word!

i writeth, you readeth

Interest is the sincerest form of respect

Da Vinci Treasure Hunt

16. August 2005 | Category Personal

Just finished reading The Da Vinci Code, probably the first full length book I’ve read this year. I broke down after hearing everyone talk about it and it being a best seller for some odd number of weeks.

I was at first excited by the opening, but it got tiring after following the numerous twists and turns of a very elaborate treasure hunt that in the end disappointed me. I’m not sure exactly what the prize was at the end of the rainbow, but maybe that’s something one needs to figure out for themselves.

What I did find extremely interesting was the history of all the biblical references and the reasons given why some things were the way they were in view of church lore and the world around us. I guess winners write the history books, but the history of the losers (aka the pagan religions) is interesting in that Christianity stole quite a bit of it’s icons and symbols from the pagan religions.

I always wondered if the Dead Sea Scrolls coroborated the Bible and it seems they do for certain parts of it, but not all.

I guess nothing is 100% truth in this world, but it’s interesting to see the chinks in the armor of the most revered things from time to time.

I also can’t wait to see the movie coming out next year(???) with Tom Hanks as Langdon. It should prove interesting.

0 Comments »

Corporate Schinanigans

27. July 2005 | Category Money, Rant

Got some mailing from the local investment house that is reveired by many citizens in Gaylord. Seems that American Express or namely it’s financial advisors have gone and changed their name after their own personal scandel involving the greed that consumed nearly all the investment industry during/after the last stock market bubble.

So welcome to Ameriprise, the newly spun off investment advisory company. And what is really quaint is the omission of why they are a new company with 100+ years of experience. Where’d they get that experience? By ripping of investors? No that won’t make the promotional brochure.

These cronies tried selling their own piss poor investments over better peforming investments all the while the ship was thinking and now they can slap a new coat of paint on the same b.s. and call it progress. Good grief.

The part I like is that my mother personally holds the local yahoos responsible for our investments with the former American Express Financial Advisors. Sure these guys were your best friends when the market only looked up and everyone was making money. They didn’t care and won’t care now for your personal sob story about how they didn’t do enough. They’ll say it’s your job to review your portfolio or whatnot and not their responsibility.

Guess the bottom line is, don’t ever trust anyone to do anything for you, even if it seems it’s their job or should be. They only are in it for themselves and if they tell you otherwise one of you should be the fool.

0 Comments »

Google-tastic

6. July 2005 | Category My Websites, Observations, Personal

Just searching through stats and found a phrase that someone had put into Google and ended up on my site. The odd thing was that it was the phrase feel free to contact me.

Not so odd, but to have the number one search result for that phrase seemed humorous. Obviously I’m easy to contact, but alas I don’t even have a cellphone glued to my ear.

I even have a screenshot to preserve this momentous feat!

feel free to contact me
0 Comments »

Back from Broadway

25. June 2005 | Category Interests, Music, Personal

Hard to believe it’s already a week since we (Linda, Lynnea and myself) were in Nashville, TN. What was the special occasion? Nothing really. Lynnea had planned to go to Nashville to view Vanderbilt for it’s grad program, but after getting offered something better from Duke, we decided this would just be a vacation with no other obligations.

It was neat to see/hear all the country bands along Nashville’s Broadway St. Every bar had what seemed a new act every night, save the weekend, but all country. And this was for a good two city blocks which made it fun to stroll. Also the recording studios didn’t seem to stick out much in Nashville. Most were in converted houses, and every so often you see the big ones, like Curb Records and Blue Note Music. Somewhat odd.

We did the touristy things and seen the Parthenon (Nashville’s exact replica), The Hermitage, Jack Daniels’ Distillery, Broadway and the Recording Studio Row, The Grand Ole Opry and Opry Mills.

So we seen quite a bit of the city and it’s attractions,a few pix are below.

2005-06-16DSCN0182
Mr. Jack Daniels Office and only original distillery building.

2005-06-17DSCN0208
The Parthenon in Nashville’s Centennial Park

2005-06-16DSCN0176
The Hermitage. Home of President Andrew Jackson

All in all, Nashville was a good place to visit for a bit, but there wasn’t much there to make you want to move there, unless you are a country musician.

0 Comments »

Gedview in Genealogy Section

15. June 2005 | Category Genealogy, My Websites

Guess I should have had this revelation somewhat sooner, but now everything I’ve done with the family Genealogy is listed under the subsite www.gen.michaelpiotter.com. Catchy name I know, but I hope it makes more sense to everyone than the way things were organized around here before. ***Site is now Piotter.org*** (as of Oct 2007)

The major shift(s) were the movement of the PHPgedview program now located here and movement of various data to a ‘data’ section within the website.

I am currently wishing to upload more photos and possibly digitize some of the ‘dead tree’ versions of family books I have copies of. I would need more space for storing the photos, so that where Flickr or possibly a my Blogspot blog might come in. I would like to have everything located in one easy accessible place as well. They somewhat limit what you can post and the formatting isn’t quite up to what I want, but I suppose I have to play by there rules if I’m going to have ‘free’ hosting. Shall see, because photos are fun.

As for digitizing books, I am starting to get the feeling that I could run into some trouble with that as well. It’s easy enough to scan in document to digital form, but finding a machine to do that on the cheap is gonna be somewhat difficult. Anything around Gaylord that has copy machines has the functionality, but not the addon to make digital files of said books. Then comes the copy shops, I’m sure that a Kinkos could do it, but they might be charging an arm and/or leg to do so. I have yet to try Kinkos per se, as Officemax couldn’t do it for a decent price either. I shall prevail.

Lots of thing to possibly due, I should maybe

0 Comments »