Walkin' In Mepis

Well, thanx to the grace of God, Mepis is wireless. Two things appeared to be working against me:

1) Outdated BIOS. I downloaded the newest one from HP and installed it. I thought I had an Omnibook 4150, but I found out I have a 4150b.

2) Network Manager does not seem to work at all with my wireless card. When I activate it, I lose my connection. Reboot, rinse, repeat and I get the same result. Turn off Network Manager (meaning I have to manually start and stop the network if I go from wireless to wired and vice versa) and all is well...so far. I have not tried to use the wired connection. I am kinda afraid that if I do, I will lose my wireless :) and wireless is more important to me.

Our Elder at church was taken to the hospital Thursday or Friday after collapsing at home. He is in normally good health so he passing out was a surprise. They took him to the ER and they eventually found out that he had an ulcer, which they are now treating him for. He was at church today but he looked very weak. I prayed with him for a little while during service. That man means a lot to me.

Well, I Tried.

My experiment with Debian Etch was a partial success. I was able to do a web install and I followed all the instructions I found on making my ACX100 chipset based wireless card work, but it still gives errors trying to load the firmware (using old and new firmware). I gave up at 1:00 AM and went to bed. It was the first time I ever saw "Ice Weasel"...a Firefox clone.

For all you people who think you are god, I think I have found your job:

Universe Designer


Okay, at least I thought it was funny.

Back to the laptop, I may give Mepis 6.5 another shot or try a clean install of Ubuntu (it is reported as working so if I wait until the final product is out maybe I will have better luck). Whichever I try, I want to put something else on the server...I really want to give OpenSuSE a shot at some point.


Oh, I almost forgot. "Always a Dull Moment" had a lot of traffic yesterday...(well for this site at least). 27 out of the 30 hits yesterday were for our good friend, Jawa. The hits were bookmarked as well as searches (utilizing the term "con man" in some of them) on his name and his nickname. The hits were from the usual states, Texas and California (I recognize those), however one of them came from the University of SoCal...a first IIRC.

Oh well, I have some reading to do before church. More later.

It Works, Then It Doesn't -- TWICE

The old Omnibook 4150 (P-III, 650 mhz 256 RAM) had a copy of SimplyMEPIS 6.0 on it and 6.5 was out. There was not a clear upgrade path, so a wipe and reinstall was in order. I downloaded and burned the iso file and booted the trusty old girl up with the new CD. in about 20 minutes I had a pretty KDE desktop...but my wireless card (based on the TI ACX100 chipset) was not working...it did in 6.0, but not in 6.5. I searched and searched and found lots of ideas but none of them worked. Sign. I read that Ubuntu has support for this card "right out of the box" so I installed Ubuntu (normally my favorite distro) 6.10 on her. The wireless card worked perfectly. I play a while and I am happy.

I then read that the newest version of Ubuntu (7.04) is in beta and is scheduled to be released in a few days, so I did the "safe" upgrade from Edgy to Feisty (sudo update-manager -c -d) and about an hour later I have the newest version of Ubuntu. Wireless works perfectly. I shut the PC down and go to bed. I get up and turn on the laptop and check my mail (wirelessly) with no issues. I start cleaning house. I stop to check my e-mail, and the card is not recognized. WHAT? I reboot, thinking something went crazy on boot (this card is notorious for acting flaky) and it still did not work. Grrr. I go back to cleaning my office constantly reminded that my laptop is useless without wireless (money is tight...I can't get another card right now). After lunch I give it another shot and got it to work by using this. When I was done, it worked. Yay!

I surfed the web for a few minutes and was very happy when I noticed there were updates. I took the updates and BAM, my wireless card stopped working. Well, I went back to the drawing board and tried the build and install from this page, but no dice. It would not connect to the router at all. It detected the card, but that was about all.

Right now I am installing a fresh Debian install (I should give Mepis one more try) to see what happens. I know I am going to have to do a lot of work, but it would be nice to see it work when I am done!

