To the cleaning crew

Let’s play a game: can YOU spot the hidden cameras?

Please don’t take my sodas, my teas or my Vitamin Waters. These are paid for out of my own pocket. Davis Vision does not buy these items. BBL does not buy these items. My boss does not buy these items. I buy these items, and I would appreciate you respecting them, and me.

Furthermore, I’d also like to ask that you not take my empty cans, stacked so neatly in boxes, for me to return to the store. I don’t care about the $1.20 in cans you took, but I DO care about the fact that you’ve violated my personal space and trust. Space we entrust you in every time you come to clean. Trust I’m forced to give you by virtue of this office space arrangement.

So please be aware: this area is now under surveillance by several networked cameras. These cameras feed back to a machine that posts the images online regularly. I have absolutely no problem providing images of any future thefts to your employers.

Thank you for your consideration in this matter. I hope it’s not one we’ll have to visit again.

My grandmother passed

About an hour ago. She'd been in increasingly ill health, and I just learned she'd been admitted to the hospital yesterday with congestive health failure. She was in her 90s.

My parents were going down to Binghamton to see her Saturday, I was thinking of joining them. Unfortunately, it now looks like the purpose for our trip on Saturday will be a funeral.

I last saw "Grandma B" about two or three month ago. She had taken a fall of some sort at the nursing home, and looked, to be honest, horrible. Teeth missing, half her face bruised.

But that visit, she turned out to be the most like the grandmother I remembered, in years. Every new person who showed up at her room, she had a new story about the bruises ... she'd been fighting with her husband (grandpa died years ago) ... she'd gotten into a fight at a bar (she didn't drink) ... she'd been in a boxing match (yeah right) ...

And it wasn't the dementia. It was Grandma B, back to her old self, if only briefly, teasing her son, her grandsons, poking fun. She railed on my dad, making fun of him for various things ... on one of my brothers, for not having been to see her in some time. Some seriousness to what she was saying, but lightness and humor too. Good old Grandma :)

We all knew this was coming ... but I wish I'd had one last chance to see her.


edit: Thanks all for the kind words and condolences coming in over Twitter, AIM, Pownce, email and phone. Your thoughts are appreciated.

Credit card number compromised

Used, among other things, to register yeudienanh.net, using my name and the following email address:

o0o_yeudienanh_o0o@yahoo.com

They used Yahoo! Small Business Services. Yahoo! quickly cancelled the charge and account, and are in the process of refunding the $50-ish charge.

This makes a total of nearly $250 in 4 fraudulent charges in the past 90 days. The card is now cancelled, investigation ongoing into the older charges. I'm not surprised it happened ... just surprised it didn't happen sooner. 90% of my shopping is done online.

Life-vomit has not yet made headlines

Or even Google for that matter. Not feeling the Web 2.0 love.

Life-vomit

to blog or microblog in a fashion completely uninteresting to those around you, or in your netwok, often in an overly-revealing, stream-of-consciousness fashion.

That d-bag life-vomits complete juvenile nonsense on Pownce.

Yep, my phrase. Born in Pownce. Been Twittered. Been blogged.

Urbandictionary'd it too.

OK, I think I've peed all over that hydrant. Time for freakin' bed!