Category: Ministrivia

but I sometimes wonder if some of our Congressional Senators/Representatives can even ID all of our 50 states much less draw a map of them. Smart of him to start out with his home state too.

A little behind the scenes research indicates that Franken had been doing this for years. I’ve found photos and videos of him doing it on at least two other occasions. I’ve also seen a claim that he first did this for an SNL skit back in the nineties when he was “lamenting” the poor budget that he had been given to do his political commentary stating that he was forced to draw his own political maps.

One of the better optical illusions I have ever seen

This is Erin, a friend of mine that I met on one of my Wisconsin trips. We’ve kept in touch through the years. She’s a pilot for Republic Airlines, doing commuter hops around the Midwest but recently decided to get a different perspective of flying.

Looks like Apple’s going to make it difficult to use Google Voice with an iPhone so I may not be implementing GV as quickly as I had planned.

It took some chutzpah to pull this off but I’ve got to credit the couple (I don’t know them) for having the fortitude to go through with it. What a great way to start your wedding.

This video hasn’t quite gone viral yet (only 10,000 views) but I think it might.

After a very long wait, I’ve finally been accepted into Google Voice

I signed up for a Grand Central number a long time ago (4-5 years) but unfortunately when I was accepted back then they had no 814 area code numbers so I passed on the service (I could have gotten a number in another area code, and I thought about getting one in Chicago, but elected not to).

They finally got around to having 814 service but were completely backed up on fulfilling requests when they did. I put another application in and Google bought the service shortly afterward (2-3 years ago). Right after Google bought it they shutdown additional requests while they redesigned the application.

At some point after Google’s takeover I dropped my old attglobal email address which is what I had made the Grand Central request. For the last six months or so, Google has been filling those old requests. Unfortunately, since mine was under my old email, it got lost in the shuffle. So a few months ago, I had to reinstitute my request. Today, my acceptance email finally arrived.

One neat thing about Google Voice is that you get to select your phone number (as long as someone else hasn’t already grabbed it). I had really hoped that I’d be able to get something like (814) UncLarx but all the UncLar_or Uncle__ were already taken.

So I wound up with 814-39Larry – which isn’t too bad.

Now I need to play with it some and figure out how I’m going to use it.

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