Intel-Solutions-Summit-2009

Diary Entry For March 22, 2009

Viva Las Vegas!  Dr. Bollig and I headed to Sin City to represent Nor-Tech and participate in this year’s Intel Solutions Summit!

The content of the Intel Partner Conference was superb as usual.  They had many dynamic speakers discussing where the future opportunities are in technology.  I did notice that things were a bit more subdued than they had been in years past.  Apparently there’s been some kind of bad things happening in the World Economy lately.  Funny.  I hadn’t heard anything about it. 

Nor-Tech was nominated for the Most Innovative Server Solution award again.  Our company won the prize last year, but we weren’t fortunate enough to enjoy a repeat.  I heard that the winners had made some kind of Supercomputer that helped the United States print money much faster than they ever could before.  How are you going to compete against that? 

It was really fun seeing some of the other nominees.  This company had made some incredible Racing Simulator based on the new Intel Core i7 Processor.  It looked really cool!  I checked around the room hoping to discover a bunch of different kinds of simulators, but was saddened that I couldn’t find any more.  Sometime, I just really like a lot of simulation. 

We were happy to see our old buddies, David and Byron, from Texas.  Byron has told me in the past that he likes to visit Shortarmguy.com and he regularly sends other friends to my site as well.  He also told me that he’s putting up his own site called normalarmguy.com and now he’s posing like this in every picture he takes.  I think he was kidding. 

On the last night we were there, Intel hosted a “Decades Party” and invited all the guests to dress up like somebody from the seventies, eighties, or nineties.  That really narrowed down the options! 

Before we left for the trip, I asked Dr. Bollig if he planned on bringing a costume for the party.  He said “No Way!”  It turns out, this is the outfit he was planning on wearing out for the evening anyways.  Luckily, it allowed him to blend right in with the rest of the party people!

The party also had plenty of entertainment.  We were serenaded by Madonna, Billy Idol, and Tina Turner.   I followed the celebrities around a good portion of the night and kept asking them to “take me with you!” Sadly, none of them listened.

All in all, we had a great time connecting with our friends from Intel as well as their other top customers that we’ve grown to know and love over the past years.  The only bummer of the night was that Dr. Bollig kept falling asleep while having conversations with people as can be seen in this picture.  It was amazing how quickly he could drift off while standing there and not even drop his drink!

It’s March Madness Time!  On Thursday, the Minnesota Gophers made it to the big dance and played the Texas Longhorns.  I met with Texas Coach Rick Barnes before the game.  I explained to him that it had been awhile since the Golden Gophers had been in the tournament, so I would consider it a personal favor if he’d go easy on the team and let them win the first round.  But apparently Mr. Barnes doesn’t think he owes me any favors since he pretty much went ahead and destroyed our team.  You’ll learn, Rick.  You’ll learn.

Nice Web Emails of the Week

Hello Shortarmguy…

I’ve been thinking about writing this e-mail for months…Because some months ago, by coincidence (still don’t know how), I found your web site.

I live in Poland, in the center Europe, I’ve been to the US some years ago, and must say that your site, made me; first of all – think about life and things around us, which seem to be typical, but when looking at them from a little distance you can see much more and better; the world simply gets some new colors (I don’t know if it’s nice, but I’m sure it’s betterJ), second of all – your site remained me how much I’ve always wanted to see, but how strong I didn’t want to watch…

I don’t know if we get in contact anytime, I don’t know if I ever will have an opportunity to meet or hear you, but I’m sure I’ll hear a lot of you, because constantly your site will be welcomed by my!

Lately I’ve show the site to my wife (who has her 30th birthday today) and she liked it, maybe didn’t understand (yet) some things, but to be honest, who will? Is it necessary to understand everything? In my opinion, sometimes it’s better just to look, and even don’t share your opinion about the luck and love that only you can feel.

Your point of view is great, so simple, and so hard in the same way…

Best wishes to all your family.

Maciej.

 

Todd, 

I Came across your website this morning, and I’ve been enjoying going through it.

I’ve got a Short Arm Son of my own, and I can see the similarities of your experiences and his.  He’s 8 now, and a little Devil.  He wasn’t supposed to make it.  The doctors told us we’d only have hours with him, and he’s approaching 9 now.

He was born with something called VACTRAL Syndrome.  He’s missing the Radius in his right arm, and has 9 fingers.  We’ve done everything in our power to treat him like a Normal Child.  No special treatment, no special favors, etc.. It’s been going great.  He’s incredibly independent, and sometimes It’s hard to let him do things on his own, while I watch him struggle.  But I’m proud of him, and your website brought back a lot of memories of all his surgeries, and stays in the hospital.

Your sense of humor is a blessing, and it’s great to see you run through life with wit and humor.

Every once in a while my Son, has a hard time dealing with his Arm.  He has these moments, when something happens at school, he comes home and tells me some kids were picking on him, or whatever, and it’s tough.  Every once in a while he hates his arm, but he’s a fighter.  He bounces back and does his own thing.  He’s played Hockey for a couple years, he’s riding his bike like crazy, doing every thing a typical 8 year old does, but I still see his difficulty, like a parent does.  In the morning, I’ll let him sift through your website and show him your outlook on life.  I’m sure you will be a real inspiration to him.

