Archive for May, 2009
As part of my job, I enjoy building computing data centers in areas of the country seeking economic revitalization. In many places, US manufacturing dies and the old buildings remain as ghosts that remind people like me what we were. At least it makes me feel better to know that in my work in technology, we still rule the roost right here in the USA. We can help bring life back into communities that were bleeding it.
As part of this effort, I’ve been particularly interested in someday saving an old building, keeping it’s spirit and original look, and carefully converting the inside into a data center. In essence, i’d like to keep spirit alive and convert a place that manufactured bits and pieces into a place that sends and received bits of data. This week I had the pleasure of checking out the old Pierce Arrow factory in Buffalo, NY….
Pierce Arrow was an auto manufacturer based out of Buffalo and built luxury cars, trucks, bicycles, motorcycles and camp trailers between 1901-1938. A part of what was their factory still remains (as you can see above.) I could sense the energy of the old factory as i looked around…
Here’s now the place looked back in it’s heyday back around 1915:
It ended up not being a good fit or shape for what we need to do, but it was beautiful none the less. Buffalo, NY has a huge amount of history that still stands. I dig that city….
It’s fun getting paid to check out old factories, steel mills, aluminum smelters, etc. At the same time, it’s sad to see what’s continuously dying. The positive in my job is that the speed of light isnt fast enough to allow offshoring of our data centers– U.S. customers are serviced from US housed computers.
-scott noteboom
May 22nd, 2009
I’m back from Switzerland, and was again enlightened by my international travel experiences…
Before, I was always impressed when Euro’s wore tight pink shirts and awesome Speedo’s with hairy white legs at the beach. Never to be outdone, now they’re wearing capri’s! If you look closely, you can surely tell that this guy has gotta be wearing low cut g-string panties too….. look– no panty lines!
What’s the end result of Euro men dressing like this? Well, most also walk around with their arms around the countless beautiful european women. Go get some nice capri’s and step up your game, player….
-scott noteboom
May 22nd, 2009
I’ll be cowboy’n up to upstate NY and then to upstate Switzerland next week for work. Out on Monday, back on Friday. Will try to come back with at least one decent story.
Excited about the possibilities to bring some opportunity to areas that could use them. While factories and farms can be off-shored, i’m thankful that the speed of light isn’t fast enough to off-shore the Internet– 100ms just doesn’t cut it.
From chicken coops to computing coops– just another farming generation that’s growing locally and distributing regionally.
By the way…. as you can tell by my talk about 100ms and computing coops—- being a professional geek pays my bills.
Hopefully the rides smooth and we don’t get bucked. All we need are 8 seconds, a little clean juice and a lotta Jack Daniels….
-scott noteboom
May 14th, 2009
If you don’t build shit, you obviously aren’t shit.
Better to be the shit, than China’s 99 cent bitch.
Here’s to the dream of the US manufacturing machine coming back to life— preferably via a preemptive strategy versus a reactive disaster.
Thanks to Jack Delano, a US Farm Security Administration (FSA) photographer, who took this picture back in 1940. Jack’s job was to take photos that would help US policy makers understand the state of our country. The message this picture delivers seems timeless when we think of today’s problems.
-scott noteboom
May 10th, 2009
Spotted this playa on the highway. I think he was just leaving karate class and he was enthusiastically bopping his head to the beat of the Lady Gaga “Poker Face” song that his Bose speakers were blasting. That’s when i pictured him making a rapper celebrity appearance in the video, adding a little rhyme section– that goes a little somethin’ like this……
lexus convertible
top down, livin’ fun.
karate kid bandana
protectin’ skull from the sun.
go ahead take my picture
but don’t make me mad
28 years of ka-ra-te
roundhouse to ya head
got the cars, got the money
so they say im big pimpin’
got ‘dem little blue pills
so my penis don’t be limpin’
my wife may be old
saggin’, ugly, i ain’t lyin’
but 300 on craigslist,
20 year old pussy i be buyin’
peace.
Silicon Valley cool, at it’s finest. I’m glad i had my camera in order to get a shot of this dominant species in his core habitat.
-scott noteboom
May 10th, 2009
One of my dysfunctional friends needed some help setting up an online account to do some gambling (his last chance of hitting it big,) and told me he’d give me this baby for helping him out. I’ve been looking for a strap for several reasons:
1) It makes up for my short height and small penis. Between this and the heavy benchpress work, i’ve now got good reason to stick my chest out when i walk. I think i’ll then have to lift my 4×4 truck a couple more inches. Hell ya!
2) We’ve got a socialist in office. Once he takes away all our money through combination of killing the dollar and escalating taxes, he may need to start taking away guns….. one’s he can find at least. I can play hide and seek and Obama can Hope he can find my gat.
A song just popped into my head as i type this: ” he yelled out fire! then came suzi. the bitch came in with a sub-machine uzi.” Name that Tune! Anyway….
