Author: anthony Page 20 of 72

This past weekend I headed to my sister’s house for my youngest niece’s birthday.  She’s turning 5 – my niece, not my sister – and was dressed up in wild and colorful birthday skirt and shirt.  Again, my niece, not my sister.  

We took a trip to the library, the farmer’s market, and the craft store before going to wendy’s for lunch.  By then it was time to start getting ready for the party and I kept the girls entertained with some lego building before the guests arrived.   

My sister always does a great job with party planning and we did tie dye shirts and had a rousing indoor snowball fight (with crumpled paper) before pizza for dinner.  They then moved on to press on nails for all the little girls and I opted to skip that one.

It was a good trip and I had fun, but I’m really not a good traveler.   It was worth it, though, to hold both my nieces’ hands when we crossed a street.  So much love and trust there – it was really special.

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I’m writing this post from my new laptop and there’s a story in the purchase.

It was the Fourth of July and I was on the hunt for a computer.  Best Buy was having a big sale and I was jonesing for a chromebook.  

I scoped out the various laptops and strongly resisted correcting a best buy salesman as he gave bad information to a customer.  (Well, not bad, just a little scarier than it needed to be).

To my surprise, they had a fairly good selection of chromebooks and I found one that I liked.  Even better, they had an open box of that one for another $50 less.  Sweet!  It was Geek Squad certified and while I had a slight twinge, I went along with it.

I made my purchase, took it home to charge up, and got it on my network easy as pie.

It wasn’t until I opened it up a second time that I found a problem.  The chromebook has a touch screen and something had gone terribly wrong with the connection.  Instead of sitting patiently for me, the screen went crazy.

Windows appeared and disappeared.  Things zoomed in and out so rapidly it was a blur. Confirmation boxes leaped in and out of focus.

It was possessed.  

I closed it and reopened  – and got it under control enough to use for a bit before shutting it down.  It was an intermittent problem – the worst kind to try and diagnose – but I was able to get it to repeat enough to record a short video in case I needed proof.

And then, receipt in hand, I headed back to Best Buy.  

The clerk at the counter was sympathetic and didn’t need the video to get a return started.  We found the “powerwash” function to clear me out of the machine and I went back to the laptop area to find a new one.  I took it back to the counter, paid the difference, and was on my way.

And yes, I know I said I didn’t need a laptop – but oh my gosh this is so damn shiny.  Did I tell you it had a touch screen?  And a built in pen!  And it’s a Chromebook!  And it’s so SHINY!!!!

Ahem.

So, I’m now able to blog from my first floor or my front porch.  Or anywhere with a wi-fi connection, for that matter.

It’s so shiny.   

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Jim and I went to PizzaFire for dinner tonight.  The pizza was excellent, but the experience was a little rough.  Terrible acoustics, disruptive/unsupervised children, a loud kitchen, etc.   We opted to eat outside where cars idled with terrible music and motorcycles charged down the street.  

I ate quickly as I usually do and tried, mostly unsuccessfully, to keep my cool.  I don’t get noisy.  I would vastly prefer the quiet and still.  So I sit here with my laptop and listen to deadmau5 on low in the background.  There’s a warm cup of tea at my side and a cat doing his best to not chase the one mosquito that managed to sneak into my house – thanks, Thunder(cat).   And I wonder at the human impetus to make as much noise as we can.  

I’m tired from my swim and an already a long week of work – I suspect there’s an early night ahead of me.

I took a couple days off around this weekend go to Illinois to visit my cousin and her family.

The trip started on Friday morning as I headed towards the turnpike and about 15 millions hours in the car.  Or something.  I underestimated the amount of tolls I would need to pay and reached a point in Indiana where I didn’t have enough cash to legally exit the turnpike.

Fortunately, there was a travel plaza with an ATM before the final exit and I cashed up – though I later realized a debit card would have worked in a pinch.

I got to Illinois a little ahead of schedule and my cousin’s kids were crazy excited to see me – Iike, literally jumping up and down excited.  Which was pretty cool. We played some games for a bit, then went out to eat and to a birthday/pool party for one of their friends.  It was a blast – lots of swimming and water slides – and we were all pretty tired when we headed back to their place.

Saturday morning was pretty low key, but we went out on the lake on their boat about 1:00.   We didn’t get off the lake until 8 that night and I spent almost all that time in the water.  The kids all had life jackets and the adults used pool noodles to float, but a noodle would have just slowed me down.  So, I treaded water and swam – and took very infrequent breaks to have a quick snack or get a drink of water before I was back in the water.  

A couple times I corralled a kid who drifted out too far or got freaked out – but I mostly stayed near the boats and let kids climb on me.  There were a lot of them.  🙂

The best game was when I would dive underwater and the kids would try to guess where I would surface.  They were always amazed when I slipped past the and surfaced behind them.   I managed to surprise them every time.

