Author: admin Page 24 of 81

worst

On April 1, 2009

I usually focus on this blog on what’s happening with me, since I’ve got first hand knowledge and writing about other people is by definition second-hand knowledge. Given the date today it’s going to seem pretty far fetched – but this is all true.

My room-mate is a funeral director and has been for over ten years. As a consequence, he always wins the “who had the worst day” contests. For me, a bad day might be that I couldn’t get to my email for a couple hours or a server goes down when I need it. For him, he might have to sew someone’s head back on. So, he always wins.

I’ve learned to brace myself when he uses the phrase, “Not to be gross, but…” and I try to get him stopped then if I’m eating or there are other, less brave, people in the room.

I was at home yesterday when he called and said he was going to be very late. They had just gotten a new call and the individual was over 400 pounds. The essential process of embalming is the same no matter how much the person weighs, but it gets more difficult the more they weigh. My room-mate went into a level of detail that I’m not going to share, but you can be assured that you would not be able to handle it. It ended up taking him over 5 hours and his hands were so fatigued that they were shaking when he got home.

While he was gone, I took a couple calls for him and then had to share the bad news when he got home. One of his friends from back home hung themselves yesterday. Which is terrible all by itself, but the story leading up to it is even more tragic.

Apparently, this guy killed his uncle, hid the body in a trash can in a field, then fled the state with $50,000 dollars and guns – and was hiding out in a hotel under his dead uncle’s name.

He’s been in jail for the past two years and in and out of the court room. He had pled not guilty to all counts (including abuse of a corpse), but the evidence was substantial and prior to his sentencing yesterday he did the deed.

One of the calls I took last night was from this guy’s mom – the victim’s sister. She asked me to pass along the message to my room-mate when he got home. I can’t imagine what she’s going through.

So, on the heels of a really graphically difficult day at work, my room-mate gets the news. He called the guy’s mom back and got the details of the service on Thursday, which he’s going to try and go to.

This morning, when I got into work, I related this story to one of my good friends here. We talked for a bit about how crappy that all was, then he told me that he and his girlfriend are on the rocks. She’s wanting the “marriage-baby” plan and he’s not ready for it. He may be moving out and breaking up with her.

So. My room-mate is dealing with this huge tragedy and my friend is in the middle of relationship crisis. And me? I’m playing video games, watching DVD’s, and getting ready for my big swim. I can only imagine what these guys are going through and I have no idea how to help. I can’t even properly relate to them because things are going okay for me. Just ordinary.

I guess I’ll just try to be there for them if they need to talk – or to vent. Kinda puts things in perspective, I guess.

That pretty much wraps it up for me now. I guess I could relate some minor news that’s going on with me, but it seems pretty inconsequential compared to what my friends are going though. So, I’m just going to close and get back to work.

walk, race, quantum

By admin

On March 29, 2009

In Uncategorized

I went for a long walk on Saturday, about 4 miles or so. No real purpose except to get out of the house. I planned my route, adjusted the laces on my shoes, and headed out for Walmart.

Not exactly an epic quest, but still a bit of an adventure. I stopped at Home Deport to get some pricing on materials for a couple projects I have in mind and then over to Walmart to pick up Quantum of Solace.

During my walks, I sent a text message and made a couple of calls. I hit voice mail on a couple of those, but talked to my grandma for a bit. She was headed out again in a bit, but we talked for a little while and I mentioned my swimming. She offered to make a donation to the Swim for Diabetes and though I tried to talk her out of it, she was insistent. I gave up quickly – I’ve seen grandma argue with people and she usually wins. It was near the beginning of the conversation and she was planning on a nap before she went out – so, good chance she’ll forget. I appreciate the sentiment, but she’s diabetic herself and it seems like you shouldn’t have to donate to find a cure for a disease you have.