The Answer Is Blowin' In The Wind

You may have heard that there was severe weather in Texas (amongst other places) tonight. No less than 3 twisters set down in the Metroplex in less than an hour and hail (some as large as a baseball) peppered the rest. We escaped with minimal damage (so far...more storms are coming...) and for that I am thankful.

Work was slow today and only got interesting right towards the end of the day when an AC unit at a customer site in Virginia failed, causing the data closet to become hotter than a $2 pistol. Remote shutdown of all the servers performed and our support team in Malaysia was notified that they would use the ILO interface to bring them back up. I guess we will see. So far they have not been uber reliable.

Yesterday I was called by an HR drone asking me if I was still in the market for a job. I told her I was employed, but I was always on the lookout for a great opportunity. She told me that $Appliance/Electronics retailer was hiring sales and customer service managers and my resume looked good to them. They set up an interview and went. The entire time I drove there I had the feeling that it was a waste of time. I pulled into the parking lot (which was in an industrial area) and was even more so. I walked in and was told to fill out an application. I have not filled out an app before giving a resume in a long time...another sign this was a waste of time. The interviewer was 25 minutes late and when she finally got to me, she asked me the usual battery of questions that I answered honestly to. I felt the interview losing ground so I interjected and stated that I was under the impression I was interviewing for a customer service managers position, and she gave me a very surprised look. "We never hire managers. We only promote from within.", she stated in a matter of fact tone. She asked me how I got that impression and I told her that I was told that by the phone drone (I used other verbiage)...they were hiring sales and customer service managers. At that point I thanked her and left. I was glad it was only about 6 miles from my office. Had it been much further, I would have been a tad upset.

Bang!

Don Imus has been fired.

Now I agree with this. While things could get ugly, I doubt they will.

So, when will all the hardcore rap songs stop getting played on the radio? Never.

As stated in the article, it is not what he said, it is who said it. It is possible that a black DJ could call the Duke Lacrosse team a bunch of rich crackers and not get away with it...but I doubt it.

JMHO / YMMV.

Insania, 2007

I sometimes wonder if I am in a mid life crisis. I had often heard the term but I always associated it with balding men and little red sports cars. While I am loosing my hair, I have no desire to own a sports car, although a "sporty" car would be okay if it did not break the bank.

I looked up Male Mid Life Crisis on Wikipedia, just to see if I understood the issue. The article had some basics (which is really all I wanted/needed at the moment) but it was far from clinical (come on, it is Wikipedia dontcha know).

According to Wikipedia, "During middle age, many changing factors can affect personality development. "

These factors include:

# work/career
# marriage/spousal relationships
# adult children
# aging parents/death of parents
# physical changes associated with aging

I guess if these factors can lead to a "mid life crisis", then they certainly apply to some degree to me in some, but not all of the examples.

I think the biggest one for me is work. I have not been "happy" with my job in almost 5 years. I do not have deep skill set (it is wide but not very deep) and that has weighed heavy on my mind. I am on call 24x7 and at times I feel I have regressed rather that progressed in my work life. I could probably go on for a long time about this, but I am not sure if any of you have and cheese to go with my whine.

In regards to family, my relationship with my wife is the best it has ever been. Yes, we are empty nesters, but we are not really hurting there. While we miss our soldier son (He is currently in Kuwait), he writes and calls frequently. I worry a tad about my mother, who is a widow (dad died in the Spring of 2002). I have asked her to live with us but she always makes an excuse on why she cannot.

My health has bugged me a bit. I had back surgery in January 2006 to relieve pressure on my sciatic nerve and the surgeon commented that I had the back of a 50+ year old man. I was 40 when he said that. It can be quite depressing to have a bad back, not being able to play "hardcore" volleyball or football anymore, but I am adjusting.

Also according to Wikipedia, Certain characteristics displayed by individuals experiencing a mid-life crisis often include but are not limited to:

* search of an undefined dream or goal
* desire to achieve a feeling of youthfulness
* acquiring of unusual or expensive items such as clothing, muscle cars, jewellery, gadgets, etc.
* paying extra special attention to physical appearance
* need to spend more time alone or with certain peers
* a deep sense of remorse for goals not accomplished
* an underlying desire to initiate new sexual partnerships

Most of these do not apply to me, but I do quite a bit of pondering, "what if..." scenarios. I wonder what would have happened had I stuck with baseball when I was a kid, or what would have happened had I stayed in WV or NC instead of moving.

