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Sunday, 25 March, 2001 at
09:41 PM -0600
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The weekly Diary of a PC Geek |
Monday, March 19, 2001
Greetings from the land of canyons and craters. It only looks like we fought a war here.
Our local public works department (he said, proud at not resorting this early in the week, or the post, to name calling) has now got their work cut out for them. I've noticed that we've lost on average six to eight feet of road width on each side due to plows not getting too close to the curb. Now, they're finding that the roads that were hidden under this snow and ice are completely destroyed by the freeze/thaw cycle. Last week I saw a pothole so big that an escort got hung up in it. The frame literally hit the ground, and the car skidded sideways. The pothole (southbound on Nicollet, south of McAndrews, in the right lane, about fifty yards after the intersection, if you should be driving through there) was about a foot deep, and about ten feet long. Three feet wide at the widest point.
Anyway... Curiously, today, I had some aches in both my right hand and left food. Diagonal aches? I don't get it.
It occurred to me today, as I attempted once again to use our office men's room, that we need an act called something like "American Abilities Act" to counter some of the stupid stuff that goes on because of the Americans With Disabilities Act. For example...
They've remodeled the men's room in the office where I work. One of the two stalls is handicapped accessable. Should be; it used to be two-plus cells. Er, stalls. The other is usable perhaps by my son, but at severe danger to himself. For example; the "handicap accessable" stall is well over twice as wide as this other stall. I say well over because when I enter the "small" stall, I can't get in without injury.
Now, I'm not a small man by any stretch of the imagination, but shoulder-to-shoulder I'm maybe 26" wide. If that. When I enter this stall, I'm touching both sides of the booth. In order to get the door closed (it swings into the booth so as not to block the handicapped stall next to it), I have to straddle the stool. Which isn't too difficult until you consider I've had to perform a spin to the left to get around the toilet paper dispenser which sticks out about six inches into this closet. Were I to head straight in with a head of steam, I'd cream the thing right off the wall.
Once I'm in, and turned around to face the bowl, I've got to keep my elbows tucked in. Because if I don't, the floating wall on my left will bow out with elbow pressure and the mis-hung door will swing magically open, into me, exposing all of my many (minor) charms to the attending throngs. Or something.
Now, before you hack off a chunk of dynamite or anything, let me point out two things. First of which is that, since the age of three, my father has had polio. I don't what that means to you; what it means to him is a severe and pronounced limp, one foot turned outward instead of parallel to the other, severely atrophied muscles in his legs and arms, the inability to lift more than about five pounds from the shoulder unless it's 1) straight up, and 2) not for long.
What it meant for me was that I didn't get to do a whole lot of the things other boys took for granted. My father went to church with us every week. He stood in back and never sat with us because it was too difficult to perform the Catholic Calesthenics required at church. We never played catch like a regular father and son. We didn't go fishing or much of anything else. We would watch football and baseball, and Dad always took the football team portrait when I was on the grade-school team. Made them up and gave them out free just because he was that type of father.
There wasn't much my Dad couldn't do without a little planning. Some things, like changing a tire, were right out - which is why it doesn't much bother me to do it - I think I did my first at eleven or so. But he did woodworking, yard work, and other things with the right tools.
So I know, probably better than most of you, what it's like to live with a disability. When my parents moved into their "new house" (we still call it that, though they've lived there for 25 years now as of last Saturday - I still remember that first week - snow melting, and that wonderful new-house smell), we had the toilet mounted 2" higher on the wall in one bathroom to help Dad. We eventually got him a "lift" chair so he can literally slide out with his feet on the floor, and not have to stand up.
And I respect and love my father for the struggles he endured. But I'm also unwilling to lose my son to a toilet-paper dispenser in the head because "theirs" had to be flush-mounted into the wall, and us "fit folk" had to get by with eighteen-inch-wide cubicles to take a leak in.
But that was work. I see my wife has annoyed the bear again, and judging by the e-mail she's encountered over the last couple days, I'm thinking she's going to be sorry. You see, in the Daynoter ranks, we've all learned, mostly through trial and error, that there is no subject that Mr. Thompson cannot hold forth on for any great length of time. And he's not yanking your chain when he does it, either. He knows whereof he speaks. Unless, of course, it's cooking. But we just don't antagonize the bear. It's a simple law of nature.
