My Second Century - My Voice From Afar

 

My Withdrawal

It's been, what? Six weeks since my computer crashed?

My new motherboard (*sigh*) finally arrived while we were away. Fortunately, the friend house-sitting intercepted the courier and signed for it. Otherwise, it may have been sent back to the company. Ugh.

Got home late on Friday and my friend won't be able to fix it (again) until Tuesday. So, I'll be taking it there first thing Tuesday morning.
The wait has been killing me. And, yes Dreama, that's why there hasn't been anything on eBay in a while.

That, and I had trouble getting into my account from the old computer. I put a few things up with another account. Sold one thing for almost 2 dollars (hold me back!) and have 2 more on right now just shy of $20 each. Much better. One was a 'find' during my cleanup of the basement before My Vacation. The other I knew would sell once I had it up there.

My parents have finally succumbed and allowed me to dig into their record collection that has been gathering dust for decades. They have 300+ LPs from the 50s and 60s gathering dust on shelves in their basement. There's Peter, Paul and Mary albums still sealed in plastic wrap. This could be fun.

My Latest Vacation

We left for the Okanagan on July 26th, although I'd told all my co-workers that we were gone as of July 19th. It worked that first week, but they must've assumed I'd be back by the 26th as there were 9 messages from work this past week. Nine messages at double-overtime works out to be.... 72 hours, or another 2 weeks off.

They're just not getting it.

In fact, we have a newbie working there for the summer and my boss told him the importance of contacting anyone BUT me during July. So, he called me to ask why. As tempting as it was --I let that one be a freebie.

I knew this was going to be a difficult vacation. The last time I went up it was a solo trip and this one was with 2 small kids and a wife who barely wants anything to do with me. Fun. We weren't even 50km into our 450+ km trip when the first 'are we there yet?' erupted from the back seat. With just over 150km to go in the drive up, my son started screaming because he was sick of sitting and his ears were popping. Couldn't get there fast enough at that point, so you know what's going to happen to me.

As we headed into town with the boy screaming, I looked at the 'Welcome to' sign and the population of 1,256 people. I live in a small town. We have 35,000 people. We live next to a large town with 110,000 people. I refuse to call it a city because it hasn't grown up properly yet. 1,256 people. 1 traffic signal. And a fucking traffic jam over 2km long.

In desperation, I turn down the closest side street to avoid this traffic jam (one light, I mean come on already!!) and wouldn't you know it, I found the dead end street. The boy is still screaming and I whip the car around and head out in the opposite direction. My daughter asks what I'm doing and my wife responds, "Daddy's trying to find as many 4-way stops as possible." Now's not the time I tell her, but she's gotta be correct. Just gotta. I hang a right at the next intersection and head back in the right direction and manage to pull a left on the one street I need.

Unfortunately, a pick-up truck overloaded with hay cuts me off and I'm now stuck behind a hay truck doing 45 in an 80 zone and it's a double-solid line. the boy is still screaming. There's hay flying off the back of the truck and I'm wondering how much hay it'll take for my allergies to kick in and my eyes to seal shut. The last thing I want to do is crash with my wife in the car. She'll be saying "I told you so" all the way up the stairway to Heaven. Screw it. I pass and accelerate to 110 in the 80 zone. The boy is still screaming.

We get to my parents' place and I take the boy (still screaming, but quieter now) out of the car. We walk toward the house and I look longingly at the pool. It's then that I realize my bathing suit is sitting at home.

Shit.

We spend the week up there and pretty much laze around the house. It's too hot to do much of anything, but I do visit with my police office friend. I get to go on a different ride along this time as he's on patrol in the boat. The town's population where he's stationed sees it's population quintuple over the summer and there's plenty of drunks out in boats. We're out on the water and he gets a call that some drunk dove off his boat --into 3 feet of water. We're off to retrieve the body. I'm playing CSI all of a sudden. and, yes, I can tell you how disgusting a human body looks after it's been floating in the water for 12 hours.

And that actually was the highlight of the week.

Oh wait, there's more. Wednesday was my birthday, but I'm acknowledging that I'm 31. 30 was difficult enough, but now I'm 30-plus-one and that's way too much to handle. What the hell happened to 23 and 24? I got a chocolate cake and barely convinced my wife that we should go see a movie. I suggested 6 movies before we finally agreed on Spider-Man 2.