While I am pleased to that God has provided for me and my family (my wife only has to work part time, 15 hours a week and we hope that she can quit next year), I sometimes feel that I should be more than I am. I realize those are worldly thoughts and Christians should not fret that they are not "keeping up with the Joneses", but most men want to be able to give their wives things. I would like to be able to afford to get something really nice for my wife without charging it (and in effect, causing more issues because of the increased debt) or be able to travel without being tied to a pager and/or mobile phone.

My wife and I have toyed with the idea of starting our own business, but fear sets in and we back off the idea. I have told her that if I were to get laid off (quite the possibility considering I have missed the axe 5 times now) that I would give it a shot. I am sure I could make it work but the big question is could I make enough money to pay all the overhead from the business (there would be a lot less than with most...I have most of what I need now) and a salary enough to pay the normal household bills.

I am 85% sure I could make it work since most everyone that I discuss this with responds favorably. Most feel that my wide albeit shallow skill set would get me off the ground and experience would do the rest. I am inclined to agree with them for the most part.

So, am I in a mid life crisis? I have no desire to chase skirts or relive my youth, nor am I in the market for a sports car or being a thrill seeker. I know my limits and I am able to stay within them 95% of the time. I am however in a funk with regards to my job. I am not happy (even though I work for a decent company) with what I do and haven't been in quite some time. I sometimes wonder if a change of job would change things in a positive way.

Time to do some thinking...

Colors

On my drive home last night I listened to talk radio, something I have not done in several weeks. The host Scott Wilder, was taking calls and discussing the flap over radio host Don Imus' controversial (and rather ignorant) comments of the Rutgers women's basketball team. As usual, Mr Wilder brought up something that I tend to forget. Why are so many people in the black community asking for him to resign when they are willing to PAY MONEY to listen to "one of their own" say the same thing? I am speaking of course about hardcore rappers. Anyone who has heard just few verses of any hardcore rap song can attest to the level of degradation towards women present in the lyrics. Oddly enough, women as well as men seem to enjoy this music even though the content is highly offensive.

One caller who identified herself as a African-American woman stated that the beats were good and she did not care what the lyrics said and even if she did, a black man was saying it so it was okay. She likened it to calling yourself "stupid" when you do something wrong. It is okay for you to say it to yourself, but don't let someone else say it.

I say, "hogwash". If a white man records something and it calls all women who live in a trailer park "whores", I as a Christian first and then a white man, am offended. Why is it that rappers can call women "b@tches" and "ho's" and it is perceived as okay by the black community?

What Don Imus said about the Rutgers women's basketball team was wrong. No man (black or white) has any right calling any women a "ho"...it does not matter if it is during a radio broadcast or a song played on the radio, it is wrong. The rules should be the same.

Let me say something else. I do not believe that Don Imus should be fired or "suspended". I do not support his choice (his very poor choice I might add) of words, but to my knowledge, he did not break any laws. If the black community is in an uproar over what he said and demands his resignation, then should white people demand that all rap songs with offensive lyrics be pulled? No. That should only happen if a law has been broken or the rules of the FCC violated.

"But when a brother says it, it is okay...that is just street talk. Besides, it is on black radio...most whites don't listen to rap. If they don't like it, turn to a white station."

Well, Don Imus said it on "white" radio and most blacks do not listen to that. If what he said offends you, turn the station. Fair argument? No.

Don Imus did (as much as it pains me to say this) break any laws, as far as I know. If he did, then he needs to be punished for it. Rappers who say the same things are in the same situation. It may not be illegal to say things like that, but if it were, both Don Imus and the hardcore rappers need to be treated in the same manner.

JMHO / YMMV.

I Am Not That Smart

Really. I prefer to say that I have lived an eventful life. I do not feel I am smarter than anyone else, but I do feel that because I learn from my experiences and my mistakes, I have plethora of knowledge wedged in my skull. Not all of it is useful, but it is there.

