It's been pretty quiet around here

so I thought I'd see if I had anything to say.

Of course, I always have something to say - just gotta get it organized a bit.

I had something bad happen at work a little bit back, but it looks like it may be solved after a few days extensive research.  My work desktop PC lost its mind, and with its mind lost a number of other things, including its way to do some automated things.  I moved them elsewhere, but it turned out one event just disappeared - and it took a while to find what it was doing and to get it into shape to be used again. Happily it seems to be on the mend, although some stuff may have to be renewed to get it to behave again.  Never a dull moment....

The weather hasn't been much for motorcycling - I did get a day of commuting in last week or so, but today it is supposed to snow - and when that happens it is too cold and too dangerous even to start a bike, so both of them are covered up in my carport, waiting for the next half-decent day.  Many friends are still riding - but they all have Gerbings electrically heated suits - and as of yet I have yet to see a reason to spend almost a kilobuck on getting outfitted that way, although if I get antsy enough this winter, and it stays cold but not snowy, I just might have to do it.

Commuting is becoming a pain - there are so many thoughtless idiots out there it is a wonder there is not wreckage strewn from heck to breakfast.  I watched four this morning pass over a double yellow at speeds of 30 over the limit, and just bulldoze their way back into where they should have been.  Two of them were talking on phones and one was arguing with a passenger.  It is not comforting to know that Darwin may get these folks - because Darwin might well use me as the immovable object, and I've no desire to be a sacrificial lamb to those who will not learn. Happily, the Guzzi has an air horn - and I am considering adding one to the Volvo.

Speaking of which, I still like the Volvo.  I have not driven anything more comfortable or more stable in a very long time - and it jut starts every day.  The bunwarmers (heated seats) are lovely in this cold weather, and the heater puts out seemingly within 3 minutes. If you need something to drive, you could do worse than an old Volvo - and mileage does not seem to matter all that much - my last one was out at 180,000 when I got rid of it, this one I bought at 128,000 and it uses no oil or anything - at least not any more - it did get me pretty good (close to a kilobuck) with a radiator leak, but everything I have ever had that I kept for anything over about 100,000 did that.

If there's anyone out there needing PC parts, cables, controllers, please leave a note - I have a load of stuff scattered around the basement that has to go, and I'd rather give it away than throw it away.  Motherboards, too - at least half a dozen or so, some with memory even.... I've been building and salvaging for the last 20 or so years, and have accumulated a bunch of parts, mostly not the most current state of the art, but still usable for folks eking out the lat years of a PC.  Let me know what you need, or even what someone you know needs, and I'll look and get back to you.

The Obamacare fiasco is one I don't feel like addressing right now - it just makes me angrier when I think about it.  When you consider that the software was written by a Canadian firm after failing in a spectacular way to get Canada's long gun registration even functional, then consider that the firm is connected to a friend of Michelle - THEN consider that the back end is not yet even written, well, if you do not wonder if there's something crooked afoot, try to keep your old insurance plan....  One size never fits all - anyone who wears clothes can tell you that.

Oops - I said I wasn't gonna talk about it.  Shutting up....

I guess everyone knows I was in Las Vegas a few weeks back for a family wedding - and I found Las Vegas to be a really odd place.  It isn't a great place for a fat gimp who an't drink and doesn't gamble, that much I can tell you - and everything is just so damn big that you can't get anywhere without walking at least 20 minutes - and that walk (if it is inside) will be longer than it needs to be because you'll have to walk around several thousand slot machines, all bleeping and booping at you.  The wedding was nice, the food in Las Vegas is exceptional - but the hotel cost too much for what it delivered, and they hammer you for internet access.  I ended up plugging my phone into a charger and using the HotSpot app to let my laptop and tablet talk to the internet.  I'm sure glad I have a grandfathered plan that has no data limit....

On another topic, my middle daughter is married - something that was a long time coming. The circumstances are convoluted, but from where I sit it all looks positive.  Her husband is a welcome addition to our familial circus, and we look forward to having them around for a long time. Now if my wandering son were only a little closer to us geographically - but he's in Texas, somewhere around Dallas, and has opened up a new enterprise that is interesting.  If you are curious, a visit to Jamie's Place will show you what he's up to, and may even give you a gift idea or two.

...

I got interrupted by life - it is now a day later than when I started this.  The weather is crappy, this is the last workday this week (followed by gluttony as Thanksgiving is tomorrow) and no hope for motorcycle weather any time soon.

So I think I'll just hang up here - there will be more as time permits and as things that bug me come to light.  Meanwhile, have a really good holiday or holidays, whichever you observe, be kind to one another, think positive thoughts and remember that you are truly unique - just like everybody else.

Friday the 13th came today....

On the offhand chance most of you aren't old enough to remember Pogo, a comic strip, the title comes from a favorite statement of Pogo Possum - 'Friday the 13th came on Tuesday this week.'

This started as a pretty good day - light traffic on the way in, not too much grief waiting - at least not until I booted my PC and tried to log onto the network.

In a word, it did not happen - the blasted thing would not boot, and gave me a BS message about how something needed was not there.  Well, of course, nobody had a boot CD, nobody had a boot floppy, nobody had a release CD, so I was reduced to removing the drive and putting it into a PC that I own, to see if I could find what was missing.  I could and I did, and then I moved the drive back to where it belonged.

