A juggling technophile shares personal stories, challenges, humor and perhaps some political commentary.
Ramblings, often stream of conscious, journaling the events of my life.
I love it when a project comes to an end. I have now wrapped up a Visual Basic for Applications project for Excel that created a user interface making it easier for a person to manage the data. The computer wants to see 25 rows of 100 numbers. The person wants to see 10 rows of 10 numbers and then be able to look at those 100 numbers 25 different times. It also had to export data to a csv file and import data from a csv file.
Next!
Anyone else afraid to look at your email on a Monday morning?
As I stare at my monitors listening to the hvac’s compressor, the whine of my case fan (please be the case fan and not the cpu fan!), the dog chasing the cat, and the otherwise still quiet of the night, my stomach knots in anticipation of a horrid week ahead. I have allowed projects to run overdue. Being late on a project is the world’s worst feeling for me. I want to beat myself up hard for the reasons that they may be behind but that self-deprecating behavior only serves to reducing my productivity so I avoid the would have, should have, could haves and push on optimistically reminding myself that a project ends when it meets all the client’s requirements and not when it is the perfect piece of artwork. Coding is art. And artists can easily find their pieces needing "just one more change" endlessly. Time to close these projects out.
Yesterday I had the pleasure of spending the day at Pellissippi State for the Boy Scouts of America’s University of Scouting. I had some classes in the Order of the Arrow which I found very enlightening in regard to this organization within the BSA. I also took a class on lightweight backpacking which was terrific. They highlighted some of the fancy equipment that we like to buy like nalgene water bottles which may weight 6oz and cost $7 whereas an empty Gatorade bottle is "free" (came with the drink) and weights less than an ounce. So what’s 6 ounces? Two nalgene bottles weight almost a pound without water. That’s significant when you are trying to keep a pack under 25 pounds. A pack should weight 25% of a person’s weight so a 100 pound person/child should be carrying no more than 25 pounds. The outdoor cooking class was fascinating. And the class on the Cumberland Trail was enlightening. It never occurred to me that established trails like the Appalachian Trail change over time due to land rights, mining, etc. Made me want to get out and do more frequent hiking.
My wife disagrees with my latest efforts to save the world. I figured bathing once a week instead of once a day would save on water and electricity. Then it occurred to me that our real water usage is in laundry! So if I wore every outfit 2 or 3 days in a row instead of just once a day we could really cut down on water consumption and electrical usage! Imagine the savings! And we could do even better if we used one pair of underwear a week instead of per day! We could cut the heating down a degree or two if I could get my wife to start sharing the bed with me again. I really miss her hugs.
Am I ever having some serious self-doubt over agreeing to take Noah on the Okefenokee trip! Yes, money is a recurring issue in my head but when I think about it rationally that is just an excuse for me to bail. The real reasons are my work schedule (can I have my deadlines met before the trip?), some separation anxiety (am I being fair to Cathy?), fairness to the rest of the family (shouldn’t this money be put in a savings account to go toward a family Disney trip?), and are we properly equipped for such a trip. This seems like a wonderful and rare opportunity for Noah. I know I will return refreshed and chilled (these trips are like tranquilizers for me). I usually follow my gut and my gut seems to be telling me, "don’t go." Of course, other signs do point to going. When I went to ask if they still had adult and child openings (this trip is limited to 20 scouts and 5 adults), I was told, "someone confirmed you and Noah in an email."
Noah has an opportunity to camp out in the Okefenokee for 5 days and 4 nights. The estimated cost doubled on me last night. I have concerns about the trip including:
I feel like my gut is saying not to do this trip but I also think I am misreading my reasons for saying no. I have to decide today.
So, I just had a machine call me, give the following message, and hang up.
Hi! This is Cathy from Nebraska. Please call me at 888-xxx-xxxx.
More than likely this is some kind of collector. Sears and I are having a little dispute. I am more than willing to talk to Cathy but not if she is not going to be professional enough to 1) identify the nature of the reason she wishes me to call or 2) call me in person. This approach is wrong on so many levels. With the caller id blocked, I cannot reject the calls. I should do this approach with a 900 number where I harass people into calling so that I can charge them for the phone call.
