Dear Abby

Note: Dear Abby today is all about cell phone etiquette, or lack thereof. I thought I would add my own experiences to the mix. I may actually send this one in. Link to column: RUDE CELL PHONE USE REQUIRES NEW ETIQUETTE

Dear Abby,

I read your column on cell phone etiquette with some interest, as I have experienced all manner of cell phone abuse in public places, including ones that are supposed to afford privacy.

Did you know that people (at least women are, I don't go into the men's room) are using cell phones in restrooms now? There is nothing more unnerving than being in a public restroom and having fellow occupants refuse to quit using their cell phones for the length of time it takes them to go about their business. It is uncomfortable, to say the least, and there is not much a girl can do other than wait until they leave. It is a huge intrusion of privacy. They walk in talking on their cell phones, and walk out still in full gab. Are they even washing their hands? eeewwww...

Then take last Friday night; I was sitting a movie theater with my son, waiting for the new Harry Potter movie to start. As we settled in, I jokingly said that the first person to have their cell phone ring was going to get a large Diet Coke tossed in their direction. Ten minutes later, my son asked, are you going to throw the Coke now? Sure enough, I looked in the direction he pointed, and someone was talking on their cell phone (the movie had not yet started, thankfully, so I did not have to throw the drink). The people behind us laughed (then proceeded to talk through the first fifteen minutes of movie - erg).

And there's the library, that last bastion of quiet and peace... I honestly do not mind the voices and laughter of children. I don't even mind the screaming of children - they have a right to be there, too. What I do mind are people on cell phones browsing the DVDs, conferencing with the person on the other end about which movies to choose, or the latest break-up. One time, it was so bad that every where I went to get away from this person, she followed. I could not get away! All I wanted was a movie to watch, and the library was closing shortly, and I got an earful of rather embarrassing personal problems...

There have been countless times that I have been party to one-sided conversations that I would rather not hear. I have no wish to know what you did with your boyfriend/girlfriend, or who did something mean. I do not want a rehash of what happened on your soap today (especially if I didn't catch the first part of the conversation where you indicated it was a soap and not real life - scary!). If you really have to discuss something personal, maybe you should wait to have the discussion until you are at home rather than in public. It is very hard to NOT hear your side of the conversation.

Signed,

The Unwilling Eavesdropper

One more post tonight, and then I swear I am done!

I did not get much of anything done today.

I had all sorts of plans, and then realized, as these plans kept getting more and more complex, that if I wasn't careful, I would spend my entire vacation cleaning.

I dusted today. I spent 10 minutes dusting. I ran the dishwasher. I emptied the dishwasher. I took out the garbage. I made popcorn for my son and his friend, and I made dinner. I cleaned up after dinner. The house looks no worse than it did this morning, and actually a bit better. And I am relaxed instead of worn out and aching.

Tomorrow, I had planned to wash a load of jeans. Then I realized that I only have three pairs to wash between both of us (I wore my J-Lo warm-up pants today). Not worth it. So, I will wait on laundry.

All I have to do tomorrow is do a bit more tidying, take a box to goodwill, and pack. Oh, and I will probably vacuum, too. I may try to get a quilt top done for a wall-hanging, but since that is fun, I am not counting it as work. The goal is to have it ready to hand quilt by the time we need to leave to go to mom and dad's (I like having something to work on when I go home, as it is too loud to read, and this way I can talk and work at the same time).

In fact, I think I'll get out my sewing stuff and get to work...

Impulse Buying

Okay, I am normally not an impulse buyer. I tend to look at all pros and cons of most things I buy, to determine if

a. I really need it,
b. It has the options I want,

and

c. Best price/ best quality.

Which is why normally never would have done what I did about an hour and a half ago.

You see, earlier today, I was writing a post about nothing, again, when I started rambling on about my stupid tracfone that I have (because I had to go buy more minutes for it). I realized that I was always having to add minutes without even using the minutes I already had, just to keep the number active. Granted, this was a lump sum total of around $20 every two months. Not a big deal.

Then I realized that the reason I wasn't using my minutes is because, while I can hear everyone just fine, my mom has long complained that she can't hear me very well at all when I am using my cell phone.

Somehow this little seed entered my fertile brain, and I surfed over to the tracfone web site to look at the phones they had, and do a little comparison shopping. I also researched what it would take to get my current tracfone number and minutes transferred to a new phone.

Armed with the model number of the phone I wanted, I drove to Target, only to find they didn't carry it (the alternate phone was more than I wanted to pay). Empty handed, I walked out of the store and decided to drive to Wal-Mart (EVIL!).

At first, I couldn't find the phone I wanted. The more expensive phone was $20 cheaper at Wal-Mart than at Target, but I still had my heart set on the model I could not find. Luckily, they have this station set up just for cell-phones, so I asked the guy there if they had that model phone. Yep, upstairs, he said, and while I waited, he ran to get one. The price on the tracfone site was $29.99 on sale. Wal-Mart price = $21.99. I bought it, and a 40 minute card.

Thirty minutes later, the nice tracfone lady had transferred my old minutes and phone number to the new phone, activited it, and added the new minutes. Everything went pretty smoothly. After about ten minutes, I tested it. Perfect!

And the best part is that I don't have to add minutes until March 22, 2006!

P.S. I know this hardly qualifies as an impulse buy for most NORMAL people, but for me, it is. :)

Day 1: Vacationitis

Ahhh...... I am sitting on the couch, with my favorite fleece blanket over my legs, checking email and trolling the web for interesting, non-work related items. "One Crazy Summer" is playing on Comedy Central, my son's toys are picked up, the dishwasher is running, and all is good in the world.

I'm guesing I have about an hour before I get bored.

Vacation!!!!!

Woo hoo! I am now off work until NEXT MONDAY!!!!!

I have a bunch of things I want to accomplish, but realistically, and based on past experience, I can expect to spend a lot of time on the couch trying to muddle through the lame daytime tv offerings.

Now, my idea of a perfect TV day would be for the SciFi channel to run a Battlestar Galactica season 1 marathon, followed by a season 2 marathon. That VCR still records, after all.

I have this weird Battlestar Galactica obsession lately. I want to watch the new episodes, but I have missed so many that I DON'T want to watch it and be lost the whole time. Weird, right?

One of the other things that must be done, and that I am dreading, is getting the Christmas decorations out. My tree is really looking sad, but I could not find one that I liked as much during the after-Christmas sales. This is the absolute last year I can use it, though. Lights are easy, at least I think they will be. Please let me have remembered to neatly coil the strands rather than just throwing them in a box like I did last year... oh please...

In any case, by Saturday I will have moved the furniture around, dug out the old mix CD from Geoff and Amy (I can't find your address!), and have managed to spear myself in the foot with broken glass decorations. Cocoa will be drunk with tons of marshmallows, and I will have placed the tin-foil star on top of the tree. If we are lucky, it will snow.

Double-posts

I had a strange thing happen with blogger earlier today. The "Holding down the fort" post appeared twice, so I deleted one. Then someone tells me tonight that they got a 404 when trying to get to it. The comments for that post are working now, but if it was from an RSS feed, maybe that's where things got weird....

My fingers are freezing.

One side effect of everyone leaving for break is that the labs suddenly become icy-cold. My fingers are freezing, therefore I must type to keep my fingers from becoming too cold to type later if it's needed.

I have seen only four faculty members in our hallways this morning. I have not yet braved the main office, as I know I do not have any mail yet today, and I am keeping one eye on the "ditto" process running on the server. My toes are getting cold too, so I will have to take that jaunt just to warm them up.

I think I may be reduced to using my laptop as a hand warmer here in about a minute or so...

Holding down the fort

Why am I at work on the Monday of Thanksgiving break?

Why, I am backing up the Mac server, of course.

Why are you backing up the Mac server?

Why, because I am paranoid, of course.

How long is this going to take?

All day, of course. And I am not backing up every single thing on the server, but rather what I need in case something were to happen and I had to switch out a drive or something (four drives in this baby. It was one of the last of the Quicksilver models, utter workhorse, dual 1.47 GHz G4s, 2 GB RAM, 750 GB of storage.) I also want to get student data backed up, as I don't even want to contemplate what would happen if one of those drives failed (last back up was not recent enough).

Actually, I am also moving data around right now, to make more efficient use of the storage I have. I would like to repartition one of the drives, but the shuffle of data has to come first. When I set up this machine two years ago, I planned for the future, but had no idea that my lab image would swell to the 29 GB mark. This left my boot drive uncomfortably full (I think I have about 10 GB left). I am planning on moving the radmind directory to another drive, leaving a symlink behind at the normal location.

So, the whole point of coming in today, when barely anyone is around, is to placate my inner pessimist. One copy is going home with me, the other will be on a separate drive in the machine.

Okay, that 37GBs is almost done copying. Time to backup the ArtIS drive...

Disaster Movie Round-up

"The Poseidon Adventure" on NBC.

Because having a cruise ship turn upside down isn't exciting enough, let's throw some terrorists in the mix.

Worst. Dialog. Ever.

Skip this and see the original. Unless, of course, you want to make fun of this remake. I don't know what they spent on it, but whatever it was, it was too much.

The original rocks!

Footnote: If any of you South Park fans remember the "Succubus" episode, the song she sings, "There's got to be a morning after," came from the original "Poseidon Adventure". I still giggle every time I think of it...

Let the fun begin.

I have decided that instead of sitting around with nothing to work on, I am going to start a couple of sewing projects in preparation for the holidays.

I am torn between starting projects for other people, or for myself. I am always making things for other people, and I do have a couple of gifts I would like to make. Nothing for my family, as I know what my sister LeAnn wants (I drew her name for Christmas), and I don't know if my mom would like anything homemade this year (she's not sure what she wants to do with the new addition yet). I just want something to do while watching TV as the weather gets colder.

I guess this means that I am bored.

List items accomplished...

