I wish I were at the beach. Even if it were Old Orchard Beach in Maine, I'd rather be at the beach than here. I could put on a sweater over my t-shirt and shorts, and walk along the water's edge freezing off my kneecaps and loving every second of the sensation. The air would be salt-laden, a wonderful lung-cleansing tonic for the soul, and the wind would tousle the seagrass. I would watch the kestrels darting up and over the dunes and listen as they called to each other. The sound of waves alternately caressing then crashing against the rock outcropping up ahead would bring my blood pressure down as if by magic, and I would be free from the constant worries of my life. Free.
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Today the phone has been ringing non-stop. "My VUView doesn't work right." "I can't remember how to install Notes, or why we have to." "Hi, Momma - how's your day?" "Why can't I open an e-card here?" "What do you mean, no more stationery in Outlook?! You can't do that!" Au contraire, mon ami - I can most certainly suggest it. If people don't get your mail anymore because it appears to be sending a .jpeg, which might be infected, don't come whining to me. I told you so. If people start ignoring your email because they can't friggin' read dark blue print on a purple background, don't come whining to me. I reserve the right to tell you I think you're an idiot. So between the e-mails, the phone calls, the piddly-assed problems - I'm trying very hard to remember that I love my job. No, really - I do. Honestly. Wouldn't lie about that, no sir. Love it.
T-shirt of the day: "Don't mess with me - I failed my Anger Management class"
The weekend wasn't a total bust. I enjoyed playing golf. I actually made a couple of decent drives, good chip shots, and a couple of respectable putts, when I wasn't being Magilla Gorilla and overpowering the damn ball. But I learned, I'm getting better (God knows I couldn't be much worse), and I look forward to whacking at the ball again sometime soon. Our team came in under par, I won a $200 Dell laser printer as a door prize, and the lunch was delicious, so all in all it was a good day. Sunday, however, sucked. At one point I was yelling for them to put in the friggin' cheerleaders so we'd have a chance - followed closely by a suggestion to Coach Fisher to perform a cranial extraction from his rectum >:( We did not play good football. There were a few brief, shining moments, but that doesn't win ballgames. Getting touchdowns wins ballgames. They didn't
Finally Friday :-)
So much to do, so little time - it looks like I won't get fired this week, but next week is up for grabs. Another overloaded weekend looms ahead. Saturday I have to be at the golf course by 7:00am for our tournament to raise money for the Children's Hospital - don't these people know I neeeeeed my sleep? Then on to Sunday, Titans football, and to hell with the sunscreen. Let me bake, as long as my boys WIN this time. I can hardly wait for the guy we've named Beer-man (as in, "Instant Idiot - Just Add Beer") in the stands to get drunk enough to start his mantra..."YOU BUNCH OF SISSIES!! YOU'RE ALL A BUNCH OF SISSIES!!!" Ah, yes - the joys of football from the upper tier. So it's back to work, because for some reason there's always so much to do on Friday afternoons, and I'd really like to keep my job.
Well, another one jumps ship. Rumor has it that yet another department plans to hire the LAN manager directly, bypassing NCS. Will the last one out please turn off the lights... I'm still a crispy critter from last weekend's fun - second degree sunburn is no fun. I've got to find a sunscreen similar to the one I used on the Habitat for Humanity build. It turned my face a lovely shade of blue-silver, but hey - I didn't get sunburned. I've got to get this somewhat healed before this weekend, otherwise I may end up in serious trouble. I've got a golf tournament for Children's Hospital on Saturday, then tickets to Sunday's game again. I'll be well done by Monday ;)
Is it safe to come out? I think Ivan's finally gone, taking wind and rain with him. I'm glad I'm in Middle Tennessee where our only real fear was flash flooding and maybe a few trees or limbs down. I stayed indoors all of yesterday because I'm just not a big fan of rain, but maybe today I can go walkabout and check on things. My boss called me late yesterday afternoon to let me know that I shouldn't have skipped the "town meeting" Wednesday afternoon. They gave out the People's Choice Awards for employees in Informatics who "exemplify the Informatics Core Values ", and surprisingly enough, I was a nominee. All jokes aside, I'm truly touched, because it's my understanding that I had several nominations. I just do my job, and most days I don't think I'm doing a very good job of it, but apparently I am making a difference. I'd like to say thank you to those who thought of me when they filled out those forms - you've made
The calm before the storm. Actually, it's not too quiet - Microsoft got slap-happy, and changed their way of doing businesss with the automatic updates. This morning several users logged in, only to be presented with a lovely dialog box that resembles so many of the fake warnings, telling my folks that their machines were vulnerable. How sweet of Microsoft not to mention that little tidbit in the description of the patch, because if they click Yes to have it check for vulnerabilities, it sends them to the update page, and prompts them to update Office, which we don't want them to do because that requires a CD. Plus, the "vulnerabilities" in Office are so minute in our environment, it would be pointless to bother going to all 240 machines to do it. I guess we could do a reg hack and change the install location to point to a share, but the heck of it is, we have three or four different corporate install disks, and the update requires the CD Office was installed with. I
