kapgar

Livin' and a workin'...

In an ideal world, everybody would have vacation for those few days between Christmas and New Years.

This, however, is not an ideal world.

Hence why, for the last few days, I've been slaving away at work.  And only two others have been here as well.  In an office of eight, only three were here.  This, of course, does not include our student employees who also were not here.

In all honesty, this entire campus is a ghost town.  As you would expect, there are no faculty members anywhere to be seen.  That, alone, eliminates about 35% of the employment level.  Throw in about half of the academic support staff who are also MIA and I'd say we're at about 50% of our total employee count.  Then, of course, there are the rest of the people on campus that took these few days as vacation days. 

I can pretty much count the cars on campus using just my fingers and toes.  Okay, that may be a bit of an exaggeration, but it seems close.

But I love working on these days.  It's so quiet.  No meetings.  No phone calls.  No e-mails.  No spontaneous visits.  No last-second design requests.  I can catch up on so much during these few days.  I live for days like this.

And the other bonus is that, because I am here this week, I score a few floating vacation days that I can use anytime in the month of January.  I think I'm going to combine those with a few of my own vacations days and take a week off and do nothing.

Ah perfection!

(my idealizations are so far removed from reality...)

Cover me Lord...

One of the worst things about being beyond the age of college students is dealing with insurance.

I hate it.  I hate it.  I hate it.

And this is the time of year for open enrollment. 

If you're scratching your noggin wondering what this is, allow me to explain.  Once a year, insurance companies or HR departments within your company will allow a restricted time period during which employees can alter their insurance coverage and/or benefits, en masse.  You are free to change anything, everything, or nothing at all.

In my case, I was planning to change nothing through my organization's insurance because I do not use the insurance here.  Katie and I have the same plans available to us through her work but for a much lower cost (the wonder of her working for a big conglomerate company).  So, when the open enrollment packet came across my desk in the mail a few weeks ago, it stayed right there.  I never touched it.  I didn't see any need to.

Apparently, however, I did need to.  Despite the fact that I don't have insurance here, I still have to fill out a form denying my right to be insured.  Huh?  We have to kill a tree so I can say "no"?  That makes very little sense to me.  If I already filled out a form saying that I'm denying coverage once, why do I have to keep doing this year after year after year.

And, I seem to be one of the last people on campus to turn in his forms.  Hmm...  I enjoyed being last in class to be chosen to present projects and the like.  I even got to a point where being chosen last for team sports in grade school gym class didn't bother me anymore.  But being known as the last person to turn in his insurance forms doesn't strike me as something to be proud of.  Especially when one of our HR people told me today that people are scrambling to get their forms done because they don't want to be last.

We are in a race to not be last.  And all over insurance form filing.  How sad is that?

If you're young enough to still be a rider on your parents' insurance, I highly recommend staying there.  It is much easier.  Let your parents deal with the headaches.

Through the tears that I have cried...

Be proud of me, for I did my iota of civic duty du jour and donated blood.

And there was much rejoicing... yay.

Actually, I've been a pretty regular blood donor since my freshman year in college, which was really the first time I ever had the opportunity.  Anywhere between two and four times a year depending on how often they would let me in the door or in the line at whatever blood drive was being held at school or work.

However, for the past couple years, I've been a bit lax on my donating regularity.  Dunno why, to be honest.  I just haven't done it.  Maybe it's the annoying, pestering phone calls I received on a semi-regular basis from my local blood bank.  They have my name and number on file and, damn, they're not afraid to use it. 

I want to feel like I'm doing this out of the goodness of my heart (there's an oxymoron if ever I typed one) and not have it feel like some obligation.  And trying to schedule a time to donate with a place that closes at the same time I get off work just doesn't... well... work.

I realize that in this time of national tragedy (read: our recent cluster of hurricanes), I should be worried less about how I feel about doing something and more concerned with any method by which I can help.  And I likely would have donated if I'd received another call.  But it's actually been a few months since a call came through and I just plain forgot.  C'est la vie, I suppose.

But, I was the one that posted the information about this blood drive on the Web site here at work, so there was no way for me to not know about it.

And I actually remembered.

So, be nice to me, I gave...

And I have photographic evidence of it as the media relations director in my office snapped this shot of me laying on the cot getting ready to be stuck with that needle.  Yes, I was reading.  Is that so wrong?

Oh, hell, this could just be me attempting to fall asleep during my lunch break for all you know.  So, you'll just have to take me at my word. 

As for the post title... not the most appropriate song lyrics, per se.  But I figured that any song by Blood, Sweat and Tears would be appropriate as I have now officially shed all three at work.  Heh.

Life's no fun without a good scare...

Two quick questions to ponder when reading the rest of this post...

1. Is this more appropriate for Halloween or April Fool's Day?
2. Does anyone have a human mannequin (or at least the upper torso) lying around that they could loan me?

Scratching your heads wondering what my evil little mind is cooking up yet?

Excellent (meant to be read the way Montgomery Burns would say it, of course).

Like many great male ideas, I know where I was when I thought of this... the bathroom, where else?

More specifically, the bathroom at work.