Anyway, it was a good walk and I’m glad I went. I got a response on the text message a few minutes after I got home. No time for shower – just some additional deodorant and a clean shirt and I was out the door. Went and saw Race to Witch Mountain – good flick. The effects were good and it didn’t take itself too seriously. The kids from the original movies – now all grown up – had significant cameos in the movie and ended up moving the story along. I thought they were great back when the first movies came out and it was cool to see them again.

Later in the evening, I watched Quantum of Solace on DVD. Also a good flick. Good story, intense action. I think Daniel Craig is a great James Bond and Judi Dench plays an excellent M – but the interplay between the two characters is the best part.

Today has been pretty quiet. Did a lot of reading – just about to finish up the last of the Academy series of books by Jack McDevitt. Watched some Eureka on DVD and I’m now listening to a little Ingid Michaelson on CD. Might work on my personal website a bit.

Less than one week before I hit the pool for a long swim. later…

36, taxes, games, twitter

By admin

On March 27, 2009

In Uncategorized

I did 36 laps in the pool today – no problem. I wasn’t even winded when I got out. Next Saturday’s 2 miles should be a snap.

I worked on my taxes the other evening. The federal and state were okay – I used Turbo Tax and breezed through those. I haven’t done the city one yet – those are always the worst. The forms are almost deliberately complicated and I’m not looking forward to it. I’m trying to decide if I should be a in good mood when I start – thereby only dragging me down to a middle level. Or if I should wait until I’m already in a bad mood since it won’t ruin a good mood.

I played a little Red Steel for the Wii. It reminded me once again that I am no good at first-person shooters. I barely made it through the first section of the first level before I died. And with really long load times, eh, I don’t think this game will spend much time in the fun category.

I also played a little Super Mario Galaxy last night and did pretty well until I got to a level where:

1. Mario is trapped in a essentially a Plexiglas box.

2. He has to run around and jump over obstacles.

3. The ceiling is coming down on him

4. He’s upside down.

What is this? A death trap from the old live action Batman series? Who comes up with this?

The way out of this is to keep moving left and jump when appropriate. Simple, right?

Wrong. “LEFT! RUN LEFT, YOU IDIOT! PAY ATTENTION!”

All the shouting at the TV did no good – just like when my room-mate yells at the TV during WVU football games. The yelling turned into swearing and threats, but that didn’t help either. I finally gave up for the evening and read a book.

Well, I signed up for twitter. Ugh. I realized I was missing things that were going on with my co-workers and friends – they kept referring to things that they had twitted and I was out of the loop. Will I send my own twits? Not until I get an unlimited cell phone texting plan. So, you know, never.

I’ve got a twitter account. What the hell happened to me? I mean, just a year ago I was still on the “cell phones are dum” bandwagon. And now I’ve got a twitter account.

(hangs head in shame)

I still don’t have a blu-tooth-walking-down-the-street-talking-to-myself-like-a-crazy-person-headset So, there’s still hope for me.

Starting to get a big of a headache – I think I need to take a break for a few minutes. We still don’t have a vending machine in the building, so I’ll have to head over to the school of law to get a snack/drink.

later…

swim for diabetes

By admin

On March 26, 2009

In Uncategorized

I’ve decided to do this year’s Swim for Diabetes. It’s next Saturday at the pool on campus and I’m going to try and do 2 miles.

http://www.swimfordiabetes.com

Should be good – but tiring. I do a mile pretty frequently, but I’ve only done 2 miles once before. I feel pretty confident that I can pull that off – but I’m also pretty certain that I’ll need to eat a pile of food when I’m done.

I’ll add more later as I get ready for the big swim.

spring, project, head

By admin

On March 20, 2009

In Uncategorized

I’ve gotten into the habit of glancing at the temperature gauge in the kitchen in the morning before I leave for work to determine what level of jacket I need for the day. Or at least the start of the day – ’cause it’s Ohio and it’s really any one’s guess as to what the weather will do. It was in the 20’s this morning, so I dressed accordingly and drove to work – noting the snowflakes in the air.

