Thunder of Wade

When our group was in the computer center, I was assigned the role of Building Emergency Response Leader. This was because I was considered reliable and because – by virtue of having an office the furthest from any door – it was assumed that I would be able to get everyone out of the building in case of a fire.

Or, I guess, literally die trying.

When we moved across campus, that responsibility got passed along. Except, it isn’t quite as well organized as when I was there.

So, this morning, I got an email sent from my friend Matt – who’s still in the Computer Center – with this text:

“Yeah, we’re gonna need you to come over and do a count of people and what not. 😜 Sent from my mobile”

The only logical thing to do was to immediately hop in my car and head over there.

When I pulled up, the folks standing at the side door had already gone back in, except for Neal – one of the managers. He smiled when he heard about the email and let me in to go wait for Matt in his office – since Matt and the rest of that part of the building had gone out the front door.

Matt walked into his office and his face lit up when he saw me. I faked a scowl and chastised he and the rest of the employees for re-entering the building without a go-ahead from me.

We talked for a few minutes before I needed to head back – I had left my office without letting anyone know what I was doing.

I had kind of a rough day at work yesterday so it was good for me to get back to my inherently silly roots, if only for a few minutes.

And, for the record, it was a false alarm and everyone was okay.  🙂

Okay, so, they weren’t bees. But they were insects and for the purposes of this story, that’s close enough.

I started my day off by… getting up at my usual time and going into work.

Sigh.

To be fair, I did volunteer for this. I’m usually the first one in and I unlock the doors and turn off the alarm before the students – or anyone else – gets in the office. It made the most sense, as much as any of this makes sense, for me to go in and push the buttons and wait for the student to arrive.  We’re working on an alternative plan…

I got things started and then promptly left. Since it was muggy and hot out, I wore my kilt today as I took myself for a walk in the park.

As soon as I hit the trail, the bugs went after my head. I must have smelled delicious or something – perhaps it was the shampoo – and the bugs would not leave me alone the entire hike. 45 minutes of constant assault.

Bugs are jerks.

I must have looked like I had some kind of neurological condition as I repeatedly slapped myself in the head.

Along with the bugs, there were loud people on the trail.  And almost no air movement.  It was a little miserable.

But…

I saw 5 rabbits and 2 groundhogs. I got a picture of a butterfly and there were birds everywhere.

I found a half-dozen blackberries on my way and there were long stretches of trail where I didn’t see or hear anyone else. The only sound was my sneakers on the gravel of the trail.

The bugs bothered my all the way back to my car, but I was already in a better mood for having gotten my ass up and started my day.

I went to the grocery store and bought some peaches and a drink, then went home to sit outside and enjoy the fruit and a book.

From there I got some lunch at subway and surprised Jim at his house to eat.

Next, I fired up the new GPS and headed to a bookstore. Browsed a bit, found some gems, and headed home. Well, gems in the form of books – they didn’t sell actual gems there.

When I got home I tried to download a new voice for my Garmin because neither “Michelle” or “Samantha” were doing it for me.

That failed and I was okay with it – which kinda surprised me – and I went outside and laid in the sun for awhile.

I’ll hit the shower again in a bit and then go out for some dinner.
My soul isn’t balanced. My karma wasn’t reset and my chakras are still f-ed up. I’m not at peace with the universe and I didn’t gain any deep insight into anything – including myself.

But, I had a good day today.

Two weekends ago, I set a post in concrete and put a mailbox on top of it. And I was pretty dang proud of it. This past weekend, I helped dig up four posts.

Setting the post was much more fun.

Jim is getting a new gate for his fence and the old and badly damaged gate needed to come out of there. Turns out, not as badly damaged as we thought. The outer wood covering was rotted off and the posts were on their way – but they were still surprisingly sturdy. And by “sturdy”, I mean that two adult men worked 5 hours on Saturday and 4 hours on Sunday to dig them up. There were two taller posts – with about 20 feet under ground and 300 lbs of concert… okay, maybe I exaggerate. A little. The big posts were maybe 8 feet tall each and the smaller were maybe 4. No shortage of concrete on any of them.

We got the first post out the first day and had cleared enough dirt to work the other three clear on the second day. We had some lunch, and then filled the holes back in. The crew setting up the new gate can re-dig them where needed.

We were both wiped out, but it was good to get the project down and it was cool to see the dramatic difference from before to after.

So, 1 post set, then 4 posts dug up. If we continue the sequence with the squares of prime numbers, then next week end I’ll need to set 9 posts.

