sploop

is how I feel this morning. Just a long weekend all up. Had the family around for the Memorial Day holiday - bbqing on the lawn. It turned out to be a better day than I expected, which was good - a lot of fun was had. The two days leading up to them were less rosy - work work work to finish the downstairs bathroom and guest bedroom, clean the garage, mow lawns, clean upstairs and finish off the little bits needed to make the place look good. It was a long couple of days. This morning was a good one - woke up right on 6:10, out of the house by 6:55, gassed up ($1.68/gal down from $1.74) and then zoomed into work arriving at 7:50). Now, the insanity begins because of the 3 day weekend, but I can live with that.

sploop

is how I feel this morning. Just a long weekend all up. Had the family around for the Memorial Day holiday - bbqing on the lawn. It turned out to be a better day than I expected, which was good - a lot of fun was had. The two days leading up to them were less rosy - work work work to finish the downstairs bathroom and guest bedroom, clean the garage, mow lawns, clean upstairs and finish off the little bits needed to make the place look good. It was a long couple of days. This morning was a good one - woke up right on 6:10, out of the house by 6:55, gassed up ($1.68/gal down from $1.74) and then zoomed into work arriving at 7:50). Now, the insanity begins because of the 3 day weekend, but I can live with that.

almost to the end of the day..

almost made it through the day without losing an arm or a leg or my sanity. (not so much the last one "you don't have to be insane to work here" etc etc). Trying to nail down a couple of things and zoom to the graduation. Some random Python: Praline: I am not a loony. Why should I be tarred with the epithet 'loony' merely because I have a pet halibut? I've heard tell that Sir Gerald Nabarro has a pet prawn called Simon - you wouldn't call him a loony! Furthermore Dawn Pathorpe, the lady showjumper, had a clam called Stafford, after the late chancellor. Alan Bullock has two pikes, both called Chris, and Marcel Proust had an 'addock! So if you're calling the author of 'A la recherche de temps perdu' a loony, I shall have to ask you to step outside! Clerk: All right, all right, all right. A licence? Praline: Yes! Clerk: For a fish. Praline: Yes! Clerk: You *are* a loony.

almost to the end of the day..

almost made it through the day without losing an arm or a leg or my sanity. (not so much the last one "you don't have to be insane to work here" etc etc). Trying to nail down a couple of things and zoom to the graduation. Some random Python: Praline: I am not a loony. Why should I be tarred with the epithet 'loony' merely because I have a pet halibut? I've heard tell that Sir Gerald Nabarro has a pet prawn called Simon - you wouldn't call him a loony! Furthermore Dawn Pathorpe, the lady showjumper, had a clam called Stafford, after the late chancellor. Alan Bullock has two pikes, both called Chris, and Marcel Proust had an 'addock! So if you're calling the author of 'A la recherche de temps perdu' a loony, I shall have to ask you to step outside! Clerk: All right, all right, all right. A licence? Praline: Yes! Clerk: For a fish. Praline: Yes! Clerk: You *are* a loony.

doop de doo!

Yes, it's Friday! Strange night last night. I left work at 5:10, and was only 10 miles down the road by 5:45. Ew. There was late finishing roadworks at Woodend that closed 2 out of the 3 lanes. (!) OW. Made it home, ate dinner (mmmmm, Sonic!), then started painting the bathroom downstairs. Once the 3rd coat goes on we're done with painting! Yay! Hopefully I can get out of work early today - one of my nieces is graduating tonight and we're going to show Family Support (tm). It's been a busy week. I'm worn out. Need vacation or at least a couple of days of doing very little.

doop de doo!

Yes, it's Friday! Strange night last night. I left work at 5:10, and was only 10 miles down the road by 5:45. Ew. There was late finishing roadworks at Woodend that closed 2 out of the 3 lanes. (!) OW. Made it home, ate dinner (mmmmm, Sonic!), then started painting the bathroom downstairs. Once the 3rd coat goes on we're done with painting! Yay! Hopefully I can get out of work early today - one of my nieces is graduating tonight and we're going to show Family Support (tm). It's been a busy week. I'm worn out. Need vacation or at least a couple of days of doing very little.

so tired...

