Pizza

We went to the Mellow Mushroom last night for dinner. It was yummy. While we were there, two huge groups of Jehovah's Witnesses came in--one with 16 people, another with 13. Apparently there is some sort of crazy Jay-Dub convention in town or something. Ugh. Anyway, we knew they were Jay-Dubs because they had little name tags.

Anyway, when the first group came in, the hostess seemed a little concerned that they would be unable to fit them all (if you've been there, you know it's not a real big restaurant), but she dutifully went back to check and see if they could be accommodated. While they were waiting for her to return, the second group came in and I whispered something to the wife along the lines of "they can only serve 144,000 people here, so they might not be able to fit everybody."

I do, indeed, kill me. We got seated, and we went out for ice cream afterwards. Mmmm...with enough leftovers for dinner tonight, too.

Yep, I got a big new monitor Saturday! It is a 22" widescreen monitor. It's awesome! Now I've got lots of room on my desk--too much, in fact. When I took my old boat anchor off the desktop, all the papers and documents and stuff I'd stuck on it, or around it, or propped up against it, fell down, and I was forced to do something with them. I stuck them out of the way for a reason, of course.

We even watched "Heroes" on it while we ate dinner last night, and it looks fantastic. So I'm pleased. While I was at Big Box Electronics Store looking at it, I heard an old guy asking questions of one of the Sales Drones about a monitor he was looking to purchase. The old guy asked something to the effect of "does this monitor have all the software I need to install it," and the guy assured him that he'd be fine. So the old guy asks, "will this new monitor have all my icons on it, or do I need to transfer them?"

It made me feel a little pity for the Sales Drones of the world. No wonder they hassle everyone about buying their stupid extended warranties (they wanted a hundred bucks for the EW on this monitor!!) and asking for zip codes--they have to answer stupid questions like "will my new monitor have all my icons on it" all day.

No, I didn't buy the extended warranty. Also, no, you can't have my zip code. Not yours.

Computer (Stuff) Buying

Woo hoo! My stupid mouse is going out--it occasionally registers a single click as a double click, so selecting a file sometimes means opening a file instead. Or highlighting a window means maximizing the window. Anyway, we can't have that, so I get to buy a new mouse. It's okay; this one has served a long, happy life of clickery and, uh, cursor movery, so it's deserved its trip to the big recycle bin in the sky. But mice are boring.

That's why I guess I should be glad that my big ol' heavy monitor is also dying! I got this monitor--a bulky 21" CRT--from my old egomaniac boss at the job I had before I got a real one. He was always upgrading the equipment his poor subhuman employees had to work on, and I was around when he tossed these CRTs in favor of some big, shiny new LCDs, so I took this one off his hands for him. Yeah, it was a pretty nice gesture, but still, screw him.

Anyway, that was probably six years ago, so it, too, has lived a long, successful life even after it retired from engineering. It saw me through two engineering degrees and a 2200-mile cross-country move! And I suppose the cat will miss sitting atop its heat-emitting surfaces on cold days, but progress must march on.

But I digress. The monitor is doing this crazy epileptic seizure flicker move pretty regularly now, and it will, at random, turn itself off and, if I'm lucky, back on. All on its own! I suppose it may be a haunted monitor, but until it emits weird blue light, howling wind, and/or creepy moaning, or until it begins levitating, I'm going to go with the "it's wearing out" explanation.

When it started exhibiting this behavior, I was more annoyed than anything--I didn't want to go buy an expensive new monitor. They're hundreds of dollars, if not more, right!? And an LCD monitor this size will certainly break the bank, right? Right?!?

Well...not right. I began looking and was quickly amazed at how prices have come down and big ol' monitors have become very cheap! Now I started looking forward to getting an awesome new monitor. I have found two candidates for my dollars--a Dell 22" widescreen LCD and a Samsung 22" widescreen LCD. Both are pretty much the same price! How awesome?

I'm gonna see if I can find one in stock at one of the big box moron stores around here tomorrow, but if I can't, I'll order one online. Sweet!

And, yes, the thought has occurred to me to just buy a new computer, but I don't want to. I like my computer just fine, thank you.