And not only did I “prune up”, I reached a point where I was starting to lose skin from my hands.  Crazy.

I think I impressed the adults that were on the flotilla of boats that gathered that day, but I was very tired by the time we were done.

I ended staying up late, though, because my cousin and her husband are such great conversationalists.  I sorry to end the night, but pretty much asleep on my feet.

Sunday was a lazy day of video games – much to the delight of the kids since I’m fluent in minecraft.  We went to my aunt and uncle’s for a early dinner and the kids and I had more adventures playing in the backyard.

There was a lot of good food, fun conversations, and origami over the weekend, but there were also some tears this morning when I left.  My cousin’s kids kinda melted down when they had to say goodbye.  It was sad, but really sweet too.  I got some sad text messages while in route and tried to be reassuring when I replied when I stopped for lunch.

I got slowed by traffic when I hit Ohio – of freaking course – but made it home safe.  I spent some quality time with the cat and then Jim took me out from dinner.

It was a good trip, but such a long drive solo.  It took me a little time to get my land-legs when I got home and I think I’ll sleep well tonight.

The most recent time I went camping with my folks, I got to ride a bike around the campsite.  It more fun than I recalled and I decided that I should own a bike again.

So, I took myself to Dick’s Sporting Goods with a plan.  I’m a quick decider when it comes to purchases – which is why I’m no longer allowed to go shoe shopping with my Mom.  Or grocery shopping – after the “green beans incident”.

I went to the bike area and started looking around and then the bike expert arrived and asked if he could help me.

I told him I was looking for a bike, a helmet, and a rack to put it on my car.

He asked if the bike was for me and I told him it was.  He then asked where I’d be riding it and I told him “mostly paved roads, but I don’t want to be uncontrollable if I hit a little gravel”

He nodded and then pulled a bike off the rack. It was a red and black Schwinn.  He said that they had just put that together recently and it was on sale.  He made some adjustments to the seat based on my height and I told him I’d take it.  There’s one.

Next, the helmet.  There were helmets on sale and I quickly picked out a black one that would match the bike.  And two.

Then, the bike rack. There weren’t a lot of options and we found one that had my style of car listed as viable. And three.

He put the bike up on the work-station and gave it a once over again to make sure everything was good while I filled out some paperwork.  From there, we headed up to the front and I paid for the bike.  Smooth sailing.

Riiiiiiight up until I had to get the bike rack mounted. Oh, there were plenty of instructions with little happy and frowny faces as guides, but having never put one of these on before I was wildly unconfident.

After several partial successes (i.e. failures), I managed to get the bike mounted with some trepidation. I fired up the GPS, set a non-highway route, and headed home.  I was going along okay – keeping a close eye on the bike through the rear window – when I went through a green light and had the driver of the truck next to me lay on the horn and shout at me that I was in a turn-only lane.  I came to a complete halt, let him proceed, and was mortified and relieved that I had almost caused an accident.

(note: the next time I went through that same intersection, I realized my lane had been “left or straight” and his was “right turn only”.  I was, as it turns out, in the right.  Insert sigh of relief and vindication here.)

I stopped at Jim’s house to show him the bike and then went on home.  I’ve been riding it around a bit – it’s harder work than I remember – but haven’t tried the bike rack again.  And I’m still concerned about highway driving.  I mean, with the bike on the rack of my car while I’m driving the car on a highway. Not riding my bike on the highway or highway driving in general – in case there was any confusion.

So, I’ve got a bike now.  And I’m technically able to participate in a triathlon, though I’m totally not going to do that.

I was doing a little paper folding and watching a dvd recently when I got a knock on my door.  It was a guy trying to sell home security systems – or, rather, smart home systems.

The company was one I had heard of and though I wasn’t really interested I figured I could hear him out. He had an ipad with demos, talked about the features and deals, and then asked what features I’d be interested in.  

Instead, I told him that I was actually more concerned about introducing potential vulnerabilities into his secure system the more devices were connected to it.  If my phone was compromised or stolen, or I hooked up a “smart fridge” with an unsecure password to my network, then his system  – no matter how secure – could be compromised as well and my physical and digital would be at risk.

I apparently tipped my hand and he asked me if I worked in a computer field  – and when I said I did he said he could just tell.  Yeah, right.  He didn’t address the connected devices issue (surprise), but instead went on to tell me about the video archives on a terabyte drive and the cloud storage.  

[Do I want video of what goes on in my backyard stored on the internet?  No, I do not.]

Then he asked if I knew how many gigabytes were in a terabyte.  

Really?  Quizzing the geek?  You wanna go down that road?

I told him “a thousand” with a barely suppressed eyeroll as I mentally rounded and he replied that he thought it wasn’t exactly a thousand. I sighed quietly, agreed, and told him it was 1024 because it was by powers of 2.

