lyle e dodge

I had this theory that I was going to post to my blog at least once a day this week.  Apparently yesterday I didn’t have much to say.  That and I was in front of a computer for only a few hours—instead of all day.  The rest of the day I was racking up gear for Campus Sound.  We just got a virtual ton of gear recently and getting it all racked up and wired is a big task.  Since Spring Jam is this weekend we’re getting things all ready for that—should be a good show.

Its nice when things at work go better than planned, yeah…rare, I know, but it happens.  Just recently, behind schedule, I started working on Cybersource (our new credit card processor) and it’s amazingly easy compared to what I anticipated.  I might even make some upgrades at the same time—dangerous but I like to live on the edge.

Oh, can’t miss it tonight—The Apprentice Finale.  We all know who’s going to win and I’m going to be pretty surprised if my pick fails to wrap it up.  As of late she’s just been a stellar performer, but we’ll see what tonight holds.  Why do I care about TV so much.  Probablly cause I was raised on He Man and Sesame Street. 

I just read an amazing article about how our new "always-on" society is starting to cause a glut of email, so much so that it rots your brain worse than pot—some say.  My good bud Nathan Redberg IM’d me the story link from SFGate.com.

If you’re not a fan of WordPress I think you’ll like what you find.  I’m going to be launching free, yes that’s right ZERO DOLLARS, WordPress hosting as part of my growing empire of hosting products.  Look for that announcement on Incosy.net, my company website.  Still unsure what to call it, like…I want a cool domain name that means something and is easy to remember…I have one in mind, where I can get the .com, .net, and .org of it.  That seems important to me, too bad I let incosy.com slip through my fingers.

Have a peaceful week!

The mystical ‘they’ always say that intense heat and pressure turns coal to diamonds.  Perhaps not true of humans.  Time management is a tough task, and something I’m not good at is saying no.  I hate to see people spend "too much money" and I hate to see them struggle so I often offer to help out when I’m already way too busy.  So on top of prioritizing things that are important to me, I should work to say no more.

Completely off topic from that little mini-rant is an article I read on pbs.org. Bob Cringely is a really interesting technology observer and I always enjoy reading what he has to say.  This week it’s on concept he calls inflection point.  He takes a fascinating look at how a few large tech companies have just recently changed the media landscape forever.  They’re subtle on their face, but important in the grand scheme.

Now, I’m off to make good on improving my time management skills. 

I spent 7 hours at WWC’s Fine Arts Center yesterday helping with the setup for a concert, running some of it, then tearing it all down. I’m beat—thankfully I had help. But, it was a pretty good show and I got to try out a bunch of new gear we bought for Campus Sound. Nice sounding stuff, I’m pretty jazzed about that aspect.

The band that played is called Daydreamer. They’re from Bellingham, WA, and play in the northwest mostly. Check them out.

So much to do today, I should quit playing with WordPress. I’m trying to find nice themes and cool plugins and it takes a fair bit of time—addicting in fact.

So, I’m really digging WordPress here. I think I’ll stick with it for a long while. I’m going to even start contributing to the code-base via plugins and improvements to an already awesome system. I even imported my Nucleus-based blog which was fun and it worked great! I liked Nucleus enough but feel that WordPress is just heading in a better direction and has a tremendous community supporting it.

The best part about WordPress is their famous 5-minute install. Seriously, it’s easily less than 5, even for a moderately skilled computer user. And if you’re using Fantastico, it’s a 10-second operation—basically one-click! So, I dig it. Can you tell? It even made it’s way into Popular Science. That may not seem that important, but with a circulation of 1.45 million readers—it is. Apparently Matt of the WordPress project agrees.

I read a recent article on Matt’s site about the WordPress project being sent a “cease and desease” letter from someone thinking that WordPress was publishing ‘bad’ content just because a ‘bad person’ used WordPress to spread their ‘bad message’. Just like when the Gallery Project was contacted for copyright violations. It’s a wild whacky world we live in.

Wow, I just saw the most amazing artists on leno, a teen duo playing hip-hop violin. Amazing, huh? Check it out. I’ve not found too much out about them, but I hope you enjoy that article.

Hmmm…decide for yourself:

A good friend of mine was pulled over by a police officer recently. He was speeding and the cop decided to throw his weight around a bit by claiming he smelled something and asked to search the car. This friend of mine didn’t consent to a search—but was searched anyhow…that’s common.

But…what this friend learned by watching the DVD "Busted – The Citizens Guide To Police Encounters" helped him fully understand and defend his rights. As it turned out the cop was dead wrong and eventually let my friend and his travelling companions go—even dropped the whole issue of a speeding ticket.

The lesson here (besides don’t speed, since it took more time to be searched than the speeding saved—but who am I to talk?) is that you should know your rights! And by knowing and exercising your rights you’re a better citizen.

[ Busted – The Citizens Guide to Surviving Police Encounters ] (475 MB —BIG!)

[ Buy Busted from FlexYourRights.org ]

Happy trails, and remember…Flex Your Rights!

I always struggle to find something compelling to say. But, I figured it’d be nice to post something since the post below is sort of out of date.

I found a cool image the other day; you might enjoy it. If you don’t get it, write me so I can explain it. Oh, you might like these sexy wallpapers from lothaleng.com.

I need to pick up some hobbies or something to keep me busy this winter. If you can believe it I recently gave up a hobby that should render me a bit of extra time.

With that abundance of "spare" time I’ll be moonlighting doing some web development for extra cash. I think I’m going to start playing with Drupal as I think it is a great community program. Oh, yeah. And I’m working on building my budding webhosting business—that should be fun!

So, I guess afterall I’ve got quite a few things to keep me busy this winter. And…for that, I’m thankful! I’ve always said it’s better to be busy than bored—cheesy, I know.

Happy Holidays!

P.S. I’ve been looking into Mepus Linux lately. Looks pretty cool.

Welcome to the New LyleDodge.com, powered by Nucleus CMS. Hopefully you will retun to enjoy my musings about life, politics, music, movies, computers, technology, and more. Please enjoy your stay.

I’m a fan of Eugene Levy, so I figured I’d feature a nice photo with a link to his IMDB filmography.

Thank you