No joy - I changed the BS message to another BS message, but the (muttered imprecations) thing steadfastly refused to boot.

I have a release CD.  Of course, I have it at home, and it is my personal CD, not something I want all over work, so I did not have it with me.

Eventually, someone came up with a bunch of CD's designed to do everything but eat (which is a pun on a very old IBM Utility named DEBE which was later renamed DITTO....) including a current release CD, but nothing did what was needed.

So I moved everything over to a Win/7 machine that belongs to me - at least I hope I did.  hen I remembered that a whole bunch of automated stuff runs from that desktop that was dead, so I had to create auto slots for each one (that I could remember) in the new machine.  I guess tomorrow I'll get some idea of whether I fixed some or broke more. Also, if I am blessed, tomorrow I'll remember to bring my own personal recovery disk and get the other machine working again mebbe.

Now it is time to go home, and I have not one new thing to show for the day.  I guess it could be worse.

Tomorrow looks like it will be a good day for the motorcycle - looking forward to that!

Be well.

Hallowe'en day

This morning was a little foggy, but otherwise nice enough to uncover the Guzzi and ride it to work.

Our weather seems to be confused - by now, in normal times (which all occurred before I was half the age I am now) we would have had snow by now.  Instead, it was over 60 when I left for work and a bit foggy but not really all that damn - it felt good to start the Guzzi and get on it to head for work.

I didn't take a back way - just down 795, around 695 and down 83 and it took less than 40 minutes, which is pretty good time for heading in in the morning - I never get it that quick in the old Volvo.

There's something about riding a really good motorcycle that energizes me - the Guzzi likes to have its gearbox stirred, and doesn't produce all that much power below about 2500 RPM - and really likes t be run above 3000.  Since 4000 in fifth is about 75, that gives plenty of gears for maneuvering around traffic, and backing down for entering a curve.  Stirring them can be a lot of fun....

Everything was just right this morning - cool enough to make me alert and make the mixture to the engine great, traffic never stopped (unusual in the morning) and it was just a joy to be out there in the air chasing things.

Everyone should at least one good motorcycle for a time in their lives.

Otherwise not a whole lot to relate - choir rehearsal was good last night and I think I might have finally caught up on time zone changes and lost sleep in aircraft.

So on that positive note, have a wonderful Hallowe'en!

Furloughs

I have been thinking about all the folks on furlough.

I have been furloughed - three years running for a total of 24 or so days.

I had to be available (essential employee).

I got no back pay.

I got no pats on the back for the work I did while I was not being paid.

I had no expectation of being paid for those days I was not at work.

I just heard that it is likely that the federal workers who are on furlough will likely get back pay when they return - for the time that they did not work!   

How does this happen?  I thought they were furloughed because the gummint could not pay them - where is the money to pay them back pay going to be found (of course I know - it will come out of our paycheck taxes, yours and mine....) when they return?

I do not wish them ill, I really do not.  I understand tight money.

I don't understand money that magically appears after it could not be found.

I don't understand paying folks not to show up.

Something about all of this is clanging a really discordant bell in my head.

And I am wondering - should I now sue the City of Baltimore for back pay for all those days I was forced to take off? Gummint is  gummint, or?

It's just a little but pissed that I am - but the longer it goes on, the worse it will get - and the harder the gummint will come after the rest of us to appease the federal drones.

What do you think?

Headed home.

Well, I survived the 3-11 shift, broke nothing, aggravated nobody and even managed to fix a thing or two.

Now I can go home, gram something to eat and go to bed.

Sleep well, y'all....

Sunday. Friday the 13th came on Sunday this month.

If the title is confusing, it comes from an old Pogo comic strip.

If you don't know about Pogo, well, I can't help all that much - you are probably too young to understand the humor that Pogo and his pals were wont to use.

It is Sunday, and when I got up it was  raining.  I guess it doesn't matter that the new battery for the Guzzi has not yet arrived - I wouldn't ride in the rain anyhow.  So it was off to church in the old Volvo to be a choirboy again this morning.  I've been doing this so long that it feels very strange to sit in the congregation - I don't know how to behave with only hymns to sing.

Right now I am at work - I volunteered in a moment of insanity) to cover a shift today and tomorrow for which there was no coverage. I got here a bit early to pick Margaret's brain(since I haven't run this shift in a couple of years, and Margaret is the source of all knowledge about any shift that I haven't had to work for a while.

I don't expect all that much activity this afternoon - for one thing, there's a Ravens game that will keep most folks either glued to their TeeVee or suffering in the weather, shouting their voices bloody at the stadium. This evening some stuff might happen, but it isn't here yet, so I can just sit and wait, and blather on about things that matter to me (and probably nobody else in the known universe.)

Next week is just full of things to do - Monday has a dentist visit and a 3-11 shift, like today.  Wednesday has a visit to the surgeon that patched the hole in my gut a little while back.  I expect he'll want me to go and have an upper endoscopy, which will shoot one whole day for me whenever I have to have it done, but I am interested in knowing what there is to see down there, and if it looks better, worse, or the same as it did the night I had surgery. I'll also be interested to know if there are to be any medication or dietary changes.

