Ben Benner’s Blog

Technically speaking (my modus operandi) I turned 30 last night at about 11:15 or so, give or take a few minutes. I am of course adjusting for Central timezone vs Eastern.

It was 30 years ago somewhere around 12:10-12:15 (I forget the exact) in the morning that I was born to Graciela Dominguez (Now Graciela Underwood) and Thomas J. Benner.

A couple of years back my father sent me an strangely thick envelope, it contained the receipt for my birth. The charges for all of the various bits of hospital equipment, room charges, diapers ($4 back in 1978), and a few other odds and ends. The total was somewhere between $3,500 and $3,800 (I am sorry to report my memory isn’t quite as sharp as a few years ago, course I also didn’t try to commit the number to memory).

I found a few inflation calculators online and ran $3,800 through them to see how much I would have cost in today’s day and age, purely on an inflationary basis. It would appear that it is between $12,000 and $13,000. I find it interesting that three different calculators all produced three different results. I can only surmise that they are using different inflation staticists for each year.

Regardless, having the hospital bill sent to you some twenty-odd years after the fact is kinda weird. After receiving the envelop, I jokingly asked my father if I was expected to pay him back. I forget what his repsonse was, but since we didn’t setup a payment plan, I am guessing he declined.

But that brings me to the next thing. I received a package from my mother recently. The contents of which filled in several holes what I knew to be the story of the day of my birth and some backstory on my parent’s early years of marriage.

It also contained some family tree information.

I have to say that I was quite touched to have my mother be able to recollect in a fair amount of detail the events leading up to my birth. For instance, my parents had gone bowling before I was born. My mom did not start giving birth at the bowling alley, though that would have been quite a story and a sign of things to come.

She did however manage to bowl the same score three times in a row, while not a high score, it is worthy of a league patch. And there apparently was a write-up in the Lansing State Journal about it, next time I am in Lansing I will need to hit up the library and see if they have the microfiche available.

I knew that when I was born that I was sick and had to stay in a “special box with lights” for the first few days of my life. This apparently was because I was jaundice(d) and apparently the lights in the “box” helped me get some vitamins that I needed.

I am pretty sure that my parents and wife will agree that the box with the lights probably has had a profound effect on me, as it has granted me the ability to fall asleep with the lights (and tv on). Course it may or may not have anything to do with me being solar powered.

I woke up early today and headed into the office. I have been here for about 20 minutes, I caught up on a the few emails that came in over night and have been writing this post, which I now must wrap up. As of about 4pm yesterday this went from being a normal week with a couple of birthdays thrown in there, into a week with a tight deadline and a couple of birthdays.

Jeremy’s birthday is on Friday, I forget his exact age, but I know he is OLD(er than me). I regularly forget that Jeremy is a few years older than me, to that effect I can never tell whether that is because I still act older than I should or if it is just Jeremy’s youthful spirit.

Meh, could be both.

Back to the grind.

Laterz

bdbenner Personal 1978, birthday, inflation, solar powered

I am not talking about UT.

Michigan State vs Notre Dame!!!

It is going to be broadcast on ESPN down here in the Tejas, so Gina and I will be watching it here in the living room. We made some plans yesterday about what we wanted to eat during the game, Gina made her pasta salad last night and we will be picking up some wings from KFC.

I was going to make some in the fryer we have, but we both agreed it would be too messy. This past week Gina and I have been trying to eat at home and take our lunches, we did pretty good this week, therefore some wings for KFC are OK, since we managed to eat dinner at home every day this week.

We also planned out our meals for the rest of the week (mostly cleaning out the freezer), but we do need to pick up some stuff from the store. So we will be heading out to the store here in a minute.

But we will be back here for the game @ 2:30 Central (3:30 Eastern).

Go Spartans!

Laterz

bdbenner MSU, Sports ESPN, Football, MSU, Notre Dame, Spartans

Now anyone who followed the early days of Apple’s iPod, should remember the criticism they faced about the fact that the battery is not replaceable, and that initially they did not even offer you the option to pay them money to replace the battery. Initially you were screwed.

Because of the fact that the batteries are good for about 16 months or so (depending upon how much you use it), the story didn’t break for a while. The fact that you cannot simply replace the battery means that there is a built-in upgrade cycle. For some folks they will want to retain their cherished iPod and simply pay the $69 dollars to get a fresh battery in what is likely not their original iPod.

While I am talking about the non-replaceable battery and how Apple has a built-in replacement cycle, guaranteeing that a chunk of their consumer-base is going to buy a new iPod ever 16 months (or at least shell out another $69). What I am really wanting to write about here tonight is how, Apple, god I can’t believe that I have to write this.

Apple stole my iPod Nano.

Yup, I am relatively certain it was an agent of Apple who stole my iPod Nano from me, whilst I was getting off American Airlines flight 502 from San Jose and landing in Austin around 10:50pm (central). It was there one minute and I could swear that I put it into my laptop bag, but when I looked for it the next day at the office (because it was time to blast my eardrums with some loud and abusive tunes), it was gone.

No where to be found. I thought that maybe I had removed it from my laptop bag and had left it (or dropped it) somewhere in my home office. I even searched the trunk of my car, but to no avail, it has vanished.

In discussing the disappearance of my iPod Nano with Jeremy, he reminded me that Apple had just released a new iPod Nano.

And that is when it hit me. An agent of Apple must have filched my beloved silver iPod Nano (3rd Gen) to ensure that I am forced to buy a new one (4th Gen).