I'm just out of energy today. I think it's the weather combined with too much to do. Thankfully, I have most of the day open to do things other than go to meetings, so that should be a bit of a relief. In other news - downstairs is almost done. All we need to do is paint the bathroom wall, border and all the decorating et fini! Ok, except for the little stuff like shelves and pictures and plates for decoration. But apart from that - all the big stuff is done and looks way cool. Must dig out the digital camera and do the whole virtual tour thing. In other news - the big evil projects get bigger and more evil as the days go on. Ew. I have a sneaky suspicion my project engineer is going to go and play on the other side of the house, which means that I'm the man when it comes to billing. This is how fubared the company is - the most important bit of the entire puzzle is in the hands of a contractor who is burning out. Insane? I think so!

so tired...

I'm just out of energy today. I think it's the weather combined with too much to do. Thankfully, I have most of the day open to do things other than go to meetings, so that should be a bit of a relief. In other news - downstairs is almost done. All we need to do is paint the bathroom wall, border and all the decorating et fini! Ok, except for the little stuff like shelves and pictures and plates for decoration. But apart from that - all the big stuff is done and looks way cool. Must dig out the digital camera and do the whole virtual tour thing. In other news - the big evil projects get bigger and more evil as the days go on. Ew. I have a sneaky suspicion my project engineer is going to go and play on the other side of the house, which means that I'm the man when it comes to billing. This is how fubared the company is - the most important bit of the entire puzzle is in the hands of a contractor who is burning out. Insane? I think so!

crap

It's been a rough week so far. Way too much to do and not nearly enough time to do it in. Monday was just bad. Tuesday was bad and long. Wednesday I'm left to hold the 800lb Gorilla Project of Doom together for the next 3 days. My project with the little cloud of doom following is has a pretty awful volume manager problem (the oracle backup area is intertwined on LUNs inside the database volume. Which is fine, unless you want to BCV mirror the database only. So the solution is to down the database, then pick out the LUNs which have the backup area on it, trash them, then move the raw database data from one disk to another by LUN. EW EW EW. It's screwed up alright). Then, as if thats not enough, I have equipment all over the place that I've ordered and everyone but me is told that its arriving. The problem with that is that I need to know when its turning up so I can get the build documents done so that it can be wheeled in and turned on and configured. There seems to be a hole in the process there. Then, as if the "not enough" needed more, I just got handed making all the switch port and IP allocations until we can sort out how to automate it. I'm supposed to do that, run the 5 projects I'm working on, go to the meetings (today I have a grand total of 3.5 hours free to do work - the rest is in meetings), share a cube and still not work more than 8.5 hours a day? I think not. And the move idiots managed to screw up my phone - I have voicemail waiting for me, but my password no longer works. Bra-vo. Way to go. Way to help me do my job. I love my job, really I do. I also need to get home and paint the downstairs bedroom - there is apparently a memorial day bbq at our place on Monday, so cleaning and painting and sanding and general dogsbodying needs to be done.

crap

It's been a rough week so far. Way too much to do and not nearly enough time to do it in. Monday was just bad. Tuesday was bad and long. Wednesday I'm left to hold the 800lb Gorilla Project of Doom together for the next 3 days. My project with the little cloud of doom following is has a pretty awful volume manager problem (the oracle backup area is intertwined on LUNs inside the database volume. Which is fine, unless you want to BCV mirror the database only. So the solution is to down the database, then pick out the LUNs which have the backup area on it, trash them, then move the raw database data from one disk to another by LUN. EW EW EW. It's screwed up alright). Then, as if thats not enough, I have equipment all over the place that I've ordered and everyone but me is told that its arriving. The problem with that is that I need to know when its turning up so I can get the build documents done so that it can be wheeled in and turned on and configured. There seems to be a hole in the process there. Then, as if the "not enough" needed more, I just got handed making all the switch port and IP allocations until we can sort out how to automate it. I'm supposed to do that, run the 5 projects I'm working on, go to the meetings (today I have a grand total of 3.5 hours free to do work - the rest is in meetings), share a cube and still not work more than 8.5 hours a day? I think not. And the move idiots managed to screw up my phone - I have voicemail waiting for me, but my password no longer works. Bra-vo. Way to go. Way to help me do my job. I love my job, really I do. I also need to get home and paint the downstairs bedroom - there is apparently a memorial day bbq at our place on Monday, so cleaning and painting and sanding and general dogsbodying needs to be done.