Now my wife, being the German/Norwegian cross, brought up Irish, has the A) Stubbornness of a good German, B) the "carefree spirit" of a Norwegian (I'd say something insulting as I'm Swedish, but she's likely phoning up the Norwegian Crack Storm Troopers, who are likely as not to raid some house in Michigan - oops, sorry, my mistake, saw the M and away we went), and C) the gift of gab and belief in invincibilitty that comes from a significant portion of your blood being Irish whiskey. Not that she drinks it, mind you; it's more like she's sucked it out of her surroundings.
With that particular combination of skills, abilities, and ... well, stuff, it's not going to be long before she finds out that she's on a losing team.
Of course, then it all becomes my fault. As my friend Brian (he of the "no num-nums" fame) says, "I like being in trouble. It's my comfortable place. I don't know what I've done, and I don't know what to do to correct it, and I don't know how long it's going to last, and I have no idea when it will occur again, but I spend so much more time here than anywhere else that I know this is where I belong!"
Then again, he's a former Marine terrorized by his wife. His Ex-Navy wife. The Italian. With mob connections. I think he thought moving away from the coasts would save him. Sorry buddy, but "he sleeps with the crappies" works just as well.
(Crappie, pronounced "Craw-pee", is a type of panfish people actually seek out in this region. Why anyone would willingly eat something with the word Crap in it is beyond me. I mean, after school food, that is).
There. Now you've learned more than you wanted to know. One last factoid? Tomorrow, the first day of what we laughably call "Spring" around here, will also mark 53 days until the fishing opener. May 12. There's a lot of ice left on a lot of lakes. Could be ugly. Oh well. Good thing I'm not a fisherman. G'nite.
Tuesday, March 20, 2001
Busy day. Busy, busy, busy.
Yesterday afternoon, there was a fellow who fled the police in a white Tempo. Now, having driven a Tempo for the better part of ten years now, I can assure you most definitely that fleeing police in such a vehicle is something just short of a Miracle.
But it turns out that this fellow's a bit of an alleged creep. Wanted in at least three states, and all that. The FBI's been after him (duck) and all, so we're today subjected to a shutdown of I-494 (multi-lane freeway, main east-west route through southern portion of metro area) during rush hour, then the fellow goes to the Mall of America. Good plan, get lost in the crowd. But for one thing. Well, two. 1) it's not open that early, and 2) it's loaded with cameras EVERYWHERE, including the nine-level parking ramps. So, as I write this, the fellow's still on the lam. Six miles or so from where my wife gets into her car from the bus, about twelve from where the kids go to daycare, and about thirteen from home. Yikes.
Today I ran into a very strange situation on an NT box. I needed to again make boot disks for the OS (X:\i386\winnt32 /ox - why can't I remember that?), and it would not format it's own, it had to have newly formatted (preferably virgin) disks. Since we haven't bought floppies around here since the Bush I administration, I scrounged up a few and formatted away. Virgin disks be damned.
And while formatting, the machine would offer to format another. Only to tell you that the drive was locked and unavailable. No matter what I did (and now I've got a stack of fourteen formatted floppies - told you I was persistent), the drive somehow needed me to try to format, and fail, in order to release the lock on the device. I don't get it. Sheesh.
But I did do another YANTI as the pressure's on to get the firewall testing done before the box itself must leave. And so I'm working on that. And "geeking" the wife's new site. I cannot believe that the woman managed to beat me in the stats department by a ratio of 3-2. On monday, she nearly doubled me. Good grief.
Oh well. I've always said I've stood in her shadow. Regrettably for me and my fair skin, it's never been enough to prevent some really serious burns. Then again, when one plays with fire... ;-)
Later: Wrote the above at work, since Ann's network connection has been down. And then I came home. She pasted her post in, and then the fun started.
Since Ann literally knows about four HTML commands on sight (not her fault, I haven't exposed her to the mysteries yet - every time I try, the beatings start again. And I'm nearly healed...), I had no one to blame but myself when she pasted from Word into FrontPage direct. It's pretty clear, though, that the fine folks who are responsible for Word's implementation of HTML, and the one or two fellows who did the cut and paste routine between the two are, I swear, demons themselves.
After adjusting the abominable code Word puked out, and doing some tweaking, I did some adjusting to her headers (stop it now). And in that, it was painfully clear that FrontPage is indeed a tool of the devil. I spent nearly an hour working to get one stinking table (her daily headers are tables, with the calendar a table within a single cell, then the other cell has the flower bar, the date, and the link back to the top) to work. I don't know why, but one table insisted on setting the width at 2200 pixels. I have no idea why. I would edit the HTML directly; it reset. I would use the GUI, it would force back to 2200. When I screamed at the monitor, it finally worked.