As I've said a couple times in the past, my office at work is actually situated in a house across the street from the main campus.  Being in a house, we have your typical in-house bathroom complete with glass-doored shower/bathtub that sits right in front of the toilet.  While sitting on the toilet, I thought to myself, "what a waste of a shower; what could I do to liven it up a little bit?"

* VOILA! *

My beautifully vile brain came up with the idea of coming in to work early and filling up the tub with a bubble bath and seating a mannequin in said bath with a few candles and maybe a magazine of some sort. 

But should I have him/her/it holding the magazine two handed or should I reserve one of the hands to wave to the first person who sits on the toilet and "discovers" my little creation?

So...

Re: question #1 above -- Halloween or April Fool's Day?  I'm leaning towards Halloween.  More of a thrill and chill factor in this prank as opposed to the goofiness typically inherent in pranks committed on April 1.

Re: question #2 above -- who has a mannequin or knows where I can find/rent one real cheap (preferably "free")? 

And I hope my boss is reading this.  Will I... or won't I?!?!  Muahahahahahahahaha!!!!

(Oh yeah, image is courtesy of nwmanikin.com which is way out of my price range.)

Ain’t no rest for the weary.

Why is it that vacations are such a mixed blessing?  You're thankful for the time off, but it comes back to bite you in the kiester when you return. 

I've been back from my trip to Florida for a week and a half now and the workload has been nonstop.  I cannot even fathom what it will feel like to have dug my way out from under this pile. 

One habit I usually try to maintain is to make sure that all the messages in my e-mail inbox can be read without scrolling down by the end of each day.  Typically, I'm pretty good about accomplishing this.  To keep me from having to scroll, I need to have eight or fewer messages in my inbox.

As of the time I left work, I was at 22 messages in my inbox.  So much for that goal.

For the most part, these messages are mostly requests for Web updates.  So my graphic design work is not even included in this tawdry to-do list.

I feel like I'm going to burst.  In fact, I feel like this poor bastard (more info from Snopes)...

But, I guess I'm at least getting exercise wheeling myself back and forth from my Mac to my PC.  Heh.

And Katie and I are going to start painting the walls in the stairwell and the upstairs hallway tonight.  Maybe the paint fumes will give me some much needed "sleep."

Who needs sleep?

To quote the late, great Fred Gwynne in Pet Sematary, "sometimes, dead is better."

That's the prevailing sentiment around the office today. 

Just when one of us thinks they are starting to get ahead on projects, we make the damn-fool mistake of looking over on our desk or in our inbox and see that our workload has just been piled upon.  When we get one thing done, we wind up with three more new projects.

Unlike Johnny -- oops, sorry, "Captain Radical" as he's recently renamed himself and his blog -- I think we are all on the verge of going postal. 

We are the walking dead today, and it's only Tuesday. 

Just look on any of our faces and you'll see nothing but crestfallen defeat etched in the lines under our eyes. 

It's painful to watch.  Thankfully my eyes are so blurred from staring at computer monitors all day that I'm not seeing particularly clearly anyway.

I think I need to recquisition a cot.  And a big fluffy pillow.  And.... *snore*

(Image courtesy of grinningplanet.com)

We're jammin', I wanna jam it wid you.

I am about to pull out what little remains of my hair.

I have been trying to get through a bunch of graphic design projects at work and have been having nothing but problems.  PC... Mac... doesn't matter.  Both of my systems have hit a logjam that just won't open up. 

I'm trying to work on a bunch of different projects in both Quark and Illustrator on my Mac and the Quark stuff is working fine.  Everything runs smoothly, saves quickly, and prints cleanly.  I can handle it.  However, Illustrator has been a temperamental little bitch lately.  No matter what I do, it just doesn't like it.  One postcard in particular is giving me a hard time.  It's a relatively image heavy design, but it's only a postcard for Chrissake.  It literally takes 10 minutes each time I need to open it, 10 minutes to save, and 10 minutes to print (if it does that at all).  I'm not making this stuff up.  It's terrible.  And I just want this piece done so I never have to deal with it again.

I think this can be traced, to some degree, to the shared file server we have recently implemented for our department.  It's great to be able to share files, which is something we have never been able to do until recently, but damn if it isn't slo-o-o-o-ow.  Molasses flow doesn't even describe it.  Molasses flow is practically class 5 rapids by comparison.

And, don't get me started on our print server.  That's where the PC problems have erupted.  I was asked to print a bunch of thumbnails of recent events that were to be used to show to someone here at work.  However, the photos are all 300 dpi (print resolution) and there are several hundred of them.  I don't know if there is a better software package to use for this, but we have nothing available on either our PCs or Macs (iPhoto doesn't like 300 dpi too much in my experience).  So I just highlighted them all on the PC and did a "print photos" thing out of the Windows Explorer window because it allows for "wallet sized" thumbnails.  It seemed like a good idea at the time.

Two and a half hours later and it has still only printed seven out of 18 pages... and that's just one out of four file sets that needed to be printed.  So I flushed the print queue on the PC and even did a "Cancel Job" on the printer's control panel.  It would not purge.  It just kept processing.  So we shut off the printer several times in hopes that this act would purge the queue.  No such luck.  I finally got a hold of someone in IT and they manage to purge it, but not before the damage was done. 

Now, I'm just completely frazzled and frayed and ready to commit Seppuku.  A little extreme?  Yes.  But considering the day I've had...

