Spencesite

Backtastic. :)

// January 20th, 2011 // No Comments » // Life-n-Times

It wasn’t fun…and my back is still hurting due to a surgical procedure in which a 2.5″ slice was made in my back. On top of that, the doc told me afterwards that my back was worse off than my MRI images indicated…so he had to do some extra work…in the end, though, it was worth it: the back pain from the herniated/ruptured disc is gone, the pain shooting down the legs is gone, the numbness is gone. About 1/2 of the weakness is also gone. So, was it worth it? Hells yeah, it was. lol.

The day started off badly: my ride to the hospital never showed up. And given that I only had 20 minutes to get to the hospital (and Google Maps was telling me it’d take 22 minutes with traffic), I decided on a kind of nutty thing: I drove myself to the hospital. Not an experience I’d recommend when one has a back that wasn’t very happy…and without any pain meds (couldn’t take any before the procedure).

Once I got to the hospital, however, things went nicely: within 10 minutes I was registered, within 20 minutes, I was in Pre-Op. Where, unfortunately I had to sit for a while (Dr. Nelson had a complicated surgery before mine that went a bit long). Once they were ready for me, however, things went very quickly: the anesthesiologist went over their Q&A, the nurses went over theirs, Dr. Nelson visited and was kind enough to tell me (after seeing my “Advanced Healthcare Directive”–a living will, basically) “if you start to die on the table, well, I guess I might try to save you.” Hahaha. The joker.

One thing that was no joke was Dr. Nelson’s surgical skills. I remember me cracking some bad jokes as the oxygen mask went on…then nothing until I woke in the recovery room. In tremendous pain. They started off with a dose of morphine. When that didn’t work, they went up to a dose of dilaudid…a relatively powerful synthetic morphine. Then when that didn’t work, they gave me a second, stronger dose. Eventually my body calmed down. Evidently, it didn’t like being fooled around with that much.

When I finally got into my room (it took a while–WakeMed seems to be falling apart–of the four elevators servicing the wing I was in, only one elevator was working…the escalators in Day Surgery checkin were also not working when I showed up lol), I rapidly realized a few things: 1) I had absolutely no pain in my legs and lower body; 2) my back was a bit sore; 3) I really needed to go to the bathroom. Or at least I thought I did.

Nothing is quite as interesting as being handed a “jug” to pee in. With the room door wide open. At that point, however, I really didn’t care…and decided that if someone walked by, they could look for all I care. Took me about 30 minutes, but finally I was able to have my first post-op pee…and I’ll be honest–that’s a pretty good feeling.

Too much detail? Probably. lol. Some other observations about my stay at WakeMed: nurses were pretty nice, although they had some attitude (mostly towards other people–for whatever reason they seemed to like me), the room was tiny, the bathroom (when I eventually got to use it) had severe plumbing issues (they had to call in maintenance since it was backing up and spewing black gunk into the sink and shower), with all that said, it was still pretty comfortable. Hospital food still sucks–they didn’t think to feed me until after the kitchen closed–so my dinner was literally a boxed lunch; breakfast was a puck of meat (sausage?), two “pancakes”, some corn flakes, orange juice, and something optimistically called “coffee”. The downside: no syrup for the pancakes–which you really wanted after the first bite of the “butter only” version. Trust me.

The night of surgery day, my boss’s boss showed up and sat with me for over an hour and a half just chatting. Talk about helpful–it kept my mind off the remaining back pain, and he’s hilarious, so I got a number of good belly laughs out of that convo…even if I was “hopped up” on meds. Frankly, I think David is just amused at seeing me so pathetically strapped up to the various equipment (oxygen in the nose, anti-blood clotting pumps on the feet, a bed that kept adjusting the inflation of the air bladders whenever I moved). Well, K, that’s not fair–he’s actually also a very nice friend who just was concerned about me. Which is pretty awesome.

