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Looking For Quacks In The Pavement

  • Lest I Seem Without Thanks

    It’s almost Thanksgiving, so let’s get some giving of thanks out of the way.

    I may occasionally seem unhappy with my job, and it’s true. Of course, if it was fun all the time they wouldn’t call it Work, would they? But let’s be clear about one thing: I’m very, very thankful to have this job. Mind you, I’m thankful to have any job, but things worked out better than I could have expected.

    For years I complained that rarely did anyone in authority come to me for advice about technical things before implementing something new and potentially disastrous. One of the things I wanted most was to be asked for my input. Well, my new boss seems to be thoroughly serious about soliciting my viewpoint on things, from how the business should present itself to which service offerings we should provide in the future. I was a bit late getting out the door this evening at the end of my workday because we were discussing anti-spam platforms.

    Feeling like I have some say in things, even as I recognize that the boss’ decision is final (as it should be!), goes a long way toward making me feel like I’m in a healthy, positive environment. Sure, I’m surrounded by triple threats (guys with certifications, years of experience and hefty brains), but maybe I can hold my own after all. And even if this turns out not to be “the job for me,” at least in the meantime I’m in a fairly good spot.

    For which I’m intensely thankful.

  • Will Prevaricate To Prove A Point

    This one’s going to be a bit weird, and may not make a whole lot of sense. I apologize in advance. However, since I’ve sort of glided by on a string of very small posts for most of the last few entries, I figured I’d give my lovely readership a bit of something more substantial to digest. As it were.

    The scene is… some sort of event, many years ago. I was a young’un, not yet a teenager even. It may have been a county fair. There’s a chance it was a boat show at the Expo Center. I’m fairly certain that the venue was covered, but don’t hold me to that. The point is that there were various things to see and do, and my family was seeing and doing. Mostly seeing.

    The cast consists of myself and… well, probably Sis and maybe Mom and I kind of think that her mother was with us, but I can’t be sure. We were a small group, maybe four or five of us, so maybe step-grandpa was with us, or maybe one out of the string of men in Mom’s life. Maybe it was random other people.

    Yes, I’m filing this under “Memories.” Yes, my memory really is this hazy for much of my early life. Deal with it.

    At this event we came across a handwriting analysis booth. That’s right, the deal was that if you write a sentence (very likely the best-known of the pangrams, “The quick brown fox jumps over a lazy dog.”), they’ll tell you what kind of person you are. I was young, bored and gullible, so I gave it a shot. This is back when I could still more-or-less write in cursive.

    I don’t remember what else was on the analysis sheet they gave me, though I’m sure it included concepts like “too snarky for his own good” and “probably needs to get out more.” What statement I found interesting was, “will prevaricate to prove a point.” I thought that was an awfully nice thing to say about me. Hey, it sounded good. A big word like that must mean something bold and positive, right?

    The elders with whom I traveled finally set me straight. “Prevaricate means lie, Karel.”

    Oh.

    Looking back, I probably took it to mean something like “persevere.” Ah, well. I was young.

    I wasn’t too young to recognize the truth of it, though. There’s always been a part of me willing to sacrifice a bit of truth to convince people of something. Even in my darker days I didn’t really lie all that much about what I had or hadn’t actually done. It’s more a matter of being in a debate and exaggerating my chosen example which illustrates why I’m right. (Of course I’m right. Right?)

    And thanks to that handwriting analysis, I keep this fact in the back of my head as often as possible so I don’t let that impulse run away with me. At least, not any more than I can catch myself doing…

  • Not Precisely What I Signed Up For

    When I took the job it was billed as an 8-to-5 Monday-to-Friday gig as the managed services “help desk” guy. This should have precluded any chance of an eleven-hour no-lunch workday.

    And yet, this is precisely what happened today.

    Now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to eat my second meal of the day, twelve hours after my first, and go fall into bed. Thank you.

  • My Kids Rock

    Failing better inspiration, I’ll fill today’s posting requirement by reminding the world that I, yes I, have the best children ever.

    That will be all. Thank you.

  • This Post Almost Didn’t Happen

    The Internet has been almost unavailable at our house all day today. The firewall’s been flaky (to put it nicely) and, at the moment, only wireless devices can get online. I don’t have a laptop anymore, but the roomie has two at his disposal so he’s more-or-less set up okay at the moment.

    My brilliant idea to get at least one of my machines online again involved plugging in one of those old Orinoco wireless cards through an add-on PCMCIA slot. Well, the idea was good but SonicWALL doesn’t like those cards. (Nobody really does, so this isn’t as surprising as you might think. The cards are crap.) My next idea was to borrow the roomie’s LinkSys PCMCIA card out of the laptop he’s not currently using, but that’s a CardBus device and my add-on slot adapters don’t “do” CardBus. You can’t even plug a CardBus card into said adapter, as they’re “keyed” to prevent that sort of thing.

    But wait! I bought an actual PCI 802.11g card for the downstairs anime computer a while back, and since that computer is now at the kids’ place (and wired into their network directly), the card has been sitting in a drawer. Huzzah! A bit of screwdriver work, a software install, a reboot and some swift kicks to the configuration software and…

    …I’m able to write this post. Go, me! (And I’m in slightly less danger of failing NaBloPoMo, to boot. Whew.)

  • I’m alive, if not kicking…

    I nearly forgot to post, today.

    So, how am I doing? Better. Not great, but better. I didn’t get much sleep last night and I’m not completely over… whatever the heck it is that got me.

    There’s a nice weekend ahead, though. The kids are coming over for an all-day visit tomorrow, and I fully expect to veg out most of Sunday.

    I was going to write something more substantial, but I’m afraid that my brain is still made of mush. So, all I can say is… LOOK, BUNNIES!

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