Saintless

Spring has finally arrived in Utah, after a couple of false starts. My soul needs the sun and warmth, and even the rain that it brings. One of my goals this year is to become a better photographer. My camera isn’t great, but I’m not buying a better one until I know I’ll use it. I think these photos turned out rather well, though!

These truly look yummy enough to eat!

So delicate looking, but I bet they easily survive tonight’s impending storm.

I am a sucker for hummingbirds. This feeder was given to me a couple of years ago for my birthday by dear friends. I cannot wait until the hummingbirds get here! This year, I’m able to put it where the kitties can’t try to snack.

I’m all for open debate, and making Representatives answer for their votes. But, this video shows that Rep. Jason Chaffetz is participating in pre-planned attacks, designed only to badger the Democrats, with no clear purpose or ability to make progress. It’s simple kindergarten bullying. From Politico:

Cantor’s floor staff has created a photo album to help identify the 42 most vulnerable Democrats. The aides send daily e-mails to the members of the attack team and alert lawmakers when these targeted members are speaking on the floor. They even draft quick scripts to help focus the questioning.

This is beyond childish. And it’s embarrassing, since apparently, Chaffetz made an idiot out of himself when it was his turn up, and it didn’t quite turn out the way he wanted. Go, Utah!

As Politico says, about this video:

Of course, these attacks don’t always work out. Virginia Rep. Gerry Connolly, a veteran of party politics, quickly turned a Chaffetz challenge against his attacker. The Utah freshman also appeared flustered when Kilroy left the floor recently as he launched another line of questioning about her AIG vote.

Perhaps this is an alternative explanation for Jason Chaffetz blocking me on Twitter. Hearing from me was sometimes a little taste of his own medicine. Oh, and what was that advice Chaffetz had for the President again?

(h/t Glen Warchol)

Tags: Representative Jason Chaffetz

Newcomer to the United States House of Representatives, Jason Chaffetz, has some balls, all right (emphasis mine):

Rep. Jason Chaffetz, R-Utah, lent tentative support to President Barack Obama’s war policy in Iraq after spending two days in the war-ravaged nation as part of a congressional delegation.

“Thus far he has been pretty good at listening to the generals. I just hope that continues,” Chaffetz said. “My advice to the president is don’t let politics drive the timeline.”

Seriously? Chaffetz (in all of his worldly experience) thinks he’s finally got a chance to advice President Obama about something (yeah, right) and he tells him not to let politics drive him? I mean, because we all know Chaffetz gave a moment’s consideration to anything dealing with the budget that wasn’t politically driven. Uh, huh. Ri-i-i-ight.

Though, maybe this explains why Chaffetz blocked me on Twitter. He was afraid I might be a terr’ist, like all them other lib’rels, and since he was traveling to see the rest of them terr’ists over in Iraq, it was dangerous to keep me on Twitter!

I wonder if Obama laughed him out of the room when he gave that advice, or treated him more like a pesky fly?

Tags: Representative Jason Chaffetz

It’s time for another installment about how great local companies can be. This time, it’s Freshmans Jewelers, on 353 East 500 South in downtown Salt Lake City.

I was recently jabbering on Twitter about not knowing my ring sizes, and I got a message from @Freshmans1895, offering to size my fingers for me. I checked, and since they were right around the corner from my office, I let them know I’d be down later in the day.

I went in to see Zach and get my fingers measured. (Side note: this isn’t for an engagement ring. Though I do have that size also. :) Zach was working in the back, but came out front to help me. He got out a big ring with ring sizers on it, and was a bit apologetic because the rings were hard to read. He mentioned that his grandfather had made the rings years ago. Talk about a family business! I don’t think there are many more around like this one.

Walking into the store reminded me of the small, family owned jewelery stores I went into when I was little, except this one seems to also cater to hobbyists. I am not certain what all of the shelves of equipment and pieces were for, but I bet you could get an idea by looking around on their online store, if that sort of thing interests you.

