Okay, I decided to resurrect the blog due to the fact that my 3 year experiment in suppressing one’s online presence has been a marginal success. I had to drop the MovableType as they aren’t really keeping up with WordPress from a universally accepted software option. MovableType 5.whatever.something was released by Takeshi Nick Osanai and, frankly, it’s nothing like version 4 and far removed from version 3. Guess how easy it is to migrate to WP from MT? Easy. Like, way. Way, way.

Anyhow, I’m back. I’m going to be editing older entries to turn myself into the Generic Mark Shields that I always knew I was. No home. No identifying features. Off the grid as much as possible but still available-ish. Hi.

The next phase for MarkShields.com is starting. I’m in the process of uploading all of my media that’s been previously hosted here into Facebook. The truth is that, while having a blog as a standalone piece since 2000 has proven useful in earning my SEO black belt, it’s also proven to me that without a social network content intended for friends and family is disembodied and easily overlooked. The whole site won’t be going away, but FB will definitely be augmenting and in some cases providing a bridge to a larger audience. I’ll be blogging about that as well, so don’t think this is the last you’ve heard of me on here. More to come!

Only a year after buying a 2010 Camaro 2SS — otherwise known as the Transformers Bumblebee, I’ve done it again. Click here to check out the screen used 1975 Dodge Tradesman Van — otherwise known as Uncle Rico’s Van. Yes, the real van. Uncle Rico not included (provide your own).

I’m attempting to get all of the data off my old MFM hard drives which date back to 1983 through 1985. There’s literally an inch of dust caked into these things, but that’s not what’s really annoying. The computer these run on is a
Texas Instruments Professional Computer (TIPC). Never heard of it? They never caught on since they weren’t IBM PC compatible. It was only kinda-sorta-compatible, but with better graphics and a TI flavored version of MS-DOS from Microsoft. Long story short — I have three machines with good components, but I can’t seem to put them together to make one working machine. At least I don’t think I can. It’s hard to believe that this machine has become so esoteric that there is barely any information about it on the internet. I probably need to be searching Usenet archives and sending smoke signals. One theme that I’ve found recently when looking for information are an endless supply of estate sales. I set up a Facebook community page (which is what I linked to in this blog entry) to share whatever I learn / remember about restoring the machine to use. Bleah!

My work laptop automatically receives updates to do little things to itself (that’s what she said) at odd times. Install something new here, update this, patch that… and all of these things usually conclude with the laptop rebooting itself without my approval. I’ve kept the machine pure — meaning I haven’t defiled any of the standard software and security measures that came with it. I’ve been tempted — don’t get me wrong. "It’s how they would have wanted it," is something I can say about the mysterious Desktop Support guys (and gals). With this in mind, I was not surprised this morning to find my laptop machine in a rebooted state. Sometimes I think it reboots like this when it knows I was in the middle of something important when I left it last. In fact, everything is super duper important when we get close to October 1st as we release all new functionality on that day every year. Pfft. This is definitely a blog entry not in favor of automatic updates. Windows used to do the same thing to me. I guess this is analogous to going to sleep next to someone and then the next morning you wake up to discover they left in the middle of the night. I need to surf urban dictionary to see if there’s a word for that.

I found a term that seems to match up:
Pulling the chute. Nice.

My machine appears to be back again so I must now end this brief return to blogging about the little stuff.

Go Gophers!

Let’s see what this does:

Mark Shields | Create Your Badge

DeLorean Time Machine Rental on Facebook

I let the domain markshields.org slip through my fingers years ago only to see some guy put up a cheesy family home page that was never updated and wreaked of ”hey I learned how to make HTML in Microsoft Word.” That’s over with today with my acquisition of the domain. I briefly considered parodying that guy’s site with a similar (albeit evil) version of the contents of his site. I have so much to do now that I’m back from DisneyWorld that I’m going to let that slide, too. More later. If you want more frequent updates you can start following me @thesupergenius on Twitter — http://twitter.com/thesupergenius.

Don’t like the Highlights section on Facebook?

If you don’t have Firefox yet, click here to download it. Next start Firefox and click here to install the GreaseMonkey Plug-in. Last click here to install the script. You may have to hit the F5 key to get it to kick in. If it isn’t working then make sure you have GreaseMonkey enabled by going to Tools, GreaseMonkey, and making sure ”Enabled” is checked.

Want to know what it’s doing?