This is ridiculous. At least things are starting to look up in the hardware department. I've got two Toshiba laptops - 4010CDT, I think, at work that we can purchase for $1 each, because of the lawsuit against Toshiba. Which is a heck of a deal except for one thing - they don't boot.
I've got three others, two of which have power cords, which DO boot; and one without a power cord. It booted today without the power cord, so I'm going to see if I can find one. It looks like a fairly normal cord but for the goofy end. I'm not stupid enough to expect to walk into the local Radio Shack and get a cord for it, but I'm going to see what I can find.
And just to correct a misconception from her post of yesterday; I only rarely used the "GOD" account on the VAX, mostly because I didn't need to. My regular account, and the SYSTEM account, had more than enough horsepower to do what I needed to do. The only time I had to "log in" as GOD was in the game "Conquest." "God" was the only one who could reset the game, add planets, and associate planets with humanoid species. Oh, and his spaceships were invincible.
But nobody wants to hear about that. It's just a Star-Trek derived game that was played in character mode on VT-100 terminals. With about forty or fifty people at a time. So I guess that's why I'm not spending a whole lot of time playing Multi-user games online now. Been There, Done That, Turned a Planet Supernova. Once you do that, whacking another fellow with four feet of virtual metal isn't quite that attractive.
And did you know that once a planet goes supernova, it only takes a few minutes for people to come back? I swear it did.
Wednesday, March 21, 2001
8:15 am: Actually a wee update to see if this actually works. Had to move some tags around (I keep telling you folks to subscribe to Doc Keyboard - he might not look like Doc Holliday, but his aim's good, and you miss one HTML tag, he'll catch it for ya), so this is a test. I'm using NOTEPAD, not NoteTab, as it works, it's everywhere, and I, thankfully, know enough HTML to be dangerous, and FTP Voyager, which is a very very nice product from Rhinosoft - might have to pay out for this one. It works, and has some neat features which could save my bacon in the future.
Why the discussion about FTP? Had to rely on ancient versions of Cute FTP (Ancient=1996 or thereabouts, if I remember correctly) last night as FrontPage took exception to the part where I said it was POSSESSED BY DEMONS. Don't tell ME computers don't have feelings. Anthropomorphize, hell. I'd just like them to do what I tell them to do when I tell them to do it with out equivocating, wasting my time, goofing off, or doing something I didn't want them to do. I've got two of those things here already. They're called children.
Which, of course, begs the question - if computers are, only now, reaching a state where we can assume they're "child-like" in their integrated behavior (integration between OS and hardware, obviously), are we to expect that in another forty years we'll get a MATURE computer that actually DOES do what we intended?
Almost makes you wonder why we gave up mainframes. I mean, aside from the cleansing process, the submission of the Holy Punch Cards to the Acolytes, the Acolyte Approval of the Holy Punch Card (rarely certain), and finally, the blessings of the most Holy Console Operator. Nope, can't ever imagine why that lot of fun went out of style.
If you see this, it worked. Film at 11 - you watch, I'll sleep. Later...
And my deepest abject apologies to those of you who stopped by here while the damned popups were alive. Yes, Marcia, that means you. I think I've stomped most of them with the possible exception of the one that wants me to change my home page. It is fundamentally clear to me that one gets what one pays for, and these advertising-supported sites will soon die a thousand deserved deaths because, frankly, they're just not doing it. I know, I know. Deep calming breaths... And a large shovel.
Updated 9:30 am Next time I'll just leave well enough alone. The pop-ups should be FINALLY DEAD. Gawd, I hate these things. Stomp one, and four more come up. Argh! Anyway, dead now. Thanks to Marcia, of course, for the troubleshooting (and shouting - I really do appreciate the help!)...
And Later Still (11:30 am): Yes, that was me, earlier today, beating on this site with a fork, bat, and broken beer bottle. I'm quite frustrated with computers in general and Microsnot in particular lately. Only slightly with the LYING BASTARDS AT QWEST. Oops, did I say that aloud? Hmmm... Seems the fellows who were hooking up our ISDN circuits for the video conferencing haven't come back yet. Last Wednesday they were out to do "prep work" for the lines. As they were leaving, they said "it's not scheduled to be in until the 23rd."