The city of Vernon in the Okanagan is one of the worst cities in British Columbia. It's right in there behind Surrey and Abbotsford. I consider Abbotsford "Surrey, Jr." and Vernon has become to me the "Abbotsford of the Okanagan." Abbotsford sucks and Vernon doesn't like competition...

I've posted before about seeing movies in Abbotsford and how there's always a rather large contingent of losers in the theatre. When watching 'Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon,' a few people left because the movie was too quiet. You could barely hear them speaking Cantonese, fer cryin' out loud. Of course, the subtitles were still readable. Others complained that the movie was 'too fake.' Really? What gave it away? The people flying everywhere? During 'Spider-Man,' the lady sitting next to us gave a play-by-play of the punches thrown: "Oh, good one!" "Ew, yeah!" "Nice punch!" "Way to get him!" You get the picture.

So, we're sitting in the theatre in Vernon and although it was a little confusing getting to our seats (they had two small walls with a space in the middle which we eventually figured out to be wheelchair seating). We sat in the back row with the wheelchair space behind us. Why? No one can kick our seats.

About 15 minutes into the movie, I was conscious that someone was looking over my shoulder. There was a guy, at least 6'4" and 400 pounds standing behind us. I guess waiting for a time to sit down. Naturally, in our row. He doesn't fit into the seat, so the entire rows of seats heaves as he sits.

And then it begins.

This guy had throat problems that saw him hacking and coughing for the next 2 hours. The row of seats shook whenever he pounded his big meaty fist in the popcorn bag to grab another handful. and then he started shaking his drink to get the ice. No, no. He's not eating the ice. He sucks a couple cubes in his mouth, sloshes them around for a few minutes, then spits them back into the cup. PTOO! PTOO! PTOO! PTOO! Who knew ice cubes would last for over 45 minutes? At least he entertained everyone in the rows around him. No one had the guts to see when he'd be done. As it was, the movie finished before he did.

The drive home became a whole new nightmare. My daughter threw up her breakfast and morning snack just before lunch. there's no worse smell than vomit mixed with apple juice. I just about lost it myself. While I'm cleaning out the car and paying for the vacuuming, I'm griping about bashing my head on the door. My daughter asks what I'm upset about and my wife says, "you ruined his day."

Not true. My daughter didn't ruin the day. My soon-to-be ex-wife ruined the day. Again.

My Problem Solved

How many variations did we actually try to fix my computer? 20? 30?

Whatever. The problem looks like it's finally solved and I need a new motherboard. A techie at the company where I originally bought the computer emailed me to ask if my 'processors were burnt out. Now, before sending an email telling him that I was completely burnt out, I checked the processors on my motherboard (they look like batteries standing on end) and lo and behold --5 of them were completely thrashed. My super-genius friend then said over the phone, "I never would have thought to look at those. I've never seen that happen."

That's me. I make the impossible happen.

I've now ordered my new motherboard and I should be computer-savvy again within the week. I hope.

My New Nightmare

I shoulda just bought a new computer.  We're coming up on a month now since my hard-drive packed it in and I decided to go all-out on the new HD, monitor, printer, and DVD-burner.  This is the longest my computer's been running in 3 weeks.  And we're coming up on 9 minutes.
I've had a very, very (VERY) good friend trying to fix this nightmare machine and he originally surmised the video card had failed.  So, out to the store and $130 later I have a new video card.  I installed it, but all I got was 'no signal' from my monitor so out it came again until my friend can look it over.  The next thing to go was the RAM. 512MB gone in an instant, so back out to the store and $160 later, I have new memory.
and computer is running --sort of.
My friend installed WinXP and OfficeXP for me, then he let it run for the afternoon with no problems.  I installed Mozilla Firefox, Norton Antivirus, and Novell Groupwise email server (work email) and...
KABLOOEY!  The computer would restart whenever I double-clicked on anything.  So, I've uninstalled Firefox, uninstalled Novell and we're at 12 minutes without a restart.
Yay.
For those keeping score, this has cost me nearly $1200.00 now.
I shoulda just bought a new computer.

My Dread

So, today's the beginning of The Big Project, which I figured would totally burn me out just before my vacation which officially starts on Monday.

