Gone camping

As of this post’s timestamp, I am in a park less than five minutes away. I, my friends, am camping.

Methought this would be a good opportunity for me to test out WordPress‘s “Edit timestamp” feature, which allows me to change the timestamp on a post so that it can appear to have been posted in the past or actually show up in a future time. I already tried out the former, so in this post I’m trying out the latter. If you can read this (and couldn’t before the time of the post), it worked. It should be helpful when I have some things to write about but not a computer to post them with. So long, PLAPS.

But right. I’m camping. It’s a camping trip put on every year by an obscure ministry of the church (the Family Life Ministry, I think it’s called). I went to the campout with my friends in 2002 and 2003. It’s always the first or second weekend of the year, and according to my personal experience it always just happens to be the coldest. This year it doesn’t seem like that will be so, but it’ll probably be the hottest then.

I, sitting here at home, just having finished writing the last post, am looking forward to the campout. It started today (yesterday) and ends on Sunday (tomorrow), but I’m not (wasn’t) keen on sleeping in a tent for two nights in a row. I wouldn’t say it’s the modern conveniences that I’d die without, but perhaps it’s an actual roof over my head.

I usually stay in a friend’s tent and not for the whole time, either, so this year is no exception. (I know there’s a word for what I’m doing, but it’s not coming to mind.) This year I’ve added to the whateverness by agreeing to come along at the last minute (not literally). But that’s what makes it more fun. For me.

So I will be (am) spending my time biking, playing my guitar (if I bring it), roasting marshmallows, sharing jokes, and photographing the scenery, all with people who make it worthwhile. It’ll be (is) a lot of fun.

Now as I relax and enjoy life, I can still answer Ask Jordon!

Tom: I am honored, all the examples of Ask Jordon are mine. How do you like WordPress so far?

Yes, when I was looking through past questions to list as examples on the Ask Jordon page, I found that all of them happened to be yours. It wasn’t anything I consciously did (in case anyone is bummed out about me not using their questions).

Though the default format of WordPress is a little too heavy for the way I blog, it’s doing fine as I’ve basically retrofitted it to match the old look and feel without adding too much crazy stuff like support for multiple users, image uploading, user-reviewed links, and other things I’d never use. I’d recommend it to anyone who has a fairly good understanding of PHP. MySQL is also required, but there’s not much to setting up the database.

Yellow Chicken: Do you use a referrers script?

No. Not one that’s easily visible on the site, anyway. If you click that weird little planet icon at the bottom of some of the pages, you can see stats like referrers, browsers, operating systems, screen resolutions, and things like that. For example, here are stats for the main page. I tried using an access log analyzer program, but it was rather complicated and I felt that keeping logs would be a waste of valuable storage space.

You may remember that I once thought about writing a fantasy or sci-fi novel just to get rich. Now How to Write a Best-Selling Fantasy Novel can help me out. But those who would take the advice as tongue-in-cheek will probably appreciate it better. I’m not much of a fantasy reader myself — more like a potential writer.

First of the autographs

I was eager to check the mail today. Last Monday, if you’ll recall, I sent letters and dollar bills to former Treasurers and Secretaries of the Treasury with hopes that I’d get the bills back autographed above each person’s facsimile signature that appears on the note.

Anyway, today I got the first ones back. They were three crisp sequential Series 1974 $1 notes that I had sent to Francine I. Neff, who served as U.S. Treasurer from 1974 to 1977. The bills returned slightly bent but otherwise crisp. Ms. Neff honored my request for her to make out one of the autographs to me. She spelled my first name wrong (the usual Jordan instead of Jordon), but it’s hard to notice. (I still find it amazing that no one can spell my first name, but my last name — Kalilich — seems to be no problem.)

The other letter for me was one I had sent to Mary Ellen Withrow (Treasurer, 1994-2001), but this one was in the original envelope. They wrote upon it, “Return to Sender, Address Unknown, No Such Number, No Such Zone…” Or, uh, something along that line. Even though it was a nixie, I’m not too disheartened because (a) at least the bills didn’t get lost in the mail and (b) I’ve found a more recent address of hers, which hopefully will work. Withrow is a prolific signer and purportedly never turns down a request for an autograph.

And for more backstory, in October I registered to take Health class online, not only to avoid the teacher (who absolutely nobody likes) , but also to catch up in math. Apparently I was recently sent an e-mail saying that the class was about to start, but I never got it. Thank God my sister did, or I wouldn’t have known.