I defer back to my desire to go Office Space right about now.  But can I really go baseball bat-tastic on something that only exists in a virtual sense out there in cyberspace? 

A feasibility study may just be in order, don't you think?

The Great American Nightmare.

I always thought of myself as the proverbial "nice guy."  My wife refers to me as her "teddy bear."  I like to tell jokes when I can actually remember them.  I will be the first to pass on funny e-mail forwards (to select people and only when the jokes are truly funny enough to warrant it, which is rare).  I sing duets with one of my coworkers should we both have the sudden urge to break out into song, and badly at that.  For years, my friends have come to me for a comforting shoulder to cry on.

So when did I become someone who elicits fear?

My boss had me come into her office today and was giving me a heads up that I was going to be needed to fill in on some minor graphic design projects while our primary designer is tied up with a pretty high-priority project and when she goes on vacation the week after that.  My boss likes to give me a bit of warning and I do appreciate it.  Otherwise, our publications director would just be coming to me directly and catch me completely off guard which is never fun.

So she warned me this morning that this would be happening.  She also told me that the publications director was a bit scared of coming to me to ask me to do this.  She actually used the word "scared."

Apparently, when these projects are thrown at me, I don't usually give off an air of willingness to accept the projects.  Okay, I can understand that.  Timing is definitely a factor in the equation as I'm pretty bogged in projects.  Oh heck, when am I not bogged down?  So I can see it, to some degree.  I never thought I was being standoffish to the point of being frightening, though.

Today, when the publications director (PD) and the graphic designer (GD) came to my office to explain the projects, the PD just poked her head in slyly, which, of course, indicates that she has stuff for me to do.  I told her to come in, that I had been warned.  She asked with a bit of joking hint in her voice if she should stand back as she hands me the folder of projects.  Then the GD came in to help explain some of the projects.  As she was standing there holding one of the project tickets, her hands were shaking.

These are the same two people I'm constantly cracking jokes with.  Sharing funny Web videos.  Even loaning books to.  And they're acting as though my head is going to spew volcanic ash in their general direction.

To those that do know me personally, am I that bad?  Honestly.  I can take it.  No liquid hot magma will be tossed at you as a result.  I swear.

Working for a livin'.

Being what I like to refer to as a "minority computer user" -- a Machead -- I am more than willing to help those people in need when it comes to figuring out something on Macintosh computers or their Apple-related hardware and software.

Take, for example, today... I was sitting in the Atrium reading a book when a I spied a woman in her mid to late 40s (obviously one of our continuing ed or grad program students) working on an iBook.   I smiled to myself, thinking, "ah... yet another enlightened soul.  You go girl!"

At one point, she got up to leave and asked me if I could watch her stuff.  I agreed.  Upon her return a couple minutes later, I said, "all your stuff is still here."  She laughed and said, "I doubt anybody could get away with my stuff that quickly."  I replied, "I'm a Machead.  I would've run off with your laptop in a heartbeat."  She laughed again, but then got intrigued and asked if I knew much about configuring iPods, specifically her new iPod Mini.  Apparently, when she plugged in her iPod Mini via the USB port on the computer, her songs weren't uploading automatically as the instructions said they would.  She had nothing to show on her Pod for the dozen or so CDs she had ripped into iTunes.

I tried to let her know what things to look out for but I think I was just confusing her.  So she pulled the iPod out of her shoulder bag and asked if I could look at it.  Sure, no problem.  I plugged it in, it showed up on the desktop fine and even autostarted iTunes.  I just went into the options, clicked a radio button and the Pod burst to life loading her entire song library. 

She was exceptionally grateful going on and on about how simple I made it look (it really was) and how she can now finally use her Pod.

We started talking about music and she asked if I'd heard of the company called Shure.  Ummm, yeah!  They only make the best-rated, noise-canceling earbuds that you could ever ask for on your Pod (or any digital music player for that matter).  I had actually been pricing new earbuds for my Pod this morning and was despondent over the sheer cost for Shure buds.  At the low end, as per the Apple Store, they price in at nearly $150.  High-end models on the Apple site cost somewhere around $300.  They may have even come more expensive, but I was too depressed to really pay much attention.  I could never justify spending that kind of money no matter how much use I would get out of them.  Looking on the Shure Store site, they have buds ranging from $109-499.  Ouch.

She said that her son is a mechanical engineer working for the company and that he's getting her a pair of the buds (no specifics as to which model).  I was ready to drool.  She started talking about how he loves working for Shure and that they are a local company, which I did not know.  They also have infrequent inventory closeout sales that they were considering opening up to the Web community as well.

We were talking for about ten minutes before one of her classmates showed up and my cellphone started ringing.  We said our goodbyes.  And, as I walked away, I kept wishing that she was grateful enough to call her son and have him hook me up with a set of buds.  Even just a discount.  Any help at that price point would be greatly appreciated.  Alas, no such luck.

Despite the lack of recompense, I was still more than happy to help her out.  And, I find that just about any Mac user seems willing to do the same when they find a brethren in need.  Funny how that never happened when I was strictly a Windows user. 

Beer run.

