Mr T's rants and ravings

Not my wedding – that’s next week. It will be 32 years with me and Mrs. T on the 12th. But today is five years of me blogging. Mrs. T says it seems like a lot longer and I guess in some ways it does. Yet in other ways is seems like I have just started. Actually marriage is the same. In some ways it seems like we have always been married and in other ways like we are still newlywed.

So if you are interested my first recorded blog post is at http://thespoke.net/blogs/alfredtwo/archive/2004/02/07/6063.aspx on a site that is pretty much all closed up now.

1. Airport security – Every time I take off my shoes for the scanning machine I count that as a victory for terrorists.
2. People who stand on the left (or passing lane) on moving sidewalks. Get out of the way people!
3. Arena security. Come on does anyone really believe that the issue is security and not just a way to prevent people from sneaking in their own food?
4. Drivers who do not use turn signals. When I think of all the turns I could have made earlier if people were signaling I resent the time I’ve lost.
5. Airports that charge for wi-fi. I might not mind so much if they didn’t price it based on an imaginary 24-hours of use when people are likely not to use it for more than an hour or so.
6. Expensive hotels that charge for wi-fi. The cheap hotels give it away for free so why to the expensive ones charge?
7. Programming languages with semi-colons. They’re just a crutch for compiler writers anyway.
8. Command line interfaces that do not use complete, correctly spelled English language words.
9. People who block traffic in supermarket isles. Stand behind your cart not along side it people!
10. People who stop inside doorways. Move out of the way so other people can come though.
11. Places that do not warn people of allergens in the food. Especially nuts and peanuts! One of these places is going to make my wife a rich widow one of these days.
12. People who share too much private/personal information too loudly in public places.
13. Prices that also say “plus tax” without saying how much tax will be added. Trust me when I tell you that in a place 1,000 miles and several states from home I have no clue what the local sales tax is.
14. Airport food prices. There is no reason a tiny “personal pizza” should cost as much as an extra large pizza that feeds three people at home does. The same is true for food concessions at sporting or entertainment events.
15. Places that automatically put mayonnaise and/or mustard on hamburgers. Or anything that is not easily taken off. If you’re going to add stuff that is hard to remove it should be clearly stated so I can ask that you not do it.
16. Fountain beverages that include more ice than beverage. The stuff comes out of the dispenser plenty cold enough for me. If I’d wanted a glass of ice I would have ordered one.
17. LINUX – it’s a virus which is why it doesn’t “need” an anti-virus program. There are not many complaints I have about operating systems that LINUX doesn’t implement.
18. People who are regularly late for appointments. Once in a while things happen but if you are late a lot it is your fault and wastes my time.
19. People who toss their cigarette buts out their car windows. That’s just gross.
20. People who don’t take time to air out after smoking. The smoke sticks to people like nauseating perfume for several minutes after the smoking stops.  Stand out in the cold and windy until it clears so I don’t have to smell it.
21. Coffee breath. Even worse when mixed with smoker’s breath. Take a mint after coffee – thanks!
22. Drunks. Everyone is entitled to screw up and get drunk once and end up in law firm DUI charges. After that if you don’t know your limit you are an idiot who should not drink at all.
23. Cursing. If your vocabulary is so limited that you need to use “cussing” words work on your vocabulary. Or grow up. Or both.
24. Too much perfume. The best smelling person is a clean person. Perfume too often replaces one bad smell with another that is even more irritating to the nose.
25. Getting stuck in heavy traffic. I’m learning to be patient in it but it is still annoying as all get out.

1. I ride a unicycle. I keep toying with the idea of buying an off road unicycle and a large wheel unicycle for road riding.
2. When I was a teen I rode a bicycle from California to Delaware with a group. Nothing like travelling coast to coast on a bicycle to understand America.
3. My original major in college (which I completed half way through my junior year) was sociology.
4. I’ve only dated one person more than a couple of times and we’ve been married almost 32 years.
5. I don’t drink alcohol but not because of religious reasons. I think it all tastes bad and the idea that it impairs judgment is enough reason to eschew it anyway.
6. I like to play poker. I’m not good at it but it is fun and since it is a skill game I have a chance of getting better.
7. I collect poker chips from casinos/card rooms where I have actually played. I have chips from about 20 places in 9 different states.
8. I ride a snowboard these days because my knees like that better than skiing. I miss the skiing though.
9. I have had ambitions to work at two companies in my career that are really hard to get jobs at – Digital and Microsoft – and have been able to work for both of them.
10. The first programming language I ever learned was FORTRAN. It’s been over 15 years since I wrote a program in it though.
11. The first programming language I taught myself was BASIC-PLUS. Over 30 years later I still choose a version of BASIC as my programming language for most things.
12. I had lunch with Grace Hopper once. She was visiting the college I was attending and a small group of students had lunch and discussion with her.
13. I was an operating system developer for almost two years. During that time I wrote the UI for a print/batch system from scratch. In BASIC-PLUS! Well I wrote some assembly language code too.
14. I’m a preacher’s kid and proud of it.
15. As a young person I was a “fire buff” and went to a lot of big city fires – sometimes riding fire trucks. Other times I went in my father;s car because he was a chaplain for the New Your City fire department. I had my own turnout coat and boots too.
16. I’m an avid reader and will red almost anything but my favorites are science fiction and history non-fiction.
17. I like to go snowshoeing in the winter time. Nothing like a walk in snow covered woods and trails.
18. My summer exercise is kayaking.
19. I used to SCUBA dive but it’s been years.
20. Snorkeling is one of the things I really like to do when I can get into warm clear water. Doesn’t happen enough. Warm clear water is only found in swimming pools in New Hampshire.
21. I’m addicted to email. But than if you know me at all you probably know that.
22. I’ve written several textbooks – all on Visual Basic.
23. What I really want to do is write fiction. I can’t seem to find the discipline to actually it though. I did try once and there are some short samples at http://www.acthompson.net/Fiction.htm I just looked at the dates on those and can’t believe it has been so long.
24. I have not lived in East Hampton, NY since I was 5 but I still think of it as home.
25. I am genetically incapable of keeping my opinions to myself. That probably explains why I am writing this. And blogging. And Twittering. And getting involved in all sorts of online forums.