Sigh, again.

The deal included free equipment and installation – and then $80 a month for a system that I didn’t want or need.

It’s just me here and my cat.  I’m careful about locking my doors and I don’t really own anything that valuable.  If someone does break in when I’m not here, they’re going to really disappointed.  If I am here, well, nothing says “crazy homeowner” quite like a katana.

So, no sale on a smart home.  I’m fine with my dumb, but interesting, house with physical locks and a carefully monitored network.  And I hate the idea that I’m supposed to feel afraid.  And that a camera on my doorbell will somehow make me safer.  Big brother is here – and we’re spying on ourselves.

And, seriously?  Don’t try to out-geek a geek.  We are not to be trifled with.

I got a thank you sent to my work address for helping with the commencement this past spring.  It was a form letter.   Which is fine, except that it said it was for the fall commencement.  And it took 3 weeks to get through the campus mail.  And the envelope had the “verboten” logo of Ohio’s Polytechnic University – i.e. getting rid of their old envelopes.

Sigh.  I think they could have skipped it, frankly.

I also got a thank-you for another project.  This one included a hand-written card and, for some reason, a scratch off lottery ticket. I dutifully scratched off the ticket and found that I had won!

3 dollars.

Not really worth the effort of turning it in, I guess. I had worked with my boss’s boss on the project, so I took a picture of the winning ticket and emailed it to him with a note about how we won.  And that I owned him $1.50.  🙂

He emailed me back with a photo of his winning ticket – for $15.00 – and said that he owned me.  

Pretty funny.

I don’t quite get the “scratch-off lottery ticket” as a gift and though I was a little disappointed in the form letter, I’m a firm believer in thanking people – especially when they go out of their way.  Seems like the right thing to do and I think we need to do more of that.

So, thank you for reading my blog.  🙂

As I was checking my mail recently, I noticed a package on my porch. I was a little puzzled since I didn’t have any pending orders and when I picked it up I saw it had my address – but was addressed to my cat.

Curious, I took it inside and opened it up. It was a brush in the shape of a giant tongue with knobs on one end. The other end was a flat piece of rubber.

When I read the instructions I saw that the human in question was supposed to grip the flat piece in their mouth and then use the brush to lick their cat.

After all, cats like to lick humans as a sign of affection so it stands to reason that they would like it back.

The note in the package didn’t identify who it was from and I was really puzzled. Not “who would send me something like this?” but rather “Of all the mischievous and odd people I know, which of them would have sent this?”

It’s a surprisingly big list.

And, naturally, because I’m… well… me, I had to try it out.

The next time Jim was over, I asked him to get a video of the first attempt. If you haven’t seen it already, here you go:

https://www.facebook.com/anthony.serpette/videos/vb.543217166/10154447269047167/

Yeah, wow.

I did a little detective work and tracked it back to my former co-worker – and then his wife confessed it “might” have been her idea.

Really, though, it could have been any of a number of people and I wouldn’t have been surprised. I have some strange and fun and awesome friends.

The jury is still out on if my cat liked it, but he was licking me back and I guess that counts for something.

I had a deeply frustrating day at work yesterday. No matter how I try to help and explain things, my users seemed determined to go some other – strange and wrong – direction. I kept finding myself opening the cabinet in my office to stare longingly at the vampire stake I keep there for emergencies.  You can never be too careful.

Fortunately, I needed to head across campus on an errand and knew the walk would do me good. I was walking past my building when I noticed irises growing in a small flower garden.

I stopped, leaned over, and breathed deeply.

Suddenly, the smell of the flowers triggered an intense memory. In my head, with perfect holographic clarity, I was back at my great-grandmother’s little house in Mackinaw, Illinois. She was proud of her garden and spent a lot of time growing the most beautiful and fragrant flowers in town. Every detail from what would have been over 30 years ago and two states away was suddenly as vivid as if I’d been back there at that time and at the place.

It was gone in another instant.

It’s been said that smell is the most powerful evoker of memories, but I guess I hadn’t had one hit me so strongly before.  I was there – as surely as I’m now sitting at my desk typing at my computer.

I stood back up and headed on my way.

The quality of my interactions with humans didn’t get any better, but things were a little sunnier in my head for the rest of the day.

Jim is taking an independent study class and had to meet with his professor this past Friday evening. I had left work early with an allergy attack, but took some medicine and was feeling well enough to go along with him. The professor’s office was near Cleveland heights and I waited in the lobby with a book while Jim had his meeting.

I was getting a little hungry and suggested Mellow Mushroom when he was done. Jim, having seen me when I’m “hangry” suggested Legacy Village since it was closer. We decided on the California Pizza Kitchen – unless it was busy.

The rainy weather had scared off the crowds and the restaurant wasn’t busy at all. We got seated right away and I had a view of the kitchen.