Brought a couple of toys with me today - my tablet, my phone and one of my laptops, a headset and a little gadget I picked up a while back.  We don't have WiFi most places where I work, so I have a little access point - about the size of a jump drive that will plug into an ethernet cable and make a local wireless zone. I got it when I found that many motels are now wired and don't run wireless into rooms - and if they are wired, they have only one cable connection and with more than one device that is networkable (particularly when phone and tablet do not have ethernet connections, only wireless) this makes my life a whole lot easier.

This is what it looks like, if you are curious:

Tiny Access Point / Router / Wireless adapter

I got mine from eBay, but they are available all over the place, and at all kinds of different prices.

I just looked over at Facebook, and see some bleeding-heart libs are attacking the Conservatives again - calling them names, telling them their sources are crap - but they don't seem to be able to supply any real refutation of the conservative points - or else their minds are not so oriented that they think that real information is required.  They seem to be from the school that says "shout louder and insult and you'll be believed, or they'll get pissed and go away - which leaves yours as the only voice."  I don't feel line engaging this afternoon - I'd rather just be here in this space and read, or write, or drink coffee and/or answer the phone and think my thoughts.  No rants today - I just don't feel like expending the energy only to cast pearls before swine....

Hmm.  That wasn't nice.  Pretend I didn't say it.

I just learned that the Blue Man Group is to be in Las Vegas during the time I am there.  I wonder if I can arrange to see them?  Tickets aren't cheap, but it might be worth the time to go.  I have this feeling that I'll not have much time for fun at all over that weekend - too much to do in a strange town - and I am told that there is nowhere to walk that takes less than half an hour....  With my knees and one leg the way they are, it doesn't sound like a real fun time - but we shall see.  If I can find a couple of other folks that wanna go, it's on!

Last time I was in Las Vegas was a little over 40 years ago, and I imagine that nothing will be where or as it was then - not that I'd remember all that much as I was only there for the day.  Jamie had been born, and our Uncle Jum was taking some of us to Las Vegas for breakfast.  He is a physician and has had his own airplane for many years, so we were flying in.  Lovely trip, and I actually got to fly a Mooney and didn't even scare him (as far as I know.)  But we left before midafternoon, because the air over the mountains that we have to cross to get back to San Bernardino gets pretty rough in the heat of the day, and the Mooney is just too small to accommodate airsick travelers. It was an interesting trip, and the damnedest breakfast buffet I have ever seen - easily ten times the size of the largest I had ever seen before.  Bad place for a fat guy...

This time I won't have time to gamble - too much other stuff to do.  Last time I think I won about $20 in dimes from slots (remember, this was 40 years ago - and $20 was a bunch of money to lots of  people....)

Only 6 hours to go in this shift.  I may have to go upstairs to my office and borrow some music or something to keep me buzzing around - nobody even to chat with and I'm not a really great person to leave alone somewhere.  Maybe I can find some speakers - I already have a thumb drive with some music, or I'll go to the Big Server at home and pull some down.  I also have Netflix- maybe I'll watch a movie.

Well I just had to do a little work.  Makes the time go faster, it does.  I also had to admit to an end-user that I could not help him because I didn't know how.  Oh well....

Just discovered that Google Chrome has a bunch of apps or builtins - gotta try a few to see how this TeeVee stuff works in here.  We supposedly have a pretty fat Internet pipe - I think I'm gonna go see what I can find.

This window has been open too long - y'all have a fun evening.  I'll stop in again if I find anything really exciting - or if the urge to start a rant overwhelms me.

TGIF Day!

Well, Friday has arrived, and started off with a visit to my physician.  He's a good guy, and we have known him for probably 30 years or so.  His MA took my blood  pressure and found it elevated.  He took it and found it low (for me) - so we both reassured the MA that she's still got 'it.'  I hope he doesn't have to explain it later today - she's a newbie and might not know about old standing jokes.  She managed to give me a B12 shot without giving me any pain, and we set up an appointment to come back in 6 weeks. He also reminded me that I need to get an upper endoscopy to see if I still have ulcers or something.  You all have to know how much I look forward to endoscopies.....

So I was a little late.  Rain was all over today, and we have a couple of small lakes in the back yard.  The motorcycles got wet (only a little) and getting the newspaper this morning was an adventure, running (actually walking slowly) between raindrops was the order of the day.  I got a little wet, but dried off before leaving to go to the doctor, where I got wet, and dried off before getting to work. I parked inside today, so I didn't get wet any more.  Fridays around here are pretty quiet, particularly before a 3-day weekend.

I finished up (again) the project for that outside consultant, logging on late last night to ship him the latest data - all 1.02 gigabytes of it (actually compressed down to 113,996 kb using WinRAR, a really useful tool) via my Google drive - which reminds me I need to clean that one up!

Something messed with my Chrome apps - I need to rebuild that.  Happily I remember what I use, mostly.  I have been amazed at how useful a lot of the apps and extensions for Google's Chrome have become - there are some I have come to depend on, and I hadn't given much credence to Google's approach.  Looks to me as if they got a lot right!

I fear there won't be much done today that is mission-oriented - too many other things that can be cleaned up.  Next week I have to start cleaning up to Clarion apps that I still have active, killing off the ones that aren't used, and upgrading at least to Version 8 anything that isn't already there.  I have Version 9 installed, but haven't had a chance to mess with it much. I also need to purge off a bunch of unused .bat files, SQL scripts and FTP scripts - there is so much that was put out there and has fallen into disuse that if I don't do this soon I'll be breaking more stuff than I fix....  I need to get all this stuff into a book somehow, and some of it needs major cleanup and simplification.  Always time to screw with it, never time to get it right - story of my life....