But lo and behold, while I was expecting to be putting in 30+ hours over the next 4 days, my participation level is more along the lines of 18 hours. I can handle that. It's more like my vacation beings today.

And that's exactly what my children have figured out. As if a 'sign' from the two, both have decided to turn into monsters just in time for me to be home for the next 3 weeks. My daughter (who talks constantly already) has brought the whining up a notch or two. My son, sadly, has discovered a new horrible trait just shy of his first birthday:
The hissy-fit.

He literally sprawls out on the floor and screams and kicks and pounds his fists and he's discovered it a year early. This is going to be a long 3 weeks.

My Ringtone

The Boy & I were discussing ringtones today.  We've both set ringtones for the work number, so we know when we're getting 'the call.'  But I had to laugh at his choice of ringtones.  He's got the 'Mission Impossible' theme ringing whenever the office calls.  Why?  To him, it means that he's got an impossible task ahead of him (talking to Drama Queen is definitely a task these days).  To me, it sounds like it's super-urgent that he pick up the phone before it self-destructs.  Then he asked me what my ringtone for work is....

"Turkey in the Straw."  Fitting, yes?

My Own Hero

I complained about traffic yesterday and I could literally write for hours about how bad drivers are in this town.  Then again, even thinking about it is enough to set me off and was a major reason why we moved out of here 6 years ago.

The highway I drive everyday to and from work is finally being widened after 25+ years of complaining and 'government planning' (oh, and 300 or so deaths... hello?).  It's an annoying highway in that it starts at one end with an ultra-modern bridge 4-lanes wide that then merges almost immediately after a traffic signal.  That means that half the drivers figure they can drive on the shoulder of the road in order to get ahead of you --even though you're being an asshole like everyone and are now doing 30+ km/h over the speed limit to stop the assholes from getting ahead of you.  Why?  Because we all do the same thing for the 10 km of one lane driving:  Do less than the speed limit.

But that's not even what I'm writing about.  Neither is this, but I'm getting there...

So, they're widening the roadway and it took them 6 months to pile dirt beside the highway in order to ensure whenever there was another accident, the vehicles had nowhere to go except into oncoming vehicles.  So, since the dirt's been piled there's only been an accident every other week.  

The dirt's lower, but that means paving is coming soon and with paving come delays.  So, people start to take side roads and lo and behold the city has decided it's the best time of year to clean out the ditches.  And the cable company has opted for this month to be the month they redo the cables along the side roads.  The telephone company opts to work on their lines... as does the hydro company.  Yep, every 20 feet there's another vehicle pulled to the side of the road making this conspiracy add 30-40 minutes to the already-bothersome commute.

So, I decided to start going further west to get to my job on the east side of town.  Good plan, yes?

Oh, great plan.  Yeah, give me 15 extra minutes because of lights and problems, right?  Wrong.  The 2nd light I get to, idiot boy with the mullet is carrying a camper on his truck.  Spins out leaving the intersection (very slippery roads as there was a quick storm blow through this morning and although he makes it through the intersection, the camper stays in
the middle of the intersection, blocking 1 northbound lane, 1 southbound lane and one westbound lane.  Way to go, loser.  I'm giving my statement to the police and mullet-boy is yelling at me saying he wasn't spinning "nothing".  Ugh.  I yell at him to shut up and get off the roadway.  I hand my business card to the officer and he chuckles.  He asks me if I yell a lot at work... Why yes, officer.  I do.

I leave the accident and head to work, now less than 40 minutes to go (I had planned on working out beforehand, but alas...).  I skip 2 blocks east in anticipation of getting around the mall just before the lunch crowds converge.  I'm sitting at the intersection when... a lady making a left in front of me runs over a pedestrian.

So, I'm out dialling 911 while using my first aid skills (oh yeah, I'm certified, baby!) on this 70-year old man who is going into shock.  I let the dispatcher know what's happening and where we are.  Meanwhile, the lady who was driving the car is yelling at me to let the man get up because "he's fine."  o I start yelling at her to sit in her car and wait for the police to arrive.  Fortunately, she does, but when the police officer (one from the previous accident no less) arrives, I'm yelling at her again because she's still insisting that this man is fine.  The ambulance arrives and they take over first aid on the poor guy and I'm still yelling at the woman.  I give my statement to the police officer (who called me by name when he was ready --kind of embarrassing in a way) and the only real questions he has for me are:
1 - Am I going straight to work?
2 - When am I off (so he hopefully doesn't have to deal with me later today)?