Okay, a few anyway. I did six loads of laundry, which brought me just about to the finished stage. I had a full load of sweaters, which are now hanging all over the bathroom. Due to a miscalculation, I had only just enough laundry soap to do six loads, so the final three loads (all three of bedding, and extra blankets) have to wait until tomorrow.

After finishing the laundry (today's anyway), I grabbed a shower and then made up the menus and grocery list for the next week. Of course, I had planned a wonderful Thanksgiving day meal of pizza, until I remembered that it was in fact Thanksgiving, and not just Thursday. I scratched off the meals for that day, and the next, and revised my list.

At the store, I kept running into a friend nearly every lane, so it took about twice as long as normal, as we had to catch up on what has been going on lately (tornados and the like). She was in Minnesota at the time with her daughter's dance group, and happened to call the house sitter just as the warning was sounded.

What a difference a week makes.

Warm and stormy last Saturday, and cold and rainy today. I wonder what the weather is going to be like this week...

Fall Cleaning

After a night of staying up waaayyy too late, I am just now getting started on my "to do" list for this weekend. I had planned on getting up early, but as we did not get home until 1:05 am this morning, I scratched that in favor of being rested. I don't think I even moved until 10, which is very, very late in the morning for me.

So, here is the wonderfully boring list for the weekend and my vacation:

1. Laundry - I need to find my sweaters and add them to the mix, as this week was COLD, and I froze at work.
2. Take stuff off of the walls in the bathroom and wash the walls.
3. Take the cans and bottles back.
4. Take the stuff off of the top of my kitchen cupboards and dust it. Wash walls.
5. Okay the rest of this also involves washing walls, window sills, and windows.

It is at this point that I almost wish that we were camping this weekend after all...

In any case, my mom is in town to help my sister Kim with a baby shower for one of Kim's friends. She wanted to know if we wanted to go to Sam's Club later, but I resisted the temptation. I have no room to be stocking up on anything. Maybe after I finish purging the cupboards. My kitchen is so small that I made half of my hall closet into a pantry.

Oops, I forgot to add

6. Grocery shopping

to the list.

In any case, nothing is going to get done unless I get off of my chair and get started.

A boy, a cup, and a wand

Was it worth waiting in line for nearly an hour?

Aboslutely. Best Harry Potter movie yet.

The only low part was the couple behind us who talked a bit more than they should. You would have thought it was their living room rather than a sold-out theater... I wanted to turn around and offer to loan the girl my copy of the flipping book, just so she'd quit asking questions. The rest was very good.

Voldemort=scary in a way not easily defined.

I may have more later today, but for right now, I am exhausted.

Here's a hint: this movie felt shorter than the others, but it's longer.

'night all...

Waiting for Mr. Potter

I goofed. Big time.

Yesterday, I planned on getting our tickets for the new Harry Potter movie. We even nearly decided to get them last night while running errands, but I did not want to fight the normal evening rush of people at the box office. So, I decided to get them over lunch today.

Except I got to the theater and discovered that the box office did not open until 3 pm, and the doors were all locked (despite a sign saying that we could purchase tickets inside). So, I decided that we'd have to come back after work, get our tickets for the 6:40 show, and go eat dinner while we waited.

Right....

We got there at 5:05 pm, and all four early shows were sold out. The only tickets we could get were for the 10:05 show tonight, or wait until tomorrow afternoon. Unfortunately, we have plans for both tomorrow and Sunday afternoon, so I bought the 10:05 tickets.

Now it's just a matter of staying awake long enough to both remember that we have to leave at 8:45, and to be able to stay awake through the whole movie.

There is also that little niggling feeling in my brain that I am a BAD BAD BAD mother for taking my eleven year old to the 10:05 show. But then again I took him to the midnight release party at Hastings for the sixth book...

Flex Frozen Fingers

Brrrr.....

It took 15 minutes to clear off my car and scrape the windows this morning. There aren't enough garages for every apartment to have one, and I ended up renting one without a garage. But, most of the year, that's okay, as I have the apartment with a unique floor plan which makes it look bigger than it is. On days like today, however, it is a pain in the...

In any case, I stuffed myself with more soup than I care to admit for both lunch and dinner. My toes are still cold, as are my fingers, but my mouth is suffering the effects of too-hot soup from last night. Ouch.

I am going to have to get up extremely early tomorrow morning, as it is LASER CUTTER SIGN UP DAY at the labs, and I will have somewhere between 20 and 30 students (or more) lined up waiting for the list to come out. Sometimes they get there an hour early. So, I have to make certain I am at work on time, so as to not incite panic.

Maybe I'll even make a nice breakfast for a change...

A Mother's work is never done.

"Mom. Wake up."

"Whaa..." I rolled over to see my son standing by my bed, barely visible in the light from the hallway. The clock read 4:19 am. "What's going on?" I struggled to sit up, tangled in blankets.

"I don't feel so good..."

I instantly threw off the blankets, found my glasses and had the light on before he finished his sentence. A mother knows you have to move quickly when you hear those words, as they are usually followed by nothing good.

I ushered him into the bathroom, and had the seat up in the next 20 seconds.

"No, not like that," he said. "The other way..."

Oh, it suddenly becomes clear. I can fix this. I found the first aid kit, and we went to the kitchen to get a glass of water. I once again tried to teach him how to swallow a pill, but he couldn't do it. Finally, I crushed up the medicine, and mixed it with a spoonful of cottage cheese (I didn't have anything else that would work).

In less than five minutes, he was asleep again, with the hall light left on so he had a clear path to the bathroom.

I should have just stayed up.

I could not go back to sleep. I kept dozing with one ear tuned to the sound of feet hitting the floor. The light from the hall was too bright, so I got up and closed the door. Finally, about 5:30 or so, I started dreaming again.

I was late for work, or maybe I dreamed that I emailed my boss, and then forgot to call the school. I can't remember.

In any case, my dream was about how my day would go if he had to stay home from school. When the alarm went off at 6:10, I barely heard it. Just pressed "snooze" and didn't even bother to roll over. Finally, at 6:45, I decided that I had to get up, and check to see if my son could go to school.

He was perfectly fine, and anxious to get to school (he, unlike most kids, loves to go to school).

I walked around like a zombie for most of the day.

And tonight, right around 8:25, my son tells me again that he doesn't feel very good. He doesn't feel like he has to throw up, or "the Other", but he just doesn't feel right. No fever or anything, but he went to bed right after his bath, and read for just a few minutes before falling asleep.

I really, really, really hope that he isn't sick...

Cold. Ice. Snow.

Well, it had to happen sometime.

It is snowing. Saturday, we had NINE tornados go through central Iowa. Today, we have lots of snow, slush, and a chill that just won't let up.

I am normally pretty adapted to the cold weather by this time of year. However, with the unseasonably warm weather, there hasn't been a chance to get used to it yet. My fingers are like ice, and the windows don't seem to be holding out the cold as well as they used to.

I made homemade vegetable beef soup tonight for supper. My son refuses to eat it, so he had ravioli. I ate way too much soup, which is okay, as the beef was fairly lean, and the soup is more vegetables than anything. It turned out really good this time, too. Which is good, since I will be eating it for the next month or so.

Like I said, it makes a large batch, and I am the only one here who will eat it.

In any case, I am not looking forward to tomorrow morning. I cannot find my gloves, which is weird, considering I wore them just last week. I also cannot find my son's gloves. He wore those last month when camping. He refuses to wear gloves or a hat to school. He will, however, wear the scarf I clumsily knitted for him. Weird.

In any case, I should have some that will do for tomorrow, if only I can remember what I did with them... I only have about 5 pairs around here somewhere...

You just gotta love Iowa...

Winter Storm Watch Issued

This so totally could have been me...

(except my mom would never do something like this... thank god. But yeah, people wondered why I refused to get up to catch my sister's bouquet...)

BRIDE'S BOUQUET IS NO PRIZE FOR SINGLE GUEST AT WEDDING
DEAR ABBY: My widowed father recently married a woman I'll call "Millie." The wedding was held at Millie's home. Of the 20 or so guests in attendance, the only single adult was my younger sister, "Kim."

The ceremony was beautiful, the food was delicious, and everyone seemed to be enjoyed themselves when, out of nowhere, three of Millie's friends asked for everyone's attention. They then announced that instead of the bride tossing her bouquet, they had decided to just present it to Kim! Most of the guests laughed, and Kim played along, but I could tell she was upset. These friends went on to say something like, "Don't worry, Kim, you won't be single forever -- your turn will come someday!"

Abby, my sister is a brilliant, beautiful, very successful attorney in a well-known law firm in a large city. But because she doesn't have a man in her life, she was "singled" out and teased in front of a group comprised mostly of strangers. She held it together through the party, but wept openly to me afterward. She felt humiliated, and worse than that, like some kind of failure.

As it turns out, it was Millie's idea to give Kim the bouquet and make it a "funny" display. Kim was incredibly hurt and no longer wants much to do with our new stepmother. I don't want to get in the middle, but I feel if I told Millie why Kim is being distant, she'd most likely apologize.

Should I stick my nose in or leave it alone? Are we overreacting? Any advice would be appreciated. -- NOT AMUSED SISTER IN VERMONT

I think I'll pass this along to my sister, Kelly, who is probably next in line at the altar...

Dispatch from Tornado Alley

Wow.

First off, we're okay, and did not have any damage to the apartment building. In fact, the pots of dead flowers on my deck were not even moved or anything. All of this despite having a tornado touch down a mile or so north of where we live.

Ames Home Leveled By Tornado
Tornado Sirens Clear Stands At ISU
Residents Find Homes Destroyed, Belongings Scattered: At Least Eight Other Towns Hit
Tornado Kills 1 In Stratford: Tornadoes Touch Down In Central Iowa
Photos Note: The first few in this series were taken from my sister's neighborhood. Luckily, none of us were in town. We were in Manson celebrating my nephew's first birthday. It was hard at first, because we couldn't get any info on what areas were affected. Later, we called home and the answering machines were working, so we knew we at least had electricity.