On another topic, has anyone that reads this ever heard of Heather Rigdon?  I ask because some nice person at the office gave me some of her MP3s and I am enjoying them a whole lot. I also discovered that the Beth Nielsen Chapman collection I thought I had lost just got hidden on a damaged drive on the big server, and I was able to recover all of it, which made me pretty happy. Now I have to transfer some of it over here, for use on the days I can make noise and not get bitched at by folks with tin ears.

In going through some old jump drives I have found some music that I had thought was lost - including a bit by Steve Miller at the end of a live concert that merged All Blues with  C. C. Rider   and some original lyrics to create a long track that was really great, very jazzy and funny, too. If anyone wants anything that I might have, leave a comment and I'll see what I can do for you.

Having discovered that by BluRay player is internet-smart, and that there are all kinds of movies available, I am thinking of killing off most of my movie collections and reclaiming some server space so maybe I won't have to buy drives so damned often to keep everything happy. I am continually amazed at what can be found on YouTube as well as some of the other services just kicking the BuRay box around a bit.  I had built a whole media player desktop, and find I don't use it at all - I can do everything media-wise I ever want to do just using the BluRay player. Now I have to get it away from where it is  and take it somewhere where it will be useful - like  down into the family room, maybe....

My watch must be busted - it sure is taking a long time to get this day over.  I'll be in Sunday and Monday (both scheduled days off) to cover a 3-11 shift that would otherwise be uncovered, because I am such a Nice Person - and because it will supply the comp time I need to take that weekend in Las Vegas in a week or two and not use any precious annual leave.

I'm trying hard to stay away from politics because some of what is going on makes me angry (and profane) and I don't want any nastiness to leak into this - so I'll save it for a time I want to show just how damn nasty I am capable of being when profoundly irritated.   But not today - I don't have the energy.

What I really need is a day that is about 32 hours long - then I could get lots done and still sleep for 9 or so hours.  As it is, I get to bed usually between 1 and 2 (my physician says older adults need bedtimes, too - but nobody can stay up around our house long enough to see that I observe any established bedtime.) and wake up at 7:45 when my phone says it is time to get up, make coffee, and do Other Things to get ready for the day.  What I should do is get up an hour earlier and walk around the block a time or two. No point taking any bets on when this will start, as I don't think it will any time soon.

I really hate this time of year, when I come home in the darn - it removes from me any desire to do anything after I eat something - anything, that is, besides park my arse in the chair read and/or watch the TeeVee.  I don't lose a whole lot of weight that way....

While I was off doing some real work a moment ago, my mind wandered into the place where the various ladies I have known over the last 70+ years have been stored, and I remembered a funny thing or two about a couple of them.  Then I seemed to wake up and realized where I was - and decided it wasn't time to visit those spaces.  Usually I visit them late at night when nobody is around to watch my face.  Maybe one day I'll talk about them, too. But not today.

I've been reading Augusten Burroughs, a brother to John Elder Robison, whose stuff I have also been reading.  Robison has Aspergers (which has, if I recall aright, been rendered no-longer-a word by the folks who decide such things) and is a most interesting person to read and to hear.  I'm not going to say more - if you are curious, read something from either or both - if you are Kindle-smart I might even loan you some of mine if there is a legal way to do that (and I think that there is.)

Any more, I do a log of my reading with my tablet using a Kindle app, or on one of my Windows machines using a Kindle app for Chrome, the browser.  Kindle is set up such that it remembers where you are when you bot a 'book' down.  Turn off the computer you were using, go home (or elsewhere) and get out your laptop (or tablet or Android phone) and fire up the Kindle app, and when it opens,m there is the page you were reading when you put it down.  Most thoughtful - and you can carry a hell of a big library with you, since e-books don't take up much room, and the Chrome app does everything from the Cloud (whateverthehell that means...)  If you hadn't noticed, I'm much impressed by Kindle - particularly by the fact that you don't have to buy one - anything you own can be a Kindle if you need it to be.

I think I've had enough fun, so I'm going to close up shop and go home and see where my lovely wife wants to go for dinner this evening.  Be well, y'all.

It is now Thursday. Imagine that.

Got up this morning not quite so stiff - apparently I am slowly recovering the ability to get over things quickly. If that sounds contradictory, it may be.

Late last night, before going to bed I started a process to get some results this morning for a consultant on a project for my top boss, the Police Commissioner.  The consultant and I have worked for some time with this data, and I have so far managed to get him almost anything he might ask for - but it hasn't alwways been easy.
When I left the office last night, a database was building that would have the latest subset data for the project.  I had thought the one I did the day before would be the last, but I figured out how to get a little more info that will shortcut a lot of effort on the consultant's part, so I asked him if he wanted it, and he did - hence the rebuild of the primary database.

Well, last night I logged in remotely to start a process that would strip the data down to manageable size files for him, secure in the knowledge that it would run about 6 hours and when I arrived everything would be ready to send to him.  Well, that is how it should have happened.  hat actually happened was that part way through the run, Microsoft decided my desktop needed patched, so it downloaded the patches, applied them and booted to box, leaving my process partway finished.  I fear I said a bunch of things better not said in polite society (not that cops are all that polite) and immediately restarted the process.  With luck it will finish before noon and I can get the info out to the man who needs it. I truly wish Micro$oft would let me d3ecide how to do some things....

