Sunday Randomness

A quick salute to parenting super powers for the week...
1. Super hearing:
I was standing in the kitchen and heard a faint sound from outside. I thought, "I can identify that sound. Let's see. It sounds like glass...being smacked against...hmm, brick. Yes, that's definitely the sound."
Dammit.
I ran outside to see the boy testing the tensile strength of a bottle he was carrying to the recycle bin. Before parenting, I would have totally ignored that sound.
2. or when you can see into the future:
Me: "Dude, don't lean against that, you'll knock the soda off the table."
The Wife: "It will be fine."
*splash*
House rules: I warned you well ahead of time, you clean it.
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Tech Support call:
"Hello, all my email is gone."
"What is your login ID?"
He gave it to me and said, "I graduated two years ago."
"Sir, we generally delete account 90 days past graduation."
"But I've been using it for two years."
"And we sent you a notice that your account would be deleted after 90 days."
"Well yeah, but I kept using it since you never turned it off."
"We don't backup student accounts, it's gone. There's nothing I can do here."
"But I've been using it for two years."

I can only take so much of this stuff before I turn unpredictably snarky...

"You're welcome for the gracious extension to your account." *click*

Somewhere, someone is thinking I'm a rotten bastard and I'm okay with that. He graduated anyway. We already spent that money.
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A definition:
Blood Firsty: The feeling you get when you see a new post in your reader and are taken over by the compulsion to get to the blog and get your, "FIRST!" in.
That's it people...go enjoy your day.

Admintuition

Over the years of working with computers, I've learned quite a few things about them. One of the more interesting things is that even though they are computers that supposedly work on logic, things get quirky. Quirky to the point where two computers with the same hardware and set up will behave differently. It makes no sense, but as an admin, I either accept it or risk A) sanity or B) literal physical implosion due to stress which is messy at best.

Once you learn to accept the quirks and learn all of the good stuff that comes with server administration though, you receive a gift. It's elusive and you must earn the favor of certain small and petty technology gods as well. It's admintuition.

It's part experience, but it's more. I have diagnosed problems in under 30 seconds that people have been working on for days. I'm not tooting my own horn here. It just happens often enough (with my co-administrator too, not just me) that there is no other explanation. Granted, that perk alone is nice enough but there's another that's way more important.

As an admin, I commonly deal with stuff the affects roughly 5000 people at a time. That means I can screw stuff up royally, with panache if need be. Fortunately, I have admintuition on my side. I'll be futzing (sorry for the technical term there) with the fabric that our servers run on and there's almost always a warning if I have something wrong in my syntax or configuration.

It starts out simple. I'll go to click 'ok' to finish a change or hit 'enter.' I pause for a second and wonder where that faint screaming is coming from. It's not too uncommon in IT and there are a lot of students...they're unpredictable.

Oh wait...the screaming...it's IN MY HEAD. It's the old, "something is about to be FUBAR'd" scream. I'll double check at that point and if something is still amiss, I move to the second failsafe.

Obi-Wan Kenobi's voice rings through my head. "Use the force, you dumb bastard." That's when I really start to take things seriously. The first warning; that could just be me being overly cautious. The second one is serious. I pore over the changes I was about to implement. I usually get it right by the second time. I finish the changes and tell Obi-Wan to send Princess Leah next time -- preferably in the slave costume.

There is a third stage where my head is taken over by sadistic gremlins armed with tiny brain saws and I have to walk away from the server for a while to clear them out. Caffeine is their nemesis. Remember that. It could save your life someday.

Every once in a while something gets borked so badly that we just scream past all the roadblocks with all the abandon of Amy Winehouse with a brick of crack. Like when my co-admin nearly formatted every last computer on campus a little while back. You read that right. Every. Last. Computer. Had that happened it would have been a month before I got to update my blog again...because I would have taken vacation somewhere where there are no lines of communication and I have that much at least that much vacation saved up. Pull a boner like that and you're on your own...I'll be in Belize.

Fortunately, that's rare and the last time I came close to something like that was years ago when I almost lost 4 years of email for 5000 users. I still maintain that was Microsoft's fault, but they won't fess up to anything.

I've got another juicy upgrade coming up soon here. Let's hope I've paid those dues to the small and petty tech gods.

 

 

Technorati Tags: don't move or bad things will happen

The (yeah, that's right I totally forgot the title today and will let it stand as a monument to my idiocy)

The other day, The Wife came down and said that her chest felt a little tight and she had been coughing. She had bronchitis last year so I just said, "Call the doctor and have her look at it." She took my profoundly sage advice and called me at work to let me know she made an appointment. Because she calls about everything, that's why. Everything. Every. Last. Thing. Not that I mind (this, of course, will be the one post she ever reads on my blog.)

Anyway. She said she had talked to the nurse and they got her in at the branch office. I filed that away under the heading of "really important stuff to know" and worked away until she got back from her appointment.

She called and I asked, "How was the appointment?"

Her answer in convenient anecdotal form:

She got to the doctor's office and been whisked away to one of the exam rooms. Standard procedure so far. The doctor comes in, points to the machine behind her, and says, "Let's get you hooked up to that."

The Wife looked at the machine and said, "What is that?"

"An EKG," came the reply.

"For potential bronchitis??? Can't you use a stethoscope?"

The good doctor paused and said, "The nurse entered in that you had called in complaining of chest pains. We cleared the afternoon appointments for you."

(Here's the point where I feel that I should point out that The Wife is a good Catholic girl who got a triple helping of the associated guilt that should come along with any fine, Catholic upbringing.)

"Oh. My. God. I'm so sorry. But I just said my chest felt tight. Like it was congestion. Really, I didn't mean to. Blah, blah, blah" (Insert about five minutes of apologizing for most of the world's ills here.)

