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[May. 15th, 2008|09:00 pm] |
| [ | State of Being |
| |  tired | ] |
There is enough to do here and the stacks of unorganized paperwork are high enough that I'm giving up on the title search for the truck. I'm just going to stop at the DMV on the way to Milwaukee tomorrow and get a replacement title. I've printed out the form and will fill it out tonight.
I cleaned out the truck this evening, after stopping at ![[info]](http://p-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) posicat's place on the way home for an hour or two, even though we'll get together tomorrow after work for the usual coffee gathering. I feel bad that I don't get to see him as much as I'd like so we talked for a while about the VoIP box he was hacking and his car.
In the truck, I found a Sock Dreams gift certificate for Andrea, some of my clothes, bouncy balls (I don't know why, but I keep collecting bouncing balls from those coin-op vending machines. I like them.), my copy of Einstein's Dreams that I bought at a thrift store and never managed to read, and, in the bed, a large box full of now-rusty server hard drives, not to mention a few case fans, some SCSI controllers, laptop power cords, and a pack of three big batteries from a UPS. My truck was where old tech went to die, apparently. I'm trying to keep my Aveo cleaner. Well, except for all the fur in what I've taken to calling 'the dog den' that's formed when I fold the seats all the way up.
Tomorrow I'll be removing my compass from the windshield, unbolting and disconnecting my CB radio and weather radio/police scanner for later installation in the Aveo, and pulling the antenna cables out from where I tucked them so I can stick my antennae in the garage 'till I figure out the best way to mount them on a vehicle that I actually have reason to worry about the paint on. Then on Saturday, on the way to sabrinageek's place, she'll be put out to pasture.
Camping on Memorial Day weekend with Posi sounds like it's probably out. Posi pointed out that it's still a bit cold, and that campgrounds would be packed. I guess I could go to RCFM with folks, but I'm actually not that interested. I'm kind of wavering between driving up to the Michigan northern peninsula to investigate abandoned mining towns (which I'd better start researching soon if I'm serious; vandringar, would you be willing to offer any advice or tips if I send you an email?) and working on cleaning house. I know which I should probably be doing, but the idea of driving around the UP in my little car with a tent, a dog, some food, and some camera gear is really appealing to me.... Maybe I'd even rent a lens for the trip.
Andrea is nervous about me going by myself. akreaveter, any interest in coming with? Anybody else? It's tentative at this point, but let me know if you think it sounds like fun. I'll cover gas since I'd be going anyway, but help with food and such would be appreciated. I'm planning to bring a bunch of sandwich fixings and other road food, and I may be able to dig my camp stove up at my parents house for making hot stuff. |
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[May. 14th, 2008|10:18 am] |
| [ | State of Being |
| |  frustrated | ] |
Someone in Poland who bought a 600 dollar tablet from me just opened a dispute indicating he didn't receive it, so my Paypal balance is now negative. I'm kind of pissed, and I shouldn't be, because he sent messages to our Paypal account but I assumed that Andrea was checking messages because I'd forgotten that I'd forwarded them to my email address. I have to try to find the customs form when I get home and figure out how to track the thing. I'm primarily mad at myself for having missed seeing the messages.
And when I went out to the car to look for the customs form, I locked my keys in it. *sighs* I knew it would happen sooner or later. It's just the way I am. I wish I'd gotten that extra key for my wallet made.
I used to be more centered. I'm starting to really dislike the changes that working helpdesk, and specifically help desk at this disorganized, hodge-podge excuse for a corporation, has on my psyche. I was talking a little bit about that to megmoves yesterday evening. I always see people at their worst; when they are confronted with something they can't solve, or they're trying to wade through the maze of paperwork and approvals I lay in front of them. Once I get that certification in July, I need to look elsewhere for something that involves more hardware and less wetware. I don't want to get bitter and angry and I'm starting to feel that way too often here. It may be time to move on.
(This episode of angst brought to you in part by absurdly complex and draconian Sarbanes-Oxley related access policies for our network that I am charged with enforcing [not that it really matters that much considering we continue to be the only department that actually passes our SOX audits year after year and everything's going to get turned on it's ear anyway when our acquisition merger goes through in a few months].)
But I'll wash my hands of that for now.
I had a really nice time going for a walk through Petrifying Springs last night with megmoves and Kuma. The sky seemed at times on the verge of rain, and I felt a brief misting at one point, but umbrellas never became necessary and the hint of damp and the beautifully contrasted sunlight through the clouds made everything so beautiful. It was a really pleasant way to spend an evening, and wonderful company to do it in.
