N'awlins at heart

Saturday, January 26, 2008

Eight is Enough.

This one is at Chia's request. I also have very few people I know who blog. And you hit up most of em. I'll see what I can do.

1. I do all my blog posts in Wordpad, then cut and paste them into Blogger. I do this because I do not trust the internet and get infuriated when I lose something I'm working on.

2. I am afraid of fish. They have teeth and are creepy and slimy. But they do taste delicious.

3. In third grade I came in second place in a math bee (I guess that's what you'd call it.) between the third and fourth graders, and nobody acknowledged it. (I'm not talking about family, just the kids in our classes.) It was this exact moment that I realized, your family loves you, but to everyone else you do not matter, and are truly not special.

4. While I was in the Navy, I realized I wanted to be a chef. Not because of the cooks on the ship, it just happened to be in that time frame. Unfortunately, I don't think I would want to work their hours in a hot kitchen, and am currently happy doing something I already know how to do, in an air conditioned environment. Plus I'd hate to turn something I love into work, and have it become a chore.

5. I use Firefox as my main browser, with a Cooliris Previews plugin, and I am constantly recommending it to EVERYONE who will listen. I am addicted to the tabbed browsing, and mouseover popups (I'm guessing that's what they are called but too lazy to look it up).

6. Before music CD's I was extremely OCD about my cassette tapes. When I finished listening to one it had to be rewound to the beginning of side one and put back in the proper case.

7. I despise black olives and will not eat them, even though I don't dislike the way they taste.

8. I told W1 to put "I sleep with my eyes open" even though she doesn't. My reasoning: "They don't know, and it'd be funny".

There ya go, how's that for random. Had to throw an extra at ya!

Saturday, January 19, 2008

Quick note about Coworker D.

He asked for a raise yesterday and their response was "Well, money is tight, company income is down, and, well, it is an election year".

An election year? What does that have to do with anything? W1 and I wondered if they sit around in the corporate office and joke "So and so asked for a raise, and I told him no because it's an election year." "Ha Ha, good one. Next one who asks me I'm gonna tell them it's not feasible at this time 'cause Saturn is in line with Jupiter this month and that puts a damper on all raises this month".

I've been bamboozled.

That's right people, I was tricked. W1 was told she had to work today because her office is having a big partners meeting / teleconference / whatever the hell they want to call it. Which is no big deal. Wednesday my job offered us "unlimited overtime" until the end of January. So Friday my boss emails and asks if anyone was working this weekend. Being that W1 was gonna be gone I decided to make a little cheddah myself. So I respond and tell him I'll work Saturday 4-6 hours OT. So this morning, as we are getting ready, W1's boss calls her and tells her she doesn't need to come in. By now I am already showered and ready to walk out the door. Plus I am expected at work, so I went ahead and came in anyways. Surprisingly, all of my coworkers came in at some time today. I actually made the comment that there were more people in our lab today then there are on a normal work day. Anyways, I head down for a smoke break and decide to give W1 a call. And guess what? She was taking a nap. I think it was all a ploy to get me out of the house so she can sleep in peace.

Now for the important stuff. If you are just skimming this post pay close attention to this part. Normally one of my biggest gripes (other than traffic) is how I constantly want crawfish. Whenever we come back to New Orleans, I always want a Crawfish Boil. Well not this time people. My cravings have taken a different turn. Next time we come in town, I want Chiamom and Chiapiop's homemade pizza. I have been craving it for the last week or so. And since W1 is asleep and can't say it for me, "MAKE IT HAPPEN!" Thanks in advance.

Onto the next subject. Thursday morning I went to hop in the truck to head to work and something was amiss. Taking a good look, I was missing a hub cap. Now I don't go over lots of bumpy roads, so I can't imagine where I lost it. Also, I stopped and checked the mail when I got home Wednesday night, and I'm pretty sure I would have noticed it missing at that time. My only guess is the teenagers who hang out at night in the parking garage may have removed it. Why they only wanted the one I have no idea. I looked in the grass near there to see if they took it off and just threw it off the roof of the garage being "kids" but I did not see it. So I went on my local motorcycle forum to make a joke about it. I posted up a story of how it was missing, and how it left me with a dilemma. Do I, 1, check with the dealer and order a replacement? 2, go to Wal Mart and pick up a new cheesy set for $20. Or 3, take the rest of the hub caps off and make it a streetfighter? (Just a little info, the term streetfigher when used in the motorcycle community is slang for a sportbike that has all the plastics removed and often times the handle bars are replaced with dirt bike handle bars. I think the reasoning behind this is to lower the weight of the bike, hence making it faster. But I could be wrong.) Now, one would assume, the idea of removing the hub caps on a car or truck and claiming it to be a "streetfighter" is preposterous. But nobody got the joke. I actually got of bunch of suggestions. Even as far as "Take the other one off the missing side since nobody will see both sides at once. Then everyone will think you have all four, or none at all. And they won't realize it doesn't match." I appreciate them looking out for my best interests, but it was just a joke. Wow!

