Let's all have a good laugh at my expense.

I mean it, that's not some obtuse victim plea. This is a modern fable of geekiness overcoming one's self.

I thought GMail was broken. All of my messages were being marked as read. I filter a lot, and I rely on the filters and labels to virtually stash certain mail that I either want to attend to immediately, or ignore until I am ready to deal with it. I've been doing this a long time and it is an important part of the way I handle my electronic communication.

Most of you, all of you who have e-mailed me more than once in a blue moon, have a filter and a label set on your e-mail address.

Suddenly, everything coming in was being marked as read and nothing was staying in the inbox. WTF? I turned off Google Labs, I checked the message boards and mailing lists, no one else was seeing this behavior apparently. Why oh why was my gmail all brokey?

The culprit? MobileMe.

I have Mail.app set-up on one machine that fetches my mail when I open it. It's not the machine I use every day, it is a friend's PowerMac tower with a gargantuan HD that she doesn't use mush of. I'm her tech support, she uses me regularly (if it feels this good being used...), so when I am at her office I log-in, fire up Mail.app and download it to her machine where it is faithfully backed up on her awesome over-engineered back-up system. I'm her off-site storage, she burns incremental DVD's of /Users/* regularly and I pick up a copy, which has my stuff on it too, whenever I drop by her office for espresso and looking down her blouse.

While I'm there, I fire up Mail.app and DL a bunch of e-mails, knowing well that this flips the "Mark Read" bit, so I make sure beforehand that I've checked everything I want to check.

Then came MobileMe. I demonstrated it for her on her PowerMac by setting up my account and letting it fly.

That sent my Mail account information to my iBook, which I do use every day, and the iPod Touch, which I am sure is the real culprit. I got the message about it changing my e-mail accounts on the next sync and just clicked through it. I was still in her office when this happened.

So, I fired up Mail.app tonight for another reason (I usually process e-mail on the GMail web client) and lo and behold, the light bulb went on.

GMail was doing exactly what I set it to do. Mark Read and archive everything that gets POP3'd. Labels still work, of course.

MobileMe, I'm still getting used to the notion that my iPod is a fully functioning Internet terminal, getting pushed mail everytime I walk by an open WiFi access point, or at home, or in the office.

GMail, I'm so sorry I doubted you...

Things that are the bomb.

Imagine the title of this blog as spoken by Chappelle doing his white guy. Now that I've had me some brown sugar I will endeavor to not revert to my conventional ways.

iPhone/iPodTouch 2.0 firmware

Damn, these guys know what they're doing. No, I don't have an iPhone, I have the iPhone wihtout the phone, the iPod Touch. Forgive me, Apple-brethren, but I think this is the superior device at the moment, given the problems with att and 3G coverage.

It's going to change, but for now, for me, finding ways of getting reliable wifi is easier than putting up with intermittency of cell service, particularly att, these days. They will fix this, the information economy demands it, but the way things are now, I'd rather plan my web browsing around being able to get a wifi signal than put up with not knowing if I can get cell service at all when it occurs to me that I want to look something up.

Again, something will give here, either att will tune up or the phone will go carrier-transparent. Cite all the contracts and business declarations you want, but the utility of an Internet-enabled reliable hypertext and webscript terminal universally where there are people is too big a wave to resist. We will make it happen.

At that point, the iPhone will be the genre-killer.

Until then, my iPod does everything I want, and it doesn't tell people where I am.

http://pandora.com/

The Music Genome Project

Then find the free Pandora app at the iPhone app store. Coolness.

Answer: Exim4, SMTP and my corporate overlords

I figured it out, thanks for the help. They are blocking my outbound 25 TCP traffic.

The project specifically requests that port be open. I have been granted the access, last week it was open.

Sigh.

HELP: At wit's end with Exim4, GMail and my corporate overlords

I now am at a loss at what to do. If you know something, please help.

I have Exim4 running as an MTA for a server that is inside a network run by paranoid network admins. There is a route-able IP which once incoming packets hit the gateway they get NAT'd to an RFC 1918 address on my box.

Exim4 can send SMTP traffic seemingly everywhere except google. The messages time out with google. That is, I am trying to establish an SMTP dialog with the servers in the MX records for gmail (and my google apps-hosted domains) and nothing happens:

