Les Singes: The Life of Monkey Boy

State of the Blog

A couple years ago I received a cool gift. A bunch of people I met online, known as bloggers, banded together to throw me a virtual baby shower. It was a remarkable thing I must admit. I was overwhelmed by the generosity of people I had never technically met.

Anyways, it was well coordinated and culminated in an extra special gift, a Nintendo Wii sent from Canada. During our most recent "mancation", it's a fair to say we played too much Wii. One of my friends asked how I got the Wii. One of my other friends quickly chimed in "Bloggers!".

I spent a couple minutes explaining how this came to fruition and it brought me a great deal of pride. Blogging isn't exactly what it used to be, but it still remains my preferred way to eavesdrop. Sure there are other mediums available now, but those don't share the same advantages blogging does. I really dig the dialogue found on blogs. Sadly my "job" (work and life) has become much busier so I don't have nearly as much time to blog as previously.

I'm not dissing Facebook because I'm on it everyday. However, I just can't learn as much about a person via their profile like I could if I read a blog a Friend authored. There's definitely something to be said for delving into someone's mind via a blog. It's what attracted me to blogging initially and it's what keeps me blogging five years later. I'm not nearly as prolific as I was before Baby Singe arrived on the scene, but blogging still exists.

I'm not entirely sure where I'm going with this post. Maybe I wanted to brag that I have great friends, both in the flesh and those met via blogs. Maybe I wanted to share how incredibly awesome the Wii still is two years later. Perhaps I hope posting twice in a week will get me writing blog entries more often. Afterall the reason I started blogging in 2004 was to improve my writing skills.

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Appendectomy update: Mrs. Lessinges is scheduled to see the doctor tomorrow as a follow-up to her surgery. As of now there haven't been any complications and she's essentially back to full strength. Thank you to everyone for your thoughts and encouragement.

Shared Drives

My time on this shared MacBook has been compromised. It started out innocently a couple months ago. I sent my wife a photo of one of my brother's found on Facebook. I unexpectedly unearthed the photo of him on a Facebook Page dedicated to "fallen" students of my high school. The email arrives in my wife's inbox at which point it dictates she create a Facebook account to view the image.

210 Friends and counting later, my wife is all over Facebook. At first we joked about inflating our Friend numbers. Now we jokingly communicate through Facebook. It might be a sign of an ever so slight addiction. I'm happy though to see her embracing the power of the internet. Since she's a Seattle transplant, it has been a wonderful way for her to reconnect with distant friends. If I can find some sneaky way to get her hooked on blogging, then I'd feel like I really accomplished something special this year. There's hope!

Oh yeah, can you tell how relieved I am to have decided against linking to my blog on Facebook? Not posting a link to my blog has saved me much headache explaining to people I haven't seen in 20 years what I do for a living. Sadly, I've gotten a bit obnoxious with the Status Updates because I find the whole thing silly. Now I'm one of them. I promise I won't blog about Facebooking... much.
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Dear cyclists,

I'm one of you. Granted, I'm behind the steering wheel more often. I'm pretty familiar with the rules of the road as a cyclist and a motorist. I typically ride my bike for triathlon training, not for daily work commuting. Here are some things I'd like to point out as to better commune on the rough and tumble streets of Seattle.

1) Sidewalks aren't meant for bikes. Don't stare at me if I don't see you riding down a sidewalk at night without any visible lights or reflectors. You've got to meet motorists halfway. Stand out! I would get ticketed for driving my car without headlights after dark. Wear reflective underwear if you must!

2) I realize it's a big pain in the ass to unclip your shoes at intersections. I know it's why you balance your bike instead of unclipping while waiting for the light to change. I'm impressed by how well you can handle your bike and your calves. What impresses me more is eye contact. I prefer to see the whites of your eyes to establish rapport.

3) Don't ride two abreast if you're slowing traffic. It's plenty easy to drop back and ride single file as cars pass. You're not any less of a cyclist if a car passes you. It won't negatively impact your ego or manhood. Leave that to the bike shorts!

Diligent Driver

P.S. please, please, please wear a damn helmet.
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Hear this, hear this! This blog just got 11% easier to remember. You can simply type www.lessinges.com to get here each and every time. If I want to become a rockstar blogger, I need a vanity domain and bought one I did.
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Happy Turkey Day to everyone! Holidays are special, enjoy them to their fullest. Catch you all on the flip side.

Shhh, they might hear you

Secrets! We all have them. With whom do we share our innermost secrets? What constitutes a secret? On some level do we want people to know our secrets? Got a secret you want to share? Post it in the comments and I will do my best to protect your identity.

Yesterday was BlogSecret Day where 80 bloggers anonymously shared their intimate thoughts on someone else's site. For whatever reason, their stories might not be suitable for the general public on their own blog.

