Geek Habitat

Today’s Twitter.com chatter w/pics from our Sea World trip (more to come; only cameraphone pics are in my Twitter feed) -> http://twitter.com/ageekgal

Those wishing to dive straight to the photos (there aren’t really that many; no Shamu, etc.) can also check the usual place -> my Flickr.com feed

I will post a proper entry about Sara’s first trip to Sea World of Texas, and my first visit there in over 10 years, soon. In the meantime, read my tweets on Twitter.com including the one with the GPS ground track of our 5+ mile walk around the park today. Thanks to Justin’s employer (and my former employer) for hosting a free day for families in his department; we bought season passes at a reduced rate and will return.

In October 1999, 34-year-old Nicholas White took an ordinary cigarette break. As he returned from his smoke break, he boarded the elevator to take him back to his office on the 43rd floor of the McGraw-Hill Building in Rockefeller Center.

And there, in that elevator, he spent the next 41 hours of his life, trapped, alone in the elevator.

And his entire 41-hour ordeal was caught on security cameras. (YouTube)

He’s remarkably calm throughout the entire experience! Amazingly, he doesn’t even light up yet the New Yorker article states he had more cigarettes left but he didn’t want to be caught smoking! Further, he didn’t have a cellphone or watch, so he had no idea how much time was passing.

I am absolutely FLOORED (in a good way) right now.

I had a very frustrating and rather expensive order glitch occur on Amazon.com just now, whereby I ended up purchasing THREE 12-box units of baby wipes at $34 EACH. I only wanted one unit of 12-boxes, not THREE.

I used the email contact for the first duplicate order but received no confirmation. By the third, I said screw this, I am calling Amazon.com.

I hit the phone contact option and it had me enter MY phone number and when I wanted them to call, with the DEFAULT option as IMMEDIATELY (wonderful–because that is what the avg. customer is going to want to do; if we wanted to wait, we’d be using email!)

Both of these are from Twitter, with thanks to soultravelers3:

Dewitt Jones, a former National Geographic photographer, on why we should “celebrate what’s right in the world.”

And an inspiring travelblogue (travelogue + blog; did that as a typo but leaving it because it fits!) from a couple who retired early and are now traveling the world with their young daughter. They’re presently in Spain on their 20th month of a multi-year trip — http://www.soultravelers3.com/

Reposted from Twitter because I’m too pissed off to want to blog it –

* Sigh. The tire we had patched last saturday (and left a camping trip early TO patch)? It’s FLAT.

* There’s a RAZOR BLADE in my tire. I am beginning to think I need to check behind and under my car anytime I park it. F*ck

* I drive a hybrid and it’s stuff like this that makes me get sooo paranoid. I have had a DOZEN tire punctures but this is the 1st RZR BLADE:(

I’ve found that as my time gets stretched in more directions, it’s far easier to post short (maximum 140 characters) “tweets” on Twitter.com and avoid blogging altogether. I’m not saying it’s a good thing, but it is what it is. I’m making some great contacts, not just professionally but other moms and fellow geek gals or outdoors enthusiasts, folks trying to lose weight, etc. Twitter was even fun on our camping trip, even when Sara and Justin had to leave I had folks tweeting to me that they had enjoyed the camping pics thus far, or that we looked like we were having a terrific time (we were, up until 3 AM!)