Lastly. About 6 months ago, a coworker who I will call "C" took a picture of me at my desk. Normally when I leave on Tuesdays and Fridays I put all of our trash cans in the hall to be emptied. When I come in on Wednesdays and Mondays, C brings the cans in. About a week after taking my picture, I came in on a Monday and my trash can was on my chair with the picture of me making a funny face taped to it. Then the joke was "How early did you get in? I've been looking at you in your chair all morning." Now mind you this was about 6 months ago. Fast forward to Thursday. (Yes, the same day I discovered I was missing a hub cap). I get an email stating that once again, someone has been breaking into pickup trucks in the parking garage here at work. For some reason they only hit pickup trucks. So when I returned from lunch I parked on the roof of the garage. Because, on the roof, the vehicles can be seen from the windows of the buildings. So I felt there was less chance of getting my truck broken into parked there. About 1/2 hour after I get back, C returns from lunch. He starts with the "Wow, how did you get here so quick? Did you run? I just saw you in your truck." When I informed him that I had been here for a while he said "Well, someone was in your truck". We play a lot of pranks on each other here, so I thought nothing of it and figured he was full of BS. A few hours later I went out for a smoke break. When I got back he asked "Did you check on your truck?". I answered "No, I was out back". And that was all that was mentioned. So finally, at the end of the day I headed out. I walked out of the stair well and looked at my truck (by now it had gotten dark) and I notice something on my windshield. My first thought was, security left me a note saying they could see valuables left out in the open inside my truck. (As they have done to C when they saw his CO2 canisters for home brewing sitting on his passenger seat. The item description they wrote was "Other: Scuba Tanks". Which we all found amusing and joke about every now and then). Upon closer inspection of my truck I realized it was not a note from security, but in fact the goofy faced picture of me taped to my windshield. Thinking about when I returned from lunch there were a few cars parked around me, and when I left to go home my truck was the last, all I could do is laugh. I was imagining the other employees seeing this picture taped to my windshield as they headed out and thinking "Hey, I've seen that guy in the hall before". It still makes me laugh. Sometimes these guys can be funny...

Monday, January 14, 2008

It's on the money.

Well, after installing my speedohealer and finally getting to test it, we are good. It is 100% accurate. Thank you so much W1. Now next time I get pulled over I can be like "Nope, I don't think so". Then I'm sure I'll get cited for 100 other things. Ha Ha.

I spent a major part of the weekend fighting with Linux. The good news is, I won. The bad news is, I didn't win until about 11:30 last night. So it's like I wasted the whole weekend. It feels that way anyway. But we were able to go riding twice this weekend. Once in the rain. See W1's blog. And the fact that I finally got Linux running, pleases me. I also didn't get a chance to do my weekend BBQ that I usually do Sunday nights. That is okay though, I plan to do it tonight.

Other than that, I got nothin'. Sorry...

Tuesday, January 08, 2008

Who would call a turtle?

Where to begin? How about the dog house. I think I may be there. If not, I'm at least out there refilling the water dish. W1 wanted to "go somewhere" last weekend. (Thanks Spinneys, we had so much fun running around with you all, she remembered there are fun things to do outside of the house). Well, my speedohealer came in Friday, so I spent Saturday installing it. (It was all muggy and rainy and crappy anyway).

Sunday, we were trying to decide whether to hit the zoo or not. That's when I checked online and saw they were having "Houston Stunt Wars '08" about 5 minutes away from the house. So we headed out there. I have to say we actually had a good time, and stayed out for about 6 hours. There were different categories, longest stoppie, most wheelie circles, freestyle stunting. These guys were insane. And during one of the breaks a local car club did some "drifting". (Yes, that is actual footage from it. We were about 5 feet to the left of the girl that filmed this). But for some reason, I don't think that's what she meant by "go somewhere". But she was a good sport. And I got some great photos and video (thanks H2).

Then today, after getting home from work, we went to a "Meet and Greet" for the motorcycle forum I'm on at a burger joint called PO's Burgers. The food was delicious, but she was once again faced with a bunch of guys talking about motorcycles. She could totally teach a class in "Putting up with my shit". But then again, who would take the class? Needless to say, I owe her big time. I gotta do something good.

