Just saw an emailed Costco ad, which included a come-on for Clorox and 409 cleaning products:
Help protect you and your family!*
* When used as directed
The mind boggles -- what a ridiculous claim and funny disclaimer. I wonder what lawsuit brought that one on?
Thursday, May 14, 2009
koa, theater
The separation of kitties continues. Both are curious about what's on the other side of the door. They are both extra affectionate with their humans and I've heard Theo cry outside the door a few times -- typical response to a closed door.
I have a new theory about what's happening, which is that Koa somehow injured herself. I don't think she has any broken bones, but a good deal of her back and one side is sore. It's ok to pet her gently but if you apply any pressure at all, she vocalizes a little (rrah, rrrah). I wonder if the first night -- the one when she was hissing at Theo -- was when the injury occurred. The good news is that she seems better already. I think we'll continue the separation until she seems more improved. And take her to the vet if she doesn't.
Last Friday, we went to the theater in town and saw a disturbing play called The Dead Guy. I liked the acting. Jury's still out on the play. The basic premise is that a small-town Loser (whose story was worthy of a bad country music song) is offered a million dollars to spend over the course of a week while being filmed for a reality show. At the end of the week, the viewing audience gets to decide how he dies. Of course, during the course of the week, viewer ratings shoot up, he becomes a better person, he's reunited with his girlfriend, and the person who conceived the show is wildly successful.
I guess there are a lot of underlying messages about just how base Americans are (as reflected by the protagonist, the viewing audience, and the show producer), the redemptive power of being a short-timer, etc etc. But I was left with a bad taste in my mouth. The play was funny, it was well-acted, but I felt like the messages were too broad, too obvious, and I didn't like the ending at all. So there.
Tonight, we're seeing another show a few towns over. The troupe was supposed to put on one of those modern Irish plays that leave you hoping you won't slit your wrists in the middle of the night. Fortunately, they didn't get the rights to that play, so they're doing a play I've wanted to see for a while -- um... oh yes, The Lady's Not for Burning by Christopher Fry. Sounds more fun to me.
I have a new theory about what's happening, which is that Koa somehow injured herself. I don't think she has any broken bones, but a good deal of her back and one side is sore. It's ok to pet her gently but if you apply any pressure at all, she vocalizes a little (rrah, rrrah). I wonder if the first night -- the one when she was hissing at Theo -- was when the injury occurred. The good news is that she seems better already. I think we'll continue the separation until she seems more improved. And take her to the vet if she doesn't.
Last Friday, we went to the theater in town and saw a disturbing play called The Dead Guy. I liked the acting. Jury's still out on the play. The basic premise is that a small-town Loser (whose story was worthy of a bad country music song) is offered a million dollars to spend over the course of a week while being filmed for a reality show. At the end of the week, the viewing audience gets to decide how he dies. Of course, during the course of the week, viewer ratings shoot up, he becomes a better person, he's reunited with his girlfriend, and the person who conceived the show is wildly successful.
I guess there are a lot of underlying messages about just how base Americans are (as reflected by the protagonist, the viewing audience, and the show producer), the redemptive power of being a short-timer, etc etc. But I was left with a bad taste in my mouth. The play was funny, it was well-acted, but I felt like the messages were too broad, too obvious, and I didn't like the ending at all. So there.
Tonight, we're seeing another show a few towns over. The troupe was supposed to put on one of those modern Irish plays that leave you hoping you won't slit your wrists in the middle of the night. Fortunately, they didn't get the rights to that play, so they're doing a play I've wanted to see for a while -- um... oh yes, The Lady's Not for Burning by Christopher Fry. Sounds more fun to me.
Wednesday, May 13, 2009
cat fight
I've been meaning to write a bit about the cats. They have been doing well and seem to have become closer to each other. Koa demands to have her head licked; Theo sometimes obliges and is sometimes completely oblivious to her wishes. It is very sweet to see them wash each other.
Koa has been spending more time downstairs and is getting braver in general. I've been working on picking her up, usually just a few inches at a time. She is acclimating to the indignity. She seems happy most of the time.
Unfortunately, she is Theo's favorite toy. I don't think he'd intentionally hurt her, but he likes to play at being Alpha dog and he loves to chase her. She runs away. He catches up and mounts her and acts as if he's biting her neck. She sometimes meeps at him. We try to ignore the rough housing or distract them from it. Eventually they go back to greeting each other and getting along.
Something happened yesterday and now the cats are taking a vacation from each other, courtesy of moi. Last night, I noticed that Koa was on the high shelf. I haven't seen her up there for months. She didn't come downstairs all evening. When I got into bed, she hissed at Theo, who seemed hurt and confused by her hostility. He got into muffin position on the floor (very non-aggressive, especially for him) and tried blinking at her. After lights out, Theo crept onto the bed and snuggled along my ankles.