Hmmm… or I could just quit where I’m at.

——————

It’s good that I got the labor done over the weekend as today was an appointment to donate blood. Last week, I got about 9 emails from the red cross about making an appointment to donate – figured if I didn’t get it done they would come to my house with a bag and a needle.

Or maybe two bags.

I got out of work early, had a snack at a terribly depressing McDonald’s – it was on the way – and then headed to the library. I got there a little early, inadvertently snuck up on the woman at the check-in table, and sat to wait.

And wait.

Two of the people ahead of me were denied and it was still 15 minutes after my appointment time that I got called back.

The history and short physical went okay and everyone was friendly enough, but they were short-handed and maybe just a little distracted. The woman taking my donation kept moving my arm into painful positions and I explained that the left arm was best, but it didn’t move in some directions. We finally compromised in the configuration, but it wasn’t great. Every few times that I relaxed my hand, I got a pinch like I was being stuck again. Must have been some kind of nerve thing in my arm where the plates are.

But I’m a bad-ass, so I just got through it.

When we were done, they removed the needle and had me press on the site with a piece of gauze.

But when they took the gauze off and started to walk away, I started bleeding.

A lot.

I called them back over, but by that point the blood was running down my arm and dripped onto the couch. They got it covered again and cleaned up and while I’m usually not too phased by blood – this bothered me some.  They made a joke about hooking up another bag and while I appreciated the effort at humor to put me at ease, it didn’t really work.

After a bit, they more carefully checked again and the site had closed. A more substantial bandage than usual and I was on my way to juice and cookies.

I was tired when I left the donation area and the drive home in traffic didn’t help.

And I was disappointed. Usually, when I’m done giving blood, I’m riding a wave of good feeling – having really done some measurable good. This time… I’m just glad it was over.

I still support the red cross and I’ll be back again as soon as I’m eligible to donate. And I encourage everyone to donate who can. It’s important and a good thing and one bad trip won’t slow me down.

Still, I kinda wish they had the time to slow down a bit and pay just a bit more attention.  Just a little – wouldn’t have taken much, I think.

So, time to take off the bandage, take a shower, and hit the sack.  I’m going to need plenty of rest for tomorrow.

My sister observed a phenomenon on facebook related to the high speed videos of baking wonder. The video promises to be “5 minutes to make cake pops” or some other such thing and the first step is to bake a cake. Now, it takes a bit longer to bake, cool, and crumble a cake – but the video skips over all those steps and just jumps right to the fun part.

So it was with Uncle Kracker from Australia and his 10th video in a series for knuckleheads.

The mailbox at my house has just been sitting on the porch since I moved in and I’ve been meaning to put this on a post and secure it.

So, I headed to the internet and Uncle Kracker – no relation to the “singer”, I’m guessing – and headed to Lowe’s for supplies. This weekend, I got all the gear ready and did my measuring.

And then it was time for step one – dig a hole.

As I set shovel to dirt I started second-guessing the placement, my ability to complete the project, and basically everything. I’m a geek – I had about as much confidence in setting concrete for a post hole as a duck would have landing the space shuttle. Yeah, the duck might be very clever and know a bit more about flying than say, a gopher, but still – not the duck’s element.

But, I had all the materials and the weather was good. And a holiday weekend seems made for home improvement projects if you aren’t on a lake or something.

So, I dug a hole – and it took me a lot longer than 5 minutes.

I got the post cut, added gravel – then got the water ready and the quick-crete.

The back of the bag promised a swift and painful death if you got it on your skin and a slow and painful death if you go it in your lungs, so I put on a mask and rubber gloves before I opened the bag. I got the concrete added and poured in the water. Then dirt around the braced post and clean-up.

The next day, I took the braces down and the pole was sturdy. Somewhat to my surprise, admittedly.

I put the mailbox in place on the brace and realized it was pretty well rusted. Seemed a shame to put an old mail box on a new post and so I went back to Lowe’s to buy a new mailbox. It’s very shiny.

As I tightened up the last of nuts and bolts to secure the mailbox, I smiled. That quiet sense of accomplishment did me some good. For a just a moment, all the recent stress dropped away and I enjoyed the sense of doing something right.

I cleaned up my tools and the work area and then went about my day.

Clearly, I need to trust myself a bit more. With the right planning and a little guidance, I can get all kinds of things done. And being a homeowner – while a little daunting at times – is pretty cool too.

