Random thoughts, organized and categorized for your consumption.
Rants
If I have a problem with something, here it will be.
Doing the Job Shuffle
Sep 21st
After years of trying to fight the good fight I’m looking for another job again. It isn’t by choice, but my official search has begun in earnest this week. There are some opportunties within the company, but I will look outside as well. It bites that this decsision to look wasn’t a voluntary one, but it has to be done nonetheless.
If I could learn to be dispassionate about what I do I’m sure things would go smoother for me. Until then, I need to find something else that drives me to get up and do the daily grind. I hope More >
TV Cut-off
Aug 28th
It’s always a fascinating experience to hunt down and eliminate bugs. It is even more so when the bug is “no satellite info” displayed on the TiVo screen. So it was with great surprise and unhappiness that I found this message on my TV last night and no signal present on the TiVo.
I checked the usual suspects: tree branches blocking the dish, loose cables, a TiVo reboot, temperature check, etc. All of these turned up empty. Since it was late I went to bed and wondered what the problem could be.
This morning I trekked out to the cable closet at More >
When Life Hands You Lemons…
Aug 17th
For the second straight year I had a pretty sucky 24 hours leading up to and after my birthday. I spent most of the day loading equipment, moving heavy objects, and generally sweating, working to tear down a tradeshow booth. I woke up my mom early in the morning (sorry!) and hung up on my brother. I then had to rush to check out of the hotel where I was staying and sit in the lounge for 4 hours before I could go to the airport.
Although the flight back happened on time, again I had the distinct honor to sit More >
Not So Creative?
Jul 28th
Anyone that knows me also knows I have done some dumb things in my life. Most of them are blissfully concealed by my sheltered personal life. Some of them are amazingly dumb and public, especially when it comes to work.
So you can imagine my surprise when I see my former employer doing really dumb things without me causing them.
To be fair, press releases and public posts are rarely what they appear to be. However, when you see commentary like this from your press release partner, you have got to step back and know that the public will smell something fishy.
This is one More >
Fixed 4Runner?
Jul 22nd
I had an interesting “outside the box” experience today with the 4Runner. For reasons unknown, I listened to a buddy of mine and took it in to another service center to have it looked at. The prognosis on first glance looked grim: this truck looked like, acted like, and smelled (yes, it actually smelled) dead.
Then something miraculous happened: they called me today and said that it was mostly fixed*. How could this be? Surely it was a mistake. So I zip over to the garage, listen to the whole story skeptically, pay my roughly $530 and take it for a More >
Losing at the Luggage Odds Game
Jul 18th
It is inevitable that this will happen, thanks to my heavy travel schedule. The airline (Alaska) has “temporarily misplaced” one of my pieces of luggage. What makes this sting all the more is that its a roll aboard bag that I never check. I was just lazy today so I checked it.
This must be some sort of psychic message to me to fly less. Or at least travel lighter.
Bad 4Runner, Bad
Jul 10th
I just found out that I have about $7500 worth of repair work needed on my $9000 valued 97 4Runner. Unbelievably, the dealership found nothing wrong when they looked at it before. Now they are telling me the engine has to be torn down and the transmission needs to be replaced.
Guess its time to go car shopping. What a pain. Aren’t Toyota’s supposed to last forever?
Browser-Jacked
Jul 5th
Well it had to happen sooner or later: my browser got hijacked. I’m not sure if it happened at the LAN party I was at for work this weekend, or on some web page I hit today, but I can’t seem to get rid of it. “It” is the following:
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- Some sort of redirect that takes over the browser window whenever I hit a dead link
- An aggressive search engine that pops in whenever a web page has an error of any kind
- A constantly accessing the network item in the background
Worse, I can’t kill it. IE More >
Crappy, Broken Web Pages
Jul 1st
I have just had one of those days where none of my web page construction seems to work. First I had some dead scripts. Then a voting poll was busted. Now I can’t get a panel to work to allow a login to get email. Some might say I’m in hades. All I want is a little cooperation from my friendly server.
I’m betting that cooperation is not to be. Stay tuned.
Heavy Lifting
Jun 25th
I have again experienced the pain and suffering of a domestic flight, nearly coast to coast, sitting next to someone who is really too large to fly on planes. I don’t want to be rude, but if you are so big as to not be able to sit in a single seat, lower the arm, or use a single seat belt, you need to buy a second ticket.
Forcing thin, tall people to sit next to you and be mashed into the aisle is no way to be friendly with others. And I could certainly do without all the sweating and More >