And today is the first day of spring – what a crock.

I got an idea for a project last evening with some stained glass – and I wanted to finish it last night. Fortunately, I could see the whole thing in my head and the steps I knew I needed to complete it. Sadly, I generally suck at most of those steps. The glass broke wrong – twice – and I had to adapt my design to accommodate the new shapes. The copper foil tape wasn’t sticking and the soldering iron Refused! To! Obey! Me!

Very frustrating. I also didn’t have the right color of glass in my supply, so when I was all done, I had to paint the dang thing.

The end result – is not what I had hoped for. But it’s not as bad as I had feared. Also, no seriously injuries! Yea!

I’ll try and get some pictures and post them once the paint is completely dried.

In other news… my head hurts. It’s going to be a long day here at work, staring at my computer screen(s).

That’s it for now. Later…

monitors, zelda

By admin

On March 17, 2009

In Uncategorized

Finally got the dual monitors going – thanks to the help of our computer repair dude. The computer board got replaced, the fan works quietly, and the monitors are in place and are awesome. I also moved my computer to the floor to give more room on my desk – I think I could play ping pong here. It is soooo nice.

At home, I’ve been playing Legend of Zelda Twilight Princess and really enjoying the game. There were a couple of needlessly complicated puzzles that I had to look up – but the most recent area was really clever and fun to figure out. I could have played more last night, but I wanted to make the game last and savor it.

later…

laptop, walk, email

By admin

On March 16, 2009

In Uncategorized

I’m on a laptop here this morning. No word yet on how soon the replacement board will come in for my dual monitor machine, so, to avoid the wrath of my cube neighbors, I decided to borrow a laptop and work quietly. Not a big deal – though I don’t have admin access on this machine and ran into some flash-issues because I couldn’t install it.

I also recently got the latest version of Adobe Creative Suite – but that’s on the main and still very noisy machine. I would have liked to take that for a spin today, but there’s other work to be done anyway.

Over the weekend I went for a long walk. My room-mate needed a prescription picked up and Rite Aid was within my effective range. Took me about an hour round trip and though the weather was nice, there were two problems.

1. The trash. I was amazed and dismayed at how much litter was along side the roads. Beer bottles, plastic bags and wrappers and one very obviously used diaper. Seriously, what kind of a person throws a used diaper out the window of a moving car?

2. I was wearing short socks and the left one kept sliding down. By the end of my walk, my shoe had rubbed the back of my ankle raw and I was bleeding pretty good. When I got home I put some alcohol on it, then swore with some powerful intensity, and put a band-aid on it.

Finally, I got a very strange email over the weekend. No subject line. It was from: MR. “Tony” [sdsaf.34634@gmail.com] and addresses to my alias email address at work. The content of the message was this:

Hi,
Give me a call right now.

Regards
Tony

That was it. Now, I know a couple of people named Tony and neither of them would have used an address like that – nor left such an obscure message. I did a look up of the address and couldn’t find it.

So, clearly spam – but weird spam none the less. No links, no embedded email. Just the request to call – and no phone number.

And there’s that reference to Tony – a name I have considered using, but never have. Could the message be from me – from the future? Some kind of recursive temporal request? Tachyon bombardment of the email server? Was I trying to warn myself of something that was going to happen Saturday morning?

…

Nah, it was probably spam.

That’s it for now, back to work…

dual, fan, swim, watchmen

By admin

On March 13, 2009

In Uncategorized

I’ve been trying to get dual monitors set up on my work machine for a few weeks now. My first try was a cable splitter that “should” have done the job. No luck. Even the computer repair guy couldn’t get it going. He suggested a new splitter cable – which we ordered. That was delayed in shipping and when it finally came in it didn’t work either. Next, he thought it might be the DVI-D cables and that didn’t work either. Finally, he tried a new video card – which finally worked, but caused a “CPU Fan failure”. So, now the fan runs all the time. At full power. It’s actually a nice breeze, but in time this will kill the fan. He tried another fan and that was no different. So, a replacement motherboard is on order and should be here Monday. In the meantime, it’s quite loud here. But the dual monitor is very very cool.

