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Last Updated : Sunday, 08 September, 2002 at 11:40 PM -0500
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| Daynotes On a Budget Hosted By... Last Updated : Sunday, 08 September, 2002 at 11:40 PM -0500 |
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Monday, September 2, 2002
Labor Day |
I had to go to a funeral today. I hate funerals.
I know that funerals are for the living, and that's why I go. I go to show respect to the family, respect for the person who has passed, and respect for the beliefs of the individuals remaining behind.
But I hate funerals.
Growing up, we had funerals a lot in my grade school. We'd eat lunch, and get out of the way. The funeral would be held after the school masses (if any), and then they'd get to eat in our cafeteria. Since the school was across the parking lot from the church, it kinda made sense.
There were quite a few funerals that they needed servers for - I'd get volunteered a lot, though I have no idea why. I do know that I concentrated on getting every detail right - wear the right shoes, remember to "chop" the cassock in at the back of your knees when kneeling so when you rolled to your feet you wouldn't catch the cassock under your heels and pull yourself over backwards (happened once or twice a year with the new kids or someone who wasn't paying attention). I knew all the details.
So I got picked.
As a child of eight, my grandmother, the woman who meant most to me after my mother, passed away. I remember clearly her funeral. At the time it was a family reunion with other people there and a chance to get out of school - sort of. I had to go to school for the meal, after church, which was long and kinda boring. And I went to the cemetery, all the way off in St. Cloud, where they buried my grandma. It didn't make much sense at the time, but I went. And got busted by the principal for running around the outside of the school building with a cousin, peeping in the windows.
Now, however, I recognize funerals for what they are. Saying goodbye to the dead and "I'm here" for the living. What's painful and confusing for me is why a twelve-year-old with so much potential and such a bright future would instead end up dead after something as easy and simple as a run to Dairy Queen. It's still a question I know I'll never be able to answer.
As I stood in back of a church filled to overflowing this morning, watching Michael's parents keep Jonathon, Michael's younger brother, occupied, I noticed there were lots of families. Lots and lots of kids - grade school, high school, Boy Scouts, and others. Michael touched a lot of people.
Not Much More Than That...
Didn't do a whole lot besides the funeral today. It being a Monday, my normal monday routine is thrown off due to the presence of my wife, who is enjoying
the Labor Day holiday, and my children, who are enjoying their last day of freedom.
The good news is that we did win a bit back on the lottery the other day - we matched two plus the powerball, which is worth a whopping $7. Wow. Like, that means, I've won back less than 1% of what I've probably spent over the years on it.
Actually, since I don't buy lottery tickets all that often, we probably did get about 5% of what we've spent. Which still isn't much. Oh well.
Back to the grind tomorrow...
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Tuesday, September 3, 2002 |
Happy Birthday Michael V. ("The Flasher")
Happy Anniversary Mom And Dad
Happy First Day of School, Jack
Happy First Day of Third Grade, Rhiannon
Geek Humor
A : "Girls are like Domain Names - the ones I like are already taken."
B : "Well, you can always get a good one, just from a strange country."
Hey, I laughed...
First Day of School, etc...
Yeah, pictures.
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Yes, I know, aren't parents insufferable? Sorry about the tables, it's the school colors. And I was playing with the AutoThumbnail stuff in FrontPage. It works, and now I've got the tools I need to make it all work right.
Other than that, there's little enough going on around here. I think it's probably best to just sign off. G'nite.
Oh, Geez...
I forgot the major development today.
I finally was forced by my lovely bride to replace the light in my son's room. A few months back, I was about to swap light bulbs in his room when I jiggled the socket in the fixture and the biggest spark came flashing out.
So we didn't use the fixture until I replaced it today. The terrifying part about it was the wiring in the socket. The wiring that extended into the bulb portion was ... well, the word "fried" gets over-used, but the insulation was baked crispy. I tried to bend the wires and the insulation just shattered like dust. There were large portions of the wire exposed near the socket, and we were pretty close to a house fire.
So today, with about fifteen minutes of work, I replaced the old fixture (which was a hang-down "flying saucer" style) with a new fixture - one that fits closer to the ceiling, and it uses fluorescent lights. It literally took me about an hour to get the old fixture down, do the wiring on the new fixture, and get it put up. Which was good - that was about the entire time I had to do the job today.