Kuma, poor thing, was quite worn out and I had to carry him up the stairs to go to bed last night. He got up a couple of steps and then just stopped. I'm getting worried about his legs. He's had a little arthritis for a few years, but it's been worse lately. We've started giving him some glucosamine supplements and I made sure to get the senior food for him with extra glucosamine too. Our puppy's going to be ten years old soon.... |
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[May. 13th, 2008|08:11 am] |
| [ | State of Being |
| |  working | ] |
A number of people in my life who I am close to are in distress. Periphery interaction with the disturbance has kept me from getting much done, though I did manage to get a few things on Ebay last night.
So, though I have heard about the earthquake in China (and commented to my team lead that I wish the 900 school children who were trapped could be swapped for the government officials who are permitting organ harvesting from live Falun Gong prisoners; there's some, if you'll pardon my language, fucked up shit going on over there right now), it wasn't from NPR. That's because I've been listening to the CD of MP3s I made for my commute instead of the radio over the last couple of days.
Primarily I've been listening to the second half of Abbey Road, but this morning, as I was playing Sgt. Pepper's and I got up to Getting Better, I was reminded of it's highly inappropriate use in a GE commercial some years ago.
Do you know the song? It's the one that has an upbeat little guitar melody with a chorus of
"You've got to admit, it's getting better;
Getting better all the time."
Even aside from the fact that, if you listen carefully, you can hear another one of the fab four, after each repetition of "You've got to admit, it's getting better" chime in with "It couldn't get no worse!", I can only imagine that the people in marketing who came up with the idea were either not smart enough to listen to the entire song before using a significant piece of it, or assumed that the American public was either too young to know it, was too drugged out when they were listening to it to remember it, or just didn't care about the rest of the contents. Contents like:
"I used to be cruel to my woman
I beat her and kept her apart
from the things that she loved.
Man I was mean,
But I'm changing my scene
And I'm doing the best that I can."
Yeah, that's great, GE. Really makes me want to buy a toaster.
So tell me; what is your favorite misappropriate of something musical, pop-cultural, or otherwise artsy for use in advertising that it never should have been used in? I'm all ears. |
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[May. 12th, 2008|01:19 pm] |
| [ | State of Being |
| | working | ] |
Does anyone need an HP Procurve rack mount managed backbone switch? It's got a bunch of 10/100 modules in it; I think it totals around forty ports. Plus there are some blanks that could be replaced with more of those, or with fiber modules. I think it works (haven't really tested it) but has a bad fan. It does VLANs and all that fun stuff.
I was originally planning to use it in my basement to wire all the rooms of the house that I haven't bought yet, but with wireless as good as it is, I don't really see the point. With 1000 base the standard these days, they aren't worth much either. If you have any use for this, let me know and it's yours. Otherwise I'm going to bring it to work for disposal.
I also have a metric ton of cables; power cables, printer cables, some SCSI cables, serial cables, and I don't know what all. I'm planning to cull the herd soon. Can anybody use any power cables or anything like that? Let me know what you need and I'll see if I find some as I box them up to go bye-bye.
Thanks! |
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[May. 9th, 2008|10:34 am] |
| [ | State of Being |
| | working | ] |
My company is hiring support techs for our office in Vermont. It would be help desk work for our company's clients supporting our software. If I refer somebody who gets hired, I get a thousand dollar bonus. That's pretty cool.
If any of you know anybody who's in the area and might be interested, I'll be happy to pass on information. I don't know that I know anybody there myself, but who knows how wide the friend-of-a-friend network spreads? |
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[May. 8th, 2008|09:37 pm] |
| [ | State of Being |
| | sleepy | ] |
I'm finally making some progress on cleaning stuff out of here again. I'm actually trying to make some space in the computer room since it looks like I'll hopefully be bringing more laptops home this weekend. So, I've written ad copy for a non-functional Omnibook, a big box of used docking stations, and a 12 disc car CD-changer. As I type, I am boot-nuking the hard drive of another laptop, an HP Pentium 4.
Now, I know that some of you were interested in laptops from me. By tomorrow I'll be able to tell you whether this one is actually functional and everything. You should know, though, that, cosmetically speaking, this one is ugly. The N800s have this incredibly cheap paint that seems to flake if you look at it funny and the palm rests on this one are not pretty. If I find that cosmetics are the only problem, and you'd be interested, let me know. It's most likely a P4 at 1.6 or 1.8 ghz. I'll check for sure tomorrow before I install an OS. And if someone else asks first, don't worry; as I said, I'll probably have a few more sometime soon.
