Reporting Butt Flickers…

Yeah, I know…but I couldn’t help myself. I always get so angry when I see people throwing their trash out the window – the other day I watched as the guy in front of my had to open his door just to facilitate depositing his garbage in the street while we waited for the light to change. Unfortunately, I didn’t get his plate number because I didn’t realize that there was anything I could do about it. Then I found the “Don’t Mess with Texas” report a litterer form. Now, I’m not saying that a form letter and a nifty little baggie are going to reform anyone but I think it’s worth letting the person know that what they did didn’t go unnoticed. If nothing else, it will make you feel like you’ve done a bit to help out in keeping our roadsides clean.

I am a “Fonera”…

I’ve been with FON for while now and am excited to see that they’re finally able to team up with someone in the US. Initially, I signed up just to get the Linksys router but have actually used alternate connections on a couple of occasions. The biggest gripe that I’ve had is that they really lack a presence here but it looks like that may change. Granted, I still am not a big fan of Time Warner Cable due to my previous experiences with them but I think that FON will really benefit from the agreement.

DevExpress comes thru…

I mentioned earlier that I’d be giving my new “Improving Developer Productivity” talk at Dallas Code Camp this Saturday. I’m even more excited because, thanks to Caleb’s assistance, I’ll be giving away 2 copies of CodeRush (including Refactor! Pro). These are donations from DevExpress (via Mark Miller) and, from what I understand, a hard to come by item. Thank you Caleb; thank you Mark. If you haven’t already, go sign up. The agenda is packed with great folks and I’m sure it’s going to be a good time.

Kurt Vonnegut has passed…

I was sad to see this fly across my RSS reader this morning – Kurt Vonnegut has died at 84. And “so it goes”. Vonnegut was one of my early introductions to the sci-fi genre and at the time, I was about 7, I didn’t understand all the underlying complexities of his writing. I just knew how it “felt” and that I liked his writing. As I got older, I discovered the brilliance and wit of his writing and while I didn’t always agree with his ideas or perspectives, I truly enjoyed digging thru the layers of complexity within his writing. I am sad to say that seeing him speak is one of the things on my “List of Things To Do Before I Die” that I will not achieve. Good bye sir.

Getting more ALT…

I’ve often struggled with a label for someone like myself who straddles the worlds between Microsoft and agile but apparently that’s been taken care of now. There are several out there currently who understand this, many of whom I look up to and respect but, by in large, it’s not the norm – yet. Granted, I understand that not everyone is an overachieving nut-job like myself but when there’s a better way, why not use it?? Especially, when the open source tools are so much more mature.

To mangle a Jeff Foxworthy joke – “If you can name the open source tool that Microsoft based theirs on, you might be ALT.NET.”