Maybe I'm hungry (or, more to the point, thirsty).  Perhaps it's just my sleep-starved brain "at work" here.  However, this morning, when the air conditioner in my office kicked on, I swore I smelled beer.

There I was, just sitting in front of my computer, the A/C comes on and I could smell it.  Clear as day.

Unfortunately, it didn't smell like a good beer.  It smelled like a drunken frat party sort of beer.  Keystone.  Schlitz.  Old Milwaukee.  That sort of crap.  The type that someone might actually pour into an A/C unit in disgust.  But it was, most decidedly, beer that I smelled.

Nobody else mentioned smelling anything weird.  Be it beer or something else.  Hell, at this hour on a Friday, I don't think there'd be complaints from my office mates even if they could smell it.  If anything, there might be some drooling.  But none of that was happening either.

I really need to get home.  I really want a beer.  Good thing tonight is game night with some friends of ours.  Where there are games, there is beer.

But I also need to get my beer out of the garage and into the fridge since the mercury is supposed to jump to over 100 degrees this weekend.  Sunday is supposed to be the worst with a heat index at almost 115 degrees.  Yikes!  I will need that beer to be frosty cold.

I'm sorry.  That was my most pointless post ever.  I dunno why I did it.  Just one of those Friday oddities.

Where is my mind?

Being that it's summer and I work at a university, we are allowed to leave at 4:30 in the afternoon instead of the normal 5:00 p.m. that we toil through during the rest of the year. 

As 4:30 approached yesterday, I started to pack it all in.  I shut down my PC and my Mac (I am one of only two offices on campus that has both types since I am one of only a couple of people that can use both relatively fluently), killed some lamps, and started to throw all my personal stuff in my bag.  I threw my bag over my head and shoulder, grabbed my iPod, and went to grab my keys.

My keys!  Where the hell are my keys?!

I start digging under a few piles of paperwork on my desk... to no avail. 

Damn!

I look over on the file cabinets on the other side of my office... nothing. 

Shit!

I dig around in my bag knowing that there is no possible way that they could be in there since I didn't put anything in my bag other than the book I was reading over my lunch break, my Palm Pilot, and a pen.  As I suspected... nada.

Mutha puss bucket!

I never loan my keys to anybody as no one else would have any need for them.  I have the same office key that everyone else has.

Fuck! (Hey, my internal dialogue wasn't censored, why should my blog be?  Deal with it.)

My hands graze over my pants pockets and still no sign.

Finally, I realize where they are.  I had them with me when I went on my lunch break and remember taking them out of my pocket in the atrium where I like to read and put them on the couch next to where I was sitting.

Contrary to what you might expect, panic is really starting to set in now.

I'm not sure that the realization of their actual location was much more comforting than the confusion I felt during my desperate quest.  Sure I knew where they ideally should be, but we're talking about the second-busiest building on campus and they had been sitting in the middle of a rather major thoroughfare for about four hours.  It may be summer, but there are still students on campus taking classes.  Not good.

I hauled it over to where they should be planning out the worst-case scenario in my head on the way. 

Where would someone turn in lost keys if they found them in that building?  Would it be campus security?  What is the number for campus security?  Where did they move their damn office?  What if they were found but not turned in?  There's nothing of value on that key chain to anyone other than myself, is there?  Upon realization of what kind of car I drove, would they actually steal it or just throw the keys to the curb in disgust (hey, I love my '97 Ranger, but I doubt it has that high a resale value on the Black Market)?

Sorry, but I have an innate mistrust of human nature.  I'm a pessimist.  I've learned to accept it.

My keys were, indeed, there.  Right where I left them.

I breathed a sigh of relief and headed back to my truck. 

Sorry the story doesn't veer off into the whole "I had to call Ford and have them recut keys for my truck and have all these other places to which I had keys on my keychain recore their locks as well."  I did have a happy ending.  But it was still frustrating nonetheless.

Can't rain all the time.

More like never; at least insofar as this summer goes.

Until just this moment.

About an hour and a half ago, I received a mass e-mail from our Campus Safety department that detailed a thunderstorm watch for the Aurora, IL, area.  Right.  Like I haven't seen these before.  We had a flurry of four of them in one day about a month ago and didn't see a drop as a result.  So I treated this one with the proverbial grain of salt and went about my business.

I went on my lunch break shortly afterwards.  I like to spend my lunch in the atrium of one of the buildings on campus where I can read a book or listen to my iPod and just relax.  So I did that.  Every so often, I looked out the window and saw that the sky was starting to get a bit murky.  Just a few minutes before finally packing it all in, I saw that the skies were mired in dark grey clouds.

Hmm... I don't usually buy into any weather forecast, period, but maybe WeatherChannel.com was right this time. 

As I walked back across campus, a few drops started to fall.  The rain fell progressively faster and now it's a full-blown downpour. 

It's a beautiful thing.

And it's all my doing.  On my way to work, I decided I was going to get a carwash.  Thankfully, I haven't done it yet.

Just looked outside again.  It's now down to a slow trickle.

Damn.

Wait, now it's coming down pretty hard again. 

It's wet outside.  I'll just leave it at that and be happy.

Mother Nature... teasing bitch.

Crying wolf.

If there is one word in the English language that I hate as a result of my life as a working professional, it is the word "prioritize."