We have an astounding group of meterologists working for KCCI, the CBS affiliate in Des Moines. Without them, we would have had a lot more people dead or seriously injured. These things were popping up frequently, and the guys stayed on the air, switching between live radar, webcams from SchoolNet, and the storm chaser trucks. Just great coverage, for hours.

More links:

Towns hit by tornadoes wake up to debris, disaster
Cyclone fans encounter the real thing before game Note: Some people asked me why the game went on. First of all, it would have been very bad to have all of those people trying to get out of town into an iffy weather or debris situation. The stadium had no damage, they had power, and the storms had passed. We really didn't need tens of thousands of people complicating traffic in town. Let them watch the game while the authorities assessed the situation in town. It ended up being the right decision. And we WON!
Woodward on Sunday: Church bells and chain saws
Stratford on Sunday: 20 percent of town displaced

Needless to say, everyone at my nephew's party was watching the situation closely. We had a bad moment when the inital storm track was shown for the one that hit Ames, as it pretty much showed a line going straight through my neighborhood. I couldn't breathe, and Kim and I just held hands while I tried not to cry. Then my son came in the room just as I was losing control, and started to get upset. That helped me calm down enough to try to think about what needed to happen next.

Of course, about this time, I started to crack jokes. "Well, at least I know where my insurance agent is..." (the next room), and "At least if this house is gone, I won't have to finish cleaning out that closet." Kim said I could stay with her, and I told her she could stay with me if either of our houses were gone. We went back to the party, and tried calling friends to see what happened. I called my lab monitor at work, and she told me they had watched it go past, and were still watching it. About half an hour later, after trying repeatedly to get through to a friend, I decided to call home, and got the answering machine. Kim tried after that, so we knew things were okay, but not the specifics.

Both of us just kept repeating how lucky we were to not have been there, and that the damage was not worse.

And I am not going to go see the damaged area in town. I have seen enough of that to last me a lifetime, having gone through a whole summer of clean-up when I was seven (Manson's F4). TV is bad enough without seeing it in real life. Plus, it is disrespectful to the people involved. What I will do is donate money if some sort of fund is set up for the family that lost their home in town. I don't think I know them personally, but I still want to help.

Again, this was the craziest thing... This is also the second tornado to hit Ames this fall. I just wonder what the rest of the year will bring...

Hey Troy, you missed it!

Apparently, just after Troy left the LAN party, the guys tripped a circuit. This led to a search for keys to the place across the hall, and about 10 minutes of confusion.

Then, they did it again.

Eventually, they strung more extension cords from the back, switched around more power strips, and we were in business. I settled in to watch "Battlestar Galactica, the Miniseries" on my laptop, and ate some of Cassie's birthday cake, while the guys shot each other and generally had a good time.

I never saw a pound of red licorice disappear so fast...

So, What's YOUR pirate name?

My pirate name is:

Red Jenny Rackham

Passion is a big part of your life, which makes sense for a pirate. You have the good fortune of having a good name, since Rackham (pronounced RACKem, not rack-ham) is one of the coolest sounding surnames for a pirate. Arr!

Get your own pirate name from fidius.org.

Okay, so that probably wasn't interesting to anyone but me.

But this might be.

I posted the "request" sheet for DASH Movies and Popcorn this afternoon. Every semester, we have 24 hour labs during 10 days between the Wednesday before dead week, and the Wednesday of finals week. We pick three movies per night, and they are shown informally on the plasma screen in the fourth floor crit space, just outside the labs. We have a popcorn machine, and make free popcorn, and the movies are there for students to take a quick break and watch a bit of a favorite.

I take requests, because I never know what good movies the students will suggest that I may not have considered, or had forgotten about. I always pick out one key movie that kicks the whole thing off, and that forms the basis of my movie poster for the festival.

This year, I am having problems picking a main movie.

I usually pick something that has just been released on video, and that I happen to own. This year, I have a couple of different movies that I can choose from, but nothing that screams, "Pick me! Pick me!"

The poster has be done before Thanksgiving break, as DASH begins the Wednesday after we get back.

I already know what two of the nights will be: 80's night, because that is a tradition, and a massive movie marathon of a certain six-part movie saga whose final episode just came out on DVD (saving that for a Sunday).

Beyond that, I have no idea at this point. I think I am just going to have to try to watch as many new movies between now and then, and see if anything grabs me. Oh, and we may have to show the Battlestar Galactica mini-series, too.

Any suggestions from my massive pool of readers?

Interesting

I did laser cutter stats for the semester yesterday.

It is interesting to note that every available session was booked through the month of October.

Not just a couple of weeks. Every session, of every day.

November is shaping up to be a repeat...

Accessibility Issue

So, it's voting day here in Ames, and I went to the Ames Tribune website to get some info. They had a link to the map of voting precincts, so I downloaded it to check that nothing had changed (this has happened to me before).

6.7 MB PDF file. Bad. Bad. Bad. You would think that it must be really high quality then. Nope. I had difficulty reading it, and zooming in just revealed a big mess. It looks like it was a lower quality JPEG that was PDFd because someone told the person they needed a PDF for people to download.

I am very disappointed. This is something that people need access to, and they have made it difficult for anyone on a dial-up connection to get, and difficult for anyone with vision problems to even see after they spend hours trying to download it. Honestly, they could have just shown this as a GIF in the browser at a higher quality, with a smaller file size.

Dang.

I forgot to bring the candy to the troop meeting...

At times like these, I wish I were two people.

And so, in two weeks, we will embark on Thanksgiving break. What does this mean for me? Well, the labs are going to be closed, for one thing. My son will still be in school, so this is the perfect time to get a head start on my holiday baking.

Except I really, really need to diet. Badly. How does a girl gain 10 pounds in a little over two weeks??? I am ready to call the doctor and make an appointment. Seriously.

Oh wait, I know... it's all of the Halloween candy, and the Cheesecake Factory, and the not-eating-right-because-I-was-busy. This week will be different. I have made my menus for the week, and did the grocery shopping, so there is no good reason why I would have to give in and eat junk. No reason.

I am taking the rest of the leftover candy from work to our troop meeting tonight. Let the kids and their higher metabolism feast on the sugar laden stuff. Not me. I am turning over a new leaf! I am going to take the stairs at work (as long as it's only two flights), and will start walking in the evening after dinner. This trend to gain WILL be DEFEATED!!!!

Coincidentally, a couple of my friends have also said that they had recently put on weight, and then there is another, who stopped dieting, and did not gain back a single pound. Jealous!!!!!

OMG, You CAN'T MISS THIS!!!

CBS, right now, "Catagory 7; The End of the World".

More crappy camera work that used to be cutting edge than you can shake a stick at.

Paris flattened by tornados, a hidden report that practically predicts the locations being hit by the severe weather, by-products of industry run amok...

Growing up in Tornado Alley...

What the HECK? Catagory 6 Tornado? Wouldn't that be an F6?

Anyway, as I was saying, growing up in Tornado Alley, I've been through an F4, and through my share of severe weather and tornado warnings, including a smaller funnel that I actually woke up to. Tornado movies always strike me as a little ridiculous...

In any case, a weather disaster movie at this time is distasteful, to say the least, what with Katrina, Rita, and Wilma.

And I just watched George Washinton's face fall off of Mount Rushmore.

What more could a girl want on a Sunday night?

update: Okay, put a bunch of bigwigs in evening dress, and have the tree frogs go crazy. Oh, poison tree frongs. On the food. What the HECK were the writers thinking? The pyramids are going to get it next. Ooooo goodie!

update #2: Okay, I get it. Storms, locusts, plague of locusts. Randy Quaid standing in the middle of a field saying somethings going to happen. More camera work that was immortalized by car commercials...

Mooommmm, play with meeeeee????!?!?

My son is under the impression that I am dying to play video games that give me motion sickness. He is dying for someone to play Rogue Leader with him, so he can blow them to bits with his B-Wing. No matter how many times I tell him that I get migraines from playing games like that, he keeps asking.

I LOVE the fact that he wants to spend time with me. I know that these years/months are precious, and will be coming to an end soon. The teenage years are always at the back of my mind, when I know that I will be relegated to the role of food provider and parental oppressor. Don't get me wrong - I would love to play games with him. I just wish that he wanted to play something else, and would not ask at inopportune times (i.e. when in the midst of supper preparations, or in the bathroom).

This is why I wanted to take him to the train show today. I wanted us to do something that he liked and was interested in, but apparantly, his interests changed while I wasn't looking. Dumb Mom.

It's the age he's at. I've talked with his friends' parents, and it's pretty much the same story there. They fight with their friends, but get upset when you suggest not spending as much time with those friends. They snip at each other, and are exerting their independence fiercely. They talk back, and try to see how much they can get away with. If they still had recess, I am sure they'd be able to get this agression out during football or tag, but with the new middle school, they don't.

As for tonight, I am going to go start dinner, then I'll dig out the chess set, and the dominos, and see if he wants to play. It may not be Star Wars video games, but at least I won't get sick.

This is going to be a loooong day.

My son has decided that he is tired. About an hour and a half ago, he sat on the couch, and pretty soon he was tucked up in a blanket, watching TV. This is not like him at all.

I went to the grocery store and got groceries. When I came home, he decided to take a bath. He's decided that he doesn't want to go anywhere today. At all.

Now, it's all well and fine to leave him at home when I go get groceries, but I needed to run to Target, as my shoes are falling apart. Too far, too long a time to be left at home by himself. We also have this thing for scouts tonight that we should go to, but if I can't get him out of the door with a promise of going to a train show, I doubt I will get him out of the door for anything else.

I hope he isn't getting sick, but at this point, with the way he is acting, that might be just what is happening.

LIke I said, this is going to be a long and boring day.

Snooze

Somehow, my plans to get up nice and early and clean house were transformed into pressing the snooze once, then accidentally turning off the alarm, because after all, it is Saturday.