-----

2008-07-18 14:24:30 1KJuTv-0001ca-Mq alt2.aspmx.l.google.com [209.85.147.114] Connection timed out
2008-07-18 14:24:39 1KJuX7-0001dS-9L alt2.gmail-smtp-in.l.google.com [209.85.147.27] Connection timed out
2008-07-18 14:26:55 1KJucM-0001dd-KV ASPMX.L.GOOGLE.COM [72.14.247.27] Connection timed out
2008-07-18 14:26:56 1KJucM-0001dd-KV gmail-smtp-in.l.google.com [72.14.247.27] Connection timed out
2008-07-18 14:26:56 1KJucM-0001dd-KV == treo@rdewald.com R=dnslookup T=remote_smtp defer (110): Connection timed out
2008-07-18 14:27:39 1KJuTv-0001ca-Mq alt2.aspmx.l.google.com [209.85.147.27] Connection timed out
2008-07-18 14:27:48 1KJuX7-0001dS-9L alt2.gmail-smtp-in.l.google.com [209.85.147.114] Connection timed out
2008-07-18 14:30:05 1KJucM-0001dd-KV alt2.gmail-smtp-in.l.google.com [209.85.147.27] Connection timed out
2008-07-18 14:30:48 1KJuTv-0001ca-Mq aspmx2.googlemail.com [209.85.135.27] Connection timed out
2008-07-18 14:30:57 1KJuX7-0001dS-9L alt1.gmail-smtp-in.l.google.com [209.85.129.27] Connection timed out
2008-07-18 14:33:14 1KJucM-0001dd-KV alt2.gmail-smtp-in.l.google.com [209.85.147.114] Connection timed out
2008-07-18 14:33:57 1KJuTv-0001ca-Mq aspmx3.googlemail.com [64.233.167.27] Connection timed out
2008-07-18 14:33:57 1KJuTv-0001ca-Mq == rdewald@hospicenyc.org R=dnslookup T=remote_smtp defer (110): Connection timed out
2008-07-18 14:34:06 1KJuX7-0001dS-9L gsmtp147.google.com [209.185.147.27] Connection timed out
2008-07-18 14:34:06 1KJuX7-0001dS-9L == rdewald@gmail.com R=dnslookup T=remote_smtp defer (110): Connection timed out
2008-07-18 14:36:23 1KJucM-0001dd-KV alt1.gmail-smtp-in.l.google.com [209.85.129.27] Connection timed out
2008-07-18 14:39:32 1KJucM-0001dd-KV gsmtp183.google.com [64.233.183.27] Connection timed out
2008-07-18 14:39:32 1KJucM-0001dd-KV == rdewald@gmail.com R=dnslookup T=remote_smtp defer (110): Connection timed out
2008-07-18 14:43:48 Start queue run: pid=6419
2008-07-18 14:43:49 1KJuX7-0001dS-9L == rdewald@gmail.com R=dnslookup T=remote_smtp defer (-53): retry time not reached for any host
2008-07-18 14:43:49 1KJucM-0001dd-KV == treo@rdewald.com R=dnslookup T=remote_smtp defer (-53): retry time not reached for any host
2008-07-18 14:43:49 1KJucM-0001dd-KV == rdewald@gmail.com R=dnslookup T=remote_smtp defer (-53): retry time not reached for any host
2008-07-18 14:43:49 1KJuTv-0001ca-Mq == rdewald@hospicenyc.org R=dnslookup T=remote_smtp defer (-53): retry time not reached for any host
2008-07-18 14:43:49 End queue run: pid=6419

----

Then it finally times out.

Googling about this gets me all kind of advice about how to use GMail as a smarthost.

I DO NOT EFFING WANT TO USE GOOGLE AS A SMARTHOST.

I just want to send SMTP traffic. Do they not accept any port 25 traffic at all? I can't believe that.

How many feminists does it take to screw in a light bulb?

That's not funny.

Ooh, some people are taking themselves a bit too seriously these days. This is the current cover of my favorite magazine. Some people who are perhaps wound a bit tight, such as the Obama campaign's troublesome Bill Burton, have called this cartoon tasteless and offensive.

I heard all about it on the BBC this evening.

Tasteless and offensive? Damn right, just as all good political satire should be.

I'm sure some people think Stephen Colbert is an enthusiastic conservative, too.

Aw hell, throw another flag on the fire. Budweiser is Belgian beer now.

Here's your clue.

Advice for wedding guests.

Don't give every piece of formal clothing you own to the dry cleaner at the same time. I guess you could combine this one with an admonition against procrastination. I had put off going to the dry cleaners for a while. I've been preparing to physically move my work office, so this week I was going business casual, wearing clothes that I launder myself, and I just let the dry cleaning hang in the bag I have for it.

I turned it in last Wednesday, I was going to ask for a shirt and pair of slacks to be expedited, but the ticket I got back said I could pick it up after 9 am on July 5th. Cool! That's plenty of time (the wedding was at 6 pm).

Saturday morning, July 5th, I go to the dry cleaners to pick up my clothes. They're closed for the holiday.

So, I have no shirts I can wear with a tie. Off to the clothing store I go. I find a couple of great shirts 50% off, they're winter weight (which is why they are on sale in July, I'm sure), but otherwise really nice. I'll be inside somewhere, I thought, no problem that they're made of this luxurious, high thread-count cotton.

The wedding was outside, in a very light rain (which makes for 100% humidity). The reception was in a beautiful open-air performance space that offered no relief from temperature or humidity.

I should note at this point that I had a number of beautiful summer-weight shirts at the dry cleaners.

