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Annnd they’re off! (to a bad start)

Sarah has a portfolio review today near Nashville for a summer art program where she would get to live at a university and work with some very talented people. This is very important which is why I cringed when I saw Cathy’s tweet:

Why is the teenager dressed like a clown for her portfolio review? [Source, Twitter, @cathymccaughan]

After a grueling day yesterday, I failed to do the standard road checks last night. This morning as the girls were walking out the door, I found a nail in a tire. The same nail I found in the same tire weeks ago and forgot about. No problem! I could plug it in minutes only I was out of plugs. 30 minutes later, I had purchased plugs, discovered McDonald’s at Northshore and Pellissippi still has free air, fixed the tire myself, signed a conversation with an old friend, and had two very upset women driving to Nashville. Good luck Sarah!

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Jeep Unburied

5 children, 5 schools, 1 car. Working from home certainly lends to making our lives function well. This week I find our schedule so unmanageable that we must have a second vehicle working. Knoxville public transportation fails to deliver a reasonable solution. This means getting the Jeep or the motorcycle roadworthy. Glancing down the driveway I’m embarrassed to see the Jeep with boards and pvc pipe piled on the roof, kites and other toys stacked on the hood, rusting bicycles lean against the bumper, a bent ladder waiting to be recycled rests against its side, and the whole mess is half covered in a blue tarp. What an eye sore!

Last night I unburied the Jeep. The odds that this vehicle will run again without major repairs is slim. But I shall try. In my mind, I have committed to converting this Jeep to an EV if I cannot get it running. I find thinking about Sarah driving to school for her senior year in a vehicle that doesn’t require gas someone amusing. For now, the Jeep is uncovered and the driveway looks a little better. Hopefully, I can find a key to the Jeep today and tomorrow I can try to jump start it.

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A round tuit and a “new” laptop

A good friend passed me their old laptop with an operating system that was broken. Doing that thing I do, I installed a new operating system and am pleased that the laptop easily meets my needs as far as processor and memory are concerned. I debated dual booting the machine so that I could work in either Linux or Windows XP but decided to try my hand with a virtual machine (VirtualBox). In this case, Ubuntu Linux is going to be installed in a VM within Windows XP which should allow me to take my development environment with me anywhere I go.

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I have joined the Cult of Jobs

My Motorola RAZR v3xx which was so cutting edge when I got it years ago died. Being a miser, I replaced it with a free subsidized phone by agreeing to be an AT&T customer for another 2 years. The phone was an LG 360 and sucked for me. I fat fingered keys and menus. I was missing calls from clients. The phone froze. I missed a teleconference with a long standing client and his client that could have cost both of us an important contract. The end result was that free phone was costing me a fortune. I decided to exchange the phone using AT&T’s satisfaction guarantee. Basically I could chose another free phone that had all the suckage of my first free phone, spend a lot of money on a smartphone and in 6-8 weeks receive a rebate, or get an iPhone. Thanks to a timely project, I got an iPhone.

I dreaded the thought of giving up a Motorola for an iPhone mainly because of the lack of a keyboard. Anyone who has ever dissed or complained about an iPhone has never used one. Steve Jobs is a user interface genius! I’ve joined the cult of Mac.

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Anxiety

This hand versus that
The good and the bad;
Trying to spread good
But feel only sad;
A harmless white lie
still tears at the soul;
Her ego judged me
When I did no wrong
Then I judged her
Same verse; same song.

Look in the mirror
It’s me that I see;
The image that is
Not the one I want it to be;
They write the rules
I write the rules
There are no rules
We; the fools.

I cannot live
Upon this pillar
So very tall;
Such that all can see
The stature
The nature
The me;
The higher it rises
The bigger it becomes
More of the pillar they see
And so much less of me;
As big as I wish to be
I’m shrinking
Vanishing
Becoming
To small to see.