Item The First: Is there some corollary of Murphy’s Law that says that you will see typos and stupid mistakes in emails and blog posts in the first ten seconds after you hit the “Send” or “Publish” buttons? Twice in the last month I’ve told WordPress to send out the emails to everyone to let them know there’s a new post here and a heartbeat later yelled “SHAZBATT!” (or something much like that) and looked for an “Undo” button. (There isn’t one.)
Even worse, I’ve also sent out two email cover letters on job applications with simple, stupid typos in them. This happened after I had read them, re-read them, walked away from them for a while, checked them for a third time, blessed it, and hit “Send”. Of course, doing so instantly labels me as an idiot and is incredibly frustrating. The first rule of job hunting is to avoid typos and look professional at all costs. There are a hundred people battling for each job and it doesn’t take much to kick your resume out of the “review” pile and into the trash. Making your first impression one where the potential employer thinks you’re not big on details and can’t communicate well puts at least two strikes against you immediately.
I like ranting about freakin’ idiots much more than I like being a freakin’ idiot.
On the other hand:
Item The Second: I wrote about Kickstarter and mentioned that in the near future there will be an opportunity for actual equity investment by crowdfunding as opposed to “contributions”. Here’s an article from the Hollywood Reporter talking about how this will effect how television shows and movies are capitalized. It indicates that the new rules for “equity crowdfunding” will be going into effect near the end of September for “accredited investors” (those individuals with a net worth of over $1M and over $200K per year income) and sometime in 2014 for “unaccredited investors” (those with a net worth of less than $1M but more than $100K) with limitations on how much one can invest.
Item The Third: Speaking of errors I’ve made, on August 18th I posted some pictures of what I thought was the California state capitol in Sacramento. I was posting quickly (on the road in Virginia) and looking at tiny thumbnails, not the best of conditions. Even at the time I had little alarm bells going off in my head, but didn’t listen to them because I was in a rush and working with more limited resources than I usually have. About ten minutes after posting I saw the full-sized pictures and realized that it wasn’t Sacramento.
No one has yet guessed correctly, so it’s time to just say that it’s the Colorado state capitol building in Denver.
Under the category of “Not Really An Error, More Of An Update”, on August 17th I posted a bunch of pictures I took from the plane travelling from LAX to DFW. The caption for the tenth image down says, “I think this one might be St Johns, but I would have to check a sectional to be sure.” Well, I checked the sectional and Google Earth (34°24’56.45″ N 103°13’09.42″ W) to be sure and it’s not St Johns Industrial Airpark in Arizona, but Cannon AFB in New Mexico, just to the west of Clovis, NM.
Item The Fourth: That spider web that so fascinated me is still there, and growing. Not only is that original, fishing-line-like thread there, but a much bigger web is being anchored to it, all intact despite days and days of the breezes whipping around the branches from the two trees that it’s strung between. I haven’t seen the spider yet, but if it’s sized like its web, I expect it to be the size of a squirrel. Anyone know where someone can get a fifty-gallon drum of DDT? (Asking for a friend.)
Item The Fifth: Peter Piper picked a peck of pretty little purple pink polka dotted people pepper upper pills. If Peter Piper picked a peck of pretty little purple pink polka dotted people pepper upper pills, how many pecks of pretty little purple pink polka dotted people pepper upper pills did Peter Piper pick?
My friend Kevin McNamara taught me that in high school. Forty years later it rolls off the tongue, but to save my life I can’t remember where I left my iPad an hour ago.
We Love The Stars Too Fondly 