ow

Yes, my back hurts again. So there I am, tooling along writing build documents, and I get a call from my lovely bride saying "head to the parents-in-law for dinner". Ok, no problem, straight up 635 and I'm there. Well, I got there at 6pm, and we didn't leave until after 10pm. I had changed oil and rotated tires and other car-related stuff by that time, and alas, I spent most of the night sitting on a hard wooden chair. This is incredibly bad for my back, and generally leaves me with a spine way out of alignment and back muscles that are ready to strangle me for doing such dumb things. Ow. Slept pretty well last night - it's been cold overnight recently, and the days aren't getting much above 65 or so, which makes for good sleeping weather. OTOH, I can feel a cold coming on due to the change in weather. It was a pretty good drive in this morning, although the cop sitting at 87th and Renner was not amusing. Anyhoo, busy day today. Off I zoom.

ow

Yes, my back hurts again. So there I am, tooling along writing build documents, and I get a call from my lovely bride saying "head to the parents-in-law for dinner". Ok, no problem, straight up 635 and I'm there. Well, I got there at 6pm, and we didn't leave until after 10pm. I had changed oil and rotated tires and other car-related stuff by that time, and alas, I spent most of the night sitting on a hard wooden chair. This is incredibly bad for my back, and generally leaves me with a spine way out of alignment and back muscles that are ready to strangle me for doing such dumb things. Ow. Slept pretty well last night - it's been cold overnight recently, and the days aren't getting much above 65 or so, which makes for good sleeping weather. OTOH, I can feel a cold coming on due to the change in weather. It was a pretty good drive in this morning, although the cop sitting at 87th and Renner was not amusing. Anyhoo, busy day today. Off I zoom.

long weekend..

it was a very long weekend, but productive. Friday night saw us finishing up the preparation work on all the walls upstairs and downstairs, and then we wallpapered all saturday. The living room and entryway and hallway all look amazing - great colors, great border - all good :-) We even got behind the entertainment unit! I also finished off the downstairs preparation - filled and sanded the holes in the wall and removed all the backing paper from the previous border and washed the walls of glue and crap. It's all ready for my lovely bride to clear the room and paint :-) Apart from that, the weekend was bits and pieces - cracker barrel for lunch on saturday, home depot and target, aborted attempt to see "A knight's tale" (thwarted by session times), mowing lawn, thunderstorms and other bits and pieces. Oh, and Monday is garbage day, so it was clean and pitch. Astute readers may well notice a large increase in the domesticity quotient and a lessening of the geek index. This is by design, trust me, and is not a permanent fixture. In the past, I've geeked at work for long hours, then gone home and geeked for even more hours until I fell asleep. I've taken a solid decision to put my need to hack and experiment and Do Stuff aside for domestic replacements to try and balance my life a little better, especially as it Isn't Just Me any more. What this really is is a break from the creative process on How To Do Things and a chance to refresh my brain so that I can come back to the geeking and make lots of good things happen. Ideas need to be taken care of in the same way that the body needs rest and the house needs maintenance.

long weekend..

it was a very long weekend, but productive. Friday night saw us finishing up the preparation work on all the walls upstairs and downstairs, and then we wallpapered all saturday. The living room and entryway and hallway all look amazing - great colors, great border - all good :-) We even got behind the entertainment unit! I also finished off the downstairs preparation - filled and sanded the holes in the wall and removed all the backing paper from the previous border and washed the walls of glue and crap. It's all ready for my lovely bride to clear the room and paint :-) Apart from that, the weekend was bits and pieces - cracker barrel for lunch on saturday, home depot and target, aborted attempt to see "A knight's tale" (thwarted by session times), mowing lawn, thunderstorms and other bits and pieces. Oh, and Monday is garbage day, so it was clean and pitch. Astute readers may well notice a large increase in the domesticity quotient and a lessening of the geek index. This is by design, trust me, and is not a permanent fixture. In the past, I've geeked at work for long hours, then gone home and geeked for even more hours until I fell asleep. I've taken a solid decision to put my need to hack and experiment and Do Stuff aside for domestic replacements to try and balance my life a little better, especially as it Isn't Just Me any more. What this really is is a break from the creative process on How To Do Things and a chance to refresh my brain so that I can come back to the geeking and make lots of good things happen. Ideas need to be taken care of in the same way that the body needs rest and the house needs maintenance.

thursday. All day.