Later that night, a nurse took me for a walk–and we did two laps. I kept grinning like an idiot, and actually hugged a couple of nurses. They didn’t understand: it had been 3.5 months where I couldn’t walk without quite a bit of pain…and here I was walking less than 6 hours after my back operation…and zero pain. I wanted to do an Irish jig. And that kind of freaked out my nurses.

Anyways, the next day rolled around, and remembering I had driven my car, I started refusing pain meds (can’t drive your car if you’re so zonked you can’t see straight). Of course, I didn’t tell the nurses that–and they thought I was even nuttier than my desire to do back flips down the halls. My boss’s boss’s wife offered to give me a ride home, so at 10:30am, I was officially released from the hospital–and Susan came to pick me up. I had to explain the last minute alteration to the plans (she had planned on driving me home–but I needed to get my car home), so instead, she insisted on following me home in order to make sure I got home safe. Which was quite a trip for her…and not only did she follow me home–she had a care package for me! The best sammich and stew I’ve had in…well, an awfully long time. We even took a walk around my yard, while Susan gave me some thoughts and ideas of what I can do with what sort of is my yard. All in all, above and beyond, and it left me considering just how lucky of a person I am to have such caring folks in my life.

By then it was mid-day, so I popped open the lappy and started work. I had actually started answering work emails that morning, but to do “real work” I needed the lappy. That’s when I noticed that the dilaudid and morphine was…finally wearing off. Pain started getting a bit more intense, and by the time I crawled into bed–around 11PM, I was hurting. But I thought I’d sleep it off. Bad idea. Around 3AM, I woke up and was in pretty intense pain (it didn’t help that a small pillow which was propping up my back from the bed so I didn’t have to lie on my wound had slipped and was directly pressing into the wound lol)…do I was forced to down a perc. Eventually fell back asleep…and now, well, it’s the day after.

Cool note about the surgical incision: they used dermabond surgical glue instead of sutures or stitches. Which actually had a couple of nice side benefits: 1) no dressings to change–since there were no bandages; 2) no visit back to the doc to remove stitches! The glue actually wears off after 10 days, which is enough time for the wound to naturally close up. Isn’t technology wonderful? As an emerging tech strategist, I had to toss something tech related into this post, afterall. LOL

All in all, I’m ridiculously happy with the results: no more back pain, no more numbness. I didn’t even realize how much hurt I was in until that hurt was instantly relieved. Teh awesomeness. So, to everyone who sent me their best wishes, to all those who helped me in so many different ways, I can only say: thanks. It meant a lot to me that you were there for me when I needed you so badly.

And with that, it’s time to dive back into work. Take care everyone–and don’t be surprised if you see me in the gym in a week. Hey. I never claimed to be too smart.

Under the Knife, Part 2

// January 16th, 2011 // 2 Comments » // Life-n-Times, Opinion

Some of you may know that I’ve been having some issues with my back recently. For the past three months, I’ve had increasingly painful issues with my lower back. For three months, I sought help from a remarkable number of neurologists, neurosurgeons, physical therapists…I even had my back MRI’d no less than four times in three months. Finally, I found an orthopaedic surgeon who actually took the time out to show me what he saw, and why he was “astonished” that the neurosurgeons didn’t catch this three months ago…

On Tuesday, Jan. 18th, at High Noon, I’ll be going under the knife again for the second time in two years: this time, I’m going to have a procedure to remove a disc bulge that is, literally, pressing my spinal cord up against the back of my spine, causing me extraordinary pain, as well as weakness in the mid-section, legs, and feet. The most disconcerting part of it all: when I have a bowel movement, it feels like a wave of weakness and pain washes over my midsection. Talk about weird sensations.

What’s amazing to me is that I had not one, but two, neurosurgeons who said that they couldn’t find “anything in your MRIs that could explain your symptoms.” Nothing in my MRIs? Really? I’ll let you be the judge…

This is the sideview MRI image of my spine. Notice anything odd?