Now that the huckstering is done, I should state that I'm feeling proud of myself. I'm all caught up on my ledger, and I've even updated my Google calendar with upcoming events in the life of Stormdog. I'm organized! I'm not sure how long that will last; we shall see. In the meantime, I can play a rousing game of Where Will Stormdog Be!
I know that this weekend we have polymorphism in town, next weekend we'll be visiting sabrinageek in Rockford, and the weekend after that is Wiscon, which I'm still debating about going to. It would be really, really nifty to meet yuki_onna at the Omikuji gathering there, but since that's likely on Friday night, I'm not sure I'd get there early enough for that anyway. I may day-trip on Saturday or Sunday. Or maybe I'll even ask for a couple of hours off on Friday so I can leave early. I dunno.
Though there's the trip I mentioned this Saturday, and I need to work on the basement some with Andrea on Sunday, I'm going to see if I can sneak in a trip to Petrifying Springs too, especially since there's a possibility of having a companion for a nice walk through the park. Maybe I'll even bring the dog.
The days go so quickly. I should probably get to bed soon. At least I feel like I've made some progress with the Ebay copy I wrote, even though I still haven't vacuumed the carpet since we had people over on Saturday. Instead, I've been doing things like having a dinner of party leftovers with my parents on Wednesday and going for nice bike rides, by myself today and with akreaveter on Tuesday, and those things are very important too. I had such a good time with my brother! It had been years since I'd done something like that with one of them; back before I moved to Michigan. I really missed my family when I was away. I think that you eventually get used to it, when you're far from people you love, but you never do stop missing them.
I just wish it was easier to keep up with the house on top of doing other things that are worth doing. |
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[May. 8th, 2008|06:18 pm] |
| [ | State of Being |
| |  pleased | ] |
For two days in a row, NPR's All Things Considered has been talking about transgendered children. Both days it's been really interesting to listen to, but the content today was particularly inspirational. The reporter was interviewing the parents of a ten year old transgendered girl and, as well as talking about the experimental way her situation is being addressed, had some simply beautiful recountings of the support that she and her parents have received from other family members. I found my eyes a little moist at a couple of points through the story.
If it's a topic that interests you (and I think I know at least a couple of people who it will *grins*), I highly recommend listening. You can get the programs at the site that I linked to above. |
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[May. 7th, 2008|01:07 pm] |
| [ | State of Being |
| | working | ] |
While looking up a couple of books on Amazon to recommend to a friend, I found myself poking through more books that cited the ones I'd originally looked up.
I think I really need a copy of this. As someone who is intrigued by systems, and specifically the failures of systems (I love learning about cascade failures) it sounds absolutely fascinating. |
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[May. 6th, 2008|04:30 pm] |
| [ | State of Being |
| | sleepy | ] |
There have been 17 new contractors to put in the system, a few non-contractors, and about seven or eight terminations today. That was about eighty percent of my day right there. I'm doing so much typing that my left wrist hurts even with the brace on. *sighs*
I went to a meeting today about a pre-paid legal plan for employees of my company. It's weird to do something that so integrates me into 'the machine', but I have now signed up for it. Who knows when I'll need legal representation for something? There have been several instances in the past when I might have used it, and heck, if we need to I can even use it fight the absurd fines that Andrea got hit with from the Ipass agency. I get a yearly will out of it too; that'll be kind of weird to fill out, but it's one of those thing that all the suit-and-tie bedecked grown-ups keep saying is a really good thing to have done. I get representation for traffic tickets, insurance claims, identity theft issues, injuries, and really, whatever I might need a lawyer for. I think that's worth the $25 a month. I may opt out of the identity theft protection and credit monitoring because that costs extra; that would make it even less expensive. What do you think?
*woof* It's been a long day. Wanna go home now. |
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[May. 5th, 2008|10:52 am] |
I want to use a portion of the money I got from selling my tablet PC to buy a drawing tablet. I'd like a big one. Beyond that, I don't know anything about them.
If any of you have experience with them, do you know what brands are good and what suck? The only 12" by 9"s on Ebay are by UC-Logic/Lapazz and Adesso, and I can't find too much info about them out there. Just thought I'd say something here in case anyone can offer insight.
Thanks!