yes, Thursday. I like thursday because my day is free after lunchtime to do all the crap I need to do. Yesterday was good. Out to lunch with EMC to do a customer satisfaction survey at the Hereford House. Then the Sun rep came around at about 2 with ice cream :-) Picked up chinese on the way home, ate, added a second and third coat to the entryway (which looks really cool now!), took down some border in the guest bedroom - darned stuff came right off the backing, so I have to strip the wall of the papery crap thats left. Boo. Slept pretty well last night despite the heat. It's into the 70s overnight, and we're trying to avoid the air conditioner because of energy prices, but it's working out ok. Next project once we're done inside is a bigger deck. And some landscaping. By then, I think we're about done with the house.. well, except for finishing the laundry room, hollowing out the area under the stairs and shelving in the garage. Oh, and a hot tub somewhere. Ok, so I'm nowhere near finished. But APART from that, we're close.

thursday. All day.

yes, Thursday. I like thursday because my day is free after lunchtime to do all the crap I need to do. Yesterday was good. Out to lunch with EMC to do a customer satisfaction survey at the Hereford House. Then the Sun rep came around at about 2 with ice cream :-) Picked up chinese on the way home, ate, added a second and third coat to the entryway (which looks really cool now!), took down some border in the guest bedroom - darned stuff came right off the backing, so I have to strip the wall of the papery crap thats left. Boo. Slept pretty well last night despite the heat. It's into the 70s overnight, and we're trying to avoid the air conditioner because of energy prices, but it's working out ok. Next project once we're done inside is a bigger deck. And some landscaping. By then, I think we're about done with the house.. well, except for finishing the laundry room, hollowing out the area under the stairs and shelving in the garage. Oh, and a hot tub somewhere. Ok, so I'm nowhere near finished. But APART from that, we're close.

in other news...

the painting and wallpapering at home has begun. I'm thinking we'll need to wash the walls again to get rid of the glue residue, but that's not a big deal. I had to go to the branch meeting last night. Pretty good stuff - the KC office is doing an awful lot of business. Made it home in around an hour - Overland Park is a long way away from home, but it's interstate almost all the way so that's ok. Although I'd like it if it was 70mph all the way, instead of 65 then 70. Anyhoo, once again, the madness begins so I'll be on my way..

in other news...

the painting and wallpapering at home has begun. I'm thinking we'll need to wash the walls again to get rid of the glue residue, but that's not a big deal. I had to go to the branch meeting last night. Pretty good stuff - the KC office is doing an awful lot of business. Made it home in around an hour - Overland Park is a long way away from home, but it's interstate almost all the way so that's ok. Although I'd like it if it was 70mph all the way, instead of 65 then 70. Anyhoo, once again, the madness begins so I'll be on my way..

let the insanity begin... no wait, it already has.

well kids, guess what? Manglement, in it's infinite wisdom, has decided (for an unknown reason), that I and my fellow contractor-from-the-same-company have to cube share. This will not work. I'm loud, busy and I like speakerphone. I have hundreds of people stopping by in a day, I need desk space and quiet time away from people. I am pissed off about this. Then to top it all off, my manager decided that he would have the team assistant pass on the "good" news instead of doing his own dirty work. Isn't that just peachy? Really, I mean, that's the kind of intestinal fortitude that is going to see such great returns on investment, especially since I'm the one who makes most of the billing projects actually happen. Funnily enough, I intend spending an awful lot of time this weekend doing the administrivia to get all of my skill assessments up to date.

let the insanity begin... no wait, it already has.

well kids, guess what? Manglement, in it's infinite wisdom, has decided (for an unknown reason), that I and my fellow contractor-from-the-same-company have to cube share. This will not work. I'm loud, busy and I like speakerphone. I have hundreds of people stopping by in a day, I need desk space and quiet time away from people. I am pissed off about this. Then to top it all off, my manager decided that he would have the team assistant pass on the "good" news instead of doing his own dirty work. Isn't that just peachy? Really, I mean, that's the kind of intestinal fortitude that is going to see such great returns on investment, especially since I'm the one who makes most of the billing projects actually happen. Funnily enough, I intend spending an awful lot of time this weekend doing the administrivia to get all of my skill assessments up to date.

