Being a web consultant and keyboard bounder, I sometimes get my brain very wound up. So at least for some part of the day I need to take a break and unwind.
I read in Mind Magazine that the best way to relax your brain is to explore and do something new. Go for a walk and just enjoy what is in front of you. I do this a lot and it really works. Since I have seen my neighborhood a lot I need new places to explore. Some times I enjoy going to malls or shopping strips and just check out who is busy and who is not. This is very common for me to do. I call this “Marketing Research”.
Well! Guess what? Right in my neighborhood is a place that just reopen with new owners. I begin to see a lot of cars parked out front. Cars lined up at the drive up window. People setting at tables in the outdoor patio. I’m always walking by and I get more curious about what this is all about. I get up the courage to walk in and check this out.
There is a small bar for about seven people and tables to seat about 16 people. More space is available to sit outside. The place is small, crowded and busy. I set at the bar and order a cup of coffee. Yes this place does server drinks but I see the bar attendant making a lot of smoothies and other cocktails. Families and kids eating food and dogs in the outdoor patio. I like the show and it relaxes my mind.
Part of the show is watching the help run here and run there. And Oh Yes! Watching the girls. Err! Well maybe I should just say that the bar faces a large front window where you can see the busy traffic on 32nd street go by.
Ok! Now I will tell you where this place is. My neighborhood is 32nd street and Shea Boulevard in Phoenix Arizona. The name of the place is “32 Shea” Check it out. And Ah! Ah! Tell them that Mr. Forbes sent you.
32 Shea – Relax and Enjoy
Cebu Airport Troubles
Of course this is a story of how stupid can I be. I’m leaving Cebu to come back to the US. My plane leaves at 1.30am so I have to be at the Cebu airport late evening the day before. I don’t get any sleep before I leave. Maybe this is the reason I’m so stupid.
We (Me, Nessie and Nancy) arrive at the Cebu Airport three hours early. I have the need to checkin and get rid of my baggage. I find I can go through security, checkin and then come back out in the visitors lobby to say my goodbyes.
Well my first problem is that I’m over weight and have to rearrange my stuff. Err! junk. Well I packed a 12 string mandolin in a case in my suitcase. Now I have it as a carry on. Ok! Now my weight is fine but I fail the radar scan. Seems I’ve go a big peace of metal that shows up in the scan. Yes, It’s more junk. An 5 inch hard drive I used 20 years ago on an Intel 8080 work station. I’m directed back to the ticket counter. I’m flying Korean Airlines and the people were very helpful in setting things straight. The hard drive was put in a separate box and taped shut with special security tape, put back in the suitcase and passes with special clearance..\
Things are fine and I have lots of time to goto the visitors lounge and say my goodbyes. Spend time with Nessie and when it’s time to go I see that I still have pesos in my pocket. I give all my Philippine money to Nessie. Why do I need pesos in the US? I still have a lots of time so I walk a bit in the visitors lounge. I read some instructions about, if you are a foreigner and been here longer that a year, You need papers and exit clearance.
Ok! So now I get in line to goto the plane terminal. I see this line in front of a window and a man collecting money. It’s called a terminal fee. Five hundred and twenty pesos. Dame! I don’t have any pesos. They don’t take a credit cards. I’m in trouble. I can’t get on board unless I pay. Sounds like an extortion fee to me. I argue that I seen no sign in the lobby that you need 520 pesos to get on the plane. I get the Philippine answer, “Thats not my problem, Your ticket agent was to tell you about the fee”.
I’m directed back to the ticket counter and I’m talking in an augmentative voice. Then I’m introduced to two people (Josephu M. Nacano and Jeff Carlos) from the MacroAsia Airport Services Corporation. They want to call Nessie to come back to the Cebu airport to give me money. I talk to Nessie and she is already home. It’s a 500 peso and a 40 minute trip back to the airport. My time is getting short so we get to an agreement to get me on the plane and everybody gets payed. Nessie tells me I have pesos in my engineers note book. Two hundred fifty pesos (new not circulated) I saved as a souvenir. Nessie is on her way back, but won’t make it in time for me to make my plane. Jeff and Josephu loan me the balance. So now I have the money to pay the terminal extortion fee.
I have many people to thank, MicroAsia Airport Services, Korean Airlines, Josephu, Jeff and a big thanks to my love Nessie.
What Day Is It?
January 17, 2012
My mission for the day is to goto Philippine Immigration and have my visa extended. I go on line and Google what jeepney would get me close to where I need to go. I find the jeepney routes and two land marks I need to to use to get there. They are SM Mall and Park Mall. Also in my Google search I find out that I will need over P6000.00 for my visa extension. I only have P4000.00 pesos, so I decide to delay my extension and pay the penalty.
January 24, 2012
I’m sleeping and I hear lots of bangs and explosions. I wakeup and I assume it’s the police in some kind of a gun battle with the bad guys. I put my head under the pillow try to go back to sleep. I wake up early in the morning to get my mission started for the day. I’m overdue in updating my passport. I now have the money to pay for the passport extension and the security yellow card.