I am going to finish my coffee, and get dressed and go to the grocery store. My cleaning weekend is quickly filling up with activities NOT related to cleaning, but I am going to muddle through somehow.

Why did I turn the stupid thing off????

Once again, I have too much stuff.

This weekend is hereby designated as "Throw out your crap!" weekend!!!

This means that all of those clothes that I thought I HAD to have, are going away to new homes. Actually, to one new home - the DUMPSTER. You may ask why I don't give it to Goodwill. One simple reason: if I bag it up for Goodwill, it will sit in my living room, waiting for me to have a moment to take it. Honestly, I would not want to inflict the sheer hideousness of my old clothes on ANYONE.

My goal is to reclaim my closet. Back in January, when my son had the chicken pox and was out of school for SIX DAYS, I went through the first round of cuts. So, it's not as bad as it could have been. I am going to get another shelf for the camping gear, which is out of control. We camp a lot. We've camped once a month since April (except I camped twice in April). Oh, and July, but that doesn't really count, as we camped for an entire week in June.

In any case, we have a lot of camping gear. It's hard to get to. I want to change that.

I also have a surprising amount of renaissance faire garb that has taken over part of the closet. And tons of shoes that I don't wear, and never will again, because they are ugly or uncomfortable.

This is just my closet, understand. The kitchen cupboards could be purged again, too. I clean out the 'frige once a week, so that's not a problem.

The big problem is my son's room.

He has too many toys, and insists that he needs to keep them ALL. His idea of cleaning his room is shoving everything to the sides, and under the bed in typical kid fashion. Unfortunately, this results in my never being able to open the side of the closet that has the shelf with his bins for clothes. I am always reaching blindly to put things away. I'd like to be able to open the doors.

So, bribery will be in full force tomorrow morning. We will be taking a large amount of toys to goodwill (even I don't throw away toys!). If things go well, there may be a trip to the train show in a nearby school. If not, well... there may still be a trip to the train show. I just want to see effort, and get rid of some stuff. It doesn't have to be perfect, it just has to be done.

Yes, I am getting older.

I fell asleep on the couch a bit before 7:30. I just woke up about 15 minutes ago. I will be going to bed for the night in about 30 minutes. When it is time to get up tomorrow morning, I will still hit the snooze at least twice, and will feel like I haven't had enough sleep. This is normal for me. The part about not feeling rested in the morning, anyway.

Ways to bug me:

1. In a communal laundry room, take up all three washers, then leave your clothes in for 45 minutes after they are done.

2. Put your empty laundry basket on top of one of the washers, so that others will think the washer has clothes in it, then just leave it.

Luckily, I only waited 20 minutes before looking into the washer with the basket on it. It's still going to take me all night to do three loads of laundry, but at least it is started.

Way Cool!

It's not very often that I get a chance to do something cool with technology. Oh wait...

Okay, it's not very often that I get a chance to do something cool with technology that is outside of my field.

Tonight, our boy scout troop got a chance to visit the C6 Lab, on the Iowa State University campus, in Howe Hall. This guy was there, too! We had a chance to test a new fire safety training program that uses virtual reality. The kids had an absolute blast, and I think most of the adults had fun, too. I was particularly thrown by how fast fire can engulf a room, and many of the unsafe practices we saw in the model home opened my eyes as to what we can do to make our home safer. And --- no notion sickness this time!!!!

I am a fireman's daughter, and my dad taught fire safety in my hometown school quite frequently. There is a vast difference, however, between hearing how fast a fire can spread, and seeing how fast it can spread. Literally in seconds we went from pointing out the unattended food cooking in the kitchen, to having the room fill with black smoke. Yes, all computer generated, but it was still unsettling.

So, thanks, folks at the C6 Lab and the Ames Fire Department! I know that my son and I had a good time, and we walked away feeling we learned something. I am going to go remove my hat from the top of my halogen lamp now...

The end? Or the beginning...

Way back in time, in a Galaxy far, far away, a little girl saw a movie that reached out and grabbed her, and wouldn't let go. I was five when Star Wars came out, but I didn't see it until right before The Empire Strikes Back. This was back in the days before normal people had VCRs in their homes, and the best one could do was hope for a movie theatre to pick up an older film and run it for a special occasion.

The movie house in Pocahantas, Iowa, did just that in the run-up to the release of The Empire Strikes Back. I don't remember the drive to the theatre, which was 20 miles away, but I remember walking through the doors, into a sea of excited kids, and seeing those words appear on the screen, "A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away...".

For a least a year before the second movie, my best friend, Kim, and I had collected the Star Wars movie cards, clutching our quarters as we rode our bikes to the store, spending our allowance on bubble gum cards, carefully putting the cards in number order, in a shoebox we kept in Kim's closet (she didn't have younger siblings, so they were safe at her house). We played with her Star Wars action figures, rescued the galaxy, fell in love with Han Solo (we were both Princess Leia, so we had two Han Solos), and snuck her brother's Star Wars ships and other toys out of his room when he was gone.

The audible gasps from the audience when Luke found his uncle and aunt burned to death, and as Darth Vader struck down Obi-Wan were echoed by every kid in the theater. Many of us had been too young to see the movie when it first came out. We all knew the story, but seeing it was something entirely different.

My dad took us to see the second movie in Fort Dodge. Kim and I were so excited we could hardly sit still, while LeAnn was tagging along because the big girls were going. When the movie ended with Han Solo still frozen in carbonite, Kim and I cried the entire 30 minute drive home. My dad was at a loss as to how to console us. "It's only a movie," he explained.

But that's just it - it wasn't and never will be "only a movie."

Yes, the first two prequels were disappointing to many, if only because many of us who saw the earlier films as children expected more of the same, but with better special effects. But the point was, Star Wars was alive again. We knew as children that there was more to the story, and we wanted to see it, hear it, read it. It wasn't the only thing in our lives, but it was a common thread that linked the children we were to the adults we have become. And it links us with our own children, as they discover for themselves the stories of our childhood.

When I saw Revenge of the Sith, when it first came out, it was with my son and two of his friends. We waited eagerly for the movie to start, and sat in rapt attention, barely moving, for the entire film. We gasped when Anakin killed Mace Windu, and when he murdered the Jedi youth. We watched he became what he had to become, in order to fulfill his destiny. And as Luke and Leia were born, and Padme and the last human part of Anakin died, we cried.

But when Lord Vader arose, we cheered with the rest of the theater, for what is Star Wars without him? The villain who will become a hero in the end, to save the children that he did not know had survived until he met a boy named Luke Skywalker. In the end he finds the strength to kill the Emporer, and in doing so sacrifices himself, destroying the Sith.

Revenge of the Sith was released on DVD today. There will be no more Star Wars movies, or so we've been told. But this is a story that can never truly end, as long as there are children who pretend to be Princess Leia, Luke Skywalker, Han Solo, or Darth Vader.

Next year, I think they're going by themselves...

I am getting too old and too worn out to keep up with four kids running door to door, and it was cold.

But the ghost stories were good!

And now, I finally get to sit down.

I just finished making about 9 dozen sugar cookies. I am bringing sugar cookies to work tomorrow for Halloween!

I am dressing up in my green dress, red cape, and straw hat. My son is dressing up as Shaun, from Shaun of the Dead, a movie which it seems, only we have seen (among our friends and family). No matter, people tomorrow may get it, and think it funny.

My son has to go to work with me tomorrow, since there is no school, so this should be pretty fun. There he will sit, in the computer lab, playing Halo or BZFlag, covered in red paint. I will be stuck driving to work in costume, as it takes so long to get into, and I really don't want to have to go to work at 6:45 in order to be ready in time. That's also why I'm just going to wear it trick-or-treating too.

This year, my son invited three friends to go trick-or-treating with us. All of them wear unanimously decided that I had to wear a costume anyway, so this works out well. My son wanted me to be a zombie, but I declined :)

I bought about 10 pounds of candy for tomorrow, for the labs. I am giving out candy to anyone in costume, or with a plausible explanation as to why their normal attire could be considered a costume. One department is having "Dress like your professor" day, and another is also having a costume contest.

This should be fun!

What are YOU going to be?

That little voice inside my head...

told me to go to Goodwill. "Maybe you can pick up some sweaters for the eleven-year-old?" it said...

In the back of the store, was a cute little black table, just the perfect size for a desk for my room! $9.99. Handmade. A little wobbly.

I bought it, took it home, cleaned it up, tightened the legs up, and the knob on the tiny little drawer. It's the perfect size, height, shape, everything. I got rid of my old desk in June, and have been using an old drawing board set across two iron plant stands ever since. I was looking for just the right thing.

And I was just going to go straight home after buying my son some new clothes...

Sewing Reflections

I have given up on the red bodice to the huge red dress.

The pattern, simplicity 8881, is theoretically gorgeous, and I have seen it done well, but the bodice pattern is so far off that I was left with four extra inches in the bodice area when I wore this for the DM ren faire. I hated the lovely dress that I had poured so much time into.

Now that I am much more comfortable sewing clothing, and had made bodices that actually fit properly, I tried to sit down tonight and figure out just what would have to be done to the pattern to make it work for me.

The answer - use a different pattern, or draft my own.

The shoulder straps needed to be lengthened, and somehow the back needed to come in quite a bit over the chest, and I knew I'd have to hand sew the eyelets so that it would lace instead of hook in the back. Added to the fact that there is quite a bit of handsewing anyway, I decided to scrap the idea of trying to finish it before Monday.

So, I just need to take in the waist of the green skirt (had to pin it when I wore it), and finish off the eyelets on the green bodice (I had only gone around the holes once, instead of twice, as I was doing this the night before I wanted to wear it at the Iowa Ren faire, by the light of a lantern). It's about an hour's work for the set, as the holes are already there, and I am just reinforcing them.

The green dress is actually a better choice, as it is trimmed in red and black, and has a matching cloak and hat. I may have to add black trim to the skirt, though, as I had not finished that before I had to wear it last.