Courtesy of m-w.com...

Main Entry: pri·or·i·tize
Pronunciation: prI-'or-&-"tIz, -'är-; 'prI-&-r&-
Function: transitive verb
Inflected Form(s): -tized; -tiz·ing
: to list or rate (as projects or goals) in order of priority

The person who developed that word, I'm sure, had the best intentions in mind.  It is a very useful term when used correctly and, even more importantly, sparingly.

However, nobody where I work has any clue whatsoever as to the true essence of the word "sparingly."

Since I work in public relations, we have systems in place to proofread and fact check publications before we send them to the printer and then out into the public realm.  I am one of the primary proofreaders in my office.  Things don't end with me, but they certainly start with me. 

One of the key points to mention in our proofreading system is that some things take priority over others.  When we see a proof project come across our desk with a little yellow Post-It Note with the singular word "RUSH" on it, we are to drop everything as though the sky were about to fall should we delay even a moment.  I think I could be having a seizure on the floor and be expected to stop spasming long enough to proof a "RUSH" project.

Seriously, though, all of us were fine with this delineation.  RUSH projects get our foremost attention.  Any other proofing assignment or personal project can be put off a little while longer so long as it's not too long.  We still need to meet our deadlines.

And this would be where the concept of "sparingly" would be so important.  You need to figure out what truly is a RUSH project and what is not.  You need to make sure people never forget just how important a project marked RUSH truly is supposed to be. 

However, not a single person seems to know how to distinguish the difference because timeliness is of the essence to all of us in our respective projects. 

This little theory of mine has been proven lately by the fact that I have seen a RUSH tag on literally every proof project that has come across my desk in the last three or so weeks.  Even one of my coworkers made mention of this fact to me.  She asked why everything is such a damn rush these days.  I couldn't give her an answer.  But we both agreed that the effectiveness of the notation has been severely watered down.  Sanitized to the threshold of meaninglessness.  It's pretty safe to say that we both truly hate Art Fry and Spencer Silver right about now.

I don't know what makes one person think their project is so much more important than someone else's project. 

Everyone has deadlines, that's a given.  It's how the world works.  But to crow from your perch that every one of your projects is more important than mine takes some real balls.  Cojones de acero (appropriate image, don't you think?).   

Today, however, I got to have a little fun with the RUSH notes.  I finished my own legitimate RUSH project and was able to stick my own note on it.  And, now, everyone must listen to me.  Muahahahahaha.

The power is intoxicating.  I feel so... so... yeah, okay, it doesn't do much of anything for me in all honesty.  It's a Post It, for God's sake.

Of course, I pointed out to my sympathetic coworker the "(Go Fig)" note I had hand scrawled under the word "RUSH."  She got a chuckle out of it.

If only the rest of our coworkers realized how little significance these notes carried anymore.  Wonder if any of them are reading this.  Hmm...

And other duties as assigned.

I suppose I should start with some of the factual corrections regarding yesterday's post.  As you all know, when it comes to breaking news on the Web, facts are not given much regard when it comes to timeliness.  So I just reported what I knew when I knew it.  Probably not the best idea if I'm trying to be accurate.  But I wanted to get the post up.  At least I, unlike many other media outlets, am taking the time to acknowledge the need for corrections.

Four explosions, not six or seven.  Three in the Tube, one on a bus.  38+ dead so far and varying accounts on injuries with the extreme being 700.  "Coordinated" does not refer to the attacks all having occurred at the same moment.  Instead, just that they were done moreso in collaboration and intended to have the same effect by hitting similar targets using similar methods.  All four of the explosions happened within an hour of each other, though.  There are also reports that two more undetonated bombs were found with timers attached which rules out the theory of suicide bombers having done all this.

That's enough about that other than to continue to offer my support and prayers to my British friends and all others affected by this attack.

In happier news, I have been taking advantage of the latest feature on the iTunes Music Store -- Podcasting.  It's kinda like radio without having a tuner.  Radio-styled shows are recorded and encapsulated into digital format.  Then you download them to your computer and either listen to them through your computer's MP3 player or use your portable MP3 player.  I've been opting for the latter and putting them on my iPod.

iTMS has its own New Music Tuesday podcast which highlights some of the new music that is available.  It's not bad; not great, but not bad. 

But my favorite podcast, by far, is The Skinny on Sports.  Effectively, it's a weekly podcast featuring Andy and Matt Skinn (hence "Skinny") taking ten minutes to give highlights of the week in sports.  The podcast is split into four quarters of two minutes each and then there is overtime for whatever they want to discuss.  I love when they use overtime for their Gmail Bag - responding to e-mail sent to them.  Good stuff.  These guys know enough to not sound like jackasses, but they don't get all high and mighty in their knowledge and lord it over the listener, either.  Good stuff.  If you have the means, then check it out.

But, iTMS's New Music Tuesday was definitely good for one thing this week... it introduced me to Reverend Run's (at left in photo) latest track, "Mind on the Road," from his forthcoming album Distortion (due September 13).  This is classic Run DMC stuff here.  I'm trying to find information on the song now with little luck, but it sounds like he may have collaborated with one of the Beastie Boys on this track which uses a sample from Joan Jett and the Blackhearts' "I Love Rock 'n' Roll."  I was, and still am, a big Run DMC fan so I am very much looking forward to the release of Distortion. 