But before, I get a cease-and-desist notice about this blog post. Let me say that, I in no way am accusing Apple or Mr Jobs of stealing my iPod Nano.

For the record I do not think that there is any sort of master list of all the folks out there that have iPods  and Mr Jobs is arranging for them to be, hmmmm, what would be the best term, let’s just say ‘retired from service’. I am sure he has a VP for that. (just kidding)

I was an idiot and left it on the plane. I had been listening to it on the way back an reading More Joel on Software. And I had been using the seat next to me, well as an open seat next to me to store my various ‘carry-on items that I had taken out during the flight’. I remember telling myself to put everything from within the seat into my bag. And I managed to put everything in there, except the black timbuk2 accessory (velcro) pouch that held my Nano.

MORON!!!

It just happens to be a (lucky) coincidence that Apple releases the 4th Gen iPod Nano at the same time I was a moron and left my Nano on the plane.

I had been wanting to write a blog post about how ‘I am an iPod Junkie’, because of the fact that I own(ed) a Nano, a Touch and a Shuffle. Well, if I do end up getting the 4th Gen Nano, maybe I will finally do that post.

The wife has told me that I should use my iPod touch more. I do use it, but usually to surf the web, read email (quickly) and watch movies. It however lacks that scroll wheel, which provides the tactile interface allowing for quick changes in volume and the ability to quickly scroll through your entire music collection.

The topic of how I should just use my Touch while waiting to see if American Airlines happens to find it (or a good Samaritan happens to turn it in), I told him that it didn’t make sense to me that the Touch doesn’t have a speaker in it, so that I can listen to music or movies without headphones or the ability to change the volume without having to ‘wake it up’. I also think it would be better if it had a camera built-in, given the fact that there is a ‘photos’ ‘button’ so prominently placed on the main screen of the Touch.

Guess what else Apple has released, as 2nd Generation iPod touch.

YUP! It has a speaker and external volume controls, maybe the 3rd Generation will have that camera built-in.

Well, I need to get to bed. Maybe Santa will bring me the 4th Gen Nano for X-mas, course my b-day is literally right around the corner.

Laterz

Please note this post is an expressive piece of FICTION, the only real truth in here is that I lost my iPod Nano and that Apple recently launched the 4th Gen iPod Nano and 2nd Gen iPod Touch.

bdbenner Technology, newTechnology apple, conspiracy, new ipods

Well technically day 3 for me, or 4 depending upon when you start the timer.

But it is day 2 of the conference.

I gave my first public presentation yesterday. I think it went pretty well, I had a couple of people ask for my contact information after I was done, so I am pretty sure that offsets the fact that a couple of people got up and left while I was talking.

I am not taking it personal, I think the conference session was a bit vague and they probably were expecting different information about Serena’s mashup exchange.

I also tried to keep the presentation from being a commercial for Jaduka. I had a slide in there that described Jaduka and NetworkIP, the regular sort of we do 15 billion phonecalls a year and have a database of over 780 860 Million user accounts, etc. I glossed over that and made a joke about how it was a slide that marketing required.

I glossed over the slide, because I overheard a few folks in the audience complaining about attending a couple of sessions that were commercials and did not contain useful information. In football terms, I believe that is called an ‘audible’. At the next Serena even I am pretty sure we will be able to give a detailed presentation of a Serena-Jaduka mashup.

I have been having an enjoyable time meeting and talking with the Serena executives, staff and various Serena Partners.

Back to the keynote.

Laterz

bdbenner travel, work conference, san jose, serena, travel, work

I remember reading old newspaper headlines talking about ‘British Invasions’ and what not during the time of the Beatles. And even since 2000, I believe I have seen headlines and topics to that effect in regards to a number of bands coming from the UK.

However, my statement is based upon British TV. Over the last 10 years (or more) there have been a number of British TV shows that have become popular here in the USA. However, they were not here under the guise of British TV, they were on TV as US shows.

The first that I can think of that was basically a mirror copy was the ‘Weakest Link’ game show. The next one is ‘The Office’, which I believe has found a strong voice of it’s own and can be quite funny at times.

But, as I am sitting here looking over the schedule for the conference I am attending over the next couple of days the TV is on in the background, and there is an advert for a new TV show. The clips are quick and visually jump around a lot, bringing about a feeling of chaos as I watched. I see Harvey Keitel, an actor that I have always felt doesn’t get nearly enough leading roles as he deserves.

Too be honest I cannot remember the words being spoken during the advert, but as the chaos is happening and I see Harvey and hear the words (that I cannot remember), I think to myself this feels familiar. I wonder if someone is doing a remake of a show I have seen before.

There was one clip, right before they showed the title that made me think, crap this looks like a British show I watched. Then the title came in, ‘Life on Mars’. I watched the original BBC version (which isn’t that old mind you, back in January).

I wonder if the networks are going to try to convert some more British TV shows as a way to get more content out there, given the GAP created by the writer’s strike.

Well, I need to figure out what I am going to do for breakfast.

Laterz

bdbenner Entertainment, Television british, life on mars, television

My flight leaves at 3pm this afternoon. I will be out in San Jose for most of the week attending and presenting at the <Tag> conference. I am looking forward to meeting the folks from Serena.

Back to packing and what not.

I have a couple of half finished posts that I will try to complete after I settle into the hotel.

Laterz

bdbenner travel, work san jose, serena, travel, work