Then at 5:30 this morning, I woke up to a screaming fight. Theo would not back off. Koa was under a chair and still hasn't come out. I finally caught Theo, held him for a little while, gave him a treat, and shut the door behind him. Koa has the addition to herself; Theo has the rest of the house.
I'm hoping they can somehow reset and re-establish a relationship. It saddens me that they can't get along right now, but I don't want them to endanger each other or upset themselves more. Theo continues to be oblivious. He seems to miss his pal. She just seems worried and nervous.
Koa has been spending more time downstairs and is getting braver in general. I've been working on picking her up, usually just a few inches at a time. She is acclimating to the indignity. She seems happy most of the time.
Unfortunately, she is Theo's favorite toy. I don't think he'd intentionally hurt her, but he likes to play at being Alpha dog and he loves to chase her. She runs away. He catches up and mounts her and acts as if he's biting her neck. She sometimes meeps at him. We try to ignore the rough housing or distract them from it. Eventually they go back to greeting each other and getting along.
Something happened yesterday and now the cats are taking a vacation from each other, courtesy of moi. Last night, I noticed that Koa was on the high shelf. I haven't seen her up there for months. She didn't come downstairs all evening. When I got into bed, she hissed at Theo, who seemed hurt and confused by her hostility. He got into muffin position on the floor (very non-aggressive, especially for him) and tried blinking at her. After lights out, Theo crept onto the bed and snuggled along my ankles.
Then at 5:30 this morning, I woke up to a screaming fight. Theo would not back off. Koa was under a chair and still hasn't come out. I finally caught Theo, held him for a little while, gave him a treat, and shut the door behind him. Koa has the addition to herself; Theo has the rest of the house.
I'm hoping they can somehow reset and re-establish a relationship. It saddens me that they can't get along right now, but I don't want them to endanger each other or upset themselves more. Theo continues to be oblivious. He seems to miss his pal. She just seems worried and nervous.
what it's like now
Five years ago, I left the company -- the one I had once loved -- for the unknown. I was suddenly no longer blue. I was also unemployed - I was in such a hurry to get out that I hadn't given a lot of thought to what was next. I couldn't until I'd calmed down a bit.
To be honest, I've never looked back in wistfulness or regret. Sure, there were years that I loved being there, years when recruiters would call and I would say "I'm honored but no thanks." But in the end, it was time to go. I knew it then, I know it now. I've never missed the place that I left, just the place that was years before.
And then, as I kept up with my friends, I realized how increasingly miserable the place became. Some of the stalwart rocks left for greener pastures. My buddies who were still there seemed more depressed each time I talked to them. Some of them seemed completely incapacitated. I'd nudge gently, but never push -- you can't go until you're ready.
Until, of course, someone else is ready for you to go. This year already, more of my friends are no longer blue. There have been two huge waves; I assume there will be more within a few months. Suddenly, my friends are out in the bright daylight, blinking, and pondering what's next, wondering how they'll get a job in this difficult climate.
I had lunch with one of them yesterday. I had thought it would be a friendly catch-up with a little job-related encouragement thrown in. He read it as an "informational interview" and a "networking opportunity," which was fine. This happened a few weeks ago with another friend. I'll probably follow up with both as I hear of jobs that are appropriate for them.
In any case, the conversation was rather interesting. My friend went on about how it seemed like the company had stopped caring -- about the product and the employees. They had sent an important nugget of the product overseas for maintenance, something of an outrage for people who care about the product. Management had said that other interesting jobs would be found for those who had worked on the nugget. At this point, my friend complained "but they didn't *want* to work on anything else." And so it went.
And he's probably right. People making those decisions Did. Not. Care. about the effect of those decisions on the lives of the workers. They cannot allow themselves to care when they cut highly-paid, once-valued workers from the payroll. The difference is that I see that as reality; he is shocked and offended at the thought.
And then my friend mused aloud about his next job. He said that he'd always assumed that if you wanted to get the work done, you hired a contractor. If you wanted to engage someone, get someone who was creative and would take the product to the next level, you hired a permanent person. I had to break it to him that you don't go to interviews talking about your passions and about how wonderful a job can be for you. You always have to think -- both before the job offer and after -- about what the company can gain from you.
I felt like the doomsayer from hell. I felt like the most negative nabob. I felt like arealist. I still believe it's possible to be satisfied in a job. I think it's possible to find good bosses and even decent companies. But I also think you can never let go of the fact that you're a commodity in a hot market. The moment you fall behind, someone else (heck, ten people) are willing to take your place.
I'm hoping that these waves of unemployed people find meaningful work. We're all still relatively young, sharp, and capable. But the climate has changed dramatically in the last few decades and if you haven't been paying attention, it's a bit of a shock. And I fear this situation will continue for a while longer. Sad times.