Oh, I am glad to have a least a little bit of a project to work on again! I am still looking for fabric for a jacket that I want to make, and I've got quilt squares sitting on my sewing table, waiting to be pieced together into something. I also need to start thinking about Christmas, and if I want to make gifts for anyone this year. I've made picture quilts and pillows for friends and relatives in the past, but I am kind of low on inspiration this year. I used to sketch with pencil and paper, but in the last couple of years, I sketch on my sewing machine.

And when it gets cold outside, I don't feel quite as guilty about staying in and watching television as long as I have hand sewing to work on.

Did I mention it's also good for the diet?

Insomnia

(that should have something like, #19849824 behind it, but who's keeping track?)

My legs are the problem tonight.

I finally gave in and took some tylenol about 5 minutes ago. We'll see how long it takes to work.

My sister, M, bought a self-hypnosis CD from a hypnotist that visited her college. My mom and I insisted that she let us listen to it (it was for weight-loss :)). So, we all lay flat on our backs on the living room floor, ready to listen and at least relax a bit.

Of course, I can't stop laughing.

I got the giggles the moment the music started.

They escaped again when the hypnotist started talking.

Before long, I was biting my lip to keep from laughing, and failing miserably. I ended up having to leave the room. In fact, M and I escaped to the computer room.

The five and a half minutes I managed to sort of hear, said to start relaxing from the tips of your toes, then the ankles, and let the relaxation spread inch by inch, until your eyes are so heavy that you can't possibly open them. If it weren't for the cheesy music (created especially for the hypnotist!), and the fact that I can't stop from laughing at things that take themselves too seriously, I might have been able to figure out how to relax enough to get to sleep tonight...

Okay, 13 minutes, and the tylenol hasn't started to work yet.

(edited out because it made NO SENSE, and had only to do with my pathetic plans for Friday night)

Actually, Hugh Jackman is the new Bruce Willis. Bruce replaced Sean Connery, who replaced two actors who will remain unnamed (cough)Wil Wheaton/slash whoever played Riker(/cough). Movies, candy, boring me.

Well, I think that the tylenol has finally started to work (1:16). I think I might actually be able to sleep now.

I hope that this post has been instrumental in putting others to sleep, as well.

Goodnight!

There were a bunch of things I wanted to blog about today, but...

I was at work.

Last night, I happened to catch VH-1's I Love the 80s - 3D. Oh, the things I saw, and the memories that came back...

And tonight, it's '84 and '85! Unfortunately, I have stuff to do tonight that will probably not involve watching tv, except for South Park.

Yet another bad thing about being sick is the fact that all of the Mom-Work piles up. I have a running list right now that I know I will not get done tonight. But, I am okay with that. As long as I get the laundry done, and the house dusted, things should shape up fairly quickly.

What I am battling right now is severe leg pain, consequence of two days of inactivity, and a full day of running at work. Actually, my legs started hurting after only an hour, during which I spent most of the time sitting at my desk in my very expensive chair (TG for half-price sales!). I probably won't sleep well tonight, so it is just as well that I have chores to keep me occupied.

Hmmm, oh, and another thing I wanted to write about...

We are dressing up for Halloween at work on Monday! I have several excited lab monitors who are on board, and apparently one of the departments is having a costume contest. This brings me to my other, other plans for the next few days...

I am planning on ripping apart the horrid red dress and redoing the bodice in a style that will actually fit, and doesn't have crappy sleeves. I am going to start on this tonight while the laundry is going (three loads at a time - I love apartment building laundry rooms!). I am going to nix the stupid hat and opt for just a plain white head covering, which should look much better. I also have some jewelry that I made this summer that will go with it, too.

Should be fun to do tech support stuff in farthingale, huh?

The best part is, my son does not have school, so he is coming to work as Shaun of the Dead (nametag finished, cricket bat template finished, to the correct size for his height - 5). I wonder just how long it will take for someone to notice...

Eek... time to go... so much to do, so little time...

A mothra's wrok is never done...

So, after spending another lovely day on the couch experiencing the joys that are know as Daytime Television.

Even with cable this is torture on the wrists (channel surfing).

Can someone tell me WHY every other movie on Lifetime Movie Network has either "deadly" and "matrimony" in it, and are all about abusive relationships that don't start out bad, and in fact start out with the hunk o'the day buying the heroine lots of designer clothes ala the 80s? jeesh. Either that, or they show only Danielle Steele movies. Oh wait, they nearly all have scenes like that with the clothes. I'll admit, I've read just two of her books. The first because I was a captive audience. The second, because I was under sedation when I finished the first, and therefore was under the impression that I liked it.

But, I digress.

Tonight, I had to go out of the house for two very important reasons. The first was because we had DVDs checked out from the library that were due today. At $1.00/day fine, the fact that we had 10 dvds checked out was more than enough reason to attempt to drag myself and my son out of the house. The second reason was because we were out of milk, and pretty much every thing else in the manner of groceries. Oh, and my son needed a pumpkin yet for Halloween. Yes, that's three reasons then.

Yes, I actually made it out of the house and back.

Thank god I can go back to work tomorrow...

update: I think I am going to check my temp again. This post made absolutely no sense...

You know that scene in Scanners...

Yes, I feel like my head is going to blow up.

When I woke up this morning, my stomach felt a little off but it wasn't until I got out of the shower that I realized that I had a problem.

Stomach flu.

I brushed my teeth, and resigned myself to taking the day off. I sent my son off to school, and settled on the couch with the weather channel on at very low volume.

When I woke up at around noon, I checked email, then decided that I should try to eat something.

Ten minutes later, I discovered that it was a bad idea.

About 2:30, the headache started, and my temperature got higher.

I made soup for supper (for me - my son had leftover tacos), but I ended up throwing it away after smelling it. I made oatmeal instead, and it seems to be doing okay so far.

But the headache will not go away, even with tylenol.

I hate being sick. I can't relax because I know there are a million things that I need to be doing other than being sick.

I just hope this doesn't last much longer...

White shirt - Check, Red tie - Check

Just back from the costume search. Goodwill coughed up a red tie that will soon have magic marker taken to it to make some stripes. Salvation Army store yielded a white shirt with white buttons (key attention to detail). After both items are washed, we will begin splattering red paint on the shirt (red ink in the pocket), and striping the tie. The name tag will be done on the color printer and mounted on a name tag. We may skip the black dress pants, but as my son needs some anyway, I may just go buy some.

Black shoes are the problem. My son's feet have grown a size since last summer, when we bought black dress shoes. Now, I have a perfectly good pair of black oxfords that I only wore a couple of times, and that look exactly like the pair of black dress shoes that he grew out of. I may do a bait and switch, and just not tell him that they are mine. They might actually be too small for him, but then again, I think these were bought while I was still carrying a few extra pounds.

In any case, the Shaun of the Dead costume is progressing nicely! This is going to be so funny...

Weekend Plans - Quandry

After feeling almost human again last night, I woke up this morning with a very stuffy nose, and a big headache.

I was planning on going to a friend's house today, but she never called to solidify plans, so I am not sure what is up with that.

My mom wants me to go back to Manson this weekend, as my aunt and her husband and their two boys are visiting from St. Louis. If this headache goes away before noon, so I can get some work done around the house, I may just fill up the car with gas (for the low, low price of $2.19/gallon), and go spend the weekend with my family.

On the other hand, if I stayed home this weekend, I could get the rest I need to get over this cold, and still get lots of stuff done around the house (taking cans and bottles back, cleaning out my closet, making my son's Halloween costume, etc).

Play or Work? Play or Work?

Okay, now I really will have some explaining to do...

My son has decided that rather than wear his ren-faire costume for trick-or-treat, he is going to go as Shaun, of Shaun of the Dead.

We laughed for about 10 minutes straight making a list of the things that we need to make this costume.... I am going to have to find some red plastic so I can make him a name tag on the laser cutter this weekend. Everything else we should be able to get from Goodwill for pretty cheap.

This is going to be good...

Update - that thing about the laser cutter - for a second there I forgot that the laser cutter is booked solid for the next week already... I'll get some letter stickers and put it together by hand, but laser etching it would have been the perfect touch...

Uh, okay...

Big family filled entertainment here tonight...

My son and I sat down to watch a movie together. A movie that he has been begging me to be allowed to watch for ages and ages. A movie that I really wanted to watch, too.

Before I put in the movie, I made him swear that he would go to bed as usual, with the lights out, after watching, no complaints.

A movie that he is still laughing about, and quoting from, and probably will for the next few years.

Sorry, mom.

If you haven't seen it yet, you have to, have to, have to rent or buy or check out from the library (I know our library has it, because I checked it out!) -----

Shaun of the Dead you ROCK!!!

Longest Afternoon

You know how you can work and work and work, and think that you've been working for hours and hours and hours, then look up at the clock and realized that it is only 2:00 and only an hour has passed since you got back from lunch?

That was my day.

I Hate Laundry

Okay, actually, I rather like doing laundry normally, but tonight my cold has me wiped out, and the last thing i want to do is trudge up and down the stairs doing laundry.

There is something about finishing the laundry that really makes me feel like I am organized, and have everything under control, even if the dishwasher is filled with dishes, and my son has his 10,000 piece megablock Tank spread across the living room floor. Having clean laundry to wear means not having to worry about NOT having clean clothes to wear.

It is also one of the three "D"s that are part of the flylady mantra.

Dinner, dishes, and duds.

These are the three key items that you need to do, even if you can't do anything else when you are sick. Doing these three things will still make you feel like you have accomplished something, and if the rest of your routines have been kept up, you can get through being sick without having the house and family fall apart around you.

Dinner tonight was Culvers, since I had to take my son to get his hair cut anyway (the kid is beyond help - 8 years with the SAME HAIRCUT. He will not change.) That's one D taken care of.

Dishes were in the dishwasher and the dishwasher was running when we left. I am going to empty it in just a few minutes, and put the last couple of things in. That's the second D.

Which brings me to the third D. Duds. Laundry.

