Presidential Quote

"There are a good many problems before the American people today, and before me as President, but I expect to find the solution of those problems just in the proportion that I am faithful in the study of the Word of God. A man has deprived himself of the best there is in the world who has deprived himself of this, a knowledge of the Bible. When you have read the Bible, you will know that it is the Word of God, because you will have found it the key to your own heart, your own happiness, and your own duty." — Woodrow Wilson

I Quit

OK, this is going to be a long and involved post.

Pursuant to a discussion the other day, I was doing some serious listening to some Larry Norman music.  I've decided why I don't listen to him much.  He has a way with words, he's a good composer, but his voice grates on me.  Especially when he can't remember the words and throws a screechy "eeeyaaaw!" in.

Anyway, he does have a way with words.

IT'S ONLY TODAY THAT COUNTS

It ain't no good to lay in bed at night
And think about the past
About how you could have done things differently
But it happened way too fast.

Just close your eyes, go to sleep
Let the angels bring you dreams.
Let that pain unwind behind you
And float away, float away on silent streams.

You gotta live your life the best you can
Though you sometimes do your worst.
You gotta laugh when you fail, it's not the end of the world
Life is a play you can't rehearse.

Don't make big plans for tomorrow,
You can't control what lies ahead.
You must try to live each moment
As it comes instead.

There is no use dreaming of a perfect future
Or regretting a troubled past.
It's only today that counts
Live it like it might be your last.
It's only today that counts
Live it like it might be your last.

It never helps to worry, it never hurts to pray,
Tomorrow will come soon enough; just pray about today.
And relax, trust your life to God,
The future is in his hand,
Only faith will help you face each day's demands.

Ain't no use worrying, life goes so fast.
It's only today that counts
Live it like it might be your last.
It's only today that counts
Live it like it might be your last.

OK.

Moving Pains

With the move from hosting this on my own website to having it hosted on a free website comes quite a few changes. I can't make this look like the old one, which, whether you liked it or not, was laid out the way I liked it, for my convenience. Can't do that here. Also, the plugins that I used for the photo galleries don't work here, nor did the photos from the galleries come over.

So, I have to do a lot of rebuilding. I have all the pictures from the old website, I just need to rebuild the pages that contained them and upload them here. BTW, kudos to the support staff here at wordpress.com. When I asked them for help, they were able to transfer all the photos that were actually in the blog entries from the old website to here. For me, those would have been difficult, I would need to go thru over 400 posts and look for the missing photo and download it and upload it and re-link it. Wordpress Support took care of those. I just need to go thru the 17 pages and take care of the photos on them.

On another subject of moving, my guess is that I will almost certainly be heading for the Metro area to look for work after the divorce is final. Here in the northern part of the state there are only a handful of employers that can use my skills, and I know most of my counterparts in those positions. In the Twin Cities Metro area there are 100's of companies that can use my talent, and quite a few of them have hundreds of employees doing what I do, so there are lots of possibilities there. And like I said before, I need to get out of the Grand Rapids area, just too many memories here. I wouldn't mind going to Bemidji to be closer to the kids and close to a 4 year college, but again, there are only a couple of employers with only a couple of jobs and I know several of those folks up there already.

And it's kinda frustrating. I've been applying in every place for any job I know I can do. I've applied at WalMart and been interviewed for a job, but since I know and they know that I could be making almost 10 times the salary in my profession they don't want to hire me and train me knowing that I will be leaving soon. Home Depot, same story. KMart, same story. Holiday, same story. 99 cent store, same story, and the list is very long. For the month that I haven't been at the hospital I have applied for at least 150 jobs in Grand Rapids and Bemidji, and gotten back similar responses from about half.

So, I need to be looking forward. It is sooo easy to look back and wonder what I could have should have would have done differently, but I need to look forward. Somewhere out there is a place for me that involves less stress, uses my talents productively, and gets me where I want to be. I need to be looking forward. Just like in a car, you have to be looking and planning for the road and traffic ahead while being aware of what's in the mirror. But if you focus on the mirror and don't look ahead you will be in trouble in a second. For the last six months I've been focused on the mirror, and look where it has gotten me. I'm finally starting to look forward again, and I need to keep my focus out there in front of me and determine where and what I'm going to do.

