I feel like I am going to puke. I am waiting for the call back on when my interview will be. Some time between the first and the eleventh apparently.

Well while I was writing this I got the call. I know when it is now. OOF.

Donut Day!

Today like every Wednesday around here is Donut Day! The company buys donuts for everyone. This does mean somebody has to go out and pick up the donuts and bring them to work, but still free donuts mid week. What a great idea. However I have a problem with a trend I have been noticing. I don't like that opaqe thick icing that seems to be mostly lard or crisco and sugar that appears on so many donuts. Actually I don't really like any icing on my donuts. However the young woman who picks them up here, gets fewer and fewer donuts without frosting on them every time. This time there was one pecan roll. Fortunately I like pecan rolls but you have to practically jump up and run for the breakroom when she yells "Donuts are HERE!" to get a choice, and you have to be first in line to get an icing free choice. Last week I didn't even eat a donut. Oh well I suppose I should be happy about the free food.

I love tasks like this... go find all the old stuff we did over a year ago and put it back on the server so we can cut more copies of the disk. Gee maybe if we kept a master we wouldn't have to do such stupid backwards things? You think? Maybe? just Maybe? naw... we would still be doing stuff the hard way.

I think I might be going nuts, nobody here seems to remember us ever owning a copy of OmniPage, but I know we did. I remember installing it. I remember what the packaging looks like. I remember fighting to get the money to buy it. But nobody else does. Nobody remebers it. I know we had it. I know because I had to teach all the ISDs to use it. Even though I had never used it myself. Because I thought it was stupid for them to be getting paid to type in manuals, and some of them aren't good typists. ARRRGHH!

www.spinetorture.com one of my friends did this website. I hope she got hazzard pay. Sort of scary looking for a band that sounds a lot like a Lenny Kravitz ripoff. And what is with that name...maybe something grammatical would have been nice... there I go thinking again though.

YIPPPEEEEE! I just got a message I am supposed to call to set up the interview tomorrow! I hope this goes well.

Anybody out there in blog land actually work with anybody that has an unnatural hair color in a professional environment? You know a blue haired programmer, or a green haired bank teller? I am not looking for weird hair in a stuffy uptight suit and tie Arthur Anderson sort of place, but in a more laid back, khakis and polos sort of joint. What was the reaction? Email me.. there is a link right at the top of the page. I would love to know.

VB STINKS!

Ok.. I had let my VB skills go to rust right? As a network administrator coding isn't a big part of my job, and coding VB especially isn't. Well a friend and co-worker needs a bit of help getting a project out the door, and I have some free time, so I thought sure "Gee, I can help." and I make the offer. Well now I have rebooted for the 6th time today. VB is thowing out of memory errors whenever I try to duplicate a form. Too bad this is the template form from which all other forms are born right? Anyhow... this here blog stuck a chord with me today. Since he was pretty hot about VB being a nusiance. In my particular case it isn't really a bad tool for the job at hand, quite possibly one of the best...but still. Can't they manage to write a development environment that doesn't crash ever hour and a half?

Meanwhile the network is perking along nicely, and I am wearing the annoying shocking shoes of death! You know that one pair of shoes that causes you to get zapped by static electricity nearly constantly as you move about your environment. I am afraid to turn off my light when I leave tonight, last time I wore these shoes and hit that switch there was an audible pop and I couldn't feel my fingers for 5 minutes.

This is going to be one of those weeks I think. I'm waiting for a call about an interview. I promised myself and my carpool buddy I (who has to listen to me) not to fret about it until Wednesday, so this will be the last you will hear of it until I get the call. My roommate is interviewing today, if you have a spare good thought to throw her way I am sure she would appreciate it.

Good things:
Potential interview
Learning new things
refreshing VB skills
CD duplicators (left one running all weekend saving me days of work)
chocolate milk!
juggling balls

Scary things:
Snow returns
empty milk carton
waiting for interviews
my boss

Ok.. I guess after that last post I should explain my long-standing theory on publishing things in any medium. Especially electronically. I was a traditional college student from 91-95. I got my first email address in 1991, I had a BITNET address, and an internet address. (Before that I dialed BBSs) Yep. I have been on the internet that long. I got my first web page not long after. I also discovered Usenet (aka news groups for the more newly internet savvy). At that time the internet was small, but rapidly growing. There were groups forming for almost every purpose. Then as now there were flame wars. People would start fights just for the purpose of calling people names and expressing negative opinions. I have yet to fully understand this phenomena even though personally I like a good argument. Maybe it's because these aren't good arguments.