My wife likes to tell people that I am intelligent. She is my wife and she is biased, but I do appreciate her kind words. I am not, however, "smart'. Yes, I have scored slightly higher on IQ tests than the "average" person (I scored in the 120's and average human intelligence is 90-110) but I do not think that qualifies me as smart. Let's just say that I have been around long enough that I have learned a thing or two.

Everything I experience lends to my "intelligence". I read as much as I can every day (even if it is only a couple of chapters from the Bible) and surf the web and watch TV for knowledge rather than for entertainment. I grew up poor, have lived in three states, been married twice (which has allowed me to experience both good and bad in relationships), and have a child. All of these have given me a unique perspective and can give the illusion that I am intelligent.

I know some smart people. I also know a lot of people who claim that they are smart and I can safely say I am not like either group. Smart people usually need to be challenged all the time. I like things easy, to a point. People who claim that they are smart usually go out of their way to prove it. Not me. I prefer out of the spotlight helping things along when I am needed.

I am not sure why that has been on my mind, but it has. Now that I have that off my chest, can someone PLEASE help me get rid of my sinus issues? This change in weather is killing me.

Thirteen Months Later

The charges will be dropped. About frickin' time. The wheels of justice turn very slow. While I am no Dook fan, I hate to see injustice, especially on the grounds of race.

Now the big question...will charges be filed on the accuser? If a white woman were to falsely accuse 3 black men, the NAACP, Al Sharpton, Jesse Jackson, et all would be all over it.

What?

Computer World has the "Top 10 Firefox Extensions To Avoid". Funny, I use at least 3 of them. One every Machine. Religiously.

Fasterfox *
Noscript
Adblock / Adblock Plus *
PDF Download
Video Downloader
Greasemonkey
Scribefire
TrackMeNot
Tabbrowser Preferences *
Tabbrowser Extension


*ones I use.

Some of their reasoning is sound, but it you know what you are doing...go for it!

Warmer, With A Chance Of Sinus Problems...

This roller coaster weather (hot, cold, dry, wet) is taking its toll on my sinuses again. While it is not as painful as it usually is, it is still uncomfortable. It is also killing others as we. The guy across the hall is really suffering and it is quite obvious by the sneezing and hacking he is doing.

Weather toay...it is warmer (70ish) and rainy today...perfect for the grass to grow out of control. I know what I will be doing this weekend if I am not camping.

Yesterday was not bad at all...nothing came up that lingered over to today, although there are things in Europe that may have my name on them later on. Yesterday was mostly quiet, today it is mostly chaotic (not for me, but for incident folks).

I received an e-mail from a lady that I used to work with. She left and went to a major bank to to software testing. She is in a situation that is similar to mine...bored with the work. Do not get wrong. There is a difference between busy and enjoying the job. There have been days that I have been busy but not content. She is the same way. I feel that if I am satisfied with the work I am doing, I will be happy overall. I am not in both category's.

My boss returned to work yesterday after being on vacation in Cabos San Lucas, Mexico. He came back tan and happy. I am glad someone is. I really am itching to get away from work and enjoy a vacation...so far no one seems to care. If I was heartless, I would dumb my work on who my boss suggests and be done with it, but I cannot. These two guys have more than enough work to do without me adding to the load. My boss does not seem to see it that way. He does not see that I am a 24x7 on call that does not have the luxury of trading off with anyone. Sigh.

We had the church trustee meeting last night and I was home early. I actually beat my wife home from her meeting which is unusual. Our meeting was pretty standard...no major issues for us.

I watched "24" then I went to bed. Nothing was on TV and I was not ready to stay up for hours doing nothing.

Well it is almost time for my Wednesday meeting. Better run.

They Cannot Make Up Their Mind Which Card To Play...

...so they will play them all. Headlines like this bring out the BHL's* en masse. The media makes me so mad sometimes.

Focus on the crime, not the color. Focus on the life lost, not the "lifestyle". Focus on the imagery, not the impairment.

If she is guilty, then the accused deserves NO LESS THAN life without parole.