Because I'm an introspective type of person I need to analyze the why and how of everything. It is very very easy for me to focus my attention and my problem solving power on the past, trying to analyze where and how I went wrong. However, it doesn't help a lot when I start trying to relive the past. It's good to know how and why I went wrong, but once that has been determined it does no good to keep worrying over it. I need to take the lesson to heart and start analyzing the why and how of my life ahead using those lessons from the past. What does it say up above? "Experience is knowing a lot of things you shouldn't do again". OK, so I've had the experience, now it's time to move forward without repeating the same mistakes.

I probably don't have the quote right, and I don't recall where it came from but I wish I did. As I recall, it was from a scifi story about time travel: "The mind goes back, but time goes on, and farewells should be forever."

Time to start moving forward. There are a few loose ends from the recent past that need to be wrapped up, but then I will be moving forward. There are better things out there ahead for me, I just need to go out and get them. I know it won't be easy. I need to prepare myself for a long tough road ahead, but I can't do that by looking in the rear view mirror. I can only prepare myself for the road ahead by watching the road ahead, aware of what has gone on before and brought me to this place. But focused ahead!

Addenda Just discovered that only the photos from the last 6 months were moved over, whether in pages or blog posts, so I still need to do everything before then. It will take me a LONG time because I don't get much Internet time. But, I need to do it ASAP because right now the ONLY copies of these photos are on my old laptop.

Weekend

A very boring weekend. Spent the entire weekend by myself, mostly napping and reading and trying to keep cool and dry thru the hot, humid, t-stormy weather. It's kinda weird having no-one to talk to except myself, any interactions I have with others right now is pretty much limited to business transactions "That will be $4.45". "Change is 55 cents" "Thank you for shopping at Wal-Mart" . And I'm getting tired of talking to myself. I keep running thru scenarios in my head. I wonder what would have happened if I had done this or that. What might happen if I do this or that. Why the hell did I do this or that. And then sometimes I just sit and cry, I don't really know why, but it just starts and won't stop. I'm beginning to wonder if I'm losing something. I can't seem to make sense of things anymore. People at work ask me to do something and the words just don't seem to make any sense. I'm sitting here staring at a script I wrote a year ago and it doesn't make sense. I need to modify it slightly, they want an extra option, but I can't figure out how or why. I can't get to sleep at night, I read for hours and finally doze off, then I wake up suddenly and can't get back to sleep because I'm wide awake. But sitting here at work I keep falling asleep. I've hit my head on my keyboard twice today. If I have to drive much over 15 minutes I find myself nodding off and have to pull over to the side and get up and walk for a few minutes before I can drive on again. It seems like all I do is sit at my desk at work and stare at the computer screen or I'm sitting in my car trying to sleep or I'm sleeping while I'm trying to drive. And that's about all I do. And my thoughts keep going around and around in the same track. Why did I do this. Why didn't I do that. What could I have done differently. My boss has called me several times today asking me about this or that project that I'm supposed to be doing, and I just don't have an answer and I don't seem to care that I don't have an answer and I don't care that I don't care that I don't have an answer. I've gone from not delegating any work at all to delegating everything. I just don't care anymore. Doesn't seem to matter what or if I do anything, nothing works, nothing changes, nothing matters anymore. I thought I had my life fairly well sorted out and knew what I was doing and where I was going, but now all that is gone and I'm just drifting. I can't get to where I want to go and I don't want to go anywhere else and the obstacles between me and where I want to go are just so huge and so out of my control that there's no way I'm ever going to get there. And it wasn't all that long ago that my road to the goal was clear and everything was moving in the right direction and the goal was getting closer. Now I don't have a snowballs chance in hell of making any of my goals. And I STILL don't know what happened to change everything. Its like I went to bed one night and everything was peachy and when I woke up in the morning everything was shot to hell. Its like I never woke up from a nightmare. I run and I run in my nightmare but my feet just slip on the ground and I never go anywhere. I talk to people, I scream for help in my nightmare but no sound comes out of my mouth. I reach out to grab a lifeline in my nightmare and I don't have any hands. People talk to me in my nightmare and I only hear gibberish, or maybe Etruscan, I can't tell the difference anyways. If I'm not already insane I think I will be soon. I just don't get it. And the only person I can talk to about it is myself. And I just don't get it.

