It sounds pretention every time I say it.

It also sounds really cool.

I have an assistant. Her name is Kate. She does stuff for me.

Things like…
- Makes phone calls I don’t want to make.
- Research stuff I’m interested in but too lazy or busy to research myself.
- Find and book hotels when I travel, whether in Las Vegas or near Scarborough Faire.
- Lots of moving related tasks.

Here are some actual tasks I gave her.
- Find me Scottish Socks to wear with my Blackwatch taran kilt.
- “Gather election results in Abilene for the last 10 elections for city council including the mayor. Find out who ran (name and political affiliation), how many votes were cast, how many for each person.” She ended up talking with the city secretary’s assistant to get the information.
- Outline a cool video presentation on the Gameapocyolypse.
- Organize all my model releases for the past 6 years.
- “Can you find me the best price on an Arduino micro controller?”
- Find a royal blue comforter. Then later, find those people I paid for said comforter and find out why they never shipped it.
- “Can you call liquor stores in Abilene and see who sells Republic tequila and how much a bottle would cost.”

Zirtual

I got her through Zirtual. Zirtual is a company started by a friend of mine, Maren Donovan. I’ve been following Maren’s business career since we were both founding members of the Internet Business Mastery Academy. When I met with her for coffee years ago, she had 2 or 3 virtual assistants in the Philippines. She more than anyone made that work. Now years later, she’s perfected the virtual assistant game and made it available to anyone.

When she started the Zirtual “beta” program, I signed up immediately. I’d tried doing the Philippines thing, but it hadn’t worked for me. I figured Zirtual would handle selection and I’d just get someone who worked. And I did. Her name was Maren.

Yes, one of the founders of the company was my assistant. They were boot strapping the company and wanted to understand what it was like to be an VA, so at the beginning they did the work. Maren wasn’t my assistant for long, but it was funny when I got my first “I’m your new virtual assistant” email from her.

Next I had Jenny. She was good. Had an issue with deadlines, meaning she did my tasks right before I told her it was due. But I learned to deal with that, and just moved my due dates to when I really wanted it done, and not when I had to have it done.

After a few months, Jenny moved on and I got Kate. Kate is insanely proactive. I give her a task and she sends me an apology if it isn’t done the same day I send it.

My funest story about Kate was the first time I got a phone call from her. She was calling to tell me one of the lawn guy’s she was getting estimates from had gone to my house and found a truck in the back ally with door open and running. Was that normal? Suppose to happen? At the time I was in Houston and had to play phone tag with the Mrs, and we never did figure out who the mystery truck was.

Having an assistant is cool.

If you’d like to have your own zirtual assistant you are out of luck. They are so popular they had to close taking new clients.

Buuuttt, since you are one of the two people who read this blog – Mom doesn’t read it – drop me a line and I’ll get you an invite to join up.

I’ve run in to many times where I’m browsing on my iPhone or iPad and want to browse a page at home, but there is no easy was to send the URL and have it just open in my desktop machine’s browser. Well today I figure it out and here’s how you do it.

You will need:

• An AIM client on your iPhone/iPad – I’m currently using Beejive AIM, but that may change.
• A “remote” AIM account and a home AIM account.
• A Mac with iChat running – set it to auto launch at login.
• My cool AppleScript to glue it all together.

The AppleScript

1. Copy this script and save it in your iChat Script folder. Generally that’s in your home folder /Library/Scripts/iChat/.

using terms from application “iChat”
on message received theMessage for theChat
if theMessage contains “http” then
tell application “Google Chrome”
set URL of active tab of window 1 to theMessage
activate
end tell
end if
end message received
end using terms from

Couple of notes about the script.
We’re going to link this script to a specific buddy. If you linked it to everyone, then any URL in any chat would open in your browser. You don’t want that.
Because we don’t check the buddy in the script you can connect it to two or more buddies and any of them could open URLs.

Set Up AIM programs

You want to add both accounts to the buddy list of your phone AIM program and your desktop’s iChat.
Add your “remote” AIM account to your home AIM’s buddy list.
Add your home AIM to your phone’s buddy list.

In iChat select your remote account’s buddy and select Buddies->Show Info. A window will open, select the Alerts tab. Check the “Run an AppleScript script:” check box. From the popup select the script you just saved to your iChat folder.

If you save your script somewhere else and select it from this pop up using “Choose Script…”, iChat will copy it to the iChat folder, not use it where it is. So if you edit it where you saved it, iChat won’t see that change.

That’s it. Now send an text message with a URL in it.

Couple of caveats.
If you use Beejive AIM on the iPhone it has a UI weirdness where you have to start typing a message before you can paste. So type a space and then do your paste.
If you send something else besides the URL in the text message your browser will give AppleScript an error. A beginning space doesn’t count, so it’s OK.