There were also well-lit cases with jewelery, stones and various empty settings in them. I asked Zach whether they made all of the jewelery in house, and he said they made some, but not all. They have other designers’ pieces, as well. From looking around and from talking to him, it looks as if the pieces ranged from inexpensive silver that might have even been mass produced, to very custom and unique pieces. Zach mentioned that custom wedding sets is what they specialize in. They also seemed to have some very old looking “estate pieces” that would be fun to look through.

I had originally wondered if they scanned through Twitter for sales opportunities, but apparently Zach had recently found my blog through the Salt Lake Tribune’s Culture Vulture blog, and then ran across my tweets.

I adore jewelery, but I rarely wear it, as of late. I am pretty picky about what I wear, but I don’t really have any “nice” jewelery, so I stopped wearing most of it. I sucked it up when my hair got cut short, and have been wearing some pretty cheap earrings, just so I don’t get called a boy (true story). But, I might have to visit this store in the near future for some decent earrings and necklaces to wear “everyday”, and also pick out some nicer pieces that I can make googley eyes at my boyfriend for, next time he’s out of ideas for what to get me for a present.

Oh, and just in case anyone might have need of this information:
Left pinky: size 5
Left ring (wedding band) finger: size 7
Right pinky: size 6 1/2
Right ring finger: size 7 1/2
And if it’s a wider band, add 1/4 of a size

Zach also stored a copy of the sizing information under my name, so that next time, the surprise doesn’t have to get spoiled.

I really enjoyed my brief experience there, and look forward to next time!

Tags: Freshmans Jewelers

Pardon the geek out moment. I’ve been having problems with Internet Explorer 8 crashing a lot since I installed it last week. I finally put together that it was crashing repeatedly after I access a PDF that I’m testing from Visual Studio, in a web application. When I would launch in debugging mode, the crash would happen. Sometimes it actually closed IE8, but other times I just got a crash notification. Until I restart my laptop, the crash notification continues to happen. I would usually still be able to view the PDF that I was testing in IE8, and the rest of the crashes didn’t seem to fully coincide with the PDF opening.

I tried searching to find out if there was a known issue with IE8 and the .pdf format, but came up empty handed. So, I decided to see if there was an update at Adobe.com. Sure enough, I had Adobe Reader 8.1 (I think, it was 8.? anyway), and 9 is the current version. So, I downloaded the updated version, and began the install.

The downloader tool that Adobe uses told me that it had downloaded 98% of the file, but that it had unpacked 100% of it. The installer portion had begun, and it wanted to close the downloader tool. The downloader tool didn’t think it was done, so I had to allow it to save a file to my desktop, so I could close it and continue the installation.

Since that seemed odd to me, I started thinking, and remembered that the Google Updater was supposed to keep Adobe Reader up to date. I now remember seeing the symbol in my task tray indicating that Adobe was updating several times recently. I think Google was trying to update it, but couldn’t. Regardless, this is one more reason that I really despise PDFs. The software has always been unwieldy, and not very user friendly.

I am guessing that the problem here was that Adobe Reader 8.x isn’t IE8 compatible, and it needed that update. So far, everything is fine since getting Adobe Reader 9 to install. I don’t see a way to get Google to quit being responsible for updating Adobe, but I am also guessing that the problem Google had was the same as mine (that it couldn’t get past the downloader and on to the install), but just invisible to me. So, I’m going to leave Google Updater responsible for the installation, for now.

Tags: Adobe Reader, Internet Explorer

Jason Chaffetz has gotten a lot of attention for his use of Twitter since being elected as Congressman for Utah’s 3rd District. I’ve followed him for a while now, and we have had some interesting mini-conversations. I must have offended him recently, because I found out this morning that he unfollowed and blocked me!

If I’m logged into Twitter and go to his page, this is what I see:

If I log out, I get this:

So, he’s blocked me, but hasn’t actually set his status to private. So, if I really want to, I can still see his updates. Not that it’s important enough to me that I’m going to bother, but I do find it childish that a public official would act this way. He’s making public statements via Twitter, but he doesn’t want me to see them.

I guess I accused him of bitching about things without providing a solution one too many times.

Tags: Representative Jason Chaffetz

Apparently, our good Governor Huntsman has invited President Obama to the Western Governor’s Association Meeting in Park City this June.