Still no plow (8 AM), the neighbor (a County Commish) is livid, her Caddy can't get out the driveway.  Nearly 20 hours since the worst of the snow passed.  School buses can't get down the road, but school is in session today.  Ridiculous.  If I had a truck big enough to plow the road I would do it, legal or no.  If they would just skim a couple of feet off the top it would help.  The road is going to be a mess by the time it all melts in.

Wednesday December 19, 2007

We won. The new network is up and running smoothly. The worst problems were those on Saturday, and by the end of Tuesday they were fixed and behind us.

I have a huge stack of network switches in 24 and 48, copper and fiber, gig and 10/100 ports, Intel, Avaya Cajun, and Extreme Summit, sitting around my desk. Still have more to fetch from the closets and still need to inventory them all for the trade-in. Next up: the Wireless Lan. We were going to start work on it this week, but after working approx 90 hours last week everyone decided to push that back until after Jan 1. I'm still working with the design engineers discussing options, but we won't get serious until Jan 3.

Gas. On 12/12 2.719, on 12/15 2.749, 12/18 (noon) 2.799, 12/19 (noon) 2.889. Must put gas in Gladiator on way home tonight, hoping that it drops back a little by then.

Hear there has been a bit of car trouble in Bemidji. RumJohn lost a window to vandalism and Cricky got a big door ding from a car sliding into it. All relatively minor PITA problems.

Just got back from paying my Electric bill. The Co-op isn't going to raise the rates for 2008, no, not at all. Instead, they are adding a "power cost rider" surcharge of .0064 to the bill. Means my bill will go up about $8 a month, but no, they are not going to have any price increases. The increase doesn't piss me off, well, I'm not happy about it, but what really pisses me off is that they say they are not increasing the cost of power. BULLSHIT!! They are, but they are just calling it by a different name, I suspect to avoid some regulation or maybe to make us feel good.

I can understand and accept that the cost of power in general is rising. I can accept that the cost of gasoline is rising. I can accept that that cost of electricity is rising. What I refuse to accept is the mind games they are trying to play with us. If you need to raise the price of the electricity, then say so and do it. If you are going to raise the price of gas, then do it. This bit about raising the price on Tuesday by .10 then drop it on Wednesday by .05 is ridiculous. Raise it by .10 and leave it there for a month or two.

Forgot to mention that Matt's tractor and plow are working pretty good now. We put a new (homemade) gasket on the pump and it leaks less. The pump casing has a crack and it weeps there, but in one hour plus of plowing it lost less than a gallon of oil. At $6 per gallon it's still cheaper than paying someone else to plow, and we can look at rebuilding one of the other two hydraulic pumps we have when the weather warms up. Besides, Matt's having a lot of fun with it.

I'm buying the neighbors tractor. When Roger got his tractor a couple of years ago I told him that if he decided to sell it I wanted a shot at it. It just looks like a tractor should look (in my mind). I don't even know what it is (I suspect that it is a McCormick W-6), but I like the way it looks. He has finally decided to sell, and I made my first payment on it last week. It is buried in the barn, all winterized and stored away, and I can't get it out until Spring, but I should have it paid for by then. Going to go look at it this weekend. When I heard that it was for sale I jumped first, didn't want to give him a chance to change his mind or let someone else have a shot at it.

Well, gotta get busy. Conference call coming up in a few moments on the SAN design we are working on.

Friday November 2, 2007

Less than a week and I am really behind. I did my last post on Monday morning, when I went home Monday afternoon gas was at 2.84. By Thursday morning it was down to 2.82, and I filled up. By Thursday noon gas was at 2.98, this morning it has backed off to 2.97. And the Horizon isn't ready yet.

Just read a story at MSNBC about the "Baptist Church" in Topeka, KS that pickets funerals with signs saying "God Hates Fags", "God Hates You", "Thank God For Dead Soldiers", and other similar sayings. And they don't do this just in Topeka, but in Maryland, South Carolina, Arkansas, Nebraska, California, Illinois, and other places around the continent (they currently have pickets planned for funerals in Utah and Massachusetts). Just looking at their website makes me sick from all the hate splashed all over it.