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Wednesday, September 4, 2002 |
Big School Day
First day on the bus. And I forgot to note yesterday that while Jack wasn't the biggest talker in his class, it was both noticeable and remarkable from
his teacher. And my son incited his first school riot - he belched after milk, and then the whole table of boys started burping along with him.
Makes the old man proud, it does.
Mild Panic
Yup.
Today marks the 44th day since July 22nd. In that time, I've had one phone interview, sent out close to 80 resumes, and received two rejections.
I've also put together a "personal performance profile," collected the letters of recommendation I've needed, and contacted the references I need for this time around. I've put together a network of friends, former employers, former co-workers, and others who can help me find information about a potential employer or new job, and get the word out that I'm looking.
I've also filed for unemployment for the first time in my life. I don't like it, but when your employer says "see ya, bye" you have little choice. Especially when you've recently burned up your savings buying a home and are hoping to hold on for a year or three to build up those savings to get a couple months house payments in the bank for times like this.
Am I worried? Yup. This job hunt requires the old-fashioned handling. I need to get "thank yous" and write them up whenever I speak with ANYONE. I need to keep track of all the ads I reply to (which I'm doing), and I should be reviewing them, and company profiles, daily. This is going to be especially difficult when it's a blind resume to a recruiter.
Do I want to work with recruiters? No, not really. In my experience, there are two types of recruiters. The type who work for the employer, and have a huge stack of resumes to comb through when they need a body, and the type who aren't recruiters any longer.
Floating to the top in a pile of 200 resumes is difficult. I've got a good resume. It's packed with experience, and I can back up claims on the resume with exhibits from my personal performance profile.
But I'm not sure what the problem is on getting interviews. I've got a new suit hanging in the closet; it makes me look damned sharp, and I think I'll impress people. It's a good "first impression" suit, and between it, my resume, and my speaking skills, I believe I can get the job.
More importantly, I know I can DO The job. The problem is getting my foot in the door.
I'm not panicked yet, but if this goes for another month like this, I'm going to get really, REALLY worried...
Training, etc.
Well, here we go.
I just came back from an appointment with a local agency who feels that I could benefit from some additional training. Since the MCSE/MCP/MCD stuff is rather non-portable (though they'd pay for it), I figured that an A+/Network+ certification is probably better. As it is mostly review for me (I'm no Bob Thompson, but I've built a few PCs in my time, and a few networks, as well - and we went through Tannenbaum's networking book back in 1987, mind you), this should be easy.
I did some research on courses, etc., and even found a boot camp. Then I found that the "For Dummies" book series has some of these covered.
If I can get a $25 for dummies book, there's no earthly reason to spend $3200 for a week to cram this thing in. So that's taken care of, I hope. Off to research the book titles - if you've got any recommendations, PLEASE let me know... Thanks!
Am I Insane?
Otherwise known as "why I put my kids in private school."
I heard that one this morning at the bus stop. "Why do you pay to put your kids in school?"
Simple, lady. Complex in reasoning, which might befuddle some of you come late from what used to be referred to as the public school system, but is now known as the "stay here until 18, then move on" system.
In a public school, class size is determined by the amount of aid that a school gets after other expenses are figured in. Things like special ed dollars (100% mandated, 40% funded). Like administration salaries, administrative overhead, and the billion-and-one other things which weigh down the average public school. The squabbles over textbooks which must be both politically correct and factually accurate (formerly merely difficult, now nearing an impossibility), and of course, revisionist history which will paint whatever event in the light of current popular thinking.
"Slavery? Sure, pay repairations for slaves." Leaving aside, of course, the obvious fact that unschooled persons, as most slaves were, would be rather easily separated from their money by any one of a million unscrupulous methods by thousands of unscrupulous persons, what makes you think that any of that money would have survived, to today, to remain a "legacy" for you?
"Confederate Flag? A Symbol of Slavery." Absolutely. Also states' rights, which was a battle lost long before Reichmarshall Ashcroft and his cronies arrived on the scene. But that would be factual interjection into the "thought space" of our children. We can't have that.
And let's not forget student's rights. Now, I'm no fan of non-parental corporal punishment. Been there, done that, hid the book in my pants (and those nuns could tell the difference in tones between a ream of paper and a rump - then again any two-bit moron could as well), and lived (barely) to tell the tale. But that was a practice which had to go. On the other hand, this nonsense about "private lockers" and "individual right of expression" is all well and good, but when your "right of expression" interferes with my right to concentrate on schoolwork and not be confronted by your pierced eyebrow/tongue/bellybutton/lip/nose/forehead/hand/what have you, then we have "issues".
