On the home front - I opened the pool - sort of. There is/are some minuscule leaks in the hose connections that cause the filter to fill with air when run on high after about 30-40 minutes. I tried to pay someone to fix it but that never works. After three or four phone calls I gave up. If only a tree would land in the damn thing I could collect the insurance, have it removed, and put a lawn there instead. On my hands and knees in the mud and shade, with glasses on, trying to locate the damn leak using shaving cream my head started to hurt. I hate that pool, but we went out and bought a couple of inner tubes for it anyhow.
At work - we're going live with Google Apps in three weeks. I have in excess of 15K email accounts already created for existing users and we'll be adding another two to three hundred a week for the rest of the summer. It's all good, except that I have to figure out the APIs for provisioning and SSO in order to make it work. It can't be too difficult to figure out the SAML integration pieces for SSO in the spare 20 minutes a week I have to devote to this. After all it's java code and lots of people use java - except me. I've never written a "hello" program in java before. Since it's summer, probably not too many of the 15 - 16K people with accounts at the time will notice that THEIR EMAIL IS MISSING on Monday June 15th. I leave two weeks later for London anyhow. On the brighter side, my new programmer analyst starts in one week and she is a java programmer so...
Other tasks for the next 20 or so days: write and publish the strategic plan for the next year (piece of cake), select the VoIP system to replace our "cans and string" telephony and present it to the trustees (best part of that is dinner is free - worst part - you have to swallow it whole in order to finish in time for the presentation), review/update/publish the disaster recovery plan and entertain the auditors looking for it (I expect them to be staying for the next six months), give some bad news to at least two part time people that they may need to write new resumes (that's always a lot of fun), find the time to write a new job description - put together a selection committee - interview and hire a new programmer/integration specialist (worth any amount of work for that), come up with the budget request for next year (an obscene amount when many others have to cut back to twentieth century figures), do some schmoozing and politicking for a couple of important projects with a lot of people that I would prefer to cross the street to avoid, and respond to whatever might come along in the 200 or so emails I get every day (I'm grateful we had the space to quadruple the mail store)
Looking at it all, this isn't really anything out of the ordinary so why doesn't my head hurt all the time?
"Leavin' pussycats like why hoes need Kotex ." -- MF DOOM
So DOOM uses this line in "Accordian" off the Madvillian album (you must listen if you haven't.) Got me thinking about how rarely reference to particularly feminine themes are used in rap particularly, and lyrics in general.
I will have to author a battle-rap wherein I boast of my skills by suggestion that my words hit with such force that they reduce all other MCs to a streak of menses.
If you get into a battle rap before me, feel free to steal this rhyme.
I'm sorry that this is the update I'm making- but it is.
Been doing my usual obsessive planning about summer vacation. I have a daily Kayak alert on the fares to London. Every day for the past 5 weeks I get an alert for the beginning of July. Every other week of the year has fluxuated wildly. I have the days worked out on an excel spreadsheet and interchange the activities, length of the vacation, and the itinerary. It's hours of internet entertainment. Anyhow, one day soon I'll get out the credit card, click on the "purchase" button and put an end to it all.
Sitting on a Sunday morning and staring at the laptop, I'm thinking the lack of bright ideas or ambition to do much of anything is really just boredom. We have something of a tradition of never admitting to boredom. It seems that's when the worst happens. You know - "I should have never complained about being bored because now look what happened. I should have been happily bored and kept my mouth shut." So do I have thaasophobia, the fear of boredom? I started to think of the many things that people waste time and energy being afraid of, myself included, and did some research.
There are several people who "work" for me who may have some phobic issues. Note the quotations there. It's because I think people getting paid to work for me actually suffer from ergasiophobia, the fear of work. Perhaps I've misdiagnosed ergophobia, the hatred of work, but the effect is the same. I think one is a kathisomanaic (opposite of kathisophobia - fear of sitting down). He seems to love to get to work, get to that chair and get to sitting for the rest of the day to the exclusion of work. (see above reference to ergasiophobia). OK, I understand that sitting and working are not mutually exclusive, especially with a desk job, but this guy concentrates HARD on the sitting part and not so much on the working part. Wait a minute, maybe I'm totally off base and he's really not ergasiophobic because he works so hard at sitting, or is it that sitting isn't work so it dosen't count?
Things could get worse. They always can get worse I've learned. I mean, barophobia could set in and I can't imagine being afraid of gravity. It's an inescapable situation bound to be totally crippling. You couldn't even enjoy sitting if you were worried about gravity. Something like lyssophobia - fear of going insane - seems to me to be both a debilitating, self-fulfilling prophecy and a vicious cycle ditto to phobophobia - fear of being afraid.
OK OK OK enough already. Time to move on here. See what demonic things like in the idle mind. I need to get back to browsing.
Why do I feel compelled to give the truth when explaining technolgy to the technologically challenged? We lost the flash card in our Fat Pipe this morning. So, the Fat Pipe (load balancing device for our business cable lines) was unable to load or hold the network configuration information and our connection to the internet was down. We finally managed to disconnect our one remaining T1 line, bypassing the Fat Pipe and directly connecting to our firewall. That gave us about 16% of our normal bandwidth but left our spam filter out of the loop, meaning that incoming email couldn't find the mail server.