Something jumped out at me immediately: take a look at the space between the vertebrae three up from the bottom. See how the area to the right of the vertebrae is black? The orthopaedic surgeon who finally said (and I quote “no shit”) that I was not insane, and that I did, indeed have a back problem that could be addressed by surgery, pointed this out to me:

Basically you can see how the bulging disc has cut my spine into two discrete sections: the part above the L3/L4 disc, and the part below it. He even noted the nerves radiating out of the compressed area…the white being my spinal fluid. His conclusion: “this isn’t a minor case of a disc bulge…this is significant and and extreme stenosis of your spine at L3/L4″. He then showed me a top-down view, to make his point even clearer. Here’s the top-down version of the vertebrae/disc one level above the trouble spot–at L2/L3:

Now compare that to one level down, at L3/L4 (where the disc is bulging)…specifically compare the white space on the previous image to this image:

Note how there is zero white space around the nerves in the second image? Note the blue area that is the shape/size of the previous disc…and how the disc actually seems to extend into the spinal cord on the second image? To make things clear, I’ve highlighted the disc bulge in the second image here:

Pretty clear, no? So, why is it that not one, but two neurosurgeons missed this? As the orthopaedic surgeon (whom I strongly recommend–Dr. Leonard Nelson of Raleigh Orthopaedics…thanks to Peter Haggar for recommending him to me) noted: “it’s as if they never bothered to look at the actual MRI images.” And, in fact, that seems to be a distinct possibility. The reasoning? When visiting the neurosurgeons, I was specifically asked to also bring the radiologist reports. Those reports, noted Dr. Nelson, downplayed the severity of the disc bulge at L3-L4. So much so that Dr. Nelson considered picking up the phone, calling the radiologist to express his concerns about the tone of the report. In Dr. Nelson’s opinion: “the radiologist did you no favors…they simply missed just how severe this stenosis is, and in doing so, caused you to suffer for months for no real reason.”

The bottom line is that two neurosurgeons (one of which is pretty highly regarded in the community–he even performed a similar operation on Dr. Nelson, himself), seem to have missed something that even to an untrained eye seems pretty obvious…and given my advanced symptoms, was dangerous to miss since weakness is a pretty advanced symptom of stenosis. How serious? Left untreated this condition could have resulted in the death of the nerves servicing the legs, calves, and feet. And all of this because the neurosurgeons could not be bothered to look at the actual images. Amazing.

The lesson of all of this is: persist. If you think there’s something wrong, don’t listen to the “professionals”. Get multiple opinions. The answer is NOT (as the neurosurgeons and neurologists attempted to push) pain killers. Those do not address the root cause, but only mask the symptoms.

What amazes me is that one of the neurosurgeons over-ruled my General Practitioner doctor–who saw the MRI images, and thought that it was a pretty clear-cut case of stenosis. He insisted that the MRI did not explain my symptoms. In fact, I received a letter from that neurosurgeon that simply added insult to injury:

“I will also mention that you do have some findings in your low back between the third and forth vertebrae, but those findings are certainly not able to explain your complaints and findings on physical examination.”

Really? Take a look at those images again. What do you think? Is the complete blocking of the spinal column due to a bulging disc, the pressing of the nerves against boney protrusions on the back, and the complete lack of spinal fluid due to the disc blockage not indicative of potential issues with the nerves? Dr. Nelson seems to think they at least are contributory to my current ailments. This Tuesday, we’ll see if he’s right. I can only hope that he is.

Healthcare is broke, and gutting healthcare reform is NOT the answer.
This all made me think of the ridiculous arguments put forth by my friends on the Republican/Tea Party side of the political spectrum: the concept that we have the world’s best medical system. Sorry, but that assertion is simply asinine. We. Do. Not. In fact, numerous studies put our health and medical system far behind other first world nations–which, of course, have been attacked by the right as being “distortions”. Sorry, but I’ll trust the New England Journal of Medicine, which has far more weight to me than some partisan group sponsored and paid for by the medical insurance lobby to gut current healthcare reform efforts by the current administration. Let me state this as clearly as I can:

We do NOT have the world’s best healthcare system. Period.