To be honest, I've never looked back in wistfulness or regret. Sure, there were years that I loved being there, years when recruiters would call and I would say "I'm honored but no thanks." But in the end, it was time to go. I knew it then, I know it now. I've never missed the place that I left, just the place that was years before.
And then, as I kept up with my friends, I realized how increasingly miserable the place became. Some of the stalwart rocks left for greener pastures. My buddies who were still there seemed more depressed each time I talked to them. Some of them seemed completely incapacitated. I'd nudge gently, but never push -- you can't go until you're ready.
Until, of course, someone else is ready for you to go. This year already, more of my friends are no longer blue. There have been two huge waves; I assume there will be more within a few months. Suddenly, my friends are out in the bright daylight, blinking, and pondering what's next, wondering how they'll get a job in this difficult climate.
I had lunch with one of them yesterday. I had thought it would be a friendly catch-up with a little job-related encouragement thrown in. He read it as an "informational interview" and a "networking opportunity," which was fine. This happened a few weeks ago with another friend. I'll probably follow up with both as I hear of jobs that are appropriate for them.
In any case, the conversation was rather interesting. My friend went on about how it seemed like the company had stopped caring -- about the product and the employees. They had sent an important nugget of the product overseas for maintenance, something of an outrage for people who care about the product. Management had said that other interesting jobs would be found for those who had worked on the nugget. At this point, my friend complained "but they didn't *want* to work on anything else." And so it went.
And he's probably right. People making those decisions Did. Not. Care. about the effect of those decisions on the lives of the workers. They cannot allow themselves to care when they cut highly-paid, once-valued workers from the payroll. The difference is that I see that as reality; he is shocked and offended at the thought.
And then my friend mused aloud about his next job. He said that he'd always assumed that if you wanted to get the work done, you hired a contractor. If you wanted to engage someone, get someone who was creative and would take the product to the next level, you hired a permanent person. I had to break it to him that you don't go to interviews talking about your passions and about how wonderful a job can be for you. You always have to think -- both before the job offer and after -- about what the company can gain from you.
I felt like the doomsayer from hell. I felt like the most negative nabob. I felt like a
I'm hoping that these waves of unemployed people find meaningful work. We're all still relatively young, sharp, and capable. But the climate has changed dramatically in the last few decades and if you haven't been paying attention, it's a bit of a shock. And I fear this situation will continue for a while longer. Sad times.
Monday, May 11, 2009
saturday dance
We went to a dance on Saturday, the first one since our friend Fred died. There was a beautiful picture of him from a past dance camp, looking relaxed and happy, smiling as I remember him.
I dreamed about him sometime this weekend -- not the "I've come back briefly to tell you I'm ok" kind of dream I usually have. In this dream, he was just there, comfortable and happy, ok in his own way, smiling, part of the whole. The dream was reassuring in any case, and I suppose it did make me feel slightly better in the end.
I dreamed about him sometime this weekend -- not the "I've come back briefly to tell you I'm ok" kind of dream I usually have. In this dream, he was just there, comfortable and happy, ok in his own way, smiling, part of the whole. The dream was reassuring in any case, and I suppose it did make me feel slightly better in the end.
Thursday, May 07, 2009
BSOD
A few days ago, I transferred the presentations from last week's conference. I copied them from a thumb drive onto my computer. Somehow it occurred to me to install Internet Explorer 8 onto my system while I was mucking around. The install caused a reboot, and then everything came to a halt.
No, not the Blue screen of death (which, truth to tell, I haven't seen in ages), but something worse -- the BLACK screen of death. The incredibly obscure error message said that some acronymy file couldn't be found -- press any key to reboot. I pressed a lot of keys, causing the same message to repeat over and over.
I decided to stop trying and waited for Robert to come home.
Turns out that my computer was set up a little oddly. It was trying to restart in this order:
My prince in shining armor rearranged the "boot order," calm was restored, and my computer resumed its usual behavior. Phew.
So why do they make things so hard? If I ran the world, that error message would have said something like "cannot find an acronymy file on USB drive 3," which would have at least sent me in the right direction. And maybe with a little more thought I could design a message that would make even more sense. How about: "Looking on USB drive 3 for [file]. Would you like me to try the CD? No? How about the hard drive?" How hard would that be? D'oh!
No, not the Blue screen of death (which, truth to tell, I haven't seen in ages), but something worse -- the BLACK screen of death. The incredibly obscure error message said that some acronymy file couldn't be found -- press any key to reboot. I pressed a lot of keys, causing the same message to repeat over and over.
I decided to stop trying and waited for Robert to come home.
