proof of my existence

So i had the big medical exam today. the one that we all agree that’s vital for Black Men should get, but when it’s your turn. sheesh. I put it off, rescheduled, and forgot it was this week. I decided to get it over with. My regular Dr. left the practice at the end of the year after we decided that would be the next thing to do. He’s a pretty cool white guy and the other 2 doctors are black women in the practice. I wasn’t sure which of them to pick initially, and I don’t have a strong reason for picking him but he was cool. But now he’s gone and I’ll be meeting someone new for the first time, under totally less than ideal circumstances. (insert that scene from Ace Ventura, Pet Detective)

i didn’t sleep much last night. i wondered if they could knock me out and let me miss the experience. the person who was assisting him on my last visit was a sista, in residency i think. I figured it was going to be her. but I wasn’t crazy about that. I don’t know why. but there’s not someone I can say I’d rather do it. because I’d rather not do it at all. I tried to rationalize to myself all night as I tossed and turned.

I’ll skip past the details and say that my new doctor is a white woman. probably in her early 40s (maybe late 30s). This demographic (or the person, probably) I ended up being cool with, because the process was clinical and matter of fact.

“and this is where it’s going to be less than dignified,” she said.

Drop trou? sure. *cough* Moooooon River! (the infamous Fletch reference)

and just like that, it was over.

so, the moral of the story is, your life is more important than your so called dignity. Get yourselves checked.

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Today’s fortune, originally uploaded by CharlesMedia™.

nuff said

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When I thought about getting a new phone I thought about what that would mean when using Britekite, that nifty old location based social networking site. Typing in your location address was a pain. When I got the G1, there wasn’t an app that supported it. I cosigned on the what are the chances of an android app…? entry on getsatisfaction.com and like maybe 2 days later, Brady from responded:

Hey all we are actively working on the Android app. To bridge the wait we’ve just implemented location guessing for Android.

Visit i.brightkite.com, click on “Search & check in”. It will use Google Gears to guess your location.

while it’s not a standalone G1 app, their fast turnaround was commendable. I bookmark to the mobile site and click the Guess Your Location link. It works very well. Great job.

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I was in love with iwantsandy, a website that was set up like a virtual personal assistant. I started using it to improve my productivity and loved it. And if you followed the tips, like CC’ing her in emails to project contacts, it looked like you had an actual personal assistant. It did a good job of keeping you schedule and sending reminders.

Then Remember The Milk came along and I was torn between the two. I eventually started using RTM as my default Getting Things Done solution. I am happy that it’s supported with the Google Android application TooDo.

This week I got this email from the people behind Sandy.

They’re not saying you gotta go home, but you got to get your tasks the heck up out of there:

Hello,

Values of n, the company behind I Want Sandy, is closing its doors.

Sandy will going offline at close of business (5pm Pacific Time) on Friday, December 19th, 2008.

Until then, she’ll be working as usual to allow you time to make the transition, find alternative services, and download any data you wish to take with you.

» Here’s the full announcement.

To make your stuff portable and importable, Sandy can gather all of your appointments, to-dos, contacts, bookmarks, lists, and notes into six standards-based files: iCalendar for appointments and to-dos, vCard for contacts, and plain text for notes, lists, and bookmarks.

You can download and import it all into an alternate calendar, to-do list, contact management or note-taking application. You’ll also get a person-readable text file containing everything you’ve had Sandy remember for you. (Open it in your favorite text editor (Notepad, TextEdit, Word, et al) or your Web browser.)

Please be sure to export anything you’d like to keep before Friday, December 19th. After that, Sandy and the iwantsandy.com web site will be offline and all user data will be permanently deleted.

» Export your stuff.

Thank you to everyone who has made Values of n and Sandy possible. It has been an honor to work with you all.

Rael

Rael Dornfest
CEO, Values of n, Inc.

Sandy had a real charm about her. She’ll be missed.

