Diary of a LAN Manager

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To everyone who has had to deal with me today: I'm sorry. Apparently I'm on an emotional tear because I can't shut my mouth, can't mind my own business, and can't stop chewing other people out for using up my precious air. Please disregard any and all bitchfests for the next 24 hours - hopefully I'll be able to rein myself back in by then.

Just for today, I will not beat myself up for all my perceived failures. I will not question all my past decisions when there's no hope of changing the outcome. I will not give in to self-pity for not getting a masters degree, for not writing the great American novel, for not being the same weight I was in high school or college. I will not wallow in self-doubt about my abilities as a parent, a wife, an employee, a colleague. I will not give up. I will not stop dreaming, nor will I stop working towards those dreams. I will not let setbacks become road blocks; I will not not let roadblocks become insurmountable obstacles. I will believe in me. I will believe.

"See me comin to town with my soul Straight down out of the world with my fingers Holding onto the devil I know All my troubles'll hang on your trigger Take your eyes and your mind from the road Shoot your mouth off but look where you're aiming Don't forget to pick up what you sow Talking trash to the garbage around you..." (Beck) It worries my kids sometimes that I listen to progressive rock; that I could pick Beck out of a lineup, or that I know the lyrics to some of the racier NIN songs. But music - music is more than just entertainment for me. It's a running soundtrack to my life. I love my iPod but I don't have NEARLY enough music on it, mostly because, other than the Audible book tracks, everything on my U2 iPod is, well, U2. I need to get past that, I know, because U2 isn't the only band I like. There should be ample room for my Sting collection, and my Jackson Browne, and even my Def Leppard if I so desire. Most of the time I don't need my ...

Does anyone know where I can buy a lovely handbasket? I have an impending trip to Hell, and I want to be sure to have the appropriate accessories. Yesterday was not a good day. I said a prayer for Terri Schiavo, another for the Pope, and no - I'm not Catholic. I'm just a backslidden Baptist. Then I spent the day fighting down my anger at my department manager for failing to back me up on an issue I felt was very important. I'm better, but there will be some changes made. Things have been dicey ever since the whole "go with the department/stay with NCS" fiasco. I thought we had it settled, but my ability to influence has been compromised, and I'm feeling pressured to change my way of doing business to more closely match that of our parent department. I can't do that in good conscience, so I think it's time to start thinking about what my next step will be.

For eons, the great unanswerable question has been, "What is the meaning of life?" (The answer is 42, for all you non-Hitchhiker's Guide folks.) But these days, the question has become, "when does life start, and when does life end?" The latter half of that is weighing on everyone's mind. At what point do we declare brain death? For me, the distinction has always been when artificial life support is needed to keep the heart and lungs going when there is a total loss of cognitive function, as evidenced by a lack of measurable brain waves. But what if the body has the ability to breathe on its own and its heart pumps gamely along without artificial intervention, yet there does not appear to be any brain activity? Is that dead? Terry Schiavo's husband thinks so. Vegetable=Dead. Any so-called response is just a reflex, not a cognitive reaction. She's dead, so let's hurry up and bury the body. For seven years he's fought with his inlaws to have th...

Taking a week off from work always sounds like a grand idea. Then comes the part where you actually are expected to go back, on time if possible, and resume the daily grind. Of course, it's never that easy. No one is indispensable, but it's amazing how many things can't be done if you aren't there. So a whole day is spent cleaning up the messes, calming down the masses, and trying to locate the surface of your desk that HAS to be somewhere under the groaning mound of trade publications and important notices, not to mention wading through the rubbish in your e-mail to find that one message that is of vital importance. Of course, if we're ever honest with ourselves, we know that most of this crap doesn't matter. In five years you won't remember why the decision over how much to spend on printers or scanners or computers was so important at the time. It won't matter because no matter which ones you choose, they won't ever please your customers enti...