Fortunately, the rest of the drive is uneventful, but my 'detour' to save time took me an extra 95 minutes today.

I hate this town.

My F#^!-Up

Note to self: Next time you start installing software on the new hard-drive on the computer, don't install the ethernet card until you have the f$%%#$%#ing FIREWALL running!

Dammit.  My friend's fixing it as we speak.  New hard-drive lasted almost 5 minutes before it got hit with a bad virus.

My Ultimate Nightmare

Well, okay, I'll start with a 'positive...'

Went to visit some friends of ours this weekend to: a - see their new place (they sold their home for something like $320K and bought a new place further away for $170K --nice profit, eh?).  their place is beautiful and has a spectacular view of the valley. Tempting just because of the view.  Making it even more tempting was realizing we could still hear ourselves talk even with the kids going wild.  Why?  No traffic.  None.  I think 2 cars went by the entire time we were there --about 6 hours.  Beautiful.  At my house, 2 cars go by every second --and they're getting louder every year.  So much so that our dining room light now tinkles and vibrates when they drive by.  And we're over 30 feet back from the roadway.  Our street is so busy and it started when they widened a parallel street just west of our place a few years back.  They widened that one to 4-lanes because of the new housing development going in with 1,000+ homes.  So, with a choice of a 4-lane roadway or a 2-lane road --take the 2-lane road, ya morons!  And, yes, it's a lot steeper than the 4-lane road too, so everyone has to 'gun it' to get up the hill.  Take the other road and it doesn't burn out your car as much and if someone is having trouble getting up
the hill, then you can legally pass them in the inside lane.  Our street, nuh-uh.  You can't pass at all --legally.  some idiot tried every day though and every once in a while there is a patrol car there to hand over the ticket.  

So, yeah it's busy.  And here' this beautiful house worth about $50K less than ours with a spectacular view and no traffic.  Very, very tempting.

And then Drama Queen drops her news today.  She and her fiancée have bought a place not 5 blocks from my house.  Know what 5 blocks means?  It means she's in my backyard.  It means she can drop by unexpectedly because she's "in the neighbourhood."  It means she'll call me at home for even more inane reasons.  It means...

It means I need to move.

Soon.  And far away.

My Bitz

My new computer parts should be arriving today.  Got an email confirmation late last night that everything had shipped.  The only thing I'm miffed about is that I had everything shipped out here because a friend of mine in an old department is a computer-wiz and said he'd install the hard-drive and DVD-burner for me.  So, the stuff arrives today and I said I'd bring my computer in tomorrow (didn't know the items had shipped until early this morning!!) , he replied saying he wouldn't be in the office again until next week. 

But I'm not here next week!!  GAH!

So, now I have to drive everything to his place (and he just moved another 35km further away) in order to finally have a real computer to use at home while I'm on vacation.  Yeah, I said home.  I'm telling everyone around the office that I'm out of town the day I leave, but I'm actually not going anywhere until the 26th or so.  My boss mentioned I should block the work number on my cell phone as he's getting antsy with my accumulation of overtime hours (on the first day of vacation a phone call equals 4 hours of work and from the second day of vacation on, it equals 8 hours).  And my last day off, I had 4 phone calls (16 hours for a day off!!).  So, I took 2 days off to get rid of some of my overtime and ended up adding another 2+ days...  Whatever.  I can't be without the computer for my entire holidays.  Come Hell or high water, I WILL have stuff on eBay before the end of the month!!

All other plans are pretty much moot right now.  Anything I want to work on is idling because it all revolves around the computer and the Celeron 300 just ain't cutting it.  I had it running for 24 hours and it lost over 3 hours on the clock.  Norton SystemWorks shows it's running at 99% with no programs open (it used to be at 30% if you moved the mouse across the screen), so it's losing memory somewhere.  Unless the firewall eats up a lot of memory, there's something wrong with it too.  Regardless, when newer computer's fixed, then I add in Norton Anti-Virus and do a major-major-major update followed by an installation of the firewall.  Then I can start moving goodies over from the old pig and start anew.