Why do I say this? Simple: I have one of the best healthcare policies in the nation, from the world’s largest IT company. I have also received consistently subpar care–even from one of the nation’s most renown medical providers–a provider which specifically failed me in so many ways, I can’t even count them any more.

Bottom line: if our healthcare system is broke for someone like me, god knows what it’s like for someone who doesn’t have the resources or insurance plans that I am fortunate enough to have. All of which pales in comparison to the healthcare that my friends in Europe and Japan enjoy. So we have the best healthcare system in the world? Hogwash, lies, and purposeful misrepresentations.

Healthcare is broke. And suggesting “free market” forces can provide a better system is also bunk: think about it for a moment. The free market is driven by one thing, and one thing only–maximization of profit for the shareholder.

So I posit this question to you: should our healthcare system be driven by profit? Do you think it’s correct that someone profit off another’s health misfortunes? If so, frankly, I’d question whether you, or someone you love, has had to suffer through our existing system, and whether such a person morally understands that somethings must necessarily go beyond profit–because, let’s be honest here: if anything should be beyond the realm of market economics, shouldn’t that be the care we provide for our loved ones through our healthcare system? If you don’t agree with that, honestly, you scare me, and you embody many of the worst traits of those things which concern me about our current economic model.

Lastly, I’ll go back to something which medical providers have subscribed to for centuries: read, for a moment, the hippocratic oath, which I quote here in it’s modern version:

I swear to fulfill, to the best of my ability and judgment, this covenant:

I will respect the hard-won scientific gains of those physicians in whose steps I walk, and gladly share such knowledge as is mine with those who are to follow.

I will apply, for the benefit of the sick, all measures [that] are required, avoiding those twin traps of overtreatment and therapeutic nihilism.

I will remember that there is art to medicine as well as science, and that warmth, sympathy, and understanding may outweigh the surgeon’s knife or the chemist’s drug.

I will not be ashamed to say “I know not,” nor will I fail to call in my colleagues when the skills of another are needed for a patient’s recovery.

I will respect the privacy of my patients, for their problems are not disclosed to me that the world may know. Most especially must I tread with care in matters of life and death. If it is given to me to save a life, all thanks. But it may also be within my power to take a life; this awesome responsibility must be faced with great humbleness and awareness of my own frailty. Above all, I must not play at God.

I will remember that I do not treat a fever chart, a cancerous growth, but a sick human being, whose illness may affect the person’s family and economic stability. My responsibility includes these related problems, if I am to care adequately for the sick.

I will prevent disease whenever I can, for prevention is preferable to cure.

I will remember that I remain a member of society, with special obligations to all my fellow human beings, those sound of mind and body as well as the infirm.

If I do not violate this oath, may I enjoy life and art, respected while I live and remembered with affection thereafter. May I always act so as to preserve the finest traditions of my calling and may I long experience the joy of healing those who seek my help.”

Note that no where in that oath is a mention of profit for the provider–in fact, quite the opposite…the oath requires healthcare providers to consider economic consequences of their actions and the impact on their families for those they care for. Greed should have no place in healthcare. And that’s just something you either agree or disagree on. It is curious to me that typically those who don’t agree with that assertion have rarely suffered a significant health issue. Go figure.

So, that’s my rant. And what’s going on with me.
Expect another post here, er, post surgery. Surgery is scheduled for 12PM on Tuesday, and should be done by 2PM. If all goes well, I’ll be back at the homestead on Wednesday…and will have someone at the house waiting for me when I do get home (thanks SpenceWatch friends!).

