Payton Place

OK, what’s the deal? I just don’t get it. I’ve heard that bad things happen in threes for many years now. It’s an urban legend, right? What if I were to tell you that bad things happen in dozens? Would you believe me?

Today was truly a day from hell. Not only for me but also for multiple members of my family and extended family. Nothing went right today; Murphy’s Law was in full effect and with a vengeance! One of my boys likened it to?Friday the 13th on a Monday. How about a run-down of?semi-specifics to determine if I’m all wet or speaking the truth??Sound fair enough to you?

?Here is the sequence of events:

• Family member attempts suicide (3-timer) and doesn’t succeed (thank God!) but gets closer than ever before.
• Extremely restless (previous) night results in difficulty making morning time-lines due to fatigue.
• Last?(tardy) bell rings just as door closes on the family truckster while parked in front of school.
• Discover error (by others) in business event invitation data sent (by me) to 3000 folks. Need to draft/send a retraction notice.
• Fedex implements new interface; can select?no states in shipping addresses?and cannot?get responses by pushing the “SEND” button.
• Inbility to send shipments (no paper forms in stock) results in missed deadline on critical financial documentation.
• Missing family member (point #1) results in Wife forced to take off work to assist matriarch in need.
• DSL Data connection to the outside world drops for thirty minutes with no verifyable reason.
• Teen Nephew gets into fight at school; loses a tooth and?gets a broken jaw. Cops are called on way to E.R.
• Long time “Best in the world” pooch (yellow lab) wanders on to farm road and gets creamed by hit-and-run motorist.
• Attempt to to “Run and Get” shipping waybills to manually complete shipping data results in traffic jam. Not just one wreck, but two up ahead and prohibiting all movement in that direction!
• Niece travels home and has a flat tire. It’s raining . . . She cries.

So you tell me . . . does it get any worse than that??Well actually, ?it does get worse.?But the rest of that mess is either another topic posting or is a story that will never be told. After all, not everything is helpful to know.?Perhaps the best?experience we can?learn?about certain people is that they are all as busy as us, give them a break as often as possible!

~SP

It seems the demise of HD DVD predicted by many is soon to be a reality. In an article posted at engadget, Toshiba is pulling the plug on HD DVD! Say hello to my little Playstation3 friend, Blu-Ray!

Japan’s NHK has followed up The Hollywood Reporter’s earlier indications Toshiba was ready to dump its money-losing HD DVD
business, with news that the company is prepared to cease manufacturing
software and hardware, at a loss of hundreds of millions of dollars.
This caps the worst week ever for red, when HD DVD was dumped by
Netflix and Wal-mart, pushed to the background by Best Buy and put on
– an apparently incredibly short — deathwatch right here.
Toshiba is mum on the subject right now, but we hear there’s plenty of
cheap players and movies in a dumpster around back of the HQ.

Although I’ve had a gut feeling that Sony and the Blu-Ray format would win this battle in the end, I really expected the battle to last at least another year. Polls were listing the formats running neck and neck up until a few months ago. Evidently the holiday shopping season initiated the death knell for the HD DVD format.

When I first heard of these two competing formats for high density data storage and HD Video delivery, I wondered if Sony could wage war and win this time. Considering the fact they lost the Betamax vs. VHS Format War which began in the 70s and ended in the 80s, I was dubious but hopeful all along. I knew back then that Beta was a superior format. Quality was visibly better but all the associated recorders/players were more expensive. So in order for the video tape format wars to conclude, the less expensive format had to gain marketshare and drive future publishing from studios to the dominant format.

Now that I know the better quality, greater storage, and more compatible (with my Playstation2 Game Library) HD format solution will win, I’m all the more likely to begin earnest planning toward the purchase of a Playstation 3. Lot’s of fun to come!

~SP

I cannot believe my back is still this sore after?four days! I worked most of the day last Saturday finishing a job I started two weeks ago. That job was to cut down a tree in my front yard that started dieing last spring but didn’t start looking mangy until late in the?autumn of 2007.

The “Beginning of The End”?happened soon after?a [Hard Freeze] wreaked havoc on plant life following many days of unseasonably warm weather in February 2007. Another tree in?our back yard died at the same time.

During?that time?of warm weather,?trees and shrubs?were beginning bud as if it were spring. Then ZAP! The freezing weather which lasted many days took its toll on them. In fact, I located an entry at Wikipedia discussing that particular storm which was very wide-ranging across North America!

Talk about adding insult to injury! The dead trees were two?that managed to survive the fateful Ice Storm of 2007. During that storm we were much more concerned about restoring the little things we’ve grown accustomed to like electricity and heat. I blogged about that traumatic series of events in this linked posting.

So as time went by, we watched the poor Sweet Gum tree begin to lose it’s leaves, then the bark began flaking. The tree?eventually withered to it’s minimum state and then I knew an extraction was emminent! I chronicled a portion of my extraction adventure in?the photo sequence linked above.

Goodbye, Sweet Gum Tree. Soon we’ll say hello to an alternate tree type to take your place . . .

~SP