christopher murray

I recently stayed at a Red Roof Inn up in Nashua, New Hampshire. My preference would have been to stay at the Radisson up the road, but because we were there only one night and coming in late and leaving very early, we decided to save the cash and go bare bones. We won’t do that again.

We had left my daughters with my brother and his family for the weekend but had brought with us a laptop so that we could Skype with them at night, say our prayers together and all that. We got to the room late and I immediately fired up the laptop because I knew they were waiting for us. No internet. I rebooted and tried again. No internet. I called the front desk after fiddling a while longer, and their suggestion was that I call Verizon. Well, it’s 9:30PM and my daughters are waiting; I’m not going to start talking with Verizon. We have to give up, and we eventually speak with the girls using the speaker on my cell. Very disappointing.

Done with the call, my wife goes in to use the restroom, which promptly overflows from the top of the tank when flushed. It does the same after I go in, and continues this throughout our stay.

So, early the next morning after cleaning up and leaving towels on the bathroom floor, we go and check out. The front desk guy asks how our stay was. I tell him I plan to stay elsewhere next time and tell him why. He wishes me a good day anyway.

I get a survey from Red Roof in my email this morning and decide to take the time to fill it out. It didn’t ask for my name or email, just my answers to questions. I was honest, explained what the issues were, and hit submit. End of story. I felt a little better about having had my little say.

But then this afternoon I get a very friendly and apologetic email from Ted, the manager of that franchise. He tells me he is concerned about my stay, assures me it is not the norm for them, and credits my account back the entire cost of our stay. I was pleased, obviously, about being comped, but I was mostly impressed that he bothered to find out who I was (again, no name or email on the survey) and that he would write back and then also to refund my rate.

I wrote Ted an email back thanking him for being a good person ahead of being an efficient manager. Because that’s all it takes to stand out above the crowd. And you don’t get too many opportunities to make things right once you’ve screwed them up.

So many reasons to hate travelling on holidays … any holiday.

We stayed home. I opened the pool on Saturday to find not only an inordinate amount of algae, but also because of all the recent wind and rain, lots of leaves and sticks and dirt. I spent all my free time back and forth down there trying to clean up. The water temperature was 68 degrees on Monday, but that was not cold enough to keep my daughter and her friends out.

We also had company, a friend of my daughter and her family. Typical and delicious Memorial day fare: salads, burgers and dogs, and also my father’s Steak a la Rascal (London Broil marinated in garlic, onions, and red wine). Oh, and plenty of cold Belgian ales. So, a nice afternoon in the sun and heat, talking with my friend Alex about the downloadable music phenomenon (he highly recommends emusic.com for great jazz), the girls alternating between the pool (too cold) and the hot tub (too hot), and that undeniable flavor in the air that summer finally is here.

As people deal with the impact of technology on their lives, occasionally there’s some pushback, like from law professors banning laptops in their classrooms. The profs say the machines inhibit debate and turn their students into “stenographers”, and they’re tired of catching people surfing the web or playing online poker during lectures. While that’s probably annoying, what’s the point in banning laptops because some students can’t handle them? If a law student can’t be bothered to stop playing poker while they’re in class, it’s unlikely that taking away the machine is going to turn them into a good, attentive student. There’s an inherent risk in adopting new technologies for education, that some people will abuse them. But is it really any different than somebody doodling or daydreaming? Laptop computers aren’t making people bad students, they’re just doing a better job than pen and paper of keeping bad students entertained.

http://techdirt.com/articles/20060503/0941238.shtml

Because I am in school and rely so heavily on my laptop for everything from school to work to home, I find it utterly ridiculous that a professor would consider banning laptops from class a solution to bad student performance. Bad students are going to be bad students no matter what. A good student is not going to become a bad student because he or she has the “distraction” of a laptop. The laptop is the new notepad; the same fool sitting in class drawing doodles is the same fool chatting with friends during class. Frankly. I use my machine to take notes, check my email, and otherwise keep my life moving while in the confines of class. I also am enrolled in a degree program that is 90-percent online, making the no-computer-in-class argument even more absurd.

Someone once asked me to stop typing while the teacher was speaking. I was at first taken aback; I was using my machine to take notes. But I do attack the keyboard as though I am playing a piano so I could undertand the other student’s position. But while I did try to quiet my typing I also mentioned that I was taking notes and not chatting with friends, which seemed to be the implication.

Banning laptops from class is pointless. This is how we work and how we study and how we live. In fact, while in class just this past weekend, we were discussing some open-source pirating issues when I recalled reading about the topic in the blogs from my company (excellent post by Senior Technology Editor Chris Lindquist). Because I was online, I could bring up those blogs and add considerable knowledge to the discussion.

Artist David Normal created a stunning 3.47 minute animation commemorating Swiss scientist Dr. Albert Hoffman’s discovery of LSD in 1943. The video, titled “The Bicycle Ride,” debuted at the LSD Symposium event celebrating Hoffman’s 100th birthday in January.

Courtesy of Boing Boing

Ah, memories of well-spent youth.

I wake up feeling like this some days … anyone with kids knows what I’m talking about …

Babysuit is an hellaciously expensive limited-edition litho C-print of a bald man wearing a suit made out of baby dolls — the suit is amazing, though. At $2300, you could make your own suit, hire your own bald guy and shoot your own version! Link (via JWZ) Courtesy of Boing Boing

This picture is from a couple months ago, but this is pretty much what I saw this morning after dropping my girls off at school and heading East on Route 9. The difference this morning, however, was that the banner was flying over the headquarters of EMC in Westborough and read, “We {Heart} Data, Watch Out EMC!”.

I’m not sure there’s a measurement for this kind of “good will” advertising … although I’m told that in audits companies often try to expense these with an actual dollar value. In one sense, I guess it served it’s purpose; when I came in to work this morning we all were talking about the plane and the banner. Is it going to make me think of them when I next need to buy a server? I don’t know. I’m thinking more about the money spent on the plane while SUN still is not profitable and wondering if this helps.

So, where do I pick up my check?

Hrmm … maybe I’ll wait … post more pictures of pigmy elephants and birds with squirrels in their grip … drive up the price …

I didn’t take this picture–the embedded watermark makes this obviously a stock photo–but this is pretty much what I saw just feet from my windshield yesterday afternoon while driving East on Route 9. The red-tailed hawk came low out of the bushes, probably due to the weight of the squirrel grasped in his talons, and pulled up just enough to fly over my oncoming vehicle. We then saw him lift and fly into the adjacent woods. My wife and older daughter and I all marvelled at the site … but we had to explain to my daughter that the nice hawk was merely helping his squirrel friend safely across the street because she would have been horrified to know that the squirrel was lunch.

Also courtesy of our friends at Boing Boing.

This picture appears here just because I think it’s funny. Frankly, I think any picture with nuns is funny. (Sorry if that offends anyone, but I do.) It’s so Monty Python. Plus they remind me of the nuns of my catholic school youth, always threatening with their yardsticks, and so manly in their demeanor. Somehow the message of God and spirituality always got mixed up with loaded threats and subordination.

The actual story that accompanies the photo is about the government pushing more faith-based initiatives, without appropriation no less. No so funny.

I hate to post this, however, because it pushes my lovely elephant picture down below the fold. I might have to come up with another post just to display that wonderful animal again.

No, really. And an excellent example of taxonomy … 

It has come to my attention that P. T. Barnum’s Pygmy Elephant is for sale.

Here’s the description from the seller:

This Elephant is in beautiful condition and dates from the mid 1800’s.

The mounted specimen stands approximately 5′3" tall, it’s approximately 7′ in length and approximately 3′ wide.

The elephant is located in Los Angeles, CA.

This is the information we were given when we acquired the specimen. It was once owned by PT Barnum, and it is said to be a pygmy elephant. We can not be certain if it is a baby or a true dwarf elephant.

It died of natural causes. After it’s death Barnum had it sent to Henry Ward of the Natural Science Museum in Rochester, NY where Henry prepared and mounted it for display. After Henry completed the taxidermy the elephant was returned to Barnum.

Courtesy of Boing Boing