Lastly, you all know that if there's one thing I hate at work, it's when equipment doesn't work the way it's expected to.  Usually, it's the computers (network or printers).  Today, however, the A/C went out in my office.  The outside temperature is up in the high 80s and, sadly, it's cooler out there than in here.  And my office, for whatever reason, is worse than the rest.  It's always been this way.  My office is always 10 degrees warmer, be it in the summer or winter, than the offices immediately surrounding me.  It's great in the winter because I'm always nice and warm.  But in the summer, everyone else bitches because their offices are so cold while mine is boiling up.  In five years, I have been unable to find a happy summer medium.  I just don't get it. 

However, I did get one small reprieve this afternoon.  I am spending the last hour and a half of my workday over in the library burning DVD copies of a promotional video for the university.  And the A/C certainly works over here.  Why the library?  It has the only machine on campus with video editing software (eMac with Final Cut Pro) and the finished video is stored on this hard drive. 

So how am I spending my time here?  Soaking up cool air, burning DVDs, listening to Reverend Run (and others) on my iPod, and typing to all of you.  How's that for "time well spent"?  And they're paying me.  Suckers.

It's not as though there's much else I can do while I wait.  None of the computers here have my software so I can work on either Web pages or graphic design projects.  I could be writing some articles for our upcoming publications but they're all done pending information that I'm waiting for from third-party sources that have yet to get back to me.  So there's not much else I really can do.

As much as I put up a stink with my boss yesterday about having to do this sort of bitch work when she told me "you're doing it," I was more than happy to acquiesce today considering the current mercurial state of our office.  Oh, twist my arm.  Send me where the temperature is about 65 degrees Fahrenheit and I don't need a squeegee for my forehead.

Sometimes, that little contractual caveat "and other duties as assigned" can bite you in ass; other times, it can feel like Heaven.  Thankfully, this one didn't wind up with me nursing a gluteal wound.

Mac attacked!

I've been having a strange little glitch with my Mac G5 tower at work.  It's just an odd little annoyance that only recently hit a bit of a head in my mind.

On a very rare occasion, when I click on any desktop icons, the computer would sit there and think for a second, then the icons and the control bar at the top of the screen would completely disappear, and then they would reappear after another second.  The folders that I have there, including my hard drive, would not open at all.  It's as though they had temporarily been negated from existence. 

Put simply, I would be unable to open any of my work files whatsoever.  I couldn't even open them by going in to the software and trying a File>Open.  However, nothing would happen to the application dock at the bottom of the screen at all.  I could open any piece of software I so desired as long as it had a shortcut in the dock.  And this is strange because the software itself is stored in the hard drive that I was unable to access by clicking on it from the desktop.  Go fig, right?

This usually only happens once a month, if that.  And the problem is quickly remedied by either a restart or a complete shutdown, depending on my mood.  So I just assumed that this was some sort of communication error in the computer.  No big deal.

Last week, however, I was restarting and shutting down over half a dozen times with no luck whatsoever.  I just could not get my Mac to open these desktop icons.  Finally, I broke down and called Justin, our resident Mac expert.  Of course, as you would expect, as soon as I hung up with him and restarted one last time, it worked fine.  So I put the problem out of my head.

Until today, when some woman from our IT department showed up saying she was there to fix my Mac problem.  It caught me a bit off guard as I had forgotten about the problem over the weekend.  I explained what happened and that it wasn't currently happening.  She decided to take a look anyway which I was fine with.

I must admit that I was very wary of her for a few reasons:

1. I've never seen her before in my life.  Thus far, Justin has been the only one to take care of big Mac problems on our campus as he is the only one willing to do so.  We have a couple other people that have taken on the task of learning about network troubleshooting on Macs, but not hardware/software problem solving.  So when someone completely new showed up, a red flag went up in my mind. But I was willing to let her give it a go if it meant that we would have another Mac tech around the proverbial shop.
2. She told me how it was so weird to work on a Mac again after two years.
   Ding ding ding ding ding ding!!!  Set system to DEFCON 2!!!
   
3. She told me that the last time she worked on a Mac, it was on OS 9.
   AWOOOOGGAAHHHHH!!!!  Run for the hills!!!!  Duck and cover!!!
   

Was I wrong for freaking out a bit?  I know it's my work computer, but I have become a bit attached to it.  I love that G5 like a surrogate second computer (nothing will replace my G3 PBook).  Plus, it has all my MP3 files on it.  I do not want to lose those (most have been backed up to DVD-R, but still and all the same).

Well, she couldn't figure out what was wrong.  She even opened up the belly of the beast to make sure all connections were securely in place.  She was at a loss.  I think she's currently talking to Apple to see what they can recommend.  I'll keep you informed.

In other Mac news, Justin, the same one I mentioned above, had some old Mac hardware lying around and decided to give it to me to play around with.  The stuff still works, or so he says, and I can do whatever I want with it since the school was just going to donate it anyway.