Who is in for encouraging him to come back to Utah? I’ll be posting details of that plan, soon.

Once we have him confirmed, I’ll be posting details of how to say hi while he’s here. Just don’t expect more than we did the first time he stopped by. If you remember, we were just going to wave as he drove by, and stand around for hours to make sure we got that chance. We were told only 48 hours ahead that he was going to stop, and were only allowed to tell anyone that it was going to happen about 18 hours ahead.

Join us, k?

Dax and I drove up to Logan tonight for the PostSecret event at USU. We stopped first at KVNU studio to see Tyler and Jason. This part was a blast, until we got asked to detail what Dax and I fight about politically. I drew the line there. But maybe someday we’ll podcast it. Until then, my lips are sealed! We also got to meet Jess, whose recipe for tomato soup I adore! You can hear me on the show about 46:30 in.

Being at the PostSecret event was quite the experience. I’ve been a fan for a while, and Dax bought me the Secret Lives of Men and Women as a birthday gift a while back. So, I purchased Extraordinary Confessions From Ordinary lives tonight. Frank Warren, the guy who runs this, gave a talk, which was more like an audio guide to the postcards. Some parts were funny, some were moving. The images below are all of postcards that the lawyers wouldn’t let him publish.

At the end, Frank invites the audience up to tell their secrets. No one was going up at first, and I debated in my head about whether to get up, or not. I finally did, and I was the first to tell my secret. I’ll be telling the whole story here on Saintless.com soon, but for tonight, I’ll just share the photos from the event. Check back over the next few days, if you want to know my secret.

I forced thousands of employees to take a pay cut… …so that I can get a pay raise

I still believe in God…but I’ve lost my religion.

Sometimes I imagine that one of the guys driving by is you & you’ve come to save me from killing myself in this town.

When I was in the mental ward, I would look out the window alot. Now since I’m out, I ride my bike past the window every day and SMILE! THERE IS HOPE!

What you did to me when I was 16 was wrong.
I never felt so alone in my life.
I never felt so much pain.
Today I am strong because of you.
Thank you.

15 years ago I gave up a boy for adoption. 1 year ago I found out his address in the next town. 4 months ago I drove past his house. Last night I took my 2 young children trick or treating to his house & he opened the door. I almost cried. But instead I went home.

I wish all secrets could be fun secrets. He he ha ha

Thank you! Every time I work up the nerve to swallow the pills someone does something to make me want to live and I’ve never said thank you for saving my life people have no idea how far kindness can go

It’s a boy! When we decided to keep you, your life wasn’t the only one saved.

I tell myself that one day after our spouses die & we’re like 80… We’ll reunite on a talk show and live happily ever after

I’ve always wanted my life to look like a picture frame insert

Tags: PostSecret

I don’t have time to write out all of my thoughts on this, nor do I have all of the detail in either case. Regardless, my overall opinion will remain the same.

It takes acts like rioting at the G20 and Tim DeChristopher bidding on auctions for our society to get our heads out of our collective asses.

U.S. Attorney for Utah Brett Tolman said that, while he recognized people (i.e. DeChristopher) may have deeply held views on government behavior, they should express them lawfully.

Well, see, there’s a problem with that. People like me go to protests and stand around on street corners with signs, and no one gives a shit. We write, or we tell our friends, or we donate to causes, and nothing gets done. And if you look back at the history of the US, it takes people willing to do things that are “wrong” to make things change. And in retrospect, they’re called heroes. So, while breaking windows in Europe isn’t something I can actually condone, I’m glad someone is doing it. And now the press is paying attention, and the world is reacting.

Sadly, it took way too long this morning for me to decide whether the G20 riots and the news of DeChristopher’s indictment were real, or some sad April Fools Day joke. Society needs to wake up, and these people are the only ones who seem to be getting our collective attention.

Tags: G20, Tim DeChristopher

Here are my favorite jokes from today across the web.

First up, of course, is Google. This one is a simple link on the main Google search page:

Introducing CADIE: a singular upgrade to your online life.