Sorry, you there in the cheap seats. My contract reads 3-16-2001, by end of business. And, astonishingly enough, they returned, this time in twos, to finish the work on Friday. 10:30 am. They arrived, re-arranged my computer room, and then went to lunch (after hanging tool belts and other gear all over the place). As I left for lunch (some 75 minutes later), these clowns were sitting in the lobby. When I returned, they were in the computer room. After some time, they gave me an update.
Seems the smart fellow at Qwest (is it a universal constant that all phone companies, regardless of size, have only one technical individual with head out, and the rest are storing their brains in their posteriors against potential environmental damage?) was out doing a T1, and so we were resorting to a trained chimp at the local switch, who was still hunting for the right wire (and picking fleas) at 3:30 pm Friday, when the other individuals left.
And so we have two of three ISDN circuits "working" (I very much doubt that assertion, but we'll leave it at that).
Sheesh.
And then double-sheesh at the fine folks in our corporate IT department located much nearer the east coast. Seems that our IT Manager got wind of the fact that I had some computer skills, and was not to be allowed near computers. As a result, I no longer have the network rights to add machines to the domain. I don't need this sort of abuse. Even in this economic "downturn" good, smart, and willing IT people are in demand, and I think I'll go put my foot back in the pool.
Speaking of that pool, Remember way back in early December when I had two competing job offers? This one and one other? Well, no, I'm not sorry I didn't take the other one.
Some details - the job was at Click-Ship direct. They were a fulfillment house for places like BestBuy.com - you order, they package and ship. Sort of a "guaranteed" way to make money in e-commerce. Let someone else sell it, we'll just ship it.
They were looking for someone to come in and help them out with UNIX admin. They had about eighteen different machines running about ten different OSes. They needed someone who could jump in, help document, standardize, and all the rest.
The details of the contract were that I'd get paid some obscene amount of money per hour to work there. Since they were clear across town, and I'd be on-call 24x7x365 (well, three months with the possibility of permanent), it was a big consideration.
I turned them down. As the Christmas season wore on, I noted that some people were having problems with getting the right products from BestBuy.com; Click-Ship direct was written up regularly locally as "struggling to meet the growing demand."
Back a while ago now, they were put on the block as a potential sales item by their owner, Damark. When that didn't go, they dumped it all down the chute. Phew. Guessed right on that one, I guess.
Though what I find interesting is that on the bottom of the page, I see that Hormel completed the "Turkey Store" company purchase. Weird. Back many hundreds of years ago (or so it seems) I installed the timeclocks in "Jerome Foods, Inc." when that was what they were called. I also helped with the whole "Jennie-O" thing as well. Bitter rivals, and now they're together. Oh well, perhaps I've got a bit of Mr. Thompson's touch of corporate death going for me. <snicker>.
And Yet More Later (5:00 pm): Yup. Still here. Fine folks in Corporate IT have decided I can have my admin rights, but to create computer accounts in the domain? Get hosed, bucko. You're not worthy.
Oh - sorry. Forgot. </FEH> Found a few fun things to do today while beating on various tools and the like... I've always been fascinated by the Spirograph; this is a pretty neat implementation of it. I'd stick it here, but this page loads slowly enough (so I'm told), so no way, Joseph.
And CNN reported today that Tripod got a little bent out of shape over the weekend. Gee. What a shock. Many, many years ago (so it seems) I started this site over there, and it lasted almost four whole weeks before I moved to Spaceports. Home of the demonic pop-up ad.
Meanwhile, I sit here, growling at domain controllers I can't access, machines that want to replicate and can't, and people who insist on protecting their little teepees, no matter how small, because it's all they have. I can understand being overprotective of what little you do have, but good grief. Let's get a little perspective here. Part of the job is to protect what you've got. And PART OF IT is giving people THE TOOLS to do the DAMNED JOB... Whoops. Channeling someone sane again. Sorry about that. No film this time. It's just too ugly.
And Finally (9 pm): She will not post tonight, for I am evil. Was working on testing, as the Firewall has to go back tomorrow, and of course, the ******** blankety-blank ****** ******* * ****** etc., still haven't straightened out my network issues. Rather frustrating when you've been hired to be the network administrator of a sort and you've got no way to change the permissions or anything. So I worked until nearly 8:00 tonight testing some stuff. I'm just not as young as I once was. Back a few years ago when I was at Great Clips, I masterminded and executed the total network re-wiring plan which started on a Thursday evening and ran through until we got done. At nearly 4 am. Now THAT was a long day. This is something less than that, and I'm still wiped.
