Category: Daily Life

What’s it like working for yourself? I’m running in on the homestretch of a very important project. I’m not as far along as I had hoped and suddenly the server needs an update that is critical to the completion of the project. But alas! The update caused the server to quit working. So breaking my incredible run is server troubleshooting. Of course, I can overcome this challenge but at times like this it sure would be nice to have a support staff to fall back on. The sales rep could be explaining the delay to the customer. The IT team could be fixing the server. The development team could be brainstorming in a think tank to work around the issue. HR could be cutting me a paycheck regardless of the delay. Ah, greener grass!

Like quicksand.

Since it is hurricane season, an animated reminder of what to expect from the different categories of storms. We hear a lot of talk about global warming causing increased storm intensity. I grew up being told that storm seasons come in 20 year patterns. We just recently came out of a calm 20 years and are now seeing the types of storms to expect for the next twenty years. This chart shows quantity not intesity so it doesn’t really support or dispute that claim.

So apparently I was chosen to be a guest speaker somewhere for some unknown topic. The dream starts in my hotel meeting some strange people that want to shoot (project through the air) to the hotel on the other side of the street which is where my speaking will be. I give them the slip, run across the street and start looking for the Holiday Inn. I bump into this friendly lady and together we start trying to decide where the Holiday Inn is located. She says, "it’s near a parking structure but I always forget if it is up or down the street." Looking down the street I see the UT student center parking structure and through the big round circle I can make out the green of some of the Holiday Inn sign. The lady and I go into the parking structure and after some deliberation end up on the top level where another lady meets us and promptly plops a pointy cloth hat on my head that has a big, round pedaled flower on the front. I notice the new lady is wearing a similar hat. The lady I met on the sidewalk exclaims, "you’re using my hats!" As she pulls down a flap on her hat to reveal a flower, I come to release she was wearing a similar cloth hat but hers had a duck bill on the front. Turns out she is some kind of productivity counsellor that does motivational speaking but I still get the feeling I’m in a coven of witches.

I explain my strange encounter to them and they just look confused and give their opinion about the stupidity of shooting someone from one side of the street to another.

Next I am in our house but it’s not our house. It is much nicer than our house. My brother-in-law and his wife and children are visiting. My bedroom shares an ajoining bathroom with the guest room. Both are situated in the basement. I forget they are here and I am in the bathroom talking to myself trying to work through the strange people that wanted to shoot me to the other building. I disturb our guests and move to another room where I am attacked my a beetle. I stab it it a spike and it wiggles off and attacks me again. I recognize it as The Guyver and catch it in my hand to show to my other brother-in-law who regards it with slight disinterested. I crush it.

Now I’m travelling on an interstate and a car is obviously following me. I try to evade. In my dream we pan to the chasing car weaving between cars to catch up to me. The car is an old convertible and in it are the guys that wanted to shoot me to the other building (one looks distinctly like Cheech Marin). They are made out of lead and so is the car. We pan up for a view of the crowded interstate to see them closing in on me. The next bend in the road goes to the left but a black and red charcoaled flaming road connects to the interstate bending to the right. I understand in an instant that I’m driving to Hell.

Man, ever have one of those days where you wanted to run to the pharmacy screaming "give me adhd medicine!"? Of course they don’t work that way so I guess screaming "valium" would be more appropriate. The little yellow pill (poetry) really should be over the counter. Shoot, the system is in place for tracking Sudafed; why not use it to make things like Valium otc with monthly limits? I say that having never ever in my life knowingly had Valium. But gee whiz, Mrs. Cleaver sure seemed happy and functional!

Doctor please, some more of these
Outside the door, she took four more

Btw, incase you missed it above, this is a must click link!

My Great Aunt Mary taught English at the College of William and Mary, she sat on the Virginia Board of Education, and as a high school English teacher was nick named "Bloody Mary." In short, I was scared to death to write this lady …. I do wish I had overcome that fear before her passing. She had traveled the world many times declaring North Africa and Alaska her two favorite places. Moby Dick was her favorite book. Btw, Aunt is pronounced with an ent sound not ant. Probably should be a little nasal. I once greeted her at the airport and she responded with "Good God child! Open your lips and enunciate!" Mind you, I think she was one of the most intelligent and interesting women I had ever met.

Despite the numerous misspellings, run-on sentences, and incorrect word choices you read in this site, I was schooled with very proper writing skills. The ease of electronic publishing makes us lazy. The publishing of first drafts prone to errors. The PalmOS single-handedly destroyed the adult population’s handwriting making us all qualified to be doctors. SMS (aka text messaging), instant messengers, and l33t sp34k have led 2 horrid abbrs the likes nvr b4 seen. Nu Shortcuts in School R 2 Much 4 Teachers (this NYTimes article is from September 2002!) (registration required – BugMeNot.com may help).

Ms. Harding, an eighth-grade English teacher at Viking Middle School in Guernee, Ill., scribbles the words that have plagued generations of schoolchildren across her whiteboard:

There. Their. They’re.
Your. You’re.
To. Too. Two.
Its. It’s.

This September, she has added a new list: u, r, ur, b4, wuz, cuz, 2.
…
Almost 60 percent of the online population under age 17 uses instant messaging, according to Nielsen/NetRatings. In addition to cellphone text messaging, Weblogs and e-mail, it has become a popular means of flirting, setting up dates, asking for help with homework and keeping in contact with distant friends. The abbreviations are a natural outgrowth of this rapid-fire style of communication.

I am sure you have read down to here with baited breath wondering where I was going with this writing. I wait with bated breath wondering why you are putting worms in your mouth. I have a few pet peeves. One of them is "baited" in lieu of "bated."

The word bate itself, first found around 1300, was once rather common–it appears a number of times in Shakespeare, for example–but is now very rare except in this one set expression. As a result, many people don’t know what bated means, and change it to baited by the process of folk etymology–the unclear bate is altered to associate it with the common bait.

Now that we have mastered bated, it is time to get to work. (…had to be done.)

Continuing…

8:30pm-11:00pm: Drive to client site. Client discusses distaste for my pricing and we discuss possibly dissolving relationship.

11:00pm-12:30am: Go to Walmart buy diapers, cat food, toilet paper, more diapers, etc and return home to 4 year old trashing the upstairs. Put groceries away and clean mess.

Next, debate a nap vs going straight back to programming. Will share a few moments with estranged wife over an ice cream snack.

Continuing…

5:30-8:30pm: Finished installed windows2000professional on the client computer, installed all OS updates, installed motherboard updates including a bios flash, installed NextPOS version 2.8. Created several invoices. All went well. Now its off to the client’s location to deliver computer.

Continuing…

4:30-5pm: Work on client’s Windows 2000 computer.

5-5:30pm: Pick Noah up from karate.

Continuing…

2:00-3:45pm: Trying to get drivers to work on the client computer. All working except the most crucial…the network card.

3:45-4:30pm: Noah to karate and family affairs.

Continuing with NIC troubleshooting…