This Week

Work is too busy.  I’ve been working at the same place for about 9 years and 6 months.  It’s time for a change.  That stresses me out.  I’m thinking I’ll start looking in January, but won’t be too disappointed if I get to pick up my 10 year anniversary gift on the day I turn in my resignation.

Yesterday they sent me to Washington DC for a meeting with the Post Office.  I don’t like day trips.  I’m staying home today because yesterday was a 17 hour day.  I was at the airport at 6 AM and arrived back at the airport at 10:30 PM.

I have between 6 and 10 emails every morning telling me something needs to be done ASAP.  They refuse to hire anyone else (because of the economy).  I’m still trying to track down and fix the ASAP problem from 4 weeks ago.

Our network administrator quit a few weeks ago and now I’m doing his job as well as my job and they haven’t made any strides in hiring a replacement.  I don’t have time to blog any more.  In fact I don’t have time to finish anything.  Every time I start working on something someone comes to tell me their PC won’t boot.

I’m going to go on a vacation Thanksgiving week.  I’m thinking of taking a cruise.  I basically want to go do something where I don’t have to think.  I don’t want to be bothered with a budget.  I don’t want to worry about where I’m going to eat or what I’m going to do.  A cruise fits that bill rather nicely.  Maybe there is something else.  Suggestions are welcome.

If you know someone who knows someone or if you are someone who is hiring a Lead Software Architect, then have them send me an email.  I’m very good at what I do.  I applied for a Software Director position at Travelocity.  It’s a bit bigger than anything I’ve done before, but I know I’d be good at it.  They wanted someone with “management” experience.  Their loss.  I’m a leader anyway -- not a manager.

I’ve lost my spark with my wife.  I don’t know what happened there.  Perhaps the stress at work is to blame.  Perhaps she’s found people more enjoyable to hang out with.  I don’t know.  She gets mad when I ask about it because “nothing is wrong”.  So, I don’t ask anymore.  I just make things up as I go along.  My stories are pretty wild.  I’m open for suggestion there too.  Maybe the vacation can help.  I might need psychological help.

She’ll get mad at me for putting that in my blog, but when you are already swimming in lava, it can’t get any hotter.

I’m thinking of starting an aggressive blog where I post all the things I think about doing to people that make me mad.  When it comes to confrontational people, I am on the “non-confrontational to a fault” side of things.  I avoid confrontation at all costs.  Try thinking like I do when you go out with the wife and she thinks the waiter was being rude.  I think I’m expected to do something about it, but that would involve a confrontation.

Aquarius Again?

I grow bored.  I’m going to abbreviate and categorize, but we are still in the C’s.  In case you are new or haven’t been paying attention I am tracking all my favorite folks that were born between January 20 and February 18.   We are the Aquarius.

Pretty:

Christie Brinkley was born on February 2, 1954.

Pretty Funny:

Chris Farley was born on February 15, 1964.  I missed him when I was accidentally doing my comedians in a post a few weeks ago.

Pretty Smart:

Clyde Tombaugh discovered a large rock at the edge of our solar system and used his Aquarius skills to convince everyone that it was a planet.  He was born on February 4, 1906.  The “planet” was Pluto.

Pretty Brave/Lucky:

Charles Lindbergh made the first solo flight across the Atlantic.  I can’t tell you how many times I’ve wanted to take a solo flight to somewhere far far away.  He was born on February 4, 1902.

Pretty Bassic:

I used to be a Metallica fan.  After their bass player died in a tragic bus accident, their music afterwards was never quite the same.  I don’t know if it’s just me or not.  Maybe Cliff Burton never actually wrote any of the music but he was a helluva bass player and after he died, their music changed.

   Maybe he wrote all the music… He was born on February 10, 1962.

Metallica with Cliff –>

Random Thoughts on the Health Bill HR-3200

I downloaded this monstrosity. I was feeling guilty about having too much fun so I thought I’d cause myself some distress.

This thing is is huge. The one I downloaded (as approved by committee) was 1422 pages. Of course, the pages look like the one pictured. Huge margins (I assume for making notes) and line numbers (I assume for aiding discussion) and a rather large font (I assume for the aging governmental lifers).