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My new toy of the year is the TMobile G1. If you do your Mail on Google and are open to letting it do your Calender and Contact management, then you’ll love it. It has GPS, Wifi and a slideout QWERTY keyboard and the application marketplace has opensource apps. The biggest quibble i have w/ it is no onscreen keypad, which is a real problem when you’re in a number driven menu system during a call. I assume this will be fixed in a future firmware upgrade.

I chose this one because of the keyboard, and the potential for all kinds of great apps. I’m all about competition.

Below is a quick review I recorded this morning for the ShopSavvy application.

May induce motion sickness.

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So like for the last two weeks every morning I’ve woken up saying “I’m gonna eat right starting today! Gonna have some oatmeal for breakfast and drink lots of water!”

Then by the time I’m in my car and taking my exit off 29, my stomach exhibits some Jedi Mind Tricks type stuff like, “Maybe you want a chicken biscuit. with egg and cheese. and an OJ” and I’m like, “no, oatmeal!” but my hands turn the wheel, off to the right at the light on to Sullivan, and next thing I know, I’m at the drive thru.

It was delicious.

Maybe next week.

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I’ve had 3 signs that told me that I should blog again. so here goes.

I cashed in my free Birthday Lunch that Josh promised me. A subset of my coworkers went to Bravo. Anyone that knows me knows I’m pretty much go-along-to-get-along, Kumbaya Lord. etc.used to be anyway. I’m hungry, by the time we sit down because Mimi’s was our first choice but they’re running some kinda Senior Citizen special, because it’s crowded and every other patron has a cane, walker or was a runner up in an Estelle Geddy (Rest In Peace) lookalike contest. We had to get buzzers and endure a 20 minute wait - at lunchtime.

So we decide to stroll over to Bravos which has the cleanest bathrooms I’ve ever seen. I order the Lasagna BOLOGNESE, and I’m trying to get that pronunciation right, and the waiter is cutting me off. and we have this back and forth BOLOGNESE chant. He brings out Spaghetti and not lasagna when the food arrives and it’s the way that he tried to come off like I didn’t know what I was talking about, and downplayed the fact that he was wrong.

I was heated. What his deal was, if he was sore about the election results or what, but he reminded me of the guy in this clip antagonizing Larry

*language not safe for work

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XV Minutes

Originally uploaded by CharlesMediaâ„¢

I got a write-up today in the Go Triad section of the News & Record about the republished book of Greensboro photographs I made on Blurb. Coincidentally the paperback book I ordered came in the mail today. I still haven’t gotten up the nerve to read the article.

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I hacked my GPS receiver over the weekend. and feel pretty good about the accomplishment if I do say so myself. while it was perfectly usable (although it just recently started nagging me to update its maps), when it was time to make turns it would say something like “in 800 feet, turn right” then right before the turn, “turn right“. Never had a problem with that really, until I saw the entries last year about the text to speech hack for my unit. the problem was I had upgraded my firmware right before I found out about the hack and the hack required the previous version.

this weekend I was sitting there and thought “why don’t you just get the older firmware?” and was kicking myself for not thinking of that sooner.

I was able to find the firmware, backed up my unit, and followed all of the directions. text to speech is too cool for school as it enables me to not have to look at the unit for the street name when it just tells it to me. of course I know this is standard on probably all of the units now but it felt great to indulge my not-so-inner geek.

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a little more than 3 months to go… got the tux rented. the Calvin Klein cut is hot.

I also finally picked out my ring. This time around I went with Tungsten. I was feeling that or Titanium, the next strongest metal to Tungsten, but a whole lot lighter in weight by comparison. We looked at about 10 different places and I swear I saw the same 15 men’s rings everywhere. and they’re dirt cheap. I made the comment during the purchase that I could theoretically buy 5 different rings and switch them out on different days because they were so inexpensive vs the cost of women’s engagement rings and bands.

didn’t go over too well.

we’re still trying to figure out about the photographer deal. Ironic since we both are. I’m comfortable with the school of it takes a village to shoot our wedding. there’ll be enough flickr contacts and I’ll be shooting my own shots in between and I’m sure she will be too.

More family coming. oy vey!

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