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Looking For Quacks In The Pavement

  • Midnight in the Garden of Blogathon

    Wow. Can you believe it? We’re three quarters of the way through this thing. It’s tomorrow, already. Wow.

    That’s the good news. The bad news, of course, is that we’re going into the most grueling stretch of the event. We’re entering the oh-dark-hundred times, when our bodies want very much to tell us how this is quite past our bedtime, thankyouverymuch.

    I’ve done without sleep before. I used to make a career of it, back when the equipment at work was far less reliable than it is today. (This was also back when I didn’t have as good of a handle on things, I admit.) I’m not as good at it as I used to be… but I still know how it’s done.

    Watch me. I’ll be here. Six hours to go. Hot diggity damn.

  • Six Hours to Fix

    By 9:30 this morning I knew something was horribly wrong. Several computers located all over the building were unable to sign onto the fileserver. The error message, when input to Google and Novell’s support site, turned out to be singularly unhelpful.

    By 10:30 I’d exhausted most of the seemingly-obvious solutions. By 12:30 I’d rebooted the fileserver, to no avail. By 1:30 I’d downloaded updates to every bit of software I could think of.

    At 2:30 I noticed that someone’s computer was plugged into a “new” jack in that particular office. Oh, hell. The “new” jack meant that their computer wasn’t on the “old” set of racks in the server room, but instead on the “expansion” racks, which meant that…

    Yep. One of the network switches in the expansion racks is hosed. Moving the affected individuals’ network connections to other switches fixed their problems completely. If I’d simply traced the damned network connections in the first place I could have saved at least five hours of work.

    Of course, actually tracing out everyone’s connections and getting them moved took another hour.

    So if you’ve been wondering, “What kind of idiot is this guy, anyway?” Now you know.

  • Subtle, isn’t it?

    Hey, look! I’m on a webring! I’m one of the hip, trendy, cool kids now!

    Okay, so it’s a mandatory thing for the Blogathon. It’s there so the Blogathon site-watching teams can easily skip from site to site to site checking up on us, the participants.

    Right! This is a good opportunity to remind you that there’s still plenty of time left for you (yes you!) to be a sponsor! Here’s how. Here’s my campaign page. Heeeeeeeeeere’s Johnny!

    (I’m in a darkly whimsical mood today. Deal with it.)

  • Another “It Figures” Moment

    On Monday I thought, “It figures that I didn’t bring my music player and ended up suffering the bleatings of some loudmouthed jerk on the bus.”

    Today I’m thinking, “It figures that I left my backpack at home and ended up receiving a box full of nifty stuff from Dawn and having my name drawn in the raffle at the end of the company BBQ.”

    From Dawn: A touching (and amusing) card, tea, cocoa mix, a box of chocolate biscotti, some cookies and a grey Totoro t-shirt (yay!). From work: Two caps (one for the country station, the other for beer-and-sports… oh well), two grey t-shirts (with Sierra Mist logos), and a denim jacket (delightfully unadorned).

    I don’t mind when the universe conspires to cheer me up out of a dark-souled funk. I don’t mind a bit. I will, however, enjoy the irony with a jaunty smirk on my face.

  • New name, same old claptrap.

    You think that you can generally ignore the quacks who are touting “Intelligent Design” (the new name for Creationism, in case you hadn’t heard), and then you find that the erstwhile “leader of the free world” is in their camp.

    This is just one more reason to loathe the current state of politics in this country, I suppose.

    Bush League Science

  • Your Depressing Thought For Today

    This evening it occurred to me that many, if not all, of the major choices we make in life are exercises in trading one set of miseries for another, and hoping that the new miseries are more tolerable.

    I don’t think I am inclined to share the details (or source) of this particular line of reasoning right now. Terribly sorry to disappoint you.

    (One hastens to assure one’s loyal audience as well as transient viewers that one’s Blogathon efforts will remain free of such glum ponderings.)

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