*Bleeding Heart Liberals

Action! Not Words

The rest of Saturday went pretty well. No major issues and we did all that we wanted to do (vacuum, laundry, bedding, etc) and were able to make it to our dinner with friends 30 miles north of us.

Dinner went well. Not much went on (Mickey and Mary are not "entertainers" so to speak) although the bigscreen was on showing a variety of movies (13 Going on 30, Friday Night Lights, and Full Metal Jacket). Only Friday Night Lights was somewhat entertaining to me (I guess living in Texas made it that way) but it still was not a great movie...only tolerable.

We had brats, steak, green beans, and a variety of salads for dinner and HOMEMADE carrot cake (Thank you Paula Dean!!) for dessert. Beer, water, and sodas were available for drinks (I think there was wine as well, but it never was cracked open, IIRC). The men gathered in the TV room while the women ate in the kitchen. It seemed a bit old fashioned but that was the way things ended up.

We left at 9 PM after finishing watching Friday Night Lights. The other couple (Bob and Chrissy) had to leave early due to Chrissy's so far undiagnosed illness. Bob thinks that it is allergies but she is not so sure. A battery of tests have been ran on her but none have offered any answers yet. They are high on my prayer list. I cannot imagine living like that.

We got home and I walked the dogs before we headed to bed.

Sunday was nice and laid back. It started with church and a quick lunch at a local Chinese restaurant and ended as it normally does with a call to mom and some TV. Easter service was a mock news cast and featured...ME and a few others...OKAY...my part was small but it was done really well!

Seriously, it was pretty good. Ben and Kara were the news anchors, our pastor was the reporter, and there were three of us that video recorded parts with the pastor a week ago. They were designed to look like live shots and looked pretty good. My wife laughed at my performance and at first I was hurt, but she said that it was because I was acting and not like my normal self...she is used to seeing me funny and I was playing a straight faced Sec of Information...not my normal role. I like acting and would not mind doing more...the church gives me a safe outlet for that.

Silent Night

I had absolutely no complaints about my day yesterday. "Work" was not much more than watching a ticket queue that did not move, check a mailbox that was empty, and waiting for a phone to ring that remained silent (except for Geoff calling three bloody times). I washed dishes, dried and folded clothes, let out the dogs, and put away groceries, not to mention watch Law and Order and UFC Fight Night on Spike (Joe "Daddy" Stevenson ROCKED Melvin "The Young ASSassin" Guillard early in round one).

At 5 PM I turned off my work PC and went in to see what my wife was up to. She told me that she wanted a good messy hamburger so I showered and we got ready to head over to Scotty P's for some grilled bovine goodness.

After spending an hour or so eating and chatting with my lovely wife, we headed back to the house. My wife watched the Law and Order we taped and I chatted with Knightmare Duck for a little while about the new BSOB project. We still have a lot to go over before we can go into "alpha" stage, but if Holmes puts in 25% of his creative juices, it will be a neat product, especially since KD's writing is improving. I do not know what direction this is heading, but I made it clear that I am not reliving my past. I want to commemorate it and build from it.

After I chatted with KD for a while, I walked Little Man and then watched Law and Order (the original one) that airs on Friday night. I was pretty tired/sleepy so I did not stay up except to check on the weather. Our normal 70 degree temps will be replaced with 40's this weekend with the possibility of...SNOW. Wow.

In bed early (10:30 PM or so) and up early (6:00 AM). A morning walk (much cooler than we are used to) with my wife and the dogs, then coffee and e-mail/news/blog time. I have a haircut (man, do I need it...) today at 10:00 AM and dinner at Micky and Mary's at 5:00-ish, plus I should try to vacuum the house. My wife did not get the living room and the bedroom cleaned like she had hoped, but I am far from disappointed. She has been busy with lots of other things.

Oh, I failed to mention that we are going to try a new vet...my wife met with a Christian vet and really liked her, so we may be going to her...my wife will be praying about it and if she feels that it is God's will, then we will have a new vet.