and so it goes part III

tuesdays used to be my favorite day of the week. But its quickly turning into Just Another Day. Went out to lunch with the boss on Friday and he made the offer to me to go permanent at this gig. This is good news, it is bad news, and it's so-so news all at once. Good that I'm considered important enough to make the offer, bad because I'm not going to take it, and so-so because it's a double edged bargaining chip with the current $VBC for whom I conslut. Though my 6 month review is coming up... hmm. Gads, has it been 6 months? I guess so. Time flies when you're working hard. My 600lb gorilla project is puttering along. Almost done with it though, then I can work on the real stuff that needs to be done - the 900lb gorilla. I also seem to be being sucked into working on the 1200lb gorilla, which is bad. Not because the project is bad, but because the project engineer running it is a twonk and he and I don't see eye to eye on the direction that should be taken from Engineering. Oh well. I can outlast him :-) I haven't been sleeping properly lately - last night was ok, thanks to us turning the air conditioning on, but I'm just bone tired when I get home and then I go and do other things with my lovely bride so I'm exhausted when I hit the pillow. Anyhoo, these things are sent to test us. I go now to get on a conference call.

and so it goes part III

tuesdays used to be my favorite day of the week. But its quickly turning into Just Another Day. Went out to lunch with the boss on Friday and he made the offer to me to go permanent at this gig. This is good news, it is bad news, and it's so-so news all at once. Good that I'm considered important enough to make the offer, bad because I'm not going to take it, and so-so because it's a double edged bargaining chip with the current $VBC for whom I conslut. Though my 6 month review is coming up... hmm. Gads, has it been 6 months? I guess so. Time flies when you're working hard. My 600lb gorilla project is puttering along. Almost done with it though, then I can work on the real stuff that needs to be done - the 900lb gorilla. I also seem to be being sucked into working on the 1200lb gorilla, which is bad. Not because the project is bad, but because the project engineer running it is a twonk and he and I don't see eye to eye on the direction that should be taken from Engineering. Oh well. I can outlast him :-) I haven't been sleeping properly lately - last night was ok, thanks to us turning the air conditioning on, but I'm just bone tired when I get home and then I go and do other things with my lovely bride so I'm exhausted when I hit the pillow. Anyhoo, these things are sent to test us. I go now to get on a conference call.

monty python for the day..

Some people have made the mistake of seeing Shunt's work as a load of rubbish about railway timetables, but clever people like me, who talk loudly in restaurants, see this as a deliberate ambiguity, a plea for understanding in a mechanized world. The points are frozen, the beast is dead. What is the difference? What indeed is the point? The point is frozen, the beast is late out of Paddington. The point is taken. If La Fontaine's elk would spurn Tom Jones the engine must be our head, the dining car our oesophagus, the guard's van our left lung, the cattle truck our shins, the first-class compartment the piece of skin at the nape of the neck and the level crossing an electric elk called Simon. The clarity is devastating. But where is the ambiguity? It's over there in a box. Shunt is saying the 8.15 from Gillingham when in reality he means the 8.13 from Gillingham. The train is the same only the time is altered. Ecce homo, ergo elk. La Fontaine knew his sister and knew her bloody well. The point is taken, the beast is moulting, the fluff gets up your nose. The illusion is complete; it is reality, the reality is illusion and the ambiguity is the only truth. But is the truth, as Hitchcock observes, in the box? No there isn't room, the ambiguity has put on weight. The point is taken, the elk is dead, the beast stops at Swindon, Chabrol stops at nothing, I'm having treatment and La Fontaine can get knotted.

monty python for the day..

Some people have made the mistake of seeing Shunt's work as a load of rubbish about railway timetables, but clever people like me, who talk loudly in restaurants, see this as a deliberate ambiguity, a plea for understanding in a mechanized world. The points are frozen, the beast is dead. What is the difference? What indeed is the point? The point is frozen, the beast is late out of Paddington. The point is taken. If La Fontaine's elk would spurn Tom Jones the engine must be our head, the dining car our oesophagus, the guard's van our left lung, the cattle truck our shins, the first-class compartment the piece of skin at the nape of the neck and the level crossing an electric elk called Simon. The clarity is devastating. But where is the ambiguity? It's over there in a box. Shunt is saying the 8.15 from Gillingham when in reality he means the 8.13 from Gillingham. The train is the same only the time is altered. Ecce homo, ergo elk. La Fontaine knew his sister and knew her bloody well. The point is taken, the beast is moulting, the fluff gets up your nose. The illusion is complete; it is reality, the reality is illusion and the ambiguity is the only truth. But is the truth, as Hitchcock observes, in the box? No there isn't room, the ambiguity has put on weight. The point is taken, the elk is dead, the beast stops at Swindon, Chabrol stops at nothing, I'm having treatment and La Fontaine can get knotted.