The doctor laughed and assured her it was okay. She was good natured about it the whole situation and quite relieved.

Which brings us back to the phone conversation:

The Wife: "I felt so bad."

Me (laughing, especially since I have none of the appropriate Catholic guilt instilled in my black soul): "It wasn't your fault, the nurse entered it in wrong."

TW: "But they cleared the whole afternoon."

Me (still laughing): "Again, not your fault that the nurse was a twit with poor diagnostic skills."

TW: "Well, YOU told me to say my chest felt tight."

I stayed silent here...well, except for the laughing. I don't recall what I said verbatim, but if she says that's what was said, it probably was. I did not however force her to say anything and had nothing to do with the nurse's poor triage skills.

Me: "That's so going in the blog."

Later I was talking with my dad and he asked how everyone's health was. I just burst out laughing and said, "Great. Bern's EKG came out awesome." I caught a look for that one. That's okay, 'the look' pretty much slides off anymore. I'm bulletproof.

I think the best part is that she didn't have bronchitis. She didn't even have a cold. The doctor thought it was probably just a case where she needed a humidifier. At least that's easier to run than an EKG.

Technorati Tags: quick...call the ER!

'Tis the Season

Ah, consumerism. It's amazing how fast it sinks its teeth into even our children. Sure, I realize that all the toy commercials are out in force right now, but it really sank in the other day when The Boy said, "Wait, go back," when we were flipping through the channels. I went back to the last channel and was about to go further when he said, "that's it!"

There it was, the object of his desire...the ne plus ultra of Christmas giftiness...the Perfect Pancake Puff Pan. Complete with flipping sticks!

I stared at him. For a while. "That's what you want?"

He nodded his head vigorously.

I briefly wondered where this mild case of freakiness had come from, but it was obviously from the marketing fairy (who, I'm sure, looks like Ron Popeil with lacy wings -- that repel dirt!)

The commercial wore on. I think it was the extended re-mix. He kept pointing at the various iterations of pancake puffs that could be created with the modern marvel and, knowing his mother's penchant for crab, said, "Look, you can make crab puffs too!" at the appropriate time. Somewhere Billy Mays shed a tear over his unknown protege.

After the commercial he looked at us expectantly. I stopped cringing inside and pulled the old, "We'll see buddy."

He persisted. "We should get it at Lowe's."

Sigh. "Why Lowe's?"

"Because they're the best."

"Why is that?"

"They say so on TV."

"Of course. Silly me. I'll tell you what, we'll look at Lowe's next time we're there." All I can say is that I'm betting that Lowe's will not carry the Perfect Pancake Puff Pan. (Complete with flipping sticks! Did I mention the pastry brush and sugar shaker?)  That should get me off the hook.

Of course, it will never happen even if Lowe's is "the best" and does miraculously carry the damn thing. Mainly because I don't do novelty dishes on command. I'm just not down with that; I have my pride. It would also either A) take up valuable storage space or B) The Wife would end up taking it away from me after I ended up cutting all the puffs in half and insisted on making armies of 'boob cakes' with gumdrop nipples.

On the plus side of all these commercials and rampant consumerism, I feel relatively safe that The Boy will be fiscally responsible. He has good parents and more importantly, he knows all the words to the freecreditreport.com commercials. He'll have no trouble checking online to make sure he's not too far in debt from late night TV purchases.

 

Technorati Tags: It slices! It dices! It pees on command!

Sunday Randomness

The Boy has this Fisher Price nativity set. It's cute and he can do the whole crèche thing without mucking up the good set. We were watching TV last night and I looked over and had to say, "Dude, get the BVM's (that's Blessed Virgin Mary to the uninitiated) head out of your mouth." I figured we'd keep those germs where they belong a little respect was due and just yuck...I have to touch those things.

He promptly tossed her across the room.

The Wife said, "Now why did you go and throw the B...um...Mary across the room?" (Points for me for almost getting The Wife to say 'BVM.')

The Boy dutifully walked over and retrieved it. Now the Fisher Price figurines have a sort of indentation in the bottom so you can place them on Fisher Price People Posts so they don't fall out of FP vehicles and crap while you're playing with them. You can also do this with cherubs:

He's an angel; he can take it. He even seems to mildly enjoy it...

Anyway, I look over and he's got the BVM up to his mouth again. Here's where you should all be proud of me:

What I wanted to say: "Get your tongue out of Mary's hole."

What I said: "Yeesh, can you just put that down somewhere?"

That just cant be right. He's too young for confession, but I think he owes one for that. If I were pope, I could look it up in the Vatican Database of Crap You Need to Confess for, but I have to wait until I get elected pope before I can access that.

Technically she would still be a virgin though, right?

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I was talking to my dad on the phone the other day and we were wondering where all the parents were to guide their kids when they went and signed loans for a 300k house on a 50k a year salary.

Ole Man Heinous: "They were probably too damn scared they would alienate their kids."

Me: "I thought that was our job."

We laughed our asses off. Father of the year, that's me.

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My son was out playing with his friends in the snow the other day. He came in the house to warm up.

Me: "Dude, where are your snow pants?" (He had jeans on underneath thanks to all the forces that keep me sane)

The Boy: "I don't know."

*blink*

Me: "How can you not know? You had to take them off...correct? And they're pants...they don't blow off like a hat, right?"

The Boy: "Oh, that's right"

Zip, he was out the door. I don't even try to understand anymore.

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A little captcha love:

This would have been a completely different movie. I'm thinking Stallone's career wouldn't have survived.

 

If you get the stomach flu and record yourself, I bet you'll hear yourself making this sound at some point.

That's it! Go enjoy your Sunday people.

 

Technorati Tags: Sunday randomness