I like the fact that my children's school offers children a choice. Long or short sleeves. Shorts prior to October 15th, after April 15th. Jumpers or pants, or if you're a girl past fourth grade, skirts or pants.
But the uniform? Do you have any idea how easy it is to get dressed for school when it's "Get dressed NOW! You've got FIVE MINUTES!" In the public school business, if I started forty minutes before that, I might have a prayer with Rhiannon. Jack? He'd just as soon go out nude - less stuff to get in the way.
And as far as the whole student's right to free expression, etc? No unnatural hair colors, and hair styles are to be "appropriate." Teachers and principal to be the final judge. Pants to be worn at the waist and to be appropriately sized for the individual. In other words, if you wanna wear an old circus tent as a pair of pants, that's fine - off school grounds. If you want your entire neighborhood to know that there's enough fabric below your waist to house six homeless camel-farming villages, go to it, my friend, and be laughed at.
Sure, you get a locker after fourth grade. You rent it from the school. You also pay a $3 fee to the school for your lock. The school can, at any time, inspect your locker. If you have things you don't want the principal to find, don't put them in the damned lockers, eh? There's a no-brainer.
But the most important reason I send my kids to private school? Five million dollars in budget cuts last year have changed my children's school start time by almost two hours. The remaining schools in the district changed by a COMBINED total of about forty minutes. And class sizes? Some of theirs have swollen by 50%. Ours? Still 26 kids per teacher in the primary grades. Always have been. Always will be.
My children do not suffer when the state plays politics with their school. My children do not see a drop in education, do not lose their favorite teachers/classes/activities when the budget is cut - because we don't cut.
They even added new servers this year - and the computer lab will be swapped out again next year.
Sure, I could get what I'm paying for, but I'd rather pay more and get better. "Good Enough" is the enemy of "excellent" and I don't want my kids to be "good enough".
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Thursday, September 5, 2002 |
Public Vs. Private, Part II
There's one reason I deliberately left out in my discussion of "public versus private" above.
Some years back, my home town had a clothing store called "Metzroths". The store was right downtown, and had a metal awning over the door and most of the sidewalk alongside the store.
Every year, the owners would put up a "creche" - a nativity scene. They'd light it, and decorate it with pine boughs (which I'm certain were often found in the desert), and it would become a focal point of sorts for the downtown Christmas decorations.
Some years ago, the store closed, and the nativity scene was donated. A group got permission from the county administrators to put it on the steps of the courthouse, about two blocks away.
Shortly thereafter, the nativity scene was pulled down due to a court order.
When I asked my father why we couldn't get the rest of the world to move the "gift-giving" Xmas celebration off of our "Holy Christmas", he said it wouldn't be possible, despite the constitutional assurance of the separation of Church and State.
Locally, the children in the classrooms now are allowed to celebrate the harvest season (no Halloween), Thanksgiving, President's day, and I think they have a "spring fling" annually. These are, of course, to avoid mentioning All Hallow's Eve, Christmas, and Easter.
In my children's private school, these are all celebrated. The pledge of allegiance is said with "UNDER GOD" loud and proud, and the flag pole out front has a cross on top.
The teachers aren't selected by a union, or assured of tenure based on long and faithful service. No, they stay there because they get along with the program, the principal, and the pastor. The values they teach are the values I want in my children. The public schools, on the other hand, can't teach values. They can barely teach facts, if you see what's going on in most school boards these days.
Sanity? We Don't Need No Stinking Sanity...
This morning I awoke from a very, very strange dream. I was moving out of my parent's first house (the first "home" I knew). Many people
were there to help me, but the one that was most noticeable was my first "computer boss" from St. John's.
Far as I know, other than my parents being somewhat thankful for his introducing me to the dark side of the force, they never met. Yet there they were in my dream, helping me to pack up and move on.
And no, I don't see it as a deeper metaphor for me to get out of computers. I'm good at what I do, and I know how to do it. If I need to fall back on other skills, there's always my retail and fast-food experience, which as we all know, means I'd have to work 2-3 eight hour shifts to make 75% of what I was before.
I've said it before, and I'll say it again - good help is hard to find...