I take the jeepney going to SM Mall and start to look for the jeepney going to Park Mall. Well, I didn’t find it at the jeepney terminal. So I say it’s a nice day and I need to walk and explore. The walk takes me about 40 minutes and I still have another 15 minute walk to immigration. I pass the fire station and arrive at the police station. There are 10 people standing out side as I walk by. I ask “Were is the immigration office?”. I’m told it’s just around the corner. Then they ask why are you going there? The office is closed today. It’s a holiday. “Ah! Holiday? What holiday is today?” I’m told it is the Chinese New Year. Ouch! I walk all that way and I still have to come back tomorrow. How stupid can I be.
Now the people outside the police station start asking a lot of questions. The usual things like where you from? Do you have a Philippina girl friend? Do you like your stay here in the Philippines? These questions I heard a hundred times before and they just turn on my sense of sarcastic hummer. Soon we get all the people involved and we laugh and it picks up my spirits. I feel that my day is not a complete loss and I’m having fun.
Well the next question I here is “How old are you?” I here this question a lot so I always answer the question with a question. “I don’t like that question. Can I have another question?” Of course this is a lead in to my next sarcastic joke. After my questioner stumbles and tries to figure out a new question, I begin my ego trip. I say “Even if I’m older than you I can out shoot you in basketball.” The response is a big “No way Hosea.” My ego trip continues “I can out hit you in Baseball.” Response “Your batting average is zero.” After several more boost on my part I come up with the most definitive statement ov why I’m better than you. “And Yes I can even out talk you.” The repsonse is died silents. I won. Then as the punch line sinks in the everybody laughs and I take my bow and go off stage.
As I continue to walk back to Park Mall, I realize how stupid can I be. I just told a guy that I talked better than him. Actually my closing remark should have been. “Whoops! I made my fist mistake for the day. You are a better talker than I am.” Well losing one out of ten is much better in a boosting contest. You have to make the poor loser feel good at the end of the day.
Hello world!
Cebu Technology Museum
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Fernschrieber 100 fssk 2186/1 Made in Germany |
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Teletype Model 15 |
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Teletype Model 33 |
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S C M Marchant mechanical calculator. |
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Radio Shack TRS-80 Model II |
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Radio Shack TRS-80 Model III |
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Magnavox Odyssey Micro Processor |
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Intel iPLSD (Programmable Logic Software and emulation hardware) New in the box. |
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Intel Microphone |
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Emulex XT eight port serial expansion board. |
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Intel floppy and 5.25 inch hard drive expansion cabinet. |
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Intel 386 Computer with 5.25 in hard drive and coprocessor. |
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Intel 386 Computer with with case. |
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IBM PS2 model 5110 386sx and IBM PS2 5160 386dx |
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Apple II and external 5.25 in floppy drive. |
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16mm Bell and Howell motion picture projector. |
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Houston Instrument Servo Plotter |
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Polaroid Palette Instrument Cameras |
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OKDATA i860 IMAGE STATION |
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Intel Salesman’s demo case for the IAPX 186 microprocessor. includes key pad and LED character console and the integration of chips into a small package. |
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Texas Instrument Calculators. TI Programmable 59 and a TI-36X Solar Scientific. |
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General Electric Datanet 355 Core memory. A linear select design made by Frabri-Tek. |
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General Electric GE435 Core Memory Stack made by Frabri-Tek. |
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Intel ICE=5100 (In Circuit Emulator)and a ICE-960/20 Emulator with Stand Alone Self Test. |
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Test Equipment
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Tektronics 465 Oscilloscope Includes a DM 44 Digital Meter and a C30 Series Comera |
Cebu Surplus Sale
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Complete living room set.
All great looking with some wear. Needs cleaning. |
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Herman Miller Work table with storage draws. Great table at a great price. |
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This tricycle was a shop delivery transportation for the General Electric Computer manufacturing in Phoenix, Arizona. |
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Very strong sturdy steel made chairs. |
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Assorted tool boxes full of tools and gadgets, |
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Back lite drawing table, Very useable in making cartoon cells. |
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240 volt ac motors. |
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Transformers convert 240 volt in to 120 volt or 240 volt out. |
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Servo controllers and actuators. |
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Electrical Equipment and Band Saw Pulley wheels. |
Needed: Arizona Technology Investor
Hello! I am the owner of this site and the owner of http://cast-cebu.org. I like to think of these two sites as my ‘Right Brain’ and my ‘Left Brain’.
Here I’m going to outline a business plan for a sweat equity partnership that will start with my assets an intellectual property. What I need from a partner is the implementer, the CEO. Basically the idea is that I spent 15 years in the Philippines and now have a lot of programs and applications that need to be marketed and sold for money.
I will first make a list of my assets:
- Email Postcards: Send email with text, picture and sound. The email is multipart and the sound and images are sent as attachments.
- 3D E-Marketing: Connects manufacturer to the wholesale buyer in a sell before you make environment. Interactive 3D models, textures and voice communication.
