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Looking For Quacks In The Pavement

Category: Life

  • If you can pass the test, you can beat the rest.

    Yesterday, I learned a few Linux tricks I didn’t already know followed by everything about ZFS and the nitty-gritty of how Dattos work that I didn’t know, not one bit. Today, I learned about bare-metal restores and some troubleshooting tips, then I took a test.

    I feel sorry for the guy who has to grade mine, because many of the questions required written answers. Have you seen my handwriting? It’s abominable. For some reason my motor control goes completely out the window when I’m holding a writing implement. The longer I write, the jitterier my hand gets. I was hoping for some kind of web-based testing interface, I truly was. Ah, well. If they can interpret my test sheets correctly then I’ve probably passed… which is good considering the ridiculous amounts of my employers’ money and trouble involved in getting me here for that purpose.

    Tomorrow I get up at 3:30am… Eastern time. That’s half past midnight on what is still my internal clock’s time, mind you.

    This weekend I’ll see about doing something with all the pictures on my phone, but don’t expect a post from me tomorrow… 10 hours of travel await me. Yee and/or haw.

  • Getting Here Is Some Fraction Of The Fun

    I woke up at 3:00 yesterday. I woke up at 3:30 today. Well, 6:30 today, but my body clock says 3:30.

    It’s all very disorienting.

    The flights weren’t so bad. Getting through security at PDX went normally, the flights were early, there was only one bit of confusion as gates were scrambled around last-minute for the puddle-jumper leg of the trip, and I experienced almost no ill effect from being in aisle seats the entire six or so hours I spent in airplanes.

    Now, the cab ride to the hotel was more entertaining. First, when the guy calls and says “I’m in a black Lincoln Continental,” that’s not really much help because every cab was a black Lincoln! Then, the dispatcher had given him the wrong destinations, so we spent a few harried minutes getting that squared away. Finally, we drove right past the hotel without realizing we’d gone right past the hotel.

    He was a nice Jamaican fellow, though, and we passed the time amiably once we worked around the various issues.

    The hotel is nice, but a bit quirky. I’ll see about putting together an image post after classes are done so I can explain that a bit better. Also, dining amenities are… interesting. Let’s just say I’m currently located along one of those roads populated mostly with run-down mini-strip-malls, which means it’s either hole-in-the-wall diners or fast food chains. Well, chain. McD’s. Which… only if I’m truly desperate, folks. Ugh.

    And now… off to the first day of classes. Wish me luck?

  • A Series Of Metal Tubes

    I like seeing other parts of the country. I like the idea of seeing other parts of the country.

    I’m not so keen on using air travel to get there.

    Tuesday morning I board a plane bound for Connecticut (well, Chicago… where I’ll catch one for White Plains NY… you get the idea) so I can take a two-day training & certification process for one of our vendors. I’m the right guy to send; I wish I wasn’t. I’ve been losing sleep, worse each night I get closer to the trip, over every thing I can think of that might go awry.

    So… what will I forget? The boarding pass? My laptop? A phone charger? The possibilities are staggering and endless! Wheee!

  • Twenty-somethings

    Well, I’m no longer the parent of teenagers. Alex turned legal-drinking-age last month and today Erica turns 20.

    Insert jokes about how I feel so old now, here.

    Good. Glad we got that out of the way. The important thing here is that they’re off to live their own lives now. They’re not necessarily living the dreams they had a few years ago, it’s true. Dreams are only a set of guideposts anyway. Reality is nittier and grittier and, honestly, more interesting. It’s not always as much fun as our dreams, but that’s life. I’m proud of them both and hope that soon they’ll be fully standing upon their own feet, then striding boldly towards their futures.

  • Planning And Structure Are Good Things

    Today I learned that there are great benefits to be won from the process of planning out a story. I know it’s news only to me and that everyone else is thinking, “Duh!” I’m still astonished, however, that building the outline and planning out the story arcs is helping me get this thing going in a big way. For one thing: I can move pieces around as needed. Last night I placed one particular turning point six installments out from the end only to realize today that I need more room after that event to squeeze in the things that need to happen before the end. There are 26 installments (yes, I’m sticking with the original plan from months ago in that respect, twice-weekly installments for 13 weeks) to build; having a fixed number gives me a box in which to start fitting the pieces. Storytelling Tetris, as it were.

    For another thing: I realized last night that I don’t need to craft a clever plan for the grand finale all on my own. Clever plans abound in stories written by smarter folk than I. All I need to do is find one that suits my purposes and adapt it to this environment. It’s almost time to conduct some research! (Note that I have no intention of using someone else’s efforts in a whole-cloth form. What I need is the structure of the thing, Person A Takes Action X While Persons B And C Provide Distraction Q, and so forth.)

    Planning! Who knew?

    The most astonishing thing, mind you, is that I put together the planning file last night, got it more than halfway done, looked at it again this evening, and didn’t chuck the whole thing in the waste bin for being a terrible idea. Instead, I moved things around and added the extra bits I needed to happen between the moved things and the ending things. Now all I need is to work out the middle details of my erstwhile “B Plot,” then plan out my Grand Finale, then I can start this thing.

    If I still like a story idea after sleeping on it then there’s some small cause for hope. Right? Right.

  • Plotting A Thing

    I don’t want to get ahead of myself again like I did last time. I don’t want to get folks’ hopes up. (Or down, if that’s appropriate.) I have, however, plotted 16 of the 26 points I need for my story arc. Knowing where you’re going has to be a good way to start, doesn’t it…?

    I’m still looking at a serialized WordPress-based presentation, but I’m not going to try to surf the wave and write just ahead of each scheduled publication date. (I suspect the stress of that notion contributed to my meltdown the last time around.) This thing will be at least halfway in the bag before the first post goes up. I’m strongly inclined to complete production before even releasing the first installment just so I don’t have to worry about missing an update.

    So. Let’s see if, after months of rest and weeks of restlessness, I can get this idea off the ground at last.

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