God, I’m scared. Seriously, I’ve had two surgeries in my life. One went well, one went terrible (let’s just say the doctor refused to believe me when I said I could feel everything he was doing). So… with a 50/50 success rate, I’m a little unnerved. Hopefully, this will be my second good one. I guess it can’t be that bad, they’re gonna put me out. And I have heard really good things about this doctor.

Well, first let me get the picture out of the way (as promised ):

So, as you can see, the big square part is where the rupture is (if you click on the image (or click here if your browser doesn’t support java script)), you’ll notice the part that was highlighted in the smaller pic is noticeably darker then the other spots in my spine. That’s the ruptured disc.

Anyway, what they’re going to do over the hour that I’m out is cut away a bit of the bone in my spine (I’m told I won’t miss it… we’ll see ), and then get at the disc. If I had had a normal ruptured disc, it would have gone to the left or right, and likely been smaller. But NOOOO, I can’t do THAT. That’s to EASY. I had to have a BIG one RIGHT DOWN THE CENTER. So it’s a little harder then normal.

Recovery could be as much as two months, but it may be shorter.

Anyway, I’ll be going in on the 6th of December (normally the wait is a lot longer, but like I said, I don’t mess around when I mess myself up, so they’re trying to get me in ASAP), and getting out of the hospital on the 7th, so not too long there.

So… wish me luck, and thanks for reading!

Tags: Surgery, Narcipost, You-Came-Here-From-MySpace-Didn’t-You?, Testing-Lightbox, Oww-My-Back!, Nobody-Reads-Tags

Ah… good ol’ Web 2.0. We’ve heard about it for a while (starting with the first O’Reilly Media Web 2.0 conference in 2004), but really, what is it?

Web 2.0 is not so much an advancement of technology (in fact, many of the fundamental technologies are fairly old - recognizable components of AJAX (Asynchronous Javascript And XML) are over a decade old), but more a collection of Memes. I suppose, to put it simply, you could view Web 1.0 as mostly a “Read Only” Web (you surf around to other peoples pages and view them, or other people come to yours and view it), where as Web 2.0 is more of a “Read/Write” Web. A participatory culture, if you will where a person will go to someones site and add content to it (be it in the form of comments, videos, news submissions, or nearly anything else). Think Geocities vs. Blogger. There are a number of sites that epitomize this “Read/Write” web, and over the next few posts we’re going to take a look at some examples across different media formats.

First, let’s look at so called “Social News” sites. There are many out there, but the two biggest that I’m gonna focus on are Slashdot.org and Digg.com. They are similar, but different in some very important ways. Slashdot has been around for a while and they seem to have (in this writers opinion) a more erudite crowd (Caveat Emptor: there are trolls on both site in fair quantity). Digg is a younger site, and seems to have slightly younger users (not a knock either way, though). Both sites provide a stream of user submitted news (Digg is a bit more broad in terms of content, with Slashdot more focused on tech topics), both sites allow users to comment on each news article. They both offer social networking features (such as friends lists, and RSS feeds of just about everything). The major difference between the two is that Digg is quite democratic in how it decides which stories get to the front page, where as Slashdot stories are promoted via a number of editors. You’ll tend to find (again, in this writers opinion) that Slashdot tends to have a better “Signal to Noise Ratio“, where as Digg will often catch stories that would just slip through the cracks. However, there IS quite a bit of overlap between the two. There used to be a site that kept track of the various submissions and duplicates, but I won’t link to it because it’s since become a link farm.

Stay tuned next time when we delve into user created Video - all the world’s a stage, and all of us are the star!

-Note: I’m currently laid up with Back problems (we’ll find out for sure what’s going on Wednesday when I go see the results of my MRI), so I should be able to put aside a little more time to get articles up. Thanks for reading!

Tags: Web2.0, Digg, Slashdot, Social News, Narcipost, History

I refuse to close down. I know, no one’s reading anymore. I don’t blame you. But hey, this can still be my own private place, right?

Let’s see…. stuff’s going well at the job (LOVING working at Mailrite), I’m seeing Matt less and less but there’s not really much I can do about it , and… yeah. Just trying to keep trucking!

Lots of interesting things have been happening in the tech world lately. I installed the latest release of Ubuntu on a laptop, then gave it to Mom & Dad, so they can finally have a computer. Mom’s LOVING it. And I gotta say, if you’re interested in Linux, 7.10 is QUITE the release. VERY easy to get up and running.