I feel like I'm dying right now...

My Saturn Night Fever

The Cassini images from Saturn's moon Titan are coming in loud and clear.  Well, loud anyway.

This, according to rocket scientists, is a fuzzy picture.  But it's caused by the atmosphere --not a cheap-ass camera, in case you didn't know the difference.

Also of interest is the big 'H' appearing on the moon's surface:

Apparently the result of tectonic origins, the moon is officially branded.  That means there are two working theories:
1 - Titan is officially saying 'Hi' but it hasn't had the time to tectonically form the 'i' yet.  Hence, the message may not be meant for us here on Earth.
2 - Titan is the property of someone named Harry and they've put their brand on the moon and it is officially copyrighted.

Who says I'm bored?

My Wedded Bliss

8 years ago July 6, I got married.  Feels more like 30 or so years ago, but then... I'm only 30 now.  Laughed at my horoscope today.  It said that life would be changing, starting now.

So I've sat back to wait for it to hit me.

Nothing yet.  Although I am on the verge of making a decision regarding school.  I'm debating whether or not to pack up and head to Waterloo and try and finish up everything I can in a semester or two on campus.  It's been 8 years since I've taken courses on a campus and everything since has been by distance.  And I'm not motivated anymore.  That, and it's difficult to study when there's a kid on either side of you screaming for something --anything.  In fact, my motivation was at it's highest 5 years ago when I visited Jude on campus.  Not to say that Jude had anything to do with it (yeah, like I'd give her credit -- ;o) ), but for the first time in years I was feeling motivated for school.  then I had a couple bad semesters in a row and there goes the motivation.  Add 2 kids to the mix and 3 job changes and school drifts further and further away.  And so, accordingly, do the job prospects --but that doesn't seem to be a big enough motivator, even though reminders are thrown in my face every few months for the past 4 years.

And now my major has been dumped at Waterloo for distance students.  Great.  I'm looking elsewhere too.  That's what I'm left with and so far I've narrowed it down to 2 American schools, which sucks in a new variety of ways.  What will transfer over?  How far away am I now?  And can I get the degree I'm looking for there?

Regardless, it's a time to acknowledge and celebrate the decisions I made in life 8 years ago.  Focus on that for a while instead of the future.

My Finicky Computer

So, the new hardware for my computer has been ordered through a purchase plan here at work.  I can't afford (especially 3 days after paying property taxes) paying for the stuff any other way. By the end of the week, I'll have my new 200GB hard drive (yep, more room and more stuff to lose in the next crash!!), a new 19" flatscreen monitor (my monitor went in April and I've been using my 10-year old 14" for far too long), a new DVD-RW/DVD+RW (don't ask me the difference), so I can burn more and store it.  Each DVD is the equivalent of 5 CD-Rs, so my research can be condensed onto less material space now.  A new printer (mine's 6+ years old now) and a new scanner (6 year old scanner would randomly shut down my 1 year old computer) are also en route.

There's nothing worse than sitting at my desk with the old Celeron 300 and whining about how long it takes to load... anything.  I hate my finicky
computer.

My Vote

One of the arguments always made in favour of voting in an election is: "One person can make a difference."  To which most people respond: "Oh please."

If Americans didn't learn this valuable lesson in their last election, hopefully Canadians will today during their election.  Choosing which 'devil' to go with.

But one person CAN make a difference.  and here's my story:

Many years ago, I was working in a department where through the most unusual circumstances, everyone got along.  they got along so well, that they'd get together for lunch and watch movies, or go outside and play volleyball.  The boss recognized this camaraderie and encouraged it through special events, birthday lunches (there were a lot of staff members with birthdays in November, so we'd have a big pizza lunch and watch a movie and the boss would have a gift for everyone in the department).  We'd go on retreats and spend a weekend together.  We'd watch sports games together in a back room.

And then everything changed.

Mary, Mary (quite contrary) joined the department under unusual
circumstances.  She'd actually told her boss off (f--- off to be exact) and when the head of human resources was told about the event, he came down right away and said:  "We'll find somewhere else for you to work.  Where would you prefer to work instead?"

What?  Whatever happened to "You're fired!"?????  Did you hear what she said to her boss, fer cryin' out loud!?!!?!?