For those of you who have passed along your best wishes, thanks. For those of you who didn’t even know about it, well, don’t feel bad–I just don’t like to complain about health issues–even though this posting would seem to be counter-evidence of that. I just figured it was time to let folks know what was going on…

Death of an Ubër Home Server

// February 8th, 2010 // No Comments » // Emerging Tech, Life-n-Times

Spence goes looking for an ultimate DVR/fileserver/webserver/mail server solution for his home…ideally all on the same machine. Well. It didn’t quite work out that way.

So one day I had the epiphany: wouldn’t it be cool to have one server that could basically take care of my home computing server needs. I’ve gotten a bit spoiled, I have to admit: I became somewhat addicted to timeshifting my favorite TV programs to a time which would fit into my somewhat hectic life (it’s the gym workouts which did it–I would go to the gym every Tues and Thurs nights, and that required a DVR to record some of my favorite nights of TV). I also had a number of other servers running–a web server to serve this site as well as a half dozen others, a mailserver to support the various domains I owned, and a fileserver to make it convenient to access files no matter what computer I was using at the time (iPhone, laptop, gaming rig, etc.). I also loved the ability to share files between the homestead and work.

The Old Setup
For years, I had the following servers setup to service those needs:

• Web/Mail Server: I was using a Linux variant (Fedora) with a LAMP stack to service my web and mail server needs. This server was basically bullet proof, having never really crashed on me for years.
• File Server: An old Pentium 4 running Windows XP acted as my File Server, again, pretty reliable, and very simple to hookup from my other Windows machines in the house.
• DVR: Time Warner DVR box. Capable of recording hi-def television, the box was very flakey, and frequently would need to be rebooted.

Wouldn’t it be nice, I thought, if I could combine all of these services on one machine? Afterall, it’s not like I was serving high traffic websites, had huge amounts of email, or was recording every other television program on the planet. In fact, my websites had pretty minimal traffic, and I only recorded a few channels. So after looking at a number of solutions, this is what I came up with:

• Uber Server: Running Windows 7, with XAMPP (Apache, MySQL, PHP, Mercury Mail), FreeSSHd, Windows Media Center.

I had an old Dell Dimension 8400 machine I could put all of this onto with 3GB RAM, 500GB x 2 HDs, an NVidia GT240 video card with 1GB DDR3 RAM, and a Hauppauge WinTV PC-250 tuner card. Perfect, right? Well, not so much.

Windows 7
Having been a beta tester for Win7, I was busy telling people just how much of an improvement Win7 was over Vista. And, in fact, I still believe that (as do many others). But imagine my chagrin when I installed Win7 on my old Dell Dimension 8400…and it failed. Not a driver failing. Not an app failing. The install failed. The machine would just randomly freeze during the install. After testing the memory, stress testing the CPU, removing every card (except the video card–which I changed), and changing out the PSU, there was only one conclusion: my old Dell Dimension 8400 simply couldn’t hack Win7. It seems that Win7 may press the machine beyond it’s capabilities (I was able to reinstall WinXP/Media Center Edition 2005 back onto the machine without ill effect).

Windows Media Center for Windows 7 has some interesting features, including plugins (for Netflix, for instance, and fantasy sport player tracking)

So, I decided to bite the bullet: use WinXP (and it’s old version of Media Center 2005–which lacks some of the niftier features of Windows Media Center for Win7) and see if I could set up the server to work with the other services I needed. I downloaded XAMPP and installed it within five minutes…MySQL no problem. Apache, no problem. Setting up the server as a file server, no problem. Porting over my Linux Apache settings, no problem. Moving the MySQL server no problem. Getting Mercury Mail working…not so much. In fact, I spent about four hours getting Mercury Mail configured properly…getting it to forward email to an external mail system, setting up anti-spam systems, etc. Finally, I got it set up…and started getting very strange error messages about interactive services (which shouldn’t have happened), as well as random crashes. Add on top of that the fact that the anti-spam features of Mercury Mail were letting numerous pieces of spam get through (80 or so a day, compared to the 1-2 that my old Sendmail system was letting through), and I wasn’t too happy.