I think what amazed me most was the rude things people would say. As though they were saying them in private. People would write and commit to permanent medium some of the most scathing things. Would you really want your children, or your parents, or grandparents to read this stuff? I always figured making a post to a mailing list, or news group was well pretty much like standing in a big room blindfolded and shouting the same information. Hence when I look back at my old posts (go to groups.google.com and search on an old email address or your own name) I am not embarrassed, well maybe a bit because I was so formal and polite in what is basically a casual medium, but there is nothing out there I wouldn't say to my grandmother, or my nephew (having no children of my own). Can you say the same thing. News seemed transient, after all it old messages disappeared, but people were archiving it, and archiving mailing lists, and BBSs and all sorts of things. Now with the amazing searching power provided by much faster computers, and better search strategies everything you said can be found. Well maybe not if you don't remember your old addresses from anon.penet.fi (you had one didn't you? I know I did.)

What does this all this add up to? Well basically before I publish anything, be it on paper, or electronically I like to stop and think, will I be ashamed of this in 6 weeks, 6 months, 6 years? Not that I am against high speed publishing. I have a blog as you can clearly see. But before you start a flame war over a typo, or a differing opinion about the position of the engine room in the Enterprise NX-01, or insult someone's intelligence, parentage, or personal habits, stop and think.

Go try it, search for old email addresses... it is insightful to see what interested you years ago, if you were out there. If not, pick a participant in a flame war you are watching, search on their old posts, and see what you could become.

As I read my friends weblogs, and those of strangers I occasionally feel guilty of peaking into their lives without them really knowing. It suddenly occured to me that people I know could be reading this. I mean besides the two I talk to about it daily. Well there you go your own little somewhat censored window into my brain. I have decided this really isn't a great weblog. It isn't a good one even. But it is mine, and it does serve as a nice place to stash links and thoughts that I might want later. I would stop censoring what I put here, but I have a longstanding theory on publishing things, and this can be relatively easily found from anyone who has my resume, or can guess standard ISP procedures. One must avoid negative personality leakage when hunting/hoping for a new job.

If you read this and discover I said something mean about you, and it hurts your feelings, I will remind you that I didn't tell you to read it. If you read this and wonder why you didn't make the cut, after all you really did something nice, or pissed me off or whatever.....well too bad. If I say something you really want to respond to there is an email link at the top of the page.

OK.. if you follow the links from the blogger main page right now you will find this on your own.. but for those who look here and not there (all 2 of you) this is neat. Zen TV, watch it mindful of what you are watching.

I have a TV, I have dish even. After I got my dish I started watching a LOT more TV and reading less. Thinking less. Cleaning less. Actually at my house the TV is known as the soul sucker, if I turn it on Saturday morning the next thing I know the day is gone. I think maybe I should think about getting rid of the dish. Well maybe if I could get more than 2 fuzzy channels without it. But I lived years before this without. I suppose I could go back.

OK.. while puttering around on the net looking for alternative display options. Given instructions of finding more ways to deploy our courseware to people on the move. I find this the Microvision: Nomad Personal Display System. This thing rocks. Well right now it is too big and bulky to be convinet but it is direct retinal projection at 800x600. Monochrome Red at 32 intensities, but you see it as an overlay to everything else. You look right through it. HOW COOL IS THAT? I think I need one. Well maybe not yet..but when they get a bit smaller. Apparently color is also possible but it requires 3 colors of laser, and as we all know red is the cheapest easiest laser to produce. Anyhow... I just had to share.

Well I just heard that I will be getting called to set up an interview next week! Yippee.

I am super nervous today. I have a resume out. Well that isn't so new, it has been out for a while, but this one is being delivered by a friend to the hiring manager at his office. Nothing like the waiting to make you wish you could skip forward in time to know what the outcome will be.