During some downtime, I read many of the entries. Lots focussed on relationships, poor decisions made earlier in life, or issues pertaining to sexuality. I was truly captivated by the stories shared. I thoroughly enjoyed the creativity of the authors and how many of them disguised their writing "voices". My only gripe, there's no way for me to track down their real blog. It's a bit of a bummer after you've invested some time in learning new stories about fellow bloggers. I obviously don't want someone to ruin their cover, but I related to many of the bloggers and sadly I won't be able to find their blogs. It's not about me though, it's about giving the bloggers a chance to divulge stuff which has been eating away at them.

I played detective all day, taking notes on writing style, who commented where, which bloggers used Canadian spellings, punctuation, blog profiles, etc. I was like a cyber version of McGruff, the crime dog. Thanks to all the participants for your candor. Until next time, good day and good luck!

Fruit Fight

The past week I've been obsessed with my new gold BlackBerry Pearl. I'm a Mac guy so I was quite skeptical about the BlackBerry's charms. I don't have an iPhone, but I have an iPod touch. It's essentially the same as an iPhone minus the phone functions (SMS, voicemail, camera).

I wasn't sure I'd appreciate having a BlackBerry on me at all times. I've learned a lot about my BlackBerry in the past week. There are some really great things you can do with it. I think it does some key things much better than my iPod touch.

• texting: my previous blog post "I" typed using the iPod touch. Had I typed it using a BlackBerry, it would've taken half the time. The SureType predictive text does a bang up job. The iPod touch "touch" screen does alright, but it's not fast. I can hammer out emails and text messages on the BlackBerry like nobody's business. I will give the iPod touch credit for ease in using accented characters.
• copy & paste: I'm relieved this exists on the BlackBerry. It makes life much easier. It's absent on the iPod touch, yet you can do screenshots and email them to people instead.
• size: my BlackBerry Pearl is tiny. It fits comfortably in my pants pocket and can be easily disabled to avoid any pocket dialing. The iPod touch is small too, but it feels a bit bulky in a pants or coat pocket compared to the BlackBerry Pearl.

The Pearl does fall short in four key areas: music, web browsing, applications, and photos. The iPod touch does those things damn well and has created a niche in the market. Web browsing on my Pearl is just like it was on previous cell phone, painful.

Overall I've been pleasantly surprised by how much I like the BlackBerry. It's really nice to have instant access to your email, calendars,and my newest vice... Facebook wherever you are. (more a knock on my previous Samsung phone than the iPhone). I rarely launch Yahoo! Mail or MSN since I've got direct to those accounts via the Pearl. There's a cool tethered modem feature on many BlackBerry models. If you don't have wifi internet access for your laptop while out and about, you can configure your BlackBerry as a modem. Connect the cable (or activate the Bluetooth) from the BlackBerry to your laptop and you've got internet connectivity for your laptop.

Friday Forestry Fact: most of us know you can count tree rings to calculate a tree's age. A tool called a corer is used by foresters to safely remove a core sample. When counting the rings, you typically add seven years as it takes about that much time for the first ring appear. When you look at the rings, you can tell how fast (or slow) a tree grew based on the distance between each growth ring.

*tree photos courtesy of Oklahoma State University and Henry D. Grissino-Mayer

Arobas Home

I've been a supportive guy. I pushed the agenda when my wife worked at Starbucks, promoting the hell out of drinks my wife helped launch and the plight of Starbucks global reputation. When she worked for an apparel company, I wore their hideous sample clothes. Today, we still buy our plants at the local plant nursery she worked when we met 10 years ago. As most of you know, my wife changed jobs a few months ago to work for a cell phone company. I would love to promote her new company as well, but I have to say my first interactions with said company have been less than stellar.

Personally I don't have a T-Mobile cell phone yet because I don't want Sprint to ram those ruthless early termination fees down my throat. My wife has moved to a BlackBerry Curve and seems happy. I've got a free BlackBerry Pearl waiting for me when (and if) I switch over next month.

This might make you wonder, "Great Egan, but tell me about those days you scooped ice cream for a living"... or maybe not. Anyways, we switched over to the revolutionary T-Mobile @ Home service. Perhaps you've seen some of their clever tv ads promoting the @Home service. For $10/month you get unlimited calling from your landline. Now that's the tricky part, getting the damn landline activated.

I'm not an idiot when it comes to tech stuff, but the landline configuration is a bitch. Not getting a dial tone when I initially installed it, I grab a cell phone and dialed customer support. T-Mobile's customer support tells you how long the wait will take. A fembot voice says "Your wait time is three hours 13 minutes". I'm not sure how you feel about this, but I'm not going to wait on hold for three lovely hours. T-Mobile recognizes this and offers a callback service. I attempted to enter my cell phone number and my preferred callback time. It didn't take the first two times and the call disconnected. I had to do it again. Did I get a callback at my requested time? Nope.