Oh well, I had better quit complaining and just do it. It'll take me five minutes to start, 25 to wash, and 47 to dry. In between, I am vegging on the couch. No sudafed tonight, unless I take it after the laundry is done, and go to bed immediately.

One bad thing about taking cold medicine...

(oh and in case you missed the meaning of the last post title, "Feed a Cold, starve the flu", hence no diet until this cold is gone)

As I was saying, one bad thing about taking sudafed is that if you get interrupted while sleeping, or do not get to sleep within a certain period of time after taking it, you might as well get up and bake a cake.

So I did.

Chocolate. It's in the oven right now.

Somehow, while I couldn't finish three pages in the book I am reading, due to being distracted by the SpongeBob Movie (one of my son's library picks - of course he also heartily agreed to Shaun of the Dead), I decided that I needed to bake a cake. I wanted something sweet, and since there are no sweets in the house, and I had a cake mix and frosting in the pantry, I decided to make a cake.

I am never getting to sleep tonight. And I only took half a dose...

Okay, the diet is off!

I woke up with a light headache this morning, but didn't think much about it. As I drove to work, my blood sugar dropped and I was feeling pretty icky. I got something to eat right away from the vending machines, and then realized, as food began to take effect, that the headache was the beginning of sinus pressure.

Yup. Sinus cold. I also developed a heck of a cough as the day progressed. No fever, as such, but since I run consistently at about 97.8°F normally, and am about 98.4°F now, my temp is elevated a bit.

I called my mom after work, and right after I said hi, she said, "You too?" Yep, mom has it, and one of my sisters that I spent Saturday with has it too. Nan has it bad, apparently. Despite all of this, Mom is trying to get us to come home this weekend, as my aunt and her husband and my two little cousins (one in first grade, one who is three) are coming to visit from St. Louis. I told her that we'd think about driving up on Sunday, unless this turns into sinus infection. "We all have it, so you don't have to worry about being contagious," she cajoled. I love my mom for not minding if we visit while I am sick :) Unfortunately, the last thing I want to do if I can barely keep my eyes open is drive for 90 minutes during harvest season (those tractors come out of NOWHERE and drive 35 mph on the highway).

So, I am in my pyjamas, getting ready to take some sudafed, and sit down with a book on the couch. Luckily, my son does not have religious ed tonight, so we'd don't have to go anywhere the rest of the evening. I have to stay up until 10 though --- NEW SEASON OF SOUTH PARK!

Time to dig the medicine out of the first aid kit...

Oh, and if you thought I'd let this go unchallenged...

Seems someone decided to set up a little ping challenge...

I am known for my impressive ping response times :) It's a natural side-effect of spending TOO MUCH TIME ONLINE!!!

It's also function of Safari, where bookmarked RSS feeds put a number in the bookmark bar when a new post is made. Right now there are 929 unread updates in my News folder, and ZERO in my blogging folder.

Here I am, goofing off online when my son is waiting for me to go "Do SOMEthing." I think we'll go to the library and get some more books and movies...

"I wanna go DO something."

Sixth-grade speak for "Let's go to Family Video so I can rent games that we will forget to return on time."

Day 1 of the New Diet

(quit laughing)

After the excess of the weekend, and let's be perfectly honest here, the entire last three months, I decided that today was "D Day". Yes, the dreaded Diet has begun.

While I am not going to join Weight Watchers officially, I have my mom's old points counter, and have figured out my points for everything I ate today. Except the chocolate muffin, because there is no way that I want to know how many points I just blew away with that one. Oh, and I accidentally ate a cupcake earlier...

Dang. This five pounds is NEVER going to go away...

I ate what?

Lovely, lovely lunch and shopping with my mom and three of my sisters, and my baby niece and nephew today. We left the 11-year-old with my brother-in-law (he hates shopping).




A lovely place to eat lunch...





Blackend Chicken Sandwich, my favorite high-calorie indulgence :)



Luau Salad - my mom's choice was tempting, too. I think I am going to have to try this one next time.


To finish off our gorgeous lunch, we shared cheesecake. I have no idea what kind it was, but it had toffee chips and nuts in the whipped cream, and it tasted like caramel. Wonderful!!! I did not get pictures of the cheesecake - it disappeared too fast!

Too soon, we had to go home. I really enjoyed our day together, and I hope we can do it again soon.

Say it with me: "Cheesecake Factory"

That is where we are going to have lunch tomorrow.

I gained 5 pounds this month, and I am still going to eat lunch at the Cheesecake Factory tomorrow. I think I will take pictures. Of the food. Because I am starting my diet on Sunday.

Heaven on Comedy Central

25 of Eric Cartmen's Greatest Moments. Right now. Comedy Central.

The Internets: The Good, the Bad, and the Uuugggly

So, I was bored tonight, and waiting for something to print on my old personal laserwriter 320 (bought 11 years ago this month). I started googling names of people I know/knew, and pretty soon, I decided to pop in my own name.

Oh, the horror...

Everything I ever put my name on, online, for everyone to see. Infini-D Listserv posts from 1996, my old isu web site with old tutorials for a software application that no longer exists (but I still get email about), a comment I made on wwdn.net back in 2003, that project I worked on in '96&'97, and the UUUUUUGGGGLLLLLY picture of me that Heather took back when I first started my job in 2000 (still on work's web site!!!).

Just think how bad it's going to be in 10 years!

Even Prouder Moment:

Written above a cut out picture of yummy roasted chicken.

And I quote:
"God is like an oven roasted chicken. It's good."

laughing hysterically, because I just know my son made a really good first impression tonight... I thought it was funny, but I don't know what the teachers thought :)

That's my kid!

Proud moment: When asked to make one of God's creatures out of play-do tonight in religious ed, my son made a T-Rex, in full, terrifying glory.

Just so you know...

I did not escape unscathed by last weekend's chilly camping adventure. I have the sneaking suspicion that I am getting what is going to be a very, very bad cold. As in, my chest feels tight, I try to cough, but it's non-productive. Not going to be fun.

It's fixed!

Yes, my refrigerator is no longer leaking water. And yes, there was this thing in the back of the freezer (inside, mind you), that had sort of come away from the freezer wall where it was supposed to be attached. Guess how they fixed that?

Yep. Duct tape.

I've sunk to new lows...

Yes, I actually considered eating chocolate chip cookie dough ice cream directly from the package tonight. If it had been a carton instead of one of those rectangle things, I would have. As it is, I am contemplating the logistics of reading an online book while eating ice cream from a plate, but I am not certain it is a wise idea. Laptop keyboards, as you know, are not ice cream proof.

I, Jennifer must read I. Asimov. Now.

Okay, so I have to be the only geek who has not read Isaac Asimov, and really, I meant to get on that about 15 years ago, but life got in the way. I've wanted to read "I, Robot" for over a decade, but I keep getting sidetracked by other authors, noteably Philip K. Dick and H. Rider Haggard (thank you, Project Gutenburg, for having the other 51 HRH books that our library does not).

But, I digress...

Last Sunday I went to the library to return movies, and get more DVDs. I found a couple of semi-good movies that I had already seen, and three I hadn't seen. One of those was "I, Robot".

Let's just say that tomorrow's trip to the library will be with one mission in mind. I am fully aware movies are almost never like the books the profess to bring to life, but I have always enjoyed books more than movies made from books. Since I enjoyed the movie I, Robot quite a bit, I am very anxious to get started on a real Asimov binge.

OMG, my mom found my blog!

No, not really, but if she had found my blog, this post would just confirm her suspicion that I am... wait for it... The Most Boring Person in the World™. And she'd be right!

The refrigerator repair person is coming around sometime tomorrow to fix the water problem. You know, the problem with the water actually coming from the freezer into the refrigerator section...

10 more reasons to read this blog:

01010100 01101000 01100101 01110010 01100101 00100000 01100001 01110010 01100101 00100000 00110001 00110000 00100000 01110100 01111001 01110000 01100101 01110011 00100000 01101111 01100110 00100000 01110000 01100101 01101111 01110000 01101100 01100101 00100000 01101001 01101110 00100000 01110100 01101000 01100101 00100000 01110111 01101111 01110010 01101100 01100100 00101110 00100000 01010100 01101000 01101111 01110011 01100101 00100000 01110111 01101000 01101111 00100000 01110101 01101110 01100100 01100101 01110010 01110011 01110100 01100001 01101110 01100100 00100000 01100010 01101001 01101110 01100001 01110010 01111001 00101100 00100000 01100001 01101110 01100100 00100000 01110100 01101000 01101111 01110011 01100101 00100000 01110111 01101000 01101111 00100000 01100100 01101111 01101110 00100111 01110100 00101110 00100000 00001101 00001010 00001101 00001010 01010111 01100101 00100000 01101110 01101111 01110111 00100000 01110010 01100101 01110100 01110101 01110010 01101110 00100000 01111001 01101111 01110101 00100000 01110100 01101111 00100000 01111001 01101111 01110101 01110010 00100000 01110010 01100101 01100111 01110101 01101100 01100001 01110010 01101100 01111001 00100000 01110011 01100011 01101000 01100101 01100100 01110101 01101100 01100101 01100100 00100000 01100010 01101100 01101111 01100111 00100000 01110000 01101111 01110011 01110100 00101110

In which I continue as I started...

To stay true to this title, I will now continue to not finish this post, as I have not finished anything I have started this weekend, other than

Cold

Good-bye beautiful fushia and bright pink petunias. Good-bye morning glories, you've bloomed beautifully in hues from deepest purple, indigo blues, and deep pinks. Good-bye wild-flowers, with your red petals edged in gold. Good-bye snapdragons, I don't remember planting you this year, but I am sorry that I pulled some of you when I thought you were weeds. You bloomed long into the fall, and I never saw you without smiling, thankful that you lasted this long.

It's going to freeze tonight, and while some of you may make it past this first freeze, they'll be more cold nights ahead.