// ==UserScript==
// @name        Highlights Hider
// @author      Mark Shields
// @namespace	http://markshields.com/
// @description This script will hide the highlights section on Facebook
// @include       http://*.facebook.com/*
// ==/UserScript==
// first let's look for all the DIVs (aka sections) on the page
myDivs = document.getElementsByTagName('DIV');
// next we'll loop through all of them to find one classified as UIHotStream
// which apparently is what Highlights is really called
for (counter=0; counter < myDivs.length; counter++) {
if (myDivs[counter].className == 'UIHotStream UIStream') {
// we found a match so we replace all of the HTML with this:
myDivs[counter].innerHTML = 'Hidden by Mark Shields - Super Genius';
}
}

I try not to get too political since I basically ride the fence as a moderate. I definitely lean more towards liberal politics with some exceptions which are more important to me and less important to you (so I won’t shove them in your face like a lot of other people will). Speaking of which– here’s something one of my Texas based friends posted which attempts to mock the liberal agenda. I also found a response (posted below that). Is it funny? Are fights funny? It depends on which side you’re on, I think. Read on — and don’t be offended! These are just words.

I voted Democrat because I love the fact that I can now marry whatever I want. I’ve decided to marry my horse.

I voted Democrat because I believe oil companies’ profits of 4% on a gallon of gas are obscene but the government taxing the same gallon of gas at 15% isn’t.

I voted Democrat because I believe the government will do a better job of spending the money I earn than I would.

I voted Democrat because freedom of speech is fine as long as nobody is offended by it.

I voted Democrat because when we pull out of Iraq I trust that the bad guys will stop what they’re doing because they now think we’re good people and we are not infidels.

I voted Democrat because I’m way too irresponsible to own a gun, and I know that my local police are all I need to protect me from murderers and thieves.

I voted Democrat because I believe that people who can’t tell us if it will rain on Friday can tell us that the polar ice caps will melt away in ten years if I don’t start driving a Prius.

I voted Democrat because I’m not concerned about the slaughter of millions of babies so long as we keep all death row inmates alive.

I voted Democrat because I believe that business should not be allowed to make profits for themselves. They need to break even and give the rest away to the government for redistribution as THEY see fit.

I voted Democrat because I believe liberal judges need to rewrite the Constitution every few days to suit some fringe kooks who would never get their agendas past the voters.

And now a response…

I voted Republican because I don’t want someone to marry my horse. Wait, there is no law that says someone can do that? Oh.

I voted Republican because I believe government taxing a gallon of gas at 15% is obscene — even though this money goes into the state system to fund education, state highways and law enforcement. Oil companies, however, are good to go with making a 4% profit on the same gallon of gas regardless of how much gas costs. That money goes into– oh wait– it goes into their pockets? That’s it? Do they donate any of it? A little? Oh, that’s nice. Wait, they write that donation off on their taxes? Well, it’s the thought that counts.

I voted Republican because I don’t believe the government will do a better job of spending the money I earn than I would. Might as well make me in charge of all federal programs, please, ’cause I rock! Put me in charge of the FDA so I can get this whole peanuts and salmonella thing worked out on my Facebook page.

I voted Republican because I want to dismantle freedom of speech that causes offense. What’s that? Under Bush’s term, federal officials spent millions of dollars investigating adult content producers? You mean I paid federal agents to go in and look at porn? And they could do it without warning or just cause? What are they looking for? Underage performers? You mean if a company was using an underage performer they would keep that person’s identification as evidence so they could get busted? What’s that? The FBI inspected numerous companies under Bush’s watch and found nothing? Wow. How much did all of that inspecting cost me?

I voted Republican because when we pull out of Iraq I don’t trust that the bad guys will stop what they’re doing because they now think we’re good people and we are not infidels — even though being in Iraq for all the wrong reasons actually inflamed the bad guys and made them hate us even more. I was hoping we could go into Iran because I didn’t feel they hated us infidels enough just yet, plus I heard they were making a bomb there! Wait, isn’t that what I heard about Iraq? Hmmm. Well, whatev.

I voted Republican because I’m responsible enough to own a gun, and I know that my local police are not enough of what I need to protect me from murderers and thieves. Now, I do realize the same murderer and thieves also have the same guns I do. Also, I realize that guns are more frequently used for suicide, hunting and homicides than they are for defense. But hey, whatever — out of my cold dead hands, bitch.

I voted Republican because I don’t believe in global warming. To prove that I’m going to compare the weather bureau with are charged with predicting weather patterns with the findings of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change who concluded that anthropogenic greenhouse gases are responsible for most of the observed temperature increase since the middle of the twentieth century, and natural phenomena such as solar variation and volcanoes probably had a small warming effect from pre-industrial times to 1950 and a small cooling effect from 1950 onward. Even though these basic conclusions have been endorsed by 30 scientific societies and academies of science, including all of the national academies of science of the major industrialized countries, whatever. If you think I’m trading in my Ford F-150 for something more fuel efficient, you’re nuts.

I voted Republican because I’m am concerned about the slaughter of millions of babies so long as we keep all death row inmates alive. I realize that this slaughter has been going on since Row v. Wade back when Nixon was in office. Man, that nasty Democrat Nixon. He was– wait, what’s that? He’s a republican? He was? Are you sure? Oh. And you’re saying that abortion has continued regardless of the administration in the white house? Hmmm. Well, then how do we stop it, then? I mean, I voted Republican. What ELSE can I do?