Then the server started to freeze/lockup. Evidently a memory leak in Mercury Mail was causing Windows Media Center to run out of memory and fail when it needed to record a TV show. Throwing up my hands–and worried that one site my server was servicing (which wasn’t my own) was going down and staying down for hours on end…I finally fired up my old Linux server and took down the Uber Server.

In the end, I’ve ended up with the following:

• Web/Mail Server: Back to the old LAMP stack running reliably on a P4 machine.
• DVR: Broke down and bought a new motherboard (dual Atom processor with 2GB RAM–more than sufficient for the very light duty this machine will incur) and case…scavenged the RAM from the old Dell Dimension 8400, along with the Hauppage tuner and the graphics card (the mobo had a PCI-Ex16 slot, a PCI-Ex1, and a PCI slot–allowing me to plugin a decent graphics card and the TV tuner card)…all running Windows 7 for Media Center.
• File Server: Another new server, running Windows Home Server. This cool piece of software allows me to do the nifty trick of “borrowing” HD space from other machines, and adding it into one big file system. There’s also plugins for Windows Media Center/Win7 to allow integration between the media center and the file server. The machine is another ATOM based machine, using the mobo integrated graphics (just need it for install, since WHS is designed to be headless), as well as a SATA expansion card so I can hook up additional HDs as needed in the future.

Lessons Learned
Yes, I ended up with more servers…but at least I got rid of the pain-in-the-ass TWC DVR, as well as their ridiculous $30/monthly fees ($20 for the DVR service, $10 for the DVR rental, itself). The cost? $80 per mobo and CPU ($160 total), and another $60 for a new case. The memory I already had in my “uber machine” (2GB went to the Media Center box, 1GB to WHS–which btw, only requires 512MB to run). The HDs also came from the uber machine, as well as the video card. So in 8 months, I’ll have broken even ($240/$30 = 8mos) and I’ll have a modern DVR which can do other nifty things (like access Netflix streaming content, track my favorite sports teams and players, stream my ripped MP3s, and even allow me to access it all via my iPhone). WHS lets me to a number of cool things, too…like easily add additional capacity, manage files through Media Center, and backup all of my Windows machines automagically–something I used to do in a very ad hoc way.

Other Options Looked At
I did experiment with a number of other options (mostly DVR software), including all sorts of Open Source/Linux offerings (my initial thought was to make my Uber Server a Linux box since I absolutely loved the performance of my web and mail servers). Boxee, XMB, MythTV were all tested…and failed for a variety of reasons (only MythTV could record live TV broadcasts…and it’s interface was so bad, that I rapidly got annoyed…it also, for some reason, couldn’t recognize my very standard Hauppage WinTV-250 tuner card). XMB and Boxee had very appealing skins, but couldn’t record live TV, so was of limited interest. From a file server standpoint, Linux did very well, as I just created a SAMBA mount, and, voila, that was complete. However, to backup my Windows machines, I had to install Amanda…which worked, but was a pain in the ass to configure…say what you will about WHS, but it is exceedingly simple to install…it just “works”. Tried a number of other backup systems, too, including Bacula and rsync. So in the end, while Linuix was a very powerful platform, it was too much of a pain for me to configure and even worse to maintain.

The real question is how this configuration will work long term. I don’t expect any problems with the web/mail server. It’s been solid for years. What will be interesting to see is how Windows Media Center, and even more so, WHS hold up in the long term. I’ll let you know if I run into any major hurdles down the road…

GoogVan Drivers Gotta Eat Too!

