Archive: December 2004
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Tuesday - December 28, 2004
Tsunami donation site
Amazon.com is making it easy to donate to the Red Cross to help with the tsunami disaster relief efforts. Amazon is waiving its usual fee so 100% of the donation goes to the Red Cross.
Tuesday - December 7, 2004
Looking back
My "activist" past comes back to haunt me. I think it's a pretty good article. And, for the most part, what I said is accurately reflected in the article. Talking to the reporter brought back a lot of memories. It's amazing how quickly time flies. It seems like the last time I attended one of those post-midnight meetings was only a few months ago. But, it's been more like two or three years.
Jonathan (the reporter) asked why the meetings stopped...why the push for public accountability stopped. And, frankly, I don't know. In my case, I just got tired of the whole thing. I joined the University Staff Association whenever it started up...1996 or 1997? I worked on the president's ad-hoc committee on staff compensation for at least two years. I worked on the Staff Council for about 3 years. And, I attended all but two or three of those post-midnight meetings with the custodians. Those went on for two years or so, first weekly, then every couple of weeks, then once a month. Until none of us had the energy to keep at it. It's a shame. But, I guess that's how life goes, eh?
One thing I really wish is that I'd kept better records of our meetings. I kept sporadic records and I actually ended up getting rid of most of my hand-written notes about six months ago. Ah well...
Monday - December 6, 2004
Solving a mystery
I received a rather perplexing bit of email today. It was sent to the email address associated with this web page (as opposed to my "work" email address). It was from a woman in a nearby town asking for help finding an address. No context. No explanation. Just a request. To wit:
Subject: help, need to find address
I searched on mapquest....no avail...can you help? Is ther a 1234 Stony Point, Ridge? Stony something??? Thanks!
Note that I changed the address to protect the privacy of the woman making the request. She'd sent her message from her work email address which included her contact info. So, I knew it wasn't your garden variety of spam. But, why send it to me? I was very confused by this request.
So, I did a quick search on Google for "1234 Stony" (again, not the actual address in the email message) and found a likely address listed for a business here in Austin. So, I wrote back:
I'm at a loss. Can you tell me why you sent this message to me? Just to satisfy my curiosity a bit, I did a Google search for "1234 Stony" and it came up with [...info deleted...]. I looked that up on Mapquest (specifying Austin as the city) and came up with a map to that spot. That address looks like it's in a residential area so I'm guessing that's a business run out of someone's home.
Oddly, that address is very near my home. Which made me wonder: do we know each other from somewhere and I'm just forgetting?
She wrote back explaining what she was looking for and said (in part):
I went into City of Austin, because I could not find this on mapquest...somehow I got into an Austin UT site and your name/article/something was there and I thought hey, since she lives there maybe she would know, so I took a gamble and sent you a message. And lookie here, you answered!
Still very confused about how she found my email address, I wrote back:
Good luck [...info deleted...]. I still don't quite see how you ended up contacting me but I guess it worked out for you.
She wrote back one more time and the mystery was finally solved:
OK, this is how I located you....I went into search for Austin Texas, gave me many sites, I chose austin.about.com, then you came up on the "article" first-Joanna.org and about her website, s0 I just asked YOU the question. And I am glad I did. :) Thanks!
Naturally, I had to go look up the austin.about.com site and lo! I found this at the top of an "About Austin" page:
Joanna.org
I don't know Joanna but I stumbled across her website this evening when I was searching for information on nostalgic sodas (I'll have more on that in a few days I hope). Any way, Joanna lives here in Austin and writes fairly regularly about any number of things happening to her or around here. Poking around I find she's been doing this site since at least 1997. The excerpts from the UT Campus Watch are amusing and she posts occasional funny photos with commentary. There's also Joanna's Longhorn Baseball Page which UT sports fan will enjoy. Take a break and enter her world at joanna.org
Saturday December 04, 2004 #
Isn't that just bizarre? The link to my page was put up on the 4th. Two days ago. I had no idea. And, then I got this odd email request two days later. It was just so out of the blue. I couldn't begin to understand why someone would just send me a question like that. But, now it all makes some sort of sense. My, oh my. The web sure is a peculiar organism, isn't it? Too funny.
Thursday - December 2, 2004
Campus Watch #19 + Happy Birthday
From today's Campus Watch crime report:
Criminal Mischief (Parking Lot F-11)
A UT staff member damaged a vehicle wheel immobilizer that had been affixed to the left front tire of the staff member's Honda Civic 2-door when the staff member drove out of the parking lot with the wheel immobilizer still attached to the wheel. Repair cost: $275.00. Occurred on 12-1-04 at 10:40 PM.
Excuse me? The staff member drove out of the lot with the wheel immobilizer still attached? The report does not say "attempted to drive" out of the lot. Nope, it says "drove" out of the lot. How in the world can that possibly work? Wow.
Also from today's report:
Fictitious Driver's License (Peter T. Flawn Academic Center)
A red wallet containing cash, various credit cards, a valid Texas Driver's License and a fictitious Texas driver's license was left on a copier. The wallet was turned over to a library staff member. Occurred on 12-1-04 at 7:55 PM.
Heh. You leave your wallet behind. By a stroke of great luck, it's found by a good samaritan who turns it in. Contents intact. But, you get into trouble anyway for having a fake ID. How sad is that?
. . . .
It's December 2nd so I'm gonna wish my surrogate dad a very happy birthday anniversary. When I was in college and my folks were living in South America, my best friend's family took me under their collective wing. They're a great bunch of folks. And, now "Dad #2" is having a birthday anniversary. He much prefers that terminology. As he is wont to point out, his birthday actually happened all those years ago when he was born. Today is, in fact, the anniversary of that day. Can't argue with that! So, happy birthday anniversary, Dad Mear!