Swimming in infinity, drowning in self-pity. I'll be glad when this weather goes away. I need for it to be spring. I'm tired of winter. I'm tired of being cold. I hate feeling like this - useless, stupid, frustrated. Next week I'm taking off and going somewhere, anywhere - anywhere but here. I won't take my computer. I might take my iPod. I'm going away with the family to regroup and regenerate. I will not come back more exhausted than when I left. I can't- I have a full schedule working for the tech team at church ( www.hopepark.com ), helping with Easter services - all six of them. I get Friday off because we weren't sure we'd be back by then, otherwise it would be seven services. So I get to hear the music and the message six times instead of being in the choir standing on the stage making a joyful noise for seven services. Somehow I think that's an okay trade-off.

I try to like my job. I really do. Most of the people are great. Some are not so great, but that's just life, and I can accept that. It's just that with these latest shifts of power, I don't feel very capable, and my opinions and knowledge are being questioned and tested on a daily basis. I'm tired of explaining why an out-of-the-box HP PC is better than a home-built ASUS POS PC. I'm tired of explaining that laser printers are not ever going to be the best choice for printing these friggin' claims. I'm tired of fighting the same battle every day and never feeling like I'm gaining ground. I'm weary to my soul right now, and there's no end in sight.

So I'm a geek. Sue me. Last night, while updating my iTunes with Joshua Tree , I decided to watch the latest teaser trailer for Star Wars. I had the sound muted on the laptop so that U2 wouldn't be playing aloud at the same time. As I watched the now-silent trailer, the scene opened to Luke Skywalker, standing outside his uncle's home, staring into the Tatooine desert, and I unconciously began to hum the theme to the first movie. Heather looked at me, puzzled, wondering why I was watching it in silent mode. After she gave me a two-minute refresher course on i-Tunes, I stopped Bono from singing, and restarted the trailer. I have a bruise on my shoulder from where Heather punched me because I had "known" without ever seeing or hearing the trailer that THAT is what would be playing for that scene. May the force be with you...

Stress? What stress?! Another week has flown by in a whirlwind of panic. Just as soon as I get one person well another becomes deathly ill, and another day was spent waiting in an emergency room for some good news, or at the very least some answers. We got lucky and got both - not appendicitis, but a ruptured cyst, and eventually the pain will go away and the kid can go back to school and we can get back to normal, whatever the hell that is. I don't know normal anymore. It doesn't exist. She started hurting Friday, so I picked her up at school and took her to the clinic. Three hours later they said it was not her appendix, and that it would stop hurting in the next 24-48 hours - if not, bring her back. So I did what I always do when I can't stop panicking about something - I cleaned the house. I did the dishes and the countertops and the dusting and the vacuuming and the laundry and the ironing and the bathroom and God knows what else. I don't remember. I was on autopil...

Life's like an hourglass, glued to the table... March is here, with a snow flurry and a little black ice to announce its arrival. Last night I danced in the snow like a kid - then I got back to work unloading nearly $200 worth of food from the car. Amazing how much it can cost to feed three people, but to be fair, the pantry was getting a little low. You can only make so many meals out of one can of chili beans, a can of tomato sauce, instant mashed potatoes, and some pasta. This morning I slept an extra hour since the kid was out of school, and dreamed some pretty weird dreams. Unfortunately, I've forgotten what they were, except that they took place in a school-like setting and I was being lectured by someone in a white lab coat ( I woke up once, but slipped right back into REM and the middle of the same dream, I suppose, as if I'd hit pause). We somehow managed to miss out on winter, but I'm ready for spring. It's time for a rebirth, a renewal, and if I'm luc...

Letting the days go by... Things are somewhat better in our tiny corner of the universe. Still not likely to win any land-speed records, but at least he's walking. His memory lapses seem better too, but then again he doesn't want to talk much. Thankfully his ability to program doesn't seem to be affected. Dr. Brown says that it wasn't a stroke, at least not definitively. They really aren't sure what happened. I'm still hoping it was some rare kind of migraine, but the residual pain/numbness in the left leg doesn't want to fit that diagnosis either. So for now we watch, we wait, we do more tests, see more doctors, watch, and wait. Same as it ever was...