I voted Republican because the rich get taxed less than the poor when there’s one of us in the white house. I do realize that most Republicans are not classified as rich, but hey, you never know — I could hit the lotto. Wait, am I for or against the lotto? Should I check the bible? I’m against it? Aw, crap.

I voted Republican because I want conservatives that I put into the Supreme Court to interpret the constitution based on Sharia law. No, wait, I mean Christian law. Sharia law isn’t for reals and any government that is based on that is going to hell. I’m going to use a 2,000 year old bible to base my decisions on what’s right and wrong. While I do realize that a lot of what’s going on in their is allegorical and doesn’t apply, the gay stuff and the fringe stuff that the bible is against should totally be law. The Eye for an eye stuff, meh, not so much. I’ll sit that one out in court (unless I shoot the guy with my gun).

Here’s a shocker. It’s actually gotten slightly cheaper to be a Texas property owner. I’m not sure how this happened, exactly. I was comparing the taxes I just paid earlier this week (which are due today) and discovered things weren’t as unreasonable as I’d foreseen. This is a lot of cash, of course, which I have to put aside in hindsight as it’s not hidden within a mortgage escrow — maybe it should be! Well, whatever. I happy.

371.00 -- 2006 Subdivision Maintenance Fee
584.08 -- 2006 Windfern Forest Municipal Utility District
862.52 -- 2006 Harris County Property Tax
1877.40 -- 2006 Cy-Fair Independent School District
-------
3695.00 Total
408.00 -- 2009 Subdivision Maintenance Fee
508.46 -- 2009 Windfern Forest Municipal Utility District
974.60 -- 2009 Harris County Property Tax
1634.34 -- 2009 Cy-Fair Independent School District
-------
3525.40 Total

In other news, Chew turns 10 years old today! He has been going through some tough times with basset hound related illnesses. I’m going to see what I can do to make things a little easier for him today as he’s got a nasty growth under his right front paw’s toenail. This appears to be an auto-immune disease called SLO (Symmetrical Lupoid Onychodystrophy). To clear up the SLO he’s taking 6000 mg of fish oil once a day and 1 IU of Vitamin-E twice a day. The toenail is being removed surgically on Monday morning. I’m hoping that will offer him some relief as he’s been mindlessly licking his paws when he isn’t stuck in a head-cone for most of the day. Other issues he had recently include a large hematoma on his ear. The vet wanted $1000 to drain and button that, but my mom suggested to wait it out as hematomas tend to go away on their own. Mom was right. It went away after a few weeks and looks completely normal. He’s also got a non-cancerous tumor in his jaw near the left front fang (is that a fang?) which is more of a nuisance to him than anything else. The vet suggested I remove it but they would have to remove part of his jaw in the process. I think not. The jaw thing and hematoma thing both happened 6 months ago. If you can surmise that I’m second guessing the vet — you’re right. What else? He has a weak tear duct in one eye so every morning he gets eye drops and ointment to prevent green eye goo from forming. That stuff is nasty! The ointment goes directly into his eye and I was hesitant to do that at first, but it works like a charm. We wind up our list of Chew maladies by mentioning Chew’s chronic issue of having to eat only Waltham S/O urinary treatment food which prevents crystals from forming in his bladder by keeping his urine pH steady at 7.0. Other than all of that? Perfectly normal basset hound.

We recently added another dog to the family, Bruce Wayne, who’s a Cavachon – Cavalier King Charles Spaniel and Bichon Frise Hybrid. He’s hypoallergenic which works well for the girlfriend. Chew, on the other hand, spews dander like a mill. The two have become best buddies with the occasional grumpy bark from Chew when Bruce gets too rambunctious. We moved upstairs to the penthouse level of the condo where we’ve been living in beautiful Uptown, Minneapolis. The additional room has given the two dogs plenty of space. Chew is also amenable to using the balcony as an alternative to a walk downstairs. Artificial doggy turf is definitely on the horizon. I’d let Bruce out there, but he’s so small (5 pounds) that he’d slip through the bars if he got too close to the edge. Yikes.

And yet in other news, I finished my stint with the University of Minnesota Marching Band at the beginning of the year. The football team was invited to The Insight Bowl in Tempe, Arizona and I got to attend! The cost for signing up for Marching Band class was around $800, so this mini-vacation more than covered me. A lot of people asked how it was possible to join the marching band at my advanced age — and I told them. You enroll in the class. That’s it. There is an audition for which part you’ll play. We all also had to audition for the super difficult pre-game show several times. That set lasts well over 15 minutes. Everyone marches at half-time. I know that I’m glad I did it. I have a lot of friends who are 20 years removed from their time in marching band and they lived somewhat vicariously through me. I do plan on doing it for one more football season. That’ll make 4 years in high school marching band and 4 years in college marching band (with only a minor 20 year gap). Ahem.