A juggling technophile shares personal stories, challenges, humor and perhaps some political commentary.
Ramblings, often stream of conscious, journaling the events of my life.
Had a phenomenal Easter weekend. My daughter came home from college in New York so the entire family was together. Her siblings really miss her. The weather was perfect! I have grass on the lawn for the first time since…well…since I bought the house in 1997. And we had a great Easter egg hunt although I believe the Easter bunny needs to be a little tougher on hiding eggs next year.
As for Monday, I need a pick me up. Must have spent all my happiness this weekend.
Yesterday I wasted my time trying to move Windows 7 Ultimate from one machine to another. Techies know the chipset/driver problems that come with such an endeavor, but, none the less, we feel we can overcome these challenges. A day later, I feel I am so close yet I still do not have a machine to perform my coding duties upon so I succumb to allowing the new machine to having a fresh Windows 7 Professional installation and prepare myself to spend the day reinstalling software. This is such a waste of time. Operating systems should accommodate moving a hard drive from one machine to another, realizing the chipset and hardware drivers are wrong, and fix itself seamlessly. Ugh!
Spending my day cloning Windows 7 Ultimate from a mechanical hard drive to a solid state hard drive to put into a new computer. Word of advice: chkdsk first! (and don’t forget to set the partition active)
I went back and looked at my Amazon order history. My first purchase was made in 2003. It was a dvd of School House Rock. Guess what I’m putting on the television when I get home!
Our air conditioner has died. Last time it died was in July/August of 2007 and the temperatures were so hot that the insurance company paid to house us in a hotel for the 9 days of the repair. This time the weather is bearable and the repair is quicker. However, this does not come without drama. While the repairman was checking on the outside unit, he asked me to throw the 30 amp breaker at the inside unit. When I did, the breaker box erupted in flame and threw a shower of sparks. This small breaker box (holds a 30 amp dual pole breaker and a 60 amp dual pole breaker) does not currently attach to our wall so I was holding it in my hands at the time. Very exciting!
Apparently the breaker did exactly what it is designed to do. After opening the box, not a wire was burned. No insulation melted. I just received a light show. I can imagine that if I were to dissect the breaker itself that the innards would be melted sludge.
So, the breaker kept the house safe. Now, the big lesson I learned: Don’t ever tell the wife there was a fire inside the house!
Incredible sense of dread today like I’ve forgotten something terribly important.
Nothing wakes you up in the morning quite like stepping blindly into a pile of cat puke.
I’m getting to spend time with my daughter working on her homework. This is extremely rewarding! My work has recently taken me away from my family and I miss the quality time with my children and wife.
Entirely too much bad karma today.
Parenthood is spending $150 before your first cup of coffee.
Dismissed.
Me: "It’s like VHS and Beta."
Noah, 15 years old: "I don’t think I know what VHS is."
Me: old as dirt.
Cathy: "Get off the Internet! Clearly!"
You’re gonna what?!
For 14 years, I lived a healthy life. I was healthy because I did not know any better. For those 14 years, I was uninsured and avoided the doctor. Since I avoided the doctor, I had no reason to believe I was anything but healthy.
Today I go to the doctor as an insured person to receive a physical complete with EKG. I suspect that I will have very good results with the exception of high blood pressure; none the less, I sit in the waiting room with butterflies in my stomach. See, nothing makes an uninsured person more ill than visiting the doctor and after nearly a decade and a half, more than a third of my life, without insurance, my mind cannot help but think of worse case scenarios and how they, no matter how minor, could devastate my life and finances.
I have good insurance now. However, I have walked the walk and am acutely aware of how desperately this country, the United States of America, needs healthcare reform. The Obama administration made a start but gave in to too many concessions. Were I still uninsured, the healthcare “reform” would be doing nothing for me.