Tomorrow, back to work and to the web. I’ll build mighty websites and solve fiendishly complicated computer problems. And – with any luck – I’ll have mail in the new mailbox when I get home.

Yesterday, I met up with some members of a work committee at the Akron Ronald McDonald House to do some volunteering. Their regular crew of volunteers were not available so there was a lot of cleaning to do. We wiped down all the surfaces and chairs, cleaned the kitchen, the bathroom, and laundry room, and swept or mopped all the floors. I was the Mop Lord for the day and tore the place up. In two hours we had cleaned the place from top to bottom. I was drenched in sweat and had somehow managed to sweat a heart-shape into my t-shirt. At least, the manager of the place thought so – enough that she wanted a picture of me with the seated statue of Ronald. It was a little silly, but in good fun.  I guess I’m headed for facebook stardom.

Afterwards, I went to McDonald’s for lunch. It seemed fitting.

I’m glad we were able to volunteer and it wasn’t a bad way to spend a couple hours on Saturday. Kinda wish we had more people in the group that could help out.

——————–

That afternoon, I started on a project that I had been putting off. The cable signal comes into the house in the living room – but my office is in the room above it. The WiFi gets the job done, but I wanted a little better signal quality in my office for my main computer. So, with the paddle-style drill bit and extension loaded up, I proceeded to try and drill a hole up from my living room ceiling. It took a while and I figured I was almost at the surface when I encountered something I couldn’t drill through. Surprised I hadn’t come up through the carpet yet, I called up my dad to get an estimate of how much distance between the floor and ceiling I should expert. He said I should already be there and that there might be tile or something under the carpet that might be slowing me down – and that I should try pulling up the carpet and going down. I did and saw that I had a pilot hole started, but the drill with the extension bit wasn’t enough to get through the really ugly tile.

[We had speculated it might be  sheet of solid diamonds under the carpet, but it was just tile.]

In a few minutes, I had a hole all the way through and shortly after that I had a cable run and my network set back up.

Nice to be able to call on dad when I’ve got home improvement questions. I try to do as much as I can, but a little guidance is always cool.

My ribs are doing much better. I’ve been doing the breathing exercise to keep me from getting pneumonia and dying – or something. And I’m to the point where I forget about it unless I move in the very much wrong way or cough. And even then, it’s minor. I got off pretty lucky.

———————–
This past weekend we went to Sandusky to visit some friends . They live on the lake – and by on the lake, I mean you can look out the front window and see water and look out the back window and also see water. It’s a peninsula, naturally.

Saturday was a boat trip and a picnic at the marina. Then a trip to a winery and some arts and crafts before dinner.

Sunday was a morning hike to the lighthouse and then lunch and a bit of driving around. It was a pretty relaxing trip – though we somehow managed to lose my GPS. We had it in their car to tag some locations for a photo project and when it stopped working we stopped thinking about it and lost track of it. It’s somewhere – even from a Law of Conservation of Mass standpoint – but exactly where we don’t know. So, the trip back was a little unsettling at the start, but we had good directions and I had my phone as a back up.

————————–

Recently, one of my co-workers was conducting a fun poll about who our favorite super heroes were. What she didn’t realize was that she had
“Engaged the Geek”. I replied with a discussion about favorite superhero – StarBrand – and favorite superhero group – Blue Lantern Corps.

Neither of which got any additional votes – the rest of those polled were looking only at heroes on TV or the movies. So, I changed my vote to Wolverine – with some commentary on the movies vs. the comics. A side question was about James Bond and I discussed top two and bottom tier.

It occurred to me how much utterly useless comic book trivia I have in my head. I mean, really, I could go all day.

Though, I guess if you look at those stories like a mythology you can pick up a lot of insight into the human condition. How we depict our heroes says a lot about us.

For the record, the Blue Lantern Corps is like the Green Lanterns, except powered by Hope.  And the StarBrand is about an ordinary guy who gets an artifact that gives him completely limitless powers – but he’s still a guy trying to do the write thing.

I kinda like what that says about me.  Also, I’m still thinking about a StarBrand tattoo.

—————————-

I’ve been busting my ass the past couple weeks at work. Well, I’m always hauling ass, but this was even busier than usual. Last week was a lot of project management. Not formal project management – which is super tedious and boring – but more like herding cats.

And I’ve got to hire a new operator. We’re stretched too thin with internships and vacations – I’ve had to put myself on the schedule a few times just to keep us covered.

