Category: Daily Life

Ramblings, often stream of conscious, journaling the events of my life.

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Bearden Middle School Bomb Threat – Update

Since the school was given the all clear, normal classes began at 11am. Any student checked out received an unexcused absence. Words exchanged amongst parents in the office were:

"the school declared this a drill and a normal day,"
"originally they were claiming it would be an excused absence,"
"all parents should call downtown to the administrative offices and complain to get this switched to an excused absence."

Overheard of the students:

"half my team is gone,"
"we aren’t going to do anything but sit around,"
"half the school checked out at the church."

I reiterate: All parents of Bearden Middle School (BMS) students should call downtown, not the school, to protest this day as an unexcused absence. All checkouts should be excused.
Central office information: 865-594-1900
Middle School Coordinator 865-594-1619

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MEeeeOUCH

So, I’m noticing my newly cleaned desk has picked up bloodstains. A variety of interesting thoughts pass through my mind but after eliminating myself as the bleeder I quickly summize the cat is bleeding. A cross look to the dog; a grab of the cat and the evaluation begins. One of her front claws has poked into her pad. A large vet bill isn’t in the budget! My ARC training swirls through my head but my survival instinct says that if I try to take care of this myself that my arms will be shredded. What to do?!

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Ugh. Man, the great hunter-gatherer; poor communicator.

Woman sends man on errand while woman stay in cave sweeping and complaining that "no matter how much she scrubs walls, they still look like dirt!" Man to take boy child to warrior training class. After warrior training class Man think it good idea to do hunter-gatherer job and maybe Woman not complain about the unfinished additional to cave for one night.

After warrior training class Man take boy child to market with wise idea to let boy child show Man all foods boy child likes. Boy child only like Brontosaurus burgers, Pterodactyl nuggets, and Wooly Mammoth steaks. Boy child carnivore! Frustrated Man send message to Woman, "boy child not even like sea food" to which Woman reply, "get boy child anything and bring me fish food."

Man turn on great hunter-gatherer skills and look deeply at fish food realising this not best market for fish food. Woman and Man ate recently so must be something light. Soups! Man choose gumbo and wisely decides to give Woman choice so also gets crab soup. Boy child gets Pterodactyl nuggets. Upon returning to cave, Woman look at Man funny and say, "Where’s my Ben & Jerry’s Phish Food?" Man sleep in unfinished part of cave.

Nice reference: Extinct Animal

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Improvised Edible Plate

Here’s my parent hack for today. My 9 month old takes great pleasure in tossing or dumping a plate or bowl placed in front of him. So in his high chair, he eats right off the tray. Today I treated him to scrambled eggs (which he always devours) but today my eggs were sticking to the tray and frustrating the little fingers. I started to give in and place his plate in front of him anticipating the dogs would finish off the eggs. Instead I layered Cheerios on his tray and put the eggs on top of the Cheerios. He was able to easily grab the eggs and had a nice side dish with them.

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Lights Still On

It’s 5° C outside. I know this because the little number in the task bar tells me so. And since I can read the number in the task bar the computer is on which implies we still have electricity. And since we have electricity, we have heat. Granted, meals may be thin this month but that is one of the trade-offs of working from home and getting to be ultra involved in my children’s lives. Hopefully they won’t curse me too badly for being called "poor white trash" instead of "snotty, rich brats with a dad they never see" not to imply that working hard either produces snotty brats nor riches nor absentee dads (those are all choices). Of course, when I’m dead, they will stomp my grave and grouse over the lack of fortune left behind but at least their relationships won’t be torn apart in estate court.

I learned today that I’m not alone in my struggles against the heartless utility companies on which we so rely. And there I left this comment:

I find it funny in not a so haha way that the people that are inspiring the proverbial “you” to come up with money that “you” may not have take away the very thing (at least in my case) that “you” use to make the money. With ALL of my income generated from the Internet, to cut off cable or electricity is cutting off my life blood, my oxygen. Cutting off my cell phone is like depriving me of water (not as fast a death but it will come).

My dialog with the electric company today was something made for the comics. “You do know that this is a banking holiday?” “Yes sir. You still need to have your payment to us by 5pm.” “But I can’t do banking to get you the money.” “Then you’ll have to pay us cash sir.” “Can’t you give me one more day? You have picked a banking holiday and one of the coldest days of the year to cut off our power.” “Sorry sir. Your bill was due ___. It’s your responsibiliity..” “Don’t talk to me about responsibility. You know nothing of my situation so do not preach to me. Now let’s assume the money is in a money market account. I can’t get to that until tomorrow.” “Sir, the trucks don’t run at night. They’ll start running at 8am tomorrow. If you can get us payment first thing and call, we might be able to stop the cutoff.” “You do know my phone run off your electricity?” Thank goodness this month’s issue of MAKE tells us how to make our own power with the wind!

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Cold, darkness comes

Question: If you are working a regular 8-5 job, when KUB puts a pink note on your door at 1pm to say they will cut off power at 5pm, how do you deal with this when you get home at 6:30pm?
Answer: People with regular jobs don’t have the cash flow issues that causes such problems. Anyone hiring programmers? Looks like I’m on the clearance rack. I’ve got about 4 more hours of working for myself.

Funny. I just tried called KUB to get "I’m sorry. All circuits are busy now. Please try your call again later."

Insult to injury: The banks are closed today. I can’t even move money around!

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Good programmer!

I love it when I think "I need a document to _____." and then I find out that I’ve already written it. Documentation is such a good thing! Programmers that think they will "get around to documenting after the project" or that "no one ever uses documentation" must suffer a lot on maintenance projects or when additional work comes around. I bet they say "it would be cheaper and easier for me to just start over" a whole bunch.