I got a note from Dad the other day, in which he mentioned that he’d just read my post from July. That made me realize that I hadn’t updated this thing in over a month. Again. I’m not sure how that happens so often. Actually, yes I am. My life isn’t that interesting. Not much to write about when the same things happen every day for a month. So, I have to store up all of the amazing happenings over time and then dump them all out at once.
Unfortunately, I’ve generally forgotten what happened by the time I get around to that dump. But, hey….I’ll give it a shot again. A few weeks ago, I attacked my back yard with a vengeance – and with a Ka-Bar knife that I purchased with Discover card kickbacks. I’ve been meaning to upgrade my camping knife situation for a couple of years, and finally just pulled the plug and bought a great knife – so I naturally had to see if I could hack my way through the jungle that is my south 40.
It did very well. Much better than I did, as a matter of fact, because I’m allergic some something back there. Didn’t notice until the next day, but my arms were covered with a rash (a very itchy rash), which still hasn’t completely subsided. Before you ask, no – it’s not poison ivy. No idea what it was, but I can say with some surety that it’s gone now. I hacked the crap out of that yard. Cut it down enough that I could even get my gasoline mower out and cut everything down to nubs after letting it all grow for about three years. I still have to clean up near the back fence (if only because I need to repair the fence and I can’t get close to it), but the majority of the “lawn” is now available and I can start thinking about what I want to plant back there, be it grass or trees or some kind. Have been thinking about putting in either Crepe Myrtle or Black Maple, but it would probably be easier just to kill everything off and put some sod in. I really don’t know. The most important thing is that my knife is awesome.
I also cleared off my deck. The cat house that had been there for many years is now underneath the deck, and I’ve reclaimed the entire area for, well, people. Or person, since I don’t have guests. I still need to repair the trellises on one end, but for now I’ve settled with stringing up a fly over a couple of plastic chairs at the far end of the deck, under which I can sit and drink and smoke and generally be a white trash redneck kinda guy. I noticed that, the day after I put up the fly, my neighbor (fondly known as “Martha Stewart”) installed a brand-new, huge, patio umbrella. I see it as her polite way of telling me that a bright blue tarp is not appropriate; but it’s in my back yard, it’s invisible from the street, it does the job I need for it to do, and she can get over herself. I looked at those big umbrellas, and those sumbeaches are expensive! My fly will do just fine. It also funnels the rain into a water dish for the cats who still like to lie on the deck even though their house is now beneath them.
Next week is Adam’s wedding, and it is now official that I won’t be able to make it, as I have to go on a project in North Carolina. This was not my idea – I actively campaigned against going – but it’s a huge project, with consultants onsite in 6 locations in four different states, and when the client comes on board, it’s going to be my team’s client; so in the end I relented and agreed to take one of the offices just so I could get a better idea of how things are set up – and also because my team has been extremely short-handed for the last 6 weeks and I figured that I was the “consultant” who could leave for a week and cause the least disruption to my other clients. I still handle the big problems, but I really don’t do much of the day-to-day client support anymore, so I’m expendable from that standpoint.
So, Adam – if you or your family is reading this – I wish nothing but good things for you and your bride, and once you’ve gotten settled into married life and have a stable household, I’ve got an awesome wedding present for you.
I’m supposed to be setting up about 30 workstations for a firm in Florida today, and I got started on that project at about 6:00 this morning. Literally 4 minutes after I started, my primary scripting engine – which I use for doing everything from joining the machines to the domain to adding shortcuts to the desktop – went down. Along with a number of other servers at work (including those that run the portals that all of our clients use). It’s now coming up on 3.5 hours since everything went balls up, and I’m starting to wonder if I’m going to have to waste all day doing something that I could have done in about 30 minutes with my scripts. Hope not, because I really kinda wanted to go bowling today.
I may join a bowling league in a couple of weeks, but I want to be sure that I still know how to roll a big ball down a lane towards pins.
Band started back up this week, after a summer break of about 6 weeks. Lots of new faces, including a new solo horn player – who showed up 5 minutes late. I think that’s just a requirement of playing solo horn. He sounded okay, I guess. Still think Andrew and I should’ve double-teamed the part and we should have brought in a newbie to play 2nd horn. Instead, I’ll be doing that for at least another year. Nothing wrong with the part – it just gets boring. Sort of like 2nd baritone. Occasional flourishes of music, surrounded by lots and lots of long tones and off-beats. Yawn.
On the home front, I’ve embarked on an experiment in minimalism. I’m trying to get rid of stuff that I don’t need and to limit myself to as few redundancies as possible. Example: 1 plate, 1 coffee cup, 1 fork, 1 knife, 1 cooking pot, etc. Yes, I have about 70 coffee cups, enough plates and flatware settings for a dinner with 8 guests, and more than enough pans to use a different one every day for two weeks before washing any of them. But c’mon. What’s the point? If I can just wash the dishes as I use them, I don’t need multiples. We’ll see how it goes. Am also finally throwing stuff away that I brought with me from my office when AT&T canned me – notebooks, textbooks, desk knickknacks, cables, charges, etc. No need to have all that stuff cluttering up my living room. Ideally, I want to get down to having, basically, an empty house. When it’s time to pick up and move on, it won’t take any time.
Ah! I almost forgot that I also bought a gimbal for my phone a few weeks ago. I haven’t done more than play with it for about 20 minutes, but it’s going to be a lot of fun particularly when I’m out in the woods. From what I’ve seen with my experiment, it does a great job of tracking an object, stabilizing a moving camera, and allowing for easy camera manipulation (panning, zooming, etc.), and it’s cool to watch it do its thing: it’s like having a little robot in your hand who’s doing all of your photography for you. Looking forward to taking it out camping soon.
And that’s about all the news that’s fit to type for now. I’ll go see if I can do any more work on my workstation setups, and, if not, I’ll figure out what I’m going to do today while waiting to be able to work.
TWD