Anyway, this afternoon, after rescuing Jack from Kindergarten (no embarrassing announcements today, unlike yesterday when he burst forth from the building and announced loudly to all within a block's radius "Daddy! I didn't burp or fart all day today!" Torn between the need to congratulate and admonish, I settled for leaving quickly), and feeding him a nutritious lunch (three carrots, a baloney sandwich with cheese, one of his favorites, and cheese tortellini a'la Chef Boy-Ar-Dee - it's that neon-orange tomato sauce, I know it), I shooed him outside, where he ran in the sprinkler. Near as I could tell, his running consisted of perhaps four minutes. It took me ten to find the approved sprinkler and set it up, adjust the water flow so that the sprinkler didn't shoot over the fence or even through it, and find him a towel.
So he's inside watching TV for a half hour (all I'll allow), and I hear "Bagel-Bots". I think I'm going nuts.
Spam spam spam spam...
You know, there are times when having a hotmail account is an eye-opening education into jobs that people just don't talk about over Thanksgiving dinner at the
folks, you know? I had no idea how many young ladies (and here I use the term because I really don't want to investigate far enough to find out that they
don't deserve the term) had a rather unnatural yen for farm animals. Weird.
And it seems that even first graders can now send spam. At least, I assume so as evidenced by the atrocious spelling and grammar in use in some of these messages. Some examples :
Is you will and estate in? Order?
Pheoebe reservered a 30 minute password...
All Foregn resdents
Cute gurls flashing
Hot Super Naked Models
Dipomas for you!
Clearly, English isn't their strong suit. Then again, perhaps it is, as seems obvious by their choice of career. I mean, if they could do anything along the lines of dig ditches or masturbate bulls to collect bull semen, don't you think they'd be doing that? I mean, anything has got to be more respectable than a job as a spammer. Yes, even the young ladies with the unnatural yen for farm animals.
We'll just leave it at that.
Die, Nieman Marcus, Die
Well, if the mojo nearly worked on Amtrak, I'd best be careful.
But I think my pronouncement upon the N-M folk is warranted.
This evening, the 5 pm local news had a nice long bit about how the holiday-impaired crack monkeys on acid who work at Nieman-Marcus missed Christmas so much they've completely leapfrogged Halloween, Thanksgiving, and all the other attendant bullshit, and have moved from Labor Day to Christmas. An in-store santa, and two young ladies (I think the names were "Elf Jessica" and "Elf Erica" - how lovely. Red Velvet mini-dresses and jackboots when it hits 85 outside today) distributing holiday confections like the ever-popular and always traditional chocolate-covered pringles potato chip.
Clearly, my bah-humbuggedness is getting a jump on the season, but I tell ya, it's hard not to want to start lobbing rotten eggs and reindeer dung frag grenades into a place like that.
At the very least, a great steaming pile of elf poop on their front step.
Oh well. The true proof of my mojo will be if the local Nieman Marcus closes up shop after this holiday season. Couldn't happen to a more deserving bunch of holiday-impaired crack monkeys on acid, I tell you.
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Friday, September 6, 2002 |
Too Damned Early
Up and moving coherently this morning by 6 am. As in, I was in the car.
We had thunderstorms all night last night ("Isolated severe storms" my dimpled arse), and some areas (not here) picked up almost 8 inches of rain. While this might be better put elsewhere (like, say, the spots having DROUGHTS?), there's not a whole lot we can do but keep bailing.
So we got rain last night, and this morning, the breadwinner of the family had to be at work by 7:30 am. The good news? She gets off her bus at 4:10 pm. Oddly, this is only 5 minutes after eldest daughter gets off her bus. And you bloody well know that unlike light or sound (both of which have been traveling over, around, and through my house today, we're limited by a lot more than physics. Pesky things like roads, speed limits, law enforcement, that sort of crap.
I didn't start out this cranky this morning. I was actually in a pretty good mood. I had a great view of the thunderstorm, and I enjoyed the whole thing.
Some day, when I finally do win the lottery (like that's ever gonna happen) I'm gonna find me a chunk of land on the west side of a hill, and I'm going to build a house there. I'm going to put a solarium on the west side of that house, wrapping around to the south and east - big windows from roof on down to about three feet high, strong enough to handle golf-ball sized hail, so I can sit in comfort and watch storms come and go over me.
I like that sort of thing. So I'm twisted. So it goes.
Apologies
It's going to be one of those days. I'd like to apologize in advance; this morning, whilst trying to stay awake long enough to get Monkey #2, I caught
part of a tribute to Monty Python from the American Film institute.
I swear, I tried, but there's a song that keeps going through my head. Yes, you know the one.