3) As part of the end of the world, there surely will be a race war. I’ll be wisely hiding in my desert mountain getaway while this is going on, growing my hair out into a long skullet. As any fool knows, “The Blacks” are gonna win this war and will hold their cocks in celebration. After it’s all over, i’m going to come down the mountain, holding my own .38 Special– like a cock in my hand. “The Blacks” will surely then think i’m Jesus. Not sure if that means they’ll hang my ass on the cross or not though, but we’ll see.
NOTE TO THE MAN: I’m just joking. I don’t own any guns or something.
NOTE TO AFRICAN AMERICANS: I’m a fellow African American and thus not talking about you when i say “The Blacks.” That wouldn’t be racially insensitive to say. I’m really just talking about those middle eastern terrorists that wear those black dresses w/ hoods, head dresses. Duh! See, i’m very sensitive and politically correct…
- barney fife
May 8th, 2009
I have to admit that it made me sick to see that cheesy Canseco photo below on the top of my page. Thus, wanted to replace it with some beauty.
My homies at Deadend Magazine took this pic of my ’60 Chevy Wagon. I love it, as it represents the car in its element in the Bay Area. Juan and Jesus are bad ass.
By the way, I was thinking about selling this car now that the ’62 Lincoln Convertible im building is wrapping up. Then my 12 year old nephew reminded me that im giving it to him as his first car. So…… to help do my part in carrying on tradition, the wagon is all his. My ’49 Ford Business Coupe is going to my 13 year old daughter.
-scott noteboom
May 5th, 2009
Hey Jose, now that the President has opened up the connection to Cuba, how about you put on the fins you swam here on, take the reverse route and swim your ass back home?
OK, so you did steroids. I won’t consider that the bad part….. How about when you sold out yourself, and snitched out other players in the lame book? Yeah, so you’re a snitch and a bitch. You disgraced baseball. Why couldn’t you just have gone away then?
Now you’ve come into the fight game, to try to make some money and get your face out there. In your first effort, you got your assed knocked out by a non-fighter/NFL player. Now you’re going to Japan to fight in the DREAM tournament? You realize that you’re fighting a legit kickboxer right? This will excite Asian folks to see a Korean kick your ass….
On top of everything, now in your homestate of Florida, you’re allowing people to file an application to fight you ? Oh, and pay a $50 application fee along with it huh? The fight date is supposed to be in June…. conveniently within a month of your Japan fight that, when you lose, the commission wont allow you to fight anyway. What a loser.
Swim your ass back to Cuba, Jose. You’re a disgrace to our country.
-scott noteboom
May 5th, 2009
I’ve always felt that confronting fear and uncertainty is valuable in making yourself a stronger person. Along the years, i’ve had experiences that have shown that:
- i was in a bad accident before and could have been dead gone right on the pavement. i was broken up bad. guess what? if i died then, it wouldn’t have hurt. shock is a savior at the right times.
- in years past, i’ve experimented with fasting. living for quite a few days on water only. i saw the pain of being hungry. i saw the hunger go away as your body goes into starvation mode.
- i’ve spent many nights sleeping on the pavement or dirt outside with no shelter. after a bit, your body can better handle colder temps (to a certain level,) and the discomfort is soon forgot. as a matter of fact, you learn to appreciate the fresh, circulating outside air.
That said, going through times of not having not only lessens the fear of the unknown– it also really makes you appreciate what you have. We are programmed so much in our society to need to GET and HAVE everything, that the idea of not having can terrify people. At times i admit that i fall for the same thing– i’m always afraid of losing everything, when in reality all i need is basic food, shelter, water and family.
So, what’s next for me………?
I’m planning my next trick—- going homeless.
I’m going to slate some time, empty my pockets of all my possessions except the clothes on my back and hit the streets. I’ll have to figure out where to sleep, how to keep warm, where to get around and how to feed myself. My rule is that i need to be able to feed myself enough each day to survive it it was long term (fasting would be cheating, as it would be unsustainable for long periods.) Hell, maybe i’ll even get jumped and have to get into a bum fight!
My goal is to try to avoid panhandling, as i want to see if i can survive without it (that said, it would be awfully humbling to have to beg change.) I’d also like to spend at least one night in the homeless shelter over by my storage unit– in order to interact with people who have been homeless longer. The other nights i’m thinking of sleeping underneath the freeway overpasses, or maybe in the foothills or a parking garage / stairwell– depends on the weather. My means to food hopefully will be recycling. I’m pretty sure that I can gather enough cans and glass everyday to feed myself.
Oh, and my daughter says that i have to stay away from our neighborhood so that i don’t embarrass her…. lol.
What doesn’t kill you, makes you stronger. If you wanna join me, hit me up. We can sit around a trashcan fire and chat before we do some dumpster driving for dinner and sleep under the moonlight and freeze our asses off.
Got any spare change brother?
-scott noteboom
May 1st, 2009