Winter may be finally on its way. 10/30 was a really nice, warm, fall day. If I'd had any steaks around I would have barbecued, but I didn't. Then 10/31 was cold and windy and damp. Snow is in the forecast with lows in the teens and highs in the 20's in the next few days.

Tuesday September 11, 2007

Rant time.

Lately I have been noticing a lot of bumper stickers and yard signs proclaiming that "War is not the answer". I beg to differ.

Of course, it depends on the question. If the question is whether or not to have dessert, then no, of course war is not the answer. But, if the question is whether or not you and I are allowed to live, work, and worship according to our beliefs, and the other guy wants to enforce his beliefs at the expense of everyone else's lives, then yes, I think that war is the answer.

I have trouble understanding how someone can live in the USA, how, having experienced the horrors of 9/11/2001, having experienced the freedom of living and working and worshiping where and how they wish, and, seeing how the victims of the oppression are forced to live, can stand up and say that "War is not the answer". I just don't understand it.

But, regardless of whether or not I understand it, they have the freedom, here in the USA, to express their opinion. Perhaps they would like to move to Iran and try expressing their opinions?

To those who are daily fighting this war: I salute you and I ask God's blessing upon you for doing what I cannot do.

Remember 9/11/2001!!
http://www.nps.gov/remembrance/statue/index.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/September_11,_2001_attacks

Saturday December 23, 2006

Well, if it is a white Christmas it will be just barely. That inch of snow is all we are getting, and it is being well trampled (and wasn't enough off the beaten path).

Putting up the tree lights last night we discovered that we couldn't get but 2 small strings of lights to work. I had noticed that a store was going half price on Christmas decorations, so I thought that this would be my chance. Ya know whty they were half off? Because no-one would buy them at full price. Poor selection. I don't like single color lights, but it was dificult to find anything but. Lots of white. Lots of nets. Lots of icicles. Lots of deer. Found two 24 multi-color light strings. I guess this was just not my year.

The plastic star tree-topper that we have used since '83? was replaced last night. I wanted a glass angel for a tree-topper. Lots of Santas, no angels. Finally found just a plain glass spire. Better than what I had, but I will have to keep my eyes open for what I want.

Brief rant:

I have noticed around here that the "True Meaning of Christmas" seems to be going away again/still. I don't think I have seen more than a half dozen manger displays, but lots (dozens? hundred+?) deer/Santa displays. How would you like it if at your birthday party the star guest was a fictional character and you weren't even invited? Remember the old Red Skelton story about that?

Merry Christmas everyone!!

Thursday November 30, 2006

I see that I haven't had a good rant for a while, time to fix that omission.

As you may have guessed, I feel strongly that the PC should be used as a tool, and that if the tool does not make the job easier then you are using either the wrong tool or you do not know how to use the tool correctly.

I stopped by the UPS depot to ship a package on Monday. Granted, it has been a while (3 yrs?) since I stopped by the UPS depot, but I recall that there was one person behind the counter who took the info from you, typed it in the computer, stuck the label on the package, and took your money.

This time, when I stopped in, there were TWO UPS employees and TWO PC's, one PC and employee at a side counter and one PC and employee at the main counter. I needed to type the addresses into a form and make some decisions about how to properly ship my package using the first PC. There is a second employee there to help you fill out the form.

This is a classic example of what NOT to do!! Customers are intimidated and aggravated by this process. I think that nearly every one of the 6 or 7 people that I saw use this complained about it. First, the PC is in a very awkward place to use. Second, the Mouse is in an awkward position. Third, TAB does not go to the fields in order. Fourth, most of the fields are not needed or required for most customers.

I would redesign the form and make it VERY simple. Type in the name, press enter. Type in the address, press enter. Type in the ZIP, press enter. No tab, no mouse. Add some logic to the form so that if a field is needed they are filled out in order, if the field is not needed it never appears. Install 2 (or more) PC's away from the counter for customer use so that the slower people don't hold up the faster people. Provide space at the console to rest your package (it was not fun trying to juggle a 14 lb package while filling out the form). Heck, maybe provide a scale at each console so the weight can get captured while the package data is being typed in. What a novel idea.

Hello UPS? Ya know, re-writing the software to make it more efficient would save you a lot of money. If you are doing this at every UPS depot, or even 10% of them, that is a LOT of money you could save!!