It is raining, so having the Guzzi down doesn't really distress me.  I have to get a battery ordered today so it will maybe arrive by Saturday so I can have the bike ready for work on Monday.  I had planned a ride with the club on Saturday that would have taken a lot of the day - but the weather folks assure me it will rain all day - and I am no longer excited by riding in the rain.

I have to think of a name for the Guzzi - anyone have any thoughts?  The Suzuki is called "Big Suzi' because it is so big - what should I call the Moto Guzzi?  It is definitely Italian and definitely female and if I knew the name of the girl in the Fiat commercial who is so delicious I would name the bike after her, but I don't know her name.  Somehow "Phyllis" doesn't seem to match the character, and "Susan" would not feel honored if I used her name as she has never liked motorcycles, particularly when they were mine....

Someone come up with a name - if I use it, I'll give screen credit.

Otherwise, not a whole lot new.  I'll be in Las Vegas from 10/25 through 10/28, for the wedding of Sally and Fred (Sally is a first cousin once removed - there are lots of cousins on my mother's side of the family as she was one of six, one of whch had six, one of which had four - Sal is one of those 4) and to meet with a bunch of other cousins that I don't see as often as I wish because they all moved to the left coast, although when they speak, Pittsburgh is still detectable....

I'm looking forward some to the trip - the last time I was in Las Vegas was in July of 1973, when Jamie was born in California. In addition to my beloved cousins, I look forward to meeting for real someone whom I have 'known' from the world of RosFic for some time, so it should be a fun trip, and I should be busy enough to avoid gambling and/or drinking except for the obligatory glass of champagne at the wedding.

I had hoped to take Phyllis with me on this trip, but it was not to be - church jobs make weekends pretty hard to use for personal things. That morning, our friend Jack will be holding down the tenor section in the choir in my absence, and I do appreciate that.

Meanwhile, the phone is ringing, one of our guys is just back from Ireland, and I have to at least appear to be doing some work, so I'll close this one out.  Be well, y'all....

Thursday Morning

It's a lot like almost any other morning.  I woke up 15 minutes before the alarm woke me up, did the morning things, and drove to work (where I am right now.)  On the way to work I thought a bit about yesterday.  It was a good day as days go - I got away from work a little late, but got to choir rehearsal on time.

It's nice to be back to choir - I missed it during my period of enforced idleness.  I know I'm feeling beter because I feel like doing some solo work again.  I still don't do steps well, or long walks, but things are improving, slowly but surely.

Also, I started the motorcycle last night to ride it to choir rehearsal - and this weekend the Ramblers are having an Open House at the clubhouse, which I plan to attend and probably hang out for most of the day.  Should be interesting to see who shows up and if we can harvest a few new members.  I cannot usually get to meetings during the school year - a conflict between choir rehearsal and motorcycle club meetings will usually be won by choir, particularly because I sleep with the choir director, and she has Certain Expectations.  I guess I should note that I've been married to the very same choir director for nearly 46 years, so it is all good - no secrets here.

I'm still shopping for motorcycles.  I missed a very nice Honda PC-800 Pacific Coast, and am still looking at BMW R and K models, as well as the odd Honda ST model and the Moto Guzzi's that are around.  I need to have some work done on Big Suzi, but it will probably wait a couple more weeks.... Never enough time, and too much to get done.

The Big Server is eating yet another 4 TB hard drive - that is a total of 3 Seagate 4 TB drives gone south within a couple of months of installation.  I have drives 20 years old that still work, so I have to say that anything over 2 TB is really shaky right now - maybe in another year, but to date I have bought far too many of the big guys - might have to consider going back to the Old Faithful WD 2TB drives.

Right now, however, I have to get back to work on Off The Street and On The Street processing.

Have a great Thursday, y'all....

Tuesday Evening

It was a good day at work today - I got some stuff done, some stuff cleaned up, and had a chance to visit with the new boss before leaving.  I also got to test some stuff with my Android phone and tablet, and helpful.  I am looking forward to doing Exciting Things with these tiny devices.

The best part, however, came after the impromptu meeting - I joined a small group at a local saloon for conversation and something to eat.  It is a rather special group - all the folks there speak German of one sort or another, some better than others - but it was a chance to see how much I could remember, and to recall how much fun it could be to sit around a table and just talk about this 'n' that without having to prove anything to anyone.

I had been to one other meeting about nine weeks back - then I broke my leg and developed a hold in my alimentary canal somewhere, and was off the street for a while, so instead of meeting them all again in two weeks it was more like two months - but it was good to see familiar faces and to hear familiar accents - and to meet someone new.

It's an interesting group - the first meeting I attended I was not the oldest; this one I was, and the youngest were probably early 30's or so.  A good time was had by all and a lot of time was spent discussing the biggest train layout in the world, the Miniatur Wonderland in Hamburg, Germany.  They have a web site with video clips of the various parts in operation - and it is worth the time to visit and view the operation.

I guess I don't have a bunch more - it was a good day at work, a pleasant evening among friends, and I'm pretty tired.

Tomorrow brings new opportunities to excel at work and to do Interesting Things for Cops.