What he gave me includes an old UMAX SuperMac.  Dunno about the processor in it or anything as I have yet to fire it up.  He is also bringing me an old all-in-one Mac.  He wasn't sure offhand if it was a PowerMac 5200 (pictured at left), a PowerMac 5400, or a PowerMac 5500 (at right), but any of them would be fun to play with.  Yes, he does know his stuff, but the computer was just given to him and he's never had much of a chance to play with it.  It's been sitting in his at-home workshop collecting dust.  Not that I'm much of a Mac tech at all.  But it could still be fun to see what one of those boxes would be capable of doing when souped up a bit.  I've heard they can run OS X pretty well if given enough of a kick in the seat, per se.

I told him if he ever finds an old flavored iMac to send it my way.  We have several up on our campus on Lake Geneva and they tend to go on the fritz every so often (as computers that are five years old are expected to do).  That would be fun to play with.  I know they're not the easiest to fix, but a little tinkering never hurt anyone (and my wife is cringing as she reads this, I'm sure).

I'll let you know if I'm able to do anything with it or if it all just blows up in my face.  Bear in mind that it will be some time before I really have much of a chance to play with it.  Hell, I may just wind up reselling them on eBay or something.

Tap a vein.

The area around where my wife works has been subjected to a lot of retail growth in the last couple of years.  When she first started working up there (she's a pharmacy tech at Walgreen's), there were two small and not nearly filled shopping plazas, her pharmacy, and, I think, a Jewel/Osco across the street.  Otherwise, it was wide open space.

Now, however, there are at least a half dozen full-size strip malls, several outlot buildings that are filled, dozens of restaurants, and an even greater number of banks (should you wind up needing more money to spend in that area).  There is very little empty land left.  And, just when you think they couldn't possibly find more room to build, the construction companies amaze you yet again by squeezing yet another shop in where it doesn't seem at all feasible.

My wife likes to keep me informed about the new construction going on around her.  In fact, just today, she told me that there will soon be a Baker's Square across the street from her.  Then she called me back a half hour later to tell me that a liquor store would be going in right next door to her pharmacy.

Hmmm... that got me thinking.  What better way to cope with a busy work day and pissy customers than by having some kind of deal worked out with the owner of this liquor store?  I think they could have small shipments run back and forth... drugs for liquor, liquor for drugs.

Better yet, set up a mainline directly from the liquor store that feeds into IVs hooked up to each pharmacist and technician. 

Right about now, I'm making myself drool.  I think I could seriously use a tequila IV.  Reposado, añejo, blanco... I don't care.  Just hook me up!

Should I be worried by this desire I'm having?  Nahhh.  Hey!  It's after noon here in the CDT!

Talk about a smorgasbord.  Yum.

Talk about a positive working atmosphere.

Have you ever had one of those days where you are truly looking forward to going in to work?  There is something on the docket for the day that you just do not want to miss no matter what?  This would be one of those days that, even if you were on your deathbed, you would still want to make sure you're there on time.

I had one of those days today.

We spent the day on our George Williams Campus in Lake Geneva. 

I work at a small, private university that is land locked in the middle of a really nice looking subdivision that has a lot of history.  But not much of a view.  I look out the window in my office/bedroom, and all I see are a couple of trees and the house next door (which also serves as offices for our Advancement crew).  So it truly is not a whole heckuva lot to behold.

However, we also have a sister campus up in Williams Bay, Wisconsin, on the shores of Lake Geneva.  The campus is nice and hilly, surrounded by woods, spectacular landscaping, and you have "the view."  I don't think there is a bad view from anywhere on campus.  Especially when you can just look and see the lake.

If you have ever visited Lake Geneva (or "Geneva Lake" as the locals call it), it is gorgeous.  Not like so many other mucky lakes in the U.S.  This one is revered and it is well kept up as a result.  The water sparkles like so many crystals.  Even if it's overcast, there is still a light emanating from the lake that never fails to life your spirits.

I want this view permanently.  I just can't get enough of it.

It had been about two years since I've been on this campus and I was suffering withdrawal.  Finally, a few weeks ago, our boss told us that our staff development session would be held up here.  I knew, no matter what it was we would be doing, I would love it because of where we would be.  It's amazing how your surroundings can affect, either positively or negatively, your work disposition.  This place definitely affects me positively.

I want my office up here.  I want it now.  In the words of Captain Jean-Luc Picard, "make it so."

Injecting some personality

This is a post aimed to those people who have an office at work.  Be it a real office with four walls and a door; a cubicle with those faux walls and an entryway; a mobile office with four wheels, two to four doors, and an engine; or an at-home office.

What steps do you take to make your office reflect who you are?  What kinds of little tchotchkes do you have on display?  Posters or photographs?  Plants?  Feng shui fountains?  Let me know.  I'm curious.

I'm asking because we are talking about having an office cleaning day next month and I was looking around my office to see what stuff I could take home and what stuff I'd rather not do without.

