It’s that awful time of year again.  Time for “Peeker Brownies”.  What is a peeker brownie you ask?  And why do I hate them so much?  To answer the question.  I went digging into the Internet Archive and found a post I originally put up on my GreensboroIsTalking blog on November 30, 2005 (before its database crash and subsequent resurrection).  Reprinted in its entirety below:

I was walking past my neighbor’s apartment tonight and noticed she had started to put up her Christmas decorations.  That got me thinking about the holidays of my childhood and how I encountered one of my earliest conspiracies.

You see, being the youngest of six kids, I had to endure the wrath of my siblings all year round, but when I was a little guy, the holidays were the worst. 

Now we’ve all had to go through our early years being especially good around the holidays because “Santa is watching”.  But in our house, not only was the jolly old elf himself playing Big Brother, but he had help. 

It came in the form of the wretched little guys like the one in the picture…affectionately called “Peeker Brownies” at our place.  “Peeker” because Mom used to hide them all over the house and they were always “peeking” out at you…watching you…all the time…wherever you went…whatever you did….sort of an evil conspiracy if you ask me.  And “Brownies” because at our house, the little buggers had on brown outfits instead of the green ones in the picture.

And boy did my brothers and sisters play that up. 

“Don’t do that…Peeker Brownies are watching!” 

“Peeker Brownies are watching…you won’t get any presents!” 

Damn…I could barely move without someone letting me know that I was being watched.  It’s amazing I made it through all that without being scarred for life.

Oh…excuse me…gotta run…the people in my monitor are watching me again.  Can’t let them see me.

Thought I would try a quick post from my HTC Thunderbolt after upgrading the old blog to the new WordPress 3.2.1. Seems to work.

Greensboro is Talking is back!

Ok, found something to write about.

I’ve been looking for a decent tool to convert PDF files to Word files and I think I’ve finally found it…and it’s actually on online tool.

PDF to Word is an online document converter which does a pretty good job on the conversion.  I tested a 10 page file with heavy graphics and aside from one or two minor dropouts, it did the job fantastically.  Give it a try sometime.

They have some other great tools there too which include:

• PDF Creator
• PDF Editor
• Web to PDF

Holy Crap!!! It’s been almost three months since I posted.  Better find something to write about.

With all the hubbub of the holiday season, it was (almost) easy for me to forget that I turned the big 4-0 on the 21st.  The more I reflect on it, the more I’m amazed at the number of things that have changed and the advances that have been made in my lifetime.  There’s been a lot made of “The Greatest Generation” of baby-boomers and all the advances made in their collective lifetimes.  But it would seem that my “Generation X’ers” have kicked that into hyperdrive.

A few examples:

- I was just a few months old when Neil Armstrong muttered those famous words “One small step for man…”  since then we’ve seen hundreds of space shuttles launch and land safely…and watched in horror as God took the brave astronauts from us on Challenger and Columbia.

- We watched as the music industry went from 45s and LP’s to 8-tracks, cassettes, cd’s, and ultimately digital in the form of portable mp3′s, Ipods and phones that play music.

- Rotary dial phones to push button, to big clunky purse-sized cell phones to phones in your pocket.

- GPS…knowing where you are to within a few meters at all times.  Just when I got good at folding maps too.

- Building-sized computers to desktops to laptops to hand-helds to palms.  And everything that came along with it.  Mankind has never been so connected or informed at any time in history…and yet we can still be so lonely as we substitute online relationships for virtual “friends”.   Give me a good conversation with friends over a beer any day.

- Better living through chemistry…medical and pharmaceutical advances in the last 20 years alone makes one wonder just how long we will live.

- Worse living through chemistry…read some junk-food labels some time and wonder how this stuff doesn’t kill you.

- The Civil Rights Movement of the 60s was winding down as I was born.  Now we have our first Black president.

And yet for all of our advances, human-kind still reverts far too often to some of it’s more basic instincts.  We’ve gotten very good at finding new and innovative ways of killing each other.  Terrorists, the War on Terror, suicide bombings, human rights violations, genocide and the list goes on.

Once, when I was very young, I read a Beatle Bailey comic strip where Sarge told Beetle that, in the entire course of human history, there’s been less than 200 years of peace so the military always has to be prepared.  Beetle responded by asking a simple question.  Something to the effect of “if that’s the case, shouldn’t we be preparing for peace?”  Amazing the things that stick with you as you get older, isn’t it?

Jimmy…take me away.

I got a fiance for Christmas.  How about you?

Rough year for the boys on Friendly Avenue…and their employees.

Seems my “layoff” (read as “firing”) along with two others back in January was a harbinger of things to come.  Two more good friends with whom I’ve had the pleasure of meeting occasionally for lunch every now and again were “let go” (read “fired”) today.  That brings the total number of folks out the door this year to eight.   Considering that, including attorney’s and partners, there were 22 folks working there at the start of this year, things are looking bleak.

What just a year ago was one of the largest real estate law firms in town with several of the top builders as clients is now a shell of it’s former self.   At least one of those major builders is in serious financial troubles and others are coming up with all kinds of crazy schemes to get folks to buy while their stock plunges.    Not hard to imagine why the folks in the glass building are shedding payroll expense like it’s going out of style.

You’re No One if You’re Not on Twitter - JB Walker

I guess I was no one.  That’s pretty much how I felt after all the social networking talk at ConvergeSouth and the “Independent Bloggers Conference” this weekend.  It seemed to be a never-ending litany of social networking sites… Qik and Kyte and FriendFeed…oh my…Zimbio and Stumbleupon and Twitter…I could cry.

But in all seriousness, it did serve to emphasize the fact that no one person can possibly keep up with all the new Web 2.0 apps…much less use them all.  The simple fact is that they can be very useful for promotion of either yourself or your business…you just have to find the one that works best for you I guess.

CS was an informative conference…at least the sessions I was able to attend, but was a little discouraged about the lack of familiar local faces in the crowd (just 3 from Greensboro at the Saturday IBC?).  Wouldn’t be at all surprised if this was the last ConvergeSouth in Greensboro.   

On a Twitter note…some bastard had already taken “TheShu”…so I had to go with theshu2.  Serves me right for draggin my feet I guess.

I used to complain about the number and frequency of campaign commercials on tv in past elections.  It used to really get on my nerves when I would see the same commercials over and over again.

But not anymore.

Since acquiring a DVR a few years ago, commercials go by in blissful silence.  I don’t think I’ve seen a campaign ad yet this year…from any party or any candidate.  Candidates are spending millions on tv commercials…and for that matter newspaper ads which I don’t subscribe to…and their message isn’t getting thru to me.  What a waste.

Because like a growning number of Americans, I choose where and how I get my media today.  So I ask the candidates, what are you doing to reach me…and others like me?  Ya better be online for starters.

I wonder how long it will take til someone successfully runs a virtual campaign for a major office.