Anyway, I'm evil because I asked her to pick up the kids. So that's why. It's all my fault.
Of course, I'm also looking for a new job. No, not the hours. The BS. We've got a network manager who is concerned over his standards being followed. Fine, except for one thing. You want me to follow standards, you need to tell me those standards. I can't follow what I don't know.
Ach well. Hope your day was better.
And yes, I'm still thinking, just not writing as much right now. I've got a white paper due on the whole firewall/replication issue. Sadly, a brief overview of our corporate "standard" (as usual, nothing in writing) shows that the average white paper is 38 pages long. Excluding the one that's over two hundred. The shortest we have is eighteen. I've got twelve so far, and haven't included graphics yet, so I should be OK. Now, to create the graphics.
Thursday, March 22, 2001
A Slow Burn...
I can't help it. I read things like this and deep inside I feel very, very sad. While I respect the rights of certain idividuals to decide what is, and is not, a religion, and what is THEIR religion, I'm forced by actions such as this to think that the Taliban, specifically, is evil. Yes, evil.
Now, I'm no expert on Islam. I did read some of the Koran (yeah, an English translation, which loses some flavor, I'm told) while in high school for a report on other religions. As I recall, after that class (I think I took it as a sophomore) they limited it only to seniors, with parental permission, and then only after interviewing with the teacher. I dunno why, but I can guess some parents went out on a screaming fit when they found out what junior was studying.
But the bottom line is that Mohammed was not an evil man. He lived in a harsh, hard desert environment, and in a very mysoginistic culture. He tried to paint things the way he saw them, and the way he felt his God was telling him to. But Mohammed was not anti-woman. And these Taliban ... individuals are. And I'm sickened and disgusted at this Taliban bunch.
Consider what these... individuals have done.
I could go on for days, but before I do, you should read this... I'll wait.
Now, before you get all righteously indignant at me, stop for a second. Remember the 1980 Moscow Olympics? Where the US didn't send a team to compete? Remember why? You got it. The old Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. And what happens in a war like that? People die. Primarily men.
What happens if you're a widow in Afghanistan? You've lost your brother, your father, and your husband to the Soviet fighting. Your son was killed as the Taliban swept through your village. You have yourself and your daughter. But you can't work outside the home. So you've got no way to make money. Since you cannot make money, you have to beg. But how do you buy food? You can't speak to a male shopkeeper; they don't allow that. So you can't buy food. Do you steal? Sure, why the hell not - losing a hand's a pretty cheap way to get a meal. Once. But if you assume two meals a week, you run out of hands fairly quickly. And there's another problem. How do you feed your daughter?
Oh, I'm not so niave as to believe everyone believes this is a bad thing. There are some out there who believe that women should be silent. Women should be in the home, never seen, never heard, and frankly, that there's literally no joy at all in life that should be experienced by half of the human population.
And for the both of you that think that, I strongly recommend that you become disabused of that notion before A) your mother finds out, and B) you enter the third grade next year. If you live that long.
Fact of the matter is that these small-minded bigots are most likely rapists at heart. The leaders of the Taliban are almost certainly, in my opinion, sniveling cowards who cannot control their impulses towards women, and thus have to keep them as much as possible out of site.
While I'm sure they think of themselves as learned men, it might surprise them to learn they're illiterate. At least, that's the only explanation I can think of. I would think that, as Islamic scholars, they'd have read the freaking Koran, for crying out loud, but since it's fairly clear they haven't, I guess we'll just have to call them frauds, to their faces.
" 4.19: O you who believe! it is not lawful for you that you should take women as heritage against (their) will, and do not straighten them in order that you may take part of what you have given them, unless they are guilty of manifest indecency, and treat them kindly; then if you hate them, it may be that you dislike a thing while Allah has placed abundant good in it. "
But then again, we all can't be leaders of the "purest Islamic state on the planet". So I guess we'll just have to assume that these jackals know what they're doing, and it will all turn out right in the end.
Unless, of course, these individuals do the math, and discover that, contrary to popular belief and my assertions to the contrary, that they did, indeed, have a mother of the feminine persuasion, and then there's going to be hell to pay and you there without a wallet. Wouldn't that just really depress them to know they'd condemned their own mothers, who gave them life, gave them the best years of THEIR lives, and gave them, above all, unconditional love, to a long, slow, horrid death of starvation and disease because they were afraid of their own physical impulses?