My tally:

• Three framed pictures of either Katie and I together or her by herself.
• Several action figures including Yoda; Kermit the Frog; Superman; Stitch from Lilo & Stitch; Ralph Wiggum, Wendell the sick kid, and the Bumblebee Man all from The Simpsons; and Bossk from The Empire Strikes Back (one of my online nics).
• Other toys including a couple small Lego cars, some Geomags, a couple of Yo-Yos, and a Rubik's Cube.
• Several books relating to my job as well as all my MBA notes and projects (since I go to school where I work).
• Several posters including a giant subway-sized Al Pacino as Scarface, The Beatles' Abbey Road, a Finding Nemo mini poster, a Dodgeball mini poster, and a replica tour poster for the band Queen from back in 1974.
• A stolen campaign sign from a mayoral election in rural Florida for a guy with the same last name as me (my brother and I couldn't help ourselves).
• A Beanie Baby of Aurora the polar bear.  Appropriate since I dig on polar bears and I work at Aurora University.  Works nicely, don't you think?
• Three plants.
• Feng Shui fountain.
• Simpsons day-to-day calendar.
• Couple of candles.
• Other junk that has collected over the years.

In terms of odd things (not intended as decor), I have a toothbrush, small tube of toothpaste, a flosser, a pair of tennis shoes, and a stick of deodorant (I use the gym here during my lunch breaks).

May sound like a lot, but it really isn't.

So how do you decorate your workplace?  What makes it unique?  Be honest.

I think the oddest thing I have is also what gets the second-most comments from people visiting my office, and that is a mobile (as in MOH-beel) I made a few years ago. You know, the kind that you hang from the ceiling and let dangle in midair.  Several baby cribs have them. 

It's something I created from odds and ends that I found here at work.  I constructed the frame with two double ended wire hooks I found in our kitchen drawer (I work in a house purchased by the university that is across the street from campus; hence why we have a kitchen) and tied in a cross formation using string found in our basement. 

Hanging from the mobile are two old typewriter letter wheels on opposite ends and two mini data CDs on the other ends.  I found the letter wheels in one of our supply drawers and I obtained the mini CDs from trade shows. 

People love it because it is such a juxtaposition of technology.  The old and the new, per se.  Ancient typewriter parts interacting with more modern media technology. 

At first, I was just searching for items that were similar in size and weight to hang opposite each other.  Then I looked at it when all was said and done and realized that it actually speaks of so much more than just boredom.  So, of course, I make it sound like the result was completely intentional when people ask me about it. 

Artistic genius, eh?  The next Alexander Calder?

Yeah right.

For those interested, the item that gets the most comments is my Scarface poster.  People really dig it because of how big it is.  Size really does matter.

(Very) random ramblings

Man, we just have to stop hosting parties. When we lived in the apartment, we rarely had people over. Check that, we practically never had people at our place. And we certainly never hosted parties. There was simply no room.

Now that we have a place of our own, with a front yard, back yard, larger living room, larger kitchen, and, most importantly (especially upon considering some of the company), multiple bathrooms, we are able to host many people at one time. And we've been taking full advantage of this opportunity. We've actually had people over twice just in the last month.

And I think we both need a breather.

Cooking, cleaning, prettifying, constructing bean bag toss boxes... yes, you heard that right, I built two bean bag toss boxes. It just takes it all out of you. Katie even more so than me. She has this habit of wanting to clean up as we go instead of letting dishes or garbage pile up as the party progresses. So she'll be in the kitchen cleaning while talking to the girls. I feel bad and think she should just kick back and relax, but she argues that she is relaxed and would rather do it this way.

Sick. That's all I can say.

But you've gotta respect that work ethic. She's the same way at her real job. If she's not actively inputting prescriptions in the computer or filling bottles with someone's daily pill fix, she feels like she isn't doing enough. And she'll find more to do.

Me? I've been looking forward to retirement since the day I graduated from college. Nay, I can date it back to high school graduation. I hate working. It's not as though I'm not a motivated person. I enjoy expending my energy to worthwhile causes. I loved being in school. I was great at research and writing and taking tests. I enjoyed everything about it.

But, there's just something about waking up and getting dressed nicely (if you consider khakis and a polo "nice") and showing up to do effectively the same thing day after day that just does me in mentally and emotionally. I don't know where this desire to not work comes from. My dad likes his job so far as I know. My brother would wither and die without work (I'm convinced that would really happen but doubt that I could ever convince him to play the role of guinea pig should I ever carry out the experiment). Obviously my wife loves it or she wouldn't be beating herself up taking classes to move up in the ranks to become a full-fledged drug pusher... er... pharmacist.

I think it must have something to do with feedback received on a job well done. In school, you receive grades on everything you do. If you say something intelligent during class, you receive positive feedback. At the end of it all — be it four, five, even six years or more — you receive a diploma. Talk about positive reinforcement.

Now that I'm part of the working world, it seems that such feedback comes less often. Unless you're talking negative feedback. Nobody is ever afraid to tell you that you are doing a bad job. Positive feedback, on the other hand, doesn't seem to have a place in the real world. There are some managers that believe in it highly. But they are clearly in the minority. Once in a while, one of my bosses will pass on a compliment to me that she heard from someone else. But these compliments catch me so off guard or they're timed so awkwardly, that I don't know how to respond or it doesn't sink in until much later. By the time I have mentally processed the compliment, responding to it is pretty much moot.

Wow. How did you like that? In one post, I covered party hosting, work ethics, and personnel management. Talk about one huge tangent after another. It's gotta be late. There's just no other way to explain this massive derailment of my train of thought.

To anyone who has scratched their head to the point of blood loss, I apologize. This was entirely unintentional.