I would really like to move to Minnesota. I have a good job here. It more than pays the bills, it is relatively low stress, not too much to complain about. The challenge is gone though. Nothing to learn, nothing to grow into. I have mastered it. The fun is gone, and the cool people around me are bailing for many of the same reasons.

I think someone is programming KGGO to remind me of my mother today. I would call her and say hello if I knew where she was, but they are somewhere in California. Rag Doll, Back in Black, Immigrant Song. Strange but true. My mom is AC/DC, Led Zeppelin, Stones fan. I used to have to turn down the radio in her car when I had to drive it.

Oh and I got a new laptop over the weekend. Yeah I know big expense little gain, but I had been wanting one for a few years, and I finally had a decent excuse, the 450 at home is about to croak, only boots 1 time in 10, the hard drive is making bad noises, and this is AFTER I worked on it for a while. So...I figured why build another computer, when I could buy a new one, for less than I built the 450 for several years ago. Anyhow I am thrilled. I am looking for network diagnostics software to install, then I can use it as a network sniffer tool.

Oh and hopefully today my resume and a cover letter will be being delivered to someone who actually wants them! Who asked for them. Let's hear it for friends who get you in the door at their place of employment!

Have I ever mentioned how neat it is that chocolate milk comes in one quart containers, perfect for your morning at the office! Ahh how I love chocolate milk. Yeah I know I could make my own, buying cheaper white milk. Or buy it by the gallon and save my self some money. But this way I just grab a quart on my way out the door. It is rather like breakfast. I haven't done breakfast regularly since college.

This is wierd. In the UK they are playing Barry White for sharks, in hopes of getting them in the mood? Why? Does somebody have too much time on their hands? What makes them think sharks will like Barry White? Maybe they are more a Mozart crowd or NIN? The things people do.

I just had the weirdest idea while getting my ramen out of the microwave. Sort of old west meets tokyo...vending machines with ammunition in them. ten round containers of popular calibers. You could probably convert old cigarette vending machines quite easily, or even your typical candy vending machine.

I have recently decided what I would do if I won the lottery. I would have a full stable of old VWs the ones everyone thinks are ugly, no beetles, bugs or busses for me, well maybe a westfailia (but in working campable condition) and a 75 super beetle in blue for nostalgia reasons but I want ugly ones, single cab transporters, things, the elusive dual cab transporter. Maybe even a collection of the diesel VWs. I would then spend all day just puttering and fixing them, and restoring them to their original beauty.

I found the most wonderful vehicle. I have never seen the likes of it before it is a 1984 Transporter in diesel, sure it is in Texas, it doesn't run, it is OD in color.

But oooh I want it. I showed the ebay listing to an old friend our conversation follows.

him: I've seen uglier...
him: ...but not many.
me: I love it
me: I like the thing too though
him: There's a full sized van/5th wheel thing here in town that looks like a mini semi-tractor.
me: that would be ugly.. I have always loved the little VW pickups
him: Not much different from this; it's based on a Dodge, and is cut off further back (2 rows of seating).
me: ahh
me: the sides on that transporter flip down.. leaving a flat deck for loading..when I was a kid I wanted a civilian transporter or a vw thing. I got the super beetle, which was cute in its own right.. but just not the same
me: I guess at this point I have to admit I have no sense of aesthetics
him: Yeah, that would pretty much sum it up.
me: hey I thought your wife was cute.
him: Coincidence, I'm sure.
lthomasEWT: or her ugly green rabbit?
him: That or your lack of aesthetics applies only to motor vehicles.
him: Could be.
me: naw I liked her before the car

another glorious day at the land of duplicity and personal pet projects that must be kept secret from everyone.

is it ironic that both the computers I use most often are located in closets? or just sad? I sit in a closet all day at work, then come home and sit in a closet some more. I think it is more sad than ironic.

Well if you look back to november in the archives you will see the starts of some really serious bitching about my ISP. Well guess what, after months of getting no answers from Tier1 support. I decided to mail to all of the available addresses, like billing, and dsl, and whatnot with my complaints. You will never guess what happened!