Thanks for setting up your website, and giving me a view on how he can grow older and turn what people call a “Disability” into a positive experience.  I’ve added you to facebook, and hopefully you can take a look and see some pictures of my son Christopher.

Take care of yourself.

Paul Heaney

Guelph, On Canada.

In the restroom from local Mexican joint. Should I be concerned about 
their health inspection log?  -G

Why Lion Hunting is Scary

The Eye Test

Unsafe Sex

The New Urkel

Best costume of 2009 so far!

The Japanese have some strange prizes in their arcades!

Greatest Star Wars Action Figure Ever!

I don’t know.  If I see an underwater volcano erupting, my first instinct isn’t to get closer with my boat so I can take pictures.

Illegal Drag Racing,

A friend who works for the Police received the attached photo of a drag
race that went horribly bad.

It’s kind of disturbing to look at, but it serves as a reminder of what
can happen when drag races occur.

Please… Keep drag racing off the streets.

A different kind of drag racing

I’ve heard of toilet paper, but never a paper toilet!

Best Friends

Quote of the Week

“If you enjoy living, it is not difficult to keep the sense of wonder.”

– Ray Bradbury, writer
 

Jokes of the Week

A Russian arrives in   New York City  as a new immigrant to the United States.  He stops the first person he sees walking down the street and says, “Thank you Mr. American for letting me into this country, giving me housing, food stamps, free medical care, and a free education!”

The passerby says, “You are mistaken, I am a Mexican.”

The man goes on and encounters another passerby. “Thank you for having such a beautiful country here in America.”

The person says, “I not American, I Vietnamese.”

The new arrival walks farther, and the next person he sees he stops, shakes his hand, and says, “Thank you for wonderful America!”

That person puts up his hand and says,

“I am from Middle East.  I am not American.”

He finally sees a nice lady and asks, “Are you an American?”

She says, “No, I am from Africa.”

Puzzled, he asks her, “Where are all the Americans?”

The African lady checks her watch and says, “Probably at work.”
 

Dear President Obama,

Thank you for helping my neighbors with their mortgage payments. You know the one’s down the street who in the good times purchased their house for no money down, refinanced it several times, then bought SUV’s, ATV’s, RV’s, a pool, a big screen plasma TV, two Wave Runners, a boat, and a Harley.

I was wondering, since I am struggling paying  my mortgage and theirs On time, trying to do the RIGHT thing. could you arrange for me to borrow the Harley now and then?

Signed:
“Concerned in MN”

P. S. They also need help with their credit cards, when do you want me to start making those payments?

  1. P. S. I almost forgot – they didn’t file their income tax return this year. Should I go ahead and file for them or will you be appointing them to cabinet posts?

 Redneck word of the year :  “OBAMA”

I BOUGHT ME A CASE OF BEER AND DRANK IT OBAMA SELF!

Shortarmguy’s Favorite Websites

March 22, 2009

Chart Watch — The American Idol Alumni Association

Steve’s Office Pool — This is my co-worker Steve “Cuds” Cuddihy’s March Madness website.  He’s the best in the business.

Cadbury Eyebrows

Friday Night Lights

The best Drama currently on Television

Shortarmguy’s Emails To Make You Think

Email Shortarmguy at Shortarmguy@aol.com

March 22, 2009

Here’s a once-in-a-lifetime event captured on film… 

The fellow sitting on the tailgate of his pickup truck never realized the show he was missing. 

The little duck watches as the Eagle speeds straight at him at about 40 mph.

With perfect timing, the duck always dove and escaped with a mighty splash!   Then he’d pop to the surface as soon as the Eagle flew past.  This was repeated over and over for several minutes.   I worried the poor duck would tire and that would be the end of him.

A second Eagle joins the attack!   The duck kept diving “just in time”, so the Eagles began to dive into the water after him!

After several minutes the Eagles got frustrated and began to attack each other.   They soon began to dive vertically, level out, and attack head-on in a good old-fashioned game of high-speed “Chicken”.  Sometimes they banked away from each other at the last possible second.  Other times they’d climb vertically and tear into each other while falling back toward the water.  (The duck catches his breath at the right side of this picture.)

 A terrible miscalculation!    The luckiest shot of my life catches this 100 mph head-on collision between two Bald Eagles.

 One Eagle stayed aloft and flew away, but the other lies motionless in a crumpled heap.

The lucky duck survived to live another day.

It’s sad to watch an Eagle drown.  He wiggled, flapped and struggled mostly underwater.  He finally got his head above water and with great difficulty managed to get airborne.   To my astonishment, he flew straight toward me, and it was the most wretched and unstable bird flight I’ve ever seen!

The bedraggled Eagle circled me once – then lit atop a nearby fir tree.  He had a six-foot wingspread and looked mighty angry.

I was concerned that I might be his next target, but he was so exhausted he just stared at me.  Then I wondered if he would topple to the ground.  As he tried to dry his feathers, it seemed to me that this beleaguered Eagle symbolized America in its current trials.

 My half-hour wait was rewarded with this marvelous sight.   He flew away, almost good as new.   May America  recover as well.

If we are to attribute symbolism to this magnificent series, I can think of a lot of symbolism portrayed by the Eagles turning on themselves as well as the tenacity represented by the duck!