It keeps not being great. On the plus side, I’ve got a bit of a sense of accomplishment to keep me going. Herding cats is not for the faint of heart.
———————

Also – things that are dumb Part… whatever.

1. Commercials that load and videos that don’t.
2. People shooting off fireworks on any other night than July 4th. I live in the city, folks. It’s not a great sound to hear in the neighborhood at night.
3. Every single damn suggested post in Facebook. Just shove it, okay?

—————

And on that note, I may have to turn on the AC tonight. Apparently, I’m a little bit cranky. Might be over-heated.

Someone forgot to remind me that I’m an adult this past weekend.

I was camping with my folks and my sister and her family for an early father’s day visit. They had a tent set up for me when I got there early Saturday morning and I spent much of the day hanging out with my nieces and visiting with the folks. We played games and rode bikes and in the afternoon we went to a nearby playground.

While my nieces played on the jungle gym, I tried the climbing wall. The wall curved up from the ground and then went out a bit horizontally. It wasn’t very high up and I was doing okay on it – but my feet were too big for the footholds and I started to lose my footing. I decided to just drop off and figured I’d let go with my feet first and then hang there for a moment by my hands before dropping off.

Instead of just dangling there when I let go with my feet, I instead slammed forward chest first into the wall. And then I dropped.

I lost most of my breath for a moment and tried to play it cool so that I wouldn’t alarm anyone – and so I wouldn’t be embarrassed by my stupid move.

Once I got my breath and realized I was hurting, I checked in with my brother-in-law and my dad for their advice. We all three decided that it might be a bruised or cracked rib – but there’s not much that can be done about it anyway.

I took it easy and tried to shake it off. We went for ice cream and then back to the campsite for dinner and games.

When it was time for sleep, though, I had a bit of a rough time. I was hurting and the sleeping bag and air mattress weren’t really cutting it. Fortunately, I was so tired from the day that I got a good amount of sleep anyway.

On Sunday I started to learn my limits. Sitting was okay as was standing. Breathing shallow worked and a slow walk was okay. Running, standing up, sitting down, breathing deep and twisting were all bad. Lifting heavy things was really bad. Sneezing and coughing? Agony.

The drive home was okay – I didn’t move around much in the car – and if I was careful I wasn’t too bad.

Monday and today at work, though, showed my limits. I was struggling as I moved around and it wasn’t getting better. Finally, today, I left work at 2:00 to head to ER to get an X-Ray.

I waited patiently and did a little paper folding in the exam room. The nurse practitioner poked and prodded at my ribs and then squeezed my back and chest at the same time. It hurt so bad I nearly fall over – an indication of a break or a crack.

I got an x-ray and waited some more – then they came back and said they didn’t see a crack but it might have been too small to show up. The NP gave me some meds for the pain. As I took the blue pills I asked if they were going to send me back into the Matrix.

He didn’t get it.

They said I needed to keep working on deep breathing so that my lungs would n’t get fluid accumulated in them – which could lead to pneumonia. I got a plastic device that I have to use hourly while I’m awake and it’s going to be a rough couple weeks while I heal up.

Could have been a lot worse and I hope I learned something from this.

Knowing me, though, I’m not so sure.

Our four offices at work have been pretty toasty the past week or so. At one point, it hit 80 degrees in my office. Great if you’re outside by a beach – kinda miserable if you’re in dress pants and a long sleeved shirt.

We couldn’t figure out why the entire rest of the office complex had full blown air conditioning and in our offices, the air wasn’t even moving.

My boss asked me to check with the physical facilities department and open a work order. I dutifully checked all the offices for temperature variances, determined the room numbers, and called it in. A few hours later, 2 guys from the physical plant show up and walk into my co-worker’s office. They walk out seconds later as the air conditioning kicks in with a rush of cool air.

One of the guys says to me, “the thermostat was set on heat,”

Mortified, I walk in to my co-workers office and see the thermostat on the wall next to his light switch.

He says, “I had it turned down to 65 and it didn’t do anything,”

I barely spare him a glance as I flip down the cover and show him the clearly marked switch – now set on “cool” instead of “heat”.

I thanked the physical plant guys as I went back to my office and they remarked that the easy ones were a nice way to end the day.

Then I stood in my office for a moment with my eyes closed, trying to tamp down the fury. Terribly busy day, overheated and stressed, and I was livid.  And, frankly, embarrassed on behalf of the entire planet.

I opened my eyes and I could have sworn that the unimaginable stupid was so intense that it nearly crystallized right out of the air.

