have fun and get the t-shirt, all will be well. What else did I pay $20 for anyway? I will try to remember to report the results.

35:22

I wasn't dragging the dog on this one and I actually changed the units on the GPS to metric. 5K in 35:22, which isn't bad since I ran 31:24 in 2007 after running for two months. We'll see what it is tomorrow, if I even make it out. I didn't even run the whole way. I walked more than I wanted to.

44:20

This post is back-dated. I am trying to chronicle this week as I take seven days to train for a 5K on July 4. Tonight I was dragging the dog, so I don't think I'll do that again.

Redesign #13 or so...

As the world constantly changes, so does my mind. I wanted a simple layout for this blog, but still couldn't fit all the details in to this slight redesign. Still, it was a welcome change. Not much change, mind you, but settling on a largely black-and-white theme pleased me. Things might get simpler still. If you don't bother noting the post time here, I'll tell you anyway: I'm off to bed as I have nothing more to say at this hour.

Via @aplusk on Twitter

I found this pretty funny and no one follows @rtech on Twitter, so I post here:

are my subscribers bombarded with these messages?

this is to test SMS to my blog and make me look smart. My very own twitter!

Another Break

Wow. It's been a long time since April 14. It's June 6 already. Let me catch you up:

I graduated college on May 12. We had a little party on the 16th. As of today I have not received my diploma.

My son was born five days ago, on June 1st. I kept those in-the-know updated via Twitter from my iPod over WiFi at the hospital. Say what you want.

Braden Michael Rehberg was born at 07:53 EST on June 1, 2009. 8lb, 9oz and 21" long.

Having written that, I now realize that this blog is five years old. I know this because I started writing here way before my daughter was born. I announced her birth somewhere back there in the archives, too. Is this turning into a career?

In between graduating and Braden's arrival, my business blew up and I was busier than I had ever been. It's still going and I am glad I took this entire month off from work. Maybe I can catch up. I'm loving it so far.

As much as I hated doing all that schoolwork and having sworn it off, I caught myself at school with Beth today thumbing through the 2008-2009 Graduate catalog. They still don't have any interesting Masters programs. I have changed my direction a bit away from IT, but it's still a close relation: Project Management. The PM courses I had in my undergrad were interesting, and there's quite a bit of science to the art that is Project Management. A lot of projects today are technical ones anyway, so it won't hurt to have a background in computers and networks. Having decided that, I have not come to a conclusion as to whether a graduate degree would help me any more after I become a PMP.

More on that later. I hope to have some kind of theme to write about here, but my brain is certainly too full and prone to wander. Don't believe me? Check the archives.

Late-