Speaking of people putting up with my shit, work has been okay. The rest of the lab is still having network issues, but I'm still working. Testing is going about the same as always. A couple of guys have called in the last two days, so no real excitement. The big boss did come in and apologize for letting the network accounts slip, and took full credit. I thought that was actually pretty cool.

And the last bit of info you get is kind of a rant. There is a commercial for the local cable provider. It is a turtle couple, and they do stuff. They take the laptop in the front yard and see if the internet slows down. And the latest commercial they are on the couch when the phone rings. It vibrates towards one of them and they're talking about how it's getting close, and they can almost reach it. Now I have to wonder who would call a turtle? What, are you gonna meet them somewhere? How long would that take? I see no point in calling them. As Homer Simpson once said "Stupid TV, be more funny"!

Thursday, January 03, 2008

Brand new year, same old habits.

Like, um, I don't know, neglecting my blog. Ha ha. Well, here ya go.

We had a wonderful New Years. The Spinneys were nice enough to come visit. We had a wonderful time seeing everyone and getting to chat and catch up. We heard new stories, and old ones we never heard. (See "Sleepless in New Orleans"). They arrived on Saturday and stayed until Tuesday. And I have to say, I probably saw more of Houston in those 4 days than I have in the 2 years I've lived here. It was loads of fun. The girls were cute as always, and the little man has grown rather tall. He hasn't caught up to me yet, but I see that in the near future because he was pretty damn close. We ate like Kings, but we ran around so much I actually lost a few lbs over the holidays. I'm definitely not complaining.

As luck would have it, there are more work stories. Friday, December 21, 2007. Unbeknown to me, the other 5 testers in my lab all received an email stating their accounts would be expiring at midnight, December 31, 2007. I'm guessing they didn't think much of it. Not that there was anything they could do either way, as all the other employees were gone for the holidays. I, on the other hand, did not receive this email.

Fast forward to Wednesday, January 2, 2008. I stroll in and for some reason everyone is amazed I walked right into the lab. Apparently, all their access was cut off. Including the ability for their badges to open the doors of the lab. Or the door to the hallway leading to the lab for that matter. I, on the other hand, had no problem. Onto issue #2. Obviously upset that I was not having issues they asked "Can you get on the network?" Well, that was a simple answer, but I'll drag it out as long as I can.

You see, I have always been pretty unlucky. On 2 occasions working here, I have come in, booted up my computer, and been unable to log on. And they screwed me good. Both times I have needed to get a whole new account set up for myself. Not an easy process. No reactivating a disabled account, nooooo, my account is GONE! To combat this issue, I don't turn off my machine. When I leave every day I lock my profile, turn off my monitor, and head home. So, back to the earlier question. Yes, I was able to log onto the network. It was a matter of me unlocking my screen saver and I was in. Mind you I refuse to reboot until all these issues are rectified. So basically, I was the only one with the ability to get to my work emails, etc...

Thursday, January 3, 2008. I stroll in and once again none of the issues are solved. But this is where it gets good. 2 of the 5 other employees in the lab got stopped on their way in because security noticed they were unable to swipe their cards and unlock the door in the lobby. And since they no longer had profiles in the system, security took their badges and gave them "temporary" paper badges. I just found this very amusing. They, on the other hand, did not. Now 2 of the 3 left came in through the parking garage where you don't have to swipe your badge to get in. So they were safe. So they thought. The last 1 of the 5 came in late (around 10:30) and within 5 minutes of being here, security showed up in our lab. She confiscated his badge and made him go downstairs to also be shamed with a paper "temporary" badge. After returning, security grabbed the 2 "safe" guys who came in through the garage. And guess what happened? I won't even say it.

By now I am cracking myself up, just making excuses to leave the lab and come back. Just to rub in the fact that I'm not stuck in the hall waiting for someone to go through the door, just so I can knock on the door to the lab I work in, and have someone let me in. I did start to get a little worried though, if for some reason they sent these 5 guys home until all the paperwork / account issues got straight, I would become an extremely busy individual. Luckily, about 10 minutes before lunch their badges and lab access was returned. Their network access? Well, still waiting...

Which brings me to my blog posting time. Since I am currently the only person with access to work email, I got to do the easy side project, since my boss can't send the instructions to anyone else. So I sit here clicking the mouse 5 or 6 times, then waiting 30-45 minutes for windows to install. Once done, I install a video driver, connect to the internet and run an update (again with a 5-10 minute wait) then start over reinstalling windows. One of the easiest things I've done since I've been here. For once, I'm the lucky one.