Tomorrow I will find out if I am the proud new owner of a Honda PC-800 Pacific Coast motorcycle.  I have wanted one for a while, it is a good commuter, and probably as much as 300 pounds lighter than Big Suzi - and right now, Lighter is a Good Thing.  It should also be a lot cheaper to feed.

If that sale doesn't go, I'm still looking for a BMW Twin....

I have had enough fun for today - y'all have a good evening.

Monday Evening

The Monday I started this morning is slowly drawing to a close.

I did take those two lab slips to a lab this morning and bled profusely for the phlebotomists there.  Happily, they looked at both slips and were able to combine them - otherwise I might have had to have as many as 30 vials drawn.  Thinking about that many vials makes me a little queasy.  But we got through those we needed to do - then I could go home and get my medications and some breakfast.  It seems that some of these labs have to be done after at least an 8 hour fast.

Work was an atypical Monday - some folks who did not know I was back got surprised, and the yelling was minimal.  I started an onerous task and made good progress, and had a few thoughts of better ways to do a few things - so I should be in good shape for the next 10 days or so.

A couple of friends sent me a couple of real howlers that I had to pass along to around 40 or so other folks - good comic relief, and I got a load of spam at work in languages I could not even recognize. We have some pretty good filters, but the spammers get more clever (or lucky) each day. It becomes annoying when 25 people want to help me with a problem I do not have.

I've been looking at motorcycles lighter than Big Suzi, and am concluding that a BMW twin or a 4 might be nice at least 10 and maybe as much as 20 years old.  saw a couple of nice Moto Guzzi's, and then I found a Honda Pacific Coast.  At 800 CCs it ought to be big enough, as well as cheap to feed, and it's a classic.  For the time being, I think no sidecar - maybe in a couple of years but for now a middleweight might be a better choice.  The heavy bike is perhaps better suited to a trip to California, but somehow I think I am not going to be doing that for a while - and when it does come, a train or motorhome would be a better vehicle.

Unless you live in a cave, you know about what happened in DC today - another crazy used a gun-free zone as a way to assure a bunch of defenseless victims.  Nobody seems to have anything resembling a reason for this - but some of it lays at Bill Clinton's feet - it was he who determined that military personnel on base would be disarmed.

I think maybe this rant should be elsewhere, so I'm gonna shut up.

Tomorrow is Tuesday, and there is a meeting of the German Speaker's Association, which meets about every two weeks.  I had been to another meeting just before I broke my leg, and look forward to a second.  If I am careful, I won't hurt the dietary requirements, and it should be a pleasant evening.  I look forward to it!  I met a bunch of interesting people at the last one, and it should be a real giggle just trying to converse in a language that I used to use all the time.

I'll have more to say about that after the meeting.

This weekend has the Ramblers holding an open house, and I plan to be there at least for a time, although whether I'll compete in the scavenger hunt is questionable to the point of unlikely.

I just heard Phyllis come in, so I k I'll chat wither for a while, and let y'all rest.

Have a gold evening and a better day tomorrow.

I know someone's reading this - it would interest me to have feed back on relevance, reason, etc.  If you don't want to comment in a place others can read it, send me email rar1942@verizon.net.

Good night.

Back to Work after the first week...

Well, this week I went back to work, most of the day.  I am now allowed to drive my car, and even to start my motorcycle provided I don't drop it on myself.

Going back to work was good, felt good, and tired me out at the same time.  I forgot how much little things like walking get taken for granted.  My parking space is as far away from my office as it can get in our garage, and right now it takes a lot longer to walk that little bit than it used to - and wears me out worse.

Not helped by the fact that they finally fixed our air conditioning, so I finally had to resort to a flannel shirt in order not to shiver and have chattering teeth!

Kinda nice to have my tools & toys the way I expect them to be, instead of working remote with things ass I like them at home but not for work purposes.

I even managed to fi a couple of things this week, one of which had me angry and frustrated when the long hiatus started back in late July.

Damn.  I just realized I was out for nearly two months. My email is still a bit behind but is getting caught up. With any luck t all, by the time December comes, I'll be ready for Thanksgiving.

I have ridden the motorcycle a couple of times, and it did feel good.  My wife thinks I should go for one a little lighter, which has put me into looking at some of the BMW R-series that I so loved, as well as the Honda Pacific Coast and ST models, and the oddball but marvelous Moto Guzzzi tourers.

I was considering a sidecar on a Gold Wing or maybe a BMW K-model, but they are all coming up a bit too dear.  My wife is backing this, but hasn't yet given me an indication of  what she will tolerate by way of a price, so for right now i am just looking.  I, of course have the New Motorcycle fever, but she tends to be a bit more grounded than I am, so I can be sure it won't happen today or tomorrow.  We shall see.

Overall, I am feeling better, but still tire far too easily and find pain when I've been doing too much and, of course, dietary restrictions don't do much for my good nature.

Be well, y'all

PS - I sometimes wonder who reads this - whoever you are out there,  you might leave a comment or something.

Back to work!

This is the first day I have been to work since July 24.  It seems like a year.  During the period of down time I probably worked more at home than I usually do at work, just to stay sane.

This enforced hiatus has taught me more than a couple things:

1. Daytime TeeVee really sucks - and even with NetFlix and internet onnectivity, there are only so many hours that one can stand to watch without becoming a little crazy.
2. Perforating ulcers are no fun, particularly when they, without warning, perforate.
3. We have some good hospitals around here - but being home is still better.
4. Liquid diets are no fun.
5. Pureed diets are even less fun (glass of pizza anyone?)
6. Soft food diets can be disgusting.
7. Laporoscopic surgery is the best possible way to have things in your belly examined - if they need examined. Better is not to need anything looked at that closely.