And when you are dried up and brown, I will search for your seeds, so I can plant you again come spring.

5:37 pm and NOOOOO APPPLIIIIAAAANNNNCCCEEEE GGUUUUYYYYY!!!!

Waiting for pizza now, instead of waiting for help with my refrigerator.

I'm gonna call it that I won't see them today.

Still waiting...

Okay, when the maintenance guy left, I had the impression that the appliance repair guy would be on the way shortly.

Not here yet. No phone call telling me when he is going to be here.

I am keeping track of email from work, and so faarrr things seem to be going okay. The point is, I have an ongoing list of things that I want to do at work, that require an actual physical presence at my office. They are not critical emergencies, but things I would rather do today so I do not have to do them tomorrow. Yes, I can sit and write up more stuff for our manuals and web site at home, but I don't have the software on my laptop to actually put the text into the InDesign copy of the manual, or to edit the web pages, assuming that I can connect via this non-university IP address. I need a larger hard drive, so I can install all of the software I need instead of half :(

In addition, if this goes on all afternoon into the evening...

Maintenance=1: Jennifer=0

Okay, last night, when I opened the freezer to get some ice, I noticed an odd smell, and the freezer was suspiciously warm. "Okay, it's defrosting," I said, then opened the refrigerator to get some Diet Pepsi.

"Okay, that's not normal." I watched in dismay as water steadily dripped from this thing in the back. In fact, there was quite a bit of water. I grabbed a bowl and stuck it under the drip, then proceded to clean up the worst of the water mess.

Now the maintenance guy has come and gone, spending a total of less than five minutes looking at it. "I'll call the appliance guy," he said, after I had shot down his thought about the normal defrost cycle. He was nice, he just needed to see the steadily filling bowl to agree that it was not normal for water to be dripping into the refrigerator area. The applicance guy is also going to check the temperature in both areas to make sure it is keeping things safely cooled.

But now I am stuck waiting again...

Upsetting news...

My mind is buzzing right now. A good friend of mine lost her father this morning. Out of respect for her family and their privacy, I will not go into details, but it was very upsetting.

I called my parents after I talked with her. I couldn't imagine losing either one of them, and my father does not have the safest job in the world. He's a volunteer fireman, in addition to owning a towing and repair shop in Manson. He's been in very sticky situations, been stuck in snow drifts in massive blizzards, goes, or used to go, into burning buildings with startling frequency, and even been hit by a semi (just got back into the tow truck and got sideswiped in a snowstorm).

We make it a point to get together regularly, because we do understand how quickly things can change, and that our time together is valuable. It's at times like this when I wish they lived in the same town, so I could go hug them, and tell them in person how much I love them. A voice on the phone is good, but being there would be better.

I am so incredibly lucky to still have them.

I hate it when I am right...

Tonight: thunderstorms. Thursday: high 54°F, low 35°F.

Like I said, October in Iowa is an... interesting time of year...

It's 80+°F in October. In Iowa.

Being the born and bred Iowan that I am, instead of blythly turning my face up to the sun and playing hooky from work, I was unable to fully enjoy the warm and balmy weather.

It's October, for crying out loud. Warm weather in October sends me looking skyward for thunderheads and lightning. It's just not natural! :)

I keep waiting for a front to go through that will drop the temps 40° in an hour... or tornados, or snow.

I have to camp this weekend, so I am hoping that the weather will hold out, but I just know that when Friday rolls around, we'll get a weather change and end up with polar bear points over the weekend....

Beautiful October Evening

Ahh... there is nothing quite like the warm breeze that stirs the leaves and brings the fresh scent of SKUUUUUUUNNNNNNKKKKK into your home...

I could cry right now.

I could cry because it is hot out, and my fan is broken (dead motor, tossed out over a week ago), and I can't have my window open because of the lovely smell of skunk...

One Weekend

This is the first weekend in a loooong time, that we have nothing going on at all. No trips to my hometown, no Boy Scout camping trips, training, fund-raisers, or other activities. An actual weekend were we can sleep in and do whatever we want.

Last night, we made fondue for supper. We found an electric fondue pot at Goodwill on Thursday night, for $1.99, perfect condition, all parts present and in the original packaging ala 1982. Oh, what trip down memory lane...

Back in the day (I use this term because once you hit 30, everything you did as a child was at least 20 years ago, so it qualifies as "back in the day"). As I was saying, Back in the Day, my parents, my sister Nan, and I would have "fondue nights" every once in awhile. It was exciting to my sister and I, for several reasons. For one thing, we got to stay up late and eat chips and drink pop, but the biggest reason was that my dad would move the TV to where we could see it from the kitchen table.

We would linger over the dinner table, spearing chunks of steak or little smokies, and frying them in the oil which Mom heated in the electric pan. I always wanted the fork with the white dot on the end of the handle. We'd wait patiently for the meat to fry, then would blot off the grease on a napkin, letting it cool while we put in another piece. Mom would put the Western dressing in coffee cups, and we'd dip the meat in the dressing, and we'd swear it was the best thing we'd ever tasted. Mostly, though, it was time with our parents that made it so fun.

That's why my eyes got teary when I saw that little fondue pot. I immediately had visions of my son and I talking (not arguing), and sharing a piece of my childhood while eating ridiculous little bits of meat dipped in Western Dressing.

My son said it sounded fun, so we rented a movie last night, and went to the grocery store where I frantically tried to remember exactly what we used to eat on those nights (hey, it was Back in the Day, and I'm getting OLD).

You know how you build things up in your mind to the point where reality can never match it?

We got home, and immediately my son turned on the GameCube.

"Hey, I thought we were going to do the fondue-thing," I said. He mumbled something about playing just while the oil heated. Part of doing this was that he was going to help get things ready. But, I shrugged my shoulders, and started getting things ready.

20 minutes later...

"Okay, oil's ready, french fries are done, time for dinner," I called. He went to put in the movie while I stood at the table and tried to hurry him along.

He did not like the little smokies, thought the western dressing was awful, liked cooking the steak, and in the end, finished eating really quickly and was back in front of the TV in ten minutes.

I sat and finished eating by myself, idly spearing the bits of steak that were left, frying them, and eating them on my own.

All these years, I wondered why my family had stopped our fondue nights (beyond the addition of the twins and my baby sister). I'm sure there came a night when we no longer wanted to participate, and were too impatient to spend an entire evening with our parents and sisters.

Will I try again? Of course I will.

But next time, maybe I'll invite my parents, too.

Blog Turns Personal

Okay, the whole "work blog" thing is so unbelievably boring that I decided to switch this over to a strictly personal blog. I will no longer bore people to death talking about Radmind, image building, Dreamweaver, or what new thing went wrong. This is a spot for me and the real people I know (or read). I may talk about family, and life, and you will still probably be bored out of your wits and move on to another blog.

That's okay, I've done that myself.

Seriously, though, I am tired of having a web presence that is pretty much completely anonymous and can't be shared with family and real friends. Those of you who may know me by my other name, please be considerate in keeping it private. Not everything I say on the other blog is meant for all readers (sorry Mom!). I will continue to post on the hidden blog, so as to not disappoint all 3 of my readers. Okay, maybe I have 5, or 6, if I can recall from comments. Most of you long time friends know my real name, and will have received an email telling you about this new blog. This should be pretty fun, and a bit of an experiment...

And I'm all about the fun :)

Okay, I'm off to pick out a movie to watch tonight. My son picked out Karate Kid II at the library, and it may be time to pop that in and sit back and relax... I used to have such a crush on Ralph Macchio... but then again, who didn't. :)

Fall has OFFICIALLY arrived...

Every year, my mother and I can vegetable soup starter, with tomatoes from either my parents' garden, or my grandpa Pat's garden. Last summer, my grandpa died from cancer, and it was the first fall in a long time that I did not have time to help my mother can soup. She ended up not making any at all.

Two weeks ago, I went back to Manson to help her can soup, and incidentally, to celebrate my dad's 30th anniversary on the Manson Volunteer Fire Department. Actually, canning was just an excuse to explain why I was in Manson. The fire department was giving my dad a surprise party.

That afternoon, my dad showed me his garden. I had heard him talk about how big the tomato plants were getting, but the reality was unlike anything I had ever seen before.

In order to understand this story, I need to tell you a bit of family history.

For decades, my grandpa Pat, my dad's father, had the most amazing garden. Beautiful cabbages, onions, turnips, cantaloupe, strawberries, sweet corn, and above all, tomatoes. Just amazing. Not a weed dared poke up between the neat rows of fruits and vegetables. Every year, he shared this bounty with his children's families, and their extended circle of friends. We froze sweet corn and rhubarb, canned tomato juice, soup starter, salsa, and rhubarb jam to bring a taste of summer to our family throughout the harsh Iowa winters.

February of 2004, my grandpa started his seedlings for his garden, setting up grow-lights in his basement, tending them carefully until he planted them once the danger of frost had passed. We could not believe that he had done it himself.

All through that spring, the cancer and the chemo were weakening him. One lovely evening in early May, my birthday actually, I sat on my deck transplanting petunias of the most beautiful shade of pink I had ever seen. I remember the night like it was yesterday. The air was warm with just a hint of summer, and it was so peaceful to sit there with my hands in the warm dirt, pulling apart the roots, and pushing them into their new home. The only sounds were of the birds, and the traffic that occasionally passed. I was sad, because I knew that my grandpa was not doing very well. But, at the same, I felt so much at peace that I hoped the evening could go on forever.

The next day, my mom called to tell me that my grandpa had decided not to continue with his cancer treatments.

He grew weaker and weaker, finally unable to walk very far. During the last weeks, my dad and the rest of his siblings, worked on building a ramp in order to be able to take my grandpa out to see his garden. Finally, they were able to take him out to see it. A few days later, he lapsed into his final coma. By early Friday morning, he was gone.

The rest of the summer, my dad and his brother and sisters, worked to keep the garden going. Every time we ate something from that garden, it was like having a part of my grandpa with us, another memory would come rushing back. When the end of the summer came, I think it was like losing a final part of him.