I suppose we could blame the mothers of these fellows for not teaching them properly. I guess there's a whole lot of blame that could be laid on the moms of these ... individuals, since they failed to teach respect, self-control, and perhaps most importantly, charm. But I'm not going to do that. I refuse to believe that an adult male, ANY adult male, who can supposedly run both a country and a religious movement, is incapable of saying "nope, that's my fault." Of course, with the shining examples of the fine, upstanding Talibs in Afghanistan, why wouldn't any little boy want to grow up to rape, beat, murder, pillage, and abuse those around him? Come on, I guarantee you it's the most fun you can have without taking your clothes off... In Afghanistan... Without a camel. Or so they say.
Of course, short-sighted destruction of millennia-old works of art and culture would just about make up for the self-hatred these ... fellows are likely facing in the light of that discovery. Certainly, had I only now discovered that my behavior had condemned through sheer stupidity on my part my mother and sisters to an agonizing death, I'd want to smash a few things.
But only a small-minded man, or a fearful one, will destroy that which is greater than he is; and no matter how you measure it, be it by age, by beauty, or by regard, these weak little men of the Taliban aren't up to the true test of strength. That is to deal with one who is your equal, whom your God placed on this earth to challenge you, to work with you, and to make a life with you. Your failure to treat with them as an equal partner diminishes you both to a small and petty role at the edge of the party we call life, and, frankly, you're too damned close and too damned smelly for me. Next time, cut back on the intimate time with the camels, would ya? And I'm not talking the cigarette brand, either.
So, leaders of the Taliban, who will most certainly never read this, revel in your temporary ascendancy. Enjoy your time in the harsh, hard climates of Afghanistan, a climate and country which you helped to create by destroying the hard work of your fathers, and their fathers. Show your criminal disrespect for the women who bore you, who changed you, who nurtured you, and who loved you, and still, despite their better instincts to the contrary, still do. Enjoy your time now, for I feel certain that when we meet, we will both be sitting in hell together.
The difference is I'll be sitting there with a grin on my face because I know what I've done to get there. You'll be the one crying and wailing "why have you forsaken me, oh Allah" when we all know that Allah is the forsaken one, and you are the guilty party. See you in hell.
Well. Now that I've gotten that lot of rot out of my system, I was doing some research today. I needed to find out some specific information about Clifford Stoll, the author of "The Cuckoo's Egg". Wonderful book I once loaned out to a friend, and lost it. I ought to kill that fellow... Just kidding.
Anyway, I went to Google, and first thing I found was Cliff Stoll's home page. Now, admittedly, a rather unique individual like Stoll (who's later works I have not read) would be expected to have a unique home page. And, believe it or not, he didn't disappoint. At all. In the least. And you see what I mean.
So, after banging on his site and NOT finding what I was looking for, I stumbled across this - And let me tell you that part of me wants to order up a mess of the little ones, put some glue and water together with significant amounts of red, green, gold, and silver glitter, and coat the ... well, I guess inside will have to do, even though they haven't got them, with it. They'd make beautiful Christmas Tree ornaments.
Anyway, while this thought was bounding through my snow-befogged brain, I found this site. And I'm telling you, we're all in very real danger. This DHMO stuff is DEADLY! However, if you're very careful, and promise not to tell anyone, you can check out the below. You know the drill - just highlight it with your mouse. That way it doesn't spoil the surprise...
| No, folks, it's not. Dihydrogen Monoxide is two hydrogen molecules and one oxygen molecule. Work it out. Two Hydrogen, one oxygen. Two hydros, one oxy. 2 hyd, one ox. H2O. I know, I'm evil, sometimes, as well. ;-> |
But that was certainly a weird stutter-step down memory lane. I really gotta stop looking over my shoulder and start watching where I'm going. The neighborhoods are weird, but the digressions are fun...
One of the other reasons SWMBO did not post last night was because she was watching The Sixth Sense on DVD. Glad we didn't buy it - it's one of those two-or-three-watches and out around here. I got home late yesterday, and per usual was working on the computer, so I didn't see a whole lot of the movie. But I saw glimpses - and I had a hunch. But the end caught me completely by surprise. Didn't expect it at all. And it's a good thing she watched when she did. She was reading the new TV Guide, and in that issue, they give away the ending (I won't here). Boy, was she pissed. Not a pretty prospect. And tonight I've got to shrink her flower bar, or re-arrange her header box again. I've got an 800x600 monitor at work, and it scrolls off the edge... Not good, not good. We'll get there some day. Sheesh.