Absotively Posalutely

Well, I have been in contact with the global inc mgmt team and I have verified that they are working from home as well and that most of the world is off today, except Asia. I find this very ironic that my company is working today but most of our customers are not. Sounds a bit biased when we take holidays off that our customer does not and since this is one of the major Christian holidays, why does my company not have it as a company wide holiday? We are "diverse" company. The company "celebrates" diversity in the workplace (READ: Gay, Lesbian, Transsexuals, etc) but not religion (at least in the name of Christianity). While I am sure this is not the case, it would appear as such. We have diversity training focusing on "alternative" lifestyles but we cannot have Good Friday off as a holiday? Even the non-Christian customers we support let the employees have today off as a "Spring Holiday".

At least I can work from home. I may even shut down my work PC since I am on call 24 x 7 and treat this is a partial day off...working only as I get called. That may work...

Eyes Without A Face

The rest of my afternoon went well at work. Then open issues were in the process of being resolved and I was able to leave at 4:00 PM to run home and let the dogs out (and put away my laptop...I do not want that stolen) before I went to my optometrist. We decided to go back to the first doc that we had when arrived in Texas. We liked him but his staff was arrogant, so we stopped going. After a few years of going to another doc (who was ok, but I think he was slipping a bit) we decided to go back to the first one. My exam went well and $121.20 later, I have some very nice properly adjusted glasses coming in about 10 days.

After the appointment, I went to Wendy's and grabbed some unhealthy food, scarfed it down and headed to the city council meeting. It was one of the best yet...lots of the residents showed up to voice concern about the adding of sewer services to the city (small town of 5,000). They are small and want to keep it that way. I cannot say I blame them, but I cannot see the town growing at all or even keeping their head above water without modern sewers (however, I am far from an expert on the subject...I could very well be wrong). The rest of the meeting revolved around that and after 3 hours I went home. The meeting was 95% over with anyway...all that was left was the agenda for next month.

I got home and watched Law and Order - SVU that was on Tuesday. I did not see it since I was very tired and last night was the first time I had a chance to watch it. After that, the wife and I went to bed.

I was able to sleep in this morning since most of the employees of my customer account are on holiday. I am "working" from home and I have to be available 10:00 am - 6:00 pm via phone but other than that there will be little that needs to be done, as fas as I can tell. I will be able to walk the dogs, wash some dishes, etc while I am working. Good Friday should be a slower day...at least I pray that it will.

My wife is trying out her new battery on her laptop. It says the two together should give her 4 hours but I will be happy with 2, since my wife runs wirelessly 100% of the time.

Stand Or Fall

By lunchtime yesterday, things appeared stable. The issues were being worked on and nothing appeared to be spinning out of control. Since things were looking up, I decided to take lunch.

The weather has been cooler after the storms marched through North Texas. My sinuses are giving me a bit of problems, but not too many. Since it was not hot outside, I took part of my lunch out of my office, reading a bit while reclining in my truck. I was about 15 minutes into a new chapter when my mobile rings. It appeared to be a US number, but not local. As usual, I answered it. It turns out it was our customer's esc mgmt asking to have an issued elevated. I was curious on why I was called, instead of the customer calling the help desk and having them raise it. The customer told me he was having trouble getting the issue raised. He asked me if I would look into it and I told him I would. Of course I was at lunch and informed him of this and he told me, "please finish your meal...while this is important, I know that breaks are not common for you. If you can look into this within the hour it would help." He told me not to call him back unless there was an issue with raising the case.

I got back to the office a bit later and contacted the global inc mgmt. They informed me they were aware of the issue but had not updated the threat board yet because they too, were very busy. The technician had been notified and that was the most important thing. Since the issue was being looked into, I continued on with my day.

Issues continued to rise and fall all day long and by the time I left for the day, we had four open issues that I could be called upon to react to. I prayed for the best and went home.

When I got home I found the slimline battery that I had ordered for my wife's old Toshiba Tecra 9000 had come in so I popped it in the laptop and began the charging process. My wife had asked me that morning if I would install the Palm Desktop software and sync her PDA to the laptop instead of the desktop we used to share. I told her that I would when I had time. Now looked like as good as time as any so I began. When she got home from working out, I snagged her PDA and did the initial sync. All went well (all except one event that was a typo...I quickly corrected that) and I kept her PDA on the cradle to charge. I tested it and it looked good, so I powered down. I told her not to use the laptop until the slim battery had fully charged, indicated by the orange light going out. She agreed and we let the unit charge while we were at care group.

