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Jenks's Journal

jenks
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08/30/2010 09:55 #52608

blogalicious
Aww, Paul I'm sorry you're sad about estrip. That makes me sad too.
I'm not sure if it's specific to estrip though- I think society is just changing. I do think facebook (which I like) and twitter (which I hate) are probably a part of this sea change. I'm just not sure anyone really blogs much anywhere anymore.

In my case, moving and getting ready to start a new job has made it harder. And, I feel like my life isn't as interesting and blog-worthy these days. But like jbeatty said- when I first moved to town, it really was great and helped me meet a lot of people. Who I am still friends with now- so I think that counts for a lot. But now that I'm not single and out drinking til 4am and bitching and moaning about boys- there's not as much to say. I'm happy and boring now, I guess. haha.

But actually, I was coming here just to write a blog and post some pictures, so, I will go ahead.

I went to Maine this weekend for a wedding. Tiny little town on the water. Beautiful, but very remote. No cell reception anywhere. No national chain store/restaurant/gas station of any sort anywhere. Which at first seems cute and charming and quaint- but that would wear off fast. Fun to visit; I could never live there. Also- it's pretty in the summer, but I can only imagine how cold and bleak it is in the winter.

But it was nice to see old friends from college, and meet new people. It was a small wedding- and I'm actually really touched that I was even invited- I never knew I was that important to the groom.

But we went up a couple days early to make a little trip out of it, and we actually went sea kayaking, which was a lot of fun. Left me with some sore shoulders, (which means I was doing it wrong), but it was peaceful and beautiful.

Now I'm back home... start work next tuesday. One week left of 'freedom'. I'm super scared.

Ok, some pix...

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This seems like the beginning of a Stephen King book, particularly as about 3 seconds later a sinister looking black pickup truck passed us at about a million mph. "the young couple drove cautiously across the narrow causeway, to the deserted island ahead..."image
View from our B&B- Morning, low tide
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Again, morning- low tide
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From the B&B, but high tide this time.
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Just driving around, had to pull over and take pix
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I love that they sell lobster everywhere. Even at the ice cream shop.
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Eggemoggin, I think
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Pumpkin Island lighthouse

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Waiting for the bride and groom
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Self explanatory. :)
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Across the water from the Inn
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Reception in full swing
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Doesn't that just scream "summer relaxation"?
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Quintessential Maine coast.

tinypliny - 08/31/10 14:42
Beautiful blue! Thanks for sharing. :-) I love that bride's dress - looks like its made out of silk-paper.
paul - 08/30/10 09:57
I love Maine, it seems like one of the few clean places left.

08/14/2010 10:29 #52440

grr.
Ok, so for the last couple months I have started getting this new spam.
I am getting 2-5 messages a day. And there is no way to unsubscribe.
They are all advertisements for business schools in India. It's a form, where you enter your name and email address and choose which campus (Mumbai, Bhopal, etc) and they send you more info.

I DO NOT WANT TO GO TO SCHOOL IN INDIA.

it's really infuriating because I can't make it stop.

Most of my spam is a one time thing, and I just delete it. And the recurring stuff usually has an unsubscribe link.
But these don't, and it seems like they're multiplying.

Just today I got messages from "Entrepreneur Business School" "Mumbai School of Business" "Bangalore School of Business" and "IILM Business School". They seriously send me these messages every single day.

Isn't this illegal?
don't they HAVE to have an unsubscribe option?
Is there some place I can report this?
tinypliny - 08/14/10 17:25
That's interesting. My gmail is so effective in filtering out spam, almost 650 odd emails a day end up in the spam folder and I blanket-ignore them all. On rare occasion some useful emails end up there, but thus far, I haven't missed anything important enough.
jenks - 08/14/10 17:20
yeah, my email does filter them out as spam. They end up in my junk box. Still, I just like to stop them. My ISP actually does a good job- i get very little spam (as opposed to my gmail account, which is just not even usable any more). And I have checked the ISP- these all seem to be REAL schools in India. I just don't know how I got on their list, and I want to get off.
tinypliny - 08/14/10 17:10
Can you view the raw-email and identify the IP they are originating from? See how to do this here: :::link:::
Then, you can either:
a) Block that complete IP in your email client/provider as a spam. There must be a way to do this in the spam management section of your particular email. For example Gmail has an IP blacklist that has slowly been created and fine-tuned through spam reports such as these.
b) If your email provider is your ISP, report that IP to your ISP and say they are harassing you. They might block the IP from sending communication to you from their side - but most ISPs couldn't care less even if you are being murdered in cold blood.
c) Maybe use a service like SpamCop? :::link::: I am not really sure how effective these people are, though.

I hate spam. I really despise people who think they can send you friend requests or whatever all the time. It is so annoying.
metalpeter - 08/14/10 13:22
Not sure how you do this, but if you can find the sender there should be a way in your e-mail to block that sender
paul - 08/14/10 11:01
Spam is so annoying but what does illegal mean in the global sense. Really its only a legal issue if sent from americans to americans. How are you getting them, doesn't your email have a filter you can block with?

08/08/2010 11:01 #52393

I want this
Ugh, I wish I did not always want everything gadgety and expensive that I see.

So this town always used to just have private trash collection. You paid monthly or yearly, not a lot I don't think, and the garbage truck came to your house.
Then some town council people or whatever decided that wasn't fair to low-income people.
So now the town picks up trash, for free, but the catch is they will only pick up what you put in these special yellow garbage bags. And the bags cost $3 each.
But they gave every house, for free, three big plastic wheelie garbage cans. A gray one for trash, a blue one for recyclable cans/bottles, and a green one for paper recycling. And they made recycling mandatory.
Buying the bags is a pain, but at the end of the day it's probably cheaper than a monthly fee.
And the good news is, it makes people really try to reduce their trash. People are recycling more, composting more, etc.
So, it's a small bit of cost/effort, but with a good payoff.