once more into the breach, dear friends...

yup, it's a monday. I just did not want to get up this morning. Yesterday was a good day. I was up at 8am and pottered around the house doing stuff (catching up on email, starting laundry, unloading the dish washer, peeling the odd bit of wallpaper. This was while my lovely bride slept. She needed the sleep after having had a few sleepless nights. Around 10 I decided it was time to tame the wild beast in our lawns, so I wandered on out and killed grass for an hour. A quick nap and we were cleaning out the office. That took way less time than we both expected, and all the laundry got done. Is this just not the most domestic situation? We then decided that a cheezy movie was in order. And was it cheezy - "Charlie's Angels" is just one long T&A flick, but Bill Murray almost makes it worthwhile. Then, in celebration (or was it punishment?), I washed walls so my lovely bride can paint on her second spring break. I think (I can only stress "think") she's decided on the living room/entryway and the guest bedroom and I really like the wallpaper border she's chosen for both of them. Warm in the living room, calm in the guest bedroom. After that, we watched the first of two parts of "Christy". Why I watched it, I don't know and stop laughing in the back! Retired about 10:30 or so and did NOT want to get up this morning. Anyhoo, just finished the old time sheet for last week - damn I'm busy. More to go on with this morning, so away we go!

once more into the breach, dear friends...

yup, it's a monday. I just did not want to get up this morning. Yesterday was a good day. I was up at 8am and pottered around the house doing stuff (catching up on email, starting laundry, unloading the dish washer, peeling the odd bit of wallpaper. This was while my lovely bride slept. She needed the sleep after having had a few sleepless nights. Around 10 I decided it was time to tame the wild beast in our lawns, so I wandered on out and killed grass for an hour. A quick nap and we were cleaning out the office. That took way less time than we both expected, and all the laundry got done. Is this just not the most domestic situation? We then decided that a cheezy movie was in order. And was it cheezy - "Charlie's Angels" is just one long T&A flick, but Bill Murray almost makes it worthwhile. Then, in celebration (or was it punishment?), I washed walls so my lovely bride can paint on her second spring break. I think (I can only stress "think") she's decided on the living room/entryway and the guest bedroom and I really like the wallpaper border she's chosen for both of them. Warm in the living room, calm in the guest bedroom. After that, we watched the first of two parts of "Christy". Why I watched it, I don't know and stop laughing in the back! Retired about 10:30 or so and did NOT want to get up this morning. Anyhoo, just finished the old time sheet for last week - damn I'm busy. More to go on with this morning, so away we go!

good day

yesterday was fun. My lovely bride and I spent the entire day together just doing Stuff. We went out shopping, had lunch, did some more stuff, came home and pottered around the house. Nothing amazing. nothing earth shattering, just were together. We watched the patriot last night, and I have to say I like the movie a lot. I think it's worth sitting through the cheeziness to remember not only the horror of war, but also the horror of what it does to people. But also, why it is important to fight for Right and to be courageous enough to work endlessly to resolve a problem without resorting to violence, but then to have the courage to accept that all other means have been exhausted and that the only response is force. This is interesting thinking given the current OKC brouhaha going on. I guess the difference between the decision that McVeigh and co made (and all the school shooters who wanted to "show people") and the Revolutionary War is that their decisions were unilateral and not shared by others. The justifications are spurious to say the least, but at the same time, important to them. Before people start leaping to their defence, I personally believe that violence is nothing but a last resort, and that the oft-quoted "All that needs to happen to allow evil to flourish is for good men to stand by" is not a justification for terror. It is a justification to raise an army to fight against an injustice, but the weapon of the weak - terror - is never excusable.

