Inconvenience and tornado warnings

Just a few minutes ago, the tornado warning siren went off. Living near the city golf course, I am well within earshot of the tornado warning siren tower that they have set up over there. It was a good thing that I heard it. I actually got up and hauled in the recycling bin before the rain and hail started coming down.

When I was a teenager living in Brush Colorado, I once got in trouble for watching a tornado form. It is not that I was putting my life in danger that got me yelled at; it was the fact that I was not home on time to babysit my brothers and sisters that got me into trouble.

Let me be clear.

The fact that I put my life in danger was a non-issue. My mother could care less that I might have been blown away to Kansas. What made her upset was that I inconvenienced her. I am not sure what my mother needed or wanted to go do that afternoon (I pretend that I have no idea), but I was damned for causing her inconvenience.

(My father never heard about this incident. He wouldn't have cared if he did. Dad used to drive around with us kids in the car chasing tornados and bad weather. Explains a lot about me, doesn't it?)

Thanks to my childhood (there are many other examples of this behavior), I am sensative to the fact that people get upset when you inconvenience them. It is not getting their order wrong that gets them yelling at you; it is the inconvenience.

Do you want to drive people away from your website? Make it inconvenient to use. You will drive them around in droves.

Of course, my childhood also instilled in me the idea that I am never to inconvenience anyone. I fight against this idea. My feud against one of my sisters rotates around us fighting about who should be inconvenienced for the sake of the other. (The extent of this inconvenience might be a blog post for another day.)

And I suspect that I am not the only one programmed to act this way. It would explain the number of pagans and wiccans unwilling to do certain forms of magic (see my zero sum game posting on my Golden Dawn blog). What we all need is a siren warning when we are inconveniencing ourselves, as well as one for inconveniencing others.

Oh goody It is Windows update day!

Oh goody. It is update day. The joy of Microsoft Windows updates swells my heart as I look at the little icon on the bottom of the screen telling me that it is time to obey and install the latest updates to my computer.

Maybe if it was just one computer, I would not dread this so much. But I have three computers that I have to update. So that is three computers that I have to click "Yes, I am ready for you to attempt to destory my computer." Oh wait, it is not meant to destory my computer. It is an unfortunate accident if the update causes my computer to do weird things afterwards.

And maybe I would be less annoyed if I was not trying to actually work today. My livelihood depends upon me sitting in front of a keyboard, punching sentences in. But no, we must break the flow of the writing to install the update.

Who knows how many updates? And how many restarts?

And will my anti-virus program decide that the updates are actually viruses? It could happen. Ahh yes, it makes you glad that it is Windows update day, doesn't it?

Yahoo is acquiring Associated Content

How do I feel about Yahoo acquiring Associated Content? Honestly, I am not sure yet. I guess a lot will depend on how many changes are made to the present system, and what the changes are.

I presume that distributed exclusive content is going to be eligible to be used by Yahoo branded sites. Of course, that won't make much difference to me considering that I do not do much of that type of writing. On the other hand, who knows what I will be writing this fall or next year.

I guess I am ok with it as long as my performance payments continue coming in, and I don't suffer a drop in my page views or income. And if my income goes up, well, why would I complain?

So this might be a good time to consider signing up for an account with Associated Content and learning the ropes of the system before Yahoo starts to leverage the articles on AC.

Testing to see if this link works

This is a test to see if I can figure out how to get people from the blog here to the fan page that I created for myself as a writer. Visit the fan page of Morgan Drake Eckstein.

I need to get back to this story

Here is a quote from a story that I hope to finish writing after the semester is over.

In the old days, we used to travel by couch and buggy, or maybe horse and buggy, horses, boat, or just on foot. There are some that believe that we used to (and still do) travel by fairy circle, stone hedges and by flying around on broomsticks. The latter has always puzzled me. Why would anyone trust their existence to a slender piece of wood with straw tied to the end? I do not care how strong of a candle you light, the rarity of the feathers that you tie onto it, or the awesome power of your charms; it is still just a stick being held up by the power of positive thinking. I will stick with mechanical means of travel, thank you no. Then again, given the security line and the reliability of pilots nowadays, going to a broom closet and selecting your own means of travel might be preferable if it wasn’t for the exhaustion that making a broom fly would result in.

Season of stress and no time

Regular followers of my blogs have probably noticed that I have not been posting much lately. The reason is simple; I am deep in the final assignment and exam season of the spring semester. And it is not over yet, I have two finals on Monday, one on Tuesday and a fifteen page paper to finish (thirteen pages to go) due on Thursday (it counts as a final).

Due to this, the biggest thing I have done with my business lately is to set up a fan page for Morgan Drake Eckstein (that is me). I also set one up for Bast Temple Golden Dawn Denver Colorado, the local lodge I belong to. Unfortunately, I have yet to figure out their permanment links (urls), so that I can get people to them without having to be a facebook friend of mine. (I do believe that they can be found though search). I have wondered why more people do not use the fan pages, and now I know---no one can figure out how to link to them properly.

For the record, I did plan on hacking out a Cafe World article today; unfortunately just writing this post and trying to do some simple math makes me think that is not going to happen. Hopefully, I have caught all the grammar and spelling mistakes I have made on this post...if not, I have mentioned that I am in the season of stress and no time, haven't I?