OK now explain that to those who have trouble using a Blackberry just as a phone without referring to flash cards (I"M NOT KIDDING). I have photographs of the Fat Pipe. It's red, about 3U high, and has the words Fat Pipe on it. That doesn't help. It also doesn't help to bring in firewalls, DNS, and broadband cable vs T1 linespeeds. I should have just said "the Internet is broken and they are overnighting a part to fix it". Instead I spent about 45 minutes constructing what I thought was a reasonably straightforward and accurate explanation of the events with a description of what we were doing to handle it and how it would be resolved. Then I spent twice that time explaining the explanation, at the end of which I realized everyone was even more confused than before I had started.
I'm certain now that people think I'm making stuff up to cover for someone who tripped over a wire in the server room pulling it out of the wall and busting the Internet plug. When will I learn?
Hello, everyone!
Are you playing Street Fighter IV? Please friend me on X-Box Live for battlings. My GamerTag is BOODOOperson.
Other news: Amanda and I were considering GDC, but that doesn't look like it will be happening at this point as enthusiasm has leveled.
Haven't played as much music as I should recently, I've been Team Fortressing or Street Fightering instead. I've recorded almost literally nothing, so that needs to change. SG and Strat could both use some attention/setup, but that's no excuse!
I tried to call out due to the storm today, but instead I ended up working the 12:30-9PM shift because two people had beaten me to calling out, one of whom works this shift. Showed up to work and the cafe in our building is closed, so I'm not sure what is happening re: food today. I may eat people's brains.
That's all for now. Peace out, Seacrest!
Well it was almost like a poke in the eye with a sharp stick. It was actually a rusty piece of 5/8" rebar that I shoved in my left eyeball. We were out in the garden - like we are ever anywhere else on a weekend - and I was attempting to tie up a really floppy eupatorium "Chocolate". We use the rebar as plant support and I was nearly done when I dropped the twine. So I bent down to quickly pick it up. Instead I only got down as far as the rebar poking into my left eyeball. It made a sort of squishy noise as I recall. I stood up quickly and my hand went to my eye. The wife screamed and ran to the house shouting something about an ambulance. I figured there was no eyeball left. When I took my hand away it was bloody.
Abbreviated version of the rest of the story... washed the eye and rode to the hospital. They took me in the emergency room after several hours. After all there was also a woman with a bad cough and a guy who needed the wax washed out of his ears and all I had was a bleeding eyeball - seriously this is the truth. They diagnosed it as a scratched cornea and small cut. I got a tetanus shot and a prescription for some antibacterial goo to squirt in the eye to keep it nasty looking for the next week. By the next weekend it was only a bit bloody looking in the corner.
The lasting effect of this is that I am now very nervous near any sharp object, particularly any that are sticking out of the ground. I had a tough time going for a walk in the neighborhood when everyone stuck thier snow poles in the ground. (editors note: snow poles are sticks that line driveways and property at the edge of the road so the snow plows will know where lies the pavement and where lies the lawn in the winter) All I could think of was - watch out, that could poke you in the eye!!
I don't know if this will fade with time. I suspect that will be true but for the forseeable future I am staying as far from sharp sticks as I can and I try not to have them in my mind as I drift off to sleep at night.
Long time no speak, internet. Hope you're all doing well in the first few hours of the Obama presidency!
I've been working and keeping warm through the snowy season, and I'm about three weeks away from my 23rd birthday. Just two more months after that, and spring is on its way.
This past Sunday, I finally set up the beginnings of a recording solution with my computer. I've started recording my practicing some, to get a feel for recording itself.
Hopefully I can start actually making things and not just mess around on the guitar when I'm bored, but I'm not there yet. I'll be uploading MP3s to Vox as I complete them.
There are 3 MP3s up right now, totaling just under 15 minutes. Different effects/settings are used on each file, but there is repeated material, mostly Melody of Lute from FF IV.
I'm mostly doing this for my own re-enforcement, but if anyone has musical/technical/general feedback I would be grateful for it.
The guitar is a Sigma CS-3 (nylon string) classical. The recording is through two Behringer C2 condenser mics near the sound hole, through a mixer to an external sound card's Line In. Software used is Ableton Live 7.
Also, Joe Biden was president for 5 minutes today. Those must have been the happiest five minutes of his life, narrowly edging out his victory over Little Mac
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It's Election Day! How was your voting experience?
I was able to vote today, and it was a real vote— not one of those provisional ballots. I'm in Ward 5, Precinct 1 of Cambridge and voted at the LBJ apartments on Erie St. about 3 minutes from my apartment by foot.
They helpfully posted a copy of their registered voters list outside of the location, and my name was conspicuously absent. I had confirmed my registration to vote by VoteForChange.com's Facebook app, so I was surprised.
I was sent home to call the city election people and come back with mail in my name as I'm currently awaiting a replacement of my driver's license. The city people found me with no trouble (in their computer) but I was nowhere at the 5,1 polling place (paper listings.)
The woman who helped me at LBJ was quick, courteous, and knowledgeable. The explanation I received for my name not being on the listings they had was, "You're a Libertarian." I guess they only queried for voters
WHERE RegParty IN ("R","D","U","I")I also saw a girl in front of me receive and fill out two ballots. One was of course marked SPOILED immediately at check-out, but it was funny that she filled them both out. I felt the very fabric of our democracy tearing. :)
I'm in heaven
Trying to figure out which stack
They're going to stuff us atheists into
When Peter and his monkey laugh