Grocery shopping this evening, and tomorrow's update will likely be very late, if at all. My sister and her hubby are taking us out for dinner to celebrate Ann's birthday. At the Mall of America. Should be fun. And I hope that Sturms and Barkmans have their hard-hats on. While I'm pulling for the Taco Bell float to take a hit, it's still sad to see Mir come down like that.
Yippie Skippie it's...Friday!, March 23, 2001
It's an early day, and an early post for me. One of the drawbacks of living in an apartment (oh, yes, there's billions) is that when it comes time to do laundry, you get to gamble. Now I know some of you prefer to do this around a table with friends, or at a slot machine at perhaps a Native American Casino, or even the big time in Las Vegas.
Not me. Time to gamble, I head down the hall to my friendly local indoor laundry room, where I take my chances with seven washers and ten dryers. Yeah, it's great for doing huge loads of laundry. We can roar through and get (if we're lucky) seven loads washed and dried in an hour and a half or so. Pretty nice, until it comes time to put it all away...
But where's the gambling, you ask? Simple. First, these seven washers and ten dryers are complemented by another seven washers and ten dryers at the other end of the building. So we've got fourteen washers and twenty dryers. For one hundred and thirty six apartments.
Now, to be fair, since we've got presently an average 2% apartment vacancy rate here in the Twin Cities, we've got perhaps 3 apartments open. So fourteen washers, one hundred thirty three apartments. Works out to about nine and a half apartments per washer.
So your first gamble is finding time to get into the laundry room when you can get two or three washers at a time. While I was out of work, weekday mornings were excellent for this sort of work. Lately, the late-week evenings (Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday, or as Dan Bowman calls them, Monday III, Monday IV, and Monday V. Ugh).
This week, not so much. And that's only the first part of the gamble. I hear you, you're saying 'it's not gambling if there's not money involved.' Oh, but there is.
When we moved in, and it was just my wife and I, and I was the sole induhvidual responsible for the laundry, it was $.75 to wash and $.50 to dry. Now, it's $1.25 to wash and $1 to dry. And we've added two kids to the laundry load. Ugh. Doubled.
And the best part? Well, when you put your clothes in and shove in your quarters, in the washer department you can usually do OK. The water comes on right away and things work. You know you're in business. But the dryers leave you at their total mercy. In my experience, about 15% of the time I have to re-do a load or part of a load as the dryers aren't usually up to snuff.
And yes, Ma, I know to not overload the washer. I know to split two loads of wash among at least three dryers, more if there's denim involved. I know to check and clean lint traps, and all the rest. Remember, I've been LaundryMan for the last nine years now. Ugh.
The point of this whole dissertation? Last night, when I went to do laundry, we had two busted washers, five others working, three of them with dirty clothes on top. What ever happened to people going out on Thursday nights and partying? Would if I could...
The reason for the early post: I'm going with my lovely bride to the Mall of America this evening where one of my sisters, and her husband (I don't remember who said it, but he was right - "nothing surprises a man so much as to find that another man finds his sister attractive") are taking Ann out to dinner to celebrate her birthday. Gee, never done that before. Works for me. I'm just going along to see if I can get her talked into Hooters... Just kidding.
And the really cool part is that my other sister who lives in town here is watching the kids. Gee, last time we were out without the kids was... hmmm... Good heavens. Has it really been THAT LONG? No wonder I need to get a life.
Well, anyway. Just in case you haven't yet, go check out Phil Hough's post from today. And speak kindly to and of me now, I'm a respected Ph.D. in the fine art of Arse-Elbow Differentiation. From the University of Bum-On-Seats, no less.
Saturday, March 24, 2001
It occurs to me, as I'm doing laundry, that the fairer sex doesn't "get" pockets.
You see, as little boys we're taught from early on that there are really cool things; small rocks, small frogs, bolts, Hot Wheels cars, and other things that are, well, occasionally not supposed to be in our company. And that's where the pockets come in.
Pockets are where we can store the things we're not supposed to have, and hide them from the dominant female person in our lives (our mothers) so we can, when we're forced to nap, play with those things we're not supposed to have. And we most certainly do, at least for a time, until we decide that we'd like to stay up partying well past bedtime, and to do so, we need to nap... So we do.