The Declaration of Independence was only 1 page and it had room for signatures. This must be 1422 times more important. I wonder how they would have written this bill before the advent of computers? How would they have written this bill before the advent of typewriters? I have a new silly rule for our government to follow. When you are coming up with new legislation, pretend it is 1776 when you are writing the legislation. I bet there would be no more 1400+ pages of legislative lawyer speak. They’d find a way to condense.

Don’t pretend you are smarter than Benjamin Franklin just because you can wipe out a small forest with useless verbiage.

Thomas Jefferson invented something called a “polygraph” to duplicate everything he wrote. Try using one of these to write your bills, Mr. 1422 Page Bill Writer.

Anyway, I did a bit more research on Health Bills. I found one written by the government in UK. It was 72 pages.

If you click on the image of the page from the bill above, you’ll see that it is page 4. Down on line 22 (part D), I already don’t like that part. It’s redundant.

(D) initiates shared responsibility among workers, employers, and the government

I always thought it was a government “of the people, for the people”. So this simply should say, “initiates shared responsibility among workers and employers”. Well, I guess maybe by writing it the way they did they admit that the government neither works or employs.

Mrs. Elena Tan

I love these emails that seem to be spamming the world about the millions of dollars I have waiting in a Swiss bank account somewhere if I just supply my name, number and address.  This one tops the charts.  Using God to dupe the masses in new and ingenious ways.  Because if I’m going to get an inheritance from some old lady I’m going to use it to do God’s will.  I guess you can’t expect con artists to do background checks on their email lists…

Without further ado, here’s the email (enjoy)  :)

Hello,
My name is Mrs. Elena Tan. I am a dying woman who had decided to donate what I have to you. I am 59 years old and was diagnosed for cancer about 2 years ago, immediately after the death of my husband, who had left me everything he worked for. I have been touched by God to donate from what I have inherited from my late husband to you for the good work of God, rather than allowing my relatives to use my husband's hard earned funds ungodly. I have asked God to forgive me all my sins and i believe he has because He is a merciful God.
I will be going in for an operation, and i pray that i survive the operation. I have decided to WILL/donate the sum of $10,500,000.00.(Ten million five hundred thousand dollars) to you for the good work of the lord, and to help the motherless, less privileged and also for the assistance of the widows. At the moment I cannot take any telephone calls, due to the fact that my relatives are around me and i have been restricted by my doctor from taking telephone calls because i deserve all the rest i can get.Presently,I have informed my lawyer about my decision in WILLING this fund to you. I wish you all the best and may the good Lord bless you abundantly and please use the funds well and always extend the good work to others.
Kindly Contact my lawyer through this email address (barr_richardlee@sify.com) or you can call his private Lin: +855976826769.If you are interested in carrying out this task, so that he can arrange the release of the funds ($10,500,000.00) to you.. My lawyer's name is Barrister Richard Lee . I know I have never met you but my mind tells me to do this, and i hope you act sincerely.
NB:I will appreciate your utmost confidentiality in this matter until the task is accomplish,as I don't want anything that will Jeopardize my last wish, due to the fact that i do not want relatives or family members standing in the way of my last wish.
Thank you and God bless you. Mrs. Elena Tan.

Where Have All The Aquarians Gone?

One of my colleagues, who is also Aquarius, also sports facial hair. A couple of weekends ago I had a deep unexplained urge to remove all facial hair. I was seconds away from turning on the razor when my wife talked me out of it. When I came to work on Monday, my colleague had removed his facial hair. I was glad that my wife had talked me out of it. How awkward would that be?

My first guest Aquarius today is Chris Duarte. His birthday is February 16, 1963. I saw him a couple of weeks ago at the Bedford Blue Festival with Buddy Guy. It would be remiss of me not to mention that he quotes Shakespeare when he's tuning his guitar on stage. It's just a strange Aquarian quirk I think.He is a Texas blues guitar slinger. Observe…

Charles Dickens was born on February 7, 1812. Because of my piss poor education (you have to read the comments) I don’t think I’ve ever read any of his books. Perhaps I should remedy that.

Charles Darwin was born the exact same day as Abraham Lincoln: February 12, 1809. He married a cousin. I had a crush on one of my cousins once.

Speaking of crushes, I recently discovered that probably my first sort of real girlfriend (I mean I was 12 years old or something) is/was an Aquarius. She was probably my first older woman too. She was born on February 9, exactly 5 days before me. Her name is Cristy so she fits in nicely in my alphabetical list. I would post a picture, but that would involve me asking her permission and I’m not up to it.

Thankyyoulittell F||||||r

This story just cracked me up.  I love English humor.  I’ll wait here while you read through the story.

Apparently, she acted up in a restaurant called Cactus Joes.  I’ve got two daughters.  One of them was often times a little hellion when we’d go out to eat.  If she had to sit still for more than 20 minutes you better pull out the chill pills cuz things were about to get crazy.

If I had received a receipt with a subtle note like this one at the bottom, it would have cracked me up.  There is mean spirited and then there is just funny.  This is just funny.  Even if the wait staff meant every word of it in a mean spirited angry way, it’s still funny.  

When I first read this story, I thought it happened in the good ol’ USA.  I’m surprised someone in UK would get this upset.  Maybe they were transplanted Americans who never watched Monty Python.

The article leaves out important details.  I’d like to hear from the wait staff. They might have been talking about the little girl’s mom.

The whole miscellaneous portion of the bill has some good subtle humor in it.

Silverlight and Netflix Taste Great Together?

Friday night I got an update notice that Microsoft had an update for Silverlight.  I like staying current with my software so I allowed it to update.

Saturday I spent almost all day trying to get Netflix to work.

The Netflix movie streaming uses Silverlight.  I would have to say I am somewhat addicted to the Netflix streaming.  I have a computer hooked up to my big TV downstairs and I use it as my over the air tuner and as my Netflix viewer.  When stuff quits working it plays hell with my addiction.

I’ve been watching Heroes via Netflix streaming and I’m almost done with the 4th season.  I have about 3 more episodes.

After Silverlight updated on Friday, Netflix quit working.  I was getting ErrorCode 2103 in Firefox and ErrorCode 2105 in Internet Explorer and Microsoft’s Media Center.

I’m usually pretty good at tracking down information on the Internet to help solve my problems.  Apparently this was a new problem because I couldn’t find too much discussion.

Well, I’m here to tell you.  I spent all day Saturday trying different things.  I uninstalled Silverlight and then it wouldn’t re-install.  Every time I downloaded the Silverlight installation file I’d get a “file is corrupted” error.

There was some obscure reference to the corrupted file problem with the solution involving downloading more software to “clean up” the Silverlight installation.  I strive on intuition and this was not going anywhere near my intuitively obvious comfort zone.

I finally managed to get it re-installed by doing a Windows Update via Internet Explorer under the Safety toolbar menu.

I tried to watch another episode of Heroes on Firefox, but got the 2103 ErrorCode again.  I tried to watch it in Media Center and got the 2105 ErrorCode again.  I finally managed to get it to play the episode using Internet Explorer.  I prefer watching these streaming movies via Media Center because my Media Center remote allows me to control playback with my little remote control.  Using the browser, I have to sit the wireless keyboard in my lap and place the mouse somewhere handy.

Sunday morning, I decided to call Netflix.  They had a very polite message about the ErrorCode and that if things weren’t working, you can call this 1-866 number for support.  Their support people are very kind and are very good at passing the buck.  Silverlight and the Silverlight Movie Player are Microsoft products and the ErrorCode I was reporting is related to a Microsoft problem.  They forwarded me the support contact information via email.

I chose to ignore it.  This is what I did (warning warning, if you don’t like to read whiny complaints, here is the answer):

• I uninstalled Silverlight. 
• I went into my c:\Program Files directory and removed all directories containing Siverlight in the name
• I ran regedit
• I searched for Silverlight throughout the registry (F3 to Find Next)
• Every time I saw a folder or a key with Silverlight, I deleted it (standard disclaimer about monkeying with your registry – don’t do it unless you know what you are doing)
• I rebooted
• I ran Media Center and went to the Netflix application and tried to watch a movie
• It warned me I needed Silverlight and I followed the linked instructions to install it

Sunday evening I finally had time to repair my leaky toilet.  After all, we must manage our priorities.