Turns out that my computer was set up a little oddly. It was trying to restart in this order:
- Look on the USB ports for attached drives and use the files on the drives to restart.
- Look in the CD drives for disks and use the files on the CD to restart.
- Look in the hard disk in the normal place and restart.
My prince in shining armor rearranged the "boot order," calm was restored, and my computer resumed its usual behavior. Phew.
So why do they make things so hard? If I ran the world, that error message would have said something like "cannot find an acronymy file on USB drive 3," which would have at least sent me in the right direction. And maybe with a little more thought I could design a message that would make even more sense. How about: "Looking on USB drive 3 for [file]
Wednesday, May 06, 2009
florida, conference, and other doings
Last week, I went to a conference in Florida both to learn new stuff and to make a presentation. I arranged my travel so that I'd have a little vacation while I was there.
Where was I?
I was in St. Petersburg, a town with tremendous wealth, tremendous poverty, and a lot of (human) snowbirds. It's a very pretty town on a large bay. I stayed in a friendly bed and breakfast in a neighborhood that was constructed in the 1920s, at least according to the stamps in the concrete sidewalks.
What was the conference about?
The conference was related to software tools and techniques I use at work. Some of the leading architects and thinkers in the industry were there and available for chats. The talks centered around how to start using the tools and get the best use out of them.
I learned some helpful tips about using the tools that we have, tips that will help alleviate some of those annoying issues my work team faces, the kind of problems that are "nibbling us to death."
How'd my talk go?
My talk was about how my team at work determined that we needed a piece of software and selected it in eleven weeks. Most people take one to two years to make the selection. I talked about how we formed the team, how we figured out what we needed, and gave some specific examples of documents we produced along the way.
A handful of people who attended the talk were incredibly kind and a few said it was the best talk of the conference. One person said it made the entire conference worthwhile.
I was also pleased with how it went. I was not nearly as nervous this time as I was a few years ago when I made my first conference presentation. I'm still not super relaxed in front of a large audience, though I'm getting better at it. I thought I was clear and that I handled questions well.
So I was happy in the end and I'd do it again.
What else did I do?
St. Petersburg is compact enough that I decided to go car free. I walked for miles. There was a triathlon the second day I was there, and I watched the runners. What an impressive accomplishment for them!
I saw lots of unusual animals, including three dolphins swimming close to a sea wall. The large shore birds -- pelicans, herons, egrets -- were incredibly calm and allowed me to get quite close. There were also many tiny squirrels, not shy either.
I took advantage of the museums and gardens there and went to:
I ate well and had company every night for dinner.
Travel was smooth and uneventful -- the best kind. I even had an empty seat next to me on both airplane flights.
So an exhausting trip, but a very good one. I'm so glad I had the opportunity to go.
Where was I?
I was in St. Petersburg, a town with tremendous wealth, tremendous poverty, and a lot of (human) snowbirds. It's a very pretty town on a large bay. I stayed in a friendly bed and breakfast in a neighborhood that was constructed in the 1920s, at least according to the stamps in the concrete sidewalks.
What was the conference about?
The conference was related to software tools and techniques I use at work. Some of the leading architects and thinkers in the industry were there and available for chats. The talks centered around how to start using the tools and get the best use out of them.
I learned some helpful tips about using the tools that we have, tips that will help alleviate some of those annoying issues my work team faces, the kind of problems that are "nibbling us to death."
How'd my talk go?
My talk was about how my team at work determined that we needed a piece of software and selected it in eleven weeks. Most people take one to two years to make the selection. I talked about how we formed the team, how we figured out what we needed, and gave some specific examples of documents we produced along the way.
A handful of people who attended the talk were incredibly kind and a few said it was the best talk of the conference. One person said it made the entire conference worthwhile.
I was also pleased with how it went. I was not nearly as nervous this time as I was a few years ago when I made my first conference presentation. I'm still not super relaxed in front of a large audience, though I'm getting better at it. I thought I was clear and that I handled questions well.
So I was happy in the end and I'd do it again.
What else did I do?
St. Petersburg is compact enough that I decided to go car free. I walked for miles. There was a triathlon the second day I was there, and I watched the runners. What an impressive accomplishment for them!
I saw lots of unusual animals, including three dolphins swimming close to a sea wall. The large shore birds -- pelicans, herons, egrets -- were incredibly calm and allowed me to get quite close. There were also many tiny squirrels, not shy either.
I took advantage of the museums and gardens there and went to:
- Sunken Gardens, a botanical garden
- Salvador Dali museum
- the Museum of Fine Arts, which I especially enjoyed
I ate well and had company every night for dinner.
Travel was smooth and uneventful -- the best kind. I even had an empty seat next to me on both airplane flights.
So an exhausting trip, but a very good one. I'm so glad I had the opportunity to go.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)