One week after receiving our @Home router we finally had a dial tone. That lasted for two days. At some point on Monday the dial tone was gone. I was able to reset the router and get the dial tone back. Upon arrival Tuesday the dial tone was mysteriously absent again, sort of like T-Mobile phone support. I spent about two hours fiddling with the router to no avail.

At home I don't have the internet and I don't have a landline. Needless to say, at home and abroad I'm not so keen on this T-Mobile @Home stuff. I'll give it another chance... once I get the landline back. If I have to reset the router every time someone farts in our basement, I'm done.

**in the interest of full disclosure. On Saturday morning I was able to get connected after waiting on hold for 35 minutes. Once I got a person on the phone, she was more than willing to wait out the connection process. She even called me back on my own Sprint cell phone when my wife's T-Mobile cell phone lost service in the basement. It's like a black fly in my chardonnay

Getting the Worm

There are people in society who take the plunge when others, the less intrepid types, aren't so willing.  I'm talking about those of you who bought a Toyota Prius or an iPod in the year 2002.  Yes, I'm talking about those risk takers known as early adopters.   Being an early adopter typically involves money thus making early adoption exclusive.  However, there are free things like blogging or the discovery of Facebook, which don't require greenbacks. 

Personally I like to sit back and wait a few years as the kinks have been ironed out.  I'm fascinated by new ideas/technology, but I'm rarely a trend-setter when it comes to actual usage of the products.  You could say I'm a bit of a bandwagon type, but I'm not sure it paints an accurate picture.  Heck I was an early adopter of the Handspring Visor, I'm a Graffiti pro.

What I do know is if it weren't for early adopters of new products, lots of cool ideas wouldn't be available to the mainstream public.  I've been more than willing to test out new software and gadgets when they're in a beta phase.  For those of you willing to put yourself on the line and become an early adopter, thank you.  Thank you very much for furthering the cause.

I say this mainly because I have three gadgets I really love these days.  Our Prius, my iPod touch, and TiVo.  Our Prius is such a bitching car, but it took much research and feedback from the first generation of drivers to make the car what it is today.  You even have to give those Honda Insight drivers some street cred.  I know there are naysayers when it comes to the Prius citing it's too expensive and it's funny looking.  Fine, say what you want about the car.  I happen to believe it's the best car I've piloted, no joke.  Spacious, practical, handles well, comes in 8 shades of gray, and has cool control knobs.

Same goes for the iPod touch.  I love that sucker.  It's a gadget I could easily do without, but it's so damn practical.  The first iPhone users made the iPod touch a reality.  Trust me, I don't work for Apple.  I don't even know one person who works for them, yet I know about 10 Microsoft employees.  It's a really nifty gadget which has helped simplify my life just a bit.  

TiVo, what a sweet invention this is.  The ability to pause and record live television.  So awesome.  I catch myself wanting to pause and rewind radio all too often.  That or someone walks by and I catch them doing a funny gesture, I want to press a button to rewind their action and see it again.  VHS had nothing on TiVo I tell you.  TiVo's benefits to the parenting community is significant.  Being able to plop ourselves in front of the tv to watch some brain candy after the little ones tire out for the day, priceless.  UPDATE: now I can set TiVo to record stuff from my computer.  I don't even need to be camped out on our basement couch to select shows.  So instead of reading blogs while at work, I can find the latest HBO Real Sex program and record that puppy.  Woot woot!

Thank you early adopters!  I'd hug you, but blogs don't work like that YET!

Billy Idol Breaks Spell Check

My post about fatherhood wasn't meant to be.  I attempted to retype the entry last night and then we lost power.  The winds outside finally got the best of our neighborhood after flickering for more than three hours.  Instead you're stuck with yet another random Monkey Boy post and my current favorite picture of the little one.

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My wife brought up a great point.  McDonald's is proudly promoting their hamburgers as 100% beef on local billboards.  Why are they trying to convince us?  As opposed to what?  60% dead cow, 35% mystery meat, and 5% shit? 

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Last night's power outage was our second one since Baby Singe has been with us.  The first one sucked ass since my wife was still breastfeeding.  Last night's wasn't so bad except it did get a little chilly in our house.  For the first time ever, we had our daughter sleep in our bed with us since her little hands were cold.  It was cute to see her sleeping in our bed, but I will say neither of the adults slept well.  Co-sleeping parents, you're either nuts or brilliant!  (Author note: we're not the "family bed" type) 

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I'm thinking a $200 iPhone is very much to my liking.  My current cell phone contract expires in early September.  My current provider has already contacted me hoping to get me to add another two years to my contract.  One full month for free?  I'm not sure that's worth it.  I really want the want the iPhone, but it could be a conflict of interest since my wife's new job is a competitor.