- E-Calendars: Flash perpetual calendar with picture, sound and text.
- E Brochures: Flash E-Brochure with picture, text and sound.
- Newsletters: A what we do and how we do it, monthly newsletter.
- Facebook and Tweeter: Catch us on Facebook and Tweeter.
- Linkedin: Follow our technical side on the Linkin Form.
- Web Sites: Checkout our websites at http://tetracebu.com. This is our left brain (technology) – WordPress MultiSite. Check out our website at http://www.cast-cebu.org. This is our right brain (Art and Animation).
- iText: An online conversion from HTML to PDF.
Physical assets:
- Technology Museum: Check out at Forbes Technology Museum/
- Medium Museum:
- Work Office:
- Contacts in the Philippines:
- CD, DVD and tape Library:
Why don’t I smile?
Last Tuesday I was at a local conference and was walking around visiting the many booths. The house was pack so I made about 5 to 6 loops around the floor. Didn’t visit with many people but just help my self to the literature, candy and pens.
Well on my last round I stopped at this one booth and was just looking. The lady behind the booth spoke up and said ” Finally I get to meet you.” After passing her by about 5 times, I think she was a little frustrated.
I was just finishing my final loop and was about to walk out the door when another lady says “Hello! How are you?”. Then she says “Would you please smile? Come on smile.” I tried to smile but it just doesn’t work for me. I just said thank you and walked out the door.
Now I will try to explain why I can’t smile. I read in a book or magazine that when a mother looks at her infant baby they always look cute. There is an instant bond between mother and baby. Then they defined the word cute. Cute means small mouth and big eyes. All babies have large eyes and a small mouth. The eye size is set at birth, They don’t grow larger but the size of the mouth grows.
Well today in my adult life I have a small mouth and big eyes. Do I look cute? MMmm! maybe but the reason I think woman talk to me, is I wear a hat. (The only one at the show with a hat.) The hat, long pants(well pressed) and tucked in shirt is my trademark. I want to look rich. Well it works, at least with the older ladies. Oh yea! When I introduce myself I always say my name is Mr. Forbes.
Conclusion:
1) People with small mouths can’t smile because it feels so tight to curl your mouth.
2) I don’t like the word cute. Every time I here the word cute from my wife it cost me money.
3) Oh yes, I do get in trouble talking to the ladies so thats my best reason why I don’t smile.
WordPress MultiSite
Well now that I have WordPress MultiSite run on my server, I feel I need to make a few comments. To sum it all up so you don’t have to read further is: I like It. But I will go ahead and explain. How you don’t mind the list form.
- All video now has a common directory. All blogs can share video with other blogs.
- Works with child themes. I need to modify template code and plugin code to support my interactive menus.
- Common login and admin for all blog sites. Easily slip back and forth from site admin the network admin.
- Common pages for all blog sites. Using export and import I can make site pages be the same.
- Common blogs for all blog sites. Using a plugin I can blog once and it will appear on all blog sites.
- Live version updates. Since I modify code using Child Themes, I can update live with no conflicts.
- Common plugins for all sites. These are managed by the Network Admin and controls blog site content.
- A new site can be setup in a few minutes, complete with video, blogs, pages and comments.<
You may wonder why I would want all blog sites to have the same content and still have them look different. We are running a team and each must commutate to all the others. Log into your site and immediately see what everybody else is doing. It’s a conference meeting.
Adding Video to My Sites
This is more of a blog on the problems I had with the plug “All In One Video Pack”. At first this seemed to be the the answer and an easy solution. But it turned into a much bigger headache.
One of my first questions was where is my video after I downloaded it from my local computer? It was not on my website. It was on somebody else’s site and I was not ask if this was OK. I would think that sense this is intellectual property that they would need my permission to host this on their web site. Or I should agree to a privacy statement. After I downloaded, I got a code segment to paste into my WordPress page. It worked fine, so I said lets activate this plugin for all of my network.
I go to the local dashboard and click Network Admin. Whoe! I get this big old error message “Fatal error: Call to undefined function add_contextual_help() in /home/…./public_html/wp-admin/network/settings.php on line 22 “. Now what’s wrong? I start my research to find the problem. I run into a post that explanes: All-In One Video Pack uses the the file name ‘settings.php’ and this file was overriding the WordPress ‘settings.php’.
Well! being a programmer I decided to fix it. I renamed settings.php in plugins/all-in-one-video-pack/settings.php to kaltura-settings.php. Of course this caused two more errors. Fixing the name change in the two faulting pages and things seemed to work fine.
Then I’m doing more upgrades to my site and I get another error saying it can’t find settings.php. Then I say wait a minute. This is not my code and I should not be making these modifications. Well! I can’t no longer switch to Network Admin because of the error. I have to use my FTP access into my site to just delete the plugin “All in one Video Pack”.
I have now switch to a Flash video player and .flv movies. Oh yes! part of my site is using HTML5 video. So if you can’t see my videos then upgrade your browser to something more modern.