I would have put it in a box if it had. I’m pretty sure I could have found a use for a solid crystal of pure stupid.

How does one get to a point in their adult life where they’ve never seen how a thermostat works? And even if they have never seen one, wouldn’t you think that one second of investigation might have been warranted?  That is literally how long it took for me to determine there was a cover and open it.

For a very brief moment, I tried to blame myself for not checking his office for a thermostat – but then I realized that there is an upper limit to how much thinking I’m willing to do for other people. And that was clearly beyond it.

I got a little exercise this evening and I’m feeling a little more relaxed. A little, anyway. I think I need to play some really violent video games, take a cold shower, and go to bed.

Tomorrow, at least, the office will be cooler.

The day started out with an email with documents about the special board of trustees’ meeting – and the resignation of the university’s president.

It was a surprise – but not really a surprise. He made a number of unpopular and mostly terrible decisions over time and had a lot of distracting controversy.  Many of those decisions had been reversed – but the controversy remained.

The announcement swept campus even before the rest of the official notes came out and was all over social media in a heartbeat. Over the course of the day, I saw more and more notes online from people and a general sense of relief.

A couple of offices had cake.

I was concerned about the recovery in the long term and the short term transition.

Most troubling – beyond how long it took to get to this point and the damage already done – was a “golden parachute”.

Full salary and benefits for the next 120 days while he makes a decision on what he wants to do next. Then it’s either a year’s salary payout – nearly 1/2 million dollars – or a 5 year teaching position in the college of business. Oh, and moving expenses for when he moves out of the university-provided mansion.  Nice if you can get it.

He resigned/got fired because he didn’t do a good job and things got worse under his tenure. And even in failure, he’s treated like a departing king.

A far cry from those that were part of the cuts last fall. Some of those folks got nothing other that an escort off the campus. No free housing or months for a decision. And no job lined up and waiting for them.

It’s not isolated to UA or higher education or even America. Old rich white guys helping keep other old rich white guys… rich. Some weird kind of status quo – once you get there, systems are in place to keep you there. No matter how badly you screw up.

Disappointing, but not surprising.

In the meantime, I’m feeling a little more secure in my job – if only because more layoffs at this point would be devastating and everyone is going to be too distracted for quite a while to do anything that major.

The summer will likely prove busy and strange as the university tries to figure out what’s next.

We got word today that we could leave early – it being a holiday weekend and all. I could have left at 3:45, but since the switchboard needed to stay open, it meant that my co-worker – who is usually there til we close up shop – wouldn’t have been able to take advantage of the early dismissal. Plus, the operators on duty would have been stuck there as well.

I thought about it for a moment – but only a moment. If given an opportunity to volunteer to help out, I’ll usually do it. So, I told my co-worker we could leave early and told him I would cover til the end of the day. I then shut down my computer and told the operators I would finish out the day for them and they could leave early too.

The office got even quieter as I settled in and answered the few calls before we closed at 4:30 for summer hours. The lights in the room were flickering a bit and I turned them off – then did some writing in between calls in the light of the monitors.

It was a good way to spend the last 1/2 hour before the long weekend.

One of the side projects I’ve been working on has been to compile a list of the strangest messages we’ve gotten sent to the webmaster@uakron.edu email. I’m not the webmaster, but I do answer that mail – and we get some strange ones.

In the span of a week we got:

1. A woman trying to track down her husband’s lover.
2. Someone trying to track down information about their father – and prove their mother was lying.
3. Someone wanting to know if it was possible for a shadow to travel faster than the speed of light.
4. And a message that simply said, “I’LL F*@KING KILL YOU ALL!” (I forwarded that one to the police – just in case.)

Going back through that archive of messages over the past year showed me hundreds and hundreds of simple, polite requests or questions. And every so often…

Angry. Uninformed and Angry. Crazy. Creepy. Misguided. Maybe Dangerous. And all of them highly opinionated.

I tried not to let it get to me. This is only a small cross section of the emails that account gets and such a small sample of the population as to be negligible. Still, it says something that of all the things these folks could be doing, they took the time to send a stranger a message full of their anger, their hate, and their own special brand of dangerously crazy.

So, I sat quietly in the dark. Answering calls and questions as the week wore down. And specifically not going through that email.

I’ll see family this weekend and I’ll enjoy the day off next week. And on Tuesday I’ll pick back up that email account and route messages to admissions, financial aid, the office of the registrar – and figure out how to deal with the intermittently strange ones. Someday, it will make for an compilation.