With the new year, comes a new look for the web site. It’s been a year of learning and new experiences for me, and I wanted my website to reflect that. Besides it was looking a bit stale. This year is going to be a good one, I can feel it! The past year has been wonderful to me, both professionally and personally and I don’t plan on letting it end. I am going to try to blog more often as well. I have gone further in my career, my hobbies, and even in my personal life, so perhaps it’s time I get back to sharing my experiences.
Author Archives: jaypoc
Planet Wings to join Pluto
Nope, These are my own. Cooked and sauced in my own kitchen.
Those who know me, can imagine my excitement when a new wing place opened around the block from my work. I pulled in to the parking lot immediately upon seeing the grand opening signs for Planet Wings in Bethpage today. I wish I could say that the experience met my expectations.
Immediately when I walked in, I got a strong sense of “fast food”. The decor reminded me of a popular burger joint. You know, the one with the clown spokesperson. Looking at the menu, the first thing I noticed were the burgers. Odd, for a place called “Planet Wings” but as I looked on I saw their wing menu with 24 award winning flavors.
Their wings are available from $0.90/wing for 5 wings up to $0.65/wing for orders of 100 or more. If you’re looking to sample among their 24 flavors, you’ll have to shell out the extra money for separate orders at the higher rates as they won’t mix/match your wings. I wanted to split up an order of 15, but they wouldn’t have it. Seeing the premium pricing, I expected normal to large sized wings, but was shocked to find what I call Pigeon Wings. These are the small wings served by most dive bars on their ten cent wing nights. I was unimpressed.
Flash Mobbed
I’ve been to many “flash mob” like events, but tonight was my first actual pre-choreographed flash mob run by Flash Mob America. I had never heard of FMA before, nor have I seen any of their flash mobs, so I wasn’t sure what to expect. I’m somewhat embarrassed to admit that I didn’t really learn the dance steps for it. In fact, It wasn’t until earlier today that I actually watched the video through and tried to memorize as much as possible. Probably not the best plan, but in the long run, it worked out.
The crowd consisted of both men and women, though we (the men) were grossly outnumbered. We ranged from young children around 10 or so, to adults in their 40’s (maybe 50’s). Many were there with friends or their families. I was there with my friend Will who had been watching FMA plan the event for some time. Everyone was in “party” attire, mostly wearing white button-down shirts with black pants. The idea was to break in to a 30th birthday celebration being held at a catering hall in Plainview, New York. We all met in the basement of the catering hall to register and rehearse for the big flash. After checking in late (oops) and getting settled, I joined the crowd being lead through the entire dance routine. There were some last minute changes and we all continued to practice over and over for about an hour until people were comfortable with the routine.
Hurricane Irene: My First Scare
I checked into Hurricane Irene on FourSquare and just as I hit the check-in button, there was a loud BANG from outside my window and the entire room went dark. It was completely black.
I looked out the window and saw the lights on in all the buildings across my courtyard, It seemed that my building was the only one that lost power. My biggest concern was the frozen foods (chicken, pork, steak and salmon) that I just bought tonight. I went into my kitchen and looked around. I noticed the time on my oven. My oven uses gas, but I thought the clock was electric. I was right. They are.
That’s when I realized that the compressor for the refrigerator was still running. I was relieved. The lights in my Kitchen are on the same circuit as my bathroom/bedroom but the appliances are on their own. And I guess I just turned out all the other lights which is generally uncharacteristic of me. Whew.
So here I sit at my laptop in the living room with an extension cord to my bedroom powering the rack containing my cable-modem, router PC, and wireless access point. The T V is working too, and it’s getting late, so I may just relax and call it a night. Hopefully my room won’t be out for too long. And yes, I checked the circuit breaker 😉
UPDATE: The original post was around midnight. At approximately 9:30am the rest of the power went out. My contingency plan is in effect. I’m going to fill my cooler with ice and saltwater and bring my frozen goods to my parents, who may have lost a tree, but they still have electricity!
Enable Telnet in Windows 7 (and Vista)
I ran into a situation today where it would have been really useful to test a connection using telnet, but unfortunately, Windows 7 (and I believe Windows Vista) does not come with telnet installed. At least, that was what I had thought. It turns out that it is included, but it’s disabled. Here’s how to enable it:
- Open the Control Panel
- If it’s set to View By Category, click Uninstall a Program under the Programs heading.
- if it’s set to View By Icons. click on the Programs and Features item.
- Click on Turn Windows features on or off on the left side-bar.
- If UAC is enabled, click yes to Allow “Windows Features” to run.
- Scroll down and check Telnet Client and then click OK
Now you can telnet from the command line as you could in previous versions of Windows. Keep in mind, however, that telnet is not secure. It’s recommended to use SSH when available. I highly recommend PuTTY which is a great free telnet/SSH client.