Should you be in need of a Python-music fix, I suggest you check this site - it's quite complete, and a long walk down memory lane... Of course, no Python collection would be complete without my personal favorite (and a joy to sing at weddings - you know the ones where they make you get up and sing a song with "love" in the lyrics before they'll kiss?), "Every Sperm Is Sacred".
I could have sworn the original lyrics to the Philosopher's Song also included the word "love" but I might be mistaken... And give the audio on that site a miss, it's Real (rotten) Audio format. Good grief.
Let The Fun Begin...
I've been semi-bored lately. Until my next major project (A+/Net+ certification) starts next week, I've been fiddling with templates for next year.
Here are four new templates (1, 2, 3, and 4), all table-based, due to the vagaries of CSS implementation, which I've fiddled up. You will note the color scheme
seems to be similar (black, "gold", and blue), and they're all heavily calendar-based. I found that I like the "blog" sites with
calendars in the particular day, so you can leap around, but I've also found it very frustrating to look at, say, September 1, realize you missed the last three
days of August, and have to flail around to find those older posts, somehow.
Admittedly, these templates are monsters. They range from 22K to 73K, and this is without the links to the previous dates added in. Which means that they might more than double in size.
And, as is the case with all HTML tables, the entire table MUST download before the thing will display, so there will be in some cases a LONG delay.
I'm not sure I like these, but I wanted to play around a bit with some design ideas I had, and this seemed to be the easiest way to do that. If you have a preference (or hate the layout), please let me know. I expect that template three will generate the most ... well, complaints, to be honest, but we'll see. I'll let you know the running totals when I get enough to be significant.
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Saturday, September 7, 2002 |
Argh.
You know the old saying about "first thing you do in the morning is swallow a live frog - then the day can only get better?" Well, around here, all you need to do is balance the checkbook. Ouch. And Ouch. Ouch. Yikes. Etcetera.
One thing about weekend activities - they force you out of bed early. So much for "catching up on sleep". Yawn.
Jack had soccer this morning, and was doing well in the goalie drill until one little girl fired off a shot he wasn't quite paying attention to - his fault, it was a line drill - the kids line up and kick the ball at the goalie, one at a time, then go to the back of the line. Jack was looking around, and the ball caught him in the upper chest and ricocheted into his face. Instant bloody nose.
Oh well. Our turn for treats is September 28, which may or may not require hot chocolate. We'll see.
After that, the farmer's market, wherein we invested in the makings for yes, you guessed it, Ketchup. Here we go again, again. All I have to do is fire up a nine-year-old computer to get the recipes off it. Sheesh. I really need to whip this place into shape...
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Sunday, September 8, 2002 |
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I keep forgetting - in order to see what I've done, you need to see the updates ON THE SERVER. Duh... Yesterday, after getting going early and running out of gas earlier, we went to drop off the eldest for some play time with her friend. Said friend, whom we also had dinner with on Friday night, was wanting Rhiannon to do a sleepover. Rhiannon was hesitant, but then decided to go. So she went. After all of this "back-and-fill" stuff, of course, our 3:45 departure yesterday for the grocery store turned into a "it's almost 7:30, we need to get to the store - ok, we'll stay for dinner instead." So we did that. Then we came home, Ann took back the required equipment for the sleepover, returned, and we crashed. Today, picked up the kid from church, had donut sunday, got myself volunteered for Cub Scout duty next year (I'm gonna train this year and be ready to hit the ground running next year, as there are other things afoot of which I cannot speak, but the good news is that machiavellian politics in Boy Scouts remains alive, well, and more convoluted than I thought possible. So it goes). The good news is that I've already got a trained, gung-ho Den Chief ready to go, and Jack is excited about it. So there we go. Of course, the pictures there on the right should let you know what we've been doing. I mean, besides cleaning, grilling dinner, and doing laundry - and resurrecting that old computer, too. I know, I know. No rest for the wicked. And I most definitely fit that description. Hope your weekend was good, too. |  First, Jack liked being the goalie.  He even stopped the coach's shot. Then he wasn't paying attention, and caught a ball in the chest - which ricocheted into his face, causing a bloody nose. So it goes. 
And those, my friends, are peppers. I'm told they're "hot" banana, cayenne, habenero, chili, and jalapeno. Can you guess what I'm doing this week? That's right, Home-Made Ketchup. And Chili Sauce. Get out the nuclear waste disposal casks. This will NOT be Pretty. Nor, most likely, edible. So it goes.
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P. Dominik. All rights reserved. No reproduction without express
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