I do wish that Gmail Autopilot by CADIE were real, though. And next time you’re planning a family vacation, check out CADIE’s recommended places for humans. Make sure to check out Redmond, WA. Oh, and apparently, they’re pairing up with Alienware to produce a $100 laptop. The laptop has a built-in brain wave reading chip, with sensors that need to be applied onto the user’s skull via USB port.

If you have a gPhone, you can try out Google’s new brain seraching technology, only available via mobile. Any idea how long I’ve been begging for Google to index my brain? And I bet that pairs nicely with Ford’s new Android Car.

Apparently, there’s a new ball released in Australia called the gBall. Meanwhile, in Africa, Goog Town is opening.

ThinkGeek has a whole newsletter full, but I am loving the Unicorn Chaser drink. Don’t forget to watch the video.

Pirate Bay announced they’d sold out to Warner Bros.

The Invisible Shirt was amusing.

And because there aren’t enough Twitter rumors and jokes the rest of the year, here’s another. Make Magazine gives you the code to add 141 characters to Twitter.

Although I generally stay far away from Apps on Facebook, the “We’re Related” one has some goodies. @homerj79 and @TheDax, among others, reported Barack Obama confirming them as cousins. Ivonna Earnest discovered that her husband is her third cousin. I wonder who I’d find out I’m related to?!

One of my favorite tweets for the day, from @markie28:

Snow? Nice April Fool’s prank, Mother Nature. Jokes on you though, I’m using styrofoam cups all day long today. HA!

The Save IE 6 petition was truly horrifying.

Apparantly, Guardian is downsizing. From paper to Twitter:

A mammoth project is also under way to rewrite the whole of the newspaper’s archive, stretching back to 1821, in the form of tweets. Major stories already completed include “1832 Reform Act gives voting rights to one in five adult males yay!!!”; “OMG Hitler invades Poland, allies declare war see tinyurl.com/b5×6e for more”; and “JFK assassin8d @ Dallas, def. heard second gunshot from grassy knoll WTF?”

Reddit.com’s site redesign is pretty good.

Expedia.com is offering $99 trips to Mars. And Hotels.com is offering lunar accomodations.

Woot.com had a Bag of Crap, but had changed the shipping price to $1,000,000.

So far from Microsoft, I’m finding the Automatic Mood Detector for Messenger. There’s also The String or the Cat: A New .NET Framework Library:

For years applications have been built that accept user input. Most user input starts out as a string. Strings are a universal representation of arbitrary data coming into a computer. However, most data does not remain as a string for very long. User input often ends up getting parsed or converted into another data type, such as an integer, Boolean value, or a date.

The concepts presented here are based on a thought experiment proposed by scientist Erwin Schrödinger. While an understanding of quantum physics will help to understand the new types and APIs, it is not required.

Some woman somewhere is pretending that she has absolutely no sexual attraction to Neil Gaiman. Which is just one of the most blatant untruths ever, because that’s just not possible.

Whole Foods is selling organic air for $6.99 for .02 oz.

GreenFeet.com has such offerings as a solar powered microwave, a tree hugging jacket, and a belly button lint kit. Along with a coupon for free shipping, which looks to be real.

Qualcomm has some interesting “creatures” helping out with wireless networks, including the crocodeagle and the sharkfalcon.

I’ll update this in a few hours with the rest of what I find. If I’m missing any good ones, please let me know in the comments!

Update: Google Chrome now comes in 3D.

HowStuffWorks explains Rechargeable Gum and Permanent Kittens.

Toshiba is releasing the PetBook for your dog, and apparently it’s slobber resistant.

And apparently, Neil Gaiman is being considered for sainthood.

For a more local flavor, check out KVNU’s announcement that they’re being syndicated. Or JM Bell’s list of favorite pranks, including getting married.

Warner Bros. announced a new sequel to the Matrix series.

NIN released a new album, Strobe Light, which you just really have to read about. Just make sure you scroll down a tiny bit, so you don’t have a seizure.

Ok, that’s it for now. More in a bit.

Update 2: Fox cancels Joss Whedon.

Ok, that’s all, folks. I didn’t find any other good ones, and it’s time to head up to Logan for PostSecret.

Tags: April Fools