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He would “… sell iPods and iPod accessories.” More importantly than that, he could have kept me from making a mistake in my accessory purchasing. Here’s how it goes…

So I’ve been seeing this girl for a while now, and one of the events recently was her birthday party (which was a night unlike any I’ve had in a while, BTW). Being as it is her birthday and I overheard her talking about having an iPod and the car audio guys telling her that it was going to take some $400 to upgrade her stereo system to something that she could plug her iPod into, I began to think — “My friends have iPods and they have some little FM transmitter thingie that plugs right in and makes it play through the car stereo … “. I ask a couple of people which one they recommend, and the Griffin “iTrip” is the one that seems to get the highest marks.

Off I go to CompUSA. They have the exact one I’m looking for, so I get one. Now … Being as I want to try this thing out (and I don’t have an iPod) I decide that I had better get one of those, too. Back to the store.

Several hundred dollars later, I have an iPod (60GB Video) and two of the iTrip things (one for me and one for Brittany). I plug the thing in and find a station that no one else is using and hear music. “Neat” I think with a smile. I put the iPod on the passenger seat and let go and the music is replaced by static…

This will not do!

To make a long story reasonably short — the iTrip sucks ass. If you want to get an FM transmitter for your iPod, get the Monster iCar thing. It’s got a charger built into it, has three station presets and I have yet to hear a single pop of static since having picked up one at Fry’s last night.

In summation:

Griffin iTrip – * (just because it’s small and integrates with the iPod nicely)
Monster iCar – **** (I’d give it 5, but it is big and kinda clunky)

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When my employer decided to ask me to move to Dallas, I thought “Excellent … I’ll be closer to the action and really start to get involved in the cool stuff!” When I got here I took over a desk in the “bull pen” as it were and that’s wxactly what happened. I’ve been included on (and I like to think helped out on or added valuable opinions to) things that I would have previously been left out of due to “out of sight, out of mind” syndrome.

It’s been about 6 months now that I’ve been here. Today I was told that I had to move as a newhire was going to be taking the spot that I was sitting in. Now … Let’s just skip right over the part where 3 years of seniority is worth exactly shit and move right into where I’m sitting now …

I now occupy a desk across the floor (which, in our world may as well be across the continent). I do have more desk space, some drawers on this one to keep the clutter in, and a window (but I had a window where I was). The continuity of workflow is going to be as broken as it was when I was across the country though … I can see that already.

It’s annoying to hear all this talk about how “we’re going to have one large UNIX team for all the platforms” and “We’re not going to silo people anymore” only to have exactly that happen through isolation of the various platform owners… And it’s not that there isn’t enough desktop realestate to have all 7 of us in a single location, it’s just that no one wants to go to the trouble of making it happen with the exception of the engineers in question.

Oh well … What do we know? I guess making every cent of revenue this place produces possible just isn’t important enough to dictate your seating arrangement.

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Alcohol is an interesting substance. It’s a substance that (like other drugs) produces a euphoric sensation by causing serious damage to several of the body’s internal systems. But that’s not really the point of this post as much as how it makes people behave.

Let me start this off by saying that I like to drink. I drink often, and it’s usually a lot when I do. Having said that …

Over the years I have watched myself and others when we drink. I hold my alcohol pretty well 99% of the time. I’ve had many people admit that if they hadn’t seen me pound down a pint of whiskey in an hour that they wouldn’t have known I had been drinking. That probably sounds like I’m bragging, but I’m not. I’m setting the tone for what follows.

People who like to act as though their brain is missing when they drink should never have another drop from this moment forward. All too often I see people drinking (and often, not even that much) purely so they have an excuse to act as though their brain were missing. There’s nothing more embarrassing to a sober person (or a drunk person for that matter) than a friend that’s completely out of control and acting like a moron. I’m not saying that people aren’t entitled to act like morons; by all means, do. Just please behave like a moron at all times so that I know not to associate with you.

I’ve seen two cases of this in the last week from people that were in my company. The first was a date that went horribly wrong. The other was from a friend of mine that really should have known better than to do what he did to me, but again … For some people, alcohol is an excuse to do stupid shit.

The point? If you act like an idiot when you drink, do yourself a favor and stop.

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So a funny thing just happened to me …

As some of my readers are aware (and for those of you who aren’t, you can skip this one), I had a conflict with my employer a few months back over a co-worker of mine and a misunderstanding about some things. I thought that I had worked through all the why and how of what happened and put the issue to rest in my own mind, but I clearly haven’t.

I had occasion to speak to this co-worker in the hall just a bit ago and I came away from the exchange with that all too familiar feeling of a knife twisting in my solar plexus … It’s *very* irritating.

Policies like the one that caught me are in place to “promote a work environment free of conflict”. The irony is that that’s exactly what it’s produced. Oh well … Suffering in silence is kinda my specialty.

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I’m pleased to report that the Talon is back on the road with a working charging system

That’s pretty much all I have to report.

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On returning to the O’Reilly store today, I plunk down my 6 volt POS and tell the counter dude that I’m there to pick up the replacement that they ordered for me last night. He produces it from behind the counter and proceeds with the warranty paperwork.

“Can we test that one before I leave here?” I ask.

“Umm, sure, if you want to I guess.”

So we walk over to the testing thing and hook it up (this guy was able to find the plug, though he did have help as it was still in the machine from last night). He spins it up and is somewhat shocked by the fact that it’s only outputting about 7 volts.

“I think this pigtail is bad …”

So, after messing with it for 10 minutes or so with similar results, he decides to test another one and goes looking for the 15512 that the idiot from last night’s fun couldn’t find. While it did take him a while, he did eventually find it. He hooks that one up and *bang!* 13.5 volts, just like it should be.

“I can’t believe that … I’ve never had one bad out of the box like that …”

“Yeah? This is 2 in as many weeks for me … “, I reply.

Oh well… He ordered 2 (another 50/50, right?), and they’ll be there by 5:00. Hopefully one of the two will be a good one.

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