So, sure enough Mary, Mary has heard great things about our department and wants to join the party and immediately takes over another person's job.  They're out.  Gone.  Finito.  And that's without telling their boss where to go.  How's that for being unfair?

Mary, Mary arrives and starts arguing with people left, right, and center.  People start fighting back.  She cries and suddenly, she calls in sick.  Someone else says something to her and gets her upset.  Suddenly, she calls in sick.  Again.  and people clue in.  They start making a list of what makes her cry and use them once a week, just to make her call in sick.  It becomes the new joke:

Person #1 - "Good night, everyone!"
Remaining 10 in the office - "See ya!  G'night!"
Person #2 - "See you in the morning!"
Remaining 9 in the office - "Yeah!  Have a good one!"
Person #3 & 4 - "We're outta here!"
Remaining 7 in the office - "Yep!  See you guys!"
Mary, Mary - "I'm going now...  I'll lock the door behind me, okay?  Okaaayy?"
Remaining 6 in the office - "Go already!"
And the next day she calls in sick.  Gotta love it.

The joke continues for months, then years.  One day, after I've moved out of the department, a couple of the gang come by and invite me for birthday cake.  It's the third birthday of the month and we had my goodbye lunch that same month.  Somebody else makes a joke that we're like that Seinfeld episode where we have a cake for every occasion.  I smile and say, "We should have cake whenever Mary, Mary's sick."  Both friends laugh, "We could have cake everyday! quot;  She'd missed nearly a month of work (1 or 2 days at a time) already that year.

The department was miserable.  The lunchtime movies stopped because she complained about the noise level.  She refused to give her birthday (not birthDATE, just the day) to everyone because she witnessed the party held for 3 people hitting 50 (she's 48 --I know how old she is).  Then, THEN she started hiding people's mail if they'd insulted her.  One person's credit card bill disappeared every month for a year before the mailroom set her up with a personal mail slot.  Finally, she requested an extended leave when her bird (her freakin' BIRD!) died.  It was denied, but that didn't help giggles around the office.

This year, finally, she'd requested a leave of absence (granted with a capital GR!).  there's been 2 extensions on that LoA, but no one's actually complaining.  Every once in a while, I carpool with my old boss from that department.  We were talking about people on leave (there were a couple parental leaves in the department as well) and when they were coming back.  There's one very talented guy who returned last week and the boss couldn't be more excited.  At that, I didn't have the heart to ask him when Mary, Mary was expected back.  She's destroyed everything that was great about that
department.

That's one person, who ruined work for 32 others.  Why? Because one person can make a difference.

And that's why I vote.

My Hulk Persona

HOSER SMASH!!!!!

RRAARRRGGHHHH!!!!

Nope, not a good weekend.  As I write this, I'm using my old Celeron 300 computer instead of my Athlon XP super-system.  Why?  I said my system wen 'plooey' in my last post and now it's officially toast --losing 67GB of information in the process.  Could've been worse.  I had less than 500mb of space left on it at one point.

What really made me mad, though, was that I was getting "the pressure" again about selling things on eBay.  I've sold one thing in the past 3 weeks (and it sold for $42 so I'm feeling pretty good about it) and my goal was to have in excess of thirty (yep, 30) items for sale by 6pm on Sunday.  Now, I could cheat a little, since I have 20 or so items left over from my last big batch to relist, but I'd been doing research on Friday to find things that actually sold.  No more selling things cheap on the relist to dump the seller fees, I'd like to sell something for REAL money.

Saturday was set-up day and I spent a good portion of the morning writing out the descriptions for each item and doing some last minute research when I'd see something for sale that I own as well.  I also spent a good 4 hours doing virus sweeps and removal procedures but to no avail.  Whatever I got wasn't coming up with NAV, but the re-install of WinXP seemed to fix a number of things.  I then added a firewall program and it stopped the pop-up windows cold.  I thought it best to start backing up my files, though.  I don't trust the machine.

I'd planned for nearly a month now that I would not be going to church this Sunday.  I'm still feeling burnt out and need a break and having a number of things I still wanted to finish up, I thought the timing was good. I'm still of the opinion that I'll go to church because I want to go, not because I have to go --or expected to go.