Really looking forward to the next release of the OpenMoko platform. I can’t afford a cellphone right now, but when I can, BOY do I know what I’m getting.

Not gonna get my hopes up, but I’m currently talking to a girl on myspace, we’ll see where that goes (wish me luck! I always had a crush on her in highschool).

I’m done stressing over Deanna, just too painful. If she ever wants to show that she can really pull things off, and I’m single then, maybe. But she was VERY hurtful, so I don’t even know (might be worth it, just for Matt’s sake though).

Currently working on the company website. The current one (www.mailritevt.com) sucks. Well, it sucks now. Hopefully, in not too long, mine will be at that address .

Usual Slashdot activity, trolling for news . Oh, and I’m trying to get OFF featured on Security Now, but not much luck yet.

Anyway, I’ll try to update a little more often (once ever six months or so is a little dry lol). Anyway, ’till next time, dear reader (if you’re even still there)!

P.S.: Play Portal!

Tags: Nacipost, News

I LOVE my new job! A few weeks ago, I was made an offer at Mail Rite up in Putney, VT. I just started today, and lemme tell you, I LOVE IT!!!!!!!! The people are great, the work place is friendly, and even my boss doesn’t scare me! I suspect that he’d even care if I died (which is not at all something that I think my last boss (his name rhymes with fleeo) would do)!

Anyway, between the GREAT pay, the free health, free life insurance, STARTING OFF WITH A WEEKS VACATION, and all the other little goodies (did I mention that I get to sit at a computer all day?!?), it’s a pretty sweet deal. I’m TOTALLY psyked to get into it!

Anyway, I’m REAL tired, and I gotta be up at 7 again tomorrow, so until next time!time!

Well, beyond the fantastic weather, anyway. Deanna called me this morning (she’s been calling me a lot lately, it’s really nice), and we talked for a little bit. The rest of my morning was spent in hibernation due to the blizzard outside. Well, that and sending out a list of references to a possible new job (had the interview on Tuesday, it was up at MailRite in Putney. I’m REALLY hoping that I get this job, it’s a sitdown-and-type-at-a-computer style job, it STARTS with a week of vacation time (RIGHT OFF THE BAT!), health insurance, 401k after a year, the only bad part? It’s an entry level position, and she thinks I’m overqualified. Because it’s entry level, they can only pay me $11 or $12 AN HOUR!!!! They think that’s a SMALL AMOUNT! I’m SO PSYKED!! I wish this job could have come along before Deanna left… we might still be together.

Speaking of which, after sending my references, I lay down for a short nap. About 10 minutes into this (I’ve never been good with naps anyway), I got a call from… Deanna! She invited me over to go sliding with her and Matt. So, after shoveling out the car (and putting bags on my feet since I didn’t have boots) I hopped on the worlds worst roads (in a Civic with summer tires no less!) and made the 15 minute (though in this weather it was more a half hour) drive over to them. We had a grand old time out in the snow. But, as with many children, eventually our little snood fell down and got all snowy, so we took him inside and warmed him up. We played games, built blocks, all sorts of good stuff for a good three hours. Deanna even sent me a rose by way of text message. She’s a sweet heart. But, sadly, all good things must come to an end. It was time to go; the snow was getting too high. But before I did Deanna and Matt gave me the cutest little Valentine: a tiny box of chocolates, signed by them, with a little “we <3 u" on the tag. I'm so lucky. She also liked the card that Matt and I made for her, and said the card that I made for Matt was cute (I had her sign it). In the not too distant past (less then a week) she's said she really does want what we had... someday. I really hope someday is sooner rather then later. I love them so much.

And she even called me before she went to bed, just like she has been doing for the last few nights. I hope this lasts, I just love having contact with her. For some reason, it means so much to me. It really brightens up my day to her from her, find out how our little guy's doing, all that Jazz. Oh! And she's finally left the 40 year old. Of course, there's still other guys, but at least I don't think any of them are dangerous any more. Thank god for that.

Anyway, I'll try to write more often (I'm very bad about this stuff). If anyone cares, someday there will be a little site on the internet known as www.bentleyfamily.us. It’s not live yet (still very much in construction), but it should be a great little spot to keep up on Matt and stuff. Best part? It’s ripe for personalization. Maybe host my resume at marvin.bentleyfamily.us? Just a thought.

At any rate, have a good one, and thanks for sticking with me.