(Cross-posted to ![[info]](http://p-stat.livejournal.com/img/community.gif) lafflist)
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Ok, at this point I'm pretty sure I'm going with a 9 x 12 Aiptek. It sounds like they're nearly as good as the Wacoms, and I get them much cheaper. By all means though, if you have comments, let me know.
http://www.retouchpro.com/forums/archive/t-4921.html |
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[May. 4th, 2008|11:51 pm] |
| [ | State of Being |
| | grateful | ] |
I wish I could get Kuma to snuggle up with me. It's so weird sleeping alone.
I had a wonderful time with everybody at our house on Saturday. I'll write more about it later, but I want to make sure I thank everyone for coming. You made my sweetie and I very happy with your presence. Thank you. |
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[May. 3rd, 2008|08:58 am] |
| [ | State of Being |
| |  loved | ] |
When I came downstairs this morning and went in to the kitchen to scavenge food from the stock that she's preparing for the party, moiracoon saw me and said "Good morning pupshine!"
Pupshine! I'm Pupshine! That makes me silly-happy. |
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[May. 3rd, 2008|08:26 am] |
Perhaps there's something wrong with me. I'm sure that I'm disappointing not just all my friends of a geeky variety, but my father too. But I just don't seem to fit with them on this.
I grew up with a ton of comic books around the house; I used to read through my dad's collection of them long into the night. I like superheros. I'm not manically excited by them, but I think they're pretty cool. I love Spider Man and the Fantastic Four and Doctor Strange and bunches of others. And I see just about my entire friends list going on and on about how great the Iron Man movie is. But I just have little or no interest in seeing it. Maybe I'm a mutant; maybe that gene transmuted into a love of climbing around abandoned buildings with flashlights and climbing ropes and.... Wait a minute. That's it! The superhero gene, when not expressed fully, transmutes into a wannabe ninja gene!!
But you know, I think I would go see a Doctor Strange movie, now that I mention him.... |
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[May. 2nd, 2008|08:35 am] |
| [ | State of Being |
| |  excited | ] |
Things have been a little stressful at work and in various other ways for my sweetie, so we decided to go out for Chinese buffet last night for dinner to relax a bit. While out, we stopped at Pick and Save (a grocery store here in Kenosha in case you're not familiar) to get a couple final things for the gathering this weekend. But on the way to the checkouts, we were stopped in our tracks. There was a large cardboard box there in the middle of the aisleway, propped up to waist level. In it, were movies. Lots of movies. With stickers on them with low numbers. We began to browse. Not intently at first; you know, just sort of casually pointing things out to each other. Not getting too attached. But it was unavoidable from the first. twenty minutes and three full circuits around the box later. In our hands were six thing rectangular boxes. There were more that would have even further sated our hunger, but we stopped short of gorging ourselves to a disturbing degree.
In the end, we brought home as our trophies:
*The House of Mirth - Costume drama!
*The Motorcycle Diaries - Something I've wanted to see since the previews were out, and an oddly appropriate movie to buy on May Day.
*The Graduate - Apparently I'm abnormal for thinking that Ann Bancroft is smoking hot in this movie?
*Last Tango in Paris, uncut uncensored version - I've never seen this one, but Andrea has indicated that it's interesting.
*Midnight Cowboy: The Collector's Edition - Ditto. Reading about this one it sounds pretty unusual and worthwhile.
*The Magnificent Seven: Collector's Edition - Though I've heard great things about this movie and look forward to seeing it, it really makes me want to find copies of all the Kurosawa films these movies were based on. I've never sat down and watched all of a Kurosawa movie, but the parts that I've seen looked really, really good. But I'll watch this one too. I've never really seen many westerns either, so it should be a new experience if nothing else.
Well, I'm working from home today so the handyman can fix our shower (I was replacing the hose to the shower head and, by coincidence, the pull-button to make water divert to the shower hose stopped diverting). In fact, I think that my be him that Kuma is barking at. Gotta go! |
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[May. 1st, 2008|12:18 pm] |
Thanks to a conversation in the inimitable samii_tiger's journal, we know what super hero I am.
Posicat: I am IronCat!!!!!!!!!! dah, dah, dadada!!
Stormdog: Can I be Canus America then?
Posicat: I don't know if you'd look good in red white blue spandex. I'd think green is more likely, Green Pantin' or something.
Stormdog: Bwahahaha! Yes! I want a picture of that! (As it happens, I'm something of a Green Lantern fan. Particularly Hal Jordan. I think I get that from my dad.)
Posicat: Well, your dad's a good place to get things from. I approve.
It's decided. I am.... Green Pantin'!