One doesn't need a date for a wedding. I had asked a dear friend of mine to accompany me, a beautiful woman herself, as a favor so I wouldn't have to go alone. She graciously accepted, but I wasn't great about communicating and reminding her of the actual date and time of the wedding.

It was a wedding for a close friend of mine at work, for the last two weeks the bride had been coming to me to rant, ask advice, and generally blow off steam about the pressure of planning it (a ritual I really enjoyed, I actually encouraged her to do this). So, the wedding was regularly on my mind. My companion was not hearing about it all.

So, the day came and she is understandably perturbed that it crept up on her. This only compounded the mood she was in, which could be described as "why am I going to a wedding for people I don't know and will never see again?"

Well, my middle name was "fifth wheel" as a teenager and young adult. I never had a date for anything. My invitation came with a "plus 1" and that opened up all those wounds from my youth. I wanted to go to something with a date for a change, I wanted people to see me as someone who could get one. This was all regression to unfinished business, it was not about here and now. Well, that's a great recipe for craptasticness no matter what the event or who the companion.

I didn't share all this with her ahead of time, so she was just thrilled to be going out on a hot humid and rainy July day to stand in the rain and sweat just because of some vague intention she expressed weeks ago and had since mostly forgotten about. I told her she didn't have to go, and I genuinely meant that, but I did want her to go, I still was living my 17 year-old's pain all over again, so I don't know how genuine my reassurance that she could stay home sounded.

She went, and she looked like a very hot, as in looking good, and dissatisfied goddess.

The bride inquired about the status of our relationship beforehand, and I told her that we were both just friends, single and looking. She sat us at the table with her single friends, and she talked me up beforehand with two of her most gorgeous single female friends, they were both really interested in talking to me, and here I am with a dissatisfied goddess on my arm. The men at the same table, also attractive people, were talking her up, but what could they do with me sitting there? It was like going to a pastry shop when you're on a diet. Argh.

Don't do that. Going to a wedding solo is fine. Asking a loyal friend to go to a wedding for someone they don't know and will never see again is not something to spend the currency of friendship over. If your friend wants to go, that's another thing. Don't ask it as a favor.

Finally, being the designated driver where there is an open bar is just masochistic.

Also, get over the prom before you're in your late forties. Actually, do it now if you haven't done it already.

Please post in my blog!

Introductory humorous hyperbole. Touching but meaningless personal detail. Declaration of solidarity with enthusiasts for something or someone.

Whimsical navel-gazing. Declaration of fealty to reality, resolve to try, try again. Passive solicitation of praise and encouragement. Earnest pledge to hew to high standards and rigorous discipline.

Tautological declaration of positive environment. Humble allegiance to higher power. Existential fall-back position, half-hearted and transparent well-wishing to readership.

Faith-based Community Action

Most of you know I work for a hospice. My hospice has a caregiver support program that is conducted by one of our chaplains. I have worked closely with her on my own initiative to integrate her program into our electronic medical record. The more information our clinicians have about what's going on with a family (and hospice treats the entire family when it is done well) the better the care can be. Getting this information into our patient's charts was a win-win because it also provided evidence to the people who fund the program that work is being done.

The program is directed by a Christian Chaplain, who has a Masters of Divinity and extensive training in clinical counseling. We train Chaplains at our agency, which gives us the benefit of retaining the cream of the crop. She is one of the most charming and naturally therapeutic people I've ever known. I know she's a Christian, I do not know what denomination, I've never asked, she's never volunteered. She does wear a clerical collar from time to time.

She primarily conducts four distinct community service groups, one is at a nursing home, one is at our in-patient unit, and two are at a community church. These are caregiver support groups, each a little different, all designed to provide support and comfort to family caregivers of hospice patients. They aren't fancy, just talking, listening, seeing others' experience, having one's own experience seen, sharing some snacks, coffee, etc.

Now, the nursing home and the hospital both receive governmental funds to support the costs of providing the environment for these groups. Providing this environment promotes the mission and work product of these organizations, it's promotional advertising to make it known that these things exist in these places. That nursing home has a leg up on other nursing homes who lack such a service, the same goes for the hospital which houses our in-patient unit.

My hospice, which is mostly supported by Medicare, has a dozen or so Chaplains. We have several demoniations of Christians, a number of Rabbis of different persuasions, and a Buddhist Priest (not me). Medicare dollars pay their salaries. They provide secular services, spiritual counseling, which is a part of the hospice benefit, written into the Federal Regulations. They are all moved to provide this service because their Faith compels them too, however, including the Buddhist.

My reading of The First Amendment restricts the government from laws concerning the establishment of religion. They used the word "promotion" in the last 1700's. They didn't use it here. So, even if one wants to argue that funding the secular services provided by religious organizations promotes said organizations, there is little to distinguish that from analogous promotion of non-religious providers of social services. Why is it okay to fund secular services provided by an academic institution, for example, or at a multi-national corporation, but not at a religious organization?

That kind of disenfranchisement seems to me to smack of lawmaking which actively undermines religion. That a First Amendment problem in my book.