BUT

My building has found some sort of loophole. They are NOT using the town trash pickup. Since they count as a commercial account, not residential (since it's more than 4 units), they can still pay for private trash pickup. which is nice- it means I don't have to buy the yellow bags.
But there's no recycling.
I even called the company about it, and they were like 'yup, your building is not signed up for our recycling service. you should talk to the condo association about that.'
So I'm sure they're just being cheap and didn't want to pay for recycling and got the bare minimum trash service. (But then why not just use the free town system?)
But since we're renting, we're not on the condo board, and they don't meet often... I don't know what to do.
We have 5 giant green trash cans out front. Which i thought meant paper, but for this company it means trash, which is confusing.

Anyway, so for now we are just stockpiling our recyclables and storing them. Even tried taking them to the dump ourselves the other day, but they wouldn't let us. So the options now are 1- just throw them in the trash. 2- store them up and take them to my parents' and put them out with their recyclables, 3- ask our neighbors if we can put them in their bins til we get it sorted out.

But so in the meantime I wanted to find a nice way to divide them up and keep things neat and not destroy and stink up the kitchen.

And I found this.

image

I want it.

It has separate compartments for paper and cans, and it has a built in compacter to smash cans and plastic bottles.
But it's $300.

seriously, only I could find a way to make a garbage can an expensive gadget that I suddenly really want.

tinypliny - 08/08/10 22:56
Or you could just set an extra alarm on your smartphone to the recycle sound! :-)
jessbob - 08/08/10 12:36
First, that gadget is pretty freakin cool.

Second, you may have already looked into this, but the town may have some type of ordinance requiring recycling for commercial buildings even though they don't have to participate in the town's program. I had a similar problem at my apt building and I called the city and they told me that the building had to provide recycling or face fines. After a couple of letters from the city, we now have recycling. It is worth a try.
libertad - 08/08/10 11:39
I'm having a recycling crisis right now. I am also stockpiling because I need a new place to put my recycles out. My building does not recycle and the one time I put my own can out someone took it because my friend promised me he would retrieve it when they did the pick up but he went out for coffee instead of waiting. I really need to figure something out soon because it is starting to get to be a bit much. I have to carry my recycles all over looking for other peoples boxes I can stuff them in.

I'm sort of thinking that the gadget you want probably is not as environmentally friendly as it appears. I kind of doubt that it would last much longer than a year. It also looks like it would be hard to clean?

I really like this brand but they are expensive trash/recyling bins.
:::link:::

Good luck!

07/31/2010 09:28 #52338

King Tut
Well the voice memo in my phone is all screwed up, apparently, so I had to extract it as a .mov file...

There's no video, but hopefully the audio works...

enjoy!

::DOWNLOAD SOUND::


metalpeter - 08/01/10 09:10
thats great
heidi - 07/31/10 12:32
awesome! :-)

08/04/2010 11:02 #52362

misc
A few misc thoughts...

Sunday was our 1 year anniversary. (awww). Though i'm in the middle of studying, and my sister was in town, so I think we're going to celebrate after my exam- I'm thinking a couple days in Block Island. We can even do it during the week to avoid weekend rates/crowds.

But after Steve Martin on friday, we saw Louis CK on sunday- who is very funny, but perhaps a little too heavy on the masturbation jokes.

Chris gave me a funny little tote bag that says 'Rhode Island. 3% larger at low tide'
heh
And a little hipster tshirt with a picture of a bridge in providence. Now I feel very local and trendy. ;)

It's so nice to be back home. I love this little state. :)

But, the cell reception is crap-ola... the AT&T guy told me it's because there's some town ordinance (or something) that won't let them put up cell towers, because they might block peoples' view. Grr.

But so having 0-1 bars in my HOUSE sucks. Until yesterday, when I discovered AT&T's "3G Microcell". It's $150 but then there's a $100 rebate... so basically a one time purchase of $50, and you get this box that you plug into your router... and it's like a mini cell tower in your house. Now I have 5 bars in my house. No service contract, no monthly fee, no nothing. LOVE IT!

Also, thinking of having a housewarming party/bbq over labor day weekend, but need to get an idea of if people will actually be available and/or willing to come.

Finally, an awesome little video (it's quick, so watch it!) and the requisite pix of my niece.



image
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And now, back to studying! Have a good week, peeps!

paul - 08/08/10 12:02
How safe are those microcells?
lilho - 08/05/10 00:29
i love that baby. she's so cute. nieces are the best and cutest. yay for being in love, that's cute too!
metalpeter - 08/04/10 19:57
People in other room so didn't watch the Video.
Congrats!
Glad you liked Louise CK. Heard he is funny but never seen him live
jenks - 08/04/10 13:08
It boosts a signal, or adds 3G signal where there isn't any. But yes, you have to already be an AT&T customer to buy one, and it will only let AT&T 3G phones to use its signal. Though I believe Verizon and others have similar devices.
You have to register phones online in order for them to be able to use the signal- it's not like anyone walking near your house will suddenly get a signal boost. But still for me, it's perfect. My house was a dead zone, and now it's not! And it works out that Chris and my whole fam are all on ATT.
tinypliny - 08/04/10 12:32
LOL @ staying positive but unhinged.

So this microcell thing - does it just boost your signal or gives you extra 3G access? Can you get access to AT&T 3G networks when you don't have an At&t contract to begin with?