But then there's the wife.  And my unacceptable decision.  While she continuously complains that we don't have enough money coming in and I need to do more about it, she won't give me space to actually get all the work done.  Hence, I can start preparing, but I can never finish.  So, when I'm almost ready to list a good number of items, she insists that if I'm staying home, then so is my son.  

Fine, then I won't get anything done today --he's too much to handle if I'm trying to work too.

Not an hour later, I'm holding my son and look over to the computer.  It's frozen, so I simply hit the 'reset' button.

And nothing happens.

It's fried.  The hard-drive won't read anymore.  I have to wait another 90 minutes before my wife gets home and I can start setting up my old system downstairs to try and salvage anything for listing.  I'd planned on 30-plus items by 6pm.  By 4pm, I'd finally installed security updates galore for the old Win98SE system and was "ready" to try and get something going.  My eBay listing program won't work on the old computer, so it was going to be done manually instead. 

At 4:30, my wife decided we needed to go early to meet my parents for dinner and try and get the boy to finally have a nap --he'd been awake all day and usually sleeps for a good 90 minutes or so each day.  Nothing today.

My goal: 30+ items on eBay.

My actual result: 1 item on eBay.

My frustration level:  Through the roof and beyond the stars, baby.

The computer goes in for servicing today.  Even the keyboard on this one sucks...

My Computer Goes "Plooey"

I'm assuming that despite constant updates of my NAV (Norton Anti-Virus, but you knew that, yes?) I'm assuming that I've been attacked something fierce by the KORGO worm --in one of its numerous incarnations.  My NAV for whatever reason won't do live-updates as it says it can't find an internet connection, even when I'm in the midst of downloading something or checking my email.  It has no idea what to do and subsequent reinstalls have done nothing to help.  I know I got the Startpage.E trojan earlier in the spring (actually probably 6 weeks or so than the first reported instance on Symantec's site) which screwed up 2 browsers: Avant and IE.  Can't use either anymore and the NAV virus removal tool didn't help get rid of everything.  Ugh.

Have to try again and now I've printed everything out at work. More work for the Hoser tonight.

At least I have an excuse why there's no new eBay auctions today..  1 thing currently selling and I was hoping to get $40US for it.  It's at $42 right now with 58 hours to go.  Sweet.  It is all about the resarch.  Why spend an hour getting stuff to sell for a buck when you can spend an hour finding stuff to sell for over $40?

My Revenge

My boss sent an email this morning asking if we can make it work to keep the office open longer hours over the summer.  Not exactly what I'd hoped to see, but he also asked me if I'd be willing to take a few days off in lieu of all my overtime hours.  It turns out payroll corrected my OT claims for my holiday phone calls from DQ.  I thought it was a straight 4 hour OT claim for every phone call for a day off and that's only true for the first day off.  The other calls double after the first day off in a series of vacation days.  In other words, instead of 16 hours that I claimed, it's actually 32 hours --or almost another entire week. But how are we supposed to manage the office if there's so few of us around and more hours than originally planned?

DQ will be working those extra hours.

So, I'm off for almost the entire summer now. I'll be working July 8,9,12,13, & 14 and August 23rd on.

DQ will be working the night shift. Revenge is sweet.

My Target

It's been a frustrating week with the co-worker from Hell.  I pretty much lost it yesterday --to the shock of other people, 'cuz I've been a fairly level-headed guy while working here.  But not yesterday.

Drama Queen had her 3 strikes by 11 yesterday morning, so when a 4th "swing and a miss" came in before lunch I seriously started looking for a baseball bat.

She'd had 3 strikes on Friday, which I wrote about in the last post and topped it off yesterday with 3 more.  I got an early start in order to alleviate the pressure on me later in the day.  The boss had a new assignment for me and wanted it to be the top priority for the day.  I finish up a bunch of
little things first and prep for the boss' arrival.  Minutes after he comes to the office, one of the ladies I'll be working with at one of the major events in mid-July drops by the office --for our meeting.  See, the meeting was actually scheduled for July 5, but she'd called last week to rearrange the meeting to an earlier time.  She spoke to Drama Queen and DQ gave her my schedule for this week, saying I was available all morning on Tuesday.

If only DQ had written it in my calendar, yes?  In her defence, she DID tell "The Boy" about my changed schedule --like that helps (although she thinks it does --it's obviously his fault for not passing the information on, right?)