My Cool New Project

For my State Parks job I get to do historical research on an island. It has been inhabited since the time of Native Americans up until today. It is a fantastic barrier island with lots of wildlife, great newly re-sanded beach, and a 19th century lighthouse. Today I got to go to the island to see the site and see what archive resources they have. I will be working on this project over the summer on the side and then take it up again part time in the fall for my assistantship. This is just one of the research projects I will be doing this year that will eventually lead to new interpretation at the parks and new information plaques (which are called waysides in the industry.)
I took some pictures of the island and I thought I would share.






The Lighthouse














The view of the beach from lighthouse















View of stairway up. 176 steps.














The beach. The line is the erosion line.















The marshlands.














It was so hot even the squirrels were hot.















The resident alligator.

Farewell Mr Wizard

Mr Wizard died today at the ripe age of 90. It seems odd when someone from television dies. Obviously most of us never meet the people, but those we remember from childhood seemed like they would live forever. We forget about them for many years only thinking of them during conversations about stuff you remember from childhood. But even though you forgot about them, you always feel like somehow they will continue to live in some far off land with your imaginary friend from first grade.

Perspective

I am a design engineer. I use a particular software package in my work to create and manage the designs for the products I work on. This package is extremely complex and quite expensive, and there is a worldwide community of users who use this software. I also subscribe to an email-based discussion forum for issues related to this software; mostly I use it for tips on how to do something I'm having trouble with, that sort of thing.

Once in a while the community erupts with furious nerd anger over some Controversial Crisis or another. On Crisis days, I keep getting interrupted with new emails from these people adding their input to the conversation, which becomes increasingly meaningless throughout the day as the original point someone made becomes lost under a deluge of whining and incompetent ranting. Today was one of those days.

Without embroiling you in the lurid details, it seems that the new version of the software will not be compatible with the old version of the data-management software this company also provides, and upgrading will be necessary. This kind of thing, of course, happens all the time, but this one guy was really upset about it. He wrote a passionate, lengthy email to all of us about how unfair this is and how it's really just mean of the software publisher to not think of his feelings, personally, when making this decision. He urged all the members of the community to voice their opinion on this matter, which they did, with much emotion and hyperbole, to the rest of us, all day.

This is a fairly common occurrence, but it caused me to stop and think about what kind of wreck one's life must be in to cause someone to write such a polemic about the unfair, mean practices of a large, faceless software company. I mean, this was a long email, filled with examples of how this would screw this guy over personally. I'm sure his employer would be thrilled to know how much time this dude spent crafting this epic masterwork about how the mean ol' software writers are just trying to ruin his life.

Seriously, though, I can't imagine what kind of banal existence you'd have to live to get that wrapped up in something as ultimately meaningless as this. I'm sure this upgrade business will cause some headaches for this dude, but...so what? That's just job security for you, buddy; just roll with it. (Hint: there's a reason it's called "work.")

So, take that for what it's worth. If you think your life is boring, or if it seems empty at times, at least you're not losing sleep over all the computers onto which you're going to have to install some more software next year sometime when the new version comes out.

He's Back

I hadn't heard my woodpecker banging on the house each morning so I feared he had moved on, despite the fact that woodpeckers don't migrate. I was really sad because I thought he was the most interesting of all the birds that come to my bird garden. Well today I was looking out the window to look at the rain and low and behold, there was my woodpecker. He must have just stopped pecking at our house, which I wouldn't blame him since there are no bugs in it. I kind of wish he would keep pecking at the house though because it was the only way I knew he was going to be at the feeder.

HP7

Okay, in addition to Hagrid, I think the other "major character" to die will be Ginny Weasley. That's Hagrid and Ginny. Place your bets now, ladies and gentlemen.

Motivation

We watched the movie Coach Carter tonight, which is a movie about the coach who required his team to do better than the bare academic standard. He even went so far as to lock his team out of the gym when they were not succeeding academically. It was very good.
The other day we watched Akeelah and the Bee, which was also inspiring. Both movies quoted this poem by Marianne Williamson that I thought was thought provoking:

"Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It's not just in some of us; it's in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others."