Our Care Group was not meeting because of conflicting schedules, so we went to another nearby (there are two within 5 miles of our house). We brought a salad, which is something my wife could eat every day. We used good greens (no Iceberg lettuce for us) and it was a big hit with everyone.

The fellowship was good, We discussed three verses of Scripture, James 1:19-21, which talks about listening more and talking less. I know there were a lot of people besides me that needed to hear that message. There were three of us who commented that talking a lot gets them in trouble (Can I get an AMEN?) and we prayed for the Holy Spirit to move us to listen more. It really was quite powerful.

After Care Group was over we went home and let the dogs out. I got back first (Little Man did not seem to into the walk), turning around after he did his thing. I started washing the few dishes that were there and then when my wife returned, we watched Jericho which we had taped (no, we still do not have PVR...monthly costs just cannot be justified yet) earlier. After that, it was off to bed. I was exhausted.

I woke up at 4:30 thinking it was much earlier. I was really tired and wanted to sleep, but could not. 5:00 AM, my normal wake up time, took much longer to arrive than time would account for. Once I got up and started my routine, I still had troubles...I was and still am very tired. I still have a long day (eye doctor appt and city council meeting) but I think that my Friday is mostly clear. Saturday is scheduled to be cold and rainy but we are supposed to meet with Mickey and Mary for dinner that day anyway and I have a haircut appt in the morning. Sunday is of course "Easter" (we call it Resurrection Sunday since "Easter" is mostly a secular term nowadays) and other than service and dinner out, I we have nothing else planned. Maybe I can catch up on some sleep.

So far the day looks okay. There are issues but I am not sure how they will affect me. We keep getting global issues popping up and while most have been solved we still have two that are open. One is a few days old and the other is new. I am so weary of this. God, give me strength.

Burst

Tuesday, 3:18 PM. I am chatting with one of the Swede's in his office and my phone rings. It shows "anonymous" which usually means a call from Europe, most likely one of our customers. I answer, but the person hangs up. Knowing that the call handling system that we use calls each number and lets it ring three times and goes to voice mail after the last number is dialed, I walk back to my desk and use the handy dandy web interface to check the voice mail. As suspected, a call can from Europe, but it was from our incident mgmt group. Since they are always on line, I fire up the internal Jabber chat and ask them what is up. They tell me about a major issue that has been brewing and they want escalated. I look at the issue and call the contact to get more info. After hearing his spin on the issue, I call my peer in Malaysia to see what he wants to do about it since it will affect him more than anyone. I wake him up (it was either 4 or 5 in the morning there) and give him the information. He listens and I ask him a total of three times what he wants me to do. All three times he states that he will handle it. I acknowledge him verbally and follow up with an e-mail to him, the inc mgmt group in Europe, and the contact I spoke with earlier. Once all this was done, I finished up locally and drove home.

6:00 PM roles around and I am home, have fed the dogs, let them out, and eaten. I have collected the mail, filled the dogs water bowl and washed a few dishes. A storm was brewing so I took both dogs out to their thing before it hits. Neither want to and are more interested in the other pet owners who are out doing the same thing. After short and unproductive walk, I go back home. I was watching discovery when my mobile rings. It is from Malaysia...it is my peer in KL. He begins telling me that the issue is "global" in nature and asks me who is covering the global role since out mgr is out on holiday. I have no idea...he did not tell me anything before he left. My KL contact, Chong, says he will call the previous global esc mgr and see what she says. I got a very bad feeling about this, but told him to call me back if he needed me. The night goes on and Chong does not call me back. I wondered if this was good or bad.

The storm began to hit pretty hard. There was a little hail and the rain drops were huge. The sky looked yellow and there were tornado warnings all over. Then, as soon as it appeared, it disappeared. The yellow was gone and the dark gray of nightfall was descending.