// March 3rd, 2008 // No Comments » // Life-n-Times

Nosing around StreetView, I discover something that gives me an inordinate amount of glee: the GoogleVan going through the drive thru of a McDonald’s. Oh, woe, Google, I had thought much more of thee: come on–a McDonalds? I expected so much more from The Goog…

So, as I continue to amuse myself with StreetView: The Triangle, I ran across something that made me go “Hmmmm”. If you take a look at StreetView on Walnut Street, and you head past the McDonald’s on Walnut Street, for three segments you get jarringly dropped into…

That’s right: the McDonald’s parking lot. Evidently the GoogVan was cruising past MickeyD’s during lunch, and decided to hit the drive thru.

My proof? Well, take a look at this picture: Obviously the van is pulling away from the drive thru.

Next, take a look back as the GoogVan makes its escape: see the arrow?

The drive thru is one way only. In fact, if you rotate around, you’ll see Goog’s StreetView amusingly insists that Cary town planners aren’t too bright, as, evidently, Walnut Street goes right through…

a tree. No word on whether that’s a walnut tree. The point? Well, SpyView…er…StreetView is a two way, um street. Yes, you can look into my home’s windows. But then again, I can catch you going to MickeyDs. Muahahahahahahahahahahahahaha….er….hahahaha…heh….*sigh*

Goog’s StreetView: How Are They Picking the Cities?

// March 2nd, 2008 // No Comments » // Life-n-Times

Thought for the Day: Ever look where Google is busily taking pictures for it’s StreetView feature? Some of the cities might surprise you: Boise, Idaho. Manchester, New Hampshire. Now, StreetView has come to the Raleigh, Durham, Chapel Hill area…

So, I was trying to get a map put together for a friend to my house, and in the process I discovered that Google Maps’ StreetView had come to my neighborhood. I’m not a conspiracy theorist. And yes, the title graphic is a bit, er, conspiracy like (I was having fun with it–the eyes in the “oo” of Goog are Eric Schmidt’s…a bit puffy if you ask me). Granted, I was a bit freaked out when I looked at my home address and saw this:

Yes. That’s my house (lens flare and all), with my Acura parked out front (which is in sore need of a wash, but seeing as we’re still under drought conditions, I don’t think a sparkley clean car is worth the fine…OK, so Cary actually has an exception for washing your car…but it’s a convenient excuse not to wash the car, so I’m sticking with it). Now, the fact that Google is busy taking pictures of streets isn’t so curious–Google has been doing Street View for a while.

But what I found odd was where they had done StreetView. NYC? Makes sense. But…um…Raleigh? So, I started looking at what cities Google had sent it’s roving street voyeur to, and the results were…surprising:

Every place you see a “camera” icon, well, that’s a city that’s been mapped (you can check out a larger image here). Now, it’s an interesting map, especially when you look at the cities not covered…and which ones are. For instance, I can understand Miami. But Boise? Nothing against Idahoans, but I just don’t see Boise as having as much tourist traffic as, say, New York City. And, oddly, Portland, but not Seattle. Or how about Tuscon, but not Washington DC? Well, K, DC might not be a good idea from a security standpoint, but that still doesn’t explain why there’s no StreetView, er, view, of Atlanta or New Orleans.

What really makes one think, however, is the question of what method is being used for this particular form of madness? The current selected cities seems as if someone has pulled one too many cups from the keg…I can imagine a large map of the US on some wall in the Googleplex, and after a Friday afternoon kegfest, a drunken finger smudging a point on the map: “That’s our next city!”

But we know Google is a bit smarter on how they spend money. Well. We’d like to think so. Which brings us to the point: why these cities? Why now? Does Google have some nefarious plan for the poor citizens of Boise? Does it seek to install secret facilities at the cities which don’t seem to make much sense? Does Larry and Sergei have hidden vacation cottages at these cities…or did someone just think it’d be amusing to map out the streets of Manchester (New Hampshire)?

K, you conspiracy nut jo…er…theorists, shoot away!

Oh–and one last note–is it me or does the Google StreetView map look like an ungodly virus right in the middle of North Carolina? Don’t believe me? Check it out for yourself…