Leading up to the hiatus, I was reminded that if a motorcycle is falling over and you are on it, get out of the way!  If you don't do that, you could get your leg broken - which is where this all started on July 24th.

It was good to get back to work.  I did not get as much done as I might have wished, but I got something done, got what I needed for several other somethings, and was pleased at the end of the day.

Now I can go back tomorrow and be truly productive.

Work is good.

Now I have to find another motorcycle that is a couple hundred pounds lighter than Big Suzi....

Well, it's a new day - with some new rules.

I am allowed to go back to work.   Never thought I'd celebrate the removal of idleness, but enforced idleness isn't anything like chosen idleness.

I can also take off the hated grey boot, unless I think I need to wear it, and leave the walker in the back of the car unless something tells me I need it.

I don't know, but fatigue could trigger either one, I guess, so I'll keep both close by, along with a pair of shorts since I can't fit the damned boot under any trousers or jeans I own....

I may start the motorcycle by the weekend.

I may also replace it with something about 25% lighter in a BMW, if I can find the right one.

I'm still restricted as to diet, for at least another 4 weeks, and still supposed to take it easy.

I guess the best part is I'm still alive, not exactly kicking, but still mobile.

Getting old sucks, but not as much as being dead.  Happily I didn't get to dead on this round of adventure.

Be well.

Monday Morning at Zero Dark Thirty

It's Monday Morning (again - seems to happen weekly around here....) and I am still up - couldn't stay awake about two hours ago and now I am wide awake and not at all interested in going to bed.

This morning I have a visit with an orthopod who will, I hope, tell me I don't have to wear this fracture boot any more and can go back to work.  I wish I thought he'd tell me it was OK to ride my motorcycle again, but he's one of those folks that think that motorcycles are the creation of a hateful being, and have only one purpose - to supply organ donors.

I'm sure he never had a motorcycle, and if he ever got on one, it was to sit behind an asshole determined to scare him to death!

At any rate, that is what I am hoping for this morning.  I still have three weeks of restricted diet (soft foods only, and all the water I want) before I see my bariatric surgeon again, and before that I have to go and bleed at the lab, and by the look of the lab sheet, it will take about 17 vials of blood for all the tests he wants done.

Then, I'll have to get another upper GI endoscopy, not one of my favorite ways to spend a day. He wants to see if the ulcers are better, worse, still the same or gone.  Based on what he sees, my diet and working permissions may well get changed again. This getting old stuff really is a PITA.

I'e steered clear of the news for a couple of days just to be sure I don't become outraged and create a new ulcer.  I don't know if it works, but at this point if it means that I'll have a smaller chance of repeating the last few weeks, I'll take it.

I've been watching eBay again, looking at motorcycles, both sidecar rigs and lighter (than what I have) solo bikes.  I'd really kinda like to have another BMW - R or K model, not sure which - and some are aailable at reasonable prices, although they have more than a little age on them. The BMWs I have had before were all ancient by any normal measure, and they stood up to anything I cared to give out. Maybe it is time for another BMW.

Of course, my lovely wife knows I am looking, but can ignore it until I have to ask her to borrow a couple of thousand bucks for a motorcycle.  If I am permitted to live, all will be well and I'll have a much lighter motorcycle to pick up, hopefully less regularly.

But then again, a sidecar rig could be a real giggle.

I think I'm ready to get some sleep.

Be well, y'all - II'll have more to say after I see the orthopod.

Doing What I Do

I'm an info systems specialist, who does odd jobs for a living. I'm one of the people who, when asked "Do we have this information and can we get it in this form?" says yes, no, or I'll look into it.

I've been in Info Systems since the late 60's, and one thing that is becoming more apparent each year is that everyone knows things and presumes that among the things known is how something has to be done to be effective.

More and more, when someone wants something, that someone will take up a lot of time telling me what to do and, often, how to do it. Nobody any more tells me what it is that they hope to accomplish, which would go a long way towards getting an optimum result.

Where I work, most of our data is stored in Oracle - partly because one of our major systems is purchased and was written to use Oracle, and partly because it is a good product, with a long life and a solid company behind it. It is also reasonably easy to use when I write stuff in the language I use most of the time, and while there is a lot that I do not know, I understand how stuff is stored and have written enough code that I can usually do whatever is needed if the data exists in any rational format.

Just an example - I was asked to strip down a Personnel database and a Mobile Phones database so the bosslady could load the resulting files into Excel and use Excel to find out what phones were in use by people who weren't our employees any more - so we would know to turn them off. A couple of fields from one and a couple of fields from another, creating two files.

I had designed both databases, and knew they could be tied together in retrieval, so I did what was asked, and in one file added one field from the other database, giving one of the files all the info needed to avoid writing the Excel program. Then I thought some more about it and wrote an extract to create a file showing only phones assigned to people who were gone.

In the end, the person who actually had to use the data was as happy as a clam to get only 79 records to deal with instead of 800+ with only some labeled as needing attention. The person who originally directed that I do this was dismayed to see that there was no longer a need for the Excel program to do the comparison - but ran it anyhow and it worked, and it verified my results. I'd've had it two days earlier had it been clear what we were trying to accomplish - which was to find out if we had any cell phones assigned to people we no longer employ.