Ah, the chaotic comfort of fall, the season when my kids are needy, the schedule is impossible, and there's never enough of anything to go around. Miranda's speeding ticket was dismissed, she dropped one of her three English classes, and now wants to go on a spending spree in her spare time with her "spare" money. Stephen is, well, Stephen - watching his bank account dwindle to nothing while he spends entirely too much on fast food... but hey, he's 21 now. Another year or two and he'll declare his independence - and I'm betting I'll still be doing semi-monthly money transfers. Heather either is really enjoying high school and doing well in class, or is the best actress on the planet. I'm not taking any bets. I just want her to pass all her coursework. My gadding butterfly just won't light long enough to take this stuff seriously. Tonight is Open House at school, so maybe I'll get a better idea of what's going on. Tomorrow we have "
"It's okay. Sooner or later everybody goes to the zoo." That might explain Friday, but it applies a little more to Saturday, as we made a two-car field trip to the Memphis Zoo. I don't think I've been to Memphis in five years or more. But the zoo's still at the end of Sam Cooper Blvd, so we found it okay. Miranda and Steve, her boyfriend, better known as Scuba to avoid any mixups with my own kid, Stephen, had been planning this trip for months. We just went along for the ride, but anyone who knows me knows I love to go to the zoo. Can't really explain it, but it's been a life-long fascination. So we spent six hours in the sun, shot a 24-exposure roll of film and took 86 digital shots, and in general acted like tourists. Now I'm back to the REAL zoo, but it's okay for a Monday.
Did I ever mention I hate dress codes? I recognize the need - obviously some of would show up in our pajamas or less if given half a chance - but really, now, does it matter if I wear jeans? They don't have holes, frays, or stains. I generally wear a blazer and a shirt or just a polo with them... but I'm fighting a losing battle. I can't wear the clothes I like, I don't like the way I look in the clothes that I have, and I'm having a hard time finding a middle ground. I'm ready to throw 90% of my closet out. But I'll work through it. In order to be paid like a professional, one must look like a professional. Bah.
SSDD. There's no doubt, now. We will be assimilated. Thankfully, the order is coming from high enough up the food chain to keep us from having to bear the wrath of our business managers directly, but it's coming. Centralization is good, right? On a lighter note, someone brought in key lime pie to celebrate a birthday, and they were nice enough to share. That does make the day better.
Another long weekend survived. Some of it was difficult, but we managed to work through. Labor Day was capped off by the event of the season for me, the only live music event (not counting Sportin' Paddy) that I attended all summer, and for good reason - four tickets came to just over $200 - a wee bit more than I like to invest in four hours of fun and frolic, and one of those tickets was for a general admission lawn seat - saved me all of $20, which was quickly spent on stale pretzels and cokes. Even so, it was a phenomenal night. Dominic's opener was surprisingly well received, even before Sting strolled onstage to help out with "Shape of My Heart." Annie Lennox's voice is frozen in time - she sounds as good today as she did when she was half of the Eurythmics, and for many of the attendees, she was the main attraction. They didn't go away disappointed. But for me, the reason de etre' was Sting. And I wasn't disappointed either, even when for a mome
Friday, Friday, Friday. I'm trying very hard not to let anyone steal my sunshine today - after all, there is a GAME tonight, and I'm excited. But before the game, there's 50, 000 things to do, and technology is not my friend today. I need to load a program on my new PC, and of course I can't find the damn CD. My filing system doesn't suck, it's just non-existent, and if there were ever an earthquake, I'd be found buried under a stack of fallen CD's, no doubt clutching the one I can't find right now, because I'm sure it's in here. Somewhere. Has to be. I didn't eat it. And they don't make good coasters. I'd use my old PC to run the program, but I have a test machine set up in it's old spot - a test machine that crapped out on the install yesterday, and I'm not touching it again until someone in CSI tells me what I did wrong, since I'm positive it's my fault. People laugh at my dual PC/dual flat panel setup/dual key
I'm tired. I feel like I've been slaying dragons all day. From the weather to the traffic to all the people in my office, nothing seems to be cooperating. I'd go home early, but I took a half-day off yesterday, so it hardly seems fair to run away again, especially when the time off didn't seem to improve my disposition any. Tomorrow will be better. Tomorrow there's a game, and I have tickets in hand.
Meeting day. I dread this more than usual - apparently it was decided that we would go-live with the new project, which I'm adamantly against, since it has a less than stellar success rate. I'm the only one reporting problems though; most of the other testers have been busy blowing sunshine, so obviously it's my problem and/or something that I'm doing wrong. I just hope no one asks for my comments on the subject. I like my job, but I'm not going to lie to keep it. And truthfully, I hope for their sakes and ours that I'm wrong, that it is just me. I don't want the whole group to take a credibility hit if this thing crashes and burns the way I expect it to. But that's life, I guess. I seemed to be cursed with the role of Cassandra - I speak the truth about the future, but no one wants to hear...