This year, my uncle took over my grandpa's garden, but it wasn't the same.

My dad's garden, however...

I was stunned as I looked up at a cherry tomato plant the size of a tree. Eight feet tall. My dad had to stand two, three and a half foot high wire fence sections around it to help support it. The other cherry tomato plants were only six to seven feet tall... In the center of the garden stood four tomato plants that were also near eight feet tall. Dad had doubled up fencing around them, and placed metal rods between the plants, which branched out over them. The cucumber plants were vertical, also supported by fencing, the cucumbers hanging from the vines perfectly shaped. The green pepper plants were bushes, and had reproduced crazy amounts of peppers. The onions had not done very well, because of animals, but the rest of the tomato plants were also much bigger than normal, and bore gorgeous tomatoes, some massive, and others the size of large apples.

My jaw gaped the more I looked at how wonderfully everything had grown. My dad was so proud of his garden this year...

Sunday, my mom and I worked like crazy to cut up veggies, blanch the tomatoes, and finally cook the soup starter until all of the vegetables were done. We put a tablespoon of canning salt into each quart jar, and filled 18 jars with the soup. 45 minutes in a hot water bath to seal the jars, and after eight hours, we were done. If it didn't taste so good, we both agreed, we'd never even consider going to that much effort.

Before I left to go home, she gave me eight quarts of the old soup to take home (it's good for 3 years). This is the soup that we made two summers ago, when grandpa had recovered from his surgery, when my sister Kim and her husband had just gotten married, after my uncle Doug had just died from his cancer. These were made with tomatoes from my grandpa's and my dad's gardens. It was the best soup starter we had ever made (until this year, of course :).

Today, I made vegetable beef soup using one of those jars.

BTW...

As a follow up on last week's post about the severe weather:

We had a tornado touch down on campus! A small one, yes, but an actual tornado (and I thought I was just being paranoid about the fact that the radar showed a hook echo right over us, and that debris was hitting our fourth floor lab windows...).

(hmm... can't find the link to the news story that explained it all...)

Severe weather causes some damage on ISU campus

Thursday, August 25, 2005

Dreamweaver MX 2004 = Slow

I am typing this as I am waiting for typing that I did in Dreamweaver to show up. Now I am waiting for something to delete.

Tedious.

Another Mysterious Disappearance

My morning has been rather interesting. I will update later, but this mystery, rather than involving ATMs or Radmind, involves G4s, the Armory, and cut security cables.

More fun than a barrel of monkeys...

Mystery Solved

Well, there were actually two mysteries that developed this week.

One had to do with the Great ATM Heist of 2005. Yes, our ATM machine was stolen from the Atrium. Yes, they finally found the ditched machine. No, the thieves could not break into it. But enough about that, even though it's pretty interesting, and has been the subject of many CSI-like discussions among the staff.

The real mystery, the one that was critical to the labs, was why Tiger seemed to be a lot fussier than Panther when forced to shutdown via the power switch.

Basically, what happened was this. If a machine had to be shutdown by pressing the power button for 8 seconds, on boot, it would hang. I would have to boot into single-user mode, run fsck, and reboot. Which is not practical, as I am not here every hour that we are open. So, I started digging around as to what would cause this problem.

It ended up being traced to Journaling, or specifically, the lack thereof on these systems. For some reason, I did not turn on Journaling when I created the new lab image.

Luckily, it ended up being an easy fix (open Disk Utility, select the volume, turn on Journaling). Even luckier, this setting is evidentally stored in an area that Radmind ignores, so I was able to touch each machine, turn it on, and have it stick. If it HAD been in an area refreshed by Radmind, I STILL would have had to touch each machine, and it would have taken longer.

So, one mystery solved by Journaling.

The Great ATM Heist, however, is still under investigation...

And the Towers (Dorms) came down...

ISU Towers Implode Tuesday
Knapp and Storms to be imploded signaling the End of an Era

Woo hoo! We had a great view of the implosions from the roof of the Design College. I forgot the camera, so no action images (it was really over too quickly anyway), but you should be able to see a video from the first link I posted, and better photos on Thursday from the second site.

Thank you, kind maintenance people, for opening up the roof!!!

The Image is Done! For REAL this time!

Well, as I suspected, the keyserver problem decided to pop up again. So, I made a simple applescript that launches KeyAccess, logs in, and quits the program. I made it a startup item for labuser, and everything seems to be working properly now.

The image is TOTALLY DONE!!!! Woo hoo! I ended up having to repartition the smaller firewire drive (the image is 14GB), and am now cloning the 10.3.x boot drive of the larger firewire drive to the other drive. After lunch, I can finally start imaging the new machines.

It's been a long process this time around, and I have learned a lot more about radmind and Tiger as a result of attempting to find shortcuts (some of which worked, and some of which failed spectacularly). It's all about the Journey rather than the destination in IT.

But it feels great to finally get there.

Arg!

And it's worse when you hit the Enter key on accident!!!

Plea to software manufacturers

Entering 8 sets of 27 numbers and letters may make your product serial numbers secure, but it drives poor IT people insane.

WT?

I just checked the image, and it appears that the keyserver problem I was having has

VANISHED!!!!!!!

Keyed apps launch normally now! Don't ask why, because I have no idea. I literally did nothing to this to even attempt to fix the problem. Which means, I will now be paranoid that the problem will appear sometime later down the road, like say... when fall classes start...

Boy, are my arms tired...

(not just the punchline to a bad joke, or, uh, not just our patrol yell from Outdoor leader training)

Moved:
• 20 G4s and flat-panel displays (etc.) out of position in teaching lab
• 20 G5s, flat-panels, keyboards, mice, power cords, out of open lab to teaching lab

Cleaned:
• all of teaching lab, even swept under the cabinet-thingys, and cleaned off the windowsills (which can only properly be done when there are no machines to block access, so GROSSSSSS).

Done: Image. At last. At least the part I needed for the netrestore image. Everything else will be done Monday morning, before I start unpacking and setting up the new G5s.

Result: I can hardly move my arms, but WOW! The teaching lab looks great!!!

tedium continues...

keyserver is not logging in on login like it is supposed to (did that make sense?). So, the choice is, ditch it (which is not possible), or go ahead and key everything, keeping backups of unkeyed software, and trust that I can write a script which will work around this problem.

Right now, I am going with the second choice, but it is annoying to have it not work right. If I can't get this to work, I can replace the keyed programs with the unkeyed backups.

In any case, this is taking a very long time to get this image built. As in, I am normally done in a day, and this is now day three of intense work on this...

Whoa.

I have been meaning to actually watch Battlestar Gallactica for quite awhile now, instead of just intending to watch it, and missing it. I missed the initial new movie, for some reason, and have just not gotten around to watching any of season one.

Until tonight.

Whoa.

Okay, that's not the word I used, but "Holy f-ing sh-t" was said enough by me earlier...

Sci-fi channel is having a marathon of all of the season one episodes, and while I am not sure where I jumped in, I spent from 8:30 to 10 pm, glued to the tv. I know how I'll be spending my Friday nights from now on. (Except, perversely, the 15th, which is the season premiere, as I'll be with my son at the local bookstore for the midnight premiere of the new Harry Potter book...)

In any case, I can't believe that I wasted so many Friday nights...

saved

by this handy dandy vi reference...

vi Reference.

Photoshop was the culprit...

...

okay, STILLLLLLL trying to even get to the line in my systemtranscript... tedious. dull. oh god my hand hurts from keeping my fingers on the control and f keys... why did Tiger axe the real man page for vi and put in its place a page that has fewer command references than the panther one did? And going to the end of the file did not help, as now I can't remember the command to go back by page, and am stuck using the arrow key....

So help me if the offending line is not in this transcript (a copy WAS in the indesign one, but removing it did not help), you will hear a scream echo throughout the atrium of the design building...

I guess I should add to that last post...

Erg. I noticed on the last couple of transcripts that three lines were added about /User/xxx/.Trash. Turns out, something added something to the trash that persisted even when I emptied the trash... Which means I now have the distinct delight of going into the command line to examine each of the five transcripts (with over 10K lines each, some many, many more), to find out which has the offending lines...

Still uploading...

After determining that I really needed to audit my radmind server, I sat down yesterday and spent a couple of hours figuring out what transcripts are being used, which will be retired after I update to Tiger or move machines, and which can be deleted altogether. I ended up being able to reclaim about 5 GB of space, which is good, as I will need it for the rest of the Tiger image.

Now, the "hurry up and wait" part starts. I will install each software package, run it one time, check for updates, and then create a new transcript to upload the software to the radmind server (takes anywhere from 10 minutes, to 20). Once it is at the server, I update it and check it in, then verify it, before adding it to the correct command file. Back on the client, I run radmind update, which checks that the new transcript applies okay, and then reboots the machine.

And then I start over with the next software package.

In the down times, I am planning how exactly to shift 60 machines with the least amount of disruption possible. I am also trying to figure out just where those 20 machines from the teaching lab are going to be stored while waiting to be installed elsewhere.

Hmmm... maybe I had better go and clean out the back storage room a bit more...

To clarify...

I spent the entire extended weekend away from the computer (barring checking email and reading blogs). In fact, I spent a good part of it chasing after my 8-month-old nephew, who suddenly learned how to crawl, and is hell-bent on staying OUT of his diaper the moment it comes off.

Let's just say his nickname isn't "Bamm-Bamm" for nothing...

Duh...

Once again, a couple of days away from the problem helps make things clear.

I was making this whole kerberized-login thing harder than it is. Tiger eliminated the need for editing /etc/authorization. Just install the MacOS X Kerberos Extras, install the ISU kerberos config file, and pop in your LDAP configuration changes, and do the rest of the voodoo magic, reboot, and it works.

Of course, I tried this after emailing the macosx admin group for info on when 10.4.2 is due.

Now I can plan on installing those new G5s later this week!!!!