I hate to imagine what that room is going to look like over the next couple of weeks. Maybe it is a good thing that I don't ship a lot of UPS. I'm lucky, if I really NEED to ship something I can do it from work. Weigh it on our scales, fill out the form on the UPS website, pay for it on the UPS website, print the label, set it out on the dock for pickup.

Friday October 27, 2006

A week of insanity, too busy to even think much.

On our trip last weekend I paid as low as $2.08/gall at WalMart in Cloquet. In GR it was down to $2.17 although RapidPump was at $2.15. Yesterday prices jumped back up 12 cents to 2.29.

Internet filtering policies implemented at work are causing a bit of havoc. ALL outside email is blocked, as well as this site. There are ways around it, but they are not convenient. At one time I could have all of my email accounts open in Outlook at once. Now, the only email account I can have open is the corporate one, to check any of my other accounts I have to go around the corner. I wouldn't mind so much except that the corp email blocks so many documents and attachments (including unknown ones) that for a vendor to send me a quote I have to ask them to email it to one of my personal accounts, then keep checking it.

Oh well, as long as people keep abusing the Internet there will be filtering. I have heard SOOOO many complaints since it was institued here on Wednesday because people can't play games. Play games? At work? Hunh? Well, they get bored because there is nothing to do! Hunh? Sounds to me like we could eliminate a position, maybe closer to 20 positions if the number of complaints I heard is any indication. Granted, this is a hospital, and we are required by law to maintain a certain level of staffing.

For instance, even if there are no patients in ER we still have to have staff on hand when a case shows up. But I would think that there must be other taks that need to be accomplished. People are always complaining because there is too much paperwork and they can never get it accomplished. I guess that what irks me the most is when I hear the complaint from a department supervisor. I mean the person who has been here for umpteen years and bosses 40+ people and complains because their people no longer have access to games. Seriously. Just mind-boggling.

Well, lots to do. I need to deploy 4 more WAP's today and get quotes for a formal wireless site survey so I can spec out a full coverage solution for wireless VoIP. Plus dump a couple of corrupt databases and see if I can find out why they are corrupt. Plus take calls from users who can't get to their favorite web sites any more.

Wednesday April 5, 2006

Rant time.

I've been a bit P.O.'d lately (and it's about to get worse) because I'm allergic to everything green and growing, so I live on antihistamines. Nowadays preferably Claritin-D. So why am I getting P.O.'d? Because for the last year under MN law I can only buy 20 days supply every 30 days. Why? Because I might want to make Meth with it. Spring is starting up again and my eyes are getting swollen, etc, and there is not a lot I can do about it for another week or so.

Q1. Why am I presumed guilty without due process? I thought that the laws of the U.S., particularly the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments, say that I am to be regarded as innocent until I am proven guilty. Why, then, am I presumed to run a meth lab just because I wish to purchase antihistamines?

Q2. Why the heck is making meth against the law, anyways? For that matter, if it is legal to use tobacco or alcohol, why is it not legal to use meth or cannabis? Tobacco and alcohol each kill more people every year than just about anything else I can think of, including "illegal" drugs. Why not make it a crime to make or use alcohol?

Oh yeah, they outlawed alcohol back in the 1920's. Funny thing was, it increased alcohol use and abuse, increased crime, increased organized crime, increased gang warfare. Since Prohibition was repealed and the manufacture and consumption of alcohol was regulated (instead of prohibited) all of those problems decreased...until we started a "war" on drugs. A "War" that, now, incidentally, prohibits me from buying my allergy medications.

Q3. Let's just extend this another step. Why is it assumed that just because I want to own a gun that I want to kill someone?

I think I just saw some statistics recently that doctors kill 10 times as many people every year as guns do. Anybody want to dig that info up for me? Scary. Maybe we need to outlaw doctors!!! How many people do lawyers kill every year? Maybe we should outlaw them also?

Q4. What has happened to the "Land of the Free"?

Check out these websites starting with the first one. I think you might get a bit of an eye-opener if you look at this carefully and honestly.

http://www.strike-the-root.com/61/victor/victor1.html
http://www.drugwardistortions.org/
http://www.drugwarfacts.org/