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I spent today at BarcampHouston3. I had a fantastic time. It was the best Barcamp yet.

I enjoyed the panels on Mobile technologies (David Herrold), Public Relations (Ed Schipul), Creative Thinking (Kelsey Ruger), and Using Flickr Professionally (TheFuzzball). Houston is full of talented, intelligent, and motivated people.

I can't wait until the next barcamp.

My photos of Barcamp Houston 3 are on flickr.

While visiting Destin this weekend, my father took us to the the Air Force Armament Museum near Eglin Air Force Base. He had interesting stories about most of the planes they have on display. The most interesting story to me included that when he was in the Air Force, he flew the actual B-52G they have on display outside the museum (shown on the right).

Happy Birthday Adine!

Last night as I was paying my bills, I came across a new Chase VISA credit card that needed to be authorized. I called the 1-800 number on the sticker on the card and keyed in a couple pieces of information. Once I thought I was done, the automated system asked me to press 1 for up sale opportunity #1, press 2 for up sale opportunity #2, or to stay on the line to complete the authorization process. I waited. Then I heard, not once, but twice "Your call may be monitored or recorded for quality assurance."

Being in a silly mood, I added "I am recording this phone call for quality assurance" to the answer to my first question. This freaked out the lady on the other end of the phone. She tried to tell me I was not supposed to record her. But I calmly insisted that if her call center was recording the call, that I would too. After several rounds of her telling me not to record the phone call even though her call center was recording it, she put me on hold for about five minutes to "go talk to her manager." When she returned, she authorized the card and hung up as quickly as possible skipping all references to up sales. Very nice.

It is strange that it is normal business practices for the credit card companies to record the calls, and according the the New York Times, they even routinely record us while we are on hold. But the second I say that I am recording the call, the call center freaks out.

/dev/radio is quickly becoming one of my favorite internet radio stations. I found it last week on shoutcast and I keep returning to it while playing on the computer. The music is mainly stuff like "They Might Be Giants", "Daft Punk", some DDR music, and other similar music.

A scary view of the future of Google Maps.

˙ǝpoɔıun oʇ ƃuıɥʇʎɹǝʌǝ ƃuıʇɹǝʌuoɔ ʎq uʍop ǝpısdn ʇuǝʇuoɔ ɹnoʎ sdılɟ ʇɐɥʇ looʇ ʇdıɹɔsɐʌɐɾ ɐ sɐɥ ɯoɔ˙pɐɟʌǝɹ ¡ʎɐp slooɟ lıɹdɐ ʎddɐɥ

˙oǝpıʌ ɔısnɯ ɐ puɐ sʇoqoɹ unɟ :ʎɐpoʇ ɹoɟ sʞuıl unɟ ɹǝɥʇo

The podcasts of most SxSW 2008 panels are now available. I'm looking forward to catching several of the panels I missed due to scheduling conflicts.

An Australian perspective on the US sub prime mortgage melt down.

click to watch video

Source:
Clarke and Dawe: the comic duo you can bank on
Australian Broadcasting Corporation
Broadcast: 14/03/2008
http://www.abc.net.au/australiawide/stories/2008/200803/s2190009.htm