good day

yesterday was fun. My lovely bride and I spent the entire day together just doing Stuff. We went out shopping, had lunch, did some more stuff, came home and pottered around the house. Nothing amazing. nothing earth shattering, just were together. We watched the patriot last night, and I have to say I like the movie a lot. I think it's worth sitting through the cheeziness to remember not only the horror of war, but also the horror of what it does to people. But also, why it is important to fight for Right and to be courageous enough to work endlessly to resolve a problem without resorting to violence, but then to have the courage to accept that all other means have been exhausted and that the only response is force. This is interesting thinking given the current OKC brouhaha going on. I guess the difference between the decision that McVeigh and co made (and all the school shooters who wanted to "show people") and the Revolutionary War is that their decisions were unilateral and not shared by others. The justifications are spurious to say the least, but at the same time, important to them. Before people start leaping to their defence, I personally believe that violence is nothing but a last resort, and that the oft-quoted "All that needs to happen to allow evil to flourish is for good men to stand by" is not a justification for terror. It is a justification to raise an army to fight against an injustice, but the weapon of the weak - terror - is never excusable.

friday!

yup, like clockwork, it's friday! not much to report - thunderstorm woke me up at 3am and then I kinda dozed in and out. It had cleared by dawn, so the drive in was pretty good. No crack-smoking monkeys to be seen. I'm tired tho. I'm not sure what it is, we just seem to be getting to bed later. Which is fine for my lovely bride as she can sleep in, but it's making me all weird during the day. Apparently we're going out to dinner tonight for mother's day (MIL will be in Nebraska on Sunday), so it'll probably be a late night tonight too. The weekend? Dunno. Definitely need to mow the lawn and do so work outside - the spider killer needs to be spread, and I think we'll have to mesh each of the air vents in the house. Hmmmm. Oh, and we're going to start planning the deck to build. Yay us :-)

friday!

yup, like clockwork, it's friday! not much to report - thunderstorm woke me up at 3am and then I kinda dozed in and out. It had cleared by dawn, so the drive in was pretty good. No crack-smoking monkeys to be seen. I'm tired tho. I'm not sure what it is, we just seem to be getting to bed later. Which is fine for my lovely bride as she can sleep in, but it's making me all weird during the day. Apparently we're going out to dinner tonight for mother's day (MIL will be in Nebraska on Sunday), so it'll probably be a late night tonight too. The weekend? Dunno. Definitely need to mow the lawn and do so work outside - the spider killer needs to be spread, and I think we'll have to mesh each of the air vents in the house. Hmmmm. Oh, and we're going to start planning the deck to build. Yay us :-)

so long and thanks for the sesame chicken

Long day yesterday. As detailed before in this august forum, yesterday started at mumble o'clock, and proceeded through to 11pm. Most of last night was spent talking to the 'rents-in-law, and to our neighbour. By the time bed rolled around, it was 11, and I'd been standing on concrete for too long. Today is going to be icky. Rainy and thunderstormy in the morning (it started at around 3am as it woke my lovely bride up), clear but hot and muggy for the day and then thunderstormy all night. Ew. I have much to do today. I've been going to meeting after meeting trying to get the real requirements for a couple of projects I'm running driven out, and finally the chickens have come home to roost and I know what they want. Yay me. So now i zoom. I may have to head to a different meeting up on College, but that's ok. That's for the 1200lb gorilla project that threatens to kill us all, and I enjoy taunting the application people. :-)

lunch!

lunch is now complete. Please enjoy the hold music. Another caesar salad has been demolished, much to the satisfaction of the individual involved. Though the salad isn't that impressed. Not a bad day so far. My afternoon of meetings is coming soon, but they should all be amusing.

mumble o'clock

I have been up since 5. My lovely bride's favourite uncle and aunt were changing flights at KCI on their way from Omaha to Pittsburgh, so we went out and spent a very pleasant hour with them. She's an adorable aunt type and he's ex-AT&T, so we talked shop while she and wifey talked family and stuff. Very cool, if only a little early for this little black duck. I zoomed all the way down 435S to work from the airport and it only took 10 minutes longer, which is pretty darn cool. Need to gas up tho, and having a car which does 300miles on a tank is nice given gas prices these days. Uncle Gordon made the point that if the huge SUVs-o-doom were taken off the road, an awful lot of oil would be saved. What an interesting thought. Now I have a day full of meetings I don't want to go to. Wah. From 1 until 5 I am in meeting after meeting after MEETING. EVIL. DIE MEETING SCUM DIE. Oh look, "Jailbreak" as music of the day. How convenient.

how is it...

that the music that is playing in the car seems to reflect the oncoming day? I'm zooming down Renner with ACDC's "JailBreak" booming out of the sun roof and it just struck me as... odd. Pretty slow day today. More hardware, more quotes, more design, all fun fun fun.