Then this morning I found that there was to be an inventory comparing our vendor's data about who was using what phone to ours. I found that wity minimal massaging I could download from the vendor site a detailed statement, parse it and pass it against our equipment and personnel databases and come up with a list of mismatched names - reducing the number of records to be examined from 1400 to around 200 - but this time I was asked if there was a way to take the vendor data and validate it against our data.

I guess the message here is if someone is going to be doing something for you, rather than let your preconceived notions of the process guide the request, explain what the desired result is and let the professional pick the methodology. If the pro is a pro and needs more information, you'll get more questions, and if no more questions are needed you'll probably get a happier result a lot faster than if you try to guide the methodology.

Enough of my grumbling. Have a good evening, y'all.

Wednesday, December 10th

Less than 15 days until Christmas - and I have nothing for anyone.  This seems to happen all the time.  I thought of a few really clever things on the way into the office this morning, but was busy driving and didn't want to look for a pen to write myself a note to myself to tell me what I had thought would be good for someone.

Of course, at the office lunacy abounds - folks are going out on leave, others are trying to squeeze the last bit of knowledge out of those going out before they go, just in case they get a brain wipe whilst they're away and have to be completely retrained upon return, I guess.  I've been doing this stuff for so long I don't know any more what i know, and am constantly being surprised by the things I remember only when I need them - any other time I would swear I didn't know these things, and it seems like I forget them as soon as I'm finished using them.  Maybe it is a part of the brain whose job is to keep my head from getting too cluttered by hiding the indices to the knowledge, bringing them out only in extremis.

When I got up this morning, it was just over 60 degrees and I thought "Hot damn, I'll motorcycle to work today!" - and then I looked out the window into a monsoon and determined that the old Volvo had to be stirred from its rest again today.   The drive in was horrid - what takes me 25 minutes ad night can take 95 minutes in the morning, and I really hate it.  Much of this is caused, of course, by the large number of anal sphincters that one encounters when commuting.  Today, I met the guy who runs down a half-mile on-ramp to the end and then forces his way into traffic, rather than taking the hole I carefully left for him to fit in without causing anyone to become upset.  Maybe he was talking on his telephone and didn't notice all that open space, or maybe he's just too important to bother with the normal courtesies - but I gotta tell you, someone up in front of me must've had some words for him, because he stuffed his way in where there was no room.  Where's the cop when you need one?

There was another that cruised in a marked exit-only lane for a mile or more and then stopped when it turned off and made everyone wait while he found someone he could intimidate into letting him in.  

'm just not important enough to pull this crap, and I'm entirely too fond of nonstress approaches to things - and I gotta believe that behaving like that induces far more stress than I'm likely to want at any given moment.

I had a nice "visit" with my son in New Zealand last night, using Skype with a webcam - the quality was better than I had a right to expect, and the hookup was clear and the sound really good.  I was pleasantly surprised, and spent another hour or so looking for otherpeople to Skype at/to but couldn't find that many familiar names - and the names that I did find were all asleep where I should have been.

But it is a neat technology, webcams are pretty cheap (I bought 4 for around $40 on eBay and gave one to my daughter, one to myself, took one to work, and still have one on the shelf) and work pretty well.  Last night, I hooked up with Jamie and let his mom chat with him a bit, and then drove her a little nuts walking through FaceBook to look at some of our kids' pictures, and see who we could find there that we knew.  She still won't touch a keyboard that doesn't consist of white and black keys, but she's getting closer....

Choir rehearsal tonight, and I need to be there, so I'm gonna run.  Hope y'all are having great days.  Tomorrow will be another day.

I.T. and the Peter Principle

If there is someone reading this who doesn't "get" the Peter Principle reference, the short form is In an organization, supervisors will rise to the level of  incompetence.  

Any place with an IT organization whose IT folks are not too paranoid to speak of it will tell you that this is always the case with IT folks - they people that run them are not IT-savvy, don't want to learn, and generally just want what they want when they want it.  The messenger who brings a no will be fortunate if that does not occasion an opportunity to work elsewhere, regardless of the practicality, feasibility or possibility of the unreasonable demand.  If the boss is paranoid or tends to micromanagement it gets even more painful.

I spent the morning in a meeting, mostly watching someone draw on a whiteboard.  I had to explain a thing or two, which I did - several times, using different words each time.  I was directed to telephone someone to ask something after discovering that there was a problem, it wasn't ours, and they were working on it.  When asked to telephone this person, which I knew to be working on the problem we had discovered, I expressed a reluctance to interrupt - the problem would need fixed before the person could begin to work on what I was asked to pursue, and it struck me as counterproductive to interrupt progress with something that would only cause mental overhead for this person, possibly keeping something broke for longer than necessary.  This was not an answer that anyone wanted to hear, so I ended up taking time to phone someone who was busy, thereby keeping two people from useful work - but that was what everyone seemed to think was needed.

I think I need to pull the plug and get out of here for a while, go to choir rehearsal, and spend several hours not thinking about what I do for a living - maybe even start up a motorcycle and see how long it takes to get numb riding in 40 degree weather....

Sorry, I'm frustrated and irritable. 

I'm certain that everyone has a similar tale.  If you happen to be everyone, let me know what your tales is - comments are open.