I switched the TV over to NBC to watch Law and Order. I was beginning to have some sinus issues but I did not want to take anything. I was concerned that Wednesday would be a bad day with repercussions regarding the handling of the incident. I know that my job is more political than critical and the way it is handled is key. I am not big into politics. I am pretty "no nonsense" most of the time. This issue, while it was being actively worked on, was potentially a time bomb.

Off and on during Law and Order, the local weather man kept breaking in and giving an update which was a little overkill as far as I could tell. Since I was not worried at this point, I decided to go to bed. My wife came home from her women's ministry event shortly after that but I was too zonked out to greet her properly. I slept soundly until 2 or 3 AM, but tossed and turned after that, still worried about Wednesday.

The alarm finally went off and I grabbed the dogs and took them outside. I let the Golden use the bathroom and I let her in. I then took Little Man for his morning walk. The storms had brought in very cool and very windy weather...enough that I needed sweats instead of shorts. After a quick 20 minute walk, I came back and fixed my coffee and completed my normal routine.

I got to work early (I left 10 minutes early) since I had a training session at 8 AM and I wanted to get in and do my reports as well as check to see what collateral damage was sustained because of the issue the night before. When I got to work, I was very surprised to see that I only had one e-mail regarding the issue (now I am really worried!) and it was an FYI issue. It appears that the team working on the seemingly impossible issue (a 10 year old server that is not under warranty or supported with no spare server to replace it, running a critical app) had about 75% of the issue working via a workaround. The other 25% was going to take a bit of finagling, but it appeared that it was under control. With that seemingly good news in hand, I logged on to my training class (which would have been very good had the trainer spoken clearer English, not to mention that someone did not have their line muted and there was a lot of background noise).

After the class I went to let our incident mgmt know about the issues in China. While he had his own issues to worry about, he thanked me for keeping him in the loop.

The stress level of this situation has decreased some. I am still waiting for the other shoe to drop, but maybe things will be calm.

Schism

The day started a little weird for me. Little Man did not want to get up and go for his morning walk. Instead, we was laying in the middle of a darkened room...not on his dog bed like he usually is. Since he did not jump at the chance to go for a walk, I decided to switch up my schedule and my my coffee first. By the time it was done brewing, both dogs were up. I let The Golden out to do her thing and after she was done, I grabbed my cup 'o' Joe and Little Man and started my walk.

I left a bit early (15 minutes or so) to allow me time to get to work and get settled before my online class at 8:00 AM. The class was okay, but you can tell when someone who is not a trainer tries to teach a class like this. it was fact based, but it had no character. I almost fell asleep.

After that class I had an hour before the next thing on my list, the change mgmt meeting. Thankfully that ended on time (30 minutes) and I was able to get on with my next task, my online ergonomics class. It was better than I expected but I am beginning to hate Flash. It is way overused.

The ergonomics CBT was short (I had completed half of it yesterday) so with that done I checked the threat board. Europe has been hopping today. There have been at least half a dozen issues (three that affect me) so far and it is still early. One has been resolved and at least on is looking ugly. The last one is new enough that there are not any notes in the work log yet. Time will tell. I guess after four days of no stress, we were due for at least a little tension.

Schedule this week:

Tonight: Nothing (TV night), wife has a church function
Wednesday: Care group
Thursday: City Council meeting
Friday: Nothing
Saturday: Dinner with Mickey and Mary
Sunday: Church

Until I(t) Sleeps

The rest of my work day went well. No issues, just the run of the mill stuff I normally deal with. When I got home, I grabbed a quick bite to eat since I had two yards to mow (it is supposed to rain tomorrow and I have a full week...today was my only chance). I got done just in time to watch "24" with Mrs Gee and after that I walked Little Man. But wait, there is more! When I got done with the walk, I had dishes to wash! Mrs Gee cooked, so I was obligated to wash dishes. She had stuff to do for the womens ministry so I did not mind. Once all that was done, I went online to pay a few bills and to write up the bill for my neighbor for the fertilizing, the weeding, and the mowing. I may as well get it in now...when summer hits, I will not be mowing once a week!

I am really bushed. Time to brush my teeth and get some sleep.