Anyway, Mrs. Grabelsky, our future teacher, called yesterday to let us know what this was all about and everything. It doesn’t seem too hard. We’re expected to have at least five to seven hours a week to dedicate to taking the class, and that works out to 43 minutes to an hour each day. But the several assignments given each week are due each Monday, and since my school has all Fridays off (and I suddenly have more free time on that day of the week), it’ll be a piece of cake. Wait, this is Health class. Piece of celery. Eww.

Well, one of my friends has done it and he says it’s easy. And if it’s torture on my oh-so-busy schedule, then at least I’ll have my sister and some of my friends to cry with, because they’re taking the same class online too.

“Making Canada a Warmer Place,” it’s Canadians for a Tropical Province! This is apparently a group of Canadians who think that annexing a tropical island will help Canada’s tourism industry. I think it’s a good idea, even though I’m not Canadian. It would just mean fewer Canadians running around down here in Florida (and trust me, there are a lot). CFATP hopes that the majority of Canadians will approve of the idea in a national referendum.

Easy come, easy go

For those not in the know, I have a part-time office job on Fridays for a company that makes and sells suits. I was told before Christmas that the office would be reopening this week. I usually call my boss, Mr. Rose, around Wednesday to confirm that I can get a ride to work. Good guy, my boss. His family used to live next door. That connection, plus this blog and a lucky coincidence, is how I got this job in the first place. His daughter, who’s a little older than me, works in the office too.

But when I called my boss this week, his answering machine message said that everyone was out of town for the week. This wasn’t unusual in itself and had happened before. They have their business meetings and conferences and such to go to. So I called his cell phone and left a message, and he called me back and left a message, and I called him back just now.

He confirmed that I wouldn’t need to come in tomorrow and told me to call him back for “the scoop.” I didn’t know about this scoop of which he was speaking, so I called. He explained in the nicest way possible that, well, “three of the guys just moved to another office, and Elaine, who you mostly worked under — wait, you know she quit, right? Oh, I didn’t tell you? Well, yeah, it was just before Christmas. So anyway, we won’t be needing you right now, but we’ll be ready to call you when we need your expertise, etc., etc….”

We all know what that means. I got fired.

Of course, I didn’t really get fired, because that would mean I did something to deserve this. I didn’t. It just happened. And that was pretty much how it first hit me. All I thought at first was no more job. I finished up being polite to my boss (“Thank you,” “Happy New Year”) and hung up. Then, as I was calling my grandmother to tell her I didn’t need a ride to work tomorrow or ever again, it hit me hard.

No more job = no more money. I’m now poor!, I thought. And I still have to do my taxes! Rage was the next emotion. How could they do this to me? Things seemed to be going so well. I had just gone to the office Christmas party and was looking forward to the next one. I had asked for polo shirts for Christmas expressly for the purpose of wearing them to work. Now I have at least three of them, and what am I going to do? Wear them to school? I think I can still exchange them for store credit — the ones I didn’t wear yet, anyway.

It only seems reasonable at this point to think of other career options. I never really liked what I did there anyway. I managed contacts, checked to see if fabrics were in stock, hung up ties, and other things that everyone else was too busy to do. Elaine’s computer was infested with spyware and other junk like that, and she was about as computer literate as a sock (sorry, it was the first inanimate object that came to mind). She was nice, but I seem to have been hired for mainly that reason: my understanding of computers.

I never really toyed with the idea of making web sites for other people until my friend Chad said that he likes to offer his services for small businesses with lousy web sites. He says they’re usually glad and willing to pay him $100 to redesign their site. It’s certainly something to think about, if only because probably everyone in my family would suggest it as an option. I’ll consider it.

Semi-random thought: maybe I could get away with writing “October 2003 – January 2005″ on my as-yet-unwritten resume. They probably officially killed me off before the end of the year, but I didn’t find out about it till this year. Putting January 2005 as the end date makes it sound longer than if I put December 2004.

I wonder if old Mr. Rose — or, shall I say, Steve — dismissed his daughter too.

I could have used the verb “had” in the opening sentence of this post, but then you wouldn’t have needed a reason to read all this.

It’s the end of an era for music recording. Slashdot is reporting that Quantegy Professional Media, the world’s last manufacturer of professional-quality reel-to-reel analog audio tape, has closed its manufacturing plant without notice. A local news story details the reactions of the 250-some workers when they came back after their holiday break to find “No Trespassing” signs. It also reviews the long history of the company, including the embarrassing incident during World War II that led to its creation.