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Lay Flat to Dry

Hello people! I'm back from a chaotic past week or so. The in-laws are tucked in their beds on the other side of the country. Our daughter was very delightful during their four day visit. Mother's Day went off without a hitch as we took Baby Singe to her first professional baseball game. Mrs. Lessinges will receive more pampering next week via a pedicure. I will not be participating in the pedicure this time, although it was quite calming when I did it last time. My four day weekend was blissful and I'm thankful a three day weekend is on the horizon.

Speaking of baseball and professional sports... if you're not from the U.S. this may not be as much of an issue for you. Here in our grand old country where we giveaway money in the form of economic stimulus checks, we have our priorities a bit confused. Lately it has been deemed necessary to involve our politicians in matters that generally shouldn't concern them. Yes, I'm talking about the Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens federal hearings. Must we drag all these cheating athletes into a courtroom to hear them lie through their teeth about their involvement? Can't our politicians spend their time working to resolve issues such as education reform, the housing crunch, improving highways, protecting our environment, etc.?

Seriously, why can't professional baseball and football resolve their own issues? Why is so much damn time being wasted in our courtrooms trying to figure out if Roger Clemens took steroids? Screw that, have Major League Baseball resolve the issue. Our government is already messed up enough without throwing professional sports into the mix of our legal system.

Enough talk about sports though. Let's hear from you. What's on your mind folks? Since I got the "counselor" title on the DiSC personality test, it's my job to listen to your concerns. Tell me, what's on your mind? Do you have a bone to pick with someone or something? If it's me, I don't want to hear about it. Otherwise, nothing is off limits. Bring it!

I Have an Itchy Itchy Rash

You want me, moi to ask for help?

This can be one of the most complicated and tedious tasks for humans.  Asking for help is something many of us fear.  As I'm halfway into my week of solo parenting while my wife is in Japan, knowing I can ask for help is very comforting.  The tricky part is whether or not I will do it.

Not wanting to be a burden to others is a reason lots of us decline help.  We try to go it alone our in hopes of weathering the storm.  I know that was the case for me as I struggled through some of my college classes.  There were some dark days in my calculus class where I had no clue what I was doing.  Did I take the time to consult a teaching assistant or the professor?  Hells no, I didn't want to show how little I truly did know.  I had to fail the class once to realize how important it was to ask for help.   Sure it was a critical life lesson, but it caused so much more stress than warranted.   Eventually I learned I wasn't alone.  If I wasn't fully comprehending something, chances are somebody else was feeling the same way. 

Perhaps this is why I love blogging so much.  In face-to-face conversations with people we know in real life, it's not easy to admit our shortcomings or when we need help.  With my friends I can do this, but with co-workers or other people I physically encounter it's another story.  With blogs I can ask for unsolicited advice and get truly great feedback.  I've learned so many things via blogs since it's like a huge virtual knowledge base.   This is perhaps one of the most important reasons I'm still blogging four years later.

Can You See Me Now?

Mystify Me Week continues here at Les Singes.  (les singes is the plural form of monkey in French in case you don't speak the language).  The last post I asked about some social behavior.  Now I'd like to learn more about some virtual behaviors which confound me. 

As many of you know, I might read a blog or two during the day.  While reading the blogs I can see certain patterns developing.  Some days everyone rips Tom Cruise a new one, some days you see the same "meme" on eighteen different blogs, and some days you might see dangling genitalia.  Okay so the genitals thing is scarce, but I got your attention.  The other day I ran into three posts chatting about about delurking.

For those of you unfamiliar with delurking, allow me to explain.  Apparently there are people out there who read blogs and don't comment.  Some bloggers take exception to these so called "lurkers".  Here's where I'm confused though.  Aren't blogs public?  Why are these blog authors attempting to lure these "lurkers" to comment on their blog?  Is there something wrong with reading a blog and not leaving a comment? 

I've attended many public gatherings, company meetings, etc. where not everyone speaks.  Think about your last town hall meeting, company meeting, or even our elections.  Should everyone in attendance be forced to say something?  I think not.  Are we paranoid somebody is reading our public blog that shouldn't be? 

I know I'm going to take a lot of heat on this one because many of my beloved readers do this "delurk" thing.  So I'm asking why.  Why does it bother you to have someone read your blog and not leave a comment?  I will admit I don't comment on many blog posts I read.  Maybe I can't relate to the topic, maybe I just want to remain anonymous.  Perhaps the lurker doesn't have a blog and wants to continue to read without being guilted into blogging.  What's the point of flushing out the "lurkers"?