Maybe it is time to panic. Wednesday morning I took Michael to the ER with a severe headache - one that had awakened him at 4:00am. He said his vision was blurry in one eye and he was having trouble walking, so after running Heather to school and consulting with his allergist to make sure this wasn't some weird side effect of something he was taking, I took him to the ER at 10:00am. They did a CT - saw nothing. Started giving injections of dilaudid. Several hours passed, several doctors and nurses checked in on him and asked questions. I called Jimmy to have him pick up Heather after school and take her home, then around 3:00pm they did a spinal tap. Fluid looked clear. The neurologist showed up, began asking more questions, checking reflexes, etc. Michael's left leg felt numb and didn't pass the reflex test. The doctor decided an MRI was in order. That was at 6:00pm. After a nurse assured me they wouldn't take him anywhere without my knowledge, I ran upstairs to McDona...

I hate my horriblescope. Technical: Today you may run into obstacles right out of the gate. Don't keep slamming into them -- take a few minutes to assess the situation and you'll soon find the right path. Gee, Karma - thanks. I needed that. So Kae's server died today... it's starting to remind me about a joke I once heard. Nothing good ever comes out of story that starts, "Me and some buddies went to Tijuana..." or one that starts, "Today Kae's server died." I'm going home and have a chat with my buddy Jose Cuervo.

Just Breathe... If only I could. This is the first time all week that I haven't felt like I was running around with my ass on fire, and now I'm on edge, anticipating the next crisis. Servers dying, software issues, ten thousand questions and two-hour meetings - I'm exhausted and it's only Thursday. I know it's just a tempest in a teacup, but until it subsides, I have to keep reminding myself to breathe - relax - focus. And above all else, Don't Panic!

A friend of mine stopped blogging because he felt no one ever read it. Personally, I don't care how many people read or don't read mine. This is me and my silly rants and foibles and follies. I've been amazed when someone actually did comment, either anonymously or with user info, because I can't imagine how they found me, unless it was just through "Next Blog". But I'm flattered that they took the time to read, agree or disagree with me, and then share the experience. When I grow up I'm going to be a writer - which, considering my age, means I'll be the Grandma Moses of the publishing world. But count on it - great things are brewing in my pretty little head, and someday this kettle will boil.

Do Mac's not have spellcheck? I ask this question because I assume the news reporters for our local TV station use Mac's, since there's NO way this would have made it past Microsoft Word: At 1am Monday on the east side of the MTSU campus, police pulled over a Ford Explorer for wreckless driving. Inside the vehicle, the officer found several loaded semi-automatic weapons included a hand gun, assault rifle and a Russian made automatic rifle. I mean, c'mon. Surely you jest! Wreckless is what I've been for the past 5 years; reckless is what I try to avoid altogether!

One of my New Year's resolutions should have been to stop getting my divine direction in life from those little scraps of paper in my fortune cookies. Or maybe I should just give up Chinese food so that I would never be exposed to another fortune cookie. But since I didn't and I can't, I was faced with this lovely bit of wisdom: Many a false step is made by standing still . On the back was the Chinese word for Post Office if ever I'm in Beijing and need to mail a letter or postcard back home. This is ironic because of my method of dealing with life-changing decisions - I tend to stand at the crossroad until the developers come along and rearrange the scenery. I shall have to ponder this bon mot over a cuppa and maybe it will all make sense.

I probably shouldn't fire off letters to the editor when I'm angry, but this whole mess over the ABA Nashville Rhythm co-owner firing the first female coach of a men's basketball team, Ashley McElhiney, just pissed me RIGHT off. And so... Rhythm's part owner needs a charm class To the Editor: I am appalled by Sally Anthony's behavior during Saturday's game between the Nashville Rhythm and the Kansas City Knights. (''Owner fires McElhiney,'' Jan. 30) Perhaps she's confused the ABA with the WWF; the owner/CEO of a professional team should never come out on the court to berate the coach. If you have a problem, deal with it calmly after the game, not publicly. Firing McElhiney is equally unforgivable since Ashley was doing her job as a coach. Ms. Anthony has the right to say she doesn't want a particular player on the court, but as part-owner, I hardly see where she has the right to overrule the opinion of her two co-owners, bo...