Yesterday I woke at 4am to get Sarah to the church for her ski trip to Sugar Mountain NC only no one was there. At 5am I am calling to wake her grandparents who in turn call and wake the preacher’s wife only to find out that the trip was canceled due to the fires of global warming. Sarah was supposed to call the day before and confirm that the trip was on but she summed up her 13 year old skewed view of prioritized with "I forgot" which translates to "I didn’t want to make that call. That’s stoopid.quot;
After returning a sad teenager to the house, I put out some fires on a client’s website then awoke Noah so we could go fire .22 gauge rifles with the boy scouts (see also and also). The boys did really well at the firing range. (Cathy has the non-cellphone pictures) When we returned home, the boys talked me into having a bonfire.
The flames were huge and elicited concerned phone calls from two parents of children that were at my house.
As the night drew on, the bonfire stayed strong. I wanted to sleep and I also wanted to let the wood burn down further but the winds were picking up. Checking the weather, I confirmed that a wind advisory suggested strong winds throughout the night so I doused the fire for 10 minutes yet today it still smolders.
Last Saturday, I took advantage of a gift card to Calhoun’s and took Cathy and Tommy out to dinner. We chose the Calhoun’s in Turkey Creek and afterwards shopped at World Market. Everything was nice and relaxed until a concerned neighbor called to report that our front door was wide open. Slight panic and concern for Molly ensued. Logical thinking went out the window and I begged my neighbor to please go confront the burglars in my house which she did. Afterwards, she called to report that Molly was sleeping on the couch, she chased the outside cat back outside, locked and closed the door. Tommy, being last out, felt horrible. The relaxing evening we had up to that point now held a tingling tension.
Last night we joined a friend for a bonfire at their house. Upon returning home, our front door was wide open. Being the last out, I knew I had locked and securely closed the door. Moment of self-doubt. Then redemption! The scratches on the inside doorknob reveal that Molly, the German shepherd, can let herself out of the house! So, why does she scratch at the door to be let in?
Yes, in college I drank to excess. When Cathy and I were dating, she was working a health fair and one of the booths was worked by a police officer with "drunk googles" which are these fractured things you put on to simulate intoxication then try to walk a straight line. He watched me walk it really well and coolly commented, "this guy has had too much practice." But college is long gone and I rarely drink now-a-days.
So, once in a blue moon I might buy a six pack of beer and have one beer a night while watching television with Cathy. On rare occasion we buy a bottle of wine. I certainly do not hide it from the children. They should know that it is alright for an adult to have a drink. Apparently I was wrong. The last bottle of wine was purchased with our full complement in the car so Noah witnessed me walk into the liquor store and knew that later Cathy and I drank some wine! (of course, Cathy probably has all of 4 glasses a year) So, Noah took it upon himself to check out a book from the school library titled something akin to "Alcoholism: Someone in my family drinks too much" What a good caring guy! Of course, he is going to be a nervous wreck before he reaches high school if he keeps worrying like this.
Last night Tommy and I had a great pleasure. We saw a shooting star and this wasn’t one of those tiny thin lines way up in the sky. This was a streaking fireball that at first I thought it to be a low flying helicopter as the light seemed to just appear but then it grew brighter and formed a tail then burned in a green ball. It was wicked!
I have seen tiny shooting stars before but this is only the second time in my life I have seen one so close. The first time I was lying on the ground by a bonfire in south Knoxville and a smoky rock streaked from horizon to horizon so low that it seemed like I could have thrown something at it. I swear I could distinguish pockmarks as it flew overhead. Tonight’s was different and very cool.
This happened a few minutes before 9pm EST (2am UTC). Anyone else see it?
I know I’ve said it before, but there is just something powerful about waking up when all the numbers on the clock are the same. Today: 222
So the boys are going to go the rifle range and fire guns on Saturday. The meeting has ended, the boys are playing and the adults are having a brief follow-up meeting. The speaker is very serious.
Speaker: "Saturday we are going to need lots of adults. We will be shooting 4 and 5 people at a time."
Me, unable to help myself: "Don’t you think our numbers will dwindle quickly that way?"
Speaker, trying to compose a correct answer stares blankly.
Me, clarifying: "I mean, you said you want lots of adults and we’ll be shooting 4 and 5 people at a time. I’m not showing up!"
On a side note regarding scouting, Penn & Teller really ripped into the organization not for the skills it teaches but for the discrimination and hate on the public’s dime. I am a huge scouting advocate so this was a difficult watch for me because I did not enjoy some of the things Penn & Teller point out as I believe we should teach our children acceptance and tolerance.