And when very large chain stores move out of small towns, causing hundreds to lose their jobs, what becomes of the enormous buildings that are left behind? Big Box Reuse shows that some of them are put to good use as libraries, churches, schools, and even apartment complexes.

Fun with friends

On Tuesday I went with my friends, Nick, Mark, and Michael, to some place called Gaming Emporium or something like that. It was basically like an arcade but with computer games, and you buy an all-day pass to get in. At least, that’s what they told me. The place was really far away (at least a half an hour’s drive), and when we got there, it was closed. I could look inside, though. It was a smallish place with rows of computers occupying most of the area. There were also a few TVs with a PlayStation 2, an Xbox, and a NES (which of these doesn’t belong?). I was told that there was Internet access also, so at least I would have had something to do while they gamed.

So for what to do, we somehow ruled out going to the movies even though there was an enormous movie theater next door. Instead we went all the way back to a familiar bowling alley in our neck of the woods. I bowled better than I thought I would, even though I have no proper form or technique (and am left-handed). Fairly early on, a passerby gave some advice: to just throw the ball towards where you want it to end up. In other words, actually look at the pins when you’re throwing the ball. This hadn’t occurred to me, but once I tried it I did much better. In fact, I won most of the games we played.

Then we went back to Nick’s house, where we spent the night. The period of Tuesday afternoon to yesterday afternoon generally consisted of video games, air hockey, TV, board games, video games, DVDs, video games, poker, catch, video games, pizza, doughnuts, and video games. The one video game we played the most was Mario Kart: Double Dash!! (yes, the name properly styled that way), which was fortunate for me because I actually know how to play that game. And for the record, we didn’t stay up very late — we were asleep shortly after midnight, I think.

Now it’s time to play Ask Jordon, with your host… Jordon!

shirley: what is plaps

Read the Frequently Asked Question “What was PLAPS?” on the About the Site page. It’s actually the only FAQ that’s FAed.

Ronna Wikert: Are the currency bills with a star after the serial numbers which were issued during the first Iraqi war worth anything?

I’m no expert on world currency, but a pretty good way to get a pretty good idea of what these bills might be going for is to search eBay. Iraqi dinar notes — even older ones — are not at all hard to find there. Here’s a search query to get you started.

An ambigram is a word or phrase written in such a way that it can be read as another word/phrase (or the same one) when you turn it upside-down. Gef’s Ambigram Gallery has names of all sorts of people I haven’t heard of. And you can even make your own ambigrams online using Ambigram.Matic. I’ve seen an interesting ambigram that reads “Life” one way and “Death” the other. That’s deep.

Let’s do it in style

Since I started blogging, it’s been difficult for me to look in the mirror each morning and call myself a true blogger. The truth is, I don’t use — or rather, didn’t use — blogging software of any kind. I just typed up an entry on the home page, copied it to the archive page, added it to the RSS feed, and that was that. But yesterday I finally decided enough was enough. After much searching, I came across WordPress and have been very happy with it. This, my readers, is my first post using WordPress — real blogging software.

It would appear that my post of January 1st was the first post with WordPress, but this isn’t quite the case. If I had left it alone, it would have had its own monthly archive page like all the posts from 2003 and 2004, except it would be all by itself because the rest of the entries from this month would be on a page generated by WordPress. So I reposted the New Year’s Day post and fudged the timestamp for it to match the original date and time of the post. Okay, boring stuff over.

So what does this mean for you? For starters, new posts are categorized. Check out the Archives page to see the categories (so far). “Stuff” is the catch-all category, and I’ll add more categories as I go. On that page you’ll also find a search box to search all the many posts since January 1, 2005 (currently 2). And, of course, you’ll find the monthly archives as always; the old archives (and the permalinks contained therein) remain the same, but new posts’ permalinks will be in a different format. (The one exception is the link to my post two days ago; note that it has changed.)

The most noticeable change is the addition of comments. The World of Stuff is no longer a one-way street! Have fun commenting on my entries, but remember that I must approve of them before they appear. So don’t be alarmed if they don’t show up right away. It could take minutes or hours before I get to them. Once I make sure you don’t want us to see your webcam, your post will show up. (And if you’re good, I’ll only review comments that are flagged as suspicious).

Feed-readers: there are now RSS 0.92, RSS 2.0, and Atom 0.3 feeds that (should) display the whole post instead of just the first two sentences. [Edit: They only show the beginning of each post. But I don't care. It's still nice.] The RSS 0.91 feed is obsolete. Also new are TrackBack URLs. I don’t know exactly what they’re for (I mean, I have a pretty good general idea), but if you do, then feel free use them.