Shortly after we awake, we either discover that we've rolled over on that poor frog, and it's time for new pants, or we forget about what's in those pockets. Either way, we lose those really cool things.
I remember as a little boy, one of the coolest moments for me was the ability to see above the top of the dryer at home. Mom started with a small bowl with the cool stuff in it. As I grew older, we graduated from that to a large margarine tub, and finally to some sort of container that once contained Lincoln Logs. Yeah, one boy, a long time, and a lot of pockets.
I could go through there and typically find at least one really cool agate, an old race car of some form, bits and pieces, nuts and bolts, and various other gadgetry. Parts from Tinker Toys, things from the toolbox I shouldn't have played in, and the like. It was a neat way to find the stuff I was missing.
Nowadays, I find things in my son's pockets. And, in true laundry-doer fashion, I hesitantly stick my hand in, hoping that it's something hard and dry and non-toxic. And in the girl's pants, nothing. Completely empty pockets.
Somehow, I'm sure there's a twist in there that I'm missing...
-«·O·»-
Well, last night was a fun time. We went to the Mall Of America and visited their Cafe Odyssey. They've got three rooms - Atlantis, Machu Pichu, and Serengeti. We've previously been there for the Serengeti room, and last night was the Atlantis Room's turn.
Decor-wise, the place is supposed to remind you of an underwater city. Thank goodness it wasn't - I can't swim. But the dim lighting (the lights looked like Jellyfish and crayfish, I dunno why) and the large stand of "kelp" that a "Manta Ray" was swimming through was pretty impressive.
What you didn't see was that the manta ray was actually the holder for three projectors which showed underwater scenery on the walls. Fish swimming by, sharks, whales, and the like. Of course, the occasional loud noise that was supposed to sound like whale song (don't tell ME I don't know what whale song is supposed to sound like, I saw Star Trek IV!) ended up more sounding like the rather large individual two booths over had overindulged in the bean dip.
I had the Jamaican Chicken, which was supposed to be a chicken breast on a bun smothered in jerk sauce. Perhaps 30 years ago it had been jerk sauce, but it had dried to a point where the chicken was tough, crunchy, and somewhat difficult to chew. Also very dry
Won't be getting that again. But I liked the restaurant. So did the belated birthday girl.
And today, another birthday party - friend of ours is turning... well, she's a lady. We'll say Older. Pictures later, perhaps, on the love of my life's site.
Sunday, March 25, 2001
Let's see. First off, I've got to apologize publically to my wife for injections inserted into her posting of Friday. It was inappropriate and I'm sorry. Now, hopefully, she'll tell me where she hid the superglue remover. It's been a painful weekend of sorts... And there's going to be a bald patch there for a few weeks, at least... I'm pretty sure a skin graft won't be needed.
Let's see. Where were we.
Ah, yes. Birthday party yesterday, got home a little after midnight, and crashed right out. We woke up late this morning, and got a very slow start to the day. Managed to make it to the Girl Scout International Tea this afternoon. The girls would work up a presentation of the native music of the country in question, dress in appropriate clothing from the country (or national costumes), and serve food from, or inspired by, that country. Most continents were represented. I'm still completely flummoxed (wow - FP's spellchecker recognizes "flummoxed" - that's impressive) by the French booth. I could understand French bread, cheese, and grapes. But Chocolate Milk? Don't tell me, that's where the chocolate cow was invented. Figures.
And so, after two different stops for groceries (despite a list worked on since last Thursday, we still managed to forget grape juice and bubble bath), we come home, and I'm looking forward to watching (finally) Excalibur on DVD, and instead, it's Oscar and bath night.
Just one question; if they want movie people to keep their speeches short, why are they giving them televisions? Why not home movie theaters? It's a thought. Oh well.
Anyway, that's about it for the day. I'm still struggling with the new Toshiba laptop we have (New to us, that is). For $1, I guess I shouldn't have expected a whole lot. But the keyboard's doing some pretty funky things. When I press the "L" I get =l - if I shift, I get +L. When I type C, I get the letter C and the home key (well, it goes back to the beginning of the line). Does it in Word and notepad. Haven't had much of a chance to look deeper - my fear is that it's a keyboard problem and there's nothing I can do... Unless maybe I put an external keyboard on it, which would kinda cause a portability problem.
Ah. Superglue remover's here, now to shave... And perhaps get something to muffle the screams... Mine, of course.
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