I got a response, not an autoresponder but a real live response written by an intelligent individual. You know the sort of things I liked about crosspaths when I signed up with them. It scared me, but it also made me very happy. I take back all the mean things I said about them being brainless dorks in November, and those who have been listening to me in person since then, sorry. Gee this is so swell. Almost makes me forget my woes with stupid word macros, and explaining to my boss that giving his password to his adult aged son is a bad idea, because his son is using that password to authenticate into the AuthSMTP server and send spam.

The Grammar Test
Your Score: 85%

I am a grammar expert! My skills are certainly being wasted here on the internet. Perhaps I should become a teacher.
Test yourself at geekykid.net

Amazing to think I flunked 4th and 6th grade English, because I couldn't hack the grammar.

Feds dupe Investors Yep you read that right, our government set up fake websites trying to get people to invest in bogus products. They are trying to teach people about investment scams. Appearntly they made a handful of websites that look like investment scam sites, and people fell for them.

Lesson #1 in life everyone "If it seems too good to be true, it is!"

test

This was bound to happen I think. After decades of helping girls catch up in the sciences, and the big deal everyone was making about how girls get noticed less in school, well they caught up. But now we have a new problem boys are now "behind" in reading and language skills. Well they were always behind, but now that girls are as good in the things boys were supposedly "just better" at, it occurs to someone they don't read as well as they could.

I have a co-worker who has an elementary schooler who hates to read. He doesn't like reading, he doesn't do too well at it in school either. She and her husband try very hard to find things for him to read that he might be interested in. guysread.com is a website about the guys read initiative to get boys more interested in reading by providing suggestions of books boys might like.

Guess what they don't dig things like Little House on the Prairie and Black Beauty and I suspect Judy Blume books aren't high on the list of things they like. But look how suprizing boys loved Harry Potter duh? a male protagonist? an intersting story? I think it can't hurt for somebody to start a list of boy friendly books.

I have taken to spending much of my days on L-space. A webadel run by some friends of mine. It is down today. I am actually lost as to what to do with my free time at the office. I actually can probably guess by looking back over this blog when I started spending time on L-space. I went from a new entry at least once daily. Sometimes quite a few more. I guess I haven't been keeping up on my slashdot and salon reading etc.

My juggling has slipped quite a bit too. Hmm time to practice.

The folks at Kar's Nuts are absolutely brilliant. I am sitting here placidly munching on one of my all time favorite snacks, sunflower seeds. The best part is I don't have a spitter, nor am I consuming the shells (the two most viable options when eating seeds indoors). They sell in my Sunflower Kernels. All the zippy good taste none of the irritation.

And I am not making noises like a very large parakeet! I used to share a cube with a guy who ate about 2lbs of sunflower seeds a week, there was a constant crick, crack, spit sound going on behind me. Occasionally punctuated by the THWAPA THWAPA THWAPA if him beating his spitter (a 20oz coke bottle) against the sides of his trashcan to empty it.

I have been cooking more lately. This is partly because I have been being more careful with my money lately. Basically I am lazy, at least when it comes to food. If there were such a thing as people chow, where you just scooped a pile of brown kibble into a bowl and ate it, I could probably go for that most days. Mind you it isn't that I don't like food, if you know me that is obvious. I am just really lazy about it. I loved dorm life, show up in the caf, they put food in front of you eat it, and put your tray on the conveyer. Yippee no effort meals.

I like cooking too. Which is what makes it so odd that I eat out so often. I have this tendency to decide cooking sounds like too much work when I get home after a day at the office. So I go out. This is expensive, and a good way to live a nearly totally vegetable free life. I like veggies, as a matter of fact last night when I cooked I served two. Spinach and green beans. I made the chicken rolls in mushroom white wine sauce. It is easy and good and nearly totally fool proof. With a myriad of such recipes at my disposal, heck stuck in my head even, why is it I ever eat out?

Cooking for 1 sucks, cooking for 2 is only marginally better. I need a cooking collective. I cook for 10 people 1-2 nights a week, somebody else handles the other 6 nights. That would be swell. Good food, and nobody has to cook that often.

Tonight it is pork chops, maybe stuffed maybe not depending on how long it takes them to thaw.