As we were looking over the menus, I thought I recognized someone working in the kitchen, but they were gone before I could be sure.

The waiter took our order and left. I saw the familiar person again a little later and stopped our waiter as he was going past.

“Is Larry Barnett working in the kitchen this evening?”

“Yes, he is – would you like me to…” the server replied and I interrupted to explain so he wouldn’t think there was a problem.

“He was my room-mate about a hundred years ago,”

The waiter laughed and headed back to the kitchen.

I overheard him talking to someone behind the counter, heard “one hundred years”, heard a laugh – and then Larry comes out of the kitchen with a huge grin on his face.

I stood up as he approached and asked, “What up, fool?” with a matching grin.

We shared a big hug, introduced Jim, and starting talking.

And though we hadn’t parted on exactly good terms and it had years and years since I’d seen him, we fell right back into where we had been. The same jokes, the same speech patterns – just like old times.

Our pizza arrived and Larry shook his head. “Should have known – pepperoni”

I’m a creature of habit.

He gave me his number to put in my phone – surprised that I not only had a cell phone, but that I texted too. He laughed when he saw that I put it under Batman.  Another old joke.

He headed back to the kitchen and we ate our meal. When we were done, the waiter came over and told us that Larry had taken care of the bill.

When he stopped by, I thanked him and reminded him of when I had brought my family into a restaurant where he worked and he paid for all the meals – except my sister’s since she was wearing an OSU shirt.

“She was always mean to me,” he said, “And this is me we’re talking about,”

We promised to contact each other and get together to catch up. I’m going to text him and we’ll grab a bite to eat one of these days.

What a strange series of coincidences and timing that made that this unexpected reunion work out.

I told Jim I was going to blog the hell out of that and found myself grinning all the way home – like I’d just found a treasure again.

I was at my desk this morning and heard the calls to the switchboard start to pick up. So, I threw on my headset, logged in, and took a couple calls to help them catch up.

One of those started out simply enough. A woman said she had a couple of questions and asked if I could help her. I said I could and the first was an easy one – “how did she get her transcripts?” The answer: The Office of the Registrar – and I gave her the number without having to look it up – (330-972-8300).

The second was about the commencement videos from 2016. While I was looking this up on the website, she explained that 2016 was when her son graduated UA – and that he died four days later. She said that she had been meaning to find the commencement video for a while and she had the pictures, but… And she trailed off.

I teared up immediately and told her that I was so very sorry for her loss. I managed to locate the site and gave her the address and how to order a DVD.

She thanked me for my help and we ended the call. I logged off and sat quietly for a moment.

All that effort. All the work and sacrifice. All the potential. A kid who had just gotten through college and now… just gone.

I can’t even imagine what she had gone through and what she was still going through.

I’ve met only a small fraction of the students that have attended UA in the 20 years I’ve been here. And the ones I’ve met, I rarely get to know very well.

And yet, they are ours. Our students. We guide them, we teach them, we help them. They matter – they all matter.

And there’s a feeling of a job well done as each new group walks across the graduation stage and out into the world. Having just recently helped with a ceremony, well, it hit me pretty hard to hear about her son.

I helped her as best I could, with deeply sincere sympathy, and I hope that she gets something positive out of that video – and that it doesn’t hurt her more than she’s already been hurt.

It clouded my day today and I’m going to keep thinking about her and her son.

Last Tuesday, I headed to the pool after work. It had been a while since I swam, but I wanted to see how I would do.

The good news: I still fit into my swim trunks and I looked fairly reasonable. I did a 1/2 mile in 40 minutes and didn’t drown.

The bad news: My arm hurt with ever single stroke through the water. And it hurt when I stopped to rest between laps.
I recovered quickly when I was done and when I went back on Thursday I was able to shave a little time off, but I’m not the swimmer I once was. I’m hoping to slowly build back up to a full mile and more times a week – but it hurts and that’s a bummer.

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This past weekend was a father’s day camping trip with my folks, my sister, and her family. I got to the campground early on Saturday morning and helped a little with breakfast. My nieces and I rode bikes and went to the playground, then we had lunch and went to lake and the beach. I got a little sunburned, but not bad. Back to the campsite for dinner and games and smores – then an early night. I helped them pack up on Sunday morning and then headed home.

It was hot and muggy at the campsite and I thought I was prepared to deal with the mosquitoes. The repellent I had did keep them off – but attracted bees. Like, all the time. When I added another kind of repellent, the bees left me along, but the mosquitoes attacked again. I was staring to hate on bugs in general, but as I was trying to settle into sleep on Saturday night, I looked out the window of the tent…

…And the trees were full of lightning bugs. Hundreds and hundreds of them, all flashing their lights in the darkness. It was pretty amazing – and a reminder to keep our eyes and perspectives open.