So, after the quick lecture to DQ about the importance of letting me handle my own meetings and the importance of taking messages instead of finalizing things for me, I head off for the meeting --which I cut very short since I had absolutely no prep time for everything we needed to talk about.  When I return, my boss isn't impressed but an explanation after the meeting clears
things up --a bit.  But before I sit down to start working on my "top priority for the day," in walks someone from the accounting office with a stack of paperwork that DQ has told them I'll be happy to handle.  I reply, I won't be happy to handle it and escort them down the hall to DQ's desk and plop it down there.  DQ will be working on the paperwork since she was happy enough to volunteer me.

Strike 3 happens not 10 minutes later when the people going to the follow-up meeting --from the Saturday thingy mentioned in the last post-- seems to have lost their way to the meeting room.  DQ had special signs posted for the meeting, but forgot to put a date on it and the custodians took them down over the weekend.  Idiot.

DQ starts panicking and puts a nasty call through to the custodial department (like they care that she's stupid enough to forget to put the dates on the notices).  She then leaves the office to try and find people presumably wandering around lost.  I take the saner approach and put a call through to
our switchboard letting them know where the meeting is (in case anyone phones in and asks) and then I call the front information reception area and let them know.  While I'm talking to her, she's interrupted by a panicky woman (obviously ignorant of the phone at the receptionist's ear) who says that she's looking for a bunch of people who don't know where their meeting is taking
place.  The receptionist asks if it's the meeting I'm talking about and sure enough DQ says it is... but she's confused as to how the receptionist knew about the meeting.  "Well, maybe he knows what he's doing and you
obviously don't." [sound of chuckling from the other end of the phone]

When the meeting's about to start (only an hour late), we discover that the meeting materials have completely vanished.  DQ "thinking ahead" stored them in the room over the weekend.  and, naturally, the custodians
threw out the box at some point in the previous 96 hours.  It's unclaimed paperwork inside a box with no discernable information on it.

And then I explode.

The boss and I go for a walk later on in the afternoon.  I explain to him the importance of her leaving, but he apparently has another trick up his sleeve and I'm more than vocal that if he plans on having her stick around in some other capacity he's going to lose the rest of his staff sooner than he thinks.  You don't go through 6 people in a year for no reason.  I'm
going to be thinking up some nasty work for her over the remaining few weeks.  She's my target now.

My Final Firefighting Technique

I let my boss know that Friday night was the last time I was putting out any fires started by Drama Queen.  He'd mistakenly asked her if she'd "gone over" the checklist he'd given her (yep, he's had to start using micromanagement techniques on her to ensure the works gets done) for a big thing
happening on Saturday.  "Yes, I went over the checklist," she says as she leaves the office early on Friday...

She did go over the checklist --but she didn't actually check off everything on the list.  Which my boss discovered 2 minutes before most departments close on a Friday.

So there I am, running in 4 directions at once trying to cover up all the mistakes that have been made.  Oh, she got the booklets photocopied all right, but she didn't fill out the forms properly, so they were transferred to the shipping department and they assumed the most logical spot for them to go --6 blocks away.  Fortunately, I've known the head of shipping for a good 5 years now and he drove over and picked up the booklets. 

While he did that, I borrowed his office and contacted catering services to make arrangements for food and refreshments 16 hours in advance of the big thing starting.  Thank God I'd complimented his department at a meeting on Monday...

As I ran over to sign off on the catering, I also contacted the security department via cell phone for the passes DQ had called about.  she'd made the arrangements, but said nothing about anyone having to pick them up.  That, and to ensure that security would be on-hand for the early arrivals.  4 years ago, I was at a workshop with the head of security and we discovered we had some hobbies in common.  It's helped out numerous times (also explains why my parking permit serial number is 00001 too).

Okay, so it took 5 minutes to get everything done, but I busted my ass in those 5 minutes to make sure everything went off without a hitch.  I was actually huffing and puffing by the time I got back to the office (allergies and all).  My boss knows who he can count on in a crunch.  Let's just make sure he doesn't forget over the summer.  Again.

Not going to miss her when she's gone.  At least I got a good laugh out of it when I read this Dilbert on Sunday: