Oh man.  I heard about this case earlier this week from a coworker, and I was shocked.  A freshman college student lured into a dorm bathroom, and then viciously attacked by a gang of men. I was of course even more shocked to hear that, under additional questioning from investigators, she has recanted her story. What will make it right for those four young men who got paraded with their names and pictures in the media? From what I’m reading, there was some sort of group activity, and possibly she was ashamed afterwards? No idea, and I don’t want to speculate.

This does bring back a rather sordid memory of my freshman year at University at Albany.  One weekend in my first Fall semester in 1994, a freshman on our Quad reported a vicious attack in her dorm.  She stated that she was physically assaulted by a black male in her dorm room on a Sunday night.  I don’t remember many of the details of the accusation, because it was 15 years ago. She was supposedly all bruised and beaten up.  She claimed she didn’t know her attacker.

After a week of searching for this mystery attacker, police poked some holes in her story, and it turns the whole thing was a hoax.  As I heard it, she had returned to campus after a weekend at home, and been dropped off by her father.  She and her father had gotten into a verbal fight that turned physical, and her father beat her up.  Ashamed (?), she made up a story that she was attacked by this unknown assailant.

Man, what a ruckus.  The black student organizations and fraternities were up in arms, and rightly so.  I mean, come one.  A Caucasian freshman makes up a hoax, and automatically blames that a black man did it?  Totally racist and insulting to anyone of color, and anyone with any sense. There was even a campus wide speech in one of the auditoriums by then-campus-president Swygert.

Read an interesting article on MSN Money about outlet malls, titled “Are Outlet Malls for Suckers?” Hmmmm, it was a thinker, but it confirmed some of my suspicions.  Back in college, I once worked at an outlet store one summer, so I know about it first hand.  There are different types of outlet stores.  Some have damaged or “less desirable” merchandise from the regular stores, some sell lower-end merchandise, and others sell the exact same products as the regular mall stores. In all, prices varied.

It all depends on what you want, and what you want to pay for.  I wasn’t aware of all the psychological and marketing thought that goes into the location of an outlet store, the pricing, the discounting, etc. Maybe I’ll take that with a grain of truth.  In the end, I’d still follow the recommendations the author lists:

• Pay attention to details.
• If you don’t know, ask.
• Research prices before you go.
• Deepen the discount.
• Check the clearance racks.

I find that I like Brooks Brothers, and have been shopping for my work clothes there since I starting working out of college back in ’99.  However, I don’t like to pay the outrageous prices at the regular stores.  I find the “346″ brand pretty good (or “good enough for me”) quality at more reasonable prices. I bought my first two suits for work back then, and they’ve been great quality.

Today was one helluva day. So much happened today, but I’m just going to write about one particular event.  Today will be known as “The Day I Ran Over My Laptop.”

I was heading out the door this morning, and my wife was trying to get the kids in the car so that she could drop them off.  Joshua needed help to stop wasting time, get in the car, and get buckled in.  Instead of stowing my laptop bag in the car like I normally do, in my rush, I just placed it next to the back wheel of my car.  After I got Joshua buckled in and I closed his door, I forgot about my bag, and got into my car. 

As soon as I began to reverse, I felt the car hit something and the rear of the car raised upwards.  Realizing instantly what I had forgotten, I quickly went forward, and jumped out of the car. The screen and laptop initially appeared okay, but I didn’t boot it up until I reached the office.  That’s when I saw how bad the damage was to the laptop.  The laptop shell and the hard drive were fine, as I seem to have just rolled on a corner of the bag, but that was enough for me to fracture the screen in a hundred places.  See my handiwork below.

My poor laptop

Since the rest of the laptop is okay, I’ve been working with it hooked up to the LCD monitor on my desk. Desktop support says they’ll be taking the laptop from me for repair, and it will take three days (minimum.)

In the ten years that I have travelled the world with a work laptop, I have never done this. Never damaged one, never lost one, never even spilled a drink on one. I have now officially driven over one. I suppose there is a first for everything.

Sigh.

I remember back in high school when I thought the days would pass so slowly.  Sure, the months would seem to pass slowly, but the days themselves felt like an eternity.  I’d be sitting in study hall, and the clock would take its inexorable march to reach the end of the day.

I compare that to college, when I would blink, and the semester would be half over.  First day of class.  Blink, mid-term exams. Blink, final exams. Blink, the summer was here. Blink, new school year. How the heck did that happen?

Life seemingly slowed down a bit once I was out in the workforce.  It was a busy time, but it seemed as if life was proceeding at its own normal pace.  There was none of this “Where did the weekend go?” nonsense.

After I got married, and the kids came, I’m not even going to bother stating the weekends passing by quickly.  The months and years were whizzing by at “Ludicrous speeed.” I will think back to some event, and I’ll realize that it was, oh, 2007.  I’ll then proceed to be shocked that, wait, that was two years ago. How can two years feel like last year? I wonder if the rest of my life is going to be like this? I’ll start talking to other people about how “Before you know it, the kids will be all grown up.” And I’ll become that grumpy older guy at the office who’s always complaining, and disliking all the new kids.

Conceivable? The way time is whizzing by, probably so. I’m not complaining or freaking out here.  I’m just stating the obvious, and how shocked I am every day.

The new Apple iTunes 9

The new Apple iTunes 9 is out today. I downloaded it and installed it tonight.  A couple of thoughts about iTunes 9, and why I’m supremely annoyed at the application in general.

• The file was just under 100 Mb.  Although I can’t imagine who still uses dial-up vs. broadband.  However, Apple must think that dial-up users should drop dead, because there is no way that a user is going to reasonably dial-up using a modem, and download the newest iTunes application over 2-3 days. 
• Most of iTunes is the same, but the store is pretty different. Not sure if I think it’s better, but it’s different, so let’s see if it grows on me.
• I have no real use for the iPod Touch / iPhone 3.1 update, and no plans to pay for it.  I have generation 1, and it’s not an iPhone, so all the new features to purchase and install will do jack squat for me.
• I’m annoyed at the iTunes application as a whole.  I thought that every time I added album artwork (the cover) to a file, I was added it to the actual MP3 or AAC file. After I rebuilt my PC with Windows 7, I downloaded iTunes 8, and started to configure it.  Imagine my surprise to find most of my music artwork (that I had painstakingly searched for online) was not embedded in the files, but kept in some separate iTunes library that is inaccessible to the regular desktop user. I’ve tried the “Get Album Artwork” option, and it retrieved some, but there’s a whole mess that are missing it, and iTunes can’t find it.  I gotta do this all over again.

This makes me want to Hulk out.

iTunes has me "Hulking out" over here.

The movie 9 has finally debuted.  It’s getting decent reviews, and I would love to see it.  i09.com posted their review of 9. I don’t have any free time (sans kids) so I’m not sure what I’m going to do. Sigh. I wish I had more free time.

9

That was a fun-filled and busy Labor Day weekend. To summarize:

1. My wife took the kids for lunch with her parents Saturday afternoon at some new Indian restaurant, where there was a special Onam (South India / Kerala state Thanksgiving, if you must.)
2. BBQ at my friend Doug’s house Saturday afternoon up in Orange county. I brought the kids.
3. Two of my Michigan friends, Paul and Sean, were in town for the weekend for separate events.  We partied it up with my friend Doug Saturday night….. in Lodi, NJ!
4. Paul stayed over our house Saturday night.
5. Lily wouldn’t sleep Saturday night, and she was up with us (my wife had the 10pm-3:30am shift, and I ended up taking the 3:30am - 5am shift (or whenever she fell asleep on me on the couch, and I fell asleep too.) All I know is that I woke up with Lily sleeping on me at 7:41am. She was up soon after.
6. I took the kids to the pool late Sunday afternoon.  It got too cold after a while, so we went home 30 mins later.
7. I had dinner with the kids and my in-laws at the fancy-shmancy Red Lobster. 
8. Josh requested an imprompto sleepover at their house, and we obliged. I just had to get his pajamas and other stuff from home, and take them all over.  Lily stayed with me.
9. Monday was wholesale club and other shopping in the afternoon.
10. Monday night was a BBQ at my sister’s place.  We got home around 11pm.

Sometimes it was more “filled” than “fun”, but it was still an overall decent weekend.

The Captains Table restaurant in Monroe, NY

After work on Thursday, I drove up to visit my friend Doug for dinner and maybe a movie. His mother passed away about a week ago, and he needed some cheering up. I met up at his house, and we drove over to Monroe NY for dinner at The Captain’s Table.  It’s a decent hangout spot with both indoor and outdoor seating, a bar, and live music.

We BS’ed over dinner and drinks. After dinner, Doug was interested in seeing a movie, and I figured it would help cheer him up.  Also, I didn’t drive 90 mins to NY (with the expectation of driving another 90 mins home) just so that I can chat with him for an hour.

We drove down the street into downtown Monroe, and hit the Monroe 6 Cinemas.  The place was absolutely deserted.  That’s what you get for going to see a movie on a Thursday night in Monroe.  There were two people working the theater — one woman was working both the concession stand and selling tickets, while another fellow was there to run the movies and act as an usher.  Since there was no one there, the woman simply asked us what movie did we want to see. We elected to watch G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra.  This was a movie that I was avoiding, but Doug wanted to see a 2nd time. We went upstairs, checked out the film projection booth (so cool!), and then spread out in the utterly empty theater. It was different to just chat and laugh loudly at the movie.  There was no one there, yet you are so conditioned to whisper. Definitely a new experience.

Oh, what did I think of the G.I. Joe movie?  This movie was a big, smelly turd. End of story. Horrible.  HORRIBLE.

G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra (2009)

Lily's Three Days @ My Office

At the end of August, and the beginning of September, our daycare provider closes down for “in-service days”, which must mean something, but I have no idea.  Maybe it’s to get ready for the new school year.  Maybe it’s to retrain the teachers. All I know is that I gotta find backup childcare for the kids for three days straight.

Last year, I tried to use a backup childcare center that we have access to through my employer, but it turned out that August and September are months where they receive a high number of requests.  Maybe the other daycare providers shut down too?  Is there an association where they all agree on this stuff?  I tried last year, but there was a long waiting list, so it never worked out.

This year, I was smart.  I made sure all the paperwork was updated and ready, including medical forms. I found out that I can only make requests for backup childcare within 30 days or less. Beginning July 31st, I called each consecutive day.  There was no way I was going to get screwed two years in a row.

Starting Monday, Josh and Lily were up and ready each morning, and we did the drive to my office. Josh liked it, but Lily apparently didn’t, as she did a lot of crying whenever I dropped her off.  I don’t understand why — it’s an excellent facilty, and really nice. Professional staff, lots of toys and activities, and they are fully-stocked with all the fun stuff (even computers!) They even take photos of the activities your child did each day, and attach them to the status summary sheet you get at the end of the day. Well, Lily has always been a little high maintenance.

On Monday, I let the kids eat lunch at the facility in their own classrooms, then take their naps.  On Tues, we ate lunch in the cafeteria with two of my friends/coworkers.  Today, we and a friend/coworker of mine ate at Burger King for lunch. Overall, it was nice change of pace, and I hope the kids didn’t hate it too much.  Josh liked it a lot, and the folks at the facility stated that Lily was basically fine the rest of the days.  She just didn’t want me to leave her in the mornings or after lunch.  Josh and Lily certainly had full days, as they usually slept on the commute home.