and so it goes

another monday down. Not a bad day. I'm mostly caught up on paperwork, my World Domination Through Server Movement plan is coming together. I'm tired now, so I go sleep. 9pm is too late when you've been up since 6.

it's another monday morning...

yep, Monday. Most hated of all weekdays. But, I continue on despite it. Good drive in, reasonable nights sleep. The weekend was busy, but productive. We have the color scheme for the living room/entry way and guest bedroom pretty much nailed down, and I finished hanging shelves and the like for the bedroom and bathroom. Who knew a chisel could be so useful, but the engineer in me sez "having the right tools is a Good Thing". It rained a little on Sunday - thunderstorms that moved in from Kansas, but I did get the lawn mowed. It's looking ok, but the turf builder needs to go down tonight and I need to nuke the weeds before the neighbourhood dogs are eaten by them. Which wouldn't be a bad thing. Busy Monday morning, time to zoom.

quick note

it's saturday morning and it's too early. Another sleepless night for my bride, and she refuses to wake me up when I snore. Bad girl. Today is going to be a miscellaneous day, I think. The weather is pretty rainy and I'm thinking a lot of home maintenance as opposed to being out and about. Need to surf on by the UofE to scope out my training options - CCNA isn't much (heck, neither is MCSE2000+I), but it's a start to my plans of World Domination Through Training.

tired, so tired

been a while since an entry, so here goes. Yesterday was bad. I had icky protein deposits on the edge of my contacts that irritated my right eye all day. THAT SUCKED. It started to rain just as I left the building, and when I got onto 152 from 435, a famous Missouri rainstom hit. Visibility was zero, and I had to stop under an overpass to wait for it clear a little. Picked up chinese for final survivor night and spent a pleasurable few hours curled up with my lovely bride. Did not want to get up this morning, but did anyway. Came to the site, worked a couple of hours, then went to a meeting with my real boss to map out a training plan. Got soaked walking into the building (thankyouverymuchhughie), spent good hour chatting, walked out with warm fuzzies and a training plan. (EMC is gut). Bright sunshine and of course my sunglasses were in the car, so I spent most of today with a headache. Bah. Staff meeting, random meetings, pat on the head from the director, almost time to go home. Yay. Have a good weekend.

and so it goes part II

Another day, another $MUMBLE dollars. At work, gas prices are WAY UP. $!@@#$!@!! I have another project now, so my plans to become an evil overlord of engineering progress. There was a pretty gruesome murder on Friday last week. A little girl's headless body was found at a local park. Police combed the park and the surrounding areas all friday and saturday and sunday. They couldn't find the head. They used sniffer dogs, but no head. That's bad, the investigation continues. Tuesday, man "knows there is something out there" and walks into the woods and 150 feet from where her body lay, "finds" her head in a bag. Now, here's the shitty part. Instead of calling the cops, he calls Fox4 News and has them film him PRODDING THE BAG WITH A STICK, and saying cheezy shit like "lots of flies... it feels like a head". THEN they call the cops. I wanted the cops to shoot him and the reporters. That's just fucking wrong. Instead of going to the police to help them, instead of preserving the scene where the head was found, instead of doing the decent thing, he called the news crews. My cynical self says it was to make sure he got the reward money. I want him arrested for obstruction of justice. I want the news crew arrested for obstruction of justice. I want the community who has been "banding together" to find the killer to villify this idiot for not going straight to the police with his find. I want the killer caught and sent to the chamber. I don't want to see the footage of this precious childs head being prodded with a stick endlessly on the news. This is the latest and the most heinous incarnation of the disturbing trend of "news as entertainment" that continues to make US mainstream media a joke. If this trend doesn't stop by someone smacking this idiot and the news media HARD, then the national joke gets bigger and less funny. There, I have ranted. I don't feel better, but it's something.

during the while...

must watch life of brian again soon. At work again. Up at 6, out of the house by 0630, at work by 0715. Good drive in, except that I can now say I've actually seen someone who has nailed a deer. "Yes officer, it really did jump out in front of me". Lots to be done today - I'm taking on another project so the handoff for that is today, and I have to get agreement on the Evil Plan For World Domination Through Server Relocation (EPFWDTSR). Waiting for the morning conference call to start, so I go now.