Facebook

The rise of Facebook has been meteoric, even Google-esque. Of course, I have a profile. I have to, really, so I can stay on top of things for work and it’s also, believe it or not, a decent networking tool. Not as helpful as LinkedIn on the professional level, but still helpful. The fact that you can play Scrabble against your friends is also a nice cherry on top! I am hopelessly addicted to Scrabble.

Anyway, there are rumors a-floatin’ that Microsoft is in talks with Facebook to take a 5% stake in the company. The 5% stake would value the total Facebook business at – get this – $10 billion dollars. Yes, with a “b.” To that, I say ohmygoddontdoit. Microsoft is in a very interesting position these days – they’re not cool anymore. That is the single biggest problem with that company. They can innovate as good or better than anyone. They’re just not cool. Facebook, be careful. Let’s also not forget how these sites aren’t just flavor of the month, they are more like flavor of the day! It wasn’t long ago we were all buzzing about Friendster and MySpace. The former is a ghost town and the latter is well on its way.

So apparantly there’s been some kind of back-end upgrade to WordPress, the site that powers this blog. I had to do some downloading and some FTP’ing, along with some moving around of files that end in tags like “php” and all kinds of stuff I don’t know. It was scary, man. At one point, I went to my site and it was ALL white. At another point, I got onto my page and everything looked normal – except that it said “this blog has no posts.” After I cleaned my underwear, I calmly sat down and figured it all out, though, and we’re back up and running with an upgraded, fine-tuned new version of WordPress on the backend. You will see virtually no difference here, except for a new tagging system and I have the ability to drop a signature with the song that is currently playing on my computer (via the excellent FoxyTunes).

So there.

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Now playing: Johnny Society – Chinese Torture
via FoxyTunes

It’s A Sad & Beautiful World

Spent the weekend up in NH at an annual retreat at Squam Lake with my wife’s family. For the third consecutive year, we had perfect weather. Watching our two boys interact and laugh with their three cousins was pretty special.

One stunning story came out of the weekend that I must share. In high school, there was this fellow named J.J. Sappet. He was two years ahead of me and I didn’t know him well. I knew who he was, that’s about it. One thing about the guy, though, was that he was always smiling. Always happy. After high school, I pretty much forgot about him and probably vice versa. A few months ago I heard he had gotten pancreatic cancer at 38. He died this past July. Tragic.

Fast forward to this weekend. My wife’s sister (who was in the same class as Sappet) told us that about eight weeks after J.J. died, his wife Liz called 911 and went into the hospital with severe abdominal pains. She came out of the hospital 2 days later with John James Sappet the 4th. She didn’t know she was pregnant. He never knew. It’s a stunning and beautiful story.

A conversation ensued – how can you not know you are pregnant until you go into labor? There’s a few possible reasons and at the top of the list was the obvious – she was so focused on what was going on with her husband and caring for him that it very well could have deflected anything else going on physically with her. It seems far-fetched, but then again, most of us have never gone through such a thing.

Amazing. A blog dedicated to Sappet can be found here.

Sixth Grade Notebook, Part IV

This is one my favorites. I had to make it big because there’s a lot going on here. On one hand, you have some random math problems, written in lighter pencil. Then, in darker pencil, I’ve scribbled a couple of lyrics to Huey Lewis’s “Bad Is Bad,” a song I don’t recall loving, but I must have liked it enough to have it in my head and transcribed in my notebook. That first line is supposed to be “went down to see my cousin,” but it’s a little messy. That’s what happens when a school ignores the needs of a left-handed writer. As a left-hander, I didn’t much appreciate all the right-handed desks. Sometimes, bad is bad.

Picture here of sixth grade notebook doodles

The Eyes Have It

There really is a first time for everything. Sometimes, “firsts” happen twice in a single day. For example, yesterday was the first time I ever opened my little contact lens case to find that I hadn’t bothered dousing them in solution. So they were shriveled and dried up. Question: can you rescue contact lenses that have dried up? i.e., if I had doused them again, would they be usable after drying up? I didn’t bother finding out. I tossed them and grabbed two new ones.

Which brings me to my next “first” – upon opening the new set, I proceeded to put both contact lenses into my left eye. Yes, two in the same eye. Sleep deprivation can do that to you, you know. I’ve had contact lenses now for almost two years and never even dreamed I was capable of such an embarrassing feat. Ah, but if there’s anything I’ve learned, it’s that I am indeed capable of many embarrassing feats. I was a little freaked about trying to get one or both of them out, but the one on top came right out and the one on my eye remained. No harm done.

On a completely separate note, how is it that Bill Belichick still has a job? Not only that, but the team actually extended his contract five years? Huh?