After some hard thought, one thing had to go: the subheadings that I’ve used with most entries since August 2003. They couldn’t be implemented in a way that would be aesthetically pleasing in all browsers or technically correct. And no one but me uses subheadings, and they’re not that useful, so they went. It’s a small price to pay for this newfound freedom.

Well, I hope you enjoy this new setup as much as I do. I can’t believe I’ve gone for so long without blogging software. But here we are.

The wedding was pretty nice. I wouldn’t exactly call the boat we were on a yacht, but it was a pretty big boat nonetheless. The actual ceremony on the top deck was first and it took about four seconds to get through, notwithstanding all the wind and the noise of boats and cars passing by. Then there was a lot of dancing (and a bunch of people telling me that I could go get a soda or something if I wanted to, so I finally caved in and did that so they’d stop). After that, we went downstairs and ate. The food was pretty good. Then I went home because there was going to be more dancing and they announced that the reception would be extended an hour because the boat was grounded.

All an all, it was nice. I got to see some people I hadn’t seen for a while, some of whom gave me Christmas cards. So I was sure to say thank you to them so I wouldn’t have to write them thank-you notes. (You think that’s slick? My mom told me to do it, in fact.)

Now, let’s celebrate this new setup with some good old-fashioned Ask Jordon.

Carlos: What is the Minor Scale thing?

It’s kind of hard for me to explain because I don’t know much about musical theory, but here goes nothing. Every song is written in a particular key, which means that it generally uses only the notes of that scale. For example, a song in the key of C (major) usually only uses notes of the C scale (which happen to be the white keys of a piano keyboard; the black keys are notes outside the C scale). It also (usually) uses the same certain chords, with the C chord being the one that the song is based around.

The notes of a minor scale are almost, but not quite, the same as that of the major scale. The corresponding chords are also different. I find the minor scales and chords harder to remember than the major ones, so I made the chart for my own use.

There are actually different kinds of major and minor scales, but they each has the same thing in common, I think. In minor scales, the third note is one step flatter than that of major scales. The differences between different major and minor scales depends on all the other notes (except the first, of course, which defines the key).

Someone please correct me if I’m wrong. I love having comments.

Ron: have you ever skateboarded before?

Surprisingly, yes. It was June 2003 and my friends and I were shooting a video of us doing crazy stuff. And for me, skateboarding is a crazy thing. I could hardly stay on the skateboard. Actually, I couldn’t. Another uncoordinated friend of mine tried it too, with more comical results. The video was never finished. I believe the segment was to be called “When Nerds Try to Skateboard.”

Happy New Year!

…and in with the new. I went to a party at my friend’s house. It was pretty fun (and certainly better than staying home).

And tonight I have to go to a wedding — on a yacht, I think. My great-aunt (my mother’s aunt) is marrying this guy I’ve never met. I don’t even know what his last name is. She hooked up with him not long after her first husband died (I can’t remember if it was 2003 or 2004). He had Alzheimer’s or dementia or something and sometimes didn’t even recognize her. I understand that the chicks don’t dig that.

They probably picked New Year’s Day to get married so the guy would never forget their anniversary. At least my great-aunt didn’t divorce old Uncle Frank (at least, I don’t think she did). I’ll give her credit for that. Even though death (rather than court documents) did them part, I can’t help but wonder that if love isn’t forever, is anything?

Now for the first Ask Jordon of the new year!

Sean: would you rather talk to a telemarketer OR drug over a cactus with your mouth tied to the tailpipe of a greyhound bus?

Telemarketers are people too, as I’ve learned. They’re just ordinary people trying to make a living. I’m sure that most of them don’t like having to do all that telemarketing, but it could often be the only job they can get. Maybe talking to a telemarketer would brighten their day.

I wouldn’t buy the stuff they hawk, though. That would be like buying from spam.

Tom: Do you do any impressions?

Not really. I used to be really bad about imitating everyone around me, but I’m not like that anymore. I can do a pretty good impression of a gym teacher I had last year; she had a deepish, very slightly scratchy voice (which I turn into bronchitis — but that’s the fun of impressions) and a New York accent. And at my band’s gigs I used to do a bad British accent on stage. As for actual people, I sometimes catch myself doing a John Wayne impression, but I don’t do it consciously, Pilgrim.

And now for a New Year’s Day tradition: Lake Superior State University’s 2005 List of Banished Words.