What anthropomorphic, or otherwise fannish, (and silly; let's not forget silly) superhero are you? |
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[May. 1st, 2008|08:26 am] |
| [ | State of Being |
| | working | ] |
A happy May Day to all my fellow workers out there. Now all you Americans; get back to your desks, machines, driver's seats, or other instruments of toil! These things won't operate themselves! |
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[Apr. 30th, 2008|07:50 pm] |
| [ | State of Being |
| |  geeky | ] |
I have an Ipaq 3850 with charging cradle and stylus and everything I'll be happy to give to anyone interested. It probably needs a new battery, though the one in it holds a little bit of a charge; not much.
Any takers? First one can have it.
I just put my TI graphing calculator on the sill above the computer room door next to my slide rule and my abacus. What should go with them? |
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[Apr. 30th, 2008|04:22 pm] |
| [ | State of Being |
| | working | ] |
I was going to write yesterday, but I went to bed early. I followed serinthia home (after eating a couple homemade pirogies) and, with a couple of trips to the hardware store, transferred a washer and dryer from her former downstairs neighbors' hookups to her own. I'm grateful for a chance to keep my major appliance installation skills fresh in mind, and I think I've learned that I prefer the Teflon thread tape over the goo. I'm going back tonight to install a plug on the end of the now-unattached gas line that the dryer used to be on.
I got back home with a headache (that I actually had before doing the work, so it wasn't from gas inhalation or anything!) and went to bed early. But not before eating more pierogies. Ahh, bliss. The only thing that would have made them better was some dollops of sour cream. Despite Andrea telling me she used no small amount of that in the dough already, pierogies just need some sour cream on top of them I think.
I was going to take a picture of my comb to post and gush again about how much I love it and how I use it every day, but was interrupted by that whole going to bed thing. Rest assured, mystery gift-giver, that your present is well loved and frequently utilized.
This week has been busy and I've spent a bunch of time cleaning up, packing and shipping Ebay items, and working on things. Therefore, I haven't had time for managing pictures. Hopefully I can write about this past weekend during this coming weekend. In the meantime, tonight is dinner with my parents on top of finishing up at Serin's.
moiracoon bought another mondo-big wind chime, this one with four tubular bells, at her office closeout store. I have hung them above our stairs to our second floor bedroom, replacing a bug plushy bundle of grapes. If only they could hang in front of the window on our landing, but that would get in peoples' way as they are about four feet tall. Instead, I blow on them every time I walk by, and I suspect that, if we open the windows all the way across the room, good stiff breezes will make them tintinnabulate (Have I mentioned I really like that word? That's my excuse for using it wherever I can.).
And hey; my company's earnings report just stated that we made 0¢ per share this quarter. Our stock is down 14¢ in after-hours trading. In my manager's words, "Buy a bunch of stock tomorrow! They just announced a fire-sale!" I'm going to bug my finance department some more tomorrow to act on my invoice for training now please.
The wrist brace I bought at Walgreen's on Monday has helped my left wrist tremendously, and I could immediately tell the difference when I had to work without it yesterday because I'd been a dunce and forgotten it at home. Plus, it's a stylish charcoal grey. Bonus! It even matches my shirt today. Hopefully consistent use of it will reduce my wrist pain again and I won't have twinges trying to shift gears on my bike. If I haven't written or responded as much as I usually do, it's because it's been hurting to.
I know I had a bunch more stuff to say but this notepad window has been sitting open for about three hours while I dealt with other stuff at the office and now I can't remember what I was going to say. Later, hopefully. |
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[Apr. 29th, 2008|03:42 pm] |
| [ | State of Being |
| |  curious | ] |
I just emailed Andrea to ask whether she'll make these for me. What do you think she'll say? |
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[Apr. 28th, 2008|09:12 am] |
I ate my first ever, completely home-made, from-scratch pierogies last night! That was so cool! moiracoon surprised Mocha and I with them once we got back. They were spinach and feta-filled pockets of fresh-made dough, fried up with caramelized onions. They were so good! And along with them, she made feta and spinach pie, with a totally awesome crust that was hard and bready and had those little holes poked in the top like a real pie! It was fantastic! (Cooking is like magic to me. I don't understand the process enough to know what's going on, so it's an unexplained mystery. I just keep thinking of the Calvin and Hobbes cartoon where Calvin is explaining toast to Hobbes. "You just put the bread in, push the lever, wait a few minutes, and toast pops out!" "Wow, where did the bread go?" "I don't know; it's a mystery!") Thank you sweetie!
I will write more about my day yesterday and post pictures later. I have at least gotten the pictures, along with those from the railroad museum, onto my picture management computer so I can post them soonish. |
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