I bought some new square-cut speedos and goggles recently and tried them out in the pool today. The anti-fog coating on the goggles really helped – they also were tinted which was nice. The speedos covered up the bits that are supposed to be covered up and that’s about all that one can expect of them.

I’ve been trying to mix up my swimming workout a bit with a goal of doing more and more of the crawl, but with more variation so I don’t get burned out. Today I went though all the strokes I know – including butterfly – and really mixed it up. The variation made it easier to get through my 30 laps. Of course, this afternoon I’m eating a bag of Chilli-Cheese Fritos – so I’m not turning into some kind of fitness nut.

I went and saw “Watchmen” the other day. Really good flick – well done and thought provoking. Good vs. evil, hero vs. villain – and the vast gray areas between. Big ideas – and also big special effects. I wasn’t in full “fan-boy” mode, but I enjoyed it.

Looking forward to shutting this loud beast down for the weekend and going home. No big plans for me, just some video gaming and maybe a hike if the weather holds.

Later…

30, butterfly, phil collins, work

By admin

On March 10, 2009

In Uncategorized

I did 30 laps today in the pool – which is not too big of a deal, except for the kind of laps. I did 5 crawl, then 5 back, then 5 more crawl, then 5 breaststroke, then 5 backstroke, then 4.5 laps of crawl. The crawl is what I’m really trying to work on – but that last 1/2 lap I decided to step it up a notch since I was feeling pretty good. So, the last length I did the butterfly stroke.

Which I’m not really good at. At my best, I was only able to do about a 1/2 a length before I would get that thought “Oh, I’m going to drown,” and then I stop.

This time I got to that spot and thought, “Hey, I’m not drowning,” and I just kept on going. My form wasn’t great and I wasn’t very fast. But I did it. 1 length of the pool. Maybe next time I’ll do more.

In other news… I was watching the Music Choice channel and Phil Collins came up. In a fairly recent picture… well, he looks like my dad. Disturbingly so. My room-mate thought so too. But my room-mate also thinks my dad looks John Locke from the TV series Lost. So, not sure about that. But the Phil Collins thing was weird.

Finally, work has sucked. Spectacular deadlines, massive stress. It’s actually messing with my sleep. Which I didn’t think was even possible.

And it’s about time for me to try to sleep again. After a shower, I still smell like chlorine from the pool.

later…

dentist, card, day, swim

By admin

On March 7, 2009

In Uncategorized

I went to the dentist on Friday. It had been a while – well, a long while – since I had gone and I was expecting the worst, including a lecture. Instead, they said my teeth were in pretty good shape, all things considered. The x-rays were not fun – I kept gagging on the plastic they put in my mouth. The wait time was quiet long, but I had plenty of paper and kept myself busy. I wasn’t impressed with the actual dentist – his presence was sort of limited – but the rest of the staff were pretty good.

I headed into work after that and tried to get caught up – but had to go right into a meeting. The content was mostly over my head – something I don’t like to admit – but I tried to follow along. After the meeting, it was back to work and the disasters of the day, including a major system going down. It’s still not fixed properly, but I don’t have the access to even be properly worried about it.

I got out of work late and headed to the pool for a late afternoon swim. Got in 30 laps, but was a bit disappointed that so many of those were non-crawl. I really have to work on that.

Finally, I managed to get an SD Micro card for my phone. So that, along with a cable that finally works – means that my phone is now accessible by my computer. I was able to download my phone’s photos and upload a new wall paper. Next is to try and customize my own ring tone. Yes, I’m going down that path. And yes, I’m scared.

That’s it for now. I’m going to try and get the ring tone working, then I’ve got to get out of the house before I go stir-crazy.

later…