I’ve decided its time to really move to Abilene.

For the past seven and a half months I’ve lived in Houston and been in Abilene when I needed to be. Mostly I’ve needed to be here because I’ve had paramedic school. Classes last semester, and clinicals and class this semester.

Clinicals finished last week. My last final and oral boards are on Friday. It’s time to really move.

There are things I need to be in Houston for. PALS February 28-29. National Registry Paramedic Skills testing April 21, with practice labs the week before. But mostly I’ll be in Abilene after Spring Break.

It’s a bitter sweet thing, like finishing my clincials was. I’m ready to be where my heart – aka the Mrs – is, but there are a lot of opportunities here in Houston that I’m leaving behind. And a lot of friends.

I won’t have Houston Skyline Studio and Bob, Jerry and John to do photography with. Shawna and I will be even more challenged getting the Photographer and Model podcast done.

I won’t be working with the guys from In The Rabbit Hole, or hanging out with them at Tea on Thursday nights.

Won’t be able to volunteer and work with all my compatriots at Harris County Emergency Corp. And school will be over and I won’t have a reason to be with all my classmates and teachers at Lone Star North Harris.

When we decided to go to Abilene I said to myself, “Sometimes you need to turn your life upside down just to see how it changes.” Now it is really happening. It’s scary, exciting, weird, sad, and a whole bunch of other things I can’t put into words.

The other day I received the latest issue of the Cheaper Than Dirt catalog. Gracing the cover was this firearm.

I was a little surprised. This isn’t an airsoft gun, this is a really AR-15. Someone thought there was a market for a lethal firearm pimped out a a zombie killing gun.

This could be for a number of reasons.

It could mean people think zombies are real and they need to prepare. I don’t think that’s true.

It could be because firearms are just fashion accessories. To some extent that is true as evidenced by everything being “tactical black” when few buyers have any tactical need at all, much less a tactical need for black.

I think the zombie AR shows a fundamental shift in American cultural attitudes toward firearms. We are at the point now where firearms are normal things. Like our power tools, or our cars, they are just part of life. We have such an abundance of choices so all that differentiates one from another comes down to cosmetic design. In that case a zombie motif makes as much sense as a pink AR for the ladies.

The other day I was buying steampunk stuff on amazon. Specifically goggles, and what steampunk goggles would be complete without those little magnifiers the tilt down. So I bought these:

I was removing the battery from a watch and had the magnifiers next to me because I’ve been using them for some jewelry making. I want to take a pic of the battery so I’d know what to buy. That pic looked like this.

Then I grabbed the magnifiers, put one and then two lens over my iPhone’s camera lens and shot these close ups.

Pretty cool for some that was just suppose to be for costume purposes.

Yesterday I used a video phone to consult with my wife about what would be the appropriate color and hook style for a coat rack for our new house.

I actually made a video from the store about it.

I remember the first time….

The Mrs and I went to Pei Wei, we walked in and they had changed the menus. As you wait to get to the counters you stand next to these large printed menus and can pick what you want. That’s how we did it in the past.

Now they have Animated Menus.

Yes, it was just an LCD screen with a program running on it that showed the menu. But the first time birds flew in an grabbed a picture of a Thai Bowl and carried it away so it could be replaced by a plate of Hot and Spicy, I knew I lived in some science fiction world.

There are no flying cars, but there are many things that were the stuff of SciFi when I was a kid. I’m going to chronicle them in the new We Live In The Future category here on the blog.

River Song's Sonic Screwdriver

Yes it was. I still wonder, did they know then?

It is a two part episode and at the end of Forest of the Dead, the Doctor set down River’s Sonic Screwdriver on her book and there is a long slow zoom in. Of late I’ve been mildly obsesses with Steampunk and looking at her screwdriver close up thought, “Wow, that looks steampunk!”

Click the image on this post for a larger look and see if you don’t agree.

Couple of geek notes.

There’s some continuity errors between the close ups and the 2 shots with the Doctor and the Screwdriver here.

I’m not sure the close up in his hand is the same screwdriver. There is a loop on the one on the book, but it seems to disappear in all the other shots. Could be he’s holding it where you can’t see it, but I’m not sure.

I admit when I decided I wanted one of these scarfs it was because of the military association. Not because I thought it would help me hunt terrorists better, you know something I do everyday, but more to show association and support.

So I googled Shemagh Scarf and discovered it is “Tactical”.

People it’s not even black. How can you even think it is tactical.

The fact it is just the Arab equivalent of a bandana doesn’t stop it from being labeled tactical.

Plus I have cool idea to use it in a photoshoot.